This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 156 / Cell Care with Dr. Monisha Bhanote

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Our topic today is CELL CARE which is a different but supporting approach to self-care. And sure, I know a few things about self-care, lifestyle rituals, and intentional living, but don’t have the first sweet clue about CELL care. I’m excited to learn and hope you are too! Dr. Monisha Bhanote, combines ancient wisdom with mind-body science to naturally bio-hack the human body through her expertise as a cytopathologist, functional culinary medicine specialist, and integrative medicine doctor. Known as the Wellbeing Doctor, Dr. Bhanote has diagnosed over one million cancer cases, provides health programs at DrBhanote.com, and leads wellness workshops and retreats worldwide. She serves on several clinical advisory boards and is a go-to health and wellness expert for Healthline, Psych Central, and Medical News Today. As Dr. Bhanote shares, “Your wellbeing is non-negotiable.” The reality is if you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll end up needing to make time for your illness. Your health is THAT important. And the ultimate form of self-care is becoming and being the healthiest version of YOU, you can be. Take care of yourself, my friend. Connect with Dr. Bhanote and access resources: Website: https://www.drbhanote.com  IG: https://www.instagram.com/drbhanote/  FB: https://www.facebook.com/drbhanote Book: The Anatomy of Wellbeing  Biohackers Cookbook: https://www.wellkula.com/bio-hackers-cookbook  To join Nicole’s pod (to get all the inside scoops, free stuff, and the occasional rant), click here

I am Nicole Khalil, and one of my most favorite things about doing the This Is Woman's Work podcast is getting to connect with incredible women living their passion, sharing their experience and expertise, who are taking risks and making their mark. It's inspiring to me as I hope it is to you too. I often say this podcast is my passion project and it truly is because I love doing it and because it's something I can offer to people for free without being overly concerned about monetizing or making it profitable. Maybe someday I'll decide to fill each episode with more ads than content.

But for now, I'll take my compensation in the form of learning and growing. And I'll take some reviews from you listeners too, please. Because that's truly how I get paid for doing this show. I learn and I grow. Whether it's hearing a different perspective on a topic I'm already pretty knowledgeable and passionate about, like confidence, or learning something I know absolutely nothing about and I'm wondering how I lived to today years old without hearing about it, like cycle syncing or all the incredible topics that have come in between. I love this podcast for the learning and the growth that happens each time I hit record. I hope you're learning and growing too. For each episode you hear, there's a few hours of prep, a conversation we record, the editing and post-production work,

and finally the episode that gets released out into the world. All in, each episode takes about 10 hours, give or take, and all that will happen for this episode. But let me share that my prep for this one was a little bit different because I know literally nothing about the topic we're covering today. I Googled and I'm still not sure what we're talking about, which I freaking love because that means lots of learning and lots of growth will be happening here today. Our topic is self-care as self-care. And sure, I know a few things about self-care and lifestyle rituals or morning routines and intentional living, but I don't have the first sweet clue about cell care. So let's dive in. Dr. Monisha Banot is one of the few quintuple board certified physicians in the

nation. She combines ancient wisdom with mind body science to naturally biohack the human body through her expertise as a cytopathologist. Did I even say that right? Functional culinary medicine specialist and an integrative medicine doctor known as the wellbeing doctor. Dr. Benote has diagnosed over 1 million cancer cases, provides health programs at drbenote.com, and leads wellness workshops and retreats worldwide. She serves on several clinical advisory boards and is the go-to health and wellness expert for Healthline, Psych Central, and Medical News Today. Dr. Benote, thank you for being here today.

I'm so curious, and I can't wait to learn from you. I want to start by asking the obvious question, what is cell care? Absolutely. Thank you, Nicole, so much for having me on This Is Women's Work podcast. I feel so privileged to be here and to really help you and all the women who listen to your podcast, because I know you're about inspiring women to be their authentic self. And I want to add a little bit more to that approach with self-care. Like you said, a lot of people are familiar with what is self-care, but what exactly is self-care? And to me, hashtag self-care is about taking care of your human cells, because if we can learn what we can do to optimize cellular health from a complete perspective, because your cells make up your tissues, make up your organs, which make up the functionality of your body, we can really be the best version of ourselves, right? So if I had to give you a definition, cell care focuses on proactively caring for one's well-being by utilizing the knowledge you gain and infusing it

