The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Sharing Powerful Tools for Recognizing Anxiety and Restoring Your Peace with Dr. Tracey Marks | PPP #111

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

Great conversation with Dr. Tracey Marks about her new book Why Am I So Anxious: Powerful Tools for Recognizing Anxiety and Restoring Your Peace. Dr. Marks is a Psychiatrist, Author, and YouTuber with over 1.2 million subscribers. Some of the things we talk about in this episode include the following:Dr. Marks' early life and getting into PsychiatryThe Default-Mode-Network (DMN) and the relation of gut health to mental healthThoughts on the "new" Serotonin level studyBenefits of Magnesium, essential oils, and aromatherapy4 Fun facts you didn't know about Dr. Marks and much more!*Watch Dr. Marks' informative and entertaining videos on her YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/DrTraceyMarks or reach out to her at https://markspsychiatry.com/**Please leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts to help get this and other great interviews out

Get logged in and get locked on as we put people first, share our processes, and help each other make progress. On the People, Process, Progress podcast with Kevin Pinnell. Sometimes anxiety is like the sea. It ebbs and flows, but it's always there. Other times, it's like a chameleon. It can take many forms, some of which may not be obvious. We all experience anxiety at some level. What matters most is how it affects you and how you manage it. That is the first paragraph from the introduction from the book, Why Am I So Anxious? with Dr. Tracy Marks.

And what is fantastic about this quote is not only do we have Dr. Tracy Marks on here, but there's this and much more in the book, Why Am I So Anxious? So, Dr. Tracy Marks, thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing. And I know we're going to go over some things, key things from the book, and there's many more in there. But thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me on and thanks for inviting me here. I'm happy to be here. Excellent.

So you've been in psychiatry for inviting me here. I'm happy to be here. Excellent. So you've been in psychiatry for over 20 years, author of three books. Is that accurate? This is your third book? It is my third book. My husband had to keep reminding me, this is your third book. This is my first traditionally published book. The other two were self-published. So I guess I kind of didn't put them in the same category. Gotcha. Okay. And those just for folks listening to other stuff to check out, Master Your Sleep, which came out a few years ago, and of course, Sleep Critical. And then Bipolar Basics was the other one. Was that a year ago or so that yes that was in 2021 okay gotcha um and and how we connected um and and you know is you have a fantastic youtube channel i've really benefited from those videos i'm sure folks listening have um but that also you know you've been doing youtube

and online uh mental health education sharing for quite some time as well, haven't you? I have. I started first posting to YouTube probably around 2010 and did like a lot of people did use it kind of as just a place to hold videos. And I got scared off because of comments and things like that. So then I tried again in 2012, still didn't really follow through with it. Then finally in 2018 is when I got consistent and started publishing videos every week. That's excellent. And again, everybody, check that out. And the YouTube channel is the same. It's your name.

So they can look for Dr. Tracy Marks on YouTube. Tracy with a C-E-Y. Oh, yep. Thank you. It's your name. So they can look for Dr. Tracy Marks on YouTube. Correct. Tracy with a C-E-Y. Oh, yep. Thank you. That's very helpful. And yeah, so I know we'll talk a lot about the book and have some other kind of questions at the end to touch on that maybe help share a little bit more about you. But one thing I found interesting too is so psychiatry wasn't your first choice in the career field, but you had an influencer early in your education or at some point in medical school that pointed you in that direction? Yes, it was really more the experience that I had on the psychiatry rotation. But true,

I did not have a lot of exposure to psychiatry or psychology growing up. And so I hadn't known anyone who'd seen a psychiatrist. And culturally, in my environment and the people I was around, it just wasn't like looked at something as something that you do. So I went to medical school just figuring, not even really considering psychiatry as an option. And I chose to go internal medicine. And that's what I ended up matching in. The match process is like a draft process. Okay.

Connecting people to residencies. So I matched in internal medicine and I deferred my psychiatry to my fourth year. And in my fourth year, while I was interviewing for medicine, residency, residencies and things, I, um, took my psychiatry fourth year rotation. And, um, I, I just, I was like, wow, this is not what I expected this to be. I really connected on a deeper level with helping people with their emotional pain and things. And so I realized I'd made a mistake and I changed my mind and decided to switch to psychiatry. I thought I was going to have to go ahead and do a year of internal medicine and then switch over. But my fourth year, or sorry, my medical class sponsor,

and that's one of the people I acknowledged in the acknowledgement section, but she helped me have them at my hospital residency program switch me from the internal medicine roster to the psychiatry roster. And so, I so, I mean, you know, I have a bit of a medical background. I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy, like a medic and then an EMT and firefighter. And I imagine going from kind of, you know, assessing patients' physical signs and symptoms

to the mental health space, the psychiatry psychology space is quite a shift. And, you know, knowing they're interconnected, which we'll touch on some, but what you can't see kind of those invisible wounds seem to me to be so much harder to triage than kind of a visible, you know, sign of injury that someone has. Correct. So, yeah, you can, I mean, in internal medicine or as an internist, granted, I don't want to minimize what internists do. I saw the comparison between that route and psychiatry as, you know, I got a lot more pleasure out of helping people with those invisible wounds than I anticipated I would tweaking someone's blood

pressure medicines or diabetes medicines and things like that. So, yeah, what was going on in the mind and how that affected their thoughts and behaviors and how they feel about themselves, how they experience life, that was a whole lot more interesting to me. Do you think, and again, this is, you know, learning from your background, from your videos, and then from your book, that you had an affinity for and enjoyed taking things apart when you were younger? One, do you still like doing that? And do you think, and I don't know if I'm asking you to kind of analyze yourself, but do you think that, you know, going into the psychiatry field, that that was kind of

a similar, you know, passion where you're, you know, mechanically kind of like taking things apart and doing that, which is a great thing to read in the book, but also now similarly with mental health? Yes. So psychiatry was just a perfect fit for me. I didn't see it before I made the decision. But now in retrospect, I see how it really just all came together because, yes, as you mentioned, I was a very curious child. Well, I still am that way, but very curious. And so the way I would learn how something worked was to take it apart and see how it works. And my father called that tearing things up. My mom called it being curious.

