Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast everyone. I am your host, dr Jay Tita. I am here with my new friend, megan Lyons. I was recently on her show, wellness your Way. She has a podcast as well that recently came out and we wanted to do a podcast swap because she is just super amazing and has a lot to share we're gonna cover today.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Obviously, megan, you do a lot of things and talk about a lot of things, but you and I were talking about the idea that I've been on a gut sort of kick lately and I do kind of like when I'm hitting podcasts to get a lot of different people on a topic to discuss. I mean, obviously, gut protocols are everywhere you look now and I think a lot of people have a lot of questions. I also know you, like me, are an expert in endocrine function, hormone function, and there is this term that maybe you know. I have a lot of practitioners that listen to this show, so a lot of you listeners know this term. But for those of you who are not listeners or new, this idea of neuroendocrine immune and we could even say psycho neuroendocrine immune and this idea that our psychology impacts our nervous system the way we think impacts the way we feel, that impacts our hormonal system, that impacts our immune system and that the gut is a big hub of this. And so I really want to unpack all of this with you and just get your take on it. You know, I want to learn for myself and I just want the listener to be able to hear you know sort of how two practitioners you know sort of look at this. And so why don't we start with you just giving everyone who is not familiar with you a little bit of your story, how you got into this work, your background, all the things, and then we'll get into this discussion.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Absolutely Well. Thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to see where this conversation goes today. I own a practice called the Lion's Share Wellness which is here in Dallas, although these days more clients are not in Dallas than they are in Dallas Even my team of nutritionists zero of them are in Dallas. So we're a global nutrition consulting firm and I got into this work the winding way, which I think is actually more common than not.

Speaker 2: 3:48

I started as a high achiever, which will be important as we go through my story just everything competitive against myself, always trying to do the most, which worked in a lot of different ways. I went to Harvard, studied economics there, did well in school and was happy on the outside and on the inside too. I think if you had asked me, am I happy? I would have said yes. I didn't really, uh, know how to explore that deeper, and so I was just kind of going through the motions, going, going, going as part of that journey. I had never really exercised as a child. I ate the standard American diet. We didn't know any different.

Speaker 2: 4:28

But I met this cute guy on move-in day of college, who's now my husband 20 plus years later. Uh, but he was on the track and cross country team so I thought, hmm, I should probably get his attention and learn to run. So I went out for a run. I felt amazing. I really well. Actually probably the first couple of runs I felt terrible, but very quickly I felt amazing. I got this runner's high. I got really pulled into it and so I started running more and more and more.

Speaker 2: 4:56

I started quote trying to learn about nutrition, which back in those days, before I knew what PubMed was, before access to social media, even any of this kind of stuff, I was reading magazines. I was reading self and fitness and shape and who knows what magazines. And they were telling me just eat less, eat half a protein bar for lunch. I would literally have a balanced bar for lunch and fold over the wrapper and put it in my top desk drawer. That was my lunch half a balanced bar.

Speaker 2: 5:25

And you can probably guess where this story goes. I just too much took this to the extreme of running and under fueling and I got into a pretty deep adrenal, hormonal, everything crash. So when I was 23, this took several years right, I wasn't 23 in college, but I kept going for several years, no-transcript, and that just started in me something that felt like I don't know the answer. But this is not the answer for me. And I'm not totally anti-medication, I think you know great.

Speaker 2: 6:25

Have I taken medication? Of course, will I again, of course, but at that moment the medication was not the answer for me. I knew I could fix it with how I was living my life, how I was treating my mentality, treating myself internally, how I was feeling all of that so long story. But to wrap it up, that got me into real nutrition, and once you kind of feel it, it's so hard to not share it. So I did go back to management consulting. I got my MBA. I went back to management consulting again, but in 2014, I eventually left and haven't looked back since.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Yeah, isn't that interesting? It's a really powerful story and I think when I talk to a lot of practitioners who do this work, they have similar stories about confronting sort of health issues and when they're young and thinking to themselves, there has to be another way, and isn't it? It is kind of interesting, you're right. On the one hand, it's super progressive that your doctor ran your hormones at that time.

Speaker 1: 7:24

And the other sense and I want to get your, your take the idea that the fact that she or he did not know she didn't know that what the cause was, Because I think, for people like you and I, I would predict if you came into me reporting certain symptoms and I was like okay, so you're a runner, you're restricting calories, you've been doing that for years, I wouldn't even have to run hormones probably neither would you to know exactly what's going on.

Speaker 1: 7:50

But, again, traditional doctors are not trained that way and that is going back to some time. But it is really interesting because we see this stuff all of the time. Well, actually, let me put it this way, because this will be a good way for you and I to powwow on this I see this all the time. You see this all the time, perhaps because we are perceptually aware of what's going on. However, I can tell you as early as just a couple years ago, because certainly I wrote my first book on this stuff back in 2010, a book called the Metabolic Effect Diet. I wrote my first book on this idea that overdoing exercise and underfeeding for long periods of time is a stress to the metabolism, in the same way that overeating and not moving can be a stress to the metabolism.

