#23 Consciously Create Work-Life Balance Emphasizing Stress Recovery - with Jenn Malecha

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi and welcome. I'm looking forward to introducing you to my friend Jen Meleka. Today, she's a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, which means that she helps people with their health using all kinds of functional and natural approaches to health. She's going to tell us more about that, but please welcome Jen. Thank you for being here.

Hi, Dr. Donny. I'm so excited to be here chatting with you. We have so much in common and so much to share with the world to help people just strive to live healthier and heal themselves.

I think that's a lot of it is learning to be your own health advocate, learning to realize that health is a priority. And once you have that mindset, then you start to look for answers. Look for why is it that I feel this way and what can I do to learn more about my body and then what can I do to change my health? And I know that that's lot of what you specialize in. So tell us more. What is it that first brought you or inspired you to do what you do?

Well, exactly what you're talking about actually is that I had to become my own health advocate. So when I was in my 20s, I started noticing a decline in my health and a couple different ways. Like I moved from Northern California to Southern California and all of a sudden I had seasonal allergies. And I just thought that that was really odd, you know, moving to Southern California where there's no farm fields, versus when I lived up in Northern California. There's all kinds of crops and farms and pollen and things like that.

Like, why am I there now?

Exactly. And with that, I was having reoccurring ear infections. I at the time was working as a personal trainer and I was just completely exhausted in the afternoons. Like I would, you know, work with some clients. In the morning, I would have a break in the middle day. But before I came back from afternoon, evening shift of clients, I would go get a double Americano from Starbucks and still be struggling to keep my eyes open and also struggled with just balancing my weight. Like here I was somebody who went and got a degree in fitness, nutrition, and health. Like, I was practicing all the things that I learned, counting calories, exercising all the time, eating quote, unquote healthy, right? Like boneless, skinless chicken breast, lean meats, and broccoli. And I really was challenged to balance my weight. It was kind of all over the place or to lose weight. And so those kinds of things started to stand out to me and make me start to question what was going on with myself. But of course, every time I went and got my annual physical, I was deemed as, like, the picture perfect health because my blood pressure, cholesterol, you know, all those things looked fantastic and normal.

And it was like, you got these normal results, but you're like, wait a minute, I don't feel good.

I don't feel that way. And then I was diagnosed with skin cancer at like, 20, around 24. And I had no family history and no real risk factors. Like, yes, I live in Southern California, but I wasn't going out and burning my skin every single day. And so it really made me wonder. And around that same time, I came across the functional diagnostic nutrition program and Reid Davis and listened to him talk about the physiological aspects of stress and inflammation and functionally, what's going on at the body. And I was just like, the light bulbs went on, and I went through this training program. And as part of the training program, we did testing on ourselves, did like, salivary cortisol hormone testing, stool sample testing, food sensitivity testing. And basically what it boiled down to was I had. It's like in stage two of HPA axis dysfunction. I had H. Pylori and other bacterial overgrowth going on in my gut. I had a congested liver and really high oxidative stress. So I basically was cultivating this perfect environment for cancer, you know, in my body.

And it's not going to show on the regular lab work.

Exactly. And all these other things were like the, you know, the ear infections, the seasonal allergies were kind of like the fire alarms that were going off that was letting me know that something wasn't right. And I was, you know, I had enough sense to kind of tune into that and start to question things. But even then, you have to be your own advocate, right? Because a lot of this testing that I'm talking about, we can't get through conventional medicine practices and conventional doctors. We have to seek it out on our own, which is where you and I get to help so many people, is helping them get access to the actual right lab tests and resources so that they can find those missing pieces to their health puzzle and get back to feeling like themselves again. It's so important.

Wow. So in the process of doing this training, you were at the same time healing your, like, learning this as you're learning it for yourself as you were learning it for your clients to come.

