Gut Check: What your doctor isn’t telling you about antidepressants with Dr. Shawn Talbott
Apr 18, 2024Episode 19
Dana Lewis
EP19. Learning about the impact the gut microbiome has on our overall happiness and stress resilience was a pivotal point in my journey from an overwhelmed and anxious widow to a thriving single mom. What Dr. Shawn Talbott shares in this episode will help you outline your own path to developing true stress resilience.
Our conversation is full of insight on how to naturally fortify the internal defenses that shape our responses to stress, leaving you with renewed peace and energy to face all of life’s challenges.
If you are thinking about anti-depressants, or have been on them for years, you'll want to hear what your doctor isn't sharing with you about SSRI's. I know the concerns all too well. One of my boys' health issues as a toddler led me to learn more about the intricate connections between leaky gut syndrome, mental health and impacts on behavior. Dr. Talbot and I unpack the gut’s far-reaching impact on our mind and body, and offer some dietary changes that can make a huge difference.
You don’t have to be a doctor to understand the science. Dr. Shawn breaks down the gut-brain axis in a simple way we can all understand!
Dr. Shawn's expertise gives him a front row seat to the future of mental wellness. Hear what he says about the growing role of probiotics, and the latest to hit the market: psychobiotics. Ooooh plus, I’ll give you the scoop on my everyday favorite mood-boosting mocktail!
From the depths of anxiety and overwhelm to living a thriving and fulfilled life, I hope the transformative strategies shared in this episode will elevate your mental state and help you show up for yourself better, because you’re worth it!
Dr. Shawn Talbott is a nutritional biochemist, leading expert in microbiome health, and the author of many books on hormone health, cortisol and the microbiome.
EP19. Learning about the impact the gut microbiome has on our overall happiness and stress resilience was a pivotal point in my journey from an overwhelmed and anxious widow to a thriving single mom. What Dr. Shawn Talbott shares in this episode will help you outline your own path to developing true stress resilience.
Our conversation is full of insight on how to naturally fortify the internal defenses that shape our responses to stress, leaving you with renewed peace and energy to face all of life’s challenges.
If you are thinking about anti-depressants, or have been on them for years, you'll want to hear what your doctor isn't sharing with you about SSRI's. I know the concerns all too well. One of my boys' health issues as a toddler led me to learn more about the intricate connections between leaky gut syndrome, mental health and impacts on behavior. Dr. Talbot and I unpack the gut’s far-reaching impact on our mind and body, and offer some dietary changes that can make a huge difference.
You don’t have to be a doctor to understand the science. Dr. Shawn breaks down the gut-brain axis in a simple way we can all understand!
Dr. Shawn's expertise gives him a front row seat to the future of mental wellness. Hear what he says about the growing role of probiotics, and the latest to hit the market: psychobiotics. Ooooh plus, I’ll give you the scoop on my everyday favorite mood-boosting mocktail!
From the depths of anxiety and overwhelm to living a thriving and fulfilled life, I hope the transformative strategies shared in this episode will elevate your mental state and help you show up for yourself better, because you’re worth it!
Dr. Shawn Talbott is a nutritional biochemist, leading expert in microbiome health, and the author of many books on hormone health, cortisol and the microbiome.
_____ Production House:Flint Stone Media Copyright of Dana Lewis 2024.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Stop Faking Fine podcast, a show that will empower you to finally show up for yourself. While your circumstances may not be 100% your fault, your life is 100% your responsibility. It's time to stop faking fine. Welcome back to the Stop Faking Fine podcast. I'm your host, dana Lewis, and I am super grateful that you are here. I cannot wait to share this next episode with you.
Speaker 1:
Stress is not necessarily you versus other things or other people, but it's rather you versus you, which is a quote from my favorite scientist, good friend and author, dr Sean Talbot. In today's episode, we are going to unpack. What does it mean to be happy? Are you at a one, two or three with depression, anxiety, autoimmune disorders? Four, five, six? Just kind of feel meh, brain fog, fatigue, bloated or truly optimized at eight, nine, 10, 12, energetic, sharp, resilient and lean?
