418: Dr. Elisa Song Connects Gut and Mental Health With a Food as Medicine Approach for Families

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Our guest today is Dr. Elisa Sullivan. She is a practicing holistic pediatrician and you may know her from her popular website, blog and Instagram account, Healthy Kids, Happy Kids. She is dedicated to empowering parents to take charge of their kids health and focus on a natural point of view from that as well. Dr. Song is so much more than just a physician though. She is also a mother, she has two children, she's a wife, she's a food lover and just an overall life enthusiast. Welcome to the show, Dr. Song.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here with you and your audience.

Yeah, we have been looking forward to this conversation with you for a long time. I do believe we have a lot of parents in the audience, so I think this is going to be a particularly interesting conversation. You are kind of a huge voice and a representative of balance and reason when it comes to parenting and health from this holistic perspective. So I'm curious to know, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became an advocate for children's health and most interestingly, how you sort of branched off from the traditional route of medical practice and took this like, road less traveled down the holistic path.

Yeah. So you know my story. I don't know how, quote, interesting it is in the sense that, you know, a lot of folks who end up in integrative and holistic medicine, functional medicine, they have their own healing journey or maybe their child's healing journey that brought them to this area. And for me, I mean, knock on wood, I'm going to say, you know, we didn't have any, I did not have any personal health crises. My children are really healthy. So, you know, I'm blessed to be able to come to this without a big personal story. But, I mean, children were always, always my passion in the sense that I knew from the time I was very young that I want to work with kids. And so had it in my mind as I was heading off to college that I was going to do something with kids. Whether it was a teacher. I didn't really know what medicine was, like. The last thing on my mind. My mother was an OB GYN growing up, and I just saw how she worked literally day and night for her patients and barely would have time for dinner with us. And I just thought, okay, that's not for me. And plus, I hated science and I hated math. And so when I went to my undergrad, I actually thought about being a teacher. I ended up getting a public policy degree because I thought, you know what? I can be a children's rights advocate, and I can go to Capitol Hill and I can fight for children's policies. And I actually interned two summers at the Children's Defense Fund. So really improving the lives of kids everywhere has always been in my heart.

And then I realized, you know, there's not. If I do that, I'm not going to work with children. I can work for them, but I really want to work with children. So I changed course last minute. And my senior year, I thought, okay, rather than go to law school, let me look at this medicine thing again. And I was. The reason why this happened was because I was walking on campus and I was at Stanford in Northern California at the time. In the. Gosh, when was this? The late 80s, early 90s. And I saw this flyer on one of the big telephone poles, and it was totally intriguing to me. It was a conference, a meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association. And I'm like, what is holistic medicine? So I went to this conference as a senior. You know, I don't even remember how I got down there, but I went to Santa Clara, the convention center, and I heard these amazing talks. The folks who were there were just getting known. They were Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra, Joan Borisenko. I mean, they blew my mind, right? I mean, I was like, what is this? Right? So I remember calling my mom. No cell phones back then. I called her and I was like, mom, I want to become a naturopathic doctor. And I got an application from Best Year, which was the only naturopathic college that.

