In this fascinating interview for The MindHealth360 Show, Dr. Leslie Korn discusses the connection between our biochemistry and our psychology; between trauma, nutrition, and mental health. With extensive expertise in integrative medicine and somatic and psychological therapies, Dr. Korn explores the impact of trauma and chronic stress on our biochemistry, and tells us how to balance our biochemistry for better nervous system resilience and better health. She explains how dietary choices, specific nutrients, plants and herbs, and personalised nutritional strategies can be vital for recovery from trauma, PTSD and mental and physical well-being. She underlines the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, especially when integrated with traditional healing rituals, and uses her extensive experience of working with indigenous cultures to suggest tried and tested approaches to improving mental health and resilience.  Dr. Leslie Korn is an expert in integrative medicine with over 40 years of clinical experience, focusing on stress, trauma, cognitive function, and chronic physical illness. She began her training in Mexico where she worked extensively with indigenous cultures, and continued at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Korn holds a PhD in Behavioral Medicine, an MPH from Harvard, and an MA in cross-cultural health psychology. She has developed the Brainbow Blueprint®, an individualized integrative approach, and has trained over 30,000 health professionals. Additionally, she directs the Leslie Korn Institute of Integrative Medicine, has pioneered somatic therapies at Harvard, and is an author of 10 books on related subjects including Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health, Rhythms of Recovery: Integrative Medicine for the treatment of PTSD and Complex Trauma, The Good Mood Kitchen, Natural Woman, and The Brainbow Blueprint: A Clinical Guide to Integrative Medicine and Nutrition for Mental Well-Being.   In this interview learn about: Dr. Korn’s key principles for better mental health (eat breakfast, nourish both brains, eat only when relaxed, eliminate toxins, etc.) The best nutrition for your gut (foods that damage, foods that heal) and the link between gut health, mood and brain health The importance of circadian rhythms, exercise and other movement in combination with the right nutrition Key herbs and plant therapies for healing The importance of community for physical, emotional and spiritual healing Biochemical and psychological stressors which hamper our innate capacity to heal How trauma and PTSD impact our biochemistry (inflammation, gut dysbiosis, poor nutrition, difficulty with self-care, immune and neuro-endocrine imbalances, metabolic dysfunction, difficulty with detoxification) What we can learn from indigenous cultures about healing, nutrition, sacred rituals, and mental health How addictions and eating disorders are dissociative disorders and the link with trauma and control   Why eating more fats and proteins and less sugar is so crucial to brain health and mood stability; and sugar addiction, food cravings and their link with trauma and stress The connection between dysregulated cortisol rhythms and mood, anxiety and sleep, and how chronic cortisol exposure can cause neuronal death The best biochemical tests for mental health (toxins, nutrients status, etc.) Key nutrients for mental health (vitamin D, omega 3 fatty acids, B vitamins, magnesium, chromium, lithium) How trauma creates an altered state of consciousness, and how psychedelics also create an altered state of consciousness, but one that can help us heal    Why it’s so important to use psychedelics in their traditional and sacred contexts, and how the ritual of therapy is crucial to the experience  How psych drugs such as SSRIs, sleeping pills and antipsychotics as well as other medications such as statins and NSAIDs can suppress mitochondrial function and harm the gut, thereby exacerbating mental health issues  Why daily self-care practices are so important for mental health and healing  Dr. Korn will further elaborate on these concepts in her upcoming talk Integrative Medicine for PTSD and Complex Trauma at the Integrative Medicine for Mental Health conference (IMMH2024) in Washington, October 2024. For more details, visit IMMH.  