Speaker 1:
The thing about this scale is that oftentimes, when we're at less than a 10, we don't understand how to get from five to eight, to nine. You guys, 90% of doctor visits are related to stress. This statistic blew my mind and I cannot wait to unpack all of the little habits that we can add on a daily basis that will change the trajectory of how you feel. One in five Americans take a mood-altering drug to help get from five to six to eight to 10. My question for you would be is it working? Are you at a 10? And if you are at a 10, do you want to be at a 15 so that you can show up and really juggle more things? Because, at the end of the day, our bodies only have what we give it, and we're going to unpack what you can do to get yourself from that 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 to the 10, 12, 15.
Speaker 1:
Dr Chantal, but as a nutritional biochemist, a leading expert in microbiome health and the author of many books on hormone health, cortisol, insulin and the microbiome, you are going to love this episode. I cannot wait to share it with you. Oh my goodness, dr Sean, you are absolutely one of my favorite people. I cannot wait, cannot wait to chat with you. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, my pleasure Always great to talk to you, Dana.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh. You say, okay, I am obsessed with the mental fitness book and unpacking all of the things.
Speaker 2:
Because when we talk about stress and overwhelm, it's just a place that we all live in on a daily basis and you quote stress is not necessarily you versus other things or other people, but it's you versus you, yeah, yeah, exactly, you know I, I've been studying stress for gosh 30, 30 or so years now and it still strikes me that so many people just think that stress is inevitable, that you know, hey, I live a stressful life, I don't get enough sleep, I've got a lot on my plate that that's very common for a lot of people, and they just go. Well, I guess, I guess I'm just going to have to deal with stress. I'm going to have to deal with the, with the, with the downside of stress, right, which is you're fatigued and you're in a bad mood and you're gaining weight, and you know, and, and then you know, and, well, it's, this is how it is. Like I'm stressed out, everybody I know is stressed out and there's nothing I can do about it. So, so there, you know.
Speaker 2:
But we've learned a lot over the last three decades where I say to people a lot like we can't necessarily control the stress that's out there, meaning out there in the world, there's always going to be that kind of stress, but you can definitely control the stress in here, like your stress response. What is your body going to do with that stress? Are you going to be able to navigate the stress. Are you going to be resilient? Can we improve your mood and your energy levels and keep you thin and vibrant and young and all the things?
Speaker 1:
that you want All the things Right, all the things. I remember when my husband died 10 years ago. If someone would have said to me do you have stress resilience? I would have laughed in your face Like what are you even? What does stress resilience even mean? I feel like that's a term that we don't understand until we have it. And once you have it, you're like oh, this is what you're talking about being in a chaotic situation, potentially being on mental overload, but being able to show up for yourself. And you introduced this stress continuum right when we talk about being at one, two, three, where you're struggling Anxiety, depression, autoimmune disorders and ADHD or normal, which is, I think, where the majority of us resonate, with brain fog, a little bit fatigued, a little bit bloated. You call it in your book kind of chubby.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and people just feel kind of blah. When they're there, right, when you're in that middle zone, people feel blah. We actually have a term for it in positive psychology research. It's called. It's called languishing, right, you're not quite depressed, you're not quite having burnout, you're just kind of blah. You're not what. The opposite of languishing is something called flourishing, which is you have good energy and you have good mood and you have good resilience, which is your ability to sort of navigate that stressful situation. It's not that you're bulletproof against stress, but you are more effective in the face of stress. So so another way to think of it is that you might have a stressful event happen and if your resilience is low, you'll you will literally say I can't deal with this right now and you will back away from the stress. You'll say, like I'm out, like you know, oh my gosh I have a funny, I have a funny story on that.
Speaker 1:
Like there are those closest like to me, like when I was living in fight or flight, like years after my husband died, and when you say you're just like peace out, I would get to a state of overwhelm and take a nap. Yeah, yeah, exactly Like I was a hundred percent able to just shut it off, because I didn't, I couldn't think myself into a better solution.
Speaker 2:
Yes, exactly, but when your resilience is high, it's actually when we, when we measure it either in the clinic or the laboratory, we measure something called cognitive flexibility, and so that is the, that is our way of measuring high resilience. It means that in a stressful situation, the same stressful situation that would cause you to say peace out before Now, instead of stepping away from it, you can step into it and you have better strategy formation. You have better cognitive control so you can come up with better solutions to whatever the stressful situation is. You're more effective in navigating that stressful situation, and that's what people want.
