The Good Mood Podcast

I am always scared to talk about environmental medicine. I know it's a big topic and that eliminating the chemicals from our lifestyle: our environment and our bodies is an important aspect of keeping us well.  

But the more I learn about environmental medicine the more I feel the doom and gloom of hopelessness--and the more overwhelmed I feel about what must be done.   

However, Marillea Yu, a naturopathic doctor, helps me see this topic through a more empowered lens.   

Marillea and I talk about why we should care about environmental medicine, how environmental toxins affect our health, and some of the small but important things we can do to help our bodies, minds and planet stay healthy.   

Dr. Marillea Yu is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor practicing in Ontario, Canada. She received her BSc in Biology at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island prior to becoming a graduate of The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.   

Her clinical interests centre on Environmental Medicine and the effects of everyday toxic exposures on health and wellness and its contribution to chronic and inflammatory disease and autoimmunity.   

This includes exploring the effects of industrialization on health outcomes, especially in communities and areas where resource extraction has occurred and the effects of industrialization are experienced first-hand.  

Find Marillea at: 

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

Website: https://drmarilleand.com/ 

Links we talk about: https://www.thinkdirtyapp.com/

Heal your mental health and hormones naturally through my membership program: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Resilience is the body and mind's ability to adapt to stress, challenge and change. Some of us would refer to it as "bouncing back" from hardship. But even better, if we are truly resilient when hardship hits, we're able to "bounce forward". Coming out of trauma or difficulty with more strength and grit than we had going into it. 

Dr. Tara Guzzo is a fellow naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist who works with busy women who are tired and unsatisfied with a life that is just “okay”.

She is the CEO and Clinical Director of InVersa Health, and has created the Resilience Reset Program designed to promote calm, confidence and all-day energy in the face of depleting daily life stress. 

Tara is also the host and creator of a television series on Shaw Spotlight called “Elevating Women’s Wellness” in which she interviews local female healthcare providers on relevant women’s health topics to elevate the wellness of listeners.

In this podcast we talk about Tara's experience that called on her resilience reserves--where her clinic burnt down at the beginning of this year. We talk about how she leveraged what she preaches to support herself through the trauma of the situation and bounce back with resilience. 

We talk about building resilience reserves through the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body, and emotional self-regulation, trauma support and more. 

Find Dr. Tara at: 

Her website: https://drtarand.ca/

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

Elevating Women's Wellness: https://drtarand.ca/elevating-womens-wellness/

Learn more about the Good Mood Membership Program taliand.com/good-mood-learn

We talk extensively as naturopathic doctors about the mind-body connection. Of course many of us have been told that our mental health or physical symptoms are "all in our head", and while this can seem dismissive and invalidating it's definitely true that our mindset plays a role in how we feel. 

Adele Tevlin walks us through the connection between our thoughts, our beliefs and our environment and how our mindset can influence our external circumstances. 

I believe this to be true: even if you're truly suffering it's how we frame this suffering that helps us summon the powers of our own resilience to seek the support we need to heal. 

Adele Tevlin is the CEO and Founder of C.E.O Blueprint, a Transformational Leadership Development Company for C-Suite Executives and business owners. Adele has worked with various clients and companies over 20 years helping them master their CEO mindset. 

She is a behavioural expert and pattern interrupter. 

Adele and I talk about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), neuroscience, and psychology for helping us see our own blindspots and transform the patterns in our thoughts, behaviours and emotions that might be holding us back from achieving our dreams. 

Adele is enrolled in the Harvard University in the Masters of Psychology program, has a BSc in Neuropsychology, a certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and a diploma in Applied Holistic Nutrition. 

I took Adele's CEO Blueprint course (which she will talk about at the end of this talk). I'm always inspired after hearing her speak--ready to journal my thoughts, emotions and limiting belief and take my life by the horns. 

If you want to learn how to charge forward in life and see what's on the other side of the "abyss", or what lies beyond what you fear, give this episode a listen! You won't regret it!

Find Adele at: 

Her website: https://adelewellness.com/

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

The CEO Blueprint: www.ceoblueprint.co/masterclass

Learn more about The Good Mood Membership Program: a foundational lifestyle program for mental health and hormones. taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Shinrin-Yoku, or Forest Bathing, as it is literally translated from the original Japanese, is one of my personal therapeutic lifelines. My mentor and colleague, Dr. Cyndi Gilbert, agrees. In fact, Cyndi wrote a book about it called Forest Bathing: Discovering health and happiness through the Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku.

