Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E317: Drug Safety Expert: The Secret Dangers of Prescription Drugs w/Dr Josef | Lila Rose Show

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E317: Drug Safety Expert: The Secret Dangers of Prescription Drugs w/Dr Josef | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  Can you describe the day you realized for the first time
• 0:02
  prescriptions were hurting people more than helping them?
• 0:05
  One thing that I thought was mind blowing was that we did not
• 0:07
  study the drugs any longer than about a year.
• 0:10
  Most people take antidepressants for two years, three years,
• 0:13
  sometimes even decades, and our clinical research doesn't go any
• 0:16
  longer than a year. They're a group that gets
• 0:17
  medicated. They have a slightly lower
• 0:20
  depression score compared to the group on placebo, but Lila, it's
• 0:23
  really small on a 52 point scale.
• 0:25
  On average, it's about a two point difference.
• 0:28
  Here's something else that most people aren't aware.
• 0:30
  Any depressants actually increase the likelihood that
• 0:33
  someone has a suicide attempt. You are lowering the depressive
• 0:36
  symptoms, but at the same time you're making that group more
• 0:38
  suicidal. To me, it is madness that we
• 0:41
  give these drugs to children, teens and young adults.
• 0:44
  This language of chemical imbalance sounds like what
• 0:46
  you're saying is there is no such thing as a chemical
• 0:48
  imbalance. Absolutely.
• 0:49
  I mean we have looked if. Somebody wants to live a happier
• 0:52
  life. Where do you recommend that they
• 0:54
  start? There really is one thing that
• 0:56
  is at the root of so many problems.
• 1:02
  Doctor Joseph, welcome to the Lila Rose Show.
• 1:04
  Thank you so much for having me. You were a medical officer at
• 1:07
  the FDA, which is the gatekeeper for the world's medicine.
• 1:12
  Can you describe the day when you were sitting at your desk
• 1:15
  and you realized for the first time that prescriptions were
• 1:18
  hurting people more than helping them?
• 1:21
  One thing that I thought was was mind blowing was that we did not
• 1:25
  study the drugs any longer than about a year.
• 1:28
  And so that for that, for me, that was the moment where I was
• 1:32
  just like, hang on a second, most people take antidepressants
• 1:36
  for two years, three years, sometimes even decades.
• 1:39
  Same with the benzodiazepines and the sedatives.
• 1:42
  And our clinical research doesn't go any longer than a
• 1:44
  year. And it just kind of hit me.
• 1:47
  I was like, well, you know, is there a reason for this?
• 1:49
  And there wasn't it. It was just, that was just the
• 1:52
  convention. And so I started to reflect back
• 1:55
  on what I had learnt in medical school and residency.
• 1:58
  And I would have all of these conversations where these scared
• 2:01
  people would be coming into the room and they would say, and
• 2:04
  they'd be depressed, they'd be suffering.
• 2:06
  And I'd say, you know, we've got this drug, we have this
• 2:08
  antidepressant. You know, it's, it's really
• 2:10
  going to help. And I would say it's safe and
• 2:12
  effective and it's approved by the FDA.
• 2:15
  And I would just watch them just calm down.
• 2:17
  And they would just say, oh, that feels really good knowing
• 2:21
  that. And I realized I'd been lying to
• 2:23
  them because when I was saying safe and effective, I should
• 2:26
  have been saying safe and effective for the one year that
• 2:29
  they studied it for. And everything after then after
• 2:32
  that, there's huge uncertainty about.
• 2:36
  And I think the uncertainty there is very easy to spot for a
• 2:42
  lot of people. There's two big things that come
• 2:43
  to mind. One is that the drugs wear off
• 2:46
  over time. Most people see this, you know,
• 2:48
  when they get put on Lexapro. It's not like you sail off into
• 2:51
  the distance on 5 milligrams, never have problems again.
• 2:54
  Most people eventually come back when the drug effect dies down.
• 2:57
  So that's the first issue. The second issue was I was just
• 3:00
  watching people gradually get worse over time in my clinical
• 3:04
  practice and they would start to accumulate more medications 2345
• 3:10
  And so I eventually learnt that some of these drugs are actually
• 3:13
  making people worse because the human brain is not like for some
• 3:17
  people. The human brain is just not
• 3:19
  designed to be in a drugged state indefinitely, and that can
• 3:22
  be harmful. What's 1 secret about how
• 3:26
  psychiatric drugs are approved today?
• 3:29
  That if people knew they would want to throw their drugs if
• 3:32
  they have them in the trash. If we talk about
• 3:34
  antidepressants, the way success is measured in the clinical
• 3:38
  trials is essentially suppression of symptoms, right?
• 3:41
  Some people think that when they get an antidepressant, it's
• 3:43
  like, oh, it's going to fix my life.
• 3:45
  I'm going to, you know, I'm going to take this drug and you
• 3:47
  know, you know, work will go better, relationships will go
• 3:49
  better. That's what the it's in the
• 3:53
  name. This is an antidepressant, but
• 3:55
  the way effectiveness is measured is really a suppression
• 3:58
  of symptoms. And so you can give someone a
• 4:01
  drug that's like pretty blunting and it will measure as success.
• 4:05
  But then we have no idea how that affects people's lives.
• 4:09
  Because let's think about it. These drugs are changing your
• 4:12
  mood and personality. How's that going to affect your
• 4:16
  relationships? How's that going to affect your
• 4:18
  work? Because it is foreseeable for
• 4:20
  some people. Like, let's say you're in a bad
• 4:22
  work situation and you take a drug that numbs it out.
• 4:26
  You might just stay there and you're not meant to be there.
• 4:28
  Maybe you're in a bad relationship and you take a
• 4:31
  medication that makes you settle there rather than dealing with
• 4:34
  the other underlying problem. Is that really helping someone's
• 4:37
  mental health? I don't think so.
• 4:40
  And so I think the way we measure effectiveness of these
• 4:43
  drugs doesn't really make sense. Can you walk through how
• 4:47
  clinical studies are done today and have been done historically
• 4:51
  of antidepressants and how you interpret the data that shows
• 4:57
  that in many of these studies there's a slight increase in a
• 5:02
  better feelings of alleviated depression in the placebo versus
• 5:06
  the active group or the medicated group?
• 5:08
  Yeah. So the way these studies are
• 5:09
  done is, let's just hypothetical.
• 5:12
  You recruit 200 patients into a study.
• 5:15
  You then randomize them into two groups where there's 100 people
• 5:19
  in each group. One group gets the medication,
• 5:22
  another group gets the placebo, and then they have a scale.
• 5:25
  And so this might be 10 questions that ask people about
• 5:28
  different symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia.
• 5:32
  And then they track these people over time, usually about 3
• 5:35
  months. And then they watch what happens
• 5:38
  to their symptoms over time. And So what they find in these
• 5:42
  antidepressant studies is that the group that gets medicated,
• 5:46
  they have a slightly lower depression score compared to the
• 5:50
  group on placebo. But Lila, it's really small.
• 5:53
  This is the thing that I want people to realize on a 52 point
• 5:57
  scale, the Hamilton D on average it's about a two point
• 6:02
  difference. 2 on a 52 point scale is really, really small.
• 6:08
  And so the, I think the effectiveness even of, of these
• 6:12
  drugs is overblown. So I'm curious, do you know of
• 6:15
  any studies where they did the placebo group, the medical
• 6:18
  control group, the Medical Group and then they have a group where
• 6:20
  the person like had to walk for an hour a day in the sunshine?
• 6:24
  I mean we've. Had how that affected the
• 6:25
  Hamilton scale, You know, sense of depression for each patient.
• 6:29
  Yeah, most studies out there find exercise and even things
• 6:34
  like psychotherapy to be equivalent to the to the
• 6:39
  medications as well, sometimes even stronger, but with the
• 6:42
  clear advantage that they don't have side effects and you're not
• 6:45
  dependent on medications. And so there's some really
• 6:47
  powerful non drug approaches to depression.
• 6:51
  But while, you know, while we're on the topic of antidepressants,
• 6:54
  here's something else that that most people aren't aware of.
• 6:58
  Antidepressants actually increase the likelihood that
• 7:01
  someone has a suicide attempt of the people that get placebo.
• 7:05
  And there is, and and this is something that's crazy that more
• 7:08
  people should know about because this is on a boxed warning on,
• 7:11
  on, on the actual drugs. It says that if you were younger
• 7:15
  than 25 in the clinical trial research, you were more likely
• 7:19
  to have a suicide attempt on the drugs than not.
• 7:22
  And so it's like you are lowering like the depressive
• 7:25
  symptoms, but at the same time you're making that group more
• 7:28
  suicidal. To me, it is madness that we
• 7:31
  give these drugs to children, teens and young adults.
• 7:34
  That is insane. And and according to what you're
• 7:36
  saying about the Hamilton scale, they're lowering it by like 3 or
• 7:39
  4%. Yeah, in terms of the Medical
• 7:42
  Group versus the control group, the placebo group or they didn't
• 7:45
  actually take any drug. It's a fake pill.
• 7:47
  Can you explain though why even that tiny increase of maybe, you
• 7:52
  know, 1-2, three percent, 4% increase in experience of being
• 7:55
  well or better, you know, less depressed, I should say that can
• 8:00
  even be there can be another reason for why that is instead
• 8:04
  of the drug actually working to treat depression.
• 8:06
  So there's a lot of things behind the antidepressant
• 8:09
  effect. I mean, I've, I've taken Zoloft
• 8:11
  and so as my wife, so I know what it's like to be on one of
• 8:14
  these medications. So there's two things that come
• 8:17
  to mind. One is the placebo effect, which
• 8:20
  is essentially, it's almost like the hope that you instill within
• 8:25
  like a treatment. It's like I'm finally doing
• 8:27
  something. I'm finally taking action.
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  There's like a like a Halo around the drugs.
• 8:32
  I mean, you, you see it in the media, celebrities are taking
• 8:34
  it. It's kind of pushed out there.
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  And so it's like you become more optimistic just by taking it.
• 8:38
  And so that can be very powerful.
• 8:41
  But these drugs actually work. I mean, I know what it feels
• 8:43
  like to take them. They have a calming effect on
• 8:46
  people. They turn the volume down,
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  particularly on anxiety and they and they kind of numb you and
• 8:52
  make you sort of blunted. And if you're super anxious,
• 8:56
  that blunting feeling can actually feel very therapeutic
• 8:59
  because all of a sudden you're not having panic attacks, you
• 9:02
  know, you're less likely to cry and you actually feel more
• 9:05
  functional. So there's two things.
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  There's a placebo effect and actually a real drug effect.
• 9:10
  And it sounds like the real drug effect is more obvious with
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  anxiety patients than depressive patients.
• 9:16
  Yes, yeah. So with the depressed patients,
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  I saw some of the work that you've done and you were
• 9:23
  speaking about there's the placebo effect, which is, you
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  know the placebo group they have often in these studies they have
• 9:29
  a sense of improvement, but they're the placebo group.
• 9:32
  So it's just in they're all in their head.
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  And then the group that is maybe doing a little bit better,
• 9:37
  that's actually on the medication that, you know, 3 or
• 9:39
  4% on the Hamilton. One interpretation of why
• 9:42
  they're doing better over the placebo group is that they're
• 9:45
  getting an experience of side effects that come with the
• 9:48
  medication. And because of there's an
• 9:50
  existence of side effects, they think, oh, I'm, you know, this
• 9:53
  might, you know, I must be on the actual drug.
• 9:55
  So therefore I'm improving. How much do you think that that
• 9:57
  is actually a reason for the increase?
• 9:59
  The slight increase in feeling less depressed?
• 10:02
  So what we're talking about is how accurate these studies are
• 10:08
  in really detecting a difference between drug and placebo.
• 10:12
  And how some of these nuances, like for instance, the fact that
• 10:16
  you could get a even stronger placebo effect when you get the
• 10:21
  active medication. Because you know, in these
• 10:23
  studies you're not meant to know whether you got the drug or not
• 10:26
  the drug. You know, it's, it's completely
• 10:28
  blinded, but if you say, for instance, and then this is a
• 10:32
  criticism, Lila, that you've brought up, which a lot of
• 10:35
  people bring up, they say, hey, you know, this small 2 point
• 10:39
  difference between the drug and the placebo group.
• 10:42
  Could that be accounted for by something we call, you know, a
• 10:46
  stronger placebo effect? So let's say you take the drug
• 10:49
  and because you have side effects to it, because you're
• 10:52
  not going to have side effects that to the placebo, you go, I'm
• 10:56
  actually on the good one, you know, and then you become like
• 10:58
  more hopeful. And so some people have said
• 11:01
  that that accounts for the difference.
