In this episode, we're diving deep into the latest breakthroughs in integrative mental health and wellness with special guest Kirkland Newman, founder of the Mind Health 360. Kirkland is an Anglo-American journalist, philanthropist, and Founder of MindHealth360, a global platform dedicated to integrative mental health and functional medicine psychiatry.

Related Link: https://www.immh.org/immh-2025/?ref=1265
Discount code for $50 off Early Bird registration: CARNAHAN50

🧠 Key Topics You'll Discover:
① The surprising link between mitochondria and mental health – and why morning light and movement are your brain’s best friends.

② How childhood trauma impacts your body’s immune response and can drive chronic illnesses like mold sensitivity and Lyme disease.

③ The real talk on functional medicine: what's working, what’s not, and the simple daily habits that make a powerful difference.

④ Insights from thought leaders like Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Emran Meyer, and Dr. Dale Bredesen.

💡 What You’ll Take Away:
📌 Morning Routine: Incorporating light exposure and exercise in the morning can significantly enhance mitochondrial function and overall mental health.

📌 Trauma Awareness: Healthcare providers should integrate trauma inquiry into their practice to better address underlying health issues.

📌 Functional Medicine: While it can be resource-intensive, focusing on foundational health practices like sleep and light exposure can offer significant benefits.

📌 Educational Resources: The podcast encourages listeners to explore further through the Mind Health 360 Show and related resources.

🔗 Explore More:
🎧 Mind Health 360 Show: https://www.mindhealth360.com/
📅 IMMH Conference – Sept 11–14, San Diego: https://www.immh.org/immh-2025/ (with virtual attendance options)

✨ Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share — let’s build a more resilient, trauma-informed world together.

This episode provides a comprehensive look at how integrating functional medicine and addressing trauma can lead to better mental health outcomes.

integrative mental health, functional medicine, trauma healing, mitochondrial health, EMDR therapy, circadian rhythm, Dr. Jill Carnahan, Kirkland Newman, Mind Health 360, chronic illness and trauma

Kirkland Newman

Kirkland Newman is an anglo-american journalist and philanthropist. She is the Founder and Editor of MindHealth360, a free, global resource for integrative mental health and functional medicine psychiatry, and is the Host of The MindHealth360 Show.

She created MindHealth360 after her own postpartum depression to address the epidemic of mental health issues and the lack of sustainable, root-cause based solutions for mental health in mainstream medicine. She launched the MindHealth360 Show in 2020 to give a voice to the leading practitioners of integrative mental health from around the world.

She has worked for Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Ogilvy & Mather in New York, and for Musiclegal and The Prince's Trust in London. She is a Co-Founder and Trustee of The Horizon Foundation which provides support for young refugees from the Middle East and Asia.,,Kirkland has a first class BA/MA from Oxford University in Modern Languages and Literature; an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in European Studies; and an MA from The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in Near and Middle Eastern Studies. Her dissertation “The Battle for Victimhood, Roles and Narratives of Suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” was published in “Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine”.

Mind Health 360 Show: https://www.mindhealth360.com/
📅 IMMH Conference – Sept 11–14, San Diego: https://www.immh.org/immh-2025/ (with virtual attendance options)

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 – Overview

Overview

• Kirkland Newman transitioned from journalism to health focus after personal experiences with postpartum depression and self-directed recovery methods, demonstrating the importance of personal narrative in health advocacy.
• Founded Mind Health 360 following insights from functional medicine, utilizing a three-pillar approach that emphasizes sustainable mental health healing.
  IMH Conference 2024 scheduled for September 11-14 in San Diego will attract health professionals and laypeople, featuring notable experts and offering both in-person and virtual attendance options.
• The conference will address the anthropogenic drivers of mental health, aiming for societal impact and credibility among conventionally trained psychiatrists.
  Kirkland shared low-hanging fruit mental health interventions, including circadian rhythm optimization and sleep hygiene, which are accessible but effective in promoting mental well-being.
• Highlighted the critical need for trauma-informed care alongside biochemical interventions in the treatment of mental health issues, integrating trauma therapy with functional medicine practices.
• Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity are often linked to mental health symptoms, underscoring the need for comprehensive assessments in mental health care.
• There was a notable increase in antidepressant prescriptions during COVID, highlighting shifts in mental health treatment patterns amid the pandemic.
• Low adoption rates of functional medicine practices among US practitioners point to a gap in integrating holistic methods within mainstream mental health care.
• Positive feedback collected from conventional psychiatrists at the conference indicates a growing acceptance of alternative approaches to mental health treatment.

Notes

Kirkland Newman's Personal Journey (03:52 – 13:12)

• Kirkland Newman's background as a journalist and philanthropist with multiple degrees.
• Career transition into health after significant experiences in various organizations.
• Personal experiences with postpartum depression and self-directed recovery methods.
• Discovery of root causes through personal testing and subsequent recovery efforts.

Mind Health 360 and IMH Conference Foundation (11:51 – 18:11)

• Founded Mind Health360 after discovering functional medicine.
• Three-pillar approach to sustainable mental health healing.
• Acquisition and growth of the IMH conference, highlighting the research-practice gap.

IMH Conference 2024 Details (18:11 – 22:31)

• Conference scheduled for September 11-14, 2024 in San Diego, with in-person and virtual options.
• Target audience includes various health professionals and laypeople.
• Notable speakers and their areas of expertise listed.

Conference Theme and Approach (22:31 – 26:44)

• 2024 theme focuses on anthropogenic drivers of mental health.
• Emphasis on societal impacts and evidence-based credibility.
• Positive feedback from conventional psychiatrists attending the conference.

Low-Hanging Fruit Mental Health Interventions (28:48 – 35:38)

• Recommendations for circadian rhythm optimization and blue light management.
• Sleep hygiene protocols and meditation techniques for better mental health.
• Dietary interventions and the importance of community connection.

Trauma and Functional Medicine Integration (35:38 – 46:59)

• Need for addressing trauma in conjunction with biochemical interventions.
• Integration of trauma therapy and functional medicine practices.
• Discussion on somatic therapy and polyvagal theory.

