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If one of your family members is a non-meat eater and the rest are fine with steak, chicken and the like, how can you incorporate meal options that will satisfy both?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File clean_food_network/1615cf1c.mp3
- Featured Speaker Liz Weiss, RD
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Guest Bio
Liz Weiss is an award-winning broadcast journalist, speaker, blogger, and spokesperson. She is the co-author of three cookbooks, The Smoothie Bowl Coloring Cookbook: Healthy Recipes and Playful Mandala Food Designs for Kids and Adults (M3 Press, 2015), No Whine with Dinner: 150 Healthy, Kid-Tested Recipes from The Meal Makeover Moms (M3 Press, 2011), and The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers: Improving the Way Your Family Eats, One Meal at a Time (Broadway Books, 2004). Liz champions good nutrition on her website, MealMakeoverMoms.com where she shares healthy "makeover" recipes and practical mealtime advice for families.
Liz co-hosts the food and family radio podcast, Cooking with the Moms, and she's the co-creator of Meal Makeovers, a mobile recipe App filled with kid-friendly recipes and cooking videos. Liz is a columnist for Live Well Digest, a WIC publication, and Relish magazine.
For nearly two decades, Liz wrote and reported on nutrition and health for CNN, PBS, Time Life Medical, ABC Boston, and Ivanhoe Broadcast News. Currently, she hosts the "Meal Makeovers" cooking segment for CNN Accent Health, which runs in 30,000 physician waiting rooms nationwide.
Liz is a sought-after cooking instructor, speaker, and consultant. She has extensive experience as a live television and radio guest. During her career, she has conducted hundreds of live and taped interviews, appearing on NBC's Today Show, CNN Headline News, the Food Network, FOX News, ABC-Boston, and many more. - Hosts Lisa Davis, MPH
Removing toxins from your diet is beneficial for battling cancer risk, as well as for preventing a number of other chronic conditions.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File clean_food_network/1615cf1b.mp3
- Featured Speaker Matthew McCurdy, MD, PhD, DABR
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Guest Bio
Matthew McCurdy, MD, PhD, DABR, is a board-certified radiation oncologist. He treats all types of cancer. Dr. McCurdy graduated with a Bachelor of Science in engineering, which led to a job as project manager for NASA, where he worked on John Glenn's second space journey. He completed his medical school and residency training at Baylor College of Medicine, where he served as chief resident. Dr. McCurdy received a PhD in bioengineering through the MD/PhD program funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. McCurdy has published extensively on novel radiation oncology treatments and has presented talks at many national meetings. He received the Young Oncologist Award and Roentgen Research Award. The International Association of Radiologists named him a Top Doctor in 2013. "I join my patients in the fight against cancer and provide hope. I've managed the cancer care of my own family, and I believe in treating each patient as a member mine. I treat the whole patient during and after treatment using the latest evidence-based and integrative medicine." - Hosts Lisa Davis, MPH
According to recent reports, from farm to table, 40 percent of food goes to waste.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File clean_food_network/1615cf1a.mp3
- Featured Speaker Liz Weiss, RD
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Guest Bio
Liz Weiss is an award-winning broadcast journalist, speaker, blogger, and spokesperson. She is the co-author of three cookbooks, The Smoothie Bowl Coloring Cookbook: Healthy Recipes and Playful Mandala Food Designs for Kids and Adults (M3 Press, 2015), No Whine with Dinner: 150 Healthy, Kid-Tested Recipes from The Meal Makeover Moms (M3 Press, 2011), and The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers: Improving the Way Your Family Eats, One Meal at a Time (Broadway Books, 2004).
Liz champions good nutrition on her website, MealMakeoverMoms.com where she shares healthy "makeover" recipes and practical mealtime advice for families. Liz co-hosts the food and family radio podcast, Cooking with the Moms, and she's the co-creator of Meal Makeovers, a mobile recipe App filled with kid-friendly recipes and cooking videos. Liz is a columnist for Live Well Digest, a WIC publication, and Relish magazine.
For nearly two decades, Liz wrote and reported on nutrition and health for CNN, PBS, Time Life Medical, ABC Boston, and Ivanhoe Broadcast News. Currently, she hosts the "Meal Makeovers" cooking segment for CNN Accent Health, which runs in 30,000 physician waiting rooms nationwide.
