My mother tells a story about my childhood where she is standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner. I stand below her, tugging at her shirt, and begging for food.
“I’m hungry”, I say, according to her recollection of that moment and many others like it; she says that as a child I was always preoccupied with food. My constant yearning for something munch got to the point where every time she tried to cook dinner, I’d follow her to the kitchen, like a hungry dog, and persistently beg for food. I was insatiable, she claims. But, as an adult looking back I wonder, insatiable for what?
I remember that moment, but from the third person perspective. So I wonder if it’s as past events sometimes go, where the telling of a memory from an outsider’s perspective serves to reshape it in the imagination. I can feel the emotions, however, watching my 4-year old form tugging on my mother’s clothing, her body towering over me, her face far away. She stands at the stove. I remember feeling full of… what was that yearning? Was it for food? Was it hunger for physical sustenance or nutrition from some other source? I wonder if the constant, nagging hunger was an articulation, in 4-year old vocabulary, of the need for something else: attention, affection or reprieve from boredom. I remember being told at one point that my favourite show was on and felt some of the anxiety of missing what I was lacking dissipate: a clue.
As a child, adults occupy the gateway to food. As adults, the gateways take on another form. Perhaps it is anxiety about body shape or the guilt of knowing that eating too much of a certain kind of thing isn’t nutritious. Perhaps the barrier to sustenance is financial. However, when I stand now in the kitchen, bent over the fridge, arm slung over the open door, contemplating a snack, I know that I am making a choice. And, for myself, as for many others, it’s not always clear whether the call to eat is hunger and physiologically based.
In the west, we have an abundance problem. More and more adults are reaching obese proportions. Metabolic diseases of excess like diabetes and cardiovascular disease are increasing and more and more women are experiencing the hormonal dysregulation that can come from carrying more body fat.
While I don’t recommend aspiring to the emaciated standard that we see plastered on magazines, Pinterest ads or runways, I do think that, for many people, balancing energy intake with energy output could be beneficial for optimal health and hormonal signalling. Body fat is metabolically active. It also stores toxins and alters that way our body metabolizes and responds to hormones, insulin being just one example, estrogen being another. Therefore, conditions like PCOS, infertility, diabetes, PMS and dysmenorrhea, or certain inflammatory conditions might benefit from a certain amount of weight loss.
An addition here: this post is not about body-shame or even necessarily about weight loss per se. It’s about overcoming emotional eating patterns that might even derive from the same disordered patterns that manifest in anorexia or bulimia. The goal of this post is to bring more awareness to how we operate within the complex relationships many of have with food and with our own bodies.
There are many reasons why we eat and physiological hunger is only one of them. Tangled up in the cognitive understanding of “hunger” is a desire for pleasure, a desire to experiment, to taste, to experience a food, to share with family and friends, to enjoy life. There are also deeply emotional reasons for wanting food: to nurture oneself, as reward, to combat boredom and to smother one’s emotions like anxiety, depression, ennui, yearning for something else— we often eat to avoid feeling.
Health issues aside, I believe that Emotional Eating (as it’s so-called) is problematic because it dampens our experience of living. By stuffing down our emotions by stuffing our faces we prevent ourselves from feeling emotions that it might be beneficial for us to feel in order to move through live in ways that are more self-aware, mature, self-developed and meaningful. While some emotional reasons to eat might be legitimate (acknowledging your beloved grandmother’s hard work by having a few bites of her handmade gnocchi, for instance), many of the reasons we eat linger below the surface of our conscious mind, resulting in us suffering from the consequences of psychological mechanisms that we are unaware of. I believe in making choices from a place of conscious awareness, rather than a place of subconscious suffering.
In heading directly into the reasons I am tempted to emotionally eat, I’ve learned quite a lot about myself. I’ve ended up eating less, as I’ve become more aware of the non-hunger-related reasons that I reach for a snack, but that doesn’t have to be the end goal for everyone. I believe that just understanding ourselves through uncovering and analyzing the emotions that influence our everyday behaviours can have life-changing effects; it allows us to know ourselves better.
As I work through the process of understanding why I overeat, I’ve realized there are a few steps to address. I believe that there are layers to the reasons we enact unconscious behaviours and first, it is important to untangle the physiological from the emotional reasons for eating, understand what real hunger feels like, address the “logical” reasons for overeating and then, when ready, head straight into the emotions that might cause overeating to occur
Distinguishing between physiological hunger and emotional hunger:
The first step, of course, is to distinguish between physiological/physical hunger—the body’s cry for food, calories and nourishment—and emotional hunger. Typically, physiological hunger comes on slowly. It starts with a slow burn of the stomach, growling, a feeling of slight gnawing. It grows as the hours pass. For some it might feel like a drop in blood sugar (more on this later): feeling lower energy, dizzy and perhaps irritable. Physiological hunger occurs hours after the last meal, provided the last meal was sufficient. Usually, if one drinks water at this time, the physiological hunger subsides and then returns. Essentially, eating a meal or snack will result in the hunger vanishing and returning again still hours later.
Emotional hunger, however, is different. It starts with an upper body desire to eat. It might be triggered by commercials, social situations, or certain strong emotions. There might be cognitive reasons to eat (“I might be hungry later” or, “Oh! We’re passing by that taco place I like!”) that are not directly guided by the physical desire for sustenance. Emotional eating is often felt in the mouth, rather than the stomach. It might be brought on by the desire to taste or experience the food, rather than to fill oneself. The cravings might be specific, or for a certain food-source, such as cookies (this is not a hard and fast rule, however). Emotional hunger does not vanish from drinking water. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly, and is often not relieved by eating the prescribed amount of food (having a full meal); oftentimes we finish lunch only to find ourselves unable to get the cookies at the downstairs coffee shop out of our heads.
2. Settling hormonal reasons for overeating: serotonin, insulin, cortisol:
Not all physiological hunger, however, is experienced as the slow, gnawing, slightly burning, grumbling stomach sensation described above. Sometimes we experience the need to eat because our blood sugar has crashed, or our neurological needs for serotonin have gone up. We might eat because stress hormones have caused blood sugar to spike and then crash. We might also experience certain cravings for food because our physiological needs for macronutrients; like carbs, fat or protein; or micronutrients, like sodium or magnesium, have not been met.
Therefore, it becomes essential to address the hormonal imbalances and nutritional deficiencies that might be causing us to overeat. Oftentimes, getting off the blood sugar rollercoaster is the first step. This often involves a combination of substituting sugar and refined flours for whole grains, increasing fats and protein, and, of course, avoiding eating carbohydrate or sugar-rich foods on their own. It often involves having a protein-rich breakfast. I tend to address this step first whenever my patients come in and express feeling “hangry”: irritable and angry between mealtimes.
Often drops in brain-levels of serotonin cause us to crave carbohydrate-rich foods. This is very common for women experiencing PMS. In this case, balancing hormones, and perhaps supplementing with amino acids like l-glutamine, tryptophan and 5-HTP, can go a long way.
One of the questions I ask my patients who crave a snack at 2-3 pm (a mere 2-3 hours after their lunchtime meal), assuming their lunch contained adequate nutrients, is “Do you crave, sugar, caffeine, salt or a combination of the above?” Cravings for sugar or salt at this time might indicate a drop in cortisol and give us a clue, combined with the presence of other symptoms, that this person is in a state of chronic stress, burnout or adrenal fatigue. In this case, it is essential to support the adrenal glands with herbs, nutrients, rest, and consuming adequate protein during the afternoon crash.
Finally, when it comes to cravings for foods like chocolate, meat or nuts, or even specific vegetables (when living in South America I would experience over-whelming cravings for broccoli, funnily enough), I find it important to identify any nutrient deficiencies. It is common to experience a deficiency in something like magnesium, iron, selenium, zinc, and the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K; and our bodies will do their best to beg us for the specific foods they’ve come to learn contain these nutrients. Either consciously eating more of these foods (like brazil nuts in order to obtain more selenium), preferably in their healthiest form (such as dark chocolate, as opposed to milk chocolate, to obtain magnesium), or directly supplementing (in the case of severe deficiency), often results in the cravings diminishing.
3. The Hunger Scale and food diaries:
One of the first things I have patients do is understand the Hunger Scale. There are a variety of these scales on the internet that help us cognitively understand the stages the body goes through on its quest to ask for food and it’s attempt to communicate fullness. Being able to point to certain levels of hunger and fullness and pinpoint those physiological feelings on the Hunger Scale allows us to further flush out the subtleties between a physical or emotional desire for food.
