Transcript of Episode 209: Thriving Not Just Surviving
With Dr. Daniel Pompa and Dr. Christina Bjorndal
Dr. Pompa:
Welcome everybody, Dr. Pompa here by my lonesome, but I'm here with a great guest with a great topic, Dr. Christina Bjorndal. That's a mouthful for a dyslexic like myself. However, this topic I think is a wonderful topic. It's regarding mental illness, which by the way, we've had so many requests for more information on a show like this, so we found the expert herself. I believe the biggest reason she's an expert is—well, wait until you hear her story. Dr. Christina, she completed her doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. We have another Canadian amongst us. She's considered an authority in treating mental illness such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorders, and eating disorders. Those are some topics that absolutely you all wanted to hear from, so we brought the expert. Having overcome her mental illness and challenges, Dr. Chris is a gifted speaker and writer in this area. I believe we all become the expert because of our personal stories. She's written and authored a few books, one of which I have right here, Beyond the Label. She's also authored another, The Essential Diet, which you'll find out is also in this book, so this is the one you want, and it's relatable.
The Essential Diet I love because you said it, Dr. Chris. People would say, well, what do I eat? Then you said okay, here; here's this part of it. I really want to start with your story because that's really how I'm here. I became an expert in what I do not because of my years of schooling. It wasn't; it was because of I've suffered. You have to tell your story because I feel like when I talk about this subject people are trapped. They feel trapped. I think one of the reasons I'm passionate about this topic is because I believe that psychotropic drugs are some of the most wicked medications that ruin lives. Look, I'd argue that there’s a time and a place. I'm not going to knock down every use of a psychotropic drug because there is no doubt a time where people need some crutches, but I believe it's not an answer to this epidemic. Tell us your story and how you got here.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, sure. Thank you for having me first of all. I just want to speak to that. I just want to say that I'm alive today because of pharmaceutical and psychotropic meds, but listen, I thrive because of naturopathic medicine, and chiropractic medicine, and alternative medicine. That's what we want people to be doing in their lives. We want people to be thriving, not just surviving. My story, really it actually begins in utero. I'm adopted. I open my book with a discussion about the neurological and emotional imprinting that happens in utero. I don't want women to go to that place of shame and blame. That's not my intention by mentioning that, but I think it's just important to sometimes go that far back to really understand the whys of the circumstances—
Dr. Pompa:
I have to stop you there because you probably haven't had time to do a lot of digging in and -inaudible- answers, but generational toxicity is actually something that I teach on. Matter of fact, at the Bulletproof Conference that was my topic. Basically, the message is it's from the womb to the tomb. I talk about three toxins that start in utero; well, two of the three. There's a story there as well. That we're getting exposed to in utero and that it's affecting four generations. From the womb itself, on this show, we totally get what you're saying. Go ahead.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, no I’m just going to say that Christiane Northrup talks about how we’re the culmination of the seven generations that have gone before us. That's why I love your talks so much because we speak the same language. Basically, I was adopted into a very loving family. Things were going fine, but I still always had this core belief, and little bit of anxiety, and trepidation in my childhood. I also became an overachiever, which I think is a result of this core belief that I had, which was I wasn't wanted, which is faulty, but it's how I operated in the world. That served me very, very well until it didn't serve me anymore.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right, absolutely.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
I developed an eating disorder in high school, which started fairly innocently. Also, an interesting side note, prior to the eating disorder and all the mental health challenges that spiraled thereafter, I did a year of antibiotics for acne. Again, taking a case is really important. I didn’t make that connection with my mental health until I was researching my book; started about eight years ago. Anyway, that's another interesting—there's a huge relationship between the gut and the brain, and the concept of the bacteria that we have in our digestive track. Basically, ended up in university and found myself in a state of depression and anxiety. Now, I didn't know that that's what I was experiencing because I didn't understand that. Nobody in my family had been depressed, so those words were never used. Ended up at the UBC Student Services, and I was put on an antidepressant, a tricyclic antidepressant at that time. This is in the late '80s. I took that and basically within four months after starting that medication, I then had a full-blown delusional psychotic manic episode.
