60. Benjamin Morrell, MD: Leaving Residency Training, Mastering Mental Health & Pursuing to Become the Best Version of Yourself

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Darsha, and I'm Dr. Altamash Raja, and welcome to Medicine Redefined. A podcast where we will explore the often overlooked but necessary components of health, what we consider to be the fundamentals. We will investigate topics and practices that can give you and your patients the best chance to optimize a healthy lifestyle. It's time to move the needle forward and put the health back in healthcare. Our guest today is Dr. Benjamin Morrell. Ben is a mental health physician and high-performance coach at High Performance Mental Health. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Central Oklahoma and went on to receive his medical degree at the University of Oklahoma in 2019. Ben matched into psychiatry residency at Wake Forest Medical Center, but soon realized that going through the healthcare system didn't match his passions or purpose. He decided to leave residency and life coach others on his own terms, healing through his own experiences and expertise with trauma, burnout, motivation, and becoming the best version of himself. In this episode, Ben was amazingly vulnerable. He took the time to explain his own struggles with PTSD, which started at a very young age for him, and what was amazing about this episode was how he has chosen a path to not only inspire himself, but inspire others. He is on a mission at this point to really life coach others and master mental health and bring on a vision that allows others to understand a deeper perspective. If you're like me, I am all about the deeper perspective. This conversation has been absolutely one of my favorites throughout this entire podcast series. Without further ado, let's live and learn and understand through Ben's story. All right, what's up, everyone? Welcome back. We got my brother in the house today, Dr. Ben Morel. Ben, how are you doing today? Five star reviews for me, man, so excited to be able to share a message with you and anytime I get to talk to you, it was a good time. Absolutely, man. What was it? About two weeks ago, maybe, we kind of kicked it live on Instagram, had an awesome talk, and it's talking to my co-host, Ultima Shoe, unfortunately, couldn't be here today, man. He's a new father, so he's definitely super busy, especially with fellowship, too. But he's going to miss out on this talk, man, because I know you've got a lot of perspective and your journey is an incredible one and what you're doing now is pretty impressive. So let's get into it, but I want to first start off with who you were in your journey. Who was Ben? Who was a young version of Ben? What were his values? What did he care about? Man, let's jump into this one. So I'll just start it off with my father, who was born on a Native American reservation in 1948. So he's all known to be my grandpa, and so he's half-white, half-native, and pretty tough place at a tough time, so you can only imagine how hard knows that guy was, or is, rather, he's a great person, so that was, I would say, the beginnings of it is Oklahoma, right? So it's a very interesting place in general for culture, it's definitely a little bit of a melting pot, but for the most part, nobody goes there unless you have to go there, so that's where you raise it. And just from a geographical and epidemiologic standpoint, it's like number two, no B, HD, number two, and mental health, it's some of the words you can go, so that was the culture. So I get, yes, we definitely grew up old school. I have, you know, I have 11 siblings, up when I'm nine, yeah, I'm the ninth. So I'm deaf. I'm middle-lower tier. So essentially, I did all the work and didn't get any of the credit, you know what I mean? Yep. But yeah, so young Benjamin, you know, I would say that I experienced a lot of adverse childhood experiences. Of course, you know, you have that many children running around unsupervised in southern rural Oklahoma. You're going to see some crazy stuff, for sure. And some things are bad. It's going to happen eventually, but yeah, my little brother got hit by a truck right in front of me when I was five, you know, he got ran over, backed over. So, you know, that whole adverse childhood experience, literature, I don't know if you looked through that, really sets the old stage for a lot of, you know, addiction, chronic diseases. For me, it was more of the PTSD variety. So, truthfully, I went through up until like age 18, it was kind of honest, I don't remember a whole lot of it because it's kind of like dissociating, kind of hanging out, you know what I mean? I'm doing my thing. Luckily, I had a very strong family unit that kept me going, but that was most of it. Her nose, blue collar, get the work done. We don't complain about nothing, dad's a plumber, so I grew up plumbing, that kind of environment. Well, I mean, we'll go through that, right, that PTSD, was there, was there any option for you that you were thinking of getting help at that point? Like, what was your outlet? What did you do to maybe stop the dissociation, you know? Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. So, that's the thing about, you know, poor areas where they don't have a lot of access to healthcare. Like, I was blind until, I didn't realize this, but I wasn't actually dumb. I couldn't see the board because I was like, I just, I just, I was very, very good eyesight, right? So, I didn't figure that out. So, I was like, 15. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, I was like, oh, that's why I was bad at baseball. I couldn't see the ball. Yeah. So, that really, that really helped, and that's an example. But, for mental health, absolutely nothing. You know, if you know anything about, you know, Native American culture, you're really just, or country folks in general, you just don't do that, man, you just don't, I talked about that kind of thing, yeah, you're just going to pony back up, and they really just don't even acknowledge it, to be honest. Yeah. So, what got you interested then in medicine, and then eventually, you know, going into psychiatr residency? Well, there's definitely a couple of things, a host of things, right? So, of course, growing up in that, in that community, you see so many people struggling with their, their mental health, and there are people very, very close to me that had psychotic breaks, just really struggling with ADHD, obviously, and a lot of personality disorders, and really a lot of it stemmed from, truthfully, my brother, you know, he was, he's, you know, allowed me to speak about this openly, but he has, you know, he was still the heroine addiction for, you know, 10 years, my entire time during medical school residency. So, watching that unfold in front of me, and then my older brother was also in, you know, death and an opioids. So, I really saw that take off, it wasn't a huge fan of that, and that being said, we had all experienced the same things, and people with trauma, you know, there's a couple of different ways you're going to go about it to ease that pain within. For them, a lot of people, they seek external, you know, means to fill that gap. The other portion of them will become hyper focused on tasks, because if your attention is fully involved in something else, then it won't be on the pain. So, that was a route that I took, and that's why I got to use medicine right, because that's not a choice. You got hyper focus, we ain't going to make