Friday Nov 04, 2022

Building Daily Rituals to Address Root Cause

“I never really say get rid of your stress. We have to find a way to manage our stress,” shares Rachel Martin, IFM Certified Practitioner and Family Nurse Practitioner of 6 years. Rachel was drawn to functional medicine when her third child was born with a rare genetic disorder called congenital central hypoventilation syndrome. Then, Rachel was under a massive amount of chronic stress from taking care of her older children, opening her practice, and managing her youngest child’s condition, and her gut health was getting worse and worse. The standard medical interventions for treating digestive problems were not helping because they weren’t addressing the root cause of the problems. As Rachel began to learn more about functional medicine, she realized that the way to really help people make long term health changes was to tackle the root cause and focus on the gut-brain connection.

It is not possible to fix gut issues long term without taking into account the psychological component. The gut and the brain are intricately connected and in times of stress, people will often find their digestive problems getting worse. When people are stressed, they often aren’t eating properly or sleeping enough and all of these factors need to be considered. Some issues that many people face when starting functional medicine treatment are that they overdo it on the supplements or they get into a neverending elimination diet with no attempt to work any of the foods back in later on. Rachel helps her patients to go a step beyond the basic elimination diet and supplements by incorporating daily rituals that help reduce stress. She recommends walking, yoga, and meditation to her patients in place of more high intensity exercises to help them bring mindfulness into their day. She also focuses more on helping clients know what to eat, rather than only focusing on what to avoid.

If you want to improve your health long-term, you need to address the root causes like stress, diet, and sleep. The gut and brain are very much connected and when you improve your mental health and take time for self-care, you will improve your physical health simultaneously. Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn more about daily rituals you can add to your routine to help reduce stress and heal your gut-brain connection.

Quotes

• “It's not enough to work on the gut. You have to address the gut-brain connection. And you have to address stress.” (6:08-6:14 | Rachel)

• “I never really say get rid of your stress. We have to find a way to manage our stress.” (8:54-9:00 | Rachel)

• “You should not have a part-time job taking supplements, nor should you have to have a part-time job to afford all of your supplements because you're taking so many.” (13:56-14:04 | Rachel)

• “I've had so many people who have come to me, they're all in their 30s and they're exhausted. They're like, ‘I'm doing everything right.’ And then their quote, unquote, right is intermittent fasting, low carb diets, and high intensity interval training. And I'm like, this is just too much for you right now.” (16:46-17:06 | Rachel)

• “I want them to literally not see me for years or maybe we have the occasional maintenance. But I want my patients to stay well.” (25:00-25:09 | Rachel)

• “Stop focusing on don't eat this, don’t eat that. Tell me what to eat.” (28:34-28:38 | Rachel)

Links

Connect with Rachel Martin:

Website: www.rootandritualfxmed.com

Instagram: @rootandritualfxmed

Functional Micropractice Checklist

Connect with Lara:

Website: https://drlarasalyer.com

Instagram: @drlarasalyer

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer

Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer