Unlocking Your Health Span with Dr. Ibby Omole: Mindset and Nutrition Tips

Welcome to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristen, and today I have a great guest interview for you.

We're going to talk about what are some of the things you can do to improve your health span.

Welcome to Everyday Vitality, the podcast that empowers you to live your healthiest, most vibrant life naturally.

I'm Kristen Fitch, your guide to natural wellness.

Over the years, I've learned the importance of embracing holistic health from clean living to ancestral practices to help me feel my best and keep me improving my wellness.

In each episode, we'll explore how alternative health nourishing habits and natural therapies can enhance your energy, vitality and health.

Let's dive in and make everyday a step towards living well naturally.

Hi and welcome to the show.

Today I have a great guest interview for you.

We are going to have a conversation today with Dr.

Ibi Mole.

She's a licensed naturopathic physician and a registered acupuncturist.

She focuses on Genesis, doing gene based work with people in women's health.

And she's also a mother, a wife, a daughter, an entrepreneur.

And I love that she says, I chart my own course, living life on my own terms.

I listen, read, observe, gather information and then tune into my intuition and do what feels right and makes sense to me.

And I love that because that's absolutely.

I align with that statement.

And one of my other podcasts is called building a life you love.

It's absolutely about doing life on our own terms and taking our health into our own hands.

Right.

Being our own health advocate.

So I'm excited we're going to have a great conversation for you today and I just want to welcome her.

So welcome IBY to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to have a chat with you today.

Yeah.

So can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?

I know you've been doing.

You've been practicing in this area for close to 17 years.

So can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this and then what your work looks like now or life looks like?

I actually got into naturopathic medicine by accident.

My initial goal from when I was young was to be a medical doctor.

And somewhere in my undergraduate degree I kind of started questioning things.

I'm a biology major.

I did biology as a major and psychology as a minor.

So the psychology piece started making me wonder, well, why.

Why are some people healthy and why are some people sick?

I decided that.

Okay, well, I'm not sure now that I want to be a allopathic medical doctor.

So I did a master's degree in environmental medicine because with a focus on environmental health.

And my thesis was what are the determinants of Health?

And from my master's degree I got, somebody told me that, oh, it seems like maybe you want to be a naturopathic doctor.

And I had no idea.

This was in the late 90s.

I'd never heard of a naturopathic doctor, didn't know they existed.

And so the more I looked into it based on my master's degree.

So when I did my masters, I grew my own food because the university had you could get a plot of land for $10.

And so I spent the summer growing my own food.

I started doing yoga.

I just kind of got into this whole healthy living that I was completely oblivious that existed.

And from there it just really made sense to do naturopathic medicine because it was really more in alignment with how I was seeing health and well being.

And in my program, it's a tough program.

I went to Washington State Bastille University my, my first year I developed insomnia, which is not something I've ever experienced before.

And it was recommended to me that maybe I should try acupuncture, that it may help.

And I did acupuncture and I thought it was some kind of voodoo medicine because I thought, oh my gosh, how is it possible that you're sticking some needles in my hands on my back?

And so that's pretty much how I decided to now do a master's in acupuncture.

And so that's my evolution from a academic perspective.

My practice has kind of evolved over the years, to be honest with you.

I started out doing urology, so I worked with a group of urologists in Washington state and I did that for about three years.

And now I really focus on women's health in the sense of I'm doing more fertility preconception specifically because I feel we don't have enough information for women.

There's so much focus on women to just get pregnant and then when it doesn't happen, it becomes what am I doing wrong?

And I'm failing at the most basic thing that I'm just supposed to instantaneously be able to do.

And now I'm moving into the guts.

I do a lot of stuff with the microbiome and digestion because I'm seeing how really your microbiome is the foundation for overall great health.

And within that, so I'm doing preconception, microbiome and now perimenopause.

Menopause.

Because I mean, that age category.

I'm 48 years old.

I'm getting.

Lots of women that are coming in, you know, complain of stuff like, oh, that's perimenopause.

Right.

And they're shocked.

Right.

Or they seem to be like, well, that's just how it is, you know?

So when I'm talking to women in my cohort, like, oh, you understand, Dr.

Ibi?

I'm like, no, I don't understand, because that's not my experience.

So now I'm really curious, you know, why am I having such a vastly different experience than other women in the same age category as me?

And so my hill now is that, nope, you don't have to.

All these things we just think are normal.

Yes.

Actually, they don't have to be.

Yeah.

And with some knowledge and lifestyle tweaks, you can have a vastly different experience than what the current narrative is, which is not very helpful.

It's not.

You know, we have to move into talking about health span, not lifespan.

Like, if I'm going to live to be 100, I want to have enjoyable last years, not years where I'm just waiting to check out and say, oh, thank God that's all over with, you know, so.

Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

So good.

Yeah, I.

I absolutely agree with you on that.

And, you know, I'm in the same age range.

And the thing is, is besides, you know, going through perimenopause, menopause, which I'm still.

I haven't gone through it yet.

I mean, menopause yet.

So, so same.

But I don't have any major pains or ailments going on with that.

But it doesn't mean, you know, I don't know what will come.

Right.

In the future.

But.

So I agree with you.

But then also what you said is it is our health span, because one reason I started this podcast was because, you know, the data is in as well that says we aren't in.

In historical data.

People didn't get Alzheimer's and dementia.

We do now because of our environment, our lifestyle.

Right.

All these things we don't.

That doesn't have to be what we have to look forward to.

Right.

That is not.

I know there's a lot of it now, you know, and I do have.

We have parents going through some of these things.

And unfortunately, I feel a little bit like, gosh, it might be too.

Not too late to help them, but.

They have to also want it.

But my dad also has Parkinson's, so it's a Little more complicated.

The point is, you know, if we want to have these really healthy, you know, healthy years as we get older, we.

We have to.

To your point, look at what are we doing now, and we have to change our mindset, which I know we're going to talk about, to what.

What it should be, not what we see some people having to deal with, so.

Absolutely.

I love that.

So good.

So let me ask you this.

So for some people.

So first of all, did acup.

Acupuncture help you with your insomnia?

Yes, absolutely.

Like, yeah, I acupuncture with some other things that.

But it probably was the pivotal thing, the thing that I did almost every week for years while I was in the program.

Whenever I could fit it into my schedule, I would book mining was also cheap.

I think for $20, you pay a $20 fee and you could have unlimited treatment at the clinic.

So.

Oh yeah, I was constantly.

I also used to be a runner, so I had an ankle injury.

I was constantly in the clinic for all the modalities that we offer.

So as a naturopathic doctor, I've done a lot of the diets, I've done a lot of the modalities.

I know what they feel like.

But yeah, acupuncture helped me tremendously with my insomnia.

And also it's what got me through my medical program, to be quite honest with you, you know, to be able to squish an eight year program into five.

So it was like a doctorate and a master's that I did simultaneously.

And if you do those separately, it's five years.

Sorry, eight years.

And you squished it down into a five year program.

It was pretty intense.

But that's why for me, the.

The power of acupuncture is absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, love it.

We'll definitely get into that a little bit more later during this episode.

But let's dive into.

You've obviously worked with lots of, you know, people at this point, a lot of women, it sounds like.

What would you say is the number one thing that we can do for ourselves to start having maybe a better health journey.

Right.

Or moving towards the health we really want if we're not there.

And you know, this is probably for a lot of people, this answer may shock them, but to be honest with you, after seeing thousands of women, I have been practicing clinicians.

I used to train naturopathic doctors.

Actually, I did that for five years.

I was core Falcon faculty at a naturopathic school in B.C, which is in British Columbia in Canada.

It's mindset.

You know, forget the supplement, forget the newest fad, the latest drink, the newest exercise or gear or app.

It's really mindset.

I think each and every one of us has to decide what kind of a person do we want to be, Right?

So when you have that identity, then it's easy to pick up habits and stick with those habits, because that is who you are.

I mean, somebody once brought up to me a while ago, they're like, wow, you really like your routines.

And I thought, huh, that's a funny thing to say to me.

I didn't.

I'm like, oh, that's just my life.

Like, I didn't see it as some kind of routine, that I'm just like, oh, that's just what I do.

That's just my.

My daily life.

Right.

So because of the fact that I've decided my.

I see myself as somebody that deeply values my health, and I see myself as somebody that deeply believes in following my purpose.

So the people that I have as friends, the people that I work with, the choices that are making for myself, if they're not in alignment with who I say I am, and don't get me wrong, I have gone off the.

I've gone off the path, right?

And it feels.

It's like putting on a coat that doesn't fit you quite well.

It feels.

Something feels a little off.

Something feels a little awkward.

And it's those moments.

I'm like, oh, I am not living in alignment with who I claim that I am.

And the minute you get back on track and doing all those things that everything just flows.

You don't have to work at it.

You don't have to push it.

It just flows.

So the mindset is to decide what's my purpose and who am I, Then the habits will just come to you because they resonate with who you say you are.

Right.

But until you make up your mind about that, and I get it, these are hard things to do, Right.

It involves really completely deconstructing yourself and then building yourself back up again.

Because we all have our family of origin, and, you know, our parents do the best that they can do with the tools and the information that they have.

Right?

So to not come face to face like, oh, that wasn't quite right, or, oh, not everybody does that.

Like, it's kind of hard, Right.

It's like, yeah, you start questioning everything you believe as truth.

Yeah.

So to really go through that process and then rebuild yourself back up again with what is truly in, not what your Parents believe.

But what do you, as a.

What do you believe?

What is your purpose?

What are your dreams and goals, which could be vastly different from the way you were raised?

Absolutely.

And so those are uncomfortable spaces and places, places to be.

But once you figure that out for yourself, the health, the wealth, their abundance, everything else you want kind of starts coming to you.

Because now you're resonant at that level and life is.

Life flows.

Yeah, absolutely.

I.

One of the things, you know, that I talk to women about is so many of us have been living our lives based on other people's expectations and other people's definition of success or whatever it is.

And we don't even realize it until we.

One day it kind of hits us or it comes to a head, might be health issues.

It might be we're just stressed all the time, whatever it is.

But it's like one day you wake up and you realize, like, am I living my life for me?

And to your point, your most authentic life, not because someone told me I need to be this, to have this career, or I needed to have this type of family, or I needed to write, do this kind of thing.

And we hold a lot of stress in that when.

When we're living that life and we haven't said, we haven't taken the time to do the work, right.

And to reflect on when in my life isn't what I want.

Right.

Like, what.

What is it that I want different?

So I think that's so true.

And then two, I think what you said about mindset, it's, it's.

It is who we want to be or who.

But it's who we're becoming, too.

So for instance, somebody might say, well, I haven't really focused on my health in the past, but I know that I want to be healthy as I get older.

Right.

And so in that case, right.

You may be in the past, you didn't identify as that person, but you can identify that I want to be able to do everything I want in my 50s and 60s, 70s, 80s, I want to be able to do things for myself.

I want to be able to, once I one day have grandkids, when I have grandkids, to be able to play with them.

So then you say to myself, I want to be this healthy version of myself.

Right?

In other words, it doesn't mean that your past was even that.

It's that you.

You realize you want this bad enough because there's a reason for it, and this is who you're going to become by deciding it Right.

Deciding I am a healthy person, and then we start having small shifts.

I think, you know, in that.

Yes.

No, I think that's very.

That's a significant distinction to be like, yes.

This is who.

It's like, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur.

Well, what do entrepreneurs do?

Right.

Like, what is a successful entrepreneur like?

Nobody wants to be an unsuccessful entrepreneur.

Right.

It's like, so.

But once you decide that, like, this is what I want to become.

Yes.

And you can start saying, okay, how do I.

How do I get there?

I feel it's easier for us to do that around wealth and not as easy to do it around health.

Yeah.

And so speaking about the mindset, what would you say maybe is the top couple things where people get stuck?

In other words, what is it that's holding them back from actually shifting their mindset?

Oh, that's such a layered thing.

Because as human beings, we're so complex and there's so much psychology, which is another thing that I've been digging into.

Like, the psychology of us as a species is very fascinating for a lot of people.

It's just that when you decide that you want to be something else other than what you were raised as, now you're doing something different.

Right.

So maybe I'd like to use food as an example, because for a lot of people, sometimes those small changes goes against how you were raised or how, you know, how you've always been.

We're creatures of routine.

Yeah.

Some of those routines are healthy.

Some of those routines are not as healthy.

Right.

So when we have routines that we know are not serving us, I don't like to use good or bad, because nothing is ever good or bad.

Right.

Things are neutral.

Is just a perception.

Is it serving you?

Is it not serving you?

That's how I prefer people to look at it.

It's not bad.

But is it serving me?

So for me, I've come to the point that if I say, is this serving me?

