In this episode of Resiliency Radio, join Dr. Jill Carnahan as she interviews Dr. Achina Stein and Silvia Covelli from The Depression Project. Together, they explore innovative and approaches to tackling depression at its root. Discover how their programs aim to help individuals break free from the grips of depression and regain energy, joy, and purpose for lasting well-being.
Whether you're seeking an alternative to conventional therapies or just want to learn about comprehensive, whole-person care, this conversation provides valuable insights for long-lasting relief from depression.
Schedule a Call: https://go.healingdepressionproject.com/dc-schedule
FREE Guide: Why Am I Still Depressed? Top 4 Mistakes You’re Making
(A Practical Starter Guide to Overcome Chronic and Treatment-Resistant
Depression) https://go.healingdepressionproject.com/guide
Key Points
✅ Overview of The Depression Project's mission and approach.
✅ Discussion on the importance of addressing the root causes of depression.
✅ How energy restoration and holistic care impact long-term mental health.
✅ Insights into cutting-edge treatments beyond conventional therapies.
✅ The connection between physical health and emotional well-being.
✅ Practical steps to reclaim joy and resilience in life.
Our Guest – 👨⚕️ Dr. Achina Stein
Dr. Stein is the Clinical Director at the Healing Depression Project. She is a leading expert in Functional Medicine Psychiatry and a best-selling author with 30 years of experience helping people recover from depression.
She is a board-certified psychiatrist, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a certified practitioner of the Institute for Functional Medicine, and a former Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
Dr. Stein's Amazon international bestselling book, “What If It’s NOT Depression? Your Guide to Finding Answers,” offers groundbreaking functional medicine perspectives, instilling hope and providing healing pathways for those facing chronic depression.
In the 45-Day Depression Recovery Program offered by the Healing Depression Project, Dr. Stein works on identifying and addressing all the root causes of your depression-like symptoms. This program brings hope to those who have long struggled with depression and have not found relief with other treatments, including antidepressant medications.
Our Guest – 👨⚕️ Silvia Covelli
Silvia is the founder of the Healing Depression Project. She is an honors graduate from Boston College and a former social science researcher at Harvard University. She pursued graduate studies in finance and business law, and dedicated her career to entrepreneurship, becoming an accomplished businesswoman.
In parallel with her thriving career, Silvia faced relentless and chronic depression, exploring over 60 different treatments without finding sustained relief. Her personal struggle, combined with her extensive background in human transformation and mind-body connection, led her to develop a program that remarkably eradicated 25 years of depression symptoms, leaving her depression-free ever since.
This breakthrough later inspired the creation of the Healing Depression Project, and helping others break free from depression became her life mission.
- Website: https://drsamshay.com/
- Functional Genetics: https://drsamshay.com/genetics-program
- Website: https://www.healingdepressionproject.com/
- Schedule a Call: https://go.healingdepressionproject.com/dc-schedule
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.
As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs.
A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.
Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names.
The Podcast
The Video
The Transcript
227: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill The Depression Project with Dr. Achina Stein and Silvia Covelli
Dr. Jill 00:00
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Resiliency Radio. I'm your host, Dr. Jill, and with each episode, we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation. Join us as we connect with renowned experts, thought leaders, and innovators who are changing the way we look at medicine and heal patients. Hopefully today you'll feel empowered with the information that we're presenting.
Dr. Jill 00:21
I know one of the things that's been on my mind is the mental health of the US and the prescription rate of things like SSRIs. Prozac is up 400%, if that doesn't tell you a little bit about the state of things. So today I am super excited to introduce my guests, and the solution that they've come up with is really, really an innovative, amazing thing. The title of our talk today is “New Insights into Mind-Body Medicine.” Let me quickly introduce our guests, and then you'll hear from each of them.
Dr. Jill 00:51
Dr. Achina Stein is the clinical director of the Healing Depression Project. That's what we're going to talk about today. She's the leading expert in functional medicine psychiatry and a best-selling author with 30 years of experience helping people recover from depression. She's a board-certified psychiatrist, a Distinguished Fellow in the American Psychiatric Association, a certified practitioner in the Institute of Functional Medicine, and a former Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Her Amazon international bestseller—What If It's NOT Depression? Your Guide to Finding Answers—offers groundbreaking functional medicine perspectives, instilling hope, and providing healing pathways with those who face chronic depression.
Dr. Jill 01:31
And then I want to introduce Sylvia. Sylvia is the founder of the Healing Depression Project. She is an honors graduate from Boston College and a former social science researcher at Harvard University. She pursued graduate studies in finance and business law and has dedicated her career to entrepreneurship, becoming an accomplished businesswoman. In parallel with her thriving career, she has faced relentless and chronic depression, exploring over 60 different treatments without finding sustained relief. Her personal struggle combined with her extensive background in human transformation and mind-body connection led her to develop a program that remarkably eradicated 25 years of depression symptoms, leaving her depression-free.
