Mind Body Detox Podcast

97: Holistic Hacks to Overcome Anxiety

• Season 4 • Episode 97

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💜 Holistic Hacks to Overcome Anxiety: Panic-Proof Strategies with Dr. Nicole Cain & Mind-Body Psychic Medium Kara Lovehart 🌙✨🌍

Anxiety is on the rise, but holistic solutions can help you reclaim peace.

🌈 If you’ve ever felt stuck in cycles of panic, stress, or constant worry—you’re not alone.

In this episode of the Mind Body Detox Podcast, Mind-Body Psychic Medium and Executive Intuitive Coach Kara Lovehart sits down with Dr. Nicole Cain, ND, MA—a nationally recognized naturopathic physician, clinical psychologist, and author of Panic Proof (Rodale, 2024).

With over a decade of experience, Dr. Cain integrates trauma-informed psychology, naturopathic medicine, and holistic healing to help people break free from anxiety and embrace calm.

💡 Through compassionate insight and practical strategies, she shares how to understand anxiety at its root—and offers tools to transform fear into resilience.

🌟 In This Episode:
⭐ Dr. Cain’s personal journey through panic & how it shaped her holistic healing approach
⭐ The 9 types of anxiety and how identifying them guides treatment
⭐ The Panic Proof Protocol, blending top-down & bottom-up strategies
⭐ Trauma’s imprint on the nervous system and how to release it
⭐ Natural remedies, herbs, & supplements for safe anxiety relief
⭐ Practical strategies for navigating panic attacks in public spaces
⭐ Preventative practices to build resilience & long-term calm
⭐ The future of holistic & integrative anxiety treatment

🌈 Who Should Tune In?
💜 Those struggling with anxiety, panic attacks, or chronic stress
💜 Trauma survivors seeking integrative healing approaches
💜 Wellness professionals and coaches looking for new tools for clients
💜 Anyone curious about holistic solutions for mental health

🌟 Meet Our Guest: Dr. Nicole Cain
Dr. Nicole Cain, ND, MA, is a licensed Naturopathic Physician in Arizona and holds a master’s degree in clinical psychology. She specializes in anxiety, panic, and trauma, blending holistic medicine with evidence-based psychology. She is the author of Panic Proof (Rodale, 2024), a groundbreaking book that offers practical tools to stop panic in its tracks and build lasting calm.

🔎 Learn More About Dr. Nicole Cain:
🌐 DrNicoleCain.com

🙌 Ready to elevate your journey? Let's connect and transform together!

🌈 Follow me on Instagram and/or Facebook for inspiration and Mind-Body wisdom

✨ Unlock Your Energy with My Free 7-Day Frequency Fix! Experience a transformative Mind-Body Reset designed to detox your energy blocks and revitalize your spirit. Learn More Here. Join the journey here.

🥬Why Type of "Detox" Is Best For Your Journey? - Find Out Here

❓Got burning questions or podcast topic ideas? I'm all ears! Submit your thoughts and let's explore them together. 💫


🌟 Let's co-create a vibrant, balanced life—one step at a time!

Holistic Hacks to Overcome Anxiety with Dr. Nicole Cain
Mind Body Detox Podcast | Hosted by Kara Lovehart, Mind-Body Psychic Medium & Executive Intuitive Coach

Description: In this episode, Kara Lovehart speaks with Dr. Nicole Cain, ND, MA—naturopathic physician, clinical psychologist, and author of *Panic Proof* (Rodale, 2024). Together, they explore holistic strategies for anxiety, trauma-informed healing, and practical tools for lasting calm.

Transcript:

Kara Lovehart: Welcome back, everyone, to the MindBodyDetox podcast. I am your host, MindBodyMedium, Cara Lovehart. And today, we have a truly special guest. And this is someone who is pioneering the way we approach mental health and emotional wellness. And you guys know that that is one of my passions, mental health advocacy, especially in the space where we have different, unique, and holistic approach to that particular topic. arena. I think it's much needed. So we're going to interview Dr. Nicole Kane today. She is a naturopathic doctor and a leading expert in trauma-informed clinical psychology and holistic medicine, specializing in anxiety and panic. Now, I'm curious when we talk to her about the statistics in increasing anxiety and panic, and of course, just mental health today in this day and age, we have so much increase in our mental health diagnoses. And with over a decade of experience as a licensed naturopathic physician in the state of Arizona and a background in clinical psychology, Dr. Nicole brings a multidisciplinary approach to healing, blending medical, psychological, and holistic approaches. She is the author of Panic Proof, I have read this book. I picked up over the weekend because I knew I was going to interview her. And I literally am a third of the way through it. I couldn't put it down. I stayed up till one a.m. reading it. And we're going to go into the why I could not put it down. So this is a groundbreaking book offering powerful tools for overcoming panic and anxiety. And Dr. Nicole is trained in EDMR. So we've talked a little bit about that on the show. And she integrates cutting edge psychological techniques with naturopathic medicine. This is the key, right, guys, to provide truly comprehensive approach to mental health. So let's bring on Dr. Nicole Kane. We're so excited to get into our interview with her.

Dr. Nicole Cain: Hi Kara, thank you for having me. Thanks for being here with us. So tell me a little bit about just, let's get everyone introduced to who you are and your background, like your journey from, you know, working in as a naturopath and then in clinical psych and then your own panic anxiety and your own struggle with that moving into finding this way that hasn't really been addressed in the mainstream right now for addressing mental health and anxiety in particular. Before we got on the actual recording, you and I were talking about how there's so many different ways that we can go and so many different people we can learn from. And that you kind of hinted at no one is a prophet in their hometown.

Kara Lovehart: And so as you asked that question, my family, if they were to answer that question, they would all be sort of scratching their heads, kind of like, where did she come from?