And the answer is no, I just drop it like a sack of hot potatoes.

Because it's not.

I know that it's not going to get me to my end goal.

Like, this is my end goal.

This is where I want to be.

This behavior right now is not going to get me there.

So I have to let it go.

But that's years and years of practice of letting go.

And that's.

That's part of it.

But it's.

Are you willing to let go of who you're supposed to be?

Are you willing to step?

Because as.

As a Species, we live in communities like, you know, we're, we're packed thesis, to be quite honest with you.

Right.

Yeah.

In this and that, approval and being part of the group is very important.

So nobody really wants to be the lone wolf on the fringes of the group.

Right.

And that's something that happens when you decide to start making health changes.

If you're in a relationship and you have a, you know, you have a husband or your wife and one person decides, I'm doing this big health thing and the other person is not on board and now you start.

It's those frictions.

Right.

And those are the things that make it difficult for people.

Do you have the support to do this life change that you want to do?

Is there resistance that's coming?

Because there's enough resistance coming from you because now you just have to do a 180 on your life.

But if there are external forces as well, that makes it even more difficult to say, I'm going to become this person because now everybody else has to change.

Just like Kristen.

Just because you decided to do all this stuff, don't, don't make me change, you know, don't make me give up the way that I'm eating and living and doing stuff.

I know it's not serving me, but that's what I'm doing.

Right, right.

That those are the things that I notice.

Whether or not you have support, whether or not you have buy in from your group of people.

And that's the other thing.

Right.

Research has shown that I believe if a friend of a friend smokes, there's a 30% chance that you will also smoke, even though you've never met this friend of a friend's friend.

Right.

So it's kind of crazy.

The people around us, they do influence our health in ways that maybe we're not really paying attention to.

You know, they say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

So I really tell people, assess who you spend a lot of time with.

If they're angry, if they're bitter, if they're resentful, if the class is always half empty.

That may be one of the reasons you feel the way you feel.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you know, it's really is an inside job.

And I would just add, besides mindset and trying to move into who we want to be, I think it's also what are we saying to ourselves?

Right.

What you just kind of alluded to it, but it really matters, you know, Are you continuing to use negative words and Language, you know, about yourself, about your body, about your health situation or your financial or whatever it is.

But you know, they've shown right through studies that what we say does impact even our, our mental health, but our physical health as well.

And so I think sometimes we think, I want to get healthier, I'm going to spending the money, I'm going to a.

Some sort of health practitioner.

But yet we're still having this dialogue about ourselves or about our environment, our situation.

It's not helping us to shift into a better place, you know, in our health.

I mean, do you see that as well?

A lot of times it's our self talk.

Like, you know, that's another huge thing that your self talk determines how you feel, which determines the actions that you take.

So I have two boys in our house.

I can't is not a word that's allowed, you know, Or I'm not, I'm not good.

I'm like, no, I am getting better at math, I need to get better at science.

I can, I'm going to grow to be a better artist, whatever it is.

But the minute you start talking negatively to yourself, oh, I'm not, I'm never gonna be, I'm not somebody that, I'm not somebody that meditates.

I can never meditate, I can never do this.

You know, I don't deserve this.

People like me.

And yes, that negative self talk, you actually start to embody that.

And that is a huge block to you actually doing what it is that you want to do.

And for some people it's subconscious, right?

Absolutely.

For some people this is very, you know, with.

And this goes into how you were raised, like, you know, like your life journey and stuff like that.

So if you're coming from a place of, if you've always been told like, oh no, that's not for you.

You know, some people are like, oh no, no honey, that's not for you.

Or whatever the case may be, unless you have that I deserve this, you know, I deserve this, I can do this.

And I always tell people, rally the troops if you have to.

We, for some reason in North America, we feel like we got to do everything on our own.

Yeah, right.

How many things going, oh, they're, they're great.

Meanwhile, the house is on fire.

Why are you not calling your neighbors to say my house is on fire, I need help.

You go, water, whatever, a fire extinguisher.

And so part of it is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, like, you know, to say, how are things are not going great?

And this is where I need help.

And so when people are in that space, right, that's when you really need to find a good support system.

People that you can, that can say, hey, you know what, we got your back, I'll check in with you, I'll go walk in with you.