Dr. Jill 02:15
I am so excited to hear about this project because it really is one of a kind. It is going to change the face of how we treat depression and mental illness. And I think I'll ask you, Sylvia, to start. How did this happen? Tell us a little about your own story, Sylvia.
Silvia Covelli 02:32
Hi, Jill. Thank you. Well, [it's a] very long story because it was a long journey of 25 years really trying to find relief from depression symptoms. I initially tried all the conventional approaches [and] pharmacological approaches. They didn't work for me in a way. They made symptoms worse and brought up new symptoms that I didn't have before trying these medications. [I was] very discouraged, but I didn't stop there. I also tried less traditional approaches and went to countless programs, some of them residential. I also did retreats. I tried basically everything that was possible, as you just said now—more than 60 different treatments and programs—and nothing worked. I could not find sustained relief. I will feel better for an X amount of time and then symptoms will just reappear. They will come back any day. And it was this constant cycle.
Silvia Covelli 03:50
During all that process, I had moments that were really difficult because some doctors—and that's one of the messages that conventional psychiatry delivers, that there's no cure—advised me right in my face: “Just give up the search. This is affecting you more. Just accept what it is. This is part of your life. This is part of who you are. And learn to live with that and give up.” During those moments, it was really difficult. But I still continued because just the thought of having to live with this for the rest of my life—I couldn't have that thought. I'm like, “No, there's got to be a way out.” I knew other people had done it. And like, “This is not going to be my story.” So I continued with that.
Silvia Covelli 04:44
I think what really started to make a change in my life was when I finally made the connection between physical health and mental and emotional health, which I did on my own because none of the doctors, health professionals, or therapists that I saw ever addressed that. It was not part of the conversation. When I started doing that and really focused on my physical health first, that was the foundation of improving my mental and emotional health. In that process, I had a few breakthroughs that also included lifestyle habits.
Silvia Covelli 05:27
The lack of integration that I had—I had a lot of information. I think people who are listening relate to this: We know sometimes what's good and what we should be doing. But then the real question that I asked myself was if I was really doing that on a daily basis. The answer was no. So I really concentrated on integrating these things that were helpful to me, like exercise, meditation, and a lot of other things.
Silvia Covelli 06:00
The other thing is that I really concentrated on it. I spent a whole life trying to heal on the site, just “Okay, one hour a week to do this, then I'm going to see the doctor once a month and then I'm going to listen to a podcast every so” [often], or whatever the situation was, but always in the middle of the chaos of life and never really giving it the necessary time and attention. So when I did that—fully concentrated on that and put together the pieces that I mentioned before—I ended up putting [together] a program just for myself. It was never my intention to do this program. I was in survival mode and just trying to feel better and stay better. And the program worked incredibly well for me. I've been feeling fantastic almost for the last five years. And about two years ago, I really got inspired—the feeling of [how] “this could help others”—and I joined efforts with amazing doctors such as Dr. Stein here with us.
Dr. Jill 07:09
Thank you for sharing your story. I love starting the podcast with that because it's often someone who encounters a problem that can't be solved by conventional medicine. The story is the same over and over. Even though we have wonderful conventional tools—and I want to hear from you next, Dr. Stein—especially in the field of psychiatry, that is not always the answer. And there's a place and time for medications, but there is so much more. Dr. Stein, you are a true expert and you've written a very successful bestselling book. How did you connect with Sylvia? And tell us a little about your background, and first even just getting into medicine and psychiatry, and then getting aligned with this particular project.
Dr. Achina Stein 07:49
Yes. I've been a psychiatrist for over 30 years. I practiced traditional psychiatry and did psychotherapy with my patients as well. There are some psychiatrists who don't do psychotherapy, but I was trained to do that. So I had a combination practice. And being a DO, I was already of a holistic mindset, so I did spend time talking to my patients about sleep, exercise, movement, eating right, [and] things like that. But I didn't do it to the degree that I do now—once I became a functional medicine doctor, or now a psychiatrist specifically for mental health issues as well—until 2010.
Dr. Achina Stein 08:39
My son had an acute mental health crisis. Here I am a psychiatrist and overnight he became acutely depressed, standing on a fifth-floor ledge, ready to jump. This was an overnight change in him. There were no signs of it happening. As a result, I was obviously shocked. “Why did I miss that? How did I miss this?” But we ended up having him see a psychiatrist and a therapist. He was on four medications, and for lack of a better word, he was a complete zombie. He was not my son. I couldn't understand why it happened or how it happened, and I felt like it was a neurological problem initially, not having that functional medicine bent yet. But I just didn't want to stop there. Even though doctors had said, “Well, you have depression on both sides of your family in your history; be glad that it's just one of your three children and not all three,” that just wasn't acceptable to me.
