Ian Hart interviewed Sachin Patel for his book “Healing Hacks” which is all about natural healing techniques and hacks for recovery fast and performance max. He interviews healing hackers who give their most valuable techniques to stimulate the healing process in the body. You can learn more about it when you read the book – https://healinghacks.net/. Sachin Patel is the founder and owner of The Living Proof Institute, functional doctor and Chiropractor. When he couldn’t find answers through conventional medicine he began to explore functional and lifestyle medicine. He uses this gift to help transform the lives of thousands of people around the world through his organization. Sachin is an advocate for changing the healthcare paradigm and has devoted his life for the betterment of humanity.

1. Health is a priority for you and not only just basic health, right, but really optimal health or the aspiration to live your best life. (Health | 1:59)
2. Healthcare doesn’t have a… like natural healthcare, it doesn’t have a solutions issue. It has a marketing issue. (Healthcare | 6:32)
3. I would say mindset. And so there’s, you know, some key principles to mindset when it comes to health and just life in general. We have not really, many people have not really fully experienced or realized the potential of human, of their own human mind. And what most people don’t realize is that their central nervous system is being hijacked, right? It’s hijacked by advertisers. It’s hijacked by distractions. It’s hijacked by, you know, messages that are not true. Like it’s hijacked by chemicals, chemicals, right? It’s hijacked by food. It’s hijacked by so many different elements. And so if you don’t control your central nervous system, then you actually don’t control your thoughts, right? So whoever controls your mind controls your thoughts and we know thoughts become things. And so if you’re not in control of your nervous system, the person that is, or the entity or the organization or the corporation that is, is going to actually literally be creating your reality for you. (Healing and Foundational Principles | 8:45)
4. Most people, because of their mindset, because of a hijack nervous system, they live in a sympathetic dominant state. And so because of that sympathetic dominance, we’re in a state of fight or flight constantly. Because of that fight or flight state, we actually don’t send blood to the trunk and we send it to our arms and legs. And what this creates is a decrease in blood flow to the vital organs in our trunk, which is the organs that we’re trying to heal. So when people want to detoxify better, well, we don’t just give them nutrients that support detoxification. We actually have to send function by blood flow and proper signaling to that organ. So at rest, for example, you’re sending about 50% of your blood in your body to your kidneys and your liver. So that should tell us how important that organ function is. But when we were sympathetic dominant, which is most of the time than what people are not realizing is you’re only sending 5% of your blood to your liver and kidneys. (Foundational Principles and Mindset | 10:24)
5. Where does that sympathetic dominance come from? It comes from poor limbic programming. So our amygdala and our limbic brain basically make decisions for us based on our subconscious belief. So what that means is your value system, your belief system, what you believe to be true is going to then impact your physiology without even conscious control. So when information is coming into the brain, it goes into the limbic brain, which is part of our reptilian brain. It’s the decision making engine. And based on our belief systems and values and past experiences, it determines if we’re going to have a stress response or not. So if you’re programmed to think that the situation is stressful, even before you can consciously process what’s happening, you already have a response and that sends a signal right down your spinal cord and tells every cell in your body that we’re under attack. So change the function of what you were doing. Drop everything you’re doing. We’re under attack. So we’ve got to go in a state of fight or flight. That doesn’t just happen at an organ level. It happens at a cell level and the same blood goes everywhere. So it happens in every single organ and every single cell in your entire body. And then two seconds later your conscious brain actually realizes what’s going on. So most people, if they have control over their conscious mind, they’re always putting out that subconscious fire because that signal is already being sent instantaneously before they can even process it. So if we want to get control of our cellular function and organ function and restore blood flow to the right part of our body that we’re trying to heal, and it’s by actually reprogram the unconscious mind. (Foundational Principles and Mindset | 11:23)
