Latest / Alignment With Jenn / (#32) Your Gut Is Controlling Your Mind: The Missing Link to Anxiety & Negative Thinking (with Heather Munnelly)

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(#32) Your Gut Is Controlling Your Mind: The Missing Link to Anxiety & Negative Thinking (with Heather Munnelly) · Alignment With Jenn

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Alignment with Jen podcast.
• 0:02
  I am your host, Jen. It's easy.
• 0:04
  And I'm really excited about this episode today because it is
• 0:07
  our actually our first guest episode with my friend Heather
• 0:11
  Manley, who is a gut health expert.
• 0:13
  And she's going to be taking us on the amazing journey of the
• 0:16
  connection between the gut and the brain and how it affects our
• 0:20
  levels of anxiety, our levels of health, levels of negative
• 0:23
  thinking. And I just can't wait to get to
• 0:26
  share this information because when I first learned about gut
• 0:29
  health and I really started diving in and healing my own
• 0:31
  gut, it made a huge, huge change for me in my life.
• 0:36
  And I am so grateful to get to have Heather here today.
• 0:39
  So welcome, Heather. Excited to be the 1st guest.
• 0:42
  Yeah, me too. I'm so excited too.
• 0:44
  I would love to kind of start off and just share with people
• 0:47
  your story and what led you to the coaching work that you do
• 0:51
  now. I know that you've been coaching
• 0:53
  since 2019, so for about 7 years and I know that it seems like
• 0:58
  you create amazing transformations.
• 0:59
  I've seen your transformation photos of yourself and it's
• 1:02
  really amazing what has changed for you?
• 1:04
  So I'd love to hear your story, you know where where this
• 1:08
  started for you. Yeah, so it actually started.
• 1:11
  I always had really good gut health and when I was around 17,
• 1:15
  it just kind of changed overnight and I believe it was
• 1:19
  due to a food poison or it was a contaminated water that I was
• 1:22
  exposed to while traveling in Mexico.
• 1:25
  I actually had a lot of emotional and like, you know,
• 1:28
  trauma and stress going on that same year too.
• 1:30
  So it took me a while to kind of piece together what I think
• 1:32
  happened, But I just had this like very overnight change in my
• 1:36
  in my health and that led me to this path.
• 1:39
  Interesting. So what was that change like?
• 1:42
  What was the before and the after for you?
• 1:44
  Before I was just a very normal like healthy athletic 90s kid
• 1:49
  and after I had chronic abdominal pain, digestive
• 1:54
  issues. It was like I had a stomach bug.
• 1:57
  Like chronically basically. At 17.
• 2:00
  At 17, that lasted for like. Almost 11 years.
• 2:04
  Wow. Wow.
• 2:05
  So till you're 28, yeah, that is so young to have gut health
• 2:10
  issues too, because I think most of the time, correct me if I'm
• 2:13
  wrong, it seems like we're sort of buffered at that age.
• 2:16
  And then as we get older, that's when people start to see it.
• 2:19
  Yeah, I felt like I was the youngest person that I knew, and
• 2:22
  I could tell because when I went to college, I was like the only
• 2:24
  person running to the bathroom constantly.
• 2:26
  And like, I could just tell that like nobody else was like
• 2:29
  dealing with it. I think it's a lot more
• 2:30
  prevalent now, but this was like early 2000s still.
• 2:33
  So yeah, I felt like I was the only one, yeah.
• 2:38
  So for 11 years, that's kind of the symptoms that you
• 2:41
  experienced. Yes, lots of like food
• 2:44
  intolerances, bloating. I looked six months pregnant
• 2:48
  after every meal, even like a sip of water would make me
• 2:50
  bloated. Wow.
• 2:51
  I was intolerant to like absolutely everything.
• 2:54
  And I was just so uncomfortable all the time.
• 2:55
  And it impacted my mood and my social life and the clothing
• 2:58
  that I wore because I was always trying to hide like the bloated
• 3:01
  belly and all of that. And I just, I felt horrible.
• 3:04
  Yeah, I think for me it was that I drank a lot when I was in
• 3:08
  college, like I would party a lot.
• 3:10
  And I think that it negatively impacted my gut health.
• 3:13
  So for me, it was kind of in my mid 20s that it started, but it
• 3:15
  was a similar, like a lot of digestive issues, a lot of
• 3:19
  anxiety. So for me it was a lot of mental
• 3:21
  health stuff that I think was connected to the gut.
• 3:23
  Did you experience any of that? 100%, yeah.
• 3:26
  And I think it is really connected.
• 3:27
  Like that was one of my earlier symptoms that I noticed because
• 3:30
  I never had anxiety before that. Yeah.
• 3:33
  And that was like the point to where my doctors would be like,
• 3:35
  oh, I would stress. And I was like, I don't really
• 3:37
  have like, you know, 17, right? Like I was like, I didn't have
• 3:40
  stress like last week. And or like, it's the same
• 3:43
  stress. Like what changed, you know,
• 3:44
  overnight? Like it did create like a lot of
• 3:47
  anxiety for me too. That was one of the really
• 3:49
  abrupt things that I noticed too.
• 3:51
  So you had this experience, right?
• 3:53
  Things started to change and then what did you do?
• 3:56
  Like what did that lead you on to try to solve it?
• 4:00
  So initially, because I was told by my doctors that it was caused
• 4:04
  by stress and from the research I did, I realized that like
• 4:08
  stress can also be trauma. And I did have a lot of trauma.
