In this uplifting episode of Autoimmune Rehab, we explore the science and soul behind the saying “laughter is the best medicine.” Discover how joy, humor, and even a few giggles can trigger powerful healing responses in your body—especially when you’re navigating chronic illness or autoimmune symptoms. Learn about how laughter is best medicine, plus yoga, energy medicine, meditation and more helped Dr. Neja Zupan heal autoimmune conditions and even cancer. Whether you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, or just need a mental reset, this episode will remind you of the power of lightheartedness in your wellness toolkit. Because sometimes, the best therapy isn’t a supplement—it’s a belly laugh.
Tune in now and find out why laughter really is the best medicine!
In 2013, Dr. Zupan was diagnosed with aggressive hormone-dependent breast cancer and given only a 5% chance of survival without chemotherapy or radiation. But she said no to conventional treatment — and yes to a path of deep, natural, and energy-based healing. Through frequency recalibration, subconscious reprogramming, emotional integration, and physical detoxification, she not only healed… she rebuilt her entire life. Today, she leads the Mastering Energy Academy and the Dr. Neja Zupan Institute, where she supports high achievers and conscious professionals in restoring their health, vitality, and clarity — by working with the energy behind their biology. She believes autoimmune conditions are often a response to misalignment — emotional suppression, inherited trauma, and energetic stagnation that builds over time. She helps clients decode the body’s signals and return to natural regulation through presence, nervous system balance, and vibrational awareness.
Connect with Dr. Zupan at: http://nejazupan.com
info@nejazupan.com
@dr.neja.zupan.institute
Transcript
AnnaLaura Brown: Okay, everybody. Welcome to Autoimmune Rehab. And today we have a pretty interesting interview for you today. I hope they always are, but this one is pretty intriguing. be talking about some different things. We’re going to be talking about things including things like why could cancer potentially be an autoimmune condition as well as some different aspects of energy frequency and…
AnnaLaura Brown: all kinds of stuff. So today I’m happy to welcome to my podcast Dr. Nia Zupen and hopefully I’ve gotten that pronounced correctly. welcome and why don’t you start off by telling us a little bit about who you are.
Neja Zupan: Thank you Anna Laura to invite me to your podcast and…
Neja Zupan: I really want to greet all the listeners of your podcast. so what I was going through already started when I was more or less So in first years let’s say two three years everything started and of course alopathic medicine didn’t have an answers.
Neja Zupan: So at the age of eight I started already to go in a different direction and I have fallen and I had a quite serious injury but I was screaming at home that I don’t want to go to the alopathic medicine because I was so frequently there that I just didn’t want to go there anymore. so this was the first time that I remember that I really rejected going there and my mother somehow put together the injury because it was about a cut of three four cm and the skin was falling down and she somehow put this together and at the age of
Neja Zupan: 11. I remember that I really screamed again at home that I don’t want to go to the alopathic medicine for another injection against allergies because this allergies was they were almost killing me. I had at that time tablets so pills sprays to inhale that I didn’t as is it esophagate myself. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yep. Suffocate yourself. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: I had different creams because I was all in bumps on my skin and I had corticoreroids for my nose for my eyes everything and injections I don’t know it was about each six months I went to the medical doctor. they gave me injection but to lessen symptoms that I was confronted with. But at the age of 11 I remember that again I was screaming at him that I don’t want to go anymore to the doctors.
Neja Zupan: And somehow when I look back now in that context I see my mother and father really as a courageous that they didn’t forced me to go there because they saw that somehow this didn’t help at all and at the age of 14. I perceived in school when I was taking these drugs pills that I got really sleepy and…
Neja Zupan: a bit dizzy,
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that can happen with all those side effects and…
AnnaLaura Brown: those kinds of things.
Neja Zupan: Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: So, were your parents pretty healthy when you were born, do you feel like,…
AnnaLaura Brown: or do you feel like you inherited some of that from your parents initially, do you think?
Neja Zupan: Yeah. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: In that anybody inherits anything. I don’t believe in this kind of heritage because of everything what I went through how I healed myself of everything I got divine knowledge how to really heal whatever disease exists and disease for me it’s actually a symptom of unbalanced energies
00:05:00
Neja Zupan: that are flowing through the body.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, can see that.
AnnaLaura Brown: So, I know that, part of your credentials is, you’re some kind of a doctor. So, did you go to school to be like a naturopathic doctor? Is that what you studied or what did you study?
Neja Zupan: No, no, no, no. I wanted at since age of three. I remember myself how I was playing at home. being a doctor, with dolls and teddy bears and everything. But because at the age of six, I was labeled as a child with special needs and was somehow prevented to go to normal school. So I couldn’t sign into medical school afterwards but my passion for helping people was immense.