Liz is a sought-after cooking instructor, speaker, and consultant. She has extensive experience as a live television and radio guest. During her career, she has conducted hundreds of live and taped interviews, appearing on NBC's Today Show, CNN Headline News, the Food Network, FOX News, ABC-Boston, and many more. - Hosts Lisa Davis, MPH
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File allina_health/1614ah2d.mp3
- Doctors Magee, Paul
- Featured Speaker Paul Magee, MaOM, Dipl Ac, Lac
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Guest Bio
Paul Magee is a licensed acupuncturist at Allina Health Woodbury Clinic. He practices acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, Chinese dietary therapy, Tai Chi and qigong to help patients address health concerns such as pain, anxiety, depression and stress.
Learn more about Paul Magee -
Transcription
Melanie Cole (Host): Acupuncture is a form of Chinese medicine that has been practiced for centuries. My guest today is Paul Magee. He’s a licensed acupuncturist at Allina Health Woodbury Clinic. Welcome to the show, Paul. Tell us first, because people do not know. What is acupuncture?
Paul Magee (Guest): Acupuncture is the insertion of very small, very tiny needles. They are all surgical stainless steel. They are all perfectly sterile and they go into very specific spots in the body. At a basic level, that is what acupuncture is.
Melanie: So, a little bit more than basic, then, what it is intended to do?
Mr. Magee: Absolutely. So, what acupuncture does, what traditional Chinese medicine which acupuncture is a part of tries to do is to rebalance the body--sort of stimulate the body to rebalance itself using its own chemicals, its own processes. We’re not introducing anything aside from the needles into the body.
Melanie: How does that help? There are a lot of--people call them “theories”, but they’re not necessarily theories. What you do works for so many people. Explain how that does.
Mr. Magee: Well, on one level, we’re still trying to figure out from a Western perspective what acupuncture does in the body. The things that we know it does are, we know it affects the nervous system directly. If you put an acupuncture needle into someone and do a brain scan on them, it has changed the way that the brain is functioning. We also know that it changes the chemistry of the body. The body starts to release more endorphins, the body starts to get more sensitive to its own endorphin and the body also starts to increase the flow of blood to certain areas. So, we don’t have one universal theory from a Western perspective of how acupuncture works. We are still beginning to study that. We’ve only really had about 20 or 30 years where we’ve begun to look at that. Traditionally, what I would tell you is that we look at the body and we see a large network of “channels”, is what we call them--meridians--through which energy and blood flow. So, when we look at someone who is unwell, we are looking for the places in that network where that energy in the blood is not flowing well. We essentially reduce the human condition down to a plumbing problem and start working with specific spots to reduce or increase the flow of energy and blood.
Melanie: Wow. That’s absolutely fascinating. What type of illness or conditions do you typically see?
Mr. Magee: Well, probably the thing that we work the most with is pain. Especially with the issues that we’re having with our modern medicine with the over dependence on opioid pain killers, we’re really beginning to see a lot more people who are dealing with chronic pain who are coming in to see us to begin to, hopefully, wean themselves off or never go on them in the first place. That’s just sort of what’s getting our foot in the door with a lot of big medical systems like Allina. We also treat nausea very well. We treat allergies. We treat digestive problems. There are people that are specialists in acupuncture for fertility and for inducing labor. Really, it’s important to remember that this was the only form of medicine in all of Asia for several thousands of years. So, they figured out how to work with pretty much everything. It’s just what do we work with as well or better than Western medicine is kind of what we’re working at now.
Melanie: I’m quite sure that the biggest question you get when you are discussing needles is, does it hurt?
Mr. Magee: Well, I’d like to say “no” but the truth is occasionally. The level of pain from the needles that we use is pretty minute. It is much more like getting a mosquito bite than it is like getting a shot. The needles that we’re using are tiny. They are smaller than a human hair and, unlike what most people associate with needles, they’re not hollow. They’re not tubes. They are just a solid shaft with a very sharp point. The only way to see the actually point is to put it under an electron microscope. They’re that small. So, you can fit probably about a dozen of our needles into the tip of a hypodermic needle. Very rarely, they give a little pinch as they go in but it only lasts for a second and it becomes a very relaxing thing the moment the needles are in.
Melanie: And, if you’re scared of needles?
Mr. Magee: I work with people every day that are scared of needles. I’ve got a lot of tricks to get them in comfortably. We can either show them the needles or not, depending on what kind of triggers their fear and if worse comes to worse, I can use some of the other bits of training that I have. We can use acupressure for someone who’s really, really nervous about the needles but I’ve never had anyone that I wasn’t able to gradually wean onto being relaxed to me using as many needles as I think they needed.
Melanie: What are some common misconceptions that you have been clearing up for your career that people have about acupuncture?
