Energy, Inflammation & the Future of Healing with Nisha Manek, MD

Zane Myers (00:01)
Hi and welcome to another episode of the Holistic Entrepreneur and I'm really excited to have Nisha Manik, MD and Holistic Medicine Enthusiast, which is kind of unusual because a lot of times MDs will, not all, but many will shun the idea of food and a natural approach as medicine and you have not.

And I did a bunch, well, I did some research before I started. I'm going to just going to give a quick bio because I thought it was interesting. So you were born in Africa and, and what country?

Nisha Manek (00:42)
Kenya, Zane. Jumbo Buona!

Zane Myers (00:44)
in Kenya.

Chapabwana?

Nisha Manek (00:48)
Jambopana means Swahili, hello sir.

Zane Myers (00:53)
okay. Fantastic. So, and then you somehow ended up back in England. You went to school in England for your undergraduate degree.

Nisha Manek (01:02)
Actually, it was Scotland. So Scotland and England are quite different. So I went to medical school at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Yes.

Zane Myers (01:05)
Scotland.

Yes.

So tell me, how did you end up from, I'm gonna just go back a little bit, because I'm just interested in myself. Like I said, I satisfy my own curiosity, and hopefully the rest of the audience will go along with that. So how did you end up from, so you did your undergraduate in Kenya?

Nisha Manek (01:31)
Ohio. There you go. There's a little twist there, huh? I left Kenya when I was about 16 and a half and there was no question. I'm from an Indian household. Big compound.

Zane Myers (01:32)
You

Nisha Manek (01:48)
in Kenya. I'm about four generations in Kenya and so you know my great grandparents came from India to Africa. So when I was 16 and half thereabouts I knew I wanted an education and I speak good English and I and I put my sights either in the USA or the UK. Well lo and behold the USA came up first.

of the gate and I went to all the places Ohio.

Zane Myers (02:19)
So which

school in Ohio did you go to?

Nisha Manek (02:24)
So Cleveland, Ohio case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, which is where it's a great school. And I'll tell you why it was great.

Zane Myers (02:31)
My father-in-law went to Case Western.

Nisha Manek (02:38)
Well, first of all, they took Nishamana again. And here's the thing. They had an international school advisor. Okay. And here's this person out of Africa. And a lot of people would say, wow, you speak good English. Now Kenya was a British colony.

So I spoke Swahili and I spoke English pretty good, you know? And so the, the international school advisor said, what would you like to do? Because, know, you're very like, I was, I was really in it. I was going to get an education no matter what. And the school advisor said, you could do law or you could do medicine literally like that. And I said, well, I don't know. I don't know.

you is I was good at science, I was good at the books and he took me, get this, he took me to see the dean of the medical school at Case Western Reserve Medical School and they have a terrific medical school. He takes me around the medical school, this dean and says, you know, I like you. You're from Kenya.

But as a foreign student, I think you could do it. You have the aptitude for science. It was clear. Why did he say that out of 4.0 GPA? I hit the books. Okay. There was no fooling around, no fooling around, no partying, no sororities. Zane, you're looking... Did I have a what?

Zane Myers (04:08)
Yep.

Did you have a tiger mom?

what they call a tiger mom? You know, your mom was on your word. A tiger mom is like a mom who just gets on their children and you're going to crack down on the books and you're going to study or was this all self-motivated? that's fantastic. ⁓

Nisha Manek (04:19)
What's a tiger like?

self-motivated. It really was. there was,

⁓ in fact, in fact, there was no mother around me. Remember I was on my own. I was a case and I was determined. And I will say this, there was this inner intention. It powered me right through. What was this intention? To find the truth about living.

I had this sort of insight of me all along. And you could say my tiger mom instilled it in me when I was little in Kenya. So she was not there, but she did the right thing and said, whatever you do, find out the truth. And what is the truth? You have to bridge it to me. was science is a way to the truth.

And for my mother, it was always keep the sights of the highest truth, which is God. ⁓ I'm really telling you like it was. So I've come from a Hindu household and that really powered me through. There was no playing around, but it was joyful.

It wasn't this, ⁓ you was a boring person. I wasn't boring. Okay. I was anything but boring. And so there I was. the, Dean of the school said, Ooh, Ooh, you're, you're the perfect candidate.

for medicine and I was intrigued by that because really people think I had a desire to do medicine since I was two years old. No, I did not. All I knew is I needed an education. Why? To have my voice heard. When you have an education platform, you can communicate more effectively or you will be sort of pushed aside. So to me, education was a way to build myself.

to reach into unknown parts and to do the science, okay? And then to break.

Zane Myers (06:31)
So you did, you

took that to kind of almost an extreme. So tell me you, so you went to ⁓ Case Western and, but you didn't go to medical school there. You decided to go off to Scotland. How did that happen?

Nisha Manek (06:47)
So, Kenya was a British colony, ⁓ a Commonwealth country. And at the time of Kenya's independence, we had the choice, the citizens of Kenya had the choice to become British subjects. And so through my mother, who was a British overseas citizen, I had in my passport a little stamp that said, you're British.

a permanent resident like a alien, your green card alien, right? You call them ⁓ aliens, not citizens, they call them aliens, legal aliens in the US language. Well, I had the same as a Kenyan citizen, I had leave to stay in the United Kingdom forever. Okay.