• 4:11
  I think my ACES score was like 6 or something, I can't remember,
• 4:13
  but quite a lot of trauma and especially things going on in my
• 4:16
  high school at the time. So I looked there first, which
• 4:19
  I've realized, I'm realizing is like a little bit uncommon, but
• 4:22
  I just believed like the doctors when they were like, this is
• 4:25
  caused by stress. Like that's what causes IBS.
• 4:27
  I was like, OK, I did have some of that.
• 4:30
  Yeah. Let me look at that.
• 4:30
  Let me look at initially it was like trying to yoga, meditation
• 4:35
  certain and things like that. And then it got deeper into like
• 4:38
  having hard conversations with people in my life and
• 4:41
  forgiveness and really accepting things that I had been through.
• 4:44
  And I was a big part of my journey early on, I think.
• 4:49
  Yeah. What do you think was the
• 4:50
  turning point for you in terms of your health?
• 4:53
  It really was very overnight the way that I healed as well.
• 4:57
  Wow. I want to say that there was so
• 5:00
  much that I did in between and that eleven years that I would
• 5:03
  want to say was like helpful, but really it wasn't until 2018
• 5:07
  when I did, I got protocol on myself and I ended up purging
• 5:11
  like tons of parasites. Like I realized that the time
• 5:14
  that I was dealing with like multiple types of SIBO fungal
• 5:17
  overgrowth, I was super sensitive to mold.
• 5:19
  I was living in mold. Wow.
• 5:21
  And I had all these parasites. And like, that was something
• 5:24
  very clear, like when I went through my healing process, like
• 5:27
  TMI, but like seeing that leave my body and then feeling this
• 5:31
  huge wave of anxiety when they were leaving my body.
• 5:34
  And I was having like, flashbacks and hallucinations
• 5:37
  and then just waking up and having no food intolerances
• 5:41
  anymore. Wow.
• 5:43
  It was very crazy. What was that time span like?
• 5:46
  How long did that take? 90 days.
• 5:49
  Wow. Yeah.
• 5:51
  And your program now is 90 days, isn't it?
• 5:53
  No, it's a little bit longer because we do lab testing in the
• 5:55
  beginning. Oh, just because it will help
• 5:58
  us, like be aligned to what we need to do with people.
• 6:01
  Yeah, where I was throwing spaghetti at the wall for 11
• 6:04
  years before I figured it out. So.
• 6:05
  Yeah, wow. What's amazing about that?
• 6:08
  So I feel like when I did the gut health journey, it was like
• 6:11
  multiple years of me trying to heal my gut and trying to heal
• 6:14
  my gut. Like I did so many stool tests,
• 6:16
  all sorts of like SIBO tests, all sorts of things like that.
• 6:19
  And I felt like everything kept coming back.
• 6:23
  And for me, it was, I think I had cleared out the stuff, but
• 6:27
  it was my mind. And So what happened is I
• 6:29
  started diving deep into the subconscious, which is what I
• 6:32
  work with my clients now. And that is what really made the
• 6:36
  difference for me was really studying and understanding and
• 6:39
  really changing my thought processes.
• 6:41
  And that's what I find so interesting is like, you did
• 6:43
  that part, but for you is the physical healing that made the
• 6:46
  big difference. And I think oftentimes it's so
• 6:48
  easy for us to separate the 2 and be like, OK, if my spiritual
• 6:52
  health, my emotional health is good, I'm solid.
• 6:55
  Or some people think if my physical health is good, if I'm
• 6:57
  taking care of my physical body, which is what I thought, I'm
• 7:00
  good. But there's obviously this
• 7:03
  connection, you know, that we have to have both of them.
• 7:06
  A. 100% yeah. And I think it's like whichever
• 7:09
  1 you do kind of first, this is just my theory, but like, I feel
• 7:13
  like whatever 1 you do first kind of like lays this
• 7:15
  groundwork that you might not feel like a lot of the Yeah,
• 7:18
  like spiritual emotional stuff like forgiveness and learning
• 7:23
  how to sit in silence and meditate, like developing all
• 7:26
  these healthy like practices. I read so many books in, like,
• 7:29
  the personal development, spirituality, like so many
• 7:33
  podcast, Like, I was just so deep in all of that stuff.
• 7:35
  Yeah. And that I think allowed my
• 7:38
  nervous system to be in a state where it could heal.
• 7:42
  Yeah. Like, a lot of people don't heal
• 7:44
  in 90 days on supplements and stuff like what I did ultimately
• 7:48
  that moved the needle, and I attribute so much growth to
• 7:52
  that. Yeah.
• 7:52
  But it's like, how much of it was the prep that I had done for
• 7:55
  years, you know? Yeah, and I think that was, for
• 7:58
  me, what I was missing is like I was so focused on, OK, well,
• 8:01
  it's a physical symptom, so I need to heal it with the
• 8:03
  physical. And I was missing that nervous
• 8:06
  system component, healing my mind, healing those aspects of
• 8:09
  myself. So I'd love to give people an
• 8:13
  understanding of the gut and really what it is, right?
• 8:17
  If people are new, they may not understand how important it is,
• 8:21
  right? We kind of think like it just
• 8:22
  digests our food. And so often times I think
• 8:25
  people aren't taught how important it is.
• 8:27
  So I'd love for you to share a little bit about what is the gut
• 8:30
  for someone that's new to this experience.
• 8:34
  What is the gut? So I think of the gut as like a
• 8:37
  tube that kind of runs from our mouth to the bottom of our GI
• 8:41
  tract when food enters and then it exits basically and
• 8:44
  everything in between. So we have primarily like the
• 8:47
  stomach, small intestine and large intestine and then the
• 8:50
  assisting organs like the gallbladder, liver and pancreas.