Mr. Magee: Well, probably the biggest one is that if someone is coming in with a specific complaint, we’re only going to talk about that. Say, someone had sprained their wrist. We are going to talk about the wrist but we are also going to talk about a lot of the other things that are going on in their body because acupuncture deals with patients holistically which means we’re looking at the whole person, not necessarily just the bit that got hurt. Our system of medicine makes connections between symptoms that sometimes don’t make perfect sense to someone who isn’t trained in it. If someone’s coming in with knee pain and I start to ask them about how their urination is doing, that may not make sense in the patients but I’m working out the patterns that I need to to make a proper diagnosis. I guess their biggest misconception is that we’re just going to talk about the one thing, we’re just going to treat the one problem and we don’t. We look at everything and I promise in looking at everything, we’re never going to ignore the problem that brought them in.
Melanie: That’s really, really good information. How many acupuncture sessions do you typically need to see improvements?
Mr. Magee: I’d say typically you’re beginning to see improvements by about the third or the fourth at the latest. It may not be done. It may not be all the way to what we’re going to be able to accomplish for that patient but you usually begin to see some measurable changes after a few sessions--very rarely after one. There are a few people that we’ve had to go as long as maybe six sessions before they started to see some improvements. If we’re not getting anything after six sessions, we discontinue. I don’t feel the need to waste anyone’s time or money.
Melanie: How long are the sessions?
Mr. Magee: About 40-50 minutes. It depends. The needles stay in for about half an hour but the intake is what takes a variable amount of time. So, with an initial patient, it’s going to take longer. I usually ask them to schedule about an hour and then for returning patient it’s usually about 45 minutes.
Melanie: Does insurance cover acupuncture?
Mr. Magee: It does sometimes and it really is important for patients to call their insurance company and check. You look at the number on the back your insurance card and ask about acupuncture benefit. A lot of the companies will cover it but not necessarily for every plan within that company. Medicare does not yet. It doesn’t do it at all.
Melanie: Why do you think--and we only have a few minutes left Paul. It’s fascinating. Why do you think people are biased against it? They hear the words “chi” and “energy” and they’re not sure that they buy into it. What do you tell them?
Mr. Magee: What I tell them is that what we’re having an issue with is not ideas or concepts, it’s language. So, if you look at the idea of chi and chi in Chinese literally translates to “energy” and if you think about the word energy in English it means a lot of different things. It means the amount of kinetic energy, physical energy you can measure off of an explosion. It means sort of the mystical--what you feel when you’re in meditation. In Chinese, it has the same level of range. So, in Chinese gasoline is literally translated as “chi oil”. If you look at the word chi and say “energy”, with most people, they’re going to go, “Well, that sounds kind of meditative and metaphysical”. If you replace energy with the word “function”, it all of a sudden becomes much more pragmatic. We’re not talking about lung energy we’re talking about lung function. We’re not talking about stuck energy, we’re talking about a function in the body that’s gotten stuck. Like, if you look at a spasmed muscle, what we would translate that into in Chinese medicine would be chi stagnation – the energy there has gotten stuck. If you think about it, the function of that muscle has gotten stuck in the on position and so all of the things that we do to get that muscle to unstick are traditionally phrased as “moving chi”. So, really, I think the biggest issue is that it’s a language barrier. It’s not actually understanding the concepts on a deep enough level to find the right words in English or not understanding English well enough to put those words into proper English or understandable English.
Melanie: Give your best advice to people that are considering acupuncture for various chronic conditions.
Mr. Magee: Sure. My best advice is find a licensed acupuncturist. Find someone that’s gone through all of the training to be just an acupuncturist. They’re the ones that are going to know the most about it. They’re the ones that are going to understand how to look at the body holistically. The other bit of advice is to be a little bit patient. Acupuncture does take a little bit of time to make a big change in the body and so it’s not going to necessarily work as fast as a medication would but the side effects are a lot less common and a lot safer.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Paul. It’s really great information. You’re listening to The Wellcast with Allina Health. For more information, you can go to allinahealth.org. That’s allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
- Hosts Melanie Cole, MS
If you want to get started on the path to clean eating, what are some tips?
Additional Info
- Audio File clean_food_network/1614cf1a.mp3
- Featured Speaker Tiffany McCauley, Creator of The Gracious Pantry
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Guest Bio
Tiffany McCauley discovered her love for cooking at age eighteen as an au pair in Stuttgart, Germany. She developed a passion for creating delicious recipes from scratch. However, after gaining 114 pounds over a 15-year period, and with the birth of her son, she learned the importance of good health. Her desire and commitment to teach her son proper nutrition inspired her to change her eating habits and take control of her weight.