Zane Myers (07:22)
Right, yep.

Nisha Manek (07:43)
And I knew that, so I was in case and I knew that if I was not able to stay in the United States, because I wasn't, was a Kenyan citizen, you need a lot of money. And I'm not even eligible for, how do you say, or school or student loans, student loans.

Zane Myers (08:07)
Right,

yes.

Nisha Manek (08:08)
But I had that option in the UK. I did my research and I looked up and down the British Isles and Scotland, England, Wales and found, ⁓ I wrote to every medical school, medical school, Zane. I wrote and I said, I can do medicine, please, as a foreign student, because I was a Kenyan citizen. And wouldn't you know it?

Some schools did reply because remember I was not part of the British school school system. I was Kenya and now USA and now I'm trying to enter the UK system. was complex. Again, the intention powers you through and it did. And three schools replied three. I remember them well. One.

Cambridge University, woohoo! Oxford University, woohoo! Third was Glasgow. They didn't reply. I'll tell you the story in a moment. I went to Cambridge and they went, Gertin College actually. Gertin is a, ⁓ they have colleges within Cambridge and Oxford. This is how tradition is in their schooling system. Gertin said, ooh, ooh, we like you again.

Zane Myers (09:09)
Yeah.

Nisha Manek (09:35)
You have a good skill of communication, but we don't have a place for you to start now. You have to wait a year. And I thought, no, I can start now. I don't want to go home to Kenya. You know, don't break it. I go to Oxford.

I go to Oxford and at the infirmary, I was interviewed. They were all these very fancy people in the outside, you you go in and they're all these professors asking you very hard questions. I go in and I blew it. I really did. They were, you know, I'm not.

Zane Myers (10:15)
You're unnerved.

Nisha Manek (10:17)
No, I wasn't. think I unnerved them. I'm very different. Okay. And so all of these professors and I come out of them, I think I blew it. And, you know, I'm not from the British system. And I think I was not very, you know, was hard. I was not British. Yeah. Okay. I was Indian from Kenya, you know? And anyway, they didn't accept me.

Zane Myers (10:34)
British?

Nisha Manek (10:43)
So I looked down my list and I said, ⁓ Glasgow hasn't replied. And wouldn't you know it, I was in London and I called Glasgow university and this is it saying, this is, think where an angel helped me. Somebody answered the phone. That's the first miracle. Just before Christmas, all those years ago in 1990s, somebody answered the phone and she went,

you're Miss Monag. wouldn't you know it. We have your application here. We didn't quite know what to do with you. ⁓ you're in London, are you? ⁓ can you come up? I said, what do mean come up? Yes, we'd like to see you. Can you come up? Professor Campbell is here. Before he goes off, I'm using my best British accent here. Because she did, she was British. Miss Spurway, I'll never forget her. And she said,

Zane Myers (11:30)
Yeah

Nisha Manek (11:36)
Can you come up? said, what do you mean come up? Well, it's near Christmas. Professor Campbell is here. He would like to see you. We are intrigued with your application. I said, how do I get there? She says, well, by train. I did. I went up by train to the quadrangle, the campus in Glasgow University. And wouldn't you know it was gray, dark. And I thought, what the heck am I doing here?

I come up the steps to this little office and Professor Campbell was there with his glasses like this. ⁓ are you Miss Monnick? I said, yes, I am, sir. Miss Burways was taking notes. Now, Professor Campbell has a very thick Glaswegian accent.

He's asking me beautiful questions. Very kind man. had this shining blue eyes. I'll never, never forgetting there was a fireplace going and he says, well, why do you want to go to medicine? He was saying things like that, you know, and I said, well, I love medicine because it connects you to humankind. It connects you in a very deep level with science and the human being. Well, he said, look,

Most of our graduates are going to general practice. Now I wasn't understanding him and I said, Professor, Professor, could you speak slowly? I can't understand you. I can't understand you. I mean, literally, I couldn't understand him. And I thought at that moment I'd blown that interview to him. What can I say? Well, Ms. Burway was trying to help me along the way and just taking notes.

Zane Myers (13:14)
Yeah.

Nisha Manek (13:22)
And when I left, he was very kind. have to say, Professor Campbell, God bless him, was kind. He really tried to help me along to say, I think you're really cut out for medicine. I think we will think about it. We have two spaces for people to do.

They called them mature student. I was a mature student because I had a degree. was finishing up at Case Western Reserve. And I went back to Cleveland, Ohio thinking, ⁓ very glum, very glum. But guess what? A week later, I get a phone call from Glasgow University. And they said, we are in a position to offer you a spot to study medicine. And I thought,

Zane Myers (13:48)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (14:07)
Is that real? I hearing things? And I went, I'm in a position to accept. Just like that. I don't care. I don't want to know the details, but I got my foot in the door and I finish up and in the fall, they call it autumn in Scotland. I was in, I was in saying. I was in.

Zane Myers (14:12)
You

Yeah.

So

you went, got through your four years of medicine, but then you go off ⁓ to Stanford, is that right? And how did, when you went to Stanford, then you decided you wanted to specialize in a particular area of medicine. So talk about that just a little bit.

Nisha Manek (14:34)
That's right.

