Doc Mok 0:03
Welcome to Maximal Being, a podcast devoted to ditching fad diets and using real science to get you healthy and feeling great. I’m Doc Mok, a GI and functional medicine doctor who harnesses the power of gut health to get you achieving your goals. And I'm Jacky P, a well-informed layman who challenges the experts and ask the questions that you want. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button or leave a comment, and now onto the show.
What's going on Maximal Beings, Doc Mok here with maximalbeing.com. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button. Leave us a comment, it does help us to get the word out. If you have any questions, you can email us at [email protected]. Enjoy the episode.
Jacky Homme 0:47
Hello. Hello. Hello. Maximal Being listeners first time, longterm. It is I, Jacky P. Your hostess with the mostest, your favorite layman. I'm going to claim it now in 2024. Here in sunny Philly, I'm here with Doc Mok, handsome, looking looking great look like maybe a little haircut action. Doc Mok, how are you today?
Doc Mok 1:14
Feeling fresh, Jacky P thanks for that kind introduction. For those of you listening for the first time, I'm Doc Mok. I'm a therapeutic endoscopist, that's a fancy type of GI doctor that usually treats paliates diagnoses cancers, and I'm also boarded Functional Medicine doctor. Jacky P, you forgot one of your accolades, which is you're now a movie star. I just wanted to. I just wanted to throw that out there that we've talked about my appearance on a commercial, but now Jacky P is coming to the stage. So let's just like talk about how great that is for the universe.
Jacky Homme 1:52
Oh, well, I appreciate that Doc Mok. For those who don't know, which is probably everyone because I don't spread the stuff around our firm. In my regular non nerdy nutrition life. We shot a commercial recently, and I have just a little cameo. I said nothing big, nothing major, not not a starring roll. But it was something fun to do. And I'm happy with the product. And it was it was a good time. So
Doc Mok 2:19
Okay, so you're being modest. I'm gonna be I'm gonna brag for you. It is hilarious. It's his cocktail party. And this guy's like, I don't really want to talk about what I do for a living. The guy's like asking what he does for a living. He's like, I don't really like talking about that at cocktail parties. And it's because he's in the financial industry. And the guy is like, chasing him while he's trying to eat food and drink a drink of the party and asking him financial advice. And then the guy's like in the toilet and the guy's asking him about cryptocurrency and it had a glimpse at the guy's funeral. And the guy at the party is still asking him financial advice for the guy in the coffin. But it's really brilliantly done. The only thing I'll say is like, we just got to get your representations so that you can get speaking parts for the next version. So
Jacky Homme 3:06
I appreciate that. And thank you for the support Doc Mok. That's why I love you. You're a gem and hopefully I had to switch my headset died. So I've switched to my earbuds hopefully I don't sound terrible.
Doc Mok 3:18
A little echoey.
Jacky Homme 3:19
All right, we'll give it time to charge. But all right, but so the main event. So I'm joined by Dr. Ali Navidi who's a CEO and co founder of GI Psychology. So I want to prepare everyone right? Because it's about, with all due respect, it's about to get very nerdy in here. So without further ado, Dr. Navidi, how are you today? How are you? Where are you coming in from? And yeah, say hi to the people.
Dr. Ali Navidi 3:52
Yeah, Jacky P. It's great to talk with you and Doc Mok. I really liked the energy here. It's a lot of it sounds like it's a lot of fun. I'm coming from Northern Virginia. So DC metro area, about 20 minutes away from DC. And, and yeah, I'm here to talk a little brain-gut therapy. And, and whatever's related to that. So I'm excited.
Doc Mok 4:20
We are too
Jacky Homme 4:21
Well, we're happy to have you and we're excited to do this also. I think Doc Mok is especially excited because we haven't recorded an episode in some time to come back to something that is basically so much your world like we're gonna, we're gonna talk about so let's let's get to it.
Doc Mok 4:40
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Unknown Speaker 7:13
Ali, so give us you know, your superhero origin story, right? I assume, correct me if I'm wrong, you weren't in grade school saying you know, my tummy and my brain are talking to each other. And I gotta prove this to the people. Right? So how did you get into this field? How did you get started, you know, give us a good background of how I got here.
