In today’s episode I interview Jenny Cohen. Jenny is an Outside In Recovery Coach, breast cancer survivor, competitive dancer, yoga instructor, and author.
Today we talk about how dance and movement can be healing for our bodies. I’m excited to talk with Jenny because I also love to dance and have found it to be so healing for me. She also shares about her healing journey and what she discovered about herself, and wrote in her book, along the way.
Definitely tune in to this episode if you have been dealing with a stress-filled busy life, infertility, cancer or risk of cancer, and/or a desire to heal from within.
Jenny is also a multifaceted and award-winning artist known for her award-winning autobiographical fusion performances about universal themes and life challenges. She offers instruction in yoga, Acting for Dancers, Aaliyah Jenny Transcultural Fusion, Rachel Brice's Datura Style, and Oreet's Sharqui Workout (Master Instructor). Jenny also launched Dance to Heal Wellness in 2021.
Jenny believes that the secret to dance is that it is this therapeutic modality and even though there’s only recently been more research about it, we actually are instinctively drawn to it because it puts you back into your body. It puts you in the present moment.
Dance as a Form of Meditation
When you’re dancing, you can only be focusing on that. It is hard to focus on anything else if you are really paying attention to your body position and your movement. You are really connecting with each part of your body and how it moves, and it gets you out of your head and into your body, like a movement meditation. We become aware of how life is precious and how we only have the present.
There is such intelligence and brilliance in the specific steps, rhythm, and patterns in various forms of dance. The movement patterns, for example in belly dance, salsa, or even yoga, were determined by people (women) who spent a lot of time using movement throughout their lives and during various forms of stress, including grief, loss and trauma. In this way, as we learn a form of dance, we are also learning the movements that help the human nervous system heal.
Dance is a form of medicine.
Finding Your Rhythm
Jenny shares that there is a whole branch of science called the neuroscience of dance. Any type of movement combined with music ignites your entire brain, it’s one of the few activities that can do this. Also, everyone’s perception of music is different because of our cultural and gender differences. And so, there is a movement discovery process in which you follow 3 steps:
Acknowledging with gratitude that you’re here now. Not in the past and not worried about the future.
Being present through tuning into your 5 senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight and touch).
Analyzing which type of sound or melodies does your body instinctively like to move to.
By following these three steps, you will start identifying the music and movement that is going to be most therapeutic for you individually. Everybody is different because everyone’s neurology is a little bit different. For example, there are people who don’t like music at all. Some prefer the sound of birds or sounds from nature.
You may want to try different types of dancing before you find your rhythm. This will inform you of what you want to learn more and what you want to say no to. It is also important to tailor your own journey with music and movement based on your setting, the stage of your life, and your love language, which can change over time.
The Discover Oneself Process
Jenny encourages listeners to get started. She sees that we often deny ourselves the healing we need by thinking that we need to make more money first or that we should just be grateful for the way things are. However, if we never give ourselves the support we need to heal, then we’ll never feel well enough to be more productive.
She reminds us that it is a miracle that we are alive today, and to celebrate each and every day.
Movement is essential. Everything that is alive moves, cells move, atoms vibrate. And for us to get better beyond the trauma that we are healing, we also need to move.
The D.I.S.C.O.V.E.R. system she describes in her book, “Outside in Recovery: Dancing My Way Back to My Self after Breast Cancer,” is a process you can follow to feel like yourself again and thrive in healing by following the path to self-love.
The acronym stands for:
D: Discover Yourself - Acknowledging your pain and trauma and face it to be able to release it.
I: I Move You Move - Movement is essential to healing.
S: Somatic Intelligence - Acknowledging how our bodies are intelligent systems.
C: Can I Self-Love? - Learning to be compassionate with ourselves and our healing process.
O: Organic Rage - Releasing the bottled-up anger.
V: Venn Diagram of Your Life - Everything overlaps in our lives.
E: Elevated Self-Talk - How to overcome your debilitating internal self-imposed boundaries.
R: Recover Yourself - How being conscious of our trauma will help us take control of it and heal.
This D.I.S.C.O.V.E.R. process is a way to heal not only from mental issues, but also from physical problems. All health issues originate from the stress and trauma we experience throughout our lives: heart disease, autoimmunity, dementia, HPV, etc. By healing on an emotional and spiritual level we can prevent any of these health issues and live healthier and happier lives.
But it all starts with movement. Movement brings you to the present immediately, so those who are not familiar with movement or are not moving much have to start there. And those who are already practicing movement still need to start there because this will train you not to use movement as a form of escape.
If you are not in the present and in your body, then you will not be able to support yourself and the people around you.
Allowing Our Life Experiences to Transform Us
It’s ok to make choices based on what has happened to us and what our priorities are. If your priority is being able to spend time with family and be there for them, this could be something that inspires you to look closer and really figure out what you are missing and what you can do differently.
There will always be people waiting for us to help them live their lives. We are social creatures, and we have to recognize that we can’t heal in isolation. We heal in community. If you feel that you are alone right now - you are actually not (we are all here together). If you feel alone, that’s a part of your trauma state.
As an animal rescuer, Jenny shares that even pets represent the need of other beings waiting for you to help them live their lives. In caring for pets, you will find that you have to take care of yourself first to be able to take care of them.
When it comes down to it, we have to be in the present moment, and movement will bring us there. Then dancing will keep us there. Do your D.I.S.C.O.V.E.R. process and you will find your life is going to turn around.
Our Subconscious Creates Our Reality
If we do not pay attention to our subconscious, it will just re-create what we have experienced in the past, because that is what we are used to and what we are familiar with. So, if we want to create something different in our health, our lives or our relationships, then we are going to need to take some actions to shift that state. We are going to need to process what we don’t need anymore, let go of anger, resentment, grief, etc. so then we can choose more intentionally going forward.
We need to recognize that we need to get into a process of knowing ourselves again, to let go of things from the past and then choose more intentionally in the future.
It’s also necessary to be compassionate with ourselves when we set these goals and we are not achieving them. We can ask ourselves: do we have a script for our lives? If you practice the movement, dancing and being present and then ask yourself these questions you may be surprised with some of the answers that you weren’t aware of that your subconscious will answer for you.
You will attract what your subconscious thinks you need but really the Universe is conspiring for everything to work out in your favor, so by recognizing the patterns and taking action like being more in your body with movement and dance you can really change your life.
If you want to reach out to Jenny and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or her Instagram @jennyccohen. You can also check out her book: Outside in Recovery: Dancing My Way Back to My Self after Breast Cancer.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
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 sharing with you my experience and insights about recovering from stress and trauma by attending a shamanic journey in the Amazon in Peru.
I recently returned from my third trip to Peru in two years. I have attended numerous other retreats with a shaman in various locations outside of the United States mainly because the psychedelic medicine used in shamanism, called Ayahuasca, is not legal in the United States at this time.
Why would I choose to go all the way to Peru, away from my family and my practice to stay isolated in a remote location in a little cabin for 16 days with no electricity, WIFI, cellphone service, no running water or plumbing, with just a mesh separating me from the Amazon jungle?
To research the effects of spending time in nature, following a fasting mimicking diet, and taking several Amazonian herbs/plants, including psychedelic plant medicine.
For my own healing, of a chronic inflammatory condition, grief, and trauma.
To teach first aid in a shamanism apprenticeship and prepare to teach my colleagues in the use of psychedelics for recovery from stress and trauma.
I have so much to share – I filled an entire SelfC.A.R.E. notebook!
One of my insights is that there are ways for people to experience many of the benefits of a healing journey, such as this, without even having to go to the Amazon. That’s what I want to tell you more about in this episode. Of course, if you would like to go on an Amazon experience, and are drawn to that experience, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and I would be happy to tell you more about it.
I’d like to start by saying that I’ve been researching how humans can recover from the effects of stress and trauma for over 25 years. In my research, I have identified effective ways that we can indeed restore balance in our body, mind and spirit. I developed a protocol – the Stress Recovery Protocol – and wrote about it in my most recent book, Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In that book, I reviewed studies related to dietary choices, sleep optimization, and activities and natural substances known to promote restoration of optimal cortisol and adrenaline levels, including psychedelic medicines.
The Healing Power of a Psychedelic Medicine Retreat
When it comes to stress, what I’ve learned over the years is that it’s not about trying to get to zero stress. I saw this clearly in my experience in the Amazon. Stress is inevitable and even healthy at a certain level. There are always going to be challenges that we face every day or guidelines we need to follow. The goal is to live our lives and do what we love, pursue our purpose and our passion, and at the same time, support ourselves to recover from the stresses that we’re exposed to in our human life existence.
That’s exactly what happens in a psychedelic medicine retreat or what is referred to as a “dieta.” I realized one day that my one-room cabin with mesh walls was my healing clinic in nature. Each day, and with each Ayahuasca ceremony (8 ceremonies in 16 days), I experienced healing from stress and trauma. Physical and emotional pain melted away as I spent time surrounded by nature, listening to the sounds of nature, bathing in the creek, meditating, journaling, and listening to and playing music as I learned to play the charango. In some cases, stress and trauma involves what we’ve put ourselves through, and sometimes it’s what others have done to us. We get stuck in a state of stress – mentally and physically – with our cortisol and adrenaline quite literally in stress mode even once the stress has passed. In this state of stress, resentment, anger, criticism and negativity about what we’ve been through (traumas, abuse, substance abuse, addiction, toxicity, etc.) can prevent us from healing. To heal, we need to find a way to be present with our feelings and our body, and to feel and release. And in that process, we also learn to forgive and accept ourselves, and to give ourselves love and compassion.
From my research and experience, there are very few substances or techniques that have the ability to support this process. Yes, forms of therapy and meditation can make a significant difference, especially with time and consistency. Ayahausca, from my observation, has the ability to help humans heal from trauma in a more efficient manner, and for that reason, I am inspired to share my experience and to continue to research the use of Ayahuasca.
We heal from stress and trauma exposure not by dismissing it, and not by pushing it under the rug, but by pulling up the rug and saying yes, I have been exposed to stress and trauma and by being present with it, by feeling the feelings, by dropping our masks and dropping our protected selves and facing this stress and trauma so we can embrace it, accept it and heal.
If we keep going with these masks and trying to cover our stress and trauma, we will keep attracting more stress and trauma because that is what is familiar to us since our childhood or experiences we had growing up. And we know that stress and trauma cause imbalances of cortisol and neurotransmitters, digestion issues, gut bacteria and microbiome imbalances, blood sugar levels, hormone imbalances, everything is out of balance and those imbalances create illness, anxiety, depression, mental health illnesses, migraines, physical pain, autoimmunity, dementia, heart disease, diabetes, etc. All the diseases we experience come from unresolved stress and trauma.
It's worth it – if you are tired of being in pain – to surrender to the experience and to make the changes that have the potential to help you heal.
The Detoxification Diet
On the dieta we follow a diet that is no sugar, no caffeine, no chocolate, no alcohol, gluten free, and dairy free. It is an anti-inflammatory diet and is mostly plant based. There was an option to have some animal protein on 4 of the 16 days. Otherwise, the diet was mostly brown rice, quinoa, potatoes, eggs, occasionally avocado, carrots, broccoli and sometimes cucumber.
This diet is very consistent with what is called a fasting mimicking diet which is higher in carbs and lower in protein and fat. While a fasting mimicking diet is associated with increased longevity, this is not a diet to follow all of the time. A fasting mimicking diet should last for 5 to 10 days and may be repeated a few times a year. It is also best to decrease your activity level during this type of diet.
What I’m researching and creating is a version of this diet that you can do from home. I want you to be able to benefit from following an anti-inflammatory diet, that stimulates detoxification, resets your metabolism, and supports you to recover from stress and toxin exposure. I am developing a 14-day detox program so that I can guide you to implement this from home and in a safe way.
With the 14-day Total Detox, you’ll also increase autophagy, which is when the body is stimulated to release old cells and build new healthy cells with new healthy mitochondria. This is very good for the brain and nervous system, as well as the whole body, and increases longevity by preventing health issues. It is perfect for fending off viruses, such as HPV, and improving fertility, mood, focus, and sleep.
The Psychedelic Medicine
Ayahuasca is a traditional plant mixture brewed drink which has been around for centuries and used as medicine in countries that have access to the Amazon. The brewed drink is prepared by boiling a mix of two plants, Ayahuasca vine and Chacruna leaves. Both plants are native to the Amazon Rainforest. This brewed drink contains DMT, which is the psychoactive component. DMT or N,N-Dimethyltryptamine occurs in many plants and animals, including human beings.
When you take Ayahuasca you drink a rather small quantity of dark-colored liquid (around 20-40 ml) dispensed by a shaman in a ceremony. It is considered a very sacred experience because it causes not just visions from the DMT, but also a process of understanding yourself, what you have experienced in your life, and provides many insights. Many people report feeling the spirit of the plant as nurturing, like a mother. The traditional view is that Ayahuasca gives us access to the spiritual realm. It is known to help us connect with our intuition and sense of self.
In an Ayahuasca ceremony, between 5 and 35 people sit around a circle, each on their own cushion and personal space. There is no touching allowed because it is a very personal and deep experience and so everyone has to respect each other’s space. It’s a very internal process. You are noticing your feelings, thoughts, visions and you are 100% conscious throughout the process, which can take up to 5 hours while the shaman runs a structured process, singing Icaros and playing medicine music, guiding everyone into the spiritual realm, and bringing them back when it’s over. All this is carried out in a very safe manner by the shaman.
The indigenous and mestizo communities regularly use ayahuasca to treat physical ailments, mental problems and frequently handle their social issues and spiritual crises with the help of the brew. Research shows that the psychedelic effects of DMT help with cognitive impairment and symptoms of posttraumatic stress and trauma disorder, depression, and anxiety.
So, this plant medicine really has the ability to heal us on a physical, emotional and spiritual level, all at the same time (by acting directly on the nervous system) in contrast to conventional psychotropic medicine (pharmaceuticals) which are chemical substances that treat by modifying receptor activity on the physical level only, without resolving the underlying issue.
Ayahuasca is anti-inflammatory and an analgesic (decreases pain). At the same time, ayahuasca is not addictive. It’s an intense experience but it’s not an addictive or habit-forming substance. You don’t need to take it ongoing, and you will not experience withdrawal symptoms after going to a retreat. The only reason you may want to attend more ceremonies is if you want the healing process to continue.
It is an emotional experience too, because you are processing all the feelings you have deep inside by accessing them and recognizing and accepting them as part of who you are and the stress and trauma you have experienced in your life. There is also a deep feeling of gratitude as well as a feeling of connection with yourself and the people you love.
So, if you find yourself living with stress and trauma, emotional pain, physical pain, feeling like you are stuck in your life, and if you feel like you have tried everything else, then attending an Ayahuasca retreat or ceremony might be an option for you to consider.
Healing from Trauma at Home
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can overcome trauma and stress and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. approach so you get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
If you are interested in learning how you can implement aspects of the Amazon experience and detoxify from home, I welcome you to sign up and listen to a FREE Online Detox Masterclass: Detox Yourself! How to do it Right. In the class, I cover everything you need to know about how to do an effective detox – mind, body, and spirit - without stressing yourself more.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
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 Carrie Rowan. Carrie is a Certified Mindset Energy Coach and an International Best-Selling Author of Tell A New Story: 5 Simple Steps to Release Your Negative Stories and Bring Joy to Your Life. She is also an award-winning singer and songwriter, a Reiki Master and Host of the popular Podcast, Look for the Good.
Carrie specializes in coaching women who want more from life to go from humming a sad song about their situation to finding their voice and whistling a new upbeat tune as they skip along their journey with joy as the soundtrack of their lives.
From a very young age Carrie was a self-help junkie. She was surrounded by this growing up with her family and developed a profound interest for self-improvement. As she grew up she went into the corporate world for 10 years but found out that it did not fulfill her life. So, she went back to what was her passion as a kid, which is music. Now she finds it very fulfilling to help people find their passion, which in most cases is what we did as kids.
Her next natural step was to write her book, which is based on her deepest personal stories. All the tragedies, good times, trauma, and things that she wished did not happen but did happen are expressed in her book. Through her book she hopes to help people see how she went through all that and what she did to heal.
Accepting Our Stories
We do need to share our experiences and stories but often times we get stuck in repeating them and going through those feelings again and again, making you feel even worse. It’s important that we acknowledge that we can’t change the past or what happened to us, but we can choose to take control of our minds and the way we tell our stories because many times it’s these stories (and the way we tell them and feel about them) what holds us back from achieving what we want in life.
