180: The Busy Brain Cure to Find Focus and Tame Anxiety with Neurologist Dr. Romie Mushtaq

[00:00:34] And I feel like a dork for even admitting that. 

[00:00:36] Zach White: Well, dork, geek, nerd, uh, any of these words are totally safe here at the Happy Engineer Podcast and please geek out as much as you want. And in the spirit of that, Dr. Romi, I’d actually love for you to be a doctor for a moment because something in your.

[00:00:53] Intro to your new book, the busy brain cure. And we’re going to talk about this idea of brain shift and what I think is an incredibly important and timely message for engineering leaders around the world. but you say chronic stress is toxic and it destroys the structure and function of our brains and bodies.

[00:01:11] Yeah. And I would love for you to just tell us what do you really mean by that, babe? Some of the science, what, what happens when we’re under chronic stress? in our actual physical systems. What’s going on there? 

[00:01:23] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Okay. So first of all, I just want to tell the listeners, do not tune away because this is not a podcast about a, mindful doctor, saying eat berries and breathe and everything’s going to be just fine.

[00:01:36] Advice and science is outdated to a pre pandemic world and a largely on acute stress models. I’m actually going to start here, Zach, and say, chronic stress causes physical disease and chronic stress can kill you. It almost killed and I should have known better. I’m a brain doctor. in 2010, I was in the hospital having.

[00:02:00] been on the verge and burned out and back then, uh, there wasn’t this in the vernacular burnout or mental health issues. We suffered silently as many of our engineering colleagues listening to this podcast might be right now I’m laying in the hospital bed. Recovering after lifesaving surgery, realizing nothing that I had learned as 

[00:02:23] Zach White: the patient, not as the doctor.

[00:02:26] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Yes. I had lifesaving cardiothoracic surgery 

[00:02:30] Zach White: and 

[00:02:30] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I’m overwhelmed in the hospital realizing I’m alive right now. And yet nothing I’ve learned in medical school is going to prepare me of what I need to do next. And it’s me on this global journey to understand the mind body connection, the science behind it, and then start researching in the workplace, everything you and I are going to unpack now.

[00:02:52] So if you’re Right now in a place where you feel as hope has departed your soul and you feel alone you’re not alone 

[00:03:02] Zach White: What year was this the surgery?

[00:03:04] 2010 2010. 

[00:03:07] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Mm hmm. 

[00:03:08] Zach White: So where did The slide towards being on that table again, and maybe you can then link to your experience from our lens. You know, we don’t get to see behind the curtain of the medical. I’m really curious now to take my original.

[00:03:22] Ooh. So tell me about the science and maybe link it to what were you noticing or experiencing along that, that road? 

[00:03:29] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: You know, I think it’s what any engineer that I meet with, I, as you said, in the introduction, I work with fortune 500 companies. So almost every company I interface with, I have the blessing to work with brilliant engineers that are listening to this podcast is we’re high performing individuals.

[00:03:44] So it started from undergraduate graduate school and we seek that dopamine high to overcome our perfectionism. And what does that mean that often we put off studying for a final exam until the last minute, working on the final edits on a paper or thesis that’s due until the absolute last minute, because that adrenaline will push us and that ability to check it off or get through a test or check off and to do list item now and work gives us a dopamine high.

[00:04:14] And then we’re in a. So, if that sounds familiar, I think that’s the way I was working. I was, you know, like anyone in today’s world, working a hundred, hundred, 20 hour work weeks and sleep deprived seeing patients doing research, teaching medical students. And I remember having these symptoms that we’re going to unpack a little later.

[00:04:34] I was surviving on three food groups, excessive amounts of caffeine. To keep me going during the day, I felt like I didn’t even have my doctor brain on until I was having caffeine and there were people actually offering Adderall and Ritalin to me and this is 2010 there were times during the day I would feel anxious.

[00:04:55] And I couldn’t admit it to anybody. So I would self medicate with chocolate or more caffeine to keep going and just push myself through everything that was coming at me all day long to be this high performer. And by the way, never letting them see you sweat. This is all with the starched white lab coat.

[00:05:10] And you read in the book designer labels and designer high heel shoes. Like we all, as high functioning adults, We collect titles and labels and awards that recognition as an armor, you never would have known that I was suffering here was the kicker that I knew things were wrong before I get to the physical symptoms is I felt so alone.

[00:05:33] I’d be walking the hospital corridors. late into the evening in the middle of the night on call. And you could visibly see Zach that I wasn’t doing well. And nobody asked if I was okay, they were gossiping about behind my back because my EEG technicians told me that, but nobody stopped to ask.

[00:05:50] And it felt so long. And that’s when I knew I was really slipping. medically, you read in the book, I went to the doctor because I was having chest pain and it was misdiagnosis acid reflux, which many listeners have right now as a symptom of chronic stress. And it wasn’t getting better. it was an acid reflux.

[00:06:09] And I was waking up in the middle of the night with chest pain, difficulty swallowing aspirate choking on my saliva and vomit and getting pneumonia. And I was only like 32, 33 years old. And so we knew something is wrong. You’re not supposed to be getting aspiration pneumonia. And it just took a while to get to the diagnosis.

