Everything Endocrine: The Science of Hormone Optimization

Sleep as the Foundation of Health 0:00

Sleep is the most important thing you can do. And so I tell every, I've been saying this for a long time now, and it's not easy. You know, I'm not just perfect with my sleep, but I do keep working on it because I realize how important it is. It's going to help balance your mood. It's going to help with your longevity. It's going to keep your blood pressure. I mean, it's not the only thing that contributes to blood pressure, but it's one thing. So there are just so many things. We heal when we sleep.

Our immune system works when we sleep. process emotions when we sleep. So if you go to bed upset about something, you know, by the next morning after you've gotten some good REM, you might have a totally different perspective on that thing that you were really emotional about the night before. So it's healing. It's the best medicine. I tell my kids that and I really believe it. Welcome to the Holistic Truth Podcast. I'm Jamie Dorley, CEO of Nutritional Frontiers. And I'm Christine Genovese, creator of the Soul Intelligence Method.

We're here to help you break through chronic disease and dysfunction physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically. With real proven strategies, protocols, and tools you can use in your practice today. Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Holistic Truth. I am Christine Genovese. I am the co-host of The Holistic Truth. I'm often here with the CEO, Jamie Dorley, but today I wanted to have girl talk. So I decided I wanted to schedule some time with an incredible doctor who focuses a lot of her practice on endocrine.

So today we're talking everything endocrine.

Podcast Introduction and Guest Background 1:32

Dr. Miko Raleigh is a board-certified family medical physician, and she has an Institute for Functional Medicine. She's a certified practitioner in functional medicine and based in Houston, Texas. She is the founder and visionary behind Kale Functional Medicine, where she helps patients uncover the root cause of fatigue, gut issues, hormone imbalances, autoimmune diseases, and really helps them heal holistically and completely. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just weeks before starting medical school, Dr.

Raleigh turned her own healing journey into a mission to redefine medicine as both science and soul. Oh my God, does she speak to me or what? Her approach blends advanced diagnostics with compassion, curiosity, and the belief that the body can heal when it's given the right environment. At KL, she and her team serve busy professionals and families through personalized care, hormone optimization, and functional medicine programs that restore vitality from the inside out. Now, when she's not doing all the things in her practice, she shares her expertise on podcasts, television, and speaking stages, helping people reconnect with their energy, purpose, and potential for lifelong health.

So being the creator of the soul intelligence method, this is one of the reasons why Dr. Rowley and I really, really vibe. So I'm going to ask her and welcome her to the holistic truth and share with us all the good things that we need to know about hormones and health. So Dr. Rowley, welcome. Thank you, Christine. I'm so excited to be here and speaking with you. Awesome. Well, I know, I mean, first of all, I've heard so many times about people's personal journeys. Starting them off in the field of functional medicine and it sounds like you're no exception.

So Yeah, what drew you to it and what made you change your course before starting medical school? Yeah, so I came into medicine as a career changer I grew up wanting to be a doctor but then decided in college that I wanted to pursue the business route So I majored in business and didn't look back until I had a health scare that landed me in the emergency department and I felt like the very intelligent resident who was helping me just didn't have that compassion that I was looking for. I wasn't getting what I needed from that experience.

And I thought to myself offhand, I could do this better than her. And then I thought, wait a minute, I could do this better than her.

Dr. Rowleyu2019s Path Into Functional Medicine 4:08

I love it. And so that led me into medicine. But then just weeks before starting medical school, after I spent two years going back to take all the prerequisite classes and MCAT and all of those things, I was just weeks away from starting medical school and started to lose vision in my right eye. I was diagnosed with MS. that is a neurological condition that can take away your vision, your ability to walk, your ability to speak and think clearly, all things that I would absolutely need for medical school.

