The Hidden Health Gremlins: How Chronic Stress Quietly Wrecks Metabolism, Mood, and Retirement Plans

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at W four cy dot com. This week and every week, we will reach for a higher purpose in money and life, as well as a focus on health and wellnent. Now, let's join your host, Anita bell Anderson, as together we start with Asking Good Questions.

1:01 Hello, and welcome to the Ask Good Questions Podcast. I am your host, Benita bell Anderson. I'm so happy that you are here today with us. Today we are going to have a wonderful conversation today about I believe everyone should be listening to this because this is going to apply to everyone who has a body. And so with that, I'd like to invite my guest to the podcast stage. Her name is Jenna Jamile is a Jamile, Jamail, Jamail Jamail, and Jana. Welcome, Thank you, thank you so much for having me.

1:41 Yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about this girl. She's a certified nutrition specialist with a clinical focus on functional nutrition, applied neuroscience, and the gut brain connection. We have got some really amazing things to talk about today. Her work centers on complex chronic health concerns including neuroinflammation, inflammation, digestive dysfunction, environmental exposures, and immune related conditions where nutrition can play an important adject role alongside conventional care. So she brings research and clinical perspectives to the table and including she's done some work on get this transcranial photo bimodulation.

2:34 Now I would not have known before that that was red light therapy because I have done some red light therapy, and so I'm really interested to hear what she has to say about that. And there's some potentials there for mental health support, which is interesting. Her approach emphasizes practical, evidence informed strategies set that consider the nervous system, detoxification pathways, gut health, and you know, just a lot of different things that She's also a parent of AUDHD child. I don't know, Jenn if i'd ever heard of that. I've heard of, you know, the other like autism stuff, but that was interesting to you know, so you've you've got in home practice with all of this stuff as well.

3:24 So so she provides clinical professional consultations designed to help listeners and to help people better understand potential root contributors, which I think is what I really always am looking at to find is what's the root cause. So with that, I'd like to just say, is there anything else you'd like to add to that? If that's really hard to remember for the audience, I'm a neuro nutritionist. You can just walk away with that knowledge. And before I met j I didn't. I didn't even know there was such a thing. But I think that is like so important. So so you you know, in our title we talked about hidden health Gremlins, and I think of the movie Gremlins and these little guys, you know, running around just causing mischief all over the place. That's kind of how I feel about that. Our in our body.

4:22 So why do you see that could be categorized as a gremlin in our body that sabotages our health without you even realizing it. Okay, So you know how in the Gremlin movie they say don't feed the gremlins after midnight and don't get the gremlins wet. Okay, So I feel like there's kind of that applicability to our life as well, where it's like, don't eat all the processed foods, don't eat a ton of sugar. So I feel like that's kind of the correlation there with the same thing with the gremlins. But the the reason that is is it's not necessarily the body can't handle those things. It's what is the body having to go through and do in order to process those things, and is it diminishing other areas of your health?

5:12 So if it's focusing on processing all of like the chemicals and processed foods, what's going on with your immune system on the other side, and what do those chemicals do in the body. So it's kind of like a twofold effect where you eat the processed food, you get the grumlin wet. Then they turn crazy now on the immune system. So we're going to talk a lot about chronic stress and weight loss, and that's something that I've personally been interested in. And so what's the biggest mixed misconception around you know, the whole thing around stress and people feeling stuck when it comes to weight loss.

5:54 So I think the first thing with chronic stress is people don't really understand how much they're stressed. I think it's kind of like a frog and a pot where the stress builds and you get to a place where you're so overly stressed you don't even notice how stressed out you are. And it can take kind of like a huge difference in your entire mental health to be like, oh, there's something going on here, maybe I need to make some changes in my life. And it can take a long time to get out of stress. But what a lot of people don't understand is when you're in chronic stress, you have a spike in a hormone called cortisol. Most people have heard of cortisol. Cortisol is great actually for you. When it's low, it helps you fall asleep. When it gets higher, it helps you wake up. When it gets really high, it puts you into fight or flight. It helps with adrenaline that your focus, you can protect yourself when you're in chronic stress. You're constantly spiking that adrenaline in fight or flight. And what people don't know is that actually triggers neuroinflammation, because when you have too much cortisol in the brain, you're actually creating an inflammatory environment for your brain cells, and so that can lead to more depress that can lead to more anxiety, that can lead to changes in gut health, and it can also weaken your immune system. And so a lot of people get to a place where they're watching the news, they're doomscrolling social media, they're just ingesting too much visually. That is stressing them out, and their nervous system is going haywire because we're not really designed to be that connected and seeing that much action. In all of that, our

