← Detox Nation with Sinclair Kennally
Detox Nation with Sinclair Kennally
Simple Daily Habits to Calm an Overloaded Nervous System (Parents & Kids) | Wellness Mama, Katie Wells
00:26:35
Loading summary
Transcript44 lines
- [00:00]
Katie
90 plus percent of what we face in the modern world. I would sum up under the umbrella of nature deficit disorder. We were actually meant to live very much in harmony with nature in a way that we are very divorced from. The best supplements in the world won't fix a lack of those basic things. The beautiful part I learned very little, actually, is truly in the realm of genetics. The good and the bad news there is the responsibility is ours.
- [00:20]
Podcast Host
So I want to talk today about the roles that you play in the world and what an advocate you are in the space, because I know that you've seen this shift in sensitivity as well as a product creat. As someone who's healed herself from chronic health issues and as a really conscious mom supporting, you know, your whole family to be healthy in this day and age, what do you see as the biggest problems driving this epidemic of sensitivity?
- [00:45]
Katie
That's such a good question. And certainly we have a lot stacked against us. I definitely come from the perspective that we also have a tremendous amount in our favor. And especially when we're given knowledge that can be, like, actionable and impactful, we actually have way more ability to affect change than we often think we do. In fact, I did a lot of research in the nutritional genetics world for a long time. And the beautiful part I learned in that was that very little actually is truly in the realm of genetics. We have a lot of ability to affect change outside of the realm of what our genes actually destine us to. And so the good and the bad news there is the responsibility is ours. So I say all the time on my podcast that we are each our own primary healthcare provider. And as moms, we're that for our children till they get old enough to to take the role themselves. And I feel like that actually is a very empowering thing to take on the responsibility of because it's stepping into the driver's seat and it's knowing that we can work with practitioners. And I encourage that. Like, having specific knowledge to guide you as you go is incredible. But at the end of the day, we're the ones that make the decisions. And so I think the more we can help individuals learn about their own health, learn about their own n of one study of self and experimentation. That's when the real magic happens and the change happens. And I would say as an overarching category, I feel like two things have emerged very strongly in the last, say, 10 years of health and wellness. One being, of course, the personalization aspect and that we're all so different. So I've seen so many experts come and go that had like the perfect on paper system. And I've tried a lot of those systems when I had autoimmunity. And what I learned over time was they figured out what worked for them. That is not an exact blueprint that will work for me. The beauty is not in replicating their system, but learning from their experimentation. And so I think that's a valuable starting point for a lot of people from a mindset perspective, is not to just try to replicate exactly what someone else did, but learn from the method of how they figured out what worked for them. And then I would say like 90 plus percent of what we face in the modern world. I would sum up under the umbrella of nature deficit disorder, because I feel like we were actually meant to live very much in harmony with nature in a way that we are very divorced from in the modern world. And we're seeing this drastically and especially with kids who spend almost all of their time indoors looking at screens, eating things that aren't food. And so like, we, we can over complicate it. And also we can distill it down simply too. We're meant to live in alignment with the harmony of nature and we have the ability in the moder, and we're seeing the consequences of that.
- [03:04]
Podcast Host
I always say that people are a part of nature. Just because we moved indoors doesn't mean we stop being nature. So we crave it, we need it, and we're missing it. So when you look at the factors that people do have control over, because I totally agree with you as somebody who healed myself from really complex chronic conditions, we've got to be partners with our practitioners. And the people who heal the fastest in our practice are not the ones that sit there passively and get told what to do. They are in active partnership with us. They approach it with that spirit of experimentation of like, hey, look, I tried this and I didn't feel good. So then I tried this while I was waiting to talk to you. What do you think I should do next now that you know those things? So as a parent, what would you say to other parents out there? Because you are so well educated in this space and you've seen behind closed doors about how products are designed, how food is made, how practitioners make their decisions. What are the things that parents need to know in order to help their families and themselves thrive today?
- [04:01]
Katie
This is such a good question too. And I think it's easy to fall into the fear mindset when it seems like everything out there is bad for Your child or bad for you? And I have definitely done that in the past, fallen into the like. I mean, I wrote a blog post once about how grains are killing you slowly. And my mindset has changed over the years, where I think actually our natural state is to be very resilient and adaptable and able to handle all the inputs. And like you, I had a time of my life where that wasn't the case for me. I had to heal to get to a point where I could be resilient and adaptable again. But I think kids, for the most part, often have great capacity to heal very quickly, especially when given the right input. And I think actually the mindset piece is big here as well, because everything kind of falls under the umbrella of mindset, especially when it comes to kids. And I know a lot of parents can resonate with the idea that if we create artificial walls, we actually create something being more enticing than it was meant to be by making it forbidden. And yet it's that balance of, we don't want to give them, of course, junk food, but we also don't want to make junk food this forbidden fruit that they now. And that's a small example of, of course, many things in parenting. But I look at it as kind of like two part of recognizing from the moment we encounter our kids that they are their own infinite autonomous being and treating them as such while still taking the responsibility to guide that journey until we can fully hand it off to them. And so it's like learning that balance of power and division of power, being that they are their own autonomous human and we're still responsible for creating the boundaries of their life when they're little. So a practical example of that is I've always thought of it as like, it's not my job to know for my child if they're hungry or not. It's my job to provide nutritious food, and it's their job to determine if they want to eat it or not and whether they might not eat it because they're not hungry, they might not eat it because they don't like it. Whatever the reason, that's their job to figure out. My job is to make sure there's always nutrients available and that everything in our house is nutritious, and not to provide junk food because I don't have an obligation to provide them bad things and then to build the education, of course, and the modeling and all the things that go into that. But I think a big part of it from the mindset side is Letting them honor their agency from a young age so that they're making internal decisions from their place of internal motivation versus us being their external motivation. And over time, those are much more powerful decisions that put them in the driver's seat of their health too. So not that they do it without guidance, but that they get to have the ownership of making those decisions with guidance and love.
- [06:22]
Podcast Host
You know, one of the things I see when people get chronic conditions and things get really sensitized and so we seem to be reacting to everything, we get scared about life, is that people start looking for more and more complex solutions to their complex problems, and they're skipping basic steps that provide a foundation of support for that resilience. I know it was true for me. I see it in our students and clients, patients all the time. And so I'm always trying to fill in those gaps of like, think about your water, think about your sleep. And if, you know, looking from the outside, I would call your philosophy very much about, you know, really intentional small steps that add up to huge results. Could you share how you do that and stack that for your family throughout the day? Absolutely.
- [07:07]
Katie
And this actually came from a complete paradigm shift internally for me that has shifted how I think about this and talk about it externally. And like I said, there was the mindset shift away from fear and into choosing those things from a place of even self love, of peace, instead of from being afraid of everything. But one of the pieces that really helped a lot of this fall into place for me was realizing because you and I have been in this world for a long time, we've seen the biohacking trends, the rise and fall of all the fancy devices and $50,000 protocols that people do, and all of this stuff that just aren't accessible to most people.
- [07:39]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [07:39]
Katie
And what I realized over and over and the more experts I've had on the podcast, the common theme, the like resonant note among all of it is it really is the core, simple things done consistently, but at least create the foundation. So then if you're going to bolt on the more expensive things or the fancy testing, it's going to work better because you've already built the solid foundation. And what helped those pieces fall into place for me was actually from my dad, who's an electrical engineer and a biomedical engineer, he built the first, I think, Faraday cage that could read an EKG on an egg while the chicken was still in utero. So electrical was kind of part of my childhood even. But I had never thought of health in the realm of electricity or electromagnetism. And all these pieces started falling into place when I realized, like, the body is an electromagnetic organism, we run on voltage gated channels. Everything in our communication, from our, like, neurotransmitters in our mind to our fascia to everything is electrical. And when we think of health from an electrical first perspective, to me, it makes the perfect case for all the baby steps that all of us preach and that people often ignore because they're simple. The things like getting morning sunlight, which, yes, primes your melanopsin receptors in your eyes and does all these things for your circadian rhythm. It also quite literally charges your cells because mitochondria aren't just the powerhouse. They're like the flux capacitor of the entire body. And you're sending them important messages. And then you can reinforce that throughout the day with light, with grounding, with breath, work, with hydration, with the truly basic things. But when we think from a voltage perspective, all of that makes sense. And that's also why I feel like the best supplements in the world won't fix a lack of those basic things, because the body is an electromagnetic organism that needs light inputs and that also goes back to nature. It needs nature inputs.
- [09:17]
Podcast Host
That's really well said. We always teach about EMFs on our campus in our practice for that very reason. You know, and there's so many different types of electrical stressors that are actually diminishing the body. Body's ability to regulate itself at a bioelectrical level. So I love that you're talking about this. You know, of course, we need the foundational bio cell salts in place to run that bioelectrical charge. But we think about it like the body wants autonomy. The body wants to run its own bioelectrical field. It doesn't want these interferences and trying to scoot over the top of a very inflamed, zapped body all the time, which is. And hoping a couple of pills will fix it all. It's not actually very realistic, and it's not very respectful. I remember Michael came out of his office at home when we were both really, really sick. He came charging out and he was like, the WI fi is killing us. I'm throwing it out. And like, what? Because. And I was instantly mad at him because he would just make the, you know, change his mind overnight on all this stuff. And it's like, you gotta be kidding me. You're taking away something that I rely on, and you're making my life even harder. So That I could, you know, possibly have a chance at healing. No, thank you. But when we did turn the WI FI router off at night, I had to acknowledge not only was I sleeping better and waking up less freaked out. Cause that's how I used to start the day, is freaked out. But also, our cats stopped fighting. He was nicer, you know, Michael was. You know, there were just these ripple effects you could immediately see, oh, yeah, shoot. The body is a bioelectrical being.
- [10:44]
Katie
And I think that's such an important point you just made, too. Because even just turning it off at night while you're sleeping and not using it anyway can have an impact. It does not have to be an all or nothing. I think even that, like, all or nothing mindset in a lot of cases actually causes more stress. Like, there's a time and a place for being all or nothing when you have to be. But it's too easy to fall into that. Across the board.
- [11:02]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [11:03]
Katie
And so, like, if you can make baby steps that make a difference, like just taking the WI FI down when you're already not using it, that's awesome.
- [11:08]
Podcast Host
So what are some other ways that you stack habits for your family to really protect you and create resilience in this day and age?
- [11:14]
Katie
Well, I love that you brought up the WI Fi. I have automated that with a digital timer, so it just goes down at night. Same thing with, like, all devices live in the kitchen at night, which I had to model. I had to, like, learn that myself. But all devices charge in the kitchen. And then I think, as a parent, the most power we have is in modeling. Like, if we. I used to. For years, as an example, I used to think, like, I hope my kids want to take music lessons. And I would try to encourage them, like, do you want to take music lessons? Do you want to take piano? Do you want to take voice? And they didn't want to. And then I realized, oh, I want to do this. I wish I had done this as a kid. I want to take music lessons. So I just started taking voice lessons, and then all of a sudden, they were all interested in music. So I think, as a parent, our power is in setting the example much more than the words, of course. So for me, that's looked like making my daily habits, modeling them in what I do and just explaining them when the kids got interested in. So they see me go out every morning and be barefoot in the grass and get sunshine and hydrate with minerals before caffeine, before I touch a screen, before anything else, and without Me telling them they started doing that wow. Or they see me lifting weights or walking and they get interested in doing it because they see it, not because I'm telling them to. Same thing with like, we just build so much of food culture in our family around nutritious foods and that's also all that's in the house. So it's very common for them to like cook a pound of lamb as a snack because that's what's there. And they like know how to. They've been taught to cook from a young age. So I also think like if you just build it into the culture of your home, that that's a huge advantage. And from the movement perspective, that means my house looks very strange. There's climbing hang boards in the kitchen, there's gymnastics mats down the hallway, there's rings in all the kids rooms for gymnastics. But if you put it in their way, they're going to play with it. Similarly, there's chess boards on the kitchen table and there's but put those things in their way. And then they have. When they get bored and they get vitamin boredom, they play with them. I think the habit stacking for me is like the morning category is huge. You can get like light hydration and gentle movement before caffeine. And also I try to do protein before caffeine, which for a lot of women at least is very nervous system calming than if you're hitting caffeine to your system first thing. And then throughout the day, just like little daily touch points of healthy habits. That has made the biggest impact both in my own healing from Hashimoto's and also in seeing my kids adopt those habits.