it. But essentially, I was, I lived my whole life in a kind of faceless, you know, drifty area until I was like 18, and you'll always hear me preach purpose for this reason, but my little brother Cohen was the one who actually, you know, he lived after he got hit by that truck, and I raised a person with intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities. So, I'll take him to school, you know, give him baths and all that stuff. He's hilarious. He's like a, you know, he's like a giant 250 pound teddy bear. That's awesome. And without him, I would, I'm being serious. I don't know if I even be here. I know he's a source of stability for me, and really the only person who I truly experienced love from, but when I was 18 years old, I was like, man, I just want to do what those doctors did for him. You know, I want to give people life. And that, that was the first time, being very honest, doc, this is the first time where I truly felt like in reality, and I took control of my existence and was like, okay, we're going to go make something happen. Well, I love that, man, taking control of your existence, that's some, that's some powerful stuff right there that I think a lot of people need to hear. And I'm assuming, because I want to ask you about your residency experience right here, but I'm assuming that's related to it, right? So take us through kind of, you know, going through residency, what happened, what was going in your head at that point? So definitely, you know, the system is not geared up for taking care of people's mental health to start with, right? So if you go into that with any level of something, you know, previous, right? And it's going to exacerbate that, you know? And when I was younger, I had concerns of like, you know, I was like, maybe I'm a little bit bipolar, I don't know. So then I was thinking about a month long of night shifts, and I was like, yo, how many doctors have had, you know, manic episodes that were exclusively due to the high dose of stimulants required of residency and night, night shifts, man, alternate night and days, right? Yeah. So reminding of the original question, I'll be going on to engines. Yeah, no, not a problem. So take us through kind of what residency was like for you, right? And what was that decision for you to, how long were you at it for? Two years. Two years. Okay. And then what was that decision for you to say, I've had enough. I'm actually just going to step outside of this and then like I said, take control of your existence. Oh, yeah, that was another final step, right? So for sure, my first, the first step into taking control over my existence, when I was 18, right? So that always stayed in the back of my mind to, you know, you do, you have to do you first. And anybody who has any kind of, you know, mental health history, you'll tell you this that, you know, my, my, my routines, my rituals, my habits and my mindset, you know, they're not a choice. Like those are the things that I have to have, right? My values, I have to follow my heart, otherwise things go really bad, really fast. So I just can't, I can't do anything other than that. So when I got to residency, the, the moral injury definition of burnout really hit moral injury in that you feel unethical doing some of the stuff that you're doing, right? You're, you're providing care that sometimes is not the best care, right? Like you have just worked it, you know, a 24 hour shift and here I am managing somebody's like end of life complication potentially. And you know, your, a lot of times it's just really weird guilt because I wanted, I have a certain standard to which I hold myself and I'm unable to reach that standard. So then I underperform and that does what? It kills your heart, right? Because you're going to get into the morals of do your best, right? So that right there was a first symptom. The second thing was just, I'm just a scientist, man, you know, I look, I look at things and certain things weren't adding up, you know, feeling like a little bit of a hypocrite. It's like we're supposed to preach health and wellness in this, in this business, right? In this, it's oddly more like call it that, you know, it's a calling to be a medicine. And a lot of, you know, financial incentivization and those kind of things, they just didn't fit with, you know, my mentality of how I wanted to do medicine. You know, I think your first point is, is so accurate because I remember talking about this, you know, through social media as a third and fourth year medical student that medicines very selfish early on, right? I think we go through it initially so that we can learn, right? Like, yes, I'm trying to take care of the patient, but as much as the patients there, I'm trying to get home early, I'm doing subpar care because I want to go and study to eventually maybe down the road, pay attention to the details that matter. And I talk about this with my wife all the time, right? It's about medicines very detailed oriented, but it's so tough to pay attention to details that you don't really care about. You know what I mean? Like for me, I love functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, integrative medicine. We've talked about this. That's what, you know, if I saw them on a daily basis, my 100% of my attention would be there, right? It's in like day and day out, but the minute you remove that, right, which is a residency for a lot of people because you have to go through things just to learn it, you're going to go through that moral injury in a way. And I totally understand what you mean by not being a hypocrite, not giving that best care. And it's the reason why you're telling me, man, like, hey, just go to your coaching and my co-host is telling me the same thing. So I think that point is so crucial, I think, for pre-meds to understand, especially, right, going in. There's this false, ideal, ideal thought that a lot of pre-meds have going in that, oh, the minute I'm like a med student, I get to see patients and do this, I'm going to be on top of it. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, and you realize it's all, it's impossible to do if your heart's not fully into what it is that you want to do. So I appreciate you saying that. My next question is, you know, the conversation you're had when you're thinking about these two points that you made, did you have a backup plan? Like, what was going to be your next step when you said, hey, I'm out of this, right? What was going to be your next residency? So here's the next, definitely one more comment about that previous thing I had said was, I agree with everything you said, and an honest conversation about what medical school is, what residency it is, and what being an attending is, and what the business side of medicine will be, that conversation never happened. And I talked to many and advised me, many of my mentors, many of medical students, nobody told me, and that's why I kind of set out on that mission, is to make sure it informed people, because if I had to know that ahead of time, I could have made some different decisions, you know, or at least been more prepared for it. So definitely keep your ear to the ground, young folks who are in medicine, in terms of, in terms of my ability to walk out of residency, which is, you know, fair, for what I'm saying is, it was not, I did not drop out of residency. I chose to do something that aligned more with what I was wanting to accomplish, right? So at no point in time, where is there ever a decision where I wasn't