Dr. Achina Stein 09:47
The thing about him was that he was also not able to read anymore overnight, and this is why I thought he was having some kind of brain issue. He had significant double vision. So that's why I went down that route. And all they were able to tell me was, “Oh, just give him some eye exercises and that'll get better.” It's like, “No, there's something wrong going on in his brain.” Fortunately, I was able to cross paths with Ed Levitan. At the time, he was CEO of Visions Healthcare in Massachusetts. He and his wife, Wendie Trubow—who you probably know, who's a gynecologist—the two of them now have a practice called Five Journeys in Massachusetts. But at that time, it was Visions Healthcare. I took my son there. And I didn't even put it together. I was so interested in functional medicine and alternative health that I asked to shadow him for a period of time to just understand what it is. And sure enough, like, “Oh my gosh, I have to bring my son here.”
Dr. Achina Stein 11:01
It ended up being that he had celiac disease. He was highly malnourished, so very nutrient-deficient, as a result of the celiac disease. And he was found to be very sensitive, not just to gluten but also to soy and dairy. Just from that, he was able to resolve his lifelong history of constipation and eczema—just the change in the diet—that he felt significantly better and was completely on board with the rest. Imagine a 14-year-old kid being on board. He did all of the five-hour approach [to] gut restoration and was able to come off of all the medications and be very happy, vibrant, and feeling even better than before this all happened. It took about a year to two years for him to get completely resolved in terms of even the diplopia—the double vision—because the cranial nerves of his eyes were inflamed. If I remember correctly, it was about a year before he came off all the medications.
Dr. Achina Stein 12:16
So if you can act quickly and address these issues, things can get better pretty quickly. And I'm glad for the medications initially because they stabilized him, but he was having so many side effects. But once I saw the power of functional medicine, and not just in my son but in all the patients that I was witnessing getting better by shadowing Dr. Levitan, I just had to go all in. And I was a sponge learning functional medicine.
Dr. Achina Stein 12:50
I've been in practice since 2012. I actually started working for his practice. I left my medical director job to join his practice and then started my own practice called Functional Mind in Providence, Rhode Island. When I met Sylvia, it was like, “Yeah, what you're talking about is what I do with all my patients on a one-on-one basis.” And it is about doing all the things all at the same time and habit-stacking those lifestyle changes. But it starts with diet.
Dr. Achina Stein 13:23
I don't think Sylvia emphasized it. It was the diet, starting with diet, that made a big difference for her, and then also stacking on a daily basis the habits of exercise and meditating and breathwork. And I'll let her go into the rest for her. But I think it's really important to emphasize that it is doing all of the things all at once that are going to make symptoms like depression, especially a treatment-resistant depression treatment… What is it resistant to? Pharmaceuticals. It's not resistant to other things. And there are so many other treatments out there—so many.
Dr. Jill 14:03
I'm excited to dive into some of that and also the program you guys have created. One thought as you describe your son is: I'm sorry you had to go through that, but what a beautiful way for you to be able to transition, not only help your son and change his life and now all of the many, many thousands of people who are getting help by what you've already done and now this new project. Another thing just for our listeners that I think is so interesting is celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity, [which] we most often think of as a gut disorder, which definitely affects the microvilli in the gut. But in my experience—and I think the data holds this out—about 50% have gut symptoms of diarrhea, malabsorption, and all of that, which was contributing. But about 50% have insomnia, fatigue, and depression or anxiety. So the mental health part of celiac, I don't think we talk about enough and it's just profound.
Dr. Jill 14:49
I had a funny experience last year in Australia. I'm celiac—gluten-free completely—and for some reason, I went to this little health food store and got this… I don't usually ever eat bread but I thought it was gluten-free bread. It was not. So for three mornings, I had this bread. My gut was perfect, which is actually a testimony to how I've healed. No problems. But about two hours every day after I had organic honey and this kind of toast, I would get the most dark depression, grumpy. And that's not me at all. By the third day, I was like, “What is going on?” Then I looked at the label and I see spelt, which of course is a gluten-containing grain. I was like, “This, I guess, is what happens for me when I get gluten exposed,” because it had been like 20 years. And it was all brain. It was a temporary depressive symptom. So I completely experienced that for myself. As soon as I got the gluten out, I was fine. But it's so interesting because it really does affect the mind. And I think many of our listeners may not know that food affects the gut and the brain.
Sylvia, do you want to comment on the dietary changes and how profound you found food was at the core in the beginning of your process?
