Functional Medicine, Breathwork and Genetics: Sachin Patel Explains

Neil Silvert: Welcome to Your Grey Matters, the podcast that unveils the miracles already amongst us. Here, we believe that the human mind cannot be defeated. Tune in to discover the fascinating people with extraordinary stories, innovative products, and groundbreaking services, with your host, Neil Silvert, who's earned his grey hair and still has use of his grey matter. I want to start today's podcast with something that I recently saw in Las Vegas. I was in a room full of people being led by our guest Sachin, and we were taken through a breathing exercise. Now, I've seen a lot of things over the years, but I have never seen anything quite like this. Within minutes, I saw that some people were crying. They were having a deep emotional release. Others were just peaceful, calm. And a few other people, had a look on their face like they knew something that they didn't know a few minutes before. No medication, no machines, just breathing. And I remember thinking, what the heck just happened here? Hi everybody, I'm Neil Silvert I'm the host of the Your Grey Matters podcast. We're glad to have you back. And you know that we believe that the human mind cannot be defeated. And today we're going to take a very deep look at this. Let me introduce this wonderful gentleman on your screen. Sachin Patel is a father, he's a husband, a philanthropist, a functional medicine practice success coach. I had to practice those words by the way. He's a speaker and author of this I loved a breath work facilitator and a plant medicine advocate. Like I said, my bride Linda and I had the chance to hear him present in Vegas. He is convinced that the doctor of the future is the patient. And we're going to talk about that. And he's committed to life, helping people raise their consciousness, activate their inner doctor and initiate deep healing through lifestyle, genetics, self care and breath work. As a precision wellness practitioner, he founded the Living Proof Institute where he's pioneered a patient-centered approach to healthcare. He's coached hundreds of practitioners around the world, helping them deliver more affordable and inspired care. He's an international speaker, an educator in functional medicine, and a leader in self-responsibility, self-responsibility. and lifestyle-based healing. And there's a phrase that he uses that really stood out for me. The doctor of the future is the patient. Sachin, welcome to the Your Grey Matters podcast.

Sachin Patel: Thank you, Neil. It's an honor to be here. I appreciate the lovely and thoughtful introduction. It puts a smile on my face to know the impact that me and my team have had on people's lives, but it makes me really excited to know we're just getting started. So thank you for this opportunity to be sharing this knowledge with your community and spreading it far and wide. I appreciate it.

Neil Silvert: Thank you, Sachin, thank you very much. just before we get into what happened in the room that day, I wanted to make a comment to you. Maybe it's just my age, but I remember, and you're also a chiropractor, and I remember the days when chiropractic care wasn't widely accepted. There was skepticism, there was resistance. It wasn't that long ago, it was only about 30 years ago. But that changed over time. Today it's respected, it's widely used, and it reminded me, it took me back to one of my favourite quotes, Sachin, which is that people of integrity expect to be believed. And when they're not, they let time prove them right. So let me ask you, as you introduce wonderful new directions, are you seeing a lot of skepticism or are people open to new ideas and new beliefs?

Sachin Patel: Yeah, you know, it's a great question. And one thing I want to comment is I still feel chiropractic is very, very underutilized. And I feel like the true expression of chiropractic doesn't always take place in a chiropractic interaction that people have. And so chiropractic is actually not the adjustment. That's what people think it is. Chiropractic is a way of life. It's an understanding of this higher power, this innate intelligence that permeates every living and nonliving thing in the entire cosmos. And that resides inside each and every one of us in every molecule and atom in our body. And so we're entangled with everything that we see and everything that we don't see. And so that's a way of living. It's a way of honoring the body. It's a way of respecting the laws of nature. It's the way of turning the body into a temple instead of a trash can. and then trying to poison it back to health. So I feel like most chiropractors don't actually fully deliver what chiropractic has to offer because it's been reduced to a shell of itself through insurance and what the public perception of chiropractic is. The things we learned in chiropractic school would blow people's minds. And I believe is really, if people could live the chiropractic lifestyle, they would have extraordinary levels of health. intentionally as a profession been targeted because it's the only true threat to our healthcare system, the way it's designed. And I believe that it can coexist, just like auto body shops can coexist with tuner shops, right? They don't have to compete against one another. I don't have to put down the mechanics that fix broken cars and they don't have to put down the tuners that make cars run at their fullest potential, right? But if we're both trying to do the same thing, Right, if I'm trying to be a mechanic, then the mechanics are gonna attack me, right? I have absolutely no intention of waiting for people to get extraordinarily sick, so sick that their blood and their body can biologically no longer manage it, and then try to poison them back to health. Right, I have no intention of doing that, right? That system is available and it's free and it's covered by insurance till the cows come home. What we want people to understand is that they are born

Neil Silvert: out.

