Podcasts about how humans heal

Welcome to How Humans Heal. I'm Dr. Doni Wilson, and today I'm excited to share insights from my conversation with registered dietitian and clinical nutritionist Bonni London. She is founder of London Wellness. With over 30 years of experience in nutrition, Bonni has worked with everyone from elite athletes to hospice patients, specializing in metabolism and that stubborn belly fat we're all trying to understand and address. As a clinical nutritionist myself, it is a pleasure to have this conversation with a colleague and share our combined wisdom with all of you.  We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Bonni: https://londonwellness.net/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program   Try our Pea Protein Shake: https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-pea-protein-shake/    Try our Bone Broth Protein Shake: https://doctordoni.com/product/bone-broth-protein-nutritional-shake/    Try our Daily Recovery Shake: https://doctordoni.com/product/daily-recovery-shake-bone-broth-protein/    Menopause Program with Dr. Doni: https://dv296.infusionsoft.com/app/orderForms/Menopause    Sign up For Dr. Doni's Masterclasses: https://doctordoni.com/masterclasses/    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode I'm excited to introduce you to Deidre Bloomquist. She is a Functional Nutritionist and an expert in toxicity, specifically how toxins impact fertility. She is the owner of Always Growing Wellness, which is a virtual holistic nutrition practice, and she is also the author of the bestselling and award-winning book, Toxic Infertility: Detoxification Solutions to Improve Natural Fertility, which talks about detoxification solutions to improve natural fertility. If you find this information helpful, please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Deidre's website: https://www.always-growing.com/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program    Menopause Program with Dr. Doni: https://dv296.infusionsoft.com/app/orderForms/Menopause    Sign up For Dr. Doni's Masterclasses: https://doctordoni.com/masterclasses/    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

The number of women who are postmenopausal is increasing every year. By 2030, it's estimated that over a billion women around the world will be postmenopausal. That's exactly why in this video I'm going to be talking about menopause—both perimenopause and postmenopause. I believe this topic deserves way more attention, and I want to be part of educating women and being an advocate during the menopause transition, helping them make informed decisions for their health now and into the future. I'm Dr. Doni, host of How Humans Heal and Women's Health expert. I've been helping women with their health, including menopausal symptoms, for over 25 years. I recently completed two additional trainings in helping women through menopause, including a menopause boot camp taught by my mentor and instructor in Women's Health, Dr. Tori Hudson. I want to share information that should be within your reach to help you become better advocates for yourself and make informed decisions going forward. There's so much I want to teach you about menopause—more than I can cover in this one video. Today, I want to talk about the common symptoms and health issues for women to start thinking about and noticing in your bodies so you can understand the experience of menopause for yourself. We're here to help! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/   Sign up For Dr. Doni's Masterclasses: https://doctordoni.com/masterclasses/    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Brad Jacobs, who is board certified in internal medicine and integrative medicine. He is the owner of BlueWave Medicine Clinic in Sausalito, California, and also co-author of the Anti-Inflammation Cookbook. He specializes in psychedelic medicine and a form of therapy called Hakomi. Dr. Brad is now leading in-person retreats in Costa Rica on precision medicine and longevity. We'll be talking about health transformation, longevity, and recovery from trauma by making diet changes to reduce inflammation and using psychedelic medicines. Dr. Brad has been involved with integrative medicine since he was 10 years old. He grew up doing martial arts, and that Chinese upbringing infused him with a different view of how to think about health and healing—not just the treatment of disease but the prevention of disease, thriving and flourishing. I'm so glad Dr. Brad was able to join me on How Humans Heal today to discuss these important topics to help all of you know what is possible for transforming your health and recovering from trauma. We're here to help! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Brad: https://drbradjacobs.com/ & https://www.bluewavemedicine.com/    Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/   Sign up For Dr. Doni's Masterclasses: https://doctordoni.com/masterclasses/    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Are you worried about how high-risk HPV could be affecting your fertility and future pregnancy? In this video, I'm going to be sharing everything you need to know about high-risk HPV and how to protect yourself from HPV-related cancer, and support your fertility and pregnancy at the same time. I'm Dr. Doni Wilson. I am a naturopathic doctor, midwife, and women's health expert with over 25 years of experience. Welcome to the How Humans Heal podcast. Maybe these are some of the questions you have: Is it OK to get pregnant when I'm testing positive for HPV? Is it OK to get pregnant if I have abnormal cells on my Pap smear result? What if I'm already pregnant and then I find out that I have HPV and abnormal cells? What can I do or take during pregnancy and even during breastfeeding to protect myself from high-risk HPV and HPV-related cancer that is safe for my baby? Another common question is: Is it possible to pass the high-risk HPV to my baby either during pregnancy or after? I know how worried you must feel. As a woman, a mom, a grandmother, and a practitioner, I understand what you're going through. And that's exactly why in this video, I'm going to answer all of these common questions and help you to know what you can do to protect yourself, and your baby. We're here to help! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Sign up For Dr. Doni's Masterclasses: https://doctordoni.com/masterclasses/    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode I'm excited to introduce you to Laura DeKraker Lang-Ree. She is a patient advocate, a professional educator for over 30 years, and author of a book to empower parents who are in the process of supporting their child through cancer treatment. It's called "The Cancer Parents Handbook: What Your Oncologist Doesn't Have Time to Tell You." I'm so grateful that Laura is joining me on How Humans Heal to share about her journey that led to writing the book. She didn't write it out of nowhere - she wrote it because she went through it herself. Her daughter had childhood leukemia at age three. That's huge to have gone through the cancer treatment process and come out the other side saying "I want to help others by writing the book I needed when I was in the process of helping my daughter." Navigating the treatment process can be so stressful. The medical team is phenomenal at the treatment side, but they don't have time to explain everything parents need to know about managing daily life, supporting their child's wellbeing, and maintaining their own health through the process. This book aims to provide that missing piece - the information parents desperately need but doctors don't have time to share. The impact of cancer treatment goes far beyond the medical aspects. It affects the whole family - parents, siblings, and extended family members. It changes routines, challenges relationships, and forces families to develop new ways of coping and supporting each other. Laura's book addresses all these aspects, providing practical guidance for navigating both the medical journey and the profound personal transformation that comes with it. I've very proud to have contributed to the Cancer Parent's Handbook with insights as a naturopathic doctor, and as Laura's doctor (with her permission to share). We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Order Laura's book: https://cancerparentshandbook.com/     Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/    Sign up For Dr. Doni's Free Masterclass: https://drdoni.lpages.co/menopause-masterclass/     Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode, I'm looking forward to introducing you to Dr. Jenn Simmons. She is a breast surgeon who turned into an integrative oncologist, now specializing in helping women identify breast cancer early and prevent breast cancer from happening in the first place. She has opened two QT breast imaging centers and is preparing to open more of them to help women in this effort to reduce breast cancer nationwide and even worldwide. Dr. Simmons is also author of "The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer." The book, as Dr. Simmons explains, is not just for women with breast cancer - it's necessary reading for every woman. In fact, she's considering publishing the same book without the pathology report explanations, perhaps titled "The Breast Owner's Guide," because the information is so vital for all women. She's already started working on her second book, showing her commitment to spreading this essential knowledge to as many women as possible. Dr. Simmons' approach represents a paradigm shift in how we think about breast health and cancer prevention. Her work combines the precision of conventional medicine with the holistic understanding of integrative healthcare, creating a comprehensive approach that addresses both the immediate concerns of breast cancer and the underlying factors that contribute to its development. The work she's doing is revolutionary in many ways, especially in terms of how we approach breast cancer screening and prevention. By opening QT breast imaging centers and writing educational materials, she's creating accessibility to better healthcare options that weren't previously available to most women. Her centers provide a more comfortable, less invasive, and potentially more effective way to screen for breast cancer, while her educational materials help women understand how to take control of their breast health proactively. I'm so proud to be sharing her work here on How Humans Heal. LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Jenn: www.realhealthmd.com    Sign up for Dr. Doni's HPV Workshop:    Sign up For Dr. Doni's Free Masterclass: https://drdoni.lpages.co/menopause-masterclass/     Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Betty Murray, women's health expert and researcher, as well as founder of a functional medicine clinic in Dallas, TX. She also runs a telemedicine clinic called Menrva where she helps women master menopause. She has a podcast, a TV show coming out, and a program specifically focused on helping women with menopause. I invited Dr. Murray to join me on How Humans Heal because I want you, the listeners, to have the latest, greatest information about menopause, hormone replacement, and metabolism so you can be making the informed decisions for your health care now, without having to wait for that info to be integrated into standard medical care. Dr. Murray's research is related to the microbiome and metabolism of women in menopause. In her research she was able to solve the mystery of why weight gain happens, and how to prevent it. When asked what got her started with this focus area, she shared that her passion about helping women with menopause started with experiencing it herself. As a clinical nutritionist, she become immersed in understanding the changes women experience and what can be done to address them without causing other issues. Dr. Murray believes women deserve so much more support during the menopause transition, and that is what drives her to be so outspoken about what is possible and what is not being offered in the standard of care. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Murray: https://www.bettymurray.com/    Connect with Dr. Murray: https://gethormonesnow.com/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program    Sign up For Dr. Doni's Free Masterclass: https://drdoni.lpages.co/menopause-masterclass/     Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today I'm delighted to welcome my friend and colleague Dr. Tom Moorcroft, osteopathic doctor, who has become America's leading Lyme recovery expert and the creator of the innovative Samara Method. Dr. Tom recovered from Lyme disease himself, but not through the conventional medical system. He shares his health journey and the remarkable insights he gained through the process in this interview. Thank you all for joining me for this fascinating discussion with Dr. Tom Moorcroft. If you find this information helpful, please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Tom's Program: https://smpl.ro/al/su4zkP3koWp3Qn8fkdGJ4n4W/53926-Dr-Doni-Wilson    Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today I'm excited to introduce you to my friend and colleague Dr. John Neustadt, a naturopathic doctor and graduate of Bastyr University. He's an expert in bone health and prevention of osteoporosis, as well as a researcher, speaker, and author of the book "Fracture Proof Your Bones: A Comprehensive Guide to Osteoporosis." While we often think of osteoporosis as primarily affecting women during perimenopause and post-menopause, it's important to note that about 80% of osteoporosis cases are in women and 20% in men. Like many chronic diseases, the condition progresses for many years before receiving a diagnosis. Research shows that approximately 70% of women 50 years and older have some bone loss, and this might be an underestimate considering the many commonly prescribed medications, such as antidepressants and acid-blocking medications, that can damage bone health even earlier in life. If you have osteoporosis and fracture a hip, there's up to a 65% chance of death within a year. However, it's important to understand that while serious, this isn't an emergency. There's time to educate yourself and create a holistic bone health plan. I'm so glad to be able to connect with John and be able to bring a natural and holistic solution to my patients and listeners who are wanting to prevent osteoporosis and fractures. If you found this information helpful, please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Links for the episode: https://doctordoni.com/product/osteo-k-minis-120-vegcaps/  and: https://doctordoni.com/product/osteo-mk4-60-capsules/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Hi and welcome to How Humans Heal! I'm Dr. Doni Wilson, and I'm excited to introduce you to Justin Finneman. He is a CBD and CBG (cannabinoid) expert and president of sales for Küribl Clinical, joining us here today to help us understand cannabis, hemp, CBD, their health benefits, and everything related to these fascinating compounds. Justin is also a father and lover of health optimization in general. He's helped practitioners run their clinics, giving him extensive background in both clinical experience and expertise with hemp, cannabis, CBD, and CBG. He has especially found cannabinoids to be an effective alternative for pain and anxiety. Thank you all for joining me for this fascinating discussion about CBD, CBG, and their potential health benefits. If you found this information helpful, please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of How Humans Heal.   We're here to help you!  LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   CBD Link: https://doctordoni.com/product/cbd-1500mg-cinnamon-oil-tincture-1-oz/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Yvonne Karney. She's a traditionally trained gynecologist who realized she needed more tools to be able to serve her patients better. Dr. Karney transitioned into offering integrative care to her patients and has now gone into offering a new form of breast imaging for women called a QT scan. When it comes to breast health, the earlier we can identify an issue, the better. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer women experience. Mammograms have been used for screening imaging for over 50 years, but they are associated with risks. Has technology not advanced beyond that? The field of women's health is constantly evolving, and it's crucial that we stay informed about the latest advancements, which is exactly why I asked Dr. Karney to come talk to us at How Humans Heal today about QT imaging. Thank you all for listening. Please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. I'll see you then!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Yvonne: https://vitalityrenewal.org/breast-imaging/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program   Join Dr. Doni's Get Rid Of HPV Workshop: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-workshop    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Hi and welcome to How Humans Heal. Today I'm excited to introduce you to my friend Jennifer Joy Jimenez, who is the creator of Transcendance™. Jennifer is also the visionary founder and director of the health and well-being division of the Brave Thinking Institute. I'm thrilled to have her join us today to talk about Transcendance, which I think is such a brilliant use of dance for healing. It's so needed in the world.   Ever since Jennifer and I met, we started realizing that we both love dance. When she told me about Transcendance, I thought it was such an amazing concept. I'm excited for Jennifer tell us more about it  LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Join TranscenDance™ Facilitator Training: https://go.lifemasteryinstitute.com/z/?p=DRDONI&w=HW_TFT_DrDoni    Join TranscenDance™ Body Vitality Program: https://go.lifemasteryinstitute.com/z/?p=DRDONI&w=HW_TDBV_DrDoni    Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today's episode I interviewed Dr. Robert Whitfield. He is an expert plastic surgeon who's helped thousands of women with explant surgery for breast implant illness.     Dr. Whitfield is the author of the book "SHARP: Strategic Holistic Accelerated Recovery Program" as well as the host of the podcast "Breast Implant Illness." I'm really glad he's here today to share with us his expertise in this area.    Empowering people with knowledge about their condition and the recovery process is crucial for successful outcomes. People who understand what's happening in their bodies and why certain treatments are recommended are more likely to stick with a protocol and achieve better results.     If you have breast implants, and you're wondering what to do, please know that I have helped dozens of women through the process of preparing for explant surgery, and the subsequent detoxification and recovery that comes after the surgery. I am happy to guide you through the process so that you can reclaim your health.    Thank you again so much for joining us, Dr. Whitfield. And thank you everyone for joining us here at How Humans Heal. Please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. I'll see you soon!  LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Whitfield: https://www.drrobertwhitfield.com/    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today I'm really looking forward to introducing you to Dr. Monisha Bhanote. She is the bestselling author of "The Anatomy of Well-Being" and she also is a quintuple medical board certified in integrative medicine, culinary medicine, as well as cytopathology and clinical pathology.   A pathologist literally studies human cells. And Dr. Bhanote now specializes in helping people improve longevity by taking care of their cells!   Longevity and cell health is a topic that is increasingly relevant in our modern world, where we're constantly seeking ways to improve our health and extend our lifespan.   Thank you so much, Dr. Bhanote for sharing your brilliance and your work. And thank you all for joining us today on How Humans Heal. I hope you found this conversation with Dr. Monisha Bhanote as inspiring and informative as I did.   Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Until next time, take care of yourselves, and remember to listen to what your cells are telling you. I look forward to connecting with all of you very soon.   We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Get Dr. Bhanote's Book: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Dr-Monisha-Bhanote/dp/1544534558    Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

You know how you've been wanting to clear the high-risk HPV virus, and you've done all this research, but you still have so many questions?   Things you're not sure about, like: What are the best supplements to take? What diet changes to make? Why is this happening to me in the first place? These are all real concerns when you're dealing with a powerful virus like HPV and wanting to win your body back and prevent cancer from happening, right?   Well, I'm Dr. Doni, and I've helped over 5,000 women clear the HPV virus so it doesn't come back and to prevent cervical cancer. If you want to learn how to get rid of HPV I encourage you to sign up for my next FREE Heal HPV Workshop where I'll guide you to create your action plan to clear HPV. You can save your spot here.   You can also go to doctordoni.com or hpv.doctordoni.com. There, you'll find lots of resources and stories from women I've worked with. You can see that this approach really works, and it can work for you too. Or You can set up a one-on-one appointment here.   Remember, your health is in your hands. By making informed choices you can significantly impact your health and well-being.   I'm so glad you found me and that you joined me here today. Please make sure you subscribe and join so that you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. I look forward to connecting with you very soon.   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Get the HPV Recovery Guide: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-guide    Sign Up For The HPV Worldwide Workshop: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-workshop       Join Dr. Doni's Kickstart Program: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-kickstart-program   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Welcome to How Humans Heal. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Claudia Muehlenweg, the founder of the Naturally Clear Vision Institute. Claudia specializes in helping people improve their eyesight naturally. She joins us today from Germany, but she helps people from around the world with their vision. Claudia's work is fascinating because it challenges many of our assumptions about eye health and offers hope for those struggling with vision problems. Remember, when it comes to our health, we have more control than we often realize. By taking small steps every day, like practicing conscious blinking, giving our eyes regular rest through palming, and being mindful of our overall stress levels, we can make a significant difference in our vision and overall well-being. Thank you all for listening in. Please make sure you subscribe to join me for the next episode of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you! FOR YOUR VISION:   Challenge sign up: https://dwilsonncv--holisticvision.thrivecart.com/naturally-clear-vision-2024/63b460a68b448/    Webinar sign up: https://dwilsonncv--holisticvision.thrivecart.com/naturally-clear-vision-2024/63b4607f8b447/    Affiliate link for sales: https://dwilsonncv--holisticvision.thrivecart.com/naturally-clear-vision-2024/    Sales page: https://dwilsonncv--holisticvision.thrivecart.com/naturally-clear-vision-2024/6408cf00565ed/    LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Sign Up For The HPV Worldwide Workshop: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-workshop       Join Dr. Doni's Kickstart Program: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-kickstart-program   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today's episode of How Humans Heal, I'm going to be talking about the difference between folate and folic acid. I believe this is important for everyone to understand, but especially for those of you who are testing positive for HPV and are at risk of cervical cancer.  The reason I say this is because there are so many research studies connecting the dots between folate deficiency and increased risk of cervical cancer. These studies have been coming out for over two decades, and I'll share some in the references.  One study showed that for every 1 mcg of folate in a person's diet, there is a 1% decrease risk cervical cancer! That's amazing!  I believe this should be the first thing your doctor tells you about when they inform you that you're testing positive for HPV: to make sure you're getting enough folate. Unfortunately, it's still not well known and not discussed in the doctor's office, which is why I'm so glad you're finding this episode. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Sign Up For The HPV Worldwide Workshop: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-workshop       Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Mamak Shakib. She is a rehab clinician, which means that she helps people with movement and stability in their bodies, especially people with hypermobility and pelvic floor dysfunction. She specializes in hypermobility syndromes like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I'm so glad to bring her expertise and insights to How Humans Heal. This is a very interesting conversation for me because I diagnosed myself with hypermobility syndrome after years of suffering from migraines and various other symptoms. So, if you're experiencing hypermobility that you already know of, or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), or other related syndromes, or if you simply are having pain including pelvic pain or pelvic floor issues, this episode is going to be really helpful for you.   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Mamak: https://corepelvicfloortherapy.com/irvine-pelvic-floor-dr-mamak-shakib/    Sign Up For The HPV Worldwide Workshop: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-workshop       Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today we're going to cover a crucial topic that often goes unnoticed: how sugar and imbalanced blood sugar levels could be impacting your health and increasing your risk of high-risk HPV virus and associated cancers.  This is an underlying cause that's frequently missed in my patients and program participants, so I want to cover it in detail in this episode. Understanding the relationship between sugar, blood sugar levels, and your overall health is essential for maintaining wellness and preventing various health issues. Remember, your health is in your hands. By making informed choices about your diet and lifestyle, you can significantly impact your health and well-being. Thank you for joining me today on How Humans Heal and please subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. I look forward to seeing you then. We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Join Dr. Doni's Kickstart Program: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-kickstart-program       Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Tanya Paynter. She's a Naturopathic Doctor, like me! We both went to Bastyr University in the Seattle area. In this episode, we are talking about migraines. There is so much we can do to help those of you who are experiencing migraines and wanting to solve them once and for all. This is a really important topic to me because I also suffered from migraines for many years. I'm so grateful now to have solved them and to have learned so much from the process. I'm really happy to have this conversation with Dr. Tanya because I know how life-changing it can be to find relief from chronic migraines. Migraines are more than just headaches. They can be debilitating and affect every aspect of a person's life. That's why it's so crucial to address them properly and find lasting solutions. In our discussion today, we'll explore various aspects of migraines, from their causes to treatment options, and most importantly, how to prevent them from occurring in the first place. Thank you all for listening to this episode of How Humans Heal. Please reach out if you have any other questions about how we can help with migraines. And please like and subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. Remember, healing is possible, and you deserve to live a life free from the burden of chronic migraines. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Dr. Tanya: https://www.psalmmedical.com/a/2147885347/7iasV3Kc    Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/      Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Could the chronic stress we carry around be making us more vulnerable to HPV?  Today, I sat down with Dr. Doni Wilson, a superstar in naturopathic medicine, to unravel the link between stress, cortisol, and our immune systems. An HPV diagnosis can feel like a heavy burden, with standard advice to 'wait it out' feeling flat. We explore why traditional treatments like LEAP procedures often fall short and dive into proactive, natural strategies to help your body clear the virus. We also delve into how stress impacts everything from digestion to libido, revealing how chronic stress disrupts gut and vaginal microbiomes, making you more prone to infections. Dr. Donnie and I share practical tips to break the stress-libido cycle, from dietary tweaks to activities that boost oxytocin, the body's anti-stress hormone.  We cover: 00:38 What to do when you get an HPV diagnosis 06:15 Should women get tested for HPV? 08:32 Should MEN get tested for HPV? 11:38 What makes a dormant HPV suddenly manifest? 15:22 How to recover from vicious cycles of stress? 20:13 Where to learn more Stay classy and sexy. Slip into something comfortable, and listen to the episode now.

In today's episode, I'm talking about the relationship of stress to risk of HPV and cervical cancer, as well as other HPV-related cancers in women and men. There's recent research that I think all of you need to know about, and it ultimately relates to so many other health issues and cancer risk as well. I'm going to be specifically talking about the research showing an association between stress and HPV-related cancer risk.  So please know that this information is here for you, and you can reach out anytime, and I'm happy to help guide you. I welcome you to subscribe if you haven't already so you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Join The 12 Week Program: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/hpv-12week-program      Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

Today I have the honor of interviewing Karena Dawn. She is not only the founder of The Big Silence Foundation, which is bringing awareness to solutions for mental health issues, she is also the co-founder of Tone It Up, meaning she is a fitness expert and has been for many years. Karena is a New York Times best-selling author and a dog lover. In this episode we talk about her most recent book, The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing. It's really fun to get to talk to each other and realize we have such common passions for helping people by breaking the silence around mental health issues. Karena is so vulnerable about sharing her story and what brings her to this work. Everything she has created is out of a passion to help other people so they don't have to go through such struggles. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of How Humans Heal. Please subscribe if you haven't already, so you don't miss the next episode. And I look forward to connecting with all of you again very soon. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect with Karena: https://karenadawn.com/    Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/      Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

Hi and welcome to How Humans Heal. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about three of the top susceptibilities for testing positive for HPV or Human Papillomavirus, and being at risk of abnormal cells. It's not just about exposure to the virus. Most all of us are exposed. It's all about understanding what is making you susceptible to HPV at this point in time. When I guide women to address what is making them susceptible, they are able to clear the virus. Thank you for joining me today and make sure to subscribe to How Humans Heal so you don't miss my next video, where I'm going to go into three more susceptibilities to HPV that I do not want you to miss. We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Join Dr. Doni's “Say Goodbye To HPV”  Program: https://hpv.doctordoni.com/hpv/checkout-12week-program      Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