Neja Zupan: So at the age of 18 I started to study many of natural healing modalities and my doctoral degree is from no I don’t remember…
Neja Zupan: how to say in English I will remember. So it’s the science that searches how a person behaves …
AnnaLaura Brown: Like behavioral science.
Neja Zupan: how the No,…
AnnaLaura Brown: So you have a PhD in behavioral science.
Neja Zupan: it was not behavior.
AnnaLaura Brown: Not really.
Neja Zupan: Yeah. It was Anthropology.
AnnaLaura Brown: PhD in anthropology. Okay.
Neja Zupan: Yes. Anthropology. Yes. Yes.
AnnaLaura Brown: Got it.
Neja Zupan:
Neja Zupan: Yes. Yes.
AnnaLaura Brown: Interesting. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: So yeah this is my official title but when I started to study I started to study also traditional Chinese Ayurveda energy medicine phototherapy and…
AnnaLaura Brown: Okay.
Neja Zupan: and plenty of psychology subjects like neural linguistic programming, probably somebody knows rhetoric because my god, in my childhood I almost couldn’t speak. Yeah. So that was also one of the reasons why I was labeled as a child with special needs…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s interesting.
Neja Zupan: because I was so stylant introvert and…
AnnaLaura Brown: So, yeah.
Neja Zupan: everything. What you want to want?
AnnaLaura Brown: So today I noticed you have your own institute,…
Neja Zupan: What you want?
AnnaLaura Brown: if you will, that you help people with healing through all these different modalities. So, I’m assuming you do a combination of things like the acupuncture, the energy healing, the frequencies, all these Ayurved all these different things that you have used. Is there one method in particular that you feel like is more helpful specifically for people with autoimmune conditions or is it kind of just a combination of all of them? Mhm.
Neja Zupan: Yeah, for me it’s just combination because a person each one of us it’s not just emotions, just mind, just energy, just spirit, all five of levels at once. So if you treat for example with food or…
AnnaLaura Brown: Mhm. Yeah. Yep.
Neja Zupan: with liquids that you drink or with supplements then you treat only physical level. So what I combine with all my knowledge also about psychology and spirituality I combine everything together and each of my approach to a person is individual.
00:10:00
Neja Zupan: So whatever person needs and in my clinic there are plenty of people who heal themselves from fibromyalgia from muscle distrophe from different allergies from remotis plenty plenty…
AnnaLaura Brown: rheumatoid arthritis. Yeah, I’m sure.
Neja Zupan: but also cancer and…
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s also cool.
Neja Zupan:
Neja Zupan: also Sir Cancer is metabolic disease.
AnnaLaura Brown: Let’s talk about the co- cancer thing there. So, I know you said part of your journey was you had a pretty aggressive cancer that you healed yourself from. Why would you say that cancer is considered autoimmune? Because a lot of people would thinking what cancer is not an autoimmune condition. So, and how would you say that they’re related?
Neja Zupan: So cells stop to metabolize ingredients, food, what they receive and they stop to metabolize everything correctly to divide themselves.
AnnaLaura Brown: Okay. Mhm.
Neja Zupan: So that why cancer is autoimmune disease. because it goes to metabolic level but that’s not just metabolic level on the physical level it’s metabolic level of emotions. So how the person metabos emotions? because if a person cannot metabolize emotions in a healthy way then cells start to transform their function and…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah.
Neja Zupan: start to function in a different way. accommodate the energies and in the food that they receive to reproduce themselves and it’s also how a person metabolizes mind so thoughts how metabolizes energies that flow through a person and how much a person is connected to his or her spirit. So if I look all these autoimmune diseases that you said they are labeled like autoimmune diseases and the cancer supposed not to be labeled.
Neja Zupan: what I figured out from also I also had autoimmune disease called neurodermatitis.
AnnaLaura Brown: Mhm.
Neja Zupan: So it was not possible to heal no matter how much amount of corticoreroids I have put on my skin. It appeared again and again and again and again. And what is similar to all these autoimmune diseases in which I include also cancer in this category is inability to metabolize things on different levels.
Neja Zupan: So with my clients, when we dig inside what is going on inside the human inside this individual, we encounter emotions, thoughts like limiting beliefs, limiting values, limiting identities that prevent person to heal.
Neja Zupan: For example, one of the very high ranked limiting belief is…
Neja Zupan: if you identify with the disease but because disease is only symptom for disregulated energies that flow through a person.
00:15:00
AnnaLaura Brown: Yep. Yeah,…
AnnaLaura Brown: that’s a good point.
Neja Zupan: So that exactly.
AnnaLaura Brown: I always tell people and I’ve had a lot of guests say too that, the autoimmune disease may be a condition. It may be a label you have right now, but that doesn’t mean you have to have it forever. And so, you want to patch yourself from thinking that you can’t get rid of it because as soon as you have so hardly onto it that it becomes part of your identity or you think you can’t get rid of it, then you’re already mentally telling yourself that you’re not going to heal. So,
Neja Zupan:
Neja Zupan: Exactly. This is the first thing to differentiate that you are not the symptom.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yep. You’re not the disease that you’ve been slapped with or…
Neja Zupan: Yeah. Exact.
