143. The Teen Health Revolution: Raising Resilient Teens in Digital Chaos

Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your healthspan. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your healthspan. We are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease and, most importantly, extend your health span. Teenager mental health is at a breaking point. And while most conversations focus on screen time limits, very few address was actually happening inside young brains and bodies. In this fun episode of Extend, I'm joined by the holistic kids, Abdullah, Zayn, Ahmad, and Qasim Ansari, four brothers ages 10 to 18 who are a leading global youth-led movement for health. They host a top-ranked podcast with over 200 episodes, and they're the authors of the best-selling book, Teen Health Revolution. And they speak at major medical conferences alongside physicians and researchers. We're going to unpack why anxiety, depression, brain fog, and disconnection are skyrocketing in teens, and how technology and social media are rewiring developing brains, disrupting sleep, gut health, stress resilience, and even a sense of purpose. The brothers share their revolution framework, a practical system that goes far beyond tech limits to help teens reclaim focus, energy, and meaning in a hyper-connected world. Whether you're a parent worried about your child or a teen who feels like you're overwhelmed by constant connectivity, this conversation offers a realistic roadmap already changing lives. Boys, this is such a special episode. We have five people in the podcast studio here today because the four of you co-wrote this book, The Teen Health Revolution, right? Yes. Amazing. Okay, so we have Abdullah, Zayn, Ahmad, and Qasim, right? So who's who? Tell me who's who. So I'm Abdullah. Yeah? I'm Zayn. I'm Imad. And I'm Qasim. Amazing. And the four of you have been doing a podcast for a long time, right? What was the name of your podcast? The Holistic Kid Show. The Holistic Kid Show. I listen to your podcast with my kids in the car all the time. And so it's so great for kids to hear from other kids what you guys are working on. And you wrote a book. Yeah. What made the book come to be? Who thought of the idea we should write a book? So I think it really started during the pandemic when everyone was worried about their health. Yeah. So we started the Holistic Kids Show, our podcast, because we wanted to specifically inform the neglected kids. So we were learning, we were talking to podcast, we were talking to experts, New York Times bestselling authors, world renowned experts, all these people about different tips that we can use for our health. Right. And we were learning as well as a lot of kids are learning. Yeah. But really right when I came to school, that's when I received a terrible death threat from my best friend. What happened? so he he's yeah he said death threat to me and it made me so scared for my life and that made me realize that you know what these teens today youth today are so we're so our brains are destroyed we're constantly scrolling we have no purpose in life we're so disconnected from each other so then I realized that you know what this podcast it can't just stay a podcast yeah it needed to be a book. So a book that everyone could hold in their hands as a resource, every teen specifically. Yeah, no, that's a crazy story. And you're right. I mean, I think in the beginning of the book, you say that it's an emergency right now to focus on this. And I agree. I think, you know, we're living in a time period right now where teens and kids are exposed to stressors that they never had before. Definitely not when I was growing up, but even in the last couple of decades, the number of stressors has magnified, right? And sure, you guys are feeling it, right? I mean, just that your best friend did something so horrible, it's real, right? Yes. And this isn't actually just Al, like his story, or this is actually kids all around the world. This is what they're dealing with right now. And the reality is, is that if Zan's friend was being mindful about what his decisions were. He was actually, he was taking care of his mental health. If he was educating himself, that this wouldn't be the reality. And the problem is that a lot of teens nowadays, we are just going from class to class. We're not focusing on what we're putting into our mouths. We're not focusing on what we're educating ourselves with. We're not just scrolling and scrolling on our phones. And the problem is that because of that, we're destroying ourselves and we're destroying our brains. And that's why we're trying to get teens out there because most teens don't know this stuff because adults aren't teaching us, especially schools aren't teaching us. And so we were like, if no one's doing anything about it, then we need to start to stand up and do something. Yeah, take matters into your own hands, right? I love it. And then you two are not teens yet, though, but do you think this is important information even at your age? Yes, definitely. Because people in my class are like, they already have phones. and they're like 10 already. You're 10 years old and they have phones. Yeah. Also, health isn't just like a one topic just only for teens. It's like a universal topic. No matter how old you are, you can still benefit from these simple tasks like putting your phone down away from when you're sleeping. Like, yeah, it's a universal topic that everybody should know. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think the same health advice that adults use, definitely you should be using it at a younger age. but a lot of times by the time you're doing it as an adult, you already have a lot of things broken, right? Like your attention span is gone, your mental health is destroyed, you're metabolically unhealthy and all these things start at a very, very young age. I agree with you that it's an important topic right from the beginning of when you can start learning about it, right? And so a lot of kids probably are like, oh yeah, I'm fine. I don't need to hear about this. Like why does it matter to me? Why does it matter to me, like at a young age, to, you know, eat real food or worry about toxins? Like, you're so healthy right now, right? Why does it matter? So, um, when you, uh, no, no kid wants to be sick. Right. But when you get older, you're already going to be sick. So then what are you going to accomplish? I, what, what, what job are you going accomplish what can you accomplish when you're sick and this is what like this is what our mom taught us when you know i was what 13 now gossip is 10 yeah and the reality is what we realize as well is that especially because these are peers and classmates are talking about i know when you go to school and telling about them about the stuff actually a lot of them are like oh i didn't know that m&ms has a carcinogen in them that basically leads to cancer if i knew that i wouldn't going to be putting that into my body. And also a lot of teens, especially we need to wake up and realize that if we don't do something about this now, it's going to affect our adulthood mentally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. And I don't think any teen, I mean, at least I don't want to be sick in my adulthood. And I don't think most teens would want to be sick when they grow up. And I know a lot of teens, like we talk about, because that's the time when, you know, college is coming up, you know, trying to get our career set, figuring out our life. If we're sick, we're never going to be able to accomplish any of what we want. We're just going to, you know, no teen wants to be sitting at home on their couch or laying in their bed because they can't get up because they didn't take care of their health now. And that's why we're not saying to start change later on. Don't start change tomorrow. Don't start change when I'm maybe when I'm 19, when I'm 20, when I'm 21. And start change today, because that's how change happens. Yep, exactly. And to your point, who wants to grow up and not be productive, not have a great life? And it really now is so important to start in childhood, because that's when the problems start accumulating, for sure. So the book is called The Teen Health Revolution. And I love what you guys have did. You took the word revolution, and you turned it into a set of guides for people. So I'd love to just touch on each one of these real quick. because I think if you're a parent and you're listening to this, re-listen to this with your kids in the car or just at home, where have you, because obviously kids don't like to listen to their parents, but they will hear from other kids. But also I really like how you put it together for people. So let's go through these. Is that okay with you? Amazing. Okay, R, revolutionize the gut. What does that mean? So the gut is where health starts. And that's what we specifically have as the first one. And that's what we have as R, the first word letter of the revolution, because your health is going to start in your gut. The reason why you're dealing with all these chronic issues is because of like your inflamed gut. So when we say like revolutionize your gut, we're saying that, you know, yeah, we're going to start thinking about we need to start really bringing the gut into the health topic so we can then transform the rest of our health aspects. and plus i know and i know it's shocking but actually the gut has creates over 90 90 of neurotransmitters are created in the gut and i know it's shocking to most people but actually the gut and what you put into your body actually affects your mental health as well and affects your spiritual health and your emotional health as well as your physical health and so most people think oh yeah but how is what i'm going to eat and it goes down to my stomach affect here like it doesn't make any sense. When in reality, the gut is our second brain. And if we put, you know, like we interviewed someone on our podcast, he's very knowledgeable. He basically said, if you put junk in your body, then you're going to end up working like junk and you're going to start thinking like junk and you're going to, it's going to come out as junk. So everything starts from there. Yeah, that makes sense. And I know you've talked to Dr. Jeffrey Bland and Dr. David Burmutter, who are like giants of functional medicine. They've talked a lot about the gut and is central to our biology. And it's not intuitive, right? Because we think the way we think, the way our spiritual health, our mental health starts up here in our brain. But the reality is what happens in our gut affects our brain very deeply, right? So how do you treat your gut well? What do you do? What are some of the steps? I know it's crazy to think, but we eat real natural food that are going to help us and not hurt us. Right now, I mean, come on, let's be honest. Teens, even adults, kids, we're just eating ultra-plus foods Takis, Cheetos, Oreos, the list goes on and on and on. And this is what we have, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And a lot of us, a lot of teens especially, we don't realize what we're doing to ourselves. And so I think the most simplest way to tell people, adults even, on how we can fix our gut is just to start reading labels. Because if you get something, if you go to the grocery store, and this is what our mom used to do with us. We used to go to the grocery store and she used to say, go pick out this one. You want this? We'd go to maybe like the cereal aisle and we'd see these colorful cereals and we would be like, please, can we have this? And so our mom was like, okay, first take it out, look at the ingredients and tell me what's in it. And so we went through the ingredients and there was, you know, red number 40. There was like tons and tons of stuff. This is like a seven-year-old me. I can't even comprehend what these words even mean. You can't even pronounce them. And so our mom basically said, okay, now research and look up those. What do those do to you? What are those ingredients? Okay. Red number 40, a carcinogen that leads to cancer. You know, all of tons and tons of these ingredients lead to hyperactivity. They are directly