It took two police officers, two ambulance attendants, my mother, and my boyfriend at the time to wrestle me into a straitjacket. Off I went to the hospital, where I was then left in a rubber room, injected with haloperidol, a very powerful antipsychotic medication to come back to reality. I was then given the label or diagnosed as a bipolar disorder type one. I hadn't digested the first diagnosis yet of depression and anxiety. I had been masking my eating disorder. I now had this other label to swallow, which I did not like at all. This was again in the late '80s, so there was no conversation going on in the media about mental health as there is today. I'm happy to see that conversation is there now, but I really think we need to shift from talking about it to what are we doing about it. My book is an attempt to bridge the gap between these two professions that very much do not always support each other. I'm not saying that it's this or that; i.e., western or natural. I'm saying it's this and that. If we're truly going to get people well, you need bring out [alternative] medicine to the table as well as chiropractic medicine.
I basically continued my overachieving tendencies, graduated university valedictorian. Went to work in the corporate world. Was told to not tell anybody by my psychiatrist about my mental health condition because business can be cutthroat and I'm working in the financial world with money. As people may or may not know, sometimes with mania comes excessive spending and things like that. I walked through the world wearing the mask that everything's okay on the outside, but I'm not doing so well on the inside. For that decade from 1990 to 2000, I had no mania. I basically was riddled with depression and anxiety. So much so that I had a suicide attempt in 1994, which left me in a coma with kidney failure on dialysis waiting for a kidney transplant.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh my God.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, when I came out of that coma, I can tell you this, that I certainly wasn't happy that I was still here. I refer to that actually as a spiritual crisis because I tried very hard, and so why am I still here? A friend gave me a book to read by Marianne Williamson called, A Return to Love. In that book, she has a quote on surrender, which goes like this: “Surrender means the decision to stop fighting the world and to start loving it instead.” It is a gently melting into who we really are. It is a letting down of our armor and allowing our Christ-like self to be seen. I reflected on that as well as this other research that I read about, which was this research on two groups of AIDS patients. One group was accepted and loved by their family and community and the other group was shunned because of their homosexuality. They studied the lifespan and prognosis of these two groups. Not surprisingly, the one that had the love, and the compassion, and the acceptance of who they were and their condition, did much better than the other group. What that opened my eyes to the fact that I shunned and disliked bipolar disorder. Therefore, I shunned and disliked myself, which led to all the self-hatred that I was experiencing and why I didn't want to be here anymore. I realized then that I need to start loving myself and how do I go about doing that? Then I went to see a naturopathic doctor.
Then I went to see Dr. Abram Hoffer. He's they refer to it as an orthomolecular psychiatrist. He's a medical doctor, but basically, he prescribed nutrition. He started me on a nutritional protocol with supplements. I then had my first year where I was free of depression and anxiety. It was shocking to me because I hadn't felt that way for so long. Nobody talked about my diet. I didn't eat very well still. I was a corporate person. It was take out and not a very healthy diet. I was also driving myself really hard on the exercise front. I was an Ironman triathlete. I was really burning the candle at both ends. Basically, by this time, I reported to a CEO as well; highly overachieving. Then what ended up happening was I asked myself one question, if money didn't matter what would I be doing with my life? It certainly wasn't doing what I was doing. The answer that came to me was to go back to school. I had to go back to high school at 33 and become a naturopathic doctor so that you can help people. Here I am. Yeah, that's my story in a nutshell.
Dr. Pompa:
Especially in this area, you are the expert because you really have been through it. Holy cow, what a story. In your book, you talk about some myths about mental illness. Talk about some of that because I think that's really important. Because I think that this is—there's a lot that is not understood. There was a lot beyond the label. The labels ruin people's lives. In your case, you bought into it too. You labeled yourself and hated yourself for the label. What are some of the myths?
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
One of the myths is that you cannot regain your mental health. One of the myths is that you have to take the psychotropic medication for the rest of your life. I think because I'm adopted, I never had the benefit of the genes to be able to look to my left or my right to say oh yeah, that's true. This runs in my family. I didn't accept that statement, hey you need to take a mood-stabilizing medication whether it was lithium—there's been so many—Lamictal, valproic acid, Tegretol, for the rest of your life. I sought and I really looked for other answers. That's one myth. There's 21 or 23 myths that I've came up with in that chapter. In fact, that could be a book in and of itself.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I don't expect you to go through all of them but hit on some of the big ones.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
That's a big one. I think the other big one for me was that it's not a great idea to have children because again, this is supposedly a genetic condition that you will be passing on to somebody else. It's not the greatest experience to have with bipolar disorder type one, but it's manageable. I think that's not very helpful when people suggest that. All these myths that I've mentioned in that chapter are all things that have been said to me. That's another one.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it's amazing because we started this by talking about that it starts in utero. A few things happen in utero. You inherit certain genes that have been turned on in mom. I've talked about some of those studies on the show, whether it's obesity genes that are turned on, whether it's mental illness genes that are turned on. We don't just inherit a gene and you're bipolar. Genes get triggered. The best news is that we can turn genes off when you remove these stressors. It takes time to do that. I interviewed a gentleman, a scientist, Michael Skinner on this show. We talked about generational toxicity affecting turning on genes. He even said when women get exposed, maybe it's the grandmother got exposed to a chemical like DDT. It skips a generation, or it partly affects, something turns it off in one generation, and then it's triggered the next generation. That's what we're dealing with here.