Hi and welcome to How Humans Heal. I'm Dr. Doni Wilson, and today I'm excited to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Dr. Elisa Song. She is an integrative pediatrician who specializes in helping children and families. She trained as a medical doctor at Stanford and UCSF and then became an integrative practitioner. She has helped so many people with her website and her book, both called Healthy Kids, Happy Kids. From an early age Dr. Elisa knew she wanted to work with kids. She was planning to be a public policy children's rights advocate and went along the whole path until somewhere in her junior year, she saw a flyer for the American Holistic Medical Association conference. This is before it was really called Holistic Medicine; it was called Alternative Medicine. She drove down to the Santa Clara Convention Center, and her mind was blown. She realized she wanted to help people using natural approaches. She chose to become an MD, and then integrate preventive care into her practice. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of How Humans Heal. Please subscribe if you haven't already, so you don't miss the next episode. And I look forward to connecting with all of you again very soon. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Check out Dr. Song's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Kids-Happy-Integrative-Pediatricians/dp/0358751179 :    Join Dr. Doni's Leaky Gut Program: https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program     Take Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/    Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Welcome to How Humans Heal. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about the truths associated with the HPV virus, human papillomavirus. I'm going to be highlighting 3 main truths that I feel everyone should definitely know, but I'll actually be sharing more than three.If you would like more help, I welcome you to join me at the next Heal HPV workshop. I'll put the link down below, and you can find it on my website. You can join for free from anywhere in the world, so you can learn more about the myths and truths about HPV and how you can clear it. You can clear it - I see it over and over, every day, with the women and men that I work with. You do not have to wait and see if it gets worse. This is the third truth I really want to share with you: you do not have to wait and see if it gets worse. Most practitioners will have you on the "wait and see" plan, and I'm here to say, you do not have to be on the "wait and see" plan. You can be on the "take action now and clear the virus" plan, and that's what you're going to find on my website, including in my "Say Goodbye to HPV" program and the services I offer with my team. Thanks again for joining me for How Humans Heal. I look forward to connecting with you in the next episode. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review and a comment if you'd like. I'd love to hear from you. Please know that my mission at How Humans Heal is to help you get the information that's out there that you need and deserve to heal, whether it's from HPV or any other health issue that you've been struggling with and not getting enough help with. I'll see you in the next episode.   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Join The 12-Week Say Goodbye To HPV Program: https://doctordoni.com/hpv-12-week   Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode, I'm glad to introduce you to Dr. Diane Mueller. We're going to be talking about Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and complex chronic illness in general. For those dealing with chronic symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and pain, and feeling like you're searching everywhere, trying everything, and not getting better, this is exactly the conversation to help you. Dr. Diane is a naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist who has been practicing for many years. She's written several books, including "It's Not All in Your Mind." Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of How Humans Heal. Please subscribe if you haven't already, so you don't miss the next episode. And I look forward to connecting with all of you again very soon. We're here to help you!   LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Check Out Dr. Diane's book: https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-Your-Mind-Strategies-ebook/dp/B0BRBJXNV7    Visit Dr. Diane's website: : https://platinumself.circle.so/checkout/be-your-own-doctor?affiliate_code=214c2a     Sign Up For Your 14-Day Detox: https://doctordoni.com/detox-program     Schedule A Chat With Dr. Doni: https://intakeq.com/new/hhsnib/vuaovx    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today's episode I'm really excited to introduce you to Dr. Srini Pillay. He is the Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of Reulay, a digital therapeutics company. As a Harvard trained psychiatrist and author of “Tinker Dabble Doodle Try”, he is known for pushing boundaries and looking at mental healthcare differently. I have a longstanding interest in researching and writing about the effects of stress on humans, and how we can help people recover from those effects. The conventional medical system often focuses on pharmaceuticals, but more people want other ways to help themselves navigate life stresses and experience wellness. This is why I'm excited to speak with Dr. Pillay. As both a psychiatrist and a person, he also looks at things differently to promote healing and offer guidance navigating our inner world. To learn more from Dr. Pillay, check out his book and the VR experience he helped create. If you enjoyed this, our 200th episode of How Humans Heal, please subscribe and post a review. We'd love to have you to continue to join us for future episodes. We plan to continue to share healing information to help transform human's health now and into the future. LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Connect With Dr. Pillay: https://drsrinipillay.com/    Sign Up For The HPV Workshop: https://doctordoni.com/HPV-workshop    Set Up A Call With Dr. Doni: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode I cover naturopathic treatment for HPV virus. There are over 150 different strains of the HPV virus but I'm particularly interested in the high risk strains associated with cancer risk – cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancer for women, as well as oral and penile cancer for men. More and more women are finding out they are testing positive for high risk HPV. My work is to help those women go from fear to empowered that they can follow an effective strategy to get HPV to negative and prevent HPV-related cancer.  We need a comprehensive treatment protocol - not just one diet change or mushroom extract. We must fully address imbalances that are leaving you susceptible and transform your health physically, emotionally and energetically. I created a training for practitioners to teach them how to use this protocol so we can reduce HPV-related cancers worldwide. I hope this has been helpful. Please reach out with questions or if you'd like help addressing HPV personally or for loved ones. You can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV Program to implement my protocol. You can also set up a one-on-one appointment here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/   Please subscribe to my newsletter and to this podcast so you are sure to hear the very next episode of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you! LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   Set Up A Call: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/    HPV Program: https://doctordoni.com/hpv-12-week      Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode I cover 5 most common myths when it comes to HPV or human papilloma virus. As a doctor, midwife and clinical nutritionist, I want to take a stand and be part of changing women's healthcare in order to prevent HPV-related cancers, which are actually increasing worldwide. It is absolutely outdated how the Western medical system handles HPV. Women turn to doctors hoping for solutions, only to be told to "wait and see" if it progresses to cancer or just get invasive surgical procedures which don't kill the virus. You deserve trained guidance in clearing HPV without fear, shame or confusion. I've made it my life's purpose to offer women that guidance. That's why I make this the focus of my practice and my business, to be able to give you a place, a safe space and place where you can access help, you can access information and resources, and you can implement it so that you also can break free of these myths and break free of HPV. You are not alone, and you absolutely can get your life back. If you would like to learn more about my approach to getting rid of HPV I encourage you to sign up for the Heal HPV Worldwide Workshop here. If you are ready to get rid of this virus right away, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12 Week Program here where we go into depth about all the common susceptibilities I find, and how to effectively address them. Please subscribe to my newsletter and to this podcast so you are sure to hear the very next episode of How Humans Heal. We're here to help you. LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   HPV 12 Week Program: https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/    HPV Worldwide Workshop: https://drdoni.lpages.co/heal-hpv-worldwide-workshop/    Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode of How Humans Heal, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Romie Mushtaq. She is a board certified neurologist and she specializes in understanding how stress affects us, especially in the workplace. Dr. Romie has studied over 17,000 people and found that one of the common patterns is what she refers to as the “Busy Brain.” In fact, now she has written a book called The Busy Brain Cure, the eight week plan to find focus, tame anxiety, and sleep again. I enjoy talking with Dr. Romie about stress and how it affects us because, as many of you know, I've been studying the effects of stress for over 20 years. So you can imagine how excited I am to have Dr. Romie here with us today. . LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   The Busy Brain Cure book: https://drromie.com/book/   Dr. Doni's Stress Type Quiz: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/   Read the full episode notes and find more information: https://doctordoni.com/blog/podcasts/ MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode I'm going to be talking about HPV or human papilloma virus and how it is that toxins and toxin exposure are making you susceptible to this virus. Most times when we hear about the HPV virus, we hear about how to prevent exposure to the virus. Yes, there are many types of HPV virus that we're exposed to through sexual activity. However, studies show that most all of us are exposed to this virus at some point in our lives. The important focus, I find, is to look at what's making us susceptible to the HPV virus so that we can take steps to protect ourselves and prevent the associated cancer risk. So tune in as we go through: * Exposure to HPV * Toxins That Can Increase Susceptibility to HPV * How Toxins Disrupt the Body * The Role of Detoxification * The Risks of Detoxifying Without Expert Guidance * Keys to an Effective Detox I encourage you to think about detoxing in a way that encompasses physical, emotional and energetic levels - getting toxins out while preventing new ones coming in. The 14-Day Detox Program I develop guides you through effective detox step-by-step. Patients who complete this program are able to resolve HPV and get it to test negative faster than those who don't follow the detox program. It is absolutely possible to detoxify safely and effectively so your digestion, hormones, immune system and nutrient levels can come back to optimal. It is best to work with an expert who can guide you to get the benefits from a detox, without you feeling worse. Then you'll be better able to protect yourself against viruses like HPV. I'm so glad you joined me today! Please subscribe to my newsletter and to this podcast so you are sure to hear the very next episode of How Humans Heal. LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:   14-Day Detox Program https://doctordoni.com/detox-program    Detox Masterclass https://doctordoni.com/detox-masterclass    Heal HPV Worldwide Workshop https://doctordoni.com/hpv-workshop    Say Goodbye to HPV Program https://doctordoni.com/hpv-12-week  MORE RESOURCES FROM DR. DONI:   Quick links to social media, free guides and programs, and more: https://doctordoni.com/links     Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today's episode I want to talk about the three most common nutrient deficiencies that I find in my patients who have HPV virus testing positive. Testing positive for HPV is becoming increasingly common, so this information is important for everyone to protect themselves. So, tune in as we go through: · HPV Testing and Abnormal Cell Development · Why Nutrient Deficiencies Make You Susceptible · Most Common Nutrient Deficiencies in Patients with HPV · How to Identify and Solve for: Protein Deficiency, Iron Deficiency and Vitamin D Deficiency HPV Testing and Abnormal Cell Development More and more women are being tested for HPV and finding out they test positive. They then often have to go through various invasive procedures to check for abnormal or even cancerous cell development. In conventional medicine, the only solution is to remove any abnormal cells, but they can't stop the virus from causing recurrent abnormalities. This is why I research how to help women stop this cycle and avoid HPV-related health issues. Men can also have HPV and related cancers, but currently there is no screening for them. So men, this applies to you too - pay attention to nutrients that make you susceptible. When I review complex cases of women with recurring abnormalities over decades, I look for why this virus persists. Often there are key nutrient deficiencies making them continually susceptible. Addressing deficiencies empowers the immune system and protects cells, stopping the cycle. Deficiencies don't show on standard bloodwork, but show in neurotransmitter imbalances and recurrent viral infections and abnormalities. Restoring nutrients strengthens the body to clear infections itself. The first deficiency I find over and over is a lack of protein in the diet. We focus on getting healthy carbs and fats, but protein often lacks. You need protein with every meal, at least 30g 3 times a day or 20g 4 times a day. Reasons Protein Deficiency Increase HPV Susceptibility: 1. Without adequate protein and amino acids, we can't make sufficient neurotransmitters to manage stress, which suppresses the immune system. 2. Building a healthy immune system itself requires plenty of amino acids from protein. How to Identify Protein Deficiency: 1. Track your diet and calculate daily protein intake. Shoot for at least 0.36g per pound of body weight. 2. Low neurotransmitter levels on a urinary neurotransmiiter test can indicate protein/amino acid deficiency. This requires specialized testing. 3. Bloodwork won't show low protein until you are seriously deficient with a major health condition. Restore Protein Levels: Calculate your needs and include protein at every meal from sources like chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, protein powder, etc. Those on plant-based diets should especially ensure adequate protein intake. The second nutrient I commonly find deficient is iron. Even those without anemia can still have insufficient iron stores. Measuring ferritin specifically shows your iron levels. Ferritin below 50, especially below 30, is too low. Those with heavy menstrual bleeding are at high risk of low iron. Iron'sRoles: 1. Making red blood cells to carry oxygen for cellular health 2. Supporting immune function 3. Protecting cells Restoring iron levels helps the body regain control over HPV. Those on plant-based diets often lack sufficient iron as well. Be sure to identify non-heme iron sources and intake levels to avoid this deficiency. The third common deficiency I see is vitamin D. Many people, especially those living further from the equator with less sun exposure, become deficient in vitamin D. Some absorb or store vitamin D more effectively than others based on genetic factors, so individual testing is important. Vitamin D is critical for: 1. Bone health 2. Immune function 3. Preventing many types of cancers Make sure to get your vitamin D levels tested. If low, increase sensible sun exposure when possible and supplement based on your individual needs. Retest levels regularly to ensure sufficiency. I encourage everyone to evaluate whether you are getting sufficient protein, iron and vitamin D based on your individual health, genetics, and lifestyle factors. Prioritize restoring any identified deficiencies, as this provides the nutritional foundation to overcome viruses like HPV instead of just treating secondary symptoms. I look forward to your questions and comments and I definitely encourage you to subscribe and join me for the next episode of How Humans Heal so you don't miss new updates and topic discussions related to overcoming frustrating infections like HPV. If you would like to learn more about how I can help you fend off this virus for good I encourage you to watch my HPV Masterclass here. I will also be hosting a live HPV Workshop soon. You can learn more about it here. If you are ready to get rid of this virus right away, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12 Week Program here where we go into depth about all the common susceptibilities I find, and how to effectively address them. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode, I discuss the profound healing power of gratitude while providing practical, evidence-based guidance on how you can cultivate it daily, even in the these modern stressful times. I am a burnout expert and I can guide you to recover from stress while in that mix of stress, and that's one of the key differences about what I teach and what I help my patients to do when I help them to recover from whatever health issue they're experiencing. Understanding Stress and Its Impact on Health The various sources of stress we're exposed to—emotional, physical toxins as stresses, infections and injuries—cause the symptoms and health issues we experience. So the best way to reverse those health issues is to reverse the impact of stress. To do that, we first need to understand how stress is affecting you uniquely. For this, we need to first fond out your stress type. I developed a quiz called the Stress Type Quiz. I'll put the link so you can take that in case you haven't already discovered your stress type. By knowing your stress type, we can understand how stress is impacting your cortisol and adrenaline levels, which are the stress hormones made by the adrenal glands. Understanding how stress has disrupted your cortisol and adrenaline, we have one key piece of the puzzle of solving the impact of stress on your system and how we can then optimize cortisol and adrenaline to get you recovered from stress even if you are still of course—most all of us are still in the midst of stress day in and day out because we're humans, and humans are exposed to stress constantly. Stress is inevitable, but recovering from it is possible. It's not about avoiding all the stress; it's about helping us to recover from stress. But we have to individualize your approach to recovery from stress based on exactly how stress has caused imbalances in your body, mind, nervous system and so on. Understanding each person's unique stress response is key. Stress causes imbalances in our cortisol levels. And when you have imbalanced cortisol, that's what ends up causing the health issues, and we know that when people have optimal cortisol levels they live longer because they have less health issues. So we all should be aiming for optimal cortisol levels. The Healing Power of Gratitude Where does gratitude come into play with this? The way I think about gratitude is it's one of the tools we can use to help us recover from stress and actually one of the cool things about gratitude is that it works for all the stress types. Gratitude is really a healing medicine. It literally is a medicine that you can access within yourself without having to swallow a pill, without having to pay for anything. You can access it at any moment in time 24 hours a day and anywhere you're located. Gratitude is accessible, free, and available anytime. There are so many studies showing over and over again that it can help us not just mentally and emotionally, and I'm gonna be talking about that in detail. It can help us on a physical level. Amazingly, there's quite a lot of research on it. Gratitude helps in both emotional and physical ways. The research supporting gratitude is substantial. The Science Behind Gratitude Gratitude helps to stimulate dopamine levels, which gives us the ability to think and make decisions and enjoy. It's also connected with reward and pleasure so we want to have adequate dopamine. Dopamine is key for brain power, reward, pleasure and enjoyment. · Gratitude also increases serotonin, one of our calming neurotransmitters. · It increases oxytocin, which is what we usually think of as a bonding hormone or the love hormone. · I think about oxytocin as one of our anti-stress hormones. So gratitude boosts our bonding hormone oxytocin, an anti-stress hormone, as well as serotonin. So how wonderful that we can with practicing gratitude boost our anti-stress hormone oxytocin as well as endorphins in general, which are also anti-stress, anti-pain messengers in our bodies. This can be so simple and yet effective. Gratitude stimulates helpful anti-stress and anti-pain messengers in the body. It's simple yet powerful. You set aside your perfectionism and you get in touch with your intuition—what just comes to you when you think of what do you feel grateful for—because you wanted to be simple, quick and easy, whatever comes to your mind first. What do I feel gratitude for in this moment? When practicing gratitude, set aside perfectionism. Get in touch with intuition and keep it simple—whatever comes to mind first. Literally writing it down can actually help, so you can think it, you can have a thought about gratitude, and that's powerful. But then when you write it down it even gets more power toward the effectiveness of gratitude. Writing down gratitude is also very powerful, even more than just thinking grateful thoughts. Expressing gratitude and finding more ways to do that and allowing it...I think sometimes we we just weren't taught this, so we end up not knowing how to do it right. We don't really know how to express gratitude well and so it takes practice. We just have to learn how to feel it. We may not have been taught how to express gratitude growing up. It takes practice to learn how to feel and express it. Practicing Gratitude I'm hoping that helps you get a sense of what gratitude can feel like and look like and to see how it can be expressed: to say "thank you, you mean a lot to me and you've made a big difference in my life." And I'm so grateful for the people who have been able to be there to support me in my process. Gratitude can be expressed by saying "thank you" and appreciating people who have made a difference. Here are some additional tips for practicing gratitude: · Write in a gratitude journal. · Send thank you notes, texts, or emails. · Verbally express gratitude to people in your life. · Try a gratitude meditation. · Consider psychedelic plant medicines which can induce profound gratitude. · Microdosing psychedelics may also help with gratitude. I have traveled in different areas of the world to experience different psychedelic plant medicines for—because I'm constantly loving to travel and research other cultures and types of medicine—and in the use of psychedelic medicine such as ayahuasca and psilocybin, one of the main benefits I have experienced is an immense sense of gratitude. Psychedelic medicines work on our nervous system also as anti-stress medicines to help us reset the stress response and recover from stress and trauma, and one of the ways they do that is by increasing our sense of gratitude. There have been times when I've been in a psychedelic retreat or ceremony and had experiences of being filled with a sense of gratitude—literally tears pouring out of my eyes feeling like my heart is so open and warm—and literally feeling more gratitude for the people in my life and the patients I've been able to help and the patients that have taught me so much about all of this. I wouldn't have all of this knowledge or experience without the people who've come and trusted me to help them with their health. If you're ever interested in or called to using psychedelic medicines even in microdoses, I encourage you to check out prior episodes and blog articles about that here, and I'm happy to connect with someone to help you get more information. I have immense gratitude for those I've been able to help and who have helped me gain this knowledge. And I feel such a huge amount of gratitude for all of you who are listening in, who are joining me here, who are reading my book and practicing these things I'm teaching and benefiting from it—because that's what I love to do. I love to be able to provide this information so people can benefit, and when people do get to benefit from it I feel a huge amount of gratitude for that connection that we have. I also feel deep gratitude for my readers, listeners and patients who allow me to help them. It's meaningful to make a difference through sharing this helpful information. I'm here to express that gratitude so that we can all really learn what that's like: to intentionally choose gratitude and benefit from it. So thank you again so much for joining me here at How Humans Heal. If you have not already, I would love for you to subscribe and join my newsletter list so that you hear when the next episode comes out. I will be here as your stress and burnout recovery expert to help you every step of the way to understand stress—how it impacts us and how you can take steps to recover from stress—and in doing so reverse so many other possible health issues that you might be dealing with. I intentionally express gratitude and invite you to join me on this journey of learning, healing and empowerment. Please subscribe if you'd like to receive more episodes and information to recover from stress, which can reverse many health conditions. If you want to learn more about how stress and trauma affect us, and how to heal using Dr. Doni's Stress Recovery Protocol® which involves optimizing cortisol and adrenaline levels using nutrients, herbs and C.A.R.E.™, her proprietary program to support clean eating, adequate sleep, stress recovery and exercise, you can read all about it in her book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. We also invite you to join Dr. Doni's New Stress Mastery C.A.R.E. Program. This 4-week virtual experience provides personalized solutions to help you recover from burnout and rejuvenate your mind and body based on your Stress Type®. We start by having you take our proprietary quiz to uncover your unique stress profile. Are you a Stress Magnet? Sluggish and Stressed? Night Owl? Or another one of the 5 types? Your Stress Type tells us how your body and mind have been impacted by stress. Think of it as your version of "stress mode" or burnout. It's important to know your Stress Type because the way to successfully recover from burnout needs to be customized based on your Stress Type. Even your SelfC.A.R.E. needs to be fine-tuned based on your Stress Type in order get you all the way to Stress Mastery! In just 4 weeks, you'll optimize cortisol and adrenaline levels, reduce symptoms by 50% or more, regain mental clarity and productivity, improve sleep quality and heart rate variability and establish healthy lifelong habits. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In this episode we're going to be talking about something that I consider to be the foundation of health and healing. This is what I refer to as C.A.R.E.™ or sometimes we refer to it as SelfC.A.R.E. I'm going to be describing what it is and the method that I use with my patients because it's one of the simplest things we can do for our health. In fact, it's so simple that we often overlook it. It's when we start paying attention to C.A.R.E. that we can really create a major change in our health. This is true whether you're dealing with fatigue, anxiety, depression, burnout, menstrual cycle related symptoms, fertility issues, digestive issues, hormonal issues, autoimmunity, allergies, sleep issues, infections of all different types (skin infections, sinus infections, bladder infections, viral infections like EBV, HPV and even long COVID symptoms). They all improve with these foundational steps. You can start working on your C.A.R.E. today. It's not about perfection, it's about connecting with yourself, listening to your body, and getting to know what your body needs from you in order to heal. This is an individualized approach to your specific body needs (it's not one-size-fits-all). I will give you the guidelines here and then I want you think about how you can implement C.A.R.E. as an individual. What is C.A.R.E.? Self-care involves activities that I have been reading and writing about over the years. Specifically, what does it mean to take good care of ourselves and our bodies. And one day I realized that these activities fit this acronym C.A.R.E. These are activities that you can do on a daily basis. The C stands for Clean Eating or eating in a way that matches your physiology and supports your health. The A is for Adequate Sleep. Just like eating, sleeping is essential for us to be able to recharge and reset. The R stands for Recovery Activities. This is a whole menu of possible activities that help us counterbalance stress. And E is for Exercise. We all need to exercise at our own pace to match what our body is able to do and benefit from it. As a practitioner I am always observing and looking for patterns amongst my patients. This is how I was able to identify C.A.R.E. was common in patients that were successful at recovering from stress, improving their health, and maintaining their resiliency to stress over time. This is also the foundation of naturopathic medicine. I will also share with you how to individualize your C.A.R.E. based on your Stress Type, which is how your body is uniquely affected by stress. I talk about all of this in detail in my latest book: Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book you will find hundreds of references related to C.A.R.E., which researchers have been studying for decades. Clean Eating Clean eating is about eating in a way to support your health. I was originally trained as a nutritionist, so I see food as medicine. Our bodies need macro nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) as well as micronutrients and vitamins and minerals to function and survive. And we need to get these things from our food because our bodies can't produce them. So, it's a matter of really honoring food as this source of nutrition and life for us instead of just eating mindlessly. We want to start eating mindfully and choose our food with intention and gratitude. The simplest way to start eating a healthy diet is to make sure you are having a relatively equal percentage or balance of protein, carbs, and fat. I see a lot of diets out there where they go a little bit too extreme with macronutrients, like the ketogenic diet that's very high in fat or the carnivore diet that's very high in protein. These diets can actually make us feel worse because they are extreme. Even a plant-based diet can make us feel worse. There are times when more extreme diets are appropriate, but I really encourage you to work with a practitioner who can help you so that you don't find yourself feeling worse following a certain diet. We must make sure we are getting enough nutrients from our diet. Anytime we go to an extreme with our bodies we can create more stress. What our bodies need is predictability, consistency, and stability so that's what we want to create with our eating. We want to have predictable meals that are the amount of food that we can easily digest. It is when we digest our food that we absorb the nutrients. So, we want to have consistency in the amount and the timing of our meals. Usually our bodies do well when we feed them in 3 to 4 hours intervals throughout the day. If we go too long between meals it can disrupt your digestion and create stress responses. I also find that it is best to stop eating at least a couple of hours before we go to bed. This means you would have at least 10 hours without eating if you are sleeping adequately. There can be some health benefits to temporarily or occasionally extending your overnight fast to between 12 and 16 hours but it's really important to modify your daily activities and make sure your body's ready for that so I don't encourage it or recommend it for everyone from the beginning. The first thing we want to do is eat to balance our blood sugar and create predictability in our body, so that our stress response can calm down. If we go back to macro nutrients, I find that it's best to make sure that you have at least 20 grams of protein and no more than 20 grams of carbs with every meal. Protein can be found in animal products (beef, chicken, fish, turkey, etc.) and also in legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas, etc.). And then we want to have some carbs from healthy high fiber sources like vegetables and fruits. Then you have the healthy fats in things like avocados, nuts and olive oil (for high temperatures use avocado or grapeseed oil instead) for salads and salad dressing. We also want to be feeding our gut bacteria, but we don't want to over feed them either. Whatever we eat and whatever we digest is going to determine what is feeding our gut bacteria. If we eat too large of a meal or we're under too much stress and we are not digesting our food well, that undigested food is going to over feed our gut bacteria. When our gut bacteria are overfed is when you start to notice bloating and gas and bowel changes and all kinds of other symptoms. It is also possible to overfeed our good bacteria by having a large quantity of fruit and vegetables in a single meal. It's much better to space our meals and to pay attention to our bodies signals on how much food can you have at one sitting that you can digest well. Digesting well also has to do with mindful eating. To set aside time to eat, to take breaths to signal your Vagus nerve that it's time to eat, to chew your food well, to have a calm environment for eating, etc. This way you're allowing your digestive signaling to happen, to get the best ability to digest your food. You can support your digestion with digestive enzymes that make it easier for our bodies to process food and absorb all the nutrients. You can get a good supplement for this here. Clean eating also has to do with eating organic whole foods, avoiding processed foods, avoiding pesticides on your food and any other kinds of artificial sweeteners, fillers, preservatives that are just not necessary and even toxic. It is best to eat whole foods that we cook ourselves or maybe go to restaurants where they are paying attention to making sure we're not eating things that our bodies don't need and that are bad for our health. If you are under a lot of stress and you are constantly suffering from bloating, gas, abdominal pain, constipation, or diarrhea you may have developed leaky gut. If you have leaky gut and food is leaking through your intestinal lining and it's triggering an inflammatory response that food is no longer a healthy food for you. It is now an inflammatory food. The most common inflammatory foods are dairy and gluten, but it can happen with things like eggs, almonds, bananas and many other foods. So, it is better to assess for leaky gut and food sensitivities, and to identify the highest reactive inflammatory foods. Then we can go through a process of healing the leaky gut and so you can get back to eating a wider variety of foods. If you want to know your food sensitivities, you can order a home test here. Adequate Sleep We need at least 7 hours of sleep. One of the first things that happens when we don't get enough sleep is our immune function decreases. When we're sleeping a lot of good stuff happens. Our immune system is helping to protect us from infections, it's helping ourselves to repair, there's a process called glymphatics which is a process of clean out in our brain. All this is not happening if we don't get enough sleep. We need to look at both quantity and quality of sleep. Also, we need to look at our circadian rhythm. Are you sleeping when it is dark outside? Maybe you have to work a night shift that affects your circadian rhythm. This increases our risk of different health issues so it's important to know and to support your body through that. We sleep in cycles of about 90 minutes. We go through a process of deepening our sleep as time passes until we reach the deepest sleep stage. We spend a percentage of time in each sleep stage and then it starts over again. It's best to be able to complete several sleep cycles in a row because each time we create the subsequent sleep cycle we spend more time in the REM sleep stage and the studies show that when we're in this deep sleep stage is when our brains and bodies get the most rest and repair. When it starts to get dark our bodies start producing a hormone called melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that's signaling all kinds of repair in our bodies. If we don't have enough melatonin our risk of developing health issues will increase, so we need to let our bodies produce this hormone by turning off all lights when it's time for bed. There is this concept called sleep hygiene. I talk about this in my latest book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health and in my Blog too. I think about sleep hygiene in terms of our five senses. For sight we have to analyze if there is enough darkness in our room when we sleep. Maybe you need to get blackout curtains or cover any other lights like phones or chargers or alarm clocks that may be generating light through the night. Also it is best to avoid any late night light exposure, especially blue light exposure from electronic devices because this is signaling the brain that it's not time to sleep yet and this is going to inhibit your melatonin. Also, take a look in your bedroom and see if there is clutter as there's studies that show having a cluttered bedroom can affect our sleep. For smell I think of dust. Take a look in your bedroom and see if it needs to be cleaned. Is there dust in there that could affect your breathing while you sleep. Dust can also be the source of allergies so for a good night sleep it is best to have a clean bedroom. For hearing we want to be paying attention to any noise that can disrupt our sleep. There are also certain sounds that can benefit our sleep. If you're having trouble sleeping you can actually use sounds like white noise or pink noise to help with calming your nervous system. For touch think about the fabrics and materials you are in touch with when you sleep. Maybe you need softer sheets or a new mattress. Also, I always recommend buying organic sheets, blankets, pillows, and mattress. We have to make sure we have a comfortable environment for a better sleep. This includes the temperature in your room. We sleep better when there's a slight lower temperature in the room. You can still be under a blanket but it's better for quality sleep if the room temperature is around 67 to 69 degrees Fahrenheit. For taste we go back to eating. Making sure we don't eat 2 hours before bed and making sure our last meal is not too large. It's a matter of keeping your blood sugar balanced so you don't want to eat too many carbs too close to bed because you're going to have a spike in your blood sugar and when your blood sugar drops it can wake you up. I wrote a whole separate book called Natural Insomnia Solutions where I go into the detail about how to help with sleep issues so if you're struggling with sleep, I recommend you definitely get that book and work through it. You'll see a big difference in your sleep. Recovery Activities There is a long list of recovery activities that help our bodies recover from stress. I am going to talk about some of the most common here. Research shows that these activities can help bring cortisol and adrenaline levels back to optimal, and that's exactly what we want. We are constantly exposed to plenty of activities that disrupt our cortisol and adrenaline levels. What we lack is activities that help correct and counterbalance those effects, so I encourage you to look at this almost like a menu and choose what interests you. It's about choosing something that you're curious about. Maybe there are things you do already that you can continue to do, or there are things that you've been thinking about doing but you can't find the time. If this is the case, I encourage you to say, “OK it's time to bring some recovery activities into each and every day”. I want to start with gratitude. Anytime we practice gratitude and just allow ourselves to feel grateful for the things that are happening in our lives, people in our lives, pets in our lives, experiences, etc. When we go into a state of gratitude it increases our anti stress hormones like oxytocin, and this helps us to recover from stress. It can be as simple as journaling about what you feel grateful for or thinking about it before bed or when you wake up in the morning. If you would like to start journaling to practice gratitude you can get your SelfC.A.R.E. notebook here. Sometimes just being in quiet can help us reset from stress. We are so used to having a TV on, the radio on, people talking to us, etc. We're just used to constantly having something going on and so it takes intention to stop and set aside some quiet time for ourselves. It's amazing what can happen when you have that quiet time, so I recommend you create that for yourself. Meditation and mindfulness are also great for stress recovery. There is so much research on the health benefits from these activities. Some people can be kind of afraid or confused about how to do meditation, so I encourage you to just start simple. You can start with 5 minutes. Meditation is really about becoming more aware of your thoughts and becoming the observer in your own body. So much of the time we're just immediately responding to sounds and triggers and what's going on and what's next that we lose track of our ability to be the observer of our own experience. I think about it as simply taking a couple minutes to just breathe and allow yourself to notice the sounds, the feelings in your body and your thoughts but without reacting, just be with them. It's about a greater awareness for our thoughts and our feelings and our body in each moment. Meditation and mindfulness can make an amazing difference with healing not only our nervous system and our brain but our whole body. Breathwork or any kind of deep breathing can have a huge impact on stress recovery. There are a lot of books and videos out there on how to use breathwork for healing. Also, Yoga has a lot of research on how yoga can help us recover from stress. And Yoga involves mindfulness, breathwork and movement. Very intentional movements and positions of the body that help us just be present. Spending time with pets has also been shown to increase the release of oxytocin which is an anti-stress hormone and we start to go into stress recovery mode. Also, spending time in nature has shown a positive impact on stress recovery. Even if you're looking at pictures of nature without even going outside. I really encourage you as much as you can to get outside first thing in the morning. Just a 5-10 minute walk is enough. Then in the middle of the day another 5-10 minutes just to be able to observe nature. Now you're combining mindfulness with your time in nature to observe the plants and the sounds and the colors and the smells. Our human bodies respond to all of these things, and they help us recover from stress. Listening to music or playing an instrument, singing, dancing, spending time with our friends and family, laughter, sex and intimacy, reaching out and just talking to someone who you care about or working with a therapist and being able to talk about your experience as a human in your life are all activities that can help us recover from stress and trauma. There are also many plant substances that help us recover from stress, including psychedelic medicines. Find more information on many of these forms of stress recovery in episodes of How Humans Heal. Exercise Exercise is one of the activities that has the greatest ability to improve our resilience to stress. When we are exercising, we're preparing our body for stress exposure both in terms of creating a healthy response to stress and a healthy recovery from stress. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to find ways to integrate exercise into your life and into your daily routine. On the other hand, we have to make sure we don't overdo it because if we go too intense or for too long, we end up increasing our cortisol levels and that works against us in terms of our health. So, it's important to exercise but to listen to your body and to be aware of what's the right amount and intensity for you and even what time of day is best for you to exercise. For example, we know that with exercise there's strength training which is anaerobic exercise and cardio which is aerobic exercise, and we need both. They both help us to become resilient to stress and recover from stress. You can choose from so many different activities but it's important to choose activities that match your body, your current activity level and also your interest. I encourage you to choose something you enjoy and that you like to do so it is easier to integrate into your daily routine. If you are just about to start to exercise, I recommend you start small, you can start with 5 minutes a day, then work up to 10 or 15 minutes a day. The study showed that we can get the benefits from exercise even in short periods of time, and then you can potentially repeat that in a couple different times in a day to add more time to your exercise routine. For those of you with joint hypermobility like me it's important to be really cautious with exercise and not overdo it because you're more likely to get injured than the average person. Even if it's Yoga you might have to do a little bit less than other people. One of my favorites is Pilates because it's helping me to gain strength and correct my body posture and position for my joints, which I find to be really helpful for the symptoms of joint hypermobility. Again, the important thing with exercise is to know where you're starting, there's no reason to try to push yourself beyond what feels good to you. Always listen to your body during and after exercising. If you feel too tired and exhausted that means you overdid it. Also, make sure you're staying hydrated and that you have enough protein and enough sleep for your body to be able to recover. Implementing SelfC.A.R.E. According to Your Stress Type Your stress type is how your body is affected by stress, specifically related to cortisol and adrenaline levels. What I found in my research is that we don't all react to stress in the same way. We don't all have high cortisol and high adrenaline. So, it's important to know what's happening with your cortisol and adrenaline levels because your cortisol and adrenaline levels will influence what's the best C.A.R.E. for you. What I find is when you fine tune your C.A.R.E. based on your stress type you're going to benefit even more from it. To find out your stress type you can do the stress type quiz right on my website. You can also find the stress type quiz in the book Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. It's a quiz that you can do in less than two minutes, and it shows you what is your stress type out of the five most common stress types: stress magnet that tends to have high cortisol and adrenaline at some point or all day, sluggish and stressed who has high cortisol with low adrenaline, tired and wired that has the high adrenaline with low cortisol, the night owl who is like a stress magnet but they have high cortisol and or adrenaline at night, and blah and blue that has low cortisol low adrenaline all day or part of the day. Once we know your stress type, we can then use nutrients and herbs to bring your cortisol and adrenaline back to optimal. C.A.R.E. helps you get your cortisol adrenaline back to optimal and it helps you keep your cortisol and adrenaline at optimal going forward. To me the ultimate goal is for a good health is resiliency, is our ability to be exposed to stress and still do things we love, whether that's traveling or different sports or activities or being a parent or grandparent or building a business or project. We want you to be able to do these activities while being resilient to stress so that it doesn't have a negative impact on your life. If you want to learn more about how stress and trauma have affected you and how C.A.R.E. can help you recover so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. If you're ready to start rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, to help your adrenals reset after stress exposure, you can start by ordering this home test kit. And you can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Online Program to guide you here. If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol. Keep in mind that 50% of people with leaky gut, have zero symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to do the food sensitivity panel I recommend. If you're interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my 14-Day Detox Program here. The Detox Program includes a gluten-free, dairy-free meal plan, along with a protein shake (the protein shake is included), as well as videos to guide you every step of the way. This detox program includes a plant based or bone broth based protein powder. One of the key things we do in the 14-day detox is help you to understand how to integrate C.A.R.E. into your life so you can then continue on that path going forward so you can be your own best health advocate. If you are interested in how C.A.R.E. can help you fend off HPV, you can find my HPV Recovery Guide here. If you would like more help getting HPV to negative, and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for the upcoming 5 Days to Heal HPV Workshop here (We start Monday September 18th at 7PM Eastern Time) or my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here. If you would like to start journaling as a recovery activity you can get your SelfC.A.R.E. notebook here. This is the perfect tool to keep track of your C.A.R.E. as you're working on integrating it and fine tuning it to really create a self-care routine that's going to work well for you over time. You can also subscribe to my newsletter, where you'll receive a newsletter from me every Thursday with the latest episode and additional resources and tools for your success with achieving optimal health. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. Be sure you sign up and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. I love having you here with me and I would love to hear from you on other topics you'd like to learn more about. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In today's episode I want to introduce you to Dr. Lindsey Elmore. She is a pharmacist (PharmD) and wellness expert. She's also a speaker, author and podcast host. She specializes in helping women to take full ownership of their health from wellness in the physical body, to stability in mental health, to robustness of spirit, to freedom in finances. Today we talk about what options there are for people who may want to try a more holistic approach for their health instead of the medications that pharmaceutical companies produce and commercialize. After suffering from an injury to her anterior cruciate ligament, Lindsey ended up attending an acupuncture session which opened this whole new world of homeopathic and holistic medicine for her. She then started accumulating knowledge about traditional Chinese medicine, started going to integrative medicine forums, hanging out with shamans, and learning more about indigenous medicines. Lindsey eventually got a reputation of knowing as much about alternative medicine as western medicine. She became very practical about the integration of the two because she believes that to embrace natural medicine does not mean to deny western medicine as they are not mutually exclusive. Do Pharmacists Get Training on Natural Approaches vs Drugs? So, pharmacognosy is the study of plants as medicine and if you back up 150 years, a pharmacist was nothing more than someone who was there to put the medicines together using herbs and natural substances from plants that proved to work for certain illnesses. They understood the application of plants as medicine. In our modern world this is not so much the case. Now you have to go out in search of it and that is because the division between western and alternative medicine became very bold after the Flexner Report came out about 100 years ago. They basically dismissed any kind of medicine practice and even schools that were not based in drugs and surgery. Nowadays, if a doctor does only prescriptions, it is most likely because they don't know any better. There is no medicine out there, even the over-the-counter ones or supplements, that does not have any side effects. Over the counter medications can cause significant harm and have major drug interactions so be sure to know your medicines and know your pharmacist. Your pharmacist should be able to talk to you about your medications and to teach you about the safety of those medications and the alternatives out there. There are so many alternatives to prescription drugs and surgery out there that are less invasive and have less harmful side effects. It is the responsibility of your health care provider to let you know what they are. How To Navigate This World of Alternatives to Conventional Medicine and Drugs You can start with anything you would like to try to get healthier. Sleep 20 more minutes each day, get up and get your circadian rhythm kicked off by going out into the sun first thing in the morning, lifting weights, eat one plant based meal, increase your water consumption, meditate, etc. Lindsey names eight root causes of disease: stress, toxins, allergens, infections, dysbiosis, nutrient excesses and deficiencies, sedentarism, lack of sleep and then there's the sociogenomics. One place to start is with stress. There's no disease that stress does not make worse and no disease that stress does not cause and so it's really important that we figure out how to mitigate our stress by intentionally crafting safety for ourselves. The harder situation comes when you've been doing everything that you're supposed to do to feel good, but something is still wrong and that's when you start getting into things like lab tests, blood work, allergen testing, hormones, or maybe some more sophisticated interventions like imaging, but we have to start with the basics. Going back to stress, it's not about having zero stress. Some amount of stress is necessary and even healthy. It's about how do we help ourselves recover from all the stresses and toxins that we're exposed to. We need to start simple with lifestyle changes that can allow for that space of recovery. What About Choosing the Right Probiotics and Rebalancing the Microbiome? One of the most popular ways to feel better and healthier recently is getting the right probiotics and addressing the microbiome. There's so much research now helping us understand how important these hundred trillion bacteria living in our gut are to our health. The microbiome is so critically important, we cannot live without our microbiome. Our microbiome helps us to metabolize foods, extract energy from complex and digestible sugars, they also ferment our dietary carbohydrates and fibers to produce what are called post biotics, it uses our food to produce vitamins, it helps with mineral absorption, and they also metabolize our bile acid which helps us to regulate our cholesterol levels. The microbiome has this huge metabolic function. It also has a protective function where it creates layers for our immune system to be educated as well as to provide a barrier function for bad bacteria to be kept away from our system. Our microbiome can also help us turn genes on and off. It strengthens the gut barrier, it changes fat deposition, it influences our growth, it influences changes in the body. We also have this really important system called the gut-brain axis. We have this interplay between good bacteria and bad bacteria, good viruses and bad viruses that are just part of how we educate and train our immune system. The gut-brain axis modulates our response to stress, mood behavior, it governs our food cravings, it manages our circadian rhythm, etc. The gut-brain axis plays a very important role on our mental health. The microbiome is critically important for brain development in early life, and it also helps with the education and regulation of the immune system. Between birth and age 3 the microbiome goes through a maturation process and this maturation process is very important. This is why it's critical not to over sanitize our children because this leads to allergies, chronic disease, immune disorders, etc. Early in life the microbiome is teaching the immune system how to operate correctly, then later in life the microbiome and the immune system continue to communicate, and this is what helps to balance out pro and anti-inflammatory responses. We are getting more and more sophisticated in our knowledge of different strains of bacteria and what they do in our bodies. We can look for a specific strain that reduces cortisol or one that helps with constipation or one that helps with digestion. We get to be very specific about what's the intended end point for what we hope to happen by taking a specific supplement. We now have all of this research and new information about how important the microbes living in our bodies are to our health. There are more and more products being developed to support balancing our microbiome and benefit from it. And the products we choose will depend on what we are looking to achieve, not everybody has high or low cortisol, not everybody has constipation or digestive issues, or anxiety. We're on the path of becoming way more specific when it comes to choosing the right product for the right purpose. When Taking the Wrong Treatment Makes Things Worse: Bacterial Overgrowth Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth as well as small intestinal fungal overgrowth is very important to address. Many people are told they have IBS or heartburn and given a medication that doesn't actually resolve the issue. When someone has chronic heartburn or gastroesophageal reflux for example, they tend to take antacid medicine, but this medicine is not safe to use for long periods of time because it depletes our bodies from nutrients, it affects bone health, it affects your ability to digest. You actually need acid in your stomach to correctly digest food. So, this is not a real solution to this problem because again with drugs you are not addressing the root cause of the problem; you are just treating the symptoms. What is typically happening with heartburn is a small intestinal bacterial or small intestinal fungal overgrowth, and as a byproduct of the bacterial/yeast metabolism, they generate hydrogen gas, and this gas is going to be forced to go upwards and will bring with it the gastric juices. The problem is sometimes people already have an overgrowth of bacteria and they start supplementing with probiotics and prebiotics and they get sicker. It's worse because there were already too many bacteria. What we have to do is work to bring the microbiome into balance so that we have the correct distribution of good and bad bacteria. If you know you have a small intestine bacterial overgrowth, it's important first to use a prokinetic to make sure your bowels are moving well. Then use digestive enzymes to make sure you are digesting well. Then you can work on restoring your microbiome. If you would like to learn more about what you can do to balance your microbiome you can watch Episode #169 of How Humans Heal here. Naturopathic vs Conventional Medicine Approach and Pharmaceutical Companies Abuse A good analogy to understand the difference between a naturopathic or functional medicine approach and conventional medicine and drugs is when a western medicine doctor walks into a room that is flooded he says “Oh my gosh the room is flooded, let me mop it up” and a naturopathic doctor or functional medicine practitioner walks into the room and says “Oh no the room is flooded, let me turn off the faucet”. And so, we're trying to look at where the faucet is to turn off versus just mopping the floor because mopping is not going to do anything. Everybody's looking for magic but what we really need to be looking for is our simple, down to earth, grounded decisions that we make each day that will ultimately lead us to finding the miracle that is being healthy and being well. We have to stop looking for the magic pill. This whole concept of evidence-based medicine being the only kind of medicine and the only way to inform guidelines and the only way to practice is simply not true. There are so many conflicts of interest between pharmaceutical manufacturers and the evidence they produce. If you send in a paper to the New England Journal of Medicine and they send it out to 10 people for peer review and they send it back and say yes, this is good enough to be published it gets published. The problem is nobody is required to go back to the pharmaceutical manufacturers and actually verify that the data that they presented in the paper is factual. Take valdecoxib for example. Merck outright knew that valdecoxib was causing massive amounts of heart attacks and they did not care. They lied about the data, got it published in journals and now fast forward we know that thousands of people died from the side effects of it. We need to have a much higher transparency in evidence-based research if we are going to live in a society where we live and die by treatment guidelines. The people that write the guidelines cannot be the same people that are doing the research for the pharmaceutical companies and manipulating the data in order to say this is what we recommend. We have to be able to rely on the fact that we are going to get actual tangible information out of pharmaceutical manufacturers or we're simply putting patients at risk for harm. We don't have governmental oversight of drug pricing, and this generates a problem because pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever they want. And a lot of times the medicine could be a natural substance and then pharmaceutical companies will just add colors and fillers so that they will be able to patent the substance and probably raise the price on it. There's a lot of ways that these companies go about manipulating patent laws in order to keep drugs on patent. An example of this is the antidepressant citalopram where pharmaceutical companies made a simple chemical manipulation of the extraction to change the name to escitalopram, which is the S-enantiomer of citalopram. Another example is the pain medication oxycontin, where the Sackler family convinced the FDA to allow onto the label that oxycontin was non-addictive and had an effect that lasted 12 hours vs other drugs that lasted less hours. We have to do the research ourselves; we have to go deep into the factual data before taking any drug. We have to educate ourselves and become more aware and learn more whether through a pharmacist or health care provider before even bringing the substance into our home. We need to be empowered owners of our own health. If you want to reach out to Dr. Lindsey and learn more about how she can help you, please make sure to check out her website. She is also on social media as @lindseyelmore (Instagram and Facebook) and @doctorlindseyelmore (Pinterest/TikTok). Her functional medicine wellness platform is called Wellness Made Simple where you can find many resources to improve your health. If you want to learn more about how stress and trauma affect us, and how to recover so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I describe what I refer to as SelfC.A.R.E. based on your Stress Type. C stands for Clean Eating, A for adequate sleep, R for recovery activities, and E for exercise. I share the research behind how C.A.R.E. works in a daily routine to help us process stress. To know your Stress Type, which is your unique cortisol and adrenaline levels based on how stresses have affected your adrenal function, you can take the quiz I developed. You can find the Stress Type® Quiz in the book and on my website. Then, if you're ready to start rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, to help your adrenals reset after stress exposure, you can start by ordering this home test kit. And you can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Online Program to guide you here. If you're interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my New 14-Day Detox Program here. In the Detox Program I teach you to connect with yourself, and use mind-body tools, such as biofeedback, to process emotions. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode I'm going to be talking about birth control pills (also known as oral contraceptive pills) and the information that I feel is important for everyone to have, especially those of you who are considering taking the birth control pill or are already taking a birth control pill. This topic is important because a lot of this information is often not shared by the providers who are prescribing these pills. It's really necessary to understand everything before you make any decision about what to take for your health. One of the things I want to talk about are the risks related to taking the birth control pill, including risk of HPV related cancers (like cervical cancer) and nutrient deficiencies associated with the use of “the pill.” I also want to help you understand how it's possible to feel good and balance your hormones and ovarian function naturally if you have reached a point in your life where you don't want to take the birth control pill anymore. It is estimated that more than 10 million women in the United States alone are taking the birth control pill. These are prescription medications, and they are synthetic hormones. When these pills are made, they're made with chemical versions of estrogen and progesterone. You can get a birth control pill that's only a synthetic form of progesterone, but most people take what are called combined formulas that contain synthetic estrogen and synthetic progesterone. When we make a hormone synthetically it signals to our bodies, but it doesn't signal exactly the same as natural hormones or bioidentical hormones. So, I want to emphasize that when I'm talking about birth control pills, I'm referencing synthetic hormones and the risks associated with those types of hormones versus bioidentical or natural hormones, like naturally produced estrogen and progesterone, or bioidentical estradiol, for example, or estriol, and progesterone formulas that are sometimes used for fertility and perimenopause. Our bodies recognize bioidentical hormones. They know exactly what they are and they know how to respond to them in a healthy way. When we take a synthetic hormone, it can have a slightly different effect in our bodies and that's why there are side effects and risks associated, especially with longer term use. If you're taking synthetic hormones on a short-term basis, the risk of health issues is lower and as the length of time increases, the risks increase. Sometimes you may need a birth control pill for a short period of time and that may not be as concerning. It's also known that the risks tend to decrease the longer you are off the birth control pill. Why Are So Many Women Taking Birth Control Pills? What I find in my practice is that for most women (I would say definitely greater than 50%), the pill is not just being used for birth control. They're more often prescribed by gynecologists for regulating the menstrual cycle in some way. Most women, when they go in to see a gynecologist, it's usually to get help with irregular menstrual cycles or maybe perimenopausal symptoms, PCOS or endometriosis, or perhaps you have PMS symptoms or even PMDD, higher anxiety or depression and fatigue, bloating, severe cramps or heavy bleeding and acne during your period. All of these symptoms can happen because of hormone imbalances related to the menstrual cycle. And often times the first thing a gynecologist or other practitioner will prescribe is a birth control pill. What the birth control pill does is it takes over for your ovaries. It literally turns off the ovaries, so your ovaries are not making estrogen and progesterone on their own. You are relying solely on the synthetic estrogen or progesterone that you're swallowing in the birth control pill. This is why if you miss a dose, you could have breakthrough bleeding or other symptoms like headaches, nausea, etc. because these hormones are signaling to your body every day. Birth control pills can regulate the menstrual cycle, decrease bleeding, pain and acne for a lot of women, which can help them keep up with their daily life. At the same time, it's absolutely false to think that the only option to help with menstrual related symptoms is to use a synthetic hormone pill. There are a lot of things we could do to help with those symptoms and support your body naturally to address them without necessarily having to use a synthetic hormone pill. Now, if your priority is to prevent pregnancy at this point in life, maybe the birth control pill is a good option, but there are also other options for contraception that don't require to take a synthetic hormone. I'll discuss them more later in this episode. What Are the Risks of Long-Term Use of Birth Control Pills? Nutrient deficiencies: Birth control pills can end up depleting our nutrients. This is especially true of some of the B vitamins like B2 or riboflavin, B6, B12 and Folate or B9. All those B vitamins can become deficient with use of birth control pill. Also, vitamin C and vitamin E can become deficient. Minerals like magnesium, selenium, and zinc can also be affected. This is why it is important to take a good quality multivitamin if you are on the birth control pill. If you would like to learn more about high-quality multivitamins, you can watch Episode 167 of How Humans Heal here. One of the ways to know if it's a high-quality multivitamin is to look at the ingredient list. Look at what form of folate is in the product. We want it to say “Methyl Folate” (or 5MTHF) instead of Folic Acid. If the label says Folic Acid, it's not a high-quality product. Then look at the B12, if it says Cyanocobalamin, it's not a high-quality product. It should say Methyl Cobalamin instead. This way you know you're getting active forms of the B vitamins. If a company is putting in those active forms of B vitamins in their products, they're much more likely to be a professional grade company that's invested in getting the nutrients that you need. It's also important to be doing regular blood work to identify nutrient deficiencies. And it's important to do the right tests to get the correct information. That's why it's so important to have a practitioner who can guide you. I guide each of my patients on how to get the correct blood work and what the results mean. For example, it's not that helpful to only measure folate in the blood - we need to be measuring homocysteine. HPV and Cervical Cancer: Furthermore, I believe that one of the connections between HPV risk and birth control pills is related to the nutrient deficiencies. In cases where HPV is persisting and resisting treatment, I recommend doing blood work because I often find nutrient deficiencies exist. When you have low antioxidants and low B vitamins, that already increases the risk of HPV related abnormal cells and cancer risks. So, an important preventive step you can take is to make sure you're meeting your nutrients needs and monitoring your blood levels. There are many studies connecting birth control pills to cervical cancer risk. One study in particular shows there's a 10% increased risk of HPV causing cervical cancer with less than five years of birth control use, and a 60% increased risk for five to nine years of use, and a doubling of the risk with 10 or more years of use. If we talk about hormonal IUDs, there is also an increased risk with cervical cancer whereas the copper IUD does not have that risk, so the risk does seem to be related to the synthetic hormones. There are studies where the researchers try to identify exactly what's happening – there are multiple mechanisms besides the nutrient deficiencies where these synthetic hormones also are signaling to the immune system locally and the way that our body manages cells even at a local level on the cervix. Cardiovascular Issues: Birth control pills are also associated with increased risk of certain cardiovascular issues including heart attack, stroke, as well as blood clots in general (like DVT which is a blood clot in your leg). I really want you to know the associated risks so that you're monitoring for yourself and deciding intentionally, is this a risk that I'm willing to take? One of the things that increases the risk of stroke with birth control pill use is having an MTHFR gene variation. If you want to know more about this gene variation you can watch Episode 29 of How Humans Heal here. MTHFR is a gene variation that affects our ability to activate folic acid into folate and it already carries a risk of stroke, so when combined with a birth control pill it elevates your risk of stroke even more. How To Promote Healthy Ovaries Function After Having Taken Birth Control Pills So, what I encourage you to do is weigh out all the information against the reasons why you're taking the pill, and what would be the criteria for yourself for how you will decide when you want to stop using the pill. Then you will want to make a plan for how you're going to prepare your body for coming off the pill, so that you can transition to healthy ovary function. You want to be addressing the negative effects of the pill and start addressing your health in general before you stop the pill so that when you stop, you have a safety net there for yourself. You want to create a healthy environment so when you stop the pill your body is ready and your ovaries are ready to start functioning again. When our bodies overall are functioning at our best, that's when our ovary function is going to be at its best too. Our ovaries can pick up on so many signals from our environment, like any kind of stress signals. We should be especially careful with new diet plans, whether that's intermittent fasting or a ketogenic diet, or if you're going to do some more exercising. Exercise and diet are important for healthy ovary function but if we overdo it, that can also inhibit our ovary function. If we fast for too long, or we aren't eating enough, or we are exercising too intensely, it will decrease signals to the ovaries and then the ovaries are not going to ovulate or produce hormones as optimally. We need to focus on optimizing what I call your SelfC.A.R.E. C is for clean eating, A is for adequate sleep, R is for recovery activities, and E is for exercise. This is the foundation of health in general, but definitely the foundation for healthy ovary function, including fertility. Clean eating includes things like managing your blood sugar levels, eating protein every few hours and identifying inflammatory foods. If you are experiencing inflammation issues, I suggest doing a food sensitivity panel that I use in my office. It is my favorite because I can see any sensitivities to dairy proteins, gluten, eggs or other foods that you may not even realize like almonds and bananas for certain people can be inflammatory. When we ingest inflammatory foods, that inflammation affects our whole body, including ovary function. I can't tell you how many cases of women have come into my office where we identify the inflammatory foods and we start healing the digestion, healing leaky gut, balancing their biome, and all of a sudden, the ovaries start working better. One of the key hormones to balance when it comes to optimal ovary function is cortisol. Cortisol is our main stress hormone and if cortisol is too high or too low, it inhibits healthy ovary function. So that means we need to know what your cortisol function is up to - we can measure cortisol morning, midday, evening, bedtime through the urine or saliva and we can see what is your cortisol up to. Is it too high at certain times of the day or is it at too low at certain times? And wherever it is then we can use the correct herbs and nutrients to get it back on track again. If you would like to know if your cortisol and adrenaline are out of balance you can do a home test that you can order here. I describe this in my latest book: Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In this book I describe how to individualize SelfC.A.R.E., how to know what's happening with your cortisol as well as your adrenaline levels according to what I call your Stress Type. If you would like to know which stress type are you so you can start recovering from stress you can take the Stress Type Quiz here. This even helps with perimenopausal symptoms, and it helps with postmenopausal as well. So even once the ovaries calm down and they go into menopause, we still need your adrenal glands to be functioning optimally because now you're even more reliant on your adrenal glands to help you feel good. It's also important to have optimal neurotransmitter levels so this is serotonin and GABA and dopamine. It may come as a surprise that chemicals in the brain have anything to do with optimizing your ovary function, but they are incredibly interrelated. Neurotransmitters can also be measured in urine, and I offer those tests through my office, and you can then balance your neurotransmitters using precursor nutrients. It can be scary to think about coming off the pill, as a doctor and as a woman, I completely understand this fear. What I can tell you is from my experience and from my patients' experience, it's absolutely possible to help rebalance and prevent menstrual related symptoms with natural approaches, nutrients, and herbs without having to rely on synthetic hormones. What Are Some Contraception Alternatives to The Birth Control Pill? My recommendation for non-toxic alternatives includes the nonhormonal copper IUD and the fertility awareness method, which includes tracking your ovulation and menstrual cycles so you can either avoid sexual activity or use condoms in the time frame where you are most likely to conceive. You can also measure your basal body temperature on a daily basis where fluctuations determine when you able to conceive. I will host a future episode for those listeners who are interested in learning more about how to conceive. I hope this episode has been helpful for you and understanding birth control pills more and understanding their connection especially to HPV and cervical cancer risk, as well as some of the other conditions that we talked about today. I invite you to reach out if I can be of more help or if you have any questions, and definitely if you are in a situation where you're working on fending off HPV. I've been helping women with their health now for over 23 years. I'm a naturopathic Doctor, as well as midwife. I love helping women with understanding their bodies and what they can do to support their bodies to be as healthy as possible, as well as to prevent things like cervical cancer. If you're interested in learning more about my approach to addressing HPV, including why healing leaky gut is essential, you can find my HPV Recovery Guide here. If you would like more help getting HPV to negative, and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for the upcoming 5 Days to Heal HPV Workshop here or my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here. If you're interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my 14-Day Detox Program here. The Detox Program includes a gluten-free, dairy-free meal plan, along with a protein shake (the protein shake is included), as well as videos to guide you every step of the way. If you want to learn more about how stress and trauma have affected you, in terms of your cortisol and adrenaline levels, and how to recover so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. To know your Stress Type, which is your unique cortisol and adrenaline levels based on how stresses have affected your adrenal function, you can take the quiz I developed. You can find the Stress Type® Quiz in the book and on my website. If you're ready to start rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, to help your adrenals reset after stress exposure, you can start by ordering this home test kit. And you can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Online Program to guide you here. You can also subscribe to my newsletter, where you'll receive a newsletter from me every Thursday with the latest episode and additional resources and tools for your success with achieving optimal health. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. Be sure you sign up and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode of How Humans Heal. I love having you here with me and I would love to hear from you on other topics you'd like to learn more about. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In today's episode we talk about gluten. What it is, the symptoms that it can cause (and how it may be involved in health issues you may be experiencing), how to know if it's an issue for you, and what to do about it. Gluten has been something that I've been researching and learning about for more than 20 years. When I was in my training at Bastyr University in the 90s, it wasn't well known that gluten could cause so many health issues. At the time, I, myself was dealing with health issues, including severe allergies and migraines, and I was trying to figure out the cause. I really wanted to understand how my diet and the food I was eating were influencing my health, and so I tried every diet and did every kind of test on myself to try and figure out the cause of my health issues. It wasn't until after having graduated from Naturopathic Medical School that I finally did a test that was able to identify that gluten was an issue for me. And so, I started avoiding gluten and immediately started feeling better. My allergies decreased, the migraines lessened, and I started to feel better in general, so discovering that I have a sensitivity to gluten really helped me. As of now, I have been avoiding gluten for over 20 years and have helped thousands of patients to discover that gluten is an issue for their health as well. I became an expert resource on the topic of gluten and gluten sensitivity, lecturing at professional conferences across the U.S. and being interviewed by the media on numerous occasions. In the process, I learned so much more about the trouble that gluten can cause. And in helping my patients I discovered that it is not just important to identify gluten as an issue, but also how to recover from gluten exposure. This is important because many patients come to me saying they are already avoiding gluten, but they haven't started to feel better yet, and so it's key to know how to do a full recovery from gluten in order to reset your health and to heal. What Is Gluten? Gluten is a protein that is found in certain grains, including barley, rye, spelt and wheat. This protein acts as a binder in recipes, to hold foods that we make with these grains together, and to make them chewy, like the dough in the process of making bread for example. Without gluten, the dough would just crumble and fall apart easily. Gluten is made up of two smaller protein molecules: gliadin and glutenin. I find that it's helpful to understand that these protein molecules are made up of amino acids, just like all protein. When we ingest protein, in general, it is broken down by our pancreatic enzymes into amino acids which can be absorbed into our bodies. The issue with gluten is that humans, in general, are not able to completely digest gliadin (in gluten) and the related prolamins (from wheat, barley, and rye) due to their high glutamine and proline content. That means that when we consume gluten, some amount of it will not be digested, and can become a trigger to our immune system. It's also important to know that there's a whole spectrum of possible reactivities to wheat and gluten, and to understand that we don't all react the same. A person's immune system might be more reactive to gliadin than glutenin, for example, or vice versa. Some people may be equally reactive to both. Others may be more reactive to wheat, which is a larger molecule than gluten. It can be helpful to understand exactly what is triggering your immune system so you know what to avoid specifically. When Is Gluten A Problem? Anytime we eat a food that we don't digest well (like a larger amino acid chain or protein molecule) it has the potential of causing health issues, especially if that undigested food is able to get through the intestinal lining to where our immune system exists, ready to protect us from foreign substances. Our immune system picks up on proteins (remember that viral proteins, like all proteins, consist of amino acids!) and triggers an inflammatory response to attack the protein. This is what can happen with gluten, because we don't digest it well, and because gluten itself opens spaces between intestinal cells, and gets through to where our immune system thinks it needs to protect us from it. Our immune system releases cytokines (which are inflammatory molecules) to try to protect us. Cytokines are important because they help us heal but if our intestines are being constantly bombarded by gluten and cytokines, there will be constant inflammation, and this can end up causing damage to our cells in the long run. Damage to the intestinal cells is called intestinal permeability or leaky gut. For most people, eating gluten occasionally is not a problem. It is more likely to be an issue when we consume gluten all the time. If we're not paying attention, we could even be exposed to gluten in every meal. Some people may be having gluten for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Gluten is often added to products and recipes, even when we don't realize it. Besides the grains mentioned above, gluten is added to condiments, recipes and packaged foods that we wouldn't even think would have gluten in them. Some breads, for example, may even contain 10 times more gluten (as an added ingredient) to make them fluffier and chewier. In fact, in the United States we're exposed to more gluten than anywhere else in the world because of the “added gluten” in products, intended to increase sales of these foods. If you are wondering why gluten is such an issue now, it's because we're getting so much more exposed to it than ever before. Additionally, there are other factors, such as that most wheat, especially in the United States, is grown with exposure to a pesticide called glyphosate. Glyphosate is know to damage to the intestinal cells. When you combine the negative effects of glyphosate with the increased exposure to gluten, it makes sense why we are seeing an increase in gluten-related health issues. What is Celiac Disease and How is it Different from Gluten Sensitivity or Wheat Allergy? Let's start with wheat allergy. A wheat allergy is when your immune system is creating IgE antibodies to wheat, similar to when someone is allergic to peanuts. Someone with wheat allergy is likely to develop symptoms within minutes to hours after eating something containing wheat. The symptoms include itching, irritation and swelling of the mouth and throat, hives, itchy rash or swelling of the skin and nasal congestion. This is different from Celiac disease. Celiac disease (CD) is a chronic digestive and autoimmune disorder that damages the small intestine. The disease is triggered by eating foods containing gluten. Celiac can cause long-lasting digestive problems and keep your body from getting all the nutrients it needs. It is an autoimmune condition meaning your immune system is not only trying to protect you from gluten (gliadin), but also from your own intestinal cells. It is thought that at first the immune system is reacting to gluten, and then begins to attack nearby proteins, including an enzyme in intestinal cells called transglutaminase enzyme or tTG. This process ends up damaging the intestinal cells, causing severe leaky gut. About 2% of the population is considered to suffer from Celiac disease. There is a genetic correlation for this disease. We have been able to identify that people who have the genes that are called HLA DQ-2 and HLA DQ-8 have an increased risk of Celiac disease. Those people also have an increased risk of non-Celiac gluten sensitivity. Non-Celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS or gluten sensitivity) means a person has a reaction to gluten but doesn't have the autoimmunity condition, so the immune system is not attacking their own cells. It is much more common than CD and is thought to occur in at least 6% of the population. Both CD and gluten sensitivity have a lot of health issues associated with them. What Are the Symptoms of Gluten Sensitivity and CD? One of the most common symptoms, especially in children, is a stomachache. GERD/reflux, gastritis, nausea, bowel changes, and abdominal pain are all associated with gluten sensitivity and CD. Headaches are also common. So, if you get a lot of headaches paired with digestive discomfort, you could be suffering from gluten sensitivity. At the same time, it's important to consider that only about 50% of people with Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity have digestive symptoms. Many people come in saying they do not have digestive issues. In fact, with gluten issues it is much more likely to have neurological symptoms, like anxiety, depression, neuropathy, or other neurological issues. The inflammation is going from your digestion straight to your nervous system. Other symptoms include fatigue, brain fog, decreased focus, memory loss and sleep issues. Not only that but gluten can cause aches and pains whether that's joint pain, muscle pain (that might be considered fibromyalgia), and can cause nutrient deficiencies because of the damage to intestinal cells. When we have damage to our intestinal cells, or leaky gut, we're not going to be able to absorb the nutrients from the foods we eat, so we become more likely to have nutrient deficiencies. The most common deficiencies are iron, vitamin D and B vitamins. It may go as far as developing anemia. So, if you have anemia or iron deficiency, you could be suffering from gluten sensitivity. It also can cause canker sores, skin rashes, menstrual issues (including fertility issues), and perimenopausal symptoms. One of the most common issues I find related to gluten is that it increases our risk of infections of all different types - viral infections, bacterial infections, and yeast infections. If you're getting recurrent infections, whether that's sinus infections or bladder infections, vaginitis, skin infections, eye infections and even persistent HPV, it can all be related to gluten. How Can You Know if You Have Gluten Sensitivity or CD? At least one in four people are thought to have some degree of gluten sensitivity. So, how do we test for it? How do we know if we are sensitive to gluten? For Celiac disease, the standard way to diagnose it is with an intestinal biopsy so, you would need to go into the gastroenterologist to have an endoscopy and biopsy. With the biopsy, they're looking for damage to the small intestinal cells caused by the autoantibodies. There is a blood test that shows anti-gliadin antibodies and antibodies to tTG. These tests are part of a Comprehensive Celiac Panel, and can give a sense of whether Celiac exists, but for an official diagnosis of Celiac disease it is necessary to do the biopsy. For non-Celiac gluten sensitivity, the standard is to avoid gluten for a period of time (usually at least three weeks) and monitor your symptoms. If you feel better when you eliminate gluten fully from your diet, then you could have gluten sensitivity. Then you can try re-introducing gluten to your diet and see if you feel worse to confirm if gluten is affecting you. What I find really helps to identify gluten sensitivity is an IgG and IgA food panel. Not all IgA and IgG food panels are as accurate at identifying reactions to gluten, so I recommend using the lab that I have tested and found to provide the most accurate results. You can order this test through my office here. It's a finger poke so you can do it from home anywhere in the world and mail it in. With this test, we can also check for other food that your body may be reacting to – it tests for 96 foods. It is also possible to test for gliadin antibodies in a stool test. The stool test that I recommend to my patients is called the GI Map from Diagnostic Solutions. It is a highly sensitive test for gliadin antibodies in the stool and can identify if your immune system is trying to protect you from gluten. These tests can be helpful even for someone who's been avoiding gluten as they can tell you if your system is still trying to protect you from it based on your current diet. If this is the case, you may want to take a closer look at your diet so you can identify if gluten is sneaking in somehow. What Is Leaky Gut? Leaky gut is a short way of saying intestinal permeability. The mucous lining of our intestines is designed to absorb water and nutrients from our food into our bloodstream. The intestinal cells are lined up next to each other and our body grows new intestinal cells every day. Those intestinal cells can be damaged by stress, injuries, medications, toxins, and gluten. When the intestinal cells are not as healthy, the intestinal lining allows undigested food to “leak” through, causing an inflammatory reaction by our immune system. When we're under a lot of stress, our body is not able to keep up with making new healthy intestinal cells, leading to increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut. Other causes of leaky gut include surgery, physical stress, lack of sleep, exposure to toxins (like pesticides and toxins from gut bacteria), eating non-organic foods, alcohol, caffeine, and gluten. Gluten causes damage to the intestinal cells by triggering the inflammation that we mentioned. It also increases a substance called zonulin which is a protein that signals to open the spaces between the cells. So, gluten is literally signaling through zonulin to cause leaky gut. Then it gets through to the other side of the intestinal lining and that's where our immune system is hanging out waiting to protect us. So, the immune system triggers even more inflammation. And that inflammation doesn't just stay in the intestinal area, it can go anywhere in the body which is why it can cause such broad symptoms. It goes to our nervous system, our joints, our skin, etc. That inflammation then overwhelms our system, causing more stress. So, not only does the stress from our external world make us more likely to have leaky gut and a reaction to gluten, but gluten and the inflammatory response cause more internal stress. And so, it becomes this vicious cycle or snowball effect where it compounds, and you end up with more and more health issues. By doing the food sensitivity panel that I mentioned we can get an assessment of the degree of leaky gut that you may have. To me, that is the real question – is leaky gut mild, moderate or severe. Gluten can also disrupt our microbiome. We've discussed the importance of the gut microbiome in prior episodes. Microbes living in our body are important for maintaining our health in general, our immune system, our nutrient absorption, our neurotransmitters production, etc. If you would like to learn more about how important our microbiome is and how you can get yours back to balance, you can watch Episode 169 of How Humans Heal here. Are Gluten Sensitivity and HPV Related? Through many years helping people with gluten sensitivity, and also helping people with HPV, I have been identified a pattern. Gluten causes leaky gut, and it disrupts the gut microbiome. A disrupted gut microbiome leads to a disrupted vaginal biome, and this causes vaginal inflammation. Vaginal inflammation and a disrupted biome increase the risk of HPV. Also, gluten and leaky gut cause nutrient deficiencies. We know that nutrient deficiencies increase risk of HPV and abnormal cells, and decrease immune function, so it is not able to protect us optimally. Yes, we can work on healing leaky gut, rebalancing your biome, addressing nutrient deficiencies, and supporting your immune system to protect you from HPV. But if we don't take gluten out of your diet, it's just going to recur. It will happen again and again, and that's why I spend so much time in my programs and working with patients to help them successfully eliminate gluten from their diet and fully recover from gluten sensitivity. If you have tested positive for HPV and are ready to get it out of your life for good, I encourage you to join me for an upcoming 5 Days to Heal HPV Live Online Workshop. You can learn more and sign up here. Gluten and Autoimmunity There is also a correlation between autoimmune diseases, such as Hashimoto's, and gluten sensitivity. When there's a reaction to gluten and the immune system starts to protect you from gluten, it can also begin to attack nearby tissue. That's what occurs with Celiac disease and tissue transglutaminase (tTG). Similarly with Hashimoto's, the immune system starts to protect the person from their own thyroid cells. Research shows the relation between gluten sensitivity, leaky gut, chronic inflammation, disrupted microbiome, and disrupted cortisol levels all leading to a likelihood of developing autoimmunity diseases. So, if you're dealing with an autoimmune condition, then I would say it's important to take a look at gluten sensitivity as an underlying cause. How Can We Recover from Gluten? Step one is avoiding gluten, and that's an important step. I have so many resources on helping people avoid gluten I have developed over the past couple of decades. I have written about gluten and how to avoid it in all of my books. I've created recipes and menu plans because I want you to have support. It doesn't have to be a difficult thing if you have the right support. I also like to emphasize that it doesn't need to be an overnight change. You don't have to be stressing yourself trying to avoid all gluten by tomorrow. I wouldn't try to do that. I would look at it as a learning opportunity. Start by finding replacements for common foods in your diet. It's also important to know that most gluten-free products still contain carbs and sometimes more carbs and more sugar than the products containing gluten, and so you don't want to just switch from a gluten filled product to a gluten free product and end up disrupting your blood sugar levels. That's not a good idea either. What we want to do is use this as an opportunity to go more toward a balanced diet where you're having adequate protein, adequate healthy fats and a nice balance of healthy fruits and vegetables, which, by the way, are already gluten-free. We have a lot of food options available that naturally don't have gluten in them. We just need to remind ourselves to choose those foods instead of those containing gluten, or high carbs and sugar. I can help you to start shifting your diet so you have the support you need. I have many programs that help people with this every day. The Stress Warrior Program, for example, including my Stress Remedy 21-day meal plan, that guides you on exactly what to eat for a healthy gluten-free diet. The next step is healing leaky gut. You need to help your body rebuild your intestinal cells. Yes, our body grows new intestinal cells every day but when your body has been constantly bombarded with gluten, and if you've developed severe leaky gut and a disrupted microbiome, then it's going to take some time for those intestinal cells to heal. Often patients tell me they have been avoiding gluten for years, but they still don't feel good. I find that is most often because they have not adequately healed leaky gut. Healing leaky gut involves getting the right enzymes, nutrients and herbs to help your body digest your food better and grow back new healthy cells, decrease inflammation and reestablish a healthy microbiome. If you want to learn more about my protocol to heal leaky gut, you can watch my FREE Heal Leaky Gut Masterclass here. If you are ready to fully heal, you can join my Leaky Gut Online Program here. It includes a food sensitivity panel and support to address your results. Step 3 is to address nutrient deficiencies. It's important to do the right blood test to identify if you have iron, B vitamin, vitamin D, and/or other nutrient deficiencies. These tests are not usually included in standard blood work, but they are tests I can help order so that you get the right information. When you get the right nutrients back into your body and into your cells, you'll be able to fully recover from gluten exposure and improve your health overall. The last step of gluten recovery is to fully reduce inflammation. Remember that gluten is triggering so much inflammation through your whole system, and even if you're avoiding gluten, that inflammation may still exist, especially if you have leaky gut. To decrease inflammation, we need to look at the food sensitivity panel and see if there are other foods in addition to gluten that may be causing inflammation. By avoiding the highly reactive foods, while taking steps to heal leaky guy, you can drop inflammation levels for good. Taking anti-inflammatory herbs and enzymes can help speed up the process. And, of course, we need to address imbalanced cortisol levels in order to fully resolve inflammation. It's about developing a strategy that is unique for your body and the symptoms you are experiencing. We need to understand your health issues and do the right tests to find out what your body needs and how to support it in the best way possible. For those of you who have more severe reactions to gluten, including Celiac disease, and you feel restricted by having to avoid gluten so strictly, and if you potentially have other types of autoimmunity, you may want to consider something called helminthic therapy. This is something that I can talk with you about and help you with as well as it has been shown to reduce severe reactivity to gluten. Personalize Your Recovery From Gluten I want to emphasize that not everyone has to avoid gluten 100%, and not everyone has to avoid it forever. We really have to take it on a case by case basis, and understand how is it reacting in your body, and how it has affected your health, and then help you recover fully. As I mentioned, stress of all types can trigger leaky gut and gluten sensitivity, as well as autoimmunity, and then gluten causes more stress from within the body. Stress then disrupts the HPA (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis), adrenal function, and both cortisol and adrenaline levels. A perpetual cycle of stress ensues. This is why I consider recovery from stress to be so important for reversing health issues. If you want to learn more about how stress and trauma have affected you, in terms of your cortisol and adrenaline levels, and how to recover so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. To know your Stress Type, which is your unique cortisol and adrenaline levels based on how stresses have affected your adrenal function, you can take the quiz I developed. You can find the Stress Type® Quiz in the book and on my website. If you're ready to start rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, to help your adrenals reset after stress exposure, you can start by ordering this home test kit. And you can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Online Program to guide you here. If you're interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my 14-Day Detox Program here. The Detox Program includes a gluten-free, dairy-free meal plan, along with a protein shake (the protein shake is included), as well as videos to guide you every step of the way. If you're interested in learning more about my approach to addressing HPV, including why healing leaky gut is essential, you can find my HPV Recovery Guide here. If you would like more help getting HPV to negative, and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for the upcoming 5 Days to Heal HPV Workshop here or my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here. To read more blogs about gluten and leaky gut, you can find them here. You can also subscribe to my newsletter, where you'll receive a newsletter from me every Thursday with the latest episode and additional resources and tools for your success with achieving optimal health. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In today's episode we're going to be talking about joint hypermobility. This is a topic that's important to me both clinically and personally because I was diagnosed with it a few years ago. What I find is that joint hypermobility is much more common than previously suspected, and there is so much we can do to help with the symptoms of pain, anxiety, fatigue, and more. Joint hypermobility is sometimes referred to as joint hypermobility syndrome (JHS) or hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD). It shows up a little bit differently in each person and is not well known by practitioners, which means that many people with hypermobility have seen numerous practitioners without receiving a diagnosis. When they do receive a diagnosis, they are often told that “there is no cure,” which can make it seem as though there is nothing that can be done to help. That is simply incorrect. I'll be sharing more why that is my perspective in this episode of How Humans Heal. First, it is important to understand the various potential symptoms of hypermobility, so that you can start to understand how they are interconnected and unique to each person. That will also help us to understand why the approach needs to be individualized as well. Mainly I want listeners/readers to know that I'm here as proof that it is possible to feel good, to be out of pain, and to thrive even when you tend toward joint hypermobility. What is Joint Hypermobility? Joint hypermobility is considered a connective tissue disorder. Connective tissue involves our skin, joints, ligaments, tendons, and fascia. Hypermobility syndromes are associated with joint instability and chronic pain. If you or someone you know has been experiencing joint pain and/or muscle pain for long periods of time, this is something to consider and to talk with your practitioners about, especially those who are experts in hypermobility, so they can help guide you. Although it has been improving in recent years, still there is very low awareness for joint hypermobility amongst practitioners. I believe that is for two reasons: 1. it's a relatively newly identified condition. It was first described in 1967; 2. It's considered to be a rare condition, otherwise known as a “zebra”in medicine, meaning that if someone comes in with joint pain, practitioners are more likely to think of the most common causes for joint pain before thinking of hypermobility syndrome. Research indicates that about 3% of people have joint hypermobility, but I actually think it's higher than that and is more common than we realize. Now, joint hypermobility may or may not be part of another diagnosis called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) which includes joint hypermobility, with unstable joints that dislocate easily, as well as stretchy skin, easy bruising, wounds that are slow to heal and leave wide scars, hernias and organ prolapse. There are thirteen different types of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, some of which involve the blood vessels and digestion. To be diagnosed with EDS requires a genetic analysis to identify collagen-related gene variations. The important thing is, if you feel joint pain or discomfort, you should start taking action now, regardless of it being hypermobility syndrome or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. You have to start taking steps to protect yourself and prevent it from causing further health issues. To me the awful thing is that so many people who are diagnosed with joint hypermobility or with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome are told it's a genetic condition and that there's nothing they can do, or that all that can be done is manage the pain. To me, that is unacceptable. As a naturopathic doctor, and as someone with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I can tell you there are so many things that help me feel better, and that help me prevent symptoms and health issues associated with hypermobility. There's so much you can do about it. I'm not saying that there's a cure, but by understanding it and by being proactive, you can get yourself out of pain and prevent health issues associated with hypermobility. How to Know if You Have Joint Hypermobility Our joints and a lot of other parts of our body are made of collagen. Collagen is so important for joints, bones, ligaments, tendons, blood vessels, intestines, and more. We all make collagen slightly differently. If the way your body makes collagen makes it a little more stretchy, then you may have very flexible collagen and hypermobile joints. But remember, it's a spectrum so not everybody with hypermobile joints can do extreme movements. The best way to identify if you have joint hypermobility is to do a Beighton score test, which is a nine-point scale related to range of motion of joints in the body. The higher you score, the more flexible your joints are. The Beighton test starts with evaluating if you can touch the floor with your hands with your legs straight; this gets you one point. Next is evaluating if you can hyperextend your elbows. If your elbows can extend beyond making your arm look straight, then you get one point for each elbow. Same thing with your knees, so when you stand if your knees bow backwards, that's hyper mobility of the knees, and that's one point on each knee. Then there's the fingers - a classic is to measure if your thumb can reach all the way to your forearm and another is if you're little finger can point back more than 90 degrees from your hand, these are one point each. And there are other signs too. If you notice other joints that can move more than other people's or they move out of position easily (or dislocate), that's also a sign that you may have joint hypermobility. What Are the Symptoms Related to Joint Hypermobility? Anxiety: There are other symptoms that can be related to joint hypermobility like fatigue, anxiety and even depression. Anxiety is highly correlated with hypermobility, research shows that 70% of people with hypermobility have anxiety, and people with anxiety are likely to have joint hypermobility as well. Neurodivergence: Hypermobility is also correlated with depression and what's called neurodivergence. Neurodivergence is associated with differences in social preferences, ways of learning, ways of communicating, and ways of perceiving our environment. It is often associated with autism, ADHD and Tourette's syndrome. Neurodivergent individuals may be more sensitive to our environment emotionally, chemically, and physically. The nervous system is more sensitive and perceptive, and that can relate to being in chronic pain. Chronic pain: The reason for pain is caused by joints being slightly out of position, triggering muscle spasms and fascial restrictions. With hypermobility, it is harder to identify where our body parts should be in space because the joint range of motion is greater. Our nervous system also has a different perception because our joints are more flexible and it's not so clear when motion should stop, making it less likely for our joints to automatically or naturally be in an optimal position. We have less of an internal guidance system. Luckily it is possible to learn proprioception (where your body parts are in space), and by practicing body position and posture, we can prevent joint dislocations. For someone who has collagen that's not so stretchy, this is easier because their joints are not allowing for further movement. If you have hypermobility, your joints will not tell you where to stop and so we have to train ourselves to know where our body is healthiest in space in order to decrease our pain and other symptoms. Muscle strength can also help keep our joints in place. Bruising & Palpitations: Now, with joint hypermobility, and especially with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, you could have symptoms of easier bruising, palpitations, and/or a heart murmur, such as mitral valve prolapse (which is when the heart valves do not close properly between each beat, allowing blood to flow backwards). Digestive Issues: You may also experience issues with the digestive tract, like constipation or diarrhea, and it may be considered IBS or irritable bowel syndrome. You may be diagnosed with IBD, which is inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn's disease or other forms of colitis. Hypermobility also makes it more likely that you will have Celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. Dizziness: Joint hypermobility and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can also be associated with dysautonomia. Dysautonomia is a disorder of autonomic nervous system function. The autonomic nervous system is in charge of involuntary functions, such as breathing and our heartbeat. It also has to do with our response to stress. Dysautonomia involves an imbalance in the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) parts of the autonomic nervous system. It can cause dizziness, fatigue, and weakness, especially when under stress. It can also be related to POTS, or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which is a condition in which a reduced volume of blood returns to the heart and brain after standing up quickly. When you have hypermobility, you have very flexible collagen, and this makes it harder for your blood vessels to get the blood to your brain, so you feel dizzy for a few seconds until your body can catch up by increasing your heart rate. It can make you feel like you are going to faint, or actually cause you to faint. Symptoms from Stress: Also, stress makes all these symptoms harder to manage. If you've been under a lot of stress, maybe going through a loss or stress at work, or stress in your relationship, or trauma of some sort, then your autonomic nervous system will be affected and not work smoothly. The sympathetic nervous system carries signals that put your body's systems on alert, while your parasympathetic carries signals that relax those systems. We need a balance of the two. We need our bodies to be able to do a stress response and protect us from danger, but we also need our bodies to be able to turn off the stress response and go back to calm. When we're under constant stress, our bodies have a harder time flexing between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. That's when the autonomic nervous system starts having a harder time, and we start becoming more susceptible to infections (HPV, EBV, etc) and toxins, especially for those of us with hypermobility. Mast Cell Activation: Another issue related to joint hypermobility and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is mast cell activation syndrome or MCAS. Mast cells are present throughout our bodies and secrete chemicals during allergic reactions, histamine in particular. Symptoms include episodes of abdominal pain, cramping, diarrhea, flushing, itching, wheezing, coughing, lightheadedness, rapid pulse and low blood pressure. Mast cell activation (and histamine) can also be related to headaches, like migraines, as well as neuropathy, symptoms of vulvovaginal pain, vaginitis and urinary/bladder pain. Autoimmunity, like rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, and other inflammatory conditions, like ankylosing spondylitis and SAPHO, are also related. MTHFR and Methylation Issues: A recent study associated hypermobility with MTHFR gene variations. MTHFR is the gene that manages the conversion of folic acid into folate, and folate is the active form of vitamin B9. Of course we all need B9 along with all the other B vitamins to help us in so many processes, including having healthy connective tissue. If we don't have enough folate, and if we don't have healthy methylation, this is going to affect the way our body creates collagen. If we know that MTHFR is associated with hypermobility, and we know that not having enough folate and effective methylation affects your connective tissue, then we can do something about that. We can make sure you have adequate folate, and we can make sure you have effective methylation, in order to help protect your connective tissue and prevent pain and other health issues. If you want to learn more about this, I encourage you to go listen to Episode #145 of my podcast: Efficient Methylation and its Impact on Our Health as well as my Free MTHFR Masterclass. What Can We Do to Help Our Bodies if We Have Joint Hypermobility? It is possible to help your body rebalance and correct where it needs help. To me, it's about understanding your biochemistry, and understanding your body's tendencies, and giving your body what it needs to heal and rebalance, which usually comes in the form of dietary changes, nutrients, supplements and herbs. A lot of people feel stuck with their symptoms and the need for medications. With joint hypermobility, the main issues are joint and muscle pain, so one of the first treatments recommended is a pain medication, like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). While offering temporary relief, they have a lot of side effects and can't be taken long term, plus they're not really solving anything, in fact, they might be making things worse, so that's not really a solution. Neither are steroidal drugs for pain as they also have negative effects on our bodies. Additionally, medications prescribed for hypermobility symptoms, such as anti-depressants and benzodiazepines, create dependency and have withdrawal symptoms. To me, it's not enough to tell people with joint hypermobility that the only option is pain management. There is so much more that we can do. There are ways to manage pain by actually decreasing inflammation and using natural substances that don't have side effects. It is also possible to start helping your body alongside the use of medications when you are working with an expert who understands the interactions and is able to guide you. Physical therapy, massage therapy, myofascial therapy, acupuncture and exercises for posture and strength (such as Pilates) can help reduce the symptoms. It is important to make sure the practitioner or trainer understands what joint hypermobility is and the special needs that your body has because when you have joint hypermobility, you are more likely to suffer from injuries. The approach needs to be completely different. It's not about increasing flexibility or increasing intensity too much. And It's also NOT going to help to stop exercising all together. It IS about doing the right type of exercise, in the right amount and frequency, for your body. For me Pilates has been extremely helpful. It helped me to learn joint position and posture, and to gain strength without causing injury. Ballroom dancing also helps with posture and strength. Myofascial release therapy has been hugely helpful as it can release the restrictions in the connective tissue. If you want to learn more about myofascial release therapy you can watch Episode #166 of How Humans Heal: Myofascial Release Therapy - Bringing Your Body Back to Alignment. Also in Episode #170 you can learn about how to get rid of joint and muscle pain using natural remedies. Acupuncture and especially acupuncture that's using electrical stimulation can also help address the trigger points and motor points in the muscles, so it is a great option too. Paying attention to your body, your posture, and your strength every day is a must if you have joint hypermobility. You can't just get a massage once a year or go to physical therapy only if you get injured. You have to have a weekly plan to help relieve the symptoms and prevent injuries. If you don't keep up with that routine of managing your body and your joints, that's when you are more likely to find yourself in pain and at a greater risk of injuries. Dietary changes to reduce inflammation, testing for food sensitivities, healing leaky gut, addressing the gut biome are all things that can help. If there is leaky gut and imbalanced gut biome, you have a source of inflammation from within your gut, and that's causing inflammation through your whole body which is going to increase your likelihood of pain. Our biome is so important. It's not just about having a bunch of bacteria or probiotics. It's about having the right balance and how these bacteria communicate with our immune system and our nervous system. If you would like to learn more about how to balance your microbiome you can watch Episode #169 of my podcast: Getting Your Microbiome Back on Track. It is also essential for anyone who has hypermobility to measure your cortisol and adrenaline levels. Hypermobility makes it more likely that your nervous system and adrenal gland function are disrupted by stress. It's more likely that you're going to have neurotransmitter imbalances, and either too high or too low cortisol and adrenaline, or what I call the stress types (the five most common disruptions of cortisol and adrenaline). That's what I wrote about in the Master Your Stress Reset Your Health book. If you want to find out if your cortisol and adrenaline are out of balance, you can order my home test kit here. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online and sign up for my Stress Warrior Program to guide you to optimize your cortisol and adrenaline (adrenal health) here. We also need to do specific blood work so we can understand exactly how hypermobility is affecting you and if you have nutrient deficiencies. If you have hypermobility and inflammation and nutrient deficiencies, it could snowball into various health issues. This is why we need to look at the big picture, see the interconnections, and then guide your body through the steps to heal and prevent more health issues. The best treatments for hypermobility are from what I would consider a naturopathic approach. It has to do with giving your body what it needs to heal in terms of food, nutrients, plants, herbs and other natural approaches. We need to make sure you are consuming adequate amounts of protein – learn more about that here. We can support the body to heal itself by working on the root causes of problems and solving them. If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol. Keep in mind that 50% of people with leaky gut, have zero digestive symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to do the food sensitivity panel I recommend. If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here. If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here. You can also subscribe to my newsletter where you'll receive a newsletter from me every Thursday with the latest episode and additional resources and tools for your success with achieving optimal health. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In today's episode we're going to be talking about the gut microbiome. Why it's important, how to know what's going on with your microbiome and how to optimize it. The microbiome consists of microbes that are both helpful and potentially harmful for us and our bodies. Most of these organisms are symbiotic, meaning they and us benefit at the same time, but some are pathogenic, which are those that cause trouble, produce toxins, and increase inflammation. When we are healthy, both symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms coexist without problems in a perfect balance and without causing us to get sick. The problem comes when this perfect balance is disrupted, causing our metabolic and immune function to be negatively affected. That's why it is so important to identify and to get your microbiome back on track. Today we will focus mainly on the gut biome, although it is now well known that it is important to have a healthy balance of microbes in all different areas of our bodies, including the skin and vagina. They all relate back to the gut, so let's focus there. What Is the Gut Microbiome? I'm thinking that a lot of you probably have heard about the gut microbiome, also known as the biome or the gut microbiota. Essentially, it's referring to the microorganisms that are living in our digestive tract. This group of microbes living inside of us fluctuate on a daily, weekly and monthly basis based on our diet, physical activity, medications we take, toxins exposure and stress exposure. The important thing here is to try to have a healthy balance of this microbes as much as possible. When there's a healthy balance, the good bacteria counterbalance the potentially harmful bacteria. When our microbiome gets out of balance, it's either that there are not enough good bacteria, or too much of the potentially harmful bacteria. And that's when health issues start. Research is showing that if the gut microbiome gets out of balance, it can increase the risk of many health issues including infections (bacterial, yeast, and viral), autoimmunity conditions, metabolic disorders, even weight gain, anxiety, depression, menstrual irregularities, PCOS, endometriosis, fertility issues, osteoporosis, kidney diseases, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. Having a healthy balance of microbes in the gut is essential for our health. What Is This Gut Microbiome Doing for Us? As you might suspect from the various health issues that I just mentioned, the microbiome communicates and supports our immune system and help protect us from infections and autoimmunity (which is when our immune system gets confused and starts trying to protect us from our own self) so, by having a good balance of microbes in your gut, you're helping your immune system stay on track and protect you. These microbes also communicate with our nervous system via the Vagus nerve and other mechanisms. These guys are sending messages to our brain and our nervous system, they're communicating about what's happening down in our gut, they can cause us to crave some kinds of foods in order to feed them. They can affect our mood, our memory and our focus. They also make certain nutrients like B vitamins (including activating B12), vitamin K and short chain fatty acids (which are protective to the colon). Furthermore, they participate in making neurotransmitters such as GABA and can influence the production of serotonin and dopamine in our nervous system. What we're learning from research is that they help us recover from stress and toxin exposure! As you know I specialize in how humans are affected by stress and what we can do to recover from stress, and so I would say that optimizing the microbiome has a huge impact on our stress recovery. How Do We Maintain a Healthy Microbiome? So, we now know they're important, but how do we take care of them? It's like having a pet, you must know how to feed them and how to take care of them so that they can be healthy. What we eat is what feeds our gut bacteria. Of course, they're living in our gut so what we swallow is going to influence them and what's going to feed them potentially. Our gut bacteria can ferment foods what we as humans are unable to digest, like fiber or complex starches for example. They can ferment fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds. Foods and fibers that feed our microbiome are called “prebiotics.” Fructooligosaccharides in garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus, artichokes, kale, dandelion, as well as bananas, contain the highest amount of prebiotics, or super food, for our gut bacteria. It's important to know that it's possible to over feed your gut bacteria! In fact, I would say that it is much more likely to overfeed your bacteria than to underfeed them. I see a higher percentage of patients with overgrowing bacteria rather than with too few bacteria. Going back to the pet analogy, we have to know how to feed our gut bacteria correctly. Symptoms of overfeeding your gut bacteria include bloating, gas, cramping, bowel changes, weight gain, and burping. Consuming prebiotics in excess or eating too much fermented foods (yoghurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, kombucha, etc.) can cause overgrowth. We want that optimal amount and balance of good and bad gut bacteria, so just be aware and cautious and listen to your body. If you are consuming a lot of prebiotics, high fiber foods, fermented foods and you start to feel bloated or have bowel changes or gas, or even if you have infections (sinus, bladder, vaginal) or joint pain, inflammation, headaches, skin rashes, these are all symptoms that you may be overfeeding your gut bacteria. How Can You Know if You're Overfeeding Your Gut Microbiome? What you can do is a stool analysis. For many years we have had stool cultures. The culture is when you send in a stool sample into the lab and they allow it to grow over several days. The problem with cultures is that some bacteria are anaerobic, so they don't grow in a lab environment. Then, about a decade ago, they came out with a DNA analysis of the gut bacteria. This is DNA sequencing so no matter whether the bacteria are alive or not, they can identify them based on their DNA. This is a much more accurate way of knowing which bacteria are thriving, or overgrowing, in your microbiome. There are now consumer versions of these stool tests that you can order online and send in your stool sample. They may make suggestions in terms of how to change your diet to feed the bacteria that are too low, and not overfeed those that are too high. It's important to consider that, while making certain diet changes can help, I have not found that decreasing or increasing specific foods is an effective solution to adjust your microbiome (and I have tried it with hundreds of patients). That is because many of the same foods that feed the good bacteria, also feed the bad bacteria. It doesn't work to manipulate your diet, in terms of eating specific fruits or seeds, in order to make minor adjustments in your biome. A much better approach is to choose a variety of foods in your diet. If you're eating the exact same foods every day, it is more likely to cause an overgrown of bacteria (or yeast). In that case, increasing the variety in your diet and eating other kinds of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds each day, or alternating through the week, will help to improve the diversity of bacteria because you'll be feeding a greater number of types overall. When it comes to our gut microbiome, we want diversity. There are over 1,000 bacterial species that have been identified with about 160 species being found living in the gut of any individual so we don't want to just feed certain ones. Now, if your gut microbiome is really needing more help and you have symptoms of overgrowing bacteria, or a health issue related to the gut biome, then some additional steps need to be taken. There is a clinical stool panel called the GI MAP that I find has helped so many of my patients by showing exactly which bacteria, yeast, protozoa and/or parasites are present, so we can tailor a specific protocol to address them. I can order this test through my office for you and then we can see who's living there in your gut. It will also tell us if there is inflammation (calprotectin) or antigliadin antibodies, and how well are you digesting your food. We can see quite a lot about your digestive system in this type of clinical stool panel, and from there I can get way more specific and design a strategy for you so we can get your biome back on track. What Can We Do to Rebalance Our Gut Bacteria? When we're constantly under stress, we don't digest our food well, and this will cause an imbalance in the gut bacteria, let alone many potential health issues. If our food is not digested well, we're not going to be able to absorb the nutrients, so it's not going to feed us, and instead it's going to overfeed the bacteria and other microbes. So, how do we support our digestion? Well, we can start by taking the time to slow down and consciously eat. Take your time and sit down, breathe, chew well, etc. This way you are sending signals to your Vagus nerve communicating that it's time to make enzymes and digest. You can also take pancreatic enzymes if needed to help you digest food while your system is healing. This is something that will show on the stool panel. Also, if you're not making enough bile, we can support bile production for fat digestion. If you're not making enough stomach acid (hydrochloric acid) we can add that to help with protein digestion. We can support the digestion of your food in many different ways, including herbs that stimulate digestion or even just eating plants that are bitter (like arugula), which help with digestion. If there's overgrowing pathogenic bacteria, referred to as “dysbiosis,” I would guide you through a protocol of using antimicrobial herbs that are effective at addressing the bacteria that are overgrowing, without wiping out all your good bacteria. That's a very specific protocol that I developed and tested over the years and one that works for the majority of patients. In addition to antimicrobial herbs, I also recommend using probiotics that contain the bacillus species (such as Megaspore), which I consider to be the traffic directors of the microbiome. These bacteria are able to rebalance your gut biome by supporting the good guys and telling the overgrowing or pathogenic bacteria that they need to go. Once we get the balance back then we can shift our strategy to maintaining the balance by eating a healthy, balanced, and diverse diet, along with potentially using a maintenance probiotic, which is going to contain lactobacillus and bifidobacterium in the range of 25 to 50 billion per day. It's important to consider that when trying to rebalance your gut microbiome, it's better to do it slowly. An aggressive change can cause the pathogenic bacteria to release toxins as a defense mechanism, and this can make you feel worse. Starting with very low doses of bacillus and antimicrobial herbs and listening to your body in the process is key to a good outcome. It's also important to think about the environment. If there's leaky gut, unhealthy cells, and inflammation, then the good bacteria will not thrive, so we need to be paying attention to making it a happy, healthy environment for the healthy bacteria and microbes to live in. What Are the Causes of a Disruption in the Microbiome? One of the main causes of dysbiosis, and one that I have been helping a lot of patients with through the years, is leaky gut. With leaky gut, the foods we eat “leak” through the intestinal lining because the intestinal cells have become damaged and there is more space between the cells. When undigested food leaks through the intestinal lining, the immune system responds in an effort to protect us, which leads to inflammation that can spread throughout the body. At the same time, the intestinal cells are not able to absorb nutrients from the foods we eat and, of course, our microbiome is disrupted. A poor diet, overconsumption of alcohol, smoking, stress and exposure to environmental toxins are all factors in developing leaky gut. The best protection is a healthful diet high in natural fiber and low in added sugars and processed foods. Another cause of dysbiosis is taking some types of medications like antibiotics, antacid medications, such as proton pump inhibitors, and many other medications. These meds will kill both good and bad bacteria, so we need to counteract this effect by taking the right probiotics. This is also why it is important to avoid the use of medications whenever possible. Stress is a major factor in the disruption of our microbiome. Stress includes psycho-emotional stress, trauma, as well as physical stressed and injuries. If you know you've been under stress, you're going to want to be proactive to help your microbiome to recover. We also know that gluten (in wheat, rye, barley, and spelt) disrupts the bacteria and decreases the levels of various kinds of healthy bacteria. If you're consuming gluten, and even if you don't have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, there's a chance you're disrupting your gut bacteria. Also sugar, refined carbs, processed foods, non-organic foods, a low-fiber diet, pesticides, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors and colors added to foods, all cause gut biome disruption. Exposure to toxins, such as toxins in our environment, our food, water, air, and exposure to mold toxins (such as if you're living in a water damaged building), all affect our digestion and they affect our microbiome. When it comes down to it, our gut biome is potentially being disrupted every day. It's by raising our awareness, and being mindful about what we eat, and how we recover from stress, that we are able to keep our gut microbiome optimized. What Are Some Products Out There That Can Help Rebalance the Microbiome? There is another new stool panel that not only tells us about the balance of bacteria in your biome, but then also offer custom probiotic formulations based on your results. So if you're low in certain strains of bacteria, then that's what they're going to put in your individualized probiotics. That company is called Flore and I can help you with that through my office if you're interested in trying that out as a way to re-optimize your gut biome. There's recent research that's identifying individual strains of bacteria and how they specifically help us with our health. I think we're going to see more and more products, such as supplements or beverage products, that contain these specific bacteria based on research that shows how they're potentially beneficial for our health. For example, there's one type of bacteria called Bifidobacterium 1741, which is considered a “psychobiotic” because it's been shown in research to help with stress recovery, specifically to bring cortisol down. So, in terms of the Stress Types I identified, this would be especially helpful for a Stress Magnet, or Night Owl, or Sluggish and Stressed type, who have elevated cortisol levels. If you want to find out your Stress Type, you can do my free online Stress Type Quiz here. Bifidobacterium 1741 has also been shown to help with mental health in terms of cognition, focus and memory. This type of bacteria can be found in products like Zenbiome - Zenbiome Cope and Zenbiome Sleep. There's also Bifidobacterium 35642 which has been shown to modulate inflammation. This would be especially helpful for someone who is experiencing a lot of inflammation and pain. Zenbiome Dual contains both Bifidobacterium 1741 and 35642. https://doctordoni.com/product/zenbiome-dual-60-capsules/ There's also quite a lot of research on the bacteria related to the vaginal biome and how it is completely related to the health of the gut biome. This is so important because if you're having vaginal symptoms or recurrent vaginal infections, like yeast, BV, or HPV, we know it is important that we heal your gut biome in order to help heal the vaginal biome and prevent those infections from happening. If you want to learn more about the vaginal biome related to the gut biome you can watch Episode #168 of How Humans Heal here. If you're interested in a probiotic that is specifically formulated to support a healthy vulvovaginal microbiota you can find one here. And another here. https://doctordoni.com/product/ortho-biotic-womens-30-capsules/ More examples of specific oral probiotics to benefit areas of the body and for certain purposes are: * Bifidobacterium HU36 - shown to help with carotenoid and the skin. https://doctordoni.com/product/sereneskin-30-capsules/ * Lactobacillus rhamnosus DR7, which has been shown especially to be helpful for mood and stress recovery or bacteria that has been shown to help with our neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. *Bifidobacterium BPL1 which has been shown to help with weight gain around the waist. One more approach that is being used, especially in cases where there is the need to control an infection called Clostridium difficile, or C. diff (which is a pathogenic bacteria that a lot of times is hard to treat and get rid of) is something called a “fecal transplant.” A fecal transplant is a procedure to collect feces from a healthy donor and introduce them into a patient's gastrointestinal tract. Research shows that a fecal transplant can restore healthy bacteria in the lower intestine, which can help control C. diff and keep it from coming back. In some cases this can be more effective than antibiotics for keeping C. diff in check. Still, even after using a specific probiotic, or having a fecal transplant, we will need to come back to rebalancing and maintaining the overall population and diversity of bacteria based on what we eat and supporting healthy digestion. How to Integrate Microbiome Optimization into Your Overall Health Plan? No matter what, I think it's important to keep in mind that we need to take into account all of the root causes of our health issues. Yes, we can take a bacteria-containing supplement, and we can learn to consume an optimal amount of prebiotics to feed our biome, and all that can help, but we also need to work on our recovery from stress and anything else that was thrown out of balance by stress. We need to ensure optimal cortisol levels because cortisol determines the signals to our digestion. We need to optimize hormone levels such as insulin and blood sugar levels, thyroid, as well as leptin and the sex hormones. We need to address nutrient deficiencies and toxins. We have to address all the underlying causes to really shift the imbalances permanently and achieve our best health and resilience to stress going forward. If you really want to heal there needs to be a whole protocol put into action for your specific body. This is why I encourage you to refer to my overall stress recovery protocol because I'm addressing all the potential imbalances, not just the microbiome. Yes, the microbiome is hugely important, but we have to also think about all the other potential imbalances along with it because then everything can help maintain resilience together. So, as you can see, there are many solutions - many ways to help you rebalance your microbiome. I've worked with some of the most challenging and complex cases - people who were put on the most strict diets and worked with many other practitioners - and I've helped guide them back out of it to heal their digestion, optimize their biome and help them feel better. That's where I get my confidence to say it's possible to get your microbiome back on track again. If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol. Keep in mind that 50% of people with leaky gut, have zero symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to do the food sensitivity panel I recommend. If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here. If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here. If you want to feel better by rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, start with this home test kit. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online. For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Additional Resources:    If you want to work on your gut health and microbiome you may want to sign up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program (https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program) where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol.    If you're interested in learning more about my approach to healing HPV you can find my new HPV Recovery Guide here (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/).    If you are tired of this virus and are really committed to erasing it from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here (https://drdoni.lpages.co/hpv-12-week-program/).   You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here (https://doctordoni.com/stress-program).    Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/). In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/)   For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here (https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/)   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

