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1:00

Therapy Chat Podcast Episode 417. The

1:12

information shared in this podcast is not

1:14

a substitute for seeking help from a

1:16

licensed mental health professional. And

1:19

now, here's your host, Laura

1:22

Reagan, LCSWC. Hi,

1:40

welcome back to Therapy Chat. I'm

1:43

your host, Laura Reagan, and today

1:45

I'm so honored to bring you

1:47

a guest who I met over

1:50

10 years ago and

1:52

who practices in my local

1:54

area, but we recently reconnected

1:56

as we've both been so

1:58

busy building our practices. is that we didn't

2:01

really do a good job of looking up

2:03

and connecting, at least I didn't,

2:06

with each other after that. But

2:08

we recently reconnected and I'm so

2:10

glad we have because Dr. Erin

2:13

Kinney is doing really important

2:15

work and this

2:18

information is really valuable.

2:21

This is part of our ongoing

2:23

series of discussing

2:25

women's health at Midlife. Which

2:28

is the last episode about that for now.

2:31

But there's a lot of great

2:33

information here that is

2:35

really important to know to

2:37

understand the connection between chronic

2:40

stress and wellness. Which

2:42

is a pretty much an

2:45

underlying theme of most of what we

2:47

talk about on therapy chat because developmental

2:50

trauma or childhood trauma is

2:53

chronic stress. So of

2:55

course there are many other ways that people can

2:58

have chronic stress. But let me tell

3:00

you about our guest. Dr. Erin Kinney

3:02

is a naturopathic doctor, speaker,

3:04

author, and podcast host who

3:07

helps stressed out patients improve their mood,

3:09

balance their hormones, and increase their energy.

3:12

She's incredibly passionate about teaching her patients to

3:15

understand why stress causes so many problems

3:17

in the body and how they can change

3:19

their response to stress so they

3:21

can take back control in both their

3:23

bodies and in their lives. Dr.

3:25

Kinney currently runs a private practice

3:27

in Annapolis, Maryland where she specializes

3:30

in treating patients with chronic health

3:32

conditions related to hormonal and nervous

3:34

system imbalances. In addition to her

3:36

practice, she offers workshops,

3:38

retreats, and online programs. And

3:41

I loved my conversation with Erin.

3:43

There was so much valuable information

3:46

that she shared. She

3:48

explained the connection between cortisol

3:50

as a stress hormone and

3:53

cortisol as an energy

3:55

hormone and how you can kind of

3:57

take control of your cortisol She

4:00

gave many examples of things you

4:02

can do that make a

4:04

difference and they're easy things really

4:07

just lifestyle changes but also she

4:09

explained why chronic stress

4:11

can cause us to have a Crisis

4:17

in our feminine hormones as

4:19

women this happened to me

4:22

and it was hard to Understand even

4:24

when people a few

4:26

providers tried to explain it to me Then

4:29

and I kind of got it But

4:31

I really loved the way that Erin

4:33

breaks it down explains it really

4:35

clearly And I talked

4:38

a little bit about that when I had my health crisis

4:40

in 2015 what

4:42

happened for me and You

4:45

know what my journey back from that

4:48

kind of looked like a little bit and go

4:50

into deep detail about it I feel like I

4:52

will share about that much more one day.

4:54

It just never seems like the right time

4:57

So I'm really excited for you to

4:59

hear this conversation. I thought the

5:01

information that Erin shared It's

5:04

accessible, but it's really complex

5:06

information and the way she makes

5:08

it accessible is just through

5:10

her clear explanation I

5:13

really appreciate that so before

5:15

we get into my conversation with Erin I want

5:17

to tell you that if you haven't heard there's

5:19

something really exciting I'm doing next month at

5:22

psychotherapy Network or the the

5:24

huge therapist conference It

5:27

takes place in Washington DC every year

5:30

for decades 40 years. I'm gonna

5:32

be there live along

5:34

with amazing lineup

5:36

of speakers just like always

5:39

so many of the Guests

5:41

that I've had on therapy chat over the years

5:44

have presented there and we'll be

5:46

presenting there this year some teachers

5:48

and and therapists

5:50

and authors who I Speak

5:52

about and speak to frequently

5:55

including Linda tie Ariel

5:57

Schwartz Deb Dana Leslie

6:00

Korn, Dr. Sabrina Nadaye will

6:02

be there and I love her work.

6:04

I can't wait to hear her speak.

6:07

She hasn't been my guest yet, but I hope

6:09

that we can make that happen. Jules

6:11

Taylor Shore, who's next week's guest will

6:13

be one of the speakers. There are

6:16

so many and they're, they're

6:19

wonderful. So, but I'm

6:21

going to be there live. This is a part I didn't say I'm

6:23

going to be there live podcasting and I'm going

6:25

to be interviewing many of

6:28

these speakers. I've already lined up

6:30

to interview Ariel and dad and

6:34

most likely Jules, as long as the timing can

6:36

work and Linda, and there will be

6:38

many others. I hope to do a number

6:41

of interviews there and they'll all be live

6:43

stream. There'll be the

6:45

ability for audience participation.

6:47

I hope if all the technology works

6:49

away, I'm hoping it will. And

6:52

so you can participate. You can

6:54

be there and watch live and

6:57

ask questions and give

7:00

comments. And, um, I

7:02

can't wait for this. It's such a fun

7:04

thing that I'm partnering with Pessi to do

7:07

to help the people who are watching

7:09

at home be able to be even

7:12

more actively engaged in, and,

7:15

um, participating in the conference.

7:18

Like they're there in person, um, by

7:20

being able to watch these interviews live.

7:23

It's almost like being behind the scenes because one

7:25

of the things about psychotherapy network that makes it

7:27

so great is that when you're walking through

7:29

the halls of the conference hotel, you're

7:31

seeing all the speakers, everyone's just

7:33

all together and you run into

7:35

so many people it's called the

7:37

networker for a reason. There's so

7:39

much networking and not like, Oh,

7:42

you know, refer me, send me referrals, but

7:44

like getting to know other people

7:46

and being interested in their work. For

7:48

me, that's something that really lights me

7:50

up and keeps me excited

7:52

about our work. So I love

7:55

this conference and I can't wait to

7:57

be there. It's, it's actually. called

8:00

Psychotherapy Network or Symposium. I'm just calling

8:02

it a conference, but that

8:05

is really exciting. And I'm so, so

8:08

eager to see how it's all gonna turn

8:10

out. And these episodes will be recorded

8:13

and they'll be released as podcast episodes

8:15

too. So even if you're not able

8:17

to watch the live recordings

8:20

as they're being recorded, you'll get

8:23

to hear and see them when

8:25

they're released as therapy chat episodes.

8:28

So that's a very exciting thing

8:30

that's happening. And if

8:32

you haven't registered yet, but you wanna

8:34

be there, it's virtual and in person.

8:37

So you can watch it from anywhere.

