How To Improve The Functioning Of Your Prefrontal Cortex – with Heidi Haavik

Dr. Mindy  

You know, I have to start off with this and just say, welcome to the recenter podcast, I literally have been waiting, like a year, I think I don’t know if it was your schedule or my schedule, but I literally have been waiting a year to have this conversation. So let me just start off and say, Heidi, I’m so happy. You’re here. Welcome. Welcome to an incredible experience and a lot of listeners that are really ambitious about learning about the human body. So I’m so happy you’re here.

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Okay. It’s my pleasure to be here. I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to make this happen. But we both haven’t seen the schedule. So I’m not too surprised.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s right. That’s right. And I’ll tell you, one of the reasons that I wanted to have this conversation with you is that I’ve done a lot on brain health on this podcast, but it’s always been done through the lens of what should we be eating? What supplements should we be taking, you know, how much sleep should we be getting. And what I’m excited for our listeners to listen in on is what is happening within the body, specifically around posture and movement and the spine. And that is sending signals up to the brain that is changing the way the brain thinks. And I think this is not talked about enough. And you in my opinion, you are the world’s expert on this. And you have done a ton of research on it. So that’s why you are the person to have a conversation with on this on that particular topic. So let’s start with this because I think I talked so much about the prefrontal cortex, I talked so much about the amygdala, the hippocampus, all my favorite parts of the brain. But can you just give us a general overview of what the different parts of the brain are and how they work together and how they actually work against each other, some of them and give us just kind of a general idea of what we need to know about our brain?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

It was a very interesting question. And I’m with you on that, because I’ve gone down this journey of following the data. So I started out studying neuroscience, because I wanted to understand why because I’m a chiropractor, as well as a neurophysiologist. And I really wanted to understand how people and how our adjustments actually worked. I didn’t really care how they work. But I just genuinely wanted to understand, well, how does it work? So I ended up studying neuroscience that way. So I came to that prefrontal cortex, and discovered, you know, the importance of that prefrontal cortex, because we discovered in our research studies, that adjusting the spine, adjusting these dysfunctional segments of the spine, some chiropractors call them subluxations, whatever, it doesn’t really matter. But when we do adjust those dysfunctional segments in the spine, we consistently change this one part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. So if you imagine your brain is like a fist, because it’s kind of No, not really all that big. And it’s like your fingers here, right behind your forehead, that is that prefrontal cortex, and I’m sure you’ve talked about the value of that prefrontal cortex, because that’s how rational thinking brain it’s, it’s one of the reasons that really make us who we are, that part of the brain picks takes in all the sensory information from inside your body, and from the world around you. And it sort of rationally thinks about, okay, well, what should we do? And how should we achieve our goals, what we want to try and achieve, that’s that that rational thinking prefrontal cortex, underneath the prefrontal cortex deep in the brain, is our emotional limbic brain. And that’s been that’s like a reptilian survival brain, it’s sort of been with us a very, very long time, if you think of evolution as well. And it’s to keep us alive. And so one of the things that that emotional limbic brain does is is always on high alert for threats. So it’s always thinking, Is there a threat out there is a threat out there, and it’s kind of like a survival mechanism. And if we do have a threat, it’s you know, and you get fully triggered, or you get into that fight and flight response, that emotional traumatic experience response, what we know happens is that prefrontal cortex goes offline. And so it’s, it’s quite an end, you actually go into that emotional, limbic brain. But in that emotional limbic brain, there is no time or rational thinking. And I don’t know if you’ve talked too much about trauma, and the effects of trauma, because if you’ve ever experienced a trauma and trauma isn’t the event, it’s how your brain responds to it. If you look at the actual definition of, of trauma, it’s kind of a key concept there because people think I’ve not experienced trauma, but their brain may have experienced trauma if they’ve gone into that fight. And flight response is a really key distinction there. Because what we know is that from that point onwards, when that prefrontal cortex blows, and you go into that fight and flight response, you’ll know if you’ve experienced this because you get that increase in heart rate, breathing rate, and you get emotional, tearful, angry, or you freeze up completely. So if you’ve ever experienced something that triggered those responses in your you’ve been flooded with adrenaline and noradrenaline and cortisol, and because that’s your both your hormonal stress response and your neural stress responses have been switched on. That’s when the prefrontal cortex goes online, but What’s fascinating Mendy is that your brain changes from then onwards. And so anything now vaguely reminds your body of that same trauma, that same thing that set off that stress response in you can trigger you again, it’s kind of like a survival mechanism. Because we are, we’re sort of designed to avoid, you know, the really dangerous things. Like if you met a saber toothed tiger that would set off that trauma response, you’d go and fight and flight, so you run away or you fight the tiger. But then anything that reminds you of that episode, from now on, can again set this off, why I’m raising all of this, I know a very long introduction to this. But why on earth is we know that fight and flight response like that, that also actually turns off the small muscles close to your spine and skull, it’s almost because you activate the bigger muscles for the fighting and fighting, fighting or running away, or freezing. But the little muscles close to the spine, the skull, they appear to turn off, why that’s important is it can set up this dysfunctional loop in the spine. And it can be one of the main reasons that people end up needing to go and see a chiropractor, down the track, because that could be the beginning of one of these spinal dysfunctional loops. If you turn off those little muscles, they can also be turned off from an accident. So if you’ve ever had a, you know, a car accident, or a skiing accident, or a running accident, or a kid catapulting onto kind of accident, I mean, there’s many different types of, of spinal accidents, they also switch off those little muscles. So there’s a lot of research on that as well. But what can happen then if if those little muscles because normally when two vertebra move to bones and the spine move, there’s little muscles that attach between them. They’re close to the spine, small muscles, and they actually sensors, so they tell the brain what’s going on at that level of the spine. And then the brain then tells the bigger muscles around that that spinal area how to move, because that’s the, that’s the key thing that we really need our spine to do is, is either move or stiffen up if you’re lifting a heavy load, right, just just really basic, yeah. But if the brain doesn’t know what’s going on, because those little muscles have been turned off, either because of that fight and flight stress response, or a trauma, an accident, then the brain has to guess. And this is why I’m in talking about a loop because then the brain might be guessing wrong, you might get little micro traumas because you’re not completely controlling the movement in an ideal way. So you get little micro traumas. And you also then can get inflammation building up around that area. It’s why if you’ve ever been to a chiropractor, they can often tell you where your problem areas is because they press on it and it hurts and they go it hurts you doesn’t mean it hurts you. And you go well, how do you know that? You know, because they can chiropractors can feel it right? But and that’s a good reason that you can have dysfunction in the spine is that it local inflammation. So there’s, there’s three reasons that you get it,

