Wild & Well: Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing with Dani Williamson | How Humans Heal Podcast

Hi, I'm Dr. Donnie and I want to issue a trigger warning for this particular episode of How Humans Heal because we discuss some stressful experiences, including suicide and suicide ideation that could be disturbing for some people. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or someone you know, I encourage you to immediately call your physician, go to the emergency room or call the suicide phone hotline in your country in the United States. You can call or text 9 8-8- or the phone number 1-800-273-8255. Thanks so much and I'm so glad you're here at How Humans Heal. Hi and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donni Wilson and today I'm excited to introduce you to Dani Williamson. She is a family nurse practitioner who transform into a functional medicine practitioner and she has a book called Wild and well. And she's here today to tell us more about what inspired her to completely go this route of helping people to improve their health using some of the most what you call common sense patterns and lifestyle changes that anyone can implement and can make a huge difference in your health. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here.

I mean, I know you're so open about your story and your and what motivated you and I really appreciate that because I think that the more as practitioners that, I mean, what I've seen for myself is the more I can share about my story and what motivated me to help others. It just makes us more real people. And I think that's what everyone needs is just we're all humans. No matter what our training or our background, we're all humans just trying to get through life as healthy as we can. And so I appreciate you sharing your background, but if you don't mind, share with this audience a little more like, you know what, what do you think even drew you toward becoming a nurse practitioner, let alone now addressing health with from a functional medicine perspective?

Sure. Well, the two minute version is I grew up in complete trauma, basically a complete shithole. I tell people that. Chaos, constant chaos. I had a grandfather that had died by suicide in the front yard, in the driveway, a mom who attempted multiple times, a stepfather that was a child molester. And I had one that, well, two stepfathers. And the second one almost killed me my senior year, choked me. I had chronic stress.

In your childhood.

Talk about. That's why the whole first part of the book is on adverse childhood experiences, trauma. So I had my first colonoscopy of 4 at age 20 and fast forward I was suicidal. I was going to die by suicide one morning, and my children ran into the room and stopped me. I was going to drive off into the river. And there was a whole, whole situation. I was in a bad marriage. I lost everything. Went on food stamps. I was diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia. Anxiety, well, depression. I'm sorry. And chronic itching. Chronic itching. And I decided to get divorced. I did not die by suicide. So grateful that day that I did not. And I.

Applied to nursing school on food stamps and a medical card. And I got through school at age 40. I went in at 40, got out at 44, still having all the symptoms. Had seen 10 doctors in 44 years. I was 44 years old, working for a functional medicine clinic in Tennessee when I got out of school. And one day, Dr. Kalb looked at me and he said, danny.

What are you eating? Don't you know your diet controls your symptoms? Do you take digestive enzymes, probiotics? Do you know your food sensitivities? And it was a little deeper than that, but. And I said, well, no, I don't do any of that. I have no idea what you're talking about. They never taught me this in school, that what's at the end of your fork will heal you or kill you. It's simple and as complicated as that. And those questions led to a full reversal, Dr. Donnie, of 44 years of chronic lifestyle disease. I am living proof that if you weren't born sick, you don't have to live sick.

Lifestyle diseases, everything you've been through, lifestyle.

Diseases are exactly that. Diseases turned on by your lifestyle and turned off by your lifestyle. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, lupus, itching, depression. I mean, you know, there's a million things. Most of us are not born sick. We turn those on and we forget that. So I reversed it. I feel better at 56 years old than I ever did at 46, 44, when he was talking to me. And that's how I've made my mission in life. Because then I got to thinking, yeah, I'm not the smartest one. I'm smart, and I got through school and I did all the things, but I've got more common sense than a lot of people. Like, well, this can't be rocket science. I mean, what. So you've got to. So that's how I developed the book and my six steps. Eat well, Sleep well, Move well, Poop well, de Stress well, and Commune well. But even though I was doing that for the last 10 years. I had great success, just like you. People came from all over, still do. But I missed a huge piece of it. The childhood trauma, what happens to you before the age of 18 can set you up or even after, but you know, can set you up for a lifetime of chronic disease. And I knew nothing about it. And when I was in school, I was in a good nurse practitioner school.

They didn't even know.

Zero.

It's really well established. I'd love to talk more about the adverse childhood events or what we call ACE aces. And it's, it's, yeah, there's a ton of research that shows that and there's a high percentage of us who qualify as having experience aces. Not even. I mean, you mentioned what your childhood traumas were, but it doesn't have to be that severe and it still qualifies as affecting your health.

When they did this study, which was 17,000 people, you know, and it's not a perfect study, but it was a big study. And it didn't, it wasn't, it did not cross all socioeconomic, you know, boundaries or ethnic groups. I mean this was a white upper middle class group, 17,000 in California.

But what they discovered, what they discovered.

From that one study of that population, 64%, 64% of those 17,000 people had at least one ACE. And if you had at least one ACE, then you, I'm sorry, then you are 50% more likely to have two, 12 and a half percent have four or more ACEs. If you have four or more adverse events, you have a 20 year shortened lifespan than your colleagues sitting next to you who may have 1 years, 20 years. My score is a 6. Trauma. I mean, you know, I was molested, I was beat up. I mean there was divorce, there was mental illness. You know, there were things, there were lots.

