Music Is the Hidden Therapist | Dr. Michelle Weiner on Ketamine & Whole-Person Care

What happens when we stop treating the medicine as the entire treatment?

Dr. Michelle Weiner joins Demian Bellumio for a personal conversation about pain, ketamine-assisted therapy (KAT), cannabis, music, and integration. Michelle is Demian's physician and friend; Demian previously co-founded Nue Life. Their shared interest in accessible, whole-person care runs through the episode.

We begin with Michelle's upbringing and route into medicine, then explore why pain care led her beyond procedures alone. We revisit Nue Life, preparation and environment, music as the "hidden therapist," and the vibrating, music-responsive bed she uses in her practice.

In the show-and-tell, Demian demonstrates a Betterness session interface connecting a heart-rate timeline, recognized songs, and voice notes. No ketamine was taken during this demonstration. Consumer tracking is not clinical monitoring and does not establish treatment safety. Product availability discussed reflects the recording date, September 8, 2026.

The conversation also covers cannabis, provider training, and questions facing psychedelic research. Personal experiences, clinical opinions, recalled figures and forecasts should not be treated as established evidence or guarantees. Treatment responses vary.

Watch and explore the episode: Full episode, transcript and six clips. The demonstration includes a visual timeline and playlist; the video is also available at YouTube.

Chapters
00:00 Cold open: music, pain and whole-person care
00:46 Augmented Wellness
01:02 Welcome and a shared mission
02:23 Growing up: movement, nutrition and medicine
05:28 Moving beyond pain procedures
12:19 Nue Life and expanding access
14:34 Ketamine: what changed in clinical practice
18:37 Preparation, setting and integration
19:29 Music as the hidden therapist
20:53 Comparing psychedelic medicines
28:31 The next wave of psychedelic care
33:03 Why Nue Life built a music service
36:36 Show and tell: KAT, music and voice notes
40:51 The vibrating bed and feeling safe
44:56 Cannabis and different tools
47:22 Safety and provider training
48:39 Psychedelic experience and pharmaceutical research
51:02 The body–brain connection

Guest: Dr. Michelle Weiner. Hosted and produced by Demian Bellumio; recorded at The LAB Miami. AI-assisted post-production with Codex, DaVinci Resolve and ElevenLabs.

Educational conversation, not medical advice. Do not start, stop or combine treatments based on this episode. Discuss options and risks with a qualified clinician. Personal experiences, clinical opinions, recalled figures and forecasts are not verified findings or guarantees.

Listen on Spotify. Watch and explore the full episode, transcript and six clips.

Also available on Amazon Music.

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

What is Augmented Wellness?

Augmented Wellness is not a show about wellness. It is a show where wellness becomes buildable.

Hosted by Demian Bellumio of Betterness, it is a hands-on media lab where AI, health data, wearables, research, startup life, and agents stop being talking points and start becoming usable systems. Every episode turns a conversation with a real builder into a public artifact: an AI interviewer, starter kit, agent pattern, or workflow you can adapt with your own tools.

The recurring idea is to create your own AI interviewer. Use the artifacts with Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, a local agent, or any LLM that can read Markdown. Serve them through MCP when you want tools to read the context automatically. Connect Betterness when you want the system to come alive with permissioned wearables, labs, reports, goals, and lifestyle data.

Produced by Demian Bellumio with the support of agents from Betterness One, the agentic studio inside Betterness. Nothing on this show is medical advice. Opinions belong to our guests.

Intelligence in pursuit of better.

English transcript · final v12 timeline. Machine-assisted transcription with editorial name/terminology and splice checks; not certified verbatim.