Whatever it is that you've planned that you want to be or you want to do, not only do you have to work on that self talk aspect of it, you know, to, to not self sabotage, but also to get support system.

So when those things start to happen, which a lot of it again is subconscious, right.

These are just patterns that we just revert to, especially when things are stressful.

When the rubber meets the road, you just go back to what you know, even though it's not necessarily the best thing for you.

This is where, whether it's professional support, friends, family, whatever it is, this is where it's really important so that you know, you though that tide is going to carry you to where you say you want to go to or where you or who you want to be.

Yeah, absolutely.

So good.

Okay, so if we, we get now, okay, the mindset and our thoughts have so, so much to do with our life overall, right?

How we're living our life, what life we have, you know, what we're going for, and then of course our health as well.

So once we've kind of figured that part out.

When I say figured out, I mean we understand how important it is.

You know, it doesn't mean it's all perfect.

What would you say is the next most important things for people just to.

Well, one, I'm a big advocate or fan of people being their own health advocate.

I think we have to at this point.

But I don't think the majority of the population, I mean, I feel like there's less people still that understand that, right.

That we have to.

Much like your statement, right.

Like we have to be informed, we have to get educated, we have to make decisions for ourselves to ask good questions and then of course find people to come alongside us on our journey.

Right.

And sometimes those are going to be practitioners.

What would you just say though, like, are the top things other than our mindset and our thoughts that we can be doing just to have a healthier, you know, and have a more vital life, you know, just a great life.

I, you know, I want to touch that piece about self advocating.

I think it's very important and I tell, I tell patients all the time, well, you know, patients think it's fine because I asked them how Do.

How do you, what are you thinking?

So one piece is self awareness.

Right.

So it's one time or how, but really becoming more in tuned.

You know, I think we've gone, especially in women's health, we've gone, done this thing where women are highly intuitive.

You know, it's a gift that as a woman, pretty much there's this kind of based on our physiology, this thing with intuition that women not to say that men are not intuitive, you know, and you know, they're definitely men that are intuitive, but women are highly intuitive.

Funny enough, it seems men are more emotional.

It's actually upbringing that suppresses that, you know, for a lot of, for a lot of men.

But being self aware, because I tell patients, you're saying me once a week, maybe once a month, there's no way I could know more about what's going on in your body that you carry around with you 24 7.

Right.

So one of the things I really advocate for people is to become more self aware.

Yeah.

And that means spending more time with yourself.

Uninterrupted time.

You know, right now there is, there's the tv, the radio, the, you know, your phone.

We're constantly finding ways to distract ourselves.

Right.

And in all that distraction, you really lose track of what's going on.

When I ask some people, oh, they're like, oh, I don't know.

I was hoping you could tell me how's that possible?

Yeah.

You know, so I think self awareness is a big thing.

Yeah.

And along with self awareness, I'm really big on some kind of mindfulness practice.

Right.

Like I feel that goes when you, when you find time to become more mindful, then that's when you become more self aware.

And interestingly enough, that's when you become more intuitive.

So it's easier for you to know what resonates because I tell people.

Right.

I make suggestions, you make decisions.

So I tell people, go home and sit with it.

And they think I'm crazy because nobody's ever told them to go home.

Go home and sit with it.

What comes to you?

It's amazing how many people say, I don't know, you just tell me where to start.

That's right.

Right.

So finding time to, for some quiet time is important.

Yeah.

And then the last one for me definitely is working on our diet.

Like, you know, and when I say diet, I'm talking about eating foods that are nourishing.

I know there's a lot of stuff about going back to the way things were and there's, there's a little bit of romanticism with that.

You know, probably your grandmother had a garden.

Like, you know, a lot of people can remember grandmother, that our great grandparents had gardens.

They grew their own foods.

And that's not really possible and you know, for everybody in today's modern day, but just becoming more knowledgeable.

Right.

And but with knowledge, you're able to make better decisions.

And I really advocate for people, small changes and, you know, people.

I think it was Bill Gates that said, people overestimate what they could do in a month, but underestimate what they could do in a year.

Right, right.

So making those small daily changes, and you'd be amazed that at the end of the year, wow, you've done a 180, you know, on your life.

But because I work with women's health, I'm just realizing how much the.

The gut microbiome is.

Right.

Significant.

It is for like our brain or reproductive system or hormones.

I mean, you cannot name it.

It seems the gut microbiome in some way or another is influencing our physical health.

