speaker-1 (00:00)

be mindful of the feeding gut microbes. So I usually think eating a rainbow is a great way to think of it. It doesn't have to be every day, but every week we're trying to eat a rainbow and that includes variety.

speaker-0 (01:11)

Hi, Dr. Laura, how's it going?

speaker-1 (01:13)

Hi, going well today. It's snowy day today. Finally here in Denver.

speaker-0 (01:17)

I know! I know, are you nice and warm?

speaker-1 (01:21)

Yes, thankfully. I'm really grateful I have my tea with me that always stays like this.

speaker-0 (01:29)

Yeah, there's the windows. There's like big windows in my office and it makes it extra cold. So I have a blanket with me as well.

speaker-1 (01:37)

I have a Brazilian au pair and my poor toddler is keeping her outside today. It's alright though, know, she gets to dive right into the snow.

speaker-0 (01:47)

Yeah, thank goodness that we're getting some snow. Well, I'm so excited about our conversation today. I know we'll be talking a lot about the gut brain connection and that is like huge buzzword that I think everyone has heard and there's all sorts of information out there for what this is. So I'd love to start our conversation off with just a general understanding.

What exactly is the gut-brain connection? What does that even mean? we'll go from there.

speaker-1 (02:19)

Awesome, I love it. So I think, first of all, just want to address, think in healthcare today, we have like really fragmented care, right? So we have our head problems, our behavior and mood problems, and then we have our gut problems, and then we have our skin problems, and like nothing is tying that together, is like what we're kind of taught and told. ⁓ But...

everything is really connected, right? know, I mean, what we eat makes a difference in our skin and our brain and how we feel. And so one of the things that I've been diving into a lot as I, so I came from a traditional medicine background, Western medicine background, and I've ⁓ been diving more into functional and integrative care. So one of the most powerful things I've been exploring is this gut brain connection. So I think when I talk to families about this, they tend to have an understanding of

you know, if you're nervous about something, you get butterflies in your stomach, right? Or like, you know, some kids get a nervous gut, you know, and they have to go to the But, or like, if you're really, really stressed, maybe you've gotten a stress ulcer, right? Or something like that, if it gets really severe, because our brain is basically telling our body things, right? So I think a lot of people understand that top-down kind of connection. But then there's also this other pathway, it's bi-directional, it goes both ways, right? So this is our head down to our gut and our gut up to our head.

So the ways that that work is first of all, gut has, if you don't know this, I'm sure a lot of people know because it's becoming a lot more common knowledge, but our gut is home to trillions of bacteria, basically. They're not just hanging out in our gut. They're not just digesting food and nutrients. They're also creating amazing substances for our body. And one of the things I was shocked to learn when I started learning about this is that 90 % of our body's serotonin is actually made in our gut.

which is like, I just never knew that. And I've been in medicine, practicing with kids for a long time. And that's not the only neurotransmitters, that's like dopamine and GABA and things like that. So GABA is also really important when we think about kids with anxiety, that helps us to relax, right? And obviously we know serotonin has a huge role in anxiety and depression, right? If you've ever been on antidepressant, you know that it works on that serotonin.

And so if our microbes aren't healthy, if we don't have a good balance of those healthy microbes that do the beneficial things for us, obviously it's going to have an impact on our mental health too. So that's really important. And then also when we have a dysbiosis, we don't have as many, again, of those like healthy, good bacterium and invites bad or opportunistic bacteria. So we have a lot of bacteria that we don't necessarily want wiped out, but we want to keep them in check, right?

having enough of the healthy bacteria keeps everything in balance. makes sure there's not inflammation in our gut. And so what can happen is if we get what we call a gut dysbiosis, it affects the environment of our gut and then it increases our gut permeability. So that means basically our gut is our barrier to our bloodstream, right? This is why if you have alcohol, right? It goes like straight to your bloodstream, right? Because there's a direct pathway there, And so, but our gut's job is to have

be a good lining and barrier. When that is affected, when we have dysbiosis, we get what we call leaky gut, which means more inflammatory molecules have a direct pathway to our bloodstream, which then can also affect anxiety, symptoms, depression, even like things like ADHD. So, there's a lot of things. And then the other like component to this is we have like all of our gut barrier, our microbes making great things, but then we also have our vagus nerve.

So our vagus nerve is our longest nerve. I think, if you're very familiar with us, like all the way, head down to our gut. And that is our direct kind of pathway that we can affect change on. like, when we talk about, I don't want to get too much in the lead, sorry. I'm like, I go into like a really detailed thing. I talk to families about this all the time. So when we think about our, it's called our autonomic nervous system. We think, fight and flight and breaths and digest, right? Is kind of the easy way to think about it.