The old dogma of well, you just have mental illness you're going to pass onto your kids; it's nonsense. We can minimize the stressors. We can turn off genes and not turn them on in the beginning. Science just now is really understanding that. I believe when you work on both brains, this brain and this brain, this [thinking] brain, the microbiome as you pointed out plays a big role. You discovered that like you said as you went through this. Often times, people forget about this brain. In my talk—you know this—it's the lead and the mercury inherited by mom ends up here. It's like now, we're waiting for these other triggers, other stressors. You talked a little bit about the stress or even like you said being adopted. Talk a little bit about some of the emotional stressors that looking back said yeah, this was part of the illness, the perfect storm of how I got here, whether it was from your mother in utero, after through the adoption. What are some of these emotional traumas if you will?
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Stress is a really big piece of this puzzle. When I'm working with patients, I explain that there's these four aspects that we want to adjust: the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual. When it comes to the physical, we have to understand that there's three macro systems that are involved. One of which is the neuroendocrine system, which includes the adrenal glands and the stress response system. For myself, it's even just comments from family members and little things. There wasn't a lot of—I had a really good childhood. It was more that the way I perceived the world. My last name is Scandinavian, so my dad's side where my family that adopted me, they're all blond hair and blue eyes, a lot of them. I looked very different than everybody. Even some family members—and this is sad, but someone said to my mom, “Well, blood is thicker than water.” At which point, my mom said, “You cannot be saying that kind of thing around Christina. She's a member of this family. Blood is not thicker than water.” Comments like that make you feel less than or I interpreted them to mean that I was less than.
There was some bullying in elementary school. I moved in grade three. The girls at the school, they started an I hate Christina club. That devastated me, just absolutely devastated me. I'll tell you a cute little side story. My son, when he came home in grade two, he said the same thing. He said, “Mom, these girls started an I hate Noah club.” My heart just sank. I was like uh. Then he said, “Oh, mom what are you worried about? No problem, nobody joined.” Nobody joined, I'm like wow, that just highlights the difference between him. He has healthy self-esteem and I did not have very good self-esteem. I think I overcompensated for that lack of self-love, self-esteem with overachieving, which hammered my adrenal glands. When I look back on that crisis that I had in University, I think knowing what I know now, that that was really—first of all, I think an existential crisis in the sense that I really didn't know what I wanted to be doing in the world. I was taking a commerce degree just because my dad said that that's a practical degree to do, but I didn't really know what I was doing there. Second of all, the stress, the pressure I put on myself to be number one was tough. I see a lot of kids doing this nowadays, and parents doing this to their children as well. They're in so many things. The kids I think are stressed now. The stress piece, but other than that I didn't really have a lot of—it was just more this self—just not loving myself. It just was there from the get-go.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, but what were some of your breakthroughs because—you have a free gift. I'll let you present it to our viewers and listeners. Looking back, you have to heal that stuff. You have to deal with it. You have to acknowledge it to move on. It's part of the healing. Like you said, you can't just look at the physical. I'm an expert in the removing the chemical aspect of the stressors that can turn on different illnesses. Talk about that.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, like I was saying, there’s those four aspects: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. When it comes to mental health, most people are focused on the physical and mostly just on neurotransmitters. What you have to understand is that the hormones of the neuroendocrine system, which consists of the hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, ovaries, adrenals, testes in men. Every single gland that I just mentioned produces hormones and imbalances in those hormones result in the symptoms of depression, and anxiety, and eating issues, and sleeping issues. All of which can manifest as a mental illness.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Then you'll also have the other, the third macro system, which is what you've just mentioned, the organs of detoxification. The way I support these macro systems as the foundation of health is diet, sleep, exercise, and then managing stress, which is a big piece of the puzzle. Next areas are looking at your thoughts, your emotions, how you behave and react in the world, the environment from three perspectives: yours; quality of the air, food, and water; epigenetics, genes hold the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger; and neuroplasticity. You can change the way you think. The last area is spirituality and wrapping it all up in love and compassion for yourself. I ask every patient on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you love yourself? Not many give me an answer over 5.