8:40

And there's a link in the show notes

8:42

that you can sign up and save $50 on your registration

8:47

if you would like to do

8:49

that. So yeah, Lindsey Gibson will be

8:51

there. It's so, I

8:54

can't even tell you. I don't have the list in front

8:56

of me. There are so many exciting speakers. So

8:58

I wanna be sure to tell you

9:00

about that. And also just to mention

9:02

quickly that I just wanna express some

9:05

gratitude. I'm here in San

9:07

Diego now. I'm

9:09

gonna do the TPN call here in

9:11

about an hour and a half. And then

9:14

after that, I'll be heading to the airport, but I

9:16

was here and I met up with two trauma therapist

9:18

network members last night. We had dinner and they got

9:20

to know each other and made

9:23

fun plans to hang out

9:25

with each other. And the previous

9:27

evening, while I was still in

9:29

San Francisco, where I had

9:31

assisted Linda with one of her

9:33

workshops, which was a beautiful

9:35

honor. I got to

9:38

have dinner with several

9:40

TPN members, Dr. Barbara

9:42

Mareska, John Lee, LMFT,

9:45

Crystal Ying LMFT. And

9:47

we were joined by John Edwards, not

9:50

a trauma therapist network member, but he's

9:53

someone I've known for years as well.

9:55

And who's a brain spotting trainer who

9:57

has done so much to bring. more

10:01

BIPOC folks into brain spotting.

10:04

And he takes trainings all

10:06

around the world. He was talking

10:08

about doing one in Senegal. It's

10:11

so cool. So it's so

10:13

fun to be with John. He's such a fun

10:16

and light person.

10:18

I always enjoy being with him. And

10:21

it was synchronistically. Oh, I also got

10:23

to have lunch the same day with

10:25

Dr. Sharon Martin,

10:27

another previous therapy check guest.

10:29

Who's been on many times. She'll be

10:31

coming on again later this

10:33

year to talk about one of her

10:36

new projects. That's really exciting. But

10:38

seven years prior on the exact same day,

10:40

February 26, 2017, Sharon, John

10:44

and I met in person for the first

10:46

time in San Francisco. The first time I

10:48

ever came to San Francisco. So it was

10:51

just really synchronistic that I was able to see

10:53

both of them, even though we weren't together, the

10:55

three of us, because that didn't work out

10:57

timing-wise. It was really cool that

11:00

we happened to be together on the same

11:02

day, seven years later. You know, I don't

11:04

know what that was about, but I see

11:06

your universe. So let's

11:08

get into my conversation with

11:10

Dr. Erin Kinney. I hope

11:12

you'll find it informative. And

11:15

until next time, be well

11:17

and talk to you soon.

11:22

Hi, welcome back to therapy chat.

11:25

I'm your host, Laura Reagan. And

11:27

today I am really excited and

11:29

honored to be speaking with my

11:31

colleague and friend, Dr. Erin Kinney.

11:33

Erin, thank you so much for being my guest on

11:35

therapy chat today. Oh, thank you so much for having

11:38

me. I'm pleased to be here. Oh,

11:40

that's wonderful. And I've, you know, you and I are

11:42

in the same local area and I've known you and

11:45

of your work for a while now,

11:47

several years, and the holistic

11:51

natural path isn't

11:53

the most prevalent

11:55

here, although there's a strong,

11:57

a strong energy. people

12:00

who are interested in integrative and functional

12:02

approaches to healing, but having

12:06

people in the local area who provide

12:09

these important services, especially what we're going to

12:11

be talking about, which is hormones and

12:14

thyroid support and all

12:16

of those things. I know for myself,

12:19

it's been a lifesaver. So I really

12:21

want our audience, which is mostly therapists

12:24

and other people in the helping professions and

12:26

people who want to heal, I want

12:29

them to hear the importance of this

12:31

because it's just not spoken about enough.

12:33

So before we get into it,

12:35

though, let's just start off by you telling our

12:37

audience a little bit more about who you are

12:39

and what you do. So I'm

12:42

a naturopathic doctor and I specialize

12:44

in treating stressed out men and

12:46

women with hormonal imbalances. And

12:49

I've been doing it for almost 15

12:51

years. And I got into this line of work

12:53

because when I was in my early 20s, I

12:56

went through a period of severe depression.

12:58

I couldn't get out of bed. I

13:00

gained about 30 pounds. I was crying

13:02

constantly. After several months,

13:04

my parents were like, Hey, you should go see your

13:06

primary. I go to see my primary. And he without

13:08

even asking any questions, like, Oh, you're depressed and you

13:11

know, pushed me in a prescription for an antidepressant. And

13:13

I left the office feeling really,

13:16

really just down. I thought there's got

13:18

to be something else. I had

13:20

gone from being this like marathon runner in

13:22

college and I was super happy all the

13:24

time. And I had drastically changed my diet

13:26

about a year before the depression had become

13:28

a vegan. And I was like, maybe like

13:31

something clearly had just changed. And so

13:33

I was in therapy, I'm a big fan of therapy,

13:35

always have been. And my therapist at the time, you

13:37

know, was kind of telling her what happened. And she

13:39

goes, you know, I think you should go see this

13:41

natural doctor. She's like, I'm not quite sure what he

13:44

does. I had lunch with him last week, but he

13:46

seems like he might be someone you want to talk

13:48

to. So and he's a guy that's still in practice.

13:50

He's a good friend of mine. And I went

13:53

to go see him. He ran a whole bunch of

13:55

tests, tested all my nutrient levels, checked my hormones, looked

13:57

at my adrenal glands, which we'll chat a lot about

13:59

today. And without

14:01

the results back, I was low in a bunch

14:04

of nutrients. My hormones were completely out of balance

14:06

and I'll explain what that means. And I had

14:08

what we call adrenal fatigue. So my cortisol levels

14:10

were really, really low. I was basically depleted in

14:12

every sense. So I worked

14:14

with him for a few months and after about

14:16

six weeks, I was almost 80% better. I

14:19

stopped crying. I should have been late. I was able to get out of bed. I

14:22

felt, you know, hope again about life. I

14:24

ended up quitting my job because through his counsel, I

14:26

was not in a great job that I

14:28

had to delight. And I went to go to a recruiting company

14:30

to have them help me find a new job. And

14:33

they ended up hiring me to do temporary recruiting.

14:36

So I was like, well, this sounds cool. I got

14:38

to interview people all day long. I love talking to

14:40

people. I interviewed close to 100 people every day. And

14:42

about six months into the job, my

14:44

boss sat me down and she's like, this isn't the right

14:46

profession for you. She was very good at putting people in

14:49

a profession. And I'm like, what do you mean? Am I

14:51

doing a bad job? And she's like, no, no, no, you're doing a great

14:53

job. But you keep bringing me these

14:55

resumes and before you tell me about their job skills, you're telling

14:57

me about their health. She's like, I would bring a resume and

14:59

be like, well, if you just woman, she had lupus and she

15:01

had all these symptoms and she'd leave her job because of this,

15:03

this, and this. And the boss was like, I don't really care.

15:07

I wouldn't know if she can do the job, but you

15:09

clearly do. So at that point, you know, I was like,

15:11

maybe I should think about going back to med school. So

15:13

I went and had lunch with the doctor who treated me.

15:15

And I was like, you know, how do I do this?

15:17

What is this? What does this look like? And then

15:20

he actually told me not to do it. He's like,

15:22

it's going to be an uphill battle. No one knows what this is.

15:24

You're going to have to run your own business. He's

15:27

like, I don't know. It's not for everyone. And I was like, that

15:29

sounds great. I love a battle. I can

15:31

be a challenge. So give me a chance. So I didn't

15:33

listen to him. And like I said, he's a good friend

15:35

of mine. And I went back to the natural public school.

