How Your Genetics are Tied to Your Anxiety

Foreign we are delivering today. We are talking about epigenetics and your mental health. And you might know that stress and overwhelm and anxiety may be related to your genetics, but did you know that you can actually change the expression of your genetics? We're going to be talking about epigenetics today, where you can learn to actually change the expression of your genes so that you can live a life where despite whatever life throws your way, that you can feel calm and clear and like yourself. So stick around to the end of this video because I'm also going to share with you what one of the best free stress stopping strategies that I have and it will support the things that we're talking about today with respect to epigenetics. So let's start with the definition of epigenetics, and this comes from the cdc, where epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and how your environment can actually cause changes and in the way that your genes work. And so we have our DNA, we have our genes, and we get these genes from our biological parents. But before we can talk about how these genes express themselves, in order to help you feel less overwhelmed, less stressed and less anxious, we have to have a better and a little bit more of a clear understanding of what your genes are and how gene express expression works. And you can find tons of resources online. I'll post a blog on this over the coming weeks where you can read more. But for today's purposes, let's just do a flyover. So when you were conceived, you received two chromosomes, one from your biological mother and one from your biological father. And these chromosomes are kind of like ladders that contain genes. And these genes are instructions. They contain instructions that are DNA. And the DNA will tell your body how to make proteins, how to grow, how to heal. And then that will of course, affect your entire mind, body, experience from the moment of conception until the moment that you are on the other side of the turf, right? And sometimes your parents may give you well adjusted, healthy, happy, good, normal genes. And other times your parents may give you a mutated gene. And so you may receive a mutated gene from one parent and a normal gene from another parent, or sometimes both parents will give you a mutated gene. And so I want you to think about this in terms of light switches. You walk into the room and on the wall, I want you to imagine two light switches. These light switches can be turned on or the light switches can be turned off, right? And so if the light switches are turned on and everything is Working and your body is making normal proteins. Life is good. But it can happen where if you get a mutated gene or a mutated light switch, it won't turn on properly. And so let's say in this example that the job of these light switches is to make serotonin. If the light switches are both turned on and working normally, your body is going to make normal serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in your brain whose job is to help stabilize your mood, your concentration, memory. And so if one of those light switches is turned off, if you have a mutation on that gene, your serotonin levels may not be normal, and you may struggle from stress or overwhelm or depression or anxiety, panic attacks, body pains, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, and the list can go on. So you may struggle with negative serotonin change levels. And this is why epigenetics is important, because there are actual genes that can change serious serotonin expression. So there are genes that actually code those light switches. So the most common gene that you may have heard of is called mthfr. This gene involves helping your body make serotonin. And so if you get a gene where there's a mutation in mthfr, your body isn't going to make serotonin correctly, and you're going to have all of those or some of those symptoms that we just talked about, Right? So a story about why this may be relevant is I had a man come into my office. This was about 15 years ago. He came into my office, and he had been depressed his entire life. He had tried antidepressants, he tried exercise, he tried lifestyle changes, and he just couldn't feel happy. He couldn't feel better. He felt sad and depressed, and he had headaches and body aches and stuff, stomach aches. So we did a genetic test, and it turns out that this man in particular had a mutation at mthfr. And so then we did a homocysteine blood test, and we won't go into the detail of that today, but in short, the homocysteine blood test can tell us if that gene mutation is actively potentially causing issues. The blood test confirmed it, and we gave him a simple correction so that his MTHFR would work properly in making serotonin. He took this $5 vitamin and his depression went away. So what we learned is that he had a gene mutation, and we were able to change that gene's behavior with a $5 vitamin and his depression of 40 plus years went away. So the next thing we want to think about is what are the ways that we measure gene expression? So we just talked about methylation. Methylation is the biochemical process where your body has genes that help you methylate or add a methyl group in order to carry out a biochemical reaction. And that's kind of complicated information, right? But we're going to just make sure that you get the 4, 1, 1 and the solutions. Because I'm all about helping, you know, well, okay, what do I do with this information? So I'll tell you what we did with that guy and I'll tell you what your next steps are and I'm going to give you a free resource at the end of this video, so stick around. So the four primary ways that we can measure gene expression or epigenetics is methylation, phosphorylation, ubiquination and acetylation. And so we're going to focus in this video just on methylation because otherwise this could turn into an hour long mini course. And so methylation as we described is a process where your body adds a methyl group in order to complete a reaction. In what we're talking about today, we're going to focus on the reaction