She emphasizes that thyroid health cannot be assessed through TSH levels alone, sharing her own experiences with hypothyroidism to illustrate the gap between lab results and patient symptoms.

Dr. Talia details the thyroid's roles in metabolism and hormonal regulation, the significance of the HPT axis, and the need for comprehensive testing beyond standard metrics. The session also covers the prevalence of autoimmune conditions such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and discusses factors that influence thyroid hormone conversion. She stresses the importance of individualized treatment approaches and the connection between gut health and thyroid function, encouraging patients to be proactive in managing their health through informed discussions with healthcare providers.

0:05 Introduction to Thyroid Labs

2:29 Importance of Comprehensive Testing

5:16 Understanding Thyroid Function

9:46 Hypothyroidism Explained

16:20 Hyperthyroidism Overview

19:54 Testing and Blood Work Insights

21:25 Interpreting Thyroid Panels

29:02 Autoimmunity and Thyroid Health

30:36 Role of T4 and T3

35:30 Conversion and Metabolism

41:28 Addressing Autoimmune Factors

48:54 Nutritional Support for Thyroid Health

52:30 Retesting and Monitoring Thyroid Levels

56:11 Conclusion and Next Steps

Learn more: taliand.com

Sign up for the full free Bloodwork Course at goodmood.thrivecart.com/decode-your-bloodwork/

As part of a series on blood work interpretation, she highlights the complex relationship between insulin levels and various health issues, including fatigue, weight gain, and hormonal imbalances, which often go unnoticed in patients with normal glucose levels.

Dr. Talia critiques the tendency in conventional medicine to overlook insulin testing and discusses its implications for conditions such as obesity, cognitive function, and reproductive health.

She introduces the Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) as a tool for evaluating insulin resistance and shares practical strategies to lower insulin levels through lifestyle modifications.

The lecture calls for greater awareness of and advocacy for insulin testing to empower individuals to manage their metabolic health.

taliand.com

goodmood.thrivecart.com

As a naturopathic doctor and psychotherapist, I emphasize that low iron can profoundly affect both mental and physical well-being. I encourage listeners to check their iron and ferritin levels if they experience symptoms like fatigue and mood changes.

I break down the science behind iron's role in energy production and cognitive function, highlighting its impact on mood regulation. Practical advice on iron supplementation, dietary considerations, and monitoring ferritin levels is also provided.

My goal is to inspire a holistic perspective on health and urge listeners to proactively engage with their healthcare providers to improve health outcomes.

taliand.com

goodmood. thrivecart.com

In this episode, Dr. Talia Marcheggiani, ND, RP clarifies the complexities of cholesterol and the misconceptions surrounding high cholesterol levels. As a naturopathic doctor and psychotherapist, I explain the significance of various lipid measurements such as total cholesterol, HDL, and LDL, and their implications for cardiovascular health.

I challenge the notion of cholesterol as solely "bad," emphasizing its essential role in our bodies.Listeners will learn about lifestyle changes for heart health, the potential benefits of advanced testing like ApoB, and the importance of personalized health management.

This podcast aims to empower patients by providing the knowledge needed to engage effectively with healthcare providers about their cholesterol health.

Learn more about Rhythm & Flow: The Integrative Hormone Mastery Course here: https://goodmood.thrivecart.com/rhythm-and-flow/

Dr. Eastman discusses the need for emotional readiness and a curious mindset and addresses the risks of poorly guided experiences.

She advocates for a holistic, patient-centred approach and stresses the importance of foundational health and patient autonomy. She also announces her upcoming online trauma recovery program and offers ongoing support and education resources.

Find her at:

https://www.drjessicaeastman.com/

https://www.instagram.com/drjessicaeastman/

Chapters

0:34

Introduction to Psychedelics and Mental Health

1:23

Niche of Trauma Recovery Coaching

2:45

Exploring Safe Psychedelic Practices

6:55

The Importance of Preparation

8:37

Understanding Psychedelic Experiences

11:33

The Power of Perspective Shifts

14:06

Emotions and Connection

15:10

The Healing Process

20:11

Risks of Untrained Guidance

22:01

Managing Post-Psychedelic Dysregulation

25:12

The Complexity of Memory and Trauma

27:08

Navigating Expectations in Therapy

28:19

Organizing the Mental Closet

30:03

Gaining Control Over Emotions

32:29

Foundations of Healing

36:00

Integration of Psychedelic Experiences

40:23

Balancing Medication and Self-Care

43:47

Building a Therapeutic Relationship

46:01

The Role of Nutrition in Mental Health

48:58

Empowering Patient Agency

54:28

The Dynamics of Patient-Provider Relationships

57:29

Understanding Resistance in Healing

1:03:17

The Importance of Curiosity

1:06:34

Medication Misconceptions

1:10:56

The Art of Prescribing

1:13:32

The Role of SSRIs in Treatment

1:16:35

The Process of Learning

1:19:31

Alternatives to Medication

1:24:01

The Evolution of Medical Practice

1:29:52

Humility in Healthcare

1:33:39

Accessibility in Mental Health Services

Transcript

[0:01] All right welcome dr jessica eastman a fellow ccnm colleague and so we recently connected over um yeah well i guess like topics around psychedelics and mental health and uh some cult psychology and spiritual bypassing and um but i think what we want to talk about today is like mental health and maybe some psychedelics and trauma and because that's a big part of what you do and what your practice is in BC.

[0:34] And yeah, maybe you could introduce yourself and tell me a little and tell the audience a little bit about your practice. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I am a naturopathic doctor licensed in British Columbia. I've been practicing there for almost 10 years.

[0:49] And I also am a psychedelic assisted therapist and as I call it, a trauma recovery coach. Um, so I kind of mashed together, uh, integrative psychiatry and, um, integrative mental health work with trauma-informed primary care and, uh, some psychedelic, um, assisted therapy, like prep and integration work. I don't do the actual medicine sessions because it's not in my scope of practice, um, but. I could do that if I was like working

[1:19] under another like field trip or a numinous or something like that. But I get a ton of value in doing like harm reduction discussion and prep and integration. And I have a little niche of people who come to see me when they've gone to do psychedelic assisted therapy, usually with an underground therapist who wasn't super well trained and they had a bad experience.

[1:38] And then they are looking for somebody to like help them sort that out. Also because a lot of psychiatrists and psychotherapists and psychologists and medical doctors don't have a whole lot of training or understanding about psychedelics and so these people sometimes come to me they're like in inpatient psych and their psychiatrist is saying like you've broken your brain and there's nothing we can do to help you and then they call me kind of like as a last-ditch effort to be like hey is my brain really broken and I get to say like no it isn't actually we can heal this and we can work through this so that's a really fun little niche that um is is developing there's like more and more need for that um and then i do some trauma recovery coaching specifically both in my practice and separately um so i get to kind of weave a whole lot of mental stuff together that's really cool that's really really really interesting i know bc has a more expanded scope than ontario when it comes to um like i think i Dr.

[2:37] Ray St. Arnall about ketamine therapy and like that's in scope or like legal for therapeutic use. But yeah, how did you get into the and what maybe you can describe some really interested kind of like what the prep would be like in a in a responsibly administered sort of psychedelic session, like what kind of prep is usually involved and what's the integration like afterwards if someone's really going about it in like a.

[3:04] Yeah, totally. Yeah, safe way. Yeah, so the prep work is actually done from, you know, anywhere from one to multiple, like three or four, you know, up to like six months worth of sessions before you do the actual medicine sessions.

[3:25] And what's involved in prep work is really variable from person to person. The kind of universal things that are involved in prep work is having a discussion with the client or the patient about what they are expecting. And a big part of the prep work is helping them to get clear on what their goals are and helping to work away from a bunch of expectations and toward like intentions and an opening to the possibility of whatever the medicine is going to take you into. Um as a lot of people go into these sessions understandably like hoping that they're gonna you know be a cure-all because they've been struggling with you know depression or PTSD or OCD or whatever it is for a long time and um, psychedelic medicine is a unpredictable in certain ways and so it doesn't it's not linear in the way that like when you give this dose of a of an ssri we generally have this response and when we increase the dose we have an increased response and so psychedelics are a more unpredictable, world they kind of um work often by teaching you how to surrender and and exposing you to, feelings and or stuff that you want to work through or that you maybe need to work through.

[4:47] But going in the most likely things that are going to create a bad time or a bad trip is if you go in with a whole bunch of expectations or you go in with the expectation that you're going to be able to control the experience. And so like a classic example is like people who come And they say, OK, I want to go into this session to heal my relationship with my father. And that sets you up for a challenging session, potentially, because there's a whole bunch of expectations built into that concept. And so what we often work that into is something more open ended is like I my intention for this session is to be curious and to understand more about my relationship with my father because we don't put expectations on like healing or outcome necessarily because a the medicine doesn't do that for you. It illuminates things and helps you to do that work on your own and be surrendering or being able to like relinquish control to the experience is a big part of how the medicine works and how it helps you to allow for neuroplastic change and perspective updating.

[6:01] So, yeah, that's a big part of kind of like universal prep work with anybody who's doing it well. And then there are some other things that some people need more support in than others. Like some of the things that I personally would, you know, like more or less require would say like this is a prerequisite to being able to do this work is... Decent amount of experience and tools in being able to manage uncomfortable emotion and knowing that you understand like how to know where your edge is in terms of like I can handle this and this is where my overwhelmed edge is and when I need to ask for help and then also having the skill set of being able to ask for help when you need it because like I said sometimes these sessions are unpredictable and sometimes they're very chill and gentle and like lovely and warm and you you know feel love for the whole time and other times they like you know open doors to old emotions

[6:51] or memories or stuff that like can be a flood of discomfort. And it's important that people are not going to be super dysregulated after and not then know how to handle that or get the support that they need.

[7:06] So that's a component of it. And so, you know, if people come with years of psychotherapy experience, then they're probably full up on all of those tools. And if they've never done any of that work before, then we do some of that work first. Yeah, that's really useful. It's like, what are your intentions that are kind of reasonable? And then, yeah, maybe looking at, because one of the things it does, it kind of drops defenses. And sometimes those defenses are there for very important reasons that once they're gone, you know, what do you, you know, how might you respond or, you know, how might you find stability?

[7:50] Yeah. Like, you know, if there's some things that have been compartmentalized for good reason and now they're blasting open or you're in touch with them or, you know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that's probably the most misunderstood part of psychedelic-assisted therapy and all that kind of work is that people think that the medicine is the thing that heals them or is that the thing that fixes their brain, so to speak. And it's actually like it reveals a bunch of stuff to you and it puts your brain into a particularly like flexible and malleable state where you have the potential to have neuroplastic change and build new neural

[8:34] connections in the like, you know, a few days and weeks right after your session. So you are more changeable in that period, but the change comes from you and the work that you do a little bit during the session, but in large part after in the integration work where you're being exposed to or choosing to expose yourself to the feelings that it illuminated and the memories and the awarenesses and the connections and then how you process and integrate all of that into the rest of your life. That's where the change and the growth and the healing really happens. Yeah, in that integration period of like, kind of, yeah, it's like this, like this kind of like ego dissolution. It's like your ego dissolves and you're this raw kind of.

[9:20] Bare soul but that's not how we operate through the world like we we need to kind of reconstruct the ego the persona to like be able to work your job and be in relationship and parent your kids and like all that stuff right like you can't just be connected to the trees um or like in a dissociated state so it's like how do we kind of repair and and like carve new pathways around well traumas or metabolize and reintegrate the traumas that may have been yeah yeah exposed yeah yeah exactly what do you find like when people are so i know you're not administering the medicine but like what is because a few patients have asked me like especially with treatment resistant depression that's often like a category where these medicines are really like looked at and studied um a lot of people who have had kind of lifelong depression lots of treatment not really a lot of resolution uh maybe some trauma they're like maybe i should do an ayahuasca retreat or what do you know about you know psilocybin assisted psychotherapy and like what do you find when someone's been in years and years of psychotherapy and maybe they've got some they've built some skills they've learned some things about themselves but what what are you seeing with people when they do psychedelic assisted therapy like is it like what kind of changes or what, you know.

[10:42] What's that like? Because it is framed like a miracle a lot of the time. Yeah, totally. And sometimes it is. Like, sometimes people's experiences of that are like, this is actually a miracle. And so it does, like, that rhetoric exists for a reason.

[10:55] It's just, it doesn't happen every single time. It doesn't happen in every patient. It's also really about where you are at in your journey and, like, if the medicine was chosen correctly in alignment with where you're at. And so, yeah, there's a lot of parts. But excuse me, I think that.

[11:13] So, a big thing that often people take away from psychedelic experiences is new perspectives, looking at the same things they've been talking about or working through or feeling for, you know, months, years, decades, but they get to look at them from a new lens.

[11:34] So it allows you to see things from different angles that also often allows you to develop or unlock compassion for yourself in the past or for the other people in the story in a way that allows you to, as you said, like metabolize the trauma a little bit.

[11:50] Feel, process, and release is the language that I use a lot of the time. Um and as you said earlier it it really also as some medicines more than others but there's a lot of like dialing down of the amygdala activity during while you're under the influence of the medicine this is especially true for mdma um but true in you know ketamine psilocybin etc and the amygdala is responsible for our fear response and therefore our protection responses and that is the thing that is often preventing us from being able to really look at and feel the emotions or feel the memory or whatever um and that is there for a reason as you said but also when we dial down how intense the amygdala is active uh is activated in that moment sometimes we can often we can have the memory or feel the feelings without the associated fear and intensity of like a need to protect and so you're able to just feel.

[12:50] It as opposed to it being buffered by your nervous system saying like it's too dangerous for you to feel this and so there's often container too of safety so it's like yeah it's appropriate to have that like reduced defense like yeah yeah yeah for sure if if the psychedelic assisted therapy is done well and you've got a safe container with a therapist that you trust and it's yeah so uh it often so it gives people often new perspectives it also gives them an opportunity to have a big release of feelings like i've heard many people talk about how this is my experience also like it helped you it helped me and and many others to feel the feelings separate from the story that your brain is telling it for the first time ever just like a thing we work so hard at in psychotherapy to try and like allow for and validate and make space for the feeling without your brain pulling you into like but that shouldn't have happened or I shouldn't have done that or if it was different and so to be able to just feel the raw feeling and feel the sad or the anger or the fear, maybe not even connected to a story, but that has been kind of stored in your body. And to be able to release that...

[13:58] And being able to experience that and then know that your brain is capable of

[14:02] that often translates into you being able to retain that ability in your sober life. And then kind of on that same track, another common experience is like being able to feel love or feel cared for or feel cared for others or feel connected to others in a way that people haven't been. And because that protection that keeps you, you know, from not being drowned by your feelings also prevents you from being able to connect with other people fully, connects you from being or prevents you from being able to feel the love and the vulnerability and all that stuff. And so letting down those defenses also lets that in. And that can be a really powerful experience for people to be like, oh, I am capable of feeling love. This is what it feels like. Now I want to look for that in my regular life. Now I want to strive for that or create a safer container in my regular life so that I can feel that more regularly. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's a great way of saying it. Like this, like you feel you release the emotion separate from the story. It's just the raw experience of the emotion without the like fear of experiencing it, you know. Like, yeah, it's kind of like this grief dumping that you get.

[15:11] Yes. you clean out your house and you put it all in in donation bins and you're just yeah you know.

[15:17] Yes yeah yeah exactly yeah that's beautiful yeah I know too like research has shown it increases like the personality metric of openness to experience like permanently yeah kind of this yeah which is kind of connected to like intelligence creativity but also connection like there's less inhibition and and store you're less trapped in the story and those like well-worn paths yep you know yeah which then very linearly um connects to an increase in empathy which then allows you to have more compassion for yourself for others to be able to connect more to people that like understand other people's struggles you're like less, intolerant this is that's the um the facet of psychedelics that people reference when they say like if you know if like all the world leaders took psychedelics the world would be a way happier place because it like helps you to see things from other people's perspectives and helps you to remember or realize maybe for the first time that we're all just humans out here like struggling and doing our best and having feelings and loved and being hurt and all of that and like we're all if we if you can.

[16:29] Remember or remain connected into the fact that like there's more similarities than there are differences then suddenly a lot of the like world problems feel silly oh we're all just out here hurting and loving and trying to take care of ourselves and each other yeah like that raw human emotion like when you feel it you recognize it in others and maybe our stories like there's an infinite amount of stories so maybe that keeps us separate yeah it's like well i'm different from you because of this particular detail even though maybe it's kind of the same, which kind of keeps us siloed but if we when you really understand sadness or happiness or joy in your body and you.

[17:10] Can recognize it in others like oh this is just yeah that's one of the elements of self-compassion is the common humanity idea of like this is just this is something that all humans feel no matter how rich or privileged you know we have these emotions that run through us yeah yeah and that's like that's a big part of what is not talked about in our regular society because it's not productive or it's not encouraged or it's like weak or whatever but it's it's a big part of it and i think that that contributes to us all feeling like we are alone in these experiences if we all felt more capable more comfortable more confident more safe to be able to say like oh i'm a person and i'm having these feelings then we would all probably feel less alone in that experience yeah and if you say that to somebody who is comfortable or can provide a container for their own feelings they can provide a container for yours like a lot of the time empathy like moments of empathy can be missed when somebody like doesn't really want to feel it because empathy is ultimately kind of feeling or letting in another's experience so if I don't really want to feel that because I'm uncomfortable with it I may invalidate you or dismiss you or you know yes and yeah create like a chasm between us which isn't helpful yeah yeah totally yeah what happens when okay so now like the negative like what when you when you see people who are worried that their brain is broken or maybe.

[18:39] They had kind of an irresponsible journey or somebody that wasn't trained like.

[18:43] What kind of things like what are the risks that you've seen.

[18:47] Yeah, so there's a few different facets there. The biggest risk, I think, is the emotional-mental dysregulation piece, and that's often what the, like, my brain is broken piece is, right?

[19:02] And that, I think, comes from a combination of things that in the patients that I've worked with that have been through that experience, it's often that they were not in a safe or regulated or grounded or nourished state to begin the treatment. And so like the patients that I'm thinking of were like, they had been burnt out for decades and they were like, you know, had recently gotten over like really significant illness and were feeling fairly dysregulated in their day to day. And then a poorly trained or untrained therapist, in quotations, says like, oh, yeah, well, this will solve all your problems. And so they encourage the patient to come in before they're ready, before they're like physiologically ready, before they're mentally ready, and then also sets them up with a whole bunch of unrealistic expectations. Sessions and that then puts their nervous systems and their physical bodies in a position to be very depleted, to be very dysregulated.

[20:07] Like these experiences are taxing. I think that's a thing to recall. And especially the longer sessions, like ketamine is a shorter session. It usually is like two hours in entirety, but it's a draining experience for your body.

[20:21] Psilocybin is like six hours ayahuasca is like eight or ten or twelve depending on where you're doing it and how long you're doing it for and so these are not it's like you're like, running a marathon that whole time. And so if you think about, is this patient fit and ready and has the capacity to like go and do a really hard, laborious task for 12 straight hours, that kind of gives you some idea of like, is the foundation laid for this to go well or not? And then I think the other big mental emotional risk is that, like we've talked about already, often psychedelics can open doors to big feelings or big memories or like realizations about traumatic pasts that you've had like traumatic experiences that you've had in your past and I think that there's a handful of well-intentioned underground therapists who haven't been properly trained in trauma or in what happens when people get really dysregulated or their sense of identity gets really disconnected or threatened.

[21:31] And then those people have the really scary experience of being hit with all of this awareness that they didn't know about, like memories of stuff that happened or connections about like, oh, I've been avoiding thinking about this because it was too scary and now I'm being faced with thinking about it.

[21:51] Paired with a therapist who doesn't know how to meet them there and hold space for them or how to carry that back into their regular life.

[21:58] So then they feel this compounding like, I'm really overwhelmed. I don't know how to handle this. And I'm alone in that experience. And then the nervous system understandably responds with like big fear responses in those moments. So then you are flooded with all of the hormones that try to keep you safe. And you're just like on a crazy high alert and you end up in a like perpetual state of hypervigilance. Um so that that's like a common outcome you know you're not sleeping and then that's all compounded that you're not sleeping you're not eating your hormones are dysregulated and then everything just kind of snowballs um and i think so that's like um yeah i've worked with a handful of people who've been in that position it just takes time for us to help them return to and like rebuild safety in their body and then also understand the patterns that they were living in before they did the session that maybe perpetuate or contributed to this that they didn't even realize. And so it's like a process of healing from the experience itself, but then also like rebuilding new patterns because we don't necessarily even want to go back to what they were like before we want a healthier version of that.

[23:08] And I think I would be remiss to not mention also like some of these, some people have more risks than others for these things to trigger like other things. Psychological disorders. And so certainly a properly trained psychedelic assisted therapy program is going to really assess like your medical history, your psychological history, your family medical history. Not all of these things are safe to take depending on the medications you're taking. And so there's definitely some risks there.

