How Stress Changes Your Genes: The PIECES Method for Functional Health
Unlimited CEUs $59 ALLCEUS I’d like to welcome everybody to today’s
presentation on the pieces method, an introduction to functional mental
health and epigenetics. I’m your host, Dr. Donnisee Snipes. Today, we’re going to
define functional mental health and epigenetics. We’ll discuss why a whole person approach is
necessary for maximal recovery from anything whether it’s mental health, substance abuse, even
physical health issues. And we’ll briefly explore the birectional interactions between the pieces
dimensions physical, interpersonal, emotional, cognitive, environmental, and spiritual. So, I
just want to start out with the first couple of slides having you really think about this mindbody
connection when you’re well-rested, nourished, and healthy. So, physically, you’re chugging
along. How does it impact you physically? Well, for me, when all those things are happening,
I have more energy. I’m sleeping better. Um, which are all good and generally I tend to
have less pain. Now, that’s not necessarily true. If we’ve got a cold front coming in, my
arthritis may flare a little bit, but overall, I tend to have more energy and sleep better. In my
relationships, I tend to have more energy to spend with people and more patience when I am spending
time with them because I’m not already stressed out. I’m not already triggering that HPA axis.
Emotionally, I tend to be happier. You when I don’t have physiological causes or interpersonal
causes of for triggering that stress response, I tend to be much more easygoing. Mentally,
I’m clearerheaded. If I’m getting better sleep, if I have good energy, I tend to be more
flexible in problem solving. I tend to be uh more again less brain fog. It’s all good.
Environmentally, when I’m well-rested, nourished, and healthy, I keep my environment cleaner.
Let’s just call it what it is. Our outside often reflects our inside. And when I start feeling
exhausted, overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, my attention and my energy are going other
places, not to straightening my environment. So, my environment tends to be cleaner uh
when I’m doing well. And just the tension, the energy levels in my environment tend to feel
a lot lower when I am and negative energy levels tend to feel a lot lower in my environment. And
spiritually, when I am chugging along on all cylinders, I feel connected. I feel like there’s
meaning to what I’m doing and I’ve got a purpose. Again, and we’re not going to belabor each
one of these, but I want you to think again about when you’re feeling supported and loved. So,
interpersonally, when that domain is going well, even if physically you’re not sleeping too good
or, you know, you’ve got a little bit of pain or a lot of bit of pain, but if you’re feeling
supported and loved, how does that impact you physically? Does that help you relax a little
bit? Does that help you sleep better? Does do these people that are supporting you help you get
stuff done to free up energy when you’re feeling supported and loved? How does it impact you
emotionally? How does it impact you cognitively? Like your attitude about others and the way
you view the world. Remember, we have reality, whatever that is. And then we have our perception
of what’s going on. And when we are in fight or flight, we notice the negative. We view the world
through a stressinformed lens. When we’re feeling supported, safe, loved, and hopefully somewhat
energetic, um, we tend to view the world through a much clearer lens. Environmentally, I like
having people around. When I’m feeling supported and loved, I like having people around to
socialize with. Now I’m an extrovert so you know um and spiritually again I feel more connected to
others when I feel like there are others who are supportive of me even if they don’t agree with
me but they’re supportive of me and they’re like hey you know I see where you’re coming from don’t
necessarily just don’t necessarily agree with you but keep on chugging you know I see that you’ve
got a purpose in your life that helps me feel more connected to myself and to the world. When you’re
optimistic, attentive, and mentally flexible. So, this is the cognitive domain. How does it impact
you physically? Oh my gosh. And I want us to all to think about this. And I skipped over an
emotionally um because I didn’t want to spend the entire presentation going through these. But
when we are optimistic, when we’re feeling safe and empowered and we actually our fight or flight
is not triggered, so we’re using our wise mind, we’re able to pay attention, we’re able to
use our executive functioning and be mentally flexible. How does that impact you physically? And
you’re like, “Huh?” Physically, when you are not mentally stressed, when you are not overburdened
cognitively or in this negative mental space, it tends to reduce the stress response. So, you don’t
have that HPA axis kicking off. You don’t have all those stress hormones surging through your body.
It improves your circadian rhythms. It changes for the better your gut microbiome. A lot of people
feel a lot more energy. It takes a lot of energy to be pessimistic, to feel negative. Um, so there
are a lot of physical changes that and benefits to paying attention to what’s going on with us
cognitively. And there was a research study, we’ll get to it in a few minutes, that
actually showed that people who engaged in 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy uh
and found it beneficial, obviously those that didn’t find it found it beneficial didn’t have
the impacts, but those who found it beneficial um showed positive epigenetic changes, positive
changes in which genes were being expressed and which switches were being turned gone.