But I just decided, you know what? Today I can speak and see and do all the things that gave me medicine. I was back to baseline. So then I took the approach that how do I keep my health? It's restored right now. How do I maintain this? And so eventually always looking for the outside of the box lifestyle approach, I found functional medicine and very quickly I knew that was my purpose driven path and how I was supposed to proceed. And here I am. That's amazing. Well, I'm so delighted. Well, first of all, you know, we always wonder like, why do things happen or what makes them happen or how is life supporting me, right?

And it sounds like you are served really well getting your business degree first because you have a rockin' practice and you know what you're doing. And now you get to do it in a field that you absolutely love. So I know a lot of your practice centers around like, hormone imbalances, right? And sometimes hidden hormone imbalances. So what are some of the early signs that women often miss, especially when we are of a certain age in our 40s and 50s in particular? Yeah, so I am certainly a woman of that certain age and so I can speak very personally on this.

You know, a lot of times we are clued into hot flashes and night sweats and maybe even irritability and fatigue. But what we don't realize is that we have estrogen receptors from head to toe. And so wherever those receptors are not getting fed, we're going to have symptoms. You might start getting blurry vision. You might start having itchy skin. There are so many things that we wouldn't even relate to hormone replacement or low hormones. And so really can be anything from head to toe. But the really big thing that we're missing especially if we're not starting hormone replacement during this critical window in our 40s and 50s within 10 years of starting menopause.

What we're missing is an opportunity to set ourselves up for less heart disease, less Alzheimer's or dementia, other dementias. and less osteoporosis because hormone replacement can do that, but there's a critical time that we have to get started and that's within 10 years of starting menopause. So if we're not catching that window, we're missing the boat. So what is one of the first things that you do with a patient to figure out? They come in and they're throwing all these crazy symptoms at you.

Like what are some of the first things that you do to kind of figure out what is really going on with someone? Yes, there's no algorithm with functional medicine.

Early Signs of Hormone Imbalance 7:18

So the first thing is really to deeply listen to the patient. And this is where I really like having face-to-face conversation. I'll do telemedicine for the first visit, but it's really more impactful when I can be in the same space and really feel the energy because that just communicates so much even without words. But then I'm also listening to the patient's words and understanding when they last felt well, how they're sleeping, how they're eating, what their stress level is, all of these things, what their bowel and bladder function is, all of these things I put together and try to pinpoint what the connection is.

Is it gut health? Is it hormones? Is it adrenals? Is it thyroid? Where do we start? and then we just start to peel away the layers and a lot of times we can fix your gut, we can fix your thyroid, we can fix your adrenals and that replaces the hormones that your body needs without even having to do specific supplements or medication to replace the hormones. Oh, wow, that's pretty cool. So it's all the other stuff. You fix that first and then you might not have to do the hormone piece. I love it. Exactly.

Well, one of the things that I know that's a challenge for me is controlling my stress levels. And I also reflect your demographic that we're talking about. And so how does cortisol throw off like hormones like thyroid and estrogen? Yes, cortisol is our stress hormone. But it's not only responding to stress, it's definitely high and gets used up when we have high stress all the time. But it also is what gets us out of bed and gets us going for the day. So we want a nice, good Goldilocks level of our cortisol, not too high, not too low, just right.

I love that expression. I'm stealing that one. Thank you. Goldilocks level. So we want that level to peak first thing in the morning so we can get out of bed and get our day started, but then we want it to slowly decline throughout the day. And it works exactly opposite our melatonin should be lowest in the morning and peak at bedtime. And so that creates our nice circadian rhythm. Now, when our stress is high, then that cortisol tends to be high later in the day and then that messes up melatonin.

But also cortisol has the same building blocks as our thyroid hormones and our sex hormones.

Functional Medicine Intake and Root-Cause Approach 9:50

So estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. And so our bodies will prioritize that stress hormone over all of the others. And so it kind of steals all of the building blocks and keeps it for itself. And so then your levels of thyroid are lower, your levels of estrogen or progesterone are low. And so in that way, stress messes up our whole cycle and messes up the process of feeding into other hormones. Well, what are some of your favorite stress protocols? I know my go-to is Calm Day and Adrenamax.