[00:00] And I realized I wasn't really healing people. I
[00:02] I was just kind of like giving them band- aids to cover up the pain that
[00:05] they were experiencing.
[00:06] So I – and then I started to realize that pain is an experience and
[00:10] everyone experiences it differently. And
[00:11] And then the whole world started talking about these six sessions of
[00:14] ketamine to cure depression. And that's not how it works. That
[00:17] Actually, one of the coolest things is you have this amazing bed. Uh-huh.
[00:20] That vibrates. Yes. And plays the music. Yes.
[00:23] Right, they say music is the hidden therapist because music is supposed to
[00:27] bring up different emotions,
[00:29] And so what you do is you create a playlist and the bed vibrates
[00:33] to the music. So
[00:34] The point is it has to be comfortable. It has to feel safe. They have to
[00:37] feel like they could just kind of let go into that experience. And
[00:40] And that's really what we're doing now is less focus on the medicine and
[00:43] more on the everyday habits, right?
[00:48] Welcome to Augmented Wellness. Where we meet the people in pursuit of
[00:52] Better. Today, we speak with Doctor Michelle Weiner —
[00:56] pain physician and practitioner of whole- person care.
[01:02] Hi, welcome to another episode of Augmented Wellness.
[01:05] I'm very excited today to have Dr. Michelle
[01:09] Weiner here with me, longtime friend,
[01:12] a pioneer in some of the areas that we're going to be talking
[01:16] about. And obviously one of the most respected
[01:20] doctors down here doing amazing work in the
[01:24] areas of pain management, mental health
[01:28] and many other related areas. So welcome. Thank you for having me.
[01:32] It's nice to be in your presence. Ah, likewise. So,
[01:36] yeah, so obviously we're going to talk a lot about
[01:40] things that probably a lot of people have not
[01:42] have gone as deep as we have,
[01:46] literally, you know.
[01:50] But the idea, you know, of this podcast is to
[01:54] really get to know people that make the world better. Obviously,
[01:58] you know, in Betterness, that's what we do and we want to empower those
[02:02] that help others. In this particular area, obviously,
[02:05] you literally are everyday healing someone.
[02:10] So. But we'd like to start in the beginning. Tell
[02:14] us, you know, where did you grow up? And
[02:18] obviously, you know, what was the foundation for you to to follow,
[02:22] you know, your your calling? Sure. Yeah. So I grew up in New York. I
[02:26] actually have always been very athletic. So sports was a big part of
[02:30] my life and movement and nutrition from a very young age.
[02:34] And I thought I wanted to be either a physical therapist or a
[02:38] nutritionist. And then when I went to University of Florida from
[02:42] being from New York, I loved like being outside the warm weather, all that
[02:46] kind of stuff. And I I was at UF and I realized that
[02:50] I could potentially just go to med school and do a lot more and heal a lot
[02:54] more people. And I started to become premed and I
[02:58] went into something called physical medicine and rehabilitation, which is a
[03:02] specialty that really focuses on function and helping people who
[03:06] have debilitating neurological conditions like spinal cord injury,
[03:10] traumatic brain injury. And I saw a lot of suffering
[03:13] in my residency and a big part of it was pain.
[03:17] And so I decided to do a fellowship in pain management. I did
[03:21] interventional pain at University of Miami. And I was really trying to
[03:25] help people feel more love and have less pain, really.
[03:29] And I got into interventional pain, was doing
[03:32] epidural injections, joint injections, a lot of
[03:36] medication management. And I realized I wasn't really healing people. I was
[03:40] just kind of like giving them band-aids to cover up the pain that they were
[03:43] experiencing. And so I started to learn a lot more
[03:47] about pain. And I think that medical school does a horrible job
[03:51] teaching us about nutrition, movement and even pain management. And they're
[03:55] so focused on medication management, really. So
[03:59] I started to explore chronic pain. And I realized that
[04:03] we were using the same treatments for chronic pain
[04:07] as we do for acute pain, which is very different. You know, if, like, you
[04:10] injure your back or your knee, the way I would treat you is very different
[04:13] than if you've had this injury for five years, right? Exactly. So I – and
[04:17] then I started to realize that pain is an experience and everyone
[04:19] experiences it differently. And if their mood is depressed, they're not
[04:23] sleeping well, they're chronically stressed, the way that they perceive
[04:26] these pain signals are going to be amplified. So I really started to look
[04:29] at the whole person, not just pain. And with that comes
[04:33] a lot of mental health conditions as well. Yeah, so we're going to dig into
[04:37] all that. And obviously, as you know, my dad has
[04:41] been suffering for a while. And, I mean,
[04:45] it's hard to see him, you know, right now, how he's doing.
[04:48] He had back issues and then has led into this chronic.
[04:53] And, yeah, even people like us that have resources,
[04:56] it's still hard because there's no magic
[05:00] cure, right? But that's what a lot of times it is. It's actually your
[05:04] lifestyle habits. And it makes the foundation of your health.
[05:08] So how he's sleeping, if he's moving his body, if he believes that
[05:12] the surgery will cure him or if he believes that movement will make it
[05:15] worse, right? All of these things are his beliefs that affect his actual
[05:19] pain. So it's really, you know, integrated.
[05:23] Yeah, his ability to believe that he could
[05:27] do something about it. Right.
[05:28] Yeah. Yeah. we're going to go a little bit back on, on, you know, some of,
[05:32] some of the, you know, these areas that you discussed. But I
[05:36] want to, you know, go back into, you know, that, what you said
[05:40] functional, right? Like functional. know, I think many years ago,
[05:44] the concept functional medicine was not, you know, that
[05:48] common. Now a lot of people are talking about that. Can we talk a little
[05:51] bit about, about it? Because obviously your approach is, is, is holistic.
[05:56] You know, as you said, your interest was always nutrition and,
[06:00] and, and, you know, exercise. One common theme of a lot of
[06:04] the guests that I have is almost all of them were athletes, you know,
[06:09] and they have that, you know, in their DNA and, and, and, you know, and,
[06:13] and, has helped them sort of, you know, excel what they
[06:18] did. Talk a little bit about that, you personally
[06:20] and, and also how you incorporate that
[06:25] into your practice. Sure. Yeah. I think the body and the brain
[06:28] are very interconnected. And so because of that, that's really how I look
[06:32] at functional medicine is that we're not just our tissues. We're not just
[06:36] our organs. We're not just our beliefs, but it's all of it wrapped up
[06:40] together. So when I treat someone, you have to use a holistic approach,
[06:44] which means we're looking at the whole person. So it's like, how did, why
[06:47] does this person have this disease as opposed to this disease
[06:51] has this person? So we really want to understand a little bit more of who
[06:55] they are and what their belief systems are and then where their
[06:59] limitations may lie. Maybe they believe that they are not lovable or not
[07:03] good enough. And this plays into their actual biology. Like imagine if your
[07:07] belief systems changes your biology and people don't understand how
[07:11] interconnected the brain and the body are. So the fact that we're in this
[07:14] chronically stressed state and our amygdala is on high alert
[07:18] all the time. And how does that change the way that we
[07:22] perform in our everyday life? For example, prefrontal cortex
[07:26] is a part of the brain that's supposed to tell us to get up and go and do
[07:29] different things. And if our brain is kind of telling us, you know, stay
[07:32] down, it's not safe out there, we're not going to be as productive. So
