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hello and welcome to the true Hope cast podcast where we take a deep dive into mental Health's many physiological and

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psychological aspects this is the show for you if you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and

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that's what we are all about here at true hope Canada and true hope Canada is a mind and body based supplement company

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dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more

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information about us you can visit trueu hopan canada.com today on the show we're going to be discussing nervous system biology and Trauma healing we're going

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to be discussing that with Michelle Brown Michelle is a functional nutrition and lifestyle practitioner a clinical

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herbalist and she holds a master certificate in biology of trauma she works with clients from all around the

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world addressing anxiety depression fatigue and other chronic health issues from a root cause perspective this

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approach addresses nervous system disregulation and emphasizes the Mind Body Connection this allows true healing

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to happen enjoy the show hi Michelle welcome to True Hope cast thank you so much for being with us today how are you

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and is going well I am doing well thank you Simon I'm so excited to be here

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wonderful yeah I really appreciate the time and we're just talking just off air about how many um incredible trauma

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practitioners there are in the world right now and how this is such a real I don't want to use the word Buzz or Trend but a massive necessary thing within

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within the market of Health Care and especially mental health care so it's wonderful that we've been able to

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connect and get you on the show and we're going to be discussing nervous system by ology and um trauma healing

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today and at the end of the podcast what we're going to do we're going to offer some solutions to the question what are

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some daily practices that can help people connect their mind and body better kind of like right away like

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something they can put put into practice immediately so we'll cover that towards the end of the show but if you wouldn't

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mind just um kicking off with a little bit of an introduction about who you are and what it is that you do sure I'd love

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to well uh I'm Michelle and I am a clinical herbalist a functional

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nutrition counselor and uh a trauma informed uh provider I have training as

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a Mastery level biology of trauma professional and it was in that training that I really began to understand this

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role of trauma and how it impacts our overall health I work with a lot of

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clients with mood challenges right anxiety depression and other chronic

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health issues right that sometimes are difficult to unravel and resolve and

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sometimes I'm working with clients who are doing a lot of really good things for their health but they're still stuck

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right they're still stuck in a place of not really moving forward and getting better and when it was when I started

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recognizing and understanding what trauma was and how it was impacting the health of my clients my own health that

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you know really was a light bulb for me and how these things impact our our

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health and our nervous system and our ability to feel good and safe and

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connected and move forward with our health so yeah really exciting stuff

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going on in the world of trauma healing these days wonderful Yeah you mentioned

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the word stuck on on your website which I I was checking out today and yesterday and yeah that's a really interesting um

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area that people find themselves in in so many different walks of life but especially around like even if they are

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doing such great things to for for for their body their Spirit Etc and emotional health we're being stuck at a

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point where it's like unable to progress to the next bit and that's where a lot of your work will come in and we'll

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certainly we'll certainly talk about that especially around the like the subconscious mind and like deep rooted

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traumas and root cause and things like that but um I just wanted to get your

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kind of definition I guess of like you know what is trauma and why is it such a

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hot big Topic at the moment yes I think it's a great question because uh you

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know I think a lot of people misunderstand what trauma even is we often think trauma is this thing that

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happened to me this event right there was um I was assaulted or abused or I went through a um an accident right and

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these things were were trauma and yet it's really not about the event it's

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about our experience going through the event and that's a really profound

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difference in looking at what what trauma is because that means that what might be a trauma for you might not be

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for me right we all have a different experience going through the different

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things that come up in our life and what impacts our experience of what uh

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something is in terms of it being a trauma or not is really found in the role of our nervous system and our

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ability to handle the things that come at us the stress the overwhelm and if

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something is too much for our body to handle instead of going

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into fight or flight response of the nervous system we go into collapse we go

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into freeze we go into overwhelm which is really a nervous system response that

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we also call the trauma response and it's really profound to start

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understanding the role of the nervous system in trauma because it explains why

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we do the things we do when we feel overwhelmed you know we were talking about that feeling of being stuck right

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and for so many people even if they're doing some good things to move forward

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with their health maybe they're trying to change their diet or doing supplements or you know other lifestyle

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practices and yet it seems like things won't shift for them then they find that

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it's often because their nervous system is stuck in this dorsal veal freeze

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response that's keeping them from moving forward and it's happening you know at this biological level and I think that

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trauma has become such a big topic because uh we're recognizing that it's

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something we've all experienced right you know I have so many clients who you know they always thought trauma was that

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big terrible thing that happened to other people and then when they start recognizing what trauma really is like

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they have this profound realization that they've experienced trauma they've experienced this place of feeling

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overwhelmed unable to move forward and it can become a chronic pattern for many

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people and so starting to recognize that and this other state of the nervous system that I think for a long time

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wasn't even understood is you know just giving voice to what so many people have

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experienced that they didn't you know understand what was going on they didn't have the the words or the you know

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framework to put into words what was happening and when you understand this

