Whole Detox for Your Whole Body Guest: Dr. Deanna Minich

Transcription

1 Whole Detox for Your Whole Body Guest: Dr. Deanna Minich The contents of presentation are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This presentation does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Dr. Myers: Hey, everybody. It s Dr. Amy Myers with the Thyroid Connection Summit: Why You Feel Tired, Brain Fogged, and Overweight & How to Get Your Life Back. Today I am excited to introduce our guest, Dr. Deanna Minich. Dr. Minich holds a master s and a doctorate degree in nutrition and is a functional nutritionist. She s also on faculty at the Institute of Functional Medicine and has written the book Whole Detox. So Deanna is the detox doctor, how about that, Deanna the Detox Doctor, D-D-D. Dr. Minich: Yeah, that sounds good. Dr. Myers: Anything detox. She hosted a detox summit a couple of years ago - - I think she s going to be hosting another one this year -- and has this fabulous book out. I think today we re going to spend a lot of time talking about toxins, what are they, and how to get rid of these toxins. And we re going to go through and define what is a toxin. I think most people are somewhat familiar. I write about it in my book, mercury and chemicals, toxic chemicals. But also there s emotion and a lot of other things involved. And detox these days can kind of be maybe not a scary word but a word that people are shying away from because they ve heard of these juice cleanses and stuff like that. But Deanna has a whole new approach to that. It s really looking at the mind, body, spirit and doing detox in a very comprehensive, healthy way. So welcome, Deanna. I m excited to have you with us today. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 1

2 Dr. Minich: I m excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Amy. Dr. Myers: Absolutely. Well, let s jump right in to it. In my book I have an entire chapter about toxins and how they affect the thyroid. So why don t we kind of define what is a toxin, maybe talk about what some of those toxins are in our environment and in our thoughts and in our world that are affecting us and our thyroids. Dr. Minich: Yeah, it s amazing. I think that everybody is toxic. Whenever I see any clients, I just already assume that we are toxic. And it s because we re continually interfacing with environmental toxins. And we also produce toxins on the inside of our bodies. So the way that I define toxin is that it s anything on the outside or on the inside that interferes with our good health. So it s a barrier. It s some type of block. I know that you wrote about this in your book, which is great. What I like to do is define the toxins on the outside in terms of environmental contaminants. So it s been estimated that we carry in our bodies at present, at any given moment, hundreds of different chemicals. And these can be anything from heavy metals to plastics. I m sure everybody s heard of bisphenol A. But now we have bisphenol F and bisphenol S. There are so many different letters in the alphabet. And I m assuming that there are just as many bisphenols. I ve seen the whole list of them before. So we re confronted with all these toxins continually. The toxins on the inside that we create can come from the gut microbiome. So when we take in some of these toxins, sometimes we actually convert them to an even more toxic metabolite. We also produce things in our body that are psychological. So think of something like stress and how it makes the body just completely different in terms of its performance, its physiology. And so stress I would see as a huge toxin, especially in autoimmune disease. Dr. Myers: Absolutely. So in my book, The Autoimmune Solution, I had a chapter on stress and infections and combined the two. But in The Thyroid Connection I have an entire chapter just devoted to stress because I was realizing in my own life what a big role that played for me. It is a toxin, but it s kind of interesting. I hadn t really thought of it that way. I thought of it as an entity in and of itself. Why don t you tell us how stress can be toxic to us and to our thyroid and our immune system? Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 2