[00:06:28] I still didn’t know the term was burnout. I thought I had failed. I thought my brain had failed and my body had failed me and that I didn’t have what it took to be a brain doctor. And there was this sense of disappointment that I had disappointed my parents and ancestors being at that point, the only woman that had gone to graduate school.

[00:06:49] In my family, I felt like I was disappointing all women in STEM. that’s how it feels. Ooh, 

[00:06:55] Zach White: okay. This, the weight of that, I, I don’t have the experience, but I’m feeling it as you’re talking about that. Just carrying not only your own burden, but now this pressure from family and society and women in STEM.

[00:07:07] And as a doctor, this is a really unique. And if I could go back to that time when you’re walking the halls as a shell of yourself suffering on the inside, what would have been your self diagnosis or kind of level of self awareness as a physician in that time? were you going home and doing that?

[00:07:33] Just didn’t know, 

[00:07:35] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I didn’t know. Remember this is 2007, eight. We didn’t have yoga studios on every street corner. YouTube really wasn’t up. There wasn’t meditation that people were talking about openly as a doctor. Even I hear from engineering colleagues. I was nervous to go see a psychiatrist or psychologist, a therapist, because if it had shown up on my health insurance, it would have been flagged.

[00:07:59] And I could have lost my board certification even today in 2024. You worry about that. a fun story that didn’t make the book. I can’t, I don’t think I’ve gotten to share this yet. I knew I needed to speak to someone because I really struggling. I was paying out of pocket. pocket cash to go see a therapist under a pseudonym.

[00:08:18] And do you know what my pseudonym was? She was like, like, pick a name. And I picked two things that I like did not feel anything. The first was diva because I was poking fun at myself. I’m like, I would just keep buying more designer shoes to make myself feel better. Designer clothes, diva, and the last name diamond.

[00:08:38] So literally in all of the medical charts, I was listed as diva diamond. And the irony of it now, 

[00:08:47] Zach White: That’s so amazing. I mean, it’s not amazing, but just that, that’s because I was, that would be your, your WWE, like Russell lady name. I could just see a diamond. Wow. So, you know, what’s fascinating about that? I mean, so tragic that that’s true.

[00:09:05] And I know that engineering leaders, while it may not affect their ability to stay employed as an engineer, still today feel that pressure. If I go ask for help, or if I tell my leader or HR that I’m suffering from lack of sleep and the symptoms of stress, and I need help. that’s actually going to come back on me as a negative.

[00:09:27] It’s going 

[00:09:28] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: to go. And that fear is still there in high performing leaders. And the second thing neurologists and engineers do together. And I don’t, I celebrate diversity, equity, inclusion as you do. So I don’t want to stereotype all of us, but as a whole, my experience has been is. analytical folks like us, we intellectualize things.

[00:09:46] So we’re going to research it to death on Google, listen to podcasts, read a scientific article rather than having someone help us emotionally. And then we go with the guard on like, does this therapist know what they’re talking about? Tell me about their credentials. I have a graduate degree. we intellectualize that and project judgment instead of allowing help to come inside.

[00:10:08] Zach White: What actually is happening in our body during that decay, that decline? Just a couple of the big things and really what I’m curious about as you unpack this, Dr. Romi, is how much is physical? It’s truly happening in the physical systems of our body and we need to take the reins on that side versus how much is Mental and the way we think about the problem creates the outcome, because to your point, as an engineer, I sure love to stay in the ivory tower of my mind and believe that I can fix everything through my intellect and I.

[00:10:43] Q. And so unpack the journey and the two sides of that for me. 

[00:10:49] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: They’re actually one in the same. I want you to know how closely the mind and the body are connected together. Love that. And, intellectualization is a trait in perfectionism and procrastination. And so that is just a part of the busy brain, by the way.

[00:11:05] they’re all linked. And so here’s how I want to unpack it. Chronic stress is different from acute stress. Acute stress is you have a quarterly sales goal to meet and a sales report. Or leads to close. As an example, if you’re on the sales side of engineering, your client facing and you have to now give a presentation of, an update to a system you did or a project to a client.

[00:11:27] That’s acute stress, chronic stresses. Life is happening to all of us. Life happens. And for weeks, months, years, we have different life events happening. Sure. And so we’re at something known as mental capacity. And what happens is, as much as I give myself positive talk of, hey, I’m a high achiever, I’m a performer.

[00:11:49] I can work through this chronic stress, I’m, I can perform at the edge of burnout. I got this, I read all the longevity. Sorry, I’m stopping longevity. articles, what’s really happening is chronic stress. Causes neural inflammation in the brain in an area known as your hypothalamus. Neural inflammation is a specific pattern of inflammation in the brain.

[00:12:12] This is the thing that I found scary and fascinating all at the same time. Back in the 90s when I was starting to enter a neurology residency training, we knew inflammation in the brain was behind. Diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, meningitis, all of those things now in the last seven years, as we’ve had advancement in the way we can image the brain and measure neurotransmitters through images.