Sachin Patel: with this infinite wisdom in every cell in their body that is the highest expression of the cosmos, that if a single cell in their body was found even on the moon or anywhere in the universe, it would be the greatest discovery of mankind. And what we want to do is we want to teach people how to activate and take care of each and every one of those cells with reverence, as we should, and to put them in the driver's seat, right, of this car. So it's not just about the machinery, it's also about how do we take care of this machinery. You see, our current medical system will poke you and prod you and scan you and scope you, right? And they're just looking at the machinery, but there's an intelligence that drives the machinery. And so if I'm trying to figure out what happened in a car accident, I'm going to probably talk to the driver, right? I'm not going to try to fix, you know, have a conversation with the car and pretend like the car was the problem. And that's how our system is set up. Because once I can convince someone their car is a problem, they never have to take responsibility of what happens next. But if I teach them that they're responsible for it and empower them, which is what precision wellness and even chiropractic is, then now we have a whole different approach to health. So I haven't practiced chiropractic in many years in its traditional sense. However, I would say that what I do today is more chiropractic than what most chiropractors are doing in their offices. And that isn't a slide at anyone. It's just the way the system is set up.

Neil Silvert: So fascinating Sachin, I thank you for that because what I've learned over the years is what you just taught that our cells are intelligent. They're communicating nonstop. They know what they're doing. They know how to do it. And something that I heard you say that just this morning when I was studying you, it takes a long time for our body to get sick. Our body... is fighting illness, so it takes a long time for illness to take over. Can you explain that a little more, please?

Sachin Patel: Yeah, you our body is always striving for homeostasis. So homeostasis is where there is equilibrium and balance in our bodies that's regenerative, right? Our bodies are naturally meant to be regenerative and reparative and restorative and rejuvenate themselves, right? We're constantly being remodeled. In fact, during this conversation, billions of cells will die and billions of cells will silently replace themselves. And it kind of begs the question, is, Sachin, I'm always getting new cells, why am I not getting healthier every day? Well, it's because it's the same reason that buying you a new car doesn't make you a better driver. Right. Right. So if I replaced your car, but I didn't teach you how to drive, you're just as likely to have issues or challenges with it. And so what's beautiful about ourselves is just like our cars, they respond to whatever input we provide them. So our body actually never makes mistakes. our body is responding and doing exactly as it's told to do. We just have to change what we're telling it to do. And we can do that through our mind, we can do that through our environment, we can do it through our lighting, we can do it through the foods that we eat, we can do it through the way we breathe. So there's many access points to create balance and homeostasis in the body. And that's what our body's always striving for. When it can no longer maintain homeostasis, That's what we end up calling disease. And what I want people to really understand, at least from my work and others might be echoing this as well, but is we don't focus on disease prevention. We don't even introduce the language of disease into the conversation. Right? So if I were to tell people, hey, I want you to have a cancer prevention strategy, this whole conversation, you probably haven't even been thinking about cancer. And now I've introduced it, even though in a prevention, preventive strategy, we're giving it energy. Yes. Correct. So we want to actually have a health creation strategy. What's possible for me, right? Looking forward, not constantly looking over my shoulder and worrying about what disease I'm going to, I'm trying to prevent, right? Because prevention means fear. Prevention means you're moving away from something. creation means you're moving towards it. You're building it. You're co-creating, right?

Neil Silvert: Yes, we are.

Sachin Patel: So that's what we want people to have is by becoming self-aware, you become your own most powerful healing agent, right? Your body is a surgeon, your body is a pharmacy, your body is a nurse, your body is a doctor, it's already diagnosing long before the blood tests are gonna show it. Your body already knows something is wrong. It's already scanning and probing and analyzing. But now what we need to do is we need to learn how to help it. Right? How to move with it instead of moving against it. And when people learn how to do that through these different tools, they quickly learn that the breath is actually the most accessible and potent and predictable tool that they have when it comes to helping their body do exactly what it's designed to do.

Neil Silvert: So that's a great place to jump in. First, thank you for what you just said because Linda and I have been on our own study of energy and co-creating and expanding the universe, which is what I believe you're talking about. And words do matter and our thoughts do matter and our emotions do matter, but we have the power to be able to enjoy our emotions and to create our own health with that. Go back to what you just said. You were talking about breathing. Can you explain what happened in Vegas? What was the breath work you did and how does it help us such?

