The Next Normal: Your Health with Dr. Jose Calderon
How does the mind-body connection contribute to illness or wellness? Jose Calderon- Abbo, MD, a Psychiatrist and Medical Director at Imagine Recovery, shares his knowledge and expertise on mind-body medicine and the GI tract in this episode of the Building Us podcast, hosted by Erik Garcia, CFP®, and Dr. Matt Morris, LPC, LMFT.
Episode Highlights:
- Jose mentions that mind-body medicine is a discipline within medicine that understands the interconnection of multiple systems in the body. (9:23)
- Jose shares that mind-body practices help us to understand holistically our well being, the connection within ourselves, and to our environment. (10:41)
- Jose mentions that integration organizes living systems and greater integration is a natural evolutionary step of both individuals and society. (15:54)
- Jose shares that in the eastern traditions, mindfulness is about mind-heart, as one element. While in western traditions, mindfulness is about the realization and recognition that there is a cognitive element and an emotional element. (21:36)
- Jose shares that the GI tract has the largest number of neurotransmitters outside the brain, and it’s connected to the brain physically through the vagus nerve and innervates the entire GI tract. (23:25)
Key Quotes:
- “From my mind-body perspective, medications are very helpful tools, but they’re not the only tool. Lifestyle and our social determinants of health are the ones that are actually weighed the most, that determine our health, well-being or illness.” – Dr. Jose Calderon-Abbo
- “We need to make a concerted effort because we are elements of habit and elements of comfort. When the path of least resistance leads you to industrially tailored foods that are meant to create greater consumption and electronic media that is meant to create greater consumption, then the path of least resistance is problematic. We need to be putting the effort not to fall into it.” – Dr. Jose Calderon-Abbo
- “How are we going to take care of each other? In thinking that taking care of each other in so many ways, the financial aspects of others, the communities of others, the health disparities and inequities that are happening. In taking care of others, we’re taking care of ourselves. So that to me is my message for 2021.” – Dr. Jose Calderon-Abbo
