OneMedicine Podcast

Rob Lutz 00:00
Hello and welcome to the OneMedicine Podcast with Today's Practitioner. In each episode, we share the expertise of a respected thought leader. Some you'll know, and others you'll probably meet for the first time. We cover topics important to you, always with a focus on improving the health outcomes of the patients you treat, while expanding your understanding of the many healing modalities being used today.

Rob Lutz 00:21
Hi and welcome to the OneMedicine Podcast. I'm Rob Lutz, your host and the founder and editorial director for Today's Practitioner. Today, we're going to be joined by a panel of experts, and we're going to dive deep into the immune system and really talk about immune resilience and how we might apply that and guide our patients towards that and why. So I've got three experts here with me, and I'm going to have each of them introduce themselves, share a little bit about their background. First, we have Tracy Southwick, who--Tracy, you're a naturopath. Is that correct?

Tracy Southwick 00:45
It is, yes.

Rob Lutz 00:51
Yes. Tell us a little bit more about your background, please.

Tracy Southwick 00:59
Absolutely. So I actually have a clinic in Houston, Texas and a teaching academy. But I started in this field back in, gosh, 1995, so I'm definitely dating myself. But I had my own immune system problems, and so I went down the rabbit hole, thank goodness, of you know, learning how the body worked, learning how I could work with the body, and how the body has an innate ability to heal itself. And of course, once I learned that, once I became healthy, I wanted to shout from the rooftops. Right? You want everyone to understand and know that, you know, you don't have to suffer always. You know, there are answers out there. And so I did this for many years, had a health food store--I'm in the Texas hill country--and some radio shows, and did things like that. But then in 2007, I opened my clinic in Houston, and along with working with the physical aspect, I had, through the years, developed a technique called Mind, Body, Spirit Release, which is a way to identify and help release emotions that people are holding on to that are keeping them from reaching their, you know, highest level of health. Because we need to look at the body holistically. It can't just be the physical aspect. And I learned that early on with myself, and so I now teach that technique to practitioners around the world, and really love to help people really take their health and their patients' and their clients' health to the next level.

Rob Lutz 02:28
That's awesome. Well, I'm really interested to hear a little bit more about that system and how practitioners can apply that themselves. I think that's really interesting. Dr. Emily Hartsfield, also a naturopathic physician, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how it relates to immune resilience?

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 02:45
Yeah, absolutely. So, as you mentioned, I am a naturopathic physician. I graduated from Bastyr University in 2019 and have been with Energetix pretty much ever since, and really just helping with their clinical education and helping to educate practitioners, not only in how to use our products, but how to view working with their patients from a more natural and holistic perspective. Before I ever went to Bastyr, I was a med tech working in a path lab, and so I kind of got to see a lot of the behind the scenes things that we do with patients. And I just knew that I wanted to do more and play more of an active role in patients' lives and, but coming at it from a more natural and holistic perspective. And so now I get to do that on a really large scale, working with a lot of different practitioners and, of course, then their patients as well. And so I'm just really grateful to be able to, you know, help share that with more practitioners.

Rob Lutz 03:45
Thank you. I think we actually have a couple articles of Today's Practitioner that you wrote for us, so that's great stuff. Jason Albracht, you're a chiropractor, and please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dr. Jason Albracht 03:56
Okay, third generation chiropractor. Come from a family of chiropractors, pretty large family of chiropractors, in Texas. And graduated chiropractic school about 21 years ago. I've been adjusted since I was about 10 minutes old, I guess. And first one to kind of get in nutrition. This was about 19 years ago, roughly. Went through a couple courses, learned how to muscle test, kept going, and it changed my life, changed my practice. I'm North Austin, located in North Austin, and same practice--opened the doors 21 years ago--and grown my practice. Have several practitioners here, several people that I've taught, I guess, muscle testing and different techniques kind of--you know, you learn as you go through, you learn many philosophies, many ways to test people, and you just kind of group it together, kind of make your own type of testing and whatever works. And it's very efficient, very effective. And we get a lot of people, you know, well in this office, so.

Rob Lutz 04:56
That's great. Well, thank you all for for joining the podcast today. You know, we're going to be talking about immune health and this concept of resiliency, which you hear a lot these days in various aspects of people's health and how they might adapt to something. But I'd love to hear from each of you how you think about resiliency as it relates to immune health, and then we're going to dig into some deeper topics. But Tracy, would you want to give us, kind of, your thoughts on that?

Tracy Southwick 05:23
Absolutely. Well, you know, we all know, we live in this toxic soup of chemicals, and we're being bombarded from all angles with physical chemicals. But really, my specialty, and where I'll come from in this conversation, is being able to be emotionally resilient, being able to have a nervous system that is resilient so that we can heal, so that our bodies can rest and digest. And so few of us have that ability to do that now, because we're caught in this fight-or-flight all the time, and when that happens, it shuts down our ability to fight things. So I see it with people: they'll go to one extreme or the other. One extreme would be they get sick every time they get exposed to something. Right? They're constantly sick. And the other extreme is their body can't fight anything, so it just holds on to these things, whatever they're exposed to. And then they go on vacation and let the guard down, and they're sick for the whole vacation. So we want people to be able to ride the waves emotionally and to the nervous system perspective, so that they can have a stronger immune system and, you know, and feel good and feel strong.