Sachin Patel: Well, I think to really unpack it would require more time. But I want to give people maybe a high level of what's happening in our bodies. So we breathe about 30 pounds of air a day, which means we consume more air in a day than food in a week. We take about 20 to 23,000 breaths a day. Young children take about 40 to 60,000 breaths a day. It's the most actively unengaged thing that we do. what that means is we are typically not thinking about our breathing, how we're breathing, and we're typically not aware, even if our breath comes to our attention, we don't know how to manipulate it in such a way to create a predictable outcome for us. So we have two divisions of what's known as our autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is really right now without you having to think about it, regulating your heart rate, your digestion, your immunity, your red blood cell production, your metabolic rate, your body temperature, where blood is going, all that's happening without you having conscious thought about it, right? And we're grateful that's happening, right? However, there's two divisions to this system, one being the sympathetic, which is fight or flight. And when we are in a fight or flight state, which is where most people spend a lot of their days, right? The majority of people's time is spent in this fight or flight state. In this fight or flight state, there's a predictable response that takes place inside every single human being. This is wired into our biology. So if you were to experience a stressful thought in the future or in the past or in the present, or if you were to experience a stressful situation, that is first perceived as being stressful. Every situation is neutral. It's the emotion that we attach to it. And the emotion we attach to the situation is usually based on our values, beliefs, and lived experiences. So if I believe something is bad, then it's gonna create stress. But if that same situation, I'm still looking at it I believe it's good, it's gonna create peace. So our perception of the situation, and of course I understand some things are very traumatic, so I don't wanna discount those type of things. But if somebody spills milk, you can make that the end of the world or you could just laugh it off. It's really about perception. And so that determines our, part of our brain called the amygdala will determine what state to create in our body. And it's like a switch. So when the switch gets activated in fight or fright, our pupils dilate. So we become sensitive to light. Our hearing becomes more engaged. So we become more sensitive to sound. Our saliva production shuts down because if I'm gonna run away from something or fight someone, I'm not gonna be eating right now. So I'm gonna turn off saliva production. Stomach acid production shuts down. The blood that was once going to my trunk organs, my liver, my kidneys, my intestinal tract, my reproductive organs, now is reverted and redirected to my arms and legs so I can fight or run away. The blood has to come from somewhere, it comes from the core. It's non-essential for survival. Energy is mobilized by cortisol Increasing cortisol raises blood sugar. My heart rate goes up. My respiratory rate goes up. Digestion shuts down. Reproduction shuts down. Detox shuts down. Immune system shuts down. Repair functions shut down in this state because I don't need a white blood cell, but white blood cells aren't going to help me if I'm being attacked by a tiger. Right? it's an intelligent yet predictable response. which has a wide sweeping effect on the body. Now if somebody lives in this state, guess what? They're gonna be more irritable because light's gonna bother them. Sounds are gonna bother them. Their mouth is always gonna be dry. They're gonna have a hard time with eating carbohydrates because carbohydrate digestion starts with saliva production in the mouth. If they don't have adequate saliva production, They don't have adequate stomach acid production. So now their proteins become mal-digested causing more digestive issues and more digestive inflammation. But their digestive system also shut down. So they're not even properly digesting that food that they're having. They become more constipated because peristalsis slows down. The toxins that they consumed in that food or the air they breathe or water they drink is not getting detoxed properly because they're in fight or flight. Heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes up. Sleep becomes compromised, immune system becomes compromised, right? This is all happening, but this can happen and it's fine if it happens for a short period of time, right? Because our body comes back to balance and back into what we call a parasympathetic or rest and digest and rejuvenate type of state. And so in that state, our pupils constrict. We're less sensitive to sound. saliva production increases. In fact, that's one way you can check in right now. Is my mouth producing saliva? If it is, then you're in that relaxed state. If your mouth is dry and pasty, then you're in a fight or flight state. I don't need to run any labs on you. Your body's already telling me, right? Next, would, you know, when a parasympathetic state, our heart rate goes down. Our respiratory rate goes down, right? So just based on how somebody's breathing, I can tell the state of their nervous system. As somebody who is sitting here breathing. You'd probably think, okay, this guy's having a panic attack or he's stressed out. But if I'm sitting here, you wouldn't even know if my tongue's in the roof of my mouth, but I'm breathing slowly, it's inaudible, you can barely even tell if there's air moving in and out of my nose. You can tell that person's probably in a parasympathetic state. In that parasympathetic state, you're making stomach acid. Stomach acid is designed to digest your proteins, but it's very importantly designed to kill any viruses, pathogens, and bacteria that we don't want in our intestinal tract, right, which cause inflammation and other issues. When we digest our proteins, we're less prone to having allergic or food inflammatory reactions. When we have adequate blood flow to the gut, we have a proper sealing of the gut lining, so we're less likely to have leaky gut and develop autoimmune conditions. all that to say, I promised I would make this short and I didn't, but all that to say-

Neil Silvert: I it.

Sachin Patel: The healing and repair that everyone seeks doesn't happen in a sympathetic state. So it doesn't matter what supplements you take. It doesn't matter, you know, what peptides you inject yourself with. It doesn't matter what drugs you take. If you're sympathetic dominant, your body will always express sympathetic dominance. And there's a predictable expression that takes place. Right? We have drugs for all those things. Right. Right. And whatever, it's like whack-a-mole. So whatever problem shows up, your cholesterol is high. Okay, we're going to give you a statin. now your blood pressure is high. We're going to give you a blood pressure medication. your blood sugar is high. So we're going to give you something to drop your blood. These are all predictable, sympathetic dominant responses. So when somebody comes to me and they say, I can't sleep at night. My cholesterol is high. My blood sugar is high. I'm gaining weight around the midsection. My digestion's a train wreck. My energy's low. I feel bloated when I eat. I'm like, perfect. Your body's not broken. Your body's doing exactly what you're telling it to do. What you have is a mismatch of the state of your nervous system and the activity you're trying to do. So if I'm in fight or flight and trying to sleep, that's not gonna work. If I'm in fight or flight trying to digest, that's not gonna work. If I'm in fight or flight trying to reproduce, that's not gonna work. If I'm in fight or flight trying to think clearly and focus, it's also not gonna work, right? So this... You know, when we understand that this is a predictable, reproducible response in every single body, because we're all hardwired this way, it becomes so clear what the problem is. Right? It becomes, which means it becomes so clear what the solution is. And so breathing is the bridge between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. It's the one thing that I mentioned that changes that we can control. Right? So when we're in fight or flight, our respiratory rate increases. When we're relaxed, our respiratory rate slows down. But what if I could teach you how to slow it down even more and get deeper into that state of relaxation? What if I could show you how to breathe to take a stressful situation and neutralize it from a nervous system perspective? Right? So we can teach people how to breathe in specific patterns because think of it this way, when your emotion changes, the first thing that changes is your breath. So if I say something funny, you laugh, right? That is breathing, that's breath work. If I say something and it gives you a sense of relief, you sigh, you can't do that without breathing. If you're upset, you cry, or if you're in pain, you cry, right? The way people cry when they're in pain actually helps them forget about the pain.