Food diaries, I find, can help bring more awareness to one’s daily habits. Oftentimes, keeping a food diary for a few weeks is enough for some patients to drop their unwanted eating behaviours altogether. Other times, it can help us detect food sensitivities and unhealthier eating patterns or food choices. It also helps me, as a practitioner, work off of a map that illustrates a patient’s diet and lifestyle routines in order to avoid imposing my own ideas in way that may not be sustainable or workable for that particular individual.
A word about diet diaries, however: when recording food for the purpose of uncovering emotional eating behaviours, I often stress that it is important to record every single food. Sometimes people will avoid writing in their diary after a binge, or outlining each food eating when they feel that they’ve lost control, writing instead “junk food”. Guilt can keep us from fully confronting certain behaviours we’d rather not have acted out. However, I want to emphasize that the diary is not a confession. It’s not, nor should it be, an account of perfect eating or evidence that we have healed. Keeping a diet diary is simply a tool to slow down our actions and examine them. It’s a means of finding out how things are, not immediately changing them into what we’d like them to be. This is an important reminder. The best place to start any investigation into being is from a place of curiosity. Remember that the point of this exercise is to observe and record, not necessarily to change, not yet; it is very difficult or even, I would argue, impossible to completely eradicate a behaviour if the reasons for engaging in that behaviour escape our conscious awareness.
Therefore, recording food allows us to begin to poke at the fortress that contains the subconscious mind. We start to slow down and uncouple the thoughts and emotions from the actions that they precede and, in doing so, develop some insights into how we work. It can also help to start jotting down other relevant points that might intersect with what was eaten. These pieces of information might include time of day, where you were, what thoughts were popping into your head, and how you felt before and after eating the food. As we observe, more information begins to enter our conscious experience, allowing us to better understand ourselves.
4. Pealing back the layers: Understanding the “practical” and logical reasons for overeating:
One of the things that I have noticed, through my own work with addressing emotional eating, is that there are often layers to the “reasons” one might overeat. Some of the first layers I encountered were cognitive, or seemingly “logical” reasons. For example, I noticed that before eating without hunger I might justify it by thinking “I need to finish the rest of these, I don’t want them to go to waste”, or “I’ll finish these in order to clean out the container”, or “I should eat something now so I won’t be hungry later”, or “I didn’t eat enough (insert type of food) today so I’ll just eat something now, for my health”, or “If I don’t have some (blank) at so and so’s house, she’ll be offended”.
When looking more closely into these justifications, I found them to be flawed. However, they were logical enough for me to eat for reasons other than to satisfy a legitimate, physiological yearning for nutrients. It’s interesting to see how the mind often tries to trick us into certain behaviours and how we comply with its logic without argument.
5. Addressing the practical reasons: Planning:
In order to address the first layer of rationale for eating when not hungry, I decided to do the following: I would plan my next meal and either have it ready in the fridge, or pack it with me to go, and then I would wait all day until I was hungry enough to eat it. I would repeatedly ask myself, every time I thought of reaching for my portions, “Am I hungry now?” And would answer that question with, “Is there a rumbling in my stomach? No? Then it’s not time to eat.”
I found it would often be a several hours later before my body would genuinely ask for the food. I also found that eating satisfied the physical hunger often much sooner than it took me to finish the food. I realized how I often eat much more food and much more often, than I genuinely need.
However, holding off eating until physical hunger arises takes a conscious effort that is often unsustainable. Few of us can move through our busy lives constantly asking ourselves how hungry we are and when, and then have food at the ready to satisfy that hunger with appropriate, healthy choices. Therefore, I used this practice as a mere stepping stone to move through the deeper layers of emotional eating. By addressing the rational and logical reasons for overeating, I was able to get in touch with the deeper, emotional (and, arguably, real) reasons for which I was eating without hunger.
6. Pealing back the layers: Understanding the deeper, emotional reasons for overeating:
For a while I would wake up, make myself a coffee, and then wait until I felt hungry. Sometimes the feeling would arise in a few minutes, sometimes it would take hours. Depending on what I’d eaten the previous day and what my activity levels were, I would often not get hungry until well into the afternoon. However, the thoughts of eating something would frequently persist. And when the thoughts came up, whereas before they would be satisfied by me having something to eat, I now resisted them. When I resisted the thoughts, their associated emotions would strengthen. I then decided to journal before reaching for food, especially when I wasn’t sure if I was actually hungry or not.
Journalling can help us pull up, process and make sense of some of our emotions. I would write about what I might be feeling—what I might be asking for that wasn’t food. Through doing this, emotional reasons for hunger began to surface. The more I held off eating, the stronger and more clear the emotions became. It was a deeply uncomfortable process. This is why we emotionally eat—removing the emotions is often far more pleasant than dealing with them.
Emotions that surfaced were anxiety, ennui, boredom, loneliness and sometimes even anger. However, boredom and a listless, almost nihilistic, sense of ennui were among the two most common emotions I realized that eating medicated for me. For me, eating was entertainment. It broke up the monotony of the day and gave my senses something to experience. It gave my body something to do: chewing, tasting and digestion. Not eating made that sense of boredom grow stronger.
7. Addressing the emotional reasons: Nurturing and preventing:
Knowing more about the root emotional causes for overeating allowed me to work more closely with the source of my behaviour. I find that the closer we get to the source, to the roots, the more effective we are at removing the weeds, or behaviours, from our lives. I knew now that if I didn’t want to overeat, I would have to prevent myself from getting bored. I would have to have checklists of things to do. I would stay active and engaged in life: in my work, my friendships, and the other non-food-related things that brought meaning to my life.
During this time, I did more yoga and meditated. I journaled and wrote. I also meditated on boredom. I traced it back to where I might have felt it in my life before and noticed themes of boredom in my childhood. I realized that the child tugging on her mother’s shirt and asking when dinner was ready was probably a child who needed something to do, a child who was bored.
8. Pealing back the layers further: Working directly with core emotions:
Going even further, we can begin to peal back the layers of the emotional reasons for overeating in order to avoid replacing one “addiction” with another—such as replacing overeating with over-busying oneself, distraction or overworking. I began to find other emotions that ran deeper than mere boredom. I also realized that whenever I had felt boredom in the past, there was a threshold, often filled with discomfort, that I would eventually surpass. Once surpassing this threshold, a well of creativity, or a plethora of interesting insights, would spring forth. I remember as a child I would create stories, or lie on my bed and stare that the ceiling of my bedroom, contemplating the nature of the universe. These beautiful moments had been made possible by boredom and my courage to not distract myself from it.
Working with a therapist, or doing some deep inner work, we can access the core beliefs and emotions that might cause these emotional reasons for overeating to exist. Oftentimes we encounter core beliefs whose effects spill out into other areas of our lives, preventing us from living fully and consciously. Working through these beliefs can be deeply satisfying and help us experience transformational self-growth.
9. Setbacks: Understanding Change Theory:
Finally, engaging in this process of self-discovery doesn’t follow the same pattern in every person. Some people may find that their reasons for overeating are dissolved as soon as they start recording the foods they eat (this is surprisingly common). Others might find that years of working with a therapist have resulted in a mere dent in their ability to eat in response to hunger and to stop unwanted eating behaviours. In most everyone progress is not linear.
Change Theory and the Stages of Change schema depicts the alteration of behaviours as cyclical, rather than linear. As we move through the stages, we enter a cycle of pre-contemplation, contemplation, planning, action and maintenance. Sometimes we fall out of the cycle and relapse. Many people working with behavioural changes and addictions prefer to rename relapse “prolapse”, claiming that prolapse is a necessary stage for continuing the cycle of change and that much is to be learned from failing at something. It is through observing how the world produces unexpected results, and then attempting to understand the unexpected while trying again, where learning takes place. We don’t really learn if we don’t fail.
Sometimes addictive behaviours, emotional eating included, worsen at a time when someone is on the verge of making a massive breakthrough. Sometimes poking at a new layer of the source of unwanted behaviour accompanies an exacerbation in the practice of that behaviour. Having curiosity and self-compassion throughout the process is essential. Savouring the increased self-awareness that comes with any effort to effect change in one’s life is part of the enjoyment of the experience.
I’m tired of hearing mental health conditions blamed on a “chemical imbalance”. Patients everywhere are being told that their mental health conditions are, literally, “all in their heads”. With this diagnosis—often distributed insensitively, and without much attention to the complex factors in thoughts, beliefs, emotions, the environment, biology, nutritional status, mental and emotional as well as physical stressors, and life circumstances (just to name a few) that can contribute to mental health imbalances—patients are left with the message that they are somehow damaged, broken, or that their condition arose out of an inherent weakness that they somehow possess. Through the numerous conversations I’ve had with those struggling with mental health symptoms, I have come to understand that oftentimes there are phrases that rob power more than the term “brain/chemical imbalance”.