That is a great one. Yeah, Adrenamax is that really cool Adjaptogen that Nutritional Frontiers has. So I typically do two in the morning and two at night to kind of manage that cortisol spike, right? Yes. I'm also a big fan of our calm day, which is like our natural form of Xanax if I'm feeling a little anxious during the day I probably should have popped a few before getting on this episode I was really nervous to interview you because you've got such an incredible background Thank you, but tell me what are some of your favorite stress protocols?

I do use a lot of calm day and I also I have my patients focus on five minutes a day. I want to make it something small so that it's not another to do on your list that gets pushed aside because you don't have enough time to do it. But most of us can find five minutes of quiet time. And I say during that time, Pick which of these three resonates most with you. Do you want to box breathe? So I teach them that means breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, breathe out for a count of four, hold for a count of four.

So you're thinking of a box as you're breathing. You can tell your phone, set a timer for five minutes. and then just box brief for that five minutes. Or you can journal, write about everything you're grateful for for five minutes at a timer. Or you can pray. So, you know, whichever one puts you into that space of peace and calm, That's the lifestyle change that I recommend. And it's not about how long you do it. It's about how frequently you do it. So if that becomes part of your routine, that helps balance the stress.

We're going to have the stressors. They're not going away. So we need tools in our toolkit to help us manage it so that it doesn't just destroy everything else in our health. Oh my gosh. I love that. Okay. I'm going to give you one other one that you can do in less than five minutes. Are you ready? This is my fave.

Stress, Cortisol, and Daily Reset Tools 12:22

Okay. So as long as somebody is not driving at the moment, close your eyes. And I want you to envision someone you love, something you love in a place you absolutely love. Then open your eye. That chips you quick, right? Now, you don't have to give it up. You don't have to tell me. It was funny. I was doing this with someone the other day, and she's like, that's so wild. I saw my boyfriend. I saw the dogs. And we were all on the beach. And my dog hates the beach. But everybody was happy. So when we get ourselves right into that exalted state, that higher state of love, you could see, I'm sure on the video, we were both smiling like instantly, right?

So that's a quick way to raise somebody's vibe. So you could add that to your five minutes if you like. If you don't mind, I will still that. I like it. So you mentioned also like, you know, sometimes it's not hormones, right? But it's hormones resistance. It's other stuff getting in the way like stress. So like, what does that mean in real life? And like, how do you how do you address that? Yeah, so stress is the cortisol, which is our stress hormone, is the big stealer. It will steal all of those building blocks and then all of the other hormones will be impacted.

So I focus on First, lifestyle change, then supplements, and then just, you know, we have to keep revisiting it. We have to make sure that sleep is on par because, you know, if you're not getting enough sleep, then that whole circadian rhythm that I talked about with the cortisol being high at a certain time and the melatonin being high at a certain time, that gets messed up and then there's just a trickle-down effect. You know, it's just making sure that we don't forget to focus on stress because it's just foundational.

All right, well. One of the ways, so how do I know, coming in as a new patient, whether this is stress affecting me, whether this hormone's affecting me, what kind of testing do you do? And then, you know, if I've been to, because typically what I've found anyway, is a lot of people go to their quote unquote regular doctor, and then they get, they're not getting the answers they thought they were gonna get. They're told they're fine, they're not fine, and then they show up on your doorstep. So, you know, what are some of the labs that you run?

What's the difference kind of between normal range and when I'm going to feel better? And why is that so common? Why is it missed all the time? Right. So one of the big areas that we see a difference is with thyroid testing. In our conventional training, we're told that all you need to do is look at the TSH, which stands for thyroid stimulating hormone. That's a brain hormone that comes out to tell the thyroid in your neck what to do. And if you're lucky, you might get a free T4 level, which is the hormone that comes out of the thyroid T4.

