Reduce Stress with These Three Pillars with Dr. Zephanie Cole: Episode 245

Dr Danielle:
Welcome to the Health and Wellness Practitioners podcast. I am your host, Dr. Danielle Angela. In this show, I and my guest experts will talk about everything from getting your practice started to developing your clinical skills, growing your practice your way, and of course, dealing with the real stuff like burnout and work-life balance. Whether you've been practicing for decades or just started your journey, you'll find something here for you. So take a deep breath and enjoy the show.

Dr Danielle:
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Health and Wellness Practitioners Podcast. I have Dr. Zephanie Cole here with me today, who is a chiropractor and acupuncturist as well as a functional medicine practitioner. And she has been in Aligned Women for a long time. And now currently I am her private business coach. I asked her to come on the podcast today to share with you her steps for stressing less, even when your practice is busy, it can be a stressful thing, right? So no matter what phase of practice you're in, I think that the, the things we'll talk about today will be helpful for you. So before we dive into, how do stress lesson be at your best, the rapid fire questions.

Dr Zephanie:
All right,

Dr Danielle:
Zephanie, are you ready?

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah.

Dr Danielle:
Okay. So first things first. Tell us why you chose the career path that you're on.

Dr Zephanie:
Well, my story begins before I was even born. I have two older brothers and my youngest brother and I are 10 years apart. And my mom tells me that they had tried like a year to have me. And she had been to a chiropractor her whole life and she went to a different one who did muscle testing, who found out that she wasn't ovulating. So he put her on a supplement protocol and then she tells me I'm her miracle baby, cuz I appeared. And as an infant I had a ton of ear infections. So she took me to the chiropractor a lot so I didn't have to be on so many antibiotics. But my real reasoning is in the 10th grade I had a knee injury and I went to the chiropractor and they just fixed it. And I thought, well, this is really cool. So in the 10th grade I decided I wanted to be a chiropractor and I never looked back.

Dr Danielle:
Wow. That's, I feel like that's so cool to know at such a young age what you want to do as a career, you know, and, and a career like ours where you take on a lot of student loan debt, it takes a lot of time to study and get your degree. It's a very big commitment. So most of us enter this profession thinking this is what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that's, that's really awesome. And actually, I kind of feel jealous cause I didn't, didn't know for myself sooner, but, you know, it's all worked out the way that it was meant to. Okay. Question number two is what fills you up?

Dr Zephanie:
I love just being outside, going for walks. Travel fills me up, reading, fills me up reading books. Those, those are like my favorite things.

Dr Danielle:
What about like what you do outside besides walking? What do you like to do outside?

Dr Zephanie:
Just really sit in nature and you know, I really enjoy walking in the mornings when the sun comes up. And just kind of beginning your day that way. Sometimes I'll listen to podcasts and it's just a time for me to, to have my own time during the day. Get some movement, get some fresh air.

Dr Danielle:
Even in the very, very cold Minnesota.

Dr Zephanie:
Yes. Yeah. I'm in Minnesota and I will put my snow pants on and my hat and I will bundle up like a crazy person and, and do, it.

Dr Danielle:
Makes me feel like I shouldn't complain about the weather in Missouri. . You guys have really, really had a Not fun winter.

Dr Zephanie:
It has been long.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. . Okay. Question number three. What do you like the least about running your own business?

Dr Zephanie:
I would say it's a toss up between marketing and the accounting. I just reconciled QuickBooks the other day and there were a couple times when I was like, I hate this , but I got it done.

Dr Danielle:
I think those are probably everybody's least favorite things. The taxes and the marketing. Yeah.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah. It's the behind the scenes stuff that people don't understand always.

Dr Danielle:
Mm-Hmm. . Yep. The things that you do when you're not seeing patients that your patients think are, you know, it's your time off, but actually you're still working, you're just not seeing patients or clients.

Dr Zephanie:
Yes.

Dr Danielle:
Okay. Question four is, what book do you think every person should read?

Dr Zephanie:
I love everything stress related and how to reduce that. And so I really think that everyone should read the book Do Less by Kate Northrop.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. That's one of my favorites. Yeah. I thought you were going to say, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Have you read that?