When we're in fight or flight, our heart rate goes up, our breathing rate goes up, and then our body gets signals that it's not a safe time to digest and calm down and rest and restore, repair. And so when we're thinking about the vagus nerve, we can do things like work with our breath, work with those things and inputting into our vagus nerve to tell our body to slow down. So ⁓ anyway, so there's like a lot of these things I see these kids that are stuck in fight or flight.

and they just don't even know that they're just operating in fight or flight, adults too, by the way. I'm like, obviously an expert in kids, but we get stuck in fight or flight. And then again, people don't recognize that like this gut brain thing is happening and we have to break the cycle in this gut brain connection to really improve how they're feeling from a body and brain perspective.

speaker-0 (07:18)

good pieces. OK, so you kind of talked about a few different things. So we have this balance that we need to keep of the healthy bacteria and the well, I'm putting it in air quotes like bad bacteria opportunistic, I think was the word that you mentioned. So there's kind of this balance there. And then you're saying if that balance is leaning more toward having more of that bad bacteria.

That can cause leaky gut, which can cause inflammation, more anxiety, more fight or flight, all of those types of things that will like dis- cause dysregulation in the nervous system. Am I summarizing that correctly?

speaker-1 (07:59)

is beautiful. Thank you taking all of those kinds of things, like boiling it down more concisely. But absolutely. Yeah, it's like that balance of those bacteria is really key to the whole thing. So basically, a lot of good bacteria, and we don't want too many bad bacteria, lots of negative effects if that becomes a balance.

speaker-0 (08:18)

Okay, so let's start there. So the bacteria, it seems like that's probably the like first step. And it's funny that you mentioned the serotonin thing because I threw that fact out to my stepson the other week. He's like in anatomy learning these things. And I was like, yeah, 90 % of serotonin is made in your gut. And he was like, what are you talking about? So I felt really, really good about that one.

Okay, so what are ways that we keep this like gut bacteria in check? What are ways parents can help keep this bacteria in check for their kids?

speaker-1 (08:52)

Yeah, so it depends on the situation. So when I'm evaluating a kid, I think there's some general things to do and then specific things to do. So one thing that I see a lot of parents do is they say, ⁓ well, this just means I throw them on a probiotic, right? And so, you know, and I can see why that's tempting. And sometimes that is the answer, but sometimes that either, well, number one, are they on the right probiotics or what's in their gut, right? We need a balanced diet.

what is there and what they have. And some kids just don't need to be out of probiotic. And we just need to work on feeding the good bacteria that are there already. And then the question is, do they have a lot of disruptive bacteria? So what I usually do with kids is I do a crowd out the bad stuff first. And so if they don't have enough good bacteria, then sometimes there is a period of time where we do a probiotic and then we do supplements to help feed the good bacteria in the probiotic to create a good, healthy population in the gut.

But then we back it up with all of my general gut health things. So I'm making sure we're eating a whole foods diet with plenty of fiber and not like a fiber one, we're talking about like natural fibers and like fruits and vegetables, eating a rainbow. ⁓ You know, that actually fiber is our food for the microbes in our gut. And so they're not digestible to us. And we, think, I don't know about you, but I was.

I grew up thinking of it as roughage. like it's just extra stuff that pushes things through, which is like so oversimplified, right? But it's actually food for our microbes, ⁓ which is wild, right? So our microbes take that, they eat it, and then they make all these beneficial compounds. So if we're not doing enough fiber, it's not just like, it's healthy for you, we're pushing things through, it's the food for our good bacteria. So that's a really key. So like the diet is important. And then minimizing ultra processed foods

is important too, because processed foods tend to be pretty inflammatory, but also they're not usually good in fiber and all the different nutrients that we need. So we wanna like, again, they have a place, but they shouldn't be the bulk of your kids' diet. It could be really easy to lean all into all processed foods these days. It's so available. ⁓ But again, we need to feed our microbes. We need to keep off the bad stuff and then let the good stuff keep growing, if that makes sense.

speaker-0 (11:09)

Yep, okay, so fiber feeds the good stuff and fiber is in foods like whole, you know, not whole vegetables, but vegetables and fruit, whole foods, like you mentioned, and so incorporating whole foods into our diet will help feed the good bacteria.

speaker-1 (11:27)

Yes, exactly.

speaker-0 (11:28)

Do you see kids where the bad bacteria has overtaken things and we need to like kill it off? I don't know, is that the right?

speaker-1 (11:38)

