As an adult, maybe you’re struggling with some of these symptoms yourself, things like anxiety, perhaps depression or mood issues, those types of things. Or many of you have kids with these types of mental health symptoms and problems. Functional Medicine is a form of integrative medicine that focuses on addressing the root causes of a person’s symptoms rather than merely treating the symptoms themselves and, in this case, manage stress. Here are Dr. J and Evan Brand sharing their insights about different approaches for stress reduction.
Dr. J suggested to pay attention to nutrients first and some natural herbs such as ashwagandha, rhodiola, holy basil, etc. Watch the whole video to know interesting details about functional medicine in mental health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:22 Foundation of Functional Medicine Needs
8:27 Emotional Stress
14:50 How to deal with Stress
19:08 Alcohol as Stress Reliever
30:43 Importance of Exercise
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It's Dr. J here in the house with Evan. Evan, how are we doing today man?
Evan Brand: Doing well, the sky is blue, the weather is amazing. I looked at your forecast for this week too, it's going to be like 75 and sunny all day, every day. So that's going to be amazing. We're inside though, maybe we need to do like outside recordings, maybe need to go like, sit out back in a hammock and record with me. So we don't miss this weather because then it's going to be cold. And we're going to be complaining. But no, but long story short, we were talking pre show about just how everything this year has been kind of crazy. And a lot of people are expressing issues with their mental health, their physical health, their emotional health, it's affecting our clients, it's affecting potential clients, people that are reaching out to us that have had businesses closed down or potential job losses and a lot of economic issues that have caused a lot of, you know, mental emotional problems for people. So the idea today was, well, let's try to cover kind of a, a broad stroke, if you will, of how we could use functional medicine to improve mental health. So let's dive in.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. So off the bat, like we kind of go back to like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? That's kind of like the first thing. So I always tell patients off the bat, there's kind of a foundation of functional medicine needs, that's going to be clean water, sleep, and then clean food. And now we can kind of get in the middle of it in the weeds with the food and kind of getting your macros dialed in and getting all that kind of dialed in. But clean water, clean food and good sleep. And so I always tell patients, the more stressed you are, the more you need to be rested, fed and watered. And the more those things are kind of stable, and that's like your foundation, the better adaptable you will be at the dealing with stress, adapting to stress. So the health, health and stress adaptation are intimately connected. So the more stressed you are, if you start going towards alcohol, and processed food, and staying up too late and watching too much news, it's going to get that fear cycle going, you're not going to have enough rest to recharge your parasympathetic nervous system, you'll be too much sympathetic dominant, you'll be leaning on your adrenals leaning more on cortisol leaning more on adrenaline, and it's going to be harder for you to digest. You'll be just kind of on the edge every time with your emotions, the smallest thing will set you off, and you won't have a good solid foundation.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I I think people should really just get rid of the social media apps on their phone. I mean, that was something that I did. I just noticed that if I have the social media apps off my phone, and I have to go to a web browser to check them. It's much much more inconvenient to do it. So I must I'm much less likely to do it. And also, for me, you have the option of being up speaking to that you hear his little notification sound. Oh, social media-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: – has turned it off right now. Airplane mode, maybe.
Evan Brand: It'll, it will, it's it's it, you know, there's been like trials done on how long it takes you to get focused again. And so what I've tried to do is to limit my distractions, I think the world now has become a world full of distractions, mainly because people are trying to solve all the world's problems on their own meaning, you know, I care about the trees getting cut down in the Amazon. So I'm going to go read about this, and then I care about this, I'm going to go read about that. And then you're so scatterbrained that you kind of lost your own productivity. So I'm not saying that you need to just, you know, put your head in a hole and turn the world's problems off in your head like they don't exist. No, I think it's just a fine line. And I think most people have lost the line of productivity, because they're so focused on the issues. And a lot of the day to day decisions you make aren't going to change the world that much like there's nothing I could do necessarily right this very second, besides maybe donating some money to some organization to stop cutting trees in the Amazon like it sucks. I don't like to see, you know, you got all this illegal deforestation going on. But there's only so much you can do. So you got to find a way to to find a healthy way to absorb the media. And most media is negative. So social media, media news. And a lot of it's not serving you. That's the only point I have to make.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I do think number one, social media is a big one, you kind of have to like, use it, don't let it use you. Right. So turn off the notifications. Don't let it kind of be there something that you always go to write, I think deleting it from your phone, or at least maybe on the weekends or periodically, deleting it can be helpful because you're not going to access it as much on the web browser. I think also people forget that most people use social media as their highlight reel. So they only post great things about their life. People feel bad about it. So I'm very aware about that. And I don't overly post the highlight reel of my life on there because those things are between me and my family and I don't need to share it with the whole world every now and then. I'll get people A glimpse, but it doesn't need to be there all the time. A lot of people overdo that. And people forget that they're seeing someone else's highlight reel and they make it makes their life feel a little bit less than or more inferior. And you got to remember that right? You can't forget it. That gives you kind of a good perspective and a grounding and and it really just comes back to appreciation. Right, the more you're grounded in appreciation for what you have that that really shifts that that stress and that sympathetic kind of response of just inadequacy and, and, and, and feeling like your life's not enough.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And there's people with it, we know that are incredibly successful in business and wealth and all of that. And these people will go publicly bring up their anxiety and depression. So when you look at someone's life, and you see all they have it so good, I'm so jealous of this or that car, this house or whatever, a lot of people listening may just shut it down immediately. And they say, Oh, no, I don't care. I'm not comparing myself. But it's kind of a subconscious thing. You're not even really aware that it's happening. Just look up type in, like Instagram depression, there's some studies done that it was the most depressing social media. So I don't want to make it the whole anti social media podcast, but you, you hit on gratitude. And I think that's really the key. So what I tried to do was like a walking gratitude. It's very, very helpful. So I'll just, I'll take the kids outside, and they'll just walk, whether it's in the backyard, whether it's down the driveway, whether it's in the you know, by the garage, I'll just find a place to just walk, walk, walk. And I'm just focusing on the motions of the body just shaking up and down, dude. And I'm just thinking, Man, I'm grateful. I'm so grateful. Look at this beautiful day, look at the sun, look at the blue clouds, or the white clouds with the blue sky. Look at the the contrast, look at the green on the trees. Oh, we've got a little bit of yellow coming in on these maples over here. This is gorgeous, Oh, look at that red tree over there. And it'll really take you out of the fear, it'll take you out of the worry those repetitive, repetitive thoughts, you know, there's, and this is not talking to one or two people here on my intake form, which thousands of people have submitted, you and I use a couple different form creation tools. I've looked at how many submissions we have. And it's literally like 95% of people out of these thousands have reported? Yes, they beat themselves up with negative self talk. That's a question on the intake form. Do you beat yourself up with negative self talk? 95%? Say yes. Now is that because you and I have a population who has symptoms and they want to get better? Or is that indicative of the general population to I would say the general population would be the same?