Rob Lutz 06:35
Yeah. So that's the first place that you start is really kind of emotional health and stress and your ability to handle what's coming your way.

Tracy Southwick 06:43
Well, I essentially, from the standpoint of, if somebody's nervous system is dysregulated, you're not going to go very far with them. So if you can't get them out of fight-or-flight, you can throw all the supplements in the world at them, and you're just going to hit a wall. And from my perspective, you're going to hit a wall. And that's from my experience, for sure. I really want to get somebody, first and foremost--you know, you can supplement in terms of just giving them basic nutrition, but if you want to take someone through a detox program or really, really work on a deeper level, you've got to make sure that they've got that nervous system regulation, the ability to be emotionally resilient.

Rob Lutz 07:23
Awesome. So we're going to come back to that topic in a couple of minutes, but I'd like to hear from the others. Emily, how would you define resilience, and kind of, what's your area that you focus on?

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 07:33
Absolutely. So I completely agree with Tracy. You know, I think nervous system regulation is a huge key in that. I'd also like to put a plug in to where it's not just about resilience from the immune perspective, but overall optimization of health. You know, you can't pull from an empty well, whether it's nutritionally or within the nervous system, and so we need to make sure that as we're going along, we're optimizing our patients' health and well-being, their nutritional status. I also like to focus a lot on drainage. That's a big thing here, especially at Energetix. But you can't expect the body to be able to go through these flow states and things, including within the nervous system, if the drainage pathways are not functioning optimally. And so that's a key piece for me is really to open up these elimination pathways and these drainage pathways, and we'll kind of talk about that on a larger scale, and what that really means. But that's it, for me, is being able to optimize the patient's foundations of health in a lot of different aspects. So I always kind of look at it at this kind of three-cogged wheel. You know, some people talk about a three-legged stool or this triangle three-prong approach, and so think about the foundations of health, targeted treatments, and then energetic approaches to the human body. And so that's what I like to do, and that's optimization or resilience, for me, is when we can have this well to pull from when we need it.

Rob Lutz 09:05
I love that. I love the word optimize, because it's always...I think of some--optimizing things, it can always get better. You find the things that will make an impact, that will improve, whatever that might be. But I like that word a lot. Jason, tell me a little bit about your view of resilience and kind of your area of focus.

Dr. Jason Albracht 09:31
Sure, I agree with both Tracy and Emily. There's not a whole lot more to be said, except it's kind of a shift taking herbs and supplements, throwing those at the patient, throwing that when someone comes in ill and sick, trying to give them a little boost, but shifting more into being more proactive, having them have a consistent wellness routine, strengthening their bodies--become optimal, like Emily said. Basically just be able to breeze through different seasons, when everybody's dropping like flies due to illness, flu, all these things that pop up. and they can breeze through without being affected, letting their body handle the stress that it's under for the most part, so.

Rob Lutz 10:01
Well, thank you. So the first topic that I think we're going to dive a little bit more deeply into is emotional health and nervous system regulation, which is kind of your area, Tracy. How would you like to just start off with it? I've got a few questions I could ask, or is there anything that just really jumps out at you that you want to make sure the listeners are aware of and how you think of things and guide their patients?

Rob Lutz 10:06
Great.

Dr. Jason Albracht 10:17
Yeah.

Tracy Southwick 10:25
One of the things that--thank you for that, asking that. One of the things that I think is really important is understanding the concept of processing through emotions. So we think about that in terms of toxins. Right? Oh, this person has this genetic variant, they don't methylate or whatever it is. They can't process toxins as well. Well, a lot of us weren't brought up with the tools to process through emotional toxins, whether it be resentment or anger or fear. COVID really brought this to the surface, right, because so many people were isolated and weren't able to have the tools in the community and whatever they needed to process through all of the trauma that they were experiencing. When that happens, our body holds on to those things. You know, there are many books out there that are written about this, but our body doesn't let go of those things, just as our body wouldn't let go of a physical toxin. So being able to work with your patients and understand that maybe they've got something. It could be, quote, unquote, an emotional toxin or limiting belief, or whatever it is, that they haven't processed through, that could be keeping them in that fight-or-flight state. So they've always got this background fear that's going on, or always got this background anger or guilt or shame, whatever it is, and that alone, not to mention with all of the other things that could be going on, like the drainage pathways being clogged, like Emily was talking about. I think that is a really important aspect for doctors to be able to recognize if they can, or outsource if they don't have the time or the tools to do it, to help people build a toolbox of tools to work through those things, that they really can optimize their health.

Rob Lutz 12:14
So if you have a patient that comes in and you suspect there's some kind of a past trauma or emotional issue that's causing this, what causes you to think that's what's happening, and then how do you find it and address it? How do you help the patient with that?

