What If It’s Not Depression?

It's horrifying!

 

But when life throws a curveball as it did for Dr. Achina Stein, she faces that challenge head-on and learns to understand, accept, and even embrace the unexpected.

 

Join us as we explore how to recognize if you're experiencing something other than depression and how to transform your experiences into feelings of empowerment. Dr. Achina will inspire you with her own journey of transformation and self-love so that you can walk away feeling grounded, inspired, and encouraged in your own life no matter what challenges come your way! Don’t miss out on this inspiring conversation—tune in today!

 

Dr. Achina Stein is a DO physician, Board Certified psychiatrist and has been in practice since 1994. She is a certified practitioner of the Institute for Functional Medicine, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and an Azarias Energy Healer. She was awarded the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award by NAMI-RI in 2008. Located in Rhode Island, she is the co-owner of private practice, Functional Mind LLC.

 

In this episode you'll learn:

 

• How to recognize if you're experiencing something other than depression

• What steps can be taken to transform experiences into feelings of empowerment

• Dr. Achina's inspiring journey of transformation and self-love

• Tips for maintaining resilience despite life's challenges

• And much more!

 

Don’t miss this empowering conversation with Dr. Achina Stein—tune in today! You will be inspired, encouraged, and motivated on your own journey of understanding and acceptance. Join us as we explore how to turn crisis into opportunity and find the strength within ourselves - no matter what comes our way. Together, let's start creating a new normal!

 

(00:00): Every crisis is an opportunity. Dr. Achina Stein, what would you do if your 14 year old stood on the balcony of a five-story building, getting ready to jump off and kill himself? Find out what this doctor did next.

(00:15): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us, keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.

(01:09): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I'm so glad you chose to join me today. You are gonna love this delightful conversation with my friend and colleague, Dr. Achina Stein. She has an incredible story of healing and transformation. She talks about how she turns crisis into opportunity, how she maintains resilience despite many challenges in her life. And you're really gonna learn from this cuz midlife can be a challenging time and our resilience can be tested. Am I speaking the truth or am I speaking the truth? Yes, it's true. So you've gotta have some skills. Dr A has got skills, and a lot of this was honed through her childhood. She's gonna talk a little bit about that. But she came to this real turning point where one day her 14 year old had a fight with his brother, walked into the other room and got on the, the ledge at a five-story building with the intention of jumping off to commit suicide.

(02:10): How would you handle that? Well, as a board certified psychiatrist, it completely became an inflection point for a unique direction that you're gonna benefit from today as to how she views mental health. And if you're suffering with depression, anxiety, or just even a little dysthymia, you don't feel like yourself. These are very common symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem. You wanna stay tuned and you wanna listen to what Dr. Aina learned, how she turned that crisis into an opportunity and all the resources that she has available for you. Because I'm telling you, you, you wanna listen, you just wanna listen. , she's really a light of hope and a beacon for what's possible at midlife and beyond when you do the work. So I'll tell you a little about, bit about her and then we'll get started. So, Dr. Aina Stein is a physician who's a board certified psychiatrist.

(03:06): She's been in practice since 1994. She's also a certified practitioner of the Institute for Functional Medicine, a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, A and Energy Healer. She was awarded the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award by NAMI Rhode Island in 2008, and she's located in Rhode Island where her practice functional mind L L C is located. She is the number one Amazon International bestselling author of What If It's Not Depression, your Guide To Finding Answers and Solutions. She has a YouTube channel and podcast by the same name and has been a keynote speaker and interviewed about her pioneering work as a functional medicine psychiatrist on many podcasts and summits. As a companion to her book, she offers programs to find and reverse all the root causes of your depression like symptoms. It's a perfect alternative to medication for people with chronic mild to moderate depression like symptoms that do not spread respond to antidepressant medications. And she also offers a course on how to manage antidepressant withdrawal symptoms and how to taper off SSRIs Footnote, please do not get off any medications after listening to this podcast. You must always consult with your physician before doing so. Welcome Dr. Aena Stein. Oh,

(04:24): Thank you for having me. It's always exciting to be here.

(04:27): I'm really happy to have you on this show today. I remember when I first met you and I learned that you were a psychiatrist who was also functionally trained like I am. And you told me the story of how you got into becoming functionally trained. I think that it will really speak to a lot of people. As everybody heard in the intro, you're an expert in psychiatry, you're an expert in functional medicine, and you really take a very unique view about what if it's not depression. You know, and maybe we should actually start there before we get into your story. Depression is really at, would you say epidemic levels? Talk about why do we have such a problem and what is the scope and degree of the problem?