You’ll understand more about that later. But I thought it was fascinating that they’ve
actually been able to show that by adjusting or addressing our mental health, it impacts
our entire body. And likewise for people who have a lot of physiological stress, by reducing
that physical stress, by reducing some of that pain and inflammation, it alters people’s
mental health. It’s a fascinating system. Functional mental health, I guess that’s
the buzzword that we’re calling it now, at its simplest evaluates how functioning
in all pieces of life impact epigenetics, impact which systems in your body are active, if
you will, how it impacts health, mental health, and vice versa. So, all of these things play a
role. ne um unhealthy behaviors and poor health are going to alter your epigenetics because
it as stress increases, it turns on different systems in your body. When your mental health is
poor, you’re going to see the same thing. You’re going to see different things activated, different
systems activated in your body than are activated when you are in good mental health, optimistic,
feeling safe and empowered and all that stuff. There is a strong emphasis on understanding the
birectional interaction between stress in any of the pieces of life. Now remember physical
stress maybe pain is going to impact you in other ways physically like increasing your stress
response and increasing inflammation um possibly disrupting circadian rhythms. So problems or
good things in any one of the dimensions is going to affect every dimension including its own
dimension. So let’s talk about epigenetics. I’ve said it a couple of times but some of you are
going um yeah might as well be speaking Greek. Epigenetics is the study of how each of the pieces
of life, physical, interpersonal, emotional, cognitive, environmental, and spiritual, impact
our genes without altering our DNA and therefore shape our health and mental health. Through what
many people are now starting to call biohacking, we understand how to modify various things in each
of the pieces of life to turn on the good genes and turn off or at least dim or sil quiet the
bad genes. And when we when I’m talking about bad genes, that’s kind of oversimplified. Inflammatory
genes when they are turned on for a short period to help you heal from something great system
works well. When the inflammation it uh switch gets stuck in the on position and inflammation
is just persistent and systemic that’s bad. We have genes that are called ankco genes or
cancer genes um and those can get flipped on um under certain circumstances. So, we need to
recognize what may be going on in our body. All of us have DNA. We’ve all heard about DNA and RNA.
We’re focusing on DNA today. That is our body’s um main um standard operating procedures,
if you will. Just because you have a gene for something doesn’t mean you will develop
that trait or problem. So if you have a dream a gene for schizophrenia, okay, you have it. But
if it never turns on, then you’re never going to develop schizophrenia. Interesting. Um, however,
uh, there are ways to adjust things so we can, um, for some things that turn on, we can quiet them.
We may not be able to turn them completely off. We haven’t found a way to turn the schizophrenia
gene off once somebody has their psychotic break, but we’ve found a way to quiet it somewhat. Think
of your DNA. And there’s you have lots of genes, hundreds, thousands of genes. Think of DNA like
a control panel. And each gene is a switch. Now, most everything in our body isn’t controlled by
just one gene, unfortunately, because that would make it so much easier. No, no. They’re controlled
by multiple genes and just like the rest of your body, they work sort of in a sequence.
Um, you have a gene called your MTHFR gene um that actually helps control methylation or
the process of turning on and off the genes. So if your MTHFR gene is not working well, then
your body is going to have trouble turning on and off the system. Maybe that’s working well,
but then another gene gets activated. Um, and we have a lot of genes that work together
to either complement or inhibit each other. When you’re at optimum health, a certain set of
your DNA switches is turned on and you’re just buzzing along. When you’re under stress, different
switches are activated, inflammation may increase, and the balance of all things changes. And we’ve
talked so many times in other videos about how uncontrolled stress or persistent stress causes
systemic inflammation and it causes that some of those inflammation switches to get stuck in the
on position and some of those anti-inflammatory switches to not get turned on at all. Well, that
sucks. So, it’s kind of a double whammy. Think about children with ACEs. We’ve seen research over
the past 1015 years that’s shown that children who are exposed to adverse experiences in childhood
show a much greater propensity for developing mental health as well as physical health problems
later in life. And it’s almost a proportional thing. The more adverse experiences they had, the
worse their physical and mental health tends to be later. And a lot of that can be explained through
epigenetics, through genetic changes that occur, switches that get turned on and never turned off.
For a lot of people, when you think about adverse childhood experiences, some of that, if not a lot
of it, had to do with interpersonal stress and maybe um attachment trauma, abandonment trauma,
trauma trauma, but it has to do with what’s going on with other people. And a lot of times the child
doesn’t regain or ever gain a sense of safety and empowerment. So they are constantly under some
low level of stress because they’re hypervigilant. They’re not able to relax, which means their
stress genes stay turned on all the time and the rest and repair genes don’t get turned
on as much. For children who experience ACEs, think about how insecurity, attachment, trauma,
or abuse lead to inflammation. And think about Maslo’s hierarchy. You have your biological needs,
you have your safety needs, and then you have your love and belonging needs. And for children who
experienced ACEs, a lot of times they didn’t have any of those. So the entire foundation of
their um psychological pyramid, if you will, was not there or or weak at best. All of this
causes stress. And as adults, we may be able to look back and go, “Oh, you know, it was more
stable than I felt like it was.” Well, we have to look at the world through that child’s eyes. How
did that child feel when they were five years old and this was going on? It had to be terrifying.
Constantly terrifying. A lot a lot of the things that are associated with ACEs are associated with
chaos and instability and unpredictability. So, how do you expect a child to feel safe? In
general, a process called methylation is what the body uses to turn these switches on and
off. That’s where that MTHFR gene comes in. Um, typically methylation is thought to turn off
genes. Inadequate methylation leads to hyperactive genes. So if the methylation is working well and
your MTHFR genes are doing their job and all of his buddies, we’ll see in a few minutes are doing
their job, then the methylation is available. But when any of those are broken down, then
there can be inadequate methylation which can lead to hyperactive genes. Now they found a lot of
children who experience prenatal stress actually have polymorphisms or changes in their MTHFR
gene which makes it less effective at methylating uh the DNA. Overmethylation often leads to
inadequate gene expression. Um so sometimes we can silence too much what’s going on. For
example, inadequate methylation of IL6 and TNF. And you don’t need to remember these. I’m
just kind of giving you examples of different genes. Um so inadequate methylation of the genes
IL6 and TNF increases inflammation. So these are your inflammatory cytoines. Um TNF actually
stands for tumor necrosis factor. Excessive myilation of IL10 and IL37 suppresses. These
are both anti-inflammatory genes. So when they are overmethylated, they’re not going to turn on
to try to combat the TNF and the IL6. So you see it kind of parting the sea, if you will. one gets
turned on too much and the other one gets sort of suffocated. Think about our nervous system. When
the stress response is too active for too long, we develop sympathetic dominance. It becomes too
strong. So the parasympathetic nervous system has difficulty counteracting it. Well, part of what’s
going on under the hood is these genes are at work. And the genes that are going to help trigger
the parasympathetic stuff, they are not able to to get activated. Certain nutrients are necessary to
make the methyl group. A methyl group is added to or removed from genes to alter the expression.