Yeah,

so I definitely have seen that. It depends on the amount of bacteria and the kind of bacteria in the age of the kid. There have been some extreme cases where I'll use an antibiotic in a short course to of knock out the bacteria. I mostly try not to do that if I can avoid it. So in general, I try to crowd out with good bacteria, but then believe it or not, spices have antimicrobial properties and there's certain spices that kill certain bacteria. So I do a lot of like,

striping spices, which sounds really like, you know, like a little woo woo, but there's so much scientific research that actually shows that like things like, especially garlic and cinnamon, if I were to add two spices to your diet all the time, fresh garlic, fresh cinnamon, to help keep some of those microbes in check. But then there's some kids who I have like a really fun spice chart that will, it just depends if sometimes I'm like, ⁓ your kid needs some oregano and thyme.

based on what is overgrowing in their gut. So it's just nice to be targeted in that way as well. But in general, if you put a lot of spices in the diet, it's only a good thing for

speaker-0 (12:43)

Okay, and so you do like a microbiome stool test to kind of determine. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's where you get the information from.

speaker-1 (12:54)

Exactly. so I, especially with younger kids, work with the tiny health microbiome test just because it basically looks at the different types and amounts of bacteria in your kid's gut. And then also goes through like some, you know, gut integrity, gut mucus layer metrics as well. So that's helpful. So it'll say, okay, your kid has, you know,

plenty of this one beneficial bacteria, but then we have a bunch of overgrowth of another bacteria. And so it's really helpful and individualized so that we, I think, give a more specific plan. And then I help families with recipes and stuff that will help with those things.

speaker-0 (13:32)

Cool, okay. Okay, we kind of, I'm just thinking about parents who are listening who were like, yeah, good luck getting my child to eat fruits and vegetables. Like, this sounds great, but I don't have time. My child's not gonna eat broccoli. this isn't going to work. How do you help families even start really small to like build up to some of these things?

speaker-1 (13:59)

totally. So first of we kind of build on what they have already. Right. So if your kid is not big on vegetables, fruits are also great. The big thing is that we get generally a rainbow and then we add in new things as much as we can. having a rhythm of adding like a couple of new new things per week. Again, your kid might reject it the first couple of times.

but just like putting it in there, making it an option or preparing it in different ways can be helpful. like some kids will have things roasted when they can't stand it, if it was like boiled, right? Like, mean, Brussels sprouts are great. Like really gross boiled. I mean, some people might like it, but like roasted with some balsamic and stuff on there, some bacon. I mean, that's really great, right? So, you know, there's different ways to prepare it. And things like fermented foods is something that I work with kids on as well because

fermented foods are really beneficial for us. like most kids are not going to like be having kimchi and sauerkraut, right? You know, I'm not either because I don't really like it. But ⁓ I have fermented fruit recipes or you can actually ferment condiments. So if your kid's a big ketchup kid, maybe we just make it a probiotic ketchup instead, you know, then we can kind of sprinkle that in. It's really small changes over time. That's going to be the big thing. So what's one thing you can switch out? So instead of

a PB and J, maybe we do apple slices and peanut butter or switched up to almond butter or cashew butter or something like that as we're like trying to get variety in it, in them. ⁓ You know, maybe they love smoothies. That's a really great way to get things in kids. You know, they're delicious and sweet. You can add some like chia or flax and that's really beneficial too. So I just basically help families say, what can we do to like slowly add new things to end? We're not gonna like your taste buds don't change overnight.

It's really hard to make like a bunch of big changes. So we just like slowly modify it and say, what's one thing I can do today that's a little bit in the direction we're at want about. And then honestly, that over time is going to make a really big impact.

speaker-0 (15:58)

Okay, yeah, that made, I had some relief after that. I think that makes a lot of sense to just start with, okay, what are the foods that they're eating now? What is one small thing that we can implement or change or add to what they're doing? And I love the idea of fermented ketchup. think, I mean, I feel like a lot of kids love ketchup. So that's great. Yeah, I love that you have all of those different ways of being able to help families with those things.

speaker-1 (16:24)

Yeah, and you have to be like practical and you have to work with what families do. It's not like perfect in my house either, right? You know, my kids eat pretty well overall, but it's the overall, right? It's not, you know, if they're eating every single day, things that are not great, it's going to have a big impact, right? But if we're like half the time, we're really hitting that, you know, honestly, that's going to be a lot more positive, right? And so I think aiming for perfection is only setting yourself up for failure. ⁓

speaker-0 (16:51)

Right, or that all or nothing thinking. Yeah, like we need to do everything and switch to only whole foods and get rid of all of the processed things that we have. Just start where you're at.

speaker-1 (17:02)

Right, right, absolutely. Take that pressure off because you have to do it in a way that's going to be sustainable for you and your family.