For myself, what ended up happening was I started with that physical piece putting in place the supplements; didn't change my diet. Then I went to medical school; had to analyze our diets. Realized the only essential amino acid I was deficient in was tryptophan. Tryptophan goes to make serotonin, which is the mood neurotransmitter that everybody knows about for depression. I was shocked that I was deficient in tryptophan. The reason I did well was because Dr. Hoffer was supporting that pathway with the supplements he had given me. I slowly started making changes to my diet, but all the while never really looking at this mental, emotional, spiritual side. I had a faith-based background, so I very much believed that God wanted me still here on the planet, which is why that suicide attempt did not work.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank God for that.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
I have had three serious suicide attempts, not just the one. I started this inquiry into looking at my thoughts, which came about through another naturopathic doctor, Dr. Jason Hughes, who I owe a lot of credit to. He taught me how to manage my mind so that I wasn't at the mercy of my mind. What people have to understand is you have your conscious thoughts that you're aware of, but you also have a subconscious mind.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh yeah, that's where the program is.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah exactly, and this is what's driving the boat. This is what's driving the ship. Until you bring those unconscious commitments, or shadow beliefs they call them, or your subconscious beliefs, conscious, then you will heal. Up until then, a lot of times people sabotage. Think of the person who wants to lose 50 pounds. They lose 60 and then next year they gain 70. A lot of people have sabotaging beliefs at play. I've had to really work through mine in order to I think heal. As I said after I meet you at the Bulletproof. I said, “Maybe I file hacked bipolar disorder.” I don't know.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, well you're right. The subconscious is the recordings that we start back from when we're kids and most of those recordings under the age of five. It's what sabotages everything, but if you don't dig it up out of your subconscious then you can't change the conscious. Our thoughts become words. Our words become actions. Eventually, actions become habits. Habits become ultimately our destiny. That's the thing. We have to change our thoughts, but the problem is some of those thoughts are from these belief systems that are in that subconscious. What's the free gift you have because it really deals with this area?
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, the free gift is a forgiveness meditation. Because I really think if we're going to heal ourselves, heal our family, and not only heal our friends on this planet, we need to move into this forgiveness space and compassion space. Not to get political, but I just think this is a really important piece. There should be no reason for war in this day and age.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it's like our beliefs do need changed. We can look at our life and look at our premises, the beliefs that we have, and go oh, that's why we're here. I just ironically heard Will Smith yesterday talking about I got into this discussion with my friend about fault versus responsibility. We often say well, it was this fault, or this is why. We have excuses; we're blaming. It's like when you're in that frame, man, you're not going to heal until you say you know what, even though my father did this to me, it's my responsibility to live a happy life. It's my responsibility. It doesn't matter whose fault it was. It's our responsibility to change those beliefs. It's our responsibility to look at things differently to change the way our mind works, to change our words, to change our actions, to change ultimately our destiny. That's the cool part that we can rewind that. How do they get the free gift?
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
There will be a link I believe. I'll send you the link, and then they can just click on that, and away they go. I really hope people take this. It's really powerful this exercise that I'm offering. It's really powerful. I hope people like it. I know for me, forgiveness was a really big piece of my healing journey. I just wanted to touch on too, just this idea about the thoughts. This is much more than thinking positive. I know there's a lot of people that are like okay—listen, I'd be quite a wealthy woman if I had a dollar for every time somebody just told me just to snap out of it. Just think positive. That will solve everything.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, if it were only so easy.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
>I think what people have to understand is—I teach a framework called The Seven Rs of Working with Problematic Thoughts. What you want to understand is go from I am unworthy to I am worthy, that was too big of a jump. It didn't feel authentic because I truly didn't think that I was worthy. I teach patients to just go—instead of I am unworthy to I’m—just go I am with no descriptive label; very neutral. That takes you into that neutral space because this is the thing that people have to understand. Your thoughts affect your physiology. Your thoughts you think affect the cascade of hormones that get produced in your body. If you want to change how you feel, you have to change how you think, but it's not just about thinking positive. Yes, don't get me wrong, I absolutely—well, I'm 51. It's taken me probably 50 years to look at the glass as half-empty or half-full! See, I even just said it subconsciously half-empty.
