Transcription of Vitality, #82
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Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast Show Number 82 – Vitality, airing for the first time on April 7, 2013. Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? These are the questions that author and women’s health expert Marcelle Pick asks herself at the end of each day. It is truly the ability to live, love and matter that brings vitality to our daily lives. It is the ability to live, love and matter that influences my desire to join with my colleagues in creating the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour for you each week. We hope you enjoy today’s discussion on vitality, spiritual, mental and physical with Marcelle Pick author of “The Core Balance Diet,” and “Is It Me or My Hormones?” Michael Komich and Emily Mander of the Cheverus Safe Passage Support Team and Naturopathic physician Dr. Masina Wright. Thank you so much for listening and for giving us a chance to help you live, love and matter.
Dr. Lisa: The nice thing about Maine is it’s a small town, small state feel, but we also have some thoughtful and prolific and intelligent people that work here. We’ve spoken with this individual before. She’s actually a fellow Yarmouth healthcare practitioner and best-selling author of three books. This is Marcelle Pick, who recently came out with her book “Is It Me or My Hormones?” She also is the author of “Is It Me or Is It My Adrenals,” and “The Core Balance Diet.” Thank you for coming back in and having another conversation with us.
Marcelle P: You’re welcome. I’m delighted to be here.
Dr. Lisa: Marcel, we’re lucky to have you because you just came off of a pretty intensive schedule with the PBS Show. Talk to me about that.
Marcelle P: There was a PBS show taken after the book “Is It Me or My Hormones?” The goal for me was to try to get the information out about wellness and health and how much we can actually impact how we age as we get older by changing our diet and that food is a game changer for us and also lifestyle. We have much more impact in our long-term ability to be able to be healthy as we get older than we ever thought before.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been a healthcare practitioner for a lot …
Marcelle P: For a long time.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, I didn’t want to put numbers on that.
Marcelle P: Do not do that, no a long time.
Dr. Lisa: For many years and so you’ve had a chance to spend time with women who have needed your help. So you’ve seen it isn’t just about diet. It isn’t just about lifestyle, but it’s about bigger things. You’ve had to work through some of this yourself.
Marcelle P: Absolutely, I think we all do and part of what I wrote in the book “Is It Me or My Adrenals?” It used to be called “Are You Tired and Wired?” Is the notion that a lot of us carry a story with us. The story is about what happened for us in our childhood and how we carry that forward. For example, if you’re a perfectionist and you’re constantly expecting high things of yourself that’s going to impact your adrenals and your cortisol level and if it goes on too much and women tend to do this a lot, they’re thinking of everybody else, but themselves. They’re always being very critical of how they look and how they behave and if they’re a perfectionist on top of that, it’s nonstop “I’m not enough.” That impacts our
Mig dee liver of our brain which then sends message to our adrenals.
The bad news with that is as it continues to go on and actually causes cortisol levels to stay elevated which then down regulate our thyroid and our sex hormones and our immune system. So understanding yourself and how you think and how you behave is crucial to that and I understood that. I started doing encounter groups when I was in college to find out more about myself.
I was very curious about why did I think the way that I did? Why did I behave the way that I did? So I’ve always been on that journey.
In 1989, 1990 I was introduced to the concept of the Hoffman Process and the notion is that our biography becomes our biology if we don’t pay attention in understanding about yourself by having an awareness is what the Hoffman’s all about. It’s an eight day program that I found immensely helpful for myself to look at how do I have patterns of behavior that affect my physiology and the way that I think? I became very involved with them and did the process myself or for a lot of my patients there. Again, it’s not the answer for everyone, it’s just a nice solution for some people if they’re finding that they’re thinking is affecting their emotions, which is affecting their adrenals, which is affecting their health. They are in California, also have a program in Massachusetts as well, and the Brookshires.
Dr. Lisa: You grew up in Australia.
Marcelle P: I did.
Dr. Lisa: How is that different from what you’ve encountered here in the United States?
Marcelle P: I grew up in a very, different scenario. We lived outside of Sydney in a place called Bundeena. It was two hours by boat and train to get to Sydney. We didn’t have roads, although we had paved roads. We didn’t have … There were three stores in a little area that I was in surrounded by National Park. I spent most of my day if I wasn’t doing homework, I was swimming in the ocean in the Barrier Reef or I was looking case or I was going to some case with a lot of aboriginal drawings. So I was very connected to the earth and there were deer and all kinds of animals around all the time.
It was my meditation on a regular basis. So I became very sensitive to my environment and was very clear from a very young age that I wanted to have an impact on the world and health related from the time I was very young. More than likely it was because I was so connected to the spirit world in some ways.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was very clear from a right young time that I wanted to make a difference.
Dr. Lisa: This is part of something that you described in each of your books that the need to reconnect with one’s self on a daily basis, at least a contemplative level if not a spiritual level. Is this something you’ve been able to continue to incorporate in your own life?
Marcelle P: I get out generally now, when I was doing the PBS I didn’t, but generally I get up at five and to have a time that I’m looking at my life, I have three criteria that I pay attention to: Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? Those are the ways in which I look at what do I need to work on today? What do I need to do a little bit differently? Am I staying connected to all three parts of myself on a regular basis? Of course, you’re going to have episodes in which you do that well and episodes in which you don’t. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m aware enough fact I want to do that for myself in my life so that I don’t lose sight of the other parts.
Dr. Lisa: Are you able to connect back with nature to the extent that you once did when you were younger?
Marcelle P: There are times that you are and times that you aren’t. I was just in the time in which I was incredibly busy finishing the book and doing the PBS. Now I have a boat where I spend a lot of time on the water. The water is really important to me. I’m also a runner so I like to be outdoors and I also like bike. So I’m excited that spring is coming and the snow is starting to melt so I can be outside. Yes it’s important.
It’s important for all of us because I think so many times I think we forget the connection that the earth has for us and the rhythm of the earth and the rhythm of the moon and the sun. Those of us that live in Maine, we’re more connected because we’re so appreciative when the leaves are starting to come on the trees and the snow is melting. We do pay attention to that, probably in more ways than other people do.
Dr. Lisa: When I was reading “The Core Balance Diet,” I was interested to see you reference your relationship with your mother and having to work through that.
I don’t know if she’s still alive?
Marcelle P: She’s not. She actually died in 1999.
Dr. Lisa: Having to work through that and having to work through that as how it impacted your old physical self, it seems as though these books have been intensely personal to you, not just written from a healthcare provider standpoint.
Marcelle P: I’ve come to understand when you write anything, it’s important to connect with your audience to help people in the audience understand that we all have these journeys that we are working through. I don’t know that they were books that I wrote because of my personal, it’s just that my personal came into it as well.
I think it helps people if you personalize a book. I’ve written three now so I understand how to do that. It helps people understand that they can see themselves in the book too many times and I also tend to have a lot of stories of patients in there, too. So I wasn’t writing the books to work out my stuff. I was using myself as a reference point to help people understand that many of the journeys, we all have them and I’m different.
Dr. Lisa: That’s clear. As I was reading, it wasn’t like Marcelle is doing therapy as she’s writing.
Marcelle P: Or she’s stomping her foot.
Dr. Lisa: That wasn’t what I was getting. What I was getting was it came from a place of purity. That there was a very good reason that you thought it was important that you write this and also that you could relate to other women who might be having similar things in their lives.
Marcelle P: When I wrote “The Core Balance,” I remember being in high school and I was one of those young women that just ate one meal a day and I still was not very thin. I realized at that time, I had done Weight Watchers once and I was weighing and measuring everything. Everybody else in line is losing pounds and going, “Oh I cheated last night,” that there was something that was off and we now call that weight loss resistance. I knew when I had figured out pieces to that puzzle, I was going to write a book about it and that’s what “The Core Balance Diet,” is about.
It’s a book about health, but it’s a book about what happens to those women that are doing everything they’re supposed to do, and they’re still not losing weight? There’s many things that we understand now that we didn’t understand before. I even know more than I did when I wrote the book. I wanted to have people not have to struggle in the same way that I had for so long because everyone was saying, “You’re eating bonbons in the corner.” I was like, “You have no idea. That is so not true.” That then gave people the opportunity to look at what’s blocking that? The body’s not working? What’s wrong so we can figure out upstream what the problem is, instead of always coming up with the diagnosis of “you’re eating bonbons in the corner” because it’s not true.
Dr. Lisa: One of the things in “The Core Balance Diet,” and I like the way that you gave a,
I guess essentially it was a questionnaire and you enabled people to find areas that they were unbalanced in. Then it seems as though you were able to expand upon one of those areas and write what is now “Is It Me or My Adrenals?” Then another area is “Is It Me or Is It My Hormones? I like that. That there is a progression from “The Core Balance” to let’s talk here a little bit more about …
Marcelle P: More in-depth, yes.
Dr. Lisa: In the “Is It Me or Is It My Hormones,” you even talked about again, your own personal experience with trying to eat a certain way and things not being quite right with your hormones and you couldn’t quite figure this out. Then as time went on, you went, “Wait, there is a relationship and there is a relationship also for my patients.” Talk to me about that because I’m very interested in that, given what we know with especially young women and their eating habits.
Marcelle P: The part that’s always so amazing to me is that when I have my patients change their diet and it sounds so easy to do, but it’s more complicated because of our desire for sugar and our rushed life and it’s a fast food industry and all those things, but when you get back to basics and just do breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner and you do protein and whole foods, it’s a game changer. It really impacts because the three major hormones we have are not estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. It’s insulin, cortisol and adrenaline. Those things, though stressed and what we eat actually impact our hormones more than anything else.
I think that’s a surprise for my patients it was certainly a surprise for me. As I cleaned my diet up my cortisol stabilized and as I cleaned my diet out many years ago, everything else went into balance. That’s not the only thing we need to do, but it’s a great place to start. So many people don’t know the power of that. When I would say on the PBS show “It’s a game changer” and it really is. Even now, we know from Epigenetics and Neurogenomics that if we change the food we eat, we actually impact the expression of genes. Oh my god that’s so powerful because it doesn’t mean any more if you have heart disease as a history or if you have diabetes as a history it’s just a matter of time. It’s so not true. It gives power back to us, instead of thinking it’s just a matter of time, it isn’t and that’s amazing.
Dr. Lisa: When you talk about cleaning up your diet, you’re not talking about becoming a strict vegan.
Marcelle P: I’m not. It’s interesting. I have many magazines that are calling for interviews now. The interesting part for me and many of my contemporaries is and again, I’m sure there’s exceptions to every rule, I don’t find that many people can stand being a vegetarian long-term. What happens to many of them is they have no energy. They have fatigue. The difficult part for all of us is that we do need protein and often times, beans are not enough and tofu is not enough.
I’m someone that believes that eating food from the ground, plant-based in terms of half your plate vegetables and fruit and perhaps not that many foods if you’re a little bit sensitive or insulin resistant, and then having protein and some carbohydrates, whole carbohydrates, lower glycemic carbs. That balance more of the Mediterranean type diet, we know scientifically it’s fantastic for your health and we know that it keeps blood sugar stable, moods stable, neural transmitters stable, all the hormones stable. It’s amazing what it can do for you. So no, you don’t have to have juice five times a day and all those things.
The part that’s so important for people to know is it can be simple. I don’t want people to spend all their day in the kitchen. I don’t have time for that and that’s why in all my books, all the recipes are 30 minutes or less. I just don’t have time to cook in the kitchen. Sometimes I’ll spend time doing it. It’s fun, but I wanted people to have real food that was really healthy that the whole family that is made from scratch.
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Dr. Lisa: The vegan-vegetarian piece is hard as you talk about in your book, is hard for people to give up sometimes because it is something that we get attached to this idea that we have to rid our plates of all animal products. You have experience with this. I think on the phone you were telling me that you did a macrobiotic.
Marcelle P: I was a macrobiotic for 15 years, absolutely. There was a place in which I hit a wall and I had no energy. I couldn’t think clearly and I added protein and fortunately, I remember going to a store and just looking at the steak going,
“Oh my god.” I got some organic meat. It was amazing for me and started looking at some of the literature and the research. I see it often in my practice.
I have people that are vegetarians and I’ll say, “I think you need to have more protein.”
I’ll tell them and they’ll come back and I wrote about it in the book, and they’ll say, “I feel fabulous and I hate you” because they are so much wanting to not do the meat. I get it. I understand that. It’s finding out for them what works and it’s an individual issue. We all are going to be different. We don’t all have the same needs. Physiologically, we’re going to have differences as well.
Dr. Lisa: For people who listen to this show on a regular basis, we’ve interviewed functional medicine practitioners before, but some people may not be familiar with the ideas behind functional medicines. So tell me a little bit about that.
Marcelle P: Function medicine is probably for me, it’s what changed the way I practiced.
I’ve been doing it for 25, 26 years, a long time. I was always curious if I had a problem with a patient and I was trying to come up with a diagnosis and then treat it, it didn’t seem to get rid of the issues. So functional medicine is more about looking at the body like a cobweb, trying to understand all the pieces that make up that web. Is it the endocrine system? Is it about the mitochondria and is that producing enough energy? Does it have to do with lack of energy for nutrients? Is it lifestyle? Is it emotions? Is it what they’re eating? Is it lack of love and joy? What is going into the equation that’s causing the problem? So I’m a detective. I’m trying to figure out it could be a little of this and it’s a little bit of that and it’s a little bit of this. Toxicity is another part that we don’t ever talk about it the conventional world, all of which we now know affect people.