And this is the thing that if someone's wondering if they qualify, it is, it's if you grew up with a parent or someone in your household that had mental illness, that qualifies. Also any kind of abuse, including addiction. Addiction in the home, yes. That qualifies.

Insecurity. Somebody went to jail, right? I mean it's physical, emotional. I mean, there's no money, you didn't feel safe. Physical abuse, yeah, there's, you know, there's 10 questions and this is available to anyone online. You can just Google up, you could probably put it in your show notes. I'll put it the ACE questionnaire link. And we have it in the book, but we don't have that online. But.

And you can take your Score. So you have to give yourself some grace. And if your healthcare provider is not asking about your childhood, then maybe we need to question. Okay, maybe I need a new healthcare provider. Because the more I learned about this, and the more I learn about this, the better provider I become. Because I know I can't ask this patient to cut out gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, corn, eggs, peanuts, go move their body, get their sleep, leave their spouse if they're being abused, all these things, if they've got this entire bag of trauma. Because, you know, the body keeps score, right?

It does. The book, the body, Dr. Vanderpock.

I've got that book somewhere. I've got right here. But Dr. Vanderpock wrote the number one best selling book. Still, like 20 years later, still goes back and forth, number one on the new York Times list for trauma.

And it's. I agree with you, Danny. I mean, in my book, master your stress, I also talk about ACEs, because it's essential to know. I completely agree. This needs to be in the common medical environment and assessment and at the same time. And I'd love your impression on this, but what I always like to emphasize is that as much as we know that trauma and stress in our childhood has the potential to affect our health for the rest of our lives. As much as we know that, we also know that there's something you can do about it. It doesn't mean that it's set in stone. It's more motivation to do something about it.

No, Dr. Donnie, I will never forget that when I was diagnosed with lupus. What? I'm 35 years old. I didn't know anything about lupus. I went to Vanderbilt, which is where I went to school. But everywhere from my hometown, they think Vanderbilt is the top dog. I walk in there to the best rheumatologist that my obstetrician found. She puts her hand on that door and she says, danielle, there's no cure for lupus. It kills women every year.

That's so scary.

Here's your pain medicine. Here's your anti inflammatories. Because it was my joint pain. Oh, my gosh, I don't have joint pain at all now. Once I knew my food sensitivities and, you know, took care of some things, no pain. I was horrified. I took one was Celebrex I was on. And I took that for like two days, then found out it was. It was terrible. But that doctor is still there. I saw a patient last year who. Same, same doctor, same rheumatologist and they said the same thing. I told her my story and she said, same thing, Danny, there's no cure. You know, there's no cure. Donnie.

This is what the conventional medical, when they go to training, this is what they're trained to say, like we have to know, like, this is the training they're getting is. There is no, no cure for autoimmunity. You just have to take a medication for pain or for suppressing your immune system and that's going to be for the rest of your life. And that's the, that's the only tools they have.

Unfortunately for especially I had four colonoscopies with four different gastroenterologists in dosing.

Because you have IBS too, right?

I was diagnosed with IBS at 20 because I, I lived in New York City for three years. I knew where every public restroom was because I never knew what was going to do. You think those four gastroenterologists ever, in 24 years ever said to me, danny, it's not normal to nearly poop your pants every visit. It's not normal to have chronic diarrhea. What are you eating?

Oh my gosh, of course. You should have been asking about, Isn't it amazing that gastroenterologists don't ask about diet is what you're saying? Like never. This is about the digestion. Of course it's about the diet.

Yeah. And if had they asked, I would have told them. I mean, anything I want, right? I mean, I at. I had no idea that your food could heal you or kill you. I didn't know that food could help you reverse, you know, whatever is happening to you again. So all that being said, it's not rocket science. It's easy, it's simple. But it's not necessarily easy. There's a difference, you know, because I really do try to break it down to you got to eat well and one ingredient, food is key. You know, if you're eating processed, packaged, bagged, canned, fake somebody's food out of a drive through window where they say, my pleasure, my pleasure, right?

And that's your big red flag.

You are eating fake man made food and it's killing you. You know, and if you don't think the food industry is about addiction, you are sadly mistaken. It's almost 2 o' clock in Franklin, Tennessee today, guaranteed. Around the chick fil a 1 mile from my house, there's a line and there's a line around it in New York City, Utah, Panama City, I don't know, Philadelphia, because it's about addiction. And I'm glad you're saying that.

Let me tell you, we get addicted to foods, right? We get addicted to the gluten, the dairy, the inflammation, all of the inflammatory response.

We sure do. And I pick on Chick Fil A because I love it. Like, if I had. If they said you could eat one fast food the rest of your life, that would be it. The grilled chicken sandwich. The grilled chicken took four years to develop. Four years. Now, this needs to be a huge red flag for people. That is a chemistry experiment. As is are the biscuits at Cracker.

It's not just chicken. Because if it was just chicken, there's no research that needs to be done. It's just a chicken nothing.

