Nature’s Identity Crisis and Ours

By Zach Bush MD, Paul J. Mills, PhD, Rudolph E. Tanzi, PhD, Michelle A. Williams, ScD
and Deepak Chopra™ MD

As our nation dives into sorrow and outrage over another merciless killing of a black man without cause, we must take the opportunity to transform a deep mindset. To achieve this, we will have to collectively shake off deep patterns of subconscious and conscious beliefs and experiences. The frequency of these instances of wrongful deaths and centuries of racially motivated abuses throughout the world creates hopelessness in our minds. For all of the rhetoric and grandstanding of our politicians and special interest groups, we do not see fundamental change happening. This hopelessness breeds violence, resignation, isolation, paranoia, and of course more fear.

Whatever the current crises happen to be—right now it is COVID, racial injustice, police brutality, and street demonstrations—a familiar pattern has been nearly impossible to break. The crisis generates a public outcry, humanitarians face off against reactionaries, and once the worst of the crisis simmers down, things go back to normal. The great hope now, however, is that “normal” will finally be seen for its distorted abnormality.

 

In our view, this abnormality runs deeper than a pandemic or heart-rending injustice and inequality. A much-needed shift cannot take place until humankind passes through an identity crisis. How we see ourselves is presently through a distorted lens, and our illusions extend to the very basis of Nature herself. Human activity has despoiled Nature without conscience because humans, at our core, feel that this is our right as the planet’s superior life form. The contradiction here is that a truly superior life form would respect all of life, seeing the wonder and fragility of the miracle known as biodiversity.

Like many scientific terms, biodiversity sounds abstract and dry. To bring it home and give it vitality, one has to start with a simple fact: Each of us is as biodiverse as the entire planet. Our DNA was built from viral and bacterial DNA, and the constant communication between the genetic material of these micro-organisms keeps us dynamically alive, protected from disease and an intimate part of the chain of life everywhere.

Sadly, human activity has threatened biodiversity, and the stress we have placed on micro-organisms, even more perhaps than the extinction of species, is coming back to haunt us. The threat of COVID isn’t isolated or unique. Nature’s most powerful urge is to keep life diverse and flourishing from the fundamental level of fungi, viruses, and bacteria, whose DNA outnumbers ours by a factor measured in millions and billions, if not more. Only in the past 30 years has research into the microbiome (the total mass of micro-organisms) brought to light how crucial Nature’s balancing act actually is. Without the bacteria, viruses and fungus that inhabit our bodies, human life would not be possible. As Earth is a symbiotic collection of diverse species cohabitating to give our planet life, so are we, and as with Earth, balance is the key.

 

 

The recent science discoveries in the microbiome have been a mind-bending experience as this once unseen world has come alive under our microscopes, through genome sequencing and through advances in computational biology. The notion that human DNA is somehow superior and separate from the DNA of bananas, mice, a cold virus, or mushrooms has toppled. It is humbling to realize that we aren’t at the center of life on earth. We mingle with planetary DNA with every breath, and the jet stream regularly populates the local air with viruses spinning around the globe in a matter of days. The ecosystems around us and within our own bodies team with millions of species of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and parasites that vastly outnumber us and, humbling to realize, make us viable. We are at once a genetic speck in the vast thriving microcosmos of life, yet also in a position of critical responsibility to help maintain this extraordinary diversity.

The human gut microbiome, which is essential for digesting food, contains trillions of bacteria, outnumbering our human cells by more than 10 to 1, and this is not even considering the far more diverse kingdoms of fungi and protozoa within us. Beyond the confines of the gut, each internal organ, from the liver to the breast, kidneys, and even the brain, is now recognized to depend on unique ecosystems of microorganisms that keep our cells healthy. Over 90% of the work done by enzymes in the human body is done by the microbiome. The same non-human life force works with endocrine cells within the gut to produce over 90% of serotonin, a neurotransmitter necessary for our much-touted human brain to function.

Once you realize that you and the planet’s biodiversity are one, nothing less than a shift of identity follows. An adage from ancient India, “As is the greatest, so is the smallest,” has never been truer. Microbiome diversity is the foundation for health and longevity, while the destruction of this diversity is the beginning of chronic disease of every variety. The adage could be expanded to “As is the outside, so is the inside.” The global microbiome functions as a communication network that actually passes electrical information throughout the cellular matrix to coordinate everything life needs to thrive at the cellular level, not simply nutrition and reproduction but repair and adaptation to changing conditions.

