December 6, 2023 • 30 mins
This episode of Five to Thrive Live features Dr. Poorvi ShahDr. Poorvi Shah has over 20 years of experience as a physician and is an expert in stress management, mindfulness and corporate wellbeing. Dr. Shah has released her first book called "Stress Tools: An Eight Week Guide to Relieving Stress and Regaining Resilience." Join us to learn ways to manage your stress!
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Five To Thrive Live is broadcast live Tuesdays at 7PM ET.
Five To Thrive Live Radio Show is broadcast on W4CS Radio – The Cancer Support Network (www.w4cs.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Five To Thrive Live Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Any health related information on the followingshow provides general information only. Content presented
on any show by any host orguests should not be substituted for a doctor's
advice. Always consult your physician beforebeginning any new diet, exercise, or
treatment program. Welcome to five toThrive Live, a podcast about thriving for
(00:44):
those who have been affected by cancerchronic disease. I'm doctor Lisau Schuler and
I co host with my good friendand co author, Carolyn Gazella. You
can find all of our past showpodcasts on any podcast outlet and also on
our website, I thriveplan dot com. I'm excited to have doctor Purvishaw on
(01:04):
five to Thrive Live today. DoctorShaw has over twenty years of experience as
a physician. She's worked in urgentcare, private practice, and at Google's
headquarters as an on site physician.She is also an expert in stress management,
mindfulness, and corporate well being,and in fact has released her first
book called Stress Tools, an eightweek Guide to Relieving stress and Regaining resilience.
(01:30):
And we are going to talk toher about that book in just a
moment, but before we do that, I want to thank our sponsors.
First, we have NFH, aninnovative dietary supplement manufacturer that uses an evidence
based approach to creating high quality dietarysupplements for integrative healthcare professionals. If you
want the highest level of confidence inthe dietary supplements that you take, ask
(01:52):
your integrative practitioner about NFH products.You can also find more information at NFH
dot c. Also, Immuse,a unique, patented post biotic that gives
your immune system a key advantage.A muse is an ingredient in many immune
supporting dietary supplements, so look forAmuse on the label or go to ammusehealth
(02:13):
dot com for more information. Cognizanceat a coli nature's way of keeping the
brain firing on all cylinders. Soif you want to enhance your brain function,
memory, focus, and attention,look for Cognizant on the label of
your favorite brain health product or goto cognizant dot com for more information.
And finally, doctor or Heroes Probiotics, a best selling probiotic for over thirty
(02:34):
years, contains twelve probiotic strains whichare shelf stable without refrigeration due to a
unique three year fermentation process. Andyou can learn more at doctor Orhra probiotics
dot com. Hello doctor Shaw,welcome to five to Thrive Live. Thank
you, Doctor Alschuler. Yeah,so great to have you on the show
again. Last time you were onthe show is a bit ago, and
(02:55):
you were talking about mindfulness, whichI know is a part of your new
book. But so we'll touch onthat a little bit. But you've really
expanded your your teaching, I think, in this book to lots of other
areas. It's a beautiful outline oftopics that you have. But you know,
before we jump in, how didyou become interested in integrative medicine.
(03:16):
Well, my parents are from Indiaand my mother always had an interest in
holistic healing, and so she wouldmake us golden milk turmeric lattes long before
they went viral. Nice. Myparents also taught me meditation and yoga when
I was about ten years old.Wow. Yes, and I chose to
(03:38):
go to ostiopathic medical school. Andone of the principles of osteopathic medicine is
that the person is a unit ofmind, body, and spirit and capable
of self healing. Nice. SoI saw you, sorry, go ahead,
I find that integrative medicine fills thosegaps that conventional medicine has, and
(03:59):
when the two are combined, it'sso powerful. Yeah, for sure,
I agree with you one hundred percent. I wish every single patient had the
opportunity to utilize every and all approaches, including integrative ones, because I agree
it fills the gap that really,you know, strengthens the whole treatment program,
inspires wellness. And that leads usto your book. So you've just
(04:19):
published a book called Stress Tools.So why why did you write this book?
So? I live in the Washington, DC area where most of my
patients live very high pressure and highstress lives. But honestly, I don't
know a single person that Isn't weloving with daily low level stress. It's
just a part of our modern world. We have information all overload, technology
(04:44):
overload, busy schedules, and workand home pressures, and these cause a
constant barrage that's so damaging to thebody and I see it in my clinic
every day. Yeah, so thisis something that really is your best effort
to give people some tools that theycan use to identify the impact of stress
(05:05):
and then have strategies to help mitigatethe stress. And so In fact,
the first part of your book reallyis all about identifying the impact of stress
in people's lives. What have youseen? What are some of the more
common impacts that stress can have onpeople physically, on their mental and emotional
health and well being. Sure,the first week of the book is all
(05:29):
about assessing your stress and how itaffects your mind and your body. Stress
has been correlated with headaches, digestiveissues such as acid reflux and ibs,
and it also worsens conditions like chronicpain, asthma, diabetes, and heart
disease. And it also leads tobad habits such as eating poorly, skipping
(05:50):
exercise, or not sleeping. Plusthe mental health conditions anxiety depression, PTSD
and addictions are also seated with stress. Yeah, that's quite the list.
So you know, I often talkabout stress being the thread that unravels the
sweater of life. You know,it really is. It can be kind
(06:13):
of insidious and long term, butvery determined in the way it literally unravels
one's health and well being. Andyou know, I see this over and
over again. And sometimes it's notthat stress causes an illness per se,
but if somebody has some other thingsgoing on. Stress is like the match
(06:33):
to the fire. It sort oflights things and really can push things forward
in a bad way. So youknow, all those things that you mentioned
can definitely be hung on stress atleast as a contributing factor for sure.