In today's episode I'm going to be talking about the vitamin known as folate or vitamin B9. Like the seven other variations of vitamin B, vitamin B9 is used to convert food into fuel and support healthy skin, eyes, hair, and blood cells. During pregnancy, some form of vitamin B9 is needed to ensure the baby's proper brain, skull, and spinal cord development to prevent birth defects. Folate is also important for the detoxification process carried out in the liver as well as for protecting our DNA. The reason I want to cover this vitamin is because I find that there's so much confusion about it and so many of you are trying to figure out whether you need more or less folate. Also, how to navigate gene variations related to folate to make sure that you can prevent health issues that are associated with those gene variations. Folic Acid vs Folate One of the first confusions is about the difference between folic acid and folate. A lot of times you'll find that the word folic acid and folate are used as if they're the same thing when they are not. Folic acid is a man-made or synthetic nutrient, so it's not found in nature naturally occurring, whereas folate (which is also in biochemistry referred to as methyl folate METHYL) is the form that's found in nature and in our bodies. Methylfolate is active folate, which is the precise enzymatic form available for immediate cellular absorption and energy release. Although it has a similar end function to folic acid, choosing this efficient and ready-to-use form is a much more effective option for people who have difficulty converting food into fuel. Our bodies know how to use and process folate naturally. We have a certain degree of ability to turn folic acid into folate within our bodies but it's our gene variations that determine how well we can do that. Depending on your genetics you may have a 10% to 80% decreased ability to turn folic acid into folate. Folic acid is used to fortify different foods. It's a synthetic substance that's added to man-made foods. If you think of bread and cereal, you might see on the ingredient list folic acid as they're using the synthetic form. Sometimes multivitamins and B complex or prenatal vitamins or even protein shakes or other processed products might have folic acid as an ingredient. Using the synthetic form of these nutrients is oftentimes less expensive than using the natural form. The natural form called folate or methylfolate is found in all green vegetables like spinach, broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, etc. Meat products also have this natural form of the nutrient, like liver and other forms of meat. You can also find it in sunflower seeds and some forms of beans and peanuts for example. How To Measure Folate in Your Body Depending on your genes, your body may have a better or worse ability to turn folate acid into folate. If you want to know your folate levels, blood work may be misleading because they show both the synthetic and the natural form under the name folate. For a more accurate measurement of how much active folate you have in your body we need to either do a specialty test (there are labs that do specialty tests to identify your actual active folate levels) or do a test for something called homocysteine because homocysteine is a metabolite in our biochemistry that uses folate. So, if we measure the homocysteine, we can get a sense of if our bodies have enough folate, too much folate or not enough. Another way to get a sense of this is to check your methylmalonic acid because methylmalonic acid tells us your B12 metabolism and B12 levels and how well your body is using the B12. I want you to know this because I want you to know that there's people like me who have a lot of additional training to understand all this biochemistry and nutrients and can help guide you to optimize your homocysteine your methylmalonic acid and your folate and the use of folate in your body. So, I don't want you to feel like you're on your own with all of this. Folate and MTHFR MTHFR is a type of gene mutation that lowers the efficiency of the MTHFR enzyme. When you have MTHFR your body cannot properly convert folate into methylfolate. By disrupting the natural metabolic pathway, MTHFR blocks usable methylfolate from reaching the cells. Inadequate methylfolate levels can have a wide variety of negative effects on the body, particularly those that affect the cardiovascular and nervous systems. During pregnancy, a lack of methylfolate can also have serious impacts on healthy fetal development. Fortunately, there are several folate replacements available that can largely make up for deficiencies that are caused by MTHFR. Folic acid and folate can be cheap, but methylfolate tends to be the most effective option when it comes to treating the unique needs of MTHFR and giving the body an enzyme it can directly act upon. It's important to know that there are other factors affecting your body's ability to turn folate into methylfolate whether you have MTHFR or not. This is what I refer to as your stress recovery. Depending on how well your taking care of your body and helping your body recover from various stress exposures determines the influence of your genes on your health. People with MTHFR might assume that there's nothing they can do about their folate levels but there is. This depends on many factors that we will discuss today. What Affects Our Ability to Use Folate Besides Genetics? If you have a gene variation but if it's not expressing, then it is not affecting your health. But there's factors from our environment or what I refer to as stress that affect our ability to metabolize folate. Any kind of emotional or psycho-emotional stress in the present moment or even in the past or accumulated stress will influence your cortisol and adrenaline levels. When those levels get out of balance your ability to utilize folate gets hindered. Also, any kind of physical stress (whether you have an injury, infection, nutrient depletion, etc) can affect your ability to use folate effectively and it also affects your genetic expression. Those same stresses affect the enzymes that work with folate and our methylation or ability to use our B vitamins. Folate has to get together with B12 and all the all the other B vitamins and they do what's called the methylation cycle. If you want to learn more about methylation you can watch episode No 145 of How Humans Heal here. So, our ability to use our B vitamins is affected by emotional and physical stress and that's why I talk about stress recovery because it really determines your ability to optimally use folate. Also, with stress recovery you can optimize your cortisol and adrenaline and you can optimize other functions in your body so that you can really get the most out of your folate from your diet. Another important factor in how your body is able to benefit from folate is your nutrient intake and nutrient deficiencies. If you have nutrient deficiencies because you are not eating healthy or do not take any supplements to help your body with nutrients, you could have a deficiency in folate. Also, some medications like birth control pills or methotrexate (which is a medication used to treat autoimmunity), some antibiotics, metformin for blood sugar issues, anticonvulsant drugs, etc. can all cause a deficiency of folate even if you're eating enough folate. These block the metabolism of folate. If you're taking any of these medications it's important that you talk to your practitioner so you make sure that you are taking the right tests and the right form of folate.   Your ability to use folate is also affected by inflammation in the body. The main determinant of inflammation in the body is your diet. If you're consuming foods that are more inflammatory to your body, then your ability to use folate could be affected. To know which foods are inflammatory for your body you can do a food sensitivity panel. With this home test you can see which foods you need to reduce or avoid to reduce inflammation in your body. Also, if the digestion system is inflamed or if leaky gut is present there will be an imbalance in gut bacteria and this influences your ability to use folate and absorb nutrients in general. Also, exposure to toxins, toxins from our environment, food, water, home toxins like mold, heavy metals, etc. all affect our ability to adequately use folate. If you would like to know more about how to detoxify your body, you can check out my 14-Day Detox Program here. How Much Folate Do I Need? The common confusion is people will find out that they have high homocysteine levels and then they're thinking they need to take more folate. But then very often people will contact me and say but I felt worse when I took folate. Why? Well we have to dig in and figure out what's blocking your ability to use that folate effectively. When you feel worse in any way when you take folate it tells me there's a traffic jam in your stress recovery and your inflammation and your digestive health, your toxin levels, your nutrients, we got to go through systematically to figure that out and address whatever we see and as we address those factors then your body will start using folate again. It's not that you need more or less, it's about getting your body to work in the right way to absorb just the right amount from your food and your supplements. We need to break up the traffic jams that are preventing your ability to use it effectively. There is a dietary recommendation, everyone needs a certain amount of folate. The standard dietetic recommendation is 600 to 800 IU of folic acid, I convert that to methyl folate and that's the bare minimum. That's not taking into account your individuality, your individual genes your individual stress exposure and your individual imbalances. So, we need to figure out what is the right amount for you. This is why I would say it's such a high priority to fully understand your potential gene variations and understand where to get the right information so you can figure out what's the right amount of folate for you. Now, keep in mind the right amount of folate for you could change from year to year if your hormones change, if your environment changes, if your job changes, etc. That's why I think everyone should have their homocysteine levels checked in their blood work at least once a year. You may or may not know if you have a MTHFR gene variation. Either way, you can still get your blood work for homocysteine and methylmalonic acid and you can work on identifying the factors that might be decreasing your ability to use folate efficiently. You don't have to do an MTHFR gene test but if you do an MTHFR gene test what I think is important to know is that this is just one piece of information. It can be very validating to get your genes tested and to have that information but at the same time it can be overwhelming. What is more important is to identify the ways in which you can support your body to use folate efficiently like stress recovery, detoxification, reducing inflammation, food sensitivities, nutrient deficiencies, etc. The thing is we're all unique humans, we're all going to have some genetic variations and these genetic variations are not life threatening and actually have the potential to benefit your health because once we see where the genetic variations are we can address them using nutrients, diet, stress recovery, hormone balancing, etc. We can use many tools to help address those gene variations and to even potentially influence genetic expression. If you want to learn more about this you can listen to my FREE MTHFR Masterclass here. If you want to run a test not just for MTHFR but for all your genes I can guide you on which test to do for that and then I would suggest meeting with me to help guide you through that. If you're looking for products that contain methylfolate you can look in my website and online store because I have a multi vitamins and B complexes and prenatals and protein shakes that contain methylfolate so you can be sure you're getting a product that has the right form of folate in it. If you want to feel better by rebalancing your neurotransmitters, you start by addressing your cortisol and adrenaline levels with this home test kit. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online. If you want to go through your specific case with me and improve your health (mental or physical) you can set up a one-on-one appointment here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

