Interview with Dr. Amir Rashidian

Dr. Rashidian, chiropractor and author of Cracking the Stress Secret,  discusses his new book and how to learn to better deal with stress. When we seek advice on health and wellness, we are commonly told to reduce or eliminate stress in our lives. Dr. Rashidian and "Cracking the Stress Secret" takes a different stance. In this book, author, speaker, and chiropractor Amir Rashidian explains that striving to accomplish goals and improve ourselves inherently comes along with obstacles and stress, and so it's unrealistic--even undesirable--to cut stress from our lives. How much we achieve depends on how much stress we can safely handle. In fact, stress can become a natural source of fuel for success. He elaborates on this and other techniques to live your best life in this episode of Living Chronic.

Transcript

Brandy:
Hi, this is Brandy Schantz and welcome to Living Chronic. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Amir Rashidian, owner of Mid-Atlantic Chiropractic and author of the book, The Stress-Proof Life, The Secrets of Health, Wealth and Happiness. So welcome. Thank you for coming on to Living Chronic.

Amir A Rashidian:
Thank you, thanks for having me, it's an honor.

Brandy:
So tell me a little bit about yourself. What made you go into chiropractic care?

Amir A Rashidian:
I was nine years old when I decided I wanted to be a doctor. And the reason was my father and I were traveling through these remote villages in Iran. And this one village we were at, a woman went into labor. She was in tremendous amount of pain and there was nobody who could help her. There was no doctors, no hospitals. There was a midwife. She walked over, she knelt down and examined her, stood up and said, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. There's no heartbeat. The baby's not alive and this woman's not gonna make it. And she actually left. And the people had gathered one by one, start to leave, leaving her alone to say goodbye to her husband. And at the age of nine, I was looking in the eyes of this young woman who was just told she's not gonna live another few hours. And I started to have a major panic attack where your chest feels tight, your heart's pounding, you're trying to catch your breath. And tears were coming down my face. My dad saw me, he picked me up, he held me, he carried me out of there, he calmed me down. And then two of us climbed down the mountain to get in our car to drive home. On the drive home, I said, Like what? Helpless. Like there's nothing I can do. He said, what are you gonna do about it? Well, I'll go be a surgeon. How's that? I'll be the best surgeon in the world. I'll carry my medical bag with me everywhere I go and I'll just save lives.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
And that was the plan. Ten years later I was 19. I was a student at George Washington University and I was on track to, you know, eventually go to medical school and do what I dreamed about doing for the past ten years. I went home for Christmas break that semester and you could tell he was on the influence of some seriously heavy painkillers.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
And he was limp and numb from the shoulders down. He couldn't lift his arms to even say hi to me or give me a hug. And so we ended up going from doctor to doctor during that six-week Christmas break, trying to figure out what's wrong with dad. And every doctor we went to said, this is beyond my scope. You're going to have to go to this other doctor. We ended up in a neurosurgeon's office. The neurosurgeon took a look at dad and said, you needed surgery yesterday. What are you waiting for? And dad said, well, I thought it would go away. Obviously nothing goes away unless what's causing it goes away. So that's literally I teach people that's the five most dangerous words you could ever say I think it'll go away.

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
So long story short the surgeon said we need to cut you open. We're going to cut you from the base of the head to the bottom of the neck. We're going to break and remove the bones in the back of your spine and take pressure off the spinal cord. Then we're going to put rods and screws on the sides and we'll screw them in. We'll fuse your whole neck. You'll never turn your head again.

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
function of your hands but we're hoping you'll have less pain and there's a chance you won't survive the surgery because you're old. Dad was 70 at this time but there's such a thing as a young 70 and an old 70.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
He wasn't the young 70 he hadn't been taking good care of himself and so we got a second and a third opinion all three neurosurgeons agreed he needed surgery and after the third one we got in a taxi to go home and I was sitting in the back of the taxi carrying all of dad's MRIs and x-rays and medical records and charts I looked over at dad sitting next to me and he was cringing because every bump that taxi hit was sending this lightning bolt of pain through his entire body. Looking in his eyes, I could tell he didn't want to live anymore. And I know a lot of people listening have been through that as well, especially chronic illness and things that really debilitate you and affect your life. I know you yourself have experienced situations like that. Dad wanted to give up, I could tell. And at that moment, I started to feel the same way I did when I was in the village.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
and that woman slowly passed away in her husband's arms. And

Brandy:
Mm.

Amir A Rashidian:
I'm having this chest tightness and heart's pounding and having trouble catching my breath and I'm getting a little teary eyed. The taxi driver looked at the two of us in his rear view mirror. He said, sir, I noticed you're in a lot of pain and I know you asked me to take you home, but there's a chiropractor down the street right here. Would you rather me take you there? And he said, I don't know what he does, but I've heard he helps people just like you. And I was a 19 year old, no at all. I said, no, we need to go home and get ready for the surgery next week. Dad was terrified of the surgery. So

Brandy:
Mm-mm.

Amir A Rashidian:
he was willing to do whatever it took. So we ended up at the chiropractor's office. The chiropractor said, listen, it's going to be a long, hard, potentially painful right ahead. But if you don't want to have surgery, I can offer an alternative, but you got to come in here six days a week for the next six months. That's

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
whatever you say I'll do. Now we didn't even have the money for it because he couldn't even work. But he figured it out. And he went there six days a week for six months. At the end of those six months, he walked He picked up the pen with his own hand. He signed his own name on the sign-in sheet. It was the first time he could actually write again. He could use his hands again. And the receptionist at that moment started to cry because she had to always write his name for him when he would walk in there. Well, dad lived another 18 years. He lived to be 88. At 88, he was younger than when he was 70. So I hope that gives a lot of people hope. You can be younger when you're older in years because he would get up, he would

Brandy:
and.

