Connection Is Medicine: How Oxytocin Impacts Cortisol, Cravings & Blood Sugar

Welcome, Senergy listeners. Today on the Senergy podcast, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Rita Marie Loscalzo, a functional medicine and nutritional expert who has dedicated her career to transforming our broken disease care system into one that truly restores health. Dr. Rita Marie specializes in balancing the endocrine system, the body's master controller. With a focus on thyroid, adrenal, and insulin imbalances. She is the founder of the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology, where she trains health professionals around the world to use food, herbs, and functional assessments to uncover the root cause of health challenges. A bestselling author, international speaker, and passionate teacher, Dr. Rita Marie brings more than 25 years of clinical experience and a deep understanding of how lifestyle and biology intersect. She's also a certified HeartMath provider which fuels her passion for bridging stress, emotional health, and hormonal balance. Today, we'll explore the fascinating connection between oxytocin, often called the love hormone, and insulin resistance, a driver of many modern health problems. We'll dive into how relationships, connection, and stress management play just as important of a role in blood sugar as diet and exercise, and what this all means for reclaiming energy, vitality and long-term health. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee or your favorite tea, and join us as we get to have this amazing conversation.

Dr. Rita Marie, thank you so much for being here. And I'm going to dig right into questions because we have a lot we want to cover today. This is kind of the intersection where Lori and I, our talents kind of converge. You know, I'm all about hormones and sexual wellness and really digging into this whole topic of oxytocin. Lori is very much into cardiometabolic health, so I can't wait to see where this conversation takes us. But for our audience, can you tell us what is oxytocin? What is the big deal on oxytocin?

Oxytocin is one of my favorite hormones, and it's the hormone— we think about it as the love hormone and the bonding hormone. And it also, it's just so, it's just such an amazing thing that helps people feel safe. And I think that in this world, the fear that people live day to day and the cortisol elevations that, that causes and the blood sugar imbalances it causes is important to take into consideration. So if we have a way to help people feel safe, it's generating oxytocin. And the thing about oxytocin is it's, it's so easy to generate. We just have to slow down and we can just start loving on ourselves and getting hugs from other people and just being in community. So it's such an important hormone.

So you're saying a few things right now that most people are like, slow down in this fast-paced world. Then get hugs from each other. Well, we just went through a time period in which we just didn't do that, right? So those are both in opposition of what we need to do. And so how do you— how did you first of all fall in love with this area of hormones? Because there's so many you could have chosen from and probably do get into those.

I get into all of them. Yeah.

But how did you settle most Recently, because you told us you're doing so much work in the area of oxytocin right now. How did that one become so important and something you're talking a lot about right now?

Yeah.

So how did it become— it's not that I settled on it. It's that my biggest love has been metabolic health, and insulin has been my hormone of choice that I really am involved in. And then what's the insulin and cortisol connection, and how does that connect to thyroid and adrenals, and how does that connect to sex hormones and sex drive? And when we're living in a life of fear and we're disconnected and we're stressed out. What goes first? The sex drive, the sex hormones. Infertility is at an all-time high. People in their 30s are saying they have low sex drive. Like, come on. I mean, it shouldn't even go low in your 70s, let alone in your 30s, right? What is the cause? Right? And that cause is so much disconnection and fear. And like you said, we went through this pandemic period where we weren't allowed to hug each other, right? I remember my kid coming over and he's like, no, no, No, we can't hug. And we just didn't hug for months. Right. And this is ridiculous. And we're getting more and more disconnected. Depression rates went up, and it wasn't just financial, and it wasn't— it was lack of connection. We thrive on that. So I got— the reason I've been talking a lot about oxytocin lately is I talk about all the hormones, and I say the one overlooked hormone is oxytocin. We think of it as milk letdown and in labor, and then we think of love hormone. All those little things that we can do on a day-to-day basis to help oxytocin, which then helps lower the fear and increase the, the feeling of, um, of belonging and increase the feeling of safety, which is what we all need. We need to feel safe in order to be healthy, in order for all of our hormones to be balanced. And so that, that has an effect on blood sugar. So when oxytocin goes up, we can regulate blood sugar better.

Right.

It lowers the level of cortisol. When oxytocin is low, cortisol is high, and cortisol raises blood sugar. So that's all, you know, in a nutshell, the connection that I see. But I'm fascinated with all the hormones, but how they connect. And the one that's really gotten me over the last 10, 12 years has been insulin because I think it's so overlooked and it's such a contributor to all of our major diseases.

Yes, it is. And we're so glad that you bring that up because I do think that as in traditional medicine, there's that ideology or that, that practice, the way of practicing of just putting blindfolds on and treating thyroid as an independent entity or each of those hormones as independent entities. And what you're saying right now is that they all are— there's crosstalk, they all affect each other. And what I actually hear you saying right now is insulin is a primary driver of most of them.

Of most of them.

