I have seen dramatic increases in anxiety, fear and depression in my practice over the last 20 years. I keep asking myself why. My amazing wife shared this video with me and I think Jonathan Haidt has the answer. (Thanks, Tiffini!!)
Watch the video below.
Are we being too protective of our kids as parents today? Do we let our kids do all the things we did as kids? Are we stifling childhood discovery and independence, even though we have the best intentions?
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business who has written multiple books exploring morality and society. In 2018, he authored the book “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure,” which delves into how overprotective parenting is leading to more harm than good, especially on college campuses. Jonathan has many thoughts on what parents can be doing to support students, without focusing only on their safety. Here are the Top 5 lessons we learned about being antifragile from Jonathan Haidt.
Today is gun violence awareness day. Physicians around the country are hitting social media about terror of guns, of gun ownership, and how “guns are killing our children.” In fact, there is a whole movement to “wear orange today.” I truly appreciate the importance addressing violence in our homes, families and neighborhoods. Violence in any form is terrible and tragic. Yet, I am disturbed that very intelligent people are swayed into relinquishing rights of freedom and liberty based upon emotions and fear. I’m sure my comments will strike up the ire of a number of my colleges and a few patients (Not that that is anything new – I’ve been beating the ketogenic drum for 15 years telling people to ignore the AHA and have some bacon). Yet, I cannot, and I will not remain silent.
Evidence Doesn’t Support the Media’s Claims
In medicine, we are taught to practice and act based upon evidence. Wearing orange to support removing my right to own a firearm fly’s in the face of evidences. Over the 20 years of my medical practice, I have witnessed progressive socialists, liberal media and those that don’t know better, in an attempt to legislate greater control over the population, very successfully use our emotions to slowly remove our inalienable rights of freedom. One of those is our second amendment right to own firearms. The media, with many well meaning physicians and physician groups around the country, are using days like today to try to convince you that homes are more dangerous because there are more guns in homes, and more violence due to the presence of those guns. But is that true?
And, according to a 2017 Journal of Pediatrics article, “Nearly 1300 children die and 5790 are treated for gunshot wounds each year. Boys, older children, and minorities are disproportionately affected.” Yet, this number is down from 1993.
And interestingly, “. . .unintentional firearm deathsamong children declined from 2002 to 2014, firearm homicides declined from 2007 to 2014, and firearm suicides decreasedbetween 2002 and 2007.”
The research does, however, show an upward trend in suicide from 2007 to 2014. But, according to the article, this appears to be “. . . precipitated by situational and relationship problems. The shooter playing with a gun was the most common circumstance surrounding unintentional firearm deaths of both younger and older children.” However, overall the numbers are down by almost 50%. Yet, that’s not the message being shared today.
Fewer People’s Homes Have Guns
Today, fewer homes have guns in them. Fewer people hunt and use the firearms regularly. And, because we live in bigger cities, opportunities to educate our youth about proper use and storage of firearms occurs less often. Fewer families teach their children gun safety and unintentional injury and death can occur when our children are not correctly taught about the use and safety of firearms.
The progressive left and media will tout that according to the Congressional Research Service, as of 2015 there actually are almost twice as many guns per capita in the United States as there were in 1968: more than 300 million guns in all. And, gun sales actually have increased in recent years. You will hear that according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. gun-makers produced nearly 11 million guns in 2013, the year after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre. That’s twice as many as they made in 2010.
You even hear the words of Dr. Deborah Azrael parroted that, “There’s a gun for every man, woman, and child, more or less.”
But does every man, woman and child in the U.S. have a gun? The number of armed households has actually declined to about 1 in 3. So an ever larger number of guns is concentrated in a shrinking number of homes:
Listen for just a short time today and you’ll hear the media and the progressive left claim that we need to make it harder to obtain a gun. Well, we’ve done that already!
According to FBI records, background checks have more than doubled, making it harder to obtain a firearm in the U.S.
Involve the Pillars of Safety to Move the Agenda Forward.
I will paraphrase the comments of Jonathon Schuldt, a professor of communications at Cornell University. He stated that in a nation where freedom is among the deepest ideals, control is almost a dirty word, and it is much easier to justify why one is against [gun] control that it is to justify why one is against [gun] safety.
Making the case for safety is easy, just involve the doctors. Use the emotions and fear of violent injury and the treatment of horrible gunshot wounds. If the doctors, especially our beloved pediatricians, are for “Gun Safety” [implying gun control], then we must support it. Right?!
Progressives have subtly changed our minds by changing the words and adding emotion. Change the word “control” to “safety” & sprinkle with some doctors in white coats while wearing orange. Then, change the headlines that show up in today’s Google search of the news (for example):
ABC News: Virginia Gov. Northam on gun safety: Summons lawmakers to special session.