[07:36] understanding how our brain is working is very important, but then also how
[07:40] it affects the body. And that really has to do with how we regulate our
[07:43] emotions, our nervous system and our beliefs. So when I think when we start
[07:47] to really look at the brain and the body as one and not separate,
[07:51] and I think neuroscience has helped bridge this gap, then there's a lot
[07:55] more than just taking blood and looking at labs. You know, we have
[07:58] functional MRIs. We have a lot of more
[08:02] advanced technology to help us. And at the same time,
[08:05] what's most important is just our foundation of health. You know, how we
[08:09] sleep, move, eat, socialize with other people, what we think about
[08:13] ourselves. So I think, you know, functional integrative medicine is new
[08:17] in the sense that it's not taught in medical schools. And that's really
[08:21] very sad because then we're still not right because then we're
[08:25] just looking at very basic biomarkers to help understand how people are
[08:28] feeling. The same way where, you know, we can't really measure
[08:32] neurotransmitters. Yet people believe that depression is a serotonin
[08:36] deficiency. And that's really not true. And a lot of research has shown
[08:39] that it's much more complex. It could be metabolic. It could be
[08:43] hormonal. It could be due to poor habits or
[08:47] what's going on in the brain. So, you know, I think my life has
[08:50] changed a lot as I've learned a lot more about neuroscience. And
[08:54] really, we were looking at pain as if it was in the physical body. And now
[08:58] we understand that anything that's chronic is actually mediated by our
[09:02] central nervous system, which is our brain and our spine. And most of it is
[09:06] people feeling stuck over time. And why did they get stuck? And how
[09:10] can we shift them out? And what is a good catalyst to create change? I
[09:14] think that's what we're all looking for. Like, how can someone connect
[09:17] deeper with who they truly are and understand what's important to them when
[09:21] they're stuck in a state of fear or they don't even have meaning in their
[09:25] life?
[09:26] how do you, you know, when you see a patient,
[09:30] you know, and obviously you said there's a very big
[09:34] difference between chronic, you know, and acute pain.
[09:38] How do you approach it? I mean, you said, you you understand their
[09:42] belief system, right? Yeah. I mean, we all know right now, I mean,
[09:46] the criticism of the medical, you know, relationship
[09:50] is you go in and 15 minutes, you're in and out. You know, how do you
[09:54] have time to actually, you know, you know, dig deeper
[09:58] into the patient? I mean, what is your approach? That's a great question
[10:01] because you have to create a model that works for you and your
[10:06] practice, right? So initially when I was a pain doctor, was just evaluating
[10:10] patients, seeing their MRIs, doing injections. And that to me is not
[10:13] treating the whole person, right? Why did a person who has
[10:17] an acute issue turn into chronic pain? Or why did someone who had some
[10:22] type of trauma develop PTSD or generalized anxiety? So
[10:25] we call it a biopsychosocial approach. What you're doing is you're looking
[10:30] at their physical body, at their genetics, their medications that
[10:33] they're on, different pathways in the body, which break down enzymes
[10:38] so that we understand a little bit more of who they are and how things are
[10:41] running in the body. And then we look at psychologically their coping
[10:45] mechanisms, their belief systems, socially who's in their
[10:49] environment, what type of work they have, if they have financial
[10:53] constraints. So if we can evaluate someone from a
[10:56] biopsychosocial approach, really understand all of these aspects,
[11:00] then it also helps us understand what they believe is going on and where
[11:04] they became stuck. You know, sometimes people are moving on
[11:08] in their life and they're actually operating with old belief systems
[11:12] or they're not able to move forward because the trauma that they experience
[11:16] is still plaguing them in their current present moment. So
[11:19] I actually evaluate people by what we call the experience of
[11:23] the patient, meaning if I'm sitting with someone, how do they make me feel?
[11:27] Do they have more of like a depressed, flat affect? Do they feel a little
[11:30] bit more anxious and kind of hypervigilant? Are they moving around and
[11:34] uncomfortable because they're in physical pain? So one is the experience of
[11:38] the patient after we do a biopsychosocial approach. And then
[11:42] it's can they tune in? You know, can they tune into their body accurately?
[11:46] Are they sensing these signals from an amplified perspective?
[11:50] You know, are they seeing the world like everything is a threat or are
[11:54] they able to actually feel safe in their body and be present? And I think
[11:58] that's important is that people have had past experiences that
[12:02] really create how they're moving forward in their life. And
[12:06] we have to understand what has happened in their past and then how they're
[12:09] able to sense their their physical body. So it's getting them back in
[12:13] touch with their body, but also understanding that their past is still part
[12:17] of who they are today. Yeah, which which obviously is
[12:21] is is what, you in a way connected us when when,
[12:25] you we were a Nue Life, you know, which was a company that that
[12:29] that we started with the Juan Pablo, which, you know, well, our whole goal
[12:33] was to, you know, can we actually create, you a company
[12:37] that, you know, could could democratize the access to to the
[12:41] medicine, but then, you know, really understand the user
[12:45] or the patient, you know, in a more holistic way.
[12:48] And I don't know if you remember back then, but, you we did one
[12:52] of the largest peer reviewed papers that
[12:56] that demonstrate the efficacy of the at
[13:00] home ketamine. But the second paper that we never got to publish
[13:04] and that one had a 50 percent reduction of symptoms,
[13:07] I think, within four weeks, which was obviously, you know,
[13:12] you know, the statistics of people that were treatment resistant
[13:16] to have that type of effect. Right. But the one that
[13:20] we didn't get to publish was the one that measure when they
[13:23] actually engage in lifestyle changes. And
[13:27] they did the other part of the program that we had. As you remember, we
[13:31] had like, you know, we had health coaches and we give them nutrition
[13:35] advice and we give them breath work and all that.
[13:40] You know, the the impact, I think, was when all the way up to like 70 or 80
[13:44] percent reduction in symptoms. So.
[13:48] So with that, I want to sort of get into a little bit of
[13:52] that time where we connected. Right. So we connected.
[13:56] But yeah, I was right around COVID after COVID.
[13:59] There was, you know, there was always interesting the
[14:03] psychedelic space. Obviously, maybe we'll go
[14:07] back a little bit of history on that. And obviously, I let you
[14:11] tell us a little bit. I remember in my in my
[14:15] particular. Perspective
[14:19] was Michael Pollan. Right. 2018, I think he wrote the book and that sort
[14:23] of reinvigorated the space. So tell us a little bit how you saw it
[14:27] from because you were already looking at pain and
[14:31] and mental health and all that. How did you? So
[14:34] I was trained in 2012 to do ketamine infusions for
[14:39] chronic pain in my pain fellowship. So I've been doing it for, you know,
[14:43] 14 years now. Right. However, back then it was
[14:47] done in a very different way where they looked at ketamine as a
[14:50] dissociative anesthetic that was just supposed to give people a temporary
[14:53] relief from their pain. They didn't realize the amount of
[14:57] neuroplasticity that could be created and why you should have a
[15:01] coach or therapist there to steer or guide you in the right direction once
[15:04] the changes are happening within the nervous system. So I was using
[15:08] ketamine for chronic pain. And then I saw these therapists
[15:12] and psychiatrists start to use it for mental health. Which really made me