Today's episode is about emotional healing. This is something that comes up with my patients from around the world and also with the people that participate in the programs that I offer. Whether it's healing something like HPV and abnormal pap smear results, or helping with anxiety and depression, emotional healing comes into play. So, I feel like it's an important thing to for us to talk about as it's an essential part of the stress recovery process. I also cover emotional healing in my most recent book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. What is Emotional Healing? We hear a lot about the mind-body connection, but what does it mean to process emotions? Well, stress can come from a psycho-emotional level (our minds) like a traumatic experience, or it can come from a physical level (our bodies) like infections, toxins and injuries. And it's the combination of those stresses and even spiritual or energetic stresses that compound into the total load of stress that we're exposed to. This is our environmental exposure to stress. And we know from research that it's this exposure that turns on our gene expression and makes us susceptible to all kinds of health issues. We are so used to going to different practitioners for different parts of our bodies (including different practitioners for the mind and body) when in reality we are one whole being and all of our systems are interconnected. Our digestion is in communication with our immune system, our hormones with our nervous system, etc. They're all talking to each other and that means that they can either have a negative influence or a positive influence on each other. Our physical bodies (digestion, glands, muscles, bones, etc.) are always in communication with our nervous system and our minds. So, our feelings and our emotional state are also in communication with our physical bodies. An example of this is not feeling hungry when you are feeling anxious or depressed. So, it is very important for our health (mental and physical) to allow ourselves to feel and to process emotions. Emotions come naturally to us as humans. Our bodies and nervous system inherently knows how to feel emotions and to cry, laugh, and yawn. The problem here is that from a young age most of us are taught not to express our feelings or emotions. Society, schools, religion, or our own households teach us that we must suppress all of this. Meanwhile research shows that when we don't allow ourselves to feel and process all our emotions there is a high risk of developing health issues, again, mental and/or physical conditions. There are several good books on this topic, including by Carolyn Myss and The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Unfortunately, I don't think people have enough support to learn how to process emotions and to recover from stress and trauma. As much as we might be bringing awareness to stress and trauma, we're not so much being guided what to do about it. And so then the stress and trauma just start feeling heavier and heavier. I want to help you to have the right tools to transform the effects of stress and trauma, to recover from it, and it begins with learning to feel your feelings instead of suppressing them. What also helps us heal on an emotional level is for us to start making decisions for ourselves, and to get in touch with our intuition and messages from your body. So, I would much rather give you information for you to then connect with yourself and see what feels right to you. Then along the way you're also learning to listen to yourself, you're learning to feel your emotions, you're learning to try things with curiosity, and learn through the experience. How Do We Heal Emotionally? First, we have to establish that healing is possible, and that recovery from stress and trauma is possible. Then we can start to look at how best to approach this healing. A lot of times you hear me talking about how to heal on a physical level, such as how to get cortisol, the stress hormone, back to optimal levels. The amazing thing I find with my patients is that when cortisol, as well as adrenaline and neurotransmitters, are optimal, they find it so much easier process emotions and heal on a psycho-emotional level. This is important because a lot of people find themselves spending hours and hours, and thousands of dollars, in talk therapy and end up feeling like they're only getting so far with it. In that case, we have to be sure we are also addressing the physical part of you, such as cortisol, adrenaline, neurotransmitters, nutrient deficiencies, thyroid imbalances, digestive issues, etc. For those of you who are doing the work to balance your hormones, microbiome, and nutrients, but you haven't paid attention to the mental, emotional, and even energetic aspect of your healing, then I encourage you to make that a priority. For some people it is very helpful to work with a therapist. And then you might decide to try different forms of therapy, from CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy to EMDR, which has been shown to be very helpful for stress recovery and PTSD. There are also natural treatments like homeopathy, which is an ancient system of medicine that's very helpful for processing emotionally and connecting the mind with the body to heal. Also, psychedelic medicine, which has been shown more and more to be effective at helping us heal on an emotional level. Psychedelic treatments include the use of psilocybin, ketamine, as well as MDMA and Ayahuasca, which is a plant medicine from Central and South America that has been shown to be extremely effective at healing PTSD and addictions. If you're interested in psychedelic therapy you can learn more by watching Episode 151 of How Humans Heal where I share my experience of attending a shamanic journey in the Peruvian Amazon. Other tools that help with emotional healing are meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, journaling, and rebalancing of the chakras. The important thing is that you experiment and find what works for you specifically. Something that you can do for yourself starting now is to become more aware of your emotions, and to allow yourself to feel your emotions. Be curious about your emotions, because I think so often, we don't allow ourselves to fully feel because we may think we don't have time for this, or we fear what could happen if we let it all out. It's almost like our emotions are monsters and we run away from them. Well, if we don't allow ourselves to feel these emotions, we will never be able to process them, and we will continue to carry the weight of them through our lives in our bodies. I learned this lesson the hard way – by developing severe migraines and a chronic inflammatory joint condition. It was through my own process of healing emotionally that I have been able to recover from these physical health issues. What Happens to Our Bodies When We Heal Emotionally? I think that as humans we're probably only allowing ourselves to feel less than 5% of our emotional capacity. I know that for myself, and I know that from observing patients and others in my life. We really restrict ourselves from feeling and we have no idea that we can experience such emotional breadth. Just like when you go to the gym and workout your muscles, you can learn to expand your ability to feel, and feel comfortable and confident doing it. There are many books out there that talk about emotions. For example, Atlas Of The Heart by Brene Brown where she talks about 86 different emotions that we can feel. Or 90 Seconds to a Life You Love by Joan I. Rosenberg where she talks about how most emotions can be felt in 90 seconds. When we expand our ability to feel emotions and to feel comfortable feeling emotions, we are being more present. By practicing allowing ourselves to just be present with our feelings, we will be able to connect with ourselves more. A colleague of mine, Dr. Debi Silber created The Betrayal Institute where she helps people heal from betrayal every day. You can find more about it in Episode 59 of How Humans Heal. So know that these resources exist and that it's possible to heal. There are tools available to help you heal emotionally from what you've been through, including somatic therapy and myofascial therapy (which will be discussed in the next episode). I think emotional healing is as necessary as good sleep, exercise, drinking water and eating healthy foods. Just imagine what it would be like if could feel so grateful for something, or love and joy at full capacity. We know that the emotions of love and gratitude really shift us on an energetic level. Research shows that these emotions create a change on a cellular level and therefore we can then see a positive impact on our health. We Have More Power Than We Think In quantum physics, which is this concept in science and math where there are more possibilities than we realize, things are not just black or white, and things are not decided until the very last second of them happening. For example, there are experiments where even atoms don't show their decided location until they are observed by the observer. We tend to oversimplify and want to control and anticipate everything, when in reality, there are so many variables, we will make ourselves more stressed by focusing on control. What we can do is take these lessons from physics and use them in our understanding of ourselves. By practicing being comfortable and navigating in the unknown. How do we get more comfortable with the unknown? First, by processing and letting go of what happened in the past, we free ourselves to be in the present moment. Learn more about this from Eckhardt Tolle. Then, by understanding that many possibilities exist and that it's in the last moment that one will become a reality, we realize that the best way to shift our perspective or situation, is to simply choose a different way of looking at it. We can decide which reality we want for ourselves and in that way, we can create our future as we want it to be. We can choose how we want to relate to ourselves and allow ourselves to feel. We can choose to be in silence and instead of attaching to a feeling or a thought as the only reality, we can be the observer and observe all the possibilities. And, with curiosity and acceptance, be able to see the reality as it is now and what it is that you would like to create in your life. We can get into a state of love and gratitude, intentionally, and from that state, we can create a different reality for ourselves. The more you can envision what you want to create in your health and in your body, the more you spend time believing it and envisioning it, you can create that for yourself. This is how a lot of people experience healing, sometimes spontaneous healing or distance healing, because they're able to get into this state of creating a new reality for themselves and their existence using these concepts. If you are wanting to learn more about this, check out Bruce Lipton and Dr. Joe Dispenza. I mention it here because I think it helps in terms of emotional healing. I think it helps with getting out of that feeling of being stuck in terms of trauma and feeling that our future is already determined by our past. It's not, as long as we step in and start choosing differently. When we are able to connect with ourselves and feel our emotions to an extent where we can process them so that they're not in the way, we will feel so much better, relieved and less stressed, and our overall health will improve as a result. The Highly Sensitive Person Ph.D. Elaine N. Aron wrote a book in the 90's called The Highly Sensitive Person which talks about how some people have a more sensitive nervous system so they can pick up on emotions, as well as physical sensations, more easily than others. I also think that many people have been suppressing their ability to feel their emotions and this means they can train themselves to develop this capacity to feel more. It's about allowing ourselves to fully find out what our capacity is. What is your capacity to listen to yourself and your own signals from within, and to feel? What is your body really telling you that you maybe haven't been listening to? It's that ability to sense your body and your response to your environment that can really help you heal. And so, I encourage you to practice this openness to feel and perceive. You can create some quiet moments in your schedule, for example by spending time in nature and journaling. You can start practicing by making a space for it in your life but at the same time not trying to force it or pressure yourself. You just have to allow yourself to completely lose yourself in the moment. It's only by practicing feeling our emotions, and the subsequent self-discovery process, that you will find yourself open to the infinite possibilities for your existence and realize that your future does not have to be determined by your past experiences. If you're interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my New 14-Day Detox Program here. In the Detox Program I teach you to connect with yourself, and use mind-body tools, such as biofeedback, to process emotions. If you're ready to start healing emotionally by rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, you can start by ordering this home test kit. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online. If you want to go through your specific case me and improve your health (mental and physical) you can set up a one-on-one appointment here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you. Today's episode is about emotional healing. This is something that comes up with my patients from around the world and also with the people that participate in the programs that I offer. Whether it's healing something like HPV and abnormal pap smear results, or helping with anxiety and depression, emotional healing comes into play. So, I feel like it's an important thing to for us to talk about as it's an essential part of the stress recovery process. I also cover emotional healing in my most recent book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. What is Emotional Healing? We hear a lot about the mind-body connection, but what does it mean to process emotions? Well, stress can come from a psycho-emotional level (our minds) like a traumatic experience, or it can come from a physical level (our bodies) like infections, toxins and injuries. And it's the combination of those stresses and even spiritual or energetic stresses that compound into the total load of stress that we're exposed to. This is our environmental exposure to stress. And we know from research that it's this exposure that turns on our gene expression and makes us susceptible to all kinds of health issues. We are so used to going to different practitioners for different parts of our bodies (including different practitioners for the mind and body) when in reality we are one whole being and all of our systems are interconnected. Our digestion is in communication with our immune system, our hormones with our nervous system, etc. They're all talking to each other and that means that they can either have a negative influence or a positive influence on each other. Our physical bodies (digestion, glands, muscles, bones, etc.) are always in communication with our nervous system and our minds. So, our feelings and our emotional state are also in communication with our physical bodies. An example of this is not feeling hungry when you are feeling anxious or depressed. So, it is very important for our health (mental and physical) to allow ourselves to feel and to process emotions. Emotions come naturally to us as humans. Our bodies and nervous system inherently knows how to feel emotions and to cry, laugh, and yawn. The problem here is that from a young age most of us are taught not to express our feelings or emotions. Society, schools, religion, or our own households teach us that we must suppress all of this. Meanwhile research shows that when we don't allow ourselves to feel and process all our emotions there is a high risk of developing health issues, again, mental and/or physical conditions. There are several good books on this topic, including by Carolyn Myss and The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Unfortunately, I don't think people have enough support to learn how to process emotions and to recover from stress and trauma. As much as we might be bringing awareness to stress and trauma, we're not so much being guided what to do about it. And so then the stress and trauma just start feeling heavier and heavier. I want to help you to have the right tools to transform the effects of stress and trauma, to recover from it, and it begins with learning to feel your feelings instead of suppressing them. What also helps us heal on an emotional level is for us to start making decisions for ourselves, and to get in touch with our intuition and messages from your body. So, I would much rather give you information for you to then connect with yourself and see what feels right to you. Then along the way you're also learning to listen to yourself, you're learning to feel your emotions, you're learning to try things with curiosity, and learn through the experience. How Do We Heal Emotionally? First, we have to establish that healing is possible, and that recovery from stress and trauma is possible. Then we can start to look at how best to approach this healing. A lot of times you hear me talking about how to heal on a physical level, such as how to get cortisol, the stress hormone, back to optimal levels. The amazing thing I find with my patients is that when cortisol, as well as adrenaline and neurotransmitters, are optimal, they find it so much easier process emotions and heal on a psycho-emotional level. This is important because a lot of people find themselves spending hours and hours, and thousands of dollars, in talk therapy and end up feeling like they're only getting so far with it. In that case, we have to be sure we are also addressing the physical part of you, such as cortisol, adrenaline, neurotransmitters, nutrient deficiencies, thyroid imbalances, digestive issues, etc. For those of you who are doing the work to balance your hormones, microbiome, and nutrients, but you haven't paid attention to the mental, emotional, and even energetic aspect of your healing, then I encourage you to make that a priority. For some people it is very helpful to work with a therapist. And then you might decide to try different forms of therapy, from CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy to EMDR, which has been shown to be very helpful for stress recovery and PTSD. There are also natural treatments like homeopathy, which is an ancient system of medicine that's very helpful for processing emotionally and connecting the mind with the body to heal. Also, psychedelic medicine, which has been shown more and more to be effective at helping us heal on an emotional level. Psychedelic treatments include the use of psilocybin, ketamine, as well as MDMA and Ayahuasca, which is a plant medicine from Central and South America that has been shown to be extremely effective at healing PTSD and addictions. If you're interested in psychedelic therapy you can learn more by watching Episode 151 of How Humans Heal where I share my experience of attending a shamanic journey in the Peruvian Amazon. Other tools that help with emotional healing are meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, journaling, and rebalancing of the chakras. The important thing is that you experiment and find what works for you specifically. Something that you can do for yourself starting now is to become more aware of your emotions, and to allow yourself to feel your emotions. Be curious about your emotions, because I think so often, we don't allow ourselves to fully feel because we may think we don't have time for this, or we fear what could happen if we let it all out. It's almost like our emotions are monsters and we run away from them. Well, if we don't allow ourselves to feel these emotions, we will never be able to process them, and we will continue to carry the weight of them through our lives in our bodies. I learned this lesson the hard way – by developing severe migraines and a chronic inflammatory joint condition. It was through my own process of healing emotionally that I have been able to recover from these physical health issues. What Happens to Our Bodies When We Heal Emotionally? I think that as humans we're probably only allowing ourselves to feel less than 5% of our emotional capacity. I know that for myself, and I know that from observing patients and others in my life. We really restrict ourselves from feeling and we have no idea that we can experience such emotional breadth. Just like when you go to the gym and workout your muscles, you can learn to expand your ability to feel, and feel comfortable and confident doing it. There are many books out there that talk about emotions. For example, Atlas Of The Heart by Brene Brown where she talks about 86 different emotions that we can feel. Or 90 Seconds to a Life You Love by Joan I. Rosenberg where she talks about how most emotions can be felt in 90 seconds. When we expand our ability to feel emotions and to feel comfortable feeling emotions, we are being more present. By practicing allowing ourselves to just be present with our feelings, we will be able to connect with ourselves more. A colleague of mine, Dr. Debi Silber created The Betrayal Institute where she helps people heal from betrayal every day. You can find more about it in Episode 59 of How Humans Heal. So know that these resources exist and that it's possible to heal. There are tools available to help you heal emotionally from what you've been through, including somatic therapy and myofascial therapy (which will be discussed in the next episode). I think emotional healing is as necessary as good sleep, exercise, drinking water and eating healthy foods. Just imagine what it would be like if could feel so grateful for something, or love and joy at full capacity. We know that the emotions of love and gratitude really shift us on an energetic level. Research shows that these emotions create a change on a cellular level and therefore we can then see a positive impact on our health. We Have More Power Than We Think In quantum physics, which is this concept in science and math where there are more possibilities than we realize, things are not just black or white, and things are not decided until the very last second of them happening. For example, there are experiments where even atoms don't show their decided location until they are observed by the observer. We tend to oversimplify and want to control and anticipate everything, when in reality, there are so many variables, we will make ourselves more stressed by focusing on control. What we can do is take these lessons from physics and use them in our understanding of ourselves. By practicing being comfortable and navigating in the unknown. How do we get more comfortable with the unknown? First, by processing and letting go of what happened in the past, we free ourselves to be in the present moment. Learn more about this from Eckhardt Tolle. Then, by understanding that many possibilities exist and that it's in the last moment that one will become a reality, we realize that the best way to shift our perspective or situation, is to simply choose a different way of looking at it. We can decide which reality we want for ourselves and in that way, we can create our future as we want it to be. We can choose how we want to relate to ourselves and allow ourselves to feel. We can choose to be in silence and instead of attaching to a feeling or a thought as the only reality, we can be the observer and observe all the possibilities. And, with curiosity and acceptance, be able to see the reality as it is now and what it is that you would like to create in your life. We can get into a state of love and gratitude, intentionally, and from that state, we can create a different reality for ourselves. The more you can envision what you want to create in your health and in your body, the more you spend time believing it and envisioning it, you can create that for yourself. This is how a lot of people experience healing, sometimes spontaneous healing or distance healing, because they're able to get into this state of creating a new reality for themselves and their existence using these concepts. If you are wanting to learn more about this, check out Bruce Lipton and Dr. Joe Dispenza. I mention it here because I think it helps in terms of emotional healing. I think it helps with getting out of that feeling of being stuck in terms of trauma and feeling that our future is already determined by our past. It's not, as long as we step in and start choosing differently. When we are able to connect with ourselves and feel our emotions to an extent where we can process them so that they're not in the way, we will feel so much better, relieved and less stressed, and our overall health will improve as a result. The Highly Sensitive Person Ph.D. Elaine N. Aron wrote a book in the 90's called The Highly Sensitive Person which talks about how some people have a more sensitive nervous system so they can pick up on emotions, as well as physical sensations, more easily than others. I also think that many people have been suppressing their ability to feel their emotions and this means they can train themselves to develop this capacity to feel more. It's about allowing ourselves to fully find out what our capacity is. What is your capacity to listen to yourself and your own signals from within, and to feel? What is your body really telling you that you maybe haven't been listening to? It's that ability to sense your body and your response to your environment that can really help you heal. And so, I encourage you to practice this openness to feel and perceive. You can create some quiet moments in your schedule, for example by spending time in nature and journaling. You can start practicing by making a space for it in your life but at the same time not trying to force it or pressure yourself. You just have to allow yourself to completely lose yourself in the moment. It's only by practicing feeling our emotions, and the subsequent self-discovery process, that you will find yourself open to the infinite possibilities for your existence and realize that your future does not have to be determined by your past experiences. If you're interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my New 14-Day Detox Program here. In the Detox Program I teach you to connect with yourself, and use mind-body tools, such as biofeedback, to process emotions. If you're ready to start healing emotionally by rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, you can start by ordering this home test kit. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online. If you want to go through your specific case me and improve your health (mental and physical) you can set up a one-on-one appointment here. We're here to help you! Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

