Helping Dysregulated Kids with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge Rational Wellness Podcast 472
Regulation First: Nervous System Dysregulation, Root Causes, and Practical Tools with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge
Dr. Ben Weitz interviews Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge about nervous system dysregulation in children and families, defining it as chronic over- or under-reactivity to stimulation that keeps the body stuck in stress states instead of returning to calm. They discuss multifactorial causes, the “stress cup” model, and concerns about overreliance on diagnostic labels versus identifying root causes. Dr. Roseann describes how qEEG brain mapping informed her clinical work, including identifying patterns linked to ADHD misdiagnosis, head injuries, tick-borne illness, gut issues, and nutrient deficiencies, and contrasts verification methods like SPECT. She outlines her “Regulation First” approach and CALMS protocol, emphasizing micro-practices such as diaphragmatic 4-7-8 breathing and somatic tools like the heart hug. They cover nutrition’s role (Mediterranean diet, protein, healthy fats, blood sugar, microbiome diversity), restrictive eating as linked to dysregulation, PANS/PANDAS and Lyme challenges, and moderating device use; she shares resources, book, and upcoming certifications.
00:00 Show Intro and Subscribe
01:03 Meet Dr Roseann Capanna-Hodge
02:02 What Dysregulation Means
04:03 Why Kids Are More Stressed
07:08 Diagnoses vs Root Causes
11:21 Regulation First Framework
13:09 qEEG Brain Mapping Insights
17:54 Head Injury vs PANS PANDAS
22:11 Neurofeedback and Finding Specialists
24:38 CALMS Protocol and Next Steps
25:31 Micro Stress Resets
26:16 Belly Breathing Basics
28:43 Make Breathing Automatic
30:45 Heart Hug Somatics
33:05 Bottom Up Regulation
35:41 Food Mood Connection
38:25 Restrictive Eating Explained
40:25 PANS PANDAS And Lyme
46:23 Lyme Testing Misinformation
48:12 Devices Nature And Wrap
49:55 Resources And Closing
52:37 Podcast Outro
Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, a licensed mental health expert, founder of The Global Institute of Children’s Mental Health, host of The Dysregulated Kid Podcast, and author of the bestselling book, The Dysregulated Kid. Her website is DysregulatedKid.com.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.
Transcript:
Dr. Weitz: If you’re looking for clinically useful insights, not wellness hype, then this is the place for you. Welcome to the Rational Wellness Podcast, the podcast for functional and integrative practitioners who wanna practice with greater clarity and precision. I’m Dr. Ben Weitz, and each week, I sit down with the leading clinicians, researchers, and lab innovators to explore the science, lab testing, and clinical reasoning behind modern root cause medicine. This is a show focused on practical, evidence-informed insights that you can actually use in patient care. Please subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. Please tell your friends and colleagues, and if you could give us a ratings and review on Apple or Spotify, we would certainly appreciate it. Finally, to access the show notes and the full transcript, please go to my website, drweitz.com. [00:01:00]
Welcome to the Rational Wellness Podcast. Today, we’re speaking with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, a licensed mental health expert, founder of the Global Institute of Children’s Mental Health, host of The Dysregulated Kid podcast, and author of the new bestselling book, The Dysregulated Kid. For more than 30 years, Dr. Roseann has helped children, teens, and families struggling with ADHD, anxiety, OCD, mood disorders, learning challenges, behavioral issues, and other neurodevelopmental conditions. She’s known for her innovative approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of nervous system dysregulation, which is part of our functional medicine model, rather than simply managing symptoms. Roseann, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Well, I’m so glad to be here. I’m [00:02:00] really looking forward to this conversation.
Dr. Weitz: So what does it mean when we say a child is dysregulated?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah, and, you know, I’m glad you’re starting with that question because the word dysregulation is sort of everywhere out in the world and the same applies to an adult of any age, a child of any age. When we talk about the nervous system dysregulation, in simple terms, we’re saying that how our body, how our sensory system, how our brain, every aspect of our body, whether it’s overreacting or under-reacting to stimulation in our environment, it’s feeling things too much, and it causes our nervous system to move into a stress state.
And a stress state is normal, right? We have something called an autonomic nervous system, or ANS, and our body is supposed to get stressed when we ha- feel that something is stressful, right? You know, you think about… I w- I had this experience over the weekend [00:03:00] where I was in a hotel, and they had… You know, there was a kid who was just about to go out the door, and somebody else was coming in.
