Positive Psychology and Ways to Love Your Stress with Dr. JoAnn Yanez

Positive Psychology and Ways to Love Your Stress with Dr. JoAnn Yanez

Dr. Trevor Cates: Hi there. I am Dr.Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. podcast. On today’s podcast we are covering positive psychology and ways to love your stress. My guest is Dr. JoAnn Yanez, who is the executive director of the association of accredited naturopathic medical colleges and the chair of the academic collaborative for integrative health. Dr. Yanez oversees research advocacy efforts and the joint academic endeavors of the accredited colleges of naturopathic medicine. She also helps spread awareness of naturopathic medicine as a viable and satisfying career path. Dr. Yanez lives in Southern California with her husband and son and enjoys music, dancing, eating good food, and belly laughs. In today’s interview she shares her top stress management practices and the power of what she refers to as positive psychology. All of this is truly important right now as people have been under both physical and emotional stress during the pandemic. So please enjoy this interview.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Dr. Yanez. It’s so great to have you on my podcast. Welcome.

Dr. Yanez: Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yes. We are talking about stress. And it is something that we all have and it is a normal part of life. And it’s certainly something that at this time during the pandemic that is certainly even more prevalent because of the changes that we are all having to make in our lives. Tell us why is this so passionate for you? Why is this so important to you?

Dr. Yanez: Well, like you said, stress is endemic. Stress is always a part of our life. Sometimes stress is even a good thing. It motivates us. But as we have learned in naturopathic school, and for those of you who don’t know, Dr. Cates, and I go a little way back, as we learned in naturopathic school, it all boils down to balance. And when you are out of balance, when stress is impacting your quality of life, when it’s impacting your sleep, when it’s impacting your relationships, that is a clue to us that we are out of balance and we need to do something. I always relate it back to the principles that we learned in naturopathic medical school. The foundation for our education first, do no harm, treat the cause, treat the whole person. And stress is so core and how we manage and respond to stress is so core to our overall health, and if that is off, a whole lot else can be off too.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Right. I know some people say they don’t have time to do stress management. How do you feel about that?

Dr. Yanez: It is really funny, if you don’t have time to take care of stress management, eventually it is going to make you. That is just my personal experience with myself and with patients that, if you keep putting it away, and putting it away, ultimately there is going to come a time where it gets so in your face that you can not avoid it

Dr. Trevor Cates: Can you give an example of that? Because I have seen it in my practice, I definitely know it, but just as a good reminder for people to know what we see in our clinic.

Dr. Yanez: Sure. I had a patient who was having some family relation stuff. There was some dynamics going on with the parents and how they were interacting and it had gone under the rug for years and years and years. And in her thirties it started manifesting as palpitations, as anxiety. This person came in and she was anxious about the heart palpitations because that is going to get your attention when your heart’s pounding in your chest for no reason. Ultimately, when we started to dig deeper, there were all of these unresolved family issues that came to play. Okay, we need to talk about this. This is obviously disturbing and distressing and let’s figure out a way to resolve all of the stress that this family dynamic is playing and how it’s playing out in your life. And it’s so funny. We have supplements, we have things that we can do for palpitations and anxiety, but the root cause was this underlying pain that this family dynamic was causing her. And until that was handled, the anxiety and the palpitations were still going to be there.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. I have definitely seen that at my practice too. I remember a patient that came to me with a number of health problems and of course I gave her the naturopathic approach and the naturopathic treatment. But one of the things that she said to me was, I hate my job. I hate going to work every day. I can’t stand it. I gave her the treatment protocol and I said, just so that you know, as a naturopathic Dr., you have to look for the underlying cause and address the root cause. And I really think that the biggest root cause that you have going on is your job. She never came back to see me and I thought, Oh, she didn’t like what I had to say, whatever.

And then forward, I think it was about three, four months I ran into her. Park City is a small town. I ran into her at a holiday party and she came up to me, she just like came straight at me and I was like, uh oh, and she said, Dr. Cates, I want to let you know that after I saw you, I quit my job and my health returned to normal. I feel great and I am so grateful for you. And I always thought I should call and let you know and I never did. And so I’m so glad I ran into you to tell you that I didn’t need to come back because I quit my job.

