Tag Archives: stress

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 14 – The Adult Chair


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The Adult Chair, the Adolescent Chair and the Child’s Chair

The Adult Chair by Michelle Chalfant is a practical framework for emotional maturity, self-awareness, and healing old patterns that unconsciously drive adult behavior. The central premise is that most people move through life reacting not from their grounded adult self, but from unresolved emotional states formed during childhood and adolescence. She organizes this idea into what she calls the “three chairs”: the Child Chair, the Adolescent Chair, and the Adult Chair.

The Child Chair represents the emotional self formed in early childhood. This is the place of vulnerability, fear, shame, abandonment, loneliness, and unmet needs. When people react from this chair, they often feel helpless, emotionally flooded, overly dependent on validation, or afraid of rejection. Many adult relationship conflicts, according to Chalfant, are actually wounded children (in adult bodies) interacting with each other while wearing grown-up clothing and carrying iPhones. Same child like nervous system. Better accessories. Think of the statement: lipstick on a pig, you cannot dress up dysfunction and make it disappear.

The Adolescent Chair reflects the defensive coping strategies people develop to protect the wounded child. This includes control, perfectionism, blame, avoidance, rebellion, people-pleasing, passive aggression, and emotional shutdown. The adolescent self seeks power and protection but often creates disconnection and conflict. Chalfant argues that many high-achieving adults unknowingly operate from this chair, appearing successful externally while internally driven by fear, insecurity, or the need for approval.

The Adult Chair is the goal….

Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 12 – Creatine and Microbiomes


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Creatine and Microbiomes

A new 2026 Cell Metabolism study explores a compelling and increasingly central idea in modern biology: the gut/brain/immune/metabolism axis is not just associative, it is mechanistic. Specifically, Dr. Lu and colleagues investigate how the gut microbiota can directly influence depressive behavior by reshaping systemic and neural metabolism. This is another in a long running list of papers describing the amazing work that bacterial commensal microbes do for us. In this case, our minds and moods.

“Although peripheral-brain crosstalk regulates energy metabolism, its role in depression remains unclear. Here, we used metabolic profiling to reveal elevated fecal creatine alongside reduced plasma and cerebrospinal fluid creatine in both patients with depression and mouse depression models. Exogenous creatine produced antidepressant-like effects mediated by gut microbiota. Bifidobacterium pseudolongum was identified as a significantly reduced gut bacterial species in depression, correlating with impaired creatine absorption. Subsequent supplementation with Bifidobacterium enhanced the antidepressant effects of creatine. Mechanistically, B. pseudolongum-derived acetate promoted the creatine transporter (Slc6a8) expression in intestinal epithelial cells via histone acetylation. The Slc6a8 mediated the antidepressant-like effects of creatine. Neuronal creatine deficiency influenced energetic metabolism and neurophysiological function. In patients with depression taking antidepressants, co-administration of creatine and Bifidobacterium increased plasma creatine levels and reduced depression scores. These findings identify the Bifidobacterium-creatine combination as a promising antidepressant strategy and highlight the critical role of gut-brain energy metabolism in depression.” “The brain, as an energy-intensive organ, relies on precise metabolic regulation to maintain synaptic plasticity, neurotransmitter synthesis, and stress response systems. Accumulating evidence implicates energy metabolism dysregulation as a hallmark of depression. Neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography (PET) have identified marked glucose hypometabolism in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of patients with depression. Cerebral mitochondrial dysfunction and ATP imbalance have been mechanistically linked to depression progression. Notably, emerging studies emphasize the bidirectional interplay between peripheral metabolic signals and central energy regulation, which is fundamental to neural metabolism. Clinical observations such as fatigue, appetite dysregulation, and unexplained weight fluctuations in patients with depression further suggest systemic metabolic disturbances spanning peripheral organs and the CNS..” (Lu et. al. 2026)

This is next-level medicine. Mental health can no longer be framed as a disorder of genetics, experience, or circumstance alone. This work opens a clearer window, showing how the microbiome participates as an active partner, shaping brain function through the metabolites it helps produce and deliver. Compounds like creatine are no longer just peripheral players. They become signals, fuel, structure, and information, bridging gut and brain, metabolism and behavior…. and more

Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 4 – Relationships

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Literature Review:

A) “Establishment of the gut microbiome during early life is a complex process with lasting implications for an individual’s health. Several factors influence microbial assembly; however, breast-feeding is recognized as one of the most influential drivers of gut microbiome composition during infancy, with potential implications for function. Differences in gut microbial communities between breast-fed and formula-fed infants have been consistently observed and are hypothesized to partially mediate the relationships between breast-feeding and decreased risk for numerous communicable and noncommunicable diseases in early life. Despite decades of research on the gut microbiome of breast-fed infants, there are large scientific gaps in understanding how human milk has evolved to support microbial and immune development.” (Davis et. al. 2022)

Main Takeaways:

First 1000 days matter a lot for microbial and immune development: Infancy is a critical window when the gut microbiome is assembled and the immune system is learning to respond to microbes and external exposures. Patterns set early can ripple into infection risk, inflammatory diseases, and atopy later in life.

Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 1 – Beyond Behaviors Part 3, Mona Delahooke, PhD

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Chapter 3 – Individual Differences

Dr. Delahooke starts Chapter 3 by allowing Margaret Mead to remind us that each child is absolutely unique: “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” This is more than a witty paradox, it is the hinge upon which all effective pediatric care swings. When we take individual differences seriously as neurobiological fact, we can finally stop confusing adaptive survival responses with defiance, stop labeling children as problems, and begin the real work of supporting the mind body systems that shape behavior from the inside out.

Let us review what we have learned in Beyond Behaviors so far – We are invited to descend below the waterline of the behavioral iceberg. What we see at the surface: the tantrum, withdrawal, rigidity, hyperactivity, the refusal to transition is merely a set of observable outputs from deeply personal internal variables. The sensory wiring, physiological states, immune triggers, thoughts, feelings, memories, and the child’s moment-to-moment sense of safety. Without diving into these subterranean layers, we risk treating smoke while ignoring the fire, which is the general state of current pediatric psychiatric medical therapeutics. We mostly treat the smoke. We don’t often ask about the fire. Her central thesis is simple, clinically robust, and profoundly humane:

Children behave according to the state of their nervous system, and their nervous system is shaped by individual biological, emotional, and sensory differences.

Once we understand this, behavior becomes not a moral test but a window into the child’s internal world…..

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 15 Issue 31 – Poly Vagal Theory, Stephen Porges, PhD

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I think that this is an important time to pause and relook at Polyvagal Theory before continuing with Beyond Behaviors.

Polyvagal Theory: Current Status, Clinical Applications, and Future Directions (Porges, S. 2025)

“Social behavior and the capacity to manage challenge are dependent on the neural regulation of physiological state.” S. Porges


When I dove into Stephen Porges’s 2025 review of the Polyvagal Theory (PVT), I felt like I’d stepped into a crossroads where neurobiology, clinical practice, trauma science, and human experience collide. This paper isn’t merely a summary of three decades of work (all of which I have read); it’s a spirited defense of a paradigm that’s been both celebrated (by me) and contested (by others). What follows is an honest appraisal of what the article teaches us, where it sparks real insight, and where it may fall short, especially through the lens of evidence-based medicine and developmental neurophysiology. (I also went deeper into his 2022 paper in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience for the biophysiology of the ANS)

At its heart, the article argues that the autonomic nervous system (ANS), through a set of hierarchically organized circuits centered on the vagus nerve, is not just a background player in stress and homeostasis, but a core regulator of social engagement, physiological flexibility, and behavior. Dr. Porges situates his theory as an alternative and expansion to classical views that treat sympathetic (fight/flight) and parasympathetic (rest/digest) branches as functional opposites. Instead, he proposes a three-component hierarchy: the ventral vagal complex (VVC) supporting social engagement, a mobilization circuit mediated by the sympathetic nervous system or fight or flight state, and a dorsal vagal circuit that facilitates shutdown or immobilization under extreme threat…..

Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 14 Issue 48

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Holidays and Connection

The Christmas and winter holiday season is a unique time to sit back reflect on the past year. To behold the timeless beauty of life. The shared time offers us an opportunity to pause and connect with those who matter or should matter most in our lives. I love the bathroom plaque that says at the end of life it won’t matter what you owned or what you knew, but rather the impact you had in a child’s life. Fortunately, for us, the holidays bring a chance to foster authentic human connections. To actually sit in conspiracy together. These moments are more than just traditions, they are essential for our emotional, mental, and even physical health. In the hustle of modern existence, where schedules dominate and technology often mediates relationships, we are losing this skill set, especially for the younger generations, making it more important to stay focused now.

Let us define human connection: Human connection is the act or feeling of being seen, heard, cared for and valued by another person or group. It is a most primary need for humans starting in infancy when a child needs a mother’s touch and milk. It arises from the countless meaningful interactions that foster mutual understanding, trust, empathy, and shared emotional experiences that ultimately lead to a child’s feeling of safety. The critical time period to establish attachment and connection is the first 2 to 3 years of life. Plus a section of literature review and a recipe of the week.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 33

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Sleep Part IV

Continuing the sleep education from a few weeks ago.

Sleep is a most special event that we all need to continue to focus heavily on in order to live a healthy and long life. It may be the single most important event that we do daily.

Here are a few more quick hits on sleep from the Matthew Walker’s Book and other publications.

1) Aim for a minimum of 7 hours nightly to maintain adequate memory consolidation, immune health and emotional regulation. Young children and teens need 8-14 hours depending on age.

2) Do not eat close to bedtime. Stop eating three hours before you plan to go to sleep. Avoid rapidly digesting refined carbohydrates as they turn into energy quickly raising core temperature which makes it harder to fall asleep as we need our body temperature to drop 3 to 4 degrees F at night to fall asleep. Heavy protein meals at night are not a great idea. Eat the heavier proteins early (before 6 pm) if at all in the evening….plus a section on summer Covid surge.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

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