30: When “Healthy” Becomes Too Much: The Problem With Over-Optimizing Your Body

We are living in the loudest era of health noise in history — and for many women, that noise is doing more harm than good.

In this episode, Dr. Brook breaks down why over-optimizing your health can actually keep you stuck, depleted, and disconnected from your body. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the “right” things — supplements, therapies, routines, protocols — and still feel overwhelmed or unwell, this conversation is for you.

Instead of piling on more strategies, Dr. Brook introduces a “less is more” approach to healing, rooted in listening, discernment, and rebuilding a relationship with your body. You’ll learn why healing often begins with doing less, how to filter health noise without fear, and a simple daily practice to start hearing what your body is actually asking for.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why more health information doesn’t equal more clarity
• What over-optimization really looks like (and why it sneaks up on well-intentioned women)
• How constant protocols, supplements, and therapies can drain your body’s resources
• Why your body doesn’t respond to pressure — only safety and trust
• The hidden cost of “doing everything right”
• How to begin rebuilding a relationship with your body through stillness
• A simple “this or that” practice to help you start listening without overwhelm
• Why healing often starts with subtraction, not addition

Key Takeaways:

• Healing doesn’t always require doing more — often it requires doing less
• Your body is not confused or broken; it’s crowded out by noise
• Over-optimizing can pull resources away from what your body actually needs
• More protocols don’t mean better outcomes — discernment does
• Listening is a skill that’s built through small, safe, daily practices
• Your body guides with peace, not pressure

Simple Practice to Try This Week:

Practice the “this or that” check-in once or twice a day with low-stakes decisions (like food, movement, or routines).
Pause for 10–15 seconds.
Notice sensations — not answers.
No forcing. No overthinking. Just awareness.

This is how trust is built.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Talk To Me Body Affirmation Card Deck (Card #10) 
  • Grab your very own deck here
• Scripture: John 10:27

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Chapters

• 0:43 Introduction to Health Noise
• 2:03 The Less is More Philosophy
• 4:19 Understanding Over Optimization
• 7:24 The Journey of Self-Discovery
• 11:31 Building a Relationship with Your Body
• 19:32 Healing Through Simplicity

Transcript

Dr. Brook Sheehan (00:00)

Have you ever felt you were doing all of those things, and you still feel off? What if the thing that's keeping you stuck isn't a lack of effort, but instead too much noise? We're actually gonna be talking about the "less is more" philosophy.

Welcome to the body speaks podcast with me, Dr. Brook Sheehan. Join me, on a journey, in discovering how to interpret the subtle signs your body uses to communicate with you - the whispers, the screams, and everything in between. Your body truly holds the answers for your health and wellbeing. It’s time to discover them, together. Let’s dive in.

Welcome back to another episode of your body speaks, friend. I am Dr. Brook, your host, and I'm so excited you are joining me today for such a hot take topic. And I've mentioned in other episodes that we are living in the loudest era of health noise that has ever existed.

Granted, we have a lot more technology. There's so much more science out there. A lot of different things telling us a lot of different things that we need to do for our body in order to live to be 500 years old, right? Have we heard that? I mean, being the longest living human on the planet, and all these different biohacking, and over optimization.

But I want to ask you a question before I dive deep into the meat of this episode, have you ever felt you were doing all of those things, all of the right things, taking your supplements, doing the cold plunges, spending time outdoors, grounding, staying away from non-toxic things, all the you still feel there's something going on? Maybe you're missing something, or you're feeling depleted, or you feel so much pressure, or you feel so much stress, and you feel there's still maybe more that I could be doing.

Have you ever felt like that? Maybe things got worse even after feeling that.

Now, I wanna ask you, what if the thing that's keeping you stuck isn't a lack of effort, but instead too much noise? So much noise in the industry. We're going to be talking not deep protocols, not all the different things that you need to be taking. We're not gonna be talking any foods to eat, none of that.

We're actually gonna be talking about the "less is more" philosophy. This is something my patients hear me talk about all the time. Honestly, less is more.

We're going to be talking on this episode, how to stop over optimizing your body, but instead learn to listen to it. I briefly talked about the listening part of it. Although you have heard on multiple episodes, if you haven't binged all those, go back and listen.

