Is Exercise Causing Your Leaky Gut?

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When considering a healthy lifestyle, exercise is often a component of that.  The details of “what is healthy exercise” tends to be the real debate.  When prescribing exercise to a patient, the goal is always to have exercise induce healthy signaling to cells in order to enhance normal metabolism, detoxification, and hormone production.  We want this healthy signaling to happen while performing movement that is low risk because movement that may promote damaging signals or cause injury is counter-intuitive to the health agenda at hand.  This is an easier article to write if the focus is simply hormone production and low risk movement patterns.  It becomes more tricky when you start considering how exercise may be contributing to intestinal permeability, aka leaky gut.  If you are unfamiliar with this term, check out a prior article I wrote on what it is and how it happens here.

When you perform high intensity workouts or exercise for long durations, you actually induce intestinal permeability.  The fact that this happens can also be an argument to justify shorter durations and longer recovery times.  If we are thinking in general, it is probably not the best idea to be doing vigorous workouts on a daily basis because over-exercising is a real thing!  Not only can it begin to have a catabolic effect, induce cortisol issues, and create real fatigue issues, it can cause leaky gut.  Leaky gut is the precursor to autoimmune diseases and should not be taken lightly. This is also a part of exercise-induced immune suppression.  That’s right.  You actually have a period of time after exercise where your immune system is suppressed.  So, if you are a person that wants to train at an elite level and stay healthy while maintaining a normal intestinal lining, what do you do?

  1. Eat a diet free from foods that can contribute to intestinal damage such as wheat, processed foods, sugars, and commercial dairy products.
  2. Stay away from alcohol when in high training seasons.  Alcohol contributes to leaky gut.
  3. Get adequate rest and sleep for recovery.
  4. Don’t overtrain.
  5. Take supplements that will keep your immune system up:
    1. Beta-glucans are a yeast-derived products that prime neutrophils (immune cells) to act quickly and efficiently if you get an infection. Look for those containing “Wellmune”
    2. Colostrum is a product that contains antibodies to give the body a donated immune system in addition to growth factors that stimulate healing of the gut lining.

When athletes take colostrum during peak training season, they have virtually no sign of leaky gut in comparison to their counterparts that don’t take colostrum.  A recent study was just published on the topic, and it really is remarkable.  When we think about why colostrum can provide such a service to the intestine, we need to think about nature’s original intention.  Colostrum is the first milk produced for baby.  Every baby is born with leaky gut (this is normal for an infant!) but it’s colostrum and mother’s milk that provides the immune factors such as antibodies in addition to the growth factors that will ultimately create a normally developed intestinal lining.  In a bubble, this lining would never encounter processed food, antibiotics, excessive workouts, etc.  But we live in 2017 and people have so many damaging things happening in everyday life.

If you are an athlete that doesn’t want your exercise regime to cause damage to the intestines that will ultimately hurt the immune system, consider taking colostrum.  It’s a classic story that any athlete will tell you: inevitably, game day rolls around and that’s when you get sick!  Either that or it’s often during peak training season.  I wouldn’t want to train all year for something and then get sick right before competition!  We can use these types of discoveries to leverage food to our advantage in addition to knowing how to adjust lifestyle habits like exercise frequency. On a side note: there have been Olympic teams known to take colostrum because of the factors that enhance performance without it being a growth hormone type product.  So, there could be some performance benefits in addition to health benefits!

If you are interested in all the recent study details, click here!

If you are interested in protecting your intestines and immune system without changing your training schedule, check out my fullscript dispensary for Wholemune (beta-glucans) and IgG Protect (colostrum).  Many functional medicine doctors and chiropractors will have these products, too!

Carb Challenge Part 2: Banana

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As a part of my inspiration to show you guys the differences that food has on your body, I decided to take the carb challenge presented in Wired to Eat.  If you want to know more about the logistics and see all the details of what happened when I did Oats, click here. For the second round, I decided to do banana.  In order to hit the 50g net carbs for banana, I didn’t have to eat nearly the amount of shear volume.  For oats, I had to eat just over 2 cups due to the fiber content.  For banana, I only had to eat 1.14 cups of banana which ended up being around 2 1/2 bananas.