The part that’s wonderful is when you figure out the pieces and you see people change, it’s dynamic because that have people that have never felt better. With mialgias, from chronic fatigue, to even ITP, which is a blood disorder, people are on medication and they still don’t feel well and ultimately, you change all these things and they’re no longer on medication and they feel better than they have in years. That’s amazing, but it is how it works because it’s getting to the root cause of the problems.
Dr. Lisa: You’re still seeing patients at Women to Women in Yarmouth?
Marcelle P: I am.
Dr. Lisa: You have recently published, “Is it me or my hormones?” You just had this PBS special. You have a radio show that happens on Thursdays from six until seven. You have a busy and exciting life. What’s next on your horizon?
Marcelle P: I also have a very big online presence with the newsletter that I write called It’s at womentowomen.com. They’re asking me to do another book proposal actually right now. I have to think about whether I want to do that or not. I was thinking I’d take a little time to breathe a bit here. I don’t think that’s how the industry goes. More than likely, another book will be coming as well and I may be doing another PBS. We’ll see. They’re pushing me to do that as well so we’ll see.
Dr. Lisa: Marcelle, how can people find out more about “Is it me or is it my hormones?” Or “Is It Me or My Adrenals?” Or “The Core Balance Diet.”
Marcel P: The website Womentowomen.com that’s a place you can order the book itself, going to MarcelPick.com as well. We have lots of resources on Womentowomen. The goal for me many years ago was to help teach people how to be their own midwives. To learn about themselves so that they could then take that information and get healthier which is my goal for people. So that they’re not on 15 different medications by the time they’re 70 with 100% drug interaction and needing more because they’ve got so many side effects. That’s what we need to teach people is they can change so many things by changing the way they live their lives.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Marcelle Pink is the author of multiple books and most recently “Is It Me or Is It My Hormones?” I am so glad that you are a resource for the state of the Maine. That you are right in my own home town of Yarmouth and I appreciate your coming in and spending time with me today.
Marcel P: It’s delightful to be here, thanks.
Dr. Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted Carter: When I answer a home or a business, I try to instantly understand their long-term commitment to the property. If the move is going to be in the next two or three years, I would approach a landscape design situation completely differently than if they were to make a long-term commitment for many, many years ahead. I delve deeply into the understanding of how people actually live in their house or which rooms do they use? What do you see from the interior perspective or look out onto?
I also would try to understand what kind of play activities would be here? Are there children in the picture? Are there aging parents in the picture? What are the colors and textures and fragrances that most call to you? What are some of the plant materials that you recall from your earliest memories as a child? These are all things that personalize a space and make a space uniquely your own.
For more information, you can reach me at TedCarterdesign.com.
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Dr. Lisa: My son Campbell, who’s been on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour before talking about his experiences, went down to Guatemala and spent time with the organization Safe Passage for a year in between high school and college. I’m sitting across the microphone from a gentleman who has had a child with actually even more of an experience with Safe Passage and also, an individual who will soon be going down to visit safe passage or the first time. I’m here with Michael Komich of Cheverus and also Cheverus High School student, Emily Mander. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to me about this trip that you have planned coming up in June.
Emily M: Thank you for having us.
Michael: Thank you very much for letting us appear today.
Dr. Lisa: Michael, you became interested in Safe Passage, actually I believe from before your daughter even went down to Safe Passage to work for the last few years.
Michael: My daughter was a Cheverus student as well and embarked on a career of service that began at Cheverus and took her to Fordham University where she worked in El Salvador for a semester helping in a preschool there outside the Capital city. She also worked in a battered refugee women’s center in Mexico and upon graduation that led her to look at Safe Passage. We have a connection at Cheverus to Safe Passage, Handley Denning, the founder had three brothers attend Cheverus, two that graduated and one that was with us for a short time. So there was already a built in connection to that. Kelsey started as an English teacher and now has assumed the role of English coordinator. We went over to visit her last September and that was a life-changing event.
Dr. Lisa: It is a life-changing event to go down to Guatemala and actually see. You hear about this. You hear about the Guatemala City dump. You hear about the children who barely have enough resources to brush their teeth or eat regular meals. Until you’re actually there, it’s impossible to know what it’s really like. This happened to me when I went down to visit my son when he was there for a year. Was it hard for you to know that your daughter Kelsey, had been working in this atmosphere and trying to make a difference in a place that could be so fundamentally hard?
Michael: It was, like it was to send her to the Bronx, New York to go to Florida, a leap of faith. Kelsey, where most young people would look at something like that with fear and trepidation, with Kelsey, she’s wired to look at it with an adventuresome eye. I think that’s because Cheverus is a Catholic Jesuit College Preparatory School, there’s a faith component that we deal with every day. So a lot of time spent in daily mass in prayer, trusting that she would be cared for. When we got to Guatemala and saw how happy she was doing the work that she was doing, it was very re-affirming for us as parents that that was the right place for her.