[00:12:39] The thing that freaked me out was Chronic stress, not genes for MS or Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, just sitting and living in chronic stress for a few weeks to a few months causes a particular pattern of neuroinflammation that targets what I call the airport traffic control tower of your brain, your hypothalamus.

[00:12:57] Okay. Um. I was like, Oh my God, that was me all through medical school, internship, residency, two fellowships and working on faculty as a professor, for 14 plus years, I was living with this. literally changing the structure of my brain and how it’s connected to the rest of the body. So our hypothalamus is the airport traffic control tower.

[00:13:21] it governs two key systems in our brain and body, our circadian rhythm and our autonomic nervous system. So that’s how the brain is attached to other parts of the brain and attached to every organ system in the body. So going back to your original question, is it just in my mind or what part is in the body?

[00:13:39] It’s both. Both all the time. 

[00:13:41] Zach White: Both all the time. Yeah. 

[00:13:43] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Both all the time. Mm hmm. 

[00:13:44] Zach White: The distinction you made about acute stress and chronic stress, really important and interesting to me. Is there, I’ll say, these might not be appropriate terms, so, so put it in the right frame for me, Dr. Romi, but is there a good stress and a bad stress variant within each type?

[00:14:05] Or is one of those good, one of those bad? I’m thinking back to, Kelly McGonigal’s TED talk that went viral back in the day around how to make stress your friend and this idea that some stress when you frame it in the right way can actually help you. But can you put that into what you’ve discovered?

[00:14:22] What are the terms? Is there such a thing as a good stress or a helpful stress? Or how would you articulate it? 

[00:14:31] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: If you’re not watching the YouTube video of this right now, I’m making ugly faces, 

[00:14:34] Zach White: complete fringe face 

[00:14:37] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: is, is doing this. Yeah. Cringe face. Or I was like, as people ask me this question, I feel like, uh, you know, Darth Vader or the Sith Lord has just come out with their like red sword.

[00:14:49] And it’s like, It’s, you’re piercing my brain and the soul at the same time. Oh, wow. I’m really glad this is 

[00:14:55] Zach White: virtual. If we were in the same room, I might not be able to finish the interview if you came at me. 

[00:15:01] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: So allow me in my 

[00:15:04] Zach White: Please correct me. Put me in the proper place. Jedi 

[00:15:06] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Master Tate says stress is not good for you.

[00:15:09] Stress is not good for you. We’re just going to wave this out. What Kelly McGonigal was taking has been misused over and over again. She was really talking about using a deadline once in a while, or the pressure, I feel so, as you mentioned, in the opening, I now get hired by fortune 500 companies associations around the world to give a keynote lecture.

[00:15:33] Yes, I’m an awards winning speaker and also I get nervous. And she’ll stress in my brain and body every time I’m about to go live on stage. I’m in the back room. They’re reading my bio. I feel it. that’s the moment that you make stress your friend, that you realize what’s going on. And then that stress is, keeps me honest as a speaker and not walking in.

[00:15:55] Right. I have my rituals and techniques when that stress response comes to calm myself down and be present audience. That’s what she’s meaning, whether it same thing, if you have a report due for work the next morning in no scenario, should we be using those tools on a day to day basis to get through our to do list on our job that this is my friend and that, or in a chronic stressful situation, do I mean by chronic stress, you could be going through a divorce, you could have a toxic boss or a toxic work situation you’re interviewing for a new job.

[00:16:26] And by the way, chronic stress can be good things. You meet the love of your life and you’re now moving in or getting married, you get a new job, you got a promotion. Those are great life instances that also create chronic stress in the brain and in the body. And so I just really want to be clear that only sits speak in absolute going back to the Star Wars analogy for any of my friends out there.

[00:16:48] And by the way, like tag Zach and I on social media, if you’re listening to this and you two are one with the force, that only sits speak in absolute, there is no good or the bad stress. Let’s just get that vernacular out now. And I’m here to talk also about the post pandemic research and world of stress that has gone on in the medical world.

[00:17:08] And that I also did in preparation for manuscript for this book. So really, I think that’s what I want to bring 

[00:17:14] Zach White: forward. as engineers, we want to be precise in our language and definitions and, I appreciate the clarity around that. if you’re open to it, I’d love to come back to your personal journey through this.

[00:17:27] You end up on a hospital bed in 2010 and have since gone on to create an entire life mission around changing the world in this domain. But I imagine that didn’t happen overnight. What was the journey for you coming away from that and how you actually discovered what is now? The busy brain and, and ultimately it’s cure.

[00:17:54] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I really walk the reader through that in chapters 5 through 9 of the book and also share powerful stories of male allies, because really until about now, I’ve never had a female mentor. I’ve been the only woman in the room for all of the women engineer podcast listeners that are out there and our male allies.

[00:18:10] Um, but I really want to make it clear. You don’t just pick up one self help book or go through eight therapy sessions and it’s done. I was sick and it took a couple of years to get diagnosed and I end up in life saving surgery in 2010. I was home recovering and mindfulness and meditation got introduced to me.