linked to chronic disease. And so we were like, as kids, we don't want to put that in our body. Yeah. And so I think what we want to tell people is that if us as kids can do it so can adults and so definitely can teens Yeah but okay so say you guys are in school right And your friends they watched some YouTube influencer talking about their latest food product right Like, you know, this happens. My kids, my kids are 12 and 8, 12 and 9, sorry. And like all the kids at school are eating Beastables or Takis or, you know, they're drinking. What's that drink that I forgot the name of the name? Prime. Prime, yes. For the first time in history, I think, kids are getting nutrition advice from influencers that are making food to sell them. How do you tell the other kids they shouldn't be eating that? What do you tell them? This is an influencer saying this. So I think we should start with telling them to read the ingredients. Because when you can educate them, when you can help them realize that, you know what, what these influencers are doing to me, it's for money. Right. And when they can realize that it's for money, they don't want to be a part of the money-making scheme. A lot of times, like I've told some of my friends, a lot of them felt like a little anger in them. And they kind of want to see some more changes. So I think education is definitely key to bringing that to them. Yep, I agree. I agree. And so that goes down to the E, which is eat real food. So talk about that. What is real food? What does that mean, real food? Is cereal real food? So, yeah, real food is just literally the food that comes from trees. It was here on Earth before humans came and started messing with everything. And also, real food is nutrient-dense. It's going to help you and not hurt you. And that's why we like to say food is power, food is information. Food really dictates every single cell and every single process that goes on in our bodies. and it's supposed to kind of we're supposed to be using food this real food not talking about you know Takis or Cheetos or like that fake food we don't even call it food but we're supposed to be using this food to thrive to kind of live the life we want because that's what food is here for but sadly now obviously we want to eat food because it tastes good I know I talked to my classmates like but it tastes so good like come on why can't I have this but at the same time it's destroying our bodies and it's destroying our future yeah i think a lot of times you know people have to understand is that a lot of these real foods are engineered by chemical engineers to taste good they're not they're not really tasting good it's a trick to get you to eat more of it right it's like a chemistry experiment experiment exactly that's what you're trying to say yeah it is a chemistry experiment you're right yeah like they use different methods to get us hooked like the color the branding like back in the day like they just put like in the cereal boxes they just put like really colorful animals oh yeah it's so good you should have this right like all the cereals right like they have different shapes and stuff right yeah and also i don't know if you remember i think or at least my mom's generation for cereal for for cigarettes they used to have like this i think purple camel yeah i used to go around saying oh you know it's so cool to have smoke. It's so cool to have smoke. And kids are like, oh my God, we need to have this. Come on. Everyone in school is doing it. Camel cigarettes. He wasn't purple though. That was Barney you're thinking of. They're both just as destructive, I would argue. Okay. So then the V in revolution is vanquishing toxins. So what are the toxins that we're exposed to and how do we get rid of them so toxins are all over around us the the average uh person is over is um surrounded by more than 80 000 toxins a day so that is craziness going from like a long time ago barely any toxins around us now we're being like trapped by all these toxins we go to a we go to a um our house, all the foreign furniture is toxins. What we eat has all these toxins in it. So I think toxins, what they are is that they're things that shouldn't, that don't belong in your body. Right. That's a good definition for it. So how are we, like, what are some of the most common ones that we should be avoiding? Kids. What should kids be avoiding toxin-wise? Yeah. So there's a couple of toxins that you can avoid, like microplastics. Yeah. Talk about plastics. Yeah, microplastics, again, we use them in almost everything. Bottles, grocery stores, and they just start consuming into our diet. And also, the second toxin is EMFs. Coming from blue light or phones, these EMFs can really damage. Putting it next to you when you're sleeping has huge effects. Do you have a phone? No. None of us really have phones. None of you guys have phones. Amazing. Except for him. Yeah, he's in college now. Yeah, and you drive. At some point, you got to get a phone. But I think your point is well taken. Like, don't sleep at your phone next to you, right? And it's not only other EMFs, which, you know, I think there's still a lot of research that needs to be done exactly what's the mechanism of the problem. But they do know that having the phone next to you when you sleep is very stressful and you have higher levels of cortisol, just even if your phone is off sitting next to you at nighttime. So definitely don't use your phone as your alarm clock or sleep with your phone, right? Okay. And what are some other toxins that you want to, microplast is a big one, right? What about toxins like in your food, for example? Like, where do all these toxins come from in your food? So yeah, I mean, just all these toxins, like red 40, like all these ones that are chemically made. Like if you see a color before the name, like you know it doesn't belong in your food. Red 40, blue one, yellow one, there's like all these like so i can't even memorize all these names because it's just such a big waste of time so it's just yeah gossam like mentioned it's a chemical experiment and they're putting that in their