We might be seeing this impact in our physical health or maybe in not accomplishing a goal we have, and we tend to ask why is this happening to me? And many times, we don’t realize it could be these experiences and stories that we can’t let go of and allow ourselves to heal.
All these negative stories like the “woulda, coulda, shouldas” or the “if only” or “shame” type of stories definitely affect our mind, body and spirit because these stories contain a lot of our negative and limiting beliefs from things that happened a long time ago in our lives.
Releasing The Negative Impact of our Stories
Step one for this is get a notebook and start writing down your stories. Once you become aware of your stories you can’t go back. You will start realizing which stories are the ones that are holding you back.
The second step is using the acronym mentioned in the book Tell A New Story: S.T.O.R.Y. which are the 5 steps to follow to release the negative stories in your life:
S: State of Mind – Learn how to manage your state of mind so it doesn’t manage you.
T: True Intention – Understanding that all of our stories have an intention.
O: Outcome – Beginning with the end in mind. Realize how our stories impact others.
R: Reframe – Looking for the good even in your messiest and ugliest stories.
Y: You had the power all along – The power to change our minds has been within us since birth.
As you progress, those stories start to change themselves because you realize that these stories have been holding you back and that maybe you don’t want to keep telling them. And you’ll find yourself pulling back whenever you are telling those stories again, and that is progress right there.
If you really think about it, what is happening in our lives is essentially a repeat of our past experiences until we get enough awareness to realize that we want to change that pattern.
How Energy Balance and Creativity can Help
Spiritual and energetic activities, as well as creative ones can help because it’s all happening in our heads. When we use these tools, our bodies are more capable of releasing that stress related to our negative stories. Whether it’s reiki or meditation or a morning ritual, this will help with balancing your body’s energy and then the mind will follow.
Other activities like singing, journaling, or dancing are also necessary to release the negative impact of our stories. We must allow ourselves to do these and not hold back. When we engage in a creative activity a positive energy flows through our bodies and we get connected to the universe. We spend so much time in our minds worrying about everything, and we need to bring this down to our hearts and celebrate who we are as humans with some joy.
The Power of Gratitude
Our brains are pre-disposed to look for what’s wrong because that’s what has kept us safe through evolution. We need to stop for an upgrade now and start looking for what’s good in our lives. In order to do that we have to re-wire our brains. We have to teach our brains to start noticing what is important to us and feel genuine gratitude for the things that happen in our lives.
It’s really important to understand the science and the physiology behind this. This isn’t just something that sounds good. The science behind it shows that the vibration of gratitude is way higher than other states of being and that if we choose that state on purpose and put our focus on that it can be very healing for our bodies and our minds.
Using Meditation to Release Negative Stories
Meditation and mindfulness can help us have more awareness and train our brains to focus on what we want them to focus on.
There are so many types of meditation, the key is finding one that works for you. By being proactive and meditating every day, the benefits will accumulate over time, just like stress does with the negative impact on our bodies and our minds. And so, you will be more prepared and calmer in the moments of stress.
Remember that this doesn’t have to be overwhelming for you and that you don’t have to start meditating every day for 30 minutes starting tomorrow or start writing all your stories and aim to finish in one day. It’s important that you find a pace that works for you and that you start implementing small changes in your everyday life, because it’s those small daily steps that will lead you down the path of where you really want to be.
If you want to reach out to Carrie and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or her Instagram @carrierowanauthor. You can also check out her book Tell A New Story: 5 Simple Steps to Release Your Negative Stories and Bring Joy to Your Life.
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 this last trip that I made to the Amazon in Peru I took out my notebook and started writing my life story, as part of the R in my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol, which stands for Recovery Activities. I found this experience to be so liberating and it really helped me be more compassionate with myself.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
In today’s episode I am going to be diving in deep to talk about the gut biome vagina connection. That’s right, there is an interconnection between gut health and vaginal health.
As a naturopathic doctor and midwife, specializing in women’s health as well as a naturopathic doctor specializing in gut health, I’ve been observing this relationship between the gut and the vagina for many years.
It wasn’t until recently, in 2019, that studies starting to come out that demonstrate the relationship between the gut and the vagina. So, I want to help you to understand why there is an interconnection between them and how understanding this connection will help you heal.
A lot of times, if you are having female reproductive issues or vaginal health issues you would normally go see a gynecologist, but they don’t deal with digestion issues. Or if you would have digestive issues, you would go see a gastroenterologist and they don’t deal with the vaginal area. So, when you’re seeing different specialists, they might not understand or address the connection between these two areas of your body.
The other thing is that the way to address it is not with medications. The way to heal and optimize the gut-vagina connection is through diet, herbs, probiotics, and natural substances. And this requires for you to be evaluated by a functional practitioner that evaluates your body as a whole and use an approach that is outside the standard medical approach.
What are the health issues related to this connection?
One of the key health issues related to this connection is the predominance of HPV. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease so most of us are exposed to this virus. Now, most people will clear the virus within a couple of years so we know the human body can fend off the virus by itself and it doesn’t always cause cancer. But for some women this virus does cause abnormal cells on the cervix or vagina. So, the question is why are these women susceptible to this virus? Why is HPV not being cleared by their bodies?
This risk of HPV is associated with imbalances in the gut biome and vaginal biome (microbiome or commensal bacteria), as well as inflammation in both the gut and cervicovaginal area. Also, I have witnessed that fertility is related with this biome too.
When we focus on healing leaky gut, imbalanced gut bacteria and inflammation caused by food sensitivities, we will see an improvement in the ability of the body to fight the HPV virus and an improvement in fertility. This is why women who follow my protocol for healing HPV – which involves addressing gut health - see an improvement in their ovulation and ability to get pregnant.
Other health issues related to the gut and vaginal biome are Polycystic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS, irregular menstrual cycles, menstrual cramps, dysmenorrhea, endometriosis, vaginal infections, urinary tract (bladder) infections, and autoimmunity.
This is why it’s so important to pay attention to your gut health.
Digestion influence on our bodies
We have a sense about how this works: we eat, we digest our food, we get the nutrients out of our food and any food that we don’t absorb gets eliminated in the stool. But sometimes we are racing through our days, and we don’t pay attention to our body’s digestive needs. In fact, when we are very stressed, our digestion gets turned off and therefore, we are not able to absorb the nutrients in our food and we could develop a condition called leaky gut which is when the intestinal cells are not as healthy as they should be.
Also, stress and trauma exposure affect the balance of bacteria. And we have bacteria living throughout our whole bodies, in our gut, intestines, vagina, uterus, ovaries, skin, etc. All these bacteria influence our health in many ways starting with our immune system. So, the gut biome really affects our ability to fend off infections. Also, when we have an imbalanced gut biome, we are more susceptible to autoimmunity illnesses like celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, and rheumatoid arthritis.
If you have any of these health issues you should immediately pay attention to your gut biome. Additionally, you should pay attention to your stress and trauma exposure. Not trying to ignore it, but help your body recover from it. For example, if stress and trauma are causing leaky gut and an imbalance in the gut biome then we can focus on healing the leaky gut and gut biome in order to recover from stress.
If you have leaky gut, then your gut lining, specifically the intestinal wall cells, are not healthy, so your food “leaks” through, triggering an immune response which causes inflammation that spreads everywhere, including in your reproductive system.
What affects our gut biome?
The foods we eat determine the bacteria living in our gut. If we are eating too much food and not digesting it correctly it ends up overfeeding the bacteria and then we have too much of certain bacteria and that also causes inflammation and more disruption in our bodies.
The gut biome and vaginal biome are also affected by other things like if you were born by vaginal birth (this is how babies get the bacteria to seed their digestion and intestines) so people who are born through a C-section are not getting all the bacteria they need for their gut biome to work correctly.
Your age, where you live, occupation, diet, stress and trauma exposure are also factors that affect your gut biome. Also exposure to antibiotics, because they kill bad and good bacteria
disrupting your healthy gut biome. The use of laxatives and other medications like contraceptives, toxins, chemicals, and pesticides can all affect the gut biome.
So if you have been suffering from recurring vaginal infections or even HPV for a while now it could be that you haven’t addressed your gut health and may have leaky gut and/or an imbalance in your gut biome.
What to do to have a healthy gut biome
If you want to know if you have a healthy gut biome there is a specialty test that you can do through my office. It’s a stool panel that is a DNA analysis to show which bacteria are predominant in your intestines. This really helps to see if there is overgrowing or undergrowing bacteria, if there’s yeast, leaky gut, inflammatory reactions to gluten and the overall health of your gut biome.
So, if you’re having a lot of digestive issues like bloating, gas, irregular bowel movements, constipation, or diarrhea or even autoimmunity and HPV that is not going away, then this panel will show what is out of balance and then I can help you rebalance your gut biome. You can schedule your test here.
One of the first things I recommend is to do a leaky gut test. To me, the best way to check for leaky gut is with a high-quality food sensitivity panel that you can do at home. This test will show you which foods are leaking through your intestines and triggering an inflammation response in your body. You can order this test here. Remember that healing leaky gut is the first step to rebalance your gut biome. If you want to start right away you can order my leaky gut pro package here and begin creating the foundation for rebalancing your gut biome.
Taking probiotics also helps promoting a healthy gut biome but it’s not about just swallowing a lot of probiotics. This will not solve the problem if you haven’t addressed leaky gut and inflammation first.
Another important thing to consider is your diet. If we always eat the same foods we are only feeding and promoting the growth of certain types of bacteria. It’s important to have a healthy diverse diet eating vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, fiber, different sources of protein and healthy fats. This way we are feeding a diverse population of bacteria.
Taking time when you’re eating is important too. Chewing your food well, taking deep breaths, feeling relaxed, telling your parasympathetic nervous system and your vagus nerve that you want to digest and absorb your nutrients and feed your healthy gut biome. If we are racing through our meals, we are not going to be able to feed our gut biome correctly.
Having a healthy gut biome will help with the health of your intestinal cells and therefore reduce inflammation in your body which will translate into having healthy bacteria living everywhere in your body including the vaginal area so you are going to be preventing HPV and
cervical cancer. So the strategy specifically for HPV needs to be to reduce inflammation vaginally and rebalance the healthy bacteria living there. And this also applies for preventing BV and yeast or improving fertility even.
If you want to learn more about this be sure to check out my Leaky Gut Masterclass here. You can also download my Leaky Gut Guide for FREE.
I will also be hosting a FREE Online Workshop: 5 Days to Heal HPV so make sure to sign up here. And here you can find my FREE HPV Recovery Guide.
If you are interested in a detoxification, I will soon be hosting a FREE Online Detox Masterclass: Detox Yourself! How to do it Right, where we will cover everything you need to know about how to do an effective detox.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can overcome trauma and stress and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. approach so you get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
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 Mira Dessy. Mira is known as The Ingredient Guru. She is the author of The Pantry Principle: how to read the label and understand what’s really in your food. She is also a speaker, holistic nutritionist, and real food advocate. She emphasizes the importance of a healthy lifestyle through whole foods.
After experiencing years of debilitating digestive issues and health challenges, Mira realized the healing strength of food after she learned to eat right, slowly but surely regaining her health.
Mira was inspired to share the knowledge she gained on her journey to better health, and now her mission is to help people feel balanced, healthy, and to support them as they work to achieve their health goals.
Eat Well, Be Well
One of the things we tend to forget is that many of the health conditions that we experience, including the more serious ones like ulcerative colitis or arthritis or diabetes and the not so serious ones like body aches or bloating, are the result of years of exposure to non-food ingredients and not nourishing our bodies the way they need it.
It’s important to know that every body is unique, exceptional and one of a kind. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. And many times we end up having this low-level unidentified disruption in what is really going on. And the truth is that it’s not just what you eat, it’s what you absorb. So, if your gut is not in good shape, you are not going to be able to absorb the nutrients your body needs.
If you eat foods with no nutritional value, your body is going to have to do something with it before it can get to the things that it actually needs. So, there is this whole paradigm of beginning to recognize that the gut is the key to what’s going on with our health and well-being.
Our food can be our medicine, but we have to recognize that we live in human bodies our bodies require us to digest the food, absorb the nutrients and metabolize those nutrients and so, if we are missing those steps and putting whatever in our mouths thinking that our bodies will handle it, we are likely to end up with some serious health issues.
It’s only when we come back and analyze what we are really eating and if our bodies are digesting these foods correctly (and also absorbing the nutrients), when we will see the benefits in our health.
One of the things that is so important to keep in mind is that there are so many different systems and processes going on in our bodies but the best place to start is at the foundation. Regardless of what’s going on with your body, if your gut is better, you’re better. There may be
other things like sleeping well or exercising or taking care of your mind but when we start at a foundational level, it provides the body with all of the basic building blocks it needs. After this is done, we can layer in the other things to find out what works best for your individual self.
Where to Start
The best place to start is in your own pantry. I encourage people to build the habit of reading the label in their foods and very best place to do this is in your pantry, go look at what’s already in there.
We as humans have our 20 favorite foods and we tend to shop on autopilot. And unfortunately, there are probably things in your pantry right now that you don’t want in your body. When you start reading the labels you realize there are things like artificial colors, or artificial flavors in your foods and you definitely don’t want to be putting these inside your body, if you want your health to be as good as it can be.
I also encourage something called brand disloyalty. Don’t buy the brand, buy what you need. This is because companies change, they merge or they get bought, and many times in these processes they don’t change the brand, they just change what’s in the package. Be loyal to yourself.
5 Things to Avoid
First of all, avoid anything that has the word artificial on the label. If it is artificial, it’s not real, it is not food and our bodies do not need it. This includes artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, artificial colors, etc.
Another thing to avoid is high fructose corn syrup. It is not good for our bodies, especially for our liver. There are substitutes that we also need to watch out for that are as bad or worse, like agave nectar with higher fructose by volume than high fructose corn syrup.
You also want to avoid crystalline fructose because it is just dehydrated high fructose corn syrup. These tend to be in desserts and baked goods.
Carrageenan is another thing you want to avoid. This is an emulsifier and thickening agent extracted from red edible seaweeds. The type of process followed to extract it results in a byproduct that is not good for our bodies. It has a negative impact on our gut health, it can cause ulcerative colitis like symptoms in the gut and in laboratory studies it was shown to cause renal bumps.
Another sweetener to avoid is allulose. It is found in nature in very small quantities and now it has been replicated in laboratory settings to produce large quantities of it. It is really bad for the gut and makes you bloat. Unfortunately, it has found its way into many keto and paleo diets and protein bars also.
Lastly, stay away from anything that is not a real word. If it is just letters like BHT, BHA, EDTA, TBHQ, etc. All those are abbreviations for really long chemical names and these chemicals are used to preserve foods so they can sit in shelves for longer. These are not foods for the body. It is better to stick to ingredients you recognize as foods.
So next time you go to the supermarket just pick one category that you want to clean up, like non-dairy milks or canned soups or pickles or condiments. This way you don’t have to spend 10 hours at the supermarket reading every single label. Once you have one category cleaned up you can move to the next one the next time you go grocery shopping.
Not a One-Size-Fits-All
You don’t need to have a disease like IBS or Crohn’s to be impacted by any of the non-food ingredients in many foods out there. It is true that if you have IBS or Crohn’s the symptoms are going to be amplified and you may be in pain and trying to recover for weeks after being exposed to a certain non-food ingredient, but perfectly healthy people can also feel discomfort, bloating, constipation or diarrhea as a result.
There is so much information available online that can be conflicting, overwhelming, or just plain wrong for your particular body.
Part of the challenge we face is that for many of us it depends on how quickly our system responds. We could have slow motility and so the symptoms would not show for a while, or it could be also a matter of how much we are consuming of a specific ingredient.
Also, some things affect certain bodies in different ways than others. In the end, it’s a matter of being conscious about what you are eating and how that makes you feel. Each body’s response is different and it’s our responsibility to keep track. As we previously said, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
The important thing to remember is that no matter what your story is, if you are conscious and you nourish your body, that’s always going to be better than not doing it at all.
If you want to reach out to Mira and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or hes Instagram @theingredientguru. You can also check out her Masterclass: The Preparedness Pantry.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can apply Clean Eating (The C in my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol) so you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
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 diving in deep to talk about detoxification. This includes whether you are considering a physical detoxification and/or a spiritual and emotional detoxification.