[15:15] curious. How are people using it for pain versus depression? Why is that
[15:18] different? Right. And then you have to understand why the same medicine
[15:22] could be used for multiple different conditions. And so if the goal is to
[15:26] create this neuroplasticity, then you can kind of get there
[15:30] with two different medicines. You can also do it without a medicine. Right.
[15:34] But ketamine is completely legal. It's a schedule three medication. It's
[15:38] been available since 1970. So over 50 years. Let's go into that because
[15:42] obviously, you know, we've been in this space. For a while. Yeah. You've
[15:45] been a lot longer than I have. There's all these misconceptions about
[15:49] ketamine. There's horse tranquilizer thing.
[15:53] As far as I've learned it and I remember it, I
[15:57] mean, one of the first instances where people understood
[16:01] that there was something that worked with ketamine was
[16:05] in Vietnam. Right. They called it the buddy drug. Yeah. Okay. So instead of
[16:09] giving someone morphine who was injured, you know, to relieve their pain,
[16:14] morphine also suppresses their respiration. So ketamine is very
[16:18] safe. It doesn't actually change any suppressions in terms of their
[16:22] respiration. So they're able to continue to breathe. And at the same time,
[16:26] they have pain relief because it's an anesthetic. But the bigger thing was
[16:29] that there was less of an emotional charge from the trauma that they were
[16:33] experiencing. So if you gave someone morphine, they're out of pain, but
[16:36] maybe you're going to give them too much and that's going to affect their
[16:39] vitals. Okay. So as opposed to giving them something like
[16:43] ketamine, they're able to not have pain, their vitals are stable, and
[16:47] they're also not experiencing the trauma at So realizing that people maybe
[16:51] had less PTSD or they had... Exactly. They were waking up with less PTSD
[16:55] because they were dissociating during the trauma. So they weren't
[16:58] experiencing all of these emotions and fear. And because of that, they were
[17:02] waking up in less pain, but also developed less PTSD. So Vietnam
[17:06] was the first time they started really using ketamine. Then people would
[17:09] use it in surgery and people would wake up and they would report feeling
[17:12] less depressed because it's such a rapid antidepressant. So then they
[17:16] started researching it. John Krystal researched it over 20
[17:20] years ago looking at ketamine for treatment-resistant depression. So
[17:24] people who've tried and failed all these different SSRIs and SNRIs, why
[17:28] would this work? It stimulates glutamate, which is an excitatory
[17:31] neurotransmitter, has a completely different mechanism. People who have
[17:35] already been on all these drugs and kind of frustrated and hopeless started
[17:39] to get ketamine and feel better. The problem was that he did a study, which
[17:43] was twice a week for three weeks, a total of six sessions. And then the
[17:46] whole world started talking about these six sessions of ketamine to cure
[17:49] depression. And that's not how it works. That study was done, and it's a
[17:53] great study, but it was really looking at short-term effects of ketamine.
[17:57] It's great for suicidal ideations. It helps someone very quickly. But with
[18:01] ketamine, sometimes you actually require maintenance. The other thing is
[18:05] that they made it into an FDA-approved drug called Spravato,
[18:08] which is S-ketamine because ketamine has two parts to
[18:12] it. And that's great because it's covered by insurance for people who need
[18:15] help and can't afford ketamine. But the problem is they didn't
[18:19] put therapy alongside of Spravato. So then people were just getting
[18:24] Spravato for a long time, you know, and they were feeling better.
[18:28] Let's go back because I remember obviously Spravato came around that time,
[18:31] right? It was 2020, I think it was. 2019. What has happened since? I
[18:35] mean, what have we learned, not learned? Right, so what we have learned is
[18:39] to pair ketamine or any psychedelic with coaching,
[18:42] preparation, and integration, which means that you have to prepare
[18:46] the person's mindset, have the right intention going into these sessions,
[18:50] and then also pay attention to the environment that they're in, and then
[18:54] have integration, which is make meaning out of whatever insight comes up
[18:57] during these sessions. So, for example, in the pain management world, I've
[19:01] learned we should keep people in a state where they're able to remember
[19:04] their sessions because they want to make meaning out of these sessions. The
[19:08] whole point is that you're missing an opportunity that if you're just
[19:11] anesthetizing someone, putting them to sleep during their ketamine session,
[19:15] then they wake up. Okay, maybe there's neuroplasticity, but there's
[19:18] actually no meaning that could be made. Which actually goes to what we're
[19:22] going to probably show later that we're talking about. Right, right, right,
[19:25] right. Music and how all that fits into that experience. Right, they
[19:29] say music is the hidden therapist because music is supposed to bring
[19:33] up different emotions, to allow people to go deeper and not to be stuck
[19:38] in their conscious thoughts because really their regular thoughts, their
[19:41] ordinary mind is kind of keeping them stuck. So we want to go a little bit
[19:45] deeper and see kind of can we blur that line where the subconscious kind of
[19:48] blends into their conscious thoughts. And so I think we've
[19:52] gone to more studies looking at how therapy can
[19:56] be used alongside of ketamine and not
[20:00] just one versus the other. And there's actual pain research showing how
[20:03] there's an 80% improvement when you do ketamine with therapy versus just
[20:07] ketamine or therapy alone in the pain management world, which is great. And
[20:11] then in terms of depression, we've been using ketamine for
[20:15] PTSD, OCD, all these things off-label for mental health,
[20:19] really because it's helping people shift out of these narratives
[20:23] or their maladaptive patterns that they've really
[20:27] become ingrained in. And so it's a great
[20:30] form of plasticity, I would say. It's just very different than
[20:34] psychedelics.
[20:35] And that's actually where I wanted to go now, do a leap into psychedelics
[20:39] because ketamine is not considered a classical
[20:43] psychedelic medicine, right? Right. So we talked
[20:46] a little bit. Ketamine works with different receptors,
[20:51] GABA, glutamate, Yeah, very good, yeah. Well, so it blocks the
[20:55] NMDA receptor, which upregulates glutamate, which is
[20:58] excitatory, but it actually blocks it on the GABA neurons, which are
[21:02] inhibitory. That's why you get this surge. So the surge of glutamate is
[21:06] supposed to help people transform their lives, just become motivated
[21:10] to stop having a narrow framework of how you're
[21:14] going through your life every day. And hopefully that motivation
[21:17] creates something that spirals into long term. But that's
[21:21] also why you have to do multiple sessions. Yeah, so it has that excitatory.
[21:26] So yeah, so let's go a little deep because obviously we love to geek out on
[21:29] this. So we do then the leap into
[21:33] traditional or classical psychedelic molecules.
[21:39] So you have the glutamate and that concept, but you
[21:43] also have obviously this association, right? So it
[21:47] makes you sort of feel lighter because
[21:50] there's a connection with the body, as you said, right? Yeah, it's like
[21:54] this disembodied type of feeling where you're present, but
[21:58] you're kind of observing what's happening. It does feel like floating.
[22:02] feels like the whole goal is to get people to let go and just surrender
[22:05] into that experience and not have them constricted in their fear. Or you're
[22:09] going into a session and there's uncertainty of what you're going to
[22:12] experience. So the goal is really to create safety so that they can let go.
[22:16] And then if your nervous system was to kind of let go for a little while,
[22:20] it would allow your brain to create a different perspective on what's going