Yes. So, you know, I'm

doing housemanship in the teaching hospitals of London. And, you know, it was again, you have health advisors and my health advisor in London said, listen, how many people in London can you see in the National Health Service NHS that are women of color?

Zane Myers (14:48)
Ahem.

Nisha Manek (15:11)
It's true at that time in the 1990s there were not a single one. He says, look, you're obviously very bright. I'm not bragging. was just that I was very energetic and I made things happen. And he says, look, if I were you.

You have family now in California. Why don't you think about that? I said, are you crazy, Dr. Robert? His name was Dave Robertson. He was an infectious disease specialist in London. And he said, look, you need to get out of here. You're going to be a registrar forever. That means you'll be in the teaching position like you won't be a consultant. And I thought to myself, well, he has a point. He has a point.

And I looked over to California because that was obvious. You know, my family lived in Los Angeles and I started applying just like that. I started applying for residency. This is how they call it in America, not housemanship, residency. And I actually came up to Loma Linda in Southern California to do my internship. And from there, I looked at rheumatology fellowships. Why did I look at rheumatology?

It is one of the smallest specialties in the entire United States. How many? How many, you might ask? Right now, there are about 4,000. 4,000 rheumatology MDs for a population.

Zane Myers (16:36)
How many?

So tell me about how

many, how many, ⁓ or describe to me what rheumatology is. In a simple term so that.

Nisha Manek (16:50)
Rheumatology

is a specialty that takes care of people with...

autoimmune diseases like arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, big scary word, lupus systemic, systemic erythematosis. So I take care of people diagnosed with inflammatory chronic conditions. And just 4,000 of us for 350 million population around the United States, your top, it's very low.

Zane Myers (17:25)
Is it still low?

And

Nisha Manek (17:28)
around here.

Zane Myers (17:28)
that's such a huge, huge ⁓ classification of people. mean, it's beyond measure.

Nisha Manek (17:34)
Okay, you're right.

You're right. Let's talk about that for a moment. Okay. Because rheumatology and rheumatic diseases, arthritis, turns out is the number one reason for disability in America. Number one, not cardiology, not heart disease or cancer. Number one reason why people lose time from work. Prescription drugs.

is my specialty.

Zane Myers (18:05)
So ⁓ I'm a patient per se, I didn't go to a rheumatologist. I went to an ⁓ orthopedic surgeon and I've had three hip replacements.

Nisha Manek (18:16)
my, you look too young.

Zane Myers (18:18)
I'm older than I look, I have seven grandchildren.

Nisha Manek (18:22)
Wow.

Zane Myers (18:24)
And my oldest child is late 40s.

Nisha Manek (18:29)
My goodness, you look very young. Congratulations.

Zane Myers (18:33)
Thank

you, thank you. It's all in your genes, I think.

Nisha Manek (18:38)
⁓ Okay, okay, I'm going to push back a little bit, Zane, because I did genetics of arthritis in London. That was actually, ⁓ in a sense, my claim to fame. I was ⁓ at the American College of Rheumatology to give Kenan, you know, address on this issue, genes and osteoarthritis. Why osteoarthritis? It's the number one...

Um, it's the most common form of us. It's the reason you had a hip replacement, by the way. osteoarthritis in jeans, how much does jeans contribute? Do you want to know the answer? The big drum roll, 1%, 1%. You know, what is, uh, really getting into.

Zane Myers (19:16)
Go ahead.

Nisha Manek (19:23)
making those genes active, 1 % genetic contribution, it's environmental factors, obesity and other things. And those are the things I could.

Zane Myers (19:33)
I did carry around an

extra 30 pounds for much of my adult life, but you know, people are, and then I lost that and I've pretty well kept it off for the last 15 years or so.

Nisha Manek (19:45)
That's it. That's it. So

in my research, showed that twins, twins are identical twins that have the same sort of genes, non-identical fraternal twins that have not the same gene, not identical. And we can look at and do fancy mathematics. And it turns out genes contribute very little to how arthritis expresses itself. What you want to do is lose the weight.

lose the weight. Okay, weight, mechanical aspects of being obese and you know children obese now in America, teenagers, young people, 20s, third decade of life, 30s, that's where the damage is happening. They've set a trajectory that starts to manifest, express itself.

Zane Myers (20:14)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (20:35)
50s I see. whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on? You worn out your joints. You gotta lose the weight, dude. But we'll get, we could get into the weeds and that, but that's the issue here. That it's not.

Zane Myers (20:48)
So if I combine that

with, ⁓ so I was always very athletic and very active. I played quite a bit of tennis. I guess those two combined together are not a good marriage when you're overweight.

Nisha Manek (21:00)
Well, you

know, if you do a little damage to your joints and you're overweight, yeah, you know, joined that we know athletes, example, Carl Lewis, that famous sprinter, had done damage and he had osteoarthritis later on in life. He was sort of hobbling around. We see that in athletes and we want to protect them. Ballet dancers, they know how to protect themselves by the way. They know how to, they're very in tune and they know how to rest.

Zane Myers (21:13)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (21:31)
repair and get back on stage. Okay, you want to repair yourself. Yeah. But you did the right thing to not only repair but you offloaded your hip joints.

Zane Myers (21:38)
So.

