Rooted in Wellness with Mona Sharma

There is a reason brain health feels so urgent right now. So many people are watching parents, grandparents, partners, and loved ones face Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, depression, anxiety, or cognitive decline, while quietly wondering if the same future is waiting for them. With Alzheimer’s projected to affect nearly 14 million Americans by 2060, this is not a conversation we can keep saving for later.
Most of us think about the brain only when something starts to feel different, but cognitive decline can begin 20 to 30 years before a single symptom appears. That means the way we eat, move, sleep, manage stress, support blood sugar, and care for our metabolism may be shaping the brain long before memory starts to slip. And with only about 6% of American adults considered metabolically healthy, the connection between insulin resistance, inflammation, and brain aging becomes much harder to ignore.
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. David Perlmutter to talk about why prevention has to begin while you still feel fine, which metabolic number he wishes more people knew, and what daily choices may be protecting or threatening your brain without you realizing it. Dr. Perlmutter is a board-certified neurologist, six-time New York Times bestselling author, and author of Brain Defenders, with decades of work connecting the brain to the body, gut, metabolism, inflammation, and the way we live every day.
What’s Discussed:
04:45 How Dr. Perlmutter thinks about connection, gratitude, and what it means to be rooted.
12:20 The daily habit he says may be one of the worst for your brain.
17:54 Why brain decline does not begin the moment memory fails.
24:17 What ultra-processed food may be doing to long-term brain health.
27:08 How inflammation connects depression, anxiety, and neurodegeneration.
31:20 What “I feel fine right now” can miss about the future of the brain.
39:59 The key metabolic labs Dr. Perlmutter wants people to know.
46:50 Why your gut bacteria may act like a signal system for the brain.
57:17 How inflammation can shift the brain’s immune cells from protective to destructive.
My hope is that this conversation helps you stop waiting for symptoms before you care about your brain. The choices you make today are not small. They are signals, and your brain is listening.
Thank You to Our Sponsors:
Timeline: Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/MONA 
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Dr. David Perlmutter:
Website: drperlmutter.com
Brain Defenders: drperlmutter.com/books/brain-defenders
Instagram: @davidperlmutter

There is a point where “everything looks normal” stops feeling reassuring. You may be exhausted, bloated, itchy, inflamed, anxious, sensitive to foods, reacting to supplements, struggling with sleep, or feeling like your body is on high alert, yet the answers you keep getting are stress, aging, hormones, or nothing to worry about.
Most people do not start searching for deeper answers because of one symptom. It is usually the way the symptoms keep stacking, shifting, and refusing to make sense. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Tania Dempsey to talk about the immune patterns that can sit underneath complex chronic symptoms, why the body can stay reactive long after the original trigger, and what it looks like to investigate the whole system instead of chasing one symptom at a time.
Dr. Tania Dempsey is a board-certified physician, founder of the AIM Center for Personalized Medicine, and one of the leading experts in immune dysfunction, MCAS, and vector-borne illness. She has spent over a decade working with patients who have been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told their symptoms are not connected. 
What’s Discussed:
00:37 What helps Dr. Tania stay rooted while working with complex chronic illness.
07:08 The everyday symptom many people brush off too quickly.
10:31 Why scattered symptoms may not be as separate as they seem.
16:45 How a deeper patient history can change the direction of care.
33:10 The immune pattern that can show up in surprising places.
38:33 Why the usual story about tick exposure is incomplete.
47:13 The hidden layer that may keep people stuck after years of treatment.
54:03 A different way to understand anxiety when it feels physical.
My hope is that this conversation helps you stop blaming your body and start asking better questions about what it may be responding to, so you can feel more informed, less dismissed, and more confident about the next step in your healing journey.
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Dr. Tania Dempsey:
Website: drtaniadempsey.com 
ILADS®: ilads.org/resource 
Instagram: @drtaniadempseymd 
Facebook: @taniadempseymd
YouTube: @DrTaniaDempsey

