Dr. Robin Berzin Is One of the Nation's Top Functional Medicine Doctors. These Are the Practices She Says Can Help Us Live Vibrant, Meaningful Lives

"In functional medicine, we don't view mind, body, and spirit as separate; we view them as one."

So says Dr. Robin Berzin, the founder and CEO of Parsley Health, the nation's leading holistic medical practice. Since founding Parsley in 2016, Dr. Berzin has seen 80 percent of her patients improve or resolve their chronic conditions within their first year of care. This incredible number speaks to the power of functional medicine, the comprehensive approach that seeks to find and treat the root cause of disease, suffering, or merely not feeling vibrant. Everything—our mind, body, and spirit—is connected. "What we're after in functional medicine is not for you just to survive, but to thrive," she adds.

We recently asked Dr. Berzin about the practices she swears by to care for herself holistically. She offers advice we can all follow to live our healthiest, most meaningful lives.

A CONVERSATION WITH DR. ROBIN BERZIN

How can we best set ourselves up for a physically and emotionally meaningful life? 

My theme this year has been inner strength and inner light, because I believe when it comes to living a fulfilled life, it comes from the inside out. My motto as a functional medicine doctor has always been, “When you take care of your body, you unlock your life.” 

It’s important to think about the foundation of your health—physical and mental—and use this as the jumping off place from which you’re able to do all the other things you want to do in your life. I see too many people trying to do it the other way, saying, “I’ll take care of my health and my mind once my career is in a great place, or once I’m in a good relationship, or once everything’s going my way.” But I’ve found it starts the other way around. When you cultivate inner strength, everything else follows. 

What does inner strength look like for you?

Starting on the inside is about achieving great metabolic health. When we’re eating in a way that keeps blood sugar steady, it tees us up to keep the body physically strong. For me, this means keeping track of how much sugar I eat, avoiding refined carbs and refined sugar, targeting 1-2.2g of protein per kilogram of body weight to build lean muscle mass (.8 g per kg if you want to maintain muscle), and doing weight training three times a week. 

My inner strength also comes from movement and sleep. If I can get these things really dialed, that’s going to allow me to live my best life. 

You also mentioned inner light. What does this mean for you?

I think we vastly underplay the intersection of mental health and physical health. To stoke my inner light, I meditate for 15 minutes every morning. Doing a daily meditation practice, especially before I start my day, is game changing. It’s an opportunity to reflect, to calm, to set my priorities. 

After I meditate, I’ll write down my priorities for the day. I find it saves me so much time, because so much of our life today is just responding endlessly to the things coming at us. And none of us are very good at that. This morning practice helps me get clear on what I’m actually going to spend my time on. It helps me remember what is most meaningful and important.

Tell us about your groundbreaking “Brains, Bones & Booty” protocol, and how it can help us feel and look better?

It’s everything that no one tells you about women’s health. We tend to talk about women’s health solely from the perspective of hormones. And while hormones are part of your health, they’re not all of your health. 

My Brains, Bones & Booty protocol is the answer to the question: What are the things that are going to enable me to have the health, vitality, energy, sex appeal, and all the things I want to feel and have in my life as I age? 

First, you have to support your brain health, which is about eating the right foods, taking the right supplements, and doing the right exercise. 

It’s also crucial to think about your bone health: I see too many women wait until they have osteoporosis to start thinking about their bone health—and then it’s too late. Nothing builds bone like weight bearing exercise. You can take all the supplements and eat all the protein, but you can’t think your way to healthier bones. You have to move your way to healthier bones. I also believe in proactive testing for osteopenia and osteoporosis: Too many women don’t think they need testing until they’re 50 or older. I believe patients need to be getting this scan when they’re 30, so they know if they’re on their way to these common conditions and understand that now is the time to reverse things.

Finally, booty is all about your metabolic health, which involves building lean muscle mass and getting tested to make sure you understand if you have a blood sugar problem. A third of people who have blood sugar issues don’t know it, which means they’re moseying along thinking their blood sugar is fine when really, they have metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, or even diabetes.