performing highly and I was, say, not meeting my own standard or expectations, like I was doing great in residency, I was having the time of my life, I was really enjoying it. That being said, there was something tugging at me on the inside that was like, hey, you feel like you're called to something a little bit bigger, and you want to put some time into it and you don't have any of that because of this other endeavor. Now at this point in time, I'm 29 years old and I pretty much rock just about every environment I've ever been in, except for the environment that I got to create, right? It was always somebody else's, you know? So that, that calling to me was like, yo, if you can put, if you can go through medical school, right? If you can make it that far, you are in the top highest level of, in healthcare in general, if you can do that, you are able to manage emotions, you're intellectual, you're hard working, you can do anything that you want to do. And I told this to my program director, whenever I was, and in turn, because we're not getting the, some of the things that we, I felt we needed, I said, I can make more money pick and corn than doing this. Yeah. And he was like, yeah, literally, like literally. And I meant that I just felt confident in my abilities to be able to put a plan together because, just because of that, reflecting on my life, like if you can be a doctor, working healthcare, you know, you can do absolutely anything in terms of a plan B. You know, I had met somebody who had reached out to me and she said, you know, we could, we could hit the ground running with it with a coaching business. She said, she'll do all the business side of things. She'll manage everything. She said, all you have to do is be the face of it and do the coaching aspect and do your thing and just be in an environment in no limits where you can do what you want to do and speak what you want to speak. And to me at that particular time, that sounded like, you know, that was my, that was my ticket to paradise. Of course, there's some other things going on in my life that forced my hand to do that because that's a big decision, right? I could never imagine making that without some extra prompts, but my brother was essentially like on his deathbed and I had to, I had to go take a leave of absence to go take care of him. Father was also bouncing back from cancer. Really wasn't an option. Like I have to take care of my family or they are not going to make it, right? Gotcha, man. So you leave residency. You now have a new vision. What is that vision? What entails, entails it. So the future of medicine is the empowering, educating and guiding people within their own homes. You have access to them 24, seven. This whole, I only get to talk to them for like 15 minutes, that, that angle fly. People hate that. Providers hate that. Everybody hates it except for the people making the money, right? And that is coming to the public's eye that, and they're, and plus it would be different if it worked, right? If it were effective, it would be different, but it's not, you know, yeah, we're not. We should be one of the healthiest countries in the world, but we're not, right? So definitely, you know, reflecting on some of these things where I realized that, you know, the development of technology that things are evolving rapidly. We are in the age of information and the implementation of, of information. So what I wanted to do was, one more thing was medicine is 17 years behind of the research. It takes 17 years to create a paradigm change that reflects what is actually correct. So that's, and, and nowadays time, that is archaic. Like that is, it should be doing things like it's 2005, you know, to me, like, yeah, no, it's just not going to cut it. So like if we can stay at the razor's edge of knowledge and information and then distribute that information that that's credible, that's practical, that's easy and integrable into a lifestyle, eventually you can keep people from jumping into the river. When I was in residency, I kept pulling people out of the river and eventually I was like, why are there so many people in this river? So you have to go upstream and figure out what's causing people to jump in. It's lifestyle. And as much as I love medications and surgeries and all that cool stuff, I could, you know, you could reduce a huge volume of that just by giving people the appropriate education and information and giving them a little bit of guidance on how to implement that into their life. Because I mean, I had PTSD, I was obese, you know, I probably fiddle around with some things I shouldn't have and that was all stemming from, you know, it was just poor lifestyle management and the poor mindset in a lack of community. Yeah, man, and you are someone who has shown that change, right? I encourage people to go on Instagram and look at your profile, man, you're absolutely ripped now. So to say you're obese and then you're doing it, I mean, it makes sense, right, that you're coaching, that you have the power to do this, you've gone through it, you've done it, right? So props to you, man, for that. What made you kind of pursue life coaching at least? Did you go through any type of certification like courses, like what was that curriculum like for you? Hell no, man, life coaching somebody who's been through it and done it, right? So you know, for me, from somebody who rose out of poverty and then essentially had to take remedial tests to get into community college and then to go from there to four years and then graduate summa cum laude, 391 play college football and to leave my family along the way whilst managing, balancing my own mental health and then ultimately curing my mental health during the hardest time of a human being's life medical school and residency. You know, I felt very confident in my abilities to be able to speak that message from from my own heart, not in a way of like, oh, I did it so you can do it more from a position of like, I understand suffering. I truly do. Like I was horrific for a lot of my life. I went to some pretty dark places and my ability to be able to find that little things that can empower people, right? So like the internal energy is very, very interesting, right? There's something deeper than food and sleep that gives human beings this rush of power, right? And I'm very, very interested in that because that's what got me through a lot of those things was, you know, diving deep within myself and, you know, quasi-spiritual kind of experiences where you connect to something bigger that pushes you to places that you can't go. That being said, you know, just a reminder, like I taught a dumb person, that was me to make it all the way through. You know, I taught a dumb person how to heal their mental health. That was me. You know, I taught an obese person how to become fit. That was me so I can definitely felt comfortable sharing that information on how they can do it too. That's 100%. And we are our biggest teachers and students, right? So the best experience we can get is for ourselves to cut. The human body is the greatest physician that we know. Ah, yes. Give it what, if we give it what it needs, it's going to do what it needs to do. For sure. I want to touch on mental health now, right? So how big of an issue is it? Massive. Mass is getting worse. It's all massive and getting bigger. I mean, it's everywhere across the board. So one of the reasons I always tend to broadcast what it is in healthcare, right? So about a quarter of a, a quarter