Accessing Your Inner Peace and Power with Dr. Rashmi Schramm
How many times has a test result or bad news completely destroyed your day or week?
It's human nature to allow external events to influence our emotions and moods. However, there may be more tools available to help us through these times than we currently realize.
At Love and Science, we talk a lot about embodiment, feeling our feelings, and calming our nervous system. And yet, so many of us were never taught these tools for navigating life's "messy middle." What if we could access our inner peace and power on a daily basis? And what if I told you that daily meditation could give you this?
In this episode, Dr. Rashmi Schramm, a board certified family physician, certified coach and podcast host, shines a light on several thousand year old practices which can help to up-level your fertility journey and create a more energetic and fulfilling life. Imagine if you could experience this, too. You certainly deserve it.
You can find Dr. Rashmi here:
www.instagram.com/dr.rashmischramm
www.youtube.com/c/drrashmischrammoptimalwellness
As always, please keep in mind that this is my perspective and nothing in this podcast is medical advice.
If you found this conversation valuable, book a consult call with me using this link:
https://calendly.com/loveandsciencefertility/discovery-call
Also, be sure to check out our website: loveandsciencefertility.com
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Please don’t let infertility have the final word. We are here to take the burden from you so that you can achieve your goal of building your family with confidence and compassion.
I’m rooting for you always.
In Gratitude,
Dr. Erica Bove
Transcript:
Hello, my loves, and welcome back to the Love and Science podcast.
I am so deeply honored to have one of my favorite people as a guest today.
Her name is Dr.
Rashmi Shram.
She is a friend.
She is a colleague.
She is actually my coach right now, so I walk the walk of coaching.
And professionally, she is also a board certified family medicine physician, a certified coach and a podcast host.
And her mission in life is to help busy women to basically tap into their inner peace and power.
How amazing is that?
So that they can live more energetic and fulfilling lives.
So do you see why I would want her as my coach?
Because who doesn't want a more energetic and fulfilling life?
And as I think about what we do at Love and Science, it's all about tapping into that piece, no matter what the external world, whatever, the doctors are telling us about our test results or embryos, if we can access that inner peace and power, that is everything.
So thank you, Dr.
Rashmi.
I'm so, so glad that you're here today.
Dear Dr.
Erica, thank you for having me.
It is such an honor.
Thank you.
So, you know, I guess I wanted to kind of start out and tell me a little bit about your journey from family medicine into coaching and tell me a little bit more about your practice and how you do this.
How do you help busy women with this beautiful, beautiful, with this beautiful intention?
Yeah, thank you for asking.
So I was actually born in India.
I'm an immigrant and lived the first 12 years of my life with this really gigantic extended family sort of system where my grandmother was sort of my go-to person.
And she practiced a lot of yoga, Ayurveda meditation and had a lot of ancient sort of ancestral wisdom that she passed down.
And I was the oldest grandkid.
And so I was kind of it.
So I was very, very close to her when we immigrated to the U.S. and, and missed all of my family quite terribly.
And, you know, you can imagine starting sixth grade and we moved to a rural Appalachian town, a coal mining town.
And so we went from urban southern India to rural Appalachian, you know, it's a small township, it's a beautiful place.
And so that was a very interesting experience for me, where I now recognize that I became sort of one of these hyper sort of assimilators.
Right.
So I dropped all things that made me look different as probably most teenagers do, but sort of still kept the sort of love of things like, you know, just sitting in the quiet under a tree, just silly, you know, what I used to think was just silly back then that my, you know, I would do with my grandmother.
My grandmother had taught me different meditation mantras that were technically only meant for boys.
She was like the original feminist.
And so there were all these different things, parts of me that weren't able to be expressed.
And I went off to college and I found a meditation group there actually.
And I was sort of an underground meditator.
I was a closet meditator.
I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.
And yet that quest kind of continued the big questions of life.
I kind of didn't know, went to medical school also at the University of Virginia and dropped all of the, of these practices again.
So you can see there's a theme of like dropping periodically and sort of trying to re-find that thread.
And as I was a young attending and my practice was growing and my levels of stress were growing and my family was growing and everything looked just picture perfect on the outside.
It was a dumpster fire inside.
I didn't really know what my purpose was.
I was always exhausted.
I didn't have any tools to deal with stress.
There was no like, you know, sort of like what we have now there.
I mean, there was no social media, meaning like I couldn't have found a coach.
I didn't know what coaching was.
And so I sort of turned into inward to meditation and I found some solace and I of course became one of those crisis meditators where I would have all these different physical ailments, mental and emotional.
And I would move into meditation and then as soon as I got better, would drop it.
And this went on for a long time.
And eventually about 15 years ago, I said, okay, well, how can I make this consistent for myself?
Because I'm clearly getting results.
And the thing is I don't, I didn't have anybody locally then who was feeling a little bit peaceful on the inside.