Dr. Ali Navidi 7:33
Yeah, it was completely opposite of that, right? Zero awareness that this was even a thing at all. I was a microbiology major. I was working in biotech after college. Luckily, and I've said this before, like, my wife is a lot smarter than me. And she kind of pointed out, hey, you might want to shift gears a bit, because you're spending all your time reading about psychology, being an amateur therapist to your friends and co-workers. So I switch gears and, and at the time, I was really excited and loved and I still do clinical hypnosis and, and definitely hope to have some time to talk about what that actually is here. But that's what pulled me into psychology. And so there was no gut-brain therapy on my mind as I became a therapist. But I love the power of hypnosis, I love using it, integrating it into treatment. And little by little I found that it was this amazing tool for patients with IBS and other GI problems and and as I had these experiences, I learned more, I took more training. And eventually it just, word got out and the gastroenterologist in the area found me. And that became like 80 80 90% of my practice. And this wasn't deliberate. It's just that there's so many patients with these problems. And so few people that are actually trained to help them. And so that's how it started. And then, four years ago, I started a bigger practice called GI Psychology. Because, again, that problem of access to care. There's there's literally about a little bit less than 500 gut-brain therapists in the whole world. And there's million there's like 45 million patients just with IBS in this country. So there's a little bit of an imbalance there.
Doc Mok 9:47
Yeah, I I. So firstly, I think that the three of us can absolutely already agree on something you said which is that your wife being smarter than you, I think we can all agree on that. But, but but it's I was just at our national meeting international meeting in Washington DC, which maybe you were, you know, their in attendance.
Dr. Ali Navidi 10:09
Yeah. I was there
Doc Mok 10:10
So yeah, that's right in your backyard and brain-gut access was all over the meeting, it was such a hot topic, you know, really gaining a lot of steam in terms of like the scientific evidence. And, and I think that it's interesting that this is a new area of medicine and psychology that we're just discovering this when this machinery has existed since the dawn of man. Yeah. Why? Why do you think it's taken so long for the medical community to kind of like acknowledge this as as a connection.
Dr. Ali Navidi 10:45
It's interesting, because at one level, we're just discovering it. And at another level, we've known it, we've known it. And if you look at the at the research, if you look at the research for clinical hypnosis for something like IBS, it goes back close to 40 years, there's 40 years of very solid research showing over and over again, effective, effective, effective, but it's only relatively recently that people are actually talking about it, that it's gaining any momentum. I've got some theories about maybe why that is, but my guess is probably as good as any about why it's becoming more popular now.
Doc Mok 11:33
I mean, I still to this day, talk to people about the microbiome and in my field, in therapeutics, and they're like, oh, it's this evolving new area? And I'm like, no, it's not. Like it, the functional medicine side has actually been researching this for about 20 30 years, right? It's just been the constant, like western side being like, no, I need, you know, I need it to be published in the New England Journal in a certain way. And like, I mean if it's not there and if it doesn't involve a drug or a procedure, like I totally reject it as true, which just is, I think, is unfortunate. But I think people are realizing now that like, their patients are finding this information, they're finding it in unreputable sources, and they need to take the stage and be an authority for somebody that actually is qualified like yourself.
Dr. Ali Navidi 12:24
Yeah. And, and it is counterintuitive too, you know, your stomach hurts, you're having all these symptoms. You're not thinking let me go to clinical psychologist, you're thinking, what am I eating? Is there a problem? Let me getting an endoscopy or colonoscopy, right. But you're not thinking, let me talk to somebody, let me do some talk therapy. Way out of the realm of of, of where you're gonna go. And even if somebody mentions it to you, is a high likelihood you're gonna say, I don't know about that. Right?
Doc Mok 13:02
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 13:05
Yeah, and I, you know, if I may chime in, and Doc Mok may remember the guest, but we had a good conversation about that when it was like, Eastern medicine versus Western medicine. Where on, you know, on this side of the world, everything just isn't in filing cabinets. Oh, my tummy hurts, let's talk about, let's talk to tummy doctor. Right? And that's a medical term, by the way, tummy? So just let you guys all know.
Jacky Homme 13:30
It is.
Dr. Ali Navidi 13:31
Emytemologist, actually.
Jacky Homme 13:33
Emytemologists. Yeah. You know, and what I'm seeing and what I'm reading is, I think, folks, hopefully, some who've been listening to Doc Mok and I over the last years have been starting to realize that, especially with the your microbiome, right, that it is all connected, and it is not in a silo, it is not in its own filing cabinet. And I hope folks, after listening to this, can see like, hey, you know what, let's look at everything else and how the system works together. When we are having these these issues, like IBS or just GI dysfunction, right, as an umbrella term. Yeah. You mentioned hypnotherapy.
Dr. Ali Navidi 14:17
I did, I did.