Yeah, I would so agree with that. You know, we use a lot of continuous glucose monitors in the office, and, you know, it's so just eye-opening for patients to see point in time what's going on with their stress response. Because historically, we've done a lot of cortisol testing, right? We do a lot of blood sugar, insulin, hemoglobin A1C testing. But for them to be able to see point in time what's driving the dysregulation, it's like those light bulbs start to go off. And so I'm super interested now to go back to my patients wearing continuous glucose monitors and say, slow down, get a hug, and let's see what happens to your body.

See what happens to your body.

I haven't done that one before. I've told them to slow down, take some deep breaths, monitor their stress, all the things. But I have not talked about touch and hugging and intimacy, intimacy too.

But sometimes you're alone, right? And you're sitting at your desk. I mean, I just do this and I get goosebumps and I feel it just feels so good. And I can slow down, I can breathe and I can take a breath.

Yeah.

And it's easy, right? And pets are great, right? People love on their pets. That's an amazing stress reduction and that's an amazing oxytocin boost as well.

You know, another thing that you said that's definitely resonating a lot in the conversations we're having with practitioners that truly have a passion to change lives is that word connection, important connection is. And I wanted to go back to that because I think that we underestimate how powerful connection and relationships are. And so can you speak to, you know, was there that point for you that there was that epiphany for you that how important connection and community is?

That's a really good question. And when I think back, I think that's always been right. I think that's always been important to me. I grew up in a family as the oldest of 9 children. Oh wow, you had forced connection. I had forced connections, but we were close to our cousins. So each of my parents' siblings, uh, had multiple kids. Like one had 7, one had 8, one had 4. And we lived in a two-family home with my grandparents, and every Sunday all of them came over and we were like best friends with our cousins. And that was a connection. That was a community. I didn't know anything else, right? It's like, this is what— this is what we do. And as I went on to school and college and eventually grew my practice and worked in— I worked in corporate for a while, and you lose some of that connection when you do that. But I feel like that connection has always been important to me. And really, during the pandemic, it didn't change much for me in terms of my work because I had been online already and we were doing that. But I told people that my introvert was kind of okay with staying home and not seeing people very much, but my extrovert needed that. And so these kinds of connections, like, I feel connected with people just through this. And we do seminars and we do like 3-day events and we do challenges. And I love getting people to be on screen. I don't want them to just be a voice behind a picture. And I feel like I'm with them. We've done a lot of in-person live events, and it's a lot. It's a hug fest, and it's so great to be with people. And I think that's part of the connection. And I'll say one more thing. I have group programs for people, health seekers, we call them, who are wanting to get their health back, and they fall in love with each other. Yes. And they maintain the connection, and they come back year after year and continue to be part of the community. To stay connected to these people who they've, they've loved.

Yeah, I think you have developed a really important skill, and that is connecting virtually, because that's not easy to do. You know, COVID forced us into virtual, you know, interfacing with patients. I still prefer face-to-face. I'm just a face-to-face person, and I just love that. I can tell a lot more about their energy, and I've worked on that skill of connecting virtually. I had to work on that. That didn't come naturally for me. So I just appreciate that in you. That's powerful.

Yeah. And we know, and you look at Blue Zones and you look at some of the places that have the highest amount of or the best health and longevity, if you will, that is one of the things that is near and dear to them as well, is the connection that started as a part of the family, taking care of each other, nurturing each other, growing older together. I do feel like in this age in which we are inundated with AI and digital technology, that we are going to have to be very, very intentional about this piece that is such a very— it's a strong proponent, or it's a strong indicator, um, or facilitator of health.

Of health, right? And we used to do— I love parties. I love to invite people. That's why I say connection's always been there. And for like, I don't know, up until COVID, it was probably 13 years straight, we would every month, every, you know, Saturday, the last Saturday of the month, we would have these potlucks. And they weren't just people we knew. We put it out to up and said, hey, come, this is healthy food. We're all going to eat. You're going to connect on health, on the topic of health. And we sometimes had 75 people come in my living room. It was pretty crowded, but there we made connections. And I became friends with so many of these people over time. And some of them came on to be clients. Some of them came on to be practitioners who joined my practitioner training because we had that connection, right? We had that bond. And I missed it when COVID hit, right? I missed having those.

I bet you there was a lot of oxytocin in that room.

Oh, there's so much oxytocin in that room.

So back to oxytocin. So help us connect the dots between insulin resistance and oxytocin. Like, how do those interface? Like, what is the mechanism for oxytocin helping with insulin resistance?

I think there's a couple of mechanisms. One of them that I think is the connection with the cortisol, right? When we don't have that oxytocin, we're in a cortisol state. We're like, you know, fear and stress. All that, and that lowers the oxytocin. But when we're in that cortisol state, it triggers the release of stored glucose from various parts of the body, from the liver, from the muscles as glycogen. And that causes the insulin to go up, of course. And then we develop insulin resistance. And some people develop insulin resistance even with fairly clean diets because of the stress, continuous stress. And oxytocin actually has been shown in some studies to improve the sensitivity of the cells to insulin, right? So it helps to reduce insulin, um, resistance, right?

