Digesting Emotions: What’s Gut Health Got to do with it?

According to ancient Taoist philosophy, we literally digest emotions. We have to process them. Starting in the mouth, we take in information from the outside world through taste and chewing. In the stomach and small intestines, we break stuff apart and sort through it to understand what’s there. Then, in both the small and large intestines, we differentiate what to assimilate and what to discard. We acknowledge this concept in our language: upsetting emotions can leave a bad taste our mouths or we simply can’t stomach something.

Scientific knowledge validates ancient wisdom. We are beginning to understand the profound role of gut neurotransmitters and gut flora in influencing emotions. The science on the gut-brain connection articulates how stress and emotions influence digestion, and how imbalances in the digestive tract can also impact mood. 

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Addressing Chronic Stress

Practices for Building Resilience

We are in the midst of a pandemic of stress. It’s not just Covid-19. It’s climate change, economic insecurity, and the continual erosion of the political landscape. And then it’s whatever we might have going on personally, with health or relationships, with our families and our jobs. There’s a lot to process.

Under stress, our brains are wired toward negativity. The limbic system, a primitive part of the brain, developed the negativity bias to keep us safe. It evolved to help us detect and escape danger. It helps us remember information and experiences that threaten our safety. It heightens stress responses and increases vigilance. Unfortunately, sometimes the limbic system can get stuck in the on-position, and it can be hard to regain a sense of safety and come out of hyper-vigilance.

Tools for Immune Defense

When it comes to contracting respiratory viruses, it’s certain that avoidance and good hygiene are the most essential tools for prevention, and nothing can replace that. It’s also almost universally accepted that both the pathogen virulence and the health of the individual influence susceptibility to illness and disease severity.
Immune health and resilience depend on many factors, and while each infectious disease is different, in many cases a person’s total burden of inflammation probably plays a role in susceptibility. Inflammation is involved in most chronic diseases, and accumulated stress, whether it’s physical or emotional stress, likely exacerbates it.

Supplements for Lung Health

If you’re into natural medicines, you might already be familiar with glutathione, or it’s more famous precursor, N-acetyl-cysteine. Or maybe you’ve never heard either of these strange words. Either way, now would be a good time to tune in.

What is glutathione?

Glutathione is produced in organs throughout your body, like the lungs, liver and kidneys. It is best known for its role as the “master antioxidant.”

Naturopathic Hydrotherapy: The Short Wrap

Here’s a short guide to the Short Wrap.

The Short Wrap is a hydrotherapy technique for increasing blood circulation to the central organs. It is calming to the parasympathetic nervous system and can enhance digestive function and detoxification.  Although it involves wrapping a cold, wet towel around your torso, it is so relaxing.

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Fall Nourishment Guide: Seasonal Nutrition

Autumn is the season of wind and dryness.  For those in Sonoma County and other fire-prone areas, you have probably been experiencing this first hand.  The climate change wake-up calls are increasing, and we’ve got a lot of work to do collectively.  But meanwhile, it’s time to recharge: to slow down, soothe, ground, moisten and nourish.  After being hit with wildfire smoke and all the associated upheaval this past week, we need to get our self-care groove on.  We all need it, in every part of us. This time of year, our nervous systems and respiratory tracts are especially vulnerable and will benefit from the extra support.

Here’s some of my top tools for nourishing with food, herbs and other self-care strategies.

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Dr. Bridget’s Naturopathic Detox Support List

 

Shopping & Harvest List

For Healthy Detoxification &

Minimizing Harm from Smoke-related Pollutants

1. Broccoli sprouts– contain some of THE most detoxification-stimulating and anti-carcinogenic compounds
2. Rosemary– a high power antioxidant
3. Turmeric– strongly anti-inflammatory and cancer preventing
4. Artichokes, more artichokes, and then more artichokes- an all around detoxifier
5. Pomegranate, berries, red/purple grapes, peels from unwaxed citrus– for the antioxidants

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Unmasking Allergies & Other Histamine Related Issues

Anyone who knew me before I became a naturopathic doctor would immediately know why I’m passionate about treating allergies and other histamine related issues—I had a big problem with environmental allergies. When I was flared, I would sneeze hundreds of times a day, for days on end. Because I refused allergy medications, I lived in a state of chronic inflammation. I came to palpably understand the intense systemic effects of inflammatory molecules like histamine- symptoms like chronic congestion, fatigue, brain fog, irritability, headaches, body pain, sensitive skin, and inflamed gums.   I didn’t realize how all of these things were connected until I started to get to the root of my allergies. I spent years trying to find the right combination of anti-inflammatory herbs and supplements to address allergies, but it usually didn’t yield significant improvement or lasting effects, until I started treating the big picture.