into these intentional lifestyle practices. And as a result of this and infusing this, it will help you maintain a healthy mind, body, and spirit throughout life. So you already said people talk about morning rituals and why they're doing, but do they really know why they're doing that and how they can incorporate different ones to give them more energy throughout the day, ones to give them optimal sleep in the evening. So that's what cell care is all about. Okay. So I want to dig a little deeper into this. It sounds like, and please correct me if I'm wrong, cell care is about physical health, but maybe also about emotional, mental, spiritual, maybe even social. It sounds a little more all encompassing to me than just our physical

beings. Am I off base? No, you are a hundred percent correct, right? So when we think of a integrative approach or a holistic approach to our wellbeing, we are thinking about the whole mind, emotional, spiritual, physical, sleep, nutrition, our ecosystem as a body, how it's all interconnected, how are we interconnected to ourselves? How are we interconnected to each other? So all of it. Okay. A little bit of a pet peeve of mine in the wellness space, as you might imagine, being a podcast that is designed with women in mind, I get a lot of outreach for nutritionists or basically people in the wellness space. And even on the advertising side, a lot of things in that space too. I'm very, very particular. And here's why. Everybody seems to disagree about a lot of things. You know, everybody has their,

this is the thing that's the most important, or this is the thing that's going to solve all the problems or what have you. Is there anything you think almost everybody in the wellness space agrees on that is wildly important as it relates to self- care or self-care or just wellness and health in general? That is a great question, Nicole. So there is not only a lot of information out there, there is a lot of misinformation out there, which can make the healing journey very confusing for an individual. So I think we can all agree on the body is meant to move. So living a sedentary life is not going to be the best life for everybody. We can all agree on the body requires sleep in order to function at its best. I was recently in a meeting with individuals and with one of the individuals, he happened to be working with Tony Robbins at a very, very early age. I mean, this is

like before the days. At that time, Tony Robbins was all about, he only needs to sleep for, I don't need sleep to function. And it was only later that he admitted, no, you know what, I can function much better with sleep. So definitely sleep. The other thing is, like you mentioned, nutritionists, right? So what do we eat? What do we not eat? I think we can all agree that processed food and chemical laden food is not going to make our body work its best. Whereas whole foods, real foods, ones without additives, without chemicals, without pesticides will make our cells, our cellular health as best as it can. So I think those are some of the big ones. I don't think we can complete this conversation without talking about our brain and our mind

and how important it is for us to nurture our brain with good relationships with, you know, it's kind of like the people you surround yourself with are the people who you start kind of behaving like or get inspired by. So I think being protective of your face and how you kind of show up in the world and who you allow into your world is very important for your emotional well-being. So like I said, it's a combination of your mindset, which are minds that can be developed. It's a combination of what's our ecosystem, both our internal and external ecosystem, how we nourish our body, how we fuel our body, the space we live in, our emotions, how we manage our emotions, how we're exposed to environmental toxins, how we eliminate them, how we move our body, and then our recovery.

It becomes this whole, what I call our fulfillment compass, really like, how do we get into all those areas yet do it simply and sustainably. Okay. I want to talk about the simply and sustainably in a second, but I just want to acknowledge and thank you for talking about sleep in there. I don't know why I have this bias. And anytime somebody talks about wellness or health and they don't mention sleep, or they talk about waking up at some ungodly hour in the morning while going to sleep late at night and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, my brain shuts down. I'm not no longer interested because I am a big believer in eight to nine hours of sleep for me personally. Okay. Let's talk about

some of these, what you call lifestyle rituals. And I think that's important because it's not just a fad or something we do to try to feel healthy or look good for an upcoming vacation or something like that. It's more of a habit, a routine, a lifestyle ritual, at least that's what I'm carrying. So what are some ways that we can go from mindless habits, things that we're not conscious of doing to intentional rituals that really benefit us? Absolutely. So I'm glad you use all those words, habits, routines, and rituals, because that's the premise of what I really teach and what I share with individuals. Because habits usually, at least in my mind, I will say habits have a little bit of a negative connotation. Nobody talks about really having good habits. We have so many

bad habits, right? Like we're driving home and we see the golden arches and we're like, oh, it's calling me. Let me go stop through the drive-thru. Or somebody brings some pastries for breakfast in the office. Oh, that's a visual cue. And then you get triggered. So you're getting triggered by these cues and not really thinking about, do I really need this bagel or donut for breakfast? Is this really going to make me feel better? Or is it going to make me crash later in the day? Why am I doing it? Am I even hungry? Like, what is behind it?