AnnaLaura Brown: your condition or whatever. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: Exactly. for example they say I’m muscle distrophit distrophic or…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Mustic or…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: Yeah, I muscle drophic.
Neja Zupan: No, no. First thing or I’m a person not…
Neja Zupan: who has but for the spinal diseased person. So this is identity. tiring. For example, many women I helped with autoimmune diseases with thyroid is working to too little or…
AnnaLaura Brown: Mhm. Yep.
AnnaLaura Brown: Thyroid. Yes.
Neja Zupan: too much. But everything comes back to all the five fundamentals.
Neja Zupan: So first of course what the person eats, what drinks and in what environments is a person and what supplements eats if what herbs a person takes. So this is all on this level and…
AnnaLaura Brown: up there.
AnnaLaura Brown: Mhm. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: then we research what is going on the emotional level and mind level and usually for example with thyroid person does everything what other says and not enough for themselves. they don’t know actually who they are. this is very common.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: But of course there are always variations. So I don’t do this person comes and you take these pills and you start to think No, this doesn’t work because we need to dig on what level came to distortion of this energy flow because energy flow is connected with way of thinking and way of emotional flow. What emotions are connected with certain energy flow?
Neja Zupan: So when we change emotion energy flow then we have greater opportunity possibility to change also our mind and emotions.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yep, for Yeah, I can definitely see that. Yeah, and I’ve experienced that myself. Have tons of other people, that we’ve talked to that have experienced the same kind of thing. So, yeah, it has to be like you said, all those different things. So, if somebody is listening to this and they’re currently feeling a little overwhelmed, maybe they’ve just gotten their diagnosis barely or, they feel like they’re experiencing a lot of symptoms, they’re not doing all that well, that kind of thing. What would be the first thing that you would say that somebody should do? Because obviously there’s going to be several different things they’re going to need to do, but what’s that first thing that you recommend someone does?
Neja Zupan: First, I suggest that the person finds some you laughter yoga workshop or…
Neja Zupan: workshop or membership. ship and start to laugh.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s good.
Neja Zupan: Start to Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: I love that.
Neja Zupan: Start to laugh at everything. For example, I had one client last week. she had quite severe. No, she was diagnosed with the cancer and…
00:20:00
Neja Zupan: she was completely overwhelmed with everything. And then I said, “Okay, why you are overwhelmed? You don’t know what degree. You don’t know if there are metastasis. you don’t know what you no I don’t know I didn’t even enter into this…
AnnaLaura Brown: what your different options are for treating.
AnnaLaura Brown: You don’t know what your future’s going to be. You don’t know all these different things. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: because what I see with autoimmune diseases that actually alopathic medicine does not have a clue do what to do but just is it fire out calm down the fire inside. So this is everything what they do what I do is looking…
AnnaLaura Brown: Mhm.
Neja Zupan: where is the origin of the fire and remove the fire and everything else starts to calm down. and I said You don’t know the degree. You don’t know how aggressive it is. you don’t know if there are metastasis. you don’t know anything. And you panic already. Now it’s time to find on internet or wherever some laughter yoga class and laugh as much as possible every day for I don’t know one two three four five hours laugh and usually people say I don’t have anything to laugh for.
Neja Zupan: No, you need there is one very famous saying of Milton Ericson.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yep.
Neja Zupan: He was one of the best hypnotherapist from the last century. He said, “Fake it until you make it.” Laughter needs to come not from outside in. Because people are too stressed about everything. they forgot to laugh. and there was one study made after the second world war and after 40 years and they tested how much per day adults and children laughed and compared to after 40 years after the second world war adults laughed about two hours per day and children about six hours and after 40 years no
Neja Zupan: It’s already more but after 40 years only adults laughed only about 15 minutes and children laughed about one hour. Can you and…
Neja Zupan: it was really hard experience second world war and they laughed a lot. So laughter helps the person to unwind everything what is going on inside.
AnnaLaura Brown: I love that.
AnnaLaura Brown: I’ve heard sure you’ve probably heard the statement that laughter is the best medicine. And I don’t know who said that, but that’s a statement that’s out there that Yeah.
Neja Zupan: Yeah. in Slovenia we say that laughter is half of the healing because the other half Yes.
Neja Zupan:
AnnaLaura Brown: Heat.