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it's like it's a relief right it's like I understand what's happening in my body

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and why I might be reacting to situations or people or whatever is

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coming up in my life in a very certain way that I didn't understand about

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myself before that's a beautiful answer thank you very much I think the um the

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understanding aspect of all of that and understanding just the basic of how our

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nervous system re reacts in the world and how it functions and how I suppose how it was deliberately meant to

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function a 100 thousand years ago in comparison to to today and how it's not

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that much different I just kind of think back to my science classes and school and even high school I don't really

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remember much that I didn't really school school school wasn't my thing but um I went back to school when I was 30

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years old and then I was absolutely fascinated with you know the structure of all of the bodily systems especially

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our neurological system but I was more fascinated with the pathophysiology about when things went wrong which is

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what way more interesting than when the structure of like when things are supposed to be right because so many

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people have got these disruptions and disregulation and we've got this wonderful incredible

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supercomputer um that just sometimes just doesn't quite work so I found that

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a lot a lot more interesting but I didn't learn that until I was 30 years old and I had to get really motivated to do that and to do some like um further

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Advanced education but so many people sit just sitting around today listening

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to this podcast they might not know just the basics of how our nervous system works and if you're unable to recognize

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that then how would you be able to recognize stress depression anxiety

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PTSD all of these things that happen to so many people on a daily daily basis

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and people end up living with these things for for decades and it becomes a huge part of their lives and their personalities if we don't understand the

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basic function of how our body is working especially our brain it's very very difficult

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to get to a place where we are going to start actually healing and going forward

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I think it's actually kind of impossible if you don't understand like really the function the function of it then you're never going to be able to get to a point

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where you are you know really I suppose digesting the experience that you had

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before so would you mind maybe explaining to us a little bit you don't have to go too deep but you've said some

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really cool words in regards to like poly vagel Theory I don't think many people are going to know what that is so

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if we can step that back a little bit and maybe build up towards what that might be let's can you mind explaining a

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little bit about like what the nervous system is and cl what it does in response to trauma and stress absolutely

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yeah and this understanding is so important like you said because when we understand what's happening in the body

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why are our body and our mind are responding to situations they the way they are I find it's actually really

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freeing like we can go oh look at that there's my freeze response kicking in and a response to this overwhelm and we

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don't have to bring in that guilt and shame that we often feel about maybe um

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reaching for unhealthy coping mechanisms or just you know when we're in freeze it's a very low energy State we're often

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checked out right and so I find ourselves laying on the couch feeling unable to get up and you know thinking

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like why am I doing this what's wrong with me and really it's a nervous system response that's happening that's you

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know driving this Behavior so if we're thinking about the nervous system its job number one is to keep us

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safe right we want to be safe in our environment in our body and like you said you know going back to years and

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years of um our ancestors who were you know hunter gatherers out in the wilderness maybe hunting you know

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looking up for the tiger jumping out behind them um they had to constantly be aware of their environment and whether

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or not they were safe right and and yet you know we we tend not to live that way anymore where we're worried about you

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know the big bad bear coming to get us but uh our nervous system is is yeah

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you're right it hasn't changed in all of these Millennia of human existence where

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we still are looking for this sense of safety primarily in our body and so we

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we think of the nervous system and there are three really responses of the nervous system and the one we all want

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to be in is that parasympathetic response right that rest and digest part

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of the nervous system where we feel calm and yet we are you know alert and active

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and engaged with life right we feel good and we're able to um connect socially

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all of these things we um feel and experience when we're in that part of our nervous system and then we usually

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all understand the stress response right the sympathetic activation of the nervous system which we call that

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fighter flight right that's where uh the tiger jumps out and we need to run right

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and so uh again most of us aren't being chased by tigers but on daily basis we

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have different stressors that are kicking on the sympathetic response of the nervous system and when that becomes

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chronic right we just can stay and the sympathetic activation and it's really

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important to note that things are happening at a cellular level right at a biological level in our body depending

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on the state of our nervous system and you know there's different hormones that kick in when we're stressed out like

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adrenalin and cortisol and if we are overwhelmed by stressors anything that

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we are overwhelmed by something that's too much for too long um or it can be too little right too little for too long

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we're just we don't have the internal resources we need to to fight to to flee

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right in terms of that sympathetic response that's when the nervous system goes into this dorsal vagal response of

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the nervous system which is known as the freeze response or trauma response and

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when I see dorsal vagel we're really referring to this nerve that runs from

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the brain and it wanders through the body Vegas really means wandering and this wandering nerve has different

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branches so when we're in a fight ORF flight response right it's it's a different part of that vagus nerve that

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is turned on and accessed than when we're in a freeze response and because

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this nerve wanders through the body it's connected to our digestive system to our

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organs right to a lot of different things happening in the body if we're not in that rest and digest part of our

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nervous system you know that nerve uh cross talk between the brain and the the