15:37

And now that's what I do. You

15:40

know, I help people that are

15:42

feeling really low, depleted and a little bit

15:45

discouraged by Western medicine because they

15:48

felt like they were just kind of brushed aside. And

15:50

the majority of my patients that come in are

15:53

typically at kind of their wit end.

15:55

They're like, you know, I really don't feel good.

15:57

I've either had a bunch of labs tested that

15:59

look quote unquote. normal or my

16:01

doctor has just told me it's just stress,

16:04

you're just stressed. And the

16:07

interesting thing about that answer is probably

16:09

the stress is one of the reasons

16:11

why you don't feel good, but

16:13

we don't want to write it off. We don't want to be like, it's just

16:15

stress. So a lot

16:17

of what I do is I teach a

16:19

lot. I teach my patients what stress actually

16:21

does to the physical body and how we

16:23

can help unwind some of that. So

16:26

the body doesn't, the physical body isn't in such a

16:28

reactive state and there are things we can do. And

16:31

one of the biggest things that I think I teach

16:33

is a lot of women will come in and they

16:35

have maybe problems with their menstrual period. They're having

16:38

PMS, they don't feel that they might get something

16:40

like PMDD where they're so low before their period.

16:43

And they think, oh, this must be

16:45

an estrogen progester and something is wrong with my sex

16:47

hormones. And maybe something is wrong with

16:49

the sex hormones, but the majority of the time it's

16:52

either a thyroid or it can be an adrenal

16:54

issue. And this is because all of our, the

16:56

majority of our hormones, with the exception of thyroid,

16:59

they're all what we call steroidal hormones.

17:01

So they're all similarly shaped and they

17:03

have a similar makeup. And

17:05

so for example, your body, if it doesn't

17:07

have enough cortisol, and I'll talk about cortisol

17:09

in a minute, it

17:11

will then, if it needs it to do something

17:14

to respond to stress, it will steal from your

17:16

progesterone levels and it will shunted over to cortisol.

17:18

So we have this one called predantiline steel. So

17:20

we'll get a drop in some of these sex

17:22

hormones, but it's really not a problem with

17:24

your ovaries. It's really a problem with

17:27

your adrenals. And when we have that low level

17:29

of cortisol, it can be from chronic stress. And

17:32

so cortisol, it is, we think of it typically

17:34

as the stress hormone. Usually when I teach and

17:36

I ask, what do you think of when you

17:38

first hear cortisol? Like, oh, stress, it's bad. We

17:40

don't want cortisol. And we

17:43

don't want too much cortisol, but cortisol

17:45

really isn't entirely the stress

17:47

hormone. It's really the hormone your body makes

17:49

to give you energy to deal with stress. So

17:52

it's really more of an energy hormone. It's what

17:54

wakes you up in the morning. You know, when you

17:56

wake up in the morning naturally, because you've got enough

17:58

sleep, it's the peak of cortisol that... gets you out

18:00

of bed. And you know, when you when you've had a good

18:02

night's sleep, and you wake up and you're ready to take on

18:04

the day, that energy that's from cortisol. So

18:07

the other thing that cortisol does, and

18:09

it's a really, really important molecule, it's

18:11

our body's natural steroid. Prednisone

18:13

is synthetic cortisol. So

18:15

if you've ever taken prednisone or

18:18

steroid because your body can't handle

18:20

something, you have a rash

18:22

that gets out of control, or you

18:24

get bronchitis that your airways can't, you

18:26

know, something similar like that. It's typically

18:28

prednisone works, because it's giving your body

18:30

like a bunch of cortisol, your body

18:33

naturally uses cortisol to reduce inflammation in

18:35

the body, just like prednisone would. So

18:37

again, it's really important to have cortisol

18:39

and similar to blood sugar

18:41

to glucose, we don't want too much

18:43

too much cortisol will cause problems. But

18:45

too little cortisol causes arguably even more

18:47

problems. And the majority of the patients

18:49

that I see, you know,

18:52

they've they come in and they know, hey, I'm really

18:54

stressed, and they know that stress has had an impact

18:56

on how they're feeling. And when we

18:58

go over their labs, I'm like, Okay, here's your here's

19:00

your cortisol levels really, really low. And they're like, What?

19:02

I thought my cortisol levels would be high. No, actually,

19:05

they're low. And that's why you're tired. And that's why

19:07

your hormones are. So in today's

19:09

world, most of us have been

19:11

chronically stressed, particularly the last few years, given

19:14

what we've all been through. Absolutely. But even

19:16

like I have some patients that will come in, you

19:18

know, and they'll tell me off about their stress level, then

19:20

they feel I'm not stressed. They'll say like,

19:23

you know, I've got enough money, I've got a great job, my kids are

19:25

great. But just the pace of life

19:27

that they live at is

19:29

stressed to the body. And you

19:31

know, your body, it doesn't

19:33

do the type of stress doesn't matter. It

19:35

could be a child screaming in your backseat, it

19:37

could be an email from a boss, it

19:39

could be someone almost hits you in a car,

19:42

you might have varying amounts of hormones produced

19:44

based on the intensity. But stress

19:46

is stress is stress, you will get the same

19:48

exact physiologic response when there's a stress or presented

19:50

to the brain. And you guys all probably know

19:52

this process really well, but you know, the amygdala

19:54

sends out a Oh, we need to go into

19:57

fight flight. This is definitely this is something that

19:59

stressors send a signal to the hypothalamus that

20:01

pumps out corticoid releasing hormone which then goes

20:03

to the adrenals and it's like hey adrenals

20:05

make some cortisol and some adrenaline we need

20:08

energy to respond to this. But

20:10

what's supposed to happen and here's where kind

20:12

of like the nuance or the I think

20:14

the most important part is once your body

20:16

is safe from that acute stressor once that's

20:18

dealt with that same cortisol

20:20

molecule is supposed to go back

20:23

to the hypothalamus and there's a receptor

20:25

there it's called a glucocorticoid receptor and

20:28

that I like to call it the off button. That

20:30

cortisol will bind to that receptor and that

20:32

turns off further production of cortisol. So the

20:35

cortisol the hormone that gives you energy and

20:37

the quote unquote stress hormone it turns you

20:39

on it's actually the same hormone that actually

20:41

turns that stress response off and allows you

20:43

to go back until you're you know your

20:45

parasympathetic state. But what will happen is

20:48

if you consistently push the stress trigger

20:50

so I love to use an example

20:52

of March of 2020 we all

20:54

remember that really fun month right

20:56

where our amygdala is we're getting triggered every

20:58

10 minutes like this is happening this is

21:00

happening. So your body being

21:02

as wise as it is it will

21:06

sometimes down regulate the production of

21:09

that off button because it's like

21:11

I'm not sure why I would turn off she's just going

21:13

to turn me back on five minutes from now. So I'm

21:15

going to stay pumping out cortisol because she needs it. She

21:18

needs this right now and you know and almost when you're

21:20

in that you're in that state and everyone's probably better to

21:22

stay like this you're going through kind of a longer set

21:24

of stress whether it was the pandemic or maybe you're going

21:27

through a move or you have a new job or worse

21:29

or the bourse or yeah any sort of big you

21:31

know life change the body will will protect you and

21:33

it keeps you in that right it's a protective mechanism

21:35

like hey I'm going to keep you I'm going to

21:37

keep you up energy you know on alert but

21:40

again if we don't make those receptors anymore

21:42

and this is very similar to how someone

21:44

develops type 2 diabetes when we stop making

21:46

infra receptors you will then your

21:48

body will just consistently be pumping out cortisol

21:51

to keep you up which is

21:53

fine and your body can keep that up for

21:55

a certain amount of time but

21:57

what will happen is I like to

21:59

say the cortisol cortisol is a very

22:01

metabolically expensive molecule to make. All steroidal hormones

22:03

are. It takes a lot of energy for the

22:05

body to build them. And if you're in chronic

22:08

site flight state and you're not

22:10

resting, guess what? Your body's going to eventually run

22:12

out of what it needs to build more cortisol.