Dr. Lisa: Emily, you’re a student at Cheverus and you’ve been exposed to this idea of service and the importance of giving back to others and also, of having faith.
At the same time, you’ve heard about the fact that this is a dump and there are children that are living amongst trash and it smells and it’s going to be June so it will be warm. There are all kinds of reasons for a high school student not to want to go to Guatemala City, but you’re going. Why would you want to do that?
Emily: I think I’m excited about going and seeing another culture and being immersed in another culture. I’ve never been out of the country before. So I’m excited about that, but on the other hand it’s like Mr. Komich said, that it’s going to be hard to see the poverty that’s in Guatemala City. I think that it’s worth it and it’s meaningful to go and it’s meaningful for me, meaningful for other Cheverus teams to go in the future. I think it’s worth it.
Dr. Lisa: You took this challenge on. One of the reasons you contacted me, Michael was because you said, “We have to raise so much money in a really short period of time and is there anything you can do to help out with this process.” Again, that’s another challenge. You have to raise a lot of money in a short period.
It did turn out all right as we’ll talk about, but why were you so willing to jump right in with both feet. What was it about Safe Passage that just kept drawing you down there?
Michael: When I went to visit Kelsey, they show you a video as part of an orientation before you go to Guatemala City and Hanley Denning was featured in the video and speaking about how when she first went there and saw the almost undefinable poverty that human beings live in, she could simply not turn her back and needed to do something. I was similarly touched. When I took off for my daughter and saw her I said to myself I needed to come back here and do something other than just resume life as normal.
I think a lot of people at our school do various immersion trips and I used to wonder having been there over 20 years, why would they do it? There’s so much help for people needed here in Maine? When you go to an area like that and see such unimaginable poverty and how people are living in such squalor and conditions you say, “How can I not be sensitized to this and try to have our students be sensitized to it?” I think for our small part, our students will go. We’ll help, but their lives will be touched and there will be a platform to help others in a more sustainable way.
Dr. Lisa: There is something about this story that clearly touches people and for longtime listeners of our show, they know that we created the book “Our Daily Tread,” and we raised tens of thousands of dollars for the organization Safe Passage and this is after Hanley died as a young woman in her 30s. You found the same thing. When you set up your first giving site and you opened it up and you said, “We need $10,000 and we need to get it within a month.” People started giving immediately. Were you surprised by that Emily?
Emily: I was completely blown away. It’s amazing. We had a goal of $10,000 for the group and there’s nine students going. So we were thinking that’s $1000 a student. We set up a first-giving-page and the response was unbelievable.
One student had $1300 over the course of a weekend just from contacting relatives. I know I wrote a long Facebook message to my Facebook friends explaining the trip and putting the link to the website and I think so many people have heard about Safe Passage in Maine. I had a couple of friends who had been and they commented and they said, “This is amazing. This is a great experience.” I think that everyone can see what a meaningful experience it can be.
Dr. Lisa: Now that you are very close to having reached that $10,000 goal, you have the opportunity to not only donate more money to Safe Passage should you surpass that goal, but also a lay the foundation for future trips and this is your intention from what I understand?
Michael: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: How can people give to the Cheverus Service team that’s going to be going down in June and also lay the foundation for future teams? What’s the best way to access that information?
Michael: Good question Dr. Belisle. The site, First-Giving, will likely be turned off this week because we will have met our goal, but anyone who does want to support the cause can donate to Cheverus High school, our website www.cheverus.org. will show you the contact information and address. If they want to put it to the attention of Safe Passage Support team trip, we’ll give them a tax deductible receipt and apply it to the trip cost and any surplus that can either go to Safe Passage or for future groups.
Dr. Lisa: I appreciate your taking the time to raise the money to go down and visit Safe Passage and to visit the children that my son Campbell actually helped teach for a year alongside your daughter Kelsey. Actually Michael, I thank you for being such a good father to Kelsey because I know that she helps keep Campbell going strong the entire time he was down there. I know that they are great friends. Emily, I know that you are going to end up being just as wonderful as Kelsey is. It’s been a great privilege to have you both in the studio with me today. I’ve been speaking with Cheverus student, Emily Mander and also, Michael Komich Of Cheverus. I wish you all the best on your Safe Passage trip.
Emily: Thank you so much.
Michael: Thank you Dr. Belisle.