Exactly. Getting that experience was so helpful because I can share that experience with others and it brings hope to what's possible for them. Like, I like to say that people like you and I are in the, you know, in the business of making the impossible possible. Right. Because we both get so many cases that come to us and people have been misled through other avenues that they pursued or they're not finding those solutions, and we're able to help them see that bigger puzzle and really put all the pieces together and figure it out. And I know that you're really big on stress, Donni. And when I look back and I say, okay, once we do all that testing and we can see all that dysfunction, we have to then ask the question, well, what caused this? What contributed to it? What makes us a good host for these?

Just wrote a blog last week about being a workaholic. And, you know, I was in my 20s or like my whole entire life I've been somebody that's pursued success. Like, I took all the advanced courses in high school and played sports and I got my first job at 16 and then went off to college and juggled an internship and a part time job in school full time and a busy social schedule and then graduated and got my first career job and like moved up the ladder really quickly. And one of the common, you know, kind of themes in my life has definitely been a high amount of stress, you know, and just overworking my body. Like I would go to the gym and run my body into the ground trying to like lose weight while I was undergoing like 12 hour work days and like binge, you know, drinking or eating on the weekends to let loose. And it was just like creates the perfect storm. And it's a lot of stress on our body that results. And we wake up in our 30s and we're like, what the hell happened to us? Right?

When you're in it, I think it's hard to see it, you know, but now when you're looking back at it, it's much easier to go, what was I doing to myself? How could I be expecting myself to work a long day and then do a big workout and still feel good? You know, we start to realize that that's not going to line up. But I mean, I Think that there's a lot of expectations, sort of that we put on ourselves as if we are supposed to be. I can relate. By the way, I was always the excelling student, high achiever, you know, workaholic too. So you and I have that in common. So I can speak from that perspective too and realize that, you know, I think we were a lot. Whether it's societal, cultural.

Whatever. It's just ingrained that that's. It seems like that's what we're supposed to be able to or we should be able to. And I hear that from patients all the time too. You probably also do. They say, I thought I should be able to keep up with this huge amount of activity and realizing, wait a minute, I'm in a human body that needs some support if I'm gonna be asking that much of my body. So yeah, that's a huge realization.

One of my favorite things to say is that your body will do anything that you ask it to, but that doesn't mean that you should. And one of my perfect, my favorite examples of this. And us women, we're so funny sometimes. But like, here's a great example. Like think about the career oriented female who is crushing in at work or even maybe just, you know, also struggling at work because it's stressful. Like basically working a long week. And what is it that we do? We get to Friday, we can't wait to get together with our girlfriends, go out to happy hour, let loose, drink some wine, then you have some wine and you know, your inhibitions are lowered. So you make some not so great food choices. Or we're pairing that wine with cheese, which dairy can be very inflammatory for some people. We end up staying up later than we probably typically would. And when you wake up on Saturday morning, what do most women think that they need to do now? They're like beating themselves up over the wine that they drank and the food choices that they made. And they're like, I need to go to the gym and quote, unquote, burn this all off. And so then they go and they run themselves ragged at the gym, hungover, depleted. And like. So I always use that example because I know that so many people do this all the time. And this is a perfect example. Like, you just had a really stressful week. You added more stressors on top of that by drinking alcohol and maybe eating some less than ideal foods. And now with your body already in a depleted state, you're going to ask it to go to the gym to deplete it even more. Because when we end exercise, exercise is typically a positive stress that our body can respond to, and it builds healthy bones and muscles. But when we go into an exercise, especially an intense exercise state, in already a depleted way, we're just depleting it and breaking it down even more. And then our body cannot fully recover. And that's a vicious cycle that most people are in week after week after week. So when I work with clients, I ask them, the very first things that I tell them to do is I want you to redefine the word stress. Stress is not just mental emotional stress is anything that places a burden on your body that then results in inflammation and dysfunction. So it could be the foods that you're eating, poor sleep that you're getting over or under exercising, toxins that are in your environment. It is that mental emotional stress. It could be crossing time zones and affecting your circadian rhythm. You know, there's a lot of things that come into play. So what I hope that when people work with me is, I'm sure when they work with you is like helping them to understand that concept of stress better and being able to identify at any point in time what is the burden of stress that my body is under and then making conscious decisions from that place. So, yes, if this week has been super stressful with work, then I'm actually going to make sleep a priority and eating healthy a priority. And I'm going to skip the wine because I'm going to be better off on a Saturday morning. I'll wake up feeling better if I actually go to bed early and take care of my body. And then maybe I can have wine on Saturday instead, because I allowed some recovery to happen. But it's that constant pushing that gets us into trouble and creates that chronic stress inflammatory pattern that we see in so many people.