(05:17): The amount of people that are suffering from depression is always skyrocketing. It seems like it's never ending because even, you know, 20 years ago or 25 years ago, depression rates are increasing, depression rates are increasing, and it seems to be a problem every year that does not get addressed. A lot of it has to do with access, some of it has to do with stigma. Some of it has to do with the fact that the only solution provided is medications and psychotherapy. Mm-Hmm. , you know, which is where, you know, I come in. It's, we're not looking at the root cause of why people are having depression and anxiety. We're just going through a decision tree through a book called the D S m diagnostic Statistical Manual for Psychiatric Illnesses. And it's going down this decision tree to arrive at a diagnosis and then just basically matching a pill to an ill.

(06:13): And you know, there's a place for that. There's a place for prescribing medications because there are situations where you need to shut down certain symptoms acutely because it can lead to serious things like psychotic symptoms or suicidal ideation or an attempt. So you really, there, there is a seriousness to it where it can, it can be lethal with some of these mental health issues, but there is a limitation as to what these medications can do. And we we're finding that on a long-term basis they start failing or they are not taking care of all of the symptoms or, and or there's a whole slew of side effects that people suffer from when they take these medications. And so it's, it is finding arriving at that diagnosis is important, but then also understanding why is this happening? What's going on in the body, mind and spirit that came together and manifested as the these symptoms and that it's not all in the head .

(07:20): For years we've, you know, assumed or made this, this decision that everything is in the head when no, there's lots of things that are happening in the body that affect the brain, which is your hardware, which then can affect your mind, which is your software, right. If you wanted to use, you know, computer analogies and so they're connected, you're not walking around, there's not this head bouncing around without a body. It's all connected and there are lots of things that can happen in the body that can affect the brain and the mind. So we've, as psychiatrists, as traditional psychiatrists and as well as other mental health professionals have been trained to just look at the biology of the brain, the psychology and the social aspect of how we are interacting with the world and how this, how the world you know, affects us. And just those things. And so psychotherapy does help to work on the psychology and the social aspects and the medications are meant to work on the biology, but that's just not enough. It's not enough. And there's so many tools, so many tools out there that we can use to bring the body back into balance, body, mind and spirit back into balance.

(08:42): Right. And so you were trained traditionally in a traditional medical model, what I call a corporate medical model like I was . And it basically is following protocols, follow the recipe to make the diagnosis and then give the drug or do the surgery. Very reductionist viewpoint. And a lot of diagnoses are actually symptoms. Like depression is a symptom. It's not telling you what is causing the problem. Irritable bowel syndromes another one of my favorite categories cuz it's a symptom. It doesn't say what's wrong or what's causing it. Mm-Hmm. . So I had my journey of really questioning are we really helping anyone because nobody seemed to get better despite what medications we gave them or what surgeries we did. They just had this ever, ever spiral downwards down the drain of more and more symptoms as they aged. And this really half lived life as a result. And I, I started questioning and then my own health was failing, which everybody listening probably has heard me talk about that, so I won't go into it again. But what drove you to say, okay, it's more than just depression is a diagnosis and we give you a pill to control the symptoms. What made you start digging deeper?

(10:04): Well, you know, I was one of those psychiatrists that I think spent more time with patients than the 15 minute se sessions. I never took a job that required me to see patients for 15 minutes. So I would really dig deep in terms of getting the history and trying to connect the dots. But again, it was still a biopsychosocial model and it came to a head for me when my son at the age of 14 overnight, literally overnight had a tiff with his brother and was suddenly out on out the, had gone out the window of this flat that we were staying in. We were in France actually when my husband had sabbatical that time we were staying in this flat and he had suddenly disappeared from the room or the, the stu you know, it was like a two bedroom small area. And I was looking for him, I'm gonna look out the window and it's like, oh my gosh, he's on a ledge standing on the ledge ready to jump.

(11:01): He had a sudden urge of suicidal ideations and wanting to jump off this ledge. That was five stories up. And that came out of the blue. He had a little tiff with his brother and what typical teenagers have , you know normal stuff with your siblings. And then suddenly this was his reaction and it all came suddenly. And here I am a psychiatrist. There was no no way for me to know that that was gonna mm-hmm , there's no signs of this other than typical adolescent boy stuff, you know? So there was just a absolutely no signs of this. And so when we returned home, obviously I was flabbergasted and my wheels were starting to turn and trying to figure out what went wrong, what would I do, what did I miss, why didn't I see this? Got him to see a psychiatrist and ultimately he ended up being on four medications.

(11:53): He was given a diagnosis of major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, a d d, and had sleep problems. And some of this was due to medication side effects and Okay. Yeah. His mood was better. And he was seeing a therapist as well, but he was a zombie. I mean, he was no longer suicidal, but he was a zombie, this guy. Mm-Hmm. , this kid could not function. And there was this symptom though, that he had. And, and I always wonder, would I've done what I did to find more, more solutions if, if this symptom dis didn't exist was a neurological symptom because I was still, you know, in deep in the whole, you know, traditional model. It was a neurological symptom that he had that was double vision. He no longer could read books. Mm. And this was a kid who had never had a d d, he had a photographic memory.

