In this installment of our Book Club, we are working through Chapter 1 of my book “Body Belief.” Don’t stress if you don’t have my books yet! We're just getting started so you can still jump in. Want to order a copy so you’re ready for the next one?

You can order a copy of the book through Amazon:
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or through Barnes and Noble:
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SEE BELOW FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT OR CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR THE FULL VIDEO.

Hello, how is everyone? Adjust my camera. Hi, hi, hi, hi. How are you? I am Amy of aimeeraupp.com, and it is another book club week. Every last Thursday of the month, we do book club. As many of you know, but some of you do not know, I have written four books over the last decade or so, 12 years. My first book is called Chill Out and Get Healthy. It is a guide for women on overall optimizing their health, their vitality. Then, my second book is Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, which many of you know, came out in 2014. Chill Out and Get Healthy came out in 2010. Then, in 2017, I wrote this puppy, Body Belief, which is all about how to heal autoimmune diseases, radically shift your health, and learn to love your body more. Someone who will remain nameless wrote on this book, as you can tell.

This book was inspired by writing, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant and looking at the research on fertility challenges and all these unexplained fertility challenges, and also my clinical experience. I've been clinically seeing patients for almost 20 years at this point. Prior to that, I did research science. I have a biology and chemistry degree. I have an almost master's in neuroscience, and putting the pieces together in the research that really pointed us in the direction that many fertility challenges are actually the result of undiagnosed and/or mismanaged autoimmune conditions and/or inflammatory conditions, which that all sounds really confusing. Basically, either inflammation or autoimmunity are triggering the immune system to not allow your body to get and/or stay pregnant or to compromise your egg quality or to put your body into a state of survival mode, where fertility and pregnancy will not be the priority. I wanted this book to fully be an autoimmune fertility book, but that's not what my publisher wanted. They wanted more of a general autoimmune book, written for women because the truth is that women are far more affected by autoimmunity, 75% more than men and women in their prime, their fertile years, their mid-20s to mid to late 40s are very impacted by autoimmunity.

If you sit and you look at the stats and you look at the information, it's fairly easy to put it together that a lot of unexplained infertility is actually due to autoimmunity and/or inflammatory conditions. What I find clinically is when I treat inflammatory conditions, such as endometriosis as if it is an autoimmune condition, which maybe this all sounds really puzzling. If it's puzzling, this is the book for you to read. Also, Egg Quality Diet is really based on the information that I discovered in writing this, book and then what I started to see clinically. Egg Quality Diet is my most recent book. It's a year old, came out last year.

What I started to see clinically was more of an autoimmune, anti-inflammatory approach to treating fertility and how radical it was, and I learned that from writing this book. Every one of my books is like me learning more, and then sharing with you. What I'm also very proud of is my recommendations have remained the same for 12 years. Still, the core recommendations of what to eat, what not to eat, how to treat your body, all of that has stayed the same. I've never once been like, “Be a vegetarian now, don't be a vegetarian or don't eat meat, eat meat.” Always been really tried and true to my grounding principles, which are based in science and in Chinese medicine.

Anyway, Body Belief, last month, we did the introduction. Now, this month we are on Chapter 1 in this book. If you guys have your books, go get your copies. If not, and you're maybe kind of interested in this topic, listen, see if it intrigues you and you can get this book on Amazon, or probably anywhere books are sold. It is no longer in hardback like it is here. It's in paperback now. Yeah, I love this book. I love the cover too. It's so pretty. Yeah, some nice endorsements on this book too, if I might say so myself.

Chapter 1 in Body Belief is called Autoimmunity, A Hostile Takeover of Your Body. Let's kind of break that down. Sorry, I want you guys on Facebook to be able to see the book. Instagram, you can see it just fine. I'm just going to read a little bit because I think that's a good way to intro us to the topic. You guys are welcome to ask questions around autoimmunity and what I talk about in this book, if that is something … Oh, I see someone already posted a question. That's great. This is not a request to join me live. That's not my Fertility Hot Seat that happens every other Monday. It did just happen right on Monday. In two weeks, I'll be back or 10 days.