Yeah, I think I may have had a hip dysplasia kind of thing going on there too because I always walked a little bit like a duck, you know, with my feet. Yeah, I mean, was very athletic but I did have this strange gait and there was nothing I could do about it. Now my feet are straight but I've had three hip operations, three hip replacements and that's another story. I'll spare you that but.

Nisha Manek (21:49)
Mm-hmm.

A little wobbling. Little wobbling.

Yeah.

Zane Myers (22:10)
⁓ So you got through Stanford and then this is the strangest twist is so you where'd you start? You're practicing there in California?

Nisha Manek (22:19)
you

Well, you know, from Stanford, when I finished my fellowship, I was literally pursued by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. And I went to the Mayo Clinic. joined the division of rheumatology in Rochester, Minnesota. And you know, it was incredible. Mayo is incredible conventional care. I mean, this is the place to do medicine excellence in patient care. It has the three shields, as you know, patient care,

excellence in research and medical education. So I was in all three shields. Patient care.

I taught the residents and fellows and many fellows around the world. I had a hand in teaching them the excellence in rheumatology. And then I was in research. So we look at molecules, what are the new drugs? And we do research and we also do research in development of new methods of diagnosis and treatment. And that's what Mayo gave to me, all the three shields. absent and I stayed there much of my academic career, but there was a

problem.

And I think this is where you're saying there was a mystery here. Why? Why is Dr. Manek, you know, on the trajectory to professorship and fame and all I found that in

All excellence. Okay. Stanford, Loma Linda, ⁓ Mayo Clinic was no different. That we were actually going into drug-based therapies, but there was a missing piece. And I was on a mission. told you I was on a mission since my youth to find the truth about healing, healing the human body. And drugs is very small part. It's an important part.

Zane Myers (24:06)
And drugs do one thing.

Nisha Manek (24:12)
It's a foundation in a way, but we weren't always hitting the target. There were many people who were not getting well, and I was very bothered by this. So I had this mission to find what's the missing piece. And I will say one other thing about rheumatology, and it's this. The common denominator of immune diseases is inflammation. Inflammation.

Zane Myers (24:38)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (24:40)
Okay? And we deal with inflammation day and night and its consequences. Inflammation causes damage to the heart system, to the lung system, to the kidney system, to cancers. So it's not just rheumatology.

Inflammation underlies all modern diseases that we treat today. You know, and in rheumatology, patients that I treated died not of a swollen knee joint or a swollen hip joint that Zane had, they had heart disease. Aha!

Zane Myers (25:14)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (25:15)
Okay, how do we wrap our heads around this? Because remember we were giving a drug for heart, a drug for kidney, a drug for lung. I mean, I was saying, wait, wait, wait, wait. We've got to, there must be unifying principle here. And I was in a mission to find what that missing link was. And you know something? I had to actually go to another scientific discipline.

I reached into physics and the missing link here was energy. Energy. Okay, you can have chemical energy or you can have energy. The body has energy systems. That was it. That was it. Because I came across William Tiller's work.

He's from Stanford university. And wouldn't you know it, this physicist had written papers in medical journals and the title was, what are subtle energies? Jackpot, jackpot. I mean, I, know, physics is very precise. They're after the truth. They describe, quantify,

Zane Myers (26:23)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (26:29)
And they describe in great detail what is energy. Medicine doesn't do that. I went through all my medical textbook looking what's energy, what's biofield, what's this meridians. What is this? Because my patients were giving me a clue that they got better with such simple things like Tai Chi.

But I'm not even going there. Okay. And let me tell you, I just gave a presentation at

Rheumatology Association of Nevada just a week ago. And somebody had this to say, okay, because I'm giving you a huge sort of picture. And this is what one of the MDs had to say, because we all struggle with this. We're giving drugs and drugs and drugs. They have value. How do we bring this other piece? They're missing pieces to human health. And this is what Robert Lowe had to say about my

Zane Myers (27:05)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (27:31)
my presentation please I have to read this because I went woohoo Robert no this is an MP my colleagues in rheumatology Rob Lowe is there an actor? ⁓ okay okay I don't know I don't know where that is but this is what

Zane Myers (27:34)
Not the actor.

I got it. It just tickled me that way. just have a Rob Lowe.

He's a famous actor. So I just, it just kind of tickled. I have kind of a quirky sense of humor.

Nisha Manek (27:50)
⁓ Thanks, Nain.

Okay, this famous doctor, Rob Lowe, said this, refreshingly insightful, outside of the box, actionable recommendations for improving patient care that is not in any medical text, but extremely valuable. Because on that stage, I said, people, we are doing nutritional.

and supplements, yes, yes, not arguing with that, bringing the energy piece. And you don't even have to go to an acupuncturist, you can if you want. You can take weeks and months to do Tai Chi, you can do if you want. But guess what? And this is the beauty of Tiller's physics. The energy systems of the body are already installed and the body has polarities just like a magnet north and south.

Connect to the body's polarities with your hands. Nothing more. Boom! You start to heal.

Zane Myers (29:01)
Okay,

describe a couple of things that you're talking about to connect to the body with your hands. I always like to, I will tell you honestly, I kind of get a little bit of a cheat code here sometimes for just odd things that I will pick up in the podcast. One of them I digress, but for an example sake, and I mentioned this before, ⁓ one of the people that I work with ⁓ suggested the idea of

Nisha Manek (29:19)
Mm-hmm.

