The Good Mood Podcast

I talk to Melissa Ieraci, a fellow Bloor West Wellness practitioner, Holistic Nutritionist and Homeopath. If you are a patient at Bloor West Wellness you may have met Melissa, who womans our front desk and keeps the show going as well as treats her own patients, focusing on making sure families nourish themselves through diet, herbal medicine and lifestyle. 

Melissa and I recorded this conversation at the midst of the physical distancing measures put in place in our province, Ontario in early April. 

We talk about her Instagram Live channel, Mondays with Mel in which she shares amazing recipe ideas and food inspiration, like dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free ice cream sandwiches. Yes, you heard that right. And they sound delicious. 

Eating well can sometimes be an overwhelming task. Not all of us want to think about food all the time, and so Mel has you covered. She is a baking wizard, and food creationist, coming up with simple, delicious recipes that are packed full of nutrition (and child-tested). 

Listen to this episode if you're looking for some nutritional inspiration, recipe ideas, tips on grocery shopping and meal prep, and want to hear a lame joke about frozen bananas (that one was me, sadly). We also talk Springtime health needs, the lymphatic system and self-care in the age of Covid. 

Enjoy! 

Melissa's website: https://www.melissaieraci.com/

Her Instagram (where you can catch Mondays with Mel live): https://www.instagram.com/melsholistichealth/

My 5-Day Meditation Challenge: http://www.taliand.com/meditation-challenge

My friend Joseph Simone is a teacher by trade and musician. He's also fascinated by the human mind: how do our individual brains work? Are we all born with unique personality traits that, if understood, can help us relate more optimally to ourselves, our dreams and our goals, while having more compassion for others? 

Joseph and I talk about the Enneagram of Personality, an ancient personality system that is composed of 9 main core types, subtypes and 3 main instincts. 

This topic is complex and this interview only barely scratches the surface. 

Joseph is a hilarious individual (Enneagram Type 4), and a wealth of information. His website https://www.enneagrammer.com/ contains information that well exceeds the bounds of our 40-minute interview. 

On his site you can take a test to hone in on your core type, instincts and tritype as well as peruse tons of information about the Enneagram as a personality system. 

Joseph also has an amazingly engaging Facebook group where participants can submit collages for typing. https://www.facebook.com/groups/enneagrammeruniverse

I talk to my friend and colleague, Dr. Katie Thomson Aitken, a naturopathic doctor practicing in Guelph, Ontario with a special focus in anxiety and men's mental health. 

Dr. Katie and I talk about the unique issues men experience with their mental health, including some hormonal underpinnings that drive mental health issues in this population.  

We also talk about how to manage anxiety and stress: when is it appropriate to stay with emotions vs. spring into action to manage strong emotions like anxiety and panic? 

Dr.  Katie is working on a book and offers a program to help manage anxiety and stress called the Tranquil Minds program. 

Read her book "Create Calm". 

Visit her site here https://www.tranquilmindnaturopath.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tranquilmindnaturopath/

Her Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tranquilmindsupport

In this solo episode I geek out on my top 5 supplements for mental health conditions. While every patient is different, these 5 nutrients play a major role in our mental health and mood. Most have been shown to decrease symptoms of depression. 

I introduce you to these 5 nutrients, talk about issues around testing and supplementation and describe how they fare in the latest research. 

Studies and sources in order of mention: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26357876

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4915253/

https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(14)00047-X/fulltext

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21939614

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19499625

https://sciencing.com/role-algae-agriculture-8617202.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15671130

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026988110401800415

http://www.taliand.com/2017/11/03/is-your-multivitamin-making-you-sick/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0180067

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26071405

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23377209

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22790678

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26890771

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014976341300078X?via%3Dihub

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24621065

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

In this episode, Dr. Anne Hussain, naturopathic doctor, menstruation guru, PCOS-solver, and period literacy advocate, and I go back-to-back with two interviews. First I talk to Dr. Anne about how hormones affect our mood, then she interviews me. 

As you know I'm super interested in the intersection between our mental health and hormones. Hormones are really cool (as we discuss in these two interviews): they orchestrate how we feel physically and mentally. Our moods are subservient to our hormonal states and learning how to honour these hormones is so important for living in accordance with nature and our body's rhythms. 

We talk about all kinds of juicy topics: self-care (including Anne's awesome Self-Care Grid), the relationship between hormones and mood, what a typical cycle looks like hormonally and how that can influence your mental health, and the affect of the Birth Control Pill on our hormones, moods and mental health (and why it's important to make informed choices when it comes to your body, your brain and your hormones). 

Find Dr. Anne's community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gowiththeflowcommunity

Her Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/dr.annehussain/

And check out her website here: https://www.annehussain.com/

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

I'm so excited for this interview I had with my friend and colleague Ayan Mukherjee, Registered Psychotherapist and Certified EMDR Therapist. 

In this episode, we talk trauma (both with a capital T and lower case t). We talk about how trauma forms in the brain and how that can affect our mental and emotional states, how EMDR works as an evidence-based form or rewiring the traumatized brain, and how healing from trauma may first mean addressing dissociation and internalized parts.  

This is such an informative conversation.  

A WORD OF WARNING, however: we do get into discussing trauma and various forms of physical abuse. So, if you want to avoid these topics, it's best to stay clear of this conversation, or listen to this episode in a calm and neutral place.

You can find Ayan at his website: https://www.ayanrp.com/ 

His Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayan_mukherjee_/ 

And purchase his art on his online Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/market/therapy_illustrated

Good Mood Foundations: a 6-week lifestyle program for mental health and emotional wellness: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

I talk to Victor Cirone, Certified Herbalist and scholar of Steiner, Jung, Freud, Hillman and other psychoanalytic characters. 

 We talk about society's search of "the perfect image" and how this leads to a breakdown in mental and physical health, and society. 

We talks herbs and dreaming, how Jung and Freud's theories of dreaming differ, and how to connect more deeply with the "fascinating and threatening other", to unify the Self.  

Visit Victor's site here: https://www.victorcironeherbalist.com/

I discuss why a label may be helpful in terms of accessing research, community and specialists with a specific focus, but isn't particularly helpful for accessing the root cause of our concerns.  

Unlike insulin for type I diabetes, mental health conditions aren't caused by one single factor that a proper diagnosis can help us uncover.  

Instead, they're complicated phenomena that are likely the results of various factors at play.  

My job as a naturopathic doctor is to figure out how these factors work together to help you develop a roadmap to reverse them.