Navigating Health Challenges: Functional Medicine Insights from Dr. Remina Panjwani

Welcome to the Amberly Lago Show. Stories of true grit and grace. Hey, there. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Amberly Lago Show. I have a real treat for you today. I have Dr. Ramina Panjwani here. She is actually a member of the Unstoppable Life Mastermind. So I get to be on this journey with her, and I'm getting to see her soar and be on podcast, interviews and on stages, and so amazing. But if you are like, I need to take my health back, I'm ready to feel better mentally, spiritually, physically. Grab a notepad and a pen because you are going to definitely want to take notes on what Dr. Romina has to say. She is a functional medicine doctor. She has been in the Air Force. She, like, she is such an inspiration. So welcome to the show, Dr. Romina. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, my goodness. Well, I have, like, I've got my phone because I have written down a whole list of questions, and I don't know if we'll get to all of them today. So I might have to have you back to the show, but I am.

Let's do it.

I am so, so fascinated by what you do and your motivation. I mean, you came here with your parents. They were immigrants here. You came with your parents, you went to the Air Force, and you decided to become a doctor. But I want to get straight to the part where you were like, okay, I'm an md, but I want to get more into functional medicine. Why did you choose to make that decision? To go from, I'm a doctor in a hospital treating patients, and now I am doing functional medicine. And you have your own brand, you have your own business. What made you decide to go that route?

Oh, yes. I believe the biggest turning point was during COVID Really? We were in the thick in the hospital. We were in the thick, and burnout was just. I mean, there's just not another word to be beyond the burnout. That's where we were all at.

Yeah.

And I saw, you know, our healthcare system is great for having a bandage approach, I like to call it, in the acute setting. So, for instance, if you're having a heart attack, of course you want to put a bandage on it. You want to fix that cause. But what led you up to that?

Right.

So in the midst of COVID you could see not only just the chronic diseases coming bad, but then you have this new virus that's out and is taking Lives and the health care system can't even keep up. And then you also see the ugly beast of it being a business. So it was all that that truly drained me. I mean, I really do love taking care of patients. No doctor is gonna say, I didn't go into this for this purpose. Right. But the reason I went into medicine is, of course, to help patients, to help people get better. But there was more of a driving passion of how I saw people should be getting help and taking charge of their holistic health. I would say so in the acute setting, of course, in Covid, everything was just magnified. Once we kind of came through the pandemic, I went back to my roots. Why did I get into this? Right. We are complex beings, not just a body of organs and symptoms, but we do have illnesses, but we also have health. And our body has the ability to bring it back to balance. And we also consist of mind, body, spirit.

And is that the main difference? Like, besides, like, being an md when you go to the doctor and they're like, okay, you need this prescription, you need this, and you're out of here. They don't get to, like. The root cause of what is going on is that the difference between traditional medicine and functional medicine is like the mind, body, spirit aspect of functional medicine.

Oh, yeah, exactly that. So you mentioned the root cause approach, and that is how you help people thrive. It's not just throwing medications and more bandages, right?

Yeah.

And I mean, you go. You get symptoms. Oh, I'm just fatigued. Oh, I just have this gut issue. Oh, well, here, throw this medicine. Let's try this. But what we do is take a deeper dive into it. How are you sleeping? What are you actually eating? What's your nutrition, your exercise regimen, your relationships, your stress level? And including that, the mind, body, and spirit, because it's all interconnected and it's all tapping into your biochemistry.

Yeah. And it's so important because. But I'm sure it's hard because a lot of patients come in and they just want a pill to fix things.

Yes, they do. They're like, isn't there a pill for that?

You know, with weight loss, with someone who's diabetic, with something, they just. Anything. They're just like, with energy, with sleep. Just give me a pill to help me sleep. Just give me a pill to help me lose weight. Just give me a pill to fix this diabetes. What do you do with someone who comes in? Do you start with blood work or how do you approach the patient?

I honestly start listening to them. Isn't that funny? Because that's what we all need, right? I honestly start listening because when I'm in the hospital, you really just have a few minutes. You're in and out, and then you have to deal with all the political stuff. Right. The patient care is small. But what I love to do with my personal concierge approach, I literally can listen to what the patient is saying, what your body is saying and needs. And I spend at least 60 to 90 minutes. And we dive deep. We go in so deep that I actually listen to everything. It's not just the symptoms. It's what's the root cause. Digging deep and all that. So eventually, yes. If we need to do extra lab work, then we do the advanced lab work that conventional medicine won't even look at.