food and a lot of times like i know calcium propionate like is something that you put in a lot of like breads and stuff and now like cultures they have all the the especially in the desi household like bread is like a staple and now you're putting things like calcium propionate inside breads yeah you're making people even more you're really killing them for their favorite foods. Yeah. So any type of chemical name on your packaging, avoid it. Are you going to say something? There are toxins in your clothes, like polyesterial clothes. Yes, that's a good point too. Yeah. So you should have like... Cotton clothes. Cotton or wool, right? Yeah. Yeah, like natural fibers, not polyester clothes. But the problem is a lot of the clothes that you can buy at the Target, or Walmart or whatever, they do have that. So it's important to read also the labels on your clothes, right? Yeah. Make sure they're natural. Good. That's another good example. All right, let's talk about optimizing your stress. So what are you talking about with stress as a kid? So let's be honest. Teens, we have no clue how to manage our stress. And we are actually, I know there's a study actually that came out that they asked teens on a, like, they basically kind of measured how stressed are teens that are in school compared to adults and actually it said that teens were on a scale of one to ten were at least 5.8 while adults were about like 3.6 and so actually I mean it's crazy but being in high school being in college we are not taught how to manage our stress no and because of that we're running from class to class we're just you know when when this teacher is telling us this or this this happening in our lives or like especially with this entire this phone of ours that we're having our hands this entire universe of information that's just in our pockets and then this is happening on the news and that's happening and then for us we feel overwhelmed and there's nobody's giving us any information and how to fix it and how to kind of put our bodies back into balance and yeah and that's why i think for teens that they're so it's so simple just taking a deep breath i know like right before test whenever everyone's trying to cram in all that information into their like that's like the most stressful time then just take i take a deep breath and i actually recognize that i do better on the test than if i was just to you know stress myself out right before so even just you know deep breathing which is one of our favorite things to do just being mindful you know thinking okay what am i smelling in this moment what am i thinking what am i you know seeing what am i feeling. There's so many easy, simple ways to ground yourself. And as teens, if we're able to use that, we can really, I think, unlock our true potential. We can really change our lives. Because imagine if teens were able to control their brain and they were able to deal with their anxiety, deal with their depression, deal with their stress, we could achieve so much. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned breath work, which I think is really powerful. How many times a day do you do breath work? So what our mom taught us, she used to teach us deep breathing when we weren't stressed, so that when we were stressed, we already knew what to do. Yeah, you automatically can just go right back to it. Right, exactly. Do you guys do deep breathing? Yeah. In the beginning, at school, there's announcements. We do deep breathing. the whole school does deep breathing in the oh that is amazing like all together yeah wow that's awesome yeah also there's different types of deep breathing like you don't need to just like just in for like four seconds out for eight and then in for seven like you don't need to do it like there's some sort of box breathing like tiger breathing yeah and you can only just experiment it with it yeah lots of different breath work type of exercises four by like four seven eight breathing you mentioned there's box breathing there's um like tiger breathing actually increases your intention as well so so yeah i think kids learning this early in a i wish someone had taught me that when i was a kid you know like i learned it when i was 40 years old finally um okay what about loving nature how do we do that and why is that important so loving nature is important because You love nature because spending time in nature actually improves spiritual, mental, physical, and social health. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were put here on the earth for nature, right? And all throughout the centuries that we've been living here on earth, we've been in nature most of the time, right? outside either playing either like recently your guys's generation like playing outside most of the time like i know um like someone we interviewed said that like back in like their days like when they were grounded they weren't allowed to go to nature but now grounding us we're not allowed to go under phones we're not allowed to be in their room we have to go play out nature so now we're seeing this this like extreme shift between generations and especially our generation is like one of the first generations to deal with this like just inside on screens the entire time so now we're seeing the effects of like uh increased stress depression teens are arising because nature was always there like even when we try to walk outside you can hear everything you can hear the birds you can hear the you can smell like all the amazing flowers it's very like before stress relieving so when we love nature we can really get into being back into nature like our ancestors did yeah and plus nature has actually been scientifically proven to increase our mood to increase even our you know our increased cortisol and decrease uh and it also helps our body but it helps us so much and the thing is that as teens like now i know we're like oh but i don't want to go into nature like oh that's so boring like we just want to stay on our phones and do what we want to do yeah there's so much benefits and definitely like zan said we're feeling it in our high