Dr. Shannyn Pearce 0:00
I always tell my patients to get curious around why your body is doing anything, right? Like if it's telling you if you have an ache or a pain or if you're tired that day or if your eyes are puffy, just start asking those questions start wondering, why is my body responding like this? Your body slowly talks to it whispers, then it talks, then it raises his voice and then it screams really loudly. And for most of us, we wait till it's screaming at us to do anything when it started whispering five years ago, right like you had signs.

David Sandstrom 0:32
Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical Health Coach, and this is episode number 83.

David Sandstrom 0:50
Today we have in the show Dr. Shannyn Pearce. Dr. Shannyn is a Doctor of Chiropractic, Integrative Health Coach, and nationally known speaker and educator. She has a passion for women's hormones, thyroid and autoimmune issues. After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia at a young age, she began her lifelong quest to find non medical answers to common health issues. Dr. Shannyn, Welcome to Natural Health Matters.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 1:15
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. It's it's gonna be a good conversation.

David Sandstrom 1:19
Yeah, I think so to really be looking forward to this conversation. So today, especially over the last couple of years, most of us are experiencing a great deal of stress. And I really think that burnout is a real issue for a lot of people. So I want to talk about that today. But before we get into that, let's talk about you just for a little bit. Let's get to know Dr. Shannyn and a little bit more, give us a 35,000 foot view of what you do.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 1:41
Yes, so my passion in life specifically, I have a heart to really change women's health care, because I've had just an up and down story of my own health journey, right learning all the things that work and don't work. And along that journey, I really realized there's a lot of women who feel the same way. It's just so rarely discussed or so rarely properly managed, right? Even if it is discussed, that I always say I believe we will change health care if we make enough healthy women who make healthy babies who make healthy babies, like that's how we change the world. But it's just not happening, right. So even through my own experience, I was already a doctor when I had my big break down, break burnout. And I'm sure we'll get into more of those details. So I would have considered myself a very educated person. And I still ended up having a major health crisis. So now my passion is to teach women how to properly take care of their bodies in their health, both physically and emotionally. So they can avoid burnout, but also create a life, they love to wake up feeling vibrant, to be happy and confident in their body to be able to play with their kids without being exhausted, to really just feel good and know the proper way to take care of their health.

David Sandstrom 2:54
Excellent. Well, you know, you mentioned a health crisis. And I found that to be true. When I had my health coaching practice. Almost everyone would come to me had some kind of health crisis going on. And people that have gotten into the field of natural and holistic integrative medicine, whatever you want to call it, generally have a health crisis story their own. So tell us a little bit about yours. Yes.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 3:14
So I wish I could tell you I had like one breakdown, I learned my lesson. That's just never the way that goes right. I'm a hard learner. And I think a lot of people have the same thing. So I was actually diagnosed with fibromyalgia after a head injury when I was eight years old, and struggled with chronic pain most of my life. And my first experience when I knew there had to be a better way. I went to a neurologist when I was about 10, severe migraines, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, like very physically struggling. And this doctor at the time looked at me and said, I think it's fibromyalgia and to a 10 year old kid in real pain. He said, that means it's all in your head. And you're going to have to learn how to manage these symptoms for all their years old and I look back and I just tell myself daily, I thank God that I knew better because if I would have let those words be true for me, right, if I would have took that for face value and just decided the rest of my life was going to suck and I was going to get really good at pain management. I can't imagine where I would be right now. Right? Thankfully stimulated my mom at the time to get me my first chiropractic adjustment. That was my first introduction to holistic health care, right? We were not holistic people. We were very medical people. By the age of 10. I was on 10 different prescription medication. I've done it the medical way and got worse, not better. Got my first adjustment, my headaches went away. That was the first time because I was 10 years old. I've been telling everyone I was gonna be a chiropractor. So like in class, he always asked that everyone's be a lawyer. Everyone's a chiropractor since I was 10 years old, never changed. But then again, I wish that was the end of the story right and then everything gets better. But having a passion and you probably know this with your health coaching business, sometimes can come at a level of burnout to write. Do you know what I mean? Like just having that passion and wanting to do everything want to do it so quickly. I think I overdid it. And they ended up having a major physical health crisis after the birth of my first child, I was having more fibromyalgia symptoms, I was having migraine headaches, I was feeling awful. And that's actually the first time I started getting into more functional medicine and learning about in depth testing. And I went all in and it took a couple of years, and I really fixed my physical health. Wish that was the end of my story, right. So I found this thing. I loved it. I knew it could help people. I wanted to help people. So I went all in 100 miles an hour helping people through functional medicine, I got pregnant with my second child. About a year after she was born, I started having very emotional burnout, I was exhausted. Because same thing, I loved it. I loved what I was doing. I felt I was helping people. So I went back to it full time. And I couldn't figure out why I couldn't handle my emotions. I was crying for no reason. Things that I thought used to be really fun. Like getting on calls with people doing interviews like this going out with friends just stopped being appealing altogether. I didn't feel like doing anything. And that was really my first personal experience with emotional burnout. Yeah, and that's when I realized, Oh, crap, there's two big pieces to this that I don't think people understand. And just because you heal from it once, doesn't necessarily mean you're better. We have to know how to properly balance our physical and our emotional health. So we don't find ourselves back in those situations. So it took me many tries to get to where I am today.

David Sandstrom 6:31
Excellent. So it sounds like I mean, there's a lot of details to fill in there. Right? But how are you feeling today? Do you feel like you're in victory today?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 6:39
Absolutely. 100% of the tools and know how to properly take care of myself, I know what to do if things start to deviate. And that's true preventative medicine, right? It's not that things don't happen if that you know how to take care of yourself.

David Sandstrom 6:51
Right. The reason why we're having this conversation right now Natural Nation is so that you can avoid the crisis, right, you can implement some of the principles that Dr. Shannyn is going to be talking about and not have the crisis, we prefer that everybody just enjoy vibrant health, without having to go through that trial. So burnout is more than just something that CEOs of major corporations experienced burnout is something that almost everyone at some level have is has experienced some point in their lives. You know, and as you said, it can be mental emotional burnout, or it can be physical burnout, and it could be a lot of factors. So talk to us about, about how you figure out so when someone comes to you, if they're experiencing burnout, what are the signs and symptoms and that kind of thing.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 7:38
Major signs and symptoms start with a deep amount of fatigue that doesn't seem to be alleviated through sleep, right? Sleep disturbance is a big one. Brain fog even all sudden, you feel like too much stimulus. It's hard to multitask. You know, the kids asking you for one more drink of water is enough to make your brain want to explode. Those are big drivers of nervous system burnout. Uncontrollable emotions feel like I could cry for no reason or nothing's wrong. But I feel impending doom or things that you used to love not feeling exciting anymore. Those are all your first signs of burnout. And typically, even by the time you feel those, you're probably pretty far into the physical imbalances that have created those symptoms. But those are the main things I'll hear people say that they're noticing when they're identifying is burnout.