Which is—

I think 93% of the population has it in some form of or another, according to studies at the University of North Carolina. So we need to have that oxytocin to help maintain appropriate insulin sensitivity, right? So that's really important. Um, it's powerful in keeping the blood sugar regulated and metabolic health overall.

I love it.

So I just heard a recipe, guys, for keeping your insulin under control. So after dinner, we used to tell patients go for a walk, 10-minute walk after dinner at a minimum. I'm going to say hug it out after dinner now.

Yeah, I like it.

Let's hang it out after dinner, then go on the walk. Um, but let's see what hugging it out can do, because I do think there's power in that, right? There's power in touch, there's power in driving oxytocin up. You will feel better, your mood will be better. Absolutely.

And go out after dinner with someone you love and hold hands or arms laced around each other. That's going to be stimulating the oxytocin and getting the oxygenation issues and all the other benefits of walking and burning off the glucose you just put into your system.

Is there a certain age to which oxytocin begins to decline naturally? You alluded to, see, sexual interest. Decreasing now earlier and earlier and earlier. Do— is there, or are there any definitive studies as to when oxytocin begins to decline?

That's a good question, and I don't know for sure if there are studies. I know that, that, that lack of sexual drive in their 30s is usually related to the cortisol, right? And there's a whole effect and a cascade effect of elevations in cortisol, because if there's a tiger chasing you, What is the body instinct is to preserve your life, not to go to the bedroom and have fun and have sex, right? You're just barely trying to stay alive. And there's actually, if you look at the chemical structures, that precursor pregnenolone goes down to the cortisol instead of going over to the sex hormones and the androgens and the estrogens, right? So that's the piece I think is happening earlier and earlier, sometimes even in the 20s.

Sad.

Usually that's the peak of sexual desire, but it's because the body's in survival mode. Yeah, you know, sex is not the most important thing when you're in survival mode, right?

And I would imagine that in our day and age of teenagers— not to, uh, not to, um, to hound them too much, you know, those of us that parents who have raised teenagers, right? The staying in the room, more on games. Like, I'm just I was thinking that a lot of that isolation is leading to and contributing to younger and younger type 2 diabetes.

That's a great observation. And then as you said, that isolation leads to lower oxytocin, right? Because you don't get that by sitting and pounding on. My youngest son is 27 now, but when he was a little kid and even into teenage years, he loved, loved, loved hugging. He loved, loved, loved climbing in bed with us. And it was like, he's 12, he's 14, and still sometimes in the middle of the night, he'd climb into bed and go, you need a bigger bed. I'm like, okay. And then I was like, he's got an oxytocin. He needs oxytocin. This is what he thrives on. And then once he had girlfriends, he didn't need to climb into bed with us anymore because he had the girlfriends to get the oxytocin fix from.

Yeah.

So I just wonder about that with them sitting alone in their rooms and on devices all the time. That can be contributing to lower oxytocin. It certainly is stressful because we know that high dopamine rush all the time from games and stuff, that is going to contribute to all of the imbalances in all the hormones and the neurotransmitters. So, I mean, that could be very well. I don't know of any studies, but I'll go research on some of that. I don't know if there are studies on that and if there's a natural decline. I know it's certainly going to be higher during our reproductive phases, right? Because it's involved in milk letdown. It's involved in the stimulation of the uterus to expel the baby when it's time. But I don't know if it naturally goes down. But I think there's so many things, even just being in a circle. Like, I've always had a women's group that we used to meet once a week even, and then we got to once a month in person, and then even during COVID online. There's just such an oxytocin fix to meeting with a community of people where you're sharing, even though you're not touching, you're sharing and caring. And that oxytocin is palpable. I wish there was a meter, like a glucose meter for all of our hormones. Like, we could watch what's happening to cortisol, what's happening to oxytocin. It'd be really interesting. I don't know of any home test kits for oxytocin.

I haven't heard of any either. But we teasingly say right now, if there was a device for it all, we would probably habit. Geeks like that.

Yeah.

Our spouses are like, one more thing. Really?

One more gadget.

We got the ring.

You got the band.

You got the ring.

All of this stuff. But I think personally, I think people can get overwhelmed with that and can get too much into the tech. But what I think I see is what you said right at the beginning is things that empower people. To take action, right? I was terrible at sleeping. I thought, I don't need sleep. I eat well, I exercise, I don't need sleep. And then I realized when I got my first CGM— well, I didn't get my first CGM. It was when I started to test my blood sugar more regularly about 15 years ago. And I'm like, oh, what's going on here? Why do I have insulin resistance or signs of insulin resistance given how good my lifestyle is? And I went, oh, that 3 or 4-hour-a-night sleep habit. You really do need it. And then I started to do it. And so when I got my Oura Ring about 7, 8 years ago, I started to really focus on sleep because part of it is the competitive stuff. It's like I got to be better than myself. Not competitive with other people, but myself to better myself. And it's like, oh, I got to get that score higher. Oh, but now I'm committed to 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night and sometimes more than 8 hours of sleep. And it's made all the difference in the world, right?