He was probably, like, maybe 19 or 20 months old, and the father was just sort of hanging out there, and I said, “Oh my gosh, this kid’s gonna be hit in this door.” And I went and grabbed him, right? My body went into a stress state. Then my next stress was, “Is this dad gonna be mad at me?” And I said, “Hey, I’m Dr. Roseann. I’m a child psychologist. Are you okay with me?” And he was like, “No, thank you so much.” But my body went into a fight. It went right into action. So when we are stressed, we’re supposed to go into fight, flight, or freeze, and then it’s supposed to come down into a nice, relaxed parasympathetic state. But what’s happening is we’re moving into these chronic states of activation, not necessarily from big things like a kid getting caught in a big door but everyday stressors. And dysregulation is when our body is really in this state where [00:04:00] it’s can’t release its stress.
Dr. Weitz: Right. And it seems like dysregulation is way more common. And one reaction to some of this is, “Well, that’s just because these kids aren’t being taught properly, and you just gotta beat ’em, and we’re being too nice to ’em,” and all this kind of stuff
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. I mean, I think people think there’s a thing that’s leading to this, like- Right … poor parenting. Right.
Dr. Weitz: Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Bad diets, too much devices, and all these things. And what I’m saying is, there’s a lot of things that cause us to disregulate. What’s differ- different today, Ben, than it is for when we were roaming around in the, you know, the ’70s and ’80s- Right … and ’90s, and our ear- even our early 2000 babies, right, is that we didn’t have things that caused our nervous system to be in a stress state all the time, [00:05:00] right? So we have constant access. Forget about everyone wants to make devices the devil. I am not, I do not believe devices are gonna be the end of us. They’re part of our mod- modern life. The problem is, we now as a society, particularly Americans, think we can just live in full tilt and not have moments of calm to reset our nervous system.
And so when we talk about kids being disregulated, and parents being ridiculously disregulated as well, it’s a multifaceted issue, and a- at its core isn’t one thing, it’s many things. I talk about the nervous system as a stress cup, right? So we have a cup, and you can’t just pour and pour, and your cup can take it, right? It will overflow. And so it’s the same thing with the nervous system. It has to have capacity to be able to do other things. It has to go back down. That’s what gives us the [00:06:00] capacity to get it in its relaxed state so that you can pay attention, so that you don’t, you’re not so irritated and you can learn and problem solve, and take things in. What’s happening is we have these kids, for a variety of reasons, that are in chronic stress states, and they’re very emotional and reactive to things. And I think we can all think of a lot of adults like this too.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely. It’s interesting. You use the same model that we in the functional medicine world use to understand autoimmune disease, that there’s this bucket, and when you put in inflammation from food sensitivities, and then some chronic infections, and then some blood sugar problems, and then some other stresses, and then the bucket overflows, and you start getting these autoimmune reactions. And so we start emptying out the bucket, and remove some of the food sensitivities, and remove some of the chronic infections, and then you get to a point where the body can deal with [00:07:00] it.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah, I hadn’t heard that model in, I mean, in compare, in talking about just overall the body, but of course it makes sense, right? Yeah. It’s, you know, and I try to use, you know, I’m dealing with stressed people. I’m dealing with people that are maxed out maybe have a clinical mental health diagnosis or five, and yeah. And I try to, you know, they have a shopping cart of full of diagnoses. You know, I’m no longer in clinical practice and but for 30 years, people with very complex mental health issues, particularly kids of all ages, used to fly in over, all over the world, which is what happens to many of my functional brothers and sisters who are listening, and because they want quality care and they unfortunately can’t find it. And they would come in, Ben, with a list of diagnoses, right? And they would start-
Dr. Weitz: I mean, I know that’s the way our medical system works. It’s required if you [00:08:00] wanna have insurance cover treatment or cover medication. But is it really helpful to have all these diagnoses, or shouldn’t we just be looking for the root causes and work on that?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. I mean, I
Dr. Weitz: think func- Because sometimes patients walk in owning those diagnoses, you know?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Totally.
Dr. Weitz: I have this
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: I couldn’t agree with you more, and, you know, I’ve been functional since 1992.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Good old early ’90s. People were like, “How did you learn then?” I was like, “I would get books.” I went into microfiche. And they’re like, “What’s microfiche?” You know? I think… And I love to tell of how, you know, the first day- … I went down there, I was like, “Vitamin D? What is this?” And I was so lucky. I was in a doctoral program, ’cause I was work– Here’s the reality. I worked with neurodivergent kids, and when you work with neurodivergent kids, you [00:09:00] know what they’re being told to do just doesn’t work, right?
And what was I trained? Psych meds and talk therapy. Right. Waste of time in a dysregulated nervous system. The, the brain does not absorb in a activated state. It’s like asking somebody to learn how to swim when they’re drowning.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Okay? So when I– Because I work with neurodivergent individuals, I just had to think differently. Like, how was I… I knew they weren’t regulating, right? And so when I think about people owning their list of diagnoses, right? People don’t want these diagnoses. They’re trying to understand what is keeping them stuck, and how the heck do they get better? Right. And that’s what diagnoses for me, when it’s the right diagnosis, it’s a bucket of understanding, right?
