The bio-psycho-social-spiritual model of chronic pain acknowledges that chronic pain is much more than just a read out of tissue damage. Stress, trauma, emotions and relationships can contribute to chronic pain just as much as injuries and inflammation.

Over 50 million adults in the U.S. live in chronic pain. It's the leading cause of disability and the financial burden of chronic pain is greater than cancer, heart disease and diabetes combined. As staggering as these statistics are, the true heartbreak around chronic pain lays in the day to day impacts on real people's lives.

This is the first video in a series on chronic pain. To start off this series I wanted to expand your understanding of what pain actually is. You may be surprised to learn that modern neuroscientists have discovered that pain is more than just a signal from your body about an injury. Pain is an alarm signal, created by your brain to alert you when it perceives some danger or threat.

The holidays can be tough on your health — more sugar, more alcohol, more stress. One of the most powerful ways to protect your body during this season isn’t a supplement or superfood… it’s exercise!

In this video I'll teach you a simple technique called the relaxation response to shift your brain from high-alert to being calm and relaxed. Practicing this technique for 5-10 minutes per day can be a great way to let go of the extra holiday stress.

Here is a simple strategy to keep yourself healthy and resilient through the holiday season. Think of your health like a simple see saw with everything that diminishes your health on one side and everything that supports your health on the other. The strategy is to simply stack up your self care to offset all the various holiday stressors.

Rates of anxiety, depression and suicide in children and young adults has shot up significantly over the past 10-15 years. "The Anxious Generation", written by Jonathan Haidt, lays out a compelling argument on what’s driving this trend and what to do about it. A great read for all modern parents.

Brain fog is often caused by brain inflammation. Specific supplements to reduce brain inflammation can be super helpful to clear up a foggy brain. Here are my top 6 supplement recommendations to calm down your immune system and support the integrity of your blood brain barrier.

Do you ever feel like your brain shuts off between meals? There's a good chance that low blood sugar is the cause of the fog. Your brain needs a steady supply of glucose to make enough energy to function. Without enough glucose to make energy, your brain will slow down and get foggy.

Persistent brain fog can be such a drag and it can be mysterious to know where it's coming from. In this video I share about how gut inflammation can drive brain inflammation and fog up your brain. I give you some basic guidelines to reduce gut inflammation and hopefully clear up your foggy brain.

If you suffer from persistent brain fog you know how frustrating it can be to have your brain feel sluggish. Did you know that brain fog is often caused by brain inflammation. In this video I give you 7 of the most common causes if neuroinflammation so you can potentially identify what's causing your foggy brain.

Even though iodine is an essential ingredient in making thyroid hormones research clearly shows that iodine supplements can increase the risk of developing Hashimoto's. In this video I give a short description of how iodine supplementation can trigger and exacerbate thyroid autoimmunity.

Somebody recently asked me if their thyroid was "burned out" could they get back to eating gluten and dairy. I thought it was an interesting question and wanted to unpack it a bit. Here are a few of my thoughts.

As a functional medicine practitioner it's surprisingly common to see people who are on medication for hypothyroidism but are still having low thyroid symptoms. Watch this video to find out why.

I just came across this wild study showing that our thoughts and beliefs about food influence our body's response to it. I can only imagine that with a healthy mindset around your diet you'll get more benefit from your food.

Even though there is a ton of evidence linking stress to chronic disease it's still largely overlooked in healthcare. If you're dealing with a chronic health condition stress reduction is critical but stress reduction requires proactive lifestyle changes.

In this video I'll teach you why so many functional medicine practitioners recommend a gluten free and dairy free diet if you have an autoimmune condition. It comes down to a concept called cross reactivity. This is where your immune system makes antibodies to a food (like gluten or dairy) and those antibodies stick onto a tissue in your body and flag it for destruction.

Having mysterious symptoms with no clear cause can be super stressful and scary. In my practice, mystery symptoms are always a red flag for autoimmunity. In this video I cover 3 telltale signs of autoimmunity.

If you're struggling with chronic gut inflammation, butyrate may be your jam! Butyrate strengthens your intestinal lining, lowers gut inflammation and helps regulate the immune system. If you're with your gut health I highly recommend giving butyrate supplements a try.

Improving the health of your microbiome by increasing microbial diversity can be one of the most effective ways to address chronic gut symptoms. The #1 way to enhance the diversity of your microbiome is not a sexy new probiotic, but actually eating a diverse diet.