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I always kind of I heard someone say this a couple of years ago, they said, Imagine, you know all the inner thoughts about yourself, kind of write that down. Okay. And imagine if someone else said those things to you? Would you be friends with that person? Probably not. Right? So it's, it's amazing how hard people are regarding the inner dialogue. And I always just kind of inner dialogue comes through your brain, ask yourself, would you be friends with that person? If someone else said that to you? Probably not. So I always just try to say to people, you know, make sure you would be friends with the person that would be saying, the inner thoughts that you're actually thinking.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that's a good call, that's a really good call, well, you can be your best friend or you can be your worst enemy. And I think it's easy to become your worst enemy. Because I don't know you, you're the one who has to look in the mirror. Right? So you're always going to be the one to blame yourself. But.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. And if that happens, what do you do? Right? I mean, I think if you have that inner dialogue that kind of shifts overtly negative to yourself, what do you do in NLP world, you go and you visualize the stop sign, right? You don't beat yourself up over it, you visualize the stop sign, and then you then you shift into appreciation. Or some folks will have the elastic band on the wrist and they'll pull it tight, right to create that negative neuro Association, whether it's a physical, elastic snap, or whether it's a stop sign coming in, that's that's visually cueing you to stop, however you want to do it, and then just kind of refocus your energy in a non shameful way to, to the things that you have that are great, right? Because that stuff needs to be you need to it's like weeds grow automatically negative thoughts grow automatically. It takes no effort to be a cynic. In today's world takes no effort. It really takes a lot of effort to be an appreciator and to focus on the things that you have. So just kind of use some of those cues to stop the negative thought and then shift over into the positive thought. Now I always find too, if you're some people, it just kind of feels good to be negative a little bit where you're kind of venting over something. And if you feel that way, just do it while tapping on some meridian points, some of the EFT meridian points because I find at least if you're going to be negative, this at least decreases that sympathetic tone. And then what happens is as that that nervous system kind of calms down a little bit, it's easier to shift back into that positive perspective. So you can do some of the EFT points chin under the nose. under the eye doubletap, I find it's more efficient for me.
Evan Brand: And as you're doing this, and as you're doing this, you're you're kind of talking about the negative thoughts, it could be, oh, I just thought about irritable, yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just just talk about whatever it is, I always like to go into it, assigning it a number. So out of 10, 10 being the worst intensity, where, yeah, you had a five or six or seven. And I try to go into it, taking whatever that number is, I want to cut it in half. So if I'm at a seven, I'm going to cut it down to three, or four, if I'm at a six, I want to cut it down to a three, if I'm at a 10 and want to cut it down below five, I just try to go into it, and have that conversation with myself about whatever that thing is that pissed me off, whatever it is that hey, that difficult patient that that really stressful bill, whatever it is, right. And I just kind of go into it, kind of do a little audit of where you're at, and then try to get that down until it's at least half below where it's at, that kind of puts you back in the driver's seat. And then it gives you the ability to shift to being positive, because you can't be positive, it's harder to be positive when you have that emotional staying at a higher level on that on that object subjective scale I gave you. So if you can cut it in half, that gives you the ability now to downshift from negative into positive to enable just want to make that shift. while they're at a high level of negative it's too difficult. That's Oh, man, doing the EFT can be helpful because one, it gives you permission to be negative, but two, you're giving your your nervous system, a little bit of a bump to be able to neutralize it.
Evan Brand: That is the the best point you've made about the emotional stress piece because this is like taking somebody who's in the middle of a full blown panic attack and saying, Just chill out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just chill out, like just relax, like, be be positive, no, can't do that. Can't do that. So this is where like the EMDR. And then you can kind of scatter your eyes around while you do it too. Right. So you can go look at like a clock face and go to 1936. Or you can tap while you're pretending like you're looking at different clock numbers with your eyes. And because when you move your eyes that uses different cranial nerves, which uses different parts of the brain, and that kind of the whole goal is you're kind of scattering that signal. Number one, you're interrupting the pattern. Number two, it's kind of like if you're talking about something you ever had it where someone interrupted you and you're like, What the hell are they talking about? Right? ever have that? That's kind of what you're doing a little bit to your brain and in some of the negative thinking you're trying to scatter that pattern and make it a little bit harder for your brain to go back to and then you're like, what, what was I mad about? Oh, yeah, that. And then it makes it easier than shift into positive.