Silvia Covelli 15:57
Yes. There's so much research showing the link between nutrition and mental health, and conventional psychiatrists don't talk about it. So it was out of listening to different things and trying new things, and I changed basically everything that I was eating. I started cooking as well, because I wanted to make sure, as you were talking in your story: What ingredients are inside? I stopped eating processed foods. If it came in a bag, a package, or a box, that was a no. And I went to Whole Foods, and I started to really kick sugar out. Carbs—I was eating a small amount of carbs, and only once a day. Just making those changes made me feel so much better.
Silvia Covelli 17:03
For example, one other thing that I did that was very powerful was intermediate fasting. In my case, I was doing it for sometimes 16–18 hours and sometimes even more because, as I started seeing the benefits, I thought: “Okay, my body is cleaning itself, and let's give it the time to do that.” And I started reading about it. I really love the whole concept. Not eating all the time and not adding sugar and processed foods changed my energy levels to the point that I was then able to implement the other things because I was experiencing so much fatigue and energy drain that just thinking about doing any other change in my life was [like]: “I can't; I'm doing the most I can.” That was definitely one of the pieces that was a complete game-changer.
Silvia Covelli 18:06
This is one of the reasons why I'm also doing the project, because I cannot believe that even now, with so much research showing this, doctors still don't talk about it. And if they mention it, it's like an afterthought. At the end of the consultation, they're like, “Yeah, it's healthy,” after they're prescribing, of course. When that's the approach, that's fundamental for healing. If you fix the way your metabolism is working and any metabolic dysfunction that you have in your body, which is what we're doing with the nutritional psychiatry that we're doing, then that's the beginning of sustained healing.
Dr. Jill 18:58
I love that you're talking about [how] food is medicine at the core because it really is such a foundation. I want to hear from you in a moment, Dr. Stein. And as you described that, one thing that people may not know is—I've been teaching a while on the gut—LPS-induced endotoxemia, which is this coating of gram-negative bacteria in our gut, sneaks across from the gut lumen into the bloodstream. If you start to search and look at conditions that are associated with this endotoxemia, which we all have to some degree after meals, I'm suspecting it's much larger in our depressed populations because there are studies linking elevation of endotoxemia and depression and elevation of IL-6 and depression, and these are all connected. So it makes sense when you talk about fasting because that's one way to give your body a break from that internal toxic load. Even if we don't even know what's happening, we're like, “There's something good.”
Dr. Jill 18:58
I always find in clinical practice that if patients say, “You know what? If I just didn't have to eat, I'd feel better,” I know there's some degree of leaky gut endotoxemia happening. And on the list of things that it causes are depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Dr. Stein, do you want to talk about the gut, the food, and maybe just give us a flavor of why in medicine… because we're really not taught a lot about nutrition. And that's what Sylvia is alluding to. In functional medicine, we learn. It's core. We have to relearn all the core principles. But in our traditional training, most doctors aren't taught a lot, are they?
Dr. Achina Stein 20:19
No, they're not taught very much at all. And although they know on a superficial basis that eating healthy is a good idea, they don't necessarily see that it could be a driver of treatment in terms of a poor diet causing depression or a poor diet causing mania or anxiety. Those connections are not made. I find it mind-boggling nowadays, now that you know what you know, that there's still such a big disconnect. But there are books coming out about that from functional psychiatrists like Dr. Georgia Ede's Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind, and Dr. Christopher Palmer's book Brain Energy. Both are leaning towards the ketogenic diet as being a way of treating depression specifically and also anxiety, bipolar, and even psychotic disorders.
Dr. Achina Stein 21:35
And the ketogenic diet—I'm sad to say that people don't really understand what that is. They tend to associate it with meat, but it really is a low-carb diet, bringing carbs down. It's a clean diet, removing sugar and ultra-processed foods, eating whole foods, and reducing carbs significantly. There's a woman whose name is escaping me right now who wrote a book. She lives in Massachusetts and wrote a book called Vegan Keto. It doesn't have to be meat. It's really all about lowering carbs and eating the rest of those foods as healthy fats and healthy protein.
Dr. Jill 22:30
Thanks for clarifying.
So let's move on to: What else is kind of core in a functional approach? And maybe I'll go back to you for just a moment, Dr. Stein. And then, Sylvia, I'd like to hear your experience. But how would you outline for us what an integrative approach to depression really looks like—like a map—for those people who are wondering, “What do I do?”