Okay, Well, I have to say, I went with a functional doctor a year ago because they had a concierge service. I was traveling nonstop for speaking events, and. And he had said, well, if you have me as your concierge doctor, if you've got something like an infection or you need an antibiotic or whatever, you just call me and I'll fill the prescription in for you. He did blood work. I was put on. I'm gonna be very transparent with the audience here. Cause we keep it real here. Testosterone, progesterone. He said, I had zero levels of testosterone, thyroid medication, and $1,000 worth of supplements. I'm on these supplements, and my hair starts falling out. Like, literally, my hair was down to here. My hair starts falling out. I stopped my period. Sorry. Yeah. Keeping it real with you. I, like, stopped menstruating. My whole period was screwed up. When I've been regular. Is that too blunt? Is that too real?

No, this is all health care. Yeah. It's all medicine.

Stop it. I was screwed up. So I went to a nut, and I paid thousands of dollars. Okay, Thousands of dollars for this doctor. So I went to another functional doctor, had another panel, and he said, well, I can tell you right now why your hair's falling out. He goes, what did that doctor have you on? Your testosterone levels are too high. That's why your hair's falling out. He goes, I said, can I throw it away? I threw it away, stopped taking it. My hair is finally stopped falling out. But I would go to the hairdresser, and she's like, I don't know how you're not bald. Like, seriously, it was bad. What should somebody do when they're like, you know what? I want to feel good. I want to have Energy. I want to have a sex drive. I want to like, feel energized, to get up during the day and go to the gym and be productive and be creative. I want to feel good. And they're looking for a doctor. How do they find a good functional medicine doctor? Because I feel like there's a lot of freaking quacks out there.

Yeah.

How do you. What would you suggest for somebody to do?

And that's a really. It's like the wild west out there, y'. All. But first thing, you want to make sure you have someone who is credentialed and qualified. And I know, you said it exactly. What I think right. Is we have to be careful who you go to. People are out there, they think they're getting a functional medicine physician or someone who's integrative.

Yeah.

But there's people with no credentials, maybe a bachelor's degree and they may take like a course here and there, but that's the first thing you want to make sure you go to a qualified. Certified. I'm going to be biased on this physician because think about all the schooling we go to.

Right.

We go through. I mean, at least you go through four years of med school. That's after going through undergrad and maybe had a master's. And then you go to med schools. Then you go at least.

Oh, because my daughter's in med school right now.

You know exactly how it is.

She's in Africa working on her Ph.D. and like it's a lot non stop. And she's 28 years old.

Exactly.

She's still in school. And it's been nonstop. School.

It is. It's exactly that. And that's just part of it. And then you get your residency training. Then if you want to certify in functional medicine or whatever your specialty is, you have to do extra training so you get the quality of people that have been through it just exactly how you said it, while we're still a little younger. Our whole life is dedicated to education, in a sense, and the hopes for service to help people. And so you want to first make sure you go to someone who is genuinely educated and credentials just calling themselves exactly functional. Yeah.

Because I feel like there's a lot of people out there like, oh, I'm a coach.

Exactly.

I'm a functional medicine doctor. Oh.

Or they may have a doctor, but are they really a physician? Are they what type of coach? Right. Is it like, what kind of. Where's your certification? There's nothing regulated there, so we have a higher caliber. We get we have to be held liable to the standards of what our board licensing is. So you know you're getting quality and then from there it comes to what's the relationship, what's the demeanor? Right. It's. Is it a therapeutic relationship? Right.

Yeah.

And then it comes into the business of it. So are they the people that are seriously going to take you for the run of your money, are they going to order a whole bunch of labs and not really like care or really Honestly, I love the low hanging fruit because it does go back to lifestyle. Lifestyle, tweak it and that will set you on the right road. Then if you need targeted labs, then you know what you're doing. You order the specific labs you're looking for. But in the meantime make the adjustments with lifestyle. I mean, think of it this way. To make it more tangible. You look at diabetes or high blood pressure. Right. We all know we've heard the term of diabetes. Your blood sugar's out of control, high blood pressure, your blood pressure is just elevated all the time. If you even look by standard of care, the first line approach is lifestyle. But if you think about we in medical school and even in training don't really know what lifestyle is. You have to go even further to learn it and you want to make sure there's scientifically based curriculum to show you how to implement it. So yes, lifestyle diabetes is just the label of the disease. But what specifically is this?