Evan Brand: I just tried to go outside to like, for some reason. Well, duh, I mean, humans were meant to be outside. We're not meant to be in boxes all day. But you know, if you have a thought that is intrusive, you can just go out, and I'll take a pair of binoculars, and I'll just go outside and I'll just watch the birds. Or I'll go fill up the bird feeder, put it like a sewage feeder. So it's like a big chunky like fatty CD type feed. I like to go put that out, watch the woodpeckers come in. And if I'm looking at them, and I'm not thinking about anything, yeah, that's a that's a great point. So let's tie the functional medicine piece into what you said because I think what you said is a really good place to pivot which is you can't take someone because someone listening who's just so stressed out right now they're going to they're going to listen to you talk about tapping or if they're watching the video on YouTube. So you tap into right What is this guy doing? He's friggin tapping his forehead. I'm so pissed. I don't care what what is this gonna do? That person's a 10. He can't he can't even comprehend getting down to a five right now. So So on the maybe you would call it the herbalist functional medicine side, maybe we come in and give that guy or gal a shot of passionflower. Or maybe we give them a couple hundred milligrams of some pharma gabbeh or maybe a little bit of mother wort or maybe some ashwagandha maybe some Holy basil. Maybe we come in with some B vitamins because you and I know based on looking at thousands and thousands of people on organic acids testing that if you're really really stressed, you're going to burn out your bees as in Bravo, your B vitamins are going to be toast we know that. Based on looking at these labs, your neurotransmitters are going to be affected. So you may have low dopamine, you may have low serotonin, which is causing more anxiety, but then the low dopamine is causing a lack of energy and lack of drive. So let's dive into some of these more functional pieces now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so we talked about the mindset stuff. We talked about tools to kind of decrease that sympathetic output and it's just tapping on meridian points, right acupressure acupuncture points, kind of how energy and nervous energy Nervous System energy flows to the body. It's just helping that energy flow better whether you call it ci or whether you call it action potential or, or nervous system, nerve flow, whatever you want to say, right? blood flow. It's all connected, right? It's all connected, right? So off the bat, we were talking about functional stuff. So when you're stressed What are important things? Well, blood sugar stability is really important because most people get on a rollercoaster of blood sugar. When they get stressed meaning they're going they're overly gravitating towards alcohol, or overly gravitating towards refined sugar, their blood sugar goes up and then crashes down. And then it creates more nervous system stimulation via adrenaline and epinephrine being stimulated. And cortisol being stimulated to bring your blood sugar back up. So I find just keep it really simple, really easy with your meals, you may be more nauseous when you're overly stressed because stress hormone does cause you to feel nauseous. So this is where you may want to do a soup or a simple smoothie, something really easy where there's not a lot of digestion, but you're still getting some proteins and fat in there. Whether it's some collagen and some coconut milk or just sipping on some bone broth, right, something like that is going to have some good fat protein and it won't be hard to digest. So if you feel nauseous just still no you should probably be eating but just try to make it something very easy on your tummy. And then think what are some of the nutrients your nervous systems in need when you're more stressed, so low hanging fruit, B vitamins B complex is going to be very essential. Magnesium is going to be excellent gabbeh l-theanine these are good things that are going to help you relax and wind down having kind of mentioned valerian root or passionflower which are all connected to gabbeh and that kind of inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps you just relax a little bit kind of kind of puts the clutch in gear disengages the the gearbox so you can kind of downshift so to speak.
Evan Brand: Did you ever do Kava when you were down in Austin?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I mean, I've done I've done Kava still.
Evan Brand: Did you go to the bars though? There's like a cot. There's like a cup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, no, I've never I've never done it at a bar, but I've done it. Um, someone brought it over my house. They got it from Fiji. Before I did, it was relaxing. I like Kava that does a lot of gabbeh too, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah, does I felt weird my throat. I felt like well, am I having a reaction to this? Like it numbs your throat so much. It was a bizarre feeling. Yeah, I'm not recommending it. I'm not recommending it as a as a tool. But it could be it could be a good tool. I just thought I'd bring it up. Because when you mentioned like, Valerian I thought, Man, I remember that one time I drink Kava. I was. It was a weird, almost like an out of body relaxation. And I didn't feel very grounded. It was kind of like whoa, I'm floating in the room. Kind of kind of interesting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, like I always go to nutrients first. And then I go to my favorite adaptogenic herbs second, so ashwagandha is one of my favorites. Right? ashwagandha rhodiola. Excellent. Excellent x, Holy basil those are kind of like my favorite kind of very relaxed, defying, relaxing tonifying kind of herbs, if you will.