We will be talking about why you might be thinking about doing a detoxification, what is it? what does it mean? What does it include or what you might want to include in your detoxification? and what to consider when thinking about doing a detox for your body, your mind and spirit.
Why do people detox in the first place?
Whether we like to admit it or not, it’s clear that as human beings we are affected by the stress that we are exposed to, including trauma (even from earlier times in our lives) and those stresses and traumas affect us on a spiritual, emotional, and physical level. Also toxins from our environment, whether from air, food, water or other toxins like mold, affect us as well on all of those levels.
Often times we find ourselves overconsuming substances like alcohol, food, sugar or other medications or substances and this is a sign that our body is in need of a detoxification.
We might have been under a lot of stress or exposed to toxins and we end up seeking out something to help us feel better or to numb the discomfort and the emotional/physical pain. So we end up choosing substances that are even more toxic to our bodies.
Another sign that our body gives us when we are in need of a detoxification is when we start developing health issues. Whether it’s fatigue, anxiety, sleep or digestive issues, infections, HPV, weight gain that you can’t lose or skin rashes, autoimmunity issues, etc. All this tells us there is unresolved stress, trauma and toxins underlying.
What I do as a Naturopathic Doctor specializing in this area is help people get to the bottom of that. Sometimes people do not want to become dependent on medications and substances to deal with what they’ve been through; they want to really get to the root cause and resolve it so they can get back to feeling good without having to be depending on medications and other substances. So, if you’re listening and you really want to change things and effectively address the underlying cause of your illness then you are in the right place.
What does detoxification mean?
It can mean literally getting the toxins out of your body, so a lot of times when you hear about a detox or a cleanse it will involve avoiding substances that we often overconsume like alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, refined sugar, fats, etc. that we often choose to feel better and cope with
stress. But we can help our bodies recover from stress, so we are not feeling the need to overconsume these substances.
Other times it will involve avoiding getting exposed to toxins in air or water.
So, a detoxification can involve avoiding foods, substances, or toxins in our environment for a period of time in order to help our bodies get these out and recover because a lot of these toxins stay and build up in our bodies once they get in. So think about what can you do to stop putting in that’s toxic, and what can you do to help your body move the toxins out. This is how we generally think of a detox on a physical level.
Also, there is so much you can do to support your body’s natural detoxifying processes. Toxins in our body are processed and eliminated through the liver by utilizing enzymes that metabolize toxins, from there, toxins go into our bile and then our intestines to get out of our bodies. So we want to support our effective liver and digestive tract function. We also release toxins through breath, sweat and urine, so breathwork, exercise and drinking enough water are key to help our bodies with detoxification.
What can we do to help our bodies detoxify?
We can help our bodies with its natural detoxifying process through nutrients. Nutrients help our liver detoxify our system. B Vitamins and Methyl Folate for example are essential for helping our liver with its detoxifying process (you can learn more about this in How Humans Heal Episode #145: Efficient Methylation and Its Impact on our Health), you can find a good source of Methyl Folate here.
Antioxidants are also necessary for our detoxification process. Oxidative stress is how stress looks inside our cells. When stress throws off the balance in our cells we have a rise in oxidative stress which causes damage to our cells and DNA if we don’t have antioxidants in our bodies. By raising the antioxidants levels in our bodies, we can help improve maintain oxidative stress low in our cells. You can find a good source here.
Also, for our bodies to be able to function properly and detoxify we need to make sure we are eating healthy and by healthy I mean giving your body the three macronutrients that it can’t produce by itself: Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats. These are found in the foods you eat every day and they are necessary for our bodies to produce energy and have all systems work efficiently.
Of course, if you are under stress your body will not be able to absorb these nutrients efficiently. If you notice digestive issues, you could be suffering from leaky gut which is exactly our bodies inability to absorb nutrients correctly. You can find more about it here, and a good set of supplements to heal from this condition here.
It’s important to consider also that detoxification is not a one-size-fits-all process. It must be based on your unique body, your genetics, your nutrient status, your stress exposure, and the toxins that are affecting you as an individual. So, if you do not have the help of a practitioner, you can get yourself into a tight spot. If we make big changes too quickly, if we don’t take into account everything we need to and if we don’t individualize it we can cause more harm than good to our bodies. I can help you individualize your detoxification so we make sure you are doing exactly what your body needs.
How do we start with an effective detox?
If it’s your first detoxification it’s important to start in a gentle way. So, what should you include in your detox as a starting point? First of all, I am going to use my C.A.R.E. acronym as it helps us to think about what we should be including in our lives every day. C is for Clean Eating, A is for Adequate Sleep, R stands for Recovery Activities and E for Exercise.
When you are going to do a detox or reset the main thing is to think about your diet, how can you shift to what would be considered clean eating. It might mean decrease your alcohol intake for a period of time, decrease or avoid caffeine, sugar, gluten and dairy (which are two of the most inflammatory foods), it could mean also avoiding eggs, nuts and soy depending on your food sensitivity (you can find your foods sensitivity by doing a food panel home test, which you can find here). Also choosing organic foods and complementing them with good supplements, vitamins and herbs, drinking mostly water and tea, and thinking about the fasting part of it too.
This is what I have put together in my 14-day detox kit which includes a protein powder (animal or plant based), antioxidants, and an amino acid formula to help your liver to detoxify. You can find it here.
What about an emotional/spiritual detox?
This is where we can bring it all around. Instead of just focusing on the physical we can also focus on the emotional and spiritual. There are different ways in which you can do this and I am happy to guide you more on this.
I have been working on this for many years in different forms, travelling around the world and especially in Peru working with a Shaman and also working with spiritual healing and so I integrate all of that into my 14-day detox program to guide you on how you can start to address some of the emotional stresses and how this is affecting your whole body as well as your mind.
It is so important to learn how we can connect with ourselves in a spiritual way (you can learn more about this in How Humans Heal Episode #146: Getting to Your Best Mental, Emotional and Spiritual State with Matt Belair), if you feel like you could use a chance to reconnect with yourself, with your purpose, what you value about yourself and your sense of self love then that’s where spirituality can really make a difference.
Sometimes the stresses that we are exposed to in our lives have to do with the emotional and spiritual level, but it is possible to address this in combination with the stresses on the physical level, without it being overwhelming and that’s the key to me, I want to help you recover from stress without adding more stress in the way.
An emotional/spiritual detox will also involve the other 3 letters in the acronym C.A.R.E. If you are following an emotional detox it is very important to focus on getting enough quality sleep, doing recovery activities (like having some time to yourself in silence, spending time in nature or with your loved ones or your pets even) and doing some kind of physical activity to help you feel better on an emotional level.
How can we include a detox without affecting our daily routine?
My 14-day detox program is designed for you to follow while still doing your day-to-day life, while still working and taking care of children or taking care of other tasks. You do not have to completely separate from your everyday life in order to do this 14-day detox.
You can also set aside some time in your schedule to just focus on detox activities if you want to. This can be 3 days, two weeks, a month, etc. Whatever fits your personal schedule. The key thing here is to set that time aside and be able to communicate this to the people in your life so that everyone knows that you are taking this time to focus on detoxification. This is even more powerful and transformative.
The important thing is that you begin in a gentle way and incorporate new things at a pace that works for you so you can build your specific detox strategy as something that you feel comfortable following and that makes you feel better in the end.
If you want to learn even more about this be sure to check out my FREE Online Detox Masterclass: Detox Yourself! How to do it Right, where we cover everything you need to know about how to do an effective detox.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can overcome trauma and stress and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. approach so you get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
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 Matt Belair, a performance coach who has a ton of experience helping athletes, traveling, learning spirituality from different areas of the world, and now he is helping people by coaching them on their performance in their life.
Matt has studied human potential his entire life. He has dedicated himself to uncovering and expanding the limits of human potential and consciousness. He is an accomplished athlete, sought after high performance coach, host of the Master Mind, Body, and Spirit show which, reached #1 in iTunes in over 10 countries and is a best-selling author helping people live lives of passion purpose, fulfillment, and success.
In this episode we stop for a moment to have a conversation we don’t normally even think about having. In our very busy lives, we do not normally stop and ask, “Am I really doing what I want with my life?” And “If I wanted to do something else with my life how could I even do that?”
For Matt this came very naturally in high school, he was very curious about spirituality and the idea of who he was, why was he here and what the heck is going on in this planet. His whole pursuit was trying to find the truth to the deeper questions in life about spirituality.
I think it takes a lot of courage to follow a path like that one. It’s along the lines of a really philosophical path of asking who are we as humans and what are we meant to do. Trying to find answers to questions that we do not normally ask ourselves or others like “what is the meaning of life?” or “why do you think you’re here?”, “what is most important to you?”, “how do we find happiness here?”, “what challenges or struggles are you going through?” and “how do we live up to our highest potential?”.
So today we go deep into these ideas to see how we can implement them into our own lives to improve our life quality and also to find ways in which we can support our families and friends in their lives.
Bringing Exercise and Spirituality Together
Martial Arts is one of the only sports that tends to blend the concepts of exercise and spirituality. Matt learned all about this by studying about Bruce Lee and travelling to China to work with Shaolin Monks.
In martial arts you have this mental, emotional, spiritual and focus side where you learn how to control your emotions, visualize your goal, and calm your mind. This takes away all the noise off your mind and lets you really focus to attain your goal, through meditation and energy direction.
Martial arts also have a very tough physical side in which you teach your body to endure enormous amounts of stress and pain, so you really test the limits of the human body.
The combination of the two makes a whole, you can’t have one without the other if you want to achieve your highest potential.
If you apply that kind of dedication to what is most meaningful to you in this life, then there is no way that you could fail, you will succeed at some level, whether it’s a great success or a minimal success, as long as it matters to you it will still be a success.
So, you have to start by asking yourself what matters to you most and why, what are your values and how do you want to live your life.
Most of the time we do not ask ourselves these questions, we wake up and we just start going through our to-do list, running through tasks and we think we are tired, and we don’t have time for that. But the truth is it might be hard but you have to make time for this self-reflection so you can steer your life into doing the thing that you love.
Manifestation and The Law of Attraction
The God force is a concept that Matt developed stating that some greater force created us and that we are here for a reason.
This creation force has the power to change your life in any kind of way. On the other hand, there is the Zen concept where we are constantly influencing our reality and we can use the law of attraction: “I attract more to my life of whatever I give my attention, energy and focus to, whether positive or negative”. But you must also listen to that inner voice telling you who you really are, what kind of person do you really want to be.
Traveling and Broadening Your Perspective
There is a lot of value to traveling and listening to other people’s perspectives, learning about other cultures, looking at different realities other than our own.
There is a concept called The Formula for Truth, where the basic idea is that all information out there is just that, information. We have our own perspective and other people have their perspective.
What we often do is defend our point of view and our ideas, which are mostly based on our life experience, instead of opening completely to the other person’s perspective, point of view and opinions.
What this does is it narrows our world, and we keep being stuck in our small reality instead of being more open, having a greater degree of pattern recognition, and a higher acuity to discern
the truth. If we have more information about different topics then we are more likely to be free to act and take action to attain our goals.
Vibrations of the Energetic States that We can Be In
A lot of times we assume we do not have control over these states, but when we look at techniques like meditation for example or even just a gratitude journal, research shows that when we put intention into these activities that we can shift into a state of joy, love and gratitude and therefore shift our energetic state.
Most people believe that they are victims to their emotional states, but emotions are just the result of an external stimulus that creates an internal response. And the reality is that you can control those internal responses. We just need to take a minute, some deep breaths and choose how we want our internal response to look like. With practice we will not just automatically jump into the first internal response or emotion we feel.
It is absolutely normal to feel negative emotions like frustration, but we can choose not to react in frustration or to live in frustration even. So when you get up and life is frustrating you maybe stop reacting to it in that way and start realizing that frustration is part of life, this way you can start building your mental resilience.
To be easy and kind on yourself is also very important. If we can be a little kinder and more compassionate to ourselves, we can create a little space where we can separate the critical thoughts from ourselves and identify how do we really want to respond to any external stimulus.
Being Committed but not Attached to the Outcome
It’s all about being in alignment, congruent to yourself and enjoying the process. If you enjoy the process, you will be able to act from power, because no matter the outcome you will have had success as you enjoy the process and grow as a person while on it.
The path of following your dreams and purpose is probably going to be way harder than getting a comfy job and paying your bills, but it will also be much more rewarding.
It’s about figuring out what is most important to you and how can you take that and use it to contribute to other people. If you have a pure intent and you do your best, the outcome you get will be much more satisfying and fulfilling than the one you will get if you are not true to yourself, whether that outcome is a huge success or not.
It’s important to identify the reasons why you are doing what you’re doing and do it for the right reasons. For example, if your only motivation is money, it’s very unlikely that you will have a fulfilling outcome in what you’re doing. You could see yourself in a situation where you start to sacrifice your values and that, in the end, causes a dissonance that leads to suffering.
Potentially, this whole entire human experience could be this opportunity to not sell our souls.
When we’re ok with what we have and what we do, when we’re ok with our trust and relationships, when we’re proud of ourselves and act with integrity, we are going to be in a powerful mental, emotional and spiritual state, and we are going to be more empowered in our decision making and, most importantly, when we die and we face that mirror on the other side we’re going to have less regrets because we will know we did our best.
If you want to reach out to Matt and learn how he can help you, please check out his website or his Instagram @matt.belair.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can reconnect with yourself by overcoming trauma and stress and applying my SelfC.A.R.E. approach so you get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
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 diving in deep to talk about Methylation. What is it, why it’s important for our health, how to measure it and what you can do to improve it in your body.
Methylation is basically what our B Vitamins are up to in our bodies and the biochemical processes that they are involved in.
A lot of times we hear about B vitamins, like B12 for example or B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 or even B9, which is Methyl Folate.
We know that B vitamins are important for us, they are in every multi-vitamin supplement out there, some people also take a B complex or a pre-natal vitamin which will include a mixture of the B vitamins because they work together. Most of the time we don’t just take one specific type of B vitamin.
If you are deficient in one of the particular B vitamins, let’s say B12 you might be taking extra of B12 but it’s important to keep in mind that these B vitamins work together. So if you’re taking B12 you also want to make sure you are taking all of the other B vitamins as well, so your body has all of them.
Note: there are rare instances, when working with a patient with methylation issues, and they feel worse when they take methylfolate, where I guide them to introduce B vitamins in a specific sequence while addressing other factors that affect methylation.
What is the process called Methylation?
It has to do with those B vitamins coming in contact with other biochemical substances in our bodies and the transfer of a methyl group (a carbon hydrogen group). If we could look closely we would see that these chemicals are being transferred from one substance to another.
Our bodies have biochemical hand-off sequences that occur constantly. And these sequences are occurring in every cell in our body all day long, all night long, every day. And our bodies require the right nutrients for those sequences to happen in the best way possible.
Processes with B vitamins (methylation) are essential to build our neurotransmitters (like serotonin and dopamine) and also to break down our neurotransmitters (like adrenaline when the threat is gone).
Normally we would get B vitamins from our diet. A lot of the essential B vitamins are found in animal protein (B6, B9 and B12), so if you are a vegetarian that’s especially when a B vitamin supplement may be necessary.
As usual, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, we are all such unique bio-chemical individuals, including how we detoxify, which is another process in which methylation comes into play. If our bodies do not have enough of the essential B vitamins, they will not be able to detoxify efficiently, and these toxins will continue to circulate in our bodies causing trouble.
Methylation is also important for protecting our DNA from oxidative stress (I will be covering this in another video).
Some of the symptoms of not having adequate methylation are fatigue, anxiety, depression, headaches, migraines, sleep issues, digestive issues and skin rashes, menstrual cramps, etc.
Often times we are not going to hear about this in the standard doctor’s office. We may get diagnosed with depression and get a pill to work on the symptoms, but the underlying cause is really this process of methylation.
In summary, good methylation is directly related to a better quality and quantity of life. So, the more you can be aware of your methylation, making sure you’re taking enough of all essential B vitamins for your body, it’s going to make a huge difference on your health today and into the future.
How to understand your individual methylation processes?
Here is where it’s important to understand that if you’re taking B vitamins and you are still not feeling well there could be a jam (like a traffic jam) in your methylation processes (the transfer of substances from one stage to the other that we mentioned earlier) so you are not really getting the benefits of the B vitamins.
So, what causes these jams in our methylation processes?