So if people have inadequate nutrition, it’s a stressor. You’ve heard me say it before.
You’re going to hear me say it again probably from now until the cows come home. But if we’re not
taking in the basic nutrients that our body needs, then it can’t break them down to make what
hormones and neurotransmitters and methyl groups in order to help regulate that DNA. However,
genes like the MTHFR are required to tell the body to convert those nutrients to a methyl group.
So if and and whenever I see it and and forgive me um when when I see MTHFR, it just looks like an
abbreviation for a phrase that starts with mother and you know what it ends with. Um but it’s kind
of fitting in some ways because if this doesn’t if this system’s not working well, the whole system’s
kind of screwed. Um, so it can be a real pain in the Heiney when it’s not working well. If the
MTHFR functions inadequately, it’s like the manager whispering instructions. So everybody in
the factory, they can’t hear them. He’s telling them, but nobody can hear. So nobody knows what
they’re supposed to do. Um, but MTHFR, if you’re going to start studying epigenetics, this is one
of the genes that you need to really remember, which is why I shared that little anecdote with
you. Um, because it makes it easier to remember that if this guy ain’t doing his job, nobody can
do their job. If the methylation system is working well, then it orders the other genes on and off.
When the genes are in the on position too long, they can get stuck which causes downstream
changes in the nervous system. That’s when you start seeing the uh glucocorticoid resistance
for example when cortisol is coming out too too much too often that cortisol release gene
is turned on then the body starts saying okay you’re flooding me I can’t deal with this. So you
start seeing the loss or deactivation of cortisol receptors. So even though the body’s producing
a lot of cortisol, very little of it is actually being used because the body has pruned back the
receptors. Generally the genes that get stuck in the on position unfortunately are those activated
by stress. I’d love to say all the relaxation genes can get stuck in the on position. I
don’t think anybody complain about that. uh but uh it is important to understand that the
stress genes when they’re stuck in the on position part of the group of genes that are activated
are going to be some of the inflammatory genes. Again, you don’t need to know each of these genes.
I just wanted to give you an introduction to some of the genes that are involved in mental
health. And these genes, you can see NR3C1 and FKBP5 and POMC, CR, they’re all involved in
regulating the HPA axis and in different ways. The interesting thing I want you to note though
is under what stressors will alter them. It says general. What does that mean? That means stress
in any piece of life, anything that triggers that HPA axis is going to alter the expression of that
gene. Which is why it’s so important to not think of people or treat people from the perspective
of let me help you change your thinking or let me change help you change how you’re feeling
about things and everything will be ducky. Well, not really because if physiologically they are
experiencing stress interpersonally, environmental toxins etc. then the system is going to somewhat
stay stuck in that on position and those HPA axis genes are going to be more active. Then you’ve
got three more for serotonin synthesis. Then you’ve got dopamine and monoamine. That’s your
neurotransmitters in general. Then more dopamine down here, norepinephrine. So, you’ve got a
group of genes that help regulate your dopamine, which is your perseverance, as well as partially
your reward chemical. When we do things, we persevere to do things and it produces
positive results, we get a hit of um endorphins, our indogenous opioids, and we go, “Oo, I want
to do that again.” Dopamine also shows up to help us persevere, to run away from the hungry
lion. So, it’s not just a reward chemical. It’s a keep doing that or I want to do that again
neurochemical. It’s a motivation chemical. Um, but it’s interesting to note that all of these
things are interrelated. And remember, we’ve always talked before about your neurotransmitters
and how if one’s altered, all the rest of them are going to change. It alters the entire buddy group,
if you will. But again, all of these genes can be altered, their expression can be altered by any
type of stressor, not just cognitive or mental stress. BDNF is another one we’re going to talk
about in the future, probably ad nauseium. And it’s involved in neuroplasticity. It helps us with
memory and learning and healing in a lot of ways. OXTR is your oxytocin system. So if this gene
is malfunctioning and stuck in the off position, then we have less bonding. We have um
potentially social withdrawal. We have um more inflammation because oxytocin is a really
strong anti-inflammatory. Then you have GABA, glutamate, acetylcholine. So you have all
of your neurotransmitters. And this is not all of the genes by any means, but these are
the big ones. Then you have your clock and your purr genes. I don’t know why it’s PR1,
PR2, purr and cry. Um, but clock gene makes a lot of sense. You can easily remember
that that it’s your circadian rhythm, but it’s not the only one because you have purr
one, two, and cry cry one that are all involved in your circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms
are al al are altered by general stress. Yes, we know that. But they’re also altered by
circadian disruption. Um so more so than other genes, if your circadian rhythm starts to
get off, then your clock gene is its expression is going to be altered. Then MTRR hangs
out with MTHFR in the methylation cycle. IL6 and TNFA are involved in immunity and
inflammation as in as is NFKB KB1. Your thyroid system has multiple genes. Here’s MTHFR
FR and BHMT. It’s another one that’s involved in the methylation cycle specifically in the liver.