There are 51 ingredients in a chicken sandwich at Chick Fil A. 51. So it's a chemistry experiment. It's a lab experiment. And your kids and your grandkids and you are the lab rats. And I am telling you, you got to follow the money. It is about addiction. And if you drive through any of those places four or five times a week, you are eating nothing but fake food that is addictive. Because nobody's chicken sandwich tastes the same every time you cook it at home. Nobody's biscuits taste the same every time you bake them or look the same. That is fake chemical chemistry experiment food. It's a formula.

No, we forget that. We forget that it's just like it's toxic food. Like who? You just.

It's not food.

It's not even food.

As Dr. Mark Hyman, you know, and our tells us it's Franken food. It's not even food. And so that's the hardest thing for people to wrap their head around. Because we are creatures of habit, right? We're creatures.

And if we're addicted to. Whenever we're addicted to something, right? No matter. And this is the thing I. I realize is a lot of the human experience part of being human is we're going to go for things that, especially when we've been stressed. Humans, we're going to look for substances and activities that help us cope with the stress. But then we're also having to be careful because we can become addicted to any substance or activity because it has this dopamine effect. Right? Let's talk about that. Let's talk about addiction and why. Because once you're addicted, it's hard to get out of it. You can't see clearly.

No, you can't see clearly. And you know, gluten works on those morphine receptors in your brain. And the second you eat that biscuit, that's why you can eat. I say Cracker Barrel because I'm in the south, but you could be anywhere. You can eat three Cracker Barrel biscuits before you ever knew what happened. Because it's that dopamine hit. It's that morphine hit on those receptors. And the more you eat, the more you want and you feel good. I mean, there's no doubt about that. You feel good instantly until you don't, you know, and then you got to have more to keep you going. And it is very difficult. And it is the hardest thing you will ever do is change what is at the end of your fork. Because we eat the same 15 or so foods our entire life. We don't diversify. God made. I mean, this is August. There are hundreds of foods out there for us to eat right now in season and local, and we don't do it. And we feed our children the same five or six recipes, if we're even using a recipe, their entire lives. We have no diversity in there. And so. But it is. It's about addiction. And we crave. It's why we pull through. Boom. That. That chicken restaurant or that McDonald restaurant four times a week. And we think our kids, we think our kids can succeed in school on that. It's not food.

It's not food. And it's causing you and I can talk more about, you know, why is that? You know, like, it's. First of all, it's hitting the digestion, causing leaky gut and imbalanced gut bacteria and inflammation, which of course sends inflammatory signals. I know in your book you talk about inflammation, and I love that because I love to talk about that too. It's invisible, right? This inflammation is invisible. So it's sneaking. It. It's sneaks up on us, but it shows up with the symptoms throughout our body. Right. Like for you, from IBS to lupus, all of that.

That's right. But people don't understand. Yeah, we have. We have acute inflammation.

Boom.

I cut my finger cutting, you know, tomatoes. That's immediate inflammation. But then you have that chronic, slow, simmering, chronic inflammation that you don't realize year after year piles on. And people don't think, I'm not inflamed. Yeah, you are. Do you have headaches? Do you have anxiety? Do you have depression? Do you have trouble sleeping? Are you insomnia? Do you have. Can you poop? I mean, can you not poop? Are you pooping too much? You know, do you have decreased sex drive? Right. Do you have high blood pressure? High diabetes? How about joint pain? Anything that ends in itis is inflammation. Arthritis, gastritis, thyroiditis. My specialty. Colitis, vasculitis. Yes. You're inflamed. And it's not just food, right? That could be environmental toxins. Your phones, your computers, your lotions, your makeup, your hair color, your lipstick. I mean, good lord, you know it, Dr. Donnie. The list goes on and on, but you don't realize it until you have a tipping point. At one point, and that load, that allostatic load we call it, right? At some point, boom, we just tip over. And you think, oh, my gosh, I just got this autoimmune disease or. No, you didn't. This took decades, decades in the making for you to tip over into diabetes or high blood pressure or autoimmune disease, you know, lupus. It didn't happen. Born with lupus. I was diagnosed at 35. But I know where it started. Started in the house when I was a little kid.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's so, you know, inflammation is the devil. And I wrote a whole book. I mean, a whole chapter on it, you know, and I talk about it all the time because it is. And when you decrease the inflammation, right? When you begin to heal that leaky gut, guess what else starts to heal? Your anxiety, your depression, your add, your children's add, adhd, the bipolar, the schizophrenia, the, you know, trichotillomania, where you pull your eyelashes out, ocd, all of those psych issues begin to get better. You heal the gut, you heal the brain. But we need people like you and me out there helping these people, you know, walk this walk, because they don't know where to start.

Well, this is what I was going to say we're talking about, okay? The foods you're eating are causing inflammation, which is disrupting your health. And you start to go, oh, my gosh. But then at the same time, you don't feel good. So making a change. Change can feel overwhelming. Now, you did it, though, Danny.

I mean, you. I did.

You hit a point in your life where you were saying, you're suicidal, you're diagnosed with lupus, your marriage is ending, you're hitting rock bottom. And when people hit that, they have a choice, right? Do you give up? Whatever giving up looks like.

That's right.

Giving up looks like suicide. Or giving up looks like getting addicted to pain medications, whatever it is. Or you can decide, this is my opportunity to change things. And that's what you did. It. It sounds like I did.