Fortunately, there is still more to emerge in the wonderful world of science. Very little actual evidence supports the chemical imbalance theory of depression and researchers and clinicians alike are forced to admit that symptoms of conditions such as depression and anxiety are often the result of multiple factors that come together. Contrary to the common narrative of mental illness being a sign of weakness, evolutionary biologists are uncovering evidence that symptoms of depression might be the result of a highly adaptive strength based on preserving the body during times of great mental, emotional and physiological stress—showing, in fact, that depression and anxiety might in fact be afflictions of the strong, not the weak.
In my practice, I approach depression and anxiety from a functional medicine standpoint. This means, simply, that I look not at the title of the condition my patients come in with (I care very little if you have depression, or anxiety, or bipolar disorder, etc.—the name is not the thing itself), but how the condition occurs uniquely for them. By paying close attention to the multitude of symptoms, thoughts, and factors that influence the mood and emotions, I am able to uncover underlying pathways that point to imbalance in the body and dig up the roots from where the symptoms might have arisen in the first place. Through this method, focussing on the functioning of the body rather than it’s pathology, we’re able to bring the body back into a state of balance and reverse symptoms permanently, rather than simply slapping a band-aid over them.
When it comes to mental health, it is important to emphasize that depression and anxiety (as well as other mental health diagnoses) are not diseases at all; they are symptoms. When presented with low mood, feelings of sadness and worthlessness, lack of motivation, lethargy, brain fog, changes in appetite and weight, abysmal self-esteem and so on—all symptoms that many patients with depression face—we need to follow the threads of symptoms back to the point where things began unraveling. It is necessary to backtrack to the biological imbalances where symptoms first began.
There is an overwhelming amount of research coming out in the field of mental health that links the gut and digestive health to mental health symptoms, indicating that depression might not be a brain chemical imbalance at all, but a gut chemical imbalance. Where there is depression and anxiety, there is more often than not, a digestive issue.
We have always known that the digestive track and brain have an intimate bond. From the vagus nerve that enervates the gut and begins in the cranium, to the mood-regulating neurotransmitters that are created in the gut, we all have the experienced the tummy aches linked to grief or the power of anxiety to loosen our bowels. We’ve all noted the phenomenon that great ideas or moments of clarity seem to spontaneously arise from, not the brain, where we always assumed our thoughts were formed, but the gut (hence the term, “gut feeling”, which we use to characterize intuitive insights).
When it comes to issues with the brain—thoughts, moods, emotions, feelings, etc., where else should we look for answers than our brain’s close cousin, friend and confidant, the gut. Mental health symptoms can arise from impaired digestion in a number of ways:
A failure of the gut cells (enterocytes) to create neurotransmitters. The majority of serotonin (the “Happy Hormone”) is produced in the gut. Inflamed and unhappy gut cells are often unable to make serotonin.
An imbalance in the healthy gut bacteria that influences whole-body health. We have 10x more cells in our gut than in our body in the form of almost 5 lbs of symbiotic gut bacteria. This bacteria ensures our well-being by helping us digest our food, soothing inflammation, educating our immune system, killing off harmful pathogens, creating bulk for our stools and, relevant to the field of mental health, producing neurotransmitters important for regulating mood, such as serotonin and dopamine.
Research has gone into the connection between a low-level of inflammation in the brain and its affect on mood. Inflammation is usually a product of our diet, stress and food sensitivities. In naturopathic medicine and functional medicine we treat inflammation with the assumption that nearly all inflammation begins in the gut. A condition called “Leaky Gut” is a failure of the important seal between the intestinal walls and the rest of the body. When this seal is broken, toxins, proteins and other debris are free to enter the bloodstream, wrecking havoc, setting the immune system off course and, eventually, triggering symptoms of inflammation, autoimmunity and mental health issues.
Our body requires many building blocks to maintain its complex fortress. Difficulties in the digestive cells’ ability to absorb essential fats, amino acids and vitamins required for brain health, hormone regulation, detoxification and immunity, among the thousands of other chemical reactions in the body, will result in impairment in overall functional. Nutrient deficiencies are more common, even in developed societies, than one might think. Deficiencies arise from: impaired absorption, inadequate diet, increased amounts of stress and the ingestion of foods or medications the deplete the body of nutrients. In any case, optimizing the gut’s ability to digest and absorb the nutrients we’re either eating or supplementing is key for improving health and mood.
When it comes to understanding mental health issues I, as a clinician, realize it is hardly ever just one factor involved. Properly helping someone with anxiety or depression heal involves understanding the constellation of potential causes and how they inter-connect and relate to one another. Through this detective work, we can begin the journey of unraveling the imbalances and restoring the body’s ability to function and heal.
Treatment plans usually involve a combination of replenishing essential nutrients that patients are deficient in (deficiency can be detected through blood work, health history or symptoms), repairing the gut’s ability to absorb, restoring the body’s balance of healthy gut bacteria, removing food sensitivities and healing digestive inflammation, balancing hormones, and managing lifestyle stress and environmental factors that may be contributing to low mood.
My patients make impressive commitments to healing and are willing to examine their bodies and past experiences, in order to do the hard work of healing. Beyond my role as a doctor, I am committed to working as a facilitator, teacher and guide. My job is not to tell people the right path to walk, but to help them understand their body’s complex language, listen to the signals and messages that arise from it, and understand what those signals are asking of them.
For more information, click here. I run a practice with a special focus in mental health, youth mental health and hormonal conditions. I work in Bloor West Village in Toronto, Canada.
The gut-brain connection has gotten the attention of researchers and functional medical practitioners. I discuss, briefly, what research has shown us in regards to the complex realm of the microbiome and how depression may be a result of inflammation in the brain, stemming from inflammation in the gut.
My name is Dr. Talia Marcheggiani and I am a naturopathic doctor and mental health expert in Toronto.
Today we’re going to talk about the gut-brain connection and how that can influence your mental health symptoms.
I think we intuitively know that the gut and brain are connected. When you feel mental symptoms of anxiety we immediately notice the effects on our gut.
During times of stress, we know that we have indigestion, we’re more predisposed to things like diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome.
Even anatomically there’s a nerve, called the Vagus nerve, that directly connects the brain to our digestive system.
This nerve is responsible for putting into that “rest and digest” state.
When this nerve is stimulated, our bodies start to secrete digestive enzymes, saliva starts to be secreted and we’re able to break down our food and absorb the nutrients from the food that we’re eating.
A lot of research has been going on, that you might be aware of, about healthy gut bacteria. And more and more people, especially medical doctors, happily, are prescribing probiotics anytime someone is prescribed antibiotics for a bacterial infection.
Scientists have started to study more about these gut bacteria. We know we have, like, 5 lbs of gut bacteria, sitting in our digestive systems. Over 100 trillion cells, this is more than 10x the amount of cells we have in our physical bodies, and more DNA than we have in our body.
We’re more bacteria than we are human!
And these gut bacteria, we can’t survive without without them, they influence the very physiology we experience and they definitely impact our health.
These bacteria are responsible for helping us digest our food, and for our mental and emotional wellness as well as keeping our immune system in check.
So, a disbalance in bacteria, or an increase in that negative, bad bacteria and not good strains of healthy bacteria, can lead to diseases like autoimmune disease or multiple sclerosis, or things like chronic fatigue syndrome as we’re seeing in research.
Scientists are starting to study more about how the bacterial balance in our gut can influence our mood and mental health.
These gut bacteria can actually produce serotonin. So that’s the happy hormone in the brain. And you may have heard of serotonin, especially if you suffer from depression or anxiety because your doctor might have recommended a kind of medication called SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or a similar drug, SNRIs, like Venlafaxine, which is a Selective Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake inhibitors.
This is based on on the Monoamine Hypothesis that there is this chemical imbalance in the brain. That your body is either not making enough, or absorbing enough or reacting to serotonin enough.
When we’re given these antidepressants, the idea is that we’re recorrecting this brain imbalance and that’s as much of the story as we’ve got. We don’t know why these brain imbalances are around.
So I think that, if we’re going to stick with this hypothesis, which is still controversial in science, we should look to the gut bacteria because we know that gut bacteria produces a significant amount of serotonin and, if we’re blaming depression and anxiety on serotonin deficiencies, why not look at the gut and find out how we can influence the balance of healthy gut bacteria so that we’re producing enough serotonin. Especially if we’re relying on drugs to correct the imbalance and we don’t have enough serotonin for the drugs to work properly.
