A Diwali Gift: The Light Within Movement
Every Diwali, we light lamps to chase away darkness, in our homes, on our streets, and sometimes, in neighbourhood.
This year, I want to give you a different kind of light.
Not one that burns in a diya, but one that glows inside you, the light of MoveMint Medicine.
Because your healing was never meant to come only from a doctor, a therapist, or a treatment plan.
It was always meant to come from you.
The Science That Backs the Sense
Over the past decade, Prof. Keely Muscatell, a social neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of North Carolina, has shown through her groundbreaking research that our social and emotional experiences directly shape how our brain and immune system behave.
“Our social and emotional experiences directly shape how our brain and immune system behave.”
Her lab studies show how stress, rejection, and inequality literally get under the skin, influencing inflammation, emotion, and even long-term health.
Her work perfectly echoes what I’ve seen in thousands of patients over the years, pain isn’t just about a joint or muscle; it’s about the entire system: body, brain, and behaviour.
In many ways, MoveMint Medicine is the practical translation of the kind of science Muscatell and others have been uncovering, the lived, human version of neuroimmunology.
The Missing Piece in Healing
When people come to me in pain, whether it be back, knee, shoulder, or neck, they often say, “Doc, please fix me.”
But your body isn’t a broken appliance. You can’t hand it over for repair and expect it to come back perfect.
Pain isn’t something that’s done to you. It’s something that happens through you.
And the only sustainable way out isn’t passive treatment, it’s active participation.
This Diwali, I want you to take back control of your healing. To understand how pain, movement, sleep, food, breath, and even relationships are all threads of the same fabric.
Pain Isn’t the Enemy. It’s a Messenger.
Pain is your body’s internal voice saying, “Something’s off.”
It’s not just about tissue damage. It’s about imbalance, in your biology, your psychology, and your social world.
“It isn’t just the physical insult that triggers chronic pain, social stress, rejection, or low status can raise inflammation and change how your brain interprets body signals.”
If you’re sleeping poorly, sitting endlessly, worrying constantly, or feeling isolated, your nervous system starts to treat normal sensations as danger.
That’s how acute pain becomes chronic.
But here’s the good news: if pain can be learned, it can also be unlearned.
You can re-teach your brain safety, through movement, breath, recovery, nutrition, and connection.
The MoveMint Medicine Framework
Everything we do at the clinic, from the exercises we prescribe to the conversations we have, comes down to MoveMint Medicine:
the idea that movement is medicine and that health is the harmony between your body, brain, and behaviour.
It’s about Moving Mountains Within, not conquering marathons or lifting heavy weights, but rebuilding strength, trust, and balance inside yourself.
Every time you move, breathe, rest, eat, or connect consciously, you’re reshaping the inner terrain where healing happens.
Here’s how the Five Ms work together to light that harmony.
1. Move
Movement isn’t punishment for being inactive. It’s permission for your body to heal.
When you move, your muscles release myokines, chemical messengers that reduce inflammation and calm your immune system.
Your brain receives feedback that says, “I’m safe. I can move again.”
Movement builds not just muscle, but confidence, trust in your own body’s capability.
That trust is the real beginning of healing.
As Diwali Gift, below are two YouTube playlists to help you strength train effectively and efficiently,
the first focuses on dumbbell-based workouts, and the second on machine-based strength training.
2. Mind
Your mind is not a spectator in this process, it’s the conductor.
When you stay trapped in fear or frustration, your brain turns up the volume on pain.
But when you approach movement with curiosity and hope, your biology literally shifts.
A calm, focused mind regulates your hormones, steadies your breath, and relaxes tense muscles.
You can’t always control your circumstances, but you can choose how to frame them, and that changes everything.
3. Meal
Your gut is your second brain.
It houses billions of bacteria that produce neurotransmitters like serotonin, the same chemical that lifts mood and reduces pain.
So what you eat isn’t just about calories or macros, it’s information for your nervous system.
Whole, unprocessed food reduces inflammation, fuels recovery, and supports this gut–brain dialogue.
When your gut is healthy, your brain feels calmer, your energy steadier, and your pain thresholds higher.
Feed your body well, and it will start talking kindly to you again.
4. Meditate (Sleep & Breath)
In music, it’s not just the notes that matter, it’s the spaces between them that give melody its meaning.
The same holds true for your body.
Movement and effort are the notes; sleep, breath, and mindfulness are the pauses that make the whole thing beautiful.
Deep sleep clears waste from your brain and rebuilds tissue.
Slow, nasal breathing activates the vagus nerve, switching you from fight or flight to rest and repair.
“The brain and immune system constantly talk to each other, when you’re socially threatened, your brain lights up in stress circuits and your body ramps up inflammation.”
The same applies internally: if you never pause, your system never gets to reset.
Rest isn’t laziness — it’s rhythm.
5. Meet
Humans are social organisms. We heal in the company of others.
When you laugh, move, or share stories, your brain releases oxytocin, a hormone that lowers inflammation and pain while increasing trust and connection.
Of course, there are exceptions. For a few people, solitude is healing.
But unless you’ve truly reached Nirvana, Buddha, or Zen mode, don’t isolate yourself in the name of peace.
Most of us need people to heal, stay sane, grounded, and hopeful.
As Muscatell’s lab has shown, isolation does real biological damage — the same inflammatory pathways show up in loneliness as in tissue injury (Muscatell & Inagaki, Psychoneuroendocrinology 2021).
“Isolation does real biological damage, the same inflammatory pathways show up in loneliness as in tissue injury.”
Connection doesn’t just feel good, it’s literally medicine for your nervous system.
From Science to Sense
The latest neuroscience now confirms what we’ve long known through experience:
movement, rest, good food, breath, and connection aren’t optional lifestyle hacks.
They are mechanisms that modulate brain–immune–body systems, alter perception of pain, and restore health.
As Muscatell’s work reminds us, even subtle changes in our environment, kindness, belonging, or purpose, can shift inflammatory markers and brain activity.
That’s as scientific as it is spiritual.
The Light You Carry
Diwali is about renewal, of homes, of hearts, of spirit.
Let’s extend that renewal to our bodies and minds.
This year, don’t just light diyas. Light your system.
Move every day.
Rest intentionally.
Eat to nourish, not just fill.
Breathe between the noise.
Connect, or if you truly must, contemplate.
Your body already knows how to heal. It just needs your participation.
You are not a passive patient waiting to be fixed.
You are an active participant in your own recovery.
And that is the most empowering light you can ever carry.
Because healing doesn’t happen when someone fixes you. It happens when you start moving, in body, mind, and life.
“This Diwali, light up from within. Move with purpose. Rest with peace. Eat with awareness. Breathe with calm. Connect with heart.”
Happy Diwali.
Keep miling and smiling.
Rajat
