This episode is going to be about the head game of healing. I find that when I'm talking with patients a lot of what I'm doing is really coaching them on the process of healing. And I find this to be really important because sometimes we can feel like we're in this dark tunnel when we get diagnosed with some health issue.
As much as I can recommend the specific dietary changes and nutrients and herbs to rebalance and restore what's out of balance, I also think that an important part of the healing process is the head game of healing or how do you think about the healing process and how do you think about what's going on in your body.
What Is the Head Game of Healing?
If you're having a high level of anxiety about whatever your diagnosis is then that just ends up working against you. When we're in a state of fear, we are constantly thinking of all the worst-case scenarios, we're constantly worrying and feeling anxious about the diagnosis and what is going to happen or how will you get better.
When we're in a state of fear it's very hard to be proactive and at the same time, we're just reactivating our stress response constantly. So, now we not only have the original stress response that likely created the health issue but now we have the fear response that's triggering more stress and it just snowballs. That stress response to the health issue ends up working against you and actually makes the health issue worse.
This is why to me the symptoms and diagnosis are really just your body's way of communicating with us. You are not your diagnosis. A lot of times what our mind does is attach our identity to a definition of a role like sometimes we identify ourselves as the oldest child or someone who's married or a single mom, or we identify with our experience, and we can also identify with a diagnosis.
An important part of your healing process is to detach yourself from the diagnosis a bit because if you're completely identified with a specific diagnosis then it will be much more difficult for your body to heal.
For example, if I identified myself as someone who gets migraines then that becomes my identity. This is the way our brains work so we if we identify with the diagnosis, we end up recreating that same health issue.
This is something that is really hard to do because when you're in the midst of pain, that's the only experience you can have. You're 100% experiencing having a migraine or whatever pain you might be experiencing, so it's hard to even imagine how you could separate yourself from the symptoms or the diagnosis.
You have to think of who are as a spirit, as an essence, as a person, as the person who's existing in this human experience, in this body. Who are you separate from your symptoms or diagnosis. This way you can create a little bit of what I call separation between who you are and a specific situation that you’re experiencing at some point in time. If we want to create change in your health, you will no longer be that diagnosis. So, we need to separate from the diagnosis to create the possibility for something different to exist - to create the possibility for change.
Our Bodies Call for Attention
Our bodies way of communicating to us that something is out of balance is through symptoms. It could be physical pain or emotional pain, mood changes, energy changes, sleep patterns changes, brain fog, etc. These are all ways in which our bodies let us know they need attention.
And it doesn't help if we're hard on ourselves or in a battle with our own bodies over that because this just creates more stress and a vicious cycle that makes the healing process longer and harder.
Whatever signals your body is giving you, it's trying to communicate to you that it needs help.
That something is out of balance, something needs attention. It could be a heart palpitation, reflux, feeling tired, hair falling, migraines, etc. Then in the medical world what we do is we go through a process of evaluating to understand those signals so that we know what the appropriate treatment would be.
A Naturopathic Approach
A Naturopathic Doctor’s approach at how to fix a health issue is slightly different than that of a classically trained Medical Doctor. The latter are mostly trained to use pharmaceutical medications or surgeries or procedures and so they're looking for indications in the body that something requires a medication or surgery but a lot of times this may not be what our bodies need in order to heal.
If a Medical Doctor doesn’t find the cause of your illness or a reason to give you medication, he/she could say that there’s nothing wrong with you or that you should keep monitoring the issue because they may not have any other tools they can offer for you to feel better.
A Naturopathic Doctor, in contrast, is trained in a lot of other potential tools that you can be used to support healing, such as dietary changes, general lifestyle changes, sleep pattern changes, exercise changes, etc. We are also trained in the use of supplements, herbs and nutrients (based on research in clinical textbooks) and how to use these for different health issues.
Another tool that some Naturopathic Doctors use is Homeopathy. This is an energetic medicine that helps realign our bodies with its own ability to heal. There are also other tools like the use of plant medicines, meditation, breathwork, cold water therapy, physical therapy, detoxification, etc. So, there is such a long list of possible healing modalities that a Naturopathic
Doctor can use to help you heal naturally while getting to the real root of the problem, so it goes away for good.
This is not to say that medications or antibiotics or surgery are not important or ever necessary, but for you to know that if your M.D. says that they don't have a treatment for you, then I want to make sure you know that there are all these other treatment possibilities, like diet and herbs and nutrients and so on, for you to heal.
Prevention is Better Than Cure
Prevention of health issues is for each of us to choose for ourselves and this is one of the other key head games of healing. We can take on that responsibility and accountability for our own health. If we're here, we are living this beautiful life experience, why not try to be as healthy as possible through it and even try to make it as long as possible to enjoy more of the things we love doing with the people we care about.
