Well, Justin, welcome. I'm I'm looking forward to this conversation.

When I was going through the the content that you produce and what you're

all about, You've got the mental wellness diet, and I

think that is just absolutely phenomenal. A big part of my practice is

helping people with nutrition, and a very vast majority of my practice

is mental health stuff, stress, anxiety, burnout, stuff like

that. And I've always believed that one of the best ways

to to help mental wellness is through diet and nutrition.

But I've never actually had a conversation with anybody else about it because it seems

to be this weird and wacky idea about calming anxiety and stress and

burnout through diet nutrition. So I'm super stoked to be talking with

you today and really excited about all these different awesome directions we're,

we're likely to go in. Great. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

Great. Thank you. And and to begin with, just tell me a bit about what

got you down that particular avenue because it is quite niche. So I'm curious

about your backstory. Sure. Yeah. Over

time, I came to appreciate the ancestral diet, the

ancestral principles, primal, paleo, that

kinda, style of eating. But,

functional medicine, got on my radar when back when I was

in practitioner school over 10 years ago. I was doing a a senior

project there and it, required some research. I I was studying ADHD and I came

across, Mark Sisson's blog, primal

primal body, and I came across, Mark

Sisson's blog, primal primal body no. Mark's daily

apple. And, he had in this blog

the term epigenetics. So I was like, well, I didn't learn that in school.

So what I know about genetics, but what's epigenetics And all

about how, you know, our lifestyle plays the keys and

genetics are the keyboard. Our lifestyle turns on or turns

off processes genetic function. So I thought that was fascinating, and it

kinda reinforced what I already understood

about health. I had a thought the other day. I remember,

when I was in 5th grade, I sat I was eating dinner with my

mom and I said, hey, mom, you know, I think I'm malnourished. And the look

she gave me, I'll never I'll never forget because, you know,

she was born in 1943 post Great Depression.

So that was a joke to her probably. But I think

what I came to was, I think in 5th grade, I was looking at the

nutrition data and the RDAs for vitamin c and all these

different things that I started adding it up with the food I was eating, and

I just wasn't getting enough. And so I corrected

myself so she didn't, tear me a new one. And I said, you know, it's

just the the nutrients. I mean, I'm getting enough calories for sure you're providing for

me. Okay? There's no problem here. But, it seems

like the nutrients are missing. So, you know, that was back in 5th grade. So

I I think I have always had that bug in my brain about nutrients

and going through Mhmm. Learning through ancestral

diet and the ancestral health symposium. I think, there was a

there was a presentation back when I was in school about nutrient density, and then

that buzzword came out. And so in my book now, nutrient density is

a core principle for the dietary recommendations.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Awesome. Awesome. So

lots of different cool directions we could take that. But I'm

curious if we could just take a little little detour into this world

of functional medicine and talk about, epigenetics. And I'm

not sure if the the word exosome sort of rings true for you, but this

idea that everything from our environment, particularly food,

but not excluding other things like environmental toxins and air

pollutions and off gassing from the new carpets and all of these different

things can affect our overall health at the genetic level. Can you can you maybe

explain a little bit in your perspective and opinion how that stuff

actually genuinely changes us at a genetic level? Sure.

We could connect the dots. Maybe stem backwards.

Common symptom that many of my patients have is waking up in the middle of

the night or having a hard time falling asleep at night or stress

or, you know, some patients kinda know it, but

they still struggle that they are so busy and they really wanna get things

done and they don't eat breakfast, lunch,

snacks, and and it's 2 o'clock. And they're they're sweaty, and

they're anxious, and then they're reporting it to me as a mental

health symptom. And it is a mental health symptom, but there are blood

sugars in the toilet. You know? Or maybe

on the other side of things, you know, so tired and can't get out of

bed and can't keep going. So what are you eating for breakfast? Coffee,

donuts, that kind of thing. Mhmm. So if we

if we go back a step, you know, that's we're talking about insulin resistance or

we're talking about reactive hypoglycemia or blood sugar dipping

too low, which is triggering the stress hormone response, to bring

the blood sugar back up. But the price we all pay for that is stress

and anxiety, maybe insomnia. So how did that come to be?

Well, insulin resistance specifically,

you know, we live in a modern day culture where winter never

comes, famine or limited

food, winter just never comes. So we

have genetics within us, and the environment can

trigger those genetics to help us harvest,

maximizing the harvest of calories from the food we eat.

And then in there's other genetic profiles and programs that

will not prioritize that. But when we live

in a society that has such abundance, you know, and winter never comes,

we never trigger those genetic mechanisms. So this is

kinda where the epigenetics connects to

the physiology inside of us, connects to our behaviors,

connects to for me, what I treat is

depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, ADHD symptoms. You know, those

are the core diagnoses that are that come in to see me. And

so it's interesting to to provide the psychoeducation for patients and and walk

it backwards and help them make that behavior change, not only to tell them to

make the behavior change, but to hopefully try to make the fun the

science fun and explain it to them so then they they have a now they

have a motivation to change. Mhmm.

Mhmm. You know, it makes sense. It makes sense. I I've had,

clients come in very similar, right, with the mental health issues, be it stress

side or whatever the the common ones are. And they've been through the wringer, you

know, like like counselor after counselor, and they've been through all of these different things.

