Renegade Pharmacist

Angela Foster Performance Podcasts - Episode 3

EP 3 – An Interview With Niraj Naik, The Renegade Pharmacist

Angela is joined by musician and holistic health expert and entrepreneur Niraj Naik, to talk about his truly inspiring story. 

Niraj became known as “The Renegade Pharmacist” after applying the practices of nutritional and holistic therapies alongside his role as a traditional pharmacist. After facing an intense backlash from the big corporations, Niraj was beset by his own health problems that saw him housebound with depression and ulcerative colitis. 

But by using his own knowledge and expertise, Niraj managed to cure himself of this condition, and has ever since used this same knowledge and set of techniques to positively transform the lives and health of many, many others. 

Join the conversation between Angela and Niraj to hear about his definition of true health, and the inspiring, empowering methods he uses to achieve it.

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An Interview With Niraj Naik, The Renegade Pharmacist

Angela is joined by musician and holistic health expert and entrepreneur Niraj Naik, to talk about his truly inspiring story. 

Niraj became known as “The Renegade Pharmacist” after applying the practices of nutritional and holistic therapies alongside his role as a traditional pharmacist. After facing an intense backlash from the big corporations, Niraj was beset by his own health problems that saw him housebound with depression and ulcerative colitis. 

But by using his own knowledge and expertise, Niraj managed to cure himself of this condition, and has ever since used this same knowledge and set of techniques to positively transform the lives and health of many, many others. 

Join the conversation between Angela and Niraj to hear about his definition of true health, and the inspiring, empowering methods he uses to achieve it.

Key Takeaways

    • After suffering from colitis and seeing no way out, Niraj was advised that if he healed himself, he would be a great role model to others, and so began to study alternative methods of treatment and form contacts with people around the world who had done the same thing. 
    • Breathing techniques and music led Niraj to develop Soma, music that eases the listener into different brainwave sets. Combining this with breathing techniques, and by placing himself in a sauna environment, Niraj was able to achieve trance states where he was able to re-programme his sub-conscious mind.
    • Niraj believes that when we train our vibrational state through meditation, music, yoga or other methods, we alter our own frequencies, and attract others who may be on the same wavelength and mission. This is what led Niraj to create Soma.
    • Manifestation and magic won’t work unless you feel good. Self-analysis will reveal the things that are making us feel bad and good. Move toward the things that make you feel good. 
    • The diet and lifestyle that work for you may be completely different to those that work for other people depending on your personal energy type.
    • Through pranayama techniques we can control the efficiency of mitochondria through oxygen. The more efficient it becomes, the less you need to breathe. Too much oxygen can cause damage, which Niraj likens to a wildfire on a cellular level. Pranayama is all about optimising our breathing and making our oxygen intake far more efficient.
    • Yoga is about anaerobic exercise as opposed to aerobic exercise. Aerobics is where the practitioner switches from one yoga pose to the next very quickly, and is the most common. Anaerobics is where the pose is held for a much longer time, forcing certain muscles to use up their individual energy supply and nutrients.

     

    • By studying people such as the Nepalese Ghurka army and the competitors in the Mexican Olympics, that high altitudes can have an incredible effect upon our strength and health due to low oxygen levels, and in some cases can see a reduction or reversal in symptoms of some diseases. Niraj has incorporated these learnings into his fitness protocols

Best Moments

‘The word “I” as in ill, and “We” as in wellness’

‘The subconscious mind is like an operating system’

‘You become an architect of your own software’

‘The first thing you need to find out is what is your bliss?’

‘How long you can hold your breath is a measure of how efficient your mitochondria is at using oxygen’

‘What we’re doing is a spiritual practice without any of the dogma or any of the fluff of religion’

‘I really believe in the golden rule which is do unto others as you would do unto yourself’

‘The fact that we are even alive is a miracle’

About the Host

Angela Foster

Angela is a Nutritionist, Health and Performance Coach. She is also the Founder and CEO of My DNA Edge, an Exclusive Private Membership Site giving individuals the tools and bio hacks needed to optimise their genetic expression for optimal health and performance.

After recovering from a serious illness in 2014, Angela left the world of Corporate Law with a single mission in mind:

To inspire and educate others to live an energetic, healthful and limitless life.

Angela believes that we can truly have it all and has spent the last 5 years researching the habits and routines of high performers, uncovering age-old secrets, time-honoured holistic practices and modern science to create a blueprint for Optimal Human Performance.

About the Guest

Niraj Naik first discovered the power of breath after finding peace and solace in a sauna after a hard days work from his highly stressful career as a community pharmacist, when frequently visiting a wellness center called Nirvana in his home town of Reading, England. 

He instinctively began to extend his exhalation and even make toning sounds with his voice that would bring him into a deep meditative state. To the surprise of other members of the spa, he was able to stay in the sauna for many times longer than everyone else, up to 45-1hr at 90c+ temperatures.

Eventually he escaped the pharmacy as he was promoted to the head office of one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK to carry out his novel healthy shopping list system for delivering essential life saving information to patients on diet, nutrition and holistic health. 

This helped Niraj form the curriculum for Soma Breath, a system based on the traditional yogic practices before they were altered by modern day practitioners of yoga from which this new field of breathwork has emerged, who have either made yoga more dogmatic or have misunderstood it’s real truth and the real breathwork that is contained in the ancient practices of pranayama.

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