6. Go on vacation. So if you go on vacation and you feel better, we know it’s not your body. That’s the problem. We know it’s your environment, what you’re thinking about and the stressors that you’re under. That’s the problem… You feel better on vacation because not because your body’s healed… Your body is always healing… Your body’s in a constantly in a state of healing and repairing and regenerating. But when you go on vacation now, the stressful inputs that were coming in, the demands of work and all these things are now basically gone. So your body isn’t a parasympathetic dominant state. And when we’re in a parasympathetic dominant state, that’s when the healing takes place. So go on vacation and prove to yourself once and for all that your body can feel better in a very short period of time, given the right circumstances and by eliminating the stressors and then figure out what are those stressors in your life, right? So if you go on vacation and you feel awesome and then it’s Sunday night and you feel like crap again, well it’s probably your job… (Reprogramming | 13:13)
7. For some people that sounds like a ridiculous notion that it’s not possible for us to be excited about work. Well, again, that’s because of what’s programmed into your subconscious mind. That belief pattern that I should not enjoy my job, that I should always look forward to the weekend that Wednesday is Hump Day. I mean that type of mentality of course is going to create illness and disease because of the pattern that’s built into the cells and we’re into the, into the brain, which then propagates into the cells that creates that reality for you. (Reprogramming | 14:24)
8. There’s ups and downs, but I’m always, there’s always something to look forward to… that thing when you find what you love to do, there’s always something to look forward to. And that changes your physiology. That changes your outlook on life. It changes, you know, you’re, you’re healing status. (Reprogramming |15:17)
9. We live in a state of, you know, nobody, nobody’s really happy these days, right? Because all the advertising, all the marketing is telling us we need to do more and more and more buy more and more and more, which means we have to earn more and more… build a business around your life, not a life around your business. (Reprogramming on soul level | 16:14)
10. People who are after health and can view vacation as a restorative process… So when you’re on vacation, make that, make your focus, healing, restoration, regeneration, you know, sleep in, you know, get some sun, you know, just chill out… find that balance, find what works for you and really get into that flow state and see if you see how much of that you can take back with you. (Health and Vacation | 17:20)
11. Alcohol, especially high consumption of alcohol is usually a coping mechanism of sorts… Somebody is coping from some sort of stressor and it’s causing them to depress their nervous systems so they don’t have to deal with these emotions necessarily. (Health, Vacation and Alcohol | 18:55)
12. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. Some of these other illegal plant medicines actually expand human consciousness. (Alcohol and Plant Medicines | 19:23)
13.  The economy, the way it’s set up requires us to be, you know, illiterate when it comes to diet. So we can literate through food illiterate when it comes to finances. So we can be manipulated financially and also illiterate when it comes to health. So we can be manipulated by a disease. I mean those are the three modern forms of slavery. (Health and Economy | 19:37)
14. The doctor of the future is the patient. You’re your own pharmacy… The right chemicals and hormones at the right time and the right dose every time, right. Based on, you know, the circumstances that you’re under, you’re your own surgeon or your body’s constantly repairing and regenerating itself. We have this capability that nobody really wants us to know about because if we were able to grow our own food, if we became financially responsible and we became self regulating when it came to our health, our entire economy would crumble. So, you know, it’s kind of sad when you think about it that way, but you know it’s where people are invested. I mean, that’s where the whole stock market is invested, it’s invested in illness and financial destitution. (Health and Economy | 20:10)
15.  There’s a quote by Rumi it says, the light, the wound is where the light enters you. (Health and Beliefs | 21:03)
16.  One of the biggest influences in my life was Dr. James Chestnut. He’s famous in the chiropractic profession. (Health and Beliefs | 22:40)
17. Controlling your mind, excuse me, makes you a better driver… the fastest way you know is mindset.” (Healing Hacks and Testing | 24:10)