So people who have liver disease may not have their M BHMT gene may not be working as well. We
need to recognize as people age their kidneys and their livers don’t work as well. It’s just a fact
of life. It’s not that they’ve got liver disease or something. It’s just a fact of life. Um the
body has more difficulty clearing medications. just a fact of life. Now, people who have a
history of substance abuse or hepatitis C, they tend to have more difficulty because their liver
is um basically injured. Um and and people who have fatty liver disease. And then DN DNMT1 and
3A are also involved in methylation and epigenetic regulation telling sending the signal out which
switches should be turned on and off. And again, you’re not I’m not expecting you to memorize
all those, but I want you to get fascinated. That’s my goal. I want you to get fascinated
about how all of these switches work together to make something happen. Okay, so let’s go back
and put this all together. Physical aspects and and epigenetics. What causes stress in one’s
physical body, physical life that can alter your epigenetic expression? Circadian rhythm
disruption. How many of our clients have poor sleep and probably poor circadian rhythms? They
don’t have that 24-hour cycle. Maybe they’re on shift work. Maybe they’ve got a new baby at home.
Maybe they just stay up too late playing video games or watching porn or whatever they’re doing.
Um, but that is going to add stress to the body. We need to spend more time focusing on some of the
basics. Now, we can’t prescribe anything. We can’t prescribe a diet, but we do need to educate people
why 7 to n hours of sleep is important at roughly the same time each day. We need to educate them
about what their circadian rhythms do. And I know, big surprise. I’ve got a video on it on circadian
rhythms alone on the YouTube channel if you want to learn more about that. But circadian rhythms
control everything. Did you know circadian rhythms control when your blood you when your body uses
glucose best? Your body is more sensitive to insulin in the morning and early afternoon than at
night. Likewise, your body produces more saliva in the morning and early afternoon because saliva
helps break down food. So, along with everything else it controls, it even controls your saliva.
Oh my gosh. And you know, some of us are glad that controls saliva at night so we’re not drooling on
our pillow and whatever. But um circadian rhythms are really important for regulating hormones,
neurotransmitters, stress in the body. Circad when people get adequate quality sleep and
circadian rhythms help the body know when it’s time to release melatonin because cortisol is low.
Um serotonin is low because melatonin is being made to help us get to sleep. When we’re asleep,
we rest and repair and clear out the adenazine and clear clear out the oxidative stress, which if
left in place will cause inflammation, brain fog, confusion, all kinds of stuff the next day.
Nutrition, got to give it the right building blocks. And hydration. If our body doesn’t
have water, it’s less effective at flushing all this crap out. and is less effective at sending
signals through the nervous system. Blood sugar, insulin regulation. If you have if your blood
sugar is all over the place, that’s stressful. And I know some of these things you’re going,
“Well, yeah, no duh.” your gut health when your microbiome is in bad shape um or activated
for stress because we have a certain crew, if you will, that populates our microbiome under
stress and a certain crew that populates it when we are not stressed. And if the stress crew stays
there for too long, then it starts to proliferate and it’s more difficult for the relaxation group
to come in and kick them out. So it is important to pay attention to our microbiome. leaky gut.
When we get stressed and when serotonin goes down, especially the mucus coating of the uh intestines
becomes thinner and the junctions between the cells in the intestinal wall become looser. So,
it’s easier for toxins to leak into our system. That’s in inflammatory. You know, you can figure
toxins in the system is going to be inflammatory. um oral health. Your mouth not too far from your
brain, but if you have somebody who has a lot of oral health problems, they may not be chewing
their food well enough. They may not be eating a good diet because it’s hard to chew if they’ve
got mouth pain. Um, and if they’ve got open sores from anything from brushing their teeth to um,
eating something that’s too hot and getting a really bad burn, I don’t know. U, the bacteria
from the mouth can migrate into the system and contribute to systemic inflammation. U, and I just
did a presentation that is going to be released in the next couple of weeks. I’m going to gradually
trickle those out. It was a six-hour workshop on healthy aging, but we did an entire section on
oral health because it’s that important. Autonomic ser nervous system balance. If your stress
response is in overdrive, if it’s too strong and your parasympathetic nervous system, your vagus
nerve can’t balance it out, then you’re going to probably stay clicked in the on position most of
the time. We can help people learn how to regulate their autonomic nervous system, strengthen their
veagal tone. Um, basic breathing, box breathing can be helpful. They don’t like box breathing,
singing loudly. They don’t like singing loudly, have them blow bubbles. Uh, there are a lot of
different things they can do that will slow their breathing. And when they do that, it slows their
heart rate and triggers the relaxation response. But for a lot of people, because they’ve been
stuck in the stress position for so long, they have to learn to manually override that
stress response and actively work to bring their heart rate down. Highintensity interval training
is great. Most people don’t want to do that. So that’s not something that I regularly recommend.
I find it is imperative. Pain is stressful. Pain is generally associated with inflammation.
We want to bring it down. Some people can’t get rid of their pain. It’s not going to completely
go away. We realize this. However, helping people live in the and recognize they can live their rich
and meaningful life and have some level of pain. Help them develop cognitive tools in addition
to physical and environmental tools to manage that pain. Ergonomics is an environmental
tool. Physical tools can be massage, ice, heat. Maybe you consider those environmental. I
don’t know. Uh working with a physical therapist, uh gentle movement under the advice of a physical
therapist. There are a lot of non-medication things that we can do to help people manage
their pain. I have these, and I’m not wearing them today. I have these little compression gloves
that are a gamecher for me when my arthritis acts up. They keep my hands warm and less painful.