Dr. Achina Stein 22:49
It's looking at food first—foods, infections, chronic infections. You mentioned lipopolysaccharides. Foods, infections, toxins, stress—all of which can affect your hormones, particularly cortisol. So I look at those five. Fortunately, a good mnemonic for that is SHIFT: Stress, hormones, infections, foods, and toxins. And it's really doing a deep dive in all of those areas after getting a really detailed history to know where to point to first. But I always start with diet and then do testing. We want to test, not really guess, as to what's going on in the body to replace what's been missing as a result of all the inflammation caused by the problems in the body and remove whatever's causing the inflammation. After looking at the detailed history and replacing what's missing, we want to re-inoculate the gut microbiome and repair the gut lining. And after that, it's really looking at, “How do all the pieces of the puzzle fall in terms of what's left over?”—because everything starts in the gut.
Dr. Achina Stein 24:02
Looking at mold toxin illness, looking for Lyme, looking for co-infections to see if maybe we've missed something. Viruses tend to be missed. Parasites tend to be missed. But it's doing an overview, coming back to the board and seeing, “Okay, what else is there?” Because sometimes when you get a history in the beginning, people don't remember. So you have to go back to the slate and start again and say: “What about this? Are you sure? Are you sure your house doesn't have mold? Are you sure you haven't been bitten by ticks?” And then maybe do some more testing.
Dr. Achina Stein 24:02
It sometimes takes a couple of rounds, but generally, I find that after getting a really good history, you can address all of the issues. And people can get well anywhere from six months to a year, depending on how inflamed they are. But sometimes it takes a couple of years. It's just a matter of staying on top of it, being persistent, consistent with all of the recommendations, and following through. The follow-through is really important, staying on top of it and not losing your target, which is getting well, feeling well, and remaining hopeful.
Dr. Jill 25:21
Yes, gosh. Thanks for framing that. That's such a great outline of what we do in functional medicine. And it's no surprise that it applies to both the body and the mind.
Sylvia, I'd love to hear your experience. Obviously, diet made a pretty profound shift. And then, what else did you find was the most helpful for your recovery?
Silvia Covelli 25:40
I think if I had to choose, it would be sleep. Sleep was something that I didn't prioritize, and I didn't have a good sleep hygiene. That was something that I really concentrated on. When I was doing the program for myself, at 9 p.m., I would shut down everything in my house, like the TV and the lights. I would have a sleep routine. I would just be in bed even before 10:00. And I started building that habit of sleep and choosing sleep versus staying late, watching another episode of the series, or just on social media or whatever else that we were doing. The sleep piece really changed a lot of things for me.
Silvia Covelli 26:40
And together with exercise—movement—that was something that I thought I couldn't do because of how bad I was feeling and how little energy I had. I keep thinking, for people with depression, there are all these symptoms that are affecting any positive change to create any positive change in your life. When you're going to start something new, you need motivation, you need hope, and you need physical energy because otherwise, how are you going to do that? And how are you going to stick to it? In my case, I really had to push myself to do those things because I always had the excuse like, “I'm too sick to walk; I'm too sick to go out. I'm too sick for this.” I guess I stopped that conversation, and I really said: “I can't wait to feel better to do those things because those things are the ones that are going to make me feel better.” When that clicked in my mind, I started. And I started little by little.
Silvia Covelli 27:56
Since you love stories, when I initially began with this exercise, I signed up for the gym. The gym was a 10-minute walk from my house. By the way, a beautiful walk because I had to go across a beautiful park, so that was encouraging. And I signed up to a really nice gym, by the way, that I'm like, “I could have a sauna after,” and [I had] a lot of motivation to go. Just the fact of getting ready was already exhausting. But then I managed to get ready, put my sneakers on and get out the door. And at the beginning, all I could do was walk those 10 minutes. I would get to the door of the gym, turn around, and go back home. That was the beginning of that. And I was like, “Oh my God!” It was already 20 minutes of walking, and then I was getting sunlight. It was already really good, but that was the most I could do.
Silvia Covelli 28:58
So this is just to encourage. If there are people thinking, “Oh yeah, you really need to feel at your best,” no, you don't. And then I continued doing that for a few days. Then one day I said, “Okay, I'm going to actually enter the gym.” I went to the treadmill for five minutes because I put the clock. I was like, “Okay, when this bell rings, I'm out of here.” And that's what I did—five minutes. Making this story short, about three months ago, I ran a 10k. So you can really get out of that, but you need to push yourself in a loving way without criticizing yourself, just accepting where you are. But just say, “Oh, I must do this,” even if it is just a walk.
Silvia Covelli 30:01
The same with the food: It's really difficult. You're feeling bad. We have been trained to think that sugar is going to make us feel better in every movie you see. When there's a breakup, what is it? A big tub of ice cream or chocolate. And that's the solution; that's going to fix how you're feeling. They don't show what happens after because, at the moment, you get this sugar spike that might make you feel a little better, but then it comes down and it's worse. It's almost like a hangover from sugar. Just doing those changes despite the fact that you don't feel well. And that was my main breakthrough—just being able to do those things despite how bad I was feeling during many of those days.
