Hi and welcome back to How Humans Heal! In today’s episode I interview Dani Williamson about her new book Wild & Well: Dani’s Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing. I enjoyed talking with Dani about her healing process and her book because she and I have the same interest in helping people recover from stress and prevent health issues caused by stress.
Please note, if you are struggling with depression or triggers caused by stress, this episode may be disturbing. Our intention is to bring awareness to the potential effects of childhood trauma as well as the options and opportunities for recovering from stress and trauma. Those options are not often discussed in the conventional medical system, which is what motivates Dani and I to write and talk about it.
Dani Williamson is a functional medicine practitioner who was previously a family nurse practitioner and she's here today to tell us more about what inspired her to completely go this route of helping people to improve their health by making lifestyle changes that anyone can implement and make a huge difference in their overall health.
We're all humans just trying to get through life as healthy as we can!
Dani grew up in complete trauma and constant chaos. With a grandfather that committed suicide, a mother who also attempted suicide multiple times and a stepfather that was a child molester, she experienced stress throughout her childhood. At age 20 she also attempted suicide, was in a bad marriage and lost everything she had. She was then diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia and depression.
After hitting rock bottom, she decided to pick herself up and apply to nursing school. While getting through school at age 40, she started trying to find a cure for her lupus. One day a colleague said to her: “Dani what are you eating? Don't you know your diet controls your symptoms?”
What's at the end of your fork will heal you or kill you!
In Dani’s words, “If you weren't born sick you don't have to live sick.” Diseases are turned on and off by lifestyle. That's how she developed her 6 steps to a better life: eat well, sleep well, move well, poop well, distress well and commune well.
Childhood trauma that happens to you before the age of 18 can set you up for a lifetime of chronic disease. 64% of the population have had at least one ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) in their lifetime. And if you had one you are 50% more likely to have another one at some point. Furthermore, if you had four or more adverse events you have a 20-year shorter lifespan due to high stress.
As much as we know that trauma and stress in our childhoods has a potential to affect our health for the rest of our lives, we also know that there's something you can do about it.
Dani started researching about food sensitivities and after changing her diet and life habits she doesn’t have any pain or symptoms from lupus anymore! She proved that what you eat could help you reverse whatever is happening to you.
The food industry is about addiction, we get addicted to gluten, dairy, sugar, etc. And those foods keep the inflammation inside going. If you are eating drive-through food four or five times a week you are eating fake food that is addictive.
It’s when you decrease inflammation that you begin to heal! The food you're eating is causing inflammation which is disrupting your whole body and overall health. But this takes time, and it takes commitment, and it takes consistency to make it sustainable.
But eating healthy is not the only thing. It becomes critical to also have enough sleep so you wake up rested so you can eat well and have energy to exercise every day. These are the kind of lifestyle changes you need to make to really start healing your body and improve your overall health.
Just pick something that you enjoy. It doesn't have to be hours it could be just a short walk which will also help you digest your food better and have better bowel movements because it's not what you eat, it's what you absorb in your gut that counts.
But this is not meant to become a long To-Do-List as that may be overwhelming. This is not meant to be another stress generator in your life. It's meant to be a way to identify the things you can tweak and fine tune to achieve a better and more sustainable lifestyle.
Then there is commune well. When you are with your people, when you're with your tribe, whether it's a couple of friends or a whole group, your inflammation goes down because you're laughing and your cortisol levels go down so your stress goes dow
The secret is to keep doing what you're doing. Keep on working, improving, finding new ways to implement these habits because they are going to make a difference for you and your family. Your body is designed to heal itself and a few lifestyle changes can boost this healing. This is why Dani wrote her book - to give you a strategy and break it down into easy common-sense steps for reversing decades of chronic disease and hopefully change the entire trajectory of your families’ life.
You can get her book Wild & Well: Dani’s Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing from Amazon and or your favorite bookstore. https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Well-Commonsense-Radical-Healing/dp/1631955594
If you are struggling with anxiety and/or depression, please know that I’m here to help you as well. Find resources, including my books, below, and I invite you to sign up for my upcoming FREE Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression going live on October 12TH: https://doctordoni.com/specialties/anxiety-depression/
We're here to help you!
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Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
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Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
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Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
In this episode we talk about stress and how to recover from it.