Tiffany is now attending culinary school while continuing to publish her popular blog, TheGraciousPantry.com.
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Tiffany currently lives in Sonoma County with her son, "Mini Chef." Her latest cookbook, Clean Eating Freezer Meals, is now available for purchase at select bookstores and Amazon.com.
The advancement of GMO technology has resulted in various negative health effects.
Additional Info
- Audio File clean_food_network/1614cf1b.mp3
- Featured Speaker Andrea Donsky, RHN
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Guest Bio
Andrea Donsky is an Author, Registered Holistic Nutritionist (R.H.N.), Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Healthy Shopper Inc. and Naturally Savvy Media.
A natural visionary and successful entrepreneur, Andrea holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University and is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (R.H.N.).
Andrea has dedicated her life to sharing her passion for living a naturally and healthy lifestyle with the world, while helping to guide others through the confusing maze of 21st century supermarkets and fad diets.
Andrea was already a successful retail product marketing manager before she took a leap of faith in 1998 and quit her job to pursue her passion. She enrolled in a holistic nutrition program and began to understand how food affected her body while learning about the benefits of a natural and organic diet.
The following year, she gathered all of her energy and together with Randy Boyer, the two launched their dream career by founding The Healthy Shopper Inc., a coupon book for natural and organic products. Reaching more than 200,000 people a year, the Healthy Shopper, to this day, remains the only coupon book in Canada for natural and organic products.
Eight years later, lightning struck again and the pair launched www.NaturallySavvy.com, a sophisticated media company whose sole purpose is to educate the masses about living the lifestyle she truly loves.
Since then, Andrea has established herself as a respected and authoritative voice in all corners of the health and wellness industry. She has appeared as a healthy living expert on news segments across North America which have aired on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, Univision, WGN, CTV, and CBC. Her voice has been heard on SiriusXM as a guest on Martha Stewart and Oprah Radio, and as a regular on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. Her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers such as Health, Shape, Newsday, Women's Day, Men's Fitness, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and online at the Huffington Post, the Examiner, Reader’s Digest, MariaShriver.com, Wellness.com, and The Food Network.
As the co-author of the popular book, UNJUNK YOUR JUNK FOOD, Healthy Alternatives to Conventional Snacks, Andrea believes you can have your cake and eat it too…just without the chemical additives--coined by the authors as "The Scary Seven."
Andrea is proud to be the kind of mom who feeds her kids fish oil, flaxseeds and seaweed.
A clean eating lifestyle can truly be a way to get to the root cause of the imbalances in your body.
Additional Info
- Audio File clean_food_network/1614cf1c.mp3
- Featured Speaker Amie Valpone, HHC, AADP
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Guest Bio
Amie Valpone, HHC, AADP, is the Editor-in-Chief of www.TheHealthyApple.com. She is a chef, culinary nutritionist, professional recipe developer, food photographer, writer, and motivational speaker specializing in simple gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free “clean eating” recipes. After visiting countless doctors and the Mayo Clinic with no results, Amie was able to heal herself from a decade of chronic pain and multiple ailments, including Lyme disease, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Hypothyroidism, Adrenal Fatigue, Leaky Gut, and Heavy Metal and Mold Toxicity. Amie cooks for a variety of clients, including celebrities and people with busy lifestyles, who enjoy healthy, organic, whole foods.
Her work appears on Martha Stewart, Fox News Health, WebMD, Huffington Post, The Food Network, and PBS, and in Glamour, Clean Eating, SELF, Vegetarian Times Prevention, and many other magazines and media outlets.
Amie splits her time between Manhattan and New Jersey.
While the concept of clean eating may seem simple, the practice could get overwhelming.
Additional Info
- Audio File clean_food_network/1614cf1d.mp3
- Featured Speaker Blythe Metz, PhD
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Guest Bio
Dr. Blythe Metz is a Metaphysician, chef, entrepreneur, actress, artist and natural lifestyle expert. She began learning about the power of foods to heal the body in 2006, and hasn't been able to stop sharing the wealth. Her show, Blythe Raw Live, was the first live stream show to be licensed by Hulu after its global success on Ustream. Her new show, Blythe Natural Living, teaches fabulous 5-minute raw food recipes, gluten- and dairy-free cooked food recipes, fresh and easy baby food recipes, therapeutic home spa treatments, and the very best in natural lifestyle tips and suggestions.