Nature is managing its own identity crisis now. Nature’s fluent communication network cannot be produced by a single species, but it can be threatened by one. At the exact moment in history when our existence is being understood as one thread woven in the tapestry of life as a whole, we are tearing the fabric apart, and all life forms will suffer. To give one instance, every year over 4 billion pounds of glyphosate (the active ingredient in the most commonly used herbicides) is sprayed into our soil, water, air, and foods, sterilizing the microbiome and harming the creatures, including us, that the microbiome nourishes.

Life on earth is at risk for extinction because of our war against diversity. The scale of damage is too frightening to contemplate, much less measure. We must transform now. The victims of this war are standing right in front of us. The soil, wind, and water, the First Nations, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and the tide of refugees. The world’s dispossessed and disenfranchised depend on us to emerge from our false assumed identity of superiority over and separateness from the whole of life. Reconciliation can begin today. Train your mind and eye to seek out and cherish diversity in every element of your life.

Breathe and explore a new ecosystem this week. Create and listen to a more diverse community, both within your body and all around you. Plant a seed and a new relationship this week. Get curious and explore what is different from you, so that we can quickly discover what we all share. Life everywhere calls out to be saved. Life everywhere calls out to be loved.

 

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
ZACH BUSH, MD is an internationally recognized educator and thought leader on the microbiome as it relates to ecology, human health, and consciousness. Board certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Hospice Care, his published biomedical research ranges from chemotherapy development to the role of the microbiome and agricultural toxins in human health and disease. He is founder and CEO of Seraphic Group, Inc., an IP development firm committed to developing root-cause solutions to bring balance to the biome of our planet. His non-profit, Farmer’s Footprint, is raising awareness of the synonymous nature of human and soil health, and working to create a roadmap to end chemical food production and ecologic destruction through the universal adoption of regenerative agriculture.
PAUL J. MILLS, PH.D. is Professor and Chief in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health and Director of the Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health at the University of California, San Diego. He has expertise in Integrative Medicine and psychoneuroimmune processes in wellness and disease, with approximately 380 scientific manuscripts and book chapters on these topics.
RUDOLPH E. TANZI, PH.D. is the Vice-Chair of Neurology, Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, Co-Director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health, and Co-Director of the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also serves as the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tanzi discovered several Alzheimer’s disease genes, including all three early-onset familial Alzheimer’s genes, and serves as director of the Alzheimer’s Genome Project. He is also developing therapies for treating and preventing AD using human mini-brain organoid models of the disease, pioneered in his laboratory. Dr. Tanzi has published 600 papers, received numerous awards and was on the 2015 TIME100 Most Influential People in the World list. Dr. Tanzi is a New York Times bestselling author, who has co-authored “Decoding Darkness” and three bestsellers with Deepak Chopra: “Super Brain”, “Super Genes”, and “The Healing Self”.
MICHELLE A. WILLIAMS, SM ’88, ScD ’91, is Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Angelopoulos Professor in Public Health and International Development, a joint faculty appointment at the Harvard Chan School and Harvard Kennedy School. She is an internationally renowned epidemiologist and public health scientist, an award-winning educator, and a widely recognized academic leader. Prior to becoming Dean, she was Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School and Program Leader of the Population Health and Health Disparities Research Programs at Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Center. Dean Williams previously had a distinguished career at the University of Washington School of Public Health. Her scientific work places special emphasis in the areas of reproductive, perinatal, pediatric, and molecular epidemiology. Dean Williams has published over 450 scientific articles. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2016. The Dean has a master’s in civil engineering from Tufts University and master’s and doctoral degrees in epidemiology from the Harvard Chan School.

A New World Needs a New Worldview

By Zach Bush MD and Deepak Chopra™ MD

It is very rare that human beings have a chance to rethink our place in Nature. The modern world is the fruit of a worldview that has placed Homo sapiens reigning supreme over all other life forms. This worldview seems only right and proper to the vast majority of people. In the course of just a few weeks, however, over seven billion people’s lives changed for the worse. Economies were halted, global transportation and supply chains were shut down to a crawl, and hundreds of millions of jobs were lost. More money has been lost globally than in any other moment in history. Amid the shock and panic, the catastrophe of COVID-19 has prompted some radical rethinking. Can a new and better world emerge? Not unless our worldview changes, because in many ways the virus isn’t a mindless primitive life form ravaging us, “the most superior life form on the planet”. Nor did Nature strike back to punish us. Something deeper is going on. To see what it is, we need to consider a worldview based not on humans-as-supreme, but on life-as-supreme.