• 8:54
  With that, why does that cause so many impacts on health,
• 8:59
  right, and on mental health as well?
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  At the core, this is kind of how we mine energy.
• 9:05
  This is like like humans, we run off air and energy that we
• 9:09
  create through like foods. So we have to refine those
• 9:14
  resources that we eat into usable micronutrients and things
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  like that so that we can then experience like downstream
• 9:22
  health, you know, like hormones and energy and all these things.
• 9:25
  Yeah. So I think at its core, it's
• 9:28
  like we have to digest in order to run the whole body.
• 9:31
  Yeah. So I know that people can have
• 9:35
  imbalances in their gut, and that's kind of what creates this
• 9:38
  host of issues of either mental health issues like anxiety and
• 9:41
  depression or overthinking or difficulty sleeping or the
• 9:45
  physical stuff like the bloating and the blue stool and the, you
• 9:50
  know, cramps and things like that.
• 9:52
  I guess. Tell us a little bit about gut
• 9:54
  dysbiosis and what that means. So gut dysbiosis is when we have
• 10:00
  sort of an imbalance in our microorganisms that live in our
• 10:04
  body. So in our body we have more
• 10:07
  microorganisms than we do human cells.
• 10:09
  And the exact numbers changes at times, like it's an estimate
• 10:14
  that I won't say just because every few years they seem to
• 10:17
  adjust it. But yeah, we have all these
• 10:19
  microbes and they definitely outnumber us and they're really
• 10:21
  important and they we want them in balance.
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  So there's all basically good ones and ones that we want to
• 10:27
  have in lower quantities. And dysbiosis is when that
• 10:31
  shifts and we don't have as many of the good beneficial microbes
• 10:35
  and we start to get a little bit more of those, more inflammation
• 10:38
  promoting ones, the more like pathobionts that can be a
• 10:41
  negative if they're overgrowing. Does that make sense?
• 10:43
  Yeah. And that causes those symptoms
• 10:45
  that people experience. Yeah, a lot of times it does.
• 10:48
  So how does somebody's gut get into?
• 10:51
  Dysbiosis, so many different factors, but I think some of the
• 10:55
  main ones right now are the Western diet, so like standard
• 10:59
  American diet, which is very high fat, low fiber that can
• 11:04
  really promote dysbiosis and is one of the main, I think that's
• 11:07
  the main one, yeah. I would say second to that would
• 11:11
  be medications. I almost want to say like
• 11:14
  pesticides a second. So like food quality things like
• 11:18
  glyphosate cause a lot of dysbiosis, but then medications
• 11:21
  as well. So things like PPI's are known
• 11:24
  to drive things like SIBO. What's a PPI?
• 11:26
  Like an acid blocker a lot of people take for reflux that
• 11:31
  causes birth control and of course antibiotics.
• 11:34
  Yeah, I think that was one of the big ones for me is when I
• 11:38
  was growing up, I got strep like they thought I was a carrier of
• 11:41
  strep. I'd get it like once a month.
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  And so I took like 20 rounds of antibiotics before I was like
• 11:46
  10. And I'm like, it's crazy how
• 11:49
  much I've healed because I don't think my gut was ever really
• 11:52
  that healthy. And now I think it's pretty
• 11:55
  healthy. Wait, can we talk about strep?
• 11:57
  Because that's a really interesting thing that you dealt
• 11:59
  with. Yeah, so strep is depending on
• 12:02
  the strain and there's different ones, but the pathogenic straps,
• 12:06
  like they're, they're mega producers of histamine and they
• 12:10
  really bloom. And did you live in a moldy home
• 12:12
  at all? Not that I know of.
• 12:15
  They tend to a lot of like children and and people that
• 12:18
  have a lot of strep infections. It strep really thrives in like
• 12:21
  a moldy environment and it produces all this histamine and
• 12:26
  that can be a really big driver of anxiety.
• 12:30
  And so wow, a lot of times people that have strep
• 12:34
  infections, like recurrent strep issues, they will also deal with
• 12:38
  a lot of like anxiety as well as even like ruminating thoughts,
• 12:43
  compulsive thoughts and OCD. So OCD has been linked to strep.
• 12:48
  And if you look in like the PANS and PANDAS communities, they're
• 12:51
  very aware of this in the mold and strep and OCD connection.
• 12:55
  Wow, see that's what I find. So it's so like illuminating,
• 13:00
  right? Because basically what you
• 13:01
  described is like was the journey that I had where I had
• 13:04
  this strep and then I took antibiotics and then I had
• 13:07
  anxiety for years and years and years.
• 13:10
  Yeah, really interesting. Did you ever have like the
• 13:12
  intrusive? Thoughts.
• 13:13
  Or like no. Didn't get there.
• 13:16
  No, it was more just like I was anxious all the time about like
• 13:20
  anything I could be anxious about.
• 13:22
  No intrusive thoughts, no OCD, nothing like that.
• 13:25
  And it was probably similar to what you said where it was like
• 13:27
  all the gut healing I did laid the foundation for the spiritual
• 13:31
  emotional healing that I did later to heal that.
• 13:33
  That's the really big piece I want people to take away.
• 13:36
  It's that often times we can get so focused on one hand when the
• 13:41
  mind and the body are one, right?
• 13:43
  Our whole energetic field is 1. And so when we work on them both
• 13:47
  together and we care for them both together, I think that's
• 13:50
  when we reach our ultimate potential.