As I sat down to eat the banana, I took my blood sugar: 69.  I ate the banana easily, didn’t feel overly full, and really enjoyed the flavor.  This is a huge contrast from eating the oats.  With the oats, I could barely stomach the full dose and I felt terrible all morning in terms of fullness and wanting to vomit because I was so full.  Then when I finally felt hungry again it was instant and I wanted to eat a horse!  With the banana, I didn’t feel full, I enjoyed the taste, and I didn’t feel ravenous at all.

2 hours after eating the 50g net carbs of banana, I had a blood sugar reading of 84.  When I did the oats, it was 122.  When I decreased the oats to half the carbs (about the same quantity of banana ~1 heaping cup), I still had a 2-hour post sugar reading of 94!  That means that when I ate twice the amount of carbs from bananas compared to oats, I had a MUCH BETTER blood sugar response despite it being more carbs!  From a clinician perspective, that is really interesting!  How many times do we hear that people should eat oats for health due to it’s fiber content?!  All the time!  But in reality, it may be creating havoc on your blood sugar, especially if you have diabetes!  On the other hand, if you’re a person that responds differently than myself to these same foods, then maybe the oats are a better option than bananas.  We just don’t know unless you’ve directly compared your insulin response.

On a deeper level, this really stirs the pot in the conversation about macros.  Many people these days are eating according to macros (protein, fat, and carb ratios) but not worrying about the sources of those foods.  For example, HaloTop ice cream fits many people’s macros and allows them to eat ice cream while still fitting within their diet.  I think this experiment is pointing to the idea that just because they are both carb sources of the same amount, they can have very different outcomes physiologically.

Stay tuned for the next adventure!  I will likely do rice next.  I am choosing foods that are gluten free and may be things I would consider eating in the right context.  White rice fits that category for me and can be a great quick carb source for someone doing high intensity training.  It’s nice to know if that’s the best quick carb source to turn to!

Free Ways to Assess Your Health Status

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I write articles all the time (and read articles all the time) that talk about how to diagnose your problems, or recognize the root cause of your health issues, etc.  But how do you know if you are healthy?  This can be a fleeting concept for people because we are taught that if you don’t have a model body, perfectly thick hair, flawless skin, a sharp mind, perfect poop, and are happier than a clam everyday that you must have something that is unhealthy about you.  I am not denying that there are clues that one can find in these concepts, but the reality is, NO ONE is “perfect” 100% of the time!  So, how do you assess whether you are healthy or whether you should probably address your issues?

You don’t necessarily need to spend money on bloodwork to asses how healthy you are.  Those numbers can give you interesting insight into a snapshot of what’s happening on the inside, but you get signs every day, multiple times a day that could tell you some really important things! Here are some free ways to asses your health:

  1. Stool- Your poop can tell you a lot about your digestion!  Your gut and digestion is such a huge part of your health, that how things come out the other end can be really indicative as to whether you are functioning optimally.
  2. Urine– Along those same lines, you urine is a good indicator for how your detoxification systems are working and especially your kidneys.  Your urine should be a clear, light yellow with no odor.  If your urine is dark, you may be dehydrated or even have small amounts of blood in the urine.  If you have a terrible odor that isn’t due to eating asparagus, then you may have underlying issues.  If your pee is cloudy, you may have an infection.
  3. Strength– One of the standard tests I would perform on patients to assess where their core strength landed was a plank.  If you can’t hold a plank for 1 minute or side planks for 45 seconds, then you are lacking in core strength.  This is huge because maintaining core strength indicates huge health predictors in terms of quality of life.  Muscle maintenance and strength often dictates if someone ends up in a nursing home.  You are doing great if you can do this.  If not, you are probably not ideal for basic health status from a musculoskeletal standpoint.
  4. Menstrual Cycle– Another great indicator of health coming from down below!  Normal menstruation is indicative of normal hormone levels.  Hormones rule the world and hormonal imbalance is a major part of many issues that women face in the health arena such as PCOS, fertility, thyroid function, cancer, and autoimmune disease.  You should have a predictable cycle, virtually no PMS or cramping, and while it is there, you shouldn’t feel like it being there alters your daily life too much.
  5.  Energy levels– I’m not suggesting you should feel like you’re hyped up on caffeine all day everyday, but you should wake up feeling rested, you should have energy throughout the day and your levels of fatigue should be easily addressed with more sleep, a nap, or food intake.  If they are more relenting to the point where you feel like a zombie daily, never feel rested, or you feel like you could sleep for a week straight and still not be caught up, then we have a problem.  Listen to this.
  6. Sleep– Do you fall asleep easily?  Do you sleep through the night?  Do you wake up rested?  Then you’re good to go!  If not, then you may have some underlying health issues or lifestyle issues that are keeping you from optimal health.
  7. Emergency contacts– Yup.  Having people in your close circle is an indicator of health status.  If you have close relationships with a couple people that you can turn to, then your mental and emotional health AND physiological health will be better than your counterparts.  If you don’t have people close to you, then building some real friendships will instantly enhance your health.