I’m the m- I married into a 100% dyslexic family. Every single Hodge is a dyslexic. There isn’t– So my boys are dyslexic, right? And it’s so funny. [00:10:00] Nobody told me, and then when my youngest was two and a half, I was like, “This kid’s, like, dyslexic.” Like, I could see it. And he, oh my gosh, is he dyslexic. And then I go to them, and I was like, “Why don’t you…”
They’re all boys, and I’m like, “Like, are, is anybody else in the family dyslexic?” And they’re like Oh of course. We all are, you know? And I’m like, they’re also many of them intellectually gifted, so they kinda get past it. But dyslexia’s a bucket of understanding. When you understand, right, I knew exactly what my Giancarlo, I knew exactly what treatment he needed.
He never went to a public school. He only got this dyslexia treatments. He’s a great reader. So if I didn’t have that bucket of understanding and I thought maybe he… I mean, I knew he didn’t have a focus problem. The kid’s totally focused. But if I thought something else, I thought he was being lazy or resistant, whatever, some other negative word that we do- Right
Dr. Weitz: I
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: might not have gotten him the right help. And I think what happens is they come in with a laundry list. In [00:11:00] all those years of working, over 30 years with people, 50% of the people who came to me had a diagnosis of ADHD, but didn’t. They had something else. Right. And I think that says a lot, right? And again, that’s not a knock.
I mean, there, I… The other 50% did have it, or maybe didn’t know they had it. So we just want people to go down the right road. And what I have found in all these years, and I know this, right, in Regulation First, which is my methodology, I know that we don’t regulate the nervous system, healing isn’t gonna happen.
Right. If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen a lo- it’s gonna be slow. But the nervous system, being in a sympathetic dominant state, its resources are being used. It’s not gonna allow the body to heal. It’s part of, like you said, in your b- your bucket, it’s one of those pieces that allows the body to have more capacity to heal.
Dr. Weitz: You know, I’ve had a lot of discussions about this, and I’m always hearing that we’re either in [00:12:00] sympathetic or parasympathetic, and I can’t help but wonder, is it really just two, or can you be somewhat sympathetic or somewhat parasympathetic, you know? I gotta think it’s pro- probably more nuanced than you’re either- Yeah in sympathetic or you’re in parasympathetic.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. I mean, absolutely, right? There’s different states of where you are. And some people, like myself, right, who’s practicing, Right now I have a PEMF device in my pocket. So I’m constantly doing things to…
I hate lights, and so when I do these interviews, I have to do lights, so I have to build more capacity in my nervous system. But because I’ve trained my nervous system to be calm, it can find calm so easily and quickly. Like, you know, when they take your blood pressure and the people are like, “Wow,” like, “It’s really good.”
And I was like, “Well, it’s ’cause I’m doing some deep breathing right [00:13:00] now.” And they’re like, “Wow.” You know? But I can get myself in a state. So to answer your question, we… It’s not all or nothing. It’s how we moving in and out of them. Now, what we do know, and what I have personally seen clinically over these 30-something years, is that once people are, you know, physically ill and they’re, you know, they have a lot of neural inflammation.
That was my specialty, PANS, PANDAS, OCD, complex, you know, autism, all these cases, right? So they would have lots of inflammation. Literally- off detoxification systems, like their detoxification systems weren’t working, and they had a nervous system that was so jacked up. And this isn’t me. I did qEEG brain maps.
I did o- have done over 10,000 of them, so I have
Dr. Weitz: data. Oh,
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: wow. Yep, yep. So I have data. I think possibly have the largest database of brain maps with neurofeedback.
Dr. Weitz: And do you still do the qEEG brain mapping?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: No, I’m done. Okay. I’m done. I’m done- Okay … from all clinical [00:14:00] care.
Dr. Weitz: And how did that help inform your clinical care?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: It changed everything, Ben, for me. Wow. Because when I did a brain map, it was, first of all, in seconds I can look at a brain map, I can tell you, you know, you know, I use them diagnostically as part of a clinical intake, right? So I could tell you whether you had ADHD or not. I could see if you had the patterns associated with autism, and then we would follow it up with an interview and really find out.