Dr. Pompa:
You've said it. I’ve interviewed Bruce Lipton, Biology of Belief, on this -inaudible-. He showed our thoughts become who we are. Our thoughts are picked up vibration literally by ourselves. That changes the DNA, which changes the [00:27:23], which changes the proteins, meaning the hormones, who we are. It's who we are. It becomes who we are. Our thoughts, our words, it becomes who we are. You're right, oh if I could just think positive. No, it absolutely doesn't work that way. You've offered them some steps. Thank you, that's going to help no doubt about it. Let's talk about what are some of the—you said you started with some supplements. What are some of the ones that actually really helped you? Then we'll talk about diet.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, I actually laminated the prescription from Dr. Hoffer. That's how important it was for me. This is where The Essential Diet is really a great resource for people as well because here's the thing you have to understand. There are essential nutrients. What that means is you cannot make them. In the current version of the human being, we cannot make these essential things. We have to get them from our diets. The essential nutrients are—there's essential omega-3s that are really important. Essential amino acids, so tryptophan. Now, I don't start with tryptophan. Some people do, but I don't prescribe tryptophan because tryptophan can go in one of three directions in the body. First and foremost, to make vitamin B3 because it's used in every single cell of the body to produce ATP, which is the energy currency we need. However, if you are under stress, which a lot of us are and I know I was, tryptophan will get tricked to go down what is called the kynurenine pathway to make quinolinic acid, which contributes to depression. The third pathway tryptophan can go down that we want it to go down is to make serotonin and then melatonin. The pathway is tryptophan, 5-HTP, serotonin, melatonin.
>Dr. Pompa:
Before you leave that, I have to ask you, today we have just an epidemic of glyphosate is the chemical in the herbicide Roundup and others. It's being sprayed everywhere. They say 60% of the rainfall has it. That interferes with the shikimate pathway that you make what you're just describing. We have certain bacteria that help us make tryptophan, which then goes down that pathway you just described to serotonin. I know Stephanie Seneff who I've interviewed on this show, she talks about how glyphosate is basically depleting the bacteria, and now we're not making enough tryptophan. What's your thoughts on that?
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
I would agree, yes absolutely.
Dr. Pompa:
Which is leading to an epidemic, my gosh.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
This is the thing; people really have to understand that everything you put in your body informs your body in one way or another. This glyphosate problem is huge. It's a huge problem. I don't even know why Wonder Bread is still in business, this white bread Wonder Bread. There's no nutritional value in that whatsoever.
Dr. Pompa:
Anti-value.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
It's very important; very important. These various pathways in the body, it's not just as simple as going from tryptophan to 5-HTP, serotonin, melatonin. There's also what's called cofactors, nutritional cofactors that you need each step of the way. If you don't have those, you're not going to make it to serotonin. For myself, these cofactors are very important: vitamin C, zinc, iron is part of it, B5, and vitamin B6. Now, the other thing about nutrients you have to understand is there's certain forms of these nutrients that are better than others. For example, the form of B6 might be we would prefer the form of pyridoxal phosphate. The form of folate or folic acid, we would prefer in the form of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate. This is why it's really important to work with a naturopathic doctor or somebody who has an understanding of nutrition because it's not just about taking supplements. It's taking the right form of the nutrient and the right dose of the nutrient as well and making sure that there's non-medicinal ingredients that aren't harmful in that product. I had a woman bring me a garlic oil that she was taking. You would think garlic oil, that's pretty innocent. In the non-medicinal ingredients was a trans hydrogenated fat. That should not be there. The quality of what you decide to take if you're going to go and take supplements is very important. Those are some of the essential nutrients. Vitamin D is another important nutrient as well.
Dr. Pompa:
Which is a hormone; it's a hormone. Yeah, people look at, we know this is an affective disorder just showing people the relationship. People don't get enough sun. They're not making enough vitamin D. They fall into depression. That happens to a lot of people by the way. They just don't know. They end up taking medication during the winter. They're really not putting it together that they may just be lacking the hormone vitamin D.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, that's right. I offer a 10-week online course that walks people through all the 10 steps that I talk about in Beyond the Label, but in more depth then in—the book is a great place to start.