Autoimmune disease is a case of misidentification. It's basically an identity crisis at the cellular level. The manifestation of cellular hostility, so basically the cells in your body are hostile. They're hosting an attack. They are unhappy. They are inflamed. It's a good way to think of it. The hostility is outweighing the kindness. The bad is outweighing the good, and that's not what we want. We cannot promise a cure of autoimmune diseases. No one can, no one can. Don't ever listen to anyone, who says they can cure autoimmune disease. You can heal, you can regulate the immune system. You can heal the gut. You can reduce inflammation, you can lower that cellular hostility. The body can become a more peaceful environment. That's a lot of what I see when I'm dealing with women.

Their fertility challenges is cellular hostility or cellular inflammation and more inflammation than not. My goal is not no inflammation. That's actually unhealthy for us. We all need a little inflammation to actually function and survive. When the inflammation is so much that the body is in fight or flight, it is not an environment for pregnancy. It is not an environment for healthy eggs. It is not an environment for uterine hospitality. It is not an environment for pregnancy and staying pregnant because the body basically has bigger fish to fry. It's got more it's got to focus on. It's just surviving. It's not thriving. There's two different pathways that we get to choose on a regular basis. Not we, but we as well, but that our bodies choose, based on kind of our environment and our environment can be our emotional state as well, but also of course, our diet and exposures to chemicals and toxic, whether it's just surviving every day, fight or flight, or does it get to go into relax and reproduce, two different pathways.

My goal with all of my clients, my team's goal with all of our clients that we treat all over the world and in our clinics in the tri-state area is to be in the rest, relax, reproduce mode more than we're in the fight or flight mode, so to be in cellular kindness, more than we're in cellular hostility. It's not about eradicating cellular hostility. It's just not possible. You don't want it because then you would have no immune system and anything that came by you, you would get sick with right away. It's really about finding the balance. As my spiritual teacher says, “It's not about being happy all the time to manifest the life of your dreams, it's like a 60-40, 70-30 rule.” That's really my goal. If I can get you into a space of 70% cellular kindness and 30% cellular hostility, we're winning and chances are, fertility will kick into gear. Keep that in mind.

As I was saying, it's basically an identity crisis at the cellular level, the manifestation of cellular hostility, outweighing cellular kindness. Sure, there are a lot of moving parts and a ton of cellular cues that need to happen before your body shows signs of autoimmunity. In very simple layman's terms, it's a hostile takeover, one that is affecting you and millions of other women. I've already thrown out some stats, but I think these are some interesting things to think about. The American Autoimmune Related Disease Association estimates that 30 million, this is just America, American women have at least one diagnosed autoimmune condition. Worse, many women who are walking around feeling unwell, I went over the symptoms in the last book club, so four weeks ago, feeling unwell and are completely unaware that they may have an autoimmune diseases. For example, it is estimated that only 5% of those who suffer with celiac disease, which is the gluten allergy, have actually been diagnosed with it. Only 5% of those who actually suffer. 95% of people, who have celiac do not have a diagnosis. I don't know how that's possible when it's a very adverse reaction if you eat gluten and you have celiac. Meaning, there are scores of people, walking around with an inability to digest gluten, and they don't even know it. The why and hows of autoimmune disease are still a bit of a mystery to the Western medical community.