7:26 cortisol is supposed to be really sensitive for really scary moments, and we're we can expose ourselves to a lot of scary moments without completing the anxiety loop of I'm okay, I'm safe. All of that can come down. So it has a multitude of effects, but it definitely affects your gut, your brain, and your immune system. So you're basically saying that we can be running on stress hormones and not even know it. Oh, absolutely, and most people do think about it this way. So if you're gaining weight all the time and you have no idea that you're stressed, it's going to change your blood sugar regulation, it changes your hunger hormones, it changes that you're going to seek out certain types of food to calm yourself. Typically, people who are chronically stressed or reaching for something in high fat or high sugar, they don't even know they're doing that. They just think, I really like the taste of this. Actually, you're self soothing your nervous system and you don't even know it.

8:22 And then at the same time you're causing more inflammation. So once we have that inflammatory like blood sugar spiking happening from that cortisol being out of balance, that's when all that weight gain happens. And then it stays that way because the body thinks I got to hold onto this. I'm going to be in a really terrible situation soon because I wake up every day and I'm in this terrible situation. So it's really hard to lose that weight, and so some people will come to me as a nutritionist and say, I want to lose weight, But if you don't address your mental health, there's really not a whole lot I can do to downright regulate your nervous system unless it's are you eating enough? Are you eating regularly? If you're putting yourself in chronic stress, we're going to continue that cycle. But a lot of people do under eat in this situation as well. And when you're under eating, you're underfueling, you have too high cortisol. Typically these people are over caffeinating themselves and they're like, I'm just gonna drink coffee and that's all I'm gonna get energy, all right.

9:18 It creates this cycle that people are stuck in. Well, walk us through what chronic stress does to metabolism? Yes, well what really? What changes first in the body? Oh, that's kind of a chicken and egg question because it's were you born into chronic stress or did chronic stress enter your life later? Early childhood trauma has a huge impact on your metabolism. Typically, people who have early childhood trauma lean heavier in their weight, or even obese people who have trauma later, they may start gaining weight as a defense mechanism, especially women who have been assaulted.

10:04 So it can be one or the other. It's not always the same thing. It depends on the individual. But what can happen. So when you have a lot of cortisol, it's going to spike your blood sugar all day. You don't want your blood sugar to spike. You want a slow rolling wave. So that's why you hear nutritionists say you want enough protein, you want complex carbohydrates, because what we're doing is we're blunting that blood sugar. If it's constantly up and down all day, what happens is you're releasing insulin all day. Well, your body isn't going to be as sensitive to that insulin over time, and so you're going to need more of it and more of it. And so what we call it in our world is insulin resistance. And so then you're going to see weight gain, you're going to see higher cholesterol. Also a nutrition world, when we see higher cholesterol, we're wondering is the body protecting itself from something because it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

10:55 And then you're going to see high glucose and you're going to also see that chronic stress. So it becomes this cycle that people get stuck in and the body gets stuck in. But it can happen from exposure in utero to stress, early childhood trauma, trauma during the lifetime. It typically you're kind of there's there's a trigger sometimes and sometimes it's not in your control. Right. Well, let's say you've got two people that are eating the same, they feel, you know, like they're exercising the same, but the chronically stressed person is complaining about, you know, I can't I can't lose any weight. So is that that's that's because they're in this loop, right?

11:41 It can be genetics plays a role as well, because you can have a chronically stressed person that is more innerrexic, right, and then they're not getting any nutrientts so they're not gonna put on any weight. So typically it's not like I'm seeing two healthy people and it's just chronic stress that's contributing to this. There's layers to it. There's learned behaviors to cope. Typically one of those people is binge eating in the evening because they've come down after a huge day and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm starving and then they start comfort eating and that soothes them. So we're seeing that in that person. Also, you mentioned they're exercising the same If this person's a woman or a man and their hormones are off, say they're chronically stressed and they have low testosterone, low estrogen, well that exercise actually might contribute to their chronic stress and could actually increase their cortisol. So there's a lot of layers to looking at an individual. It's really hard to be like we have twins their side by side, they live the exact same life, because what we've actually seen in research is people have done that, they've been through the exact same thing, and their body is different. And it's just what genes turn on. Because stress turns on different genes, it turns off different genes, so everybody everyone's a little bit different with it.