And they got a great mindfulness practice, and they're exercising, and they're, like, checking all

the boxes. And they're still, like, it's just it's just not quite

doing the thing. And then we're like, okay. Well, what if we just, like,

stop and work on your diet and stop focusing on

improving your mental health? Like, stop making that the goal and make that the

byproduct of the goal. So it's really cool to to hear you reinforce this idea

that it's like, you know, we can we can actually start from this foundational principle

of of food nutrition. And I'm curious if we could dig into

kind of the specifics about food and diet nutrition is,

maybe we could go with, what what foods do you think are are the best

and maybe the worst that people can consume in order to improve or

benefit their mental health? Yeah. That's a trick question that I

slid in there. The other trick question that I get all the time

is, what what's the best medication for depression?

Yeah. Similar answer. Good. Similar answers. So there is no best

food. There is no best I mean, maybe liver, because it's

got so many it's such a broad array of nutrients, but

that's not on most people's daily diet. There

isn't a best medication. There's some medications are stimulating and that could help

people. There's some medications that are sedating and that could help people.

But for the wrong patient, it's the wrong medication, the best medication, so

to speak. So there is no best and there's no best food. It's

a diet maybe versus a food, and the diet as

long as it follows that nutrient density profile, I

believe is is the best, is healthy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious if we could dig into the nutrient density

thing, and I I really appreciated your story about when you were a kid in

grade 5 and, you know, you're you're you're looking at the nutrient

profiles. And what I found interesting about that is is this idea that

this this young young Justin, this young lad is is doing the

math in his head about, well, what what do these numbers actually add up

to? So now in your practice and your adult

life, do you still focus on specific micronutrients

and individual nutrients? I wanna get into nutrient density,

but I'm curious to explore this idea of how individual nutrients or

micronutrients, are are taken into account in your practice and

opinion. Sure. So in my practice, when

I'm recommending things to patients, maybe versus what I'm doing for myself and my

family, I do recommend nutrient density as

just a baseline step. But then on top of it, there are some

nutrients that Roger

Williams had the theory of biochemical individuality. Some

people genetically may need more of a B

vitamin or mineral or some other nutrient than the

average or other people, because we have biochemical

individuality. The MTHFR gene

is a great example of that where this recycles

folate. So if you have a slower superhighway of

recycling the folate, dietary folate is gonna be more

important for you. If you have a very clean open

highway for the MTHFR, no, mutations in

that, then you will maybe could go by with less leafy

greens, that kind of thing. So folate,

actually, we're we're on the topic, fully can be hit or miss in

my population with anxiety sometimes. If I give

the nutrient folate, methyl folate, sometimes even b

12. For some patients that can ramp them up, I've

noticed because it participates in the creation

of serotonin and dopamine. And then, also,

norepinephrine, epinephrine, and that can be too stimulating for some

as I've experienced in prescribing it. A

cocktail that I actually usually like to recommend patients is

magnesium, b 6, taurine, and maybe a few other b

vitamins in there for sleep. B

6 helps recycle, the excitatory

neurotransmitter glutamate back into GABA,

the inhibitory one. Taurine helps the minerals get

into the cells and also helps stimulate the GABA receptors. And

magnesium is a poor blocker. There's excitatory

neurons, and they have receptors. You have to tickle those receptors to

get them to fire. And if you're tickling the receptors and firing the

excitatory neurons, that's in my book,

I write a lot about overexcitation. When you have overexcitation,

that could be dark stormy depression, anxiety, panic

attacks, sometimes hallucinations, scattered

thinking, brain fog. It's too much. So we wanna if we wanna dial

that back for someone, b 6, magnesium taurine. So that

would be a good example of what I'm commonly using

and the reason for it. Now

I I'm I'm starting to to understand the the sort of, the

the pathway in which dealing with individual nutrients

is going to, end up affecting an individual's mental health in the end.

Right? So, an an easy example, low hanging fruit in your

your story you just gave was talking about ensuring that the

the GABA system is functioning appropriately. And is this sort of the

perspective you take when you're assessing somebody, kinda looking at their

maybe they've got depression. And then when you look at

somebody with depression, are you sort of thinking, well, this depression maybe has something to

do with the serotonin system, so I need to work with micronutrients and

nutrients in order to, boost serotonin production, for

example. Is that sort of the perspective you're taking? Yeah. It's,

kinda like a quarter law. You you have, direct evidence,

and that might be lab testing. There's smoking guns. Do you think you

also have, like, corroborating evidence, and that would be the

symptoms and maybe a symptom questionnaire. And then, you kinda

have the juries just gut instinct, you

know, guilty or not guilty. And that's, I guess, me, you know,

kinda, I guess, my supercomputer reading the patterns,

which AI will probably take over for me at some point in time.

But until then thing. You you you kinda pin it in with all

those different perspectives, symptoms Right.

Labs, gut instincts, and then there's the trial. I mean,

that's in every medicine. You implement the, the treatment,

and then you evaluate. You can't forget the evaluation step. So did it

work? You know, they come back. Hey. Did it did you did you get the

supplements? Did you try them? How many did you take? Did you take it with

food? Did you take it without? Did you take it at night? Did it work?

