Your Brain - Rooted and Rewired: A Functional Approach to Mood

Welcome back to the Healthy California Podcast! In this episode, your host Linda Brown—physical therapist and functional nutritionist—sits down with Jessica Endicott, a neuro wellness practitioner, to explore a subject that touches almost every household: brain health and mood disorders.

If you’ve ever felt like your doctor is just putting a "band-aid on a festering wound" by reaching for a prescription pad without looking for the underlying cause, this conversation is for you. Jessica specializes in helping people uncover the hidden causes behind anxiety, brain fog, and depression—often without the use of medications.

Key Highlights from the Episode:

• The Problem with "Russian Roulette": Learn why relying solely on pills to mask symptoms can lead to long-term dependency and side effects that sometimes worsen the original condition.
• Bio-Individualized Testing: Jessica discusses her primary tool, epigenetic hair analysis, which provides a "juicy" 90-day snapshot of vitamin deficiencies, mineral imbalances, and environmental exposures.
• The Gut-Brain Connection: Discover why roughly 80% of your serotonin is made in your gut and how digestive issues like IBS can sabotage your mental health.
• The Body Keeps the Score: We dive into how unprocessed childhood trauma can keep your nervous system stuck in a "sympathetic" (fight-or-flight) state, causing physical and mental disease decades later.

Actionable Steps You Can Take Today:

1. Eat Protein First: Protein builds the amino acids necessary to repair neurotransmitters.
2. Try an Elimination Diet: Remove gluten, dairy, eggs, and corn for 4–7 days to see if food sensitivities are clouding your brain.
3. Prioritize Sleep: Chronic sleeplessness is not "normal" and can be a sign of neurotransmitter depletion.

Connect with our Guest: Visit jessicaendicott.com to learn about her Rooted and Rewired course or follow her on Instagram @Jessica_Endicott.

Final Word: "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise." Surround yourself with people who share your goals for a healthier life.

Stay focused, stay happy, and stay healthy, California!

Thank you for listening to Healthy California.

If you have tried all my suggestions and are still having trouble with your health, and would like an appointment with me, please email me, text, or call me via the contact information below.

My contact:

Linda Brown, MPT, Doctoral Candidate Functional Nutrition

916-426-2543

linda@heal-throughfood.com

www.heal-throughfood.com

Transcript

00:00:05 Linda

Hello, and welcome to Healthy California Podcast.

00:00:07 Linda

My name is Linda Brown, and I am the host of Healthy California, where my goal is to help educate you on your daily choices so we all can become healthy.

00:00:16 Linda

I believe you, your family, your neighbor, and your community are all looking for better ways and simple ways to return to being healthy.

00:00:23 Linda

Many of you have health issues or have family that's going through tough times that seemingly have no answers.

00:00:28 Linda

It's frustrating.

00:00:30 Linda

There are questions about health, environment, foods, exercise, and lifestyle, and it can be all overwhelming.

00:00:36 Linda

And who do you believe?

00:00:37 Linda

And where's the science behind it?

00:00:39 Linda

This podcast will unravel the mystery behind being unhealthy and talk about little things that we can do in our lives to make a positive change in our health from all angles.

00:00:Jessica8 Linda

So to be healthy, we need to have physical health, mental health, environmental health, financial and social health, and of course, spiritual health.

00:00:57 Linda

Let's answer some of these questions to get healthy.

00:00:59 Linda

What good is just listening to a podcast?

00:01:01 Linda

I will give you resources as well, ways to take steps and make positive changes in your life to becoming healthy.

00:01:07 Linda

This is a journey, not an assignment, so be kind to yourself.

00:01:1Jessica Linda

Okay, welcome back everyone.

00:01:16 Linda

This is Linda Brown, your physical therapist, functional nutritionist, coach, educator, and host of Healthy California.

00:01:27 Linda

Today is a very special day because we have a neuro wellness practitioner coming to talk to us. Her name is Jessica Endicott. She is a great colleague and friend of mine.

00:01: Linda

We've had many, many days, hours of conversation about this subject today. So she is the person that I think would be the person to be talking about your brain health.

00:01:55 Linda

So let's see what she has to say about brain fog, burnout, nervous system overwhelm.