[22:23] on. And what about the default mode network? I know that's the other big
[22:26] one. Yeah, the default mode network. So we have all these different
[22:29] networks within the brain. Like we have brain regions, but then we also
[22:32] have networks. And then like there's a default mode, the salience, the
[22:36] central executive, all these different networks. The goal of psychedelics
[22:39] is actually to increase functional connectivity amongst the network. So
[22:43] the default mode network is basically the self-representation of who you
[22:47] are. It's like what holds your story. So when you're daydreaming,
[22:51] mind wandering, it's very active. During psychedelics, it's very quiet.
[22:55] We deactivate the default mode. So you're not your story for a little
[22:58] while. So, you know, if you had a trauma or if you had pain, you're stuck
[23:02] in your story all the time. It's kind of guiding you or limiting you. So if
[23:06] you're not, if your default mode is not active during psychedelics, then
[23:10] other parts of the brain start to become active and start to connect. And
[23:14] that, you know, that's why you have all these different experiences and you
[23:17] have all of a sudden something that was so traumatic, seems so simple and
[23:21] easy to let go of or a belief that you had about yourself. You you
[23:25] question. It like the chatter, right? Like what people call like that
[23:28] little thing. the little voice in your head. So if the little voice in your
[23:31] head is quiet for an hour or two, it allows you to kind of wake up and
[23:35] think of things in a different way. Also, you feel different in your body
[23:39] because you're not really stuck in that belief system. So the default
[23:43] mode being deactivated during psychedelics helps people move past
[23:47] something, which is why preparation is so important to help, you know, get
[23:51] that intention there. Like I want to believe that I am lovable
[23:55] or that I'm good enough. You know, if you set someone's mindset up with
[23:58] that and then they go into the journey and their default mode is less
[24:01] active, then they're able to not be stuck in their story.
[24:05] when people obviously ask me about all this, I, you I try to
[24:08] get as specific as possible. So people understand how all these molecules
[24:12] work. Right. And and how, you know, how they
[24:16] affect you. Right. So default, it seems that all of them
[24:20] in a way. But let's go now into,
[24:24] you know, sort of serotonin. Yeah. You know, you know,
[24:28] with with obviously mushrooms and and
[24:32] and and and psilocybin and things like that. And then and then obviously
[24:35] MDMA. So walk us a little bit into sort of how they all differ
[24:39] from each other. So there's actually 16 serotonin receptors.
[24:44] And the 5-HT2A is one of the
[24:48] serotonin receptors that's known as a psychedelic receptor. So
[24:52] psilocybin, DMT, LSD activates the 5
[24:56] -HT2A receptors. And that's really important to understand that we have
[25:00] this one receptor that gives us these psychedelic experiences.
[25:04] And those are the classic psychedelics. What people say is, like, why is
[25:07] that receptor even there? Right. Right. Right. Well, I mean, that's it's
[25:11] kind of like there's like the body is so amazing in that
[25:15] sense, you know, like same way, like we have endocannabinoids, which are
[25:18] like these naturally produced cannabinoids in our body. we
[25:22] have cannabinoid receptors not just to smoke the cannabis plant. Right.
[25:26] Like it's because it actually balances us. Same thing like our opioid
[25:29] system. We make endorphins. That's our natural opioids helps us with
[25:33] pain. So we have these 5-HT2A receptors and they give us these
[25:37] psychedelic journeys. And it's like, how did the brain, you know,
[25:42] evolve to have all these different types of receptors and how much more is
[25:45] there for us to understand? So in, you know, the classic psychedelics, it's
[25:49] a it's a different journey. It's not it's going to stimulate serotonin.
[25:53] It's not as much of glutamate. But there's all this. It's actually more
[25:57] so about the functional connectivity going on amongst the networks where
[26:00] now they start to become integrated as opposed to like a hyperactive
[26:04] default mode. Now the default mode is paying attention to the other
[26:08] networks more so. So it's this integrated connectivity
[26:12] of the brain. That's why, like, you see the, you know, the picture
[26:16] of all the different connections. Once you give someone psilocybin and a
[26:19] functional MRI, there's a lot more going on. But there's still a lot more
[26:23] that we don't understand. Right. And so that's why the importance of, you
[26:26] know, set and setting, obviously, for for safety. But also these have
[26:30] longer half life. So ketamine works quick, doesn't last as long
[26:34] versus the other classic psychedelics are going to have a longer half life
[26:37] where maybe you do one session every four weeks or every six
[26:41] weeks and you'll have a longer integration and more neuroplastic changes.
[26:46] They also stimulate BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor,
[26:50] which is also involved in neuroplasticity. so so the
[26:54] length of that half life changes as opposed to MDMA, which is an
[26:58] pathogen. It does stimulate the 5-H2A receptor, but
[27:02] also increases oxytocin. It has that amphetamine type of response.
[27:06] The way I usually explain it is, you know, psilocybin
[27:10] is serotonin is more about you looking out, you know,
[27:15] sort of, you know, your your way you interpret, you know, senses
[27:19] and signals. MDMA, which has also
[27:23] the dopamine and the endorphin or the pathogen
[27:26] aspect, you sort of have is a combination of
[27:30] serotonin and dopamine. Right. you sort of are
[27:34] looking in and out at the same time. Right. In a way. Yeah.
[27:38] And and and, you know, obviously, you have that sort of it's not
[27:42] you know, doesn't play some part in the senses, like obviously with
[27:45] psilocybin or LSD that you're sort of obviously you could go and see a lot
[27:49] of different things. You're feeling a lot more, but you could also
[27:52] sometimes see. Right. Yeah. I think
[27:56] psychedelics has just the classic like hallucinations. Right. Like you're
[28:00] seeing things that are not really there as opposed to with MDMA. It's a
[28:04] little more of that hard opening type of experience where you feel more
[28:07] love. You judge yourself less. You're in a different state. Like,
[28:11] you know, I think MDMA is great. I think it's a wonderful medicine for
[28:15] PTSD, for chronic pain. I think it has a lot of positives
[28:18] relationships. Yeah. I think it could be used in couples
[28:22] therapy. And that's the one that was is most likely to be
[28:26] approved for PTSD as opposed to psilocybin for treatment resistant
[28:30] depression.
[28:31] Where are we today? And, you know, because I again,
[28:35] I left that industry a couple couple of years ago.
[28:39] So unfortunately, there was all this,
[28:41] you know, we had all these expectations
[28:45] that MDMA was going to be approved and then it sort of fell
[28:49] through the cracks. Where are we today? And I know there's
[28:53] a lot of excitement, you know, because of the regulatory
[28:57] situation right now. And how do you see it? Yeah,
[29:02] I believe that some psychedelics may be available
[29:06] in 2027. So there's there's there's basically this
[29:10] movement forward to get these medications approved because there's so many
[29:13] people who are depressed, who are in chronic pain, who are suicidal. So
[29:17] they need other options. And actually, the research shows that we can't
[29:20] just keep using a medication to keep numbing people and think that they're
[29:24] going to have, you know, long term benefits. Right. So we see all these
[29:28] people on meds and still not feeling well. So I think that in
[29:32] 2027, we potentially could have MDMA available for PTSD
[29:36] and psilocybin available for treatment resistant depression.
[29:39] The problem is how that actually looks in the doctor's office. If you think