And, I mean, even now, like my husband can say, well, how does this work or what do you do? And I'm just like, well, just do it and then see. If it doesn't work, then now you know. That's not how it works. But so that's just natural for me to want to look on the other side of something and with psychiatry it is a combination of physical medicine and brain science and and mind and it all comes together and so it's more it takes a lot of thought and analysis to really get a picture of what's going on with someone. And so this is my way of taking those proclivities of analysis, curiosity, and applying it to medicine. And that became psychiatry for me.

That's neat. It's neat how, you know, when we're younger and then still stick with us, but how that can lead us to down certain paths and people's interactions that can it seems change what we thought the course of our lives and our focus was uh to something else that then you know prospers and we enjoy um you know and kind of again with the book and and for to let folks know too now that so they can get a hard copy like I have and also on the audiobook and on Kindle I think right and I think you had shared recently did you recently complete the audiobook the recordings yeah so there's an audio version of it which I used to just say audible but there's other ways you can get audiobooks. The independent bookstores have their own version of an audio book. And then there's a digital version as well, whether that be Apple

Books, Kindle, or Barnes and Noble. So there's lots of different formats. But the audio book, I think I completed that. So the book was published in on August 16th. I completed the audio book like the end of June. And I was thinking, gosh, they're really going to pull this together before August. But it was it wasn't I didn't know that I was going to be the one to do the audio book. In fact, I wasn't even sure if there would be an audio book. I was hoping there would be because I tend to prefer audio books because then I can multitask. But it was a lot more work than I expected.

Voice work. I have a whole lot more respect for people who do voice work like that. When you do the audio book, it's obviously a lot more. I mean, there seems like a lot more editing than simply kind of sitting there and reading the book. So do you is it is it like an editor that would help you write a book, but with your voice kind of that process? It seems like an interesting process to then put it together and, you know, chapter transitions and things like that. It sounds like it's it's a bit of work. Yeah. So unlike a podcast, because I have podcasted like you before, where you record it, and if I mess up, I just repeat, and then I go in and do all the chopping and stuff.

Here, I had to go to a recording studio in Atlanta, downtown Atlanta, and sit in a booth and read. And if I messed up up they didn't want me to just repeat they would go back and rewind and then start over so there's just one one track and that's it or one take I guess I should say gotcha um and that made it harder to me I would have preferred to just you know speak and then oops and then just let me say it immediately again rather than this whole like let me rewind and get back to the spot. OK, now say it. And another thing that was that made it so hard was one. I'm not a strong reader, as I talk about in the book a little bit.

And so reading all day was exhausting for me. And I didn't appreciate how much breath you need to get to speak and have it sound okay and so I could like be going and be on a nice little clip and all of a sudden run out of breath and then that doesn't sound good and then we have to rewind oh wow all that yeah definitely things you don't think about but also as a uh uh segue, a big factor in the book as well, but yeah, trying to grab all these little hooks here. Um, but yeah, that, that, that does sound, I mean, I can't imagine reading out loud, stopping, starting retakes, all those, but appreciative. You're right. It is nice to go on a walk, get the, you know, that nature and then

just be listening or doing chores or something like that. So that's, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I thought for folks, um, cause of course going through the whole book, uh, one, we want folks to get the book or listen to it, uh, to not give it away that if we could go through, I picked out five things, um, that I know I either hadn't heard of, which actually there's a lot of stuff in there. Um, but that really kind of either impacted me or stuck out to me. And I thought if I could ask you about those and that you could share with the listeners. And then, of course, you know, folks listen, definitely get the book and kind of jump more into it. So I wanted to go through those and then maybe ask you a few additional questions at the end about maybe some of the things that have impacted works of, you know, other books and things like that.

Sure. Let's go for it. Cool. One thing I certainly hadn't heard of, one early in the book, you know, learning, you know, some anatomy and physiology, brain physiology, you know, was awesome. But I hadn't heard of the default mode network or its role in anxiety and kind of how you think about, you know, where you are. Can you kind of touch on and share with folks what that is? I hadn't heard, I think a lot of folks have maybe heard the term sympathetic and parasympathetic, but default mode network, I certainly hadn't heard of and not sure how many other listeners have, but certainly can learn about when they read it. Sure. Yeah. So the default

mode network is the name for a group of brain structures that form this network because they communicate amongst each other and their role is to fill your mind with thoughts when you are not intentionally thinking about something so it's like what you by default will think about and normally the thoughts have or typically the thoughts have a negative tone to them. They can take on a worrying tone or something that's negative or fearful. am just kind of sitting in at my desk and I could be thinking about the things that I need to do in a couple of hours and then as soon as I let my mind wander the default mode network kind of kicks in and then starts putting other thoughts in my head well remember when that person cheated you out of your tip or they didn't pay you enough money? And then I start thinking, yeah, that's right. And what happened with that person?