12:59 Well, let's talk a little bit about sleep, right. I love sleep and I do too. I love sleep too, but sometimes I have a hard time going to sleep mm hmm, because my brain is just like you know, I just won't stop. And and it seems like there can be a sleep and blood sugar. There's a stress weight cycle that can happen. Mm hmm, well what what would you address first? So typically if that doesn't happen in a vacuum, so it's are you stressed? Do you have allergies? Do you have nasal congestion? After you eat dinner? Do you get really itchy? Do you so? Because there's multitude of things, So if you're really stressed out, what you're talking about is called evening rumination, where you cannot turn your brain off, you cannot calm down. Typically for that, we recommend box breathing for people because it starts down regulating your nervous system.

13:59 You can so wake up and have that panic in the middle of the night. We also recommend box breathing, and then at that point we recommend maybe you want to talk to a therapist because something might be going on. But if we're in the other category of constant nasal congestion, it ginus after meals, Well, then I'm looking at a histamine response, and then I'm going you're going to have a hard time falling asleep because your histamine is going to get up higher and higher as you're falling asleep, because that's when it rises, and then you're always going to wake up between one and three in the morning because that's when histamine spikes. So then I'm looking at, do we need a nasal spray, what allergies are you exposed to? Do we need to do a food allergyen test? Or you allergic to something that you know about? So then we get into deeper environmental things to see if something else is going on.

14:46 Wow, so it seems like it seems like there's you know, I think you would basically take one thing at a time and eliminated to figure out what's going on with you. Absolutely as you can see, I'm like, well, it kind of depends on the individual because that's really no blanket statement for everyone. And that's something we've kind of focus on nutrition and neuroscience, is what's going on individually with you because some people they really do have that high anxiety, some people have ADHD, they have a really hard time going to sleep at night. So then we're looking more like, okay, mentally, how do we calm that nervous system? And then some people are like I had COVID nineteen and I have had nasal congestion for years. So now we're looking out, we got to clear out your nose because that is actually a place where the immune system repopulates histamine. So then we have to address that. So it's looking at everybody individually.

15:44 Let's talk a little bit about menopause and women that are. You know, it seems like sometimes the combination of things that are going on when people go through menopause is just not fair. Yes, and they feel it's justified. They should. When you wake up in the morning and you want to just murder everyone, yeah, I under yes, you you should feel like that. So what would you what would you tell somebody that's that's just you know that says, oh, I'm going well, and you know that they're going through menopause. So menopause can show up in such different ways. It can be the hot flashes, which that is such a kind word for what it is. It is. I mean, you're sleeping in a pool of sweat. You are miserable there, like you want to live in an ice cube. There's no other way. So a flash is adorable. I think anyone who's gone through this knows this is not a flash, Like this is overwhelming your whole system. So there's that, and then there's it's it is disruptive to your sleep.

16:47 All of those hormones are changing. There's a histamine element with that as well, where now all of a sudden you have migraines too. There's a whole change in histamine that's leading to migraines in this population. And then there's also you're constantly fluctuating hormones all day long, where it's estrogen might be really high. Oh, now that's crash the next thing. Now progesteronees really high. Oh and now we've crashed that, and now testosterone. So it's constant fully fluctuating. So if someone's going through this, Number one, I would say, all of your symptoms are real, believe them. Don't ever let anyone gaslight you and tell you it's not happening. Number two, the rage will pass. You will not want to murder everyone at all times. That is also real though, Like if you're looking at your partner and you're like, I cannot stand how you eat, that will go away.

17:33 Those will not be forever. But and then for some women who are afraid of HRT because they've seen old research, if you are struggling, I would highly recommend talk to your doctor about bioidentical HRT. It's different it's not synthetic. It's more like a cream, so the body is processing it differently. But it can be really protective for the heart, it's anti cancer for some women. It's really protect for the brain, especially depression, and it can be up to twenty years of protection. So I would say, don't be afraid of bioidentical HRT and definitely talk to your doctor about it. If you're if you have that daily rage, maybe talk to your doctor about it.

