How to Heal from Anxiety and Panic with Dr. Nicole Cain

Foreign. Hey, friends, welcome back to the good Life podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Lamoreaux. I'm a certified life coach, a podcast coach, and the author of a book called design a life you love. And together we're going to be doing just that. This is a show for midlife women who want to live happier, healthier and more meaningful lives. If you're new to the show, I'm so glad you're here. I cover a variety of topics to help you elevate an area of your life. And today on the show, we are talking about how to heal from anxiety and panic attacks. If you or someone you know and love is dealing with either or both, this interview is for you. Joining us today is Dr. Nicole Kane, who is a leading expert in trauma, informed clinical psychology and holistic medicine for anxiety and panic. And she's also the author of the acclaimed book Panic Proof, which we're talking about today on the show. This is a conversation that I encourage you to share with everyone you know. Anxiety is at an all time high worldwide and Dr. Nicole has so much wisdom to share both in her book and in this interview where she actually gives us a couple of exercises to do on our own that take no more than three minutes. Dr. Nicole has dealt with her own bouts of anxiety which she shares about in today's interview, including a fear of flying, which many people have. So if that's you, you'll definitely want to tune in or share this with somebody you know is dealing with that. The notes for today with all of the links referenced will be on your podcast player or over@thegoodlifecoach.com with an invitation to join my community where you'll get every new episode delivered straight to your inbox with other tips and inspiration to live your best midlife. On that note, let's get into the show. Here we go. Dr. Nicole, I was blown away by your book. I. It's like, how many years did she take writing this? It's so comprehensive and it covers so many important aspects around anxiety and panic. But what I love the most is that it's so hopeful. You're letting women, people who read the book know that you can heal from it and that it's not something you have to just can manage the rest of your life.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your kind words. That's how I started in this whole journey in the beginning is to prove to myself that we could actually heal anxiety. And so here we are decades later.

Yes, yes. Well, everyone deals with some level anxiety and you Know, your book is panic proof, though, so I thought it would be helpful just to get a definition, your definition of anxiety and panic and how they're connected.

I think of it on a spectrum. I think that in the, the general medical model, they like to differentiate it slightly. Where you have generalized anxiety disorder, and that's one thing, and then panic attacks that just come out of the blue, they separate as something else. But when we look at it from more of a trauma informed lens, where we look at the research of Dr. Bruce Perry and Bessel van der Kolk, and what's coming out of neuroscience is that what appears to be a more accurate description is it's on a continuum where on one end of the continuum, I talk about it like a stoplight almost, where it's green and your nervous system is calm, you feel like yourself, your muscles are relaxed, you're creative, it's good. But then as you move up that continuum, we start to get into the yellow zone, is where your nervous system starts to become a little more activated. You may feel a little bit nervous, irritated. In Polyvagal theory, he talks about this as the yellow zone also.

Yes.

And then as we continue up, as the body becomes more aroused, we go into the red light zone, which is that crisis, that fight, flight, freeze zone, which may be panic or severe anxiety or whatever manifestation it takes for you. Maybe it's numbness or pain. And so I think about it on a whole person spectrum.

Okay, this is really helpful. And, you know, you can't help but read the book and relate to certain aspects. We'll get it into a little bit I want to ask you about. You talked about nine types of anxiety, and then there was the quiz, and you could sort of figure out, you know, what your types, you know, where you tend to fall in terms of that. But I want to talk about something that I thought was really critical and that you write. You go to the doctor when you're suffering and your doctor wants to relieve that suffering. And symptoms are seen as problems to be solved. But what if our symptoms are actually trying to tell us something? What if they're not problems, but solutions? Tell us more about this, because I think this is the heart of your book and. And probably, you know, partially why you wrote it, because this is not what the current model is offering us.

Absolutely. It's kind of like you have a baby and the baby is crying, and the baby cries for a reason. And our job as caretakers is to figure out why the baby's crying so that we can meet that need. So maybe the baby needs changed, or the baby's hungry or the baby's cold or whatever that is. And it's the same thing with the mechanisms of our body, is that if we look at a paradigm shift where the body, in its wisdom, produces unique sets of symptoms that tell us what needs healing, then we become empowered to listen to those messages and create healing. And we know this is the case in basic medicine with diagnosis. A doctor, any doctor coming out of medical school, knows the signs and symptoms that somebody may be experiencing hyperthyroidism. So just for those who may not know that, the thyroid is an endocrine gland, and it's responsible for metabolism, and when it becomes overly active, we know the signs and symptoms of that. We can confirm it with a test.

Yes.

And so if we just take that same rationale and look at the other symptoms that we can experience, it can give us a heck of a lot more data. It's just tricky because panic and anxiety are more of a composite of symptoms as opposed to something like, oh, here's the blood test. And so then instead of just looking at it as data, we're like, well, we can't confirm it with a blood test. We don't really know what to do, so we're going to suppress it and hope that it just goes away.

Yeah. And you want people to pay attention to their symptoms and know that they know their brain and their bodies better than anyone else and not to be gaslit, which is what a lot of the doctors who come on the show talk about. Just, you know, patients are not being heard. And like you said, they want to treat the symptoms and not really go to root cause. How did you end up getting your naturopathic doctorate as well? Because there must have been a reason that led you there after being trained traditionally in psychotherapy.