[23:38] And then there are some physical capacity risks like you have to have controlled blood pressure. You could be on medication or you have regular blood pressure, but if you have uncontrolled hypertension, all of these medications temporarily increase your blood pressure like they would if you were doing strenuous exercise and so that needs to be a thing that we are cautious of so there's some like purely medical side um precautions that need to be taken as well to make sure we're not hurting you in any way or interacting with medications you're on or putting you at risk for you know bipolar mania or anything like that yeah that makes sense yeah it's like an underlying predisposition or like you know risk factors or family histories even um and then yeah this kind of like physical stability and how you know what are the structures that are in place in your life like yes it's like you know all of a sudden you're you discover like my job is intolerable my life is intolerable my relationship but I have nowhere now to go no safe place to land like how do I cope with my daily life as I figure out how to transition or like all of these things you know yes exactly yeah yeah and then you mentioned too yeah I know we talked about kind of like, maybe traumatic experiences that people don't really remember and sometimes people have the experience of like.

[25:04] I know with some ayahuasca stories, I've heard people have talked about, like, I was kind of in my childhood watching it like a movie.

[25:12] That could be amazingly therapeutic, but, and we'll probably talk about this when we talk about trauma, but not, it's not always that. There's a time and a place to kind of revisit memories, you know, and maybe don't want to revisit memories at all. And so there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot there for.

[25:33] Yeah and that's a good example like I would say like if a person came to me and they said okay I want to do psychedelic assisted therapy but I want to make sure I don't revisit any memories from this one time in my childhood I would say like okay you're not ready yet like this is maybe not the right tool for you at least right now because we can't control what happens in that experience just like we can't control what happens in life and so a lot of the the work is like making sure like you said you've got support systems and mechanisms in place to help you manage whatever comes up yeah it's like okay like yeah we don't know what will happen but we can't necessarily yeah like you said have an expectation of what will happen but also have kind of a boundary of what i don't want to experience it doesn't exactly work like that yeah and and And there's like, there's a lot of variability with dosing and with medicine. And so it's, I know people talk about ego dissolution and psychedelics a lot. And that, you have to like work hard to get to the ego dissolution place. And so I would say most psychedelic experiences don't involve like true ego dissolution. And so you do retain some, you like, you know who you are, you know where you are, You have some connection to like, you know.

[26:54] And everybody's got a different experience and the medicines are all different, but there are definitely a lot of opportunities in there for you to be like, I'm not sure I want to go there. And so you do have some influence, but we can't guarantee it.

[27:05] And also there is some...

[27:08] It's worth discussing, like, the things that you explicitly don't want to look at are, you know, it's like, don't think about white elephants. Like, that's where your brain is going to take you a lot of the time, probably for good reason, because there's stuff there that's worth looking at and then metabolizing and moving through.

[27:25] Yeah, if you're consciously, like, suppressing. Yes. Like, a closet overflowing, but, like, I know it's there. I know I got to deal with that. Yeah. That's exactly the analogy that I use. Yeah. It's almost like, though, I think the gravitation towards psychedelics is kind of like the person's like, okay, I kind of do want to open that closet. Like, I'm ready. I'm scared, but I'm ready. You know, otherwise I, you know, probably don't want to take ayahuasca, you know? Yes. Agreed. Yeah. And most people, very rarely does somebody come to me and say like, I want to do this, but I don't want to look at any of this stuff. Yeah, it's very much like, okay, I don't know how to look at that stuff, but I know that there's probably something in there for me. And so I'm ready to explore whatever that is. Hire like a closet organizer.

[28:17] Yeah, exactly. You still watch. No, no, don't throw that away. Okay, actually, fine. you can yeah and that's that's the that's the analogy for trauma recovery that i use all the time is like hey you've got a closet in your basement that you've been shoving stuff into, no judgment but like that's your that's been your coping mechanism you're like i can't deal with this right now it's going in the closet you know and that's been happening for you know five ten twenty thirty years and now you the closet is so full that you have to spend all day leaning on the closet to keep the door closed and so you're living your life with like one hand and maybe one leg so because you're just like using a lot of your energy to keep the door closed and so the the process is like okay we open the door we let six things tumble out we close it again and then you and I together work through and learn how to deal with the six things that tumbled out you know and for each one you're like Marie Kondo-ing your brain sort of you're like picking each thing up and holding it to the light and saying like, okay, is this mine? Do I want to keep it?

[29:21] If not, do I want to get rid of it? Do I want to give it back to the person that it came from? Do I want to burn it? And then also you have the question of, well, is there a hole that is left behind by that belief or that paradigm? And what do I want to replace it with? And just like go through that process slowly over time until one day you can open that closet and look in and walk in and like it's all organized and there's a bin and every now and then you're like, okay, I'm going to take down this childhood relationship with my father bin and like figure out what's in there, you know, but it's it's, more organized, you have more say over when it happens and how it happens.

[29:57] And that's where people start to gain the experience of being in control of

[30:03] their emotions and of their life. It's like it doesn't make the past go away, but it teaches us how to work with it in a way that feels like we get to be in charge. Yeah, that's an amazing analogy, actually, because, you know, like I can picture the person kind of like one arm and a leg leaning on the closet, And then the other arm is your job and your kids and your daily life. Why am I so exhausted? Why am I sober? Why am I so overwhelmed? Exactly. And then when you sit down with someone like you, like a therapist, a naturopath, and you're like, okay, now with my free hand, though, I'm going to sort the six pieces that we let out. So now, so this kind of describes the type of context to enter into trauma work with, where it's like, can you use that hand or are you using it to like keep things afloat in your life, right? Like, can you take, is there a container that you can, yeah, you have, you know, therapists and support to help, but your free limbs are kind of engaged now in like doing this work. But eventually, you don't have to be pressing on the closet because stuff kind of stays in there so you can walk away and now you have your full capacity to, you know, enjoy and engage with your life. But in the meantime, yeah, there is kind of this.

[31:21] Like not checking out from life but like you're you're there's time and energy that needs to be kind of uh allotted to tend to it yep yeah you're not able to be fully present in your life because you're spending a decent chunk of your energy either keeping that door closed or dealing with the mess that happens every time you step away from the door oh yeah it is a thing that i say often in the early days of trauma recovery work is like this is unfortunately and through no fault of your own your next full-time job you know and now you have to figure out how to balance your actual full-time job and your responsibilities as a parent or a partner or of whatever and also doing this work and that determines the pace of recovery a lot of the time because we can't always do all of that and so that's where a support person or multiple support people therapist coach naturopathic doctor come in that's also where medication and supplements and optimal diet and nutrition come in to help like give you the most capacity that you have potential

[32:27] for in that moment so that you can put more effort into that.

[32:30] If you want to but this is also why i don't have any judgment or anything but like respect and compassion for people that don't want to do this work because it's really hard sometimes and it takes energy and capacity and not everybody like it's a privilege to be able to do this work if you are drowning in like you know food insecurity or paying your bills or keeping a roof over your head or being a single parent that might not be the right chapter in your life for you to be able to do this because more important stuff is taking your attention and your effort and your capacity. Yeah. Like if that free hand is like keeping you alive, essentially. Yes. Yeah. Then yeah, you need it. It's not the appropriate time right now. And it's interesting because as we're talking, like I think of many psychotherapy clients often don't.

[33:24] With who are kind of neurodivergent and they're like they come in they're like I'm burnt out and I'm just.

[33:30] Kind of in this um treadmill with work like.

[33:33] I'm I'm behind I'm overwhelmed you know and so when we do kind of just like almost like solution focused stuff and we help like build skills and manage the day-to-day overwhelm you know systems stuff like that that's often when now we go down and it's like okay actually no it's my father it's my mother it's my you know traumatic past or it's uh my core beliefs there's like it goes deeper it's like once we've kind of addressed that initial layer that was sucking all the energy now there's room to address.

[34:10] The contents of the closet um yeah but yeah when you're managing things with one hand again like it's a great analogy because it there's a lot of compassion it's like well no wonder you're overwhelmed and it's so hard for you to like have your inbox like at zero and not be kind of flooded all the time and like not have not be behind in all these deadlines because you only have one hand to manage everything yeah yeah exactly and then what's the integration like so after someone's doing psychedelic therapy like you know how many sessions is it usually i know that can obviously vary but super variable yeah so in the literature like in the research that we have currently usually it's and you have an integration session that day or the next day right after the medicine session and then one or two weeks later and then kind of ongoing with your own therapist.

[35:04] Um and so there's a there's a various various things that happen in an integration session like and it also it depends a lot on how new you were to the experience like in early days for people have never done psychedelics before often a lot of the integration is just talking with somebody and sharing your experience to be like well that was a crazy experience like I've never had an experience like that before um the the to be able to like be validated and seen with somebody that also has been there and understands what it feels like to be in that um The terminology that we use in the literature and in the academic world is a non-ordinary state of consciousness, NOSC, which can be also accessed via breathwork and some forms of meditation and that kind of stuff. But it is an altered state and it is a wild experience. And so it's difficult to talk about if you haven't experienced it before.

[36:00] So that's often a little bit of what happens. And then there is sharing about the revelations or the awareness that you have, you know, come to realize or come to experience. Or sometimes you take the medicine and like nothing really happens. And then you are like, at least in your perception.

[36:19] And so then you are processing and metabolizing the feelings of like frustration and disappointment and curiosity and like did something in my brain change but even though I didn't feel the medicine and all of those things people that have been doing this work for a while talk about how like the integration session is like six to twelve months long so it's it's kind of like laughable to say like oh yeah it's one to three sessions because what actually happens in the integration happens over time as you you know you've adopted a new perspective about yourself or the world or belief or whatever and now you have to go through slowly the experience of living your life through this new lens and be like oh wait well how does this change the way I handle conflict with my partner how does this change the way I handle uh feeling underappreciated in my job how does this handle you know like and and it's it's that same kind of like Marie Kondo effect of like well I I have to pick up every piece of my life and figure out, well, how does this change that? And that takes time.

[37:22] And the cool thing about all of the work that I do is like it doesn't require you don't have to sit down and do that consciously. Like you don't have to journal about every single part of your life in this new belief system. A lot of it happens in the background, like in the default mode network controlled stuff that just is like happening as you're living your life. Yeah. As long as you're committed to curiosity and like paying attention to what is changing and noticing what's happening in your body and in your mind, you'll be able to see the changes that happen over time.

[37:53] That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, it takes a while to like kind of encounter the moments that you're maybe watching for or like, you know, okay, the next conflict with my partner, what changed and to kind of be aware of how these changes happen. Yeah, like it's and like making meaning of the experience can take time to write like what does it mean? How does that weave into my narrative? Yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah and like maybe you have a you know a perspective of like oh i um i am worthy of love you know or i am deserving of being cared for and so then you have this new belief but now you have to go through each part of your life to be like well how would that change all of the ways in which i interact with this life and how can i ask for more and so then you have like okay well you have a sit-down conversation with your partner and be like Actually, these are the things that I would like to be receiving from you in order to feel more cared for. And then you go through that many-step process with your partner to update the systems and the ways you're caring for each other. It's a big ripple effect, and it takes time. I think I've told this story before, but I remember my own experience where after an experience with a medicine, I was walking in the forest, actually, and I passed somebody. And I saw this kind of like.

[39:18] Judgmental or kind of contemptuous expression on the person's face. And I remember distinctly feeling like, oh, they made an expression on their face. And it was this first time, like really embodying this feeling of, oh, people's crap doesn't always have to do with me, you know, or my, but how does that then, how do I act that out in my life now? Like, how do I bring that awareness to, you know, I mean, that's a clear interaction. I don't know that person they're just walking by what did I do like there's you know so cognitively I know that it doesn't have anything to do with me even if that little schema is running yeah but when somebody is unhappy with me or I am in a conflict with someone how can I bring that into the you know how do I how do I work with that or what replaces that schema or you know how does it become modified because sometimes it is about me sometimes I did screw up you know so yeah yeah so What's the more balanced thought, I guess, in CBT language? And so that can take a lot of time. Yeah, for sure.

[40:23] It is a process. And I think that it is a gift to be able to give yourself time to process all of that.

[40:31] And it's a recognition of that the medicine isn't doing the work, you are doing the work. The medicine just kind of like showed you a door that you didn't know existed. You get to choose if you want to continue to keep that door open or walk through that door in your your waking regular life it's so cool yeah it's a really fascinating, area like I've always been kind of interested in it because of the.

[40:58] The kind of pivotal way that it can really like accelerate like it's, It's very hard to, like, build those different neural pathways when you're stuck in this same groove and you just, you know, like, you know, often there's a lot of intellectualizing and a lot of like the cognitive changes that can be really, really sticky. But there's something about embodying the feelings and just seeing that as a truth that kind of hits you that can be really powerful. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like you said, seeing another possibility or another perspective and really seeing it, not just like, oh, yeah, I can use my imagination and kind of see how, yeah, like I know it on a level that's deeper than just, like, I wish I knew this. I wish I believed this, but I don't know. It's hard for me, you know? Totally. And for that reason, the primary modalities that are used in psychedelic therapy and psychedelic integration are generally somatic work and like internal family systems parts work and like mindfulness and where those three all overlap, which is like polyvagal theory and all of that stuff.

[42:09] Because it's not really about the cognitive understanding. It's about the somatic felt sense of like, oh, I know that I'm deserving of being respected or cared for, but I feel it now. And being able to feel that is the thing that's going to enable you to like enact a boundary, you know, or ask for more or decide that you want to make a different choice. It's not the cognitive knowing that drives behavior a lot of the time.

[42:35] Much as we want it to. Yeah. And I think that's a good approach to trauma work, too, for most people. I know that CBT-informed trauma therapy is the gold standard because it's easy to study it. Yeah, exactly. but mostly when you talk to people they're like uh you know the real movement that i experienced was ifs internal system somatic therapy where i really like you know emdr like where i really was able to kind of locate these parts in my body and metabolize them because a lot of it's not verbal and not cognitive and not a conscious decision you know yeah exactly and also the like analytical conscious brain often gets in the way and so there's that's like a thing i've seen in cbt many times both as a patient and um like when i was the patient i mean and in in my patients now who've come to me from cbt is like the talking about the trauma or about the patterns or about the belief systems like reinforce them or keep you stuck in those patterns and.

[43:42] There's like no way to talk your way into something you've never felt before. You have to experience your way into something you've never felt before. And that's just not a framework that CBT holds. So it's a useful set of tools. And I don't think it is an all-encompassing trauma treatment because it doesn't really get anything like below the head, so to speak.

[44:06] Yeah, that's a good way of describing it. Like you know write out your beliefs why do you believe this is there another way of thinking about this that's a good skill sometimes it's the first layer like to introduce therapy like oh wow my thoughts like awareness of self-talk is really useful challenging self-talk but yeah it's a lot of um people who've experienced trauma are caught up in ruminate ruminative cycles you know so it's like all in the head um yeah i guess that brings us to like how can an nd support someone who's experienced trauma because yeah yeah so there's a few layers to that the place where i always start is an assessment and a shoring up or a stabilization of the foundations of health so like what what nds are you know functionally good at across the board because Like, are you sleeping? Are you eating enough of the right nutrients at the right times? Is your blood sugar regulated? Are your stress levels even remotely manageable, sustainable?

[45:14] Do you have the ability to move your body? Do you have a support system? Those are the like five foundations of health from my perspective and also they are like the you know the bottom of your maslow's hierarchy in terms of health like we can't do higher order healing whether it's like regulating your reproductive hormones or healing your trauma if you're not sleeping or eating enough or if your blood sugar is super dysregulated or if you can't leave your house or can't move your body in any way um.

[45:45] And it's a common thing that also comes up with medication because psych meds are notorious for being mediocre in their efficacy. And I think a decent amount of that is because they're not going to do very

[46:00] much if you're not sleeping and eating. And that's such a brutal catch-22 because mental health stuff, especially when you are in the throes of PTSD or complex PTSD, make it really hard for you to sleep and eat. And then people are like, take these drugs, and the drugs aren't working, or you're doing your CBT, and you just feel worse and worse because you're taking the meds and you're going to therapy, but you still don't feel good. Yeah. Or you feel like your functioning is even decreasing even further. And so I always start with sleep and nutrition, and that's different for every person. Sometimes it's like we run labs and we make sure you've got adequate vitamin D and iron and B12s, common deficiencies that are going to contribute to mental health and your ability to be regulated in any regard. Sometimes it looks like, you know, sleep hygiene and sometimes it looks like medication to help you sleep better. Because if you are so, so sleep deprived and your sleep is so interrupted, we're not going to be able to do any of the trauma work. You're not going to be able, you have no chance at regulating if you're getting three hours of interrupted sleep at night. So we start at the bottom, and we work there.

[47:10] Sometimes that's, there's like a lot of education involved there because often people come to me and then they are like, okay, I'm drowning in trauma or I'm stuck in complex PTSD. Like, how do I get out of this? And I'm like talking about sleeping and what you're eating for breakfast. And it's important for me as the practitioner to make sure that they understand why that stuff is important and how it's going to help them to feel better.

[47:33] And I love starting there for, in addition to that, like it is the prerequisite to everything else we want to do. I love starting there for two reasons. One is that so often when we start there, a lot of the symptoms that people are struggling with correct themselves on their own because the body has the innate capacity to heal when we give it the building blocks that it needs and we remove the obstacles in the way. And so I think it's a very useful way for us to get out of the trap of like a supplement for every symptom or a drug for every symptom. It's like, well, when you sleep and eat and give the body its basic building blocks, you know, half your symptoms are going to get better. And then the other half, okay, those are what we build a treatment plan for. And the other thing that I think is really important about that step of the trauma recovery work is that most people who have been drowning in trauma and struggling for long enough to come and see me have lost a lot of faith in their body and a lot of trust. And a lot of trust is broken between their body and their ability to interpret what their body needs. And I think rebuilding that trust or maybe building it for the first time that like your body is sending you messages and you can learn to interpret them in a way that allows you to take care of yourself and get to a place of happy, healthy well-being.

[48:53] That's a really important part of, important part of healing and of trauma recovery. And so if we help people to see, like, I don't give supplements or medications in a lot of cases on visit one, because people are so quick to attribute improvement to those things. But if all we did was we helped you to eat breakfast and go to sleep a little bit earlier, and then you feel, you know, a 50% reduction in your anxiety, which I hear all the time. Yeah people are like oh damn like okay this is real and when I take care of my body it actually does feel better and you start to like build your we get to start to build a blueprint for people of like what are their baseline needs this is the thing that you want to do every day for the rest of your life to take care of yourself so we're empowering them it's the you know teach a person to fish thing like I want them to not need me anymore and this is part of how we do that to be able to help them to understand, okay, what does my sleep and my diet and my supplements and my social support and my movement need to look like in order to set me up to be able to do that stuff? And how do we make that sustainable for people? I love that. That's where we start. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah. I know we said before we recorded, I'm like, let's talk about mental health and what NDs do because it is my focus. But you lose yourself in the weeds as you're talking about the specifics and the extra things and the cool new therapies or the angles.

[50:21] And what is really beautiful about natural health medicine this is like the topic of a new sub stack i'm working on but like the but we're really the biopsychosocial yeah you know um that model like you know because, And a lot of people will kind of get that biopsychosocial from various practitioners, but an ND is really true. Like, that's what holistic means, ultimately.

[50:48] And, yeah, like, so many, like, in my psychotherapy practice, a lot of people who, like, there's probably a blood sugar dysregulation here. And all the talk therapy in the world or somatic work is not going to fix that, you know? It might help you understand you need to eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But a lot of the time with that, like being tired and needing to regulate your blood sugar, like you were saying, there's sometimes a disconnect in that biofeedback of really even understanding what those signals mean or what those cues mean. Especially if that hasn't been built in when you were a baby like the inner child kind of needs that safety and that reconnection with like talking about like ifs like the different parts and how do we take care of ourselves recognize what it feels like to be tired it's time to go to bed even if you might also be kind of wired or um procrastinating when it comes to sleep like revenge bedtime procrastination or yeah you know you're so um hungry that you don't really feel hungry anymore. You just feel anxious and almost nauseous. You don't really think that food would help, but then you develop this relationship with yourself where it's like, oh, actually, that's when I should eat, you know? So there's a lot of these pieces of like, how do we learn how to take care of ourselves?

[52:08] Yeah, so it's all of that. And it's all of that through a trauma-informed lens, which means that we're approaching all of this without judgment. And we're building a plan to help those pieces get accessible for the patient at whatever pace works for them. The understanding that a lot of people will come to this point like they know that they're not eating well and they know that they're not sleeping well and if this you know like if all they needed to do was to have somebody tell them to do it better they would have done it already right so there are there are things that are blocking them from being able to make those changes and so that's why i really like having to getting to wear multiple hats under one license because I you know my my coaching clients are also my patients and so we can like jump back and forth for me to say like okay like let's maybe do a coaching session here where we talk about the parts of you that are resistant to taking care of yourself or to explore why it doesn't feel safe or even accessible to listen to the signals that your body is giving you.