First, we must acknowledge that being human involves exposure to stress!
Research shows that over 60% of us had an adverse childhood event and at least 70% of us have experienced a major stress loss or trauma in adulthood.
When we exist as humans in these stressful environments it starts to feel normal to be stressed.
In fact, we can become addicted to feeling stressed and so we get stuck in stress mode. Our bodies’ cortisol and adrenaline levels get imbalanced, and our nervous system operates in constant stress alert.
Cortisol and adrenaline are our main stress hormones. It's not that we want zero adrenaline and it's not that we want zero cortisol. These are substances that we need a healthy amount of every day.
These hormones are unique to everyone. One person in stress mode might have high cortisol high adrenaline while another person might be low cortisol and low adrenaline.
I remember when my daughter was young, and I was running my practice and seeing patients and trying to keep up with my house and everything until it felt like I could barely breathe. Sprinting through each day barely getting enough sleep. I know many of you feel the same way, how are we supposed to catch up when we can't even keep up?
I kept doing research on stress until I figured out the protocol that addresses the different stress types for each person so I can help every patient in a specific way.
It’s about figuring out what was thrown out of balance by stress, what got disrupted by stress: the cortisol levels, the adrenaline levels, GABA, iron, magnesium, etc.
Many times, patients ask me how can I be tired and anxious at the same time? It's not logical!
Sometimes our bodies are not that black and white so you could have one system that's causing you to feel over stimulated (high adrenaline) and at the same time you could feel tired (low cortisol or low iron).
Your body is trying to tell you it needs help! It is trying to tell you that there is something out of balance, so we need to look at the symptoms and look for patterns to act on them. Of course, we could temporarily fix this with caffeine or even a Xanax but you would not be acting on the root of the problem and therefore you will not be really healing.
There are ways to rebalance your body using nutrients and herbs and even exposure to nature that help us reset and help your body re-calibrate and rebalance.
Recovery activities like journaling, listening to music, doing mindfulness or meditation, spending time in nature, spending time with our pets or listening to the sounds in nature, all of this helps recalibrate our nervous system or vagus nerve and it signals calmness to our brain.
There are ways I can teach you to know your stress type and start addressing it by using nutrients, start practicing mindfulness that helps you to gain more self-love and compassion and practice connecting with others.
I have done extensive research throughout the years which has allowed me to write several books about stress, including my most recent one Master your Stress Reset Your Health.
I found stress recovery is unique to each person based on their stress type. There are different ways of implementing diet, sleep, exercise changes for each person for each stress type.
I invite you to join me in whichever format works best for you whether it's ordering the book and reading the paper back or listening to the audiobook or listening to more How Humans Heal podcasts or reading the blogs or guides available on my website, or meeting with me one-on-one or joining me in one of my group programs. I'm making my protocol available in many different forms because again we're not all the same, we're not all one size one-size-fits-all in terms of how stress affects us, nor how we best learn or apply stress recovery.
I am so glad you are here and look forward to connecting with you again soon take care. Please subscribe, share and post a review if you find this information helpful.
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Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
In this episode we talk about:
* How stress affects thyroid function.
* What is the Cell Danger Response.
* How most thyroid issues are missed and mistreated.
* How to address thyroid function comprehensively.
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Dr. Eric Balcavage is a functional medicine practitioner who looks to assess physiology looking for ways to really help people that want to optimize their overall health. His work is to analyze what's creating that excessive stress in your body and what you can do to reduce it, and how to support you on your way back to an optimal state of health.
In this episode he talks about how his job is different from allopathic medicine as his job is not to manage the thyroid disease or disorder but to look for ways to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Our bodies response to stress will affect us in different ways, for some people it might show up mostly as thyroid issues and for others it might show up as something else. Also, our bodies respond differently to supplements in allostatic and homeostatic states.
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So how do we go from a state of allostasis back to homeostasis? Believing that the body can heal when we give it the right tools and support and look to get to the root cause of many different health issues.
His breakthrough moment came when he read the paper by Dr. Robert Naviaux: Cell Danger Response. He realized his approach was biased as to thinking how to fix the problem or symptoms instead of really going deep into the root of them to find a permanent solution. And he realized this was actually true not just for thyroid issues.
If we just keep chasing the symptoms and not the root cause of the problem, then we are not really healing.