This information isn’t rocket science, but it is extremely insightful!  Hope it helps you healthy folks out there feel better about your status.  If you aren’t in that group, then hopefully it gave you insight as to whether or not there are things you can use to assess how you are improving as you implement changes!

Homemade Larabars and Protein Balls

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Clean eating can often be difficult for people because of the convenience factor.  It is much easier when you have prepared yourself for lunches, snacks, etc.  Being on the run with kids, busy schedules, and work all leave some gaps in the schedule where it would be nice to have a packaged go-to in the car or in your purse.  Larabars are a perfect portable snack because there are only a few ingredients: dried fruit, nuts and spices!  However, Larabars run for $1.79 per bar at Martin’s.  So, there has to be an easy, affordable homemade version.  I often make my own version of larabars in the form of little bite-size balls because they are easier to form than bars.  However, you can mold them into whatever you want!  I am all about using resources; there is no reason to reinvent the wheel.  So, I came up with a couple recipes that I haven’t found elsewhere; however, there are tons of recipes you can find on the web.  I ran across this blog post that goes through flavor recipes for all the store bought versions.  She also does a good job of walking you through the ratios to use to create your own flavor profiles!

http://www.damyhealth.com/2011/03/how-to-make-homemade-lara-bars/

For my “Homemade Month,” I decided to make 2 varieties: Espresso Protein Balls and Gingersnap Bars

Espresso Protein Balls were my creation to balance some of the carbohydrate ratios that are normally present in dried fruit.  Therefore, I used protein powder in them, and this makes them a great snack for a Crossfitter or active athlete that has protein needs for their lifting.

Espresso Protein Balls

10 Medjool dates, pitted

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used Down to Earth brand that has 19g of protein per scoop)

2 handfuls of raw cashews

3 tsp coffee grounds

2 tsp water (if your mixture isn’t sticking together well enough)

Put all the ingredients in the food processor until well crumbled.  It is ready to form when you can grab and squeeze the mixture and have it stick together!  That’s it.  This recipe made 10 protein balls and cost me about $5.50.  If I formed bars, it would’ve made about 4 bars, meaning about $1.38 per bar.  Obviously this is less than the store price of $1.79, although not much.  The reason for this is because I used protein powder….the total cost would be almost $1.50 less if that portion was left out.  Not bad.

Gingersnap Bars

8 Medjool dates, pitted

1/2 a little bag of crystallized ginger, finely diced (I used Melissa’s brand…no sulfur dioxide in there!)

1/4tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cloves

2 handfuls of pecans

Put all the ingredients except the crystallized ginger in the food processor and process until it sticks together.  Form into bars by pressing into the bottom of a covered pan.  Press the mixture into the pan and press the finely diced ginger into the top of the larabars. This recipe was inspired by my favorite gluten-free cookie by Liz Lovely…ginger molasses.  However, they are made from rice flour and have some sugar added, as well.  Therefore these make the perfect substitution!

The gingersnap bars made 4 bars, and they cost me about $1.75 per bar.  This is still 4 cents less than the store bought version.  However, once again, I chose a flavor profile that had a unique, expensive ingredient: crystallized ginger.  Just like the protein balls, that increased the overall cost by about $1.50.  I also happened to have most of the spices on hand from fall pumpkin creations.  By all means, use whatever you have sitting around as opposed to spending a fortune on spices that you won’t use otherwise!

If I were to make simpler flavor profiles like “Cinnamon Buns” which have nothing more than dates, pecans, and cinnamon, the cost effectiveness goes way up!  On average, you are probably looking at about $1 a bar with the simpler flavors that you can find at the above link.  Depending on the nuts you use, you can manipulate the cost; buy the nuts that are on sale!

Now for the whole rating system: 5 stars being the best

Taste: 5 stars (you are driving this train, so make your favorites!)

