December 18, 2023 • 45 mins
This week on the Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast, I'm thrilled to have a guest who truly embodies the spirit and name of this podcast. In just a few years, Dr. Nishi Bhopal has built the job and travel lifestyle that she always dreamed of by following her inner voice and aligning herself with her values.
Dr. Bhopal is a board-certified Psychiatrist, Sleep Medicine Doctor, and Integrative Holistic Medicine physician, and prior to 2019, she had been working as a W2 employee in a pretty conventional psychiatry practice. In this position, however, she wasn't able to really provide the holistic treatment for patients that she wanted to be able to offer. So she took a deep breath, a leap of faith, and founded Pacific Integrative Psychiatry - a telemedicine practice based out of San Francisco where patients receive a whole-person approach to anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, including nutrition, psychotherapy, and integrative and functional medicine.
Fast forward a couple of years and the business is thriving, she is happier than ever with medicine, she has founded IntraBalance, an educational platform for physicians and therapists that offers courses and videos on clinical sleep medicine- and my favorite part of her story, she is traveling the world!
In this episode, you'll hear about:
- Dr. Bhopal's introduction to and journey with sleep medicine.
- Expert tips to tackle jet-lag
- Trip planning to optimize sleep
- Dr. Bhopal's top-five favorite places in the world.
- The growth opportunities that travel presents.
- Dr. Bhopal's wisdom for building your dream life.
I really hope you enjoy this episode and I hope that it inspires you to Dare to Dream!
To learn more about Dr. Nishi Bhopal's work and travel, visit her at:
- IG: https://www.instagram.com/intrabalance/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/intrabalance
- Medical Practice: https://pacificintegrativepsych.com/
- Educational Platform: https://intrabalance.com/
Dare to Dream Physician Resources:
DM me on FB, IG, or LinkedIn to learn more about travel hacking with credit card points to get free flights, lodging, and more!
Get a bonus with Rakuten AND support the Dare to Dream Physician!
https://www.rakuten.com/r/NEODEN2
Dare to Dream Physician, Life Planning for Physicians
https://daretodreamphysician.com
DreamPhysician on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/dreamphysician/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/weili-gray-md/
*** Are you a physician who would like to discover and live your best life now through travel? ***
Join the Dare to Dream Physician Travel Facebook Community! https://www.facebook.com/groups/878895016552178/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Weili Gray (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Dare to
Dream Physician travel podcast.
I am so excited for this week'sepisode.
I am going to feature thisreally cool doctor.
She has a really cool job thatshe created for herself and an
amazing lifestyle.
(00:20):
And not only that, she is also aworld traveler and has gone to
really amazing places that she'sgoing to share with us on the
podcast.
So I'm super excited to inviteher to the podcast.
Her name is Dr.
Nishi Bhopal and I'm going tohave her introduce herself.
But, you know, in the short timeof just interacting with her, I
(00:40):
love her energy.
I love her vision and I lovethat she's really, you know,
just living her dream life.
And I can't wait to hear allabout it.
Welcome.
Welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Bhopal (00:51):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
It's been super fun just kind ofchatting before, and yeah, I'm
excited to get into the episodetoday.
Dr. Weili Gray (00:59):
Yeah.
So tell our listeners a littlebit about yourself, you know,
what you practice, where youlive, you know, what, what
you're currently doing to helppatients and physicians.
Dr. Bhopal (01:09):
Sure.
So I'm a psychiatrist and sleepmedicine physician, and I also
practice through an integrativeholistic lens, and I'm based in
the San Francisco Bay Area.
So I help patients in a coupleof ways.
I've got a private practice.
It's called Pacific IntegrativePsychiatry, and we're an online
telehealth practice inCalifornia.
So we see patients all acrossthe state, and we help them with
(01:30):
anxiety, depression, and sleepissues using an integrative
approach.
So what that means is we useconventional psychiatry, some
medication, psychotherapy, butwe also blend that with
nutrition and gut health andsleep optimization and
supplements when appropriate andthings like this.
And then the other thing I haveis an online platform where I
teach clinicians, so I teachphysicians and therapists about
(01:52):
integrative sleep medicinebecause most doctors only get
about two hours of sleepmedicine education during
medical school, but all of ourpatients have to sleep, right,
so it's important that allclinicians have this basic
knowledge in sleep medicine thatwe're just not exposed to unless
you do a sleep fellowship.
So I do that through YouTube andonline courses.
Dr. Weili Gray (02:12):
That's so awesome.
And as the listeners probablyknow by now, I'm also a sleep
physician and I actually do Ipractice in a real critical
asbestos hospital, but I doincorporate a lot of the
integrative and holisticmedicine as well.
And when you say that mostphysicians, you know, don't
really have much sleep trainingin their curriculum.
(02:32):
It's so true.
And think about the culture ofmedicine.
Like we're, we're really antisleep, right?
I mean, that's like how you getthrough medical school and
residency.
And I remember I was ananesthesia resident.
That's my primary specialty andit was very unusual at the time.
And I'm sure even now, you know,to go into sleep medicine from
that specialty.
And I, I remember my attendings.
(02:54):
When they heard that I was doingthis, some of them were like,
wow, interesting.
And then of course they wouldshare about like their own sleep
problems.
Because anesthesia, there's alot of shift work and, and just
kind of this, you know,stressful, stressful work.
And so a lot of them haveinsomnia.
So, you know, I'm hearing allthese problems about their
sleep.
I'm like, wow.
And they don't know how to fixit.
(03:15):
They're just like, well, I takean Ambien and I go in my
basement and just tell everyoneto be quiet.
And so I think it is great thatyou sort of found this gap in
physicians and I guesstherapists too.
I mean, that's true because evenfinding there's such a big
behavioral component in sleepand as a sleep doctor, I am
(03:35):
having to fill in those gapsbecause I can't find a therapist
or a psychologist who can helpmy patients in that way.
Dr. Bhopal (03:42):
It's so true, and one of the reasons I got
interested in sleep was kind offor very selfish reasons, right?
Like, Just to help myself,because I remember being so
exhausted during residency.
There was one morning where Iwas just so burned out.
I was so sleep deprived that Ijust burst into tears before I
even went to my shift, right?
(04:03):
Cause I'm like, Oh my God, I'vegot this like 30 hour shift
ahead of me and I'm so tired.
Like, how am I going to getthrough this?
And that feeling was justhorrible.
And then I found out from one ofmy senior residents that she was
going into a sleep fellowship.
And at that time, this was likemore than 10 years ago now, at
that time, I was like, that's athing.
I didn't know you could study atsleep.
I never even really thoughtabout that.
(04:23):
And so that kind of sparked myinterest in sleep and learning
more about what that was,because as you were saying, like
even us as physicians, we don'tget much training in it.
And then we don't know how todeal with it on our own.
And then I was doing my psychresidency and there's such a bi
directional relationship betweenmental health and sleep.
Right?
And so, like, I'm seeing thesepatients with anxiety and
(04:44):
depression and they're havingtrouble sleeping and I wasn't
really learning about how tohelp them with that aspect.
So that kind of sparked myinterest in learning more.
I mean, you did a sleepfellowship too, and so you know
that in sleep fellowship wemostly learn about sleep
disordered breathing.
Right?
We learn how to treat sleepapnea.
Maybe we learn a little bitabout CBT I.
And that's about it.
(05:04):
So even as sleep physicians, Ifeel like our education is
really limited.
So even after my fellowship,that's where I really felt like
I got into the meat ofintegrative sleep, holistic
medicine, and all of these otherthings that we're not exposed to
that are actually going to helpour patients move the needle
when it comes to their sleepquality.
Dr. Weili Gray (05:24):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I agree so much.
I, I, I think now this is myninth year as a sleep physician
attending and I just I feel feellike I'm learning new things and
learning new ways to help mypatients, learning things just
by listening to my patients, youknow, cause I learned about what
sort of sleep problems are outthere and how things are
related.
(05:44):
And then when I don't knowexactly how to help them, I sort
of try to brainstorm from thetools that I have, but then I'm
finding new ways of applyingeven things that I know.
And it's, it's really exciting.
And of course, As a field, it'sa very young field and it's so
funny because the patients werelike, well, my grandfather, he
probably had sleep apnea becauseI heard him stop breathing.
(06:04):
And I'm like, yeah, they didn'teven know what sleep apnea was,
right?
When your grandfather was havingsleep apnea.
So, and, and now we're, we'rereally kind of looking at the
physiology of the brain and,and, you know, the functions in
sleep.
And I think, to me, it's, it'sreally hard to practice sleep
medicine in a way that bestserves patients without looking
(06:25):
at things holistically.
Cause like you're, you're right.
I mean, even things, somethingas simple as gut health can have
a big effect on someone's sleepquality, and of course, you
know, not to mention justoverall, you know, the
relationship between obesityand, and sleep disorder
breathing.
So yeah, that's so cool.
I, I love seeing that you are,you know, having so much fun
doing something that you love.
(06:46):
That's like a, basically, anexample that, that we need more
of in, in the field of medicine.
Dr. Bhopal (06:54):
Thanks so much.
I mean, it is a lot of fun, and,and you know, it's, it's not
something that I ever thought Iwould be doing.
I never thought I would be onYouTube.
We live in this, age, we live inthis time where these things are
available to us.
Like when I was a student, itwasn't really a concept for me
anyways.
And I think as physicians, likewe have all these opportunities
to explore and they're notnecessarily things that we are
(07:17):
taught about or that we wereexposed to during our training.
So I think we're, we're trainedin a very linear way, right?
There's a linear path.
You go to med school, you doyour residency, you do your
fellowship, and then you get ajob or maybe Get going to
academia or you go into privatepractice and that's about it.
Yet there's this whole worldavailable to us.
And I think for sleep, it'sreally exciting because Again 10
(07:40):
years ago, when I was going tosleep fellowship, I remember one
of my psych attendings saying tome, Why would you go into sleep?
We want our patients to wake up.
We don't want to put them tosleep, as psychologists.
I was like, okay, well, youknow, maybe they need to sleep
well, so they can be fully awakeduring the day, right?
And so it's the idea of doingsleep medicine was just not a
(08:02):
thing, but now there's so muchinterest in it.
People are interested in likeMatthew Walker's book, Why We
Sleep.
Andrew Huberman has his podcast.
It's super popular.
He talks a lot about sleep.
There's all these sleep coachesthese days so patients are more
aware of it.
So that's even, you know anotherreason why I think as
clinicians, we need to be up todate with this stuff, because
our patients are looking forhelp with this stuff.
(08:24):
As physicians, we also need totake care of our own sleep, and
we can talk about that.
But there's a lot ofmisinformation as well out
there.
So I do feel that as physicians,we have a responsibility to
share the knowledge that wehave.
Dr. Weili Gray (08:37):
Absolutely.
That's lovely.
And I love to tie in sleep tothe theme of this podcast which
is travel.
And I've personally done a lotof long distance travel with my
kids in the last 12 months.
And as a result have sufferedmany different aspects of sleep
probably sleep deprivation beingthe biggest one.
(09:00):
And so there's so many topicsthat kind of revolve around
sleep and travel jet lagprobably being the most.