And that made me mad. And then and then I have to move, shift my thoughts away to, oh, yeah, but wait, I need to call this person in an hour. So that's my intentional thought. And then when I let it go again, it fills in the blank airspace, so to speak. It's kind of like being on the radio. You can't have any empty airspace. So the default mode gives you stuff to think about. And unfortunately, it usually has a negative tone to it. That's what I was going to say. Is it usually positive or negative? Is that are the thoughts that come in then? Is that are intrusive thoughts some of those or is that kind of a different category of thought or can it be that and other thoughts? It can be that and other thoughts. So intrusive, but it has more of a takeover effect that just kind of drops down into your awareness, usually at times when you don't want it to come. So that's different from my mind is wandering and I'm idling and oh, here's these thoughts. Intrusive thoughts can come about when you are intentionally thinking about something else. But, oh, now I have this thought of my child dying in a car accident and worrying about that.

That would be intrusive thoughts are more powerful that way at diverting your attention away from something you're intentionally thinking about to this other thing. Gotcha. So, yeah, it sounds more powerful like they take over whatever you're thinking about, whatever, as opposed to kind of fill in a space in there for my my layman's terms. You know, another thing that I learned both that that's in the book with supplements and things like that. And then from one of your videos too, was, um, the guts relation to mental health, which I certainly never made before that connection, but it's, but it's a huge factor, um, on mental health and, and, and certainly you can kind of improve your gut health or I guess make it worse depending on your diet and, you know, other things you do. But, do but why is that such important to have a good gut health that's related to good mental health yes thanks for asking that I was just thinking about that today when I was in the gym because I was thinking about someone who had a procedure and they had

to take antibiotics and we know that antibiotics can just kind of wipe out your normal gut bacteria and is is one of the things that that contributes to having poor um a bad quality of bacteria in your gut but um before i get too far down that road, the importance of it is that so your gut, generally when we speak of the gut, it's kind of the entire tube that goes from your esophagus all the way down to your anus. But in short, a lot of people think of it more as your large intestines. In your large intestines, you have bacteria that kind of finish off the job of digestion when you eat food. And those bacteria also secrete chemicals and things and communicate directly with your brain through the vagus nerve because your vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system that is responsible for slowing things down. So your sympathetic system kicks in when you need to fight or flee or, you know, go on a run or increase your oxygenation and activity level, sympathetic

jumps in and turns on the gas and speeds things up for you. And then whenever that demand is no longer necessary, then the parasympathetic puts the foot on the brake and slows things down. So we want to have a good active parasympathetic nervous system or response because that helps calm us. So the vagus nerve is one of, there's several nerves that are active in the parasympathetic response, but the vagus nerve is probably the biggest contributor. It's the longest nerve in the body. And it goes from the brain all the way down to your intestines. And so it's like the bacteria in the gut have a direct communication channel to your brain and can influence the nerves in your brain through the vagus nerve you can think of it as like a highway that's just for the

gut bacteria to send messages back to your brain okay so if you've got what we would call bad bacteria or bacteria that secretes more inflammatory chemicals, they can send that those garbage signals to up to your brain through the vagus nerve and impact you negatively in your brain through emotions and whatnot. But they also affect your body too, through inflammation and inflammatory processes affect, you know, other medical issues or physical problems as well as mental problems. So, the idea is that we want to have more healthy or bacteria that are non-inflammatory that don't secrete the kind of inflammatory chemicals that help, that send, for lack of a better way of

putting it, more healthy signals back to the brain through the parasympathetic system. So, when we eat junk food, lots of processed foods, high sugar diet, and that kind of thing. Those are the things that the bad bacteria feed off of and love that stuff and process it and produce more inflammatory chemicals that communicate with our brain. So having good bacteria and a good diet can help improve your mental health. You know, that's a great thing to know and learn more about. And thank you for that, because I think a lot of folks think about if I eat cheeseburgers all day, high cholesterol or, you know, other physical symptoms, but not that, you know, brain-gut connection. And that, is it parasympathetic where the term kind of rest and

digest applies to? Yes. And the digest, I guess, is literally so you can digest food and hopefully good food. And is that also where we want to look at the like pre and probiotics to kind of help our gut health, depending on, you know, if we've flushed it with antibiotics or hopefully not junk food. But I think a great point for, you know, folks listening and everybody of understanding, you know, it's not just your physical, a negative physical impact, rather, if you're eating very poorly, but it's a mental impact, which is that maybe sometimes when someone gets a supersized meal, we'll say from a fast food restaurant, in addition, I guess, to all the grease, is it that quick of an impact kind of where people just feel really bad? Or is it kind of a long term kind of change in the gut that impacts it?

So it's more of a long term change in the gut. I mean, it's kind of twofold. So you can feel bad from eating, say, an unhealthy meal from both a, like, maybe you don't digest everything. And so when you have, this kind of plays into lactose intolerance as well, when you have chemicals or big molecules from your food that don't get broken down properly or all the way, and I mentioned that the gut does the rest of the, sorry, the bacteria does the rest of the job when it hits the intestines. If it's doing if they're working too hard, like chomping down on this like feast of stuff that you didn't process well enough, you get a lot of gas. You could get you can get diarrhea. So, you know, that's one way you can feel bad immediately from eating something, eating kind of a greasy or junky meal that didn't sit well with you because you don't digest it well enough. It gets down to your intestines. Those bacteria are going to town on it. And now you've got diarrhea and, you know, you feel terrible gas. But as far as like secreting inflammatory chemicals and the effect the inflammation has on your body and brain, that's more of a longer-term effect.