Amir A Rashidian:
work out, visit his friends. His friends are in nursing homes, but not my dad. He's driving himself, taking care of himself. He's living a good life

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
and enjoying it. Dad lived long enough to stand next to me as my best man when I got married. And he lived long enough to meet my first son when he was born. So the purpose of the story is not just to answer your question, which is how did I get into being a chiropractor, but also I want to tell everybody when my dad was sick and hurting and suffering, he actually wasn't the only one who suffered I suffered too. I know my mother who loved him suffered as well. You know when we suffer people care about us suffer with us, but we get all the attention if we're the ill one we're the chronically ill. The others suffer too and they hurt too. And if we work at improving our health, we have to understand we're not doing it because we're selfish. We're doing it because we're selfless.

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
Take care of our health. We're doing it because we love the people around us and we don't want to be a burden on them. want them to hurt like we hurt. It's critical, it's powerful, it's important. The easy thing to do is let yourself slide, right? The easy thing to do is just don't take care of yourself. Don't do the things you know you should be doing. Just let your health slide and suffer and you know have everybody else take care of you. And I know that's that's the exact opposite of our listeners hopefully want to do.

Brandy:
Well, I'm glad you brought up so many things. A couple of things I always like to really just hammer on is I'm not the only one who suffers because I'm sick. So does my husband. And he's my caregiver. When we were married, we were both army officers, super fit, young, healthy, all the great things. And none of us expected me to become ill later on in life. at being self-sufficient so that the load is lessened on him. And I love to talk about caregivers and family and how everything you do impacts them. So, I push through runs sometimes with good pain. I can say is GP or BP, is it good pain or bad pain? If it's GP, and I know it's just my stomach maybe, I'm like, no, I can push through this because it's gonna be better for me. And that leads into the other thing I'm so happy you talked about, a young older age. A good friend of mine just ran the cherry blossom 10-mile or this past weekend, and she finished in an hour and 17 minutes. That is a 740 pace and she is 68 years old.

Amir A Rashidian:
Wow.

Brandy:
So, when people say to me, when they're 40, and they'll say, oh, I'm just too old for this. I say, that's nonsense. You're not too old for this. get out there, you know, live a young life, work, you know, to really live your life. Don't ever say I'm old. You're not old. You just have to let yourself become old-like. You know, if you don't use it, you lose it. So I, you know, love that you mentioned that. And I'm a big proponent. Everybody who listens to me knows I talk about, you know, those first level things in your life, you know, Every runner knows you never go see the orthopedic surgeon. Don't talk to that guy. He wants to do surgery. That's what he does for a living

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah.

Brandy:
You know, so I always say do the the get get those base level things done See your nutritionist see your physical therapist see your chiropractor those three things and you know If those three people can't help you then you can escalate But usually, you know, I found that I could find a way to resolve things if I have my base care of.

Amir A Rashidian:
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, a study was done where they took a group of elderly and they put them in a neighborhood that looked like it was from the 1960s.

Brandy:
Oh, yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
And so the design of the homes, the streets, everything looked like it was from back in the 60s.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
And then they made sure that they got delivered newspaper from the 1960s. They made sure the radio only played programming from the 1960s. If they turned the TV on, it was only programming from the 1960s. Everything was 1960s. their biomarkers improved and they got younger just because

Brandy:
Help.

Amir A Rashidian:
they were in that environment where they thought they had gone 50, 60 years back in time. They felt younger, they stood taller, they walked faster, they ate

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
better, digestion improved, blood pressure dropped, arthritis was reversed in a lot of these people.

Brandy:
Wow.

Amir A Rashidian:
It was incredible, yeah, just because they were in an environment where they felt like they had gone back in time, they were younger.

Brandy:
You know, that's fascinating. I have talked to quite a few people in psychiatry and, you know, I had a very severe reaction to Humira and there really is something about the mental aspect. And I think it's one of those things that can come off offensive when somebody says, well, can you take care of your mind? It's like, well, I feel pain. What are you saying? something to it within your mind. That's why one of the first things they did for me was prescribe me wellbutrin. And it did help. It really did. And then of course, being able to get back to running, doing the things I love, there is that aspect of things, how you view it. And I'm still learning. That's what I love about this podcast. I get to hear more and learn more studies. And yeah, that perspective

Amir A Rashidian:
Absolutely.

Brandy:
means a lot. Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
You know, the Dalai Lama said pain is inevitable and suffering is optional.

Brandy:
Oh, yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
You know, but that again can be the same thing you said where it can come across offensive. Please don't be offended by that. You know, there's a concept of suffering well,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
you know, where you just have to handle it better. And, you know, I'll tell you a story. to somebody who was flying an airplane in bad weather. It was a small plane and I mean, it was, I won't give you the details, but just imagine fog, poor visibility, he's lost. He doesn't know where he is. He knows where he is. There's a bunch of power lines, but he needs to come down and land and he's just stressed out of his mind. He's cursing, he's upset, he's yelling on the radio and all this stuff and finally figures out how to land the plane in the place he's supposed to land Okay, and he comes out of the plane and the guy who's talking him down walks up to him and says, Okay, you're safe. He said, Yeah, but do you realize what I just went through? He said, Yes, but you're safe. Now, here's the question. If you hadn't reacted the way you did and acted out the way you did, you'd still be where you are right now.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
But you just made everything harder. So sometimes, and I know, come in, cortisol goes up, literally our pain threshold drops and everything becomes more sensitive.

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
That pain feels even worse. Now sometimes we can't reduce the pain, sometimes we can't reduce the suffering, but what we can do is figure out a way. So another story, there's a great book called Anatomy of an Illness. Have you heard of this?

Brandy:
I haven't heard.

Amir A Rashidian:
The author is Norman Cousins. So Norman Cousins was diagnosed with a debilitating condition called ankylosing spondylitis. And

Brandy:
Okay.