Tracy Southwick 12:27
Oh, that's a great idea, or a great question. We actually, we have a questionnaire, a nervous system regulation questionnaire, that we have every new client fill out, and it goes through the physical aspects and the emotional aspects of dysregulation. It goes a lot further than, "Do you feel anxious?" That you're going and saying, "How are you sleeping? Do you have gastrointestinal issues? How do you deal with different stressors in your life?" And it gives us--with the rubric, you can figure out, "Oh, this person's severely dysregulated and needs some help." And you can do it concurrently with other modalities and other things. But we do try to pick up on that right away, because the people that we didn't for a long time pick up on, we realized we were just hitting a wall. They're saying, "I'm not, I'm not getting better." And then you realize, "Well, my goodness, you're--you've got all this cortisol coursing through your body and you've got, which is definitely lowering your antibody production and increasing inflammation," and all these things that we can't get down until we really wrap our head around, this person needs some help with that nervous-system, emotional-regulation aspect of health.

Rob Lutz 13:39
And so are you addressing, kind of, the physical part of it, the cortisol? I'm sure you're doing that, but are you also trying to unpack what's going on with that patient emotionally? Is that something that your practice does as well?

Tracy Southwick 13:51
Yeah.

Rob Lutz 13:51
And you give the patient some tools, or?

Tracy Southwick 13:53
Absolutely. We do use the technique Mind, Body, Spirit Release that I developed, but there are lots of things that you can do to help people with nervous system regulation, simple, free things like breath work, grounding. All those things can really, really help, making sure the person has really good sleep hygiene, because they need to be able to sleep. We all know that. But there are also other tools, like we use something called Alpha-Stim in the clinic that all of you probably have access to, that really helps rewire the brain into a more parasympathetic mode, helps with anxiety and depression and insomnia and focus. It's got some great benefits. So we do use some high-tech and low-tech tools, and then we use simple things like ashwagandha to bring the cortisol down, or rhodiola, and feed their their nutritional needs. Magnesium, of course, as everyone probably would agree here, is something that most everyone needs, and that alone can help with that regulation, but really teaching people tools. We have holistic therapists on staff that work with people from that perspective as well.

Rob Lutz 15:02
Yeah. Just curious. Last question for you for the moment, but vagus nerve stimulation, is that something that you guys look at, or something that you encourage?

Tracy Southwick 15:10
Yes.

Rob Lutz 15:10
Yeah.

Tracy Southwick 15:11
Yeah, yeah. There have been some great, great results from people with vagus nerve stimulation. There's a lot you can do that's free as well, you know, because I know when people come to me, it's like, "Oh, do this and this and this," and it adds up. And they're thinking, "Oh, my goodness, this is out of pocket. My insurance isn't going to pay for it." So if they're not severely dysregulated, I'll actually have them do practices like humming and cold-water exposure, and different things like that that can really help the vagus nerve.

Rob Lutz 15:40
Yeah.

Tracy Southwick 15:41
For sure.

Rob Lutz 15:41
Yeah, that's great.

Tracy Southwick 15:42
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is a very powerful tool.

Rob Lutz 15:45
Yeah, I've just heard so much about that in the last couple of years, gut-brain access and things like that. But how can it impact that? So I'm curious, Emily and Jason, when you think about your your patients that you see, how important is the emotional component? Is that something that you guys also spend a lot of time with or--I know, Jason, you focus a lot on gut health and so forth--but if either of you would like to just kind of briefly comment on that before we dive into some of these other topics.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 16:09
Yeah.

Rob Lutz 16:10
I'd love to hear it.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 16:10
I can go first there. So I definitely see a huge portion of--I would argue, almost all patients have some sort of emotional block, whether it's some sort of significant trauma history or even just the mundane, day-to-day things that kind of affect us all. That can hugely impact how patients respond to treatment, to other protocols we might be doing with patients, and just their day-to-day wellness. And I do find that, as Tracy has mentioned, that once we address that in some capacity, that we often see other things falling into place. And we really do need to address not just the physical, but also, like, the spiritual, emotional aspect.

Rob Lutz 16:57
The whole person, yeah.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 16:58
You have to. You have to look at patients as a whole and and really address all those aspects to make some sort of significant change.

Rob Lutz 17:07
Yeah.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 17:08
Whether that's a seasonal cold or some sort of chronic illness, it does impact all of it.

Rob Lutz 17:12
That makes sense. Yeah. And Jason, what about you?

Dr. Jason Albracht 17:14
Yeah, I agree. It's a stressful life everybody lives in. It's busy with social media, phones. Everything seems ramped up for the most part. Emotions are--you know, you have your physical, you have your mental, emotional, spiritual. It's a big aspect. I do in my practice. I learned--I wouldn't talk emotions, and then I knew that was a missing component, that they didn't teach us for a purpose. And so I looked at a few things, and then, what I do in my office is Emotion Code, and we clear emotions. And I do it every single day, on every, you know, not every patient but several through the calendar date. And it really helps to kind of ease up any kind of stuck baggage they have. But giving them tools, journaling, breathing, meditating, I mean, there's so many things you can do. It's not straightforward as, "You got this bacteria, and that's what's causing all your problems." I mean, there's multifaceted, everything's connected deep. And sometimes you get these underlying, stuck emotions, and they make a big deal when you start to clear them and see the light coming through after that.

Rob Lutz 18:15
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think about, you know, myself. I have a morning routine that in the moment it feels like it's probably not doing a whole lot, but I'll meditate in the morning, I've got a gratitude journal, I read the Daily Stoic. The days that I do those things, all of those, my days are so much better, and I just feel like I can react. I don't react, maybe that's a better way to put it, you know. So I think that's probably true for all of us. If we can put a little bit of time into that self-care, self-maintenance around mental health, it could probably make a really big difference. I know when I'm stressed, that's when I get sick, all this stuff that we're talking about right now, so yeah.