Everyone has the choice to become more intentional about their health. We can choose to treat our bodies poorly and just eat whatever and work 24/7 and then rely on health insurance when health issues arise, or we can choose to take good care of ourselves today and try to achieve our best health each day so we can have better and longer lives.
A lot of patients I see wish they could have known before how to take better care of their health themselves. So, as a Naturopathic Doctor my goal is to help you become more in charge of your own health and your own future and then become more intentional about each decision you make.
This is what I call SelfC.A.R.E. (this is the acronym I use in my latest book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health) where you're taking good care of yourself and it turns out that the more we have compassion for ourselves, the more we are accepting of our experience in our bodies and in our lives, and then it decreases our stress and it creates more peace, and this actually prevents health issues.
Setting Yourself Up for Success in The Head Game of Healing
When we take good care of ourselves, we are going to be healthier, happier and more productive. We’re going to feel good and enjoy more what we're doing.
Stress is part of life. All humans are going to have stress. The key here is not trying to be stress free, but learning how to help your body recover from stress in the moment right alongside the stress exposure. We need to learn how to counterbalance the stress so we can help our bodies keep up with this experience.
We are all like a marathon runner or an airplane in our own lives. Marathon runners don’t only take good care of themselves the day before the marathon, they have to be on point in every
aspect long before the marathon; training, nutrition, sleep, hydration, etc. The same way that a plane must be in balance in every switch, control knob, altitude, weight, speed, etc. for it to fly straight. Our human bodies have thousands of systems working 24/7 at the same time and my job as a Naturopathic Doctor is to help you fine tune it a find a way to bring all those systems back to balance so you can be as healthy as you can.
Some of this evaluation can be done in regular blood work covered by insurance like trying to figure out if you need to be in the emergency room or tell if you have anemia or if you have an infection. But when I look at these tests, I'm also looking at a much more fine-tuned level. What I do is I help you to tune in your body to a much more optimal level. In standard blood work the ranges are wide so you may still be in the range, but you might not feel good. You might still feel tired and have borderline anemia or have low iron, or have low B12 or folate or a nutrient deficiency or a methylation issue or an MTHFR gene variation, etc. All this is going to give us a much better sense of your body's needs to get back in balance.
Going Further than Regular Blood Work
If you don't feel good there's a reason - that's always the case. If your body's giving you indications in some shape or form it means that something's out of balance and it might not show in the regular blood work because the regular blood work is really for identifying more emergency situations even when we do a complete metabolic panel. A complete metabolic panel is to identify the liver and kidney function and blood sugar levels and electrolyte levels, but you could have in range glucose and in range electrolytes and in range kidney and liver function and still not feel good for some other reason.
For example, the adrenal glands don't show well in regular blood work. You can pick up on the adrenal glands a little bit with the sodium, potassium and electrolyte levels because part of the job of the adrenal glands is to manage our sodium and potassium, so if there's an imbalance in sodium potassium even slightly in the blood work we should be thinking about the adrenal glands but what I find is I don't even wait for that because by the time it shows in your electrolytes, it's already a severe issue. I'd much rather pick up on an adrenal issue before it starts affecting your electrolytes.
Another example is your cortisol levels. You can run a blood level for cortisol which is a hormone made by the adrenal glands, but even then, the normal range is very broad. It's easy to fall in the normal range and I think that most of us are in this normal range but that doesn't mean we're at optimal levels throughout the day. It just means we're in what's considered normal range which means we don't need to go into the hospital because it's not an emergency but the more we optimize our cortisol levels the more we prevent ourselves from becoming an emergency.
I can't tell you how many patients I work with who the practitioner said this is a condition you're going to have for the rest of your life, it's irreversible. And after working with me, now those patients are testing negative, and for decades. Someone could test positive for an
autoimmune condition, like rheumatoid arthritis at one point in time, but then by making diet changes and detoxifying and resetting all their systems, they heal, the immune system and their bodies overall, come back into balance again.
Genetics as Part of The Head Game of Healing
For many years we thought that genetics determine most of our health. We tend to link our genetics with our destiny. That's why they did the whole human genome project to identify all the genes in a human and what they found is that our health is not mostly determined by our genes. Our health is mostly determined by what I refer to as our stress exposure – which is our environmental exposure, whether that's emotional stress, physical stress, injuries, infections, or toxin exposure.
All of those exposures, and even our parents stress exposure and our grandparents stress exposure, affect us and what's going to happen with our health. Studies show that less than 10% of health issues are genetically determined. We are all unique, there's certain things as humans that we have in common, but we're very unique in how our bodies use nutrients or how much we need of certain nutrients.