• 11:04
  I don't believe that though, because, you know, as someone
• 11:07
  who's taken SSRIs and talked to a lot of people, I definitely
• 11:11
  know it has a drug effect. I know it can be blunting.
• 11:14
  I know it can be, you know, anxiety lowering.
• 11:17
  So I do believe they they really work and they can have a helpful
• 11:22
  effect in some people in the short term.
• 11:24
  The part where I get really worried is is a long term
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  because I don't think they're a sustainable long term solution
• 11:32
  for mental health problems. You said that the cure for many
• 11:35
  people that they think is the cure is actually the source of
• 11:39
  the problem. Can you share what more what you
• 11:42
  mean by that when it comes to prescription drugs?
• 11:44
  So there's so many people out there who are on 3456 different
• 11:49
  medications and they've been on them for years and they're just
• 11:52
  not getting better. And Lila, right now in our
• 11:55
  current mental health care system, we have these very short
• 11:59
  transactional visits because of insurance.
• 12:01
  So they'll, they'll see a doctor every for 15 minutes, you know,
• 12:05
  3 * a year or something like that.
• 12:07
  And when they go in there, because there's no time to
• 12:10
  really dig into the problems the person is have having, they'll
• 12:14
  look at someone on, you know, maybe a couple meds, maybe more
• 12:17
  than that. And the person says, I'm getting
• 12:19
  worse. I don't feel well.
• 12:21
  And instead of saying, you know, could these drugs that you've
• 12:23
  been on for the last five to 10 years actually be turning on
• 12:27
  you? Because the human brain will
• 12:29
  struggle if it's in a drugged state for years at a time.
• 12:32
  Could that be making you worse? Instead of doing that, they just
• 12:36
  start saying, well, your depression has gotten worse.
• 12:39
  You have treatment resistant depression, you've developed
• 12:41
  bipolar depression or something like that.
• 12:44
  When the reason they're sicker is is not because the mental
• 12:47
  illness is evolving, it's because the drugs they're
• 12:50
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  So I want to go back in time and then I'm going to we're going to
• 14:34
  get into the details of the side effects of these drugs, the
• 14:38
  alternatives to these drugs, a lot of the myths that are
• 14:42
  commonly accepted today about these drugs.
• 14:44
  But going back to near history a little bit, you mentioned how
• 14:48
  you were treating patients and they seem to be getting worse
• 14:52
  and that started to make you suspect something about the way
• 14:55
  you had been educated about these drugs and taught, trained
• 14:58
  with these drugs. Can you share more about that?
• 15:00
  I was interested in psychiatry because for a long time I've
• 15:03
  been interested in self help, psychology, philosophy, all of
• 15:07
  that. You know, from when I was a
• 15:08
  teenager. And so I ended up going into
• 15:10
  medical school and thinking, you know, I should become a
• 15:13
  psychiatrist. I can merge my love of medicine
• 15:16
  with my love of, you know, personal development, thriving,
• 15:19
  all of that. And so psychiatry.
• 15:22
  But then when I entered into psychiatry, it was so not what I
• 15:26
  had expected. I thought we would be using
• 15:29
  medications very judiciously. I thought we would be the
• 15:32
  quarterback for the mental health team, connecting people
• 15:36
  who were struggling with different life problems with
• 15:39
  social workers and therapists and different specialists to, to
• 15:42
  help them. And that's not what happened at
• 15:44
  all. I ended up going into a system
• 15:47
  where we had we, we literally had no time to help people.
• 15:51
  It was, it was, you know, these short, you know, 40 minute
• 15:55
  assessments at the beginning and then we would see them a couple
• 15:58
  times throughout the year for, for 15 minutes.
• 16:01
  And I remember thinking to myself, how can we really be
• 16:04
  expected to help these people if we don't understand anything
• 16:08
  about their lives? And I realized that it was just
• 16:13
  impossible because you know, when in, in the insurance model
• 16:17
  of care that we're in right now, this this happened.
• 16:19
  It really picked up throughout the 80s and then into the 90s,
• 16:22
  insurance companies, they really conglomerated, they controlled
• 16:25
  all the patients. They were able to negotiate with
• 16:28
  doctor groups what reimbursement was going to be for visits.
• 16:33
  And the rates were so low that in order to make ends meet, you
• 16:37
  now had to see four people in an hour.
• 16:39
  And when you see four people in an hour, in order for just the
• 16:43
  clinic to run, you know, not even have huge profits, just to
• 16:47
  just to make it, you have to have a panel of like 2000
• 16:51
  people. And you tell me this.
• 16:53
  How well do you think you can know 2000 people?
• 16:57
  It's, it's impossible. And So what happens in a model
• 17:02
  like that, which is what most Americans are experiencing now,
• 17:06
  is that you get diagnosed according to a checklist.
• 17:09
  You come in and they give you a questionnaire and you fill out a
• 17:14
  couple things and they say you've got major depressive
• 17:17
  disorder. They don't ask you about your
• 17:18
  relationship. They don't understand your work.
• 17:20
  They don't talk to you about your physical health or any
• 17:23
  other substances that you're using.
• 17:25
  You've done this questionnaire and then you get treated by
• 17:28
  algorithm and and they say, well, major depressive disorder,
• 17:31
  the arrow goes to SSRI. Hey, we've got this FDA approved
• 17:35
  treatment, let's go. And so I remember thinking for a
• 17:38
  while, this feels just intuitively very wrong to me.
• 17:43
  Like it doesn't make sense. But I'm a junior doctor.
• 17:47
  I'm going to suspend my suspicions here and just kind of
• 17:50
  go with the flow. But then the more I sat around
• 17:54
  and I was practicing like this, like, not only was it not
• 17:56
  working, I mean, my patients weren't getting better, I
• 17:59
  started to uncover all of these lies that I was being taught.
• 18:05
  You know, I was being taught that depression was a chemical
• 18:07
  imbalance. You know, anxiety is a chemical
• 18:09
  imbalance, schizophrenia, bipolar.
• 18:12
  And then just after like kind of going one level beneath the
• 18:15
  surface, I learned essentially that none of it was true.
• 18:19
  There were no objective like biological markers that were
• 18:23
  able to distinguish people with quote UN quote, real biological
• 18:27
  mental illness as opposed to people who had just had physical
• 18:30
  health problems or problems in their life or stresses.
• 18:33
  That was just this fake distinction that we were using
• 18:39
  as a white lie essentially to get patients to go along with
• 18:42
  the fact that all we had to hide to do was give them medications.
• 18:47
  Because it's it's kind of hard to convince someone, Lila, if
• 18:50
  they come into you and they're really struggling and they and
• 18:53
  they have this like hesitation and they go, I'm not really sure
• 18:57
  I want to take a drug for this problem like that.
• 18:59
  Doesn't you know, my grandma would be like, don't take
• 19:02
  something to mask something else.
• 19:04
  Don't sweep your problems under the rug.
• 19:06
  So there's this inherent suspicion that a lot of
• 19:08
  Americans have about this. But if you tell them that they
• 19:11
  have a chemical imbalance and taking one of these drugs is
• 19:15
  like a diabetic taking insulin, it's like, oh, it's a medical
• 19:18
  thing. You know, this is just me being
• 19:20
  responsible and looking after my health in a good way.
• 19:23
  It it's this white lie that kind of smooths over the fact that
• 19:27
  they just don't really have time to do anything else.
• 19:30
  And so I'm getting hit with like all of these realizations and
• 19:33
  I'm just like, I can't do this. This is just wrong.
• 19:37
  So what you just said is crazy. I mean, I've heard it before
• 19:41
  from you largely. But this idea that when this
• 19:45
  language of chemical imbalance, which is used, it's commonly
• 19:48
  used in a psychiatric healthcare setting when there's potential
• 19:53
  prescriptions happening for any kind of number of conditions,
• 19:56
  including depression or anxiety and chemical imbalance is being
• 19:59
  used as a reason for the prescription.
• 20:02
  But it sounds like what you're saying is that is actually fake.
• 20:05
  There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.
• 20:08
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have looked like,
• 20:11
  let's talk about depression, the biggest one.
• 20:14
  Is there proof that there's low serotonin going on that there
• 20:17
  isn't? I mean, we've, we've stuck
• 20:19
  needles into the spinal cords of people and drawn out their
• 20:22
  cerebral spinal fluid to look for serotonin metabolites.
• 20:26
  We've done autopsies on brains of people who had depression and
• 20:30
  compared them to healthy brains to look at serotonin receptors.
• 20:34
  There is, I mean, there is no there, there's nothing there.
• 20:39
  And that, and that's why we don't do brain scans on people
• 20:42
  when they come in to for mental health assessment or we don't do
• 20:46
  lab tests. That's that's that's why that
• 20:48
  doesn't happen. Now, I'm not going to say that
• 20:50
  there isn't some genetic disposition out there because we
• 20:54
  all know some people out there who would nervous Nellies or
• 20:56
  worry warts and that's, you know, some people are are a
• 20:59
  little bit more Moody. But it doesn't boil down to like
• 21:03
  this single serotonin deficiency that the drug kind of magically
• 21:07
  fixes these variations in our mood across our population.
• 21:13
  These are polygenic. These are multiple different
• 21:15
  genes, and I don't even think you could call that a disease.
• 21:18
  This is natural variation in the way in the way people are.
• 21:23
  And so to misrepresent that as like, hey, there's this singular
• 21:26
  problem and oh, by the way, you know, Eli Lilly has this drug
• 21:30
  for that. You know, I, I mean, there's
• 21:32
  clearly a commercial agenda going on there and it's
• 21:34
  misleading people. What you're saying is so wild
• 21:37
  and I have to just share for a minute from personal experience.
• 21:40
  So when I was a teenager and I was sure about this in my book
• 21:44
  and you know, thanks be to God, I feel so much healthy.
• 21:46
  And I think I figured out a lot of just the lifestyle and
• 21:50
  spiritual and relationship changes that needed to have be
• 21:53
  made. But I was diagnosed with
• 21:55
  depression at age 16 and I went into this, you know, I went to a
• 22:00
  therapist because I was having kind of emotional relationship,
• 22:02
  you know, just a lot of personal self esteem issues, whatever,
• 22:05
  you know, disordered eating, you know, referred to a
• 22:08
  psychiatrist, sat down with a psychiatrist.
• 22:10
  We talked for maybe 30 minutes. It was more than 15 the first
• 22:13
  time. And immediately he's going to
• 22:16
  give me the free trial drug Lexapro because I fit.
• 22:19
  I checked all his boxes. And then I'd go back and see him
• 22:22
  every year, six months again, 15 minutes like you were just
• 22:25
  describing. And the language used to me was
• 22:27
  there is a chemical imbalance that you likely have.
• 22:30
  I don't know if you said it with total confidence, but this is
• 22:32
  what Lexapro's designed to treat so that you can get ultimately
• 22:36
  more serotonin. And so the language of my family
• 22:39
  at the time, because we all trusted the experts was OK.
• 22:41
  We're, we have a serotonin deficiency in a family because
• 22:43
  my dad had some struggles with depression, other siblings that
• 22:46
  had different issues. And so he said, oh, genetically
• 22:49
  we don't make enough serotonin as a family.
• 22:52
  Some of us, some of us are fine. And so we should just take a
• 22:55
  little drug until we figure it out if the brain heals itself
• 22:58
  somehow. Like that was the expert opinion
• 23:01
  about what I was experiencing. And I know many other people
• 23:04
  have been told the same. I know, and you know, the
• 23:07
  saddest thing about that Lila, is I, I think it, it just, it
• 23:11
  sidesteps real problems in our society, right?
• 23:16
  How many problems could a 16 year old girl be having, you
• 23:19
  know, in our society? I mean, you grew up in, in
• 23:21
  Northern California, Like, it's like, like this is like the peak
• 23:26
  time for identity development for, for, for young girls.
• 23:29
  We're getting bombarded in the media about what we should look
• 23:32
  like and, you know, these unrealistic standards of beauty.
• 23:36
  Trying to figure out how am I going to balance a career with
• 23:39
  the rest of my life? Where am I going to go in the
• 23:43
  US? You guys work like insane
• 23:46
  amounts, even kids. I don't know what your school
• 23:48
  was like. It was, I wasn't sleeping.
• 23:50
  I mean, I was in 6A PS I was running live action.