It was sort of like, well, yeah, this is just how life is, you know?
And so I joined a meditation teacher program because there was sort of like this, this deal that said, look, if you say you're going to be a meditation teacher, you're going to sign on the deadline that you're going to meditate twice a day for the next 18 months.
And I'm like, please sign me up.
Wow.
So it was almost like, doctor heal myself.
You're like, this is my medicine and I need some accountability.
Got it.
A hundred percent.
It is still the case now.
It is still the case now, no matter what I do.
It's first, where do I need healing?
Where do I need nourishment?
And if that becomes something that I can make tangible, how can I then help someone else gain the same sorts of inner peace, if you will, not just looking really fantastic on the outside.
And that's just been sort of that theme that continues that first meditation teacher training, open the door to Ayurveda, open the door to multiple other meditation practices, open the door to teaching the teachers.
And so it's been, it's been an ongoing love story with these ways in which we can grow internally and bring it outside of ourselves.
And that continues right now.
I'm in multiple, multiple trainings currently.
It's amazing.
Lifelong learning, lifelong learning for real.
Oh, that's so beautiful.
So I want a little more clarity.
So when you moved, you were a teen.
Is that about right?
I was 12.
Yeah.
I was 12.
So almost a teen.
And your grandmother did she stay in India?
She did.
She did.
Oh, that must have been so hard.
Yes.
It was just my parents and my brother.
We immigrated.
It was really hard.
It was really hard.
Yeah.
But you, you were old enough that you could sort of, you'd had learned and internalize what she had taught to you.
And so part of her came with you when she wasn't physically present.
Yeah.
For sure.
And what was really fun was during college, my brother and I would actually spend the summers in India with her.
And so I was sort of getting a lot more downloads from her then as well.
And then when I was in medical school for a whole semester, she actually came and stayed with me for a couple of months.
And that was kind of neat too.
And so there, there's just been so, so many blessings in my life.
That's so amazing.
And so is she still alive or did she pass?
No, she passed away, but my kids got to meet her.
We got to go to India and spend some time with her before she passed away.
That's so amazing.
And I do think, I mean, I do believe in ancestral wisdom.
I do believe that our ancestors are with us.
I, my own grandfather passed before I was born, but he was an OBGYN, delivered thousands and thousands of babies.
He actually told my own father, who's a urologist, he could go any into any field, but OBGYN.
And then of course I was the first grandchild born after he passed and I've just always felt his spirit with me always.
And I will call on him and the OR like Papa Boba, I need your help.
This is a hard case.
And he always shows up.
It's amazing.
And so, you know, I just think I, when I hear your story about your grandmother, I just, I just see and feel her influence.
And I think that's just such a beautiful legacy, right?
That, that she lives in you.
It's so beautiful.
It really is.
And I got chills when you were telling me about how you can call forth his energy.
I still have chills right now.
It's amazing.
And you know, in my other, like all of my grandparents too, I think we think it's just the here and now.
And I always tell my people when they join my program, I'm like, listen, like we're spiritual.
We're going to get into it.
And it doesn't matter what you believe in, you know, I like, we welcome all of it.
This really works when we can call in the energy of, of a higher anything, right?
And so a few days ago would have been my grandmother's birthday.
And it was so fascinating.
Like I had the opportunity to be in a sauna and she told me that when she was a little girl, that her own father would get mad at her for reading sort of by the, by the candlelight at night, he would like go by her door and be like, you know, you need to go to bed or whatever.
And I thought to myself on her birthday, I'm truly reading by the light of this fire and she's with me now, you know?
And so it's just, I think that as we honor that, as we say, you know, at least I say to my patients too, and my clients, like you are bringing about another life.
You are promoting the next generation.
Why wouldn't those ancestors be able to help us in those situations?
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
So I, you know, it's, it's so nice to have this opportunity to talk to you in this space, because there's so much I did not even know about you or appreciate.
So this is like absolutely beautiful.
So, okay.
So you, you grew up, you came, you did all the things, you had this sort of intermittent relationship with meditation, but I think sounds like deep down, you knew that's actually what you needed to make it through.
And then when you realized that it was sort of that point where you're like, this is not what I thought it was going to be.
I'm going to really like make a structure to make this happen.
Then it was like, okay, you know, I can do this and I can also help other people do the same.
That's it.
That's it.
And there has to be some amount of sort of, I suppose, trust and surrender in that process.
And that is a lifelong commitment to return back to trusting and surrendering.
Oh, a hundred percent.
And I think that's like the secret sauce of what we talk about at Love and Science too is like, how do you get into that space to like, there's one sort of temptation to be completely shut down and just like let it all wash over.
And then there's this other sort of extreme of like toxic positivity and that doesn't do anybody any good either.
And so how can you live in the messy middle and call in that piece and power and say like, you know, this is the reality.