So that's where going from habits to routines to rituals, with each of those levels, you're increasing both intentionality and you're increasing self-awareness, right? So routines, to contrast from habits, routines might be something like, okay, I go to the gym after work every day, I put this out, or on the weekends, I might do brunch with my girlfriend. So these are routines. They have a little bit more intentionality behind them. You might become a little bit more self-aware about why you're doing them. However, intentional lifestyle practices or rituals, as I call them, is the most intentional and the most self-aware. So you might place a ritual into your life going, you know what? I don't sleep that well. What can I do that will

help me have a better night's sleep? Because I am not the best version of myself for both my friends, my family, or my colleagues when I come to work cranky or I wake up cranky. And so you might place a ritual, a evening ritual in there that, you know, I'm not going to bring my phone into my room. I'm going to take some time to myself. What is something I enjoy doing? I enjoy reading and I feel like I never have time to read, but I also enjoy taking baths. So maybe I'm going to take a bath in the evening to relax my muscles with Epsom salts and essential oils. And I'm going to spend 10 minutes reading my book. It's really taking that time to go and prioritize what do I need in order for me to be my best self. And that's where I think rituals, rituals are definitely more flexible

than routines, routines, you sometimes get bored with and you're kind of like, well, I don't want to go to the gym anymore. I don't want to do this. But when you place some intention behind it and what purpose it serves, it's a little bit easier to be like, okay, I can do that. Or I want to do that. That flexibility, or when I was saying sustainability, you can create rituals as you need them. So if you know that you're somebody who, when you travel, traveling doesn't suit you very well, and you're on the road, and you're not able to get everything you need, you can set a ritual around that. Like, how are you going to get from point A to B being your best self? And it's not something you're doing every day.

It's maybe you traveled two, three times a year and you have a ritual around that. So that's what I like about rituals is you make them completely flexible and you can do them based on what you need, when you need prioritizing your self-care. And so you can show up to be your best self. Okay. So I have this sort of working theory that if you think about wellbeing, we all have one that feels easier or more comfortable to us than others. Said another way, we're more practiced at one. So for me, like more mental or relationship health is something that I would gravitate towards because it's of interest. It's

a little bit easier. I've done a lot of work in this space, whereas I have some close friends that would go directly towards nutrition or physical health. So as we think about rituals, I want to go back to some of these things that you think we all can agree on and maybe give an example of what a ritual might look like for each. So meant to move or physical beings were meant to move. Can you give us an example of a ritual that may benefit people in this space? Absolutely. So a ritual in the space of movement. So when we think of moving, we think, all right, in order to be part of this world, we need to go to hit classes and we need to do this extra activity in order to fit into this world. Like we got to go to orange theory. We got to go to yoga. We got to go do this. We got to do

that. I need to be dripping sweat and it needs to take hours of my time, right? Like that's the message. The reality is you don't have to do that. In fact, and this is where I want you to listen to your body, your individual body and what makes your body work best. Because I used to be one of those individuals who was like, I need to go do this. And I never truly enjoyed it because rather than feeling energized after a class, it left me depleted even more. And only later, as I started being more aware of both my body on this physical level, but on this cellular level and the way my genes work and how my body works, really tapping into my DNA and what does my body like. When I slowed down that movement, but I didn't stop moving. I just did a different type of movement and I created a ritual around it. One of my rituals is to walk. And because it gets me in that parasympathetic relaxed state, yet it's still

giving me that physical activity. So that allowed my body to go, you know what, we like this, we're going to do what we need to do and the body works better. So when I started tapping into that, it was very good. It also has the upside of being something you can do just about anywhere, anytime I'm with you. I, I thought I needed to be dripping sweat in order for it. And I put in air quotes to count and I'm really building a new relationship with that. Okay. What about sleep? You might've given us an example here already, but the bath and the Epsom salt and having an evening routine, which I love, we hear almost exclusively about morning routines, but anything else on sleep? Yeah. So when you think of sleep, I want you to think of your bedroom really as your sanctuary,

right? So you don't want to bring in the, maybe the negative energy of what's going on, on the TV news and all that, right? Because what we hear, what's in the background seeps into our cells, our human cells, right? So let's try and nurture them in a good way. So one thing to think about with optimizing your sleep is that you're really optimizing that room environment. So no light coming in because light turns on brain waves that you might not want. We wanna be able to go through all our five different brain waves and all our sleep patterns in the best way possible.