Like, okay, sounds like there’s a lot of red flags here. I was 100% accurate in telling you had a tick-borne illness. How do I know I’m 100%? ‘Cause I made them go to get medical testing after to verify what we saw. So it told me a lot. I could tell the, I could tell if you had gut issues, right? This is only because I’ve done-
Dr. Weitz: Really?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: over 10,000.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. And you could even see certain patterns associated with high-level nutrient deficiencies. Now, again, I always [00:15:00] substantiated with another medical provider. But this br- just to understand a qEEG, let’s back up what that is. So a qEEG measures the surface electrical activity of the brain. And so it’s not an EEG, but it’s the same technology. Then it’s put into a database, it’s analyzed, and you are compared, in my database, you were compared against males and females around your age, and it had people with and without issues. Okay? So it was a database with people with clinical issues.
I prefer that. There’s a whole controversy in my field. We won’t get into that. But and so then I pa- pattern analyzed, and there would only be certain things that could produce… For example, if I had somebody with extreme amounts of delta, which is our sleep brainwave, there’s only a short list of things that could be. So then you rule it out with your clinical intake. You could see brain injuries and birth trauma very easily, very quickly. Wow. And they’re [00:16:00] just a great tool. So they informed for all these decades, they informed my clinical care- Wow … and the plan I made for them.
Dr. Weitz: Wow. You know Dr. Hadaya?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: No. I know the name, but I don’t know
Dr. Weitz: that- he’s in New York City. He’s-
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Oh.
Dr. Weitz: He’s a functional medicine psychiatrist, and I interviewed him a few years ago, and he use, uses qE- QEG
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: I feel like you, s- I feel like when we met in San Diego you might have mentioned his name. You’re the second person recently that mentioned his name.
Dr. Weitz: Well, he spoke in San Diego.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Okay. So-
Dr. Weitz: He was the guy
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: who spoke about the AI. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I… Yeah. You know I didn’t go. I basically heard no talks. I went there- Oh. … and hung out with my friends.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Okay.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: This is an integrative functional conference. But I tried to get in to a couple ta- I did try, but every time when you have a lot of friends, it’s like, “Let’s go here. Let’s talk.” It was great. It was awesome. I don’t regret it [00:17:00] at all. I can watch ’em, the replays. Right. So I’ll go and watch a replay. But I don’t know him personally, but, you know, people that doing high-level QEG brain maps, and if you’re interested in a brain map, you would go to bcia.org, and that guarantees the person is certified, and you have to do a lot to be certified.
So I’m- Okay … you know, I’m not saying not certified people are bad, but it is sort of the Wild West out there. Okay. So, you know, you’ll guarantee. And please don’t expect somebody to have the skills that I have. I spent equally as much time studying nutrition you know, all the different aspects of health.
Right. Because I specialize in Lyme disease and PANS/PANDAS, I’m a member of ILADS. I mean, I had to really learn- Okay … all what was causing all these things. So, you know, but there’s great people out there, and, again, no, I’m not practicing. Don’t contact
Dr. Weitz: me. So how many of the kids with dysregulation have PANS/PANDAS?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: You know, it’s [00:18:00] such a great question. So first of all, you know how sometimes you specialize in something and you’re like, “Well, everybody’s got it”? I don’t believe that. And in recent years, some of my most complex cases who came in 100% certain they were PANS pandas were not. And so we saw that right on a brain map, and they resolved their issues.
One case was twel- 12 years of issues. We resolved it in less than three months.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: So yeah.
Dr. Weitz: What happened in that case?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Wrong diagnosis. So, it was multiple head injuries. Oh. And what the, the problem was… And they allow me to talk about this, this family, but not say their name. But basically what happened was, this happens all the time, Ben. So you tell people… So when you have head injuries, right, so sometimes you’re very lucky and you can see like, oh, this happened right here, in your, you know, your right t- frontal lobe, and they’re like, “Oh yeah you know, this happened to [00:19:00] me.” And for example, I had a young man many years ago, and I said, “Listen, you have a very serious head injury at the top of your head. It’s a line. There’s no way this can be anything but-“
Dr. Weitz: And you could see that on a QEG?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: QEG. I said, “This is a such an unusual spot to have a head injury that there’s no way that it can’t be.” Okay? And he wasn’t a very tall person. And just FYI, who gets more head injuries, right? Number one is actually slip and falls.
People don’t know that. But men tall men that are over 6’4″ get a lot of head injuries because they literally are bumping into things, and then of course, athletes of all kinds, right? Sure. So, so, so and then nobody ever thinks birth trauma because the doctor’s not like, “Hey, your kid got stuck in the birth canal and we had to use forceps.
He might have a problem later in life.” ‘Cause that’s a lawsuit, so they’re not gonna red flag it [00:20:00] for you, you know? And so when I saw this m- young man with a line literally at the top of his head and I said to him, “Listen, you’ve done a lot of drugs. I need you to think.” And he sits there and he goes, “Oh yeah, I jumped off a roof into a pool, and I cut the top of my head open and I had to go to the, you know, ER and get stitched up.”