Most a big one out of that, butI, I love for you to, you know,
share and, and we can sort of goback and forth and, and, you
know, you share something and Iknow I'm going to be learning
from you, but just kind of, kindof learning from each other
what, you know what hacks we mayhave to help with our sleep as
(09:22):
we travel.
Dr. Bhopal (09:24):
Definitely, definitely.
So when, we were kind ofplanning this episode and we
decided we'll talk about jetlag, I was like, oh my gosh, I
better read up on this becauseit is a confusing topic, right?
You're traveling across timezones and we have this whole
circadian rhythm and our bodyclock follows a natural rhythm
and our melatonin secreted at acertain time, our body
temperature changes according tothe, you know, circadian rhythm.
(09:46):
And then when we throw ourselvesinto a new time zone, all of
that goes out of whack and thereare so many little subtle
aspects to it, depending on likeyour individual chronotype, so
that's like your natural rhythm,how many time zones you're
crossing the direction thatyou're traveling.
So are you going east or west?
How long your trip is?
So is it like just a couple daysor are you traveling for a
(10:08):
month?
And then what are your goals forthe trip?
So there's all these differentfactors.
So like the short answer isthere's no one size fits all
approach to jet lag.
But we can talk about some ofthese nuances and how to kind of
generally handle these things.
But I also like to just take astep back and think about two
things.
So when we're traveling, we'redealing with jet lag and we're
(10:29):
also dealing with travelfatigue.
We want to be able to separatethose two things, right?
So jet lag is when your bodyclock is misaligned with the
local time that you're travelingto.
And then travel fatigue is thefatigue that you get when you're
traveling, like when you're on along flight, and you're sitting
in a cramped seat, and you'redehydrated, and you can't sleep
on the plane, and maybe you'resleep deprived because you've
(10:52):
been frantically packing for thelast two nights, so there's that
aspect of it as well.
And so they're kind of twodistinct things that I like to
think about.
Dr. Weili Gray (11:01):
Yeah, that's such a good point to tease out.
And when I was referring to thesleep deprivation, I think in
some ways, I tried to use thatas a hack, so let's say, you
know, back in August, you know,I flew from San Francisco to
Sydney and I purposefully lookedfor a flight where I didn't have
to sleep on the flight.
So it took a little bit of work,but I found like one airline
(11:24):
that was basically, you know, Ithink I got on the flight kind
of early in the morning in SanFrancisco and then it arrived It
was like I think 8 p.
m so it was perfect like then Icould get a hotel and sleep So
that like I didn't have to betired Because I didn't really
need to sleep on the flight andthat actually worked out really
well but compared to anothertrip, when I went from Boston to
(11:46):
Incheon near Seoul in Korea.
I was so sleep deprived becauseI was trying to pack and trying
to fit in my clinics and, answerall my patient messages and get
some sleep studies done beforegoing to Asia where I was really
not planning to log into mycomputer at all.
And I'm pretty sure I sleptmaybe like two hours the night
before it.
(12:06):
I was a solo parent with my kidson that flight.
And I just fell asleep.
I was like, I don't have anytrouble falling asleep.
So it kind of worked outbecause.
I think for that flight theflight was kind of designed to
get you more adjusted to thedestination time.
And there were times whenthey're like, Yep, now it's time
to sleep.
If I had not been tired, I wouldhave been like, Oh, no, I'm not
(12:27):
ready to sleep.
I'll, you know, read a book ordo something.
But I was so sleep deprived thatI was actually able to follow
what the sort of the transitionto the destination.
Dr. Bhopal (12:38):
Yeah, that's such a great point to think about.
Okay, so, what time are yougoing to be landing at your
destination?
So, when I went to Singapore theflight arrived in the morning at
I think it was like 8 or 9 a.
m.
Singapore time.
And so, like, I wanted to makesure that I was rested.
I didn't want to be so tiredthat I couldn't enjoy the day or
(12:59):
at least stay awake for thatday.
So I did try to make sure that Igot good sleep leading up to
that flight.
And then as you said, on theflight they do kind of regulate
the light exposure and thetiming of meals according to the
local time.
So, I like to take an eye maskwith me.
So that I can like block out thelight.
And then like have a comfyblanket and like be really
(13:20):
comfortable on the flightHonestly, I have a really hard
time sleeping on the plane.
It just it's just souncomfortable.
I like to lie flat and you justcan't do that unless you're you
know flying business class orsomething but yeah, we're not
there yet, right?
So Like i'm still sitting ineconomy And so it's just not
that comfortable.
So like yeah, so planning aheadSo the other aspect of it, too,
is how long are you going to bethere.
(13:42):
Let's say it's a work trip, andyou're going from you know,
California to New York orsomething like that, and you're
just there a couple of days youwant to make sure you're well
rested because you're not goingto have a lot of time to adjust,
whereas, probably, if you'regoing to Asia, like, when I went
to Singapore, it was a threeweek trip around Asia, right?
So you can get away with alittle bit of sleep deprivation
maybe at the beginning and thenhave time to adjust.
(14:04):
So that's an important factor toconsider.
But I can get into like, Eastversus West, what happens to
your circadian rhythm.
Put very simply.
Okay, so when you're travelingWest, so let's say you're going
from New York.
to California, what happens toyour body clock is you become
like an older adult.
So think about that.
So think that you're, you'reaging in the sense that when
(14:27):
you're an older adults tend tofall asleep earlier in the
evening and they tend to wake upearlier, right?
So what you want to do is wewant to delay our body clock.
So when you land from, let's sayyou're going from New York to
San Francisco, when you land inSan Francisco, you're now like,
you have the sleep pattern of an80 year old person.
You're going to be sleepy at 8p.
(14:47):
m., it's going to be hard foryou to stay awake, and then
you're going to wake up at 4 a.
m., and you're going to have ahard time going back to sleep.
So what we want to do is we wantto delay the body clock.
And usually going from east towest is a little bit easier than
the other way around, becauseit's easier to lengthen your day
than it is to shorten your day.
(15:09):
So when you're traveling west,you're actually wanting to
lengthen your day a little bit.
So you're going to try to pushyour, your circadian rhythm a
little bit later.
How you deal with thispractically is, let's say you
wake up at 4 a.
m.
in San Francisco.
You want to be as immobile andhorizontal as possible at 4 a.
m.
until your desired wake time.
(15:31):
Let's say maybe that's, youknow, 6 or 7 a.
m.
So you want to minimize yourlight exposure.
In the morning, you want to keepit dark, dim, stay flat, that's
going to train your brain toknow that it's still kind of
like you're in your sleep zoneuntil your desired wake time of
six or seven or whatever thatmay be.
And then on the other side, youwant to get bright light.
(15:53):
In the late afternoon and earlyevening, and that's going to
push your bedtime a little bitlater.
So, your body clock is going totell you like, when it's 8pm in
San Francisco, it's 11pm in NewYork, so you're going to start
to get really sleepy.
So getting bright light in theevening is going to push that
back a little bit.
And then the other way around,let's say you're going from San
Francisco to New York, so nowyou're going east.
(16:15):
So now, you're the teenagerwho's staying up late, and then
you can't get up in the morning.
So staying up too late, and thenyour, your body clock is now
delayed.
So we're gonna do the opposite.
Where you wanna get brightlight.
in the morning, and then youwant to get dim light or avoid
bright light in the eveningbecause you want to pull your
sleep earlier.
You want to wake up earlier andgo to sleep earlier.
(16:36):
When traveling east, melatoninis a little bit more helpful.
to pull that body clock earlier.
When traveling west, melatoninis a little bit more tricky.
Dr. Weili Gray (16:46):
Right, you've already been tired.
Dr. Bhopal (16:48):
Exactly, exactly.
And so like technically theguidelines say to take a little
bit of melatonin in the morningwhen you're traveling west, so
New York to California, butthat's really tricky because it
can make you sleepy.
You have to be really careful.
And so I don't recommend that.
But if you're traveling east,you can take a little bit of
melatonin to help you adjust.
And actually the AASM, so theAmerican Academy of Sleep
(17:09):
Medicine.
They recommend using melatoninif you're traveling east five or
more time zones.
Dr. Weili Gray (17:16):
That's like Hawaii, you know, like East
Coast Hawaii.
Dr. Bhopal (17:19):
Exactly.
And they say if you're travelingfor less than four time zones,
you might not need melatonin.
So, I think it's up to theindividual, but hopefully that
was helpful like, just a littlebit of a,
Dr. Weili Gray (17:29):
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, at the beginningof the show, you said, You also
have to take into account theindividual chronotype and so,
you know, are you naturally anight owl?
Are you naturally you know amorning lark and or early
morning person?
So like for example, I amnaturally a night owl and I love
it when I go to Californiabecause I'm like I'm finally
(17:50):
normal
Dr. Bhopal (17:50):
Yes.
Dr. Weili Gray (17:51):
I'm sleepy at 9pm instead of midnight, and
this is great I'm enjoying this.
So I don't have to do anythingdifferent.
finally, I have a sociallyacceptable chronotype but yeah,
we, we talked about this, and Idon't think we've used it
personally yet, but we've heardreally great things about this
app called Time Shifter and it'san app for jet lag, and so you
sort of put put in the app,like, where you're going, and
(18:14):
then it gives you advice on evenhow to start adjusting to that
trip.
So I think that that's probably,you know, sort of understanding
the concepts, but then if you'relike, when do I even start
trying to get, you know,adjusted there's an app for
that.
That may be something toexperiment with.
if you are going on a shorttrip, I mean, it's one thing if
you're going on a business tripor a conference and you can't,
(18:35):
you know, you're not determiningthe location of where you're
going, but let's say if you'relike, you know, I have this long
weekend and I just want to takea trip.
Personally, when I do that, Itry not to travel, you know
across too many time zones.
I live on the east coast, so Imight, you know, look at the
Caribbean or, you know,somewhere in South America.
But I try not to like go toEurope, for example, because
(18:56):
it's if I only have five dayslike that many time zones is
just gonna really get in the wayof you enjoying your trip while
you're there.
And then when you come back,you're trying to adjust as well.
So yeah, that's, you know,something else to keep in mind.
Dr. Bhopal (19:09):
That's such a great point, and I think, again it
comes back to your chronotypeand also like, just how easily
you shift.
to new time zones.
Like me personally, I do notshift well.
And so I agree with you.
So I'm on the West coast.
So, if we're going on a shortlittle trip, we might go
somewhere on the West coast ofMexico or maybe, you know,
somewhere else in California oron the, in the Pacific Northwest
(19:31):
or maybe Arizona, but we're notgoing to be going.
You know, all the way to Hawaiijust for like, a few days or,
like, all the way to the EastCoast, because it's the same
thing and it throws me off.
So it also reminds me of socialjet lag, which is jet lag that
you get when your socialschedule changes on weekdays and
weekends.
So you don't even have to betraveling across time zones.
So this past weekend, a friendof ours was visiting and he was
(19:53):
staying with us and like,Normally, I'm pretty regimented
about my sleep time and my waketime, but, you know we had this
friend visiting us and so we'rehanging out and talking and I
was going to bed a little laterthan I normally would and I feel
jet lagged.
Even though I didn't travelanywhere.