Dr. Nicole Cain: It doesn't make sense. And So my history is I'm from the Midwest in the United States. I'm from Iowa, which is very much, my family culture at least, is very much if you get a symptom, you either suck it up, rub some dirt on it, or if it's bad enough, you go to the authority, you go to the doctor and they give you a medication or they give you some sort of a hill to try to suppress the symptoms. And so that's my origin story. And then through like this whole I like to affectionately called the epic tale of whoa, is a winding road that got me to this place where my passion is to prove to people that you can actually heal anxiety, to prove to people that anxiety is not a problem. but rather your body's attempt at communicating something that needs healing and to really start changing the conversation of how do we deal with anxiety what does that look like and what can we start doing practically speaking today and so it's been like a really um amazing journey with lots of ups and downs we could definitely dive into but being on this side of the book being on this side of the journey I could tell you like just taking the big breath and just like filling my soul with gratitude that you can. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I deal with so much stress and panic, you can heal from anxiety and panic. You can get better. And so that's what we're here to dig into together today. It's going to be exciting.

Kara Lovehart: Well, as far as the anxiety goes and panic, could you talk a little bit about what those symptoms are, what those look like?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Because what I found is sometimes when we're so in stress and in panic or anxiety, it's become a way of life for us. And I'm not sure if you've worked with patients that they may not even know that that's something they're actually struggling with because that's been their normal. Like a fish in water doesn't know it's in water.

Kara Lovehart: So what are the points that we start to look at and start to see whether it's the spectrum of like lower anxiety that it starts to ramp up and it becomes full on panic attacks? What does that look like for people?

Dr. Nicole Cain: You are so spot on. A fish in water doesn't know it's in water. And one of the biggest myths about anxiety is that we don't have it. Oh, I just have stomach aches. Oh, I'm just overwhelmed. Oh, I just sometimes my kids say the wrong thing and I snap.

Kara Lovehart: When we look at anxiety, it's really important to understand what it is and what it isn't. And we begin by comparing fear and anxiety. And this is something we could do a whole lot better as a healthcare institution is they kind of wrap them together in one bundle and just sort of say like, dated, but they're really different. And so fear, we'll start with fear is a natural response to danger. And so our ancestors, they would be gathering berries in the field and there would be a growl into the periphery. They would hear it. They would experience a fear response and they would run to safety. And those who were able to detect that danger and rescue themselves from danger were the ones that survived and reproduced. And your brain now doesn't care about your wellbeing so much as your safety. So when we're in danger, we want to experience fear and the process of fear is we could go through the whole scientific process of it, but it is largely the same as when we experience excitement, like on a roller coaster or maybe excitement before a first date or before going and doing a performance or anxiety. And so anxiety is different in that we're having those feelings, those thoughts, those sensations, and that is outside of actual danger. And it is in combination with a sense where we don't have personal power. So now we get those thoughts, feelings, and sensations when we're driving down the interstate or before we go out of our house and go to the grocery store or when we're about to do public speaking or when we're going to bed at night and the lights are off and everything is quiet and we get this flush of panic. So that's the first part is differentiating between what is fear and what is anxiety. And then the second part, as you were saying, is that it's on a spectrum. And so before I go into that, I'd love to just check in and make sure that that's kind of tracking with where you were asking, because there's the spectrum part, but I know I'm monologuing a bit. No, go ahead. Please do. perfect and so the spectrum of anxiety is a lot of us will describe panic attacks as oh my gosh it came out of the blue I was just hit with this horrible panic attack and the second myth besides uh I don't have anxiety when we actually do the second myth is that panic attacks come out of the blue and what we see is that there's almost always a warning sign And so I teach people if we can learn to hear the body's whispers, the body often won't have to shout. So in the book, I teach about the spectrum of anxiety and it starts in the green zone. And this is the metaphor of a stoplight. And the green zone is when we're feeling calm, clear, relaxed. In neuroscience, we talk about the alpha brainwave state. So you're alert, you're creative, you're in the flow. And so what you're going to do to really make this exercise beyond just an intellectual exercise is I want you to draw a picture of a stoplight. And then get some colored pencils or markers and color it in green. And then write down what it feels like when you're in that green state. For me, I notice my tongue is relaxed. I notice that my forehead is smooth. My shoulders are down. I notice that I'm able to drop into my lower voice instead of up here in my higher voice. And I'm able to take a free breath and my thoughts are clear. And so that's my green zone. And then we'll notice a little bit of activation. And there's this moment, I call it the canary moment or the pay attention zone in the book, when the body's getting a little activated. And this is the, ooh, something changed moment. It's the, oh, I'm not green anymore. I'm not quite yellow, but something changed. And if you can identify what that is for you and then address it, you don't even have to go into yellow. Yellow represents autonomic arousal, activation. And so for some people, that first sensation is they get a little butterfly in their stomach or they start to notice their busy bee brain is going. Maybe they're future tripping or maybe they're getting a little foggy and tired and they feel like turning to the coffee, whatever it is for you. And we could go through the nine types of anxiety to see help us distill out like, oh, this could be anxiety. I had no idea, but we'll circle back to that because right now we're in the yellow zone. And so the yellow zone, we begin with a couple little indicators here and there. And if we don't address whatever it is or whatever those things are that are contributing to the body going into activation, it'll accumulate more and more symptoms to get louder and louder, kind of like I have a little Cavapoo and she'll kind of grunt at me when she wants something. And if I don't pay attention to her, the grunts will turn into barks. It'll get louder. And so then we get to what I call the wonky zone. And that's the zone right before we go into red light, red light. So the wonky zone is where really this is like. you got to do an intervention. You got to get this under wraps because it's going to turn into a panic attack or a rage attack, or especially in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, a flop. Yes, exactly. It will turn into crisis if we don't address it there. And so what you're going to do is you wrote down your green, write down your little pay attentions, those moments, Ooh, something's shifting what that is for you. So write down your yellow. This is what it's like when I'm really activated. I'm not crisis zone yet, but I'm really activated. And then write down that wonky zone. That's like the kind of the switch is flipping and we're about ready to go into crisis. Write that down. and then write down what it's like for you in your red light zone. So then you become more familiar with the process to panic. And the more familiar you are with it, the more easily you'll be able to utilize strategies that meet the underlying needs that are telling us to have this process. And of course, I have all of those resources and solutions for you, and we could dig into whatever is most exciting. So there's there's the stoplight. Well, I think the most important part for people who struggle with anxiety or panic is that that feeling of being out of control. And that is even sometimes I love what you said in here. The fear of fear in your book, you're talking about, then people get anxiety about getting feared or about getting anxiety, like they preempt it's coming back. And so Early on in my journey, so my journey was fully like needing to go and detox heavy metals. Now I'm dealing with mold situation that I had exposure over the weekend. I was like, Oh, I was reading your book like, Oh my gosh, I'm heightened. I'm like, Oh, I was in that room for two hours trying to clean things out. And I know it's a it's a it's a pathogenic response my body's having. So that's something I know how I can control it through A, B and C. But through the journey of not knowing my toxins and things that were affecting me hormonally and all that, there was this, of course, this fear of being out of control and fear of losing and the fear of fear. My partner and I, he always joke when I would get in that phase, this is what I would do. I would hold my hands and look around really worried. And he would say, Oh, you look really cute. And, and, you know, it was like to disarm me of like, I'm going into fear mode, but we would joke about, he wrote the, you wrote the book. You're like, you're like, I'm overcome this, but now I'm afraid I'm going to be afraid. And then we joke about the different titles of the books that I would write about being afraid of being afraid. And now I'm being afraid of being afraid of being afraid. And we just, he made it funny of like how ridiculous it was, but that was actually a reality. So in this, when you were writing about the fear of, being afraid for people who struggle with anxiety. That is so huge. And the fact that anxiety changes over your lifetime, that you may not struggle with it now and it will change depending on what's going on. And we're going to dive into that. It might be physiological, it can be trauma response. There's so many things that happen. So I just love the foundation already of what you're sharing with helping people understand when you have that self-awareness piece with the red light yellow light green light and what your warning signs are that's how you start to take your power back it's just that simple self-awareness piece um so next I'd love for us to dive into the nine different anxiety types that you have and I know you have a test that you can take on your website that we're going to put in the show notes for everyone to take specifically um and I actually showed up with a number of these So as you're going through, I've just kind of preempted share that you could have multiples and I'd love for you to share why that is. But this is something that I made my son do over the weekend. I was like, so which one do you have?