18:15 Well, I was very intrigued by the whole neuro nutrition and neural inflammation idea gut brain connection. Actually mean for somebody that's dealing with anxiety and cravings and brain fog, maybe they're not very motivated, you know, so talk to us about that gut brain connection. Yeah. So in nutrition and neuroscience, we consider the gut the second brain. So there is a connection between the gut and the brain called the vegus nerve and they talk all day long. True, Like surgeons have actually cut the vegus nerve in some people and these people are out of their minds afterwards because there is so much talk going on between the two. So in the gut there so you have your own immune system, and the gut and the brain they have different cells and those talk to each other. Your gut also creates neurotransmitters, so hormones you've heard of, dopamine, serotonin. The gut also creates those as well as the brain. And then we for those who don't know, we have tons of bacteria in our gut. They're fantastic, We love them. You have about three pounds of bacteria that live in your gut. They do tons of different things. They affect your metabolism, they affect your mental health. Well, now we're looking at there's probably actually bacteria living in the brain as well, So instead of a gut microbiome, now we have a brain microbiome and they're talking to each other. So it's sometimes

19:50 with anxiety, it can be you do have anxiety and you're worried about something and now your stomach is hurting, or you have a gut infection and you don't feel well and it's creating anxiety and you're like, I'm sitting on the couch, nothing is happening, my stomach is killing me, and I have so much anxiety. Same thing can happen with brain fog. Typically there's something going on in the gut when you're having brain fog. Hormones can definitely play a role as well, but normally that's what we're seeing. The other thing that's interesting is if for neuroinflammation, So if anyone isn't familiar with this, neuroinflammation is when your immune system in your brain is overactivated and so all of these cells are turned on. They're trying to fight an infection in your brain. So in some ways we think of like the brain kind of being on fire.

20:39 A lot of disorders, so depression that is a neuroinflammatory disorder, autism, ADHD, schizophrenia all neuroinflammatory, so a lot of and a lot of that also has to do with there's a difference in the gut bacteria going on in those disorders as well. So typically if someone comes to me and they have depression and they're like, it just won't go away. I am so miserable. I'm like, are you eating enough? What's going on in your gut? We start there and then typically the first thing that lifts is the brain fog and they're like, oh, wow, I haven't been able to focus in the afternoon in a year or so. And then we just kind of keep going and see, you know, is there a mineral deficiency, is there a vitamin D deficiency?

21:21 What are we looking at? And then slowly their mental health can improve a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists are now starting with nutrition with patients who are coming in with depression and anxiety, to see is there something going on in the gut? First, wow, well, how does neurow inflammation show up in real life? Then you know, just what's what's one of the you know, I can see people dismissing symptoms just because they're not really aware, But what is it? How can it show up for people? So it's on a spectrum. So on the low end, it's going to be ability, mood swings, anxiety, depression that keeps coming back. You get into the more advanced issues, then you're looking at blind rage, with blacking out, you're looking at violence. You're looking at obsessive compulsive disorder. A lot of people think obsessive compulsive disorder is I have to wash my hands twenty times a day. Typically, obsessive compulsive disorder is an internal thing, so they have this really intrusive thought that's really scary. So it's you know, I'm going to hurt someone with a knife, So they believe that so deeply they will never touch a knife again.

22:38 They won't even go near it in a kitchen. That's typically what you start seeing. You start seeing an overreaction to things, and then ticks show up, so itching, scratching, weird coughing going on. So it can get to a much higher degree, and then you can also get into like mobility and balance issues as well. So so neuroinflammation can progress. Typically when it's in that bucket of more advanced and extreme, the immune system is now in a malfunction and you're in an autoimmune situation where the immune systems now attacking your brain and that's creating the inflammation. You make me think of the really bad Grimlin. I remember the guy that was like really terrible, terrible, terrible.

23:24 He was like twenty times worse. Yeah. Oh why so, well you work with chronic, complex chronic cases, right, yes, So do you see things that people overlook? Oh my gosh, all the time. People ignore their gut health the most. They think constipation is just a way of life, It's just what it is. They've always had this. No, that is no, that's not normal. People have diarrhea all the time, and they think that's just fine. I'm just getting older. I'm just sensitive to foods. No, this is also not normal. Some people don't know they're not detoxing well.