Join Us for an Inspiring Episode of The MindHealth360 Show with Susi Amendola - How to Build Nervous System Resilience with Daily Practices. We are excited to bring you an enlightening conversation with Susi Amendola, an internationally certified yoga therapist with over 40 years of experience in utilizing yoga and lifestyle practices for healing. She holds an ERYT 500 with Yoga Alliance as well as a C-IAYT with the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She founded Yoga Now in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1983, where she teaches and directs a 200-hour yoga certification program. She currently serves as a Stress Management Specialist for Ornish Lifestyle Medicine, a Medicare-approved intensive cardiac rehab program. Susi has developed yoga-based stress management programs for schools, businesses, and hospitals throughout the country. Additionally, she has written over 150 articles for Ornish Living Magazine, which reaches over a million subscribers, and is the author of 'The Centered Heart: Evidence-Based, Mind-Body Practices to Stress Less and Improve Cardiac Health'. In this episode, Susi shares her profound insights into how yoga, meditation, and relaxation can bridge the divide between the body and the mind, and transform mental health by building nervous system resilience and reducing anxiety. In this helpful and fascinating interview,Susi challenges traditional approaches to mental health with more somatic ones, and offers practical, evidence-based techniques for integrating these powerful practices into your daily life. Learn about: The importance of training the nervous system for long-term resilience instead of just temporary stress relief How daily practices can help switch from being in chronic sympathetic overdrive, which can cause harmful cardiovascular, immune and endocrine imbalances to being in  parasympathetic states which encourage rest, digest, growth, repair and restoration Insights into the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program and its success in cardiac health The 7 evidence-based mind-body practices outlined in Susi Amendola's book, The Centered Heart: Evidence-Based, Mind-Body Practices to Stress Less and Improve Cardiac Health The connection between trauma, dissociation, and the necessity of somatic practices like yoga to encourage re-embodiment  Breathing exercises to help manage panic and anxiety How our nasal tissue responds to circadian rhythms, and how each nostril connects to a different part of the nervous system Why it’s essential to build your daily routine around stress management and relaxation rather than try to fit them into your daily routine Deep relaxation practices and their benefits over and beyond sleep

Awareness Is Not Enough: Reflections on The Staggering Statistics for Adolescent Mental Health: Dr James Greenblatt’s extract from IMMH Integrative Medicine for Mental Health Conference 2023. Dr. Greenblatt will be speaking at IMMH 2024: www.immh.org about Suicide Prevention Redefined: The Tragic Consequences of Ignoring Functional Medicine so come join us at the Gaylord National Harbor Resort in Washington, DC 10-13th October 2024 to hear him and our other fantastic speakers on the latest scientific research and best clinical practice around integrative mental health and functional medicine psychiatry. In this moving and important extract from child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Greenblatt’s presentation for the IMMH Integrative Medicine for Mental Health Conference 2023, Dr. Greenblatt, a pioneer in the field of integrative and functional medicine psychiatry with over 35 years of clinical experience, gives us the hard truth around the staggering statistics and crisis in adolescent mental health, the failure of current treatment models and the importance of taking an integrative and functional medicine approach which diagnose and treat the root cause and the individual biochemistry of patients to bring about sustainable healing. In this extract from IMMH 2023, he delves into the critical role of nutritional lithium in mental health, particularly focusing on the concept of lithium deficiency syndrome in children and adolescents, making a compelling argument about how low-dose lithium, a simple but often overlooked micronutrient, is essential for brain health and can significantly influence behaviours related to ADHD, autism, irritability, bipolar disorder, and aggression. In this presentation learn about: - The failure of current mental health treatment and the epidemic of mental health issues and suicidality in children and adolescents; - The correlation between aggression against self (suicide) and others (violent criminals) and low lithium levels; - Lithium as the anti-impulsive nutrient for ADHD, bipolar, aggression and road rage; - Lithium and other nutritional supplements as part of a more effective and sustainable treatment alongside, or even instead of conventional psychiatric treatments, allowing for the reduction of psychiatric medication such as antipsychotics, mood stabilisers and tranquillisers; - The clinical and research-based evidence supporting the use of low-dose lithium in treating and possibly preventing a range of psychiatric disorders such as autism, suicidality, irritability, bipolar 2, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, aggression, etc.; - Low dose micronutrient lithium and lithium carbonate both as anti-suicidality molecule according to 50 years of research; - The relationship between elemental lithium and lithium carbonate (used in conventional bipolar treatment); - Understanding functional Lithium Deficiency Syndrome due to genetics (which can be tested) and nutritional status; - Understanding who will be the most responsive to lithium supplementation, and how to test for lithium deficiency including hair mineral analysis, symptoms and family history; - Lithium’s effect on neurotransmitters including decreasing glutamate and dopamine which are excitatory, and increasing serotonin and gaba, which are inhibitory; - Lithium’s positive effects on inflammation, oxidative stress, and microglial activation ; - Best doses for nutritional lithium, side effects and best sources; - The effects of lithium on neurodegeneration and its role in dementia care. Find out more about IMMH and book your tickets for the IMMH 2024 conference: www.immh.org

Dr. Christopher Palmer, a Harvard psychiatrist and researcher, shares groundbreaking insights on the connection between metabolic health and mental disorders. He discusses how dietary changes, particularly the ketogenic diet, can significantly impact psychiatric conditions. The conversation covers the roles of mitochondrial function, inflammation, and even intergenerational trauma in mental health. Palmer also touches on the challenges of eating disorders and the complexities of ADHD, proposing innovative, holistic treatment approaches that shift traditional psychiatric paradigms.