It's exactly what I did, you know, And I did it because a family practice doctor looked me square in the eye that day and said, oh, we got to change this. And he also said, if you're going to work here as a nurse practitioner, you're going to walk the walk. You're not going to be seen eating.

Give you a little encouragement there, like, okay.

And let me tell you, I will never go back to how I felt 12 years ago. It irritates the crap out of me that I spent 44 years inflamed and hurting and tired and mean as a hornet and just, just all the things that everyone, you know, feels. And so I did.

It doesn't have to be that way. It's true. When you, when you're free of it, you look back and you go, I'm never going back there. First of all, because some people are like, oh, can I just avoid these foods for a little, A little bit? And yes, potentially you could go eat those foods again, but you end up not wanting to because there's not enough.

Gluten in the world to make me go back. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

No, go ahead.

I know there's not enough gluten in the world. There's not enough maple Krispy Kreme doughnuts out there. I will. I'm not going back there. I did eat cheese last weekend. The first time I had cheese on a gluten free pizza in six years. Because I was in Italy six years ago and I ate all the pizza. I didn't care over there. I was going to eat anything. I wanted to see how it worked and I felt great. But last year, last week, I ate cheese on a pizza. And I did okay. Because you know What? I've spent 12 years working on this. So, you know, it took 44 years to get me in that shape. It's not going to take 44 years to get me out of it or any of you. But it's going to take time and it takes commitment and it takes consistency.

Yeah.

And as women, you know this. Which is my fifth step to healing de stress. Well, we put everyone else first. You know, we aren't the head of the household. That's right. We technically, we're not the head of the household unless you're me. And you are, because there's no man around. But. But we set the tone for the entire home and the mood we're in, the attitude we have when we walk through that door, stressed, mad, overextended, no margin in our Life. Right. We set the tone for the entire home. And it's, It's a lot to consider when I realize that, that, wow, how I act, walking through that door is exactly what happens to my children. Yeah, they pick up on that. So we got to decrease the stress in our lives. And you got to set some margin and you got to automate, eliminate, delegate. You're the stress master. So you know this. You know, you got to automate everything you can. Eliminate, delegate, Say yes to only the most important things. To me, it's not about saying no. It's about your what, what's the best. Yes.

It's so true. We gotta choose because it's not like we can eliminate all stress because we want to be alive and thriving and doing what we love and our passion and there's gonna be stress involved. So it's. Yes, I love that. It's about what stress do I wanna say yes to? And then how do I help myself recover in the process? Which is why I love using your six focus areas. Like, these are the keys in my mind when we can implement those six areas. We're doing stress recovery every day, in the moment, along the way, instead of saving it up for a vacation or something, it needs to be a daily stress recovery.

Daily. I tell my patients and I write in my stress chapter.

Build your world. Build your life. Yeah, build your self care into your life, into your world. You know, because we may not get to escape, you know, to the beach or to the pedicure or the massage. Build it into your world. It's not easy. I've been a single mom for 22 years. You know, it's about darn near impossible. In fact, I didn't really succeed at it until my kids grew up. But, you know, which is, I mean, that's all fine and good, but I wish I would have known when they were younger, when they were younger and I was irritable and just angry and no margin. No margin, no room for error. Right.

Just every time you bump it. Believe me, I'm. I was, I was a single mom too. My, My daughter's now in college, but I. Same thing, you know, I, I chose. I had that moment in my life where I was like, I, I mean, this is the thing is I grew up knowing that food was important to my health. So I'm grateful that I got that message in childhood. And I even then went to college and studied nutrition and I knew I wanted to become a naturopathic doctor right away because I wanted to implement food as medicine. Can you imagine? I realized that at like age 20. I don't even know how that happened by age 20. But I still, Danny was struggling with severe migraines for years after that. And it still, I had to. So it just shows you. Even though I knew food had to do with my health and I was already trained as a nutritionist and a naturopathic doctor and implementing that, it still took me time. And I think this also comes back to the childhood stress and trauma in our lives. Because from my childhood, I still was taught to choose stressful environments, including stressful relationships. And even though I left my marriage when my daughter was young, I still was imprinted, my nervous system imprinted to choose stress. And I had to learn over years and years how to do this self care in the moment every day and how to be able to finally solve the migraines. And I too look back and I'm like, I wish I could have done some things differently when my daughter was younger. But we have to also learn to have compassion and forgive ourselves, right?

Give yourself some grace. I say that every day. Give yourself some grace. Give yourself the grace you would give your best friend or your sister or whomever, you know, struggling. And we don't do that. We don't do that. It's so important. It's key, but it's real difficult. So it's. When you're under that kind of stress, it's so difficult to eat well and then sleep well is my second step. It's very difficult. If you're not sleeping well, you for sure aren't going to eat well. And I still believe eat well is the number one step. It's just key. Garbage in equals garbage out. But I'm not so sure that sleep, I mean, it may tie with it because it's so important, right? Your body heals when you sleep. If you're not sleeping, I mean, you are so inflamed, you're not going to eat, your stress is going to be worse. You definitely aren't going to poop, you're not going to move your body either.

And so it's like a domino effect.