Clinical Insights and Statistics (14:28 – 16:49)

• Celiac/gluten sensitivity often presents with mental health symptoms.
• Significant increase in antidepressant prescriptions during COVID.
• Low adoption of functional medicine among US practitioners.

Transcript

00:01
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Hey everybody. Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go to podcast for the most cutting edge insights integrative and functional medicine. I'm your host Dr. Jill and with each episode we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation. Join me as I interview renowned experts, medical thought leaders and everyone in between to bring you insightful and fun and very hopefully practical advice to optimize your health and well being and even performance. I always just like you, learn right alongside you. I love interviewing these guests and look forward to sharing each week new information with you. This week you're going to love new insights on Integrative Mental Health with Kirkland Newman, my guest. 

00:44
Dr. Jill Carnahan
I will introduce her in just a moment, but before I do, I want to remind you that you can find all products that have been curated for your health needs@drjillhealth.com we have only the very best and if you're looking at a condition like Mast cell activ, chronic Lyme disease, Epstein Barr reactivation or just fatigue, you can find bundles there as well. I've put together some bundles to make it easy. One of our best selling bundles is the Mast cell bundle mcas. Another one is the Epstein Barr bundle and a third one that is always popular is the SIBO SIFO bundle which has three products to help you treat your bacterial and fungal overgrowth in the gut. 

01:25
Dr. Jill Carnahan
So if you're not sure where to start and you're looking for great quality products, you can go to drjillhealth.com as you probably know, you can also find my beauty line Clean beautiful products to help your skin glow@drjelhealth.com as well. And I've shared with you some of my favorites. One that is absolutely probably my top seller is Biopeptide Beauty Cream. This one I do not travel without love, love. I used to use retinols but in Colorado it's so dry my skin would be flaky and dry and it they're good, they have good evidence. But I find this to be just as good for anti aging and wrinkles without the drying. So it's a fantastic option. I used bed and it is literally my don't go without Biopeptide beauty cream which you can find@drjillhealth.com okay, onto our show. Let me introduce our guest. 

02:14
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Kirkland Newman is anglo American journalist and philanthropist. She is the founder and editor of Mind Health360, a free global research for integrative mental health and functional Medicine Psychiatry and the host of Mind Health360 show. I've been a guest on that and it's so fun. She's an amazing interviewer. She created Mind Health360 after her own postpartum depression to address the epidemic of mental health issues in lack of sustainable root cause based solutions for mental health and the mainstream medicine. She launched this Mind Health 360 show in 2020, giving voice to the leading practitioners integrative and mental health. She had some amazing guests as you can hear from our interview today. She is co founder and trustee of the Horizon foundation providing support for young refugees from the Middle East. 

03:00
Dr. Jill Carnahan
She's first class BA MA Founder from Oxford University in Modern Languages and Literatures and I could go on and on but she's just an incredible bring being who is now putting on the IMH conference. We'll talk a little bit about that today. If you're a practitioner, you can join in San Diego September, either live or virtual. But let me go ahead and first welcome Kirkland Newman to the show. Kiki, it is so exciting to be here with you and as we're recording this shortly, I'm going to be visiting you in London. I can't wait to actually see you in person. We're talking today about updates integrative medicine and mental health and you and I, right before we got on are just talking about we both love functional integrative medicine. 

03:40
Dr. Jill Carnahan
We all, we both know tons of practitioners and we have a lot of practitioners who listen to the show. But today I want to dive deep into all the realms and some of the new and upcoming things, especially somatic therapy, trauma therapies. Before I do, tell us a little about how did you get interested in this field? What was your journey into being the, you know, collaborator and kind of founder now taking over the IMMH conference. 

04:05
Kirkland Newman
Thank you so much Jill for having me. And you've always been a hero of mine. And you and I first met at the IMMH conference several years ago. I think it was in Orange county or in some place in California. You have always been such an inspiration because of your journey, which has been very personal and then very professional and also what you do and how you treat clinically and the research that you use and also your presentations are really second to none. So first of all, hats off for that and you really are a leader and a pioneer in this field. And second of all in terms of my story, so I had no intention of getting into the health space. I did a master's in French and Spanish literature. Then I Did a Master's in European Studies. 

04:50
Kirkland Newman
The first one was at Oxford. The second one was at lse. And then I did a Master's in Middle Eastern Studies at soas, the University of London. And I had a very checkered career. I worked for Rockefeller Brothers Fund, I worked for Ogilvy and Mather. I worked for the Prince's Trust. I did Europe's largest hip hop festival with Jay Z and Beyonce and Alicia. 

05:08
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Wow. I had no idea. All this. It's amazing. 

05:12
Kirkland Newman
Yeah. And so I was a fundraiser. I started a. You know, I started an Internet startup in the early 2000s as well. So I've had a very varied career. And then I was set to do a PhD on the middle Eastern conflict. That was really my passion. And I got postpartum depression after the birth of my first child, which I was offered drugs. I was offered SSRIs, I was offered tranquilizers, I refused them all. And then I fixed it with nutrition and meditation, and that was fine. It took about a year and a half, and it really affected my immune system. And I was sick all the time as well. On top of having panic and anxiety attacks, I was sick a lot. I would have every stomach bug, every flu, etc. But I didn't really have depression. 

06:02
Kirkland Newman
I had more anxiety, panic, and then weak immune system. And then after the birth of my second child, I had a much worse postpartum depression. And I was completing my master's in Middle Eastern studies, and I was writing my dissertation, in fact, on the battle for victimhood between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And about nine months after that, I developed this terrible postpartum depression where I couldn't get out of bed. I was crying all the time, I couldn't sleep. And so it took me about three years to be able to sleep properly. I was sleeping maybe three, four or five hours a night. And as you know, if you don't sleep for that period of time, you. I mean, I just had a complete breakdown. And there I did accept the drugs. 