So it's not like tomorrow now I'm going to be super anxious because I had a cheeseburger yesterday. Right, which is good because sometimes the cheeseburgers are really tasty. Yeah, I know, right? We need it every now and again. But one quick other thing, though, about the prebiotics, probiotics deal, I just wanted to elaborate on that, in that, so probiotics are, is the term for the bacteria that you can consume to put better ones down into your gut. You want a lot of diversity in your gut bacteria, not just one strain of bacteria down there. So probiotics can come in the form of capsules where they're kind of, they're freeze dried bacteria that you consume and then end up down in your gut. Or it can come from live cultures like you would get in yogurt or kimchi, sauerkraut,

fermented foods have bacteria in it, good bacteria that you want down in your gut. Prebiotics are the diet that is high in bacteria or fermented food or the capsules is you want to do both of those. That's very helpful. Thank you. So one is the bacteria. The other one is fueling that good bacteria in the right manner. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, that's definitely probably an easy one that pre and pro get mixed up or folks aren't clear about. That's very helpful.

The other thing in this, I don't know how controversial it is. I think it probably depends on whether folks are worried or have been told. And this is, and I know you, I think, did a video on this a bit ago I think other folks but the news the quote new study I'll I'll quote that and about serotonin levels right and so I figured you know it's it's it's new this things come out but come to find out I know you talked about that a bit ago a few years ago and. And this is the, you know, what I'm getting at is, is you're having this issue and certainly, you know, clarify when you answer you're having this issue, whether it's anxiety or depression, it's because your levels are low. We can do these treatments, whether it's medication or lifestyle, or I think typically probably medication targeted,

right. And then that'll help it. The new studies I mentioned, I think is a review of a collection of studies that say, yeah, that's not, it's not the levels. And then there's still a lot of questions about kind of how that works. And I guess that could, this could probably last forever, this part of the discussion, but I guess, is that something that's kind of known and has, did anything kind of change when this, and again, I'll say kind of quote new study, because you knew of this and others, I would imagine, before the study, I think this year that was in the news or online this year or last year? Yeah, I'm still a little baffled as to why that study got so much press as it did. When I look at industry news, like articles and things for psychiatrists or other doctors, the headlines I see about that is much ado about nothing. Like that's the reaction

from the clinical community of like, why is there all of this talk about this? Because where I see the negative part is in all of the people who got the message that serotonin is a weight, serotonin drugs are a waste. And big pharma has been fooling us all these years and stealing money out of our pockets producing these drugs we didn't really need like when for people who've like drawn that conclusion i just i just think that's really sad that that's the the way it went for some anyway not everyone concluded that but so um you know with research um the way we kind of discover, not discover, the way science develops is you have initial studies that come out and then you need repeated studies or replication studies, they'll call them, to show the same findings. So generally, there's not a lot of movement from just one study that showed something. You know, in the scientific community, we need to see a few studies showing that same result before we say, okay, we can go with that now. So this idea that are trying to understand the origins of depression has been something that's been work in the works for years.

Right. And, you know, I'm not sure how far it goes back of as far as changing this idea of it's not a chemical imbalance. It's a lot flaw depression, that there are changes in the brain. So let's just say chemical imbalance. But that doesn't mean that we're using that to justify prescribing certain drugs. Right. I will say that, so the science has been moving in the direction, I'm going to stick my neck out and say maybe at least a decade. It may even be longer than that. Moving in the direction of it being very focused on serotonin deficits and norepinephrine deficits to brain wiring. And the way to think of it is we understand,

or we're getting a better understanding that whether it be depression, anxiety, but mental disorders are the result of brain wiring. Some areas of the brain too tightly wound and are too tightly connected and other parts of the brain too loosely connected. And this causes abnormalities in the way we think believe and behave the downstream effect of those wiring changes meaning you got the nerves think of the nerves is kind of like cut you know as nerve connections and then they and then they send out signals downstream with these chemicals in them. Well, when you've got the nerves not functioning correctly at their origins, then the chemicals that they produce are going to be affected negatively, not having enough or having too much. So the way we've tried to address it is to say,

well, the net result of this wiring issue is that you end up with low serotonin levels. So let's just replace the serotonin levels. So it's like putting sand into a sinkhole, but there's still a hole at the bottom that's not being plugged up. So now there's more of a focus on plugging the hole instead of just filling the hole with serotonin. Let's plug the hole. And some of these drugs that are addressing that are things like ketamine. Probably even the psychedelics are working at more the nerve wiring level. There's a new drug that I did a video about probably a couple weeks ago called

Avelity. It works also at the NMDA receptors, which is more the brain wiring level. So, we're making some progress in this area of finding drugs that address the brain wiring level rather than just looking at the ultimate end point, which is lower serotonin or lower dopamine because of the wiring problem. Right. That's all these new, in air quotes, studies are about. Gotcha. Yeah, that's very helpful because certainly from a non-psychiatric person or medical person and from the outside. And I would imagine it's 2022, so sensational headlines just seem kind of to be the thing. And with big pharma having been in the news for the past few years, I would imagine that

also pushes those to the front. But that explanation and clarity is super helpful, especially the sinkhole analogy, I think, for folks to know. And, you know, I think like I've heard and I think like you said and others, you know, it's also not that they don't help people. Right. So I imagine folks that got that message or folks that got took the message and kind of evangelize it like, see, it's a conspiracy or something like that. But then they talk to folks who have benefited from, you know, whether it's, you know, antidepressants or other medicines, you know, puts them, you know, kind of head to head and probably made some people feel pretty bad about like, oh, my gosh, I've been duped, you know, or something like that. Yeah. And that's the tragedy of it.