Dr. Yanez: It’s really funny. Those things that sometimes seem inconsequential to us, that is just part of how we would interact with our patients. We are just going to say those things because it is so core to us. But it is interesting because I have had those interactions with patients too. They don’t come back or you don’t really know the impact that you had in someone’s life until much later or sometimes you never know. And so for me, I think that ultimate kindness, that helping is so vital that we just live our lives in the spirit of giving back and being helpful. And you never know who you are going to touch or how deeply you are going to touch them.

Dr. Trevor Cates:And I do want to comment on that. It is not that easy to just quit your job.

Dr. Yanez: Sometimes that can bring on even more. There are many people right now that are out of work or underemployed because of the situation. They can’t work safely. And I know I am seeing the stressors in a lot of my friends and colleagues and it is definitely a big deal. Like you said, if it is the job or what is the root of that issue and until you can get to that and figure it out, that is going to be there. It is the thorn in the foot. I always give the example of the check engine light in your car and you have this check engine light and it means that you need to take your car in, but it’s a symptom. It’s just something that’s telling you something is wrong and needs to get checked on so you can unplug the cord to the check engine light or you could go and take your car in. Naturopathic medicine is like going and taking the car in and getting to the root cause.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let’s talk about what are some of your favorite things to do that you recommend to help with stress?

Dr. Yanez: Oh gosh. There are so many. But I think for me, I talk about giving back. Gratitude is one of them that I think is a little underrated. People are just starting to talk about gratitude. I have been lecturing on positive psychology for years. They didn’t really cover positive psychology too much in my program. It has come to light much more lately. Are you familiar with that term? And I don’t want to assume that you or your listeners are.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Why don’t you go ahead and explain it to us so that we are up to speed.

Dr. Yanez: Positive psychology is basically the study of being happy. In medical school we learned all of the ways of diagnosing people who are ill. What causes illness, what causes a disease and manifestation of that and symptoms. But positive psychology is the study of what makes us happy. What are the characteristics, the common thread of people who are happy and content in their lives. What can we do to learn more about those things so that we can then foster more positivity. Does that make sense?

Dr. Trevor Cates: Absolutely. Love it.

Dr. Yanez: It is very naturopathic in the way that it is focusing on the positive and cultivating wellness and health, mental health rather than just an illness based approach to healthcare and mental health. So for me, gratitude is key to that. There is literature that supports it, mitigates stressors and improves quality of life. It can help strengthen our relationships. And help our health. There is growing research right now that it can be helpful in a host of conditions like anxiety and depression and even heart disease and cancer. When the Corona virus first hit my work was increasingly stressful, all of the naturopathic schools basically within a couple of days had to move everything online, close all clinics to conventional patient care, and basically take care of all of their communities. And really, there was a lot going on. And at the same time, my husband, who is a hospital administrator, was working easily 12, 14 hour days, and my son was home from school. And so I’m like, Oh my God, I’m getting overloaded. Where’s my own practice?

And so I started doing that with us every night when I put my son to sleep. I said, okay, today we are going to think of three things that we are grateful for. I am going to start because I need it just as much as you do probably. I started this and it really just set the intention of, okay, yes, this is awful and this is really stressful, but within all of this, there are some things that we can find that are good. It was very intentional to do that every single day. I even had my son, who is still learning how to write, I said here is a journal, start writing in it. You don’t have to write a whole lot but write down something. We just started that practice of incorporating gratitude and thankfulness.