Evan Brand: I like it too relaxefying, Do you get any sort of change in your outlook with holy basil? Because for me, that's the one that's most significant. Like I feel like I could take on the world when I get like a, I don't know five 600 milligram a holy basil. It's kind of like I am ready for the challenge. It's a weird because it's I'm calm. But I'm also energized at the same time. Do you get anything like that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It hasn't been on my stack for a while. So right now my big stacks on my desk is going to be ashwagandha I do have some some gabbeh chewables and gabbeh sublingual. I mean, I think if you just took people's works and took, you know, in their, in their place of work, whatever. And you took away all the candy and you just put like magnesium, and you put gabbeh like Lawson jers. Right. Think about how much of a stress reduction had been people's works. Right. So much better. Maybe some B vitamins.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, if you and I had brick and mortar places what I would do instead of a little you know how old school like front desk, you've got a little glass of like lifesavers and peppermints. And a bunch of garbage. I'd have like pre packaged chewable pharma gabbeh sitting there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. chewable pharma gabbeh, sublingual magnesium, maybe some l-theanine shots, right? keep it really simple. I remember in doctor at school before. For finals, we would like make drinks of like ginseng and holy basil. And we like create these like shot glasses all lined up with herbs where we take it. It was fine. I mean, those are some fun times. But um, yeah, so we just got to think a little bit differently and how you deal with stress, just a different mindset change.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I want to go back to what you said how people get into the alcohol and to the sugar and all of that and the carbohydrates and the blood sugar rollercoaster. I think people don't understand why that happens. So I just want to give people a brief education of why that's happening from a, you know, neurotransmitter perspective, that way you feel a little more confident that you can change this and you're not just a victim to the food. So when we look at urine and you measure these neurotransmitter metabolites, we can see that after a period of stress, especially if somebody has been working with us for several years, we can see that Oh, they went through a divorce. Look what happened to their endorphins, for example, the endorphins got burned out. And with the help of Julia Ross, she has an amazing amino acid therapy chart in her books. You can see that the symptoms of low endorphins start to pop up. So these are the people that cry at the drop of the hat. These are the people that hard on the sleeve real emotionally sensitive. If they crave dark chocolate, they're going for food to comfort themselves or reward themselves. Those are low endorphin signs, we'll match up those symptoms to the neurotransmitter report on the oat. And then we'll come in with a therapeutic nutrient like dl phenylalanine, to rebuild the endorphins. And then within four to six weeks, you can have it the 60% difference in symptoms were these people that were running to the cookie because they were stressed or running to the alcohol at night to relax, they no longer need that now, they may still do it. But they literally don't have the physiological need to do that. Some people say, I just can't relax until I have that glass of wine. Once you rebuild the brain chemistry, they literally don't need it anymore.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, if you're having a stressful day, I mean alcohol Don't get me wrong is that is a wonderful downer. I mean, it really does help relax people. Now obviously, if you're going to engage in alcohol, keep it to like a drier champagne, a drier white wine, keep it to a clean alcohol and try to do it after you've eaten. So you're not creating a blood sugar swing, because alcohol can actually lower your blood sugar. And then that creates more cravings and more cravings for junky food, right? So if you're going to have a glass of alcohol, right, don't want don't get drunk. But if you're going to have a glass, make sure it's a healthy version, then just try to have some good protein before you have it like so if you go out, for instance, have some oysters, maybe a little bit of seafood, maybe a shrimp cocktail and have a glass of champagne or two or a cabo or Prosecco or something clean, clean, clean alcohol. There's nothing wrong with that, you know, especially if it's only if it's not an everyday kind of thing. I think it's totally fine. And you know, make sure you're utilizing some of the nutrients we talked about. So you're supporting the neurotransmitters as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah, check out our podcast, we did a whole one on the whole biohacking alcohol thing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that's how-
Evan Brand: So, Sunshine, sunshine is huge. I mean, granted, when you're in certain parts of the country, you really lose the sun, you really lose it because you get clouds. And, you know, if you're really high northern latitude, it's really tough to get sun, I've got a lot of clients in Canada, and they just get major, major seasonal depression. And so for those people, like a light therapy box can be helpful. I already know for me personally, it's affected me like when it gets dark at five 6pm. I mean, I just mentally, I just don't like it. And so the light therapy box can be very good. A lot of times, you're going to see those at around 10,000. Lux, that's a pretty bright, pretty bright light. Of course, nothing is going to beat the sunshine. But if it's like you're in Alaska, you literally or, you know, hours of sun per day, whereas before it was 12 hours, and now you're three hours of sunlight. That's really tough mentally, so sun can be helpful. I wish tanning beds weren't so controversial. because years ago, I had a friend who worked at a gym who had a level, I think they called it a level three or level four tanning bed, which was not something that closed on you. It wasn't like magnetic field balanced. Like I measured it, there was no EMF coming from it. But it was almost like the stage lights, almost like a like a theatrical performance, like a red light up at the top. And you could get a tan, I mean, literally in a couple of sessions. But I did it for mental health. And we know that sunlight in general can really help act as almost like morphine, it can really help modulate these opiate receptors in the brain. I remember coming out of a six or seven minute session, and I was just high on life. I felt so good after that. And I thought, wow, I wish this didn't have to be so controversial. Because if someone could get access to something like this, if we knew that it wasn't going to increase risk of skin cancers and such, man, what could it do for all the depressed people out there that have Seasonal Affective issues in the winter?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think it just comes down to when you're dealing with sun, it's just don't burn, you know, just just don't get a burn and you'll be fine. And that's different for every single person. And so of course, you know, natural sunlight is going to be ideal. I think it's gonna be excellent. So that's a good first step for sure. We talked about some of the B vitamins and things and it gets really essential. I think also, you know, just from a financial standpoint, I think it's really, really good. People talk about it, just having that six month emergency fund, right, try to have, you know, six months of being able to take care of your family, whether it's food, living mortgage, just try to really make sure at least three to six months if people had that during COVID. I think there'd be way way, way less financial stress for people. I know, it's a tough thing to do. But I think it's something to strive for in regards to financial health is just really look for that six months, three to six month emergency fund. I think you're smart.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And try to get rid of things that you don't truly need. I mean, I had several people who say oh, you know this or that about budget, but they've got the hundred and $40 a month cable bill and they've got the the you know, the subscription to this or that that adds up to hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month. So I think with the reducing subscriptions where you can the emergency fund is smarter than from the food security perspective. Two, I remember months ago, you and I were talking about this it was there was talk about some of these meat processing plants and stuff shutting down and I had literally some of my clients freaking out thinking that they were going to run out of meat and not be able to feed their family. I mean, they were probably just watching too much news about the subject. But that's why I always recommend everyone have a good chest freezer, you can get him for $100 and go on local harvest or eat wild, or just Google local farms around you, we have a farm that I pay him a little bit extra, but they'll deliver to the house. And we'll have literally an entire chest freezer full of amazing grass fed meat at anywhere from six to $10 a pound depending on the cut. And we don't have to worry about going to Whole Foods where we're going to get shamed if we don't want to wear a mask, and then we're buying their overpriced stuff sitting in the fridge. I've got my local farm, you know, bringing pastured meats at a fraction of the cost to my door, throw in the chest freezer, I sleep great at night knowing that if something were to happen to the food supply, my children and my wife and I will be well fed. And then of course well what if the electrical grid? Well, I don't know. That's that's, that's pretty slim chance. I know, people in California worried about that earlier this year, because of the fires, people were thinking, well, what if I have the chest freezer full of meat? And then the electrical grid goes off? Because California turns off my power generator? You know, hopefully, it's not a long term thing. But you just got a problem solution problem solution, you can't just get paralyzed by the problems.