[00:18:30] Like I said, at a time there wasn’t apps and YouTube studios. I was in Cambodia, in the Buddhist temple, meditating with the monks, healing myself. I will say it was about an 18 month or two year journey of me finding mindfulness, finding an integrative medicine doctor to get to the root cause of what was happening with my own busy brain.

[00:18:51] And you read about the discoveries I made about my labs that really had we discovered them 10 years prior, I may never have gotten sick or burned out. It’s really important to know. So I’d say it was two years that I’m healing myself because I didn’t have a shortcut. I put in the book for everyone now, right?

[00:19:09] And by the way, talking to therapists, I want to make it clear. You don’t get through a astronomically challenging life event, like life saving surgery, going through a divorce, having a career change without really good therapists. So all of that was at least two years before I’d say I had that aha moment.

[00:19:29] Whoa, this isn’t just Romy and her brain failing. It’s like, And failing medicine. This is happening to other people. And if I, what I’ve done for myself, if I known I would have treated my own brain and mental health patients differently. And so about 2012, 13, I started to study integrative medicine, the science behind wellness and holistic treatments and go back to get like another.

[00:19:55] for engineers, another degree for me, it is another degree, another fellowship and integrative medicine. So that by the time I finished that and started to see patients, it was 2014. the Ted talk also came out that year, and I started to speak in 2015 to 2018. And people like you and your story would come up going.

[00:20:14] I know what burnout feels like. Yeah, I do have these symptoms that I labeled a busy brain. And it was in 2018 that I started to research this. And in 2020, I started to research the cure. So this literally has been an over a decade journey. Yeah. 

[00:20:28] Zach White: Tremendous. 

[00:20:28] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: You’re listening right now. You’re not just going to listen to this podcast and say, okay, let me go therapy.

[00:20:35] But what I did do for you, you’re welcome is say, there’s a cure for burnout. If you’re in chronic stress, give me eight weeks and you need to go to the doctor and get labs. I’m going to fast track this for you. that was the whole reason to write this book. 

[00:20:48] Zach White: Yeah. Amazing. Would you go back to the time in Asia really quick?

[00:20:52] what’d you take away from that environment? That you would say, like, this is the key experience or moment that now has influenced what’s in these topics of the book and the work you do now. But I’m curious, not everybody has that opportunity to go and spend that time. So I mean, 

[00:21:10] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: you’ll read that I was with Reiki teachers in Japan, with, Buddhist monks in Cambodia, with Pranayama and Ayurveda teachers in Bali.

[00:21:18] So it was multiple trips and South America. 

[00:21:21] Zach White: Okay. 

[00:21:21] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I think the one takeaway. 

[00:21:25] This moment that I was sitting in the temple in Cambodia, jet lag, cause I had just come off of call.

[00:21:33] I was back now working as a doctor and traveling to fund the fund these trips. And I, fall on the floor and I have all these analytical questions, like engineers do. I can’t meditate. I can’t shut off my brain. I’ve read all these mindfulness and Buddhist books, and I’m asking the monks and they’re like, this isn’t about reading.

[00:21:52] This is about doing, and you’re going to come in the temple and meditate with us today. And by the way, I had barely reached two minutes of silencing my mind. We were going to sit for eight hours. Um, marble floors and I’m going to do this because we’re fighters. We do what we’re assigned to do. And intellectually, I’m like, sit the right way, shift your body weight.

[00:22:11] And I sit and I didn’t know this happened, but I toppled over and fell asleep in the temple. my meditation teacher from America who had taken the group now takes over the story. And, um, you know, I’m not as elegant as the headshot or the makeup and hair. I. And a matching Lululemon set wasn’t going to help me back then.

[00:22:30] Lululemon is brand new to America. So your titles of things don’t help you. And I’m not very elegant when I sleep. I snore. Sorry. And drool pooling on the floor. And, the one lesson I learned was they were mortified. The group that was traveling with me that I had behaved badly. And a brain doctor shouldn’t be here on a meditation, yoga retreat.

[00:22:52] And one of the monks that had been helping me in our Q and A session, they only have three possessions. They have their saffron robe, a saffron shawl and the bowl, which they collect alms or eat from in the evening. He takes one of his only three possessions and takes a shawl and puts it on a blanket and bends down and covers me and pats me on the shoulder.

[00:23:15] And looked at Laura and said, she is healing as I was sleeping and snoring on the temple floor. And she says, in that moment, she learned the most profound lesson of transforming anger into compassion. And I think when I heard that story later and woke up completely transformed, by the way, he was right. I needed to heal.

[00:23:34] There is something about sleeping on that cold temple floor. Please don’t go do the same thing I did. It’s disrespectful, but like I felt healed and it taught me There are no amount of physical things that we acquire. look, I still like nice things, but no amount of things are going to give you peace or healing.

[00:23:53] Zach White: It’s really powerful. Transforming anger into compassion. We could do a whole separate. 

[00:24:02] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Bring me back 

[00:24:03] Zach White: just on that one. 

[00:24:04] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Bring me back. I think that was my biggest lesson in all of this. Yeah. 