We must realize that our superiority complex has quite literally put us in opposition to life on earth. Climate change can be laid at our doorstep. The prediction of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction is more than plausible, and 50% of biodiversity in plants and animals has been eliminated in mere decades, while hundreds of indigenous cultures have been virtually wiped out. The destructive human machine has been inexorable so far. The collective voices of Richard Attenborough and one million non-profits and NGOs have proved inadequate agents of change. There was no global pause.

Then, in January the world caught news of a virus, a new variant of a coronavirus, a family of viruses that has been with us for well over a thousand years. At no point did any science suggest, nor any public official report, that this virus would poison our ecosystems and threaten the survival of humans and much other life on the planet in the coming years. Instead, we were told that the virus would contribute to the passing of the millions of people that die of a myriad of respiratory illnesses every year. The death toll from the virus (even at its most hyperbolic predictions) would be a fraction of the deaths from chronic diseases that result each year from our polluted and depleted soil, water, air, and food systems. Nonetheless, this new threat was suddenly enough. We paused.

If we needed more evidence that we are a shortsighted and self-interested species, it is here, but there is no time for self-condemnation. While the world’s leaders struggle to sort out the true implications of this virus, we have an opportunity to finally learn from our mistakes. The lesson is being taught by the humblest of messengers, a microscopic speck of genetic material. The virus is not our enemy—if we let it, it will be our greatest teacher.

First, we need to learn that the emergence of this coronavirus adaptation was predictable, and from Nature’s viewpoint, which oversees all living things, it was even necessary. As the stress levels of an organism increase, the speed of adaptation has to increase if it is to find a solution and survive. Since the beginning of life, the most significant biologic adaptations have been achieved through the viral communication network. Every form of DNA is constantly in touch with every other form. From bacteria in soils and water systems to the cells in our bodies, rapid transmission of new genetic updates can save a species from a new threat.

If you adopt the perspective of life itself, earth is dominated by the genes of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa which hugely outnumber any other life forms. This vast microbial genome is the foundation of life on the planet, and its aim, as with all life forms, is to adapt, survive, and foster diversity. To the life force that is in the 1030 bacteria in existence, a major threat—we would argue that it is the major threat—is coming from the widespread, indiscriminate use of antibiotics in agriculture via animal feed and the management of poultry, swine, and cattle.

As the collective bacterial stress levels increases, DNA “misspelling” (i.e., mistakes in reproduction) creates billions of trial-and error genetic variations. When a survival advantage is discovered (such as antibiotic resistance in a strain of bacteria), that beneficial gene can be transferred in various ways across many species, but for maximum impact over great distances, viral transfer is the vehicle of choice. Thus, millions of species of microorganisms work toward one goal, which isn’t to harm us, but to maintain a stable biodiverse ecosystem everywhere on earth.

The upshot is the change of worldview mentioned at the outset. A viable, balanced, dynamic, healthy microbiome (the sum total of all micro-organisms) benefits human beings far more than our self-centered, shortsighted focus on money, power, war, nationalism, endless consumerism chained to massive pollution, and the chemical degradation of our air, food, and water.

Viruses have long dispersed their vital genetic information throughout the planet via air and water currents. The messages they carry are picked up by many species, including us., Each individual takes up a viral load on the basis of its own stress levels. For many people there are no clinical signs or symptoms of acute illness as cells of various organ systems integrate or reject the new genetic data, while for others the viral stress signal can call up an immune response from cell populations. Life adapts, and we humans are made more resilient by the encounter. That is how viral communication has worked for billions of years, and the latest findings have revealed that our own genome was built by genetic data from bacteria, fungi and other multicellular species. In concert they created the profound complexity and resilience of human biology.