David Sandstrom 8:25
So what do you do? Do you run some lab tests? Or what do you do with that person? Yes,

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 8:28
lab lab tests are my love language. My favorite thing to do, the better your testing is, the better decisions you can make, because physical and emotional stress are going to make physiological imbalances. So specifically, there's going to be some pressure on the adrenal glands, there's probably some disturbance in the microbiome because the gut is hugely affected by stress and inflammation, tracking hormone balances for men and women. For women, it's normally lower progesterone and stress or men, it'll tank your testosterone. So making sure we're seeing for each individual, how is your body adapted to these stressors, because it's not going to be the same for everybody. So if we can find out those levels, we can find out your patterns, then we can make a game plan to properly support yourself. And I believe that's how I've been able to stay healthy as long as I have now I know my patterns. I know what tests to run before it becomes these major health crisis is again, right crises. But you've got to know your patterns and your testing. So I do think that's a huge part of it. And then on the physical or emotional side. You've got to look at your priorities, like how over scheduled are you what things can you start to alleviate, to make some room and really implementing a good daily process for mindset and self care is huge.

David Sandstrom 9:50
Well, that was a lot. So not that person listening to this program has to become a practitioner, but so that they can have a more educated conversation with them. practitioner who might not be quite as functional as you are, what kind of tests should they ask for? And you're looking at hormones. But what what types of tests are most revealing?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 10:09
Yeah, so my two favorite functional labs to start with. One is a comprehensive stool sample, right? There's lots of companies that do them. I prefer Doctors Data or Genova. Those are the two that we use often. And then for hormone and adrenal mapping, the Dutch test is a dried urine sample that maps your hormones and your adrenals over 24 hours. It shows you inflammatory markers, it shows you neurotransmitters, it is my favorite snapshot for stress and burnout of really what's going on with the body

David Sandstrom 10:37
is that a saliva test?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 10:38
That one's urine, super easy, goes right to your house, send it off, we get the results back in a couple of weeks. The great thing with all of these tests is we can send them anywhere, right? I work with people virtually all over the world. And then we get the results back and through virtual healthcare, we can review those together.

David Sandstrom 10:53
Excellent, really good. So if you determine if someone is experiencing burnout with low levels of like, as you said progesterone and women, testosterone in men and and other things, gut dysfunction. Where do you go from there with that person?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 11:04
Yeah. So once you do your testing, right, I think that's always the first step for everybody. But then you can individualize plan. Now, I'm a big fan of having a system and going a little bit more minimal, so that you can actually retrain the body to balance itself. I think the number one complaint I hear from someone who has gotten more holistic or functional, is I went to this doctor, they drew a bunch of labs. And they put me on 15 supplements, right that I was taking multiple times a day, and I didn't really feel that much better, I felt I was doing a lot to get really minimal results, right? I hear that so often. Yeah. So what we've created that I do and work my clients through, is a process that's based on the hierarchy of how your body heals. So instead of to kind of throw things at you, when a body is already in burnout, and probably can't assimilate most of the information anyways, you go after the most important things first, and allow your body to remember how to heal because it can, I didn't know if you believe this, your body can heal, we know that, we've got to give it the right things at the right time. So just an example of that is typically most people, if there's an immune system trigger, or massive amounts of inflammation, those are the places you have to start. Because those are the things that will block your body from healing in the first place. Even before we can try and balance hormones, right? If you have a chronic bacterial infection, or an Epstein Barr infection, or a yeast overgrowth, that has to be managed first, before we can expect your hormones to build back up. Right, right. Yeah, a lot of people get very frustrated with results in the natural world, because I don't think that people follow the actual hierarchy of how our bodies and our nervous systems heal. And that's where you keep hitting these plateaus, we do it differently, we go slower, more intentional, and everything based on the person's physiology, their lifestyle, their emotional traumas, and really make that individualized plan is the most important thing.

David Sandstrom 12:55
Excellent. Well, you know, you brought up a really good point that a lot of practitioners just throw a bunch of supplements at somebody. And you know, it's kind of the shotgun approach. And I call that allopathic nutrition. Yeah, that's exactly it, we can, we can be targeting symptoms, and instead of prescribing somebody, some pills, where we're giving them a nutritional supplement of some sort. And hopefully, you know, just, if you give them enough, hopefully, something's gonna hit the bullseye. Not a great approach, very expensive, very time consuming, and not all that effective. So I think what you're talking about here is a far better approach to, to getting to know that person, right, and then chopping down the trees that will make the most the most bang for the buck at first, right? And then we can start, you know, fine tuning things down the road.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 13:42
And it is amazing when you go after the first thing first, how many other things fall into place, right? There's so many times where you don't even have to necessarily go back and fully address the hormone imbalance itself, or the fatigue you used to have or the vitamin deficiency that used to be there. Because once your immune system is better, your gut is well functioning and the inflammation is gone, your body starts to balance those things on its own. So being a little bit more patient on the front end, always works better in the long term.

David Sandstrom 14:13
Yeah, for sure. You know, I call that vitalism. And that is the concept that the body knows how to heal, we don't have to teach ourselves how to do their jobs, they know how to function, our jobs as practitioners and as individuals. Or health enthuisists is to get the obstacles out of the way and let these magnificent biochemical machines that God created do what they already know how to do and that is to thrive. And it sounds like you've experienced that quite a bit in your office

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 14:41
spreading That's exactly it is we really can heal and too many medications and too many supplements can actually slow down that process not even speeded up. So I think there's been a huge misconception as far as both traditional medicine and holistic medicine goes on that side of things. Your body doesn't need that much I just need to know interference.

