140. Could Anxiety Be Your Superpower? with Arsalan Monawar

Arsalan Monawar 0:05

People are afraid of the unknown because what it does is it shines a light on them with their own insecurities and their own fears

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:16

Welcome to the your longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from a local guest Arsalan Manohar. Today he's going to share his story with anxiety and what healthy coping strategies have been effective for him. Things like fasting cold exposure, exercise and surrounding himself with those who really support his passions. As a creative entrepreneur. You're also going to get some free business tips. Let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of The your longevity blueprint Podcast. Today my guest is local friend Arsalan Manohar, who is the founder at Mono our studios in Iowa, a creative agency that tell stories through video production. He's also a mental health advocate. Arsalan is dedicated to breaking the stigma of mental health around the world and has amassed five plus million views through his personal brand dedicated to anxiety and mental health education. And I've been privileged to have had our salon, take some of my pictures and create my book launch video, which was like over five years ago, I think. So we'll just call him a local celebrity for those of us here in Iowa. And I'm so honored to have you on the show. So welcome to the show our salon. Thank you, Stephanie,

Arsalan Monawar 1:31

thank you for inviting me, thank you for inviting me to your community. And it's so great to talk to you in person, like digitally. And and yeah, so thank you again for having me on. It's a privilege.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:42

You bet. Well, tell me your story. So why have you become so passionate about teaching about anxiety and mental health?

Arsalan Monawar 1:49

Yes, thank you. So I was born in Pakistan and my family and I immigrated here when I was eight. And at that time, coming here, we literally knew nothing. We knew not a single word of English we emigrated, like literally a leap of faith. Talk about culture shock, right. And just growing up, I am one of six kids. And growing up, I knew I was always like, dedicated and determined and focused on being creative creativity has been a huge part of my life. And with creativity comes the whole mental health side of things. There's a lot of research around this to creatives are very prone to mental health related issues, specifically anxiety, which I didn't know this. And the reason I didn't know this is there's a huge stigma when it comes to mental health in the Pakistani and Indian culture. If you think there's a stigma in America, you have no idea how bad it is. In fact, there's not even a single word for anxiety or depression in Pakistan, in India. And so growing up Yeah, once once I really got into my creativity, I started having sensations and symptoms of anxiety, which I didn't know what they were. But it wasn't until I was 20, in my 20s, that I was actually diagnosed with anxiety disorder. And this is when I rushed to the emergency room, I thought I was having a heart attack, which again, fun fact, the majority of people who go to the emergency room thinking they have a heart attack or actually having a panic attack. And so the doctor there immediately was like, you have to take medications. And I was like I prefer not to. And so I went on my own journey and which we can obviously dive into, and just really learning about anxiety and mental health and depression and really understanding that there's people, especially in Pakistan, in India, especially with younger kids that are struggling this every single day. And people are picking their you know, they're dying by suicide, and it's an alarming rate. And that jumped me into my passion of talking about anxiety, talking about mental health. My wife, Crystal and I are very blessed to have our own business, as you mentioned, mono our studios here in Iowa. So we get to do an amazing video production as we did for you, Stephanie. And so using my creativity and using my love for telling stories through video, I've able to really harness that ability to tell stories and create content around anxiety as well. So it's juggling both worlds, the business world creating content for our clients, and also with my personal brand as well. So I'm very determined and passionate about breaking the stigma and anxiety because there's always that one person and I always say anxiety is super power. And I always say that you are the answer to someone's prayer. Now it could be talking about anxiety, it could be talking about anything that you are struggling with are suffering with. If you just open up about it and start teaching others what you've gone through, you can save someone's life, you can completely change their life. So that's kind of my mission right now in life as well.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 4:43

Beautiful, beautiful. So, obviously I don't know a lot about your culture, right? So why do you think there is such that stigma and that there's no word for anxiety like why is that?

Arsalan Monawar 4:53

So whenever I talk in front of a group and I talk about growing up in Pakistan, and this is a true fact. So in Pakistan or India Not all parents, but most parents tell their kids that can grow up to be one of three things. And so I'm going to quiz you, Stephanie, you can grow up in Pakistan, he grew up to be one of three things as a career. What do you think those three things are?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:13

Probably mom this I don't know, teacher, doctor, Doc. So Doctor, doctor, engineer,

Arsalan Monawar 5:18

yes, engineer, okay. And the third one is a failure. You can be a doctor, an engineer, or a failure. Now, I know that sounds like silly, but it is a cold, hard truth. So what why is this important? So kids like myself, who are extremely creative. And by the way, I'm extremely blessed, because my parents allowed me to harness my creativity and utilize it right. So they were very supportive of it. But not all parents and focus on the MDR. So what happens is they tell their kids you grow up, you're gonna be a doctor, or an engineer, or a failure. And so these kids in their mind creatively, they're musicians at heart, they're painters, they're dancers, they're creative, they're storytellers. But they go on this journey to the things that their parents want them to be a journey to accept other people's opinions, that is a huge catalyst for growing up. And in that community in that culture is you're so focused on other people's opinions, what are other people going to think about me? What are my what's my family gonna think about me. So they go down this road of being a doctor, engineer, and they are struggling in silence with anxiety and depression, they're miserable every single day, they're feeling these symptoms of physical symptoms. And anxiety is such a powerful thing. It's always trying to pull you and tell you what's going on. So if you hold your anxiety, and it'll start manifesting itself into physical symptoms, joint pain, fatigue, you know, things that you've talked about in your book, and through your podcast. And so the stigma continues to grow. And people when they start opening up about it, they're kind of shun they're like, there's nothing wrong with you. And it has men talking about stigma as men, if you're like, hey, I feel like I'm struggling, I feel like I'm suffering, it's like, you need to man up, you need to pull yourself together, you need to be supportive for your family. So there's like really no help. And there's really no end to that. And unfortunately, ends up being people taking their own lives or going down this, or like leaning on other ways to cope with your anxiety, which can be dangerous and harmful, you know, being addicted to certain things that are. So yeah, so that's why there's a stigma is because people are, they're growing up in these in our culture. But these expectations, these expectations that are completely unrealistic, and also do not die with them. So here in America, it's such an honor to see people tell their children like you can grow up to be whatever you want, you know, you can grow to be an astronaut if you want, right. And so these kids have this beautiful imagination and growing up, and they have that freedom and that flexibility. Not all cultures have that. And I'm talking about Pakistan or India, because that's my culture. But this impacts African culture, this impacts like people around the world. So that's why everything I talk about is so important, because we have to break that stigma because there's so many kids and adults that are just suffering in silence, and it's just not fair. Yes,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:59

we do. And thank you for reminding me and just our listeners of how blessed we really are. We were so fortunate to grow up in a family whose parents did say you can be whatever you want to be right and who supported that. So thank you for that reminder. But what was the turning point for you with your own mental health? So you alluded to it landing in the emergency room, which I actually also landed in the emergency room with very fast heart, right? So I kind of have a similar story, but tell me what the turning point was for you.