[53:19] And then we can jump back in to the naturopathic work and be like okay now that it feels a little bit safer for us to even talk about what you're eating or to be able to even give any attention into how you're making food for yourself because it no longer is like going to trigger a full disordered eating flare or whatever okay now we can talk about yes you need 30 grams of protein at breakfast and you need to have that before caffeine and you know all of those things so it's like a back and forth of that um and then also compounded by an awareness of how many people come here for this work with a history of being really mistreated or dismissed by other medical professionals like the medical trauma layer it's really common in women especially and in mental health um patients and in like you know people in bigger bodies or people that aren't straight or that aren't monogamous or that aren't you know like that don't fit the standard you know, white straight norm basically skinny you know all of those things yeah and so it's like building a therapeutic relationship and a relationship with themselves to be able to make those changes.

[54:28] To make them accessible and to make them sustainable and like yes you and I could talk forever about like the herbs and the supplements and I'll give you my 10 cents on on psych meds because I think that's a really cool layer but so much of it is the foundational piece, but just really like taking our time in the foundations to be able to make it feel possible for people. Yeah, that's a great point, right? Because there's sort of the...

[54:56] I'm very resistant to the idea of protocols, even though it's, but sometimes these courses or packages, they can be accessible to people, right? When you do your own research and go to Chachi PT and here's, but there's a lot to the art of like, okay, yeah, sleep, breakfast, but how does that look like? Like what does that look like for the particular person right and how much time do we need to just spend on psychoeducation and like letting them like kind of helping match the symptoms to that or letting someone talk and you know express what they already know about their sleep or what their obstacles are what their difficulty is or um yeah like looking at yeah like the ifs like there's a lot of um stuff that comes out around lifestyle changes around like the the inner rebel and then the inner critic and their dance. And sometimes people will describe, like, I know I need to exercise. I really want to exercise. I have so many values that are connected to getting stronger, longevity, but I just can't do it. And then we often discover that there's a rebel that's trying to stand up to the critic who is like.

[56:12] Yes, you have these values, but the critic is also kind of shaming you. Why aren't you living up to your values? What's wrong with you? And then there's a rebel that's like, no, I don't want to live this way. I don't want to live under your rule. And so looking at that, you might not see any change on the surface. You might not be lifting a weight for many months as we kind of tease that apart and understand it. You know yeah another one I see often there in that realm is people that have all those values but are really resistant to doing the work because they didn't get cared for in the way that they deserve to as a kid and so there's a lot of resistance to being like I've been caring for myself my whole life I it's like not fair that I have to do even more to get myself out of this hole that got dug for me by trauma that I experienced as a kid. So there's like a lot of grief work often to be able to sit with like how shitty and unfair it is. Like, yeah, that sucks. And it's okay that you really don't want to do this work right now, you know, and how can we make space for that and allow you to feel and metabolize and process those feelings of like, Like, yeah, this, it's not fair that you have to do all of this work on top of all the work you've been doing already

[57:27] to, you know, to get yourself here. That you're still, yeah, you're still having to do this. Like, you've been adulting since you were five.

[57:36] And, yeah, I can see, like, there's a, you know, without kind of really understanding or unpacking that layer, sitting in front of someone who even compassionately or, you know.

[57:51] Benevolently is like, okay, like, let's eat protein at breakfast. It's like, here's another thing I'm doing wrong. Here's another thing I have to do. Like, feeling that.

[58:00] Burden of like okay so I'm already I've already been feeding myself cooking for myself planning my own meals my whole life but now you're telling me that I have to fix it even more there's something that I wasn't like yeah totally yeah exactly yeah and so like my stance on that is like there are no such things there's no such thing as a non-compliant patient only a practitioner who is missing a piece that's education or compassion or the trauma layer or the resistance or whatever But yeah, it's all of that. Yeah. For patients listening, you can come back if you haven't done anything. Yeah. A lot of the time people will say like, I've been wanting to come back. I haven't been feeling better, but I'm just worried because I didn't do the thing you said. But that's an amazing opportunity because especially when we're getting to know somebody, you can say like, okay, like sleep, let's work on getting to bed 30 minutes earlier. Let's come back. And then we often don't know what the obstacles are until we try. Yep. So that's a good opportunity to come back and be like, hey, look, I didn't do it. And we can work together to understand why, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing that I now like build into my patient communication, especially after our first visit. I'm saying, okay, here's what we're going to do in the second visit. We're going to check in on all these things that I've suggested for you. And if they're going well, this is what we'll do. And if you didn't, none of them, this is what we'll do. And so that they can know like there is space here. It is safe here. I'm not going to be like chastising them.

[59:29] And that's part of a trauma-informed practice is to like really be very transparent with your patients and with your clients about what's happening so that they are not going to be scared or not going to be surprised or not going to be blindsided, because trauma is like ultimately about, having your agency removed yeah so if you give people back their agency it's a big part of the healing process yeah and i'm glad that you brought up the medical trauma piece because i think that's huge right like i remember talking to a friend about this and she was like i just can't take a like i can't take a supplement or an herb that's recommended there's something about just.

[1:00:10] Like having you be like we should try like melissa the herb that just feels like i don't want to just take advice when it's given to me like there's an immediate kind of um defense that comes up like i need to maintain my own agency so i can't you know i'm so used to just being told what's good for me or what's going to happen and and i thought that was really interesting and very self-aware of her and you know we don't always have that kind of like, awareness of when it's happening but yeah that's yeah like yeah but if you have yeah if you've got a patient that comes back and they say like okay well I didn't do any of the stuff that you said like you can either approach that from like okay well what now or you can get curious like hey let's explore why that felt inaccessible for you and let's get let's spend time like working through that so that we can figure out how to make it accessible for you yeah yeah the nice thing too about natural medicine is there's so many herbs, supplements, angles, ways to approach something that, And something, I'm not an expert on this, but something that's always been interesting to me is when someone kind of has an intuitive sense around an herb or supplement, like one person was like, I had a dream about this herb last night for some reason, like Hawthorne or, you know, and that's great. Let's go with that.

[1:01:33] Um but sometimes people like i just don't want to take iron i don't know why like i know it's good for me i know and so to be able to trust that and allow that can also really help build someone's self-trust and agency and then the therapeutic relationship okay don't let's not take iron let's go somewhere else with this um as opposed to like yeah fighting or doubling down like there's a million other ways to yeah maybe get iron or maybe there's something else that needs to happen first and our body is so complicated that it isn't so linear like low iron take iron you know yeah um yeah yeah totally the number one rule in my practice is no forcing like i am not going to force you to do anything i don't want you to force yourself to do anything even if it's a thing i've told you you should be doing because if if you have to force it it's a it's a cue to us that there's resistance there that we should get curious about and at the very least if you're able to force it, it's not going to bring about sustainable change.

[1:02:34] Because most of my patients come to me with a background of trauma and either come to me directly for trauma work or for the physical manifestations of trauma. I think the no forcing rule is a very foreign concept for a lot of them because they've had to force themselves to do things for a long time. And also that rhetoric is really reinforced by society. Be like, oh, you've got a headache, take an Advil, go back to work. Oh, you're tired? Have caffeine. Go back to work. Oh, you have your period? Suck it up. You know, like forcing is like a part of our life because of capitalism and the patriarchy and all of that stuff. And so if we can start to.

[1:03:11] And what it does is it really reinforces that you shouldn't be listening to

[1:03:16] the messages your body is sending you. And then over time, that just dilutes your ability to even interpret them at all. So if we can really work back into a flow and a reciprocal, safe relationship with your body and its messages, and maybe it's no iron right now, and maybe three months from now, they'll be ready to take iron, but willingly. And and I would much rather us wait three months and then work into a plan that feels accessible to them because we're building these plans for life and so like three months on the scale of doing being able to take care of yourself for the rest of your life is a drop in the bucket yeah but the alternative is that I like you know force you or you force yourself to do this thing in spite of what your body is saying in this moment that's going to fracture our therapeutic relationship, likely, it's also going to further break the trust between you and your body, and it's not going to help you get better long term.

[1:04:10] Yeah. And a lot of this is like a patience and an immense amount of trust in the inner wisdom of the person's nervous system. And that doesn't always mean that their dreams are right or their intuitive sense is, you know, like, yes, that's exactly what you need. But it's coming from somewhere. and to honor that and to work with that and to meet the patient where they're at I think is really the the key yeah yeah like I think you know you really want to like honor someone's intuition and like how they're building that trust with themselves and their gut instinct and um you know it's not I know better or this is the way because you're yeah um I love that yeah Yeah.

[1:04:59] And I'm also thinking, you know, how sad it would be if someone, because it takes a lot to finally reach out, right? Like many patients will say like, I'm thinking about this for eight months, a year, multiple years, like I've been following you, listening to your podcast. And now I'm finally booking an appointment and you know how sad it would be if there's a rupture that you know yep, where the person's like okay like I I need to be at a certain level of like readiness or I need to like.

[1:05:31] Take this on wholesale if I am going to get this kind of help, as opposed to being met where I'm at. Yeah. Wherever that is. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. You said you had something to say about psychiatric medication. Oh, that's like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is my own personal little soapbox. So in British Columbia, natural medical doctors have a pretty broad prescribing scope. And so we prescribe most of the things that a GP can prescribe or an NP, like a primary care provider, because we are primary care providers here. We can't prescribe anything scheduled. So like no opiates, no benzos, that kind of stuff. But all the psych meds are in our prescribing scope. And not that many of our colleagues out here are trained in them. So not that many people use them. But SSRIs are a common drug that lots of people use, especially GPs.

[1:06:25] And I think they are a really, really useful drug and potentially life-saving

[1:06:31] in a lot of cases, and they are often not well understood. And so then they are misprescribed or misused in a way that perpetuates the stereotype of them. And so I think, so the way that I use SSRIs and the way that I think they are best served or best serving the patient is to use them to support the expansion of the patient's window of tolerance like it's like you know you are leaning your whole body against that closet and you've only got one arm and an ssri like gives you a longer reach no or it gives you a second arm and it like doesn't um it doesn't so i think a common error that people make is prescribing too high yeah and it results in just like a numbing out like a disconnection from the feelings and for some people that is what they want because they have no skill set or understanding of like why feeling their feelings is important or how that can be productive or valuable for them.

[1:07:31] And it's not a criticism of GPs. They aren't properly trained in a lot of ways as well. And so they just have their patients coming back saying, I'm drowning in my anxiety, and they don't know what else to do but to increase the dose.

[1:07:45] But I think the best and most effective dose is the lowest dose that you can get that gives you more capacity, that makes you feel like you've got a little bit.

[1:07:57] More room to handle what life throws at you that doesn't numb you out that doesn't disconnect you from your feelings and also doesn't you know give you bad or uncomfortable side effects yeah um but with my patients um like escitalopram or lexapro is a is the most common one of the most common SSRIs that we use now and the research as done by the drug companies suggests that the starting dose is 10 milligrams. And I start a lot of my patients, most of my patients, I would say at two and a half milligrams. It's like a literal 25% of the starting dose of what's recommended. And most of my patients see benefit, you know, and we get up to like five milligrams or seven and a half milligrams and some they're at 10 and that's great. And I'm not at all opposed to people taking a higher dose when they need it. But I have a lot of patients that have a history of being on SSRIs and they came off of them because they didn't like how disconnected they felt because they started at 10 or, you know, an equivalent starting dose of another drug. And, you know, it's just, you know, the analogy I always make here is like, you know, it would be about equivalent of somebody saying like, oh, I've got a really brutal headache. And somebody say like, oh, take ibuprofen 20 milligrams. Like the minimum effective dose of ibuprofen is 200 milligrams in most people. And so if you don't, if you're not familiar with that, you'd take 20 milligrams of ibuprofen, you'd be like, oh, that drug is stupid. It doesn't work.

[1:09:24] And it was actually just not the right dose. And the same thing is true in a lot of drugs, but especially in SSRIs, which have just such a really bad rap. Yeah. Because I think they're often dosed too high. Yeah, I agree. Like, yeah, I think I'm really happy that you mentioned that because I think a lot of the way that studies are designed, you want to see an outcome, you want to see an effect. You don't want to do a really, really long study because that's very expensive. And you're also going to get like a placebo response in the placebo group that's pretty robust, especially with subjective symptoms like mental health. You know, you're not measuring blood pressure. You're not looking at like an MRI. not like you're just how are you feeling are you eating like so yeah but what i i totally agree like i think um what i see very often it's interesting that it's usually like i see this so much with zoloft or sertraline for ocd which can be extremely crippling for a lot of people that's not a good word but like destabilizing for a lot of people like caught up in like rumination and unable to function and just really trapped in those sort of thought loops.

[1:10:37] And very often, like, okay, I'm trying Zoloft, you know, first, I think it's 25. And they're like, and that's great. That works really well. And then their GP is very often like, okay, so you're tolerating it. Okay, so we're going to 50.

[1:10:53] And then they don't feel as great. And the benefit isn't really there. And we often have a conversation where I'm like, let's just stay at 25. But maybe even better to start even lower and just see what's the minimum effective dose because there's yeah you know often a trade-off like the more the higher the dose the more the side effects you know yeah yeah exactly yeah and i think um i end up starting with lexapro often because it's a tablet so you can cut it in half but my patients uh who prefer serotonin will just get it compounded and then we do drop dosing to figure out whatever less than 25 milligrams is a good place for them to start. I think it's a common misconception that the.

[1:11:32] Instructions that are determined in a study are exactly how you're supposed to do it in in your clinical community practice and having you know interacted with researchers that are running these studies like they are out there saying like no no this is not what this is to determine safety and efficacy this is not to determine best practices yeah and I think that's a thing that's often overlooked and like we could talk about how like you only have five minutes with the patient and so you don't have time to think about like what's the best practice you're just trying to do the best that you can in a really limited amount of time in the conventional system at least so I understand the contributing factors but I think there's a lot of art to prescribing yeah and I think it's worth it to talk about it because these drugs I have so many patients that it took them like five plus years to get comfortable with taking this drug because there's so much negative rhetoric around taking SSRIs or taking any medication for your mental health stuff. And so many of these patients are like, oh my God, I have a life now. I wish I started taking this drug five years ago. Yeah. It's a good point too, to point out how that might perpetuate a stigma.

[1:12:47] Also, it's held up as like, this is the first line treatment. If you have depression or anxiety, then you get one of these medications and that's kind of it. Yeah. Versus the, and that is kind of how it's studied, right? It's like, we just want to see what's the effect on like the GAD score for your anxiety, you know, like, is there going to be an effect? And you'd probably have to prescribe pretty high to see something change. But I love that you talk about the window of tolerance. It's like, we don't want to numb your feelings. We just want to create a bit of softness around and expand. And for listening, window of tolerance is sort of like.

[1:13:23] You know, where you're regulated and connected to yourself and above the window you're hyper aroused and below you're in a dissociative state or under aroused.

[1:13:33] And like the work is kind of done within that window. So if you can kind of soften the edges and like open it up a little bit, then work is done inside of that, whether it's like lifestyle stuff or therapy. Be but that also implies that there's like other things that you're going to receive, in terms of treatment not just the substance you know yeah and like a one of the there are kind of a few main questions that i use to help people decide if starting medication is the right choice for them and like we already said earlier like it's it's almost never the place that i start like we start with all the foundational stuff but one of the big questions is do you feel like you have the capacity to add more things into your life in terms of supplements or therapy or practices or meditation or exercise or whatever in order to continue to work on improving your mental health right now and um or do you not have capacity for that right now and in which case sometimes medication is the right answer because it very quickly gives you more capacity like it expands your window of tolerance which like allows you to.

[1:14:39] Takes the intensity down off of the like high highs and the low lows. That's what the drug does. And then expanding your window of tolerance gives you more capacity to handle feelings and stress and tasks without getting super dysregulated. And then another question that I use to help people make this decision is like, do you have, based on how you're feeling right now, do you feel like you could hang out here for another like two or three months while we build these practices and like get you to eat regularly and get you to take your meds and or take your supplements and do your workouts and do your journaling and go to therapy? Or do you feel like, no, I need to feel better yesterday or else something bad is going to happen? Then, okay, that also helps us to decide what is the first treatment. And like you said, if I'm prescribing a medication, that's by no means the only thing I'm doing. It's just the beginning or like a step in giving us more capacity to be able to implement all the other things. And for some people, it's this is a drug they want to be on for the rest of their lives. And for some people, it's more capacity temporarily so they can learn how to do all this other.

[1:15:43] Tools and like ways of managing their mental health so that they don't need the drug down the road and like i've got no attachment to one one outcome or the other it's just how can we help you to feel better and get to the place you want to be yeah so it's like yeah true holistic kind of biopsychosocial prescribing of like yeah do you need to do you need immediate relief and And, you know, I mean, our style of medicine is quite active, you know, so if that and that's not always accessible for people like, you know, we're asking you to, okay, like, add some things and take some things and that's adding more to your plate. So, you know, if you're already squeezed, then it may not be possible to add more things. Those are great questions. Yeah.

[1:16:30] And then a low dose is easier to wean off of. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:16:36] Yeah. And it's also like the slower we build, even if we end up working up to 10 milligrams, if we do it slowly, then we're also in the process giving you more opportunity to get to know what your body is saying and to feel the changes and to as opposed to just like barreling through and like placing you in this new mindset of like, oh, I'm not drowning in depression anymore. Like, well, actually, let's give you the opportunity to be present in that process so that you can really understand what it feels like as you start to feel lighter or feel things less intensely or feel more capacity, which is a part of, you know, like learning how to.

[1:17:14] Like, the process of healing, especially in trauma, mental health, nervous system recovery stuff, is learning to have a relationship with your nervous system. And you can't have a healthier relationship with anything if you don't speak its language. Yeah. And this is the part like we have and learning language takes time. Yeah. And and and it also takes exposure. And so if we build that up more slowly, then we have a greater capacity for exposure to the signals that your body is giving you that you can then learn to interpret and that strengthens your ability to speak to and engage with your nervous system and with your body in a healing, sustainable way.

[1:17:51] Yeah that's a great point right when you're like kind of titrating up very slowly you can like watch the change like what do i feel as opposed to oh my gosh i'm at 25 milligrams this is like maybe too high for me yeah and it's like too big of a jump and yeah are there oh go ahead yeah go ahead like you said like some people are in such an acute state that they like that's not the time where we learn the language like that's the time where we get immediate relief and so we we don't have to do it slowly we can do the slow on the other end as we taper down as well so it's just it's really it's about meeting the patient where they're on as opposed to just like applying a protocol to every patient universally yeah it's like if someone's screaming at you in a language you don't speak you're like i'm not gonna get my like book out i don't know yes yeah like do i need to get off the road am i like stepping on something you know yeah yeah Yeah.

[1:18:48] So like I need to calm down or have like a more regulated state to be able to like start to interpret and learn the vocabulary and hear the syllables.

[1:18:59] I was going to ask, though, if there are other, so for people who are very against medication or for us Ontario practitioners that don't have prescribing and can't kind of titrate doses, do you use other stuff that works in the serotonin pathway? Like have you find that that's effective or yeah yeah I it works a little bit differently than medication but for a lot of people it's the right choice for for various reasons um,

[1:19:25] I use a combination of supplemental nutrients and botanical medicine. Lots of magnesium and higher dose EPA omega-3s and St. John's Word in really high doses, but like concentrated doses.

[1:19:42] Saffron, ashwagandha, theanine, inositol. There's lots of nutrients and a handful of plants. Um hawthorne is a nice one for like the the panic palpitations that people feel so yeah there's there's a combination of things that i will use for sure and lots of my patients don't want to be on meds or can't be on meds or you know were and had a bad time and so there's like many many tools that we can use and a lot of it is also about getting really curious about so like once we've established the foundations what are the underlying drivers that are contributing to the anxiety or the depression and like in some people yes it is just like pure you know neurotransmitter biochemical imbalance we think but there are a lot of people for whom it's like you know a histamine thing or a reproductive hormones thing or a menopause thing or a gut health microbiome thing or an inflammatory thing and so it's also really a lot about like what getting curious about what or the root causes that we can influence from a more broad perspective.

[1:20:52] And that just generally also tends to work better, more sustainably, and gets us away from just like symptomatic management and like the, you know, they call in school, they call it green allopathy, like prescribing a supplement for a symptom, which is like sometimes the trap that GPs or MDs can fall into as well. Yeah. So, yeah, it's so easy to kind of Yeah, I get wrapped up into like, I just want to help. I just want someone to feel better. And you, um, the fixing part or the performance part wants to kind of like, you know, um, yeah, one of my most popular, like I made this YouTube video, I don't even know, 10 years ago, I don't know about, uh, about, uh, amino acids. I don't even know. It's not even a good video, but it's so popular compared to my other YouTube. And it's just very interesting because like I always think I'm like what is so attractive about the idea but I think I mean this idea of like you're right my medication stigmatized so people looking for kind of an alternative based on that neurotransmitter idea but also this I just want relief I just want to feel better you know so I did a follow-up video saying like yeah they can be helpful, but I, you know, kind of like a pyramid. I mean, you know, by the time that we're working on neurotransmitters.