06:44
Kirkland Newman
I was put on Mirtazapine, I was put on Zoplicone, you know, which is a sleeping pill, one of the zed drugs. And I was told by my psychiatrist I would be on these indefinitely. And after a few months of being on them, they provided immediate relief. So I stopped having panic attacks. I was able to sleep. And so that was a huge relief. And my first reaction was, wow, why has no one told me about this sooner? Like, these are great, these drugs. Like, why is everyone so afraid of antidepressants? But gradually, in fact, strangely, my mood got worse and worse. My energy levels got worse and worse to the point where I couldn't get out of bed. I was constantly crying. I was constantly. You know, and then I started noticing that my nails were super brittle, my hair was falling out. 

07:31
Kirkland Newman
I had all these weird symptoms, and I was feeling much worse even than I had when I had the sort of panic, anxiety, and insomnia. And so I said to my psychiatrist, look, you know, these aren't working for me. I think I. And she kept upping the dose till I was on, really, a mega dose. I was on 40 milligrams of mirtazapine or Zispin or Remron, whatever you want to call it. And it. And I said, look, I don't want to be on these. And she said, well, you'll be on these indefinitely. And I said, I've never been on a psych med before. I don't understand why I need these. And she said, well, you know, it's just you're depressed, and that's that. Anyway, I started doing my own research, and not one of my five or six doctors. 

08:14
Kirkland Newman
I saw an endocrinologist, I saw two OBGYNs, I saw several psychiatrists, psychologists. I was doing some cbt. No one ever said, let's look at your nutrition status, let's look at your hormones. Let's look at all the biochemical stuff that's going on. Not one of them through my own research. And I have to say, the first book I read, somebody gave me, it was Susan Summers Breakthroughs. 

08:35
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Oh, yeah. 

08:36
Kirkland Newman
And, you know, and she. For whatever. So I started reading her book, and I thought, this makes a lot of sense. And I started this odyssey. I went to Belgium. I saw Thierry Ertog, who's a hormone doctor who's quite controversial, and he gave me a list of hormones as long as my arm. I came back to London. I saw Marion Gluck at the Marion Gluck Clinic. I saw an endocrinologist there, and all of a sudden my eyes were open to this whole alternative approach which no one had told me about. I started seeing a nutritionist who tested my heavy metals, my food intolerances, my gut, et cetera. And it turned out I had, you know, all these imbalances in my HPA access. I had very low dhea, very abnormal cortisol rhythms. 

09:20
Kirkland Newman
I had very low progesterone, very low estrogen, very high copper, low zinc, low B12, very low Omegas, very low vitamin D. And so all These things, everything. 

09:31
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Your brain needed, right? Like, name the list of, like the top five to ten nutrients. 

09:37
Kirkland Newman
Well, exactly. And. And no one had tested this. And as I started to figure this out, you know, it became very obvious why I was depressed, why I was having insomnia, why I was so panicky. I had a very high mercury load, I had a very high lead load, I had gut dysbiosis, I had leaky gut and I a very serious gluten intolerance. None of this, you know, I had any idea about until I started doing all these tests. I then started working with doctors. Sarah Gottfried, this was back in 2011, and she was doing all these webinars on adrenals and, you know, women's health. And my whole world was blown up because I discovered functional medicine. And I thought, wow, why is no one talking about this in the uk, which is where I was based? 

10:27
Kirkland Newman
But also she was saying that only 1% of practitioners in the US practice functional medicine. And I thought, why is this not more well known? So then I made it my mission. I went away from the sort of Israel Palestine conflict and I said, this is going to be. My mission is to raise awareness and provide resources around integrative mental health and functional medicine, psychiatry. So I started a website called Mind Health 360. I then started a podcast called the Mind Health 360 Show. This was in 2020. And then I took over from Dr. Shaw of Great Plains Labs, IMH, which is integrative medicine for mental health, which had been going since about 2009 and had started very small. It was founded by Dr. James Greenblatt and Dr. Shaw, with 50 people in a room, grew to about 500. 

11:18
Kirkland Newman
And last year we did it in person. We had 700 people. And this year we're doing it again in San Diego. Diego from the 11th to the 14th of September. And, you know, there's a real need for this type of medicine, both for, you know, practitioner training, which is what IMMH is, and also for patients and their families, because there's such a need for this type of approach. And the way I look at it is if you want to sustainably heal mental health, you really need to look at three areas. The first is the biochemical, which is your gut, your hormones, your nutrition, your toxins, your infections, your inflammation, your. Your genes. The second is psycho spiritual, which is your trauma, your adverse life experiences, your chronic stress, your lack of purpose and meaning, difficult life circumstances. 

12:09
Kirkland Newman
And the third is your lifestyle, behavioral, so sleep, sunlight, exercise, essentially, and only by Looking at these three baskets, can you really sustainably heal mental health? So that's a long winded version of why I started what I started and why I'm so passionate. Because I really believe that we need a revolution in the way mental health is diagnosed and treated. And you know, I, I ended up weaning myself and it took me six months to wean myself off my drugs without my psychiatrist's approval. I'm not recommending that, but that's what I had to do. I had huge rebound insomnia. I had, you know, it took me three years to regulate my biochemistry and my stress response so that I could handle it. I nearly checked myself into a psychiatric institute. I was desperate. 

12:59
Kirkland Newman
And you know, in the end of the day, what stopped my panic attacks in their tracks were a simple breathing exercise that was, you know, taught to me by a psychologist, which was just four in, hold four, eight out. He recorded it on my phone. Every time I started feeling a panic attacks beginning, I would do this exercise. And you know, through my own journey, I realized that there are so many tools that we have in our arsenal to treat mental health and that are not in the mainstream. There are so many root causes to mental health, be they hormone dysregulation, nutritional imbalances, Lyme disease, toxins, et cetera. And through, you know, my work, I've learned so much about all these different factors that can be contributing to mental health and also ways that we can address it that are not in the mainstream. 

13:53
Kirkland Newman
So I'm passionate about revolutionizing mental health by bringing this awareness and education both to lay people, patients, their friends, families and health practitioners. So I will now shut up. But that's my story. 