Arsalan Monawar 8:23

It's nothing. Yeah, so it was right around the same time that we started our own business model our studios and anxiety also, the beautiful thing about it, you know, whenever people hear the word anxiety, they always talk about the negative things about it for me again, my if I ever write a book, Stephanie it's probably gonna be called anxiety is your superpower because I really have it a lie. Oh, is related back to if you are a fan of superhero movies. And if you're not, I can dive into this and all my

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:50

almost four year old is already a superhero. So I'm gonna have to learn.

Arsalan Monawar 8:55

Have you seen spider? Do you know the you know the story of spider man and how Peter Parker Okay, yeah, when Peter Parker first gets bit by a spider, he's immediately alarmed and frightened. He doesn't know what's going on with him. He's like having these, this accelerated heart rate, he doesn't know the superpowers that are within him until he starts understanding and figuring out how to harness that power. That's exactly what anxiety is, like, when it first hits you, you get all these symptoms and sensations that you're so unfamiliar with, that have been lingering, that have that have showed up in their own way. But now they're full on and the reason that happens is anxiety is trying to nudge you and push you into teaching you how to improve your life. It's this self discovery manifestation of your own journey. And you're either doing too much of something, you're doing too little of something, what are you doing, how can you change your life? And so when I started when we started our own business, I was at a point in my life where I was being pulled in two different directions and I didn't know where I needed to go just trying to find myself. And because I was holding everything in and not talking to anyone. I love my day. But not even talking to my dad because I was afraid the whole, you know, the stigma around it. And came to find out later that he was super supportive of me starting my own business, but I was really scared. So I was holding a lot in. And I remember it was a summer afternoon I was in the car, it was super hot outside. And all of a sudden, I started like, one of the symptoms of anxiety that's really frightening is D realization, meaning you feel like you're out of your body and you start floating. And I felt like I was out of my body. And that scared me. I've never felt that and my heart started accelerating. And I was checking my pulse constantly sweating. I was like I'm having a heart attack. So I, you know, rushed to the emergency room. And when I went in, and the doctor started telling me like, yeah, you have anxiety, and here's some medication options. And that was this light bulb moment for me. And that was the big turning point. I was like, Okay, I need to figure out what I want to do with my life, because I think that's going to help me. Now. Here's one another really scary thing about anxiety is I immediately was like, I need to go get a physical and get a clean bill of health, which I always recommend to everyone. Make sure you cross everything off because it could be something else. It's not anxiety. It could be like thyroid related, you might you know, there's a lot of symptoms of anxiety that masks themselves to other things. It's really important. Yeah, yeah. So when people reach out, they're like, I think I have anxiety, I'm like, first step. I don't know when the last time was you got to physical go get a physical done. And by the way, I should preface all of this by saying that I'm not a doctor, right. I'm not a licensed therapist. I'm not a psychiatrist. So please, as you listen to my story, and listen to this journey, I always advocate that, what I'm saying is from my own personal experience of having anxiety disorder for my whole life, but being officially diagnosed like 10 years ago, so I've had officially have anxiety disorder diagnosis for 10 years. But always consult with someone that you can trust and as a physician, your family doctor, or whoever you speak with, but get a clean bill of health and make sure there's no other underlying issues, thyroid, and you know, Stephanie talks a lot about this in her book and our podcast. So I got a clean bill of health. Everything was good doctor and doctor was like, you're one of the healthiest patients I've ever had. So keep doing what you're doing. Thumbs up, I was like, awesome. And then the scariest thing happened, I went home, I was laying in bed, and I was like, okay, clean bill of health, everything's good. I'm, I'm healthy. And then I had the worst panic attack at that point. Because my Creator friend, that overthinker, the deep analytical person that I am as most creatives are, started thinking about all the other things that are possibly wrong with me, the doctor got it wrong, I think there's something wrong with my brain, I'm going crazy. Like I should do a follow up, I should maybe go get an MRI, maybe there's something wrong with my brain. And then anxiety started getting worse and worse and worse. And so that's really scary. And everyone who's listening to me who has anxiety is probably going to be nodding their head like yep. When you because like it's just constant, right? It's it's constant, overthinking over analyzing. And so we'll jump into some of the things that I use as therapy that have helped me navigate through that. But that's slowly when it started understanding and researching and figuring out my anxiety. And it took two or three years. But that's when my whole mission. And that was the turning point for me is to help others, teach others support others. Because you feel like you're alone. Just like anything else. When you get diagnosed with anything, it doesn't even have to be anxiety, you feel like you're the only person who has this. And you're not, you're not alone at all, there's so many people out there that could help you and will be a community for you. And so you can grow through this as a community.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:28

As I interviewed the storyteller, I feel like there's kind of two stories to be told here. One is like your anxiety story, which is kind of parallel to you building your own business. And I want to hear about that also. So let's go there for a minute. And then I want to come back to kind of coping strategies of anxiety. So tell me kind of where that creative passion for back to storytelling and just video production came from?