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I have so many stories I could tell, but I'll try to keep it as simple and brief as possible. But it starts in third grade. So I was brought up in a household where my role in the family was to be the caretaker. I felt responsible for keeping my. My care, my parents happy, calming their anger when they were frustrated. And the concrete way that I knew how to do that was Band Aids make things better. So when I was in third grade, I made a cute little fanny pack, and I put in Neosporin and Band Aids, and I was like, I'm here. And then I started to develop health issues. I had really bad rhinitis, congestion, asthma. They kept giving me more and more medications by the time I got to college, I was on six prescriptions and I was no healthier. In fact, I was on less healthy, I was worse. And I thought, I cannot be a part of the system that is making me more sick. But I love connecting with the heart of people. So I'm going to be a counselor. So I studied psychobiology in college and then I went on and I got my master's in clinical psychology. But this is when it changed. So I'm working in Lake Forest, Chicago, in a rehab with adolescents and there's this girl and she was sitting next to me. We would all go around the circle. It's 8 o' clock at night. We'd go around the circle, talk about what our drug of choice was if we were sober and the struggles. And so for me, I would always say, oh, I'm Nicole Caine, my drug of choice is life. And then they would roll their eyes really hard and we'd move on. And the girl next to me, she was drinking a Red Bull of sorts. I don't know if it was a monster Red Bull. This is many years ago.

Yeah.

And 8 o' clock at night, drinking a Red Bull. Her drug of choice was cocaine. And her concern for that week was horrible sleep. And so I'm side eyeing her and I'm like, I don't really know a lot, but I feel like there could be a biological factor contributing to her lack of sleep. But when you're in a big mental health organization like that, you have a lot of red tape. And I'm not, it's not in my scope as a counseling intern to tell her, maybe you should think about the relationship between the Red Bull. I don't know. Yeah, so we, we sent her to the psychiatrist.

Yeah.

And the psychiatrist prescribed her Ambien, which for those who don't know, it's a controlled substance. It's put you to sleep when you, when you can't fall asleep at night. So now we have this developing brain on cocaine, on stimulants, and now she's on a controlled substance to try to knock her out. So it's like a Judy Garland kind of a thing. And I was sitting there and I was like, oh my God, like, I can't, I can't do this. I can't be a part of this. What do I do? So I, I took myself out of the room and I put myself on Google and I discovered the Southwest College Naturopathic Medicine, which is now Sonoran University. And within three months I started school. And that, that school you learn everything that a standard MD do learns. And then in addition to that, all of these integrative modalities which blew my mind.

Wow.

So I became the authority that I had been wanting my entire life. But there's a problem with that which you touched on just a moment ago. If I may.

Please.

So when we turn our power over to the authorities.

Yes.

Whether it's somebody who's a counselor or a well intended MD or a shaman or whatever they are, the moment that we give our power away to somebody else who thinks that they know our minds, body, spirit, souls and needs better than we do.

Yes.

That's when. That's when we're in a pickle. And I had become that authority. And so then not too long later, I hit my rock bottom. Dark circle of hell, story of anxiety. And when I turned to all of those treatments that I've learned over the years, nothing worked. And suddenly I realized that I wasn't going to get better from herbalism and acupuncture and Ayurveda and prayer and meditation and lifestyle and yoga and pharmaceuticals. All of those tools to suppress my anxiety and to make the panic go away. Because I was looking at it the completely wrong way. And that shattering is the foundation of how we got here today.

Wow. Okay, so take us a little bit further into that story, because I know you wrote about the sleepless nights in the book and you. Your husband's also a. Yeah, we met through counseling.

You did.

He's also a psychotherapist. Okay. And so you're not sleeping and your anxiety is ratcheting up and you're having panic attacks, too at that point.

Oh, my gosh, my friend, it was awful. And panic can show up in so many different ways. The way that it showed up for me primarily was nervous system anxiety. So my nervous system, my nerves were on fire. In fact, my symptoms were so severe and I missed so many nights of sleep. I lost weight. I stopped having my period, and so my hormones got involved. So it was really extreme panic and anxiety and insomnia that just was unrelenting, no matter how much I tried to sedate it. I remember driving through the Walgreens pharmacy and my doctor, in addition to all the naturopathic stuff I was doing, my doctor had given me 10 milligrams of Valium, which diazepam, that's like a very high dose of benzodiazepines and Ambien. And the pharmacist is like, this could kill you. And I'm like, I'm already Anxious.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. And so I don't know if she.

Said that to you.

Yeah, yeah. She was like, this could kill you. I don't know why you're taking so much of this medication. And I was like, help. It was awful.

Okay, so what started to shift? So how did you start approaching your anxiety and looking at it in the way that you talk about in the book?

What.

What were those first steps?

The first step was removing an obstacle to cure, which I think is one of the most underappreciated, empowering steps that we can take in our own lives. Because almost everybody that contacts me, I've been in practice for many years, and everyone's always like, what can I take? What can I do? Give me some homework, things that I can add. Check it off of my list. And we always talk about what happened to us. And so it's all about this energy that. That we can output to change our circumstances. But for me, I needed to remove something that was getting in my way of healing. It's sort of like my left toe hurts. We treat it, all of the cool things, acupuncture, ibuprofen, whatever. And then I dropped my bowling ball on it again. And then it hurts, and I drop my bowling ball on it again. So it's an obstacle to cure.