Speaker 1: 8:39

And at that time it was brand new, perhaps light years ahead of what most people were thinking Not that I came up with it, but there were very few practitioners who were speaking this way. But even two years ago, I had a run-in with a very prominent health and fitness influencer, phd in biochemistry and nutrition, telling me this is two years ago in a very public debate, telling me this can't happen, essentially, or that this doesn't happen, and I was dumbfounded that even in 2022, that someone who is this is someone who's I won't name names because it's just not appropriate, and I have no issues with the guy anyway, but it was just really interesting that this debate occurred him saying that this can't happen. Now, one of the things that I kind of you know, I know that he's a guy who works with mainly young men right, and that's mainly his, and he is a younger guy. But from my perspective, clinically, this kind of thing happens often, not all the time, by the way. I mean, certainly you have some women who will do what you're doing, you know, and do fine with it, but it is fairly prevalent and I want to just get your take on that.

Speaker 1: 10:02

How you see this. Do you think that people are now aware of this. Do you still have to do a lot of education on this? And just walk me through how you even see what was happening then. Now again, I know we're going to talk a little bit about the entire psychoneuroendocrine immune sort of thing and perhaps focus on the gut, but from my perspective, what we're talking about here is the neuroendocrine the nervous system endocrine piece of this, and I think it's a nice place to begin the discussion.

Speaker 1: 10:34

So I'm just wondering how you see that.

Speaker 2: 10:38

Yeah, well, there's so much there. And I think, to your point on starting with neuroendocrine, it wasn't just looking back that, I was just overising, I was for sure, and I was under-fueling, but also I was under-sleeping, I was under extreme stress Management, consulting. You're working 80 hours a week, traveling 48 weeks a year, which was fine for many people, to your point. But when we layer all this stuff on top of each other, it didn't work out in my case and I think that's part of why we're seeing it a little more frequently.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Our allostatic load, which, to the listeners, is just our accumulation of stressors, that's getting so high these days because of the fast pace of life, because of technology, because of toxins, because of all the things.

Speaker 2: 14:15

So our buckets are fuller, quicker, and that leads to this feeling of burnout that I was feeling and that many other people feel. So I think it is increasing in prevalence. And then also to your point, I think we you and I and probably many other similar practitioners we do attract these people Because, honestly, if someone out there has never tried to eat healthily and has never tried to exercise, it does likely work for them to do some exercise and to eat some more vegetables and to clean up their proteins and things like that, and so they don't need us, and I feel very happy in continuing to recommend all the things that I was doing, just at a much less extreme scale. So a lot of this stuff does work. It's just Goldilocks when we take it too far, it's too much for our bodies, and our body, in looking to protect us, starts shutting down some of these quote non-essential systems that feel very essential. Having lived that experience, it didn't feel good.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Yeah, it's interesting Just yesterday. I'll just walk you through. This is a case that I just had yesterday. So this is a woman who came in and had gone through a pretty severe breakup with a man that she fell in love with and he was pretty manipulative to her and she went through a very stressful time with family members around the same time. So a lot of stuff happening at once Loss of a loved one, this breakup happening, stuff at work, stuff with some legal things that she was involved in and immediately got her period and did not stop bleeding. Immediately got her period and did not stop bleeding and had gone to several different physicians and doctors and was surprised that for me I was like I know exactly what's going on here and very similar thing also an exerciser, also someone who's a striver and to me.

Speaker 1: 16:18

We see this often and I think it's really interesting that you say that, because these people do tend to find us and I oftentimes wonder is it that they find us and we recognize them? Because I do know that the prevalent story is they often go looking around and I don't think their condition or what's going on with them is recognized by a lot of practitioners, and so then, when they sit down across from people like you and me, we go. I know exactly what is happening here, because we're not looking at metabolism through the lens of this very narrow calories in, calories out, or this very narrow. You've got a particular diagnosis and here's a set of cookbook recipes to follow if you get this diagnosis. We're looking at it like the metabolism is a stress barometer, a stress thermostat, and your thermostat is broken in the same way or dysfunctional in the same way that your thermostat on your home AC unit might be from running the system too hot, in the same way that an electrical company might have to go to blackouts because too much stress is being put on the system.

Speaker 1: 17:31

This is what's happening to a lot of people and they often don't relate to it this way, and so I'm curious now, when you see this, I mean, obviously we've talked about this idea of a woman who gets her period and can't stop bleeding, something like you, where you hit fatigue, you feel incredibly horrible other things that begin to happen. What are some of the other signs and symptoms? For listeners who are for the first time hearing two practitioners talk about this besides fatigue, besides menstrual issues, libido issues For men, the same thing can happen. They can start to get libido and erection issues. Women can get libido and menstrual issues and it hits in other places. So what are the other places that you see people have dysfunction here?

