Dopamine, Screens, and the Path Back to Pleasure with Dr. Kristin Allott

 Welcome back to the Connected Pleasure Podcast. I'm Kayla, your host, and today I am sitting down with one of the favorite people that I have met in the last year or so. Kristen All, she is a naturopath that specializes in mental health and she and I met at the Wellness Fair in Gig Harbor over a year ago.

Um, she has been a wealth of knowledge and someone that I've really enjoyed talking to and getting to know, and I'm excited for you to get to know her too. So, Kristen, would you mind letting my audience know who you are and all the amazing things that you do?

Absolutely. Uh, it, and likewise. It was really fun meeting you.

I, I am, uh, was in the mode of like connecting. Creating a new Rolodex of mental health professionals. And as COVID kind of re-shifted everything, and it's been, um, so great to have Kayla on on that Rolodex because she serves a really important need and hopefully we'll talk a little more about that. But who am I?

So I am a naturopathic physician and acupuncturist and I practice in Tacoma, Washington. But functionally thanks to telemedicine, I practice in the state of Washington because about anybody can get into my office. And for the last 20 years I've been specializing in the physical causes of mental health health.

And so what that means is there, there's a big overlap between fatigue and depression and nutrients and anxiety and, and they're different for sure. You can be anxious and. We should be anxious. An anxiety is actually a really useful emotion, tells us that we need to pay attention and it can get really overwhelming if our body doesn't have the resources it needs to control it.

And so for the last 20 years in my clinical practice, I have been, I have a six appointment process that everybody goes through and basically I'm like, let's look under every rock that could be causing your symptoms and correct it, or at least make sure you have the skills to correct it. Now that we know that it's there.

And, um, I also, uh, am a international lecturer to mental health professionals. And um, and then I have this side passion gig working with, uh, organizations who work with economically disadvantaged people. The main. The, the organization that's done the most with this is the dependency court system. And, uh, so I've, um, there's this crazy concept that I have that people do better if they eat before they do a high stakes event, like stand in front of a judge or a lawyer.

And, but, but that comes back to how we take care of ourselves, which is really my passion is like, let's take care of the body, let's listen to the body that it's trying to serve us and not kill us, or hurt us or bother us. Let's listen to the complaints and, and then we can, you know, have a more interesting, energized, pleasurable life.

And, um, and so I like talking about physiology and teaching people about the body. Um, yeah, I think those are the main things that describe what I do. Yeah. When I to the table.

Yeah. I remember when we first met, and you told me the story of how judges rule differently based on when they've eaten, that they rule differently, like before lunch versus after lunch.

That stuck in my brain and I was like, yeah. And Ellen, the person that talks about glucose and how it's important that we eat because it totally changes how we make decisions. Yeah. And um, yeah, it's really important. And one of the like basics of, like you said, just taking care of our bodies, listening to our bodies, and that's something that our society does not.

Give any credence to whatsoever and tries to make us think that we can work like a robot. And we are not robots. You're not

robots. And we get into this pinned idea where, 'cause the weight loss industry, billion dollar industry has implanted nonsense into our brain. And so we we're gonna do high stress, intellectual things

mm-hmm.

And not eat. Mm-hmm. And then have a mental health crisis. Right. Right. So just to go back to that study, what studies show is that judges who are reviewing files for parole after lunch immediately, the hour after lunch, 65% of the people are considered for parole immediately before lunch, the hour before lunch, zero.

Right. Like that. That's wildly different decision making. Yeah. Based on. Does our prefrontal cortex have food fuel, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, this is like being like, I'm gonna drive to Spokane, but I'm gonna get there with no gas in the car.

Mm-hmm.

Because I want to,

yeah,

yeah. Right. So yeah. Anyway, we do that in all sorts of ways, but then, then I don't, I also don't wanna put another should onto somebody.

Right? So the, the art of it is, let's understand how the body works with glucose and neurotransmitters, and then let's make some decisions, some very small decisions, to see if we can move forward and, and notice the, the flywheel mm-hmm. Of like, that makes me feel better, because then we'll do it.

Mm-hmm.

Why do something? Because it's a should. Let's do it because, right. We feel better,

right? Yeah. Do you ever get pushback? I'm sure you do, being like working with people's bodies, but I have encountered from some of the clients that I have worked with, especially younger clients, like in their twenties, of it just being such a hardship to take care of their bodies.

Like even just taking a shower, brushing their teeth, like cooking food for themselves. I feel like we've gotten to a place in society where people are like, it's hard to take care of my body. I don't know how Well, one, I, maybe I don't know how, but also like the time and effort and care that it takes to like go to the gym and do all these things.

I'll say I'm not a big proponent of the gym. I don't love the gym, but. Just the fact that like our bodies take work to Yeah. Maintain and love and do things for, feels like a lot, it feels like a really big lift for a lot of people. Right. Have you ever encountered that?

Sure. And I think part of it is, is that parenting has changed.

Mm-hmm. And, and the feedback loop to take care of our body has changed. So I, I grew up basically on a farm, so I got up at five 30 every morning and went out and fed the animals, and then I came home from school and had to clean the corral. Right. Like I had move a ton of hay, literally a ton of hay because they drop the hay at the wrong spot.

And so I'm moving 75 pound bales across, across an acre. Right? Yeah. Which is nothing compared to farming. Yeah. Actual farming. Right. And, and the reason why I would go to bed on time is I was exhausted. And there was this positive feedback loop that going to bed helped me function the next day. Right, right.