Dr. Pompa:
It is.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
It's a wonderful resource for anybody who has any kind of mental health—well, not any mental health condition, but the mental health conditions that I've gone through, which is a lot. I hope that you check it out because it is, I think it is an epidemic.
Dr. Pompa:
I believe so. Where can they find you? Just give your website.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
It's D-R, and then Christina, and then my last name, bjorndal.com or my clinic is Natural Terrain, T-E-R-R-A-I-N, .com. Those are the two places. Listen, I wanted to mention this too really quickly as well. Sorry, I was just going to say that when we were talking about this epidemic. I was speaking with Dr. James Greenblatt. He's an integrative medicine psychiatrist. He said that by the year 2030, a person globally every second will commit suicide. You think about that's a staggering number. In my mind, we do have a silent epidemic going on. My whole goal here is to try to save souls from suicide. I understand this. I've been there. I get it. It's not an easy place to be when you don't feel like you want to be here on the planet, but there are resources available. There are help lines. There are people who want to help you. If you are a listener, and you are struggling, or you know a family member that's struggling, this is so important to reach out because it's just so unnecessary, the rates to be this high. I just wanted to add that.
Dr. Pompa:
An attack from the enemy itself. This young generation that people call the millennials, I really fear for them. It's because they start medicating young. Again, there’s a time and a place, we've said that. There's a time where it actually works, but see, without these things that you're talking about you're not getting to upstream causes. It doesn't work. It doesn't work long-term. Then you're on the treadmill. You end up getting thrown off the back. Today in this generation, there are getting thrown many psychotropic drugs at a young age. They're getting thrown Adderall. Then they're bringing everything down with marijuana. I see this bouncing. According to my kids, “Dad, you have to understand most of my friends are on medication,” which the psychotropics actually lead the way of what they're taking. I fear for this generation when they hit their 30s; I do. Suicide numbers are on the rise massively. We have an epidemic with glyphosate, which is affecting the shikimate pathway, which is affecting the neurotransmitters our brain needs. Then we have a diet today that's absolutely horrific. My generation, come on, we ate home-cooked meals 90% of the time. We didn't have soils depleted. We didn't have the herbicides like they do today, and the pesticides, the glyphosate. I'm telling you it is a recipe for disaster
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
That’s so true.
Dr. Pompa:
Talk about some of the dietary breakthroughs that really helped you because that was—you went to the supplements, but then the diet stuff was big for you. In your book, you talk about sugar but reflect on that.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Actually, I want to add just one point as well just to mention. Traditionally, in the past, bipolar disorder was diagnosed generally or didn't come out or manifest until you were in your later teens, early 20s. That's generally when bipolar disorder would first manifest. Now, they're diagnosing children at the age of five with bipolar disorder. First, for the listeners to understand, there's two types. There's type one, which is the type that I've experienced I'll just say. Then there's type two. One has psychosis; the other doesn't. I just disagree fundamentally with that. That's why some of these children are being put on psychotropic meds. Here's the other thing. We study these medications in isolation, but we don't study polypharmacy. In the field, it's polypharmacy like you were saying. They're on Adderall. They're probably on Ativan. They're taking a sleeping pill. They're on an anti-depressant. Then they're on a mood stabilizer and they're doing marijuana. This is not how it's studied in the chemical trials. I think that's another big, big thing.
In terms of myself, when you go to naturopathic school, there's a lot of people there that are doing the right thing. Eating my canned Campbell's Soup and my baked potato wasn't going to cut it anymore. I had to learn to cook. This is something that—I was very blessed with a mother who could rival Martha Stewart any day, so I didn't learn how to cook. My mom today she jokes, “Yeah, that was a real downfall. That was a real mistake. I should have made you learn how to cook.” I was so busy studying and overachieving that I didn't have time to cook. That was my mom's—my mom was a stay-at-home mom that was an amazing cook. I had a really good foundation for cooking for my nutrition as a child, but when I moved out, that's where it all fell apart. I lived in my apartment for eight years and I never used my oven; not once. I did not know how to cook. You have to teach your children how to cook and you—that's something I often prescribe my patients, take a cooking class. Cooking is actually fun.