• 13:51
  Can you explain a little bit about the histamine connection
• 13:54
  as well with gut health? Because I I know that's big for
• 13:57
  a lot of people too. Yeah, histamine is something
• 14:00
  that is produced by certain gut bacteria, not all of them.
• 14:03
  And it tends to be more of like the pathogens strep, E coli,
• 14:07
  things like that can produce histamine and it doesn't feel
• 14:11
  good. This is like what kind of raises
• 14:12
  your heart rate. It can make you short of breath,
• 14:15
  anxious. You could also have just even
• 14:17
  like, a runny nose, sinus congestion.
• 14:20
  Think of, like, allergies. Yeah.
• 14:22
  So a lot of people take antihistamines to calm down
• 14:27
  those symptoms because they're pretty uncomfortable.
• 14:29
  Yeah. And a lot of that histamine can
• 14:31
  be driven just by dysbiosis and then overgrowth of these
• 14:35
  histamine producing gut bacteria.
• 14:37
  Interesting. For our listeners, what is how
• 14:41
  can they tell if they probably have some dysbiosis going on?
• 14:44
  A couple ways, I think the obvious kind of gut symptoms
• 14:47
  would be if you deal with any kind of food intolerances,
• 14:50
  bloating, digestive issues. But then it doesn't always have
• 14:53
  to be digestive. You could experience things like
• 14:56
  low mood, anxiety, things like that.
• 14:59
  Skin issues are big. I had that, too.
• 15:02
  Yeah. I posted this photo on
• 15:03
  Instagram. I had eczema all over my face as
• 15:05
  a little kid for years. I know.
• 15:08
  And it was like, probably until like, elementary school.
• 15:10
  And then when I was in college, I had it all over my body.
• 15:15
  Yeah, wow, I didn't. Actually know that either.
• 15:17
  I know I had a crazy, I had a crazy health history.
• 15:20
  Is that after the antibiotics for strep?
• 15:22
  Oh, my girl. I know.
• 15:24
  And so like my 20s, I feel like I spent it healing like similar
• 15:27
  to you and I almost even as we're having this conversation,
• 15:29
  I'm sort of thinking I'm like the mindset stuff was so huge.
• 15:33
  And I really think what you said is so accurate of like, it
• 15:36
  probably was so effective for me because I had done so much
• 15:39
  physical healing, you know, and like you had done so much
• 15:42
  spiritual and emotional healing, and so your gut health stuff was
• 15:45
  so much more. Effective totally.
• 15:47
  I I really believe that I think it's a holistic lens that we
• 15:50
  need to look at it through and not just, you know, because
• 15:53
  people want to fight about like different things in Wellness.
• 15:56
  Yeah, that that work for them. So it's all about like, know
• 15:58
  this diet, know that diet or you know, it's like the spiritual,
• 16:01
  emotional side, know it's the physiological, but it's like, I
• 16:04
  think that we can like zoom out and really look at these all
• 16:07
  play a role. Yes, I so agree.
• 16:10
  I still agree. We're so much more powerful
• 16:12
  having the information. So OK, let's say somebody feels
• 16:16
  like they're like, yeah, I raised my hand, I feel like I
• 16:18
  have some dysbiosis. What are some of the things that
• 16:21
  they can start doing now to start healing that?
• 16:24
  Let's start with like lifestyle changes and then we'll get more
• 16:26
  into the actual getting in there in the gut or even just to
• 16:31
  support a healthy gut. One of the main ways to support
• 16:35
  a healthy gut is to remove like the constant irritants.
• 16:39
  So I know it's like a little bit boring, but getting pesticides
• 16:44
  and like chemicals out of your food is like the number one
• 16:46
  thing that you can do. You'll pay more money for like
• 16:49
  not having poison in your food. It will just, like, eat organic,
• 16:53
  yeah. And it will taste the same, like
• 16:54
  people often just are like, why would I pay more for that?
• 16:57
  The point is that pesticides are linked not only to gut
• 17:01
  dysbiosis, but to depression and like mood, you know, changes in
• 17:06
  mood, changes in how you experience life, your quality of
• 17:08
  life. So I would say like if you're
• 17:12
  not already making the investment and you can find a
• 17:14
  way to do it, just getting onto more of an organic diet, even if
• 17:19
  you just do the clean 15, yeah, get rid of The Dirty dozen,
• 17:22
  something like that. And there are less of those that
• 17:24
  you can look up. They change once a year.
• 17:26
  But just making most of your food not have antibiotics in it.
• 17:32
  Yeah. And that's The thing is like
• 17:34
  glyphosate, which is like a really common pesticide right
• 17:38
  now, or not a pesticide. It's like an herbicide, but it's
• 17:41
  actually patented as an antibiotic.
• 17:44
  So it's known that it causes gut disruption.
• 17:48
  What? Yeah, that's crazy.
• 17:51
  Yeah. They do not know that.
• 17:53
  No, I just. Assume people know that.
• 17:54
  I had no idea. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:57
  So glyphosate, which is Roundup, you know, it's sprayed on like
• 17:59
  all of our corn or grains, all of.
• 18:02
  That our neighbors like sprayed all over the.
• 18:04
  Place yeah, You want to stay away from that.
• 18:05
  It's an antibiotic and it causes disruptions to the gut lining as
• 18:11
  well. So leaky gut, and that's also
• 18:14
  connected to anxiety, but it leads to dysbiosis.