Dr Zephanie:
I've never read that book. It's Oh my gosh. You know, I've heard it recommended a lot, but I've never read it.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. I mean, it, it goes into the science of, you know, the sympathetic nervous system and how it affects our health and, and like how essentially, I don't know if they ever say it in the book this way, that nervous system dysregulation is the, the roots of our, our health issues. Yeah. oh, also on the note of like stress and physiology and epigenetics. The Prenatal Prescription, I cannot recall the name of the author right now. I read that book in chiropractic school actually as well as Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. The Prenatal Prescription is so good. Oh, I think there's a completed version of it, so

Dr Zephanie:
I've never heard of that. I'm gonna have to put that on my list

Dr Danielle:
For all of the people that listen and go to Audible and use their audible credits to get these books that we recommend. You now have three audible credits to use. Okay. Last rapid fire question is, on a scale of zero to 10, how crunchy are you?

Dr Zephanie:
? I am affiliated with a company called Crunchy. So , I think I have to be a little bit, I would, on a scale of one to 10, I'd say I am a solid seven.

Dr Danielle:
Nice. Okay. As always, no right or wrong answer. Right. It's like, just a funny question. Sometimes I ask and the guest doesn't really even know what that word means. I had two male guests on the show recently and they were like, they were pretty high. They knew what they were talking about and they were like, I'm a solid 10.

Dr Zephanie:
Oh wow. Good job.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah, they were very crunchy Dads . Okay, so next I wanted to ask you to share just a little bit about, gosh, I think like why you have been working with me as a business coach for so long. It's been, since roughly 2018. What has been the biggest benefit for you in our time together?

OUR COACHING RELATIONSHIP

Dr Zephanie:
Well, I started looking for a coach because at the end of 2017 and into 2018, I was burned out. I felt really overwhelmed. I have labs that show that I was burnt out and I knew that I couldn't continue doing things the way that I had been doing them, but I didn't know how to change them. So I knew I needed to ask for help. So I found, found you and right away we started making changes into my schedule. I was just spread out way too thin and like switch tasking. So going from, you know, trying to finish an email and then a patient would come in and then it's like, oh, I didn't get my computer stuff done and it was just not condensed. And I would be going into the office super late at night to work on notes because I never had time designated for the business aspect of it. We were never taught really how to fit that into a schedule. So that was like the biggest thing that you helped me with right away is creating time to work on the business and then creating time just for me because I never, it was like, I never shut off thinking about the business cuz I was always doing it after patient care. So that was a huge thing. But man, I've learned a lot from you about technology.

Dr Danielle:
That's so interesting to me. Cause I, people I think assume that I'm tech savvy and I don't feel tech savvy at all.

Dr Zephanie:
Oh, I think you are and now I'm working with you for private coaching because there's things that I really wanted to implement this year. And again, I knew I needed help and I knew that you could help me get there. So yeah.

Dr Danielle:
Well thank you for sharing that and thank you for being along on the journey with me over the last few years. So I wanna give you the spotlight now and let you share more about your own expertise and help our audience too at the same time because who is not stressed? I mean, raise your virtual hands if you are not stressed. And I don't think we would see any hands raised. I I can't remember the last time I talked to someone who didn't feel, you know a level of stress that they felt like was unhealthy for them. And they feel that way pretty much all of the time. And it's not to normalize that level of stress at all. Right? But just to speak to how common it is. So well I think where I would want you to start is like, where do you start with people in your practice who are really stressed? What is the first thing that you have them do?

HOW STRESSED DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Dr Zephanie:
Well, I wanna back up and, you know, you're asking people how stressed that they are and I ask that question of my patients on, on a daily basis. And even if, I mean, if they rate high, like, hey, I wanna help you. But also if they rate low or for somebody listening to this, maybe they know somebody in their life who has a lot of stress so they can, you know, share and say, Hey, I think I might have something that helps you. And not all stress is bad. So when I have a patient coming in, my business name is Aligned Chiropractic and Acupuncture PLC, and the word align has a pillar in the middle of it, the eye is a pillar. And I think of health in terms of pillars of health and it follows kind of my own health story.