Dr. Mindy  

here’s, here’s what I what I find so interesting about the amygdala is and I and I’ve started to sense it in my own self, now is that I know when it’s getting triggered, and I then see that everything I’m seeing in my life, in or in my day is coming from this place of my brain trying to keep me safe. So it’s like I have one, one trigger. And then the rest of the day is but this could go wrong. And what if this goes wrong, and that’s gonna go wrong, and this is going wrong. And it’s like, you don’t know how to get out of that state. But what you just gave me a whole nother level that I think everybody should be thinking about is, if that doesn’t, if you don’t stop that, that amygdala from running you. It’s beyond just mental health. But now it’s going into, I’ve got tension in the back of my head. And you see this with people that are stressed, they’re like, oh, just like, hurts back there. And then if that doesn’t, if you don’t take care of that, then the rest of the body comes in and compensates for it. And and that’s the cycle that keeps the trauma going. Yeah, and this is probably why we’re all obsessed with the prefrontal cortex. Because if we can get into the prefrontal cortex does it shut that whole system down?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Exactly, that’s the function of the prefrontal cortex. And not only do you get this problem with the way the brain controls spinal movement, but you also need the exercise, which is what I’m sure you’ve talked about as well, that while you need the exercises, you also got to literally pump out all of that cortisol and noradrenaline that’s floating around your system that is there for the fight and flight response. So, you know, if you don’t get that pumped out so people aren’t exercising and they’re not getting the spine looked after. Well, not only can you be developing their musculoskeletal aches and pains and which can become chronic, but you also end up with a sore, stiff, tight, big muscles because of the lactic acid build up and you’re not actually pumping it out. So you know, how common is it these days that are big muscles like our, you know, biceps and triceps and quads and hamstrings get sore, stiff and tight. Right? That is, again because of this trauma. So but what you do need you’re absolutely right. Another thing that I was thinking about when you’re saying that is when you go into that fight and flight response to where you’re being triggered, it actually changes how you perceive what’s happening inside To you and the world around you, like this is known in neuroscience, we know that when you’re in that triggered state, the way you perceive what you see what you hear what you feel, what’s also going on inside your body, it literally changes. And what’s even more interesting is when you get these spinal dysfunctional segments happening, because we’ve again, I’ve been doing research on this now for over 20 years mendicant I can’t believe it, I’m getting old. But so what we know too, that once you get this build up, and you get that spinal dysfunction, and that’s just these these areas that aren’t moving the bits that chiropractors locate and adjust, we know that that also changes your reality, it like we’ve shown that spinal dysfunction changes even the way you interpret visual and sound information, go figure that out, like, so what, what we know happens is that the brain has these inner maps, and the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum are vitally involved in creating those maps. And it’s, it gets really interesting when you because again, I’ve obviously followed neuroscience now for 20 years too, and, and our understanding of the brain is changing, we know now that the brain far more operates as a, it’s not so much reactive to what’s going on outside or inside the body. It has its own inner map its own in a reality. And that is far more important than, than the sensory information that comes in. And why this is important is if those maps are wrong MIDI then, like this is where we’re a bit screwed. And I think this is one of the reasons that chiropractic works so well, because when we adjust the dysfunctional spinal segments, it’s like we enable the brain to more accurately perceive, because all this information is coming in all the time, both from outside you and inside you. And then the brain interprets that. And then it has its own, like understanding, like, it’s its own interpretation of what’s going on for you. And that becomes your reality. So you know, that’s how you experience the world. But your reality changes when you’re triggered, or, or when your prefrontal cortex is intact, but it also changes depending on the status of your spinal function. And this is when I find it so fascinating. Because now all of a sudden, you know, like, we found that the way the brain interprets what’s going on, if you’ve adjusted these dysfunctional segments, the brain is more accurately interpreting sound and visual information. We know that because we’re presenting them with the sound and visual information, like in a lab setting. And it’s not just that we know that they learn differently, they can actually remember motor motor learning differently and like, so for example, you know, any, any movement that you do any sport, any activity, any actions that you learn, like you can retain that learning better if your spines working better. Like we’re literally unraveling these secrets of the spine that we just didn’t know 20 years ago, like, I’m sure chiropractors have seen it right and practice. But as a neurophysiologist, as an as a brain scientists will actually discovering that your, your spine changes the way you experience reality. And again, like we know, we change the prefrontal cortex and then, and then what I mean, we could just talk for probably hours about that prefrontal cortex and what it does, because it’s like, so amazing.

Dr. Mindy  

So this is something that has been like deep in my thoughts, which is do you switch from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala? Do you go back and forth multiple times in a day? Or are there is there a situation where you’ve had enough trauma, you’ve had enough stress, that you’re just locked in that in that amygdala, and then the longer you’re locked there, the more the spine goes off, the more the muscles tighten, then the it creates this feedback loop? Is there ever a possibility that you’re going to unlock yourself? And how do you know if you’re locked or not locked?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

It’s important to consider the stress scale as a scale, it’s not black and white, you’re not like, you know, it’s not black and white, you could be super healthy at one end, the white end and then down the black end. It’s like when you start to get into chronic mental health problems, chronic diseases, disorders, you know, strokes, cardiovascular disease. We know a lot of what most of the killers have today, most of the biggest health problems of today are linked with high inflammation levels and high stress levels. So consider yourself on a stress scale. It’s like 50 Shades of Grey, you know what I mean? Hahaha. So we’re all in that world of 50 Shades of Grey, where are we on the stress scale? The reason I bring this up is you will flip in and out of being triggered more and more as you go down the dark end of that scale. Okay, well said and I know that for a fact because not only have I studied this as a neurophysiologist, but I’ve been there. So I burnt out about 1015 years ago completely. So I was written off on stress leave for six months. It was insane, terrible, terrible, dark period of my time of my life. But when you’re down that end, that’s when you get the full blown diagnosis, but you can almost identify where you’re at because we know when you first experienced true Almost when you’re a healthy person, you have that fight and flight response sort of symptoms that you get is that emotional activation, you get angry, upset, tearful, crying, your heart rates beating, you know, you might feel flushing and sweating and all those, you know, when you’ve gone into a fight and flight response, but then you get over it, and it’s fine, because you’re up that nice, and you can cope quite well. But as this progresses, and you have more traumas or more stress in your life, and I’m talking physiological, psychological, spiritual, social, all kinds of stresses, including, like, exercise is actually a stressful everything that you know, so long as you can recover, you stay at the white end. But if your stress load gets so big, that you start going down the stress scale, you start having more symptoms that reflect prefrontal cortex is more offline than its online. Because for example, you stop being able to remember things, your short term memory gets mucked up, your focus, your concentration skills, kind of go out the window, even your ability to rationally think and make decisions becomes more difficult. Being able to activate yourself and doing different things like that, again, all prefrontal cortex, executive functional skills, different kinds of metabolic changes. So like your insulin starts to become resistant, you might have gut problems, because the prefrontal cortex is very important, you know, connection between your brain and your gut, your microbiome might be changing, you might be developing leaky gut syndrome. So you start to have even more, you know, toxins on board, which is more stress to the system. So you can sort of see how it snowballs, you get even further down, and you kind of crossed that, you know, invisible line, and now you fit a disease category. So now you’re into, and now I have mental health problems, again, because of the prefrontal cortex being offline, all mental health problems that we know of, usually involve dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex. So it’s why that stress continuum is quite an important concept to get your head around. Because we’re all on it, to some degree, right? When you have anyone down that dark end, this is when you’re more offline, then you’re online. And it’s very hard to do anything. And if you’ve ever been down that dark end, you’ll know that being able to try and do something for yourself, it’s almost impossible. All you can really do when you’re right down, the dark end is breathe, right, that’s the one thing we can all do. But making a decision on what it would be good for me to take some supplements. So I think it’d be good for me to go for a walk, like when you’re down this dark, and you can hardly do anything other than just get through the next minute. And the next, you know, hour, and maybe breathe, you know, so it’s right, so to answer that question, depends where you’re at on that stress scale. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes

Dr. Mindy  

total sense. So then how do you know where you are on the scale? Do we have any measurement of it? And and the reason that I asked you this is that I’ve, I’ve started because I’ve been thinking about the prefrontal cortex, TEKS and amygdala for so many years, I literally can tell, when I’m operating from my amygdala, I will start to see that all I can see is fear, fear, fear, fear, oh, I’m in my amygdala. But I think the majority, what would be helpful for people to understand is, how do you tell when you’re in that? That’s that where you are on that continuum? Because if we understood, then we could course correct quicker than waiting until there’s memory problems, and there’s chronic disease. So what are there some ways for us to know? Well, they’re

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

all those different symptom categories. So, you know, like, you’ll kind of know, like, when I was right down the dark, and well, I had full blown diagnoses. You know, I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and severe depression, and I was, you know, self harming. And, like, I was doing a lot of negative behaviors, which is really just a coping mechanism. You know, usually one is gets you get into addictive behaviors as well, it’s, again, it’s just a self self medication, you could be working too much, or drinking too much, or taking drugs as a self medication for the pain. So emotional pain, you know, the more emotional pain you have, the further down that dark end, you probably are. If you’ve gone right down the black end, well, you’ll know you’ve got diagnosis. So you’ll, you’ll know that you’re right on the dark end. But the really important message to get across here is you can move back up in the health direction. It’s not a one way highway, like you can go the other way. It’s not easy, and it takes time. And that direction, just in case you’ve heard the term or your listeners have heard the term is that salutogenic direction, it’s towards health. I’m sure everything you talk about on your podcast is to help people move in that salutogenic positive, healthy white direction towards life health. Yeah, do you right?

Dr. Mindy  

So like I’m thinking about like I had, we mentioned when we started I had Dr. Daniel, amen on my podcast a couple of weeks ago, and you know, he’s all about the brain scans and looking at the brain scans which I know you’re I want to get into some of your research because your brain scanning as well. But he shows how there’s like these holes in the brain. And the way that like I equate that in what you just said is you’re That would be a sign you’re pretty far down down the path and that you are moving more towards this destructive place of the of the prefrontal cortex. It just hasn’t had enough blood flow to it for maybe 1020 30 years. And so now it’s starting not only to not function, but it’s actually not stimulated. So it’s starting to degenerate. Is that an accurate way of looking at it like it like when you look at like the danger of not having an active prefrontal cortex? It it has a long term challenge to it that could lead to Alzheimer’s, I mean, more than just chronic disease, but Alzheimer’s, mood disorders, dementia, all of that, because of the lack of stimulation, they’re is that the right way to look at it?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Absolutely. cardiovascular diseases, strokes, cancers, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, all of these conditions, all have mental health conditions, they all fall under those diseases down the dark end of that stress scale. And we know, because basically, there’s all these brain adaptations that take place over many, many years. So you said it very perfectly. So from this end of the white scale down to the black, there are, you know, years of adaptations that take place neurophysiologist call them neural plastic changes, but it doesn’t really matter, brain changes, brain adaptations, whatever you want to call it, but it changes. And we know there are dramatic changes when the prefrontal cortex when you’re down the dark end, you know, when when it’s not been working. And that’s what I was saying, before that you could look up studies, there’s like hundreds of studies on every mental health condition and showing documented prefrontal cortex dysfunction, that doesn’t happen overnight. So this dysfunction has happened over a long period of time. So you can usually recognize yourself on on that stress scale with where you are symptom wise, and how many diagnoses you have that fit down that dark scale? And if that makes sense,

Dr. Mindy  

okay, so then would the would the the goal then to be to bring blood flow back to the prefrontal cortex, because now I’m thinking of like the 55 year old woman, and she’s now locked in, she’s just gone through menopause, she’s locked in that amygdala, she’s had a lot of physical, emotional traumas throughout her life, it’s maybe a decade or more of a lack of blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex is starting to go offline neurons are degenerating, wouldn’t the goal be to stimulate that prefrontal cortex so we could pull her out of her amygdala and get some health back to the prefrontal cortex so she can actually start to move and make better decisions around her diet and her exercise and do all of that it’s the blood flow to the to the prefrontal cortex, which is the most important when you think yet not just