There are more than a 100 confirmed autoimmune conditions. They present as a collection of vague symptoms. Many medical practitioners misdiagnosed them or don't diagnose them at all. Here's a typical scenario. This is like what I see in my clinic. I read a circular last night at Rejuvenating Fertility Center in Westport. One of the women was telling us that she's now on her fourth fertility clinic. She's now with RFC, Rejuvenating Fertility Center in Westport, and prior she was with a few other clinics. That not until recently, has anyone treated or even diagnosed her thyroid condition, which in my head like to say it, like my feathers go … Like, it enrages me to hear that. This woman has spent probably 30 grand on IVF and no one fucking treated her thyroid. Like what, how is that possible? How is that not medical malpractice in my opinion because if your thyroid isn't functioning properly, if your thyroid isn't treated, you are not going to get good results with IVF. You're not going to get pregnant naturally actually either or if you do, you're going to miscarry. Why had nobody treated her thyroid? Why had nobody actually looked at the labs that they ran on her? They ran labs. We saw the TSH was high. We saw she had thyroid antibodies. No one fucking did anything about it. Can you see? This is why I had to write these books because it's like, “God, it drives me insane.”

This is a typical scenario. A lot of these women wind up in my clinic because the Western medical system, as amazing as it is, I'm a huge fan of Western medicine, falls short. I don't think it's the doctors' fault per se. It's more the way the system is run because they don't have enough time with their patients to really understand. I get luxuriously, my first appointment and any of my team, our first appointment is like a solid 60 to 90 minutes, talking to you about your body, all the symptoms, collecting all the information, looking at the lab work, going over all the things. Most medical doctors get about 22 minutes I think with a patient, some even less, depending on how many they're seeing. They don't have enough time to collect all the data. A lot of these women that are dealing with these like autoimmune type conditions, the symptoms are vague. They come in, they say, “I'm exhausted.” This is a typical scenario, “I'm exhausted, my body hurts in places it never did before. I have dark circles under my eyes. My hormones are totally out of whack. I'm trying to conceive. I'm not getting pregnant, and it's only getting worse.” You visit your doctor. They do some blood work, where everything comes back with normal parameters.

Now, remember thyroid is a perfect example. TSH, a normal parameter could go up to a 4, but guess what? You can't get and stay pregnant unless your TSH is below a 2.5. Some girls, maybe a 2.8, fine. Some girls, like ideal though, we want it between a 1 and a 2.5. We want free T3 and free T4, right smack in the middle of the range. We want thyroid antibodies. If they're there, not in the high hundreds or thousands, low that tells me there's autoimmunity going on. We want to know is autoimmunity going on. You might say to me, when you come in, “Oh, no, my doctor checked my thyroid. Yep. No, everything's fine. Everything's fine.” Can I see the lab work? “Or my doctor checked my vitamin D. I'm in normal range.” Can I see the lab work? Then, I look and it's a 3.7, not a fertile thyroid. Oh and your D, oh, is it 38? Yep. I want it between a 50 and a 70.

Normal parameters versus functional parameters, really dramatically different. I have a lot of tests and lab work and stuff like that in the back of this book that you guys can refer to. I also have it in Yes, You Can Get Pregnant. I also have it as a resource that goes with the Egg Quality Diet book. Many places, I have this information for all of you. You visit your doctor. They do some blood work. Everything comes back normal. Your doctor tells you, “Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing's wrong with you. Bad luck.” You know how often I see that? “Oh, three miscarriages, oh, bad luck.” Bullshit, not bad luck. Bullshit, someone needs to do more testing. Bullshit, it's not bad luck.

That's really what got me obsessed with autoimmunity and inflammatory disorders was this habitual miscarriage, recurrent pregnancy loss, women that are having more than one loss without a live birth in between and doctors are telling them it's bad luck or all their eggs are bad, even if they're 32. Whew, another thing that gets my feathers all ruffled. You drag on, you move through your day, feeling more exhausted. Your whole body aches. Your head feels like it's in a fog. You see another doctor, the same thing. Next, you see a specialist, same thing. All lab tests are normal, even though you feel worse, you're depressed, headaches, pain, infertility, miscarriages. Do you know that the average autoimmune patient sees six different doctors on an average of five years before receiving a diagnosis, six doctors over five years before getting an actual diagnosis? I know some of you can raise your hand to that. 45% of patients with severe autoimmune conditions like celiac, scleroderma, lupus, Hashimoto's that's the most common one I see. Celiac and Hashis are the most common for me. Crohn's have a very difficult time getting a diagnosis, and are often labeled medically as hypochondriacs. How sad is that? Does it stop there? Once you do get a diagnosis, then what? There's not a lot of options, biologics, steroids anti-inflammatories. That's it.