MSNBC News: Virginia democrats pressure for gun safety
CBS News: Senator Cory Booker: Unveils new gun safety plan
Yet, in the news today people like Virginia’s Governor, Ralph Northam, are following the gun control playbook to the letter by exploiting a tragedy to push political agendas. None of Governor Northam’s gun control proposals would have prevented the horrible tragedy at Virginia Beach. If he is genuinely interested in pursuing policies that will save lives, he and states around this great nation should focus on the following:
Prosecuting violent criminals
Fixing our broken mental health system
Identifying the real cause of suicide in our school systems
Instead, Gov. Northam, and others like him, blame our country’s law-abiding gun owners for the acts of deranged murderers and people who are truly mentally ill.
I am always fascinate when religious or spiritual topics collide with medical evidences and/or disease. I am convinced that “the natural man” has trouble recognizing that all things are spiritual unto God (1 Corinthians 2:14). Unfortunately, training in medicine often attempts to “educate the spirituality out of you.”
However, this week,and in church today, I’ve been reading about “signs of the times.” Of interest, and something that I’ve been pondering, is the statement made in Luke 21:25-26 where the Savior, Jesus Christ, specifically foretells the signs of His Second Coming. Among the perplexities and distress outlined, one statement stands out this week and has been the food of much thought, “Men’s hears failing them for fear,…” (Luke 21:26).
This food for thought is actually what directed me to this verse, as I’ve had a number of people express notable fear and worry over whether their diet is correct, because so much miss-information abounds in society today. Argument, stress and fear over diet, apparently, is not new and was something that even Paul noticed and wrote about in his Epistle to the Romans (Romans 14:1-3).
Stress and fear are two of the biggest hindrances to health and weight loss in my office. The most common non-food cause of failing to maintain ketosis while living a ketogenic lifestyle is stress. Stress is often due to fear. Men, and women alike, become fearful because they seem to:
Forget their Purpose
Forget their Identity
When heartache arise from illness, injury, disability, death, divorce, wayward children and the other innumerable causes, stress and fear abound. Worry about diet and health, in a time when so much contradictory advise is at our fingertips, adds to that fear.
When we forget our purpose and our identity, three symptoms arise both physically and spiritually:
Apathy toward some or all parts of life (“It’s just going to change again so why even care . . ?”)
A mental slumber due to temporal or carnal pacification (“I can just eat and/or drink my problems away”)
Fear of change and the pain or effort it may take to make a change (“I don’t have the will-power to change anymore.”)
The scriptures call this “weak hands & feeble knees” (Isaiah 35:3), and we in medicine refer to this as dysthymia, the first step in progression toward chronic depression and/or anxiety.
These symptoms all increase chronic levels of cortisol and insulin. Amplified “brain fog,” weight gain, and inflammation are physical responses to the mental fear that is chronically unresolved. These symptoms just add to the apathy, mental slumber and fear of pain that was already present.
The problem is that over time, this progressive triad lead down the hormonal path to what we now call atherosclerosis, narrowing of the blood vessels, increasing the risk for heart attack, heart failure and stroke. This was seen in Hippocrates day as “sudden death related to episodes of chest distress” (Leibowitz, 1970). The Italian anatomist Giovanni Morgagni (1682-1771) described it in his day as “the force of the heart decreases so much more in proportion as the greater number of its parts becomes tendonous instead of being fleshy.”
SO, WHAT DOES ONE DO?
First, realize that the problems you are facing have been faced by millions of human beings and you are not alone. But, to paraphrase Irene Dunne, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.
I no longer believe in coincidence. Whether you have thought about it or not, every interaction you have with others (even our interaction . . . your reading this blog), are not by coincidence. There is a reason. Whether you believe it or not, everything around us testifies that God exists; the Hand of Providence can be seen from the rotation of the earth, planets and stars, the precision of the seasons, the balance of the atmosphere allowing for the perfect pressures and concentration of elements to sustain a life giving breath, to the perfect replication of DNA within billions of cells throughout the body.
I’m not trying to get religious, and, no, I can’t prove this through the scientific method . . . But, that is just the point. Hands are weak because of lack of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidences of which are not yet seen. Even though we do not see the evidences, we can discern the light and that gives hope. Hope is a substance that gives purpose. I can strengthen hands by sharing a little light and stabilize knees through friendship and fellowship (Romans 14:1).