Well, and I think too, what I hear, because I hear, yes, the same patterns often from people, even with this time, when we're not necessarily in an office working, but even at home working, we can fall to those same. It feels like the alcohol is the stress relief or is the reward when actually reframing it and realizing that while a little bit of alcohol is not bad, just like some exercise is good, it's a matter of the balance. And I think that's what you're speaking to, is how to really understand the balance for your body and when those choices might be okay and when those choices might be pushing you over the edge toward more stress. And I think that.

An important thing that I also hear from you is Being gentle with yourself and not being judgmental, because it is easy to get caught in waking up Saturday morning and feeling hard on yourself when. If we can shift that as well, to say, oh, okay, I can learn from this experience of how I'm feeling right now and what I did yesterday and why, and kind of make connect the dots. This is why I'm feeling this way. And then start to be proactive about and problem solve about how maybe you make a different decision in the future. Well, there's no reason, you know, because if you're hard on yourself, that's just more stress.

Right. And as being a type or perfectionist, it's hard. It is hard to break that cycle. So I like to talk with clients about, you know, creating negative and positive feedback loops. I'm like, let's just try it once. It's kind of like cutting out, like, gluten or dairy for a lot of people. You know, in the beginning, they're like, oh, I don't really think that it's a problem. It's never really given me any issues. I'm like, well, let's just try it. Let's just go, like, 14 days without it and see what happens. And then they notice. They're like, wow, I think I can think so much clearer. I have more energy. I feel less bloated. Like, my digestion is so much better. So now we've created a positive feedback loop. It's positive reinforcement to continue making that choice. And I do encourage them once they've done that, Donnie, like, I will say, okay, now try a little bit of gluten or dairy, and let's see what happens.

Yeah, let's learn from our body. Yes, yes.

And usually they'll have, like, a negative kind of reaction to it. They'll get bloated or not feel great or is it will pop out or something will happen. And so now we've created a negative feedback loop. Right. It's kind of the old concept of, like, if you burn your hand on the stove, you're less likely to do it again a second time because we've created a negative feedback loop. So. So they will have that understanding. And so now we can make choices from there, like, oh, when I eat this, or I do this, I feel terrible, versus when I do this, I feel great. And so then it just naturally becomes easier to start making those choices, like, in alignment, you know, in that kind of way. And I do think that this time during the pandemic, it has created different situations for us. Like, you know, I For myself, I already worked from home full time, so now, you know, being restricted from, like, on the weekends, I can't go out and do my normal activities. I've been noticing that I've been working a lot more because it's easier to sit at home than creatively think about something or sit by my pool, which is right outside my door, because I love my work, but I have to create that balance, you know, And I have noticed that I've been having, like, you know, an extra glass of wine or so on the weekends because, you know, there's not much else to do. And that's not an excuse to necessarily drink wine, but I do genuinely enjoy drinking wine. And so sitting on the patio with my husband and kind of talking, that's one of our, you know, pastimes together. And so I've actually shifted my exercise routine around that Sundays used to be my long run days where I would get up in the morning and go run four miles. But now, because I am choosing to drink drink wine on a Saturday evening, I've made Sundays my rest days. So we go for a nice long walk with our puppy. I do some yoga. And now Monday, instead of Monday being my rest day, Monday morning is my long run day. So I've made that shift. So I give my body ample time to kind of recover from alcohol consumption. So I'm just not beating it down constantly with these different types of stressors that we can have in our life sometimes.

Well, I love that example you're giving of how to.