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

the blood flow, but the functional that that area of the brain. So yes, it can, blood flow will be part of it. But it’s also the way the prefrontal cortex connects with, we talked about these networks. So there’s networks of prefrontal cortex activated areas, the prefrontal cortex works with different networks of the brain to control different functions of the body. So yes, partly, it’s, it’s the, it’s the blood flow to these to these areas. But it’s not just the blood flow. It’s also how they’re functioning, that changes over time. So if you wanted to, like, it’s totally cool to look at it that way, from like, a simple perspective for patients maybe. But it is way more complicated than that. I just, I just don’t want to just say yes, it’s just bizarre, because it’s not just blood flow. It’s, yeah, I mean, you know, you can throw in a whole lot of neurotransmitters into this as well, like even dopamine, like dopamine is, is quite highly used by the prefrontal cortex. Because it’s part of our reward system. It’s partly why the prefrontal cortex dysfunction causes addiction as well. So, and these things are all interlinked. You know, addiction is just one part of prefrontal cortex dysfunction. But so is the neuro endocrine hormonal system. dysfunction within that is, but so is the sympathetic, parasympathetic, you know, hit heal, and digest versus the fight and flight balance is also controlled by the prefrontal cortex. So it’s, it’s like, it’s way it’s way more complicated than that, but that dysfunction starts to happen. And it’s, it’s chronically builds up. But going back to the 55 year old woman there is she can do and that’s the key message, I think we should get across this stuff she could do, but I don’t want people to beat themselves up, if they’re so far down that dark and that all they can do is breathe and get through the next minute. Brilliant do that. But as you kind of start to recover, I’d also ask them to go seek help go see a good chiropractor, someone that can walk you through or or a mental health practitioner or someone that can help you get slightly better like some people that are so far down that in need way more than just a chiropractor. Like it’s you probably need a whole health team around you, you know, to take care of sure to help you go out that way but if you’re somewhat better and you’re not right down the dark end but you know you’re heading that way because you’ve you know insulin resistance is up there talking about pre diabetes, you know, you’re overweight there’s all these different signs and symptoms that you’re not functioning very well your memories, a bit funny, your digestive systems all screwed up. So you’re, you know, diarrhea, constipation She has all kinds of digestive systems, because of the link with a parasympathetic nervous system. It’s like intimately linked. So we know that functional gastroenterology problems is linked with stress as well, and linked to the prefrontal cortex function. So there’s a whole host of signs and symptoms that you need help going the other way. And this is when you could then get into, okay, make sure you’re getting your spine checked and adjusted, are you You know, what is your diet, like, you know, you know, if you can try and change your diet, but I don’t want people to think that they have to start a marathon straightaway, like, just consider where you’re at, and then make some small decisions. And the reason that small goals are so important is that dopamine comes into this annual reward system, because it becomes easier and easier to do these health behaviors that push you in the salutogenic, healthy direction, if you achieve your small goals, and this is this whole reward system. So if you decided, Okay, I’m gonna start walking around the block, because I’m not exercising, I’m gonna start doing that, I’m going to start eating healthier by cutting out sugars and alcohol, and I’m going to eat more fruit and vegetables, right, that’s just a little thing. Well, it’s not really all that little if you’re addicted to sugar and alcohol, but you know, it could be you know, I’m gonna do it for a few weeks. But if you set yourself small goals, I might be able to meditate a little bit, have started a weekly yoga class, so that I know I’m calming my mind down as well. And then I might be going to get get adjusted on a weekly basis from a chiropractor, so I make sure that spine is functioning properly. So my brain can accurately perceive what’s going on inside my body and the world around me and therefore can do everything else better as well. There may be four goals that you set yourself, if you’re achieving those on a weekly basis on a daily basis, you like walking around the block every day, then you get a dopamine release, that makes you feel good. And it actually makes it easier for you to set yourself a new goal and do even better. So these small steps are vitally important in your health journey. Like the person that thinks that, well, I’m gonna lose 15 kilos in the next two weeks, and I’m gonna start running triathlons. You know, that’s just dumb, you know, because most likely, because your dopamine hit, you’re not going to achieve it. So you’re not going to get your dopamine hit. So you’re not going to actually start that. But if you start small, set yourself small steps. And you can do that really well with like a health coach or a chiropractor that, you know, understands this journey like you, you can set little goals, okay, we’re going to add this supplement, we’re going to do the walks, you know, around the block, we’re going to work on your microbiome, we’re going to, you know, get you adjusted on a weekly basis, the patient, the person was going to start to feel better. And they’re going to be having their goals at their meeting. So they’re getting these dopamine releases, that makes them feel good, which makes it even easier for them to then take the next step in their health journey. And it’s a brilliant way back towards that optimal health side of the stress scale.

Dr. Mindy  

That was brilliant. I hope everybody just heard that. Because what I see and I saw this at 25 years in practice, I saw I see this now online with our community is that desire for the big thing, they want the big thing, but I what I hope everybody just saw is that something as simple as I’m going to start to go to bed earlier, and and get up earlier, and then maybe I’m going to go for a walk, what you’re doing is you’re stimulating the prefrontal cortex, pulling it out of the amygdala situation, and then making it easier to do the next thing. And then the next thing. Yeah, that was brilliant. And, and so now and I know you’re brilliant, which is why I got you here. But um, now here’s my next question is that when we look at what is the response of the muscles to this, and I’m going to call it locked in the amygdala, where there people are locked in the traumatic part limbic part of the of the brain, the muscles are tightening. Now the body’s telling the brain, something’s not right. So it’s keeping it locked there. And we see that as back pain, neck pain, we go off to the chiropractor thinking we have a back pain, neck pain problem, we get adjusted, we feel better in our back and neck, and we don’t even realize the changes that it made in the brain. So talk about your research, because I can tell you that changed the way that I practiced for so many years. Once I heard your spine means that one adjustment brings back some stimulation in the prefrontal cortex. And it changed the way I looked at back and neck pain as more of a brain problem, not necessarily a structural problem.

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

I don’t know if the public know this yet, but it has completely transformed in the last couple of decades. In the research literature. We understand now that chronic pain is actually that the brain has learned to be in pain, it’s learnt to feel threatened. We even know that feeling pain is actually not a tissue pathology detection system. It’s a danger warning system. If feeling pain is a danger warning system. We know it can be activated by feeling threatened. You can have chronic pain in your back, and there’s nothing physiologic wrong with your back, like there’s no tissue pathology is no injury there, other than the brain doesn’t quite know what’s going on there. So it’s not controlling the movement pattern, okay. But it could have learned to feel chronic pain, because of loneliness or a sense of not being able to support your family or like, so it’s, it’s phenomenal. I’m not even talking about my research yet, okay, you with me, but just this understanding of chronic pain is like dramatically changed, I want to come back to why that spinal communication is so important. When I started this out, like I came from this, from the perspective of I thought, chiropractors, we thought we over treated people and you know, blah, blah, blah. Now, I’m like, you know, because of the data because of what I found in our research studies, what I understand now, as chiropractors are basically training the spine back into proper function, so that your brain can accurately perceive what’s going on. And like it’s a complete change around, but we’re not correcting tissue pathology we are, because we do know that there is some dysfunction within the small muscles close to the spinal skull, those eyes and the spine, the little muscles that detect movement of individual vertebra, they do change, they shrink, they atrophy, and they get fibrotic and stiff. And there’s fatty infiltration, and they change their fiber types. So they become dysfunctional. And if you’ve seen anyone with a cast, right and shrunken muscle, you also know that that’s going to take a bit of time to exercise back into the same healthy functional the other arm that didn’t have the cast or leg, right. So you’re number one, yes, there is some changes. But it’s not like it’s, it’s not like there’s an injury there that needs healing, it’s a, it’s a dysfunction in these little muscles. And when we’re adjusting those dysfunctional segments, we’re actually stretching those little muscles, which is almost like we’re recalibrating the brain’s perception of what’s going on. And remember, these little muscles can get turned off from either injury or stress like that trauma, so an experience of fight and flight. So every time you feel yourself being triggered, you may be re subluxated yourself, you’re all or that dysfunction may be reappearing. Or you might turn off those little pencils again, and then there is that cycle. So people wonder why they have to keep going back to a chiropractor, because you’ll experience this yourself, you know, you can’t go to the gym once or twice and be fit for life, you just can’t. I’m sorry. But this is just a new scientific understanding of how the spine functions. So what you’re doing when you go into the chiropractor is you’re exercising your spine, those little muscles close to the spine, and you’re reactivating them, which recalibrates the brain, so it can actually perceive what’s going on. And this has been over 20 years that we’re slowly starting to understand this. So I started, I’ve changed my mind, like I literally pay, even though you know, I’m a chiropractor, but I pay for myself, my husband, and both my children to on a regular basis, like every single week, we go and get adjusted. That’s just the cornerstone of our health regime. On top of that, you know, we exercise we’re all discussing, you know, who did how many steps in the day and you know, who’s exercising the right intensity, and it’s kind of like a little game. And then we have yoga once a week, because again, I need to make sure that I calm my brain down, I’m an A type personality, I tend to Oh stimulate, when I take I spend so much on supplements, it’s not even funny, I’m really, really keen on making sure my microbiome is in good, healthy function. So sleep is extremely important to me. So I have, there’s all these health behaviors that I know will push us up in that right direction, but the cornerstone of it is getting adjusted. And the reason why is because of the data that we’ve discovered. And in the last 20 years of research, showing that when we adjust those dysfunctional segments, we know where we impact that prefrontal cortex, which you know how important that is, for example, another another study that we found is that just a single session of adjusting these dysfunctional segments, we found these changes within the nervous system. And I was looking then because I tend to be one of the people that writes up the manuscripts, I went looking through the research literature, found another study that was almost identical to ours. But instead of the intervention being a chiropractic adjustment session that looked at three weeks of strength training, or three weeks of endurance training, what we found with our single adjustment, single session of adjusting subluxated segments or dysfunctional spinal segments, had identical findings to what these guys in this other study had found from three weeks of strength training. Now, this doesn’t mean that you can get adjusted in your you know, you don’t have to go to the gym to be strong. And that’s not what it means. But it does tell you that the impact of that adjustment on the central nervous system is equivalent to what takes place with three weeks of strength training. So it’s massively powerful. That adjustment, I don’t want that to be undermined either. Like it has a huge impact on the central nervous system. We didn’t know this Monday, we didn’t know that we affected the brain. Like we’ve discovered that over the last 20 years. And then of course, alongside our discoveries is all these changes in our understanding of chronic pain, muscular skeletal pain and our understanding of trauma. All of this has happened while we were discovering and how adjusting the brain check how adjusting the spine change the brain. And now of course, it makes so much sense like you say you see this in practice, it makes perfect sense. But it’s I don’t think departments know this yet. And I think it’s so important that this message can get out there so that they realize that their spine is ridiculously important for their brain function and their health.