Discovery how stress can impact your relationship and how you can calm your stress. In this podcast we discuss the role of stress in the body, how to take care of yourself, and simple activities to promote stress recovery.   Dr. Doni Wilson is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events. You can find her blog, podcast, called How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E.TM program at DoctorDoni.com.   Dr. Doni Wilson's website: DoctorDoni.com Podcast: How Humans Heal Book: Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health: The Personalized Program to Calm Anxiety, Boost Energy, and Beat Burnout

In today's episode I am going to be talking about something called autophagy. Autophagy is how our bodies, and our cells do a clean out process and natural detoxification. It is an example of a process in our bodies that is responsive to our stress and toxin exposure. Optimizing autophagy has the potential to prevent health issues and increase longevity. However, too much of a good thing can also slow autophagy, so it is a matter of learning to choose just the right amount. Let's dig in to understanding what supports autophagy, how it influences health, and what you can do to optimize your autophagy to work with you, and not against you. What is Autophagy? Autophagy is amazing to understand because it has such power and influence on our health, and it's happening all the time in our bodies without us even realizing it. And there are actually things you can do to help your body out with autophagy, but I want to make sure you know how to do them in a way that's going to optimize autophagy the most and not overdo it. Our bodies do better when we give them just enough change and support to create a beneficial outcome, and not too much of a change that works against us. Our bodies are made-up of 100 trillion cells and those cells aren't just sitting around. They are actively making energy for us to function. They're making all of our processes work for us without us having to think about it. Our nerves cells, our muscle cells, our organs, our hormone glands, our brain, etc. Everything in our bodies is made of cells that are working for us constantly. So, how do our cells clean out? As we know, our bodies need to get rid of old cells and produce new healthy cells to keep us alive. So how is all this happening? When I was getting my pre-med degree back in the early 90s, I came across this researcher who discovered autophagy and how this process works. His name is Yoshinori Ohsumi and he won the Nobel Prize for his research. He found out that our cells can identify which substances need to be recycled or taken out of the cell. Our cells break down and destroy old, damaged, or abnormal proteins and other substances in their cytoplasm (the fluid inside a cell). The breakdown products are then recycled for important cell functions, especially during periods of stress or starvation. How Can We Support an Optimal Autophagy? A lot of processes in our bodies are signaled by our exposure to stress. So, if we're under a large amount of stress, if we have an infection, if we have an injury, anytime our body gets a stress signal it shifts the signaling for autophagy. This is why I always emphasize that it's not about having zero stress – we need some stress to signal healthy autophagy. Our bodies also don't do well with too much stress. So, how do we find just the right amount of stress to signal appropriate and healthy amounts of cell turnover in a cell cleanout and detoxification? How can we give our bodies the right state and setting to create the optimal signaling for autophagy? When autophagy is working well it's helping to prevent aging. And aging is directly related to our bodies having more damaged cells than they need, or not being able to clean the substances that are not needed in our cells anymore. One example of this is Alzheimer's disease. When the cells are not able to clean out the debris, this debris gets stuck in the cells, and it makes the nerves not work well, and so then we it affects our memory. Another example is cancer. When our bodies are not able to clean out damaged cells, then those cells can perpetuate and that's when cancer progresses. We need our bodies to be able to identify constantly what should be taken out or recycled and it's our responsibility to support our bodies to keep this autophagy process running as efficiently and smoothly as possible. What affects this process? Our stress exposure, our diet and nutrient absorption, our sleep patterns, substance abuse, etc. If we're pushing ourselves to the max and we're not taking good care of our bodies, then this autophagy process and many others (like oxidative stress which I talk about in Episode #153 of How Humans Heal) will not work correctly, and then health issues start. There is an optimal amount of stress exposure that our bodies need in order to have a favorable biological response, including autophagy. Take exercise for example, when we exercise our bodies trigger a stress response so we can endure the physical effort. Oxidative stress and antioxidant production like glutathione get a boost, it also signals autophagy. This is why exercise is good for us. It signals for our body to do a normal clean out process and reset all of these systems, dropping inflammation and increasing anti-aging effects. But if we overdo it, we will have too much autophagy, too much oxidative stress, inflammation, too much cortisol and we actually work against ourselves. I think as humans this is one of the hardest things: to learn what's enough and what's too much. It requires us to be mindful and aware and to listen to our bodies and how we feel. There's not a great test for autophagy that exists now, but some good ways to support optimal autophagy are moderate exercise and fasting. One way to get a sense of your status is with heart rate variability, which can be measured with an Apple watch or other device. If you are exercising in a way that reflects as an optimal heart rate variability, this translates to positive autophagy and hormesis. You're likely to recover faster and feel better after the experience. In the case of fasting (or a period of time when you're not eating) there's research that shows that going for 10-12 hours without eating can stimulate autophagy. Again, it's important to know your body because if you overdo it and go, let's say, longer than 15 or 16 without eating, it may cause poor autophagy, and end up damaging to cells and it could also raise cortisol levels and oxidative stress. Another way to support optimal autophagy is cold water therapy. Doing short cold or ice baths can stimulate autophagy. This kind of therapy tells our cells that there's a need to clean things out and either recycle substances or get rid of them. This is why it can be so invigorating, boost energy and focus, and even support weight loss because it resets metabolic processes in the body. Likewise, overdoing it can cause harm instead of good. There could be a risk of increased heart rate, blood pressure, arrhythmia and even heart issues. It's always about balance, knowing your body and introducing changes in a gentle and safe way. How is Stress Related to Autophagy? When it comes to these kinds of health optimization tools, which I think are very important to know about, I always want to use them based on what I call your stress type. Your stress type is related to your cortisol and adrenaline levels. Different kinds of stress types need different things to support optimal autophagy. They need different intensity in exercise, different intensity of fasting and different intensity in cold water therapy, different supplements, and different nutrients. Adrenaline and cortisol are our stress messengers. Cortisol is a stress hormone and adrenaline a neurotransmitter. We need a certain amount of cortisol and adrenaline to be healthy, the key here is to get them both to optimal levels. When cortisol and adrenaline are optimal, we're going to get the most out your exercise, sleep, diet, etc. and therefore your systems will be running smoothly, autophagy included. Knowing your stress type means knowing your cortisol and adrenaline level throughout the day. If you're not aware of your cortisol and adrenaline levels, you might be trying things that could actually make you feel worse and do more harm than good to your body. If your cortisol and adrenaline are too high for example, we're going to use completely different herbs and nutrients to get it back to optimal than if your cortisol and adrenaline are too low. This is why it's so important to know where you're starting from. When your cortisol and adrenaline are optimal, you're going to improve your health you will get more out of everything you do. To be able to improve autophagy first you must first make sure you've optimized your cortisol and adrenaline levels, so you know which methods to use to optimize it. You can find which stress type you are here. There is also a test to measure your cortisol adrenaline levels throughout the day. You can order it here and learn how to optimize your cortisol and adrenaline levels. Once you know your stress type you will be able to know what to do to master it and recover from it and then improve autophagy. How You Can Start Mastering Stress We have to start by having compassion for ourselves. To realize we live in a human body that we need to listen to and take time to become more aware of its signals. We have to realize it's not about perfection and it doesn't help to put too much pressure on ourselves. We have to learn how to get into stress recovery and healing mode. We are human not machines. We have to try and learn and practice. This is the human experience. This is mastery of being human. We have to learn how our body works and then try new things each day in different routines. This is why I in my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health I really emphasize the need to fine tune your SelfC.A.R.E. routine. C for clean eating, A for adequate sleep, R for recovery activities and E for exercise. And this self-care is all based on your stress type which is your body's responsiveness to stress. By understanding how your body responds and what it needs to recover you will have the information you need to support your body better. Stress is going to happen. We can't escape it, so we're going to be in a better position if we learn how to master it and have it work in our favor and to have it stimulate autophagy. We also have to make sure we are getting the right nutrients and antioxidants for our cells to function correctly and to support autophagy. It's a matter of pacing yourself and start to walk down this path, or healing journey, and human mastery, and all of a sudden it starts to make sense and you start feeling better and better. Another important aspect of mastering your stress and improving autophagy is to help your body get rid of toxins. When your body is not detoxifying correctly or has toxins that have accumulated over the years it makes it more difficult for your cells to run an optimal autophagy. Our cells need antioxidants; they need B vitamins; they need minerals; they need amino acids; and they need to be free of toxins to be able to process these nutrients and help your liver and your whole body to process the toxins. This is why I have created a detoxification program called the 14-Day Detox Program. You can find more about it here. This program includes this Detox Kit which has in it the macro nutrients you need for optimal detoxification and autophagy. It also includes a designed meal plan with clean meals and all the guidance needed to follow this process to support your autophagy. A detoxification process is also something that needs guidance in order for it to be safe and effective and make you feel better and not worse. There's a lot of different detox programs out there but what I find is that they don't offer the support needed to get the most benefit. With this program you don't have to turn off your regular life. It is intended for you to be able to do while still following your daily routine. I can't wait for you to experience the changes in your health. People who have participated in the detox program are reporting improved blood sugar levels, weight loss, improvement in energy, mood, focus, sleep, skin, hair, nails, digestion, and more. This program is perfect if you have extreme stress and trauma exposure, mold toxicity, post COVID symptoms or other kinds of neurological conditions like anxiety, depression, autoimmunity, fertility issues or even chronic viruses like HPV. This type of autophagy optimization through detox has the ability to reprogram all those processes in your body so autoimmunity can turn off, your immune system can fend off viruses that it wasn't fending off before, your body can fend off cancer cells, and your nerves can heal and your neurotransmitters can rebalance. These things that maybe you never thought were possible, are actually possible when we give our bodies the right signals and tools. Your body knows how to correct itself. It's just a matter of supporting it in the right way. If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online. For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here. We're here to help you!  

In today's episode we talk about intimacy, arousal, and desire with Susan Bratton, intimacy expert.     In my practice, I talk to so many men and women who are struggling with all aspects of intimacy, and in particular women who are experiencing vaginal pain and fear after menopause and after dealing with HPV-related procedures, so I asked Susan if I could interview her on How Humans Heal.     A lifelong entrepreneur, Susan is CEO of two companies. The 20, founded in 2019, is a supplement company specializing in libido support for sexual vitality. Personal Life Media, founded in 2006, under which Susan has authored and published 34 books and programs about sex life and intimacy. A frequent and riveting speaker from the stage, on television, on podcasts, summits, in online video, and through her thousands of magazine and website articles, Susan invites lovers to embrace giving and receiving pleasure as a vital element of being alive.    I knew she would be the perfect person to help my patients and listeners to learn about what they can do to address intimacy in their lives, because, as I wrote in my book – Master Your Health Reset Your Health – sex (with consent) is a stress recovery activity. But it's not always easy and automatic, especially in long-term relationships and after trauma, childbirth, menopause, and health issues, such as HPV.    Susan believes that shame-free, frequent sexual pleasure is every man and woman's birthright. She is dedicated to help people with intimacy skills, sexual problems, bedroom communication, regenerative therapies for libido, and techniques to ignite connection and pleasure between partners. And she describes sex as a “learned skill.”    Susan's work focuses on 3 key areas:    -Sex advice – intimacy tips, orgasm skills, pleasuring skills and techniques.    -Bedroom communication skills – understanding what you want and how to ask for it.    -Sexual wellness – safe sex, STIs, and reversing problems that come with aging genitals.    A lot of times we think it's not ok to talk about intimacy or sexual issues but in fact it is ok to talk about this and it's even important to talk about this because it is part of our human nature.    In the interview I asked Susan if what she teaches can help someone who has a history of sexual abuse, and she said yes. She finds that trauma related to sex is very common, either from our culture, our religion, relationships, shame, lack of knowledge, and our own frustrations. By understanding our bodies and starting with a connection with ourselves, we can heal and still experience intimacy in our lives.     Libido, desire and arousal for women    Libido is our body-based desire, and when you have any kind of illness (physical or emotional), your libido or “horniness” gets affected. So, libido is directly related to your health.    Desire is the emotional game or “head game.” It relates to how do you feel about yourself and your partner. If you are constantly focused on not feeling attractive, your desire will also get affected. The ability to be with the sensations, out of your head and in your body, which you can learn how to do, all love-making becomes more pleasurable.   Arousal is the time it takes for blood to flow to the genitals (approximately 20 min for women) so that it has more surface area and, when it's stimulated, it has more pleasure signals sent to the brain, which is what makes orgasm possible. You can teach your body how to have an orgasm.    Sex, and orgasm, is also a stress recovery activity because it increases oxytocin levels, an anti-stress hormone. There are studies that show that people that have orgasms regularly have a decreased death rate even.     What prevents women from enjoying sex and how to fix it    For women, the most common situations that occur as we age are:    -Loss of lubrication    -Decreasing sensation    -Difficulty achieving orgasms    -Painful intercourse    -Urinary incontinence    -Sagging labia    Now, how do we fix all those things? We talk about something called sexual biohacking which is taking what you have and making it better through treatments similar to those used to take care of our faces and our bodies.     There are also supplements such as nitric oxide that help with blood flow and lubrication issues. And there are devices, such as an intra-vaginal device called vFit Gold, which can help with incontinence, vaginal laxity (which comes from thinning tissue) and lubrication. You can order this approved device to use at home.    Another thing that helps with these issues is FemiWave, which is a procedure in a practitioner's office that uses pulse waves to repair blood vessels, improving blood flow to the vagina. It helps with increased sensitivity and lubrication, as well as strengthening, tightening and improved physical appearance, so it helps enhance sexual fulfillment and function.    The last thing that can help with all this is the Orgasm Shot. The O-shot is a non-invasive, procedure performed by specially trained practitioners. First blood is drawn from the patient. A centrifuge is used to isolate the platelets, containing the body's natural growth factors, from the patient's own blood. This nutrient-rich, PRP solution is then injected back into the clitoris and upper vagina, to the area that generates a sexual response, commonly known as the “Orgasm-Spot” or “G-spot.” This shot can help with sexual desire, natural lubrication, urinary incontinence, frequency and intensity of orgasms and arousal from G-spot stimulation.    These are non-invasive regenerative treatments that turn back the clock on aging and can give you wonderful and youthful sexual function.     -Orgasmic cross-training for women    -The notion with orgasmic cross-training is that you can have orgasms from direct clitoral gland stimulation, from G-spot stimulation and from intra-vaginal stimulation.    -Different types of self-stimulation are going to teach you how to have orgasms more easily from partnered stimulation. They also help to tonify muscles and improve lubrication.    For this you can use self-pleasuring tools at home. These toys don't make you addicted to them, they make it easier to have orgasms with partners and they don't ruin your ability to orgasm they enhance it.    And remember, sex is a mindfulness practice.    To learn more, be sure to listen in to the full episode for even more tips.     If you want to reach out to Susan and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or her Instagram @susanbratton.    You can also check out arousalsecrets.com or betterlover.com. In this episode, Susan also mentions: https://personallifemedia.com, Expandherorgasmtonight.com, buyflownow.com and VaginalDevice.com.     If you want to learn more about my approach for helping you recover from trauma, rebalance hormones (or use hormone replacement), address libido and infections (HPV, BV, yeast, or frequent UTIs), and help you get back to feeling your best so you can enjoy intimacy in your life, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.     In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.    For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues, it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.    We're here to help you!      Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Happy New Year! The start of the year is the perfect time for self-reflection and to set intentions. In today's episode I'm sharing insights and journal prompts to help you set your intentions for your health in the New Year.     Instead of just setting a resolution, which are known to fizzle out quickly, I want to guide you to transform your health now and into the future and increase your longevity. Longevity means living many more years in a healthy state where you can enjoy doing what you love and with the people you love.     To do that, we need to be strategic and efficient. It's not about taking the least expensive vitamins you can find. It's about prioritizing your health, getting tests that provide the information you need to make informed decisions, and working with a practitioner who has the experience to guide you.     That's why I created How Humans Heal - to both give you hope that healing is possible and to give you the resources to do that healing work.     Healing is Possible    I am here to help you improve your health. Whether you are working on balancing hormones, fertility and pregnancy or preventing miscarriages; or if you are wanting to know what you can do to help with peri-menopausal symptoms and the changes in your body this brings. Some of you could be experiencing anxiety and depression, or migraines or digestive issues, and may have an MTHFR gene variation. And some of you listening may have found out that you have HPV and abnormal pap smears, or risk of cervical cancer, and you are coming to listen to learn how to become resilient to HPV.     You are in the right place! I am here to tell you it is possible to recover from traumatic experiences, to rebalance hormones, address digestion issues, rebalance nutrients, and  neurotransmitters, and even to reset genetic expression. You don't have to be stuck with anxiety or depression or fatigue and migraines for example. You can take action today to help decrease the symptoms, decrease the need for medications and actually help yourself get to a point of feeling amazing. Our bodies are ready to heal when we give them the right support to do so.     These are the topics I like to cover because I have found many medical practitioners do not cover these issues and so many people feel alone trying to figure out how to heal, feel good and enjoy life for the years to come.    Ready to Set Intentions    Knowing that healing is possible, I'd like to give you some journal prompts for you to use to set your intentions for 2023. These questions will help you to know where you are starting from and where you'd like to go. With clear intentions, we are way more likely to get where we are trying to go. I like to use my SelfC.A.R.E. Notebook (https://doctordoni.com/product/drdoni-notebook/) and hand write my thoughts.    It's important to be gentle with yourself as you answer these questions. Remember, it's not about perfection or being hard on yourself because that is only going to slow you down. Have compassion for what you've been through and know that you can get on the path to better health even by introducing small changes to your daily routine.    * What are your intentions for your health in the new year? And what are you willing to do to make that happen? If we want to see something different in our health, whether you want to have more energy, better sleep, better mood or feel better in general, then we are going to need to make some changes. The key is to do it in a way that does cause overwhelm or stress us more.     * What have you been doing to help yourself recover from stress and trauma? Each day we have an opportunity to think about what we've been doing that has worked, what hasn't worked and what can we do differently to get us where we want to be. It's about saying “I am human, I went through the experiences I went through, and now let me see what I can do differently each day to help my body recover and heal.    * How is your SelfC.A.R.E. routine (Clean eating, Adequate sleep, Recovery activities and Exercise)? Here you can start by writing about what you've been eating in the last couple of months for example, and have you been getting enough sleep, have you been doing activities outside of your responsibilities that you love, and have you engaged in some sort of physical activity recently?     Next steps    Now that you have clarity about where you're starting and where you may need to support, I find the best step to take is to establish and fine-tune your SelfC.A.R.E. routine and start taking essential nutrients, so you have a foundation for any other healing protocols you choose to implement.This is why I created the 7-Day SelfC.A.R.E. Stress Reset (https://drdoni.lpages.co/the-7-day-self-care-reset/.      My goal with the 7-Day SelfC.A.R.E. Stress Reset is to help you to make small adjustments to your daily routine, knowing that small steps lead to major shifts. I want you to have the resources you need in order to get the ball rolling, so to speak, on your health recovery journey.    Another initial step is to start taking a multivitamin supplement daily. Even if you have the healthiest diet, you are likely low in certain nutrients. But if you're going to take a supplement, it's important to choose a high-quality product containing the active form of the nutrients, like B Vitamins for example, so your body can actually use them.     Many patients find Daily Foundation packets to be an efficient way to make sure you are getting what you need. They include a multi, omega 3 (fish oil), vitamin D, magnesium and a probiotic all in convenient am and pm packs. You can find them here: https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-daily-foundation-support-30-packets/     If you want to understand your specific nutrient needs and next steps in your recovery process, you can order from my website a food sensitivity panel (https://doctordoni.com/product/igg-iga-food-sensitivity-home-testing/) and cortisol/neurotransmitter panel (https://doctordoni.com/product/assess-your-stress-type/). With this information, I can guide you better on what you can do to start feeling better right away, whether it's getting your neurotransmitters back on track or healing leaky gut for example.    If you want to go deep and learn more about recovery from burnout and trauma, and how to implement SelfC.A.R.E. individualized to you, be sure to read or listen to my book: Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/).    Please subscribe to How Humans Heal so I can continue to guide you, and sign up for my Weekly Wisdom Newsletter for more updates and resources from me: https://doctordoni.com/www.    Please let me know if there are other topics that you would like for me to cover, or reach out if you have questions. You can email my office so I know how can be of better service for you.    You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer here:    https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/     We're here to help you! Happy New Year!   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Dr. Doni Wilson is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events. You can find her blog, podcast, called How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E.™ program at DoctorDoni.com Instagram: @doctordoniwilson   For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com The Wholesome Fertility facebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/ Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Hi and welcome back to How Humans Heal! In today's episode I interview Dani Williamson about her new book Wild & Well: Dani's Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing. I enjoyed talking with Dani about her healing process and her book because she and I have the same interest in helping people recover from stress and prevent health issues caused by stress.     Please note, if you are struggling with depression or triggers caused by stress, this episode may be disturbing. Our intention is to bring awareness to the potential effects of childhood trauma as well as the options and opportunities for recovering from stress and trauma. Those options are not often discussed in the conventional medical system, which is what motivates Dani and I to write and talk about it.     Dani Williamson is a functional medicine practitioner who was previously a family nurse practitioner and she's here today to tell us more about what inspired her to completely go this route of helping people to improve their health by making lifestyle changes that anyone can implement and make a huge difference in their overall health.    We're all humans just trying to get through life as healthy as we can!    Dani grew up in complete trauma and constant chaos. With a grandfather that committed suicide, a mother who also attempted suicide multiple times and a stepfather that was a child molester, she experienced stress throughout her childhood. At age 20 she also attempted suicide, was in a bad marriage and lost everything she had. She was then diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia and depression.     After hitting rock bottom, she decided to pick herself up and apply to nursing school. While getting through school at age 40, she started trying to find a cure for her lupus. One day a colleague said to her: “Dani what are you eating? Don't you know your diet controls your symptoms?”     What's at the end of your fork will heal you or kill you!     In Dani's words, “If you weren't born sick you don't have to live sick.” Diseases are turned on and off by lifestyle. That's how she developed her 6 steps to a better life: eat well, sleep well, move well, poop well, distress well and commune well.    Childhood trauma that happens to you before the age of 18 can set you up for a lifetime of chronic disease. 64% of the population have had at least one ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) in their lifetime. And if you had one you are 50% more likely to have another one at some point. Furthermore, if you had four or more adverse events you have a 20-year shorter lifespan due to high stress.      As much as we know that trauma and stress in our childhoods has a potential to affect our health for the rest of our lives, we also know that there's something you can do about it.     Dani started researching about food sensitivities and after changing her diet and life habits she doesn't have any pain or symptoms from lupus anymore! She proved that what you eat could help you reverse whatever is happening to you.     The food industry is about addiction, we get addicted to gluten, dairy, sugar, etc. And those foods keep the inflammation inside going. If you are eating drive-through food four or five times a week you are eating fake food that is addictive.    It's when you decrease inflammation that you begin to heal! The food you're eating is causing inflammation which is disrupting your whole body and overall health. But this takes time, and it takes commitment, and it takes consistency to make it sustainable.    But eating healthy is not the only thing. It becomes critical to also have enough sleep so you wake up rested so you can eat well and have energy to exercise every day. These are the kind of lifestyle changes you need to make to really start healing your body and improve your overall health.     Just pick something that you enjoy. It doesn't have to be hours it could be just a short walk which will also help you digest your food better and have better bowel movements because it's not what you eat, it's what you absorb in your gut that counts.    But this is not meant to become a long To-Do-List as that may be overwhelming. This is not meant to be another stress generator in your life. It's meant to be a way to identify the things you can tweak and fine tune to achieve a better and more sustainable lifestyle.    Then there is commune well. When you are with your people, when you're with your tribe, whether it's a couple of friends or a whole group, your inflammation goes down because you're laughing and your cortisol levels go down so your stress goes dow   The secret is to keep doing what you're doing. Keep on working, improving, finding new ways to implement these habits because they are going to make a difference for you and your family. Your body is designed to heal itself and a few lifestyle changes can boost this healing. This is why Dani wrote her book - to give you a strategy and break it down into easy common-sense steps for reversing decades of chronic disease and hopefully change the entire trajectory of your families' life.     You can get her book Wild & Well: Dani's Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing from Amazon and or your favorite bookstore. https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Well-Commonsense-Radical-Healing/dp/1631955594     If you are struggling with anxiety and/or depression, please know that I'm here to help you as well. Find resources, including my books, below, and I invite you to sign up for my upcoming FREE Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression going live on October 12TH: https://doctordoni.com/specialties/anxiety-depression/    We're here to help you!   -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode we talk about stress and how to recover from it.   First, we must acknowledge that being human involves exposure to stress!    Research shows that over 60% of us had an adverse childhood event and at least 70% of us have experienced a major stress loss or trauma in adulthood.    When we exist as humans in these stressful environments it starts to feel normal to be stressed.     In fact, we can become addicted to feeling stressed and so we get stuck in stress mode. Our bodies' cortisol and adrenaline levels get imbalanced, and our nervous system operates in constant stress alert.    Cortisol and adrenaline are our main stress hormones. It's not that we want zero adrenaline and it's not that we want zero cortisol. These are substances that we need a healthy amount of every day.     These hormones are unique to everyone. One person in stress mode might have high cortisol high adrenaline while another person might be low cortisol and low adrenaline.     I remember when my daughter was young, and I was running my practice and seeing patients and trying to keep up with my house and everything until it felt like I could barely breathe. Sprinting through each day barely getting enough sleep. I know many of you feel the same way, how are we supposed to catch up when we can't even keep up?     I kept doing research on stress until I figured out the protocol that addresses the different stress types for each person so I can help every patient in a specific way.    It's about figuring out what was thrown out of balance by stress, what got disrupted by stress: the cortisol levels, the adrenaline levels, GABA, iron, magnesium, etc.    Many times, patients ask me how can I be tired and anxious at the same time? It's not logical!     Sometimes our bodies are not that black and white so you could have one system that's causing you to feel over stimulated (high adrenaline) and at the same time you could feel tired (low cortisol or low iron).     Your body is trying to tell you it needs help! It is trying to tell you that there is something out of balance, so we need to look at the symptoms and look for patterns to act on them. Of course, we could temporarily fix this with caffeine or even a Xanax but you would not be acting on the root of the problem and therefore you will not be really healing.      There are ways to rebalance your body using nutrients and herbs and even exposure to nature that help us reset and help your body re-calibrate and rebalance.     Recovery activities like journaling, listening to music, doing mindfulness or meditation, spending time in nature, spending time with our pets or listening to the sounds in nature, all of this helps recalibrate our nervous system or vagus nerve and it signals calmness to our brain.    There are ways I can teach you to know your stress type and start addressing it by using nutrients, start practicing mindfulness that helps you to gain more self-love and compassion and practice connecting with others.     I have done extensive research throughout the years which has allowed me to write several books about stress, including my most recent one Master your Stress Reset Your Health.     I found stress recovery is unique to each person based on their stress type. There are different ways of implementing diet, sleep, exercise changes for each person for each stress type.     I invite you to join me in whichever format works best for you whether it's ordering the book and reading the paper back or listening to the audiobook or listening to more How Humans Heal podcasts or reading the blogs or guides available on my website, or meeting with me one-on-one or joining me in one of my group programs. I'm making my protocol available in many different forms because again we're not all the same, we're not all one size one-size-fits-all in terms of how stress affects us, nor how we best learn or apply stress recovery.     I am so glad you are here and look forward to connecting with you again soon take care. Please subscribe, share and post a review if you find this information helpful.   -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode of How Humans Heal, I share about 6 recent cases from my practice and how they relate to leaky gut, even though it wasn't obvious that they had leaky gut!    Case 1 Woman with autoimmunity and joint pain who was under extreme stress now knows which foods to avoid, and which to choose, as well as the supplements to heal leaky gut, recover from stress, and prevent autoimmunity from flaring. She's feeling better and onto phase 3 of my protocol, so today I helped her with maintenance tips.     Case 2 Woman who worked with a different practitioner to treat SIBO and C Diff, and then developed urticaria (hives). She called me to figure out what to do besides take Zyrtec every day. I identified that leaky gut was never addressed and likely there are still overgrowing bacteria that are triggering the hives.      Case 3 Woman who came in complaining of a burning rash behind her ears and inside her mouth. The key question is “what are you eating differently?” It turns out she's been eating cherry tomatoes all summer and is having an inflammatory reaction. Any inflammatory issue ends up causing leaky gut – it's time to heal it again.    Case 4 A woman with a history of autoimmunity, which is associated with leaky gut, but hasn't been told that she has leaky gut. Her main symptom now is bloating, which is caused by overgrowing gut bacteria. We are running the tests I recommend so I have the information I need to help her be most efficient with feeling better. Her results just came in and indicate severe leaky gut.     Case 5 Man who saw a gastroenterologist for an endoscopy and colonoscopy, but they can't see leaky gut that way. And he was prescribed an antacid, which ends up decreasing digestion of food, even healthy food. Undigested food overfeeds bacteria, leading to bloating and leaky gut. And he was intermittent fasting too long, which stresses our system more.     Case 6 A woman who had Grave's disease, another autoimmune condition, is celebrating 12 weeks of pregnancy. That means I helped her to turn off autoimmunity and prevent a miscarriage – hooray!     I find it SO interesting to observe how leaky gut presents different ways for each person.     I want you to know that you are not alone, and that even if you have symptoms that other practitioners have not been able to solve, I'm here to help you solve it.    If you have been trying to figure out how to heal your body and leaky gut, join me in the Leaky Gut Program. https://drdoni.lpages.co/leaky-gut-program/    Don't recreate the wheel so to speak! I have it all figured out and streamlined for you, so all you need to do is follow my protocol.     I help patients from around the world – by phone and confidential video call. If you prefer to meet with me one-on-one, you can set that up here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/     Dr. Doni   -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In episode #099, Dr. Doni Wilson shares her expertise as a naturopathic doctor, natural health expert, certified professional midwife, and certified nutrition specialist. She is the author of The Stress Remedy and Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. We discuss the definition of stress, how it affects us, and what we can do to build resilience and potentially prevent future pregnancy loss. Dr. Doni created her Stress Recovery Protocol to solve her migraines and health challenges. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. She loves teaching patients to know what they need to move from stress to thriving, live well, and do what they love with ease. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and to the strategies and solutions for stress recovery. You can find articles, other resources, her podcast, How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E.™ program at DoctorDoni.com. Topics Discussed: definition of stress, effects of stress, stress types, resilience following stressful or traumatic events, stress recovery, miscarriage prevention CONNECT WITH DR. DONI - https://doctordoni.com/msrh/ https://www.facebook.com/drdoniwilson https://www.instagram.com/drdoniwilson MISCARRIAGE HOPE DESK RESOURCES- Miscarriage Hope Desk aims to help women struggling miscarriage, pregnancy loss and recurrent miscarriages (RPL), by providing the following resources- - Library of Articles, found here- https://miscarriagehopedesk.com/library/understanding-why/ - Instagram Community- https://instagram.com/miscarriagehopedesk - Facebook Community- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1617075958466247/ - Free Miscarriage Lab Checklist- https://miscarriagehopedesk.com/labs - Free Weekly Newsletter- http://miscarriagehopedesk.com/newsletter FREE MEAL PLANS Do you need help getting healthy, tasty meals on the table? Check out our sponsor Prep Dish, PrepDish.com/mhd to get 2 weeks FREE! SHOW NOTES- https://miscarriagehopedesk.com/podcast/ Get a FREE Miscarriage Lab Testing Checklist- MiscarriageHopeDesk.com/labs