What can you change exactly? Like I had a client who was like borderline pre diabetic. She went and got and she. That scared her enough to where she completely changed her lifestyle.

Yeah.

And she started making food and she would send me pictures of the food that she would pre make in packages and put in her fridge. That was healthy.

Yeah.

Started working out more and she reversed it.

Exactly.

Yeah. But you know what, I should probably get back to this because I know what functional medicine is because I've been to a functional medicine doctor. There might be some listeners who are like, I don't know, what's the difference between regular md, which are both and functional medicine? I should have probably asked that in the very beginning. So I'm sorry, I didn't ask that. But for those who are listening that are like, well, functional medicine. What the heck is that?

What is that? Is that woo woo?

No. Yeah, what is that really? What is that?

So the best way to talk about it is everybody knows what traditional conventional medicine is. Right. So it's symptoms approach and it's standard for everyone. Which is okay if you're having an acute issue. Right. If you need to go into the hospital for an acute issue. But we're talking about people are unique and complex. So with that, you get standard labs, you get standard treatment, and then usually the symptoms are treated. With medicine, functional medicine, I like to blend both best of Eastern and western. You still want to do go through all the screenings and everything. However, there's a population that is relatively healthy, or they may have been feeling unwell and they want to get to the root cause and not their advantage approach. So what functional medicine looks at, and it's based on lots of data and science. For instance, I got my training from Cleveland Clinic Institute of Functional Medicine, and that is lots of data on there. So starting off with that, we take it deeper. Everyone is unique. So I look at you unique. You have lifestyle.

So do you like study the lab work and study their blood work of what's going on with blood work? Is that what you.

Well, even more than that, before you get there, it's a personalized approach, including your lifestyle. Right. So yes, you want to look at not just symptoms, but you want to look at what's contributing lifestyle stress. So I'll dive deep on the cortisol and the stress and how it's overlooked in conventional medicine. But you look at sleep, stress, nutrition, the exercise. Are you doing the right type of exercise for the state your body is in? Right. Because you think cardio is always good, but you may not need cardio if you're in a chronic state of stress. You may need to bulk up, use your muscle. And also in the stage of life. Right. Functional medicine looks at the stage of life and especially women. We are constantly changing monthly. Our hormones are changing. Right. And so what we do to our bodies should be targeted to us directly, not standard. So that in itself helps give you a picture of how we dive deeper. So we look at the lifestyle. We also look at mind, body, spirit, of course. And then the labs are even more advanced. So for instance, if you want to look at, let's say I'll give two examples. So you get the standard lipid panel, the cholesterol, right? You have good cholesterol, typically only known as hdl. And then you have maybe the bad cholesterol known as LDL and triglycerides, but that's it. So cholesterol is a molecule, a big molecule that has different components in it. So functional medicine labs will take each of those components and dissect it deeper. So for instance, if you have certain patterns, it'll lead you to a higher risk of an adverse cardiovascular event, meaning heart attack or stroke. Whereas conventional medicine may just say you're off balance or it may look quote, unquote, normal because it's not optimal. So it gives you a bigger lens to treat people. Targeted. And then you look at hormones too, right?

Yeah, the hormones are powerful. Holy, holy moly. And I think I need to see you for my hormones because I'm sure I haven't had a panel done in a while. Actually, I have a physical this week with a regular doctor.

And that's the thing.

Yeah, a physical. We're doing just your basic annual physical. Just because I need to get checked. I feel like after I had a treatment in Costa Rica, I haven't quite been the same. I've been struggling, like, health wise, my hormones have been off and all that. For somebody who is like me, that my mind is like, I want to go, go, go, go, go. But my body's like, oh, no, you need to lay down, you're tired. Like, my body will just shut down on me. What would you suggest for somebody who's feeling low energy or feeling like, oh, my goodness, I wish I had more energy, I wish I could do more. What would you suggest to do first?