[1:22:16] Maybe we find that's not really the thing that's out of balance, you know, but I like that. I like the frame that you created of like, well, you know, when do we start with foundations and when do we start kind of at the top of the pyramid to provide relief? You know yeah exactly yeah yeah which is like functionally it's are your symptoms the thing that is impairing you from being able to sleep or eat or take care of yourself yeah okay well then we treat your symptoms first so that we can then down the road or three weeks or it's free you know a month from now start working on the foundations but it's it's the same thing we were saying before like if you just shout louder at somebody that they need to sleep more and eat more and that It doesn't address the reason why they're struggling to do so. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We talk a lot about like vicious cycles, right? So where do you address it? And where do like chicken and egg kind of cycles? Like where do you start with the chicken or the egg? And sometimes it doesn't matter. It's just about patient preference and what, you know, they intuitively feel because, you know, if you take a neurotransmitter to help with sleep and then you sleep better, well, then now you're sleeping better. And then that's addressing the underlying thing or if you're able to work on sleep then might regulate your neurotransmitters so it's kind of just about where it makes sense to start and yeah yeah i love that collaborative aspect i think um.

[1:23:39] It can feel a little bit foreign for a lot of people that has a practitioner that's like, you know, woody, like kind of turning it over to you and not just telling you what to do. I think a lot of people are like, oh, my gosh, wait, I have to make the decision. I don't know what I need to do. You're the doctor.

[1:23:53] Yeah. Yeah. And I ask my patient that question all the time. Like, hey, here are some options.

[1:23:58] Which path do you think feels the most accessible or the most aligned with you? And, yeah, often people are caught off guard. And so, like, sometimes I will walk them through, like, here are my thoughts. Like, here are the pros and cons. Here's how I would make that decision but I think it's actually really important for us to.

[1:24:14] Give the power back to the patient like a lot of the values that I operate from in my practice is that to like minimize the power differential as much as possible like I'm not the boss I also don't know what's best for your body more than you do yeah and so but but the the world, and the medical system and especially if you're a woman especially if you've got any mental health challenges has just told you over and over and over that like you have to outsource everything to somebody smarter than you or with more letters after your name or with more power than you and like that is part of the problem yeah totally yeah i just had this conversation with a friend it's a little bit of a non-sequitur but we were talking about societal pressure to like for women to have children and i'm like you know it's like if somebody's like don't you have kids and it's like okay let's like unpack this for a second like I would have to be the one to be pregnant to deliver a baby to care for a baby so you know you're you're telling somebody you need to take iron but you're not the one going to buy the iron taking the iron swallowing iron maybe feeling nauseous from the iron so it's all well and good to give someone advice but to actually have the burden of having to follow through and do it and be in the body.

[1:25:32] Is, yeah, that's, you know, that's something else. So, yeah, to be able to, like... Allow someone to embody their health experience again.

[1:25:42] And information is so accessible that I think maybe that is helpful for the power differential a little bit too. Like a lot of patients are coming in with a lot of, like kind of a massive confusa of information that, you know. As long as we are receiving it with grace and being like, yeah, bring me your questions. I would love to, you know, like dispel your Reddit myths or show you the data on why I think this is true but conversely if we're if we're receiving that as an attack or a threat to our ego or you know like you know shut up about your doctor google like that's just going to perpetuate the problem but yeah yeah yeah but i that's one of my favorite things to do is like yeah bring me all the nonsense you find out on tiktok and we'll parse it apart here's the evidence that i know here's the evidence that disproves that here's the question mark or the gray area that like maybe that's true but here are the risks here's how you make that choice because i i think it's you know our jobs are evolving as the world around us evolves and i think part of you know like, docere is the root, you know, Latin word for doctor, which means teacher. And I think that's a big part of our job is to give people the opportunity to learn how to take care of themselves in the world that we are living in in 2025, which now means how do you interpret.

[1:27:00] Media and social media and all of the nonsense that's out there? And how do you figure out what's right for you? Yeah, exactly. Like the common, I'm sure you get questions. I get question all the time and the answer is always it depends because there's a reason that the intakes are an hour and a half like we got to sit with everything and go through it and but another thing i really love is the the broad spectrum of of being an nd is that i don't feel beholden to any or in love with any particular therapy of course i have my biases like we all do but, I'm okay with killing off darlings like you know I'm there's I don't want to make myself sound amazing I'm sure there's lots of resistance that my parents have encountered sometimes but um you know like because we there's a big toolbox yeah like okay supplement like one person came in um a few people actually have been like it's not good to take vitamin d and so I kind of went down a rabbit hole and unpacked it and came in and out of the cave. And I think my point that I'm sitting at now is that maybe we should probably take vitamin D in the winter because we don't make it. But, you know, our bodies are complicated and the thing like there really isn't an answer. Like even the best study with the best outcome is not going to be 100% effective.

[1:28:25] You know, whatever it is, even exercise, even all the things that we know are amazing, like exercise, like the you know um there's tons and tons of nuance and uh so much individuality and everyone's different so it's nice to kind of be a little bit you know like on our toes like a little bit um flexible with how you know yeah it's that like open-minded um like personality trait that we it earlier i think there's a make somebody a really good physician because i think the analogy i are the example i always use here is like the doctors in the early 1900s were making fun of and laughing at the guy who suggested that we start washing our hands between autopsies and deliveries because he they were like yeah you right yeah right there's like imaginary invisible little poisonous dudes in the air you know and it turns out germ theory is real yeah we didn't have the right tools to study at back then. And so those guys that thought he was.

[1:29:28] Making stuff up, didn't have any evidence for germ theory. And, like, it's hard to fault them for that. And I think it's really worthwhile for us to remember that, like, we are not by any means at the pinnacle of our understanding of the body or science or of medicine. Like, we know way more than we did five years ago and, you know, a ton more than we did 100 years ago, but we do not know everything.

[1:29:51] And it is really complicated. And I think it's really important to, as a care provider to not get trapped in the like belief that we have all the answers because it's it's an ego trap it's going to result in you know like making an unsafe space for your patients but also.

[1:30:12] Closing like prematurely closing your mind to what the possible solutions are, yeah i love yeah and the that story with saml weiss saml weiss yeah yeah yeah wasn't he um He had his license removed. Yeah. That's for being like, oh, you know, maybe we shouldn't deliver babies after we handle cadavers without washing our hands in between. And they were like, you're a quack. Yeah.

[1:30:40] Yeah, totally. Yeah. A lot of humility in that, you know. It's funny, though, like you hear that story of when you're like, oh, yeah, we would never. They were idiots back then. But then, you know, you can really humble yourself by thinking like, well, what are we doing now that we're going to be disgusted by in like 50 years or 100 years, you know? Yeah. So tread kind of carefully, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Live with that uncertainty a little bit, I think. Yeah, I think you're right. I think, you know, kind of flexibility, open-mindedness, humility, curiosity is important to be a practitioner and give the power back to patients because there has been an era in medicine where people have been disempowered and there's like authoritarian structures in medicine. It's like a very authoritarian system that I think is being dismantled. Like my GP feels very different. I know like the new generation of doctors feels a bit different. Agreed. Yeah. All of my peers that are like our age that are MDs are very different than the doctors that I grew up knowing. So, yeah, it is changing.

[1:31:47] And patients are different, too. Like people are encountering like a doctor who's like, you know, not really working with them. And they're pushing back or looking for a different practitioner, kind of not just accepting that answer. So, yeah, really encouraging and good. Yeah, agreed. I don't think we're mistaken about that in 100 years. They're like, no, no, the authoritarian systems were right. Yeah, we'll see, but I don't think we're mistaken about that. Yeah, I think we're good. Yeah, I think it's important for people to be empowered. I think that's universally a good thing. I agree. Yeah. Any last thoughts, Jessica? Anything you're offering? Anything you want people to know?

[1:32:30] Yeah, my private practice is in Vancouver, BC. I can see patients anywhere in British Columbia. So I do lots of virtual work as well as in-person work.

[1:32:39] I do have a little bit of private trauma recovery coaching, like separate from my medical practice for people that are outside of BC, if that's of interest to you, if you've got specific like psychedelic integration stuff that you want to talk to me about um and hopefully by the end of this year i'll have a trauma recovery um online program it's like with my guidance um but again like more available for people at like a lower cost than seeing me in person and also not restricted to british columbia um but yeah i'm on instagram and the internet dr jess eastman that's pretty Yeah, I think there's a huge place for programs like psychoeducation programs and teaching people skills and having some guidance and can drop the burden of cost down a lot. Yeah. I'm glad you're offering that. Yeah. Even for practitioners to take to learn, you know. Yeah, totally. It's for everybody. But yeah, it feels important.

[1:33:35] Like I, you know, Vancouver is an expensive city and our work is expensive. And so I am very aware that the cost of seeing you or I is not accessible to everybody. And I hate that. And I also have to pay my bills. And but it's important to me to make an offering that makes it more accessible to more people.

[1:33:57] Yeah. Amazing. OK, so people I'll have links for people to find you and yeah, hopefully they can join in. And thank you so much for talking with me. Yeah, thank you. It was really lovely.

Connect with Melissa at: https://thecouplewellnessexperts.com/https://www.instagram.com/couplewellness/

I'm excited to present to you an interview on muscle health and mental and emotional strength with Dr. Staz, naturopathic doctor!

Dr. Nastasia Irons, ND is a fellow naturopathic doctor and CCNM class of 2014 graduate. She also completed a 2-year residency program, furthering her training in acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, cosmetic acupuncture, and herbal medicine. She has a special interest in hormones, skin, and digestion, but has a passion for fitness and movement and is a prominent fitness advocate within our naturopathic community. She is a spin instructor and inspires everyone (particularly) women to build mental, emotional and physical resilience through building muscle by lifting weights. Staz shares her story of recovery from a hip injury and traumatic break-up through embarking on a journey of getting stronger. We talk about the importance of building muscle and the benefits of fitness as well as some tips on how to get started and how to stay motivated through the process. https://www.instagram.com/healwithstahttps://www.ellisparkmedical.com/naturopathshttps://sweatandtonic.com/pages/teammember/nastasia-irons

We talk about what foods impact insulin and lifestyle strategies, including the Low Insulin Lifestyle, for supporting metabolic health, a health revolution in our day and age.

taliand.com

connect@taliand.com

After earning her doctorate, she completed a postdoctoral research fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance her work in nutrition, insulin resistance, and PCOS.

Her PhD doctorate examines the role of diet on reducing symptoms in PCOS, an insulin-resistant condition- the most common cause of infertility in women.

Our current medical paradigm is glucose-centric, but 90% of the population has insulin resistance, and most have normal glucose levels. Dr. Ali explains why we need to shift the focus from glucose to insulin and focus on a diet (or lifestyle rather) that lowers insulin, rather than just regulating blood glucose.

In 2021, Dr. Ali received a grant from the National Science Foundation to launch Lilli Health, which turned years of research into actionable solutions for patients. In this podcast, she discusses her research results and the science behind them.

Find Dr. Ali Chappell

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.alichappell/

On her website: https://lillihealth.com/

I explore how hormonal changes post-menopause can exacerbate these issues and highlight creatine's benefits for both physical and cognitive performance, particularly for women in this demographic.

I also tackle societal pressures around body image, advocating for a focus on muscle preservation and metabolic health. The conversation includes practical tips for maintaining muscle through diet and exercise, fostering a community centred on health and informed choices.

Show notes 

Losing 1/3 lb per week to lose only fat, not muscle: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18347690/

Creatine and IQ for seniors: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1424972/full

Energy pamphlet https://d1fdloi71mui9q.cloudfront.net/iMxRx0kQoSbcMsYD9kEB_Energy-interview%20with%20Dr%20Paul%20Eck.pdf

Learn more:

taliand.com

thrivecart.com/goodmood

Chapters0:01A New Beginning in Psychotherapy and Educational Projects2:08Exciting Future Plans for the Good Mood Project3:27The Impact of Diet on Gut Microbiota9:07Study Results: High Fiber vs. High Fermented Food Diets19:55Challenges of Adding Fiber to an Unhealthy Gut20:59Implications of the Sonnenberg Trial on Health21:39Reflections on Gut Health Research and Dietary Changes26:11Utilizing Fermented Foods and Probiotics for Gut Health

learn more at taliand.com

Good Mood Project: goodmood.thrivecart.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandiehadfield/

Substack: https://brandiehadfield.substack.com/p/boss-babe-no-more?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Learn more:

taliand.com

learn.goodmoodproject.ca

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Insta: @drtaliand

This video is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice. No 1:1 doctor-patient relationship is formed through this process, a proper intake and assessment has not been performed, and no advice-giving will be undertaken.

Please run any changes to your healthcare regime past your naturopathic doctor or functional medicine provider to ensure these principles are right for you.

This may be a disgusting episode, but it's our episode. And hopefully, it's also your episode. Dr. Michelle Pobega is a naturopathic doctor with over 12 years in private practice. She has a clinical focus on optimizing digestive health after she herself struggled for years with what is often termed “IBS.” She learned how to unpack and address the layers of imbalance behind her digestive symptoms, regained control and resiliency in her health, and is now focused on helping her patients do the same.

You will often find her discussing mind-body medicine, healthy poops, parasites and their effects on health, optimizing liver health and detoxification and supporting the gall bladder.

Find Dr. Michelle at

https://drmichellend.ca/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.michelle_nd/

Listen to That Naturopathic Podcast

https://www.tnpodcast.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thatnaturopathicpodcast/

Gina Livy is the founder and CEO of Weight Loss by Gina Inc. and the creator of the Livy Method. She started her process as a personal trainer, going through her own interesting weight loss journey (following the old calories in, calories out) model resulting in more weight gain. It wasn't until she started dating a chef and eating more that she saw her body composition shift. Inspired by this, Gina turned to the research and started implementing what she was learning with clients 1 to 1.

In December 2020, she took this method to a few hundred customers via Facebook, offering her program for free. Her program now has 28,000 members in this Spring/summer of 2023 (its 19th iteration), with 165,000 members in total, she has a bestselling book on Amazon, and her company grosses almost 8 figures in revenue. Researchers at the University of Ottawa are currently studying her work. In total, her program has resulted in over 250,000 pounds lost.

Weight loss can be a sensitive topic. We talk about the Healthy At Any Size and Body Positivity Movement with the conclusion that you can be healthy and love yourself at any size, and weight shouldn't factor into whether or not you are worthy or loveable. However, as my hero Carl Rogers says, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Perhaps when we embrace the totality of ourselves as we are, weight, warts and all, we are inspired to care for ourselves in a new way, free of the hangups we have accumulated about our bodies, diet and food, and we're ready to feel more energy, experience less pain and learn how to rewrite the old narratives around nourishing ourselves.

Find Gina at:

https://www.ginalivy.com/

Buy her latest book: https://a.co/d/1FllRaO

Learn more: taliand.com    learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

Learn the truth about this molecule including how to interpret your blood tests, what cholesterol's many roles are in the body, how to balance your body for optimal health and cardiovascular disease prevention and more!   

I am interviewed by Tracy Seider of the Reshape Method https://tracyseidercoaching.com/the-reshape-method

Get in touch: 

website: taliand.com

Instagram: @drtaliand

First appeared on Tracy's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/142386369718570

Website:

taliand.com

learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

You see, we all want freedom and happiness. We want to be free of our hangups and lack of self-consciounsess and self-doubt. We want to silence the inner critic and feel good physically, mentally and emotionally. But true freedom comes not from having the right things or having the right things happen to us--not from having control or having our stuff together, but from riding the waves of life and living with an open receptive spirit and being grateful for the gifts the life delivers. And Dr. Shayla is a mindset master (although she doesn't necessarily know it). She lives free of fear, need for control, criticism and doubt (for the most part, of course). 

So in the pod we hear her story and I psychoanalyze her so that we can learn her secrets and we give you a some tools to access that. We understand that sometimes life hands us a set of early experiences that set us up with a baseline of distrust in other humans and in the benevolence of life. We feel anxious and fearful. We have bottled up unprocessed grief or trauma. But how can we start fresh and move through life with the lightness of being that Dr. Shayla Garland possesses? Listen to find out. 

Shayla is a naturopathic doctor with a licence in Ontario (and soon to be licence in British Columbia). 

You can find her at:

Her website: https://www.shaylagarlandnd.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.shaylagarland/

For more:

learn.goodmoodproject.ca

taliand.com

We cover the who, why, what and where--the history, details and definition of homeopathic medicine as well as discuss healing philosophy, resistance to healing and fear of death (and dolphin's milk).  

 Victor Cirone is a Registered Homeopath with The College of Homeopaths of Ontario as well as a Registered Clinical Herbalist with the Ontario Herbalists Association. He graduated with honours from the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine, and before that from Diane Kent’s program in clinical herbal medicine. He is a founding member of, and chief contributor to, Everything Herbal (www.everythingherbal.ca), a project dedicated to fostering the practice of herbal medicine and related branches of natural healing.  

In addition to his medical studies, he has a Master’s degree in Communication and Culture from York/Toronto Metropolitan University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He has also completed The Essentials of Psychoanalytic Therapy program offered by the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and has an extensive background in Jungian/Archetypal psychology and dreamwork. He is a published author, and lectures both nationally and internationally.  Victor practices Homeopathy and Herbal medicine because of the immense transformative powers that these modalities contain – both on individual and collective levels of experience. 

He values direct experience, careful and attentive observation, and always strives to engage with his patients in a way that is authentic and deeply healing. He employs a range of medicines in his practice to suit the needs of the individual in their journey toward wholeness and wellness.   

Find Victor at: 

victorcirone.com  

@victorcirone (Instagram)  

Learn more: 

taliand.com   

learn.goodmoodproject.ca taliand.com

Learn how iron, copper and magnesium harness the energy from oxygen in the mitochondria to optimize our mental, emotional and physical health and keep us free from disease.   Learn more: 

taliand.com   

learn.goodmoodproject.ca taliand.com

Nicole is a registered massage therapist with certifications in Fascial Stretch Therapy, Massage Therapy Body Mechanics, Reiki, Lymph, Performance Stretch Systems and Lifestretch. Her focus is on fascial stretch therapy and moving lymph. In this podcast we talk about fascia and its relationship to pain, trauma, fatigue and chronic health conditions and the lymphatic system. We speak about the mind-body connection and how somatic psychotherapy is the new talk therapy--trauma and memory is stored in the body: the lymph and fascia. In working with the body we often liberate these stuck emotions, stories and memories for processing. 

Listen to the podcast for more! 

Find Nicole at: 

https://www.embodiwork.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/embodiwork/

The Good Mood Project: learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

Naturopathic medicine: taliand.com 

check out Tracy's Reshape Method here https://tracyseidercoaching.com/

And her Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/142386369718570

Also check out my programs at learn.goodmoodproject.ca including the Ant-Inflammatory Bundle where you can get 4 courses for $75 (until August 1st, when all my prices increase on the site). 

Why is calorie restriction not that answer? 

What two lifestyle strategies does she recommend instead that restructure the metabolism and heal the cause of weight gain?    

Resources:

learn.goodmoodproject.ca for the course You Weigh Less on the Moon  

taliand.com for appointment booking, articles, more podcasts and more information on naturopathic medicine

To celebrate I've created another epic episode: The All About Anxiety Masterclass. This episode encompasses: how to rewire your anxious brain, how to support OCD, how to ride the waves of your emotions for 90 seconds and how to recover from stress and burnout.   

This episode couples well with the other Masterclasses in this series: The Trauma Masterclass and The Nutrition Masterclass.  

I never thought people would listen to long-ass podcasts like this, but they are the most-listened-to episodes. So, I guess this means you're like me. I love putting a pod in my ears to take in information while walking the dog, folding laundry, driving or cooking. It gives my eyes a rest, and allows me to learn while moving my body.   

If you suffer from stress and anxiety or know someone who does, give this episode a listen or send it to your friends. These Masterclass podcasts are meant to be listened to in chunks, to have all your information in one place where you can digest them at your own pace.   

I really hope you enjoy it!

taliand.com

learn.goodmoodproject.ca

@drtaliand

Tracy Seider is an alignment coach who studied with Katy Bowman. More specifically she is peri/menopause movement and posture coach, helping you find joy in movement by focusing on the foundations: proper alignment of the skeletal system, bones and joints.   

When we are in alignment (physically and metaphorically) our joints and muscles work better. We experience less pain. Our nervous system can work properly. We are flexible, dynamic, fluid and robust.   Tracy and I talk about the difference between alignment and posture, how you need to align your body before you go for your daily walk, how 30 minutes of "exercise" will not outdo an entire day of chair-sitting, the nervous system (aka: how anxiety might lie with your tight hip flexors), why shoes are the devil, how to breathe properly and so much more. It was such a fun conversation and I feel Tracy and I could have gone on and on (especially about the shoe thing).   

Tracy is the creator of the Reshape Method a 12-week program that balances alignment, muscle-building, mindset, breathing and consistency to help women in their 40s find the movement patterns that help align their shape and health.   

You can check out her website here: https://tracyseidercoaching.com/  

Her Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/periandmenopauseclub

Her free posture quiz: https://resources.tracyseidercoaching.com/posture-quizz-1  

Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyseidercoaching/

Learn more: taliand.com and learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

Perhaps now you’re having trouble concentrating, feel anxious with a low mood, wish you were more motivated, excited and driven. Perhaps you’re having issues with memory and word recall. Perhaps you’re feeling overwhelmed and scattered, having trouble being motivated. You procrastinate. You lose time on the couch. You’re dealing with lots of cravings and the need for stimulation through food, scrolling social media, or self-soothing behaviours like skin picking or addictive behaviours such as substance use. This podcast is for you.   