If you have a genetic tendency or you have a genetic variation, it does not mean that you have that issue. The only way we can know if that gene or gene variation is actually causing a health issue for you is to test your body and analyze if this gene is affecting you at this moment in time. Also, those genetic variations can turn on and off. So, if we see a genetic variation, let's say MTHFR, we need to do blood work for homocysteine and look at B vitamin metabolism. If your homocysteine is healthy then you don't have to worry, you can just keep preventing this gene variation from turning on and keep taking good care of your health.
So, we need to evaluate if a gene is affecting your health today, and if so, then we can take steps to address it, we can look at ways to turn a gene back off. Often times it’s stress exposure that turns a gene on, so we need to work on your stress and trauma exposure to get your body back in balance. It comes back to understanding how stress has caused imbalances and then address those imbalances in order to get you back to balance.
We need to give your body safety signals. Our bodies are constantly noticing stress signals all the time from changes in the environment, temperature, light, sound, toxins, etc. We are constantly exposed to plenty of stress signals (that affect our immune system, our nervous system, our digestive system, our hormones), but what we lack is the anti-stress signals.
We need to learn to balance our stress and anti-stress signals, so our body is in harmony again. Anti-stress signals could even be taking a deep breath or spending time in nature or with your pet. There are so many anti-stress signals we can choose from to counterbalance the stress and we need to integrate those in our daily routine.
Being Strategic About The Head Game of Healing
To me the thing about the healing head game is we have to be strategic, we have to think about it from a big picture view and we have to think about it from what can we do in this moment that's going to have the most positive ripple effect going forward. What are the things we can do that have the most healing potential on multiple levels because we are an interconnected system.
There are two core areas that we need to address that create such a positive ripple effect in the healing process. First, we have to address the leaky gut. We have to address your body’s ability to digest food and absorb nutrients by avoiding inflammatory foods and healing your intestinal lining. If we don’t address leaky gut, your body will have more inflammation and more toxicity coming from your gut, which only adds more stress.
The second core area to address is the adrenal glands. We need to heal our adrenals (your body’s main protection from stress by generating cortisol and adrenaline). If we're under constant stress, our system is going to break down. For some people they end up with cortisol being too high at certain times of the day, and for others it could be that cortisol is too low at certain times of the day.
At optimal levels our cortisol will be high in the morning to wake us up and gradually decrease through the day. We also need adrenaline (made by the adrenal glands) in optimal amounts; it gives us energy and focus, but we don't want too much or too little. So, we need to optimize your cortisol and adrenaline levels throughout the day to optimize your health and prevent future issues.
For this we need to measure your cortisol in the morning, midday and evening running a cortisol panel to know what your cortisol curve is up to. You can do this at home with a test kit that you can find here. Then we can use herbs and nutrients to address the imbalances.
We also need to reset our daily schedules so that we are not under constant stress. It's not just about relying on a nutrient. It's about how do we reset ourselves and our relationship with ourselves so that we can help our bodies to stay in a balanced state every day. This way we will not need to keep on taking these supplements and herbs forever. We recover back to balance and only need maintenance going forward.
This is why my stress recovery protocol has three phases: One is get out of stress mode first. Get the stress signaling to calm down enough so we can actually heal. Phase two is focusing on rebalancing everything and do the real recovery. And phase three is maintenance and resilience - becoming resilient under stress.
We also need to learn how to protect ourselves on a physical, mental and emotional level and even energetic and spiritual level. How do we protect ourselves from various stress exposures?
Well, this is part of the healing process. I really see that this is happening more and more. As humans we're learning how to choose for ourselves to have compassion for ourselves and have compassion for our human bodies. We can feel gratitude for our human bodies and how much they're working to help us survive. There might be a stress or trauma from way earlier in our lives, maybe a grief, maybe a sudden loss, maybe something that happened to us like abuse in a relationship or sexual abuse or something where your system got stuck into a state of stress and shock and you didn't get to process it.
When we are finally able to be present with ourselves, we start to realize when this started and when a certain health issue started. We need to have compassion for ourselves and our bodies, forgive ourselves for what happened and learn how to protect ourselves.
This is not something we learn in school or from our parents usually, but it's something we can teach ourselves and practice. I really think that the human experience is learning day by day how to have more compassion for ourselves so that we become the ones who can take the best care of ourselves and achieve our best health.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.
Because I feel so strongly that I want people anywhere in the world to be able to access my protocols, I developed online video courses or programs you can start anytime.