So that's also something to takeinto account is that you can
(20:14):
still have these jet lag sitdowns, even without traveling.
Dr. Weili Gray (20:19):
Absolutely.
And it's also, you know, whereyou're going.
I mean, for example, I live inVermont.
This time of the year, it getsdark around 4 30 and it doesn't
get light until like 7 ish inthe morning.
So there's a lot of darkness.
And of course, if you go furthernorth, you know, it's less and
less light.
And so I remember the other wayaround in the summer, like I was
in Norway and the kind of thenorthern part of Norway.
(20:40):
And, some of the spots the sunnever set, right?
Or you see a set for 30 minutesand then it rises again.
And so just taking that intoaccount when you travel If you
have a tendency to want to fitin too much, just realize that
if you're spending a whole weekin an area that is never going
to get dark and you're trying toget everything in while it's
daylight, you're probably goingto get pretty tired.
(21:02):
So there are just parts of theworld where it's not really that
helpful for sleep if you're justfollowing the patterns of the
sun.
Dr. Bhopal (21:10):
Such a great point.
And so that's where you know,making sure you take whatever
items you need to sleep wellwith you.
So whether that's an eye mask orI know like I have this like
bright light visor thing.
So if you're going somewherewhere it's really dark, that's
portable.
You could take something likethat with you so that you just
make it easier for yourselfbecause you want to be fully
(21:31):
awake and alert and enjoy yourtravels.
Dr. Weili Gray (21:34):
Crazily enough, that's a fairly new discovery
for me.
We were traveling to, to Europeand we flew in points on our
first business flight and it waslay flat seats and it was like
an amazing, such a coolexperience.
But we got on the plane at, Ithink, like 6 p.
m., we arrive in Europe, like 6a.
m.
or something, in Europe time,but literally, it's 12 o'clock
(21:56):
in East Coast time, so you know,we get on the flight, and since
it's business class, they'relike, Oh, we have this menu, you
know, you can eat this.
And I'm like, I just, when can Ilay the seat flat and put on the
eye mask that they gave us?
And I just want to sleep becausewhen I get there, it's like the,
you know, early in the morningand I'm not going to feel very
good if I can't sleep.
(22:17):
And the rest of my family didn'tquite buy into that.
So they, they really didn'tsleep on this flight that they
lay flat, but they didn't takeadvantage of it to sleep.
So when I got to thedestination, I was the only
person who could drive.
My husband was not in any shapeor form to drive.
So yeah, for sure the eye mask,and since then I've sort of used
it to hack if I'm really tiredfrom traveling, like you said,
(22:39):
and it made sense for me tosleep on the flight to adjust, I
just put on the eye mask, Iusually can't Sleep, you know,
even an hour on the flight onceI put on the I mass.
Something about that just helpedme sleep.
And the, the U-shaped pillow,like that one that's inflatable.
I think it was like 10 bucks.
I don't remember where I got it,but it was, it's been priceless
(23:00):
because it folds really wellinto my backpack or, you know,
like a small purse and, youknow, with that and the eye
mask, I'm good to go and alittle bit, you know, in my ear,
earphones.
Dr. Bhopal (23:10):
Yeah, so, so important and for me I would add
to that like a shawl, like Ihave a shawl that I always
travel with and that's myblanket.
So wherever I am, if I'm on theplane or if I'm on a train or a
bus or like some kind oftransportation I do tend to get
cold, so I always carry thatwith me and it can like kind of
roll up or, you know, fold upand I can stick it in my travel
bag.
But yeah, I think the key islike really planning ahead and
(23:33):
giving yourself that time torest.
Because again, you don't want toget there and be like, so
shattered that you can't enjoyyour vacation or your trip.
Dr. Weili Gray (23:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
And then I also have learned tojust be like really honest with
myself like, of course when yougo to a new part of the world
that you've never been to,you're like, wow, I really want
to go check everything out.
But I am also looking at theflight schedule and you know,
where we're at.
So for example, like next June,we're going to Africa and we
(24:03):
didn't have enough points to do,to do the business class this
time.
So we are flying economy andwe're flying like through Europe
and then, you know, a layover inFrankfurt and then to our final
destination in Africa, and Ithink it's about six or seven
hours and it's going to be anovernight flight on economy.
And so I'm like, I'm not evensure that we would be able to
sleep.
And I think we arrive inFrankfurt sometime in the
(24:25):
morning and we have this 12 hourlayover.
And so it might be tempting if Iwasn't thinking about the
schedule to be like, Oh, well,let's check out the city.
You know, we've never beenthere.
Let's see what we can do duringthe day and then come back and
get on the flight.
Another overnight flight toAfrica, you know, I think it's
like 10 hours to where we'regoing and as tempting as it was
(24:46):
to do that, I was like, no, no,I am just going to find a hotel
where I can check in for thedaytime.
And that's our hack, basically,since we can't afford business
class flights to Africa for allfive of us.
I'm like, my hack is basicallyjust to, you know spend several
hundred dollars in an airporthotel and we're gonna.
Rest.
I mean, we may not, you know,sleep the whole time, but we're
(25:07):
just gonna take it easy and notworry about it.
Dr. Bhopal (25:10):
No, I fully support that.
I think that's such a good idea.
And I'm remembering back to mydays when I was in med school.
So I went to med school inIreland and I got to travel all
over Europe at that time.
And I mean, when I was, Thatage, like in my 20s I was
sleeping in airports, you know,like, and it was fine.
If I had super early morningflight, we would just go to the
airport and we'd just sleepthere on the floor or on the
(25:32):
bench or whatever.
But there's no way I could dothat.
I would not be able to functiondoing that.
So taking into account your ownneeds, and it's okay if you're
paying for a hotel or, you know,your flight's a little bit more
expensive because it's not thered eye.
Like That's okay.
Like, It really is a form ofself care, right?
Making sure that you're gettinggood quality sleep.
Dr. Weili Gray (25:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's awesome.
And then I, of course don't wantto forget this part that I'm
super excited about, which is,you're an avid traveler, you've
traveled to many different partsof the world.
And I, would love to kind ofhear about what are some of the
highlights from your worldtravels and, you know, what are
some places that you loved orthat you may recommend people go
(26:15):
to?
And I just, you know, I want toget this list.
I'm going to take notes.
Dr. Bhopal (26:19):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's hard toreally narrow it down to five.
I'm sure, sure.
You'll hear that all the timefrom people, but the first one
that came to mind for me wasCambodia and it's the Angkor Wat
archeological or the Angkorarcheological park, which
includes the Angkor Wat temple,but there's actually hundreds of
temples to see in that area.
And it, it is just phenomenal.
(26:42):
It was a special trip because Iwent with my husband and then my
dad and my dad's wife and it wasjust like a really nice family
trip for the four of us.
And it's just unbelievable, likethe size of the park and the
scope and the history that'sthere.
It's just beautiful.
And one of the temples was theone in Tomb Raider with like
(27:02):
the, the roots, you know,growing over it and stuff and
um, all the temples are just sodiverse.
So that's, that's beautiful.
And I highly recommend doing thesunrise tour.
of Angkor Wat.
So you go really early in themorning and then you watch the
sunrise come over the temple andit is just like another world
over there.
So, highly recommend that.
Dr. Weili Gray (27:22):
Yeah, you know, sometimes you visit these sort
of historic places and it's justamazing how, like, how was this
built, right?
I mean, they didn't have thesame kind of tools, like the
excavators and things that we donow, but yet here it is, like
this humongous stretch ofarchaeological wonder.
Dr. Bhopal (27:41):
And I, I think what's amazing about it, and I,
I might get the dates wrong, butyou know, these temples were
built hundreds of years ago andthen they were covered by
jungle.
For a long time, and I thinkthey weren't rediscovered quote
unquote rediscovered until the1940s, I believe, until there
was like an expedition or somearchaeologists were kind of
(28:02):
doing some research, becauseit's very lush jungle over
there, right, so it's Yeah, andso then I think they found this
one temple and then they startedexploring and then they found
out there's like hundreds ofthese temples that had been
covered with foliage for thatlong.
So, again, I might not begetting the details exactly
right, but just, it's anincredible place.
Dr. Weili Gray (28:21):
Awesome.
That's amazing.
Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Bhopal (28:24):
Yeah! So, okay, the next one I have on my list is
Costa Rica, and specifically theArenal Volcano.
area.
This is just one of my favoriteplaces.
Just naturally so beautiful.
My husband had been there beforeand I hadn't been, so he's like,
we have to go there together.
And so we, we went there, westayed in a lovely hotel resort
(28:45):
there.
And what's so amazing about itis that you've got these natural
rock formations with waterthat's heated from the volcano.
So there are these natural hotsprings.
And so we would just go sit andsoak in these mineral waters
that were heated by the volcano.
And it's semi manicured, but youstill feel like you're in the
(29:05):
jungle.
And we're sitting there andthere's lizards, you know,
there's an iguana swimming nextto you, and it's just really a
magical place, and I dream ofthat place.
It was so relaxing.
I actually had blown up a photoof one of the spots that we used
to soak in, and I have thathanging in our bedroom, because
I just like to gaze at it andremember our time there.
Dr. Weili Gray (29:25):
Oh, that's what I call or it's I didn't coin
this term, but memory dividends,right?
Like you, it just the memoriesthat keep paying back from from
your travels.
That's why I love investing, akaspending my money on travel.
Awesome.
Love it.
Love it.
Dr. Bhopal (29:43):
Okay, so next on my list is West Cork, Ireland.
So Ireland is where I went tomedical school.
I went to med school in Cork,Ireland, which is in the
southwest of Ireland.
And I specifically chose WestCork because it is, it's kind of
like what you think of when youthink of Ireland.
Right, like that image of therolling hills and it's very
(30:04):
green and, and lush and thelittle villages and small roads
that are, like, blocked byhordes of sheep and, and things
like this.
So, West Cork is a beautifulplace to do a driving tour, so I
highly recommend doing that justrenting a car and exploring the
countryside.
And there's one specific placethat is very special to visit.
(30:24):
It's the Air India Memorial.
So for people who don't know,there was um, a terrorist attack
with an Air India plane in 1985.
There was a bomb in the planeand it exploded over this area
so it's kind of a morbid thing,but it's a really beautiful
place, like they've created thismemorial garden, and there's a
sundial that was created by alocal sculptor in Cork, and you
(30:47):
can see all the names of, of thevictims and so it's just a nice
place.
place to just pay respect tofor, for the people who were
affected by that tragedy.
And there were a lot ofCanadians on that flight Indo
Canadian, so I'm originally, myfamily's originally from India,
we're Canadian, and so there, Ohis
Dr. Weili Gray (31:02):
that right?
Dr. Bhopal (31:03):
a, Yes, yes, I grew up in Canada on the west coast
of Canada, so it's an importantpart of our history, so when my
mom came to visit me in Irelandwhen I was a med student, we
drove out there and, and visitedthat place, but there's lots of
beautiful places to visit inCork.
Dr. Weili Gray (31:18):
That is so cool.
And I love that you spent four,four years.
Is that how long the medicalschool was for Ireland?
Dr. Bhopal (31:24):
five.