But in the integrative and functional world, we're looking at four other things. that are even more important, arguably. What comes out of the hormone, the free T4, goes off into the body wherever it's needed, and then it's converted into the active hormone. The only active hormone out of the six is free T3. If it doesn't become free T3 and your body needs to rest and conserve energy, then it will make reverse T3. So we're testing those levels. And then we also look at the antibodies that attack the thyroid and will lower the T4 that comes out.

So those are TPO antibodies or thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin or TG antibodies. And so that whole system is what's important to make sure that we're really looking at the active hormone and helping the symptoms. In the case of sex hormones, your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, We typically in the conventional world will just look at the blood levels and we don't really have a protocol for looking regularly. Sometimes your doctor might order those and might order FSH, which tells a little bit about your ovarian reserve and whether or not you are close to menopause

Testing Thyroid, Sex Hormones, and Toxins 16:50

or n-menopause, but it's not really a perfect test. We really have to see those over time to get information. But on the functional and integrative side, we're looking at a whole lot more markers. We're also looking at cortisol, which we ideally will test throughout the day. And the test that I really like for looking at hormones is called the hormone zoomer. And it also looks at endocrine disruptors, which are like microplastics and BPA and Roundup and, you know, all of these things that we're exposed to, even mold and heavy metal toxins, because those can kind of disguise themselves as our hormones, bind to the receptors and then mess everything up.

So really like that that test looks at those endocrine disrupting chemicals as well as your cortisol and your hormone levels and how they break down, which is also very important. And then we can address those things. I can give them DEM if they don't have good breakdown of their estrogen. I can give, I give a lot of thyro-complete for patients that have low thyroid function. And then we can start to replace those things. And then if we need to get to hormone replacement, that's still a tool in our toolkit.

Oh, fantastic. So thyrocomplete by Nutritional Frontiers, you know, is set up to help try and convert to that active T3. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. What I really love about thyrocomplete is it's the only thing that really addresses the whole axis. You get replacement of that, the brain hormones with the parts of the brain, hypothalamus and pituitary, that produce those hormones that communicate with the thyroid. And then you also get some glandular of the thyroid, so you're replacing those thyroid hormones.

And so it really allows a complete kind of judging or increase. That's a New York word, a judge. I say that all the time. Well, awesome. Well, I mean, you just mentioned toxins and I don't know that people really think about how many chemicals are in their life or plastics and how that actually messes with our hormones. So, I mean, and so am I getting it? The hormone zoomer test actually finds this. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, I love this test. There are so many toxins, as women especially, we slather on like over a hundred chemicals before we even leave the house in the morning with our hair products and shampoo, conditioner and whatever products we use and our makeup and our lotions and our perfumes and all of these things.

But a lot of these we don't realize are disrupting our hormones. And then once we step outside, depending on where you are, you might have pollution in the city. I live in a very big city, Houston, with a lot of cars. That's our main form of transportation. So it gives us beautiful sunsets, but it also gives us a lot of air pollution. Got a port here. And so anyone who lives close to that port is getting runoff chemicals from that. We've got Roundup that's in most of our inorganic foods. as a pesticide, and all of these things make a difference.

So if everybody in America took a toxin test, almost 100% of people are going to find something on that toxin load in their body. But the good news is once we know that it's there, we can do things regularly to help detoxify. Awesome. Well, give me some. Give me some. What can we do? I heard someone say, I don't know which doctor said it, but they said it might have been Dr. Bob out of Houston too, saying like that we have up to a credit cards worth of plastic in our brain or a plastic spoon. Can you imagine?

That is just, you know, and we don't even, it's gone on for so long. By the time we even realize that it's a thing, it's already accumulated to that point. So yeah, we have to do something to get that out. All right. Tell me, where do I start? If I'm feeling like, you know, I've come to you, the hormone zoomers off the charts, where do you start with someone? So I start with lifestyle. A lot of people are so anxious to just jump into hormones and get going but first we need to cover the basics because you know if we don't we have no foundation and everything will just fall apart.