18. And the second fastest way is identifying blind spots… So based on your history and you know, based on your goals, we’re going to typically run three tests. The first test that we do is called an organic acids test. And that’s a urine test. And what that test will tell us, it’ll tell us about mitochondrial function because healing requires energy. So we can actually look at the Krebs cycle metabolites to see is this person making energy? Because you know, being healthy requires energy, but healing requires even more energy. So there are who are unhealthy actually need better mitochondrial function because they’re in a deficits. So we need to repair as quickly as possible. And every cell in your body, except red blood cells has mitochondria… every cell is made up of organs, or every organ is made up of cells. So now it can improve the function of every organ. Every system is made up of organs… We need B vitamins for mitochondrial function, we need be vitamins for methylation, which is another thing we look at, which is, you know, how well is your body metabolizing, you know, B12 and folic acid and B6, because these are super important nutrients in this energetic process. We also looked at brain chemistry. So we can tell based on somebody’s brain chemistry, you know, what their drivers are, what their motivations are. (Healing Hacks and Testing | 24:44)
19.  So people with high levels of stress are going to have low levels of dopamine. Low levels of dopamine you’re going to crave certain things… you’re gonna crave sugar, you’re gonna struggle with motivation, you’re going to struggle with getting off of your butt and actually going in exercising, And obviously dopamine affects food. And so, by look, by taking a good history and then validating it through testing, we can now actually understand, you know, how to nutritionally support this person. (Health and Dopamine | 26:50)
20. The second test that we recommend is a stool test. So you know what happens in your bowel is supposed to stay in your bowel ideally. Unless you have something called leaky gut or intestinal hyperpermeability. So digestive system is actually a tube that runs through you. So imagine a garden hose running through you and then imagine that it’s a little sprinkler hose so it has little holes in it. That’s kind of how you would visualize your digestive system. So not everything is absorbed, but only certain sized molecules are absorbed into the actual body. The rest of that actually goes right through you. And so, you know, it’s technically outside of you. And so one of the things we have to realize is what’s going on in there is vital because that’s an interface between your inside world and outside world. So if you’ve got a lot of overgrowth of bacteria, if you’ve got an undergrowth of beneficial bacteria, you know, think of it like a garden, right? We want a beautiful garden down there, you know, not a weed lot. Whereas you know, what we eat matters, how well we digest matters. How well we chew matters. You know, there’s all these different elements to maintaining healthy digestion. But the stool test is going to tell us, you know, what is the status of the microbiome, which is our gut bacteria and represents 70% of our immune function and 90% of the cells in our body. Is there any parasites or is there any yeast overgrowth or is any bacteria overgrowth that is triggering the immune system? (Healing Hacks and Testing | 28:20)
21. A lot of parasites are what we call stealth parasites. So they can create symptoms elsewhere in the body. (Parasites | 30:05)
22. So in one person it might not be a problem because they’ve got a defense system built into their microbiome. In another person, like let’s say me or you, who lives in a pretty clean environment, is pretty sterile environment, relatively speaking, you’re going to be in trouble. (Parasites, Health and Environment| 31:19)
23.  If you kept a child in a sterile room and didn’t expose them to anything for a few years and then took them to the mall, they would have no immune system. Right. They would get sick and they will probably die very quickly because they don’t, their body doesn’t know what to do. It’s, it’s, it’s getting all this exposure all at once. (Parasites, Health and Environment| 31:50)
24. So a lot of times when somebody comes in and they, you know, they’re taking iron supplements, they’re eating meat and they’re doing all the right things, but their iron levels aren’t going up. Well, we have to be like, hey, you know, parasites and pathogens and bacteria also need iron and they eat first. So remember food goes through the tube, the bacteria lives inside the tube, so they eat first. And what we typically get is leftovers. Healthy bacteria in your gut is going to create healthy waste products and it’s going to create nutrients for the digestive system. Unhealthy bacteria is going to create a toxic waste products and that’s going to create, you know, chronic inflammation. So digestive health is vital. And so that’s why we want to look at it. And we can’t necessarily measure that through blood or urine because you know, most of the function is staying within the bowel. So that’s why stool testing is super important. And then the third test is actually a super valuable, in my opinion, because it looks at DNA and it looks at, looks at something called genomics. So we’re not looking at single markers of DNA, we’re looking at entire mosaics and patterns in, in somebody’s DNA. And then we’re able to create, you know, better, you know, we can create customized nutrients for these individuals. We can modify their diet and lifestyle. (Parasites, Bacteria and Health | 32:38)