I hate to see that. But, you know, me being from my vantage point as someone who does prescribe those medications, I mean, I have more than enough examples of people saying, this has changed my life and they're not going to stop taking their meds because of these studies. Right. Right. That's very helpful. Thank you. You know, and I think to your point, a couple of things that it seemed like the tools that are in the book and, you know, that you mentioned in both video and in the book kind of maybe share a bit about it and how it can help. Did you learn about magnesium or I guess overall supplementation in school? Or is that something that's a little newer that's part of a more holistic approach as well? Yeah, that was newer from a more holistic approach, I probably I have become more holistic than I was when I stepped out of residency 20 years ago. And so I can't speak to medical education now.

If the people coming through residency now are learning more about nutritional psychiatry and holistic health, there may be more of an emphasis on it. But yeah, this is my knowledge has been all post training. Gotcha. And can you share kind of I know for anxiety, it's recommended if, you know, in a lot of places I've learned about just magnesium in general, Americans in particular are deficient in it. Um, and, and kind of, I guess, how it, how it helps anxiety, um, kind of in sleep, um, and kind of the best ways. And you go into more detail, maybe kind of how, how, or I guess just touch on, and again, for folks that, you know, magnesium in particular is mentioned in the book, but how can magnesium help, uh, improve, uh, either anxiety itself, I guess, or symptoms. I'm not sure if I said that correctly,

whether it improves the symptoms or anxiety or both. Yeah. So, magnesium is one of those essential minerals that is involved in a lot of different body processes. And it is true that people who, when you have anxiety, it's like you waste the mineral. You lose more of it. You urinate more of it out. And you don't hold on to it as much. Not sure exactly why that's the case, but that has been a finding that many people are actually deficient in magnesium because they don't hold on to enough of it. But as far as it helping anxiety is it decreases glutamate, which is an excitatory chemical in the body, think of it as in the brain, think of it as like aggravating or agitating you or causing agitation. And GABA is the brain chemical that's responsible

or helps with slowing things. Again, another analogy of pressing your foot on the brake kind of thing. So, and magnesium increases GABA. So, that's where it, that's how it actually works in the brain. That's kind of like the end point of how it improves anxiety. It slows things or, and some of the other drugs that work at GABA that people probably have heard of are things like Xanax and Klonopin and sleeping pills. A lot of the sleeping pills work at increasing GABA, which helps slow your mind and your brain. So, magnesium is kind of like taking a natural form of some of those medications that we know help anxiety or know are sedating, like Klonopin and Ativan and Xanax. It's always better to get these kinds of things from your diet rather than taking pills. But if you are, I have recommended people taking magnesium supplements if they have anxiety because of

this issue of you are probably deficient if you are anxious. It's not that easy to take magnesium sometimes because if you take the wrong form of it, you can get diarrhea. Um, because it's also, you know, you could think of it as, uh, it's a kind of like a muscle relax, relaxer. So it also can like, you know, loosen everything up. So you can end up, um, having, um, having kind of loose stools if you have the wrong kind, like magnesium oxide and things. So there's a few forms. I took, there was a brand called Calm and it comes as a powder and you can make a little drink. And I took some because some patients were telling me, oh, this is what I take before I go to bed. So, I tried it. And for me, it worked too fast on the stools. I don't want to go into too much detail.

Sure, yeah. But everyone's different. I generally will say that the magnesium citrate form of magnesium doesn't affect bowels as much as some of the other formulations. Another downside here, I'm, you know, I'm talking up magnesium, but then talking about downsides, but another reason I don't regularly take it myself now is because I take other supplements and magnesium for whatever reason, a lot of times to get enough of it, you're taking like three capsules. So you could end up, if you're taking fish oil, magnesium, turmeric is another one I take

for anti-inflammatory benefit, and then my probiotics, I can have like a handful of pills. So if I don't feel like taking a handful, I'll let the magnesium go and try and get my magnesium from my diet. Like pumpkin seeds are a great source of magnesium.

Nice. And yeah, you talk about greens and things. Yeah, I do magnesium glycinate at night, but it's uphill to your point because I take other stuff in the morning and it is a lot to do at once. And then you mentioned in the book L-threonate is a really good one as well. And is that more just overall because it's more bioavailable or passes the blood-brain barrier better or both? Yeah. So that was what I read about it, that it is supposedly more bioavailable and yet crosses the blood brain barrier. Because that's one thing about taking anything that is intended to affect you it from just any kind of toxins that come into your body. So not everything gets all the way up to your brain. And that's one of the

problems with GABA, the pill form of GABA. GABA is a great idea. It's slowing. And you've got all these drugs that increase it and magnesium being one of it. So why not just make GABA and give us GABA? The problem has been with it is that they've had a hard time manufacturing one that crosses the blood-brain barrier in sufficient amounts to actually be helpful. Which is interesting, because if you go to, say, a pharmacy and you look at the various, all these supplements and there's GABA and, you know, I'm sure it's, hey, this will relax you, this will do that. So, I think that's a key piece for folks to remember of, you know, one, ask your doctor, right? But if, you know, it's advertised as helping your brain, but it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier, then I guess it's kind of