Arsalan Monawar 13:48

So one of the biggest aspects of growing up in a Pakistani or Indian culture is the movie industry. So here's Hollywood, but in India, and Pakistan is called Bollywood and Bollywood is an enormous part of any person from Pakistan or India like it's, it's huge. The film industry there is huge and you can't get around it. Like everyone's talking about the latest movie. And the amazing thing was Bollywood movies. It's very music driven to they have music videos, like if you've ever seen a Bollywood movie, a lot of music, a lot of dancing a lot of colors. And that really ignited me as a creative like when I was a kid. I just love the storytelling aspect of it. But I didn't get my first camera till I was 15 Right? I was 15 years old. My dad got me I don't have I don't think I have it down here. I have in my office upstairs. I still have the camera is this like old Sony cell camcorder? You can probably get on eBay now for like 25 cents it was but my dad got it for me. And he's like, Here you go. And so I'm like, Okay, and so the very first thing my brothers and I started doing was we started recreating scenes from Bollywood movies, meaning we like so the things that are popular now on Tik Tok is the stuff we were doing when I was like 13 Like just taking scenes, recreating them recreating music videos and just like, non stop creating video content. And this is when I first downloaded my first version of Adobe Premiere and After Effects, which is the suit the editing suite that I use, and we had a computer that was the slowest thing in the world, and it would take. So when I use say the word render, like render means sending out a video file, back then it would take like, three days for me to save like a 10 second video, because we had such a slow computer and I thought that was normal. I'm like, This is gonna take three days, no one can touch this computer and my family was like we need to use. So it was it was really frustrating for them. But it was a growing thing for me. And as I continued to evolve, and when I was 18, I got another camera, I got a new computer and just started then we started making our own videos, our own sketches, our own ideas. And I was one of the first YouTubers. So when YouTube came out, I was like, I've got to find a way to share this with other people just for fun, you know, because I think there's other people that might find this interesting. And I created my first YouTube channel and LIKE it exploded like people, especially in Pakistan in India were like loving these music, video recreations. And we can definitely go down this road, but it's massive, massive superstar in the Pakistan music industry. He saw a music video that I did of his song, and I obviously gave him credit for it. But I recreated one of his videos. And he reached out to me and he wanted me to do a video for them. This is a huge thing for me. I was like, oh my goodness, oh, this is when I was 21. Wow. And so I had no experience with business, I hadn't made a single dollar in business. This is when I was like delivering pizzas for a pizza place while going to college. And I had no business sense whatsoever. So they were trying to work out a deal with me like well do this and do the contracts. And I had no idea what I was doing. The deal fell through because they realized that I'm just a kid. And I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm like, Oh my gosh. And so I was like, I want to learn this stuff. Because I want to be able to utilize my creativity and tell stories. But what's my

Dr. Stephanie Gray 17:04

you must have innately knew you had the talent to do it. You just also needed the business sense. Yeah,

Arsalan Monawar 17:08

yeah. And everyone was like, hey, we want to hire you do this. And we want to do that. And I was like, I don't know, I don't know what my worth is. I don't know what I should charge you. And so I wanted to understand this. So when I decided to go to university, I decided to get a degree in marketing and business. Because I knew that I could use my marketing degree to use it as a catalyst for my creative pursuits. And so when I went to school, I started learning everything about marketing and learning everything about how to market yourself as a creative and what's your self worth. And so, through college, I was able to apply at an ad agency who I was very grateful for that they took me in, they did not have video production was not part of their department. They were like, we don't do video on like your marketing agency, you don't provide a video. And they're like, Do you have a resume? I'm like, No, but I have my YouTube channel. So I sent on my YouTube channel and they saw my videos are like, we want to hire you not just as an intern, we want to hire you because we were required to get an internship with my degree, they're like, you have to do an internship. And I ended up getting a job straight out of like, while I was still in college, straight out of college. And that's where I started creating content and video production for clients. You know, this ad agency had clients, and they wanted a video done. And I was able to utilize all the years of what I've done. And now tell stories for someone else. And I really always harnessed it back to growing up and watching Bollywood videos, Bollywood movies, because there's this art of storytelling, there's this there's this unique way. And we live in a world right now where the attention span is just depleted. The average attention span for anyone is like seven seconds. Meaning if I sent you a video right now Stephanie and said this will change your life. And you're like our song. This is 20 minutes. I don't have time for that. I am in the industry of capturing someone's attention very quickly. And so to be sure your videos would capture someone for more space. Yeah. So it's really important. That's a very important thing. And, and so anyway, so that just really jumped in my career in regards to creating content for clients. And then, you know, you fast forward to then wanting to take the leap of entrepreneurship going back. Yeah, it was a very scary period. It was very frightening. I was very grateful for where I was working. And they gave me the opportunity. They took this kid out of college who had never worked in that round before. I learned so much through them and with my time there. And then I decided to venture out and a total fun, random side fact, we no longer do this. But when we first started our business model our studios in 2015, that's when it was December of 2015 is when I made the official post, starting our own business and it was so scary. It was so exciting. Something that I never thought I would get into his wedding videos. So what happened is one of my friends who was getting married, they're like, Hey, I don't know if you do this, but can you do this for me? I'm like, Sure. And I started looking at wedding weddings. Do some what people do and I was like, I'm like, Oh no, I want to tell more of the story. I don't want to be like, I don't want to be Uncle Larry behind a camcorder and then send you the video. Like, I want to tell the story of your day. They're like, yeah, do you have creative freedom, and they were eloping was an elopement wedding. And I went to Dubuque and I filmed their day with just a couple, they were really sweet. I posted a video and it went viral. It like, blew up people in Australia and Germany around the world. Were watching this video. They're like, I don't know who this couple is. But I'm sitting here bawling my eyes out what's going on. And again, the reason I was able to tell the story of their day in a very cinematic way, is going back to Bollywood and growing up like because, because learning how to tell a story was very important for me. So posted that and weddings blew up for us, like people wanted to book us left and right. And we were doing so many weddings, and weddings are fun, but they're extremely. Yeah. Because most people don't understand this as a wedding videographer. What's different for you than compared to let's say, the DJ, or the florist is a DJ will work with the couple leading up to the day just like we do leading up to the day. At the end of the night. They play their last song, they're done. They're on to the next wedding for me, I captured all their footage. Now I come home, blank canvas, how do I tell their story in a unique way that's unique to them. And it's this art, it's like this painting. And it takes a while to like really curate that. And I was doing 40 weddings a year, nonstop. And I was burning myself out. And so I was like, okay, something has to change. So that was a whole adventure too. But we do a lot of video content for corporate clients. For small, I would love working with small business clients who are just starting up and you know, helping tell their story helping tell their brand story. We love working with nonprofits. That's one of our favorite things to do nonprofits who have no funds, and how can we help you tell your story so you can get more funds, you can get more donations. So those are the three tiers that we'll be do right now, corporate clients, small business clients and nonprofits. And so that's the business side. And then the personal side, again, is what we've been kind of chatting about so far.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:12

Now, let's go back to that. So you start your own business, which is extremely exciting, and very overwhelming at the same time. But you, in essence had kind of immediate success. I mean, you were doing well, yeah. But you also kind of came I guess the anxiety came to the forefront there. And so you had decided you wanted to opt for more natural ways to overcome this. So I would like for the audience to kind of hear what some strategies were that were very helpful for you.