And and he was like, “But I already had problems before then.” And I was like, “Well, did they accelerate?” And he was like, “Yeah, Dr. Rowe.” You know, so that, that was that case. But the other young man, what had happened was is they were so hung up on an incident that happened that resulted in being psychiatric in-placed, and he was much older.
And I said, “There are multiple signs of head injuries here. Multiple.” So I said, “Go back home and think about it. And just go back. Go back when they were… He was really little.” Because I [00:21:00] knew it had started before age six, but really the real problems didn’t start until he was, like, 12, 13. And so they went back home, and they were like, “Dr. Rowe?” You’re 100% right. There actually was a major fall that happened to him, but he didn’t get knocked out. He didn’t, wasn’t… You know, we didn’t take him to the hospital, and he was close to five years old. And really his problems started probably six to eight months after that. And
Dr. Weitz: I was like- For clinicians who don’t do QEG, how can they determine that there was brain injury other than history?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah, it’s history. You know, I have sent people, Ben, to get like, you know, SPECT scans I would say would be the other really- Okay … great, you know, way to get it done. And then- That’s what
Dr. Weitz: Dr. Amen likes …
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Dr. Amen. Because, you know, I’ve had people get MRIs and CAT scans, and only in my most extreme- It doesn’t
Dr. Weitz: It doesn’t show anything, right?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: It doesn’t show anything, and it’s expensive, and [00:22:00] stressful, and time-consuming. But we definitely have verified it with SPECT scans before. But Daniel Amen also does QEG and SPECT scans, so you know- Right … it’s a great way. And here’s the deal. This is what I say to, what I used to say to people, because I did a lot of neurofeedback.
I still have a PEMF device called ComPEMF. Would you rather spend your money on trying to verify it, or would you rather spend your money on a well-known treatment like neurofeedback- Right … to actually change the brain? Right. Create lasting change. We can’t say permanent, but we, it does create lasting change.
There’s research as far as 10 years out, and then just anecdotally what I have seen in people. And again, I’m no longer doing it, I just think it’s a wonderful treatment. You go to bcia.org and find a licensed per- You know, you definitely wanna get a licensed person doing this. And really try to find somebody who specializes in whatever area you’re struggling in.
Right. You know, if it’s anxiety, get an [00:23:00] anxiety specialist. Because there’s always a behavioral component, right? We have the brain component, we have the nervous system stuck on, but then how are we gonna change those behaviors that are sort of ingrained on autopilot? And I’m such an
Dr. Weitz: optimization- that’s a little tricky.
I don’t think that mental health professionals market themselves as anxiety experts or depression experts specifically. And- And then we have a very limited number that actually are taking a functional medicine approach, so.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. Sad, but true, Ben.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: So, you know, pretty much all my phys- friends are physicians of some kind.
I don’t have a lot of mental health providers that I hang- Right … out with, ’cause they’re very rigid. And, you know, here’s the deal about mental health. People are drawn to mental health because they have their own unresolved traumas. Right. And they feel that they wanna help other people. So, you know, this is coming from somebody who’s a therapist and a psychologist.
Right. And I say that with love.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: And you can’t help [00:24:00] somebody else until you do your own work. And the way therapists used to do is- Right … you used to have to do your own therapy.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: So I think it’s great that we wanna help people, but we have to make sure we have dealt with our own things.
So-
Dr. Weitz: Right …
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: the other part about therapy, there are many therapists who specialize, particularly in pl- things like OCD, right? So just to understand, a generalist is never a good idea. You wanna go to somebody who really has expertise, because first of all, you can talk to them without explaining. They’re gonna actually hold the space for you and explain for you. So but I am trying to change things in mental health. Part of what I’m doing is, you know, I have this, you know, in in my method I have something called CALMS, C-A-L-M-S. And it’s basically just a simple acronym. It’s a CALMS dysregulation protocol, and it’s my trademarked methodology to just simplify how we’re teaching people to regulate. So I am certifying [00:25:00] parents at a very low cost. They’re my most important thing, people. And I, and really, what am I doing? I’m just teaching you how to regulate your nervous system. Stupid simple. Like h- everyone’s talking about it. Okay, so- I’m about action …
Dr. Weitz: how do, how do we regulate the nervous system?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. Well, first of all, our stress cup, right? So you know, Ben, we love doing things, right? Big things, right? I’m going to massage tonight at 7:30 PM. Sure. You know, I go every other week. It keeps me, keeps my body in line. That’s part of what I do. It keeps my inflammation down. So we love to do big things. Big walks, you know, this, that. But what we’re missing is the little micro ways to empty our stress cup all day. When we pull from the stress cup all day, our cup doesn’t fill, right? And we have much more capacity to be, you know, loving to our annoying neighbor y- meet a deadline at work, manage your [00:26:00] child your teenager slamming the door at you.
