Ep 34 Dr. Lili Wagner – Hugs, Not Drugs

Meet Dr. Lili Wagner:

Dr. Lili Wagner is a Licensed Psychologist in California with almost 20 years of experience.  Using a wide range of evidence-based therapeutic techniques and strategies tailored for each client, she believes that given  the right skills and tools, people are more capable and powerful than they often feel. She takes on a holistic approach and utilizes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Integrative Psychology, Interpersonal Therapy, EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and utilization of eco-Psychology by getting her clients out in nature via walk-n-talk sessions.  She also provides Health & Behavior Coaching nationally and internationally online as she is an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, a Certified Primal Health Coach, a Certified Autoimmune Paleo Coach, and has a certificate in Nutritional Psychology.

She has presented internationally, provides wellness programs and lunch & learns for various companies and corporations, including first responders.

Due to her own battles and challenges with three autoimmune diseases, she particularly likes helping those with autoimmune diseases regain their joy and vitality for life.

She loves nature, photography, cooking nutrient-dense meals, traveling, dancing, spending time with her nieces and her adorable co-DOG-tor, Chicken the dog.  She enjoys helping others achieve love, health, and joy.

Show Notes:

ABOUT DR. LILI

• I am a licensed psychologist in the state of California
• I am also a health and behavior coach nationally as well as internationally. I do online sessions and I can also have a one on one sessions here and there
• My motto is, “I give your brain hugs, not drugs. I provide skills, not pills.”
• I am in California, Santa Clarita area
• I worked at a company/clinic and I did a lot of work with patients who have severe trauma and did wellness, training, presentation and all sorts of fun stuff
• As a psychologist, basically when I was a little kid and we would drive around, as we are passing houses, I always wonder what’s going on in that house
• I have that curiosity of how things work and then I start learning about the brain
• I originally wanted to be a medical doctor, a brain surgeon and I did some work in an ER and I did not like how things were done and I wasn’t into blood so much
• And so, I asked myself how can I get into people’s brain without cutting down and touching them in any ways, so I decided to be a psychologist
• The brain is such a fascinating organ
• No matter how much we’ll learn about it, there is so much more that we know and we don’t know at the same time
• Just how each individual is so different on how they interpret things makes in fascinating
• I have a lot of experience with Alzheimer’s because I do a lot of work with the elderly – ton of experience personally, as well as with my patients
• As getting in into the health aspects, I don’t believe that we are just a brain, the body goes along with it, so you can’t ignore it
• You have to be holistic and integrative
• When I talked to certain practitioners who are just about psychology, psychiatry, or just about the brain and they ignore the rest of the body, I think that’s a disservice and we need to look at everything
• Recently I also got into gut health, because I personally have my own issues and that lead me to get more into the mind-body relationship versus just the brain
• There is definitely what I like to call, the disconnect. That is a complete disconnect of the mind, brain and the body
• I have also met people that are too cognitive, too much into their brain versus their body and they see zero connections
• Because they are not doing anything to help themselves physically and sometimes they are so disconnected that they think it has nothing to do with it
• So, if they have a high stress job they don’t believe that, that is affecting them physically and that there are some things that they can do with it
• One of them is definitely being mindful of how your body feels and how your body is responding to things
• We need to use the brain to be aware on what is going on with our body
• How the brain and gut talk together is either through the immune system, blood stream – there is a variety of communication system that happens that makes us a whole being
• What you eat affects your own gut and your brain
• If you don’t enough of a certain kind of protein to help your gut make a neurotransmitter serotonin that goes to your brain, then you might not be as happy
• 90%-95% of your serotonin is made in your gut
• We need to start to paying attention to how we feed ourselves
• We have to eat right for our body and everybody is different because we all have different microbiome
• That depends on genetics, how we were born whether if we were C-section or natural birth, if we were breastfed or not breastfed, if we had a happy childhood or sad childhood, if there was a lot of trauma when we were kids, if we had a lot if antibiotics used and how that affected our gut microbiome
• That plays a huge factor in how the health and diversity of our gut is
• We have to look at what food and diet what works for us
• Once we figured that out, then we get into the lifestyle factors
• Sleep also affects everything. Sleep is a nutrient
• And then, we get into the other lifestyle factors on how can we reduce stress. Stress is a huge factor
• Stress affects our gut microbiome, stress affects our brain, stress affects everything and people do not pay enough attention to their stress levels
• So, what an elimination diet entails are trying to get rid of the most common food allergies
• We have dairy, gluten, eggs, nuts, seeds and some other vegetables
• Once we eliminate specific foods, we want to see what is causing our trigger
• A lot of the reasons why there’s trigger is because of the years of eating certain things now we may have a leaky gut
• Do a one at a time reintroduction to see what the actual culprit is
• When the gut is healed, you can maybe go back on to eating the certain food that you had a hard time with
• The main thing is to get rid of the junk food, cut back on sugar, all the grains and that is just the start
• AIP is the autoimmune paleo protocol
• It is an elimination diet
• If you got some stuff going on, you might want to attempt the AIP
• FODMAPS are small carbohydrates that a lot of people can’t digest
• To reduce inflammation, we have to eat right, reduce our stress levels, exercise, and we may want to consider having some probiotics
• If you have had having antibiotics as a young kid then, your gut health may be compromised

ADVICE

• We have to move
• I don’t care if you don’t like it. I don’t like it sometimes, but I have to move
• Movement is important, exercising is important, and getting that oxygen into our brain is important
• I am not saying that’s what causes because I think Alzheimer’s has a multiple problem that creates this
• Movement is so vital, because not only movement allows oxygen to got to our brain, but also allows a variety of good chemicals to bunk in the brain
• Another thing exercise does is the coordination which is a huge factor in building those neural pathways and it so important
• Even if you don’t like exercise, the goal should be, “how do I want my quality of life to be when I am older?”
• Exercising is a key factor
• Sugar is so bad for our brain because it causes inflammation
• And now we are thinking that depression as a cause of brain inflammation
• If you reduce that depression, then you’re going to have that energy and you want to do the things that you should be doing in order to be in the healthy state
• One of the ways and the most underutilize anti-depressant is exercise
• Once you exercise you are actually switching the gears in your brain
• Make sure we get enough quality sleep
• I want people to turn off their devices off
• Meditation has shown through centuries to be helpful to our brain and wellbeing
• If you can throw in 10 minutes a day of meditation, you are already doing your brain a whole lot of good and that reduces stress levels
• Reducing our stress is a huge deal that we can help ourselves in order to age better
• Another thing is to have fun
• If we could just go out and learn things, read and listen to thing that’s improving your brain function
• Your brain is a sponge. Your brain loves to learn

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Website: talktodrwagner.com
• Instagram: love.health.joy
• Facebook: Love Health Joy or Dr. Lili Wagner

EATING STYLE DO YOU FOLLOW

• When I feel my best, it is when I follow AIP diet that’s good for me with some more of a Keto aspect to it because my gut is better that way
• I do intermittent fasting. 16-18 hours a day of not eating
• I tried to do a 24-hour fast once a week
• We need to be able to forgive ourselves for a lot of things that we necessarily beat ourselves for
• Because that cause a lot of grief and that grief creates a lot of stress within the body physically
• If we can let those things go and do the fun stuff and laugh a lot, that’s going to help us move forward in life

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