14:08
Dr. Jill Carnahan
So good, Kiki, and thank you for sharing your personal experience. I don't think I knew the depth of what you had personally gone through. And I just want to highlight real quickly because like I said, you literally named all off the top 10, at least, things that are contributing. So people may not know. Celiac disease, non celiac gluten sensitivity. They think of it as a gut issue, gas or bloating or malabsorption. The truth is about 50% present with mental health issues. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, daytime fatigue. And I see it all the time. In fact, it was always a joke back in the day when I first started functional medicine. You know, I help a mother with her hormones and she'd send her college kid. 

14:43
Dr. Jill Carnahan
So it used to be a young man, you know, 19 years old, and we talking through it and Like I'm having depression, anxiety, I can't get through my studies, I'm having trouble with college and like, okay, da, da. And we need to do a stool test. And it was so funny to see a look on their face. They're like, you know, this young man and me giving them like, here's the poop test. But back to the pul celiac, the zonulin issue. And then also what you mentioned, dysbiosis. A lot of people have lps, endotoxemia, which is this bacterial leakage into the gut, from the gut into the bloodstream, which is a really potent inflammatory thing that can contribute to depression, anxiety, insomnia. So this gut connection you mentioned zinc and copper, we test this for not only mental health but cognitive function. 

15:24
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Super common to have those imbalance. You mentioned heavy metals. And these are all things that the conventional doc you go to is probably not going to look at or test or even know. And God bless them, they just don't know any better. It's not that they're not trained to help you, but they've been taught, like I was in medical school, that you have depression, you give an ssri. You don't look at hormones, you don't look at. You mentioned cortisol curve, you mentioned female hormones like progesterone, which can be calming and gabaergic, and on and on. But I love that I just wanted to highlight it because as people are listening, they might be suffering like you were. I don't know what the stats are. Kiki, do you know, I think I heard over Covid that prescriptions for antidepressants went up by about 400%. 

16:02
Kirkland Newman
Yeah, I'm not surprised. I know that anxiety went up BY I think 40% and it was already very high before. And I know depression has gone up. Covid has been hugely detrimental. Everyone's mental health, the isolation and you know, there's the epidemic that was already before COVID has now just gathered steam essentially and then the inflammation. 

16:25
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Because you also mentioned there are hidden infections like Lyme or Epstein Barr. And we see, I'm seeing a lot of long Covid post Covid where people have semi permanent or at least 6 to 12 to 18 months of inflammatory cytokines from the infection that maintain for months afterwards and absolutely affect brain affect blood FL to the brain effect because the T cells are diminished. Other infections that were just hanging around, not minding their own business, not bothering the patient like CMV or Epstein Barr or any Herpetic virus or any Borrelia or Lyme infections, all of a sudden pop their head up because their immune system isn't functional. So this, if you're listening, this may sound very complex, but I think the core message is what you said. 

17:08
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Kiki, I am so passionate like you about getting the word out to other practitioners because we need critical thinkers and problem solvers in the realm of medicine that are looking outside the box, which is comes back to your conference. Tell us just briefly now about. We'll talk about this at the end too, and it'll be in the show notes. What's the dates again? Who is it for and what are you covering this year? 

17:33
Kirkland Newman
Thank you so much. No, it's fantastic because the other thing is just before I talk about the conference, there's a disconnect between the amount of research and evidence that is out there. We know that, for instance, you know, there are hundreds of thousands of papers on the gut brain connection, most on animal models. That's the only thing. But there's a lot of research that's out there that's not getting into mainstream clinical practice. And so one of the things we're trying to do with the conference, which is Image Integrative Medicine for mental health, the 11th to the 14th of September in San Diego, is to really bring that research to the fore, essentially and bring the clinical practice to the fore as well. 

18:11
Kirkland Newman
And it's for health practitioners, whether they're MDs, DOs, and there's a large proportion of them nurse practitioners, physician associates, psychologists, psychotherapists, nutritionists, naturopaths, chiropractors, social workers and even passionate lay people. And so it's to really showcase the latest research, you know, on these biochemical imbalances mainly, but also on the psycho spiritual side and the lifestyle behavioral side and also the best clinical practice so that they can go away after four days of. It's quite intense. And we're covering a whole number of topics. So we've got Dr. Gabor Mate who will be talking about the sort of the biology and the brain, the body and brain connection and the effects of sort of chronic stress on our physiology. Dr. Emren Meyer will be talking about the gut brain immune connection. He's a gastroenterologist at UCL. Dr. Robert Lustig and Dr. 

19:07
Kirkland Newman
Matt Bernstein will be talking about metabolic psychiatry. We have Dr. Dale Bredesen who will be talking about Alzheimer's. And him and Cat Toops. Dr. Cat Toops and also Heather Sanderson will be doing a whole afternoon on Alzheimer's and on their latest research on preventing and even reversing Alzheimer's. We have. Who else do we have? We have quite a few wonderful speakers. We have a lovely postdoc from Princeton called Dr. Alexis Cohen, who will be speaking about circadian rhythm, sleep and blue light and the effects of those on mental health and especially on your mitochondria. Dr. Bob Rountree will be speaking about mitochondria and mental health. Dr. Naysha Winters will be speaking about cancer and mental health. I always try and add one person who's a bit left field, and last year we had Dr. 

19:58
Kirkland Newman
Aseem Malhotra, who's a cardiologist, talk about the heart brain connection. She will be talking about sort of metabolism, mitochondria, but also the cancer mental health connection. We have Patrick McEwen, who is a wonderful breathwork practitioner, whose latest work is about training mental health practitioners to work with the breath, because that's such an important part. We have JJ Virgin, who will be talking about exercise and muscle and the importance of muscle actually as a neuroendocrine organ and as a source of sort of biochemical chemical neurochemistry. So apparently your muscle acts as an endocrine and a neurohormone, which I had no idea about. It's so fascinating. We have Dr. Joe Pizzorno, who will be talking about toxins and mental health. Dr. Neil Nathan will be talking about mold and Lyme and mental health. So we really, you know, there are so many more, but we really. 