When I asked around, people were like, you should look at this college. But nobody in my circle, my family, friends, knew what an ND was. So I didn't get that support back then to pursue that path. And everyone said, you know what? Go become a real doctor first. And then you could do all that stuff on the side, right? But even entering medical school, I had two things that were in my mind that I wanted to do. I wanted to really take a more holistic approach to medicine, and I wanted to work with kids. So, I mean, fast forward, end up at UCSF for my pediatrics residency. And here I am in this very conventional, huge academic medical center. Love the people I met. My fellow residents are still some of my closest friends, but I didn't see anything I wanted to do. I didn't want to work in the hospital. Being in the clinic was basically just, you know, the same thing day after day with no thinking involved, right? Kid came in with an earring. Here's your prescription, you know, for amoxicillin. A kid, you know, came in for a. Well, check. Okay, let's talk. The anticipatory guidance, which was, you know, very rote. Here's your set of shots for that time. And then come in in two months. So there was really. And then at the same time, I was seeing kids who were coming in who were just so getting sicker and sicker and being thrown, you know, all these medications thrown at them. I saw one kid with autism in the three years that I was there. I graduated in 2000. And back then I was told, ah, you're never going to see many kids with autism, right? You know, when you go out into the real world, don't worry, this will be kind of glad you saw it here. You're not going to see it, right? And then I saw these kids with eczema that were getting put on IV steroids and one child who was actually almost put on an IV chemotherapy medication. So it just blew my mind, like, what is going on here? And so when I left, I wasn't sure that I want to be a practicing pediatrician. I went back to Berkeley to get my master's in public policy, and I went back to thinking, you know what? I can take my knowledge. Let me go fight for getting kids the health care that they need, making sure that kids, even kids who are underserved and in poverty, are getting what. What they deserve, right? What they should have to help them thrive. And then, I mean, things happen in a way that just unfolds for a reason if you allow them to. And you're looking for the signs. So it was at that point that I saw another flyer for a conference that was totally intriguing. It was Called a Food as medicine conference. And it was at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. This was, I can't remember the year, maybe it was 2001. It was just shortly after I finished residency and I went and I was again totally hooked. I'm like, this is what I want to do. So it was a foodist medicine conference. It was James Gordon, who is the head of the Mind Body Institute, was the host and Mark Hyman was there and he just blew my mind. That was the first time I ever heard of functional medicine, first time I'd ever heard of nutrition being spoken in a way that actually could improve our health. And so from there I remember calling my mom again. I'm like, okay, I found it. Right now I'm glad I'm a doctor. I'm going to do functional medicine. I'm going to figure out, I'm going to look into what all this integrative stuff is.

When I started my practice, it was with all of this background. I went and I trained in functional medicine. I learned homeopathy, I learned acupuncture. I was like a sponge for knowledge and herbal medicine. And so when I started, it was with an integrative approach and I would never practice any other way.

Yeah, wow. I like the way you described going to that conference, that Food is Medicine conference. Because I hear so often, like when you start talking about food from a medicinal standpoint, like it really is mind blowing for a lot of people. How do you think we have gotten so far removed from that concept where it actually was like so innate in us and like stems from where we like come from as humans, is using food as medicine to where we are now, to where it's this foreign concept that's blowing minds everywhere.

And it really now, I mean the pandemic has shifted things a bit and I think, you know, with COVID 19 and now recognizing that the single biggest risk factor in children for more serious outcomes, even though children tend to do well, thankfully. But the single most, the biggest risk factor is obesity and diabetes. And the same thing that we're seeing in adults, obesity, glycemic control, diabetes, heart disease, chronic kidney disease. So and these are all lifestyle related. So I'm really, I mean, just praying with all of my being that this is not just a wake up call, like, oh yeah, we should pay attention to this, but really a call to action for all conventional integrative medicine. I mean, it doesn't matter. This is health, you know, we need to focus on optimal health. But I think, you know, I remember when I Was a kid and I grew up in the 70s, and I remember the day we got our first microwave.

And that was like, oh my gosh, this microwave. We're going to get amazing food and it's going to be fast and we don't have to make a mess in the kitchen. I mean, it was really, it was this amazing thing. And I remember when rice a roni came out in packages, right? And we had the packages, we had the microwave food because, I mean, we were being sold that, look, life is busy. This is healthy, convenient food that's fast and you can make in minutes.

And I think that's where we started to get brainwashed. I remember my stepdad, who I love him to death, but my step nephew was having some behavioral concerns and was a very picky eater. And all he would eat was literally the same, same kind of chicken nuggets and Mac and cheese all day long. Not a single piece of produce ever.

Except for. And then.

I guess maybe there was like one particular yogurt that had so much sugar in it and all these artificial colors to make it look really fun for kids. I remember.