speaker-0 (17:09)

Yep. Okay. All right. So we're cleaning up the microbiome. We're eating whole foods, vegetables, fruit, all of the things. That is what helps then with the leaky gut.

speaker-1 (17:21)

Yes, so over time, once it takes time. So this is not something that I want to always tell parents this too. Even families who I do supplements and probiotics and really targeted things, you know, it takes several months, really. And honestly, you can't, you can't and don't want to shift your gut overnight. Like if you just go all in, like, it's just gonna get diarrhea. It's just not good, know, switch for an all process diet. And then we have like,

beans every day, like that's just gonna cause some stomach upset. So like, we want slow progress over time. And what happens is the microbiome just starts to shift, we get more good bacteria and less bad bacteria, as we ⁓ go along. And eventually, over a few months, you're going to start to notice some of the changes and things are really going to shift for your kiddo.

speaker-0 (18:10)

what are some of the things that parents can look out for to know that the gut microbiome is maybe off? ⁓ Yes, we'll start there.

speaker-1 (18:22)

Yeah, so for sure, whenever I see a kiddo with constipation, this is one that I think is maybe a big miss with traditional medicine, coming from a traditional medicine background. I just see kids just like on Miralax forever, you know? And there's like different camps with like, thoughts about Miralax and whatever. But regardless, if your kid has to be on it for years, I wonder what on earth is going on underneath things that is going to help. Interesting, sorry, note, Sarah Tonin.

And in addition to like mood also helps with your gut motility. And so if you don't have enough serotonin in your body for lots of reasons, it might help worsen behavior problems, but it also might worsen your gut motility and you might have a slow transit in your gut. So ⁓ anyway, so constipation, diarrhea can be common, especially in like little babies. like little like colicky babies, they say, I hate the word colic. It's like, it doesn't, it's not a real diagnosis. It's like, you know, just like a bucket term. Anyway, so those babies might have like a lot of diarrhea or mucus.

you know, kind chronic belly pain, tummy upset, nervous stomach, any of those things are obvious ones, right? ⁓ I always think about kids with any kind of mental health issues, depression, anxiety, things like that can definitely be tied to an unhealthy gut skin problems or like kind of overreactive skin or like kids with allergies also often will have an associated...

dysbiosis underneath it. and that could be a little tricky. And sometimes if we can improve their gut barrier, ⁓ overall, improve their gut health, then they may become less reactive. So like their skin might improve, they maybe aren't as reactive to every single little thing that comes along. So it can at least help.

speaker-0 (20:05)

Yeah, okay. Right. And it takes time, like you said, but I think those are all really good markers for parents to be aware of. see ton, I always ask parents during our initial appointment, no matter what they come in for, how their child's poops are, because it is so important. If they're constipated or if they're having diarrhea all of the time, like, of course I tell parents all the time, like, imagine if you didn't poop for three days, you wouldn't be happy either. ⁓

speaker-1 (20:31)

So, yeah, very.

That's a big, oh, one other thing I thought about was immune system issues. So like if your kid is sick all the time too, because the gut also helps a lot with the immune system as well. And so that's a big key player as well. mean, some, a lot of kids will go through a season where they're just kind of always sick. That's pretty normal. But if your kid, I feel like if it's kind of a constant thing and they never really kind of come out of it, then I always wonder what's going on underneath it. If there's something that we can improve in their bodies.

speaker-0 (21:01)

Okay, so foods, probiotics, what about prebiotics? Yeah. ⁓

speaker-1 (21:09)

Yeah, so interesting. So there's pre pro and post bionics. Prebiotics are really like fibers or indigestible sugars for babies. like human milk oligosaccharides, which is in breast milk, that's like feed the bacteria that's most populated when they're really young. And then we go into our fibers, which are prebiotic fibers. That's our food, basically, like the pre feeds.

the bacteria, the pro and so like a probiotic is the actual bacteria, right? So when you're giving a probiotic, you're giving like a strain of like lactobacillus or bifidobacterium or something like that. So that's the probiotic help deep up that population. So the pre feeds and so I often will do both in a kid who really needs their, overall good bacteria to be hosted. do pre and pro. And then post biotics. So this is where fermented foods really come in. So fermented foods are beneficial

So it has a lot of good bacteria in it and some of it hangs out and some of it passes through. But what's really key with this is like, let's say you have like a kombucha or like a fermented fruit or ketchup or whatever. It takes the sugars and then the bacteria make all these beneficial compounds that we then consume. And those post-biotics are really good for our body and help us produce things like GABA and things like that too. So those post-biotics.