What do you think? And then that's the conversation.

If it's alright with you, I'd actually like to explore that part a little bit.

What I found particularly earlier in my career was

working with clients and helping them and myself understand

that the process that we're about to partake in, it can be

quite lengthy. You know? There is a fair bit of trial and error, and even

with lab tests and even with all of this amazing stuff we have. At the

end of the day, when you're working with these chronic issues,

mental health or otherwise, it it can really take some time

to to really hone in on the precise thing. So in your practice,

in your experience, how do you work with your clients to sort of let them

know that this this process might take some time?

I think it's a great question. I think

maybe intuitively, I kinda understood. But as I

have thought about that question myself over time, I realized how

my conversations are shaped or are are designed to

to capitalize on people's inherent motivations.

People come in with motivations for for a variety of

things. Sometimes it's body image and and they come to me because

maybe they think they can get a 2 for. You know, you get that anxiety

down and get me back in shape, which is fine. It's great. Yeah. Whatever it

is, I can ride that wave of motivation, if we

have the the right conversation about it. With the right expectations and

limitations on the expectations and understanding that it's

gonna take time. My patients tend to come to me at the

11th hour, so So it's it's already pretty bad. Most of my

patients are functional but suffering.

So most of my patients in my outpatient practice, I just tend

not to get many people who are who are deeply depressed

or severely schizophrenic or bipolar disorder.

Typically, they find themselves in other programs that are more appropriate

anyways. So the people that come to see me do have their

function. They do have resources. And but when they come to see

me, it it can be the 11th hour. So oftentimes, I might start with

medication, psychiatric medication to dial it

back, to give them some relief Mhmm. To tone down, turn down the

volume, I like to say, on the intensity of the symptoms so they get

their feet under them. Once that phase hits, then

their motivation typically tends to, like, well, now I wanna get off the medication.

So that's typically where, where I enter with the

sleep, diet, exercise, functional medicine approaches.

Writing that motivation on the in the second half.

Yeah. I really appreciate that perspective. I I find

in this natural health world, as a Prive experience, there's there's

a lot of black and white. It's either, medication is

the solution or that is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity. And I

really appreciate this this idea that it's, like, the right tool for the right job,

and we live in an amazing time in which when somebody has really

suffered. We've got tools to to get them out of the pit. And then

once we get them out of the pit, we can use different tools to get

them on their way. Right? So I I I really appreciate that perspective.

I'm I'm curious that when when we kind of go down the the next road.

Right? So let's let's take a client, for example. They come in, and

they're, they're on the 11th hour, but they're not quite needing to take medication,

or you don't believe that they need it necessarily. Mhmm. From my understanding

is the principles that you use are sort of this this ancestral health

principles and this this, sort of paleo ish type

thing. Can we go through those principles and how how you can you can

help the listeners understand, well, what exactly is ancestral health, and how

does following an ancestral health final protocol improve

their mental health? Well, we're gonna pull back the curtain on The Wizard of

Oz because it's nothing special. Okay.

It's diet, sleep, exercise. It's all the non

sexy stuff. Mhmm. As we evolved, we didn't

really have modern day life. In my book, modern day life is the

villain. The the villain keeps showing up in all the chapters.

And so Mhmm. Community is a big

one, social connections. It's I I can't even,

it it's kind of a head scratcher that it's even being studied, but

it is, and it's convincing and it's good. But the fact that that guy had

to be studied is a sign of the times

that, you know, headlines on news channel studies show that people

like being with people. You know, it's just like we we should have

known that one already. You know? Okay. Yeah. But community is a big

one. Movement, exercise, moving your

muscles, cardiovascular system, get that and pumping.

Sleep is really critical.

Meaning and purpose is in there, is in this, this is all a

chapter on on these elements, sleep, diet, exercise,

community, meaning, and purpose, spirituality

for some. So, yeah, that that's kind of,

I think I do a lot of therapy with patients, and and my therapy has

a lot of respect for people need those

parts, those elements in their daily

diet. They need vitamins socializing,

they need vitamin sleep, They need vitamin exercise. I

mean and they need meaning and purpose. Otherwise, it's like, what are we doing it

for? You know, why are we why are we fighting so hard? And people ask

themselves that question when they are really struggling with mental illness symptoms.

So that's the conversation. And to normalize, you're a

person, I'm a person, we need these things. This is just is what

it is, and it's hard. I mean, especially, the middle aged patients,

something that comes up for us all the time is how hard it is to

make friends these days. Literally, these days, you know,

in the last few years, it's been very hard Mhmm. For all of

us. Those, those different sort of pillars that you you went

through, I find that they're really amazing entry points

into the world of wellness. My understanding, of

your perspective is diet sort of makes the foundation.

But are there any times in which you come across a client and you're

like, well, we really need to work with sleep first

Or until we get your your social life,

figured out, we can't actually go into nutrition. Or do you always start

with nutrition? No. I've read that wave of

motivation. People can't always they don't have

the bandwidth to hear it when they're really suffering. So I take note of

that. And I'm I'm agnostic, actually, so not pushy

at all. But once somebody asked, I'm ready to go ready

to go to kinda ask them about their diet. What how about you track for

3 days and bring that data back to me, which most people don't.