3 Dr. Minich: Yeah, well, stress really changes the balance of our relaxing nervous system and our sympathetic nervous system, kind of the reactive part. And when we get into that reactive mode, it changes our immune function. And when our immune function goes into this hypervigilant state because of stress, we start to get more inflammation. So when we think of the thyroid and thyroid function, now we might start to see more things like autoimmune diseases that would be connected to the thyroid. So over a long period of time, if we have lots of this stress that we re confronted with, lots of immune upregulation, lots of inflammation, all of our systems are really going to be very vulnerable. But the systems that are most vulnerable are typically the immune system, the gastrointestinal system, and the nervous system. So of course the thyroid connects into all of those three. So we would anticipate that our metabolism is changing. We re maybe just not as energized as we normally are. Our cycles are off overall. Whether it s our diurnal rhythm or whether it s our eating cycles, our menstrual cycles, everything just appears to be off when we re stressed. Dr. Myers: Yeah, and of course stress is going to affect the adrenal glands. And as we ve talked about in the summit already, we ve had some talks on adrenal dysfunction or adrenal fatigue and its relationship with the thyroid. And I talk about that in the book as well, just how interconnected those two systems are. And when you re stressed and you have adrenal dysfunction, that s going to affect the thyroid as well. Dr. Minich: Yeah, and I think, too, that if we are properly nourished, however, if we fortify our system so that we are taking care of our thyroid, we re taking care of all our endocrine glands, really, our adrenal glands, our ovaries, our testes, our pancreas, it s almost like everything is much more in sync in that we can weather the effects of stress a little bit better. You and I both know that you can never avoid stress. You can only manage it. So one of the ways that I write about in Whole Detox is through colorful foods, really making sure that we are getting foods that nourish us, and we can blunt those effects of stress even better. Dr. Myers: Absolutely. And I definitely want to get into those. You re so well known. Your logo and everything is this beautiful color. And you did an excellent talk with The Autoimmune Summit, going through all the different colors. We probably won t have time to go through each of those today, but Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 3

4 people can get back to that talk with The Autoimmune Summit. Deanna s talk was really, really great, just kind of walking through the colors of the rainbow and the foods we should be eating and what nutrients are found in what types of foods. You brought up something earlier about toxins with the microbiome and in the gut. Do you mind going a little bit deeper into how there can be toxins there? Dr. Minich: Yeah, so if you think of the gut microbiome and how we have all these bacteria, the health of our body is largely determined by, of course, the health of that gut microbiome and what we re feeding it. So if we hav e dysbiosis or we have unhealthy bacteria, what can happen is they can start to make unhealthy products. So they might start to make more acids or more metabolites that are very toxic to the body. One of them is called endotoxin. So let s just imagine we re eating a meal that s very high in a lot of animal fat, and that animal fat is very toxic because it s essentially a depot for different toxins. So we re taking all of that in. And then what happens is that those bacteria respond to those toxins. And then they produce their own toxins. And we get this state that s called metabolic endotoxemia. So that s the state of really feeling sick after we eat. This is one of the reasons why. It might be because our bacteria is producing too much in the way of these endotoxins. This upregulates, again, our immune system and our system of inflammation. And ultimately, over time, if we repeatedly do this, we re going to impact things like our thyroid function. Dr. Myers: Now is there a difference in someone who s eating more conventionally raised meats versus somebody who s eating more organic or pasture raised, grass fed meats with this potential for the endotoxin? Dr. Minich: Well in part, yes, because if you think about it, the way that an animal is raised, it s going to be taking in probably less types of toxins if it s more sustainable and taken care of. However, it s interesting you even ask me this because there was a study that came out not too long ago where they looked at 70 different types of meat from different types of animals. And they looked at conventional versus organically grown, basically, or pasture fed or raised animals. And they found that there was really no difference in the different types of toxins or in the response in the body. Now I can t speak to what the gut microbiome is doing to that specifically, but Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 4