Speaker 2: 18:19

Yeah, great question. And the symptoms kind of like when we talk about thyroid or gut health or whatever. The symptoms are so wide ranging that it is almost impossible, in my opinion, to give a. This is the set of symptoms and that applies to everyone. For example, in my experience, I lost my period for over 12 months. This woman that you were seeing, she kept her period for too long, so it can go either way and similar with some of the other symptoms as well.

Speaker 2: 18:49

That fatigue that you're mentioning, though, I like to think of it as physical, emotional, mental fatigue, almost like oh, I've lost the drive to be myself anymore. So it's not just like, oh, I'm kind of yawning two hours after lunch, which might just be a simple blood sugar issue. It's more of a deeply drained fatigue is what I see in people. I was actually just talking to someone yesterday experiencing similar issues, very similar to you, seeing someone yesterday, and she was saying I just feel like my eyelids are closing in the morning and I'm trying to open them. She has kids, she wants to be there and wants to be energized and she just can't. So it's that really deep fatigue.

Speaker 2: 19:35

But what else do we see after that? I think, going down your path of neuro and all of the endocrine things that follow, we can see certainly thyroid-like symptoms like hair thinning, eyebrow thinning. We can see temperature irregularity. We can certainly see weight issues. Some people with adrenal dysfunction tend to hold on to weight. I find that more common.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Some people actually tend to lose weight. If it is leading them to not be able to weight, I find that more common. Some people actually tend to lose weight if it is leading them to not be able to eat regularly or have appetite changes. Certainly sleep irregularities, I find even though people are fatigued during the day, they do tend towards that racing mind insomnia at night. Their circadian rhythms are just totally messed up. Sugar cravings almost always I see people with sugar cravings when they have some kind of adrenal dysregulation and that's your body's last ditch effort to be like, hey, I need something to keep me going. And again, sugar works. Does it give you energy if you eat a whole pack of jelly beans? Of course it does for 10 minutes or 30 minutes. It just doesn't work over the long term. So those are some of the more common ones I see, but I'm curious to see what you would add on of the stress thermostat of, just for the listener.

Speaker 1: 20:55

I know you know this, megan, and then just correct me if I'm wrong, if you think I'm wrong on anything or want to add anything here. The way I see it is that this area, the reason why these symptoms can be so varied, is because really the major site of, let's say, dysfunction or distress is the hypothalamus and the pituitary, which is basically the command and control center of the metabolism. It's kind of that. It acts as the stress barometer, it measures stress and then it acts as the stress thermostat. It basically sends out signals to the thyroid, the gonads, ovaries, testicles and the adrenal glands, which then are the major endocrine organs. Of course it does more signals than that, but these are the major ones, and so you can see dysfunction across each of those areas.

Speaker 1: 21:51

So this is why you can see menstrual issues, libido issues, you can see fatigue issues, which you know, where the adrenals and the thyroid get involved. You can see high blood pressure and low blood pressure. You can see a lot of this yin and yang that you alluded to. You have either hyper functioning or hypo functioning, and one of the things that this, by the way, is sort of a cheat sheet for you listeners. But it's not always the case. But in general I see two types of people, sort of the puffy, heavier type of stress dysfunction. These are the people who lean more hypothyroid. They lean more tired in the brain and tired in the body.

Speaker 1: 22:30

And then you kind of have this more thinner sort of phenotype which seems to maybe hit the adrenals a little bit more in my mind, where you get sort of this more thin appetite, wired in the brain, tired in the body, maybe a little bit more storage of fat around the middle, and I see these again as the same dysfunction one being a hypo-functioning, you know sort of way that the body tries to adjust, and one's being more of a hyper-functioning way that the body tries to adjust, and then that gets down into the gut, which I know is a big piece of your expertise, which then the gut actually is one of my favorite places to look at signs and symptoms, because it also will illustrate this sort of balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system sort of the rest digest nervous system and the stimulating you know uh, struggle and striving uh nervous system. And so you can see uh things from constipation for some people, the more puffy, heavier types tend towards more constipation. You got the people who are more loose stools, diarrhea. You got a lot of people who are really going back and forth, things like IBS, lots of IBS, lots of GERD, heartburn, all of these kinds of things.