This is what I'm hoping for.
I'm here for all of it with all the feelings, all the, you know, sort of good news, bad news, disappointments, all of it along the way.
It's complicated.
It's really, really complicated.
It's so complicated and nuanced and layered and, and think about, you know, how much of our past that we're sort of reliving in our present and how much we're, you know, worried about the future and walking that messy middle path is not easy, but it is worth it.
It's, and we're all worth at least trying it into some degree.
And we often talk about the middle path in my programs as well, for sure.
Yeah.
That, that messy middle, you know, it's, it's like, how can you hope for an embryo transfer to work?
You know, get, even get into that space because that hope is that risk, like just like you took a risk to do your meditation training.
Like it is a risk to hope for something that is better, hope for something that is unseen.
And then, you know, we have to be prepared.
It may come to fruition.
It may not, but we're going to be okay on the other side, you know?
And so I, that, that secret sauce of surrender, that is, I think we share that.
And I'm curious, like what tools do you have for yourself and for your clients to help them access that peace and power?
Yeah.
There are so many tools, Erica, and it's definitely not a one size fits all.
And I mean, I've talked a lot about meditation, but there are some folks who can't sit for, you know, even 10 minutes and that's perfectly okay.
If, if they're able to, great, but especially trauma survivors, it's just not safe.
It doesn't feel safe for them.
And so oftentimes it'll be whatever it is that helps them feel safe enough in their bodies.
And oftentimes that can just be breath work.
It can be being around nature, or if it, if, you know, we're in the wintertime, like you're in the Northeast, it's not, or perhaps it is feasible.
I don't know.
I'm in Florida, so I'm outside all the time.
So we're bringing some part of the outside in to reconnect with it.
Sometimes it can really just be literally humming or singing any of those things that brings us into the present moment.
And the breath is always, always with us.
And it's always such a fantastic tool.
So we learn a lot of breath work tools.
We learn quite a lot of just walking meditation and we do seated meditation.
We do guided lying down meditation, which is a yoga nidra.
And, and folks have the opportunity to say, this really clicked for me or that didn't really click for me.
And what I mean by click is, was there some semblance of okayness that came about when you were doing that practice?
Because we become really attached to this idea of feeling blissful with every practice.
And that isn't actually necessary to get the benefits of any of these mindfulness practices that we're talking about.
We can have a fully distracted 15 minute meditation or what we think is a fully distracted you know, meditation.
And just the fact that we were able to notice that we were distracted and have all those thoughts, it's valid.
It's valid to have that experience.
And we still get some benefit out of that, whether we felt sort of in that, you know, Turia or blissful state that we can sometimes transcend into.
And so it's a whole entire variety.
And it generally begins if somebody's totally new to it, with just two minutes of breath work a day.
And that's a great groundwork to start from.
That's so fascinating.
And I think you're right.
I think that embodiment is really, really key.
And I think as physicians, so many of us don't know how to be embodied, we are so cerebral and we've actually been taught, trained to divorce our cerebralness from our physical bodies because our bodies have needs.
Our bodies have maybe intuitions that are different than what the medical culture would want us to do.
And so I think that, you know, as I think about busy physician women who are entertaining starting a meditation practice, you know, I, at least my thought is, and tell me if this has been your experience, my thought is that there may be some cognitive barriers to, you know, resting, like it is safe to rest, you know, carving out that time, perfectionism, worrying, am I doing it right?
Am I doing it perfectly?
Oh, my mind wandered, then scrap this.
Like, I'm not good at meditating.
Like, what do you, what do you see in your people who are starting out and how can you, I guess, continue to encourage that sort of, like, it doesn't have to look a certain way.
Yeah.
Not only do I see it, but I was that.
I mean, I was, I was like, Oh my God, I don't have time to, I mean, I'm not some hippie.
I'm not going to go sit under a tree.
I'm not going to do any of those things.
And who has time to rest?
Like, that must be really nice for somebody.
All of the thoughts, right?
And much of that was, you know, socialized into me to be ashamed of needing to, to rest.
And I mean, that is why I was a closet meditator for so many years, even as I was learning how to teach meditation, until I had to go out and teach it.
And I started doing that at my local Y.
I wasn't telling anyone that I had any kind of meditation practice at all.
And so I think those barriers are very real.
And I think they're very valid.
And I think just acknowledging them can and bringing them out into the light and saying, isn't this interesting that my mind or my past conditioning is telling me that I can, I can only rest when and then, and then fill in the blanks or rest is wasteful or, or any, any of this, if I don't see an immediate sort of, you know, like result from it, that it might not be worth continuing.
Those are all really valid thought processes because we're so oriented towards these results that, that we're looking for and metrics.
And, you know, that's the game that we play.
And that's often a very masculine energy that we have to embody and play in.
So it's not a bad thing.