24:04 They just think I've just always had bad skin, or I just have a really hard time drinking alcohol and I just don't feel good the next day. It's things that people just get used to and when they come to me. And most of the time people come to me and they're like, oh, I think I just want to lose ten pounds, but I also have all these other things. And we go through a laundry list and I'm like, yeah, this has nothing to do with your weight. We've got some systems we've got to fix over here that we're just not addressing. Because the weight is not going to release until after you fix the systems, is. My absolutely not. I mean, if you're constipated, you are not going to be able to lose weight. Your metabolism, you are circulating toxins. I mean, there's a host of things happening in your body that you just think, I'll just take some metamucil and I'll be fine, right, And why is this happening? Is a question I normally like to ask and then help answer and solve.

25:00 Well, I have I'm just like true confessions here. Over the course of my adult life, I've done these like weight loss challenges, nothing ever changes. Why do you think that you know these uh you see these things online and common de mark challenge, Well, a lot of times it feels like nutrition plans, they just nothing ever changes, right, And that's probably because of what you're talking about. There's some root causes that are not being addressed that. And I think there is this common misconception that everyone's going to look the same. Everyone has this expectation that there we're all going to be size two, size zero, size four, We're all going to live in that world.

25:44 We're all like we could all eat the exact same food every day and we would all look completely different, none of us would be the same size. So I think there's also that and then a lot of those different weight and like nutrition plans in there. You're eating like twelve hundred calories a day, which to someone listening that's probably no big deal. That is what a toddler eats a day. Yeah, we're full grown humans, like we are creating hormones on a different look. We are doing completely different things, and so we're needing more food than that, more calories than that. And so when you go to those really low levels and then you start eating again, well typically you gain baun two times what you just lost. Yeah, so it's and then so then it becomes a balance of what are you eating to help keep your hunger levels lower and more normal for you? And then are you get like what's your activity level, what's your stress level?

26:39 What is all of those things? And a lot of those things aren't addressed when you're doing like a weight loss plan for like weight Watchers or something like that. Right, right, Well, do you have some favorite fast ways? That's just the nervous system. I mean, I'm sitting here kind of laughing to myself because it's like none of those things out there that are like, you know, do this and you're gonna lose weight. You know. The latest thing that I'm seeing is those patches that are burbering and. Don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. Well, they're terribly they're terribly you know. The ads are like you go from like this to this, and it's like that's just not normal.

27:26 No, but burbine is an anti microbial just for people out there, So it's literally like taking a very high level antibiotic at all times, so you will destroy your gutlining if you do burberine around the clock. People don't know that botanicals are very powerful supplements, So if you see something like that, I would just ask first someone who knows what they're doing. Probably a related question or you know, is you go out and research something and then all of a sudden it seems that's all you see on your phone is because they getting you start getting served up all these things which are very hard. So okay, so I was like, that's a little bit on the side. Fast ways is there the fast way to downshift the nervous system?

28:13 There are? So with food, you actually want to make sure you're eating regularly. This is going to balance your cortisol. So eating within an hour that you're waking up. You want to have complex carbohydrates in protein. You don't want to overeat fat that can be really hard on the nervous system. You just want to eat regularly throughout the day. Skipping meals is really stressful for the body. Getting enough fiber. A lot of people do not get enough fiber. You need about twenty five to thirty grams of fiber a day, which can feel like a lot. So adding in beans to your meal, making sure you're getting enough fruits and vegetables, getting the like brown rice, keene wall, whole grain pasta, whole wheat, whole spreaded wheat bread. Those are really great ways to get enough fiber. Protein is definitely important, but some people are eating too much protein right now, so getting enough protein for your actual activity level is really important.

29:06 Those are nutritionally easy ways. Neuroscience, now, this is my favorite way to down regulate the nervous system. So, okay, you cannot be in anxiety if you are being creative. So my favorite thing to do with clients when they come on with me and I can tell they've been on a hamster wheel all day. They are just exhausted. I'm like, okay, we're just gonna take ten seconds. I want you to imagine your favorite place you've ever been. Just like hold it in your head. What does it smell like? Is it the beach? Does it smell like salt? Okay? What does it feel like? Is there a wind? Is the breeze? Is it like warm? Is it cold? What does the sand feel like? Is that cold or is it warm?