And, and I ate because I was hungry. Yeah. Right. And I actually was hungry for pro, like my brothers and I would be come home from school and like fry up bacon because we were like, bacon a bat, bacon a bat, bacon a bat because we needed that. Right. Yeah. There was this positive feedback and, and you know, um, we have forgotten to slow down and teach kids that like the reason why we eat mm-hmm.

Is

care of our bodies. Mm-hmm. Right. Like, and, and be like, oh, the reason why we don't eat pizza all the time is because you melt down all. Mm-hmm. Do that. Right. And um, and the reason why we eat healthy foods is because, right. Like we, yeah. We don't, and because we get into these battles and, and when we are both employed par like I'm not blaming the parents, it's just we've shifted to Yeah.

Everything's deliberate. Like I have a friend who's, who had a second child and their, their young daughter was like, so Amazon delivered this screaming thing, right? Mm-hmm. Like that's how things get in the house is Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Right. No connection. Where a thousand years ago, you knew young animals or children came from your mother

mm-hmm.

Or came from the cow or the goat or whoever just gave birth 'cause you saw it.

Yeah.

Like, we're so di disconnected from the sensory world and in our bodies that people Yeah. I have. 20 somethings, or just like, there must be a way that I can get in food besides cooking. Mm-hmm. And it's too expensive to do, you know?

Mm-hmm. Uber all the time. Mm-hmm. I'm like, or they say, it takes me four hours to go to the grocery store. Mm-hmm. And, and, and I'm like, yeah, pro, you know, I'm really efficient after, you know, fifties, I've been practicing, I can like knock that off, but like, I broke down going to the grocery store, getting food.

Right. Like there's a to it, so that it's four hours in a day. Yeah. But it's probably four hours. Right. And, and my pushback to that is what else are you doing with that time? Mm-hmm. Right? And, and this right. Sounds, this is what's what we're competing with, like must. Right. Like I recent, I don't make money on this, but I recently got an app called Opal

mm-hmm.

Limits my access to social media because I, I had a, a death in the family and one of the ways that I coped with the death in the family was to do way too much scrolling. Yeah. Pretty appropriate, like Right. But at some point in time, like, I need to not be doing that. Right. Right. And, um, and I'm like, okay, like this is now not helping my life, but hurting my life mm-hmm.

My life. And, um, and I'm, I'm a lot happier mm-hmm. And getting a lot more done when I'm limiting my time on social media.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well that's a good kind of bridge to talking about pleasure and. I've been having everybody that I talk to define what pleasure means to them so that we can get a really rich definition of what it means.

'cause I, I think one, some people squirm at just hearing the word pleasure and two, you know, it's like, is it sexual pleasure? Is it other types of pleasure? I think there's a lot of different understandings of what pleasure means to different people. So what does pleasure mean to you?

So, I'm gonna define it in two ways.

'cause I'm a neurobiology geek, love it. And so my left hemisphere is gonna be very wordy and my right hemisphere is just gonna recognize it, right?

Yeah.

And so my left hemisphere is gonna say pleasure has a lot to do with the combination of dopamine, with some serotonin and some gaba. And. Particularly the anticipation of pleasure and actually getting to something pleasurable is, is dopamine Dr.

Driven, right? Mm-hmm. So like whatever that object is, right? That can be food, that can be sex, that can be one of the best things in the world. I did this yesterday. I love laying in the sun.

Mm-hmm.

I see a sunspot, like I just wanna go lay like, I'm like, oh, dropping everything. There is a sun spot on the ground in my house, and we're gonna go lay down for 30 minutes until it moves to the point where that can't, like, I just love sunspots,

so like indoor sunspots.

Indoor sun spots. Uh, mostly 'cause I also try and get as much skin involved and so it gets awkward, you know? Yeah. And stuff like that. Right. Yeah. It's not, I don't always, but like, just pulling up my shirt and getting it on my belly, right. Yeah. Right. Um, so, uh, and it's just different. It's just different.

Like, I'm not gonna spend much on that, but, um, so dopamine we think of as the pleasure neurotransmitter and it's really the anticipation neurotransmitter. 'cause like, when we get there, it's usually like, check we got what we wanted. Right. Um, but, um, our, our left hemisphere, um, wants to organize itself towards anticipation and getting what it wants.

And this is, this is originally. We used to get a lot of pleasure off of seeking food. Mm-hmm. Seeking shelter, seeking connection.

Yep.

Co-regulating with others and, uh, and, and right tho. 'cause we, we needed those things and so we were driven to do those things. Right. And now those things kind of happened by default.

Like, you know, I know that we have a huge homeless crisis and you know, we have homes and many of us have always had homes. Right. Like, it's assumed we don't have to go build a new shelter. Right. And, and we don't have to migrate seasonally. Right. To get access to food. Mm-hmm. Right. Or hunt it or gather it.

Like, I mean, can you imagine the pleasure at this time of year? 5,000 years ago when you found a blackberry bush. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Like, so exciting, right? Like I have a, my heart mother, um, she lived to be 99, and when she was a young girl, like the most exciting thing in her year was at Christmas she got an horn, right?

Like, are you kidding me? Yeah. Like, I don't, I almost don't like oranges anymore. Like, yeah, it's not very sweet and like, it's messy, right? Can you imagine? Right? Mm-hmm. And so like the amount of dopamine and the ease in which we can get rewarded is really high. So, so that's my left hemisphere. Like it's a lot of like.

What, like what's gonna give me dopamine? Mm-hmm. And how, on a scale of one to 10, how big of a hit is it gonna be? Mm-hmm. Compared to other things. Yeah. Right. Because I have a blackberry bush in my front yard that I manage. It's a hard one to manage and like I am not out there every day going blackberries.