Again, you're starting from a mindset of your health as a priority. And then it just becomes much easier where you find yourself deciding, hey, I need to shift my schedule to match that, and I need to make my schedule allow for time with my husband. That doing something we enjoy, even if, you know, say, that includes wine or whatever it is, then you go, okay, that's something that I want to have in my life. So then I'm gonna create the space for it and make sure that I have my recovery time from that. And so it's like this much more conscious way of being and living. And so I thank you for sharing that as an example, because I do think that sometimes it can be hard to imagine that that's even possible. But you're showing, hey, this is. You're giving us a peek into your world. This is how it looks in Jen's world in terms of how to prioritize wellness, how to work and serve people, but also create that balance and do the things you enjoy Mm.

And I'll tell you, Diana, like, I have to work at it, because the type A perfectionist personality in me, you know, or like, behaviors and belief systems that I've had running for a long time, like, that little voice in my head will sometimes pop up and be like, no, you need to go work out hard or you need to do this. And so I have to work at it. I have to work at not working, which is hard for a lot of people. It's a societal thing that we've definitely created. I always bring up the example, like, in the last election that we had. I don't know if you remember, but Hillary Clinton got sick towards the end, and she continued to campaign and made that choice. And I, at that time was just like, no, that is such a horrible example.

You need a break.

Yeah.

And getting sick is an indication that your body is telling you that it needs a break. And we see this over and over in our work environments. Most of us aren't working in an office anymore. But how many times can the listeners relate to the fact of feeling a little under the weather and still going into work and pushing through? Right. There's a sensation to push through. Or they've known somebody that does. And I think what's interesting about this whole Covid thing is hopefully that's changing that belief system so that when everybody does go back to work, you know, we have a heightened awareness around one infecting other people and these, you know, how contagious illnesses can be sometimes, whether it's a virus or a common cold or whatever it is. And you're going to stay home because you should. It's so much better to stay home and take those that one day or that two days off and take care.

Of yourself so you can recover.

Yes. Instead of, like, you know, everybody's had. Probably had the experience of, like, that lingering cold or flu that just wouldn't go away. Well, it's because you're not allowing your body the time that it needs to rest. And like, I tell my. My staff all the time, I'm like, I would rather that you just came to me and tell me that you're stressed or that you're feeling under the weather and take a day or two days off and show up at work 100% instead of showing up at work, like, and giving 50%, you know, and we need to look at our lives in that kind of way also, I.

Think, because then it just, like that snowball effect happens. And it's just because we keep thinking, oh, I can keep up with my demands while my body is supposed to be recovering. And then it, but then it just snowballs and more inflammation leads to more inflammation and then next thing you know you're just, it's things are, other health issues are developing and you're feeling worse. And that's, you know, of course then that's a lot of times when people start to realize, oh my gosh, I got to do something differently. And, and it again it's so, it's, I feel so honored as well to be able to help people through that because there are so many more solutions out there beyond just the regular blood work.

Something a lot of people don't know is that too much stress can actually create an abundance of health problems like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, anxiety, migraines, insomnia, even fertility issues. This is because high stress puts your adrenal glands on overload. They release cortisol and adrenaline which controls your digestion, hormones, immune system, energy focus and even your emotional response. So how can you beat stress when you don't know where to start? That's why we have a free 7 day stress reset program. It's designed to help support weight loss, digestive healing and hormone balancing. It includes support for integrating self care daily tips come to you by email and video. Gluten free dairy free meal plans as well as grocery shopping lists, journal pages and more. This free program will help you beat stress and put you on the path to wholeness in your body. Get your plan now for free@drdonnie.com.

Maybe let's talk about that a little bit. Like I mean I know there's certain things we can get from blood work that insurance will cover. So that can sometimes be a starting place. But let's dive into that a little bit more Jen, in terms of like what can we get from regular blood work? And when do you, when should a person start to think about other testing to find out what's. How has stress affected their body and therefore what can they do to recover?

Yeah, well let's talk about what some of the subtle symptoms are first. Because one of the things that I, that I think happens is that people are brushing off these very like that we'll call them common symptoms but they're not normal. Right.

Like indicators that stress is an issue. And it's true, it shows up differently for each person.