Telling him, I was like, did you know that some of these foods can really be impacting his brain? And so maybe at least when he's at your house, you could get foods that don't have all of these artificial colors and all of this sugar. And I remember he looked at me and said, do you really think that food matters for his brain? Literally, my jaw dropped to the ground and I'm like, whoa, this is a highly educated man who, if those words came out from his mouth, think about how many people actually also think that, that this food doesn't really matter. So I think it's our life of convenience that really, once life got so busy, the home cooked family meals really kind of fell out of the conversation of daily life that our societal beliefs around food really started to shift. And now it's time to, you know, during the pandemic, many more families have started to, you know, home, cook, eat at home. And so I'm hoping that some of those habits stick because they really make a difference.

Yeah, we are kind of reverting back to the basics, definitely when it comes to food and eating at home. And I mean, a lot of that had to do with just the fact that in the beginning there it was hard to get food at the grocery store, so we had to become more resourceful. And then not being able to go out and drive through fast food or go to restaurants. And so, yeah, I would Say, that is definitely one of the good side effects of the whole situation is that people are eating at home, they are more aware of health and putting more of a priority on what goes into their body.

Yeah. And you know what's really fascinating too, you know, it's the food that we eat and it's also how we eat it. Right. You know, the mindfulness we bring to eating, the appreciation, gratitude we have for this food in front of us, and also the family meal, you know, just, you know, being able to sit down, you know, pre pandemic. I mean, one of the blessings for us as a family has been we are not running around with two cars trying to shuttle kids from activity to activity and going crazy with it and then not really rushing around and sometimes getting home so late that one of the kids is having dinner on the way to soccer practice. And then we come home and then the parents have dinner. So this the family meal. There's so many benefits and so much research around the benefits of the family meal. And the benefits are, by and large, they're psychological, they're emotional, they can, you know, the family meal. Having family meals can improve academic outcomes and reduce, you know, anxiety and stress. I mean, one study even found they could reduce the rates of teenage pregnancy. So, you know, all of these traditions that hopefully we're starting now during the pandemic that maybe we didn't have the opportunity to do before the pandemic, we really want to continue to prioritize that even as parents go back to work in person and even as life starts to open up again and shift back. I really hope that we don't just easily fall back into the same patterns that we had pre pandemic.

Yeah, I agree. And I definitely want to explore more and dive into that topic of the mental health and anxiety in our kids. I have this article here and this one's going, we're going to talk food and then we'll go mental. This one here, it's called parents and caregivers are concerned about kids nutrition, but obstacles to healthy eating are common. And this is from Yahoo. And it's basically a new survey by the International Food Information Council is. It's called Knowledge, understanding and behaviors when feeding your children. And it examines how parents and caregivers have considered current diet recommendations for children ages 2 to 10 and how they interpret or maybe implement those nutrition advice things that they're reading, what information sources they're looking at. And while most of the parents and caregivers reported saying that they feel like they have Good access to nutrition information and overall feelings, feel confident that they're meeting their child's nutritional needs. Many of them still cite some obstacles, such as, like, how to introduce variety into a kid's diet. So we talked about chicken nuggets and Mac and cheese. Right. How to expand upon that. And how do you inspire, like, healthy eating habits and healthy food choices in kids when we're no longer there to put the food in front of them? So I know as a parent myself, I struggle in this area and. And I'm sure you're no stranger to this kind of struggle as well. So are you seeing, like, healthy eating concerns as something common among the parents in your practice?

Well, you know, I will say that my practice is a bit skewed because as an integrative, holistic pediatrician, I do tend to attract those parents for whom food and nutrition are a priority.

Fair enough. Yep.

