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Treating symptoms without addressing
the underlying cause is like

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putting a bandaid on a wound
without cleaning and disinfecting.

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It might temporarily provide
relief, but the root cause of the

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issue remains unresolved and it can
potentially get worse over time.

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Just like treating the symptoms of a
disease may provide short-term relief.

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But it often fails to address the
underlying factors that contribute

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to the disease's development.

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By focusing solely on symptoms, we
miss the opportunity to identify and

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really address the causes that are
leading to the cycle of reoccurring

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symptoms and incomplete healing.

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In contrast, if we address the root
cause of a health issue, it allows

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for a more comprehensive and effective
treatment, and that leads to long lasting

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improvements in our health and wellbeing.

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It's like fixing the foundation of
a building to ensure stability and

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structural integrity rather than
just repairing superficial damages.

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That is in a lot of cases the difference
between a holistic or functional

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medicine practitioner versus, a, a lot
of modern day approaches to medicine.

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And, that's not to say that, all
doctors or you know, pharmaceuticals

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are bad, and don't fix issues
like that just is not true.

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however, a broader approach, certainly,
can catch things and can fix things

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systemically that, a lot of, just the
way that the medical system is set

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up, is just not prepared to catch.

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And my next guest, Sarah
Baker, is someone who

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is focused on, holistic
health practitioning.

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She's an integrative nutritionist and
coach that helps clients uncover the

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root causes of their health challenges
and guides them through an approachable

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nutrition health and lifestyle blueprint
that is unique and easy to sustain.

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I have a really interesting conversation
with Sarah and we dig into some

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practical approaches to addressing

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some very common health challenges,
including stress and burnout.

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Well, hi Sarah.

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Thanks for being on the show today.

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Appreciate it.

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Thanks for having me, Jacob.

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I'm really excited to chat with you.

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Yeah, likewise.

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so you're in Chicago and we've been
sort of messaging on Instagram for a

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00:02:54,460 --> 00:03:01,250
bit about digging into this topic of
holistic healthcare functional medicine.

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For those who are, you know, not-
not really like in the know about

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00:03:08,095 --> 00:03:14,035
this approach to health and wellness,
can you share and, and explain what

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functional healthcare is and how does
it differ from traditional healthcare?

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Yeah, so whenever you're working with
a functional health practitioner or

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even a functional medicine doctor,
the approach is like literally the

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opposite of conventional medicine.

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So when you go to a conventional medicine
doctor that's built through insurance,

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which is awesome, that's why you have
insurance, but your doctor can only

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spend around 15 minutes with you and
they typically run over symptoms and

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then the result or not result, their
suggestion for whatever symptom you

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are presenting to them is typically a
pharmaceutical drug or a referral to a

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specialist or a referral to somebody else.

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But in the end, a lot of people kind
of hit a wall because their solutions

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is typically drugs or pharmaceuticals,
which in a lot of cases is very

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necessary and even lifesaving.

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It's if you have like cancer or diabetes
or any sort of serious illness or disease.

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Right.

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So for any listeners that are dealing
with something serious, I would 100%

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recommend blending conventional and
functional medicine together, where you

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work with a conventional doctor and you
work with a functional practitioner.

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How functional health and
functional medicine is different

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of many different ways.

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So, we work from a root cause approach.

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So let's say somebody comes to me with
like late onset type one diabetes or

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just, you know, type two diabetes and they
are working with a conventional doctor.

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Functional health practitioners typically
will meet with you for about an hour to

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go over like lengthy health history, and
a lot of questions that a conventional

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doctor wouldn't ask, such as, you
know, "what are you doing for work?"

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"How long are you working?"

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"What's your stress like,
what's your sleep like?"

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"Have you ever lived in a
water damaged building?"

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Like a lot of strange questions that.

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The client or the patient would think
is like, "why are you asking me this?"

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But we ask all these strange questions
because we're looking for a lot of

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what is called like hidden stressors
to current symptoms, current health

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conditions, and even a lot of
illnesses, especially autoimmunity.

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I see so many clients that
have autoimmune issues.

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And so Functional medicine recognizes
that there's typically root cause

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or a hidden stressor or conglomerate
of different hidden stressors that

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kind of work together and create
the perfect storm for an illness or

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a health challenge or an imbalance.

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And so what we target then, are those
hidden stressors and not the symptoms.

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If we were to target just the
symptoms, maybe you would feel

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some relief, but it's essentially a
bandaid and it's not addressing what

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is causing your health challenge.

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And so then once we kind of uncover
what the hidden stressors are to the

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whatever health challenge you approach
us with, then we create a completely

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systematic type of protocol that does
encompass strategic supplementation

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as needed, but really, really
prioritizes strategic personalized

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nutrition, at home detox therapies...

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'cause typically if you've got a
health issue, you've got a detox.

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And it's not the type of detox that
you think where it's like a juice

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cleanse or, you know, a, you're
starving yourself for a few days.

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It's not like that.

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And then we address a lot of like
nervous system regulation because

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one thing that leads people to
conventional doctor is chronic stress.

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Chronic stress is typically
the number one cause of.

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Any type of health imbalance because
you wanna look all the way upstream

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to what causes, you know, metabolic
issues that can manifest into.

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Illnesses, disease, health
challenges, whatever.

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And it typically stems from stress.

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So long story short, we spend a
lot of time with every client.

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We do a lot of sleuthing.

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We're like detectives to figure out
what is actually causing your symptoms,

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and then we spend hours creating
protocols and plans for every single

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client where conventional medicine,
they're with you for those 15 minutes.

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And then that's it.

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Bye-bye.

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See you in, you know, like two months.

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Yeah.

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And that, that's really, interesting
as far as the, the approaches

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and the differences in, how,
how you're approaching these.