David Sandstrom 15:02
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I mean, there's a lot we, we know a lot about the body, right? We know a lot about anatomy, physiology, but there's a lot we don't understand just yet. Right? So we've got to lean on that God given wisdom, let the body do its thing. And getting the officers out of the way is the way to go. So Dr. Shannyn, I know a lot of people when they go to their regular family practice doctor, they might run a standard blood panel, and they suspect that they have thyroid issues, or they suspect they have adrenal weakness due to fatigue going on. But the doctor takes a look at the bloodwork and he says, Well, everything looks normal, it must be all in your head, which is what you got when you were 10 years old, right? Speak to that for a minute about how we can't really rely on bloodwork exclusively, which is a big mistake, a lot of doctors make.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 15:46
Such a huge mistake. So blood work in general, is very limited, right? Number one, it's only a one point snapshot during the day, your adrenals, your hormones, and your thyroid hormone are all pulsatile, and they have different rhythms. So just getting a one point snapshot, you're missing a ton of information. But in addition to that, even what they run when you think you got a good a comprehensive panel, I cannot tell you how many times when it comes to me and says, Well, my doctor just ran a bunch of bloodwork, they said everything looked okay. And I said go ahead and send it over to me. And that bunch of blood work ends up being very few values that actually give you any type of answer, right what they're looking at as end stage numbers, you have to be a pretty sick individual before that standard panel is out of range, but you're not getting any whys, you're getting a whole lot of what what's out of range, but you still have no idea why especially one of my favorite topics to talk about is thyroid. Because in the traditional model, they're testing TSH, which actually isn't even a thyroid hormone, right? It's a brain hormone that speaks to the thyroid based on what's going on in the environment of your body. But it doesn't actually tell you thyroid function and most people who are on a thyroid medication, the only indication for them to be on that was TSH, which is so flawed, or the T four and T four is only one of your several thyroid hormones. So looking at just the thyroid, you have no idea if you actually have a thyroid problem or not. Right, you might you just might not have a TSH problem. And then how connected the thyroid is to the adrenal glands. It's still not well understood in the medical community. They'll say adrenal fatigue isn't a real thing. We see it all the time. In fact, on the Synthroid website, right, the thyroid medication most often prescribed, it says on their website, the number one indication contraindication, meaning you shouldn't be on a thyroid medication is if you have adrenal insufficiency. So when somebody comes why right medication, the first question I always ask them is, did your doctor check your adrenals before prescribing your medication? And if the answer's no, you're in big trouble because that is the number one reason to not be on a medication. If your adrenals are already not working properly. And they just said insufficiency, not failure, not fatigue, just insufficient adrenal function affects your thyroid that much that you probably shouldn't even be on the medication yet that's never tested. Like that blows my mind. No wonder these women, you've probably seen this before, too. I always say you go to the doctor, right or you're not feeling good. Tell me if you've seen this before. The woman who has hair loss, she's always cold. She's gaining weight, and she's moody. She Googled her symptoms. And Dr. Google tells her it's her thyroid, right? Right. It goes to the doctor and she says, Doctor, I think it's a thyroid problem. So one of two things happen. They run her labs and they say, oh, yeah, your TSH is off. It is your thyroid, here's your prescription, Let's retest in 90 days and see how you're doing. So she goes home, and she starts a prescription. And nothing changes her hair is still falling out. Now she's not losing weight, she still feels terrible. She doesn't feel any better. She's thinking, Oh, it must be that the medication is not working. But she goes back to the doctor. They run her post labs and they say, Guess what, your TSH is normal and medication is doing exactly its job, you're great. Oh, you must be stressed. Or maybe if you would just lose a little weight, you feel better. And this woman has sent on her way to be on a medication for life when it made her feel any better. But her numbers are normal. Right? Like that's a very frustrating situation. Sure. Or you think it's your thyroid, you go to the doctor, they run your labs, and it's like, nope, your labs are normal. It's not your thyroid, and then you get the same junk. Maybe you're stressed, maybe you should lose weight, maybe you should exercise more. And you're sent on your way when they really only looked at a tiny fragment of the puzzle and you're missing so many root cause answers that you need to regain your health.

David Sandstrom 19:49
Yeah, yeah, that's really profound. You know, a couple things. Couple points I want to make here and that is when it comes to bloodwork. People sending stuff into the lab are already sick people But for the most part, right, the in the lab takes those samples and says we have, we're going to have 90% of those samples are going to be considered normal, and 10% are going to be outside of that normal. And the doctors are looking for disease states, not necessarily lack of function. Right? So when the doctor says everything looks normal, that doesn't mean a whole lot at all. You've got to probe a little deeper than that, right?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 20:27
Yeah. Nobody loved that point is like, Well, do you want to be normal based on everyone else's junk, right? Like, if you look around the average person, that's not the health I want for myself yet, that's who you're being stacked up against. So having the courage to say, I still don't feel well, or I don't think that this is my optimal and wanting to dive deeper, which, you know, unfortunately, it does typically mean, you're going to have to go and find your own help. Here's what I often run into. And I want to kind of clear this up for some people is all get asked all the time, what labs, can I ask my doctor to run? Or how can I get these covered by insurance? And I know, that's what everyone wants, right? I wish that was the way it goes. But the truth is for the in depth testing that you need, because everything in the insurance medical model is based on medical necessity, right, you're only covered if it's medically necessary. If you don't have an active diagnosis, code disease or reason, they're probably not going to get covered, right, which is why so many people don't have access to really good holistic health care, because there is that barrier. But if you're looking for answers, if you're the person who is just so sick of not feeling good of always getting, you know, told no or feeling that they're not being listened to, there are a tons of practitioners out there, especially with virtual healthcare. Now, you no longer just have to go to the doctor in your town, you can work with people anywhere in the world access to these things. But unfortunately, it's probably not going to come from your primary care anymore. They are there for emergencies, right? They are there for medications, prescription surgeries, antibiotics, if you want anything outside of that, you're probably going to have to find a different doctor,

David Sandstrom 22:12
right? And there's a pretty good chance that is going to be a cash, cash practice, right? But here's the thing, if you want different results, you're going to have to do things differently. Right? So what the what the insurance model does is it takes the responsibility for your health care and puts it over to the insurance company, and the doctor gets paid by the insurance company on your behalf. You know, why not take that responsibility on ourselves and say, No, I'm the one who's responsible for my health, I'm going to pay my doctor directly, because he's the one that's working with me, working as with through the insurance company is just a roundabout way. And when doctors have to comply with all the insurance requirements. There's some rather severe restrictions on what they can do. Right, those insurance companies tell them how to operate. And that's a pretty severe limitation. And something that if someone's dealing with, you know, a chronic issue that they know there's something wrong in the doc, doctors can't figure it out. You're going to have to come up with a different way of doing business.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 23:10
Yeah. Now that's exactly it. Because if you keep doing what they call standard of care, you're also going to get standard of health. And right now in North America and several other places in the world, that standard of health is pretty sad,