I'm like, I like it. Mm-hmm. It gives me pleasure. I have a lot of pride that I offer this to the neighborhood and people come and eat blackberries off of it, but it's not a singular excitement kind of thing because it's competing with so many other things in my life. Right. Yeah. So that's a left hemisphere, a lot of blah, blah, blah.

Right. Hemisphere, which we skip. So what happens in the brain? Is if we don't have adrenaline in our system because we are in a safe place and we've eaten, we have access to our prefrontal cortex. Otherwise, we are in our limbic system and it's really messy down there for me and everybody else. We can talk about that.

There's not a lot of pleasure down there, but the right hemisphere, all of our senses first drop into that right hemisphere and it, it can talk, it has words, but it's not as insistent as the left hemisphere. Like, whenever I hear you should and why aren't you? I'm like, hi, a left hemisphere. Your opinion, but the right hemisphere, is that what, what I was describing, like there's a sun spot.

Did you, did you

see, did you see there's a sun spot? And we're, we're gonna, let's go, let's go sit in the sun spot.

Like even, even, even though we have somewhere to go in 10 minutes, let's just go get 10 minutes. And it's this very soft and like encouraging and then, and then we're like sopping in sensory, sensory sensation, right?

Mm-hmm. So like I, I get to lay down, right? I get to relax. Mm-hmm. I get to connect to my body, I get to put warmth on my, on my skin. Mm-hmm. It's usually near a window so I can hear the birds that are as excited about the sun as I am. Right. I can smell like whatever's coming from the outside. Like there might be rain soon or the, there's a pine tree that sometimes, like I have all these senses coming in mm-hmm.

And pulls me into me being Chris, not Dr. All. Not, you know, someone's daughter, not somebody's wife, not somebody, not these labels, but like, just me. And I can feel all the variations of me from like a three-year-old and a five-year-old and a right. Like, I, like, they're, they're all kind of available in that moment and we're okay with all of us.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Like that. I don't know when I can get that and I can, you know, like I try and get that with my meals and I try and get that with my work and I try and get that with my relationships and, uh, you know, what is it in baseball, if you hit a baseball one in four times, like you're a superstar, right?

And so like, if I'm getting it one in 10 times bonus, right? Like, like I just want. Five minutes a day. Yeah. Of like really integrated.

Absolutely, absolutely. There's so many things that are a through line. I think of all the conversations I've had so far that when it's a mind body connection, there's definitely things happening in our mind, but a lot of it is more around the senses, how we're intaking our environment and experiencing our environment through our senses.

And I love that you said that it, it's not, you know, me thinking about myself in relationship to other people or all the roles that I hold. It's really bring me back to my in, uh, um, a way of therapy saying like, our capital s self. Um, that we're just in ourselves and feeling bliss in that moment. There's no stress, there's nothing that I have to be doing right at this moment.

I get to just be in myself.

Yeah.

And you know, a lot of people would call that also like mindfulness and really being in the moment, and again, not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future. Just being in this second, in this moment with yourself and experiencing that moment for what it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's hard to do in our current society for sure. It is. It really is. It really, really

is. So I wanna ask like, how you got into this work, but we were talking about dopamine and I don't wanna leave that thread. Yeah. So if you can tie those things together, great. But. Let's hit on like your stance on dopamine and what's happening in our brains.

That's important for people to know. Um, and then maybe we can weave in how you got into this work and why it's important to you. Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, well, I guess I'll just add, because that it'll help, help, um, explain why I think about these things is so I got into the work because I worked with kids in 30 years ago, maybe 40 years ago.

I, uh, 30 years ago, I work with kids in psychiatric crisis and the, the solution was medication and I was just like, so, so this kid's coming from a shit show. Yeah. And we're putting Haldol on board to numb their brain. Yeah.

Can we do something different? Right. I, I didn't know what it was. Mm-hmm. And so when I started, I um, I was just like, I'm gonna do the physical causes of mental health. 'cause I don't think the solution is five HTP St. John's work, Prozac or Halal, I don't know what it is, but like, there's physiology to that and the DSM has zero physiology and I found that really offensive.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and so I just started seeing people and I had neurophysiology books and I had physiology books, and I had the DSM and I just started like figuring out like, how can I explain this behavior, this emotion through neurophysiology and physiology. Like, how can I understand that? Because a lot of what I do, people have heard before, like the short take home of what happens to most people is eat every three hours protein.

Mm-hmm. For three days, you will have more energy and mental clarity. Done. Just go do that. We have all had that experiment told to us. The weight loss world tells us that, but we track it on losing weight, not do I have more energy and physio energy and mental clarity, less anxiety? Do I feel better within myself?

Because that's not the goal. The goal is a number between my toes, right?

Yep.

medicine, which is, which is: 2000

And so I just started looking for like those overlaps and I was like, if I had overlap, then I was like, oh, this is, this is something, right? This is probably right. And can we put some language around it? Um, so. So, I don't know, every three or four years, there's some new thing that I'm like, oh, I gotta really explain that, right?

Like, I gotta figure out what it is, the why of it. Because if I know the why of it, then I can, I can, I can change my behavior, but no one can tell me to j change my behavior because

mm-hmm.

No way. Right? So, so let's talk about dopamine because right now, the, the com the, the most valuable thing in our culture is attention.

It's not, it's not money, it's attention. And, and where we are focusing our senses, we're numbing our senses, uh, defines. If people, if large corporations are making money mm-hmm. Bottom line. Yep. And so you have to understand what, how, how to attract attention. So I have a friend who's a naturopath and specialize, had a specialty in mental health and addictions.