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digestive system for example isn't functioning adequately so that's where I tend to see a lot of people with

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digestive issues who are stuck in you know either a sympathetic response or a

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chronic freeze response or what's often happening is we're we're kind of bouncing around between these different

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states of the nervous system which is really hard on the body um because again

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we we're Shi into different hormonal patterns cellular patterns and can cause

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a lot of just metabolic chaos at that level and so you we want to have a

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nervous system that has some flexibility to it right so that if we if we're

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sitting here having a conversation and this is a example I use a lot because uh this actually happened

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to me once where I was in a conversation um like this and and the smoke detector

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went off in my house and I think one of my kids was making something and I don't know a little

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smoke happened and there all of a sudden the alarm's going off and you know my reaction was you know to kind of jump

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and you know my eyes got big and I jumped up and ran into the other room right that's that sympathetic response

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kicking in um you turned off the fire alarm everything was okay but I could

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feel my heart rate you know speeding up my breathing was faster and so

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everything was fine I was able to come sit back down get back into my meeting um you know people are talking with just

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kind of laughed at me and I was able to kind of bring my nervous system back after a few minutes to a place of

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parasympathetic response right where I was I was okay I moved through that stressor successfully but for people

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struck stuck in a chronic freeze response or this disregulation of the nervous system I mean something like

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that could cause them to feel completely overwhelmed right they can't even come back down into a par sympathetic State

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and calm their system down they these are my clients who um are so overwhelmed

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by little stressors that you know they just can't get off the couch for the rest of the day they they're not moving

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forward in life successfully on a day-to-day basis so really helpful to

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understand what's happening in our nervous system and then start recognizing the state your nervous

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system is in throughout the day because each of these states requires a

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different approach to help us move through it successfully and back into that parasympathetic

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response beautiful well said that was wonderful thank you very much I think that that example that you just gave

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about the fire alarm coming off and you obviously go into a fight or flight and you're able to regulate yourself back

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into a your normal conversation back into your Norm yeah being able to have that capacity within your nervous system

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to be able to fluctuate I want to say safely with the ability to get into a stress response because that's situation

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you just you said there that could have been a really it could have been a fire it could have been really really serious and you do need to have all of your

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energy all of your blood and your extremities and you know Eyes Wide Open Etc to be able to deal with that situation in a very quick manner but you

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know nine times out of 10 those situations don't turn into let's say emergency situations but the ability to

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be able to whether that's innate or through tools that you may use to be able to bring yourself back down it's so

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so valuable and yeah I feel like that's a innate ability that we've lost as a

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species primarily that we yet a sense that we we don't really have anymore and

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we we need to understand that a little bit better understand to get a little bit more

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connected with with our body and our mind on on a more conscious daily basis to be able to actually recognize what's

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going on for us because a lot a lot of people are kind of severed from from the neck up in regards to like what they're actually feeling whether that might be

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pain discomfort Etc these messages that come from the body so yeah that nervous some capacity that ability to kind of

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fluctuate it's kind of like having really good heart rate variability where you know if you want to go out and do a

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workout you can do that your heart can go up there and and be in this Zone but then it can easily kind of get you back

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down here again you know that's it's very very similar in regards to that being able to have that that

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flexibility and that explanation that you gave about the nervous system wonderful and it's a

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I think that's a really important key start for people to start with that very simple understanding in to then go

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forward into individual complexity within everyone's certain case whether

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it may be from something that happened to them 20 30 years ago or something a year ago everyone's case is very

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individual um one person's response to one thing is not going to be the same as another person so that's why it's so

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valuable to you know work with a practitioner one-on-one so you can actually dive deep into your individual

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circumstances that's something that the conventional model with um

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with like let's just use drugs for example it's such a it's it's it's such

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a poor approach to something that's so specific and unique that actually needs

19:09

investigation it needs understanding it needs empathy and it needs space and time to be able to get to that root

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cause and that's what really kind of annoys me about a conventional model towards like mental health or you know

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it's just that you're just you know you're it's just a chemical imbalance or it's just this or it's just that but we

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can fix that with a you know with taking something external that you'd have to be on forever to fix that problem really

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annoys me about the conventional model for that and I wanted to ask you like do you what's a typical patient um pathway

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that that comes towards you that somebody that's been within the conventional model for a long time and they're looking for an

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alternative route towards their like chronic conditions or or are people coming to you before they even jump to a

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doctor or jump into drugs what does that look like yeah it depends I mean I have some clients who are on medications for

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mood and a lot that aren't you know a lot of the clients I work with are you they're looking for a more natural

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approach they recognize that you know medications aren't really solving the

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the underlying issues that they're dealing with in terms of their mood and you know so they're looking to either um

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you know stay off of medications if they haven't started or often um working to get off of medications in many cases and

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it's really coming to me at that point of starting to understand like oh there's more happening in my body than