Amir A Rashidian:
when he was in the hospital, so he went to the hospital with his tremendous pain, he said every time he would put his feet on the ground, it felt like shards of glass were going into his feet. Chronic constant pain, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, nothing was helping him. No painkillers, nothing. He's in the hospital, the doctor comes in and says, you have a decision to make. Your spine is fusing. It's going to fuse eventually. You

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
need to decide, do you want to spend the rest of your life lying down or sitting upright? we can't change that position anymore." And he said, I'll get back to you. Two in the morning, they made a movie about this as well. He called his wife, he said, I made the decision. He said, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life laying down, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life sitting. I'm going to walk, and I'm going to get through this. And so that was the decision he made. Now, pain wasn't any less when he made that decision, but I think he decided, hey, I'm never going to give up. Saying, I'm going to spend the rest of my life sitting in a wheelchair is giving up. Now, up there anyways. But the attitude shift and change were like, hey I'm a fighter and as long as I'm alive I have a chance. And the fact is every cell in your body is constantly changing, repairing, regenerating. Your skin cells only live 30 days. Your liver cells are only alive 24 days. Your taste buds are only alive every eight days. They die, get replaced with new ones. Your bones are brand new every 90 to 120 days. Your lungs are brand new every seven years.

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
Every single thing in your body is constantly changing and repairing. So if you're your cells are changing. You put them in the right environment, you never know what's gonna happen. So Norman Cousins figured out that whenever he would laugh, he felt less pain.

Brandy:
No.

Amir A Rashidian:
So this is back in the days of the Marx brothers. I don't know if you remember the Marx brothers. They were like three

Brandy:
Not

Amir A Rashidian:
spooks.

Brandy:
as, I remember watching them, but not in real time.

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah, so I watched quite a few. They had some great movies and they're very funny. But he liked the Marx Brothers. So they had a projector brought in. This is before the days of streaming and video cassettes and DVDs. They had projectors. So they put the reel of film on the projector in his hospital room, and they played Marx Brothers movies 24 hours a day around the clock, and he would watch and laugh. And little by little, he started to feel better dopamine was going up in his body. And he did some other things like high doses of vitamin C, but he says it was the laughter. Laughing helped him heal. And then he walked out of the hospital, and he ended up writing a book and changing other people's lives.

Brandy:
Oh, now I have to read the book. I do believe in this. It's why I started the podcast. I was so angry at what had happened to me and how I'd lost so much. And I thought, you know, I can't just be angry. Let me try to find something productive to do. And it does work, you know? I started the podcast. It really has been quite healthy, releasing, cathartic, all the good things, all the good things. And it's enabled me to focus laughing and living and

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah.

Brandy:
doing more.

Amir A Rashidian:
Well, good for you. That takes a lot of courage. That takes a lot of courage and it takes faith because the faith is, hey, maybe if I keep focusing on my illness, I'm just gonna make it bigger and bigger in me.

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
But if you start focusing on something for the greater good, then maybe compared to that, this will seem small.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
You didn't make it smaller, you just brought in something that's bigger than that into your life. And compared to that, it appeared smaller. Great job.

Brandy:
Yes, yes. It's amazing how these things work. It really is perspective in how you you feed those endorphins in your mental health. Really and truly is. I'm amazed at what your mind can do for you. It's just such an amazing thing. I wish I could go back and I keep saying, if only I knew then what I know now, I probably would have studied something in either mental health or medicine because it's so fascinating. I would love to contribute more in that respect.

Amir A Rashidian:
I understand, but keep in mind, when we're trained in a certain field, we surround, we isolate ourselves in that field.

Brandy:
Mm.

Amir A Rashidian:
I should say we restrict our mental thought process. It's always the person who comes from the outside and looks

Brandy:
Oh, yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
at this from a fresh perspective,

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
who comes up with a solution that revolutionizes a field.

Brandy:
Yes, that is very, very true. I always say, you know. bringing that to my own field. You need a different perspective. You can't have everybody siphoned into the same hole. You need to have somebody to come in, or as I always like to say, have you been in the monkey cage too long? Once you've been in the monkey cage too long, it doesn't stink anymore. Sometimes

Amir A Rashidian:
Mm-hmm.

Brandy:
you need somebody else to walk in the monkey cage and say,

Amir A Rashidian:
That's

Brandy:
hey, this

Amir A Rashidian:
right.

Brandy:
stinks. So I love everything you're saying. I'm a big proponent of holistic health, and I do promote taking care of your mind, your body, So how do you see chiropractic care fitting into this holistically healthy life?

Amir A Rashidian:
You know, traditional chiropractic, the way it was designed, and the original textbook on chiropractic, which is probably in a museum somewhere and we're not looking at it as much as we should, but the original textbook of chiropractic never mentioned back pain once, never mentioned neck pain once.

Brandy:
Mm.

Amir A Rashidian:
But for some reason, since the 1980s, we lumped chiropractors into back pain doctors and neck pain doctors, but that's not what chiropractic is at all. Chiropractic is based on a concept called subluxation. Subluxation means there's something interfering with the nervous system. So that subluxation could be a misalignment in the spine,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
but it could be something else. It could be your thoughts, it could be trauma, it could be toxins. And

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
whatever interferes with the nervous system suppresses the body's ability to self-heal and self-regulate.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
So as an example, if the first bone in my neck is misaligned, then we take very specific x-rays through the mouth and from the side to see exactly how that bone is aligned. We draw lines, make measurements, we use very detailed, software to figure out if that bone is in the right place because a small misalignment, a millimeter, a degree. So from the side it needs to be 14 degrees. If it's less than 14 degrees you know it's pressing on the brain stem. It's

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
affecting the function of your vagus nerve. It's gonna cause anything from ADD to ADHD, to sleep apnea, to insomnia, to depression, to anxiety, mood swings, hormonal issues, difficulty concentrating. It can cause headaches, migraines, dizziness, lightheadedness, ringing in the ears, numbness in the face, in the mouth, frequent sighing or breathing issues. So that brain stem can be affected in so many ways and affects our health. What it's doing is affecting the communication from your brain to the rest of your body. So just like we go to the dentist every six months and get looked at and every two years we get new x-rays just to see if there's cavities, you would never argue with the dentist when they show you your x-rays and say there's a cavity in a tooth,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
you won't say, it doesn't hurt, so let's leave it alone.