Cyndi and I talk about how immersing oneself in nature in some capacity: whether it be looking at a poster of a nature scene on the ceiling of your dentists' chair, to having a room with a view when recovering from surgery to complete wilderness backcountry trekking, have numerous effects on the health of our bodies, minds and communities. 

However, we also acknowledge that nature is not always accessible. We discuss the privilege that certain health practices often require, and muse on how to make naturopathic medicine more accessible. 

Dr. Cyndi was a professor of mine at CCNM. She is also a supervisor at Queen West Community Health Centre in downtown Toronto. When I was a student, Dr. Cyndi held a group in her home clinic to help us through the trials and tribulations of our formation as clinicians. 

She is committed to a harm reduction and anti-oppression model of care that affirms her patients, and respects their first-hand knowledge of their own health. Her practice is inclusive of diverse peoples, bodies, genders, sexual orientations, families, and relationship constellations.  She is body-positive, sex-positive, sex work-positive, and BDSM/kink-informed.

She is also the author of The Essential Guide to Women's Herbal Medicine and is an activist in the realm of Healthy Equity. She offers continuing education courses aimed to teach current naturopathic doctors and students to create more inclusive practices. 

I'm excited to introduce you to Cyndi--she is so fun to talk to and we could have gone on and on. Forest bathing and community medicine are both passions of ours. 

You can find Cyndi at: 

Her website: https://cyndigilbert.ca/

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

Learn more about Good Mood Foundations: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Hello and welcome to the Good Mood Podcast! Today I have the pleasure of talking to my buddy from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine Dr. Yousuf Siddiqui, ND. Yousuf and I talk about sexual health and naturopathic medicine. 

How do we talk to patients about sexual health? Where do sexual health concerns like low libido come from? Yousuf discusses some of the ways he opens up the conversation about sexual health with patients and how our sexuality can be an entryway into whole-body healing.

In fact this part of interesting--we talk about how a naturopathic clinic focus, like sexual health and mood are often just roads to the same ends: whole mind-body-soul healing, if we want them to be. Whether one visits an ND because of a sore ankle, depression, or low libido we're always taking into account digestion, sleep, nutrition and all the other factors and systems that make up a human being in their environment and aiming to heal them. 

Actually, if you listen to the end, I am about to say something and then forget what it was---after recording I remembered. 

Many people ask me: what does an ND do? What's the difference between an ND and an MD? Sometimes I do a better job of answering that question than other times, however I usually fumble around with an explanation about our education, our philosophy, how we treat the root cause, our modalities: how we use nutrition, herbs, acupuncture and so on. And this rambling is often met with blank stares. 

But what I came to realize through this conversation with Yousuf is that the fundamental difference between naturopathic medicine and conventional medicine is our wholism. Conventional medicine is generally rooted in cause and effect: what is the thing that's missing or not working? What part is broken? And the treatments often involve going into remove or fix the broken part. 

Now, this can be wonderful. If I have a tumour, please remove it. If I tear a ligament, can you please fix it? If my levels of inflammation are endangering my life, bring them down. 

However this doesn't often work in the realm of chronic disease: slow complicated disease processes that are influenced by many many factors. You probably can't completely fix your depression with diet. However, nutrition is fundamental in ensuring your brain and body and mood operate optimally. There's no one root cause. Therefore there's no one solution. There's no magic bullet when it comes to the majority of diseases.

And naturopathic medicine, through its attempts to examine as many factors as possible, to understand the whole person, can aim to change as many contributing variables that leave us feeling unwell. Supplements, herbs, lifestyle, practices like meditation are all recommended with the understanding that we need to build in a healthy environment for the body to heal. 

In short, conventional systems are mostly linear. Naturopathic systems are complex, interwoven networks. 

Ok, so that's that. Yousuf and I talk a bunch of things and the fun thing about podcasting with a friend is not only the chance to catch up but this freedom to use conversation as a way to explore and learn new things and really have a deep discussion. I hope we achieved that today. 

Yousuf works in Ottawa at a compounding pharmacy called Nutrichem. He implements testing, individualized nutritional therapies and lots of counselling in his practice. 