Cost effectiveness: 5 stars (you can save quite a bit or make exotic flavors for about the same as store bought prices)

Worth the effort: 2 stars (I don’t eat many larabars…they may be something I grab when going on a road trip, so I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to make them at home since it’s not something I consume regularly.  If you have kids though, this could absolutely be a way to have them make their own creations that they can have as treats in their lunch box!)

Ease: 5 stars (doesn’t get easier than throwing everything in a food processor and forming it into balls)

Sleep Disturbance: How Melatonin Plays a Part

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Melatonin is a hormone.  This hormone plays an enormous role in your immune system and has dramatic effects on sleep.  Our bodies have evolved based on the exposure of natural light.  You wake as the sun rises, and you fall sleepy when it goes down.  When the sun goes down, your melatonin production goes up.  Melatonin has an inverse relationship with cortisol, which we discuss a lot when talking about adrenal fatigue.  Basically, it means that as cortisol rises first thing in the morning, melatonin is low and you feel awake.  At night, your cortisol should be at it’s lowest and melatonin at its highest making you sleepy.  When this relationship is faulty you may feel sleepy in the middle of the day or wide awake in the middle of the night.  Considering how important sleep is for hormone production, cellular repair, and inflammation regulation, this can be a HUGE issue!

As many of you know, I just got back from a trip to Peru, and there was a similarity to my time spent in Africa: light.  In Africa, I had no electricity.  That meant when the sun went down, the only light available was by fire or candlelight.  As you return to The States, you have unlimited availability to light via electricity.  This means that after returning home from work we watch TV, get on our computers, play on our phones, and so on.  We do this without even noticing it!  I left for Peru and over my time there, I realized my day was dictated by the sun.  You go home for bed when it gets dark, and when you get home, a fire is your source of light.  I slept great, woke up to the sunrise, and I never felt miserable waking up to an alarm when I wanted to keep sleeping.  I was in the same time zone as in the US, so that wasn’t an issue, but if I experienced jet lag, I would look to melatonin to reset these circadian rhythms.

When I test patients with hormone issues, fatigue, and issues sleeping, I often test their melatonin levels.  This tells me if they are producing enough at night when it should be high and they should be sleepy.  If it is low, I often have them supplement with melatonin for a short time while making the following lifestyle changes:

  • No TV an hour before bed
  • No reading in bed
  • Dim lights an hour before bed
  • No computer work after dark
  • Do not use your phone an hour before bed
  • Turn your phone on airplane mode if used as an alarm
  • No TV in the bedroom

If someone is working on their overall lifestyle changes, melatonin is not needed as a crutch after a short period.  Since it is a hormone, I do not advise supplementing with it long-term because you need your body to have signals appropriate to create melatonin on its own.  If you continually supplement, then you will still likely have poor cortisol patterns and still won’t have a natural production of enough melatonin.

Uses for melatonin:

  • jet lag
  • sleep disturbance
  • adrenal fatigue

I typically recommend somewhere around 1g at night.  If you take too much, sometimes people will experience nightmares or wake up very groggy.  Kids can also benefit from melatonin, but their dosage should be between 300-500mg depending on weight.  Like I said, this should be SHORT TERM.  If you find it is helping sleep patterns but they come right back when you discontinue supplementing, that is a clear indication that you haven’t corrected the underlying issues causing abnormal hormone production.

*You can find high grade melatonin in the online store, Fullscript.  However, I recommend getting a cortisol/hormone panel done prior to self diagnosing.  These tests are done at home and run around $200.

Supplementation: The Good, The Bad, and My Opinions

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Okay, so I could go on and on about supplements, and if you have ever attended one of my nutrition courses, you probably know that first-hand!  I felt compelled to address the issue of supplementation.  As I am preparing for my next nutrition course,  I am going through topics that I want to cover, questions everybody wants answers to, etc.  What I find every single time is that people want to know what supplements they should be taking.  My answer is always the same: “The only supplements you should take are the nutrients you can’t get sufficiently from foods.”

Supplementation and nutraceuticals have taken over the alternative health industry, and I am never surprised anymore when someone brings me a bag of supplements they are taking (on top of their medications).  I want to say loud and clear “No supplement will make up for poor lifestyle choices!”  There will NEVER be a pill of any sort that makes it good for your body to have fast food.  There will NEVER be a pill of any sort that makes up for not eating vegetables.  There is a huge misconception when it comes to vitamins, minerals, and herbal remedies that they will help cure your disease processes.  NOT TRUE!  The body only functions properly, free of disease if it is fed the right building blocks in sufficient amounts, given adequate exercise, relieved of stress, and had all toxins removed from its environment.  You should ONLY supplement things that you cannot get from your food, not in place of food.