00:02:02 Linda

And the reason why I like this conversation is because she does all this without medications.

00:02:09 Linda

So let's see what she has to say.

00:02:12 Linda

Hi, Jessica. Thank you for joining me today.

00:02:1Jessica

Linda, thank you. It's so good to be on your show. It's been so fun to watch both of our journey and to see you doing this.

00:02:22 Speaker Jessica

I'm so honored to be here. Thank you so much.

00:02:2 Linda

Yeah, I think that, you know, with the many, many talks that we've had, we have the same journey. We have the same zest for educating people on what to do.

00:02:35 Linda

And there's just a lot of times just simple things, right? Simple things we can do to make our life better.

00:02 Jessica

And we just need, we know as much as we do, but other people out there don't know the things they can do.

00:02:Jessica5 Linda

So why don't you tell me, tell us what it is you do.

00:02:52 Speaker Jessica

I help people find the hidden cause of what is causing their mood disorders.

00:02:58 Linda

So what does that look like?

00:02:59 Speaker Jessica

So what does that look like? So there could be a lot of things. You know, most people are going to the doctor. They're coming in with these symptoms.

00:03:06 Speaker Jessica

They don't feel good. They're waking up at night. They're having anxious thoughts. Their mind is replaying stories over and over.

00:03:1Jessica Speaker Jessica

They're having stories, like, it's just going crazy. We call it monkey mind and yoga. or they've experienced some trauma and they're feeling sad and depressed, lacking motivation in life.

00:03:26 Speaker Jessica

Maybe they're even having suicidal ideations. And what does the doctor do? They immediately like jump to putting them on a prescription medication, right?

00:03:38 Speaker Jessica

They're not doing the blood work. They're not looking for maybe food allergies. Maybe there's a pathogen, maybe there's parasites, maybe there's a virus or fungus. Maybe there's a neurotransmitter imbalance. Or maybe they have experienced a trauma in their life and they haven't processed that.

00:03:58 Linda

So what's wrong with just taking medication? If someone feels good, what's wrong with that?

00:04:00 Jessica

Well, there's a time and a place. I'm not completely against taking medication when necessary. But what I'm seeing a lot with my clients is they're not being informed about the risks associated with long-term use and they're becoming dependent upon it.

00:04:22 Speaker Jessica

The pill is covering the underlying issue. So they're never actually dealing with it.

00:0Jessica:30 Speaker Jessica

It's just like putting a band-aid on a festering wound and never actually like taking care of that festering wound. And then it continues to get more infection. It gets necrosis. Eventually you're losing a limb. We're dealt with it, right?

00:0 Linda

Yeah. And those medications have side effects. So then before it, you have a bunch of side effects. So you have to take more medication to get rid of those side effects. And it's funny, one of those side effects for someone with depression, one of the side effects is more depression or suicidal ideations. And that doesn't make any sense to me that you would take a medication that causes, that may cause worsening side effects.

00:05:13 Speaker Jessica

Yeah, exactly. And they're not testing to make sure that some of these medications are good for your brain. So they're pretty much playing Russian roulette with the brain. It's chancing it. You're chancing your precious brain to this pill.

00:05:29 Linda

So if someone were to come to you and they were on medication and they wanted to find a better way, what would be one of the things that you start with?

00:05:00 Speaker Jessica

So very first, we're going to do some testing. We're going to find out what's going on underneath, and then we're going to stabilize their system. And stabilizing their system can be through nutritional support.

00:05:52 Speaker Jessica

So it might be switching their diet out to one that's more satisfying or fulfilling or feeding their body and feeding their brain. And then we're going to stabilize them.

00:06:06 Speaker Jessica

So once we've got that all stabilized, then we'll plug in supplements that are supportive of rebuilding and repairing the brain as they're coming down off of their medication and they're tapering very slowly.

00:06:19 Linda

So this is all going to be dependent on what the labs, when you say testing, you're talking about labs. Yeah. So it depends on what that testing result is. So not everyone's going to get the same protocol.

00:06:32 Speaker Jessica

Correct. Yep. It's a bio individualized protocol.

00:06:37 Linda

So what kind of testing do you see people having to do?