Um, you know the exact mechanics of how it works, not sure, but they are a gamecher. So, helping
people find different strategies like that that can help. TENS units, that’s another thing
that can be really helpful. immunity and illness. When we’re sick, it’s stressful on the
body. It’s going to add stress. It’s going to increase inflammation. It’s going to click on some
of those stress genes and we can’t realistically expect to be completely healthy 100% of the
time. It’s just not real practical. Now, there are people like Lionus Pauling who say they’ve
ne haven’t been sick in 30 years or something. They’re the exception, not the rule. Let’s set
our re goals realistically. But when we are sick, we’re going to heal faster. We’re going to um be
able to defeat the illness and and get well more quickly when we’re not under stress. Why? Because
our body is devoting energy to healing and we’re not hyperactivating that stress system. We’re not
increasing inflammation everywhere unnecessarily. And that allows the body to focus on doing what it
needs to do, get it done, and move on. Hormones, gonatal, and thyroid. As we well, even when
you’re younger, there are enough things in your environment that are endocrine disruptors
that may contribute to hormone imbalances that when your hormones get imbalanced, it’s stressful
on the body. It’s like trying to drive a car with um the wrong kind of oil. I don’t know. I
I should never make automotive metaphors, but your gonatal hormones are supposed to be
in a particular balance for you. And when they are not in that balance, then things don’t move
smoothly and the system is under stress. Likewise, thyroid. And remember in other videos we’ve
talked about how chronic stress not only alters the hypothalamic pituitary uh adrenal axis but
it alters the hypothalamic pituitary gonatal and hypothalamic pituitary thyroid access. We we
know that chronic stress alters our sex hormone levels as well as our thyroid hormone levels and
all of our stress hormone levels which alter the availability of all of our neurotransmitters.
When your neurotransmitters are out of whack, that’s a stressor. We can’t there is no test.
Don’t let people tell you there is. There is no test to determine whether you have um adequate
neurotransmitter activity in your brain for a certain neurotransmitter. Now, they can do some
brain scans and see parts of the brain light up, but we can’t yet figure it out. Dopamine
receptors, serotonin receptors, norepinephrine receptors are throughout the body. So if people
take a urine test, it will may tell them how much serotonin or dopamine or whatever they’ve got
possibly, but it’s not telling you number one, are the receptors working well? That’s why people
with diabetes, they have high blood sugar. They got plenty of blood sugar in their system, but
it’s not being used. It’s not being taken up by the muscles. Well, the same thing can be true
for our neurotransmitters. We may have plenty of circulating dopamine, but if the receptors aren’t
receptive, it can’t do its job. Medications, a lot of times medications are toxins, and while
they may be necessary, um, we need to recognize that they can add stress to the body. And lack
of movement and oxygenation is also a stressor. Our body is meant to move. It’s not meant to
be sedentary 24/7 365. We start to seize up. If you’ve ever had your arm in a cast and then
it’s gotten out of the cast, it’s, you know, it hasn’t had the same range of motion. It’s taken
a minute to get everything fluid and going again. But when we are poorly oxygenated, partly from not
adequately breathing, um, it reduces our energy. It adds stress to the body. All of these things
are going to impact us physically. You know, if you have disruption in your sleep, um it’s
going to alter your blood sugar. It’s going to alter your gut microbiome. It’s going to and
those alterations, especially high blood sugar, can alter your oral health. Um so all of these
things affect one another. They don’t just operate independently. Um, and when physically you’re
not feeling well, it impacts every other piece of life. Interpersonally, and we’ve talked
about this before, self-esteem, how you feel about yourself is important. If you constantly
have that inner critic going on in your head and you don’t feel like you’re worth anything, then
that’s stressful. I mean, how unsafe does it feel when your biggest critic is living in your own
head? You can’t get away from it. How awful. Uh, helping people silence that inner critic. They
may not think they’re all that in a bag of chips right away, but helping them counter that inner
critic can be really helpful or at least challenge the inner critic. This is what you’re telling
yourself. Do you believe it? Is that accurate? self-confidence, people’s self-efficacy um is
important. We can help people focus or turn their attention to not only their failures, but also
their successes and help reframe things. Yeah, you’ve made some mistakes, but look at how much
knowledge you’ve gained. Look how much courage you’ve shown and strength you’ve developed by
all the crap you’ve gone through. Helping people develop that sense of empowerment is so important.