Yeah, so let's combine both the topic of the hormones and then also talking about the stress response. Right. It ties in. And so in conventional medicine, you probably will be told, oh, you're just getting old, deal with it.

Right?

Yeah, you're getting old, you're getting gaslit.

You're getting old.

Yes, you get gaslit. And it's like, no, you don't have to per se, get old. Your chronological and biological age don't have to be the same and you can do the right things. Absolutely. So first I will say, if you're getting gaslit, you're not at the right place.

Oh, you're just getting old. Oh, yeah, no, forget that. My grandmother's almost 100 years old.

She must be doing something right. Right, yeah.

And I'm like, no, I know when my energy is not on, I'm off a little bit. And so, yeah, I want to look at the lifestyle, I want to look at the supplements I take.

But more than that too. Right. So when you look at fatigue, just a generic term, fatigue, what drives into it. Right. Your body is telling you and you're active, you're high achieving, you're go, go, go, which is normal to be on the go. But there's something called the hormonal, like cortisol stress response. Right. And you want to make sure you take those moments to reset. And I know we've talked about it. Methods of, like, how you reset in the morning and journaling. But what I want to break down so people that feel the fatigue and that are constantly high achievers, how we can tweak it.

Yeah, tweak it and reset. If you could provide some. Just some tips that the listeners can apply to their life today, starting right now. Absolutely. That may feel like on the verge of burnout or they're tired or they're exhausted or they're moms and they're just like, oh, my gosh, I need a break. What are a couple of things that you can do to reset your nervous system?

And let's talk about why that happens, because once I explain why that happens, that'll make more sense of the pointers that I give. So when you're constantly stressed and the term burnout happens for a reason. So stress, the main hormonal molecule that we look at is cortisol. So cortisol, it ties into your whole body, and that's important.

Isn't that what makes you fat, too?

It does. And it leads to diabetes, too. And I'll tell you how, though. So that's something.

Isn't that what makes belly fat, too?

It does. It does. Called hormone belly, too. Right.

Oh, God.

So when you. And it does tie into stress. So if you think. If you're not giving yourself time to rest and reset that stress response, think about it. Your body has been naturally made to be protective if you're in danger. So the sympathetic fight or flight response is there if you need to run. Like if you're getting chased by a bear, you want to run, so your hormones are elevated. But what happens in the long term when you don't stop and rest and reset? Burnout. So all the hormones decrease, meaning it ties into your female and male hormones. So all the symptoms that you feel, maybe you start noticing a change in your body composition, brain fog, low sex drive, hair falling out, all that. And then maybe your blood sugar is high, but you look great. Amberly, what are you talking about? I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm wondering if the listeners are like,

wait, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And as women, especially monthly, our hormones change. So imagine if you're constantly stressed and you're not resetting, your whole biochemistry will be off.

Well, also with me, I live with

constant chronic pain every day, and that's a constant trigger. Yeah.

And where literally my foot and leg is on fire a lot of people don't. They're like, oh, you're in pain. Like they don't even understand that. I didn't know you were still in pain or. But living with complex regional pain syndrome and being in that constant pain non stop put you can put you in a state of fight or flight and burn out your adrenals, mess up your hormones. So yeah, I get it and I really want to go, okay, well, how can I reset my sympathetic nervous system? Because sometimes at night I get in bed and I feel like I feel all of my nerves almost like vibrating. They're like, almost like I'm shaking in bed because I'm so in that fight or flight. My sympathetic nervous system is just like, yeah, on fire. And so what is something that someone can do? Maybe they don't have pain, but maybe they're in extreme stress and they're in fight or flight because they're in extreme stress. What can you do? What can you do to switch that?

And that's a good question and a good point to focus on because stress doesn't necessarily have to be physical. It can be mental. It can be of course, the physiological. But then also as Americans, we have ultra processed foods available all the time. So that creates the same inflammatory stress response when you intake it. So that being said, key takeaways, how do you break that cycle of stress? There's something called neuroplasticity, biofeedback. So big fancy term of saying you do have control of changing how your brain interprets things and in turn changes how your body responds. So simple thing. What I love to talk about is breath work. And there's science behind it too. Breath work and things that make you relax.