5 essentially we shouldn t think that just because something is organically farmed meat or raised meat that we re going to see a reduction in toxins because toxins connect into the fat tissue. So that animal in a toxic environment, even if it s being fed organically grown feed of some sort, can still have toxins in its body. So what we re looking for here is really the fat component. It s the fat that acts as the depot for the toxins. Dr. Myers: And also for humans as well, a lot of those PCBs and things get stored in our own fat cells. I don t want to be alarmist. And as we go through this talk we re going to be giving you things to do to prevent and then of course to detox from all of this. But we do live in a toxic world now. And even those of us who are eating meat, if we re eating them and they re all grass fed beef, for example, the idea is that there are toxins in our air that then get taken up into the atmosphere and come out into the rain and onto the grass. And then the cows eat the grass, as you said. I don t eat dairy, but if you eat butter, the likelihood is that an organic grass fed butter is far superior to a conventionally raised. But I don t think that that really makes it all just super duper okay, no problem, eat your butter because that is where a lot of the toxins can be stored. Dr. Minich: Let me give the listeners some tips on this because you re right. We don t want to create a fear mentality. That s not really the point. And I really do believe that we can only do the best we can in every moment just making those good choices whenever possible. But here are some things. If you do choose to eat meat, one of the things that has been shown to bind metals is turmeric. So there was a study that I recall where they put turmeric into the ground beef. And they found that less heterocyclic amines and less carcinogens were formed as part of the cooking process. The other thing that can be very helpful is to include plant foods if you re eating animal products. So if you have a hamburger, make sure you include something like half of an avocado or a green spinach salad, something to offset any kind of toxic load. Keep in mind that plant foods are filled with fibers and other types of metabolites that can bind those toxins and carry them out of the body. One of my favorites is a very simple one. It s chlorophyll. If we look at how chlorophyll can bind these carcinogens in food, it just makes sense to bring these in whenever we re having foods that are questionable. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 5

6 Dr. Myers: Great. So we ve talked a little bit about food and how perhaps it could be toxic. We haven t really gotten into the inflammatory foods. We ve talked a little bit about the environment and the gut microbiome. What about emotions? We talked about stress, but what about emotions that might be toxic? Dr. Minich: I think that no emotions in and of themselves are really toxic. It s when we let them have a life of their own in our bodies. And then we never can shake from those emotions. They never get expressed. They get stagnant. They start to lodge in the body in different places. And since we re focused on thyroid, one of the ones that I see specifically in clients that present with different thyroid conditions is the ability to speak one s truth, believe it or not. And so maybe we have a lot of emotions, a lot of things built up, pent up around fear about speaking, what we really feel and feeling like we have to hold back. And if we hold back that s safer. And then we don t have to deal with any kind of repercussion. It s kind of like we re avoiding something. On the other hand there are also people that I ve seen with thyroid conditions that do just the opposite. They re chatting all the time. And they re kind of profusely just letting things go through them. And that may or may not be good entirely. So the literature tells us that emotional regulation in the way of not volatilely venting and also not suppressing, that something in between is probably most healthy. And this even goes beyond thyroid function. Of course I m just making these clinical correlations. And I have no data to really back up what I said about speaking one s truth and letting things out. But I do know that in traditional Chinese medicine they talk about Plum Pit, where you almost have this feeling that something is in the throat. There s nothing wrong per se with the thyroid. But there s something in the throat. There s something [inaudible.] Exactly. So I think that we just have to be really attentive to what we re speaking, how we re speaking it out, are we speaking with compassion, and letting things out, and not letting yourself be silent when you really need to be heard. I think that that s important. And I do bring that into Whole Detox. I talk about swearing. I talk about lying. I talk about exaggerating, all the things that we can do with our words and how that can be toxic, equally toxic to something like a plastic or a heavy metal. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 6