Exactly. So I think some of the common things I see are like people struggling to wake up in the morning. Like they'll still commonly describe themselves as like, well I have A hard time getting up out of bed. And once I get up and get moving, then I'm like, okay, and I can get going. But they don't wake up out of bed with energy. And you should wake up with energy every single day. Struggling with the afternoon slump. Right. Energy slump would be another one. I see really common is feeling wired but tired in the evening time. And that has to do with your circadian rhythm and your cortisol rhythm, which is part of what's related to stress that we'll talk about in the testing here in just a second. And inability to handle stress. So many people will say, like, I have such a short fuse now. I have this inability to handle stress. Like, I'm forgetful, I have a low tolerance. I'm snapping at my loved ones or my co workers. And then of course, there's the bigger things that we start to see in our practices, like the hormone imbalance, the menstrual cycle irregularities, low testosterone, low libido, bloating, acne, skin issues, you know, autoimmune conditions. The list goes on from, like, those bigger things. But one of the things that I really want to cue the listeners into is just because something is common, like my seasonal allergies, for example, does not necessarily mean that it's normal.

So it's such a good point because we, I too, like, for years had allergies and just would think, oh, that's, you know, that that's not even something people usually think of as possibly to go away. And I, even as an age of doctor, was surprised when my allergies went away. I was like, that's even possible, you know, and it's like, even as an age of doctor, I had to kind of go, yeah, it's possible for allergies to go away. But you're right. Like, we start to kind of like almost take for granted or accept that these health issues are just supposed to be there because it's normal, but it's. It doesn't have to be.

Right? So if you, yeah, if you catch yourself saying like, oh, I just must be getting older, that's your first clue that something is arrived. Because I can tell you, at my age now and at 37, I feel better than I ever did at 27 because my health is just in a better state. Right. So let's just put that out there.

But it's not based on age because I think a lot of times people even hear that in the doctor's office. Yes, doctors will say, oh, you're just getting older. It's like, no, that's not a thing.

Yeah, it's not really a thing. And. Or. But, you know, as women, like, when I was going through in the midst of some of my hormone challenges that I had, they were like, oh, well, you're in your 30s now. Your hormones are changing. And I was like, no, that's not really. I don't think that's what it is. So trust yourself. You have an innate, like, knowing with your body. And that was one of the clues for me is like, I just knew it was like, I don't feel at home in my body. Like, something is not right. Even though. So going back to the testing, like, again, I was going to my annual physicals and being told time and time again that I was a picture of perfect health because my cholesterol looked great, my blood pressure looked great, my heart rate was great. So some of these things that are considered optimal vital signs, pulse rate, temperature, those types of things looked all great. Which, in a conventional setting and in an acute care atmosphere, those vital signs can be really important and helpful. So with COVID going on right now, this is a great example. What are they checking for temperature and pulse to figure that out, because that's an indication of viral activity, that you're sick. But what we're really talking about is, like, chronic stress and inflammation, which is not necessarily going to show up in any of these vital signs. You may see, over time, cholesterol or blood pressure start to creep up because of inflammation. But in most instances, it's not going to be a good determinant of what's truly going on in the body. So when we look at a full blood chemistry panel, for example, we can start to collect more clues, right? Like, CRP is a great inflammatory marker that can be on there. But even then, CRP is a generalistic like, well, there's this inflammation in the body, but we don't know where it's coming from or what's causing it. And it can be acute in that moment in time. You know, maybe there was just something in that moment, that day or within that 24 hours that inflamed you. And so it's not super insightful. We can see things like HbA1c and glucose and. And all other kinds of things on a CBC panel. But here's the trick that I see, Donni, and I'm sure you see this, too, is whenever I see a CBC panel, when we know how to interpret it from a functional standpoint, it always directs me back to running something like a Dutch test, which looks at hormone and cortisol values and patterns. It always directs me to looking at a stool sample test to see what's going on inside the gut. Right. And maybe some food sensitivities or some other things. So a couple of things with that CBC panel is one, the ranges matter. Like, we want to look at people. We want to compare people to optimal ranges, not just conventional ranges, because conventional ranges are looking for, when are they. Have they clinically reached a level of diagnosis? And not necessarily are they an optimal state or not. Right. And then I love, you know, like, when we look at a stool sample test, we can get, like, calprotectin on there, which is an inflammatory marker. So now we can isolate. If they had high CRP on a blood chemist, we can start to isolate and say, like, oh, where there is inflammation in the GI tract. And we can also see parasites and bacteria and yeast overgrowth that are going on and other inflammatory markers. But what I think that you and I both find super helpful is the cortisol patterns that we look at on a Dutch test. Right. Because that actually we can then assess different stages of HPA axis dysfunction. And are they in, like, has chronic stress and inflammation set in for a very long time, which to me is more of a determinant of health than anything else. Right. Because you can actually see this pattern, this physiological pattern of chronic stress and inflammation has been around for so long now. We're seeing depleted states or dysfunctional cortisol patterns. And those are the types of things that set you up for illness and infection and chronic diseases down the road. Right. So those are some of my top favorite tactics to be using with people.