Brandy:
Bye.

Amir A Rashidian:
that one extra hard.

Brandy:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Amir A Rashidian:
But our spine is these two dozen movable parts. Each vertebra has three joints with the one above and below. They move in complicated, complex ways and it protects your spinal cord. See after your brain your spinal cord is the most important part of your body. Because I don't know if you remember there was an actor named Christopher Reeve

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
who fell off a horse in Virginia and broke his neck and he played Superman.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
handsome guy, everybody loved him and his movies were great, but he broke his neck and he was paralyzed.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
The question is was he paralyzed just in the neck or from there down? Because what happens in the neck doesn't affect us just right there, it affects us from here all the way down. What

Brandy:
Thank you.

Amir A Rashidian:
if he

Brandy:
Bye.

Amir A Rashidian:
had fallen off the horse and he didn't break his neck and severed a spinal cord but he misaligned the bone that was compressing the spinal cord and the nerves? Would that just be a neck issue? Would that affect him from there down? Because he couldn't have a bowel movement on his own, someone had to on his abdomen to help him have a bowel movement. He needed a ventilator to breathe. He couldn't breathe after that anymore. He needed a pacemaker on his heart to monitor and control the rhythm of his heart. All those functions were lost because he hurt his neck. So

Brandy:
Right.

Amir A Rashidian:
we can't assume that something in the spine is only a spine issue. It affects everything. The body

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
is designed to run and be controlled by the brain. This is the generator. Power information comes from the brain. Your brain tells your liver how to produce and how to detoxify your body and cleanse your blood. It tells your kidneys how to filter out the blood and affects your urine and blood pressure. Your brain tells your stomach to produce the right enzymes to digest the food you're about to put in there because you just smelled something that you're about to eat. All of that is happening through the nervous system. Your nervous system is the reason you enjoy a beautiful sunrise or a sunset or that embrace of a baby

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
and beautiful. All of that is processed by the nervous system. If there is problems in the nervous system through the spine, not only do we not communicate with our organs better, but we perceive things differently. I've had so many patients come in because they're just socially awkward and that's the only problem they have. We adjust and all of

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
a sudden they speed up. All of a sudden they can have normal conversations now when they couldn't before, because they weren't perceiving things properly, because things weren't Every

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
misalignment in the spine has a sympathetic response. Sympathetic means fight or flight.

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
So as fight or flight goes up, the more misalignments we have, the more fight or flight the body stays in. Fight or flight turns off the neocortex and sends the blood to the primitive centers of the brain, which only thinks about primitive things like fighting and running away. So we become even smarter when we reduce some of that. And then obviously in fight or flight, So, so many times there are people who just can't lose weight. There's just that excess belly fat that just won't go away. Well, that's a cortisol issue.

Brandy:
Right.

Amir A Rashidian:
There's a cortisol issue. It's a stress issue. It's your body's intolerance to stress. So, you need to be able to adapt to stress. When we align the spine, take pressure off the nerves, we may be one of the few people in the world who do pre and post x-rays because not only do we want to find out which bone needs to be aligned and in what direction and how many degrees and how many millimeters,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
extra to see if we put it where it's supposed to be. And we do nerve scans to see if those nerves are firing properly. We do a test called heart rate variability to see if your body is now physiologically still operating in fight or flight, or did it

Brandy:
So.

Amir A Rashidian:
shift over to a balanced state between fight or flight and rest and repair. So all of those tests are done. And that's why I wrote actually, the book you mentioned, I wrote that one in 2016, my

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
new book came out last October, and it's

Brandy:
Hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
a limited version of all this information in there. And that's what we talk about, and that's what I wanna teach people is, sometimes you can't reduce stress in your life.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
You can always increase your adaptability to stress. Human

Brandy:
Sorry.

Amir A Rashidian:
survival is adaptation. We adapt to

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
stress, just like when I go to the gym and lift some weights, right? My body will adapt to the weight, whether it gets stronger, bigger,

Brandy:
No?

Amir A Rashidian:
whatever it is, it adapts. Now that weight becomes easy. Your life needs to become easy for you. I always joke around and say, you really want to reduce stress in your life? Leave your job, leave your family.

Brandy:
Yeah, nobody wants to do that.

Amir A Rashidian:
No, and you shouldn't want to, because that's where all the joy comes from. And here's the fact, everything that's good in life comes with stress.

Brandy:
That's true.

Amir A Rashidian:
Your children, you know, the more children you have, the more stress you have. The better your marriage is, I think that comes with stress too, or whatever you, because you worry about your spouse, right?

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
You want to be there for them. Sometimes you're hard on yourself, because you're like, am I a good enough husband? Am I a good enough partner? All of that is so powerful. But any, in your career, you want your podcast to get bigger, you wanna have more followers, more viewers, you wanna have a bigger impact. Believe it or not, you better be willing to accept more stress.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
Because when you only have 10 followers, probably you won't want one personal complaint. When you have 10,000

Brandy:
Thanks for watching.

Amir A Rashidian:
followers, you got 1,000 people complaining, and you gotta deal with that, and eventually I expect you to have a billion followers, which means you're gonna have millions of people who may not like what you say, and you're gonna have to deal with that, so that comes with a degree of stress. So

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
whatever you wanna do, good will hit resistance, you're gonna have setbacks, you're gonna have obstacles, and my point is, yes, I know stress can cause sickness and illness, but I

Brandy:
and I'll see you next time.