• 23:53
  I was running, you know, all of these extracurriculars, you
• 23:56
  know, nonprofit activities. And then I was doing, you know,
• 23:59
  speech, homeschool speech and debate.
• 24:00
  I mean, I was doing I, I didn't sleep because I was so busy.
• 24:04
  That doesn't surprise me. And I was on Zynga, which is
• 24:06
  this early, you know, version of like Tumblr or TikTok or
• 24:10
  something. And there was all these like
• 24:12
  disordered eating girls trying to get skinnier.
• 24:14
  And that was like in my feed. And so I was like, oh, and I'm
• 24:16
  and I'm fat on top of it. Yeah, so it's, so it's not a
• 24:19
  bad, it's not the fact that you're doing a bunch of AP
• 24:21
  classes and, you know, you're totally sucked into this like
• 24:26
  this, this, this culture over here where it's just like you
• 24:30
  are what college you go to, you need to grind super hard because
• 24:34
  that is like yourself worth. Yeah, it's, it's just serotonin
• 24:39
  problem is what I'm saying. And and and that's so sad,
• 24:42
  right? Because you, you rob people of
• 24:44
  the opportunity to kind of step back and just be like, Hey, is
• 24:47
  it really normal for me to like, you know, wake up at 7:00 AM
• 24:50
  and, you know, get my work done, go to school, do sports, come
• 24:54
  back, study, do all of this stuff.
• 24:56
  And then just be so such in a state of chronic anxiety and
• 25:00
  stress that I stopped sleeping. Like that's not the problem,
• 25:03
  right? You know, it's, it's, it's that
• 25:05
  you have a serotonin issue. And that's why, like, I mean,
• 25:08
  what happened to you is really what happens to so many people
• 25:13
  out there? They're, they're just living
• 25:14
  these lives, these unhealthy, unnatural lives filled with
• 25:17
  chronic stress. And the doctors say, oh, it's
• 25:20
  chemical imbalance, you know, and, and then they just keep on
• 25:23
  doing it. And then they just get sick.
• 25:26
  Can you share about how what we eat and how we move impacts
• 25:31
  significantly can impact our experience of mental Wellness or
• 25:35
  illness? Your physical health and your
• 25:38
  diet is one of the most underrated and overlooked areas
• 25:43
  in your mental health for a very long time.
• 25:45
  You go and you used to go and see a psychiatrist and they
• 25:48
  would say, OK, you're depressed. Well, you know the stressful
• 25:52
  things in your life. If you say yes, you go, okay, go
• 25:54
  and see a therapist. If there's not, they would just
• 25:56
  say you have a chemical imbalance.
• 25:58
  We need to give you a medication.
• 26:00
  And the area that they've been overlooking this whole time is
• 26:03
  physical health. I mean, our brains, they sit
• 26:06
  inside our body and so if our body is unhealthy, our brain
• 26:10
  will be unhealthy and then we're going to have anxious thoughts.
• 26:15
  And So what are the most important things to kind of help
• 26:18
  keep your body in in good shape? So nutrition firstly, you know,
• 26:22
  you want to have a Whole Foods diet, you want to avoid ultra
• 26:26
  processed foods, you want to have good blood sugar control.
• 26:29
  I mean, all of these things lead to inflammation.
• 26:31
  They can also damage your gut. One thing that's massively
• 26:35
  underappreciated and written off is this doesn't apply to
• 26:40
  everyone, but for some people, gluten is a big trigger of
• 26:43
  inflammation. I know it seems like a fad for a
• 26:46
  lot of people, and there's lots of people out there who are
• 26:48
  making their own sourdough right now and they're just like, no,
• 26:51
  it's just the glyphosate. I'm telling you, if you have
• 26:54
  serious mental health problems and you haven't tried a gluten
• 26:56
  free diet, just do it for five weeks because I have seen this
• 27:00
  completely change some people's lives.
• 27:02
  It can be very inflammatory. And then, you know, outside of
• 27:06
  that movement is obviously really important.
• 27:09
  Now, why is it important? Well, if you're, if you're, if
• 27:12
  you're active, and I don't mean like you can lift weights, you
• 27:14
  can run, but you really don't need to do all of that stuff.
• 27:17
  7000 to 10,000 steps a day is a great place to start.
• 27:21
  It helps you stay lean. Being lean is really important
• 27:24
  as well, like because if you're carrying around too much weight,
• 27:27
  that's extra inflammation for your body as well.
• 27:30
  And that also leads to worsening and sleep quality.
• 27:34
  And the other thing when it comes to physical health,
• 27:38
  because I think we often think, yeah, diet and exercise, that
• 27:40
  makes a lot of sense. We don't like to consider the
• 27:44
  drugs that we put in our body. And I talk a lot about, you
• 27:51
  know, caffeine, nicotine, cannabis, alcohol.
• 27:54
  And I think some people are like, yeah, you know, most of
• 27:56
  those make sense apart from the caffeine.
• 27:58
  You know, there's always some, like, resistance there.
• 28:00
  Caffeine can cause some problems, especially if you
• 28:02
  overdo it, but it's not the worst.
• 28:04
  The things that I want. Yeah, yeah, you just, you just
• 28:07
  like the. We're done with that for now.
• 28:09
  OK, you're drinking tea. I noticed that.
• 28:11
  Herbal. Herbal tea.
• 28:13
  Yeah, yeah. With no sugar, yeah.
• 28:14
  I should learn from the good doctor.
• 28:15
  Here, yeah, I'm a bit well I'm really sensitive and I, I
• 28:19
  definitely run on the more high strung side.
• 28:22
  So, but the, the thing that I really want people to be aware
• 28:26
  of are pharmaceuticals because we often overlook them.
• 28:30
  You know, you could be taking hormonal birth control for acne
• 28:34
  or painful periods or GLP ones and, and sometimes even steroids
• 28:41
  like you want to look at the pharmaceuticals going into your
• 28:45
  body because they will also affect your physical and mental
• 28:48
  health as well. And so in general, you know,
• 28:50
  body is a temple, be really careful about what you're
• 28:54
  putting in it. And, and you'll find that as
• 28:56
  you, you, you move and you eat the right things and you kind of
• 28:59
  get these harmful substances out, you'll just start to feel
• 29:03
  better. One thing that you said that I
• 29:05
  think it's so essential and we need to talk about more is your
• 29:09
  commentary on the way the system is set up where all of the
• 29:13
  things you're talking about, these lifestyle improvements,
• 29:15
  diet improvements, evaluate, you know, what are their
• 29:19
  prescriptions are you taking, if any?
• 29:22
  And then looking at relational issues or childhood issues,
• 29:25
  traumas, It takes time to explore those things.
• 29:30
  It takes time to explore all the reasons somebody might not be
• 29:33
  feeling well. Yes.
• 29:35
  But like you said, the typical visit is 15 minutes, maybe a few
• 29:39
  times a year. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:42
  And you know, I saw, have you ever seen the show Riverside?
• 29:47
  Like it's, it was like 1. I mean, it's, it's, it's OK.
• 29:51
  It's super Americana. It's it's based on like.
• 29:54
  I love America here, yeah. And I, I forget the name of, but
• 29:58
  the main girl there who plays Betty, you know, I just saw a
• 30:02
  reel of her just last night, you know, when I was coming in here
• 30:06
  and she was talking about having PMDD.
• 30:09
  And so this this is like really painful periods.
• 30:12
  And she was saying I started taking an SSRI for that.
• 30:15
  And I used to think painful periods, this was just something
• 30:19
  that I, you know, I thought was normal for everyone.
• 30:21
  But then the doctor told me that I have PMDD.
• 30:25
  And now I knew it's like a medical condition and I need an
• 30:27
  SSRI. And that's OK.
• 30:29
  But then I'm thinking like, what did this doctor do with you?
• 30:33
  You know, are you someone who, you know, are there, there's
• 30:37
  some dietary issues, there's some gluten issues going on.
• 30:40
  Are you someone who, you know, you're famous Hollywood star and
• 30:43
  there's a lot of stresses in your life.
• 30:45
  You, you run high on anxiety. You need to, to learn how to
• 30:48
  decompress. All of that can lead to higher
• 30:50
  levels of inflammation. And so there's just like
• 30:54
  multiple things that can cause not just mental health problems,
• 30:58
  but painful periods, migraines, like all of these issues, like
• 31:02
  so many of them come back to the way we live and, and, and yeah,
• 31:07
  in our 15 minute system, we don't really dig into that.
• 31:10
  We just, OK, you know, take the SSRI for PMDD, you know, take
• 31:14
  this, you know, Topamax for your migraines and all of a sudden
• 31:18
  you're just on all these drugs. I think we're so used to that
• 31:21
  being the norm. This is what's crazy because
• 31:23
  that was even the norm when I was, you know, a teenager, so
• 31:26
  going on 15 years ago. And the norm is you just have a
• 31:31
  short conversation. There's a checklist taken with
• 31:34
  your therapy with your doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist.
• 31:38
  I mean, a therapist, obviously, or if you're doing, you know,
• 31:39
  talk therapy, it's different. And then you get a prescription
• 31:43
  or you get, you know, a diagnosis when, like you're
• 31:47
  saying, there's so much complexity to the why behind
• 31:50
  these conditions. Can you share more about all the
• 31:53
  different why's? You've touched on nutrition as
• 31:57
  one example, but all of the whys behind why someone might be
• 32:00
  anxious or depressed. I want to bring it there.
• 32:06
  I mean, there are a million ways I could go with this, but I
• 32:08
  actually want to simplify it because I think there really is
• 32:11
  one thing that is at the root of so many problems that we're
• 32:15
  having and it's chronic stress. It's the fact that, I mean, I've
• 32:21
  seen you interview guests on, on this show, they're just like
• 32:24
  grinding, you know, they're like the husband's away at work.
• 32:27
  The mom is looking after all the kids.
• 32:29
  You know, she doesn't get to bed until like 1:00 AM in the
• 32:31
  morning. And then they're trying to fit
• 32:32
  in time to have a relationship as well.
• 32:34
  Like, well, most people don't have 7 kids.
• 32:38
  That's like a really relatable thing for many people to just
• 32:41
  kind of get up, get the kids ready for school, you know, get
• 32:44
  the lunches done, you know, go to work.
• 32:46
  I mean, 70% of American households, both parents are
• 32:49
  working now. Or they homeschool and they get
• 32:51
  to all sleep in together. Yeah, as another model, but
• 32:53
  sorry for the interruption. Yeah.
• 32:55
  I, I, I have a friend of mine right now who, who, who runs a
• 32:58
  business. Her husband works as well and
• 33:00
  then she homeschools her kids. I'm just like Nicole, when do
• 33:03
  you, when do you sleep? You know, like, and yeah, we, we
• 33:09
  live in this world now where in our families, both the parents,
• 33:14
  they, you know, they're, they're often working and there's just
• 33:16
  so much responsibility. And if you're just like, go, go,
• 33:20
  go, go, go. Every single second of the day,
• 33:23
  you wire your brain to be in a state of chronic stress.
• 33:26
  You know, the cortisol is pumping.
• 33:28
  You start waking up in the middle of the night, you know,
• 33:30
  you start having light sleep because there's never any time
• 33:34
  to just decompress. And when you when you pack your
• 33:38
  schedule like that, how much time is there to, to exercise?
• 33:41
  How much time is there to eat clean food?
• 33:44
  And so I think at the heart of like so many problems, whether
• 33:47
  we're talking about like obesity, insomnia, anxiety,
• 33:50
  depression, headaches, painful periods, I think we're really
• 33:54
  talking about chronic stress and just just being in this go, go,
• 33:59
  go state all the time because that is really, that's not
• 34:02
  natural. That's not the way we were
• 34:04
  designed to be. I mean for most of our lives who
• 34:08
  out hunter hunting, gathering, having lots of downtime now
• 34:12
  we're just doing things non-stop and in like the 5 minutes like
• 34:16
  we go to the bathroom or we have a break between like clients,
• 34:19
  we're on our phones just like slamming our brain with like
• 34:22
  more stimulation, which is like constantly in this on state.
• 34:25
  It's a great and it's a fascinating point that you're
• 34:28
  making. I mean, before we had
• 34:30
  electricity being ubiquitous, which, you know, you can turn on
• 34:34
  the light. You have your screen as a
• 34:35
  constant light in your face. You know, there was the sleeping
• 34:38
  hours and the waking hours. Not that everyone slept, you
• 34:40
  know, from sundown to sunrise. People were usually up before
• 34:42
  sunrise and maybe finishing your day after sundown, but the
• 34:46
  lighting was very limited. And so it was like, this is time
• 34:49
  to be off. You sleep here, you rest here.