• 18:16
  So if you're just eating, you know, things like that on a
• 18:18
  regular basis, you might think that you're eating healthy salad
• 18:22
  or something, but if it's not organic and it's been sprayed
• 18:24
  with things like that, then you're actually selectively
• 18:27
  harming your beneficial species. Glyphosate actually kills
• 18:30
  beneficial bacteria more than it does.
• 18:35
  Wow. So you end up getting way
• 18:37
  disrupted. Way disrupted.
• 18:38
  So it leads to these blooms and like overgrowth of these bad,
• 18:42
  bad bacteria like proteo bacteria and those are the ones
• 18:45
  that really promote anxiety and and mood disorders and stuff
• 18:48
  because they're so high in endotoxin.
• 18:52
  Wow. Will you tell us a little bit
• 18:53
  about, in case people don't know what leaky gut is?
• 18:55
  Yeah, leaky gut. So your gut lining is just, it's
• 18:58
  designed to be kind of permeable so that you can absorb nutrients
• 19:01
  into the bloodstream. But sometimes they can get a
• 19:04
  little bit too permeable and that's one of the effects of
• 19:08
  chronic stress causes leaky gut or you know, glyphosate that I
• 19:12
  mentioned causes leaky gut. Even like running, you know, a
• 19:15
  lot of like ultra marathoners and stuff like that will have
• 19:18
  leaky gut. That's part of why they can have
• 19:20
  like digestive issues while they're running and things like
• 19:23
  that. So lots of different causes of
• 19:25
  that, but a really high fat meal that lacks fiber can cause leaky
• 19:28
  gut. Oh wow.
• 19:31
  And of course, this biosis. Wow, I didn't know that about
• 19:34
  the high fat diet. Yeah, it's a big cause, yeah.
• 19:37
  So keto could keto diets cause leaky gut then?
• 19:41
  Yeah, if it's eating a lot of fat.
• 19:43
  So you tell us about the endotoxins.
• 19:46
  Yeah. So certain types of gram
• 19:49
  negative bacteria like things like E coli, things that are not
• 19:52
  super like great to have a lot of yeah, their cell membrane
• 19:56
  contains something called LP's or the other name for it is
• 19:59
  endotoxin. So just hearing the name toxin
• 20:02
  and that you know that. It's it's not great you.
• 20:04
  Don't want a ton of this. We all might have like a little
• 20:06
  E coli somewhere in our gut, but like we don't want tons of this
• 20:08
  and yeah, there's other bacteria that have it too.
• 20:11
  So when you have a lot of that endotoxin, yeah, it's can often,
• 20:17
  especially if the person has leaky gut, it can get into the
• 20:20
  bloodstream and cause systemic inflammation and brain
• 20:23
  inflammation. Wow.
• 20:25
  It actually has an impact on neurotransmitters as well.
• 20:29
  So then this is disruptive to your like GABA, serotonin and
• 20:32
  all these things that we know really impact the mood.
• 20:35
  Wow. So it also, I would imagine all
• 20:38
  of this gut health stuff also impacts like focus and
• 20:42
  motivation and being able to really show up for the things
• 20:45
  you wanna show. Up for 100% because if you have
• 20:48
  a ton of like endotoxin in your gut, let's say your gut is
• 20:52
  really dysbiotic, you have a lot of these pathogens that have
• 20:55
  endotoxin in their cell membrane.
• 20:57
  You eat a really high fat meal or you have a really high stress
• 21:01
  experience. Then your gut is is permeable
• 21:04
  and some of this gets into circulation.
• 21:06
  It inflames the brain and then it disrupts the signaling of the
• 21:09
  dopamine that might motivate you.
• 21:11
  So you might feel really demotivated even though you're
• 21:13
  like, wait, why? I really want to do this thing
• 21:16
  but like why can't I get myself to do it?
• 21:18
  Wow. And you're also like, typically
• 21:21
  when you're dysbiotic like that, you're lacking the beneficial
• 21:24
  microbes that produce B vitamins and things like that, that we
• 21:26
  really need to stay focused like folate.
• 21:30
  Wow. Yeah, it's wild to me how
• 21:33
  there's just so many cascades of different effects that happen.
• 21:36
  Yeah, so we have avoiding pesticides, so eating organic is
• 21:40
  a really good step. What would be another step
• 21:42
  someone could take to overcome? Dysbiosis.
• 21:45
  Yeah, and just have a healthy gut in general.
• 21:48
  Yeah, definitely cutting out. I mean like any kind of food
• 21:51
  chemicals, just keeping it really clean, going to farmers
• 21:53
  markets, that's big. And then medications, if if
• 21:56
  you're taking things like acid blockers, birth control, every
• 22:01
  medication I have not found one that doesn't have like some sort
• 22:05
  of impact on. Wow.
• 22:07
  Like the gut or depletes nutrients in some way as a
• 22:11
  result of taking it or something like there's there's negative
• 22:13
  side effects of medications. Wow, so even like SSRI's or
• 22:19
  Adderall? Yeah.
• 22:20
  Yeah. So all medications will deplete
• 22:22
  certain nutrients. Like a lot of times it's like
• 22:24
  magnesium or different things like that.
• 22:27
  So there are, I want to say it's called like the Nurse's
• 22:30
  Handbook. I can't remember.
• 22:31
  But there's ways you can look up if you're on a medication that
• 22:34
  you really need to, like, stay on.
• 22:36
  And I'm not advocating that people, like, discontinue their
• 22:38
  meds or anything, but just being aware that these two have side
• 22:41
  effects. Yeah, in theory, you can look up
• 22:44
  and see, OK, what medication am I on?