Amir A Rashidian:
also

Brandy:
Bye.

Amir A Rashidian:
know you are stronger than you think, and you will adapt to it if you handle it in a systematic mathematical way, you can adapt to it. You just need to have the right tests done, the right parameters measured on a regular basis, have your mind, body, and chemistry in the right place.

Brandy:
I really love that you told the athlete that basically this is about periodization and adaptation because so this is something I understand.

Amir A Rashidian:
Absolutely. I know what a great athlete you are.

Brandy:
So yeah, nobody just runs a marathon in three hours or less by doing it the first time.

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah, you'll kill yourself.

Brandy:
Yeah, absolutely. Pass out some far, far back. And I really love that because, yeah, you can't just get rid of stress in your life. And I think that's just so, so important for people who are dealing with chronic illness because it's there. can to support the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. I want to, you know, see a cure sometime in the future, but in the right now there's no cure. It's here. I can't change that. But what I can change is how I react to it, how I take care of it, and how I incorporate my family, my work, and the people I love in my life also fail and run sometimes too. I just figure a way to get up and what did I do wrong? Give it a minute to relax and then go back and try to meet the challenge the next day. So I really love how you explain it that way. So often I hear people say, well Brandy it's just overwhelming I can't deal with it. I can't I have to just check out I need to quit work I need to just you know my leave me, my wife wants to leave me, it's just not worth it anymore, you know, and I say but it is because we can't change your Crohn's disease, we can't take away your UC or you know whatever illness you may have that's uncurable but what we can change is are you seeing a psychiatrist, are you incorporating these these tactics in your life that can then help in some way, I mean that we change little things. So you know and learn how to deal with it. When I was first diagnosed ten years ago I was lost. I didn't know what to do. I was like what do you mean I have Crohn's disease? What is this? What is it? You know how am I supposed to live? And ten years later I've built over time so many techniques, so many wisdoms, so many ways that my body can fight back and you know I'm a very different for it. But it took time. It did take time. I had to train myself to learn how to deal with this.

Amir A Rashidian:
Absolutely, I mean basically what you're saying is there are certain things you can't control.

Brandy:
No. Yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
But there's plenty of things you can control. If you put your attention on things you can control, then I'm not saying it's gonna get any easier, but just put your attention on those things. Focus on those

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
things. Make an effort to do that. That's where the courage comes from. That's where faith comes from. And I'll tell you another quick story. There was a man named Tom Jelardi. I hope We've spoken about this story in decades. But this man, when he was a teenager, they told him his heart is failing. He would probably die at the age of 18. And he was maybe 16. And I may be getting the numbers wrong. But they said, the next two years you're gonna spend in the hospital. You can't leave this hospital. And eventually you're gonna die. A friend of his came over and said, you should see a chiropractor. He said, what's a chiropractor gonna do for my heart? My heart's

Brandy:
Yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
failing. My heart's not gonna survive another two years. said, the chiropractor can't do anything for your heart. But if, but if he's able to make the rest of your body more efficient, maybe your heart will last longer. And he goes, okay, well that kind of makes sense. So

Brandy:
and so.

Amir A Rashidian:
he got a chiropractic adjustment. Well that man, I think he's still alive today. If not, he lived to be in his 80s and he wound up founding the Sherman College of Chiropractic, which is was huge in chiropractic, became a leader, but he never died. I mean, his heart lasted another, you know, 70 years.

Brandy:
I love that story. I really love that story. And yeah, I'm learning so much. I feel like I need to take time, think about everything I've learned today and do another episode because, you know, it's just, it's so insightful. And I'm not the only one who has had this kind of severe reaction to a TNF blocker. Many people have had similar reactions, some more severe than mine. There've been quite a few people suddenly come down with multiple sclerosis. When I was going through the worst of my reaction before I finally got to a doctor who said, oh my gosh, I think you're having a reaction to the humerus, you need to come off. I was having a lot of neurologic issues and we were worried that I had MS. That's why I went in to see a neurologist. He was the one who said, you've got to get off this medication. But I had acquired a Parkinson's like Twitch, and just had all the neurologic issues. I couldn't feel my arms or legs. ER one day thinking I was having a heart attack because I had lost all feeling in my left arm and was having chest pains, you know, come to find out it was just the neurologic reaction I was having to the humira. And, you know, I didn't know that till we got through much later, but I had so many just things I couldn't even understand. My mental health just deteriorated so badly. I'd become suicidal. You know, my husband was doing everything he could to try to help me, but I just could not wrap my head around everything that was going on. And I look back and after learning so much from you, I wonder how much would going to see a chiropractor help people like me when you're going through it. Now, obviously you have to get off the drug, but how much would that have helped as I was trying to, I'm still in recovery. I have not fully recovered from the reaction and we don't know how long it will take. Very thankful, I do not have MS, problem I have. We're hoping that the lupus might just completely just go on its own and leave me alone. But yeah I mean I'm already I just I'm thinking I'm ready to call some people who've gone through the same thing and say have you thought about going to see a chiropractor? Because we do end up with a lot of neurologic issues and you know I wonder how much could you help

Amir A Rashidian:
You

Brandy:
people?

Amir A Rashidian:
know, and the other lesson that I would learn from what you just said is sometimes when you don't have answers, keep seeing somebody else. Like you ended up with the neurologist who said come off the medicine. Sometimes it's the medication and

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
the average American. This is a staggering number is between is on between 12 and 18 prescription drugs annually, which is a tremendous number. But

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
we consume 50% of the drugs ever

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
manufactured in the world. 50% of drugs are consumed here in America by 4% of people. Why aren't we healthier? We should be healthier, but we're not because drugs don't always make you healthier. And so

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
you'll see this in hospice. If anyone's ever worked in hospice with people on their deathbed who are gonna pass away, they're just trying to make them comfortable. The first thing they do is take them off to all their medication. And

Brandy:
Yes.

