Brain Body Reset

Health Hijacked By False Beliefs Around Chronic Conditions

Spencer Zimmerman Season 1 Episode 18

In this bold and heartfelt episode, Dr. Z steps away from symptom talk to challenge a deeper issue that prevents people from healing — the emotional trap of familiarity. He pulls back the curtain on how many patients unknowingly sabotage their own recovery by staying in comfortable, familiar systems that don't deliver results. If you've been stuck for years and feel like you've "tried everything," this episode is your call to think differently and reclaim your health.

Key Takeaways:

  • 🔁 Familiar ≠ Effective: Sticking with familiar treatments (insurance-based care, medications, standard specialists) may feel safe — but it often keeps people stuck.
  • 🧠 Your Brain Is Wired for Safety, Not Progress: The amygdala (fear center) resists unfamiliar paths, even if they hold the key to healing.
  • 💡 You Don’t Need to Understand It All: Just like you don’t know how your phone works, you can benefit from treatments you don’t fully understand — as long as they’re logically guided and results-driven.
  • 🧾 Insurance Isn’t the Savior You Think It Is: Relying on insurance often leads to delayed or inadequate care — and massive hidden costs in lost time, energy, and life.
  • 🛑 Don’t Confuse Effort with Progress: Bouncing between the same types of doctors or treatments might feel productive, but without real change, it’s just motion — not healing.

