Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. The weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools

you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.

Can you improve your quality of sleep, just de-stress, enhance your focus and boost your

mood with a pair of headphones? Oh, come on. Well, my guest today says yes. In just a

minute, I'll speak with Dr. Daniel Cartilage. Dr. Cartilage is an interventional pain physician

at the National Pain Institute in Delray Beach, Florida. Along with his brother, Dr. Richard

Cartilage, he invented and patented Zen headphones. These special earbuds are designed to actually

stimulate the vagus nerve, which you've heard me talk about in my books. It's the communication

pathway between your brain and your other organs. Today, we're going to talk about the science

behind Zen and how your brain relates to your overall health. So Dr. Cartilage, welcome to the

program. Thank you for having me. Great to be here. All right. So as a as a fellow medical

device inventor, what the heck led you to create medical devices in the first place?

Well, I was actually in my pain practice. I was actually using an

a regular acupuncture procedure to help with chronic pain. And that was actually part of the

inspiration for tapping into the vagus nerve and creating this product. So for our listeners,

what's an oracle? What's a regular? So a regular is in the ear. So we are tapping into the

vagus nerve, which is a cranial nerve. It's a 10th cranial nerve, and there is a branch in the

ear. So our device uses patented earbuds that actually stimulate the vagus nerve at the level of

the ear. So basically are wearing earbuds like the ones I have in. And so the vagus nerve runs

by the ear as part of the ear. I mean, how did you figure this out from your acupuncture practice?

So actually the device was actually a regular acupuncture that was that was tapping into not

just the vagus nerve, but other nerves, other locations on the ear as well. And I brought up this,

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