Blythe views food as vibration/energy and aims to teach others the power so many have found in whole food nutrition. Blythe is also a certified hypnotherapist, and is passionate about helping people rebuild neuropathways, and clear away blocks in their energy field that no longer serve them. She does hypnotherapy and energy clearing appointments via the phone and Skype, as well as nutritional coaching.
Visit Healthy Recipes in 5 and sign up for Dr. Blythe’s newsletter to stay in touch.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File allina_health/1614ah2b.mp3
- Doctors Beshara, Mary;Schmitz, Michael
- Featured Speaker Mary Beshara, MSN, and Michael Schmitz, PsyD
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Guest Bio
Mary Beshara, MSN, APRN, specializes in integrative, complementary medicine at Penny George Institute for Health and Healing - Abbott Northwestern.
Michael Schmitz, PsyD, LP, is a licensed psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine at Abbott Northwestern Hospital's Neuroscience Institute.
Learn more about Mary Beshara
Learn more about Michael Schmitz -
Transcription
Melanie Cole (Host): Do you have insomnia? Today we’re talking about two therapies that complement each other and highlight the expanding services at Allina Health. My guests today are Mary Beshara, she specializes in integrative complementary medicine at Penny George Institute for Health and Healing Abbot Northwestern Allina and Dr. Michael Schmitz, and he’s a Licensed Psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine at Abbot North Western’s Hospitals Neuroscience Institute. Welcome to the show, both of you. So, Dr. Schmitz, I’d like to start with you. Please give a working definition of how would somebody know, what is insomnia?
Dr. Michael Schmitz (Guest): Insomnia is defined primarily as difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep. With that, even if you have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, it’s essential feature is that there are daytime difficulties. So, people feel tired or have difficulty with daily activities as a result of the sleep problem.
Melanie: Would you be the first person to notice that or, like sleep apnea, would someone you love, somebody else, be noticing that you are rolling around and not getting asleep?
Dr. Schmitz: Typically, in my clinic, the person who notices it first is often the spouse or bed partner, the person with insomnia, the tossing and turning, the concern and the difficulties that tend to mount over time as people struggle to get some control over their sleep.
Melanie: So, if somebody is suffering from insomnia, how do you diagnose it? We’ve heard about sleep clinics and sleep evaluations, Dr. Schmitz, so I’m going to start with you first. Tell how you evaluate this.
Dr. Schmitz: I think when you talk about insomnia, I think, probably the first place for many people to start would actually be setting an appointment with their primary care physician. The reason I say that is that the sleep center is not the first place where a person with insomnia would want to visit. Primary care is the place where an informed, skilled and caring physician can take a look at whether or not and perhaps how other medical problems might be influencing sleep. It’s also a place where they can seek that first counseling around improving their sleep habits and health.
Melanie: So then, Mary, if somebody comes to you and they are suffering from insomnia what’s the first thing you tell them?
Mary Beshara (Guest): Well, usually, we’re seeing them on a consultation basis and they have either come by the advice of their physician or they’ve decided that they want to do something that is out of the box. When I say out of the box, I say it with regard with integrative medicine. We look at other approaches to helping with sleep besides the approaches that might be taken with allopathic medicine, like medications or things like that.
Melanie: So, Mary, why don’t you explain the type of therapies that you’re talking about?
Mary: Well, we offer therapies ranging from acupuncture, biofeedback, nutrition, massage as well as integrative medicine consults. So, we’re really looking at the whole person – body, mind and spirit – and how sleep affects all of those aspects, of course, but also, too, how lack of sleep is affected within all of those and all of those become part of the treatment.
Melanie: So important. We’re learning more and more about the health benefits of sleep and the problems that come from a lack of sleep. Dr. Schmitz, tell about some of the differences in the types of therapies that you provide.
Dr. Schmitz: Well, the therapies that we provide at our Behavior Sleep Medicine Clinic come from about 25 years of clinical experience and research in which a series of strategies and interventions have come together that have been shown to be very effective, actually, equally or more effective, than sleep medication in treating insomnia. We really look at insomnia, in some sense, as kind of the body having a state of hyperarousal and figuring out ways to change behaviors and habits that will help people get quieter and improved sleep by reducing this level of activation and arousal before bed and during the bed as well.
Melanie: And, we will talk about sleep hygiene but, Dr. Schmitz, for a minute, speak about a sleep medicine evaluation because people hear about these sleep clinics and they don’t know, “How can I actually get a night’s sleep in a room when I know somebody’s got wires on me and their keeping track of me?” What happens at those?