Absolutely. Sleep is so important. It's our superpower for recovery. Repair. You know, I feel like we're not winning. We're not winning by skipping those hours on sleep. You know, we used to think we could get away with that, but it's just not the case. We're sacrificing years when we do that. So I agree, sleep is so important.

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing I didn't realize that most people don't realize is even one night of bad sleep in an otherwise healthy person creates insulin resistance. It's temporary if you go back to your normal, but that next day— so I always tell people, if you have to, you were up late with a kid, you have an emergency, you don't get enough sleep, then be careful with what you eat the next day.

That's right.

Because your body won't handle carbs at all.

And that's one of the nuances that we teach regularly. I'm glad you brought that up because they're like, I ate the same thing I did yesterday, or I ate the same thing I did last week. It didn't have the same effect. Why wasn't that? Or why was that? Why did that happen? Well, look at the other circumstances. How long did you sleep? How well did you sleep?

Right. Do.

So that's a really good point for people to hear because I think sometimes they just think it's all about— and I will always teasingly say it's about the Snickers bars or whatever else you ate. And the reality is, is I think we all know those things when we're trying to better our blood sugar. But what we don't know is these other nuances.

Exactly.

Sleep, stress, timing of meals, activity level. And occult infections. Those are the things that'll get us beyond food, right, in the world of glucose management. So, so important. So Lori and I both have a food-first approach to our clinic. So anytime we're working with patients, we want to make sure that we're addressing what they're putting in their mouth, the, the quality of the food that they're eating. Are there foods or nutrients specifically to help drive oxytocin?

Well, I think if you think about that You got to think about what other things. So if you look at the foods that affect cortisol levels and insulin levels, that's going to make a big difference, right? So what ones would they be? Well, certain foods like omega-3s, for example, right? That keeps the balance. The omega-3s keep the cells more sensitive to insulin. Magnesium, right? Things like magnesium and lots of leafy greens, right? They're loaded with leafy greens. Chocolate is one of my favorites because it's high in magnesium and my body needs more magnesium. Right. So those are things that are important. I think that any of the things that affect blood sugar and any of the things that affect cortisol levels. So your B vitamins are super important, especially like B5 and B6, because that's important for adrenal health and for keeping cortisol levels balanced. So I think all of those things are—

I think what I hear you saying is more of the indirect effects of them too, because I would imagine that the caffeines or the things that tend to hype up a person would negatively impact. Again, that's just, I think, common sense approach. Maybe there's not any literature to support that, but I would imagine, right? I would imagine those things. And then the flip side to that would be things that are foods that do calm herbs and things that calm would be beneficial for oxytocin.

Absolutely. Maybe aphrodisiacs, things that make us wondering that. I was wondering if there's aphrodisiac list. And I don't remember it off the top of my head, but I did a blog article on some of the aphrodisiacs, right? And it's important. I think it was a Valentine's Day article a few years back. But it's like things that make us seek out more loving relationships. And like you said, calming things that make us feel good and calm are good ones for that, I think.

And February is the month of cardiovascular health and love. So this is a perfect topic for that. Good for your heart, good for your soul, good for your fill in the blank.

Exactly. And things that affect our heart, I mean, we know metaphorically the heart is the seed of love, but they're finding more and more that it's more than metaphoric.

Right.

And so anything that inflames our endothelial lining is going to have a negative effect on our emotions. Right. It's going to keep us in a fire emotion versus a calm emotion. So any of those, and maybe looking at, like, from a Chinese medicine perspective, some of the foods that are more water element or calming, earth element, and versus fire element type foods.

Yeah. So that endothelial lining that you're speaking of, we know the direct insults of insulin resistance on the endothelial lining. And some of our guests probably understand and have heard us talk about the resistance, if you will, and the glycocalyx, if you will. But what are some of the— besides oxytocin, are there specific things that you have seen in your practice that improve the endothelial lining? Because circulation and heart and blood flow are all really, really important. Really important.

Yeah. So, yes. So anything that's anti-inflammatory. So foods that are anti-inflammatory, the omega-3s, certainly anti-inflammatory and calming. They're antispasmodic as well. Magnesium is super important. I would say that things like ginger and turmeric and boswellia and other anti-inflammatory inflammatories. And again, you have to choose the right herb for the person. There's not like a one-size-fits-all, like, this herb does this. No, it's whatever is going to balance what's out of balance in that particular person, right? Um, but things like, um, I think just things that are high in phytonutrients, for example, right? Like the greens and, you know, the colorful vegetables, eating the rainbow. All that stuff protects the endothelial lining. And we just, we need to have a smooth and, you know, nice endothelial lining that doesn't have the nicks and the crannies that those lipoproteins can get embedded in and start to create plaque and unstable plaque. So that's important stuff. And we need to avoid those things that are damaging, right? The oxidized fats, trans fats, foods that are processed and chemicalized and all that stuff. Toxins can affect the lining. So, you know, keeping the toxic load, not eating all the foods that have pesticides and herbicides and other kinds of preservatives in them. It's really important.