7 Dr. Myers: Yeah, I think that that s something that a lot of people are not talking about. There are lots of books -- I ve written about it in both of mine -- about these environmental toxins, the things to avoid and to stay away from. But not as many people are talking about the emotional toxins or even the thought toxins. I was using the word emotion, but maybe I should have said our thought processes. What about that in terms of a toxin, what we re thinking or what we re saying to ourselves? Dr. Minich: Yes, I m so glad that you bring that up, Amy. There s such a connection between emotions and thoughts. So it s been estimated that we think somewhere on the order of 60,000 to 80,000 different thoughts in a day, which just seems staggering. It s like how did they do that research? But if we are thinking thousands of different thoughts, many times these are not very supportive thoughts. They re very negative thoughts. They re pessimistic. They re catastrophic. We kind of put ourselves in a box when it comes to our thoughts. And our thinking can prime our body and can change our body function. That s been shown time and time again. That s mind body medicine, which is really established. So we can be sleeping, having this dream, and even though we re not experiencing something in our physical life, just that thought in our mind can make our heart race. Or it can make us sweat. Or it can make us wake up and feel fear filled. So you can see the power of thoughts just by observing your own dreams. In fact, I even think of dreams as a form of detox. Sometimes our thoughts are percolating up in such a way to get things out and to have things be noticed. Dr. Myers: Wow, that s interesting. My husband never remembers his dreams. But I, on the other hand, since a child, have had the most vivid dreams. It s like a movie. I wake up as if I just experienced it. And when it s good, it s awesome, because I feel like oh, I just had this amazing eight hours of just la la dreamland. And then sometimes when you have a bad dream, it s like oh my God, I m not getting any relief from my stresses during the day at night. Dr. Minich: Yeah, it s continually processing them. And I think it is good. And it s so good to write those things down. We may not want to think about them after we ve woken up. But it s so juicy to look at the different symbols that are really appearing to us. When I think of the thyroid specifically, there are some images that come to mind. I think of the butterfly. I had a very interesting client some years ago. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 7

8 So whenever she had an issue with a body part, she would personify it. She would almost think of it as a symbol and then try to dialogue with it. And I know it sounds kind of goofy, but I have worked with so many practitioners who are doing this work, whether it s in oncology or dermatology or different areas of medicine, where we really need to be in communication with the body. 7So if there are thyroid issues, I think really tapping in and forming an image of your thyroid -- and the butterfly is a very typical image for the thyroid; it s a very beautiful one -- and then just kind of dialoging with that part of your body, kind of like what s going on, what are the symbols? And just start journaling, just kind of writing things down, stream of consciousness like. And try not to be too analytical. Sometimes we get too much up into our head when we need to come down a bit into the heart. And that s why I think that the thyroid is a very curious interface, because it sits between the heart and the head. I ve often referred to the throat as the birth canal of the heart. If you think of it, it s such a tender junction. So it s just kind of interesting to have a dialogue with the thyroid and get into that space in its more symbolic way because it s so connected to the heart and the mind. Dr. Myers: Okay, so Deanna, that was sounding a lot like -- some of the stuff you were mentioning -- the work of Louse Hay. I imagine you re familiar. Do you know Louise Hay? Dr. Minich: Of course I know who Louise Hay is, yeah, and also Candace Pert, who talks a lot about psychoneuroimmunology. It s like our psychology becomes our biology. We re seeing more and more of this in the scientific literature about all these different personality types and how they manifest in terms of their clinical conditions. We ve always heard about type A personalities and how type A people are very reactive. They re kind of hot headed. And they tend to have cardiovascular conditions. Now it doesn t mean that everybody that gets quickly angry and reacts gets cardiovascular disease. But we re starting to see that there are these emotional correlates with physical conditions. Dr. Myers: For sure. Well before we move on to detox, is there anything else that you wanted to say in terms of toxins, anything that could be perceived as toxins to our bodies and our thyroid? Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 8