So we've all gotten really good at that masculine energy of linearity, of needing for, you know, to go from point A to point B and, and nothing in between, no bumps, that sort of thing.
And just recognizing that that is the water that we're swimming in.
And also, and also being open to a different kind of energy.
Cause you, you know, you and I, we started off talking about energy, this way of a divine feminine energy, which is nonlinear, which is more intuitive.
And what would that feel like for us if we could invite that divine feminine energy and would it be okay for us to rest for three minutes today?
And, you know, and when we start off small, we can bypass the amygdala's kind of alarm bells and all of that.
Usually the amygdala will be like, fine, go on, you know, you can sit for two minutes, right?
But if we're like, you know, you've got to meditate for 60 minutes a day, heck no, no way, 0% chance of it happening.
But if there's some semblance of okayness during a two or three minute practice, then that person is more likely to move it to a five minute practice, more likely to move it to six minute practice and so on and so forth.
And as you and I both know, it's, it's the consistency of it rather than the intensity of any practice, whether it's exercise, meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, it's the consistency of it.
That's going to give us the results that we're looking for over time and that compounds over time.
Does that help?
So much.
And I think if doctors are anything, they are consistent.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
Yes.
So I think we could say, okay, like it doesn't have to look a certain way.
I mean, I think back to myself, I, I, it's a little bit of a blur cause it was around the time of my divorce, but I, I'm pretty sure I started meditating around May of 2020, something like that.
And there was a popular culture person, I think Gabby Bernstein's her name and she was doing this 21 day challenge.
And so my, it was around Mother's day and she was sort of calling him that divine feminine.
And she said, you know, sign up for this.
My, my friend, Jenny, my best friend, she was like, sign up for this 21 day meditation with me.
Like it was like an invitation.
We had just become gratitude buddies.
Jenny and I were still gratitude buddies to this day.
And so, you know, I, I'm usually open to the things that Jenny suggests.
And so I said, okay, I think I can do 21 days.
Like again, I don't know about the rest of it, but I think I can do 21 days.
And it was hard.
Like it was really hard, even if it was like a five to 10 minute meditation at first, like I am not a person.
It's part of why we coach together.
Like I'm still not a person who rests well, right?
I, I always, my mind is going, I love projects.
I love feeling accomplished.
And so for me, it was that 21 days of a commitment that really helped me to see, okay, when I sit and breathe, my breath is actually accessible to me during my days.
Like it's accessible to me in the OR in a way that it wasn't before.
If something is stressful, it's accessible to me with a family member if a conversation gets tense.
And so, and again, I think we have to do things initially without any expectation.
However, the more we do it and the more that we start to see, okay, my day goes better when I can make time for this.
And again, time management, as we all know, I say to myself as one of my mantras, I have time for the important things.
I will make time for the important things.
So, you know, if it's 20 minutes of social media, and that's important to me, I'll make time for it.
If it's a two minute meditation, and that's important to me, I'll make time.
But if it's not important, I'll find some reason not to do it.
So, you know, I, when I talk to my people about sort of signing up for the program, and really being all in to give it a chance, I say, when in your day are you going to make time for this?
Because you kind of have to start with that discipline, that consistency, which as female physicians, we're all very good at, we'll leverage that as a strength, and then, and then it can sort of start to catch on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a beautiful way to look at it.
And I love that question.
I often ask it in the same way, how or when can you make time because that time doesn't exist right now.
And so when you say, I have time for my highest priorities, or the things that matter to me, that can help us figure out what in the world it is that matters to us.
Is it a little bit of investment in ourselves?
Is it whatever it is, unless we put our attention on it, we don't, we don't even know where the time is going most of the time.
That's right.
That's right.
Even like thinking about doing a time audit.
And, you know, admittedly, like my patients and my clients who are trying to juggle busy professional jobs, who are trying to also squeeze in time for fertility appointments every other day, ultrasounds, blood work, you know, time is a premium.
Absolutely.
You know, I think if we can count meditation as one of those important endeavors, as we would, you know, a meeting with our chair, as we would an appointment at the fertility specialist, it will, it is medicine.
It will help us.
We just need to give ourselves that permission to do that.
Right.
That's right.
That's the tricky part.
That's right.
And I'll often start my meditations, if I'm guiding one, just with, with acknowledging that there are a lot of things that we have to sort of push away or put away or put on hold with the short next few moments.
And then we're able to give ourselves permission just to be with what is.
And I think without that acknowledgement, the mind is just going to be completely scattered.
Now it can still be scattered even with that permission.
And that's okay.
Again, that's a valid experience during a meditation.
Yeah.
We can just acknowledge it.
A lot of times it loses some of its power.
That's right.
And many of us have never sat.
I mean, if you think about we've been on this treadmill for 20 years, we've truly never sat.
Like when I started doing this, I just wrote in my journal one sentence, I said, the silence is so loud.