Then, here's another interesting statistic. The incidence of autoimmune illnesses continues to rise. Since the 1980s, it has tripled and affects women 75% more than men. What is autoimmunity? I think we should break it down because I think it's really interesting for all of you to understand. From a Western scientific standpoint, it occurs when the body's immune system begins attacking normal, healthy tissue. Your body's immune system exists to destroy like foreign invaders, right, pathogens, viruses, and any other potential harmful, anything, bacteria. I think I said that. It's imperative, you need a healthy immune system. It needs to be working properly, so you can survive.

What starts to happen in autoimmunity is for some reason, not everybody's even sure of the actual pathomechanism, why this sets in, but for some reason, the body … We'll use the thyroid as an example, Hashimoto's since it's so common that 80% of women that have hypothyroidism actually have Hashimoto's. I actually … I have a very low grade hypothyroidism, but I'm treating it because I work with a functional medicine doctor, who likes me to be smack dab in the middle of the range. I don't have antibodies, which is rare. Most women have antibodies that have hypothyroidism. They have, 80% of women. Hashimoto's is autoimmune thyroid disease that usually presents as hypo. Sometimes, it goes back and forth between hyper and hypo. Your TSH is really low or it's really high. Then, you have thyroid antibodies. Whenever I recommend getting blood work done for your thyroid, you get a complete thyroid panel that includes TSH free T3, free T4 and your thyroid antibodies. Don't take note for an answer, please.

In the case of Hashimoto's, what happens is your body creates antibodies to the thyroid gland, which is right here. All of a sudden, for unknown reasons, your body starts attacking its own tissue, a gland that it's lived with since conception. Well, since the thyroid formed in conception or in utero. Then, all of a sudden now in your 30s, your body decides, “Oh, I'm going to start creating antibodies to this guy. I'm going to start attacking my own tissue.” That is what an autoimmune disease is. In rheumatoid arthritis, it starts attacking joints. In scleroderma, it starts attacking organs. They can actually harden the organs. These are organs that we've been with our entire life. Why does this turn on? It's a real misunderstood piece. That's why we don't really also understand how to best treat it, which is why I do think people in my world, the more alternative world, we do better with conditions like this because we can come at it with diet and supplements.

Again, we're not curing autoimmunity, but we can help people learn to live with it, manage it, get it under control, get their body out of fight or flight and out of hostility and into kindness and into rest, relax and reproduce. Any number of things can go awry. Your immune system no longer differentiates itself. It starts assaulting every cell or protein in your body. In autoimmune, your immune system is working perfectly fine. Some people will be like, “Oh, my immune system's like hyperactive.” That's actually not true. The immune system's working perfectly fine, it's cellular misidentification. There's actually like a misidentification going on. Now, the immune system is just attacking something that it thinks is a pathogen that never was a pathogen in the past. That's what's going on there. The miscommunication leads to whole body inflammation, which triggers autoimmunity, which in turn triggers other physical symptoms.

Then, what is inflammation? I think that's another thing to really importantly identify because autoimmunity and inflammation are different. They both can feed each other. I think they're kind of circular or like the yin and the yang if you will. Inflammation, isn't always a bad thing. I know everybody and including myself, I wrote a whole book, Egg Quality Diet, it's an anti-inflammatory diet. Inflammation isn't always a bad thing. We need it. Say we get a splinter, say we get a bug bite or an infection, we need an inflammatory response to actually protect us to heal. The reaction takes place. Say the splinter, when it enters your finger, your body was alerted for invader, sends out the immune cells. Everybody comes into support itself. We're going to heal. We want our bodies to do this. This is normal. This is what we want, but inflammation in these acute situations facilitates healing, but it gets troublesome when it's chronic, when it happens all the time. As in the case, when the body is constantly under attack from foreign invaders, psychological stress, lack of sleep, poor diet and/or environmental toxins.