9 Dr. Minich: Yeah, one, especially the thyroid I m thinking here. If I have to champion a specific toxin for the thyroid I would be thinking plastics. I think it s really smart for all of the listeners to be thinking about all the plastic in their environment. So that s not just the food and the drink that we re taking in every day but personal care products, fish oil bottles, supplement bottles for things that make contact with the surface of the container. There is some good data showing that high levels of these toxins in the body are correlated with disturbed thyroid function. So if there s just one thing that you take away from all of this, emotions aside and all of it, I really want you to be focused on these plastics. And you already know this. Many people are very aware. But not everybody is being moved to action on this. And I really think that we have to get serious about it because our oceans are changing. We take in all of this in the environment in various ways, not just the water. So I d like for everybody to be thinking about that. Dr. Myers: And the one thing that I would add to the plastics as well is, as you kind of alluded to, these plastics go into fats. I ll go to Costco. And I m all for saving money. And there s a huge vat of coconut oil. But then it will be in a plastic container. I typically don t buy anything in plastic but particularly when it comes to oils. If you re eating ghee or butter or olive oil or coconut oil, any of these things in plastic, it can be more absorbed through those fats. So if you have to prioritize things in your life in terms of what is in your budget, when it comes to fat soluble ingredients of things, creams, certainly foods that you re going to be eating, definitely get the more fatty foods in a glass container. Dr. Minich: Yeah, and if possible tinted because fats break down in heat, light, and oxygen. So this has nothing to do with toxins per se, although it s kind of the toxins that can form with the exposure of oxygen and light. So just keep that in mind. Buy smaller containers. I know that you mentioned Costco, where we go and get the big vats of stuff. But that s not so great. It s actually better to have the small European-like containers of things for long term use of the product. Dr. Myers: Yeah. Well, great. So let s move on to detox. Maybe you could define what detox is because we ve already brought it up. I think when people hear the word detox they may be thinking the three-day juice cleanse or the water fast and saunas and not really kind of what you talk about in your Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 9

10 book, which is very comprehensive food based. And what I do when I m talking about detox, as well, we have people go through an elimination diet. And they re using real whole foods. And yes, it s great to incorporate some juices along with that, and saunas and lots of purified water, but not to go on something so strict. That actually can make things worse for you as you re pulling out all these toxins right away. So tell us what you mean by detox. Dr. Minich: Yeah, and you hit the nail on the head because there are so many different definitions of detox. So for some people it might be the lemon juice and water or foot pads or sauna use. And what I find really interesting is that there s kind of a spiritual connotation to detox because if you look at ancient practices and spiritual traditions or even religious traditions, there s always a need to come clean or to cleanse or to purify. And then we also see that paralleled in medical practice. So if you look way back to the ancient Greeks, the Romans, what you see is bloodletting, essentially bleeding somebody and having the negative humors come out. So I think this is one of those things that s been around for ages. Now, in the 21 st century we re starting to redefine it. And for many, many years I worked in a clinic under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Bland. And Dr. Jeff Bland has done so much in the way of nutritional detoxification. And I did so many nutritional detoxification programs working with patients in this capacity. And what I found really interesting, Amy, was that when I would have people do a nutritional detox, inevitably what would happen most times would be that either they d want to quit their job, or they d want to move to a different part of the country, or they d want to end a relationship, or they d go out and buy a new wardrobe. It was almost like their lives were changing in conjunction with changing their food. So over time what I decided to do was since these things are happening anyway to their lifestyle, why don t I just bring that in and look at the whole picture of somebody s life as I take them through a detox. So the way that I look at a detox is in seven layers. I look at nutrition, definitely what you do. I take things out. But then I bring colorful foods back in. And for some people that s kind of a mindset. They like to know that they can have things versus things being taken away. So there s the nutrition part. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 10

11 I also have them look at their emotions. So I have an emotional log that they track their emotions on every day. It s just kind of like a quick checklist of how do they feel during a day. And they just do that at the end of the day. I have them journal and focus on their thoughts. I have some type of gentle movement activity, something really simple. It could be a yoga pose. It could be walking outside in nature. It could be using ankle weights. It s nothing really drastic. Then I have them have affirmations, which, again, connecting into this part of the body, speaking something that s affirmative. I use visualizations. I have a very short visualization. And then I have a meditation. So it s a menu of seven different things that really taps into different aspects of that person s life. Dr. Myers: Awesome. You ve briefly mentioned them all. Do you want to kind of work through them each and dig a little deeper in those? Dr. Minich: Sure. And many people think oh my gosh, seven things every day of a 21-day detox. That sounds like a lot. It s really a menu. And so as I go through each one of them, if you feel more drawn to one than the other, that s what I encourage people to do. And there s a questionnaire that I have people take to figure out where they need to focus on each of those seven. So the first one with food, you and I share that in common, being brought up in the functional medicine community and knowing that we need to take things out to calm the immune response. So we take things out. But then I also bring in colorful foods. So every three days we focus on a different color. And I have a variety of those different foods because many times when I say, Get more red colored foods, they might just do tomatoes for all three days. And it s like, No, I wanted you to have cranberries and pomegranate and red bell pepper. Let s just shake this up a little bit. So we bring in the colorful foods. And I have an omnivore and a vegan track. I really do believe in personalized nutrition. I think that that s most important. So a detox for me is not about removing your normal way of eating. What you really want to do is bring this into your everyday life even after the program. Dr. Myers: And what are some of those inflammatory foods, particularly for those with thyroid or autoimmune issues, that you re wanting them to get out? Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 11