So, there is someone out there saying “But what about my osteoporosis?  I need Calcium! ”  Another one I hear quite often is “I get my nutrients from my One-A-Day multivitamin.”  I could go on and on with statements I hear from patients regarding why they need their supplements.  Without going into detail about why this is simply not the case, I want everyone to ask themselves, “if we need supplements to keep us from having osteoporosis, then how did people stay clear of it when there was no such supplement?” Studies have shown skeletal remains of hunter gatherer societies with more the sufficient bone density at old ages.  “If we need a multivitamin for vitamins, what did healthy populations do before us in order to get their RDAs?” The answer to almost any question like that is “They did not need them because when you exercise adequately and eat raw, whole foods for nutrients, you simply don’t have to take a pill!”  Taking a pill for your nails, one for your heartburn, one for your immune system, one for your bone density, etc. is the exact same concept as taking 10 prescription drugs to cover up the symptoms that your body is not functioning properly because it lacks essential changes to your lifestyle.

I will say that there are 4 supplements that I believe every individual should consider taking due to modern farming techniques and agriculture today.  The 4 essentials are fish oil, probiotics, whole foods, and vitamin D (if you live an area where adequate sunlight is deficient).   I will elaborate on these supplements and the reason for the need to supplement with them in upcoming posts.  For now, I just want every person to ask themselves how many supplements they are taking, where they can find them in nature, and choose to get those nutrients from food instead.  Nature has created us everything we need for sufficiency, I promise.

Side note: I do use supplements like medication in acute care situations, but they are not lifelong pills someone takes forever.  They are used sort of like an antibiotic for infection.  You take the pill until the patient is better, and then you STOP taking it.  For sake of ease, these supplement posts on based on supplementing nutrients you should be getting from food.

Supplementation: Vitamin D

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As I mention in all of my supplementation posts, you should only be supplementing with those nutrients that you can’t get from reasonable dietary changes.  Vitamin D3 happens to be one of those essential nutrients that us Northern Indiana folk don’t get enough of when it comes to the winter months.  Often times, we are going to work when it’s dark and coming home when it’s dark.  Therefore, we will go days without adequate sun exposure. Another amazing source of Vitamin D is organ meats!  If you don’t consume them on a regular basis, then that’s another reason supplementation may be necessary.

Our body is programmed to produce vitamin D naturally on its own.  However, the process is triggered by sunlight exposure.  Those that lay in the sun all summer do not need to supplement with vitamin D during those months because 15 minutes of full sun exposure without sunscreen will give you an adequate daily dose.  I typically recommend everybody getting 5,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 daily.

There are 30,000 genes in your body and vitamin D influences over 2,000 of them!  It has protective effects against cancer, infections, Parkinson’s, depression, and so many more.  It is an inexpensive supplement that is necessary in EVERYONE that isn’t getting sun exposure or quality organ meats.  When you think about the people that need this nutrient the most, it is ironic that they are also the one’s often in nursing homes and hospitals where they may not get sun exposure even in the summer months!

Vitamin D is a fat soluble nutrient and therefore it will store quantities within the body.  While overdosing on vitamin D would be difficult, it is something to be aware of.  Everyone should take 5,000 units daily when they are not in the sunlight.  The beauty of getting vitamin D from natural sunlight lies in the feedback loops that our body has in place to make sure we never accumulate too much.  Once again, the version nature intended is superior to any pill you can take.😉 You can check out my “store” tab for idea of brands I like.; however, most vitamin D is pretty standard.  Quality can be a huge issue in other kinds of supplements.  If you want to know your vitamin D levels to decide how much to supplement, I recommend an at-home Vitamin D test, that costs about $58, and is easy, convenient, and quick!  Visit https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/ to order a kit like the one shown in this post!