Speaker 2:
Most of the people that I work with, they don't want me to lower their stress. That's a nice thing to have. They are usually busy people. They're usually high achievers. They want to be more effective in a stressful situation because they're usually doing things that they like to do, right. They're, you know they're building businesses or they're, or they're building their family or they have. You know they want to do their work and their hobby, and you know they don't want to take something off their plate. They want to figure out a way to put something else on their plate so they can get more enjoyment out of life, without you know, that thing being the last. You know, the last straw that broke the camel's back, you know.
Speaker 1:
Right, right, right. And we talk about today, like we, you want to be in that place. That's 8, 9, 10, 12, 15 on the scale of energized, sharp, resilient, you're lean and you feel amazing. But the reality of it you have shared before and definitely in the book is that 90% of the doctor visits are related to stress. Right, stress creates a cascade of other effects on the body that make us go chasing symptoms.
Speaker 2:
That's right, exactly, yeah. And those symptoms. The symptoms might be that you're depressed and then you go to the doctor and you're going to get an antidepressant. The symptom might be that you can't focus and you're bouncing around one thing to the next, and the solution at the doctor's office might be that you get an ADHD drug. Or the symptom is that you're anxious and you're tense and you're irritable and you can't sleep, and then the solution you know, so-called solution is that you're going to get one of the sleep drugs you know and that you know. This goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2:
But sometimes that stress has sort of an indirect effect where it might be damaging your gut. And so if that stress is damaging your gut, then the the thing that you're might have a symptom of is is is an autoimmune system disease which is directly related to leaky gut, which is directly related to your stress. And so all those autoimmune system drugs are among the highest selling drugs of all time. And it's like I'm not an anti-pharmaceutical kind of a person, but if you're taking something that is not the right solution for that problem, if you're taking an autoimmune system drug to lower your immune system, for example, suppress your immune system. That's not solving your stress problem, it's not solving your leaky gut problem, it's not solving your inflammation problem.
Speaker 2:
And so, as a nutritional biochemist, I like to say to people let's try to figure out what is the root of the problem, and a lot, a lot of that comes back to the gut these days. Right, the science is telling us all about leaky gut and all about the microbiome, which are the bacteria in your gut that are making your neurotransmitters. So a lot of our natural therapies these days look at the gut first. We call it the second brain, but we can address it first and if we balance it, people feel better in all of these ways that we just talked about.
Speaker 1:
Well, can you share more about leaky gut and how, like you kind of so quickly shared like, oh, it's leaky gut. And here are, here are the reasons. Here are the reasons. Like, let's unpack. Why? Like? Why it's leaky gut? What is that? I can remember from my, from my own personal story. When one of my little guys was young, I was told he has leaky gut, he had a hard time breastfeeding, he had a hard time with milk, he had a hard time with a lot of things, but I was never given a solution. Here's the problem. Go find a solution. I now recognize that he was on a lot of amoxicillin antibiotics.
Speaker 1:
I was struggling for the word. A lot of antibiotics, a lot of other things that I think contributed to that, but can you share why? What's the science behind that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and the science is really new on leaky gut. It used to be. I remember a time back in graduate school days where we would kind of poo-poo the idea of leaky gut because you couldn't really measure it and you couldn't really there wasn't a drug that could treat it right. So one of these things where medical people didn't care about it because there was no, there was no treatment, there was no pill you could take, and scientific people didn't care about it because it was very difficult to measure. But you fast forward, you know 30 or so years and now we can. We can measure it, we can see the symptoms. We have treatments for it, natural treatments, and you can see a resolution of those symptoms. You know people, people get better in. You know all these different ways.
Speaker 2:
So if you think of your gut lining as a piece of saran wrap, right, it really is one cell layer thick, it's thin, thin, thin, and that's by design so that we can absorb our food and our nutrients and they can go into our bloodstream. And we can, you know we can get, we can get nourishment out of our food right across this, this gut lining. But think about that line of saran wrap If it has one little nick in it, then something that's supposed to stay in the gut will leak across, literally leak across into the circulation. And if that's a food particle or it's a bacteria that shouldn't be there, or it's anything that shouldn't be in the bloodstream, the immune system reacts to that. The immune system attacks it as if it's an invading pathogen. You know that we're getting a, you know this big infection, and so the way that the immune system attacks that thing is by increasing inflammation. So you know it makes sense like step by step by step, when we think of it that way.