Or perhaps you're a driven individual who struggles to find satisfaction in the here and now, who lives for tomorrow and can't exist without goals. This podcast is for you too.   

Check out learn.goodmoodproject.ca to learn about courses on how to support your blood sugar for stable prefrontal cortex activity.   

Learn more: taliand.com

 - Asha Frost, "You are the Medicine"  

Asha Frost (she/her) is an Indigenous Medicine Woman and member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. She is from the Crane Clan, the totem of leadership, and believes in holding space from vision and heart. As an energy healer, homeopath, and mentor, Asha has guided thousands of people through profound and lasting transformation.   

Impacted by generational trauma and colonization, Asha has been on a lifelong journey of reclamation. A lupus diagnosis sent her on a path of studying and practicing a multitude of energy Medicine modalities with many guides. She has blended this life experience with her innate gifts and the wisdom of her Ancestors. She loves sharing her Medicine in powerful ways through Ceremonies, teachings, and speaking events. Through this work, she loves seeing people reclaim their roots, find their healing wisdom, and rise into their power.   

Asha lives on Anishinaabe, Huron-Wendat, and Haudenosaunee Territory, with her husband and two beautiful children, with whom she co-creates a better world for the seven generations to come.   

You can find her book here: https://www.amazon.ca/You-Are-Medicine-Indigenous-Connection/dp/1401963501

Instagram: @asha.frost 

Website: ashafrost.com 

Listen, take notes, I hope you enjoy. 

Check out the course Feed Your Head here: https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/feed-your-head

As a clinician, Dr. Rothwell uses her signature framework and a practical down to earth approach to help her patients navigate the confusing world of thyroid health.   

As an educator, she is fiercely passionate about providing accurate, evidenced based thyroid education to a variety of health professionals including Naturopathic Doctors. She created her two flagship practitioner trainings before creating The Thyroid Academy, a revolutionary educational platform for both health professionals and the public. 

She also lectures regularly to her ND colleagues and provides consulting services across North America.   

Find Katie at:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your.thyroid.nd/ 

Her website: rootedinhealth.ca

Niki is super real. She's a cool ND who shares her post-natal struggles with her first born (she's now a mother of 3). She's also a naturopathic doula. Her passion is helping families grow and thrive through pregnancy, birth, and the great beyond. In the words of her bio: it takes a village, she's ready to be part of yours. 

Find Niki at:

Her website: https://nikithenaturopath.com/

Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikithenaturopath/

Here are two back-to-back episodes with Ayan from the Good Mood Podcast, wrapped up into one trauma-informed masterclass that you can listen to in one go. 

We talk about trauma and how it works in the brain, how EMDR can help, what dissociation is and how to treat it differently than other types of nervous system dysregulation, and Polyvagal Theory. 

Find Ayan at: 

https://www.ayanrp.com/

We talk transformation, mental health nutrition, treating the physical, bipolar disorder, medication and working with a label among many more topics!

Dr. Christina Bjorndal, ND is considered an authority in the treatment of mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorders and eating disorders using a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual approach.  Having overcome many mental health challenges, Dr. Chris is a gifted speaker and best selling author who has shared her wellness philosophy with platforms such as the Jenny McCarthy show, the International Bipolar Foundation, and many health summits and docuseries. She is recognized as a top ND to follow by two independent organizations. Her book “Beyond the Label” is a comprehensive guide to naturopathic mental health.

Mental Health Books:

• Beyond the Label: 10 Steps to Improve your Mental Health with Naturopathic Medicine


• The Essential Diet: Eating for Mental Health


• From Shadows to Light: A Whole Human Approach to Mental Health


• Moving Beyond: A Journal into Self-Discovery

Courses:

• Moving Beyond 10 week course


• Integrative Mental Health Clinician’s Course

Retreat:

• Mental Health Masterclass

To book Dr. Chris to speak to your organization visit drchristinabjorndal.com

Follow Talia: 

Taliand.com 

learn.goodmoodproject.com

Dr. Taylor Bean is a Naturopathic Doctor and owner of TaylorMade Wellness in Salmon Arm, BC.  She has experience working largely with families, young ones and mamas-to-be.  

She brings her wisdom as a mother of two to help women achieve a healthy pregnancy and smooth labour.  She has worked overseas In Singapore for two years which improved her skills in chronic illness as she saw various patients in SE Asia, India and Australia who were unable to find the care they needed. 

From her experience working overseas, to now 6 years working in Canada, she has been able to blend Eastern and Western approaches from a clinical and cultural perspective.   

While working in Singapore, Dr. Bean worked with several families who wanted to optimize their experience with vaccination. Since then, Dr. Bean has completed the Immunization Certification to administer vaccines in her office, created a vaccine optimization webinar series, and supports families globally who want more information on vaccines from a respectful, transparent and informed choice point of view.   

Overall, her passion lies in supporting:   •          Lyme disease and co-infections   •          Pre- and post-natal care including labour support   •          Pediatrics including Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, SPD  •          Digestive complaints particularly SIBO and IBS   •          Vaccine optimization and education   •          Genetic report analysis (MTHFR)  

Find Taylor at: 

drtaylorbean.com  

vaccineoptimization.com 

Instagram @drtaylorbean

Edna Pereira is a registered psychotherapist whose focus is in helping her clients manage and heal from chronic pain and chronic illness through validation, acceptance, and learning to live with their experience in a place of non-judgement and self-compassion.  

Edna has a nonjudgmental and inclusive approach to collaborate with you to best meet her clients' needs and life goals through strength-based narrative, solution-focused, emotion-focused, and cognitive-behavioural modalities.  

She has a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Yorkville University. She is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and a member of the Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals (OAMHP). She is a Certified Life Coach with the Certified Coaches Federation (CCF) and a Certified Holistic Nutritionist through the American Fitness and Professionals Association (AFPA).  

Find Edna at: aboutmind.ca

taliand.com

learn.goodmoodproject.ca

Andra Wochesen is multi-certified Coach, with training in Law of Attraction, Reiki, Soul Realignment, Tapping into Wealth and Quantum Flow. This unique combination of skills coupled with intuitive coaching and energy techniques creates an extremely integrated, highly embodied experience for her clients.

This approach enables her to support her clients in releasing any subconscious blocks that may be preventing them from flourishing while simultaneously connecting to their innate Soul gifts so they can fully thrive in their lives & businesses.

At the core of her work, she helps her clients to not only understand but truly embody their worth and value so that they can show up fully, authentically and in alignment with their gifts which directly impacts their ability to receive higher levels of income and prosperity.

Website: https://www.awakenyourinspiration.com/

Andra's Soul Gifts Special Offer: an offering on energy centres and Soul group and how that connects to life, business and career. https://awakenyourinspiration.as.me/SoulGiftsReading

Instagram: @awakenyourinspiration 

Taliand.com 

learn.goodmoodproject.com 

Instagram: @empowerhealthca

Empowerhealth.ca

Drawing from the book Burnout: The secret to unlocking the stress cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, Polyvagal Theory, General Adaptation Theory, and other stress-response models we talk about burnout, rest, replenishment, dopamine/serotonin, motivation, protein, and how to heal your body, mind and emotions from chronic physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.  

check out the Cortisol Care Challenge for $5 https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/the-cortisol-care-challenge 

Learn more about naturopathic medicine, from 1:1 visits and other educational resources: taliand.com and learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

We talk about how to recognize the features of these two types of anxiety, what is going on in the brain with both and how to nutritionally, behaviourally and cognitively rewire your brain to reduce your symptoms.   

Learn more: 

taliand.com   

learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

Resources: The Carnivore Code, Paul Saladino, MD 

The $100 Billion Ingredient Making Your Food Toxic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmqVVmMB3k

Courses: Learn.goodmoodproject.ca

Booking and appointments: taliand.com 

Learn more about nutrition for mental health: https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/feed-your-head

Jeffrey Schwarz's Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X/ref=asc_df_006256143X/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309344616184&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15892440765679245724&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000770&hvtargid=pla-327875600354&psc=1

The parts of the brain affected by OCD:

Caudate nucleus (the gear shift, located in the striatum/basal ganglia)

Orbital Cortex (the error detection system)

The thalamus (relay centre for senses)

The cingulate gyrus ("something is off, something bad will happen, if I don't---"

Neurotransmitters associated: serotonin and glutamate 

The 4 Steps in Brain Lock

Relabel 

Reattribute 

Refocus 

Revalue 

for appointment booking: taliand.com 

To learn more about courses, check out learn.goodmoodproject.ca (my Food Sensitivities Course, You Weight Less on the Moon, and Feed Your Head).   

To book an appointment visit taliand.com

We talk purging, grief, trauma, and describe the unpleasant emotions. We unpack anxiety as a coping mechanism that helps us avoid the discomfort of these emotions, and the importance of heading into them willingly. 

We are not afraid of certain outcomes, we're afraid of the emotions they might bring us. 

Learn more 

taliand.com 

learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

I talk about a landmark study from the 1930s in which researchers allowed babies to choose their own diets---the results are pretty remarkable. I also discuss how sugar cravings can be an important signal that tell us how well we're managing our blood sugar, nourishing with protein, and eating enough. 

This is a really exciting episode because cravings come up in virtually every consult I have with patients and we haven't been trained to understand exactly how they serve us or what they mean--unfortunately the "gunk" of Big Food have polluted our ability to truly observe, understand and respond to the Wisdom of our Cravings. 

Listen to learn more!

Check out the course You Weigh Less on the Moon here: https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/you-weigh-less-on-the-moon

To learn more about Good Mood Project Courses visit: https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/

And this is unfortunate, because good health starts from childhood, and we have a unique opportunity to set kids up for healthy lives as adults by teaching them about nutrition, honing their palates, and helping them learn about their bodies and minds, and what they can start doing to keep them healthy. 

Working with families sets individuals up for better success, because when our whole community is on board with health transformation it makes it so much easier to find success on our journey. 

Nic and I talk about how he coaches families to improve their nutritional habits. He has 4 kids of his own and didn't want to see them succumb to his own "genetic" health issues. Giving your family the gift of good health is one of the best things that you can bestow them with and Nic was determined to do this with his family. 

We talk about how we can convince kids to eat better, what to do about picky eaters, and how to support families in making these tweaks to their diet and lifestyle and how to encourage everyone to get on board. 

You can find Nic at:

Nic is a nutritionist and biochemist, working towards a degree as a nurse practitioner. He is a mental health practitioner and runs the website Mind Whale mindwhale.com. You can find him at nicholashundley.com and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicholas.j.hundley/

Nicholas Hundley, MS, CNS, is a father, nutritionist, biochemist, and wellness teacher who is deeply committed to improving lives through optimizing brain, metabolic, and immunologic health. He is expecially committed to helping children and families transition to a long-term, health-supportive lifestyle.

After obtaining his graduate degree in biochemistry, he obtained his Certified Nutrition Specialist (CNS) credential and focused his learning on understanding how nutrition impacts illness. Nicholas has received advanced training in functional medicine, integrative medicine, nutrition, nutrigenomics, mental health (including autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar, eating disorders, and more), functional immunology (autoimmunity and allergies), environmental medicine (including environmental toxins), and neurology.

Nicholas is trained in the application of dietary interventions to support the nutritional needs found in physical and mental health conditions. Working with your licensed healthcare professional, he can help identify areas of focus and guide a plan of nutritional care to support the body's natural healing and detoxification processes for improved functioning. He guides families through lifestyle change with his Illumination Program that includes education and coaching to achieve lasting habit change.

Nicholas' friendly manner, dedicated concern, wide knowledge base, and detailed insight are motivating and make healing a pleasant process.

To learn about nutrition for mental health check out my 4-week course, Feed Your Head: 

https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/feed-your-head

Treating hair loss is also sometimes the bane of my existence. There are so many reasons why hair loss can occur, or why someone may deal with brittle or dry hair. There are so many different TYPEs of hair loss. And, even more difficult, many causes are difficult to reverse, such as hormonal hair loss, and, the reversible causes take time, three to six months at least to see new regrowth. 

A few years ago I started to experience hair loss. And, it seemed like almost every patient who came into my office at that time was experiencing the same. There's nothing as confidence-destroying as being asked to solve a problem in others that you haven't found a solution to in yourself. I felt like a fraud. I did, however, manage to get on top of the shedding only to experience more hair loss this year. 

Again, I've been able to get on top of it, but again, treating hair loss isn't easy. 

One of my go-to gurus for all things hair is Taylor Morozova, a hair stylist, beauty expert (and Jill of All Trades). She's a lake surfer, who now surfs the ocean in Florida, and the host of the Weird Waves Podcast. She works in fashion and owns a hair salon in a doctor's office (which is an important but interesting juxtaposition). 

According to Taylor (and I agree) our hair, skin and nails are not just aesthetic aspects of our bodies, their health are key indicators of our body's entire state. Often the first signs of disease or imbalance show up in these superficial organs, and so working with someone who is helping you pay attention to changes in these areas are crucial for supporting your health and preventing disease. 

Taylor and I talk about hair loss, hair care, including what products to focus on and how to choose a shampoo regime (hint: natural is not always better!), and whether thickening shampoos or scalp treatments are worth it. We even talk about hair brushes that can support hair growth, and the importance of scalp massage and correctly identifying the cause of hair loss in order to create a plan to treat it. 

This is such a cool episode, and I know you'll get something out of it if you struggle with hair loss and slow regrowth. 

Find Taylor on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wavebabebeauty/

For information on body image and the impact of weight loss diets on hair (and how to reboot your metabolism to kickstart hair growth among other things, sign up for my course You Weigh Less on the Moon! https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/you-weigh-less-on-the-moon

You can hardly blame us. As someone who studies health and nutrition for a living, even I find myself caught up in this health claim game of ping-pong. How could one claim be true if the complete opposite claim was being made? Was coconut oil the devil incarnate, or the next belly-fat blasting super food? Do vegan diets cure diabetes or cause it?

With conditions like cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, and mental health conditions, on the rise, it becomes imperative that we make an effort to understand the health impact of our food choices.



Understanding the Do’s and Don’t’s of Nutrition can help us harness the power of food to heal the body and prevent disease.

For more on nutrition, check out my course Feed Your Head https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/feed-your-head

Small, meaningful changes that are strategic, and individualized is where it’s at and this requires time which is why we both feel strongly about the ND model: we get to know you and your unique needs and lifestyle and work from there.

But it’s not just type II diabetes—type II diabetes is an end-point stage of pre-diabetes and insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction which I see every. day. In my patients who don’t have any actual signs of diabetes. We talk about how insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction is on a continuum and many people fall somewhere on that continuum without even knowing it.

Things like fatigue after eating, abdominal weight gain, brain fog and inflammation, anxiety, mood issues, fatty liver and elevated triglycerides, PCOS, or other hormone dysfunctions, and so on, ca all be signs that the body is not sensitive to insulin.

I talk blood sugar all. the. time. Over and over again I feel like I’m on repeat and it’s so important because it’s a core fundamental imbalance I see when it comes to mood and hormones, so I’l l keep repeating myself until I die or until everyone’s blood sugar is regulated.

So listen in, we talk some great tips, Christina is very articulate and knowledgeable and explains it all very well so you can explain it to your friends with ease and look like the smartest person in the room.

Also, remember to check out You Weigh Less on the Moon where I talk about weight loss diets and how they don’t work (for regulating your insulin or diabetes, etc.) and how really working WITH your body and loving yourself AND eating intuitively (which we also discuss a bit in the podcast) is where it’s at. AND that there are key components that can drive metabolic dysfunction and contribute to unwanted fat gain but addressing them is not as simple as just cutting carbs, or calories, or cutting out meals—it’s about understanding the root cause and supporting metabolism with the right nutrients and lifestyle practices.

The course comes with 38 mini lessons including journalling prompts, visualizations and meditation to help you connect more closely with your body and metabolism. It’s $34 for lifestyle access that you can work through at your own pace, anytime.

Find Christina: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theportuguesenaturopath/

Her Website: theportuguesenaturopath.ca

Join You Weigh Less on the Moon 

learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/you-weigh-less-on-the-moon

Most people enter a cycle of calorie (or carb, or meal) restriction, find the diet gets harder, they inevitably fall off the wagon, and "cheat", and then gain the weight back and more. This is why 95% of people who go on a diet, gain everything back and more in the subsequent 1 to 5 years. A yet even modern medicine conspires to recommend weight loss to patients with pre-diabetes, or diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hormonal conditions like PCOS. 

But, in the words of Linda Bacon from her Scientific American article "Fat is Not a Problem", "Telling people they need to lose weight is a lot like telling someone with a cold to stop sneezing so much—it may not be possible and won’t make the cold go away."

The problem is that, in order to lose weight, we need to get healthy---metabolically healthy. 

And now, because of diet culture, we often have to break through walls of stigma, shame, yo-yo dieting, poor relationships with food, and body image, in order to get to the core of metabolic healing, which works very differently from traditional weight loss methods, and may not result in immediate weight loss, or any weight loss at all, despite being beneficial to your body as a whole. 

So, I created a course called You Weight Less on the Moon, on my site The Good Mood Project (check the link in bio to join for just $34). 

This episode of the Good Mood Podcast gives you a sneak peak in to the first chapter, called "Why Diets Don't Work", as well as my story with body image, food, and dieting---it should be an interesting listen if you're at all interested in dismantling diet culture, and restoring metabolic health through root cause, guilt and shame-free medicine that honours your body's wisdom and hunger cues. 

About the course: 

The course contains 11 Chapters and 38 lessons, with mini videos, journalling prompts, and audio meditations and visualizations. It even contains a 40-minute yoga flow. 

We talk about body image, diet culture, and weight stigma

Metabolism, set point weight, reverse dieting, and stress' impact on the metabolism

Hormonal causes of metabolic dysfunction: cortisol, insulin, leptin, the thyroid hormones, and the sex hormones.

Relationship with food: Intuitive and Mindful Eating. 

Body Image: self-compassion, body neutrality, and Polyvagal Theory

The digestive system and lymphatic system

Gentle nutrition, such as reducing inflammation and satiety building

And embodied lifestyle practices for helping us develop more interoception to start improving our attention and attunement to the body's cues. 

Listen here to the beginning of the course and, if you want to join for lifetime access, click the link in the show notes to join or find the course at learn.goodmoodproject.ca 

Join the course: 

https://learn.goodmoodproject.ca/courses/you-weigh-less-on-the-moon

And yes, while sadness can be a common feature of depression, low motivation and activation, leading to something called "The Impossible Task" can be pretty universal as well.  

In this solo episode I highlight the features of the Impossible Task, explain why it exists from a biochemical/neuroscience perspective, and how to tackle it with curiosity and compassion.

Check out courses on how to support your mood, mental health, and hormones at learn.goodmoodproject.ca Become a member! 

- Talia 

That Naturopathic Podcast is doing something a little different right now too. Dave is working with Dr. Verna Hunt, ND an elder in our profession with 42 years of practice under her belt to preserve some of the roots of our profession. 

They did a series, which you can check out, and then started getting NDs to get coached by Verna, to talk philosophy of the profession, to gain some wisdom. 

I once heard true wisdom is gained at age 42. Well, Verna has 42 years of experience as an ND--a whole batch of wisdom right there. 

We talk patient care and empowerment, how to help patients by teaching them to communicate with their bodies, and to feel in control of their treatment.



Dr. Verna shares her elder knowledge on these topics, giving examples of experiences she has had over the years

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatnaturopathicpodcast/

This is a cross post, the original Queen's Power Podcast can be accessed here https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1-hormones-mental-health-naturopath-talia-marcheggiani/id1559886667?i=1000514199234 

I talked to Alexandra (Ali) Romain a second year engineering chemistry student at Queen's about mood, hormones, and mental health, including tops on how to keep to a schedule (and the benefits of doing so and no! Don't go, schedules can be sexy and fun--contrary to limiting your spontaneity they can be your ticket to freedom and wellbeing). 

In fact, I wish I was a better scheduler when I was at Queen's. I wish I'd known about adaptogenic herbs. I wish I'd known about the important of sleep. I was forced to organize myself while I was there but not without going through some major growing pains and mental health dips along the way. I try to impart some wisdom to my younger self, as well as all the students and young people out there going through this time. 

This episode is for you if you're struggling right now. If you're in your teens or twenties or have someone in your life who is, please listen and let me know what you think. For more on coping I highly recommended episodes 50 and 51 with Victoria Sabo, registered psychotherapist where we discuss our collective emotions surrounding the pandemic and (in episode 51) where we run through 10 major points that can help us cope. 

Instagram: @qhnsclub

We spent the last episode lingering in validation and acknowledgment of all the things going on during this past year with our mental health. 

Victoria talked about increased cognitive load, the "Covid Fatigue" characterized by lack of motivation, exhaustion and anxiety, as well as the loss of identity that comes from missing social structures and important points of connection. 