00:06:39 Speaker Jessica

The very first one that I like to start out with is an epigenetic hair analysis test, because it's a really broad picture. It's going to tell us what supplements the body or what vitamins the body is lacking. what foods to avoid, what additives to avoid, what body systems are working, whether it's the brain, the emotional side, protein synthesis.

00:07:08 Speaker Jessica

So we'll dive deep into that. It's also going to look at the fatty acids, the minerals in the body, and it's going to tell us if there's an environmental exposure or a pathogen.

00:07:21 Speaker Jessica

And from there, then we can dive deeper and order other labs. But sometimes just the epigenetic test is good enough to get us on the right path moving forward.

00:07:31 Linda

What I like about the hair analysis is it's a long-term analysis because it takes time for the hair to grow. So it's what the body is doing. I guess, pushing out through the hair follicle, right? Am I saying that right?

00:07:5 Linda

And it takes time for the hair to grow.

00:07:Jessica7 Linda

So that picture is more of a long-term picture, not an acute picture. So these people have been dealing with this for a while. Am I saying that right?

00:07:56 Speaker Jessica

Yes, Because the hair is going to look at the last three months. And sometimes it can go up to six months. Like they're finding that COVID is showing in the system up to six months.

00:08:08 Speaker Jessica

They use this in forensics because it has such good results. It's got so much good information in there. It's got, it's just juicy information.

00:08:19 Linda

You can't fake it, right? You can't, you can't skew it.

00:08:22 Speaker Jessica

Yep, exactly.

00:08:2 Linda

Who are the people that are coming to you?

00:08:28 Speaker Jessica

So I'm mostly seeing people between the ages of 35 and 60. Surprisingly, I've seen more men than I have women. Which is really interesting. So that saying that men need help, men need support now too. usually it's women who are dealing with a lot of mental health issues or mood disorders.

00:08:49 Linda

They're not afraid to come out.

00:08:50 Speaker Jessica

They're not afraid to come out. But now women are reaching out saying, my husband needs support, or men are just finding me too, saying, I need support. I don't know what to do.

00:09:00 Speaker Jessica

I've had two men that we did a neurotransmitter test on them, got them on a supplement. And just within a couple of days, there's a complete shift for them because when you're doing targeted amino acid therapy and you're repairing the neurotransmitters in the brain, it's immediate. Like within 20 minutes of taking the supplement, it's starting to shift that, starting to repair the neurotransmitters.

00:09:27 Speaker Jessica

And so for them, they were short-term clients. They didn't have to work with them for a long period of time.

00:09:3  Linda

Yeah.

00:09:3 Speaker Jessica

Sometimes that's all it takes is just like giving the body and the brain what it needs, and then they're good to go. Yeah, and a neurotransmitter is what our body makes and what it needs.

00:09:7 Linda

So it's not like it's a made-up thing. It's just supporting what we already make. And maybe we're not making enough of it for whatever reason, trauma, stress, or whatever it is.

00:09:59 Linda

When I say who are the people that are coming to you, why they be coming to you and what are you finding in their past that's getting to where they are today?

00:10:09 Speaker Jessica

So they've experienced stress or trauma. Maybe they've used a substance in the past, so they've leaned on alcohol or marijuana or medical prescriptions. And what happens when you are experiencing like stressors, traumas, you're eating sugars, you're ingesting some of these substances like alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, opiates, it starts to deplete the neurotransmitters.

00:10:38 Speaker Jessica

And even when you're on an SSRI or SNRI or one of these inhibitors, That is not replenishing the neurotransmitters in the brain. So our neurotransmitters fire from neuron to neuron to neuron. And when they get depleted, the brain is not capable of working at capacity anymore.

00:11:01 Speaker Jessica

So now they are experiencing depression, sleepless nights, brain fog, that lack of motivation, the inability to focus, so ADD, ADHD, and they've got that panic or that anxiety.

00:11:21 Speaker Jessica

Like they're just, you know, they don't want to go on anymore because the panic has become so much for them.

00:11:28 Linda

Yeah. I mean, a lot of those symptoms sound common in a lot of things. except for the anxiety part. And I think like with your testing, that's where you can differentiate, is this a neural or neurotransmitter problem or an amino acid problem, or if it's just something hormonal or, but that's what, that's why testing is so important, right?