of doctors or so are going to experience a major depressive episode between their training and their practice, 50% of physicians know somebody who committed suicide or is competent, competent, thinking about committing suicide. That's also a physician. So at 20%, or it's really 19% of OB-GYN residents have suicidal thoughts, 20%, 19%, right? Like you're talking about it makes sense, doesn't it? It's a tough place to be, it's ironic, right? It's ironic. So if these are the leaders of health and wellness, right, then what's going to be happening down below that? It's bad, man. So the burnout rates, I thought at first of all, I thought it was just bad in medicine, that's what drove me down the whole burnout rabbit hole. Now everybody's burned out, you can go anywhere. So in society, it's about 50%. And there's been an excellent degree, an America is great at this, corporate America. It knows how to get people to work to the bone. There's this thought out there that mental health is being overblown, that there's this double edge sword to it, right? That humans evolved with, you know, wanting to survive, so stress is inherent to us. So when we see small stimuli that are supposed to make us anxious or give us a little bit of stress, because we're talking about mental health so much globally, everyone out there who hears it thinks that it's happening to them, do you think that is an issue? Like is there a certain criteria or baseline that has to be reached in order to define this mental health, or could even those, you know, small stimuli that are causing us anxiety be classified into that bucket? So there's an issue in the medical system in general with a weakness focus, right? So we tend to always look at what's wrong with people, and we don't ever look at what's right with people, right? I don't know if you've ever done a psych interview, but it's the most miserable thing that you'll ever be a part of. You essentially go through all the worst things that this person's ever experienced or been through, and you don't really ask them otherwise at the end, like what's keeping you alive, right? At no point in time, do you ask like, what are you good at? You know, how did you overcome? How did you cope? How did you, you know, proceed through this in the manner that you did? So I think in general, we have a tendency to focus on the worst aspects of folks and people. And if you broadcast, you know, pretty much any mental health symptom, right? So mental health, all of the diagnoses, these are all spectrum symptoms, right? So everybody's a little bit depressed at certain times. Everybody's a little bit anxious at certain times also, right? So really it's, it's, there's a fluctuation and time and space of you have to have the constellation of a bunch of those, right? So the biggest thing whenever I talk to people is functioning, right? If you are able to get through and you're able to do well and still experience positive emotions, then you are not mentally ill. You are, you are still healthy, right? Whenever it starts repeating your function, your ability to perform your purpose, if it's in the way of that, now we're talking about something that you need to be addressing with a little more attention. That being said, I cannot stand it when people say that they're depressed and they're anxious and they're just a regular person that are being lazy and don't want to push through a little bit of pain because that is doing a huge, a huge disservice to people who are actually suffering. Yeah. No, thank you for saying that because I think now with social media, right, I mean, we can talk about social media all day too in terms of how everybody's an advocate, man, everybody's an advocate. Again, right? Everyone's an advocate. Everyone's looking for follows and likes. Everyone's saying, I now have mental health, you know, and that, I think that's what my question was leading to is exactly what you said. So I'm glad you define that at least, you know, it has to get in the way, right? I mean, that is what true dysfunction would look like. Bring it back to you. How did you know that you overcame your mental illness? First, I'll ask you at two parts, what did you do? Like was there a specific routine or specific practice that you did? And then two, how did you know that this switch was flipped? So there's a, how I discovered this issue was my, my psychiatry residency. It was, no, it was second year med school whenever I was reading through psychiatry, you know, preclinicals and unbeknownst to me, right? Like, I thought everybody felt this way and had experienced these things. I was like, oh, flashbacks, nightmares. I thought that everybody had those, like, no, no, like spacing out of your body. And I was like, that's what's going on. So that's whenever it finally dawned on me. Of course, I refused to admit that, right? I was like, no, you know, that's just being weaker or whatever, you know, like I said, I grew up in a different way where you just, you just didn't admit any kind of that thing. So eventually it got to the point in time. It was by third year medical school where I literally just had to address it. It was, it was not a choice. I was like, I'm so sick and tired of feeling this way. And I could barely, and I'm talking barely get out of bed in the morning. And I was so anxious I could barely breathe and going through surgery rotations and my brother was really bad with his, his heroin addiction at the time. And like I always just feel like, like trash. So I actually did something that, you know, very few medical students do, which was use their own powers for good. And I went up and I went on PubMed and I started looking up stuff and I can be better and do better, right? So as soon as I stumbled across a couple of key information that really shifted my whole perspective on health wellness and the mind, the mind game in general. So there was two studies that were most, most valuable to me. The first one demonstrated, it's called the meditative mind, essentially what it was was a series of FM, a meta-analysis of FMRI studies that demonstrated the change of neurobiology through time with meditative practices such as, you know, yoga, Tai Chi, you know, gratitude practices, all these things. So, you know, young me, like I'm thinking I'm stuck this way. I was very determined, deterministic in my, in my like, oh, your DNA, your genetics or what determines who you are and once you're away, you can't undo it. No, not at all. Like your DNA is always shifting in three dimensional space to do different things. It's a state of flow and existence. And then your neurobiology shifts in as little as eight weeks and they can measure it. So I'm sitting here reading this. I'm like, oh my God. So just like the gym, where you can work out your arms and they get bigger and you get stronger, the same thing is true with your brain. So as soon as I started working my brain out, I watched these things evolve and the number one practice for me, I would say would be mindfulness, that changed the whole game, just like getting out of my head and being present in my body. For me, that was particularly powerful with like exercise, which was probably while I was so attracted to that at an early age. Of course, the same thing was true for nutrition. You know, we eat for, we eat what we become. We got pretty deep into the inflammation, inflammation and, and neuro inflammation, psychoneuro immunology. Very interesting stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. So if we're swollen, right, if