So setting up that environment might be a ritual. Maybe you like to have a cozy, and take some time to decide what do you like to have a cozy, you know, and take some time to decide what do you like and what's important to you there. But really kind of prioritizing that a ritual could be having an evening cup of tea, sleepy time tea would be a great evening ritual to help induce that sleep and that relaxation response. All great examples. Okay. So what about processed food? Maybe the question is how do we create rituals about food that is more nourishing to our bodies? Yeah. The statistics around what we are eating are insane. And I actually think the statistics

are not even showing the true picture because one of the latest statistics I saw is like the USDA says that 32% of calories come from animal products, 57% from processed foods, and then 11% from whole grains, beans, fruits, veggies, and nuts. But when I talk to my patients and those individuals, and I'm like, when was the last time you had some legumes? When was the last time you had a vegetable or greens? It's not even on their radar. Like they're not even thinking about it. So a ritual about nutrition is really being more observant of what is on your plate. And after you have your meal, how do you feel? Connecting with that feeling because we often go from just eating to the next task. And I want to ask you or invite

you really, I want to invite you to slow down and tune into, did that meal make me feel good? If it did, then we're, you know, this is where when you're thinking about what is the right diet for me, what should I be doing? Think about how you're feeling after you consume those foods, right? So slowing down, chewing your food, being intentional with your food and your meal. We, another thing we're not doing is chewing our food. You know, we, like I said, we're, we're moving at a faster pace than we really need to. And this is a pressure that's been created to keep up with society. And we don't need to do that to keep up with society. Because I can tell you when I'm working with individuals who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, they're depleted.

They are completely depleted from what their body or their cellular makeup needs. And now we go through this space of replenishing what's been depleted in order for their cells to work. And I want you to also think of this as a preventative, like our healthcare system, unfortunately is not preventative and prevention is still the key to health. Okay. Again, great things in there. I love the, just how did this meal make me feel? Because as you said earlier, there's a lot of false information, mixed information, misinformation, they're all in this one size fits all, you know, diet is mind blasting to me. So just how did this meal make me feel?

All right. Relationships. I'm just going to boil it down to that. How can we create healthy rituals around relationship? That's a great one. So relationships. So we, we, in our lifetime have a span of different relationships. We have relationships as we're children with our classmates and our parents.

There's this relationship. And then as we grow up and maybe go to college or we start our first job, we have this relationship with our colleagues and our bosses. And I'm sure everyone has had a toxic boss relationship. I don't know anybody who has not. It's probably a, a prerequisite for the adult world. Yeah. It's an unfortunate rite of passage. It would seem. Yeah, absolutely. So when it comes to relationships, I want you to think of it from two perspectives as a partnership and a two way street, right?

Because it's not a one sided thing. This is why we're in a relationship. So if we use the example of, say, a boss working with your boss, and maybe your boss, like you feel like you go into work and you always have to be on eggshells with them. And the eggshells is creating internal tension in you because now you're going, I don't want to wake up for work. I don't want to go into this environment. I want you to first think about what is it that you can do? And maybe this is placing a ritual into your work day of how you can still show up for work, do what you want to do because it's not the job you don't love. It's the environment you might not like. How can you do that

and still keep your cellular health or your body optimal? Because you do not want that energy that that person might be deflecting on you, influencing your health outcomes, shall I say. So maybe creating a ritual. I remember I used to, when I would get to the hospital 10 minutes early, and I would sit in the doctor's parking lot and meditate before I was going to enter this hospital environment where everything's coming at you from all these angles and you're surrounded by all these people who truly need help and are sick, but that energy of that, it's a completely different energy. And what do I do when I come home from that? And how do I, how do I wash that off? I have my, my infrared sauna that I, you

know, so there's rituals that I've put into place to help me recalibrate my sympathetic or stressed response because we can't avoid stress in the world. We can't, we just need to know how to transform that energy into something positive. Okay. I have two more questions. The first is around this idea that our body and our mind are constantly telling us things. What might brain fog, fatigue, tiredness, lethargic, what might that be telling us as it relates to cell care? Okay. So this really comes around any symptoms. Just some of the symptoms that I see most often is brain fog, where an individual, they don't even know what they did five minutes ago. They're just not focused. They're not clear. And then fatigue, well, we are a cowered out generation where, like I said, we are so depleted that we are just not functioning anymore. We're literally walking zombies at some point. So what is this telling you about your cell care is that your body needs support.