Dr. Schmitz: Great question. So, after a visit with primary care, there’s been a referral usually to a sleep center when there’s the suspicion of either, we call them “intrinsic sleep disorders: but whether they might be somebody with excessive snoring, possible sleep apnea or other medical issues that might be contributing to sleep. What you’re referring to is an overnight sleep study or what we call “polysomnography” in which a patient will stay overnight and we will monitor everything from brain wave activity, breathing, even eye movements, to determine how a person is sleeping and determine whether there is something that, essentially, biologically is affecting the quality of sleep. Now, with insomnia, it’s important to say that for most patients with insomnia, we would not do an overnight sleep study and, instead, we would do a thorough clinical interview based upon what the primary care physician has already determined to see what we need to do to improve patient’s sleep and that’s where a sleep psychologist, such as myself, kind of gets into action to help a patient look at a variety of things that would be affecting the quality of sleep in a given night.
Melanie: It’s such a multi-disciplinary approach that you two have together. So, what are the benefits, Mary, of each type of these therapies? So, your therapy treats the whole person and, as you call it, is integrative and complimentary but, yet, so much of what you’re discussing is sort of sleep hygiene and common sense.
Mary: So, when you look at sleep, it’s so multifactorial what’s going on with the patient. They may have an underlying disorder of an entirely different origin that is, then, affecting sleep. So, really ruling that out and understanding that and integrating that into a plan is going to be important. The idea, then, of dealing with sleep – there are so many different ways to help it – from the vary foods we eat to the exercise that we get in a day to possible herbs and teas that we could potentially use to treat it. Each one of these might be an option and in our visits, we really try to develop a tool kit so that people are really making smart lifestyle choices that are going to enhance their sleep. We also need to address all the other things that are going on as well but we’ve got get the basics right, so that’s why looking at the body, mind and spirit really makes a lot of sense in insomnia.
Melanie: And, Dr. Schmitz, how do you refer to each other to enhance patient care at Allina?
Dr. Schmitz: Well, I think building upon what Mary’s saying, when we treat insomnia, we really want to meet the patient where they’re at and, in some instances, patients, after our evaluation or maybe after we’ve tried some treatment strategies, are open to or have a preference for looking at more holistic mind/body strategies. So, a lot of that comes out in just getting to know the patient and either that they’ve benefited from some of the strategies and offerings that integrative medicine has or just getting a sense of let’s try something different in an effort to reduce symptoms and help the patient sleep better.
Melanie: Well, speak about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, Dr. Mike, just a little bit and then kind of tie in how, when you talk to a patient, how you consider medication versus cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dr. Schmitz: Great. So, you mentioned earlier sleep hygiene and I think that’s often viewed as a common sense approach and it’s important to make a distinction between sleep hygiene and cognitive behavioral therapy. Part of this is because there are different kinds of insomnia. For that few nights of bad sleep or first bout of insomnia, straightening out sleep hygiene – eliminating the caffeine and doing some of those common sense things--often do work. For the person who has chronic long-term insomnia, there are often many behavioral factors that are unintentionally learned and habits that actually make the bed not a very comfortable place for sleep. So, we utilize strategies that may seem at the front end maybe a little bit difficult or challenging such as utilized sleep restriction therapy. We actually limit the time in bed in an effort to build sleep drive. We deal with the negative thoughts and worries and fears that often are automatically provoked when the patient gets into bed. We’ll adjust the timing of their sleep because we want to make sure that the biological rhythms inherent to a particular patient match up with their sleep schedule. Then, we deal with some of the day-to-day things that occur in life that can interrupt sleep and change those so that sleep can be more continuous. Sleep medications are not necessarily the first line and patients who are typically considered for sleep medications are those that might have significant stress or strain on a short-term basis where a week or two of sleep medication might be the thing they need to get over the initial challenge or stress or medical problem that confronts them. But, as a long-term strategy, sleep medications are typically not the best strategy unless there’s a long term chronic medical problem that’s determined to exist where a medication might be a longer term approach.
Melanie: We certainly could do a whole entire show on some of the sleep medications people see in the media but as we’re running out of time, Mary, tell us about shared medical visits. How do they work and what patients can expect.
Mary: When patients have a chronic disorder like insomnia, they’ve tried a million different things before they perhaps come into our clinic and we offer a visit that includes multiple people with the same disorder in the same room. We meet for about two hours and what we do is, we will practice tai-chi in the beginning of the visit. You’ll also have a time with the physician or advanced practice nurse in that shared medical visit. But, most of the visit is conducted by this group process where we discuss it and where people are saying, “Hey, that question pertains to me, too. I’m glad the person next to me asked it.” So, the idea of building synergy off of the patients and being able to utilize an extended period of time of two hours is a great opportunity to introduce new types of therapies like mindfulness meditation or giving them ideas on the types of foods that are actually going to increase our tryptophan, which is the chemical that helps feed into melatonin. So, those kinds of things are the types of tools that we can discuss and doing it as a group, people can ask questions and they, oftentimes, will help each other through difficult chronic illnesses like insomnia.