Speaker 2:
Oh, you have this little, you know this little pinhole in your gut lining and that could be caused by processed food, could be caused by antibiotics, it could be caused by food additives.
Speaker 2:
There's a whole number of things, including stress, including menopause, including pregnancy, including hormone fluctuations, all sorts of things can cause those little pinholes, the leaks in your gut. But then your immune system kicks off and your inflammatory cascade kicks off, and then if your immune system is starting to attack your brain, that's going to be a problem. If it's starting to attack your mucus linings or your joint linings, or et cetera, et cetera, that's where the symptoms of an autoimmune system problem come. But we can trace them all the way back biochemically saying well, you're over inflamed, well, your immune system is in disarray, well, you have a leaky gut. So let's go down to the lowest level possible, which is let's solve the leaky gut problem, let's close up those holes. And there's all kinds of ways we can do that naturally with berries, with citrus fruit, with the right dietary supplements in terms of probiotics and fibers and things like that.
Speaker 1:
So if leaky gut is this underlying root cause but it's not something that we're chasing right, because it's not something that you, when you go to the doctor because you're stressed, like back to the point that 90% of the doctor visits are related to stress you go because you're stressed and you get prescribed a medication, whether it's for ADHD or it's for depression or it's for anxiety, and then you go along your way. So how do you know that leaky gut is part of it? Who helps with that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so leaky gut is one of these sort of like silent conditions. Right, it's not a disease per se, but it's one of these conditions where your gut lining is out of balance and that's leading to all of these different problems. But if you go and you get an ADHD drug or an anxiety drug or an antidepressant drug or whatever, that might change how you feel. It might change your symptoms. So if you're sad, an antidepressant will make you less sad. It's not going to make you happy and it's surely not going to do anything at the level of the gut. Same thing for an anti-anxiety.
Speaker 2:
I feel like say that again for the people in the back it's not going to make you happy, it's going to make you less sad. Yeah, and that's an important distinction. Is that the reason antidepressants are on the market right and they should be on the market right? They serve a very important role, which is, if someone is suicidal, right, they are so sad they want to end it all.
Speaker 2:
An antidepressant drug can make them feel less sad. So they don't feel good, they don't feel happy, they don't feel, you know, they don't certainly don't feel the way they want to feel. They just feel less bad. And if they feel less bad, that hopefully, is going to put them in a place where you know, where they're not going to take their own life and that they can have some a little bit of of like a breather to say, okay, now I need to figure out what's going on here, right, the antidepressant is not the solution. It is a last, like break glass emergency button kind of a thing that you would only take for a short period of time in order to, you know, try to figure out what the real problem is. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, when we start talking about the short term though I think therein lies part of the issue because it's not taken as a short term solution. Right, it's prescribed as a short term solution, but you see, a lot of we're not educated around this. We're just not educated.
Speaker 2:
People are on those drugs now for decades right around this. We're just not educated. People are on those drugs now for decades, right, and what happens is they feel sort of you know blah for decades and someone says you know, this is no way to go through my life, I need to get off this thing. And they try to get off and they find that they can't because now they're stuck.
Speaker 1:
Why is that?
Speaker 2:
Because your body, those drugs, after changing your neurochemistry for so long now, your brain and your body is unable to make those neurotransmitters the way that they're supposed to. So you know, maybe it's you know some of your listeners might know or might not know most of the neurotransmitters are made in your gut. That's why we talk so much about the gut as an important aspect of your overall mental wellness, because 90% of your serotonin for happiness is made in your gut, 70% of your dopamine, 50% of your GABA that helps us relax, but also most of our melatonin that helps us sleep, most of our oxytocin that helps us connect with other people. All that stuff is made in the gut.
Speaker 1:
So when you're taking an antidepressant, so like, help me understand this. So when you're taking the antidepressant, it is helping you feel less bad right, but how is that functioning? How is that working in the gut to disrupt the gut's natural production of serotonin?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so. So this, this, this might get a little complicated if I can't kind of show it in a in a graphic, but your nerves, one side of your nervous system, will make serotonin. The other side will receive and respond to that serotonin. Where those antidepressant drugs work is in between. They work in that handoff, so they don't necessarily have you make more serotonin. They slow your uptake or they slow the reuptake of that serotonin. So you're still going to make serotonin and your body's still going to respond to it.