Can we do some breath work right now? Give me one exercise right now.

Let's do. And we could do box breathing. That is the most simple.

Tell us how to do that for you watching on YouTube. You can get this on YouTube if you're listening to it, then check out the YouTube and you can see it. But tell us how to do box breathing.

Picture a box. And for people that feel uncomfortable holding their breath on the top of the count, that's okay, just breathe. And what I mean is if you start feeling panicky, just take a deep breath instead of holding it. So what we're gonna do is picture a box. It's gonna be a box.

I've done this in the car, by the way, and it does help.

It's perfect. You take it everywhere because you're breaking that cycle.

Yeah, yeah.

It's through the vagus nerve, y' all look it up.

Yeah, it's the vagus. Nervous. Hey, real quick, before we get to the box breathing, do you know that they. I had a doctor that wanted to do a vagus stimulator on me, so that was to help treat the complex regional pain syndrome. It was basically brain surgery because they would implant a box on my vagus nerve behind my ear. And I was like, no, thank you. I'm not going to do brain surgery for the CRPs. I'll just deal with the pain until I can figure out something else. But. But they wanted. Because your vagus nerve controls so much with your. Everything from your stomach, your digestion, to so many things.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

And that ties in the gut brain axis. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. But if I can get better by doing some box breathing instead of having brain surgery. Count me in.

Exactly. And a few other pointers, right? Like there's. There's. We can talk a couple of the biohacks, too. But with breathing, that's simple. Because of that mechanism, by the time you focus on the four breaths in, hold. Four breaths, four breaths out, hold. And so you do that for a cycle in your brain.

Hey, let's do it right now.

Okay.

Let's do it right.

Let's do it right now.

Okay, Talk us through it, because I want people who are listening to this. Whether you're running out on a jog, doing cardio, or you're in your car, just do this with us right now. Just take a little break and do this box breathing with us. Okay? Talk us through it, Dr. Amina.

So first, let's just take a couple of normal breaths, your regular breath in and out.

Okay.

And start settling in. And remember, the idea is eventually you want to slow your breath down, but have a longer, slower exhale, because that will shift your sympathetic fight or flight response into your parasympathetic response.

Okay?

Okay, now we're settled in, and we're going to just take four breaths in. One, two, three, four. Hold at the top.

Two, do box. Yeah.

Two, three, four. And then exhale. Hold two, three, four. And then inhale. And then hold. 1, 2, 3, 4. Then exhale. And then hold. One, two, 3, 4. And then you do it again. So I sped through that. But the idea is you want to. You know how to do it. You want to inhale four counts. Hold four counts. Or if you have trouble, if you panic, just breathe through it. So inhale, exhale, and eventually, once you do the box breathing, you can slowly start going even further so if you want to do. You could do four or five breaths in, but then exhale longer, five, six breaths out. And you'll notice your heart rate will come down, you'll start feeling relaxed, you'll be less jittery, you'll focus.

Yeah. I mean, I will seriously get jittery sometimes with. I'm like, what is going on with my nervous system? Because I know that when I get in fight or flight, when just from being in that pain. Yeah. It can be very, very draining. I have a whole list of questions that I haven't even got to.

Okay, let's do it. We could talk all day.

I know. How have you been able to successfully treat chronic conditions? Like if somebody comes to you and they have fibromyalgia or complex regional pain syndrome or arthritis or something that's causing them a lot of pain, how do you successfully help them to feel better? Yeah.

If you look at one thing each of those chronic illnesses has in common is inflammation.

Yeah.

And so there have been studies shown, especially the way that in our states in America, the way food is processed, it's so ultra processed. So people that may think it's healthy, it's not necessarily healthy, and it could be contributing. So if you look at inflammation in general, it ties into possibly finding root cause and what's in reversible. Right.

Yes. And so much is about the food. And let me tell you, one of the hardest things moving to Texas was in California, sorry, Texans out here. That I did move back here from California. I'm really from Texas, but moved back. I was in California for 31 years. There were so many healthy options of food. Like everywhere you went, like, clean, actually clean from the farm, organic farmer's markets, all the time. Like healthy, healthy food. And where I live now, I live in Heath, which is about 40 minutes from this studio in Dallas. Not so much. It's like I have to drive into Dallas and I'll go to Trader Joe's or something just to find some organic, healthy food. It's hard. It's hard. I've had to. I've had to start like pre packing, pre cooking my food now to prepare. Because I can tell a difference if I eat sugar right like that CRPS flares up. I feel it immediately. Brain fog. Like when you start eating clean. When you don't eat clean, you feel it.