we're inflamed, your brain is also a little bit inflamed. And whenever you're, whenever that happens, it's like a low level six syndrome. You're lethargic, you're tired, it's hard to think about the future, right? Your, your synapses aren't, they're not firing the way that they're supposed to be and receding the way that they're supposed to be because everything's all puffy. And that made a lot of sense for me, given the high levels of stress and some of the things that were going on in my life. Yeah. So putting those pieces together for lifestyle changes and, and, you know, attaching that to a higher purpose of like, I want, if it's possible for me to overcome this, it must be possible for this, for other people to do the same. And I wanted to share that with, and then that's the time I chose psychiatry. Love them, it's kind of full circle. You know, I look at your Instagram, I see what you, you know, tweet, you post, you do videos. It seems like you're always in flow, man. It seems like you're enjoying life. You know how to create positive energy, kind of just like, you know, on the spot. It seems like you've almost biohacked that in order to be able to charge your electrons up to the same frequency that I went to, right? What's your routine like, like, what is your process now every day? Is there something specific you do? Man, there's a lot of things, and this is definitely something I dial in with the folks that I work with, is that, you know, just like, you know, just like doing, you know, blood sugars, right? So if we use, if we use, if we try to chase it with insulin, right, we're always behind the symptoms. And this is the way Western medicine is in general, is we're just chasing symptoms, right? We wait for something to pop up, then we treat it. For me, you know, I, of course, after several rounds of burnout and, and, and depressive episodes, you realize that, hey, you know, I can't wait for there to be, my house is burning down before I start throwing buckets of water on it. So the same thing is true with the mental health and the energy game. So being proactive about your energy, being, like, being strategic on it, right? So if we could put a Dr. Darshan paper and say, hey, if we could build his best energy, how would we do that? If you could, if you had a one hour time block or 30 minute time block to, to get yourself ready for war that you had to go to that day, what would that, what would that routine look like? So for me, Wim Hof breathing method. And then I go essentially straight into gratitude, I do about 15, 20 minutes of yoga. And then I'll journal out what I want to do for my day. A lot of visualization also, right? So my big thing is like internal energy, right? In order to do that, visualizing things that are very, very powerful to us and, you know, seeing yourself speaking on stage in front of thousands of people, visualize yourself hugging, you know, your loved ones before they, before they leave you or making the impact that you want to make impact with the patients, that the things that truly make you want to be alive. Those are the first things that I visit in the morning or any time in a minute point of struggling. Absolutely, man. In order to manifest, it starts from the internal, right? The internal turns into the external and then we're able to use that kind of law of attraction and the spiritual, spiritual guide that we all, that we all have within us. Answer this question in any way you want. It opens a little meta, but how much of life is mental versus physical versus emotional? Now I break it down before, you know, physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. There's four ways that we can truly, you know, view the human, human life. To me, the mental aspect of things, that's going to be your, you know, your logic and reasoning centers, right? So it really, a lot of that, you know, it really truly depends on the, on the person. It's like I said, it's very, it's very difficult to get that to truly align with your, with your passions, right? That's a fully integrated person. So that's, that's whenever you achieve a whole new level. If you can get your mental game to match your emotional game, you're about to be on some superhuman behavior. And truthfully, that's the life that I'm trying to create. That's where a lot of my energy comes from. It's not a perfect game. It's not. So in terms of the mental game, you have to sit down with those emotions, right? And figure out what are these things truly telling me to do, right? And then align that with your purpose. That's that spiritual realm. And once you have all those things in line towards the same direction, that, that, this thing right here is the chess player, right? This is the governor and you're buying, and your body is the, is the army. So, so if you, if you have the general, up here, not the governor, I don't want to use political figures in general, right? You want to use that general to put the plan together, you know, the general, general is the one that wins the war. Emotions will get you feeling good, but that mine, that mindset, the mentality, that's what's going to put the, the actual things into play for you to execute on your higher order mission. Love it. So a lot of what you're talking about is probably some of the lingo that you're using when you're even coaching, right? So let me start with this. What type of patients are coming to, not patients. What kind of clients are coming to see you? What kind of people are coming to see you? No, for sure. So I mean, obviously I have a history in healthcare and working with burned out individuals. That's my, that's my bread and butter you could say. So anybody who sees my stuff and you be like, Hey, you know, I truly resonate with the moral injury thing. Now, I really resonate with the fact that this guy said, I'm done with this. I'm going to go live in a van and travel, travel the country until I get my soul back. A lot of people, they relate to that experience, which I think is really funny because I thought it was just me on an island out there. So essentially, that's my, that's probably my go to that being said, anybody in who has that sensation of, I feel like I should be doing something else. I'm not getting through, I'm putting in a lot of work here and not getting a lot of reward. And that's probably the truest burnout that there is. It's not an overworking thing. It's an under reward thing. They're not getting those powerful experiences that need, they need to be getting on a day in and day out. And finally, somebody who can just relate to my story, I've been certified garbage in multiple ways in my past and was able to put it together for myself and many other people. So once they, that's the whole social proof aspect of it is like, Oh, this guy has worked with a bunch of people and helped a bunch of people from like heroin addicts, the absolute hardest folks that you can imagine, two, working with other physicians that are highly successful. Yeah. It builds a degree of trust in the person in the person's mind, but you see the results on Instagram. You know, you can scroll and see things. Sure. Yeah. What kind of techniques and approaches are you using with your clients? You know, I think I saw something just on Instagram about, you know, somebody's about to go to the gym. So you're obviously using some physical fitness to launch some of that energy, but what other specific techniques approaches do you use? Yeah. So there's really three ways that I go about it. You know, my