[00:24:07] Zach White: The 

[00:24:07] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: toughest one, the hardest one. 

[00:24:11] Zach White: I’m really tempted to share a moment I had with, uh, Please. A breathwork session that had a similar level of unexpected disrespect that worked out in my benefit during burnout.

[00:24:24] So if you’re open to it, I’m just, I’ll give you a really quick version. 

[00:24:27] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Give me the entire version, please. 

[00:24:29] Zach White: So Dr. Romy, I’m in a room of all personal development focused people and coaches. And I had just gotten into a lot of that world and we’re doing breathwork with a woman named Sam Skelly, who has a really neat app and she’s into Spreading the impactfulness of learning how to breathe.

[00:24:51] We’re doing this breath work session and we’re seated and she did warn us. We were in chairs, seated in chairs, like, be intentional, be mindful not to, go too hard at this because you could put yourself Get lightheaded or pass out. So if you start to feel lightheaded, et cetera, just regulate your breathing.

[00:25:07] Here’s what to do, et cetera. But Zach white being the type a driven, I’m the best student in the room, Dr. Rummy. I am the best student in the chair. There’s no way that I’m backing down from this breathwork session. Right. And we get into it. And the first round of breathing, I’m starting to feel some of that tingling in the fingers and have this really interesting experience and enjoying the process of really, I’m doing this right.

[00:25:32] You know, I’m going to be, I’m going to do this right in the second round. At some point, I don’t know when I completely lost consciousness. I fell out of the chair, hit the ground and everybody around me. Freaked out because, it was made a loud noise, my body hitting the ground and, Sam, the coordinator runs up and she’s just, trying to keep the room out of control.

[00:25:57] And then this other guy, Joshua, who’s a great friend of mine, who I knew and invited me to come to this event, he ran up and I wake up. You’ll come to with Joshua holding my head and really close to my face. And it was very strange moment. Like, why are you so close to me? What, what’s going on? And I, it took me a good 30 seconds to calibrate what is going on, where I was and curious how I ended up on the floor and everybody’s checking in.

[00:26:26] I got two people behind me, holding me up all this time. in that experience for me, you talked about this idea of. healing. I felt like my physical body just hit a breaking point where it said, reset button. No more forcing. You can’t force it anymore, Zach. that was the kind of moment. It was the first true point of surrender for me.

[00:26:52] Where I realized that personal development is not just about how smart I am, how hard I can work, that there’s a big part of surrendering to that process and being willing to be more open and slow down, slow down. So thank 

[00:27:06] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: you for sharing that. And both of our stories are, have an underlying theme, yours of profound self compassion.

[00:27:13] Mine was someone showing me compassion. despite bad situation and calming the anger, from others, 

[00:27:21] Zach White: what a 

[00:27:23] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: powerful community. Yeah. 

[00:27:25] Zach White: So tell us a couple of the main symptoms or things we would become aware of if we have a busy brain and just get people into that awareness so they can recognize how important it would be to start taking action on it.

[00:27:40] What is a busy brain? 

[00:27:41] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: What is a busy brain? So busy brain happens in high achieving, individuals. we’re on a continuum from chronic stress to burnout. Everybody’s continuum is a little different in time and space. And three, four key symptoms show up. You wake up feeling absolutely exhausted and you need caffeine or a stimulant to get you going in the morning and you’re still having difficulty focusing, or you’ve actually been diagnosed with adult onset ADHD.

[00:28:07] You’re feeling low key anxious, All day long and you keep having more caffeine or sugar and it’s fueling that anxiety. You go home, you want to take the edge off. So now you need a sedative, either a glass of wine or three or some prescription, anti anxiety sleeping pill. And then you put your head down on the pillow and there’s thoughts racing in your brain, 72 worrying conversations happening and the least important topic seems to be hijacking your brain with judgment or you wake up in the night between 2 and 4 a.

[00:28:37] m. and you can’t go back to bed. That’s the busy brain. The clinical symptoms are we in neurology and psychiatry got it wrong. Anxiety, insomnia, and adult onset ADHD are not three separate diseases. The way we treat them clinically, we’re feeding into that inflammation. They’re actually all one continuum that I call the busy brain.

[00:28:58] We want to break the, what I call the stimulant sedative cycle. You need chemicals to keep you stimulated and going all day. And you need a sedative thing to calm you down at night. That’s a busy brain. And in high achieving professionals, when you have a busy brain kind of layer in on top, like sprinkles on a cupcake, the perfectionism, the procrastination, the overanalyzing analytical intellectualization that can come across along as defense mechanisms.

[00:29:23] Zach White: Yes. Yeah. Analysis, paralysis, and perfectionism is a pandemic level situation for engineering leaders. We get trapped in that so much. This is a little caveat, but I’m curious when you talk about this stimulant sedative cycle, some people that I’ve worked with will tell me they don’t have that situation.

[00:29:45] But upon a little further probe, okay, they’re not using Red Bull and, prescribed anxiety medication, but they’re using like some natural stimulant supplement. maybe it’s a little caffeine and then some kind of mushroom extract and like that. They’ve got all these herbal and natural remedies for their stimulants.