Gut cells on their own produce 95% of the serotonin in the body so basically every single chemical that we have in our brain is produced or exists in the gut.
So, we need to be able to feed the gut cells so that they’re producing healthy amount of hormone we need to experience a healthy mood and live our lives in ways that are stress-free and energized and happy so that we can effective in our lives.
Mentally and emotionally, you might know this “gut feeling” that we talk about in language and that’s kind of permeated throughout cultures. So, we know that when we have this feeling in the gut that, it’s almost like an intuition. Some people will say, “I just knew it, because I felt it in my gut.” And I think that we’ve always had this intuition. We’ve always had this connection between what our mental state, our thoughts, beliefs and emotions are telling us and what our gut is telling us.
We think that we think with our brains and that all of the mental symptoms we experience are happening at the level of the brain, but because of this tight gut-brain connection, we know that’s not true.
People that have done brain studies actually find that we have thoughts before we have brain activity a lot of the time so, I wonder if we’re actually thinking with our gut, which is a revolutionary and radical thought, but we’re finding more and more evidence for this in science.
You may have heard of the condition called “Leaky Gut” or the more official, scientific term is “Intestinal Permeability”. Our gut is really selective about what it absorbs for good reason. What happens, though, when we’re experiencing chronic stress, or we use a lot of antibiotics or maybe eat things like high-sugar foods, caffeine, or a lot of alcohol, we can cause gut inflammation, which starts to allow bacteria, food toxins, or whole proteins from food into the blood, into the body by breaking down the integrity of the gut.
So, when it comes to health, for most health conditions, especially when there’s a few symptoms that seem disconnected and it’s hard to find the relationship between them, naturopathic medicine and, now, functional medicine and, hopefully soon, conventional medicine, begins to look at gut health.
So if I’m sitting across from a patient who has a long list of health symptoms that seems like they’re not connected and has digestive symptoms—and 40-60% of the population, in general has some kind of digestive symptom, whether it be bloating after eating, feeling fatigued after eating, just feeling like your food is sitting in your stomach and not really moving through, GERD, so acid reflux, heartburn, diarrhea and constipation, or those IBS symptoms, gas and bloating—when I sit across from a patient with any of those symptoms, the first place we go, in terms of treatment, is to look at the gut.
So how do you keep your gut healthy? There’s a few things. The first is to eliminate anything that’s causing gut inflammation, so this could be excessive caffeine and alcohol, excessive refined sugars, antibiotics without doing a probiotic immediately after or during an antibiotic treatment, chronic mental and emotional stress, or physical stress, and food sensitivities: something we’re eating that’s causing our immune system to react and our gut to become inflamed.
Ensuring a proper bacterial balance by either supplementing with a probiotic or eating a variety of fermented foods such as kefir, yogurt, kombucha or saurkraut, and making sure that we’re eating a variety of whole foods: whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and healthy fibres that are going to feed that healthy gut bacteria.
So, when it comes to mental health, such as depression and anxiety, chronic mental stress, even things like bipolar, OCD, conventional medicine tends to just look at the brain and blame the brain on the host of symptoms that patients might experience.
Naturopathic medicine looks at the entire body. And since we know that the gut and brain are connected, and our patients are simultaneously experiencing mental health symptoms and digestive symptoms, we definitely have to treat the gut.
For more information, you can visit my website at taliand.com, or send me an email at connect@taliand.com.
I work at Bloor West Wellness Clinic in Bloor West Village, in Toronto.
I’m tucking away at the cake again because the people who’ve invited me for dinner have dessert. Dessert: the gluten-y, sugar-y, dough-y sweetness of relief from deprivation, the dopamine and serotonin rush when the food smashes against my lips, teeth and tongue and gets swallowed, in massive globs, into my stomach. The desire for more smashes maddeningly around my skull. Getting the next fix is all I can think about. I reach for another slice when no one is looking. I guess some people call this binging, a complete loss of control around “forbidden” foods. All I care about is devouring another bite, and feeling the euphoric blood sugar rush that flushes me with giddiness and good feelings before the shame sets in.
One I’ve begun to indulge, however, the voice demanding more exits stage left and is replaced with a little gremlin who fills my head with sneering and loathsome disparagement. It doesn’t speak in whole sentences, but rather in snippets, sentence fragments and hateful keywords. Sugarrr…. it hisses, gluten, bloating… FAT! Ugly, worthless…No control, no willpower, useless… failure…FAT! Not that the cake contains fat, but fat is what I will become when I allow the cake to become a part of me, the little evil voice suggests. Sometimes I can temporarily drown out his voice by eating more cake, which only makes him louder once all the cake is gone or my stomach groans with fullness.
I’ve come to realize that this cycle can be set off with feelings of boredom, anxiety and, most of all, hunger. A low-calorie diet, detox or a period of controlled eating leaves me susceptible to these binge lapses. It’s taken me the better part of 30 years to figure that out. However, stress can also send me to the pantry, digging out whatever sugary treats I can find. And so the cycle of loss of control followed by self-loathing begins.
The next day, or even within the next few hours, I feel fat.
Fat feels a certain way to me. It feels physical: puffy, bloated and sick. Most of all, it feels like I’ve done something wrong, that I am wrong. It brings with it feelings of lethargy and heaviness, not the light, perkiness I associate with health and femininity. I feel gross, unworthy of good things: attention, love, affection. I feel like I’ve failed. I feel like I’ve lost control of myself. For, if I can’t even control when I shove in my mouth, how can I have power over anything else in life?
However, a person can’t really feel fat. I mean, especially not after only a day of overeating.
And besides, fat is not a feeling.
Perhaps fat was a stand-in feeling for other difficult emotions my childhood brain couldn’t fully comprehend. Like the time I wrote in my diary, at the age of 8 years old, That’s it, I’m fat, I’m going on a diet. From now on, I’m only eating sandwiches. Funny and touching, but also sad, I wonder what 8-year-old me was really feeling when she claimed to feel “fat”. Perhaps she felt helpless, out of control, different from the herd and hopeless about fitting in.
If I pause to peer below the surface of “fat”, I find other words or cognitive connections that underlie it. When I feel “fat” I also feel out of control, worthless, lonely, like a failure. I sometimes feel sad and anxious. Sometimes I simply feel full, like I’ve fed myself, and as I’ve often heard repeated, “It’s important to leave a meal feeling a little bit hungry”, the feeling of being fed can induce feelings of guilt.
Everywhere we look, the media equates “healthy” with thin, glistening bodies. Fitness models with amenorrheic abs, bounce back and forth on splayed legs in front of a full make-up, costume, lighting and camera team to simulate the image of running through a field. “Losing weight” equals “getting fit” equals “being healthy”. As a society we’ve failed to ask ourselves what “health” might mean and instead deliver the whole concept over to impossible standards of beauty, making “health” as unachievable as the stringy bodies that represent it. While I intellectually know that this isn’t the case, that health comes in all sizes—and may actually hover around “plus” sizes, in actual fact—restriction has been imprinted in my brain as a sign of healthy self-control.
But, maybe the definition of health needs to come from digging within and asking the question What does health mean to you? Perhaps the body knows more than the marketing media does about what it needs for health. Maybe, just sometimes, it needs cake to be healthy. Maybe even the act of overindulgence is healthy sometimes.
Perhaps if I give my body enough of the healthy food and fuel it needs, it won’t go crazy the next time it sees cake. When we try to murder ourselves by holding our breath to stop our breathing, we pass out. The body deems us too irresponsible to control the precious task of breathing and so it turns the lights out on conscious breath control. Our very own physiology doesn’t trust our conscious thought if we abuse it. So, when I force my body to survive and thrive on restrictions, self-hate and negative talk, perhaps it induces a binge. Maybe I binge to survive. Or maybe my body loves cake as much as I do.
Instead of feeling like a failure, because I didn’t win the fight against my body, perhaps I should respectfully hand it back the reins and tell it, with my conscious mind, “I trust you, I respect you, I’ll listen to you more carefully from now on.”
And, like Marie Antoinette once granted her people, I can grant my body permission, and let it eat cake.
This is a common story that can describe any number of patients I see in my private practice: My patient has been doing well–she’s been exercising regularly; she’s been cutting out sugar and processed foods and watching what she eats. She’s been having salads for lunch. She’s even gotten her husband on board! He’s started to have salads for lunch with his cheeseburger (instead of fries) and given up having a row of cookies in the evening. All things considered, she’s been doing great. However, despite her best efforts, after one month of tiresome slog, restriction and dedication, she’s only managed to lose a few pounds. Her husband? He’s lost 10.