It was important to highlight the problem--to shed light on it. To share in a common humanity. This is not a normal time. It's an abnormal response to an abnormal situation. 

But, we left off the last episode thinking... well we highlighted the problem but what are the solutions? We've never done this before. We've never helped people through this before. What are some important skills, tools, resources that we can point people to to help them through this time?  

And so think of this episode as a kind of Pandemic Survivor's Guide for the psyche. 

Victoria highlights 10 things that we dive into in more detail in this 2 hour podcast that actually plays out a bit like a Masterclass on how to build resources for challenging times.   

1) validating and normalizing 

2) Self-Care

3) boundaries, transitions, unplugging 

4)mindfulness and grounding 

5) managing uncertainty 

6) meaning making/sense of purpose 

7) coping with a lack of physical touch 

8) remembering who you are 

9) following values not goals 

10) seeking help and connection in new ways  

Victoria Sabo is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and a Certified Canadian Counsellor with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). She holds a Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology from Western University, with an Honours Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour from McMaster University.  

Find Victoria online at:   

Her clinic's website: https://www.psychotherapyinthecity.com/

Victoria and I met to talk about the issues that people are experiencing: whether they be children, essential or frontline workers, immunologically impaired, or those who have lost businesses. 

Victoria is a registered psychotherapist who works in Toronto at Psychotherapy in the City. Victoria Sabo is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and a Certified Canadian Counsellor with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). She holds a Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology from Western University, with an Honors Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour from McMaster University.



Victoria works with youth and adults experiencing a wide variety of concerns including stress, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, relationships, school, identity exploration, life transitions, rehabilitation, and trauma. As a therapist, she works to provide a safe, open, and non-judgemental space for clients to explore and process their experiences. Understanding that each client's story is unique, she applies an integrative and flexible approach specifically tailored for each unique journey. Generating solutions, creating meaning, and fostering growth, are all possible using resources within the self. Through self-exploration, making connections, enhancing knowledge, and building skills, Victoria empowers her clients to access and further develop their inner strengths as tools for wellness.



Victoria follows an anti-oppressive framework, operating within feminist, LGBTTIQQ2SA+, and culturally-informed perspectives that accept, celebrate, and are sensitive to, all sexualities, genders, family structures, ethnicities, and religions. Over the years, she has provided support to children and youth living with disabilities while working to increase service accessibility and has provided gender-informed programming for vulnerable young girls. As a previous researcher supported by Ontario's Poverty Reduction Strategy, Victoria advocated for services to assist in the healing and upward mobility of families economically and socially marginalized by society. Passionate for youth justice, she has published articles and spoken at conferences giving voice to the experiences and struggles of justice-involved youth in order to inform rehabilitative efforts.

Victoria and I talk about the difficulties her clients and my patients are experiencing during these Lockdowns and the pandemic in general. What some of the symptoms of Covid Fatigue are, some of the social justice issues surrounding the pandemic, some of the unique isolating situations some of our patients/clients find themselves in and what can be done about it. 

A lot of the people I work with are suffering and it's time to speak about it: to validate it, bring attention to it and take some lift off the cognitive load of the struggles that we've been dealing with. 

Go easy on yourselves, this is a challenging time. 

Stay safe out there, my friends.

Find Victoria online at: 

Her clinic's website: https://www.psychotherapyinthecity.com/

For Black Ontarians experiencing issues with the police contact Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC) at 1-877-736-9406 or visit www.blacklegalactioncentre.ca

Ayan noticed that this was happening to some of his clients and so he did a deep-dive into Polyvagal Theory and working with dissociation, a very common trauma response. 

In this episode we talk about various responses to trauma, more on Polyvagal (the first pod on Polyvagal was with my colleague Dr. Steph a few episodes back, check it out it's one of the most-listened to episodes) and our nervous system. We also talk about the variety of dissociative disorders that can manifest in someone who has experienced trauma. 

Ayan also provides excellent DIY solutions you can start now, such as great books and resources as well as how to choose a therapist who is trauma and dissociation-informed. 

Ayan is a great guest--he's full of knowledge nuggets and lots of practice take-homes as he has a wealth of great experience from his busy online therapy practice. 

Ayan is a registered psychotherapist and Certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant in-training. He specializes in EDMR, anxiety, low self-esteem, childhood trauma, PTSD and dissociative disorders. Ayan uses EMDR, Internal Family Systems, somatic therapies and Structural Dissociation. He began his psychotherapy career later in life after a 9-year career in commercial banking. 

Find Ayan at: 

His website: https://www.ayanrp.com/ and Therapyillustrated.com (where he sells illustrated therapy tools). 

Some resources mentioned in this episode: 

https://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Healing-Images-Adult-Survivors/dp/0986234044

https://www.cavershambooksellers.com/search/0986234044

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1623158249/?coliid=I18HESP3A9IWOZ

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1623158249/?coliid=I18HESP3A9IWOZ

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1623158249/?coliid=I18HESP3A9IWOZ

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/739316952/visual-aids-flipbook-for-attachment

In this pod episode we talk about the menstrual cycle, how our hormones impact our mood, problems with the oral contraceptive, and why ovulation is not just important for fertility--it builds the progesterone in your body that can vastly impact your mood and overall health. 

Dr. Anne struggled with PCOS, Hashimoto's thyroiditis and has a genetic anemia called thalassemia. Through her research she got to work on regulating her periods, and now helps other menstruators do the same. She follows a plant-based lifestyle and abides by the following principles (which I liked so much, I swiped from her website). 

Our healthcare system is failing too many people. Women are more prone than men to being dismissed and disregarded; this is more pronounced in the BIPOC and non-heteronormative population. Male models are applied to women all the time – women are not little men! Trans people have all their health concerns blamed on their hormone therapy. We ALL deserve access to healthcare that supports us.

Your healthcare should be a discussion and your care plan should be one that takes you, your history, and your lifestyle into account.

Synthetic hormones are not the only option when it comes to menstrual

and hormonal health concerns – medication is ONE of many options. There is a time and place for medication. Medication is often overused for multifactorial conditions like acne, painful periods, PMS, and mood swings.

Our culture of perpetual productivity is running us into the ground and we must learn to lean into our body’s natural cyclical rhythms of ebb and flow to fully show up. We also need to create and find more moments of peace, joy, and pleasure in life.

Everything in our bodies is connected – nothing works in isolation. As such, the food we eat, the thoughts we think, the people we spend time with, the information we consume, our financial situations, the way we move, and the products we use on our body ALL play a role in our health. Your healthcare plan should address all of these areas.

When we support our health and well-being, only then can we fully show up for ourselves, our dreams and goals, and the people who matter most. We need all kinds of people in all kinds of roles in the world.

Anne is a graduate of the Canadian College of Naturopathic medicine, an ND and a naturopathic doula. She also volunteers with Naturopaths without Borders.

If you struggle with hormonal issues like irregular periods, mood-related fluctuations throughout your cycle, heavy bleeding, or are just curious about how your hormones can send your mood on a roller coaster or smooth joy ride, take a listen! 

Find Anne at:

Her website: https://www.annehussain.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.annehussain/

We talk mindset, organization, diagnosis, Polyvagal Theory, histamine, glutamate, brain inflammation, nutrition for ADHD and how to master your mind when making nutritional changes for your health.

We use transformative coaching, lifestyle techniques, mindset work, nutrition, supplements, exercise, hydrotherapy and more to achieve these results. We work alongside existing medication prescriptions.

This a fun and dynamic conversation between friends in which we're joined by Erica's 8-month old Maeve. We're always chatting health and philosophy and this podcast recording feels like a typical conversation between the two of us (usually recorded back and forth over Whatsapp audio recordings). 

Erica offers online coaching programs dedicating to transforming the health of those who suffer from ADHD. She has a Doctor of Naturopathy degree from CCNM with a focus in fertility, pregnancy, family health, hormones and weight loss. She has a Kinesiology and health science specialized degree from York and is a registered holistic nutritionist. 

Find Erica at:

Her Website: erica-robinson.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaellerobinson/

We might fall into patterns of despair and hopelessness or irritability and resentment. 

Ray (named changed to protect her and her family's privacy) noticed this. She noticed she needed JUICE. And so, she spent a year "being bad". What does that mean? Well I asked her and she responded, "Sex, drugs and rock and roll of course!" And so right away you can probably tell that this is a juicy episode. 

It's also an incredibly inspiring episode. Pleasure is beauty personified. It starts with the body. Can you enjoy the feeling and the look of your own body? Can you recognize it as an element of nature, no more or less perfect than a flower, a tree, or a pond? Ray went on this journey, learning how to feel into her physical experience, to lean into life. Into pleasure. She did this through exploring plant medicines, her sexuality (which takes her to the world of erotic and kink). 

We talk beauty, sex, spirituality, motherhood, embodiment, libido, pleasure, and many other things. It truly is a juicy episode AND I believe that no matter where you are in your journey, we could all learn to embrace body acceptance, to experience our bodies as a vehicle for our personal connection, pleasure and adventure, and learn to inhabit our experience. 

So many of us are in the roles of working, or serving others, putting ourselves and our needs last. And we felt spent, exhausted and unfulfilled. What would it mean to put down that bowl of gruel and serve yourself some delicious, spicy gingery JUICE? Listen in and let's explore. 

Ray supports women and non-binary people to connect with their pleasure and power. These are your birthright. She is a facilitator, writer, and small “i” intuitive. She draws on training in emotional bodywork (body psychotherapy), and health science. She’s also inspired by her exploration of conscious kink, fantasies and dreams, and sacred sexuality. Ray is dedicated to the healing power of Eros.

You can learn more about her at her website: 

badgirlwisdom.ca 

We've talked digestion on The Good Mood Podcast: the structure and function of the vagus nerve and how putting your hands on can help diagnose and treat disease with Dr. David Miller, the gut microbiome and your trillions of little friends with Dr. Kim Bretz. BUT we can never talk too much digestion. As Dr. Laura shows us, there are multiple multiple angles at which we can examine, play with and learn about the gut. 

This is what Laura talks about in her book: the spiritual, mental, emotional, physical and structural elements of gut health. Her book is an exploration: first on the science of the gut--it's structure, the microbiome, and how they relate to our health and then how our gut and mind interact, to how our gut might be out link to the spiritual world. 

This is the beauty of naturopathic medicine, which I believe we highlight in this conversation: there are no protocols, no routine rote methods to healing. We assess, we do detective work, we respond, we guide and we play. There's no linear path. It all DEPENDS (if you've ever asked me a question about your health, you know that that is always the answer---the dreaded Depends). But Depends isn't just a diaper of an answer, collecting the faecal matter of uncertainty, even when it comes to the gut. Depends is a beautiful answer. 

It means that we start with you and go from there. And where we go depends on all the factors we're holding and examining and curious about and Laura really does that. Both with her book and this conversation. There's so much to consider and we let the conversation meander and her wisdom emerge. 

Ok, a bit of bio:

Dr. Laura M. Brown, is a registered naturopathic doctor with a functional medicine approach. She focuses on stimulating the body’s natural mechanisms to repair damage and rebuild health. She is a HeartMath Certified Practitioner, a level two Certified Gluten Free Practitioner and holds the designation of ADAPT Trained Practitioner from Kresser Institute, the only functional medicine and ancestral health training company.

Titled Miss Teen Ontario at age sixteen, Dr. Brown battled many health challenges of her own, ultimately prevailing through naturopathic medicine. Personally, she writes, gardens, hikes, and entertains on 20 beautiful acres in the heart of Ontario, Canada. 

You can learn more about her here:

Website: Southendguelph.ca 

Instagram: @drlaurabrownnd 

We haven't had an addictions episode on the Good Mood Podcast. We've talked about body image, shame, eating disorders, psychedelics, trauma, technology, self-care, and many many other mental health topics, but not addiction. So I've been trying to get Aaron on. This is a short episode in which we pack in SO MANY goodies that we'll definitely need to do a Part 2 soon.

In this episode we talk: how addiction works in the brain, how to support people with addiction (why "cutting them off" sometimes touted by certain support circles might not be the way to go"), Gabor Mate and Compassionate Inquiry, Carl Rogers and the Rogerian method of counselling, Rat Park, dopamine, Vancouver's Insite safe injection site and other Harm Reduction models, Harm Reduction vs. Abstinence models of addiction support, and so on and so on. 

Addiction affects us all. Either you are struggling with one or know someone who is. Addiction is a community-based problem. Addictions are formed in a community or family or lack thereof and affect everyone in said community and/or family. There are also so many misconceptions and judgements that are common around addiction and those struggling with them that only serve to worsen the problem: the shame and isolation that lie at the core of helping someone live their life to the full extent of their dreams and desires. 

I really hope you enjoy this episode and learn lots! 

Find Aaron at: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.aaronnd/

Topics:

Cravings

Different Diets

Restrictions/Dieting Culture

Listening to the Body and Intuitive Eating 

And more. 

Please subscribe to the pod and like us on Apple! 

What makes us frustrated in the doctor-patient interaction? What unseen obstacles step in the way of our healing? So many times we've met and worked with patients who have seemingly done all the work and yet still struggle with feeling lost, that they're not making progress. This can be such a frustrating experience for both patients and practitioners: that feeling that you're both spinning your wheels. Both of you are trying so hard, to make progress, to feel better, and yet you feel just as deep in the woods as when you started. 

I have had many conversations about this with my colleagues and friends. Healing is such an art and we don't have all the answers. And there are subtleties to the journey that can be triggering and invalidating to talk about---because sometimes there are limitations to language. 

I wrote a blog post about an analogy of being lost in the woods--maybe the jungle let's say of disease and despair and the things that we might do, either consciously or unconsciously that keep us stuck there. And Dimpi reached out to me, telling me how much she resonated with this topic, how she's been having the same conversations, and how she'd love to talk more. 

We went out on a limb and recorded a convo together--this might be part 1 of a series, we'll see how it goes (although it did feel good to just get it off our chests and put it out there). Let me know what you think of this topic. It is providing more clarity for you? Is it helping provide something like validation for some of the confusion you've felt on your own journey? 

For example: as patients how do we strike a balance between finding our own empowerment and trusting in our guides? As practitioners how do we let our patients lead on their own healthcare journey while also inspiring patients' trust in us as authority figures? Is "authority figure" even an accurate way of describing what we do? Expertise? 

So many times my experience as a healer or patient have been humbled. 

So Dimpi and I got on with it and talked, and here's our convo. Dimpi is a great person to talk to about this stuff because she focuses her practice on healing the highly sensitive person: the artists, the healers, the outcasts, the person who feels, the empath, the Indigo child. She helps highly sensitive women unleash their full potential with subconscious rewiring, naturopathic medicine and functional labs so they can feel empowered in their health and be of greater service to others. 

Her first episode on the Good Mood Podcast is one of our most popular. 

Now, last thing before we get on with it. Please check out Good Mood Foundations, which starts March 1st. This may be your way out of the woods. The link to explore more about it is in the show notes. 

Happy listening! 

Learn more about Dimpi: 

Her website: https://www.suryawellness.co/dr-dimpi-patel

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctordimpi/

Good Mood Foundations: 

taliand.com/good-mood-learn 

What do the great minds of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, literature, science and religion have to say on the topic of loneliness?



Is there a pill for loneliness?

Can you be lonely in a crowded room?

Does solitude equal loneliness?

How can we cope with grief?

What do the Buddhists and Stoics say about loneliness?



And, most of all, how can we cope with an ever-increasingly isolated world?



Tune in to listen.

Remember conversations from "Saying Hello Again" by David Denborough:

- What did [your loved one] see when they looked at you through loving eyes?

‍

- How did they know these things about you?

‍

- If they could be with you today, what would they say to you about the efforts you are making in your life? What words of encouragement would they offer?

‍

- What difference would it make to your relationships with others if you carried this knowledge with you in your daily life?



And remember, Good Mood Foundations launches March 1st. There's still time and space to get in. http://taliand.com/good-mood-learn

After all, what do we want to be if not happy? I mean the reason your IBS or your PCOS or your CFS or your MS bothers you is that, ultimately, it makes you unhappy. And so, for me and for most of us, health is happiness. 

I also saw SO MANY solutions in my naturopathic toolkit to solve depression, anxiety and hormonal issues--new, science-based ways of looking at how our bodies and minds function--that weren't anywhere to be found in the conventional system. I was excited to share these tools and resources and strategies with my patients. 

But good health isn't the only route to happiness. Dr. Ellen Wong, my supervisor and teacher when I was at CCNM, and a fellow ND, knows this. Ellen decided to focus on happiness when she, like me, realized that it was the key component to helping her patients live an amazing life. 

Ellen had her own struggles with perfectionism and depression and so, to heal herself (I mean so many of us are in this game to first heal ourselves and then lead others on the paths we've blazed through, scratches on our faces from the underbrush, machetes still in hand... good visual, I digress) and heal her patients, she began to study happiness. 

Her studies took her to the happiest place on Earth... nope not Disneyland... is Disneyland that happy? There's no real food there and Mickey is quite elitist... but to Bhutan, a country that has a Happiness Index. 

We talk Bhutan, snow days, we talk about mindset, we talk happiness. It's a terrific episode. Dr. Ellen is a real gem and I miss her Saturday clinic shifts. This was a fun catch up. We also talk technology and how it doesn't necessarily have to alienate us. 

Also: the little relationships are just as important (or at least they're important) as the deep soul connections. We need both. And, of course during this time we're missing out on the those day-to-day casual interactions with the local barista. 

Dr. Ellen describes herself as a recovering high-functioning overthinker (if this is you, you HAVE to listen to this episode, we talk so much overthinking... it's great). After two hospitalizations she reached a tipping point--she burnt out. How many of us have been there? Or are there? Or are getting there? 

Although she appeared like she "had it all together" - she secretly lived with never ending mental chatter that left her feeling overwhelmed, anxious, exhausted and unhappy. Realizing this was not how she wanted to spend the rest of her life, she set out to learn how to stop overthinking and reframe her negative thought patterns. 

As the Founder of The Joy Avenue, a Confidence Coach and a Creatrix® Transformologist®, Ellen works with women who are tired of feeling overwhelmed, self-doubt and anxious and guides them towards feeling calm, confident and free. But what she's most passionate about is helping women prioritize their happiness as much as their success.

You can find Dr. Ellen Wong at:

Her website: 

https://thejoyavenue.com/about/

Instagram: @Thejoyavenue

And of course, don't forget to check out my online program for mental health and hormones: The Good Mood Membership Program. 

The body is our home. It's where our emotions live, as they manifest in real-time, where they can be processed. Being present and embodied are the key states for healing from trauma, from accessing our truest, wildest selves, and from experiencing optimal mental and emotional health. 

Bodily presence is also where the richness of experience lies. It's where we experience enjoyment, love, connection, intimacy and pleasure. 

Alison Crosthwait is a trader turned psychotherapist turned coach who supports people through deep inner transformational healing. She applies techniques like breathwork, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, and other forms of energy and emotional healing to help her clients access their free and authentic selves. 

"To feel alive is a practice", Alison writes on her webpage. "Sometimes we can talk for years about getting out of ruts. Other times a crisis brings us into a realization. Either way there comes a time when talk about it isn’t enough.  When reading books doesn’t cut it."

Alison specializes in change. She speaks of her journey from a Wall Street trader to a person who experiences complete presence, freedom and ease in her life. 

We talk trauma, psychedelics and the integrative process, how pets can be our greatest teachers (with plenty of dog and cat interruptions throughout this episode to prove that point), inner work, desire, orgasm and all the other ways we can reconnect with our wild, animal, dynamic selves that hold the key to deep healing. 

Find Alison at: 

Her website: https://www.alisoncrosthwait.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisoncrosthwait/

But the more I learn about environmental medicine the more I feel the doom and gloom of hopelessness--and the more overwhelmed I feel about what must be done.   

However, Marillea Yu, a naturopathic doctor, helps me see this topic through a more empowered lens.   

Marillea and I talk about why we should care about environmental medicine, how environmental toxins affect our health, and some of the small but important things we can do to help our bodies, minds and planet stay healthy.   

Dr. Marillea Yu is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor practicing in Ontario, Canada. She received her BSc in Biology at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island prior to becoming a graduate of The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.   

Her clinical interests centre on Environmental Medicine and the effects of everyday toxic exposures on health and wellness and its contribution to chronic and inflammatory disease and autoimmunity.   

This includes exploring the effects of industrialization on health outcomes, especially in communities and areas where resource extraction has occurred and the effects of industrialization are experienced first-hand.  

Find Marillea at: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nontoxicdoc/

Website: https://drmarilleand.com/ 

Links we talk about: https://www.thinkdirtyapp.com/

Heal your mental health and hormones naturally through my membership program: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Dr. Tara Guzzo is a fellow naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist who works with busy women who are tired and unsatisfied with a life that is just “okay”.

She is the CEO and Clinical Director of InVersa Health, and has created the Resilience Reset Program designed to promote calm, confidence and all-day energy in the face of depleting daily life stress. 

Tara is also the host and creator of a television series on Shaw Spotlight called “Elevating Women’s Wellness” in which she interviews local female healthcare providers on relevant women’s health topics to elevate the wellness of listeners.