Dr. Jason Albracht 18:48
There's huge--I used to not do self-care, then I realized how important it was. So there's so many things people can add, which talk about maybe towards this podcast. But my self-care days, they start at one, and then now I typically do about three half-self-care days on the weekend, plus Fridays is my day off. It makes a world of a difference for handling the stress, like you said, and just everything that's thrown at us.

Rob Lutz 19:14
Finding the stuff that helps you set your own reset button, because we all do get so stressed out throughout the day, throughout the week, but giving yourself a little bit of time to hit the reset button, then you're more resilient. You can adapt and react more appropriately, I guess, in general. Anything else, Tracy, on the emotional, mental side of things?

Tracy Southwick 19:36
I just had a thought with what Jason was saying, and because we're speaking to medical professionals and healthcare professionals. Going back to the need that you were saying for a self-care routine, generally speaking, people who are caring for others don't. That's not their first priority. Right? We're in this field because we want to help other people, because we care very deeply about other people getting better, and so really understanding and reminding ourselves on a daily basis that we need to take care of ourselves. We're so much better for everybody else, if we need to. And that's a silly reminder. We all know that, but we get bogged down in the busy, "I've got to see this many people every day, and I've got to answer the emails from everyone," and that stuff builds up for us. And we can't help anyone if we're sick.

Rob Lutz 20:25
Sure.

Tracy Southwick 20:26
Yeah, so and.

Rob Lutz 20:26
That's a great point.

Tracy Southwick 20:28
Yeah. So I think it's a very good reminder we all have to have, to really guard that sacred space of self-care for ourselves, so.

Rob Lutz 20:38
I like that. So we're going to move on to another topic. And this is--Emily, I think this is your area of expertise around drainage and detoxification. Can you talk a little bit about your approach, and why this is important to immune health, and probably part of a protocol that you would recommend? Tell us a little bit more about that.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 20:56
Yeah, absolutely. So really, drainage should be one of the first areas that we focus on, in many regards, for a lot of our patients. As Tracy, I think, mentioned earlier, we are kind of living in this toxic soup where, yes, there are naturally occurring toxins that we're going to just normally be exposed to, but the amount of toxins that we're exposed to on a daily basis are significantly higher than what we were, kind of, as a human, made to be exposed to and handle. And so we really do have to work a lot harder at supporting our body, at handling what we're coming into contact with on a daily basis. I mean, there's literally plastics in our air. It's in our soil. It's in our water. We literally cannot avoid the toxins that we're being exposed to. They really are at astronomical levels, and we really have to focus in on how to support the patients, not only for these mundane, day-to-day things, but also on a more kind of consistent--if you want to say chronic--basis, long-term basis for longer-term health. And so drainage is a piece of that. And drainage, kind of, in a broader sense, really refers to this physiologic and cellular process that the body undertakes or goes through, and it facilitates the elimination of metabolic waste, of course, any sort of toxins that we're exposed to, you know, maybe inflammatory byproducts, just everything that we're being exposed to, and cellular debris that we're going to normally kind of create. And it's going to--this is the flow that the body takes in order to excrete waste. And primarily we're seeing this, obviously, through the lymphatic. I think that's where a lot of people tend to focus. But this is happening through every cell and tissue in the body, including the liver, the kidneys, also the skin. We're breathing out a lot of toxins. And I want to kind of first distinguish this from detox or detoxification. It is different. Where detox is going to be this biochemical transformation of toxins for elimination--and largely here we're talking about phases one and two, liver detox--whereas drainage is actually a mechanical and energetic movement of waste out of the tissues and organs. And so when these are open and functioning well, kind of as they should, the body's going to operate sort of in this clean terrain. It's going to be free of excess toxins and debris and waste that may otherwise increase inflammation in the body. It's going to make it harder for our body to handle what's coming at it on a day-to-day basis. And so this effective drainage is going to support the immune response, of course, also cellular repair and optimization of those therapeutic protocols that we're trying to encourage our patients to buy into on a day-to-day basis. And our patients are really going to handle these protocols much more efficiently or effectively when this drainage piece is being, kind of, taken into consideration. And because so many patients are at this increased toxic level, that can actually be a lot harder for our bodies to, kind of, go through. We don't--maybe we aren't draining, if you will, effectively.

Rob Lutz 24:40
Yeah, so what I thought of as you were talking is, I picture us, you know, we're carrying stuff. Right? We're carrying all these toxins in this load, and at some point, you just can't carry it all, right, and so then things break down. So is that kind of what you're saying? Is this focusing on the drainage--you're eliminating some of those things, so your body's system can accommodate these other insults or things that are coming their way? Is that kind of what's happening?