But that being said, I think that across the board, I mean, no matter how healthily families are eating, like, every single one of my parents wants to know, how can they up the game? Either their kids are really picky and they're not eating a wide variety and not getting the nutrition that parents think they should, or that I think they should and they want to know how to expand that, or their kids are doing pretty well, but they want to know how can they do better. So I think nutrition is one of the. The primary focuses for the parents that I see, and I think that is 100% the right place to focus your energies, because good nutrition is the foundation for healthy brain, immune system, gut, you name it. And so we really want to look at food and lifestyle as the foundation that is the best medicine you can give your kids. And then when things start to shift and maybe go a little wrong and we notice some signs that maybe there's not enough of something or too much of another thing, that's when we start diving a little bit deeper. But absolutely, we want to look at nutrition first.

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So what is some of like your maybe your best advice for parents that do have pictures, picky eaters and that frustrated mom whose child just will not eat a vegetable? What can we do?

So there are a couple of things. I mean, from a functional medicine sort of medical standpoint, as our kids get pickier and pickier, they may get depleted in certain nutrients. And one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in children or insufficiencies in children is zinc.

Zinc is closely tied with protein, animal protein intake. But I've had some kids get really nice boosts in their zinc with an increase in just loading up on pumpkin seeds. But some kids do need supplementation. Now why is zinc so important? Because zinc can affect the way we taste food. It affects our taste, it affects our palate. And so for our kids who have those taste issues or texture issues with food and are extremely picky, very often there's an underlying zinc imbalance. And if we can correct that, the palate can. There's a much higher chance that the palate can expand and open up. And I've seen that time and time again. And so that's something that if you have the opportunity to measure red blood cell zinc levels in your child's blood when you're doing other routine blood work, that's a great place to start. Otherwise, I'll have some parents just focus on zinc rich foods, which can be hard if your kids are picky, right? Or just try a zinc supplement and see what happens. So that's one thing from the physiologic side. And then there are other things that we can do to really help our kids.

Alleviate some of the whether it's anxiety around trying new foods or just an unwillingness to the first thing we as parents have to do is really take our own emotions and stress out of it. I mean, there's nothing more emotional than food, right? I mean, it did good or bad. And so we really want to step back and not have that struggle there because we're really, unfortunately, we're not going to win that battle, right? You can't force your kids to eat something. So once we accept that and know that it's a marathon, not a race, and we approach food as we're going to offer with love but not struggle. And so one of the best ways, especially for kids who are young, well, really at any age, but really getting them involved is the first thing is helping them.

Make up your shopping list and maybe choose one new food that they're going to try that week that they can pick out in the days of the farmer's market. I would tell parents, go to the farmer's market, have them pick out one thing from the farmer's market that catches their eye that they're going to try and then focus on one thing for the whole week, right? Because if your kids are really picky, if you try to have them eat Brussels sprouts one day and purple cabbage the other day and bok choy the next day, that's just too much, right? So we want to. It can take 40 or 50 times of trying something for the taste buds and the brain to finally decide, this isn't too bad, or I actually think it tastes pretty good and I'm going to eat it. So we want to focus on one thing. So have them evolve. You pick one new food to try and it might be that same food for a month then. And then, you know, have them involved in the kitchen with preparing food and cooking food. Kids are much, much more likely to try a food if they are involved in making it. And then we celebrate really small wins. Even if they just like take a lick of something that they've never tried before and they do that for a week before they're willing to maybe take a put it in their mouth and hold it and then spit it out. And then they actually are able to put in their mouth and swallow it. Little baby steps. Because we're not going to expect a picky eater who might have some sensory concerns around food. Go from eating two foods a day to all of a sudden having a salad with 15 different ingredients in it. We just really want to think, how can I, step wise, go so that maybe I'm frustrated as a mom because I want them to eat that big salad with the kale and the pumpkin seeds and the cranberries and the feta cheese. But maybe first we'll start with that. For the first month we're just going to get in kale in different ways. Then next we're going to work on the pumpkin seed so that by six months or nine months they're actually eating that salad. So we want to play it for the long game.

