The Living Proof approach to our mental health crisis

What is up, my friends? This is Sachin. I trust you're having an amazing day. In this video, I want to discuss the current mental health crisis that we have going on and what our approach is to mental health and how it's uniquely different than the allopathic model. Now, this isn't a video designed to put down any other approaches and I don't want it to come across that way because many people have been helped. However, when they don't respond to conventional interventions or they stop responding after they've been doing well, then that's where we come in. And we usually get the call when people are in crisis and are looking for a solution, when nothing seems to be working. So if you're struggling with this or know somebody else who is, I mean, it's hard to imagine somebody this day and age with all the stress that we're under isn't in some way, shape or form struggling with their mental health. There are certainly people who are struggling way more. And those who are vulnerable and predisposed or, you know, for whatever reason, have had, you know, their mental health on the edge even before these last two years. They're certainly past that tipping point. So a couple things that I want to share with this particular client and of course her name and everything else will remain anonymous. But I'm going to give you some high level stuff just to give you a context of what kind of calls we get and the type of people we help. So first of all, we never treat a diagnosis. We never claim to cure anything. What we do is we help people find wholeness and we believe that when they find that wholeness and they give their body what it needs, then the body thrives. And this is the only way to actually get people feeling their best, regardless of what their diagnosis is. And remember, a diagnosis is somebody's opinion. And about 30 to 40% of the time, according to the research, that opinion is completely wrong. In fact, when it comes to mental health, there is no test, so there's no blood work that you can do to determine if you have anxiety or depression. So it's mainly based on symptoms and opinions. And so we don't treat symptoms and we don't treat opinions. So that's one of the things that makes our approach radically different. The first thing that we like to do is listen. And listening is going to give you 90% of the answer. And then when you ask the right questions, you're going to get the other 10%. So being able to listen more than we speak and then asking the right questions and cluing into what's going on is going to be another way to help us get some answers. So A, we don't treat and then B, we don't treat symptoms. We never focus on the symptoms because symptoms are the downstream, you know, way of the body to express that something isn't quite right upstream. So this client presented to me with severe anxiety and depression, facing a lot of stress, had some trauma in the last couple years and even leading up to that and you know, know she's just been struggling. So we had a discussion and realized very quickly that she was in about six medications. So one of her underlying issues that she's had for a while is thyroid disorder. And one thing that's interesting about thyroid dysfunction is that it often one of the spinoffs of thyroid disease when it's not properly managed is depression and when it's over managed or when you're over medicated is anxiety. So you know, the, the flipping back and forth could be related to a dysfunctional management of the thyroid. 90% of the time the thyroid dysfunction is going to be caused by autoimmunity. So it's not a thyroid problem. It's usually an autoimmune problem that needs to be addressed. And the majority of the time, if not all of the time, the autoimmune condition starts in the gut because our barriers become compromised. And we often find some stress and trauma are major triggers and co contributors to autoimmune conditions. So going further upstream, looking at what's going on and what's happened to her is very important. Another thing that we realized is that one of our medications is for heartburn. So thyroid, when it's not properly managed, our digestive function really slows down. The production of stomach acid significantly slows down, causing people to experience heartburn. So when you're on a medication that lowers stomach acid production, this creates a whole cascade of problems. One is that we don't properly digest our proteins. And in order for us to make neurotransmitters, we need to have adequate protein in our diet. But not just in our diet, it needs to be digested into amino acids. We need amino acids to make serotonin, we need amino acids to make dopamine, which help us feel good and help us function and maintain us maintain our calm state of being versus feeling anxious and depressed. So when you put somebody who's already predisposed to depression from stress trauma and a dysfunctional thyroid, you put that person on a heartburn medication to lower stomach acid production. Now you're almost guaranteeing and trapping this person's biology and physiology and into a state of dysfunction when we don't have enough stomach acid. We can't kill pathogens, we can't kill bacteria, and we can't kill viruses and other things that would normally enter into our digestive tract, which is part of the function of our stomach acid. We also have a harder time absorbing iron, magnesium, zinc and B12. And guess what? She's severely anemic, so putting her on a heartburn medication makes the anemia even worse. And now here's another thing that's interesting. You need iron in order to make your neurotransmitters. So you can't make dopamine without adequate amounts of iron. And dopamine helps us feel motivated and inspired and also feel a sense of reward. You also need iron to feel good in your body, right? Virtually every cell in our body requires iron for it to function properly. And almost every biological process requires iron. So by putting her on a stomach acid lowering medication, you're guaranteeing she's going to feel tired and depressed because she's not going to be able to absorb the iron, the magnesium, the B12 and zinc. Now, what also happens when you're on an anti stomach acid medication or a ppi in this case, you're not going to get adequate amounts of free form amino acids, and you're also not gonna digest your proteins, which actually makes your food sensitivity issues far worse. So even eating food is gonna make you feel worse. And therefore people shy away from eating healthy because no matter what they eat, they don't feel necessarily much better. It's because they're not digesting that food properly. When we don't digest our food properly, it makes us more prone to GI infections, it makes us more prone to gas and bloating and, and also permeability issues like leaky gut, which exacerbates our autoimmune. So you can see that this person is just going through a vicious cycle that medications will never, in this case, help her. No matter how many medications you keep piling up, you're actually fighting this person's physiology and biology, making it virtually impossible for this person to ever feel whole again. And of course, this condition, maybe some people feel better in the beginning when they first get started, but then because of the lack of root cause assessment and addressing the root cause, they actually spiral into a condition where they feel so much worse and the medications that they're on are doing nothing to address the problem. They're doing nothing to address the root cause, they're simply addressing the symptoms and not addressing the upstream issues. So our approach is radically different than this. First of all, because we want to a listen to what the client is telling us, look at the whole picture, not