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 25:04
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if we think about it--let's use an example, okay, one that everybody probably more readily thinks of in a weird way than our own bodies. Because, as we've mentioned, like self-care--to be honest, I'm not huge on the whole self-care thing, because I think that this is something that we should be doing anyway for just making sure we're healthy humans. But cars. Our cars. Everybody has a car. Pretty much everybody has a car. We're going to be taking it in for a routine oil change, okay. Without this oil change, there's going to be sludge in the engine, and that sludge can cause our engine to not work as efficiently. We may not get as efficient fuel mileage, and things can start to break down, okay. Well, If we extrapolate that into our bodies, the same thing can happen when toxins accumulate, and whether that's some sort of metabolic waste or actual toxin that's some sort of toxin from our environment, it can cause this build-up. And so, because we're in this much more toxic world, and our bodies really aren't able to handle a lot of it as efficiently, it tends to build up, and that can cause these blocks within our drainage pathways where things can accumulate in ways that really we don't tend to think about. I know a lot of, if you will, more Western-minded medical professionals probably don't really think about, but this is a real physical, physiologic process that the body goes through. And if the body isn't able to eliminate everything, where else is it going to go? It's just going to continue to build up. So we really do need to focus in on it and handle it effectively, and help our patients handle that more effectively.

Rob Lutz 26:42
So I've got two questions on that. How do you identify a patient that is having these types of issues? And then what do you do about it?

Rob Lutz 26:49
Mm hm. I know it can be challenging for a practitioner that's not really skilled in homeopathy to find the right remedies for various things. How should we address that as a practitioner if we're going to integrate homeopathy for drainage?

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 26:49
Yeah, so I think sometimes it may not be super-obvious that this is what we might be looking at in patients. They can come in with fatigue, which is really broad. So many patients come in. I think, whenever I get questions from practitioners, that's, like, 99% of the time on the symptom list. So many people are just tired. There might be headaches and brain fog--again, super broad. So many of our patients come in with this. There might be skin conditions, eczema, acne, psoriasis, you know, just whatever that might be in your patient, of course, constipation. I mean, more obviously, there might be lymphatic tenderness, you know, "Oh, my lymph nodes are always swollen." I mean, I think that's a really obvious sign. More, I guess, more specifically, we could also be seeing patients with hypersensitivity reactions, whether they're reacting to targeted treatment protocols we're doing with them, or other therapies. Even, like, I've had patients or practitioners call me and say, "Hey, I'm even reacting to this vitamin that I didn't react to in the past. Like, what's going on?" So just these increased hypersensitivity reactions. We also might see slower recovery time in patients, where we're like, "What is going on? This is taking"--you know, in the back of our minds, we're like, "I don't know what's happening. Like, why isn't this working?" And so that might be a drainage issue. Again, if those drainage pathways aren't flowing as they should, if detox is backed up, all this waste is going to accumulate in the tissues. Our body isn't able to restore balance as effectively. And so again, just kind of hearkening back to what I mentioned earlier, I think the approach is A) making sure that our foundations of health are in place, and not just that, like, "Oh, we're making it, like, we're at the RDA level," those recommended daily allowances or recommendations, but we want to make sure we're optimizing our health, that we're above that threshold, okay. We want to make sure that, like again, we have that well to pull from. I think homeopathics are such a great place to start with patients when it comes to drainage. These are not only acting in the background. So homeopathics, our energetic remedies, are really helping to kind of shift the body. It's that gentle nudge to kind of remind it that it knows how to heal, that it knows how to function on a normal day-to-day basis, not only physically, but also emotionally. And so we do see this kind of whole-person approach when it comes to homeopathy. And so I think they're a really great place to start for a lot of patients, and they can be really gentle, but they can also be really effective.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 29:22
Yeah so, to put a little plug in here for Energetix, we've made it really easy, where we've taken a lot of that guesswork out of homeopathy. And I am always telling practitioners this story, but it's actually really true that I love homeopathy. I've been using it for a really long time. I was classically trained in homeopathy while I was in school, and I love it. But I'm not great at, like, repertorizing patients and finding that one needle-in-a-haystack remedy to give to them. I know the big ones, but there's just so many different homeopathic remedies available, and it can be really hard to distinguish, like, one remedy from another. And so at Energetix, we've created a line of combination homeopathics that really helped to break it down for practitioners who maybe, like me, maybe love homeopathy and just don't have that skill set, to make it easier to give it to patients. And so, that's a great place to start. For me, I think the combination homeopathics just make it so much easier.

Rob Lutz 30:43
That's great. Tracy, I'm curious. Do you use any homeopathy in your practice? Or Jason?

Tracy Southwick 30:48
We do. I was actually going to tack onto what Emily was saying, the beauty of homeopathics and the combinations that Emily's talking about. In fact, I've used Energetix for many years, and they're my hands-down favorite brand of homeopathics, and they're amazing. And there's an emotional component with homeopathics, so you are touching on that emotional aspect as well when you're using homeopathics. So anytime you look up like an individual remedy, it'll say, you know, the physical ailments, but it also say, talk about emotional ailments that go along with it. So it's actually a very holistic way to work with people, and it's a very gentle way to start with people, especially if somebody's dysregulated. They can start with flower essences or homeopathics, or in that realm, and at the same time, learn some tools to help open the drainage funnel. And for instance, I was thinking while you were talking, Emily, that one of the best ways to regulate your nervous system is breath work. So 4-7-8 breathing is amazing for helping retrain your body to get out of fight-or-flight and into parasympathetic mode, but it also detoxes. That's an amazing detox pathway, so so many toxins will come out of your lungs when you really focus on that deep, rhythmic breathing. And you hold a lot of emotions in the lungs, but also in the diaphragm itself, so by moving the diaphragm, you're actually opening up. And then you can do things like Jason was talking about earlier--Emotion Code, or something like that--to help really hone in on and release specific emotions that person might be challenged with.