• 34:52
  You wake up maybe before the sun get going, but it's not like you
• 34:55
  can be up till 1:00 AM typing away at a computer, which so
• 34:59
  many people, including myself, often are.
• 35:01
  Building out your content. Oh, you know, I can fit in some
• 35:03
  business stuff here. I'm going to.
• 35:05
  I'm just going to keep on going. I've always been told you just
• 35:07
  have to keep on working harder and harder and harder.
• 35:10
  I think what sustains me because we do work a lot and we we're
• 35:14
  active a lot, I should say, and we work a lot is all of the
• 35:17
  positive hormones I get from my kid.
• 35:20
  My kids like just because I get to be with my kids a lot because
• 35:23
  of the nature of my work, despite having a lot of work.
• 35:25
  And then also just faith, honestly, and having a purpose
• 35:28
  and, and, and being driven. I'm not saying I've got it
• 35:30
  figured out and I shouldn't be doing more leisure activities.
• 35:34
  I'm sure I should be. But I think you're right.
• 35:37
  Modern society today is absolutely designed for constant
• 35:41
  activity. And then screens are this, you
• 35:44
  know, regular part of it that even take us out of the present
• 35:46
  moment, which can compound an already existing mental issue
• 35:51
  that someone's struggling with, whether it's depression, anxiety
• 35:53
  or something else. Yeah.
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  That's everylife.com/lila. So if somebody's on a
• 37:40
  prescription right now and they or maybe multiple and they're
• 37:43
  like I'm doing OK, it has helped me, what would you say to them?
• 37:49
  I would say I, I believe you and that a lot of these medications,
• 37:53
  they have drug effects that can be really therapeutic.
• 37:57
  I mean, if you're on a sedative and it's helping you sleep,
• 38:00
  yeah, that's going to feel, that's going to feel wonderful.
• 38:03
  If you're like that person we were just describing a moment
• 38:07
  ago who's just like, go, go, go. And you're just like tense and
• 38:10
  it boiled over and you started to have panic attacks or
• 38:13
  anxiety. And you're just like, Oh my God,
• 38:16
  like, I can't have panic attacks and anxiety.
• 38:18
  I have too much responsibility. I can't be feeling like this.
• 38:22
  And you take a Zoloft or a Lexapro and it brings that down.
• 38:25
  You're going to say, yeah, this is this is great.
• 38:28
  What I would want them to know, though, is that it's not
• 38:33
  addressing the root cause. And while it's OK to take
• 38:37
  something for a short period of time, I only think it's OK if
• 38:41
  you take it while simultaneously addressing the reason why you
• 38:46
  ended up needing it in the first place and finding non drug
• 38:49
  approaches to that. Because the reason I think it's,
• 38:52
  it's, it's dangerous to just take a drug without doing that
• 38:56
  is these drugs wear off over time.
• 38:58
  There's, there's nothing different about this than like a
• 39:00
  cannabis or an alcohol in the sense of like tolerance.
• 39:04
  The human body just does not like being in a drug state.
• 39:08
  You know, serotonin in our brain, it's, it's not just an
• 39:11
  area that works on our anxiety. It serotonin controls our heart
• 39:15
  and our gut and our digestive tract.
• 39:18
  And so if we and so when we take these drugs, the body says, oh,
• 39:22
  we're out of balance, send signals up to the brain, down,
• 39:25
  regulate the receptors, kind of bring it back into that normal
• 39:28
  groove where everything's working.
• 39:29
  And then the drug effect goes away.
• 39:31
  And then you're like, OK, well, I guess I need more and then I
• 39:33
  guess I need more. And then two years later you're
• 39:35
  on the Max dose and it's one off.
• 39:38
  And then you just have this decision to make where it's
• 39:40
  like, do I just keep on taking this drug that's not doing much
• 39:44
  for me anymore? Or do I take another drug?
• 39:47
  And then if you go that route and you start like, stacking
• 39:50
  multiple drugs, like many of the patients in my practice now who
• 39:53
  I'm helping come off, over time, you go from being this person
• 39:58
  that was like, mostly functional, yeah, I'm taking
• 40:01
  this SSRI. It's helping me, but I can do
• 40:04
  everything. Once you add that second and
• 40:06
  that third drug on top of it, these people start to just feel
• 40:10
  crummy most of the day. They start to feel lethargic.
• 40:12
  They start to feel sluggish. They start to have some
• 40:15
  cognitive impairment. Because how could that not be
• 40:18
  the case when you're on three different drugs that like you
• 40:21
  start to notice these deficits. And so for a lot of people,
• 40:27
  that's that ends up being the path that, you know, just just
• 40:31
  taking a drug and not doing anything else leads to, you
• 40:34
  know, that that's what the future is like.
• 40:36
  So no shame. I don't, I don't want to, you
• 40:40
  know, judge you or anything. If you've if, if, if you needed
• 40:43
  it in a crisis, a lot of people do, but make sure your doctor is
• 40:46
  helping you find a way off those medications because that's going
• 40:50
  to be the most sustainable way forward.
• 40:53
  If somebody wants to live a happier life, where do you
• 40:56
  recommend that they start? I think it really depends.
• 41:01
  So it depends on the person and the issues going on.
• 41:06
  So I like to think that we are pretty mental health is not that
• 41:14
  complicated, Lila. Like it's really there's your
• 41:19
  physical health and there's the relationships and then there's
• 41:22
  meaning and purpose, right? This, these, these are like the
• 41:25
  main things. And so if you're unhappy, you
• 41:28
  just have to do an audit of your life.
• 41:30
  What's my physical health like? If, if that area is lacking,
• 41:33
  that's where you need to spend, spend time.
• 41:36
  If it's in purpose and meaning, you know, if you're, you know, I
• 41:39
  know you were mentioning like a moment ago that there's so much
• 41:42
  purpose and meaning in what you're doing that it really
• 41:44
  drives you. But there's a lot of people out
• 41:46
  there who feel very disconnected from that.
• 41:48
  And they're just like, I'm just working for this company and I
• 41:51
  don't really like that. Listen to that voice, you know,
• 41:55
  you know, don't numb it or suppress it.
• 41:57
  Suppress it. Find something, you know, where
• 42:00
  you can help, where you can live a life and service of others,
• 42:02
  where it's kind of at that sweet spot of what you're interested
• 42:05
  in and what you're good at. That's going to be where you're
• 42:08
  going to get the best mental health gains.
• 42:11
  Humans were also not meant to be in isolation.
• 42:14
  And so for many people, it's like relationships is the area
• 42:18
  that's really lacking, whether it's in their intimate
• 42:20
  relationship or maybe they're lonely.
• 42:23
  You need to look at that and say, you know, why is this
• 42:27
  happening? Do we need to do some
• 42:28
  counselling together? Do I need to, you know, put
• 42:30
  myself out there more and build up these communities?
• 42:34
  And so I think you have to understand, you know, what is
• 42:38
  the part of your life that's having a deficit?
• 42:40
  And then, sorry, there's also substance abuse as well.
• 42:43
  Again, I don't want to overlook this because there's so many
• 42:46
  people out there just pounding caffeine, nicotine, alcohol,
• 42:49
  like different pharmaceuticals, Like that has to be on your
• 42:53
  radar as well. But that's how I would look at
• 42:55
  it. I'd look at it across those
• 42:56
  domains. That's so good, yeah.
• 42:59
  What's the difference between a stable patient and then a
• 43:03
  thriving patient? A lot of doctors, a lot of
• 43:09
  doctors love stable patients. These are patients that aren't
• 43:12
  going into the hospital and they're not calling their, their
• 43:16
  the clinic all the time. And they're just like, Oh yeah,
• 43:18
  they're stable, they're doing fine, but they're hardly
• 43:21
  thriving. They're they're kind of just
• 43:23
  going through the motions. Relationships still not good.
• 43:25
  Work is still not good, not really doing that well.
• 43:29
  A thriving patient is someone who's who's happy, engaged,
• 43:35
  hopeful for the future. Their physical health is good.
• 43:38
  They feel like direction in their life and we don't help our
• 43:43
  patients get there. Right now.
• 43:45
  We're like happy with stable where we really should be
• 43:48
  thinking how do we get them into this like upward cycle, this
• 43:52
  upward trajectory where their life is just improving?
• 43:56
  Why do you think people, patients and doctors so badly
• 44:00
  want that quick fix that magic pill?
• 44:04
  Doctors want it because they don't know any other way to
• 44:07
  operate. You know, they they don't know
• 44:09
  how to run their practice outside of the insurance system.
• 44:14
  And so when you only have 15 minutes with the patient, by
• 44:18
  default, you just end up using these medications.
• 44:21
  I actually think patients don't want that, but I think they're
• 44:24
  lied to. I think they, they go in and
• 44:26
  they see the doctors and they just assume like, well, I guess
• 44:30
  because the doctor is giving me these pills, this is what good
• 44:34
  responsible modern care looks like.
• 44:36
  Because they're not talking to me about diet, exercise,
• 44:40
  meditation, mindfulness, relationships, meaning and
• 44:43
  purpose. Those things mustn't be as
• 44:45
  important. It it just must be the drugs
• 44:47
  that are the helpful thing. And I have a chemical imbalance.
• 44:50
  So I think the doctors actually actually mislead patients.
• 44:52
  I think most patients would want really good sustainable
• 44:57
  strategies for their mental health.
• 45:00
  It sounds earlier like when you're speaking about just the
• 45:03
  way the world is and the chronic stress and everything else, that
• 45:06
  a lot of the things that are diagnosed as mental illness are
• 45:11
  actually just the natural consequence of living in a often
• 45:16
  chaotic and unnatural world. Yes, yeah.
• 45:22
  I don't know what to add to that apart from yes.
• 45:24
  Yeah. And you think that's gotten
• 45:27
  increasingly worse in the modern age?
• 45:29
  Like 100 years ago, it wasn't so bad.
• 45:31
  I mean, we had other problems 100 years ago, so.
• 45:34
  Lila, I do think the modern world has gotten stressful.
• 45:37
  I don't think people are getting softer or weaker.
• 45:42
  I just think it's it's different types of threats that we that we
• 45:45
  overlook. For instance, let's talk about
• 45:47
  social media right now. You know, teenage girls are
• 45:51
  spending 3 1/2 hours on social media a day, and you have to
• 45:55
  think about what impact that has on them.
• 45:59
  Like think about this, you know, it, it really is just like a
• 46:04
  Direct Line of influence into the brains of these kids.
• 46:09
  And it's like, what are they absorbing of value from this
• 46:12
  content? You know, you scroll around and
• 46:14
  it's like, well, I need to have these unrealistic standards of
• 46:17
  beauty. I need to be this entrepreneur.
• 46:20
  I get to go, you know, watch all my friends, you know, go to
• 46:23
  parties that I'm not invited to. I get to, you know, see everyone
• 46:26
  have this, these, these amazing lives and these vacations and
• 46:29
  they have more money. And it's like 1 you, it makes
• 46:33
  you feel inadequate. And two, it's like, do we really
• 46:37
  want young women to have these values where it's like, Hey,
• 46:41
  your, your value is, you know, it's in, it's in your career or
• 46:46
  it's, or it's just in, you know, in, in your looks.
• 46:50
  And, and I think that makes people sick, you know, and if we
• 46:54
  look at like church attendance over time, I mean, you go back
• 46:58
  to the 70s and 50% of American families are going to church.
• 47:04
  It's, it's now less than 30%. And so if we were looking at
• 47:07
  like a different way of getting really good values into kids,
• 47:12
  live a life in service of others, others you're valued
• 47:14
  because of your wisdom, you know, things like that.
• 47:18
  Like the amount of that going on now is so small.
• 47:21
  And we're just like bombarding people with this, with this
• 47:23
  trash which they're ingesting. And so some people will look at
• 47:29
  that and they'll just be like, you know, why are these kids so,
• 47:31
  so, you know, so anxious now? Like, what is going on with
• 47:33
  them? I think their minds are being
• 47:35
  polluted. That's such a great point and I
• 47:39
  can't see how what you're saying could not be true because we
• 47:43
  know, I mean, objectively speaking, like if in isolation,
• 47:45
  social media as an example, the negative effects that has on
• 47:48
  mental health. And we know the negative effects
• 47:51
  of, you know, lack of sleep, you know, as another example, or
• 47:53
  like you said, chronic stress. How can a patient and their
• 47:57
  doctor discern or distinguish between the symptoms of what
• 48:03
  they're originally trying to treat with a mental illness and
• 48:06
  maybe the side effects of getting off of prescription
• 48:10
  drugs? Like withdrawal you mean?