It’s important for people to understand that they can have signs and symptoms of altered thyroid physiology and the gland will still work fine.
50% of the US population is overweight or obese and that means that about 50% of the population has altered or adapted thyroid physiology and so their gland may be fine but it’s one thing to make the hormone and it's another thing how the hormone works in your body.
He uses an analogy to explain this: You could have a full tank of gas but that doesn't mean the car is going to run well.
Similarly, it is possible to have a normal TSH and still not have optimal thyroid physiology.
When the body is in healthy mode (low stress) it says as soon as I get more calories, I'm going to increase metabolism so if you're gaining body fat and not lean muscle mass you could have a metabolism problem.
The things that end up clogging up the system and cause the metabolism to get stuck and therefore the fatigue and the weight gain and the other issues to develop are mainly related to how our diet, sleep, breathing patterns, emotional fitness, environmental fitness, metabolic fitness, and microbial fitness affect our stress state.
Start analyzing your lifestyle and how you're supporting your health on a daily basis. You might be going to many practitioners who might have prescribed different things and you still don't feel better and you're like how much money do I have to spend and how many practitioners do I have to see before we can solve this.
You need to have stress in your life, but we must have a better set of skills to be able to have turn that stressor into a positive experience.
If you've been struggling with what you know as thyroid issues or you are wondering if you have thyroid issues, make sure to check out Dr. Balcavage’s book: The Thyroid Debacle.
This book describes the thyroid and helps you understand beyond what you might hear from most practitioners, but more importantly it helps you understand your whole body, not just a thyroid but how to optimize your overall health.
My new book Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health is also a valuable resource for understanding how stress affects thyroid function and how reversing the effects of stress by mastering your own stress type will lead not only to an optimized thyroid function but an overall healthier you.
I’m happy to meet with you and help you put together a comprehensive plan to truly address your thyroid.
Dr. Doni
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Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
In this episode of How Humans Heal, I share about 6 recent cases from my practice and how they relate to leaky gut, even though it wasn’t obvious that they had leaky gut!
Case 1 Woman with autoimmunity and joint pain who was under extreme stress now knows which foods to avoid, and which to choose, as well as the supplements to heal leaky gut, recover from stress, and prevent autoimmunity from flaring. She’s feeling better and onto phase 3 of my protocol, so today I helped her with maintenance tips.
Case 2 Woman who worked with a different practitioner to treat SIBO and C Diff, and then developed urticaria (hives). She called me to figure out what to do besides take Zyrtec every day. I identified that leaky gut was never addressed and likely there are still overgrowing bacteria that are triggering the hives.
Case 3 Woman who came in complaining of a burning rash behind her ears and inside her mouth. The key question is “what are you eating differently?” It turns out she’s been eating cherry tomatoes all summer and is having an inflammatory reaction. Any inflammatory issue ends up causing leaky gut – it’s time to heal it again.
Case 4 A woman with a history of autoimmunity, which is associated with leaky gut, but hasn’t been told that she has leaky gut. Her main symptom now is bloating, which is caused by overgrowing gut bacteria. We are running the tests I recommend so I have the information I need to help her be most efficient with feeling better. Her results just came in and indicate severe leaky gut.
Case 5 Man who saw a gastroenterologist for an endoscopy and colonoscopy, but they can’t see leaky gut that way. And he was prescribed an antacid, which ends up decreasing digestion of food, even healthy food. Undigested food overfeeds bacteria, leading to bloating and leaky gut. And he was intermittent fasting too long, which stresses our system more.
Case 6 A woman who had Grave’s disease, another autoimmune condition, is celebrating 12 weeks of pregnancy. That means I helped her to turn off autoimmunity and prevent a miscarriage – hooray!
I find it SO interesting to observe how leaky gut presents different ways for each person.
I want you to know that you are not alone, and that even if you have symptoms that other practitioners have not been able to solve, I’m here to help you solve it.
If you have been trying to figure out how to heal your body and leaky gut, join me in the Leaky Gut Program. https://drdoni.lpages.co/leaky-gut-program/
Don’t recreate the wheel so to speak! I have it all figured out and streamlined for you, so all you need to do is follow my protocol.
I help patients from around the world – by phone and confidential video call. If you prefer to meet with me one-on-one, you can set that up here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
Dr. Doni
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Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.