22:14

So I kind of like to use this currency

22:16

analogy. I like to explain to my patients

22:19

that let's pretend cortisol is the currency in

22:21

which your body uses to do

22:23

just about anything. It gives you energy to do things. It's going

22:25

to allow you to fix things in your body. It's

22:28

what your body, it's the currency your body needs

22:30

to spend on life. When you sleep

22:32

at night or when you rest, that is

22:34

when you earn said currency or the cortisol. When

22:37

you do anything else, you're spending it. So

22:39

if you go through a time of a high spend rate

22:41

and you're not sleeping very much, what will happen?

22:45

Everyone knows this, everyone who's balanced a budget. If

22:47

you spend more money than is coming in, you

22:49

will go into debt. And so what tends to happen,

22:51

and this is why most of my patients' cortisol levels

22:53

are low, is that they were in a prolonged

22:55

period of time where they were pumping out so much

22:57

cortisol. And now the body is like, I don't have

22:59

much of that. I don't have much going on. And

23:02

then in terms of our other hormones, and

23:05

again, I explained that where the progester and gets

23:07

shunted the cortisol, your body will essentially start to

23:09

rob Peter to pay Paul. It will

23:11

steal from the other sex hormones in order

23:13

to keep cortisol levels in a normal

23:15

range. If you don't have enough cortisol, if it

23:18

gets below a certain level, you cannot get out of bed. And

23:21

I'm sure everyone listening, you may know someone

23:23

who has chronic fatigue

23:25

syndrome. Typically chronic fatigue syndrome is

23:27

extremely, extremely burnt out adrenals.

23:30

They make no cortisol and they can't do much. And

23:33

that's kind of when that, like if your body were a

23:35

bank, and so the other part of the analogy

23:37

I use is, when we first are tired and

23:39

we have to go through the day, we drink cash in,

23:41

right? Or we take a stimulant. That's basically like spending money

23:43

on a credit card. And like

23:45

any bank, they'll let you pick out a loan. But

23:49

there will come a point where if you don't pay the money

23:51

back, the bank is eventually going

23:54

to be like, I'm sorry, we're not going to give you any more

23:56

loans. You better just rest. And so it was

23:58

kind of my very long winded opening. conversation.

24:01

That's okay. I'm right here

24:03

with you, but I want to ask you something. So I'm

24:05

dying to see something when you're ready. No,

24:08

go for it. It's a good starting point. Okay. Well, if

24:10

it's okay, I'd like to tell you a little

24:12

bit about something that I went through. I wasn't expecting

24:14

to bring this up, but it just matches up so

24:16

much with what you're talking about. And I think

24:18

it could kind of frame our discussion a little

24:21

bit more specifically to

24:24

something that I know a lot of

24:26

the listeners will be seeing in their

24:28

clients too, and probably experiencing themselves. I

24:30

want to talk about the being a

24:32

child and living in a chronically stressful

24:35

situation like being abused or not having

24:38

enough food or not enough safety, not

24:40

security where you knew, you know, things

24:42

were chaotic and you just never really

24:44

knew what was going to happen. And

24:47

most of that does describe some of the

24:49

things that I went through when I was a kid, but

24:51

also a very important

24:53

loss, an attachment loss

24:55

that I had when I was six, my

24:58

mom left. And so

25:00

that was something that's always like under the surface.

25:02

I was still safe. I still had other people.

25:04

She was still in my life. She still loved

25:06

me. So I had, you know,

25:08

like almost enough, almost enough of

25:10

what I needed, but not really completely

25:13

what I needed. And fast

25:15

forward, I become a therapist. I'm

25:17

striving, striving, striving, pushing, pushing, pushing,

25:20

building my private practice, getting, you

25:22

know, getting my master's degree, building

25:24

my private practice, learning about

25:26

trauma, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, raising

25:28

kids, oldest child goes to college.

25:31

And I see this in so many

25:33

of my own clients that when their

25:35

oldest, their first kid goes to college,

25:38

suddenly the attachment injuries burst back onto

25:40

the scene. So it was like in

25:42

the same summer, my dog died and

25:44

my oldest went to college and

25:46

suddenly I gained 40 pounds and I couldn't get

25:49

out of bed. And I was like, what's

25:51

wrong? What's happening? Like I've already prepared

25:53

for this. I knew this was coming.

25:55

I've been, you know, I'm in therapy.

25:57

I'm not ignoring how this could be impacting me.

25:59

I know. because of the loss in childhood that this

26:01

is going to be hard for me. But at

26:04

the same time I'm very, you know,

26:07

like having this whole physiological experience that

26:09

I can't explain, I don't understand. And

26:11

then I go to the doctor, start

26:14

having these hot flashes, go

26:16

to the doctor and regular Western

26:18

medicine doctor. Oh, well, you know,

26:20

you are 43. You know,

26:24

you might be,

26:26

you know, heading towards menopause. Yeah. And

26:29

also, you know, maybe if you lose

26:31

some weight, that'll help. And I'm like,

26:33

come on. In May,

26:35

I was fine. And in August, I'm

26:38

like, unable to get out of

26:40

bed. Some things gone, right? This doesn't make sense.

26:42

Also the time I launched the podcast, by the

26:44

way. But

26:46

it was, it was like, I

26:49

was having the hormonal symptoms of like

26:51

I was having thyroid issues

26:54

symptoms. I was having female

26:56

hormone issues, the weight gain, the fatigue.

26:58

I had everything you said. So can

27:02

you talk about how the

27:04

like trauma piece or the

27:06

go over the edge fits in

27:08

to the extent that it's within

27:10

your scope? Oh, so this

27:12

is like the kind of unit I like to teach

27:14

her kind of the way I like to teach hormone

27:17

is so imagine you've got a try. We've got video,

27:19

right? So you see, I've got my hands in a

27:21

triangle. And you have four major players in your

27:23

endocrine or your hormonal system. You have the

27:25

thyroid, you have sex hormones, you have the adrenals,

27:27

which I just talked about, and you have

27:30

blood sugar, the top, the triangle is made

27:32

up of thyroid, adrenals and sex hormones. So

27:34

if you think about a triangle, if any

27:36

one of those moves up or down, it's

27:38

going to affect where the other one is. So if

27:41

you have either elevated cortisol or two lower

27:43

cortisol, it's going to affect the thyroid and

27:46

your sex hormones. And so in a case like

27:48

what you went through your your

27:50

fight flight was getting triggered

27:52

multiple levels, right? You're getting retriggered. So

27:54

putting you back into that state, which was putting a lot

27:57

of stress on your adrenals. I

28:00

don't know what your adrenal state was like going

28:02

into that either you could have gone into hyper

28:04

adrenal So your cortisol could have been high during

28:07

that period But typically when cortisol goes high it

28:09

crashes the thyroid out it can also have an

28:11

impact on the sex hormones Similar your cortisol could

28:13

crash out this way. It's gonna have an impact

28:15

on the thyroid and the sex hormones. So typically

28:17

that Something

28:20

and this we see currently happen in the

28:22

40s decade of life right and for women

28:24

that's usually we have children We might have

28:26

aging parents. We have our careers going on.