again, are made in our gut, fermented foods are a really good way to get those postbiotics in as well. So those are kind of the three categories to think about it. It's like the food, the bacteria, and then the afterproducts of our good bacteria in our gut.

speaker-0 (22:41)

Okay, we need all of them. So important. Okay, and then tell me more because I know you mentioned like all of this kind of links to fight or flight, our Vegas nerve. Yeah, dive into that a little bit more and then we can talk more about strategy.

speaker-1 (22:55)

so our vagus nerve actually is what helps us connect to our parasympathetic, which is our rest and digest system, right? So this is where it comes into play for kids who are constantly in like fight or flight is because they can't really activate their parasympathetic, which is rest and digest. So the gut really helps us because it helps with our vagus nerve, there's a lot of...

theories about how this actually happens. But again, our neurotransmitters communicated through the vagus nerve to our brain, right? So if our gut is healthy, and is making all those those great things that can communicate back up, right? And if we're in that rest and digest state, however, also the other thing that is connected with is so when I think about this, when I think in terms of breath work for kids, so you can't just slow down your heart rate, right? Like you can't just like,

tell your body to do that or to increase blood flow somewhere. But what you can do is slow down your breathing, which then gets the body the signal that it's okay to increase the blood flow, rest and digest and things like that. So you can actually like, it's like a kind of an off switch for your sympathetic is what I think of breath work as. And again, once we have more blood flow, then our gut can be healthier too, make all those great beneficial compounds, restore, and then we get all the great signals back up that we're feeling safe, right?

if that makes sense.

speaker-0 (24:11)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so the gut is creating neurotransmitters being sent up through the vagus nerve to our brain to help us.

speaker-1 (24:20)

Lots

of different pathways, but we think it's also at least partly through the thing.

speaker-0 (24:24)

Yeah.

And that tells our brain to get into rest and digest. Okay. What are some of your favorite breathing strategies for kids?

speaker-1 (24:36)

Yes. So my favorite is a very simple one. I think they call it like bear breathing. So that's where I have kids like lay on the ground and they put like a stuffy on their belly. And so the big thing is we have to engage the diaphragm when we're doing our breath work. And so like a lot of kids will breathe like with their shoulders up, you know, and they'll just do that, but they're not actually getting expansion of their belly. So we want them to fill their belly up like a balloon, but a lot of kids don't fully understand what that means.

So if they're laying on the ground and they have a stuffy on their belly, we're trying to make the bear go up and down basically, or whatever stuffy it is, go up and down. And we're trying to like, you know, say pretend like they're on a boat and then we'll go fishing or something like that. And just kind of give them that visualization so that they know what it's like to actually use their diaphragm because like they don't know what that means to use their diaphragm, right? So if we get their belly to expand, then that's going to activate that. And also just

be as expansive as possible with our lung volume instead of just like these teeny tiny little breaths, which isn't super helpful. So that's the easiest. Something that they think is really fun is bumblebee breathing, where you do a big breath and you like make a high pitched noise on the outside and you're like.

you know, something like that. So you can a big breath and you do out as long as you can making that silly noise. So they just think that that's really funny. And like the humming can actually be really helpful as far as like activating your vagus nerve too. And just thinking it's funny and laughter, right? Is great too. When kids get a little bit older, I love like box breathing or square breathing, which is helpful. So it's like, you know, in for two or four, depending on how old they are, you know, hold for two or four, out for two or four, hold.

for two or four, basically. actually with kids with ADHD, I've been noticing that stair breathing is really helpful. We take in, hold, in, hold, in, hold, in, hold, and then out. And so they feel like incrementally. And so I feel like they, some kids struggle with the attention for the box or square breathing, and then they can do the stair breathing and they like that much better. And so then they do the whole empty out and then they do the stair up again.

So those are all, I think there's lots of different techniques I'm sure you've done them too that you can use as visualizations, but those are ones that I've been doing a lot recently with kids and they've really seem to appreciate that.

speaker-0 (26:55)

Yeah, I love the stair breathing. heard this, I don't know if it's true or if you know. Is that how dogs breathe before they go to bed?

speaker-1 (27:03)

I have no idea. That is interesting though. ⁓

speaker-0 (27:08)

I

heard that they do like deep breath in and then another deep breath in and then that's how they like relax to fall asleep.

speaker-1 (27:17)

I don't know where I heard it. That's really funny.

speaker-0 (27:20)

I might need to look that up. I'll post an article if I find it. Yeah. When is a good time for kids to practice breathing? Because I always think I talk to parents like when kids are a 10 and they're so dysregulated, it's really hard to then like.

speaker-1 (27:23)

Very curious.