In my neighborhood, our neighbors started kind of getting together. I don’t know how your neighborhood is, but folks were checking in on each other, do you need anything? Hey, I got a grapefruit treat, you need some food? I can swap some great foods for something else that you have got. And so we just started checking in on each other. And I was really grateful for that support system for friends and that compassion and that gratitude is something that you can develop. It is like a muscle. You have to practice at it. Because we can easily go mentally dark if we are not careful and mindful of that. Gratitude is one, mindfulness is the other. I think mindfulness is core to our awareness of being able to address things, mindfulness lets us tune in to our body and to our condition and to our surroundings and let us know how we are doing? Do we need to change anything? Is anything out of balance right now? In the midst of being at my computer for lots of hours, I started having some neck tension. Alright, I need to check in. What is different, what is going on? And I realized I was wearing my shoulders as earrings again. I’m like, Oh, I haven’t done that since medical school.

Where do we hold the tension? Everyone is different and tension and stress is going to manifest in your life in different ways. And so for me, it was my traps and my neck and my headaches all coming back and okay, I have to tune in. And so I started being more mindful about my ergonomics and my computer, standing more at my desk rather than sitting down and I took steps and it’s gone. Rather than going through a whole course of needing medication for pain and all that kind of stuff, I allowed that mindfulness practice, and I’m giving myself as an example right now, but I allowed that to guide the next things that were going to happen. Those to me are very powerful. But there are so many others.

I know, you know, this, as an ND getting outside right now, we have to be safe about getting outside. But if you have the ability to get outside safely and get some sun on your skin, that is a really good thing. If you can get outside and sweat and move, that’s another really good thing. I forced myself even in the midst of this to make sure that I put in my garden and, I will get out there a couple of times a week and pull out weeds and sweat a little bit and it is all good. However that looks for you or your listeners, it is really putting together the plan that keeps you safe and for everybody that is going to be different.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. I used to travel a lot and I have always wanted to have a garden. I have made attempts before but it usually ends up dying because I travel so much. Right now I am working on getting that going and I am so excited. I am so grateful for having that allowance of, okay, now I have the time and opportunity to actually do this. Being creative and patient, I think it is certainly something to think about during this time.

Dr. Yanez: Be gentle with yourself too. I know that a lot of folks have that self-talk, the brain inside your brain that talks to you and says things that may not be so positive. And so part of that mindfulness I think also is listening and being attentive to that self talk and what is your brain saying to you when no one else is looking, what is that inner dialogue that goes on and either puts yourself down or you didn’t do a good enough job and all of that mental stuff. And so mindfulness isn’t just about the physical symptoms, but it’s also that inner voice too, and being mindful of those types of things that are trying to creep in.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Sort of like making an investment in your health. Because you have to put some money into your bank account to keep it alive so you can pay your bills and all of that. You have to do this for your health too, you have to think ahead, it is not just for right now, it’s just stress management of course, it helps in the moment, but it is even more powerful for what it can do for the future.

Dr. Yanez: It is. Stress management and just being attuned to the impact. So we know physiologically the stress hormones do a whole lot in our body. It is fight or flight. It is the bear chasing you in the woods and you need to go get safe. And so stress serves a purpose. Like I said earlier, there is good stress. There is the good part, if you see a car is about to hit you, your heart starts pumping faster. It gets blood to your legs. You can run across that street and get to safety. But those same hormones, when they go overkill and they are used in a way that is ongoing or too continuous, they are going to start to do damage to our body over time. So it is really important to be attuned to that stress and know your triggers, know the types of things that can help you manage those triggers better or avoid them altogether. For some people I brought up that family example, and some people have family dynamics that are very stressful and sometimes it makes more sense to stay away from those or minimize those if they are going to be more detrimental to your health.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Right. It is not always possible to do that, but certainly it is about balance. And doing what you can. Certainly coping mechanisms, any suggestions on for people, especially if they are forced to be with their family right now and maybe they can’t really get away, other things that you can recommend to help people sort of through that time.

Dr. Yanez: That is a really great point right now. I know we are starting to see some data coming out that there is increased risk for domestic violence, increased risk for verbal abuse and all of that right now. I think all of the things that we can do under normal circumstances to cope and to manage. We talked about gratitude, we talked about journaling. Social support is important. Having a network of people you can rely on, and then physical exercise, all of the things that you can do, mindfulness practices, gratitude practices. I spoke maybe a month ago on a radio show and there was a big uptick in alcohol sales, when all of this occurred and they were starting to see a lot of increase in people relying on alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with what is going on here.