Dr. Nicole Cain: And I know the answer for him. And he was like, oh yeah, that one.

Kara Lovehart: And I said, so yes, so gut health is what we're working on, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: And he was like, yes, like my gut microbial stuff is really what we've been doing for him. And it was just one of those things where I was like, I think you need to listen to this book on audio. you know like suggesting things um we were talking about before the show that you know same thing with all the episodes on here guys if you have family members that this is resonating with it may not be you share this episode with them because sometimes when they hear it from you they're not going to hear it from you Like my son will not listen to me because he's eighteen. But if there's someone else, I've had multiple amazing guests on the podcast and he's like, oh, oh, I think I'm going to listen to that. So I encourage you to do so. So let's dive into the nine different types of anxiety. Dr. Kane. Thank you for talking about the fear of the fear, because that just makes me feel so seen and heard as a human. So I like to joke with my my. admin. She's my office manager. She's like my right-hand guru. And we always talk about like, Dr.

Kara Lovehart: Cain is thinking and suggesting this, but then can I tell you what Nicole is thinking?

Dr. Nicole Cain: And so coming at it from different angles. So clinically I'm like, oh yes, fear of the fear.

Kara Lovehart: What is this?

Dr. Nicole Cain: But then as a human being really experiencing fear isn't a fun experience and we are programmed as a human race to avoid suffering but the paradox is is that the more that we deny it the more it will amplify and the more that we allow the more that it will flow and be released and the more power you'll have to alchemize that and so I have a four step process in the book and the fourth part of the process is actually feeling the fear. And I just did this huge interview with a very, very highly influential anxiety person. And she always skips that step because the fear of the fear is so frightening for her.

Kara Lovehart: Her whole mission is how do you not feel fear? How do you not feel anxiety? And so she's really good at that whole part of it is how do I not feel anxious? How do I calm my body? Instead of benzos, what can I use?

Dr. Nicole Cain: But what you're describing, that fourth point, that feeling the fear and learning to experience, even though we're inherently afraid of being afraid of being afraid, etc., That's really important. So I love that. And I really wanted to emphasize that you said that. And then the next thing that you circled into was talking about the nine types of anxiety. And this came out of a need for us to do better as a healthcare system in precision. Because right now, if somebody is anxious, they get thrown into a general bucket. Oh, you have generalized anxiety disorder. Oh, you get anxious going to the store. Okay, we'll give you agoraphobia. Or you feel anxious when you're socializing because you're afraid they're going to judge you. Oh, you have social anxiety. Or you have anxiety that's out of the blue. You have panic attacks. But none of these clinical diagnoses work. which come out of the DSM, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual in two thousand five. And we're recording this is the number five. They'll probably change it. But none of these allow us to understand what might be underneath of it. And we use this process all over medicine, but we don't use it in mental health. And for example, Um, a woman may go to a doctor and she may tell the doctor, I'm losing a ton of weight. I can't eat enough food to maintain my weight. I'm intolerant of heat and I'm really, really, my digestion is just a hot mess. And the doctor may look at that combination of symptoms and say, oh, we should check your thyroid. There's a specific blood test that can be run to check the thyroid. And then there are thyroid specific treatments that can actually treat thyroid gland. But when anxiety is part of the conversation, we don't have a genetic test for anxiety. We don't have specific anxiety diagnosing blood work. So we've just sort of given up on it as a healthcare community, thrown it into a bucket. You're anxious, take an antidepressant, go to therapy, maybe try to talk yourself out of it or take a benzo. And so my solution to this problem was to put on my researcher hat and to look at all of the literature and how does anxiety show up differently in different people, different cultures, different age groups. And if we look at all of that information, we can recategorize it into approximately nine different systems. These are the nine types of anxiety. And so, number one, this is valuable because it allows for us to do a better job of researching and understanding anxiety. Number two, it gives us information about some of the root causes of anxiety. Number three, it's very validating and can help with the fear of the fear. And number four, it gives us space for precision treatments. Precision being it's more specific to you and your needs and what those symptoms are telling you needs healing and how so that you get better results and often faster. So after that introduction, let's look at the nine types.