speaker-0 (27:36)

tap into their logical brain and think, yeah, I should take some belly breaths right now. So when would you say is a good time to practice this type of breathing?

speaker-1 (27:47)

Yeah, I think as well. a few things. One, when we're like in an active situation where they're really dysregulated, we have to give it a second to get over that initial burst and like let them calm down. Co-regulation is important here, or maybe we're the calm person. And our breathing can actually affect our kids too. So like that's a time where you can do breath work while you're sitting with your kid as they hopefully calm down. And then I always tell family to have them,

before they dive into the exercises, especially if we're like pretty hyped up, do a couple deep belly breaths first to get into that space because it goes straight from like super stressed into the breath work is that's too big of a leap for kids. So that's important. And then what I have been doing with families is especially kids with anxiety, they just need a pop off valve during the day, basically. So what I just try to do is have them build it in as a habit.

It depends on the kid. there was a kid that I was working with two weeks ago or something like that. I think what would happen is his dress just built all day during the school, right? And it just kept going. And he never really had a time to decompress. So at the beginning of every class, my homework to him was to do a few rounds of the breath work, just as we start classes that were in between classes, that he find a quiet spot. And so just

letting someone for that to escape so that way we're never so hyped up, you know, and again, that's like a practice thing too. Or grouping it with activities that we do anyway. So kids with constipation, honestly, I tell them if you're, I give them homework like twice a day, practice, you know, like where they're gonna calm and like give themselves like good tablets on the toilet.

And I say, that's a great time, because I don't want them to have distractions if they're on a screen or reading a book, they're not paying attention to their body. So I say, that's when you're going to practice some rough work. It's kind of, you're sitting there anyway, and you're stuck there. So let's work on it, and it can help your body get into a place where maybe they can actually find food. So it depends on the situation with the kid, but we have to find some ways. I often work together with kids.

say, because if I give a solution, it's not necessarily going to be great, but they can come up with solutions themselves for what their situation and what they feel comfortable with. And that's going to be the one that's going to work. say, when do you think that will this work for you? And then let them help them solve and take ownership of that. I even had like tweens do that. It's really great to see them take charge of their health so much because they see the benefit there. ⁓ And again, it can take some time.

But yeah, the nice thing I would say about the breathwork is you can, I mean, it's portable, it can go anywhere. And it's a great habit to get into, you know, just like a few times per day. And just fighting those spaces, you know, you could do on the way to school if you're dropping your kids off, you know, like in the car, you guys do breathwork together. That could be an easy way to like start the day off in a more regulated state.

speaker-0 (30:38)

Yeah, that's super helpful. just, it reminds me to, like the in-between classes. It's just like having a mindful moment, right? Start, you know, starting a practice of mindfulness really young, ⁓ so that they can connect with their body.

speaker-1 (30:51)

Yep, absolutely. I think that what happens is we just get so disconnected with what's going on in our body, right? That's how people end up in the ER thinking we have a heart attack, but it's a panic attack, right? And so, you know, that happens because we just don't know when we're not in tune and we don't take those moments to connect and see or feel what's going on in our body and to check in. So that's important for kids and teens to learn.

speaker-0 (31:14)

Yep, absolutely. Okay, let's talk about vitamins or supplements, other things aside from the gut that are helpful, I guess, to support maybe the gut-brain connection or anxiety specifically.

speaker-1 (31:30)

Totally. whenever I work with families, especially if they have any kind of anxiety, mental health, whatever, I always check some major nutrients. And the ones that I hone in on are vitamin D because that has a really big component in depression and anxiety. I'm sure you see that. so it's so common to have a vitamin D deficiency, but most kids don't get it checked.

right? And so I don't love supplementing blindly, you know, like some people just like throw on supplements, but you don't know which one your kid actually needs. And that's why I actually don't usually recommend multivitamins. I just say let's do what's targeted for your kid, right? You know, I mean, I know it can feel reassuring. So I kind of have a blanket covering. But is it the dose that they need? Because if they're super low, they might need a higher dose of vitamin D than is in a multivitamin. So vitamin D is one of those that's really important. I check a ferritin, which is

your iron stores, if your ferritin is low, if you're low iron and you're fatigued and your body's trying to make up for having low iron, which helps our red blood cells, and red blood cells help deliver oxygen, right? So if we're low on those or we're anemic, then that can make you feel kind of panicked sometimes. Because your heart has to race faster to...

get the oxygen to where it needs. So your body's working harder when you have ⁓ not enough iron and red blood cells in your body. that's really important. mean, it's interesting in altitude, we actually have higher hemoglobin here in Denver because our bodies are working harder in order to get the oxygen that we need in order to maintain our oxygen. But it's much worse if you don't have enough iron that makes our red blood cells. So that's really important.