Melanie: Then, how many visits would it take? Can they expect to see improvements after going through their first visit with you?
Mary: You know, I’ve been running the shared medical visits for a couple of years now and what I’ve really enjoyed seeing is how excited patients get. They get very energized about being able to apply something that very night to what they’re doing. We may recommend something as simple as a tea and then the next week, as they come back they go, “Hey, this worked or this didn’t work.” As they compare with the other folks that are in the room, oftentimes, I see progression but the biggest part of progression is that they’re motivated. So, partnering with patients is a huge deal.
Melanie: I’m going to give you the last word, Dr. Schmitz. Give us your best advice on people suffering from insomnia and what other information you really want them to know.
Dr. Schmitz: I think the first thing for people suffering from insomnia is to not ignore the problem and to start with the fundamentals. As Mary mentioned, people have often tried a variety of strategies and when we interview patients, they will often try something for a day or two or for maybe a week and they abandon it. So, getting back to the fundamentals of sleep hygiene and habits, make sure that you get up at the same time every day, make sure you don’t spend more time in bed than you think you need for sleep. Not everybody needs eight hours but the amount of sleep you think you need. Make sure you wind down before bed and never, never stay in bed if you’re worrying, thinking or ruminating about your next day’s activities or all the things in the world that might be concerning you. You never want to bring worry, fear and concern about your insomnia into the bedroom – only sleep and relaxation and intimacy should be part of the bed.
Melanie: Thank you so much, both of you, for being with us today. It’s really great information. For more information you can go to allinahealth.org. That’s allinahealth.org. You’re listening to The Wellcast with Allina Health. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
- Hosts Melanie Cole, MS
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File allina_health/1614ah2c.mp3
- Doctors Hurst, Chelsea
- Featured Speaker Chelsea Hurst, CHWC, -Community Engagement & Wellness
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Guest Bio
Chelsea Hurst is a certified health and wellness coach for Allina Health at the Cambridge Medical Center. Chelsea found her passion for health and people, from many eclectic volunteer experiences abroad, and all over the country. She enjoys being active outside, learning new skills, and participating in triathlons.
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Transcription
Melanie Cole (Host): There are many ways to lose weight and get healthy. One of the best is considered journaling. My guest today is Chelsea Hurst. She’s a Certified Health and Wellness Coach for Allina Health at the Cambridge Medical Center. Welcome to the show, Chelsea. So, tell us a little bit about journaling. What does that entail and how does it help you to keep track of those healthy food choices?
Chelsea Hurst (Guest): Those are good questions. Journaling is different for each person. So a big question is also to answer is “what is journaling and what is a journal”, in general? People, when they’re using it for food and activity choices, it could look all different ways when it depends on how someone wants to write in it. If someone wants to journal by tracking, specifically, foods they ate, water they drank, activity they did and then, reflect on how they felt after they did them, that could be journaling. Some people use journaling by writing down just any emotions they feel that day or even a problem that they would like to solve. It really looks different for each person and it definitely depends on what’s working for that person at that time.
Melanie: I understand that it’s very individual but what’s the best way to journal? When I start with someone new, I like them to give me kind of a three-day sort of journal of how they’ve been eating so that I get a feel for it. Do you tell them that you want every single thing that goes into their mouth? Do you want them just to, say, do it every once in a while or to try to recollect from past days? How do you want them to journal?
Chelsea: When it comes to food and activity, it’s typically we give them a sheet that they can journal for a week and what they do is, it’s more focused on the food groups and how many are they eating of fruits, of vegetables, of meat and beans during the day. Then, also, we have a place they can journal for activity and then, I have them, if they’re working on things like lowering their sugar or lowering something or working on even emotions to put an extra spot where they can track or write notes at the bottom of each day just to reflect, again, on what they ate or drank.
Melanie: If someone’s never journaled before, how do you get them started? Give a few tips for journal newbies.