Yeah, it's five over
Dr. Weili Gray (31:25):
you spent Wow you spent five years in Ireland?
Wow.
What are some other ways thatyou would describe sort of the
local culture and just havingbeen immersed in that culture
for that long?
Dr. Bhopal (31:35):
I mean, it's, it's a very proud culture in a way
like, um, I think people arevery proud of their language,
like there is an Irish language.
That's one thing I didn't knowbefore I moved there, so, you
know, when you go there, you'llsee their signs in Irish and in
English.
And so, yeah, it was um, alittle bit of a culture shock,
(31:58):
to be honest, when I first movedthere.
It's different now, but at thattime, there weren't a lot of
people of colour living there.
There was this program that sentstudents from Canada and
Malaysia, some students from theU.
S.
to go study medicine there.
So many of the people of colorwere, like, all med students,
right?
So, so that was a little bitinteresting to navigate, but I
(32:21):
mean, we were welcomed with,with open arms.
Dr. Weili Gray (32:24):
Wow.
That's so cool.
Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Bhopal (32:27):
Yeah.
Okay, next I have on my list theMaldives.
So I went there for myhoneymoon.
And oh my gosh, that was likeultimate relaxation and luxury.
So with the Maldives, you've gotthe main island of Mali and then
you've got all these differentatolls.
So these little islands and eachof those is its own resort.
Dr. Weili Gray (32:47):
My understanding is that I don't know if it's
like a law, but that's like eachatoll just has one resort.
Like you can't have more thanone resort in each atoll.
Dr. Bhopal (32:54):
Yeah.
And they're not that big.
Right.
So like, I don't know if there'seven room for more than one
resort, like they're prettysmall.
But yeah, so we, we went therefor our honeymoon and just even
like flying into it was unreal.
Like you're flying over thisjust expanse of turquoise and
then you've got these littletiny white dots, these little
(33:15):
islands kind of like spacedapart.
So you, you fly into the mainisland and then once you get to
the main island, you take asmall seaplane to your resort so
even just that experience thatwas just so beautiful.
Yeah, and so we got to ourresort, and then you're welcome.
It's like in the movies, when,when you see this like, pier,
and then all the people who workthere in their uniforms, and
(33:37):
they're, like, greeting theguests, and they whisk you off
to your bungalow.
It was just like in the movies,like that.
So that was pure luxury.
That was kind of a once in alifetime for that, you know, we,
we really splurged on that.
And that's where I learned howto scuba dive.
I took scuba divingcertification there, and I'm
terrified of the water, so thatwas like a big Milestone for me.
Dr. Weili Gray (33:59):
Awesome.
That's so awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, if you go to theMaldives, that's such an awesome
place to scuba dive.
I mean, I had a a friend and acolleague who's been a long time
scuba diver mostly, in theCaribbean and then she went on
a, a liveaboard in the Maldivesand she's like, it ruined
Caribbean diving forever.
Dr. Bhopal (34:17):
I can see that.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, it's a greatplace to learn how to scuba dive
because the water is warm.
It's super clear.
There's lots of wildlife to see.
And I had the best instructorbecause like I said, I'm
terrified of open ocean,terrified of deep water.
I actually learned how to swimspecifically for this purpose of
scuba diving in the Maldives.
Dr. Weili Gray (34:37):
This is what I always try to get across to our
listeners because I knew how toswim, but As a 10 year old I
think you know, I got some swimlessons at the YMCA as a 10 year
old and didn't really swimseriously until about a year ago
when I wanted to try scubadiving.
So it's so common, I thinkpeople are just so driven by the
(34:58):
beauty and the like wonder andjust how amazing it is to be
underwater that, even as anadult, you can learn how to swim
and do this.
Dr. Bhopal (35:07):
Exactly.
It's, it's never too late.
It's really never too late.
And You know, and it opens up somany doors.
And like you, I'd like doneswimming and stuff as a kid, but
I never was confident with it.
So I decided to take swimminglessons during my sleep
fellowship because I was gettingmarried.
Like at the end of myfellowship, like the summer
after fellowship, and I wantedto be free, so I contacted the
local pool and they offered oneon one coaching which I know for
(35:31):
me was important because like Ijust wanted that attention.
Like I knew in a group it wouldbe a little bit too overwhelming
for me.
Because I just had a lot ofanxiety about it.
And so I got a one on one coachand I went every Thursday
morning.
And it opened up so many doors.
So yeah, I mean, it just, it, itallows us to do so many things
and it's never too late to learnas adults.
There's so many skills that wecan acquire and there's, there's
(35:52):
all these possibilities.
and even aside from swimmingdoing things like ziplining,
right?
That's why I love travel so muchis that it pushes us beyond our
limits and our comfort zone.
Dr. Weili Gray (36:03):
absolutely.
I Recently, earlier this year,tried paragliding, which is
Insane, but like you I wastraveling and this opportunity
literally popped up in front ofmy face and I'm like, I can try
this now I don't need anappointment.
I don't need lessons.
Yeah, and 15 minutes later,you're up in the air.
I would not have done that ifsomeone asked me a week ago hey,
(36:26):
in one week, do you want to godo this?
Cause I would have been thinkingabout it for the whole week, but
because it was just right infront of you I don't have time
to, to think about why I don'twant to do it.
I only have time to really, youknow, think of how cool it would
be to do it.
And that you're
Dr. Bhopal (36:42):
I think that's the, that's the best.
Dr. Weili Gray (36:45):
I would, and it's funny because since then I
looked up paragliding in Vermontand apparently there are people
who do this here, but I'm like,it's just not as appealing so
close to home.
There's something about being ina new place where you're not
going to go back there in awhile or ever and, and you get
offered this opportunity.
It's much easier to say yes anddo crazy things and overcome our
(37:05):
fears.
Dr. Bhopal (37:07):
I agree.
I agree.
Yeah.
You don't want to give yourselfthe time to back out because I
know I'm like that too.
If there's time to think aboutit, I'd be like, ah, nevermind.
I changed my mind.
So yeah, but just it's theopenness, right?
Just being open to thepossibilities, like you said.
Okay, so the last place that I,that I have for number five is
in the south of India, and thetown is called Coimbatore, and
(37:27):
it's the Isha Yoga Center.
So for anyone who practices yogais interested in yoga or
meditation, or you're justtraveling and you want a really
cool place to visit.
It's an ashram.
You can stay there.
They have programs.
If you want to take a yogaprogram or learn meditation
there, you can do that.
Or you can just visit as atourist.
So my husband and I actually dida spiritual wedding ceremony
(37:50):
there.
We had a destination wedding inMexico.
So we had that with our family.
And then on the way to theMaldives for our honeymoon, we
stopped here in the south ofIndia.
We stopped at this ashram.
And we both practice yoga andmeditation.
And so we had a wedding ceremonyin the Devi temple, which is
kind of like the feminineenergy.
And so we had this really coollike, spiritual ceremony there,
(38:14):
where they, they have you dothese different processes, which
is all about working together.
So you do these different taskswhere you work together and you
support each other, but you'renot entangled with each other.
One person cannot do the processalone like, you have to have
two.
So that's just, it was justreally interesting.
We did that, and it was, Thisreally beautiful experience and
then we flew to the Maldivesfrom there for our honeymoon,
(38:34):
but yeah, I mean, I recommendtraveling there.
And there's another space inthat, on that campus called the
Dhyanalinga temple.
And yeah, again, anyone who'smeditation curious, or even if
you're not, it's this powerfulenergy space and you can go and
you can sit in there and imbibethe space and see what happens.
A lot of people say when they gothere, they experience
(38:56):
meditation for the first time.
You don't have to do anythingand you can experience what it
feels like to be in stillness.
Dr. Weili Gray (39:04):
Wow.
Dr. Bhopal (39:04):
many people share that experience, so highly
recommend.
Dr. Weili Gray (39:07):
Wow.
Awesome.
This is so, so amazing.
Thank you so much for sharingthis top five list.
It's so, inspirational, to hearabout the experiences that you
have and, how different eachplaces and how you enjoy, going
to so many different places inthe world.
Dr. Bhopal (39:26):
well, thanks for giving me the opportunity to
share and to reflect.
I think, yeah, it was helpfuljust to even go through that
exercise of oh yeah, where haveI been?
And what experiences have I had?
And it's fun to kind of lookback.
Dr. Weili Gray (39:38):
Awesome.
Do you have any parting wordsfor, physicians who are
listening who you know, havethis vision that they want to
live a life on their terms.
They want to live their dreams.
They want to maybe practicemedicine in a way that excites
them.
They want to, travel.
They want to see the world.
They want to have the time andthe money to do that.
You know, but maybe right nowthey don't feel like they have
(39:59):
it that they know they want it.
They don't necessarily know howto do it.
What kind of advice do you havefor them?
Dr. Bhopal (40:06):
My advice to physicians would be to not wait.
I think we're so used to puttingour lives on hold.
We're used to having thisthought process of, okay, after
I graduate from med school, thenI'll"X" After I finish
residency, then I will blank,right?
And our lives are happeningright now.
I encourage people to, if youwant to travel, see how you can
(40:29):
make that happen.
If there's a priority that youhave in your life.
You'll find a way to make ithappen.
Maybe you're not flying businessclass to, you know, like the
Maldives, but what experiencescan you make for yourself now?
And even career wise it's okayto pivot and I think, I'm just
speaking from my own experienceit's the pivoting and really
(40:51):
listening to my inner voice,realigning with my values.
that have allowed me to find aniche that I really enjoy.
and like I was saying at thebeginning, I never thought that
was going to be possible.
I never imagined I'd be doingwhat I'm doing now.
I didn't, you know, it justwasn't even a possibility in my
mind.
And so there's this wholeuniverse of possibilities,
available to us that we can'teven imagine, but it's just
(41:13):
about taking that next step.
Dr. Weili Gray (41:16):
Yeah, so powerful.
And your life is such a greatexample of that.
And you're just sharing some ofthe timeline with me, I think
you said in 2019, you were,really a W-2 employee practicing
in a very conventionalpsychiatric practice, where you
didn't really get to use thetools that really excited you to
help patients.
(41:36):
And it was really just what, thepractice wanted you to do.
And just in this such a shortperiod of time, you have you.
Created your dream practice,your your dream life.
And it's, it's just so amazingseeing that that's possible in
such a short time.
Dr. Bhopal (41:51):
Yeah.
And I think for me, it's, what'salso been really helpful is
listening to podcasts that Ifind inspirational, listening to
other doctor stories you know,like your own about traveling,
like that's inspiring seeingwhat other doctors are doing in
the entrepreneurial world.
What other doctors are doing interms of their career and just
getting inspired by that andlearning from them.
(42:11):
You don't have to reinvent thewheel, right?
So for me, it's about, okay, whohas done what I kind of want to
do and what can I learn fromthem?
And how can I apply that in myown life?
There are people who have doneit before us, right?
And so we don't have to figureit out.
On our own, there's so muchsupport available.
So I encourage people toleverage that.
Dr. Weili Gray (42:30):
That's awesome.
That's a great segue to, how dopeople find you and, if they
want to learn more about sleepmedicine or maybe be, be a
patient in your practice inCalifornia, share with us, all,
all the ways.