28:28

It's a big decade There's a lot going

28:30

on and I don't necessarily agree with when

28:32

women are told when they're 42 years old

28:34

You're a perimenopausal They probably are gonna menstruate

28:37

for another 10 more years The

28:39

body doesn't start going through two menopause symptoms until

28:41

you're one or two years before that. Yeah So

28:44

now that you were going back on track,

28:46

I'm still menstruating. Stress impacting your hormones. You

28:48

were going to be adrenal crash You could have

28:50

I get a bit of a crash adrenal crash. Again,

28:52

I would have wanted to assess that more then

28:55

But and sometimes you know, sometimes what happens is

28:57

you go into the over adrenal production and then

28:59

you crash afterwards But but so

29:01

that's kind of what I like to you know

29:03

Explain to people that all of these hormones are

29:05

so intricately related You can't have one be off

29:07

and the others not be affected Right.

29:09

So and it's very common when they're stressed

29:12

for thyroid to take a dip So and

29:14

that can usually cause weight gain The other

29:16

thing is when your adrenals

29:19

either if your cortisol is high high

29:21

cortisol Will cause your body

29:23

to produce more blood sugar or to secrete

29:25

more blood sugar. It breaks down glycogen from

29:27

the liver So whether you've eaten or not

29:29

when your cortisol levels are high and you

29:31

go into fight flight or you stay in

29:33

fight flight You're gonna have elevated blood sugar

29:35

So we can start to get a disruption

29:37

in the blood glucose pathway, which can also

29:39

contribute to weight gain No, I didn't mention

29:41

where so glucose is typically the thing

29:43

that holds the triangle up So this

29:46

is where diet and lifestyle really comes into

29:48

keeping your hormones on track is keeping your

29:50

blood sugar Balanced makes it a whole lot

29:52

easier for that body to keep that thyroid

29:54

in a stable place if your blood sugar

29:57

is doing This it's very hard to regulate

29:59

the other Because again,

30:01

if you've got, you know, if you think of holding something up

30:03

and going all over the place, it's hard to keep those in

30:05

a stable place. So, so

30:08

those, you know, those pieces are really important. And typically

30:10

think about when we go through a high stress or

30:12

triggered, we're not going to take as good of care

30:14

of ourselves as we normally do, right? If you're someone

30:16

that you might go for food, you might go for

30:18

wine. I couldn't even think, honestly. I was like, what's

30:20

going on? I was out of it. Your sleep gets

30:22

disrupted. And so this will all have

30:24

a major impact on blood sugar. And so

30:26

that will also, you know, contribute to some

30:29

dysfunction or dysregulation of all

30:31

three pieces of your top

30:34

part of that triangle, a little bit of an indifferent triangle. So,

30:37

and this is really kind of, again, I see this a lot in

30:39

40s. A lot of my patients

30:41

are in that decade of life. They come in and

30:43

they're like, I'm having hot flashes. I'm not sleeping. I've

30:46

gained weight. And typically there is something going on

30:48

with their thyroid, with their adrenal and with their sex

30:50

hormone. And so the way we kind of start

30:52

to, obviously we want to test and see where things

30:54

are, but we want to make

30:56

sure that their lifestyle habits are in a good

30:58

place. We want to make sure that. And

31:01

I'm a huge fan of therapy. I have

31:03

a really hard time working with patients that

31:05

aren't getting some sort of regular therapeutic support

31:08

because so many of

31:10

our stressors are emotional triggers.

31:14

And sometimes they're unknown triggers, right? And sometimes it's hard

31:16

to figure that out on your own. So I'm a

31:18

really big fan of making sure my patients are getting

31:21

consistent support. And sometimes that's from therapy. Sometimes

31:23

that's from talking to their acupuncturists. I just,

31:25

they need somebody to be helping, you know,

31:27

holding space for them and not in that

31:30

kind of emotional capacity. I

31:32

wanted to go, I wanted to bring that

31:34

up because I wanted to, yes, it is

31:36

a, first of all, it's a super stressful

31:38

world. It's the pace of,

31:40

you know, our modern world is,

31:42

I think totally unsustainable for

31:44

people. You know, if we buy

31:46

into the fact that we're supposed to be answering these

31:49

emails every day and answering these phone calls, it's just

31:51

not possible. It just gets faster

31:54

and faster and faster. So that's

31:56

super stressful, but the piece

31:58

about this past. stress that

32:01

can be kind of going on under

32:03

the surface and then erupt in

32:05

response to current stressors is

32:08

definitely that's what we're seeing in our

32:10

practice all the time. And

32:12

I feel like that's a very

32:15

common situation for people

32:17

in midlife, women in

32:19

particular, but not only women. And

32:22

we get this

32:24

message culturally, again, if

32:27

you're fat, it's your fault, you're fat.

32:30

If you're exhausted, you should be managing your

32:32

stress better. If you're not getting enough sleep, take

32:34

a pill. There's such a lack of connecting the

32:37

way we

32:41

feel to our bodies and what's

32:43

actually happening in our bodies. And

32:45

that's where this

32:47

perspective is so helpful. Yeah.

32:50

And I think it's almost like a lack of compassion

32:53

almost. It's like, oh, if you're

32:55

fat, it's your fault. And I have a lot of

32:58

wonderful friends who are conventional medical practitioners

33:05

and it's not entirely their fault. They

33:07

don't have enough time. It's what they

33:10

were taught. Some of them, it was

33:13

what they were taught, but they've now learned more. But

33:15

they're in a model where they

33:17

get seven minutes for a follow up.

33:19

You can't unpack this kind of stuff

33:21

in that kind of time. It takes me seven

33:23

minutes to chat with people per day. Exactly. Yeah,

33:25

exactly. You have to see so many people a

33:27

day. And especially in the hormonal realm, there's

33:31

so many intricacies. The lab work that I

33:33

order is usually seven to 10 pages

33:35

long. It takes me a full hour to go over

33:37

those results with a patient. And I

33:39

really have found that when people

33:42

understand what has gone off in

33:44

their body and understand

33:46

what we need to do to get things back

33:48

to a normal state, like when I teach them

33:51

what meditation does, like what it actually does

33:54

to the brain, what it does. And it's

33:56

really cool fact is what I explained, you know, those

33:58

off buttons getting down regulated. that

34:00

receptor and the hypothalamus, meditation helps

34:03

the body produce more of those

34:05

receptors. So we know

34:07

meditation increases resiliency, but that's actually like the

34:09

physiological resiliency is having those off buttons there,

34:11

the ability to be able to turn off.