The Key to Long Term Health

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Many of us have busy lives that require our time to be spent in so many different places that we barely have enough time to fully dedicate ourselves in one area.  I have been seeing a lot of patients lately that feel as though they are doing everything right but not reaching their optimal level of health.  When they express this to me, I ask them what things they are doing right.  I have been getting a lot of answers that sound something like this “I’ve been trying to exercise everyday and drink more water.  Dr. Angela, I’ve also been trying to eat better.”  You all know what my next question is, right?  What specifically are you eating?  However, that is not the point of this post.  Many of you know that if you tell me whole grains, you will get a polite invitation to my next nutrition class.  The point of this post is to evaluate priorities to reach your health goals, and I am going to start with an analogy I use often:

If you went home tonight and saw that one of your house plants was wilting, what would you do?

Most people will tell me that they will give it WATER!

Great answer.  What if I told you that it had been watered adequately.  The plant just happened to be placed in the basement where there are no windows.

Then people say “Well duh, it needs sunlight.”

Another great answer.  What if I told you I was mistaken; the plant was in the window and was watered regularly, but there was no soil in the pot.

Now you are getting annoyed because who doesn’t know that the plant needs soil for nutrients?!

So, what you are telling me is that a plant can have adequate water and sunlight and still be a wilting plant?  Yup.  Your body is no different.  We require ALL aspects of health to truly be healthy.  Not only does that mean appropriate dietary nutrients and adequate water, but that means movement, as well.  You can exercise every single day, but if you are picking up McDonald’s on the way home or eating pasta every night, then you probably still have health concerns.  The same is true for reducing stress and removing toxins.  Our bodies are built to be able to keep up with stress and remove toxins, but if you aren’t getting enough sleep and stressing out everyday at work, guess what, despite your efforts at the gym and in the kitchen, you are still a wilting plant.

This can seem like a tall order.  However, it is our current lifestyle that makes it impossible for many people to “do it all.”  Therefore, they either focus on eating healthy and don’t carve out time for exercise.  OR, they are a gym rat that doesn’t have time to cook healthy meals.  OR, they are a gym rat that eats healthy to maintain their physique but gets up at 4:30am to go to the gym, doesn’t get out of work until 6pm, has to run the kids around, cook dinner, start laundry, and might get to bed around 11:30pm.  Hate to tell you….still a wilting plant.  This balance is a tricky one in today’s society but it is essential for our vitality.

You need:

nutrients

movement

sleep

removal of toxins (no one wants to grow a plant next to the sewer!)

sunlight

appropriate doses of stress

If one of these components is off track, think about making a shift in your life in order to create balance.  If you are eating correctly, you are probably cutting out a lot of toxins that would be coming from food at the same time as providing your body with nutrients.  If you have movement within your job, then consider yourself lucky.  Otherwise, you need to make it an effort of move daily, and exercising outside gets you both movement and sunlight.  If you give yourself a bedtime, then you are probably much more able to handle stress throughout the day. Chiropractic adjustments also have impact on the nervous system, which is essential for stress adaptation.  If you structure your day around making sure you hit all the things you need to be healthy, then it’s easy to evaluate whether or not you have time to add another task onto your schedule.  This is probably the hardest thing for parents to do these days and it may just be the missing link to your vitality.

 

Stress and Autoimmunity (Part IX)

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Stress is something that is unavoidable.  We will all experience stress on a daily basis in some way shape or form.  Stress can be anything from mental and emotional stress to exercise and food sensitivities.  All of these things have a breakdown mechanism in the body that elicits the the same physiological response.  Stress activates the autonomic nervous system and you can’t control this.  It’s very difficult to recognize that is happening and actually stop it.  For example, when you lie, your body has a stress response.  This is the reason people say “Secrets keep you sick.  Or Secrets kill.”  This is the exact reason we use lie detector tests!  You can tell your conscious brain to settle down or you’re not nervous all day long, but most of the time, if it is stressful, you still express stress physiologically.  Your palms get sweaty, your voice may waver, your heartbeat increases, and you breathe a little more rapidly. We use those to our advantage to detect stress but what about the hormonal response?  The release of cortisol, the decrease in immune cell production, the disruption in hormones and catecholamines?

The more you experience stress, the more your body runs on sympathetic (fight or flight) dominance.  This leaves you feeling like you wish you could just disappear tomorrow.  Maybe disappear to an island far far away where you could be in silence.  This is often why most people cry at the thought of coming back from vacation.  You body is exhausted from living in this state and if you fall asleep on the couch an hour after coming home from work, you know what that exhaustion feels like.  This is probably hitting home for a lot of you right now in a very doom and gloom way.  Why? Because heaven forbid you have an autoimmune disease, feel there’s no way to get away from stress, you are slowly killing yourself, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  I’m here to tell you that without changing your situation at all, you can reduce stress.