“He has more to lose,” I suggest to her. “Those few pounds you’ve lost are gone for life—slow and steady stays off forever.” I am her cheerleader, but the truth is: hormones, especially when it comes to women.
Hormones are the body’s telegrams. They are produced in glands in tissue like the gut, ovaries, adrenals and brain and act on distant cells in the body, telling them how to behave. When it comes to weight loss, hormones can be the culprit if diet and exercise have failed to produce results. Hormones control appetite, mood, food cravings, metabolic rate, fat gain and distribution and hunger, among other things. Any hormonal imbalance will sabotage weight loss efforts and it’s often the first place I look when a patient has weight loss goals that they aren’t achieving with diet and exercise alone.
The Players:
There are numerous hormones in the body that are responsible for the above actions, however the main ones that we can affect through diet and lifestyle are insulin, cortisol, estrogen and the thyroid hormones. These are just some key players in a team, however just by working on these four, we can start to see results.
Interconnectedness:
Hormones are complex entities, not only for the wide array of effects, but for their tendency to effect the action of each other. For example, high cortisol can effect levels of estrogen, insulin and the thyroid hormones. High insulin can affect cortisol and estrogen. And so on. Working on hormones is like attacking a giant knot and often requires starting from the basics: diet and lifestyle.
Insulin Imbalance:
Insulin is an important hormone in the body—we can’t live without it. Released by the pancreas after a carbohydrate-rich meal in response to rising levels of sugar in the blood, insulin gets sugar into cells where it can be used as fuel. It also brings down blood sugar, making it a main culprit in hypoglycemic crashes and sugar cravings. The problem with insulin, however, is when we overeat carbohydrates and sugar, we overuse the insulin response. The result is abdominal fat, weight gain (insulin tells the body to store fat), a blood sugar roller coaster, mood swings (that “hangry” feeling) and intense sugar cravings and energy crashes.
Balancing Insulin:
Insulin is best balanced by diet, particularly managing carbohydrate intake and emphasizing healthy fats and protein in the diet. Fat and protein slow sugar absorption. This prevents a rise in blood sugar and decreases the need for insulin. The result is feeling satiated for longer, having stable energy and decreasing food cravings.
Morning protein:
The first step in balancing insulin release is to increase morning protein. I recommend aiming for 30 g of good quality, lean protein for breakfast like a chicken breast, or scoop of whey isolate protein powder in a whole foods smoothie. I was once accused jokingly of “not knowing that breakfast is”, when recommending chicken breasts for breakfast. However, perhaps it’s North America that has a skewed sense of what makes a decent morning meal. If the aim of breakfast is to break the fast that you’ve had throughout the night, then starting it off with a high-carb, high-sugar, nutrient-sparse piece of toast or bowl of breakfast cereal seems crazy to me. In Colombia and India, two places I’ve spent some time, we started off the day with a protein-rich stew or meat soup.
To balance insulin make sure that every meal, even snacks, contain some form of protein or a fat. Avoid eating carbohydrates by themselves and keep servings of carbs to a minimum and in their unprocessed, whole form (like large flake oats, quinoa and brown rice as opposed to flours or cereals).
Cortisol Imbalance:
One of the main hormone imbalances I notice when it comes to stubborn weight gain is cortisol imbalance. Cortisol is the stress hormone. It’s released by the adrenal glands, two pyramid-shaped endocrine glands that sit on top of the kidneys, in response to stress. Animals have two modes of operation: fight or flight or rest and digest. Cortisol increases blood sugar and alertness and tells the body to divert attention to gearing us up for combat or escape, and moves us away from investing energy in digestion, immunity and concentration. Cortisol is a wonderful hormone; it keeps us awake, and makes us feel alert and well, priming us to be effective in our busy, stressful lives. However, our bodies weren’t made for long-term stress response and we spend most of our time in fight or flight mode.
Cortisol and blood sugar:
Cortisol raises blood sugar, causing insulin to be released. This starts us on a blood sugar roller coaster trip, leading to sugar cravings, energy crashes and storing fat.
Cortisol and fat distribution:
Cortisol doesn’t directly tell the body to store fat (it happens through other mechanisms that happen in response to high cortisol), but it does encourage fat redistribution. Cortisol tells the body to move fat from the hips and thighs and deposit in the abdomen, face and shoulders, leading to the sexy “Buffalo Hump”. We know that abdominal fat carries more health risks than fat in other areas of the body so this detail can be troublesome when it comes to long-term effects.
Cortisol and the thyroid:
Cortisol impacts the thyroid by preventing the conversion of T4 to the more active T3. T3 and T4 are important thyroid hormones that set the body’s metabolic rate, among other things.
Cortisol and the sex hormones:
Cortisol can lead to estrogen dominance by diverting resources away from estrogen and progesterone production. In menopause, this is particularly troublesome, as the body relies on the adrenal glands, rather than the ovaries, to produce the sex hormones. High cortisol can result in progesterone deficiency and estrogen dominance symptoms, which can negatively affect weight loss. Cortisol also causing accelerated aging and who wants that?
Cortisol Balancing:
The main thing when it comes to cortisol balancing is to Calm Down—or as I like to poignantly put it, Calm the F#$% Down. The way this is done is highly individualized. Some recommendations I have are: meditation, yoga, exploring acupuncture (a wonderful way to balance cortisol, among other things), journaling, taking a day off, re-evaluating priorities at work and at home, etc. Mainly, getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night is essential for managing the stress response.
Taking it easy:
When it comes to weight loss, I often notice that certain efforts hinder our progress. It’s important to keep caloric intake adequate—eating too few calories can stress the body out, causing cortisol release. It’s also important to manage exercise. While exercise can teach the body how to manage stress, it does produce cortisol in the short-term. Therefore it’s important to keep exercise short and intense. Weight-training, short bursts of cardio (no more than 20 minutes) and varying intensities with High Intensity Interval Training, Tabata or Crossfit, are the best choices for weight loss. Training for a marathon or long-distance bike race may be fun and fulfilling, but they are not the best choices for weight loss, as they prolong the stress response and can work against you, rather than in your favour.
When I have a patient who is intensely tracking what they eat and over-exercising my advice is often (and it’s not that well-received, as you can imagine) “Take it easy”. Easing up on exercise and relaxing calorie-counting may be hidden pieces in the weight loss game.
Herbs and supplements:
There are a variety of nutrients to take to support adrenal function. The main things to consider, with the advice and counsel of a trained naturopathic doctor are B-vitamins, magnesium and adaptogenic herbs (the help the body adapt to stress).
Estrogen Dominance:
Estrogen, actually a group of hormones, are female sex hormones. Their main job is to promote the expression of female sex characteristics, the growth of breast tissue and to control ovulation. Estrogen also causes body to fat to be distributed to the thighs, buttocks and lower abdomen. The problem with modern society is an imbalance in the two female sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone. Due to stress and toxic environmental estrogens, or xenoestrogens, among other things, modern women have more estrogen relative to progesterone in their bodies. The effects of this are numerous and include, stubborn weight gain in the thighs (the famed “saddlebags), cellulite, acne, PMS, painful menstrual periods, fibroids, hormonal conditions such as PCOS, and the occurrence of certain female cancers, especially breast cancer. Estrogen can also contribute significantly to anxiety symptoms.
Estrogen balancing:
Correcting estrogen dominance primarily involves supporting estrogen detox pathways in the liver. Chemicals such as I3C, DIIM and calcium-d-glucarate help increase the liver’s ability to clear foreign estrogens from the body. Supporting digestive health also allows us to remove estrogens—they are neutralized in the liver and eliminated through the colon. Leafy greens contain a high amount of these chemicals, so ensuring you get adequate amounts in your diet is important for estrogen metabolism. Ground flaxseed, rosemary and fish oil are also important nutrients for clearing excess estrogen from the body.
Reducing exposure:
Try to reduce exposure to foreign estrogens by avoiding the use of plastic bottles and plastic-lined cans, using natural skincare and body products and natural cleaning aids whenever possible. It’s also important to see a naturopathic doctor 2-4 times a year for a medically-assisted natural detoxification to clear the body of toxic estrogens.
Hypothyroidism:
The thyroid gland sits on the neck, just below the Adam’s Apple. It releases two hormones T4, and the more active T3. These hormones are responsible for setting the body’s metabolic rate—converting fat into heat and energy. Thyroid deficiency, or hypothyroidism is more common in our society than we think (naturopathic doctors have stricter criteria for laboratory reference ranges than conventional medicine—we look for signs of health, not disease). Conventional medicine deems hypothyroidism as having a TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) level above 5—for this hormone, all you need to know is lower is better—however ND’s will start to treat the thyroid when symptoms are present and TSH is above 2.5. Symptoms of hypothyroidism are stubborn weight gain, constipation, feeling cold, fatigue, especially brain fog, weak memory, hair loss, dry skin and thinning of the eyebrows.