So you've helped people identify in thisfirst part of your book house stress is
showing up for them. Then yououtline a number of ways that people can
(06:55):
reduce stress in their lives, andyou actually start with mind body practices and
you include breath work in that aswell. So can you give us some
examples of some of the mind bodypractices that you outline and maybe why you've
chosen to include those. Sure?So, mind body technique involves connecting the
body with the mind through movement andbreadth to induce a calm state. So
(07:19):
some common mind body practices that Iinclude in the book include yoga, chigong,
mindfulness, and meditation. And theseare all techniques that can improve your
physical and mental health when you practicethem regularly. Mm hmm. So why
(07:39):
so why mind body, Like,of all the things to start with,
you start with mind body. Whyis that so foundational to stress management?
Well, the research on mind bodypractices is so compelling. There are hundreds
of studies that show that the mindbody techniques can improve chronic health conditions,
(08:00):
anxiety and depression. There are somestudies that show, for example, that
chigong lowers blood pressure. There's onethat shows that yoga decreases the hormone cortisol,
which is one of our stress hormones, and mindfulness is associated with a
lower level of perceive stress and higherwork engagement. So mind body exercises can
(08:22):
improve your well being in so manyways. Yes, indeed, And with
offering so many different types of mindbody is your thought that somebody can try
them all, or that they'll findone or two that are sort of more
less appealing than others. What haveyou found with your patients? Yeah,
(08:43):
I usually recommend maybe one or twotechniques to start with and see if they
like those for thirty days, andif those don't work, they can always
pick another technique that might work better. Mm hm. Thirty days interesting,
so long enough for them to reallystart to experience the benefits, build a
bit of a habit. But atthe same time, if they don't like
(09:05):
it, they haven't overly invested exactly. Yeah, okay, so you have
a whole chapter on breath work,which again I was really happy to see.
I too, talk a lot aboutbreath work with my patients. So
can you take us to an exampleof a breathing technique that can be used
to relieve stress. Let's say youknow somebody is just in an acutely stressful
(09:28):
situation and they need some way tokind of manage it at that moment.
So box breathing is a practice that'sused by Navy seals to bring them to
a common focused state in the momentwhen they are stressed. So basically the
technique is where you inhale for accountof four, pause for four, exhale
(09:52):
for four, and pause again forfour. So if we want to practice
that together, we can we canget comp sable in our chairs, or
you can be lying down, handsby your side, and eyes can be
open or closed. And we'll beginby inhaling two three four, pause two
(10:18):
three four, exhale two three fourand pause two three four. Let's do
one more round two inhale too,reade four, pause two three four,
(10:39):
exhale two three four and pause twothree four, and you can start back
to your regular breathing. Yeah,so I feel definitely more relaxed, more
calm, and that was just tworounds. How many rounds do you typically
(11:03):
recommend that people do. Usually Ihave them do about five rounds and that
usually calms you down pretty quickly.Mm hmm. Yeah. And you know
what's so great about breathing exercises.The cost is zero dollars, completely portable
because your breath goes wherever you go, and you can do breathing exercises without
anybody knowing what you're doing, sothey're very stealthy. So they're kind of
(11:28):
very you know, like the perfectway to bring a stress management technique with
you at all times. Can yougive us another breathing technique? Sure?
So the easiest breathing technique is diaformaticbreathing or belly breathing, where you just
place your hand on your belly andwe can do this together again. Just
relax, place your hand on yourbelly with your palm over your belly button,
(11:52):
and as you inhale, you justmake your belly nice and big,
as if you've had a large meal. And when you axhale, you bring
your belly button in towards your spineand inhale again make your belly nice and
full and exhale, bring that bellyand flatten the abdomen, and one last
(12:15):
breath inhale nice big Santa belly andexhale, let that air out. And
that's also a nice one that youcan do anywhere no one will know you're
doing it. You could do itduring meetings, you could do it on
(12:35):
zoom, you could do it anywhereyou need to. Mm hmm. Yeah.
That I think is also called bellowsbreathing, if I'm not mistaken,
because your stomach kind of acts likea bellows, and you know that breathing
is really good, especially to notonly relax, but by expanding your breath
into your by moving your belly,you're exercising all your more accessory muscles.