[00:30:07] Magnesium and like, they’re kind of using other things. Is it the same? Does it really matter how you’re doing it? 

[00:30:13] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: No, that’s different. And I actually write in the book research wise, which one of those work, 

[00:30:17] Zach White: right? 

[00:30:18] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: validity and I don’t want to put those in the same category.

[00:30:21] Okay. Perfect. I break down in the book. we shouldn’t be getting more than ideally 100 or 150 milligrams of caffeine in the morning. Now, most of us who go to any coffee shop and you’re getting a grande or venti size drink, you’ve exceeded that amount of caffeine already. 

[00:30:38] Zach White: Okay. What is, give us an idea of what that is in terms of a cup or a shot of espresso.

[00:30:42] Like a 

[00:30:43] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: regular cup of coffee, like six to eight ounces. That’s about it, right? Okay. So I’m all about the nootropic supplements that have a better quality of caffeine in it, whether it’s guarana, the green tea extract is outstanding, right? Some type of caffeine. And you’ll see when it’s a 40 to 60 milligrams and that’s all you need because it’s good, potent caffeine.

[00:31:06] that’s different. caffeine for the brain for most people is great. Okay. We know the research that it promotes, a cognitive reserve and can reduce onset of Parkinson’s and other neurodegeneration, but not in excess the way most people are using it. So I really want to address that in caffeine.

[00:31:25] I’m going to go straight into the protocol because So weeks one through four, we talk about resetting your circadian rhythm or restoring it. We’ll unpack that in a second. Week five through eight is restoring your daytime energy and focus five. The brain shift or the biohack that week is literally you get to choose one Zach.

[00:31:42] If you’re going to have caffeine at a meal or during the day, you can not pair it with a high glycemic carbohydrate. Do not pair it with white sugar, white flour, white rice, because We have separate insulin receptors in our brain, separate from the risk of diabetes in our pancreas. And when you have caffeine, okay, it to a certain dose, it’s good for the brain.

[00:32:04] When you tip it over a certain edge, you’re now fueling the anxiety and the ADHD. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, so there’s a fine line. You add any kind of. food or drink that spikes your blood sugar on top of it. It’s pouring gasoline on a forest fire. And now you’re fueling the neuro inflammation yo yo that’s going to fuel.

[00:32:25] I can’t focus. I’m anxious. Let me eat some more sugar. Let me have some more caffeine. I have an edge again for three or 30 minutes. And I, I bought them out. Yeah. and that’s actually rewiring the brain in a dangerous way. So you pick one or the other. So in the eight week protocol, we restore sleep. So people are actually just using low amounts of caffeine.

[00:32:45] You’re not really craving the carbohydrates anymore, the sugar, the carbs, the fried foods. So if you go to lunch and you decide to have comfort food, mine is rice. For some people it’s pasta. You’re going to skip the caffeine. You’re not going to be on the yo yo. And people actually see. The brain bloating and belly bloating reduce at the end of the eight weeks and feel focused.

[00:33:03] So I really want to talk about that important. so you said a lot in the last statement. We’re going to unpack magnesium in a second. What questions do you have about what I just talked about? 

[00:33:14] Zach White: No, I, I think this is, first of all, you said both the most important, and most relieving thing of the episode for me so far that it’s okay to still have caffeine because I already believed that.

[00:33:26] I’m so glad to be reaffirmed of that, but it’s like anything, just really paying attention to how we bring that into our bodies. I think it’s really clear and it’s important then to distinguish that there are intentional, proactive, positive ways to address our health and biohacking as a phrase, maybe it’s not the most medically appropriate one, versus falling into these, for lack of a better term, drugs that are not helping us.

[00:33:52] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: So I really 

[00:33:52] Zach White: appreciate that distinction. 

[00:33:53] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: The nootropic medications for energy during the day, and, we have somewhere on my website, something that goes through just the ingredients that I recommend that are in sound nootropics for focus, and we’ll put a link in your show notes to those somewhere, And then the sedatives at night, like using magnesium glycinate, which is researched in the book.

[00:34:13] And we put people on week two is key for brain function. Like it is a key mineral. It is very, very different than using an addictive substance, which is Excessive amounts of caffeine during the day is an addiction. Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse, those are stimulant medicines and at night alcohol or a Xanax.

[00:34:34] I mean, those are all addictive things that the stimulant sedative cycle is about something that’s addiction prone. Whereas these supplements are very different. They’re actually restoring a key nutrient or mineral to help cellular chemical function. 

[00:34:52] Zach White: Brilliant. I love that. Then I know everybody, including myself, is going to be hungry to understand the protocol.

[00:35:00] And at the same time, there’s a reason it’s an eight week protocol and a whole body of work to explore as we come off of this conversation. So what, what’s the essential piece we need to understand just to get a sense of the building blocks and how it begins, walk us through the protocol. 

[00:35:16] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Step 1 is I want to know your brain score.