This could be due to a co-factor nutrient that is missing. A lot of these metabolic pathways have additional nutrients that are necessary in order for them to work right. Magnesium for example, this is one of the most common co-factors of bio-chemical processes in our bodies and, at the same time it’s one of the most common nutrients that we don’t have enough of.
Another potential source of a jam is too much stress or toxin exposure, these affect your cortisol and adrenaline levels and they cause inflammation in your body, same with foods that are high in sugar, for example. When you have higher stress and inflammation in your body this could potentially cause a jam in your methylation process.
The same happens with toxins in the environment, if you’re having foods that are not organic and you’re getting exposed to pesticides or if you’re exposed to mold toxins in your home, these could be reasons for a traffic jam for your methylation process.
Also, toxins in your digestion. If a person has imbalanced, overgrowing gut bacteria in their digestive tract, they will be exposed to toxins produced by that bacteria and could get their methylation process jammed. Here I can help you determine if you have imbalanced gut bacteria that needs to be addressed. We can address this by using anti-microbial herbs and specialized probiotics, so you get your gut bacteria rebalanced, and I can guide you through this process if you follow my protocol.
If you have a jam in your methylation process, taking B vitamins could actually make you feel worse, because there is a clogged drain in the system and now the sink is overflowing and this could also cause headaches and anxiety. And I can also help you walk through the steps to figure out how to get rid of all the jams in your methylation process.
I have been helping patients with methylation for the past couple of decades, specially since the MTHFR gene became more well known. If you have MTHFR gene variations this could also influence your ability to make the conversions in the pathway of the methylation process.
In summary, we need to clean the whole system by addressing the causes of the jams and then your body will be able to use the B vitamins supplements enhancing your methylation process and get rid of the toxins more easily, leading to better neurotransmitters, leading to better mood, better sleep and better adrenaline, cortisol, serotonin and dopamine levels.
To learn more about MTHFR gene variations, and methylation, please watch my free MTHFR masterclass. https://doctordoni.com/mthfr-masterclass
A lot of times there is no need to add additional B vitamins. So, how do you know if you need them?
For this it is necessary to monitor your homocysteine levels. Homocysteine helps reveal your methylation activity and how well your body is using B vitamins. It can be measured in blood work, and this is what I consider to be essential information for everybody. And homocysteine levels should be measured at least once a year. You can do this test at a regular lab or you can contact my office so we can help ordering it for you.
If your homocysteine is above 7 then your methylation process has jams that need to be addressed. And this will not get solved by getting more methyl folate or more B vitamins. We need to get to the root cause of the jams in your unique methylation process and clean them out. It’s not about taking another supplement. It’s about helping your body’s metabolism work better.
If your homocysteine is below 6 (which I often see in women who are going through pregnancy and post-partum and breastfeeding because the homocysteine gets used up) then your body needs different nutrients to help it catch back up again and I can guide through that process as well, and make sure you have enough homocysteine.
Only when we see your homocysteine levels then we can act accordingly and solve your biochemistry and the underlying cause for your health issues.
I guide you to address methylation in my online program called MTHFR Reset. https://drdoni.lpages.co/mthfr-reset-evg/
How is Methylation affected by trauma?
Often times a reason that is overlooked for methylation not being efficient is history of trauma and stress. If you have experienced trauma in your childhood or adulthood, very stressful events, betrayal, toxic relationships and toxic environments. it could be a cause of your methylation process not working correctly. This is also something that can be reversed, and I can guide you on how to do it.
When you start working on your emotional, spiritual and energetic healing, as you start working on rebalancing yourself and your life (through a good self-care routine) and as you start clearing out the chemical toxins out of your body and making sure you have adequate nutrient sources, then you will see your methylation process start working efficiently again.
I’ve been helping patients with trauma and stress (by rebalancing cortisol, adrenaline, and neurotransmitter levels) for over 20 years. That is how I identified the 5 most common stress response patterns, which are the variations of cortisol and adrenaline levels after stress exposure. You can find out your unique stress type by taking my quiz here. This way you will know where you stand and what you can do to rebalance your cortisol and adrenaline levels.
If you would like to find out more on this subject, I encourage you to read one of my books, I have written 5 books on stress and trauma. You can find my latest book, “Master Your Stress Reset Your Health” here.
You can also access my Stress Warrior Program here, where I teach you how to optimize your cortisol, adrenaline, and neurotransmitters.
Remember, it is never a one-size-fits-all approach. We must individualize it based on how your body has been affected by stress, that’s how we are going to get the best results.
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer.
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 we talk about intimacy, arousal, and desire with Susan Bratton, intimacy expert.
In my practice, I talk to so many men and women who are struggling with all aspects of intimacy, and in particular women who are experiencing vaginal pain and fear after menopause and after dealing with HPV-related procedures, so I asked Susan if I could interview her on How Humans Heal.
A lifelong entrepreneur, Susan is CEO of two companies. The 20, founded in 2019, is a supplement company specializing in libido support for sexual vitality. Personal Life Media, founded in 2006, under which Susan has authored and published 34 books and programs about sex life and intimacy. A frequent and riveting speaker from the stage, on television, on podcasts, summits, in online video, and through her thousands of magazine and website articles, Susan invites lovers to embrace giving and receiving pleasure as a vital element of being alive.
I knew she would be the perfect person to help my patients and listeners to learn about what they can do to address intimacy in their lives, because, as I wrote in my book – Master Your Health Reset Your Health – sex (with consent) is a stress recovery activity. But it’s not always easy and automatic, especially in long-term relationships and after trauma, childbirth, menopause, and health issues, such as HPV.
Susan believes that shame-free, frequent sexual pleasure is every man and woman’s birthright. She is dedicated to help people with intimacy skills, sexual problems, bedroom communication, regenerative therapies for libido, and techniques to ignite connection and pleasure between partners. And she describes sex as a “learned skill.”
Susan’s work focuses on 3 key areas:
-Sex advice – intimacy tips, orgasm skills, pleasuring skills and techniques.
-Bedroom communication skills – understanding what you want and how to ask for it.
-Sexual wellness – safe sex, STIs, and reversing problems that come with aging genitals.
A lot of times we think it’s not ok to talk about intimacy or sexual issues but in fact it is ok to talk about this and it’s even important to talk about this because it is part of our human nature.
In the interview I asked Susan if what she teaches can help someone who has a history of sexual abuse, and she said yes. She finds that trauma related to sex is very common, either from our culture, our religion, relationships, shame, lack of knowledge, and our own frustrations. By understanding our bodies and starting with a connection with ourselves, we can heal and still experience intimacy in our lives.
Libido, desire and arousal for women
Libido is our body-based desire, and when you have any kind of illness (physical or emotional), your libido or “horniness” gets affected. So, libido is directly related to your health.
Desire is the emotional game or “head game.” It relates to how do you feel about yourself and your partner. If you are constantly focused on not feeling attractive, your desire will also get affected. The ability to be with the sensations, out of your head and in your body, which you can learn how to do, all love-making becomes more pleasurable.
Arousal is the time it takes for blood to flow to the genitals (approximately 20 min for women) so that it has more surface area and, when it’s stimulated, it has more pleasure signals sent to the brain, which is what makes orgasm possible. You can teach your body how to have an orgasm.
Sex, and orgasm, is also a stress recovery activity because it increases oxytocin levels, an anti-stress hormone. There are studies that show that people that have orgasms regularly have a decreased death rate even.
What prevents women from enjoying sex and how to fix it
For women, the most common situations that occur as we age are:
-Loss of lubrication
-Decreasing sensation
-Difficulty achieving orgasms
-Painful intercourse
-Urinary incontinence
-Sagging labia
Now, how do we fix all those things? We talk about something called sexual biohacking which is taking what you have and making it better through treatments similar to those used to take care of our faces and our bodies.
There are also supplements such as nitric oxide that help with blood flow and lubrication issues. And there are devices, such as an intra-vaginal device called vFit Gold, which can help with incontinence, vaginal laxity (which comes from thinning tissue) and lubrication. You can order this approved device to use at home.
Another thing that helps with these issues is FemiWave, which is a procedure in a practitioner’s office that uses pulse waves to repair blood vessels, improving blood flow to the vagina. It helps with increased sensitivity and lubrication, as well as strengthening, tightening and improved physical appearance, so it helps enhance sexual fulfillment and function.
The last thing that can help with all this is the Orgasm Shot. The O-shot is a non-invasive, procedure performed by specially trained practitioners. First blood is drawn from the patient. A centrifuge is used to isolate the platelets, containing the body’s natural growth factors, from the patient’s own blood. This nutrient-rich, PRP solution is then injected back into the clitoris and upper vagina, to the area that generates a sexual response, commonly known as the “Orgasm-Spot” or “G-spot.” This shot can help with sexual desire, natural lubrication, urinary incontinence, frequency and intensity of orgasms and arousal from G-spot stimulation.
These are non-invasive regenerative treatments that turn back the clock on aging and can give you wonderful and youthful sexual function.
-Orgasmic cross-training for women
-The notion with orgasmic cross-training is that you can have orgasms from direct clitoral gland stimulation, from G-spot stimulation and from intra-vaginal stimulation.
-Different types of self-stimulation are going to teach you how to have orgasms more easily from partnered stimulation. They also help to tonify muscles and improve lubrication.
For this you can use self-pleasuring tools at home. These toys don’t make you addicted to them, they make it easier to have orgasms with partners and they don’t ruin your ability to orgasm they enhance it.
And remember, sex is a mindfulness practice.
To learn more, be sure to listen in to the full episode for even more tips.
If you want to reach out to Susan and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or her Instagram @susanbratton.
You can also check out arousalsecrets.com or betterlover.com. In this episode, Susan also mentions: https://personallifemedia.com, Expandherorgasmtonight.com, buyflownow.com and VaginalDevice.com.
If you want to learn more about my approach for helping you recover from trauma, rebalance hormones (or use hormone replacement), address libido and infections (HPV, BV, yeast, or frequent UTIs), and help you get back to feeling your best so you can enjoy intimacy in your life, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues, it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
In today’s episode I want to focus on understanding the physiological effects of trauma and chronic stress on our bodies, and what we can do to reverse those effects.
Most of the time when we think about trauma or stress, we mainly think about how it affects us in our minds and our mood, and that is important, but there’s also an impact in our bodies.
You might be experiencing anxiety, depression, addiction, substance abuses, and cravings as a way to cope with stress and trauma exposure. At the same time you might be noticing digestive issues, or physical pain somewhere in your body, or issues with your immune system (getting sick more frequently or all of a sudden you have allergies or HPV even), or skin issues, or migraines.
In my case I was suffering from migraines for so many years and finally I was able to trace it back to a lot of the psycho-emotional stress and trauma, as well as toxins, that I was exposed to. When I helped my body and mind to recover from the stress and trauma, the migraines went away.
It became my mission to help others to know that they too can heal from trauma. We don’t have to be stuck dealing with the consequences of what happened to us. By understanding exactly how stress and trauma affect us as humans, in our physiology and biochemistry, we can then give our bodies (and minds) what they need to recover.
In this episode I cover:
Trauma can cause imbalanced neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. These levels can be measured in a urine test and can be addressed using amino acids and nutrients. I offer that panel through my office.
Trauma can result in imbalanced hormones, such as thyroid, insulin and blood sugar, ovarian hormones, like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone in men.
The hormone most affected by trauma is cortisol, which is our main stress hormone. When we are exposed to stress and trauma, our cortisol is going to respond because our bodies are built to protect us and help us survive.
Same with adrenaline – it is responsible for the classic fight, flee or freeze response of our nervous system in the presence of stress. When the stress is gone, adrenaline levels may remain in a stressed state.
Cortisol and adrenaline are produced in our adrenal glands, which are located just above our kidneys. These adrenal hormones help regulate several bodily functions including metabolism, blood pressure and your body's response to stress.
Your body is telling you something
The problem is that when we’ve been exposed to chronic stress and major trauma, it’s likely that the adrenal glands will get stuck in a stress response and stay in that pattern and keep producing cortisol and adrenaline in non-optimal levels (the tiger is chasing us perpetually). It’s not that we want cortisol and adrenaline on or off. We want optimal levels of these hormones every day.
Studies show that people with optimal levels of cortisol and adrenaline will show fewer signs of aging than people with an imbalance of these hormones. So having optimal cortisol and adrenaline levels means we can be healthier for longer. Read more about the science behind stress and trauma here.
When we have experienced long exposure to stress and trauma our cortisol and adrenaline will likely show as too high or too low on a daily basis. So, what can we do to correct this?
First of all, we need to measure our cortisol level throughout the day (not only one time of day) as optimal cortisol is higher in the morning (but not too much) and it gradually decreases as the day passes and it’s time for bed (and this is in alignment with our circadian rhythm).
Unfortunately, this is not what medical doctors or endocrinologists look for in tests. They are trained to look for extreme imbalances or to find out whether your adrenal glands have stopped working completely.
It’s important to know that even with slight deviations from optimal cortisol levels, there can still be an impact on your overall health, your quality of life and your longevity. I believe everyone should have access to this information.
Getting to the root cause
If you have anxiety or depression or physical pain or are not feeling good in general and you don’t want to take a pill that just deals with the symptoms and does not get to the real underlying cause of the problem, then you need to do a more precise cortisol panel. You also need to check your adrenaline and neurotransmitter levels in order to have the information you need to help your body to recover from stress and trauma exposure.
The panel I recommend is available here. It is a urine and saliva collection you can do at home. After you get our results, we can meet to analyze them together so I can help you understand what your results mean and guide you to address them. We need to look at your specific results and develop a plan that applies specifically to you.
There are no two patients with the exact same result. We need to look at your response to stress and trauma and see what the outfall is specifically for you. What is your serotonin doing? What is your adrenaline and cortisol doing? This is unique and based on your genetics, your family history of stress exposure, how your body metabolizes stress hormones, your toxin exposure, and on your nutrient levels, which are related to your diet and any supplements you might be taking.
I will then guide you on how to use nutrients and herbs to help guide your cortisol back to optimal levels. If it’s too high, we will be using different herbs and nutrients vs if it’s too low.
There’s a specific formula for you and that’s what I can help you with, to find out the specific formula that will help you feel better and leave that stress and trauma behind for good.
It’s important to know that your treatment with herbs and nutrients will work better when combined with good nutrition and balanced blood sugar levels. I also encourage you to be working on your mindset and emotional processing, absolutely. What I find is when my patients are following my protocol to reoptimize cortisol, adrenaline, and neurotransmitters, along with the support of a psychologist, they get faster and better results.
When we have adequate neurotransmitter levels, and healthy processing of neurotransmitters and stress hormones, which requires healthy digestion, nutritious foods, optimal gut bacteria, adequate nutrients and signals of safety and consistency, we are able to recover from stress and trauma, and to maintain our health over time.
Of course, the goal is not to be stress free! Stress is part of life and even necessary and healthy in moderate amounts. The goal is to help you get your cortisol and adrenaline and neurotransmitters to the optimal levels so you can keep enjoying life and doing what you love.
I’ve been measuring patient’s cortisol, adrenaline, and neurotransmitter levels, and helping them to rebalance them, for over 20 years. I analyzed thousands of levels and looked for patterns. That is how I identified the 5 most common stress response patterns, which are the variations of cortisol and adrenaline levels after stress exposure.
I then developed a quiz, which you can find in my book and on my website here. It’s a great starting point to find out how stress has affected your cortisol and adrenaline levels.
Remember, this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. We must individualize it based on how your body has been affected by stress, that’s how we are going to get the best results.
If you would like to find out more on this subject, I encourage you to read one of my books, I have written 5 books on what we can do to optimize our cortisol and adrenaline levels. You can find my latest book, “Master Your Stress Reset Your Health” here.
You can also access my Stress Warrior Program here, where I teach you how to optimize your cortisol, adrenaline, and neurotransmitters.
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer.
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 podcast interview, I had the chance to talk about healing pain, anxiety, depression, and trauma with Debora Wayne. Specifically in this episode we talk about:
-Trauma
-How trauma turns into physical pain
-How it’s possible to heal even when you’ve been told it wasn’t possible
-What is quantum physics and energetic healing
-How Debora helped me with migraines
Debora is the founder of The International Chronic Pain Institute and author of Why Do I Still Hurt. She is a world-renowned energy healer and pain-release specialist helping men and women worldwide to rapidly find and remove the hidden root causes of Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue, Depression and Anxiety, Trauma, Battles with Weight, Binge-Eating, BurnOut, and other chronic conditions.