Dr. Mindy  

Yep. Yeah, I really think we still have chiropractic branded as a musculoskeletal pain relief for, you know, working on posture, which posture is obviously really important. But what I want people to just get a hold of, of what you just said, which is, it is a tool to change your brain. So you change your perception of your of what’s going on in the world. So if we could use that in an application inside you, and

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

I’ll show you your brain because again, when we adjust those dysfunctional areas of the spine, your brain becomes more acutely aware of where your arms and legs are. And we’re assuming that’s the case, because your arms and legs attached to what attaches to your spine to the core of your body. Right? So, right all movements you make all day, every day, how you can sense like, if you close your eyes, you can like touch your nose without like looking. And it’s because you can sense what’s going on inside your body. But we’re going deeper now Monday we’re going to start looking at or what about, you know, digestion? What about? Because if it’s actually in all these different studies, we’re showing that the brain becomes more acutely aware of what’s going on? Well, maybe that’s why it could be that we’re changing that parasympathetic, sympathetic, sympathetic balance, that we’re getting better digestion. But so many chiropractic patients will say that as I got under care, my digestive system is so much better. And maybe they’re also absorbing more appropriate nutrients, if it’s helping. We don’t know that yet. But this is where the research is suddenly taking on a whole different direction. We’re no longer looking at just do we help with back pain, neck pain and headaches we’re looking at? Do we improve immune function? Do we improve stress, resilience, emotional control, mental health conditions? You know, we’re looking at Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, we’ve done a series of studies and stroke victims, because what we seem to be doing is, is improving the efficiency of the brain. And we’ve even found that we can give function back to stroke victims, you know, when they’re getting adjusted, it’s like their brain is now better able to control their damaged brains are more efficiently able to produce force in the affected limbs. Like it’s just, it’s literally mind boggling. Like, it’s such a whole new area. And I do not think the public are aware,

Dr. Mindy  

know, the public doesn’t know this. This is why exactly you were the person I wanted to bring on. Because I can tell you after seeing, you know, 10s of 1000s of patients, the craziest things would heal when you would adjust them. And there were so many times that I didn’t really understand why. And I think that what I see now when we get it now, but right now, I get it now. And so here’s the thing is that when we go to put our health back together, we’re operating still from a healthcare system that has us as parts. And what I think is so important about what you just said, let’s use the gut microbiome as an example. You’re still saying eat while you’re still saying supplement. You said that in what you and your family do. But what you’re also saying is all of that stuff is not going to work as well. If the brain thinks it’s in crisis, which is what happens when it’s in the limbic system, when it’s stuck in the amygdala. I don’t care how much you know, poly phenyl, probiotic, prebiotic food you eat, I don’t care how many supplements you take, your digestion is going to keep shutting down until you move the brain into the prefrontal cortex.

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

There’s some cool little hijacks that you can do. Like we know that that the adjustments definitely impact the prefrontal cortex, we know that we don’t know how well and to what degree and we’re doing several randomized control trials right now. So we should have another podcast scheduled for next year, so that I can tell you the what actually changed it now. Right away, because we literally looking at immune function and mental health function and digestive function and inflammation, inflammatory levels, and activity levels and sleep and all of that in those randomized control trials, specifically because of what we found. But so so we I’m quite convinced from as a chiropractor, as a brain scientists from everything we’ve looked at that we by affecting that prefrontal cortex, I’m assuming that’s one of the reasons that all these strange things improve under care, because I’ve seen it too. I practice full time for 10 years before I was like full time scientists. So I’ve seen what happens in practice in chiropractic. And you’re just not looking at like even Vander Kolk book, The Body Keeps the Score, like a beautiful book to read anyway, with a trauma aspect. And he talks about, you know, that we need that body input as well because that safe touch again, chiropractic provides the safe touch, we know it impacts the prefrontal cortex when I’m putting that prefrontal cortex is for both dealing with trauma and, you know, a host of other health related issues, but there are some things that an individual can do as well like breathing because if you can calm the body down, like even just with simple breathing exercises, if that calms the body down, you can bring your prefrontal cortex back online. If you can mindfully meditate, which literally just means pay attention to your senses. What do you feel? What do you hear? What do you see? What do you sense in your body? Can you hear the wind and the trees, like paying attention to your senses, brings you back into your body, brings that prefrontal cortex online. So there’s, there’s, there’s cool, little, you know, tricks that you can do you know, that if you feel yourself triggered, you can start Okay, pay attention to your senses. Do some deep breathing, slow your breathing down, because you can get at activating the prefrontal cortex from your body as well, from breathing from, from sensing, or from, you know, your regular chiropractic adjustments, you know, like, so there’s, there’s, there’s things that you can do every day to help you again, when you notice your ticket, I’m like you I am so in tune. Now I know exactly when I’m triggered, you know, my irrationality that I’m feeling more emotional. And all of a sudden, all I’m seeing is threat everywhere, right? So my body is in that it’s gone here, you know? Okay, so then I take, I take, I take time I breathe, I slow my breathing down. And there’s like you can google like breathing techniques to calm is. So even if you just breathe in, and don’t worry about it, just try to breathe slower. That that is one thing that does bring that prefrontal cortex back in charge. Again,

