What Your Doctor is Missing: How Normal is Not Optimal

Dr. Shilpa Sayana is a board-certified internal medicine physician with advanced training in functional and integrative medicine. Born in Zambia and raised in Botswana by physician parents doing foreign aid work, she trained at Yale, the University of Vermont, and UCLA before an HIV fellowship took her to Haiti, Nigeria, and Russia. In this episode, Dr. Sayana explains why normal lab results and optimal health are not the same thing, how high-performing women are often running on depleted hormones and elevated cortisol without knowing it, and what her own health crisis taught her about treating root causes rather than symptoms. Learn how to read your own numbers, ask better questions at your next appointment, and take your health from normal to optimal. Timestamps: 00:46 Meet Dr. Shilpa Sayana 02:16 Roots in Botswana 04:00 Switching to Functional Care 06:02 Normal vs Optimal Labs 07:19 Patient Experience Pivot 11:39 Meditation and Stress Reset 14:26 Midlife Health Playbook 18:42 Genetics and Longevity Triangle 23:11 Antibiotics and Gut Health 23:58 Sleep Hacks and Hormones 27:02 Daily Routine and Breathwork 30:23 GLP Drugs and Nutrition 32:41 Motherhood 34:32 Scaling Functional Medicine 36:39 Entrepreneur Stress Mentorship Links: Dr. Shilpa's Website: https://drshilpa.com/ Sayana Medical & Wellness Center: https://www.sayanamedical.com/