Rooted in Wellness with Mona Sharma

A lot of wellness advice assumes the problem lives inside the individual. Your stress. Your habits. Your discipline. Your food choices. Your ability to regulate. But what happens when you are already doing the things that are supposed to help and your life still feels strangely disconnected? You eat well, meditate, try to regulate your nervous system, maybe even spend money on wellness, but the second you return to your commute, your neighborhood, your apartment, or another day without real connection, something in your body still feels unsettled.
That is the health problem hiding in your zip code. In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Tony Cho, a purpose-driven entrepreneur and regenerative placemaking visionary, to talk about why loneliness is not always a personal failure, why modern cities can dysregulate the nervous system, and why the future of wellness has to include the places, communities, and systems we live inside. And until you start looking at the spaces around you, you may keep trying to fix symptoms that were never meant to be carried alone.
Tony Cho is a purpose-driven entrepreneur and visionary community builder helping cities evolve into living ecosystems that support human connection, creativity, and regeneration. His work bridges personal well-being, community design, and the future of the built environment in balance with nature and culture.
What’s Discussed:
(06:07) Smart cities vs. wise cities, and what modern development is getting wrong.
(10:02) How ashram life shaped Tony’s view of community, ritual, death, and belonging.
(21:13) Why regenerative placemaking starts with listening to the land, people, and culture.
(38:09) Why loneliness may be a design flaw, not a personal failure.
(1:07:16) What wellness spaces miss when they focus on biohacking instead of place and people.
(1:12:13) Why third places matter for connection, community, and everyday belonging.
(1:22:30) How ritual can bring people back to existence without dogma or rigid rules.
Thank You to Our Sponsor: 
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 Tony Cho:
Website: ony-cho.com/generation-regeneration
Substack: tonycho1111.substack.com/
Instagram: @tonycho
Gaia TV Series: gaia.com/series/road-to-utopia
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chotimelive/
YouTube: @RegenerativeLivingwithTonyCho
Press: tony-cho.com/press

Weight loss can feel exhausting when every plan gives you another reason to push harder. Eat less. Cut more. Fast longer. Ignore hunger. Be more disciplined. But for so many people, that only leads to the same cycle: trying harder, feeling stuck, blaming yourself, and wondering why your body still feels bloated, inflamed, tired, or out of rhythm.
In this solo episode of Rooted in Wellness, I’m looking at weight loss through an Ayurvedic lens, where the conversation is not only about calories, restriction, or willpower. It is also about the state your body is in while you are trying to change it.
Because if your digestion feels off, your cravings feel louder, your stress feels constant, or your body feels like it is holding on no matter what you do, the answer may not be another extreme reset. It may be learning how to support your body in a way that feels more grounded, nourishing, and sustainable.
What’s Discussed:
(02:47) Why the usual “eat less, move more” weight loss advice may not be the full story.
(05:53) How Ayurveda looks at digestion, Agni, and the body’s ability to process what it takes in.
(08:37) Why pushing through hunger can become part of the same cycle people are trying to escape.
(13:41) The role daily rhythm plays in cravings, energy, digestion, and feeling regulated.
(22:00) Why meal timing matters, especially when dinner becomes the biggest meal of the day.
(27:49) How warm meals, cooked foods, and digestive spices can change the way your body receives nourishment.
(42:43) Why stress, inflammation, and feeling overloaded can make the body feel stuck.
Listen to this episode if weight loss has started to feel like a fight with your body, and you want a more compassionate way to understand what your body may be asking for. 🎧
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
Thank You to Our Sponsor:
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

There is a frustrating point a lot of people hit with cardio. You know it matters. You know heart health, stamina, and energy are important, especially as you think about aging well. But the version of cardio most of us were taught feels hard to keep up with: long workouts, more sweat, more time, and another thing on your schedule that can leave you feeling drained before the day has even started.
That is also why the “I do not have time” problem is not always as simple as it sounds. For many people, cardio feels like something that only counts if it takes a big chunk of time or proves itself through exhaustion. But what if the body does not need another hour-long workout to start adapting? What if the real question is whether the workout is giving your body the right signal in the first place?
In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Ulrich Dempfle to talk about why the way we think about cardio, VO2 max, and longevity may need a serious update. Ulrich is the CEO and co-founder of CAROL, and he used his background in mechanical engineering to help develop the world’s only Reduced Exertion HIIT, or REHIT, bike alongside leading exercise researchers. He breaks down why short, precise effort can create a powerful cardiovascular response, and why improving your fitness may not require overhauling your entire life.
Shop at http://carolbike.com/mona for a special discount!
What’s Discussed:
(06:37) Why sweating is not the only sign that a workout counted.
(08:29) The outdated “no pain, no gain” advice that keeps people chasing longer, harder workouts.
(14:40) Why the minimum effective dose may matter more than spending an hour on cardio.
(19:32) How breathwork helps your body recover after short, intense effort.
(37:04) Why more sprints or longer intervals do not always create better results.
(45:08) Why VO2 max matters for longevity, oxygen delivery, mitochondria, and energy for life.
(58:15) How Ulrich builds short cardio, strength training, and joyful movement into his own routine.
Listen to this episode if cardio has always felt like something you need to make more time for, push harder through, or recover from afterward. This conversation will help you understand why improving cardiovascular fitness may have less to do with doing more, and more to do with giving your body a signal it can actually use. 🎧
Thank You to Our Sponsor: 
BIOptimizers: Visit bioptimizers.com/mona and use MONA at checkout to get the best deal on Masszymes and all BIOptimizers products. 
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 Ulrich Dempfle and CAROL Bike:
Ulrich Dempfle: carolbike.com/global/community/ulrich-dempfle-rider-story/
CAROL Bike: http://carolbike.com/mona