(12:46): He, you know, he could read something and no knew it. He wouldn't have to ever read it again. And he couldn't even read anymore. And here like, oh, what's going on here? There's something going on here. And I would ask about this, well what about this? Why can't he read? Why can't he read? Oh, you know, he has a d d like, wait, no, you don't understand , he was reading fine and this is now different. Like just trying to even explain what happened was like brushed aside and I'm sure a lot of your patients and my patients have felt brushed aside or symptoms minimized. And it's like, you're not listening , you don't understand this was a kid that was perfectly normal, you know, and here he is like a blob. Anyway, it was really eye-opening experience. So I started hitting the books and trying to figure it out.

(13:35): And serendipitously came upon functional medicine. I had no idea what functional medicine was. and found a functional medicine doctor, had him, had my son see him and you know, did the whole functional medicine approach starting with diet. And we started with him on a gluten-free and dairy-free diet and it within, and we did all this testing. But in the, in the time before we even got the testing back, my son felt considerably better considerably. In fact, you know, when I say he was normal, I thought he was normal. But he had years and years and years of constipation y severe constipation to the point where he sat like a bird on the toilet seat so that he could have a bowel movement. And constantly being told to give him laxative, he had severe eczema to the point that his knuckles bled and he looked, his hands were so raw that we basically, cuz he was so into dinosaurs and we told him he, that he was part dinosaur at the age of four, you know, because like, oh, you're just like a dinosaur . That's why your hands look that way. And it's like, so I mean it was, this is how long he'd suffer from that and that just became his normal. So, but that's not normal. It's not normal to have knuckles bleeding. It's not normal to sit like a bird on the toilet. That's not normal , but

(14:55): Right. But in our American culture that is tolerated as normal, it's very common for kids to have that, for adults to have that where they don't poop every time they eat, which is the way nature made us where they have chronic constipation and they think their doctors aren't concerned. So I shouldn't be concerned if you're listening, that is not okay y'all. Yeah. And it's not okay to have eczema. Right. You just shouldn't have it. And you know, what you're saying is what you said about him having difficulty with the reading because of his vision. We as doctors lead people to believe that symptoms are not related to each other. . Right, right. And they just come out of the blue. And I always like to say they don't come out of the blue, they come out of the oblivious. Cuz we are clueless. And unfortunately as doctors, we mostly are.

(15:44): So I just wanna highlight that for everyone because women at midlife, she's using the example of her teenage son. But if you're listening, this is you. Right? Right. You think your hot flashes are not related to your hair loss. And that's not related to the fact that you only poop every other day, or you drink coffee every morning to poop, or that you need coffee in the morning to wind up and wind to wind down, or that you just don't feel like yourself. Or you're carrying their 30 extra pounds or you have irritable bowel or you get migraines or you have anxiety. You think they're all not related. So you're running around going to this doctor and that doc, you go to the psychiatrist, you're going to the neurologist, you're going into the gastroenterologist, you're going into the gynecologist. And what you need to do is realize everything is connected

(16:27): . It is, it's all connected. And you know, and it's good that they're going to these specialists just to rule out the biggies, the big bad things and say there's nothing wrong with you. That's good news as far as I'm concerned. But, you know, getting back to my son, you know, we put him on a gluten dairy free diet and literally within a month or two, his eczema and constipation cleared up. Okay. And at this point, my son was on board like, wow, this was a huge change. And he was completely on board to do the whole nine yards. And so we found with the testing that he was also soy in soy sensitive. So once we pulled the soy out, that's when things really started changing. And of course, with, and he had celiac disease, I forgot to mention that. Oh yeah. So we, we learned that he had celiac disease and because of that, for years he was malnourished and not eating, not getting the nutrition due to the celiac's disease, but also he only ate white food .

(17:21): So when you're not eating all the, the good healthy foods that in order to get your nutrition, you're gonna be nu nutrient deficient. For sure. And of course he had a gut dysbiosis and you know, all of the other things that we find when we, when we dig deeper and deeper. But ultimately he was able to come off all of the psychiatric medications completely. And by two years, at the end of two years, his diplopia, which is, you know, the double vision cleared up as well. So, and that the reason they're all connected is because his whole body was inflamed. And the reason this all happened at the age of 14 and not at 2, 3, 4 and earlier when he had these other issues, was because he hit puberty. This, this hormone surge occurred. Right. So, you know, hormones really tipped is what the, what tipped the him over in terms of having this explosion of these symptoms that were really brewing under the surface the whole time and not knowing it.