(12:58):
So it really helps to physically orphysiologically expand your lung tissues. So it's
good conditioning for your lungs too,which I think is important. I think
as people go through life shallowly breathingall the time, their lungs can get
a little deconditioned. Would you agree, absolutely, So as you expand the
(13:20):
chest, expand the belly, youare using many more muscles and you're also
getting a little bit of a workoutfor your lungs. So it is a
great ex reponse. Okay, solet's move on. You have a chapter
on joy using joy to combat stress, which I love. So how like,
(13:41):
what do you mean by incorporating joyto reduce stress? And maybe give
us an example of one of thetechniques that you talk about. So we've
all danced the night away, laugheduntil we cried, or fallen in love,
and these are all experiences of joy. But sometimes we're so busy that
(14:01):
we forget to have fun in life. And the thing is, stress and
joy cannot live in the same moment, so we want to bring in sparks
of joy regularly. So this couldinvolve playing with children, dancing, creating
art, or laughing with friends.And the more fun you have, the
more you are distracted from life's worries, and the more you'll be in the
(14:26):
present moment where life is peaceful andgood. M h. Nice. You
know I find joy so important.In fact, one of the questions I
ask patients in my practice who arenew is what brings you joy? And
just to have people kind of reflecton that is often useful enlightening. Some
(14:46):
people will be able to list justso many things other people struggle to think
about what does bring me joy?And regardless of how long their list is,
just to dwell on this idea,what does bring me joy? You
know, that kind of becomes,as you say, like a touch point
or a true north, a placethat we can orient or healing, so
(15:09):
we instead of are instead of simplytrying to move away from pain or move
away from illness, or moving towardssomething which I think is a really important
part of health and healing actually,And that kind of brings me to a
question about attitude. I'm wondering whatyou think about how important attitude is to
(15:31):
being successful at stress management. So, for example, you know, if
somebody is just feeling really depressed andgrumpy and just down and out, can
they be successful in relieving their stress? And if so, how do you
work with people in that frame ofmind? Absolutely so, a person's attitude
is critical. Your beliefs in yourmindset are what drive much of your perspective
(15:54):
on life. And when you're stressed, you often do sweat the small stuff
more and get irritated more. That'sjust part of being stressed. You may
not be grateful for what you have, and your focus is on the negative
and you don't believe you can changeit. Really is a miserable way of
being and this will only make youmore stress, so it's kind of a
(16:18):
vicious cycle. Instead, we canfocus on changing our mindset and let going
of letting go of the small stuff, having gratitude for all that is good
in life, and if you believeyou can get healthier, you might be
able to find a way to doso. So a positive attitude improves life
satisfaction and can make you more resilient. Mm. And there's a bit of
(16:44):
a you know, it's kind ofI think for people who are truly feeling
depressed or despondent, even it probablyfeels like moving a boulder up the mountain,
you know, a sissifist kind ofsituation. But I think that,
like you said, just finding onelittle positive attitude or changing one thing can
(17:07):
be pretty transformative, even if it'sjust Okay, I'm going to do something
in within the next ten minutes thatfeels, you know, truly good,
or I'm going to do something forsomeone else in the next ten minutes.
Just something that's a little different,I think, and sometimes kind of be
the you know, the domino thatstarts the others to fall. But then
(17:33):
there's also like just the importance ofbasic physical health, Like if people are
exhausted physically, they're not getting enoughrest. It's hard to get the motivation
to engage in these things. Imean, do you when people come to
you and they you know, aredealing with obviously a health condition because they're
coming to see you as a doctor, But then you see stress is really
impactful in their lives and they're sortof stuck in it. How do you
(17:56):
find these conversations going or how doyou sort of motivate people to take a
step outside of their own vicious cycle? Yeah? So baby steps are so
helpful in these cases. And itcould be as simple as petting your dog
or petting your cat. Right,it could be something as simple as watching
(18:21):
a funny video on YouTube. Andyou may not feel anything in the moment,
but over time, you will feeldifferent the more you do it.
Yeah, fair enough, So giveus another technique. What's an easy technique
that someone can use in the momentthat they're stressed. We've talked about box
(18:41):
breathing. That was fun and veryeffective. Obviously, is there something else
that you can share with us?Sure? I think in the moment it's
best to use that mind body connectionto your advantage, and so I often
teach patients what I call for themto practice is a breath break. And
so first you just check in withyour body and your thoughts and notice how
(19:06):
you're feeling without any judgment. Thenyou take three long, slow, deep
breaths, breathing in and out ofthe nose. They can be box breathing,
they could be the diaframatic breathing,the ones we talked about today,
or they could be just regular breathingas you are. And then after those
three breaths, you can check inwith yourself afterwards and notice how you feel.
(19:30):
You can take a breath break firstthing in the morning or in between
meetings, and you can even takea breath break if you're having trouble sleeping.
It can be very effective. MYeah, So that breathing slowly or
mindfully helps to reset the autonomic nervoussystem, which is the unconscious part of
(19:52):
our nervous system that's kind of workingall the time on our behalf. But
when we do these breathing exercises,our pair sympathetic nervous activity gets a little
elevated, which is correlated with kindof rest and digest type of function.
So we're calmer or in a moredigestive state, we're taking things in,
we're assimilating, we're extracting nutrition fromour world. So it's a really you
(20:18):
know, breath and breathing and justbeing mindful like you just described, is
so helpful and so powerful and doyou typically then build on these things.
So let's say somebody comes back andthey say, Okay, doctor Shaw was
successful. I've been using breathing techniquesand I'm feeling stressed. Do you?
Is there then a sort of astep two, like, okay, now
(20:40):
we need to come up with someways to create a different baseline for you.
Yeah, so then we just addin one or two more techniques each
time. So any the book hasi mean so many techniques in it,
So you find something that you knowcalls to you and just add in another
(21:00):
technique and slowly create kind of thislike toolbox of things you can use in
different moments, because things are goingto be different for each person. What
works in one person may not workin another, So you can create your
individual toolbox. And let's say oneday you're stuck in traffic, what's going
(21:21):
to work for you in that moment, you know, versus you have a
tense meeting coming up at work?What can work in that moment. So
just finding the things that work foryou and making a toolbox and then you're
prepared for the stress that you face. Yeah. I love that idea of
a toolbox that you can just openup and extract out what's going to be
(21:42):
most beneficial for you in each situation. So you have a clinical practice.