No, I'm so glad you're mentioning that, because it really. I think of it as. It's like when a person really wants to understand the underlying cause. You know, like, if you. If you start to think to yourself, I mean, maybe it's the situation like we're describing where the person's having more symptoms, whether fatigue or sleep issues or anxiety, and their regular blood work is normal, but they're saying, well, they start to realize, I don't want to feel this way anymore. There's got to be some reason or something I can do about it. And that's one of the examples of when we turn to those tests, where we go, we need to do some tests that are not yet part of standard medical care. These tests have been around for decades, and they're accurate and useful, and I mean, beyond useful, but they're just not part of standard medical care. And so understanding that if you get to that point when you're like, I know there's something going on with my health and it's not reflecting in the blood work, then just to know that this is possible, that these tests exist and we can then start to dig deeper to understand. Because then the other piece of it is I always like to point out that the real point of doing a test is when it can give us information that we can do something about. Yes, it's interesting to get these results, but it's also powerful because when we have this information like what is your cortisol level or who's living in your gut or which foods are triggering an inflammatory response, then we can actually make changes to address those results. So the results are hugely powerful in that they guide us in how to help your body recover and feel better.

Exactly. And I think CRP is a great example because I'll hear so many cases of people are like, I went and got tested and I had high crp so they put me on a steroid or an anti inflammatory. I'm like, but we have to like I always tell people, I'm like, you need to go back to your two year old self. Because what are two year olds known for is they constantly ask the question why?

That's a good way to think of it.

Yeah, you have to ask, well why is that happening? And most times you're not going to get an explanation because they don't necessarily know. And it's not to, you know.

To their fault necessarily. That's just how our standard medical of care has been structured where like if you have a broken arm, if you're suffering from a heart attack, like they're there to address acute scenarios better than they are equipped to address these chronic things that we're talking about. And so to your point, you know, then it's running the tests that are going to take a deeper dive and saying, okay, well, well why is there inflammation? What is causing that? What foods are you eating that are triggering inflammation? What's going inside your gut that's triggering inflammation? What toxins are in your environment that are triggering inflammation? And we can start to like sniff those things out and be true health detectives and empower, you know, through education in that kind of way. Like I love educating my clients on environmental toxins for example that you know, we just have a false sense of them being safe because they are again so common in our environment. And the reality is, is that they're not in there over time are really dampening our immune system and our hormones and our ability.

They're stressed too. Yeah, they are stressed in that same category of a stress, big time.

And even in small doses, it doesn't have to be these large exposures. It's the small quantities accumulated over time that have the biggest impacts on us too.

Yeah, so even sometimes those, I mean, I think sometimes that's what really surprises people is when they start to make what, what seems like a small change, you know, like, okay, I'm going to change my personal care products to something not toxic. I'm going to choose organic foods instead of non organic. And it feels like, is this really going to make a difference? But what you and I end up seeing is that it does make a difference because we're versus making choices to take away stresses that were kind of like unnecessary. I mean, we know that stress is going to be part of life. We're going to have choices stresses. We're going to choose, you know, we're going to choose to work or have a job. We're going to choose to be parents or dog parents. I know you're a dog parent like me. We're going to choose these stresses on purpose. But we can also choose to eliminate stresses that are just, just extra stress that then just is a burden.