[00:35:18] Look, I’m rational. I don’t go on emotion from time to time. We all feel anxious. We all lose focus. so get a brain score. We have a validated neuropsychology stress test that we relabeled as the busy brain test. 17, 000 people in our research period of 2 years. Took this test. So that’s how I got to understand why is chronic stress different in a post pandemic world.

[00:35:42] Just so that get your brain score. We’re going to put a link. You can take it for free, in the show notes. And if you choose to put your email in, we email you the first two weeks of the brain shift protocol to your inbox. I want you sleeping and restoring your circadian rhythm. It comes straight to you.

[00:35:56] So it’s all right there. Brain score is step one. And then at the end of the eight weeks, you repeat the test and you get to see not only Your symptoms, you’re writing down what’s feeling better, but also your score improved drastically. Really? Most people see a drastic improvement within the first few weeks of the protocol 

[00:36:13] And that’s why our teams companies hire me to do this as a team activity for eight weeks, because it’s healthy. People feel better. So the first four weeks about literally restoring your circadian rhythm, your sleep wake cycle. So in week two. We, you go straight into the seven day sleep challenge.

[00:36:31] And the best part is there’s a handout. It’s coming to your email for free. You can do it with team members, make it a fun team activity or do it with, if you have a loved one in the house. And this is for adults only, by the way, not children. I want to be very clear. So that’s the way, and we give you the supplement recommendations right in there.

[00:36:48] So I make it easy. Basically what I’ve done, Zach, I want to make it clear is you have a very, uh, you educated, well read community. Most people that had to heal burnout like I did, I paid thousands of dollars to see integrative functional medicine doctors. I believe in accessibility, equity, and equality.

[00:37:08] I wanted to make it easy for everyone that doesn’t have access to it. The money or they don’t live in a city to access doctors like me. So that’s why we put it in the book and we’ve laid it out there in an eight week plan, just literally. And so I want to talk about the back half of the plan. We talked a little bit about the biohacking of your nutrition.

[00:37:29] it’s really important to me. I need your listeners to know the worst thing we can do for your brain and your company is to put people on another diet or a cleanse. By following a rigid cleanse or nutrition protocol, it doesn’t matter if you’re vegan or paleo or the whole 30 challenge, all the things, it actually fuels chronic stress.

[00:37:53] And around certain foods will create trauma in your brain. you hear me in the book using an example of my grandmother. I call her Nani, my maternal grandmother. May she rest in heaven. Her biryani, lamb biryani, doesn’t have a single drop Healthy anti inflammatory ingredient in it, yet it was one of those dishes that could bring warring families together and heal the going back ancestors.

[00:38:17] I remember the love of my grandmother. I did. Do you have a food like that? That is tied to family or religious holiday or. Multicoming from your Midwestern roots. What, what comes to mind when I say, 

[00:38:27] Zach White: yeah, well, if it depends on which holiday, you go to Christmas time, Christmas is the ham holiday and for my mama, my grandmother, who’s still living her thing.

[00:38:40] She, she has several, but. There was a couple of desserts, you know, that she’d always make. And then she had the craziest Jell O. I don’t know how to explain this. Cause Jell O inherently is not that good, but her Jell O wasn’t like Jell O. it was full of nuts and cranberries and all this stuff, sort of this, like, you know, not really fruitcake, not really Jell O, not really.

[00:39:02] Somehow it was really healthy. I was told, I don’t know, but yeah, it’s like, you, you can’t not get the jello. You got to go get that. 

[00:39:10] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: You got to do that. And see, and if people can’t see the video right now, the smile that’s on Zach’s face and the joy in my face as well. Talking about my grandmother’s briyani.

[00:39:20] Comfort food is welcomed and celebrated and the protocol once to twice a week. Enjoy a meal that brings you joy. So we put those biohacks in place, but the key I want you to know in week seven of the protocol, please download the lab list. It is in the book. It is on the companion website and take it to your primary care doctor.

[00:39:42] It will save lives. You hear the story in the book of Kelly, a sales leader who didn’t really want to join brain shift. With her company, but did so because her team was because they were getting labs. And by the way, no one knew she was ready to quit this job. She was meeting all of her sales goal, but she was so anxious and her doctor told her, you know, you’re a working mom.

[00:40:03] Maybe you’re not cut out for this job. And it turned out. She had one in eight women and men have this too, an undiagnosed thyroid condition from the chronic stress, disrupting the circadian rhythm and the connection to the thyroid, it gets diagnosed. The doctor does a thyroid scan. She actually has a pre cancerous nodule, a stage one thyroid cancer that now gets surgically removed, and this saved her life.

[00:40:30] And by the way, the anxiety went away and the focus got better, and she’s still excelling at her job. And so when we’re under chronic stress with a busy brain, our labs can become abnormal and there’s things that need to be corrected. My dream is this brain shift lab slip is making it into primary care doctors offices around the country.

[00:40:51] And Zach, it was the same thing that I did. I was like, There are a lot of complex labs that functional integrative medicine doctors check that insurance doesn’t cover. And I was like, no, no. What can I do to get to 90 percent of the people why they’re having a busy brain and correct it? Yeah. Low testosterone in men, perimenopause in women, low vitamin D3 levels in men and women that traditional insurance in the United States will cover because I know we both have a global audience, but in the United States, I wanted to like hack that.