I'm sure people don't come in witha chief complaint of stress, but you
obviously discover it in people along withtheir diagnosis. How do you weave that
in and doesn't make a difference inhow people do. So I teach every
(22:03):
single patient of mind tools to relievestress, whether it be yoga, meditation,
mindfulness, breath work, or someother technique. And what patients will
report back after practicing for about thirtydays is they'll report less pain in their
bodies. Oftentimes, they feel lessrushed in their lives, they feel happier,
(22:27):
Oftentimes mental health issues are better.People report less anxiety. But the
thing I hear the most often,the comment I get is that I just
feel better overall. I just feelgood. Now, Yeah, what do
you think that is? When somebodysays I feel good? What does that
(22:47):
mean to you when you hear that. I think often when you reduce your
stress levels, that you create clarityin your mind and you create less tension
in your body, and so you'rejust moving a different way in the world
when you're less stressed. Yeah,and then you know, there's actually been
(23:10):
some studies that people who manage theirstress or have I should say that differently.
People who engage in regular stress managementtechniques, some of which you've mentioned
behave differently and are perceived differently byothers, and as a result, things
start to change in their lives,so they have, you know, different
(23:34):
quality to their relationships. There's actuallyeven a study that shows that individuals who
change their perception of stress and howthey interact with stress change their work performance
and make more money eventually than peoplewho don't do that, who don't look
at their stress and you know,kind of work with it and try to
(23:56):
transform it. So, I meanit's pretty impactful sense. I mean,
it's very logical, right, whowants to hang out with the stress ball
all day? But it's you know, much different when you're with somebody who
has the ability to be introspective,to gain a sense of groundedness and clarity
and stressful conversations or whatever the casemight be. So you know, it
(24:18):
has a lot of ripple effects Ithink around one in their life, not
just their body. So yeah,I think stress is so I just can't
you know stress this enough? Thatstress is really important for not only physical
wellbeing, but for psychological wellbeing,community well being, et cetera. I
mean, could you imagine doing yourpractice without addressing stress with every single patient?
(24:42):
Never? Never? It has changedmy practice completely, it really is.
That's nice so for you or foryou and for your patients or just
your patients both patients. Yeah,yeah, yeah, I don't know if
a patient practices these stress tools,I have not heard once that they don't
(25:03):
get they don't find some improvement intheir life. Yeah right, And we
can't say that about you know,a typical medication or really anything. I
mean, that's yeah, that's powerfulstuff. Is there any other stress technique
that you'd like to just dip ourtoes in? In terms of meditation,
(25:29):
there's you know, there's so manytypes of meditation out there, but I
think one that I really enjoy andthat a lot of my patients enjoy is
visualization. Just visualizing, you know, a calm scene, like a place
that you love to go, whereverit is, your happy place, the
beach, the mountains, you know, a vacation place that you love,
(25:51):
and just being immersing yourself in thatplace visually and notice how your stress levels
drop can make a huge difference.Yeah, wonderful, that's great. I'm
wondering do you have kids in yourpractice? I do, and how does
(26:11):
this work with kids? So forkids, we I do help them oftentimes
with visualizations and they love they lovevisualizations because kids are just their imaginations are
so open. But also breath workworks quite well with children. Mm hmmm.
Yeah. Good. So it's allages, all walks of life.
(26:34):
And you know, stress management techniquesare typically pretty cost effective as well,
so there's really almost no barriers toit except I would say people have to
feel like they're in a safe environment. But once that's been established, all
of these techniques can be so easilyincorporated. So what any final thoughts that
you'd like to leave with our listeners. If there was one thing you could
(27:00):
do to improve your health, Isay this every day to my patients.
But I just want to say onemore time to your listeners. If there
was one thing you can do toyour to improve your health, the most
important thing, in my opinion,would be to manage stress. So staying
in the present moment and keeping yourlife simple, try to incorporate one or
two stress tools daily to manage thatoverwhelm. For example, start doing yoga
(27:25):
twice a week, meditate for fiveminutes a day, and join a supportive
community and try this for thirty days. I have no doubt that something will
feel better in your life, whetherit be in your body, your mind,
or your spirit. Marvelous. Yeah, so true. I agree with
you one hundred percent, and I'mso happy to know that you're out there
(27:49):
really encouraging people to take a holdof this in their lives and to work
with it and to find a wayto manage stress so that they can in
fact experience that joy that you're talkingabout, in that sense of calm,
centeredness. So your book is full, as you said, of techniques.
It's a you know, really welllaid out, just very organized and clear.
(28:14):
So where can our listeners find thebook? Where can they find you?
Give us some website social media.Stress Tools is on sale on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Thriftbooks, GoogleBooks, and Walmart dot com.
The ebook is currently priced at twoninety nine for a limited time on Amazon,
(28:37):
so that's a very inexpensive way toget a copy of the book.
My website is doctor Porvsha dot comand you can also follow me on Facebook
and Instagram as at doctor porvshaw Greatand that's poo r v I s h
a h dot com. Well,doctor Shott's really a pleasure to have you
(29:03):
on the show. I'm really delightedthat you wrote this book. And I
noted that in all of the announcementsabout the book you talked, it's described
as your first book, which impliesthere may be a second book. So
we'll see, is there a secondone coming our way? I'm thinking about
it. Okay, all right,Well I'm curious to see what book number
(29:25):
two will be. But in themeantime, I encourage listeners to really check
out stress Tools. You know,it's it's a resource, it's a resource,
it's an inspirational resource at that.So again, thank you so much,
and that wraps up this episode offive to Thrive Live Again. We
Thank our sponsors NFH, the professionalsupplement line bridging the gap between nutraceuticals and
(29:48):
evidence based medicine. Cognizance ofticoline tohelp enhance memory, focus and attention.