And I think about the relationship back to even for men's in specific is erectile dysfunction. When the endothelial lining is, you know, is damaged and they have a narrowing, we know that the penile arteries are the smallest arteries in the entire body. Right. And so I'm just thinking about its relationship back to what we were just saying is, you know, you have a reduction in oxytocin., right? Not really wanting to have. And maybe some hormones, sex hormones that are depleted at the same time as endothelial.

Yeah.

And nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide is what protects the endothelial lining and is also what dilates those vessels and dilates the vessels in the body and lowering the blood pressure and all that. So all of those things are super important.

So as you mentioned earlier, your greens to help support nitric oxide. Production. You know, not using mouthwash. You know, mouthwash use has been associated with decreased nitric oxide production because of the way it damages your good healthy microbiome, right? And so you're not making enough nitric oxide. And then even supplementation with nitric oxide— we have a nitric oxide support supplement, um, Neo40, that we just love for that purpose because it is a lozenger. And so it stimulates that whole nitric oxide pathway in a good way. Um, but to Lori's point, it's kind of the perfect storm for men, right? As they see oxytocin go down, insulin resistance, endothelial lining changes, erectile dysfunction. And for females, it shows up as vaginal dryness, right? Lack of libido, vaginal dryness. We always think of estrogen, and that's important, really, really important, but these other hormones are playing a part in that too. And so it's not just about estrogen?

No, no, no, not at all.

Right.

And DHEA is super important. Even women don't— they don't really play that up, but that DHEA and vaginal dryness is a huge— absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So what about— how does thyroid play into oxytocin? Is there a relationship in thyroid dysregulation and oxytocin challenges?

Yeah. So, so, I mean, thyroid, you know, we produce T4 and T3, and I think I think that there's such a connection between thyroid and adrenal function that we need to be really aware that when we have adrenal dysfunction, when we have overstress, when we're in that fear mode all the time, we're producing lots of cortisol, or we're needing to produce a lot of cortisol, but we can't because we've drained the swamp, so to speak, or drained the system. Then we have this imbalance in the thyroid, right? The thyroid receptors get inflamed. Inflamed when we have excess cortisol, or we have not enough cortisol, but they get inflamed. The conversion from T4 to T3 gets impeded when we have excessive cortisol production. And so that cortisol gets— like, dominates over the oxytocin when we don't have enough oxytocin. So that's one thing people don't recognize, is that when you get the body in this safe place, there's this interplay between all the hormones. And thyroid is such an epidemic these days, but they're not looking at it, in my opinion, they're not looking at it the right way. They're like, you're not producing enough T4, let's just give you Synthroid. That's not where most thyroid dysfunction comes from. Most of it is either autoimmune or receptor resistance or conversion problems.

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely preach what we practice, and we're loving it right now because this is what we teach every every day to our patients. And oftentimes we do see people coming into the clinic that they've already been prescribed thyroid hormone and it's driving down their adrenals, and, you know, they feel wired and tired and they're just not getting better because they really haven't fixed the foundation, right? They haven't fixed the foundation.

Exactly. They haven't addressed the real root causes.

That's right.

They're just like putting all that— yeah, and it is causes. There's no— usually not one root cause, right? Usually not, right? And so we need to address that. We need to look at how do we balance, right? I think medicine, conventional medicine, is taught in a what's the symptom, how do we get those symptoms to go down, go away, whether it be just by a medication that suppresses the symptoms, which is the worst possible, or by looking at, oh, let's cut this out, let's add some this hormone, and we'll add this. And it's not really addressing why Why does this, or what's the imbalance? That's not a word that's usually taught in conventional Western medicine. It's like, what is the imbalance and what do we have to do to restore balance? And so much of that goes back to foundations and back to the lifestyle and back to, is this person just not having fun? They need to add some fun and pleasure into their life. Are they stressed out to the max? Can we add some mindfulness practices and some meditation? They're in an attitude not of gratitude, but an attitude of fear and blame, like victimization. And that's a huge piece of it. And of course, environmental. We have to look at their environment and what are the toxins in the environment. And of course, what are they eating? And I'm a food-first believer as well, but the other things need to be addressed in addition.

Right.

The food is such— it's something we do 3 times a day for most people, sometimes 5 or 6 times a day for other people. And every bit of food that we put in is a message to the body that either puts it out of balance or in balance. And we want to move towards in balance.

And that's what I just heard you say a little bit earlier, too, about harmony. It's hormonal harmony.

Yep.

It's homeostasis. It's getting the body back to— our bodies have this amazing ability to heal. Yes. And repair. And too oftentimes we are not giving it that care, what it needs. And then traditional medicine then sprinkles in a little bit of this and a little bit of that, you know, one pill for every problem versus— or a surgery for the solution rather than looking for that root cause. And so we do have, you know, it is— you've been in it for a long time, you've been doing this for a long time, and we have been too, right? And so collectively, it's— there's some tiring years, tiring months, tiring weeks, tiring years doing this long time, but But honestly, would you say that it adds value to your life being able to truly see change in people?

Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, I don't find it tiring, first of all. Yes, there's a lot, but it's energizing, invigorating, right? And I live for that. That's what when people say, oh, I did this and now finally, and sometimes it's just a tiny little thing that they were missing, but by listening And that's part of the oxytocin connection to making people feel important and really truly listening to them and then just saying, start with this, start with that. And they get amazing results. And that's why I'm so passionate about not just working with clients to do that, but teaching practitioners to have those skills. It's not just about having good bedside manner. It's not just about having all the good clinical skills and knowing what labs to run and all this, but it's about really connecting the dots for people and empowering them to access that inner healer and then allow it to free. And there's so many obstacles that we put in the way of that healing, and some of them are, quite frankly, well-intentioned but poorly directed, coming from medicine, coming from the doctors who are just giving them this pill or telling them that it's not their fault. And I don't know about saying it's anybody's fault, but that they don't have any power over it, that they only need to look externally. And really, we need to empower that inner, inner healer.

I think as a provider, one of the fun things we get to do is sit with patients in that space and really connect with them. And I feel like if there can be an element of trust when you're mapping out their treatment plan, they get excited about it too, right? They're excited about making the changes and seeing the results that they're going to see on the other end. I think the challenge sometimes is that they know They know that our practice is a food-first practice. We put that everywhere so they're not surprised when we come in and we're monkeying with their food, right? And they kind of expect that. I think what they don't expect sometimes is us talk about the little things, you know, how they start their morning, how much they're sleeping, the things that, you know, their scrolling time that they're spending on social media that's keeping that nervous system just hyperactivated and really stealing their joy. And sometimes those are the harder conversations to have, where I think in the early days the food conversation was the harder conversation to have. Um, and so how do you approach that? How do you get them to really lean into the small changes over time that equal the biggest result?

I think it's by educating them, connecting with them, but talking to them, not just saying, here's what I need you to do, but here's why and here's how this body works. I mean, they understand how their body responds to different inputs and outlets, they get it and they say to me, wow, I finally understand why I need to do this. That helps me to do it. The other piece I use is I look at— to motivate them, I look at genetics. And so there are certain genes that when I see them and I explain to them what the gene is doing and that they have a variant in that gene that makes them have to be more careful in this particular area, they're like, oh, I guess I better do that, right? So it's those things. And there are, you know, I can always tell in advance before I even look at their genes, not always, but almost 100%, which of the neurotransmitter-related genes are going to be affected with this person. Those hypervigilant people who are like, yeah, I can tell what their pathways might be. And when I explain that to them and how much more important it is for them to take the time for self-care care outside of the food and the food too, they get it.

They get it.

I call it the motivating through genetics. So it's really helpful for that because it gets them to see why I was just talking about that today.

I feel like there's a time and a place to utilize different diagnostic tools and tests. And I have found Kelly has too, in the longer-term maintenance, you've spent the time really helping them change the foundation. We know that that's an ongoing work. It but, but they've done the work on the foundation and they're, they're working with you periodically to refine their wellness plan. I find genetics to be incredibly helpful as well. We do a few at the very beginning because those are some key ones, obviously, that affect hormonal balance and, and, you know, nutritional utilization. But, um, I do— I, I agree with you that I think that adding and sprinkling in more of that knowledge of of those genes elevates the conversation and makes them more willing to make change. Because those are things if we impress upon them, and I hear you saying this, that it's not predisposing you or it's not predestining you, sorry, to the problem. It's predisposing, not predestining you. So knowing those things, they can change it. Right. It's powerful.

Yeah. And the genes are maybe 5% in most cases. So the 95% is the epigenetics that they control over with every choice they make every day, all day. So it's really— I find it empowering. Do they have to do it? No. Can I tell from talking to them? But it's when they see it, whether it's a lab or whether it's a gene, they see it with their own eyes. They go, oh, it's not just you guessing at what I should be doing. This is what's in my body.

So I want to go back to what you said earlier about um, food being a message to the body, you know, and tie that into genetics because it's actually a message to your epigenetics. You know, it's changing the way that your genes are being expressed, right? And to your point about not sleeping, you know, the nights you don't sleep, the next day what messages do you need to send to your DNA to really help support you, right? And oftentimes we haven't slept the night before, we're craving those carbs the next day, you know. We're not really wanting the broccoli so much. And so if you understand that, though, it's easier to make those choices and see the results on the back end of that. So I love that you said that.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah. So I hear you say the things that help your clients make those steps is relationship, explanation, education, diagnostics. I heard that. And for whatever reason, I'm sitting over here thinking about— I don't remember, Kelly, it was one of our previous podcasts that talked about about hugging, hugging prior to a visit, you know, that opens up, right?