• 22:46
  What nutrients does it deplete? And then am I getting enough of
• 22:49
  those through my diet and making an effort to do so?
• 22:53
  Yeah. So medications, it's interesting
• 22:56
  that those are two of the biggest ones because you would
• 22:59
  never really associate that with the health of your body in
• 23:02
  general. Like most people are probably
• 23:04
  not even thinking about pesticides on a daily basis.
• 23:06
  I know because they're invisible.
• 23:08
  Right. Yeah.
• 23:09
  So what's one more that we could tell that people could do?
• 23:12
  Yeah. So being conscientious about
• 23:14
  your use of meds, your exposure to toxins and just managing, I
• 23:20
  think this where it comes back to your wheelhouse of like
• 23:22
  definitely managing stress. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Stress hormones, Dr. Dysbiosis specifically.
• 23:29
  Oh, like cortisol? Yeah, cortisol leads to blooms
• 23:33
  of those endotoxin producing bacteria.
• 23:35
  No way. It does, yeah.
• 23:38
  And that's so interesting. What about sugar?
• 23:40
  Because I this is just my own personal observing of myself, is
• 23:45
  that when I have sugar, I feel more anxious, more irritable the
• 23:50
  next day. Is that something that's going
• 23:53
  on in my gut? It probably is.
• 23:55
  You know, I think, like, sugar is really demonized.
• 23:58
  But if you can get your gut to a really good place, you should be
• 24:00
  able to have a little bit and not notice anything from it.
• 24:03
  Yeah. So if you're noticing something
• 24:05
  like, I mean, if you eat like an entire cake, you know, obviously
• 24:08
  you're going to feel bad. But if you.
• 24:10
  Have you know like a serving of sugar and you feel bad that day
• 24:15
  or the next day? I would be thinking there's
• 24:17
  things that you could do in your gut to improve.
• 24:19
  Yeah. Let's talk about that a bit.
• 24:21
  Let's talk about if somebody is like, yes, I really would like
• 24:25
  to focus on my gut health. I'd like to do some, I'd like
• 24:28
  some help with that. What is kind of the process you
• 24:30
  take people through? Yeah.
• 24:32
  So we always start out with lab testing.
• 24:34
  I didn't really have access to functional lab testing when I
• 24:38
  was going through it and. What's functional lab testing?
• 24:41
  That's a good question. Most people do like traditional
• 24:44
  lab testing through their doctor, and that will be things
• 24:47
  like a colonoscopy or blood work.
• 24:49
  After you've done that, if you've kind of rolled out like
• 24:52
  the scary things I call it like colon cancer or something.
• 24:55
  Like that? Then you can do functional
• 24:58
  testing and that's things like looking at the microbiome,
• 25:01
  looking at the gut bacteria, looking at the things I'm
• 25:04
  talking about. So like how much of your gut
• 25:05
  microbiome is actually like promoting inflammation and
• 25:08
  endotoxin and all these things. So we can look at the gut
• 25:12
  through lots of different functional testing through
• 25:16
  breath, through stool, through urine.
• 25:18
  Even because they're not considered medically necessary,
• 25:21
  they're not things that doctors. Order, yeah.
• 25:23
  But if you, like I said, if you've gone through like
• 25:26
  traditional Med and you haven't gotten the answers you're
• 25:28
  looking for, that's where I think functional testing is
• 25:31
  really key. It can provide so many insights
• 25:34
  of like what's out of balance. And yeah, so basically we start
• 25:37
  with that. So doing some functional testing
• 25:39
  and then is it like an herbal protocol and dietary changes
• 25:43
  that people would expect? We do a combination of diet,
• 25:47
  lifestyle and supplements. Yeah.
• 25:50
  And most people experience a lot of changes in 90 days.
• 25:53
  We do a little longer, so we work with people right now for
• 25:55
  like 5 to 6 months and then that gives us like a month, month and
• 25:59
  a half to do testing. And then they'll be on a
• 26:01
  protocol for three to five months depending on on what they
• 26:06
  have going on. And it will vary.
• 26:07
  You know, the reason we do this is because the issues I had
• 26:11
  causing my symptoms, like they're different than, you
• 26:14
  know, what you had causing yours, even though we had
• 26:16
  similar symptoms. And so it's like we we both had
• 26:19
  bloating, but where that bloating was coming from is
• 26:22
  different. Yeah.
• 26:23
  So it's kind of customized to where the person's AT and.
• 26:27
  Testing really helps us to see like where is your bloating
• 26:29
  coming from? Yeah.
• 26:31
  So then after somebody does a protocol like this, is it like
• 26:34
  they go and eat whatever they want or like what?
• 26:37
  Because I can imagine that would probably not be the thing to do.
• 26:40
  I mean, I eat whatever I want. Really.
• 26:44
  Yeah, but you eat quality. I do eat quality.
• 26:46
  So one thing that I've never changed since I was like maybe
• 26:49
  21 and I started eating organic, I still eat organic to this day.
• 26:53
  I never change that. So I think food quality is
• 26:56
  really, really important. I follow an 8020 approach, and
• 26:59
  this is my only expectation of, like my clients as well is you
• 27:02
  don't have to be perfect. We're not going to put you on
• 27:05
  some, like, really rigid thing. Yeah.
• 27:07
  If you have a birthday party in the middle of your protocol and
• 27:09
  you're going to go have some wine and cake, it's going to be
• 27:11
  OK. Yeah, I figured this out because
• 27:13
  I used to think that you had to be really rigid, and my healing
• 27:17
  diet was very rigid. I thought if I had one bite of
• 27:20
  sugar I would feed the candida and the parasites and it would
• 27:24
  all backfire. Yeah.