And so that would be the other area that I really tell people.

And it's not really about doing the latest fad or doing the latest diet, is just about going back to eating unprocessed, you know, wholesome foods.

80% of the time.

If people just started with 80% of the time, it doesn't have to be an all or none.

Doesn't have to be like, nope.

It's like you have to leave some leeway for vacation and gathering and just enjoying life.

Like, you know, if your life is not fulfilling and if you're doing something and you're resentful and angry about it, that is not the right path for you.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

And about the gut, I mean, don't they call it now the second brain?

I think, and they've also tied our gut health or.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that.

They talk, they say all time.

Some people say Alzheimer's is what is the.

What, another type of diabetes.

Right?

Yeah.

Neuroinflammation, type three.

It's not being called, like, type three because it's.

It's really.

I know that's more blood sugar necessarily than gut.

But the point, though is, is this is all tied together and what we eat, but what we're.

What's going on in our gut matters so much.

Right.

To the rest of our body, like you said.

And yeah, so like you said, mostly just eating more whole foods and then I think also just healthy swaps, like, if I Do want something, I mean, to try to not have a lot of sugar, but if I have some, I pick the healthy, cleaner candy that has like only a gram or 2 grams of sugar in it, not 24 grams of sugar.

Right.

Or whatever.

So it's, it doesn't make me go crazy with the blood sugar.

And it's, it, it's more satisfying.

Right.

It's a dark chocolate, but stuff like that.

And I'm not saying we're going to shift everything at one time, but it's those little things like you said, over a whole year that's, you know, not having it or having it just on occasion, but it being a healthier choice still is going to add up, right?

For the, for the whole year.

Absolutely.

I mean, I make brownies.

I still make brownies, cookies.

You know, it's not that, but it's just that anything that's packaged with preservatives is gonna have a huge detrimental effect.

And actually tell people, you know, I have, I have some young patients and it's amazing how it's my young patients that are reminding their parents.

Remember what Dr.

A.B.

said, you know, I have.

Because their parents report back to me where now the kids at the grocery store say, well, I can't have this.

Dr.

Abby said, you know, it.

This is, I should need to eat less of this.

So if you're picking up something packaged in the first ingredient is sugar, then you know that you may, you know, if that is something you're eating on a regular basis.

Right.

We may have problems.

So it's.

You have to have.

Leave room for, Yes, a lot of.

But having alternate with the Internet these days.

Oh my gosh, there's so many.

I don't bother with recipes because there's so many bloggers out there that are doing a fantastic job.

Right.

And you know, one of my kids favorite brownies was using black beans.

And I remember my oldest had an assignment to do at school about his favorite dessert and he put black bean brownies.

And the other kids, he came home feeling absolutely dejected about that because they made fun of him.

Right.

But if I were to make those brownies for Those kids, they 100% would not know that it's actually made with black beans.

Right.

And maple syrup.

It tastes fudgy, it's chocolatey, it's sweet, and there's nothing disgusting about it.

Right.

But because we attach certain ideas g broccoli.

Who wants to eat that?

Oh, black beans.

Right.

Because of that perception, it transfers over to, oh, that's going to be disgusting even before I've actually tasted it.

So I kind of encourage people to step a little bit out of your comfort zone.

Like, you know, there, as I said, there are lots of.

Pick one of the more popular bloggers, you know, that are out there that are making stuff.

If there's five, there are 2,000 people that gave this 4.8 stars.

It's not going to be that disgusting, I could tell you that much.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, good thoughts there.

So why don't you just share with us just a little bit about acupuncture?

Like why might someone, if they've never tried it, try it?

And what are some of the reasons why you might go to an acupuncturist?

Oh my goodness.

So acupuncture is one of those modalities that it's, it looks at the body very differently.

Like, number one, Chinese medicine, I think has been around for 5,000 years now.

Right, So a long time.

Yeah, it's been around for a long time.

So it's a form of medicine that's been cataloging the human condition for like, you know, for a long time.

And what I see, acupuncture really, really helpful, honestly, for the modern day woman.

It's great for stress.

Like a significant amount of people that I see, well, they say 80% of conditions are psychosomatic.

Meaning that it's not that it's in your head, meaning that you know, it's from some emotional stressor.

Right.

And we lead very stressful lives now.