Right. And so we would geek out on the neurobiology of that. And her husband worked for the gaming industry and it was awesome because she, and he would use the same research to plug somebody in or unplug somebody from an addiction, right? Yeah. Like it's known science. And really it's about how do you control dopamine, right?

And dopamine is about taking action and getting something done and anticipating that you're gonna do that. And so. And so that people can have an embodied sense of dopamine. I have this thought experi experiment. Will, will you play along Kayla? Absolutely. Okay. So if I asked you to chew gum or eat breath mints throughout a day, could you do that for three days?

Sure. Okay.

Three days. Can you not brush your teeth? I mean, I can. Do I wanna do that? No, but I could. What's the body sensation when I ask you to not brush your teeth for three days?

I think you did it with your face, like the E, like yucky. The kind of disgust feeling of, oh, my teeth are gonna feel all gritty and nasty after three days and my breath's gonna smell.

I'm sure.

Yeah. And did any, but you have the breath minstrel. Oh. That's why. Um, and, and did any of your committee, any members have anything to say about this thought experiment?

Uh, like in my brain? Yeah. Yeah. In your brain. Like,

no. No. Okay.

Some people are very clear. They're, they're, they're committees like, absolutely not, right.

And so we have a, a dopamine process, wired process about brushing teeth. Some people are very hardwired to do it every day. And other people, uh, not so much. We could probably find something else, but it's something that I can, I can really get somebody connected to because mm-hmm. Sometimes families come in and they're like.

Hey, my loved one was just in the hospital for three days because they were blackout drunk. And then they hit their head, why don't they just like, this is gonna kill them. Why do they not stop? And I'm like, right, I really want you to not brush your teeth for three days and tell me how easy that is. Right?

Yeah. And the, and the behavior, the amount of dopamine reward for brushing your teeth is like, if we put it on a 10 point scale, it's probably a one or two. Mm-hmm. And alcohol, which is like a five or seven. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna put meth and cocaine really high up. Right? Yeah. And so there's this book called, um, Anne Lamont, maybe I should have looked it up, dopamine Nation.

There's a couple of really good books out there on dopamine, but I loved how she talked about asking if you're getting dopamine through passive means. Or active means.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And this is kind of, and she makes the analogy between debit cards and credit cards, right? Like, if you buy off of debit cards, you go earn the money first.

Right? And then you spend it, right? Mm-hmm. And so there's this natural feedback loop on how much you can, how much reward you can get, right? But if you buy on credit cards, you, you get the reward. Mm-hmm. Then you gotta go work hard. You gotta go work harder to pay it off.

Yeah.

Because there's a penalty in credit cards.

Mm-hmm. Unless you're, you know, like I can hear that some people are like, well, I pay my credit card. Right? Like, we're not talking about it. We're like, we're gonna just put this on credit and pay it off later. Right. Um. Dopamine's kind of that way. So when we exercise, when we make, make a meal, when we put effort into a project, when we set a goal and move towards it, we are creating our own dopamine and we're getting this slow line feed, right?

So like I'm a martial artist and, and so when I first started, you know, uh, it was hard. Like I, there was a lot of things that I had to learn and then I got better at it. And so I would get, you know, it was kind of a dopamine high to get a stick and try and hit somebody over the head and they were trying to hit me over the head.

Like we could do all dopamine, adrenaline over it. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Right. But you can't do that until you've put five, six years into the basics. Right. Yeah. And so you have to be getting little hits of dopamine through your effort doing that. Right. Right. And like honestly, I get a pretty good dopamine high off of cleaning the kitchen at the end of the day.

Mm-hmm. Like, I, like I use the kitchen. I, by the end of the day, it's a disaster. Something, something great about going whoosh and going to bed. Right. And I, and I make a point of telling myself like, look at that, ta-da

clean.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right. So that I am reinforcing dopamine over, you know, over the ones in twos, right?

Mm-hmm. So let's talk about my screen addiction, right? Yes. And my screen addiction and everybody else's screen addiction. Right. Let's talk about the screen addiction. So scrolling is passive. Yes. Like I get to drop. All of my senses out. Mm-hmm. Except for what I hear and see. Right. But it's a really high stimulus.

Yeah. Right. Because I also get to be like, I don't want that. I don't want that. I don't want that. Oh, I want that. Right. Mm-hmm. And, um, and what it does is it gives me like a dopamine high of like three or four. Mm-hmm. But then it drops my baseline. So let's say baseline zero because it's passive Now, uh, it, my dopamine is harder to get to zero, and so I'm like at a negative one or two.

Right. And so that means for cleaning my kitchen, I have to, instead of just get one point, I have to get three points of like enjoying my kitchen. I'm just never gonna get three points out out of cleaning a kitchen ever. Right. Yeah. And so when, when I can control my screen screen time to about a half hour, I, I can tell that my baseline is zero.

Probably if I cut it off, like it would be better, but I'm not there yet. And, um, but like I can tell how I engage the world is really different. Yes. And, and my tolerance for boredom is much higher.

Mm-hmm.

And on the other side of boredom is creativity. And so one of the questions that I'm always asking myself, because the, the main commodity that I can offer the world is my attention.

Mm-hmm.

Is am I a consumer or am I a producer or. What was the other word that I had? Right? Like, am I, am I being a consumer?

Mm-hmm.

That's for me, you know, there's other words that you can use, which, oh, creative. Like, am I being creative? Am I being a producer? Am I right? Like, am I making the choices of what I am doing?