· Heal Leaky Gut Program – teaching you to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol
· Stress Warrior™ - If you’re ready to fully heal your adrenal glands and rebalance your neurotransmitters, you can sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here.
If you’d like me to help you one-on-one by phone or video, to review your symptoms, and what your body is trying to tell you, and to have my guidance to implement my protocol, you can schedule a comprehensive or priority consultation with me. I think of myself as a health detective, reviewing complex cases to identify what has been missed, and then helping you create a strategic plan for healing. You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
This doesn't have to be a mystery, and this doesn't have to take forever, it just needs to be individualized to you.
We’re here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
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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/
-
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 today’s episode I interview Kimberly King. She is a sexual abuse educator and author of several books. As a freshman in college, Kimberly started her work with sexual abuse prevention as a women’s health Peer Counselor and Human Sexuality teaching assistant to the renowned Dr. Sandra Caron.
After more than a decade of teaching kindergarten and proactive momming, her son had a body safety scare with a friend - that triggered a shift. She realized she wanted take the scare out of sexual abuse prevention.
Now, Kimberly helps parents, and all who care for kids, learn to talk about body safety with ease so they can prevent abuse and protect their kids.
In this interview, we talk about sexual abuse. This is such an important topic and one that a lot of times we would rather not have to talk about, but we need to in order to raise awareness and help people recover and prevent sexual abuse from happening in the first place. Often parents report that it was by observing the experience their children are going through that they started to realize that they had a similar experience in childhood, but it was never addressed.
In fact, sexual abuse is more common than we realize. This type of trauma can paralyze children and adults with fear. In this interview, Kimberly shares ways to talk about it in a very kid-friendly or just simple matter of fact way. She describes that by having these conversations with your children, you can help to protect them and avoid anything from happening to them. When you think about it that way, the topic becomes easier to talk about.
How Common is Sexual Abuse?
It's shocking that one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they're 18 years old. That's a terrible statistic right there but what's even worse is that only 38% of children ever tell anybody, so most of sexual abuse is not even reported. So, we don't know the real number but it's of epidemic levels which is why prevention is so important.
90% of children who are sexually abused will be sexually abused by the people in their inner circle of trust, the people that they already know including family members, siblings, cousins, distant cousins, teachers, and people they already trust.
How Does This Happen with Access to Devices Like Smartphones?
When you give your child a cell phone, they have access to apps, and they have access to everything. Predators know that kids are on phones and are hanging out on these apps. So, to give your child a cell phone is dangerous unless you get very prepared and empowered to prevent sexual abuse.
These conversations must happen with our children very early, way before they have access to cell phones, so that they understand body boundaries, body safety rules, they know who to tell if something happens, they know who they're safe with. And then you must start implementing online safety measures on these devices to make sure that your kids are protected.
We Need to Normalize Talking About Sexual Abuse
This is a safety concern. The goal is to prevent sexual abuse. The topic of body safety needs to be as approachable as possible. We need to teach our kids about this just as we teach them to put on their bike helmet and to buckle up in the car. It should just be common language like of course we know our body parts, and of course we know we have rights to protect our bodies and of course if we have a problem, we're going to tell our parents or our safe adults. So, we must normalize talking about these things so that it's not so taboo that children are terrified to tell us when something happens.
Sometimes we don't really teach our kids but it's so important. They don't have to respond or comply when an adult is demanding a hug or physical attention or being mean or saying something dangerous. We do have to empower them to use their voice because we're not always going to be there to protect them.
There are very few people talking about this with children. We need to talk about the real risks that they face so that parents understand and do an assessment of where and when they are putting their children at risk. We can certainly educate our kids about this but as parents we must make really good decisions. Is it a great idea to let a random babysitter that you hired on Facebook watch your two-year-old? NO! It's not!
The Effects of Sexual Abuse in a Person's Lifetime
The healing process is different for everybody. Having a history of sexual abuse can increase the risk of drug dependency, alcoholism, depression, anxiety, psychiatric disorders, academic problems, criminal problems, etc. It really does blossom into pretty much every disorder that you can think of, especially if left untreated.
Even one incident can create a lifetime of anxiety and depression. It would really be ideal if we could get ahead and prevent this from happening but for the people who went through something like this earlier in your life, it's very important to get help and start the healing process. Just talking about it with someone safe will help by letting it out of your head.
Does Sexual Abuse Tend to Repeat Itself in Families?
The data on that is not very well studied but if you are a victim of sexual abuse once you're more likely to be a victim of abuse later. If you were abused as a child, you're more likely to be abused again later and this comes from a lack of awareness of what abuse looks like. If you
were abused by, say your stepfather, and were threatened or blackmailed and you felt responsible and he blamed it on you, if you were raised in that environment and you didn't even know what you were going through, then when you get to be a young adult, you're still not going to know what is normal and what isn’t. This puts you at risk and this is why education is so critical.