29:48 Still? Is that warm? Pitting your back and like if you put your hands down, what are you feeling. Does it feel grainy? Does it feel warm? And then typically by the time we're done with this, whole exerss as their nervous system has calmed down, because you cannot create can be an anxiety. Ah, and you can do this anytime. One of my one of my favorite things. One my one client loved to bake, and I was like, what is the most beautiful cake we could possibly bake? And we went through an entire process of what would it look like, what would it smell like? Heaven? Yeah, and she's a musician, absolutely. And then for people who were like, Okay, but I'm chronically in this and I can't just daydream all day getting into art projects, going for walks, listening to a favorite podcast, maybe this one, but putting your phone down, getting off your phone. So I've had a couple of clients recently start knitting and crocheting. It's literally like meditating and you're creating something you love. So kitting into and if you're if you're sitting here listening like, I don't know what I like. What did you like to do when you were a kid. Did you like dinosaurs?

30:57 Did you like space? Did you like to color? Did what you like to do? And then I tell people pick one of those things. So for a client who needs to downregulate, I do. There's a couple rules I give them. Number one is you have to have a cutoff no matter what. Work ends at seven, work ends at eight, I don't care what it is. We are all done for the day. Your body has to know when it's going to end. It's a big indicator for the nervous system. The second thing is you have to do whatever you love after that cutoff, So going for a walk, playing with your dogs, starting a craft, cooking dinner, I don't care what. Listening to music, I don't care what it is, but it's for you and you have to do only for you until bedtime. And then I always tell people take a shower before you go to bed.

31:43 It's going to drop down your temperature, which will help tell your body it's time to sleep. And then off to bed you go. Some people have a hard time still downregulating, and I say, like, do you like ocean sounds? Do you like rain putting on a sound machine to help start bringing down your nervous system. That will all so help. So those are like my little neuroscience tricks I help for people. Well, you talked a little bit about like phones. I think digital overstimulation is a little bit of a problem. You think. I wish everybody could have the old school blue Nokia brick phone again, like, yeah, go ahead, play Snake and Tetris and that's all you can do and then we're all done.

32:24 Yeah, yeah, yeah. My daughter, who's in her mid forties, she was telling me that she was talking to some you know, some kids at church and some they were doing this one of those guessing games, and she it was like mister Rogers, mister Rogers neighborhood. None of them knew who mister Rogers was. And she knows me. She said, Mama, I feel so old. Did they know who Daniel Tiger is? Because that's like modern day mister Rogers. I know, I know, it's like oh my god. But digital you know, and the doom scrolling is like oh my So I think that a lot of the stress. Yeah, the constant notifications that's contributing, isn't it.

33:13 To keeping up. It's the notification. It's how colorful your phone is, because it makes you want to look at it. Almost every app is colorful. If you put gray scale on your phone, you're not going to care about it anymore. It's not enticing to look at. Yeah, you could turn all of that off. The other thing, you know, I have found the people who are most addicted to their phones are people sixty to seventy five. The amount of time I've seen people just sitting there in a coffee shop on their phone the whole time, and I see younger people reading, and I see this age group on their phone. I'm like, what has happened to the world? What you do? Yeah, they're fascinated by it. Yeah. So yeah, the doom scrolling that's going to keep you in your anxiety spiral. And then you're telling your brain I'm not safe constantly because you can't. Once you if you don't put the phone down and the news story never ends, well, then your anxiety spiral never ends and then you go to sleep like that. But if you actually put it down and you're not connected to the news all day, you're not like the TV's off.

34:15 That's another thing we got to turn the TV off. We do not need to have the TV on all day. If that's all off, well then your body can complete an anxiety spiral and go, oh, this is really scary, but we're gonna be okay, and then you can go do something else. Right. Well, you know, I've been a financial advisor for a good part of my adult life, and more and more as I've gotten older, I've been like, health is the first wealth, you know, and if you don't have your health, then you could be really successful financially. But if you don't have your health, it's like what you know, you can't do anything. So you've said that heart disease and chronic illness can become a tax on retirements.

35:01 I mean, we've. What I'm kind of talking about is the whole idea of health being it's part of your retirement plan. So I would just say about you know, heart disease and chronic stress and all that being at tax on on retirement. So if you're not thinking about health in a way like a lot of people take health for granted, right because when you have it, you don't think about it. When you don't have it, it's all you think about. Health and it's really hard to plan for that because you don't know what's going to happen. Right, So, but what most people don't know is how expensive it is to be unwell. That dementia can cost up to half a million dollars, and at that point in time, that's mostly you're oh right, and your family is doing that.