In this podcast we talk about Tara's experience that called on her resilience reserves--where her clinic burnt down at the beginning of this year. We talk about how she leveraged what she preaches to support herself through the trauma of the situation and bounce back with resilience. 

We talk about building resilience reserves through the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body, and emotional self-regulation, trauma support and more. 

Find Dr. Tara at: 

Her website: https://drtarand.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtaraguzzond/

Elevating Women's Wellness: https://drtarand.ca/elevating-womens-wellness/

Learn more about the Good Mood Membership Program taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Adele Tevlin walks us through the connection between our thoughts, our beliefs and our environment and how our mindset can influence our external circumstances. 

I believe this to be true: even if you're truly suffering it's how we frame this suffering that helps us summon the powers of our own resilience to seek the support we need to heal. 

Adele Tevlin is the CEO and Founder of C.E.O Blueprint, a Transformational Leadership Development Company for C-Suite Executives and business owners. Adele has worked with various clients and companies over 20 years helping them master their CEO mindset. 

She is a behavioural expert and pattern interrupter. 

Adele and I talk about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), neuroscience, and psychology for helping us see our own blindspots and transform the patterns in our thoughts, behaviours and emotions that might be holding us back from achieving our dreams. 

Adele is enrolled in the Harvard University in the Masters of Psychology program, has a BSc in Neuropsychology, a certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and a diploma in Applied Holistic Nutrition. 

I took Adele's CEO Blueprint course (which she will talk about at the end of this talk). I'm always inspired after hearing her speak--ready to journal my thoughts, emotions and limiting belief and take my life by the horns. 

If you want to learn how to charge forward in life and see what's on the other side of the "abyss", or what lies beyond what you fear, give this episode a listen! You won't regret it!

Find Adele at: 

Her website: https://adelewellness.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adele_wellness/

The CEO Blueprint: www.ceoblueprint.co/masterclass

Learn more about The Good Mood Membership Program: a foundational lifestyle program for mental health and hormones. taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Cyndi and I talk about how immersing oneself in nature in some capacity: whether it be looking at a poster of a nature scene on the ceiling of your dentists' chair, to having a room with a view when recovering from surgery to complete wilderness backcountry trekking, have numerous effects on the health of our bodies, minds and communities. 

However, we also acknowledge that nature is not always accessible. We discuss the privilege that certain health practices often require, and muse on how to make naturopathic medicine more accessible. 

Dr. Cyndi was a professor of mine at CCNM. She is also a supervisor at Queen West Community Health Centre in downtown Toronto. When I was a student, Dr. Cyndi held a group in her home clinic to help us through the trials and tribulations of our formation as clinicians. 

She is committed to a harm reduction and anti-oppression model of care that affirms her patients, and respects their first-hand knowledge of their own health. Her practice is inclusive of diverse peoples, bodies, genders, sexual orientations, families, and relationship constellations.  She is body-positive, sex-positive, sex work-positive, and BDSM/kink-informed.

She is also the author of The Essential Guide to Women's Herbal Medicine and is an activist in the realm of Healthy Equity. She offers continuing education courses aimed to teach current naturopathic doctors and students to create more inclusive practices. 

I'm excited to introduce you to Cyndi--she is so fun to talk to and we could have gone on and on. Forest bathing and community medicine are both passions of ours. 

You can find Cyndi at: 

Her website: https://cyndigilbert.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcyndind/

Learn more about Good Mood Foundations: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

How do we talk to patients about sexual health? Where do sexual health concerns like low libido come from? Yousuf discusses some of the ways he opens up the conversation about sexual health with patients and how our sexuality can be an entryway into whole-body healing.

In fact this part of interesting--we talk about how a naturopathic clinic focus, like sexual health and mood are often just roads to the same ends: whole mind-body-soul healing, if we want them to be. Whether one visits an ND because of a sore ankle, depression, or low libido we're always taking into account digestion, sleep, nutrition and all the other factors and systems that make up a human being in their environment and aiming to heal them. 

Actually, if you listen to the end, I am about to say something and then forget what it was---after recording I remembered. 

Many people ask me: what does an ND do? What's the difference between an ND and an MD? Sometimes I do a better job of answering that question than other times, however I usually fumble around with an explanation about our education, our philosophy, how we treat the root cause, our modalities: how we use nutrition, herbs, acupuncture and so on. And this rambling is often met with blank stares. 

But what I came to realize through this conversation with Yousuf is that the fundamental difference between naturopathic medicine and conventional medicine is our wholism. Conventional medicine is generally rooted in cause and effect: what is the thing that's missing or not working? What part is broken? And the treatments often involve going into remove or fix the broken part. 

Now, this can be wonderful. If I have a tumour, please remove it. If I tear a ligament, can you please fix it? If my levels of inflammation are endangering my life, bring them down. 

However this doesn't often work in the realm of chronic disease: slow complicated disease processes that are influenced by many many factors. You probably can't completely fix your depression with diet. However, nutrition is fundamental in ensuring your brain and body and mood operate optimally. There's no one root cause. Therefore there's no one solution. There's no magic bullet when it comes to the majority of diseases.

And naturopathic medicine, through its attempts to examine as many factors as possible, to understand the whole person, can aim to change as many contributing variables that leave us feeling unwell. Supplements, herbs, lifestyle, practices like meditation are all recommended with the understanding that we need to build in a healthy environment for the body to heal. 

In short, conventional systems are mostly linear. Naturopathic systems are complex, interwoven networks. 

Ok, so that's that. Yousuf and I talk a bunch of things and the fun thing about podcasting with a friend is not only the chance to catch up but this freedom to use conversation as a way to explore and learn new things and really have a deep discussion. I hope we achieved that today. 

Yousuf works in Ottawa at a compounding pharmacy called Nutrichem. He implements testing, individualized nutritional therapies and lots of counselling in his practice. 

Find Yousuf: 

At his website: https://dryousufnd.com/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.yousuf_nd/

Learn more about my foundational program for mental health and hormones: Good Mood Foundations at taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Ok, are you lost already? 

Methylation is a process in the body that does a bunch of things. Many of us have a genetic variation in an enzymes called MTHFR, yes, I know what it looks like, that help us make folate.  

Changes in our genome can affect this pathway and our health. Researchers have become particularly interested in the connection between MTHFR Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, or SNPs, and mental health. There is a link between these genetic variations and increased risk for depression, anxiety, autism and other mental health conditions. 

Dr. Christina Carew is a naturopathic doctor and she's going to explain this all to us today. Christina is the co-host of a made-for-NDs course called Methylation 101 and has some amazing analogies for making sense of these pretty complex, but important concepts. 

She is a graduate of the Canadian College of Naturopathic medicine and focuses on chronic disease management: lyme, autoimmune disease, and environmental medicine. Dr. Christina practices in Toronto and King City and is a wealth of information. 

I'm so excited for this episode: methylation is something I bore my patients with in my practice a LOT as I see the connection between their mood symptoms, brain fog, and digestive concerns. As Dr. Christina says, that mental spinning, rumination, obsession and addictions can all be symptoms of impaired folate metabolism and impaired methylation. 

This is such an exciting topic and I'm so happy to interview someone who can lay it all out for you. 

You can find Dr. Christina at: 

Her website: https://www.healingme.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingme.nd/

Learn more about Good Mood Foundations here: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Dr. Alexandra Sisam is a fellow naturopathic doctor with a focus in eating disorders. We talk about how to identify disordered eating patterns, from anorexia and bulimia to binge eating and just a high-stress relationship around food. We talk about body image, diet culture and restriction, how a focus on food is a way to cope with intense pain and negative emotion, and often healing the eating disorder is just the beginning, and how to seek support. 

We talk re-feeding and how naturopathic medicine can offer the tools and resources to help patients who suffer from high-stress relationships with food and their bodies heal. 

We have both noticed an increase in emotional eating and binge eating in our patients as a result of the pandemic and social distancing measures and we discuss why this might be the case. We also talk about Alexandra's Five Pillars for treating eating disorders and supporting patients through healing their bodies and minds from disordered eating. 

Alexandra is a fellow Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine grad, like myself. She also has an undergraduate degree from my alma mater, Queen's University, which is pretty cool.

She works at the Orenda Clinic in Toronto and has a special interest in using the mind-body connection to support mental wellbeing and a low-stress connection with the way we nourish our bodies. 

Find Alexandra at: 

http://alexandrasisamnd.com/

https://www.theorendaclinic.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasisam.nd/

Good Mood Foundations: taliand.com/good-mood-learn 

When we're deprived of sleep we die. And when we're subtly deprived of sleep, an hour here, an hour there, for nights and nights on end our mental and physical health suffer. 

Dr. Leigha Saunders is a fellow naturopathic doctor with a sleep focus. We talk about the architecture of a good nights' sleep, how sleep disturbances can manifest in someone's lifestyle and how this can affect mood and mental health. 

Dr. Leigha talks about how we can harness lifestyle to repair broken sleep and improve mood, hormones, energy and stave off disease. 

Dr. Leigha Saunders is a naturopathic doctor and the owner and founder of Uxbridge, Ontario’s premiere wellness clinic, True Roots Healthcare. 

She has a special interest in helping busy women gain energy, balance their mood, regulate hormones and sleep deep. 

Her ultimate mission is to women sleep deep at night to do what sets their soul on fire during the day! 

Sleep is so so so important for mental health and so I really wanted to pick Leigha's brain on how she works with sleep to improve the lives of the patients in her practice to provide you with some tips on prioritizing and optimizing sleep. 

You can find Leigha at: 

Her website: https://leighasaundersnd.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drleighasaundersnd/

Good Mood Foundations: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

As first through third year students we were encouraged to support our bodies and minds, as well as experience naturopathic medicine first-hand by seeing an intern. Dr. Dimpi Patel was my first intern when I was a first year student. 

Dimpi was one of the first doorways to my experience with naturopathic medicine. She helped me deal with the thyroid and adrenal dysfunction caused by an extremely intense program and taught me a lot about establishing a doctor patient relationship and the magic of what our medicine offers. 

Fast-forward about 10 years... whoa... and Dimpi is not focusing her practice in Michigan on Highly Sensitive People, helping them support their bodies through functional testing and neural rewiring. 

So before we dive into the interview, what's a Highly Sensitive Person? 

Well, here's a quiz from hsperson.com. 

Maybe keep track of how many times you say "Yes" to the following, and tally your results. 

• I am easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input.


• I seem to be aware of subtleties in my environment.


• Other people’s moods affect me.


• I tend to be very sensitive to pain.


• I find myself needing to withdraw during busy days,into bed or into a darkened room or any place where I can have some privacy and relief from stimulation.


• I am particularly sensitive to the effects of caffeine.


• I am easily overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells,coarse fabrics,or sirens close by.


• I have a rich,complex inner life.


• I am made uncomfortable by loud noises.


• I am deeply moved by the arts or music.


• My nervous system sometimes feels so frazzled that I just have to go off by myself.


• I am conscientious.


• I startle easily.


• I get rattled when I have a lot to do in a short amount of time.


• When people are uncomfortable in a physical environment I tend to know what needs to be done to make it more comfortable (like changing the lighting or the seating).


• I am annoyed when people try to get me to do too many things at once.


• I try hard to avoid making mistakes or forgetting things.


• I make a point to avoid violent movies and TV shows.


• I become unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around me.


• Being very hungry creates a strong reaction in me,disrupting my concentration or mood.


• Changes in my life shake me up.


• I notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art.


• I find it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once.


• I make it a high priority to arrange my life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations.


• I am bothered by intense stimuli, like loud noises or chaotic scenes.


• When I must compete or be observed while performing a task, I become so nervous or shaky that I do much worse than I would otherwise.


• When I was a child, my parents or teachers seemed to see me as sensitive or shy.

How many times did you say yes? According to the quiz, if you scored 14, you might be a highly sensitive person. 

I scored 10 on this test personally, but when I was a kid I might have answered yes to nearly everything. 

Dimpi and I talk about how being an HSP is a superpower and how to support your body and mind in a world that doesn't necessarily support the 30% of us who might identify with being highly sensitive. 

Follow Dr. Dimpi Patel at https://www.troynaturopathic.com/ Instagram: @doctordimpi

This was at the beginning of the global pandemic, a time filled with certainty, misinformation and... for me, at least, some surfing. 

Taylor asked to interview me to talk about some hot topics at the time: vitamin D, viruses, and the immune system. In this convo we also discuss my story: how I got into naturopathic medicine (and all the crazy synchronicities that got me there). 

What is the difference between functional medicine, integrative medicine, homeopathic medicine, nutrition, and naturopathic medicine? 

What does an ND do? 

We also talk my journey to discovering you can surf the lakes and how that's influenced my mental and physical health over the past year. 

I thought this was fitting podcast to share because it highlights some of the background in naturopathic medicine and how I got here. It's also a super fun interview and Taylor is a great host. Her interview was pivotal in inspiring me to create my own podcast. 

Listen up! 

To learn more about Taylor: 

https://anchor.fm/weirdwaves

https://wavebabehair.com/

Instagram:

 https://www.instagram.com/wavebabehair/ 

https://www.instagram.com/weirdwavespodcast/

Several times a month he would receive an email about the state of my friend's menstrual health. "You partner is in her luteal phase. You may want to tread lightly and carry a big stick". 

Well, that's not what the emails said exactly, but it was something to that effect: "During this time in her cycle she may need warm tea, cuddles and chocolate". 

Whenever they'd get into a fight he'd go, "What's the meaning of this? I didn't get an email." 

Have you noticed that, if you're a menstruating person, or transitioning into menopause, there are moments, days or weeks where you're ready to run for Prime Minister (or President), and other weeks you're a puddle on the floor of your closet, trying to figure out what pants to wear? 

When you talk to your doctor you might be prescribed an anti-depressant, told your birth control, peri-menopause or periods have nothing to do with it. And yet, you still suspect that your hormones are playing a role in your mental and emotional health. 

In this episode I talk to Dr. Jordan Robertson, a naturopathic doctor and women's health expert about Feeling Hormonal. What role do hormones play in our mood states and what can we do about them? 

We talk about hormones link to mood, the truth about hormone replacement therapy, how progress is better than programs when it comes to improving lifestyle and nutrition, how your hormones hate restriction, and how to talk to your doctor and seek help for the hormonal mood changes that are so common in those who menstruate. 

Dr. Jordan Robertson is a naturopathic doctor with a practice in Burlington, Ontario. She is owner of Clarity Health, the host and creator of the Women's Health Unplugged podcast, and the CEO of i-Med Research Hub, an online portal for integrative medicine practitioners to hone their research skills and stay up to date on the current knowledge. 

She is the author of the best-selling book on miscarriage "Carrying to Term: How to get tested, stay pregnant and carry a healthy baby to term".

Jordan has lectured across the province for medical doctors and naturopathic doctors and has been a guest on various international podcasts on women’s health. She has a special interest in women’s health, including expertise on PMS, menopause, fertility, PCOS and endometriosis and is the off-site Naturopathic Doctor for the McMaster Hospital Endometriosis Clinic.

You can connect with her:

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjordannd/

Learn more about Clarity Health: https://clarityhealthburlington.ca/

Check out the Women's Health UnPlugged Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/womens-health-unplugged/id1381499307

Learn more about i-Med Research Hub (for practitioners): https://imedresearchhub.com/

Steph is obsessed with Polyvagal Theory, that discusses how our stress response can throw us into fight or flight, but also into shutdown via the vagus nerve. Through stimulating our ventral vagal response, we can enter into the safe and social states that create calm and connected nervous systems and help us heal from trauma or prevent burnout. 

We discuss the concept of safety and how to cultivate it through context, choice and connection (the 3 C's, from the work of Deb Dana). Steph talks about important soothing techniques that can help regulate the vagus nerve. 

We discuss somatic psychotherapy and how sometimes body work, like acupuncture can send important safety signals to the nervous system, calming thoughts and helping us co-regulate. 

We also discuss my new obsession, Attachment Theory, and how that relates to our vagus nerve. 

It's such a fun conversation. Steph is a real ND hippy with a practice in Guelph, Ontario. She is passionate about mental health, social justice, inclusivity, acupuncture.

In addition to being a naturopathic doctor, Stephanie has training as a doula. She has worked with those living with HIV in the LGBTQ community in Toronto. She is also a member of POCA, practices community acupuncture and is registered with Rainbow Health Ontario. 

She has special interest in mental wellness, digestion, trauma, addiction, and LGBTQ health. She believes in increasing accessibility to complementary care using an anti-oppressive and trauma-sensitive approach.  

In this episode we talk trauma, particularly at the end where we mention sexual trauma and violence, so feel free to avoid this episode if you find these topics triggering, or to let go of the episode when they come up at the end. 

I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode: it's a must-listen for anyone who suffers from anxiety, low mood, or who feels on the verge of burnout sometimes. 

So, essentially, all of us. Polyvagal theory and trauma-informed work, as well as somatic forms of psychotherapy are becoming so much more common place and this is a great place to be introduced to these topics in a conversational and accessible way. Steph is so knowledgeable, passionate and approachable. I love chatting with her. I hope you love listening! 

Find Dr. Steph at: 

Her website: https://www.drcordes.com/

Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/drcordesnd/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

The latest guesstimate that Dr. Kim Bretz, naturopathic doctor and gut microbiome guru throws out there: the amount of bacterial cells living in our guts and on our skin.   

We are outnumbered by them, but as Kim says, "thankfully our human cells are bigger so we look like our super-cute selves, otherwise it would be way more creepy".   

Not only do these bacteria take up residence inside of our systems, they influence our bodies in vast ways--from our gut health and digestive systems to our moods to our hormones.   

Dr. Kim Bretz ND is a naturopathic doctor working and living in Waterloo Region. She is a speaker, consultant and adjunct faculty at the University of Waterloo, Pharmacy.  She believes you should be able to eat food without pain.   

She also advocates eating an unrestricted diet full of real food.  She is a passionate international public speaker, having presented to multiple corporations and agencies, and is a guest lecturer for Canadian universities in the areas of health promotion, functional foods and natural health care products. She also runs continuing education for healthcare professionals in the area of the microbiota, strain specific probiotics and gastrointestinal health. 

For 6 years, Kim was part of Human Nature Network, a nationally syndicated radio program though CHUM radio, speaking in the areas of women’s health.  She is a ardent supporter of education and interprofessionalism. Kim taught gastrointestinal physiology and endocrinology at the Canadian College of Massage and Hydrotherapy. 

She teaches a course in Complementary and Alternative Medicine focusing on Interprofessionalism at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo, and has worked with the PIPER program out of McMaster (Program for Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research).  

She has also been involved in the role of clinical lead in a research trial through the University of Guelph with the Spagnuolo Research Lab.  She has spoken or consulted for numerous companies including Thorne, Designs for Health and Rocky Mountain Analytical (LifeLabs). She was on the advisory board for Ferring Pharmaceuticals’ natural health care products and is the past president of the University of Guelph’s College of Biological Science Alumni Association.  

Dr. Kim discusses how our microbiome has changed throughout the course of her career. We talk about how the microbiome can influence mood, from the germ-free mice who have the bacteria from anxious patients implanted in their guts, causing them to experience anxiety (so, is anxiety just about gut bacteria?) to how to care for your gut while still eating the foods you love.   

Kim takes us on a journey through the development of the microbiota research and how we might harness this knowledge to improve our digestive systems and mood.   

I was so excited to talk to her because not only is she incredibly smart and knowledgeable but she is also hilariously funny and brings her dollop of humour to this conversation at nearly every turn.   

You can find Dr. Kim at: 

Her website: https://www.drkimbretznd.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkimbretznd/ 

Learn more about her gut connection program here: https://www.drkimbretznd.com/your-gut-connection

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

They taught me to surf: to find friendship and comfort in the waters of the Great Lakes. I remember driving home from an impromptu surf get-together with a group I'd met through their Lake Surfista Facebook Discussion Page and remember thinking to myself, "Wow, this is happiness". 

Robin Pacquing and Shazia Mazhar talk about how surfing healed them, and how the power of female community has helped to change their lives. 

Lake Surfistas is a Canadian grassroots movement that brings together women of various identities, skills and backgrounds to celebrate water sports: surf, Standup Paddleboarding (SUP) and SUP Surfing on the Great Lakes. 

They aim to empower: build competence and confidence in the women that use these waters for board sports, and promote education, safety, enjoyment and sustainability of these resources. 

Shazia and Robin and I talk the power of community for mental health. Finding passion in movement. How they both got into surfing and their worst wipeout stories. 

I love that in this episode so many names are mentioned, which I think speaks to the power of our interconnectedness in this community and only further emphasizes the work that this organization has done to bring us together, to form friendships and strengthen our love for the lakes. 

To learn more visit the Lake Surfista Website: 

https://www.lakesurfistas.org/

And join the Lake Surfista Discussion Page on Facebook, which now has over 700 members. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lakesurfistas

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Attempts to solve our problems often end up destroying our sense of identity, our personal power and our agency. 