Dr. Bhopal (42:45):
So I have a practice.
It's called Pacific IntegrativePsychiatry.
You can find it atpacificintegrativepsych.
com.
And we see patients bytelemedicine all across
California.
We offer a whole body approachto mental health.
So we do psychiatry, nutrition,and therapy.
And then I have my onlinebusiness teaching physicians
about integrative sleepmedicine.
So you can find me on YouTube atIntraBalance.
(43:05):
It's I N T R A balance.
And then on YouTube, you canfind out more about my online
course for physicians.
I've got a free course.
You can go to intrabalance.
com forward slash doctors to getmy free sleep medicine course,
and then I'll be opening updoors to the clinical sleep kit
membership, which is my onlineprogram for physicians to learn
about integrated sleep medicine.
Those doors will open inFebruary of 2024.
Dr. Weili Gray (43:27):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
I so appreciate everything youshared.
You sure you dropped so manygems.
Gave us these cool ideas to gotravel and really just serve as
an inspiration for us to pursueour dreams now rather than 20
years from now.
Dr. Bhopal (43:44):
Oh, well, thank you so much for having me.
This is a lot of fun..
Welcome back to another episode of the Dare to
Dream Physician travel podcast.
I am so excited for this week'sepisode.
I am going to feature thisreally cool doctor.
She has a really cool job thatshe created for herself and an
amazing lifestyle.
(00:20):
And not only that, she is also aworld traveler and has gone to
really amazing places that she'sgoing to share with us on the
podcast.
So I'm super excited to inviteher to the podcast.
Her name is Dr.
Nishi Bhopal and I'm going tohave her introduce herself.
But, you know, in the short timeof just interacting with her, I
(00:40):
love her energy.
I love her vision and I lovethat she's really, you know,
just living her dream life.
And I can't wait to hear allabout it.
Welcome.
Welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Bhopal (00:51):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
It's been super fun just kind ofchatting before, and yeah, I'm
excited to get into the episodetoday.
Dr. Weili Gray (00:59):
Yeah.
So tell our listeners a littlebit about yourself, you know,
what you practice, where youlive, you know, what, what
you're currently doing to helppatients and physicians.
Dr. Bhopal (01:09):
Sure.
So I'm a psychiatrist and sleepmedicine physician, and I also
practice through an integrativeholistic lens, and I'm based in
the San Francisco Bay Area.
So I help patients in a coupleof ways.
I've got a private practice.
It's called Pacific IntegrativePsychiatry, and we're an online
telehealth practice inCalifornia.
So we see patients all acrossthe state, and we help them with
(01:30):
anxiety, depression, and sleepissues using an integrative
approach.
So what that means is we useconventional psychiatry, some
medication, psychotherapy, butwe also blend that with
nutrition and gut health andsleep optimization and
supplements when appropriate andthings like this.
And then the other thing I haveis an online platform where I
teach clinicians, so I teachphysicians and therapists about
(01:52):
integrative sleep medicinebecause most doctors only get
about two hours of sleepmedicine education during
medical school, but all of ourpatients have to sleep, right,
so it's important that allclinicians have this basic
knowledge in sleep medicine thatwe're just not exposed to unless
you do a sleep fellowship.
So I do that through YouTube andonline courses.
Dr. Weili Gray (02:12):
That's so awesome.
And as the listeners probablyknow by now, I'm also a sleep
physician and I actually do Ipractice in a real critical
asbestos hospital, but I doincorporate a lot of the
integrative and holisticmedicine as well.
And when you say that mostphysicians, you know, don't
really have much sleep trainingin their curriculum.
(02:32):
It's so true.
And think about the culture ofmedicine.
Like we're, we're really antisleep, right?
I mean, that's like how you getthrough medical school and
residency.
And I remember I was ananesthesia resident.
That's my primary specialty andit was very unusual at the time.
And I'm sure even now, you know,to go into sleep medicine from
that specialty.
And I, I remember my attendings.
(02:54):
When they heard that I was doingthis, some of them were like,
wow, interesting.
And then of course they wouldshare about like their own sleep
problems.
Because anesthesia, there's alot of shift work and, and just
kind of this, you know,stressful, stressful work.
And so a lot of them haveinsomnia.
So, you know, I'm hearing allthese problems about their
sleep.
I'm like, wow.
And they don't know how to fixit.
(03:15):
They're just like, well, I takean Ambien and I go in my
basement and just tell everyoneto be quiet.
And so I think it is great thatyou sort of found this gap in
physicians and I guesstherapists too.
I mean, that's true because evenfinding there's such a big
behavioral component in sleepand as a sleep doctor, I am
(03:35):
having to fill in those gapsbecause I can't find a therapist
or a psychologist who can helpmy patients in that way.
Dr. Bhopal (03:42):
It's so true, and one of the reasons I got
interested in sleep was kind offor very selfish reasons, right?
Like, Just to help myself,because I remember being so
exhausted during residency.
There was one morning where Iwas just so burned out.
I was so sleep deprived that Ijust burst into tears before I
even went to my shift, right?
(04:03):
Cause I'm like, Oh my God, I'vegot this like 30 hour shift
ahead of me and I'm so tired.
Like, how am I going to getthrough this?
And that feeling was justhorrible.
And then I found out from one ofmy senior residents that she was
going into a sleep fellowship.
And at that time, this was likemore than 10 years ago now, at
that time, I was like, that's athing.
I didn't know you could study atsleep.
I never even really thoughtabout that.
(04:23):
And so that kind of sparked myinterest in sleep and learning
more about what that was,because as you were saying, like
even us as physicians, we don'tget much training in it.
And then we don't know how todeal with it on our own.
And then I was doing my psychresidency and there's such a bi
directional relationship betweenmental health and sleep.
Right?
And so, like, I'm seeing thesepatients with anxiety and
(04:44):
depression and they're havingtrouble sleeping and I wasn't
really learning about how tohelp them with that aspect.
So that kind of sparked myinterest in learning more.
I mean, you did a sleepfellowship too, and so you know
that in sleep fellowship wemostly learn about sleep
disordered breathing.
Right?
We learn how to treat sleepapnea.
Maybe we learn a little bitabout CBT I.
And that's about it.
(05:04):
So even as sleep physicians, Ifeel like our education is
really limited.
So even after my fellowship,that's where I really felt like
I got into the meat ofintegrative sleep, holistic
medicine, and all of these otherthings that we're not exposed to
that are actually going to helpour patients move the needle
when it comes to their sleepquality.
Dr. Weili Gray (05:24):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I agree so much.
I, I, I think now this is myninth year as a sleep physician
attending and I just I feel feellike I'm learning new things and
learning new ways to help mypatients, learning things just
by listening to my patients, youknow, cause I learned about what
sort of sleep problems are outthere and how things are
related.
(05:44):
And then when I don't knowexactly how to help them, I sort
of try to brainstorm from thetools that I have, but then I'm
finding new ways of applyingeven things that I know.
And it's, it's really exciting.
And of course, As a field, it'sa very young field and it's so
funny because the patients werelike, well, my grandfather, he
probably had sleep apnea becauseI heard him stop breathing.
(06:04):
And I'm like, yeah, they didn'teven know what sleep apnea was,
right?
When your grandfather was havingsleep apnea.
So, and, and now we're, we'rereally kind of looking at the
physiology of the brain and,and, you know, the functions in
sleep.
And I think, to me, it's, it'sreally hard to practice sleep
medicine in a way that bestserves patients without looking
(06:25):
at things holistically.
Cause like you're, you're right.
I mean, even things, somethingas simple as gut health can have
a big effect on someone's sleepquality, and of course, you
know, not to mention justoverall, you know, the
relationship between obesityand, and sleep disorder
breathing.
So yeah, that's so cool.
I, I love seeing that you are,you know, having so much fun
doing something that you love.
(06:46):
That's like a, basically, anexample that, that we need more
of in, in the field of medicine.
Dr. Bhopal (06:54):
Thanks so much.
I mean, it is a lot of fun, and,and you know, it's, it's not
something that I ever thought Iwould be doing.
I never thought I would be onYouTube.
We live in this, age, we live inthis time where these things are
available to us.
Like when I was a student, itwasn't really a concept for me
anyways.
And I think as physicians, likewe have all these opportunities
to explore and they're notnecessarily things that we are
(07:17):
taught about or that we wereexposed to during our training.
So I think we're, we're trainedin a very linear way, right?
There's a linear path.
You go to med school, you doyour residency, you do your
fellowship, and then you get ajob or maybe Get going to
academia or you go into privatepractice and that's about it.
Yet there's this whole worldavailable to us.
And I think for sleep, it'sreally exciting because Again 10
(07:40):
years ago, when I was going tosleep fellowship, I remember one
of my psych attendings saying tome, Why would you go into sleep?
We want our patients to wake up.
We don't want to put them tosleep, as psychologists.
I was like, okay, well, youknow, maybe they need to sleep
well, so they can be fully awakeduring the day, right?
And so it's the idea of doingsleep medicine was just not a
(08:02):
thing, but now there's so muchinterest in it.
People are interested in likeMatthew Walker's book, Why We
Sleep.
Andrew Huberman has his podcast.
It's super popular.
He talks a lot about sleep.
There's all these sleep coachesthese days so patients are more
aware of it.
So that's even, you know anotherreason why I think as
clinicians, we need to be up todate with this stuff, because
our patients are looking forhelp with this stuff.
(08:24):
As physicians, we also need totake care of our own sleep, and
we can talk about that.
But there's a lot ofmisinformation as well out
there.
So I do feel that as physicians,we have a responsibility to
share the knowledge that wehave.
Dr. Weili Gray (08:37):
Absolutely.
That's lovely.
And I love to tie in sleep tothe theme of this podcast which
is travel.
And I've personally done a lotof long distance travel with my
kids in the last 12 months.
And as a result have sufferedmany different aspects of sleep
probably sleep deprivation beingthe biggest one.
(09:00):
And so there's so many topicsthat kind of revolve around
sleep and travel jet lagprobably being the most.
Most a big one out of that, butI, I love for you to, you know,
share and, and we can sort of goback and forth and, and, you
know, you share something and Iknow I'm going to be learning
from you, but just kind of, kindof learning from each other
what, you know what hacks we mayhave to help with our sleep as
(09:22):
we travel.
Dr. Bhopal (09:24):
Definitely, definitely.
So when, we were kind ofplanning this episode and we
decided we'll talk about jetlag, I was like, oh my gosh, I
better read up on this becauseit is a confusing topic, right?
You're traveling across timezones and we have this whole
circadian rhythm and our bodyclock follows a natural rhythm
and our melatonin secreted at acertain time, our body
temperature changes according tothe, you know, circadian rhythm.
(09:46):
And then when we throw ourselvesinto a new time zone, all of
that goes out of whack and thereare so many little subtle
aspects to it, depending on likeyour individual chronotype, so
that's like your natural rhythm,how many time zones you're
crossing the direction thatyou're traveling.
So are you going east or west?
How long your trip is?
So is it like just a couple daysor are you traveling for a
(10:08):
month?
And then what are your goals forthe trip?
So there's all these differentfactors.
So like the short answer isthere's no one size fits all
approach to jet lag.