Or am I just simply consuming? Yeah. It's important to consume, right? Mm-hmm. But when I cook food, I am a creative. Yeah. Right? And then I consume.

Mm-hmm.

Right? When I do martial arts, yes. I'm paying somebody for this pleasure, and I am connecting to people. I'm cre, I'm part of creating a community. Last night, I went to a board game night with people, I don't know, like this is just off of Meetup and, and, and I'm creating a moment, right?

Mm-hmm. When I'm on the couch scrolling. It's really, there's a lot of dopamine. It's, it's pleasurable. I don't even know if I wanna use that word. It's entertaining.

Mm-hmm.

Right. But it's, it's not a sensory moment. Yeah. It's a numbing moment. Mm-hmm. What are the things that really drop our baseline right in tr it gives us in the moment dopamine, but then drops our baseline.

Is anything, I mean, you can make anything out of it because certainly obsessions do that, but like, let's talk about the main ones. So, screens, gambling. Mm-hmm. Uh, uh, marijuana, alcohol. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, of course all the drugs for sure.

Yeah.

The illicit drugs are, you know, using, using it. Um. Those are the main ways, porn, addictions for sure.

Right. Like I, and you can, you can make an addiction out of anything. So, uh, tell you just a funny story that I share with people. So is, so when I went lived in Seattle, I, my office was a mile from work. I would go home, make myself lunch, and I would turn on the tv. I grew up with lawyers, so I would just turn on, um, court tv, right.

And that was just a court tv, court tv, court tv. And then we changed, there was something about the TV industry. You had to have a special TV to continue getting it. So I went and bought a new TV at Best Buy. The change happened and I had no TV on my tv. It was not the right tv, and I was mad. And I went and I was like, this was in the tv.

You said it was. And they're like, you can buy this white screen TV, $300. I'm like, I am not spending $300 on a tv. I'm not that interested. I thought, right. Yeah. So because I didn't replace my behavior, consciously replace my behavior with something, my brain defaulted to the next best thing at lunchtime, which is going out.

Hmm.

And now I'm spending $300 a month on eating in restaurants. Right. Which is blowing my budget because I'd thought $300 was too much to spend on a tv. Right. But now I'm doing it every month. And I, so I realized what happened is that I was actually addicted, like I had a behavioral addiction towards watching court tv.

Study as it sounds. And I cut myself off and I didn't replace it, so I did the default replacement. And how I knew that I was really in trouble is, 'cause now I'm mad at all sorts of things and I'm like, we're gonna go home and we're gonna just make dinner or lunch. And, and then my committee said, you know, we have a key to our best friend's house and she lives just down the street and we could go watch TV down there for lunch.

I'm like, oh my God, I'm addicted to court tv. Right? Like, yeah, you'll know that you'll have a be uh, a behavioral addiction when your brain is like, Hey, we have to have this thing and we are going to annoy the hell out of you until you provide it to us. Right. Screens. Oh my God. Right. Um, and they really do give us a lot of dopamine and like they're just set up to deliver, do dopamine.

And

let alone like the violent games or the game playing or the right, like so much, and it takes, it makes it harder for us to have pleasure with a small P or a sexual P.

Mm-hmm.

Pleasure. Mm-hmm. Because we only have so much dopamine to give. So the other place where I see people give away dopamine is they work for Microsoft or Amazon and they stop having goals in their own life.

They just come home and they puddle because that's how they make money is they're like, seek, seek, seek, seek. Do this, do this, do this.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And then your brain's like, woo. Not getting enough sleep is another way to have not enough dopamine, not care of your body. Not enough dopa. Like so many things that we're making it hard to have pleasure, dopamine.

Anyway, I could talk a long time on this, but I'm gonna pause and see if that makes sense or you have any questions or

It does. I mean, there's so many ways I could take this. I think one thing that kept popping into my mind is just the fact that, again, we have created a culture where numbing our senses out, numbing our emotions out is what is preferred over just even taking care of ourselves.

Like you said, growing up on a farm, I had all these responsibilities I had to take care of, and then my body wanted to sleep because it was ready to sleep. It was tired. I wanted to eat because I needed this fuel to keep my body going. I feel like we've divorced ourselves so much from what our bodies are actually driving us to do and what we're meant to do as like a human being.

Then because we're so far off of that, our bodies are like, what the heck is happening? And then we have to like manage it by drinking coffee, by drinking alcohol, by doing all these things to like numb ourselves out to kind of, I think just like cope with the fact that we're not in line with where our bodies are supposed to be.

Yeah. So that's something that kept coming up for me. One gripe that I have as like a mother is like, why did the universe make it so hard for mothers to sleep? Because I know sleep is so important and I, that's probably not something that you have an answer for. But I think that's just one thing that I have a gripe about of being a mother is like, it's so hard with little children to get accurate amounts of sleep.

And I think that is. Really hard, just, you know, if we talk, you get a whole conversation about motherhood and how that's treated in our society, but there are things in life that are really hard on our bodies that are a little bit out of our control. Right. Um, but I think for the most part it's a lot of like self-inflicted.

Not so much like each individual is self-inflicting, but just self-inflicted of our society. Creating the understanding that like our bodies are not the central tenant of what we're supposed to be attuning ourselves to. That we're supposed to, like you said, our attention is on so many other things. And so our body is like the last thing that we have attention to, and a lot of us also are feeling like they don't, most people don't even have a relationship to their body anymore.

That it becomes, I guess kind of back to what I originally said with you is it becomes more of a hindrance to them instead of something that is like. This is the one vessel that I have to walk through this earth on and I need to take care of it. That it just becomes like, Ugh, I have to eat. Ugh, I have to go to the bathroom.