Neil Silvert: Interesting.

Sachin Patel: Right? The way a child cries when they're experiencing discomfort is the nervous system's way to regulate itself. Right? It's a form of breathing. We might not like the sound of it, right? But that's the expression of the emotion. Right? It doesn't sound good because what's coming out of them isn't good, right? What's coming out of them is pain. should sound like pain. So our body is already using the breath to express itself. which means that it's what people, when you get this, it's a two-way street, which means that I can change the breath to create the emotion or I can wait for the emotion to change and then my body will create the breath, right? See, if I start running immediately, my respiratory rate's gonna increase, whether I like it or not. Even if I try to resist it, it's gonna increase because that's what my body is requiring. But if I come back from a run or a jog, and I want to figure out how to unwind as quickly as possible and get back to homeostasis as quickly as possible, I can use my breath to lean in a little bit more.

Neil Silvert: So is this the kind of thing that you teach at the Living Proof Institute? Because what you just told me, which is so fascinating and thank you, is for the last number of minutes you've been speaking, I realize our bodies are perfect. They're temples. We're the ones that can attract the negative part of our health, so to speak, but our body's already ready to keep us healthy if we just treated properly is not a very simplistic way of reacting to what you've

Sachin Patel: Yeah, exactly. Being healthy should feel like rolling a boulder down a hill, not up a hill. And if it feels like you're rolling a boulder up a hill, you're doing it all wrong.

Neil Silvert: It's very interesting because I've become fascinated because I myself have had diabetes for 20 years. And, and this is going to sound ridiculous. Well, I'd rather not be a diabetic. I've found a way to make it a friend, to make it a pause. It's a positive part of my life. It's something that I have. would love to not have it with me in partnership, but it doesn't give me distress and decay and inflammation and unhappiness. I think a lot of this is. attitude and our energy. Am I right with that?

Sachin Patel: I think a lot of life is our attitude, right? However, there are limitations of matter too, right? So when we're living in a 3D world, we have to consider the mind is beyond the 3D world. And there is a 3D world that is kind of our reality as well. So I believe that both need to be well maintained. And the thing with diabetes is that it is typically And I don't know anything about your health personally, so I'm not gonna, but I'm just saying typically when we think of diabetes, we think of it as a metabolic disorder. And only one of the things, or maybe a couple of things to look at, insulin resistance or fasting insulin levels, looking at the obviously blood sugar, and then looking at triglycerides, and also looking at hemoglobin A1C. Those are like good places to start. What we found to be really helpful, so we do something called precision wellness. And precision wellness would be adding, you know, the blood work is just a spotlight in time. Whereas if you were to wear a continuous glucose monitor, that would clue us in into where the glucose is going up and down throughout the day. And if the diet is dialed in, then we really start looking at the breath a little bit more closely, because that tells us about the state of the nervous system. So one of the things, clinical pearl for anyone watching this is there's often times where, you know, quote unquote diabetics wake up and their blood sugar is high first thing in the morning and they're kind of scratching their heads wondering like, hey, I did my exercise, I did my steps, I ended my meal on time. And a lot of times it actually has to do with how they're breathing at night. So if somebody's breathing with their mouth open while they're sleeping, they're producing a stress response in their body versus somebody who's breathing through their nose while they're sleeping. So something as simple as focusing on nasal breathing at night versus mouth breathing is a powerful way to get deeper sleep, to have better glymphatic function, which is how our brain detox when we're sleeping at night, and to have more restorative sleep. In fact, it's very common. have a case study that I share in one of my presentations. A lady messaged me after two nights of mouth taping. She had brain fog, fatigue, just debilitating incapacity with her health. And she was doing all kinds of things, taking all kinds of supplements and so on and so forth. And nothing was helping her. Within two days of just taping her mouth with a small piece of tape, just vertically like this, all of her issues went away. So if somebody's waking up more tired than when they went to bed or their blood sugar is higher when they wake up in the morning than when they went to bed, it usually clues me into a breathing, nighttime breathing disorder.