Unknown Speaker 14:21
And I'm definitely not a skeptic. But I'm very curious about and I don't want to be a hater because, you know, we, in my house, you know, I tell my son all the time, we're not haters in this house, you know, but tell me
Dr. Ali Navidi 14:34
Face your fears
Jacky Homme 14:35
Yeah. Exactly. Walk walk me through, like your experience with that, you know, like, how did you start exploring that space? And I guess some of the successes or not, you know, when when you kind of got into that space?
Dr. Ali Navidi 14:52
Yeah. And you don't have to apologize for being a skeptic when it comes to clinical hypnosis. And there's a very good reason why I actually should be skeptical. Because what most people know about hypnosis, where do you think it comes from? It comes from entertainment hypnosis. It comes from the movies, it comes from TV shows, it comes from the stage show that came to your high school or came to your college, right? It come and if if that's where you're getting your information, then hypnosis looks crazy. And you would be crazy to do it, right. And if you take all that, and you just put it aside, as, as the kind of the BS that it actually is, and it's fun BS, but it's BS, and then you say, okay, well, what, what is it? What actually are we talking about here? And it's actually pretty straightforward. It's, it's just teaching someone how to go on purpose, into a state of trance. And trance is a normal, normal state of consciousness. We all go in and out of trance. Anybody who works out at some point in your workout, you're going into trance. You know, there are all kinds of people who go for runs, and they're in this runner's zone. I can't say I've ever been one of them. And that's probably why I hate running. You know, but, but trance is happening all the time. Just I've got two teenagers. Anytime they pick up their phone, I know they're in trance. And they might even be nodding at the right time when I'm talking to them. But none of that's getting through it. Right. So, so trance is happening Normally, most people don't know how to get into that state on purpose. And it turns out that when we're in trance, we're capable of a lot, a lot more powerful mind-body connection. Right. And so there's tremendous evidence showing that clinical hypnosis is helpful for for different types of pain, and also for gi problems as well. And that's because when we're in trance, we can we can affect our mind-body system in ways that we can't normally do in our normal state of consciousness.
Unknown Speaker 17:12
Okay, so it's, so I'm glad you addressed that because, you know, in my brain, and you hit the nail on the head, in my brain, I see waving, you know, a stopwatch saying, yeah, getting sleepy, and all this stuff. So interesting. So, you know, in a session, right, or I guess, over multiple sessions, you're just helping educate folks on how to basically like, tap into, like I said, you know, like, in that state of trance, like just a separate set of consciousness, a separate state of, you know, kind of thought process.
Dr. Ali Navidi 17:46
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's interesting, because trance plus imagination equals some amazing results. And so most people don't understand the power of their imagination. And that's a whole other topic. But there's a saying, in psychology, that anxiety is imagination misapplied. So if you think about anyone who's getting anxious, it's because they're imagining some future state that terrifies them. Right. Their imagination is running wild. And so essentially, in a way, we're teaching people how to use their imagination in a way that's going to benefit them. And, and the research shows clearly that by using these techniques by helping them into trance and then engaging their imagination, that they can make real clear changes in their brain-gut system.
Unknown Speaker 18:48
I love it. I love I love that quote. It's basically like you said, anxiety is imagination
Dr. Ali Navidi 18:56
Misapplied.
Jacky Homme 18:57
Misapplied?
Dr. Ali Navidi 18:58
Misapplied. Yeah.
Doc Mok 19:01
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Jacky Homme 20:51
Ali look, I'm gonna give you a chance to brag right now. So in these therapies, like, you know, with, of course, without violating HIPAA, right, we're all practicing professionals here. Can you, is broadly speaking, maybe share an example of like a case or something where you where someone had something, and then you help them kind of solve it like what like, you know, what's the story? Like, how, how did someone apply this?
Dr. Ali Navidi 21:19
Yeah, and the good news is this. The good news for patients all over the, all over the country is that this treatment is tends to be short. So usually around 10 sessions on average, and it's a very high success rate. So we're talking about 80% are going to reach their treatment goals. So we've got so many great stories. So the most recent case that I saw, and obviously I'm gonna change the details to protect the innocent. But the person can't, you know, and this is we see our patients on telehealth, so, so I get on the call, and there's a man curled up on you know, kind of on his desk, writhing, right. And, and so Doc Mok, you know, you know, this is functional dyspepsia. And he's got tremendous bloating, and he's, and he's also got constipation that goes along with it. So bloating, pain, discomfort. There's this kind of brain fog that's going with it. He, he's a mess. He's a mess. Within. So then we did our intake, and then within four sessions of treatment, no symptoms at all. And I can talk about how we got there. But it was essentially, I'd say, this treatment was probably 90%, clinical hypnosis, often, we integrate a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy, a specific forms of cognitive behavioral therapy, we integrate them into treatment. But for this particular case, the CBT part of it was not really needed. He was a he was great with hypnosis, and we, and we really ran with it.