She is helping people transform their lives at a very deep level, reaching people who haven’t been helped even though they tried many different approaches but still ended up not feeling good.
Debora chose this path because she herself went through a tremendous amount of pain. Not only physical pain but very deep emotional pain also, going back and forth between anxiety and depression. She was very highly functional and good at hiding it, but she got to a point where she could not stand feeling that way one more day.
So she acted upon that feeling and one day decided to call someone for help, just to talk about how she felt. Since that day she has not been the same anymore. She changed her life completely and decided to spend more time looking inside rather than focusing on the outside, she started meditating and spending a lot more time in nature and so she started feeling a lot better, and that’s when she decided to share her experience with other people who may be going through the same pain, reaching to them and helping them transform their lives and start feeling good.
-
So many of us are walking through life feeling lost, that we have lost our purpose and we’ve lost ourselves really because we get focused on these external things and we kind of lose track of who we are and what we really want to do with our lives. And a lot of times it feels so familiar that we just keep doing the same thing. But we have to realize, if we want our health to change and our lives to be different, we are going to have to change something.
Often times people do not recognize the deep connection between their choices and their health. We all tend to follow the formula we are taught when we are young: go to school, go to college, work, get married, get the car, get the house, etc. And none of those things are wrong but we have to realize that our choices as we follow our paths have to align with our souls in order to feel good about ourselves and be happy.
If we do not have that alignment, even subconsciously, our bodies and minds will hurt. The body does not lie and the impact reflects in our health.
Some of the common symptoms of people that reach out to Debora are exhaustion, chronic fatigue, digestion issues, insomnia, thyroid issues, chronic physical pain, fibromyalgia, arthritis, and migraines. These are all external expressions of our bodies reflecting the pain that goes on in our minds. We need a deeper conversation with ourselves to be able to express who we really are and consequently act on what we believe. The common answer we get when we are in pain is “you have to accept it and just live with it”. And so we become resolved that we are just going to be in pain, emotional pain, physical pain, just not feeling good in general and we just carry through with our lives and probably get addicted to pain medications.
There really are solutions and ways to heal for good but people don’t know about this. There are 3 specific areas we have to explore in order to change and start healing:
We have to look at the mental habits. The habitual though habits in our daily lives. Most people walk through life with most predominantly negative thoughts that are fear based. And they never examine this and are never taught how to properly use their minds. So they spend most of the day sending negative signals as energy that comes back to them in exactly what they don’t want. So we have to find and release the damaging destructive though patterns to correct this.
The emotions. Every emotion emits a frequency, and these frequencies are measurable and they are powerful. They affect physically our bodies. There is a mind-body emotion energy complex. Everyone is making every choice from an emotion. So we have to find and release the damaging emotions, and we have to become aware of what our emotions are and where we put them in the body when we don’t want to feel them, because if we do this long enough they come always come out as a symptom.
Our energy field. This is the field of information that surrounds the body. Every living thing has a bio field. It has everything that has ever happened to you imprinted on it. We have to find the problems in the energy field, release them and speed up the healing process.
We are so focused on the physical aspect of things that we forget there is an invisible, spiritual and energetic realm that is constantly interacting with the physical realm. There’s a disconnection here that we can’t overlook if we really want to understand how to begin to feel better.
People often wait too long to take action and realize they can make changes to break patterns that have been with them their whole lives by analyzing what is going on in their spiritual and energetic reality.
We experience different things in our lives, different trauma, that mark us and if not resolved will eventually find a way out as physical pain in our bodies. There can be so much emotional anxiety and fears and people do not know why they feel this, but it often goes back to things that happened early in childhood.
Trauma can also occur from abuse (physical, mental or sexual abuse), violence, neglect, and narcissism. All of these things go underground because we are wired to stay alive, so we even compromise a part of ourselves to just stay alive. But then people wake up decades later and are not happy and they look around and wonder why other people are not suffering: what’s wrong with me? And they start to feel cursed or like they’re defective and ashamed and they don’t want to talk about it. This all needs to come out in the open with someone we feel safe with because it is all changeable and it is creating terrible health hazards.
And there is so much more! We ourselves limit what we think is possible for us. There tends to be a voice in the back of our heads that says: “it’s not supposed to feel like this.” That’s the voice that drives us to keep searching and seeking other solutions. We have to listen to that voice because it’s telling you not to settle for a limited, painful life.
Pain is not normal; health is our natural state. We can go back into alignment. It just takes being a little bit open minded and being willing to try something new.
If you want to reach out to Debora and learn how she can help you, please check out the International Chronic Pain Institute website or her Instagram @deborawayne1.
If you want to learn more about my approach to helping with mental health and other health issues, you can read all about it in my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online. For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, it is best to set up a one-on-one appointment with me.
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
Happy New Year! The start of the year is the perfect time for self-reflection and to set intentions. In today’s episode I’m sharing insights and journal prompts to help you set your intentions for your health in the New Year.
Instead of just setting a resolution, which are known to fizzle out quickly, I want to guide you to transform your health now and into the future and increase your longevity. Longevity means living many more years in a healthy state where you can enjoy doing what you love and with the people you love.
To do that, we need to be strategic and efficient. It’s not about taking the least expensive vitamins you can find. It’s about prioritizing your health, getting tests that provide the information you need to make informed decisions, and working with a practitioner who has the experience to guide you.
That’s why I created How Humans Heal - to both give you hope that healing is possible and to give you the resources to do that healing work.
Healing is Possible
I am here to help you improve your health. Whether you are working on balancing hormones, fertility and pregnancy or preventing miscarriages; or if you are wanting to know what you can do to help with peri-menopausal symptoms and the changes in your body this brings. Some of you could be experiencing anxiety and depression, or migraines or digestive issues, and may have an MTHFR gene variation. And some of you listening may have found out that you have HPV and abnormal pap smears, or risk of cervical cancer, and you are coming to listen to learn how to become resilient to HPV.
You are in the right place! I am here to tell you it is possible to recover from traumatic experiences, to rebalance hormones, address digestion issues, rebalance nutrients, and neurotransmitters, and even to reset genetic expression. You don’t have to be stuck with anxiety or depression or fatigue and migraines for example. You can take action today to help decrease the symptoms, decrease the need for medications and actually help yourself get to a point of feeling amazing. Our bodies are ready to heal when we give them the right support to do so.
These are the topics I like to cover because I have found many medical practitioners do not cover these issues and so many people feel alone trying to figure out how to heal, feel good and enjoy life for the years to come.
Ready to Set Intentions
Knowing that healing is possible, I’d like to give you some journal prompts for you to use to set your intentions for 2023. These questions will help you to know where you are starting from and where you’d like to go. With clear intentions, we are way more likely to get where we are trying to go. I like to use my SelfC.A.R.E. Notebook (https://doctordoni.com/product/drdoni-notebook/) and hand write my thoughts.
It’s important to be gentle with yourself as you answer these questions. Remember, it’s not about perfection or being hard on yourself because that is only going to slow you down. Have compassion for what you’ve been through and know that you can get on the path to better health even by introducing small changes to your daily routine.
* What are your intentions for your health in the new year? And what are you willing to do to make that happen? If we want to see something different in our health, whether you want to have more energy, better sleep, better mood or feel better in general, then we are going to need to make some changes. The key is to do it in a way that does cause overwhelm or stress us more.
* What have you been doing to help yourself recover from stress and trauma? Each day we have an opportunity to think about what we’ve been doing that has worked, what hasn’t worked and what can we do differently to get us where we want to be. It’s about saying “I am human, I went through the experiences I went through, and now let me see what I can do differently each day to help my body recover and heal.
* How is your SelfC.A.R.E. routine (Clean eating, Adequate sleep, Recovery activities and Exercise)? Here you can start by writing about what you’ve been eating in the last couple of months for example, and have you been getting enough sleep, have you been doing activities outside of your responsibilities that you love, and have you engaged in some sort of physical activity recently?
Next steps
Now that you have clarity about where you’re starting and where you may need to support, I find the best step to take is to establish and fine-tune your SelfC.A.R.E. routine and start taking essential nutrients, so you have a foundation for any other healing protocols you choose to implement.This is why I created the 7-Day SelfC.A.R.E. Stress Reset (https://drdoni.lpages.co/the-7-day-self-care-reset/.
My goal with the 7-Day SelfC.A.R.E. Stress Reset is to help you to make small adjustments to your daily routine, knowing that small steps lead to major shifts. I want you to have the resources you need in order to get the ball rolling, so to speak, on your health recovery journey.
Another initial step is to start taking a multivitamin supplement daily. Even if you have the healthiest diet, you are likely low in certain nutrients. But if you’re going to take a supplement, it’s important to choose a high-quality product containing the active form of the nutrients, like B Vitamins for example, so your body can actually use them.
Many patients find Daily Foundation packets to be an efficient way to make sure you are getting what you need. They include a multi, omega 3 (fish oil), vitamin D, magnesium and a probiotic all in convenient am and pm packs. You can find them here: https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-daily-foundation-support-30-packets/
If you want to understand your specific nutrient needs and next steps in your recovery process, you can order from my website a food sensitivity panel (https://doctordoni.com/product/igg-iga-food-sensitivity-home-testing/) and cortisol/neurotransmitter panel (https://doctordoni.com/product/assess-your-stress-type/). With this information, I can guide you better on what you can do to start feeling better right away, whether it’s getting your neurotransmitters back on track or healing leaky gut for example.
If you want to go deep and learn more about recovery from burnout and trauma, and how to implement SelfC.A.R.E. individualized to you, be sure to read or listen to my book: Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/).
Please subscribe to How Humans Heal so I can continue to guide you, and sign up for my Weekly Wisdom Newsletter for more updates and resources from me: https://doctordoni.com/www.
Please let me know if there are other topics that you would like for me to cover, or reach out if you have questions. You can email my office so I know how can be of better service for you.
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer here:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
We're here to help you! Happy New Year!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
In today’s podcast interview, I had the chance to talk about naturopathic medicine with my friend and colleague Dr. Tia Trivisonno (@drttrivisonno)
Dr. Tia and I met about 15 years ago when she was a naturopathic medical student in Portland, Oregon and I went to lecture at the naturopathic medical school about the effort to license the profession in New York. That was when I was president of the New York Association of Naturopathic Physicians (NYANP). Subsequently, after Tia graduated as a naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist, she took a position at Transformational Healing Solutions in Glen Head, NY, where she has practiced for the past 12 years, and she is currently president of the NYANP.
Dr. Tia and I have several things in common: We both specialize in helping with mental health issues using naturopathic approaches, we are passionate about increasing awareness for naturopathic medicine, and we both love to travel.
Prior to getting her naturopathic degree, Dr. Tia studied Ayurvedic medicine in India and spent two years doing environmental work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. Through her travels she developed a love of service and a deep respect for cultural traditions and indigenous medicine.
In this professional conversation, Dr. Tia and I talk about how the philosophy of naturopathic medicine differs from that of conventional medicine. For example, naturopathic medicine aims to treat the whole person instead of addressing the human body as separate parts.
Naturopathic medicine uses scientific evidence and an understanding of how the body works with the benefits of using nutrition, herbs, homeopathy, and other natural approaches to support the body’s ability to heal.
Naturopathic medicine also includes the mind-body connection to address health issues related to anxiety, depression, and other stress-related health issues. Our minds are part of our bodies, and if we have mental health issues, we will probably suffer from another health issue somewhere else in our bodies, and vice versa.
And yet too often people end up being led to believe there is something “wrong with them” and that the problem is all in their heads. Dr. Tia and I both see that unfortunately, many people who suffer from mental health issues may be placed on a medication and yet could still be suffering from a lot of symptoms and never get to solve the actual underlying problem. They may be going to see a specialist, like a psychiatrist for example, but often the root cause of the issue is not identified or addressed.
For example, whenever a person is experiencing anxiety and /or depression, it is important to consider and address gut health, nutrient deficiencies, adrenal function, thyroid, and the endocrine system in general, as well as underlying infection(s) and food intolerances or sensitivities.
To learn more, definitely listen in to the full podcast episode.
With a naturopathic approach to mental health, we see our patients improve so much faster because we take into account the whole person, aim to identify all the underlying causes and address them, and rebalance what is out of balance. Not only that, but we find that patients are able to resolve issues such as anxiety and depression and be able to safely decrease the use of medications (with their psychiatrist). This can be life changing to be free of the use of medications that have many side effects and withdrawal symptoms.
As Dr. Tia summarizes: It’s all about balancing that mind-body connection. So, when we get to the root of that imbalance, we can address it and fix the whole situation. A few years Dr. Tia started surfing, so I asked her if that has influenced the way she understands health and how she helps her patients. She said absolutely! She realized that our emotions are like weather patterns. They are meant to be with us, and they do change. Feeling better and living a healthy life does not mean that you will never experience anxiety or that you will feel sad over a loss for example. But if we really work with all these different factors supporting the balance of body and mind, we can minimize their impact on our daily lives.
Dr. Tia and I want to make sure everyone knows that you don’t have to choose between naturopathic medicine or conventional medicine. They can be combined so that you get the best of both approaches. Your naturopathic doctor will work as a detective, looking for the root cause of any kind of symptomatology. In some cases that may be multi-factorial, which may be why a person is been suffering so much and not finding so many answers because it’s not just the gut health, for example, it could also be connected to trauma and some other system like the endocrine system.
The naturopathic doctor will be a guide who teaches and helps you with basic treatment guidelines, like things that you can do at home, whether its hydrotherapy, castor oil packs, or other simple things to care for yourself that will support your overall general health and reduce symptoms and make the need for other more invasive interventions less likely.
Naturopathic doctors also understand all about the conventional medicine approach and different specialties like cardiology, gastroenterology, and dermatology. Often patients come in with a diagnosis, but their only option is a medication, and they would like to address the underlying cause instead of relying on a medication. Or they come in with laboratory results showing signs that there could be an issue down the line in which case a naturopathic doctor will help them prevent the health issue from getting worse.
Overall, naturopathic doctors who are licensed or qualified to be licensed in states that offer licensure, are trained to understand health issues and lab tests, and not just look at it as disease care, but look for patterns that could emerge and guide you in modifying your habits, like dietary changes or stress recovery activities, to get to a healthier life naturally.
If you want to reach out to Dr. Tia Trivisonno and learn how she can help you, please check out her website: https://www.drtiatrivisonno.com or her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drttrivisonno/
To learn more about naturopathic medicine, visit NYANP.org, Naturopathic.org and AANMC.org.
If you want to learn more about my approach to helping with mental health and how I help patients transform their lives, you can find a free masterclass here: https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety/
You can read all about my protocol in my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online here: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
We're here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
Today’s podcast is all about helping you to support yourself through the holidays and events in your life, while making sure you’re able to take good care of YOU through them. This way you can feel good and enjoy these events and also recover easily when they are stressful.
Studies show and we know from life experience that when we have these additional experiences or extras in our schedule (whether it’s the holidays or events in your life like a wedding planning or having a baby or even planning a memorial in your family) we experience stress.
This is because these are activities on top of everything else that’s happening in our lives. We still must keep up with our everyday jobs, our careers, running our homes, paying our bills, etc.
Even though holidays are something we look forward to and we enjoy as part of taking a break and spending time with our loved ones it’s sometimes hard to enjoy them when we are feeling stressed.
So how do we navigate through this?
Well, we have to implement SelfC.A.R.E. (C for clean eating, A for adequate sleep, R for recovery activities and E for exercise).
First, we need to sit down to think about our schedules and write them down. This way we will have a clear idea of what we are spending our time on every day. Then we can jot down our priorities list. We then can re-organize our time to make sure we are putting ourselves high on that list.
If we are not taking good care of ourselves we are not going to be able to take care of anybody else. Here is where I like to use my SelfC.A.R.E. Notebook, where I keep track and write down the important things I wish to accomplish every day. Then follow up, look at what worked and what didn’t, make some tweaks and then do it slightly different the next day. If you would like to start doing this you can get your own SelfC.A.R.E. notebook here: (https://doctordoni.com/product/drdoni-notebook/)
Prioritizing ourselves takes time and practice. That’s why I want to help you with some tips, so you are able to do this. In my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health I give you examples of a SelfC.A.R.E. routine, from the minute you wake up. Hour by hour I show you what you can do to take good care of yourself every day. If you would like to find out more you can get a copy here: (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/).
-
So how can we start implementing SelfC.A.R.E. in our lives? Let’s talk through some examples.