You know, whatever is going on, you have to have capacity for patience. So what are simple things that anybody can do, right? So the first thing is something everybody talks about, and people don’t realize how valuable it is. It’s breathwork. It is doing what we call diaphragmatic or belly breathing.
And diaphragmatic breathing is the quickest, hello, it’s free, and it’s actually the easiest way to pull you out of a stress state into a calm, sympath- parasympathetic state. I call that the hot tub state. Now, what you need to do, and people say, “It doesn’t work,” it doesn’t work when you only do it once in a while and you’re only doing it when you’re stressed.
So what we need to do is change how we’re working things. We actually wanna regulate more in moments of regulation so that when we go to use our tools when our body is freaking out or, [00:27:00] you know, the aft- right after I pulled that kid out of the door What I automatically just subconsciously did a couple deep breaths to pull me down, and then off I went to hang out with my friend in the city.
So doing a bre- breathwork, number one, people do it wrong. Okay? So we actually, when we wanna belly breathe, we wanna fill up our belly like a balloon, okay? We don’t wanna breathe in our chest, which is what most people are doing. And this is why I have this conversation, ’cause when I had advanced readers of my brook- book, about a third of them told me they were breathing wrong.
And these were, like, highly educated women who were like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been breathing wrong and I didn’t know it until you said.” So you wanna, I like to do a four, seven, eight breath. Four seconds in, right? So you’re gonna breathe, you’re gonna fill up your belly, hold it for seven, exhale for eight.
You’re gonna do that three times in a row. That’s the minimum, and I wanna see everybody’s take their [00:28:00] phone out and set a timer and do that three times a day. Now, once you start doing this, you’re gonna be like, “Wow.” Like, “Oh you know, every time my, my teenager growls at me, I’m no longer annoyed.” You know, like, or you can have a little humor, like you have space for humor.
You start to see subtle changes. That is my number one quickest way. There are many other little things that, that you can do. Some people don’t like breaths. I like somatic practices, like whether it’s butterfly tapping or a heart hug. There is a list of things. You just gotta do it, right? That’s the problem, Ben, is people maybe have heard of these things, but they’re not integrating it into their daily life
Dr. Weitz: So how many times a day should they do patterned breathing?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Well, three times a day is the minimum, right?
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: But and again, set it on your phone so that you’re not really thinking about this. You’re actually just making the time for it. [00:29:00] Ideally, you know, I do things like little tricks for myself. So every time I s- get up, right, and every time I sit back in a seat, I actually do this little technique, and I’ve been doing it for, I don’t know, maybe 20 years. And please know that I am ridiculously a spaz. Like, I have super high energy. And your body knows no difference between good and bad stress, and let me tell you, I’ve had both, right? And I’m in the middle of a book launch, so I’ve lots of good stress. But every time I sit down, I put my feet on the ground.
I actually quickly automatically visualize my feet as tree trunks with vines growing, so it grounds me, and then I just do a few rounds of belly breathing, and it’s just something I don’t even think about. Sure. Like, I can’t even… So that’s probably happening 15 or 20 times a day, right? And so little tweaks like that you’re not gonna give me the [00:30:00] excuse you don’t have time for that, right? You’re not gonna give me the excuse that it’s expensive.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: You just gotta do it. So what I wanted to do and what I do in my, all of my work is what can we all do? What’s accessible for everybody regardless? And, you know, please know these things work whether you have extreme trauma, right? I was one of nine approved providers for Sandy Hook. I worked with, privilege of working with people with 9/11. I’ve had lots and lots of trauma of all kinds coming to me. PANS, PANDAS, OCD, anxiety, lifelong depression. These things worked for them. It can work for you wherever you are. You just might need more muscle, right? You need a little more elbow grease- Right and practice.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. Yeah. So what’s another technique for regulating the nervous system?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. I absolutely… Well, first of all, we can talk about things beyond… I love somatic practices, so my next favorite thing actually is a heart hug, [00:31:00] where you take your right hand, you put it over your heart. You take your left hand, and you put it on your shoulder, and you push, right? And you can do this, ideally, your feet are on the ground, but many people, including myself, I do this before I get out of bed in the morning- Nice … or when I’m going to bed. And it’s, you, the next step to this is to just breathe through it. And for people that do it, you feel comforted. You feel cozy, and it’s signaling the nervous system, it’s safe. Come down. And so this is something you can do on your own. You can do this with your child who’s sitting with you. Nice. You know, there’s no age limit to a heart hug, which is a great technique.