You know? Right. Yeah. It's interesting. There's so much information out there.

I'm guilty of this too because we know so much. I think it

makes us do actually less of the stuff that we

know is good for us because it's like, oh, I know about that. You know,

like, yeah, I definitely do that. Yeah. We don't.

Yep. It's hard work. Yeah. I I agree. And I find for for

wellness practitioners are the most guilty for that. We have so many

doors open and we're so aware of all the things. And for myself, this has

been a big problem in my personal history. I'll work with a client and I'll

give them all this homework. And I'll we'll we'll work together. And I managed to

convince myself that by getting the client to do it, I'm actually the one doing

it somehow. So I neglect my own, health,

self care because of that. I'm curious if we could dig into the villain. You

know, you mentioned in your book, you you you present the villain is is sort

of the our modern life style. Mhmm. What do you mean by that?

In the in the book, I use the term

exceptionalism. And I think it's a term that has been used

by others as well. But I think it's a great fit for what we're talking

about health and and life and modern day life and society and all the

pressures and all the demands, the limited margins

of money, time, concentration.

There's that thing called decision fatigue. You know, if if you're really

struggling to figure out what to eat for breakfast and then you gotta go to

work and then, you know, you go through work and you're making decisions all

day, by the time you get home, you're just gonna plop on the couch because

you're pooped, you're gassed. You can't make any more decisions about what to

do healthy, and that motivation has been used up. So

the villain is exceptionalism, so to

speak. It is this thing that tells us that we cannot

present ourselves in front of others without really doing some

work to make it look really good before we present

ourselves to others. And that's on social media. Maybe you and

I are doing that right now. It's like the blogs we might write, the

headshots we put on our websites, all the stuff. I mean, it's

great and we are really pushing ourselves and reaching our potential,

but it can reach this limit where it's just too much, just too far. We

get too absorbed in it, and that that will,

insidiously pull us away from the ancestral lifestyle.

We rob Peter to pay Paul to create this fancy exterior,

and we neglect the basics. Guilty as charge.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I get that. You know, not too long ago in,

in February, I had this really cool opportunity to to live with

some super remote tribes in Colombia. It was great for a million reasons, but one

of the first things I noticed weirdly enough when I got there is there wasn't

a mirror. Like, it was for some reason, that's the thing that it

not the fact that there's no toilet, not that there's no shower. It's there's no

mirror. I found that such a strange thing that that's the

thing my consciousness first went like, holy shit. And I'm spending,

you know, like, 2, 3 almost almost 3 weeks where

it was just, like, no nobody cared. Like, nobody cared

about what they look, what they wore, about the I mean, lord

knows there is no social media posts. And to really experience that

firsthand, like, genuine ancestral living. These people living the exact same lifestyle

they have for 100, if not 1000, of years. That's really cool.

It was super cool. But to see that that, like, confrontation

firsthand of how this is how our nervous system

physiology, but down in the endocrine system, evolved as

opposed to the environment that we're in. It it certainly highlighted the villain,

and and I I really appreciate that that that word of

villain because it does seem that way a lot.

Sure. Yeah. Speaking of mirrors, many of my

many of my patients and every once in a while, all of my patients

will use jump on Zoom for their visit.

And that has introduced a mirror into

a therapeutic setting. You know, we always talk

is in therapy ways talking about safety and containment and

set and setting and all that stuff. And then we just put a big mirror

all of a sudden, so people will be sometimes I notice

they're preoccupied with how they look. They're looking at themselves. I mean, I'm doing it

right now. I mean, it's Right. It's fascinating. I'm talking to you, but

kind of talking more to myself. It's I don't really

know if they've studied that one yet, but it it has

been an interesting thing, I've noticed. Mhmm.

Yeah. I mean, I I I I part of me really wants to go down

that because it's it's really interesting to think about all the things that

we don't know yet. These intuitive understandings that I'm sure every one

of us is like, yeah, Zoom. It's great. It's great. I'm enjoying this experience of

chatting with you, and it's so cool that we can do that. But then you

sit down for coffee with a friend face to face, and you're like, oh, there's

there is something missing. Right? For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. And I'm curious with, with this idea of

of modern day living sort of being being developed, being the thing that's causing

so many different health issues. How do how do we do

it there? Like, because we live in it. We're we're we're in this time where

where Zoom meetings are a thing, and we're in this time in which, I, for

1, as it's snowing and cold where I live, am super grateful for

centralized heating. And so how do we balance this understanding

that our physiology is really

designed for ancestral living, but our modern reality

isn't set up for it. And, of course, there are beautiful things about our

modern reality that I I don't wanna give up. So how do how do we

make that balance?

Looks like we got a a buffering going on there.