- [13:27]
Podcast Host
I can hear the overwhelmed parents now, like, Katie, I have a sick kid or I'm not feeling well, I'm still earlier on the journey than you. That all sounds really complicated. What are the things that are gonna move the needle the most for me?
- [13:38]
Katie
Oh, my heart totally goes out to that. Because I vividly remember being the mom with three toddlers who was so tired with Hashimoto's that I would fall asleep in front of the front door so they couldn't go run in traffic and just have to sleep. Like I so tired. And in that phase, as I started learning, I was like, truly like, what little bitty baby step do I even have the bandwidth to attempt? Because it was like there's the non negotiables of I have to feed the kids, I have to bathe the kids. Yeah, in the beginning it looked like I would set my alarm for Whatever time sunrise was and I would go outside and fall back asleep in a lawn chair outside, but in the natural light, like it was like little tiny baby steps. I would put a quart of water with a pinch of baking soda and some salt on my nightstand so that I would remember to drink it in the morning. Like it was not anything groundbreaking. But over time that plus mindset shifts, those little shifts and giving myself grace to let them be baby steps. Like my personality is like, let's extreme change everything overnight.
- [14:29]
Podcast Host
It's not extreme, it's not going to work. But I can't tolerate anything extreme because I'm so sensitive.
- [14:32]
Katie
If you're sick and working through something chronic, you just don't have the bandwidth for that. So for me it was like holding myself to the baby steps until I started getting more bandwidth and I wanted to add more things in. And it was a lot of things. Like I didn't do any high intensity exercise for two years. I spent time in nature. I was hydrated, I slept a ton. I like was gentle with myself. I shifted from. I still had to be restricted for a little while with food because there were things I was reacting to. And I shifted my mindset away from restriction and into like of the things I can eat and that I love. How can I both maximally nourish myself and find the most joy and pleasure in this food at any given time? Because those were like small safety signals to my body. Those were small like acts of love that helped over time kind of build that reserve up. And I started noticing I eventually had more and I had more resilience and I could do the bigger things and eventually I could lift weights again. And things really started shifting. But it was those tiny baby steps and being so patient when I felt like things weren't changing.
- [15:32]
Podcast Host
I love that. I think it's really critical to share because yeah, for those of us, especially when we're not feeling well, there's often fund limitation issues. And so what is really worth your time, your energy, your money, and how can you be kind with yourself along the way? Like it's, we gotta start looking for those free things, those small things. We always say live small now to live big later. This is not about trying to replicate normal life while you are sick. Stop trying to please everybody else. This is not the year you're going to be PTA president. You got to let go of some of those. Like, who cares if the dishes don't get washed? You know, the government doesn't really care if you turn your taxes in late, like, just feed yourself, just sleep. And each one of those gentle.
- [16:13]
Katie
Yes, go to bed.
- [16:16]
Podcast Host
Those small steps gain momentum.
- [16:17]
Katie
Absolutely.
- [16:18]
Podcast Host
One of the things that I really admire about you is how intentional you are about products. I know as a product creator, this industry lacks so much transparency. And it's really on the product creator and on the formulators and manufacturers to decide how clean a game are we going to play. And I really admire your products, how first of all, affordable they are and how thoughtful you are about them. Can you speak to that a little bit? And what parents should be thinking about or just people trying to heal themselves? What should they be looking for in products? What do they need to know that's happening behind the scenes in product design?
- [16:54]
Katie
Absolutely. There's so much greenwashing that happens now, and especially in the personal care world and the cleaning product world.