You will learn so many incredible things on before I get into all of that, I wanna share with you a very timely card for this central theme of this entire episode on stopping, optimizing, and start listening to your body. And that comes from card number 10 in my Talk To Me Body card series. This is a shameless plug for this because this has been so impactful for so many people, not just women. Men are getting a lot of use out of this as well. Yes, it's in a purple, gold box, but men are loving it as well.

Card number 10 says, "I am your body. Healing doesn't always look like doing more. It often begins with doing less. I'm not confused. I'm just crowded out by noise that was never meant to lead you." Wow. Right? We're living in this kind of era.

"When you quiet the outside and come back to stillness, you'll hear what I've been trying to say all along. I've been guiding you not with pressure, but with peace." This is how your body works. It guides you not with pressure, but with peace. It gives you certain signals. It tells you what you need. I digress. Let me share the scripture on the card. John 10: 27. "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." And then there's a QR code on that. For those of you who do have that, you can check out on that. So we're gonna set that card aside for right now.

And I wanna share with you what over optimization in my words looks like. Cause some of you may be thinking, "Well, Dr. Brook, I'm not really over optimizing myself. I am just on a journey to take care of myself better. And so I'm learning, and growing, and putting into practice, and evolving, and all the things in an attempt to really steward our bodies well, like we've been called to do, right?"

However, here's the issue. This is what over optimization looks like. It looks like health and all of the things that come with it in the wellness industry, because it's not just about eating healthy for a lot of people. It's then I need to spend this much time in the sun, and I need to do this much exercise, and I need to do this much cold plunging, and I need to do this much hyperbaric chamber, and I need to do this much red light therapy.

It becomes a full-time job. It takes you away from your ultimate calling in the world that God's given you. If that is happening, whether you're stressed out at this point in time or not is not the issue, because it's going to be only a matter of time before you hit that wall. And if I can catch you before you hit that wall, Lord knows I'm going to catch you before you hit that. And that's why we're talking about this.

But there are many of you listening to this right now who have hit that wall, who are there, who are like, "Man, Dr. Brook, if you only knew what was going on internally. I'm trying to live this perfect life. I'm trying to live this perfect health plan. I'm trying to do the perfect workout. I'm trying to do all of these things and I can't seem to get it to work. It works for a short amount of time, and then it's on to the next thing, and on to the next thing, and on to the next thing trying to figure it all out."

The reason I can say things so confidently the way that I do today and what God has taught me is because of my own personal journey. I've gotten into this in a lot of detail, but I went from one extreme of being so disconnected to my body, to swinging to the opposite end of the extreme. And I'm talking extreme, on a soapbox, screaming at people if they were drinking out of plastic, doing all sorts of things, making my own toothpaste, making my own spaghetti sauce not out of tomatoes, but using cashews, and doing all these things. So I had butternut squash recipes, and all the things. Not bad, not bad, not bad. Not saying any of this stuff is wrong.

I was taking 28 different supplements. I was doing all the workouts. I was still overweight, struggling to drop the weight, all the hating myself in the process, couldn't figure out what was going on.

Thank the Lord that He brought me back to center. Thank the Lord that He's taught me this stuff. And so, you guys can learn through my failed attempts, through all of the pressure that I put on myself to have this perfect way of doing things, because I was hearing all of this information coming at me externally that I didn't even know how to even have a relationship with my body. So that's what we're talking about.

This over optimization stuff happens not because we wanted to, we're not setting on a road to become obsessive about health or to get psychotic about all these different things. That's not what happens. We turn on a podcast, we hear something enlightening that we haven't heard. That, "Oh my gosh, we have to take X, Y, and Z, and our bodies lack in this, and this is the reason why these are happening." And so we go, "Oh my gosh, I need that."

So we go grab that, and we get that, and we start taking it, or partaking, or doing whatever. ⁓ the carnivore diet. That is the reason why I'm still 30 pounds overweight. That is the reason. "Oh my gosh, it's because I've been eating so many carbs. It's because I haven't been working out so much. I need to do this." These are well-meaning attempts to try to get our bodies to work and function in the way that we believe that they're meant to function.

The problem is we are listening to noise outside of us. See our bodies were designed with so much wisdom, they carry the fingerprint of God inside of them. He's designed them in such a way that they know exactly what they need to thrive. And they know what they don't need to thrive. And a lot of times what we're doing in this over optimization is we're throwing so much at our system, in it, on it, and around it, trying to get it to function. And it's like, "What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me? I don't need this." And so my journey in the 28 different supplements I was taking, sure, my body had the intelligence to get rid of it. And sure, I may have had expensive pee that we hear a lot of that.