• 48:13
  Withdrawal or they just feel worse and they're not sure if it
• 48:17
  is because they're getting off the drug or because it's just
• 48:20
  their original mental illness coming back.
• 48:23
  So Lila, it can be, it can be challenging, but the first thing
• 48:29
  that I want people to understand is that you need to know where
• 48:34
  your symptoms are coming from. Like there was a reason why you
• 48:37
  got on these drugs in the 1st place.
• 48:40
  You know, whether it was chronic stress, maybe a partner left,
• 48:43
  maybe someone died, you know, that's, and that led to a group
• 48:48
  of symptoms that you, that, that led to you getting on the drug.
• 48:52
  And so let's say you now find yourself in a situation where
• 48:56
  you're on all these medications and you're just like, well, I
• 49:00
  want to come off and you start to come off the drugs and now
• 49:05
  you have to decide, you know, is this, you know, I'm feeling
• 49:08
  worse. Is this my underlying condition
• 49:10
  coming back? Or is this potentially
• 49:12
  withdrawal? Now, if it's your underlying
• 49:16
  condition, you need to look at like, like, why did you get on
• 49:19
  the drug in the 1st place? Does this match how I was
• 49:21
  feeling at the start? Because that's how you're going
• 49:24
  to know whether it was, you know, just your mental health
• 49:28
  problems or or maybe do the symptoms that I'm having right
• 49:32
  now, do they make sense in the context of my life?
• 49:35
  You know, the stressful things happening right now?
• 49:37
  And if they don't and you're doing a taper and you're coming
• 49:40
  off the drugs, you're having all these symptoms and maybe you
• 49:43
  have a couple things like brain zaps, nausea, dizziness,
• 49:47
  unsteadiness. Well, that group of symptoms
• 49:50
  matches up a lot more closely with withdrawal.
• 49:53
  And then you could just say, hey, I'm not going crazy.
• 49:55
  There's nothing wrong with me. I just need to slow down the
• 49:58
  rate of my taper. I need to do this in a more
• 50:00
  structured, gradual way. And there's, there's really no,
• 50:04
  you know, disaster going on right now.
• 50:06
  I want to ask you for a moment about conditions like bipolar
• 50:10
  schizophrenia. Over here in the constellation,
• 50:14
  there's like personality disorders, which I know are not,
• 50:16
  as I understand in the DSM, but you know, you can't really like
• 50:20
  treat them the way you can treat maybe bipolar schizophrenia, at
• 50:22
  least clinically in a clinical setting.
• 50:25
  Can you talk about your concerns with how we currently diagnose
• 50:29
  and treat not so much depression and anxiety?
• 50:32
  We've talked about that a little more, but things like bipolar
• 50:34
  and schizophrenia. The biggest thing I worry about
• 50:37
  with bipolar and schizophrenia is cannabis use and drug induced
• 50:42
  psychosis being misdiagnosed. Now most people think that
• 50:48
  cannabis is benign. They think, hey, it's been
• 50:50
  around since the 70s. This is just, it's a herb, it's
• 50:54
  safe, it's medical, what's the big deal?
• 50:57
  That is not true. That is an absolute lie.
• 51:00
  The cannabis that people are smoking now is so strong you
• 51:04
  can't even consider it like similar to what people used to
• 51:07
  smoke. And so a lot of this happened
• 51:09
  since 2010. So prior to 2010, cannabis, the
• 51:14
  THC concentration in cannabis was sub 10%.
• 51:18
  Since then, it has just hockey sticked.
• 51:20
  I mean, if you go back to the 70s, it was like 3%.
• 51:23
  I mean, it's really different. And so now THC concentrations
• 51:26
  are much stronger because we do hybridized growing essentially
• 51:30
  meaning we get the most potent plants and we continuously breed
• 51:33
  them together. We grow them hydroponically
• 51:36
  where we enrich them with fertilizers.
• 51:40
  And so you end up getting these buds now that are like 20 to 35%
• 51:45
  THC. This is what you guys have in
• 51:46
  California, you know, all over the dispensaries, if you go into
• 51:49
  that, something within that range, this is like 5 to six to
• 51:54
  seven times stronger than than stuff that people were smoking
• 51:58
  in the past. Now, what impact does that have?
• 52:00
  Well, I'd like to tell you briefly about a study from the
• 52:03
  UK that was done about 10 years ago.
• 52:06
  What they did was they got two groups of patients.
• 52:09
  One group was smoking 5% THC cannabis and the other group was
• 52:15
  smoking 15%. Remember that 5% is is
• 52:17
  essentially kind of where things have been up until the 20 tens.
• 52:21
  They then measured how many of them developed psychosis
• 52:26
  spontaneously. Now the group smoking 5%, that
• 52:29
  happened in 1% of the patients. It's still a lot, by the way.
• 52:33
  It is, but here's the thing, that's the same as the
• 52:36
  background rate in the normal population who doesn't smoke.
• 52:39
  And so it's actually so that there wasn't any difference
• 52:43
  there. The thing that was really
• 52:45
  shocking was what was going on in the group who was smoking 15%
• 52:49
  cannabis, 5% of them had drug induced psychosis.
• 52:53
  So it increased by a factor of 5.
• 52:56
  Now what I want the audience to hear right now, that was at 15%.
• 53:00
  Right now most people are smoking 25% and so it's like
• 53:03
  even stronger than that. And so, and So what is happening
• 53:10
  now is that people are smoking this modern cannabis, they are
• 53:13
  thinking that it is safe. They, they, they are going, they
• 53:17
  are experiencing drug induced psychosis because of this.
• 53:20
  And then it's being misdiagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenia.
• 53:25
  And I want to tell you why that happens.
• 53:27
  The reason it is misdiagnosed is that most doctors, you know,
• 53:30
  when someone comes in with a psychosis and they take the
• 53:32
  history and they go, OK, you know, occasional cannabis use,
• 53:35
  they'll go, well, the psychosis can only really last while the
• 53:40
  drug is in their system. And so if the person is still
• 53:43
  sick, they're still having paranoia and delusions, maybe
• 53:46
  two or three weeks later they'll say, well, this isn't cannabis
• 53:49
  induced psychosis anymore. This person has developed a
• 53:53
  bipolar or schizophrenia disorder.
• 53:55
  The thing that they miss is that cannabis induced psychosis
• 54:00
  behaves like a brain injury. And you know, I've learned and
• 54:04
  I've learned this because I get a lot of people in my practice
• 54:06
  now who have had a drug induced psychosis and I get to watch
• 54:09
  them improve over time. That psychotic episode that you
• 54:13
  get on cannabis, it's, it's like a bruise to the brain.
• 54:17
  And even after you stop smoking, it can take you 3 months, six
• 54:21
  months, nine months, 12 months to fully come back to normal.
• 54:25
  And I, and I, and I watch them, you know, they'll, they'll be
• 54:27
  really sick, they'll get a little bit better, then they'll
• 54:29
  have some paranoia and then they'll get better and then
• 54:32
  they'll have some more paranoia and get better.
• 54:35
  And really the, the thing that heals these individuals is, is
• 54:38
  essentially sobriety and support from their family.
• 54:42
  But what they're getting is they end up on, you know, lithium and
• 54:44
  Depakote and antipsychotic medications and they are told
• 54:49
  that they have bipolar schizophrenia and when really
• 54:53
  they don't, they just need sobriety and support and
• 54:55
  understanding. And this has become such a big
• 54:57
  issue. You know, recently Denmark
• 55:01
  looked at the amount of drug induced psychosis going on in
• 55:04
  their country and they believe 20% of the patients being
• 55:08
  diagnosed with schizophrenia that it is directly linked to
• 55:12
  cannabis. And So what that means is for
• 55:15
  schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, cannabis is the biggest
• 55:18
  modifiable risk factor. And so, so that's my main
• 55:21
  concern there is that we are is that we are misdiagnosing drug
• 55:27
  induced psychosis as as these serious mental health problems
• 55:29
  and then just leaving people on antipsychotics for the rest of
• 55:32
  their life. That's crazy.
• 55:34
  And then they experience side effects from the antipsychotics
• 55:36
  that then like sustain their injury or their feelings.
• 55:41
  Feelings of being unwell. Yes, like serious ones like
• 55:44
  antipsychotics, they can cause tardive dyskinesia.
• 55:47
  It's, it's an irreversible movement disorder.
• 55:50
  Most people would recognize it from the Batman movies, The Dark
• 55:55
  Knight with the Joker, you know, his, his kind of mouth is moving
• 55:57
  around, his tongue is coming out.
• 55:59
  That is like a, a, a link to being on antipsychotic meds
• 56:03
  because he, you know, he's come out of Gotham Asylum and, and
• 56:07
  now he has involuntary twitches from the drugs because he's,
• 56:11
  he's on antipsychotics and they cause huge amounts of weight
• 56:14
  gain. They also cause some cognitive,
• 56:16
  they cause cognitive problems as well.
• 56:19
  It's it's the difference between like a college kid who goes
• 56:22
  away, joins A frat, starts smoking weed and, you know, he
• 56:27
  has this drug induced psychosis. Like if he gets diagnosed
• 56:30
  correctly, yeah, And maybe he leaves school for a year, he
• 56:33
  kind of does some recovery, comes back to normal and then
• 56:35
  has a normal life. But if someone doesn't recognize
• 56:40
  that, he just ends up on antipsychotics, and then he
• 56:42
  starts to live a diminished life where he's kind of pushing
• 56:45
  through all of the drugs and doctors start telling him, oh,
• 56:49
  well, at least you're not in the hospital.
• 56:51
  At least you're stable, you know?
• 56:53
  And they they tell the parents, oh, yeah, yeah.
• 56:55
  This is the best that you can hope for.
• 56:57
  And these are parents who who loved their kids and they wanted
• 57:00
  the world for them. And all of a sudden, they're
• 57:02
  just like, you should just be happy that your kid is not, you
• 57:04
  know, in a psychiatric hospital now.
• 57:07
  It's a very different life trajectory when you get that
• 57:10
  diagnosis wrong. I want to explore that more.
• 57:13
  That's so fascinating what you just said.
• 57:15
  So let's just say as a theory, there's, you know, as
• 57:17
  hypothetical, I should say there's somebody who's, you
• 57:19
  know, experimenting with cannabis, using cannabis.
• 57:22
  It's the, you know, more than 5%, maybe up to 25% THC like
• 57:26
  you're describing. They have psychotic, you know,
• 57:29
  there's a psychotic impact of that.
• 57:30
  They then think they're mentally ill, right, of some kind.
• 57:34
  They go to the doctor. Maybe by this point they're
• 57:36
  they're sober because they're like, I'm not going to mess with
• 57:38
  weed. It's screwed me up.
• 57:39
  But they are, you know, maybe within the year of taking the
• 57:43
  weed. So they still have this
• 57:44
  potential brain injury. They're diagnosed with
• 57:46
  schizophrenia or some or bipolar or some other condition, right?
• 57:50
  They're put on antipsychotic meds of some kind.
• 57:53
  Then, you know, years go by, maybe they check in.
• 57:57
  They're kind of like subdued. They're not thriving, but
• 57:59
  they're stable. Then they're like, I'm done with
• 58:02
  this. They kind of try to go off of it
• 58:03
  maybe. And then they have withdrawal
• 58:05
  symptoms and maybe there's other things in their life happening
• 58:08
  that are not optimal because they've been this in the subdued
• 58:11
  condition. They haven't had a healthy
• 58:12
  relationship, thriving career. So they're kind of depressed.
• 58:15
  They kind of go off of it and they're like, my life sucks and
• 58:17
  now I'm subdued and I can actually experience how much my
• 58:19
  life sucks. And they're like, OK, I'm, I'm
• 58:22
  really unhappy again. And then, you know, they get all
• 58:25
  mentally unwell or feel very mentally unwell.
• 58:27
  They go back and they're like, oh, wait, you've got to go back
• 58:29
  on the drugs, obviously. And all of this could have been
• 58:33
  prevented if they had had proper care after experimenting with
• 58:37
  cannabis instead of being put on antipsychotic meds.
• 58:41
  So it's like a whole, a whole really potential generation of
• 58:44
  patients in their 20s really are losing the opportunity to thrive
• 58:49
  in part because of antipsychotic meds and not building strong
• 58:53
  systems or relationships work, whatever it is.