35:52 And then heart disease can be you know, again, almost half a million dollars, and so people are thinking, I'm saving this, I'm going to have a great retirement and then bam, your health changes and all of that investment is now going to your health and not the thing you wanted to go to. And a lot of people don't know that heart disease, dementia, a lot of these later illnesses they actually start in your forties. And so wow, it's almost like you tell people to start planning for retirement early, right, you want them to start putting that money away. Well, I want you to start eating correctly early because I want to mitigate what could happen down the road. And I also want to make sure you're not passing that down to your kids either.

36:36 Right. That's also a huge stress on children where they're watching this happen to their parents. They don't know it's going to happen. That is a huge stress. So if you're burnt out like you did that, I feel like there's this common idea that like, I'm just going to work so hard and I'm going to kill myself to work so hard, and I'm going to make that money and I'm going to have it later. There's a tax, there's a health tax to that later that almost none of us get out of. And so typically when we talk about finance finances an investment, I really want people to invest in their own health, Like, go to the doctor regularly, don't ignore your symptoms. They're not going to go away. They will start compounding later. Start really investing in that early, because if you do that early, you are going to have a better retirement later. You're gonna able to play with your grandkids on the floor much longer, which some people don't value that yet. I promise you you're going to value that later. And so and just like the aches and pains that you would experience where you're like, my mind feels completely different than how my body feels, that is a little bit slower as well, and so it doesn't come as big of a shock, like the changes are slower and then you're not having to invest how much in extra health years that you didn't want to. Sorry? Probably, how do.

37:56 You help people reframe? Like so supplements and doing testing and nutrition support is a long term strategy, you know, without them freaking out about overspending or chasing trends. I mean, I think that's it's hard not to do. Okay, So, I know we're kind of in this weird time period where we're not trusting doctors researchers, We're not trusting all of our scientists, and I would say you can trust us number one, like we're we really really want to help you. That's literally what we do. And we also know people are trying to do their own research.

38:40 So what I tell clients is go ahead and do your research, but please understand if you don't know how to create research, if you don't know what parameters are in place, if you don't know how to run statistical analysis, if you don't know what patient population should be reviewed, if you don't know what correlation means, or causation means, or what limitation are, I need you to trust me. So that's how. Doctor Google doesn't know everything, go to PubMed. But there, So there's that because I see a lot of clients doing their own research and then they're on like twenty supplements and I'm like, do you even know what you're taking and why are you doing? They have no idea. And so if you go somewhere and they want to give you tons of supplements, run that is not what we're doing here. Two, if you come say and people do know how to do research, I'm not saying they don't. If they come and they have research, I'm happy to look at what comes to me, and then I love to go. This is why I think this doesn't apply. This is something we should look into.

39:45 If you have someone who is just one hundred percent ignoring you or one believing everything, be cautious of that because you want us to be critical. And so a lot of people will go they see things on Insta, they see influencers. I'm not on Instagram. I'm not an influencer. I'm a neuro nutritionist. Like, you shouldn't listen to me on Instagram. That lowers my credibility. Yeah, so a lot of us are not in those spaces. And because we are credible and like many of us are published. We've had to what many people don't know is to get published in research, we have to go through a long list of our peers. And I can't tell you the amount of times people have told me I'm stupid for some of my ideas. As an adult, I have been told this. But this is what we have to go through, and we have to rethink things. And I know that my research might be wrong later and then I'll have to rethink everything. So there's that piece. If anyone's doing their research and you don't trust scientists, please trust us.

40:43 We are not trying to lead you a straight like. Our whole goal in life is to help you. But supplements following trends. Trends change all the time. The wellness industry, I think it's now a trillion dollar industry. It is a huge industry, you think. I mean, it's in some ways it's as big as big pharma. So if you're worried about pharmaceuticals, you should be just as worried at the wellness industry because there's no oversight on supplements. I mean, people, you can buy anything on Amazon. We don't know what's in that, so right, so you were. Just talking about burberine. That's the first time I've ever heard you know, I'm seeing all this these stupid little things where these you know, and I'm like, wow, I didn't know that about that particular ingredient.