Supporting the thyroid:
The thyroid gland is a fragile organ, sensitive to inflammation and stress. When there is inflammation in the body, often caused by stress, diet or insulin resistance, the thyroid is the first gland to suffer. Most cases of hypothyroidism are autoimmune in nature. Therefore, naturopathic doctors aim to correct inflammation by prescribing an anti-inflammatory diet and looking for food sensitivities. When we identify food sensitivities (through specialized IgG antibody testing or an elimination diet) and remove them from the diet, we can focus on gut healing which treats inflammation and helps repair the thyroid.
Managing stress:
Low calorie diets have the effect of suppressing thyroid function, which leads to the yo-yo dieting effect. Avoid extremely low calorie diets, or opt for intermittent fasting or calorie-cycling instead. Aim for slow and steady weight loss so as not to harm metabolic rate, which makes weight loss more difficult in the long run.
I previously mentioned that cortisol can harm the thyroid and that hormones are interlinked. Cortisol prevents the conversion of T4 to the more active T3, which can slow metabolism.
Nutrients:
A deficiency in iodine, zinc, iron and selenium, among other nutrients, can negatively impact the thyroid. Talk your naturopathic doctor about testing and supplementation.
Summary:
What would a visit to a naturopathic doctor look like? When it comes to hormones, treatment is often complex as it targets the root cause of symptoms and involves detangling the complicated web of hormones that are at play. This can require some diagnostic detective work. A naturopathic doctor will take your complete health history, order labs and perform physical exams if necessary. A common treatment plan might look like this:
Sleep: 7-9 hours per night
Take stress seriously: sign up for a round of acupuncture, start meditation, do yoga, journal, etc.
Measure hormones via saliva: cortisol, testosterone, DHEA, estrogen, progesterone
Identify food sensitivities via an elimination diet or an IgG Food Panel that tests for antibodies to certain foods in the blood.
Correct nutritient deficiencies through diet and supplementation
Herbs for hormonal support: estrogen detoxification, thyroid support, gut healing, adrenal support, glucose control and blood sugar balancing.
Exercise: short, intense bursts that target muscle-building
Diet: high protein, especially in the morning, healthy fats, low carbs and eliminate sugar, processed foods and food sensitivities.
To learn more about how naturopathic medicine can help you lose weight, balance hormones and fight disease, contact my clinic Bloor West Wellness at 416 588 0400 to set up an initial appointment. Let’s get started today!
Want to balance your hormones, energy and mood naturally? Check out my 6-week foundational membership program Good Mood Foundations. taliand.com/good-mood-learn
I feel sorry for the digestive tracts of this nation, I really do. The owners of these digestive tracts have my sympathy as well—there really is nothing so bad as pooping too much or not pooping enough. Sometimes it’s hard to know which one is worse. Having regular and healthy bowel movements (1-3 times a day) is an essential foundation of good health—regular elimination helps us remove toxins and waste from the body, keeping us energized and well.
A series of patients often come through my office with chronic constipation that is unrelieved by supplements and diet. Most people are getting enough fruits and vegetables or have added more of these foods to their diets and still have a hard time keeping things moving in the lower abdominal quadrants. Since promoting healthy motility is often about daily self-care practices, I’ve complied my list of constipation home-care protocols here, for easy reference. While there are herbs and supplements that can improve motility, add fibre and draw water into the colon and promote healthy elimination, there are also foundational daily practices that must be incorporated as well.
Water:
A no-brainer: we all know that if stools are dry and hard to pass, we need to increase the lubrication of the digestive tract. Gradually increasing your fluid intake by one glass (250 ml) of water per day per week will help your body adjust so that you’re not sent running to the washroom every ten minutes.
Most importantly, however, I like to tell my patients to start the day with a large glass (500 ml) of room temperature water, consumed at once, first thing in the morning. This stimulates the gastrocolic reflex, by filling the stomach with water. In a healthy digestive tract, the contents of the intestine should move through the gut and enter the colon over night where they await the morning meal. Stimulating digestion by ingesting a modest amount of water first thing in the morning can stimulate the contraction of the colon and encourage a bowel movement. Keeping water warm or at room temperature, rather than cold, prevents the water from seizing up the body’s sphincters and allows things to keep moving. This practice also guarantees half a litre of water consumption a day, which we know is essential for proper colon health.
Listening to the body:
Slow motility is often a response to lifestyle. Our bodies send gentle cues to our conscious brains that it’s time to have a bowel movement and oftentimes these cues are ignored. Perhaps we’re in traffic, or rushing out the door, or in a meeting. Perhaps we’re afraid to use the washroom at work, where the acoustics are less-than-ideal. However, when we ignore the calls of nature, we often miss our chance to have a bowel movement for that day. If this has become a reality for you, some bowel retraining might be in order. Bowel retraining involves picking a time of day when it would be most convenient to have a bowel movement—right after breakfast is often a good time—and sitting on the toilet for 10 to 20 minutes. This daily practice will help teach your bowels when a good time to go is, as well as make you conscious of making daily elimination a priority. Think of it as “potty training” for adults.
Fibre:
We all know that regular bowel movements require an adequate amount of dietary fibre. Fibre creates bulk in the intestines, feeds healthy gut bacteria and increases stool weight. A healthy diet contains at least 25 grams of fibre a day from whole food sources. However, when it comes to constipation, not all fibres are created equally. While soluble fibre, from things like chia seeds, oats and legumes has been shown to decrease cholesterol absorption in the gut, it can actually serve to bung us up more. Insoluble fibre, like the kind found in apple skins, flax and wheat bran, can help bulk up the stools and keep things moving smoothly along the digestive tract.
To increase insoluble fibre in the diet, I recommend 2 tbs of ground flaxseed (you can add it to smoothies, morning cereal or the morning 500 ml glass of water) a day. This not only helps promote bowel movements, it also provides healthy omega 3 fats and estrogen-balancing properties for healthy hormones.
As fibre needs to absorb water in order to promote healthy excretion, it is important to prioritize fluid intake. A study involving 63 participants showed that the more fibre they consumed, the more constipated they became. The researchers likened this phenomenon to a traffic jam—add more cars and you simply worsen the traffic jam. Therefore, it’s important to keep the gut sufficiently lubricated to encourage proper motility.
Castor oil packs and self-massage:
Castor oil can help promote smooth muscle motility when applied topically to the abdomen. I instruct patients to massage a liberal amount of oil over the entire abdomen (bra-line to underwear line) and either place a hot water bottle over the area for one hour or leave the oil on overnight. Self-massage paired with castor oil are effective at helping things move more regularly throughout the night. A word of caution, however: castor oil should not be used in pregnancy and before an expected menstrual period as it can stimulate the contraction of the uterus. Castor oil also has the potential to stain clothes and bedsheets, so take extra care.
Pelvic tilt:
A few years ago, the Squatty Potty was all the rage. This new, rather expensive tool, claimed to change the angle that the legs make with the torso, encouraging pelvic floor muscle relaxation and relaxation of the muscles around the anal sphincter. The principles makes sense—we humans have evolved to evacuate our bowels in a squatting position. This increases abdominal pressure and causes puborectalis muscle relaxation, allowing us to have a strain-free experience. The modern toilet, however, does not encourage this angle, which the makers of Squatty Potty claim is the reason that constipation issues are so rampant in Western society. I encourage purchasing a 1-ft high washroom stool to place under the feet while going to the washroom to promote proper posture and sphincter opening.
Exercise:
Daily exercise promotes bowel movements by increasing metabolism, increasing intra-abdominal pressure and strengthening abdominal muscles. Getting 30 minutes of moderate exercise (walking, swimming, cycling, etc.) and performing squats are excellent ways of promoting healthy elimination.
Talk to your naturopathic doctor:
Supplements such as magnesium, vitamin C, probiotics and certain herbs such as burdock, peppermint, chamomile and chicory can also help with constipation. Talk to your naturopathic doctor about what doses, brands and supplements are right for you. Acupuncture and hydrotherapy are also useful treatments. Try to avoid methods that only offer temporary relief from constipation, such as laxative use. These can help in the short term, but like most short-term treatments, can worsen symptoms in the long term and further exacerbate your efforts to promote healthy bowel movements over time.