But we can talk about some ofthese nuances and how to kind of
generally handle these things.
But I also like to just take astep back and think about two
things.
So when we're traveling, we'redealing with jet lag and we're
(10:29):
also dealing with travelfatigue.
We want to be able to separatethose two things, right?
So jet lag is when your bodyclock is misaligned with the
local time that you're travelingto.
And then travel fatigue is thefatigue that you get when you're
traveling, like when you're on along flight, and you're sitting
in a cramped seat, and you'redehydrated, and you can't sleep
on the plane, and maybe you'resleep deprived because you've
(10:52):
been frantically packing for thelast two nights, so there's that
aspect of it as well.
And so they're kind of twodistinct things that I like to
think about.
Dr. Weili Gray (11:01):
Yeah, that's such a good point to tease out.
And when I was referring to thesleep deprivation, I think in
some ways, I tried to use thatas a hack, so let's say, you
know, back in August, you know,I flew from San Francisco to
Sydney and I purposefully lookedfor a flight where I didn't have
to sleep on the flight.
So it took a little bit of work,but I found like one airline
(11:24):
that was basically, you know, Ithink I got on the flight kind
of early in the morning in SanFrancisco and then it arrived It
was like I think 8 p.
m so it was perfect like then Icould get a hotel and sleep So
that like I didn't have to betired Because I didn't really
need to sleep on the flight andthat actually worked out really
well but compared to anothertrip, when I went from Boston to
(11:46):
Incheon near Seoul in Korea.
I was so sleep deprived becauseI was trying to pack and trying
to fit in my clinics and, answerall my patient messages and get
some sleep studies done beforegoing to Asia where I was really
not planning to log into mycomputer at all.
And I'm pretty sure I sleptmaybe like two hours the night
before it.
(12:06):
I was a solo parent with my kidson that flight.
And I just fell asleep.
I was like, I don't have anytrouble falling asleep.
So it kind of worked outbecause.
I think for that flight theflight was kind of designed to
get you more adjusted to thedestination time.
And there were times whenthey're like, Yep, now it's time
to sleep.
If I had not been tired, I wouldhave been like, Oh, no, I'm not
(12:27):
ready to sleep.
I'll, you know, read a book ordo something.
But I was so sleep deprived thatI was actually able to follow
what the sort of the transitionto the destination.
Dr. Bhopal (12:38):
Yeah, that's such a great point to think about.
Okay, so, what time are yougoing to be landing at your
destination?
So, when I went to Singapore theflight arrived in the morning at
I think it was like 8 or 9 a.
m.
Singapore time.
And so, like, I wanted to makesure that I was rested.
I didn't want to be so tiredthat I couldn't enjoy the day or
(12:59):
at least stay awake for thatday.
So I did try to make sure that Igot good sleep leading up to
that flight.
And then as you said, on theflight they do kind of regulate
the light exposure and thetiming of meals according to the
local time.
So, I like to take an eye maskwith me.
So that I can like block out thelight.
And then like have a comfyblanket and like be really
(13:20):
comfortable on the flightHonestly, I have a really hard
time sleeping on the plane.
It just it's just souncomfortable.
I like to lie flat and you justcan't do that unless you're you
know flying business class orsomething but yeah, we're not
there yet, right?
So Like i'm still sitting ineconomy And so it's just not
that comfortable.
So like yeah, so planning aheadSo the other aspect of it, too,
is how long are you going to bethere.
(13:42):
Let's say it's a work trip, andyou're going from you know,
California to New York orsomething like that, and you're
just there a couple of days youwant to make sure you're well
rested because you're not goingto have a lot of time to adjust,
whereas, probably, if you'regoing to Asia, like, when I went
to Singapore, it was a threeweek trip around Asia, right?
So you can get away with alittle bit of sleep deprivation
maybe at the beginning and thenhave time to adjust.
(14:04):
So that's an important factor toconsider.
But I can get into like, Eastversus West, what happens to
your circadian rhythm.
Put very simply.
Okay, so when you're travelingWest, so let's say you're going
from New York.
to California, what happens toyour body clock is you become
like an older adult.
So think about that.
So think that you're, you'reaging in the sense that when
(14:27):
you're an older adults tend tofall asleep earlier in the
evening and they tend to wake upearlier, right?
So what you want to do is wewant to delay our body clock.
So when you land from, let's sayyou're going from New York to
San Francisco, when you land inSan Francisco, you're now like,
you have the sleep pattern of an80 year old person.
You're going to be sleepy at 8p.
(14:47):
m., it's going to be hard foryou to stay awake, and then
you're going to wake up at 4 a.
m., and you're going to have ahard time going back to sleep.
So what we want to do is we wantto delay the body clock.
And usually going from east towest is a little bit easier than
the other way around, becauseit's easier to lengthen your day
than it is to shorten your day.
(15:09):
So when you're traveling west,you're actually wanting to
lengthen your day a little bit.
So you're going to try to pushyour, your circadian rhythm a
little bit later.
How you deal with thispractically is, let's say you
wake up at 4 a.
m.
in San Francisco.
You want to be as immobile andhorizontal as possible at 4 a.
m.
until your desired wake time.
(15:31):
Let's say maybe that's, youknow, 6 or 7 a.
m.
So you want to minimize yourlight exposure.
In the morning, you want to keepit dark, dim, stay flat, that's
going to train your brain toknow that it's still kind of
like you're in your sleep zoneuntil your desired wake time of
six or seven or whatever thatmay be.
And then on the other side, youwant to get bright light.
(15:53):
In the late afternoon and earlyevening, and that's going to
push your bedtime a little bitlater.
So, your body clock is going totell you like, when it's 8pm in
San Francisco, it's 11pm in NewYork, so you're going to start
to get really sleepy.
So getting bright light in theevening is going to push that
back a little bit.
And then the other way around,let's say you're going from San
Francisco to New York, so nowyou're going east.
(16:15):
So now, you're the teenagerwho's staying up late, and then
you can't get up in the morning.
So staying up too late, and thenyour, your body clock is now
delayed.
So we're gonna do the opposite.
Where you wanna get brightlight.
in the morning, and then youwant to get dim light or avoid
bright light in the eveningbecause you want to pull your
sleep earlier.
You want to wake up earlier andgo to sleep earlier.
(16:36):
When traveling east, melatoninis a little bit more helpful.
to pull that body clock earlier.
When traveling west, melatoninis a little bit more tricky.
Dr. Weili Gray (16:46):
Right, you've already been tired.
Dr. Bhopal (16:48):
Exactly, exactly.
And so like technically theguidelines say to take a little
bit of melatonin in the morningwhen you're traveling west, so
New York to California, butthat's really tricky because it
can make you sleepy.
You have to be really careful.
And so I don't recommend that.
But if you're traveling east,you can take a little bit of
melatonin to help you adjust.
And actually the AASM, so theAmerican Academy of Sleep
(17:09):
Medicine.
They recommend using melatoninif you're traveling east five or
more time zones.
Dr. Weili Gray (17:16):
That's like Hawaii, you know, like East
Coast Hawaii.
Dr. Bhopal (17:19):
Exactly.
And they say if you're travelingfor less than four time zones,
you might not need melatonin.
So, I think it's up to theindividual, but hopefully that
was helpful like, just a littlebit of a,
Dr. Weili Gray (17:29):
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, at the beginningof the show, you said, You also
have to take into account theindividual chronotype and so,
you know, are you naturally anight owl?
Are you naturally you know amorning lark and or early
morning person?
So like for example, I amnaturally a night owl and I love
it when I go to Californiabecause I'm like I'm finally
(17:50):
normal
Dr. Bhopal (17:50):
Yes.
Dr. Weili Gray (17:51):
I'm sleepy at 9pm instead of midnight, and
this is great I'm enjoying this.
So I don't have to do anythingdifferent.
finally, I have a sociallyacceptable chronotype but yeah,
we, we talked about this, and Idon't think we've used it
personally yet, but we've heardreally great things about this
app called Time Shifter and it'san app for jet lag, and so you
sort of put put in the app,like, where you're going, and
(18:14):
then it gives you advice on evenhow to start adjusting to that
trip.
So I think that that's probably,you know, sort of understanding
the concepts, but then if you'relike, when do I even start
trying to get, you know,adjusted there's an app for
that.
That may be something toexperiment with.
if you are going on a shorttrip, I mean, it's one thing if
you're going on a business tripor a conference and you can't,
(18:35):
you know, you're not determiningthe location of where you're
going, but let's say if you'relike, you know, I have this long
weekend and I just want to takea trip.
Personally, when I do that, Itry not to travel, you know
across too many time zones.
I live on the east coast, so Imight, you know, look at the
Caribbean or, you know,somewhere in South America.
But I try not to like go toEurope, for example, because
(18:56):
it's if I only have five dayslike that many time zones is
just gonna really get in the wayof you enjoying your trip while
you're there.
And then when you come back,you're trying to adjust as well.
So yeah, that's, you know,something else to keep in mind.
Dr. Bhopal (19:09):
That's such a great point, and I think, again it
comes back to your chronotypeand also like, just how easily
you shift.
to new time zones.
Like me personally, I do notshift well.
And so I agree with you.
So I'm on the West coast.
So, if we're going on a shortlittle trip, we might go
somewhere on the West coast ofMexico or maybe, you know,
somewhere else in California oron the, in the Pacific Northwest
(19:31):
or maybe Arizona, but we're notgoing to be going.
You know, all the way to Hawaiijust for like, a few days or,
like, all the way to the EastCoast, because it's the same
thing and it throws me off.
So it also reminds me of socialjet lag, which is jet lag that
you get when your socialschedule changes on weekdays and
weekends.
So you don't even have to betraveling across time zones.
So this past weekend, a friendof ours was visiting and he was
(19:53):
staying with us and like,Normally, I'm pretty regimented
about my sleep time and my waketime, but, you know we had this
friend visiting us and so we'rehanging out and talking and I
was going to bed a little laterthan I normally would and I feel
jet lagged.
Even though I didn't travelanywhere.
So that's also something to takeinto account is that you can
(20:14):
still have these jet lag sitdowns, even without traveling.
Dr. Weili Gray (20:19):
Absolutely.
And it's also, you know, whereyou're going.
I mean, for example, I live inVermont.
This time of the year, it getsdark around 4 30 and it doesn't
get light until like 7 ish inthe morning.
So there's a lot of darkness.
And of course, if you go furthernorth, you know, it's less and
less light.
And so I remember the other wayaround in the summer, like I was
in Norway and the kind of thenorthern part of Norway.
(20:40):
And, some of the spots the sunnever set, right?
Or you see a set for 30 minutesand then it rises again.
And so just taking that intoaccount when you travel If you
have a tendency to want to fitin too much, just realize that
if you're spending a whole weekin an area that is never going
to get dark and you're trying toget everything in while it's
daylight, you're probably goingto get pretty tired.
(21:02):
So there are just parts of theworld where it's not really that
helpful for sleep if you're justfollowing the patterns of the
sun.
Dr. Bhopal (21:10):
Such a great point.
And so that's where you know,making sure you take whatever
items you need to sleep wellwith you.