But what people don't talk about is the fact that your body then had to set aside resources, maybe to help support your lymphatic system, maybe to help support your respiratory system, maybe to help support your immune system, all the things that were super important that your body needed to do. It needs to set aside resources to now spend time metabolizing all these supplements that we are taking just because we heard a guru on the internet, on the TV, on the podcast say certain things, right?

This is the issue. It's not just about expensive pee. It's all the resources that are being utilized. Those resources that the body has to set aside to break it all down all require something called mitochondria. Mitochondria is the battery power of the human body. It is what powers our cells to do what they do. Now, if we're wasting resources trying to metabolize through 28 different supplements, there's clearly something wrong because the body is just like, "Hello, I should have been detoxing the alcohol you had yesterday."

Our liver is breaking down excess hormones in our body and moving them through the system. We don't want toxic hormones floating through our bloodstream. So when we tax our liver and stop it from doing hormone metabolism, or detoxification, or all the other things that it's doing, making sure our blood sugar stays balanced, yes, pancreas do that, but the liver has a part to play in all of that, building new sugars, doing all these things, our liver is like, "Nope, can't do all that, we gotta get through all of these supplements first." I digress.

I know I got a little wild there, but I want you guys to understand that this is a much bigger thing than we really truly think about. And if I can get you to think in the simplest of terms, "Do I actually need that?" And you start building this relationship with your body. It's not maybe you understand all the nuanced things, but it's a way of filtering through the noise to be able to go, "Body, do you really want what is being presented to me? What is being marketed to me?" Because let's be real.

A lot of things are being marketed, right? A lot of things are being marketed. More information out there doesn't mean more clarity. In fact, more information a lot of times means more confusion.

So sometimes the best healing you can do is actually quieting the outside, quieting all the noise that is happening outside of you.

Before I get into concepts of learning how to listen to your body and really learning how to build a relationship, if you missed the episode from two weeks ago, I want to plug that again. Go listen to that. The three ways we dishonor our bodies, the three ways we honor our bodies. And I really talk about why we need to do this this way is because our bodies are so unique.

I'm gonna reiterate that point here because a raw salad may work for you, but it doesn't work for me. A piece of sourdough bread, properly prepared, and made, and done all the things, may work for you, but it doesn't work for me. Or grapes that work for me, I used grapes as the last example two weeks ago, may work for me, but not for you. Carrots may be right for you and not right for me. We are all unique. I've just used food examples that can be applied to everything, everything. Red light therapy may not work for me. It might be just a waste of time.

Yes, are there a lot of benefits to red light therapy? Absolutely. But then I'm getting more into some more tactical things, but as you build, experience a relationship with your body, you're gonna get to be able to get nitty gritty information from it, which is so cool. It feels like a superpower, but then you can go, red light therapy is right for me. Does my body want 45 minutes or 12, right? Then you start asking more nuanced questions of yourself, but you cannot do that. You cannot do that until you have a proper relationship built with your body. And that's what we're going to be talking about. How to build an amazing relationship with your body. Now the first thing to do.

Silence. Be quiet. You don't allow any information from the outside to come in. Just take a pause. Take a pause. Really, sometimes I tell people do a body scan. Maybe you do this before you even get out of bed. You say, "Thank you, body. Thank you for keeping me alive and doing all the amazing things that you did last night to restore my cells, to get my blood flowing better, to get my brain going, to clear out all the toxins. Thank you so much for doing what you did.

Cause I feel so much better after that restful sleep." Maybe after that gratitude, you do a body scan. You start from your head, go out all the way to your feet, or maybe there's a certain area of your body that's getting highlighted, your knee, or your belly, or something, you're feeling a little tension in your neck or whatever, right? Just pause. You don't need to do anything about that. You don't need to figure it out right now. You will learn to figure it out. We're going to get into all that. You don't need to figure it out right now.

But just whatever it is, whatever area it's at, just zone in and say, what are you trying to tell me right now? Just sit there. 10 to 15 seconds. You don't have to get an answer. I'm not asking you to even get an answer, but to just notice it. Notice it. And that's it. Pause for the 10 to 15 seconds when you get up on your two feet, and you walk out into your kitchen, or whatever you do, the very first thing, when you're starting your morning routine and you're starting with a morning beverage. I use the morning beverage as an example, because a lot of people do this. This is something, a part of my morning practice. So it's something lived for me, it's why the example's so deeply grooved in my head, but it can be different for you.