Yes.

So my obstacle to cure was the. In my job, the. I was a small business owner, and I was working collaboratively in an environment that, for me, felt very toxic. And I had to leave my job, leave my practice, and move across the country. And then once that causal factor was out of the way, it was like the sun came up. And then everything else I was doing started to work. And that was shocking and humbling, and I wish I would have figured it out years before.

Was there some connection to your childhood and the feelings you had as that third grader that you were experiencing in that practice? Because what I find is the old wounds, when they get triggered, that's when it ratchet up to the yellow red light syndrome. Right. Or situation.

You are so wise. Yes.

I just was thinking of little. Little Nicole before she was Dr. Nicole. I'm like, something triggered her.

Yes, yes, exactly. And we call this somatic reenactment. And so. And so what happens in the neuroscience is that when we feel unsafe or something dangerous or stressful happens, that the nervous system will activate a series of changes that are head to toe, encompassing.

Yes.

And that these series of changes, it's almost like trying to turn over an engine. So you start the car and you Have a. And that's your nervous system amping up. And then ideally it will turn over. But I don't know if it's ever happened to you or anyone listening where you tried to start the car, but it doesn't fully turn over.

Yes.

And that's the nature of unresolved, unprocessed trauma. And the word trauma is difficult for people because we traditionally used it when referring to war veterans. But trauma is anything that overwhelms our ability to cope with it.

Totally.

And so for me, as a little. A little Nicole, is that I had a lot of unresolved childhood trauma. And so my nervous system was trying to rev up, but it would never complete the cycle. And so our brain is very associative. And so when we. We pursue the familiar and we go towards what feels familiar, because the devil we know often feels better than the devil we don't know.

Totally.

And so we try to reenact it. And so part of healing will involve completing that whole cycle loop. It's re patterning the nervous system from a place of power. So I love that you asked that question. Yes, 100%.

Yeah. But because I think it's relatable. I mean, as you're talking, I see the places that get me into the yellow light zone or the red light or the old wound. So something will happen. And I'm like, my reaction is. Is off the charts for the situation, which tells me we've just triggered something that's old.

Yes.

But I don't always know how to unhook from that and make the full cycle like you're talking about.

Yeah. I'm going to teach you a three minute hack, which is one of many approaches for getting into that cycle. And so you'll see an example of this.

Yes.

In Jennifer, I think in the book, it's been a minute since I like read through the whole thing. I like wrote it, and then it's like, oh, gotta refresh. But you get walked through this. This is a parts work process.

Okay.

And so let's say that you have the space to do a little bit of inner work. You have the space to ask why. And so if you have the space, you'll do the three minute hack. If you don't have the space, like let's say we're on a podcast and something comes up and you're, oh my gosh, my heart is racing. Whatever that is.

Yeah.

Is that. There's also a container exercise that we can do where you say, I hear you, I acknowledge you, but not now. And we put that away.

Yeah.

Then we come back and do it. And I have a whole process for that. But let's say that this is happening and someone's like, I got three minutes. Let's do it. You ready?

Yes.

Okay. So the first step is you have something happening, is we want to do a pattern interrupt. Because the brain and the nervous system goes into default mode, which is kind of like autopilot. You're driving your car and cruise control.

Yeah.

And if you don't interrupt it, it's just going to do that. And your logical brains. It's offline. It's more emotional.

It's not there.

Yeah, it's not there. It's. It's. It's taking a hiatus. Your emotional brain is running the show. So the first thing you want to do is like, I notice something. We're going to pattern interrupt. So get up, go to the bathroom, go outside if you're at your office, and you can change rooms. Anything. Anything to pattern interrupt it.

Yes.

And then you're going to pull out your watch or your phone and you're going to set a clock or a timer for 60 seconds. And then in that 60 seconds, the most powerful part of this full step is that you notice and acknowledge thoughts, feelings and sensations. Acknowledgement is the number one most important thing. Because remember what we talked about in the beginning is that symptoms are data.

Yeah.

And we don't get the data if we just try to suppress it. So we want to notice it. So that's the first 60 seconds.

Yes.

And then you're going to reset the clock, and then you're going to hit it for another 60 seconds. And then in this 60 seconds, you're going to go down the timeline. And so I like to close my eyes and I like to imagine a thread that goes all the way through my life, all the way through my past. And what you're looking for is the earliest time that you remember feeling this way.

Yep.

And that's how you find that little. You. You find that little part, the earliest time. Because there'll be lots of times in between. Could be yesterday, a week ago, two weeks ago. You want to get to the earliest time because it's often like a Jenga tower. If you can pull out that bottom brick, then the whole thing will fall off.

Right.

So you're spending another 60 seconds. You're going to down the timeline to that earliest time. And then when you find that part, you may have a memory or a thought or an image or a sensation, whatever it is the way that your parts speak to you. You're going to do the last 60 seconds, you're going to reset it one last time.

