Phoenix Helix: Autoimmune Resilience

Many traditions – both sacred and secular – center around food. In addition, religions sometimes have specific rules concerning diet. When you’re diagnosed with autoimmune disease and change your diet to support your health, how do you maintain your connection to your religion, your culture, and your community? In this podcast, I interview 3 guests from 3 different faiths about how they mindfully balance their traditions with their diet and health needs

Sleep is essential to our bodies' ability to heal. In fact, many of us have experienced autoimmune flares caused by lack of sleep. At the same time, autoimmune symptoms can make sleep difficult, creating a vicious cycle. So, what do we do? In this podcast, sleep expert Dan Pardi talks about the science of sleep: what happens when we're sleeping and how much we need at different stages in our lives. We also talk about foundational habits for a good night's sleep, and how to troubleshoot advanced sleep challenges.

A big part of a healing diet is learning about personal food intolerances and how they can drive autoimmune symptoms. It's empowering knowledge to have. However, sometimes the list of foods we remove grows and grows, and we make the mistake of thinking that food is the only trigger for autoimmune flares. It’s also common to not replace those calories with enough healthy foods that we can eat. This means we end up in a nutrition deficit. In this podcast, registered dietitian Laura Schoenfeld teaches us how to avoid this trap, how to troubleshoot ongoing symptoms, and how to leave food fear behind.

Dr. Mark Hyman is one of the most well-known names in the functional medicine movement. He is a practicing family physician, a 10-time New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate. He has coined the term "peganism" and in this podcast, we talk about what that means, alongside other tips for autoimmune health.

If you think you can't meditate, this podcast is for you! Do you picture meditators sitting quietly and peacefully with completely empty minds, people genetically wired totally differently from you? Let me tell you a secret: those people don't exist. Even the Dalai Lama has thoughts while he meditates. The mind is designed to think just like the heart is designed to beat. Meditation isn't about stopping thoughts; it's learning how to notice and detach from them. There are also many different ways to meditate, including moving meditations, or cultivating mindful moments in daily life. My guest is Jeff Warren, a world-renowned meditation teacher who is an expert at helping people overcome their personal meditation obstacles

When you have autoimmune disease, how do you continue to take care of yourself when you are also taking care of a new baby? What are the special health needs of both you and your baby during this time? In this podcast, 3 mothers share their experiences.

Living with chronic illness is hard. Even when we are empowered to reclaim our health and live a vital and beautiful life, that’s not the same as a cure. It’s natural to grieve the life we had before, when life seemed easier, and our bodies were more predictable. What feelings are normal to experience? What do we do if we feel stuck or overwhelmed? In today's podcast, we provide a roadmap for moving through anxiety, shock, fear, denial, anger, guilt, grief and shame. We also talk about what acceptance really means, and how to cultivate the strength of resilience.

One of my goals with my blog and podcast is to make the AIP as simple to follow as possible. That's why I wrote my book! Today, I'm dedicating an entire podcast to the most frequently asked questions I've received over the past 5 years: Will the AIP work for my diagnosis? Is it helpful if you don't have autoimmune disease? Does it replace medication? How does it differ from the Wahls Protocol? Why can't I just do an allergy test? Can you do the AIP as a vegetarian? Why isn't coffee allowed? Can you have sugar on the AIP? I'm constantly hungry - what do I do? Meagen Ashley from the blog, It's All About AIP, joins me as co-host. Tune in to get answers to these questions, and many more.

If you’re a regular listener of my podcast, you know that I often start my shows with personal stories, where my guests share their health journeys from rock bottom to reclaiming a vital life. But at a least once a year, I dedicate an episode to back-to-back healing stories, and I make an effort to speak to people with different autoimmune diagnoses each time. Today, we'll be talking about Ulcerative Colitis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lichen Sclerosis, and ALS. And If you want to hear the prior Healing Stories podcasts, check out episodes 1, 14, 30 and 61. Let’s inspire each other!

This is one of the most popular podcast episodes - for good reason! Dr. Kharrazian is one of the leading functional medicine practitioners in the field of autoimmune disease. In this information-packed episode, we cover a huge range of topics: (1) The 3 Stages of Autoimmunity, (2) The Role of Blood Sugar in Autoimmune Disease, (3) The Power of Stress and Our Emotional Demons, (4) How to Support our Regulatory Immune Cells and Suppress our Inflammatory Ones, (5) The Connection Between Leaky Gut and a Leaky Blood-Brain Barrier, (6) Harnessing the Power of the Vagus Nerve, (7) Chemical Intolerance and the Dangers of Chelation,  (8) How to Heal Food Sensitivities, and (9) His Top Recommended Tests and Supplements.