Speaker 1: 23:50

I like to see the gut as one of the places where I kind of see it as one of the most sensitive areas to judge some of my function. Of course, nowadays we have tech, you know, so we can use tech to see things like heart rate variability, heart rate levels at night, how fast the heart rate gets to its minimum, things like whoop, and you know, things like Apple watches and things like our rings and and those kinds of things. But in general that's kind of how I see it. I do kind of see this idea of sort of a hypo functioning phenotypical type and a hyper-functioning phenotypical type, but I'm wondering how you see that as well.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Totally agree. In explaining this to clients I'll use slow for the one that you described as the more puffy individual. That's slow metabolism, it's slow brain, it's slow hair growth, it's slow digestion or constipation. Everything is slow in that hypofunctioning individual. And then hyper is fast racing heartbeat, night sweats, anxiety, fast thinking, fast digestion or diarrhea Everything's fast in that case. And one other thing that you mentioned I definitely agree that it goes back to the hypothalamus and I don't think we as a collective society pay enough attention to the hypothalamus, in part because it's harder to measure hypothalamic function.

Speaker 2: 25:18

So we always say HPA axis. I always say HPA axis, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal axis, but I don't really pay attention to the H as much as to the P and to the A, because adrenals we can measure to some extent, although even though I run the diurnal saliva cortisol four times during the day, sometimes I still don't even find the answers that I know are there in that Pituitary can we measure growth hormone and TSH and ACTH and whatever? Yes, it's just harder in my experience to measure anything from the hypothalamus. But I think you're right, that's the control system and I think we as practitioners myself included are missing a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 25:59

Yeah, you know what's interesting about that. I love that you say that, because I agree Hypothalamus pituitary adrenal, hypothalamus pituitary thyroid, hypothalamus pituitary gonadal but what we also know nowadays that we now see like let's take the thyroid, for example, one of the reasons. If you're a listener listening to this and you're like, well, I have some of these symptoms, I thought I had hypothyroid. I went and checked it and my thyroid seems to be quote fine. But then you're hearing someone like Megan say I know it's there, even though you're not.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Because one of the things we're seeing in the research is that each cell, so the body, regulates thyroid function, but it also regulates thyroid usage and it does this at the level of the cell. So each cell actually is regulating the amount of thyroid that it wants to take in or not. And a stressed out cell, a cell that is dysfunctional, will oftentimes decrease its thyroid hormone intake and slow itself down, almost going into a cocoon type state or a sort of hibernation state to protect itself. And that's why we have to run full thyroid panels. That's why some of us get things like reverse T3 and other markers that tell us if this sort of cellular hypothyroidism is going on.

Speaker 1: 27:14

But it is notoriously difficult, because what we are doing is we're making a best guess and we will tend to focus on the big three oh this is the ovaries or testicles, oh this is coming from the adrenal or oh this is coming from the thyroid when oftentimes the major site of this shared dysfunction is the hypothalamus. And then we also forget that each cell and tissue and this is something that has been, you know, sort of worked out over the last decade or so you know that each cell and tissue is regulating its own hormonal uptake and input and output as well. So there's this constant back and forth which makes our job even more difficult. So one of the things that I have found ironically is, I used to be a guy who just runs test after test after test after test. Ironically is, I used to be a guy who just runs test after test after test after test, and it really is funny how much I rely on my clinical symptom recognition for a lot of this now, and I'm just curious how you see that.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Oh, I'm so torn on this because I am a data person, like I said. I don't know if I said, but I studied economics in college. I love data, I love numbers, I love math. I would love it if it were possible to run a test and literally have a blueprint of everything we can do in a body, and that's why the appeal or the idea of these tests is so alluring to me. I want it to be that simple, but it's not. Even when we do get tests, like in your example, oh, my doctor says my thyroid is fine. Well, they just ran TSH and I think it's impossible to draw conclusions just from that TSH. So even when we do have the numbers, it's a complex algorithm that we as practitioners are running in our head of okay, this is here, this is here, symptoms are here, history is here, poof, we put it all together and that's where we come up with the solution, oftentimes. So I don't know, is the answer?

Speaker 2: 29:16

Do I run tests on my clients? Yes, I do. Do I have some people come in who say it's either cost prohibitive or I've been tested out the wazoo and I don't want to do that, or I just have no desire Absolutely. And can I still work with them Absolutely? It really, I think, just depends on the person. I would say 90% we can do it based on gut instinct. And then sometimes there are some cases like gut testing, since we keep touching on that. Most of the time it's simple to fix the gut and we can kind of tell, based on what's coming into the gut and how we're treating our body, what to do. But sometimes I just get stuck. I'm like I don't know, I could use some more information. So I do think testing is valuable there.

Speaker 1: 33:53

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. And the way a hundred percent testing is valuable. I just I oftentimes am frustrated and certain tests are are better than others. I do think there are certain tests you can run, you know, that can essentially point directly. Obviously, you know we have. You know, someone comes in and you run a test and you say, oh, they have an infection with this thing, we can give this antibiotic. Obviously, medicine works that way and that's why conventional medicine, traditional medicine, is so amazing with certain treatments.