Oh, there we go. We're back. Yeah. Okay. Gave me some time to think about

the answer. Well, in the in the middle of my book, I did have a

a one page about meaning and purpose and how to find it. And

it's number 1, think about something that really bothers you,

something you really hate, something you hate seeing, something that really irks

you, you know, starving animals or,

abuse children or older people with illnesses

that don't get properly cared for or whatever it is. And then step 2

is to think about how you can do something about that. It doesn't have to

be your main job. It could be something else. And maybe your meaning, your purpose

is your own family, your own children's, your own pets, your own

practice, your own legacy. Whatever it is, you know, kinda

dedicate yourself to that. Step 3 is understand that it's a never ending

journey, kinda like golf or skateboarding. I

mean, golfers that that all of the patients I've had who've been skaters

are actually some of the most resilient mentally healthy deep down

people that I've treated. I mean, if there's something about skateboarding,

the community, and then the knowing you're gonna fall on your face, literally

fall on your face in other parts of your body. And you will break

bones, but you just keep doing it, and you'll never master it, and

we'll always be there for you because you'll never master it. So that's

you know, that was kind of a rough cover of the the meaning and purpose

and why why I talked about that and why I guess it's in the middle

of the book is because it I do present this problem. I

do highlight how modern day life is the villain

and that can kinda feel hopeless. But then there's all these other parts of

modern day life which are amazing and and give us the opportunities to do things

or reach people or create art, cultural

artifacts. My book's kind of a culture artifact. I mean, at some point in

time, somebody will dust it off and be like, oh, yeah. In

2024, yeah, people were crazy. Now the good thing is this guy wrote this

book. So we

can be so much, but it's

important to kinda hone in on who we really

are, what our character strengths are, our inborn

temperaments, what we really want. And when we highlight

that importance, some of the other less important,

but dragging us down aspects of modern day life, hopefully, fall

off to the side, and we can just stay focused on the one thing.

Yeah. No. Thank you. I appreciate that. Now I'm starting to see that that

as almost almost a trend and not like a

social media trendy thing, but, like, I'm I'm noticing more and more conversations

and more and more, authors are writing books on this topic. And

it seems like we're at this tipping point where so many people are

like, okay. Okay. What we've been doing is wrong.

We need to figure out how we we honor and respect our our

ancestral way of living and also

honor and respect our modern day of living. So so I'm I'm grateful for your

book, and that that I think that that middle part is an essential pivot point.

It's understanding we've got this problem and how do we move forward. So that's beautiful.

And I'm curious within within your your book and your scope, you

dig into some some research. And and what what's some really,

like, cool, new, interesting research that you're working on now or that you worked

on when you're writing the book, that that you find super fascinating and helpful?

Sure. One thing that comes to mind is,

if anyone's ever listened to the Huberman podcast, he he has subsequently

covered this, But the eyes, the eyes will absorb light

and that will communicate to the pineal gland. We have a circadian

clock in our brain, which is fascinating because, you know, it's like, where

exactly are the gears and the hands and the, like, it's it's a full

on clock that is, like, on time every time. The clock is set for

24 hours plus 1 minute. And when you look at light in the

morning, it resets that clock. So by if you look at light

at 7 AM, then by 7 PM, 8 PM, 9 PM,

automatically, the clock's gears are grinding and and getting you

chemically, neurologically, neurotransmitter wise

prepared for sleep. But that that part is really fascinating that

there's so much internal wisdom. The the subtitle of my book

is, ancient wisdom, evolving science, modern day options. The

evolving science part, I love because,

it's proving what grandma and our

ancestors have known just works maybe through trial and

error or maybe through intuition. Now science is is

proving it, and I think that's just awesome. Fascinating.

Some other research, you know, the myokines, these are chemicals released

from our muscles when we exercise that go to the brain and,

trigger BDNF, the brain's fertilizer, and they do

other important helpful things. That that is really fascinating

because, you know, just like the light in the

eyes and the the the and similar to the the

myokines released from the muscles and then the b 6

from your onions and garlics and leek going into your brain and

recycling the GABA. The the what I tried to do in the book was

to make this fun for people to where when

instead of, oh, I hate garlic or I hate broccoli or I hate

exercising or I hate waking up early. Well, now all of a sudden,

if you can see the connection of the dots, you can be like, well, now

I wanna wake up early. Now I wanna eat garlic. Now I wanna

exercise and do air squats and get the BDNF go to my brain. I I

get a reward. I get something good from that from doing that.

All of a sudden, it's a positive association instead of what

has typically been a negative one. Mhmm. Mhmm.

When, when you're going through this process

of implementing this new bit of research, so

for example, the the morning sunlight. I mean, I hear

you. Oh, Huberman. Amazing. But how how do you

do do you do that? Like, that's something that you incorporate with all these new

things because there's so much health information coming our

way. Do you incorporate things like that to experiment with them?

No. I I have young children and a full time job, so I don't do

any of that. But that's my meaning

and purpose. I I rob Peter, k, Paul on that one for sure.

Given the opportunity and,

you know, I guess I'm like Andrew Huberman with children. So, you know, I I

have to kinda make it more practical, more reasonable fitting into

a typical regular person's life with responsibilities and

stretch demands and all that. I do I

do get out there. I do try to focus on it. In the summer months

where I live, I do walk outside in the morning and step on my front

lawn earthing in the sunlight. I do try if

it's available, and I'll feel good about that. But with how busy my life is,

if I don't get to it, I don't feel bad about it. And that's kind

of the attitude I take with patients too. I don't, I try to be

agnostic and not too dogmatic. Mhmm. Yeah.