Unknown Speaker 23:10
Wow, incredible. Congrats to him. And you. That's exciting.
Doc Mok 23:16
Do you ever fly to Florida and do consulting work? Into a major cancer center?
Dr. Ali Navidi 23:23
So yeah, I actually did a training with with a lady who does the majority of her work with with cancer patients. Because because clinical hypnosis is a great tool for nausea.
Doc Mok 23:37
Yeah.
Dr. Ali Navidi 23:39
But yeah, I can tell you a little bit about the treatment itself, if you're interested. It essentially involves a technique that I've worked with and developed over the years called the Control Room. And it's a place that's that we build kind of in their mind, where they can begin to manipulate their symptoms. So as an example, he could, we worked on his bloating, and he could feel the bloating, resolving in the session within a matter of, you know, a couple of minutes. And I know that sounds too good to be true. But if, again, if you go back to the research, and you can see these these treatments, they work and they work really well.
Doc Mok 24:24
I just did a Instagram live with a friend and former colleague of mine who is an expert in functional neurologic disorders, and we talked a little bit about the brain-gut access. And I really believe everything that you're saying, you know, I think it's that, like I have a master's degree in anatomy which is not a brag I'm just saying that I know anatomy
Jacky Homme 24:47
That big ol brainy you
Doc Mok 24:50
All I'm saying is that like if you look at basic human anatomy, what what you know, you look at every human being on imaging, we all have this nerve called the vagus nerve, right and starts in our brain. And it's, it's called the wandering nerve for a reason. It's it goes through your, you know, cranium, ropes all around your chest cavity all around your belly cavity and wraps all around all the organs there. And the main job of this is to make hormones and secrete input that makes your GI tract move and shake and make its various enzymes to help you digest things. And so that's one direct highway that starts in the brain and goes all the way to the gut. And it's a two way thing, right? Input from the gut goes up to the brain and vice versa. And all those same hormones that are made in the intestinal tract, serotonin, and dopamine, etc, are the same hormones in our brain that make us feel anxious, scared, depressed. So I mean, I, I'm with you like, I think that the physiology is there. I think that the anatomy is there, it's just taken time for the medical community to create that scientific evidence to support that basis for that connection. Do you agree with that? Why there's a link and why your therapies work is based upon anatomy and physiology? Or do you think there's something else there too?
Dr. Ali Navidi 26:16
Yeah, I think if you if you just look at the anatomy and physiology, it would be weird. If the brain and gut weren't massively influencing each other. Right? There's so much connection, you've got the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system, the enteric nervous system is the, the little, the little brain, so to speak, that that is in our gut. And so it's like this little brain talking to to our big brain. And, and you just, it's hard to go through life without seeing that connection. Right. You know, you watch a commercial, you get hungry, you know, you you're about to give a you're about to do a podcast, you got you got butterflies in your stomach, right? We know it every day that they're connected. We just don't we just, it's just not as intuitive to see when things really start going wrong with things like IBS and things like that, that it's the brain-gut connection is intimately involved in that.
Unknown Speaker 27:22
I would also like to take this chance to say those butterflies or is it just just because I'm so excited to see Doc Mok
Doc Mok 27:29
Yeah there's no way that Jacky P is nervous to go out on a podcast anymore. Not that there's any shame in that for any person out there.
Dr. Ali Navidi 27:37
He does not seem nervous at all.
Doc Mok 27:39
No?
Dr. Ali Navidi 27:40
No, no.
Jacky Homme 27:41
I'm just having a good time learning to some two big brain folks. You know, I could do this all day right
Doc Mok 27:45
Three. Three big brain people.
Jacky Homme 27:47
Oh, thanks. That's why I love you so much.
Doc Mok 27:50
The content included is not intended to be used as medical advice and viewers should consult their physician or health care provider should they have additional questions. The viewers should not rely on information contained in these presentation for immediate or urgent medical needs. Additionally, if you think you have a medical emergency, call your physician or go to the emergency department or call 911 immediately. Never disregard professional medical advice or rely on seeking medical care or delay medical care due to information contained in this presentation.
What's going on Maximal Beings, Doc Mok here. If you haven't done so already, leave us a comment and hit the subscribe button. Let your friends and family know that way we can get the word out and continue to bash the bro science.
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