Neil Silvert: So I'm going to break out the tape tonight. That's right. Because, and I'm not being flippant. I was wondering because I'm asleep, so I don't know how I'm breathing. So a simple piece of tape could actually help. and not to share too much in me, but I do often wonder why I'm so high in the morning when I know I shouldn't be. but, that's part of the friendship that I have with this thing, trying to figure it out.

Sachin Patel: Here's the thing, the other thing, so ways to know in case somebody's wondering, hey, do I breathe through my mouth while I'm sleeping? One sign is a dry mouth. So if you wake up in the middle of the night and your mouth is dry, you wake up in the morning and your mouth is dry, that usually could be an indication. Oftentimes, frequent urination at night will also be a sign of mouth breathing because when we, mouth breathing is a diuretic, so it causes us to have to use the bathroom more often. so the two things that people, maybe three or four things people notice when they start mouth taping is their mouth wakes up and it's moist. So they don't have morning breath. They don't have that dryness or pastiness in the morning. They also will notice that they start dreaming again. If they've stopped dreaming for a while, they'll notice that they have more energy in the morning when they wake up. So they actually feel refreshed and less foggy. doesn't take them a lot to get going. They're just up and ready to go. And they'll notice that they're just feeling more calm in the morning when they wake up, as opposed to just waking up and just being in fight or flight as soon as the day starts.

Neil Silvert: And again, not meaning to be a funny question, the type of tape that one would use on their mouth. I don't know if different tapes can interact with the skin or what would you recommend?

Sachin Patel: Yeah, great question. So the tape that I recommend, you don't need any fancy mouth tapes, is called 3M MicroPore Tape. It's a surgical tape that you just apply vertically on your lips. It works with even men who have facial hair like myself. And you're just putting a small piece to keep your mouth in that closed position. If you're new to this, it might sound a little bit weird to tape your mouth closed at night. So we usually encourage people to start becoming aware of their daytime breathing. an habitual mouth breather, then it's going to take some getting used to. So maybe you start by just placing your tongue at the roof of the mouth and breathing in and out through your nose, getting used to that. And then maybe wear the tape for five minutes while you're checking email, maybe 20 minutes, you know, work your way up to 20 minutes and then you can try wearing it at night. So you might have to build up to it. I just went all in and I haven't stopped for the last six years. So it's a daily nighttime routine for me, even though at this point I'm a habitual nasal breather. And the odd time I forget my tape, I still wake up with my mouth closed. For me, it's just an insurance policy. And it's also a great way for people who grind their teeth to relax their jaw. So now they don't have to, you know, they don't have to clench their teeth or their jaw to keep their mouth closed. The tape does that heavy lifting for them, so to speak, while they're sleeping.

Neil Silvert: Sachin, this was amazing and brilliant. I thank you for that. And if you're having these challenges, folks, give it a try. I mean, it really is fantastic. I wanted to go into another area with you. Just take a shot that maybe it can help. You helped someone who I know to lose weight and to lose weight quickly. And you seem to have done it, I think by breathing again. Can you? Touch on that because it was phenomenal to me. Phenomenal.

Sachin Patel: Yeah, absolutely. So for every 10 pounds we lose, we lose 8.4 through the lungs. And when I first heard that, you know, I was like, wait a minute. So I went back to the biology textbooks and it's absolutely true. So if you're wondering where the fat goes after you burn it, you exhale 8.4 out of every 84 % of every pound you lose is out through your mouth. Okay. And The other 1.6 is water. So we pee it out, sweat it out, breathe it out even, because there's moisture in our breath. So that's where, you know, the rest of it goes. And then the body makes a little bit of light as well. actually are little, there's a little sunshine we produce inside of ourselves, believe it or not. So that's what gives off, that's what the fat turns into, light, water and CO2. And so once you understand that, you start thinking, okay, well, that makes sense. Because if I wanted to, you if you're into cars at all, one of the cheapest upgrades you can do to a car to get more horsepower is an air intake, right? You just get more air into the engine and the engine starts, you know, performing better. Another way is through the exhaust system, right? So our nose and our breathing respiratory system is essentially that intake and the exhaust. So that's where the waste products go, right? So CO2 is a waste product. And what's really fascinating about our breath is that when we restore breathing patterns that create a parasympathetic state in our body, that's when our body's burning fat. When we're in fight or flight, fat is too slow of a fuel to fuel the stress response. increase, when we're in fight or flight, increase cortisol, which increases blood sugar, right? And that blood sugar comes from glycogen, which is a quick fuel for our body to use. But it's not an endless supply, right? You know, it's a quick fuel that our body uses and then, you know, and then after that it taps into fat. But we have about two to three hours of reserve of, you know, very active activity before we burn out of that glycogen. So most people, when they're in perpetual fight or flight, they're not targeting their stored fat because they're just burning up their sugars and their glycogen. Right? I'm simplifying this. at rest is when we burn fat. But if somebody is physically at rest, but their nervous system is in fight or flight because they're over breathing, they're signaling their body to burn glucose for energy. So now guess what? They're gonna be craving more foods that are higher in carbohydrates, or they're gonna crave more sugary foods to replenish those stores that their body's depleting. And so when we shift into a slower breathing pattern, a more parasympathetic breathing pattern, where our body feels safe, and now blood is being mobilized from the core, right? The way we mobilize the fat around our midsection is by slowing down our breath. The way we pack more weight on the midsection is by speeding up the breath. Okay. So when we're in fight or flight, we're breathing more. We're increasing respiration. When we increase respiration, that fight or flight state will correspond with an increase in cortisol. Increase in cortisol increases blood glucose. The highest sensitivity of receptor sites for cortisol is in our midsection, okay, in our belly. When we increase cortisol perpetually, we increase insulin. When we increase insulin, we create insulin resistance. That's what leads to blood sugar dysregulation, diabetes, but it also leads to weight gain around the midsection because that's the smartest place for you to store fat if you're in fight or flight. If your arms and legs became fat, it would slow you down. Right? So our body says, hey, we're in fight or flight. Whatever energy I produced, I didn't use it. So I'm just going to convert it back into fat. And if I need it quickly, the best place for me to store it is in my belly because I can mobilize it very quickly. But if you get into fight or flight and you just stay there, right? Then the process just keeps repeating.