Dr. Mindy  

I think that’s a good hack. Because, you know, what we’re trying to hear as he offer here is a prefrontal cortex lifestyle. Yeah, that’s what I just heard. Yeah. It’s like, how do you live according to the rules that your prefrontal cortex need, so that it’s operating, not your limbic system, my next book is going to be on the female brain after 40. And what happens as a woman goes through menopause. And so I’ve been looking at where the receptor sites for estrogen and progesterone are. And they’re all throughout the prefrontal cortex. I mean, they’re throughout the whole brain. But we have, our prefrontal cortex just gets bathed in estrogen. And estrogen, obviously, as you know, is a precursor to dopamine and serotonin. And progesterone also is going to is going to activate GABA, and you have all these GABA receptors up there. So if a woman is going through menopause, and in those is losing those hormones, is she moving quicker down that line to this place of prefrontal cortex dysfunction is and what is the hormonal connection look like there?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Yeah, I think we could probably do a whole podcast on that one, as well, Mindy, because, you know, the hormonal balance, and that, and the neuro transmitter balances are, again, they’re quite complicated. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, there are these major changes, you know, post post menopause. And, to me, it’s all about our ability to adapt. And so if we have very limited ability to adapt, then we can’t cope with a reduction. You know, some women go through menopause, and they’re perfectly fine. Right? Whereas some women can’t. And again, I think they’re further down that dark end. And what happens down that dark end is your ability to respond to change becomes much more difficult. Hence, you fire off the fight and flight much more commonly than when you’re at the healthier end. But and women can start having these hormonal problems and imbalances like one of those the estrogen dominance and the lack of progesterone, like polycystic ovaries can start, you know, when you’re really young, like, and I had, that, you know, I and I can see, I can see the connection again now, because I had some traumatic experiences when I was around 13, I had some more traumatic experiences when I was 15. You know, and so my hormones were screwed right from the beginning. So right, I’m on catch up mode, you know, that, again, there’s supplements I can take to help clear out the excess of testosterone that often happens in this imbalance, and to promote the progesterone until I go through menopause, like it, you know, so there’s, again, there’s this, there’s counterbalances that you can do, but even just moving back up that health range, buy it through exercise through through healthy diet through looking after your microbiome, through your sleep through mindfulness meditation through going to see your chiropractor, on a regular basis, like all those things that improve your ability to adapt, will also help you adapt. Like it’s why every conversation we have, you have to talk about where that person is on the stress scale, because you could have a woman who is 55 going through menopause, who is the healthy age range, who can adapt perfectly well. But you know, and this is when it gets really into because you can start looking at the the hacks that can happen if you’re under too much stress. Instead of producing serotonin, you use this byproduct, which it just it’s called a shunt, this tryptophan shunt that goes the wrong way because of stress that produces these pro inflammatory markers instead of serotonin. So what happens then with women are under stress is obviously they’re producing less and less serotonin, so they’re heading towards depression. And they’re producing more and more inflammation, which is again, building up on these different health conditions. So it’s a it’s a very complicated interlinked system, where it’s not one thing operating in isolation. And it always depends on where are they at on the stress scale. And I think we all need to start thinking about that, because, like, if you’re down that dark end of that stress scale, is there’s a limited amount of stuff you’ll be able to cope with. And that’s why again, small steps, Mini, you know, but if you’re a healthy Angel, you can still have some trouble going through menopause, but you’ll be able to adapt much better. And you’ve got much more tools in your toolkit, you know, the adjustments might make much bigger difference to you. And again, I don’t know how many chiropractors I’ve heard that, you know, they always find women, you know, function better with their hormonal problems is better. Right that women get pregnant, who haven’t been able to get pregnant when they go and see a car. Oh, my God, we know the time before, but you can you understand the connection. The prefrontal cortex literally activates the healing digestion and reproductive system, that prefrontal cortex when it’s online, it activates the healing, digesting relaxing reproductive systems. And it inhibits the fight and flight response. And it inhibits the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal stress axis of cortisol released the hormonal stress cord cortisol release. So we know that, and we know that when you get stressed, there’s this chemical reaction that the fight and flight response, once that occurs, it releases these little chemicals in the brainstem that literally turn off the prefrontal cortex. So that we know by what happens in the brain to when you get under stress when you go into that, but you can bring that back. And that’s again, what we’ve talked about, you can breathe, you can pay attention to your senses, you know, mindfulness meditation, there’s tapping techniques, there’s a whole range of things that you can actually look into doing to bring it back on board. But bringing your prefrontal cortex back on board, like you say, it’s so important for your health. Because the more it’s offline, the further down that disease scale you go, the more it’s harmless. And then you still have to do some healthy behaviors, I’m afraid. You still need Yes. Nice and breathe and you know, take some supplements and eat healthy and avoid all the toxins and see your chiropractor on a regular basis to move upwards. But you can move upwards. And I think it’s that hope message is so important. Because I’ve been down that aisle Ken and it’s no fun. It’s it’s absolutely no fun. And I’m not percent Mindy, but I’m certainly about 75% of back to the health are still gonna wait. Amazing.

Dr. Mindy  

That was literally one of the best explanations in my book about the power of the prefrontal cortex, and then how you get there. And I think that’s a large part of what hopefully my audience gathers from listening to my podcast, is it’s never one thing. It’s many things. Yeah, but what I what I love about your research, and the way that your brain thinks is one of the things we’ve got to do, I was thinking, we got to rebrand chiropractic, because we tend to think of it as this musculoskeletal event. And what I hope everybody gathers is it is one of the major tools to be able to get the prefrontal cortex back online. So like one of the best things you could do on a traumatic day is go get adjusted, it’s probably easier to go into your chiropractor get adjusted than to try to sit down with your active amygdala and breathe when you think,

