Toxins are everywhere and they're difficult to avoid. Even when we try our best we may still be exposed to harmful toxics that affect our health and wellbeing. What sort of toxins are we being exposed to regularly and how do they affect us? Pedram Shojai welcomes Urban Monk Podcast regular Tom Malterre back to the show to discuss the ongoing research into endocrine disrupters that mess with our lives.

Are women showing off their full authentic selves? Traits labeled as "feminine" such as sensitivity, intuition, or feeling emotional were once disparaged as weaknesses and both men and women were encouraged to shut down these aspects of their personalities. Author Amy Stanton challenges old and outdated perceptions that feminine traits are weaknesses and the book The Feminine Revolution revisits those characteristics to show how they are powerful assets that should be embraced rather than maligned. It argues that feminine traits have been mischaracterized as weak, fragile, diminutive, and embittered for too long, and offers a call to arms to redeem them as the superpowers and gifts that they are.

Many people enjoy a glass of wine whether it be with dinner or just a way to unwind after a long day at work, but have you ever thought about what's actually in your wine? Wine doesn't actually list the ingredients on the bottle. Well Todd White of Dry Farm Wines joins Pedram Shojai on The Urban Monk Podcast to discuss exactly why that is. Todd also talks about the process in which wine is mass produced and the troubling toxins that may actually be the cause of some headaches associated with wine. What does it take to remove the wine of these toxins? What is the end result for the taste and flavor of the wine?

You may have heard (often) to fire up your metabolism in order to lose weight, but what really does that mean? How are we able to control our metabolism? Dr. Alan Christianson suggests we should focus on our livers to better serve our body. How does the liver control the fat being stored in our bodies? How can we work better to lose extra inches off our bellies? What role does the liver play in suppressing metabolism?

The Urban Monk is back after a hiatus from the podcast. Pedram Shojai has been busy all year filming a new docu-series on the microbiome titled Interconnected! Here he takes some time to sit and just talk about the experience of filming the series and what he learned and the many experts he was able to interview. No guest in this episode, just Pedram at the wheel driving solo.

Dr. Tom O'Bryan is no stranger to The Urban Monk and he returns to talk about what it takes to restore cognitive function. We've all experienced that brain fog where we can't remember where we put our keys or can't connect the name to the face or forgotten birthdays. What causes our brain to slow down and what can be done to bring it back to optimal operation? Dr. Tom O'Bryan has a step-by-step plan to bring our brains back to tip-top shape so that we can live our best lives!

There's a lot of information when it comes to dieting. Things to eat, things not to eat, things to eat at a certain time, times to not eat, how long to eat, how much to eat, eating as much as you want, restricting how much you want to eat, tricking yourself into not wanting to eat, what the hell are we supposed to do? Cassie Bjork comes onto the podcast this week to talk it out with Pedram about all the diets that are circulating around. Paleo, keto, Atkins, what are all of these and which one is right for each person? How can a person even know?

Aimee Raupp is an acupuncturist and herbalist who has worked with scores of women through various issues. Through her experience in the clinic she has come up with a roadmap to heal from autoimmune disease. She transitioned from helping women with poor fertility outlooks to working with patients on a more spiritual and emotional level. How can one attune one's behavior to better serve your own body?

How important is a morning routine? How can what we do in the morning affect the rest of our day? Benjamin Spall has written about this very topic and joins Pedram Shojai to deeply examine the common habits people get into when they wake up. Think about what you do when you wake up. The very first thing. Do you take a moment to appreciate perhaps your spouse? Or are you reaching for the phone to see who's emailed you in the last 8 hours? What affect could this have on our day to day lives? How do we break routines and add in new ones? What positive routines can we fold into our mornings?

Microbes are life forms that are too small to see without a microscope. There are microbes in the soil, in the atmosphere, and even inside every one of us. How do these microbes live? How do they behave? What are they doing inside each and every person and do they affect the person as a whole? Author Eugenia Bone joins Pedram on The Urban Monk to discuss the fascinating micro-world.