Dr. Jill 30:53
Silvia, thank you so much for sharing that because I think [that for] those who are listening and suffering from depression, it's really important to hear. It's not just like boom and you feel better. And it's like you mentioned, Dr. Stein, it could be 6–12 months; sometimes even longer. And a couple of things came out as you were talking, Sylvia, that I think are important. One is: Identity matters. If we believe that we're sick or depressed and we believe something about ourselves, like “disabled”—and there's nothing wrong with any of those things; I've been very sick myself of cancer and Crohn's and all kinds of things—if we stay in that identity, it's hard to break through. And so often the habits follow identity. So when you started to believe, “I can get well, I'm not sick,” or “I don't have to be disabled,” or “I don't stay home,” and you started to shift that identity, I feel like that was the first step even before you walked into the gym because your identity now was “I'm going to be healthier.” Maybe better than even [saying] “I am going to be” [is] “I am healthy in real-time.”
Dr. Jill 31:48
If you're out there listening, you might write a list of things like, “I am strong,” “I am well.” I remember I started a mantra after my sickest days of mold and I would walk every day, and I would say: “Every day in every way, I am stronger and healthier, wealthier, more resilient, younger, and more beautiful. I will overcome all obstacles. I will outlast all adversity. Things are turning in my favor.” And I literally said that every day. And now, years later, it's part of me; it's who I am. And I chose what I wanted to become and then I spoke it into existence. I think some of these habits are hard—food and exercise. Some of the great works of James—Atomic Habits—I can't think of his last name…
Dr. Achina Stein 32:36
Cleary. James Cleary.
Dr. Jill 32:37
Thank you. Thank you, thank you. And BJ Fogg. Those are two of my favorites, and they're both aligned. Every day you brush your teeth. It's just a habit. And you might tag one push-up right after you brush your teeth. And when you're down there doing that one push-up—kind of like you walking into the gym—you're like, “Well, I might as well do two.” And then pretty soon you're doing five. And then pretty soon you're doing ten. And pretty soon you're doing more than five minutes on treadmill, and then you're doing the 10K. That's how it happens and it has to start small. And it's the best way to do it—to tag it with something you already do and make it so small that it's ridiculous if you don't do it, like maybe just getting ready to go to the gym. So I really love that, and I wanted to frame that, because I think, Sylvia, you did such a nice job of describing your journey. And those things really, really matter.
Dr. Stein, why don't you comment on what you see with patients and how to shift that habit formation? Because that's at the core here: Habit formation.
Dr. Achina Stein 33:28
Oh, absolutely. I was just thinking to myself as Sylvia was talking that your audience is not surprised because they're sitting there waiting for the magic thing that she did. It's like, “Oh, it was just diet?” “Oh, it was just exercise?” “Oh, it was just sleep?” And like, “Yeah, it is those things!” And it seems so little and obvious, but yeah, those are what really matter. And it is hard to make those changes. They're simple solutions, but they're hard to do—really, really hard to do.
Dr. Achina Stein 34:07
When I started doing functional medicine, I worked just one-on-one; I didn't have anybody else working with me. And I found that when I gave a plan to a patient, I would see them two months later, a month later, and they didn't do anything—so it's like, “Oh my gosh!”—because they were so overwhelmed by all my recommendations. So then I started offering a health coach. The people who worked with the health coach who opted for that met their goals. They were successful.
Dr. Achina Stein 34:37
So now in my practice, I insist on it; it's just part of my treatment: You have to work with a health coach. Whether you want to or not, you're going to meet with a health coach. And people are successful in meeting their goals because it's not about the plan; it's putting the plan into action. That is really the hard thing to do. And some people say, “I don't need a health coach.” No, you need a health coach; you absolutely need a health coach. And even the people who are very, very disciplined still learn so much from the health coach because they see things in you that aren't really there right in front of you. They're on the side that's interfering in your ability to move forward. And then your success skyrockets because they're bringing it into view for you.
Dr. Jill 35:24
Yes. I love that. And I love that you're using health coaches because, really, this is all about behavioral change, which is really much harder than taking a drug. Unfortunately, we want a quick fix, and none of this is a quick fix, but it's a much, much better long-term fix. So I really love that you're using that.
Dr. Achina Stein 35:42
Yeah. I do want to say, though, that people shouldn't discount doing functional medicine. That's where the marriage of medication and functional medicine—conventional—we have expanded our toolkit. It's not either/or; it really is both. And there are going to be people who are so depressed that they can't get off the couch to even do what Silvia did, even though she was very depressed. There are some people who can't even function at all, and those are the people who absolutely need medications. Once they get to a place where they're stably chronically depressed and not out of danger and not desperate, that's when you come to functional medicine.