 

Dr Zephanie:
But I want you to think of a, a pillar as like Legos stacked on top of one of each other. And when they're in a straight line, they're in alignment and that pillar can withstand stress when it's in alignment. But if we were to put those legos kind of jaggedly stacked up, that pillar would look kinky or it might be leaning to one side, and then when stress comes on it, it's gonna fall and break. So a pillar is made up of individual components and I have three main pillars that I like to look at. They're the gut health pillar, the hormone pillar, and the toxin pillar. And those are things that I look at for patients. And I can look at all three of those through the Dutch test, which is a hormone test. We can look at that hormone pillar, that's kind of what the Dutch test is, but there are markers on there that can show us like, hey, we maybe need to dig into those individual blocks of the gut health pillar. Same with the toxin. Like there's markers on there that, oh, we maybe need to look at the blocks that make up that toxin pillar.

Dr Danielle:
What would you say to someone who, you know, like they've been maybe in the health and wellness world for a long time, they're a practitioner where like they're just really a, a crunchy person themselves and they feel like they've already done a lot of gut healing types of things, but yet they're still struggling with this stuff. What are the kinds of things that you see that maybe people need to do differently or like that they've been doing? I wanna say wrong, but like that they need to do differently even though they think they've already done all the things. Does that make sense?

THE THREE STRESS PILLARS & DUTCH TESTING

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah. Well I'm gonna tell you my story about the pillars because I thought I was okay. Yes. And then this is what really got me into like Dutch testing. So when I, like my last year in chiropractic school was very stressful. And this is where this stress story really starts for me. I was in my final year of chiropractic school, I was trying to finish these classes. I was studying for national board exams and then my dad died. So that's a very stressful thing to go through your final year of chiropractic school and you're not home.

Dr Zephanie:
And then I have to figure out when I finish this, what I'm gonna do. So I did finish and I opened my practice within another chiropractor's office and that turned out to be a very stressful environment. And so that stress was all stacked on top of each other. And I really think that that was a trigger. So stress alone can lead to health symptoms and disease, which I don't think people understand or they're maybe not in tune enough that stress can do that. So I had a gallbladder attack and I really do think that that stress was a trigger to it. And I had blood work that was fine. And I had an ultrasound. I didn't have any stones. And then I had a HIDA scan, which showed how well my gallbladder emptied and it was not good. So they had recommended that I have it removed.

THE GUT STRESS PILLAR

Dr Zephanie:
Well, I had just come outta chiropractic school and it was like every organ in your body is important. And the body can heal itself. And nobody was talking about why this happened to me. I didn't have stones. So that's when I went and saw my functional medicine provider and I was like, I will do anything to save myself from the surgery because all of that other stuff. But there's a financial aspect too as like, you're having a surgery, you're gonna be out of practice, you just started this practice. And so they tested me for food sensitivities and while I was waiting for the results, they put me on a detox and I found out that I was very sensitive to dairy. Now looking back, it makes sense to me, but at the time I had, I just had no idea. So I changed my diet, I started learning about gut health and food and to date I have not had to have that surgery.

Dr Danielle:
And how many years has it been now?

Dr Zephanie:
I had that gallbladder attack in 2014,

Dr Danielle:
So nine years.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. That's incredible.

Dr Zephanie:
It was life changing. I mean, it really was. But then to say like, you know, you're doing all of this stuff and then you're still not feeling well. So kind of fast forward to that 2018, I turned 30 years old and I was very overwhelmed in practice. So again, that stress comes into play. I felt like I was running here and there and wearing all the hats and everything. And I had seen my functional medicine practitioner for something else. And I think I was telling 'em how overwhelmed and stressed I felt and they were like, have you ever had your hormones checked? And I was like, no, because my menstrual cycle works like clockwork. like, I don't, I don't need to have this checked. And I went home and I was like, why did they ask that? And I was like, well, I like to learn, so let's do it.

Dr Zephanie:
So I had my hormones run. I will never forget the phone call that the nurse had. They called me and they were like, your practitioner is recommending you to come in and discuss hormone replacement therapy. And I was really floored. I didn't know what that meant. I thought that was something that older people did. It was sounded scary and it freaked me out, but my hormones were tanked. And this is the thing though, like my menstrual cycle ran like clockwork, but my progesterone was tanked, my cortisol was tanked. And I said to them, I feel like I'm doing all these things. I'm getting adjusted. I know what my food sensitivities are, so I'm avoiding those. I'm taking supplements, you know, I'm trying to exercise, like, I mean, what more do you want me to do ? And so yeah, you can feel like you are doing all the things and you can still not be well. And labs can show that and you might not feel well. So there's always more to look at.