You know, domino effect. And all of these are connected. And it's rare that everything is in perfect, you know, order up there. But sleeping, and we can get you sleeping, I mean, it's real unusual for me to not get somebody sleeping. Maybe you have sleep apnea. That's a big one. Nobody ever asks about snoring. You know, do you snore? Well, if you snore, you may not have sleep apnea. But you have a 90% chance of.

Having sleep apnea, so that's a high percentage.

Maybe you're the 10. Yeah, a friend of mine's a pulmonologist. He taught me that. But you know, your bedroom is for. The bed is for sleep and sex only. There's no tv, no electromagnetic fields, no computers, no clutter. Make your bedroom a sanctuary. My office looks like a mess right now. If this were my bedroom, I would not be able to sleep because there's mess everywhere. Your bedroom needs to be a sanctuary. And you know, we get such anxiety when we cross that threshold into the bedroom at night because we know we're not going to sleep many times. And you know, is your mattress. Are you sleeping? I hate to tell you this, but if you're sleeping on an electric bed and you have insomnia and sleep issues, well, you're sleeping on. You might as well be sleeping on 1,000 computers. You're on nothing but an electrical minefield.

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Know what, Danny, I don't know if I have told you this before, but when I was solving my migraines, one of the things I figured out is that I was sleeping on a flame retardant memory foam mattress. And as I'm like, how did this, how did I do this? I'm like, all this knowledge and I'm sleeping on flame retardants. I threw out the mattress, never slept on it again. And it made such a huge difference. You know, then of course I had to successfully get those flame retardants out of my body. But people don't realize, right? Like you're Saying what an impact our mattress has. We spend so many hours in our bed in our lifetime.

Yes, yes.

If you think about it, right?

I have no idea. And I never thought about it until. I mean, we started doing this work a long time ago. But when I was really researching the sleep well chapter, man, you bet. I mean, your bed is key, and nobody thinks about it. Nobody thinks about it. And I have an organic mattress. It's not electric, and. And I love it, but I happen to sleep well. But, you know, and you can have some supplements. You got to have good sleep hygiene. It is key. It is not. Here's the biggest takeaway that I have gotten about sleep the last 12 years. You don't have to sleep all night. We used to have something called segmented sleep or fragmented first and second sleep. This was long before lights, right? Where people would sleep four or five hours, they'd wake up, they have sex, they would cook something. I don't know. They read the Bible. I don't know. Whatever they do, whatever you do back then, when there's no lights. And sex would be the best thing, because then you would really. Would go back to sleep and sleep really nicely. But anyway, so first and second sleep, so. So then they would go back to sleep and sleep until they woke up. When I learned about this, when I really dug deep into first and second sleep, I started telling my patients, grace, give yourself grace. It's not how long at one time. It's how you feel when you wake up in the morning. Don't stress over this, and maybe get up now. Don't turn all the lights on, and don't do all that, but give yourself some grace. Maybe get out of the bed, read whatever. Read our books, right? And then go back to sleep. And I can't tell you how many patients have said to me, Dani, that that was the game changer. Because I've always been told, and I told patients for years, we need to sleep all night. Well, when I went through menopause, I stopped sleeping all night. I sleep good, but I wake up multiple times, you know, and I go right back to sleep. I don't care if I go right back to sleep. I don't get up.

So part of the cycle, because I, you know, I wrote. I have this in my book, and I also wrote a book on insomnia solutions and mentioned this concept, too. And I think that sometimes what happens is we get. If we get anxiety. You mentioned if you get anxiety about not being able to sleep and then you wake up in the night and then the anxiety starts. And then now you've got a stress response about not being able to sleep. And then you're definitely not going to be able to sleep because you're stressing about it. So just, if we can say, hey, just relax about it, it's okay. If you wake up, read a little bit, you're probably going to fall back to sleep. Sometimes all it takes is eliminate the stress response to not sleeping.

That's right. Dr. Taroni Low Dog was the first doctor I ever heard speak on this. And she said, I get up every night for a few hours and I make tea and I read or I do whatever. And she said, now I go back to sleep. And I was like, what in the world? That is the craziest thing I've ever heard. And then I started really reading about it. And so that's right. And the anxiety that comes from that is horrible. And then you're not going to eat well the next day because you wake up depleted and you're just drinking coffee and you're eating carbs and sugar and everything. So, you know, eating well, sleep well, move well, your body is designed to move. And I tell patients every day, I don't care what you do. Jack lalanne, who was, you know, my, I mean, older than me, but I remember Jack lalanne. He was the guru godfather of all of this. He didn't do anything fancy. He did sit ups, jumping jacks, push ups. He used his own body weight. I don't care if you ballroom dance, hula hoop, which is one of my favorites, rollerblade skate, I don't care. Just move your body. It's as simple as that. And if you can't go to the gym or if you can't, then you do it in your house. You know, I'm brushing my teeth and I'm trying to do 10 squats and I've got something cooking, maybe I'll do five push ups. I mean, just move your body. When you move better, you sleep better and you eat better and you know, I know there's guidelines for exercise and all. And if you have osteoporosis and osteopenia, you need to follow that. You need to lift your weights, do your weight bearing exercises and things, but it gets you moving. You will feel better when you move your body. Simple as that.