Yes.
Yes.
It is so loud.
It's so loud.
It's so loud.
I didn't want to hear that.
Oh no.
But I think that unless we like really welcome all of the feelings that are there, like if we're not aware of them, they're just coming out in strange ways.
It's like that whack-a-mole at the fair.
Right.
So I always say like, we have to create space for the feelings.
They're all important.
They, they're data, right?
Like thoughts and feelings are just data.
And so unless we welcome them and learn how to process them, then, you know, they're going to keep ruling our lives in ways that really take away our power.
Right.
So that's exactly right.
This is on the pathway to that inner peace and power, that agency.
Yes.
You know, we have to say like, it's going to be uncomfortable.
This is not for the faint of heart.
That's right.
That's right.
And, and I think, you know, remembering that it's okay to be uncomfortable is, it's something that, again, I think it's a lifelong, it's a lifelong pursuit of, of how, where in my growth edge am I just uncomfortable enough to where I'm not going to completely break.
And I was really just saying, even just this morning, I went on a walk with a friend and I said, I just like, I just feel like I'm always on this growth edge and it can be just, I'm getting, I'm used to it, but I did something this weekend that I'd never done before that really pushed my limits and really did have me on my growth edge the whole entire time.
And, and, and sometimes I get a little mad at myself.
Like, can I just, can I just sit in some comfort for a while?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
This sounds very familiar.
Hence the lifelong learning and all the things.
But you're right.
I think our, our growth edge by definition is uncomfortable.
And yet, like how boring would life be if we just stayed the same?
And especially if we're on a fertility journey and we want to make progress, we want to uncover limiting beliefs.
We want to be able to sit with the feelings and process them.
Cause there are so many, I think, you know, this is a beautiful pathway through that, not around it, not side skirting it, but like through it.
And I mean, I really believe that infertility is a grief journey.
It's a grief journey.
And as we know from other grief, you know, literature, the only way through grief is through grief.
Like there's no sidestepping it, you know?
So it's just amazing that there's so many different modalities that you have to help people in terms of like, it's probably like you said, not one size fits all.
Like what one kind of meditation is going to better serve another person or maybe the same individual benefits from different types at different, you know, points in their lives, depending on what's going on.
And so, you know, it's a whole universe of possibilities that we don't even recognize are here for us, but they are, we just have to shine a light and see what's possible.
Right.
That's exactly right.
And often we'll use those, this, this particular statement of like, you know, our energy is always following our attention.
And so, but like you noticed your breath is available to you the rest of the day, if you can just put your attention on it.
And so it can even just be something that simple.
Yeah, it's true.
And like, you know, many of us work clinical jobs and, you know, sometimes stuff is like flying all around or, you know, patients 45 minutes, like, again, like stuff happens all the time.
And for some reason, like I have personally found when I meditate daily, which I've done, like I said, since 2020, and just a little bit, like, I don't feel out of control.
Like my, my, my, I have this like grounding the center where before I feel like I used to get like whipped up in all of that, like a tornado or like, Oh, dare they double book me.
And I would just like, my emotions are all over the place.
But for some reason, it's like this, the centering.
I just know like anything can happen today and I'm going to remain grounded.
And I mean, like, what is that worth?
Like, it's just like, oh, yeah.
I mean, you know, I was in family medicine, high volume family medicine for 22 years.
And that is worth everything that, that kind of freedom and that knowing is, is everything and it is worth investing in however it is that we find that inner knowing and that, and that sense of internal safety that we can offer ourselves as everything.
Internal safety.
I love that.
Because I think on the fertility journey, it's like, it's just like threats from every angle.
Absolutely.
That this cycle is not going to work.
Threats of remaining childless threats of truly losing one's own community.
I mean, we even talked recently in our group about like, you know, religious communities and there's always children and, and it's like looking from the outside in.
And so like, how can we remain that safety, that sense of safety, which is true safety.
It's not like fake safety.
It's like, this is authentic and this is real.
I am my safe space.
Right.
That's right.
But it's, it's, it's, it's hard to believe until you experience it, but it works.
It's like, so I wanted to sort of segue into this thought about neuroscience.
Yeah.
So we do know that it works.
And I think our scientific minds, yes, there is sort of this woo.
That's like, you know, sort of try it and you'll see, but I actually think that we have more and more data that it's grounded in science, right?
All of this.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
I'm so happy to talk about it.
So if you think about it and let's go with like, you know, sort of a 10,000 foot lens and then we'll sort of get granular about it.
But if you look at every ancient wisdom tradition around the entire world, they have some kind of seated still practice.
It can be prayer, it can be meditation.
We can call it all kinds of different things like it's semantics, you know?
And so think about even just the kind that I teach, we can trace it back to five or 6,000 years ago.
During evolution, if something wasn't helpful, it would not have been passed down over the generations.