12 Dr. Minich: Well, I think of gluten. Gluten is a big one, especially when I think of thyroid. I ve seen that pretty consistently with patients. The other one is sugar. Sugar just dampens so many things in our body, just really brings it to a lower degree of function, so sugar for sure, alcohol, caffeine. Caffeine, I think, is a big one. I think we kind of gloss over that one. We don t realize the power that it has over us. But it surely does in many people. Of course it depends on your genetics. But it s one of the hardest ones for people to move away from. And I often have seen that the thing that is hardest to move away from is probably the thing that keeps you in dysfunction. So dairy and soy, soy is also another one that we might be thinking about with thyroid function, although there s a lot of mixed thoughts and views on that. But for the essence of the detox program, I do have them refrain from any soy use. Dr. Myers: Great. Dr. Minich: So those are the major ones. Then separate from the food, we have the emotions. It s just a very simple checklist. So at the end of the book there s a checklist. And I think I have about 20 different emotions. And it s so fascinating because many people kind of forget what they were feeling. And then it s like, Oh, yeah, that s right. I got really angry. It s nice because people can see patterns. And really, your health is all about determining your patterns and where you have kind of repeat insults going on. So if every day you ve been angry, or every day you ve been sad, well no wonder you might have certain cravings for certain things. Or maybe you re less active. So it s just an awareness exercise. Dr. Myers: Yeah, I, too, have people, certainly my patients come in and fill out what we call a questionnaire, essentially. And we have it in both of my books. But I started doing that. I only did it on the first visit. And then people would come back and there d be things that got better and some things that didn t. And they d be like, Well, I still have blah, blah, blah. And then I realized wait, I remember this person came in. Their score was like 100, which is super toxic. Or we didn t know their score. So I started implementing that every time they came back because then people would realize, Oh, my God, I completely forgot that I even ever had migraines. It s reminding them of all the things that have gone away. Well I forgot about that skin rash. So suddenly when the person comes back in, and Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 12

13 they re thinking, Oh, I still have this, that, or the other, I can say, Well, your number went from 100 to 20 in only four short weeks. And let s look at all these great things. So I love quizzes and checklists to kind of keep things on track so you can really hone in on what s better, what s worse, and then pick up these patterns that you re referring to. Dr. Minich: Absolutely, yeah, and especially, as I mentioned, with the cravings; it s really key. The third thing that we do is a thought pattern exercise. So I have a couple of I call them limiting thoughts, so things that kind of prevent us from going forward, like I m not good enough. I m not pretty enough. I m not smart enough, whatever it is. And then it s all based on the theme that we have for that day. Then there s just a little bit of journaling. And I m really strict about the time in the detox and how much each of these activities take because I know that people are time starved. They have no time to really go through the detox. It s kind of the limiting factor to get them into the detox. So typically what I ll say is, Just set a timer for three minutes. And I want you to do some journaling on this limiting thought. So we ve got the food, the emotion, the thought, and now we have the physical movement. And I really make this very manageable as well. Sometimes it s just minutes. I ve seen the power of just doing minutes of exercise per day and showing how people kind of gradually move into more and more activity once they have this feeling of efficacy, that they can actually get to where they need to be. They feel good. It s like, Oh, I did those four jumping jacks. Now let me do seven. Let me do ten. And then it starts to grow. You take these baby steps. So that s really what I do in the detox. The affirmation essentially takes almost no time. I volunteer certain affirmations within the program and say, You can use these, or you can create your own. And the idea of the affirmation is to speak things that are connected to the theme for the day that are relevant and affirming. You turn on the news, I don t even watch television any more. All this toxic verbiage and things that we hear on the radio, everything is negative. So how do we surround ourselves in supportive social networks and flood our minds with things that are more positive? Dr. Myers: Yeah, I don t know the point of watching all these crime shows and things like that. There is enough of that in real life. Why do you need to watch a show or go to a movie and see this kind of stuff? I only go to things like feel good, romantic comedies and maybe Disney movies. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 13