Immuse a post biotic for immune supportand doctor or Here's Probiotics award winning pre
and probiotic formulas. Thank you listenerfor joining us. May you experience joy,
laughter and love. It's time tothrive. Everyone, have a great
(30:10):
night. Scot Castine. The cityis f
Any health related information on the followingshow provides general information only. Content presented
on any show by any host orguests should not be substituted for a doctor's
advice. Always consult your physician beforebeginning any new diet, exercise, or
treatment program. Welcome to five toThrive Live, a podcast about thriving for
(00:44):
those who have been affected by cancerchronic disease. I'm doctor Lisau Schuler and
I co host with my good friendand co author, Carolyn Gazella. You
can find all of our past showpodcasts on any podcast outlet and also on
our website, I thriveplan dot com. I'm excited to have doctor Purvishaw on
(01:04):
five to Thrive Live today. DoctorShaw has over twenty years of experience as
a physician. She's worked in urgentcare, private practice, and at Google's
headquarters as an on site physician.She is also an expert in stress management,
mindfulness, and corporate well being,and in fact has released her first
book called Stress Tools, an eightweek Guide to Relieving stress and Regaining resilience.
(01:30):
And we are going to talk toher about that book in just a
moment, but before we do that, I want to thank our sponsors.
First, we have NFH, aninnovative dietary supplement manufacturer that uses an evidence
based approach to creating high quality dietarysupplements for integrative healthcare professionals. If you
want the highest level of confidence inthe dietary supplements that you take, ask
(01:52):
your integrative practitioner about NFH products.You can also find more information at NFH
dot c. Also, Immuse,a unique, patented post biotic that gives
your immune system a key advantage.A muse is an ingredient in many immune
supporting dietary supplements, so look forAmuse on the label or go to ammusehealth
(02:13):
dot com for more information. Cognizanceat a coli nature's way of keeping the
brain firing on all cylinders. Soif you want to enhance your brain function,
memory, focus, and attention,look for Cognizant on the label of
your favorite brain health product or goto cognizant dot com for more information.
And finally, doctor or Heroes Probiotics, a best selling probiotic for over thirty
(02:34):
years, contains twelve probiotic strains whichare shelf stable without refrigeration due to a
unique three year fermentation process. Andyou can learn more at doctor Orhra probiotics
dot com. Hello doctor Shaw,welcome to five to Thrive Live. Thank
you, Doctor Alschuler. Yeah,so great to have you on the show
again. Last time you were onthe show is a bit ago, and
(02:55):
you were talking about mindfulness, whichI know is a part of your new
book. But so we'll touch onthat a little bit. But you've really
expanded your your teaching, I think, in this book to lots of other
areas. It's a beautiful outline oftopics that you have. But you know,
before we jump in, how didyou become interested in integrative medicine.
(03:16):
Well, my parents are from Indiaand my mother always had an interest in
holistic healing, and so she wouldmake us golden milk turmeric lattes long before
they went viral. Nice. Myparents also taught me meditation and yoga when
I was about ten years old.Wow. Yes, and I chose to
(03:38):
go to ostiopathic medical school. Andone of the principles of osteopathic medicine is
that the person is a unit ofmind, body, and spirit and capable
of self healing. Nice. SoI saw you, sorry, go ahead,
I find that integrative medicine fills thosegaps that conventional medicine has, and
(03:59):
when the two are combined, it'sso powerful. Yeah, for sure,
I agree with you one hundred percent. I wish every single patient had the
opportunity to utilize every and all approaches, including integrative ones, because I agree
it fills the gap that really,you know, strengthens the whole treatment program,
inspires wellness. And that leads usto your book. So you've just
(04:19):
published a book called Stress Tools.So why why did you write this book?
So? I live in the Washington, DC area where most of my
patients live very high pressure and highstress lives. But honestly, I don't
know a single person that Isn't weloving with daily low level stress. It's
just a part of our modern world. We have information all overload, technology
(04:44):
overload, busy schedules, and workand home pressures, and these cause a
constant barrage that's so damaging to thebody and I see it in my clinic
every day. Yeah, so thisis something that really is your best effort
to give people some tools that theycan use to identify the impact of stress
(05:05):
and then have strategies to help mitigatethe stress. And so In fact,
the first part of your book reallyis all about identifying the impact of stress
in people's lives. What have youseen? What are some of the more
common impacts that stress can have onpeople physically, on their mental and emotional
health and well being. Sure,the first week of the book is all
(05:29):
about assessing your stress and how itaffects your mind and your body. Stress
has been correlated with headaches, digestiveissues such as acid reflux and ibs,
and it also worsens conditions like chronicpain, asthma, diabetes, and heart
disease. And it also leads tobad habits such as eating poorly, skipping
(05:50):
exercise, or not sleeping. Plusthe mental health conditions anxiety depression, PTSD
and addictions are also seated with stress. Yeah, that's quite the list.
So you know, I often talkabout stress being the thread that unravels the
sweater of life. You know,it really is. It can be kind
(06:13):
of insidious and long term, butvery determined in the way it literally unravels
one's health and well being. Andyou know, I see this over and
over again. And sometimes it's notthat stress causes an illness per se,
but if somebody has some other thingsgoing on. Stress is like the match
(06:33):
to the fire. It sort oflights things and really can push things forward
in a bad way. So youknow, all those things that you mentioned
can definitely be hung on stress atleast as a contributing factor for sure.