just their symptoms. Because, you know, even with an herb or a supplement, we don't want to treat the symptoms. We actually want to look at the entire lifestyle and epigenetic expression that this person has, which is how do they live? Because that's going to determine how well they function. So first thing that we want to do with her is we want to work on addressing how well she handles stress. If we don't handle stress properly, it creates major dysfunction in our body, disrupts thyroid hormone production, it disrupts our adrenals and causes them to pump out all these anxiety causing chemicals. And it also shuts down healing and repair and you know, decreases healthy digestion, detoxification, reproductive health. All of those systems start shutting down when we're under chronic stress. So we have some ways that we're going to help her address her stress and her trauma. One of those being breathwork and one of those being trauma informed. Breath work as a solution. Another thing that we do is we want to focus on the gut. So chances are she's probably got an H. Pylori infection. We definitely want to work on addressing that and identifying that if that's the case. But more importantly, we want to get her eating healthy whole foods that she's actually digesting. And digestion is very, very closely connected to mental health. So there is something called a gut brain connection. So our gut and our brain are closely connected and constantly communicating with one another. And so we can't build a healthy brain and have healthy mental function unless we have a healthy gut first because that's how nutrients are going to be delivered to the rest of our body. So we got to get her gut working better. We also have to work on improving sleep. Sleep is when our brain heals and repairs and regenerates itself, is when our neurotransmitters are replenished. So proper sleep hygiene is going to be very critical. Another thing is circadian rhythm, especially associated to sunlight. So sunlight actually helps us make specific neurotransmitters. Sunlight in the morning helps us make serotonin and dopamine. Sunlight in the evening helps, or in the afternoon rather, helps us make more serotonin. And then a lack of sunlight in the evening and lack of artificial lighting in the evening helps us to make melatonin, which helps us repair Our immune system helps us get good deep sleep, which is when our brain optimally repairs itself. Another thing we're going to do is we're going to work on environmental factors such as changing the light bulbs in our house so they're more conducive to happiness and healthy hormones, and balancing her circadian rhythm. We're also going to work on improving the environment in her house by addressing things like emf. We're going to address things like her room so that we can get her sleeping better. We're going to use essential oils to help get her brain and get her body functioning a certain way. We're going to use tools like wearables such as HeartMath and Oura Ring to help train her body and help her get short feedback from short loops of feedback so that she can see how well she's doing, and that way she maintains her healthy habits. We're going to look at her genomics, so we're going to run a simple saliva test that looks at her genetics, that helps us identify what her predispositions are. Now, our predispositions aren't our destinies, however, you know, we want to know that just like if you're, if you buy a sports car, you want to know that it's a sports car so you don't take it off roading versus having a truck, if you have a utility truck, you can take it off roading. It's going to perform better under certain circumstances. And so we want to see what she's predisposed to so that we can help her optimize her relationship with herself. Genomic testing is something you only do once, and knowing that information, we can understand her executive function, her detoxification pathways, you know, what foods are optimal for her, whether it's a high fat or what she has to do with starches to maintain good health. We look at about 80 different markers, and then by looking at her profile, we can come up with a lifestyle design for her to help her optimize these different areas of her life. We're also going to have coaching and accountability to make sure she stays on track with the recommendations that we give. Having somebody hold your hand through the process is very important because we don't. We already feel alone when we're struggling mentally. We don't want her to continue to feel alone and that she's on her own. And one of the best tools for mental health is finding community. So we're going to, you know, put her in a loving and nurturing community so she can feel right at home. We'll do functional lab testing as needed. You know, sometimes the gut is an important area for us to test. So a diagnostic test that looks at, you know, it's basically a. A comprehensive test of stool, analyzing how well somebody digests their food and identifying if there's any pathogens and, you know, critters that we need to work on removing. So we will do certain tests, but our emphasis is mainly lifestyle and nutrition. And then the other thing that we'll do is recommend, you know, very, very specific nutraceuticals as needed. Right. So we're not just going to load her up with a bunch of supplements. We're going to work on the lifestyle, work on the trauma, work on the stress, work on the sleep, work on getting proper sunlight, work on coaching her, work on, you know, creating the right environment for her to thrive in. And then, if necessary, we will prescribe specific supplements to replenish her body because it's so depleted from the medications that she's been taking that we are going to need to replenish some of these nutrients. So as you can see, this is a far more comprehensive approach than simply just giving her a supplement or an herb or prescribing her a medication. This is going to help her feel healthy, not just with her mental health, but with her overall health. And, you know, these recommendations are going to help her thrive not just in the short term, but also in the long term. And it kind of goes to show you that we're not really focused on treating the diagnosis or we're not focused on treating, you know, the opinion that our practitioner has where the symptoms that she has were focused on creating wholeness and health, which is, you know, in my opinion, how all healthcare should be. And I'm sure if you agree with that type in. I agree in the chat. So I know that, you know, you're resonating with this message. If you know somebody who's struggling with mental health, again, I know so many of us are, it's the next wave of crisis that's coming our way. Just know that there is always a way for people to feel better. And, you know, we have what I believe is a very powerful solution that can help you or somebody that you deeply care about. Because the consequences of this, when they go unchecked, can be quite significant. And unfortunately, we get the call when people are at their last, at their last straw. And I don't want that to be the case anymore. So just know we're here to help. We're here to support you. And we're here to create a very, very practical and and accessible solution. We can work with people anywhere in the world and help them feel their absolute best. So here's to great mental health for you. Here's to great mental health for the people that you love and care about. And remember that the key is wholeness and looking at the whole perspective, not just treating the underlying, not just treating the symptoms and not treating the diagnosis. We want to look at the whole person and help them feel whole again. Anyways, I got to run. Hope you're awesome. Have an amazing rest of your day. Bye for now.