It is all about individualizing it. Like you are saying, you know, and instead of it being another thing to stress about. If we make it fun.

Yes.

You're saying pick something that you know you're Gonna enjoy. And they. It doesn't have to be hours and hours. It could be a short little bit. Like you're saying do 10 squats. Doesn't have to. That counts.

You bet it counts. And if you find a buddy, you know, like say you and I live in the same neighborhood. I said we're gonna meet every morning or whatever, four days a week and we're gonna walk at 6am I guarantee you you're gonna get up and go meet your friend because you don't wanna leave her on the side of the street waiting for you in the cold and the heat and all of that. Find a buddy, sign up for a 5k. You don't have to run it, but sign up for it and maybe you'll walk it. If you pay for something and do it, you're more likely to get, I don't know, you just feel better. You have a better sex drive, your endorphins are better. You just feel better when you move. And so. But it's hard to do if you're not eating well and sleeping well. And then you got to move well and then you need to poop. Well, that's my fourth step. I'm a big believer in pooping. Of course. I spent my entire life in just the worst situation ever. And if you don't poop, I mean, just think about it, how backed up you are and the toxins in there and you don't feel well. And you know, there's so many ways I have patients every day say, well, we poop, you know, once or twice a week. And my doctor says that's fine, you need a new doctor. That is not fine. I have a poodle that is sitting right over here. A 12 month old standard poodle. You always tell him you need to poop like that poodle right there, he eats, goes and poops and he loves it. And I know one girl said you need a bumper sticker that says poop. I love that.

That's so cute.

It's the first thing if a patient says to me they're not having a bowel movement every day or twice a day. That's the top of my list.

Right?

That's the first thing before anything else, we have to get the bowels moving. Because like you're saying, how do you, you have to get. If the, if it's sitting there, the toxins are being reabsorbed and recirculated, needs to move out, it's. And if you, of course, if it's not moving, then you're going to get bloated, you're going to get overgrowing bacteria, you're going to get. You're going to have leaky gut. It just spins the whole circle. So we have to break that pattern right away.

That's right. And it's just like having diarrhea like I had for so many years. You know, it's the same thing. You know, you're going to just eliminate so fast. You don't absorb any of the nutrients and you're, you know, malnourished. I mean, I know Kevin Ellis, the bone coach, you know, he says it's not what you eat, it's what you absorb. And that's true. And so, you know, get a squatty potty. Get your feet elevated. You don't have to have a squatty potty. Put your feet on your poodle. I don't care, whatever. Get your feet up. When you, when you go to, you know, to the bathroom, it makes such a huge difference. I didn't know about a squatty potty nowhere. I keep one in the office and I have patients, I show them.

People know what it is.

Yeah, you bet. We have it in every bathroom in our office. We have a squatty potty. So, you know, so you got to eliminate. You have to eliminate. We can get that dehydration most people are living on. You know, there's coffee in here or caffeine or something. They're dehydrated. If you would just drink the proper amount of water for your weight, which for me, I tell people half your body weight in ounces and then more if you drink coffee, more if you sweat, you might just start having a bowel movement if you just were hydrated.

Yeah. So sometimes it's starting with these simple things, right. Like in common sense. And I'm hoping that of all because when you, you're mentioning a lot of little, little common, little tweaks people. People can make, I'm hoping everybody listening is going, oh, I got this, I got this. But this thing that Danny and Donnie mentioned, that's what I need to pay attention to. Like look for the. Because it's not about. I don't want people to walk away like with a long to do list. It's overwhelming. Like I. The thing is, it's not about. You don't have to implement. This doesn't. It's not meant to be another stress in your life. It's meant to be. Let me identify the things I can tweak and fine tune and know that that's what our life is like each. It's not about you fix it all and then that's the end. It's. This is what you and I both, right, we both, we know and we believe that this is what we do each day. We, you and I. I'm sure you constantly, each day will tweak something and say, how do I do this a little differently? How so? This is a constant process of fine tuning these activities and lifestyle habits. It's a constant process every day. So please, if you're like, you're like, oh my gosh, where do I begin? You just begin with this. With the smallest little thing.

That's right. That's exactly right. Don't let it overwhelm you, you know, but it is a lifestyle. Eventually it's your lifestyle. You know, eventually. Oh, you know, I gotta have elimination diet and I gotta do. No, eventually it's your lifestyle. Once you begin to heal the gut and start to feel better and have some energy, then you start incorporating all of these things. And I. What you were talking about, you know, we were throwing out all these little pearls. The back of the. Every single chapter in the book has my prescription pad for that chapter, like poopwa. And it talks. Get something to put your feet on. That's easy. That's one step. Maybe that's all you needed, right? Talks about exercise, talks about water. Just one little thing.

And over. You can't do it all at once. But eventually it becomes your lifestyle and you're never going back. So you got to eat well, sleep well, move well, poop well. De stress well, which we already talked about. We can't pour from an empty vessel. We are a nation of empty vessels. If anything the last three years has taught us is that we are a nation of empty vessels. And I'm on the board for the American foundation for Suicide Prevention. And phone calls to suicide crisis lines went up 8,800% since the pandemic. 800%.

Oh, my God.