So you've helped people identify in thisfirst part of your book house stress is
showing up for them. Then yououtline a number of ways that people can
(06:55):
reduce stress in their lives, andyou actually start with mind body practices and
you include breath work in that aswell. So can you give us some
examples of some of the mind bodypractices that you outline and maybe why you've
chosen to include those. Sure?So, mind body technique involves connecting the
body with the mind through movement andbreadth to induce a calm state. So
(07:19):
some common mind body practices that Iinclude in the book include yoga, chigong,
mindfulness, and meditation. And theseare all techniques that can improve your
physical and mental health when you practicethem regularly. Mm hmm. So why
(07:39):
so why mind body, Like,of all the things to start with,
you start with mind body. Whyis that so foundational to stress management?
Well, the research on mind bodypractices is so compelling. There are hundreds
of studies that show that the mindbody techniques can improve chronic health conditions,
(08:00):
anxiety and depression. There are somestudies that show, for example, that
chigong lowers blood pressure. There's onethat shows that yoga decreases the hormone cortisol,
which is one of our stress hormones, and mindfulness is associated with a
lower level of perceive stress and higherwork engagement. So mind body exercises can
(08:22):
improve your well being in so manyways. Yes, indeed, And with
offering so many different types of mindbody is your thought that somebody can try
them all, or that they'll findone or two that are sort of more
less appealing than others. What haveyou found with your patients? Yeah,
(08:43):
I usually recommend maybe one or twotechniques to start with and see if they
like those for thirty days, andif those don't work, they can always
pick another technique that might work better. Mm hm. Thirty days interesting,
so long enough for them to reallystart to experience the benefits, build a
bit of a habit. But atthe same time, if they don't like
(09:05):
it, they haven't overly invested exactly. Yeah, okay, so you have
a whole chapter on breath work,which again I was really happy to see.
I too, talk a lot aboutbreath work with my patients. So
can you take us to an exampleof a breathing technique that can be used
to relieve stress. Let's say youknow somebody is just in an acutely stressful
(09:28):
situation and they need some way tokind of manage it at that moment.
So box breathing is a practice that'sused by Navy seals to bring them to
a common focused state in the momentwhen they are stressed. So basically the
technique is where you inhale for accountof four, pause for four, exhale
(09:52):
for four, and pause again forfour. So if we want to practice
that together, we can we canget comp sable in our chairs, or
you can be lying down, handsby your side, and eyes can be
open or closed. And we'll beginby inhaling two three four, pause two
(10:18):
three four, exhale two three fourand pause two three four. Let's do
one more round two inhale too,reade four, pause two three four,
(10:39):
exhale two three four and pause twothree four, and you can start back
to your regular breathing. Yeah,so I feel definitely more relaxed, more
calm, and that was just tworounds. How many rounds do you typically
(11:03):
recommend that people do. Usually Ihave them do about five rounds and that
usually calms you down pretty quickly.Mm hmm. Yeah. And you know
what's so great about breathing exercises.The cost is zero dollars, completely portable
because your breath goes wherever you go, and you can do breathing exercises without
anybody knowing what you're doing, sothey're very stealthy. So they're kind of
(11:28):
very you know, like the perfectway to bring a stress management technique with
you at all times. Can yougive us another breathing technique? Sure?
So the easiest breathing technique is diaformaticbreathing or belly breathing, where you just
place your hand on your belly andwe can do this together again. Just
relax, place your hand on yourbelly with your palm over your belly button,
(11:52):
and as you inhale, you justmake your belly nice and big,
as if you've had a large meal. And when you axhale, you bring
your belly button in towards your spineand inhale again make your belly nice and
full and exhale, bring that bellyand flatten the abdomen, and one last
(12:15):
breath inhale nice big Santa belly andexhale, let that air out. And
that's also a nice one that youcan do anywhere no one will know you're
doing it. You could do itduring meetings, you could do it on
(12:35):
zoom, you could do it anywhereyou need to. Mm hmm. Yeah.
That I think is also called bellowsbreathing, if I'm not mistaken,
because your stomach kind of acts likea bellows, and you know that breathing
is really good, especially to notonly relax, but by expanding your breath
into your by moving your belly,you're exercising all your more accessory muscles.