But we have changed the playing field for the critical balance of viral communication, and COVID-19, when seen on a global scale, represents the continued effort of the four-billion-year-old microbiome seeking to put things right. In the old worldview, this is irrelevant. The only measure has been an either-or choice: Either things are good for human prosperity or bad for it. In the new worldview, there is no either-or. What is good for the global microbiome is good for the planet and for us. As self-aware creatures, we can support life or diminish its chance for survival. In short, a new world, if it emerges in the coming decade, will make choices that benefit the microbiome and us at the same time.

It will take a shift in worldview for that to transpire. The separate elements for global healing are already present and known to everyone. But humans can be perverse as well as shortsighted. Achieving the abolition of global pesticides, herbicides, indiscriminate antibiotics, and carbon emissions is essential, and only our irrational resistance to reality, bound up with an outmoded, self-destructive worldview, keeps us on the downward path. The pleas for life-enhancing choices has proved ineffectual so far. In the name of healing and the salvation of life on Earth, no one can alter the course of destruction except us.

 

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
ZACH BUSH, MD is an internationally recognized educator and thought leader on the microbiome as it relates to ecology, human health, and consciousness. Board certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Hospice Care, his published biomedical research ranges from chemotherapy development to the role of the microbiome and agricultural toxins in human health and disease. He is founder and CEO of Seraphic Group, Inc., an IP development firm committed to developing root-cause solutions to bring balance to the biome of our planet. His non-profit, Farmer’s Footprint, is raising awareness of the synonymous nature of human and soil health, and working to create a roadmap to end chemical food production and ecologic destruction through the universal adoption of regenerative agriculture.

Existence and the Virus: A Healing Solution

By Deepak Chopra™, MD

The COVID crisis is being fought on two fronts, medical and economic, but most people are suffering psychologically. The word “existential” rarely comes up in normal everyday life, but the crisis has created all the symptoms of existential dread: a sense of futility, anxiety about the human condition, and a deep fear of death. This comes as a shocking occurrence, and if there is such a thing as existential healing, now is the time for it.

Questions about existence baffle people, and there seems to be no reason to confront them until the last moment. One of the reasons that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s 1969 book, On Death and Dying, was seized upon by millions is that she drew a map of grief that showed dying patients that the inevitability of death wasn’t terrifying in the end. The five stages of grief outlined by Kübler-Ross—denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance—coincides with what is seen in hospice care. The prospect of death for most people leads to acceptance.

But there is a sixth stage of grieving that applies right now: meaning. The most fortunate patients go beyond acceptance to see that their lives had purpose, that existence is meaningful, and therefore that death lost its final power, which is fear and dread. This is the healing that I think should be embraced now. The actual deaths caused by COVID-19 are outnumbered by the cases of fear and dread being experienced on a mass scale. One way or another, we have all entered the grieving process.

There are two paths to arrive at the peace that comes when your life is meaningful. The first path is through action and achievement. You set out on a purpose, and you succeed in fulfilling it. Ideally everyone should be able to create meaning through the work they do, the service they offer, the love they share, and the good they achieve. But during lockdown, there is often no outlet for this path. We find ourselves passively victimized by a mindless virus that is achieving far more than its human victims; that is, its purpose in life, which is to find a host and multiply, has been astoundingly successful.

But the second path to a meaningful life hasn’t been touched by the virus, and never can be. This path is one of realization. You go inside and discover that you are sustained by your own being. At your core you find value, no matter what you do in life, and no matter what external threats assail you. This path has been open forever, and its teaching occupies the world’s spiritual traditions both East and West. Nirvana, Moksha, liberation, the Kingdom of Heaven within, the peace that passes understanding: by whatever name, the path is essentially the same.

The problem is that we have erected mental barriers that block this path, which should be the easiest path imaginable. Its message is grasped naturally by children: You are here, and that is enough. There is no need to a pilgrimage to a holy place, years in a spiritual retreat, long immersions in silence, or the proverbial cave in the Himalayas. The only thing to do is to wake up as directly as you can, here and now. So why don’t we? It isn’t as if the teachings from spiritual guides, teachers, seers, sages, avatars, gurus, and saints is lacking. What’s the problem?

Once you ask this question, you are on your way to waking up. Existential dread is actually a mental creation. We listen to the voice of fear in our heads; we let fear become an emotion that we feel powerless to oppose; we are lulled into passivity by the everyday routine of life; we don’t bother to see for ourselves; and we have a lot of desirable goals in mind that make it easy to avoid the inner journey.