00:11:39 Linda

So that you can kind of focus on what is the problem. Because a lot of times people are like, well, yeah, so I have a sleepless night, doesn't mean I have a problem or I, you know, I get depressed every now and then, you know, what's the big deal?

00:12:01 Linda

But depression is not normal. Sleepless night is not normal. It's situational. But many nights of a sleepless night, that's not anything I think we need to just mark off as just, that's just normal. Because it's not. We need our sleep. Yeah.

00:12:16 Speaker Jessica

We are supposed to go to bed when the sun goes down and we're supposed to rise when the sun comes up.

00:12:22 Linda

Yeah.

00:12:22 Speaker Jessica

These are not normal, but what's normal is when you've experienced a trauma or a stressor, like it's okay to feel sad for a while about it. But that prolonged, that chronic sadness of not wanting to go on and wanting to end your life. So there's two different types of sadness.

00:12:30 Speaker Jessica

There's the depression, which is, I'm so depressed, life sucks, there's nothing good here for me, and I should just end it all. There's that type of depression, which is serotonin depletion. And then there's the depression where it's the apathetic depression. It's just like, I just don't want to do anything today. I just want to sit on the couch and veg out. I just don't want to move. That one doesn't go into the thoughts of suicide. That's just like, I just don't want to do anything. I have no motivation. I don't care to do anything. And that's the apathetic depression, that's the catecholamines is depleted.

00:13:19 Linda

You know, we know that serotonin, up to 80% of our serotonin is made in our gut. So we have to have a healthy gut as well to make that serotonin.

00:13:29 Speaker Jessica

Yeah, yeah. So people who've had IBS, gas, bloating, indigestion, if they've ever had food poisoning, if they've been on antibiotics for a long period of time, and now they're experiencing sad thoughts, like we need to work on that gut repair.

00:13:37 Linda

Yeah. What would you say If someone were to say, I don't have any trauma, but I did when I was little, when I was like 7 or 8, but that was so long ago, that can't be affecting me now. So I don't understand why I'm having any problems. What would you say to someone like that?

00:13: Speaker Jessica

Yeah, I know what you're going to say, but. I know, you know what I'm going to say. So even things from our childhood, if it's unprocessed, can still affect us now. There is an incredible book called Hidden Feelings Buried Alive. And then there's also another book called Body Keeps Score. And so there is scientific research out there that talks to us about. when we're holding in those emotions, when it's unprocessed, what it does to us. And so when we experience a trauma with the brain, what happens is we've got the parallel part of the brain and the linear part.

00:1Jessica:Jessica2 Speaker Jessica

So the parallel is what the actual event that took place and the linear part is the timeline. And these disconnect. They disconnect and we need to reintegrate them, reconnect them in order for that trauma to heal so that we can move past it.

00:15:00 Speaker Jessica

So if we haven't dealt with that, that's going to constantly be eating inside of us. It's going to show up as diseases, which now there's, you know, mental health diseases.

00:15:10 Linda

So many.

00:15:12 Speaker Jessica

Or physical diseases. And we can work with that through movement because I'm also a yoga therapist and mindfulness teacher as well. So we can work with that using somatic movement using some clay, using some breath work, and also using some supplements to help move through that as well.

00:15:37 Linda

Yeah, how I explained it, I had a previous podcast on a healthy brain, and how I explained it was,

00:15:35 Linda

Sometimes when you are, when you had a trauma when you were little, it's like running from that tiger. So we're in that sympathetic state. And even though that is long, past, there are still triggers that you don't even realize are happening. And those triggers can put you into a state of running from that tiger. So you're always running from that tiger and you don't even realize it was a trigger from the past. And when you're running from that tiger, in that sympathetic state, you know, when you're running from a tiger, the last thing your body wants to do is reproduce. doesn't want to sleep, and it doesn't want to digest.

00:16:16 Linda

So all that stuff gets slowed down or turned off. When you are in that sympathetic state or a trauma and you don't even realize it, you start seeing digestive problems. And then when you see digestive problems, like we said, serotonin gets affected, then your brain gets affected, you're in a highly inflamed state. It's just the snowball that happens when you don't take your past seriously, and things that happened in the past, like, well, let the past be the past. It follows you.

00:16:35 Linda

People don't realize it follows you. really do need to deal with it.