Do you feel like your health is spiraling out of control? Are you struggling to manage your stress and feeling overwhelmed?   If so, you're not alone.   Midlife women are under more stress than ever before, and it's taking a toll on our health. From work to family to our social lives, we are constantly juggling and trying to do it all.   But what if there was a way to reset your health and manage your stress? Dr. Doni Wilson is here to help us do just that.   On this episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast, Dr. Wilson, a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health, shares her expertise on how to master your stress and reset your health. She offers practical tips and advice on how to make small changes in your life that can have a big impact on your overall health.   For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol.   Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events. You can find her blog, podcast, called How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E.™ program at DoctorDoni.com   In this episode, you'll learn: How to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress The connection between stress and hormone imbalances Why it's important to get to the root cause of your health problems The different types of stress How stress affects our genetic expression The CARE method of stress recovery How hormones and neurotransmitters influence our stress response And much more!   If you're ready to make some changes in your life and take control of your health, this episode is for you. Tune in now and learn how to master your stress and reset your health with Dr. Doni Wilson.   (00:00): "You can't pour from an empty cup," says Dr. Doni Wilson. She's gonna teach you how to master your stress to reset your health in today's podcast.   (00:10): So the big question is how do women over 40, like us keep weight off, have great energy balance. Our hormones in our moods feel sexy and confident and master midlife. If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself. Again. As an OB GYN, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock, solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy. After 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results. And to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges, join me for tangible natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin. Dunston welcome to the hormone prescription podcast.   (01:04): Hi everybody. And welcome back to the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thanks so much for joining me today, where we're gonna talk about mastering your stress to reset your health with Dr. Doni Wilson. It's so true that you can't pour from an empty cup. It's so much of, many of us are living our lives at midlife from an empty cup, wondering why we feel terrible. And our health is tanking. While Dr. Doni Wilson has cracked the code on mastering your stress, which is the key to reset your health. She's gonna tell you all about it today. She is a naturopathic doctor, certified professional midwife certified nutrition specialist and bestselling offer of master your stress, reset your health. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that addressed the whole body and ultimately resolved the underlying causes of distress. She suffered from migraines for over 20 years. And in the process of solving this, she developed her stress recovery protocol. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media at public and professional events. You can find her blog podcast called how humans heal and her self C a R E program at Dr. doni.com. Please help me welcome Dr. Doni.    (02:31): Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited about your book. That's already out faster, your stress reset your health, and we're gonna dive into it. I know people hear so much about stress and we can tend to not pay attention when people are talking about it, but I want everyone to really pay attention because here you have a doctor who specializes the, in this and is saying that this is the thing that you need to do to reset your health. How did you come to this?   (02:58): Understanding? It was through life experience. A lot of it really, you know, like, because I, in addition to going through various stresses of my life, like training to be a naturopathic doctor and a midwife and being a mom and running a practice and running a business, you know, but I think a lot of people go through these stresses, right. But it's just that I came through it also with my own health issues. I had migraines for over 20 years, I was getting migraines and these were migraines that would take me out for days. Like I'd be literally in the bed or on the floor. And I would try different treatments, different medications. I tried acupuncture. I tried herbs, I'm trained as naturopathic doctor. So I was like, I'm willing to try anything. And still it wasn't helping. These migraines would just keep coming. And each time it would knock me down.   (03:49): Like, I'd be like, what else am I supposed to do? I can't, how am I supposed to keep going like this in having these unpredictable migraines happening and no solutions. And I think, you know, that's why I relate to a lot of people out there who maybe that's not migraines. Maybe they have some other health issue where they feel like they've been trying and they just are not getting answers and they're not feeling better. And it's just that in my case, because I, of my training and my interest in understanding the human body and willingness, right. I'm willing to do, if it needs to be a diet change, if it needs to be a supplement, if it, what, if it's a test I need to do, I'm like I'm willing to do it. And so I just kept on working on it and I kind of worked on it in isolation actually, honestly, because I felt too ashamed.   (04:41): I, and I think a lot of people feel this way too, when they have symptoms caused by stress, we feel like we're, it's not supposed to happen. We're supposed to be better than that. Right. We're supposed to be able to charge through life and keep up with everything and it's not supposed to affect us. And so I didn't feel like I could say anything cuz I felt embarrassed. And so instead I just worked on it in isolation. I did along the way I was, I was speaking and I was publishing articles and publishing books and say of everything I learned, right? Like what helped. And there were many things along the way, over the past 20 some years where I was like, well, this dietary change made a difference. This approach made a difference. And every time I found something, I would talk about it that way.   (05:26): But I wouldn't necessarily talk about it from my perspective of having migraines. Right? And so only in the past couple years, because I was still getting the migraines, you know, I maybe saw 10% difference or 20% difference or 50% difference. And I was like, but they're still happening. And it was only just a few years ago that I ended up making a whole bunch of additional changes. And the ever since then the migraine stopped that. And one of the major changes I made is I started talking about it and this is why, you know, I'm here talking with you today about it saying if the more we can actually become aware and talk about how stress is affecting us, that's the first step for changing the whole pattern, right? Like get out of silence about it.   (06:16): When you talk about stress, can you define for everybody what you're talking about? Are you just talking about, I have too many things to do on my to-do list. It's never ending. My family makes me crazy. And life just feels stressful. Or are you talking about something else also?   (06:37): Definitely. And I'm so glad you're asking this question. This is one of the questions that when I'm on an airplane, by the way, the person sitting next to me, this is one of the most common questions they ask me is like, what do you mean by stress? You know, cuz they'll ask me, what do you do? And I say, I specialize in stress and they say, what do you really mean by that? And the thing is is that we like the ones you mentioned. We often think about our day to day, psychological stresses, our deadlines, our financial stresses. And these are definitely stresses that affect us. But that's not the only stresses that affects us in the category of stress. I would also include things like lack of sleep. Like when we, you know, last night yesterday, for example, I had to take an early morning flight.   (07:23): I did not get enough sleep. I'm very aware that that was a stress on my body that I'm gonna need to recover from today. Right? But it's the awareness. This was a stress. Also certain foods can be a stress to us, right? If we are consuming foods that are gonna be inflammatory to our bodies, throw off our blood sugar levels, disrupt or cause leaky gut and disrupt our gut bacteria right now, the food we're eating is actually stressing our system. Or another example is toxins toxins, either in the products we're putting on our skin or on our food as pesticides or in our environment, these toxins are also a stress on our system. And so when we look at it from that perspective, a even a injury can be a stress, right? Or a surgery can be a stress like we know from science it's anything that triggers our stress response and causes our body to need to go into a recovery in order to get back to optimal again.   (08:24): Yes. So I hear you mentioning, it's not just psychosocial and this is what I want everyone to hear because if you only think it's that you'll miss. Yeah. The rest of the iceberg under the ice, ,   (08:39): It's a big ice for Gunda there for   (08:42): Right. The chemical stressors I heard you mentioned, which could be foods that you're eating, that you think are healthy, but might be causing you a stress response. It, it could be so many things. It could be something in the deodorant that, that you're using. It can be flying in an airplane itself is stressful. Right?   (09:00): exactly. And so the key is that because a lot of people will say to me, well, can you teach me how to be stress free? And I say to them, that's not my goal. It would be impossible. First of all, because as humans we're gonna have stress. And in fact, we want to have some stress there's stresses that are good for us. Exercise create is a stress that at a certain quantity is good for us. It helps our bodies to be challenged, to grow muscles, you know, and, and use our heart. It's not about eliminating all stress. Really? The goal is how do we understand where the stress is? So just conversation we're having, how do we notice the stresses that we have in our lives and how do we ensure that we have enough to counterbalance it enough? What I call anti-stress to counterbalance the stress so that our bodies can come back to optimal on a regular basis. It's when we, when we don't have enough, anti-stress we get thrown off, right? I know you're familiar with this where we just get, we get burned out. We get, it becomes normal and familiar to feel constantly stressed.   (10:13): Yes. I love that. It's about having enough anti-stress to counterbalance the stress we have. It's not about teaching people how to be stress free. That is a quotable. I love that. Mm-hmm and Donny, you talk about five different types of stress and that's the first time I've heard that. So I'm super excited for you to talk about that. What are the five types?   (10:37): Okay. So this is based on cortisol and adrenaline levels. So let's, this is understanding the stress response. We have a built in stress response system. We have these stress hormones that communicate stress throughout our bodies. We have cortisol, which a lot of people have heard about cortisol as a stress hormone and adrenaline. We want our cortisol adrenaline. Actually, we don't have enough. That's not good either. We need to have just the right amount at a certain time of day under certain circumstances, right? So we need a Al amount of cortisol adrenaline. And so what happens is when we're under this chronic stress that you and I are talking about, our cortisol and adrenaline levels become disrupted either too high or too low. And it's not the same for everyone, but the treatment is different. So here's the thing is a lot, a big mistake I see often is people, maybe they notice they have stress.   (11:34): Maybe they even have their cortisol levels tested. And then they decide I'm gonna take a supplement to help with my cortisol. But if they're not taking the right herbs and nutrients in that supplement to address their specific imbalance, they're not gonna feel better. And I see this mistake happen all the time, right? That all the time they're taking the wrong supplement for this situation. So this is why I'm so standing out and saying, listen, we have different stress type patterns when you're under stress is different than when I'm under stress likely, right? Like, so we need to know are us dress type pattern where your cortisol and adrenaline are stuck in a high mode. In which case we are gonna give specific treatment for that to help bring it back to optimal or our us dress type where your cortisol and adrenaline are stuck in a low mode where they're too low.   (12:30): And now your're functioning with two little cortisol adrenaline. Well, we can address that, but we need to use the right herbs and nutrients that help raise it back up to optimal, right. Or there can also be the opposites. What a person could have high cortisol, low adrenaline or high adrenaline, low cortisol. So it's imp what I found in my, in my practice and in my research is it's so important to know where you are so that we can give you the right treatment. And even then we need the treatment to be specific to your stress type, to be effective. (13:04): Yes. So true. I see it all the time. In fact, someone had, I think reached out to me on social media last week and said something about, I think I have adrenal fatigue is what she said. And I've been taking, she named this supplement, but I don't feel any better was her complaint. And of course I said, well, you need to get tested yeah. Yeah. So talk about like, how do you figure out your stress type? How do you know if you're high, low, low, high everybody's high everybody's low?   (13:34): How do you know? So, and here's the thing is you mentioned the, the NA the word adrenal fatigue. This is a common terminology that's used, but it's really vague. It doesn't tell us anything, right? It doesn't tell us what's going on with your cortisol and adrenaline. So I tend to call it instead. Adrenal distress, adrenals distress means to me, there's some imbalance with your cortisone adrenaline, but now we need to find out what that imbalance is. And I did develop in, in the book, the master, your stress reset your health book, mm-hmm . And on my website, I developed a quiz. You can take where you go through and you, you answer the questions and it tells you likely what your stress type is. So at least your close to, you know, knowing what it is. So you can treat it specifically best is if you can do a test, and this is where we do cortisol testing, but we don't just test the cortisol at one time a day, right?   (14:26): We gotta test the cortisol in the morning when you wake up, when it should be a little higher, and then we're gonna test it in the middle of the day, the evening and the bedtime, when it should be lowest, right? If we only tested one time a day, we're missing a lot of the information. We need to measure it at different times a day, which we can do either in saliva or urine. So people can do this test at home. Like you can spit in a tube at different times a day, or we collect urine at different times of day to measure your cortisol. And then you're gonna know, is my cortisol too low or too high? Or maybe it's even a combination of the two. Maybe you have too low at certain times of day too high at certain times of day, right? Yes.   (15:04): And this, and then we can also measure the adrenaline levels. Adrenaline can be measured in the urine. So this, again, a test you can do at home. So then we actually know what, how stress is affecting you. These are your internal stress messages, and they're not just responding to the stress of today or the stress of yesterday. They're actually responding to the stress of your life and even your parents' life, right? Like this is when we look at your cortisol and adrenaline levels, it's showing us your unique pattern that exists in your body at this point in time, based on your genetics and your stress exposure. And we need that information because then we can actually help you feel better. So if you, like you said, this person said they're taking something, but they don't feel better. That's a clear sign to me that they're probably taking the wrong product for their stress time.   (15:58): Right. And I hear that all the time. I'd love what a couple things you just said, I wanna highlight. So you mentioned that your body's responding to stress, not only that you're dealing with, but of your parents. Can you talk a little bit about that? Cuz I think that's probably foreign to most people.   (16:16): Yeah. It's actually a study show. I mean, we, we look at, first of all, childhood exposure to stress, we know that when we are exposed to, to stress in childhood, which most, all of us had some degree of stress in our childhood that that influences our health throughout our lives. Unless we start doing stress recovery and helping our bodies recover. Right. And not only that, but the studies show that stress that from our parents and our grandparents affects our genetic expression. So it affects how our body responds to stress in this lifetime is so amazing. Right? And I look at it as, I mean, there's always two sides of the coin, right? We could look at it as well. My grandparents went through all this stress or I had all this stress in my childhood. So now I'm doomed to have increased risk of diabetes and dementia and heart disease and cancer. Or you could look at the other side of the coin and you could say, wow, I know my parents had stress. I know I had stress, but I also know that I can do something about it. Starting at whatever point you are in your life, you can make diet changes. You can start doing recovery activities, start addressing your stress type so that you can decrease your risk of health issues going forward.   (17:33): So true. And you mentioned something else about genetics, is that, is that how our trans the stress is transported from generation to generation? Isn't it through the, through genetics?   (17:44): Yeah. Through what we call epigenetics or genetic expression mm-hmm so we, you know, for so long, even scientists were like, we, they thought we were gonna figure out the human genome and be able to match up to every health condition. And we were gonna solve all the health conditions by knowing our genes. Right. We were like, oh, you know, all the genes we're gonna solve everything. And so they ran this huge human genome project and studied all the genes. And when they came out the end of it, they figured out that that was not the case. That actually what's more determinant of our health and our risk of health issues is our stress exposure and our environment . So that says like, okay, yes, of course we have genes and we have this genetic interplay from that we are born with, from our ancestors. However, that doesn't mean it's set in stone. We have every ability to shift that genetic expression going forward and for future generations.   (18:43): Yes. Super important to know. Can you talk a little bit about your care method of stress recovery?   (18:50): Mm-hmm so I use the acronym care to mean clean eating, adequate sleep, recovery activities, and exercise. So these are all daily activities that we can choose, right? And even eating is something we definitely do every day. Sleeping is something we hope we do every day. recovery activities and exercise. There's ways that we can choose each of these areas. That's gonna help us with our stress recovery. And there's a ton of research on all of these areas. This is, I have all the references in the book because I was so interested. I really wanted to see, is it even possible that we should be implementing diet and sleep and exercise and even recover activities like meditation based on our stress type. Like, is there a certain time of day or duration or type of activity, that's gonna be better for someone who has high cortisol, high adrenaline, I call a stress magnet, you know, where, how should they be implementing care versus the person who has low cortisol, adrenaline, who I call blah and blue, how should they be implementing care? And so that's, what's in the book is like, so I want you to be able to know your stress time and then know how to implement your clean, eating, your sleep, your recovery activities and your exercise in a way that matches your body. So your body can actually recover.   (20:21): Yeah. I think a unique approach for each person is so important and I love how you outline the different phases in your book, and you give details on what everybody should be doing. So we'll for sure link to the quiz so they can take it. I do encourage everyone to get the book cuz it's she really, Dr. Donny has done an excellent job of outlining exactly what you need to do, how to know what your stress type is. Three step approach, unique for your situation. So you can kind of sort this out. And I have seen so many people actually who use this type of very structured, detailed information that you offer, fix this without ever having a test.    (21:04): Yeah. It's definitely possible. You can. That's why in the book it's like you could fo literally follow the steps in the book and have such an improvement. And the key here is that, you know, because I know people hear about all different kinds of approaches to health. What I'm doing is I'm looking from a bird's eye view. I'm looking at it as how can we be most strategic about recovering from any health issue? So let's say a person has autoimmunity, right? And we know that autoimmunity is triggered by stress, right? The research says it very clearly, but they don't give you any directions on what to do about it. We just know stress causes autoimmunity. So what we wanna say is, oh my gosh, if there's an autoimmune condition, say Hashimotos or Crohn's disease or rheumatoid arthritis or any other of the hundreds of autoimmune conditions we need, if we really wanna be solving it effectively, we need to be thinking of it from how do we help the body recover from stress so that we can turn off the autoimmunity and the person can then go through their life without having autoimmunity.   (22:10): Amazing. I see it in all the time with my patients, right? Or you name it any other health, even if it's a, you know, even if it's say a blood sugar imbalance or fatigue or anxiety, these are symptoms to me, these are indications that the body is overstressed. And it's trying to tell us that, right? It's giving us symptoms that are saying, it's a stress alarm going off saying some there's a stress signal that's ending up causing these either digestive issues, hormone imbalances, immune related issues and neurological or nervous system issues. That's how it shows up. And so this strategy to me is so important for everyone as an underlying root cause strategy, right?   (22:56): Yes. It's so true. Can you share maybe some stories of clients you work with? You know, most of the women who listen to my podcast are somewhere between 40 to 60, some older, some younger, and invariably they know that stress is affecting their health. Yeah. And I know when it happened to me, when I was in my forties, , you know, late forties and I weighed 243 pounds and I only had enough energy to work and sleep. And I had depression, anxiety. My hair was falling out, no sex drive. I had irrit all about, like I had this laundry list of what I call, right. The laundry list of midlife, metabolic complaints about the effects of stress right here. I was board certified OB GYN. And I know there are women listening right now who are saying like, okay, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stress. But how do I know that if this is for me, I'd love, love it. If you could share some stories of some patients that you've worked with, who this they might identify with and say, oh my gosh, that's me. I have those symptoms. I need to take that quiz. I need to read that book.   (24:05): Yeah. Because a lot of times we're kind of functioning and we're not even really, we're like, it's so unusual and familiar. We don't even realize, oh, this, this was caused by stress. Like sometimes it's, it's something like if you're grinding your teeth at night, or you mentioned your hair's falling out. Right. So it could be symptoms like that where you're like, okay, now I've gotta go to get a mouth guard from my teeth because I'm grinding my teeth. I have maybe it's anxiety, but maybe you're not calling it anxiety. Maybe it's like just constant worry. Right? Mm-hmm maybe this worry, ruminating thoughts where you feel like you can't turn your brain off and it's like, you have a long list of things and you never, lot of, lot of times women say to me, I feel like I never get a break. Right. They're running from taking care of kids to, to taking care of, you know, their home, to taking care of their job or their business or whatever they're, they're doing else in their lives.   (24:57): Or even from 40 to 60, like this is where maybe the kids are going to college and now they, but there's always something on your to-do list. Right. You're always like I have this long to-do list. And I feel like there's never time for me. That is a, a sign for me that there, that this is like, okay, we need to intervene. It also can be, as you mentioned, severe fatigue where you feel like you wake up in the morning and you're like, I can't do anything until I've have had like several cups of coffee. And another way it shows up is in the evening, if you feel like you just can't wait for this alcohol. Right. You're like, I know, oh yeah. This and, and not to say that, like, I mean a little bit of coffee's okay. And a little bit of wine or alcohol's okay too.   (25:40): But when it get becomes where we feel like we can't even survive the next day, right. Without this, another cup of coffee or another glass of wine now we're, we're kind of medicating the stress with coffee and wine, right? So we have to kind of be honest with ourselves and say, wait a minute, is this just something I'm enjoying once in a while? Or is this where I'm depending on this for me to get through my day and accomplish these tasks, it can also show up as like I'm thinking of a, a, a patient. I, I was so excited this week. I spoke to two patients who have gone come through my phase 1, 2, 3, this step by step protocol. You mentioned, they're now at phase three and I am celebrating with them. And they're both in the 40 to 60 age range. One of them first came to me with severe anxiety and severe digestive symptoms, like bloating, gas, irritable bowel syndrome.   (26:36): She's like, how am I supposed to do this? She has children. She runs her own practice as well. She's like, how am I supposed to, to do this? I'm constantly. And she was having a lot of cravings. This is another way it comes up food cravings, right? Mm-hmm like your craving sugar, you or your appetite changes. Maybe you feel like you, nothing tastes good. And then you end up just overeating something that, you know, you really don't wanna be eating, but it's the only thing you can decide to eat. Right? And so she was just like, so feeling so awful, she was like, how am I supposed to keep going and keeping up with taking care of my daughters and myself and my family and my home. So she, we did this panel. We've saw that her cortisol levels were com were totally low.   (27:21): Her adrenaline was totally high. And so I guided her through the process. We have to first lower the adrenaline that's high before we can raise the cortisol that's low. And this is a key piece, cuz I think a lot of times people get stuck here. They find out they have low cortisol, but if someone's not checking also their adrenaline levels or knowing that this is the difference between the blah and blue stress type versus the tired and wired stress type and their treatment is different. So if you're treating yourself as blah and blue, but you're really as tired and wired, you're not gonna feel better. You're gonna feel worse. Mm-hmm so we have to first lower that high adrenaline. Once the high adrenaline comes down, then she was like, oh finally my mind feels like it's not racing. Finally. I feel like I can breathe and have a little calmness in my day and I can start. Then you can start to choose some of the selfcare it's hard to choose self-care when you're going, when you, you can't even catch your breath bakes basically. Right.   (28:20): So true.   (28:21): So then she was able to calm enough, but then, then I listen for patients to say to me, okay, the anxiety calmed down now I'm just tired. And I'm like, that's good. Because that tells me you're in phase two, we're ready to support the low cortisol. Then I can start the supplements to raise the cortisol back up to optimal. And you, the person starts to get their energy back and other things start to come back. Right? Libido comes back, digestion starts working again. Skin looks better. Everything starts to, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm back. You know? And we didn't, sometimes we don't even realize we lost ourselves. But when we find ourselves again, we're like, whoa, I was so far off of this. and then what happens is in phase three, this is why it's so exciting when I get to talk to them in phase three is they're like, first of all, they're like, thank you so much. I'm so glad I found you because I couldn't figure this out before. And I've been to all these other practitioners that didn't figure it out. They're like, but they also realize they have this empowerment and, and this feeling of like, now they know what to do to maintain over time. These women say to me, now I know if I'm under stress again, I know exactly what I need to do to get myself back on track before I end up back in burnout again.   (29:38): Yes. And I love the subtitle of the book. So it's master your stress, reset your health, the personalized program to calm anxiety, boost energy, and beat burnout. So I wanna encourage everybody if you're hearing yourself and what Dr. Dami is saying. And you're you thought that you've had it an adrenal issue and maybe you can't afford, not everyone can afford to go to a practitioner and work one on one and have the test and you can get great results with a program like this. And you're hearing the symptoms that you have. I'm definitely gonna encourage you to go take the quiz and read the book and do what she says, because you know, it works. If you're stuck in, I call that the, uh, coffee, wine, tango coffee in the morning to wind up and wine in the afternoon to wind down. That was me in my forties for sure. And I didn't realize I was medicating my, my, uh, stress issues, but now I know better. So I'm gonna encourage you to definitely check it out. And then also I wanted you to just talk a little bit, a little bit about your podcast.   (30:41): Yes, yes, yes. Oh my gosh. I'm so enjoyed having you on my podcast. It's called how humans heal. So you can find it where you usually listen to podcasts. It's also on YouTube. So if you prefer YouTube, just look for how humans heal and you can listen to you. And I talking about what YouTube, I love it. And then yes, my, you can also find it through my website at Dr. doni.com. I have a blog and, and everything there as well.   (31:07): Awesome. Well, I have to ask you, I mean, we have talked about cortisol, which is a hormone. We've talked about epinephrine, neuro epinephrine, which are really hormones. You know, neurotransmitters are just like brothers and sisters to, to hormones, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to connect how these hormones and neurotransmitters interact with things like thyroid estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, can you comment on that?   (31:38): Absolutely. And here's the thing is, so when we're, when we're under stress and our cortisol goes either too high or too low, and adrenaline goes too high or too low, they're signaling to everywhere else in our body, including all the hormones. So from thyroid insulin and even ovarian hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, all the hormones, get this stress. You know, it's like a text message. I think of it. Like they get the text message and they're like, okay, we're in stress mode. Do the stress thing, which the thing is when we're under stress, we tend, it tends to drop our thyroid function. It tends to drop our insulin function. So now our blood sugar goes higher. It tends to drop ovarian function. So now we have less progesterone, estrogen, all, Ew, you're more likely to have PMs symptoms or fibroids or heavy bleeding in general or irregular cycles or menopausal symptoms for that manner.   (32:37): I mean, so many women that I help and I know you do too, in that perimenopausal years, if the cortisol is off balance, you're way more likely to experience perimenopausal symptoms. And yes, we're gonna address the estrogen and progesterone and testosterone and get them balanced. But amazingly, when we get the cortisol and adrenaline balanced, it's so much easier to manage these other hormones because now you're sending, you want your cortisol adrenaline to send a healthy signal to your body so that all of these other hormones can fall in line. As soon as the cortisol goes off, it's like a domino effect, right? It just wipes everything out. And as soon as the cortisol's on track, everybody's lining up and in a, in a nice harmony, you know, so they're talking to each other, these hormones are talking to each other and the more we can balance cortisol, the easier it is to keep the rest of them optimized too.   (33:32): So true. That's why I call her queen cortisol. She, it, she will be served. So I love that you wrote this wonderful book, talking about how to master your stress and reset your health. And that means master your queen cortisol, she will be very happy. Your thyroid will improve your insulin. Blood sugar will improve. Your sex. Hormones will improve. Like everything gets better.   (33:54): So everything gets better. So, and to me, it's like, it's the ultimate multitasking, right? We always, we kind of like multitasking, but sometimes when we're multitasking, we're inefficient. Right. But to me, this is a good way to multitask because by optimizing your cortisol, you're fixing so many other things, right? So it's like, Simplify it all.   (34:16): It is. It's literally like having the cleaning lady come to your house and clean your house. So you don't have to worry about it. Just do the one thing. Yeah. Thank you. and Dr. Doni for joining me, thank you for this wonderful resource for men and women. I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for joining me today.   (34:34): You're welcome. Thank you for having me.   (34:36): And thanks to everybody listening. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the hormone prescription podcast with Dr. Kyrin. I want you to not just have this information and have learned something. I want you to actually take this information and implement it in your life. So go to the show notes, click, take the quiz, check out Dr. Doni's podcast. It is amazing. She has fantastic guests. You will learn a lot and go get your master, your stress, reset your health book and start taking action today. And then think about all the ways that your life is gonna improve. Once you get this under control, share it with me on social media, what you are doing, what actions you're taking and look forward to hearing about it. And until next week, peace, love and hormones. Y'all   (35:22): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40. When we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it. If you give me a review and subscribe, it really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com, where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.   SelfC.A.R.E.™ Stress Reset Sign up for the 7-Day selfC.A.R.E.™ Stress Reset with Dr. Doni for FREE https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/stress-reset/     Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try? It might be time to check your hormones. Most people don't even know that their hormones could be the culprit behind their problems. But at The Hormone Club, we specialize in hormone testing and treatment. We can help you figure out what's going on with your hormones and get you back on track.   We offer advanced hormone testing and treatment from Board Certified Practitioners, so you can feel confident that you're getting the best possible care. Plus, our convenient online consultation process makes it easy to get started.   Try Her Hormone Club for 30 days and see how it can help you feel better than before.   CLICK HERE to sign up: https://www.herhormoneclub.com/  

In this episode, Dr. Doni Wilson, host of How Humans Heal, describes what it takes to find the highest quality and most efficacious supplements. Dr. Doni breaks through the sales and marketing to show you behind the scenes of DoctorDoni.com and Nature Empowered Nutritionals.     Ultimately, it's about giving your body the nutrients, herbs and other support from nature to help you recover from depletions and disruptions caused by stress.     We are stressed as humans. Stress decreases our ability to digest food, causes leaky gut and imbalanced gut bacteria. It also makes us susceptible to infections, including viral infections, as well as low serotonin and GABA. These can be addressed clinically with nutrients, herbs, homeopathic remedies and peptides. Hormone imbalances can also be addressed.     -    It is essential to use high quality supplements at effective doses. This is not something you have to figure out on your own. That would require hours and hours (years even) of research and trials. And they are not supplements you will find at the regular store.    That's why I do what I do. Using my training, with a doctorate degree from Bastyr University, which is not a weekend course or online training. It was a 5-year, post-graduate, in-person degree program and residency which I completed 22 years ago.      Nor should you need to figure out what to take together or apart, or potential interactions. That's all part of my training and continuing education. It's also what I teach naturopathic students who train with me.     In my case, I've chosen to run an online store where I can make these high-quality supplements available to you and my patients. I don't want my suggestions or your access to be limited to certain companies determined by a distributor. I want to make it possible for you to get the products that are most effective clinically. I also want to make sure you know you can access those supplements from a trusted source. To do that, I have to research and maintain a store for you to use.     -   The store at DoctorDoni.com was recently updated to make it easier for you to use and to find what you need. We carry over 700 products from companies I have vetted and products I've tested on myself and used clinically.     I also decided to create my own supplement company – Nature Empowered Nutritionals – so that I can offer you the supplements I recommend based on my Stress Recovery Protocol. Other practitioners who create a supplement choose based on what is easiest to formulate. I chose based on wanting you to have exactly the ingredients that I find to be most effective.     I know it can seem too good to be true. When we are dealing with chronic illness and feeling lost in the medical system, it can be hard to believe that solutions exist. And I'm not saying this is the right fit for everyone. It is always important to know your body, your preferences, your allergies and sensitivities, and your medical history.    -    I absolutely believe customizing your supplement protocol based on your individual case is imperative. That's why I offer group online programs and one-on-one consultations with me so that you can get access to the information you need, and testing to understand the imbalances in your body, so that you can pinpoint exactly what your body needs.     It is not about taking a bunch of random supplements. It is about understanding human physiology, biochemistry, clinical nutrition, herbalism, homeopathy, and research about how to support the body to heal.     For example, if you have elevated cortisol levels, there are specific nutrients and herbs to help bring it back down to optimal. If you have low serotonin (which we can also measure), then we know 5HTP, as a precursor nutrient, will give your body what it needs to make more. How much and when to take it, and what if you are on medications? Then you need to meet with me one-on-one so I can guide you.     -    I feel it is my role and purpose to provide information about the protocol I've identified in the process of healing by body and helping thousands of patients. That's what my team helps me to create at DoctorDoni.com where we have lots of free resources in addition to learning opportunities and access to the highest quality and effective supplements.     Thank you so much for your feedback, questions, and trust.     Dr. Doni   -    To read more about these concepts, be sure to get a hold of my new book, Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health.   https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576     -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://DoctorDoni.com/msrh      https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Fatigue is not the same for everyone who experiences it. It can be a complex web of causes which requires a systematic approach in order to avoid aggravations.    In this episode of How Humans Heal, I discuss helping patients recover from fatigue with Dr. Evan Hirsch, [@EvanHirschMD] a functional medical doctor who experienced Chronic Fatigue himself.     He pushed aside the shame and guilt of not feeling well enough to keep up with his life and practice to identify 33 causes of fatigue. His mission became addressing those 33 causes of fatigue for himself and now thousands of other people in his online program.     95% of people he sees have thyroid function that is not optimized. And most of them have adrenal dysfunction. And I agree – I see those same patterns in my practice.     It's important to address all the causes of fatigue, not just one or two, in order to achieve complete resolution. We also want to address the root, of the root, of the root, of the cause of fatigue.      When we dig deeper, we find that stress, toxin exposure, and chronic infections need to be addressed to ultimately resolve fatigue.      -    As Dr. Evan explains, it often comes down to deficiencies and toxicities. Deficiencies such as nutrients, neurotransmitters, mitochondrial function and lack of good food, sleep, and movement. Toxicities such as the 500 chemicals we are exposed to before we walk out of the house. It can also be mold toxicity, tick-born infections, viruses, parasites, yeast, bacterial infections, allergens, adverse life events, negative experiences, and electromagnetic exposures.     The body ends up shutting down in what is called the Cell Danger Response. Which is why it can feel like a pile-up of health issues and multiplying symptoms.     Dr. Evan has figured out a 4-step process to assess and address the underlying causes of fatigue in a way that allows the body to heal most efficiently.     It doesn't start with detoxification. It's important to prepare the body and carefully open the detoxification pathways so that we don't make you feel worse in the process of addressing infections and toxins.     -    At the same time, it's important to know that healing is a process of taking a few steps forward and a couple steps backwards, individualizing along the way, as we learn what your body needs in order to heal.     As practitioners, we are really “course correctors” along the way, to guide you to know how to pivot and work through what comes up as you rebalance and heal.     Regaining your energy is absolutely possible, and it is important to keep in mind that it will be gradual over 12 to 24 months. You have to play the long game.     As someone who has experienced and recovered from fatigue myself, and helped thousands of patients with stress, toxins, and infections, as discussed in this episode, I can tell you that Dr. Evan's approach makes complete sense and is extremely thorough.     -    If you've been struggling with fatigue and/or a complex health issue, I highly recommend reading his book, which he is offering as a free gift, and checking out his online program.    To download Dr. Evan's book for free, Fix Your Fatigue: https://go.fixyourfatigue.org/full-book-pdf-optin     To learn about his The Fix Your Fatigue Program: https://doniwilson.krtra.com/t/Gl53p9ocS0Xc    -    To read more about these concepts, be sure to get a hold of my new book, Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health.   https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576     -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://DoctorDoni.com/msrh      https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.  