No. I appreciate that. One one point in time, a couple of years ago, I

I made this, program I called the elements of health. Right? And went through all

these, basically, the same same pillars or elements that you laid out

earlier in our conversation. So during the the process of

creating an I I was really digging into the research and going through all of

the recommendations, suggestions, and it got to this point where I'm like, hold on a

sec. How long does it actually take to do all these things?

So I I put together this list of all of the the things a person

should do to maintain ideal to optimum health, And it

turns out that it was around 16 hours per day that a

person needs to spend, and that didn't include cooking time. No. That wasn't no.

That's just, like, the time it take. And I'm like, wow. To actually reach

this mythical state of optimal health,

like, that that's it. Like, literally, your full day from the moment you wake up

to the moment you sleep because lord knows you need to get that 7 to

8 hours of sleep in order to maintain optimal health. Your whole life is

is wellness. So I I say that to to reflect upon,

wow. I'm so thankful that you say that you you're you you you make it

reasonable and approachable and take into consideration

real life. Like, what's it like to have a job and a family and also

maintain health? And it's it's challenging for somebody who's

already healthy. Right? Well, you know, in therapy,

us therapists say, well, it looks like you're shooting all over

yourself or don't shoot all over yourself. I mean, 16 hours a

day. It sounds accurate. It sounds like it would take that much time

to sauna and cold plunge and sauna and cold plunge again

and all that stuff. And if you have a mindset that I

won't be healthy if I don't do this, that's an unhealthy mindset

immediately. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, catch

22. Let's let's dig into the the mental health again if that's

okay with you. I'm curious to talk about some of the the other societal

pressures and forces and things that are are going on that that

really are contributing to what I personally believe,

and I think others would agree that it's it's something of a a pretty serious

crisis on mental health these days. Yeah. Exceptionalism

is one of them. I mean, that social media and

adolescents these days that comes to mind for that. There's so much

dedication, 247 to be on and

responding and snapping back and forth and and,

being present and not missing out. The FOMOs are real with

that. That's that's a huge pressure. That's a big pressure.

Mhmm. The,

toxic corporate office workerdom, you

know, the horrible boss thing, the the ways in which

bureaucracies can crush people. I've seen it.

I've helped it. I've helped people with that. I've even treated some of the

managers, especially the middle managers and

sometimes the upper managers. And, with the I

guess when, when a when a corporation is mandated

to prioritize shareholder stakeholder

value. I mean, everybody else gets squeezed and that's we just go

into work and act like it's normal. So that's really hard. That's really

hard on people. We are people. I could think we forget that we're people. It's

some other pressure and nowadays, there's a lot of inflation being

felt. I mean, there's numbers can be debated, but everybody

that I talked to is feeling it. They're definitely feeling it. And that

is really cutting into the disposable income

fun part of the budget. And people are getting kind of bitter.

I think at the last social pressure that I've noticed is the

effect of the pandemic. What I've observed, don't have

research on this one, but what I've observed is people went away because

they were told to to socially isolate and for

for good reason or bad, it doesn't matter. It did happen. And then the

social isolation piece, people isolated. And when you

isolate, you spend time with yourself, not others. When

we spend time with others, it's it sands off and softens our edges.

When you spend time that much time concentrated day in and day out

time with yourself, you become more like yourself. If you're too much like yourself,

that's problematic for going back into society. You know, what I

hear about are family estrangements, bitterness,

conflicts, arguments, all kinds of

just brr in in home family marriages,

kids and parents and husbands and wives. It's,

I mean, I think the pandemic showed that that community piece is

very essential for just this kind of species, this

kind of species humans cannot exist without that kind of

oxygen. Yeah. So there it is. I mean, I think I gave you

4. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. You know

what? If we could just explore that that last one a little bit because as

you're describing the the fallout of the isolation

of COVID, what I found interesting in my own personal experiences at the

beginning, maybe even for the 1st year, I was so happy.

I'm like, oh, I finally I finally get some me time. You know?

Like, I don't have to deal with all these external people, and it was like,

this is this is me living my best life. I get to

be alone as much as I wanna be, do my own thing. Like, it

felt so good. And then and then I kinda got

caught up in that. You know? Like, come come year 2. You know? I'm like,

right. It feels feels good to be alone all the time. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely

feels good to be alone all the time. You know, you get into year 3,

and then it's just habit. And then it's like it's like this is this is

life, and it it's breaking this habit again of of

being social. Have you have you encountered that in your experience or with any

clients as well? Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Is that's what I hear is the complaints, mostly husbands

or wives kinda complaining about their spouses or,

their siblings or their parents,

or, you know, I think what happens nowadays is,

you you would talk to somebody and then they'll,

out will slide a belief that

you personally think is crazy. Mhmm. And then

they think that when you don't agree with them, they think you're crazy. And

so, it doesn't matter who's right, but they're it just coming for you know,

everybody's way in their corners. Mhmm. And then interacting

socially, you know, small talk, and then it slips out, and

then, oh my god. This person's, you know, crazy. I can't that

really takes that's, you know, that's, it's decimating the

tribe. Mhmm. You know, when you were in Colombia, you probably

didn't experience so and so getting upset with so and so, and it's

like, fine. We're gonna live in the village together, but I'm never talking to you

again. Yeah. Exactly. Doesn't work. It doesn't work in that tribe,

but it actually doesn't work for us again as a species. So

Yeah. Yeah. It's I see it in in subtle ways, but I see it a

lot. Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Even even at the individual level. The the

the burden of holding on to that grudge of I'm never talking to this person

again, it doesn't hurt the person you're ever talking to. It hurts you as the

individual. As they say, it's like drinking a poison and expecting it to kill somebody

else. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Now with with all of these

these things, right, again, keeping in mind

the the reality of each individual, experience in person's

life, you know, kids' jobs, all these types of things.