When we don’t feel empowered, we feel vulnerable. And vulnerability is stressful. Help them learn
how to set and maintain healthy boundaries with others. And I know this is kind of counseling
101. A lot of people have really poor boundaries, whether it’s in person only, online only with only
certain people. Maybe I can set great boundaries with people at work, but not so much at home or
vice versa. We need to help them learn how to set those boundaries and in every area. Not just
physical boundaries, but also emotional boundaries and cognitive boundaries. What I think and how
I feel are valid for me. You may not agree, but you don’t have the right to try to tell me how
to feel or what to think. We need to help people develop an awareness of that’s first mindfulness
and ability to effectively communicate thoughts, wants, and needs. And there’s so much use of the
word narcissist anymore. Um, it just uh drives me nuts because we’ve got become so sensitive in
many ways. And I know I’m probably triggering some of you by saying that right now, but we’ve
become so sensitive in many ways that if people express differing thoughts, wants, and needs,
not telling you how to feel, but they just say, “I don’t agree. I think that’s wrong. Um, this is
my point of view.” People become very defensive. They start feeling very vulnerable. Add to that,
and I went on a diet tribe about this on Monday, um, these new chat bots that we’ve got out
there. Oh my gosh, people who are engaging with these friend chat bots. I don’t know what
they’re actually called, not your chat GPTs, but the ones that actually interact with you
like a friend. Um, they’re developing an AI in most cases that agrees with them 100% of the
time. there is no adversity. So the first time they’re interacting with people in real life and
somebody says, “No, I disagree.” They’re like, “Whoa, that’s not allowed. My AI doesn’t disagree
with me. My AI thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.” So that’s a whole other issue that
we’re going to have to face at some point. Um, but we do need to increase people’s awareness and
ability to effectively communicate their thoughts, wants, and needs and set those boundaries and
say, “You don’t have to agree with me, but you don’t have the right to tell me how I feel.” And
be okay with that. If somebody gets defensive, be okay with the fact that they feel vulnerable
because you’re not allowing them to try to control you. and and help them roleplay those things
and figure out how to accept that in certain circumstances. Help them develop healthy social
support systems with secure attachment. When we don’t have social support, we often feel more
stressed. Now, introverts are going to have one or two really close friends. Extroverts are
going to have 20 or 50, you know, acquaintances. It doesn’t matter what you define, but as your
social support system, but it’s important for people to feel like they’ve got somebody they can
call and resolution of interpersonal traumas and social anxiety. Well, you’re going to have a hard
time developing a social support system if you’ve got wicked social anxiety, avoidant issues,
attachment issues, and interpersonal traumas. All of those things until they’re healed may
contribute to you to people feeling unsafe in relationships, unsupported, unconnected, which
means, you know, pretty much no oxytocin unless they’ve got a house full of creatures, uh, dogs,
cats, whatever. But it’s not a replacement. You know, your your boxer is not going to be able to
do the same thing that another human being can. emotional aspects that can add stress if not
handled if not working well. People who have low emotional intelligence, they’re not sure
what they’re feeling, why they’re feeling it, or how to manage it. They’re going to experience
a lot of stress because emotions are our body’s way of communicating with us about what might
be getting ready to happen. Doesn’t mean it is. Feelings are not facts. feelings are smoke
alarms, early warning signs that say this may be good or this may be terrifying. You better devote
some energy to figuring out what’s going on. So, emotional intelligence is the composition
or whatever of a person’s ability to identify each emotion and their purpose. Why
do I feel angry? Why do I feel jealous? Why do I feel griefstricken? What are those emotions
trying to tell me? Why why am I experiencing that right now? To downregulate. We can’t think
when we’re in a stressed state. Our prefrontal cortex actually kind of disengages because it’s
more important to fight or flee, not ponder. Uh, so our prefrontal cortex isn’t really engaged
until we can downregulate, turn down the cortisol, the glutamate, the adrenaline, and get into our
wise mind where we explore triggers and solutions and then make a choice of what steps to take. We
act in choosing the best response that we think will we can do to move us toward our rich and
meaningful life and then assess later. Did it work? If it didn’t work, okay, let’s go back to
exploring triggers and solutions again. You know, sort of rapid cycle change right there. But it is
important that people start becoming more aware that emotions are there for a purpose, but they
are not factual. Curiosity, hope, motivation, anger, anxiety, depression, grief, they all serve
a purpose and we want to encourage them. Curiosity and hope are obviously not going to generally
trigger the stress response too much. They require energy, but they’re not going to be overly
stressful. motivation when people have it. It tends to be it it require again it requires energy
but it doesn’t overtax the system most of the time. When people don’t have motivation they can
start to get frustrated and that triggers anger. When they start getting angry it triggers the
stress response. It triggers the inflammation. It alters the gut microbiome. Alters the blood sugar.
You see how everything’s starting to go together? Recognizing we’re going to feel angry sometimes
and that’s okay. Recognizing that anger is there to tell us there might be a threat, there might
be a problem just like the smoke alarm tells you there might be a fire. And then we’re supposed
to take that energy and not steep ourselves in anger and anxiety, but take that energy and go
figure out if there is a problem. If there is, handle it. If there isn’t, move on. Depression.
And a lot of times people’s depression is either associated with anger and anxiety or grief.
When you’re angry and anxious for too long, eventually your body starts to just kind of shut
down. Your brain says, “I can’t keep doing this. I’m exhausted. I give up.” And that is the flop
part of the stress response. Fight. flee, freeze, fawn, and flop. Um, so if somebody is persistently
or has been angry and anxious for a long time, they may be flat a lot of the time. They
may feel apathetic, unmotivated, no joy, depressed. When people are grieving, grief is part
of the stress uh that or depression is part of the grief response. We need to acknowledge that and
not um pathize it. You are feeling hopeless and helpless because you can’t change that situation.
You can’t regain what was lost. And it’s a normal reaction. Helping people understand. And remember,
grief is not just the loss of a person or a pet. Grief can be the loss of dreams, the loss of
your understanding of how the world works. It can be the loss of a friendship. Um there are
a lot of things to be grieved. And if we start examining what’s causing this right here, we may
have a better understanding of how to address it. Cognitively, it’s stressful when you’re only
paying attention to the negative. But when your stress response is on, your body’s telling you,
“Pay attention to the stressors.” You’re hiking down the forest, a uh snake crosses your path.
Stress response. The next maybe the rest of your hike, maybe the next hundred yards, I don’t
know, depends on you. you’re probably going to be more hypervigilant, more attentive to the
potential for another snake to come out. You’re not listening as much to the birds. You’re
not paying as much attention to the different flora and fauna. You’re hoping that you’re not
going to have another cotton mouth come out. So, we want to help people learn how to stop
and notice the wide array of all of the things in their life that they’re committed to that are
important to them. Some of them are going to be going fine. Some of them are going to suck.