Zane Myers (29:31)
standing on one foot because balance is such a big deal as you start to get older, standing on one foot while you're brushing your teeth and then halfway through you stand on the other foot and that way you do that balance exercise every single day. So that was just an example of you know little things that I've picked up. So tell me one or two things that you're talking about.

Nisha Manek (29:47)
Yeah, that's wonderful.

That's wonderful proprioception, balance, position, sense does decrease over time. It doesn't need to, right? And what you need is just a simple, very easy, you don't have to go to Bill is a bazillion dollar yoga mat.

Just stand on one foot. I like it. I really do. That was wise. So here's the thing. Teller showed this to me and it was a game changer for me because remember, doctors are burned out. We're under the gun all the time. We have lots of education to keep up. We're looking at drugs and interactions and side effects. And really, I was on this mission to find this energy and he says,

Well, the best way Nisha is for you to experience what I'm talking about. So he said that this is the top notch energy medicine. And he said, your body has polarities. So the left hand, let's just arbitrarily call it negative. The positive part of your body is at the base of the neck. It's positive. You want to connect the left hand to the base of the neck.

Do it. Exactly. Perfect. This is your wire. It's connecting to the wire. Okay. The right hand to the base of the tailbone. Exactly. Relax. Relax into your chair. Relax. you can't. Okay. Okay. Now cross your left ankle over your right. That's it. That's the third part.

Zane Myers (31:19)
I can't.

Nisha Manek (31:29)
Just relax in there. Enjoy this. I love this. And by the way, for me to speak to Zane while I've got this position actually quite hard because my brain starts to become quiet in this position. I feel the cell energy is moving. Okay.

Zane Myers (31:49)
So I feel tightness in my right arm. Is there something wrong with me?

Nisha Manek (31:53)
No, there's nothing wrong with you. So just relax, let go, relax. So here's the thing. You're tight in your shoulder and there's a clue. And a lot of my patients with rheumatoid arthritis, they can't hold this either. And I would say 10 to 20 minutes of this position, left at the base of the neck, right at the sacrum, tailbone.

left ankle over the right. I'm repeating it so those who want to do this, they can and they should. This is called the recharge position. This is what I call it. You can get a copper mash, but what

behind your neck, another one behind your sacrum, and hold couple wires in your neck and just relax. Boom, you're done. 20 minutes, you relax and you recharge. I can tell you, it was like being in, I call it resetting to factory settings. Okay, you're full of energy, your brain is recharged, and for me, was absolutely, my batteries were full. Let me tell you something about, because I said inflammation is the common denomination

Zane Myers (33:03)
So

Nisha Manek (33:04)
Yes, go ahead.

Zane Myers (33:05)
I have a question though first because going back to that. So you said your left hand on your neck and your right hand on your sacrum and then cross your left foot over your right at your ankle. Why the right foot, left foot, you know, could I go like this instead?

Nisha Manek (33:24)
No, what I said because the polarities you're being congruent. It's like saying ⁓ Let's take a battery Positive negative and you connect the wires positive to a light bulb okay positive and Negative you connect them to a light bulb the light bulb goes on because you want

Zane Myers (33:44)
Does this have something

to do with the way your brain is, ⁓ you know, one side of your brain does one thing, another side of your brain does another thing?

Nisha Manek (33:53)
It is loosely connected to that, but let me tell you, the energies of the body run in a certain direction. The acupuncturist and the Tai Chi masters will tell you that. Tiller discovered this on his own. Okay. And the other thing to note about these energy systems is that they're not electric. People say, we're electrical beings. We are, it's sort of kind of true. We're magnetic.

These energies are actually magnetic in nature. And like a magnet, when you connect the opposite poles, you get an electric circuit, electromagnetism. And this brings me to one thing I want to really talk about because I just said at the beginning, we are in a mission to reduce inflammation, right? And the body

Zane Myers (34:34)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (34:50)
is like a battery. has energy systems and if you're depleted, you're going to inflammation. So another way to look at it is inflammation is a lack of voltage in your body. ⁓ not just you're lacking chemicals, you're lacking voltage. And when you do this position, guess what?

And don't even need to plug into a socket. You don't even need to have a gym membership. You're doing it on your own. I've looked into this. Nobody seems to know this. It's not in any textbook. That's what I mean. You give freedom to people to explore this. And if they can't hold the position, hey, don't be worried. Copper mesh. Put one here, put one there. Boom.

copper wire, by the way, you know, they are, these things are for sale. Copper polarity screens as they're called. You can get them on the, you know, you just Google it. It'll be there. ⁓ and the last time I looked though, people are catching on. were sold out. So I'm looking into making, yeah, they're sold out. So I'm going to Home Depot, ⁓ to look at resources for pure copper mesh. Just so simple, five bucks.

Zane Myers (36:01)
Really?

Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (36:12)
Cut it out and do a video to connect to pure copper wires. You have to be good with your materials because you're connecting to your energy systems. Be careful what you do with your body, what you put into it and how you connect it to the copper screen. I'm looking into it because those were sold out. Yeah. ⁓ but I, wish I knew we were going to talk about polarity screens. I could have had a, it's very simple.