This is likely one of the shallowest posts I’ll ever write—it’s about hair. However, what is so shallow about hair? We all know the importance of having a good hair day. It seems from the moment we wake up, look in the mirror and notice that our top bun has left proper, succulent waves and not weird, irregular angles of frizz, that the rest of the day will be infused with magic. Our hair plays a huge role in who we are and how we see ourselves. When movie characters want to change their identities, the first thing they do is stash themselves in a truck stop bathroom with a box of hair dye and go to town on their manes. Further, and admittedly sticking to the shallow side of things, I’m often suspicious when every photo of a man on Ok Cupid shows himself wearing a hat—what on earth is he hiding? At any rate, concerns about hair health gets people, namely women, into my office. Sometimes seemingly shallow, trivial health concerns act as gateways to lifestyle changes and a journey to health and wellbeing. Since our bodies don’t really require hair for survival, hair health, along with sex drive and energy, is one of the first things to decline when we enter into a state of imbalance. It therefore becomes an important initial warning sign that things have gone array with our health.
If you’re someone who sees hair not just as a superficial aspect but as a reflection of your identity and well-being, then delving into the world of dreadlock classes could offer a transformative experience. Consider exploring the comprehensive resources available at https://dreadlockcentral.com/courses/. These courses provide a deep dive into the art of dreadlock maintenance and styling, empowering individuals to cultivate a strong sense of self-expression and confidence through their hair.
Just as concerns about hair health can serve as a gateway to overall well-being, mastering the art of dreadlocks through these classes can become a catalyst for positive lifestyle changes and self-discovery. Whether you’re looking to embrace your natural texture or make a bold statement with your locks, the knowledge and techniques gained from these courses can help you achieve your hair goals while also fostering a deeper connection to yourself and your personal journey of health and wellness. So, if you’re ready to explore the transformative power of dreadlocks and embark on a journey of self-discovery, consider enrolling in dreadlock classes today.
Hair holds a significant place in our self-perception and daily routines, often influencing our confidence and identity. When hair health falters, whether due to genetics, hormonal changes, or lifestyle factors, individuals may seek solutions like Hair Restoration Therapy to regain a sense of normalcy and well-being. This therapy, offered by a specialized plastic surgeon, aims to address hair loss and promote regrowth through various techniques such as laser therapy, PRP (Platelet-Rich Plasma) injections, or surgical procedures like hair transplantation. While the desire for lush locks may seem superficial to some, it often serves as a catalyst for deeper introspection and lifestyle changes, underscoring the interconnectedness of physical appearance and overall health.
Hair loss is often a concern for many women and men. It’s normal to notice a few strands of hair in the shower—the average woman loses about 50 to 100 strands of hair per day. However, when patches of hair seem to be missing, areas of thinning are present or a reduction in overall hair volume (usually indicated by a decrease in thickness of the pony tail), this can point to possible pathological hair loss.
In the quest to address concerns about hair loss, the choice of shampoo becomes a crucial element in maintaining scalp health. Opting for a sulfate free shampoo for oily scalp emerges as a thoughtful strategy to navigate this common challenge. This type of shampoo not only gently cleanses the hair but also ensures that the scalp’s natural oils are preserved, striking a balance that is particularly beneficial for those experiencing issues like thinning or reduced hair volume.
While losing a few strands daily is normal, unusual patterns of hair loss can signal pathological conditions that may require medical attention. For those seeking effective solutions, advancements in the field of hair restoration, such as hair transplant procedures, have become increasingly popular. In Seattle, individuals concerned about hair loss often explore options like hair transplants, which can provide a natural and lasting solution to restore hair density. It’s essential to consider factors such as seattle hair transplant cost along with the expertise of professionals to make an informed decision about addressing hair loss concerns. Seeking appropriate medical advice and exploring suitable treatments can help individuals regain not only their hair but also their confidence and overall sense of well-being.
History and Labs:
When coming in to see your naturopathic doctor, he or she may ask you the following questions:
Do you notice any itchiness or flaking of the scalp? These symptoms could indicate a number of skin conditions of the scalp that contribute to hair loss: seborrheic dermatitis, infection by a fungus called Malassezia furfur that causes dandruff, or psoriasis of the scalp, an autoimmune condition. The ND may diagnose via trial-and-error or perform skin-scraping to rule out a fungal infection. A skin biopsy may be indicated to provide a definitive diagnosis, however this test is invasive.
What do you labs look like? Comprehensive lab work is necessary in patients with hair loss. It’s important to see what iron status is, as well as thyroid health. Low iron or under-functioning thyroid can be the root cause of hair loss as can high androgens, the male sex hormones.
Which medications are you taking? Oral contraceptives can cause a deficiency in vitamins and minerals, such as zinc and B vitamins, that can cause hair loss. Other medications that can cause hair loss include, and or not limited to, blood pressure medications, antidepressants, antibiotics, acne medications, chemotherapeutics agents, immunosuppressants and pain medications. An ND can work with your doctor to decrease your list of medications by addressing the root cause of concerns, if possible, or collaborate in switching medications. This, of course, will only be done in collaboration with the prescribing doctor.
What’s bugging you? Stress can contribute significantly to hair loss. The mechanism of action is varied, but a decrease in circulation to the scalp, protein deficiency and depletion of vitamins used by the adrenal glands, can be possible causes of hair loss. Telogen effluvium is a condition where the body pushes the hair follicles into a “resting phase” so that they no longer grow and produce hair. This is done because when under stress, the body enters survival mode and does not dedicate precious resources to non-survival entities such as hair health. Alopecia areata an autoimmune condition in which the immune system of the body attacks the hair’s follicles, causing large patches of hair to fall out. This is said to be cause or aggravated by severe stress. Trichotillomania is a mental health condition in which the individual plucks out hair as a self-soothing mechanism.
What are you other symptoms? Weight gain, irregular periods, acne and hair growth on the face can indicate PCOS, which also can cause loss of scalp hair due to higher-than-normal testosterone levels. Men with high testosterone will also experience more hair loss. Digestive symptoms can indicate malabsorption of important fat-soluble vitamins or iron, which can contribute to hair loss if resulting in deficiency.
What hair products do you use? A sensitivity to sulphates and/or other chemical additives to hair products can contribute to hair loss or a decrease in the lustre and overall health of hair follicles.
Treatment:
The naturopathic treatment for hair loss, involves identifying and treating the root cause of symptoms, not the hair loss itself. A potential treatment plan might consist of the following:
Restoring health by replenishing depleted or deficient vitamins and minerals.
Eliminating infection or scalp fungus if necessary.
Managing stress in healthy, constructive ways.
Balancing hormones and the immune system via herbs, supplements and dietary changes.
Nourishing the hair by adding in vitamins that support hair health, such as fish oil. This also involves changing shampoos and conditioners to more natural, sulphate-free forms.
Castor oil hair mask:
Once a week, when my hair starts looking drier and duller, I do a castor oil hair mask and scalp massage. Castor oil is an anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory oil. It has the added benefit of increasing blood flow to the area it is applied to, in this case the scalp, which can increase hair growth. It is also a wonderful moisturizer and nutrient-rich hair supplement. It can help fuse together and moisturize split ends. Performing a self-scalp massage is a great way to increase body love by performing self care and has a grounding effect on the body, which reduces mental-emotional stress.
Apply a liberal amount of castor oil to palms. Rub oil into palms to warm it. Starting at the scalp, work oil into the hair follicles, applying a firm pressure and moving the fingertips in circles. Massage for 5 minutes, moving the oil through the shaft of the hair to the ends. After performing massage, leave oil in hair for at least an hour or overnight. Finally, shampoo and condition hair as usual to remove oil. Warning: castor oil can stain fabrics so sleep with an old pillowcase and wear an old t-shirt while performing castor oil scalp massages.
Epilogue: If you haven’t noticed, this seemingly shallow subject matter is the perfect segue into talking about a basic naturopathic approach, which involves taking a thorough history, ordering lab work to find the root cause of symptoms and then treating accordingly using non-invasive therapies that aim to treat the cause, not just the symptoms themselves. Notice how this is vastly different from walking into a supplement store and purchasing a product called “Hair Loss Formula” or some other facsimile. While this formula may replenish some deficient vitamins, it is masking the real cause, which may be PCOS or celiac disease, and delay effective treatment for these conditions. Hopefully this highlights the importance of seeking a professional opinion rather than self-diagnosing and self-prescribing!
Estrogen is the dominant female hormone. It is actually a group of hormones, called the estrogens, that are responsible for the development of female secondary sex characteristics: the development of breast tissue and the proliferation of the uterine lining. Estrogen helps prepare the body for ovulation. Not all estrogens are created equal, however. Some estrogens are associated with an increased risk of certain female cancers, such as breast cancer.
