Last month, Lake Nona hosted the launch of Jiyo, a wellbeing app created by Dr. Deepak Chopra. Chopra is a well-known international figure who believes in alternative medicine. His app helps users master their mind and body and is based on the six pillars: nourish, move, love, meditate, sleep, and grow. Nonahood News’ Brittany Bhulai had the opportunity to sit down with Chopra and speak to him in an interview.

Nonahood News: Dr. Deepak Chopra, tell me a little bit about what’s going on here today with the app launch.
Deepak Chopra: Well, I’ve been coming to Lake Nona for the past four years to the Lake Nona forum. We’ve seen how this is really an example of the futuristic communities for wellbeing, and over several decades I realize that people may know all the right things, you know why they should sleep better, manage their stress, but they don’t do it and somehow they don’t feel inspired unless they engage with other people.

And so, the trend right now is wellbeing communities that are both online and offline. This is a community that’s focus is wellbeing. It’s also a community where you can measure data. This is a perfect opportunity for us to create online/offline communities that share their stories of personal and social transformation in health and wellbeing. We have the resources. We have the content. We have about 40 experts in every area whether its emotional wellbeing, love, relationships, nutrition, exercise, yoga, meditation, just about every aspect of integrated medicine. And we’re bringing the experts, but we’re engaging with local experts as well so they can create more content and this whole thing can evolve. So for us, this is a great opportunity.

NHN: There are three versions of the app. There’s the Jiyo, the Jiyo Consult and there’s the Jiyo Lake Nona app. So, can you explain what the difference is between those three?
DC: Most of the content, 90% or more of the content, even in the Jiyo Lake Nona app which is just a branch or division of the original app, most of the content that’s created is free. When you do Jiyo plus, there may be a small fee, a couple of dollars. You can actually take courses, whether it’s in leadership, emotional wellbeing, or a yoga class with a teacher. Then Jiyo Consult, you’ll be able to consult the experts in whatever you what. You can get consults in nutrition, you can get an exercise coach, yoga teacher, etc.

NHN: I know Lake Nona is the second smart city to adopt the Jiyo application. Aspen, Colorado, was the first. Where do you see the third location?
DC: Right now, there’s been a little initiative in Beverly Hills, too. But nothing like this; this is more structured, has more resources, has more science, has more research, data. So, I would say this is the first really futuristic community where Jiyo’s been involved.

We have people asking us to go to Dubai, Saudi Arabia, to Rio, to Hong Kong, but nowhere else have we found a community that’s already well developed for this kind of thing that’s prime for what we are doing.

NHN: What were the key turning points in your life that led you along this path of wanting to pursue a wellbeing/fitness mindset? What was your journey like?
DC: I trained in internal medicine, so I’m an internist. Then my training was in neuroendocrinology, looking at brain chemistry. This was a long time ago, probably before you were born [says smiling], and I realized you could have two patients with the same illness, saw the same physician, got the same treatment, but they could have completely different outcomes. So, that moved me from just looking at brain chemistry to how does the brain change when we shift internally. When our emotions shift, our consciousness shifts.

So, we all know the biology of stress. What is the biology of love or compassion or joy or equanimity? So, I started looking at what we initially call mind-body medicine, moving from endocrinology to mind-body medicine, but then I remembered mind-body medicine was a part of a bigger system that now we use the word integrative medicine. And so that includes not only mind-body medicine but everything to do with lifestyle, and even that has now expanded to a deeper understanding of what is consciousness, where does experience happen, and how does experience change our biology.

For example, right now people are watching us – their frontal cortex is being activated, their genes are being activated. If we were having an emotional conversation, depending on the kind of emotion, different parts of the brain would get activated. This is revolutionary, to understand that the human body is nothing other than the product of every experience you have that happens to you and even how you interpret that experience changes your biology.

So, we’re still evolving in our understanding of human experience and how that influences health, wellbeing, longevity. Only five percent, only five percent of disease-related gene mutations are fully penetrant, which means there’s guaranteed disease. Angelina Jolie is an example of that. She was guaranteed to have breast cancer. That’s five percent, less than five percent. Ninety-five percent of illness is influenced by how we live our lives.

NHN: What do you see for the future of the Jiyo app?
DC: I think, personally, the future of the Jiyo app that’s most exciting is bioregulation through new technologies. Looking at the microbiome through artificial intelligence, changing the activity of your genes; human genes, neuroplasticity.

NHN: When will you be moving to Lake Nona? We would love to have you as our neighbor.
DC: I’ll be coming periodically, but these days, technology, what we do with Lake Nona can reach the world and as we develop more technology like colography, 3D, replication, robots, bots – I’ll be here.

Jiyo is available for both iPhone and Android. To connect with other Lake Nona users, download Jiyo LN. Be sure to watch the video interview with Chopra coming soon on Nonahoodnews.com.