Here's the thing. That was such a great thing at naturopathic school because there was always lots of community potlucks and so I learned to try new things. My gosh, when my naturopath asked me to cut out wheat, dairy, sugar, eggs, tomatoes, and chocolate, I didn't even know there was another grain out there other than wheat and rice. I didn't know what quinoa was. I couldn't say it, couldn't spell it, couldn't pronounce it. There's a whole world out there for people to explore. This is, should be a huge priority I think in people's lives. We've sacrificed home-cooking with convenience and time. We're using all our time running our kids around. We're not making cooking a priority, so then we eat out. You have to understand that the food industry including when you go out to eat, manipulates food with three molecules: sugar, fat, and salt. I talk about sugar a lot because that's the biggest battle I have is with the sugar piece I think because of the candida that came about as a result of the antibiotics in teenage years. Then the eating disorder. Sugar was really like a drug to me. Honestly, it was like I would consume it and I would feel an instant aww. Honestly, it was like—
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt. Many kids today, they survive on one sugar drink to the next. It's a little more cocktail than that. It's caffeine. It's sugar. It's excitotoxins all in one convenient drink that you can buy at any convenience store. This becomes the reality. I'm telling you—
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Why are these products allowed? Why are these products even allowed?
Dr. Pompa:
It's unbelievable. Most of the focus is on the wrong things. When we talk about brain function, I used to do a piece on 102 days of dysfunction. Everything, when we're eating out there, has vegetable oils. We went beyond trans fats, but vegetable oils do the same thing in the body. They make their way right into the cell because the omega-6 is critical for the cell membrane function. These are adulterated. They go in and these adulterated omega-6s interfere with the membrane. Now, you're interfering with every hormone we're talking about. It's so vital to avoid all of these things. When you go to Whole Foods, it's canola oil and vegetable oil in most of the products. You have to know what the heck you're doing to avoid these rancid adulterated fats that just disrupt the membrane. It's very difficult to get the proper omega-6. There's two essential fatty acids: the linoleic acid and the alpha-linolenic acid.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
That's right
Dr. Pompa:
Fixing people, the omega-6 actually plays a more important role. I just did a video on this. We talked about brain function. I think the title was The Dangers of Fish Oil. People were taking rancid fish oil.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, that's right. The other thing though, like you mentioned canola oil. The other thing with that is that's the number one genetically modified food as well. We have to make sure that the canola you're consuming is organic canola.
Dr. Pompa:
Look at all the [pitfalls] these kids have. The corn oils, that's GMO too; same with glyphosate. It's the wrong -inaudible- the brain and the membranes. Come on, this is unbelievable. We have to get the message out. I can't believe how fast our time went. -inaudible- need to hear. Look, you made the dietary stuff simple. Your essential diet for mental illness that became a book in itself that people can just buy and get it on probably Amazon.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, Amazon Prime will.
Dr. Pompa:
Then Beyond the Label has that in it as well, but a lot of the things that we were discussing.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, the 10 steps.
Dr. Pompa:
Listen, you've definitely gone beyond the label. This is an important topic. We need to share this. Folks watching, share this with your friends. I'm telling you because—you know what's funny is many people in—people watching this, their lives, there's people around them that they know very well that are hiding this like you did. You were told not to tell anyone. I'm telling you, share this with as many people as you can because you don't realize how many people are actually suffering and they just don't want you to know because they hate themselves for it. God forbid you -inaudible-.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
One and four.
Dr. Pompa:
One and four. Last word?
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Oh my gosh, I think my last words are to just understand that you are here for a reason. Even if it feels like you don't know what that reason is the more that you can learn to connect from your heart and to live from a heart-centered place, the better off that you will be in your life. To learn to trust that there is an order to things and that you are meant to be here. I say to a lot of my patients, I know we talk about mental illness as it's a mental problem. I actually think it's also a heart problem. I was going to call my book a call for love because I think at the end of the day this is what it's all about. How you feel about you and the person that's beside you, and whether you can extend love and grace is really what it's all about. Yeah, that's important. Loving yourself is important.
Dr. Pompa:
I agree. That goes back to the free gift.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Yeah, that's right.
Dr. Pompa:
The forgiveness because that's what stands in the way oftentimes, so take advantage of it. Thank you for that by the way because I love shows that give people an action step. I do because otherwise, we just go wow; oh yeah, they're right. There's no action. The action step, get the free gift. Thank you for that, appreciate that. Thanks for being on Dr. Chris. No doubt, you're a wealth of knowledge in this area. Appreciate you, thank you.
Dr. Christina Bjorndal:
Thank you. I appreciate you too. Thank you so much.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