Join us in this insightful interview for The MindHealth360 Show and the How To Academy with Dr. Anna Lembke, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and author of the best-selling Dopamine Nation. In this interview, Dr. Lembke explores the intricate balance between pleasure and pain governed by our brain's dopamine levels, and offers valuable strategies for finding balance in an age of indulgence. With the rise of digital drugs and behavioural addictions, such as social media, online shopping, gaming, and gambling, Dr. Lembke discusses the need for balance and the pursuit of pain in a world obsessed with quick dopamine hits. She explains that our biological mechanism of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain is well-suited for a world of scarcity, but it is mismatched for the overwhelming abundance of rewards in today’s society, leading to a global mental health crisis and addiction issues.  Dr. Lembke provides a deeper understanding of the neurobiology of pleasure and pain, shedding light on how these mechanisms work in the brain and their impact on mental health. She also teaches us to recognise and address addictive behaviours, whether related to substances or digital activities for greater health and happiness.

The latest episode of The MindHealth360 Show is an event replay done in partnership with The How To Academy and features Harvard Nutritional Psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo. In this interview, Dr. Naidoo discusses the importance of food to mental health and healing as well as lessons from her new book, Calm Your Mind with Food, where she lays out both science and practical advice for using food as medicine for mental wellbeing. Dr. Naidoo tells us about the major advances made in understanding the gut-brain connection, which explain how food and its digestion  in the gut directly impacts the brain, mood and anxiety levels. Dr. Naidoo explains how the brain and gut initially derive from the same tissue during foetal development, and stay connected by the vagus nerve through a bi-directional communication pathway. She tells us that when food breaks down during digestion, some of the products are good and support healthy brain function, while others are toxic and lead to inflammation in the gut and brain, causing mental health symptoms. Psychological stress can change the make-up of the bacteria in the gut, encouraging the growth of bad bacteria and the reduction of good bacteria, and food can change brain function depending on whether it is healthy or unhealthy.  Dr. Naidoo talks about the foods to avoid (ultra-processed food, lots of added sugar, artificial sweeteners, and trans fats) and foods to seek out (healthy fats, clean proteins, fibre-filled vegetables and legumes) to maximise mental wellbeing. She talks about how different diets can be adapted to personal requirements and preferences, and how moderation and substitution work better than trying to cut out guilty pleasures entirely. We also discuss intermittent fasting, helpful supplements, and Dr. Naidoo’s CALMS acronym for what to look for at the store. Michelin-starred chef David Bouley described Dr. Naidoo as the world’s first “triple threat” in the food and medicine space: a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef graduating with her culinary schools’ most coveted award, and a trained Nutrition Specialist. Her nexus of interests have found their niche in Nutritional Psychiatry. Dr. Naidoo founded and directs the first hospital-based Nutritional Psychiatry Service in the United States. She is the Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) & Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at MGH Academy while serving on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. She was considered Harvard’s Mood Food Expert and has been featured in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Naidoo is also the national bestselling author of This Is Your Brain on Food. In her books, she shows the cutting-edge science explaining the ways in which food contributes to our mental health and how a diet can help treat and prevent a wide range of psychological and cognitive health issues, from ADHD to anxiety, depression, OCD, and others.