three pillars are all about the first one is lifestyle organization and optimization, right? Okay. So until until and this where that mental aspect comes down and so we can organize your life, you know, and the metaphor I always use for people is it's life is like music, right? So if it's like screeching and it's like all over the place and it's and there's no rhythm to it, it's like, how could you possibly thrive or dance in that situation when you just want to like plug your ears and scream, right? And to a lot of people, that's the way a lot of mental health feels or burnout feels. It's like, oh my god, just make it stop. So just like music, we must compose it. We must have certain rhythms on things that align with what you want to accomplish. So the first thing we do is organize that, you know, sleep, exercise, nutrition, social interaction, your relationships and some meditation spirituality, those five pillars, put those on paper, right? How do we create your best day? Once we've done that, we optimize your best day, plug in some new things. Once we've done that, we create a week. And once we've gone through a week and we get it out there, then we optimize that. Then I'll put down a monthly schedule, we'll do that and then we'll optimize that and do the same thing for a year. And so the essentially the person is guaranteed to walk away with the sheet music for their life. So they can stand up there like Beethoven or whatever, just get it on. So the second, that's the first form of it, the first pillar, the second pillar is high performance habits. There are just certain things that you have to do in order to be able to recover faster to sleep better, to be stronger and quicker. There's a bunch of evidence-based stuff out there, Andrew Huberman's lab. I don't know if you watched that dude's podcast, but oh god, there's all kinds of crazy stuff. Matt Walker, the sleep physiologist, absolutely incredible. There are certain ways to get to places faster and better and stronger that I cannot believe they do not teach in grade school. That's right. You can make people superhuman. I made myself in residency, like I said, I was my first guinea pig. I was working 60, 80 hours a week, managing my family, and I was still waking up at like 4-4-30 to go to the gym in the morning and I still felt great throughout the day by using the right supplementation and attitude and getting like, yeah, yeah. So that's the second pillar of what I do is those high performance habits. And then the third one is just teaching people the mindset, right? There's a couple of key psychological principles that a human being must absolutely know. And the first one is how do I self-motivate Dr. Darsch, how do I get myself in a position of like, I don't want to do anything to all of a sudden, I'm willing to die for what I believe in. Right? So that's a learnable skill. So that's a big one growth mindset, positive psychology, all these good things, but those are the big centers right there. 100%. Totally relate to all of that, man. I love it. I love it. You know, you talked about how people relate to your story and the self-discovery aspect of it. Totally believe it's because people aren't living their dreams out, you know, like for you, you made that decision, you controlled your own existence, but a lot of people will say, Tim, I wish I was bad. I wish I could go in that cross-country, you know, lived in man and going around and discovering myself. How do you recommend people develop their own philosophy, their own perspective so that they can self-discovery? Your word meditation means coming to understand yourself, right? So spending time with how do I operate, how do I think, how do I behave? What things make me want to go, what things make me want to stop? One of my favorite psychologists all time is number one thing is do not believe in things that do not empower you. So if there is anything that crosses your thought, it comes to your stream of consciousness and it suppresses you, represses you, or makes you feel like you are less than, you say goodbye to it. If there is anything that builds you, gives you strength, gives you those tingles, makes you feel alive, then you grab it and you hold on to it very tightly and your goal is to magnify that in your life. We as humans, this is the hard part. We do not have a huge role in choosing that, right? So for me, I did not get you to say like, oh, I want to do these things or those things. There were certain things I was called to do, like they were within me, just the same way that they are within you. So sitting with it and getting to understand those things and putting that into your life, that is starting point number one. Beautiful man, I think it was Blasic Pascal who said all of humanity is probably to be solved if humans had the ability to just sit quietly and think for themselves, you know, I mean, there is so much, so much that we are missing out on knowledge within our own subconscious that we are not recognizing, that we are not taking out and putting into action. So I mean, I love that, I have been doing meditation, you know, even like 10 minutes, man, just sitting like, just being comfortable with silence, I think is huge, right? I mean, I go to the sauna almost every morning and the amount of people I see, like, that just have to bring a phone with them. Oh, there you go. Oh, I can't stand, I can't stand that, man. I'm like, you can't just enjoy the suffering, you know, like, enjoy the heat, just like just just get down with the elements, be yourself, like it's okay, you don't need to take it when you're taking a shit, you know, you don't need your phone all the time. It's okay, leave your phone back, leave and just sit with your thoughts, man, I think there's so much power within that. You know, we touched a little bit about the state of healthcare right now and I think we both agree kind of what the future looks like. It's going to be consumerism, right? I mean, people are sick. These 50-minute visits, they won't be hour to hour. They're willing to pay out a pocket for it if they need to. And they're willing to be the consumer to figure out their own labs. What is the future of mental health look like? So we've honestly, it'll be very similar to the DPC model right now, direct primary care. It'll be similar to that where people will essentially be buying packages, right? And the future of health care is truthfully, is a combination of coaching and physician work, right? So essentially, you have an ability to take the coaching to another higher level where you have access to, you know, medical records and labs and you're creating that together for them. So essentially, what is going to be a lot of what I spoke on earlier is going to be educating people within their homes and powering them and guiding them more than simply a couple of, you know, minutes out of the month, that's not going to get the job done, right? It's just not going to get the job done. So we have to have a higher level of availability to the person. Of course, we can't do that with our time. So once you have a good understanding or a good hold of no depression, anxiety or whatever mental health thing that you have, you want to prove that, approve a process that works for the particular kind of person that you want to work with, right? And then, of course, these people are going to read the reviews online, right? Because you're not going to be able to have access to say, like, you know, true research. But word of mouth is the most powerful thing