(12:58):
So it really helps to physically orphysiologically expand your lung tissues. So it's
good conditioning for your lungs too,which I think is important. I think
as people go through life shallowly breathingall the time, their lungs can get
a little deconditioned. Would you agree, absolutely, So as you expand the
(13:20):
chest, expand the belly, youare using many more muscles and you're also
getting a little bit of a workoutfor your lungs. So it is a
great ex reponse. Okay, solet's move on. You have a chapter
on joy using joy to combat stress, which I love. So how like,
(13:41):
what do you mean by incorporating joyto reduce stress? And maybe give
us an example of one of thetechniques that you talk about. So we've
all danced the night away, laugheduntil we cried, or fallen in love,
and these are all experiences of joy. But sometimes we're so busy that
(14:01):
we forget to have fun in life. And the thing is, stress and
joy cannot live in the same moment, so we want to bring in sparks
of joy regularly. So this couldinvolve playing with children, dancing, creating
art, or laughing with friends.And the more fun you have, the
more you are distracted from life's worries, and the more you'll be in the
(14:26):
present moment where life is peaceful andgood. M h. Nice. You
know I find joy so important.In fact, one of the questions I
ask patients in my practice who arenew is what brings you joy? And
just to have people kind of reflecton that is often useful enlightening. Some
(14:46):
people will be able to list justso many things other people struggle to think
about what does bring me joy?And regardless of how long their list is,
just to dwell on this idea,what does bring me joy? You
know, that kind of becomes,as you say, like a touch point
or a true north, a placethat we can orient or healing, so
(15:09):
we instead of are instead of simplytrying to move away from pain or move
away from illness, or moving towardssomething which I think is a really important
part of health and healing actually,And that kind of brings me to a
question about attitude. I'm wondering whatyou think about how important attitude is to
(15:31):
being successful at stress management. So, for example, you know, if
somebody is just feeling really depressed andgrumpy and just down and out, can
they be successful in relieving their stress? And if so, how do you
work with people in that frame ofmind? Absolutely so, a person's attitude
is critical. Your beliefs in yourmindset are what drive much of your perspective
(15:54):
on life. And when you're stressed, you often do sweat the small stuff
more and get irritated more. That'sjust part of being stressed. You may
not be grateful for what you have, and your focus is on the negative
and you don't believe you can changeit. Really is a miserable way of
being and this will only make youmore stress, so it's kind of a
(16:18):
vicious cycle. Instead, we canfocus on changing our mindset and let going
of letting go of the small stuff, having gratitude for all that is good
in life, and if you believeyou can get healthier, you might be
able to find a way to doso. So a positive attitude improves life
satisfaction and can make you more resilient. Mm. And there's a bit of
(16:44):
a you know, it's kind ofI think for people who are truly feeling
depressed or despondent, even it probablyfeels like moving a boulder up the mountain,
you know, a sissifist kind ofsituation. But I think that,
like you said, just finding onelittle positive attitude or changing one thing can
(17:07):
be pretty transformative, even if it'sjust Okay, I'm going to do something
in within the next ten minutes thatfeels, you know, truly good,
or I'm going to do something forsomeone else in the next ten minutes.
Just something that's a little different,I think, and sometimes kind of be
the you know, the domino thatstarts the others to fall. But then
(17:33):
there's also like just the importance ofbasic physical health, Like if people are
exhausted physically, they're not getting enoughrest. It's hard to get the motivation
to engage in these things. Imean, do you when people come to
you and they you know, aredealing with obviously a health condition because they're
coming to see you as a doctor, But then you see stress is really
impactful in their lives and they're sortof stuck in it. How do you
(17:56):
find these conversations going or how doyou sort of motivate people to take a
step outside of their own vicious cycle? Yeah? So baby steps are so
helpful in these cases. And itcould be as simple as petting your dog
or petting your cat. Right,it could be something as simple as watching
(18:21):
a funny video on YouTube. Andyou may not feel anything in the moment,
but over time, you will feeldifferent the more you do it.
Yeah, fair enough, So giveus another technique. What's an easy technique
that someone can use in the momentthat they're stressed. We've talked about box
(18:41):
breathing. That was fun and veryeffective. Obviously, is there something else
that you can share with us?Sure? I think in the moment it's
best to use that mind body connectionto your advantage, and so I often
teach patients what I call for themto practice is a breath break. And
so first you just check in withyour body and your thoughts and notice how
(19:06):
you're feeling without any judgment. Thenyou take three long, slow, deep
breaths, breathing in and out ofthe nose. They can be box breathing,
they could be the diaframatic breathing,the ones we talked about today,
or they could be just regular breathingas you are. And then after those
three breaths, you can check inwith yourself afterwards and notice how you feel.
(19:30):
You can take a breath break firstthing in the morning or in between
meetings, and you can even takea breath break if you're having trouble sleeping.
It can be very effective. MYeah, So that breathing slowly or
mindfully helps to reset the autonomic nervoussystem, which is the unconscious part of
(19:52):
our nervous system that's kind of workingall the time on our behalf. But
when we do these breathing exercises,our pair sympathetic nervous activity gets a little
elevated, which is correlated with kindof rest and digest type of function.
So we're calmer or in a moredigestive state, we're taking things in,
we're assimilating, we're extracting nutrition fromour world. So it's a really you
(20:18):
know, breath and breathing and justbeing mindful like you just described, is
so helpful and so powerful and doyou typically then build on these things.
So let's say somebody comes back andthey say, Okay, doctor Shaw was
successful. I've been using breathing techniquesand I'm feeling stressed. Do you?
Is there then a sort of astep two, like, okay, now
(20:40):
we need to come up with someways to create a different baseline for you.
Yeah, so then we just addin one or two more techniques each
time. So any the book hasi mean so many techniques in it,
So you find something that you knowcalls to you and just add in another
(21:00):
technique and slowly create kind of thislike toolbox of things you can use in
different moments, because things are goingto be different for each person. What
works in one person may not workin another, So you can create your
individual toolbox. And let's say oneday you're stuck in traffic, what's going
(21:21):
to work for you in that moment, you know, versus you have a
tense meeting coming up at work?What can work in that moment. So
just finding the things that work foryou and making a toolbox and then you're
prepared for the stress that you face. Yeah. I love that idea of
a toolbox that you can just openup and extract out what's going to be
(21:42):
most beneficial for you in each situation. So you have a clinical practice.
I'm sure people don't come in witha chief complaint of stress, but you
obviously discover it in people along withtheir diagnosis. How do you weave that
in and doesn't make a difference inhow people do. So I teach every
(22:03):
single patient of mind tools to relievestress, whether it be yoga, meditation,
mindfulness, breath work, or someother technique. And what patients will
report back after practicing for about thirtydays is they'll report less pain in their
bodies. Oftentimes, they feel lessrushed in their lives, they feel happier,
(22:27):
Oftentimes mental health issues are better.People report less anxiety. But the
thing I hear the most often,the comment I get is that I just
feel better overall. I just feelgood. Now, Yeah, what do
you think that is? When somebodysays I feel good? What does that
(22:47):
mean to you when you hear that. I think often when you reduce your
stress levels, that you create clarityin your mind and you create less tension
in your body, and so you'rejust moving a different way in the world
when you're less stressed. Yeah,and then you know, there's actually been
(23:10):
some studies that people who manage theirstress or have I should say that differently.