- [17:00]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [17:00]
Katie
There's not a lot of disclosure required. So there's. On the brand side, there's a ridiculous amount of things brands can do to hide what's really in their products or to make them seem safe when they're not. There are some general guidelines that now have come out. So, like, if someone has certain certifications, like ewg, you can check in an independent database to see, like, what their product ingredients are and if there's what the risk level is for each of those ingredients. And a lot of companies, I'm excited to see more companies voluntarily disclosing those things and choosing to get B Corp certified, for instance, or EWG verified to show the transparency of their labels. It's just not required. So even if something in the packaging looks safe, we can't assume that it is in today's world, unfortunately. And for me, when I was in the Intense Healing Experience, I was making everything from scratch. And that was another added exhaustive thing that I had added to my list. But I was making laundry detergent and soap and toothpaste and all the things. And back then, there weren't options for a lot of those things. I'm so glad that now there are. And there are, like, actually safe cleaning products you can buy and not have to make and all these things. But I realized for women especially and for families, personal care was the big category because women in general statistically use a lot more products than men, and kids are more impacted by products than adults. And there were kind of like an 8020 of products that for families were the most used and most impactful, which was like oral care and hair care as categories, because those were the ones most moms and kids use. Most often. So when I couldn't find the products for those, I was making my own for a long time and then decided to tackle that as a consumer product to make it available to other moms. Because I realized like most moms, myself included, at a certain point once I had six kids, like, I didn't have the bandwidth to order 19 ingredients to make toothpaste for everybody every week. So thankfully there's so many good companies and I would encourage people just look for the independently tested labels. So EWG is a great one. B Corp. Going through that certification was wild. It's like a 400 page questionnaire. They like, leave no stone unturned. So if companies have voluntarily gone through some of those, you can at least have a pretty good degree of, of transparency of like knowing where they're coming from.
- [19:02]
Podcast Host
Interesting.
- [19:02]
Katie
And we are seeing now, thankfully, so many good products coming to market, there just still is a lot of greenwashing happening as well. So, you know, to add one more thing to mom's to do list. But a little bit of due diligence can go a long way. And then when you find companies that you resonate with that are safe, you can make those swaps. And then it's as easy as buying the other products you used to use without having to add the effort.
- [19:21]
Podcast Host
So when I was sick, I would write this part off because it sounded hard and I was like, how hard is it really? You know? So can you give some examples of some things that companies can still hide and have it look pretty and clean and organic on the packaging?
- [19:35]
Katie
Yeah, I think one of the kind of elephants in the room right now is fragrances as a category because they don't even have to disclose those. And if they do, they can do a lot to make it seem like it's like from a plant or from an essential oil, when actually it's a completely synthetic fragrance. And there's been a lot, thankfully coming to light about that being kind of the new secondhand smoke, especially for kids, and all the implications in asthma and eczema. And I think especially in things that go on us. Like people don't think a lot about laundry products because they think it's just like all my clothes in the washer. But when we put our clothes on, we're actually getting a triple exposure. So we're getting inhalation exposure from our lungs, we're getting skin exposure, and then we're just getting that like low level nervous system exposure all day. So fragrances and something like that are potentially on kind of A level of, like, secondhand smoke for kids. And that's when it doesn't even technically have to be disclosed. So those are areas where moms really have to do the research. And thankfully that there are amazing alternatives, though.
- [20:28]
Podcast Host
Yeah, it is really scary to be navigating things and try something you think looks clean and you can't even tolerate that. Like, it's really hard not to go into that spiral of, like, nothing works for me. We also find the inflammatory cascade, you know, it builds up over days. So if you got exposed to that laundry detergent three days ago, you know, and then, you know, you start building a headache on day two, and the rash appears day three, you know, it's really hard to track where that came.
- [20:52]
Katie
From, especially when it's, like you said, chronic and repeated exposures. And because the body's resilient, it's one thing of if you're walking through a store and you walk down that aisle and you inhale it, once your body is able to handle those kinds of exposures, if it's on your body all day long, every day, and you're sleeping on sheets that have the same thing, that's that chronic and in the body, it's harder for the body to stay on top of that.
- [21:12]
Podcast Host
I also recognize that the competition is fierce right now, and so there has to be a lot of pressure in the product space for the bottom line. Have you been pressured by manufacturers and your partners to, you know, shift things in the wrong direction?
- [21:26]
Katie
Thankfully, not from the manufacturing side a little bit. But our focus has always been very much the consumer. And for me, like, it's. It's not consumers as a category. It's these people that I've known that have read my blog for 20 years, who I care about, who I know their names. So to me, it was never worth a compromise for that, because this isn't a numbers game to me. Those are real people who own families. But certainly it is. Especially the CPG market is so saturated right now, and it is fiercely competitive. And I think I totally understand why brands make the compromises they do sometimes from a bottom line perspective. But I don't understand that from a human perspective.