21:02
Kirkland Newman
Dr. Arwen Podesta on addiction and mental health. So we're trying to cover a whole number of bases. Dr. James Greenblatt, of course, will be talking about ADHD and mental health. And so we really are trying to cover sort of nutritional psychiatry, metabolic psychiatry. We have two sessions on genomics with Dr. Sharon Houseman Cohen and another one whose name I'm forgetting. Lisa Gray. No, Erica Gray. And. And so essentially, and that looks at the sort of new science of genomics and how certain snips really impact our mental health and epigenetics and what we can do about them. 

21:47
Kirkland Newman
We're really trying to cover really, the full gamut of depression, anxiety, addiction, and looking at genomics and metabolic psychiatry, nutritional psychiatry, the gut brain connection, toxicity, and really cover as much as we can in those four days with people who are real experts in the field, who can then showcase both to people, practitioners who are new to this area and are new to functional medicine completely, to people who are much more experienced. And really, it's across the board and anybody who's interested or invested or working with people with mental health, which is most practitioners. Yeah, there'll be something in it for them because it's, you know, and it's really trying to say, look, mental health is so much more than treating the symptoms with SSRIs. There are so many root causes. 

22:43
Kirkland Newman
So we're looking really at a root cause, personalized, precision approach to mental health treatment. And as far as I know, there is no other conference or platform out there that combines integrative approaches, functional medicine, specifically in the realm of mental health. So I'm really grateful and excited about being able to be part of this movement and this community, because that really is what it is. It's a community and a movement of practitioners coming together to say we need better ways to deal with this. And just one final thing. The theme of this year's conference is the Anthropogenic Drivers of Mental Health. Healing the individual, the community, and the planet. And it's looking really at what we're doing as a society, whether it's our phones. We have Dr. 

23:33
Kirkland Newman
Don Grant, who will be talking about devices and attachment or whether it's toxins or whether it's processed foods and what can we do about this? And we also have Dr. William Walsh from the Walsh Protocol, who is one of the original biochemists, who's worked with Abraham Hofer and Carl Pfeiffer, who will be speaking at the age of 89. So it's very exciting. 

23:57
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Kiki, I'm blown away. I did not know the list of speakers, and you just named the who's who of our world. Like, I'm blown away by the caliber, the quality that you put into this. And I've been to hundreds and hundreds of conferences over 20 years, spoke at many of them, and I'm like, holy cow, I don't want to miss this conference. So, I mean, so impressive, because you really. And I love the quality and caliber of the kinds of research you're bringing, because that's what's going to take us to the next level. And you're doing it. You're. And obviously with the numbers that you've just explained, it's. I get so excited about that, about changing the landscape. So I'm going to be there. Hey, everybody. Just a quick break. To remind you, if you haven't yet subscribed, click the subscribe button below. 

24:38
Dr. Jill Carnahan
If you're listening on Spotify, itunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts, would you please leave us a review? Thank you so Much. Let's get back to the show. 

24:46
Kirkland Newman
Well, you and also Jill, don't forget. So the first year I took it over, it was online and you did a brilliant talk on the Gut Brain connection. Brilliant. And you're also speaking in 2026. Yes, making sure of that. And you know, yourself are absolutely brilliant and I can't wait for you to be part of it because I think, you know, it is a smallish community of change agents and I'm really a stickler for making sure that we have credibility, we have evidence based research and we have fantastic leaders in the field because, you know, last year we had a large number of psychiatrists, MDs who had never heard of integrative medicine. They'd never heard of. Well, they'd heard of it, but they were really due to it. 

25:34
Kirkland Newman
So conventional psychiatrists who had seen a Facebook ad, I met three or four of them and who are like we like those speakers. So we came and they were blown away. And that's what I want, and I know that's what you want, is to bring conventional medicine and on this journey, which sometimes is more challenging because it maybe takes more time or it takes more research or it takes more effort on behalf of the patient or the practitioner and the practitioner. But essentially I think for practitioners and patients who really care and really want sustainable results, to me it's the only way. So, you know, I'm so excited to be able to bring this to the world and you know, and have access to all these amazing pioneers. 

26:21
Dr. Jill Carnahan
I love it. And it's so interesting as I heard your history, sometimes I feel like the divine kind of leads all these things, all these experiences up until what we're really meant to do, right? And we think it's something else. Like you thought it was your dissertation or whatever else. And now I'm like, you are so where you're supposed to be making such an impact. And I, this is going to continue to grow. I have no question. In my 20 plus years of practice of practicing functional medicine, what I've seen is way back in the day I was with a hospital system in Illinois and no one knew integrated function medicine. I was off in a clinic, I helped the hospital build and creative medical center and all the gastroenterologists, rheumatologist, like I don't know what that weird Dr. 

27:00
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Jill is doing over there, but she's a quack. And I mean, whatever, right? But I knew number one, just like you from the day I stepped out of medical school, As a graduate, my job is to bridge great science and push the edge. Because what you mentioned is so true. The studies coming out now are actually, there's a lot of proof for nutritional interventions, gut interventions. The microbiome is exponentially increasing. And every topic that you mentioned has a lot of great research and it is continuing to grow. But back in the day, what I knew to be true is I would just forge ahead and one one, make a difference in that patient's life. 

27:33
Dr. Jill Carnahan
And what happened, Kiki, is over my three years there, patients would start to heal from their RA and they'd go off the meds and they'd go back to the rheumatologist be like, what are you doing? Well, this Dr. Jill did this and that. And so what happened was the testimony of those patients healing started to go around the community. And all of a sudden it wasn't me shouting from the rooftop, it wasn't me trying to prove anything. It was just me putting my head down and making a difference one on one in the patient's lives and then their stories coming back. And all of a sudden there was a shift and these doctors who had no interest in what I was doing were like, what are you doing over there? 