Dr Danielle:
I think too, your story just also allows people to know that there's also hope when you do feel like you're doing all the things to take care of your health and you still don't feel well. Like you, you feel okay. And in the worst case scenario is you don't even feel okay despite all the things you're doing. But like you, you might feel okay, but you know, like you could feel better or you feel like you should have more energy. Like you, you should be not gaining weight. You should be able to release weight more easily because of all the things you do to support your health. But yeah, your story, I really feel like gives, gives that person hope that there is a solution and like they're not stuck this way forever.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah.

Dr Danielle:
Okay. So recap the three pillars for me.

THE TOXIN STRESS PILLAR

Dr Zephanie:
So I kind of went over the gut health and my story with my gallbladder hormones were when my hormones were tanked. And the other thing I asked my practitioner I did, I told 'em that, you know, I'm doing all these things. I mean, I know stress was a part of this, but like, why do my hormones look like this? And they said that toxins were a huge part of affecting hormones. So toxins act as endocrine disruptors. They can look close enough like our hormones and attached to cell sites, but they look different enough that they don't allow the body to do its normal pathway. And so that can really mess up hormone levels as well. So when my practitioner told me that, I literally went home and I started looking at my personal care products and really learning about looking at ingredient labels and not only what is on our personal care products, but what we're using in our house and the foods that we eat. So I, I think that is an important pillar to look at. And they all, they all affect each other as well.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. In, in my first marriage, I had experienced infertility and I was only in my twenties. We had all the testing done, there was no explanation for why we were not able to conceive. And it had been years that we had been trying. And so I, I did all the things, you know, at that time, like the more healthier cleaning products and like laundry detergent and body skincare products and not using plastics, all of the things right in my home. And then I later got divorced eventually moved in with my soon to be second husband and he had a house full of these toxic things and I was just like, well, this is his house and I'm just gonna live here . And about six years later I attended a continuing education seminar with Dr. Suzanne Segins. She's in Florida.

Dr Danielle:
And I had learned from her, you know, I don't know, probably like 10 years prior to that time. And I guess I had just like forgotten some of the things that she talked about. And I went to her, her seminar that weekend and I came home and I was like, we're getting rid of all of this stuff. all the plastics and all of the cheap, you know petroleum filled skincare products are all going in the trash. And you know what was interesting, my husband at that time, he was like, okay, he . But I had been living with that stuff in the house for six years at that point because I kept thinking like, well, you know, this is like how he wants it to be. But he knew that I knew what I was doing. He knew that, you know, I if I felt that call to literally take trash bags of stuff out of our house, that there was a reason why I felt that way.

Dr Danielle:
Felt that strongly about it. And we have, you know, four children all females and protecting their health has always been our top priority together as their parents. So he actually was on board. It really wasn't a big deal. So I think for anyone that's listening, they're like, well, but I live with all these other people who want these things. That might be the case. And it might also just be time to set some boundaries and say, I'm not okay with this anymore. Cause that's what I had to do for myself. And then it was actually not a big deal.

Dr Zephanie:
And it doesn't have to be overwhelming. You know, people learn this and then it's like, oh, I gotta go throughout the whole kitchen or my whole everything in my bathroom. You can literally just start with one and like once one product Runs out. Just go try and find an alternative to that one. And a little bit does go a long ways.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. You don't have to do what I did, which was like nearly everything out of the house that I, that I knew I didn't wanna have in the house anymore. The one thing that I never got him to change was the laundry detergents . So now that I live in my own home and we're no longer a married couple, I can use whatever laundry detergent I feel like I want to use. But yeah, that was just the one thing that I, he was not willing to compromise on.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah.

Dr Danielle:
Okay. So we covered gut health and toxins. And then what is the next pillar?

THE HORMONE STRESS PILLAR

Dr Zephanie:
Hormones, which my hormone story, but another question. When I learned that I did, I did, I went on hormone replacement therapy. But I also remember at that moment thinking of, you know, all the things that I was doing and my hormones looked the way that they did, I then thought, well, what does everybody else look like? You know, that's not trying to do anything. What do their hormones look like? And so at that moment, I knew that I needed to learn more about hormones for myself, and it started that way. So I started taking courses through the Institute for Functional Medicine and what I was learning, I then came back to practice and I was starting to connect the dots and seeing symptoms and patients, and I kind of turn it off. I was like, oh, you need to try this or that. And so I did continue through their program and became a certified practitioner. And I found that the Dutch test really followed all the things that I had learned in my health journey. And so that is what I specialize in now is in Dutch hormone testing. And it, it, you can check into all those pillars by test check, doing that test.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. I have had my own experience personally with the Dutch chest and found it to be very, very eye-opening, very impactful. The results that I saw were they floored me. I was like, okay, I knew that I didn't feel well, but I couldn't believe it was that bad.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah.