Neja Zupan: what I see with my clients and with myself is actually healing of emotions, of thoughts, of energy, of spirit, of the body. So we need to heal this as well. But laughter start laugh when I was diagnosed with cancer,…
AnnaLaura Brown: mamogram. Yeah. Mamogram
Neja Zupan:
Neja Zupan: it was really so funny situation. I went on this mamography is it called mam? Yeah. Yeah. And the medical doctor said with this really sad face expression and with words, Miss Zupan you have a cancer. And I said, “Oh yes, great. I know what to work on. Now it’s proved and we go for it.
Neja Zupan: go for healing. And the medical doctor was so in shock that her mouth stayed open,…
AnnaLaura Brown: I Yes.
00:25:00
Neja Zupan: her jaw opened and her eyeballs almost fell out, for what I said. And I had really really all the time good relationship with all medical doctors because for examinations I always went there but I didn’t accept chemotherapy. I rejected hormonal therapy and I rejected radiation although medical doctors oncologist said to me that without their help I have only 5%age chance to survive…
AnnaLaura Brown: Mhm.
Neja Zupan: but I saw all my female ancestors they all accepted this approach And they all passed away. I was watching mother that was horrible experience and my aunts and my grandmother and I said this way this is not for me I didn’t know whether I will survive or not but I laughed a lot. So my goal at that time not this is also very important.
Neja Zupan: My goal was not that I get healthy but as long as I live I laugh every day, I sing every day and I dance every day.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s awesome.
AnnaLaura Brown: I love that.
Neja Zupan: So all these three components were crucial in my healing. Really crucial. So dance, laugh, sing. Usually people also have this I don’t know strange beliefs. I cannot sing and no if you have autoimmune disease.
Neja Zupan: Now it’s time to start singing to overcome these limiting beliefs because all children know to sing. Everyone Exactly.
AnnaLaura Brown: truth. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: And some people are more talented in that area. And just because maybe singing isn’t your gift doesn’t mean you can’t sing at all,
Neja Zupan: Exactly. Yeah. that’s good. Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s I think this is a great note to almost end on. tell us where people can connect with you. I noticed from visiting your website which we’ll link below that you have a new online course. So if people are interested enough and intrigued they can reach out and talk to you virtually since you’re coming to us from I think it’s Slovenia right is…
AnnaLaura Brown: what you said. Yeah. and most of the audience is in the US and…
Neja Zupan: Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Canada or somewhere in the UK and Australia. So coming there in person is not really going to work but they can still reach out to you and get some more information on your online course, right?
Neja Zupan: For the person…
Neja Zupan: who really wants to heal him herself this distance is not a problem. I have one very happily cured client from Australia…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yep. He …
Neja Zupan: who was diagnosed with no she had Lyme disease. it was long So medical doctors also said no this is not Lyme disease because they don’t have these small animals. I don’t know how it is called.
AnnaLaura Brown: the ticks. Yeah, that’s a whole another rabbit hole of itself.
Neja Zupan: Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: We’ve had several guests with Lyme disease that got on them after they got a lime infection.
Neja Zupan: So the medical system in Australia they said to her that this is not Lyme disease.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s Yeah.
Neja Zupan: But everything what she did was Lyme disease. And she was already at age she was I think 33 34 something like this.
AnnaLaura Brown: Need help.
Neja Zupan: She was already on state support and…
AnnaLaura Brown: Life in.
Neja Zupan: she was given just few months to leave and…
Neja Zupan: she got somewhere information about me.
AnnaLaura Brown: She wasn’t on hostess anymore.
Neja Zupan: She flew directly to me and three weeks afterwards. No, she was not healed but she was on the way.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: No, she was on the way of her healing. So in one year she was healthy because we worked also afterwards on long distance through the internet we have now a lot of possibilities it’s zoom you have meets or google so many possibilities so we worked there out and now she has happy family and she’s married.
00:30:00
Neja Zupan: She has healthy daughter, everything. But alopathic medicine she had said a few months to go. she heard and no distance prevented her to come for healing. So distance is not a problem.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
Neja Zupan: …
AnnaLaura Brown: This is another lesson to be learned too that…
Neja Zupan: yeah. exactly I have clients from Finland,…
AnnaLaura Brown: if you really want to heal yourself, you can find that motivation and you can do it. And yeah,…
Neja Zupan: from Australia, from Egypt, also from USA, from Brazil. So, no problem.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s great. we’ll link your website below and we’ll link anything else that you want to share with people so that they can get in touch with you.
Neja Zupan: Yeah, they can get my book,…
AnnaLaura Brown: something. …
Neja Zupan: my ebook, download my ebook.
AnnaLaura Brown: okay. Awesome.
Neja Zupan: Yeah, I have ebook and in this book I share my seven most important morning steps. So my most important morning routine this is initiation into each single day. So they can get this very special book ebook through high frequency energy formula.com.
AnnaLaura Brown: Okay, we will link that below too. And thanks so much Dr. Nia for coming on and sharing with us. so if this has been at all interesting to you, make sure you go ahead grab the ebook and connect with her and see how she can help you out.
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