Arsalan Monawar 22:37

Yeah, for sure. So again, want to preface is over and over again, and Stephanie might actually even have to put this in the show notes. Just a disclaimer that I'm not a doctor, again, this is my

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:48

disclaimer on the show. So you're good, you're covered,

Arsalan Monawar 22:51

perfect, perfect. By the way, my line of communication is always open. And we can talk about that later, where people get a hold on me. But if people are struggling, and they want more tips and advice, feel free to reach out to me. I'm like an open book. So for me, I started like, again, doing the research of what causes anxiety, how can you kind of what's the therapy behind it. And what I've started discovering is one of the biggest ways to combat anxiety is through mindful meditation. Which means that people with anxiety, have a tendency to have what's known as a lizard brain, your thoughts become thoughts and small thoughts become big thoughts, and you jump from thoughts nonstop. You're always thinking about what happened in the past, or was saying, Well, what's gonna happen in the future, just the fear of everything, which is a blessing in disguise is a blessing because as a creative person, that's my bread and butter. Like when I'm filming something, my brain is already thinking about how I'm going to edit this, and I'm going to tell the story. It's a beautiful thing. But the scary thing is when you start having those weird, scary symptoms, symptoms, you start over analyzing and start thinking about everything, and not even symptoms. You start over analyzing anything, when it's like, you might be having a conversation with someone you might be like, Oh my God, did I say the wrong thing? Are they going to judge me? You know, like, it's, it can be very scary. So mindful meditation is literally the practice of sitting and doing breath, work and meditating and bringing your attention to the present moment. Your thoughts will constantly flee, they'll want to go from one place to another, don't judge your thoughts. Don't be judged. You know, there's no judgment here. Let your thoughts go. But then slowly, reel them in, back to the present moment. And then focus, do a body check body scan, start from the head, work your way to your toes. Just go through and check every symptom. And if you feel odd pain in your shoulder kind of focus in on that what's causing that it could be anxiety related. And so I started doing mindful meditation. I started noticing it helps. But then something amazing happened. I realized that whenever I'm in a creative state, meaning when I'm editing or when I'm filming, I have no anxiety. I was like, That's really interesting. So what I realized is there's a connection between being creative and being in the zone. On being focused hyper focus, almost like as you're daydreaming in a specific spot of like your zone of genius, as they call it. And Stephanie for you, you know, the things that inspire you meeting with clients, you know, talk about things that make you happy. So when I was being creative, my anxiety was almost non existent. It's when I wasn't being creative is when my anxiety was worse. And so I found that blank, I'm like, the more that you do, the thing that you're passionate about, your anxiety solely falls away. Why is that? Because your anxiety wants you to do more of the things that make you happy. Your anxiety is your friend, your anxiety is your friend, your anxiety is not the enemy, right? And that's a scary thing. In the beginning, people want this anxiety to go away, I want this thing to go away. Why is this happening to me, I was totally fine yesterday. Now, the anxiety is not your enemy, the more you push it away, the more you try to fight it, the stronger it becomes. But it's not the enemy is literally trying to teach you something. And at the end of the day, when you take the mask off of anxiety, it's literally you looking back at yourself in the mirror, it's you it's your subconscious is everything. And so I started like figuring out, okay, what are other ways I can do to bring myself to the present moment, creativity is one of them. Meditation is huge. Journaling is extremely important. I always have something next to me to take notes. And the reason is as creatives and as anxious people, our mind is just cluttered. We have so many thoughts in our brain, and just jotting them down, whether it's before you go to bed, or when you wake up in the morning, just doing what I like to call a brain dump. Just getting everything off your brain will really help. The other thing that's helpful is writing out your symptoms and how you're feeling on a specific day. I was doing daily journaling for I promised myself I'm gonna do daily journaling for 60 days straight. And by the 61st day I felt insanely different. And because the reason is you go back and you visit how you were doing on day number two. And you might be having these really scary symptoms and these racing thoughts and these weird feelings, those constantly, those have gone away like 60 days later, like I'm not feeling anymore. And it's a good reminder of how far you've come because people tend to like, be so focused on where you are right now. But you forget to think about where you're going to be a year from now. Right? So meditation is huge. Being in a creative flow state, they're doing things that you would love, it could be going on a hike, whatever it is that inspires and inspires you. Journaling is important. And then what I added on top of that is cold exposure therapy. And when I say that people are always like, No thank you. Like trust me on this. Okay, so there's been so much research done around it, check out a book by Wim Hof. Actually just check out Wim Hof. In general, this dude is a genius but he really dove into cold exposure therapy and the Wim Hof breathing method, which I do on a daily in a daily habit form, called exposure could be taking a cold shower or cold punches for me is taking a cold shower. I usually start my day or I like to start my day around 4am In the morning, that's when I end the most creative mind is clear. Everyone in my home is sleeping. Our Sun is asleep. My wife's asleep. Our little puppy is asleep and no one needs. I don't have to be a dad at that moment. I don't have to be a husband at that moment. I can be Arslan creative, like moths when

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:17

your cortisol boosts all your hormones boost you're getting that Yeah, yeah, everything right oh distraction, because everyone wants to

Arsalan Monawar 28:24

offer a focus state. Very first thing I do. I drink. I like to start my day by drinking a liter of water. It's just I've always done it. Water is such an important thing. A lot of people will feel anxiety when they're dehydrated. People will feel anxiety, for credit for random things. But I start my day with water and then I take a quick cold shower. I mean like 30 seconds blasted on cold jump in immediate boost. I

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:52

like cold I like ice cold, like ice cold. It's

Arsalan Monawar 28:54

cold, like ice cold, like literally don't even touch the heart, just like blast it and just like take a couple deep breaths and just jump in. And at first it's gonna feel like pins and needles, it feels like someone is just beating you up, it feels horrible. And then literally five to 10 seconds later, this huge relief kicks in like your entire, your entire system gets a reboot your immune system, your nervous system, everything just resets itself and you jump into this calm state, which is really interesting for anxiety. You're feeling anxious and so you would think that's going to make you more anxious, but the complete opposite happens. You put yourself in this, this controlled anxiety almost to show your body and yourself that you can do anything. You take that cold shower and then you have jumpstarted your day into amazingness right like the rest of your day.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:46

That's your nervous system. So whether it's hot to cold cold to hot, it's more of the vasoconstriction vasodilation or dilation constriction and you're right there's a lot of scientific evidence behind how important that can be. So it really kind of does reset that nervous system and so As you're explaining, you're almost getting that kind of euphoria afterwards, you might be like, you know, jolted in the moment with cold water, but eventually, then you kind of get that. Yeah, yeah, achieve that calm state.