That is just life. And we want to help them balance those out, but not and and help them avoid
exclusively paying attention to the negative. We don’t want to invalidate the negative. it’s there
and it sucks. And there are these things over here, this little glimmer of light that we can
bathe in for a few minutes. Um, I’ve suggested before and I’ve research has shown that spending
20 minutes a day, generally I advise during a meal because that’s 20 minutes people do every
day. uh focusing on what’s going well. Uh that can be really helpful in helping people notice
the good. The other 23 hours and 40 minutes, they can focus on all the stressors if they
want to. But they’ve actually shown that that 20 minutes helps strengthen the vag nerve. When
concentration is poor, whether it’s because of environmental factors, um they didn’t get enough
sleep, they’ve they’re worrying about something, whatever. um it can add stress and concentrating
itself takes energy. It’s stressful. We want to recognize that older adults with hearing loss
have to focus so hard and concentrate so hard to try to understand what’s being said. It increases
what they call cognitive load. And they’ve shown that that persistent increase in cognitive
load is exhausting, increases inflammation, and is associated with an increased risk of
dementia. We want to help people develop mental flexibility in perception and problem solving and
awareness and management of thinking errors. Yeah, that’s the stuff we were trained to do in graduate
school. So, let’s help them notice some of these things. Help them develop healthy optimism. Not
toxic optimism, not ah everything’s going to be fine, but healthy optimism. What is going right?
What is not going so well? What do you have the ability to control? And what don’t you have the
ability to control? We want to help them be aware and manage cognitive load so they don’t just get
completely brain drained and engage in mental exercise with regularity that actually helps
develop neuroplasticity. And mental exercise is reminiscing. It can be doing sudoku. It can
be crosswords, learning a new hobby, whatever. environmentally, light, sound, smell, taste, and
touch. All of our senses when they are either over or under stimulated, it’s stressful. And what is
over or under stimulating for different people is it’s very individual. Likewise, especially when
it comes to smell and sound, uh people who have a trauma history may have triggers um and and sights
too to a certain extent. Um have triggers in their environment that add extra stress. So, we need to
go through the entire array of senses when we’re trying to identify stressful triggers that we
can eliminate or mitigate. and positive triggers, empowering triggers that we can add. We also
want to be aware that toxins, airborne toxins like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, um
endocrine disruptors in food, water, detergents and cosmetics and microplastics. Whenever they
are ingested, whether they’re inhaled or eaten or whatever, they add stress to the body because
it disrupts the the uh very precarious balance, the very um fragile balance of the hormones
and neurotransmitters and our body recognizes toxins and it goes whoa don’t want to have that
here. So there is a stress response. Spiritually, helping people develop values that support
their connection and agency in the world can help reduce stress, which reduces the activation
of those stress related genes. And developing a sense of meaning and purpose so they know what
is important in their rich and meaningful life is essential because that helps them decide, am I
making forward progress? Am I able to move toward what I want to do? Am I empowered to do that?
Functional mental health recognizes that frequent or consistent stress in any of the pieces of life
contribute to epigenetic changes. Changes in which genes are methylated or activated. Nervous system
imbalance and those changes lead to nervous system imbalances, inflammation, and imbalances
in neurotransmitters and hormones. Well, when those are imbalanced, we got a heck of
a mess on our hands. addressing one area will will help. Like if somebody wants to work on
getting better sleep, well that’s great. That’s awesome. That will help. But true recovery
and the ability to live their most functional life requires reducing unnecessary stress in
all pieces of life and to reduce unnecessary inflammation so the body can restore its own
genetic balance. it can get the right switches turned on on that switchboard. If you want to
do a medium dive into epigenetics, these two um articles I think are a great place to start.
Uh Van Ghoul, epigenetics and the development of mental health disorders and Mason epigenetic
and mental diseases the role of psychotherapy. Mason is the one that um talks about how
psychotherapy actually produces positive ep epigenetic changes which I thought was absolutely
fascinating. um in your classroom. I have uploaded or I will upload if I forgot to um I’ll check as
soon as class is over a bibliography and it’s a long one but it g if you want to do do your own
deep dive on epigenetics it helps you find the articles that I used just to start creating this
presentation and there’s a ton more out there. Are there questions? Thank you, James. I’m glad that
the work is helpful for you. Hi, Shimon. Adriana is actually out
today. Her son is sick and they are at the doctor. I’m glad to see you are
here and I hope the baby’s doing well. Robbie Gibson. Yes, progressive muscular
relaxation can be super helpful um for helping the body relax, noticing the difference between
tense and relaxed. But also when you do that, you can actually almost feel the body pushing
the stress. If you start here and move outwards, you can almost feel the body pushing the stress
out your fingertips, which is what I love. Um, I used to do that activity with my students
when I taught at UF, and about halfway through about half of them were asleep. But hey,
they got relaxed enough to get to sleep, so I guess that was good. Um, but progressive
muscular relaxation can be super helpful. You are quite welcome, Lisa. And you’re welcome, uh, Christina and Jenna. Tyrone, I will
see you next time. Happy Halloween. You are quite welcome, Alana. I
try to make getting our live CEUs as easy as possible. I know here in
Tennessee, I have to get live CEUs, too. So, you know, do what we
can to help each other out. How do you approach a subject um with PCP
with a PCP to get necessary blood work? um it can be helpful. I mean we want to educate
the patient um the person about how all of these things work. Uh we want to educate them
and and in general it’s not necessary for them to get any sort of genetic testing unless
they’re doing what they call a PGX test or a pharmaccogenetic test to because they’ve been
on multiple anti-depressants that haven’t worked and they’re trying to figure out what’s going
to work. Okay. So, that’s one. But in general, um see seeing how their their hormones are doing
and all that stuff educating the person about how thyroid hormones are impacting their mood,
how their changes in their gonatal hormones may be impacting their mood can be helpful. And
encouraging them to talk with their doctor about, you know, do you think that this might be
going on? and are you willing to test for it? The doctor’s going to make their own
decision. But for example, for thyroid, a lot of times doctors will test TSH and free T4,
but nothing else. Um, we want to look to find out and that misses a lot of hypothyroid.