Amir A Rashidian:
it's amazing because a lot of these people come of all the medication, all of a sudden they come back to life. And then

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
they send them home. They're like, never mind, you're not dying. So, but even if so, they end up living longer, they're more comfortable. So, be willing to see other doctors who may suggest that it's the medication. Maybe it needs to be changed, obviously, for legal reasons, we have to tell you, do not stop taking the medication that your doctor prescribed for you. That is not our job and that's not what we're telling you. Don't change a thing. But if you are under the supervision of a doctor and they are saying, let's try something else or let's this isn't working. Got to have an open mind to that. Sometimes we fall in love with our doctors. We love them because they have a great bedside manner and

Brandy:
Thank you. Bye.

Amir A Rashidian:
they've been so good to us and they've been with us for years and years and years. You're not being disloyal by going to someone else.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
You're being true to your loved ones who care about you, who want to see you get better.

Brandy:
Absolutely. And I'll try not to go down a rabbit hole here, but I have so much to say about drugs and the number of drugs we take here in the United States. I would love to see change in this country around how we view health and how we respond to it. I personally have TRICARE insurance. I'm a disabled veteran. My

Amir A Rashidian:
Right.

Brandy:
husband retired after 23 years in the army. They don't cover chiropractic care.

Amir A Rashidian:
They do in a roundabout way, but

Brandy:
today.

Amir A Rashidian:
not the way you need. You probably get one visit a year and you have to go to a VA center to do it. It's

Brandy:
It's,

Amir A Rashidian:
awesome.

Brandy:
yeah, you know, even I, you know, kind of tweaked my quad muscle. And I immediately, I knew, you know, I've been, you know, I've been doing this long enough, I know, you know, I'm like, Oh, I need physical therapy, this out. And I'm still waiting on a referral to physical therapy because they think, Oh, well, I think maybe you should just go in, maybe you should see the orthopedic first, no, I don't need any of that. I trust me. I know I'm fine. I'm not. I don't need a brace. I don't need, you know, I don't need to go to surgery. It's, I just need to strengthen the muscles

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah,

Brandy:
around my knee

Amir A Rashidian:
that's

Brandy:
where something got tweaked.

Amir A Rashidian:
absolutely, and that's another thing I want everybody to understand and know. Brandy, you have lived in that body longer than anybody else, so you know it better than anybody else. So

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
if you have a doctor who won't listen to you when you say something like that, that's the wrong doctor. You

Brandy:
Exactly.

Amir A Rashidian:
guys, we know our bodies better. I mean, maybe I don't understand pharmacology the

Brandy:
Exactly.

Amir A Rashidian:
times has it been where a mom said, I think something's wrong with my child, and all

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
these pediatricians dismissed her, and it turned out it was something pretty serious and she was right. Moms know their children well. You

Brandy:
Yep.

Amir A Rashidian:
don't go against that intuition. If your intuition says this isn't that, it's this, you have to follow it. Don't give in. Hold your ground.

Brandy:
That's the message. By the time I got to the neurologist who finally diagnosed me, I was having drug induced lupus from the humira, I had seen 13 medical doctors, two nurse practitioners, one physician's assistant, countless

Amir A Rashidian:
Thanks for watching!

Brandy:
RNs. It's amazing how many doctors I went through and none of them saw this drug on there. Of course, since then, I foiled the mess out of FDA. Just so I could see what was happening. any science background at all. I keep joking that the one science class I took in college was exercise science. But you know I do have an MBA and I know how to run a business and you know it's just amazing how they just don't have an efficient system to even put it out there to doctors what kind of reactions these drugs have and I think we just have a society we have a culture that just says we'll take the next pill get another this prescribe one more and the you've got this, not that all drugs are bad. I had to get on a new drug for my Crohn's disease and I do react much, much better to it. But I do think that the initial reaction so often is to just prescribe a drug. But obviously there's just a large percentage of physicians out there who don't even know what all the side effects are. I'm still being told by doctors, well, I think that's very rare. nobody. But I've met so many people at this point who've had the same exact reaction to Humira that while not statistically significant, it's something that should make you take notice. Because I've met people in a grocery store, but oh yeah, you know what? That happened to my brother too. You know?

Amir A Rashidian:
Wow.

Brandy:
So yeah, I'm a big proponent, you know, see the nutritionist, go to the chiropractor, go to your physical therapist, do what you can to make yourself pill because

Amir A Rashidian:
right?

Brandy:
you don't know what's going to happen on the other

Amir A Rashidian:
Yes.

Brandy:
end. And I'm, you know, proof.

Amir A Rashidian:
There's a doctor, his name is James Chestnut, and he's one of the people I really enjoy reading his material. He's written multiple books on wellness, and he gives it an analogy of the backpack in the pool. And basically he says, imagine when you're born, you're in a pool of water and you have these water wings on, you know, those little water that you float with. So his water wings have a hole in them, and the air that holds you up on the water the air is gonna leak out eventually over the next 120 years. So in 120

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
years, you're gonna sink down to the bottom of the pool.

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
But you're gonna float for 120 years. But you also have a backpack. And this backpack is empty when you're born. But let's say you start smoking. Now you put a big rock in that backpack, it weighs you down a little bit.

Brandy:
Yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
And then let's say now you ended up on a prescription drug that we know like it's helping your symptoms and making you comfortable, but we know it's causing other things down. Maybe it's weighing down your liver. So everything

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
ends up being rocks in the backpack. But now, let's say, then you decide I'm gonna eat organically healthy, non-GMO foods. Now you

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
just took a rock out.

Brandy:
Right.