Arsalan Monawar 30:09

Yeah. And also pro tip journaling right after a cold shower is amazing too, because you just have like this amazing creative thoughts and all this stuff just make sense right now. And then cold exposure is really important and exercise, extremely important. Because when you're in a rut, whether it is like deep despair, for any reason, in life, you might be going through the grieving process, you might be just going through anything, exercise, and don't even type don't jump into this, because Stephanie's talked about this numerous times. And I'm sure she's had awesome guests who have talked about this. But exercise is a amazing, it's like one of nature's best antidepressants. It'll just reset every like it'll release the endorphins and the chemicals in your body that your brain really really needs, then it'll just remind you how incredibly powerful you are, it could just be as simple thing as going for a long hike, going taking your dog on a walk. And if you know jogging for me, I love. I love HIIT training, which is high intensity interval training. Because I like to be just my morning routine, I like to just keep it going. Because a lot of people the mistake they make with their morning routines is they use it as a form of procrastination, their morning routines may be two hours long. And then by the time they're done with it, they're exhausted and they don't get anything done. So make sure your morning routine isn't a way to put off things that you're supposed to be doing. Make sure that it's quick, efficient, you can jump into what it is you want to do. And so the last thing then for my natural, again, just a recap of that. Meditation, super important journaling is important, called exposure therapy exercise. And then the last one is intermittent fasting, which has been a huge part of my life for like the last five years. Now, when I say that to people get really nervous because they feel like and if you don't know anything about intermittent fasting, definitely do the research. And I have a video on my YouTube channel where I talk about intermittent fasting. But it's essentially a lot about that on the podcast, I'm sure with what you do, Stephanie, that's a huge thing. So I want to jump into the essentials of intermittent fasting. But what I will say people try to push back at it when I first mentioned it, because they are afraid that if they skip a meal, their blood sugar is going to drop, they're going to feel anxious. And again, it's one of those things where you're for like it's like a force control state of anxiety that helps you combat the symptoms of anxiety, I have found that. So I'm still drinking my black coffee, and I want to have my first meal to like one o'clock, black coffee. So the protocol that I use, you can have water as much as you want, obviously, green tea, and black coffee, so no sugar, no sweetener, nothing like that. It's literally a one a one and you're fast. But I find I'm most creative. When I'm fasting. When I consume food, I feel sluggish, I feel tired, I feel a little bit more anxious because there are certain foods that will also spark your anxiety. So for anyone who's even considering it, who's never done it, it doesn't have to be anything extreme. either. You can do like a 12, what's known as a circadian rhythm fast, which is just 12 to 13 hours, which actually is not that hard. Like, let's say you go to bed at nine. Yeah, you go to bed at nine. And your last meal, let's say is like at eight, you're sleeping for like the majority of that time, you know. And another thing that really all the stuff that I mentioned will help boost your desire to fast longer. So the cold shower and the drinking of the water, especially in the morning, when you're so dehydrated, your body needs the inner bath, drink your water, take your shower, cold shower and journal. And you'll notice that you can fast even longer. And just notice how different you feel. It's your anxiety and your symptoms of mental health as well. So those are the five main things that I use. I don't take any vitamins, which there's amazing vitamins and nutrients out there you can take. But for me, it's what are things that I can do right now without having to go to the

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:56

store. Right? Better? Three, right? Yeah, yeah.

Arsalan Monawar 34:00

Again, the term is nature's antidepressant. There's so many out there. And those are just to name a few.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:06

Those are all great. I want to go back and almost comment on all of those strategies when we go back to meditation and even yoga because and I've mentioned this before on the show, the first time I went to yoga, I was like, This is terrible. You know, even just trying to deep breathe or do meditation. Like I couldn't sit still I was like, perfectly shaking, buzzing you know, it's just like, This is not for me this is. But I took what I tell patients when they now have that response when I'm recommending these sort of activities to them. I say if that's how you feel when you're trying to do that you probably needed the most, and I needed to honor my body's need for mental and physical downtime. And many of us just especially entrepreneurs, and creatives, go go go doo doo doo on to the next thing, which does drive us but again, we also need rest. If you're one who struggles with meditation, I would say keep with it, because it is also an art and it's a practice and it's a journey and So it may take time to no one truly I would say masters it, but I would say stick with it. Because I was when I started, I was a little frustrated.

Arsalan Monawar 35:08

Yeah, it can be. It can be because you're you like, again, it goes back to the dopamine overload that we have in today's world, we are so addicted to the dopamine drip of like notifications and the To Do lists and everything. And so what meditation does is it forces you to just not do anything. And that's hard for people because they feel like they need to be doing something. I don't have it with me, there's like an awesome quote I have upstairs it says, if you're feeling anxious, go for a 30 minute walk. But if you don't have enough time, go for a three hour walk because we because well, because well because we're so like, in our own world. So taking a step back, and just doing nothing leads to something right. And if meditation is difficult at first, like I said, breath work. There's like so many different breathwork techniques out there. I like the Wim Hof breathing way, but there's so many just like five minute YouTube guided breathwork techniques you can do, because we're the way you're breathing to as you know, Stephanie is your the way as humans naturally breathe, is like half the time we're doing it wrong, which sounds odd, but like, just look up breath work, and it'll change your life.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:13

And we all have a smartphone. So there are lots of like you mentioned free apps with guided meditations and guided breathwork and whatnot. So there are there are lots of resources available these days. I also want to comment on journaling, because I love that you mentioned you said something like to the fact that we kind of forget where we've come from. And so as a clinician, I'm always documenting my patients symptoms, because you know, six months down the road, they're like, oh, man, I don't know if I feel better. But then I I can remind them based on the documentation, well, are your hot flashes gone? Are you sleeping, okay? How's your energy, right? And then they they remember, oh, my gosh, I came in a wreck. And now I'm doing much better. Sometimes we need that reminder. And so I love I love journaling. That's something I used to do in college I, my journals were like, so thick, I would journal every single day. And it's something I gave up. And so hearing you talk about that kind of encourages me to get get back to that. Journaling is something I need to do. And then even with exercise, too, I want to make a comment there because I do think some individuals love hit or they love cardio or whatnot. And I think it's important for everyone to find what's best for them. Because no in my type of cardio mode, when I was in that fight or flight state, I was doing CrossFit because I was raised to gymnasts and I was just used to intense activity. In that moment. That was probably the worst thing I could have been doing. I needed again, that downtime. And I think we all have different seasons as far as what physical activity we can do. But I guess I just wanted to say listen to your body. Because maybe you don't need to be doing cardio. Maybe you do. You know, maybe you don't, maybe you need to be doing yoga. So I just wanted to comment on that. I do want to, I know we keep kind of jumping between although the stories intertwine kind of your anxiety store and your business story. But I want to go back to you growing your personal brand. Because I do want to ask if you have any advice that you can share for anyone who's starting, obviously, you don't want to say you struggled you were successful, financially right in your business, but you did struggle with anxiety and whatnot. And so you probably have learned some lessons along the way. So yeah, for sure. Those you want to share.