Okay.

And then you're going to timestamp the time warp.

What is that?

So time stamping.

Yeah.

Oftentimes adversity, trauma, stress, overwhelm gets stored in non temporal, meaning they don't have time and non logical parts of the brain, the body and the nervous system. So that's why when we smell cookies, it may bring us back to grandma baking in the kitchen 40 years ago. Right?

Yes.

Because those memories, the body keeps the score. Those memories get stored all over the brain, the body and the nervous system. And they don't always have time and place located with them. Especially if there's trauma. Trauma, stress can overwhelm the timekeeper in our brains.

Yes.

So you're going to timestamp the time warp. So I think of the time warp as like it's happening again. She said this thing or I smelled this thing or I saw this or someone said this to me. I was in a job where this dynamic brought me back in a time warp. So when you timestamp it, this is how you do it. So you notice that part and you say, I hear you. Thank you for sharing with me. And I want you to know that I've got you. I want you to know that we are no longer in the past and that I have resources now that you didn't have. And it is. And then you'll insert the year when you and I are recording. This is 2024. And a lot of times your parts don't know that it's the current time. So you tell them, you timestamp that, you say it is 2024. I'm an adult now.

Yes.

I, I can, I can take care of you. And so I would like to ask you to set down that need to take care of me. Because I have all the resources that you gave to me. So what you're doing is you're acknowledging the part, you're honoring the part, you're validating the part, you're sharing that part. Part your resources, you're reminding that part of the present moment.

Yes.

You ask or invite that part to set down its heavy burden. And then after the 60 seconds are up and you go back to what you were doing, that's a three minute hack.

It's beautiful. So you in the book have a, a bigger, at the end of the book exercise you can go through where you create the safe space. And I did years ago, internal families, family systems work, which is what you're talking about and referring to where we have a awareness. I'll just explain for the audience too. Like these younger parts of us, some are called the protectors. Right. Or the firefighter. I remember the therapist at the time explaining all this. And yeah, they're trapped or they're, they're afraid and then they show up in these different ways. So I think that's beautiful. But in the three minute exercise that's accessible for anyone. And the question is, do you have to keep doing it? Do you have to keep coming back to that younger part and keep soothing it?

I love this question. And sometimes if we don't get to the main thing of the main thing, that part in its empathy and its compassion and its wisdom and its mercy is going to keep sharing.

Got it.

And so I have parts. My 10 year old part comes out a lot and it's just because there's stuff that we haven't addressed.

Yeah.

So yeah, be patient with your parts. You may have a part that's a protector that's showing up. Another exercise I love to do is to make your internal family systems tree. And so it's called meeting place. And so you can imagine that you're going in your mind's eye through maybe breathing meditation. You go into your mind's eye and you imagine a room and it could be anything that you want, but there's a door and that door you can open and close at will. And so then what you do is you invite in your parts and you just kind of imagine like who are the different parts of me and you just allow them to come in. And so once your parts have come in, then you can start interviewing them and ask them questions and you free associate, write it down. I have pages and pages of this kind of work with my patients. As we write down like, oh, you're describing a lot of worry right now. Who is that? Let's talk to that part. How old are you? What is your motivation? What is your unmet need? Tell me about you. And the more that you know about parts is it may be that you have this 10 year old part that keeps showing up, but maybe she's the voice of a maybe more reserved part that's hiding in the background and that's why you're not getting the results you want.

Oh, that's fascinating. And you talk about this in the book, paying attention to where it's showing up in your body because then you can start making the connection. Oh, that's I feel that in my chest. That's the 10 year old part, right? Or something. Or my throat's closing up. I'm feeling tightness in my throat. That's. Is that part of it?

Yes, exactly. They often show up with their own little voices, their own little nuanced ways.

This is so fascinating. And does this work for teens because they don't have. What is it? The prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet until like, they're like 25 or something.

Exactly. Yes. This works super well with teens because you can get really creative with it and a person that would be great to research. So if we have moms that are on here, dads that are on here, whomever, and they're like, oh, my goodness, I have a teen is. I've leaned a lot on the work of Ana Gomez.

Okay.

And she does parts work using a sand tray. And so what she does is she has this beautiful bookshelf, and it's filled with all sorts of figurines. And she has little kids coming in all the way through. Teens. She works mostly with kids. And so the little kid may be talking about anger and frustration. And so she'll have them go to the shelf and be like, okay, well, whose anger? Pick out that figurine. And so then you can externalize that process. And so you can do that with all ages and with teens. I had a teen who, she's fourteen, and her favorite way. She had no idea that we were doing parts work because we were doing it by writing a story. And she had all these characters and they had superpowers and they had traumas and they had vulnerabilities, and they had their own whole complex web. And so she thought, in her mind, we're just creating a story, but we were actually doing parts work, and she got so much victory and success out of that.

That's fascinating. I just asked because there are a lot of moms, and I know this Gen Z generation, the anxiety is supposed to be way more significant or way more prevalent than ever. Is that true? I don't want to misspeak about this.

Yeah, absolutely. Anxiety incidence rates are skyrocketing. We see the book Ancient Anxious Generation that came out pretty recently. And he's looking at anxiety statistics, but he's drawing a conclusion that there's a link between screen usage, social media.