C for Clean Eating:
This is different for everybody as everyone may have a different starting point. For example, is there too much sugar in your diet? Well, this is creating a blood sugar rollercoaster in your system. If this is the case, I encourage you to start reading the labels of what you eat and drink and look for sugar on them and try to start cutting down on these foods.
I also like to focus on protein in my meals. Whenever you are eating something ask yourself where is the protein? You can also add some healthy carbs and fats like vegetables and nuts to give you the energy you need throughout the day.
What I also like to do is if I have an event or a party, I eat a healthy small meal before going out so I know I am fed and then I will not be eating whatever there is available at the event.
For some next steps you can check out my 7 day SelfC.A.R.E. Stress Reset here: (https://doctordoni.com/product/the-stress-reset/), where I give you more tips and show you how to integrate them into your life in a way that’s doable and doesn’t stress you more. My goal is always to support you through stress, not add more to your life.
A for Adequate Sleep:
We have to start by setting a time to go to bed every day and stick with it. We also need to think about our pre-bedtime routine like do the dishes, brush our teeth, do some meditation or journaling, etc.
We have to figure out what are the things we need to do to tell our nervous system and our bodies it’s time to wind down, relax and go to sleep so we can get at least 7.5 hours of quality sleep.
If you’re not sleeping well, you can find some resources here: (https://doctordoni.com/specialties/sleep-insomnia/)
R for Recovery Activities:
Sometimes when we are visiting family or loved ones, we lose track of our SelfC.A.R.E. routine. Here I encourage you to set out your schedule and even communicate it with your family and friends.
For example, say “I would like to spend some time outside today and this is what I’m thinking about the timing, would you like to join me for a 20 min walk?” We all know how important it is for our health to spend time in nature and get some sunlight. This is really good for our circadian rhythm and resetting our stress response system.
Also, things like journaling, meditation, mindfulness, singing, listening to music, playing instruments are all things that we can do in the company of others and that are good for reducing stress.
E for Exercise:
You can just start with just 5 minutes a day if you don’t exercise at all. If you have an event later in the day you can schedule your exercise routine early in the morning so you get it done and out of the way.
It could be any kind of physical activity like going for a walk, yoga, dancing, breathing, core strengthening, strength training or a short HIIT workout. The important thing is it needs to be something you like.
In my book I show you how to tailor your exercise based on your stress type. If you don’t know your stress type yet you can do my Stress Type Quiz here: (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/) It will give you so much information on how to master your specific kind of stress and the supplements you need to take. It will also show you how to implement SelfC.A.R.E. based on your unique type of stress.
-
So, if you’re getting ready to go to a holiday event I would recommend:
Make sure to get that clean eating before heading out.
Take a stress management supplement like GABA (https://doctordoni.com/product/gaba-support-60-capsules/) a natural non drowsy, non-addictive supplement based on nutrients that help buffer the stress.
Take an immune support supplement (https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-immune-support-60-capsules/) to avoid getting sick. If you do get a cold after the holidays you can find my cold and flu survival guide here: (https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/cold-flu-guide/). It will help you bounce back to your normal life as quickly as possible.
If you choose to drink alcohol, make sure you drink plenty of water and take some NAC supplements to help you metabolize alcohol better. Also, probiotics have been shown to help counteract the effects of alcohol. You can find both here: (https://doctordoni.com/product/nac-sap-90-capsules/) (https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-probiotic-support-60-vegetarian-capsules/)
I am so glad you joined me here, please let me know if there is something you would like me to cover in more depth and make sure you join my newsletter and subscribe to the podcast.
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer here:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
As always, we’re here to help you! Happy holidays!!
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 podcast we talk about functional medicine health coaching with Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum, otherwise known as Dr. Sandi [@drsandi].
Dr. Sandi trains people to become health coaches because she believes that growing the health coaching profession will be the solution to combating chronic disease and reducing healthcare costs.
She’s the Founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, a collaboration with The Institute for Functional Medicine. An educator and licensed clinical psychologist for over 40 years, she’s the author of How to Become a Health Coach, Functional Medicine Coaching, and Stop Panic Attacks in 10 Easy Steps.
In the conventional mental health world you often get a diagnosis for anxiety, you go see a therapist and the message you get is you are broken, you have something wrong with you and you need to be fixed.
When you look at a personalized approach, which is where medicine is going in the future (personalized precision), you see a design of a protocol that fits specifically for you.
There is a landmark study, a mindfulness-based stress reduction approach, featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where a group of around 240 people diagnosed with anxiety were separated into two groups. Group A got the conventional medication, a generic version of Lexapro and Group B got the mindfulness-based stress reduction approach. The results showed that both groups reported significant improvements with their anxiety disorder.
This is good news as it shows that not everybody that suffers from anxiety needs an anti-anxiety medication, which could be really hard to withdraw from.
However, the mindfulness-based reduction approach is not for everybody. In the study they recommended 40 minutes a day which could not fit everyone’s schedule. Here is where a coach comes in. A coach could dive into what is going to work specifically for you. Maybe it could start with a one-minute walk meditation or listening to some music for a set amount of time daily.
The personalized strategies must be based on what works for each individual based on his preferences and time availability. Sometimes even realizing we need help is difficult for us as there is so much stigma to asking for help. So coaches create a safe and secure environment where people can get unconditional compassionate support. There are even anonymous support communities created by coaches so people feel safe sharing their experiences with others going through the same problems.
Fortunately, nowadays there are health coaches specializing in most health issues helping people overcome these.
We also could feel that we need to take big steps to get better and could feel overwhelmed by this. Here health coaches can help people identify the little incremental steps that you can take to start feeling better from the start, little by little, without being overwhelmed by a big change in your life. For example, when a doctor says, “you need to lose weight” or “you need to start exercising” Well, what do you do with that? A health coach could show you the small changes you can do in your daily routine to incorporate physical activity in small incremental steps and help you be accountable for those small changes.
A coach is somebody who helps people change when change is hard. By having deep conversations on what really matters to you then you decide how and when or if you want to change. Finding the right coach starts with analyzing what you need and who you connect with because it’s about a relationship between two people or if it’s a group, a relationship with the people in that group and the coach as the facilitator.
Functional medicine health coaches help people looks at their story, they help with the discovery process and get to the root of what is causing their specific health issue. A health coach is someone who will guide you and show you how to access these tools because in this approach it’s not one size fits all.
We are humans and we will have health issues at some point in our lives, the important thing is to think about how are we going to support ourselves through that, and I talk a lot about this in my book, Master Your Stress Reset Your Health (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/): how do we choose self-care, how do we choose to be supported in our process and I really see that a health coach is a great way to support your journey to heal. I have health coaches in my practice helping patients and see what a difference they make.
If you want to reach out to Dr. Sandi and learn how she can help you, please check out her website: https://www.functionalmedicinecoaching.org or her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsandi
If you want to learn more about your specific stress type and how you can start mastering stress and anxiety based on how it affects you as an individual, you can do my Stress Type Quiz for free here: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/
You can also find my free masterclass on how to address the root causes of anxiety here: https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety
Or you can dive deep into really becoming your own Stress Master by reading my new book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
We're here to help you!
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 podcast I will be sharing a presentation that I gave as part of my FREE 5 Days to Heal HPV Workshop. I want to share this here in the podcast because I believe everyone should have access to this information.
I feel it is my duty, as part of all my years in practice, to share this information about this common virus that all of us are exposed to in our lifetime and yet it is not well known that we can protect ourselves from this virus and prevent it from causing cancer.
So, if you or any of your loved ones are concerned about HPV I encourage you to listen to this Day 1 of my workshop.
In this first day of my workshop we talk about the 3 reasons why the holistic path is best for treating and healing HPV.
Cervical cancer is the 3rd leading cancer in women and I definitely think we can get that down to much less common. I really believe we should be able to prevent cervical cancer in all women.
My patients have proven to me that by following my protocol we can prevent cancer and get HPV to negative and stay that way.
It is not easy to get rid of HPV, but I have the knowledge to guide you through this path to start transforming your life by fending off HPV.
I know most of you have experienced shame and embarrassment or confusion, exhaustion and even anger with this virus ruining your lives. I want to tell you that this is a safe place to start with this journey.
I also know that when you go to the doctor it may feel scary and judgmental to talk about this, so a lot of people just decide not to go. In my office my goal is for you to feel supported unconditionally and point out what your specific body needs to heal from HPV once and for all.
We all get exposed to this virus at some point in our lives, but sex is not the problem, even the virus is not the problem, what we really have to analyze is why this virus is making YOU susceptible to it and therefore causing abnormal cells in your body.
What I share is based on research, case studies, and my clinical experience with thousands of women (and men), of all ages and all types of HPV, from around the world, over the past 22 yeas.
First, I want you to understand that yes, you should get pap smears and colposcopies in order to identify abnormal cells and address them if present. This is the starting point always.
-
So what are the 3 reasons the holistic approach is best?
There is no medication to treat or kill this virus.
This is why doctors will tell you wait and see, because in 90% of the people the body will get rid of it on its own within two years. And as there is no medical treatment doctors bet on the fact that it may go away on its own. So, what happens if you are in the 10% and this virus can potentially cause cancer in your body?
The question we have to ask is why are you in this 10%? If we can get someone who is in this 10% and get him into the 90% by giving the body the support it needs to do so, why wouldn’t we?
Well, my protocol has proven again and again to be effective in doing so.
A holistic approach can address HPV.
The holistic approach takes into account individuality. We have to analyze the reasons why your specific body is susceptible to this virus and what is the specific support it needs to fend it off.
Our bodies are unique and different, and they react differently to certain vitamins, herbs, and nutrients. This is why some people are allergic to some things they eat, and some people are not.
AHCC is 75% effective but it is expensive and may require long-term use.
There is evidence that these nutrients help:
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- Zinc and Slenium
- Methylfolate (5MTHF) – NOT Folic Acid
And these herbs:
- Green tea extract
- Muchroom extract
- Curcumin
- DIM Broccoli extract
But we have to know which nutrients and herbs help your unique body and in which doses.
The ability to not just get HPV to negative but keep it away even if/when you are re-exposed.
It is not just about taking vitamins and supplements for a while, it’s about making the right changes holistically to your body so it can prevent HPV from causing abnormal cells in the future.
For this, we have to analyze the root cause of your specific body being susceptible to it in order to fix that for the rest of your life. We have to understand which strategies to implement that will be enough for your body to fend off the virus.
We covered such important information in this first session, and I have so much more in store for you.
If you would like to learn how to heal from HPV for good, I encourage you to join my FREE workshop this week, or the next time I offer it.
On day 2 of the workshop, we will be going deep on: What’s making you susceptible to HPV. The 5 Susceptibility Factors.
If you want to join us, or sign up for the next live workshop, you can do it here. https://doctordoni.com/hpv-free-workshop
Remember, you can always join anonymously, just don't use your name when you login and keep your camera off. (Your information at registration will not be shared in the call).
You can also go ahead and get my HPV Support Package here:
https://doctordoni.com/product/hpv-support-package/
To find out about how you can get access to my proven protocol to get HPV to negative, read about the Say Goodbye to HPV Program here.
If I can be of more assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment here:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
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 podcast we talk about acupuncture and Ayurvedic medicine to support fertility with Michelle Oravitz.
Michelle Oravitz began her career as an architect upon graduating from Philadelphia University. After many years of experiencing missed periods (which traditional doctors could not resolve) and enduring stress at her high demand job in NYC, she decided to go to an acupuncturist named Dr. Li who immediately regulated her cycle.
Not only did her symptoms resolve, but she also felt a renewed sense of well being and clarity. She was unable to recognize just how disharmonious she felt until she experienced a new sense of well being that arose from her treatments.
When moving to South Florida, she enrolled in an Ayurvedic school which gave her tremendous knowledge about this ancient and rich healing approach. She then enrolled into school to get her master’s degree in Oriental Medicine.
Michelle believes that if she had not gone to a TCM doctor, she probably would have had a hard time getting pregnant with her two children. This has influenced her to develop a special interest in treating gynecological disorders and infertility.
When you start to become more balanced in your body you start to get more clarity in your mind, and you start to see what's good for you and what's not so good for you and then your body and mind become aligned. You start seeing everything differently.
It is sometimes difficult to do this because our society dictates that if you have chosen one specific path, like a corporate job for example, and have invested money and energy on that path, then you should stick to it even if it doesn’t fulfill your life.
The mind is such an important aspect of our health. Sometimes we just get used to the way things are in our lives and we are reluctant to change and to follow our hearts. This is exactly what acupuncture did for Michelle. It gave her this openness to change and to follow her heart.
If your body/mind are telling you something, like “I am getting the feeling that food is really related to one’s health, maybe I should eat healthier” then you should listen to it and start making the necessary changes towards that direction.
If you recognize that there's something about that job or that career or that routine that's harming your health, then you need to act on it and make the shift to a new environment that feels good for you, otherwise you will not be healthy and you will not be able to enjoy life to the fullest.
There is so much research coming out related to women's health and fertility, new natural treatments, supplements, herbs, and nutrients to help women with fertility that there is always something new to learn and to try.
Talking about alignment we can see that if a person is in a stressful environment or if they are not aligned in the mind-body connection, maybe because they don’t really like their job or their relationship, or are under so much constant stress, then sometimes that is part of why the pregnancy is not happening.
We want to balance our hormones and we want to balance our microbiome and neurotransmitters but if there is something not working on the mind-body connection then it is much more difficult to heal.
A very interesting aspect of Chinese medicine is that it works by acknowledging connection. Everything that happens around us (the universe, the sun, the stars, the moon, etc.) reflect in the rhythms of life and in our bodies. We are walking living ecosystems that thrive on balance.
When something in our bodies is out of balance, we start to see health problems. Our bodies could have too much heat or too much cold or not enough blood production in a day-to day basis. There are so many different things that can cause the same symptom. We must look at the pattern, we look at the underlying root cause and then we can solve the problem.
The human body is incredibly intelligent, but it is a living organism, and it requires attention and care, it is not a machine, and even machines require attention and care. If we do not give it what it needs to be in balance it is going to eventually give you some signs and signals and disharmonious feelings that something is not right.
Acupuncture is all about reaching that balance in your body and mind. It works on our energy as its flowing to feed all the different systems and get into different organs. And once you give the body what it needs then it removes the blockages in order to move that energy across all systems and creates that homeostasis state where it begins to heal.
In this modern world we are so used to have everything we think we need readily available for us, like fruits and vegetables that don’t grow in our regions depending on the seasons, or artificial light disrupting our inner resting cycles and hormones, or not going out because it’s too cold so we don’t get sunlight, all these things make our bodies go out of balance and we suffer the consequences in our health.
We also forget that our Earth has all the necessary nutrients and herbs to keep us as healthy as we can be, and that there are alternative ways instead of the traditional western medicine. For example, there is a lot of research showing the benefits of Ashwaganda in reducing stress, which also causes fertility issues, or Phosphatidylserine to reset our Cortisol levels which help regulate our mood and sleep patterns.
In these alternative treatments it is important to know that there is no “one pill fits all” it has to be about the person, his unique body and his unique response to external factors. In this modern world we sometimes forget that excessive amounts of stress are probably one of the main root causes of serious health issues like heart attacks, cancer, dementia, infertility, etc.
We have to recognize our own patterns and our unique bodies’ response to stress, so we can control it and not the other way around. When we are constantly overwhelmed stressed everything in our bodies gets out of balance, our neurotransmitters, our hormones, our nervous system, our minds, etc. so it is very difficult for our bodies to really heal.
If you want to reach out to Michelle and learn how she can help you, please check out her website: https://www.michelleoravitz.com/about or her Instagram: thewholesomelotusfertility.
If you want to learn more about your specific stress type and how you can start mastering it you can do my Stress Type Quiz here: https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/
Or you can dive deep into really becoming your own Stress Master by reading my new book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/
You can also reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer here:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
We're here to help you!
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 podcast we will discuss how to prevent and recover from upper respiratory infections.
Dr. Doni discusses the various different viruses, including influenza, coronavirus (COVID) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), how to know the difference, and when it is important to know which virus is causing your cold symptoms.
As many of us know, sometimes it may take days, weeks, or even longer to recover and feel fully back to normal once a cold or flu hits. That’s too long to feel outside of our optimal health.
Upper respiratory infections often include symptoms like sneezing, congestion, runny nose, sore throat, coughing, headaches, ears feeling swollen or plugged, inflammation, fatigue, and more.