Arsalan Monawar 38:12

Yes, so one of the biggest mistakes people make? Well, there's a lot but the main ones that I'll talk about when you start your personal brand, is you tend to want to fit 10 pounds of content into a two pound bucket. Meaning you want to talk about everything you can be passionate about. For example, with me when I first started my brand, the thing that I was doing wrong. So I started talking about anxiety and mental health. But then I started talking about the law of attraction. And I start talking about business. And I started with my weightlifting, I start talking about intermittent fasting and it became so, so complex for me too, because I was trying to come up with content for all those things. And then I started realizing that you really have to just talk about the one thing that you're super passionate about the whole concept of the niche thing is so the whole, the niche, the riches are in the niches. It's such a it's such a true statement. What that does what most people don't realize it what that does, is then when you start talking about just one thing for me that one thing on my personal brand is anxiety and mental health. What that does is even if it's someone who isn't struggling with that right now, when that time comes that they need help with their own anxiety, you're going to be at the forefront of their mind of the person who's the leading expert in that field, right? So then they're going to go back to you and go through your content and they know what they they're going to expect. They know what like if I posted like tomorrow my top three fashion tips for men, it'll throw people off like what's our slot talking about? So you have to really focus hone in on the thing that you're passionate about. If you can't explain it in one sentence is too complicated. Just really break it down. What is your one mission statement? What is your one goal? And really and make that your first line and your Instagram bio or any bio your first thing for me I'm on a mission to break the mental health and anxiety stigma. You know, I want to empower creatives. And my entire mission statement is in the hole anxiety is your superpower. Like, that's what I talk about. That's the first thing. The second thing. Content has really shifted from where it was three years ago to where it is now, three years ago, if you asked me, Arsalan, I want to build my brand, what should I do? And I would have told you, Stephanie, the most important thing is quality, over quantity, extremely important focus on that. Now, that's not true anymore. What's true now is quantity over quality. And I know that sounds so

Dr. Stephanie Gray 40:35

backwards, so you're saying just get it out there, it doesn't have to be perfect does not

Arsalan Monawar 40:39

have to be perfect that perfectionism will crush your chances of success, right? We again, as creatives, it is so hard for me, for me what's 80% Perfect for others who will be like, this is beyond perfect. Just post it, you know, and I'm like, but there's just one thing now, just post it again, remember, at the end of the and the reason why this is important is again, the biggest thing about personal brands and anything, you're talking to just one person, okay? Just one person, stop trying to think that you're trying to change the world, which I know you are, and you're on a mission to do that. But just focus on one person, if you're on stage and talking to 100 people, just you're talking to one person, and that one person is your own personal journey story that you personally went through the things that you struggled with and overcame. You're telling your lessons to that person five years ago, who you wish you had that information, the information I have. Now, I wish I had when I first got diagnosed with anxiety, I wish I could have found someone equivalent of what I'm doing now, because it would have helped so much in my own story. So that I'm talking to the Arsenal five years ago who was struggling in silence, who was suffering who was going through so much despair. But I say that in a way when I'm talking and that narrative, there's one person who's struggling right now who will see my, my story or my message and they'll tune into it. Such as, right as if you're your own personal journey is your superhero. So talk to just one person stop making it an even in your copyright. Everything you write copyrighted in regards to just you instead of saying like, you know, people were like, Hey, you guys, today I'm talking like, Don't even say you guys like, just try to like, niche it down to one person. Hey, how's it going? How's it going friend, or how's it going, buddy, like, just, if you're talking to one person, it really makes people feel like they're special. And they are because at the end of the day is the one person for me to this day, it's one person who's suffering in silence, who might think about taking their life and they see one of my posts, and it completely changes everything for them. Right. So just one person. Just think about how you write things. Don't write in first person, either. by that. I mean, like, don't write it like, like, as you're talking about yourself. Like when I write stuff like I don't say like, when I was first diagnosed with anxiety, I went through this, I say like, when you go through anxiety, you're going to feel this, this and that. You're talking to you, not I again, you're it's important what you went through. But at the end of the day, it's not about you, it never is going to be about you. It's about the other person. And that's the most important thing, people fail to understand that. And they struggle with building their brand because they make it so much about themselves. And honestly, I don't want to use the word but it's very cringy to like when people talk about themselves too much. It really shows like people notice that they're like, man, you're like everything that only applies to people that are ultra famous, like the Kardashians, and that's their thing. For us. It's about helping the people that really need the help. So those are just some tips and a few again, if you guys want more, I'm an open book. So just feel free to reach out.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:41

Why is advice okay? Is by chance one thing you learn to kind of surround yourself with those who support you and not bring you down i This is in reference to a video of yours that went viral, I think was called the crab mentality video. So I kind of wanted to ask if that's something you learned along the way. And that's kind of part of the story behind that video.