It opens up. Yeah, we were talking about that because I do, I'm a touchy-feely person, right? I love physical touch. And I do think making either, either that handshake or that hug, whatever they will allow, does help kind of bring them down and make them realize that we're there for them. We care about them. We want to support, we want to listen, and we want to empower them to make the best changes moving forward. So I want to speak to our listener that maybe is naive to functional medicine, maybe they've never seen a functional medicine provider ever, and they're, they're stuck in a stress response, they're stuck in fight or flight, they're stuck in wear and tear, they don't feel well, they're not sleeping well, they're choosing poorly with their food. Um, what would you say to that person? What would what would be some first things that they could do to start improving their, their oxytocin, right, right away, so that that helps motivate them to make other changes?

It's always hard when people ask me what's the most important or what's the first, right? Because it's— it varies from person to person, and I'm intuitively tuning into what they need. For some of them, it's just if I'm watching them and I'm watching them, you know, breathe like that, it's like, let's just take a moment and let's breathe. Put your hand on your heart, one on your belly, and let's just breathe. And teaching them how to just notice when they're in that stress mode and take a breath.

Yeah.

Or 2 or 3 or 5. But to get them, because some of them will do that. Some of them will do that and they'll go, okay, okay. And now I'm like, you didn't breathe out. You just did part of the breath. So let's do a full breath. I'm allowed to talk until it's fully out. But so breath is super important.

Um, I'm so glad you said that. I've had the same experience in the clinic, right, trying to get someone to breathe. You wouldn't think breathing would be that hard. I mean, we do it all day long, right? But we are not breathing well. We are not breathing well. We're not expanding our diaphragm.

Right?

We're not in coherence with our heart and our breathing, and it takes a toll. It sends a stress response continuously throughout the day. And so I think, yeah, breathing is a great place to start with someone like that.

And you know what the thing about it is? And you reminded me when you said about the coherence, is that the, the out-breath is when we can jump— we can settle into parasympathetic. The in-breath is sympathetic. And we're trying to get them into more parasympathetic. So if they want to get— which, you know, I explain to them what parasympathetic and sympathetic is and how important parasympathetic is for their healing.

Can you go into that now?

Can I go into that? Sure.

Go into— I think that would be good for our listeners that are naive, right? Okay.

Yes, absolutely. So the nervous— the autonomic nervous system, that's not the part that we control. It's just controlled for us. That is two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Sympathetic is what most people live in 24/7 practically, is fight-flight. That stress response, that gotta get the work deadline met, the kids are, you know, this and that, I gotta go get them at school, or I've gotta feed them, or the, the finances. That's the fight-flight. In the olden days, it used to be true, um, stress, true fearful things, right? Like an animal chasing you. But now it's all, it's all kind of made up really. Um, and we just have to learn how to shift. So that's sympathetic. Well, parasympathetic is, is, um, the— so we call that fight-flight. Parasympathetic is rest, digest, heal, reprocess, all that stuff. And reproduce is all part of that parasympathetic, right? So when we can drop into parasympathetic— we're not meant to be in 100% parasympathetic, that, that's not going to be useful. We need to get into our sympathetic. And it's all controlled by the vagus nerve. And so when we have techniques to help us drop into parasympathetic, to notice when we're in sympathetic. Like, I can feel it here. I can feel myself getting excited. So take a breath, do some HeartMath techniques, which is an amazing process of dropping into gratitude, which is what I was gonna say next, is being aware that when you drop into gratitude, just find 3 things that you appreciate. Find one thing that you appreciate and truly feel into it drops you into parasympathetic. And the more often you do that throughout the day, the more you're going to drop there, the more you're going to activate your healing process. So that's a place where I start with so many people because it's so easy. It is easy in theory anyway.

Yes. And I heard you say you utilize HeartMath for that. Will you go into a little bit of why you recommend HeartMath specifically for that?

Yeah. So HeartMath, the Institute of HeartMath has done studies for I don't know how long, long, long, long, long time. I took took their practitioner course probably 15 years ago. I don't remember exactly, but it's a long time ago. And it's basically a technique where you're utilizing the power of breath and the power of gratitude. And they've done studies where when you can use the power of breath and gratitude, things change. Your hormones change, the enzymes, your immune system, your blood pressure, your heart. Everything gets activated, you know, in a positive way, right? So basically it's a combination of heart breathing and, and appreciation. And it's quick. The reason I like it is because you can slide it in throughout the day. As soon as you notice that you're going into stress mode, or just set an alarm that, you know, at first it's just every hour you try it and you just go into heart breathing, heart feeling. What, what gratitude? I teach people to like remember a situation that brings back joy, or go to a place. Like for me, it's a beach. I love to be on the beach.

Me too.

I go to the beach. You do?

Yeah, that's where I go when I'm doing that. Recentering. I'm on the beach.

I go to the beach and I just, I feel it all. And I just have gratitude that I have that escape, that I can do that. And you know, it's funny because if somebody says to me, how was your day? If they know me, I'll say, oh, it's a good day. I went to the beach a lot. And they know, okay, it was a stressful day and she did a lot of going to the beach to get out of that.