Today, I've got a different type of conversation that we are going to have. normally we talk about symptoms conditions that individuals have what can be done for treatment what can be done for evaluation but many of you will not actually get to do the right things if you do not understand this first part which I'm going to get into now I understand that as I cover this I may frustrate some of you some of you may decide you never want to listen to me again and that's okay But this is really a look in the mirror podcast and recording. I want you to really take this because my ultimate goal is the same as it's always been. I want to see the amount of people who are struggling with chronic symptoms and conditions. I don't care if you have POTS, dysautonomia, concussions, brain injury, chronic headaches, autoimmunity, or any other thing in that whole arena. I want to see you get your lives back. Now, this isn't necessarily for those that are in the early stages, right? It's not, oh, I've had a headache for a couple of weeks. No, this is for those that have been struggling. So let's say six months or longer because my average patient, they've really been struggling for years. But when I have conversations with patients, these are the things that come up all the time that we've had to work on and that they routinely think would be beneficial for other people, knowing they wish they would have known that. A lot of people, their health is getting hijacked, though. Let's start off when we look at chronic conditions. Our healthcare system based upon insurance and pharmaceuticals is really based upon here's the one thing you do for this. Now, that's the way all the research is done. There's no research whenever you start adding multiple things together. So what happens if you've got someone who has POTS plus autoimmunity plus anemia? There is no research. And so you get passed from one doctor to the next to the next because one person's like, look, that's outside of my arena. I need you to move on. You do this for a bit and then you eventually leave traditional medicine. And this is where we want to start talking about precautionary things. Here is why this is important. Every single week, I talk to multiple people who in my heart not just my heart, but my brain, I believe I can help them because those are things that I've done for over a decade, but they won't get care. Now, why do they not get care? They do not get care. And it's usually nothing new with finances, even though that is a common concern that is expressed, but it's because of familiarity, right? We seek to do things that are familiar to us and make us feel good. Now, I have no problems if you want to try something, but there should also be a timeframe when you leave. For example, let's say you're dating someone. You're like, well, I'm not really sure how this is going. Maybe you stay with them for a month or two. But if you're still saying, I'm not sure how this is going six months, twelve months, eighteen months, twenty four months later. should you still be dating the person? And the answer is no. Yet a lot of people, they still do. Why? Because it is familiar. We often do things that are familiar, even though it's not getting us any closer to our goal. And the same thing is true in healthcare. We will often bounce from one doctor to the next who prescribes medications and who takes our insurance because both of those are very, very familiar to us. And What happens? Well, you don't get to where you want to be. Now, this is frustrating because you're like, but I'm trying. Well, you're only trying within one single arena. And when you do familiar things, I want you to write this down because ultimately people try to get you to make decisions if you look at all sorts of marketing based upon emotions. Now, it's important to have emotional reasons to do stuff. But if emotions are the predominant reason why you are choosing to do something or not, you are going to fail more often than not. I don't care if this is relationships, work, friends, investing, career, health, whatever it is, you're going to fail because it's pretty easy to work up someone's emotions. And with emotions, once again, we tend to do things that are familiar, even though results say it was a bad idea. So for example, if you go to one doctor, they don't help you. They give you meds. You go to another doctor who gives you similar meds and another doctor gives you similar meds. Let's pull the emotions out of this and say, logically, what has been the result of this? The result is, well, I didn't get better. Now you walk into, let's say a clinic like mine where we're not very medication heavy. We're also very big in advanced labs going deeper. and also neurological testing and rehabilitation for those that need it for most people neurological rehab and treatment it is completely unfamiliar to them and as a result it is scary and so they make an emotional decision not to do it now here's why this happens historically the way we grew right was we need to survive so we have what's developed is our limbic system okay and a part of our limbic system is known as our amygdala so imagine three thousand twenty thousand million I don't care I don't know how long humans have been around right we saw a bear and that bear started chasing us You would, from that point, want to remember, I see a bear. I don't want to be anywhere near that, right? You are going to remember that, right? That's the amygdala response. You are going to lock in that memory very, very firm because it's meant to keep you safe, not necessarily to always make you have a good decision. So now we go to, you're trying to find something new and you're like, huh, this is unfamiliar to me and your brain says unfamiliar that's different I think we shouldn't do that but when we look at the most successful people right we look at elon musk we look at steve jobs we look at the top football coaches right you you look at the top of anything why did they get to be successful? Well, they went through multiple failures, punches in the face, and they also did things differently. They did things that have the average person uncomfortable because when we really look at the highest potential that we achieve in life, it is to leave our comfort zone. Now, Let's be clear, this isn't me saying you should just do stuff that is a hundred percent uncomfortable, right? You shouldn't just do it because of that. That's not a sufficient reason, but I don't want you to avoid something because it is uncomfortable and it is different. Because in reality, when we first got cell phones, those were different. You