Find Yousuf: 

At his website: https://dryousufnd.com/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.yousuf_nd/

Learn more about my foundational program for mental health and hormones: Good Mood Foundations at taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Is your B complex making you sick? It might be if it contains folic acid, the synthetic form of "folate", or vitamin B9 which is involved in mood, energy production, DNA repair and other tasks of "methylation". 

Ok, are you lost already? 

Methylation is a process in the body that does a bunch of things. Many of us have a genetic variation in an enzymes called MTHFR, yes, I know what it looks like, that help us make folate.  

Changes in our genome can affect this pathway and our health. Researchers have become particularly interested in the connection between MTHFR Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, or SNPs, and mental health. There is a link between these genetic variations and increased risk for depression, anxiety, autism and other mental health conditions. 

Dr. Christina Carew is a naturopathic doctor and she's going to explain this all to us today. Christina is the co-host of a made-for-NDs course called Methylation 101 and has some amazing analogies for making sense of these pretty complex, but important concepts. 

She is a graduate of the Canadian College of Naturopathic medicine and focuses on chronic disease management: lyme, autoimmune disease, and environmental medicine. Dr. Christina practices in Toronto and King City and is a wealth of information. 

I'm so excited for this episode: methylation is something I bore my patients with in my practice a LOT as I see the connection between their mood symptoms, brain fog, and digestive concerns. As Dr. Christina says, that mental spinning, rumination, obsession and addictions can all be symptoms of impaired folate metabolism and impaired methylation. 

This is such an exciting topic and I'm so happy to interview someone who can lay it all out for you. 

You can find Dr. Christina at: 

Her website: https://www.healingme.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingme.nd/

Learn more about Good Mood Foundations here: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

Eating disorders are a difficult thing to identify and treat, not to mention to live with. Unlike other mental health conditions they can be life-threatening, but we also need to eat everyday and therefore our interaction with the substance of choice is something we need to learn to negotiate and to work with as we heal. 

Dr. Alexandra Sisam is a fellow naturopathic doctor with a focus in eating disorders. We talk about how to identify disordered eating patterns, from anorexia and bulimia to binge eating and just a high-stress relationship around food. We talk about body image, diet culture and restriction, how a focus on food is a way to cope with intense pain and negative emotion, and often healing the eating disorder is just the beginning, and how to seek support. 

We talk re-feeding and how naturopathic medicine can offer the tools and resources to help patients who suffer from high-stress relationships with food and their bodies heal. 

We have both noticed an increase in emotional eating and binge eating in our patients as a result of the pandemic and social distancing measures and we discuss why this might be the case. We also talk about Alexandra's Five Pillars for treating eating disorders and supporting patients through healing their bodies and minds from disordered eating. 

Alexandra is a fellow Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine grad, like myself. She also has an undergraduate degree from my alma mater, Queen's University, which is pretty cool.

She works at the Orenda Clinic in Toronto and has a special interest in using the mind-body connection to support mental wellbeing and a low-stress connection with the way we nourish our bodies. 

Find Alexandra at: 

http://alexandrasisamnd.com/

https://www.theorendaclinic.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandrasisam.nd/

Good Mood Foundations: taliand.com/good-mood-learn 

For 7 to 9 hours every night we human beings spend our time unconscious. During this time we can't eat, procreate, or defend against predators. We're not building shelters. We're not innovating. We're completely vulnerable. And yet, our bodies and brains evolved to require this unconscious time in order to survive.

When we're deprived of sleep we die. And when we're subtly deprived of sleep, an hour here, an hour there, for nights and nights on end our mental and physical health suffer. 

Dr. Leigha Saunders is a fellow naturopathic doctor with a sleep focus. We talk about the architecture of a good nights' sleep, how sleep disturbances can manifest in someone's lifestyle and how this can affect mood and mental health. 

Dr. Leigha talks about how we can harness lifestyle to repair broken sleep and improve mood, hormones, energy and stave off disease. 

Dr. Leigha Saunders is a naturopathic doctor and the owner and founder of Uxbridge, Ontario’s premiere wellness clinic, True Roots Healthcare. 

She has a special interest in helping busy women gain energy, balance their mood, regulate hormones and sleep deep. 

Her ultimate mission is to women sleep deep at night to do what sets their soul on fire during the day! 