Rob Lutz 32:36
Yeah. Yeah, I've noticed when I meditate, my heart rate variability goes way up during the session. You know, like, it might be in the low 40s just kind of normally, but I'll get it up into the hundreds from meditating.

Tracy Southwick 32:49
Wow.

Rob Lutz 32:49
And it's just from breathing. That's pretty amazing.

Tracy Southwick 32:52
Incredible.

Rob Lutz 32:53
Yeah. And Jason, are using any homeopathy in your practice?

Dr. Jason Albracht 32:57
I do. Yeah, I've been using Energetix for a long time. They're the best company that we have. I mean, they're solid, They're liquids. You can apply them topically. Get someone super-sensitive, you can microdose them. They're very gentle. You can give them to pets. You can give them to kids. You can give them to infants. You can give them to anybody that walks this planet, basically. So they are truly, truly incredible, very high-rated, energy high, just amazing products.

Rob Lutz 33:22
Thank you. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I've heard a lot of--I've used homeopathy in the past and for various things, and you know, there are really, what, no side effects. Essentially, you don't have to worry about toxicity and things like that. So, and probably with a patient that is having some other issues, may have reactions to botanicals that are much more powerful. They work, but they can also be, can have some side effects with that too.

Dr. Jason Albracht 33:44
For the medications, they may have a list of medications, and you really don't have to worry about any kind of interactions between the two.

Rob Lutz 33:51
Yeah. So, Jason, your area of expertise in this conversation certainly is around gut health. And you know, we've heard for a long time, you know, that your immune system, a lot of it's in your gut. And do you want to just talk a little bit about your approach when you have a patient that you, you know, really try to help them improve their immune resiliency. What do you focus on as far as gut health?

Dr. Jason Albracht 34:12
So yeah, gut, you know, it's in the center of our body, for reason. It's a very, very, very, very, very important part of our body. Just like everything works together, but our bodies--I'll give you some stats here, and these are numbers that I learned a long time ago, and I've seen many different numbers when it comes to the trillions of cells we have, but it's an average for the most part. It's such a grand number that it's hard to specifically know exactly what they are. But our bodies, when you break them down, they're composed of about 90 trillion cells. The gut alone houses roughly 120 trillion bacteria. So in our gut, all those bacteria, more bacteria than the number of cells that make up our body--it's a lot of microbes--that comes close to about 90% of our immune system. I've seen 80%. I've seen 85, but roughly about 90% of our immune system is housed in our gut. And then, just to put that in perspective a little bit more, if you were to count to 1 trillion seconds, it's going to take you almost 32,000 years to count to, so.

Rob Lutz 35:13
I'll start now.

Dr. Jason Albracht 35:14
We live 100 years. That's a big number. So when you have this balance in this ecosystem, it's an important part of our body. So the balance of these microbes are key to one's health. Everyone's body is about balance and flow. Everything in the body is about balance and flow. And I say that every day to every patient almost, that everything, and I haven't really found in 21 years of finding, working on people's bodies, that that doesn't come true. Everything is about flow, and everything is working on balance in that body. But when you're talking about the gut, if things don't flow well, like when someone struggles with constipation or has microbial imbalances, it causes major dysfunctions throughout their body. Symptoms range from all kinds of different things, but being bloated, you'll have intestinal gas, pain, burning, cramping, nausea, some undigested stools, even explosive diarrhea, and just so many other negative symptoms when that gut is out of balance, and so. On the other hand, when someone has diverse, healthy microbiome, everything is in balance. This creates a homeostasis. It creates a strong immune system. This leads to being very, very resilient. That's what our topic is about. So we want that balance. We want everything in a good homeostasis. Our gut is our second brain. Pretty much everybody on this call knows that for a fact. When one suffers memory issues, focus, concentration, recall, or just a number of other symptoms thought to be brain-related, many are very surprised, as far as patients go, when I educate them that the problem is in their gut and it's causing those symptoms. We've been taught and told so many things, that it's a brain condition, it's a diagnosis of this or that. But when that brain is disturbed, chaos create, happens and it creates of lot of problems for that person. So everything works together in the body. That's why one problem usually leads to another problem if unfixed and then leads to more problems. And then it becomes very confusing to not only the patient, but whoever they're seeing, too.

Rob Lutz 37:14
So is the solution for that kind of complication, is it going to be fairly simple? I mean, what do you focus on when, whether it's a patient that's clearly has some dysbiosis or or whatever in their gut, or someone who's relatively healthy? Do you what--how do you treat those patients? What do you look at? What do you do?

Dr. Jason Albracht 37:31
It's not simple. It takes consistency. Consistency really is key, making changes. Diet: number one. Right? So the standard American diet that people eat, it's pathetic. Right? We've all been exposed to it. There's a holiday around every corner, every month basically. There's parties and anniversaries and vacations and weekends and whatnot, so it's a big change in diet for that person. So when they come in, they're expecting that we are going to change their diet. But it is number one, for sure. And then with that, cleaning is number two, like cleaning up the diet, cleaning out the terrain, restoring function with many things, but probiotics are one; raw fruits and veggies for sure are another one. So in our practice, we focus on about 70% fruits and veggies. And so everyone's different. Everyone has a different body and a different set of symptoms, but if they can handle fruits and veggies, that's what we're doing. We're cleaning things with them, and we're renewing, restoring function in that particular area.