Ugh. I have to sleep. Like these things that take up time that I could be doing other things. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Like, that's what our bodies need for us to do. Right?

One of the metaphors that I use with people is that our body is our most precious 3-year-old.

Mm-hmm.

And if we treat our body like a three-year-old, we have a pretty reasonable creature with us.

Mm-hmm. Right? So the three year olds that I know that go to bed on time, get up on time, get fed regularly, don't get lied to mm-hmm. Get to go out and play, you can actually say, okay, see this clock. I gotta go to a meeting. But as soon as I'm done with a meeting, we're gonna go out, go outside for 10 minutes and they're, they're on board with that.

Right. And our body's on board with that. It's when we go, go, go, go. We ignore it. Ignore it. We treat it like a machine or a slug or you know, like something other. Mm-hmm. That we really get ourselves into trouble and we don't paw and that we're so, you know, again, going back to so divorced from, from the a hundred thousand year template.

Right.

Yeah. So

just to answer your question, like let's think about how motherhood used to happen. Right. So we would sleep in a tent. Mm-hmm. With our 11 relatives. So probably the grandmother was actually there, which is why we think menopause happens. Like we're one of the few organisms that when we become no longer reproductively fit, we get to live.

Yeah.

Right. So we have like grandmothers and aunts and dah, dah, dah, and we're like, oh yeah, you're, you're a breastfeeding. And the other thing, and I saw this at Baer, is we just had a lot of women who got pregnant and then we had a lot of women who are in medical school and they slept in the bed with their newborn.

Mm-hmm. And they're like, this is great. 'cause they would just, like, the kid would wake up hungry and they would just roll over and not have a shirt on, and the kid would latch on and they would go back to sleep, like done. Mm-hmm. And they're like getting six or eight hours of sleep. And so

mm-hmm.

You know, somebody that I listened to, like, they talk to mothers often and they're like, raising kids in a house by yourself is insanity.

Right. And this is what we expect women to do, right? Mm-hmm. And then go to work and Right. Like,

yeah. And be like a totally normal, functioning human being. Very shortly after having a child.

Right. Like, it's not, not, not re none of this is reasonable, but going back to like, we can do it if we understand the why and we drill down on how, on taking care of our bodies and helping people find a, find people who will help us.

'cause that's what I do. I mean, I do this for a living. I know all the stuff to do and, and I have a, I'm like, okay, I need a fitness trainer

mm-hmm.

Whose job it is to keep me and re because I just, I can't do it all on my own. Yeah. Holding the structures and you don't have to always pay for it, but it's about sitting down and writing things out and holding a loosely held plan and being like, I'm gonna put.

Me into this picture. This is when I'm going to eat, this is when I'm gonna sleep, this is when I'm gonna move my body. And like, is that gonna happen? Probably not, but I'm gonna try. Mm-hmm. My husband had this great, he had some health conditions that he needed to exercise and so he would schedule it five days a week.

Mm-hmm. Right.

But, and, and he would cancel two. And when, when it came to the third one, he's like, no, I have a really important P meeting at that time. I can't cancel. So like he put it in the calendar and then he would take out two, but he had to have five in order to keep three. Does that, yeah. Right.

Mm-hmm. Right. We have to schedule ourselves first.

Mm-hmm.

And I think we need to role model if we have children or. I mean, everybody's watching us, right? Mm-hmm. If we role model that, then we're saying it's okay. We're changing the generation and saying, oh, okay. We've now lived in an industrial era for a while, and we're getting that, and so we have to put ourselves first.

Mm-hmm. Because, and I've said that I, I've lectured to CEOs and I, I'm like, we're, we're still using slave and industrial era technology and now with ai, like, I'm not kidding. Like if we're staying employed, we're staying employed because we're a creative. Yes. And in order to be a creative, we have to be in our prefrontal cortex, which means we have to feel safe.

Mm-hmm. We

have to be able to take care of our body. We have to be okay with boredom. We have to really know ourselves and, and, and so we have to organize our days, right? Mm-hmm. And you know, when you talk to people who we recognize as creative is like writers or artists, that's what they do. They're like, here are the four hours that I am going to write.

And it like, I am gonna, I can, I can fill it up with nonsense, right? Yeah. Like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, I'm filling pages

mm-hmm.

Or whatever their system is, right? Yeah. But they figure the system that works for them, but they dedicate structure. They have structure to their day and they hold it to them.

Mm-hmm. Because it gives them pleasure, not because they're flogging themselves. Right. Yeah. I like, there's this, there's a subtlety to like, I'm doing this 'cause it helps me, versus I should,

mm-hmm.

I don't know.

Yeah. It is. Well, and I've heard this from multiple other people, but I love that you brought in that creativity comes out of boredom because most of us also fill our schedules to the brim and never allow ourselves the time to just again, like be in the sun spot, be in a place that we just come back to ourselves and we're not filling our senses with anything beyond just what we can perceive around us and allowing our bodies to calm themselves enough to think of different things and dream and do the things that our brains and our bodies need to do to be able to come up with something to create.

Yeah. Can I share one of my n newest things that's really making m. Pleasure and happiness. Much easier to access in my fa in my life right now. Yes, absolutely. So I, I've always been a journaler of some sort. Some years, a lot, some years not so much. Um, and I have an internal can family, internal family committee.

So I, I believe that I have different voices up here and I can identify them in, it's called Internal Family Systems. If you don't know normal, it's not schizophrenia. Yes. Anyway, um, there's somebody up there who's like, we never get to have fun.

Mm-hmm.