Speaker 2:
But what these drugs do is they slow the metabolism of that serotonin or dopamine or whatever we're talking about. They're called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. So what they're doing is they're interfering with your neurotransmitter metabolism so that that neurotransmitter stays around longer, and so you do that for two weeks. Fine, your body can recover from that. You do that for two years or two decades and you're really interfering with the whole metabolic cascade and your body basically loses the ability to do it itself. Your body forgets how to do it, how to produce it, how to take it up, how to not take it up, and so it's like you're throwing a chemical monkey wrench in there and it's not a good long-term thing.
Speaker 1:
Right. So in doing that, how can we overcome that? So if I've been on an SSRI for 10 years and the research has shown I think I can't remember where you share this, if it's in your book or somewhere else the research has shown the effects of that SSRI. For what? Two to four weeks.
Speaker 2:
Two to six weeks supposed to be prescribed for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks just short-term, just enough time to find out what the real root cause of the person's problem is, right? So they really are, these short-term Band-Aids. That's what they were developed for, but, like you said, they're certainly not being used that way.
Speaker 1:
No, they're not being used that way. So how can we overcome this? How can we help? So I've been on an SSRI, as an example, for eight, nine, 10 years. Can we unpack the side effects that you might be experiencing because of being on that SSRI for so long?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so the biggest side effects is that you just stop getting enjoyment out of anything right. So they help you, like we talked about before, getting enjoyment out of anything right, so they help you, like we talked about before. They help you feel less bad, but in doing so they help you feel less of anything, and so your happiness isn't going to be as good. The things you used to get enjoyment out of, like your hobbies and your family and things like that, are also just kind of flattened. It's like throwing a wet blanket over everything. It throws a wet blanket over your sadness, but it also throws a deadening over all the things that bring enjoyment out of life.
Speaker 1:
So how does that disrupt your gut function? Because I know that you've shared before that the SSRIs because it's messing with your serotonin production and it's creating other gut issues that you might be experiencing?
Speaker 2:
Yes, exactly, and it's not just SSRIs that do this. There've been some really good studies over the last few years to show that most medications whether they're heartburn medications or blood pressure medications or psychiatry medications like antidepressants or anti-anxieties and and and you know those sorts of things they have an effect at the level of the microbiome. Really, anything that you eat is going to eventually get to your microbiome and have a positive effect or a detrimental effect, and these drugs are are synthetic chemicals. So the the microbiome does not do very well with synthetic chemicals. We know it for drugs, but we also know it for food additives and artificial sweeteners and all that kind of stuff. So this is new thinking. Most people out there who are listening to this don't know that your gut is the source, the primary source, of all these neurotransmitters, and if we're throwing processed junk into the gut, we're interfering with that neurotransmitter process.
Speaker 1:
So what can we do for ourselves? Like we're all eating more processed food than we need to, potentially taking an SSRI or antidepressant or any pharma something that's disrupting the way that our gut microbiome works and leaving us chasing other symptoms. Right Now we're not sleeping really that well, so I'm I'm looking to the next thing how do we break the cycle in the easiest way possible to rebuild that gut function?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so it. So all this complicated science really comes down to a very simple solution, which is, on the one hand, you need to take away the things that are causing the damage, right, so you know, that's where we educate people about, you know, going to a Mediterranean diet or, in the book, the mental fitness diet, so they can eat nutrients like good, nutrients that can actually do good things for the gut, versus bad nutrients, like processed food, that are doing bad things to the gut. But then we can also go in and say you know what? There are specific aspects of nutrition, like probiotic bacteria, like prebiotic fibers, like you know, if you're not going to eat the berries, I can at least give you the flavonoids in a dietary supplement from the berries that are going to help your gut. So there's like a you know, an aspect of take away the bad stuff but then put in more of the good stuff.