Dr. Achina Stein 36:26
The analogy I use is that if you've been hit by a car, you're not going to go right to rehab. You're going to go to the hospital. You might have surgery. You might be put in a cast for a period of time, and then there's rehab. And to me, I feel like our retreat is a psych rehab. It's to come off the crutches of medication and have that time while you're on medication to do the functional medicine approach so that you can come off of medication and live your life knowing all the tools that you need to use in order to stay that way, to stay well. And not only will you not be depressed and anxious anymore [but] you're going to feel physically better as well. It's all connected all around. It's not just mind-body; it's also mind-body-spirit. It's the whole shebang. You're going to get well in all areas.
Dr. Jill 37:21
That's a beautiful thing. I'm sure joint pain goes away. And the other things that you aren't thinking about are also going to improve. Thank you both for framing that so well—the experience, what you do, Dr. Stein, and your experience, Sylvia. Thank you for being so vulnerable on that.
Dr. Jill 37:35
I want to shift in our last few minutes about this healing depression project, this retreat, that you've put together. I am so excited and honored to have you guys talk about this. First of all, as this is aired, it'll be starting in 2025. So tell us the dates. As this is aired, you should be able to sign up. And then just describe a bit about the program. And maybe, Sylvia, you can frame because you were kind of the entrepreneurial brains behind this. And then I want to hear, Dr. Stein, your thoughts on the program.
Silvia Covelli 38:01
Yes. We put together a 45-day program that includes a 30-day retreat in Austin, Texas, and then a 15-day daily follow-up at home for implementation and integration of all the gains that you have made during the retreat and to put into practice everything that has been learned. The program includes functional medicine, so Dr. Stein is going to be with us during the entire time. We're going to be doing extensive testing before the program, so we gain a lot of time. By the time they meet for the first time with Dr. Stein, she will have the results. That's, in some cases, even up to four months, which in some patients is how long it takes them to go back to the doctors with the results. We're doing all that functional medicine piece because it's just asking: Where are these symptoms coming from, and why are you experiencing this?
Silvia Covelli 39:13
And also, during those 30 days, we're doing metabolic psychiatry, which is like nutritional therapy. And we're going to be doing a ketogenic diet to address the well-being of the cell and to restore the functioning of the brain, and that's going to be during the entire program. And most importantly, it is a program that is taught as a training.
Silvia Covelli 39:44
For example, with food, then we're going to be giving cooking lessons. We're going to be doing a lot of teaching and awareness about why certain foods are bad, why certain foods are good, and what those foods are doing to you because there are a lot of things that we need to change in the way that we see food. So there's a lot of that going on, a lot of workshops.
Silvia Covelli 40:13
And then the other piece that we're doing is lifestyle medicine, which is what we were talking about—the lifestyle habits. This is a hand-holding system in which the person is going to be able to do the things that they have not been able to do on their own. So this is like having under one roof your health coach, your psychiatrist, your nutritionist, people, experts in habit development, and then your yoga and meditation teacher all there for you during a period of 30 days. And 30 days is also the time for you to start, through repetition, getting used to doing these habits, and forming a powerful morning routine that will help you to feel better in all senses of the word. So that's what we're doing with the lifestyle medicine.
Silvia Covelli 41:14
And since it is a very 360-[degree] and whole-person approach, we're also addressing trauma. We're doing psychodrama group therapy to try to look more for resolution, because sometimes talk therapy doesn't go all the way to resolution. Talk therapy is good in the sense that it will bring you more awareness or light on certain issues. Then maybe you understand, “Oh, this is why this is happening.” And then what? So this kind of therapy that we're going to be doing is to help you to try to resolve as much as possible those things that are holding you back from achieving true recovery.
Silvia Covelli 42:03
We're also doing somatic work because, as we all know, trauma is also stored in the body—in the muscles, in the joints. For women, it's a lot around the hips. So we're helping through somatic work, just helping that trauma to also move out of the body. And we're doing a lot of mindset work. That's through amazing meditations that are able to lower the weight in your brain so that you can access your subconscious mind, which is 95% of the mind anyway. And that's where all those limiting beliefs—and all that you were talking [about] before Jill—are. One of them for depression is that “there's no cure for depression” or “I'm going to be living with depression for the rest of my life.” Even the doctor told me, so that makes it almost like a fact. It's a figure of authority, and he's telling you this is what it is.