Yeah, I like that. When you're talking about the farmer's market, I was thinking that is such a good idea because it reminded me like the times that I've taken my kids to the farmer's market, there's something about being there. I don't know if they think it's like a fair and when you go to the fair you want to try all the food or if it's because like some of the farmers there in the booths and stuff, like they're willing to give you samples and stuff. But my kids are eating everything like microgreens and weird looking vegetables and it's like, it's so exciting. And of course it cost me a fortune because they want to buy everything that they try. And once we get home, it's not exciting anymore. So the novelty wears off. But at least. Yeah, you're right, that does get them involved there. I like, those are great suggestions.

Yeah. And you know, even one idea for your super picky kids at the farmer's market, if they were willing to try, let's say maybe like a nibble of a microgreen, like take a picture of them right. With that microgreen so you can remind them. You know what you were saying so brave that day at the farmer's market. Remember you tried it and you looked at me and you said this is pretty good. Right. So that because we forget, I mean kids forget, grown ups forget, we forget some of these things that we want to remember.

That's good. Yeah. And we've started like just from when my kids were young. We never did like separate meals. Like we didn't have what the kids were having for dinner and what we were having for dinner. So I think if you're able to start with them young too and just kind of everyone eats the same things and it's not so weird to have to try to introduce later. Of course, now that my children are older and they have discovered junk food and unhealthier foods just because of life, I do find that once they start eating, like get in a pattern of maybe eating not the healthiest foods, it's harder to go back because they're taste buds change. It's like you have to retrain their taste buds.

Absolutely. So this is where no matter how old they are or how young, they are really talking to your kids about food choices, what you're putting on the plate, what each ingredient or what each nutrient does for their bodies and for their brains. So that way you're just having this conversation around the benefits of food. Just like if you're watching a TV show, you'd be sitting there and hopefully interpreting for them what they're observing so that their brains can know what to make of it. And so, same thing with the food, educating them. And you can do that at any age, even if they're a baby and you're starting solids with them, have that little monologue of like, wow, these are such yummy. Carrots are so good for your eyes and, oh my gosh, your skin. So that way you're always having this conversation about how good foods can be for you. And we're talking about the strong foods and then we're having. I never say never to anything. Because you don't want to become that forbidden fruit that they're just dying for. Right? And so then we talk about the strong foods and then, you know, these are foods that aren't strong foods for us. So we always have to balance out with what foods are going to make our brain and our body strong. And that way they'll understand. So even if they go to their friend's house or maybe they go to sleepaway summer camp and all there is is colored fruit punch and cereal to eat, they understand. And then as they get older, this is really key. You want them just to notice, pay attention, be in tune with their body and notice how certain foods make their bodies or their brains or their tummy or their skin feel. And so that way they can then make that educated, informed decision as they go to college and on their own about what choices are they going to make. And they can do that at any age, really, it's really just about educating them, but not educating them in a way that's like, oh, well, you have to eat this because it's going to help you with having a healthier immune system. Because really, kids, they're not going to care about that. But if you figure out what's going to motivate them, you know what, if you focus on getting really good, high quality protein in at every meal, guess what? You are going to be able to run down that soccer field even faster. Or if you focus on really healthy, these healthy fats, like get some coconut oil in your smoothie and this is why we're having these awesome eggs to feed your brain. Guess what? You're going to remember your lines for the school play even better. So figuring out what's going to motivate them and then tying that in with the foods that are going to help them do that.

Yeah, that's smart. And I think I even am guilty of this sometimes, too, is trying not to like or make any of the foods bad. I mean, especially when it comes to sugar. And the last thing I wanted to just bring up in this article is how it says, like, the vast majority of parents and caregivers, like, 88% of them, they report limiting or avoiding sugar in their children's diets. But on the flip side of that, almost like 90% of them said that their children eat sweets at least once a day. And that's either like, regular drinking juice or even drinking soda. So I don't, I don't know where this disconnect comes from, but how do you find that balance of allowing your kids to have treats or sugar without going overboard and also without making it be like a reward or something that's bad or. I just feel like sugar is just such a. One of those tricky, tricky. Navigate it.