Hydration can actually be a really big cause or dehydration could be a big cause of that too. Because if we're, again, our circulating blood volume is low, our body has to work harder, our heart has to work harder, which can make you feel like you're in a stress state because your heart is going faster to circulate your lower blood volume. So sometimes that dehydration could be a thing. Zinc deficiency is really interesting. Zinc deficiency can be linked to picky eating.

So, and what can happen is it's a self perpetuating cycle. Picky eaters often don't eat like enough zinc because it's usually in like animal products or meat. And then because they're picky, then their zinc levels will keep going down and down and down. And then the more, the less zinc they have, the more likely they are to be a picky eater, which is kind of crazy, a crazy cycle that I think a lot of families don't know.

or if your kid has a lot of sensory problems, I think deficiency can also worsen sensory problems too. So if they're like really sensitive about textures or sounds and things like that. So that's something I'm always looking at too. So magnesium is also an interesting one too, right? And I don't know about you, but I take magnesium to help me sleep and I must've been very deficient before because like, I mean, it really helps if you're deficient in magnesium, it's going to be helping your sleep, right? And it's also gonna be helping your stooling and everything else like that too, right?

And so that's going to be a key one too that again, sleep and relaxation, right? That's why some of the gummies are called home gummies, right? Magnesium helps you to calm down. So if you're struggling with calming down, we want to make sure we have enough magnesium in our body too. So those are some key ones that I see very commonly in kids be a problem.

speaker-0 (34:48)

Okay, so vitamin D, ferritin, hydration, drinking water, dehydration, zinc, and magnesium. What about fish oil? Now that there's a, you have a deficiency in fish oil, but I have seen some psychiatrists prescribe, I guess prescribe fish oil to kids.

speaker-1 (35:08)

Yeah, so that's for the omegas. So omegas are super important for full immune regulation, but also like, you know, cognitive things. there's been studies that show like kids with like ADHD will do much better if they have enough like omegas. And so a lot of families will end up supplementing with that. Generally, it's like, it mostly just can't hurt. can only really help. Omegas are just so beneficial for our health and they're helpful.

they're anti-inflammatory as well too. So if we're trying to get down from an inflammatory state, I use that with kids with like really bad eczema, bad allergies, like it's really helpful to have that extra omega on. And I mean, obviously it's great to get it through the diet, but a fish oil supplement can be really helpful, especially if your kid is in a picky eating stage, know, kids who have like sensory issues that can't, you know, get that, get enough in to be really beneficial. yeah, that is something that is a great thing to do. And I'm always trying to...

show them different ways they can get it in their diet, like these lean fatty fish, seeds, flax seeds, stuff.

speaker-0 (36:08)

sardines, you know, the things kids love.

speaker-1 (36:11)

You

know, yes, exactly. know it's a really good story, but I literally never mention it because like, I mean, I should get over that because I don't like sardines. My husband loves them, but I think

speaker-0 (36:22)

Yeah, my partner eats them every day. I like can't even look at them. Yeah. And he's like, taste so good. He says they taste just like salmon or like any fish. It's just the look. I can't, I can't get over it.

speaker-1 (36:34)

⁓

I I can't get over you. I grew up in the Mid-Blast, so think there was just this thing. We probably never had good ones, and so, you know, I'm not sure that there's good ones out there. I just haven't been able to get over that hurdle, so.

speaker-0 (36:45)

Yes, no, I get it. Okay, so we're eating whole foods throughout the day or maybe taking some supplements or staying hydrated. We're doing breath work and it's time for bed. I know you mentioned like magnesium can help at night. What are some other things that you find helpful for kids who are either feeling anxious or restless or having difficulty falling asleep at night?

speaker-1 (37:09)

Yeah, like the whole day builds up to the night, right? You so if we're, it's like, it's not like we can get to the night and just like turn it off. Like we all know this, right? Like, you know, we've all working up things on our mind, whatever. So it's a process throughout the day. So we need to make sure our hydration is good during the day, that we're getting everything straight during the day. We have to make sure we have enough good, healthy fats and good nutrients that's going to keep us de-shaded through the night. That's gonna stay with us.

So that's really big. And then things like magnesium can be helpful too. then, wind down routine for kids is really helpful as well. So we want to slowly get them ready. Like kids aren't going to be able, unless they're completely exhausted, which isn't an ideal state, right? They won't like go and then crash. Some kids will, but we want to help give them subtle clues as they get closer to bedtime. So when we think about our circadian rhythms, getting that light dimmer.