Sleep is so so so important for mental health and so I really wanted to pick Leigha's brain on how she works with sleep to improve the lives of the patients in her practice to provide you with some tips on prioritizing and optimizing sleep. 

You can find Leigha at: 

Her website: https://leighasaundersnd.com/

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

Good Mood Foundations: taliand.com/good-mood-learn

At the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine we have a teaching clinic, The Robert Schad Naturopathic Clinic where 4th year students spend their 12 months of internship treating patients in the clinic under the supervision of licensed NDs. 

As first through third year students we were encouraged to support our bodies and minds, as well as experience naturopathic medicine first-hand by seeing an intern. Dr. Dimpi Patel was my first intern when I was a first year student. 

Dimpi was one of the first doorways to my experience with naturopathic medicine. She helped me deal with the thyroid and adrenal dysfunction caused by an extremely intense program and taught me a lot about establishing a doctor patient relationship and the magic of what our medicine offers. 

Fast-forward about 10 years... whoa... and Dimpi is not focusing her practice in Michigan on Highly Sensitive People, helping them support their bodies through functional testing and neural rewiring. 

So before we dive into the interview, what's a Highly Sensitive Person? 

Well, here's a quiz from hsperson.com. 

Maybe keep track of how many times you say "Yes" to the following, and tally your results. 

• I am easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input.


• I seem to be aware of subtleties in my environment.


• Other people’s moods affect me.


• I tend to be very sensitive to pain.


• I find myself needing to withdraw during busy days,into bed or into a darkened room or any place where I can have some privacy and relief from stimulation.


• I am particularly sensitive to the effects of caffeine.


• I am easily overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells,coarse fabrics,or sirens close by.


• I have a rich,complex inner life.


• I am made uncomfortable by loud noises.


• I am deeply moved by the arts or music.


• My nervous system sometimes feels so frazzled that I just have to go off by myself.


• I am conscientious.


• I startle easily.


• I get rattled when I have a lot to do in a short amount of time.


• When people are uncomfortable in a physical environment I tend to know what needs to be done to make it more comfortable (like changing the lighting or the seating).


• I am annoyed when people try to get me to do too many things at once.


• I try hard to avoid making mistakes or forgetting things.


• I make a point to avoid violent movies and TV shows.


• I become unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around me.


• Being very hungry creates a strong reaction in me,disrupting my concentration or mood.


• Changes in my life shake me up.


• I notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art.


• I find it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once.


• I make it a high priority to arrange my life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations.


• I am bothered by intense stimuli, like loud noises or chaotic scenes.


• When I must compete or be observed while performing a task, I become so nervous or shaky that I do much worse than I would otherwise.


• When I was a child, my parents or teachers seemed to see me as sensitive or shy.

How many times did you say yes? According to the quiz, if you scored 14, you might be a highly sensitive person. 

I scored 10 on this test personally, but when I was a kid I might have answered yes to nearly everything. 

Dimpi and I talk about how being an HSP is a superpower and how to support your body and mind in a world that doesn't necessarily support the 30% of us who might identify with being highly sensitive. 

Follow Dr. Dimpi Patel at https://www.troynaturopathic.com/ Instagram: @doctordimpi

In March Taylor Morozova, a fellow Great Lakes Surfer (who has now moved on to ocean waves) and host of The Weird Waves Podcast and I sat down to talk pandemics, surfing and naturopathic medicine. 

This was at the beginning of the global pandemic, a time filled with certainty, misinformation and... for me, at least, some surfing. 

Taylor asked to interview me to talk about some hot topics at the time: vitamin D, viruses, and the immune system. In this convo we also discuss my story: how I got into naturopathic medicine (and all the crazy synchronicities that got me there). 

What is the difference between functional medicine, integrative medicine, homeopathic medicine, nutrition, and naturopathic medicine? 

What does an ND do? 

We also talk my journey to discovering you can surf the lakes and how that's influenced my mental and physical health over the past year. 

I thought this was fitting podcast to share because it highlights some of the background in naturopathic medicine and how I got here. It's also a super fun interview and Taylor is a great host. Her interview was pivotal in inspiring me to create my own podcast. 

Listen up! 

To learn more about Taylor: 

https://anchor.fm/weirdwaves

https://wavebabehair.com/

Instagram:

 https://www.instagram.com/wavebabehair/ 

https://www.instagram.com/weirdwavespodcast/