(18:19): So of course, you know, once you see this happen, you just can't unlearn that . And and so I did a deep dive and functional medicine and became certified. And that's all I do. It's all I do is functional medicine. I have a handful of psychotherapy patients, but it's really, that is what I do day in and day out. And I can't see it doing it any other way. Yes, there's patients that I give medications to, but, but it's because, you know, they can't function. It's because they're suicidal. It's because they're psychotic. It's, it's gone, gone. You know, they have serious, serious issues mm-hmm. . And so for me, medications is the last resort, or if it's in an emergency as opposed to, I think functional medicine should be the primary start of everything that is mental health. Absolutely everything.

(19:10): I totally agree with you. It would've saved me a lot of time in agony and, you know, really what you describe, you know, it was, it's it's a huge crisis in your life. You, your 14 year old son is going on the balcony to jump off. That's a huge crisis. And it, how you describe your path through that really resonates with me. The quote that you shared before we started about every crisis is an opportunity. And you, you recently you were sharing with me before we started recording some other crises that you've had recently and how you really take a different attitude from a lot of people about the crises in your life. And I, I think that how you live your life is very instructive for other people. You're a role model. So can you talk a little bit about that?

(19:58): Yeah. So Yeah. Recently, I've actually had a lot going on last year. Besides my website being hacked, I didn't even mention that my website was hacked. My active campaign was hacked where, you know, bills were run up from someplace in the Philippines. And I had literally $58,000 on my credit card because it was hacked. It was so many one thing after another. And then going to France and traveling there and changing my schedule and coming back from this trip where my husband was on sabbatical and I was seeing patients from there. Just a lot of change. A lot of change. A lot of change. And then coming back to find that my office was flooded. So I had to, the only thing I could recoup was a few pieces of furniture that I put in storage. So, you know, when things happen, I always believe that things happen for some reason.

(20:52): You know, I, I may not know what the reason is, but I, I look at it as an opportunity to sort of reassess, okay, what's going on? And, and how can I pivot from this? So how can I pivot? How can I make this, how can I use the situation to make my life better? And I tend not to react or overreact to a situation. Sure. Change is hard, but, you know, it doesn't have to be a crisis. It can be an opportunity for reassessment breathing into what's going on right now. Maybe this happened for a good reason and how can I use it to open, open another door as opposed to feeling trapped. You know, a lot of times people feel trapped or they feel stepped on or they feel like this is the end, you know? Right. Life is over, you know, and it, it doesn't have to be that way.

(21:42): It's all a, it's really about a mindset change. And I've always lived in this mindset always, even as, as young as the age of 16, always had this. And I had a pretty tough ti a childhood. I, a very, very tough upbringing. Whether my mother was very ill, I was the oldest of four. I had to raise my brothers and sisters . I had a very volatile father, you know, so it wasn't, you know, I was not born with a silver spoon, but sometimes people have accused me of that, of a silver spoon in my mouth because, because I'm so optimistic and, and mm-hmm. how I approach the world. So they think, oh, I must have, I must have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. . So, but that's not the case. No. I've been around the block a few times. Mm-Hmm. . So. Right.

(22:26): So we were talking about this concept of resilience and how you seem to have an abundance of resilience. How do you think that other people can cultivate that? Because I think at midlife in particular, which you're, I think that you're at midlife also. Yes. That it can just seem overwhelming. The myriad health problems, maybe for some people career and or relationship problems, maybe not, but the myriad health problems, which I call midlife metabolic mayhem mm-hmm. that start accumulating as we pass 35, 40, definitely 50 and beyond. And I see so many women, particularly in my hormone bliss challenge, who just, they feel so overwhelmed, they don't even know where to start. They've lost that sense of resilience that you're talking about. So how can women at midlife cultivate resilience?

(23:20): There is a long answer to that, that question. And people are interested in knowing my whole approach. They're welcome to download the five Rs of emo of emotional restoration. I, we have the five Rs of gut restoration. I created the five Rs of emotional restoration. And it really starts with breathing, you know, that's it. You know, you want to breathe and notice what's happening around you without any judgment and to sort of observe, observe what what's happening around you. Maybe journal, somehow write it down, put it down on paper so that you can look at it later. But just sort of almost like emotionally have it fall out of you onto paper as best as you can without any judgment, without any analyzing. And to, you know, come up with one thing that's a low hanging fruit that you can start with. If you have a lot of stimulation, things coming at you, one after the other, and you're overwhelmed, I mean, it's usually overwhelm occurs that you're not able to process what's being thrown at you, so to speak. Right. So you wanna just start with one thing, and breathe through it. So use your breath to notice all of the things that are coming at you. Write it all down, write it all down, and then start with one thing and put one foot in front of the other. You wanna act. Once you know what that one thing is, then you want to act because it's actually more overwhelming to be in limbo, you know? Mm-Hmm. ,

(24:50): I act. That's so true.