00:16:38 Speaker Jessica

Yeah, and those little things become your habits and it becomes your survival. And that sympathetic state is most people don't realize that they're living in it. I love that you said that. Yeah, most people do not realize that that's actually what's going on, that they're nervous system is running the show and that they're not in control. And that's why you see people reacting like really super quickly.

00:17:12 Speaker Jessica

They can't step back and react reasonably and logically. They're reacting based on these past emotions that they're holding on to.

00:17:22 Linda

Yeah, they're like they're triggers. And I think that these days, it's, you know, with more mental health issues going on, I'm not saying that this is a mental health issue, but I think men in general have always been more of the stoic, let it be, forget about it. Now they're realizing I don't have to, and it's affecting my life. It's affecting my relationship. It's affecting my happiness. And it's okay to admit that, and I need to do something about it.

00:17:51 Linda

And that's probably why you're seeing more men. I think that's great.

00:17:55 Speaker Jessica

Yeah, men have so much unprocessed trauma because they're taught, don't feel anything. If you're crying, you're weak.

00:18:03 Linda

You know, when we're little, boys and girls both get…but they both have trauma, different types. And we think of trauma as a little girl to be one thing, and with a little boy to be something else, but it's still how we see things, and it could still be trauma. A lot of times people think, well, that's not that big of a deal.

00:18:21 Linda

Well, at the time, it could have been a big deal to that little child. Yeah, I think that you're doing such great work. If they don't know if they have a need for someone like you, but they want to test the waters or figure things out. What are some of the things people can do right now if they feel like they want to try to heal themselves?

00:18:32 Speaker Jessica

I will always ask my clients, when was the last time you ate? When they text me and they're like, I'm so anxious right now. I'm feeling all this rage or whatever emotion it is that's coming up for them, I'll always say, when was the last time you ate and what did you eat? because the majority of people are not eating enough, or they'll eat something sugary and then they're having a sugar crash. And if they're going for long periods of time without eating, their blood sugar is dropping as well. So that's going to cause that rage, that irritability. So I would say eat something that's healthy. Protein is going to be huge because protein does help to build the amino acids in our body, which help to repair the neurotransmitters.

00:19:28 Linda

Yeah. So eat and eat protein first. Anything else?

00:19:33 Speaker Jessica

They could do like an elimination diet too, to see if maybe food is what's causing some of their symptoms. So remove gluten, dairy, eggs and corn are the main like top culprits for having brain reactions. So remove those for four to seven days and then slowly add them back, adding one at a time to see which one could be reacting.

00:20:01 Linda

Yeah, darn it, I love eggs and corn together.

00:20:06 Speaker Jessica

Eggs and corn, yeah. Corn tortillas.

00:20:09 Linda

Yeah, and not everyone has to do this, but any sort of elimination diet is always, I think it's always great because you just never know. A lot of times people say, well, I don't react to eggs and I don't react to dairy or corn. It's just because they ate it and they didn't get an upset stomach, you know, 5 minutes later. And that's absolutely not how it works. So if you eat an egg, let's just say you might not even feel the effects of it for a day or two.

00:20:35 Linda

Right. So you need to eliminate it for multiple days and then add it in slowly to see if your body reacts. Yeah. I think when it comes to any sort of mental health issue, sleep is such a good thing. It's, I mean, I'm always talking about get good sleep. Your body needs to sleep. But if you just can't sleep, it's easy just to say, well, just get good sleep or sleep 8 hours or get good quality sleep. And you know, what does that mean?

00:21:00 Linda

and I did a podcast on sleep, but still there's people that are like, I tried all that and I just can't get good sleep. And maybe they need to be looking at their neurotransmitters or their amino acids or there's other things people can do if they just can't get good night's sleep. Because I mean, getting a good night's sleep is one of the things you need to heal, but then it's a catch 22 because you can't, even if you've tried everything.

00:21:25 Speaker Jessica

Right. Well, and then that goes deeper too, right? Is there cortisol? Is there something going on with that? Is it maybe one of their genetic polymorphisms like MTHFR, GAD, COMT, something like that going on and the brain just isn't shutting off at night?