Speaker 2:
And I, you know, I always say to my students what do you think is the is the most effective thing to do. You know, are you going to? You know, when you graduate here with your nutrition degree, are you going to go out there in the world and you're going to tell everyone that you're counseling to never eat bad food again, or you can tell them to eat good food, and that you know. The moral of the story is that it's easier for a lot of people to add a good thing than it is for them to take away a bad thing.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh, I'm obsessed with that part of habits, like I am. I've been binging a lot of other books on habits and how to create more habits and the moral of any story to pivot toward you investing in yourself, to say, all right, today I'm going to make one step to be better. It is 1 million percent easier to add a habit than it is to take it away, and I think you and I can crawl down a rabbit hole of, like, taking things away raises cortisol and it increases stress and it.
Speaker 1:
You know it makes it all totally worse. But rather than doing that for right this moment, like adding that habit. And if you're listening and you want an easy next step toward changing your eating habits and Dr Sean has said this in his book and I cannot agree more it's not a diet, because a diet implies that that's something you're going to do for a short period of time in hopes of having a different outcome. But if you're looking for a different eating pattern, you can go to danalewiscom, forward, slash cheat sheet and steal my free guide that walks you through this mental fitness diet with examples, with links, with all the things. Go, grab that, it's free. But if we come back to this conversation about making a change, adding healthy habits and we all are aware of probiotics and sometimes we're like oh, there's prebiotics and there's phytobiotics and all these things and it sounds just like nerdy science.
Speaker 1:
Unpack that. Unpack the why for those.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So in a perfect world, you would have somebody who is never touching processed food right? No sodas, no donuts, no cupcakes, none of the fun stuff right Ever and they would always be eating lots and lots of fruits and vegetables. Here we're talking like 15 to 20 servings of fruits and vegetables. Lean proteins, healthy fats, all that kind of stuff right, that world doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:
I don't know that person Exactly.
Speaker 2:
That's another planet, somewhere that is not from the earth, right?
Speaker 1:
So back to reality. What can we do for today?
Speaker 2:
So, back to reality. It's not to say that we can give someone a supplement and it's going to prevent the need for them to eat a good diet, right? It's not like that. It's not saying, hey, eat all these processed foods and just take this pill and you know you'll be back on an even keel. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2:
But what we can do is we can say let's give somebody a supplement of flavonoids or polyphenols, right, that they would normally get in a, in in a, in a in an orange or in a in a handful of berries or something like that.
Speaker 2:
Let's give them some, some specific fibers that can nourish their microbiome, that they would normally get in a bowl of beans or a bowl of oatmeal or something like that, right? So it's not that the supplements replacing that good food, but what we see is that biochemically you get the benefit, so your inflammation goes down or your microbiome goes up, or whatever the case may be, and you feel better as a result of that supplement and because you feel better. What we see in our trials is that now someone's appetite is better, so, and their cravings are lower and they're not getting stress eating signals, and now they're choosing a better diet or their energy is higher and their motivation is higher and they're more inclined to go and be physically active, right? So like the supplement is sort of. It's almost like a Trojan horse in a way, where we give that to somebody and it changes their behavior because they feel so much better because of what's happening across their gut brain axis.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I love that you mentioned the stress signals, because that's real, like the stress signals, when your stress is high, that cortisol hormone is high, you crave fatty foods, you crave carbohydrates and you're not crazy, it's an actual craving. And then, a lot of times, what happens is then we shame ourselves because we're like, oh, why do I have to have this pizza? Now, I've had the pizza. I'm a terrible person, I'm this, and you go on this spiral downward.
Speaker 2:
It's this vicious cycle, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Right. So adding the probiotics, adding the supplement, helps to break that cycle by giving your gut the nutrients that it needs. And a lot of times like, let's unpack probiotics, because we're all like, oh yeah, I'm on a probiotic and I love that you say in your book. You're like, well, you wouldn't go to the store and just ask for a vitamin and buy a bottle of something just randomly labeled vitamins without knowing what was in it. So when we talk about, when you're talking about probiotics and how probiotics can make the change and you're alluding to the prebiotics with the beans and the bananas and the asparagus and the flavonoids and all that stuff let's unpack how that works and how you can actually make a change.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so so you know when we talk about probiotics. So where should I start with this? Like, like the, the supplement world is a big world, right. You can go. You go into a GNC or you go into your local health food store, even go to the grocery store these days, and there's a huge supplement section. It can be really daunting for people, right? Especially if you're looking for sort of generic things, right, Like probiotics is a good example. You go to the probiotics section and there's going to be 100 different choices, and there's a terminology that we use when we're trying to educate people about probiotics. It's called probiotic strain specificity, and it's this idea that specific strains of bacteria do very specific things.