Rob Lutz 38:31
Yeah. But you know, it's easy to get a patient to take some supplements, in theory, for them to be compliant with that, but as far as being compliant with dietary changes, how do you coach a patient around that? Because even for myself, I find that very difficult to--I know what I should be eating, but I don't always do it. What, any secrets, any hacks out there for getting your patients to follow that?

Dr. Jason Albracht 38:53
So it all depends on the patient, obviously. Right? There's some Type As, and they'll do everything you tell them from day one. And then you have the majority of the population who, you know, set in their ways. They created these habits, and they're lifelong habits, and their family, generationally, they've eaten the same kind of way. So you have to educate them. If you don't educate them, they're really not going to make a big change. But start slow. I usually take the first couple of things that are worse on their food journal. We create--we have the patients do a food journal every visit for the first two or three visits, basically, and we start modifying their food. And we take one or two things, and we start cleaning those things up. We give them a list of good foods and bad foods--or not so good foods, I guess. We clean up the pesticide residues, all the different genetically modified junk that you know they're eating--packages, all that kind of stuff--incorporating juice. Fresh juice really, really goes a long way. It starts to hydrate, starts to clean, and starts to make big impacts in that, not only the gut, but the whole body for the most part.

Rob Lutz 39:50
Mm hm. So yeah. That's great. Emily or Tracy, any thoughts how you approach gut health, immune health, from a more nutritional standpoint?

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 40:01
Yeah, I think, for me, I completely agree with Jason. I think cleaning up the diet is, again, just part of that foundation for health, where, if they're eating--junk in, junk out.

Rob Lutz 40:14
Right.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 40:14
Pure--if what you're putting into your body isn't going to be good for you, if it's not healthy, and I'm not--to be honest, I'm not, like, a you're either 100% or you're out type of person. You know, I definitely believe in some balance, but at the same time, I also know that when I maybe do have what some people consider more of a cheat meal, I expect to not feel great the next day.

Rob Lutz 40:38
Totally.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 40:38
I'm just knowing that when I go into it, and I think you don't realize that as a patient until you've lived your lifestyle. Because really, as Jason mentioned, we need to be educating patients on this, that it's not just, "Oh, we're doing this now." We're doing this forever. This is your new life, you know.

Rob Lutz 40:59
It's a process.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 40:59
We need that buy in from people when they're coming into the practitioner's office. They need that buy in. Otherwise, it's never going to work.

Rob Lutz 41:07
Yeah.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 41:08
Or they're just going to go back to where they started, when they kind of, "aka fall off the wagon," so to speak. And so, when we're looking at gut, when we're looking at diet and lifestyle, that's integral. You cannot heal the gut, you cannot heal the immune system, you cannot create this resilience or optimization without it.

Rob Lutz 41:26
Mm hm. That makes sense. Tracy?

Tracy Southwick 41:29
Absolutely. 100% agree. And we used to say, "You can't supplement away a bad diet." That's actually--I mean, part of what we do is not the traditional Western model, which is, "Let's just wait till there's a fire and put that fire out with something, or put a lid over it and pretend it's not there." So I totally agree, diet is essential. One of the things that I try to teach my people is the state of mind you're in when you eat and how important that is. So if you're eating while you're in sympathetic mode, which most people are. Right? You've got meeting after meeting after meeting, and you've got three minutes to eat your lunch, and you're scrolling on your phone looking at all the horrible things that are happening in the world while you're eating. And so what does your body do? Your body shuts down. It can't digest. Right? All your energy is going elsewhere. So what does that food do? It sits in your gut and ferments and produces all kinds of toxins and poisons, and the person's wondering why they feel bloated and why they're constipated and all these things that happen after those meals. "I'm so tired in the afternoon after lunch. I don't understand why." So I try to teach people that, if you can't get out of stress mode, don't eat. Don't eat until you can. And so that's where things like gratitude come in. If you're someone who says prayers before you eat, sit down and really be mindful and say a prayer or go into gratitude. Don't watch the news. So write down three things that you're grateful for. You can't be in a state of really pure gratitude and be in fight-or-flight at the same time. They're just incompatible with each other. So really finding what works for you, to get you in what--it could be breath work--to get you into a parasympathetic rest and digest mode before you eat, and you'll get so much more nutrition out of your food.

Rob Lutz 43:22
Makes sense. So we only have just a few minutes left, and I thought--what I'd like to have each of you do is can you just take all the things that we've spoken about today and think about what would be a great takeaway for a practitioner when they're thinking about their patients to encourage immune resilience? And I think one thing I will say is I think everything we're talking about here is just good for foundational health, regardless of whether we're talking about immune health. It all kind of fits together. But really focused on immune resilience, how would you piece all these pieces together? Emily, would you start with that for us?

