Welcome Dr. Paige!

If you have come to the clinic in the past year or so, you may have seen or heard of my lovely associate Dr. Paige Weatherbee-Sakr! She started during my second maternity leave and has continued seeing patients on Wednesdays since. She will be at Symmetry for the foreseeable future, so it is probably time to introduce her properly! She is a great asset to the team. I want to highlight that she is completing a Mental Health Fellowship this year as this is an area of interest to her in practice as of late. I’ll pass it over to Dr. Paige to tell you more about herself.

---

Hi my name is Paige and I am a Naturopathic Doctor working at Symmetry Wellness Centre with Dr. Karen! Some of you may have met me while I was covering for Dr. Karen’s second maternity leave. For those of you who did not, I figured I would share a little about myself, so you know who I am if I pop up in the blog or in her office!

I started covering for Karen in May of 2023 and have found myself continuing to work in her office on Wednesdays at Symmetry Wellness Centre in Burnside. I am also certified in IV therapy like Karen and so I provide 1:1 visits as well as IV care in the office.

When I am working, I like to work from a place of addition – whether that be food, sleep, habits or water - my goal is to make sure you are getting enough! I do this through a lot of listening, a lot of helping people with introspection and leaning on the tools at our disposal – IVs, Botanicals, Nutrition, Nutraceuticals, Exercise, Counselling and Diagnostics.

I am also interested in research and how we blend that with clinical experience, specifically in the world of mental health and the digestive system. With this interest, I am also currently pursuing a year long program to improve my grasp on the research around mental health support and Naturopathic medicine. I hope to be able to share the fruits of this program in 2025!

When I am not in the office, I can be found in the kitchen (since I love food), in the woods (since I love to geocache and hear the birds), Watching shows or in a book (since I love science fiction and fantasy), or just spending time with loved ones (since I am a wife/sister/daughter/aunt/dog + cat mom).

I hope you find as much joy as I do both professionally and personally! Hope to see you in Dr. Karen’s Office soon!

Blueberry Oatmeal Flax Muffins - aka "Mary's Poop Muffins"

I may sound like a broken record to my patients lately regarding fibre intake, however this is such an important component in our diet that most people are lacking in. When it comes to digestive issues many patients of mine are actually avoiding fibre rich foods as it is causing GI distress. They may be on the lowFODMAP diet, recommended to them by their MD or through online research, which is a low fibre diet. This should only be used short term for symptom relief while we treat the root cause, as like I said before fibre is very important for overall digestive health.

Low fibre intake can present as constipation, other digestive issues and even food cravings.

Most people are getting on average 15g of fibre a day, while the recommendation is 25-35g a day! This is one draw back to easy convenient meals we gravitate towards with our busy lives. Less plants, less beans, less complex carbs that take longer to cook = less fibre.
There are many ways to increase fibre intake, including more plants, beans and legumes, complex carbs, ground flax, chia or psyllium powder. What can you add to your diet this week? It may be one of these delicious fibre rich muffins that really do help you poop!

Examples of healthy fibre rich foods:

• 1/2 cup oats = 4g

• 1 tbsp ground flax seed = 2g; 1 tbsp chia seeds = 6g

• 1 apple = 4-5g

• 1/2 cup lentils - 7g

• 1 medium sweet potato - 3-5g

• 1 tbsp psyllium powder - 5g

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup butter (or vegan butter)

• 1 cup oats

• 1/2 cup ground flax seed

• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

• 1 egg

• 1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup dairy free milk + 1 tbsp vinegar, left to sit for a few minutes)

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 3/4 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup brown sugar (optional)

• 1 cup whole wheat flour (or gluten free flour eg. Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten free baking flour)

• 1 cup blueberries

Mix all ingredients in order they are listed. Fill 12 muffin cups using muffin liner. Bake at 375F for 20 minutes.

Burnout...What signs to look out for

Whether you are a new mom dealing with little sleep, a mom of multiple busy kids working full time, a nurse working shift work at a stressful job, a menopausal women taking care of teenagers and elderly parents…it can be a lot. If we take on too much and don’t take the time to take care of ourselves this can lead to burnout if we are not careful. My examples are all women as the research shows women are more likely to develop burnout than men.

Burnout is defined as a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It could be stress from the workplace, stress from home life and responsibilities, stress about the news or a combination of it all. Burnout is a gradual process but it can seem to creep up on you. Unfortunately with all that has gone on the past couple years it is not surprising I have seen an increase in burnout in my practice lately.