• 27:26
  But then I had clients who were like young girls that would
• 27:29
  like, you know, we'd be working on SIBO or something like that.
• 27:31
  And they would go out and like binge on whatever, sugar and
• 27:35
  alcohol. And they would come back and
• 27:37
  like check in with me. And I was like, Oh my God, they,
• 27:40
  they're not going to get better. But we they got better, you
• 27:42
  know, in the same speed as Wow as everyone else.
• 27:46
  Do you think it was because they were younger or what do you
• 27:48
  think it was? No, I think it was just that I
• 27:51
  realized that the rigidity of the diet was not as important as
• 27:56
  I. Believed it's more the the
• 27:59
  quantity being at that 80% ish. Yeah, 8020, like, you know, I
• 28:03
  think if you're trying to create really ideal gut health, it's
• 28:06
  not going to make sense to continue to consume antibiotics
• 28:10
  on a regular basis, which you would be doing if you're eating
• 28:13
  animals that have been fed antibiotics, which is common.
• 28:17
  If you're consuming glyphosate sprayed crops, like we want to
• 28:21
  eliminate this 80% of the time at least if more.
• 28:24
  But As for like the actual foods themselves, I don't think it's
• 28:28
  important to cut out all of the foods that we think of as, yeah,
• 28:33
  like a prop, like having like a little bit of sugar or alcohol
• 28:36
  or something. It's not going to completely
• 28:37
  derail your progress. It's not going to help you heal,
• 28:40
  but it's not going to completely derail everything.
• 28:42
  You can still heal if you're doing 80% of the things right.
• 28:45
  It's like okay to be a little bit.
• 28:47
  Yeah, that's such a healthy thing because I tell my clients
• 28:51
  the same things of in terms of their mind and their
• 28:54
  subconscious. Like there's so much stress that
• 28:56
  we place on ourselves trying to do that last 20% that that ends
• 29:00
  up having more negative repercussions than just focusing
• 29:03
  on doing a good job 80% of the time.
• 29:07
  Yeah, 100%. And that's like that's so
• 29:09
  documented to like in science and studies and the impact of
• 29:13
  like cortisol spiking and what it does to the gut microbiome so
• 29:16
  quickly. So it's super, super validated
• 29:18
  that thinking, yeah. So amazing.
• 29:20
  So any last things that you want to mention that we didn't talk
• 29:23
  about? There's so many ways, like I
• 29:25
  feel like we kind of talked a lot about the gut microbiome and
• 29:29
  how it can impact mood and emotions and how we both believe
• 29:33
  in taking a holistic approach and addressing all of it.
• 29:35
  One thing that like we've known like since the 70s up until like
• 29:40
  the early 2000s was the impact that the brain has on the gut.
• 29:44
  That's very, very clear. Oh yeah.
• 29:46
  That's like mainstream. But then it wasn't until like
• 29:49
  maybe the last like 15 years or so, they started doing a lot
• 29:52
  more studies on the guts impact of the, on the brain.
• 29:56
  And that's the part that like people don't give any credit to
• 29:59
  it. And so there's a lot more
• 30:01
  knowledge coming out about how our gut bacteria and our gut
• 30:05
  lining and all these things that we kind of scratch the surface
• 30:08
  on today really can impact our thoughts, our moods, our
• 30:11
  emotions. So how does that work?
• 30:13
  So you're saying the signals from the gut are influencing the
• 30:18
  neurotransmitter release from the brain?
• 30:20
  Yeah, and that's just like one of the ways there's so many
• 30:23
  connections. They did like a meta analysis,
• 30:25
  which is like a the gold standard of studies.
• 30:28
  It's like where they look at all the studies done on the topic.
• 30:30
  They did this for like depression and antibiotics.
• 30:35
  And like they basically found that in every study done on
• 30:37
  this, that antibiotic use always resulted in increased risk for
• 30:42
  depression. Wow.
• 30:44
  Yeah, in every study. Wow.
• 30:46
  So there's things like that. So we think of like our moods
• 30:49
  and our thoughts and our mindset, but it's like there is
• 30:52
  a physiologic component. So basically it's bi directional
• 30:56
  is what we now know. We used to think it was top
• 30:58
  down, it was brain impacts gut. Yeah.
• 31:01
  And in the last, like I said, like decade and a half, we've
• 31:04
  learned that the gut impacts the brain equally so.
• 31:07
  So it's a bi directional communication that's constantly
• 31:10
  going back and forth. Isn't that amazing?
• 31:14
  The heart is the same way. So 90% of the neurons going from
• 31:18
  between the heart and the brain are from the heart to the brain,
• 31:21
  you know, isn't that crazy? I like, I love that fact.
• 31:25
  Yeah, I love that too. It's so good.
• 31:27
  But you know, when you think about that, you're like, OK, the
• 31:29
  heart is basically kind of controlling the brain.
• 31:31
  The gut has a lot of control over the brain.
• 31:33
  We put so much emphasis on thinking in the conscious mind,
• 31:37
  you know, when we have all of this access to these other parts
• 31:41
  of our body. They did this other study where
• 31:43
  they showed just side note about the heart.
• 31:46
  They showed photographs on the screen.
• 31:47
  They showed one that was like a scary image of something.
• 31:50
  And then they would show a photograph of something that was
• 31:52
  happy and they would pause in between.