It's critical that kids, especially teenagers, understand what abuse looks like because you don't want them to make a mistake just because you haven't talked to them about it or because they don't understand it. Why risk it when you can teach them about it. You could really get ahead of it and save them a lifetime of hardship by preventing abuse from happening. It doesn't matter what age your child is - just start talking about it now.
So, having that conversation with your teen about alcohol for example, do not mix sex with alcohol because it will never go well or that you could you could actually be in some type of a sexual situation with a girl or a boy and they can change their mind in the middle of it and just because she or he is your girlfriend or boyfriend or partner, it doesn’t mean that you can keep going. You have to stop. Conversations about consent and what that looks like for your children and for their relationships are critical to have.
Healthy sexual activity with consent can be so beneficial to our health, but that doesn't mean that we get to just force that on someone and overlook these important boundaries, and so the more that these conversations can happen at a young age, the more we will be preventing the type of behavior that could push past these boundaries.
Having this education and being empowered in this space will also prevent things like sexual harassment in the workplace. Our kids when raised and taught these things aren't going to accept this behavior from their boss. They will have their boundaries in place and they will not be afraid of speaking up if needed.
The Fear of Speaking Up for Yourself
Being an authoritarian parent is not an effective way to parent because it can make it so that children don’t feel comfortable going to parents when they are dealing with sexual abuse, bullying and/or depression. You want your kids to be able to communicate with you, no matter what the topic. You want to develop a relationship with your kids that involves you being an active listener and not a dictator.
Studies show that children with authoritarian parents are more likely to develop anxiety and depression than kids with parents who are more open to talk about anything. A style of parenting that includes structure as well as calmness, gentleness, and very good listening skills makes it so that your children will talk to you and share these things with you, so that you know when they need help.
This is critical in the topic of body safety because kids have to know that when something is wrong, they have the right to speak up and they need to speak up and they need to know who which adults are safe for them to go to for help. Not all kids understand that, and not all parents teach that. There are kids who are worried they're going to get in trouble if they say something about sexual abuse.
A good option is to make a list of safe adults in case mom is not available. Who is it that you love and trust in case of an emergency or who is it that's super easy to talk to and can be on your body safety team. Some examples are people who have never asked your child to keep a secret, or they've never violated a body boundary, and they follow your family safety plan and rules.
We need to learn to protect ourselves not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually at the same time. And we are not really trained on how to protect ourselves very well. And so learning what does that mean to better protect ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Having conversations about what are the feelings that make us feel good or green flag feelings and then the red flag feelings such as butterflies, or maybe you're nervous, maybe your hands are shaking, maybe you're sweaty, maybe you’re angry or scared or stressed. We need to teach our children to recognize these feelings and how their bodies feel when they're experiencing those emotions.
This helps them communicate with you better, and it doesn't have to just be about sexual abuse it can be about anything like feeling nervous because the teacher raised her voice. Where did your child feel that in his or her body? Ask your child if they want to talk about it. It's about processing all these emotions instead of just keeping it all inside because they don't know how to talk about it or they don't know how to express themselves.
Then we can make a list of who are the green flag people and the red flag people, and then why are these people in the red. This is a great way to have a conversation about it and it’s an easy way to talk about it.
Good Communication is Critical to Prevent Sexual Abuse
When we're able to be in such deeper real authentic conversations with our children we can reduce rates of trauma in future generations and the more we can prevent trauma experiences, the more we're going to be preventing health issues and abuse and addiction.
We also need to open up the conversation about what adults and parents have experienced and how can they heal in the process, because sometimes people are afraid to have conversations with their children because they're afraid of what they might feel as an adult.
You might not be ready to share your story with your kids, and that is fine. You can even just say something happened to me and I don't want it to happen to you so let's talk about it.
If you avoid these topics completely, it's like you're rolling the dice. Maybe your kids are going to be lucky, and they'll get out of childhood unscathed, but the statistics are not in the favor of that. So, even if it's difficult, even if you have to get through some stuff to talk about it with your kids, you need to have this open communication.
If you want to learn more from Kimberly please make sure to check out her website or reach out to her on Instagram @toughtopicsmom.
If you want to learn more about how I help patients recover from stress and trauma by reversing the effects of stress with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected your cortisol and adrenaline levels. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
And if you have tested positive for HPV and you’re ready to transform your health and life, please start by watching my HPV Masterclass here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
In today’s episode I am going to be talking all about your adrenal glands and why it is so important to prioritize understanding your body’s particular stress response pattern.