41:32 Well, well, people think plants, like burberine is from a plant that's from Oregon. People think plant it's healthy. Botanicals are just as potent as pharmaceuticals. So you want someone who knows what they're doing. Dosages really do matter. We really do research on this with people to ensure safety because if you over do it on burbering, oh my gosh, you're the gut pain you're going to be in and the misery you're going to be in. But you know, the supplement industry is just like the marketing industry. They want you to buy more. They never want you to get off it. They write so like pill caddies are getting to twenty supplements and I'm like, what is in there? Do you have it? And then they're never taking off anything. I mean, if you work with a nutritionist or even a doctor, a lot of the time we tell you we want you on this much vitamin D for this long and then we're going to reevaluate, right, and we don't want you to live on these things. Yeah, so then with labs, it's kind of the same. There's yeah, blood highly recommend. Yeah, but some people like, if you have gut issues, you might need a gimp. Not all gastroine testrologists, they not all of them like that. They don't think it's that valuable.

42:44 It's really valuable for my job because I can see how you're actually utilizing your nutrients. And so it can be different with each practitioner, but overall, we typically all value the same thing. We all value blood labs. We all valuemone labs. We really think those are beneficial, and so do not be afraid to get your blood work done. We highly recommend staying on top of it. It's one of the greatest ways to stay on top of your health. Right. Well, this time always goes so fast. What would you say to kind of start wrapping this all up? What would you say would be a realistic seven day reset look like for stress and metabolism. What would you tell someone if they were like, Okay, she's convinced me, I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, start with something. What would you say would be realistic to start with.

43:42 So I like very simple things because typically if you're in this place, you can't handle a huge overhaul. So I literally just say, change one thing on your plate. Yeah, add blueberries to your plate. Add dark leafy greens. Add she has seeds if you want. But just add one new thing and then just do that for a week, and then the next week. If that worked out well for you, maybe add another new thing. Right. But a lot of people overhaul every like people just go all in and then they're burnt out, like no energy to go all in. This is a slow build and change. So if you're like I love having chips in the afternoon, maybe we swap that for some crackers and hummus or some carrots and hummus. If that sounds awful.

44:27 Maybe just add again a cup of blueberries or something like that. But just really simple changes. Simple. Maybe turn the phone off. At oh yeah, if you accidentally dropped your phone into a body of water, that might be the best thing that ever happens to you. Or just like I do, I do tell people go on a news fast where like, yeah, do not pay attention to the news. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday, maybe you can look at the headlines and then you don't get to look at it again because they're changed all week long anyway, and then you're just going on a roller coaster. So maybe pick one day. What I do with my husband because I struggle, is I tell him I'm not going to look at the news.

45:09 Tell me if anything significant happens at the end of the week, and then I walk away. And usually it's just been all week long anyway. Yeah, And it's meant to do that, right because then you're addicted to it and you're set on it and you're anxiety. So you're like, I have to know what happens next, what's going to happen next? But if you look outside, everything's okay right now. Yeah, Well, we have to wrap this up. So what I want to make sure that everyone knows is there's gonna be a little information sheet about what you do, and that'll be on my website for people to be able to find you. Is there anything else on me? Oh, why don't you mention your website because it's a little bit you would think it's not your name, what's your website?

45:57 Yes, So my company is called Rose and Ginger new trition. The end is a plus sign. But my website is Roseginger dot com. And if you're like I might want to do this, I don't know. I have a blog and I write about tons of different things, different health topics, things that may or may not relate to you. If you're curious, there's videos about how I've helped other people. There's case studies if you want to know. You can read my research on there if you want to know. So it has all the things. Sounds awesome. Well, I've you know, I think that we have asked some good questions today. I think so. I think that my goal is always to give some some actionable, you know, something that people can do as they as they leave the podcast. And so with that, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate, appreciate everything you're doing because it's so important to the health and longevity of everyone that's listening. So with that, we're gonna have to wrap this up. Thank you so much for joining the Ask Good Questions podcast, and we will see you next time.

47:12 Today's episode is over. But we did ask Good Questions again, didn't We don't miss out as we broadcast live every Wednesday, six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at w fourcy dot com. Joined Benina Bellemderson next week for more conversations with experts on finances, retirement, behavioral finance issues, health and wellness, and more. Until then, remember to ask good questions.