People who engage in regular stress managementtechniques, some of which you've mentioned
behave differently and are perceived differently byothers, and as a result, things
start to change in their lives,so they have, you know, different
(23:34):
quality to their relationships. There's actuallyeven a study that shows that individuals who
change their perception of stress and howthey interact with stress change their work performance
and make more money eventually than peoplewho don't do that, who don't look
at their stress and you know,kind of work with it and try to
(23:56):
transform it. So, I meanit's pretty impactful sense. I mean,
it's very logical, right, whowants to hang out with the stress ball
all day? But it's you know, much different when you're with somebody who
has the ability to be introspective,to gain a sense of groundedness and clarity
and stressful conversations or whatever the casemight be. So you know, it
(24:18):
has a lot of ripple effects Ithink around one in their life, not
just their body. So yeah,I think stress is so I just can't
you know stress this enough? Thatstress is really important for not only physical
wellbeing, but for psychological wellbeing,community well being, et cetera. I
mean, could you imagine doing yourpractice without addressing stress with every single patient?
(24:42):
Never? Never? It has changedmy practice completely, it really is.
That's nice so for you or foryou and for your patients or just
your patients both patients. Yeah,yeah, yeah, I don't know if
a patient practices these stress tools,I have not heard once that they don't
(25:03):
get they don't find some improvement intheir life. Yeah right, And we
can't say that about you know,a typical medication or really anything. I
mean, that's yeah, that's powerfulstuff. Is there any other stress technique
that you'd like to just dip ourtoes in? In terms of meditation,
(25:29):
there's you know, there's so manytypes of meditation out there, but I
think one that I really enjoy andthat a lot of my patients enjoy is
visualization. Just visualizing, you know, a calm scene, like a place
that you love to go, whereverit is, your happy place, the
beach, the mountains, you know, a vacation place that you love,
(25:51):
and just being immersing yourself in thatplace visually and notice how your stress levels
drop can make a huge difference.Yeah, wonderful, that's great. I'm
wondering do you have kids in yourpractice? I do, and how does
(26:11):
this work with kids? So forkids, we I do help them oftentimes
with visualizations and they love they lovevisualizations because kids are just their imaginations are
so open. But also breath workworks quite well with children. Mm hmmm.
Yeah. Good. So it's allages, all walks of life.
(26:34):
And you know, stress management techniquesare typically pretty cost effective as well,
so there's really almost no barriers toit except I would say people have to
feel like they're in a safe environment. But once that's been established, all
of these techniques can be so easilyincorporated. So what any final thoughts that
you'd like to leave with our listeners. If there was one thing you could
(27:00):
do to improve your health, Isay this every day to my patients.
But I just want to say onemore time to your listeners. If there
was one thing you can do toyour to improve your health, the most
important thing, in my opinion,would be to manage stress. So staying
in the present moment and keeping yourlife simple, try to incorporate one or
two stress tools daily to manage thatoverwhelm. For example, start doing yoga
(27:25):
twice a week, meditate for fiveminutes a day, and join a supportive
community and try this for thirty days. I have no doubt that something will
feel better in your life, whetherit be in your body, your mind,
or your spirit. Marvelous. Yeah, so true. I agree with
you one hundred percent, and I'mso happy to know that you're out there
(27:49):
really encouraging people to take a holdof this in their lives and to work
with it and to find a wayto manage stress so that they can in
fact experience that joy that you're talkingabout, in that sense of calm,
centeredness. So your book is full, as you said, of techniques.
It's a you know, really welllaid out, just very organized and clear.
(28:14):
So where can our listeners find thebook? Where can they find you?
Give us some website social media.Stress Tools is on sale on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Thriftbooks, GoogleBooks, and Walmart dot com.
The ebook is currently priced at twoninety nine for a limited time on Amazon,
(28:37):
so that's a very inexpensive way toget a copy of the book.
My website is doctor Porvsha dot comand you can also follow me on Facebook
and Instagram as at doctor porvshaw Greatand that's poo r v I s h
a h dot com. Well,doctor Shott's really a pleasure to have you
(29:03):
on the show. I'm really delightedthat you wrote this book. And I
noted that in all of the announcementsabout the book you talked, it's described
as your first book, which impliesthere may be a second book. So
we'll see, is there a secondone coming our way? I'm thinking about
it. Okay, all right,Well I'm curious to see what book number
(29:25):
two will be. But in themeantime, I encourage listeners to really check
out stress Tools. You know,it's it's a resource, it's a resource,
it's an inspirational resource at that.So again, thank you so much,
and that wraps up this episode offive to Thrive Live Again. We
Thank our sponsors NFH, the professionalsupplement line bridging the gap between nutraceuticals and
(29:48):
evidence based medicine. Cognizance ofticoline tohelp enhance memory, focus and attention.
Immuse a post biotic for immune supportand doctor or Here's Probiotics award winning pre
and probiotic formulas. Thank you listenerfor joining us. May you experience joy,
laughter and love. It's time tothrive. Everyone, have a great
(30:10):
night. Scot Castine. The cityis f
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