David Sandstrom 23:23
Right? Not real good. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit more about how the thyroid and the adrenals, the hypothalamus all that work together to bring us the energy and the vitality and the you know, everything that we want with as far as our health and wellness goals.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 23:37
Yes. So let's start with thyroid because that's the one that almost everyone thinks it's their thyroid, right. And most women, especially ones that I meet with issues, it is one of the most commonly prescribed medications of all of them right now is the thyroid medication. But your thyroid is a responder it is not the doer, it's a responder. So by the time your thyroid levels are off, it's because you have other imbalances in your body that your thyroid has responded to. So just a brief science lesson what happens is we have our TSH, which is thyroid stimulating hormone, your brain releases that to talk to the thyroid. The thyroid primarily makes your T four hormone that's your storage hormone, which most of your Synthroid, generic Synthroid Levothyroxine. In those are T four types of medication, which that alone is faulty because that's a storage hormone. And then from that point, that T four gets delivered through the bloodstream to different areas in your body, where it has to be converted to T three, which is your active thyroid hormone that does all the magic, right? That gives you the energy that makes you feel great that turns on your metabolism. But that means those areas that convert T four to T three have to be working properly for you to get those benefits and the main areas that gets converted is in the gut, which so many people have microbiome dysfunction, gut issues, digestive issues, leaky gut type symptoms, so you're probably not converting it very well there. The adrenal glands, which we just talked about, we're all stressed out, we all have these issues, we all have either too high or too low cortisol because of our standard life and the speed at which we run. So you're probably not converting a lot of it there. Your liver is another one, or bombarded by toxins, our food or environment or air or water, so you're probably not getting really great conversion there. So all of these women on a T four medication, you can't convert it to T three anyways, is why you're on the medication, your levels look good, but you still feel terrible, because it's not just about giving you one teeny, tiny hormone, it's about the way your body can metabolize and convert that into the active hormone exellent and your body takes that active hormone and says, Oh, okay, we either have enough or too little T three, and then it talks back up to the brain, right where it tells the brain again to either release more TSH or less TSH, and then we go back through that loop again. So if you've only ever really investigated TSH, and you're only help is by taking a T four, look how many pieces of that puzzle you're missing that have to click together for you to actually feel vibrant, to be healthier, truly, regardless of what those numbers look like. It's all about function. And so many people are missing that function.

David Sandstrom 26:25
Yeah, well, you're one of the things I often say in this podcast is that a medically trained doctor a doctor of allapathy MDs, they treat the illness that as the person whereas a holistic practitioner a naturopath and as I am or a functional practitioners you are we treat the person that has the illness, and it's a completely different approach. It's it's like night and day, you know, allopathic medicine, great for emergencies, as you said, but we deal with chronic health challenges, it's going to take a little more detective work and it's going to take a little a little more time to just, you know, just drive through mentality of Hey, Doc, I want you to see the doc for five minutes walk out a prescription and and pop some pills. A pill for every ill. So this so to speak, is just not gonna just not gonna make it any more, is it?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 27:09
No, it really doesn't. And you know what else is starting to be talked about a little bit more that I actually added it into my practice several years ago, because I found it was a big missing piece for people in general. And their healing journey is how much your nervous system your emotions, trauma, and those types of things will play into your body's physical ability to heal. And that is something that is never addressed in the allopathic world either. But even if you have the best testing, if you're taking all the greatest supplements, if you're cleaning up your food, if your nervous system is in chaos, if there are emotions you haven't dealt with, if there are traumas from the past that are making abnormal communication from your brain to your body, that could be your next block to your biggest breakthrough. So I've started doing just as much as we do the lab testing and the the kind of bouncing on that side, teaching people how to do somatic work for their nervous system, how to balance their brain, how to get better rewiring and firing of your neurons, because that is our nervous system controls everything right? It controls your immune system, it controls your endocrine system, the nervous system is key. And that is almost never properly addressed with people even in most holistic and functional medicine practices, that's still a piece of the puzzle that I believe is really lacking, and why people don't get the breakthrough they're looking for.

David Sandstrom 28:34
Well, you know, we could obviously do a whole episode on this this topic alone. But can you hit a couple of the highlights of what it takes to retrain some of the thought life that that comes along with our the stress that we create ourselves in our minds?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 28:49
Yeah, so one of the simplest things you can do is start rewiring your patterns, right? First, you have to identify them. So we call them your triggers, what things trigger you into an emotion, right? And if you took a day and really watched it, you're gonna start to be able to identify some of these things, right? Is that when you feel overwhelmed? Or do you feel embarrassed? Or do you feel like you were wrong or you know, for everybody, there's going to be different ones of these things. But what I encourage people to do is take a weekend notice when you start to feel agitated when you start to feel overwhelmed brain foggy when the emotions start to go all over the place. Can you start identifying what types of situations created that right? And then how do we replace that with a healthier habit? So I love it's called somatic work where you actually physically get your body to calm down it's the fastest way you can retrain your nervous system. And some examples of that is like emotional freedom technique, which is the tapping if you've ever done that the tapping doing useful like yeah, I love I love it. creative visualization, breathwork, somatic breathwork, anything that you can do to get a physical response from your body when you are feeling triggered is how you retrain it to not have that same response. So for example, if you notice when somebody corrects you, and you get embarrassed, you start to get anxious. While at that next time that that happens, being able to sit down and take yourself through a tapping practice, or do some breath work, to calm your nervous system response, you're going to have less of those activations as you move forward. That is so powerful. And it's time and repetition, right? Doing it once doesn't change your brain. But doing it repeatedly, you get that neuroplasticity, you will get new firing in the brain and things that used to really disorient you won't affect you so much anymore. So yeah, repetition is huge,

David Sandstrom 30:42
really good stuff. You know, I always say, it's difficult to be physically relaxed and emotionally stressed at the same time, right? So we have this interconnectedness. So if we can relax our bodies, the thought life will tend to follow and the same as true in the other direction. If we can calm down those anxious thoughts, then the body will start to come in line with that more rest and digest parasympathetic side of the nervous system. So yeah, good stuff. Really, really, really good stuff. So you teach that to your clients?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 31:10
Yes, yeah, we do a lot of brain balancing a lot of somatic work. That's just as much of the work as the the actual lab testing and protocols.

David Sandstrom 31:18
Do you have a favorite supplement company that you use? Or do you have your own line of supplements? What do you what do you do?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 31:24
I'm actually yes, in the process of doing our own line, which is going to be my empowered woman series, the things I really believe most women need to protect their adrenals, their brain health, those types of things. So that is going to come out in the next couple of months. But I use a lot, I probably have four or five different companies. Each one I feel like does a really good job of a certain area of support. So I have one company that I really like as far as infections and immune system work. Another one that I use more for inflammatory stuff, I have another company I really like for their hormone balance. So I'm the picker and chooser based on what things I'm looking for. So we have several different companies that we use.