Kara Lovehart: Does that sound okay?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Yeah. Okay. And we could dive into some of these in more detail, especially gut anxiety. Cause you did mention that one. And I think a lot of your listeners would probably resonate with that. So I'll, I'll go, we'll go a little bit more into detail and anything you want to hear about. So the first type of anxiety is thought anxiety. This is if your thoughts are looping, maybe your future tripping, maybe your brain is going and you can't fall asleep at night. Maybe you just have a lot of worried thoughts or maybe. Your brain goes completely blank. Maybe you're on a podcast and someone asks you a question and it catches you off guard. Your body's like, ah, danger mode, sends out this wave of adrenaline. Your amygdala gets overactive and your logical prefrontal cortex that comes up with the good answers like offline. And you're just like, ah, I don't know. So it's thought anxiety. The second type is chest anxiety. So this is anxiety that shows up on our chest. In fact, a lot of upwards of eighty percent of people going to the emergency department thinking that they're having a heart attack are actually having a panic attack. So chest anxiety is a real thing and it can be really, really scary and it can feel like your heart is pounding, your heart is skipping beats, feel like an elephant on your chest, feel like you can't get enough oxygen. So that could be anxiety. The third one is gut anxiety, which we'll expand on a little bit more in a minute. But that's maybe you get butterflies in your stomach or maybe you get horrible gas and bloating. In my book, I write about Matthew, whose gut anxiety resulted in him having involuntary stools. And a lot of kids with gut anxiety, if you're a parent, if your kid is throwing up before school and they feel sick to their stomach before school, it can be gut anxiety. And it could be reflux. So some people I've worked with a lot of CEOs that have a lot of pressure and the autonomic arousal. There's a whole fun. I love physiology. It's so fun.

Kara Lovehart: But it could be causing reflux, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: So it's gut anxiety. Immune system anxiety may also be relevant for you right now because you just described you were in a moldy space. And when the immune system gets activated, the immune system cells such as histamine can produce... You have it right here. So you're pointing at your neck. I'm showing my histamine in my neck. Stuff's like popping out. I'm like, ah, yeah. You're like, ah. So that chemical histamine, we know to blame it for the itchiness on our neck or skin. We even know to blame it for itchy, watery eyes. Spring is coming.

Kara Lovehart: We're all gearing up, buying our Zyrtec, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: But histamine... is also just as stimulating for as adrenaline and so that same fun little chemical that gives you allergies could be causing panic and we could get into a whole conversation this is so fun you'll see it in the book about why are you having histamine but your partner isn't you like look at them and you're like you're not sneezing and rashing and having issues like is it because you take more zyrtec no it's data So if you're having a histamine reaction, number one, we want to find the root cause of that histamine reaction. And then number two is we want to figure out what we could do to support your body better in managing that root cause of histamine exposure so that you don't have rashes. You're like your partner over here. So that's immune system anxiety. So fun. And there's a whole branch of this is called psychoneuroimmunology where there's lots of research.

Kara Lovehart: So if people are like, what was that again?

Dr. Nicole Cain: There's like a whole field. You can get degrees in this. And so then we have anger, anxiety, and this is especially relevant for people who are sent to anger management or my kid is having tantrums or I feel irritable. Please don't interrupt me. I feel like I'm getting too many emails and I just feel frustrated and I don't like feeling this way is it's data. Your body is activated. It's data. It's telling you that there's something that's out of balance and we can help with that. And we can get really precise with Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism, so that the treatments we prescribe will work better and faster. There's also depressive anxiety. And we know in the DSM that you can have depression and anxiety at the same time. And I've combined these as depression, anxiety, because that will guide us towards treatments. And then also, we can feel like we're in a flop, and we just want to lay on our bed and cry, but also be driven and scared and panicky. And that can feel confusing for people. And then we have let me see nervous system anxiety. And this can be on a total spectrum too. It could be on one end of the spectrum. Like I have a little bit of muscle tension. You were describing how you kind of go into the fetal position. You bend your wrists at the joints when you're feeling really stressed. And this is actually a fight flight freeze posture. And what's really interesting about it is when we put our musculoskeletal system in this position, it can tell the brain that we're in danger. or the brain that thinks it's in danger can then cause us to go into that position. So it's a bi-directional axis. And this is really important for those who sit at their computers, or who sit on their phones or who need to detox, if you will, from stimuli is I teach about, it's called the salience network hack. So if you're sitting on your computer and you're getting all the stimuli and your body is kind of in this forward facing deer in headlights posture, that you may be just like working and doing your thing. I know your partner is in tech. and it so if he's starting to get like agitated or stressed he may be getting this biofeedback loop that's making him anxious so really quick hack for that's like oh my body's getting anxious my body's getting activated it thinks I'm in danger I'm just facing forward which isn't typical for my ancestors who are always looking around for tigers so I'm just going to look for a tiger so you rotate your eyes and your head all the way over your left shoulder And then you rotate your eyes and your head all the way over your right shoulder. That's a nice stretch. And then you look forward and you look at something far from you. And then you look back at the thing that's close to you. You've reset your nervous system and you can go. Headaches, muscle tension, those are all nervous system issues. Trauma anxiety is arguably the umbrella of everything, but I have parsed it out as separate. If your anxiety and panic is based on something that happened or something that didn't happen, maybe neglect and unmet need, and that's the main thing for you. It's like, I can't stop thinking about it. I have nightmares about it. I get flashbacks. I get intrusive thoughts. And so really, if that's the main thing, we really want to use trauma focused treatments. Like you said, at the beginning, in the introduction, like eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy, which is EMDR, or, uh, there's a technique, uh, somatic based practices or havening. So let me pause for a second. Cause I know I've been talking a lot and make sure that we've gone over all nine. endocrine her. And so that's anxiety that is related to imbalances in your hormones. So cortisol, thyroid, sex hormones.