(24:51): Right. It's horrible being in limbo, and I actually use that word with my patients a lot. You're in limbo, , and then, then, you know what I mean? Because, you know, they have all this stuff in front of them and they can't choose. Or if they choose, they don't act. It's like, just put one thing in front of the other, one thing in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, and then you, you'll actually accomplish those things. You'll accomplish it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

(25:15): . Okay. Yeah. And I think it's, it's also this concept of learned helplessness and, and there are some women I'll talk to and they're like, oh, I wanna, you know, work with you to get this my hormone straight. And they're like, but I'm gonna wait until I retire in three years , or I'm gonna be on night shift for the next six months. And so now's not a good time. You know? And so I just find that it's not often our health problems that are keeping us, holding us hostage. It's our beliefs about our health problems. How do you help people to unpack their beliefs and really open 'em like a suitcase full of clothes and look at them and see which beliefs serve them and which don't and help them get rid of or transform the ones that are keeping them from moving forward in life.

(26:03): I love this quote that you wanna live as if your life depends on it. People, when they learn that they have cancer or they learn that they Right. So many things go out the window , right. And you know, when you have something come up like that, your whole life priorities change. And that's how I think if you can start looking at it like, you know, that woman that you mentioned, oh, I'm gonna wait till I retire. You could be dead by then, . You

(26:32): Know? Right. Exactly. That's

(26:33): What I, that's the first thought that came into my mind. Like, why are you waiting? You know, you could be dead. My mother was very, very ill and she died at the age of 63. And you know, I don't know about you, but I think a lot of people when they think about aging, that they think about when their parents, you know, passed away if they, if they have passed or how long they're living and how well they're living because you're, you know, genetically, you're kind of can fall the same pathway, follow the same pathway, but you have a lot of control over making those changes. You actually have a lot of things that you can do to improve your path. I turned 60 this year and so I'm thinking, oh my gosh, in my, the first thing that pops in my mind is like, I got three years left .

(27:19): So I am literally doing a whole life review now. I know that most likely, cuz I am pretty healthy, I'm very healthy, I play ultimate Frisbee. I work out, I have a very busy practice. I'm very active and I know that I'm gonna live beyond that. But it makes me think like, wow, that's like, wow, I'm, I'm gonna be 60 this year and I'm gonna really change everything that I can to make, to live the life just the way I want it now. , right? And so if that, and health is so important in terms of your quality of life, you know, so very important. And so it's looking at those things and if you look at life that way, your priorities will change so quickly. Yeah.

(28:07): It's so true. When you speak of cancer, that's what everybody's afraid of and that, you know, one in two of us will get it in our lifetime. So you've got a 50% chance. I remember this story about a woman who was a general surgeon in the town where I practiced gynecology for many years and she, one day I saw her at the health food store in our town and I had never seen her there before and I was in there all the time. So I said, well, what are you doing here? And she said, oh, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. Hmm. And I'm looking for supplements that can help me. She literally said that and I felt so sad because maybe if she had been at the health food store looking at supplements and really improving her health 5, 10, 20 years before, who knows, then she wouldn't be there after the fact.

(29:00): And it's true that when you get a cancer diagnosis, people are willing to change everything. So like when I do the salivary cortisol test and someone comes back like I was when I first did it what, 15, 14 years ago, and I was a flatline, cortisol stage three of genome fatigue. I'm like, you need to act like you have cancer. That's how serious this is. Right? And the people who get it, they get better and they go all about their lives. And the ones who don't, they just keep dragging, dragging, dragging and living half of a life usually emotionally and mentally as well.

(29:36): Yeah. Cause there, and usually the thing that that, that it's those beliefs that I'm not good enough, I don't deserve it. I'm not important, I'm not lovable. There's all of these reasons that people have in that's operating in the background that they don't even have a conscious connection to. But you have to sort of look for that. And a lot of it is rooted in trauma, whether it's a big tea or a little tea, you know. So if you don't have your needs met at certain critical points in your life that can feel like you, you know, aren't lovable or not deserving or if they're, if you had a hypercritical parent or a judgmental parent or a micromanaging parent, you know, which translates sometimes as I don't believe that you can do it, so I have to do it for you, kind of kind of thing.