Again, I think it is an awareness of what are the positive coping mechanisms that you can rely on and what are some ones that may have detrimental effects. If you are being mindful and you are recognizing, Oh, I used to have a glass of wine like a couple a times a week and now it is every night. And is that a practice that I want to continue? And check in with yourself and say, I don’t know if that is a practice I want to continue. So how can I change that for myself? Like you said, you have to invest in yourself. And so if you are checked out on yourself, nobody can do this for you. This is the type of thing that we can, as naturopathic doctors, help patients and educate them on what is healthy and what can be a help for them, but we can’t do it for you. And so that is when that investment in yourself kicks in.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Can you explain why drinking alcohol is a negative coping mechanism? Because I think a big factor of that is, it is cultural and it just becomes such a pattern for people that they don’t really realize that it is a negative coping mechanism. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Dr. Yanez: Sure. From a biological perspective, alcohol turns into very readily available sugar. From a physiology perspective, not even talking about the impacts on brain tissue and all of that, but just the basics, it is going to raise blood sugar, which if you are trying to manage weight, if you are trying to manage your hormones and all of that, it is going to cause a challenge or can cause a challenge. It can impact our sleep cycle. There are so many different physiology, things that we learn about with alcohol and its metabolism that it can impact it. There is a greater impact in some cases on females than males, just because of body mass and metabolism and so on. When you think about coping mechanisms, your coping mechanism for a stressor shouldn’t put more stress on your body.

It should be the relieving of stress, not adding more to it. If that coping mechanism for you, and I would even throw in excess exercise excess anything if that coping mechanism, too much shopping too much of whatever it is, if it is going above and beyond, if it is adding more stress than it isn’t an appropriate coping mechanism. That is the sort of thing that we should just be mindful of. Again, that mindful word. But if that stressor is going to add more into the bucket, in the terms of stress on your body and on your system, then it probably isn’t the best coping mechanism to be thinking of. I hope that that made sense.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, it does. What do you think is too much alcohol just in general? I know this is a very personal thing and it depends on the individual. But do you have something you recommend to your patients that is like, try not to drink more than blank?

Dr. Yanez: I don’t make any recommendations for folks regarding that. It is a very sensitive topic. For some people with a history of alcoholism, one drink is too much. Or with family histories, I have had folks over the years who have family histories of alcoholism and they just prefer, you know, what, I don’t need that in my life. It represents too much negative and there are so many other good things that I don’t need to bring that into the situation. I think it is a personal check in. That is the type of thing that somebody should probably be checking in with their own practitioners to make sure where they are at is good for them and their metabolism and where their body is at that time and their coping mechanisms and so on. For some folks that might be a drink or two a week, some folks that might be none. I think it is just very much individualized.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. And so the positive coping mechanisms are more, like you said, the gratitude, the mindfulness, getting out in nature, getting some exercise but not overdoing it. I do have some patients in park city that have overdone it with exercise or people that just, they go too hard. It can have a negative impact on the body. Since you mentioned that what I mean again is like what is that tipping point? How do people know when it’s too much of a good thing has become a bad thing?

Dr. Yanez: That is a really good question and I think it is again, not to be totally putting it off, but it is going to vary somewhat on the individuals and your age and your body health. I think ultimately if we go back to that point I made earlier, if this is the type of thing that is adding to the stress of your body, then it has moved into more of the negative bucket. Some physical wear and tear is, to be expected as we age, with exercise and so on. That little tipping point is really going to be listening to your body and okay, this running was fabulous. Running was a stress reliever, but now running is turning into my knees hurt every single time and I can’t walk afterwards for a day.