Dr. Lisa: We’re into a new season and it’s spring. We’re all feeling energized and excited to go out in the world and wake up after this winter of dormancy and looking inward. I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk to a woman who is the Wright Doctor, right? W-R-I-G-H-T. This is Dr. Masina Wright, who is a Naturopathic physician, practicing in the area and she has a special interest in women’s vitality. So talk to us about why you decided to make this a topic of interest for yourself?
Dr. Wright: Women’s health is something that I specialize in. As a woman, I always feel like I’m better equipped at helping other women get better rather than man, who I don’t always totally understand and that’s not to say that I don’t treat men, but I understand women’s health because of my own body and my own health. So many people that come to see me just don’t feel good. They have low vitality. They are drained and they’re tired and they feel like their hair isn’t thick enough or their skin is too dull or various signs of low vitality. I started to focus more on finding ways to help women enhance their vitality using Naturopathic medicine.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a fascinating take on it. Instead of saying, “fatigue,” which is I think often what we talk about. We talk about all things that are bad. We talk about fatigue and we talk about being tired. You’re talking about the other side of the coin. You’re talking about vitality. So whatever it is that’s holding you back from that vitality, let’s move you forward. Why did you decide to go for the positive?
Dr. Wright: I think you always get better results if you think about things that make you feel good and look towards what you want in life, rather than focusing on the things that bring you down or the things that you don’t want. That’s part of the whole law of attraction. As a human, I want to be a more positive person myself. So I feel like it’s good medicine to think about the things that you do like and not get too caught up in what brings you down. I started with a list of things that drain vitality: age, illness, disease, grief, sadness, infection, hormone deficiencies. All of these things drain vitality, but it’s not helpful to focus on those things. It’s helpful to figure out what are the sources of the depleted vitality and then look at ways to replenish them.
Dr. Lisa: I want to talk about that because I know our listeners are going to relate to that topic very much. Talk to me a little bit about why you chose Naturopathic medicine? What drew you to that?
Dr. Wright: I think about this one a lot. Basically, my story is one of those kids that at age 5, “What do you want to be?” “I want to be a doctor or a hairdresser.” So I went for the doctor thing. My junior year of college at Middlebury, I just took a real sharp left and got off the straight and narrow track towards med school and started doing a lot of anthropology of medicine and sociology and feminist studies and religious studies. That’s what I was interested in and it’s what I was good at back at the time. Somebody came from a Naturopathic college out west and presenting on Naturopathic medicine and, I was like, “This is it. This is what I want to learn,” how to look at medicine from a more humanistic perspective and less of a science-based, but still having the foundation of medicine. I decided at that point to become a Naturopathic doctor and here I am.
Dr. Lisa What is Naturopathic medicine?
Dr. Wright: Naturopathic medicine is an umbrella term. It’s a philosophy of medicine as well. The umbrella that we hold that we offer includes botanical medicine, clinical nutrition, homeopathy, stress management, lifestyle counseling. We’re trained in physical medicine, like chiropractic manipulations, which I’d don’t you because I’ve always worked with a chiropractor. We’re also trained in some hands-on body work which some people of and some people do less of. Every Naturopath is an individual and we can choose which of our modalities that we focus more on. In some states, we have prescribing rights and some states we don’t. We can also prescribe antibiotics and female hormones and topical products and some pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Lisa: We’ll return to our interview in a moment. We, on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, hope that our listeners enjoy their own work lives to the same extent we do and fully embrace every day. As a physician and small business owner,
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The nature of your in basket is that it’s meant to have things in it. In fact, it could be argued that a full basket is essential for success. It means your time is in demand. A favorite line from a John Lennon’s song I sing to my girls is “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” It rings so true. When it gets hectic, we need to acknowledge the fact that nothing is more important than our own sense of happiness and inner peace. Very little in our lives it truly falls into the emergency category. Albeit some be it fall into urgency, but there is a significant difference. If we stay focused and prioritize, it will all get done.
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Dr. Lisa: How do you approach somebody coming into your practice says, “I just don’t feel energetic as I once did?”
Dr. Wright: Let’s see, there’s a few different answers to that so I’m not sure answer you want to hear. I always let people tell their story of what’s been going on with them because that’s where the clues to the depleted vitality come in. Is it stress? As people are telling their story, I’m analyzing for classic signs and symptoms for adrenal deficiency, thyroid deficiency, reproductive issues. I’m always analyzing the case as they are telling me their stories, even if they’re talking about their mother. I’m putting the pieces together in my brain.