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just you know this this lack of medication right and that this isn't really going to fix the problem it's

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really about understanding what's happening in their body in their nervous system and you mentioned uh you know

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that disconnection people often have when they've been through trauma in terms of disconnecting from the body

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that's really common when we have trauma we feel this we feel it in our body we

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store it in our body right and so that can be a really uncomfortable sensation

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so these coping mechanisms that we often turn to whether it's food or alcohol or

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you know I'll even put mood medications in that category just in the sense that there's something we reach for in order

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to kind of turn off that that feeling we're having in our body that's so uncomfortable to disconnect to the point

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where we can dissociate from what's happening in the body body but it's when we really start to notice what we're

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actually feeling and experiencing in the body and then working with that with

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like sematic tools for example different I I like to call Mind Body practices and

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then addressing the nervous system biology I've really seen those two pieces when we bring them together

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really shift uh you know the overwhelm the anxiety the repression that many of the clients who come to me are

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struggling with yeah I mean you must have so many people you must probably you probably see lots of people who

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clearly do have this disconnect with within their their mind and body and you mentioned some practices and tools there

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is there um we're going to talk about this at the end of the show as well but is is there something that people can do

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kind of quickly to actually start talking to their body again yeah you know I think it comes

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down to a little bit of just noticing first of all like just noticing what's happening in your body and you know I

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I'll share a short little story with you if that's okay of my own experience with this when I um was first kind of

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starting to understand this nervous inant piece I was already a health coach and you know I was helping people with their diet and you know nutrition and

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supplements and yet it's funny I would have clients who would come to me who you know knew they had trauma they would

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tell me about trauma and these were often the clients who were really stuck and and sometimes I didn't know what to

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kind of do next to help them and it really wasn't until I learned how to start working with the nervous system

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and my own nervous system that I started to see a profound shift with the clients

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I was working with and so you know when I was um a teenager I struggled with eating disorders and you know that was

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the 90s and you know fat was bad and um thin was in all of those things and so I

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was avoiding you know avoiding food I I started restricting my eating and it wasn't until honestly years and years

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later that I recognized that that was a TR response for me it was at a time when

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um a family member was diagnosed with cancer my mom's only sister and like

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things were really stressful in my home like I think my parents didn't know how to deal with that stress themselves I

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think my parents are great people but they just honestly kind of checked out at that time and in my sense of

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overwhelm and not sure what to do that was the only thing I had control over right was food so that's what I

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restricted and until it became uh you know this full-blown eating disorder that really fell out of control and you

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know I was eventually able to um do some things to move past that but then years

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later in my late 30s I I found myself uh going through a divorce and uh I had

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moved to a new town with my three kids a new home you know I was working full-time and you know it was a really

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stressful time and I found myself putting my kids to bed in the evening

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and then I was going to the kitchen and grabbing a jar of peanut butter and chocolate chips and and eating and and

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in my head I'm like what am I doing I need to stop this and it felt really out of control which felt really scary and

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at that time it was right when I started working with the nervous system response um I was actually working with another

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practitioner who taught me how to feel what I was feeling and so you know like she said if we feel true hunger just

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thinking about where we feel that out we often feel you know this kind of rumbling in our belly this you know kind

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of um tightness as we feel those hunger pains and yet if we think about another

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emotion like anxiety for example we feel that in our body we say anxiety like it's an emotion we have in our head or a

25:09

thought but we actually feel something in our body and for many of us putting my hands here on my chest because for me

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that's where I feel it right it's like this pressure something pushing down on my chest that tightness tension maybe

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something like anger we can feel like a tension in the back of the neck or the head so as I started to notice what I

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was feeling uh the next time I went into the kitchen in the evening and started to reach for that jar of peanut butter I

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just stopped and noticed what am I feeling in my body right now and I like

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it was just like a light bulb it was this huge Epiphany it sounds so simple but I realized I was not hungry I was

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feeling this intense pressure on my chest right this anxiety and I it was so profound for me

25:55

at that moment it was like the first time I'd felt my feelings which sounds

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almost ridiculous to be almost 40 and say that was the first time but that was my disconnect from what I was feeling

26:07

right my dissociation from my body and as I recognized that and then began to

26:12

work on my nervous system biology at the same time I was able to shift out of that pattern of needing to reach for

26:18

food to calm my nervous system bring in some healthier you know coping

26:24

mechanisms and live for more of a place of parasympathetic response so that's

26:30

where I would start just noticing what do you feel in your body it may be discomfort it may be an uncomfortable

26:37

thing you're experiencing but until you start to notice it you can't really change it right and so think about where

26:44

maybe you feel different things that come up for you anxiety anger guilt Joy

26:50

hunger these different Sensations and start noticing where you're feeling them

26:56

how you're feeling them in your body yeah that's wonderful it's um it's so

27:01

common for people to spend the majority of their day um unconscious and really aware of like