Speaker 2:
So let's go back to your vitamin comment you just made. Vitamin A does something completely different than vitamin E, and that does something completely different than vitamin D, right? They're all important, but for completely different reasons. So probiotics are the same way.
Speaker 2:
We might have one strain that lowers your stress and another strain that solves your constipation, right? Those are completely, completely different effects that are strain dependent, and so the kinds of strains that I write about in the book sometimes these days are called psychobiotics, because one strain might lower stress. One strain might lower depression, One strain might lower anxiety. Those are all ones that are going to help you feel better. But there are different ways of feeling better, and what you have to do is like that's not something that every probiotic is going to do, only the specific strains, and so not to make it any more complicated. But the companies that sell the psychobiotic strains go out of their way to tell you this one does this, this one does this, here's the clinical research, all that kind of stuff. So you don't have to necessarily be like a scientific detective to find these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:
No, and we'll. I mean we'll segue right into sharing happy juice, which is my favorite way to take these psychobiotics, and I will rewind. You know, five, six, seven years ago I was at the grocery store looking at the wealth of probiotics. I knew that probiotics were good for you, so I was like well, which one? And I literally thought in my mind that what would be a good idea would be just to rotate, like I'm going to get this one for this month and then I'm going to get that one for next month. I have no idea what it's doing for me, but I feel like this is something I should be doing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I assume it makes sense, right, like yeah, it's sort of a diversity, these things is probably better than any one alone, right?
Speaker 1:
But it's also like I can't go back and share the result that I was getting from any one of those probiotics. I think all of the strains that I was taking, or that most of us know about, is we're like, okay probiotics. Yeah, okay, I use the bathroom. It's pretty normal, like I'm good, I'm good, I'm good on probiotics and I had no idea that psychobiotics were a thing and that you could help yourself so easily. So let's unpack the strains of my favorite beverage. If you've been on this podcast, you know I talk about it all the time. Happy juice is my jam. It's the thing that it's my go-to and it's I truly attest it to helping me get from that scale of one to 10, the five, six, seven meth. I'm a little bit overwhelmed, I'm a little bit anxious. I'm going to take a nap because I need to peace out on life. To nine, 10, 12, flourishing with energy. You feel amazing. So let's share this easy like. Can you share the details of this?
Speaker 2:
easy solution. Yeah, so happy juice starts with psychobiotics, right? So that's sort of the core, the secret sauce, if you will. Happy Juice has a blend of three specific psychobiotic strains that do stress and mood and resilience and all that kind of stuff. But it's not as much as you and I were just sort of geeking out about the microbiome and the gut and things like that. When we talk about overall mental wellness or mental fitness, it's not just the gut, it's not just the microbiome, it really is. When we talk about the gut brain axis, it really is a system. And so what we wanted to do with happy juice is say let's absolutely do something at the level of microbiome, because that's the cutting edge of science right now. So we have to address that. But let's also make sure we solve the gut integrity issue, right Leaky gut that we talked about a few minutes ago.
Speaker 1:
Because that has so many just underlying issues that you're helping by healing by, by helping to support leaky gut. And if you guys want to like, jump the podcast and get online and look at it, it's dana lewiscom forward slash happy juice you can nerd out while you're listening to this podcast, but yes, let's continue, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:
So you have to do something for the microbiome, you have to do something for your leaky gut, you have to do something for the immune system and your inflammation and your blood flow and your neurotransmitters in your brain, right? And so we like we don't want to say the brain isn't important anymore, even though most of the neurotransmitters are made in the second brain. So let's make sure the brain is activating the right neural pathways and getting the right level of blood flow and oxygen and all that kind of stuff. So if we want to feel our best, there's things we do in the gut, there's things we do in the brain, there's things we do in the axis, which is the immune system and the circulatory system and the nervous system.
Speaker 2:
So if you think of that whole system as like optimizing the signaling across that system, that's what happy juice does and that's why it works so well for people. They're like why does this work as well as it does? And why am I a 10 now and I was a five before on that scale? Like it's not because of any one of those. It's not that the microbiome is the most important or the neurotransmitters in the brain are the most important. They're all important because like the weakest link in the chain, kind of an idea.