So whether that's an eye mask orI know like I have this like
bright light visor thing.
So if you're going somewherewhere it's really dark, that's
portable.
You could take something likethat with you so that you just
make it easier for yourselfbecause you want to be fully
(21:31):
awake and alert and enjoy yourtravels.
Dr. Weili Gray (21:34):
Crazily enough, that's a fairly new discovery
for me.
We were traveling to, to Europeand we flew in points on our
first business flight and it waslay flat seats and it was like
an amazing, such a coolexperience.
But we got on the plane at, Ithink, like 6 p.
m., we arrive in Europe, like 6a.
m.
or something, in Europe time,but literally, it's 12 o'clock
(21:56):
in East Coast time, so you know,we get on the flight, and since
it's business class, they'relike, Oh, we have this menu, you
know, you can eat this.
And I'm like, I just, when can Ilay the seat flat and put on the
eye mask that they gave us?
And I just want to sleep becausewhen I get there, it's like the,
you know, early in the morningand I'm not going to feel very
good if I can't sleep.
(22:17):
And the rest of my family didn'tquite buy into that.
So they, they really didn'tsleep on this flight that they
lay flat, but they didn't takeadvantage of it to sleep.
So when I got to thedestination, I was the only
person who could drive.
My husband was not in any shapeor form to drive.
So yeah, for sure the eye mask,and since then I've sort of used
it to hack if I'm really tiredfrom traveling, like you said,
(22:39):
and it made sense for me tosleep on the flight to adjust, I
just put on the eye mask, Iusually can't Sleep, you know,
even an hour on the flight onceI put on the I mass.
Something about that just helpedme sleep.
And the, the U-shaped pillow,like that one that's inflatable.
I think it was like 10 bucks.
I don't remember where I got it,but it was, it's been priceless
(23:00):
because it folds really wellinto my backpack or, you know,
like a small purse and, youknow, with that and the eye
mask, I'm good to go and alittle bit, you know, in my ear,
earphones.
Dr. Bhopal (23:10):
Yeah, so, so important and for me I would add
to that like a shawl, like Ihave a shawl that I always
travel with and that's myblanket.
So wherever I am, if I'm on theplane or if I'm on a train or a
bus or like some kind oftransportation I do tend to get
cold, so I always carry thatwith me and it can like kind of
roll up or, you know, fold upand I can stick it in my travel
bag.
But yeah, I think the key islike really planning ahead and
(23:33):
giving yourself that time torest.
Because again, you don't want toget there and be like, so
shattered that you can't enjoyyour vacation or your trip.
Dr. Weili Gray (23:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
And then I also have learned tojust be like really honest with
myself like, of course when yougo to a new part of the world
that you've never been to,you're like, wow, I really want
to go check everything out.
But I am also looking at theflight schedule and you know,
where we're at.
So for example, like next June,we're going to Africa and we
(24:03):
didn't have enough points to do,to do the business class this
time.
So we are flying economy andwe're flying like through Europe
and then, you know, a layover inFrankfurt and then to our final
destination in Africa, and Ithink it's about six or seven
hours and it's going to be anovernight flight on economy.
And so I'm like, I'm not evensure that we would be able to
sleep.
And I think we arrive inFrankfurt sometime in the
(24:25):
morning and we have this 12 hourlayover.
And so it might be tempting if Iwasn't thinking about the
schedule to be like, Oh, well,let's check out the city.
You know, we've never beenthere.
Let's see what we can do duringthe day and then come back and
get on the flight.
Another overnight flight toAfrica, you know, I think it's
like 10 hours to where we'regoing and as tempting as it was
(24:46):
to do that, I was like, no, no,I am just going to find a hotel
where I can check in for thedaytime.
And that's our hack, basically,since we can't afford business
class flights to Africa for allfive of us.
I'm like, my hack is basicallyjust to, you know spend several
hundred dollars in an airporthotel and we're gonna.
Rest.
I mean, we may not, you know,sleep the whole time, but we're
(25:07):
just gonna take it easy and notworry about it.
Dr. Bhopal (25:10):
No, I fully support that.
I think that's such a good idea.
And I'm remembering back to mydays when I was in med school.
So I went to med school inIreland and I got to travel all
over Europe at that time.
And I mean, when I was, Thatage, like in my 20s I was
sleeping in airports, you know,like, and it was fine.
If I had super early morningflight, we would just go to the
airport and we'd just sleepthere on the floor or on the
(25:32):
bench or whatever.
But there's no way I could dothat.
I would not be able to functiondoing that.
So taking into account your ownneeds, and it's okay if you're
paying for a hotel or, you know,your flight's a little bit more
expensive because it's not thered eye.
Like That's okay.
Like, It really is a form ofself care, right?
Making sure that you're gettinggood quality sleep.
Dr. Weili Gray (25:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's awesome.
And then I, of course don't wantto forget this part that I'm
super excited about, which is,you're an avid traveler, you've
traveled to many different partsof the world.
And I, would love to kind ofhear about what are some of the
highlights from your worldtravels and, you know, what are
some places that you loved orthat you may recommend people go
(26:15):
to?
And I just, you know, I want toget this list.
I'm going to take notes.
Dr. Bhopal (26:19):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's hard toreally narrow it down to five.
I'm sure, sure.
You'll hear that all the timefrom people, but the first one
that came to mind for me wasCambodia and it's the Angkor Wat
archeological or the Angkorarcheological park, which
includes the Angkor Wat temple,but there's actually hundreds of
temples to see in that area.
And it, it is just phenomenal.
(26:42):
It was a special trip because Iwent with my husband and then my
dad and my dad's wife and it wasjust like a really nice family
trip for the four of us.
And it's just unbelievable, likethe size of the park and the
scope and the history that'sthere.
It's just beautiful.
And one of the temples was theone in Tomb Raider with like
(27:02):
the, the roots, you know,growing over it and stuff and
um, all the temples are just sodiverse.
So that's, that's beautiful.
And I highly recommend doing thesunrise tour.
of Angkor Wat.
So you go really early in themorning and then you watch the
sunrise come over the temple andit is just like another world
over there.
So, highly recommend that.
Dr. Weili Gray (27:22):
Yeah, you know, sometimes you visit these sort
of historic places and it's justamazing how, like, how was this
built, right?
I mean, they didn't have thesame kind of tools, like the
excavators and things that we donow, but yet here it is, like
this humongous stretch ofarchaeological wonder.
Dr. Bhopal (27:41):
And I, I think what's amazing about it, and I,
I might get the dates wrong, butyou know, these temples were
built hundreds of years ago andthen they were covered by
jungle.
For a long time, and I thinkthey weren't rediscovered quote
unquote rediscovered until the1940s, I believe, until there
was like an expedition or somearchaeologists were kind of
(28:02):
doing some research, becauseit's very lush jungle over
there, right, so it's Yeah, andso then I think they found this
one temple and then they startedexploring and then they found
out there's like hundreds ofthese temples that had been
covered with foliage for thatlong.
So, again, I might not begetting the details exactly
right, but just, it's anincredible place.
Dr. Weili Gray (28:21):
Awesome.
That's amazing.
Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Bhopal (28:24):
Yeah! So, okay, the next one I have on my list is
Costa Rica, and specifically theArenal Volcano.
area.
This is just one of my favoriteplaces.
Just naturally so beautiful.
My husband had been there beforeand I hadn't been, so he's like,
we have to go there together.
And so we, we went there, westayed in a lovely hotel resort
(28:45):
there.
And what's so amazing about itis that you've got these natural
rock formations with waterthat's heated from the volcano.
So there are these natural hotsprings.
And so we would just go sit andsoak in these mineral waters
that were heated by the volcano.
And it's semi manicured, but youstill feel like you're in the
(29:05):
jungle.
And we're sitting there andthere's lizards, you know,
there's an iguana swimming nextto you, and it's just really a
magical place, and I dream ofthat place.
It was so relaxing.
I actually had blown up a photoof one of the spots that we used
to soak in, and I have thathanging in our bedroom, because
I just like to gaze at it andremember our time there.
Dr. Weili Gray (29:25):
Oh, that's what I call or it's I didn't coin
this term, but memory dividends,right?
Like you, it just the memoriesthat keep paying back from from
your travels.
That's why I love investing, akaspending my money on travel.
Awesome.
Love it.
Love it.
Dr. Bhopal (29:43):
Okay, so next on my list is West Cork, Ireland.
So Ireland is where I went tomedical school.
I went to med school in Cork,Ireland, which is in the
southwest of Ireland.
And I specifically chose WestCork because it is, it's kind of
like what you think of when youthink of Ireland.
Right, like that image of therolling hills and it's very
(30:04):
green and, and lush and thelittle villages and small roads
that are, like, blocked byhordes of sheep and, and things
like this.
So, West Cork is a beautifulplace to do a driving tour, so I
highly recommend doing that justrenting a car and exploring the
countryside.
And there's one specific placethat is very special to visit.
(30:24):
It's the Air India Memorial.
So for people who don't know,there was um, a terrorist attack
with an Air India plane in 1985.
There was a bomb in the planeand it exploded over this area
so it's kind of a morbid thing,but it's a really beautiful
place, like they've created thismemorial garden, and there's a
sundial that was created by alocal sculptor in Cork, and you
(30:47):
can see all the names of, of thevictims and so it's just a nice
place.
place to just pay respect tofor, for the people who were
affected by that tragedy.
And there were a lot ofCanadians on that flight Indo
Canadian, so I'm originally, myfamily's originally from India,
we're Canadian, and so there, Ohis
Dr. Weili Gray (31:02):
that right?
Dr. Bhopal (31:03):
a, Yes, yes, I grew up in Canada on the west coast
of Canada, so it's an importantpart of our history, so when my
mom came to visit me in Irelandwhen I was a med student, we
drove out there and, and visitedthat place, but there's lots of
beautiful places to visit inCork.
Dr. Weili Gray (31:18):
That is so cool.
And I love that you spent four,four years.
Is that how long the medicalschool was for Ireland?
Dr. Bhopal (31:24):
five.
Yeah, it's five over
Dr. Weili Gray (31:25):
you spent Wow you spent five years in Ireland?
Wow.
What are some other ways thatyou would describe sort of the
local culture and just havingbeen immersed in that culture
for that long?
Dr. Bhopal (31:35):
I mean, it's, it's a very proud culture in a way
like, um, I think people arevery proud of their language,
like there is an Irish language.
That's one thing I didn't knowbefore I moved there, so, you
know, when you go there, you'llsee their signs in Irish and in
English.
And so, yeah, it was um, alittle bit of a culture shock,
(31:58):
to be honest, when I first movedthere.
It's different now, but at thattime, there weren't a lot of
people of colour living there.
There was this program that sentstudents from Canada and
Malaysia, some students from theU.
S.
to go study medicine there.
So many of the people of colorwere, like, all med students,
right?
So, so that was a little bitinteresting to navigate, but I
(32:21):
mean, we were welcomed with,with open arms.
Dr. Weili Gray (32:24):
Wow.
That's so cool.
Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Bhopal (32:27):
Yeah.
Okay, next I have on my list theMaldives.
So I went there for myhoneymoon.
And oh my gosh, that was likeultimate relaxation and luxury.