Dr Danielle:
Believe that my hormones weren't really like that bad. And of course in some ways could have been worse, but like my testosterone at the time of the my initial Dutch test was like almost zero, almost zero. And in fact, the person that my practitioner that facilitated the test and read my results and gave me, you know, support afterward, she was like, I have never seen someone's testosterone so low. And I was like, that's not ever what you want to hear your doctor say. But great. Okay. So let's do something about this. But it was, it, it was actually a very, very, very easy test to do. I found it to be a little intimidating at first, which was silly because like, once I actually sat down to figure out how to do it, I was like, oh, this is really simple. And then like the, the reporting as well as also really easy to look at and like I said, makes it a, it can be very impactful, I think surprisingly impactful.

Dr Zephanie:
Yes.

Dr Danielle:
And by the way, neither of us work for the Dutch test company. I don't remember the precision,

Dr Zephanie:
Precision Analytics.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. We I think we both just really like the testing clinically and have had personal experiences with it as well. Yeah. We should have someone on the podcast from their company to talk more about what they offer. And also sidenote, Dr. Zephanie is launching her own podcast and as we're talking, I'm like, you're gonna be a great podcaster, .

Dr Zephanie:
Oh, thank

Dr Danielle:
You. And you should also have someone from Precision on your podcast too. Yeah.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah.

REDUCING STRESS LEVELS

Dr Danielle:
Okay. So we cover the three pillars. Are, is there anything else that you want to share with people about like reducing their stress levels overall?

Dr Zephanie:
I think that we need to take more time for ourselves, and it sounds kind of cushy, but we are in such a fast-paced world that if we don't set that time aside, it's not gonna happen. And you might be feeling well, but there really could be stuff going on underneath. So I think just taking moments for yourself is really important.

Dr Danielle:
I don't think that we can ever remind ourselves and each other too much that symptoms that we can notice are like the last thing that happens when there's dysfunction in your body. So if you have symptoms, there's been dysfunction happening for a long time already.

Dr Zephanie:
Yeah. Your body is so smart and it will try to do everything it can to get you back to normal. And when you either ignore it or it doesn't happen, that's where those symptoms that do cause you stress that you have to deal with are gonna show up.

Dr Danielle:
Yeah. Okay. So Dr. Zephanie if there are people that are listening who want to learn more about you and more about your practice, where is the best place for them to go?

Dr Zephanie:
Social media is good on Facebook. Align Chiropractic and Acupuncture, PLC on Instagram, we're @alignchiroacu

Dr Danielle:
Awesome. So for the listeners, be sure to remember that you can, if, especially if you're listening on an iPhone, I don't know what this looks like on an Android, but if you're listening on an iPhone on the Apple podcast app, just like touch the, the screen where the image of the podcast cover art, we call it appears and then scroll up and the show notes are just there underneath that image. All the links to anything that we talk about in this episode or other episodes are always like really easy to find if you just scroll up on the photo. But it's not necessarily obvious that it's there until you do that or someone tells you, look, just scroll and there's all this extra stuff. Okay. Awesome. Dr. Zephanie, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Thank you for sharing your expertise and your experience with working with me and also the rapid fire questions I know are everyone's favorite part of the process, that you did a great job.

Dr Zephanie:
Thank you for having me.

Dr Danielle:
You're welcome.

Dr Danielle:
Hey, thanks so much for joining me for today's episode. If you love this podcast and be sure to join our free community, the Health and Wellness Practitioners Group over on Facebook where you can continue the discussion and get to know other people in the community as well. We're a group of chiropractors, natural paths, acupuncturists, midwives, doulas, massage therapists, mental health therapist, counselors, nutritionist, and a list goes on. So come join us, get to know other people, build some personal and professional relationships. You can find the group by heading to drdanielleangela.com/community and request to join the group. I will see you inside from there.