34:14

And most of my patients when they come

34:16

in, they are stuck in fight flight and

34:18

they've tried meditating, they've tried relaxing, they can't

34:20

relax because their brain right now is

34:22

stuck in a pattern where it literally doesn't have the

34:25

capability to physically turn off. And you

34:27

know what I love about natural medicine is we can use,

34:29

there are herbs and some pathics and some things that can

34:32

also stimulate the body to make more of those off buttons.

34:34

So we can give them enough so then they can actually,

34:36

you know, maybe actually start to relax in a

34:38

meditative practice or a mindfulness practice or you know,

34:40

whatever that practice might be that they're working with.

34:42

So yeah, and I, you know, I have a

34:45

podcast as well. I'm really big on my show

34:47

every, every week, the messages, whatever

34:49

you're going through, make sure you're getting support, make

34:51

sure you have someone like walking you through and

34:53

make sure it's someone that spends the time and

34:55

it's really going to help you figure out what's

34:57

going on and teach you what's going on in

34:59

your body and what you can do to get your body

35:01

where you want it to be. And

35:04

you know, again, support, I think is so

35:06

important, not only for a journey like this,

35:08

but just for our nervous systems in general,

35:10

right? Knowing that you have support is so

35:12

beneficial. That is so true.

35:14

And it's so isolating when you suddenly,

35:16

you go from feeling like

35:18

a vital young person

35:20

to a huge,

35:23

such a rapid change. There's nothing wrong with the

35:26

process of menopause. It's a natural thing,

35:28

but it's not meant to happen on

35:30

one day you're here and the next

35:32

day you're in a completely different place.

35:35

And it feels very isolating. Like what's wrong with

35:37

me? Why am I losing control of my body

35:39

like this? And am

35:41

I no longer, you know,

35:44

useful and what I was and the

35:46

messages about that? It

35:49

just, it's that in itself is very

35:51

isolating. So I appreciate what you said

35:53

about your, the testing that you do.

35:55

I know for myself, having

35:58

that really in-depth testing. Let's

36:01

look at everything. It's like, and then like this

36:03

means this, and this means this, and this relates

36:05

to this, and oh, this is too high, this

36:07

is too low, and here's how we can address

36:09

it. It's empowering because people

36:11

have, you know, knowledge is power,

36:14

and people have somebody taking the time

36:16

to say, I care enough

36:19

about you and your body to

36:21

help you understand, and let's collaboratively

36:23

develop a plan for you. So

36:25

let's talk about what are, in

36:27

addition to meditation, herbs, homeopathics, what

36:29

are some of the ways that

36:31

you help people get these

36:34

hormones, I know there's like a lot of variation,

36:36

but getting their hormones back into balance. So I

36:38

mean, it's going to start by figuring out

36:40

what, you know, what, where the imbalances are,

36:42

but the majority of people, I work, I

36:44

like to work on their adrenal functions first,

36:47

and lifestyle wise, that's going to look like

36:49

making sure they're getting adequate rest. And

36:52

if they're coming in and they're kind of stuck in that like,

36:54

tired and wired phase, they're not sleeping, they're

36:56

agitated, they're up, their nervous system is kind

36:59

of in that stuck being on place. We

37:01

work on practicing relaxing. So that's like, I'm just

37:04

like, just like if you were to want to

37:06

run a 10K and you're not a runner, you

37:08

would not expect to wake up tomorrow and run

37:10

six miles, you would run a little bit

37:12

a few times a week and slowly increase that. So, and

37:14

I'll tell people, hey, I'm going to just have you, my

37:16

favorite thing is to tell people to lay down for

37:19

10 minutes per day, no phone, nothing, and just

37:21

get quiet. You can meditate if you want, but

37:23

it's just, I call it getting horizontal. And I love

37:25

for people to do it in the middle of

37:27

the day. And so it's teaching the body, it's

37:29

okay to calm down during the

37:31

workday. We don't need to be stuck up

37:33

in heightened fight flight all day long. So

37:36

and I'll tell them probably for the first two weeks, this

37:38

is going to feel extremely uncomfortable. If you're going

37:40

to be like, what am I doing? I should be doing something else, but

37:42

you've got to just like the first time you go for a run, if

37:45

you're not a runner, it's going to be uncomfortable until you practice doing it.

37:48

And the brain, the more that you practice and teach it, hey,

37:50

it's okay for you to do this. It

37:52

wants to work with you, so it will start to

37:55

do that for you. So that's one of the main

37:57

lifestyle practices that I put into play. So

37:59

again, I like to I like to get people sleeping.

38:01

So that's one of the big things we work on. Is

38:04

there a number that you tell people?

38:07

That's going to vary. I'm really big on

38:09

making sure people are getting enough hours before

38:11

midnight. So the hours before midnight are

38:13

more beneficial then. So it's better to sleep from 10

38:15

to 6 than it is from 12 to 8, even

38:17

though it's the same number of hours. It's

38:21

more restorative for your circadian rhythm and for your

38:23

adrenals to go to bed at 11 and

38:25

wake up at 7. That's really good info.

38:28

I didn't know that. Yeah,

38:30

and this is more like I learned this from Chinese

38:32

medicine. Every hour

38:34

of the clock correlates to

38:37

a different organ and for the adrenals

38:39

you really need that before midnight sleep

38:41

time. And so again,

38:43

if you're someone staying up late, we slowly

38:45

work that bedtime back a little bit. So

38:48

even if you're going to bed at 11.30, that's going to make it. So

38:51

baby steps. I'm big on baby steps. So

38:53

getting sleep under control and we talk about

38:56

sleep hygiene, getting electronics out of the bedroom,

38:58

TVs out of the bedroom, stopping

39:00

screen time at a certain point before bed,

39:03

baths, magnesium, all those things we need to kind of get

39:05

the body in a calm state. And this

39:07

is really important because one of the things I didn't really

39:09

touch on when I was talking about the adrenals is they

39:12

are what control your circadian rhythm. So in

39:14

the morning our cortisol should be high and

39:17

as it goes throughout the day our cortisol levels

39:19

drop off and they're at their lowest usually around

39:21

10 p.m. in a normal circadian rhythm. And

39:24

when cortisol is at its lowest, melatonin will

39:26

be at its highest. They have direct opposing

39:28

action. So if you're staring at

39:30

a screen, you know, right before you go to bed,

39:32

blue light will stop the production

39:34

of melatonin from the pineal gland. So and

39:37

when melatonin production is low, the body thinks,

39:39

oh, melatonin is low. I probably should make

39:41

cortisol so it will up the cortisol. So

39:43

it's really important to have this circadian rhythm

39:45

going. I'm a huge fan of a small

39:48

dose of melatonin before bed. Even if it

39:50

doesn't do anything to your sleep, most of

39:52

us spend a lot of time on screens.