If you set all of that baggage aside for one moment of clarity, you will see clearly that existence has never been the problem. In fact, it is the solution. Every moment of epiphany, revelation, divine presence, inner peace, etc. has only one source: existence. You have to be here first before anything, good or bad, can happen. So why not just be here? The thinking mind cannot just be here, because it is filled with a riotous display of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Yet these must have a source, and the source isn’t a thought, feeling, or sensation.

The source is existence. The spiritual promise, the goodie that every religion holds out, is that there is “higher” existence. But this too is a mental construct. Existence isn’t like a luxury high rise that saves the best apartments for the top floors. Existence is the rock solid, indestructible, eternal, immutable zero point at which everything begins. Simply by existing, human beings are given infinite possibilities in life. That alone is the source of life’s vibrancy, as well as our own joy, live, creativity, discovery, and evolution.

The real promise that we should all explore is this: Being is more meaningful than doing. The ultimate healing, the end of all fear, including the fear of death, is contained in that simple axiom. Being is more meaningful than doing. This is why Buddhism engendered the concept of non-doing. Settle down in yourself, meet yourself in silence, appreciate the silence, and accept the peace that is part of existence. You can’t create peace; you can only discover it.

We test out how life works through our experiences. The good experiences encourage us to give a cheer for being alive; the bad experiences raise doubts, fear, uncertainty, and depression. So healing cannot come from amassing more good experiences until your bank account is bursting with them. Goodies don’t make for a good life. Only life makes for a good life. Shed all your experiences temporarily, in other words sit in silence for a few minutes. You won’t know who you really are or what your life means until you meet yourself inside. What awaits is the merging of self, silence, existence, and being. In this merging lies the answer to fear and dread. More importantly, this is where life finally begins to mean everything we want it to mean.

 

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Finding Your Inner Strength: A Free Global Mental Health Summit

By Deepak Chopra™, Cassandra Vieten, Poonacha Machaiah, and Gabriella Wright

In the face of the pandemic crisis, there is a great opportunity. It is open to everyone, and it is free. We invite you, your family, and friends to this healing experience. If you want to find your inner strength, peace, and the end of anxiety, please sign up here Never Alone Summit, a global mental health event.

In the 3-day summit you will discover the inner breakthroughs that we all need to get past the mental pain and suffering that the pandemic brings in its wake.

At this moment some people have already found a creative way to move forward. They do not feel trapped, because they welcome the chance to put their everyday life on pause. Small opportunities are all around us, to bake bread from sourdough starter, finally build that raised garden bed, meditate, walk and do yoga, and work in pajamas.

For so many others, however, it is a time of depression, uncertainty, and anxiety. Some are lonely in isolation; some feel pressure from being crowded with others for extended periods.

Between the good and bad, for most of us it’s a little bit of both, depending on the day.

There is no need to wait for symptoms of anxiety and depression. There is no reason to live with the mental discomforts of the crisis when we can share in a healing experience together. That is the purpose of the 3-Day Never Alone Summit.

Here are some key points about meeting any psychological challenge:

  • You have a source of inner strength that you can directly contact.
  • You can build your mental health resilience – in other words, how you withstand and adapt to the challenges that arise.
  • You can find support from others who want to be part of the global healing.
  • You can be of service to anyone who is isolated and needs human contact.
  • You can change the tone from panic to hope, from helplessness to reassurance.

To use a metaphor, you may not be able to determine what inner obstacle course you will face, but you can become more mentally and emotionally strong, nimble, and agile.

Attending to your mental health is just as important as your physical health. In truth, the two can’t be separated. Your stress level influences everything: your immunity, inflammation, your sleep and health behaviors – all of which have a pervasive effect on your mind, body, and spirit. Taking care of your mental, emotional and spiritual health cannot be separated from protecting your physical health. They are one and the same.

If you are starting to get a little anxious, you are not alone. It is projected that overall, mental health symptoms will substantially intensify during the pandemic. Many will lose hope, lose faith, or lose someone they love. Mental health is being called the “parallel pandemic,” expected to impact more people and for a longer period of time than the COVID crisis, especially for those without a history of depression and anxiety. Check out this chart from our friends at One Mind:

 

 

This makes it crucial that we all focus just as much on building our mental, emotional, and spiritual strength as we have focused on protecting ourselves from the virus.

