Emotionally Fit with Dr. Emily Anhalt

James Beshara, an angel investor and the founder of Tilt, a crowdfunding company acquired by Airbnb in 2017, used to drink seven. cups. of. coffee. a. day—a habit that landed him in the ER with a racing heartbeat of over 170 beats per minute for three weeks straight. That turning point in James’s life led him down a rabbit hole of research on coffee, caffeine and alternative ways to boost productivity and heal, a search that included plant medicine. In this Taboo Tuesday, James talks to Dr. Emily about his first experience with psychedelics, and the effect it still has on him today.

In 2016, Sunil Rajaraman wrote a satirical essay titled ‘This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley’ for the tech-heavy, San Francisco-based online magazine The Bold Italic. Within days the article was trending on social media with hundreds of comments and nearly a million page views. In this Taboo Tuesday, Sunil talks with Dr. Emily about the anxiety he experienced as a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and how he’s learned to shift his relationship to it.

We’ve all had bad days. Bad years. Bad fights. Bad jobs. Hard losses. And in this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily isn’t going to tell you that it’s all going to be ok. Nope. Instead, she’s going to tell you to feel it. Because sometimes it’s better to let yourself feel shitty than it is to push your feelings aside and move on too quickly. Co-Founder and CEO of Nira, Hiten Shah, joins this episode to talk about how a more realistic outlook helped him deal with a particularly tough time in his own life.