I always talk about digestion and nutrition because food is a huge part of our vitality and our health and wellness. I break down in my mind, we have physical vitality which is our inherent sources of vitality that comes from our hormones primarily and anybody who has a formal efficiency will tell you how depleted they feel. So sometimes it’s actually just replenishing a physical state. Then there’s the energetic vitality. The vitality that we get from other things, primarily from nature, whether it says food or nature, the actual environment that we live in.
People do too much. Not enough people sit around and watch the tide come in or go out. That’s one of my prescriptions is to rest and to relax and to watch the flowers grow. I feel like nature is actually an amazing resource for vitality. People who are low and depleted and exhausted, sit outside for 20 minutes twice a week and just absorb. Sometimes we do too much, even take this vitamin. Take this pharmaceutical. Take this hormone. Take this prescription. Make this movie. Do this thing. Do that. It’s exhausting.
Dr. Lisa: The irony is that you’re working so hard to feel better that you’re actually depleting yourself in the process.
Dr. Wright: Sometimes I’m into Superfoods and green smoothies. That’s one way that I think is important to replenish vitality. That is going to give back eventually, even if you have to go to the store and buy the things and make this movie. It’s going to give back and so will supplements and so will hormones and so will a lot of other things, but resting is really important.
Dr. Lisa: You start with rest. What are some of the nutrition recommendations that you make with people?
Dr. Wright: The thyroid is an important part of our energy levels. A lot of people are like “My thyroid’s been tested 20 times and my doctor says the level’s normal.” I take a look at the same test that the doctor does and a holistic doctor or a doctor more trained for this kind of stuff can see that even though it’s in the normal level, the TSH actually needs to be within a fairly narrow range to show that it’s optimal thyroid function and not what’s call sub-clinical hypothyroidism. I look for things like that on bloodwork.
Iodine is necessary for the thyroid hormone to be produced. We don’t get enough iodine from our diet in general. So I make sure that people are eating seafood and fish which are plant sources or iodine. Seaweed is super important. Sushi or seaweed salads or learning how to cook with seaweed, you can just put little pieces of comu in your grains when you cook them. There’s lots of little macrobiotic nutritional tips. Plant sources of iodine are also things that we don’t necessarily eat a ton of like swish charred and mustard greens and cucumbers and watermelon. If you grow those plants in an iodine-depleted soil, you’re not going to get any iodine from them. I’ll make sure that people are trying to eat some of the iodine-rich foods.
Selenium is also needed for the thyroid conversion of T4 to T3. It’s pretty much only in Brazil nuts in any sort of significant amount. So I’ll have people starting to eat Brazil nuts as a snack. It’s a good protein. It’s high in the Selenium. Just looking at food sources of minerals other than just “here take this skill. Take this.” Sometimes that’s not what’s needed. Like I said, Superfoods are something I’m into right now. Superfoods are goji berries and blueberries and kale and maca root, Cacao, like chocolate powder for the real chocolate freaks out there. Making smoothies using dreams and organic fresh fruit and some Superfoods in either water or some alternative milks, getting a super nutrient rich smoothie that’s going to be full of enzymes and vital nutrients and plant nutrients and things that are absorbed really quickly. I always look to food with every patient.
Dr. Lisa: If you need to go beyond food into supplements, what are some of the nutrients that people get depleted in that they might need to look toward a supplement for?
Dr. Wright: When I do supplements, I often do botanicals. I often do herbal medicine. It’s one of my passions and it’s something I’m interested in. I will often look towards adrenal tonics as supplements when people are depleted or somebody’s low energy and they’ve never taken an adrenal tonic in their life. These days I’m seeing teenagers, people in high school that have depleted adrenals. We start burning the candle at both ends pretty early these days. So by the time you’re 25 or 35 or 45 or 55, you’re depleted.
There are a lot of fantastic herbs out there. Ashwagandha is one that I’m into right now for whatever reason. I think a lot of people are into it. It’s a very popular supplement. It’s quite safe. Rhodiola is also one of my favorites. I love Rhodiola, possibly because I’m a rose person and it’s called “Arctic Rose.” Rhodiola grows out on the Siberian tundras and the Russian army did a whole bunch of research studies on it to see what it actually did. It’s classified as an adaptogen. It helps improve mental clarity. It improves stamina to cold.
It increases endurance. You can run longer and think better out in the Siberian tundra when you’re taking Rhodiola so I like that one. There’s also another study on Rhodiola which is the rat on the pole study. A rat can stand on a pole longer when it takes Rhodiola than the rat not taking Rhodiola. There are patients out there they feel like a rat on a pole. It’s like, “I have to stand on this poll one more day and keep going.” Those people, they need the Rhodiola.
Dr. Lisa: What about ginseng?