Building mental health resilience – whether in yourself, or in someone you love or people you work with – relies on ALL aspects of our lives. Mental health has to do with how we think and feel and how our brain works, but also with how we move our bodies, what and how we eat, the microbiome in our gut, how we sleep, how we connect with community, nature, and spirit, where we place our attention, and even how we breathe.

It may seem overwhelming, but the good news is there are hundreds of evidence-based, simple (though not always easy) and free practices in each of these areas that can be gently included over time into our lives to boost mental health resilience in a short period of time. Not to be naive, even very small lifestyle changes can be surprisingly difficult – for everyone, especially when feeling down. But behavioral science also has proven methods for gradually anchoring new practices into your life – such as linking a new behavior to one you already do (doing five minutes of stretching whenever you brush your teeth, or meditating in your car for ten minutes when you park your car for work or come home).

You can build an ecosystem that supports your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.  What’s more, most of these practices are enjoyable, rewarding, and connect you with others – helping you to remember that you are not alone. At times, they even bring joy, wonder, and magic into your life – which are not the opposite of stress, but can be antidotes to stress.

This is why we have been pouring our hearts into creating Never Alone: A Global Mental Health Summit on May 22-24, 2020. A collaboration between our respective organizations – The Chopra Foundation’s #NeverAlone initiative and the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation – this 3-day livestream focuses on whole-person approaches to mental health. Attending this summit can help you build your own ecosystem for mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

 

 

Featuring people like Deepak Chopra™, Arianna Huffington, Mariel Hemingway, Don Miguel Ruiz, Zak Williams, Wim Hof, Rick Hanson, Shauna Shapiro, Luisah Teish, Dan Siegel, Rhonda Magee and dozens more, the over 70 talks running about 12-minutes each are designed to share ideas, inspiration, and practices you can use right away from experts, celebrities and athletes, and ordinary people with extraordinary stories.  It is completely free, and will offer follow-up resources people can access post-summit. You can drop in and out whenever you like, and it will be viewable live or on-demand.

I hope you can join us there, and in the meantime, stay well.

 

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
Cassandra Vieten, PhD is Executive Director of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation, Scholar-in-Residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she served as President from 2013-2019. She is a clinical psychologist, mind-body medicine researcher, author of three books, and an international public speaker and workshop leader. www.cassandravieten.com
Poonacha Machaiah has over 20 years of global experience as a successful serial entrepreneur and business leader in Fortune 100 companies. Poonacha is among the new breed of emerging social entrepreneurs who are using approaches from the commercial world and employing technology to tackle social and environmental problems. He is Co-Founder along with Deepak Chopra and Gabriella Wright of the #NeverAlone initiative of the Chopra Foundation, dedicated to suicide prevention and mental wellness. www.thewarriormonk.com
Gabriella Wright is an English-French actress and model, best known for playing Queen Claude of France in the series The Tudors and Viola in the film The Perfect Husband. She recently played a significant role as Gina in the action thriller The Transporter Refueled. She is cofounder with Deepak Chopra™ and Poonacha Machaiah of the #NeverAlone initiative of the Chopra Foundation. She produced and starred in the 2020 film “I Am Never Alone”.
The “Never Alone” movement aims to build communities to encourage and empower young adults to reach out to a friend who may be struggling with their mental health. The goal of the movement is to reduce the stigma and allowing people to know they are not alone, build communities of wellbeing where people can speak about it and enable them with the tools to work through it. The campaign aims to bring together a coalition of mental health charities and initiatives in order to provide support for people affected by mental illness, along with raising awareness and tackling stigma.
The mission of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation is to fund, conduct and promote evidence-based research on how different forms of holistic treatments – such as exercise, nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices – benefit mental health. Because the Brick Family funds all administrative expenses, all funds go directly to conducting and promoting science and programs to incorporate evidence-based holistic treatments into mental health care. The Brick Foundation has donated over $1.3M to scientific research and programs that incorporate exercise, fitness, nutrition, and mind-body practices into mental health promotion.

Self-Care, the Vagus Nerve, and COVID-19

By Deepak Chopra, MD and Gustaf Kranck, M.Sc.