Dr. Weitz: So what is this, what is the heart hug what does it do?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: It’s telling our body that it’s safe. It’s creating a safety by the pressure of what it’s doing, right? The somatic… This is based on, there’s a field of therapy that is trauma related. It’s called somatic therapy. And actually Bessel [00:32:00] van der Kolk, who wrote The Body Keeps Score, w- he was a researcher for pharma, and he came to 9/11, and he did a research study on, ’cause there were so many millions and millions of dollars, thankfully, that was given to people who suffered under 9/11. And so they had to evaluate what things were helping. And so Bessel, he tells the story with a lot of F-bombs, ’cause he’s, that’s who he is. And he says, “Oh my God, the number one thing was, like, somatic therapy,” I think was his number one thing. And pharma was 37, and he was like, “I have to leave what I’m doing.
I’m full of bologna and cheese,” all this other stuff. So somatic therapy is a therapy that’s used for trauma, right? There are many providers who are the OGs, right, of somatic therapy, and it’s just a type of technique that’s evidence-based that teaches the body it’s safe, right? So [00:33:00] again, if we’re using these techniques with the hardest cases, they work in everyday life.
And it’s our body is what holds stress, right? We often think about the spinning in our mind, but it’s actually our body that’s cau- that’s really making our mind spin, you know? I was talking to an old friend who is one of my providers in my life, I won’t say what it is, and he was like, “Ro, like- I can’t sleep anymore. And I said to him, I’ll call him Joey. So I said, “Joey, you’re just like me. We work all the time.” He goes, “Seven days a week. Seven days a week.” I was like, “Yeah.” I said, “But you don’t do what I do. You don’t take moments.” He goes, “Tell me what I gotta do. Give me a plan. Give me the videos.” So, so I said… He goes, “Literally yesterday my doctor said my cortisol is through the roof.”
And I said, “Your cortisol’s through the roof because you’re not pulling back.” He’s like, “I don’t know how to, but I can,” ’cause he had sold his business. So he’s like, “I’m [00:34:00] working there, but I’m working more than anybody, and I shouldn’t,” you know? So the point of this is that we get into these habits, and our body is going to prevent us from relaxing. We have to actually release it from the body. It’s very much a somatic experience. The mind will calm down, right? Talk therapy is bo- is top-down, right? But if, it has to be bottoms up. We have to regulate our system through the body, through the pr- intentional practices. And I could go on. Prayer regulates the nervous system.
10 minutes of reading, not on a device, but a real book regulates the nervous system. Walking outside, grounding by standing outside and just being present. I’m huge into Tai Chi. I do Tai Chi anywhere from two to 15 times a day in two to seven minute spurts. Has changed my life and [00:35:00] also caused me to lose a ton of weight, so because it’s keeping my cortisol in check, right? So I was doing a lot of big things, but what my body needed was constant reminders throughout the day. Again, I’m not in a place in my life where I have a major awful stressor. It’s a lot of good stress, but I am a mom of two wired uniquely kids, and one of which who has PANS and PANDAS and chronic Lyme, so we’ve gone through hell. So, you know, and so, I share these things because I want people to understand whatever your circumstance is, even though your mountain may be a little bit longer to get to, everybody can get there.
Dr. Weitz: What role does nutrition play in regulating the nervous system?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: I feel the nutrition is so important. I mean, I’m Italian. My parents are immigrants from Italy, and, you know, food was medicine. I never had American food. Kids used to try [00:36:00] to change, like trade lunches with me, and I’d be like, “What are you crazy? That’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”So Philomena, she was a hot ticket. And and people always came over to my house. I went over, like, one time to somebody’s house to eat, and I was like, “This is terrible.” And then my one friend, you know… My kids are the same. They’ll be like, “Oh my God, we’re going here. Like, do we have to eat in advance?” And I’m like, “I think so.”
You know, so well, I gave… My son goes to high school, and they, the, the chef there is so lovely. It’s a private high school. And he’s like, “I’ll make whatever he wants,” ’cause we’re gluten-free. And he’s like, “Just tell him to come down.” So I put $200 on his card, and he’s like, “You just wasted $200. I’m not eating there. It’s not happening.” Like, he’s like needs his steak in his bento box, like, you know, he’s a real foodie. But food is so important. And here’s the reality about food, right? We know what we put [00:37:00] in our mouth either makes us feel good or not. That’s it. Yeah. I mean, I’d love to t- lecture all about it, but everybody already knows about it. I mean, you know, you can power up, right? And you know-
Dr. Weitz: Well, I think there’s a massive confusion about food.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Mm-hmm. Yes. And, you know, people might say, “Oh, well, you’re saying you’re gluten-free.” I’m gluten- and dairy-free, and a bunch of other things free, ’cause it doesn’t make me feel gr- good, and I’m also an Epstein-Barr girl, so I have to keep things in check. But food makes a huge difference in your mood. It was always part of what I did for 30 years in my care plans. I made people do anti-inflammatory diet. I mean, the research is very clear. The number one diet for mental health, this is the most studied diet, is a Mediterranean diet. What is that? It’s a pretty low inflammatory diet, and it’s wide. You [00:38:00] know? And, you know, food it’s actually the nutrients you’re getting, right? You need, for mental health, you need a lot of protein and a lot of healthy fats. Healthy fla- fats help the neurotransmitters, right? So it can calm things down, it can make them work better.