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I want to dig into some of that a little
more cuz there's a, there's a lot of

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information there and, for those that are
like not quite, how do I wanna say this?

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I wanna make sure that we're really
understanding the difference between the

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upstream and the downstream approach.

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So, when we're talking about a, a
situation where someone comes in and

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they have symptoms, they are, are facing
specific challenges, the traditional

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approach is to, to go to a doctor and
to have those, those challenges treated.

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And what I hear you saying though
is we may not necessarily be

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addressing the underlying issues.

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And so understanding holistically
how all of the factors that

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someone is experiencing in
their lives, are affecting.

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How they're feeling.

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Mm-hmm.

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So the question that comes to my mind
is, How do you, because, when I, when I

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think about my life and I think about,
you know, all of the possible things

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that could be contributing, could be
affecting, the way that I feel at any

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given moment, it's like, oh my gosh.

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That's like, that's,
that's overwhelming, right?

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when I think about like, physical
health, mental health, relational

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health, my environment mm-hmm.

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You know, that I'm in, I mean
there, there's just, there's

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what I'm eating, right?

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There's, there's so many
factors that, that go into that.

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So how do you start to
understand how those interplay?

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Cuz I mean I, I would imagine it
gets complex very quickly when

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you're trying to understand the
intersectionality of all of those factors.

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Yeah, it does get very overwhelming
and that's why anybody that's

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on a healing journey gets.

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Very overwhelmed very quickly cuz
if they go on Instagram, they see

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people saying, oh my gosh, you
need to get osmosis tap water cuz

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there's parasites in your tap water.

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Or oh, you know, you're, the air you're
breathing is infiltrated with mold spores

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from outside or in your house or whatnot.

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and oh my gosh, if you're working at a
computer all day, you're getting emf.

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So there's like always a bombardment.

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And yes, we live in a toxic world, but.

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Instead of getting overwhelmed
about everything that we're

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coming into contact with,

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the two priorities that you want
to kind of focus on and prioritize

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initially in your plan is nervous
system regulation and sleep.

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Because if you have a dysregulated
nervous system, meaning...

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let's say you are like a CEO
of a company and you're in back

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to back meetings every day.

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You could barely take a break.

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You have a very high demand job,
and then let's say you have to come

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home and manage your family time.

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Your nervous system is
always on high alert.

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It's always scanning for the future
and trying to anticipate what's

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going to happen because your nervous
system also wants to protect you.

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It wants to prepare you for what could
happen in the future, and so we call

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that like sympathetic dominance, where
you're just always kind of on, on, on!

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Or scanning your environment or
anticipating what's gonna happen in

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the future where you can't turn that
off and turn on your calming part of

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the nervous system, the parasympathetic
nervous system where you can feel safe.

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And so a lot of people will say like,
okay, I'm working on my root cause.

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All right.

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I.

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Like, okay, let's use an example.

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Somebody has Hashimotos, which
is autoimmunity of the thyroid.

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They go to a conventional doctor,
they prescribe them thyroid medication

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like Synthroid, and then they come
to a functional health practitioner.

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The functional health practitioner runs a
bunch of functional labs, does different

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assessments, and they find out, oh, you
have, you know, like gut dysbiosis, which

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is a gut imbalance of the bacterial flora.

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Or you have leaky gut or
something's going on in the gut and.

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One root cause for Hashimotos is leaky
gut or a gut dysbiosis, but there's

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many other causes like mold could cause
it, parasites could cause it, chronic

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stress because of the HPA access.

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There's, you know, again, there's
a lot of different causes,

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but let's say they uncover.

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A lot of the contributing causes,
and this person is taking all the

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supplements and going on like a gut
cleanse and doing detox protocols at

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home, like castor oil packs and whatnot.

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But then she's not managing her
sleep, she's not managing her stress.

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She's in a very high stress job.

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She's juggling work and kids
and family and her own life,

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and her nervous system is.

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On high alert or let's say she has trauma
in her past that she hasn't addressed,

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cuz that's also a big roadblock.

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Sure.

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To healing yourself as trauma.

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or you just don't feel safe in your body.

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Let's say you have like a chronic,
you know, health issue that

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you think about all the time.

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The first.

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Step to any healing plan is feeling
safe in your body and learning how

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to regulate your nervous system.

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And sometimes that requires people
to make uncomfortable changes, right?

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Maybe sometimes.

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And of course, not everybody has the
privilege to like, you know, change

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hours on their job or find a new job
or change those aspects of their life.

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Others do have the benefit of
being, well, you know what?

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I'm gonna.

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Go, I'm gonna go on like a
sabbatical for six months to

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focus on my healing or whatever.

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You know, everybody's
circumstances are different.

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But what we can all work on is
regulating our nervous system.

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And typically that requires,
like somatic practices.

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There's so much, there's only so much
like talk therapy that somebody can do

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if they don't feel safe in their body.

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Yeah.

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Because those deep emotions of
not feeling safe or dealing with

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trauma, that's very somatic.

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Meaning that it's, it's
physically within the body.

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Yeah.

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You know?

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so.

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That's what I think is the
priority is working on nervous

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system regulation and sleep.

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Because if you are not sleeping
well, you're not giving your body

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what it needs in order to turn
on all of its healing mechanisms.

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Yeah.

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So I would say those are the two first
things you wanna master and then your body

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will create this resilience where it can.

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Eradicate, you know, parasites
that you come in contact with.

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It can build a robust immune system
so that if you do have like acute

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mold exposure somewhere, your body
can detox it, you can methylate, you

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can detox, you can eliminate, and you
can withstand all of our environmental

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toxins that we come in contact all the
time, especially ems, because we have

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a really strong terrain that can be
resilient against life's ups and downs.