Silvia Covelli 43:07
So just changing that belief—as you said before very well—is the first step towards any recovery: Feeling and thinking that you're able to heal. That's the work that we're going to do through meditation, rewiring the brain for new thoughts and new emotions: Thoughts and emotions of health, of well-being, of happiness. If you've been depressed for a long time, this program is perfect for people who have been depressed for a few years now [and] have chronic depression or the so-called treatment-resistant depression. When that has happened for a long time, you really need to work on that mindset. The program also does that.
Silvia Covelli 43:53
Finally, we touch on the spiritual piece, getting in touch with life and purpose, and working on the overactive mind so that you can find peace in the present moment, building inner peace and inner strength. So it's very, very comprehensive—those 30 days. And then basically we go back home with you, in a way, virtually, because during the next 15 days the program is still going on in the mornings. You're doing all the practices, like your morning routine, like all the habits. You're also taking care of the nutrition—whatever avenue you're going to take to address nutrition. And then in the afternoon, we're meeting together and saying: “Okay, these are the difficulties that I had. This is what I need more help with.”
Silvia Covelli 44:49
And we're going to be there to make sure and to help you [so] that you can integrate this because nothing will ever work if you don't integrate it into your day-to-day life. There's no program out there; there's no good advice if it only stays in your mind. “Oh yeah, I know this.” No, it's not about that; it's about really becoming that and practicing that every day. So this is what the program is trying to achieve, which was a huge change for me when I started doing these things. When? Every day. That's when I started seeing a result. Even after one month of what I was doing, I felt completely different. And three months, within, honestly, biochemically, I was someone different. People who knew me were like, “What happened to you?” My own daughter said, “Who are you?” I was like, “Do you notice too?” She was like, “Oh my God, yes!”
Silvia Covelli 45:51
So the program does that. And we're only going to run it two times next year. The first time is in March—March 18. The second time is at the end of August. Only 15 people each time. Even though it has the beauty of a group and you can get this community healing, it's still small for you to get all the personalized attention that you need. So my invitation is that we still have spots available for March. And yeah, oh, super important: We have amazing scholarships. If you had considered, at some point, residential care or immersive treatments and you have not been able to afford them, this is a great opportunity because scholarships cover up to 80% of the cost of the program. We still have those available as well, so this is the perfect moment to reach out, ask questions, and see if maybe we are the right fit to help you live your best life.
Dr. Jill 47:06
Wow is all I can say! Sylvia, what a great job of outlining everything about that! You guys have thought of everything. I am so excited to be sharing this with the world because I think it's so needed, and I can't wait to see this be [done] however many times a year with hundreds and maybe thousands of people someday.
Dr. Stein, do you want to just end with maybe a few comments or hopes for the future? I was going to ask, who are the right patients for this? But Sylvia kind of outlined that. Any other comments you have about that?
Dr. Achina Stein 47:36
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to also mention that we plan on doing research for this. Kat Toups is the research director. As you probably know, she's done quite a bit of research with Dale Bredesen in the dementia population and has published quite a few landmark papers. So we're hoping to do the same for depression to show that the functional medicine approach is the way to go for the people who are right for it.
Dr. Achina Stein 48:17
In my heart, I really feel that this is the way that depression should be addressed from the very beginning and that medication should be reserved for a small population, not five-year-olds who are being given anti-psychotic medications and antidepressants or young children. It really should be food. And there's not enough being done to make the connection on a local basis—that food really ought to be first when it comes to behavioral issues, autism, depression, anxiety, psychosis, and really looking at our environment as root causes as well. I would imagine, because I see it every day with my patients, that if we did this on a local basis with our schools, with the public, with our towns, most of our population would get well. I really firmly believe that.
Dr. Jill 49:20
Wow. This has been so fun to have you on and, more importantly, so exciting because this is the future of psychiatric treatment of mental disorders. There's no question in my mind. And I'm so excited for you guys. What you've done—it's just really amazing. I can't wait to hear the outcomes. We'll have to have you back next year to talk about how the first year went and what the next year holds and all of that. But the hugest thanks to both of you guys. Right in the back, it was great to have that in the visual: HealingDepressionProject.com. If you guys want to know more, please go visit. You can schedule a free intro call to see if it's a good fit for you with Dr. Stein or Sylvia at www.HealingDepressionProject.com\call. And of course, if you're driving, don't take notes. These will all be in show notes wherever you listen to the show. And again, thank you both so much for the work that you're doing.
Silvia Covelli 50:17
Thank you so much!
Dr. Achina Stein 50:17
Thank you for having us.
Dr. Jill 50:19
Yeah. You guys are welcome. It's been so fun. So thank you, guys, always for grabbing another episode here with us. And as you know, we have a new episode coming out every week. You can find all the transcripts, resources, or anything else that you want to find, or show notes, web links, or anything [else] that was mentioned at JillCarnahan.com. Thanks again, and thank you both. HealingDepressionProject.com—check it out.
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