Like, and she's really insistent on it. Yeah. And, and she's young.

Right. And, and me writing or naming with words doesn't stick very well. Mm-hmm. And so I got this big, um, artist paper, you know? Mm-hmm. Like, and, and so every month I. Put September, and then I draw, I, I, I've just re I just decided that like, if I draw for the next 20 years, I'll be competent. Nobody has to see it but me.

Right? I draw, yeah, like a 3-year-old. I don't care, right? Yeah. But I draw out all the times that I got to have fun in the month, right? Mm-hmm. And so, like, I get to see, and, and it's like small fun, right? Mm-hmm. Like I, I'm, I do game night for my neighbors and like, that's just really fun, right? Mm-hmm. And so then I draw out game night, like, and I make a little, and because that's helping get to the right hemisphere because it's, it's an image and it's not blah, blah, blah of the left hemisphere, right?

And I'm capturing it. And so whenever I'm having a pity party that I'm not having fun or I'm not having pleasure, and I might just add like. It's not just fun, it's pleasure. And writing down, catching those small little things so that I can remember it. 'cause our brain is also slotted to remember bad.

Mm-hmm. Survival versus good. And so we really have to spend some time reinforcing, like, I want more of that. Mm-hmm. Right. And then not in a whiny, I mean, I'll do that, like my best friends and I like, lemme kill. Like, what? Right. Like we have mm-hmm. We have parties, but like in a, in a really like, authentic, honest way.

Mm-hmm. So that's my tip.

Beautiful. I mean, it's basically coming back to either a place of gratitude or again, just like looking for the positive instead of the negative.

Right. And it's building in a new dopamine track.

Mm-hmm.

Where I am learning how to wire in different ways of having pleasure in which I am, I'm at the center and I'm not a consumer.

Right, right. Yeah. Or I'm in charge of my attention.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

So before this conversation, you and I had talked about how we can also even talking about sexual pleasure into our conversation. So I would love for you to talk about your experience in working with a sex therapist or a sex professional and the words of wisdom that you have for people that are wanting to work on sexual pleasure in particular.

Sure. So when I started 20 years ago and wanted to talk to people about food. I discovered, so talking, talking intimately about people's food is very intimate. Absolutely. Right. Like, and, and there's a lot of shame and there's a lot of guilt. Right. And like, I got pretty good at that. Mm-hmm. And then all of a sudden, mainly women would come in and they would wanna talk to me about sex with their husband.

And I was like, oh. Um, we did not have any classes in them. Yes. And I haven't been married. And, um, yeah. Uh, so I, uh. There was a woman who had been a sex therapist for like 40 years in the nineties. Like, she, like, wow. I mean a pioneer. Pioneer, right? Yeah. And everybody was like, oh, you should go to Elizabeth.

And I was like, okay. So I, I signed up 'cause I am happy to get consultation and so I, I saw her for probably six months and it was fabulous because I was there not only to get some tips on what I should do with people coming into my office bringing this up, so I'm not like deer in the headlights, but also like understanding my own sexuality.

'cause quite honestly, I grew up Catholic. Like I got nothing. Mm-hmm. Except for no. Right? Like that was the big tip, right? Yeah. And so, um, and so one, what I would take from that is like one of the best times to go see a sex therapist or somebody who really understands this topic is when you're single.

Right, because one of the mistakes that women make is the, and men too, but I think men are happy to have sex on their own, where women kind of like, you know, it is in service, uh, in heterosexual. Right. It's in it like, it's about the relationship, right? Yep. And so there was a couple of tips that I took from her, but like the big tip that I always start with when women are having problems with sex or not interested in sex, is I ask them, well, like, how much sex do you have with yourself?

You're like, none. And I'm like, well, that's part of the problem, right? And so, and I have about a 50% success rate on this assignment, but I'm like, go to your husband and say. My naturopath or sex therapist, I'm sure that, you know, whoever you're seeing has given me assignments so that we can have more sex.

Will you help me with it? And he will probably be like, yes.

And

so here's the deal. If you have kids, or even if you don't have kids, he's in charge of making dinner three days a week. And in that hour you get to go up to the bedroom or the bathroom or whatever, wherever you wanna be, and figure out how your body likes to have sex.

Mm-hmm. With just you. Mm-hmm. Right. And get some new toys, and get some new books and do different things because we have to update our formula. Yes. Probably at least every decade. And certainly any BA big transition to having kids, having menopause, getting married, whatever, whatever. There's gonna be an update and I'm gonna put.

When they talk about the SSRIs, the antidepressants, that mm-hmm. They have mosquito. That is not my experience in that. It just moves the formula and most people don't go find the formula again. Right. Interesting. The whole whole point of an SS I is, there's something going on in your life that you're having a hard time with, and so we're gonna, we're gonna make your emotional box smaller.

So fear and anxiety is less, but pleasure and joy is also less, it's just a smaller box. And with smaller box we're, the metaphor I use is we're rearranging your living room so that you can see where the stinky mess is, and you must address the stinky, stinky, stinky mess. Or the antidepressant will become ineffective, is what I've seen.

Mm-hmm. But when you put it in, you arranged where your sex drive is. So you have to go build a new pattern to get there. Like, you know, like, I need to have the laundry clean, I need to have the bedroom clean. I need to have a candle. I need to have lavender and not rose. I need to have a hot bath and this is how, this is how I need to be touched.

Right. And that might be really different than when you were 18. Yes. Right. Yes. Uh, and so those are, those are my tips around sex therapist. Like it was really, it was some of the best therapy that I got, quite honestly, like in terms of like concrete helpful things. Mm-hmm. In my life was seeing somebody who was like, okay, you wanna have more sex?