The most important thing you have control over is your thoughts.  They will creep in and try to dictate, but simply recognizing that and repeating what’s really happening in that moment, you won’t get carried away by “what ifs. ”  I see this a lot with people when it comes to work relationships.  A boss said something the wrong way so the employee gets instantly freaked out that they may lose their job, and if they lose their job they will have no money, if they have no money they will lose their home, if they lose their home then their kids will get taken away, then they will have no insurance and they’ll just die because they won’t have any healthcare options for their illness.  STOP!  If this is the type of road your mind takes you down, get good at recognizing when you start down the path.  Bring yourself back to present.  Close your eyes and breathe deeply in one nostril and out the other.  Do not let yourself entertain ideas of things that may or may not happen UNTIL THEY HAPPEN.  The funniest part is that I have asked every single person whether any of these things have actually happened and not a single one has lived this story.  All that time slowly killing our cells over something that has no real likelihood of happening!

Step one is controlling your thoughts from spiraling down a path of worst case scenarios.  The second step is to smile and laugh.  EVEN FAKE ONES.  You heard me right.  There’s also a proverb that laughter is the best medicine because it REVERSES the physiology of the stress response.   You could say that it’s impossible to be stressed and joyous simultaneously.  Go to a funny movie, watch a hilarious youtube video, talk to your friend about old time shenanigans, go to a comedy show.  Smile at everyone you see.  When they are real, they have a huge impact.  When they are fake, they STILL have the same impact.  Laughing reduces cortisol, soothes the nervous system, and improves hormone regulation.  In our society, we tend to become more and more isolated by technology and busy schedules.  Keeping your social connections is so important.  It is not a luxury.  It’s actually good for your health!  I may even dare to say that having a beer with a good friend has more positive effects on your physiology than negative despite the fact that your consuming glutinous alcohol!  That’s how important these things are to your health.  Even a tough love doctor is telling you laughing with friends is possibly more important than what you eat in some instances!

That brings me to the third thing that you can do to reduce stress.  Exercise outside.  We can make this life scenario even more appealing by saying “Go for a walk with a friend, tell stories, laugh, and “touch” goodbye.”  I say “touch” because anything from a hug, a high five, a kiss, whatever, it all has a positive impact.  Movement helps distract the nervous system from obsessive behavior.  It likes to move forward.  You see this with dogs, too.  They are much more behaved in a pack, walking because it is calming to their nervous system.  We are animals, too.  Going to a group fitness class is the same thing.  Moving with friends, laughing, and making connections.  Doing some of this outside is that much better because of the air quality and restorative nature of nature.  No pun intended. ;)

The last and final thing you can do is engage in physical touch.  In my profession, I would be touching people all day long.  However, sometimes patients would come in and that would be the first touch they experienced all day.  I am not a touchy feely person, but that doesn’t mean I don’t experience the same physiological effects of touch.  I’m just more choosy about who I touch! hehe, I couldn’t resist.  Back on track.  Hug your child or spouse goodbye, hug a friend when you see them, get a massage, go to the chiropractor, hire a professional cuddler (that really does exist), have sex or kiss your partner.  These things are not luxuries either!  They are hugely necessary to our well-being as humans.  They counteract stress.  We are hardwired to need touch.  Think about yourself as a child.  Everyone wanted to hold you, give you kisses, touched you constantly to help you maneuver the world.  Then you became a little more developed and touch can be misconstrued as sexual so it happens a little less.  That is until you go looking for it from a teenage boy/girl.  What if you find yourself as a single adult.  You may literally go days without touch.  Heck, the way we greet people in ANY country has to do with TOUCH.  Maybe its a handshake or a kiss on the cheek.  May it’s a hug.  It has and always will be imperative to normal nervous system function.

These are simple, free, yet hard things for some people.  For those less expressive, it may be good to start with the thoughts and movement.  From there start planning social activities to get out there and connect with friends and family!  If you are a single person with an autoimmune disease, even seeing a massage therapist can gain you touch benefits.  Hope you guys are enjoying the series as it is coming to an end!  I will have one final article to address a few questions people had for me.  If you have a question you would like answered in that article, please let me know!