(30:25): So then you have a loss of confidence in yourself or doubts about yourself. There's all of these experiences that people have in their earlier childhood or even teens and young adulthood that can impact you. And so it's looking for those threads as how that's connected to now. And so when you're finding that you're not moving forward, let's say you are working with someone, a health coach or a doctor, and you find that you're not moving forward in your plan to think about what's going on with me and, you know, that is getting in the way and sometimes it's a part of you, I don't know if you were familiar with internal family systems, which is mm-hmm. part, some people call it parts therapy. Yes. It is tuning into tuning into what is that part of me that's getting in the way? And a lot of times these parts are there to protect you because they protected you at a, at a younger age.

(31:20): And so avoiding something or not doing something is generally a, a pro going into protection mode. And what you need to do is tune into that part of you and recognize, okay, you protected me then, but I, you're not really protecting me now. You're just getting in the way of me accomplishing my goals. And so it's trying to figure out how that part is protecting you and asking to step aside and almost give it another job, so to speak. So in the same way that if you had a 20 year old company or a 30 year old company and you know, the environment changes, the culture changes, and you have to sort of, you know, maybe move staff around. So you might have an employee that has had a job for 20 years and that's going to be phased out because of technology, let's say.

(32:10): And you have, you don't wanna fire them and you by the way, you cannot fire a part. It's very hard to do that. It's better to give them another job, . And so you want to put them in a different department and give them another job and thank them for all their years of service. , you know, you kind of even wanna talk to that part of you because what happens is that people get angry at their, at their parts, they get angry and they at themselves and it's like, I can't believe I said that. What's wrong with me? You know, as opposed to, oh no, the reason I said that was because I defended myself. Because when I was younger, you know, my father yelled at me and, you know, I needed to defend myself in order to protect my little br like there's all these stories mm-hmm.

(32:54): , right, that are connected to the past about why you had a certain behavior. And so because you're older now and have more control, more independent, you can make decisions that you couldn't do when you were a child. You have to sort of give that part of you that protected you during that situation and sort of glean into that part and let him or her or it know that things have changed. I'm older now and I need you to change with me. And here I'm giving you another job to support me in my endeavors so that you can flow, you know, and not have these barriers. Mm-Hmm. constantly being hit by these barriers. So everybody has a whole host of parts that interfere in their ability to reach their goals. Whole host.

(33:44): Yeah. Thank you for going through that. And for anybody who wants to look more into that, I believe it's Richard Schwartz who developed Internal Family Systems and ultimately that was a part of my recovery too. But first I had to get my body not inflamed to get, cuz I always tell my story, but I won't go into it again. Yes. About, I was on five psychoactive medications, so cleaning up my body, fixed that and I got off the medications, but then had to do a lot of internal family systems work and things like that. But for everybody, we, Dr. Aina has some wonderful freebies. Before we wrap up, we're gonna tell you about those, but can you talk about the absolute necessity of hormone balance and gut health? The two are intimately related for helping depression, anxiety, all mental health problems.

(34:31): Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned cortisol. Cortisol is a major piece and that's unfortunately not even looked at in the conventional world in the way that we look at it. They only look at it as, as an extreme, as Addison's disease or Cushing's disease, and they just do one morning test. And if it's not high, then they, or too low, then it's like off the table completely, unfortunately. But, you know, adrenaline surges can cause all sorts of problems due to stress, which then releases cortisol chronically. And if you're a child that's been traumatized at a young age, or have lived through very difficult situations, those cortisol levels start at a very young age being chronically elevated at a very young age. And that can affect your development as emotionally as well. So there's higher rates of depression and anxiety as a result of chronic cortisol production from stress alone.

(35:32): So when you're tapped out, then it does cause you to have, you know, absolutely no cortisol and sometimes people need to be put on medications to raise their cortisol levels. So that in itself causes a change in sex hormones. So in order to, in order to, and your, I'm sure your audience already knows that, that when cortisol's high, then there's a drop in the sex hormones, progesterone and testosterone and, and estrogen. And so what we don't realize or don't really connect with when it comes to mental health issues is that there are certain periods in our life when those, there are changes in hormones that that can lead to depression and or anxiety and even psychosis. And what we should be doing is even in an acute situation, is looking at the hormones and, and providing hormones right there on the spot. I had a patient who had two miscarriages because she did not make the progesterone that was necessary to pro, you know, the, the baby, right? You need proje, progesterone is pro gestation, right? Right. So you need high levels of progesterone and she would lose the baby because the progesterone levels dropped. So they put her on progesterone, high levels, high doses of progesterone through pregnancy, and it was a viable pregnancy, delivered it. And then once she delivered it, they stopped the progesterone and she became a acutely psychotic and depressed. It's like, and then what did they do? She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital multiple times and all they used was antipsychotic medics, like just put her back on the progesterone.