We want to test TSH, free T4, free T3, and reverse T3 because reverse T3 is the enzyme
that breaks down T3. But when you’re stressed, reverse T3 actually increases and breaks
down the T3 before it can do its job. So, we need to look at all of those to figure out if
there’s a breakdown in the system somewhere. There are a lot of people who have hypothyroid symptoms,
for example, that have perfectly normal levels of TSH and free T4, but they feel like crap. Um, so
encouraging them to advocate for themselves with their doctor. We can’t prescribe it. We can’t
tell the doctor what to do, but we can provide potentially an informed opinion about why we
think they may be struggling with hypothyroid or something. Um, to date, I’ve never had a doctor
go, “Oh, heck no. I’m not doing any of that.” Um the bigger challenge has been getting the
patient to go to the doctor and get the blood work run. Um the nice thing now and and I hesitate
to mention this but I think most people are aware of it now. Um a lot of the places like LabCore and
Lab Quest or no Quest Diagnostics um people can actually you don’t need a doctor’s order to get
certain tests run. um you can go in and request the entire thyroid panel. Now, insurance isn’t
going to cover it, but you if you want something done theoretically, you can do that. The other
question is once the results come back, are you going to be able to interpret them? Which again
is why having the doctor do it is so important. Tennessee is quite different. I grew up in
Florida. Um, I really, for the most part, generally enjoy Tennessee except for those
two weeks every year that we get a half an inch of snow and the entire city shuts down.
But other than that, it’s pretty awesome. Is digging back into trauma over and over again
in therapy helpful if the goal is to ultimately reduce stress and inflammation and stuff? Well,
there’s that’s a loaded question there. Um, until the person dealing with the trauma feels
safe and empowered, then that trauma is going to continue to add stress to their life. However,
if you’ve dug into it once and it didn’t do much good, you dig into it again, doesn’t do much
good, then digging into it probably not going to be helpful for whatever reason. So, we may
need to look at other strategies to help the person address it. The first thing I would
look at is before you started digging in, did the person have the skills and tools they
needed to feel safe enough to go there? Or were they just opening Pandora’s box and hoping
for the best? Because if that’s the case, then digging into the trauma may have actually
retraumatized them. U for some people, talk therapy as it pertains to trauma doesn’t
really do everything it needs to do. and things like EMDR and um transcranial magnetic stimulation
have shown more beneficial effects. There are some other more fringe um experimental treatments
that are coming out now, but EMDR is always my sometimes it’s my first line. I am not EMDR
certified, so I will refer people out. Come here, bud. Um, but I if I think that that would be
the most appropriate course of action. But if we tried to work on it together in talk therapy
and it wasn’t effective or not effective enough, then I would certainly refer to uh refer out
for EMDR, which has a lot of effects besides just cognitive processing. And it really can
help start to reprogram the nervous system.
How Stress Changes Your Genes: The PIECES Method for Functional Health
🤖 Use https://DocSnipes.com/Clones to get answers to mental health questions and inline citations to the relevant points in YouTube videos.
✍ 💻 Earn Live and On-Demand CEUs in social work, counseling, family therapy, case management, psychology and more @AllCEUs.com $59 unlimited access.
Discover how stress, nutrition, sleep, relationships, and even your thoughts can turn your genes on or off—influencing your physical and mental health. In this video, Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes introduces The PIECES Method, a functional mental health model that integrates Physical, Interpersonal, Emotional, Cognitive, Environmental, and Spiritual wellness.
You’ll learn how stress and trauma affect your body through epigenetic switches, how inflammation disrupts neurotransmitters and hormones, and how small daily actions—like improving sleep, setting boundaries, or cultivating hope—can “biohack” your genes for healing and resilience.
This strengths-based, trauma-informed approach bridges psychology, biology, and spirituality to help you and your clients live a more functional, balanced, and meaningful life.
📚 Topics Covered:
What Functional Mental Health Really Means
How #Epigenetics Explains Stress, Trauma, and Recovery
The Science of Methylation and Gene Expression
How Each PIECE (Physical, Interpersonal, Emotional, Cognitive, Environmental, Spiritual) Shapes Well-being
Practical Steps to “Turn On” Healing Pathways
#biohacking #psychology
NOTE: ALL VIDEOS are for educational purposes only and are NOT a replacement for medical advice or counseling from a licensed professional.
functional mental health, epigenetics and mental health, Doc Snipes PIECES Method, trauma informed care, holistic psychology, stress and inflammation, HPA axis dysregulation, biohacking for mental health, gut brain connection, methylation and mood, neuroplasticity, emotional regulation, self healing, counselor education, recovery coaching, integrative mental health, biopsychosocial model, functional psychiatry, resilience training, trauma recovery, holistic healing
3 Comments
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Thanks!
I learn a lot from your video, It is very professional about gene