 

Why I Call Myself a “Belief System Doctor”

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Every single thing you do in life is based on a set of beliefs.  Some decisions are deep, important, and based on belief systems instilled in you at a young age maybe through parenting, religion, or early schooling.  Some decisions are made on less significant belief systems that often dictate preferences and things formed by direct experience. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you make hundreds of decisions a day.  You wake up because you believe it’s important to get up and tend to your morning responsibilities.  Maybe you believe it’s extremely important to be early.  When you decide to eat breakfast, you probably have a belief about whether this is a healthy behavior or necessary.  You also make decisions about what you should eat.  These decisions are based on taste, how the food will make you feel, whether you believe it to be good/bad for you.  This decision making process is fairly subconscious because we would be exhausted if we felt as though every tiny decision needed a huge weighing of the pros and cons.  We have all met people like that, and most likely you were exhausted after an hour!  In order to bypass this, our brain forms belief systems to help that decision-making process effortless and energy efficient.

When it comes to health, nutrition, and food, where did you get your belief system?  It starts pretty early with taste preferences based on what your parents fed you.  If you grew up in another country and only had exposure to ethnic foods, you would likely have preference for those.  If you grew up on processed foods, you likely believe these foods to be what people eat.  This is one reason why I encourage parents to keep whole, nutritious foods in the house.  The more your kids expect to find these foods, the more they believe those foods are what they should eat.

You then get information from other homes based on what other parents feed you, babysitters, school, etc.  In school, we take it one step further and teach you the basics in health class.  Health class will often have some version of the food pyramid available for your viewing pleasure.  This is when you go home telling your mom and dad about all the foods you should be eating on a daily basis.

In later years of school, you have peers that will influence your food decisions just like they influence everything else.  Maybe someone makes fun of the food you eat at lunch and you then believe those foods are weird, not cool, or things no one else eats.  Maybe you share foods at lunch, and develop beliefs about foods based on the people who bring them.

Then you graduate and go off on your own.  Now you are making real decisions about what you will spend hard earned dollars on.  Now there is input from media, commercials, billboards, celebrities, athletes, and so on.  If your prior beliefs prioritized whole foods, you will likely continue to buy them and not think twice.  If your beliefs up to this point were steeped in convenience, marketing, expense as ways to prioritize, you will likely follow the fast food frenzy with a side of packaged treats.

At some point you decide you aren’t invincible and maybe you should try to be healthier because you have gained weight or watched Dr. Oz.  This is where confusion hits the fan because up to this point, you brain had no problem choosing foods it enjoyed, prioritized, and could afford.  But now, you may be trying to force yourself to eat things that you don’t enjoy, think are too expensive, or are completely too much work.  This contradiction in beliefs and behaviors will end in failure every single time.  Most people will revert back to the same old habits because they haven’t changed their belief system.

My job, as a doctor, is to help recreate the belief system that accurately depicts the consequences of food choices, the knowledge around nutrient density, debunk the lies that have been fed to you over the years.  Once someone truly learns what certain foods do to their body, what health consequences they see as a result, the truths revealed about why certain foods are so cheap and convenient, they no longer have the same belief system.  They now believe eating packaged foods is going to result in sickness, possibly weight gain, toxicity in the body for generations to come, and is slowly hindering the functioning of every cell in the body. They understand where real nutrients come from, how important those nutrients are for healthy bodily functions, and how every penny spent on prevention saves hundreds in treatment.  If you can change someone’s belief system, then you change their behavior by default.  This is why every patient leaves appointments with me with HOMEWORK.  The real work happens with the belief system.

One of my favorite questions to ask is “What is your favorite food?  What if I were to serve you that food but I placed arsenic in it?  They look at you like you’re crazy and say they would never eat it if you put arsenic in it.  But let me ask you why because arsenic has no flavor, no texture, no smell.  It won’t change the experience or enjoyment of eating your favorite food.  All I did was change the perception of what that food would do to you.  Boom.  Instant change in belief system and you just said “No way, Jose “to your favorite food.  I didn’t change that food. I didn’t take that food away or say you can’t have it.  But I did change your belief system.  Now you have a different perception from which you decide to make that choice.  If you have tried to eat better, exercise more, and make healthier decisions in general and found yourself reverting right back to your old ways, it is because you didn’t change the belief system.  You were working on willpower and that will only last for so long.  Knowledge is power because it develops belief systems.