25. So genetics, looking at just one line of code. Genomics is looking at that whole section of code and and kind of reading the entire chapter, not just looking at one word… (Genetics and Genomics | 36:07)
26. So typically if you’re going to run the organic acids test, then we suggest that you stop taking supplements anywhere from three days to a week prior. So we can go out in a nice clean baseline for you, unless the goal is for you to continue to take the product, right? So if you say, Hey, I’m never going to stop taking my multivitamin. So test me taking my multivitamin then we can do that as well. (Supplements and Tests | 42:55)
27. Mushrooms have the capability and you know, to really solve all of our human challenges that we’ve created. So, you know, our pollution challenges, our nuclear challenges that we have. There’s certain fun guy that can help with that. You know, diesel spills, there is no oyster mushrooms can actually clean up diesel spills. Who would’ve thought, you know, every challenge that we currently face, mushrooms have already created a solution for, which is beautiful. Now, mushrooms is not something we learn about in school. That’s very little coverage of it even in nutritional training. And most people’s understanding of mushrooms are probably limited to, you know, things like truffles and oysters and portobello and shiitake and you know, some of those mushrooms. But there’s actually medicinal mushrooms. And there’s a fine line, right? I believe that any mushroom can be medicinal depending on how you define medicinal…  If something’s healing your body, then it’s probably medicinal, right? So even with all food, all healthy food I would consider medicinal, but specific mushrooms which are non culinary mushrooms such as, you know, turkey tail such as reishi, such as chaga, such as lion’s mane and cordyceps. You know, people don’t typically eat those mushrooms on a daily basis or put them on their pizza. They’re used medicinally, they tend to be very bitter and in some cases like reishi, so as you know, therapeutic mushrooms.  (Mushrooms and Health | 44:38)
28. We share 50% of our DNA with mushrooms, no coincidence that most of our major organs actually looked like mushrooms brain it looks like lion’s mane. If you look at our liver, it looks like reishi turn it on its side it looks like our kidneys. So there’s no coincidence that there is actually genetic coding in mushrooms and in human beings that overlaps, right? That’s why, you know, different structures in nature look like structures in the body. These are what we call hox genes that we share. And then, you know, there’s, metaphorically, it’s so cool what the mycelium does in the forest, what the mushrooms do with the fruiting bodies do in the forest what spores do and how they can help us. You know the mycelium for example is the nervous system, immune system, digestive system and lungs of the forest.. (Mushrooms and Health | 47:37)
29. 70% of of drugs actually come from plants and from nature. And what’s really cool about mushrooms is they actually breathe oxygen just like ourselves do. So they’re attacked by the same viruses and bacteria. And that’s why their immune system, when we consume mushrooms, the coding for their immune system is the same coding for our immune system. Because of the oxygen breathing trait. So there’s so much cool things when you think about it. It’s like really, really fascinating and they’re very safe. They’re very accessible, they’re very inexpensive and you know, they’re, they can be grown very easily. So there is actually almost no environmental impact from, from growing them either. (Mushrooms and Health | 51:21)
30. If you’re going to take psilocybin, or if you’re going to do a ceremonial journey with psilocybin, then it’s probably best to do it in a, facilitated location… If you’re going to use medicinal mushrooms such as reishi and chaga and lion’s mane and cordyceps and, turkey tail, then I take it in a form of a powder… It’s called harmonic arts and they have a five mushroom blend. So it’s a powder. You could add it to soups, you could add it to your smoothie. You could add, I add it to my coffee in the morning. And that gives you a dose of those five different mushrooms. (Psilocybin and Medicinal Mushrooms | 53:29)
31. I kind of work with the chakras and the chakras are the seven different energy centers in the body and just really simple things that you can do. So with your root chakra, simple thing is get grounded. So get outside, get your bare feet on the earth, you can get even get your bare hands on the earth. So it depends if you’re gardening or or what not, then that’s fine too. But try to get your bare feet on the earth are bare body on the earth as much as you can. I use the grounding sheets, so I sleep on a grounding sheet every night. So that’s going to get you grounded. Number two is your sacral chakra. So your sacral Chakra, you know, typically has to do with relationships, has to do with, you know, libido. And you know, virality and things like that. I also find that when people hold on to grudges, then you know, that’s a problem. So, you know, fix all your relationships, whatever relationship