Neil Silvert: Continues and continues so right So there's a great comment here somehow about being in a relaxed state is Getting control of ourselves and understanding who we are what our energy is and to take control of it and it's an amazing thing what you're saying because My teaching my education over the years has also focused towards the growth of inflammation in the body and how bad inflammation can be for all of us. I imagine what you're talking about would have a massive effect on inflammation.

Sachin Patel: Well, absolutely, because cortisol, your body makes cortisol, it also makes cortisone, right, to help deal with inflammation. So when you're making, if there's chronic inflammation in the body, right, we wanna go to where the source of that inflammation is coming from. It's typically coming from some sort of... some sort of perpetual kind of imbalance in the body. So for example, lot of people's inflammation starts in their mouth, right? The mouth is the beginning of the digestive system. So we might even consider that as part of the equation. So oral inflammation is a huge contributor to chronic inflammation. However, the health of our oral system, our oral microbiome and the health of our mouth is actually determined by how we breathe. So people who are habitual mouth breathers, or even if they're breathing at night, 66 % of people statistically sleep with their mouth open. So two thirds of people listening to this are sleeping with their mouth open at night, not even knowing it. Okay. What happens when that occurs, if it's habitual during the day or at night, is it, A, puts us in fight or flight. B, our mouth dries out. which then changes the pH. Our saliva is actually very protective of our gums and teeth. Our mouth dries out, changing the pH, which changes the type of bacteria that grow there. Now, when people have inflammation in their mouth, that inflammation and that overgrowth of that bacteria makes itself systemically available in the body. That's why when they do autopsies and they analyze plaques in people's hearts, what they find is that over 80 % of them have oral bacteria in them. So that oral bacteria permeates and goes throughout the entire body, and it doesn't necessarily get looked at very closely. have about, there's, you know, whatever your size of your palm is, that's the amount of surface area of pockets in your teeth that you can't reach with a toothbrush or with floss.

Neil Silvert: Yeah.

Sachin Patel: So we actually use something called Perioprotect, which gets into the pockets of our teeth and gets into those anaerobic bacteria that can get systemically in our body. So yeah, so our breathing has a lot to do with the inflammation that occurs and stems from our mouth, which is probably one of the most immediate places. then secondly is the digestive system. And again, if we're... in perpetual fight or flight, we're more prone to leaky gut, maldigestion, especially of proteins, and those proteins make it through that leaky gut, then causing a systemic inflammatory reaction. So we can know if somebody's source of inflammation is coming from their digestive system pretty quickly by changing kind of their airway mechanics and breathing, and also looking at their food a bit more closely, and really like, What we do in our office, Neil, you asked earlier and get around to it, but we use precision in everything that we do. So we're using precision with the breath, right? If the nervous system is faltering, everything else I do is not gonna work. It doesn't matter what I do, right? We're just wasting our time and money. But if I get your nervous system dialed in, now your body is cooperating with the process that we're going through. So now all the other interventions, like your diet is gonna work better. Your supplements are gonna work better. Improving your sleep is gonna work better. Regulating your blood sugar is gonna work better. It's all gonna work more predictably because your body is in the state in which it's designed to do just that, to find that balance. We also do genetic testing as well because no two people, every single person is unique. Just like your fingerprint's unique, just like your breathing signature is unique, your DNA is unique. And so imagine how much easier it is to help somebody if we have their genetic blueprint. So if I'm looking at you and I can use your breath as a diagnostic tool to determine the state of your nervous system, I can teach you how to use your breath to correct course, and then I can get your DNA and tell you exactly how your body functions and have the blueprint and manual of you. Right now I have almost a guaranteed way I can help you. Right? It's actually never happened where I've had to give anyone their money back because we couldn't help them. And we actually are so certain that we can help people that we give them a money back guarantee because once I have this information, I have an unfair advantage that you've never had before to help you. Everyone else has, you've just been, most people have just been guessing their way through this process, right? When people say I've tried everything, that means they've guessed at everything. Right? We take the guesswork and the trying out of it and we come up with a process and a formula and a blueprint that helps you live into your body. Right? Not living to prevent a disease or an illness, but live into the only body that you have. And the information that we provide you is timeless and personalized. Right? So teaching you how to breathe is a timeless self-care tool. Teaching you about your genetics is timeless as well because that report will never change. It will be the same whether you do it today or 20 years from now. That's changing every five minutes, right? So it's transient and it's benefit. And so most people live their life in accordance to their blood work, which is like looking in the rear view mirror. Looking at your DNA is like looking through the windshield and knowing exactly where you can go and where you wanna go instead of avoiding where you don't wanna go.