14 Dr. Minich: I like that. Some people call that a techno detox because we re so wedded to our computers and technology. And we re always watching stuff. We re kind of attention deficit in that way. So it s just letting go of that. And there are some studies that show that when you re in a very aggressive or violent movie, your body is responding. You have physiological displays of those things. Dr. Myers: Absolutely. I can feel it in myself. And then I don t sleep well at night. I will only watch something funny or happy or whatever. We went to a move the other night. What did we go see? Oh, the one with George Clooney and the mad money. I forget what it s called. Anyway, I don t want to spoil it for people. But it s a movie. And I still take that home, like, Oh, something terrible happened in that movie. And I feel it in myself, like something really bad happened to somebody. And I think for most people, well, why would your body not recognize that as real? You witness something. How does your body, how do your cells know that that was just a movie versus that was something really in real life? Because my emotions are swaying throughout the whole movie. Dr. Minich: It s so true. It s so true. It can have lasting effects. And you and I are very similar. For three days afterwards I m still thinking about that movie. It s like, I m never going to see that again. Dr. Myers: And the poor character, something bad happening to them, as if I knew the person and something really bad did happen to them. Meanwhile the guy s moved on to some other movie and is in some other part playing some other role. Dr. Minich: It s the power of the mind, absolutely. And that s why I then bring in visualization. I was working with an oncologist in Chicago who used a lot of guided imagery. So just to reverse what we were just talking about, so seeing all these negative movies and images, not just hearing the words but seeing the images, and then start to transition And typically within the detox I have people do a vision board and start to bring in just different visualizations about themselves. I ve worked with people with cancer who start to visualize their immune system differently, their white blood cells differently. And they have incredible effects. And they re very connected to this. For people that are very visual and about 60 percent of us are this is a modality that can really have a lot of power for us physiologically. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 14

15 Dr. Myers: Yeah, there are all kinds of studies out there talking about the power of visualization, particularly, as you mentioned, with cancer and chronic conditions. Dr. Minich: Yeah. And you probably don t know this, but I have another book separate from Whole Detox where I have 100 different visualizations for different chronic health conditions. That s how much I believe in the power of guided imagery. The last one is meditation. I take a very neutral stance on meditation and a very creative stance because I don t think it means crossing your legs and ohming for 30 minutes. I think you can have an active meditation. It s really just a period of silence. And I ve noticed that many people don t get this pause in their everyday life. They re so wired. I have one friend who says that she could never meditate. But yet she gardens. That is her meditation. So I get people to think more creatively around where they can find points of stillness and connection within themselves. Dr. Myers: Something that s worked really well for me recently is these binaural beats. Dr. Minich: Yes, I love those too. Dr. Myers: Great. Last night I d had crazy day. And I have something that s called a DAVID Delight. I can t think of the name. But they had it one time at one of our conferences. You put on the glasses, and it has the lights and then the binaural beats in my head. And I was in that lovely state of wake, sleep, whatever for about 40 minutes yesterday. It was heaven. And then I got up, had some dinner, and then went back to bed. But I need it. I d had a really go, go, go day. And that has become something that I try to do every day if I can, the beats. Really, for me, someone with a very active mind -- I m type A -- I close my eyes, and that s when I m thinking about all the things that I want to do and accomplish and help people. And I put on those beats. It s my way of getting into a meditative state of just interrupting those thoughts. So it can be really helpful. Dr. Minich: It can. Dr. Myers: And for people out there, before I bought this little machine, which was like $250, you can just, on itunes, for free, use your headset. And I talk about this in my book, do binaural beats. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 15