Kara Lovehart: I think we covered everything, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really interesting too. I see a correlation between, so as a medium, I see people's auras. And so part of my journey is I worked for a high volume practice from a chiropractor and I'd see a lot of different people and kind of gained this like dictionary of like, when I see this person, this is their psyche, this is their physical symptoms. And so for years, that's kind of how I built my medical intuition kind of scope of like how I can, okay, this is what's going on. Let me refer you to this person. And as a massage therapist, all of my work is working with trauma, working with educating massage therapists to work with the trauma response in the body and what happens. So and of course, referring out to like the stuff that you were talking about in your book about the gut brain axis and nervous system rebalancing self-awareness, like it's all interconnected. And. I just really, really love the fact that you're talking about hacks, like really that whole system that we're just like, we're totally going to be animals for the rest of our evolution. We're still going to have that animal brain. And I think it's just having the awareness of it so we don't feel like a shame around it. I think there's shame that people also carry about not being able to control their nervous system or it's doing this and I don't have control over it. They just don't understand it. We don't understand how we operate. And even things with what we're eating and things that are affecting our neurotransmitters, things you all go into with the book. So no, I think everything you're talking about is fantastic. I just think it's really interesting to see the different types of anxiety that I often see in individuals like, For example, an individual has like a very yellow aura. They tend to be the anger people. They tend to get angry more often. They tend to be hypervigilant, more perfectionist based. And they tend to have more of the gut syndrome. It's really interesting that the ruminators are more purple. So I just kind of like when I was reading the book, I was like, oh, that's really interesting to connect again this language with a pattern I see in people's electromagnetic field or their energy field, their nervous system field. is showing it to me and that's how I view it. I think that's really interesting. The trauma one is really like people are just not feeling safe in their bodies at all. If I would see their electromagnetic field, it's like they're not even in the body. There's no association or perception, they're just up here. And it's just a kind of there. And that's where I think like the looping and the chronic like thinking and trying to figure out how to usually try to think their way into safety.

Kara Lovehart: Like, how do I find the way to heal my trauma?

Dr. Nicole Cain: So I think that we have, of course, other episodes, guys, to go back and listen about EDMR and different responses we can work with with trauma. But I think we haven't ever touched on. the interconnection here with mental health and the gut brain axis, the top down versus bottom up approach that Dr. Nicole is working with. So I'd love for you to define the difference between the top down approach versus the bottom up approach. And then let's go into talking about the connection to more of the naturopathic physical health, functional health, blood panel analysis, what type of things you do to really get other pieces of the puzzle to help people. Brilliant question. Love this. Also, I love it would be such an amazing conversation to just learn more about how we can look at auras and use that as a tool to help us understand what might need healing and how what might be out of balance in what way. I love that. Everyone can see them. Everyone can see them. It's just like, because the peripheral vision, the rods and cones, we are evolved to have more light of the light spectrum be coming in so that we can see when something's moving, oh, look over there. And that's why when people have those experiences, like in a house that might experience this haunted, where they're just seeing a little bit more of the electromagnetic spectrum, they see something out of the corner of their eye, they look and it's not there. But then that phenomenon of people sensing something is looking at them. There's something there. And this is where science and especially medical professionals don't always want to dive into that.

Kara Lovehart: But I work with a lot of we're like really getting interested in, like, how do I develop my medical intuition?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Because can you imagine if doctors because I'm not going to med school, guys, I was going to be a psychiatrist. That was my my dream years ago. And life took me into direction. But if you had that and anyone could use that to help as another assessment tool for diagnostics. I think it would be incredible, but everybody can see them. It's just a matter of developing and working with being able to get in an altered state, getting more into theta brainwave while you're awake, and opening up your visual spectrum to see. It's totally something that anyone can learn. I always coach and teach people to do it, but it's fantastic. So sorry for the side note on that, but I do really think it's, it's a missing piece, the electromagnetic spectrum. And obviously like I work with energy medicine too, and traditional Chinese medicine, it's part of the thing there that we don't look at, but I love that, you know, even in your book, you're already open and interested and not just interested, but you're utilizing this stuff. So let's dive into those things. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We're going to have to talk more about this offline because this is so fun and so cool and so exciting. Um, okay. So you asked a question. I got so excited about the, uh, the auras and the energy piece. I don't think I remember the question that you asked and it was so good. Oh, bottom up. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. So this is really, really good, important language. And so a lot of people, um, have like, I've tried doing the natural thing. I've tried doing the counseling. I've tried taking all the supplements. Oh my gosh, this is another person who's going to tell me to take thousands of dollars with the supplements and do thousands of dollars with the testing. I can't do that. Maybe I'll take a fish oil, but probably not.

Kara Lovehart: Let's be real. So top down is what we have been doing in psychology largely since Freud. And we came up with this idea that if we could just talk ourselves out of it or rationalize ourselves out of it, or just try to correct the confused brain, then we can put the body into submission and the body won't be anxious anymore. So this is very top down and this is referencing the logical cortex, analytical part of the brain and trying to change everything downstream. And if you're anything like me, my body, when it thinks that I'm in danger, it doesn't really care what I have to say about it. It's like, we're not gonna analyze running from the tiger, we're gonna run from the tiger. And there are safeguards biologically that we have put in place is when we are in danger, the amygdala, that emotional processing part of the brain will respond to that danger much more quickly and send off that danger cascade. And your prefrontal cortex has been largely bypassed and it can actually be suppressed. So top down for some people in some circumstances can be helpful, but for many, it's very limiting and it doesn't solve the problem. Especially if you don't have thought anxiety. If your main type of anxiety is thought anxiety, then yeah, work on your thoughts. But if you have immune system anxiety and histamine is flowing through the body, you can think about that all day. And the histamine is like, you do you, I'm going to do me, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: So bottom up is where we start with the body to change our experience in our brains. And in some literature, especially Bessel van der Kolk, he refers more to the limbic system and the brainstem as bottom up. I include the whole body. And we see in trauma-informed research, especially stuff that's coming out with Bruce Perry and And Bessel's more recent research, a lot of these thought leaders are finding that that works much better.

Kara Lovehart: And so bottom up, what the heck does that include?

Dr. Nicole Cain: So bottom up is I broke this down into a four-step process. We kind of hinted at it earlier, and I think we'll understand bottom up a little better if we go through that. And then the gift of listening to the next four-step process will be that you'll walk away from this podcast episode with a four-step process that you can start using today that will cost you nothing.

Kara Lovehart: And so would it be all right if we did that to explain about them up?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Cool. So when we get activated, there's a lot of science behind it. You can get more of that detail in the book. And for time's sake, we'll skip some of that here today, but for, for your intents and purposes, when you get activated, The body is sending off cortisol and adrenaline, and you're going to be feeling one or multiples of the nine types of anxiety, really depending where you are in your stoplight level of activation. Because if you're in the red light zone and you're in crisis, your body's like all of the types of anxiety.