Speaker 1: 34:21

But in this world of, I would say, functional medicine, it can be tricky and the analogy I would use is imagine we have I don't know a million, although it's probably a billion or a trillion. You got a million different biomarkers, let's say, and different chemicals floating around the body and we measure a hundred of them. It's not even you know a drop, you know in in the ocean. So that's why it can be so difficult. But there are big ones that can that we know can make a big difference. For example, you know, from my perspective, if you have something like the thyroid gland or the gut especially, these are what I might call sentinel tissues, meaning that they're the ones who get hit first, like the sentinel guard in the castle. If the castle gets attacked, the sentinel guards are the first ones to get hit. The gut, the thyroid, some of these things act as like sentinel tissues, where they are the ones that get hit first, and so we oftentimes will look to them. They also tend to oftentimes get better first, before the other things you know sort of get better, and so I do think that they're incredibly useful and not to not do them. But I also think that a lot of people are frustrated, including practitioners, because they don't always point us to what we need to do.

Speaker 1: 35:38

Although and this is where we can kind of get into sort of the stuff around the gut and the nervous system and putting this whole thing together because I do think that in our style of medicine or our style of health care, there are big global things that we can do that help support the body's healing in general, like one of the things that you know, before I went to naturopathic school, I was on my way to East Carolina University Medical School and I remember first looking at the curriculum and going, okay, there's no nutrition, there's no exercise and there's no psychology in this, and also the philosophy was drugs and surgery and nothing wrong with that. You know cause those things are necessary and I'm not anti any of that. I just didn't want to do that medicine. One of the first things I learned at naturopathic medical school is the body has healing, natural healing capability. They call this vice medicatri naturae, which basically means you know nature has healing capacity, and we all know this. By the way, if you twist your ankle, all you got to do is usually, if you stay off of it, it's going to get better. If you cut your finger, you just keep it clean and it's usually going to get better.

Speaker 1: 36:43

And I like this idea with clients because from my perspective, what we can do, usually there are things that we can do that if we give the body the right environment, it oftentimes can heal itself. So this is like things like get people moving, get people eating a whole foods, nutrient, rich, calorie. You know less calorie diet usually is going to be, you know, healing for a lot of people. But when we're talking about some of what you and I do, this is the part of the discussion I want to have with you of what you and I do. This is the part of the discussion I want to have with you these things.

Speaker 1: 37:17

Often, for these people right here, you are running like crazy, doing all the things. Yes, you're sort of nutrient depleting, but it's not what we typically think about. It's not the, the sick couch potato who's, you know, essentially ill because they're over consuming or, you know, living a poor, poor diet. It's something else. And this brings me to this idea of nervous system regulation and what gets us stuck in this and how we can begin to regulate the nervous system sort of in a different way, which brings me to many things in my head. But I'm wondering what are the things that you look at, you know, besides just diet and exercise, if anything, that you do to begin to work on this globally, to create the atmosphere, the environment for the body to heal itself?

Speaker 2: 38:05

Yes, Well, I love what you just said so much and I want to add on. There is an analogy that I use with my clients that I think for people in my age tends to really resonate. We'll see if it works for you and your listeners. Jay, do you remember a toy called the Etch-A-Sketch?

Speaker 1: 38:24

Yes, of course, yeah, Of course yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 38:26

So this is not a Natcha sketch. I do not hang on to it. This is more of a tablet. But a Natcha sketch looks like a tablet and, for those who aren't familiar with the idea, kids would have this little pen, it would mark on the tablet and then you have this slider at the bottom that would erase the markings that the kid put on. And so it works great, it's super fun, keeps the kids entertained. That the kid put on, and so it works. Great, it's super fun, keeps the kids entertained.

Speaker 2: 38:56

But if the kid just goes crazy for a little bit and smacks the pen all over and gets so much quote ink which is actually just a magnetic response, whatever, but really goes crazy on the Etch-A-Sketch, then that slider gets stuck and doesn't work anymore. And this is exactly what happens in our gut. Our gut has a magic slider. It is willing to clear and heal and do all of this stuff. If we happen to eat a little bit of glyphosate one time or something like that, it is so happy to clear that up. But if we are pelting it constantly, day after day, with things that are irritating for it, we're like that kid with a really overzealous marker on his Etch-A-Sketch and then our slider just gets stuck and can't clear and needs a little help. So I almost oversimplify it intentionally for my clients. I have this handout that has all the inflammatory foods on one side and all the anti-inflammatory foods and practices, stress relief, meditation, all of that kind of stuff on the other side, and you and I know that it's not quite that simple. We can't actually put everything into two columns, but sometimes seeing that for people really helps. Oh, okay, ultra-processed food and alcohol and added sugar and stress. I just have to lay off the etch-a-sketch with those things for a little while and increase some of this healing stuff, some really good quality water, sleeping at an optimal time, optimal protein, great vegetables and fruits, all of that kind of stuff. We just have to shift that balance a little bit. So I do think, even though it's oversimplified, it can be helpful to think about. There's not one magic thing. We're just pelting our gut with so much over time. And that leads into your question about the nervous system. I like to simplify things. You'll get this point.