Oh, yeah. And there's a phenomenon called, and I'm gonna use a big word, it's called autoimmune mimicry. Okay. And it's tied. Basically, it says that there's a trigger. Mostly it is the food. Right. And the most common triggers, if you look at it, it's dairy. Processed wheat typically can be gluten.

I had blood work, and it was those things. It was dairy, anything. Gluten, red dye, eggs. And I was like, oh. And corn. And I was like, oh, well, I love my chips. And queso.

Yeah.

Like, oh, my gosh, is that why I'm not feeling good? Because I'm eating that stuff? But yeah, it's so much.

It ties into it. Yeah. And the mechanism behind it, so people are more aware of it. It is the inflammation that ties into each of those illnesses. Right. And so it does start in the gut. Your gut is lined. It has a barrier. And if you eat foods that are inflamed or if there's a lifestyle that's inflamed, it will cause a leaky gut. Right. So that's also known as intestinal permeability. Right. So leaky gut. And so what happens is the food that you're supposed to break down and only take the nutrients, things that are processing through the barrier, are now going around into the rest of your system.

How do you treat that?

Well, first is finding the trigger. Right. And once you find the trigger, what I like to do is called you could go get a whole plethora of blood work. But the gold standard is just do an elimination diet. So you want to work with someone who can walk you through it. And that's exactly what it is. It sounds like a diet, but you're actually eating. You're eating real food, prepping the meals, and eating whole organic foods, but you're avoiding the common triggers. And again, it's usually eggs, processed wheat and dairy.

Why is eggs so much? Why? I love eggs. Yeah, but I love eggs and I make eggs. And me and my little pup, tofu, eat eggs together in the morning. Why are eggs such. So many people have a bad reaction to.

Yeah. And that ties into. And there's two modalities that could happen or two explanations. One, are you just so inflamed because of all the food and the lifestyle you've been living, and you have a briefly leaky gut, and maybe you need to remove the triggers, Give yourself work with someone who can actually help repair the lining and then reintroduce what's going on. And what happens is, if you have a leaky gut, the food that maybe you were able to eat before, maybe it's eggs, maybe it's like dairy that you used to be able to tolerate or whatever the case is that you can no longer tolerate because you're inflamed. If you repair it and reintroduce it, then maybe it was because you were off balance and inflamed. So truly, you may not have an issue breaking down eggs. Or, of course, if you have. There's a different type. There's actual allergies that cause, like, anaphylaxis. Those are difficult to even reverse because that. That is an actual allergic reaction. But these autoimmune mimic reagents. That's a different pathway, and it's usually by the trigger.

Yeah. I take a gut health supplement every day. I've been taking it for a few years now. I use plexus. And you know what? I'll put the link for what I use for gut health. And it's the first thing I do in the morning is I drink this supplement that is helping with my gut health. I take a probiotic at night before I go to bed because I've had so many surgeries and I've been on so many antibiotics and stuff like that, which is hard on the lining of your gut. I actually work on it every day to try to strengthen that. Do you recommend something for somebody to take to help strengthen the lining of their gut and promote good gut health?

Yes, I love that because gut is truly central. Exactly what you said to heal the gut. Well, of course, if you don't know you have a trigger and you start noticing, that is definitely gonna help you get to root cause. But in the meantime, we definitely need to work on that microbiome. There's good bacteria, and you want to keep that healthy. So a good probiotic, that's definitely important. And then, of course, you want to have the fiber to keep everything moving along in your digestive tract. Maybe L. Glutamine may be something. If your gut is truly having a lot of inflammation, that helps with the gut lining. It helps repair it, specifically. Oh, really?

I didn't realize that they gave me that as a. They're like, here, order this. And I'm like, okay, what does it do?

I'll just take it.

I'm just taking it. Yeah, but that's what it does. Okay. Who knew? I'm taking it. Yeah.