There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from spending years trying to heal yourself and still feeling like you have not arrived. You go to therapy, journal, regulate your nervous system, learn your patterns, and keep looking for the next thing that will finally help you feel peaceful. Then an old emotion returns or you find yourself in a familiar pattern, and it can feel like proof that there is still something wrong with you.
The part we rarely question is what all that effort may be teaching us. When every difficult emotion, symptom, or setback becomes another problem to solve, healing can begin to reinforce the feeling that we are still incomplete. So what changes when we stop approaching ourselves as a project that always needs work? In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Panache Desai to talk about why “doing the work” can become its own source of pressure, what acceptance actually asks of us, and why being human was never something we needed to overcome. 
Panache is a bestselling author, transformational speaker, and former guest on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday who has spent over three decades helping people move beyond endless self-correction and reconnect with the peace and wholeness already within them.
What’s Discussed:
05:52 Why accepting your humanity can change the way you relate to yourself.
11:58 The emotion many people suppress because they believe it makes them less healed.
14:12 Why doing more healing work can leave you feeling even further from peace.
19:49 What happens when self-improvement begins from the belief that you are incomplete.
21:26 How healing can become an identity that keeps you searching for the next thing to fix.
37:05 Why changing your circumstances does not always create the safety you are looking for.
59:14 Why simple practices repeated consistently may matter more than another healing method.
Listen to this episode if you are tired of turning every emotion, setback, or symptom into another reason to work harder on yourself.
Thank You to Our Sponsors: 
Timeline: Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/MONA 
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Panache Desai: 
Website: panachedesai.com/call-to-calm-meditations/

Peptides are everywhere right now, and the promise is hard to ignore. When you are dealing with slow recovery, inflammation, low energy, gut issues, or the feeling that your body is no longer responding the way it used to, hearing that one compound could help, can make it feel like the answer you have been waiting for.
The excitement around peptides is real, but so is the confusion. With so many compounds, protocols, and promises circulating online, it can be difficult to know what your body may actually need, what is worth paying attention to, and where to begin. In this episode, I sat down with Nathalie Niddam to cut through the noise and talk about what you need to know before following a recommendation, building a stack, or adding a peptide to your routine.
Nathalie Niddam is a holistic nutritionist and longevity educator, and host of Longevity with Nathalie Niddam. After years of studying peptides, bioregulators, and regenerative health, along with managing a peptide community of approximately 36,000 people, she brings a grounded perspective to both the potential of these tools and the mistakes people make when using them without enough context.
What’s Discussed:
(16:47) The biggest mistake people make when starting peptides and why someone else’s protocol may not be right for your body.
(22:22) What peptides and bioregulators are, how they work, and the difference between supporting the body and forcing an outcome.
(27:13) What the current evidence around BPC-157 can and cannot tell us, and how to think about emerging science without ignoring real-world experience.
(34:29) How to tell thoughtful peptide guidance from influencer hype and what to look for before trusting a recommendation.
(40:01) Why larger peptide and supplement stacks can create new blind spots, and why intentional use may help you understand what is actually working.
(49:30) Why food, movement, sleep, stress support, hormones, baseline testing, and body awareness still matter before adding advanced longevity tools.
Listen to this episode if peptides have caught your attention, but you want a more grounded way to understand where they may fit into your health 
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Nathalie Niddam: 
Website: natniddam.com 
Instagram: @longevitywithnat

Why do we sometimes pull away from the people we love most? Why can closeness feel comforting one moment and overwhelming the next? And why do certain patterns keep repeating even when we know we want something different?
In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Thais Gibson to look at the patterns underneath how we love, cope, shut down, chase, self-soothe, and respond when our nervous system does not feel fully safe. We talk about attachment styles, core wounds, subconscious beliefs, emotional triggers, and why the way we learned to protect ourselves can quietly shape our relationships, stress, habits, and healing.
Thais Gibson is a bestselling author, PhD, and founder of Integrated Attachment Theory™, a neuroscience-backed framework designed to help people understand and rewire attachment patterns. With over a decade in private practice and more than 30,000 students across 115 countries, she brings a clear, compassionate, and deeply practical lens to why these patterns form and how they can begin to change.
What’s Discussed:
(19:43) Why old habits and instant fixes may point to something deeper beneath the surface.
(24:07) Rapid-fire truths on attachment styles, trauma responses, therapy, conflict, and relationship healing.
(31:00) What attachment style really means and why it matters beyond romantic relationships.
(50:01) The deeper needs that can drive chasing, withdrawing, shutting down, or searching outside yourself.
(56:48) How self-soothing patterns can show up through cravings, numbing, and comfort-seeking habits.
(1:00:15) Why early beliefs can quietly shape the way we love, react, and protect ourselves as adults.
(1:20:07) How attachment wounds can connect to burnout, anxiety, emotional eating, and the body’s stress response.
Listen to this episode if you have ever wondered why you keep repeating a pattern you thought you had already outgrown. This conversation will help you see attachment through a more compassionate lens and understand why healing begins with what your nervous system learned long before you had words for it. 🎧
Thank You to Our Sponsors:
CAROL Bike: Visit carolbike.com/mona and use code MONA for a special discount.
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Thais Gibson: 
Instagram: @thepersonaldevelopmentschool
Podcast: Breakthrough with Thais Gibson Podcast