Once a person is sort of on on the wagon and they've made the healthy

life choices and they're they're in that that that prime motivation

phase, you know, those first 2 to 3 months where they're like, yeah. I'm doing

this. That's beautiful. But, what do you suggest for how do

people actually stick to this in a more long term? How do they

stick to the healthy diet and lifestyle more long term?

Well, it's, in my book and then in

my practice practice, I try to reframe it as a choice.

These things are a choice you could choose versus, like, something

that somebody else said you should do. Anytime you

you talk to a human and be like, blah blah blah, you should do this,

you gotta do this. It's immediately gonna go in the other direction. But if

you can reframe it as a choice you could choose, that that

creates opportunity, that creates excitement, that creates interest, that can see it's like,

oh, humans are seeking creatures. We are always

seeking, always looking forward and trying to get, obtain,

grow, maximize, achieve abundance.

We are just designed that way, and for good reason because, I mean,

it promotes survival of the species, obviously. So we're really

geared towards seeking. And if you can slide in

somebody front in front of somebody's view, these choices

and highlight the benefits and talk about the mechanism so they trust

it, that that's like a great wave that I I found have

to start the conversation. So

I think that that's important. But to to stick to it, I

guess, you

don't the the the harsher you are, the the

less likely you will be to stick with it. The harsher you are with yourself,

the more you should yourself, the less likely you will be to to stick with

it. And, and if and if it can be connected

to that meaning and purpose, it can help those of us

who have a hard time doing good things for ourselves. That might just be

more my population than yours or it might be pretty universal. But

sometimes we have, like, a, allergy almost

to really doing really losing that £10 or really

eating that salad every day for lunch or getting and

feeling better. They're they're sometimes there can be self worth issues that come

up. That's mostly my patients, I guess. I see the same.

I see the same thing. And and, again, I I love that we keep cycling

back to this why and why. Why do you actually want to get

better? Like, you're you're coming to see you or me or any other health care

practitioner. Why? And it's it's oftentimes like, oh, because I

wanna lose some weight or, oh, because my, you know, like, I I

wanna get off these pills. Those are really good whys. So I think finding that

real core motivation makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

I think I'd add to that, my visits are an

hour and so it takes me 5, 10, and 15 minutes at most

for medications, which is great. It leaves me 45 minutes plus

for questions for them to kinda get stuff out

to vent the therapy, explaining the functional medicine piece that

education definitely takes a long time. But, the therapy the

therapy that I try to offer is is to get people

to feel their feelings. I had a patient. I don't think

he'll mind. He he's he really is very

hardworking, loves his job, loves his career,

loves his company, but his Achilles heel is monotony. And

so in the in the technical job that he does, the

monotony really gets him. And he was describing this feeling like he's like,

you know how you had that feeling like you walk into a place, you're somewhere,

and you you just have this real visceral strong feeling. You just don't wanna be

there. And I and I was like, yeah. He's like, well, that's what I got.

I I don't know what's going on. I'll go make a lunch or I'll go

for a walk, and it's just still there. And I said, well, how's work going?

He's like, oh, bad. Real bad. Mhmm. And I said, well,

you know, maybe there's you know, maybe that's your feelings are trying to tell you

something. Maybe they're information. Maybe they're trying to get you to look at something, and

the the more you don't look at it, the stronger they're gonna have to well

up to get you to pay attention to the fact that this monotony

thing, which he and I had discussed before, is really bothering you. And his

immediate response was, yeah. But, you know, when you work in a company, you you

gotta do what you gotta do and and yada yada. And that that's, like,

suppressing feeling. I think we a lot of us do that where it's we feel

something, we don't like something, we really want something,

and society, especially modern day life

says you shouldn't want that or you shouldn't be angry or don't

cry, all that stuff. And so this is these dark feelings

just kinda like sit and fester and really invade Mhmm.

Our daily life. So the therapy part to clear away all those

cobwebs really does open the door for people to be

better about taking on these dietary and lifestyle changes.

Mhmm. Yeah. I'm really beginning to appreciate your your

genuinely integrative approach. You know, the the the formal definition of

integrative medicine is, all aspects of

one's health, body, mind, and soul. I particularly find it

interesting that the technical definition includes soul. Fascinating.

Big conversation there. But I'm I'm really beginning to appreciate this this truly

integrated process, of how you you work with the individual's body

through nutrition, exercise, all these types of things, but also really a strong

focus on the mind portion through through not just, hey.

You're feeling a little anxious? Well, let's, let's change your diet, but actually talking

about it. That's super cool. The you know, for the practitioners that

are listening, there is something about

knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.

Getting confident and knowing, alright. Okay. Let's start here.

Okay. What's going on? Okay. Let's map it out. Okay. So what is your priority?