27:09

what's going on for them in the present moment you know it's about you know getting the kids to school getting them fed I mean I've got two young kids as

27:16

well so I know I kind of know what that's like it's difficult to be in the present moment and sometimes it's 8:00 p.m. when they're finally

27:22

asleep you can actually breathe and then your brain and your body start to like connect again and I guess for a lot of

27:30

people that can be a very emotional point because you've just been living

27:35

kind of out of your mind really for for the majority of the day and then you finally bring it all in and you have so

27:41

many people in my nutrition practice um where 8:00 p.m. 900 p.m. would be like

27:46

when they thought they were getting super super hungry for a lot of people they would be because they're so stressed about all the other things they

27:52

need to do that they're just not eating during the day and your body finally kind of like relaxes somewhat from this

27:58

really high stress State during the day and then that's kind of like when everything comes comes flooding in and it's you know it's a lot easier to hit

28:04

the fridge and kind of take care of that caloric situation um late at night when

28:10

you don't have like kids and things to juggle around so I totally understand the struggle that people people

28:15

experience with that but I think yeah you beautifully explained that if you're able to actually

28:21

recognize where that hunger is coming from where that maybe anxiety is coming from and you know is it is it attached

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to something a little bit more emotionally in depth or is it actually

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you know is it actually hunger or is it actually another sensation perhaps maybe tomorrow you need to maybe prepare some food and and take care of that

28:40

throughout the day so really very quite simple steps but being able to put

28:46

yourself more consistently in a state of being in the present moment is so so key and so hard for a lot of people

28:52

especially in this culture where it's just like we have to be so busy we have to have activities all of the time we

28:57

don't really have this space and time where it's like okay 1:00 every day like you

29:03

commit to five minutes of just like s sitting down and breathing and like you know regulating yourself we're all just

29:09

like so up here all of the time so it's again it's it's something that we have lost with our natural culture and our

29:16

natural biology that we would now in 2024 we have to look back thousands of

29:22

years to ancient practices that already figured this out and we have to start bringing we have to start bringing them

29:27

back back into to our lives and it's it's super interesting these things come come in Full Circle but I know people

29:32

now who like you know meditate in yoga and it's like they they can't they can't not have that in their lives anymore

29:39

because it's their it's their therapy it's their it's their it's their their space where they're able to reconnect

29:44

with their body and give it what it needs and just give it the attention of and finally throughout that day bring

29:50

energy towards them rather than you know kind of giving it away constantly throughout the day for all these things so yeah that's that's wonderful and you

29:57

you talk about nervous system biology a lot can you explain to us a little bit more about like what what that is and

30:04

and what it has to do with addressing things like anxiety depression overwhelm Etc yeah that i' would be happy to when

30:10

I think of nervous system biology it's really what we've been talking about right like we know when whatever state

30:17

our nervous system is in there's something happening at a cellular physiological level when we're stressed

30:24

we're releasing adrenaline or cortisol for example these are hormones that impact a lot of other things that

30:30

are happening in our body and you know for example cortisol is uh considered a

30:36

catabolic hormone it means it's a hormone that causes breakdown of tissue so over time if we're stuck in a

30:43

sympathetic stress State you know that what you just mentioned where a lot of people are really staying up in their

30:50

sympathetic response just to try to get through life right they're in Survival Mode that's how they get through their

30:56

day right they just keep pushing and and using that sympathetic response that cortisol to get through their day and

31:02

yet that's making things change at a cellular level at you know at the level

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of our organ systems and so and we also know that with trauma it changes our

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biology so there's a lot of research that's been done on um Advan adverse

31:19

childhood events right and chronic health conditions so someone with adverse childhood events which can

31:26

actually be measured right on an assessment that has been um put together by Dr Vincent feli and the higher your

31:34

score uh your we call Aces score um the more prone that people are to things

31:40

like autoimmune conditions or chronic inflammatory conditions like cardiovascular uh health issues and

31:48

depression anxiety all of these things and so you know we know there's a link between trauma and what's happening with

31:55

our health and our biology and and then it goes the other way way as well like if we aren't well resourced in our

32:01

internal just nutrients right our biology then we are going to be more

32:06

susceptible to stress and overwhelm and so I found this to be a really key piece

32:11

because a lot of clients who come to me they are low and key nutrients that impact their uh their nervous system

32:19

biology and their mood and you know I look at things like copper zinc balance I look at things like methylation I look

32:26

at their neurotransmitter function right if we're low in neurotransmitters which are our Feelgood

32:34

uh hormones in the brain chemical Messengers that you know transmit to us

32:39

that we we safe we're we're in a good place we can be in a good mood uh if we're low in these

32:45

neurotransmitters that's going to show up in our in our mood in our level of anxiety and overwhelm and so by working

32:51

on this biology side of things we can resource that nervous system right we

32:57

talked about how the trauma response is really a place of being uh

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33:27

handle the stress and the overwhelm that comes up in our day-to-day lives beautiful yeah I've always been so