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Well, I mean, breathing everybody can do but like, it’s so true, like, if you’re going through a stressful period in your life, you should be seeing a chiropractor more often, like so if you’re if you’re going through a really cool Cruzi period in your life, you know, maybe once a month would be okay as like a maintenance sort of program, keeping the brain accurately aware of what’s going on inside and outside of you. But if you’re going through a stressful period, like when I go through, you know, stressful periods, I’m like, I’m there twice a week, you know, I have seen Haley for several months, you know, yeah, so, you know, but I don’t think, you know, I was gonna say normal people, you know, non crazy people, like, you know, geeks like me that, you know, read the literature, I don’t think people understand that, that, you know, like, what you’re doing when you’re going to get adjusted as you’re literally helping the brain to accurately perceive what’s going on. Now, that can be a little bit tough to there’s times you get adjusted that you can almost feel more pain, or at least emotional pain, because you’re becoming more acutely aware of where you’re at. And there might be some difficult things that you have to face. Like if you’re in a, you know, traumatic or a bad relationship, for example, you might have to look at is this relationship good for me? Or am I constantly under stress and pressure because this is a bad place to be? And if that’s happening daily, Monday, you know, then daily adjustments could help you get to the realization that you know, I’m going to ship place and I need to get out of this, you know, what, what can I do? You know, and that might be then you can obviously obviously go through an you know, another traumatic period in a time because, you know, any any relationship breakup, if anyone’s done it, they know Oh, it’s it’s traumatic as hell. Well, it can be. And I know there’s degrees of that as well. But again, that that’s, that’s a time like, think of every time you get triggered, you could potentially be screwed and I’m pointing to my neck. But I don’t just mean the neck, I mean, the entire spine, we know there’s little muscles across individual vertebrae go all the way down to the low back, cross into the pelvis. Like every time you go offline, you could be potentially switching back off some of these little muscles, and your learned behavioral patterns kick in. And that’s because you go on autopilot, you know, when you go into that amygdala brain, you go back on autopilot. And so we all have these typical things that reoccur like, you know, I honestly used to have constant headaches, constant neck pain, constant back pain when I was in my dark period. And when I started getting adjusted, I was getting adjusted almost daily. And it took two months before I started to get 20 minute windows have of no headache, so the neck pain and back pain, but and then it took months more before it could last several hours of not having a headache, which was remarkable, but but like I’m talking this is a it’s not a it’s not necessarily an easy fix immediately for everybody. I’m now speaking as a human being who’s been through that. But I know now, like 10 years later, I had no headaches, no neck pain, no back pain at all. And if I even get the slightest twinge, I’m definitely off to the chiropractor because I obviously haven’t been going often enough to prevent those problems from reoccurring, if that makes sense. It’s like, right, it’s like keeping that brain acutely aware of what’s going on, then you shouldn’t get aches and pains, you know, because then the brain controls the spine properly, the arms and legs properly, like even muscular skeletal issues with elbows, wrists, knees, ankles, they can also develop because of these micro traumas, because the brain isn’t acutely aware of where your arm is compared to the spine. So it’s moving the arm in a bad way. So it’s why it’s such a cornerstone to get checked and adjusted. Because imagine if you’re working out at the gym, but your brain is telling your big muscles that you’re working out to move in a in a less than ideal way, which is actually causing micro traumas every day, you’re kind of adding to the burden of the body. But if you’re getting adjusted, and you’re recalibrating the system, so the brain is markedly aware. And you’re then training your muscles. Now we’re talking now this is good, because now you’re exercising the arms and legs in a way you should be exercising the arms and legs with more accurate control, because the brain is recalibrating everything against the spine. And that’s kind of the new that’s coming out.

Dr. Mindy  

Would it be fair to say that chronic pain? Is the brain stuck in the limbic system?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Well, definitely, definitely, definitely. Because, you know, your chronic pain is down all chronic pain. And I may not have said that, and apologize is down that black end. So you might start to develop aches and pains when you’re in the gray phases in between. But they become more frequent and more common, like so it’s happening more often. And more frequently, Rob does the same thing. And sometimes it can be more severe. And it can start moving from different areas. And this is why it’s not a it’s not a disease of the spine. It’s not like there’s a pathology there. But the brain gets more and more threatened. So your your pain can shift and all of a sudden, now you’ve got neck pain and low back pain and elbow pain and because, you know, yes, partly because you’re going further down that stress scale, you’re not able to adapt properly, you’re not accurately aware of what’s going on your brains moving your arms, legs, spines, in a less than ideal way. So every movement you make all day, every day, there’s little micro traumas, then you get inflammation, this is a vicious cycle, because the inflammation then causes even more problems locally, because the local inflammation is enough also to shut off those little muscles. So you think if you’re chemically stressed and emotionally stressed, and physically, you’ve had some injuries that you’ve never really sought any care for, you know, no wonder you’re screwed come six years down the track, because you’ve just basically moved down this way without even considering and taking care of, you know, doing things on a regular basis that pushes you back the other way. If for example, you’re exercising and eating well, well then thank goodness for that. But, you know, again, I went through a stressful period, you know, which built up prior to me burning out completely where, you know, I wasn’t eating very well and every evening I’ll drink wine because that was my you know, self medication and usually wouldn’t eat all that much. And you know, I lost 20 kilos of weight, which was fantastic, but not really because I’m I’m going I was heading down that direction going the wrong way not doing any healthy behaviors. And it’s remarkable how adaptable the body is and how long I could cope with that terrible health largest you know, a lot of women have that martyrdom thing you know, they world sacrifice myself for my kids and my patients and my, my work and you know, so I was completely self sacrificing. But But what I didn’t realize is my health was just going wall way down to that dark end. And it’s there, you know, and to get back again, it takes years of work, but you can get back when I I still think we want to end on that positive note that you can make these changes, you can have a grid, you can get back up again. But it’s going to take a bit of time and,

Dr. Mindy  

and what I want people to see is that it’s it’s a multi therapeutic approach, it’s putting many things together. But at the root of what you’re doing is you’re keeping your prefrontal cortex in mind, because the minute you stay locked in limbic system, it doesn’t matter. You know, what diet you eat, it doesn’t matter how many therapy sessions you go to, you’re only just scratching the surface. So when everything you said, we bring it all together,

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

therapists are usually pretty good at bringing you back into the into the present, like that’s, so they, I mean, they, you know, I wouldn’t mental health professionals, really good mental health professionals, they know they understand this system as well. And they’re very good at bringing you into the present. Because, like, it’s, it’s not a bad idea to get multiple seek multiple people’s help like a really good mental health professional, because they can actually start to reframe some of your traumas. Because we tell a story, we tell ourselves a story about the traumas we’ve experienced. And it’s usually a very negative story. But sometimes you can turn it around into a positive, in which case, every time that particular trigger happens, instead of triggering the stress response and the prefrontal cortex responses, if you’ve managed to reframe it, it’s actually a positive. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t contribute. But the other cool thing is like there are techniques within chiropractic that actually can help deal with some of these locked emotional problems as well like neuro emotional technique. Remarkable. And again, that was part of my journey, I had quite a few sessions of that was partly how I understood what some of my traumas were, but then I could work with a therapist on reframing. So it was really it was fascinating, really,

