Seva Living
Where longevity meets lifestyle. Where science meets soul. Seva Living is a free, biweekly newsletter from Angel V. Shannon—Board Certified Nurse Practitioner (AGPCNP-BC), lifestyle medicine clinician, speaker, author, and Blue Zone retreat host. Inside every issue: brain science made simple, food-as-medicine recipes, root cause medicine insights, and dispatches from the world's longest-lived communities. . Build a Better Brain. Design the Life You Deserve.
Science that changes everything—your best brain starts here.
Your Brain on Stress: The HPA Axis, Cortisol, and the Science of Coming Back
01 · From Me To You Hello Reader, In medicine, we believe every patient tells a story and holds a lesson. This one has stayed with me. I'll call her Anne. She came in asking for a thyroid panel first then 'well, maybe I'm anemic,' she said. Anne was in her mid-fifties with impeccable credentials but a schedule that was unrelenting. She'd spent three of her twenty-five years in higher education steering a university through a leadership overhaul during a global pandemic. When she sat down that...
READ POSTYour labs came back normal. So why don't you feel normal?
01 · From Me To You Hello Reader, Have you ever had this experience? You sit across from your doctor. You've been tired for months — the kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix. Your thinking felt slower than usual. Maybe you gained weight, more than what seems reasonable. You weren't depressed exactly, but you weren't quite yourself either. The lab results came in. Your doctor glanced at the screen and said the words you have heard before: Everything looks normal. And you drove home wondering...
READ POSTWhat have you been carrying alone that you don't have to?
What have you been carrying alone that you don't have to? 01 · FROM ME TO YOU Hello Reader, This past weekend I went outside and found a sweet surprise: my peonies are pushing their way through the ground! We've had some really warm days here in Maryland and these peonies are coming in fast! As I stood there looking at those tight little burgundy-tipped buds reaching up to the sky, I realized I wasn't going to make the same mistake again: I always forget to stake them. Every year I forget....
READ POSTYour brain cleans itself while you sleep. Here's what happens when it can't.
01 · From Me To You Hello Reader, A patient came to see me recently convinced she was in perimenopause. Weight gain. Chronic fatigue. Depression. Anxiety. All of it. And honestly, on the surface, it made sense. She was in her late 40s and all of the symptoms fit. But something made me slow down and ask a few more questions. She had taken a new job as a middle school teacher. She was working late evenings and weekends. She was eating well but had stopped working out because she said she had no...
READ POSTWhat would you do this month if you weren't afraid of starting over?
What would you do this month if you weren't afraid of starting over? 01 · FROM ME TO YOU Hello Reader, I spent part of this past weekend on my knees in the garden. Not in prayer, although honestly it felt a little like that. I was pulling weeds, trying to get my garden ready for spring veggie planting. The weeds were the the kind that tangle themselves so deeply into the soil over winter that you have to work for them using both hands, a full grip, leaning back with your whole body weight...
READ POSTI changed the name. Here's why.
Hello friend! Something shifted for me recently. Four months ago, standing barefoot on a deck in the rainforest with mountains behind me, my nervous system felt completely restored for the first time in longer than I could remember. My spirit spoke to the wind. My heart felt alive. That moment felt like the whole point of my life.Not the career. Not the credentials. Not the output. The restoration. The presence. The feeling of being fully alive in a body that has been given what it truly...
READ POSTTime for a gut check! Here’s what to fix first…
Your weekly housecall filled with everything you need to know to live longer and live better—naturally. Missed an issue or want to forward to a friend? Find it all right here. Hello Reader, Inside your digestive tract lives a vast community of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and more, all collectively known as the gut microbiome. This ecosystem weighs roughly as much as a small organ and plays a role in digestion, metabolism, immune defense, inflammation control, and even...
READ POSTFoggy & Forgetful? Here's Help!
Your weekly housecall filled with everything you need to know to live longer and live better—naturally. Missed an issue or want to forward to a friend? Find it all right here. Hello Reader, Have you walked into a room and forgotten why you’re there? Struggled to find the right word mid-sentence? If you’re over 40, you may be noticing subtle shifts in memory or focus. Some cognitive changes are a normal part of aging. The brain gradually changes in size and how efficiently its cells...
READ POSTMindset Mastery: Reclaiming My ICU View
Image Credit: Liz Fosslien Hello there friend, When life feels uncertain and the world feels like it’s spinning out of control (and these days it really does), I remind myself of the Power of ONE: one stretch, one step, one breath. I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between going wide and going deep and what comes to mind is my days as an ICU nurse. In the ICU we weren't assigned to fifty patients. We were usually assigned to one. Why? Because when a life is on the line, you cannot...
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