Oh, I know who you're talking about. Jonathan.

Height.

Yes. Height.

That's how you say his name.

Yes, yes. Okay.

I see that in my practice too. And the. The thing that we also see is the effects of information on a brain and nervous system. Where we don't have ancestors that have adopt, have evolved to adapt to that. So my parents, my parents, parents, My parents, parents, parents, they did not grow up with social media. They didn't grow up hearing everything that was happening around the world. And so in our brain, we have something. It's called the sensory network. And the sensory network, its job is the filter of the brain. And so we have billions of data points a second that are coming into the brain. It's like a fire hose to the face.

Wow.

And we evolved as human beings to be able to perceive sensory data points from our environment, but that inputted data is unprecedented. We have not evolved to process this data. And so the job of the sensory network is to try to quickly filter out what is relevant and what is irrelevant. But what we're seeing, it's happening is that our sensory networks are getting leaky. For general terms, right? They're getting leaky. And then all this sensory information is going to the amygdala, which is the emotional processing part of the brain. And then the amygdala is trying to figure out, oh, my gosh, what do I do with this? It gets flooded. And so it's just like, I don't know, sends out the signal just by the sheer amount of data and information that the human race is exposed to right now is going to set the stage for anxiety. And that circles back to what you and I were talking about earlier with an obstacle to cure, is that we can do all the three minute hacks and we can take all the kava kava, and we can take all of the Ambien. But if our sensory network continues to be flooded with information, we have to mitigate that somehow. Or it's just going to be like a game of whack a mole where our body's like, help. And we're like, stop that.

Help.

And we whack it again. Stop that.

Right. And that's where your book comes in.

Yes.

And your program. Well, that's what I was thinking. I'm like, or. Because not many therapists are trained in the way that you are. So if you go the traditional route, I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on pharmaceuticals and their place?

One of the biggest things that I hear, most common things that I hear is someone's like, I was having a panic attack and they told me to do deep breathing. And they're like, deep reading doesn't work. And then somebody else may say, well, I'm nervous. About doing public speaking. My doctor gave me a Xanax and then I was conked out. So the issue is a mismatch of interventions. And so I think that when people look at things of a good versus bad is, we're missing a whole lot of opportunity for gray area in the middle. So number one is what are my symptoms telling me needs healing and how it's probably not that you have a deficiency in serotonin because we saw that the chemical imbalance theory was largely debunked in 2022.

Yes.

But that being said, for some people, adding serotonin in the form of an antidepressant can be life saving, especially if they're getting into the upper yellow, into the red zone where their normal natural treatments aren't working. And so I call it smart pharmacology is you do the first part of the sentence is if I'm in crisis or going into crisis and I don't have a personal sense of power, we're going to use these life saving measures and then we're going to put a semicolon after that, which is the beginning of doing the deeper work. So as I told you, my story is I was taking those medications and honestly, I wish I would have started them sooner because those months of feeling completely disempowered were very traumatic.

Yes.

And had I a red light zone intervention for my red light zone time, it would have ended faster and I probably would have gotten better faster. But that's part of a wounded healer's journey.

Totally, totally. This is so helpful. And I know, you know, there's been a lot of gynecologists that come on and they're like, the amount of antidepressants being prescribed to women going through perimenopause and menopause is too much. It's like they're like, not that many women are depressed. They're actually having symptoms of perimenopause or menopause which are impacting their, their brain or creating panic attacks or anxiety. And so there may be a place for it. They acknowledge it may be a place, but there also needs to like, look at other aspects like hrt. But you talk about in the book the gut, about the impact of the gut brain axis and specifically you get into hormones. So because of my audience being midlife, I think it would be helpful for them to have some understanding of, of that.

Yeah, let's talk about estrogen and its power at stopping panic. And so when I was, when I was going through medical school, we were talking a lot about estrogen dominance and, oh my goodness, PMS and PMDD and all estrogen. And. And we would talk about don't give people HRT because it can increase their risk of cancers. And so we were largely like estrogen. We like too much of it.

Right.

And there's a lot of nuance to that. Whereas, interestingly, when they did research on estrogen, we actually found that it's very panic protective. In particular, they did this study where if a woman had an assault that resulted in an unplanned pregnancy, if that woman received high dose estrogen therapy, she was significantly less likely to develop PTSD with, less likely to have nightmares and flashbacks and all of those awful symptoms that we see with trauma, anxiety, as compared to women who did not receive high dose estrogen. So then that got us thinking, what's that about? There's something with estrogen that is panic protective. So then we have estrogen metabolites and we look at how estrogen is being broken down by the body. And I use the metaphor of kindergartners in classrooms. So we have moms here. Yeah. So imagine that you go to a classroom and there's 40 kindergartners in there. Kindergartners. But go with it.

Some schools.

Some schools, yeah. So we have 40 kindergartners in there and they just had cupcakes and they're hyper and there's music and they're running around and there's only 40 of them, but it feels like 100, right?

Yes.

And then you go into the next door classroom and they're all getting story time and the lights are low and they're napping. So the number of kindergartners is the same between the classrooms, but your lived experience is totally different. So this is estrogen metabolism. And this becomes incredibly important as we become perimenopausal and menopausal. And as you wisely said as you started this question is the relationship between estrogen and the gut brain access.