Arsalan Monawar 44:01

Yes, yeah. Um, so right when I was starting our business, and I was going through so much anxiety, I started realizing that when I started sharing with people who by the way I have I have no remorse, I have no regret of like, all the amazing friendships I've made in my life, people will come and go in your life, your their seasons of friendship as well. There's people that will come in your life to teach you something and then you will never see them again, there's people that will stay with you for the rest of your days. So at that time in my life, people who I was very close to started sharing with them that I was thinking about starting my own business. And there's people who are still in my life to this day from that moment. Their immediate response was like, That is so exciting. I'm so excited for you. How can I support you on this journey? The people that are no longer in my my life that were really important to me at that time? Were like, what's wrong with you? Like, why would you why would you even do that? That sounds like such a bad idea. Are you sure you want to start a business? isn't that scary? You should be scared. I would never do that, you shouldn't do that either. That's gonna lead you down like debt, you're gonna, you're gonna go into debt, you're gonna regret this just don't do it. People that constantly started judging and so then my anxiety like was even worse because I was so concerned about other people's opinions. And so the crowd mentality and the whole concept of behind it is when you die, and this is in the video as well, is when you put a group of crabs in a barrel or a bucket was something really interesting happens, they will just sit there and do nothing. But when one of them tries to escape that crab, that barrel to just escape, just get out of there, the other crabs will start pulling it down. And if it continues to escape, they will actually start like, maybe possibly killing it or, you know, just you know, and it sounds horrific. But that's, that's a metaphor for life. In life, when you try to venture off and do something that is completely new and scary to you. There's going to be people in your life that are going to try to pull you down, if I can't have it, neither can you. They won't kill you, but they're going to kill your dreams and hopes and desires, they're going to really crush the things that you want to do. And what ends up happening is when you escape that you understand that the reason and it all stirred this all stems back to the one thing that I'm always talking about. People are afraid of the unknown, because what it does is it shines a light on them of their own insecurities and their own fears. And so because when they're all scared, and fearful inside, they take that out on the people they actually care about. And I'm not saying those people did not care about me, they did care about me, but it really sends put a light on their own insecurities. And they projected it on me. But I didn't know that at the time.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 46:38

That's a good perspective many people probably haven't considered Yeah, it's a very hard

Arsalan Monawar 46:42

thing to understand other people's opinions are none of your business, it's their only thing you can do is control how you feel and your reaction to them. And so I created this video on crime mentality. And it was a very short video, and I posted it because when I started the business, and I was I took that leap of faith, I started understanding that Pakistani culture, Indian culture, African culture, American culture, even peep, just people just like any human being, when they try to start something new, and venture into the unknown, they're going to have that pull back and people that want to do what you're doing, but they're afraid so they're going to project their insecurities on you. So I posted a video and it, it blew up like it went viral. And to this day, like people are sharing and nonstop and people will use it on their podcast or on their videos. And they'll be like, can I use this snippet. And it's it's not a by the way, it's not an original concept I want you to like it's been written about before. And that's, that's another really important going back to content creation. Sorry, I know. You don't have to recreate the wheel, right? There's a lot of ways. The beautiful thing about what you do as a as a creative is you can talk about a concept or something that's been talked about a million times over. But the way you say it, and the way you speak about it, and the way you dive into it with your own personal sense, and your own personal creative flow is going to be received by people that have maybe heard this message a million times. And then it's not, you know, like, my wife, Crystal, this is all the time like, she'll tell me something many, many times and they won't click but then someone else will say the same thing. I'm like, Oh, that's so cool. She's like I've been telling you about. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, because I don't know what it is about our brain. And I'll have to like, look into this is something clicks in your brain when someone else says it in a certain way. I don't know what it is like. And so that's what's the beauty of it, like I did the crime and tele video, other people have done it before. But for the way I said it and must have resonated with more people in a way that I said it right? Same goes for you guys. Like whatever your niche is, whatever you're talking about, don't be alarmed or afraid. If it's such a saturated market, you can talk about things in your own perspective with your own flair that are going to resonate with your audience don't care about other people's audiences focus on your own. And that's, that's how you grow Brent,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 49:02

I will definitely post a link to that video in the show notes. And I think it's important to also kind of wrap up on the, at least what I would say the summary of that video was is that it's and correct me if I'm wrong, but it is to support or if you support the people around you, their passions and their beliefs will end up supporting you. It's like a circular reasoning, right? Like, I don't know how to say that. But no, no, no,

Arsalan Monawar 49:21

it makes sense. It what it does is it also like it shows you that people who are afraid to express themselves or open up about their insecurities, whether it's anxiety or the things that they want to do in life, they will understand that they can lean on you like if you support someone and that with that excitement like any to this day might one of my one of the best compliments I get from my friends is if they told me that they're going to start something new do something to like Arslan, your reaction and how you supported me was the catalyst of me doing this because I want people to thrive and so when you show that energy when you put that positivity in the world, when those people are going through something horrific or trying Magic are scary. They'll lean on you. And that's really important because we have to help those in our lives that are struggling. So yeah, it's a circus, this emotion, you have to just put it into action and just just be just don't be a crab in a bucket.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 50:15

Right. There we go. There we go. Couple last questions here. I want to commend you for taking some time away from social media. So am I correct? Did you take a whole year off? I mean, it just take a break. So how did you do that? And why did you do that?