And you know, suicide is near and dear to my heart because of my family and myself. And the fastest growing rate of suicide is age 10 to 24. Inside that segment, 10 to 13, 13. These are babies that are dying by suicide. So this isn't just our children that we, I mean, just adults that we need to learn to de stress. Well, we have to focus on these children.

It's absolutely true.

And for sure, you know, our genetics. My kids are half my genetics. And I had all kinds of mess going on in my life, like generational trauma and, you know, that they they were born into that. No fault to them. So the de stress, well, we covered fairly well and then commune. Well, I'm a big believer in community, you know, and if you, you may or may not believe in Jesus, some people do, some people don't. I do. He knew community. He knew community was key. Buddha also, I mean they all knew it was community. But you know, for Jesus, he had 12 tribe members around him. You don't have to have 12. They are, they were flawed just like us. Good Lord, they betrayed him. They did all kinds of things to him. He was there just a mess, that tribe. But community is key. You don't need a group, you may only need one or two people. But when you are with your people, when you're with your tribe, whether it's a couple or a whole group, your inflammation goes down because you're laughing and you're carrying on and the research is clear. The inflammatory response goes down when you laugh. Your cortisol levels go down when you laugh, when you're with your people. Just the energy of your tribe. We are not designed to live alone in social isolation.

I was reading this study the other day about loneliness and how the rates of loneliness have increased and how when we're alone or lonely it increases our rate of health issues and decreases. You were talking before about decreasing longevity of your life just being alone. And it's true, as humans we. But I understand like sometimes when you've had a traumatic past, it's scary to interact with other humans. And so we sometimes default to being alone or other circumstances. We're alone. I mean here you and I are talking about being single moms. You know, it's, there's sometimes there is aloneness that occurs and there's ways to also look at how to, to be okay with loving yourself. Of course that can be helpful when you're needing to spend time alone. But like you're saying, also there's ways to find a community, even if it's online, even if it's from a distance. But having that sense of community with like minded other individuals who are loving and supportive, it's essential for our health.

You bet it is. And maybe your neighborhood during COVID you know, it was interesting. I have a good little neighborhood. We all like each other. We wave at each other. For years we'd never really been at each other's houses and stuff. We're all busy. During COVID I said let's start a neighborhood cookout. And nobody knew anybody really knew anybody. We knew each other, but we didn't know each other every Saturday during COVID in my front yard. And it was a lot of work for me. And I learned how to grill. I learned how to grill on charcoal. I have not lit a gas grill in over three years or three years now because I learned about charcoal cooking with my tribe, every house in this community here. And then it is unbelievable. Somebody's got to be a ringleader. So then we all learned about each other. And when I don't do it, guess what happens? There's no. There's no cookout because nobody. But they love it when I do it. And it is so amazing because now we know our neighbors and one of us just passed away last month and he is the one who taught me how to grill. How to. And it makes me so emotional because. So they gave me his grill. His charcoal. Yes. And that's the power of community. And we look forward to it every single weekend. But you got it. You got to find your tribe and it's no big deal. You know, you just bring them over to your house or you go meet up at the park or you go have coffee. It's key. And the research is clear. And look at the nursing homes. You know, the last couple of years, my mom's in assisted living. She completely. She has Alzheimer's. Completely went downhill. I mean, completely. I mean, she uses a walker now. She's incontinent. And she was none of that before they were put in isolation.

Isolation. That's the thing. Isolation. Right. And it's this. Looking back at the pandemic, I. That was one of, you know, just knowing all of this research, I was so afraid. And I want to go back to something you mentioned, which is the children. I'm seeing a huge increase in the number of people who. My patients who are coming to see me. Increasing number of them are parents bringing in their children of various ages, including teenagers. Because we're seeing that the effects of stress, not just from the pandemic, but just from the things we've been talking about are affecting them at a younger ages. And it's very scary. I think that's why those suicide numbers are going up because the diet is not what it needs to be. They're not getting sleep, they're not getting stress recovery in their day to day. Their schedules are so packed with activities and stress. And so I think that's why we're seeing that. But I agree with you. I want to bring attention to. We need to be helping. We as anyone listening. If you're an adult and you have children. Like what you do with your. Like you said before, Danny, we're the models. We can model for our families. And sometimes that feels overwhelming. How are we going to shift our diet for our whole household? But if you just start with little steps and start explaining what you're noticing and what you're observing, you'll be amazed at what kind of change you can create in your life and in your household in a relatively short period of time.