28:05
Dr. Jill Carnahan
And we started a community, a group of integrative practition, that area that every, you know, once a month we get together. It became hundreds in that community. And so like you, I've always had this deep passion of how do we bring docs together? And they don't have to necessarily even change the way they practice. But even if they think outside the box to ask about diet, to ask about sleep, to ask about blue light, to ask about breath work, and maybe, just maybe, if they even know someone that can help, they don't have to even do it themselves. They can refer. So speaking of sleep deep and blue light, in this I want to talk a little bit about, you said one of the most profound things in your journey was just learning basic breath work. 

28:41
Dr. Jill Carnahan
What would you say are some of the low hanging fruits that maybe someone doesn't need to see a practitioner and they could start if they're suffering from anxiety and depression. 

28:48
Kirkland Newman
And look at right now, it's such a good question. It's one of the things I really want to write about, in fact, is that low hanging fruit. Because one of the criticisms of functional medicine is it can be expensive, it can involve a little lot of testing, it can be very onerous and resource draining in terms of finances and Time. There are so many low hanging fruits. I think the first one is really circadian rhythms. So a lot of people with depression and anxiety have trouble with sleep or they have trouble with their circadian rhythms. And one of the key things is we know more and more now that getting exposed to light in the morning is so important for your mitochondria. And getting exercise when you're getting that light in the morning really improves your ATP production in your mitochondria. 

29:35
Kirkland Newman
It makes your mitochondria so much more efficient. And it's that combination of light exposure and exercise. So even if it's just getting out for a brisk walk in the morning and getting that light in your eyes, on your skin and getting your blood flowing, I think that's super important. Same at nighttime. It's like reducing the, that exposure to blue light because as Dr. Alexis Cohen and a lot of her cohorts have proven, is that blue light is incredibly detrimental to your mitochondria. And so it really drains your ATP and your energy. And it's so important not to be exposed to that blue light from your screens. And we're exposed all day long to that blue light, but because we have the full spectrum, it's less of a problem. But at night we're not supposed to have that level of blue light. 

30:24
Kirkland Newman
And getting the infrared light is very important. We used to sit around campfires at night and now we don't. And so we don't have access to that infrared, which is also so important to our neurochemicals and to our mitochondria. So I would say getting sunlight in the morning with some exercise, and then at night having fewer screens, having a bedtime routine. And if sleep is an issue, I mean, there's so many wonderful sleep hacks like Epsom, salt, bahads, you know, having a sort of wind down routine, not having any light or any noise in the bedroom. I personally have always struggled with insomnia well since my postpartum depression. And one of the things that really works for me is meditation. And so if I can't sleep, you know, I could lie there literally all night and not fall asleep. 

31:11
Kirkland Newman
But if I sit up in my bed and I just meditate and I do breath work and meditation, I change the wave. So, you know, I, we usually probably when I have insomnia, I probably have better waves which are very stimulating. And it's when I meditate, I bring them down to alpha or to theta or delta. And you know, those that change in brave brainwaves through meditation is incredibly soporific. And it really does work for me. It least another trick is, you know, light legs up against the wall, so you lie against the floor, put your legs up, which is an old yoga trick. But that seems to work as well. And I think so those. None of that calls in a thing. Meditation for me has been absolutely crucial. And I try and do it 30 minutes a day. 

32:01
Kirkland Newman
And I try to incorporate humming because that tones the vagus nerve. And so I sort of do so deep breathing, which tones the vagus nerve and also sort of hum when I breathe out, which also contributes toning the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is so important for your gut health and for your nervous system regulation. You know, none of those things cost in a thing, but they're so important. Community, going out and being able to connect with people is so important. And we're so disconnected in our world of, you know, phones and. And just, you know, in our worlds of essentially loneliness. I mean, there's a lot of loneliness. There's a lot of disconnection and being able to join a community, whether it's a book club or a dance class or something that gives you joy, you know, or. 

32:48
Kirkland Newman
And I mean, you know, Trudy Scott, for instance, would say, well, you should check yourself for cryptopylorea and see if maybe you have social anxiety because you have a lack of. Lack of zinc, Right? Yeah. So there is also that whole biochemical piece in terms of the food. You know, try to eat a diet of whole foods, no processed foods, cut out sugar. I mean, Robert Lustig is the sugar expert. It's a mitochondrial poison, sugar. And so really take cutting out sugar, eating whole foods, trying to eat. Obviously, as you know, there's a huge movement towards ketogenic diet, so high fat, low carb, because they found that the brain works well on ketones and that it's very good for cognition. And, you know, doctors. Chris Palmer, who was at IMH last year, talked about. 

33:36
Kirkland Newman
He's written a wonderful book called Brain Energy, which is all about how, you know, the brain really needs its energy and its mitochondrial energy not to have depression or cognitive decline or anxiety. You know, all these things. And whole foods can cost less than processed foods. And, you know, you can have sort of simple. I mean, I eat cabbage or which. Which can be really good, and lean meats, et cetera. What else? I mean, things like yoga, meditation, anything that calms the nervous system. Because one of the things that I'm finding more and more is that it's all very well to look at the biochemistry and to look at the mold and the lime, et cetera. But a lot of this has to do with nervous system regulation. 

34:24
Kirkland Newman
A lot of our mental health really boils down to how resilient are we from a nervous system perspective. And if we suffered from childhood trauma or chronic stress, we'll be less resilient. We're primed. Our systems are primed to be overreactive. And they talk about a Lyme personality or a mold personality. So people who are more prone to getting Lyme disease or mold toxicity and there's a very high correlation with people who've had childhood trauma. And so, you know, being able to regulate your nervous system and keep it regulated is so important. And that doesn't mean that you have to be calm all the time, but it means that it's just, it means that you have very good vagal efficiency. So your vagal tone works well. It is very adaptive to your circumstances and that's a form of resilience. 

35:13
Kirkland Newman
And your nervous system can adapt to whatever circumstances so that you're reacting appropriately. I'm jumping around a bit, but I just wanted to say there are so many ways of essentially low hanging fruit, whether it's from sleep regulation, circadian rhythms, a diet of whole foods connection and trying to do things that really regulate your nervous system and your vagal tone. Those are all really important and they don't cost anything. 