What is your goal? Okay. Can't solve all the problems today. Don't expect

this medication to do everything. Like, where okay. Where are we at? What do you

want? What should we do first? And then what can we learn from that when

we assess? That's knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. If

somebody comes in at the 11th hour with all these issues, that the

knowing what to do when you don't know what to do is a wonderful,

piece of information that I picked up in school in training

because none of us know what we're doing. None of us know

what the answer is, but our website say that we do.

And and especially if you're in conventional medicine, it's maybe not

your your advertising that says it, but it's the 15 minute

visit that puts so much pressure on you to fix it and then send them

on their way because you got somebody coming right behind them. As as a provider,

it's so hard. That is just such a thing. And

I think maybe the soul is a great add on because it

allows for people to have this uniqueness in the soul and

this esoteric mystery, and and you don't have to solve

everything. How could you solve someone's soul? Yeah.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. It keeps it open to the process of

evolution and growth. And, one thing that I've found myself doing

recently with well, maybe not even recently, for quite some time now, to be honest,

is letting my clients tell me exactly

how I can help them. Like, what what do you need? And they're like, I

I I feel like I should eat more vegetables. Great. You should probably do

that. What what do you think would really help your anxiety right now? You know,

if I were to get more sleep, wonderful. Why don't you yeah.

The the the clients really also help in that. What do

you do when you don't know what to do? Well, you could just ask them.

And oftentimes, my opinion is if you've created a safe space where they're

open and they they feel like their opinion really matters,

9 times out of 10, they they know exactly what it is that they need

in order to feel better. Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, it it will

it will show itself. When I first started my practice, I,

shared an office space with a really great chiropractor.

And, sometimes we would share patients because patients would mention neck

pain. So I'd send them over there. And I'd talk to them and I'm like,

you know, how's everything going? And they're like, yeah. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. And then

the next day, they would go for an appointment, and she would push on their

back and waterfall. You know, just the tears would come out

because that was maybe un unguardable who

pushing on that little knot in their back, or maybe they felt safer

because they didn't have to talk about it afterwards. You know, they it just it's

so interesting that, to think that we can

we can be so comprehensively as comprehensive as

I am, I I do carry an understanding that I cannot

solve all for everyone. That that really

helps turn me into less of a jerk

provider. Right. Yeah. And it it kinda goes back to the principles of functional

medicine. Right? They're pretty sure in the foundational principles of functional medicine,

collaborative care is is built right into the the principles.

Totally. Yeah. Now, being being conscious of

time, so I'd love to ask you a question that I ask virtually everybody. And

this question is, in your opinion, both as a practitioner and

likely as somebody who has seen other practitioners,

what do you think makes a wellness practitioner successful?

I think owning who they are. Like, we were talking

about everybody's got strengths and weaknesses. I've got my own professional

clinical weaknesses and strengths. And the

strengths are usually good enough even on a bad day if I'm sick

or actually, when I'm sick and don't talk as much, usually that's the best

visits, you know, who knows what that's about. But in

the providers that I've seen, they

exude confidence in this one thing they're doing.

They do it. They know they do it. It works for other people.

It so it the the exuding the confidence, I think is

you can't fake it, but once you have it, you should exude

it. Beautiful. Beautiful. I love it. I love

it. So as we wrap things up, I how can

people get a hold of you? Where's the best place to take a look at

your book? All those those things. Great. Yeah. I have a practice

in Oregon. I live in Bend, Oregon, right in the middle of the state. And,

people can find my practice online. I'm pretty full already. And I can only

treat people in Oregon. That's the clinical side of things. For the book,

there's the website, the mental wellness diet.com. And then

you can find me on Instagram, and I'm I'm sure you'll share the links. If

you want the paperback book, it's on Amazon.

If, if you're interested in an audio book, I paid to have a computer

guy read it. Some AI guy named Walter with a nice deep voice,

and that is through my website. You can find that, and

that's that's about it. Awesome. Well, is there

anything else that you would like to to discuss? Any any topics you feel like

we didn't dig into or give enough time before we, we tie a bow on

our conversation? No. I think we covered it.

You know, I mentioned a minute ago that 2nd ago that I can only see

people in Oregon. So what about people in Nebraska or California?

Same here, global is a directory of providers

like me, and I think they have a domestic US,

psychiatric mental health focused, but then also doing the integrated functional

medicine thing, combining. They have providers that they vetted

in almost all 50 states. It's a great resource for

patients. I think it's same, www.samehereglobal.org.

And if you are really looking for this kinda help or you wanna only wanna

send somebody to somebody like me, but you're in New York or whatever,

check out that resource, support those people who are like

myself, putting in a lot of extra time that nobody's paying them to do or

asking them to do to to learn how to be better, find peep these

passionate psych providers so we can, you know, can make some headway into

this mental health crisis that we're entering. Yeah. Wonderful.

Thank you. That's a perfect suggestion, and I will put all the links to everything

that we discussed in the show notes. So thank you very much for your time.

I really enjoyed that conversation. I feel like, I could pretty happily

have another hour talking with you, but, let's let's tie a bow on it for

now, and thank you again. Yeah. Likewise. This was great. Thanks so much,

Jess.