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I always talk about it, you got to close the loop, right? You know, you have a problem. When you don't close the loop. And you think about the solution, and you keep these loops, I call them keeping these loops open. That's where stress happens when you close the loop. That's where you feel a lot better, because it's our problem solution. Problem solution, you're constantly opening and closing loops all day long. That's kind of how you want to think about it. So you have maximal you know, stress reduction. So we talked about physiology, right? That's the foundation because remember, that's like the this is the vehicle This is a suit, the biochemical suit we have to walk through every day and not everyone's suit is the same and how we can deal with stress. So if you're looking coming into this, you know, 20 minutes late, you're like, Well, what do I focus on, focus on the physiological biochemical suit, because that gives you the ability to adapt. And then from there, you can try to grab one or two things that work best for you. mindsets, really important, dealing with some of these stress can be helpful. Talking about some of the supplements can be helpful. Making sure you're in a good kind of financial situation can be helpful as well. You know, those are all good kind of strategies out of the gates. Anything else you want to talk about functional medicine wise. So we talked about some of the organic acid testing and looking at neurotransmitters that can be helpful, because I find people that are, you know, let's say long term stressed out people, we're going to see a lot of neurotransmitter patterns that are pretty depleted regarding amino acids and dopamine and adrenaline and serotonin. And that may be a longer thing you have to work on replacing with amino acids. So that may not be just a supplement you want to dunk on, they may take a while to work on depleting that, especially, you know, the faster it happens when you work on all the sleep stuff and the diet stuff that gets better, but that the bucket that may need some effort to work on depleting.
Evan Brand: Yeah, the only other functional medicine piece we're going to be looking into for these like super stress, people's looking into the gut, we're going to be looking at gut inflammation. We're going to be looking at parasites, bacterial overgrowth, all the stuff we normally talk about Candida, because there could be some more functional reasons why someone is going into the cookies, for example, or the alcohol, maybe on a neurotransmitter test, they look okay, but in regards to their gut, maybe they have all these bacterial pathogens are parasitic pathogens that are kind of like begging for some sort of quick burning glucose, right? So we may come in. And I noticed personally just using some Mimosa, I was doing some experiments with not not the orange juice cocktail thing, but actual most of the seed most a tree seed in capsule form. That's very beneficial for calming down my gut. And I noticed mentally I was calm, just by calming down my gut. So don't forget about the gut brain access, there is a connection there. And so if you're having digestive problems now, whether that's due to stress, or whether it's due to infections, if you're having diarrhea or constipation, or stomach cramping or food intolerances, you got to try to address those because it does signal and alert Danger, danger to the brain, meaning if you're going and eating this allergenic food, irritating the gut that can then irritate your brain and cause issues. So I've had some people that have gotten anxious after certain foods, and we know that histamine is a neurotransmitter as well. So if you're having histamine reactions, even just something like a low histamine diet may be useful to help calm the brain down because of some of the reactions there with histamine. So people think it's just histamine allergies. No, but it can also affect your brain chemistry. And so you got to focus on that maybe herbal anti histamines or something we would use or some enzymes to help to reduce some of the effectiveness of the histamine on the brain. So I think that's probably my last piece.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and those are all valid points. For sure. You know, you talked about histamine, you talked about inflammation, and inflamed brains not going to focus and not going to do as well. So again, inflammation, whether it's food allergens or deeper gut issues is a big one. Also medical palsy women, you know, lower hormone issues can affect the brain. So try to make sure your hormones are at least at a good stable place because that's going to help with brain inflammation that's gonna help with cognitive stuff as well. So everyone's coming at this from a different place from from a different foundational weakness. So just try to figure out where you're at and take at least one or two steps, you know, Ford on that. Also exercise can be helpful. So just try to find a couple of movements, simple movements that you can do 510 minutes, that's going to help really decrease a bunch of stress. So whether it's a push movement, a pull movement, a set or squat, a bender, a pole, whatever that movement pattern is just try to engage in some of these simple movements, it's going to really help your mood, it's going to take a lot of that mental energy and allow you to kind of put it out into that physical movement pattern.