Shame. It's a big topic that has come up in various episodes of this podcast. This podcast's central theme is: how do we remove the obstacles that stand between us and a Good Mood? And really, dismantling shame is one of the main answers. 

Shame's slimy, sticky sludge stands in the way of our personal happiness and our growth. When we feel wronged for who we are, when we feel responsible for our problems, we become powerless. 

Narrative Therapy aims to question the dominant stories we tell about ourselves and others. What are the dangers of a single story? What happens to our psyches, our souls and our sense of self when we come to believe that the problem stories about our lives are not just stories about problems but stories about who we are? 

In this episode, I talk to Mauricio Yabar, a licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Sex Therapist through AASECT (American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counsellors, and Therapists) about narrative therapy and sex. 

We talk about the dangers of the single-story of a psychiatric diagnosis, how many population are marginalized into a single narrative about their past, their lives and their futures and how narrative can help "thicken" subordinate stories about kindness, strength, resilience, and courage. 

Mauricio is currently working on his doctorate in social work at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia where he is particularly interested in the effects of shame and stigma on youth who have committed a sexual offence. 

Mauricio's research involves working directly with these youth and their families, drawing from his background in narrative therapy to repair their damaged identities.

Just a word of warning, we do discuss sexual trauma in this episode so, listen at your own discretion and turn the episode off at any point if you feel that it's safer for you to do so. 

I have always found Narrative Therapy such a beautiful form of psychotherapy. You'll even see our conversation take a Narrative turn. I truly had a wonderful time speaking with Mauricio. I hope you enjoy listening. 

Find Mauricio: 

On his website: https://narrativeconversations.com/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/narrativeconversations_denver/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

The gut-brain connection. 

Our gut is sometimes termed "The Second Brain", connected through one of our cranial nerves, the Vagus Nerve (which is Latin for "Wandering Nerve"). The vagus nerve sends information from brain to gut and back again. 

9 out of 10 of my anxious or depressed patients have something going on downstairs in their guts. Anxiety and stress are often thought to cause IBS. This is why anti-depressants are sometimes prescribed off-label to treat IBS. Dr. David Miller, fellow naturopathic doctor, co-host of That Naturopathic Podcast and self-proclaimed "Gut Gangsta" works a little differently. 

Dr. Dave works from the butt up, taking the stress off our system by soothing gut inflammation, and creating happy tubes, so that we might better deal with the stressors of life. You see, gut issues can also CAUSE mental health issues. It works both ways. 

Dr. Dave and I talk naturopathic medicine in general. We discuss the vagus nerve and its role in depression and anxiety, and how it can optimize digestion. Most of all, we talk about Dave's passion, visceral manipulation and how to "listen with your hands" to correct structural abnormalities in the organs that helps us digest and assimilate the food we eat. 

I keep referring back to this discussion when working with patients. The idea of taking stress off the organs has stuck with me as I approach my mental health cases. And, of course, I've gone back to popping deglycyrrhizinated licorice lozenges (chocolate and coconut flavour) like it's my job. 

And, well... it kind of is, isn't it? 

You can find Dr. David Miller, ND at:

That Naturopathic Podcast: https://www.thatnaturopathicpodcast.com/

His website: https://www.drdavidmillernd.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gutgangsta/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

In today's episode I talk to Melissa Johari, fellow Bloorwest Wellness Practitioner, Registered Social Worker and The Couple Wellness Expert. Melissa is a therapist, focusing on premarital counseling using the Prep-Enrich program. She implements many modalities in her practice including Emotionally Focused Therapy, Resilience in Marriage therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Brief Solution Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Internal Systems Theory, Strengths Perspective, Mindfulness Theory, Psychodynamic Therapy, Anti-Oppressive Practice, Relational Life Therapy, and Hypnotherapy.

She takes a holistic perspective when working with clients, acknowledging the various systems in someone's life: financial, spiritual, physical, emotional, social, vocational, sexual, and environmental, through her Relational Wellness Wheel. When our lives are in harmony, so are our relationships. 

Melissa is also an Allied Mental Health Professional Member with the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and offers supervision work to other therapists. 

In this talk we discuss lots of goodies: the 10 Steps to Resolving Conflict, Attachment Theory and Attachment Styles, The 5 Love Languages, and other frameworks for understanding how to create intentional, fulfilling and loving relationships that allow you and your partner to thrive. 

To learn more about Melissa: 

Her website: https://thecouplewellnessexpert.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/couplewellness/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Sairupa practices in Toronto, at a clinic called Aurum. However for two years she was working in Singapore. 

Her aim is to  support individuals in the rediscovery of their inner wisdom through a non-judgmental, inclusive approach. 

In our conversation we talk the principles of Ayurveda, the 5 elements and 3 constitutions or doshas, how they can impact our health and well-being, and how to tailor our lifestyle practices to suit our individual needs. 

Sairupa talks about the concept of Swasta: being established in oneself or one's body, the key to optimal health. 

This episode is full of wisdom, which is what Ayurveda means: the wisdom of life and the wisdom of vitality. In it you'll learn a bit about your own constitution and how your sleeping, digestion and sexual practices (which are the 3 pillars of health according to Ayurveda), can keep you centred within yourself, living a life of health and vitality. 

Find Dr. Sairupa at:

https://aurummedicine.ca/about/dr-sairupa-krishnamurti-nd/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.sairupa/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

He's passionate about positive social change, equality, and mental health, and has dedicated himself to building stronger communities. He believes in people, global interconnectivity, and positive personal change. 

He's appeared on CBC’s, "The National", and in the documentary, "Three Voices", has an amazing Tedx Talk called "An Uncommon Story of Hope and Redemption" (which I highly recommend watching--it will make you laugh and make you cry). He's spoken at dozens of venues, where he aims to deliver a message of social awareness, social justice, community betterment, and above all, hope.

And that's what our conversation delivers today: hope. Asante and I talk about mental health but specifically, in these times, how anti-racism work is more significant than ever and the work that must be done to change our society. 

Asante shares his story about growing up dealing with poverty and racism at the heart of his personal mental health struggles, and how he aims to be the voice of change and do the hard advocacy work of educating us to see the hidden effects of racism in our society, our culture and our community. 

I highly recommend this talk and am so honoured that Asante agreed to join me on the podcast. I hope you enjoy it too. 

You can learn more about Asante by:

Watching his Tedx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SipgIIf-Ehw

Reading his article "I Shouldn't Have to Say This": https://www.kbiinspires.com/shouldnthavetosay

Following him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/asanteV

Following him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdy.black.guy/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Aglaée's journey, like many of ours, began with trying to fit her body into a certain mould: a particular size and shape under the guise of "health".   

She is the author of the book Digestive Health with Real Food, which helps identify underlying causes of gut conditions.   

Her journey has led her to start to listen to the body as an animal to heal disordered eating patterns within her, and to focus on nourishment: of the body, mind, heart and soul.   

Aglaée and I talk about body awareness, body image, mental health and disordered relationships with food, using food as medicine vs. using food to control our body shape, and how intuitive eating and full embodiment can help us heal and find true, holistic wellness and health.   

Aglaée is also the host and creator of The Nourishing Podcast.   

Find Aglaée at:  

Her website: radicatanutrition.com  

and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radicatanutrition/  

Get a copy of her book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Digestive-Health-Real-Agla%C3%A9e-Jacob/dp/0988717204  

and listen to her podcast The Nourishing Podcast, on all podcast platforms.

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

We talk about Emily's work with empowering patients through body awareness, and having deeper conversations around conventional, potentially shame-inducing treatment goals, like weight loss or dietary changes. 

We talk about how shame might be addressed head-on in a healthcare setting and how we can work towards dismantling oppressive power structures embracing a more inclusive and supportive healthcare model.   

Health is subjective and, as naturopathic doctors who focus on individualized medicine, I believe that the work Emily is doing is important. How we approach the therapeutic encounter can have a major impact on our patients relationships to their bodies and their health experiences.   

I hope you enjoy this episode.   

Find Emily at:  

Website: http://emilybennettnd.ca/ 

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/shamelesslycoping 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dremilybennett/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Mel's MMA career started a few years ago, in 2015. As an amateur she won 5 for 5 fights before turning pro in Fall of last year. As a pro she has won 2 out of 2 fights. Her pro career has been temporarily interrupted due to Covid-19, however she is scheduled to fight again in Fall. 

We talk warrior mindset, how the mind-head-brain complex is the most important component for success as an athlete, and what it takes to train and fight in a cage. 

Mel explains why she disagrees with the phrase "A warrior is never angry." We talk emotions, aggression, our animal instincts, respect, humility and how the warrior path is a way to find oneself and develop as a human being, or human beast. 

A word of warning, there are some swears in this episode, so listen with headphones if at work or if kiddies are around. 

This is a juicy episode where we can really examine the mind of a high-level female athlete in a high-stakes, high-performance sport. 

I'm so proud of Mel and excited to share her with you all. 

You can follow her on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scarecroden/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarecroden/

And you can read her blog: https://crodenm.wixsite.com/melissacroden/blog-1

You can also support her career here: https://makeachamp.com/melissacroden/32978

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

I love seeing teens in my practice. Adolescence is a time where we can really make a big difference as healthcare practitioners, teachers, parents and peers to help shape a teen's experience, creating mental and emotional resilience. This is a time when mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety often surface and modelling emotional intelligence, maturity and mindfulness can have massive impacts on the ways we teach our teens to interact with the world.

In this episode we talk about the teen brain. How teens are in the process of pruning neural synapses in order to streamline their brain, and how parents can help teens through the turbulent times of social media, hyper-emotionality and hyper-rationality to set them up for emotionally intelligent, mentally well adults. 

We talk social media, gist thinking, preserving that emotional "spark", keeping girls cage free and wild, modern day teen stressors that can contribute to the rise of anxiety, and lots and lots of tips for boosting emotional intelligence. 

This episode is a great listen for anyone interested in how our mental health evolves as we move through adolescence and how the skills we learn during this time can set us up for courage, compassion, strength, passion and resilience in our adult years (but it's never too late to learn)!

Find Dr. Erin Tewinkel, ND at: 

Facebook Group: Connecting with Your Teen - The hows, the whys, and the in and outs!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/raisingresilientteenagers/

5 Day Mini-Challenge - Connecting with your Teen

https://bewell41a815.clickfunnels.com/connectionchallenge

Instagram: @drtewinkel

Website: www.erintewinkel.com

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

She incorporates mindfulness into her practice and has participated in a few silence meditation retreats a 30-day retreat in Thailand and a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat.   

We talk about mindfulness, self-compassion, chronic low-grade anxiety and how carrying an umbrella everywhere you go might actually undermine your ability to be happy.  

This is an awesome conversation where we talk medicine, meditation, metal health and more (how's that alliteration for you?). 

Hope you enjoy it!   

Find Dr. Lachlan at: 

Instagram.com/drlachlancrawford_nd 

Facebook.com/drlachlancrawford website: 

www.lachlancrawford.com  

More resources:  

Kristen Neff's work: Selfcompassion.org

*Reference to Schopenhauer in the episode should actually be reference to Albert Schweizer

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Fernando and I talk about psychoneuroimmunology, the social determinants of health, and how your occupation might affect your immune system. He shares his history as a social worker in New York City and in Puerto Rico working in a needle exchange program with homeless youth. We discuss how acupuncture can be a helpful treatment in addictions, how harm reduction is important for empowering change, and how recognizing community needs is the most important factor to delivering care. 

This convo takes us from the weeds of inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 to the expansive feelings of humility and awe. We also learn about Fernando's community project, Proyecto Bohique.

Learn more about it here: https://www.facebook.com/proyectobohique/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Fadiman is the author of the 2011 book “The Psychdelics Explorer’s Guide” where can be credited with presenting the idea of taking a “sub-perceptual” dose of a hallucinogen, like LSD or Psilocybe cubensis “magic” mushrooms, that contain the hallucinogen psilocybin.

A sub-perceptual dose means that, while these substances still exert effects, they don’t produce a noticeable hallucinogenic “high”. While other substances can be used, the most common way to practice micro-dosing is with about 1/10th to 1/20th of a standard “trip dose” of LSD or psilocybin, the two most commonly taken psychedelics.

In this episode I talk to Dr. Amanda Satov, a fellow naturopathic doctor. Amanda became interested in the healing power of psychedelic plant medicines on a trip to the Amazon rainforest of Peru. Her background in culinary arts and her interest in working with patients through transitional periods in their lives, led to her deep dive in the history, science and current research surrounding psychedelic, or entheogenic medicines. 

Dr. Amanda is also a reiki practitioner. She is a fellow Toronto practitioner. 

You can find Dr. Amanda Satov, ND at:

https://www.amandasatov.com/

and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandasatov.nd/

Now, the psychedelic medicines, like psilocybin or LSD, that we talk about in this episode are not currently approved for therapeutic use. Nor are they legal to procure outside of certain exceptions for scientific research. Dr. Amanda and I are having this discussion because we're interested in it and excited about what the future holds for using psychedelics in the realm of mental health, however we are in no way advocating their use outside of a therapeutic encounter. This discussion is for educational purposes only. 

To learn more: 

https://remedycentre.ca/

https://www.fieldtriphealth.com/

https://thethirdwave.co/

https://maps.org/

https://clearskyibogaine.com/ibogaine-toronto/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

We talk about the difference between being plant based and vegan, how nutrition is not about adhering to specific “diets” per se but an ongoing process developing a deep relationship with our individual bodies and food.

Daina and I discuss how diet plays a role in inflammation that lies at the root of chronic pain and other health conditions like depression and anxiety.

We also talk about mindset for dealing with pain and suffering, and how breathing is the cornerstone of not only chronic pain and inflammation but perhaps our entire health.

This is such an interesting conversation, that highlights the fact that no matter what health condition we start with, the journey towards optimal wellbeing involve a variety of factors. However, optimal health is not really a destination, but a process that involves lots of patience, persistence and self-compassion.

I hope you enjoy it!

Dr. Daina’s website: https://www.drdainapatel.com/

Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.dainapatel/

Top 6 Back Pain Exercises for busy and ambitious women: https://download.dainapatel.com/guide

5 Day Better Posture Challenge: https://go.drdainapatel.com/challenge-optin

The Healthy Sisterhood Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheHealthySisterhood/

Whatever the method the goal of biohacking is to tweak health to be the best version of ourselves.

Ivo’s story is interesting. From a young age he was interested in using food to optimize his health. He then applied this interest to enhance his physical fitness and more recently has noticed a profound impact on using various lifestyle techniques to optimize his mood.

Ivo emphasizes first tackling the “low hanging fruit” of diet and lifestyle strategies, stacking them to produce the profound effect of moving from a mild-to-moderate depression, or dysthymia, to a robust and resilient mood state.

We talk diet and exercise, genomic testing, gut microbiome, intermittent fasting, light exposure, BDNF, hormesis and even the use of peptides like oxytocin to boost mood.

Keep in mind of course that none of this episode is meant to replace the one-to-one health advice of a licensed professional and that many of the therapies we talk about: from peptides to psychedelics, to even genetic testing, are not therapies that an Ontario-licensed ND has access to and are discussed for purely educational purposes.

I hope you enjoy this conversation!

Here are some of the links discussed in the episode:

https://selfdecode.com/

https://superhumanradio.net/

https://www.viome.com/

https://seeds.md/epigenetic-test/

https://humancharger.com/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine and Daoism there is a Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) energy present in all things. From the anima and animus of the Jungian psyche, our relationships, the archetypes in Disney's The Lion King, to all of society, we can find a dualistic masculine/feminine nature. 

According to Erica, female burnout and hormonal dysfunction such as hair loss, infertility, acne, and fatigue come in large part to living in a more masculine energetic state. 

It's through reclaiming and embodying the feminine aspects of our being that can allow women to feel energized, connected, creative, balanced and in flow. 

It's important to note at this point that when we talk about masculine/feminine duality we are speaking of something different than gender, or even biological sex. However, Erica's clients are largely cis-gendered, female-identifying, heterosexual women and so most examples will be with this in mind--we can't speak for everyone's experience. However, of course we all have masculine and feminine parts within our beings and our relationships, and this dualism exists on a spectrum. 

This is a fascinating episode that discusses a problem that I have identified in myself, at the heart of many hormonal imbalances in my patients, and that Erica has located as a core feature in the health issues she's worked with in her career. 

I hope you enjoy this dynamic conversation! 

Erica's website: https://www.erica-robinson.com/

Reclaiming Our Sacred Feminine Energy webinar https://www.erica-robinson.com/feminine-energy-opt-in

Her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ericaellerobinson/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Melissa and I recorded this conversation at the midst of the physical distancing measures put in place in our province, Ontario in early April. 

We talk about her Instagram Live channel, Mondays with Mel in which she shares amazing recipe ideas and food inspiration, like dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free ice cream sandwiches. Yes, you heard that right. And they sound delicious. 

Eating well can sometimes be an overwhelming task. Not all of us want to think about food all the time, and so Mel has you covered. She is a baking wizard, and food creationist, coming up with simple, delicious recipes that are packed full of nutrition (and child-tested). 

Listen to this episode if you're looking for some nutritional inspiration, recipe ideas, tips on grocery shopping and meal prep, and want to hear a lame joke about frozen bananas (that one was me, sadly). We also talk Springtime health needs, the lymphatic system and self-care in the age of Covid. 

Enjoy! 

Melissa's website: https://www.melissaieraci.com/

Her Instagram (where you can catch Mondays with Mel live): https://www.instagram.com/melsholistichealth/

My 5-Day Meditation Challenge: http://www.taliand.com/meditation-challenge

Joseph and I talk about the Enneagram of Personality, an ancient personality system that is composed of 9 main core types, subtypes and 3 main instincts. 

This topic is complex and this interview only barely scratches the surface. 

Joseph is a hilarious individual (Enneagram Type 4), and a wealth of information. His website https://www.enneagrammer.com/ contains information that well exceeds the bounds of our 40-minute interview. 

On his site you can take a test to hone in on your core type, instincts and tritype as well as peruse tons of information about the Enneagram as a personality system. 

Joseph also has an amazingly engaging Facebook group where participants can submit collages for typing. https://www.facebook.com/groups/enneagrammeruniverse

Dr. Katie and I talk about the unique issues men experience with their mental health, including some hormonal underpinnings that drive mental health issues in this population.  

We also talk about how to manage anxiety and stress: when is it appropriate to stay with emotions vs. spring into action to manage strong emotions like anxiety and panic? 

Dr.  Katie is working on a book and offers a program to help manage anxiety and stress called the Tranquil Minds program. 

Read her book "Create Calm". 

Visit her site here https://www.tranquilmindnaturopath.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tranquilmindnaturopath/

Her Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tranquilmindsupport

I introduce you to these 5 nutrients, talk about issues around testing and supplementation and describe how they fare in the latest research. 

Studies and sources in order of mention: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26357876

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4915253/

https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(14)00047-X/fulltext

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21939614

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19499625

https://sciencing.com/role-algae-agriculture-8617202.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15671130

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026988110401800415

http://www.taliand.com/2017/11/03/is-your-multivitamin-making-you-sick/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0180067

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26071405

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23377209

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22790678

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26890771

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014976341300078X?via%3Dihub

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24621065

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

As you know I'm super interested in the intersection between our mental health and hormones. Hormones are really cool (as we discuss in these two interviews): they orchestrate how we feel physically and mentally. Our moods are subservient to our hormonal states and learning how to honour these hormones is so important for living in accordance with nature and our body's rhythms. 

We talk about all kinds of juicy topics: self-care (including Anne's awesome Self-Care Grid), the relationship between hormones and mood, what a typical cycle looks like hormonally and how that can influence your mental health, and the affect of the Birth Control Pill on our hormones, moods and mental health (and why it's important to make informed choices when it comes to your body, your brain and your hormones). 

Find Dr. Anne's community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gowiththeflowcommunity

Her Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/dr.annehussain/

And check out her website here: https://www.annehussain.com/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

In this episode, we talk trauma (both with a capital T and lower case t). We talk about how trauma forms in the brain and how that can affect our mental and emotional states, how EMDR works as an evidence-based form or rewiring the traumatized brain, and how healing from trauma may first mean addressing dissociation and internalized parts.  

This is such an informative conversation.  

A WORD OF WARNING, however: we do get into discussing trauma and various forms of physical abuse. So, if you want to avoid these topics, it's best to stay clear of this conversation, or listen to this episode in a calm and neutral place.

You can find Ayan at his website: https://www.ayanrp.com/ 

His Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayan_mukherjee_/ 

And purchase his art on his online Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/market/therapy_illustrated

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

 We talk about society's search of "the perfect image" and how this leads to a breakdown in mental and physical health, and society. 

We talks herbs and dreaming, how Jung and Freud's theories of dreaming differ, and how to connect more deeply with the "fascinating and threatening other", to unify the Self.  

Visit Victor's site here: https://www.victorcironeherbalist.com/

Unlike insulin for type I diabetes, mental health conditions aren't caused by one single factor that a proper diagnosis can help us uncover.  

Instead, they're complicated phenomena that are likely the results of various factors at play.  

My job as a naturopathic doctor is to figure out how these factors work together to help you develop a roadmap to reverse them.