So like if you have a way to get the lights progressively more dim during the bedtime routine, that's a really good way to signal to the brain. Because especially in the wintertime, right, we have like all this artificial light and we don't think about that. Avoiding screen time ahead of bedtime too, because that screen time, really tells our body it's time to be awake, right? And so if we have screen time and then we're trying to wind down into bed, it's not going to give those signals to our body.

And then if they're doing breath work, this is a really good time to do that. Or they can do like a bedtime meditation. So there's like apps that you can do with kids that will tell like bedtime stories that are like progressive rec relaxation stories or like some kind of a guided meditation. So that could be a really good way. with kids, I've had kids who like when they wake up at nighttime, they'll instead of just lying there thinking about how anxious they are, right? It's helpful for them to then like.

pop in the headphones and listen to one of these meditations to help get them back into a relaxed state. And a good way to do this physically too is kind of a progressive like tightening and loosening of all our muscles. So kind of going head to toe, toe to head, whichever you want, but usually head to toe works pretty well. ⁓ And then we're basically, we're like loosening our jaw, we're loosening our shoulders. And then that's like giving our body signals that, it's okay to rest and relax. Especially if we spend all day kind of.

get really tight, I mean, our shoulders up to our ears. So like that, that progressive wind down is really helpful. again, and even thinking about it at dinner time, we're calming down or taking a breath thing, we're, you know, trying our best to like wind down towards bedtime instead of seeing an immediate thing. It's pretty hard when you're busy.

speaker-0 (39:42)

I know I was gonna say. Get back from sports and activities at eight o'clock and then need to eat and all the things. Yeah, it can be difficult. Yeah. Which perfect segue, before we wrap up, what are your top three things? We discussed so much today. If there were three easy things, easy in air quotes, that parents can implement that would be helpful, what would you say those three things are?

speaker-1 (39:49)

You crashed.

Yeah, so the basics are the most powerful, honestly. like be mindful of the feeding gut microbes. So I usually think eating a rainbow is a great way to think of it. It doesn't have to be every day, but every week we're trying to eat a rainbow and that includes variety.

So if we have yellow for banana, like we wanna switch it up. We wanna do like a yellow pepper or like orange, yellow, like a mango or something like that. So.

we're just being mindful that we're getting different colors and switching it up. So those are two very easy ways. Actually, let me add a third way. Another way to increase those things is ⁓ making meals pop. So that means plants on purpose. And so every meal, we're gonna try to add a new plant of some kind. That might be a spice, that might mean a vegetable, might mean a fruit or a seed or a nut. So something that we can do to add one more vegetable or plant to our meal.

So if we can do that, that's gonna be huge to feeding our gut microbes. And we're just gonna, again, little bits at a time to just make each one a little bit better. The second one is to keep ultra processed foods to a minimum, including high sugar foods. Sugar is really not great for kids. And it's, in a lot of kids get way too much sugar. So we're gonna try to like, first we're gonna increase our good beneficial foods.

which hopefully crowds out our ultra processed foods. ⁓ But again, we're trying to be mindful about using those only when we really need to ⁓ or like we're really busy or things like that. ⁓ eat lots of good whole foods, minimize ultra processed foods. And the last thing that I would say is some kind of mindfulness slowing down exercise. And so that might mean going on a hike, right? And like, you know, taking the moments to actually look around you, know, like.

Some families are so high power, you know, and so we're gonna take a minute and we're gonna slow down or yoga or breath work or yeah, the mindfulness is just noticing things. Like instead of being in the rush to school, say, what do I notice there? that's a beautiful tree. I saw a bird or isn't that snow over there beautiful? Look at that sunset, you know, just noticing things and slowing down is just a really important practice for adults and kids.

And so if you do those things that will help your vagus nerve, it will help your rest and digest. So if you can feed your microbes, tap into your rest and digest, those would be the things that I think are most impactful.

speaker-0 (42:34)

Okay, perfect. And I love how you said like one thing to a meal. Like you make your regular meal and then add a pop to it. And then the mindfulness connecting with your senses, limiting processed foods. Great. I know it's a lot and I know you're so wonderful. I will of course link everything for families to work with you. Like of course we went over everything and lots of ideal things today, but it does take, you know, small changes.

and not all changes are gonna work for all families. And I know that you're really great at working with families to figure out what's gonna work best for them. And they're not feeling shame and doing what is manageable.

speaker-1 (43:11)

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. really appreciate it. You asked such a wonderful question. Yeah. I'll also send you the fermented ketchup recipe. this is an easy way to do it.

speaker-0 (43:13)

Thank you.

yes, no I definitely.

Perfect, we will post that. Alright, thank you so much.

speaker-1 (43:27)

All right, have a good one, bye.