There is widespread awareness of the wellness movement in this country, and the term “self-care” is being more and more recognized. Since advice has existed for decades on proper diet, exercise, sleep, and the avoidance of alcohol and tobacco, in what way is self-care an advance? This seems like a critical question during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Self-care is an advance over the usual well-known preventive measures if it can do more, in other words, if there are choices that improve the whole mind-body system. Increasingly the key to self-care seems to be the vagus nerve. The general public awaits a silver-bullet treatment and a future vaccine, but the benefits associated with the vagus nerve are accessible by anyone right now.

A bit of anatomy first: twelve major nerves radiate out from the brain, and these so-called cranial nerves connect the brain to every area of the body. They function like information superhighways, constantly sending messages back and forth from brain to body. The most important cranial nerve is called the vagus nerve, named from the Latin word for wandering. The vast majority of sensory signals to and from the heart, lungs, stomach, and intestinal tract travel along the six miles of the vagus nerve.

In the past few years, a surprising discovery was made: deep, regular breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, sending a signal of relaxation that is very effective in settling down the stress response. News stories about vagal breathing, as it was named, drew widespread attention. But as research became more focused, it emerged that the vagus nerve might be something like a master key in the body. In its wanderings the vagus nerve affects the heart, lungs, digestive tract, and the immune system. These are the critical systems involved when someone becomes infected with the COVID-19.

The implication is that by stimulating the vagus nerve, a holistic benefit might come to these systems altogether. One of the co-authors of this article, Gustaf Kranck, has a personal story connected with vagal stimulation. Among the many ways that the vagus nerve can be stimulated are meditation and yoga. After getting burned-out by stress after the 2008 great recession, Gustaf began to practice meditation and felt that it “saved his brain.” Motivated to explore further, he hit upon the wealth of research that is being conducted on the vagus nerve. At present there are thousands of scientific papers on the subject and vagus stimulation devices are FDA approved for depression. In recent months there has been published more than 150 papers on vagus nerve and Coronavirus – most of them showing clear indications that the vagus nerve is central to the disease progress.

Here it is necessary to step cautiously. Recently an eminent French researcher, Dr. Jean-Pierre Changeux, published findings that indicated a kind of medical benefit from nicotine – which neurologically acts as a vagus stimulant. The findings from France were that those who were active smokers, even while contracting Coronavirus, seemed to have a more favourable disease progress than those who had recently stopped smoking. Needless to say –, a controversy erupted. Promptly after the publication of these studies in late April, the French government ordered limitations on the sale of nicotine patches from pharmacies in order to prevent hoarding.

Yet it is completely non-controversial to state that activating the vagus nerve with meditation and yoga, along with deep regular breathing and good sleep, are known conclusively to improve functioning in the systems most affected by the virus, particularly the respiratory system. Just as thoroughly documented is meditation’s benefit in reducing the stress response, with implications for reducing inflammation, one of the key dangers when the body’s immune system overreacts to the virus.

Gustaf made another striking observation. When meditating and doing controlled breathing practice, he could measure how this vagus nerve activation brings heartbeat and breathing rhythms to perfect sync – if he was in good health. His discovery was that with a hand-to-hand wearable electrocardiogram (EKG) he could simultaneously measure with high precision both the heart rate and breathing– and therefore instantly test how well they were synchronized.

This synchronization is very important. There is a sound physiological reason behind this. The vagus nerve regulates oxygen delivery in the body, so that it is used most efficiently and without waste. You need more oxygen to muscles during exercise and to the gut when relaxed. Vagal nerve stimulation seems to be crucial here, and a test of breathing and heartbeat rhythms, which is non-invasive and quite simple, may be useful in determining who is well and who is sick (we are not claiming, however, that the sickness would specifically be COVID-19). In healthy people the breath and heartbeat are in sync; in sick people the two functions go out of sync.

We hope this information is useful in promoting self-care through the methods for vagus nerve stimulation already mentioned. It costs nothing to do vagal breathing, get a good night’s sleep, meditate, and practice yoga. We feel this is the direction that self-care and the virus should take.

 

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
Gustaf Kranck, founder of Vagus.co – a Cambridge (UK) producer of health monitoring wearables and vagus stimulation devices. He has a M.Sc. from Aalto University in Finland and in 2019 authored the study ‘Vagal Tone Diagnostics with hand-to-hand ECG’.