Dr. Sue McCreadie [@drsuemccreadie], a pediatric physician who has shifted into helping women breakthrough their health challenges, is hosting a summit called “Mama, Own Your Health” starting June 13, 2022.     I'm honored to be a part of the Mama, Own Your Health Summit, and to share insights from the summit and from Dr. Sue's life and career in this episode of How Humans Heal.     -    Originally trained as a medical doctor, Dr. Sue started learning about alternative, or what is now known as functional, medicine when she was in medical school. Ever since, she has been learning and providing support for patients in ways they weren't receiving support otherwise.     Meanwhile, in her own life, she struggled through multiple pregnancy losses and trying to keep up as a mom and doctor. That is until one day, her daughter inspired her to think outside the box and realize that women need her help to recover from stress, grief and trauma.     -    As Dr. Sue says, stress affects us not just on a physical level, but also an emotional and spiritual level. And it leads to so many health issues, including fatigue, burnout, hormone and digestive issues, weight gain, and more.    Once she realized that her personal experience recovering from health challenges in her own life could help other women too, she decided to create the Mama, Own Your Health Summit, to share valuable information from herself and other practitioners.     -    If you've been hoping to find and needing inspiration and encouragement to change your life and health, this may be the perfect place to start (or continue).     Sign up for the summit here: https://bit.ly/NSowsS    Often it is what we decide when pushed to our limit. And it all starts with a decision to simply jump in and start somewhere.     Most importantly, it is by loving, forgiving and accepting ourselves and our experiences in life, that makes transformation possible.     -    To read more about these concepts, be sure to get a hold of my new book, Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health.   https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576     -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://DoctorDoni.com/msrh      https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

DR. DONI WILSON is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol.  Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events. You can find her blog, podcast, called How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E.™ program at DoctorDoni.com. Dr. Doni joins Dr. Trevor Cates to discuss her early experiences with extreme stress, and how those events shaped her interest in stress as well as her journey to find relief for herself and her patients from chronic stress.   Takeaways:  [3:07] How Dr. Doni's childhood inspired her to research and prevent the effects of stress [5:24] How Dr. Doni's burnout lead her to begin treating both herself and patients undergoing different kinds of extreme stress [6:54] Why women may be more susceptible to stress, often stemming from societal expectations of their roles in the world [8:36] The four major areas of the body that are affected by stress: digestion, hormones, neurotransmitters, and immune system [11:45] Understanding how stress affects your body through testing cortisol, neurotransmitters, and adrenaline levels [14:31] Different stress types and why recovering from stress slowly is necessary for the process to be successful  [18:30] Examples of slow recovery activities to help the body heal from stress, and where to start the process [21:15] How to decrease cortisol levels at night by using adaptogens [24:41] Nutrients that can help destress the body   Mentioned in This Episode:  DoctorDoni.com Dr. Doni's Instagram Dr. Doni's Facebook Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health - Dr. Doni's bestselling book Stress type quiz   Twitter: “We're supposed to be superheroes, when really we're human.”   “Recovery from stress is incremental, we need to be pacing ourselves.”

Both of my parents have experienced a stroke in the past 1.5 years.     And I was not prepared. That's why I recorded this episode of How Humans Heal – to help you be prepared in case your loved one experiences a stroke.     A stroke is when either blood clot or a bleeding blood vessel decreases blood flow to the brain. It is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S., but a stroke doesn't always cause death.     For those who survive a stroke, they are likely to experience decreased mobility and long-term disability, especially when over the age of 65.     The best outcomes occur when a person is able to get medical assistance quickly. And the brain CAN heal from a stroke. It is a slow process, but there are many ways we can support and facilitate that recovery.     This is exactly why I want YOU to know the common symptoms of a stroke. In this episode of HHH, I share about the symptoms my father experienced, such as choking and change in behavior, and how they differed from the symptoms my mother experienced, vertigo and nausea.     And I share about the conversations I am having with my father's caregivers to facilitate his recovery. Plus the foods and activities I'm choosing for him.     -    The brain heals when we:     -Decrease inflammation    -Listen to music    -Do what we love    -Spend time with loved ones    -Decrease stimulation    -    More than anything, I want to emphasize that when we are most stressed, such as when taking care of a loved one, is when it is MOST important for us to take C.A.R.E. of ourselves.     Often when we get caught up in stress, we lose track of our own selfcare. And that's how we end up burned out.     I'm here to help you to recover from burnout, and to learn to be resilient to stress, because you never know when a stress or trauma is going to come along.     We need to be prepared, recovered, and ready to respond and at the same time, keep ourselves feeling well in the process.     -    Please join me for a FREE, online Burnout Recovery Masterclass: https://drdoni.lpages.co/burnout-masterclass/     -   It is LIVE on Thursday, May 19th at 7 PM EST (4 PM PST).      I will be covering the 5 Stress Types I describe in my book, Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. I'll also be teaching you how it is possible to recover from stress using my proven protocol.     If you are feeling overwhelmed, in pain, exhausted, stressed, and simply just not the way you want to feel, then be sure to sign up now.     The masterclass will be recorded, so be sure you are signed up to receive the recording.     I want each and every one of you to be prepared… more prepared than I was… to recover from burnout.     See you soon!  https://drdoni.lpages.co/burnout-masterclass/     -    Dr. Doni's Master Your Stress Reset Your Health book:  https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576/ref=sr_1_3?crid=6637XBIABVCE&keywords=master+your+stress+reset+your+health&qid=1636056186&qsid=140-1654189-8016956&sprefix=master+your+stress+reset+your+health%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-3&sres=1953295576%2C1623157803%2CB078K93HFD%2C0195311353%2CB086NKCNNK%2CB06XY3GFDS%2C019531140X%2C1455535451%2C1733994602%2CB07ZY3CTGF%2CB07W8KHTGL%2C0195311345%2C0975572229%2CB079H53D2B%2CB017PO8492%2C1623366054&srpt=ABIS_BOOK     -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Order My New Book: https://DoctorDoni.com/msrh      https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Join us in an interview with our guest speaker Dr. Doni Wilson as she talks about; How do you define stress and how does it affect fertility, How important is it to know your unique response to stress in order to recover successfully; how and why to test cortisol and adrenaline, How to use the C.A.R.E protocol based on your stress type to become resilient to stress and, Why it is important to follow a sequential approach to address adrenal disfunction.    Dr. Doni Wilson is a Naturopathic Doctor, natural health expert, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and author of The Stress Remedy. She graduated from Bastyr University in 2000. Dr. Doni created her Stress Recovery Protocol to solve her migraines and health challenges. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. She loves teaching patients to know what they need to move from stress to thriving, live well, and do what they love with ease. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and to the strategies and solutions for stress recovery through the media and at public and professional events. You can find articles, other resources, her podcast, How Humans Heal, her Self C.A.R.E.™ program, and her online store at DoctorDoni.com.    Follow Dr. Doni on IG @drdoniwilson   Here is a gift from Dr. Doni to our beloved listeners. → https://doctordoni.com/stress-reset/ Follow me on: Instagram @holisticfertilitydoctor Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DrAumatmaNd Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/HolisticFertilityExpert

Today, my special guest is Dr. Doni Wilson.   Dr. Doni is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health.    For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress.    Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol.    Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events.    You can find her blog, How Humans Heal podcast, and her Self C.A.R.E.™ program at DoctorDoni.com.   You can see why I asked Dr. Doni here today!   Stay tuned to learn more! Talking points: A certain amount and quality of stress is actually needed for a healthy labor and birth. The same is true for all of life! How to recover from stress without stressing yourself out  The 5 most common stress response patterns The Stress Maladaptive Syndrome The Stress Recovery Protocol How to master your stress so you can reset and be resilient   Connect with Dr. Doni Wilson: Website: https://doctordoni.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoctorDoni/ Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953295576/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_68KSM4PRBCSPYTENE048   -- SUBSCRIBE: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/self-heal-with-dr-irene/id1561226627 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1pxldTJY5MZmneyz8IpSvm Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFTN-EU3umbz_0d0GFwk_Bw Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/selfheal-with-dr-irene TuneIn: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/Self-Heal-(with-Dr-Irene)-p1421793/ Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3NlbGZoZWFsaW5nLm1pbmRzaGFyZWNvbGxhYm9yYXRpdmUubGlic3lucHJvLmNvbS9yc3M Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/2461592   Connect with us! Website: https://drirenecop.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drirenecop/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drirene.health180/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.irenec/?hl=en Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFTN-EU3umbz_0d0GFwk_Bw  

Stress is a big deal. It leads to everything you and I want to avoid - weight gain, fatigue, depression, chronic disease - all of it.    We can't avoid everything that causes stress but we can help our bodies become more resilient to it.    That's why I wanted to share my friend Doni Wilson with you. Dr. Wilson has been the other main naturopath writing about adrenal health over these years. She has a really good new book out with several of the latest insights about stress recovery.   We had a nice talk about this and here are some of the key takeaways:   (0:34) Introducing Dr. Doni (2:40) Defining stress: its meaning and how it affects our bodies, especially our adrenal glands. (4:44) Naturopathy VS the Conventional Medicine's take on adrenal fatigue and optimal functions. (6:56) A study about cortisol rhythm as a predictor of early death. (7:51) The need to measure the cortisol and adrenaline levels during a stress test to know which adrenal product/treatment suits best. (9:05) Dr. Doni's personal experience in dealing with adrenal distress and her realization of the importance of supporting adrenals. (10:37) Changing stress response and resiliency. (11:25) Dr. Doni's journey in dealing with migraine that taught her how to handle stress and be resilient. (12:18) The 3 steps in addressing adrenal glands: getting out of stress mode, rebalancing adrenalin, resiliency. (15:56) Addressing the underlying cause of stress. (19:01) The need for a (certain) amount of stress for the body to respond, case in point: women in labor. (22:21) Triggers and symptoms of stress. (24:59) The message of our adrenal glands: balancing stress and recovery is necessary. (29:03) Overview of the Self C.A.R.E. (Clean eating, Adequate sleep, Recovery activities, Exercise) Program. (31:43) Routine as a part of the resiliency regimen and the importance of self-care. (33:55) "How to recover from stress without stressing yourself." (36:28) Putting the self in place for self-care. (37:30) Guided meditation as a tool for placing the mind's critical voice. (40:04) Introducing Dr. Doni's book; Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. (40:40) Dr. Doni's closing thoughts (42:22) Solicitation of feedback and topics the listeners like to hear.   Dr. Doni Wilson is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health. For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events. You can find her blog, podcast, called How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E.™ program at DoctorDoni.com.    Connect with Dr. Doni through social media: IG @drdoniwilson FB drdoniwilson   Did you find this episode helpful? Let us know by leaving a review! Visit these links to learn more:     https://www.drchristianson.com/     Dr. Christianson on Facebook     Dr. Christianson on Instagram     Subscribe for more Medical Myths, Legends, & Fairytales:     Apple Podcasts     Spotify     YouTube  

When do you ever get to hear an OB/GYN say that there's a way to reverse the effects of menopause?     Well you're going to hear that, and so much more that is going to surprise and inspire you, in this episode of How Humans Heal where I interview Dr. Anna Cabeca, [@thegirlfrienddoctor].     She shares how she went from being in pain, overweight, and miserable… wondering whether life was worth it… to feeling her healthiest self when she decided to change her diet.     -    Can the food we choose to eat, and when we eat it, really make that much of a difference?     Absolutely!     Dr. Anna has since written several book, including The Hormone Fix, Keto-Green 16, and now she is celebrating the release of her newest book, Menupause.   In Menupause she lays out 5 different menu plans, with recipes and full-color pictures. The menus are intended to match your needs, whether you are wanting to start with a detox, a plant-based diet, a keto menu, or to carb-up. You could also work your way through each of her 6-day menus and eat your way to health!    -    Menopause (perimenopause to menopause) happens between ages 35 and 55, and is associated with various changes in women's health, from weight gain, fatigue, sleep issues, hot flashes, and vaginal dryness, to increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and dementia.    Dr. Anna's mission is to help you put a stop to these health issues and regain your vibrancy and longevity.     If this is speaking to you, be sure to order her book – MenuPause – at the usual book sellers and visit her website, DrAnna.com for support and encouragement.     Get her new book here: https://book.menupausebook.com/get-menupause/?rfsn=6522884.cb1007    -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Pre-Order my new book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In this episode of How Humans Heal, I share about my theory of health and healing, and my newest book, Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health, which is due to release on May 3, 2022.    -    There are many misconceptions about stress and what to do about. So much so that I am even hesitant to say the word. Sometimes simply the word stress causes us to stress more!    So how can we NOT stress about stress? How can we be healthy and thrive even when exposed to stress?     This is the question I have asked myself… throughout my whole life. And I want to share with you what I have discovered.    -Stress is part of being human    -You're going to have a response to stress – that is a given    -We need to find a way to have compassion for ourselves as stressed humans    -And figure out how to support ourselves under stress    -    How do we give ourselves enough support to recover from stress?    I believe what we are lacking is anti-stress. We have a deficiency of anti-stress.    That is when symptoms happen. Anxiety, depression, sleep issues, cancer, fertility issues, digestive troubles, infections, etc.    It is not just about age. We can't blame all our health issues on age and throw in the towel, so to speak.    I've definitely had times of more stress than anti-stress.     I had migraines for over 20 years. My migraines taught me – if I don't have enough stress recovery, I'm going to get a migraine.    I didn't want to be reliant on a medication.     I wanted to look deeper and figure out how not to have a migraine.     The same can be true for what you are experiencing in your health.     The irony is that the solution is not to overdo anti-stress either.     We are so willing to push harder, do more, and put in more of an effort… but too much of anything can result in more of a stress response.    So we have to outsmart stress and really we need to outsmart our own stress response.    It is in the gentle-ness that we get the most stress recovery.     In the process of recovering from stress myself, I identified a 3-phase.     If we skip one of the steps, stress recovery backfires.    We need all 3 phases to become resilient to stress. But it is not exactly the same process for all of us.    As humans, we all have a stress response that involves cortisol and adrenaline, but in actuality it is different for each of us.    Since our response is individualized, our treatment needs to be individualized as well.    To be most effective about your stress recovery, you need to first know how your body responds to stress so that you can then give yourself the correct treatment to recover.    For example, your cortisol could be too high, or too low, at different times of day.    And your adrenaline could be too high or too low.    I caution you not to assume that we all have the same response to stress.     And not just your immediate response to stress, but how stress affects you over time.    When you are in stress mode, and experiencing symptoms, we need to know your cortisol and adrenaline levels.     This is what I refer to as your Stress Type.     Don't just guess. It's important to treat based on your stress type in order to effectively recover from stress because the treatment is different for each Stress Type.    Even once you know your Stress Type, it is important to understand the concept of hormesis in order to optimize your recovery.    Hormesis is a concept that tells us that your body will respond to change. A small change can create a beneficial effect. Too big of a change ends up triggering a stress response.     This is why in our stress recovery we need to harness small changes that result in a beneficial effect in your body.     At the same time, we need to not overdo it, or else we will find ourselves right back where we started.     By implementing small incremental changes based on your Stress Type, you are increasing your chances of recovering from stresses of all types more quickly and efficiently.     I want you to be successful becoming resilient to stress and improving your energy, sleep, focus, mood and how you feel in your body.     I know it is possible to recover from trauma, loss, overwhelm and the stress we are exposed to as humans. And to be able to feel good doing what we feel passionate about.     It is possible to thrive even when stressed. I want that for you. If this resonates for you, be sure to order my new book – Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health – and follow along with me this month and next as I guide you to use the information in the book. You can order the book at your favorite book seller and then come to DoctorDoni.com/msrh to tell me you ordered the book. This way I can send you gifts and support and include you in the special LIVE stress reset starting May 2nd.     I can't wait to support you in the process of becoming resilient to stress!     Dr. Doni    -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Pre-Order my new book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

“Women are not “mini men” and cannot fast the same way men do. But women can benefit from intermittent fasting when we make modifications based on our hormones.”    Cynthia Thurlow [@cynthia_thurlow] nurse practitioner and CEO of Everyday Wellness Project shares from her experience as a practitioner and woman going through perimenopause how mastering intermittent fasting changed her life and health.     -    In this episode of How Humans Heal, Cynthia shares insights from her new book, Intermittent Fasting Transformation. She says that instead of being overfed, we need to be strategically fed.     Women need more options besides prescription medications and surgery. Instead of just taking another pill or hormone for a symptom. We can use food choices as powerful ways to address symptoms. By making small, sustainable changes in the way we feed ourselves, we can address inflammation, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and other health issues caused by “metabolic inflexibility”.     -   The bulk of us are not metabolic healthy, Cynthia says.     Women are given reflux medications, anti-depressants, sleeping agents, and estrogen replacement. This creates a slippery slope and women are likely to feel wrecked by the time they hit perimenopause. In the sandwich generation, women are responsible for so much. We as women are care takers, but who is taking care of us.     Cynthia is wanting to influence women's lives in a sustainable way, and that is why she wrote her book.     -    In this episode and in the book, Cynthis talks about:     -As estrogen decreases, insulin sensitivity decreases    -It shows up as fatigue, anxiety, weight gain, and menstrual irregularities     -It used to be that restricting food and exercising more would work for weight loss, but in perimenopause, that stops working    -She is not anti-carb; she encourages women to consume the right carbs    -Intermittent fasting is free and flexible    -Align food intake with chronobiology – our internal clock. Don't eat within 3 hours of bedtime. Eat when it is light outside.    -   We are so focused on fertility years, and then women feel invisible and unrepresented in perimenopause, and yet we spend half of our lives in that state. Over 35 to 40 years old, indiscretions of snacking or having a glass of wine is more likely to be an issue, increasing inflammation and blood sugar levels.    We need to be eating less often and eat the way our bodies are designed to thrive. We would not be here as a species if our bodies could not go through periods of food accessibility and scarcity, and to use different types as fuel sources. Our bodies are not designed to be in a surplus of food all the time.     When you go to eat a snack, ask yourself, am I really hungry? Or am I stressed or bored and either need to take a walk or go to sleep.    Use of a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) – which is currently by prescription – is one of the most impactful things you can do. It can allow you to experiment with different foods to find out how your body responds to a certain meal. Being aware of what your blood sugar is doing can be hugely influential to understand how stress, travel, and certain foods affect you.     -    As hard as it can be to admit to ourselves that foods we love are an issue, when we do, it can allow us to make drastic changes in our health and wellbeing.     Listen in to the amazing conversation I had with my friend, Cynthia Thurlow, for more insights about how what you are eating, and when, could be affecting the way you feel.     Find her book, Intermittent Fasting Transformation, at https://cynthiathurlow.com/    -    Connect with Cynthia at:    https://www.instagram.com/cynthia_thurlow_/   https://www.facebook.com/groups/1004505663061383      https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-thurlow-50395a9/   -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Pre-Order my new book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Starting from the name of it – MTHFR – there is so much confusion out there about what it is and how to address it, that I decided to cover it in this episode of How Humans Heal.     For those who know me, you know that when I find out something can be affecting our health, the I research it and figure out how to address it fully. That is the case with MTHFR. I, too, have 2 MTHFR gene variations and at the time I found about it, I had one of the most common health issues associated with it – migraines.     -   Part of solving my migraines was solving the confusion of MTHFR. I want you to have access to that information as well, so in this episode I cover:     -What is MTHFR    -What are the most common symptoms or health issues related to MTHFR   (anxiety, depression, fertility issues, abnormal pap results (cervical dysplasia), migraines, and fatigue)    -What to do when you first find out you have an MTHFR gene variation    -What is the most important blood test to have done    -What NOT to do when you find out you have MTHFR    -The most common errors practitioners make related to MTHFR    -    I hear from patients everyday who have been searching the internet for answers, and who may even feel worse after being told to take a high dose of folate to solve MTHFR.     I don't want that to happen to you, and if has happened to you already, I want to help you to know where to go from here.     Listen in to this episode and then, if you'd like more help…     -Sign up for my free masterclass on MTHFR    -Read my most popular blog post on MTHFR    -Contact my office to set up a time for us to meet (in person or online) about your case    -    I want you to know that it is possible to solve for MTHFR. While it is not always simple, it is important to individualize your approach. That's what I guide you to do.    Dr. Doni    -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Pre-Order my new book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576   Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES   Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

It is becoming more common to hear the phrase – “Address the Root Causes.”    That is a phrase that is ingrained in my training as a naturopathic doctor (I graduated from Bastyr University in the year 2000). Professors and mentors challenged us to think about what could be underlying a patient's health issue, whether that be a past trauma or stress, a toxin exposure, an injury or infection, the use of a medication, the loss of a loved one or a relationship, and so on.   It is this way of thinking that, I have to say, has made the biggest impact on my life and health. And it has informed the way I help my patients for over 21 years now.     -    Whether you are struggling with fatigue, sleep issues, anxiety or depression, digestive troubles, weight gain, skin rashes, migraines, menstrual-related or fertility issues, autoimmunity, cancer, and/or chronic viral infections, such as HPV and EBV…when you address the underlying causes, you are much more likely to achieve lasting resolution.      And this is the case no matter what your genes are! I say this because every week I receive phone calls from people asking me whether I can help them with their genes. The answer is yes, and I have an upcoming episode on that topic to go into more detail.     -    But the best way to address your genes is to address your stress, which is another way of saying “address the underlying causes.” We have to figure out what has turned on your genetic predispositions and take steps to give your body the support it needs to turn those susceptibilities back off again.     -    In this episode, I encourage you to consider:     -How past stresses and traumas could be underlying your health issues    -Common limiting beliefs set in childhood that could be sabotaging your health now    -How we become susceptible to addictions that perpetuate our stress    -The connection between mind and body, and how it can show up    -Ways you may leave yourself vulnerable that you didn't even realize    -How to start raising your awareness for underlying causes         By simply asking the question of yourself – what is at the root of this health issue – you may already get a download of information from within yourself and your intuition.     -    To do that, however, sometimes requires that we create space in our day and life for self-reflection, even for 1 to 10 minutes at a time. Be sure to listen in to the examples I provide and ways you can start to become more aware of connections and underlying unresolved issues that you can now address.     I believe it is possible to live a life you love with passion and purpose…without ruining your health. It does require awareness, self-reflection, acceptance, forgiveness, and willingness to choose differently.    I look forward to your comments, and if you enjoy this episode (and others) please leave a review on Apple podcast or your favorite place for listening in to How Humans Heal.   -   Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     -   Books and Resources:    Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/     -   Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Thank you so much for joining me here, at How Humans Heal.     I don't pretend to have all the information. I simply share what it is that I've learned as a human and as a naturopathic doctor. And I share the opportunity to learn from other practitioners and experts who are also wanting to share what they've learned about being human and supporting our health, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.     I really believe that there is not one perfect or cookie cutter solution for all of us. We are each unique individuals, with unique needs. And yet, at the same time, there is so much we can learn from each other to help all of us along the path of human existence.     That is my passion and joy and mission in my life – to honor being human and human existence, and to be curious, accepting, open and learning along the way.     I share what I've seen to be helpful for myself and for my patients. That doesn't mean it is necessarily going to be helpful for you, and yet I hope it is. And if not, we have learned, yet again.    I'm glad you found me and that you are here. I welcome your desire to be more human and to be living your life in a state of greater awareness, love and gratitude.     Please let me know how I may be of service to you.     Dr. Doni     Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     Books and Resources:    Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/       Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

In today's episode of How Humans Heal, Dr. Doni got to speak with Dr. Kalea Wattles. She is a Naturopathic Physician specializing in fertility and Functional Medicine. She earned her doctorate from Bastyr University and is certified as a Functional Medicine Practitioner by the Institute for Functional Medicine.     Dr. Wattles combines her Naturopathic and Functional Medicine training to treat patients with a “Functional Fertility” perspective, using a root-cause, science-based, body-systems approach to cultivating a fertile body. She is dedicated to using this patient centered method to support patients anywhere on their fertility journey – whether they are thinking about getting pregnant for the first time or exploring advanced fertility treatments. Furthermore, Dr. Wattles is passionate about providing fertility education that empowers women with the information they need to plan for the future of their dreams.     Dr. Wattles has been a clinical staff member at The Institute for Functional Medicine since 2017, where she develops curriculum for advanced training in male and female hormones, thyroid and adrenal function, and gut health. She also sees patients in her clinical practice at Vida Integrated Health in Bellevue, WA     Connect with Dr. Kalea:    Website: https://www.drkaleawattles.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drkaleawattles/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/functionalfertility/      Connect with Dr. Doni:    Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON   Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON   YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND   Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW     Books and Resources:    Stress Warrior Book (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR      Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)  HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR     7-day Stress Reset (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET     HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)  HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/       Personalized Solutions:    If you'd like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH     To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni's Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

DR. DONI WILSON, a naturopathic doctor, certified professional midwife, and certified nutrition specialist, graduated from Bastyr University in 2000. Dr. Doni believes it is possible to be healthy, even when we are stressed. She experienced severe migraines for 25 years and was determined to find a way to resolve them. In the process of solving her migraines, Dr. Doni developed her Stress Recovery Protocol™ which identifies how stress uniquely affects each individual and then uses epigenetics to reoptimize health. She helps patients reverse challenging health conditions including fatigue, anxiety, autoimmunity, fertility and recurrent miscarriages, MTHFR, insomnia, as well as HPV and abnormal pap smears. Dr. Doni is frequently called upon to discuss her approach in the media, as well as at both public and professional events. She writes a blog you can find at DoctorDoni.com and her podcast is called How Humans Heal. C.A.R.E: Clean Eating, Adequate Sleep, Rest and Recovery, Exercise Stress Warrior Book: https://doctordoni.com/stresswarrior/ 7-day Stress Reset: https://doctordoni.com/stress-reset/ Reversing HPV course: https://drdonistore.com/Reversing-HPV-with-Dr-Doni--Live-Group-Course_p_1169.html Website/Blog: DoctorDoni.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdoniwilson/ Instagram: @drdoniwilson Twitter: @glutenfreedoc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doctordoni/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nourishmel/support

Do you struggle with anxiety, fatigue and/or overwhelm as a parent?   I interviewed Shelley Kemmerer PA-C of @runtellmom in this episode of How Humans Heal. We talked about all the pressure parents experience and what is needed to help parents keep up.   Shelley is a parent and physician’s assistant who realized from her own experience that parents need help to prevent burnout. It’s a lot to keep up with working, taking care of responsibilities at home, taking care of children, and finding time for ourselves, as parents. And this is not something offered in a usual doctor’s office.   So Shelley created RunTellMom where she offers a wide range of parental wellness resources, including help after having a baby, returning to work, getting enough sleep, and finding other parents to connect with, to name a few.   She also collaborates with like-minded practitioners in complementary and related fields with a vision of providing support for parental wellness that benefits all parents!   In this episode we talk about:   How to know if you are on the brink of experiencing parental burnout   What is the impact of prolonged stress on our bodies   Why it’s often hard to ask for help and to feel isolated   Steps parents can take to prevent burnout   How Shelley helps parents address burnout   And more!   It’s not about being a superhero and powering through. It’s about planning ahead, making sure you have the support you need as a parent, and stepping back when you do feel overwhelmed to figure out what needs to be addressed.   I encourage you to make sure you prioritize your health while parenting your child or children. If you are overwhelmed, frustrated or at your wits end, I’m here to help too. We can do testing to understand how stress has affected your body, hormones, and neurotransmitters and determine what is needed to help you recover.   Parents are human too! Listen in to the conversation I had with Shelley to find out more how to parent in a way that doesn’t have to involve burnout.   Connect with Shelley:  https://www.runtellmom.com/ https://www.instagram.com/runtellmom/  https://www.pinterest.com/runtellmom/_created/  Connect with Dr. Doni:   Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  Books and Resources:   Stress Warrior Book (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR     Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR    7-day Stress Reset (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET    HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  Personalized Solutions:   If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

In this episode of How Humans Heal, Dr. Doni got to speak with Dr. Debi Silber! She is the founder of the Post Betrayal Transformation Institute and is a holistic psychologist, a health, mindset and personal development expert, the author of the #1 bestselling book: The Unshakable Woman: 4 Steps to Rebuilding Your Body, Mind and Life After a Life Crisis and her newest book: Trust Again: Overcoming Betrayal and Regaining Health, Confidence and Happiness.    Her recent PhD study on how we experience betrayal made 3 groundbreaking discoveries that changes how long it takes to heal. In addition to being on FOX, CBS, The Dr. Oz Show, TEDx (twice) and more, she’s an award winning speaker, coach and author dedicated to helping people move past their betrayals as well as any other blocks preventing them from the health, work, relationships, confidence and happiness they want most. In this episode we talk about:   What is Betrayal?     How betrayal can get us stuck in survival mode    How to know if betrayal is negatively affecting your health    What Dr. Debi discovered in her research of people who experienced betrayal    The key steps to get out of survival mode and transform your health and your life by recovering from betrayal    Dr. Debi’s new book – Trust Again    The online and virtual support program Dr. Debi created to help you be successful     And more! Connect with Dr. Debi:    Post Betrayal Syndrome Quiz: https://thepbtinstitute.com/quiz/     Post Betrayal Transformation Institute: https://thepbtinstitute.com     https://www.facebook.com/InspireEmpowerTransform     https://twitter.com/DebiSilber     https://www.linkedin.com/in/debisilber/     https://www.instagram.com/debisilber/   Connect with Dr. Doni:   Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  Books and Resources:   Stress Warrior Book (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR     Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR    7-day Stress Reset (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET    HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  Personalized Solutions:   If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Do you want to know even more ways to support your body’s detox naturally? In this episode of How Humans Heal, Dr. Doni continues sharing all about toxins, liver detoxification, and what you need to know in order to do it right! In this episode I talk about:   What does the liver do?    Nutrients and herbs to support liver detoxification naturally    What happens with toxins after they go through the liver?    Important ways to support detoxification without feeling worse    How liver detoxification can make a difference in your health    And more! Special links for this episode:    Stress Remedy 21 Day Program – created by Dr. Doni: https://drdonistore.com/The-Stress-Remedy-21-Day-Program_p_225.html    Blog related to HPV & Fertility and toxins: https://doctordoni.com/2021/04/hpv-and-fertility-part-2-environmental-toxins/  Connect with Dr. Doni:   Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  Books and Resources:   Stress Warrior Book (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR     Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR    7-day Stress Reset (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET    HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  Personalized Solutions:   If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Do you know how viral infections impact your body?   Doni Wilson is joining me to talk about some of the things that can stress our bodies out from an internal perspective and more specifically, how viral infections can have an impact on our hormones.   Dr. Doni Wilson is a naturopathic doctor, certified professional midwife, and certified nutrition specialist. She graduated from Bastyr University in 2000. Dr. Doni believes it is possible to be healthy, even when we are stressed. She experienced severe migraines for 25 years and was determined to find a way to resolve them. In the process of solving her migraines, Dr. Doni developed her Stress Recovery Protocol™ which identifies how stress uniquely affects each individual and then uses epigenetics to reoptimize health. She helps patients reverse challenging health conditions including fatigue, anxiety, autoimmunity, fertility and recurrent miscarriages, MTHFR, insomnia, as well as HPV and abnormal pap smears. Dr. Doni is frequently called upon to discuss her approach in the media, as well as at both public and professional events. She writes a blog you can find at DoctorDoni.com and her podcast is called How Humans Heal.   We are talking about how stress activates viruses, the impact of imbalances in the microbiome, why a positive mindset is crucial to progress and more.   Of course, the effects of viral infections are different for everyone, but we can all take positive action and have a positive mindset about it.   Tune in to hear the details of all of this and how to win your body back!   I would love to connect on Facebook or Instagram! Show notes available at www.drerinkinney.com/17