Amir A Rashidian:
You see what I'm saying? And then you say, well, I'm also gonna start doing certain exercises. You just took

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
another rock out. Yeah, I'm gonna do a breathing technique before I go to bed at night, every night. And like you said, I'm gonna get my spine aligned by a chiropractor so that the stuff I'm putting in my body, at least my body's more efficient,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
So we can put rocks into that backpack, we can take rocks out of that backpack. And the more we take out, then the ones that are in there, like the medication you're on right now, but that's a small rock that's in there. But all the other things you're doing, you've taken so many rocks out that it becomes insignificant.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm. I really love that metaphor. So our TED talk obviously would be about healthy living, holistically healthy living. I read all the time that even if the United States had the same medical system as Europe, we'd still cost so much more, but it's due to our underlying health issues. Because we don't look at

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah.

Brandy:
health holistically like we should. You

Amir A Rashidian:
Right.

Brandy:
know, are you exercising? today. It's not it's not good for you. You know, what are you eating?

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah, 100%.

Brandy:
You eating? Yeah. So, um, love all of that. So just, you know, um, you know, I love what you talk about how to, you know, how to handle stress. You can't, you know, stress is good. Um, it's in our lives. Um, so what would you advise people, especially people, you know, like myself, who live with a chronic illness and have that stressor in their life? What do you think would be your top tips? on how to manage the stress and learn to adapt to it and live with it.

Amir A Rashidian:
Yeah, I'll give you a big list. Obviously, make sure the nervous system is free of interference by getting checked by chiropractor on a regular basis. Sunlight is powerful. Early

Brandy:
Hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
morning sunlight has a lot of UVB rays that make you healthy, you know all about that.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
Make sure you're reducing toxicity in your body. So fasting every once in a while is great. Detoxifying your body, you're doing cleanses and so on good a couple times a year. I'm not a big fan of intermittent fasting long-term. Short-term intermittent fasting is good for you. Women tend to not do as well with intermittent fasting than men do. Men get away with a lot of things unfortunately. Visualizing how you want to be. Sometimes when you imagine yourself different, your body reacts that way. A lot of athletes use Imagine you're back in your favorite vacation spot all of a sudden. But imagine means in detail, right? You're visualizing the wind, the air, the smells, if you're on a beach, the feet, how they feel in the sand, all of that. Just really go back there and just spend 30 to 60 seconds visualizing that. You literally will come back feeling like you just came back from vacation. So visualization is extremely powerful. Visualize your body, healing, visualize yourself, young, healthy, vibrant, energetic. yourself doing the things you want to do. Literally, I've given people weight and they said they made them believe this weight is heavier than it is. And when they picked it up, more muscle fiber contracted, more nerve fibers, motor nerves were activated and they got better results just because they thought it was heavier than it was. They got better results from that exercise just because they thought they were lifting. So

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
they visualize, you can visualize that they've had piano players visualize playing a piece before they play make mistakes on. They miss the same note every time in the middle of that song. They stop missing it because they visualize playing through it in their mind first and then they do it. So visualization is powerful. Exercise, I'm a big fan of, obviously, weight training is powerful to keep you young and healthy because it reduces your, it increases sensitivity to insulin and

Brandy:
Yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
so you handle blood sugar much better which is amazing. It changes your body chemistry so you rhythmic repetitive movements. Walk,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
walking creates a cross crawl pattern, which means when your right arm and left leg move together and the left arm and right leg move together, that in the brain creates this figure eight pattern. That is healing to the body.

Brandy:
I don't

Amir A Rashidian:
So

Brandy:
know.

Amir A Rashidian:
you have to, that's why children crawl before they walk. The more

Brandy:
Mm.

Amir A Rashidian:
they crawl, the healthier they are. I never crawled. My mother will tell you, I would slide on my bottom and then I'd grab onto the railing or something and I stand up and I just started to walk without, I was not a coordinated kid throughout school until I found chiropractic. Coordination was low, athletic ability was low, and I'm dyslexic. I can't

Brandy:
Thank

Amir A Rashidian:
read

Brandy:
you.

Amir A Rashidian:
because my eyes can't track across a page because I never crawl. Crawling,

Brandy:
Thanks for watching!

Amir A Rashidian:
so if you have little children, make sure they crawl. Don't let them walk. Keep them on the ground as long as possible. The more they crawl, the healthier they'll be, the more athletic they'll be, the smarter they'll be, and they won't have dyslexia I had. I wrote my first book, I couldn't edit it. Every time I started to read it, I'd fall asleep. was wrong with me. I still didn't know I was dyslexic. I just thought I wrote a bad book. But anyways, I hired someone to read my book to me so I could edit it all over

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
the phone. So exercise, rhythm and competitive movements, and weight training. And then proper nourishment is another one on the list. Music is very powerful. You know, you could be down, depressed, upset, angry, and your favorite song will come on and all of a sudden you feel like dancing. All of a sudden

Brandy:
Yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
you remember your first love. All of a sudden you remember that something that was incredible, like score the winnings point, you know, or whatever it might have been. You go back to that. You look at weddings. If you've ever been in a wedding, you got this one table where all the old people sit at and they all look like they're so arthritic. They all have their walkers next to them. Like you would think they can't even walk. But then you play a song like I will survive, you know.

Brandy:
Да.

Amir A Rashidian:
All of a sudden they jump up and start dancing, jumping up and down. It's the music that did it. So Slow exhale will shift you out of fight or flight. So there's breathing techniques that'll help you fall asleep. Sleep is powerful. How you sleep is more important than how long you sleep. So if you're sleeping in the dark, if you get your body to produce melatonin, most people take too much melatonin,

Brandy:
Mm.

Amir A Rashidian:
no more than five milligrams. Actually, it should be like one to three milligrams if you're gonna take melatonin. Melatonin should be reserved for when you're traveling, you're sleeping in a different bed other than your own, Those are the only times you really should take melatonin. There's other things you can do to help you sleep better. But also, last one is you surround yourself with like-minded people who

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
have... So here's the formula. Find someone who has the health you want, but has

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
been where you are now, okay?

Brandy:
Right.