• 58:55
  And then they're kind of crippled going into their 30s
• 58:58
  and 40s. One thing that I will add as
• 59:00
  well is that many patients will keep on smoking cannabis.
• 59:06
  Now, I know this may sound crazy, but if, if, if they, if
• 59:09
  the doctor doesn't frame it in the right way and they're like,
• 59:12
  this drug gave you like a mini brain injury and you need to
• 59:15
  like stay away from it because it's going to hurt you and
• 59:17
  cognitively cripple you. They'll just come out of it and
• 59:22
  then they'll, they'll resume smoking because I mean, there
• 59:25
  are some kids out there who, you know, they just, they're out of
• 59:27
  frat and they just do it for fun and you know, it's really easy
• 59:31
  to stop. But a lot of people smoke
• 59:32
  cannabis every day for anxiety and sleep.
• 59:36
  And so they're already like fully dependent on it.
• 59:39
  So even if they have this drug induced psychosis, they come out
• 59:42
  of it and they're like, what do I do with all this anxiety and
• 59:44
  this insomnia? And they still have this thing
• 59:47
  in the back of their mind where it's like, hey, you know,
• 59:50
  cannabis is not that big of a deal.
• 59:51
  You know, everyone is legalizing it.
• 59:53
  It's funny, you know, like it's it's it's this normal thing.
• 59:56
  And they would just keep on causing themselves these
• 59:58
  repeated brain injuries with the cannabis over time.
• 1:00:01
  I mean, Brett Cooper talked about this really recently, I
• 1:00:04
  think it was a couple of months ago about how she was reflecting
• 1:00:08
  on what she had happened to her, to her brother.
• 1:00:11
  And he had serious problems with cannabis and he ended up
• 1:00:15
  essentially in a hospital for for a year.
• 1:00:17
  At the time and, and that happens, you can get a really
• 1:00:20
  dense severe psychosis with a lot of cognitive impairment.
• 1:00:24
  If you are the unlucky person who's really susceptible to, to
• 1:00:28
  the harm of that and you keep on exposing yourself to it, you,
• 1:00:31
  you can. And, and when we look outside
• 1:00:33
  and we look at like the homelessness problem out there,
• 1:00:36
  I think the media tries to hit us with this narrative or, you
• 1:00:40
  know, these people are unlucky. They're down and out or, you
• 1:00:43
  know, maybe there's some trauma or they're running away or maybe
• 1:00:45
  they were trafficked, who who knows?
• 1:00:47
  A lot of the people on the streets, they have brain
• 1:00:50
  injuries from drugs. Like that's why they're there.
• 1:00:52
  Like they, they, they have unstable moods.
• 1:00:55
  They have cognitive problems. They've alienated themselves
• 1:00:59
  from their families because their mood and their cognition
• 1:01:01
  is so disruptive. And, and that's the only place
• 1:01:04
  that they can live. So that's a big part of the
• 1:01:06
  homelessness problem as well. I've got to ask with cannabis
• 1:01:09
  because you can get brain injuries from a lot of drugs.
• 1:01:11
  Cannabis, of course, is the one that's more, you know, accepted
• 1:01:14
  as a normal thing. It's legalized, like you said,
• 1:01:16
  unlike maybe other drugs. But can you get a brain injury
• 1:01:20
  from cannabis that lasts more than 12 months?
• 1:01:23
  I've seen it, I've seen it last up to two years before I've, but
• 1:01:28
  it's not like. And can that come from smoking
• 1:01:30
  at one time if it's a high like a 25%, I think it's.
• 1:01:33
  THC that's that's very unlikely and so we're talking about
• 1:01:36
  things that are really uncommon now there's a there's a YouTube
• 1:01:40
  channel called every brain matters with Aubrey Adams.
• 1:01:44
  The Internet is amazing. Her channel is all about
• 1:01:46
  interviewing the parents and the the sons of people who have had
• 1:01:50
  cannabis induced psychosis and and how they recovered over
• 1:01:54
  time. And so you can listen to all of
• 1:01:56
  these stories about people and what, and I've only heard this
• 1:01:58
  once, but I heard it on her channel.
• 1:02:00
  One of the young men who had a cannabis induced psychosis, he's
• 1:02:04
  still up to two years later, was having some anxiety, occasional
• 1:02:08
  bouts of paranoia until it until he fully recovered.
• 1:02:11
  And so I don't think it's going to be really bad that entire
• 1:02:15
  time, but I think it will get better.
• 1:02:18
  But I mean, who's to say that in some individuals, like if they a
• 1:02:23
  smoking highly potent stuff repeatedly, I mean, it is
• 1:02:26
  possible that you could hurt yourself in a way that it
• 1:02:29
  doesn't fully recover. I mean, that makes sense to me
• 1:02:30
  as well. And there's other drugs too that
• 1:02:33
  you could take or experiment with that could lead to
• 1:02:36
  potentially even lifelong brain injuries.
• 1:02:39
  The interesting thing about that Lila, is we we've looked at,
• 1:02:43
  there was again another one of these studies where they looked
• 1:02:45
  at people who went into emergency rooms with drug
• 1:02:49
  induced psychosis from, you know, methamphetamine, cocaine
• 1:02:52
  and LSD, hallucinogens, you know, PCP.
• 1:02:56
  And then they looked at what was the chance that they would
• 1:02:58
  convert to a bipolar or schizophrenia diagnosis, which
• 1:03:02
  essentially means repeated episodes of mania or psychosis,
• 1:03:05
  A proxy measure for greater harm.
• 1:03:07
  The drug that was the worst out of all of them by far was
• 1:03:10
  cannabis. And that blows people away
• 1:03:12
  because people are like, you know, meth is worse.
• 1:03:14
  You know, LSD must be worse, Coke must be worse.
• 1:03:18
  There is something about the high potency THC weed now.
• 1:03:23
  It's just a different drug. It's it's really bad for some
• 1:03:26
  people. I've got to ask too, though,
• 1:03:29
  about the constellation of personality disorders because
• 1:03:32
  those are not fit into the categories of like bipolar or
• 1:03:35
  schizophrenia, although they can also often coexist.
• 1:03:38
  But for example, narcissism, like people who have a
• 1:03:42
  narcissist personality disorder or people think they might, you
• 1:03:46
  know, maybe they've never been actually diagnosed, but they're
• 1:03:48
  like this guy probably is a narcissist or they have BPD.
• 1:03:51
  So they're have difficult holding down any kind of normal
• 1:03:54
  relationship, right? But they're not diagnosed with
• 1:03:57
  bipolar per SE or schizophrenia. Could those things, these
• 1:04:01
  personality disorders, be linked to use of cannabis?
• 1:04:07
  So, yeah, so let's take, for example, borderline personality
• 1:04:12
  disorder, which is characterized by unstable relationships,
• 1:04:17
  difficulty with emotional distress, you know, hair trigger
• 1:04:21
  reactions, you know, jumping to conclusions.
• 1:04:23
  That's, that's usually what people think of.
• 1:04:25
  And so, you know, is this just, you know, on the one hand, you
• 1:04:29
  could say, is this just a constellation of the ways that
• 1:04:33
  someone reacts who who's maybe been traumatized, You know,
• 1:04:35
  maybe they were sexually abused by someone in their family.
• 1:04:38
  And now they just think I can't trust anyone because the people
• 1:04:42
  who were meant to look after me when I was young abused me.
• 1:04:45
  So how could I trust the world? Then anything that happens
• 1:04:48
  around them, someone tries to be nice to them.
• 1:04:51
  They interpret a a mean agenda or a motive there and they react
• 1:04:56
  in a strong way. And the person says, you know,
• 1:04:57
  what is going on and it just looks like they're really
• 1:05:00
  unstable. But they have just learnt from
• 1:05:02
  experience that that's, this is protective for me.
• 1:05:07
  Could you also get something that looks like that if someone
• 1:05:10
  is like harmed by a drug or they're on a psychiatric
• 1:05:14
  medication or a pharmaceutical that is causing an unstable mood
• 1:05:19
  for sure. You know, if something is making
• 1:05:20
  you keyed up, on edge and irritable, you, you and me, we,
• 1:05:25
  we could get into these states where we, we have strong
• 1:05:28
  emotions, difficulty regulating them, you know, lash out at
• 1:05:31
  people. And so absolutely, you know, we
• 1:05:35
  need to be looking one layer deeper in these people with
• 1:05:39
  these unstable moods to make sure we're not missing anything
• 1:05:41
  that could be contributing to that.
• 1:05:44
  I wanna take one of these potential people that you're
• 1:05:46
  talking about that they can't hold down jobs or relationships.
• 1:05:50
  They're like a hair trigger. They might seem to have
• 1:05:53
  borderline personality disorder or maybe bipolar or maybe
• 1:05:55
  schizophrenia or maybe narcissism or just something's
• 1:05:58
  wack and it's unclear. Maybe they've gotten one of
• 1:06:01
  those diagnosis in the past, but there's just there's not it's
• 1:06:04
  not looking up for them. What would you?
• 1:06:07
  How would you start to treat them?
• 1:06:10
  So again, you know, we, we want to look at things in a, in a
• 1:06:14
  great way, you know, mental health is, is it's pretty
• 1:06:16
  simple. And so I'm going to kind of walk
• 1:06:18
  you through what my process is. It's I, I do body, mind and
• 1:06:22
  spirit. And so we'll, we'll, we'll start
• 1:06:24
  with the body. Can I throw in one more thing
• 1:06:26
  before you go through that? And they're also terrified of
• 1:06:28
  psychiatric meds because psych meds, because maybe they've used
• 1:06:33
  them in the past and they've been about experience or they
• 1:06:35
  just don't trust doctors. Sure.
• 1:06:37
  Yeah, yeah. So, so, you know, the way I
• 1:06:43
  would approach them would, would just really be like, hey, so
• 1:06:46
  you're really suffering right now.
• 1:06:47
  You know, what's your understanding of where this
• 1:06:49
  comes from? And then I would listen to them
• 1:06:52
  and, and hear, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's because of,
• 1:06:56
  you know, you know, this relationship with this problem
• 1:06:58
  with my physical health. And then I would say, I would
• 1:07:01
  ask them, you know, what kind of help do you think you really
• 1:07:05
  need to get through this and just see where they go with
• 1:07:07
  that. That'll give me a sense of what
• 1:07:09
  interventions I'm going to start with to build trust and to build
• 1:07:12
  some hope with them. In the back of my mind though,
• 1:07:15
  when I'm looking at someone who has these problems, you know,
• 1:07:18
  some personality stuff, maybe some psychosis going on, I'm
• 1:07:21
  thinking body, mind and spirit. So I'm looking through them at,
• 1:07:25
  you know, is this a physical problem?
• 1:07:27
  Do I need to look at drugs that they're taking or using too much
• 1:07:31
  of? Do I need to look at their diet?
• 1:07:32
  Do we need to look at exercise? How can I put their body in the
• 1:07:36
  best possible state to support that healthy mind?
• 1:07:40
  I then jump over and I look at, OK, do they have meaning and
• 1:07:44
  purpose in their lives? You know what, what, what does
• 1:07:46
  their day look like? Or are they just kind of sitting
• 1:07:48
  around twiddling their thumbs just ruminating on anxious
• 1:07:51
  thoughts getting worked up? Do they have relation, good
• 1:07:55
  relationships and supports? How can I help them in that
• 1:07:58
  aspect? And then the final area is kind
• 1:08:01
  of going back to your mindset. Now, this is not to, you know,
• 1:08:06
  when I say we all have things to learn, we we all can learn
• 1:08:11
  emotional control and cognitive strategies.
• 1:08:15
  Some people I think naturally are better at these things.
• 1:08:19
  Other people, they're just dealt really hard hands in life and
• 1:08:23
  then they have more emotional and cognitive problems.
• 1:08:25
  And that's not a weakness or anything, but you can use things
• 1:08:29
  like DBT, so dialectical behavioral therapy or you know,
• 1:08:33
  CBT or ACT. These are all these like
• 1:08:36
  therapeutic acronyms for different treatments that
• 1:08:41
  psychologists use. And while that sounds really
• 1:08:43
  complicated, it's really not. They're essentially just bags of
• 1:08:48
  emotional and cognitive skills that are a whole bunch of
• 1:08:51
  therapists that say they specialize in borderline
• 1:08:53
  personality disorder. They're like, they need to learn
• 1:08:55
  how to do these 10 things, you know, like meditation, you know,
• 1:09:00
  some relational skills, distress tolerance.