Chelsea: For the newbies, it can be kind of intimidating, right? It’s interesting when you even ask someone, “Why do you want to journal?” and sometimes it’s because their friends started, because they heard it helped, so it’s really interesting to first get an idea of why they’d like to start or just what even brought that idea in their head. But, any tips I could give for newbies it to just understand, just like any healthy changes or health habits, it’s to benefit you and to make sure it’s helping you improve your lifestyle choices. So, when it comes to those that are starting off journaling, I encourage even just a couple times a week and see if it’s something that you feel is benefiting for you. A lot of times, people feel like they have to get this nice new notebook and have like an actual journal but sometimes people have just used a Microsoft Word document or even on our phones, that small notepad. You can make little notes in there. It doesn’t have to be this elaborate, detailed journal. It could be just making small, little notes throughout your day of whatever you have around you to help you, again, track and gain awareness of what you’re eating and drinking and feeling.
Melanie: If somebody says journaling is a pain, what do you tell them about the health benefits of journaling and how important it can be?
Chelsea: Again, definitely, we want to encourage habits that they enjoy and do but sometimes, if it’s something that’s causing them stress or anything like that, we take a different approach and say, “Okay, well, how are you journaling now and what would you like to get out of it?” So, I really approach people that say, “It’s a pain”, I would say definitely take a different approach. Again, understand it can be simple and it could be writing down a problem and writing possible solutions for that problem. Some people, they just like to write and it doesn’t have to be about a particular thing. They can continue writing about the emotions, the food or their daily habits and it’s interesting because maybe it’s not something as solving a problem but it’s definitely something that allows you to gain more insight on a situation or a problem. So, either way, there are some benefits whether they realize it or not. For someone that works with clients that have been frustrated with journaling and talking with them, we definitely try to tweak and change a couple of things whether it’s changing the day or time that we encourage them to write or even just what to track or write about. A big thing is people, if they’re journaling, maybe tracking food, water and activity is too much. Maybe just start with food and that helps people to not see it as such an overwhelming task.
Melanie: There’s a lot of apps and things now that people can use and does it seem to you, Chelsea, that technology is helping in this endeavor?
Chelsea: Being 2016 and a lot of us having our smartphones and phone apps, they are getting very popular and a lot of my clients do enjoy using phone apps. The ones that are more tech savvy do enjoy ones like My Fitness Pal for tracking a food and activity. However, like I was saying, those that aren’t as tech savvy or prefer the apps, it could be something as simple as a notepad or a Microsoft Word document or even just a scratch piece of paper. It’s really about reflecting and writing and becoming aware of what your lifestyle is like.
Melanie: Do you encourage people, Chelsea, if they journal, to read their own journal? Is there an emotional or mental difficulty in reading what they’ve written versus handing it to you?
Chelsea: Yes. It’s very interesting. I’ve done it a couple of different ways. So, someone that came in and started journaling who hasn’t journaled before came in and she said, “I have learned I’m a very angry person.” Sometimes, someone else brought in a journal and I read it out loud to them for them to hear what they were saying. I do encourage people to read over them and that is just, again, for more self-reflection and its interesting too because even a week later after reading something you wrote a week before it’s like “Wow. That situation has passed. That problem has been solved.” It’s again, a good time to reflect; however, if it’s something that you’ve noticed is not feeling like you’ve solved a problem or not bringing up good emotions, then for them I would not recommend keeping that and reading that over.
Melanie: What about making the time for it? We mentioned apps a little bit but some people are so busy they say, “I don’t have time to write down these things and to think about everything that I ate that day.” For other people, it helps them to write it down before they even eat it so that they sort of have a menu with which to follow that they will not go off.
Chelsea: Just like any health habit, I always ask, “Why is it important to you?” I would ask, “Why do you want to journal? Why is that important to you?” If someone really does want to start journaling and at least try it out, then I encourage them to schedule it like an appointment in their schedule and making that time, whether it’s every morning when they get up for 15 minutes or 15 minutes before dinner and even setting that time in a calendar or writing it in one of your planners seems to help. It’s coming down to one of those things that, if it’s important enough to you, you will make time for it regardless of how busy you are.
Melanie: That’s great advice and, in just the last few minutes, share your best advice, your best tips for weight loss, getting healthy, making good choices and where journaling and keeping track of these things, accountability comes into play.
Chelsea: A big thing would be taking a piece of paper right now and writing down, “What do I want” and answering that question. Most importantly, like I always tell my clients, is then as yourself, “How are you going to get there?” because the how is what matters and that’s the goal setting and those are the behavior changes that get you to the “what: and the outcome.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Chelsea. You’re such a pleasure to have on with us. You’re listening to The Wellcast with Allina Health. For more information, you can go to allinahealth.org. That’s allinehealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
- Hosts Melanie Cole, MS