that you can possibly have. If you said, you know, if you said that you cured 2,000 people from depression, they were like, all right, how'd you do it? You know what I mean? Like, shit, where the last sign, especially going through it. So something like that for me would be getting that highest level of access, which is looking towards is going to be an app that will help the person with those five pillars, sleep, exercise, nutrition, social interaction and spirituality. So essentially, that'll be like a portable, virtual therapist, but it's aligned with everything that they want to accomplish. So a lot of mental health comes from, what do I do? What do I do? It's like, ah, here's the plan that I created. And this is the difference. This is egocentonic, right? It agrees with that person because they came up with their own plan. And then letting them engage in that, that's the powerful one. And then community, right? Online communities is going to be absolutely huge. They're already huge. That's like Facebook's whole model right now is communities. Gotcha. Gotcha. Between those two people and then everybody gets together a couple of times a year for say an organized event where you take, so you'd have that group or those groups and you say, hey, we're all going to meet in like Sedona on this day for a retreat. And then all those people pile in and go. Yeah, yeah, building social connection, man. I think that's one of the big pillars in the blue zones too, right? Where longevity really lives is the, we see those groups of people really, really rely on each other. Do you have a, do you have any opinion on the psychedelics, you know, low LSD, psilocybin, low dose in the M.A.? Any of those things to help with PTSD mental health issues? Yeah, take them all, take them all. So I mean, the, the first rule of medicine is do no harm, right? And there's enough, there's enough, you know, there's enough evidence out there already that demonstrates the, actually, we shouldn't have to argue this as wild of me, especially from somebody who were so happily readily to throw out Xanax and, you know, opioids for decades and we're now reaping the absolute horrors of that, right? For a while now. And we're so slow to, you know, grant access to these things that are, it's pretty obvious. And these things are extremely powerful for, you know, addiction, depression, anxiety. And you know, I understand that, you know, you want to be, you want to be careful with the psychedelics because it's Pandora's box. It's truthfully is there's a lot of power in them. And there's a lot of power for like danger with them also, right? So all of those, all of the psychedelics, essentially, they are dependent on the experience that the person that engages in during that, during that healing session, right? So you can drop mushrooms on people, LSD, MDMA, and if you just throw them in a room, right? With a bunch of snakes, they're not going to come out of that. Like, oh, I'm not depressed anymore, right? So what these things are is a gateway to a, to a transcendent state of being for them to see beyond their pain and suffering for even brief moments in time. That perspective shift is what brings the ultimate change in the person because it's a change in perspective, right? So the actual mushrooms aren't like the cure. It's the experience that change your perspective that is the cure. But yeah, same for ketamine and all those things, it's, it's going to be the future, man. We got to quit. We got to quit being afraid of them. We just got to be better with them. Yeah, man. Like you said, 17 more years. So that research comes through. Bro, yeah, remember, remember I said I was Native American, dude, like, you know, that peyote, right? Like, we were the, we started that, yeah, I mean, yeah, so like, that's what, yeah, it got me very interested in that at a, at a early age, when I was like, when I was reading the books of one of the, one of the older, you know, older medicine men. And this was after all the genocide and, you know, being put on reservations and everything. And he was essentially like the only one left. And he was writing in it, in his books, he said, there's only one thing that seems to give the spirit back to the people and his peyote. And I think that's exactly why it was removed because you can't have that if you're trying to suppress a certain group of people. So another big, another big thing I always point out to people is there's two groups of people that wanted to, that fought back against the American government from within. The first one was Native Americans, you know, shout out, second one was hippies, shout out again. So what happened to both of those people? They had so I could dogs ripped out from underneath their, their culture. And because they're creating that change, it doesn't go with the man. Yeah. And for people that don't understand, I mean, this is a, that's been a known issue, right? In terms of marijuana and the legalization now. And when we look back at the history of marijuana, that's a critical part of it is that, that's suppression. Well, dude, you've been spending facts. I want to keep it going, man, because I know there's so much. But I want to get a little deeper into the perspective, man. So to, we got a lot of pre-meds listening to this as well as medical students, what's, you know, a piece or two of it, of advice that you'd give them, especially knowing your journey, what you've gone through, what would you tell them? The first thing is to have confidence in yourself. And that comes foremost before putting any kind of confidence into the system. Same thing with the government or any other body that's, you know, seeking control, it can provide a framework for us to exist in, you know, we tend to want to, we almost treat it like a religion. And I think that's especially true in medicine, where we feel like guilty if we don't study. You know, I feel morally like fractured if I don't study 120 hours a week or, or I feel like I have to do this so that I can live out my purpose. And that's, that's your boxing yourself in and you're limiting your potential within you is the ability to do anything that you want to do. If you want to impact millions of people, you can go and create that. If you have the talent to get into medicine, then you can absolutely go find a way to, to hit millions of people and create that change and to find a way for you to live out your purpose in a grander way. So that's, that's what happened to me in residency is I, I truly had a look at myself. And honestly in medical school, I had somebody who was a billionaire that looked at me and said, she said, she said, what do you do, Benjamin? I said, I'm a medical student and I said, well, my chest up, you know, I was like, yes, right. And she goes, you waste in your time. I was like, what you mean? She is the smartest people don't go to medical school, then. And I was like, oh. So that's it. So that means empower yourself. So you might, we might, she, we might think that medicine is like the holy grail, but truthfully, you, you are the holy grail and don't ever lose that, that sight and doubt in yourself. The second thing is just have an objective lay of the land is that many a man and woman better than you have gone through this system and been absolutely destroyed and killed themselves. So that's right. So 50% of people, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's very, very, very common. So knowing that going into it, do you think that you're going to be the person