• 1:09:04
  And so I would then introduce that to them as well and just
• 1:09:07
  say, can we teach you some emotional and cognitive skills?
• 1:09:11
  Can we teach you some distress tolerance?
• 1:09:12
  Can we give you some practical skills on how to navigate
• 1:09:16
  conflicts in relationships? Just so you, you, you
• 1:09:19
  essentially just you, you learn how to do things better.
• 1:09:22
  So that's how I would do it. I you know the body, you know
• 1:09:25
  their life, the the the you know the spirit and then the mindset
• 1:09:30
  and skills. What do you recommend for adults
• 1:09:34
  who are not of the means to get that array of services that
• 1:09:40
  you're describing? Because they are on the streets?
• 1:09:43
  So, I mean, homeless people, they do not.
• 1:09:47
  Maybe they would be willing to, you know, get this help, but it
• 1:09:52
  has to be on their terms to a degree that can they can feel
• 1:09:54
  comfortable because they have all these traumas and biases
• 1:09:57
  against maybe medical professionals or social workers
• 1:10:00
  or whatever it is. How do we help them?
• 1:10:03
  It's extremely, it's, it can be really challenging.
• 1:10:07
  I think, you know, so all of like the DBT and all of that,
• 1:10:11
  like that stuff's all covered by insurance.
• 1:10:13
  You can get that pretty easily. By Medicaid.
• 1:10:16
  Yeah, yeah, you can. You can get those, those through
• 1:10:19
  Medicaid. But like physical health, like
• 1:10:22
  that's like so many people on the streets, they're just trying
• 1:10:25
  to survive. You know, if we think about like
• 1:10:27
  Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's like, how do we like first
• 1:10:31
  just get them in a, in a stable environment where they're not
• 1:10:36
  around a whole bunch of people abusing drugs who are abusive.
• 1:10:39
  They're constantly worried about that.
• 1:10:41
  And so it's like you get them in a safe place and then they may
• 1:10:46
  also be abusing drugs as well. So it's you'd really have to
• 1:10:49
  understand, you know, what is like the anxiety or the
• 1:10:52
  depression or the insomnia or the agitation, like what is the
• 1:10:56
  pain this person is trying to mask?
• 1:10:59
  And then you need to start there because you're not going to be
• 1:11:02
  able to get them off the drugs and help them kind of start
• 1:11:04
  feeling better until you can replace that with something.
• 1:11:09
  You know, I've seen, I've seen really remarkable things.
• 1:11:14
  And, and this isn't a Medicare thing, but you know, I've seen,
• 1:11:18
  I've seen individuals who have struggled with drug addiction
• 1:11:21
  for a really long time and they end up going to millions of
• 1:11:24
  rehabs and it doesn't work. And then they went to a rehab
• 1:11:28
  that gave them a job as a peer counsellor.
• 1:11:33
  Afterwards, they sort of graduated from being in the
• 1:11:35
  program to working unpaid. And so they, they all of a
• 1:11:38
  sudden they, they were doing unpaid work for a while.
• 1:11:41
  And then they kind of graduated and they got, you know, a small
• 1:11:43
  sum and then more and more. And that was the thing that got
• 1:11:47
  them out of addiction, because every time they would just detox
• 1:11:50
  and go back to their life, they would just have this emptiness,
• 1:11:53
  no meaning, no purpose, no relationships, nothing to do.
• 1:11:58
  And then they would just, they would relapse.
• 1:12:00
  But once once they had that and this program gave them this
• 1:12:03
  path, they got enough traction to to see that there was like
• 1:12:08
  another way. So it's super hard.
• 1:12:10
  It's not an easy problem to solve.
• 1:12:13
  And and and and, yeah, that's. You often talk about food as
• 1:12:19
  medicine. What are the top three foods
• 1:12:21
  that are essential to health in your view?
• 1:12:23
  I like to keep things really simple here.
• 1:12:25
  I think most, so I think most things that people do with their
• 1:12:29
  diet are OK. I'm going to turn it around and
• 1:12:32
  talk about what shouldn't you do.
• 1:12:34
  So the most important thing I think is you want to avoid ultra
• 1:12:38
  processed foods because they're just nutritionally depleted and
• 1:12:42
  we need good levels of micronutrients and you know, to
• 1:12:46
  build healthy neurotransmitters. So get the ultra processed foods
• 1:12:48
  out. The second thing that's
• 1:12:50
  important is blood sugar control.
• 1:12:52
  When you have, you know, sugars spiking up and down, that can
• 1:12:57
  cause a whole bunch of inflammation.
• 1:13:00
  And then the last thing is to be mindful of some some allergies.
• 1:13:05
  Now this isn't for everyone, but there is a small group of people
• 1:13:09
  that that will not tolerate gluten well and will not
• 1:13:11
  tolerate dairy. And so I think those are the
• 1:13:14
  three big categories. Outside of that, I think like,
• 1:13:17
  I'm not a big like, hey, everyone needs to do keto guy.
• 1:13:19
  I, I think carbohydrates are good.
• 1:13:22
  I think, you know, get good amounts of protein, get good
• 1:13:25
  amounts of fat in, but most things that people are doing are
• 1:13:28
  just fine for their diet. What are the basics of blood
• 1:13:32
  sugar control that you recommend?
• 1:13:34
  Like if you do these few things, you're going to be good in the
• 1:13:37
  area of blood sugar control. Avoiding ultra processed foods
• 1:13:41
  like like you can have like bananas and oranges and yeah,
• 1:13:45
  there's like a sugar hit there, but it's nowhere near as intense
• 1:13:49
  as like Downing like a whole plate of like pasta like that is
• 1:13:53
  just like refined flour. Pasta's ultra processed now.
• 1:13:57
  Oh yeah, yeah, pasta. Pasta is an ultra processed
• 1:14:00
  food, Yeah. Even if it's imported from
• 1:14:01
  Italy. Even if it's imported for Italy.
• 1:14:04
  But if you want to have no yeah. Yeah, what if I make it in my
• 1:14:08
  kitchen? Well, yeah, it's not all the
• 1:14:10
  process. Well, it's, it's, it's process,
• 1:14:12
  but it's, it's, it's, it's much less because you're, you know,
• 1:14:15
  I, I imagine you're probably using like some nice grains and
• 1:14:18
  this, you know, you're not spraying it with glyphosate and,
• 1:14:22
  you know, preservatives. Not only on Sundays.
• 1:14:24
  For shelf life and so, but I mean this, this also goes to
• 1:14:29
  things like, you know, white rice and, and, and such.
• 1:14:32
  They, they are, they're pretty good, but we don't want to be
• 1:14:38
  eating like, like, just like bars that are just like filled
• 1:14:42
  with sugar all the time, you know?
• 1:14:46
  Not even Lara bars. Twinkies.
• 1:14:48
  I don't, I don't know those ones.
• 1:14:49
  They're. Just made of figs, dates and or
• 1:14:51
  dates, nuts and figs. Sometimes they're dates, nuts
• 1:14:54
  and. I don't want to be like the food
• 1:14:56
  Nazi on here. All of those things are like
• 1:14:59
  totally OK. But if you, if you are going to
• 1:15:01
  have like a big bowl of pasta or something like that, just walk
• 1:15:04
  for 10 minutes afterwards, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll curb
• 1:15:07
  the blood sugar. What you don't want to do is
• 1:15:09
  pound like a big bowl of pasta and then just sit on the couch.
• 1:15:13
  But in general, blood sugar control is really quite simple.
• 1:15:18
  If you're just mainly eating Whole Foods.
• 1:15:22
  It's really once you start getting kind of things in
• 1:15:23
  packages that you want to be more mindful and you want to
• 1:15:27
  definitely make sure you walk afterwards.
• 1:15:29
  How does our relationship with light, like getting the morning
• 1:15:32
  sun or avoiding blue lights at night, affect our mental health?
• 1:15:37
  I think it's a load of bull is what I'm going to say.
• 1:15:41
  Oh wow. OK.
• 1:15:42
  I think like Huberman, Matthew Walker and most of the guys out
• 1:15:47
  there that talk about sleep and they have people walking around
• 1:15:50
  with like orange glasses on getting morning sun, you know,
• 1:15:55
  playing with the thermostat at night, you know, doing all of
• 1:15:59
  these, you know, these this deep breathing.
• 1:16:02
  Don't get me wrong, I think this has a place, but I think they
• 1:16:06
  are so minimal compared to the real cause of insomnia.
• 1:16:11
  And the real cause of insomnia is chronic stress.
• 1:16:14
  And so I think a lot of people think they can hack their way
• 1:16:18
  out of insomnia by, you know, wearing the glasses or I'm
• 1:16:20
  getting morning light. None of that is going to work if
• 1:16:24
  the rest of your day is just go, go, go, go, go.
• 1:16:29
  There's never any breaks. You essentially wire your brain
• 1:16:31
  into a state of hyper arousal And and then you're just, you're
• 1:16:36
  not going to be able to sleep because you, your, your brain is
• 1:16:38
  just used to being an on mode all the time.
• 1:16:41
  And so those things to me are like gimmicks.
• 1:16:45
  Here's what I think is not a gimmick for insomnia.
• 1:16:47
  Here's what I think is the real deal.
• 1:16:49
  I think the real deal is looking at your life and your stress
• 1:16:53
  levels and baking in rest time during the day, I think.
• 1:16:56
  Like naps? Well, so this is what I would
• 1:16:59
  do. So walking outside without
• 1:17:02
  listening to like a podcast or like achieving something just
• 1:17:05
  like like just decompressing. Barefoot on the grass.
• 1:17:09
  If you would like, if you would like, yeah, it's, it's more,
• 1:17:12
  it's more about being kind of at peace.
• 1:17:14
  And I also feel like deep breathing can be really
• 1:17:18
  powerful. So 20 minutes twice a day of of
• 1:17:21
  breath work or yoga nidra, which is essentially like a a very
• 1:17:27
  passive meditation. The reason these things are so
• 1:17:31
  powerful for the millions of Americans with chronic stress
• 1:17:34
  problems is they force you into a state of rest and that allows
• 1:17:40
  your system to decompress and your level of arousal will go
• 1:17:44
  down. Insomnia is not a night time
• 1:17:48
  problem. It is not a sleep problem.
• 1:17:49
  Insomnia is a hyper arousal problem during the day.
• 1:17:54
  And so when you can get people to recover more, rest more, take
• 1:17:58
  more space, kind of get out of that go go, go mode.
• 1:18:01
  That will work 1000 times better than someone who is chronically
• 1:18:05
  stressed and like, oh, I just need to get up and get morning
• 1:18:07
  sun or I need to wear these glasses.
• 1:18:09
  That's like a like a water pistol against a fire.
• 1:18:12
  You have to hit the root cause which is hyper arousal.
• 1:18:16
  So it sounds like you're saying our problems with sleep, which
• 1:18:20
  is essential sleep, is essential to mental health.
• 1:18:23
  Our problems with sleep are really what we're doing during
• 1:18:26
  the day and have nothing to do with like bedtime routine.
• 1:18:28
  I think, yes, that that's what I'm saying.
• 1:18:31
  Don't get me wrong. You think there's a
• 1:18:32
  psychological component like once insomnia kicks off, like
• 1:18:36
  someone's really busy, you can have a psychological fear of
• 1:18:39
  like, I'm in bed, this is going to be terrible.
• 1:18:42
  Now I'm going to have to wake up in three hours and it's the
• 1:18:44
  middle of the night. There's like a psychological
• 1:18:46
  component that you definitely need to work on.
• 1:18:48
  But the thing that kicks everything off for the vast
• 1:18:51
  majority of people is living in a state of constant stress and
• 1:18:55
  arousal. And until you reverse that, you
• 1:18:57
  will not get deep Restful sleep. How much do you think of our
• 1:19:03
  clinical depression as it's diagnosed?
• 1:19:05
  It's actually a consequence of a spiritual or existential crisis
• 1:19:11
  that has to do more with what you're speaking to earlier,
• 1:19:13
  apart from physical health, relational health, or a sense of
• 1:19:16
  purpose. I think it's a big part of it.
• 1:19:19
  I mean, I think I, you know, I, I feel like we're so
• 1:19:24
  disconnected from just normal, like, like how we used to be.
• 1:19:32
  I think people used to have this, this sense of purpose that
• 1:19:36
  what they were doing really mattered.