marketing to say, to say, right? Yeah. And they're probably not going to say that, which is why, you know, the recommended dose may be like three big horse pills, you know, that you've got to take to try and get a little bit to go through and make it all the way to the top. Gotcha. Yeah, that's good to know. Yeah. So definitely there's a lot of supplements out there. I guess a quick kind of what is the best place or the best reference for folks to look up if they're interested in supplementation of any of any kinds where would you recommend folks look for kind of not necessarily a particular name brand but but kind of a reference that could direct them there or is that kind of too broad of a an ask or a you know a recommendation no it's not too broad i'm well so i'll tell you the the source i use but it's a paid source i'm

not sure if everyone wants to pay for this information but um but hey some information you know you get what you pay for but sure um so i use consumer labs uh it's consumer lab.com and i forget what the the membership is it's like an annual fee and you they review they do like independent laboratory testing of all of these different brands so if i say want to take melatonin what brand of melatonin do you recommend so i go to the site and they'll have like a list of a bunch of different brands that they have tested in-house and even give you information like, you know, how much does it actually deliver? So their capsule only delivers this amount, whereas this one delivers that. This has trace elements of metals in it. You want to stay away

from that. So that's the kind of information you get. And that's what I use when I'm trying to decide what brand. There's another site that I use, but it's again, another paid site is examine.com. And they do less like brand recommending, but give a lot of information about different supplements or nutritional information based on like studies so they're a site that will like review studies for you on different topics that's a great time saver it sounds like for yes and i can uh link you know in the show notes so it was um consumer labs and then examine and then we could let folks decide if they want to pay or look it up. But those sound like great resources for folks to use. Yeah, because other sites, you know, places like WebMD, they're not going to go there, go down that road of recommending brands.

And then any other place, it's, you know, self-interest. You know, I'm an affiliate for this. So this is what I recommend, you know. So, yeah. Yeah. It's interesting when you search for something, how those pop up pretty quickly. The last thing I wanted to ask about or the last kind of of these five things, if I could. It seems to be something that you're passionate about.

And that's oils and aromatherapy. Yes. One, how did you get into that? Did you have a friend that used it or family members that used it? And then you kind of said, hey, I like that as well. Or how did you come upon that? You know, I'm trying to think back of how I got into that. I really can't remember now that I think about it, but whatever got me started with it, you know what? I know. So my husband had all these aches and pains and stuff,

and I got on this thing of I wanted to create some natural ointment that would help him with his joint pain and then then i got into this facial stuff but still i'm still not sure what exactly like made me turn my eye toward um essential oils but once i was there i went deep so i even like got this um or took this, this course, a certification course, and I was going to become a certified aromatherapist. And I was like, what am I doing? I have a job. Why am I doing all this? So I stopped the certification process, but I still had gotten all the materials and learning stuff. Um, just the other day, my son went out to walk the dog and he came back with mosquito bites. And he had these big welts. And he said, Oh, it's itching. Help, help, hurry, hurry, hurry.

And I put together some tea tree oil in some oil in a carrier oil,bed it on there and like within minutes seconds like the itching sensation went away and then the welts went down and i was like ah yes it still works that's awesome i also would be remiss if i didn't mention my wife's mom and mother-in-law huge into the oils and so had to be one of my questions but also that um i wasn't and so she would have oils all the time and then of course when i needed something and at work i was like oh you got me especially the lavender in the evening and things like that but um but yeah she she had i think similar and um the peppermint kind of for headaches or things like that but yeah it's uh they're pretty amazing i would imagine the

the not just science but the use of oils and you know oils from plants or things has been around for quite some time uh as well it has and it and there's a resurgence of interest in that with cannabis and cbd i mean that's that's a plant oil's true. That's what it is. And so, yeah, it's as much as we are getting into that. That's I see that as just kind of an extension of where we started with plant medicine to begin with and essential oils. That's a great, great point. Also, folks can learn a little bit more about cannabis and CBD or at least, you know, kind of the science and your take on it, which that's one great thing I like too, is when we get to the recommendations, the tools, whether it's mental tools, physical tools, um, medicine supplements, things is the, you know, we learn about it and then we learn. And here's what I think about it, which is what you don't always get. Um, you know, and, and, uh, you know, book, I don't know if there's ever been a book like this, but,

but books like yours where it shares information and then it shares information and here's what I think because you're not always selling it for each one and very open. I think that's a very refreshing way to read or hear should people get the audiobook, some of these tools and your take on them. It's very helpful that way. Thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah, I wanted it to be that way because to just kind of give this listing of here's what this is and here's what that is. Well, OK, but do you like it? What or aromatherapy or I guess oils, which do you recommend if there is one, the best for anxiety? Hmm. How to pick one.

So you're mentally going through the shelf of oil, the line of oils. Yeah. So, okay. So the most most common i guess i would have to go with lavender even though that feels to me like a boring answer because it's just so typical right um but the only reason i i say that that's probably the number one is because there is an oral form of it now i shouldn't say now it's actually been around for a while. A German manufacturer developed Silexan, it's called S-I-L-E-X-A-N, which is lavender in pill form, because in general, essential oils are not recommended to consume orally. There are some companies that will say, just put a little drop on your tongue and dah, dah, dah. But they're very concentrated oils. So it's risky to just kind

of consume them like that. Anyway, they've taken lavender, put it into a pill form. It's even had head-to-head studies with lorazepam, which is Ativan, aodiazepine, and Paxil, and shown to stand up to those prescription drugs as being similarly effective. I thought that was super impressive. So, um, so if you don't like diffusing or inhaling and stuff, you can get it in an oral form. And one brand is called Calm Aid, and you can get it on Amazon. Would you – sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. What were you going to say? I was going to say, would you stick with lavender?