You can be sleeping, exercising, taking supplements, trying to meditate, cutting back on caffeine, doing all the “right” things, and still feel like your body is bracing for something you cannot name. That is the part so many stress conversations miss, because anxiety is not always something you can mindset your way out of when your nervous system has learned that safety is not the default.
We dive deeper into this in Rooted in Wellness with Dr. Dave Rabin, and this conversation will change the way you understand stress, anxiety, trauma, and why everything you have tried has only ever scratched the surface of what actually needs to heal. 
Dr. Dave Rabin is a board certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist with over 12 years of post-college medical training specializing in chronic stress, trauma, and treatment resistant mental illness, one of the few psychiatrists in the United States trained in both ketamine and MDMA assisted therapy, and the co-founder of Apollo Neuroscience. With decades spent working with the most treatment resistant patients in psychiatry, the people who had tried everything and still could not find relief, he has dedicated his entire career to finding what actually works when nothing else does. 
What's Discussed:
(5:04) The four pillars of self trust and why restoring a sense of agency is the foundation of all healing.
(13:53) Why looking at your phone first thing in the morning is one of the most dysregulating things you can do to your nervous system.
(17:35) Why anxiety is not a disorder but a signal and what happens when we treat it like one.
(22:11) How chronic stress diverts up to 80% of your blood flow away from every system in your body responsible for healing.
(34:03) Why perfectionism is a biological trap and what it is actually doing to your nervous system.
(39:20) How trauma changes your gene expression and what epigenetics tells us about the possibility of healing.
(1:03:59) Why the source of all healing comes from within and how psychedelic assisted therapy is proving it.
(1:23:54) Why optimizing from a place of fear is actually shortening your life and what to do instead.
Listen to this episode of Rooted in Wellness and walk away with a completely different understanding of your body, your nervous system, and why feeling safe is not a luxury but the foundation of every single thing your body needs to heal.
Thank you to our Sponsors: 
AX3 Life: Use code MONA for 20% off first order at AX3.Life  
MitoQ - Go to mitoq.com/mona and use code MONA for 10% off    
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. Dave Rabin:
Instagram: @drdavidrabin 
Book - A Simple Guide to Being Alive pre-order link: A-Simple-Guide-To-Being-Alive 
Website: www.drdave.io/  
Podcast: The-Psychedelic-Report/

There is a specific kind of frustration that happens when you are trying to take care of your body, but something still feels off. You are eating better, taking supplements, trying to manage stress, maybe even getting your labs checked, but your energy still feels low, your brain feels foggy, your digestion feels sluggish, or your hormones feel harder to understand than they used to.
But what if the answer is not another extreme cleanse, another supplement, or another reason to blame yourself? What if your body has been sending quieter signals through the organ most people only think about when they hear the word “detox,” and understanding that organ could change the way you look at your energy, mood, hormones, digestion, and daily health? In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Dr. Josh Levitt to talk about why the liver is so much more than a filter, why detox trends often miss the point, and how to support your body’s built-in detox process in a way that feels practical and sustainable. 
Dr. Joshua Levitt, ND, is a naturopathic physician, author, educator, and Co-Founder and Medical Director at UpWellness, with over 20 years of hands-on clinical experience helping people understand their bodies through a grounded, integrative lens.
What’s Discussed:
(04:19) Why Mona’s healing journey inspired Rooted in Wellness and the bridge between Eastern and Western medicine.
(10:28) Why balance is not about staying perfectly steady, but learning how to manage the moments that pull you off center.
(20:30) The subtle signs your liver may need support before anything obvious shows up on labs.
(21:26) Why the liver is not just a filter, and how that misunderstanding can keep people from connecting their symptoms.
(23:58) What standard liver labs can tell you, and why “normal” results may not always explain why you still feel off.
(42:06) What people should know before trying detox teas, juice cleanses, liver flushes, or viral detox trends.
(57:09) Why liver health belongs in the conversation around hormones, HRT, perimenopause, stress, and how your body processes what it carries.
Listen to this episode to understand why supporting your liver may not be about doing a harder detox, and why feeling sluggish, foggy, hormonally off, or disconnected from your body may have more to do with daily support than another extreme reset. 🎧
Thank You to Our Sponsor:
MitoQ: Go to mitoq.com/mona and use code MONA for 10% off
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. Josh Levitt & UpWellness:
Website: upwellness.com
UpWellness LTV: drinkLTV.com
Instagram: @drjoshlevitt
TikTok: @drjoshlevitt