didn't have service everywhere, right? You don't wanna be the bozo who's like, oh, I thought I was good and I had no service. Right. And we've seen this as history's progressed with each new advancement in technology. There was a time of discomfort until it routinely became accepted. And as it becomes accepted, you don't actually understand why it works. Do you understand why your phone works or how your computer works? I'm not saying, oh, I can push here and there and this is what happens. No, that is your experience. You are experiencing an outcome. But can you tell me what is actually happening at a software and a hardware level that allows you to have that outcome? And the answer is no. No, you can't. And neither can I, actually. I can't tell you why the cell phone or computer does exactly what I want it to do, other than that is the way it was programmed. The same thing is true with health, right? You're not going to understand everything. The more you try to understand it, the more confused you're probably going to be unless you want to spend tens of thousands of hours in doing it. but you have to do it it's not sufficient to just study because even that's not going to be enough so don't try to overly understand because without context it doesn't mean a lot now once again this doesn't mean you should go in there and make purely emotional based decisions I really want to be clear on that right I've got plenty of people who've got pots autoimmune conditions, chronic brain injuries, who feel they've been scammed by other providers. And it's not necessarily because we think all those providers out there are scammers. Now, are there some that are just not good people and they really don't care about you? Absolutely. But the majority, that's not who they are, but the majority, they don't know what they don't know. You may have heard the saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket, right? If you're investing in stocks or crypto, don't put all your stocks or crypto in one thing because it's either going to go really well or it's going to go horrible. You've got no other option. And the same thing happens in this world of chronic illness. So let's imagine you've got POTS, dysautonomia, or you've got a concussion, right? And you've got headaches. And I know I beat up this group a fair bit, but you go and see an upper cervical chiropractor and they say, look, I found out C one, C two, it's not aligned. Here's the x-ray. And if we fix that, you should do great. Now, does that mean they don't help anyone? Well, the answer is no, they, they do help people, but they have to hope it's that one thing gives you everything you need. So that means there's going to be a high degree of failure. They're gonna have people who they help, but they're gonna have a ton of people they don't help because guess what? There's much more than one thing going on, right? So if I look some of the POTS people that I've got, they've got neurological dysfunction, they've got anemia, they've got thyroid issues, they've got gut issues. And what we do is we work through that and say, well, does your testing explain this, right? So let's say thyroid. Let's say your free thyroid, so your free T three is at the low end of normal. And you say my energy's at a twenty percent. Right. The fact is you're in lab range. The odds that you get that to a more optimal spot and that makes up eighty percent difference in your energy is very, very slim. Pretty much none. OK, now maybe you get a little bit of improvement, but you're probably not getting all the way right. It's too big of a gap. And I see this happen all the time. And unfortunately, people will keep going and then they've often bounced through multiple chiropractors hoping that someone can adjust better than the other person. They'll often try a variety of different supplements based upon recommendations from friends, TikTok, YouTube, Google, and other things like that. But I really want you to step back And let's get rid of the emotions because I know we get attached to things and we often pre-make up our mind before we go and meet with someone like, oh, I think I'm going to do this or no, I'm not going to do this. We kind of already know because we've got our biases and we often in the chronic health space, people often try to find a doctor who will do what they want them to do. But the thing is, if doing what you wanted them to do was going to help Wouldn't you already be better? Think about that, right? I've had patients who are like, look, I'm going to tell people about everything that's happened, but I'm going to tell them like, if you're not going to follow the recipe and you're not going to follow everything precisely, don't do it. Because you may ask me to help you make chocolate chip cookies, but if you don't want to follow the recipe, are you going to get the chocolate chip cookies? No, no, you're not. Okay, it's not going to happen. Now, I understand many of the people in my audience, they feel that they have been scammed, right? They've tried a lot of different things and they're frustrated because they don't know if they're ever going to get better. And unfortunately, most of the people who come and see me, they're literally just so desperate that any chance something could work, they'll do it. But it's because their desperation is so high that it outweighs their doubts. Now, at the end of the day, the majority of people are thrilled beyond belief that they did get help. But why was it different? Well, one, I did give them expectations, right? I said, hey, we're going to evaluate your brain and your body. Because for example, if you ace your neurological testing, I shouldn't do neurological rehab with you. If I do, you're probably not going to get the results you want. And unfortunately, there are some people who do neurological rehab and they're actually really, really good at it. But if that's all you evaluate, so let's go back to putting all your eggs in one basket. Guess what? You are doing things based upon more of, you're just ignorant of what other things are out there because you just lack awareness. Okay. And the more aware you are of what's happening, the better the results you're going to have. So I really want you to view things differently, but I also want to talk about the insurance system. Okay. If let's go back to familiar, right? It is familiar to use our insurance. And unfortunately the insurance companies have jacked up rates year after year after year, people, their insurance. premiums and deductibles keep going up and they feel so sunk into it that they feel like they have to use it. But why do