David Sandstrom 32:04
Yeah, I am, too. It's hard to settle in on one one manufacturer because there's a lot of good stuff out there. But lots to choose from. So I know there's a lot of rebuilding going on when we go to sleep. So could you talk to the audience a little bit about what happens to our hormones and neurotransmitters during sleep?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 32:24
Yeah, so your nervous system is actually one of the few systems that does speed up and repair it at night, right? Most things calm down and rest. But your nervous system is doing the work. It's processing and integrating the day, the emotions, the things to allow you to move that through, and then wake up the next day regenerated. Now, especially when it comes to adrenal health and thyroid health. Most of that balance, people who have odd sleep patterns are night owls, most of that balance really does happen in the hours that you're getting sleep before midnight, which when I tell that to people like oh, man, it's so hard to get several hours before midnight, but hormonally and for your adrenals that's very important. There are also different times I always tell people that if you wake up a lot at night, try and track if you wake up at the same times, because that can give you a really good indication what part of your body what organ system might be off based on what times you wake up. For example, if you are waking up more of that midnight 1am We could be looking at some more adrenal dysfunction. Between two and 3am. We're looking at more liver. If you're waking up feeling groggy, like five or six, you're probably not getting the awakening response from your cortisol, there's some really valuable information you can get based on when your sleep is interrupted. Because at different phases of your sleep, different organ systems are activating to heal imbalance so you can get a lot of information from someone's sleep patterns.

David Sandstrom 33:44
Yeah, absolutely. So our bodies are constantly talking to us. But we got to learn their language. We got to learn how to listen to what they're telling us.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 33:51
Yeah, you know, I always tell my perfect point, I always tell my patients to get curious around why your body is doing anything, right? Like if it's telling you if you have an ache or a pain or if you're tired that day, or if your eyes are puffy, just start asking those questions start wondering why is my body responding like this? And if we would get good at asking those questions, I really think we will come to a lot of great conclusions for our own personal health before it turns into that big, you know, blow up, right? Like your body slowly talks to it whispers then it talks, then it raises its voice and then it screams really loudly. And for most of us we wait till it's screaming at us to do anything when it started whispering five years ago, right? Like you had signs you just didn't listen.

David Sandstrom 34:38
weren't listening very well or didn't care. Yeah, so what speaking of that it's a great lead in what is some of the low hanging fruit that people can look at some of the easy stuff that they can implement to try to avoid burnout in the first place. Yeah,

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 34:53
So simple, but really, I think makes a big change. Remove some of the toxic loading inflammation from your food, right? That's something anybody can do that doesn't cost a whole lot of money. With the biggest ones being gluten, I really believe most gluten, especially in North America is full of toxins. Most soy products, especially if they're non fermented in America are full of toxins. And most cows dairy, if you're not getting really good raw milk, like those are the three things that most people should eliminate from their nutrition just to take the physical stressor off of their body. As far as food goes, you don't have to go crazy and follow a really strict nutrition plan, you don't have to go crazy cut out all carbs necessarily, that might not be right for you. But cut out the toxic food groups, right, the things that we know are inflammatory to our body. That's a great free start for everybody. And then implementing a good mindset routine daily. So I actually gave you a link to one of my favorite things, I've created my morning routine PDF, where I walk you through the five things I do in 10 minutes or less every day to bounce my brain to get really good adrenal support so that I can protect myself from a burnout. So I've actually created that document and gave it to you to offer to your listeners as well. But implementing that daily is so helpful to just keep your nervous system calm.

David Sandstrom 36:13
How long does it take you to go through the morning routine?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 36:15
If you just do those five steps? I kept it really simple. It's 10 to 15 minutes?

David Sandstrom 36:19
Yeah, that sounds great. Great way to start

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 36:23
and doable, right? I think that's compliance is it has to be doable. Start with the things you can do.

David Sandstrom 36:31
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I tell people start off with baby steps and make your goals so small, that success is absolutely guaranteed, right. And then you can build up, start stepping up a little bit. But as you build momentum, that's the way to go. You don't want to start off, you know, running a 24 mile marathon, that's not going to work. We know that doesn't work at a physical level. But it also the same thing applies at a mental emotional level, when we're developing our confidence. And we're developing new neural pathways to approach a different way of doing things. We've got to start off small so that we don't fail. We don't, you know, fall on our faces over and over, we're gonna get discouraged, we're gonna give up. So it's gotta be doable.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 37:10
And have grace with yourself. So many people in burnout, high achievers, entrepreneurs, health professionals, parents, like people who have passion for what they do in life, are very hard on themselves, and they feel like you're not being perfect, you're not making progress. And that really isn't true. And there are a lot of plants out there that make it feel that way, right? If you don't do this perfectly, or if you're not in this level, or this range of things. And that can feel crushing to somebody who doesn't know where to start. Don't feel like you have to be that strict on yourself. make progress, not perfection. And if you fall off, you get right back on. And I always I call it the refractory period, right? It's not that we don't mess up, fall off, make a mistake. It's that what used to be maybe years of your life, right that you were off track turns to months, turns to weeks, turns to days, turns to hours, right? You have that one item and you immediately say, You know what, okay, it happened but my next meal, I'm going to do the right thing or that tomorrow, I'm gonna wake up and do some healthy movement, shorten the refractory period, and that alone will create you better health but I think that grace and just being being as supportive to yourself as you would be to somebody else, right? Have you ever heard that? Like, how why would the things I say to myself, I would never say to you, right, like, that just wouldn't be something that would come out of my mouth. But why don't we treat ourselves like that self compassion is a huge healing tool.

David Sandstrom 38:32
Yeah, I that's great stuff. That's a really gold there. So one last question Dr. Shannyn, if someone could only take away one thing for we talked about today, we talked about a lot. What do you want them to take away?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 38:46
I really believe I my soapbox to stand on is that people are struggling with their health. Because of a lack of investigation. I do believe that really good functional testing. Knowing your Pathways, knowing your patterns, knowing how to properly support your physiology is true preventative health care. I my mission in life is to make it more accessible to more people. But if you are struggling with something, if you know something's not right in your body, if you're bordering on burnout, or you might be fully there, you have got to know what your physiology is doing and be able to support that as best as possible.

David Sandstrom 39:22
Excellent. That's really good. All right. If people want to get ahold you they want to work with you. What's the best way to get a hold of you?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 39:28
Yeah, so the PDF I gave you guys there's also all my contact information on there. There's also a link if you want to schedule we offer free transformation calls. So a free 30 minute call to go through health history give you next steps and recommendations. Feel free to schedule a call or I do a lot of my content on TikTok and Instagram, tons of free teaching lots of content health related topics, so follow me on social media.