So we want to look at your gut function, we want to look at your diet, we want to look at how you're sleeping. want to look at your adrenal and your thyroid function. And a lot of people feel like, oh, this is overwhelming, but a lot of it just goes together. So we also have health coaches that help figure out those lifestyle changes. So it's not overwhelming, but we work through it systematically. And then a lot of times just. covering those foundations will help to balance the hormones. But if not, then we've got great supplements that we can use and then still actually replacing the hormones.

Supporting Thyroid and Detox Pathways 22:08

So when I can get patients from my patients, then we go through it in that. I understand that, right? Everybody's like, okay, I want to fix, I want to fix now because I'm suffering. And then you're like, well, it took you this long to get here, right? So give me a hot minute to help your hot flashes. Okay. So for women who are struggling, I know this is a big one, and this was always a big one for me in particular, going through perimenopause. Like weight gain, right? I remember traveling for business and at night my pants wouldn't fit.

I couldn't close them. I bloated so terribly. And then in the morning they were back to normal. I go, what is going on with me? But then the weight gain, right? Especially in the midsection that you can't get rid of. You know, what's really going on behind the weight game? Is it hormones? Is it stress? Is it all of it? Yes. E, all the above. And how do you attack that? Yeah, a lot of times that is insulin resistance. A lot of people don't realize that insulin is a hormone too. And so our insulin helps us to process the sugar in our body.

And when that insulin, when we have a lot of sugar load, which, you know, we're all exposed to so much sugar because if you start looking at labels, sugar is in everything, things that don't even need it like ranch dressing. have sugar and so we're overexposed and then that sugar needs somewhere to go and disrupts our hormones so causes our estrogen to increase and then it can also just make us store that extra that extra sugar as fat. And so during that time when we're starting to have hormonal changes, insulin receptors also get resistant.

So receptors you can think of as like little parking spaces where our hormones need to settle in to make things happen. And so over time when those parking spaces have been used a lot, They just get worn out and they don't really work as much anymore. So then it requires more and more to get those receptors fired up and activated. And so what we can do is first work on decreasing the sugar load, increasing exercise. And I really love sweet balance during this time to get that number back down to a normal place.

And then things just start moving again. You know, that's the first thing to look at to start getting that resistant belly fat moving. Stop that drain into the system and then we can start to correct it. Oh, that's awesome.

Weight Gain, Insulin Resistance, and Blood Sugar Support 24:58

Yeah, Sweet Balance is one of Nutritional Frontier's latest additions to the line. And it's really helping, right, with fasting glucose levels and A1C reduction and all kinds of good things. And it is, I think it might, right, be an extra kick, you know, if I want to have my wine at night, like to manage my blood sugar. But I know it's also got an incredible ingredient in it that is Dahlia, which is helping with that reduction. And I'm just like so excited about it. I'm glad that you're having great results.

It's so good to hear. One of my other favorite products to help with insulin resistance is Nutra Glutide. And I actually use that, you know, two in the morning and one in the afternoon to not only manage my blood sugar, but to also help with the insulin resistance, help me manage cravings in particular. And it really helps to keep my weight in check. So that's really helping me. Now I did do some lifestyle changes. You know, I'm an avid tennis player, but recently a good friend of mine talked me into trying Pilates.

And I actually started to put that in. Now I got to tell you, everything hurts. That's how you know it's working. Yes. I'm like, wow, I didn't know I had muscles there. But so you're right. I know it's working. So We talked a lot about women because, you know, that's why I wanted to get together with you, but men also have hormone challenges. So how can they tell if they're having low testosterone and whether that's really the issue or not, or are they stressed out and that's why they have low testosterone?

Like, do you have a, you know, sort of a secret formula for men too? The secret formula is really just to test the blood. So ideally, we want to look at the cortisol levels throughout the day. So that is a saliva test that you collect first thing in the morning and then just before lunch, just before dinner, just before bed. But if that's not feasible, we can just take a blood test first thing in the morning along with testosterone. And then we can see which is low. A lot of times it's both. And so we need to handle stress and build up the adrenals first and then see if that replaces testosterone.