39:54

And so most of our melatonin production is

39:56

not optimal. So a baby dose of melatonin

39:58

can really help just. Reset the

40:00

circadian rhythms and then you

40:03

know, we also talk about getting

40:05

morning sunlight So like trying to

40:07

get outside without sunglasses, so have

40:09

your eyes get sunlight before noon

40:11

So if you can get out and it's hard when

40:13

it's gray But if you can get outside and I'm

40:16

a huge fan of light boxes as well So if

40:18

you live in a place where it's gray and there

40:20

isn't much sunlight or it's raining use your lightbox in

40:22

the morning Because that will tell the body hey, I'm

40:24

supposed to be making cortisol right now I'm supposed to

40:26

be so again all of this are tools to kind

40:28

of get that circadian rhythm in check

40:30

and when that's in check It's a

40:32

lot easier to regulate the thyroid. It's

40:34

a lot easier to regulate these sex

40:37

hormones so usually I like to start

40:39

with that, you know that piece and And

40:42

and usually when my patients come in they're gonna have

40:44

some dysfunction in all of these areas So sometimes we

40:47

might be doing a little bit of like if someone

40:49

comes in and they're in a hypothyroid state I'm gonna

40:51

treat their thyroid as well And so

40:53

usually I work with adrenals and then we move

40:55

into the thyroid realm and oftentimes when those two

40:57

are are in a good place The sex hormones

40:59

kind of work themselves out particularly in that 40s

41:02

decade once we move into menopause It's a little

41:04

bit of a different story But when you're

41:06

in you know 30s 40s in

41:08

when adrenals and thyroid are regulated and blood sugar is

41:10

under control The sex hormones it's almost

41:12

like people they're like wow my period just went back

41:15

to normal. I have no more PMS This is fantastic

41:17

We didn't even do anything for that and I find

41:19

a lot of patients that were kind of trying to

41:21

do things on their own They're like, oh well, I

41:23

was taking this herb for estrogen progesterone balance and I

41:25

was doing this and I wasn't doing anything Yeah, and

41:29

you know that was matching the symptoms. They're like, oh, well,

41:31

you know my it's showing like I have You

41:33

know, I'm having like really bad PMS usually that means

41:35

low progesterone But I'm doing this thing but they weren't

41:37

they didn't address the adrenal piece And so it's really

41:39

hard to get the body to regulate the sex hormones

41:42

if that circadian rhythm and adrenal piece isn't isn't in

41:44

a good place Yeah, that's

41:46

a challenge because there's so many things out there

41:48

and you're like, oh, maybe this will make me

41:50

feel better But it's not a holistic approach. Yeah,

41:53

you're not looking at the whole Situation

41:55

so you are really treating a

41:58

symptom without seeing why it's is

42:00

that symptom there? Exactly. You

42:02

don't know. You know, we were just saying earlier that

42:04

we live in such a stressful time. It's

42:07

really stressful to be, you know,

42:09

struggling with a health issue in today's time. There's so

42:11

much information out there. If you're on social media, every

42:13

incline's like, well, take this and do this and do

42:15

that. Or you get on Google and Google's like, do

42:17

this or do that. It's like

42:19

information overwhelmed. And that itself

42:22

can be really, really stressful, right? So again, this

42:24

is why it's really important. And you know, I

42:26

always share this on my podcast or with my

42:28

patients. I have a naturopathic doctor. I have all

42:30

this knowledge. I can't treat myself. I get really

42:32

overwhelmed. I'm like, well, I have all these treatment

42:34

therapies available and I can't see myself objectively.

42:36

So when I have an issue, I call

42:39

my doctor. I'm like, hey, can you help me walk through this

42:41

and help, you know, and I just try

42:43

to pretend I don't know anything. Like, please, please

42:45

help me figure this out. So it's, you know,

42:47

with this stuff, it's like this

42:49

balance. You want to be empowered and you want to be knowledgeable and

42:51

you want to know what's going on in your health. But you also,

42:54

it's really nice to have somebody like, hey, I'm looking at your case

42:56

from over here. You'll see the whole

42:58

piece for all of the pieces. And here's what

43:00

my recommendation is to move you from where you, where you

43:02

are to where you want to be. Well,

43:05

that's another example of, like you

43:07

said, support. It's

43:09

not exactly, it's not about you have to figure

43:12

it all out yourself. You have to solve this

43:14

problem yourself. You know, I can't let

43:16

anyone know it's only on me. You

43:18

know what I mean? Versus like connected

43:20

and we're meant to be connected. Yeah.

43:23

Yeah. I think

43:26

we're going to find some kind ofarkin, modeling

43:40

off116 of healing. It's

43:43

about theSharpener I

43:54

find that, you know, some aspects

43:57

of what healing healing

44:00

happens are related to the

44:03

connection between, you know, and

44:05

it's not just like, who do you feel comfortable with,

44:07

but that there is a

44:09

healing in the connection. Yeah.

44:13

That was one of the things where I loved my

44:16

training so much. And we took a bunch of classes

44:18

that talked about like, just the

44:20

therapeutic effect of sitting with a

44:22

practitioner. And you

44:24

know, I saw this woman,

44:26

she was a homeopath, it's called their classical

44:29

homeopath. All she did was homeopathy. And she

44:31

would sometimes spend two hours taking

44:33

a case. And she wouldn't even

44:35

give the patient a remedy for, she would wait a

44:37

while to decide what remedy, but oftentimes

44:39

her patients would get much better

44:41

within the first few days afterwards. And

44:43

I see this with my patients too. I had someone

44:46

message me actually yesterday, I saw her on Friday last

44:48

week. And yesterday she's like, I

44:50

feel like a new person. All of

44:52

my symptoms are gone. This is amazing. These,

44:55

you know, these remedies must be amazing. And

44:58

the remedies work, they don't usually work that

45:00

quickly. Usually they take a few weeks. That

45:02

for her, like she got so much value

45:04

out of being listened to, out of me

45:06

explaining what was going on. And you know, there's

45:08

always a little bit of a placebo effect in

45:10

anything you do, right? Whether it's therapy or medication

45:12

or an herbal medicine. And the placebo effect

45:14

is an amazing effect. I think we should.

45:17

I know. I want to say maybe we should.

45:19

Yeah. Oh, I get, I tell my patients. placebo really

45:21

is differently instead of like, oh, there's

45:23

no treatment, but it's, you just think

45:25

you feel better. Yeah. What it

45:27

is. No, it's, it's your brain.

45:30

Like hope. Yeah. It's hope. And

45:32

your brain is so powerful. You're

45:34

much more likely to get better. If your brain believes

45:37

that a glass of water on the table has a magic

45:39

elixir in it, that's going to give you energy. It's

45:42

much more likely that that water is going to give you

45:44

a little bit of energy versus if you tell your brain,

45:46

wow, this water, it's got E. coli in

45:48

it. Some people have such a strong

45:50

placebo effect. They're going to get diarrhea after drinking that water.

45:52

Right. And I usually explain this

45:54

to my patients. I'm like, let's play into the placebo effect.

45:57

When you take your supplements, I'm going to tell your brain

45:59

this is really helping. me do this. I'm

46:01

taking this for this reason." And then it

46:03

almost amplifies the potency of whatever

46:06

you're doing. Because our

46:10

brains control everything, right? Our brains, and I

46:13

think we see this in the oncology

46:15

world, patients that have an amazing attitude

46:17

and they know they're going to get

46:19

better, they get better, right?