And so that's sort of like the 10,000 foot view of let's get curious of like, how did so many of our ancestors practice and hold this to be sacred, not religious, but sacred enough to make sure that it was passed down from generation to generation.
So that's sort of like the first clue that it might be something there for us, right?
And the science of meditation is only maybe 30 or 40 years old, right?
So if we're looking at how is science catching up, we haven't had that much time because you're looking at 5,000 years of practice to 30 to 40 years of studying it.
And if you also think about it, the way that we do our studies, it's pretty difficult to find a placebo for meditation.
You're not really going to find so we have to sort of start to get really just curious about it.
And before we started studying chemicals the way that we do now, right of like one pathway, one mode of action, one molecule, we really were looking at observation.
That was really what science was.
If you look at, you know, even 100 years ago, when there was so like really, really clear results that were coming, that was then deemed evidence based, right?
And so like the idea of evidence has been changing all along, which as it should, we should always be changing, change is necessary.
And on top of that, what we can reproduce over and over again, with certain types of meditation practices are, and certainly this is over a period of just two or three weeks.
So like a kind that I teach, which is yoga nidra, which is really the only thing that you have to do is lie down and follow along and try not to fall asleep.
And people usually are like, fine, I'll try it.
And that kind of practice, it's a transcendental practice where we're able to just transcend the mind long enough to have the mind be quiet enough to where energy can do the healing.
And when we look at that, just within a matter of three to four weeks of some amount of consistent practice, so about four or five days a week, we saw up to 35 to 40% increase in serotonin, 35 to 40% increase in DHEA, and an 80% increase in dopamine consistent over time.
And and like increased neuroplasticity as well, right?
And then decreased.
So when you look at sort of spec scans, and, and that sort of thing, you see decreased activity within the limbic system, which is our alarm system, and increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is really our, you know, emotional brain, the capacity for us to process things.
And so there is, there is reproducible evidence that we have.
And we have evidence for 5000 years.
So that's so fascinating.
I mean, I will be very honest with you, Rashmi, like the first time I heard of yoga nidra, I like rolled my eyes and I was like, this is totally normal.
This is like, who, who would just like lay there?
Yeah, like, what's the point?
Yes.
What's the point?
And that was the old, we're always evolving.
Yeah.
You know, I like, I like to say I now am more, you know, more open to try new things without judgment.
You know, I'm like, okay, I'll see what, but like truly, like the version of myself that was like, you know, again, working crazy hours a week, and then my, you know, sort of old sort of hustle culture, which again, I'm still recovering from that.
But you know, that, that version of myself was like, what's the point?
And I think if we have more data that there actually is neuroscience behind it, I also think it might help with the buy in of like, you know, this is basically what so many women physicians are trying to accomplish with a glass of wine or two at the end of the night, right?
It's like, I want my brain chemistry to feel better.
I want whatever this is to be tolerable.
I'm trying to calm my nervous system, but so many of our nervous systems are just like amped up all the time.
Yeah, this this yoga, Nedra, like tell us more about it.
Like how can we, how can we access this in a way that can help, you know, in terms of this regulation?
Yeah.
And it's funny, I don't know if any of your listeners or you listen to Andrew Huberman, but he, he has talked about Nedra for many, many years, and he ends up calling it NSDR or non sleep deep rest.
And he actually practices with my teacher as well.
And he ended up calling it that so that his colleagues at Stanford were more willing to try to be called it non sleep deep rest.
Interesting.
So I will sometimes even on my podcast, we'll just say NSDR just to sort of get some buy in.
And that was very true for me as well with all of the all of these practices, right, whether it's a somatic practice or anything else, I really am conditioned to want some of the science behind it.
And so all of my teachers either have MD PhDs, like, I want them to be integrated into science.
Because I mean, obviously, love and science, right?
That's what this podcast is.
And science is wonderful.
And we're all scientists here.
Yes.
And so we don't want to discount that.
But without that buy in often, often we won't we won't get our foot in the door.
And that was the same for me as well.
So I completely honor that and understand it to, you know, to the mags degree.
And so yoga, nidra, it quite literally translated yoga means union, and nidra means sleep.
And so it is a sleep based meditation.
And so it is fully guided.
And depending on, you know, who's guiding, it can be between 16 minutes and all the way to like 30 plus minutes.
But it's really quite a divine practice in that it's incorporating into each of these into each nidra, some kind of body scan, some kind of breathwork meditation.
And in the lineage in which I teach it, there's also intention, so dropping seeds of intention when we're sort of deep into that meditation.
And then affirmations as well.
And so it's sort of like if you think about a journey, you're just sort of going a little bit deeper, you're acknowledging that like the mind is really turbulent, and that's okay.
And you're allowing the mind to be turbulent while you're focusing your energy on something else, it could be your breath, it could be and there's so many different techniques that we can use.