Yes.

And so we know that there are pathogens in the gut, like clostridia, that can change how we metabolize and process estrogen. And so as our estrogen levels are starting to change, we want to start looking at what is the data telling me. I'm perimenopausal. I have the blood test from my doctor, my estrogen is normal, but I know that my FSH has gone up. I know we're perimenopausal. And yet my lived experience is that things are not okay.

Right.

So what you want to do is number one is you want to look at estrogen metabolites and figure out what your body is doing to process that. So I like, I have no relationship with this company, so there's no endorsement.

Yeah.

But I love the Dutch test.

Oh yeah, I've heard Dutch.

Yes.

Where do you get wonderful is on your website there's a link or no.

Yeah, there's a secret link on my website. I'll just tell your audience. And so in the book there's a secret link and it says panicproof.com or no, it's Dr. Nicolecane.com forward/book.or-resources. I'll give you the link. And if you find that secret link which is in the book, it will take you to hyperlinks for everything that I mentioned in the book. So every supplement, every protocol, every lab, it's all there. And the Dutch test info is there.

And the women will pick up the book because I think understanding why you're recommending this, and like I said, your book is so comprehensive is key. So go get the book and then go, go get the resources.

Okay, Go get the resources. Yeah. So the, the Dutch test and then that will give you so much great information. But here's another hack about estrogen. I could talk all day with you about estrogen, but what a lot of people don't know is that the ovaries aren't the only parts of our body that make estrogen wild. Right?

Yes.

Estrogen is made all over the body and namely in for this conversation. It's made in the brain.

Yes.

So if you see that as your ovaries go into their well earned retirement, that you're suffering with symptoms, it may be an invitation to support those other systems whose job it is to compensate for your estrogen levels dropping. To create a bridge, if you will.

Yes.

And that's important.

Yes. Because what I understand is that the, the hormones go sort of off a cliff and then your body's like, oh my gosh, I don't have this estrogen to help with pretty much every function in my body. And of course you don't feel yourself.

You feel awful, you feel anxious, you get restless legs, you get hot flashes, your progesterone out of whack. And then estrogen and progesterone will affect serotonin, which affects dopamine, which affects all of the things, right?

Yes.

So it's instead of just giving, which I'm not anti, hrt.

Oh yeah.

For the record.

Yes.

But instead of just giving us hrt, Is if you want to do HRT and your doctor says to do it, is put a semicolon at the end of that conversation and then do the deeper digging. What is my body trying to tell me needs healing and how. So if my estrogen deficiency symptoms are showing up with a lot of migraine headaches, racing thoughts, then it's like, okay, now we have nervous system anxiety, we have thought anxiety. And then in the book I give you algorithms to get to the root causes of those so that you can create really specific treatments for yourself that will help restore balance to that. So can I give you a concrete example? Because I feel like I'm getting a little.

I love store. Yes, please. Because that's what's stays. Yes.

Okay. So I have a client and she is a 55 year old female and she's been perimenopausal for a decade, but her, they're still hanging on. She's not fully menopausal yet.

Yep.

And so we're doing all these natural, wonderful treatments. Her estrogens are really quite good. And she's doing all the self care and she's doing all of the exercise and all the diet. She's taking all the herbs and all the supplements.

Yeah.

And she's like, Dr. Nicole, like, why do I feel bloated? Why do I want to rip my husband's head off? And why do I have insomnia? And I was like, girl, there's an obstacle to cure. We have to figure out what it is. So we went to the obstacle secure kind of chapter in my brain because this was a while ago before, there's the book. And we did some digging and she works, she used to work for Dow Chemical and she lived in a very wet building. And when you'd walk into the building, you could smell that there was mold in the building. And we're like, okay, let's look and see if there may be some sort of an environmental cause to this. Let's see if there's something that could be an obstacle to cure for you. So she went with her PCP and she did testing and sure enough she had mold exposure. Really high mold exposure. They did, they came and they checked the apartment. Sure enough, there was lots of organic matter in the building. Then they had to do mold remediation. And she also had other solvent testing done. And so she had a lot of chemicals in her system. So we have these foreign substances in the system. And we know that metals can jump in the receptors to change hormone metabolism. They can look like minerals so magnesium is used all over the body to carry out all sorts of different functions. And then things like mercury or lead or cadmium can get in there. It looks similar, but it doesn't work similar. So your hormones look normal, but your behavior of your hormones is abnormal. So she had that going on and then she had a lot of mold. And mold is very inflammatory and it releases toxins. And these toxins cause damage to the brain, they cause damage to the gut, the tissues. So we started doing a very gentle detox. And every month when I would check on her, she's getting better and better. So her detox, she's doing detox supplements, she's doing dry skin brushing, she's doing saunas after saunas, she's rinsing in cold water, she's doing juicing, she's buying organic juice to juice. She's doing all the things right. And I just talked to her. I'm looking at the calendar here. I just talked to her three months ago. And she's living her dreams. She's living her best life. Her symptoms are gone, and it's because she followed it to the. The root.