You know, life is, is by and large a little bit more stressful for several reasons than maybe what it was 100 years ago.

Right.

Or even what it was 50 years ago.

And so acupuncture works great for stress.

I'm talking about most people use acupuncture for pain, but I actually don't use acupuncture for a lot of pain.

I use it for stress.

It's great for women's health, whether it's like, you know, hot flashes or brain fog or fatigue.

I use it for bladder conditions and it works really quite well for chronic bladder issues, I mean, for fertility women who have pcos.

So a lot of times I use acupuncture in conjunction with other things that I'm doing.

Right.

So with pcos you couldn't just use acupuncture needles.

So just doing needles alone does have its limitation.

When people think of acupuncture, they're not, they're just thinking of needles.

But Chinese medicine has like, you know, there's the things you do with the cupping, which you see on athletes, which is tween.

The herbal pharmacopoeia is huge in Chinese medicine.

So when you're talking about more internal organization conditions, that's where you add Chinese herbs.

So Chinese herbs in connection with acupuncture tend to work very nicely.

I've used it for IVF pre and post embryo transfer.

There's actually some good research to show that there's better.

You could increase your success rate by about 30% just by adding acupuncture to IVF.

So those are the, the common reasons that I will use IVF in conjunction with stuff that I'm doing as a natur doctor.

Also used it for headaches, for certain types of headaches.

Now, this is an interesting little piece.

I have had people say, oh, I don't like acupuncture.

It doesn't do anything for me.

And believe it or not, there is a genetic component that some people, yeah, genetically, some people are more likely to respond favorably to acupuncture than others.

So if you give it a try for eight tries and you really don't like it, you may be that subset of people that does not respond as favorably to acupuncture.

So it's not, it's not everybody that agrees with, but I've seen agree with more people than not agree with them.

Wow.

So good.

All right, so let me ask you this.

What would just be, as we start to wrap up, what would be one or two things that if you could just share with everybody, you know, for just living a better life or somewhere in the wellness or health thing, that you would just say, this is just the one or two health habits or things that I think everybody should be doing or do more of or add.

Into their lives the two things that come to mind.

So I've already mentioned one of them.

Like taking care of your gut is, you know, I feel absolutely essential.

And I know before we started recording, we talked a little bit, you know, I mean, that perimenopause, menopausal kind of age category.

And what we're learning, what I tell women, is that your body in your 30s is what you inherit that moves you into your perimenopausal years.

Right.

So if in your 30s your health is not that great, by the time you get into your 40s and your 50s, it's going to be even.

You're going to notice more issues, like, you know, more health issues, more chronic stuff, and it's going to require a lot more work for you to get back to balance so the one thing I would like, I just really, really focus in on our gut health, I believe, is one.

And that's a, that's a big thing.

The other thing that I'm really passionate about is movement.

So I'm moving away from exercise.

I'm not saying exercise.

I'm telling people to move.

If you were to look at the blue zones, like, you know, that look.

So the things that stuck out in the blue zones were what they ate, right?

Movement.

And these people in Sicily were.

Those hills were like, you know, in Italy, those hills, and they were having daily movement.

None of those grandmas was at the gym, like, you know, lifting weights.

I really encourage women especially, especially as you move into your 40s, to start adding more resistance training.

It's good for your hormones, it's good for your sex life, it's good for your bones.

Like, it's really, really essential.

And then the, the other thing that stuck out to me was connection.

Yeah.

All of these people that were living to a hundred years had.

They were part of a community and they all had connection.

And, and, and I think those are really huge.

And to wrap up as a naturopathic doctor, because those are broad categories, right.

For me, this is where I start using like genomics and epigenetics to really help people tease out what are the things.

When we talk about your movement or how you're supposed to eat, there really isn't any one size fits all.

Not everybody needs to do CrossFit.

Not everybody, like, you know, that's not what we're talking.

Not everybody needs to avoid dairy, for example.

Right?

So when you understand your genetics, you could actually better tailor your dietary needs, you could better tailor your exercise needs.

It kind of gives you a really good idea of where the gaps are, you know, on a molecular and cellular level.

So now you're really doing things that are moving the needle for you as opposed to just hopping from one idea to the other.

And that's what everybody does.

Everybody online that has a program is because it worked for them.

Well, unless you're twins, there's no guarantee that that program is going to work for you.

Right?