And then we have these intentions and affirmations.
And then we kind of come out really slowly.
And it is one of the most popular meditations I teach and I will often also lead, you know, like three, four month programs just for fun.
And I haven't done it yet in 2025.
And I have an intention of doing so.
But if you think about it, and this is so interesting, Erica.
So if you've ever done a nidra, well, I did with you, like about, you know, nine days ago, yes.
So yes, beautiful.
And and and we had EEG electrodes on you, whether it's your time or your millionth time, within usually the first six minutes, your brainwave state.
So like you and I are in beta.
And that is normal, right?
Like we're paying attention to each other, we're interacting with each other.
And alpha is that really kind of relaxed state where you you kind of feel like I'm feeling really good, I might fall asleep.
So within the first six minutes, almost everyone that's ever done, you know, a facilitated nidra, go into that alpha state, which is a very programmable state, it's a very neuroplastic state, which is kind of a fun state to be in.
It's also extremely restful.
It's a very beautiful way to like resource our time.
And over time, we also see and again, first time, second time meditators drop even deeper into theta and delta, which is like deep sleep and REM sleep and things like that.
And so and you're still following the guidelines, you're still following the guidance.
And so it's just a really neat.
It's just a really neat.
It's just one of my favorites.
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
I think that's something that we just don't generally know a ton about as physicians.
And, you know, it can help so much.
And so like, one of my biggest sort of platforms is like, let's learn about the tools.
Let's figure out what's out there because we can't access it unless we know it's there.
So I will share my own experience from the yoga nidra that we did.
My intention was for spaciousness, right?
Slowing down in spaciousness.
And that theme for like an entire week just kept emerging.
And when I would need to make a decision about something, usually about how to spend my time or an invitation, I would just that that filter that sort of is the spacious or not would come up.
And if it wasn't spacious, you know, then I said, even yoga class, I was a Friday night.
It had been a long week, let me tell you, clinical week.
And I was like, okay, it's like 5 p.m. so that I can like go to yoga from like five thirty to six thirty.
I think I can make it home in time to like leave the support group.
And I was like, Erica, like, what are you thinking like that is like packing it in, even though it's yoga, like that is not spaciousness.
That's like like a suitcase that's like filled to the brim.
So I was like, it's spacious.
No, it's not spacious.
So I'm like, I'm going to intentionally say no to yoga, even though I've not gone to a class all week.
And then my, you know, so then actually that was the day that it happened with the reading by the fire and my grandmother.
And so she's like, would you like to take a sauna tonight?
You know, I know you went in last night, but you didn't have much time.
I'd love to open it up to you and you you get to choose what time you go in.
And again, this is the night that I'm about to lead the support group.
And you are supposed to go in on a fasted state, which was great.
I was like, I'm fasted.
And I had the time, you know, this abundance.
Right.
And this is it's lent.
So I'm actually giving up in my wisdom tradition.
I'm giving up scarcity.
That's my my intention.
So all these things are dovetailing together.
And I'm like, okay, first of all, the decision to say no to yoga, because that was not spacious.
And then this spaciousness opened up.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
I know.
Like, yes, I will take the sauna, you know, that is spacious and beautiful.
And I will have all the time for all the things.
I will have time to, you know, nourish my body on the other side.
I will have time to take a shower.
I will have time to show up for my own people who are my listeners, like, in a way that is grounded and non rush and present.
And so I think that and that all came out of that yoga, nidra meditation, there was no way that I would just call in spaciousness, because that is not something that in my conscious mind, that is not something that I'm like, oh, I'm going to be spacious today.
I'm like, oh, how non productive is that?
You know, but then in this sort of deep meditative state that was led by you, I was able to access what I really wanted.
And then make that happen through my actions in a way that added so much to my life.
So, so that's just like a plug for this yoga nidra.
And it still persists.
I'm like, oh, is that because now it's now part of my like, oh, this is serving me to think about spaciousness.
So I can't wait for the next one because we'll see what comes out.
But I mean, it's really powerful.
And, you know, I think about if my there are certain themes in the fertility journey that emerge, like hopelessness, despair, fear, anxiety, exhaustion, like, you know, all of these these themes that happen.
And I think like, if we could nourish this system with, you know, what, what do we really deeply desire?
Right?
Like, then, then I just I just see all the possibilities.
I just see that.
Right.
Wow, what a beautiful story.
And what a, what a courageous thing for you to see what is deep down in there and then to honor it and then to play with it.
Because, you know, a lot of mindfulness has a playful quality to it.
You know, we don't want to take anything too seriously.
And this idea of spaciousness kind of calls in a playful, lighthearted quality to it, which is is usually discouraged in medicine for the most part.
Right.
And so whether that, you know, whether it was encouraged or discouraged most of the time, we don't have we don't have the luxury of turning towards it or we don't think we have the luxury of turning towards it.