Yes. And I think, again, that's the difference. So anyone listening? Naturopathic doctors, they go to root cause and they. You're talking about symptoms, being your teacher and not something to be squashed or, you know, put a band aid on, like little Nicole with her band aid, literally.

Yeah.

Dr. Nicole would not do that. And so I think it's important to pay attention. And it's an invitation. And not everyone will take that invitation because it requires a lot of digging. And I think that's part of it. But I think what's so important about the work that you're doing is it's saying you can heal. And so for those of you who are willing to do the work, because it's always. It does require work, the healing is on the other side of that. And what a gift that is to be able to give that to yourself and not carry all of that and then have the symptoms. They're going to continue. Those symptoms are just going to be there and they're going to get worse or turn into new symptoms. Right. Over time.

Yes. And, you know, one thing I love about your work in particular, and you and I were chatting about this before we got recording, is that this paradigm gives us the opportunity to dream of what is it I really want. So instead of just staying afloat and feeling like we're just surviving the day after day after day is that suddenly we have the opportunity to dream. And one of my favorite writers, he talks about what true healing looks like. And he describes it with such beautiful language where that in a state of optimal vitality and resilien that we step into a place where we can use our vessel to accomplish that which we are called to our highest and greatest purposes in such a way that it obliges wonderment from people looking on.

Oh, that's so beautiful. Who's that author?

Samuel Hahnemann. He's an 1800s German physician.

Oh, you're kidding. Okay, yeah.

Oblige's wonderment. Yes. How beautiful.

I got chills when you said that. That's beautiful.

And then people are like, whatever she's got, I want that. And it's like I'm living in harmony with my mind, my body and my nervous system. Step by step, day by day. And you can do it. Anybody can do it. Just takes a little bit of practice and some support. From people like you, Michelle?

Well, no, from you and the work you're doing and the book and your program online. I. I guess I was. So there's a poet, do you know, Khalil Gibran?

Oh, tell me, tell me.

He wrote the Prophet, and in it he talks about your work being your play. Like that it's a joy that you're. You're experiencing. And so I think, yes, that is part of the invitation. What else do we need to understand about this conversation? In your book, you have, you know, the secret messages. So it's like, pay attention. Know that you talk about. Panic attacks don't just happen. They're not random. That's not that they don't happen. They're not random. I think that's a big takeaway and maybe you could talk a little bit more about that. And then you say that, you know, your panic is protective and you go into the gut, brain access and all those pieces and then you. You end it with how to become panic proof. But do talk to us about panic attacks because, you know, you give an example. Were you the person who couldn't get on the airplane? It was you, right?

Without the worst fear flying?

Yes, it was you. Okay, so just tell us a little bit about that because I know a lot of people do experience. And you said panic can show up in different ways, but full blown panic attack, where you really just like, I gotta get off this plane, like, freaking out.

Yeah. I used to curl up into the fetal position and listen to sermons and just like cry. Oh, and my husband's just like next to me and he's like, I don't know, do you want some ice water? And I was like, the plan. And so for me, panic was a somatic reenactment of feeling trapped and powerless when I was younger.

Okay.

And. And so until I could clear that association and untangle myself from the beliefs that I was trapped and disempowered, I was going to be stuck in that. And so some of my healers over time are like, well, you can leave those little parts. They don't have to come with. You can give them a bus to get and imagine them going. But I think even more power comes from truly integrating that with your wisdom, with your resources, that you can make choices, knowing what is best for you and being a fully integrated person. Because panic creates a sense of powerlessness, a lack of control. We feel like we're at war with our minds and bodies. And so if we can get into that space where we've healed, those places where we were disempowered, where we weren't able to turn over that engine, then we can do that. And there's a way to retrain that. And so I. I have. It's a four part process in the book where in each of the four parts, the. The very last part is that you want to go in and unravel those panic producing patterns. And so Bruce Perry actually introduced this in his book what Happened to you? Where he talks about doing high ropes courses, and he talks about doing things that create your nervous system to go into those familiar autonomic arousal patterns. So you put yourself with sense of control and power into patient intentionally, so you can't avoid it. You intentionally activate those fear patterns. Okay, My heart is picking up. I feel like I have electricity in my teeth. I'm sweating. I am, like, trembling. Okay. I put myself in that. I'm noticing it. And then you complete that cycle. And you can complete that cycle by being like, okay, I noticed that. I acknowledge it. And now I'm getting down to the high ropes course. Or I notice it, I acknowledge it, and I'm gonna hang out here for two more minutes. And so you start to be in that place from a place of power. And the brain is very associative, and the brain's like, oh, we can feel this way, but not actually be in danger. So high ropes course, I did an interview with a horror expert, and so she was talking about how some people watch horror movies, which I do not like. No, I'm like, that sounds terrible.

No, that does sound terrible to me. Yes.

So stressful she's like, it helps take people through the panic cycle so they go into autonomic arousal. You have the climax of the film and then they wrap it up for you. And so some people feel better. I'm like, all right, whatever works for you, right?

Sounds better. What did you do?