Which is why some people are like, oh, I tried that didn't work for me.

That makes absolute sense.

Right.

Because any intervention would work for some people and not work for other people just, just because of your genetic makeup.

So now I'm kind of really moving into that space of genomics to help people tighten things up so you're not wasting time and energy and you're actually getting Results and moving in the direction that you want to move.

Yeah.

So good.

And just for people, maybe they haven't really thought about getting their, like working with somebody to get their genes tested.

What would you say is typically a price range?

And I know it ranges because you can test a multitude of things.

Right.

Or different levels.

But just a.

People are wondering, would they go to a health practitioner, like a naturopathic practitioner, and what sort of health or prices is somebody needing to know that there's going to be this cost?

Because for a lot of us it's not going to get covered.

Right now, I don't think for insurance.

So that's a hard question for me to answer.

I'll tell you what I do.

I actually, I've been using people that come to me.

They've done their 23andMe, and I know there's some stuff going on with 23andMe, which we don't have time to get into.

And some people have questions about privacy.

And there are ways that you can have anonymity.

Believe it or not, even On a database like 23andMe, you can still get the answers you're wanting without letting the whole world know who you are, what your genetic makeup is.

To be quite Honest, I do 23andMe and Ancestry.

And then I use a platform called Genetic Life Hacks.

And you know, and you know, that platform helps you interpret your raw data.

You know, you kind of get a cheat sheet, so to speak is what it's called.

Right.

But there are some companies that you do your entire, like, you know, a big genome and you're looking at thousands of dollars for you to get that done.

It's really, the genetic analysis piece is not really in the hands of a practitioner, so to speak.

The practitioner prize comes with guiding you.

Right.

So I do reports for people that kind of takes your current health issues, your medical history, your family history.

So you use all that information to say, okay, based on all this information, this is why you're experiencing the symptoms and this is what you have to do if your goal is to have health span.

And that ranges from doctor to doctor that's doing this, like how much they're going to charge.

Of course, the more doctors that have the most experience, they're charging more money because they've done a lot of this and you're getting basically a bigger bang for your buck.

And so what I recommend to people is if you're interested in this, most doctors offer a meet and greet, you know, so sit down, meet the practitioner, ask them questions and make sure that what they're offering is actually, you know, going to benefit you and it's what you're looking for.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

So you still have to keep that in mind.

Right.

That some of the recommendations is not necessarily based on clinical experience or clinical practice.

It's theory.

And theory doesn't always translate to, you know, a real live human being that's experiencing and interacting with the world on a regular basis.

Right, yeah, very good point.

Well, thank you so much, Dr.

Iby, for joining us today and sharing so much insight and wisdom and I just.

Can you share with people how can they find out more about you, you know, and your services if they were interested?

Yeah, so I'm on what, I'm on Instagram.

So doctor absolutedoctor.my name.

I share some information on Instagram.

I also have a, I have a website, so Dr.iomole.com so Dr.iamola.com is my website and there's information on my website as well.

And people can always contact me.

There's a contact form.

So if anybody has any questions, they could always shoot me an email and I'll respond back.

Oh, thank you so much for joining us today.

Love that today's episode reminded all of us that everything we want to change in our life, everything we want to improve, starts with our, our mindset and what we think and what we repeat to ourselves.

What words we use matter so much to our health, but also to the way that we perceive the world and the way that we show up in the world.

And I know that all of us want to show up for ourselves and we want to step into our best years and our best health in our future lives.

And so I wanted to share just a quick suggestion with you from the book the Gift by Edith Eager, who is a, a world renowned psychologist and she's also a Holocaust survivor.

She says I can, I want, I'm willing for one day.

Keep track of every time you say I can't, I need, I should and I'm trying.

I can't means I won't.

I need and I should mean I'm abdicating my freedom of choice and I'm trying is lying.

Eliminate, eliminate this language from your vocabulary.

You can't let go of something unless you replace it with something else.

Replace the language of fear with something else.

I can, I want I'm willing, I choose, I am.

Friends, let's start using these positive words to describe ourselves, to describe the person we're becoming to the health that we want.

Because when we start doing this, we're going to start changing our health habits and our patterns.

And so I just want to share that with you.

So let's start shifting our language to I can, I want, I'm willing, I choose, and I am.

Until next time, I hope you have a great and healthful week.

Thanks again for listening to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristen.

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