It's very tricky. And, you know, we talk about sugar a lot in our household because especially during the pandemic, that's been a big challenge. I mean, you know, a lot of kids started baking during the pandemic, and my daughter is no exception. I mean, oh, my goodness, the amount, the amount of flour we went through. And so, you know, I think that. And so that really started a conversation around sugar. And sugar is an area where I do talk about sugar being inflammatory. Not good for your brain, not good for your immune system, even too much fruit sugar. Because sugar is one of those things that over time in our society has crept into virtually every single food item on the shelves. Even things that really should have no sugar, like spaghetti sauce, because there's a natural sweetness to tomatoes. So our taste buds have been trained to want more sugar. And so with that, and this is also, I think, educating parents, because a lot of parents don't realize how harmful too much sugar can be, right? And by too much sugar, meaning for, and this is probably even quote, too much, but FDA recommends that the children. Children should not have any more than basically five teaspoons, right? Five or six teaspoons of sugar added sugar in a day. Now, that adds up really fast. If you look at the label, five teaspoons. I'm sorry, one Teaspoon is five grams of sugar. And so I would challenge anyone listening to really just take a look at the foods that you're eating out of packages. And we have packages in our house. I'm not saying we don't eat out of packages, but look at, you know, if you eat yogurt. Right. I was floored when I actually looked at the whole fat vanilla Greek yogurt that I thought, oh, great, the kids are getting protein in in the morning, right. And their probiotics. And I looked at one serving has 31 grams of sugar. Right. I mean, shocking. And that's. You're starting off your kid's day. Sure, there's great protein and probiotics in it, and it's whole fat, so that's great for their br. But that's basically six teaspoons of sugar right there that they're getting to start their morning. Then that sets off the whole sugar roller coaster in kids with the sugar highs, the sugar lows, and behavioral problems, attention problems, anxiety, depression, which I know we're gonna get to, is a huge problem in the pandemic. So look at sugar as not a treat. It's something we get every once in a while. Yes, it tastes sweet. Our tongue loves sweet things. Right. But with reducing the sugar is. You want to shift that how we're thinking about it, shift that mindset. Reducing sugar is really nurturing and nourishing to your child's brain and body. And having sugar refined, this was even just fruit sugar. It was glucose and fructose within 20 minutes will reduce your white blood cells ability to fight infections by about 50%. And that effect can last for five hours, at least five hours, maybe longer. And so as some of our kids are going back to school in person, we're still need to be concerned about COVID and eventually all the other germs that used to be around that we've kind of not seen much of since we've been at home. But we want to do everything we can to support our kids immune system. So juice, soda, never Juice really should be out of the homes too. There are many more ways to get in our fruit.

When you drink juice.

I'm borrowing this from a friend, but drinking juice is basically, you take out all the fiber from that fruit and you're basically mainlining sugar. Right. So juice should be out.

Yeah, I agree. And you know what? You actually you bought at end the perfect transition. Because I do want to get to the mental side of this. And yet sugar does have a huge impact on behavior. And how our brains work. And so this next article, while it's not necessarily about sugar, we are going to talk about this mental side. So the title of this article is called act now to address the Escalating Mental Health Crisis in Children. And this is from U.S. news. And yeah, throughout this last year, like you have been very active in speaking about how the pandemic has been impacting our children. You're talking about immune health and support recommendations, but also addressing mental health and anxiety in our children. And as we're hitting the one year mark already, I can't even believe it. We have seen an unprecedented explosion in pediatric, mental, emotional and behavioral health conditions like our kids and our youth, they're in a crisis and some are suicidal, more violent. And these are desperate times for a lot of families and sometimes these children are not having access to the support they need. The families don't have the support they need and we're kind of not knowing where to turn. So can you speak to this for a little bit and let's talk about some solutions or how we can best equip parents and our kids to handle these issues that we're facing at a really alarming rate.