Maybe you start your morning with a workout and that's fine. I'm gonna give you this principle or this practice that you can do regardless of what it is. And it's something called "this or is your common thing. This is the thing that you do every single morning, or every single day, or repetitive behaviors over and over. Now, what I mean by that is if you get up every single morning and you always have a cup of coffee, that is your "this." The coffee is your quote unquote "this."

The other thing when you're practicing "this or that" that you're going to do is you're going to simply ask your body, do you want coffee or do you want tea? The tea would be the "that." Now you can shift the tea, it doesn't have to be tea. It could be coffee or lemon water. It could be coffee or matcha. It could be coffee or just coffee and water. It can be so many variables for the "that." The "this" in that example is never going to change. "This" is always going to stay the same.

Pause in your skin, in the kitchen for 15 seconds, 10 to 15 seconds. You start getting overwhelmed and you're like, "I don't know, I'm not getting an answer." Go drink your coffee. Drink your coffee. This is not a place to be overwhelmed from. But what I'm asking you to do during that 10 to 15 seconds, you can put your hand on your chest. You can feel your heart beating and you can just simply say, "What do you prefer?" Coffee or water? Coffee or lemon water? "What do you prefer?" Feel sensations in your body. Now for me, they're in my chest. Other people I've experienced, they've had said that they felt it in their gut, in their shoulders, different areas of their body. Feel where your body is kind of feeling or guiding you to, okay?

Don't mean to get complex with that at all, but just give your time in that 10 to 15 seconds. Don't stop before that 10 to 15 seconds is over. Just stay there. Stop after the 15 seconds is over if you're starting to get overwhelmed. But if you feel some opening in your chest, lightness in your chest, when you're saying tea... "Do you want coffee or tea?" And you just feel this lightness, drink the tea.

If you feel this "Ooh, heavy, I don't know, I don't know." Drink the coffee. And then the next day, try again. But when I say the next day, I would actually even encourage you to practice multiple times a day with this, "this or that." So then at lunch, you go to work and you're always having a ham and cheese sandwich. You're always eating that at the deli, the bakery, or whatever at your work, right? And today, you're gonna go, "Okay. Do I want the ham and cheese sandwich or do I want the Cobb salad? Do I want the ham and cheese salad or do I want the X, Y, and Z tuna salad?" Right? Just throwing out an example.

Give yourself the 10 to 15 seconds to just pause in that moment and just take a deep breath, breathe into your chest, and feel what you feel. Now, I know some people are like, "I'm not gonna stand at the counter at the deli counter and wait 15 seconds while I'm there to pay." I wouldn't either guys, I would not either. But what I'm telling you, there could be a long line of people in front of you waiting for their lunch as well. And while they're doing that, as you're looking at the board, "I normally get this ham and cheese salad or sandwich, but now I'm gonna look at different things."

Find the "that" that you're going to practice with and while you're standing in the line, you can do this and no one even knows you're doing it. You can do this when deciding what kind of workout you do. All of these different decisions can be done with the "this or that." You are not making defining decisions with this practice.

Let me get that clear, no defining decisions are being made with this practice. What is it a defining decision? Who to marry, where to move, what school to go to, what workplace, what job to take, none of that. You're not doing any of that, okay. These are simple asks of your body as you're learning to build a relationship with it. The more you practice this, the faster it will happen for you. I guarantee.

This is not a "After six months and 12 days and three minutes, you're gonna build this incredible relationship with your body." It takes time, it takes practice, and I'm so excited for the journey that you are taking in saying no to over optimization, no to the chaos, no to the craziness of all of it, and really saying yes to you, yes to your body.

Healing doesn't always look like doing more. In fact, it really truly is about doing less.

I pray that this episode encouraged you and helps you learn to really just start small, take small steps, do less, and build a beautiful relationship with your body. A relationship that's not built on pressure or performance or trying to get everything right, but a relationship that's built on trust and understanding and safety.

And if this episode, if you're listening to this right now and you're like, "I know my sister would love this. I know my mom would love to hear this." Please share it. Please share it with them.

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And on that note, be blessed, have a beautiful week, and I will see you next week with a good friend of mine. Can't wait.