I do break it down in the book, but people ask me like, “What is it you think is at the root of autoimmunity? Why is it so on the rise? Why since the '80s has it tripled and it's affecting women more than men?” Any guesses, environmental toxins. Since the '80s, we've introduced over a 100 chemicals into our environment. Most all of them are considered endocrine disrupting chemicals, which means they disrupt our hormones. Women have a more, what's the word I want to use, a vaster, a wider hormonal profile, more complicated hormonal profile than men. I also think women in the last since the '80s, which is now 40 years ago, have been under a lot more psychological stress. There's a lot on us. Not only are we going and getting an education and having a kick-ass career, but then we're also building a family and we're also figuring out our identity, our sexuality, all of our things. There's a lot of pressure on us that we may be put on ourselves that society has helped put on us. I do think those two things combined, environmental toxins and psychological stress are two of the biggest culprits that are the leading cause of inflammation and/or autoimmunity.

From a Western medicine perspective, there's three typical reasons why autoimmunity kicks in, genetics, previous infections and environmental toxins. Western medicine does identify that the environmental toxins are a leading cause of autoimmunity. Not every doctor necessarily agrees with that, even though the literature, the research is very strong, and it's very apparent. You guys, who follow me and maybe have read, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, you know, clear as day, I talk about bath and beauty products. They are huge contributing factor, a huge way for us to be exposed to environmental toxins, and something we really have to take seriously. Then, going organic with our foods and not every food needs to be organic because not every food is sprayed with pesticides. I also break all that down for you, but really understanding how environmental toxins are playing a role, and understanding that the literature is really strong in support of environmental toxins, really do dictate and lead to inflammation, the autoimmunity inflammation circle.

Genetics, of course, we might have predispositions, but remember I always talk about this, our genetics are not set in stone. It's called epigenetics, which is how we live our life determines whether our genes turn on or turn off. Your mother had endometriosis or your mother had Hashimoto's or she had lupus or she had scleroderma, so you have a likelihood. There's a good chance that you could get it because you got the gene. They're in the mix. How you live your life determines whether or not it turns on. Hashimoto's is very rampant in my family. I was surprised when I didn't find out that I had the antibodies, and I really think it's because I've been doing this kind of work. I've been clinically practicing for almost 18 years this December, but ever since I wrote Chill Out and Get Healthy, which I wrote it in 2009 and my dad got diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in that same timeframe, I began taking all of this extremely seriously from the products to the foods, to everything. I was and still am extremely cautious with all of these toxins and the exposures. I think that's a part of the reason why I didn't wind up with Hashimoto's. Not to say that like you created that yourself, but more that like we have these predispositions and women really, we don't learn until we're kind of in our 30s on how to take the best care of ourselves.

I think I was a little ahead of the game in a sense, but I also think it's fascinating. We all do have these genetic predispositions that we're born with. Then, maybe we couple that with a past infection like mono or Lyme disease. Epstein-Barr seems to be a trigger. I'm not an expert in any of that, but like do see it clinically, Candida, endometriosis. I see a very common link between girls with endometriosis and girls with Hashimoto's as does the literature, it's very predominant to see those two things together. It's very predominant to see celiac as well in that mix. Usually, you see three autoimmune conditions together. Endo is not an autoimmune, it's technically inflammatory, but I always say it acts like an autoimmune. When I treat it like an autoimmune disease, it gets better. Anyway, to think about, those are the three main issues.