So with the Maldives, you've gotthe main island of Mali and then
you've got all these differentatolls.
So these little islands and eachof those is its own resort.
Dr. Weili Gray (32:47):
My understanding is that I don't know if it's
like a law, but that's like eachatoll just has one resort.
Like you can't have more thanone resort in each atoll.
Dr. Bhopal (32:54):
Yeah.
And they're not that big.
Right.
So like, I don't know if there'seven room for more than one
resort, like they're prettysmall.
But yeah, so we, we went therefor our honeymoon and just even
like flying into it was unreal.
Like you're flying over thisjust expanse of turquoise and
then you've got these littletiny white dots, these little
(33:15):
islands kind of like spacedapart.
So you, you fly into the mainisland and then once you get to
the main island, you take asmall seaplane to your resort so
even just that experience thatwas just so beautiful.
Yeah, and so we got to ourresort, and then you're welcome.
It's like in the movies, when,when you see this like, pier,
and then all the people who workthere in their uniforms, and
(33:37):
they're, like, greeting theguests, and they whisk you off
to your bungalow.
It was just like in the movies,like that.
So that was pure luxury.
That was kind of a once in alifetime for that, you know, we,
we really splurged on that.
And that's where I learned howto scuba dive.
I took scuba divingcertification there, and I'm
terrified of the water, so thatwas like a big Milestone for me.
Dr. Weili Gray (33:59):
Awesome.
That's so awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, if you go to theMaldives, that's such an awesome
place to scuba dive.
I mean, I had a a friend and acolleague who's been a long time
scuba diver mostly, in theCaribbean and then she went on
a, a liveaboard in the Maldivesand she's like, it ruined
Caribbean diving forever.
Dr. Bhopal (34:17):
I can see that.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, it's a greatplace to learn how to scuba dive
because the water is warm.
It's super clear.
There's lots of wildlife to see.
And I had the best instructorbecause like I said, I'm
terrified of open ocean,terrified of deep water.
I actually learned how to swimspecifically for this purpose of
scuba diving in the Maldives.
Dr. Weili Gray (34:37):
This is what I always try to get across to our
listeners because I knew how toswim, but As a 10 year old I
think you know, I got some swimlessons at the YMCA as a 10 year
old and didn't really swimseriously until about a year ago
when I wanted to try scubadiving.
So it's so common, I thinkpeople are just so driven by the
(34:58):
beauty and the like wonder andjust how amazing it is to be
underwater that, even as anadult, you can learn how to swim
and do this.
Dr. Bhopal (35:07):
Exactly.
It's, it's never too late.
It's really never too late.
And You know, and it opens up somany doors.
And like you, I'd like doneswimming and stuff as a kid, but
I never was confident with it.
So I decided to take swimminglessons during my sleep
fellowship because I was gettingmarried.
Like at the end of myfellowship, like the summer
after fellowship, and I wantedto be free, so I contacted the
local pool and they offered oneon one coaching which I know for
(35:31):
me was important because like Ijust wanted that attention.
Like I knew in a group it wouldbe a little bit too overwhelming
for me.
Because I just had a lot ofanxiety about it.
And so I got a one on one coachand I went every Thursday
morning.
And it opened up so many doors.
So yeah, I mean, it just, it, itallows us to do so many things
and it's never too late to learnas adults.
There's so many skills that wecan acquire and there's, there's
(35:52):
all these possibilities.
and even aside from swimmingdoing things like ziplining,
right?
That's why I love travel so muchis that it pushes us beyond our
limits and our comfort zone.
Dr. Weili Gray (36:03):
absolutely.
I Recently, earlier this year,tried paragliding, which is
Insane, but like you I wastraveling and this opportunity
literally popped up in front ofmy face and I'm like, I can try
this now I don't need anappointment.
I don't need lessons.
Yeah, and 15 minutes later,you're up in the air.
I would not have done that ifsomeone asked me a week ago hey,
(36:26):
in one week, do you want to godo this?
Cause I would have been thinkingabout it for the whole week, but
because it was just right infront of you I don't have time
to, to think about why I don'twant to do it.
I only have time to really, youknow, think of how cool it would
be to do it.
And that you're
Dr. Bhopal (36:42):
I think that's the, that's the best.
Dr. Weili Gray (36:45):
I would, and it's funny because since then I
looked up paragliding in Vermontand apparently there are people
who do this here, but I'm like,it's just not as appealing so
close to home.
There's something about being ina new place where you're not
going to go back there in awhile or ever and, and you get
offered this opportunity.
It's much easier to say yes anddo crazy things and overcome our
(37:05):
fears.
Dr. Bhopal (37:07):
I agree.
I agree.
Yeah.
You don't want to give yourselfthe time to back out because I
know I'm like that too.
If there's time to think aboutit, I'd be like, ah, nevermind.
I changed my mind.
So yeah, but just it's theopenness, right?
Just being open to thepossibilities, like you said.
Okay, so the last place that I,that I have for number five is
in the south of India, and thetown is called Coimbatore, and
(37:27):
it's the Isha Yoga Center.
So for anyone who practices yogais interested in yoga or
meditation, or you're justtraveling and you want a really
cool place to visit.
It's an ashram.
You can stay there.
They have programs.
If you want to take a yogaprogram or learn meditation
there, you can do that.
Or you can just visit as atourist.
So my husband and I actually dida spiritual wedding ceremony
(37:50):
there.
We had a destination wedding inMexico.
So we had that with our family.
And then on the way to theMaldives for our honeymoon, we
stopped here in the south ofIndia.
We stopped at this ashram.
And we both practice yoga andmeditation.
And so we had a wedding ceremonyin the Devi temple, which is
kind of like the feminineenergy.
And so we had this really coollike, spiritual ceremony there,
(38:14):
where they, they have you dothese different processes, which
is all about working together.
So you do these different taskswhere you work together and you
support each other, but you'renot entangled with each other.
One person cannot do the processalone like, you have to have
two.
So that's just, it was justreally interesting.
We did that, and it was, Thisreally beautiful experience and
then we flew to the Maldivesfrom there for our honeymoon,
(38:34):
but yeah, I mean, I recommendtraveling there.
And there's another space inthat, on that campus called the
Dhyanalinga temple.
And yeah, again, anyone who'smeditation curious, or even if
you're not, it's this powerfulenergy space and you can go and
you can sit in there and imbibethe space and see what happens.
A lot of people say when they gothere, they experience
(38:56):
meditation for the first time.
You don't have to do anythingand you can experience what it
feels like to be in stillness.
Dr. Weili Gray (39:04):
Wow.
Dr. Bhopal (39:04):
many people share that experience, so highly
recommend.
Dr. Weili Gray (39:07):
Wow.
Awesome.
This is so, so amazing.
Thank you so much for sharingthis top five list.
It's so, inspirational, to hearabout the experiences that you
have and, how different eachplaces and how you enjoy, going
to so many different places inthe world.
Dr. Bhopal (39:26):
well, thanks for giving me the opportunity to
share and to reflect.
I think, yeah, it was helpfuljust to even go through that
exercise of oh yeah, where haveI been?
And what experiences have I had?
And it's fun to kind of lookback.
Dr. Weili Gray (39:38):
Awesome.
Do you have any parting wordsfor, physicians who are
listening who you know, havethis vision that they want to
live a life on their terms.
They want to live their dreams.
They want to maybe practicemedicine in a way that excites
them.
They want to, travel.
They want to see the world.
They want to have the time andthe money to do that.
You know, but maybe right nowthey don't feel like they have
(39:59):
it that they know they want it.
They don't necessarily know howto do it.
What kind of advice do you havefor them?
Dr. Bhopal (40:06):
My advice to physicians would be to not wait.
I think we're so used to puttingour lives on hold.
We're used to having thisthought process of, okay, after
I graduate from med school, thenI'll"X" After I finish
residency, then I will blank,right?
And our lives are happeningright now.
I encourage people to, if youwant to travel, see how you can
(40:29):
make that happen.
If there's a priority that youhave in your life.
You'll find a way to make ithappen.
Maybe you're not flying businessclass to, you know, like the
Maldives, but what experiencescan you make for yourself now?
And even career wise it's okayto pivot and I think, I'm just
speaking from my own experienceit's the pivoting and really
(40:51):
listening to my inner voice,realigning with my values.
that have allowed me to find aniche that I really enjoy.
and like I was saying at thebeginning, I never thought that
was going to be possible.
I never imagined I'd be doingwhat I'm doing now.
I didn't, you know, it justwasn't even a possibility in my
mind.
And so there's this wholeuniverse of possibilities,
available to us that we can'teven imagine, but it's just
(41:13):
about taking that next step.
Dr. Weili Gray (41:16):
Yeah, so powerful.
And your life is such a greatexample of that.
And you're just sharing some ofthe timeline with me, I think
you said in 2019, you were,really a W-2 employee practicing
in a very conventionalpsychiatric practice, where you
didn't really get to use thetools that really excited you to
help patients.
(41:36):
And it was really just what, thepractice wanted you to do.
And just in this such a shortperiod of time, you have you.
Created your dream practice,your your dream life.
And it's, it's just so amazingseeing that that's possible in
such a short time.
Dr. Bhopal (41:51):
Yeah.
And I think for me, it's, what'salso been really helpful is
listening to podcasts that Ifind inspirational, listening to
other doctor stories you know,like your own about traveling,
like that's inspiring seeingwhat other doctors are doing in
the entrepreneurial world.
What other doctors are doing interms of their career and just
getting inspired by that andlearning from them.
(42:11):
You don't have to reinvent thewheel, right?
So for me, it's about, okay, whohas done what I kind of want to
do and what can I learn fromthem?
And how can I apply that in myown life?
There are people who have doneit before us, right?
And so we don't have to figureit out.
On our own, there's so muchsupport available.
So I encourage people toleverage that.
Dr. Weili Gray (42:30):
That's awesome.
That's a great segue to, how dopeople find you and, if they
want to learn more about sleepmedicine or maybe be, be a
patient in your practice inCalifornia, share with us, all,
all the ways.
Dr. Bhopal (42:45):
So I have a practice.
It's called Pacific IntegrativePsychiatry.
You can find it atpacificintegrativepsych.
com.
And we see patients bytelemedicine all across
California.
We offer a whole body approachto mental health.
So we do psychiatry, nutrition,and therapy.
And then I have my onlinebusiness teaching physicians
about integrative sleepmedicine.
So you can find me on YouTube atIntraBalance.
(43:05):
It's I N T R A balance.
And then on YouTube, you canfind out more about my online
course for physicians.
I've got a free course.
You can go to intrabalance.
com forward slash doctors to getmy free sleep medicine course,
and then I'll be opening updoors to the clinical sleep kit
membership, which is my onlineprogram for physicians to learn
about integrated sleep medicine.
Those doors will open inFebruary of 2024.
Dr. Weili Gray (43:27):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
I so appreciate everything youshared.
You sure you dropped so manygems.
Gave us these cool ideas to gotravel and really just serve as
an inspiration for us to pursueour dreams now rather than 20
years from now.
Dr. Bhopal (43:44):
Oh, well, thank you so much for having me.
This is a lot of fun..
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.