Yeah, I mean, you know, even pre pandemic anxiety and depression were, I mean, what I would consider epidemic proportions. You know, one in three or four teenage girls is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. And by the time kids are 18, one in two of our teenagers will be diagnosed with any mental health disorder. So that's 50% of kids leaving home, off to college diagnosed with a mental health disorder. And when we look at the rates of suicide, we know suicides have been increasing during the pandemic. This is in children and adults. But even before the pandemic, suicide was the second leading cause of death in all youth, our teenagers and our young adults. And it was only second, a close second to accidental injury. And some of that accidental injury could have been from the risk of taking behaviors that kids are taking, especially when they have any mental health concerns. And then we look at for our children.

Where does Covid lie, where does flu lie in terms of the impact on mortality, the suicide risk? The risk of dying from suicide for our youth is something like 70 times higher than the risk of dying from influenza. And yet year after year, where are the public health priorities place really, if we're going to serve our children, we need to focus on what it takes to keep our kids brains healthy and happy. And that ties in perfectly with food. And even the next article that we're going to be talking about in terms of our kids gut microbiome right now. There are just so many factors for worsening anxiety and depression.

It's situational and some of it is going to lift as kids go back to school in person, as kids are able to socialize more with their friends, especially for our teenagers where social connection is so important. Then there's the increase in the screen time, you know, for zoom schools. And then kids oftentimes the only way they're able to connect with their friends is through yet another screen, you know, on their phones, facetiming and playing video games. So we have all of that impacting the neurotransmitters that are going on in our kids kids brains. And so while we can't change necessarily, you know, whether or not school opens or what school looks like or you know, how, how many kids our friends can gather with, there are things that we can do at home to really help support them. You know, one of the things that we really need to do is figure out how to help our kids learn tools to manage their worries and their anxieties. That can start at a very young age, and it should start start at a very young age because stress happens at any age and stress is not a bad thing as long as our bodies and our brains know how to manage them. Not just brush them under the rug, but manage them and come out in a healthier way and stress doesn't become chronic. So there are tools called cognitive behavioral techniques that work very, very well for kids to be able to learn these tools and manage their anxieties. And for some of my teenagers and kids, I've referred them to therapists who can work with them to teach them CBT tools. But otherwise there are an amazing series of books by one of my favorite child psychologists. Her name is Dawn Hebner. It's pronounced Hebner, it's spelled H U E B N. And she has a book for younger kids called what to do when youn Worry Too Much and a book for older kids called Outsmarting Worry. And in it, it's literally like a self help workbook for kids. But she has these really fun interactive exercises to do to teach kids CBT tools. She has a whole host of other books too, like what to do when you dread your bed, what to do when your temper free flares, what to do when you grumble too much, which is a really big one in our house, right when life just seems like nothing's good. So that's one thing we want to give tools kind of mental Health tools. And then we also have to look at physiologically, how are we nurturing their gut brain connection so that they can make the optimal amount of neurotransmitters to support their mood and their focus and their attention. Recognizing that upwards of 90% of all of our neurotransmitters, like serotonin, which is our feel good neurotransmitter, helps us manage anxiety, helps us sleep, and dopamine, which is our attention, Reward, motivation. Neurotransmitter, 90% is made in our gut, you know, by our gut microbes. Some people call them psychobiotics. So we want to focus on those foods, like those wholesome foods, a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, healthy proteins, because the backbone, the building blocks of those neurotransmitters are amino acids. So there are things that if we focus on cleaning up food, especially during this time, if maybe your families have slipped into at this point now, you know, just the.