(37:14): Oh. I mean, like, how does nobody

(37:17): See that? Like, how does nobody see that? And so I put her back on the progesterone when she came into my door, like, oh my God, you need progesterone . And I put her on h you know, like 200 milligrams of progesterone. She felt significantly better and obviously we had to adjust it, but like right from the get-go, I put her on progesterone . So

(37:37): I know, I I I just wonder if people listening get how once you're trained in the functional root cause model, like Dr. Aina and I are, we look at the way we were trained for mainstream medicine and it's absolutely insane. It's like nobody's thinking , nobody's paying attention. What are you doing? So anyway, proje, I love progesterone. I

(38:02): Call it the I do too. If

(38:04): You feel good sleep well, anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, lose weight, diuretic happy hormone.

(38:09): Yeah. I tend to use progesterone from the get-go for c certain women, especially if they're a perimenopausal or menopausal, if they're having anxiety and sleep and mood changes, especially if those symptoms occur, you know, soon after having the hormonal changes that are part of life, you know, part of a woman's life. And so to make them comfortable, but ultimately, I don't want necessarily to just leave it at that. I, I do the, the whole gut restoration. There's a reason why you're even going through that. You right. There's the hormones were already off even before those changes. So you wanna find out, well why, why are they off? So, so much so that you even need these hormones. So there's hormones for the person who's inflamed. Right? Right. And then there's hormones for the person who wants longevity. And those are two different kinds of people I think, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that person who's inflamed isn't gonna stay on hormones. They might, but they might not need as many hormones or as much Right. As, as you're taking care of the root causes of inflammation. So you would probably know that better than me because you do that. Oh, day, day, day to day. But

(39:22): Yes, I mean, as you clean, get what I call clean quote unquote, and uninflamed your hormone needs can change. Absolutely. Yeah. But talk a little bit about gut health, because that's was a big issue for your son. And I think we can never emphasize enough for everybody listening because people really don't get this anywhere else. That your gut health is directly related to your hormones. They are besties, they walk down the street holding hands and kissing all the time every day. They are intimate partners. If you'll never get your hormones balanced, if you don't fix your gut. So can you talk a a little bit about that as we wrap up and then we'll definitely tell everyone the resources that you have for them, but can you talk about

(40:10): That? Sure, sure. I mean, the gut is where 80% of your immune system is, and it's also 80% of where your serotonin and dopamine and you know, the neurotransmitters are made. And so if your gut is inflamed and there's lots of reasons why it can get inflamed, it can get inflamed from foods chronic infections, toxins, stress, all of these things can disrupt your gut lining, causing increased gut permeability, resulting in a whole host of problems. So when you have increased gut permeability, that's when foods can cross over into the gut lining causing your immune system to be activated. And that can result in food sensitivities. It opens, it can cause certain pathogens, bact, whether it's bacteria or viruses or candida, parasites, they can all get into that gut lining and again, activate that your immune system. So there's, you have your immune system that's very vigilant and when there is a breach in that lining, different things can surpass that.

(41:21): And the toxins are the last thing, you know, that can surpass that lining and basically get your active, your immune system activated and causing inflammation. So what we do is initially remove, do what we can to remove those foods. And the top two are dairy and gluten, but there's many others that I won't get into. And we wanna remove those infections, we wanna remove whatever toxins that might be in your environment or what you're putting into your body that could be causing inflammation. And the last thing is stress. So, you know, I've talked about the shift, what you wanna shift your body. It's looking at stress hormones, , infections, foods and toxins. Not necessarily in that order, but looking in those five categories about what could be impacting your immune system. Mm-Hmm. . But the gut is where we want to start and we, you know, removing those things, replacing what's been missing.

(42:20): Cuz many times when there's inflammation in the gut, you're not able to absorb the vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients that your body needs. We wanna reinoculate the gut because that's where your second brain is. It's your gut microbiome. is, that's your second brain. And I always wonder if that's really the first brain sometimes. Yeah. So we wanna make sure that your microbiome is healthy. So reinoculating it with probiotics and eating fermented foods, sometimes prebiotics, feedback, gut lining, and on the repair of the gut lining, close off that leaky gut or, you know, decrease that permeability. So, and then it's really looking at what were the factors that caused all of this to happen in the first place. So in order to rebalance it and know where your points of vulnerability are, everybody is vulnerable in different places and everybody has different strengths. So it's knowing where you are vulnerable and kind of padding those areas.

(43:17): And so if you are an anxious person and, and you get stomach aches anytime you're anxious, you see that gut ring connection, it's usually the gut. A lot of times people think it's the brain or the anxiety causing the, the gut symptoms. It's really actually more often the other way around. It's your gut that's causing the anxiety. So, so making that connection and you can definitely do things to improve that connection. We call them vagal nerve stimulation exercises. But even taking cold showers, singing, humming, there's all sorts of things that you can do to strengthen that connection. So that's a lot

(44:01): Yeah. Say,

(44:02): Yeah, that's a lot. So I don't know if I fully answered your question, but that's I think that's it in a nutshell,

(44:10): In a nutshell. And, you know, I just wanna add for everyone, your enteric nervous system, the nervous system around your gut, that Ives your gut has as many nerves in it as your brain in your cranium, right? So it really is a fully functioning brain and it directly is communicating with your hormones and your immune system. And so you've got to get your gut straight to get your hormones straight. But yes, no, thank you for going through all of that.

