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Become a Detective of Your Own Body: Mastering Interoception for Early Disease Prevention

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

Release Date: 10/13/2025

Voice as Medicine: Frankko Vivo's Journey from Basketball Court to Mountain Temple show art Voice as Medicine: Frankko Vivo's Journey from Basketball Court to Mountain Temple

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ In this intimate conversation, Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with Frankko Vivo, a musician and ceremony guide who transformed from a basketball player into a guardian of sacred space. Frankko shares how an 82-year-old violinist named Sol changed his life's trajectory with a single gift, leading him to carve a temple into a Brazilian mountainside over 13 years. Through stories of water infiltrations that forced him to listen to the mountain's wisdom and ceremonies where improvisation trumps performance, Frankko reveals how voice activation, deep breathing, and authentic frequency work...

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The Breathing Crisis: How Modern Life Stole Your Breath and the Ancient Practice That Gets It Back show art The Breathing Crisis: How Modern Life Stole Your Breath and the Ancient Practice That Gets It Back

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Most people breathe 20,000 times a day, yet modern life has systematically broken this fundamental function. Dr. Pedram Shojai reveals how collapsed posture, chronic stress, mouth breathing, and lost body awareness have created a breathing crisis—leaving us in survival mode with shallow, chest-based breathing that signals constant danger to our nervous systems. In this essential episode, discover the four ways modern life has stolen your breath and why dysfunctional breathing creates cascading physical consequences from chronic anxiety and brain fog to digestive issues, immune...

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Breaking the Sympathetic Spiral of Doom with Dr. Scott Sherr show art Breaking the Sympathetic Spiral of Doom with Dr. Scott Sherr

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with integrative medicine physician Dr. Scott Sherr to unpack one of the most overlooked health crises of our time: the sympathetic spiral of doom. When your nervous system gets stuck in fight-or-flight mode, your mitochondria desperately try to produce more energy but lack the resources to sustain it. The result? Plummeting energy, skyrocketing stress, and a body that can't heal itself. Dr. Sherr explains the intricate dance between sympathetic nervous system activation and mitochondrial dysfunction, revealing how this vicious cycle begins and, more...

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The Exhaustion Medicine Can't Find show art The Exhaustion Medicine Can't Find

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai addresses one of the most common yet dismissed complaints in modern medicine: chronic fatigue that conventional doctors can't diagnose or explain. He reveals why standard medical tests fail to identify this multi-system breakdown and presents a comprehensive, phased recovery approach spanning 6-24 months. Drawing from his experience treating thousands of patients, Dr. Shojai explains the seven interconnected systems involved in energy production—from mitochondrial function to gut health to nervous system regulation—and why treating just one piece never works. If...

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Your Best Shot: The Truth About GLP-1s and Natural Weight Health Hormones show art Your Best Shot: The Truth About GLP-1s and Natural Weight Health Hormones

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Registered dietitian Ashley Koff joins Dr. Pedram Shojai to unpack the truth about GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. While these drugs mimic hormones our bodies naturally produce, they don't solve the root cause of why our own weight-health hormones aren't functioning properly. Ashley explains how gut health, the vagus nerve, stress, and digestive function all play crucial roles in our body's natural hormone production. She shares her personal journey from childhood obesity to understanding that healing weight health isn't about what you eat or avoid—it's about optimizing...

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Energy Sovereignty: Reclaim Your Power Through Boundaries show art Energy Sovereignty: Reclaim Your Power Through Boundaries

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ In this transformative episode, Dr. Pedram Shojai addresses the modern energy crisis that leaves so many people chronically depleted. Moving beyond simple fatigue from lack of sleep or overwork, he reveals how we experience systemic energy depletion from thousands of tiny leaks we haven't learned to protect against. Through practical frameworks and actionable strategies, he teaches listeners how to identify what drains their vital energy, recognize energy drains in real time, and implement boundaries that protect their life force. This isn't about becoming selfish or isolated—it's...

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The Supplement Trap: What You Actually Need show art The Supplement Trap: What You Actually Need

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Are you spending hundreds of dollars a month on supplements you can't even remember why you're taking? Dr. Pedram Shojai exposes how the $50 billion supplement industry has convinced health-conscious people to swallow 20-30 pills daily—creating more confusion and expense than actual health benefits. He reveals the uncomfortable truth: most people are medicating symptoms they don't have, optimizing pathways that aren't broken, and actually creating deficiencies through nutrient competition and over-supplementation. 🎯 What You'll Learn: Why taking more supplements doesn't equal...