who just like overcomes it, like, no, you're a human being, you're a human being. You have better have a formula, a formula to plan on how to do that. If you need that, reach out to me, I'll get it to you, or at least an understanding on how to, how to get started. So being proactive, like I know I'm about to be extremely tired, extremely overworked. How am I going to manage that, right? So be prepared. Very true, man, wise words. What would you tell five year old Ben with all the knowledge you have now? It gets better, little homie, it gets a lot better. Right. Do you do the fullest, bro, and you can ever mess up, to be honest, I love it, man, I love it. Well, dude, what is next for you? What are your plans? What's your vision like coming up? What do you got going? Man, I'll kind of stuff to be honest. So I got this high-performance mental health, is the name of my clinic. No, I'm a general practitioner, but I work with primarily mental health patients, pretty much exclusively mental health patients. That's what I feel most comfortable with, that's where I'm called. And I love merging that with lifestyle, medicine, tactics to create some of these things to get people better, faster. So essentially, merging that with coaching, I absolutely love that, the speaking aspects. No, I want to land a TED talk. I want to be like you. You know what I mean when I grow up, trying to feel like Dr. Darshoek here, really speaking the message out there, dude, so I feel like I've had the keys that really helped me unlock. My best life, dude, and I feel compelled and like literally, like, I have to tell people, it's just not a choice anymore, you know? I'm like this far away from being the guy on the corner with the sign that says, you know Jesus is coming again, but really, it's like, but really, it's like meditate, drink water and go to bed on time, just stay on the corner, meditate, go to bed, go to bed, go to bed. You know what I mean? I love it. Yeah, I would say long term, though, man, I'm going to get this, I'm going to get a book out, I'm going to keep on a speaking tour. And hopefully someday we'll just be able to build a clinic where anybody can walk into those front doors and feel welcome and find a place to healing, also world travels, though. Absolutely, man. Hey, well, if there's anyone that can do it, man, it's, it's you, man, I feel like you're like my long lost brother, dude, everything you're speaking, I'm just like, oh, this is hitting me. I don't like, I just, I feel it, man, I love everything you're saying, I mean, but I meditate these are thoughts I have and there's so very few people that you can have these conversations with. You know what I mean? Like at this type of level, with that type of understanding, so I'm just hoping more and more people can start to awaken, quote unquote, get woke, I guess, you know, for lack of a better word and start to think about these things and start to build a better version of themselves. So truly appreciate you coming on here, man, being vulnerable, being an open book, speaking the truth. For, I know people listening to this will want to find you, want to listen to more, where can they get your information, where can they find you? Yeah, I'm all over Instagram and I just started to take talk too. I got to, unfortunately, I have to go viral to get a message out and that's insane. That's insane. I don't want to do this shit, man. I am with you. I'm like, all right, right, but then you know, I had a profound moment when I was in the red light therapy session this morning, where I was like, hey, you know, you are in a blessed time where you have access to millions of people and you have a message to preach and you already know that the, that the news networks aren't going to do it, man. So it's, it's a blessing to be able to do these things. Is it a little annoying, absolutely, but it's a, it's a, it's a temporary sacrifice for a higher gain. Oh, yeah, Dr. Bennergy on Instagram, Dr. Bennergy on Twitter, TikTok and really my Facebook page breaking burnout for healthcare professionals. That's my number one go to. That's like my living room where I have these honest conversations with people. I do guided meditations. I'll break down topics for people. I give all my free resources out on like, how do I plan my ideal day? I got worksheets for that. You can bust that out in 45 minutes and increase. You can two extra energy, two extra sleep, all these kind of crazy things. So if you're not any interested in that, by all means, just hit me up on either Instagram or Facebook. We'll get you the link to that and get you enrolled other than that. LinkedIn, if you're real boring, I'm on there too. Yeah, I'm posting more LinkedIn, you know, try to get that older, bolder, boober crowd, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, take TikTok, Dars, just not LinkedIn, Dars. They're like the exact opposite, and I'm doing posts and I'm literally going through personality just to try to figure out who I am. Let me tell you, man, let me tell you, man, I can't even recycle material anymore. You know, you used to be able to post on all platforms. You can't do that, man. People don't need to be like, who's this idiot? Not anymore. You're going to get no way to Instagram. Well, we're going to link everything you just mentioned into the show notes. And then Ben, our last question we ask everyone is, how do we put the health back in health care? Rue cause, man. So what is the, what, what, first of all, what does it take to make a person actually healthy and then actually focus on those things, moving from a weakness focused towards a strength focus, what makes people well focus on those and do them every single day and watch what happens to you? Love it. Wise words. Well, Ben, thank you so much for coming on here again, dude. I truly appreciate you. That's the lesson, bro. You didn't hit me up any time, man. Appreciate it. Alright, thank you so much for tuning into that episode. I hope you guys were all inspired by Ben's message. I mean, he was definitely vulnerable and I know I was inspired by the deeper perspectives that he has gained throughout his life. And I think the struggles that he has overcome is truly inspirational for all of us in order for us to become the best version of ourselves. So whenever you have those tougher decisions to make, I really think it's important to rationalize through them and not only think about how it can affect us in the short term, but also the long term. So I think we all have it within us to pursue a great life, a destined life full of passion and purpose. And again, guys, if you are enjoying these episodes, please make sure to leave a five-star rating and review. It really helps us out and it helps our guests out to get their message out to people who may not have the chance to listen to them. And if you want to see short video clips, we now have those available on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. So if you want to see what our guests look like and what different topics they're talking about, be sure to check out those socials. And as always, the medical disclaimer, everything in this podcast is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute the price of medicine and we are not providing medical advice. No physician, patient, relationship, informant, anything discussed in this podcast does not represent the views of our employers. We recommend that you seek the guidance of your personal position regarding any specific health-related issues. Until next time.