What is functional medicine, and how does it differ from conventional medicine when it comes to helping patients improve their health?

The functional medicine approach is all about finding and treating the root cause of what is creating our disease, our symptoms, our suffering, or simply preventing us from being as healthy as we possibly can be. The root cause could be something in our environment. It could be a food that we’re eating. It could be a disease process. It could be some aspect of our mental health. 

We can’t find the root cause if we limit our aperture to just what’s happening right now in the body. Sometimes, finding the root cause requires going back in time to the past and understanding the behaviors, events, or experiences over the past 20 years that got you here. In functional medicine, we don’t view mind, body, and spirit as separate; we view them as one. Your mental health could be the cause of some of your physical illness. Your physical illness could be causing a mental health issue. 

What we’re after in functional medicine is not for you just to survive, but to thrive. And to do that, we have to look at that 360 picture of you.

What are some of your go-to routines that help you feel your best and stick to your healthy habits?

For me, healthy routines are a huge focus. I can’t be at my best for my kids, my partner, my patients, or my company if I’m not taking care of myself.

This year, I’m really focused on full body weight training, because I’m ready for my bones, brain, and booty to get the impact and movement they need. I meditate for 15 minutes every morning—even if it’s loud, even if I have a kid sitting on my lap. I really need that practice to set my day up for success. I’m gluten-free and dairy-free, because both of those foods are inflammatory for me. I focus on eating plenty of protein, greens, and healthy fats, and I do quite a bit of intermittent fasting. I’m also a big believer in eating a hearty, hot lunch. I think a lot of people—especially women—have a salad for lunch and then wonder why they’re crashing in the middle of the afternoon. 

I also go to bed by 10pm every night. My sleep is not something I sacrifice. If I am not sleeping, everything else is in total disarray: I’m in a horrible mood, my eating habits are terrible, and I can’t focus. And I don’t have time for that. 

What do you say to patients when they tell you they don’t know where to start when it comes to starting a healthy routine?

The research shows that habit stacking is powerful. I think a lot of people believe that they need to stack a new healthy habit to an existing healthy habit. But here’s my secret: You don’t have to do that. For example, I tie my meditation practice to my morning espresso habit. I get up in the morning, I make a double espresso, and then I meditate while I sip my coffee. Tying my meditation practice to something that I reliably do every day—and something I like to do—has been so helpful.

Lastly, the world is quite stressful these days, from politics to natural disasters. Any advice for maintaining stress levels and peace amidst all of it?

Stress is a vital sign, but too often we brush it off—it’s sometimes easier to keep barreling through our to-do lists and newsfeeds than it is to face the anxiety and burnout head-on. 

Physiologically, stress triggers a release of adrenaline and cortisol in the body which causes your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood glucose to rise. Chronic stress is a bit like being the proverbial frog in the boiling water—as the heat builds, our systems start to break: sleep, digestion, skin health, headaches. Over time, chronic stress increases your risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, IBS, and anxiety and depression. 

My meditation practice is probably the most important thing I do to keep my adrenals in check. But I also focus on habits and choices that stimulate my vagus nerve, which controls the relaxation response in the body and puts the autonomic nervous system into a “rest and digest” state. There’s a lot of research supporting simple practices like yoga nidra, aromatherapy, and vibroacoustic therapy for increasing vagal tone. I also started wearing an Apollo band this winter, which uses gentle vibration to stimulate the vagus nerve, and my personal stress levels have gone down 20 percent. It’s amazing.

Dr. Robin Berzin is the Founder and CEO of Parsley Health. She founded Parsley to address the rising tide of chronic disease in America through personalized holistic medicine that puts food, lifestyle, and proactive diagnostic testing on the prescription pad next to medications. Dr. Berzin attended medical school at Columbia University and trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She is the author of State Change: End Anxiety, Beat Burnout, and Ignite a New Baseline of Energy and Flow.