Baking, right? The pandemic baking and lots of sugar and, you know, then, you know, feeling, I don't want to say feeling sorry for our kids, but feeling like, well, our kids, their lives are just not what they want it to be, not what we want it to be. So then you're going to let them have what your kids consider treats like the fiery hot Cheetos or the whatever it is, right? So cleaning that up because there's artificial dyes and preservatives are literally poison to your kid's brain. Like literally. So cleaning that up. And then there are, as far as supplements go, I work with kids too, to see maybe we need to get in some extra omega 3 essential fatty acids for your children's brain. Vitamin D deficiency is rampant. Not only is it important for, for Covid, really important for mental health. So vitamin D supplements are often needed. And then there are amino acids like theanine and GABA that can support healthy neurotransmitter levels and moods. Magnesium, number one mineral that we want to focus on when we're suffering from anxiety. So there are many things that we can do. So if your kids are really falling into their jazz, really not themselves anymore, they're not finding joy in life, they're irritable. They don't even really want to do the things that brought them pleasure before it's time to step in and see how do I give them CBT tools? How do I clean up their diet? What supplements might I think about? How do I support their gut with probiotics to really help support healthy brains?

Yeah, that was so much. Wow. And I love. Thank you for tying in the microbiome there, because I did want to talk about that. But, yeah, I think it is. It's often overlooked the connection between what we eat and the impact it has on our mood. And this is for our children as well as us as adults. And if we're eating junk food, we're in a crummy mood where, yeah, we're not motivated. We don't want to go outside. We don't want to start a new hobby. We want to sit and watch TV or play video games all day, which. Which in turn makes us feel even worse because that's messing with our brains and that just makes us want to eat more junk food. And it is this cycle. You can't separate the two.

Absolutely. You're right. It totally becomes that vicious cycle. We just have to figure out how do you just break one, you know, one link in that chain to then, you know, start working on.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you mentioning those books by Dawn Huebner. I will definitely link those up in the show Notes. And I know you have so many great resources on your website as well. So these topics that we've touched on, I'll link up to your blog. And I know you have videos out there that go into greater detail on how to work with your children through anxiety and talking more about the gut microbiome and the gut brain connection with our children, children and the impact on food. And I know you even have some blog posts talking about your supplemental recommendations for kids as well. So I will link all those up because we could probably talk all day about the information that you have. And the other thing I do want to share is for anyone looking to just learn more about how to be a better health advocate for your children and how to best partner with your physicians. Dr. Song does have a program or a course. Is it called the Everyday Holistic Pediatrics, and they can enroll for that anytime, Correct?

Anytime. Yeah. This is, you know, as we spoke about the gut microbiome, you know, how important is for our kids immune health and their brain health. One of the things that I try to empower parents to do is to use some natural medicines to help their kids when their kids are sick, whether it's with a fever or cold or flu or an earache or tummy bug, all with the hopes of avoiding. Well, first of all, getting your kids better faster, and also building more immune resilience for their next illness. But also, really importantly is to avoid unnecessary medications because we know there's a time and a place for things like antibiotics. But we also know how harmful antibiotics and Tylenol and ibuprofen, all of those things can be for the gut microbiome, which then can have long lasting impacts on your child's future health. So this arms parents with the tools to know which homeopathic medicines, which essential oils, which herbal medicines, what diet and lifestyle factors to really incorporate for the most common acute conditions for kids.

That's so great. That's all stuff I wish I had when I was younger. So what is tremendous resource and then our listeners can find you on your website is Healthy Kids, Happy Kids and as well as your Instagram, are those the best places for people to find you?

Yeah, yeah. The website healthykidshappykids.com and then Instagram is healthykidshappykids and then on Facebook as well. So those are the best places. So whichever way you like to get information.

Okay, fantastic.

Well, thank you so much. This has been a really wonderful conversation. I'm so glad we got to have you on the show. I know our listeners are going to get a lot of value out of this episode. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me. This was so great and I look forward to being here with you guys again sometime.

Fantastic. That is the end of today's episode. Our theme music is created by Andrew Bowden and production services are by Kevin Kennedy Spain, Ben Disc of White Media. Have a great week.

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