Our latest guest on The MindHealth360 Show, Dr. Janina Fisher, one of the world’s leading experts on treating trauma, explains the revolution in trauma treatment since Bessel van der Kolk’s work, which showed that trauma is not in the event itself, but rather in the body’s reaction to that event, which is stored in the body, the nervous system and the lower brain regions. This explains why talk therapy and CBT, which engage the brain’s higher prefrontal cortex, so often fail to address the root causes of mental health issues and are blunt tools when it comes to successfully treating trauma.  She explains that when we have an emotional reaction to an event or a person, we may actually be having a “feeling memory”, reacting to an implicit memory from a childhood trauma rather than to the actual person or event in the present. And this memory can trigger our nervous system’s animalistic response to an earlier threat – whether mammalian (fight/flight) or reptilian (freeze), in the present – dysregulating our nervous system and contributing to mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, panic, and lack of focus, memory and concentration. Dr. Fisher developed the groundbreaking TIST (Trauma Informed Stabilisation Treatment) to help heal trauma and educate and train trauma therapists around the world. Combining Dr. Dick Schwartz’ IFS parts work with mindfulness, clinical hypnosis, and Pat Ogden’s sensorimotor psychotherapy, her approach has proven very successful in sustainably treating trauma. Here she shares some key insights to help us understand the effects of trauma and nervous system dysregulation on our bodies, minds and behaviour, and gives us some top tips for recovery. Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and a former instructor at Harvard Medical School. An international expert on the treatment of trauma, she is an Advisory Board member of the Trauma Research Foundation and the author of three books, Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017), Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (2021), and The Living Legacy Instructional Flip Chart (2022). She is best known for her work on integrating mindfulness-based interventions into trauma treatment, and she is also the creator of Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) therapy.

Deb Dana, LCSW, is a world-renowned clinician, consultant, author and speaker who has successfully put into practice Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory (PVT), making it accessible and beneficial to hundreds of thousands of people around the world by developing therapeutic practices based on PVT. Deb has a busy career training therapists around the world on how to bring a Polyvagal approach into their clinical practice, and also works with agencies and larger systems to explore how to incorporate a Polyvagal perspective into organisational culture to make them safer, happier, and healthier places to learn, work and function. She is a founding member of The Polyvagal Institute, a consultant to Khiron Clinics, and an advisor to Unyte. She is the author of several books, including her latest Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory and Polyvagal Practices: Anchoring the Self in Safety. In this fascinating interview for The MindHealth360 Show, Deb discusses how the state of our nervous systems is essential to our mental and physical health and our daily energy regulation, and how we can understand and manage this state throughout the day using tools and techniques based on Polyvagal Theory. She talks about the hierarchy of the nervous system – from the ventral vagal state (social engagement, which is essential to health, growth and restoration), to the sympathetic state (fight-flight), and finally to the dorsal state (freeze, collapse) and how each one relates to different adaptive behaviours and pathways of neuroception, further influencing our nervous systems. She tells us of different strategies to move more quickly and easily from dorsal or sympathetic to ventral states so we can find calm, connection and healing in our lives. She also discusses the impact of loneliness; her “glimmers” of ventral activation (gone viral on Tik Tok) that we can use to self-regulate; and tells us how different peoples’ nervous systems require different interventions to find their way back to the ventral pathway which is essential to healing; as well as the importance of following the “intuition” of our nervous system. If we could all put Deb’s healing work into daily practice and better manage our nervous systems, our inner and outer worlds would be happier, healthier and safer places to live. 

Dr. Robert Hedaya has been practising functional medicine psychiatry for many years, and is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center. He is the author of Understanding Biological Psychiatry, The Antidepressant Survival Guide and Depression: Advancing the Treatment Paradigm, and the founder of the Whole Psychiatry and Brain Recovery Center, as well as a faculty member at The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM). In this captivating interview for The MindHealth360 Show, Dr. Hedaya talks about how he uses Functional Medicine, focusing on nutrition, digestion, inflammation, toxicity, and hormone levels, and combines it with novel brain therapies which he bundles in his pioneering HYLANE protocol, for a truly personalised treatment for mental health and neurological disorders. HYLANE combines hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), qEEG guided transcranial laser therapy, and neural exercises to treat dysfunction in the brain. He has had great successes with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, neurodegenerative and other brain disorders using this technology, sometimes even when not combined with functional medicine.  He also discusses how our brains can be deeply affected by socio-cultural, environmental factors and trauma, leading to dysregulation of the hypothalamic pituitary and adrenal (HPA) axis and epigenetic mutations which can affect vital functions such as methylation.

Ben Greenfield, a leading biohacker, discusses the importance of rebooting the brain-body communication for mental health. He explores the causes of poor mental health, suggests simple ways to recover, and highlights the role of neurotransmitters. The podcast covers topics such as plants' defense mechanisms, ketogenic diet for brain health, detoxification, caring for the soul, and parenting hacks.