Because my next question was the best one for sleep. So I feel obligated to say lavender because of that fact that you could take it orally. Yeah, that's true. Valerian. So there's a couple other that I think that are really good. Um, Valerian is just like Valerian root, the tea, the pill, all of that. It also is an essential oil, but I don't, i think it stinks because it's um it's a root oil and those root oils have a very strong distinctive odor and if you can get past that then it's a very

good one for um for anxiety and very relaxing chamomile is probably the next one. So actually I put chamomile second and valerian third, but just like you can get chamomile as a tea, you can also get it as an essential oil. Gotcha. Very helpful. And then as far as sleep goes, I really love Spike Nerd and it is not, it is not a popular one. It's probably one many people haven't heard about. It's another root oil, and it's part of my peaceful sleep concoction that I came up with that I have the recipe for in the book, and i use it every night it it's it's a very strong smell as well so it's not you know it's it's probably not one you would you would use because i'm going to diffuse it in the house because it smells wonderful it's just very relaxing and is this uh topical like

you put it on your wrist your temples temples, or how do you use that? So the way I use it is I make it into an oil with carrier oil. So I combine it with some other oils. Excuse me. One off the top of my head from my sleep oil also contains Ylang Ylang, it's called. I guess that's how you pronounce it.'s y-l-a-n-g it's a flower it has a very flowery scent it's it's it's actually a very nice smell and it kind of offsets that harsh root oil but anyway i i take a base carrier oil. You always want to use, you always want to dilute these very strong essential oils and carrier oils.

Because if you don't, they can be toxic to your skin. You can also develop a hypersensitivity to them. Okay. So you just dilute it. You can even use olive oil for that matter. Anyway, I dilute it in an oil and then I rub that on my skin before I go to bed. And I have put it on my chest, sat down, like maybe like nine o'clock, sat down to watch some television and then drifted off while I was watching something. Oh, wow. And each time I want to say, oh, that was just because I was already tired.

But it works every time. I never want to believe that these plant oils can do that. You know, after all these years, I still want to, like, doubt it. Right. Which I believe that's on page 263, if I recall. It is. I commented, I think, on something you'd posted on Instagram. And I was like, oh, let's go check that out.

And I was like, I got to go look at that now. Uh-huh. And see where it was. That's cool. Yeah, it's amazing. I'll definitely have to one-off to see if my mother-in-law has heard of those. And then I'll have to get some oils and give it a shot. It's always neat.

It's one thing I've tried. It's kind of a more natural kind of sleep things. And it's interesting because they affect people so differently, it seems. Or don't. Yeah, they do. And that's why it's good to have. I give some options in there. Like I give like my top however many I list.

I can't remember right off. But let's say top 10 or something that I think are more in the relaxing categories. Because not all essential oils are relaxing. Peppermint is a stimulating one. That's not one you would want to use right before you go to bed. But you could take a group or you could try from a list of ones that are relaxing. And there may be some that you like the way they smell and others you don't. And you just kind of end up with what you like. But yeah, if your mother-in-law is really into it,

she ought to like the, if she doesn't already know how to do it, the section on how to blend your own based on, you know, one oils that match well together. Yep. I'd have to lend director to that for sure. So that's well together. Yep, I'd have Flynn director to that for sure. So that's the five. Thank you so much for answering those kind of very helpful information. I also wanted to ask you a couple,

things that have influenced you, close out of course, kind of share with folks. I think we talked about where they could find the book, but also find all the ways to connect with you. But I wanted to ask, what would you say is the most impactful book that you've read? Not having to be in the field of psychiatry, but that kind of impacted maybe how you practice psychiatry. Oh, wow. That's a tough one.

Or maybe just most impactful kind of book. Yeah, there's a lot. Yeah. So I read a lot. I was going to say I'm embarrassed to say I don't read, but that's not true. I read a lot of journal articles, which is not that's work that's not pleasure reading and I couldn't tell you like one article in particular. That's Changed the way I practice. Okay, I come across a lot of stuff where I'm like, whoa, okay, and So I don't consider that in the same category as what have you read that had this impact on you. But I will say a lot of my reading is that.

And then after that, I'm more into fiction. Okay. So because I need an escape, I can't read work-related stuff all the time so um probably so this may have nothing to do with what you're really asking me but i'll just say it this way my two the two things that i've read that stand out the most to me um is um the the harry potter series i absolutely love. And I've read and reread and listened and re-listened to those books. Okay, that aside, the most recent book that I read that actually had more of an impact when it comes to like me being a psychiatrist and connecting with this book was the book called It Begins With Us. It Ends with Us.

It Begins with Us is her newer one. But by Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us. And it's about domestic abuse. And if you told me that before I read it, I would have probably been like, well, I don't want to read that because that's too close to what I do. But

I loved the way she portrayed a very realistic view of how someone can slip into being um the victim of abuse even though they may have thought I will that will never happen to me and I thought it was just beautiful how this character just kind of slipped into it and it happened to her. And I think that's how it happens with a lot of people, that that's how they end up there. They're not, they don't necessarily fit the characteristic of the abused person because they were traumatized as a child or abused as a child so that they have a lifetime of ending up with abusers. That's one group of people, no doubt. But there's still

these other people who have healthy self-esteem, good ego strength, you know, good coping mechanism, all that stuff, but can still just end up having it happen to them and not realize until they're there that, oh, my goodness, how did I get here? And I just thought it was wonderful. And that was it ends with us? It ends with us. Okay. Yeah.