35:41
Dr. Jill Carnahan
I love that you gave us a wonderful overview of lots of things that people could grab onto and a couple thoughts. I love the nighttime routine. I am a stickler for my nighttime routine which involves Epsom salt baths, often a little bit of reading, sometimes a candle, definitely prayer, meditation, your gratitude, practice. But for if you're listening out there, you can find what works for you. You can also find devices where you know, put red bulbs in the lamp by your bed so there's no blue light coming out. You can change. There's so many apps now with your phone and your laptop that automatically change at like 6pm so you don't get the blue light. You can buy glasses that are blockers, of course. So there's many ways. 

36:16
Dr. Jill Carnahan
And even some people who are EMF sensitive can turn on a master switch to their bedroom so that when they go to bed, their EMFs in their bedroom are shut off or their wi fi during the night is shut off. Those are little things that can make a difference. I also love that you talked about easy ways where you don't have to Spend a lot of money. Just this morning I had put out a mass cell post about a guide that I have for free on Instagram and a lot of people super excited and you know, it's free information about how to support the mast cell. But one patient on there had wrote in like, I hate the functionist and so expensive. What about my family isn't supporting me? Like she was really dad and if I'm honest, kind of victim mentality. 

36:52
Dr. Jill Carnahan
And I just said, oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry you're suffering. Because first of all she's suffering and that's a reason. But the second thing was all about how do you just create safety for yourself? Because when we think about we can't rely on someone else to do that for us, right? And that's been one of my biggest life lessons is somehow we relegate that to oh, we need to have these people support us or we need to have this. And what I've learned, it's an inside job. And all of this ends up, yes, you can have community. And one thing you mentioned is important. There's studies showing three to five really close friends make a massive difference in mental health. 

37:23
Dr. Jill Carnahan
You don't have to have 12, you don't have to have communities of a hundred, you have to have three to five and start with three. But you also in this patient's again her query and I was just trying to be kind with the response, but also say, let's think about this differently because if you're wanting, you know, everything to be cheap and you don't have to do any work or you're wanting all the people, your husband, your children to support you're going to be disappointed every time because we have no control over those variables. Right? So I just tried to gently shift and say, sweetheart, there's things you can do and here's what I would suggest and try to practice that myself too. Trauma. You started to talk about that. 

38:01
Dr. Jill Carnahan
I want to kind of go there in the end of our conversation here, this is probably the biggest thing. You and I both agree that many functional medicine, sorry, functional medicine minded practitioners and integrative health practitioners are starting to be open to into. But I think it is the next frontier, hands down, the most important thing. And interestingly, last fall I was speaking at a Jeff Bland conference and I was going to talk about mast cell activation and mold and all these things that I always talk about. The night before I had a deep conversation with Dr. David Perlmutter and we started talking about love and the heart of Medicine and trauma. And went really deep, really quick. It was a beautiful conversation that night, like 10pm I'm like, I gotta change my presentation to make tomorrow. 

38:40
Dr. Jill Carnahan
And I went up on that stage and had, I mean it was. The basics were there, but I totally. The frame was different. And what I did is I talked about how trauma as a child and I shared some of my own past had affected my mast cells because those are our primordial responses to aggressive environmental insults, which means they're fear based. Right. So there's a connection to mold, Lyme disease, mast cell activation, as you mentioned, and the trauma in our system that's unhealed, healed. And I shared very deeply, very personal about my own experience and how maybe my cancer, my Crohn's, all of my experience actually went back not only to the mast cells but to unhealed trauma. 

39:18
Dr. Jill Carnahan
And I ended the presentation by saying, if you're out there and you're not asking your patients about trauma and you don't know the resources in your community to help you deal with this, you don't have to be the expert, but you have to ask. And you have to start by creating a safe space for your patient. That safety is the foundation of healing. And you know, Kiki, what happened, I had a standing ovation and the whole conference I was only. And it wasn't about me, but it was about me listening to that heart place of like, this is so important and even for you, bringing this to the world. So let's just. Do you want to talk a little bit about why this is so critical for us to heal our past traumas? Because all the rest is important. 

39:57
Dr. Jill Carnahan
But if you feel unsafe in your body, there's no amount of B12 that's going to help that. Right? 

40:02
Kirkland Newman
That's 100% right. And it's interesting because when I started on this journey, it was all about the biochemistry, it was about the nutrient imbalances and the, you know, the heavy metals and all that. And then gradually as I progressed, I realized that so much for me was in that triggering event of giving birth and then getting into motherhood. Because my, you know, my mother had been a very depressed, very anxious person. And you know, her mother had killed herself when she was 15 years old. And she, you know, that was a huge trauma. And she'd been an alcoholic up to that point. And so there was this family legacy in the maternal line of trauma that really got triggered when I gave birth twice. And that was the piece that was really missing. 

40:49
Kirkland Newman
And equally, you Know, in so many practitioners that I've spoken to, and were just talking about this before, they all say, look, you can do all the work that you want from a biochemical perspective. You can heal the gut, you can balance the hormones, you can balance the nutrition. But until you go to that trauma piece and you heal that, or at least you start to really make progress on it, the biochemical and the physiological piece aren't really going to shift sustainably. That really is an insight that I think more and more practitioners starting to take on board. And one of the things I'm really aiming to do is with this conference is to, because it's a mental health conference, to bring the trauma world and the functional medicine world together. 

41:33
Kirkland Newman
Because, you know, I go to all these conferences at, you know, trauma conferences. I go to Bessel van der Kolk's conference in Boston. You know, I know I've worked with Dick Schwartz and Bessel van der Kolk and Stephen Porges and all these Amazing Deb, Dana, Dr. Janina Fisher, all these incredible practitioners in the trauma field, but they're very disconnected from the functional medicine field and vice versa. And so one of my goals is really to bring these two worlds together. And I think that's why I'm so excited about having Gabor mate this year, because he really is, you know, he's a doctor who really buys into the fact that trauma and difficult life circumstances and chronic stress really undermine the physiology and make you prone to so many different chronic illnesses. And so really it's about looking at that piece. 