Some common signs of burnout are:

• fatigue

• sleep issues - trouble falling asleep or tossing and turning

• worse PMS symptoms or symptoms during your period

• more irritable with the people you love

• avoiding activities you usually enjoy

• quick to tears

• lack of focus, brain fog

• getting sick more often

• IBS symptoms starting

• more hair falling out

If you recognize the signs above in your behaviour or you are tipping towards them please don’t fret, there are several things you can do including reaching out to an ND like myself.

Where to start:

1. Reach out for help - please use the support around you if you are trending towards burnout. I am also guilty of trying to do it all at times but that can be detrimental over time. Help can be from family, friends, coworkers or practitioners like myself - NDs, MDs, therapist, counsellors etc. Someone to help share the burden with, or someone to listen and provide you with tools.

2. Set boundaries - These boundaries are for things you take on in and out of work, but also electronics and social media, which over time we are seeing can have a negative impact on our stress levels. Please leave your phone out of your bedroom and pick up a book before bed, or do some stretching/yoga to unwind.

3. Sleep! - This time to crucial for healing and repair. Set up a routine for bedtime and wake time that is the same daily and aim for 7-8 hours/night. If you are having difficulty with sleep already I can help.

4. Eat protein - A healthy diet is important but where to start is your protein intake, especially at breakfast. Aim for 15-20g of protein in the morning. Protein is a building block for energy and cortisol and often lacking in women. A couple breakfast options without eggs are below.

As an ND I have several tools in addition to the above to help heal from burnout. Vitamins, herbs, acupuncture, IVs, to name a few. Please reach out if you recognize the signs above and would like support.

Smoothie Recipe:

• 1/2 banana

• 1/2 cup blueberries

• handful of greens

• 3 tbsp hemp hearts (10g)

• 1 tbsp peanut butter (4g)

• 1/4 cup greek yogurt (5g)

• splash of vanilla

• water or oat milk

Oatmeal recipe:

• 1/2 cup cooked steel cut oats (5g)

• 1 tbsp walnuts (1-2g)

• 1 tbsp nut butter (4g)

• 2 tbsp hemp hearts (6)

• 1 tbsp ground flax (1-2g)

• splash of nut milk

• dash of cinnamon

In health & happiness,

Dr. Karen

Heart rate variability - A valuable tool to track well-being

A healthy heart does not beat like a metronome, but actually changes its rhythm with each heart beat. The constant variation between each beat is called your heart rate variability (HRV). This is something I have been speaking about to several of my patients recently, as more people have smart watches and other health tracker apps that can measure this.

What affects HRV?

There are certain situations that result in a higher HRV and other situations resulting in a lower HRV, reflecting your hearts ability to respond to different situations. This ultimately reflects how your nervous system is responding. HRV can react to stress and/or illness before resting heart rate, which makes it one of your body’s most powerful signals—providing useful insights into your stress levels, recovery status, and general well-being.

Generally a lower HRV is associated with your “flight or flight” response, stress or illness. A higher HRV is associated with your “rest and digest” response, general fitness and good recovery. It is amazing how we can track how just a 5 minutes meditation exercise can improve your HRV.

There are some things we cannot control that affect HRV such as age, hormone cycles, illness and amount of stress we have. However, to improve HRV there are things we can control such as sleep routine, alcohol and caffeine intake, how we manage stress and fitness level.

Tracking HRV

A high or low HRV is relative to each person. It is therefore best to track your own HRV over time and generally aim for a higher level, or track what improves it and decrease it, instead of comparing to others. It can range from 20 to above 150 depending on the tracker. Also, sometimes it is ok to see a lower levels for a short period of time, eg. during a strenuous activity where our nervous system is working hard to increase our heart rate. It is then how we recover that matters.

HRV fluctuates often throughout the day so is is helpful to track it in a controlled setting like sleep. However, some trackers, like the smart watch may limit this if you don’t want to wear it at night.

I see a lot of digestive issues, fatigue, insomnia etc in my practice and it almost always has a component that connects back to the nervous system. If we can help manage our stress response and improve HRV, that can help us tremendously over time. Ultimately, you don’t NEED to track HRV to check in with how you are doing overall. However there are some pretty neat tools out there now that can track things like HRV that we can use to our advantage.

Thoughts? Check in with me if you have questions.

Dr. Karen