Dr. Mindy  

I to see a therapist and I see a chiropractor. And one of the things I’m thinking that you just said, and we’ll end well, we’ll close it down on this because I think you would, I could probably talk for about three hours is that there’s a lot of new emerging information coming out about psychedelic assisted therapy. And when I dive into looking at the research on that, it’s really fascinating, because what they’re saying is that when you’re under the influence of something like psilocybin, that you’re actually starting to grow new neurons in your prefrontal cortex. Well, and so then when you combine that with therapy, now you’ve got a more effective therapy. Well, what if we combine, you know, did chiropractic with therapy, like if you start to combine, look at therapy as a part of and just like, you know, what I would say about looking at the research on psilocybin, like, look at it as a part of a multi therapeutic approach that needs to move you in the direction of a healthier prefrontal cortex, not a sicker one. That’s the way we need to bring everything together that you just said,

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

because a lot of minds practitioners completely ignore the body part. Whereas current body practitioners as well. But if they understand the connection with the brain, you’re really dealing with someone that’s a whole body practitioner, mind and body if you you know, a lot of chiropractors actually work with mind and body. So I, I totally agree with you, we’re actually looking at doing a study right now looking at patients with low back pain and anxiety, depression. So combined, they’ve got a low back pain, because often these things go hand in hand is a very recent publication came out literally just like a few weeks ago, showing that they’re not two separate things, really, they’re probably two sides of the same problem. And what we’re looking at whether body practitioners versus mine practitioners, because some of the body practitioners also using this neuro emotional technique, for example, or mine practitioners use neuro emotional technique, looking at whether we get different outcomes in both the low back pain and the depression scores over a period of care. So

Dr. Mindy  

but and again, you know, my my passion is really helping women and hormones and especially women as they go through the menopausal journey. And I feel like we just need to have conversations like this. Because again, when we look at a tool like chiropractic, you know, nobody thinks I’m not nobody, we should change that. But a lot of lot of women think like that would help my hormones. I don’t understand. But this conversation, hopefully, hopefully gave people context for that. But I want to finish up on this thought I always and every single podcast, every season, I have a theme and this theme is self love. And so I want to end with two questions for you around self love. First is do you have a self love practice? If so, what it is? And the second is, what do you think your superpower is? Because owning our superpower is a version of self love?

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

Yeah, I’ll start with a superpower thing. I think my superpower is the ability to translate complicated neurophysiological research into easy to understand language. And that’s actually come from my past traumas this this superpower because I am a I am a PhD trained neurophysiologist so I’m a brain scientist, but I’m also a chiropractor. And because of some of my past traumas which we can get into another nother time, being able to be understood was extremely important to me, as a young child, I moved countries and, you know, became completely isolated, but it’s become my superpower. And that’s, again, what I mean about the reframing of traumas. I do multiple things when it comes to looking after myself is I have to remind myself sometimes, well, what do I want? Because I’m very good at asking my husband and children and team members and work colleagues, why don’t women? And I almost always get what do I need? So I’m much better now at reminding myself Oh, yeah, just remember, what what do I need, I practice gratitude. And and I go into I’ve got this love, photo album thing that I can go into, and put all the photos of things that I think are gorgeous and beautiful, and make me proud of myself. And my own achievements, I spend some time I used to do it every day, when I was going through my recovery phase of things, images that would evoke happy good feelings within me, but also including self love, like pride and what I’ve managed to achieve and who I am as a human being, and things I think are gorgeous and beautiful. And I would look at that on a regular basis. Probably lazy common now. But it worked really well. Because I just didn’t realize how much of an enemy I was to myself. remarkable discovery. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

a lot of women. I know, a lot of women that I’ve tried to change that because it’s horrible how much we are, how horrible we are to ourselves seems so

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

cool. And it’s getting some pictures that represent things about yourself that you’re very proud of, or you love or you enjoy could be even pictures of yourself. We think you look beautiful achievements. You’ve, you’ve done, like, I’ve got pictures of my children because I’m in. But to me, my biggest achievements isn’t my two beautiful children, or achievements. Yeah, and love, like my husband, you know, things like, you know that I’m very proud of all of my work achievements, some of my biggest achievements scientifically. You know, things like that I put in, you know, because it’s, it’s, it’s good to spend a little bit of time every day just thinking, loving, proud thoughts about yourself. Right. So that’s, that’s what I practiced again, because I saw it in the literature that it actually works. So I only I like trying things that I know.

Dr. Mindy  

You know, if we have any, like chiropractic fans out there, and he chiropractors you want to see more research on the brain. That’s what Heidi’s doing. So how do people find your research and donate if they wish to donate and read your amazing book, which I’ve read several times, it’s called the reality check. So talk a little bit about that. It’s and it’s an easy read. It’s so good.

Dr. Heidi Haavik  

And it’s an easy read. I’m actually working on my second book now, which is called stress, sex and sleep secrets of the spine. So good secrets of the spine, because it is the secrets of the spine. Heidi hovick.com is a website one of my websites, there’s another one that you can go to called Dr. Heidi. So Dr. H, E idi.ne. T. So Dr. At IDI dot n, et there’s, it’s like a, it’s a hub where I’m connected to all my other different platforms. So because I’m an international speaker, I often do presentations on on on all this research that we’ve done, you’ll get connections to my online shop where you’ll find this book, but it’s also on Amazon, so on. So it’s easy to get hold of one thing that’s not connected on there, Dr. Heidi Dutton actually must put that in there is the is the link to the college, the New Zealand College of Chiropractic. That’s where I do the research that I do. And we have a support program there. So if there’s grateful chiropractic patients out there or chiropractors that want to donate to the research work that we do that you like this kind of direction, then we desperately always need help, because we’ve only got two of us out of 15 that actually paid by the college they can’t afford. It’s a small, private, tertiary institution. So to get donations, and research grants, all has to go in through the college. We have a supporters program at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic. So you can I’ll provide you a link menu so that it can go in if people want. Yeah, yeah, we’ll put them in. There’s one more site that I’d love to just mentioned briefly Monday, if I can, which is this Cairo’s hub, so at ch I R O S, hub, Hu b.com to Korres hub.com. It’s the latest platform where we’ve got a lot of materials as blog articles about the research. Again, in lay language, there’s little whiteboard animation. So as a patient, you can go check out this research. It’s built for chiropractors to share the science with the public. But of course, the public can go straight there and see it all. It’s all there on this course. And if you’re a chiropractor and you want to share more of this research, you could go to careers hub,

Dr. Mindy  

you’re like me to spit out content everywhere. So Heidi, I love this. This was amazing. I’m gonna have you back so we can dive into the neuro endocrine system and keep up the amazing work. I just I am so grateful for you. And your enthusiasm is infectious and I hope you will see that thank you. I hope that people took away a whole new way to look at the prefer cortex and the spine and how they’re intimately connected so thank you appreciate you so much