Zane Myers (36:39)
So I don't know what I'm

going talk about when I start this. So tell me, so what you're doing now, I mean, do you have a business side of your ⁓ practice or are you mostly speaking or tell me what you're doing right now.

Nisha Manek (36:54)
So I do both. I do clinical care because I love connecting with patients. Okay. And I told you, Rheumatology 4000, you want to be out there. You want to open the people's perspectives that, hey, you have the drugs, but you can do these simple things to take your healing over the top. So one of the first things I actually tell my patients, this is true.

is and actually you you reminded me of that with your little I stand on my foot and I stand on my foot and it's this when you want to reduce inflammation Zane what's the first thing you should do brush your teeth oral health

supremely important to reduce inflammation and increase longevity. We're all interested in living longer and healthier lives. Brush your teeth.

Zane Myers (37:52)
So that's interesting,

you're talking about that and I was just watching somebody on another podcast and he was talking about cancer patients and he said the first thing that he has them do is go to the dentist.

Nisha Manek (38:05)
brush your teeth. And you know something? This is now scientifically accepted in rheumatology. If you have bad teeth and gum disease, periodontitis, it is what breaks immune tolerance. What do I mean by that? That inflammation, the bacteria in your mouth will make certain proteins that incite your immune system to make you have rheumatoid arthritis. ⁓

You want to clean your teeth. So when people say, my goodness, my grandma had crippling arthritis. My mother has rheumatoid. What do I do? I say go brush your teeth and floss. That's it.

Okay, you'll reduce your risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis. Here's another thing I tell my patients because nutrition is a huge area. We could have week long conferences and I can't be there speaking to them for hours at a time. So there's one question I asked my patients and this is what I told my colleagues in Nevada. I said, don't fret. All you need is a good structure to get to what your patient is doing. You want to know.

your patient and ask them this one question, what did you eat for breakfast today? What did you eat for breakfast today Zane?

Zane Myers (39:26)
a piece of sourdough bread.

Nisha Manek (39:28)
My kind guy. Good. I like gluten as long as it is fermented. Fermented foods are good for us.

Zane Myers (39:37)
So, I will say, I don't like sourdough bread that much, but my wife buys it and so it's there and so I eat it.

Nisha Manek (39:45)
Yeah.

So here's the other thing. A lot of my patients will say, but Dr. Manik, I haven't had time to eat. was getting ready to come to clinic. That opens, you know, and they're telling me this, I haven't had time to eat. I want it to be on time. And they're drinking out of a cup. What's in the cup? ask, you're drinking something. We are enjoying something so much there. What's in that cup? And they go, and they try to hide it.

They go, ooh, ooh, ooh. They put it on the floor. They try to hide it. It's quite funny how people are. And I said, but no, what's in that cup? Coffee? Ooh, what's in the coffee? ⁓ It's a creamer. what's in the creamer?

I'll tell you this, it's a creamer that we all know. And you know, they're pouring it in there with their coffee. What's in the creamer? They don't know. Okay. Okay. I see. What's the, what's the flavor of your creamer? This one always wins out. Do you know what the top flavor of creamer is? At least in my clinic, hazelnut hazelnut.

Zane Myers (40:52)
Vanilla? Hazelnut, I don't like

to contaminate my coffee with that stuff.

Nisha Manek (40:59)
hazelnut wins and vanilla caramel and we look at the creamer I take pictures I go to the supermarket and I take photographs corn syrup solids hydrogenated palm kernel oil what's that that's inflammatory nobody knows Zane you're hilarious but no sugar

Zane Myers (41:17)
Nobody knows. It's bad juju.

Nisha Manek (41:27)
and hydrogenated fats are inflammatory. And what they're trying to do is reduce inflammation. So it's important to ask your patients, what did you have for breakfast today? Simple, right? And a lot of times they begin to tell you clues about their behaviors. And now as a doctor, you have a way to tweak it. Just like I said, sourdough bread, okay? Like that.

Zane Myers (41:56)
So in your practice now, and I'm going to shift a little bit, do ⁓ you work as part of a hospital health care system or are you ⁓ independent?

Nisha Manek (42:08)
I am both. So look.

A lot of people find me through podcasts like you're saying. All right. And they go, I like this doctor. I like how she thinks. She's very open-minded, which I am. I really work with my patients. I want to walk in their shoes. We want to go after the truth. Okay. And it's a human connection in medicine. It's not just about what chemical am I going to prescribe for you? And so, ⁓ they find me and the reality is I cannot have a license.

in all 50 states or the world. I have patients in literally in Trinidad and India and Wales and England. What I do offer is health coaching.

very high level health coaching. Okay. So if they can reach to me and I will give them a perspective, very detailed nutritional supplements, energy therapies, and also spirituality. Okay. This is what we've not talked about and what Tiller and I called information medicine, because my, by golly, you can take your healing over the top.

Zane Myers (42:56)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (43:19)
You can go into remission about anything and everything. I really mean that. Okay. So I do health coaching, but I also give rheumatology to rural America. Okay. I go to very remote parts, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, through a hospital system that does have technology. need a camera, you need a nurse at the other end. you need, so I do both. do rheumatology. I do health coaching and I speak. I'm in.