I flew a lot. I did a bunch of short flights where I used to fly with benzodiazepines. So I got educated. I took the fear flying class at the international airport and I did that top down work from logical brain to body. So I know it's safe. I know the statistics, I know that I'm choosing to get on this flight. I know how long the flight will be, all of that logical stuff. And then I did the bottom up work where I was doing the vagus nerve hacks and the guided imagery where you're laying down pathways that your brain can visualize the bullseye you and I talked about. And then I put myself on that metaphorical high ropes course and I would fly back and forth from Phoenix to San Diego.

Is that considered exposure therapy to some degree too?

It's totally empowered exposure therapy. And it worked because in this last year, I went to Barcelona. It was amazing. This stuff works. It's just like getting the. Connecting the top down and the bottom up, working with the body and working with the brain, which I feel like a lot of clinicians are good at, one or the other. And in panic proof, I was really aiming to bridge that gap so that you have everything you need.

And you did a beautiful job with that. Is there anything I didn't ask that you want to make sure the women take away from this conversation today?

I think that. I love that question. I think that the other thing that may be really important is going back to the nine types of anxiety quiz. Yes. Fairly regularly would be helpful because it gives us sort of a scaffold for understanding our symptoms. Because like Esme, we have the story of Esme in the book and she's like, I feel like my symptoms are all over the place. They're a moving target. I don't know what's going on. And so that's really scary. And then we get fear of the fear. I'm not afraid of flying, I'm afraid of becoming afraid while flying kind of a thing, right?

Yes.

And so the. The nine types of anxiety is. The research that I did is I looked at all of the most common symptoms that we have and we distilled them out into systems and then looked at some of the root causes of These symptoms, systems like why does it show up here and why does it show up there? So that you can start to become familiar with, oh, I losing feeling on the left side of my face. It doesn't mean I'm having a stroke. This is nervous system anxiety. Of course, my loves go to your doctors do all of that, right? But yes, clean bill of health. Nervous system anxiety. So then you say, okay, I know this is data from my body. I'm activated right now. What is going on that's activating me? Oh wow. Now it's in my gut. Okay, what's happening here? Is this a different part? Did I eat something funny? Am I getting activated in a different way? So go back to that quiz and really start to familiarize yourself. And this gives you information about the stoplight strategies, right? So maybe your anxiety starts with a little bit of a flutter in your chest, but then when you get into that panic attack red light, it's like all bets are off and it's all systems firing. So if you can notice that very first canary that something is awry, you can do something about it before those whispers turn to shouts.

Oh, I love that. I love that. And I've loved this conversation. You're truly brilliant. I mean, like I said when I read your book, I'm like, how did she pull this all together in this place? And I think it's because of your. They say your mess becomes your message, but your, your work that you had to do on yourself and then getting the additional education as a naturopathic doctor and integrating that with the traditional system and working with thousands and helping thousands of people. I think that's why it came together so beautifully in panic proof. And everyone needs to go get a copy of this book if you. And go figure out your, your. We all have anxiety. Like nobody's immune to this. But for some people, it's more of a day to day battle, right?

Yes. Yeah. And it can heal. It's. You know, some people were like kind of green into yellow and some of us live every day just trying to survive. We're in the red zone every day.

Yes.

Everybody can heal. This is a last thought to, to leave your audience with is you can heal. If you fall and scrape your knee, your body will heal that scrape even if you don't even think about it again, it will do that. It's an automatic process. It is your humanity. It is your, your mind, your body, your nervous system, everything working in concert to heal that scrape on your knee. Of course you can heal from anxiety it's just a matter of figuring out what your anxiety is trying to tell you needs healing and how and taking those steps to get to that wonderment that you're looking for.

I love it. And I love that you ended it with wonderment. I mean, isn't that really the invitation and to really step in and not to live a good enough life where you're just kind of, yeah, it's good enough. I can manage this. Or why not? Why not have that sense of wonderment and have that glow about you where people can really feel it and see it in you. And I see it in you. I see it in you. Dr. Nicole, you radiate and it's beautiful. I love when people walk through talk. Where should I direct the women listening with today?

To learn about the book, go to panicproof.com I'm also really active and I love to play on Instagram. So if you're kind of wondering what what I'm up to and what kinds of beautiful things that I have going on, I'm at Dr. Nicole Kane on.

Instagram and all of the show notes will be over@thegoodlifecoach.com and on your podcast player. Send this to all of your friends. Just everybody's dealing with this and if you've got kids, teens, young adults, everyone's struggling with some level, this book, Panic Proof, is such a beautiful road map to get to that healing. So thank you for taking the time to be with me and my audience today. Dr. Nicole, it's been such a pleasure to learn from from you.

Thank you. It's such an honor. I so appreciate it.

Thank you. Hey friend, I have one request before we sign off today. If you've gained any value from any of the interviews that you've tuned into, would you take just one minute and leave a five star rating and review? Over on Apple Podcasts, it's actually how more women can find the show and I want to continue growing a community of women who are loving themselves and living full on. So thank you for all of your support and I look forward to being back with you next week. Bye for now. This podcast is presented for entertainment and educational purposes only. Any information provided is not intended to be a substitute for medical, mental health or other professional advice. Seek out your trusted healthcare provider or other qualified professional for all matters dealing with your health and well being. Any opinions or information provided by a guest are their own and not those of Michel Lamoreaux or the company.