But in your example, it didn't really take up any more time.
It just shifted how you were looking at the opportunities that were arising for you day to day.
That's beautiful.
That's right.
And I think, you know, both of us are trailblazers.
It's like it doesn't have to be the way that it's been shown to us.
There are more, there are more spacious ways there.
There's like, I think about it like there's like galaxies beyond that we've not even been able to consider because we didn't know they existed.
And so take a risk, you know, take a risk, just take that, that less traveled path and just explore it because you never know what's going to happen until you just go down that path and see.
So and that's that's how I feel about your work is like, you know, it's it's it's it's there, right?
It's there.
And so many of us can benefit from it if we only take a risk and explore.
Absolutely.
And it's exactly right about the work that you're doing as well.
It's this idea of exploring what's there with so much curiosity.
Yeah, curiosity.
Absolutely.
So, you know, I, I wanted to just sort of say I think both of us are very scientifically minded and also love minded.
So what I, you know, what I experienced when I experienced your work is that combination of love and science, which I think is like that dynamite combination that really brings, you know, all things into being that are meant to be.
And so thank you for what you do, because it's that if it was just science, it would be just science.
It was just love, it would be just love.
But it's like that we can heal, we can heal each other, we can heal the world.
And we just need to, we need to believe like we need to believe it's possible we need to believe that we deserve that healing.
And then then the rest sort of takes over.
That's right.
I love that.
I love that.
Because the word that was coming to my mind was the belief and also the deserving, like that, you know, like that we deserve to heal, and that it's okay for us to heal before we really, you know, kind of go out there and become these trailblazers.
And let's be honest, each of us is on our own healing journey.
And we're just in a different place of that and nourishing ourselves along the way, taking breaks along the way to heal, and then grow, heal, grow all of those things.
That that's the magic sauce, I think.
And I think that's the middle.
I think to tie it back around.
It all comes back to the messy middle.
The way through is to heal and grow, to heal and grow, to heal and grow.
Right.
So beautiful.
Rashmi, thank you so much for that insight.
It's so powerful.
Thank you.
Well, I want to honor your time.
Is there anything else that you want the listeners of the Love and Science podcast to know about you, about your practice?
Obviously, we'll put all your information in the show notes.
And I, you know, I want you to speak to where people can find you.
But is there anything else that has come up for you in this time that we've had together?
You know, it occurs to me, Erica, just from talking to you, and I know the people that are listening are just some of the most courageous, vulnerable humans on the planet, and honor themselves and to love on themselves and, and allow that to be just okay, allow whatever is happening to be okay, I think can be so healing in and of itself.
And we often talk about acceptance does not mean agreement.
And that acceptance can be that first step to more ease or spaciousness, and clarity.
And so this idea of like, whether clarity and creativity, because a lot of times we're having to make, you know, the folks listening are having to make some decisions that they may not be ready for right away.
And so oftentimes, what will happen is nervous system dysregulation.
And so whatever way it is, and I know that you're teaching them as well, that they can figure out how to sort of come back to themselves.
And oftentimes, it can be again, I've said this before, as simple as a breath, but also just putting your hands on your heart, like just, you know, touching on your chest and saying it's okay, I'm okay in this moment in this month, things are okay, can give us enough safety for creativity to arise.
And a lot of times we don't have access to that creativity, if we don't have that safety and that sense of nourishment and healing.
So making it okay for all of that.
And it's what I would say.
And then as far as where people can find me, it's really simple.
My website is just my name is just rashmi shram.com.
And then I'm on Instagram, I'm on YouTube, I'm on Facebook, and it's also just Dr.
Rashmi SRAM.
I'm on LinkedIn, but not as active there.
And my YouTube channel does have practices, and then my podcast is called inner peace and power.
And I have several episodes that have practices of meditation and mindfulness in there, if that would be helpful for someone as well.
It's amazing.
So you know, for the listeners, you know, if you feel you deserve, and I'm telling you, you do deserve this, you deserve more inner peace and power.
Really check out Dr.
Rashmi.
She's amazing.
I can tell you from personal experience, you know, she really does have that secret sauce to guide you to accessing more inner peace and power.
And, you know, I see some collaborations here, I see some, you know, like the fertility coaching and the meditation.
And, you know, I think, you know, for people who are this resonates, you know, I think that there's so many tools.
And I think, you know, we could really work together for patients and clients to really help them access their, their deepest potential, which is, which is so beautiful.
So thank you for your friendship.
Thank you for your presence.
Thank you for your coaching and your beautiful, the beautiful way that you, you know, bring so much love and wisdom and science and insight into, into what you do.
And so I feel like we can talk for hours and hours because I have so many more questions about in the future, in the future, those will be.
Let's plant seeds for another one.
Okay.
Sounds great.
Thanks again, Rashmi.
Until the next time.
Bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