The genetic part can't change, but as you know because of the science of epigenetics, you can influence how your genes express themselves by making different lifestyle choices. Then, I get into epigenetics more in Chapter 2, which we'll cover next month. I want you to also keep in mind, this is a really interesting statistic, when it comes to your genetics, keep in mind that fewer than 10% of those individuals with an increased genetic susceptibility of autoimmune diseases actually develop the clinical disease. Only 10% of people with a susceptibility actually get the disease. That's very different than what we're told. This suggests a strong environmental trigger in the pre-autoimmune process. Environmental factors are also likely to affect the outcome of the process, and the rate of progression to disease in those individuals, who develop autoimmunity. This is all citations and there's a ton of research in this book.

Then history of infections … Sarah Ballantyne, who I really love her book, The Paleo Approach, she really goes into like the deep, dark science on all of this that I did not. I kept this book more layman. It's important to understand the distinction between infection contributing to the development of autoimmune and causing it. Autoimmune diseases are not caused by infectious organisms, instead infections increase your chances of developing specific autoimmune diseases. Basically, it's almost like you have an event that triggers an inflammatory response in your body, a chronic inflammatory response, autoimmunity sets in. That seems to be the progression.

Environmental toxins, I mean some of this is just fucking scary. This one guy, Fred Miller, he's the Director of Environmental Autoimmunity Group and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences states that autoimmune diseases are now recognized as among the leading causes of death among young, middle aged women in the United States. He insisted the reasons are largely environmental, meaning our lifestyle and diet are the root cause of autoimmunity. In an article published in Environmental Health Perspectives, Dr. Miller claims our gene sequences aren't changing fast enough to account for the increases of autoimmune diseases, yet our environment is. We've got 80,000 chemicals. Now, it's up to a 100,000. 80,000 chemicals in converse, but we know very little about their immune effects. Our lifestyles are also different than they were a few decades ago, and we're eating more processed food.

Virginia Ladd, she is the Executive Director of the American Autoimmune Research, blah, blah, blah, “With the rapid increase in autoimmune diseases, it clearly suggests that environmental factors are at play. Genes do not change in such a short period of time.” I know some of this is like beyond the scope of like what we really want to talk about, but like what I get into in the rest of this chapter is how your brain, your beliefs and your autoimmunity and so that there is the psychological stress component that we know is impacting. It's part of these environmental toxins. There is research, and I really get into it. There's a lot of research in the nocebo and placebo effect, but basically that our beliefs dictate our behavior. Our behavior dictates our health. That also, I think the other thing I say a lot is your body hears everything your brain says. If your thoughts are very inflammatory that it is setting off this fight or flight cascade, which is setting off this chronicity of inflammation, which could then trigger autoimmunity. Part of healing, not curing is working on the belief systems, which is hence the name of the book, Body Belief.

I get into a lot of that too, but I think a big takeaway, the average person has 50,000 thoughts a day. 90% of them are the same. 50,000 thoughts a day, 90% of them are the same. What is the story you're telling yourself? What is the first thought you think when you think about your body, your health, your longevity, your vitality, your disease stateness, your age. Then, I go into food and autoimmunity, talking about gut health. There's a lot of research about zonulin and leaky gut and particles, leaking through our digestive tract, into our bloodstream, where they don't belong, causing an immune response, which can also be a big trigger for autoimmunity. Intestinal permeability is what it's called instead of leaky gut, if you don't want to think about that. I talk about your world in autoimmunity. The world you live in and how you interact with the world affects your health and ultimately your autoimmunity. It seems all luxuries of the modern world, including skincare products you use, the relationships you keep, the air you breathe, how much sleep you get, how you manage your stress, how much you work, your exercise routine, and what you are believing about your body and its wellness or illness will have major effects on your health and the manifestation of … I said of autoimmunity because the book's about autoimmunity, but I would also say about inflammation in your body.