You bet. And you know what I tell women every day is by the like, I love JJ Virgin's cookbook. Just because you never. It's 150 recipes. She wrote it. And I say this every day, all day. She wrote it as a single mom, like me. She had two teenage boys. These recipes are fast, quick, easy. You'll never know. There's no gluten, dairy, soy, corn, sugar, eggs, peanuts. You won't. I mean, the recipes are fat. You know, we eat the food. She and I tell these ladies, I said, and they're like, oh, my gosh, Jenny. No, I look, I say, as you run out of the bad food or the inflammatory food in your house, the processed package, just don't bring it back in. Take the time to find one new thing. These kids are. And they'll say, well, they won't eat anything, Danny, but this, that. I said, well, who's buying it? Are they Ubering out? Is that 10 year old getting in the Uber and going to Kroger and spending their allowance for this food? Who's bringing the food in? And I'm like, well, I am. Or my husband, you know, maybe, whatever. And I said, well, then don't do it. Don't bring it in because if it's in my house, guess what? I'm going to eat it. I am. And so, so baby steps as you run out of things new and then get the kids involved. If you have kids big enough to read it, this is not a cookbook, it's my book. But if they got a cookbook and they're big enough to read it, you know, find a Mediterranean cookbook or a jj. Yeah, yeah. And you have them go through there and pick out, tell them, say, I'm tired of feeding the same food over and over. I want five new recipes. They will never realize there's no gluten or dairy. They won't. They'll just look at the pictures and say, that's what I want right there. Get the kids involved. The research is real easy. I mean, it's real clear. Kids want to be in the kitchen. And I as a single mom, was so stressed, you know, I didn't want my kids in the kitchen. It was too much of a hassle, and it slowed me down. And I had no. I had no margin. So there was no margin. Right.

You're going to get overwhelmed too quickly. Yeah.

But in hindsight, that was not the best decision. Now I have one kid in medical school, second year medical school, who is a rock star, learning all the things and eats well, and another one, just the total opposite. But, you know, get the family involved. If you've got picky eaters, then hand them the cookbook and say, pick us out new. I don't care what we eat. I just want new foods. But don't tell them you're phasing out maybe gluten and maybe dairy, you know, because I'm telling you, gluten, dairy, sugar are in everything fake and processed. And if you cut those three foods out.

Yeah, I agree.

You see a world of change. And eggs are the number two food allergy for children in the United States. Eggs, they're the perfect protein. I had no money. I fed my kids so many eggs. Me, too. But when I cut eggs out, my hands stopped hurting.

It's very common. I see it all the time. Eggs.

Me too.

And, oh, my gosh, you and I could keep talking.

I know, I know, I know.

And this is such. I'm hoping everyone listening is like, wow, this is at least motivating to keep doing what you're doing, to keep on working on improving, you know, just finding new ways to implement this because it's going to make a difference for you and your family. And you showed your book, the well and well book there. I love. I love the name of that. So everybody can get that from Amazon and other bookstores if you, you know, just like, like hat more ideas and your prescriptions of how to implement. But tell us, yeah, tell us if there's anything else you wanted to share.

Well, the one thing I just want your tribe to know, that you're not broken. You need to know that. And you need to understand that Dr. Donnie and I both work with the sickest of the sickest. Right. They come in, they don't feel well, they don't come to us for kicks and giggles. And you just have to know that you were not born broken and you are not broken. And we are living proof that you can turn around, turn off, or at least put it so under the radar. I mean, I still have lupus, but I have no symptoms of lupus. But my antibodies are still there, but I don't. But I don't hurt or I don't have the symptoms. You can do anything. You were designed, your body was designed to heal itself, but give it what it needs, and it takes hard work and consistency, and I'm living proof that you can do it. If a little kid. Well, I'm not little kid anymore, but if a gal from Gilbertsville, Kentucky, who grew up with a lot of stress can reverse this, anybody can. And that's why I wrote the book that, you know, we got a lot of hope, but you got to have a strategy. And I tried to break it down into common sense steps for reversing decades of chronic disease and hopefully changing the entire trajectory of your family's life. And the generational changes, you know, if you don't do it for you, then do it for the kids and the grandkids, because you're going to change the entire trajectory of their life. And to me, that's exciting.

Yeah, that gives me goosebumps every time I think about that, too. You know, like, we, we have this potential for influence that really has a ripple effect. And, and, you know, that's not to. Not for that to be overwhelming, but for that to be inspiring. And thank you so much because you, your story and what you do is inspire, inspiring to say, hey, these are, you know, it does take diligence, but it's possible and it's worth it. And yes, wherever you're starting from, whatever age you are, whatever situation you're in, these are things that can make a difference. And we're here to help you. Right? So if we want to be in touch with you, Danny and I'll share, of course, here with the notes, your website and your book. And is there any. I know you also, I love your cooking videos you share because you're showing this is how easy it is to make healthy food in your kitchen. So I love, I do a lot.

Of just one ingredient cooking videos with me holding this phone right, just right there. Or, you know, it's. It's propped on something and then it falls over in the pot. Oh, good gosh. But again, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, it's all the same. Dani Williamson Wellness. And I try to just keep. Keep it real because this, this is real life, you know, and the majority of us are just real humans, aren't we? We're all just trying to get by and none of us are perfect. And so, you know, just keep it simple. In the kitchen, there's not much olive oil salt and pepper won't make taste pretty good and you don't have to go crazy. I don't, No.

I try to as a thing, you know, keep it simple. Then you're not stressing yourself in the process. You're just emphasizing good healthy foods and getting your protein right. And then it's like you, you're feeding yourself what you need without overwhelming it. It doesn't have to be complicated.

No, it doesn't. So that's all I want them to know. I appreciate you all you're doing out there for the tribe and for the world and you're just a rock star and I appreciate you so much.

I appreciate you too. I'm so glad we got to have this talk and I look forward to staying in touch and talking again soon.

Thanks for listening to how humans heal.

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