33:33

fascinated with um with the microbiome and gut health and its connection um to the brain and to disorders like anxiety

33:39

and depression and it just makes such perfect sense when you think about if

33:44

you're predominantly in a stress State and it doesn't mean you have to be like you know freaking out running around all the time you know you can be in this

33:50

like Bas level stress day which people kind of literally wake up in you know and they go to bed with it and they're

33:58

never in a rest and digest situation so constantly all out through the day their

34:04

energy their blood then the the the their Chi whatever you want to call it is it's never really in their digest

34:11

digestive tract it's always in their extremities it's always elsewhere because the body thinks that it's under

34:16

threat constantly so the ability to break down your food correctly and

34:23

obtain the nutrients from it is so so difficult for I want to say most people out there walking around today so

34:31

therefore eventually at some point the body is just going to be in this this state of lack and this chronic state of

34:37

lack which will lead to some sort of disorder down the road whether that's an autoimmune disorder gut disorder

34:42

neurological disorder you everything can kind of be linked back to to the gut nutrient deficiency depletion and it

34:51

just goes to show how like vital it is to obviously not only have great practices around food like actually

34:58

treating your meals like a kind of meditative practice where you're actually like you're conscious you're aware you're not distracted you can

35:04

you're chewing your food properly and you know you're eating the right things for you but it go it just goes to show

35:11

how how vital it is to to consume good quality nutrition even from the beginning states

35:18

of when you are in a stress State and you want to get yourself away from that and you want to work with someone like

35:24

yourself how vital it is to have the right nutrients within your body to begin you know making new neurological

35:30

connections within your brain and to correctly facilitate the use of amino acids and vitamins and minerals and all

35:36

these things and since I've been working with with true hope Canada and our our Flagship product is a broadspectrum

35:42

micronutrient formula that especially our minerals are treated with very very unique care the majority of products out

35:49

there with with the minerals they spend about 4 hours on the cation of the minerals but we spend four days on it we

35:55

have a very special process in which we do that so minerals that in our product are actually obtained through the blood

36:01

brain bearing get into the brain very very quickly so we see and we hear I mean I through the social media and

36:06

through the website and emails Etc I hear daily of people kind of having a dark cloud over

36:13

their minds and then it's lifted literally within literally within days and that's that's just from taking a

36:18

good quality nutrition product that's actually given people the ability to kind of see the light a little bit and

36:25

then they're able to step into a life where they're actually thinking about thinking about like you know maybe

36:30

cooking cooking a good meal or going to a yoga class or just going for a walk around the block or they just reduce the

36:37

like depressive an anxious thoughts that come into their mind so it just goes to show how important that

36:44

basic understanding of their neurology as well as the basic

36:50

importance of nutrition at the same time and how if they are if they're not taking care of a long

36:56

periods of time we are going to see what we see already in our world an absolute epidemic of of

37:02

sickness autoimmune disease Etc and it's really especially mental health as well it's really it's really sad to see

37:09

because there are some really powerful Solutions out there that actually avoid of the conventional side give people

37:16

their actual power back and responsibility back to take care of these things themselves and it's really

37:21

really empowering to be able to do that and to know that you've got the tools available to you to reverse 20 years of

37:28

pain yeah it's amazing what happens when we fix that biology um nutrients are

37:34

such a big part of that um sometimes there are biochemical imbalances that

37:39

can even be genetic that can impact our uh nutrient level so um for instance

37:45

like pyua is something I screen for with my clients where um you know basically

37:51

they're excreting zinc and vitamin B6 in the urine due to this um this condition

37:56

of pyua and you know so there are specific things that can be tested for but um you

38:02

know just a general like bringing in nutrients minerals those amino acids you mentioned we make our neurotransmitters

38:09

from amino acids so I'm always starting with those basics of like just how are we eating right are we getting enough

38:15

protein minerals fiber yes to to fix the microbiome and feed our our good

38:21

bacteria in the gut um so there's so much we can do with nutrition to really help support someone's mental health and

38:29

mood yeah some of the so Empower plus has got 35 peer review journals independent independently funded and

38:36

some of the original work was done on on bipolar disorder and Dr Bonny Kaplan the the lead researcher on this I won't

38:43

forget the the news clip that um the news clip that she was on for I think it was disco Discovery Health that did a

38:49

documentary on it anyway um she's explaining that yeah there are there are a lot of people out there that just have

38:55

this genetic disposition they just need more minerals and more vitamins than that like the average person and if you

39:01

know you look at our soil and our food at the moment and how depleted it gets year after year you can just you just

39:08

just by understanding that you can understand that the rise of these disorders is just going to get higher and higher and higher if people are not

39:14

you know taking care of that with good gut health and avoiding you know avoiding poor Foods especially sugar and