And then, of course, if you need digestive enzymes, you need to make sure you can take break those particles down and absorb through that healthy microbiome. So all that relates. And then, of course, certain vitamins, like vitamin D, not only is it helpful for gut health, but it also helps other pathways too. But that ties into specifically gut health.

Oh, yeah.

So you got. I would say those are some good handfuls just specifically for gut health. And of course, like you said, like the processed sugars. That's big. That's gonna tear down that mining.

Yeah. Crazy, I'm sure. Sugar and alcohol, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I have so many questions to ask you, and we are running out of time. I just have a couple more questions. There are a lot of people out there that are struggling with sleep. They just are tossing and turning. They're not getting the sleep that they need to recover and repair. What is something that you should do just for someone who's struggling with getting a good night's sleep?

Yeah, that's a very convoluted answer there too. Right. Because if you're going back to the stress response, if you're highly amped up all day, then you're probably gonna have a hard time coming down. So that's one.

Yeah.

We gotta balance out that stress. And then we're living in an age of just constantly being connected on our phones and then all the blue screens. So that's disruptive. So if we could try to turn away the blue screens at least an hour before bed. That balances out your melatonin, your sleep hormone, and also balances out, hopefully, that cortisol stress response again. So that balances your hormones. To get it ready for sleep.

I have, like, a nighttime routine. I have an alarm on my phone, and my phone will start blinking and it goes off. And I'm like, oh, that's my sign. It's time to get ready for bed. And I drink hot tea every night. We'll take a warm shower. Shower or bath? Usually a warm shower now that our bathtub at our new house is a little small, but I like candles. I don't look at my phone. I put my phone away. I gotta get better. About, like, sometimes at night, I'll just want to binge Netflix or something. I just discovered Netflix in this past year.

Oh, my goodness. It's addicting. It is.

I didn't understand that. And I never watched tv. When I first met my husband, I didn't even own a tv. He's like, you don't have a tv? And I'm like, no, I never watched it, but it's like a mindless, like, just zoning out. But everything that we watch and do before we go to bed, it sinks into our subconscious and it can even affect how it sleep or what happens the next day.

Absolutely. And that's the key, is Creating a routine, that active recovery routine. And part of that, yes, I know as much as fun it is to binge watch on Netflix, but you are still using your brain, your mind.

I know.

And so, yeah, doing things that actively bring your body down to relax, whether it is herbal tea or taking a bath or reading or doing some mindfulness activities like meditation, Bryant breath work, maybe do some nighttime yoga. Whatever it is, you want to prep your body for sleep. And then also other hacks, right? You want to make sure the room is just cool. Try to do like 68 degrees, try to make it dark. And that way you are prepped for sleep, a good night's sleep. And that's just part of it. I mean, obviously, if you're waking up in the middle of the night or still have a hard time sleeping, then probably a good idea exploring what it is that's contributing.

Yeah. Well, I could just talk to you forever. I love you and I'm so grateful to have you in the unstoppable life mastermind with all the other amazing ladies and love how we can all collaborate and do things together. And I'm going to have to have you back on because I literally listed out. I'll show you in my notes, a whole page, like pages of questions. And I didn't even get to them. Like, there's so much I want to ask you. But how can somebody, if they're like, okay, I'm ready to take my health back. I'm ready to make some changes and feel better and do better so I can make a bigger impact and influence. How can they find you? If they want to have a discovery call or hire you as their functional medicine doctor, what's the best way to get a hold of you?

Of course, yeah, you can contact me through Instagram. I keep it simple. It's Dr. Romina. So D R R E M I N A. And then of course, my website, same thing, www.drromina.com. and I always post some free good information on Instagram. You do you.

Do y' all follow her? Oh, my Goodness, yeah. Follow Dr. Amina on Instagram. And you know what? You are so awesome about getting back to people through DMs. And so if you have a question for her, just message her, send her a dm. And she's amazing. It's not often that you get an actual doctor that is going to respond to your question. So also, if you found value in this, share it with a friend. Let's share it. Take a screenshot. Tag us. Tag me at amberly lagomotivation tag, Dr. Amina. And when I see that in my story, I always share that, too. So, again, thank you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom again. It was DrRamina.com, right?

Yep, that's it.

Okay, thank you so much for tuning in, and we will see you next week.