We will discuss what the adrenal glands are, where they are, what functions they serve, why they become depleted, why it’s so important to help these glands to perform their best, how we can test them and what we can do to help them recover!
How Does the Adrenal System Work?
We each have two adrenal glands in our bodies, and they are located on top of each of our kidneys. These glands are responsible for the production of adrenaline (epinephrine and norepinephrine), cortisol, and other hormones that determine heart rate, blood pressure, and other important bodily functions.
I like to think about the adrenal glands as our internal bodyguards. They help protect us from danger by activating our body into the necessary state for fight or flight when we sense there may be a threat.
Throughout time, as humans, our adrenal system would activate when exposed to a threat and then afterwards deactivate appropriately when the threat had dissipated. But in our modern world, the threats to our lives have become much more distant and abstract, leaving our body in a less certain state of fear for our safety. Did you know that your adrenal levels can become triggered just by watching an intense scene on TV?
Our bodyguards are now in an almost ubiquitous state of activation, meaning they are often chronically triggered and ultimately depleted, and they are not able to protect us as they’re really meant to.
You sense a threat and the amygdala in the brain picks up a fear response that sends signals through what's called the HPA axis (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). The brain is perceiving there's a danger going on and it's going to then send a hormone to your adrenal glands through the bloodstream to say we need extra cortisol and adrenaline to help protect us from whatever is going on right now.
That extra cortisol and adrenaline then tells all the other cells in your body we've got something dangerous going on and we need we need to turn off certain functions: we're not going to need to digest food right now or we're not going to do reproductive function. We're going to be making sure that there's blood flow and blood sugar so you can get out of danger. The heart races, and blood pressure increases, to get us out of danger.
Why is Chronic Depletion of Adrenals a Problem?
As our adrenal system becomes activated, it tells the rest of our body to cease normal functioning and upkeep. It tells our body to stop digesting food and absorbing nutrients, and instead to only focus on the threat in front of us. If we are unable to leave this heightened state, our bodies do not return to their normal functioning.
When we ARE able to return to a normal (healthy) level of cortisol and adrenaline, that's when a signal goes out through all of our cells, including our digestive system, and says: it's time to digest again, let's make digestive enzymes, let’s make healthy new intestinal cells, let's support our gut bacteria, let's absorb our nutrients.
In our nervous system, serotonin and GABA are calming neurotransmitters that help counterbalance the adrenaline, so if we have stimulating adrenaline happening, we also need a counterbalance of serotonin and GABA. I think of it like the gas and brake pedals in a car. You need the gas pedal to get your brain responding but you also need the brake pedal to be able to calm things down.
When we are depleted from over-use of our adrenal glands, we can become more and more reliant on things like caffeine because caffeine stimulates us to make adrenaline and then alcohol to sedate us in the evening. Caffeine and alcohol are fine in moderation, but they are cause for concern when we need them to maintain our lifestyles.
Optimal Adrenal Function is Key for Optimal Health
Research shows that when we have optimal adrenal function we live longer.
Unfortunately, this is something that is very rarely addressed in the traditional doctor’s office. Even when you go to an endocrinologist, who specializes in glands that make hormones. Only in extreme cases like adrenal insufficiency, Addison's disease, or Cushing syndrome would adrenals raise to their attention. But most of us are suffering silently in not extreme cases, but still suboptimal and correlated to most all health conditions.
Studies show that over 80% of adults have dysregulated adrenal function -- so most of us have adrenal function that is NOT optimal on a daily basis!
When our adrenal glands are over or under functioning, it's predisposing us to all different health issues.
The Prescription to Fix Adrenal Function Doesn’t Have to be Medicine
The good news is there is a lot we can do to help our adrenal glands return to optimal functioning, and therefore optimal health, and it often doesn't involve taking a prescription medication or an invasive surgery, even though traditional medicine would like you to believe that it does.
Instead, it involves learning how to give the right support to your adrenal glands for them to function.
My book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health is really all about your adrenal glands and understanding your body’s unique stress signature.
Through helping thousands of patients, I have seen evidence that adrenal gland function is usually the root cause of so many other health problems, and once corrected, tend to have a huge positive ripple effect on your health and your life.
Please dive into the research if you are interested! My book has hundreds of references, and many sources are available online.
As a naturopathic doctor, my goal is to help people feel better – not to give you a prescription that will keep you coming back into my office every week. This passion was ignited by not getting enough answers in my own life and wanting to share the wisdom and freedom I’ve found, to save you time, money, and headaches.