• 1:19:37
  You know, you'd get up and I don't know, you'd look after
• 1:19:40
  your children or, you know, preferably you'd get the you'd
• 1:19:43
  get the berries and then the men would go out on the hunt.
• 1:19:46
  Like I, I just, I see us now just divorced from that.
• 1:19:52
  I mean, I, I see kids in schools just like wasting time and, you
• 1:19:57
  know, not not really sure what they want to do and how to
• 1:20:00
  contribute. They're just kind of mocking
• 1:20:02
  time. They're blindly playing like
• 1:20:04
  video games. I see people going into jobs to
• 1:20:07
  get. You know, to, to, to do
• 1:20:10
  something they were told to do rather than really being
• 1:20:13
  connected to how it's like serving the community and the
• 1:20:15
  people around them. And there's, there's also, I
• 1:20:20
  think a nihilism as well in in a world that's becoming more
• 1:20:24
  agnostic where it's like, it doesn't really matter what I do.
• 1:20:28
  You know, I'm just kind of here on this spec floating around,
• 1:20:32
  which is really sad because if you, if you live a life of
• 1:20:37
  faith, I mean, you fundamentally believe that what you do is
• 1:20:40
  important and that living a life and service of others is one of
• 1:20:44
  the greatest things that you could do.
• 1:20:46
  And, and I think those types of beliefs really kind of steer you
• 1:20:50
  towards very meaningful work and get you very much engaged.
• 1:20:54
  So there definitely is a spiritual element and, and
• 1:21:00
  meaning and purpose. I mean, they're so important to
• 1:21:03
  humans. I think it's, I mean, there was
• 1:21:05
  some study, I don't even know if maybe you were talking about it
• 1:21:08
  on your podcast or someone else recently where, where they were
• 1:21:11
  talking about how a sense of meaning and purpose.
• 1:21:14
  Like you could look at 2, two groups of people like it's like
• 1:21:17
  janitors in a hospital. The people that saw that were
• 1:21:20
  connected to the meaning and purpose of what they were doing.
• 1:21:23
  They enjoyed their work so much more.
• 1:21:25
  And the people that thought it was just a grind, they hated it.
• 1:21:28
  And so, yeah, meaning, meaning and purpose.
• 1:21:30
  Very important. There's a lot of great work done
• 1:21:32
  by Arthur Brooks and others. He was on the show recently
• 1:21:34
  about SO. I did.
• 1:21:35
  I did hear. Social data connected to when
• 1:21:37
  you have meaning and purposes connected to God and service of
• 1:21:41
  others you are you do have better mental health outcomes
• 1:21:44
  and there is social data that shows that if you like even
• 1:21:46
  attend a religious service weekly where you're like
• 1:21:49
  worshipping God. You know, that's the whole idea
• 1:21:50
  of it and that's connecting back into like why and how you live
• 1:21:54
  your life. Your mental health outcomes are
• 1:21:56
  better, not that it's a panacea. It's not like you can't.
• 1:21:58
  You certainly could be Christian of mental health issues, but
• 1:22:00
  it's bad physical health and. Crappy relationships and all of
• 1:22:04
  that, but it is a part of it. And and that's the important
• 1:22:06
  thing, Lila, that it's how, how dare we try and boil it down to
• 1:22:11
  a serotonin problem. And we all know we are so much
• 1:22:14
  more complicated than that. You know this faith,
• 1:22:16
  spirituality, relationships, meaning, physical health and
• 1:22:20
  that. And that's what people need.
• 1:22:21
  I mean, they need the real nitty gritty complicated stuff.
• 1:22:25
  The other area of this is just your hormones, including your
• 1:22:29
  hormones that indicate bonding or you've experienced and feel
• 1:22:32
  bonded or connected to other people.
• 1:22:35
  We have Adam Lane Smith on the show.
• 1:22:36
  We had him on recently. The episode hasn't come out yet
• 1:22:39
  by the by the time this one does, it may have, but it was
• 1:22:41
  fascinating. He was exploring, we were
• 1:22:43
  exploring why motherhood has become so unliked today.
• 1:22:47
  People don't like being a mother.
• 1:22:49
  They don't enjoy being a mother. And part of that's conditional,
• 1:22:51
  like what's the condition in the environment they're in?
• 1:22:53
  But a lot of it has to do with the hormones that you typically
• 1:22:57
  should be experiencing as a mother enjoying your your
• 1:23:00
  motherhood for a lot of modern women aren't there anymore.
• 1:23:03
  And so we are not enjoying motherhood or we're scared of
• 1:23:06
  motherhood as opposed to it being something normal that
• 1:23:09
  people walk into and it brings them purpose and enjoy I'm.
• 1:23:12
  I'm going to interview you for a moment here and ask you, what do
• 1:23:15
  you think is going on there? Why?
• 1:23:17
  Why? Why don't women enjoy motherhood
• 1:23:19
  anymore? Well, I think it's a spiritual
• 1:23:21
  crisis like you were saying earlier.
• 1:23:24
  And I think that we have set up systems where we are so busy and
• 1:23:30
  we get the dopamine hit, whether it's from social media or from
• 1:23:34
  our work or from just maybe even eating processed food at brunch
• 1:23:38
  or whatever the pleasure is that we're not used to getting, I
• 1:23:41
  guess, experience of of peace and pleasure from just like, you
• 1:23:44
  know, walking outside or being in the presence of a friend or
• 1:23:47
  even a child. So we're wiring ourselves to be
• 1:23:50
  addicted to a hormone that brings short term satisfaction,
• 1:23:54
  dopamine as an example, and long term unhappiness.
• 1:23:58
  Ultimately it dies off versus developing our life and our
• 1:24:01
  systems for those more healthy hormones.
• 1:24:04
  I'm not an expert. No, I thought that was, that was
• 1:24:07
  good. I mean, I, I worry about, I,
• 1:24:10
  like, I also think man, my wife, me and my wife had such a hard
• 1:24:14
  time when, when we had our first child and we transitioned.
• 1:24:20
  Because all of a sudden you realize, you go from being a
• 1:24:23
  doctor and it's like you have this community at work and you
• 1:24:27
  have the sense of meaning and purpose.
• 1:24:29
  And then we like moved across the country and I think we moved
• 1:24:31
  like 7 times in seven years for like different fellowships and
• 1:24:34
  things like that. And all of a sudden you're in
• 1:24:37
  this house away from both your parents, you know, with, with
• 1:24:41
  no, you know, no friends because you know, what, what you do when
• 1:24:46
  you're a young adult in the US is you, you move for great work
• 1:24:49
  opportunities. That's what we really value, you
• 1:24:51
  know, rather than like strong, deep community ties.
• 1:24:54
  And so you end up like, well, my community used to be the
• 1:24:57
  hospital where I was working and, you know, these childhood
• 1:25:00
  friends, I don't have any of that.
• 1:25:01
  And so now I'm just in this house by myself without like my
• 1:25:05
  parents around to help me out or to provide any comfort and
• 1:25:11
  support. And, you know, there's all this,
• 1:25:14
  you know, media telling you that you need to work.
• 1:25:16
  And you know, that's, you know, you know, how dare you not work.
• 1:25:19
  You know, that's this is like the modern thing to do, but
• 1:25:22
  structurally we haven't. And it's not like women are
• 1:25:26
  making enough money where, you know, now they can afford to
• 1:25:28
  have someone help with some housekeeping or some cooking or
• 1:25:31
  something like that. It's not, it's like you have to
• 1:25:32
  work and then you have to come home and you have to look after
• 1:25:34
  the kid as well and your husband is working so you have no time.
• 1:25:38
  Like structurally, I think there's some things that that
• 1:25:40
  just make it like so stressful for for women now.
• 1:25:43
  I mean, it certainly has been in our life.
• 1:25:46
  I think you're spot on, yes, and the fear of that terrifies women
• 1:25:51
  about motherhood, and the experience of motherhood for a
• 1:25:53
  lot of women is very lonely and very stressful because they
• 1:25:56
  don't have the village anymore. No village, yeah.
• 1:26:00
  Yeah. Well, it's very, very well said.
• 1:26:01
  That's really, really good. What is the biggest criticism
• 1:26:04
  that you hear from people when they see you directing people
• 1:26:10
  away from psychiatric meds and instead into these lifestyle
• 1:26:14
  changes? They say I'm stigmatizing the
• 1:26:18
  mentally ill, which I think is a really misdirected criticism.
• 1:26:23
  So this is something a lot of people say.
• 1:26:25
  Anytime you bring up a problem with a psychiatric medication,
• 1:26:29
  you're stigmatizing them, meaning you are unfairly judging
• 1:26:32
  them, You are judging their decision to take medication in a
• 1:26:35
  negative way and kind of making it harder for them to take it.
• 1:26:39
  And so usually this this comes it's, it's almost like slinging
• 1:26:45
  mud. They're trying to say that, you
• 1:26:47
  know, maybe, oh, you know, Doctor Yosef, he's a Christian.
• 1:26:49
  So maybe maybe he's kind of like a really strong Christian and he
• 1:26:53
  thinks there's something morally wrong about taking drugs.
• 1:26:56
  Or maybe he thinks it's indulgent and, you know, in the
• 1:26:58
  in the proper way is just to kind of go through the pain.
• 1:27:01
  Or maybe he's someone that just doesn't understand suffering.
• 1:27:04
  He just, he's a stiff upper lip kind of guy that just is
• 1:27:07
  disconnected from, you know, real people and, and he just
• 1:27:11
  thinks everyone should go through life the way he goes
• 1:27:13
  through life. None of that is true.
• 1:27:16
  You know, I'm, I'm, I'm very keyed into the suffering and the
• 1:27:20
  pain of people. And, you know, and my Christian
• 1:27:25
  beliefs do not get in the way of me believing that short term,
• 1:27:29
  these medications can be life saving for people.
• 1:27:32
  And so I have no problem with that either.
• 1:27:34
  The, the reason that I'm so negative about these drugs is
• 1:27:40
  it's, it's not based on an ideology.
• 1:27:42
  It, it's simply based on the fact that they wear off over
• 1:27:45
  time and that the brain is not designed to be in a drug state
• 1:27:48
  for years and years. And I think that people should
• 1:27:51
  get help with the underlying problems that they're having.
• 1:27:55
  And so I think a lot of people misunderstand me.
• 1:27:57
  They think I have another agenda in there, but I I just want
• 1:28:02
  people to have sustainable, good mental health.
• 1:28:05
  How can we teach the next generation How do you have big
• 1:28:11
  emotions and not feel that they need to numb or medicate them
• 1:28:14
  away? I mean, the message that I would
• 1:28:17
  give to the next generation if they're listening, is to start
• 1:28:20
  from a place where your emotions mean something.
• 1:28:23
  You need to listen to them. You need to try and decode them
• 1:28:26
  and understand them. Do not let someone in a 15
• 1:28:30
  minute appointment tell you that your emotions are signs of like
• 1:28:33
  a chemical imbalance. You need to get wise to the fact
• 1:28:37
  that the insurance based system has totally influenced doctors
• 1:28:42
  to the point where they're not just thinking about helping you,
• 1:28:44
  they're also just thinking about how do I see the 12 people in
• 1:28:47
  the waiting room, you know, how do I keep keep the lights on in
• 1:28:50
  here? And it's poisoned things.
• 1:28:51
  And so they have to get wise to these systemic influences.
• 1:28:56
  But yeah, so I think awareness of those two things are very
• 1:29:00
  important. Doctor Joseph, this has been a
• 1:29:03
  phenomenal conversation and so helpful.
• 1:29:06
  How can people find you in your work?
• 1:29:08
  So if you're interested in coming off psychiatric
• 1:29:11
  medications, our website istaperclinic.com and we work in
• 1:29:17
  most U.S. states. And if you if you just want more
• 1:29:21
  in depth information about these topics, I would recommend going
• 1:29:24
  to my YouTube channel, which is just doctor, Doctor Joseph and
• 1:29:28
  that's spelt in the German way. So it's Josef, not pH and we
• 1:29:34
  have like over 1500 videos there that really go into everything
• 1:29:38
  we talked about today. Amazing.
• 1:29:40
  Thank you so much for joining the show and thank you for your
• 1:29:43
  work to help people. Thank you for having me.
• 1:29:45
  A big thank you to our channel partner EWTNEWTN is the.
• 1:29:50
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• 1:29:53
  millions of people every single day with the beautiful truth of
• 1:29:56
  the gospel. You can be the first to watch
• 1:29:58
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• 1:30:03
  Ewtn.com slash on demand and on the EWTN app.