16 Dr. Minich: You know what I do? I actually go to YouTube, and I just listen to this as I m going to sleep sometimes. But I don t even wear a headset. It s so powerful for me that I d rather almost not use the headset because it s too intense to have those beats, just that rhythm. And so for people to explore it, just like you said, I think is powerful. There s not a lot of science. There s virtually no science on it. But I just know personally that it works. I do feel like a different person after I ve had that experience. Dr. Myers: I did actually find some research papers on it with post traumatic stress. Dr. Minich: Oh, have you? Oh, good. Dr. Myers: Yeah, there s some new, very limited research out there. Dr. Minich: Oh, excellent, good. Well don t use it when you re driving, that s one thing. Dr. Myers: No, for sure. Dr. Minich: Sometimes I ll be working on a paper or presentation, and I ll play it on my computer while I m working. They have ones for creativity. Dr. Myers: Yeah, that s the great thing about this machine. I m always either doing sleep or meditation. But they have one for focus, energizing, creativity. And likewise, if you just get on itunes or YouTube, it s the same thing. They rate the different types of beats they are to spike different types of brainwaves in you. So people can just give it a try. That s what I did first, did the free stuff and then decided to invest in a product to help me. Dr. Minich: Yeah, and I just want to mention one last thing. I think it s great that you mention free and what is free and what can be helpful because nothing that I use within the detox program will cost you money, no supplements, no fancy gadgets. Some of the detox programs out there are very, very expensive for people. And that prevents them from even participating. So I would say try the free stuff first, the food based stuff, the emotion stuff, and then kind of graduate from there working with a practitioner. I think that that s usually key for people. Dr. Myers: Absolutely, yeah. So before we part ways -- this was an excellent conversation; I really appreciate it -- I m asking everybody if they could list Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 16

17 three things, takeaway points, that our listeners can do to help restore health to their thyroid before we part, just three kind of take home points, three things they could do today. Dr. Minich: Yeah, the first thing would be identify the toxins that you re exposed to. So I d like for everybody just to make a list, and think about not just the external ones but the internal ones. So we talked about stress. Just make a list of your toxins. Just become aware of them. The second thing would be, because I have such an advocacy around plastic, I want you to do a plastic inventory in your home, in your bathroom, your kitchen. I want you look for all those sources of plastic. And I really want you to start to make transitions away from those plastic containers or whatever they are. Thirdly, out of those seven different modalities that I mentioned as part of my whole detox program, I d like you to maybe work with one of those, an affirmation, especially, since we re focused on thyroid, would be appropriate, or maybe a visualization. A detox doesn t have to be in a specific way. It can be something that is just small. I call it the small sticky change. So whatever really speaks to you from the different seven things that I mentioned, just slowly start to let one of those things unfold into your lives and see how you feel. Dr. Myers: Great. Those are really great. So Dr. Deanna Minich, thank you so much for joining us. Please let our listeners know how they can find out more about you and your book, Whole Detox. Dr. Minich: Yeah, I have a website, deannaminich.com. I also have another one for the detox work, which is whole-detox.com. And I have a Facebook page, Deanna Minich and Whole Detox. So I hope to see you on there, and of course Twitter and all of the other things but mainly Facebook and the website. Those are the places that you can find me. Dr. Myers: Great. Thank you so much. And thank you all for joining us today at the Thyroid Summit, why you feel tired, brain fogged, overweight and how to get your life back. Thanks so much. Amy Myers MD. All rights reserved. 17