Speaker 2: 40:44

But I ask clients if I had a magic button and I could give you one free day tomorrow where you can't be productive, you can't play with the kids, even though you love them. You can't do the laundry, you can't work, you can't do anything quote productive. You just get to do something. You could fly to a beach in Bali and have someone feed you fresh fish all day, or you could go to a Beyonce concert, or you could do whatever. What would you do? And they look at me like I have three heads, but then eventually they spit out some answer. That to me, is a really big key to what they're missing. So if they did say I want to go to a Beyonce concert, well great, maybe they're missing some more stimulation being around people. Maybe that's what they need to heal. Or if they said a beach in Bali, maybe they need some downtime, they need some alone time, they need to turn their brain off. But almost always our gut instinct there helps us develop a plan for nervous system regulation.

Speaker 1: 41:43

I love that so much and actually let's go into an area that perhaps is maybe a little bit different. It's an area that I've been focused on a lot and I want to see if you have any thoughts on this, and if you don't, it's also fine. But have you done anything with your clients around the idea of childhood development, adolescent development, young adult development and the idea of a stuck nervous system? So let me just frame this for Megan I see her nodding her head but for you listeners, one of the things that and it looks like Megan has a lot to say on this. So this will be good for all of us, because I love to learn how different practitioners are seeing this stuff.

Speaker 1: 42:24

But one of the things that I have, over the last, I would say, 15 years or so, just become acutely aware of is that individuals and it doesn't have to be childhood development, adolescent development, young adult development we certainly have these difficult trials, tribulations, sometimes capital T traumas, although I think that gets overused an awful lot Like this idea of trauma. It has to be sexual abuse or physical abuse or world war, being in a war or something. From my perspective, when our nervous system encounters anything that is difficult at the time when we don't have the knowledge, the experience, the know-how, anything like that. We just don't have the way of managing and thinking about this. Our nervous system can't cope with it. It ends up being too much of a stress on the system. And what I've been surprised at the last 15 years or so is that how the research shows that, going all the way back to our childhood, we've had things like in the research they call it ACEs or adverse childhood events, and things like that. That our nervous system, if you imagine for the listener, if you imagine a dimmer switch, you know obviously you can dim that switch up and down. Now imagine taking the dimmer away and that now your light switch is either stuck in the on position the lights won't go off or it's stuck in the off position the lights won't go on. That it seems that our nervous system can act very much like a light switch and when we have these difficult events it can cause a dysfunction in the nervous system such that the nervous system either hyper responds to things or hypo responds to things.

Speaker 1: 44:02

Ptsd is an example of this, for adults, right, and we think about PTSD with war. But let's take it like this you. You walk in and you know, find your lover with another person. That's like a PTSD situation. You go into work and you lose your job and you're out of a job. That can be a PTSD situation. So I'm wondering, in your experience working with clients, how much of this stuff have you seen be the beginnings, like you talked about going to college, very stressful time and adding on all this other stuff how often do you see this being the origin story of many people's illnesses? Is it 5%, 10% estimate? I mean, I'm just curious how you see these things.

Speaker 2: 44:48

Yeah Well, that's a great question. I'll try to come up with a number, but it's definitely higher than 5% to 10%. I think it's very frequent. I don't always share this part of my story, but I'm happy to in this case because I think it really illustrates what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Right before I went to college and started this running and all of this kind of stuff, in very rapid succession I lost a close family member to suicide. I had two of my grandmothers, maternal and paternal, both pass away from ALS, which is, if anyone knows, that condition. It's a brutal condition and I really I did not realize the impact that that had on me, but I know. Right then my nervous system was trained Because, if you layer on top of that, my parents very well-meaning, they praised me for achievement and, again, very well-meaning, they knew that they were making me happy. They knew that I was a great achiever making me happy. They knew that I was a great achiever.

Speaker 2: 45:52

But when I saw my family crumbling and I felt crumbling inside and the only praise I was getting was for achievement, that taught my nervous system fire, fire, fire, fire. Go Stuck in. That sympathetic mode is safe, even though sympathetic fight or flight that feels unsafe. Right, that is an alarm signal to our body.

Speaker 2: 46:11

But my body, I strongly believe, got stuck in that phase, in that nervous system firing pattern, and it was very hard to unwind. And I still need to get to be very conscious of that's my wiring. And if I don't treat myself very well look, we all have stressful days and we all have days where we don't eat perfectly and all this that's not what I'm saying, but over periods of time, if I don't treat myself well, I can slip back into that in an absolute instant. So I know that for me that's a big part of what happened and I would say my guess, since I promised you a number, I would say 40 to 50% of people have something maybe not similar to my story, but something where they experienced these little T traumas and their nervous system did get stuck.

Speaker 1: 47:05

Yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah, I don't know that I would venture a guess either, but it's a lot, it's a lot of. Yeah, I don't know that I would venture a guess either, but it's a lot, it's a lot of people. And the way I see this, just for the listener too, is like to me I see it as like the sympathetic system.

Speaker 1: 47:18

You have stress and if it's short lived then you can rise to it. It goes from stress to strength. You know, you get resilience right, so stressing it of itself as long as we can cope with it. But as stress continues, we zillions right. So stress in and of itself as long as we can cope with it, but as stress continues we get, we move into striving mode and as it continues we go into struggle mode and if it continues even longer and or it's a very extreme stress, we go into shock mode.

Speaker 1: 47:42

And, yes, we oftentimes can get stuck in those. And so when I see clients and patients coming to me and I see them as go, go, go over exercise types, you know, obsessive about food and all the things, I do wonder oftentimes. And then they're complaining of health complaints. I often kind of go okay, this might be someone who's stuck in striving or struggle mode and they don't realize it, because our culture celebrates striving mode at least like when, you know, people stuck in striving mode mode tend to view themselves and culture tends to view them as productive, and it can have health consequences.

Speaker 1: 48:16

And a lot of people don't realize that Someone who overexercises and is not sick from it oftentimes doesn't see that as why they might have anxiety or depression or other things, that it's part of the coping mechanism of the nervous system stuckness. And so I do think this is another big piece of this. If we're going to talk about neuroendocrine you know immune dysfunction, we want to go okay, what all you know causes issues with the nervous system. And then, a final place I want to go with this discussion is let's go even one step back, right. So we talked a little bit about, you know, the signs and symptoms, the immune stuff. We talked a little bit about the endocrine hormone system, the hypothalamus, adrenal, thyroid, gonadal axes. We talked a little now about the nervous system. Let's go back just one more step and talk about, like, the idea of psycho, neuro, endocrine immune, this whole idea of the psychology behind.

Speaker 1: 49:13

You know, you mentioned in your story, you know, some of these uh difficult events. You know, and here's the interesting thing, will we call them uh traumatic? You know, certainly for some people we would call those traumatic. There's certainly some of the most difficult things any human can deal with a suicide, loss of loved ones, going through a hard illness, but even things like you know. I have a story when I was a kid that many people will laugh at, but was in hindsight. I look at it like OK, this was perhaps a form of trial, tribulation, maybe even trauma for my nervous system, where I got left at the baseball park for about two hours and was sitting there in the dark when I was six or seven years old. A very simple thing. My parents came and got me. We know what happened. They probably got home oh my God, where's Jade? I thought you were getting them. No, I thought you were getting them. Then they come and get me. But that fear of sitting there alone at a time where we don't have cell phones and I was just alone at the baseball park and didn't have that also was a situation that caused me and I see now, being the youngest of four, things like that would happen.

Speaker 1: 50:17

I have a difficult time trusting. I'm very independent. As a result of it, I don't let a lot of people help me. I'm not a good receiver, I'm an amazing giver, but I'm not a good receiver. I'm not a good receiver. I'm an amazing giver, but I'm not a good receiver. Lots of this psychology sort of goes into the way that I sort of live my life outwardly, but it also permeates my nervous system, which then permeates my endocrine system, which permeates my immune system, and I do think this is not an area that anyone is really talking about in medicine. How exactly are our thoughts and feelings relating to our nervous system holding pattern, our hormonal function and our immune-related way that our immune system relates and is able to keep us healthy?

Speaker 2: 51:05

I think it is such a fascinating field and if you just catch me reading about something or something like that, it's probably in this area. I am so fascinated and so excited to see what we learn in the next decade two decades about this, because I think it's so powerful. And right now, on the one side, we have some of these more woo-woo but, frankly I think, very interesting studies where they'll take plants and they'll just speak negative words to the plants and the plants wither or something like that, and some people look at that and they're like, well, that's ridiculous. And then we have another side which we're starting to actually see.

Speaker 2: 51:45

Okay, physiologically, people are now hearing the vagus nerve connects the brain and the gut and just as many messages go up from the gut to the brain as do go down and that's where all our neurotransmitters are generated and all of this. So people can attach to the physiology and see, oh, wow, there is this really big connection. But then when we make this big jump to our thoughts impact our hormones, our thoughts impact our everything else, it feels like a big leap for a lot of people and I understand that. But I know there's a lot there based on my experience, based on the research that's emerging and based on the experience that I've seen in so many other people.