39:21

and poor fats it's going to really really make a massive impact in consuming a really good mic nutrient

39:27

formula can really transform a lot of people's lives very very quickly so yeah it's a it's a it's a fully rounded

39:34

approach that people have to have to take and working with individuals like yourself and like nutritionists

39:40

acupuncturists there's some really amazing practitioners out there some a lot of them we've we've had on the show just to express and and tell people and

39:48

explain to people that first of all you're not alone in what's going on two that there are wonderful options for you

39:54

to be able to get yourself out of you know what will seem like a very dark

40:00

difficult place and uh yeah we we have we have wonderful communities out there that can can get help get people through

40:07

these things so yeah it's it's a it's a wonderful time to be alive and it's wonderful that we can actually have these conversations and and share share

40:13

the knowledge of of individuals like yourself to to give people hope and that's kind of like what we're all about here at true hope Canada but I wanted to

40:20

ask you um a little bit about um trauma in a trauma informed approach and what

40:26

that look like in a in a like one-on-one setting yeah so when I'm working with

40:32

clients who you know generally know that there's a trauma response playing a role

40:37

in their health most of the time um you know I I think it's helpful if they

40:42

understand what's happening in their nervous system so if they don't already have some understanding you know I start

40:48

by just doing some education right explaining what we've talked about today how their nervous system is playing a

40:55

role in whatever know Health some or issues with their mood they might be experiencing and again I think it's

41:02

really freeing to understand that you know there's nothing wrong with you like your body is doing what it needed to do

41:09

to keep you feeling safe and and from going into overwhelm and so when we

41:15

understand that I think it's really freeing there's can release some of that guilt and shame we often feel around um

41:22

whatever we're dealing with whether it's um reaching for unhealthy coping me mechanisms or or just not being able to

41:28

move forward with our health and feeling stuck and so you know I I bring in some

41:34

assessments with my clients to just have a better understanding of what's going on with them I assess neurotransmitter

41:41

function I look at serotonin dopamine Gaba endorphins and then you know after

41:47

assessing these it's really interesting how uh there's sort of a constellation of symptoms around each of these

41:54

different neurotransmitters and so for someone with Lo Gaba right they might be experiencing anxiety as well as kind of

42:02

that inner and uh actually kind of outer tension like muscle tension in their body and uh maybe they find like

42:10

reaching for caffeine and and food right for a pikme up just for energy to be part of that and so if I assess that I

42:17

might bring in some just gentle support there with amino acids just to get them to a better Baseline with their mood and

42:24

you know while we're working on kind of these under line pieces which might be the biochemical imbalances you know

42:31

pyuria something I look at I look at methylation issues um ISS for copper

42:37

excess and you know of course looking at gut Health Nutrition it's kind of

42:42

General Nutrition are they eating well um but like you mentioned someone with

42:47

you know low mood symptoms low neurotransmitters they may be really struggling to like just find the energy

42:54

and the motivation to get into the kitchen and make a health meal so by supporting some of these things you know

43:00

we can find more more of that inner internal motivation to do the things we know will help us feel better and then

43:07

the other side of that is the body based approach right where I bring in specific

43:12

mind body tools to help my clients start recognizing what they're feeling and

43:18

experiencing in their body and then there are so many tools of course that we can bring in to to shift that we want

43:26

to bring that body back into a state of feeling safe and supported and so sematic tools or different mindbody

43:33

practices you mentioned yoga in some cases can be helpful but we have to really be able to understand what's

43:40

happening in our body before those tools are really helpful and valuable because

43:45

if we don't really connect with what's happening in our body we won't be able to notice the shift that those tools

43:51

bring in um when we try to do some of these things so um important to start

43:57

recognizing the state of that nervous system working with the body bringing in tools to shift into that state of

44:02

feeling safe and supported and then working on that biology side so you know

44:08

internally we're more resourced and able to handle the things that come at us

44:13

wonderful yeah I think again like building on the the education piece about the nervous system and then

44:19

discussing things like neurotransmitters and how know your body can only really manufacture from what you provide it

44:26

through nutrition so yeah if you are depleted in in amino acids or proteins

44:31

for example your body's going to struggle to make you know neurotransmitters and your your your neurons are not going to be able to

44:38

communicate as well so it's very very important that that educational piece and I'm sure there are wonderful podcast

44:44

books even online courses that people can can indulge in that can start at really really basic understanding levels

44:51

which is a really perfect place to start to actually really begin to understand how your body works I've not been in

44:57

school for a long period of time but I I I wonder how that's kind of changed in regards to helping people that's the

45:04

beginning of helping children understand their emotions and and how they can come up for them in you know very very

45:11

difficult times within within adolescence I think it'd be a really really great piece to be able to help

45:17

those kids through that to understand why they may be feeling like they are and giving them some options and tools

45:24

to be able to to actually practically help them through that I think I think we're actually building a little bit