But if not, then we need to also focus on testosterone. And again, when I get to that point that I need testosterone first, if the patient is willing to be patient, then I like to use either Testo 180 or Frontier Men's Complete because they've got all the things to help increase that testosterone more naturally. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, testosterone is a big popular product around here for helping to increase testosterone. And Frontier Men's Complete is great, right? Because everybody needs a multivitamin.

Exactly. And I think a lot of people forget that, but it's so foundational. And we were recommended, I think back in, I don't know, I want to say the 80s, to take a multivitamin because we're just not getting the nutrition from our food. Is that something that you regularly share with your patients as well? Absolutely. There are four things that I think everybody should be on, and a multivitamin is one of them. You know, some people will argue that we should be able to get all of our nutrients from our food, but in what country and what planet is that happening?

Because our soil has been so depleted that even organic foods don't have all of the nutrients that you need. So all of us really need a multivitamin. you know, for my patients who are skeptical and don't want to take a multivitamin, we can test all of your nutrients. And then they'll see the proof in the pudding that, you know, pretty much all of your nutrients are low. And so even though you're eating well, you need that multivitamin too. All right. Well, you teased us. You said there are four things you recommend to everybody.

So the first one's a multi. What are the other three? I love an Omega because Omega's are anti-inflammatory and are and help to raise your HDL, the helpful cholesterol, which helps lower the bad cholesterol or triglycerides in LDL. I also love a good probiotic. I think pretty much all of us need a good probiotic. In the West, we have an imbalance of the good bacteria. It's all good bacteria, but kind of a flip of the one that should be the biggest family of bacteria and the second biggest family of bacteria.

Menu2019s Hormones and Core Supplements 29:28

And so rebalancing that with a probiotic helps to maintain our whole health. And then the last one is, I always forget one. Well, we got multi, we got omega, and we got probiotics. So the good news is... Vitamin D is the last and probably most important one, so I can't forget it. D3K2 is something that almost every single American needs because we spend most of our time inside and a lot of people are like, well, I get like an hour of sun every day. That's not the only factor. Sun doesn't give us vitamin D.

It's actually our diet that gives us vitamin D and then the sun activates that vitamin D so we can use it. So there's a lot going on in there to keep our vitamin D at the right level. And we use vitamin D for so much. It helps keep our heart healthy, our immune system intact. It helps balance our hormones and our energy and keeps our bones healthy. So, you know, with all of those jobs, we have to make sure that we're keeping it at a nice high level. So not only do I like to give it, but I like to test it at least once a year to make sure we're staying right where we need to be.

That's awesome. Well, yeah, vitamin three, sorry, D3K2, right? The reason we have K2 is so that the vitamin D goes into the right places, right? That's what that's all about. But vitamin D, I just learned something new. I thought, you know, just like the dog likes to go outside and get sun, right? First thing in the morning, get that vitamin D going. I didn't realize it's actually stimulating the production. It's not giving us vitamin D. So I just learned a new nugget. That was awesome. Another thing is that I love about K2 because it does double duty.

Not only does it help us absorb vitamin D, but it also has anti-inflammatory properties in its own right. So that really helps keep our blood vessels healthy because it's the inflammation that causes all of the trouble in our blood vessels, not just cholesterol. It's inflammation activating cholesterol that causes trouble. Oh, wow. That's unreal. Well, good to know, right? Yeah. Well, our omegas, actually, we have something called omega-3-D. We include D-3 in our omegas, too, because you can't get enough.

Right. So, and I know, like, we're most deficient. I think it's vitamin D and magnesium, those top two things. And when you think about it, magnesium like helps to calm, right? And the anti-stress and all that good stuff. I know I'm a big fan. I take our med complete at least four of them every night just to get my muscles to relax and help me to go to sleep rather easily. Well, I know one of the things that people are always talking about are bioidentical hormones, right? And they're pretty hot topic.