Right, right.

Yeah.

I love that you bring that up because we just, we just. Our puppy's five months old and we brought him home. You know, that first week or something is like you're waking up every two hours to take them to go to the bathroom. And I am so like protective over my sleep. So when we talk about stressors and supporting your body, like getting good quality sleep and sleeping, being asleep by 10 and sleeping solid through until about 4am is like, like so important to me and crucial for how I feel. And so that first week or two with our puppy getting up, like my husband and I taking shifts and getting up, I was, I was like, no offense to the parents out there, but I was like, I don't know why people actually choose to have kids and like not sleep for years.

Yeah, I did that. I don't know why I did that.

But yeah, I was like, this is intense. Like I just don't feel like my best or even like 50% of myself if I'm not getting a good night's sleep, you know, and that's like, I think a great example for some people out there is, you know, yes, you are going to choose. Some of you are going to choose to have kids and God bless you that do. And also recognizing, okay, if that's going to be my choice and I'm going to have sleepless nights, how do I also, how do I support my body in other areas so that I can make it through? And then like, kind of what can be a long term scenario with kids and not getting great sleep doesn't lead down the road to something like, you know, more traumatic with my health because of like this lack of sleep. Because I was also compiling that with poor foods and like all these other things. Right. So, you know, I think that's a really great example. And I just, I laugh at my inability to, to have kids because I would never give up my sleep.

Once you realize the power of sleep, it's like, because believe me, I lived a lot of my life where I felt like I was in that boat of like, oh, you know, I'll eventually get some sleep or I got to get all these other things done first. That same workaholic mode, you know, And I know that it was impacting my health. And when it shifted for me, like you're saying where all of a sudden you realize, you know, there's a lot of good stuff that happens while we're sleeping and we need that in order to perform better when we're awake. And, and once that shift happens, then, yeah, you, you start to be like super protective of those sleep hours. It's like. And then, and I think again, it's, it's a. I like how you're sharing this example of how it impacts your decision making because then you might decide, okay, yes, I'm going to get a puppy. And I understand that I'm going to have to make different changes in my schedule and my support in order to get through the puppy time until the puppy can sleep through the night and we can both get the sleep we need.

Yeah. I mean, that was another phase where I was like, okay, I'm going to dial down my exercise intensity. I'm not rested. I'm getting broken sleep in the middle of the night. So it was more walking and yoga, not lifting weights and doing more intense things. And those are, it was a short period of time. It's okay. We have to give ourselves permission to do that. Like, I wasn't Gonna put on £15 by doing that. Like, I had to trust in my body. I had to eat healthy and do the other things that supported those places. And that's what I love, kind of guiding clients through too, because it's empowering. You always have a choice, you know, every choice that we make is a choice that can build up our health or can break down our health. Right. And I think that I love that we're talking about sleep because I say that we have to learn to value sleep more than diet and exercise. Like, you can't out diet or out exercise, a poor sleep routine. And if you're not sleeping, great, it greatly diminishes all of your exercise and dieting efforts because you're not getting that full recovery at nighttime. So. So to all the moms out there, dads that are getting broken sleep because of their kids, you're not doomed. Just recognize that. Right. And do what you can to support your body with proper eating the right foods, eating organic, like you said, dialing down the exercise intensity, doing some deep breathing or other things that are going to help to mitigate stress in different ways in your body for yourself. And some of this testing is really insightful for that. I think just tying it back to the testing is one of. It's a huge motivating tool to actually see on paper what is going on in your body. And it's an empowering tool too, because then you're like, okay, now I have the information, and now I can make educated, conscious decisions to support the way that I actually want to be feeling based on this information.