Signs that an infection may be worsening or spreading will be of course if symptoms persist for more than just a few days. But if you begin to have shortness of breath, a fever that is consistently testing high, and/or if you have green or yellow phlegm when you blow your nose, these are also indications that your body may need you to interject a stronger intervention to get it back on track. That is when it is important to contact a health care provider and/or add an antibiotic or other medication.
As always, please check with your doctor before implementing any changes suggested here. Everyone’s body and situation is unique, for instance if you might be taking any other medications or if you have any health concerns. Please exercise particular caution and discuss with your practitioner if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering any of these supplements for children.
The best thing we can do for any illness is to approach it using a naturopathic perspective. What does this mean? Many treatments for various viruses come down to a few common principles, namely giving our body the right instruments and taking away the excess baggage so our bodies can do what they were designed to do best, which is heal. Once we can help our immune system get back on track, it’s often able to fend off these various colds, viruses, and mysterious illnesses.
So what are the top 3 things we should avoid in order to give our bodies a fighting chance?
Refined sugars, especially white sugar.
Alcohol.
Dairy products like cow’s milk, cheese, etc.
These products consistently produce inflammation in human bodies. When our bodies are busy from fighting these, or overworked from our overuse of these products, it weakens our body’s overall ability to fight off something larger when it comes along.
Load up on these instead:
Organic bone broth; classic chicken noodle soup is also a great remedy.
Fresh veggies.
Herbal teas; the best for soothing respiratory issues include licorice, marshmallow and mullein.
Freshly grated ginger and honey also works wonders.
Water with a pinch of Celtic or Himalayan salt for improved absorption and hydration.
Probiotics.
My favorite supplements to give your body the edge over those pesky viruses:
Mushroom extracts: (https://doctordoni.com/product/mushroom-complex-sap-90-capsules/)
Hesperidin: (https://doctordoni.com/product/hmc-500mg-60-capsules/)
Vitamin C: (https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-vitamin-c-support-60-capsules/)
Immune Support: (https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-immune-support-60-capsules/)
Immune Support PLUS: (https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-doni-s-immune-support-plus-120-capsules/)
Silver Hydrosol: (https://doctordoni.com/product/silver-hydrosol-fine-mist-spray-2-oz/)
Vitamin A Support: https://doctordoni.com/product/dr-donis-vitamin-a-support-100-soft-gels/)
Berberine: (https://doctordoni.com/product/berberine-500-60-capsules/)
Peptides: (https://doctordoni.com/product/peptides-for-immune-and-viral-support-package/)
All of these are available through our online shop: (https://doctordoni.com/dr-donis-nature-empowered-store/), and be sure to watch the full episode for recommendations on correct dosing, combinations when taking multiple supplements in conjunction, and how to properly space treatments throughout the day to get the most effective counteraction.
Many of these supplements are anti-bacterial and anti-fungal and are preferred before a course of antibiotics, which puts a lot of stress on the body and should only be taken when necessary. Couple these nutrition boosts with hot showers (or a nice hot bath), and plenty of rest, put this cycle on repeat and you will start feeling better each day.
If you find yourself fighting illness after illness, and recovery is painfully slow, stress may be the ultimate culprit. To find out what your unique stress type is, and what you can do about it, you can do the Stress Type Quiz in my book: (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/), or on my website: (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/).
You can also order my home test to measure your cortisol and adrenaline levels (as stress always is related to an imbalance of these in our bodies), so you know exactly where you stand. Get it here: (https://doctordoni.com/product/assess-your-stress-type/).
The human body is incredible in its capacity for healing, when given the proper tools. Please send us any feedback, comments, or questions regarding these or other health concerns you may have. We are here for you, so you can focus on living your fullest life, through all seasons!
If I can be of more assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
You can also check out my most recent Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression:
https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety/#blank-1
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 podcast we talk about self-care and what it is like to go on a retreat.
So what is self-care?
We have been taught that self-care is just related to a set of essential daily activities like showering, brushing our teeth, eating, resting, and getting some sleep. To me true self-care is so much more than that.
It is about doing the activities that help you experience the essence of taking care of yourself, which involve self-compassion and self-prioritization of your time and your resources to do not only what you want but what is beneficial to your health. To understand what we can do to take better care of ourselves.
The only person we can depend on for our health and our wellness is ourselves. If we do not take good care of ourselves then we will not be able to take care of others.
There are many other aspects of taking good and true care of ourselves beyond covering our essential needs of food, water, and shelter, and these can really change our physical and mental health which leads to living longer and healthier lives.
These activities need to be more than just left for holidays or vacations. We need to change our lives and incorporate them into our daily routines if we want to be healthier and happier.
This is not something we're going to achieve on day one. It takes time and a lot of trial and error. And the goal is not to be perfect at it either. This is not about being perfect, this is about being human and listening to our bodies.
In my new book “Master Your Stress Reset Your Health” (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/) there's a whole section where I talk about self-care (SelfC.A.R.E.) and hundreds of research studies that show its benefits.
I also created a SelfC.A.R.E. Notebook (https://doctordoni.com/product/drdoni-notebook/) that will help you journal about your experience of implementing a self-care routine and learning along the way how to fine tune it for your specific lifestyle.
Our SelfC.A.R.E. is as unique as our stress type. Our stress type is the pattern that our body falls into when we're under constant stress. When we're under constant stress our cortisol and adrenaline levels are not optimal so we are at higher risk of health issues like heart attacks, cancer, dementia, autoimmunity issues, etc.
To find out what your unique stress type is, and what you can do about it you can do the stress type quiz in my book or on my website: (https://doctordoni.com/quiz/stress-quiz/).
After knowing which stress type you have, then I can suggest the right supplements and herbs that will help you optimize your cortisol and adrenaline levels.
You can also order my home test to measure your cortisol and adrenaline levels, so you know exactly where you stand. Get it here: (https://doctordoni.com/product/assess-your-stress-type/).
My SelfC.A.R.E. Protocol is the right place to start creating these small changes to your daily routine, so you can really start taking care of yourself, again, based always on your stress type.
The C is for Clean eating. This can be even just avoiding foods that are more stressful to our bodies like processed foods. Choosing Whole Foods, avoiding pesticides and eating organic foods, avoiding things like sugar, dairy or gluten is a good way to start eating clean.
You can also do my complete food sensitivity test from the comfort of your home. This will let you know exactly which foods your body doesn’t like so you can fine tune your diet: (https://doctordoni.com/product/igg-iga-food-sensitivity-home-testing/)
A stands for Adequate sleep. Most of us do not get enough sleep and rest hours in any given day. It is important to know that sleep is when our bodies recover and undergo repair in our systems, like hormone resets, muscle recovery, etc. We need to find the root cause of our lack of good sleep so we can address it.
R is for Recovery activities. This can be just taking a break to have some quiet time to yourself or spending some time in nature or taking a short walk. It could be spending time with pets or your loved ones. Listening to music, dancing, playing an instrument, doing meditation or yoga and even substances like psychedelics, all help our bodies recover from stress.
The E stands for Exercise. Exercise is essential for our bodies. Even 15-20 minutes a day is enough for us to start feeling the change in our bodies. It’s just a matter of choosing the right activity and time of day to perform it according to your stress type. Consistency is key here.
Now let’s talk about what it is like to go on a retreat. This could be considered as taking a break or doing recovery activities which is essential for our nervous system.
A retreat could last for however long fits in your schedule. It could be a one day, 10 days or even a month retreat. The difference from a vacation is that the focus is on ourselves. It's about self discovery and self reflection. It could be a yoga or meditation retreat. It could be a retreat that involves spending time in nature. It could also be a retreat where self-care involves taking psychedelics like Ayahuasca to help us heal from past experiences. You might combine diet changes with sleep and stress recovery activities as well as a psychedelic experience at the same time.
Usually, a retreat might also include music and journaling or maybe artwork like painting so you're doing things that are all about helping you to have a break from your daily life. To have time to reflect on your goals and your values and the things you've experienced throughout your life. To be able to process them in a supportive environment without any distractions and without any devices like phones or computers and definitely without any deadlines.
It's all about focusing on you and just being able to relax and being in the moment and learn from the experience.
You can find many different types of retreats out there. I would be more than happy to share some of the retreats that I know of and could work for you.
I have also created an online retreat that is called the Seven Day Self C.A.R.E. Stress Reset, where I guide you on how to apply small changes to your life and implement C.A.R.E. You can even do it from home or on a holiday weekend. I hope you all can join me and we can work on your Self C.A.R.E. together. You can find more about it here: (https://drdoni.lpages.co/the-7-day-self-care-reset/)
I think during the pandemic we were kind of teaching ourselves that home was the safest place on earth, but now that it’s over we need to reteach ourselves that there are safe ways to be around other people, to travel, to do the things we love because self-isolation is not good for our health, we are social beings that need to interact with others and our surroundings.
In the end it’s always about balance. A balance of activities, a balance of experiences, a balance of exposures and a balance of our stress. It’s about managing our stress type and getting to a level that is optimal for us and aligned with our values and our purpose.
It's not easy to achieve a balance but I do believe that's the goal. The goal is to practice Self C.A.R.E. and practice being ourselves, choosing what we love to do, communicating with others about it and learning each day how to be better for ourselves and for others.
If I can be of more assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
You can also check out my most recent Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression:
https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety/#blank-1
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 podcast we talk about hormones, including leptin, and how hormones relate to weight loss and fertility with Dr. Bindiya Gandhi. We also discuss the effect of gluten and Celiac disease on hormones and fertility.
Dr. Bindiya is a functional and integrative doctor who specializes in helping patients to alleviate their leptin resistance, lose weight, and return to wellness.
For a long time Dr. Bindiya suffered from nutritional deficiency due to a “healthy diet”. She suffered from constipation, anemia, acne, headaches, skin rashes, irregular menstrual cycles, constant fatigue, etc. She kept looking for answers on her residency program and traditional medicine and treatments without success until she started working with a functional integrative medicine doctor.
She finally found out she had Celiac Disease, which is a chronic digestive and autoimmune disorder that damages the small intestine. The disease is triggered by eating foods containing gluten. It turns out she had severe gluten sensitivity. So she started working on healing her “Gut” and that’s when she finally started feeling better.
It was a great timing for her to discover this because she had just turned 30 and was going to get married and wanted to have kids. But that represented another problem.
There is a transition in learning how to eat gluten free and it takes time for the gut lining to heal and recover. It's not just about avoiding gluten but how do we help our bodies recover from gluten damage to the gastro-intestinal tract.
There have been cases of people with fertility issues due to hormonal imbalances caused by Celiac Disease. Hormones can be such a mystery and so can fertility and weight loss for many, especially women.
-
In her practice, Dr. Bindiya was helping other women get pregnant but could not get pregnant herself due to hormonal issues. She was found to be estrogen dominant. So she started working on “rebalancing” her hormones and that is when she started learning about leptin.
Leptin is the hormone that sends satiety cues to your brain when you eat, telling you that you’ve had enough. Consequently, leptin resistance is a hormonal condition in which inflammation disrupts the communication between your brain’s hypothalamus and your fat cells, thereby blocking leptin’s messages.
Often caused by inflammation, poor sleep, an unbalanced diet, or even chronic stress, leptin resistance heightens a patient’s risk factor for obesity, metabolism imbalances, and more.
Also, having high estrogen or low estrogen can impact fertility very differently. They both go hand in hand with your leptin levels and that’s what makes it challenging. But we can learn how to get to the right balance sending our bodies the right signals so it can regulate estrogen, progesterone, and leptin altogether, so you don’t have fertility and/or weight problems.
Leptin is a hormone that is produced by our fat cells and it communicates with our brains. It's our satiety hormone. It lets us know if we're full, if we need to eat again, etc. When this communication is off there is something called leptin resistance developing.
This is why people have weight loss plateaus where they lose weight and then their weight stalls. This is also why people have difficulty losing weight no matter what diet they're following.
Leptin is a very important hormone. You may suspect there is something going on with your leptin levels if you find yourself constantly snacking or craving sugary foods for example. Also if you feel like you're hungry all the time or if you just ate and half an hour later you feel like you need to eat again.
Unfortunately, most conventional medicine doctors do not check for this leptin level, and even if you go to an endocrinologist, which is a hormone specialist, they don't check this level either because they don't know what to do with it.
The other important thing about leptin is that it also regulates your metabolism. Leptin also communicates with your other hormones that regulate your insulin levels, it communicates with your estrogen levels and with your adrenal stress hormones so it's very important be aware of your leptin levels.
There is a trendy diet now known as intermittent fasting which can cause an imbalance of leptin by sending a starvation signal. This ends up confusing the hormone signals and can cause problems like missing a menstrual cycle, which affects your fertility.
Another impact of leptin in our bodies is mood. When your leptin levels are really low, you tend to have more anxiety.
-
Many people have gluten digestion problems as an issue or leptin problems without even knowing about it. So they need to think outside the box and look for help with the right people who are willing to help them in nontraditional ways to get to the root of the problem and really start healing.
It’s about helping you and your body understand these signals so you can make different choices, make peace with your body, and learn how to feed it properly so all systems are in balance and functioning correctly.
If you want to reach out to Dr. Bindiya and learn how she can help you, please check out her website: https://drbindiyamd.com or her Instagram: @drbindiyamd.
If you want to learn more about your specific food sensitivities, such as gluten sensitivity, and what you can do to better feed your body and heal leaky gut, you can get my IgG & IgA Food Sensitivity Home Test Kit here: https://doctordoni.com/product/igg-iga-food-sensitivity-home-testing/
I have also developed a Leaky Gut Pro Package for enhanced gastrointestinal support and recovery from gluten and Celiac disease. Find more about it here: https://doctordoni.com/product/leaky-gut-pro-package/
Find my online Heal Leaky Gut Program – available immediately – at https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program
Or you can reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer and I can guide you to know which tests I find to be most helpful for identifying hormone imbalances and underlying causes of weight gain and fertility issues:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
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 podcast we talk about stress related to grief. One of the greatest stresses that we experience as humans and that is the loss of a loved one. Loss, stress and grief can also be related to the end of a relationship for example because of a divorce or a breakup or even the end of a friendship. It could be related to the loss of a job, needing to move homes or the loss of a pet.
The stages of grief are not necessarily linear; we can even go through all of them in a day.
We may feel denial, being in shock, anger, guilt and fear. We may also experience depression and sadness.
It's also important to allow ourselves to experience grief the way that it happens for each of us individually.
I want to share with you more about the research related to how loss and grief create stress on our bodies. In a study from 2012 they found there is definitely a change in our cortisol and adrenaline levels when we experience loss.1
One of the areas that I have been researching for over 20 years is measuring cortisol and adrenaline levels in myself and my patients and understanding how we are all unique in terms of how our cortisol and adrenaline shifts when we're under stress.
I find it very interesting that the studies on loss and death of a loved one showed that it's more common for cortisol and adrenaline to be elevated in the first two weeks to six months after the loss. A year after the loss, if people continue to have symptoms of grief, they are more likely to have low cortisol levels.
It's really important to know how your body is responding because then we can do something about it and recover. We can start regulating our adrenaline and cortisol levels so this doesn’t become a long term or permanent issue.
We can work to reset the HPA Axis (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis) to tell our bodies to produce more or less cortisol and adrenaline and regulate our stress response.
Studies also show that when a person experiences loss, it can increase the likelihood of experiencing anxiety and depression. Also, our immune system can be affected, and we can experience higher levels of inflammation in the body.2
Many other health problems can develop when under high stress, such as insomnia, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, increased susceptibility to viruses, such as HPV, and other infections. There is even a condition known as broken heart syndrome, or Takotsubo, when the heart muscle is weakened from grief and severe stress.3
When we're in a grieving process that has disrupted our neuroendocrine (nervous system and hormones) is when we need to have our cortisol and adrenaline levels measured.
This is not done in the standard medical office so that's why I offer these tests through my office, so you can do them yourself at home. You can find these on the links below. Then you and I can meet, and I can help you understand your results and how to address them and use the right protocol of nutrients and herbs for you.
https://doctordoni.com/product/assess-your-stress-type/
And this is not a one-size-fits-all treatment. Not everyone needs the same nutrients and herbs. It is crucial that we understand how our bodies respond to stress as an individual, and what doses and supplements are needed for our bodies to start healing.
In my latest book “Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health” (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/) I identified the correct sequence for helping you to get your cortisol, adrenaline and neurotransmitters back to optimal again, and it's based on what I refer to as your unique Stress Type.