you have, you know, let go resolve. You know, that person who did that thing to you five years ago is probably not the same person anymore. And the only location where that same person who they were five years ago exists is in your own mind, right? So, you know, there’s no sense in recreating that if you can let it go and create resolution there. And the third chakra is your solar plexus that’s going to be your bowel. And so there’s five things that you want to do when it comes to better digestion. First thing is choose the right foods for your body and for your goals. Don’t eat for who you are, for who you want to be. A second one is to chew that food. So chewing your food is super important. It gets your body into a parasympathetic state, but it also breaks open the food so that you can get the nutrition out of the plants that you eat. The next one is to chill. So you want to be in a relaxed, parasympathetic state sitting while you’re eating because we want to send more blood to the gut. If you’re walking around or if you’re stressed out, you’re not sending blood to your digestive system is how you’re going to digest that food. One is to cherish. And so cherish means you don’t have gratitude for that food. I mean, a lot of hands have to touch that food before ended up on your plate. And the intention that goes into that food sometimes can be questionable, right? but you can put a good intention into it. So, you know, spend a few minutes of gratitude or a few moments of gratitude and that helps you get into a relaxed state. And the last one is to check. So check your bowels every day. Every time you go to the bathroom, just take a quick peek and make sure there’s nothing suspicious. And then at least annually, check your, uh, your bowel with a stool test. So I annually get stool test and my whole family does using those same tests that we talked about earlier today. And so those, those are the five C’s of digestion. Next one is your heart. So your fourth chakra is your heart, and that’s really following your hearts right. Do you do, do you live in a state of bliss? Do you love what you do? Because if you do, then you’re going to feel passionate about every single morning you’re going to feel excited about every single morning. You’re not going to be dragging yourself out of bed. You’re going to get magnetized out of bed by living in your purpose, right? And then of course a love, right? So we should be empathetic and compassionate and loving towards others, but also loving towards ourself. And the next one is your throat Chakra. So number five and the thing with your throat Chakra as you want to make sure you’re speaking your truth, your voice, and, and just even, you know, getting energy into that area by speaking, by humming, by chanting, by singing, by saying words like “ohm”, deep breathing. Your throat Chakra sits right where your thyroid is and right where your vagal nerve exits the spinal, um, the brainstem so this is an area to stimulate as well. And then the next one is your sixth chakra, which is your third eye. And so this is where we really tuned into our intuition. And most people, you know, if you’re really tuned in, then you’re going to start listening to intuition. It’s always right, as, as we’ve probably all witness and can attest to. So start getting more in alignment with your intuition. And the seventh one is your crown. And that’s really, you know, finding a higher purpose and, you know, connecting with a higher frequency or a higher source. Some people call that the universe, some people call it that God, you know, whatever that means to you. Just, I feel that a spiritual connection to a higher source than us, you know, really allows us to live in a better state of being. And, you know, you know, to a certain degree allows us to relegate our problems to somebody else. Right? We’re not holding onto these things. And you know, when you live in a spiritual state, I, I believe it’s a more blissful state for most people. And uh, and so that’s how you can get the seven Chakra is working by making some really, really simple lifestyle changes, and hacks if we want to call them that. (Healing Hacks and Healing Process | 55:43)
32.  What makes our bodies so beautiful is fixing them is usually pretty easy. Nature handles complexity and imagine like your computer, if I had to understand every single nuance of how my computer works to type a letter, then I would probably never do it. But what makes it amazing is that it’s super simple to use, right? So in the same way, and Da Vinci said that the greatest sign of sophistication is simplicity. And so what’s more sophisticated in the human body, which means that what should be more simple to take care of the human body. (Healing Hacks and Healing Process | 1:00:09) 

Ian Hart is a Body-Mind Transformation expert, the creator of EarthFIT Training Systems, co-creator of BACK PAIN RELIEF4LIFE, author of HEALING HACKS, and founder of BEAUFORTPERSONALTRAINING.COM and MYBACKPAINCOACH.COM. Ian and his team help people get into optimal shape in the safest, fastest and most effective way possible, using cutting edge science.