While an anti-inflammatory approach can help, most of the time it is not enough and it is more of a band-aid solution. In order to really treat allergies, the terrain in which allergies develop needs to be addressed. While allergies are considered an issue with the immune system, one’s propensity for this type of reactivity depends greatly on the health of the digestive system, where 70% of the immune system resides, as well as the health of the liver and the adrenal glands. When these systems are out of balance, histamine can wreak havoc on the body. In my journey with treating allergies, I have found that lowering overall histamine levels (and getting to the root of why they are elevated) has made the biggest difference in calming immune hyper-reactivity.

So let’s talk about histamine…

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Hormone Tests: A Deeper Look

There are a number of symptoms that prompt me to recommend hormone testing—such as chronic fatigue, mood changes, stress intolerance, sleep disturbance, fertility challenges, weight gain, acne, hair loss, and menstrual problems like heavy periods or irregular bleeding.   Hormone testing can be the key to unlocking some of these problematic issues.   Depending on the type of testing used, we can get a good window into the hormonal picture, which can help refine treatment recommendations to be more precise and aimed toward the origins of the imbalance.

TESTING METHODS

There are three main methods of hormone testing: serum, urine and saliva.

Serum hormone testing can be a good first assessment of estrogen, progesterone, DHEA and testosterone to look for overt imbalances. This is the type of testing typically used in conventional medicine offices. Serum testing is well validated, and I use it when I think it will be helpful, often as a ‘first-look’ at hormonal status and when looking for frank imbalances.

Salivary hormone testing is used in many functional medicine offices.   For sex hormones, I almost never use salivary testing because it is not as precise as urine or blood testing.   On the other hand, for adrenal testing, salivary cortisol is considered a reliable assessment of adrenal output.  When performed correctly, it can indicate whether cortisol rises appropriately upon awakening and falls appropriately at night.  However, if there is an imbalance in cortisol clearance (rather than cortisol production), salivary results can be misleading, veering someone toward to misdirected therapies.

For a more nuanced assessment of hormone levels, I generally prefer urine testing, which can detect individual hormone levels as well as hormone metabolites.  Metabolites provide an indication of how quickly or slowly the body is moving hormones out of circulation.  In the case of cortisol, it can identify the difference between a dysfunction in hormone production or issues with clearance.  In the case of sex hormones, urine metabolites provide a window into hormone conversion and detoxification pathways. It can reveal whether hormones are preferentially transformed into either more protective or problematic metabolites in terms of potency and risk.  When using hormone therapy, we can help identify whether someone is being over or under-treated, and whether steroid hormones are being safely metabolized.

In my experience, urine testing provides the most holistic and reliable assessment of hormonal status. While testing isn’t always essential to addressing hormone balance, I find it helps refine our understanding and provide quantitative data to track progress.   This information it provides can help pinpoint therapeutics to address current health concerns and prevent future issues.

 

For a more technical look and information about the specific lab I use, read on.

Fire Protection Essentials and Respiratory Health, Part 2 — As the Dust Settles

As I wrote in my first blog on Fire Protection, the smoke that we’re experiencing in the Bay area is filled with the combusted contents of homes and businesses- things like plastic siding, wires and pipes, computers, flame retardants, carpeting with stain repellants like Teflon, lead paint from old houses, pressure treated lumber, and the list goes on. Even when the bulk of the particulate is from burning plant matter, there can be a substantial amount of mercury released into the environment from bioaccumulation. It’s easy to go into freak-out mode here.

I can also find the silver lining in the midst of the devastation, which is an opportunity to realign our priorities and get our houses in order on as many levels as we can.   This is an opportunity for a paradigm shift — to make the changes we’ve each been debating for years, whether it means changing an unhealthy lifestyle pattern, assessing our consumption patterns particularly around the use of toxic materials, and helping to address some of the social and economic issues that are now more acute in our county.

How we take care of ourselves and each other now is one of the most determining factors of our overall health in the future.

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