Okay. I will march you towards more sex. Yeah. But it was a lot of really basic stuff that I like. I was like, oh, huh, okay. That's, that's good to know. And then later when I got married, it was really helpful to be be like, okay, I need to explain some things to you about my body.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, even just you saying that of I need to explain some things to my partner about my body.

Most people are not even in that realm, that one, knowing anything about their body is light years away. And two, having a conversation and communicating around what they need, how they need it, is also like totally foreign concept. Um, and those are the big things that, as you know, a sexual professional and somebody that really wants to help all people, but especially women.

Become more comfortable with themselves, become more in tune with, yeah, what do I want? What do I need? How do I feel pleasure in my body? Those are all the things that I work on. So I I'm so glad that you had that experience. And it's interesting too, because when I was at the Wild Feminine Fair, which was like the new incarnation of the Wellness Fair this year, um, in Gig Harbor, a handful of people came up to me or they kind of said in passing, like, oh, I need to find a partner first before I would need your services.

No,

and I wish at the time I would've been bolder and like being like, no, no, no, no, no. Come back, come back, come back. Because I was like, oh, okay, well, I'll let that one go. But I think next time I would be more bold in saying, hold on a second. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about why you feel that way and how, you know, doing this work.

When you don't have a partner is actually really, really beneficial too. Right.

And uh, I will say, at least it's been said to me by more than one person. So as, as somebody who takes care of my body as somebody who's six foot Right. Which gives me a lot of physical confidence, who's a fourth degree black belt?

Like there's a whole segment of men skipping to the heterosexual. But I'm sure this is, this is true that this is true in general.

Mm-hmm.

Because confidence goes a long way.

Yes.

Right. And like wouldn't it be an amazing gift for somebody who's like, my life goal is to find a partner that I can match and I'll Most men, not all men, I mean they've got their own problems sexually For sure.

But like being able to come into a relationship and be like. I have worked on this, this is what I know and here's the formula so that you can approach me and I will probably say yes.

Mm-hmm.

Like that's amazing because you've already said yes to your body over and over and over again. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Like I think that that's a great formula to a really good relationship. So

absolutely.

Go see. Absolutely. Go see Kayla before you get into the relationship. Really. I mean, when you turn 25, like when you get an adult brain go, go get this worked out.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like learn, go learn about finances, go learn about emotional attuned conversation and go learn about sex.

Like if you pin down those three things in life, like your anxiety is gonna be so much less.

I

agree.

So anyway, I agree.

Well, I think this is a good place to wrap up. I just want to reflect on my experience in this conversation. I always love talking to you, but I'm just actually astounded at the way that your brain works. I think our brains work very similarly, but you are somebody that, one, you are great at bringing community together.

I see that in every time I talk to you, you are trying to create some type of community, and I just really love that about you. You're kind of, you're not afraid to go talk to people. You're not afraid to. Maybe you are afraid, but in my experience, you seem like you're not afraid. To just bring people together or go seek out community when you're feeling like, like there's a lack for you.

And that's just not something that most people do. So I so appreciate that in you and you're just like a wealth of knowledge. I love how you're like, okay, I was working with children. I saw that this isn't working, and I didn't believe in that. And so then I just had all these books that I had to survey and figure out how am I going to integrate this knowledge and work with people on this.

And again, like that's the creative and that's like a weaver. Bringing all this knowledge together and figuring out, okay, how do I use it in a way that's gonna be most helpful for the people that I'm trying to help? Um, it's just, it's beautiful to witness and I really enjoy having conversations with people that their brains work like that because it's not something that is very common.

Um, so it was just a delight to talk to you, and it was, it was pleasurable. It was very pleasurable talking to you and having this conversation and knowing you and I, I have to have you back because you're just like a wealth of knowledge on so many things. I feel like we could pick one topic and talk about it for multiple hours.

Um, so thank you so much.

Well, thank you so much. This was a pleasurable conversation. I do. I'm gonna take a moment to tell people how to connect with me. Yes, yes. Uh, I have a website, kristin all.com. Um, which I'm sure there'll be a link, uh, somewhere, uh, when this gets posted. And then, um, but there's some resources on there.

I have a newsletter that people can sign up for. I actually wrote a book on how to have more energy and mental clarity. Fuel your brain, not your anxiety. Is the book. Um, it's on, uh, you can buy it in paper, audible. Electronic, all the normal sites. 'cause it was published by a new, a new harbinger. Um, and, and then I do have groups to connect to.

So I have a learning collective for, that's mostly for mental health professionals, for people in the helping professions. And then I have a meetup, uh, that hap happens once a month in Washington, um, whose name gets changed, but I bet if you put my name A-L-L-O-T-T in meetup, it'll come. And this is just asked ques q and a on, on body and mental health with Sarah Wilberg, who's a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

It's kind of a fun gig because I do like giving people opportunity to engage. So

anyway, so cool. Those are

all cool. And then Instagram and all of that. 'cause. I try and do that a little, but I'm not a creative yet. I'm just a poster. But I'll post this. That'll this'll be fun to post.

Yeah. Well, I've Googled you and you, you've been out there for a while.

I don't know if this is like creepy to say, but I have Googled you just to find your website and you have a lot of stuff out there. So if you Google Kristen all you, you will find her. 'cause she is, she's out there. She's been out there for a while and you've been doing great work for a long time. I try.

We all

right. We, we

do. So

anyway, thanks so much for doing this. This has been a lovely podcast and I look forward to connecting in the future.

Same here. Thanks so much.

Thank you.