If you’re like me and love a whole health, holistic wellness vibe, “naturopathy” has likely come up in your searches and Instagram feed. I learned a little bit from my courses at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, but I wanted to dive deeper for you and for me. What better way to do so than speaking to an expert firsthand?

Enter Dr. Chelsea Azarcon: A Naturopathic Medical Doctor, who earned her doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University, one of the foremost naturopathic medical universities, globally.

Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine that focuses on the individual and aims to treat the cause, remove obstacles to health, and stimulate the body’s innate healing mechanisms using the most natural methods possible.

Naturopathic doctors take a unique, collaborative approach to health care, helping people heal physically, emotionally and spiritually.

She shares what it’s like to work with her, tips on hormone health, gut health and so much more!

1. What's one tip you'd recommend for someone who wants to start focusing on holistic health?

I recommend starting with the basics. You can work with a naturopathic doctor and you can do all the fancy protocols in the world but if you don’t have the basics down, your body is not going to achieve sustainable healing. 

• Healthy Eating: My basic dietary guidelines include removing anything with enriched flour, sugar (natural sugars okay), or artificial ingredients. Replace those foods with whole grains and plenty of vegetables and healthy fats.

• Daily Movement: You don’t have to be a gym rat to be healthy. Find something you enjoy and challenge yourself to doing that for a small amount of time every day. At times in my life, I have only been able to commit to 5 minutes of exercise daily but once I started moving, I naturally increased the amount of time I spent moving. Something is better than nothing and you have to respect your limits.

• Time Outside: This has been proven to improve our moods. It also helps set our circadian rhythms, expose us to detoxifying ions, and boost our vitamin D.

• Healthy Sleep: Sometimes you need to bring in a medical professional to help you with this one. But, everyone should be asleep before midnight because sleep cycles are designed to achieve optimum sleep earlier in the night. Everyone should also be aiming to sleep between 7-9 hours nightly and wake refreshed. Sleep is when your body heals, cleans, and repairs. If you are not getting quality sleep, healing is going to be a lot harder.

2. On your Instagram page, you talk about detoxing in the right way. Can you share more on this and a few tips to get started?

Detox is such a trendy word. I feel a conception has developed around it that you can throw anything labeled “detox” at your body and you are going to be healthier. This is so wrong because detoxification is chemistry. Many products labeled “detox” on the market weakly pull toxins out of tissues without the ability to completely eliminate them from the body through urine or feces. So, instead of toxins getting eliminated from the body, they redistribute to other tissues. With many trendy detoxes, you are simply paying to relocate toxins. Other “detoxes” may simply stimulate bowel movements or urination or decrease your caloric intake. While all of these may be part of supporting your bodies ability to detoxify, none of those things are going to pull toxins out of your body. Here are my tips for detoxing in a safer and more effective way:

• Know what you are detoxifying: You need to know what you are trying to detoxify, whether that be plastics, pesticides, heavy metals, molds or environmental toxins. These have different biochemical pathways of storage and elimination so this will impact the method of detox you choose.

• Use the right detoxifying agent: This is simple but vital. Your doctor can help you determine which detox agent specifically targets the toxin you are trying to reduce or eliminate.

• Use plenty of binders: Binders don’t get a lot of airtime because they are very unglamorous but they are the key to a successful detox. They include things like clay, charcoal, humic and fulvic acids, or other agents that bind to the toxins your detoxifying agent has drawn out of tissues and helps them be eliminated from the body through urine, sweat, or stool. Binders help reduce side effects of detoxification protocols and prevent toxin reabsorption.

• Decrease your toxic exposure: No sense detoxing if you don’t remove or reduce your toxin exposure. For example, I never do a metal detox on an individual with current amalgam fillings because the amalgams will continue to release mercury into tissues. However, for most of us, the toxins most relevant to our lives include things like plastic food storage containers, cosmetics, non-organic foods, synthetic fragrances, and EMF’s from excessive electronic use. Most of us have at least one of these things in our lives and reducing our exposure to them can help make a detox more successful.

• Support natural detox pathways: Your body is designed to detoxify naturally but it has a hard time keeping up with modern life. Your body excretes toxins through perspiration, respiration, urination, and defecation. Supporting these systems is a foundational piece of a successful detox. If you are using the right detoxifying agent and plenty of binders but you are not pooping everyday, you are still not detoxifying. Although lymph does not excrete toxins from the body, it does purify the blood of toxins so supporting movement of lymph fluid through things like exercise and dry brushing is another foundational component of supporting natural detoxification pathways.