you want to keep using it if it's not helping you? Like seriously, you know, it's not that you need to go and see me or another self-pay provider, but if you keep using something that's giving you zero results and you're like, this is horrible, why are you doing it? Let's be honest here. By default, you are actually allowing your insurance company to keep you stuck. And I understand there's been mass media advertising on this that's really programmed us to think our insurance is there to do everything for us. Because what happens, right? Do you use your insurance to buy your cell phone? Do you use your insurance to pay for your phone plan? Do you use your insurance to buy your house or to pay rent? Do you use your insurance to buy a car? Do you use your insurance to decide where to go on a trip to? Do you use your insurance for college? Do you use your insurance for anything else in life? Anything? No. You will go on the trip you want to. You will find a way to make it work. You will pay more for a cell phone or a cell phone plan than you really need to because that's just what you want. You will pay more for a car than you need to because that's what you want. You will get a swimming pool because that's what you want. But when it comes to insurance and your health, all of a sudden, magically, I can't do it. I can't do it. this is lies right your health has been hijacked your health has been hijacked by the drug companies and big insurance okay they don't care about you now are there employees there that care about you yes but as a whole they don't care about you they don't because if they did we would see better coverage for preventative care we would see better coverage if you got to pick your provider Like, oh, I want to see this person. We're going to pay them well. But what happens? Your highest paid people are the specialists who are in the hospital systems. And let's face it, it's hard to compete with them when they get a leg up on insurance reimbursement and everything like that. And specialists get paid a ridiculous amount. Trust me, many of the functional healthcare practitioners out there and natural health providers, medical doctors, DOs, NPs, PAs, chiropractors, naturopaths who do that would gladly take insurance if they got paid appropriately for what they do. So please, I beg you, do not let insurance prevent you from where you need to be because yes, I understand there is a cost, but in life there will always be cost. Whether the cost is time, money, right? Those are the two biggest costs. Memories, because maybe something is going to cost a little bit upfront. But what is the cost of having that for the next ten years? What do you lose in memories? What do you lose in friendships? What do you lose in career promotions? What do you write? There's a lot of stuff that is being lost. So I understand once again, this has been very different than our regular conversations that we have. And we will definitely be going back to talking about the conditions and the symptoms and everything that we treat, which is really what this is based around. But I also wanted to do a little bit where we do work on mindset and that you realize that you can heal you can get better but let's not fall for the insurance myth let's not fall for the magic bullet that there's this one thing that if I do it I'm going to magically get better also the danger of the familiar right familiar is good if it works but a familiar doesn't work it is a trap that needs once again to be known Do not stick with familiar that has not worked. You need to move on to something else. You also don't need to understand everything you do. You're not going to understand it properly. Use things every single day in your life that you do not understand, right? How's this work? How's that work? How's this like? You don't understand it, but yet you do it. So same thing is true with your health. You do have to take a little leap. Now, that's not me saying you should commit to stuff for a year, whatever it is, right? I'm really anti that stuff because no one knows how fast things are going to improve, right? But you do need to go outside your comfort zone. Outside your comfort zone is where things can improve. And here's the difference. Because you've had your stuff for so long, your brain, the amygdala that we've talked about, things are hijacked. And so you automatically start thinking, huh, I'm waiting for things to get worse, right? Which is true based upon what you've already done. But when you try something new, I know your mind's going to go there, but please work on it not going there. Because at this point in time, you have zero evidence that as you improve with something new, that you will get worse. What is your evidence for that? You've got emotions, but where's the evidence? So please remember that. Where is the evidence? Once again, it's easy to go emotional. Like the clinics that make the most money in cash, they're all emotional driven clinics. They get people hyped up, beat them down, whatever. And they get you to make an emotional decision when there really wasn't a lot of logic to back it up. there wasn't good cutoffs on here's when you should truly see improvement here's what we need to do differently right I want you to look at it logically is this very similar to what I've done yes or no and do not make that necessarily just off your conversation with a clinic because unfortunately right I have people like I've already done vestibular rehab and they come in like dude this was nothing like anything I've done and unfortunately you do have to go through a little bit of an experience which is why I'm also not a fan of having people orally commit because you know there's a time frame where you're going to understand this provider is definitely different than what I've previously done but you also shouldn't be trapped in something where you feel like you have to keep going for nine months if that's the same as other things right you should be able to exit you can exit don't stay with stuff just because it's familiar so hope this helped someone out there let me know if it did because once again if all this conversation does is help one more person to get through that mental block and their amygdala hijacking their health and preventing them from doing something that could have helped them and they do it then it makes the time spent recording this, absolutely worth it. Till next time, this is Dr. Z. And like I said, we will get back to our regular conversation on POTS, dysautonomia, autoimmunity, and all that stuff in future shows.

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