Dr. Wright: There are a lot of different ginsengs. There was an interesting article, I think it was in Adirondack Today, on American ginseng which you can Google and track down. There’s the original article and then there’s blogs written on the article. There is American ginseng. There’s Asian ginseng, which is mostly Panax ginseng or Korean ginseng which is a specific sub species. Then there is Siberian ginseng which I mistakenly referred to before. Siberian ginseng is most known for its endurance capability and it’s great for athletes. The Asian or Korean ginseng is very hot. It’s mostly recommended for men.
In my training, we did some Chinese medicine in my training as well a lot of Naturopaths can do acupuncture, in addition to the other things I’ve mentioned before as an additional license thing. I tend not to use Panax ginseng or Asian ginseng because it can actually do some damage to the body if you’re not the right kind of person take it because it’s a very potent herb. American ginseng grows from Virginia all the way up to Canada and across to Montana. It’s another adaptogen, another tonic. It’s literally a stimulant. It would be a good option for people who are very fatigued and have very low energy.
Dr. Lisa: What are some of the other tips that you can offer people who would like to improve their vitality?
Dr. Wright: Get your hormones checked. Go to a doctor, either somebody who specializes in age management or who has a more holistic understanding of how the hormones all work together and get your testosterone for both sexes is important to test. Get your cortisol levels, a full thyroid panel. It’s important to do that bloodwork or to do a salivary hormone analysis and make sure that you’re up to par because that’s what lab work is for. You don’t necessarily want to just work in the dark and just buy a whole bunch of things or take stuff if you don’t actually need it.
The adrenal tonics are pretty safe for anyone, but if you’re on multiple medications, there can be a lot of interactions between the herbs and the medications so it’s not necessarily recommended to just go ahead and take a bunch of herbs if you’re on, especially things like some of the more high test cardiac herbs, some mental health herbs, some pharmaceuticals for antidepression are safe, but any of the antipsychotics you should definitely not be taken botanicals without a doctor’s or a Naturopath making sure that the contraindications are in place. Any autoimmune herbs should definitely be double checked. That’s the one thing about herbs is they can have interactions. Get your hormones checked. Spend some time outside. Introduce Superfoods. Have more local fruits and vegetables. Get some of those enzymes in there.
Dr. Lisa: It strikes me that you are an individual who likes to collect local information for patients. I know you have this Master in homeopathic certification. What’s next for you? What keeps you interested in the wellness world? What’s your next adventure?
Dr. Wright: I’m still just getting started here in Maine. I work at the Age Management Center which primarily does improving vitality. I do most of the women’s work. Dr. Bedecs does most of the men’s work. I’m going to keep doing what I already do for the next little while and get really good at it. I’m still learning my way around the Maine healthcare system. I’m excellent with all of the Canadian supplements and products out there, but I’m still learning my way around all of the American resources. I think that I’ve had quite a bit of change and I may not be jumping into something new at this point. I think I might just spend some time perfecting what I’ve got going on.
Dr. Lisa: How can people find out more about your practice?
Dr. Wright: I’ve got lots of social media out there. For all of the online people I’m on Twitter @thewrightdoctor and I’m on Facebook as the Wright Doctor. I have a page on Facebook. I have a website-blog, it does both thewrightdoctor.com. I’ve got a lot of that going on. As I said, I work at the Age Management Center so I can be reached through them and I also do boutique medicine which is an unusual model which is that I will do home visits or office visits for people who have unusual schedules.
I had a phone consult with a patient on 4 July last year who was sick and needed to check in with somebody. I do Skype visits with people in Arizona on a Sunday. I recognize that there’s some people work nine to five and can’t actually just or don’t want to leave for a doctor so I just feel in that because I have a little bit more of a flexible schedule. I’m going to continue doing that. It’s unusual, but it’s worked for me and I like doing the Skype model of care. It doesn’t replace having a primary care physician with that model, but it does help to have the alternative and the Naturopathic support for healthcare.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Dr. Masina Wright, who is the Wright Doctor, W-R-I-G-H-T, about women’s vitality and her own background in changes that she’s made. Congratulations on all these big changes moving from Toronto to Maine and doing it for love.
Dr. Wright: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: I hope that this continues to be successful for you and I appreciate the work you are doing for women and men in the state of Maine.
Dr. Wright: My pleasure, thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, Show Number 82 – Vitality. Featuring author and women’s health expert, Marcelle Pick, Michael Komich and Emily Mander of the Cheverus Safe Passage support team and Naturopathic physician Dr. Masina Wright. For more information on our guest, visit D-o-c-t-o-r-Lisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, D-o-c-t-o-r-Lisa and read my take on health and well-being on the Bountiful blog, bountiful-Blog.com.
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