46:21

And there's research on that

46:23

that shows that positive attitude actually improves your

46:25

outcome. And that's true in any sort of

46:28

medicine. I mean, I can usually tell them

46:30

in the first five minutes, like whether a

46:32

patient is going to improve quickly or it's going to

46:34

take a while just by the way that they talk about

46:36

their body and they talk about themselves. And I

46:39

do a lot of coaching with my

46:41

patients when they work with me because if

46:43

you're constantly saying things like, my body

46:45

is broken and it's working against me

46:47

and guess what? Your brain hears that.

46:50

Your brain hears everything. It listens to your thoughts. It

46:52

listens to what you're telling it. It listens

46:54

to what you're telling other people. Not that we can't, you

46:56

need to be able to share what's going on and complain.

46:58

But if your constant thought pattern is, I'm never going to

47:00

get better. I'm never going to get better. I see this

47:02

with weight loss a lot, right? People are like, I

47:05

can't lose weight. I can't lose weight. I can't lose weight. They say

47:07

it over and over and over again. Well, because that's what the brain's

47:09

going to hear. So we do a lot of coaching in our office

47:11

to start to shift those mindsets and

47:13

shift it like the inner dialogues. That makes

47:17

a huge difference as well. Yeah.

47:19

And I believe that our systems

47:21

are oriented towards wanting

47:25

to heal. And at the

47:27

same time, there can be

47:29

a negativity bias that can really,

47:31

it's not like the person is

47:33

causing it, but it's just like

47:35

it's a barrier to the healing

47:37

that they're trying to achieve. But

47:40

I love the beautiful, it's kind of

47:42

an affirmation. It's almost like manifesting. It's

47:44

like, this will help me. It is.

47:47

It's like manifesting. Yeah. This will help

47:49

me. And there are actually, there's

47:51

a certain percentage of the population that has a

47:54

higher, they're more susceptible to the placebo effect. And

47:56

it has to do with how they produce and

47:59

break down serotonin. tone in. So there's some genetic

48:01

testing we can do and I can find out, hey,

48:03

you actually, you are more susceptible to

48:05

placebo effect. And if you have that, it's like, hey,

48:07

you want to play into that everyone, you know, placebo

48:09

effect works on everyone. But some people it works a

48:11

little bit more. And, you know, usually those

48:14

people are called gullible or whatnot. But it's, they

48:16

really, they have really powerful brains, right? Their

48:18

brain is like that much more powerful over

48:20

their, over their physical healing, which is so cool,

48:22

I think, I think so too. And I think,

48:24

you know, more and more, we're just

48:26

going to realize that people, people

48:29

have so many gifts that may

48:31

not be available

48:33

to everyone, but just because

48:36

those experiences, like, you

48:38

know, supposedly being gullible, but it's really having

48:41

like a beneficial

48:43

mind. Yeah. And

48:45

a beneficial effect of hope, you know,

48:47

or of, yeah, of belief in

48:49

the potential that that's a good

48:51

thing. So, well, and I know that, I

48:54

know that you have recently, in addition

48:56

to your practice, okay, so

48:59

first of all, let's start off with, do

49:01

you serve people in Maryland only? No,

49:03

I treat people all over the country. So

49:06

yeah, so we can do virtual consults.

49:08

And yeah, I work with people all

49:10

over the country. I feel like COVID

49:12

really helped, helped grow that aspect. It

49:15

didn't really matter where, you know,

49:17

whatever. Well, good. Because yeah, listeners are all over

49:19

the country and all over the world. There might

49:21

be some people who have nobody in their area

49:24

that they can work with. Yeah, I

49:26

would. So if you're listening and you're wanting

49:28

to work with a naturopathic doctor, the best

49:30

place to go is naturopathic.org. And you can

49:32

type in your zip code and it'll list

49:35

all of the licensed naturopathic doctors who

49:37

want to work with them. That's the same degree that I have.

49:39

And again, I'm happy to, you know, item myself

49:42

or I'm probably going to stop taking

49:44

new patients for soon. But I have a colleague

49:46

that I just brought on and she's fantastic. And

49:48

she does similar hormone work. And so you can

49:50

call our office and schedule a free consult if you're interested.

49:53

Wonderful. And also maybe they can probably go

49:55

on your website too. Yes. If

49:57

they're international or something. Yes. Yes.

50:01

Okay. And then I also know

50:03

from our conversation before we started

50:05

recording that you've actually recently developed

50:08

another way to make

50:11

your work accessible. Can you tell a little

50:13

bit about that before we finish? Sure. So

50:15

I just launched something called the Hormone Health

50:18

Academy, where I dive deep into kind of

50:20

stuff we're talking about today, adrenals, thyroid, and

50:22

sex hormones. And it's a

50:24

weekly call on Zoom where I teach

50:26

and we do a live Q&A. And

50:29

it's membership based. And

50:31

the goal of that is really, I get

50:33

so many patients that call and they're like, I want to

50:35

try to do this through conventional medicine. And I don't know

50:37

what to ask for testing wise, I don't really know where

50:40

to start. So I'm teaching, hey, here's the test you need

50:42

to have run. Here's how to talk to your doctor about

50:44

what's going on. Here's what you want to look for if

50:46

you're looking for supplements. So I'm going to kind of help

50:48

you navigate this and kind of give you some, you know,

50:51

place to start. If you're like, hey, I think things are

50:53

off. I'm not going to be not quite ready to make

50:55

the investment to work with someone one on one. And, you

50:57

know, without insurance, I can kind of just teach you

50:59

how you can start to see some

51:02

impact on your physical health,

51:05

just by things at home or, you know,

51:07

working within the system that you're already in.

51:09

Well, that's so wonderful because, you

51:11

know, I mentioned how in our area,

51:13

it's still kind of a smaller community

51:15

who seeks out these types of services,

51:17

but there are many places where people

51:20

do not have that option in person. Yes.

51:23

You know, and, you know, or maybe they

51:25

live on a mountain and they would have to drive

51:27

five hours and being able to get

51:30

the information to be empowered

51:32

and take their health back,

51:34

you know, is really valuable.

51:38

Yeah, it's really valuable. And again, what we've

51:40

been talking about, it's really, I think it's

51:42

really important to understand all of these, understand

51:44

what's happening in your body, hormonally, what's supposed

51:46

to happen. So I teach like,

51:48

how is your body supposed to work? How are all these

51:51

things supposed to work? And then what happens in these

51:53

hormones when you get certain symptoms and then how do

51:55

we get you back to how it was supposed

51:57

to be working? Well, thank you.

52:00

Thank you for what you're doing to

52:03

educate people and to

52:05

help people address these confusing,

52:09

overwhelming challenges and

52:12

for coming here to my

52:14

podcast today, to TherapyTat, to share about it

52:16

with our listeners. I'm so grateful. Thank you

52:18

for having me. This was a great conversation.

52:21

I loved it. Well, thank you.

52:23

And, Erin, where can people, what is your

52:25

website where people can find all this good

52:27

stuff? If you go

52:29

to www.drerrenkiney.com and if you want

52:31

to just go and learn a

52:33

little bit more about me, I

52:35

hang out a lot on Instagram

52:38

at Dr. Kinney. And

52:40

I've got videos and there's always stories. And

52:42

you could also go check out my podcast,

52:44

which is the Dr. Kinney show. And we

52:47

cover hormones and a lot more on that

52:49

show. Fabulous. Wonderful.

52:52

Thank you again for being my guest today. Try.

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