If the Big Bang started the universe, what started the Big Bang? Where did the first atom or molecule or particle of dust come from? I have a very difficult time accepting that you and I are here by accident, by a chaotic explosion that created order. That implies that there must be a plan, and that plan had to have been set in motion by a Creator. You and I have a place in that plan. That also implies that that Creator placed solutions to our challenges, including the diseases of civilization, within our grasp and available to those seeking the solutions upon the earth today.
Second, today’s society teaches the Pleasure Principle. This is the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain, including avoiding painful recollections. We often define ourselves by those things that bring us pleasure. We each go through personal tests, failures and triumphs. Some of us harness all of those experiences for good, others find worsening mental paralysis due to fear of them. We often hide from the painful experiences and attempt to bury or forget them. Food is often involved with many of the experiences of life, and for a significant number of people, the endorphin release from eating a meal, sometimes just the act of chewing, may be the only pleasure one experience in a day, in a week or a in a year. Many people hide from painful recollections behind the simple pleasure produced by the eating of “comfort foods.” Food, and our opportunities to experience pleasure from it’s various flavors, textures and physical stimulus, begin to define us. However, hiding from life’s painful memories with momentary pleasures usually prolongs or makes the problem worse. The ingestion of simple foods containing glucose and fructose, their effect on the liver, and the hedonistic hormonal response is the basis of addiction, and simple carbohydrates provide the perfect fix.
Fascinatingly, when fructose is metabolized in the liver, in the presence of glucose (the basic structure of sugar – one fructose molecule bound to a glucose molecule), the byproduct has a hedonic (pleasure experiencing) effect on the exact same pleasure receptors in the brain that bind to morphine. Yes, that’s why the M&M’s make you forget your troubles and why the Jolly Rancher is so jolly. And, its the same reason you crave another do-nut two hours after you ate the entire baker’s dozen.
Healing can only occur when one is willing to confront and talk about the reasons, the real reasons you’d rather experience the endorphins from the do-nuts with your family instead of acknowledge your weakness, stresses, and fears. Many of us are so afraid of where we might be, we avoid acknowledging where and who we are. It takes courage not to take the easy path. And I will be the first to admit, pizza is the easy path and it’s scenic views are decorated with french fry palms and sunset clouds of apple fritters.
Third, many cultures and most forms of religion or spirituality incorporate the use of fasting to one degree or another. Why fasting? Well, it removes the effect of the pleasure principle for starters.
Fasting is also a simple and inexpensive method of shifting the body’s metabolism to one of ketosis. Spiritual, physical and mental clarity are more prominent in the ketotic state. Finding your identity and purpose are often encouraged while fasting. In fact, a whole chapter in the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah is dedicated to the powerful effects of fasting and the ketogenic state it produces (Isaiah 58:3-12).
Your life is never without meaning. Keep it real by recognizing that diet alone may not compete your answer for physical health. Having courage and faith allow you to see and embrace the truth that is right in front of you. The Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 step program only becomes successful when one realistically and courageously applies their faith to align with the truth they have felt all along. For any long-term lifestyle change to take place, one must connect and live the principles before one truly knows they are true. In this way the Ketogenic Lifestyle becomes real and men’s hearts are less likely to fail them. You can start here: The Principle Based KetoDynamic Lifestyle.
Ketogenic Lifestyle – the Balance of Endocrinology & Psychology
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of talking to a number of patients and friends about what it means to live a ketogenic lifestyle. A low-carbohydrate or ketogenic lifestyle is different from a low-carb diet. It is different because the definition of lifestyle implies the way a person lives their life that reflects specific attitudes and values, not just how they eat. My recent posts, The Principle Based Ketogenic Lifestyle – Part I and Ketogenic Principles – Part II, focus on fundamental principles making the ketogenic lifestyle one in which balance and grounding in all aspects of life can occur. When the mind, the body or the spirit are out of balance or un-grounded, symptoms of metabolic inefficiency, sickness or disease result.
I have been fascinated, as a family practitioner, that the body produces “warning flags,” when there is dysfunction in one of these areas: mind, body & spirit. These warning flags are byproducts of inefficient inter-related functionality between the body’s systems and it is one of the foundation principles of osteopathic medicine. Prior to the advent of many of our diagnostic techniques today like MRI, CT scan, advanced laboratory evaluations, and ultrasound, these were the only indicators of disease that a physician could identify, and upon which diagnosis was made. These flags often show up on the skin, in the hair or nails, in the complexion, or in general appearance or mannerisms.
Skin Tags (fibroepitheial polyps) under the arm
For example,”skin tags” are now recognized as pathognomonic, specifically indicative, of insulin resistance and will often occur up to 20 years before impaired fasting glucose or diabetes is ever recognized.