Yeah, I'm gonna start doing that.

That's the beauty of our mind, right? We can't tell the difference. And I tell people, when you relive stressful situations and you retell them over and over, your body's re-experiencing all the negative things that happen in stressful moments. Why not relive positive moments, moments that bring you joy and appreciation? And then your body doesn't know the difference to whether you're there or whether you're just thinking about it, right? And I, I always— I have this one story I tell a lot. Um, I tell about, say you're driving to work one day and somebody cuts you cuts you off and you slam on the brakes and you don't hit them, you miss them. You can in that moment say, I hope they make it to— I hope they make it to where they're going in one piece. I hope that whatever stressful situation made them distracted is okay. And when you get to work and somebody says, how was— how you doing today? Most people will say, oh God, this idiot cut me off on the road. And you get all worked up. And I could feel that just mimicking that. I could feel it in my body instead of going, wow, it's going to be a great day. I was on the way in, this guy cut me off. I slammed on the brakes. I missed hitting him, and I hope he got safely to wherever he was going. What a difference in how it affects your body, how you digest your food after that, how you think. Because stress turns off the high level, the prefrontal cortex. So makes you more intelligent, more empathic, and just much more useful.

More connected. More connected. More happy, more joyful.

Right.

Absolutely. And HeartMath, do they still have the devices that you can utilize to train as well?

Yes, they do.

I have them. I don't use them anymore, but they have a little thing you can hook onto your ear. You can hook it into your phone, and they have a little app called Inner Insight or Inner Wisdom or something like that.

Yeah.

Yes. And you can look at it. I have a funny story about that. When I was first— they first came out with the single, the device that was separate, and you can put the thing in. And I was on an airplane with my son, who must have been 6 or 7 at the time, and he said, Mom, what is that? So I told him, I explained to him what it was, and he says, oh, can I try? He said, sure. He took it. I read a book, and he comes 15 minutes later, Mommy, Mommy, I figured it all out. I know how to run this thing. I'm like, okay, tell me more. So he sat there with it and he goes, watch this. And he went, it looked like he was all tensed up and stressed out and the whole thing went red. Everything went red. And he goes, now watch this. He sat there and the whole thing went green. He figured it out just at that age.

And he intuitively figured it out.

I love it.

Intuitively figured it out. And from there, there were times when when you have kids and they get a little stressful. And my husband was traveling and I had two little kids and something happened with his older brother and I came storming down the stairs. He goes, Mom, stop. Sit down. And I said, okay. So he goes, okay, take a breath. So I said, he goes, take another breath. I take another breath. He goes, Mom, we're going to be here for a while because we're going to have you do 10 breaths.

Okay.

He got it. He got it that he could use breath, and he was teaching me.

I do love it.

And I feel like there are a lot of adults who feel like, or they— that's, that's useless, that breath thing, right? And when you have a tool or a device that can show them that feedback, yes, you can't ignore it at that point.

Exactly right.

Seeing is believing. So I'm glad to hear that they still have that, because I know we have some listeners that may find that tool very useful to begin the retraining process.

Absolutely. Absolutely. What it's doing to your heart, right? Look at what it's doing to your heart rate variability. So important.

Well, Rita Marie, this has been an amazingly loving, inspiring conversation. We have loved to get to know you. But for our listeners, how can they connect with you? Like, what do you have going on? I know you have a lot going on, so let us know how we can connect after this podcast.

Oh, I always have so much going on. My website is drritamarie.com, and I'm on Instagram and Facebook. We have coming up in just a few months, in May— a couple months, right? This is February. Yeah. So a couple of months, we have something called the Wellness Reset Weekend that is a 3-day weekend online where we get people together and we really teach them these strategies for creating a wellness map for themselves of the activities and things that they need to do. So that's coming up. And I have a podcast, Reinvent Healthcare, more for practitioners, but we get a lot of people listening for their own health. And I have another website called inemethod.com, and that's for health practitioners who really want to learn to do root cause healthcare, learn how to do the genetics and do the lab testing and really utilize nutrition and a food-first approach to help people get well. So that's how you can connect with me and my YouTube. I have a YouTube called Metabolic Health Solutions.

Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you so much also for investing in health practitioners and really raising the bar and committing yourself to educating them. Because as we spoke prior to jumping on today, how many of those practitioners out there who I think are well-intentioned to see a desire to really do medicine different currently, and they just don't know where to go. And they are seeking out places that— or following, you know, uh, people that are, um, you know, sharing things with them that are, are not really aligned with really holding the bar up and, and taking this approach. So I just want to thank you for committing yourself to them.

Thank you. It's my mission. It's my— that's what my calling is. So I'm committed to it. I want to see the world— I want to leave the world a way better place for my kids and grandkids. I mean, my kids are all grown up now, and I I want them to be able to raise their kids in a world where healthcare is truly healthcare, not disease management.

The Synergy Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor-patient relationship is formed. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Patients should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.