42:25
Kirkland Newman
And the other interesting piece is that, you know, there's a lot of research around cbt, so cognitive behavioral therapy, that's very evidence based, but what's less evidence based, but what we now know is so much more impactful are somatic therapies. And somatic therapies, whether it's somatic experiencing, which is Peter Levine's work, or, you know, emdr, or whether it's breath work or whether it's trauma release exercises, there are all these different types of therapies. Ifs even Dick Schwartz's internal family systems, which are much more neurobiological and which work with the body, with the breath, with the nervous system. And we have a huge debt of gratitude towards Stephen Porges, who developed the polyvagal theory, who said it's not just sympathetic, which is fight, flight and parasympathetic, which is rest, digest. The parasympathetic also has a freeze component. 

43:21
Kirkland Newman
And you know, so he Talks about sort of the ventral vagal, which is the social engagement system, the dorsal vagal, which is the freeze and then the fight flight. And he's saying, you know, the only way that we can truly heal is by really balancing that nervous system so that we are more in ventral vagal and social engagement than we are in freeze or in fight or flight. And there's a huge body of work that really has been done in this whole trauma piece and looking at the cellular biology and just to talk also to bring it back to our world. Dr. 

43:54
Kirkland Newman
Robert Navio, who has worked on the cell danger response, shows that, as you know, that cells, basically, they're primed once they're attacked by pathogens or toxins and they mount a response, sometimes the external trigger can disappear, but they're still primed for the cell danger. It's by calming the system down, making it feel safe. You mentioned safety. That is so important. And you know, Stephen Porges talk so eloquently about the need for safety, the need to feel safe. And it's not just cognitive, because a lot of our trauma is preverbal, not only in the sense that a lot of it happened before we could talk, but also it's in a preverbal part of our brain. It's in the limbic system. It's not stored in the prefrontal cortex. 

44:39
Kirkland Newman
And so we have to be able to work with the vagus system, with the cranial system, nervous nerves, with the body in order to heal it, because that's where it's stored. We can talk about our trauma until the cows come home, but until we're actually dealing with it on a somatic level, it's going to be very hard to heal. And the other thing I will say is that a lot of the practitioners that I know who are working in the trauma field, you know, I'm also saying, look, you have to pay attention to functional medicine because you can do all this therapy for, you know, months and months. But if somebody really has a zinc copper imbalance, or if somebody really has Lyme disease or they really have mold toxicity, there's only so much even that somatic therapy and nervous system balancing can do. 

45:22
Kirkland Newman
And so that's why I'm so passionate about bringing these two worlds together and saying, look, to heal mental health sustainably, you have to look at both these areas. But, you know, as were saying before, childhood trauma can prime you for biochemical insults, and same biochemical insults can also prime utero for trauma. So this is the other fascinating thing and then I'll be quiet. But if your mother smoked when you were in utero, that's a stressor to the fetus. And they've shown that mothers who smoke when you're in utero, the babies are more primed for stress responses afterwards. And so you know, events that or traumatic quote unquote. Because you know, trauma is not in what happens, it's how our body reacts to what happens. 

46:16
Kirkland Newman
And so our body is more likely to react in a stress response way if we've been primed biochemically to be less stress resilient. So the body doesn't know the difference between physiological and psychological stressors. And so, you know, it's very important to look at both and say, okay, these biochemical stressors are priming us to be more susceptible to psychological ones and vice versa. Which is why we need to look at both. 

46:44
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Oh, love that so much. And I couldn't agree more as the importance of bringing these all together, which you're doing with imh, if you're listening, you're driving, whatever, don't worry, this will be in the show notes. But do you want to just repeat dates, times and where they can find the website? And then I also want to highlight your podcast because you have an amazing a lot of these people you know and have talked to on your podcast. So if people want to know more, they can also listen to the podcast. 

47:09
Kirkland Newman
So IMH is www.imh.org. It's a not for profit as is Mind Health. So we're very mission driven, we're non commercial and we really just want to advance this information and education in the world. The dates are the 11th to the 14th of September in San Diego and but also online. So if you can't attend in person, there'll also be a virtual option. And then my podcast is the Mind Health 360 show. And that's I can never remember the URL, but the website is mindheld360.com and there I interview some fantastic people, including you Jill, on different aspects of mental health and there we really have the full gambit. I'm really building a library across the board of different factors and different approaches, you know, that dysregulate our mental health and also ways of healing. So, so yeah, I mean it's all. 

48:07
Kirkland Newman
The podcast is completely free, the website is completely free. Obviously the conference is not free, but we're not making a profit. We're just doing it to essentially educate and train. So we're doing it as accessible as we can, given the expenses of running a conference. So it's out there. And it's just we're really excited about being able to offer this. 

48:33
Dr. Jill Carnahan
I am, too. And not only is your background perfect for this, but you've done an incredible job at bringing together some of the best minds in this. Yeah, truly. And thank you for today. Thank you for coming on. I look forward to seeing you. Well, I'll see you in London and then, of course, San Diego. 

48:51
Kirkland Newman
I'm so excited. Thank you so much, Dr. Jill. 

48:54
Dr. Jill Carnahan
Thank you, everyone, for joining me for another episode of Resiliency Radio. I just love Kirkland Newman and all of her passion for mental health. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you're a practitioner, be sure and check out the IMH conference. It's really one of the best out there. I go to so many conferences every year, and it's really one of my favorite venues. And as you can see, Kiki has really put together a stellar list of speakers. If you can't go, you can always join online. And either way, if you are there, I hope to see you there in September. As you know, guys, we have over 570,000 subscribers on YouTube. If you haven't yet subscribed, please click and subscribe. Hit the bell to be notified of future episodes and you can join us next week for another episode. 

49:40
Dr. Jill Carnahan
We have new episodes coming out every Wednesday, and I look forward to seeing you then. Take care of.