3. Can you share a few tips on how to naturally balance your hormones?

I take a 2 pronged approach to balancing hormones which includes:

• Balancing the Actual Hormones: Most women find a lot of relief from using medicinal interventions that help move the hormones back into balance. In my practice, I frequently us bioidentical hormones. Herbs are also a great alternative as there are many herb with actions on the endocrine system that are accessible to the average person.

• Determining the Underlying Cause of Hormone Imbalance: While I can most definitely help you balance your hormones using bio-identical or herbal medicines, it is important to understand and address why your hormones went sideways in the first place. One of the most common hormone pictures I see is estrogen dominance. This is a condition in which estrogen is too high, progesterone is too low, and/or estrogen is too high relative to progesterone. Estrogen dominance is extremely common because many toxins in our modern environments promote estrogen activity. These toxins include things likes chemicals found in non-organic produce and animal products, mold, plastics, synthetic fragrances and cosmetics. Two other very common causes of hormone imbalance include an unhealthy gut and stress. In women with high stress, I often see lower levels of sex hormones and higher levels of cortisol. In women with an unhealthy gut, estrogen metabolism can be thrown out of balance because bacteria in your gut help determine how much estrogen your body recirculates and how much it excretes.

4. What's one tip you'd share with someone looking to improve their gut health?

The best thing you can do for a healthy gut is eat a healthy diet. I often hear people say “It doesn’t matter what I eat. It doesn’t change anything.” Not once have I heard that from someone who does not have an incomplete understanding  of what consistent healthy eating actually looks like. Food has the ability to damage or rebuild your gut microbiome. It has the ability to activate the immune system in your gut and create damage or down regulate that immune system. It even has the ability to change your genetic regulation.

While healing the gut often requires multiple strategies, a healthy diet is the foundation. If you are looking to eat to heal the gut, I recommend eliminating processed foods, simple carbohydrates, preservatives, refined sugar, and Omega 6 fatty acids which can all damage the microbiome and create inflammation in the gut. You also want to replace these foods with plenty of healthy fat, a variety of vegetables, probiotic rich foods, and animal products rich in glutamine like bone broth and collagen. All of these foods help repair the gut lining and restore the optimal microbiome. 

5. What are the benefits of working with a naturopathic doctor?

The best thing about working with a naturopathic doctor is having an educated advocate for your health. Many people may not realize that naturopathic doctors differ from “naturopaths” or “naturopathic physicians.” We have completed undergraduate degrees and four years of medical school with a focus on naturopathic medicine. We have also passed multiple sets of boards and are required to complete continuing education to keep our licensure. Simply, naturopathic doctors are doctors who have been trained in natural solutions but are able to perform appropriate diagnostics beyond what you are able to do at home. I often see patients feeling worse because they have tried to use Dr. Google. When you work with a naturopathic doctor, you work with someone who is able to asses whether you have conventional pathology or non-conventional dysfunction and use research backed medical interventions to help optimize your body. This is a much different approach than throwing a supplement from your section of the health food store at your symptoms. 

6. What does your daily routine look like?

I like to start my day with sunlight but I am not much of a morning person so usually that entails spending time under my sunlamp while I get ready for work. My first nourishment of the day is my gut healing smoothie with all my supplements added in. I start my work day off with drawing up IV’s for patients. That is followed by appointments that are longer than your typical doctor’s appointment. They usually last from 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours and involve talking about many different symptoms, lifestyle habits, emotional history and more.

Mid-day, I like to take a break to walk my medical assistance dog and get some additional sunshine. Afternoon snacks help power me through the rest of my appointments. I use my commute to and from work to help me center; I may listen to music, pray, or call someone who I know will feed my soul.

I try to reserve my evenings for doing something that I enjoy. Sometimes that is taking the dog for another walk, other times it is watching a fun show or a comedy video (using blue light blockers of course), and other times it is baking. Whatever the activity, I find it important to incorporate a sense of fun and play to help me unwind from my day and feel ready for bed. The most important thing I do before going bed is connecting with my spiritual source, God. I do this through journaling, reading my Bible, and listening to encouragements others have shared in their journey. And of course, you know those lights turn off before midnight. 

7. Is there anything else you'd like my audience to know about integrative health care or working with you?

I went into the field of naturopathic medicine because I have had chronic illness since I was a child. I used to be a patient of the Mayo Clinic and UCLA Hospital. Later, I was treated by a Stanford Rheumatologist who became my mentor and friend. Through this process, I developed a deep compassion for what my patients go through and an understanding of the commitment and work it takes to heal. I also developed a borderline obsession with reading research and knowledge beyond my years of experience with diagnosing and treating chronic illness with integrative methods. Difficult cases are my favorite. 

Be sure to follow @naturallydrchelsea!