Once we know your Stress Type, we can help you to efficiently implement the nutrients and herbs that will help bring your levels back to optimal.
-
You can find which is your unique Stress Type by taking my Stress Quiz here: https://doctordoni.com/quiz
I have also set up the stress type supplement bundles where you can get just the right supplements for your specific stress type. You can find these bundles in my store here: https://doctordoni.com/product-category/dr-doni-products/dr-doni-packages/
This is how passionate I am about helping you to recover from stress, including stress from loss of a loved one, so you can prevent the health issues associated with grief and so that you can be thriving in your life.
If I can be of more assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
You can also check out my most recent free masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression: https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety/#blank-1
We're here to help you!
-
References:
-
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 podcast I talked about infertility with Jenica Parcell, who is a certified life coach specializing in fertility and helping women to be fearless when they're going through the process of conceiving.
Planning to get pregnant can be a very stressful process. From the moment you start thinking about having a baby, to figuring out if you are ovulating, whether you are pregnant, is there going to be a miscarriage, will the baby be OK, and then worrying about labor, etc. The whole process can be quite overwhelming.
After Jenica got married at age 21 she decided to wait some time before having a baby, never even thinking about infertility because she was so young. When she decided it was time for pregnancy, she had to go through multiple IUIs and rounds of IVF that did not work, and she started worrying that it just was not going to happen for her.
It was after experiencing infertility for a year that she felt compelled to tell her story, which she published in her blog. She was blown away at how many women were grateful to her for sharing her experience, and to know how many women were going through a similar process. This helped her a lot to not feel alone in this process.
After some time during a trip to Canada she saw a notepad in a little boutique store called “100 Gathered Thoughts (For My Beautiful Child)” which had a lovely message at the bottom of each page, so she started writing letters on her blog to her beautiful child. At that time, she had changed to a different doctor and started a new IVF process, while trying different things to have healthier embryos. This time the treatment worked, and she ended up getting pregnant and having twins!
That’s when she felt really drawn to helping women with infertility. She was able to join a nonprofit which raised a lot of money for women with infertility. She also started listening to a podcast called “Better Than Happy” by Jody Moore, which led her to start helping women with the mental aspect of infertility, their relationships with themselves and with others, so that their infertility didn’t get in their way of achieving happiness.
Even though infertility is a really hard thing you can also learn so much from it and you can live a really joyful life even while experiencing it.
If you're out there struggling with fertility and you're feeling alone please know that Jenica and I are here for you. I’ve been helping women with fertility for over 22 years. Know that you don't have to go through the stress of it alone or feel ashamed about it.
In fact, what I learned from researching when in labor is that the effects of stress inhibit the progression of labor, and the effects of stress inhibit our ability to conceive as well. That’s because when cortisol and adrenaline are either too high or too low, the ovaries aren't going to get the right signals and ovulation is not successful. Even IVF is not going to be as successful when you are in stress mode.
And yet, fertility treatments can be one of the most stressful things we can go through with all the appointments and medical procedures to try to get pregnant. If you don’t overcome this stress, and keep your cortisol and adrenaline optimized, it ends up inhibiting your fertility.
When I asked Jenica how she guides her clients through the stress of infertility, she said that the number one thing she recommends is to accept the reality of the situation, which is a really hard thing to do. We often ask ourselves “why is this happening to me?” In doing so, we're resisting reality and in resisting reality, we can't process it because we're not accepting what is.
When we find ourselves caught in that resistance to reality, we need to learn that we can’t control everything. Society teaches us that we need to be superhumans. That we're supposed to be perfect and that is simply not real.
We need to be able to have some downtime and self-reflection time. We need to slow down and give ourselves space to rest because then you can really align with what you're supposed to be doing.
Going through infertility can represent a mind-body opposition causing a high level of stress because you're fighting against yourself, saying I am ready mentally, but my body is not responding the way I want.
One thing that can help with these situations is staying in the present moment. We don’t have a crystal ball. We can't see what's going to happen in the future but being in the present moment can help us reduce stress and realize what you can and can’t control.
We all have experienced hard times, and we can also choose to look back and see evidence of our strength going through them. We are still here. We are still alive. We have survived.
When I asked Jenica how she guides her clients, she described how we need to start listening more to our thoughts and understand how those thoughts can lead to feelings and those feelings can manifest in our reality. It is really amazing to realize how much power we actually have in creating whatever we want in our lives.
This is very much reflected in the concept of fertility and pregnancy because it's all about creating a new life in a newborn and also creating a new life for ourselves.
Even sometimes little changes like a new diet, sleep habits or a new job can feel very uncomfortable at first, but if we know this is going to get us where we want to go, we can get through those changes and realize we needed them in order to grow.
Even those difficult paths of fertility issues give us an opportunity for transformation for ourselves and our lives, and that's a beautiful thing.
-
If you want to reach out to Jenica and learn how she can help you, please check out her Instagram: jenicaparcell or her podcast: “Fearless Infertility” or even her website: https://asliceofstyle.com/infertility/
If you want to learn more about stress and how to master it, please make sure to check out my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/
To learn how I help with fertility in my practice, here is resource page: https://doctordoni.com/specialties/womens-wellness-and-fertility/
And if you’d like to have my help one-on-one, you can set up an initial appointment here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
For help with anxiety and stress, you can also check out my free masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression: https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety
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 podcast we talk about the gut-brain axis. Stress and cortisol levels in our bodies disrupt our gut health and then our gut health disrupts our cortisol levels and our nervous system. This creates a vicious cycle that leads to various health issues including anxiety, depression, insomnia and many more. By solving the gut-brain axis and healing it we can heal from these chronic issues. So, what is this gut-brain axis?
The mind-gut connection is related to the Vagus nerve. The Vagus nerve is the longest nerve in our bodies and it is heavily involved in the parasympathetic side of our systems, it decreases stress, helps with calmness, relaxation, lowers heart rate, etc.
If we don't get enough of this parasympathetic system happening then our health gets depleted. If we're constantly in stress and we're constantly in sympathetic nervous system response then we're not going to get enough rest and digest correctly.
When we're under chronic constant stress not only are we always in sympathetic mode but we also have constant signaling to our adrenal glands which are responsible for making cortisol. We can have high or low cortisol levels as we can have high or low adrenaline levels. You can find yours by doing a saliva and urine test with me by ordering it in my online store here: https://doctordoni.com/product/assess-your-stress-type/
or also by doing my Stress Type Quiz here: https://doctordoni.com/quiz
-
This quiz will not only let you know which can of stress is affecting you but also how you can start your journey to mastering it.
By knowing your cortisol and adrenaline levels you're going to know whether the signaling to your Vagus nerve and your digestion is in a stressed state.
If your digestion is in a stressed state you will not digest correctly. Nutrients are not going to be absorbed. You could be eating a lot of healthy foods and veggies but you will just be overfeeding your gut bacteria.
Imbalanced cortisol and adrenaline also causes something called leaky gut which is when the intestinal cells are not recovering the way they should causing a permeable intestinal lining which means that undigested food is able to leak through the intestinal cells triggering our immune system.
To know if you have leaky gut you can do an IGA and IGG antibodies finger poke test with me which is available through my online store here:
https://doctordoni.com/product/igg-iga-food-sensitivity-home-testing/
-
With this test, which involves analyzing your system’s response to 100 different kinds of foods, you will be able to know what foods to avoid to heal your gut and gut bacteria. Not only that, leaky gut triggers inflammation everywhere in your body, your joints, your skin, your brain (this is why it is the gut-brain axis), etc.
Many illnesses are associated with a deficient gut bacteria and autoimmune systems like COVID, EBV, HPV, allergies, asthma, eczema even anxiety and depression and dementia. And our gut health is completely associated with how well we're recovering from stress. Throughout my career I have helped thousands of patients to improve their lives by addressing the gut-brain axis problems they may have, healing their leaky guts and overcoming and mastering their stress. I can work with you either one-on-one or in one of my group online programs to help you solve this because you shouldn't have to do this on your own.
I really see that chronic health issues can be solved just by knowing cortisol and adrenaline levels and the degree of leaky gut in one person.
I only work with specific non-habit-forming supplements, nutrients and herbs that help you get back on track.
-
To start healing our nervous system and our gut-brain axis we must go slow. One of the main things I do in my programs is teaching you to come into alignment with the rhythm of your body and the rhythm of healing that works for you and your specific life.
In my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health, (https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/) I talk about knowing your stress type so that you can implement self-care and stress recovery based on your specific stress type, which means learning and having awareness for your body and learning the rhythm of your Vagus nerve.
I want to make sure that you're feeding yourself and your nervous system in a way that it can know that it's safe to process the food correctly so that it doesn't have to trigger an immune response or an inflammatory response to protect you from your own food.
Please I would love to hear from you if this is something you'd like to learn more about from me, please e-mail me or contact my office and let me know.
And you could also start with my online Leaky Gut Program – and get started healing immediately! https://doctordoni.com/leaky-gut-program
Or you can reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer:
https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/
You can also check out my most recent Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression:
https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety/#blank-1
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 podcast I talked with Kiran Krishnan, he is a research microbiologist and the co-founder of Microbiome Labs. He specializes in understanding our gut and our gut biome.
-
I’ve known Kiran for a number of years (we often attend the same medical conferences) and I always enjoy getting his scientific perspective. Today I especially wanted to hear his perspective on stress and the gut-brain axis.
How are stress and our gut health connected?
Kiran explains that we've known for a long time that stress is not good for us but we haven't really understood molecularly how that is or why and how it affects us.
Stress induced dysbiosis and leakiness in the gut is the number one driver of mortality and morbidity worldwide and stress induced gut damage leads to things like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's, obesity, autoimmune disease, etc.
There's so much we can do to help ourselves recover from stress, there's so much we can do to heal leaky gut and rebalance our gut bacteria but I don't see that information being widespread. It’s not only about flooding your gut with that vassilis and bacteria, that's not going to solve the issue.
We have 150 times more microbial DNA in our body than human DNA. We house about 2.5 million microbial genes in our system that give us all of this capability, that dictate the vast majority of functions that happen in our bodies. If we don't have the right microbes it alters that functionality and stress response is an example of that.
This microbiome is affecting our immune system like how we fend off infections. For example, if it's out of balance it can make us more susceptible to autoimmunity. It also affects our nervous system and our mood so if we can get them rebalanced in the right way we can influence and improve our mood and stress response.
Most chronic illnesses come about because of an imbalance of certain types of microbes within the system. So longevity and health is based on the health of ourselves and our microbiome.
The gut and the brain are intimately attached through neurological system called the vagus nerve.
The gut communicates with the brain and the brain communicates with the gut and stress response is one of those critical examples where the gut and brain aren't working together.
-
Without stress we wouldn't exist as a species. Stress response induces something called the flight or fight response the reason for that is we're supposed to be in tune with potential dangers around us.
What's happening in the in the modern world is that process where cortisol gets dumped into the gut and cortisol makes your gut super leaky.
The more we understand it the more we can become aware and conscious about the choices we're making so that we can take back control of our bodies and our health.
When the whole system falls apart is when cortisol enters the gut making your gut leaky because you're missing certain microbes and bacteria.
If you experience stress and anxiety on most days or throughout every day and you have issues sleeping, you likely don't have enough of these microbes.
The beauty of all of this is you can easily take a specific probiotic and then completely change how your body responds to stress. ZenBiome, for example, is a new supplement Kiran developed that contains a specific strain of Bifidobacterium known to reset cortisol production. It is used for people who have elevated cortisol (such as Stress Magnets and Sluggish & Stressed types based on Dr. Doni’s Stress Types). https://doctordoni.com/product/zenbiome-cope-60-capsules/
Also, if you're not sleeping adequately, you are not getting the repair your body and gut needs, so you keep experiencing this overtime and the damage starts accumulating.
We all have some degree of leaky gut. It's more about whether it is mild, moderate, or severe. And if we don't pay attention to healing, we’re going to have a hard time surviving.
We have to adopt healthy habits like cleaning up our diet to help our microbiome, so even things like trying to move towards organic or cleaner foods minimizing exposure to pesticides and herbicides which of course all act as antibiotics in your gut and kill off good bacteria.
There are lots of microbes in your gut who are waiting for food and aren't getting the right types of food because we're eating the same half a dozen things every single day.
When you combine the diet, lifestyle, supplements, food and sleep then you start to see a profound difference, and everything gets back in balance again.
If these changes become a part of your normal routine, you can then maintain that resiliency.
I explain more of this subject in my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/
Or you can reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer.
You can also check out my upcoming FREE Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression going live on October 12TH: https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety
Find the supplements mentioned by Kiran in this interview, such as ZenBiome, in the shop at DoctorDoni.com.
https://doctordoni.com/product/zenbiome-cope-60-capsules/
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 podcast we talk about the topic of narcissism. Narcissism as an overall concept and term can be used in many ways, including to describe personality traits of being excessively admiring of oneself, someone who might be self-centered or selfish or only thinking of themselves, so much so that they feel a sense of entitlement.
As we talk about narcissism, we need to distinguish it from a healthy sense of self prioritization and self-care. I talk about self-care a lot in my new book and in myself care program. It's all about how we take better care of ourselves in terms of our diet and our sleep patterns and our stress recovery and our exercise.
Those of us who are very much compassionate of others and empathetic with others tend to be more susceptible to becoming involved with someone who is narcissistic because opposites attract! Narcissistic relationships can be romantic/intimate relationships, or it may occur in a friendship, job, or other types of relationships.
It is common to have had a parent (or both parents) who have narcissistic traits or a personality disorder, and then find yourself in other similar relationships as an adult. That is because our nervous system becomes familiar with the chaos caused by a narcissist, and we end up choosing a similar sense of stress because it is so familiar.
Someone who is narcissistic is thinking only of their own interest and they don't have the ability to have empathy for others. For narcissists, their way is the only way and they will use manipulation, lies, and threats to get their way. A narcissist has extremely changeable moods and a constant need for attention.
In contrast, a healthy sense of self-care is paying attention to ourselves and prioritizing ourselves and loving ourselves.
In the extreme more severe state of narcissism, such as with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), they think that other people are inferior. Those of us in a healthier state understand that we are all human and we're all equal no matter age or race or where you grew up or what you do for a living.
The thing is sometimes narcissists are also very charming so narcissists may not immediately come across like they think you're wrong or they might not immediately come across like they have no empathy for you.
When you're in a narcissistic relationship you start to really question yourself, you start to get the feeling like you're walking on eggshells, you feel like everything you say and do is wrong. And you're afraid that they're going to either be mad at you and yell at you or they're going to avoid you.
It is common to feel depressed, anxious, isolated, and in emotional and physical pain. Trauma bonds develop and it becomes psychologically abusive. This is what is often referred to as a “toxic relationship.”
I am explaining this from having experienced it myself, from having been in narcissistic relationships for many years.
I've been there. I get it. I understand why you're there and I can tell you there is a way out and I can help you get there.
If you're in a narcissistic relationship, or you're out of a narcissistic relationship, either way we need to help you recover from it. In my own recovery process, I developed my Stress Recovery Protocol and this is why I’m sharing it with you.
As you start to recover from the stress of a narcissistic relationship, you will no longer be attractive for a narcissist because a narcissist needs someone who's going to pay attention to them.
As you heal, as you take better care of yourself and honor yourself and love yourself the narcissistic relationship is going to go away it's going to become less part of your life.
It's about focusing on yourself, on your healing process, your stress recovery, your ability to take better care of yourself. Many people in recovery are afraid that they themselves are narcissistic, so I want to reassure you that when you focus on yourself in these ways, it is a healthy way to prioritize yourself.
I can tell you from my experience that it's possible to get out of narcissistic relationships and it's possible to retrain your nervous system so that you don't find yourself back in a narcissistic relationship again.
Please, I would love to hear from you if this is something you'd like to learn more about from me, please e-mail me or contact my office and let me know.
I explain more of this in my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/
Or you can reach out to me to set up a one-on-one appointment if you prefer so I can guide you step by step through the process that has helped me and so many others.
You can also check out my upcoming FREE Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression going live on October 12TH: https://doctordoni.com/specialties/anxiety-depression/
We're here to help you!
-
Connect with Dr. Doni:
Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON
Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON
YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND
Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW
-
Books and Resources:
Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576
Stress Warrior Book (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR
Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE)
HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR
7-day Stress Reset (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET
HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE)
HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/
-
Personalized Solutions:
If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH
To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.