Kara Lovehart: We got to get their attention, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: If you're just a little bit activated in the pay attention zone, maybe you just have like a And so the body is in that state of activation. And what we need to do first is we need to target the body because prefrontal logical brain offline, running from tiger dissociation, your executive control network, your executive team, your dream team, logical brain offline. So the first step in the four step process is to get back into target the body. And these are going to be things Like Marshall Linehan, the founder of DBT, calls them tips. I've expanded on that. And I teach people a practical way to remember how to do step one, which is to make a panic pack. And in a panic pack, you're going to put things that will cue you to stimulate your body. So you want to put in candy like a warhead or a sour candy. jawbreaker or a ginger candy or a rescue remedy, or maybe even a packet of salt. There's maybe you saw for a while, a lot of people are on Tik TOK. They're like dumping salt packets down their throats for panic and strong flavors can stimulate your vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve goes through the root of the tongue and vagus nerve is for those who aren't familiar with it. It's one, it's the bridge between the gut brain access. And it's your light switch into calm. So activating vagus nerve will make you feel calm. So taste is a good way to do that. The second is the breath. And for kids, I put bubbles in the panic pack. And for adults, they have these cool little necklaces that you can breathe through that's just a straw, helps you slow your breath. And so this is especially good for chest anxiety. If you find yourself breathing really hard and panicking, And so the longer the exhale, the more relaxed the body will get. And so you might try four-step breathing. So you inhale for four, hold your breath at the top for four, Exhale as long and deliciously as you can, at least for four, and then hold at the bottom for four. The next thing that you might put in your panic pack would be a first aid kit cold pack. And so this would be something that's the size of your cell phone, and it's got little beads in it. And when you shake it up, it will get really cold. And then you can apply that around your eyes for thirty seconds on, ten seconds off. And cold on the eyes, the chest, the back of the neck can again activate vagus nerve. This is especially good if you get heat with panic and anxiety, because then you get that secondary benefit if it cools you down. Your panic pack may also have textures. And so there's the rule of threes. Maybe you've heard, You go outside, three things you can see, three things you can touch, three things you can hear. So you might put three textures in your panic pack, like fidgets, rocks, crystals, if you like using crystals. I have... I have like a beautiful soda light in mine. And then I have a smoky quartz in mine because I like the crystals and I like how they feel. And I like the meaning and energy behind them. And then smell is also really important. And I always include two smells. And I like essential oils, especially ones that have been well studied. And so lavender has been studied to increase GABA in a couple of different application styles. if you don't have a gigantor panic pack, then just get a cotton ball and put a couple drops of oil on the cotton ball. And then when you're getting activated, you can smell that. And while you're in the activation state, you might smell like lavender, for example. But then at the end, when you're like, and you're feeling better, then you want to close it out with a different smell because otherwise you're going to start associating the smells. And so then the smell that you close it out with may be like, ylang ylang bergamot lemon and so those are a couple things for step one so before I go into the next steps thoughts what has worked for you tell me what you're thinking so everything everything you're talking about so this is so exciting for what you're doing and there are a lot of the other professionals that I've talked with and even some of the other professionals I've read their books over the years that this is something that I had to figure out myself like years of like oh wait and now oh wait who's peter levine like thank god for him thank god for vessel like those are the things I had to do research myself because there was never any the top-down approach did not work and does work for some people like you said so the question I did have about that I love the panic pack um I've done something similar to this to I work with people who are highly sensitive highly empathic really that's just a trauma response that's what makes them more sensitive to their nervous system so we work similarly But I love the fact that you're using a different oil afterwards to they're not associating it. That is fantastic.

Kara Lovehart: So are you recommending then that if you're using lavender to use a different oil every time?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Because if you're using lavender and Bergamo or Lang Lang always in combination, you'll start associating them all together. Yeah, I like mixing it up. And when it a good thing when in doubt is mix it up. And my I teach my clients, especially with supplements is rotate your supplements. Don't take the same thing forever. Because the body is always trying to go into homeostasis, whether it's remembering, oh, every time I have a panic attack, I sniff lavender. or I'm always taking this fish oil, so now I don't need to absorb as much from my environment. I love that you pointed that out and emphasized that because it's really important so that your body is always getting it all mixed up and getting new stimuli because really you want to learn how to get into the body as opposed to always having to rely on something to put your body back into calm. You're using it as an aid. Yeah, I have one other thought and thinking about to, you know, someone that most of my being a medium is just really having years of being disassociated and having to learn how to be in the body. So it does get me easily into an altered state. So I can get an intuition. That's like how I do my my work. But now I feel like I've kind of been like an athlete at learning how to be in the body. Like it's been my life journey.

Kara Lovehart: And I'm kind of curious, Um, as far as working with people who are really struggling with anxiety, um, as far as their, their tools, it does change right over, over time, what tools work for them?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Because I think that that's one thing that if people are using the same things all the time, um, they're gonna. Necessarily like fail, like it doesn't work anymore and go back into the state they were in. Correct. Oh, my gosh, you are so wise. That's so good. Because somebody may come in and say, Well, I tried exercise, exercise doesn't work for me. But maybe it was that type of exercise at that time, without this other thing in place to support it. And so I really appreciate that. So as you're listening to this conversation on this podcast is it may be a matter of the right support at the right time. Cause what we, what we really want to try to do is not skip steps is you want to start the process of understanding what is your anxiety or really anything health wise that you're dealing with.