Then, in here, similar to the Egg Quality Diet, I have what we call the red flag symptom list, where you go through and you check off all the boxes. It just is a good starting point for you. Then, I get into the Chinese medicine piece of autoimmunity, which … I know we're at 30 minutes, but I'm going to spend a few minutes because it's so important to me. I think I have a 1 o'clock meeting. Just let me check, today. Yeah, I have a 1 o'clock, so I'll end in the next five minutes. I want to explain how I was trained to view autoimmune conditions from a traditional, oriental medicine perspective. We don't focus on what your Western diagnosis is in Chinese medicine. You come in, and you tell me your symptoms. I play detective, and I try to figure out like what parts of the body are out of whack and who's not communicating with who, and then how can I best support you? When it comes to working with autoimmune conditions, I rely solely on how the patient presents to me. Then, from there, I make my diagnosis. I decide, is it chi, is it blood, is it essence? Which one needs more support? Is it all the above? We work on that. We work on restoring your body from that chi, blood and essence perspective to restore health and therefore, begin to heal the body.

Chinese medicine, there's no such thing as autoimmunity, there's no such thing as intestinal permeability. We look at like digestion and absorption. If you came into me and you said, “Oh, my skin is really dry and flaky or my joints are really red, itchy, swollen,” I'm going to think, “Okay, there's heat in this joint, but the skin's really dry, so there's a lack of nourishment. Something's wrong with the digestive system,” like from a Chinese medicine perspective. I break it down a little bit differently, like why is there, is it hot here and cold here? Why is the skin cracking? Why is it red? Why is it dry? Why are they like Hashimoto's? If purely Chinese medicine, I wouldn't be looking at lab work. I wouldn't know that thyroid antibodies were present, but perhaps you would tell me, “I have these waves of like, I feel really like hyperthyroid. So anxious, I can't sleep. My heart's racing. I'm sweating, too hypo, where I get really cold, really tired.”

To me, I'm like, “Okay, why is she fluctuating so much between this like seemingly hot condition and this cold condition? How do I restore balance?” As my teacher would say, who I study with a mentor in Chinese medicine to restore the right relationship in the body, basically restoring homeostasis. What attracted me to Chinese medicine the most with having a strong Western medicine background was the fact that the emotional piece was considered, psychological stress as we would call it. Our thoughts, our beliefs play a huge role in the manifestation and the healing of any disease state, any disharmony in your body.

What this means in modern day layman's terms is that all three vital substances, chi, blood, essence that we see in Chinese medicine, which are vital substances are compromised in a person, who shows autoimmunity. When chi, blood and essence are deficient, the body becomes much more susceptible to the influence of the environment and its toxins. We see the biggest assaults on chi, blood and essence is coming from overexertion, overwork, too much alcohol, smoking, recreational drugs, prescription drugs, excess sexual activity, loud music, violent movies, repressed emotions, and a lack of peace in one's life, processed foods, lack of sleep and disconnect from nature. Obviously, there's a lot of reasons, but just to give an idea of like how I approach it clinically, like also I get to look at the labs. I really understand Western medicine. I understand functional medicine, but Chinese medicine, we look at like, “Okay, where are you out of balance in your life? How do we get more harmony and peace in your life?” That will support that cellular kindness over that cellular hostility.

There it is guys, Chapter 1 of Body Belief. If any of this is intriguing or of interest to you, I highly recommend going out and getting it. You can see all of my books at aimeeraupp.com/books. There we have it. I'm going to go and prepare for my 1 o'clock fertility coaching client. I will see you guys later. If you're in the US, have a wonderful 4th of July, and I'll see you guys all next week, okay? Have a beautiful day.

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Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am not a medical doctor. I have been a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 17 years and I will be speaking from my clinical experience helping thousands of women conceive. The office of Aimee E. Raupp, M.S., L.Ac and Aimee Raupp Wellness & Fertility Centers and all personnel associated with the practice do not use social media to convey medical advice. This video will be posted to Aimee’s channels to educate and inspire others on the fertility journey.