Now we need to start looking at okay, what is the impact of this exercise? What is it maybe triggering or causing us to pay attention to? Maybe there are some other underlying issues that this is just bringing to the surface. I think for everybody, it is going to be somewhat individualized. It is going to depend on your conditioning. There are extreme athletes. When I was in training, I had the pleasure of working with the team doctor for the Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Coyotes. And it was so much fun. But I remember standing in awe of the physicality of what these folks were able to do. Their heart rates were at such levels when I was standing with a cardiologist and he said, if you ever see this on anyone else, call 911 because this is not a normal heart rhythm. It was the sort of thing that I think is going to vary somewhat on the person’s athletic conditioning, on their age, on their underlying medical conditions and so on. But again, if something starts causing more stress and more strain, that is your sign to maybe check in and say, is this really as good a thing as I thought it was?

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. Absolutely. This has been so fascinating talking about stress and anything else that you want to tell people about where to start with stress management. If they are just trying to find out how to do it? You mentioned it is something people have to train themselves to do. Like gratitude is especially, you have to reprogram yourself. Any tips on getting into that for people who, it is a new thing for.

Dr. Yanez: On the AANMC website, I am the Executive Director for the association of accredited naturopathic medical colleges and we have lots of blogs and tips and tricks for this. I always tell folks, start small, you don’t tackle Mount Everest the first time you go hiking. This is the sort of thing that you have to build into it and you have to practice. And so with gratitude you can start with just three things every day that you are grateful for. It is pretty easy. It is pretty low hanging fruit. That is something most of us can commit to doing. The mindfulness practice that I like personally, I do it at night as I am laying in bed, getting myself ready for sleep, it is just a real quick check in.

I start in my head scanning my body from top down. How am I feeling? What are my thoughts? What am I feeling in my body? And without judgment. The judgment part is the most important part. So it is not, Oh man, I got pain in my neck. I am such a dumb wad for not knowing about ergonomics and not listening to my own attention, my own advice. You banish all that judgment stuff. It is just listen, feel, scan without all the judgment stuff. Let that go. What I will do every night before bed is just kind of scan top to bottom. And the other bonus is that it starts to relax you so that hopefully you can go to sleep a little bit easier.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, that is a great tip. I love that one. That is fantastic. Well, it has been so great having you on, tell everybody where they can learn more about you and the association.

Dr. Yanez: Sure. I am Dr. Joann Yanez and AANMC.org, Is our website and we’re also all over social media, Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and so on. So check us out and if you or any of your loved ones are interested in learning more about naturopathic medicine, medical school, like Dr. Cates and I did, feel free to check out our website. We have lots of information. We also host three monthly events on our website, on all different types of health topics like allergies and oncology, cancer and women’s health and stress.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Even if you are not interested in becoming a student, there is still plenty of information for the general public on the website. That’s fantastic. I love that. And it’s so funny. You and I met while we were in Naturopathic Medical school. We were at different schools, but we were the first group to do the National Naturopathic school association.

We had representatives from the different schools and we all met up in Canada at the Canadian school that was there and started brainstorming and how to help our colleges to communicate better.

Dr. Yanez: It was, and I remember we had to send things by mail and that was challenging. I think we probably would have had a lot more luck getting it off the ground with today’s internet connectivity.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yes, definitely. This was twenty four years ago, 23 years ago? Okay. That one didn’t survive but then it got revived and turned into something new and I am so glad that you are still involved in an aspect of this so it is really fantastic. Thank you for all the work that you do.

Dr. Yanez: Well thank you so much for having me on and for raising awareness, for patients and folks all over about how they can stay healthy naturally.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. Thank you.

Dr. Trevor Cates: I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Yanez. To learn more about her and the AANMC the association that she was talking about. You can go to thespadr.com, go to the podcast page with our interview and you will find all the information and links there, and while you are there, I invite you to join The Spa Dr. community so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows and information. And if you haven’t taken the skin quiz yet, you can go to theskinquiz.com it’s a free online quiz to help you figure out what your skin is trying to tell you about your health and what you can do about it. Just go to theskinquiz.com I also invite you to join The Spa Dr. On social media. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. I will see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.