[29:44] about it, you can't have one patient being seen per day for a
[29:48] six to eight hour journey, you know. So there's some states that are
[29:51] actually looking at doing group psilocybin and trying to get people
[29:55] together to do that in a group, which I think is a great experience. Which
[29:59] in ketamine happens, right? When you do group ketamine. I think that the
[30:03] group is nice because people are vulnerable. They get to witness each
[30:06] other. They get to see people have similar experiences and similar
[30:09] challenges in their lives. They get to connect with others. And I think
[30:13] that's a big issue is that people doing medicines alone are feeling
[30:17] disconnected and then they are in this environment where they're by
[30:20] themselves. So it doesn't really help them heal as well, I would say.
[30:24] Which, by the way, this is nothing new. Right. I mean, we
[30:28] know we, you know, we have our ancestors that have been doing group therapy
[30:32] with ayahuasca and, you know, San
[30:36] Pedro and other medicines. So, you know,
[30:40] obviously we're rediscovering things that we,
[30:44] you know, we knew from a long time ago. How do you,
[30:48] yeah, and that's sort of the challenge. How do you bring, you know, that
[30:51] sort of social aspect into the healing?
[30:55] I think that's really important, honestly. I think a lot of people,
[30:59] they really are very much
[31:02] disconnected and don't have meaning. And when they are with other people,
[31:06] it forces them to understand who they are and then also to really
[31:10] let go and try to be in that environment with other people. There's also
[31:14] the spirit of the medicine, I think, that is what you're talking about. So
[31:17] it's not just like socially who else is there and who they can connect
[31:21] with, but also each medicine has its own spirit. You know, each medicine
[31:24] has its own feel to it and how that person experiences it. So sometimes,
[31:28] yes, this may be available for this condition, but maybe another medicine
[31:32] may work better for someone else. I think that would be the goal in the
[31:35] future is to have multiple tools in our toolbox that we can understand who
[31:39] is best. And I also think that's where precision medicine comes in and
[31:43] understanding the brain better and different biomarkers to help us
[31:47] understand which medicines may be best. But the hard thing is, you know,
[31:50] having a doctor talk about the spirit of medicine. Right.
[31:54] I mean, you know, we're having a hard time now with nurse practitioner, you
[31:58] know, telling us, you know, how to, you know, I don't know,
[32:03] interpret your GLP-1. You know, now we're talking about. But I
[32:07] truly believe in it. You know, so I think that that's the difference is
[32:10] like when you actually have experiences that shift you in such a big way,
[32:14] you can't, you know, you can't deny it. Right. So so I do
[32:18] I think that there is there's a different there's basically it's a
[32:21] biopsychosocial spiritual approach now, because even culturally, we have to
[32:25] understand what people's beliefs are. Some people I I meet and they're like
[32:29] anti cannabis. No way, you know, and then God forbid someone in their
[32:33] family gets sick and they start to use it for chemo induced neuropathy
[32:37] or, you know, sleep or pain or whatever. it kind of changes them. So I
[32:41] think I think the point is to continue to stay flexible. And I think when
[32:45] we get in these rigid narratives, that's actually how we get sick. And so
[32:48] by even increasing cognitive flexibility allows us to see the world
[32:52] differently, opens us up to different ways of being and realizing
[32:56] that our nervous system is stuck in these different states and we have to
[32:59] shift it out into a more whole approach. Yeah.
[33:03] I don't know if you remember, but in Nue Life.
[33:06] You know, immediately when when we started the company.
[33:12] We, Juan Pablo, myself, were the two founders. You know, we had a long
[33:16] history with psychedelics. He actually
[33:19] in the traditional sense, I mean, his his his grandma
[33:23] was was a native American. And I don't know if you know this one. But he
[33:27] did his first San Pedro at eight years old. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
[33:32] So that was a long time ago. Oh, Juan Pablo, I'm not saying how old
[33:36] you are. I mean, it was a while back. That's a young age for anyone. Yeah.
[33:40] Yeah. Yeah. So it's an amazing. I discovered actually I was in
[33:44] a in a panel with Rick Doblin where
[33:48] I shared that I tried LSD at 13 and and he
[33:52] like interviewed me on stage. He wanted to know exactly what
[33:56] happened. And I even shared that his kids, he tells them, you know,
[34:00] whatever age, you know, they're ready. You know, he you know, he's OK with
[34:03] it. Obviously, Rick Doblin is is is is one of the
[34:07] fathers of modern psychedelic therapies.
[34:14] And where was I? Oh, I was was going to get back. So so so when when Juan
[34:17] Pablo said, hey, we want to start this company. And I actually looked at
[34:20] the first time I ever heard about ketamine, even though I grew up in Miami
[34:24] in the 90s. You know, I had never heard of ketamine.
[34:28] And and I the first pictures I saw was of,
[34:33] you know, like someone like in the medical
[34:36] room, like recliner. Yeah. recliner. I'm like, oh, that
[34:40] doesn't look like great. Right. So I started digging
[34:44] into it and I found Mindbloom, which was,
[34:48] you know, was the first one I saw at home. And I say, oh, it's very
[34:52] interesting. started researching how they did it. And immediately I said,
[34:55] no, but we have to do something with music. Right. So I don't know if you
[34:59] remember this, but we actually had we we had a
[35:02] broadcasting license to broadcast music. We
[35:06] actually were probably the only psychedelic company with a full
[35:11] broadcast license. And we built our own music service. Wow. And
[35:15] I actually hired the one of the first music curators for
[35:19] Pandora. And we developed our own music algorithms to to
[35:23] to to to program music. So music was always like a big
[35:27] part of what we did. And you called it the hidden therapist. And I remember
[35:31] Johns Hopkins had this whole like
[35:34] playlist analysis that they did and and
[35:38] research that they did. There's so much research on the music on on how
[35:42] long your journey is going to be and when the peaks are going to happen and
[35:45] different types of songs that bring up different emotions. So there's so
[35:49] much research actually going on now because people can have a therapist.
[35:53] So the music allows them to feel different ways. And then hopefully
[35:57] they're able to integrate that just, you know, with with
[36:01] other people that may be familiar with the medicines.
[36:03] One of the things is, you know, again, go a little bit deeper into the
[36:07] music part, because I think it's fun and people could find it interesting.
[36:11] And obviously, with what I'm going to show, people can actually experience
[36:14] this. And the so one of the
[36:18] aspects of I remember the music part was the music had to be new
[36:22] to you in order not to carry like any meaning. So that way,
[36:26] you know, you sort of will, you know, will interpret it in a way that was
[36:30] new. And back then we had, you know, again, we had
[36:34] our music service.
[36:36] So, yes, I wanted to talk a little bit about a little functionality
[36:40] that we're going to be releasing here with Betterness and hopefully this
[36:44] week or next. First an iPhone or Apple
[36:48] Watch
[36:51] functionality that actually allows you to track ketamine-assisted therapy.
[36:56] So the same way that you would track any activity on the Apple Watch, like
[36:59] tennis or whatever, you could actually now track a session.
[37:03] What is interesting and why this fits
[37:06] with some of my previous work is a
[37:10] couple of things. First of all is to show people your heart rate during the
[37:14] session. Right? So see how the heart rate evolution is.
[37:18] So you'll see, you you're not spiking. You're not going to be, you know,
[37:21] most people are not going to probably see a lot of,