Neil Silvert: Because it's on us. So let me ask you, Sachin, and thank you for all of this. This is a blessing. I must say I'm very privileged because I've been married for a long time to a periodontal hygienist, just recently retired. And I learned through her that a great deal of our health emanates right from the mouth, from breathing to what we eat to the pocket. So everybody, need to have your teeth checked regularly and to do things properly. So. I wanted to ask you though, in my quotation about integrity at the start of this podcast, you have worked with a lot of practitioners. It's one of the great things that is talked about in your bio. How's the pushback to this? How do you find the medical sciences pushing back? there acceptance? I'm curious because you're almost disruptive and what you're bringing out, even though I can't wait to get in line to start doing this.

Sachin Patel: You know what? There's nothing that I've said or shared today that is even remotely controversial if you understand the basic sciences, anatomy and physiology. So if you took the first level one biology and level one physiology, I'm only reminding you of what you already learned. So there's absolutely no clinical scientific dispute to anything I've said.

Neil Silvert: That's marvelous because then people can work in concert and people can relearn.

Sachin Patel: Yeah, and it's very, what I feel like it's very complimentary. So if you look at a bell-shaped curve, right, where our current system operates and most people operate is kind of somewhere in the middle. And in the middle is like the mechanic model, right? Is that, okay, something's wrong with my car. I take it in and I fix the car, but I do nothing to address the user, right? And you know, cars break down, their mechanical bodies break down. I get that. But right now, that's the majority of care that people are receiving, right? And perhaps rightfully so in some cases, rightfully so in other cases. But on the fringes, on the end of that is the driving school that teaches you how to drive the car and the tuner, which teaches you how to get the most out of the car. So those are the edges in which we operate. What I want for people is I want to give them a fair shot at being healthy, right? And we do that by teaching them how to regulate their nervous system. And we do that by giving them their personal genetic blueprint to then create an operating system for them. Wow. Okay. And then we want them, once they know that, right? Then they can live into that. And what we find most people want to do is they want to kind of bypass getting sick. And they want to know, okay, what can my life look like? Right? Beyond just feeling normal, right? I want to, I want to feel what it's like to be at my fullest potential. And what I help people understand is that you can't create a 10 out of 10 business with even seven out of 10 health. You can't be a 10 out of 10 dad with eight out of 10 health. You can't be a 10 out of 10 husband with even a 0.5 out of 10 health. Right? So your health really sets the ceiling for how you show up in every area of your life. And so when people start, you know, focusing on health creation instead of disease prevention, it's a much more empowering place for your nervous system to even be. And it's something that doesn't require you to wait until something catastrophic happens and then change. Right? What if we could just start from the very beginning? That's what I want for myself. That's what I want for my son. That's what I want for all my clients. That's what I want for my wife. We want to know what is possible in this lifetime if we could truly discover and become experts of ourself. You see, most people become an expert in their condition. They become an expert in their diagnosis. But the ultimate flex is to become an expert in who you are. Doing the emotional work, doing the nervous system work, doing the understanding your blueprint and living into it. doing the work of being in the right environments and self-talk and all the things that I'm sure we've talked about, but maybe even your other guests have talked about that it takes to really live an amazing life. And if we can do that, then we can do the amazing things we're here to do.

Neil Silvert: and this is so fabulous and of course I'm going to presume, correct me if I'm wrong, that if people want to learn more, they should get in touch with the Living Proof Institute, reach out to you and make an appointment and start to get care.

Sachin Patel: Yeah, and you know, we have, I just did a webinar earlier today and I want to extend this offer to, you know, people who are listening to this. So you'll have to reference this interview. What we did this morning is we made an extraordinary offer. And Neil, you're welcome to take me up on it as well. Thank you. We gave away a copy of my book. It's called Breathe Balance Burn. It teaches you how to break this cycle of belly fat using your breath. and a four-week course that goes along with it. And in addition to that, a genetic test, which gives you a 34-page report that looks at your, what diet is optimized for you, what exercise is optimized for you, what nutrients are optimized for you, how your detox pathways work, how your hormone pathways work, how your vitamin D receptors work, what supplements might be most appropriate for you, or you're likely to be deficient in even what labs to pay attention to or ask your doctor for, that report you'll also get and a one hour consultation with me for $2.99. So you're getting the test and the course for free and you're paying me, you know, probably half of what I normally charge to interpret that lab for you as our way of showing you how committed we are to helping you live to your fullest potential. So normally something like that's like you know, $750 to $1,000. We're giving you the test and the course and the book for free. All you have to pay is for the time that it takes for us to interpret it for you. And even then, you're paying a fraction. it's really, you know, the best, giving you the best of what I have to offer in terms of pricing, in terms of the knowledge and information and the self-care and regulation tools with the breathing.