Speaker 1:
I love that and I love that it's doing more than one thing. So when you come back to the probiotics and you're standing in the grocery store like which one do I pick? And you pick one, it's going to help with one thing, but what this drink is doing is helping with all of the things and you kind of you said this, but let's talk about it for another minute with the immune system, because 70% of your immune system is in your gut. So this is helping your gut brain connection, but let's unpack how that affects your immune system.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So your immune system, these days we think of as having two main functions. So everyone who's listening understands that their immune system protects them from the world around them, right From viruses and bacteria, and even your immune system protects you from cancer. Your immune system is a shield right to keep you healthy. Your immune system, though, is also a communication organ. One of the things that it does, and one of its primary roles in the body, is that it helps the gut and the brain talk to each other.
Speaker 2:
So you already mentioned, 70% of your immune system is in your gut. Well, why is it in your gut? It's there to talk to your microbiome. So your microbiome cells, your bacteria and your immune system cells are talking to each other is millisecond by millisecond, and they get information from each other. The microbiome learns about what the rest of the body is doing through the immune system, the immune system learns about what the gut is doing through the microbiome, but then the immune system takes that information all the way through the rest of the body up to the brain and talks to the immune system in the brain.
Speaker 2:
So these cells called glial cells. So just that. Just that communication between the microbiome and the brain cells that can signal in your body a signal of well-being or a signal of not well-being. And so we've been able to show that if we can prime your immune system naturally with things like yeast extracts and mushroom extracts and things like that, that you will feel better. Not only will your immune system be stronger, so you're less likely to have an allergy or have a cold like upper respiratory tract infection. So the shield part of it is better, but the signaling part of it is better and as a result of that, you just feel better.
Speaker 1:
I love that you talk about in the book that this gut-brain signaling. Sometimes it's like a game of telephone where when it gets from the brain, by the time it gets to the gut, it's gone through seven iterations of what it should have been. And if you can make that more like high fiber, it's like 5G, whatever it is right now, make it the best signaling and it's we overcomplicate the solutions Like. I am blown away by the benefits that you can get from this one beverage, like to show up better for yourself but have your body work better, because I'll come back to what you have continually said Like if we can help ourselves and others feel better, you show up on the daily making better choices, right, right.
Speaker 2:
And that compounds itself. Right, you have a better day today, you're gonna have a better day tomorrow and a better day and a better day. And it's not to say that like it's all rainbows and butterflies and sunshine, no, no, but like on average, you're going to be more effective and more impactful in everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1:
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. This conversation is so amazing. Thank you so much for unpacking all of this, you guys. I will link all of the things in the show notes. If you want to learn more about this beverage, go to my website at stanalewiscom. Forward slash happy juice and you can learn about all the things that it is and is not. If you have a question, reach out. You can DM me on Instagram at Miss Dana Lewis. I would love to answer your questions. Thank you, dr Sean. This has been so informative. Can't wait to chat with you until next time.
Speaker 2:
Anytime. Yeah, let's do it again. I love our chats.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of Stop Faking Fine with Dr Sean. He is one of my absolute favorite people and I love nerding out on just the science of how we can show up for ourselves better. I wanted to make sure that you have all of the resources that we talked about the nutrition cheat sheet. If you are ready to lower inflammation and balance that stress hormone today, one bite at a time, head over to danalewiscom forward slash cheat sheet and I will share my free downloadable. That just makes it easy. Take the guesswork out of what to eat and start today with this simple, sustainable habit. If you want to know more about the probiotic beverage that I'm obsessed with and that I talked about, that we talked about on the podcast, you want to head over to danalewiscom. Forward slash happy juice and I will share all of the details the ingredients, what's in it, why the different ingredients work and how you can get started on this today. And I will share all of the details, the ingredients, what's in it, why the different ingredients work and how you can get started on this today and I share $10 off and a free three-day gut reboot.
Speaker 1:
Why not you? Why not now? Why not today? The world needs the best version of you, not the tired, bloated, crappy version, and we're here to partner with you and let her shine, as always. If you enjoyed this episode, I would be most grateful if you left a review or shared it with a friend. Make today a great day and a day that you stop faking fun. Remember to show up for yourself unapologetically, because, while your circumstances may not be 100% your fault, your life is 100% your responsibility. I cannot wait to see you soar.