schools i know that like when we go outside where we are able to fully connect with you know even the nature that's around us our mom likes to call it hugging trees yeah even in even 30 minutes a day has been shown to have so many benefits absolutely for anybody right yeah like i think just being in nature can help like you can you can still like play have fun and you still get those benefits from being nature. Like, you don't need to sadly walk in nature. Like you can still do other stuff Yeah you can go outside and play Yeah I mean you right Like people don do that anymore When I was a kid the first thing you do when you wake up on a Sunday morning is you go out and play. And now it's like kids just hop on their electronic devices, right? On their iPads or their phones. And they don't get out of nature as much. So it's important to bring that back, right? Definitely. That brings us to uniting with others. You, uniting with others. What does this mean? So, uniting with others means being social because now teens are being less social every day because we're just on our devices contacting on social media instead of going person-to-person talking. And this really gets rid of the connection between each other. Right. Absolutely. And so, a lot of what you're talking about outside of diet is really exposure to devices. Right. That's seems like a common unifying theme amongst all of the different pieces of the device you have. And then T being tech limits, which is the next letter in the revolution word. And this is something I think could probably solve a lot of these problems. Right. So what is an appropriate technology limit for a teenager or a kid? Yeah. So we like to say like maybe like no social media before six before high school. Yeah, before 16, high school. So we can really like, we can start playing before. And there's some countries that have now outlawed social media for teenagers. So I think Australia does that, right? Yeah. And there's a reason. Because we have become engagement machines for their profits. Yeah. Like dopamine is what makes us feel, it's what makes us happy. Like when someone gives us like positive attention. oxytocin is when like what is what we want to make to bond with others and now we we have our phones we can press a button and get that dopamine oxytocin artificially 24 7 and i mean with drugs too increasing your dopamine randomly it's just making it worse so you can see like a very similarities with like baked food ultra processed foods the these artificial devices and drugs that we can all link it to. So yeah, I think spending less time on social media, only being on social media with a purpose. Yeah, agreed. And then when you say tech limits, so I have a 12-year-old, okay? And so we are always discussing with him what is an appropriate amount of technology per day. What do you think in your research and from what you have spoken about is the right number of hours per day? We would like to say like an hour. I think that's like the perfect point. 45 minutes probably is better but for kids especially and for any parents that are listening to this we've we found a lot of like parents complaining oh they go on five hours six hours like i know people like at mod school right they're like bragging right yeah like they're just like when i was going in the like oh yeah last last night i had like i was on the device for like seven hours and i was like what and the other person's like no i was on eight and i was like oh my god they're competing the number of hours on their device is terrible it should be the opposite they should be like i was only out for 30 minutes and so we want teen kids especially that are dealing with because we're basically addicted that's what this is that's an eviction right and so a lot of kids they can't go throughout their day if they don't get two or four hours of screen time and so for those kids and for those parents that are struggling with that with their kids because it's i know we know it's difficult it's challenging because these are also our peers and classmates that we see are dealing with the effects of this increased screen time. We tell them at least try to decrease it. So then maybe the first time, if you do three hours or four hours, try doing three hours then for that month, then to two, then to one. That way that we can build those habits so that we can build a successful future for ourselves as well. But how did you guys do it when you're in school and your school requires you to have like a laptop or use some sort of device? How do you separate screen time for school purposes versus screen time for other things yeah so like because we like to say like it's more like screen time was video game time or like sometimes and then more like the um working at school we like to have lay glasses so it doesn't really affect as much and then really it's just we do that for a purpose to learn yeah so it's just like it's different got it got it go ahead you want to say something yeah i was gonna say like yeah just separating that though the different times i mean like i have to like i'm whenever i'm working because i'm in high school now so like and especially nowadays we spend a lot of time on the computers right so things that you can do to like limit it like the effect of it is like putting on blue light glasses so uh that can like decrease the blue light and like having emf protectors lowering the emf light Yeah. And so blue light protection helps you get better sleep at night. Yeah. Yeah. 