Zane Myers (43:41)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (43:49)
to give my keynote in this rheumatology conference in Nevada where it was so much fun. I could really get into, I know what my colleagues are struggling with and I said don't struggle. All you need is a structure and the power of a few good questions. Do you brush your teeth? What did you eat for breakfast today? And if your batteries are depleted, ask them. What did you do before bedtime yesterday?

Go to the immediate time because they will give you clues and now you have a handle on it. It's personalized. It's not generalized cookie cutter.

Zane Myers (44:28)
So tell me that

begs the question of what did you do for bedtime? What do you suggest you do before bedtime?

Nisha Manek (44:35)
switch off your device. That's the number one thing my patients tell me. Oh, I was on my phone. Dr. Manic, couldn't sleep so I was watching cat videos. Now this is true.

They think it's relaxing, but the blue light can wake you up, wakes up the brain, okay? Put your device away. Make your bedtime ritual absolutely special, okay? It is a ritual. Turn off the device, the cool bedtime temperatures, okay? And then have a hot bath if you want.

glass of milk, before bedtime are good, magnesium, calcium before bedtime will power your brain down. And so I asked him, if you didn't sleep, and this is a consistent finding, this is another powerful question. Listen to this one. What wakes you up or what keeps you up at 3 a.m. at night? What's on your mind?

What's on your mind? You're doing all the right thing. Something is on your mind. I want to know what's on your mind. And they will tell me.

Zane Myers (45:42)
So do you, how do you feel about reading at bedtime? Or how about a Kindle?

Nisha Manek (45:48)
Well, Kindle, you know they have, you have the brightness, do the lowest brightness. In fact, they have a dark screen with white lettering. Make sure your reading is something that is, pardon me, boring. Boring.

Zane Myers (45:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nisha Manek (46:07)
Actually, there are podcasts, nothing much happens. ⁓ put your headphones or just listen to a human voice. Some people just don't want to hear a human voice. I know that. they don't want to read. So then power down your Kindle to a screen that you can really relax. And you will know, your body will know. Your brain tells you. Right? You read a Kindle?

Zane Myers (46:37)
Yes, I do read Kindle. I have it on the black with the white print, but I am guilty though. I will pick up my phone and it does absorb me. I will start reading mostly news, I'm kind of a newsophile and I'd like to stay up on what's going on and I'll just see all these different news sites. And I will say that does energize my brain rather than relax it.

Nisha Manek (46:39)
So what do you do to Zane to power down? Yeah, right exactly.

Yeah, now you're not missing any part of the new zane. Just catch up the following morning with your sourdough toast and black coffee.

Zane Myers (47:18)
So when you're, well now, how do you market yourself? you're talking or do you, mean, is it all just word of mouth now?

Nisha Manek (47:27)
It is word of mouth, you know, and people like, you know, they find me through podcasts like yours and they can just reach out to me, nishamonicmd.com and then I get on, I reply to them to make sure they're a good fit because I don't accept insurance in health coaching. It has to be personalized, detailed. I really get into the weeds with them. It's kind of fun because they go, ⁓ my gosh, I had no idea.

I was doing this. my gosh, this is so simple. They go into remission. That's it. Doesn't have to take rocket science, does it? But we do need to be a good fit and you know, it's hourly charge and we make sure that this is working out.

Zane Myers (48:02)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (48:15)
And so far, so good. And I'll tell you one more thing, because I do information medicine, which is intention-based, most people don't know how to even write an intention. But Tiller and I worked on this one-on-one for years. And I know this works. I think one of the things I also ⁓ thought about before I got on the podcast was what are some of those magical stories of healing that you go, wow, wow, wow.

This is absolutely possible. So information medicine. Okay, so I get into...

Zane Myers (48:50)
So tell me, I'm

going over, but I just have a few more questions. So tell me ⁓ about an individual, obviously without identifying who it is, who had a situation that they were able to overcome using these techniques.

Nisha Manek (49:03)
Yeah.

Okay. So I'm going to talk about an elderly gentleman in my practice. He was a veteran, uh, 70 years old Ralph. And this is a gentleman that I met, you know, I'm, I generally room my own patients and I was at the waiting area and I say, I'm ready for you, Ralph. And he looks at me across the room and says, I don't want to see her. I don't want to see her. Literally, literally like that.

Well, he assumed by my color and you know, Indian woman that I don't speak English. So the director of the clinic comes out and says, Hey, wait a second. That's your doctor.

That's your, you know, either it's her or, you know, find another doctor. Anyway, he comes in. I learn about Ralph over the ensuing few months. Okay. I'm his rheumatologist. The gentleman has rheumatoid arthritis.

on chemical medicine called methotrexate. Those with RA will know this is very standard treatment for rheumatoid diseases. And also osteoarthritis. He couldn't walk. had hip osteoarthritis, knee away, and also lumbar spine osteoarthritis. He walks with a cane. And over the months he would come for his visits or not come for his visits. Very non-compliant. He was just grumpy. There was a sense of hopelessness.

Zane Myers (50:11)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (50:34)
He was a widower, lived alone. Life was just unfair, just horrible, angry. Okay, he was angry a lot of the times. And here I am, his rheumatologist, I'm really trying to rally him. I want to work with him. I'm asking him, what's your pain level today? What did you... I was just not landing. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't adjust his methotrexate because he hadn't had his labs done.