And you have, so these are just symptoms, right? You can have other symptoms. You can have skin issues. You can have digestive symptoms. You can have hormonal imbalances. All of those things are basically telling you that your cells, they're communicating to you, and it's your choice to listen to your cells and those symptoms that they need something from you, right? And that something might be different for different individuals that might be better nutrition. I will tell you at the top of the charts for most

individuals is better nutrition, even from the space of, I have a lot of people who come to me who are already, one of the first things they tell me is I eat the best diet. And I say, okay, let's talk about it. But then when we look at them and what their cells need to function from a vitamin level, from a mineral level, from the oxidative stress that they have been exposed to, oxidative stress is a type of stress that happens every day to all of us. And how do we combat that? We combat that with antioxidants. Where do antioxidants come from? They come from a lot of brightly colored fruits and vegetables, which last time I checked a potato, which is the most eaten vegetable is not brightly colored. There's not too much wrong with a potato, except for the fact it's not going to give you all the nutrients you need. Right. So when we're looking at that stress that's being put on the body, we can do a little bit better and start

replenishing that, you know, some individuals like we've already talked about sleep, maybe it's just a matter of optimizing their sleep routine. Because if you're not sleeping, well, your circadian rhythm is off, you're not producing the right hormones, you're not producing the right hormones. You're not producing the right mood neurochemicals. So there's a lot to look at there. Okay. My last question, because as I started out by saying, I know nothing about this concept of cell care as self-care, what didn't I ask that I should have, or is there anything else we should really be thinking about or increase our knowledge about as it relates to cell care? So when it comes to cell care, I invite you to kind of think about what am I doing to my body and how can I be more intentional with it? And that's

really the premise of my book, going through each of the different areas from your mindset to your body's ecosystem. And what I do is in the anatomy of wellbeing, I break it down into how do these different organs work and why you might want to optimize them and how optimizing them in these simple ways with these simple rituals that you might not have thought of like simple optimizing how you breathe are you are you a belly breather are you a chest breather how how are you breathing just from something like that can all of a sudden now not only help you expel toxins from the air like the oxygen and the carbon dioxide, like it could also help your blood flow go to the rest of your body.

And what does blood flow do? Blood flow brings nutrients to the rest of your body. So it really comes to how does your body work? How can you optimize it? And let's do it in a sustainable way where it doesn't become like habits that you just become negative or it becomes routines that just make you bored. And then you just don't want to do them. Let's think, focus on what I need right now, which will change with seasons,

not just seasons of the year, but seasons of how we age and do what you need to do to be your best version of yourself. And I think that's what women's work is about too. Couldn't agree more. And I think that a lot of that will be different for each of us, as you said, depending on what we need and stages of life and all that. Dr. Bonote, thank you so much. I know there is lots more to learn and we probably barely scratched the surface in 30 minutes. If people want to find out more about you, I know you have upcoming retreats as well. They can go to drbenote.com, find you on Instagram or Facebook or all the medias. And we'll

put all this in social notes at Dr. Benote. Her book is called the anatomy of wellbeing. She's also offered a free download, which is the biohackers cookbook, which we will put in show notes. Dr. Benote, thank you for doing this really important and incredible work. And thank you for being here today. Thank you so much, Nicole, for having me on this woman's work and really providing an outlet for women to learn how to be their best self. And hopefully I contributed to your community so they can learn another way to be their best selves with self-care. You certainly did. And it is my absolute pleasure.

Okay. As Dr. Benoit says, your wellbeing is a non-negotiable. And the reality is if you don't make time for your wellness, you'll probably end up needing to make time for your illness. Your health is that important. Yes, your physical health, but also your mental, emotional, spiritual, and social health too. Be careful that you don't over-rotate to the one that you feel most comfortable in because stress and lack of sleep is just as damaging as eating shitty food or not getting enough

exercise. And loneliness may be as destructive as addiction. You are a whole human, a complex being, and an evolving one. So the ultimate form of self-care is becoming and being the healthiest version of you that you can be. Take care of yourself, my friend. Practice cell care, because that is woman's work.