David Sandstrom 39:51
What's your social media handle?

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 39:53
It's Dr. Shannon DC, DRSHANNYNDC on both Tiktok and Instagram

David Sandstrom 40:00
Excellent. And I'm sure your phone phone contact email and all that website is on the PDF. Yes, yeah. And I'll be sure to put that in the show notes. We'll talk to Shannon, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you giving us your time.

Dr. Shannyn Pearce 40:12
Thank you. So glad to be here.

David Sandstrom 40:15
For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/83. There you can find links to all the resources that were mentioned, as well as a full downloadable transcript. And I always put some kind of a content upgrade to help you go deeper with that episode. That's it for now. I'll talk with you next week. Be blessed

David Sandstrom 0:00
Here's a sample of what you'll hear on this episode of natural health matters. God has made his blessings available, blessing to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. Ephesians one, three and four. Here again, we have blessings connected to an admonition toward holiness. If we're going to enjoy a comfortable, warm shower, we've got to step inside. If we stand outside, we don't experience the comfort the shower provides. In the same way, when we're outside of God's instructions, or his guidelines, we prevent the blessings he's ready to lavish us with. Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can pursue the abundant life more effectively. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, naturopathic doctor, and biblical health coach. And this is episode number 56.

David Sandstrom 1:12
This episode is part four in my series on the spiritual component to health. So far in this series, in part one we talked about the mechanism by which peace with God brings more peace to our minds and bodies, in that peace brings more physical vitality. In part two, we talked about the fact that God's desire for us his health and well being, so much so that he's built health and vitality into our systems. Health is our default setting. In part three, we talked about the fact that the Holy Scriptures or the Bible is an excellent resource for health device. Once again, I want to share that a lot of the material I'm going to be covering this episode is in my book, the Christians guide to holistic health. So if you've read my book, some of this material is going to sound familiar. But don't let that deter you from listening, because this would serve as a really good review in a different format. And there's going to be some material here that's not in the book. Now, if you haven't read my book, yet, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy. It's called the Christians guide to holistic health. And there's a whole lot more in the book than we can share on this single episode, even in this whole series for that matter. If you'd like to pick up a copy, go to my website, DavidSandstrom.com, forward slash book, and you can order a copy today. In this episode, I want to address the notion that if God designed and built us for health, and he desires, we walk in vibrant health and vitality, and he's given us a prescription to get there in His Word, then why are we still sick? In addition to that, I want to answer the question, why does God sometimes seem distant and silent? When we or someone we love is suffering with an illness, and our prayers seem to go unanswered? If we placed our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, it would seem that good health should follow. However, we all know that for many of us, that's not the case.

David Sandstrom 3:07
You know, natural health enthusiasts complain that medical doctors tend to use drugs for symptom relief only. This is generally accurate. If we've got a headache, they've got a painkiller for us. If we've got a runny nose, they've got an antihistamine. natural health practitioners prefer to go a little further down the causal chain and treat things such as liver detoxification and supporting the adrenal glands. Although this is a big step in the right direction, often we still haven't arrived at the heart of the matter. rebellion against God's guidelines for living or sin is what ultimately causes all disease. The short answer for why do believers get sick is that this is not Eden. And we live in a sinful fallen world. scholars agree that Adam and Eve were created to live forever in the Garden of Eden. Death was not part of God's original design. When Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God's instructions, that were designed to protect them by the way, their bodies started aging and death became inevitable. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. Genesis 2:17. Therefore, the ultimate route for all sickness and disease is sin. The word sin is taken from the sport of archery. It literally means to miss the bull's eye, picture and arrow on its way to the target in hitting the ground 10 feet short. When we sin, we come up short of God's ideal design for our lives. Now, please don't misunderstand me. Let me be clear on this. I'm not saying that when we're sick, God is punishing us by sending disease our way. We may have done so. Right, but because we're living in a fallen state in this imperfect world, we may get sick. Sometimes, sickness and illness just happens. We're all getting older and our systems and our resistance to illness will degrade and deteriorate. Not only that, we're exposed to 10s of 1000s of toxins on a daily basis, we have to deal with things like electromagnetic frequencies emfs from cell phones and Wi Fi routers and buildings and homes and all kinds of unhealthy things we're exposed to sometimes will overwhelm our systems and bring on illness. We've got to deal with that.

David Sandstrom 5:40
My approach to health is based in nature, apathy, Dawn's natural design, is that we try to minimize the harmful health blocking factors, and maximize the beneficial health enhancing factors, we should be striving to not let anything that is within our control, bring us harm that God would prefer to spare us from. We can't guarantee health, but we should strive to maximize our health potential. That's why I say at the beginning of each episode, that this podcast is all about maximizing our health potential in spirit, mind and body so that you can pursue the abundant life more effectively. And of course, in this series, I'm trying to drill down and clarify what it means to maximize our spiritual health potential. You may be wondering when I'm going to get to the specifics of what exactly that looks like, we're getting there. But I've got to set the stage properly. In this episode, as well as the next we're going to be continuing to lay the groundwork so that you can appreciate the specific recommendations that I'm gonna make in a future episode. So don't worry, we'll get there. It's also important to understand that I'm not saying that we work our way into right standing with God, and he's somehow obligated to grant us health and well being. That's not the case. Neither am I saying that Satan inflicts disease on us at will. God has put limits on Satan's abilities, but he's not happy about our move toward wellness. And we're going to have more on the spiritual warfare aspect to health and wellness in the next episode.

David Sandstrom 7:19
What I am saying is that more righteousness produces more fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Galatians 5:23. The fruit of the Spirit, especially love, joy and peace, are all health promoting. It's a simple cause and effect relationship. When our spirit is in alignment and connected to the Spirit of God, we experience more peace. And remember, when we're in a peaceful state, the rest and digest side of our autonomic nervous systems is dominant. And it's that parasympathetic dominance, that we should be spending more time and because in that state, our bodies are much more efficient at housekeeping activities like immune function, detoxification, cellular repair and recycling old cells, creating new ones. This is what keeps us healthy, youthful and strong. And this is why the spiritual component to health is so important. Because God is omniscient, all knowing, and his love for us is relentless. His instructions or guidelines are designed with our well being in mind. This is why God desires righteousness or holiness in our lives. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from my sight, cease to do evil. Isaiah 1:16. be wholly yourselves also in all your behavior. First Peter, 1:15 and 16. Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Second Corinthians seven one, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. James 1:22. When we fail to follow God's guidelines for living, we're in sin. We're all in the same boat. As long as we're walking on this earth, we cannot completely eliminate or eradicate our participation with sin. Jesus is the only person in history to live a sinless life. I'm not advocating perfection or sinless living which is impossible. What I am promoting is we trust in God's goodness, and surrender all that we can to him. We should seek to remove anything within our control that may be inhibiting our health and well being. Remember the concept of total body load we talked about in Episode 53. If you haven't listened to that episode, just let me give you a quick review. We can think of health as a two by four straddled across As a couple of sawhorses, if I stack bricks on top of my two by four can handle a few bricks, no problem. But if I keep stacking bricks, we're going to reach a point where one more brick in a two by four will snap. Well, that can be thought of as when we experienced some kind of disease, some kind of a health crisis. Now, here's the big point when it comes to the spiritual components of health. The sins we're holding on to end up being blocking factors to our health and well being or bricks on our two by four. Sins such as persistent anger or resentment, or envy and jealousy, are stress producing, and serve as bricks on our two by four contributing to our total body load. The more areas of our lives, we can surrender to God, the better off we'll be, we'll have more on surrendering to God's goodness later in the series.