Arsalan Monawar 50:28

So going back to just talking about burnout, you know, like just doing too much all at once. Our we have a son, who's three who just turned three not that long ago. And I wanted to really experience every single beautiful moment that he was going through, and in his development, everything, all the nuances watching a child grow up. So sure your own child, like just seeing them express something for the first time. It's unbelievable. And I felt like I was there was days where I was so focused on okay, what content Am I gonna put out today? What am I going to create today, and I was so focused on that, but I was missing out on some beautiful memories, even though I'm blessed to be. And I was like, No, and I was burning myself out. And I was starting to feel the anxiety going back to what I said, anxiety will show up and tell you, Hey, you're doing too much of something, or not enough of something. And my anxiety started kind of creeping up, nudging me like Arsalan. You're doing too much of this. Why? What's your endgame here? What's the goal? And I was like, you know, what, why am I doing this because I want people to survive and thrive. But you know, you get on a plane. And the first thing they tell you is, make sure you put your own mask on before you help the person next to you, right. So it's really important, you still take care of yourself, so you can show up and provide others with value as well. And so I was like, I just need to take a hiatus. And it was originally intended to just be a month off from creating content. And at that time, I had my own personal podcast I was talking about all this is when I was talking about a different bunch of different things that decided take a pause, and I made a post, I'm like, I'm gonna be gone for, you know, like, at least a month, turn into two months. And it just became it became became so rewarding because it wasn't easy. It was hard at first because going back to the dopamine hit, I was getting that dopamine response of like people commenting and sharing and liking and I literally did a dopamine reset, I like uninstall all my social medias from my phone. And as a matter of fact, majority of time I don't even have my phone close to me, I just completely putting my phone away, which was annoying to some of my family members or like Arsenal we've been trying to call you. And I was like we have a we have a studio. Yeah, just please. Like if you if there's an emergency, you can get a hold of me. And so people were getting frustrated because I wasn't responding. And I was like, you can still get a hold of me, right. And so it was scary at first because of the dopamine response. But after a month, that dopamine reset combined with everything I was doing, I felt so refreshed. I felt like a monk, it was really bizarre. I felt like really creative. And I was able to focus, again, a lot of my creative efforts on the business clients that I was working with. And it was such a beautiful experience there too. And then I realized that's the time that I realized that weddings were too expensive and too anxiety inducing. And so that's when we completely decided to eliminate and retire the wedding side of our business, which caused a lot of brides to I had to provide a lot of therapy over the phone because people were calling me like, I knew I wanted to book you for my wedding before I even met my, my partner. I was like, oh, like that's such a beautiful compliment. But I'm so sorry. They're like, can you come out of retirement. I'm like, I'm so sorry. This is a personal decision. And I need to I want to, I want to follow through with it. And so those two months and led to a year just a year of just completely resetting my brain and resetting and focusing every effort on our son growing up. And the odd thing is like before, like did you document those moments to film that? I don't have a lot of like video from that moment because I really wanted to just focus in on him growing up and in the moment and just it's all in my head. And it was hard for me as a storyteller to not document those things. But I was just so focused and I kind of fell off the face of the earth and people were also like Arsalan, you disappeared. Are you okay? Did you check in on me, it was really sweet. So when I finally logged back on Instagram, I had all these messages and I just made one big post and said, Hey, I'm coming back. Slowly. I'm gonna make a comeback and so and so then what really provided a catalyst for me to really make the comeback after being gone for a year is when Twitch recently Twitch boss Steven boss. He died by suicide and I know everyone like has heard the story by now. And when he when that happened, it was just this jolting moment because you know, on camera and on video. He seemed like the happiest person in the world. He was going through he had everything. His wife, his kids, thriving business. He was a multimillionaire things people are just constantly working towards even posted a video not even that long before he died by suicide and people were so confused. So I had a very intimate conversation with my wife. So she was very confused by that too. And she was very, very honest and very forward and she said, Hey, I, I haven't struggled with anxiety and depression the way you have. And she's been a huge support system. And that's a huge thing, too. I haven't talked about crystal, my wife has been an incredible support system. In my whole journey. She really helped me go through the journey and in a meaningful way, but we had a conversation and she was like, How could someone like Twitch who had everything? Why? Why would they take their own life. And so I explained to her that anxiety, and depression, the people that are suffering in silence, they're going through something that we'll never understand, we like you will never understand what they're going through the way we mask, our anxiety. Whatever we use for our therapy, like it's, it's really difficult to explain and until you start opening up about it, and maybe he didn't want to. And he actually talked a lot about anxiety and depression on podcasts and stuff like that he very commendable, but sometimes it gets so dark and scary, and for a lot of people. So I explained to her and as I was explaining that to her, I'm like, if I'm explaining this to her, there's so many people out there that may not understand the same situation. And so I made one post after coming back, I made one post about my anxiety, which is a quick 62nd video. And by the way, it was a 62nd video, from a 14 minute video on my YouTube channel, I literally condensed it down, I took a 62nd snippet and repurpose content, another pro tip don't have to create content for everything you can repurpose it. I haven't filmed anything new, I posted it. And immediately within 24 hours, I was getting messages from so many people saying they were like this close to ending their life. It's not my video, they stopped. They were they were saying Arslan, I've missed you. You were my therapy. I'm so happy to have you back. And so just again, that one person, that one person just reignited their passion. And I was like, Okay, now, I know what I need to do. I don't need to talk about a million other things that I was talking about before the reason I was feeling burnt out. I need to talk about the one thing that is super important to me. And what I want to share with the world is how can you understand that anxiety is your superpower and just breaking that stigma. So that's what my mission is. I'm only talking about mental health and anxiety on my Instagram channel on my YouTube channel. That's the personal brand and obviously one of our studios. We're doing amazing stuff for wonderful clients that we're producing as well. So that was why I took the year off and why I'm slowly making the comeback.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 57:21

Yeah, wonderful. Let me go back. My next question was going to be where listeners can find you and you kind of just answered that. So on YouTube Manohar, MLA, yeah,

Arsalan Monawar 57:29

yeah, so it's just youtube.com forward slash Arsalan Manohar. So Ars LANMONAW AR, and that's just my handle on Instagram as well are slam on a war. And that's the two places where I post most of my content. And if you do direct message me if I don't respond right away, please forgive me because my, my DMs usually fill up very quickly, but I will definitely try my best to get back as soon as possible. Stephanie knows that she's personally experienced this, sometimes our son will fall off the face of the year. So I will reply there as well. But those are the two places where you can definitely get a hold of you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 58:06

Awesome. You are a man on a mission. Okay, last question. You can repeat something you've already said in today's show. But what is your top longevity tip?

Arsalan Monawar 58:12

The tip, it relates again, back to what are forms of healing and therapy that you can do that are natural, where you don't feel over, feel like you're overcomplicating it. So if you do anything today, if you try anything at all, I would definitely say give cold exposure and breath work a try those two things are going to be like the catalyst for anything moving forward, because it'll ignite the powers within you taking that cold plunge cold shower, and then doing some breath work will allow you to want to journal will allow you to be want to be creative, will even inspire you to do like five push ups will teach you to like really understand what it is you're going through. So just cold exposure and breath work are the first things I would try if I were you

Dr. Stephanie Gray 58:59

and love it. Gosh, this was such a good show like wow, how do I conclude this? Well, I will conclude it saying thank you for coming on the show and coming back to social media and sharing your personal journey with anxiety and really pivoting and niching down your career to focusing on helping those with our mental health crisis and being a voice for those who struggle in silence and sharing an anxiety can be a superpower I hope that is really what the listeners get from this episode is that anxiety can be that superpower for so easy to talk to great to listen to. So you're a blessing. Thank you for coming on the show today.

Arsalan Monawar 59:28

Thank you Stephanie and thank you to all the listeners say we appreciate every single one of you. Thank you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 59:36

As Arsalan shared we truly have unique positioning to help those who shoes we've walked in and I so appreciate that. That's what he's doing. Sharing his struggles with those who too have dealt with anxiety. I love how he said that anxiety nudges you teaches you to improve your life and how anxiety will show you and tell you you're doing too much or not enough of something his twist that anxiety can become your superpower is so powerful. I encourage you to connect with him and check got the link to his crab mentality video in the show notes. And lastly for listeners I'd also highly encourage you check out my free ebook where I break down the stress response and what you can do through lifestyle and supplements to help with conditions like anxiety, hop on over to your longevity blueprint.com forward slash creating hyphen resilience for your free download. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. This podcast is produced by Team podcast thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting

the information provided in this podcast is educational no information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.