Well, and I was thinking that the tests we were talking about are exactly the test, like, say, if a person is wanting to sleep but struggling, like laying there awake or waking up all night and can't sleep. We come back to these same tests. We want to see your cortisol level from morning, midday, evening, bedtime. We want to see what is that cortisol doing all day and especially at night and in the morning, Is that influencing your sleep? Because then we can do something about it. We can use nutrients, herbs to help shift that cortisol back to a pattern that's going to be helpful for sleep, for example. But also we want to look at food sensitivities. How often you probably see too, that inflammation from food sensitivities or from gut bacteria imbalances and leaky gut that can be related to sleep as well as many other health issues. And it's not something that people usually would think of. When you're having sleep issues, you don't necessarily start thinking about what's going on in your gut. But actually the research really shows that they're connected. So doing these same tests can be so instrumental with solving sleep issues so that you can get that good sleep you need.

Yes, exactly. And I love opening up people's eyes to this. And I'll just give a little tip for our listeners is that if you're curious as to whether or not you should invest in and some testing and like looking at parasites, bacteria and yeast overgrowth, I want you to pay attention to the full moon and when the, when the full moon is coming because there's a strong correlation with like, your symptoms will like whatever you're dealing with, health wise, whatever kind of symptoms you have, that they will probably intensify leading up to a full moon and then maybe right afterwards they kind of like start to diminish again and you'll go through this cycle and that is one of the clues and around parasites, bacteria and yeast overgrowth, because during the full moon time, it creates this like pulling kind of sensation and makes those, those gut bugs get a little bit more active. And like, when I share that with people, their minds are like blown sometimes and they're like, oh my God, my symptoms are totally cyclical. Like it does. That's so true. It happens.

And it just goes to show that, you know, also that the root causes, what we would maybe call the root causes, can oftentimes be far removed from the symptoms. Like you wouldn't. Most people would think, like, oh, parasites, bacteria and yeast overgrowth, that's going to be more related to stomach upset, digestion, bloating issues. You may not connect that to sleep, but that actually is like, I love that you're talking about this because that's like one of the number one things that I see correlated with people's sleep issues is they've got some, something going on in their gut which is creating some internal inflammation, stress toxicity, spiking cortisol levels at nighttime and they're really struggling with their sleep as a result of that.

Yeah, it's so true. And same for anxiety and autoimmunity. Right. And so that's when we can help with so many different health issues. Because I think when we're looking at these underlying issues that were caused by stress to begin with. But when we can look at how has stress affected your body and help solve for that, we can solve all these different health issues that we've been referring to because the symptom is really just the indicator that something's out of balance.

Exactly, exactly.

Wow. So how can people, you know, I love this conversation. Thank you so much. And how can everyone learn more from you or read your blogs and so on?

Yeah, the two blogs that I talked about are over on my website. So I love they're totally in alignment. Like, this is divine. We did not plan this, by the way. I didn't plan my blogs around this, but just kind of divinely happened with our topic today. So over on my website, which is holistichealthboss.com and holistic is with a W, just like whole Foods. So holistic health boss. And then I also am very active over on Instagram, so people can follow me over on Instagram holistichealthboss or on Facebook as holistic health boss as well, too. And I try to put out at least a new blog or newsletter on a weekly basis. And then over on social media, I'm constantly sharing personal tips of mine, like things that I'm doing in my life or just little tidbits that people like, practical stuff that people can really take and like, implement to help them create some change and how they're feeling.

Well, coming back to what you said about the moon cycle, it really pointed out how we, we're part of nature and we are so responsive to nature. And, you know, to be able to share that as well with people like you do in terms of inspiring them to, you know, to notice, hey, how does my body respond to circadian rhythms or the moon cycle? You know, and really that just curiosity about ourselves and awareness and how that state of curiosity and awareness can create such health change. So thank you so much for sharing that, Jenna. I love that message. So thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for the great conversation today, Dr. Donney. I loved it. We could talk forever, I'm sure.

Well, let's do it again soon.

Definitely.

Thanks for listening to how humans heal. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and a review. And for more resources, visit drdani.com.