David Sandstrom 10:54
Our obedience to His Word is not for God's sake, but for our own benefit. This is a principle we can derive from Scripture. When we heed God's instructions or recommendations, we enjoy his protections, Deuteronomy 28 two. Alternatively, when we fail to follow his teachings, we forfeit those protections, Deuteronomy 28:15 No, we don't live by the law anymore. However, we can extract principles from it. We need to recognize that we have limits. God is sovereign and in control. However, when it comes to our health, we cannot afford to be passive. Now I'm sure that someone in the natural nation is saving themselves right now. But wait a minute, Dave, my sins have been forgiven? Haven't you ever read the book of Psalm? As far as the east is from the west? so far? Has he removed our transgressions from us? Psalm 103:12? Yes, if we've acknowledged Christ as Savior, and Lord, our sins have been forgiven, and we're on our way to heaven. But that doesn't mean we're exempt from sins consequences here on Earth. Or you might be saying, well, Dave, I believe in prayer. Doesn't the Bible tell us that if we're sick, we can go to the elders of our church, and they'll pray over us and we can be healed? Yes, it does. Is anyone among us sick, then he must call for the elders of the church. And they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who was sick. James 5:14. That's the first half of verse 15. On the surface, this sounds pretty straightforward. But we got to be careful with our interpretation of Scripture and consider the context.

David Sandstrom 12:42
God is not a genie in a bottle, just waiting to grant our every desire. If that were the case, all Christians would be in perfect health, millionaires. Living in big houses with all the toys and luxuries this world can offer. People will be coming to Christ for the perks. The Bible teaches that we should embrace faith in Christ because he's the only one worthy of our worship. And the passage I just read from James, we've got to continue reading is what the rest of that passage says. And the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. So that kind of sheds a new light on this whole James chapter five passage. According to this passage, healing from sickness is conditional. confession, repentance, and forgiveness must precede healing. We cannot expect to rely on greasy grace and just live our lives any way we see fit and expect God's blessings. Another point we've got to understand about James five is it's descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, we can't use this verse to manipulate God into granting us healing. We're talking about a principle here. Because of God's great love. He cares about our suffering, but he cannot condone sinful rebellion to his word.

David Sandstrom 14:20
God has made his blessings available. blessing to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. Ephesians one, three and four. Here again, we have blessings connected to an admonition toward holiness. If we're gonna enjoy a comfortable, warm shower, we've got to step inside. If we stand outside, we don't experience the comfort the shower provides. In the same way, when we're out of God's instructions, or his guidelines, we prevent the blessings he's ready to lavish us with. Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save, nor his ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear Isaiah 59, one and two. Again, enjoying God's blessings is often conditional. No one executes perfectly. However, the principle is this, to enjoy the health protective blessings from knowing Christ that we talked about in the last episode. Remember the study I referenced where people of faith experienced a 33% reduction in the risk for heart disease and cancer. To maximize that health building effect, we must be obedient to his clear teachings. For your namesake, oh Lord, pardon my iniquity for it is great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose? His soul will abide and prosperity and his descendants will inherit the land? Psalm 25, verses 11 through 13. There it is, again, did you hear the condition that precedes prosperity? Pay careful attention to the progression of this passage. First, there's repentance and forgiveness, pardon my iniquity for it is great. So it comes into agreement with God about his sin, and he asked for forgiveness. Then we see holy fear with the Lord, leading to obedience. Who is the man who fears the Lord, He will instruct him in the way he should choose? right choices or right living righteousness. Finally, we see well being his soul will abide in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. If we're an open rebellion to God's word, praying for healing is putting the cart before the horse. Before we can expect answered prayer for healing. We must be doers of his word James 1:22. God desires righteousness for all of us.

David Sandstrom 17:18
The key to getting our prayers answered, is being in alignment with God's will. If we pray according to His will, we should expect to see those prayers answered and answered quickly because that's exactly what God wants for our lives. God's will for all of us is that we embrace righteous living. being aligned with God's will is what it means to pray in Jesus name. When we end our prayers with In Jesus name, amen. What we're in effect saying is, I welcome the will of God in my life. May it be so if we want our prayers to be in Jesus name, we must embrace righteousness. We have more clear teaching on this principle. If we desire, prosperity and success, we must first be obedient to the Word of God. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. So they may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Joshua one eight, we've got to pay attention to the IF THENs in the Bible. Here we see familiarity with the Word of God leading to obedience, which paves the way for prosperity and success. I would suggest that prosperity and success include health and wellness. In the book of Proverbs, we see a similar teaching even more clearly connecting obedience to the Word of God with bodily health, my son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your site, keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them in health to all their body. Proverbs 4:23-22. In the Old Testament, this principle is referred to as blessing and cursing. In the New Testament, it's called sowing and reaping. The late Dr. Henry Wright, senior pastor of hope of the generations church in Thomaston, Georgia, and author of the book a more excellent way, put it this way. Sometimes we Christians are so busy putting Jesus paint on that we forget to remove the rust first. We can't simply pray for healing and expect God to remove all the consequences of our poor choices. If we pursue righteousness and are willing to surrender all aspects of our lives to God, that we can expect blessings to follow.

David Sandstrom 17:29
Now this is not name it and claim it theology. This is merely a principle. Name it and claim it puts us in charge in attempts to make God perform for us like a circus animal. What I'm advocating is the antithesis or the direct opposite to name it and claim it. We can't paint God into a corner. He's in control. And there are no guarantees, but God wants us to walk and vibrant health. As a result, his commands are packed with protections for our health and well being. If we fail to trust God in everything, and we hold out on surrendering certain aspects of our lives, then we forfeit God's protections and we assume the consequences of our choices. Now, I'm aware that this all may seem a bit esoteric or limited to a select few. This is really apply to to the average Joe. When we consider the spirit Mind Body connection, it all makes perfect sense.