Evan Brand: Oh, 100% Yeah, exercise is key. I should have mentioned it earlier. I mean, I feel amazing after I just do some dumbbells or roll machine or hike in the woods, hike in the field, you know, whatever I could do to move. I mean, that's in its free, right, it's free, so and you don't need any permission to do that. So obviously, if you're going into a gym and you're doing the whole mass thing in a gym, maybe that's not as fun so get outside go somewhere where you know, you have your own space and you don't have people you know, breathing down your neck, so to speak. But I think with the gut piece, the neurotransmitter piece, the aminos here's kind of the the summary of today and what's been going on in the world. A lot of people are just like, hey, things are crazy, I give up. But this is actually the time where you really want to dial things in even more. This is a time where you want to focus even more to keep your body keep your mind keep your your sleep patterns healthy. This is not a time where screw it I'm going to go off the rails and just drink a case of beer. It This isn't the time to do that a lot of people they're so stressed they have no other coping mechanism. But I would argue everything you and I've been talking and doing and preaching and clinically doing for people. This is kind of like the showdown This is like okay, what did all that work we put in actually do did we were we the last man standing, meaning everyone else got burned out and ended up on you know, anti anxiety medication. And we stayed calm and cool through the whole thing. I think this is the time where you can see all the hard work paying off.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% I think you're totally kind of dialed in. Also, one thing I've been doing a little bit is a little more meditation and just keep it really simple with breathing. Just focus on breath, you can do kind of a biofeedback device like the Muse that I've talked about, we'll put a link down below for that. That's one thing I'm experimenting more with. It just kind of gives you that little bit of a thumbs up from a biofeedback standpoint that you're you're you're putting your brain in a pretty good place when you're meditating. I think it gives people confidence. They're doing it right. The problem I find with meditation, people are like, Am I doing this right? And there's just insecurity and what the heck they're doing. And then that prevents them from being compliant with it. So I think having a extra kind of pat on the back yet you're doing the right You're doing good with a some kind of a device that helps whether it's whether it's HRV, or the Muse or M wave type of technology, these kind of things I think are helpful to give you the confidence that you're doing something right.
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, the floatation tank is awesome. So doing doing a float would be good. deep tissue massage would be great. calming essential oils would be great Epsom salt baths would be great is anything you can do to downshift. We talked about the shifting phenomenon quite a bit, but-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There's a lot, there's a lot of options for sure.
Evan Brand: Okay, cool. Well, let's wrap this thing up. So if people need help, we're here for you. We always have been and we intend to be kind of on the front lines, helping people with all this stuff. So if you need to reach out to Dr. J. JustinHealth.com is the website. If you need to reach out to me, EvanBrand.com is the website and we're here for you. So don't give up. Don't give in. You got to keep pushing forward every day, you still got to put your pants on, you still got to do the thing, whether it's take care of your kids take care of your wife, your husband take care of career, you still got to move forward. So I know it's easy to get kind of stuck and like you mentioned I like the idea of the open loops closing the loops. I didn't get stuck in these open loops, but you got to close the doors. Try to simplify try to you know, minimize decision making focus on the big things and you're going to be just fine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it. Excellent and Well, great podcast today EvanBrand.com to reach out to Evan, JustinHealth.com to reach out to me we're available worldwide. If you want to dive in, look deeper at your physiology, biochemistry, neurotransmitters, gut whatever the root issue is. We're here to help you guys have a phenomenal day. Click down below for all the important links, guys. Take care. Bye.
Evan Brand: Take care now. Bye bye.
https://justinhealth.libsyn.com/role-of-functional-medicine-in-mental-health-podcast-326
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