Exopthalmos (bulging or protruding of the eyes) from hyperthyroidism
Exopthalmos, or protrusion of the eyes, is pathognomonnic for overactive thyroid function (hyperthyroidism), and spider angiomas occur as a somatic flag that cirrhosis of the liver is present.
Alligator Skin (severe dry skin) found in hypothyroidism
Hair loss and dry skin, or “alligator skin,” represents the exact opposite with an under-active thyroid (hypothyroidism).
Spider angioma seen with cirrhosis
When metabolic pathways get “clogged” or flow of blood, lymphatic fluid or hormones do not reach the destinations they were meant to reach, symptoms of accumulation or poor function begin to arise.
The osteopath is also trained to recognize a corollary Chapman’s Reflex Points that act as flags for dysfunction in specific organs or regions of the body. These points relate directly to what causes the pathognomonic flag. I frequently identify abdominal, adrenal, pancreatic and liver Chapman’s points present in those with insulin resistance, inflammatory diseases, pre-diabetes and diabetes. Understanding how to interpret and use these flags comprises four years of medical school and three to four years of residency and often years of clinical application.
Mental or spiritual pathways can often be bloc-aided by poor recognition of, or refusal to acknowledge, individual truths in our lives. Interestingly, the signs or warning flags of spiritual dysfunction are also expressed physically.
“Oh, no?! Dr. Nally are you going to get all religious on us?”
Maybe.
Over the last 15 years of my medical practice, I’ve witnessed the spiritual component of the “mind, body, spirit” unit, or lack thereof, have profound impact on the body’s ability to heal. Every one of us must defeat what Sigmund Freud called the pleasure principle – the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain, including recollections or memories that are painful. Hiding from these memories because of pain is very common and is part of human nature. We often believe that thinking about or re-living the truth may cause us individual overwhelming un-survivable grief. So, we naturally bury the thoughts and emotions and feelings deep down into our subconscious minds.
In fact, we take irrational risks, busy ourselves, use food or drink for short term comfort and move from one distracting or debilitating relationship to another. We lose and then regain gain weight, become workaholics, hide behind thousands of texts, social media posts and emails in order to protect ourselves from the part of ourselves that we don’t want to think about.
However, when we step away from the distractions and courageously look at our individual history, our personal life story, honestly and completely, feelings of sadness, anxiety, regret and anger may often arise. These painful emotions bring with them essential insights into how experiences will help you and I individually grow, become a better people, and help others along the path. It takes faith to trust that these experiences will not destroy us, but were allowed to occur by a loving Father or Creator, understanding that for you and I to grow, we must each be given individual agency to chose. It takes faith to recognize that that Father has your individual best interest in mind. Hiding from these emotions clogs the mental and spiritual systems and fuels disabling depression, anxiety, insomnia and fatigue. These feelings, real as they are, persist when there is no other physical sign of illness. That’s because this illness is not physical. It is spiritual. When we are out of line with the truths that bring peace and balance to our lives, negative, self-limiting patterns of activity and fear stifle growth and development mentally.
It is fascinating to me that on more than one occasion, as an osteopath, when a patient suffering from these symptoms gets a massage or has an osteopathic or chiropractic manipulative treatment, they may suddenly become tearful or have unexpected release of emotion. Physical treatment over the areas of congestion can, and do, cause a reflex triggering of mental, emotional or spiritual release of tensions.
How do I know that it is truth we are hiding from? Take the words of the Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche found in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying among many others throughout the ages:
“Saints and mystics throughout history have adorned their realizations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind. Christians and Jews call it “God”; Hindus call it “the Self,” “Shiva,” “Brahman,” and “Vishnu”; Sufi mystics name it “the Hidden Essence”; and the Buddhists call it “buddha nature.” At the heart of all religions is the certainty that there is a fundamental truth, and that this life is a sacred opportunity to evolve and realize that truth.”
“Wait a minute, what does all this have to do with a ketogenic lifestyle?”
The ketogenic lifestyle is one that is based on values. A patient following a ketogenic diet recognizes that food has just as powerful effect on the hormones of the body as does prescription drugs. Understanding the value of hormone balance and the principles that effect weight, inflammation, blood pressure and cholesterol, the ketogenic lifestyle is one in which carbohydrates are restricted in an individually tailored way to obtain the end goal. How does a ketogenic lifestyle balance mind and spirit?
Step One –
Put down your force-field. This takes courage and it takes faith. Your force-field is any distraction that keeps you from thinking and feeling and identifying truth. These include excessive alcohol, illicit drugs, binge eating, smoking, gambling, working excessively or getting lost in repetitive dramatic romantic relationships .