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Your future self will thank you. The next letter, I invest in sleep. How much sleep do kids need? eight to ten hours eight to ten is more for teens i think for kids like more ten to twelve yeah ten to twelve in fact yeah yeah i agree i think it's you you need a lot more sleep as a kid but then you know you have to wake up really early for school right and so how do you get enough sleep in so i know it's crazy but we go we try to go to sleep by nine o'clock yeah nine or ten o'clock for teens yeah because i know teens we have like the worst sleep schedule like imagine I remember I was at school once and it was one of my friends. He was like, oh my God, I went to sleep so late yesterday. What time did you go to sleep? It's like 2 o'clock. What were you doing? I was on my phone. It's like, what are you doing? I was like, I don't know. It's just scrolling. And I was like, okay, so maybe if you didn't scroll and you went to sleep earlier, you wouldn't be as tired now. And it's just so simple. And us teens, we need to start taking initiative and start focusing on sleep. Because if we get good sleep, We can do better in school. We can do better in our classes, in athletics. We can do better with our memory because actually if you get good sleep, it improves your memory. It improves your ability to learn. And it really just improves your life. For now, I can't go back to anything less than eight hours at least. Yeah, absolutely. So once again, the phone brings up another negative, which is it affects your sleep. Why? Because it's the light from the phone, but it's also just the amount of stress it causes, the amount of your scrolling and addiction, all of it together works together to create a very poor sleep experience night after night after night. And that builds up over time. So, you know, I think with that being the common denominator, hopefully more and more parents realize that the time to get your child a phone is much later in life than they're getting it right now. Like you said, in your class, you have a kid 10 years old that has phones, right? Yeah. And like younger too, like there's like first graders that have phones. Right. So it's not a reward. It's not a great gift. It's not a, it's a major experiment that you're doing with your own kid's brain and their biology. And it's an experiment that I think that, you know, there's much more chance of it failing rather than it being a positive. Would you agree with that? Yeah. Yes. And at the end of the day, what my mom said to me when I got my first phone, she said, and I still carry this to this day, she said, when you go on your phone, always go with a purpose. And so now if I'm about to get my phone, if I feel like going on YouTube or do whatever, I'm always thinking, is there a purpose to this? Why am I doing this? And because of that, I'm able to fully take charge and not let this phone control me. Yes. And I think, you know, right now, parents are a little bit of a disadvantage because it's only been, the phone has only been around for about 20 years and the way it is right now with the apps and the screen and all that. So it hasn't been a long time that this has been around. And obviously we know the dangers of social media have been proven, but also the dangers of just the phone itself. I think there's a lot more research and science that needs to happen, but I would say you shouldn't wait for that to come out. I mean, it's very obvious what it does to kids. Their brains are just not meant to have these devices that exposes them to the internet 24-7 and never mind all the other negative qualities of it. So hopefully the real solution is to not have the phone. Or at least have a balance. Yeah. Because obviously we're not going to be like extreme. We have to be realistic here. Everything is on the internet. Everything has to do with technology. Sure. So we have to make sure we have a balance, especially for people my age, for a people above 16, and even adults. Yeah, but isn't it unrealistic to try to expect kids to have a balance? Because I find a hard time having balance myself as an adult, right? And so for kids with brains that are still just developing, it's a lot easier to get addicted. It's a lot easier to get addicted to those dopamine rushes, right? All those things. And so it's hard to find a balance as a kid, isn't it? Yeah, that's why we say for phones, especially don't give them to kids before 16. Yeah. Because that's when our brains are still developing and that's when we need to go out and play, like Imad said as well. Yeah. Are a lot of your friends gamers? Yes. Yeah. I mean, there are many more kids that are gamers and not gamers anymore. And we're talking like games on the computer, right? And so like Roblox is massive right now. Minecraft. I think what do you think about gaming and how that kind of takes over your brain so definitely kids are gaming more than like I think almost ever before yeah the problem is that we've definitely become a lot more addicted to these games yeah and we think oh I'm having fun I'm just doing this when in reality it is destroying our brain function it's decreasing our you know it's increasing stress levels in us it's basically making it harder for us to function as proper human beings and that's because fine you know we game here and there you know at least like when we sometimes we'll go on like minecraft or well obviously you know but when it comes to the fact that you need to game or you're gaming hours upon hours like that's not good for anybody i fully fully agree all right let's talk about the next letter which is oh open to gratitude and purpose so let's we're getting deep now tell us a little bit about gratitude and purpose so gratitude so let's just first start with like gratitude so teens like a bull mentioned are like some of the most negative people ever and especially because like i hate my life i hate this you know i hate school it's always i hate i hate i hate and then we also have to bring the fact that like we're always surrounded by negativity the news social media like people always telling us what we're doing wrong it's just constant negativity in us and it can be very overwhelming so when we're saying gratitude we're saying you know what like stop stop saying i hate start thinking about like what do you love what what are you thankful for like it could be either as like simple as like i'm thankful for my belly button you know like that's what we say a lot so yeah we like to say 10 things that we're grateful for every morning. And especially that was like what we had to tell ourself like a long time ago Now we are just constantly thinking you know what I so thankful