Good deal. Yeah, I was going to say I'll include that with the notes. So similar question, but instead of book, movie. So kind of impactful movie. Hmm. Impactful movie. Hello? Hello? movie hello sorry I heard buzzing and I was like oh no

you're gonna have to cut out that dead space you know I know I cannot I tend to watch I'm so like not deep I cannot, I tend to watch, I'm so like not deep, I guess, because I tend to watch action, thrillers, stuff like that. And that's probably because that's my escape from my work life, which is super deep all the time.

Right. So I need to, I need to lighten it up and escape when i watch stuff so i tend not to like i don't want to go to movies that you know if someone says oh i just couldn't stop crying i'm like well i don't want to see that right i don't want to go cry there then i know that's not how i want to spend my leisure time uh so um yeah what time. What movie has kind of helped you escape or have you enjoyed the most in the past couple of years? Okay, that's probably a better way for me to think about it. So I'm a Marvel fan. Awesome.

And I have not been watching a lot of the Disney stuff lately because I feel like the quality has changed. But all of the old Marvel stuff, I own all of those movies with the Avengers series and all that stuff. I think one that I saw most recently that I really kind of left me thinking and enjoyed was, well, I love Jordan Peele's movies. And the most recent one, gosh, what was it called? It was like a weird title. No, but yes, no. Yeah. I didn't watch it because it looks really freaky. It is in his Jordan Peele way of doing things but i just thought it was like all of his movies seem to have these deeper meanings with social messages behind them and stuff right and so like teasing that out of here's this kind of sci-fi ish movie but what's really behind this that was interesting to me

because all his stuff is like that and so um yeah that's probably the one that that has had the most impact on me lately which is also neat to see um you know coming off key and peel which is you know a different you know totally different show. But also does he branch out and do these movies that everybody talks about? You know what I mean? Yes. All the movies he's done. So what's funny is I had never seen Key and Peele.

I didn't know who Jordan Peele was until Get Out. Oh, gotcha. And it was my godson who told me about Key and Peele. And so I went back and like, now that's like one of my escapes. I like go and like click into that. I mean, it's just so funny. So, and that's, and that kind of, I know we're wrapping up here, but it's a so funny so and that's and that kind of i know we're wrapping up here but it's a tie-in to humor being one of the things uh one of the tools i talk about using in the book um by way of

watching something that you know is going to make you laugh and even the process of sitting like anticipating laughing about something is um is helpful like it actually changes how you're thinking um and then i also talk about laughter yoga and things which is might be something no one that people haven't heard about yoga um so uh so anyway yeah so that's my my humor exercise when I'm feeling stressed out. Let me go watch some Key & Peele. Key & Peele, yeah. Yeah, and definitely just two more quick things.

My sister's name is Denise, so of course we call her Denise when we see her. So it's the principle. It's just, yeah. That's why, to your point, I was anticipating already laughing just thinking about the different skits. So quick question. What is the bigger challenge uh was it writing the book or um video editing creation oh uh hmm so wow are they just very different? They are very different. However, I started intermittent fasting when I was writing the book.

And I noticed a huge difference in my mental clarity with that. And I was on a roll. Gotcha. And so I had days set aside. I was still practicing seeing patients, but I had days set aside, which were my writing days. And I was able to just sit down and go. Whereas when I'm researching for my videos, it's more of a struggle for me because I'll start going down rabbit holes and way off the ranch with other research. And I'm like, I have got to get back to a point here so I can get this video out.

And so in some ways that's harder, even though the writing was a much bigger project and demanded a lot more of me. But it flowed. It just it flowed for me. That's awesome. Yeah, fasting. I hear a lot more about that these days as well, intermittent fasting. What's probably not included in a fast, but it's just the last quick question, what's your favorite dessert?

Ooh, let's see. Blueberry cobbler. Oh, wow. Heated with ice cream or on its own heated with ice cream gotcha it seems a cobbler warm with ice cream seems like a go-to um not peach though which is surprising given you're in georgia you know what that's number two so those are a toss-up i could go with either but blueberry edges out edges out, peach, just a little bit. Gotcha.

Awesome. Well, Dr. Marks, thank you so much for your time. What is the best way for folks to find you and your videos or reach out to you? Probably the best way to, the easiest way to find me is on my website because it has all of my social media stuff on there as well. And my website is MarksPsychiatry.com, all one word and Marks with an S. However, on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok, I am Dr. Tracy Marks. And that's D-R and then Tracy E-Y tracy ey marks all one word so either of those places probably as far as the social media goes um youtube is like the main spot where i am uh as far as my hub goes um but my instagram content is more bite-sized uh. That's a little different from what's on YouTube.

So it's not just cut up YouTube videos on Instagram. Okay, awesome. Well, thanks so much again, everybody. Check out on Amazon either the hard copy or the audio, whichever you prefer. Why am I so anxious? Go to YouTube, look up Dr. Tracy Marks, watch those videos and on Instagram as well.

Thank you so much for your time. It was, I really enjoyed learning from you and talking to you and look forward to seeing more videos. Yes. Thanks a lot, Kevin. I appreciate this. Good deal. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Bye-bye.