00:21:32 Linda

Yeah. It's amazing all the things in the body that can be going on and half the things that you just said right there, your normal primary care physician wouldn't even know what that means. And it's so important. And there are practitioners out there that know how to test for that, how to treat it, how to address it. And there's so many people out there that need that, but they just go to their doctor and their doctor has no idea what that even means. And so then people just get lost.

00:22:13 Linda

they could just get lost. But it's frustrating when you just feel really crappy and no one believes you and they just say it's all in your head. And it is. It might just be literally in your head and it just needs to be treated and worked out. So I'm not saying that in a funny sense. It's like it's just all in your head, but your brain is the main thing that runs your body. So we really need to take care of our brain.

00:22:32 Linda

And if people have a family history of any sort of mental health, whether it's even just dementia or their parents were, had brain fog or forgetfulness or even something like a, like Parkinson's, which, that's all, that's neural. So someone has a family history of that, they need to be doing something now, not waiting till they get the symptoms. Yeah. Right.

00:23:07 Speaker Jessica

Yeah, because by the time that you've got these symptoms, it can be too late.

00:23:12 Linda

Right.

00:23:12 Speaker Jessica

Taking that proactive approach and your lifestyle really does affect how your future is going to be. And it's so interesting that people have that disconnect with the food entering their body, that it's not affecting them, but it is. It's just like a vehicle, you know, we're not going to put diesel in an unleaded vehicle because it's not good for it. It's going to kill the engine.

00:23:38 Speaker Jessica

We're not going to put sugar in the gasoline tank because it's not going to work. It's not going to start. So the same with our body. Our body is, it needs the correct fuel in order for it to work.

00:23:53 Linda

Yeah. Isn't that funny that sometimes we take better care of our cars anyways than we do ourselves? Yeah. We just kind of take our body for granted that it's just going to wake up every morning and get through the day. And We need to take good care. We only have one body. We need to take good care of it.

00:23:10 Speaker Jessica

We weren't taught that. We weren't taught that.

00:23:12 Linda

No, so many years, we haven't been taught that. That's absolutely right. So it's not our fault that we just think that way. That's how we were conditioned.

00:23:20 Speaker Jessica

Yeah.

00:23:20 Linda

Yeah. So how can people find you?

00:23:23 Speaker Jessica

You can go to jessicaendicott.com and I've got some links on there so you can book a call. You could sign up for one of my classes. I have My Rooted and Rewired course that just launched, and that is a nervous system reset program. But it's not just a nervous system reset. It's learning like what's going on with the brain as well.

00:23:38 Linda

Oh, nice. That's great. Is there anything else that you want to leave with our listeners?

00:23:56 Speaker Jessica

If you're feeling that call that there's something different than what you're currently doing, or you're questioning if your labs are really normal, even if the doctors have said that, trust that instinct. Reach out because there is other ways. There's so many beautiful ways that can support you on your journey to health.

00:25:18 Linda

Do you have anything on social media that people can follow you?

00:25:22 Speaker Jessica

It's my Instagram is Jessica underscore Endicott. And my Facebook is Jessica Endicott.

00:25:29 Linda

Follow Jessica. She is great. And I completely trust everything she does and says. And she's been a great friend, lifesaver. We've gone through a lot together. And I just love her so much.

00:25:33 Linda

I just want to leave you with this final word. You know I do this every week. And this message comes from Proverbs 13, 20, and it says, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. And the reason why I like this for today is because it's talking about walking with like-minded people or equally yoked people. Equally yoked is a biblical term. But when you spend time with people that don't have the same

00:26:17 Linda

goals as you, then you are more apt to go down that person's path, whether good or bad. And this is not saying that you should never have friends that don't have the same goals.

00:26:30 Linda

But you would never get financial advice from someone who is completely broke, and you would never get weight loss advice from someone who doesn't ever care to lose weight. So today is kind of a message of if you are not feeling well, like emotionally, then you can go see a mental health practitioner, a doctor, and get on medications. And I'm not saying that's

00:26:57 Linda

wrong either. But if you're not quite there yet and you're just wanting to feel better, Jessica is a person who can help get you there. So as a friend and an educator, I think that there are other alternatives for medications to start off with to try, and Jessica can get you to feeling better if you don't want to try the medication route. Stay focused, stay happy, and stay healthy, California.