that we here I so thankful that we can be on your podcast Yeah And you also I think you probably grateful because now you have a sense of purpose too like spreading this information right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So for kids, find a sense of purpose, find something that really you're doing something good for the world and you're doing something good for yourself and your family. And that can be something to be really grateful for. Yeah. And purpose is a very, very strong and like purpose is like a really strong word like you're saying purpose to a bunch of teens now they're freaking out right because they're like i don't want to talk about my future so but i think finding finding your purpose just starts with being bored and i'm saying this and maybe if there's a teen watching they're gonna start they're gonna like crash out because teens hate being bored like i just crash out mean oh you're using like teen terminology now oh that's just like um they're gonna get like they don't want to they don't they get uncomfortable talking about oh yeah yeah yeah no no don't be sorry i don't even like i don't know all the words so okay they're gonna crash out because you're talking about purpose and you're saying start by being bored yeah okay so teens hate being bored like if i say like you you need to be bored they're gonna be like yeah but like how do i be bored what do i do you know and that's the point you you're supposed to be alone with your thoughts intentionally because the like all of these crazy scientific like experiments or if it's not like science if it's like these enlightenments they all come from being bored like because when you're bored you can truly think about who you want to become in the future and who you are now so being bored is just a really good way to start finding your purpose. And the thing is that a lot of teens today, they're freaking out because they're constantly on their screens. They are not finding that purpose because they are not bored. And plus, I know for my friends, I noticed because I used to also not have a phone when all my friends had a phone. And so I remember we were sitting together and then they couldn't take two to three minutes of silence. They had to pick up their phone and do something. And we're all just sitting together and everyone's just on their phone. Instead of talking, they're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. And that is just going to continue to destroy our brains and our lives because how are we ever going to find what we are meant to do if we're always pacifying ourselves and self-medicating ourselves with, again, technology in our phones? Yeah, exactly. Fully, fully see that happening a lot, that kids just don't spend time looking out the window anymore, just sitting there thinking about things because there is a very easy out because it is uncomfortable sometimes to be alone with your thoughts. And so I think that that's something that you develop a comfort for as a teenager. And there's a lot of thoughts going on in a teenager's head that need some space to air themselves and have, you know, you focus on them and think about these things that are happening in your life. And the devices don't create the space for that. Like on Wednesdays for gratitude, Wednesdays at school, every morning we also do gratitude journals. Your school is amazing. Is this a public school? Yeah. That's awesome. Hopefully there's some teachers listening to this. So you do like breath work every morning and Wednesday you do gratitude journals. Yeah, every week. Tomorrow I'm going to do a gratitude journal and then our teacher puts down a prompt and then we have to write about what we're thankful for about that prompt. So cool. Yeah, and parents can do this. We have these gratitude journals for our kids. They're called the 5-Minute Journal. You can get this on Amazon and they have a kid's version where there's a prompt and you can do it every night and write down every morning or night. Write down what you're grateful for. Okay, and last, this talks a lot about creating mental space, which is navigate decisions with mindfulness. Talk to us about that. So mindfulness means being fully present in the world where you're around what you know around you. Like you can hear the birds squeaking or you can know what you're eating. So like knowing what you're doing around you. Because now teens are just on their phone not knowing what they're getting surrounded by. They're just like mindlessly in the device. device. And that's what mindfulness is. It's knowing what's happening around you, knowing what's happening inside of you. Knowing, okay, what am I watching? Why am I watching this? Knowing why am I putting this in my body? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing that? Why am I taking these steps to go to this place? Just being fully present in that moment. And if we're able to do that, that's where real change happens. Because then we know, okay, why am I even doing this? Like, why? And when we're able to understand the why, that's where we can really change the direction of our lives yes good point yeah so being mindfulness you can easily be mindful just like i talked about being bored being alone with your thoughts and thinking about your future but specifically thinking about your presence being with yourself alone and thinking about your like your present like hearing seeing smelling all your five senses Yeah, it's so incredibly important. And so you've written this book, you have this incredible framework. How long have you been doing all this for in your own lives, the older boys? When did you start this journey? So I mentioned about the pandemic. So that was like 2020, but it actually started way before. We were really young and we were still learning about all this. Because your mom's a functional medicine doctor, right? Yeah, but she wasn't always. So we were also learning with her. And especially when we were dealing with our own issues, we were dealing with our own chronic issues. I had severe mood disorders and eczema. And yeah, everyone else had