45:29

more of a culture where parents are maybe understanding that a little bit more and there's a lot there's a lot of

45:34

information out there in how to actually help your children understand how they are feeling I feel like that's

45:40

definitely different from like my generation and my parents who certainly did the best that they could with the tools that they were given but it wasn't

45:47

really you know the like especially the emotional piece around like even like young boys you know you weren't supposed

45:54

to like feel your emotions you're supposed to like lock them up and and let them feel like I just imagine like what what that's done to generations of

46:01

of men out there but I feel like that the tide is a little bit shifting in regards to like how we do that so that's

46:06

really good news and we also have wonderful tools our disposal to be able to support parents to support their kids

46:12

and hopefully create a different generation of of of of people we'll see but um I

46:19

want to finish off by clarifying um the question we asked at the top of the show which was what are some daily practices

46:25

that can help me connect my Mind and Body in a better way and you you've you've talked about a few of them

46:31

already I'd love you if you can express maybe some that maybe if people got no experience of yoga or meditation or you

46:38

know breath work what could they do that's like a really entrylevel way of being able to connect themselves yeah

46:46

great question so you know these can be really simple practices you can start bringing into your day-to-day life that

46:52

will help you just start connecting with what's happening in your body and what you're feeling so I use some sematic

46:59

practices U where you know just a sematic experiencing type of practices where we're just noticing and then

47:06

working with the body to uh create that sense of safety and one of the ones I like to start with is really simple it's

47:13

something called orienting and basically we're just orienting to our environment

47:19

we're in so as I'm sitting here at my desk having this conversation with you Simon I'm just gonna take a moment and

47:27

know as you're listening you can I invite you to do this as well but just look around the space that you're in you

47:32

can look up at the ceiling you can look behind you and to the side right we're

47:39

we're telling our nervous system we're safe when we do that we're creating a sense of safety right there's no tiger

47:45

behind me G to jump out and so it's just taking a moment to pause and I notice when I do this uh that I just sort of

47:53

stop and notice even my body and and like you know as I'm often in meetings I might find myself um holding tension

48:00

right in certain areas of my body that because I'm in my head you know having a conversation I'm not really noticing

48:06

until I stop and kind of Orient what's around me notice what I'm feeling in my

48:12

body and then I I can shift that and and anytime you're working with any type of Mind Body practice sematic tool yoga

48:19

whatever you're using it's really valuable to just take a moment to stop

48:24

that pause is so valuable uh before maybe you sit down to eat a meal you could try orientin and then

48:31

just notice what do you notice happening in your body and often people will say well I feel a little more relaxed but

48:39

what I want to know is okay well how do you know you feel more relaxed like where do you feel it in your body right

48:44

we might notice our shoulders soften and drop a little bit a little softening in the belly right we like go just a little

48:51

degree or two of tension there or you know maybe we hold tension in our hands and kind of keep our hands clenched do

48:57

we notice we let that go a little bit and so really being able to connect to

49:02

what's happening in the body and then building in tools that can help us shift these patterns where we might hold

49:09

tension uh is a really helpful way to just start working with our nervous system response and understanding what

49:16

we're feeling because a lot of this tension we hold is what's creating this sense of anxiety in the body and so as

49:23

we notice that and are able to let it go we'll notice the shift in our mood which

49:29

is really powerful perfect that's a perfect example of something that somebody could do like ride away to really start

49:35

reconnecting with themselves and help yeah melt away a lot of that tension that kind of just like it's energy it

49:41

sits there and you've got the ability to can move that through so that's wonderful what a great recommendation

49:46

thank you so much um can you let us know where people can connect with you and learn more about your work yeah

49:52

absolutely you can find me online uh my website is batania um I'm on Instagram you'll find me on

49:59

YouTube as well um and you know I'm sure Simon you can share those links with your audience but yeah I'd love to

50:05

connect with anyone who wants to know more about working with their nervous system biology to support their mood and

50:13

health wonderful yeah I absolutely make sure that all those links are in the show notes so people can connect with

50:18

you um with your YouTube channel social media Etc so Michelle thank you so much

50:23

for coming on the show what I really loved about this episode today was the um the understanding of the basics of of

50:31

of the of the brain and what we're working with when it comes to anxiety stress and the fight or flight sympathetic response I think so many

50:38

people have have heard a lot of these words but to actually like to to build that kind of from the ground up and have

50:44

a real foundational understanding will really give people the ability to connect what's going on within their

50:50

with their body in their minds and like what they're exhibiting in regards to emotions so I really appreciate you

50:55

coming on and and explaining that in such beautiful ways so really thank you so much thank you for having me it was a

51:01

pleasure awesome well that is it for this episode of True Hope cast the official podcast with true hope Canada

51:08

you can leave us a review on iTunes and some and a star review on Spotify as well if you've got the time but that's

51:14

it for this week we'll see you

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soon