Kara Lovehart: What are your symptoms trying to tell you needs healing and how, and, So if you're getting autonomic arousal, you can use a panic pack. But let's say that that autonomic arousal is because you're in a relationship that is no longer serving you. And you can sniff oils and you can do the salience head rotation hack and do the breathing till the cows come home. But until that obstacle to cure is addressed, you're going to find that you keep coming back to this place. And so what I think that you are wisely pointing out is is yes, we have these tools, change the tools up, try and experiment with different things and really remember what your symptoms are and really try to befriend your symptoms, honor them, love them. Thank you so much, body and mind. Thank you foot for twitching and telling me that there's something that I have an opportunity to heal and listening. Yeah. That's what will change your life. Yeah, I really, really, really hear that. And I think that it's important to reiterate again, like you said in your book, and you said at the beginning that you can heal from this. Like I, I am a testament to that. I know you are a testament to that and your experience you wrote in your book, your personal journey. But the other thing I find really interesting about exposure therapy is that the more I've worked with my nervous system and getting into the body through the, the bottom up approach that I feel that now I have possibly even more of a bandwidth for stimulation, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: like then maybe a normal person would. And so I kind of want to offer that to some people that struggle with anxiety. And I'd love to hear your perspective on this. If you struggle with for so long, and then you come to this point where you don't struggle anymore, your nervous system almost like, not that it's wanting to be put back into that response of like hyperdrive, like that's not healthy. But it's like, I can go speak in front of people now. I can go and do, I have an enormous amount of you could say people say I have a nervous on a weight running a clinic and what I do for my job. But I think that that bandwidth is like, I think like an athlete, I don't, it doesn't bother me as much anymore. Like I can take that stimulation, but because I've learned to manage with all the other tools. So I kind of, I'm curious about your perspective on that. I know you've run the Holistic Wellness Collective, and you work with a lot of people.

Kara Lovehart: And I think that having a background too with panic, do you feel that it's similar that you have this bandwidth now for stimulation?

Dr. Nicole Cain: And of other people, this is possible for them, the contrast of before and after. Yeah, managing anxiety is exhausting.

Kara Lovehart: And so I think part of it is, have we alchemized that into freedom and power Are we carrying around stuff that isn't ours?

Dr. Nicole Cain: I write about the weathered house in the beginning of the book. And I think that sometimes we have these things in our house, which is our self. We are the house. And sometimes people place things in the house that really aren't yours. So one of the things that was put in my house is... my caretaker told me that I wasn't very intelligent, that I would never be a doctor and that it's just hard for me. And I carried that around for a long time. And those kinds of, of microaggressions, those kinds of abuses, or maybe that could be environmental as you had mold in your house, literally. Right. And carrying all of that around, whether it's emotional or trauma or environmental, That's exhausting for the body to manage. And so as you do the work to clear that and to heal that and get the inflammation down, get those problematic people out, reestablish your sense of who you are, then you're going to find that you're so much freer and you have so much more bandwidth. to then hold space for whatever's coming up in your life. So I used to be tired all the time. Chronic fatigue is a real thing. Yep. Yep. And we see that oftentimes chronic fatigue underneath of that is is unmanaged, undealt with root causes of symptoms, whether it's trauma or physical. So one hundred percent, I found that I was able to do more. So the book I wrote, the book in nine months is like the gestation of a human. And it's because it's so much bandwidth. I was like, ah, I'm not like panicking all the time and managing my panic all the time. I'm like free. I have so much energy. It was great. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I thank you for sharing that too. Cause like, like I said, I used to be so tired going to the grocery store and coming home was exhausting for my nervous system.

Kara Lovehart: And it wasn't just like trauma, but it was, you know, mold and nervous system simulation from the toxicity of my body, but there could be all these other things going on, but it is absolutely like a, I can think about myself in the past of like that, that ruminating thought of how am I ever going to have energy to do this? Or how am I ever going to meet my, reach my goals or whatever?

Dr. Nicole Cain: And because the mainstream system is only offering the top-down approach mostly, and we're transitioning luckily into this full spectrum holistic approach now. But hands down, I'm a testament that you can heal it. And it's totally, I love that Dr. Nicole as well. I just get very, very excited. My nervous system's excited right now. in a good way of of just talking to you and just knowing um it's very validating because I didn't you know I talk about this a lot and I still have people that are like well you're a medium you know I don't know if I believe you I'm like that's fine you don't have to believe me believe someone else who has their degrees and you know you want to go if you're that medical person There is totally, this is a real thing. Somatic body work and the piece, the bottom-up approach does work. And as a massage therapist, it's helpful to have people say that. And more and more doctors are finally referring people and prescribing them to get massage therapy.

Kara Lovehart: And acupuncture, I'm like, thank God, how long is it going to take?

Dr. Nicole Cain: So yeah, yeah. So I'm like on this rampage right now, where when you and I talk in six months, it'll be I'll probably have something different to say. But I am thinking so much about bodywork. And in naturopathic medicine, we talk about structural integrity in the body that our nervous system is sitting in the muscles and the fascia. Dr. Dr. Gonzalez talks so much about fascia. Yes. And what I'm dealing with right now is that I was, I'm chronically congested and I haven't overcome this yet, but my nose is constantly congested. I sleep with nasal strips. I live off of Afrin and I can't breathe. And so, twenty years ago, I just picked one side to use Afrin on because I know there's rebound congestion and all this stuff. So I stupidly picked. She didn't know. I picked the right side. And we've seen in so much double-blind research that right nostril breathing activates sympathetic. And left nostril breathing can activate parasympathetic. So I can't ever breathe through my left nostril. So I was thinking about what are the roots of the roots of the roots of why I experienced anxiety. And I did an interview with a biological dentist not that long ago. And she was talking about how children, their skulls are growing, they're expanding, their palates are growing. And that if we put orthodontics on them before that process is done, especially orthodontics that are pulling the teeth to the midline, that we're compressing their airways, narrowing their sinuses. Now we have all these people running around with all these migraines and headaches and anxieties, and they can't breathe. And we all snore and we all have apnea. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like my pal, I got my first retainer in third grade. And yeah, I've been congested my entire life.

Kara Lovehart: So now I'm thinking even more about what are we doing with the body?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Like, let's just ignore what's happening in my life. Like she's going to think that's what she loves to do. She's like up here in yellow.

Kara Lovehart: Is that what you said is like over analysis yellow?

Dr. Nicole Cain: It'd be purple, purple. Yeah. Purple, purple. Oh my gosh. I need to learn this. So she's like in purple land, but like really let's just figure out if there is a structural thing that's out of balance.

Kara Lovehart: Do you have a tie? Has your airway been narrowed? So is your body holding on to tension and stress?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Like go and do the body work. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's exactly like, I think more and more doctors and medical professionals need to be educated on it. They're not going to be expertise, but they need education on it. Because isn't it just like, you know, just the palate, but even how the cranial bones are for like craniosacral therapy is incredible. Even just the C one vertebrae being out or, you know, kind of congestion, congestion in grinding or the teeth.

Kara Lovehart: And that could be parasites, right?

Dr. Nicole Cain: There's so many things that could be connected there together and, are potentially causing sinus. The lymphatic drainage can't go right there. This is a huge draining point. So I think that's huge for people to look at. And they, again, don't look at body workers like we know anything. A lot of times, oh, you just massage me with oil or lotion. I'm like, actually, that's over at the spa over there. We do more medical based stuff here, but it is a piece that people don't look at and see the connection between their mental health or even just their body's ability to detox properly. Like if the congestion in their fascia is just affecting the lymphatic drainage, then they're like, oh, really and it's all connected so I really appreciate that viewpoint and sharing that too from your perspective thank you and thank you for the work you're doing like oh I wish that I would have known you twenty years ago that would have been awesome but now people have you and they have this podcast and the body matters bottom up matters and so yeah kind of like the the end hurrah of what I want to make sure that y'all hear is that if you feel like you've taken all the supplements you've done all the tests you've seen all the doctors you've taken all the medications you tried all the diets that it may be that you need to be still And to start the process of really listening to what the body is telling you. And I help you in Panic Proof start to do that, but really go to the body, go see experts like you and really start with the body. Bottom up, my friends. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I am going to put all the information about your book, of course, in the show notes, all your coordinates for social media to find you. And please, please guys share this episode with other people. Um, I have two more questions that I'm going to ask Dr.

Kara Lovehart: Nicole as I ask everyone on their first time on our show that we'll finish up with, but, um, Yeah, just anything else before we go into our final questions?

Dr. Nicole Cain: No, that feels so good and so complete. Good, I feel it too. All right, so our two final questions.

Kara Lovehart: What is your favorite product, self-care indulgence, or activity for yourself at this time?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Right now, my favorite product is probably Happy Sleepy Powder because... It is so good.

Kara Lovehart: And have you heard of it yet?

Dr. Nicole Cain: No. So it's basically a recipe and, um, it's amino acids. So it's, uh, theanine, inositol, glycine, and taurine. And then if you want a little bonus, it also has a PS one hundred. And this is so good. If your nervous system has been like really stressed, if you've been under a lot, it's been like twenty, twenty five. Y'all it's been a year so far. And so I love happy sleepy powder. There's so much research for each of the amino acids and how it can be really restorative for mind and body, and it can help with sleep and stress. So I've been loving that. Awesome. All right. So, and again, for those of you out there looking to manage your nervous system, I think sleep is like we talked about sleep health is so foundational. So anything you can do to look into that and I can put that in the show notes too, for links for information to people to learn more. Yes.

Kara Lovehart: And then my final question is, If you could detox one thing in your life or the world right now, what would it be?

Dr. Nicole Cain: Social media. Awesome. I love that. I love that answer. It's causing more panic and more anxiety and more wormholes into echo chambers of people. Like it's, I will just share the other day, something came across my feed and I'm not on there that much, but it came off my feed and it was really funny because it was two chip and Dale looking men dancing. And it was talking about your cat. They were dressed like cats and, And I have cats. So I thought it was like a funny thing for cats because I get a lot of cat stuff. The algorithm wants to show me cats. I'm like, yes, give me cute cats that help my nervous system. I love that. But these men, right, I laughed so much that I liked it. Right away, I started scrolling. Then it just started showing me all these like sexy men dancing in their jeans. And I was like. Okay. Well, that's cool. But that's how quick the algorithm knows. If you go down a rabbit hole of anything that's scary or it could be not even true misinformation, right away, all of a sudden, here's more. Here's more.

Kara Lovehart: What do you want?

Dr. Nicole Cain: But that's the coolest thing.

Kara Lovehart: What do you want? Do you want to watch animals cuddling?

Dr. Nicole Cain: A lot of monkeys cuddling. I like that. My nervous system, my limbic system wants to watch animals cuddling. So I get a little bit of like, oxytocin of cuddling and cuteness. That's how I use my social media to give myself some neurotransmitters. But I totally make sure you can use the choice. If you understand how it works, you've got to use your choice to detox the type of maybe, you know, stuff's showing up in your feed. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in the sheer volume of it, because our salience network, the filter of our brain is not evolved to handle that much stimuli. So it's like too many hugging monkeys. Absolutely. And so I'm also on the spectrum. So a lot of like that mental, oh, there it is. And I have to like get out of it because part of my girl spectrum thing is like, I want stimulation. I like rainbows and all the lights and the colors. Yeah. Lisa Frank all the way. Yeah. Yeah. My partner the other day, he brought the Nintendo sixty four back and he's like, I have all the games. I was like, it was super mario day like celebration of the world or whatever and I don't play video games at all but I did when I was a kid and I kind of thought back I was like how why didn't I know like that I was on the spectrum at the time because I'm like this um this mario character is running through with the superstar and it's like and like all the colors and I was like oh my god this is This is totally like a stimming thing for a female. But anyway, I love the stimulation. I really do. So I have to watch it because it's definitely a thing that could be, you know, put me into overdrive for anxiety. But thank you so much for being here. I just could talk to you so much longer. I think that this is going to be an incredibly valuable episode. All of you out there who are listening, again, please share this with others. Please give us comments, feedback. If you have any questions, you can, of course, directly connect with Dr. Nicole. And as always, guys, remember that all of this information we're sharing is about getting your nervous system in check, understanding that you are, yes, an animal, but we're also evolving. And so this is always about consciousness. And right now, in this day and age, we can't stay into a higher regulated state so that our frontal lobes are online and we can make decisions. instead of our decisions being hijacked from the world around us. And that is so important to keep our power in this day and age, because or else our power will be taken away. So it only starts, it all starts with the power of choice. And education is how we understand that we actually have a choice. So continue to share this podcast around. If you love it, leave reviews for us. We appreciate that. And again, be well until next time, my friends. Thanks for coming on, Dr. Nicole. Thanks for having me. Bye.

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This transcript was created for accessibility and has been lightly edited for clarity (speaker attributions are best-effort).