their own issues. So we were learning together for this. And then that's why we really started to come to this, that we really wanted to help other kids. Yeah, because you fixed yourself, right? You fix your mood disorders, your eczema, all of this. And you're like, oh, this works, right? I love it. Actually does work. Was that? Yeah, actually does work. And then once we figure out on ourselves, we didn't want anybody else to experience themselves. So then we had a podcast. We started giving out the message to people. Then we wrote a book to make it easier to put all that information in one. Amazing. Yes. And I love the book because at the end, you also have, like, if you do have some sort of chronic condition, And do you have advice about that condition and what you can do, right? Whether it's skin disorders or metabolic health issues. So you kind of go over that too in a very kid-friendly fashion. So parents and kids can both read this book together. And there's recipes. Healthy recipes for families to enjoy together. We've been doing this for 10 years. 10 years. That's awesome. That's your whole life. Yeah, exactly. Since you were born. You're living it. I love it. That's amazing. I'm so grateful that you guys wrote this book. And I think a lot of kids can benefit from this message because there are relatively simple things that kids can do. Because, you know, your biology right now is very resilient. Like you can fix your biology very quickly as a child, but it gets harder to fix as you become an adult. So it's so important to have these habits and routines and thoughts in place from the very beginning. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why when we made this book, we were targeting kids and teens. But we talked to a lot of adults and they're like, wow, this is a simple health book. That's what I need in my life too. Because all these other textbooks, all these other health books are so long. They're so factual. They're like, nobody's going to read all that. And so we wanted to do the simple, practical, easy things that anybody can do to change your life. Because as a teen, especially because when I was seven years old, I remember dealing with multiple different things as well. and nobody ever taught me that i could be able to change and get rid of all these diseases just by simple things like going out into nature just by simple things as getting the sleep i needed just by eating more natural foods changing our diet as teens are told you know if you have a problem i'll just take this pill yeah while you do this all you do that like take like the problem is that we're not taught this and it could benefit and change so many people's lives if we had this information because like you might like we went through the entire book in all the chapters i'm pretty sure nature sleep you know stress management you know even technology mindfulness gratitude these are all basically free things to do yeah right and so it's not that complicated right how can you save money if you don't have to buy a phone and a lot and beastables and all these ultra processed foods and things right yeah it's it's so true and it's fantastic advice and i really applaud you guys for doing this and spreading the message. Great work, you guys. Thank you. So the book is called The Teen Health Revolution. It's already out, right? And then you have a podcast called The Holistic Kid Show that anyone can listen to and have your kids listen to it. It's a great listen, right? You've interviewed some incredible guests on that show. Thank you. I was on the show too. But yeah, I think a lot of great information by kids for kids. So thank you. It's really our pleasure. It's really our honor to be here today. So thank you so much for inviting us. Thank you for joining me. Congratulations, you guys. Thank you. Thank you. That was a really fun conversation with those four kids. And I got a lot of takeaways from it. So here are my top five. Number one, teens aren't unmotivated. They're disconnected. Today's teens aren't lazy or apathetic. They're just chronically overstimulated and socially disconnected. Endless scrolling replaces real interaction purpose. and presence. Many teens are physically at school but mentally checked out, just moving through life on autopilot rather than engaging with the real world around them. Number two, tech is only one piece of the puzzle. Mental health breaks down at the systems level. You can't fix a teen's relationship with their phone if their gut health, sleep, stress response, nutrition, and social connection are already compromised. Anxiety and depression aren't isolated issues. They're signals of deeper biological and emotional imbalances. Number three, tech limits only work when teens use technology with intention. The problem is in screens. It's mindless use. Holistic kids emphasize going on devices with a purpose not to escape boredom or emotions. Their recommendations stick boundaries, often about an hour a day, paired with meaningful offline activities that actually satisfy the brain's need for challenging connection. Number four, gut health, food, and toxins directly shape teen mood and focus. What teens eat affect how they think and feel. Ultra-processed food, additives, and constant toxic exposure from plastic dyes and even EMFs contribute to brain fog, irritability, and low energy. When teens learn to read labels and understand why foods affect them, motivation will change because awareness creates autonomy. Number five, purpose, gratitude, and boredom are missing skills, not personality traits. Teens aren't taught how to sit with their thoughts anymore. They're not taught to manage stress or even to find meaning. Learning, gratitude, mindfulness, and how to be bored without stimulation helps rebuild emotional resilience. purpose doesn't come from social media it comes from contribution connecting and being present thank you so much for listening to the podcast today please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends it really helps to support all of our efforts i also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.