I often have patients with very complex cases where they've been in severe fatigue or pain or distress for years and have never had their cortisol and adrenaline tested. I’ve had countless cases of patients not receiving answers or making progress on their medical diagnosis, and then when we address their adrenal functioning, it is the domino that changes everything for the better.
Your Stress Pattern and Therefore Adrenal Function is as Unique as Your Fingerprint
It's not the same for all of us, and therefore our treatment plans are not one size fits all.
Your stress pattern is based on your genetics, past stress exposure, and it's even based on your parents and your grandparents stress exposure. These all influence how your body responds to stress today. So, to really understand what your cortisol and adrenaline are up to at this point in time, we need to measure them.
Standard bloodwork will not catch the inner workings of the adrenal glands. Additionally, your levels will – and should – change throughout the day. This is your natural cortisol curve, the highest point in the morning and gradually decreasing throughout the day. And so, we need to take measurements throughout the day to provide an overall picture of how your cortisol levels are fluctuating and when.
But we also need to measure adrenaline levels. What I want you to know are your actual norepinephrine and epinephrine levels and there's only a few labs that measure these accurately, and that's what I offer through my office.
Although everyone’s situation is unique, through the many patients I’ve seen and studied, everyone falls generally into one of five common stress types:
- The Stress Magnet: elevated cortisol with elevated adrenaline in the morning or all day
- The Night Owl: elevated cortisol in the evening with elevated adrenaline
- Sluggish and Stressed: elevated cortisol with low adrenaline
- Blah and Blue: low cortisol in the morning or at midday, with low adrenaline
- Tired and Wired: low cortisol morning or midday with elevated adrenaline
In my book, and online, I have a self-assessment quiz to help you figure out what your stress type might be, and I’ve included the links below.
Each stress type will have a different path to recovery. All treatments will fall within the umbrella of my treatment program called SelfC.A.R.E. where C stands for clean eating, A for adequate sleep, R for recovery, and E for exercise. I have tailor made programs for each stress type so your body will get exactly what it needs and nothing it doesn’t.
How to Help Your Adrenal System
You can start by testing your cortisol and adrenaline levels throughout the day, by knowing your stress type pattern, and watch every other facet of your health fall into place. You can get a home test for this here.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.
If you’re ready to master your stress and become a stress warrior you can sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here.
If you’d like a more accurate and thorough picture of exactly what’s going on in your body, please make an appointment with my office. We would be more than happy to sit down and help you get to the core of whatever health issues you’re facing, so we can figure them out together. You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
This doesn't have to be a mystery, and this doesn't have to take forever, it just needs to be individualized to you.
We’re here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
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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/
-
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 today’s episode I interview Louise Swartswalter. Louise is an energy healer and certified biofeedback specialist. She specializes in clearing energy blocks and uses neurofeedback and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) to rebalance the human brain through her signature B.R.A.I.N. System. She is also the owner and founder of the Brain Soul Success Academy.
Today we talk about how a multisensory approach, which is used to help with dyslexia, can be used to clear past traumas, even generational trauma. Louise shares how the system she uses is able to transform health, behavior patterns, and emotions, and how by releasing our energetic roadblocks, we can achieve success and reach our goals in life.
During her career and own healing journey, Louise discovered that the brain operates like a motherboard for the body. When a person’s brain is functioning at optimal health and is in balance, the rest of one’s body and life is able to fall into balance.
We're not just a body. We've got to heal the emotions. We've got to heal the spirit. We've got to heal whole person. We have an energetic field that goes all the way out to the stars. We are energy bodies before we are physical bodies. So, in order to really heal, we have to reset on an emotional, spiritual and energetic level.
The B.R.A.I.N. System
B.R.A.I.N. is an acronym that stands for:
B: Body. This relates to all the work we do to heal our bodies like detoxification, taking supplements, mastering stress, supporting adrenal function, getting good sleep, exercise, etc. The B is the lifestyle pieces that a functional medicine doctor or somebody doing that kind of work would know.
R: Release. Release the trauma and the emotions and the baggage. Often times it's ancestral and we have to clear that out for people to become whole and aligned.
A: Alignment. The brain system is aligned with our spirit. And so, a spiritual God or whatever God means to each individual person is always a part of the healing process.
I: Integration. This is integrating your brain frequencies to your soul. Your true purpose. People don't really heal their life where they want to if they don't have a purpose. Our bodies will still struggle with some kind of adrenal issue if we don't have a purpose in life. It’s when we can identify and feel that sense of purpose that we really thrive. It’s your big WHY, so, we clear energy blocks to get to that.
N: New Program. The new program piece is this high-level energy work that rewires your brain. This is achieved by using frequency medicine which is neurofeedback. It’s about working multidimensionally to get the results we want.