David Sandstrom 20:52
We must consider the hierarchy to our trichotomy nature. Our spirits are to submit to God, our minds submit to our spirits. Our minds direct our brains and our brains direct our bodies. obedience to God born out of grateful hearts, leads to more peace in the spirit and spiritual peace leads to more health promoting thoughts, right thoughts produce better instructions for our brains, in our brains direct our bodily functions. So do you see how that works? Isn't it really cool the way God made us?

David Sandstrom 21:30
So why is God sometimes not so quick to answer our prayers for healing, because he's more interested in our holiness than our comfort. Let me give you an extreme example. for illustration purposes, sometimes it helps to go to the extremes just for illustration. Let's say there's a married man who sees women as objects to gratify his sensuual desires. He's addicted to porn. He regularly visit strip clubs and sometimes spends nights with prostitutes. He has no intention of changing any of this behavior because he believes God wants him to be happy. With this warped view of the opposite sex, it's no wonder his marriage is on the brink of divorce. This man goes to the elders of his church and claims James chapter five, and ask them to pray that God would bless and save his marriage. Do you think God would rush to perform a miracle and grant him a great marriage? Why not? Because there is no willingness on his part to repent and change his behavior. Now, what if this same guy gave up on the idea of asking for the elders to pray for him. Instead, he came to his senses, and confessed his wrongdoing. He showed genuine contrition and told his wife that, based on his behavior, he completely understood if she wanted to leave him. Nevertheless, if she could find it in her heart to forgive, he's willing to do whatever it takes to show her that he's indeed a new man committed to fidelity and putting her needs, wants and desires above his own. Do you think this guy would stand a better chance of saving his marriage? Of course he would. This doesn't remove God from the outcome. In fact, God gets the credit because he's the one that provided the solution in His Word. The truth will set us free john 8:32, but only if it's applied. The same is true with us when it comes to our health. If we're living in open rebellion to God's word, then we forfeit his protections. And we open ourselves up to the consequences of our choices.

David Sandstrom 23:43
We can trust the goodness of God, again, because of his great love. He never asked us to do something that's not for our benefit. And he never tells us to avoid something that's not for our protection. You can take those two thruths to the bank. as followers of Christ, our sins have been forgiven, past, present and future. Our names are written in the Lamb's book of life, and we're on our way to heaven. But that doesn't mean we're exempt from the consequences of our poor choices here on earth. Sometimes those consequences include compromised health. Now, I know some people have trouble with this concept. So here's a couple more scriptures connecting righteousness to physical health. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. Psalm 38:3, do not be wise in your own eyes. fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. Proverbs three, seven and eight. I didn't make this stuff up, folks. I just read it. I just discovered it and that's that that's the nature of all truth. His truth exists beyond David's opinions. It was here before I got here before I showed up in the scene and it's got to be here after I'm gone. The nature of truth is that the source of it comes from something outside of ourselves. And it applies for all times, for all people, in all places. That's what we're reading here in the scriptures. Here's another verse. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of a life that now is, and of that which is to come. First Timothy four, eight, my son, do not forget my law. But let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days, and long life and peace they will add to you. Proverbs three, one and two. bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and forget none of his benefits, who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeemed your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle, Psalm 103-2, through five. Again, I've got to point out that in this passage I just read from Psalm 103. We must have our iniquities pardoned, before our diseases are healed. Pay attention to the order. Jesus Himself attach sinfulness to sickness. After Jesus healed the man in the Bethesda pool, he said to him, behold, you have become well, do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you. John chapter five, verse 14.

David Sandstrom 26:49
Now we're all imperfect. If we want to maximize our health potential by addressing the spiritual aspect of our health, then pursuing righteousness or right living becomes paramount. Notice I said pursuing, not attaining. We're all imperfect. But perfection is not necessary to nurture our spirit. All that required to address a spiritual component to health is a heart desires to follow after God. The Jewish patriarch King David was far from perfect. his sins included adultery and murder. However, God called him quote, a man after my heart, who will do all my will. Act 13:22. David desired to do the will of God. He believed in God's goodness, and wanted to surrender to that goodness, we should model that surrender, it will be good for our health. sinless perfection is not attainable. Neither is perfection of physical health. We're all headed to the same place. King David died. I've stood before his tomb in Jerusalem. Our lives here on Earth are finite. God has appointed each of us a day to die, Hebrews 9:27 Our bodies are wearing out, and one day they will fail. I contend that we should do everything in our power to maximize our health potential before that day comes. Embracing righteousness is a choice we can all make.

David Sandstrom 28:18
We all have areas of our lives we haven't completely surrendered to God. Put me first in line here. If we really care about our health and well being we'll humble ourselves before our Almighty God and surrender to His goodness. Again, holiness produces more fruit of the Spirit. spiritual fruit like love, joy, peace, are all health promoting. This may seem difficult, but I can assure you, going through life with compromised health is far more difficult than making the necessary changes to embrace a holistic lifestyle. When we commit to following after God and doing things his way, Satan is not happy, and he doesn't go down without a fight. The next episode, I'm going to explain spiritual warfare as it pertains to righteousness, right living and our health and well being.

David Sandstrom 29:13
Now, that was a lot. Again, it was a mouthful. So let me summarize. The ultimate root of all sickness and disease is sin. We're falling short of God's ideal design. The Bible does promote health, but many of the principles are conditional. Our sins may be forgiven, but we're not exempt from the consequences of our choices. God is sovereign, and we need to acknowledge our limits. However, we should strive to remove all blocking factors to our health and well being an effective way to address the spiritual aspect of health is through the pursuit of righteousness. Okay, again, I'm going to remind you, you're not likely to hear this message preached from the pulpit on Sunday morning at your local church. And you're not very likely to read in a book anywhere either accepted to pick up my book the Christians guide holistic health. So if you know someone that you think may benefit from this information, would you tell them about the podcast? I would appreciate you helping me spread the word. Share this episode on social media. You can do that by going to my website, DavidSandstrom.com. This is episode number 56. On the show notes page, there's some social media share buttons at the bottom of the page, share it with your friends, I believe they'll thank you for it. I think that's about enough. For now, more, go to DavidSandstrom.com. in the show notes for each episode, you'll find links to all the resources that were mentioned, as well as a full transcript with timestamps that you can download for free. In addition, I always include a content upgrade with each show, which is a free download that is designed to help you go deeper with that subject. Once again, thank you for listening, and I'll talk with you next week. Be blessed