• 31:54
  So they wait like 10 seconds. And it was all randomized by a
• 31:57
  computer. So you didn't know if you're
• 31:58
  getting happy or sad. But what's fascinating is they
• 32:02
  measured the rhythm of the heart, and the heart knew if it
• 32:05
  was going to be a happy or a sad image before it was shown.
• 32:09
  So like 5 seconds before the heart would start to react,
• 32:13
  which what the researchers concluded is that the heart has
• 32:16
  this form of intuition that is outside of space and time.
• 32:20
  Isn't that crazy? How?
• 32:22
  Like make it make sense. I know I, I can't make it make
• 32:25
  sense yet, but I was like, I love it.
• 32:26
  I just am obsessed with the heart.
• 32:28
  The heart I think knows so much. You know, Doctor Joe always says
• 32:31
  the heart knows and the mind thinks good, right?
• 32:36
  See, it just goes to show it's like the brain is obviously
• 32:39
  important. You know, we've, we've always
• 32:41
  known that. But like, these other organs
• 32:43
  also can influence the brain in a big way.
• 32:45
  Yeah. And we think all of us is
• 32:47
  created from the brain and it's not, you know, like you just
• 32:50
  showed, the gut is also controlling who we are as a
• 32:53
  person, if it's controlling our mood and our neurotransmitters
• 32:57
  and how we're showing up. And same with the heart, right?
• 33:01
  Yeah. What?
• 33:01
  What do you think? It's a way that you could impact
• 33:03
  your heart to have a positive brain impact.
• 33:06
  So I do a lot of meditation on heart coherence.
• 33:09
  So like really focusing on bringing energy into your heart
• 33:13
  because you have your heart chakra and a lot of people think
• 33:15
  that's like a very woo woo thing.
• 33:17
  But what it actually is, is there's like a whole plexus of
• 33:20
  neurons in each of our chakras and there's blood vessels and
• 33:24
  things like that. So our chakras actually have a
• 33:25
  physical basis too. When you focus on it, you draw
• 33:28
  energy into that area. So it expands your heart and it
• 33:31
  expands your. I imagine that intuitive
• 33:34
  capacity. I haven't studied it or
• 33:35
  anything, but if the heart has that intuition.
• 33:39
  Yeah, that makes sense. So so doing like heart specific
• 33:43
  meditation work. Yeah, even just putting your
• 33:46
  attention on it, like even if you go in, so you go into a
• 33:49
  conversation and we could have even done it before this
• 33:52
  conversation, and you just drop your awareness just to feeling
• 33:57
  your heart. You don't even have to think
• 33:58
  anything. You just feel that space.
• 34:01
  You're putting energy there. So you're expanding that.
• 34:04
  That's so cool. Yeah.
• 34:06
  Yeah. Pretty amazing.
• 34:08
  I would love for you to share if people want to be able to work
• 34:11
  with you, if they're like, I want to do a gut protocol.
• 34:14
  I really want to get my gut in order, which I think everyone
• 34:16
  should do ever in their life. Like it's one of the top five
• 34:19
  things I think people should do. How can they work with you?
• 34:22
  How could they contact? You yeah, if you're struggling
• 34:25
  with gut health and you want to work on this or just want to
• 34:27
  optimize your gut health, you could always reach out to me on
• 34:30
  Instagram and just send me AGM and say you came from the
• 34:32
  podcast and we'll take care of. You awesome and your Instagram's
• 34:36
  detox Heather. Yeah, OK.
• 34:37
  And I'll put it in the show notes so people will have that.
• 34:40
  Well, I'd like to ask one last question.
• 34:42
  So for someone to live truly in alignment, since this is the
• 34:46
  Alignment with Jen podcast, what is one thing that you think
• 34:50
  would be helpful for them to do? To be in alignment, I think it
• 34:55
  would be great if people could, you know, sit and maybe write
• 35:00
  down all the things you're doing and focused on right now that
• 35:03
  are that you feel like are working.
• 35:05
  And then certain things that you feel like are maybe not totally
• 35:08
  in alignment or not happening the way you want them to.
• 35:11
  And kind of think about like why that might be.
• 35:15
  And it could be in this case, it could be, you know, your gut is
• 35:18
  holding you back, or it could be that you're not doing the heart
• 35:21
  centered, you know, work or meditation or the spiritual
• 35:25
  side. So identifying what that is for
• 35:27
  you. Yeah.
• 35:28
  And just keeping an open mind to the fact that maybe all of these
• 35:33
  things do play their role can be really easy for us to get really
• 35:37
  excited about one path. But I think true alignment is
• 35:40
  about like taking a holistic approach to your life and not
• 35:43
  being so fixed on one, you know, thing.
• 35:46
  But really looking at like, where am I deficient?
• 35:48
  Where can I? Because we tend to focus on the
• 35:50
  thing that we like the most, you know?
• 35:51
  Yeah. So it's like, can I really look
• 35:55
  at what I'm deficient in and put effort there too?
• 35:57
  Yeah. So, so, so, so agree.
• 36:00
  It's so easy to just keep focusing on the things that you
• 36:03
  like and you're naturally good at.
• 36:05
  Yeah. And then wondering like why?
• 36:06
  Why can't this happen? You know, it's like I love to be
• 36:10
  in my feminine energy and be in flow state, but why is my
• 36:12
  business suffering or something like that?
• 36:14
  It's like. Absolutely.
• 36:16
  Absolutely. We're like dynamic beings, you
• 36:18
  know, We have so many facets to us.
• 36:21
  Thank you so much. That was such a great
• 36:23
  conversation. Yeah, it was really fun.