Healing Trauma at a Brain Soul Level
People looking to heal are often getting one protocol from one practitioner and a different protocol from another practitioner. It’s when we integrate all the healing holistically that we will be successful. We need to find a way to be cohesive and synergistic when healing our body, mind and spirit.
Sometimes the challenge with energetic work is that it’s something we can’t see and sometimes people have a hard time believing or understanding how it works.
When we heal trauma at the brain soul level we can even see physical changes in peoples physique. They smile more, their eyes look brighter, they feel lighter, more energetic and vibrant, and they have a different glow in general.
Louise describes that when she was a special education teacher, she used a multi-sensory approach with her students. She would guide them to consider what they see, say, hear, write and feel all at the same time. Most of health and healing doesn’t integrate a multi-sensory approach. That's why she developed the B.R.A.I.N. System.
More than 60% of adults have experienced at least one adverse childhood event, let alone adulthood trauma, so it's something that's prevalent and yet a lot of times we go through life without being aware of it. And most people are not addressing it, and a lot of practitioners don't know how to address it.
We know that trauma is associated with health issues. We need to be able to release traumatic experiences, compassionately and effectively, so that we can move forward with our lives without the negative effects of this baggage called trauma.
By using this multidimensional system, we will definitely see results faster. Everybody wants to heal faster, no one wants to stay sick or imbalanced for a long time.
A B.R.A.I.N. System Session (Louise does a live session for Dr. Doni)
Here are the questions that Louise asked Dr. Doni about pain in her joints and posture.
- What would you want to have change or be different?
- If you were connected to your body and you knew your optimal posture, what would you be doing differently than you are now?
- If you're feeling lighter and easier and you're paying attention to your posture connected to your body and your optimal posture, what would you tell yourself that you're not telling yourself now?
- If all those things were happening, what would you be allowing that you're not allowing now?
We often don’t realize how much our self-talk is part of how we feel constantly. By taking the judgment away you could tell yourself you're stronger, you're allowing things to be the way they are. You allow what is, you're connected to your body, you're feeling lighter, you're aware of your posture and things are easier.
So, what is taking Doni away from allowing what is, to be connected to her body and feeling light or having that ailing easier flow of things?
The next step is muscle test what is preventing her from clearing energy. We're all energy and we can get other people's energy attached to us, and especially as a practitioner when you're working closely with people, some of their pains or their imbalances could become attached to you. This energy could also come from early experiences during our childhood with parents or siblings, this is what we call trauma and what constitutes the foundation of the restrictions that do not let you move forward with your life.
These experiences can make us demoralized and manifest through physical pain in our bodies later in life. These can also steal from us our peace, our strength, acceptance, fulfillment, and sense of protection.
The key here is to release this trauma by working on our brains so that this trauma is no longer allowed to follow us everywhere. It is no longer allowed anywhere near our physical body, nervous system, etc. This trauma has to leave all of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being in order for you to heal. We have to clear the shock to be able to heal.
When we release all judgments, assumptions, projections, conclusions, decisions about the situation, we let it go, allowing us to be free, to honor what is, to be connected to our bodies and to feel lighter.
The last part of the system is energy work that has to do with codes and numbers. Think of it as acupuncture points but in the energy field. Then you speak positive messages to your brain. In this example the messages were: I am connected to my body, I pay attention to my posture, I feel lighter and easier, I am stronger than I think, I have positive self-worth, I am able to do things I didn't know I could do, I choose to succeed, I choose to live in joy, I allow things to be the way they are and I allow what is.
By doing this you are reprogramming and rewiring your brain and therefore your reality to the reality you want for your life now. It is rebooting you with these goals and intentions.
How The Healing of Trauma Works
You can have an intention when you go into an energetic healing experience, but really you don’t have to try. Energy shifts tend to cause a subtle ripple effect without any effort. More important is to allow yourself to let go and be guided.
Louise asked me about my experience with her energy work compared to what I experience with shamanism and psychedelic medicine. I explained that psychedelics have a similar ability to help us release and overcome trauma. Transformation happens when deeper traumas are cleared at the brain soul level. These processes literally reboot every cell energetically.
And then right away you start to see things come back into flow again. When the energy field is aligned physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you start noticing good things coming your way. You start feeling better and your health improves.
If you want to learn more from Louise and get a better sense of how her system works, you may want to attend her upcoming online masterclass. Find out more and sign up for free here.
If you want to learn more about how I help patients recover from stress and trauma by reversing the effects of stress with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected your cortisol and adrenaline levels. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
And if you have tested positive for HPV and you’re ready to transform your health and life, please start by watching my HPV Masterclass here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.