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These beneficial fungi offer a vast range of potentially therapeutic uses including enhancing immunity, improving cardiovascular health, promoting detoxification, boosting mood, improving digestion, stimulating memory, and nourishing the body. What makes these "magic" mushrooms so unique? For one thing, fungi and humans are actually more closely related biologically than fungi and plants! Perhaps that's why they make us feel so good.

Natural Living & Mind Body Medicine

Grief Brain: Why Loss Causes Brain Fog, Memory Problems, and Difficulty Thinking

One of the most unsettling experiences many people have during grief is the sudden feeling that their mind is no longer working the way it once did.

Simple tasks become difficult.
Conversations feel harder to follow.
Memory seems unreliable.

People often describe feeling as though they are moving through a fog.

They may forget appointments, lose track of what they were saying mid-sentence, or struggle to read a page without losing focus. For individuals who were once highly organized or mentally sharp, these changes can feel deeply distressing.

Many begin to worry that something is seriously wrong with their brain.

But what they are experiencing is something medicine increasingly recognizes as grief brain—a temporary change in cognitive function that can occur after profound loss.

Understanding the biology behind this response can be both reassuring and empowering.

Can Grief Make You Sick? A Physician Explains the Hidden Physical Effects of Loss

When people experience grief, they expect emotional pain.

They expect sadness.
They expect tears.
They expect waves of longing.

What many people do not expect is how profoundly grief can affect the body.

After the loss of a loved one, many people begin noticing physical symptoms that feel confusing and sometimes frightening. They may develop frequent infections, persistent fatigue, headaches, digestive problems, or sleep disturbances. Some even begin to wonder if they are developing a serious illness.

This question comes up often in my clinical work:

Can grief actually make you sick?

What Grief Does to the Body: A Physician Explains the Biology of Loss

But what many people are not prepared for is this:

Grief is also a biological event.

It is not simply a feeling you carry in your mind or heart. It is something that moves through your entire physiology, your hormones, your nervous system, your immune defenses, even your cardiovascular system.

As a physician, and as someone who has lived through profound loss myself, I have watched how deeply grief can alter the body. Many people think something is wrong with them when their body begins to change after loss.

In reality, their body is responding exactly as biology would expect it to.

Understanding this changes everything. Because when we recognize grief as a whole-body experience, we can begin to care for the body while the heart heals.

Below are some of the most common ways grief affects the body.

2025 Guide to Making Real Changes

If You Want To Keep Your Resolutions This Year, The Key Isn't To Change Your Goals, But Your Mindset…

The New Year is an exciting time, full of possibilities and potential to make a real change in our lives. But despite the best of intentions, many of us have a hard time getting started.

In fact, a shocking study from U.S. News and World Report showed that 80 percent of New Year's resolutions will fail by February.

Why? Because our focus is on the goal itself, rather than the mindset, feelings, and intentions behind it.

This step-by-step guide will give you the tools you need to create lasting change, to replace habits with meaningful rituals, and to thrive in 2025 and all the years ahead.

My Own Health Journey

I have often discussed my passion for medicine and why I became a doctor, but I haven’t discussed my own personal health journey that happened several years ago…

I contracted leishmaniasis (the second most deadly parasite in the world) …on my face!

Being Intentional in 2024

If you want to keep your resolutions this year, the key isn’t to change your goals, but your mindset.

You have more power than you think you do.

Every action and intention begins with a thought…

Our thoughts are incredibly powerful, but how does one prove that?

It's so hard to be able to quantify the power of our thoughts but a study was able to prove some amazing results!

How to fight the blues naturally

You’re not alone. It’s estimated that up to 10 percent of the population in the United States will show signs of a declining mood as the days get shorter and the temperatures drop. This popular seasoning has a place in the medicine cabinet as well as the kitchen thanks to its powerful mood-enhancing effects.

Do you really know what you're taking

A Canadian study that was published last fall found that 1/3 of the herbal supplements tested did not contain ANY of the main herbal ingredients listed on the label. THE BIG QUESTION IS… Do you know what you’re really taking?

Common Skin Conditions & Clean Skincare

Decrease Your Histamine

Well, it's a response from your immune system that mistakenly identifies airborne substances like pollen as harmful. The body then goes into action and produces antibodies to combat it. Then each time you encounter that substance (like pollen) those antibodies tell your immune system to release chemicals like histamine into your bloodstream. Then histamine causes all those annoying symptoms like headaches, itchy eyes, swelling, and congestion.

What Your Skin is Telling You

Our skin gives us a much deeper picture as to what is going on within the body, if its hormonal, environmental, toxin overload, and so much more.

The Complete Skincare Guide

The skin is the largest organ in the body, covering 22 square feet, on average. The skin also acts as a mirror for overall health. Have you ever noticed dark circles under your eyes when you don’t get enough sleep, blemishes cropping up when you’re stressed, or dull, dry skin when you aren’t eating right?

Mental Health & Mood Support

The 3 Stages of Stress that your Body Goes Through

Isn't it annoying that the body reacts to stressors the same way it did in prehistoric times?! So, that big presentation you have or that fast-approaching deadline you must meet is the same physical reaction as if you were getting ready to run away from a bear.

Coming Down with a Case of the Blues?

Coming down with a case of the blues? A specific type of mood disorder that’s directly related to the change in seasons is commonly known as SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD symptoms usually occur in the autumn and winter months and include tiredness, feelings of hopelessness, overeating, and loss of motivation. These symptoms can be more prevalent in people who live farther away from the equator, and typically affect women more than men. As with many health issues, prevention is key.

How to Make Meditation a Daily Practice

Having a daily practice of meditation has profoundly changed my life over the last 6 years. By releasing daily emotions and energies, I feel more clear, less stressed, and more at peace with whatever comes my way. Some days I will meditate for hours while other days I can only get my mind to stop for minutes and it doesn’t matter how long-just that I can quiet my mind and let myself be in the moment.