One day, I had an instinct. One day he did come to clinic and I said, Ralph has a human story. I need to connect with that story that's hidden in Ralph. That's what is going to get us there, I think. So I didn't ask about his pain. I didn't ask whether he can tie shoelaces. I went to Ralph and I said, what gives you meaning?

Now, by this time, Ralph had a notion that one, I was born and raised in Kenya and number two, can speak English. you know, he says without missing a beat, I want to visit Africa. I went, ⁓ but it was the second sentence, Zane, that really, I mean, this was jackpot. Okay. He said, I want to climb Kilimanjaro. I went,

⁓ he was that specific. For the next 20 minutes, Ralph, I put his chart aside and I said, let's look at this. Let's gather the details of what it takes to go to Kilimanjaro. And I pulled up a map of Africa and he went Tanzania. I said, okay, do you have a passport, Ralph? ⁓ how much money does it take?

What's the airfare cost? We started to map these things out. And I can tell you this, for the first time, Ralph straightened up in his chair. He had a bit of light in his eyes and he was in on it. We were both like a team. And then the rational mind of Ralph kicked in. He said, but doc, I walk with a cane, my arthritis. said, Ralph, yes, just a moment now.

Let's finish this Africa exploration. So this is what really happened Zane. Here's information about a doctor, from a doctor. Ralph, get your labs done. Fill your prescription of methotrexate. Get physical therapy. Lose the 20 pounds in water therapy. I was prescribing all of this. He wouldn't show up.

That's medical excellence I was giving him. He couldn't, he didn't take that information. Then he created his own information. I am at the summit. I said, you're not in the future. You're in the summit now. How about that? He says, it feels good doc. I said, okay, let's write it out. I wrote it out. He wrote it out.

I how does it feel? says, it feels good. I said, okay, let's bring up a picture of Kilimanjaro. That's your intention. That's your truth. Go for it. Now let's, so what he did was join medical information with the information he created. I'm at the summit. Join the two together. That's information medicine. And he took him all the way.

And I'll tell you for the next several months, he never missed a visit. He got on track with his health. That's it. And you know what? When I left that clinic and I was saying goodbye to Ralph, he grasped my hands and he said, doc, thank you for seeing me. Thank you for seeing me. That was it. He wasn't a number.

He wasn't our A patient. was somebody who happened to be diagnosed with rheumatoid. You know how we label people are a patient or will be no, no, he was Ralph. And it was very gratifying because he really went from hopelessness to forming a community, a travel community. brought other veterans and said, Hey, I think we can do these together.

Zane Myers (54:42)
Mm-hmm.

Nisha Manek (55:02)
From loneliness, he formed a community. From anger, found some, you know, he found possibility. And that was wonderful. We both, I think, a sense, healed each other, you know? Yeah.

Zane Myers (55:12)
Yeah.

That is a wonderful story. So how long ago was that? Just out of curiosity. ⁓ A decade ago.

Nisha Manek (55:19)
That was a more than it was a deck. It was a decade. But at

that time I was knowing this information from communication is everything. Information is what we're missing. We're putting ourselves in the computer all day. when the patient, yeah.

Zane Myers (55:37)
So I'm picking up

that if you can get to the underlying motivations of the patient and engage with them, that it can make a huge difference in them believing.

Nisha Manek (55:46)
Yes.

It does make

a huge difference. What gives you meaning or what matters to you most? In Nevada, when I said, what gives you meaning, one of the audience said, you know, you remind me of the geriatric practices where they do ask the patient, what matters to you most? Exactly.

Zane Myers (56:13)
So do you know Dr. Orsini? He ⁓ works as practice, but he's done a TED Talk and he also talks about communication. I mean, that's his big thing, is communication between a doctor and his ⁓ patients. And he does a lot of ⁓ keynote type speaking and has some programs all about how

to communicate with your patient. And ⁓ he was really an interesting guest.

Nisha Manek (56:45)
Mm-hmm.

You know, he's right. I don't know Dr. Orsini, ⁓ but every time you communicate with someone, could be at the clinic, could be anything, you can either pump that person up or you'll drain the person. Look at what Ralph did. But Doc, I have arthritis and I said, hold on a moment, Ralph. I think we can get you better. This is a reality.

So I pumped him right back up because it was the truth. I believe in that. And I work with him and he was right on board with that information. That was communication. And did you know the most important part of modern medicine and anything, the raw material is information. That's the irreducible part of us. And that goes right back to energy.

Energy and information are linked. How? Because the laws of energy say this, all systems run to disorder or entropy. Ralph was going on to entropy until I said, wait a second here. And information reduces disorder.

That information I am at the summit organized his thinking. Now he could really reduce chaos and get on board. That's what Orsini is doing, I think. I give it the physics language. Because Tiller was very strict with me. He says, you've got to really define what you're doing here. So at the bedside, you are information exchange all the time.

Zane Myers (58:18)
See?

Nisha Manek (58:32)
What kind of information? That's information medicine. But I want intention to now wrap in there. And I invite that from my patients. Yeah.

Zane Myers (58:42)
Okay, I think we're going to end it right there, but hang with me for a second. That was great. Thanks a lot.