By: Sarshar Hosseinnia

“You can’t live a fully vibrant, healthy, joyful life if you’re just listening to your mind or emotions,” Dr. Mike Stone begins, walking around the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, as we share in a 45-minute chat. 

He continues his opening comment; “You need a physical vessel to support you. Physical health, mental health, and emotional health are incredibly closely intertwined. For example, exercise causes the body to release chemicals that improve mood. Or meditation, on the other hand, which has been shown to reduce chronic pain.”

Dr. Stone ensures he gets out into nature, or at least a walk in the Pacific Northwest, once a day. “My daily routine is the same on a weekday as it is on a weekend, except there’s more time outdoors and time spent with family on the weekends. But a typical day includes certain essentials.

Mike’s Daily Routine

• Rise early morning
• Drink coffee – “My eating habits stay consistent, healthy, and nutritious. If it’s summertime and we’re taking the kids out and they want to get ice cream, I’m going to have ice cream, and I’m going to love it, and it’s going to be amazing. So it’s not an overly rigid framework.”
• Connect with family before the school/work day starts
• Get outside, move my body, and plan my day ahead 
• Journal / Breathwork / Seated Meditation or Yoga – “I’ll mix in half an hour of meditative practice, which could be meditation, or it could be breath work or yoga. I like to do something contemplative as it grounds me and lets me bring that balance into the day.” 
• Connect w/ others – “I like to have at least one conversation a day that digs deep into any kind of friction or conflict I’m feeling, as well as offering myself as a resource to someone who I feel like might be needing an ear.”
• Gym workout or a long hike – “On an ideal day I’m doing a strenuous hike out in the Gorge or getting a solid weightlifting session in. On days when time is short, this may look like a sprint interval run or a Katalyst suit workout.”
• Walk w/ the family + family dog – “I love opportunities to do a great thing for my health while simultaneously showing up for the people in my life.” 

Dr. Stone, or “Mike” as he prefers to be called, wasn’t always living a healthy lifestyle. At 40, he was overweight, poorly conditioned, and found that he had high cholesterol. “I would say that the two levers I really pulled first were nutrition and training. The motivation around nutrition stemmed from very high cholesterol, which I was adamant about fixing without medication. I ended up going vegan for two years and experienced a 30% reduction in cholesterol levels. Ultimately, this wasn’t a great long-term nutritional strategy for me, but I’m still grateful I got to experience firsthand how much lifestyle intervention can affect your health.” 

Meanwhile, Dr. Stone would tell himself, “I don’t run, I don’t hike, I don’t climb mountains.” All of these were unexamined beliefs, not true representations of who he was – or is, as a person. “It’s amazing to me that we have these rules and beliefs that we take for granted,” he shares. “It’s interesting to note who is making these rules … So I flicked the switch and told myself, ‘I’m a morning person now, and I can do all of the things I used to tell myself I couldn’t do.’”    

The founder of Nexus Medicine, Dr. Stone, devotes his time to providing what the Western healthcare system lacks: Conscious Medicine; a dedicated, personalized approach to client care that incorporates the 3 C’s: connection, communication, and community. 

This personalized functional medicine approach involves inputting a patient’s unique genetics, epigenetics, biomarkers, and biometrics into a system to take a proactive approach to implementing treatment. From there, his patients work with him and Trei Tackett, NP, an accredited health coach, to help them achieve specific health goals, optimize their health, and maximize their health span — to live and feel better, for longer.”

Dr. Stone credits his own health transformation to connecting more deeply to purpose and community. After years of excessive living, poor dietary habits, and lack of proper sleep, “my work-life balance was tilted very much toward the work side,” he opens up, “so that left me feeling unwell and unmotivated.” That shift into a life that incorporated more connection and purpose … “a spiritual and physical 180,” he explains, “became my priority. I hope that it has a similar effect on others as it did on me.” 

Mike’s three-pronged approach of living in joy, communicating with patients, and medicine being a community affair stems from Dr. Stone’s belief that the human body is designed to connect to health, vibrancy, and purpose. “I would say the five key pillars of a healthy lifestyle are: sleep, physical activity, nutrition, emotional and spiritual health, and community connection. Treating those five as important as you would a blood test result is critical for a lasting transformation to occur.” While he’s committed to helping his patients live longer and healthier, his focus is on helping them live their most joyful and vibrant lives today.

“At the end of the day, a plane could drop from the sky right now and crush me.” Morbid but always done in a lighthearted tone, his point is that no one can predict the future nor prepare for it. A lot of longevity and anti-aging practices operate from what he sees as a fear and scarcity mindset. “When we focus our attention on our physical, emotional, mental, and community health, we naturally tap into healthspan and longevity while living fully and authentically in the present moment, and not waiting for the future to live our best lives.”

As the 45-minute conversation comes to a close, Dr. Stone informs me that he is planning to hike — alongside eight of his friends, in Cotopaxi National Park in Ecuador this fall. They’ll spend every one of those days climbing mountains, immersing themselves in the local community, and eating healthy, traditional dishes. 

“It’s gonna be incredible,” he ends. 

Dr. Mike Stone, MD, is the Founder of Nexus Medicine and the pioneer of Conscious Medicine.
To transform your own life, check out Nexus Medicine.

Published by: Josh Tatunay