Amir A Rashidian:
So find Brandy. Listen to her, talk to her, because she is where you wanna be if you're battling something chronically horrible and painful. where you want to be but she's been where you are now. So she's been through it. You find someone like that, you surround yourself with that. And that's my list. That's ten things I just gave you. But can I back up a little bit because we

Brandy:
to us.

Amir A Rashidian:
started this on stress, right? And stress is a force that causes change in your life. Stress comes in three dimensions. So if I was gonna make all of this very, very simple for you, I can ask you one simple question and I Is there one thing you could be doing right now that you're currently not doing that would make your body healthier? Is there one thing? Everyone says yes. There's at least one thing I can

Brandy:
Okay.

Amir A Rashidian:
think of. And the other question is, why aren't you doing it? It will be because I'm worried about this or I'm too busy or I'm too old for that or whatever. Those are the other things. You forget those and just decide one thing. One thing, you make that a new habit, you work on that the next 30 days, and then you pick one more thing. One little thing. Don't cut calories big time, don't go on a big diet, don't take on a gigantic exercise program. If you have chronic illness, that's not for you. You've

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
got to take baby steps and change little by little by little. So I said everything comes in three dimensions. This you should take notes on. Write this down. You have three dimensions. You have the physical dimension, the psychological dimension, and the chemical dimension. Those three dimensions, imagine they're each a coin. has two sides to it, like heads and tails. So you look at a physical dimension, there's two sides to that coin. One is exercise, the other side is rest. So when you exercise, you balance it with rest. So you take that and then you say, in each of these three dimensions, I need to improve one thing by 1%. That's it,

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
so easy. Physical dimension, I need to exercise one minute a day. If you're not doing a minute a day, just start with one minute a day. That's it. And march in place and play some music while you march in place. You have rhythmic, competitive movement, the cross-crawl pattern. And do it in the early morning suns. You get in the sun, right? And you get in fresh air and all of that. Just you just killed three things on my list by doing that one little thing for three minutes. The second dimension, psychological dimension, it's not just about feeling, feeding your body with positive energy and positive information and all of that stuff. That's huge. Yes, but that's one side of the coin. balance it with removing the things that bring you down. So sometimes

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
that means that person that always nags or bothers you and upsets you, maybe you see it you should spend a little less time with them. Maybe you should ask them as a favor, listen I'm happy to hang out with you but I don't want to talk about these three things that you always talk about. Or I don't want to end up just both of us complaining about things. Let's talk about something different. Don't watch the news in the evening. Cortisol levels go up. Cortisol shouldn't so you can fall asleep, right? So don't exercise too late in the day. Cortisol goes up. That's on the physical dimension. But on the psychological dimension, the later it gets, the more peaceful and calm you want everything to be. So

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
don't fight, don't argue at the end of the day, go to bed at peace. So balance that. That's the psychological dimension. And then the chemical, biochemical dimension is make sure you're putting good food into your body, good supplementation. Supplements should be whole food. Very, very important. Just whatever you take in, make sure that's different and this is there's a lot to this that's why Brandy was saying a nutritionist would be good to talk to someone who can analyze what you need what you don't need and feed those deficiencies but the other side of the coin is toxicity right not only

Brandy:
Hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
a good food and you have to remove toxins so what are some things in your life that are toxic go go there's a website environmental gosh I don't know the website right now but there's a website nail products, you put it in there and it gives you a list of toxins that are in that. And then

Brandy:
Right.

Amir A Rashidian:
find the ones that have the least amount of toxins. Find

Brandy:
Yep.

Amir A Rashidian:
the ones that are most natural. Remove toxins and feed your body. So you have three dimensions, right? Improve each side of each dimension by 1% and do that over and over and over. And you're going to get healthy. Last thing is, imagine you're a plant. you need sunlight, you need water, and you need good soil. Then when a plant starts to wither and get sick, you don't blood test it, x-ray it, and do all kinds of tests on it. You know what plants need.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
So either it needs better soil, it needs better water, it needs better sunlight. Simple, right? So it's the environment. There is an environment that you will thrive in.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm.

Amir A Rashidian:
That environment is also three-dimensional, right? It's the psycho-emotional environment that you're in. It's the physical environment you're in, it's the biochemical environment you're in. So all you have to do is improve those dimensions and you will get better. I'm not saying you're going to get cured. Maybe you won't. Maybe this is your cross to bear. Maybe this is the path you have to walk. Maybe this is going to be a blessing to you or someone else down the road in the future.

Brandy:
Yeah.

Amir A Rashidian:
Maybe you'll inspire someone else to step up and live with what they're living with, like what Brandy's doing. But you can always make things better.

Brandy:
Mm-hmm. That's a really great point to end on. It's just so beautifully said. You can't always make things better. And their health is paramount. And everything you've talked about is everything that I truly believe gets you to the other side in life. And I know what it means to work hard to get there, too, because I lost, you know, went from training for Iron Man Chattanooga So I've had, it's by far the worst thing that's happened to me in my life.

Amir A Rashidian:
That's devastating.

Brandy:
But you know, you got to crawl back out and it's hard. And I understand that more than anything now. I told my husband that I feel like I'm better prepared to coach beginner runners and help people who are just starting into a life of fitness because I really know how they feel now. how it feels to have to start from nothing and do those little things one by one by one. You know I really want to just go out and do Iron Man Chattanooga but it's not gonna happen right now. So I love everything you said it's just so brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on. I'd love to have you back because now I want to read the second book that you wrote. Think about that for a little bit you know these these techniques and chiropractic care in general could just help so many people who are living with chronic illness. It's really quite brilliant so thank you so much for coming to Living Chronic. If you are interested in reading his books this is Dr. Amir Rashidian and I will put you on my website as well so everybody can come on click the link and learn more. Thank you so much for coming on.

Amir A Rashidian:
My pleasure. Thank you very much.