being to make serotonin. If your serotonin isn't out of, if your serotonin isn't getting methylation, you're not going to get the serotonin you need, you're going to be depressed. So we want to support your ability to methylate because the gene isn't doing that for you. Right? And the solution is simple. It's to simply take a methylated B vitamin which you can find at most health food stores. I have it on my website in the shop and you could also get it online. And it's very inexpensive and for many people this is the solution. But it's important, right, that you want to try to identify, well, why is my body turning on or off this light switch? We can change the way the gene is behaving. And, and so this is the importance of testing your DNA, seeing if your DNA is changing its expression in a helpful way or an unhelpful way and then seeing what's underneath of that. Because the conversation is always to ask why and why and why and go deeper and deeper and deeper. So the number one way that you can change your gene expression is your gut. In fact, I'm going to post a reference to an article and it's a research study that you can find in PubMed that talks about Your microbiome, the bugs that live in your gut and how they are actually literally able to change the way your body methylates and therefore the way that your body and your brain makes serotonin, which will change your mood and your emotional well being and it will make a huge impact in the rest of your life. And so if you're watching this video or listening to this on a podcast and you're dealing with depression, if you're dealing with anxiety, if you just simply feel overwhelmed and stressed, it's important to ask why. And one of the reasons could be epigenetics. And oftentimes going straight to the gut can create solutions that will change your life, like that client that I told you about. So we want to support gut health. And one of the best ways to support gut health is, is to identify in what ways your gut may be out of balance. And we can do this in a few ways. One is with testing, gut specific testing, and the other is with gut healing supplements, diet and nutrients. And I teach you all about this in the gut psychology program. You can find that in the link in my bio. And that entire program is the number one most researched program for mental health gut related concerns. So if you're wanting to dive into that, I have that information there. But in short, so that you can start right now, today, making a change to help change your gut, to start beginning the process of changing the way that your body is methylating, phosphorylating, acetylating and ubiquinating is to go to your gut. And the number one thing that you can take is a probiotic. And when you're thinking about a probiotic, you want to select a probiotic that has four strains of bugs and approximately 40 billion bugs per dose. And that's billion with a B. So when you go to the store, you're going to look at the bottle and you're going to turn it around and you're going to read the ingredients label. There should be four strains of bugs on that ingredients label and the dose should be 4, 0 billion, 40 billion or above. If you deal with gut upset when you take a probiotic, that might be an indicator that there's something else going on. And doing gut testing could be really helpful for you. And so then now that we're taking a probiotic and getting our gut flora back in track, we want to go deeper. We want to ask, well, why is my gut flora out of balance? And that my love goes to diet and toxicity. So we want to start thinking about what are we Eating Is this food food increasing yeast? Is this food increasing beneficial bacteria or is it increasing pathogenic bacteria? And how can I start changing my diet to increase my energy, decrease my stress, increase my resilience and decrease my overwhelm, increase my productivity and help you get the job done that you're trying to do in this life. So today we've been answering one of the big questions that's been coming for our audience and it's all about epigenetics. We've been talking about how stress and overwhelm, anxiety, brain fog can all be related to your genetics. And we've been talking about how you can actually change the expression of your genes. And so I promised you that at the end I was going to give you a free resource that makes a huge difference in helping with methylation and helping with gut health. And it's the free Anxiety springboard. The springboard will talk about what you can take nutrient wise that can make a huge difference that contains those methyl factors. And it will talk with you about behaviors that you can start doing right now to start getting your nervous system back on track so that you can make and absorb and process your neurotransmitters the way that you need to. You can find that in the link in the bio and we can continue the conversation on epigenetics if you would like. We can dive a little bit more into phosphorylation, N acetylation and ubiquination. And so if this is interesting to you, you let us know, you can leave a comment, send us a DM. In terms of comments and DMs, our job here is to serve you with information and resources. So unfortunately, I can't give you specific medical advice because this is a public forum, but I can definitely, Brooke can, Haley can give you resources to learn more. And I always encourage you to find a doctor that you trust that that can work with you in helping get to the root cause of your anxiety. I do take a select number of individuals that I work with in a consultation basis. And so if that's interesting to you and you feel like we might be a good fit, just click the link in my bio and then we have an application. What would happen next is that when you submit the application, my booking specialist, Kayla, would give you a call and set up things and answer all of your questions. So this has been Dr. Nicole, it's been such a joy seeing you today. I look forward to your comments in answering any questions that we can. And we've been talking about epigenetics and your mood, so I love you. Thank you for being here, and we'll see you next time. Take care.