Speaker 1: 52:28

Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on this. I don't, you know, it's it's a hard thing. Uh, we're starting to see some really interesting research. I don't know if you know, uh, any of you who are familiar with the work of Joe Dispenza, which he's a pretty controversial figure for many people, uh, but he they actually his group, uh really did. He works out of UC San Diego and they just had a really interesting study that they released showing meditation, putting people in.

Speaker 1: 52:54

You know, I've been to some of his events, so the best way to describe it is, you know, sort of heartfelt meditation, sort of in the HeartMath Institute kind of way of thinking about this. It's sort of a very different. It's not just mindfulness meditation, it's a little bit more than that. But they actually showed several immune markers, one of these immune markers Serpent 5, being actually upregulated to a significant degree in these meditators versus controls. The reason it got a lot of press and got a lot of people's attention is because it is related to viral immunity and decreasing viruses being able to bind and infect cells, and what they showed in this particular study that he did is that Serpent 5 is upregulated in these individuals. They also had less incidences of COVID, because a lot of this research is being done during the time of COVID and when they did get COVID, they got over it faster. Of course, we all know that COVID is just sort of it's all on our minds, so it's interesting to talk about. But this would be viruses in general and we are seeing some very good, well done research In addition to much of the research in the past.

Speaker 1: 54:04

Like Candace Pert and others who've been doing this work for a while, we know that this stuff is going on, but it's getting to the point where we're getting a pretty good evidence base. So I agree with you, it's exciting. But it is also a place where we can quickly diverge into the woo-woo, which doesn't mean, by the way. Sometimes the woo-woo is incredibly powerful and real. We just have to be careful. I think we call it woo-woo because it's more like just saying when I use that term, I more just go. Let's be careful here, because we don't necessarily know. So we can speculate, but let's not make things up, and so, yeah, I'm with you, it's fascinating, and I'm wondering if you have any other things to add on that particular element of this, because I do think it's important.

Speaker 2: 54:43

Well, I have two things to add. Number one thank you for calling me out on saying woo-woo. I will say woo-woo to me means I just don't understand that yet. For example, I go to the acupuncturist every month and I so strongly believe in what she does. She knows my body very well. I have zero idea where to put a needle in someone's body. I am not educated in acupuncture. Trust me, you don't want me to do acupuncture on you. I don't understand how that works. And in fact I've said to her multiple times once I finish this next doctorate, maybe down the road, I'll just go to school in acupuncture because I'm so curious.

Speaker 2: 55:24

So is that woo-woo to me? Yes, casually I would say that, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in it. It just means I don't understand it yet and we can't, as humans, understand every single thing. So that's okay. There is fake science out there, which obviously I don't promote, and there are people making things up, but woo-woo to me is still in the realm of great things. And then on Dr Joe Dispenza, I actually just saw him speak live a little while ago. I haven't seen the study that you're referencing, but I thought, because ALS is always on my mind first thing I'll do if another one of my family members is diagnosed with ALS, I'm going to send them over and get them into one of those sessions. Is diagnosed with ALS, I'm going to send them over and get them into one of those sessions because the stories that he shared anecdotally so anecdote, not science yet, but anecdotally were fantastic. So I do believe that there's a lot there.

Speaker 1: 56:20

Yeah, I could tell you, one of the reasons I have made a pretty hard right turn into this area about 10 years ago and especially over the last five pretty heavily, is for the same reasons, Anecdotally, at first seeing in my own clinical practice, but now just seeing some pretty amazing things, things that I probably wouldn't necessarily speak on this podcast yet and things because they are but things that you just can't explain, and I'm incredibly excited about what some of this might mean, but we, yeah, we do have to be careful, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:57

So, megan, thank you so much for being on the show. I know that you have lots of places where people can find you and you have programs that you run, so tell us a little bit about where people can find you online, how they can get involved with you and any of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 57:14

Sure, well, it's been so fun. I know we could talk for hours. The easiest way to find me is on my website, thelionsshareorg. It's L-Y-O-N-S. Shareorg. Everything's there my podcast. I've been blogging every week since 2013. So lots of free stuff on there how to work with my team and I. Social media links everything is right up there.

Speaker 1: 57:36

Perfect TheLionsharecom, or is it just Lionshareorg?

Speaker 2: 57:42

TheLionshareorg. Yes, the benefits in quotes. I'm winking of starting your website when you are still management consulting and didn't actually think you were going to make this a job. You just get the org, but it stuck by me for all of those years and I'm keeping it. Thelionshareorg.

Speaker 1: 57:58

I love it. Megan Lyons, thank you so much for being here and do me a favor, stay on the line. Just we're going to make sure this uploads and for all of you, thank you for hanging out.