[37:25] you know, a lot of changes in their heart rate during the
[37:29] session. But I think the most important part, and, you know, when I showed
[37:32] it to you earlier, you said, oh, I love that song. I always, you know, it's
[37:36] the Poranguí song,
[37:39] which is almost like a classic in a playlist.
[37:44] But here what I try to do is this actually uses
[37:48] Shazam to recognize songs. So if you're with a therapist
[37:51] or, you know, with a sitter at home and
[37:55] you're putting the music as you're doing the therapy, this will recognize
[37:59] the songs playing. Which, as you said, it
[38:02] creates a connection, right? So ideally, you're not going to be in
[38:06] a state where you're completely out of it. So you could actually
[38:11] come back. And then the last thing I added was, which
[38:15] actually I did have in Nue Life too, is this ability to do a voice
[38:19] note. This is just me like. I like
[38:22] this feeling. I like.
[38:26] So, but, you know, just to be funny,
[38:31] the voice note said I like this feeling. But it's actually interesting
[38:34] because if you think about it, when a person is getting ketamine and we
[38:38] go in the room to observe how they're doing, we have no idea what's
[38:42] happening. They have eye shades on. They're listening to music. So by
[38:45] tracking this with the song and even their notes,
[38:49] it allows us to understand what happened during the journey at different
[38:53] times and also helps us unpack it later on. Because they're
[38:57] leaving these little notes for us to maybe they forgot what happened during
[39:01] a time because a lot of things happen during a journey. And the song is
[39:04] very important. Like, you know, once a song ends, it goes to a whole
[39:07] different song and then they go to a different place. Exactly. So, like, by
[39:11] able to by, you being able to review what they were saying or how they were
[39:15] feeling or even for us to understand what was going on with their heart
[39:19] rate or respirations or blood pressure during that time of the song could
[39:22] help because then you can also create other playlists for them going
[39:26] forward. You know, that's actually
[39:28] that's actually towards their intention. You
[39:32] know, like if you want to be like very like dialed in on something, you can
[39:36] kind of create a playlist for that based on what they've already previously
[39:40] told us from their information. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[39:44] So obviously love to to figure out how we extend this.
[39:49] We could figure out how we add constant heart rate monitoring to. Right. I
[39:53] mean, I'm sure there's devices that, you know, we could connect. Well, it's
[39:56] also just interesting to think about how we don't know what they're seeing
[40:00] or feeling, but this can help us track it.
[40:03] what type of music, you know, leads to a better clinical
[40:06] outcome for the person. Right. It's so important. People are like, oh, I
[40:09] don't like all these, you know, songs that sound like I'm in India or
[40:13] Japan. They want classical or they want birds or, you know,
[40:18] there's so many different types of music that they choose. And sometimes
[40:21] they don't like it, but sometimes it actually is good for them. Exactly.
[40:24] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They want to just feel happy and go into like all these
[40:28] like landscapes. But like really when it comes down to it, these the songs
[40:31] are supposed to make you have emotions. And if it makes you sad or if it
[40:35] makes you in fear, that could bring up another memory from the past that
[40:39] then helps you heal. Exactly. So the music is really important. And then
[40:42] tracking is great.
[40:43] So so let's go into now your
[40:47] particular way of of delivering this. Actually, one of the
[40:51] coolest things is you have this amazing bed. Uh-huh. That vibrates. Yes.
[40:55] And plays the music. Yes. So so tell us a little bit about your
[40:59] best practices. I mean, what do you recommend for people? I actually this
[41:02] weekend, one of my best friends, she just started doing
[41:06] ketamine therapy. And I was saying that, you she needs to go
[41:10] and see you and check out the bed. And she's like, I think it's too much.
[41:14] You know, she's you know, she's taking baby steps into
[41:18] this because for some some people, this is a lot. Right.
[41:22] How do you see it? How do you approach it? Yeah. Well, I think it's
[41:25] important how you approach it, because if if they are a little bit
[41:29] intimidated by even just the word ketamine, we have to understand that
[41:33] every medicine is based on the dose. You know, so you can give someone
[41:37] a medicine like ketamine, but you can give them a very low dose and they
[41:40] can have an experience where they're just able to experience themselves
[41:43] differently, create a little safety. It doesn't have to be like a huge
[41:46] session where we're sending someone to the moon, you know. So the bed
[41:50] actually is pretty cool. It's made by a guy in Colorado and
[41:54] he is very big into vibro acoustics. And so what you do is you
[41:58] create a playlist and the bed vibrates to the music.
[42:02] So it's like this all immersed, inclusive type of experience
[42:06] where your your whole body is feeling it. And
[42:10] so some people who've had a lot of trauma or they feel unsafe or they
[42:14] have a lot of pain, it may make their nervous system a little bit more
[42:18] sensitive and they're not a great candidate for it. You can always put on a
[42:20] lower amount. But it's a really cool experience because you feel like
[42:24] you're moving and you're listening and it's like the whole body is
[42:28] kind of shaking to all of like what's going on. So the bed is one
[42:32] option. Obviously, people sometimes like a bed. They like a recliner. The
[42:36] point is it has to be comfortable. It has to feel safe. They have to feel
[42:40] like they could just kind of let go into that experience. And then it all
[42:43] is based on the dose. So obviously we can do a low dose where they're able
[42:47] to remember the session. That's kind of like the sweet spot, that concept
[42:50] of dose discovery where we start low. We increase it over time, trying to
[42:54] get them to a place where they feel they could surrender, but they also can
[42:58] remember what's going on. We don't want to get them to a state where they
[43:00] couldn't remember it. And then it could be an oral
[43:04] lozenge, intramuscular injections, IV. What is the
[43:08] breakdown, would you say, that most people? mean, what
[43:12] is it? Yeah, so I'd say gold standard from research is IV.
[43:16] So when people want the best and they want to know this is definitely going
[43:19] to work and they don't want the route of administration to be a factor in
[43:22] why maybe ketamine is not working for depression or pain, they always use
[43:26] IV. And we would choose IV because it's a linear amount of medicine
[43:31] over a certain amount of time that's getting into their brain and body
[43:34] consistently. As opposed to intramuscular, we usually divide that dose into
[43:38] two, do a shot in the arm, divide it by 12 or 15 minutes. So the ride
[43:42] is very different because you get the medicine quickly, you get there,
[43:45] you're kind of there for a little bit, and then you get another dose. And
[43:48] so sometimes people like that ride where it's more of like the push out the
[43:51] window as opposed to just kind of like the lazy river type of feeling.
[43:57] Intranasal is a lower bioavailability similar
[44:01] to an oral lozenge. And we use the lozenges more in
[44:05] groups or if we're working with a therapist. And, you know, so it's all
[44:08] different ways of using it. But I think that's kind of the beauty and like
[44:11] the art of medicine is like figuring out the dose, route of administration,
[44:15] the setting that's best for that person. Sometimes even
[44:19] just like making the room smell nice and making the person feel very
[44:22] welcome will play a role into their mindset, which then affects
[44:26] their journey. And it's so interesting how their mindset affects their
[44:30] journey and then, you know, trying to leave everything at the door and not