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Food Fear Pandemic: Break Free from Food Anxiety show art Food Fear Pandemic: Break Free from Food Anxiety

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai addresses one of the most pervasive issues in modern wellness: the food fear pandemic. Are you spending 20 minutes reading ingredient labels? Avoiding social situations because you can't control the food? This isn't about real food sensitivities—it's about the crippling anxiety that's turning food into the enemy. Dr. Shojai reveals why the stress of restriction might be more inflammatory than the foods you're worried about, and shares a practical framework for shifting from fear-based eating to body wisdom. 🎯 What You'll Learn: Why "healthy eating" becomes...

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The Invisible Thief: How Social Media Steals Your Self-Worth show art The Invisible Thief: How Social Media Steals Your Self-Worth

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai exposes the invisible thief stealing your peace, presence, and authentic self-worth: social media comparison culture. 🎯 What You'll Learn: Why your brain—evolved for tribes of 150—now compares you to billions of curated highlight reels 24/7 The five-step neuroscience behind the comparison spiral (from comparison trigger to deepening spiral) How chronic "not enoughness" drives anxiety, depression, elevated cortisol, and inflammation The difference between true inspiration and toxic comparison Practical protocols: three-breath awareness practice, ruthless...

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The Science of Hormesis: How Strategic Stress Makes You Stronger show art The Science of Hormesis: How Strategic Stress Makes You Stronger

The Urban Monk podcast with Dr. Pedram Shojai

🎙️ Discover why deliberately stressing your body might be one of the most powerful health interventions available—hormesis: the principle that low to moderate doses of stress trigger beneficial adaptations that make you anti-fragile. 🎯 What You'll Learn: The science behind cold therapy, strategic fasting, and exercise as consciousness-expanding tools The adaptation cascade: from immediate stress response (minutes) to long-term resilience (months) Four-week cold therapy progression protocol (300% norepinephrine increase, 250% dopamine boost) Three-level strategic fasting approach:...

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai delivers a transformative guide on developing interoceptive awareness—the ability to sense and interpret your body's internal signals before minor symptoms become major health crises. Using the powerful analogy of a car's check engine light, he reveals why most people ignore their body's warning signs and choose to "tape over" symptoms rather than investigate root causes.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

  • Why modern culture has systematically disconnected you from your body's intelligence through "no pain, no gain" mentality, stimulant dependence, and symptom suppression
  • The four-phase warning system: from subtle whispers weeks before crisis to full-blown alarms requiring intervention
  • Your body's five communication channels: energy patterns, digestive intelligence, inflammatory signaling, nervous system regulation, and hormonal cycles
  • Three-level framework for reclaiming body awareness: daily 2-minute body scans, weekly pattern recognition, monthly deep-dive investigations
  • How catching issues at phase one could prevent a health crisis years down the road

🔑 Key Insights: "Your body doesn't send false alarms. Every symptom is information and communication. Most people only pay attention at phase 3-4, but symptom detectives catch issues at phase 1."

"80% of vagal signals travel from body to brain, not the reverse. Your gut feelings and intuitive knowing are physiologically wired through interoceptive networks."

"Nine out of ten people show inflammatory markers before becoming 'sick.' The goal is to nip problems in the bud years before they become a medical crisis."

💡 Action Steps:

  • Tomorrow morning before touching your phone: 2-minute body scan (energy, sleep quality, gut sensation, mental clarity, emotional state, physical tension, breath quality)
  • Start a weekly trigger map: when do symptoms appear, what precedes them, what makes them better or worse

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone experiencing chronic low-grade symptoms without clear diagnosis, those seeking to prevent disease rather than manage it, or anyone tired of the "pill for ill" approach to healthcare.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

  • Dr. Shojai's new book (features extensive interoception content)
  • Academy programs focused on gut health, oral health, and hormonal health

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

  • Website: theurbanmonk.com
  • Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, Focus
  • Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma

#UrbanMonk #Interoception #BodyAwareness #FunctionalMedicine #DiseasePrevention #VagusNerve #HealthDetective #WellnessWarrior