Excess estrogen, especially in the form of these so-called “bad” estrogens, seems to be a common theme among women in North America. Stress, caffeine intake, synthetic estrogens in birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy and xeno-estrogens from cleaning products, plastics and cosmetics are among some of the causes of excess levels of estrogen in the body. Because of these environmental factors, many women suffer from something called “Estrogen Dominance”.
Symptoms of estrogen dominance include stubborn weight gain, anxiety, premenstrual symptoms of breast tenderness, acne, irritability, fatigue and brain fog. Estrogen dominance can contribute to worsening of health conditions such as infertility, fibrocystic breasts, repeated miscarriages, uterine fibroids and endometriosis as well as increase the risk of developing certain cancers.
Estrogen detoxification can be done effectively through a healthy diet that aims at improving estrogen clearance in the liver and regulation of the action of estrogen at cell receptors. By following this diet, patients can experience an improvement in hormonal health conditions, clearer skin and weight loss.
This diet is adapted from Dr. Joseph Collins RN, ND at yourhormones.com.
Cruciferous vegetables: Vegetables from the cabbage family, such as cabbage itself, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale, bok choy, spinach, collard greens and other leafy greens are rich in a nutrient called indole-3-carbinol, or I3C. I3C gets converted to diindolymethane (DIM) in the body, which is responsible for clearance of excess estrogens in the liver. Consume a minimum of 3-4 servings of these vegetables per week.
Rosemary: Rosemary, when added to meats as a seasoning enhances the formation of good estrogens (the ones less likely to cause cancer or health concerns). Rosemary has the added benefit of antioxidant activity. It also enhances memory and mood and helps with thyroid function, improving weight loss, metabolism and energy levels.
Flaxseed: 2-4 tablespoons per day of ground flaxseed promotes healthy estrogen metabolism. The seed contains lignans, which help clear excess estrogens from the body. Flax also contains phytoestrogens, which control how much estrogen can bind to estrogen receptors. This means it can decrease excess estrogen activity or increase deficient estrogen activity, making it an effective remedy for a variety of female health complaints. Flax is rich in healthy omega-3 fats and contains fibre, making it an important remedy for treating inflammation and constipation. Flaxseed is digested and absorbed when ground, and best stored in the fridge as the oils in the seed quickly go rancid at room temperature.
Salmon and other fatty fish: Salmon and other fatty fish contain EPA, an omega-3 fatty acid, is an important anti-inflammatory oil. It has been shown to be effective in treating inflammatory conditions, cardiovascular disease and mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety and ADHD. It helps increase the formation of “good” estrogens in the body. Enjoy 2-3 servings of fatty fish per week, or supplement with a quality fish oil.
Isoflavones: Isoflavones, such as those found in soy, are antioxidants effective at increasing good estrogens in the body. Since soy is often heavily processed, using herbs such as Trifolium pratense, Pueraria montana and Pueraria lobata either in teas, capsules or tinctures, will help provide an adequate dose of isoflavones.
Activated folic acid: Folic acid is responsible for converting estrogen into a very healthy, methylated form that can decrease the risk of certain cancers. Many people are unable to convert folate into the active 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, which is essential for hormone metabolism, DNA synthesis, homocysteine metabolism and nervous system function (good mental health, memory and energy). Other B vitamins to supplement with are B6 and B12 as they help folic acid metabolism estrogen into their anti-cancer form. Folic acid is found in dark leafy greens, which also contain your daily doses of indole-3-carbinol.
If you are experiencing symptoms of estrogen dominance in the form of a female health complaint, book an appointment to learn what else you can do to experience healthy, happy, pain-free periods and look and feel your best. Contact me.
Many health complaints are common, but not normal.
“I take migraine medicine everyday,” boasted L. She then went on to describe her plenitful medicine cabinet that, at the age of 23, she’d stocked quite well. “I get headaches when the weather’s bad, when I forget my glasses, when I’m hungry-” she went on. I repressed my immediate impulse to give her a list of supplements she could take and dietary changes she could make to never have another headache again, and simply said, “Well, L, you know I have a practice in the West end. If you want any more support…You can call—”
“—No, I’m good”, she responded, hurriedly. “I just need to find out how to get more of my medication.” The medication she referred to was high dose acetominophen, or Tylenol. She was taking 1 g pills and her doctor had told her that she could dose up to 4 g per day. Since 4 g will cause immediate liver failure, I was happy to learn she hadn’t needed to get that high… yet. What’s more, she wasn’t treating the cause of her condition. She was just addressing the symptoms, and consequently negatively affecting her health.
To use the car dashboard analogy, when your fuel light comes on and makes a noise while you’re driving on the highway, what do you do? Most people, without giving it another thought, will pull over to address the root cause of the chaos by adding more gas to the car. Very few of us will take out a hammer and smash the dashboard in. In fact, most of us cringe at how ridiculous the thought is. Imagine the entire naturopathic community cringing when they hear about someone swallowing several grams of Tylenol to smash out their migraine.
Pulling the car over to refuel and smashing the dashboard both serve to stop the annoying blinking and beeping of the fuel light. One of them is addressing the root cause and actually paying attention to what your car needs. The other is, well… I’ll let you come up with an appropriate adjective.
So this begs the question: why do we insist on smashing our symptoms away? The fuel light may be annoying, but drivers value its presence as a tool to let us know that we need to refuel lest we end up stranded on the highway without gas. The blinking light lets us know what is going on inside our car.
Why don’t we view our body’s symptoms in the same way?
I have patients who think that their depression is a part of them, or that the painful distention under their belly buttons after eating is “normal”. Sometimes we identify with our physical ailments to the point where they define us, as if it’s our lot in life to have acne or poor digestion or to be overweight—it’s not.
Dandruff, painful menses, seasonal allergies, aches and pains are not “normal.” Sure, they’re common. No, they don’t necessarily mean you have some life-threatening disease, and therefore your family doctor probably doesn’t have a reasonable solution for them, besides smashing at them with the hammers in their toolbox from time-to-time.
When I saw my first ND, I was excited at the idea that, even though my doctor assured me that the random, annoying symptoms I was suffering from were “normal”, they were in fact not normal and something could be done about them. From the ND’s standpoint, the symptoms were an indication of budding imbalances and treating them was preventing more serious conditions down the line. Feeling cold all the time and excessively full after meals weren’t just annoying symptoms, they were important messages from my body that things weren’t all right and that something needed to be done.
Is there an annoying symptom you’ve been experiencing that you’ve come to accept as something you just have to live with?
It’s hard to please everyone nowadays. Some people won’t eat grains, others want to protect the animals. Still other people prefer to cut down on their sugar or avoid foods cooked over certain temperatures to preserve nutrients. How do you satisfy this diverse group of foodies with one one-size-fits-all dessert? The search ends here. These chocolate mint squares are raw, vegan, Paleo, low sugar – the only thing they aren’t is hard to make. They take a few minutes to prepare and all you need are the ingredients and a decent food processor or blender.
They somewhat resemble their tooth-achingly sweet cousin, the Nanaimo Bar, with their pretty layers and chocolate finish, but with a health-promoting twist. While these still count as a dessert, they contain healthy fats (avocado, coconut oil and walnuts), fibre and, well, chocolate. We all love chocolate. They’re also decadent with their bright green middles.
Ingredients:
1 cup large dates, pits removed
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup walnuts
3 small avocados
coconut oil
1/4 maple syrup or honey
bakers dark chocolate, or dark chocolate baking wafers (available at Bulk Barn)
2 tsp of peppermint extract
Directions:
Base layer:
Lay some parchment paper on a small baking pan. In a food processor blend together the dates (add a little water to the mixture), cocoa powder and walnuts. Spread the blended ingredients over the parchment paper and place everything in the freezer so that it hardens.
Middle layer:
Blend together the avocados, 2 tbs of coconut oil, the maple syrup and 1 capful of peppermint extract. I like to squeeze in a little lemon to keep the avocados looking nice and green. When the base layer is hard, pour the middle layer on top, then return to the freezer for minimum one hour.
Top layer:
In the microwave or small sauce pan, melt a handful of chocolate, 1 tbs coconut oil and 1/2 capful of peppermint extract. Mix together until everything is liquid and uniform. Pour a thin coating of the chocolate layer on top of the frozen avocado layer then return everything to the freezer.
When everything is set in place, carefully cut the recipe into small squares. They will be hard to cut if the top chocolate layer is too thick, as it cracks when hardened. It helps to heat the knife with hot water and slowly cut the squares. Store everything in the freezer and serve cold.
My mother tells a story about my childhood where she is standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner. I stand below her, tugging at her shirt, and begging for food.