So when do you recommend those? And like, when is it not really kind of the only thing? Yeah, so first of all, I do like to start with the foundations. It's always a negotiation because patients will come to me for hormones. They're like, why are you talking to me about my gut and my sleep and what I'm eating? I want my hormones. So there's some education that has to go into, you know, a lot of times we can fix your hormones just by working on your lifestyle. But once we talk through lifestyle and we get a plan, we might go ahead and start to replace some hormones.

So this is a really exciting time for hormone replacement therapy because just a couple days ago the FDA has agreed to lift the black box warning from

Bioidentical Hormones and Longevity 33:08

bioidentical or hormone replacement therapies because the earlier warning overstated the risk of cancer coming from these hormone replacements. these hormones. And so, you know, that's something we've been saying in the functional and integrative community for years, but now to have the backing of the FDA really just takes our ability to replace these hormones to the next level. And it's not just about replacing the hormones, it's about setting up our population for longevity. So like I said, our 40 and 50 year olds who are just meeting the perimenopause and early menopause phases can now get the whole system behind replacing those hormones so that we can have less dementia, less heart disease, and less osteoporosis in 20 years because we're getting those done.

So I'm a big fan of replacing hormones for longevity and also just because we shouldn't have to suffer through perimenopause and early menopause. you know, when we replace a lot of these things, a lot of these, you know, symptoms that are just seeming to come out of left field can just be easy for us. Oh my gosh, that sounds like heaven. I love it. All right. Well, Dr. Rowley, I know we've taken like quite a bit of time. I can't believe like it's already been here for like half an hour already. It's been amazing.

It's gone so quickly. What if people want to get a hold of you? How can they find you? Yeah. So we have our website, klmd.com, and we're also on most of the social media platforms, definitely Instagram and Facebook at Kale Functional Medicine. Awesome. If you're going to leave our audience with just one thing, like one of your favorite, absolute favorite nuggets, whether it's a quote, whether it's something that's just important to you, what would be one thing that you would want to leave them with?

I heard from Deepak Chopra, I'm not sure if you know who he is, an endocrinologist who has become more of a lifestyle guru over the past many years, couple decades, said once at a medical conference that I went to close to 10 years ago now, if there's one thing that you can do for your health, it should be sleep. Sleep is the most important thing you can do. I've been saying this for a long time now, and it's not easy. I'm not just perfect with my sleep, but I do keep working on it because I realize how important it is.

It's going to help balance your mood. It's going to help with your longevity. It's going to keep your blood pressure. I mean, it's not the only thing that contributes to blood pressure, but it's one thing. So there are just so many things. We heal when we sleep. Our immune system works when we sleep. We process emotions when we sleep. So if you go to bed upset about something, you know, by the next morning after you've gotten some good REM, you might have a totally different perspective

Closing Thoughts on Sleep and Podcast Outro 36:18

on that thing that you were really emotional about the night before. So it's healing. It's the best medicine. I tell my kids that and I really believe it. I love it. I am a big fan of sleep. And I do know some people that struggle with it. And we do have a wonderful product that helps. It has melatonin in it as well. It's our natural product called Sleep Time that I know a lot of us use to help on those crazy nights when we can't get that brain to just settle. But it helps you fall asleep and stay asleep, which is important.

Well, Dr. Rowley, today was amazing. I thank you so much for your generosity of time and sharing all of this great information with our audience. If you loved what you heard today, I'm going to encourage you to like, comment, and share with someone who needs to hear this. And if you want to find Dr. Roelly, all of her information will be in the show notes. And until next time, have a wonderful, healthy day. Thank you, Christy. Thanks for tuning in to the Holistic Truth Podcast. If this episode spoke to you, please follow the show and share it with someone ready to take charge of their well-being.

And if you can, leave us a review. It helps others find our podcast. For more tools and practitioner support, visit NutritionalFrontiers.com