- [21:59]
Podcast Host
So I would love for you to share with our audience. First, speak to the parents about your tips for navigating. If you could, give them a message of hope right now, if they have reactive kiddos or they're reactive themselves. And then I would love for you to say what you think needs to be said to your fellow product manufacturers and designers.
- [22:20]
Katie
Amazing. Well, I would say, first and foremost to parents, my message would be, is that we are in an incredible and pivotal point, I think, in history. And I think the way that we raise the next generation is going to have a dramatic impact on what society looks like in 20 years. I've said for many years that moms are the most powerful force on the planet, not only in our purchasing power and the fact that we quite literally drive these decisions, but because we are raising the next generation and what we model is what they will build from a foundation of. The great news here is kids are incredibly resilient and their bodies know how to heal. It's actually one of my few core beliefs that I have questioned over and over and found to be true over and over, which is that the body is always on our side. It infinitely knows how to heal, and that's what it's always trying to work toward. So if it isn't doing that as quickly as we'd like, or we're still not seeing the results we like, it's an opportunity to learn the language of our body a little more deeply or the language of our child body a little more deeply and give it what it needs. But almost always it's the body requesting in very clear language either something it needs or the removal of something it doesn't. And that might be something internal in our mindset, that might be something in our environment, that might be something in our diet, but it's the body communicating. And when we can learn to speak that language, incredible things can happen. And so I would say for parents, I actually feel the most hope I've ever felt, even though the statistics maybe don't back that up. And we see all the scary statistics about what our kids generation will face. I think we still have time and then we have tremendous power to shift that still. And that truly that power lies in the hands of parents, each of us as our own primary healthcare providers and the model of that for our kids.
- [23:54]
Podcast Host
That's beautiful.
- [23:55]
Katie
Wow.
- [23:56]
Podcast Host
Can you speak to your fellow manufacturers right now? What do you want them to know?
- [24:00]
Katie
This is. I love this. This is a question I've never been asked. And it's interesting to get to be kind of in the background as a product manufacturer and still in the foreground as a mom. And I think in the product world, there is always, of course, a temptation to and an obligation to shareholders, to investors, to the company's bottom line, to being profitable. And I think these things, while they can often seem in conflict, don't have to be. I think actually Profitable companies can drive amazing change. Heart centered companies can drive amazing change. And I think beautiful relationships can happen between products, companies and their consumers in a relationship aspect. And I think if we can keep that forefront, if we can remember that the people on the other side are not numbers, they're humans and they're lives and they're mothers with children and they're growing, developing bodies that are going to birth the next generation in 20 years. I think we can make decisions from a more heart centered place and that doesn't have to mean ever sacrificing the bottom line. And I think, think for really, for change to truly happen, we actually need both of these things. We need the grassroots changes in households and in families for each of us making them in our own lives. And we need them at a consumer level as well as a big as a big company level. I've never thought it was a bad thing necessarily when massive companies bought natural brands. Because while I've seen things change and it can be bad, what I've realized is when big companies who already have economies of scale start paying attention and start prioritizing the safer alternatives, that actually shifts things a lot faster than we can when we just make healthy choices inside of our home. And we need both for things to actually shift on a massive scale. But for anybody in the product world, I would say, like we have an incredible opportunity and an incredible pivot point right now to start making that change happen.
- [25:40]
Podcast Host
Wow, that just gave me goosebumps. Thank you. I wish that I had had you back in the day when I was healing and I'm so glad that you're here now doing this work.
- [25:50]
Katie
Thank you so much for having me. You're a joy to talk to. This was so fun.
- [25:53]
Closing Host
Thanks for spending this time with us today. I know these conversations can bring up a lot and I want you to have room to sit with what you learned and let it land in your own body. If you want more support or you're curious about the next step on your healing path, you can always connect with me, find me on Instagram hedetoxnation and explore resources mentioned in this episode@detoxnation.com this conversation is shared for education and personal reflection and isn't medical advice. Please always work with your trusted healthcare providers for your care. I'm really glad you're here and I'll see you in the next episode.