Believe me, the force-field gets heavier every day. After my father passed away at age 58 from the major complications of diabetes and my sister committed suicide a few years later, I threw myself into work and church service. I worked 16-18 hour days, completed a second board certification in Obesity Management and a fellowship in Health Policy, all while serving as a bishop and counselor in my church. I found that I could raise my force-field of justification to hide from the pain and emotions of family illness and depression.
But the force-field saps your energy and cheats you out of seeing your full potential. I found that as long as I held up my force-field (and some of us care more than one), I couldn’t see the experiences that made me who I am and connect me with those I was trying to serve and help. As long as I was holding up my force-field, I was living in the fear of re-experiencing the pain of loss and the worry of future disease, . . . and people sense that.
You don’t have to drop the force-field all at once. You don’t have to quit work and become a hobbit. You just have to lower the field a little bit, enough to peek over and let the Eternal Truth shine on you. Truth is a funny and powerful thing. The more we overcome our reluctance, face the pain and the fear, the more we realize just how often things begin to go well for us. Living in the presence of great truth and eternal law and being guided by permanent values is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.
Step Two–
Identify emotional or behavioral patterns that you want to change. If you don’t know, ask a trusted friend, your spouse, or your relatives. As I think back over the years, I had a couple trusted friends pull me aside and identify a few of those patterns face to face. I appreciate that, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Make a list of the events in your life that you regret and wish you would have made a different decision.
Go over the list as many times as you need to to identify the pattern or theme that seems to tie the regrets together.
Then actually write down the theme or reason that you identified as the cause. This allows you to identify and remove the corrupted soft-ware of your soul.
This process can take time and is often camouflaged by denial.
Major insight often comes as a knock on the door of denial, so listen carefully to what is being said. Listen to yourself listening. Psychiatrists say that if something said while listening to a patient makes them suddenly feel sad or irritable, then that may be a meaningful theme in the patient’s life. Listen to your gut feelings as you go through the day. Don’t ignore a prompting from your soul.
Step Three –
Realize that today’s negative emotional and behavioral patterns are connected with painful memories and unsolved past conflicts.
Do you get a gut feeling that you want to change the subject when someone brings up a financial setback? Do you want to reply with one liners like, “I’m sure it will all work out?” Are there other topics that make you uncomfortable? Ask yourself why that topic makes you uncomfortable . . . seriously, ask yourself, and then answer yourself. Do you suspect your spouse of cheating when there is no objective evidence to support the suspicions? Recognize these uncomfortable feelings are our subconscious waving flags to make us each aware of unresolved conflicts within our mind and spirit.
Remember, we attract the type of energy we give off.
Step Four–
Pray to whatever higher power you believe in. Meditation, prayer and “ponderizing” brings a reservoir of faith and courage to find and to face the truth. If you have the faith, get on your knees and sincerely ask God for help facing your truth and the challenges, fears and sadness that reflecting upon it may initially bring. I promise you that you will gain the strength to accomplish the task. It will bring the strength to overcome the hidden trauma in your earlier life and will give you the strength to resist the call of ice cream at 3 am.
Following these four simple steps, keeps you vigilant to the physical and spiritual warning flags that may arise on your ketogenic journey and will bring great confidence while modifying your diet to balance your body’s hormonal milieu. Confidence inspires courage. Those with courage and confidence in themselves, and faith that they are on the right path, are unstoppable. Good luck . . . I look forward to seeing you on my journey down the same path.
When we forget our purpose and our identity, three symptoms arise both physically and spiritually:
insulin. Amplified “brain fog,” weight gain, and inflammation are physical responses to the mental fear that is chronically unresolved. These symptoms just add to the apathy, mental slumber and fear of pain that was already present.
Second, today’s society teaches the Pleasure Principle. This is the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain, including avoiding painful recollections. We often define ourselves by those things that bring us pleasure. We each go through personal tests, failures and triumphs. Some of us harness all of those experiences for good, others find worsening mental paralysis due to fear of them. We often hide from the painful experiences and attempt to bury or forget them. Food is often involved with many of the experiences of life, and for a significant number of people, the endorphin release from eating a meal, sometimes just the act of chewing, may be the only pleasure one experience in a day, in a week or a in a year. Many people hide from painful recollections behind the simple pleasure produced by the eating of “comfort foods.” Food, and our opportunities to experience pleasure from it’s various flavors, textures and physical stimulus, begin to define us. However, hiding from life’s painful memories with momentary pleasures usually prolongs or makes the problem worse. The ingestion of simple foods containing glucose and fructose, their effect on the liver, and the hedonistic hormonal response is the basis of addiction, and simple carbohydrates provide the perfect fix.