[00:41:20] Okay. So if you have health insurance, these labs will be covered when you go to your doctor and that can save your life, get it done. And it may seem so basic. I cannot tell you every time we run this protocol live about three fourths of the people come who thought they just had ADHD or just had anxiety.

[00:41:40] They have a dangerous little vitamin D three level. They fix it. And all of a sudden their busy brain is healed. 

[00:41:46] Zach White: I’m so excited about this because a lot of times as a coach, it’s very evident working with someone that there is more in their life that needs addressed than the domain of coaching is designed to address.

[00:42:03] one thing that’s great about coaching is that we’ll surface these, these challenges, but so often, asking someone say, Hey, so how can we get resourceful? What are you going to take action on to go take care of that? Whether it’s in therapy, if it’s in the medical field. And so for someone to be able to walk through this.

[00:42:19] Get really clear on an actionable protocol that anyone can do in those first weeks. Anybody has access to when it comes to, at least here in the U. S., their medical doctor taking care of them and helping them diagnose. This is amazing. We made it 

[00:42:34] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: even easier for coaches. Can I tell you? You walk over, please do the eight week plan.

[00:42:38] Don’t just tell someone to do it. Walk through it with your client for eight weeks. You get brain shifts every week, but you’re like, Romy, I’m not a doctor. I can’t order the labs. We’ve partnered with Rupa health. So first you could download the lab slip and send your coaching client to their doctor to get the labs checked.

[00:42:56] but we’ve also partnered with Rupa health for primary care doctors. They’re like, I’m not going to check all those hormones or the vitamin D three. And they do it at cost and you can go to the lab. Uh, request in the country and do it. So you as a coach could run through this protocol and both of you get your labs done.

[00:43:13] Okay. 

[00:43:14] Zach White: All right. So happy engineers. I know hundreds of you out there are clients of mine. If you want to do that with me as a group or something, let’s, let’s reach out to me. Let me know. I think this sounds really amazing. 

[00:43:24] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: I, and something 

[00:43:24] Zach White: here. Dr. Romy, I think this is going to be fun.

[00:43:28] I hate to end because we have so much we could cover. But I want to make sure we land the plane respect to your time. And we, there’s more to do regardless of where we stop. So now is as good a place as any, where can someone go to get these next steps quickly, get things moving. I know they’re going to be excited about.

[00:43:46] You know, grabbing your book and walking through the protocol, et cetera. What’s our first stop? 

[00:43:50] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: First stop is we’re going to put a link in the show notes here to take the busy brain test and get your brain score. And if you’re driving, go to drRomey. com, D R R O M I E. My website, Instagram, the test is right there at the top for you to get your brain score.

[00:44:04] You take it for free. Share it with your team. That’s step one. Step two. Yeah. Grab the book. It’s an audio book. Kindle. It is available globally. It is a USA Today, Amazon, Audible bestseller. And Honestly, you don’t have time. You, if you want to read some great stories and, or listen to the audio book while you’re walking, we’re busy professionals.

[00:44:23] If your score is above a 30, go straight to chapter 10 in the book. And we walk you through step by step week after week, what you want to do. And you’re going to read the stories of brave executives like Kelly that I was sharing, who said, Dr. Romi, please share our story. So other high achieving professionals will do 

[00:44:39] Zach White: so good.

[00:44:40] All right. Happy engineer. The link’s in the show notes and you heard it here, back up 30 seconds if you need to hear it again. I’m so excited. And also, if you will take the test and you want a copy of Dr. Romi’s book, the first five people who send me an email, I will buy you her book for you. Just shoot me a note, zach at oasisofcourage.

[00:45:00] com. I will send you a free copy of the book because it’s that important. I really want everybody to do this. Ah, you know, as well as anybody I’ve ever talked to Dr. Romi, Questions lead, answers follow in, in great coaching, in the medical world, in engineering, we have this in common, questions lead, answers follow, and everybody’s looking for better answers in our health, in our happiness, in our life.

[00:45:31] So what would be the better question that you would encourage the happy engineer to ask themselves coming off this conversation today? 

[00:45:41] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: Every night. When you go to bed, I want you to ask yourself, how was I of service today? Did I make someone’s life better today? And if you’re struggling to answer that question, it could have been simple as you open the door for your elderly neighbor or said hello to someone at work, if you’re in offices and made sure they knew they weren’t alone, that’s simple, then get up the next morning and say, what am I going to do today?

[00:46:17] To be of service, and I end this with one of my favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem Success I Found it in a Public Library in the fifth grade and I live by this is to know that even if one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded. 

[00:46:34] Zach White: How was I of service today?

[00:46:37] Dr. O’Meara, I just want to acknowledge you. Your work is tremendous. You’re changing lives and saving lives through your work around the world. Thank you for your generosity to be here today. And wow, what a tremendous conversation. Thank you so much. 

[00:46:52] Dr. Romie Mushtaq: An honor.