(44:41): Yeah. It's, it's all connected, like you said.

(44:43): Right. And so Dr. Aina has her book, she's got the first three chapters of her book for you. What if it's not depression or bestselling book? And we'll have the links for all of these in the show notes. So please don't try to write them down if you're driving or doing something or you're operating heavy machinery. And then she's got a couple other resources for you, another freebie called Food for Your Mood and the five R's of Emotional Restoration Workbook. Do you wanna tell them a little bit about what they'll find there?

(45:13): Sure, yeah. I mean, the food for your mood is something that, and anyone can just start, I, everyone should start with a change in their diet. That's the first thing that I have people do. And so that's a great place to start if they want to know what foods to eat that will help improve your mood. And the five Rs of , I'm trying to remember name of my, my own thing, , the five

(45:38): R, I do it all the time.

(45:42): Is basically a workbook that you can do download and do, it's ba the five Rs for the are reflect where you improve your awareness and be conscious of what's happening around you. We talked a little bit about that reframing what's happening by removing and replacing negative thoughts and emotions. Resetting. So reset. And that's where the balancing the microbiome and the gut brain access comes in and resisting, resisting. And it's finding the internal and external roadblocks and rather than acting past them and often making not the best decisions to notice and take in what's happening for me that we're, you know, it's, it's noticing an emotional resistance and also looking at your external roadblocks as well. That's getting in the way of you meeting your goals and then repi. So it's breathing and meditating and connecting with your spirits. And so all of these things are really important to strengthen that physical health, mental health connection.

(46:46): Awesome. Thank you so much for these wonderful resources. Again, everybody listening, we'll have the links in the show notes. Go start with your food. Always. I always start with food too, and five hours of emotional restoration workbook. It sounds very valuable to me. I'm thinking I'm gonna go download it. And I know your book is absolutely wonderful and I, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, how's your son doing now?

(47:12): Oh, he's doing great. He actually did really well two years, like I said, two years after. And he was off of medications. And then, you know, this is something important for your audience to know is that, you know, he kind of fell off the track a little bit because he became a college student and what happens in college, right? Yeah. You, you drink, you stay up late at night. So his sleep was off and you know, he's putting toxins in his body. , pizza, pizza eating pizza. Exactly. He was no longer gluten or dairy free. And, and then the stress of being in school, pulling all those all-nighters, just trying to ac you know, finish your task. By the time college was over, he was a wreck. . I mean, he was a wreck. But the thing is, he knew exactly what he needed to do to get back on track and within six months he was back feeling well again.

(48:01): So, you know, that's the beauty of functional medicine that you, you know, when you learn these things and you have these habits in place that you know that are working for you and you, it's really, really, really important to journal about this because you are not gonna remember really important to journal about what it is that, that were your big things that made a shift in your health. Because there's going to be a point in your life where things, you're gonna get off track, things happen, right? But if you know what the top three things are to get back on track, it's like you go right to them and that's really, really important. And so he knew exactly what he needed to do, , and he did them. And it didn't take that long, you know, instead of two years, which was an a culmination of 14 years, it was six months.

(48:53): Right. Oh, that's awesome. I'm glad to hear it. And thank you Drena so much for coming and sharing your light and your brilliance and your journey with us today. A lot of people listening who on listen, regular listeners of the podcast, you kind of get about a root cause resolution approach. But one thing you probably don't know is how brave and courageous it is for physicians like Dr. Aina to step out of the line and say, I don't agree with what's being done, and to actually create their own path to do something right that helps people. It's extremely brave, extremely courageous, extremely hard. So thank you for doing what you do and being here.

(49:36): Oh, thank you. Thank you. That really touches my heart. When you said that , it really is like, like yeah, you know, that was hard, .

(49:44): It's very hard.

(49:47): Was hard. Yeah. Yeah. That was, thank you so much for having me.

(49:51): So thank you so much and thank you all for listening and joining us today for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. Hopefully you learned something that you can use in your life to start to transform your health and your life to the high level, the brilliant health that you deserve. I look forward to seeing you next on the show. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.

(50:18): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

 

► Download Dr. Achina Stein's first 3 chapters of her book - CLICK HERE. 
Food For Your Mood - CLICK HERE
5Rs of Emotional Restoration Workbook - CLICK HERE

 

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