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 43:55
Yeah so, I think kind of putting it together a little bit is, congestion can alter cell signaling, nutrient exchange, even oxygenation of the tissues, creating an environment where chronic inflammation and microbial persistence can kind of thrive. And so we really do need to be focusing on multiple aspects of the patient's well-being in order to create these optimal protocols for patients, in order for them to not only, like, heal and live, but also thrive.

Rob Lutz 44:30
Mm hm. That's great. Jason, how would you put it all together?

Dr. Jason Albracht 44:35
I would say consistency is key. Yeah, there's a lot we talked about, and there's a lot of things thrown at everybody every single day, advertisements of try this and do this. And just stick with--have a goal, and then move forward. Raise the bar. At some point, change things up for the body. Don't get stuck in a rut and do the same thing over and expect something different, but stay consistent with it. Don't fall off the wagon too far. You know, holiday seasons are coming up. I tell patients, prep for it. Do good before the holidays come. Have your fun. Get up. Get back on track. Clean things in it. Find that routine, that normal routine, like you were talking about in the morning. Wake up, do the same thing, and then switch it here and there. But do some deep breath-work. Do some stretching. Do some rebounding. Move your limbs, sweat brush, dry brush, fast. Get to bed between 9 to 10, whenever that is. Ground, increase fruits and veggies, track your foods, and just continue to move forward. And don't get overwhelmed, for the most part. Just add a little bit by little bit by little bit. And then if you find yourself overwhelmed, back off. Find where you're in your happy area, and then continue to move forward.

Rob Lutz 45:42
Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And one other thing I would mention as well, I think, is we're all going to fall off occasionally. Right? It's okay. It happens. You can easily just get right back on it. It's always going to be there, and you know, you'll be surprised how easy it is to get right back on track. You've just got to, that next day, just start back over again. Yeah, it's--all that work is going to be good for you.

Dr. Jason Albracht 46:05
Yeah, I go to the gym at lunch in between patients. And Mondays are the hardest days, because I have Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. I'm pretty busy doing a lot of stuff. And then just, if I can get that Monday, even if it's not that great of a workout, Tuesday's a lot easier. Wednesday's awesome. Thursday's great. So just kind of take that.

Rob Lutz 46:22
Yeah. Yeah. And I think one other thing that I think about is patients will feel the difference if they stick with this stuff. Right? They don't know that maybe when they're starting, but I think that would help long-term with compliance, if they see--they do some of these things that, the impact that it would have on their wellness. Tracy, any final thoughts on kind of pulling it all together?

Tracy Southwick 46:44
That was great. I loved what Emily and Jason both said, and I'm actually just going to reiterate a little bit of what Jason said and touched on earlier, as well: the whole concept of being proactive. So being consistent is so important, and you have to be proactive, and that's the change in the model. Right? The model is not--our model is, "Don't wait till there's a fire." Our model is, "Let's nurture this resilience and really gather those tools that work for you." So for emotional resilience, what might work for me, like gratitude journaling works really well for me. It shifts everything. But my husband is exercise. That's how he deals with his stress, and that's his meditation time, and that's his, when he goes for a run. So figuring out with your clients what works, what they're willing to do and be consistent with, to keep that drainage funnel open, the drainage pathways open, so that when they hit those hard spots in the road there, they are resilient.

Rob Lutz 47:47
Right. Thank you.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 47:48
Yeah, I want to add just one thing too, if I can.

Rob Lutz 47:50
Sure.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 47:51
I also want to say that, like, when patients do, kind of, fall off, so to speak, I think--and I think we're all guilty of this. I'm definitely not singling out anybody either. But when we fall off, we tend to, kind of, stress out about it. You know, we might feel bad about it. It's like, "Ugh, I did it again," like, "Here I am. Just screw it," you know, kind of an attitude. And I just want to encourage people to not, kind of, play into that mental game that we can get into, that it's okay to have a bad day or a cheat meal or enjoy your holidays. It's why they're there, you know. It's to share that time with friends and family, and to eat the foods that we probably don't normally eat. But as Jason mentioned, that like getting up the next day. Go for a walk, like we--Thanksgiving, we eat and then we go for a walk. It helps us digest. You know, we can help, like, activate some of those glucose receptors that are in our cells, and it just makes you kind of feel better, too. And so don't feel bad about it. There's small tweaks that you can make to your holidays without making it, like, a big deal. And then the next day, go back into your routine. Get up, drink a glass of mineral water, go to the gym, and eat like you normally would. But don't feel bad about those days where you may not be at 100%, because we all do it.

Rob Lutz 49:13
Yeah, that makes sense. Well, thank you all for your time today. This was really great. I'll include your contact information in the show notes. So if any listeners want to reach out directly to you guys for protocols or anything, any other kind of guidance, it'll be there as well. And I want to thank Doctors Supplement Store and Energetix for sponsoring the podcast. And thanks again, so much.

Dr. Emily Hartsfield 49:35
Thank you.

Tracy Southwick 49:35
Thanks, Rob.

Rob Lutz 49:36
Bye-bye.

Rob Lutz 49:38
Thanks for listening to the OneMedicine Podcast. I hope you found today's episode interesting and came away with a few insights you can apply to your practice. If you're looking for the show notes, they can be found in the link below. If you want to go deeper on this topic, or anything else, please visit todayspractitioner.com and consider registering for our weekly newsletter as well. Thanks again, and I hope you'll join us next time.