Neil Silvert: Thank you. We're going to promote that. And do they get this just by contacting Living Proof Institute or how do they set this?

Sachin Patel: Well, how about I do this? I'll share a link with you and then we'll create a special code for your audience. Let's make that code gray matter. And the code would be gray matter. Either all caps or all small letters. It's case sensitive that way, but we'll put it in both, all small letters and all big letters. So gray matter. And then that'll activate the discount for everyone.

Neil Silvert: Okay. Thanks very much. cut. Thank you so much. that's great. We'll look forward to receiving that. Sachin, you're a blessing just as we start to sign off. I wanted to just say that I'm fascinated by the fact that you've become part of the scientific and performance advisory team for the Super Patch Company. And full disclosure, I wear them every day. I love them. But I wanted to ask you, such an esteemed man as yourself, a learned man, why did you decide to get involved with this product, this Neurotech?

Sachin Patel: Yeah, well, thank you for asking. You one of the things that intrigued me is the simplicity. So Jason, who's our mutual friend, came by one day, totally unrelated to Super Patch, and he didn't even know I was struggling with a hip issue. It's not something I advertise, but I injured myself in the gym, and I just couldn't get the pain to go away. I was doing everything right, know, stretching, maybe overstretching, seeing therapists for it, and it just wouldn't go away, and I would... I'd for a while, I'd get up and I'd have to limp around for a little bit. And I'm like, man, maybe this is my reality now. And maybe I'm just getting old and this is the way it is. And I just wasn't accepting it. And it came, so Jason came to my house and it was about a week or so before I was heading out to a health expo event where I was going to be speaking and facilitating breath work. I'm like, the last thing I need to be doing is limping around. you know, and all these people are going to be seeing this, like it's going to be so.

Neil Silvert: Like, that's not good advertising.

Sachin Patel: Yeah, I wasn't looking forward to it, you know, not that I'm a hip expert, but you still don't want to be limping around. And so he gave me the patches and I wore them and within two days, the pain had disappeared. And I was like, what is this is so strange? Cause this has been going on for many, many months at this point. I've seemingly tried everything and now the pain is gone. And I was so happy. was not. gonna argue with the results. I knew what it felt like before and I knew what it felt like two days later and since the pain has never come back. And what I came to learn is that the pain wasn't in my body, it was in my nervous system. So there's a concept called alodinia. And if you remember back in the day, if you had an old CRT television and if you left it on the same image all day, even after you turned the TV off, you'd be able to see the pixels were burnt. And you can still see the same image, right? And if you did that long enough, would have a permanent damage to the TV where you would see, you know, the news tickers, for example, they do that to the TV and they ruin it. And so that is something that can happen in our bodies where that pain pathway, that signal has become so burnt into the system and nothing's disrupting it. And that's what those patches did for me is they disrupted that aledina signal and kind of reset the nervous system. What I love about the patches, again, not that they just helped me. I mean, that was that's when I was sold on them because I experienced the magic for myself, but I love that they're non-invasive drug free. Don't contradict or create any contraindications if somebody's on a medication or a supplement and they access the thing that we all want to access. and neutralize and stabilize, which is the nervous system. So when we combine the super patches with coherent breathing and self-awareness around our breath, now we have this access point to our nervous system that didn't exist before. And people are experiencing it, right? So when the state of the nervous system changes, the breath changes. And when the breath changes, the nervous system changes. So now we have this one-two partnership with the nervous system and the breath that we can access and create even more amazing results. you know, when I was at the event, I didn't know what to expect. It was my first time attending a Super Patch event and being able to be, you know, excited and speaking there. The stories I heard were just so amazing. It just totally blew my mind what people were sharing and the experience that they had. it, you know, doubled down my belief in what's possible when our nervous system is well regulated.

Neil Silvert: Yes. You know, I must tell you, we were brought in to see the Super Patch. It's now a couple of years ago. And without giving full testimony on this show, I will just have to say that it had an immediate improvement on my bride Linda, who had suffered from a terrible car accident six years prior. And the patch really helped her. is... I'm so much better in many areas. believe in it. I just want to thank you for taking part in the Super Patch Company in your capacity. And I'll give a shout out to Mr. J. Dollywall, the creator, the CEO, the owner of this company. He's done all of us a very big favor. He's a blessed man. And so are you Sachin. Sachin Patel, we are so thankful to have you on the show. We appreciate you. will take advantage of your kind offer for people to learn more about what you do. We'll look forward to having that code. Everybody, you should look up Sachin Patel. You should be taking a look at his website, which we will of course post in our description. We truly believe that the human mind cannot be defeated. We have it all, but learning how to do it. Well, it's good to have someone like Sachin Patel and his great, great team there to help you along. So with that, we will thank you Sachin, bless your heart and everybody. Thanks for being on today on the Your Gray Matters podcast.