[44:33] rushing to something stressful. And what you said before, which is
[44:37] important, which is doing something new or different afterwards. So how to
[44:41] get the person to not go back to their same patterns or how once the
[44:44] ketamine is in to use it like fertilizer. We got to push it in the right
[44:48] direction. We got to create a different habit. We got to do something
[44:51] different. Think about ourselves differently. I think that's also
[44:54] important. Let me let me explore something that just occurred to me.
[44:59] I mean, because obviously you're doing cannabis and you're doing ketamine
[45:01] and eventually there might be other.
[45:06] One of the most incredible experiences that I had, thanks to Juan Pablo
[45:10] and Cristina, went to Boston with this amazing
[45:13] couple that have amazing books
[45:17] all the way back to the 70s. And we did
[45:21] a whole weekend retreat.
[45:25] And we, you know, their concept was called layering, you know,
[45:29] and there was, you know, a number of layers into the
[45:33] experience. So as I think about it, you know, do you
[45:37] see a future where you could do ketamine
[45:41] and there will be cannabis and, you know, and, you know, you know,
[45:46] and all that happening in a clinical setting? Yeah, well, I
[45:50] think people who are familiar with cannabis like to use cannabis after
[45:54] a ketamine experience to get in their body. Because sometimes
[45:58] when they have a dissociative experience and they're kind of observing
[46:01] and they're not in their body for a little while and they're used to
[46:05] cannabis, it helps ground them to put them back in their body. And it could
[46:08] almost prolong the neuroplastic effects of ketamine. So I wouldn't use
[46:12] cannabis before a ketamine session. I think that could actually disturb
[46:16] what's about to happen, but sometimes cannabis afterwards. But the layering
[46:20] is interesting, you know, and I think the layering is interesting also
[46:23] based on the onset and total duration
[46:27] of the medicine. You know, you can inhale DMT and have a very quick
[46:31] experience and then you can layer that with cannabis
[46:35] or you can have a second inhalation. As opposed to a
[46:40] psilocybin journey, it's going to be six hours or so. Imagine nurses
[46:44] doing rapé. You know? Yeah. You know? Yeah.
[46:48] I mean, it's really about knowing the person, you know? So if you already
[46:52] have an experience with a medicine, you feel comfortable with that, maybe
[46:55] you can layer that in. If you are new to all are not rapé. rapé is, you
[46:58] know, it's basically a tobacco that people blow into your
[47:03] nose when you do ayahuasca or some of these
[47:07] medicines. But it's tobacco, right? So it's even like illegal. Stimulant
[47:10] almost. It's a stimulant. Yeah. But it's also just using the right medicine
[47:14] to get you where you want to be quick or if you want to stay there longer.
[47:18] So it's like it's nice to have these tools once they're available.
[47:22] But I think what's important now is safety and training providers so that
[47:26] they know what they're doing so that we're not just giving these medicines
[47:29] to people who shouldn't get them. Because there are people who shouldn't,
[47:33] people who are psychotic, schizophrenic, manic, you know. Yeah. Or the
[47:36] Matthew Perry, unfortunately, situation that, you know, then creates,
[47:40] I mean, the saddest part of all that is it creates all
[47:44] this negativity that then, you know, affects the people that really need
[47:48] it. Right. But it also, like, slows the movement down because sometimes
[47:52] people think, oh, these medicines are great. People are healing from them.
[47:55] Then they do it in the wrong environment or they don't really prepare
[47:58] themselves and they have a bad outcome. Yeah. So I think it's having
[48:02] the information to then properly train providers so that we are
[48:05] providing safe and long-lasting medicines. This isn't just like, you know,
[48:10] for the weekend you do something and you feel better and then your old
[48:13] beliefs come back, right? It's really a No, if you don't put the work up,
[48:17] probably, you know, you're not going to get much out of it. Right. And
[48:20] that's really what we're doing now is less focus on the medicine and more
[48:24] on the everyday habits, right? Like your daily habits,
[48:28] right? So it's how can we pair those things together? How can the medicine
[48:32] just kind of be that catalyst to create the desire to take
[48:36] care of yourself better or to create better health? Yeah. So
[48:39] just to wrap up here on boring,
[48:43] you know, business stuff, this whole
[48:48] Atai, Atai was, you know, one of the companies that was
[48:52] doing, you know, all this research on new type of
[48:56] psychedelic therapies. It got acquired by Lilly,
[48:59] which obviously is a big deal. But their whole
[49:03] point is that they're trying to do medicine that doesn't, I
[49:07] think, right? They don't have the sort of psychedelic side or the
[49:11] experience side. Do you know sort of what the science
[49:15] behind that is? Yeah. And what do you think about it? Well, there's certain
[49:19] companies that are trying to take the psychedelic out of the
[49:23] psychedelic, right? The psychedelic journey out of it. So and they're
[49:27] probably doing that by stimulating the 5-HT2A receptor less because
[49:30] other psychedelics also affect other serotonin receptors. So they're
[49:34] basically trying to take out one component. Imagine if you have the same
[49:38] neuroplastic effects but without the meaning. Are you still going to get
[49:42] better? So we don't really know that information yet. don't really have
[49:45] that. From your experience, what do you think? You know, that's kind of
[49:48] like sleeping through your journey. You know, are you going to get better?
[49:51] Sometimes, maybe, but maybe not long enough because I really believe like
[49:55] pain is this epidemic of fear or lack of meaning. And
[49:59] so if you're not really having purpose in your everyday life, then I don't
[50:03] really think that's going to create, you know, long-term happiness or get
[50:07] rid of your pain or depression. So I think the psychedelic experience
[50:11] can be very valuable, but I think some people are too in
[50:15] fear or uncomfortable to go there. And therefore, there's other ways of
[50:18] kind of using these medicines. You could just do a low dose, first of all,
[50:22] you know, or you can add other things to it like the vibrations
[50:26] or like the music or breath work, you know,
[50:30] like trying to just use the lowest dose you can of a medicine. That doesn't
[50:34] have to be such a psychedelic, like, you know, mind-blowing type of
[50:37] experience, but it creates that neuroplastic effects. And then you have
[50:41] accountability to follow it up. Yeah. Well, it was
[50:44] fun, you know, so I, it was love to, you know,
[50:49] it was amazing to recognize. And on all these, all these things that
[50:53] obviously connected us in the first place.
[50:57] And, and yeah, anything else just to add for listeners? Any?
[51:02] Well, I think the, I think the future is bright because there's a lot of
[51:05] research going on. And I think that we are starting to look at the
[51:09] body brain connection in more details. And people are starting to really
[51:13] understand that, that has, that you need to treat the body and the brain.
[51:17] You can't just, you know, use a medicine to treat the brain or change your
[51:21] movement and think that that's going to affect long-term change. So I
[51:24] think, I think it's not like this mind- body connection is woo-woo type of
[51:27] thing. It's, it's real, you know, and everything has to be interconnected
[51:31] in order for someone to have a whole life. Perfect. Well, Michelle,
[51:35] thank you so much. And hope, you know, hopefully we
[51:39] see each other, you know, in your, in your therapy because I'm a, I'm
[51:43] a very, I could have
[51:47] test for, for, for the therapy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay.
[51:52] So this does it for another episode. This was fun. And
[51:56] see you next week on the next one. Thank you.