Dr. Weitz: And it helps regulate blood sugar, ’cause blood sugar’s a big issue, correct?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Absolutely, 100%. And these kids that, you know, restrictive eating is one of the top three greatest issues that I’ve helped kids with over the years.
Dr. Weitz: And, by restricted eating, you mean kids that are unwilling to eat more than a limited number of-
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah …
Dr. Weitz: typically more processed foods.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. And restrictive eating is not a choice. Restrictive eating is an avoidance that’s often based on sensory an activated nervous system. So 100% of my restrictive eaters over all these thousands of kids I [00:39:00] worked with, 100% of them improved their eating- By just regulating their nervous system. So what we would do is we would say, “Let’s just take the first three months and work on regulating. We’re not gonna introduce any new foods.” And then the next part, ’cause I had people who would come to me like, “I just need to get my kid eating better because X, Y, and Z
Dr. Weitz: causes-” They’re just eating macaroni and cheese, or they’re eating-
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Nuggets …
Dr. Weitz: nuggets or, yeah.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: French fries.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Those were the things, and so… And then there’s nutrient deficiencies that are behind it. Sure. But diet is so huge for blood sugar, for the neurotransmitters, and our gut, our microbiome- Right … needs a variety. I hear- I don’t know if this is true, Ben, but I heard that you need a variety of 20 fruits and vegetables a week to have proper diversity of the gut. Don’t freak out. That also includes different kinds of onions, and garlic, and herbs,
Dr. Weitz: Sure, yeah. No, absolutely, so we have the [00:40:00] right fiber and the right polyphenols, so we have a healthy gut. And if you don’t have a healthy gut, you don’t make the proper neurotransmitters, so there’s no way the brain and the nervous system can function properly.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: That’s right, yeah. And so, you know, I think so much of what happens in our field when we’re dealing with people, right, I almost never had people who didn’t have physical issues, right? You asked if everybody, you know, had PANS. It’s not that I believe everybody has PANS, but I can tell you- By,
Dr. Weitz: by the way, for those who don’t know what- Yeah we’re talking about. Yeah. What is, what is PANS?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Oh, so sorry. So PANS and PANDAS is when the body has a misdirected immune response to infection or toxin trigger, and it creates all of this inflammation which results in neurocognitive or psychiatric issues. So they, you must have either an eating disorder, restrictive eating, OCD, [00:41:00] and then there’s like just a whole bunch of other symptoms that could be associated with it.
It used to be, the P used to be pediatric, which it still is, but PANS, so PANDAS is Streptococcus only, but PANDAS is any infection or toxin, and there’s no age limit anymore. So if you’re an adult who, like, you had COVID, and essentially this is what long haulers is. And then all of a sudden you have an i- you have a cognitive deficit or psychiatric deficit that resulted from it, that is PANS. And, you know, some of these behaviors can be frightening. I mean, my child got bitten by a tick at 20 months, 22 months, and he became a different human being. And then I had already been working with people with ni- Lyme disease for nine years. Even I got confused, because he got bitten in December of 2006, and I said, “Well, it’s cold. Like, there’s not ticks,” but they’re there.
Dr. Weitz: How do you treat [00:42:00] such a young kid for Lyme?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. So what happened was he changed, but it seemed like he had gotten an infection, right? So you think about that. And ju- and just to know this he was a crazy verbal kid. He started talking at seven and a half months and never shut up. And by the time he was 15 months, he already started p- he had three-word sentences. And then at 20 months, 21 months, he was talking like a five or six-year-old. So, apparently, no surprise, I was like this too so it’s very much a family thing. Like all of the, all the Capanas and actually the D’Onofrios just are, they’re, they just talk.
Like, they’re just, you know, I have a general, I have a cardinal, I have a senator. Like, these are… That’s my mom’s side. And and so he had a lot of verbalization, and he really dramatically changed. The biggest change for him was sudden onset of restrictive eating. So my [00:43:00] pediatrician was like, “Well, that’s normal.” And I was like, “I don’t effing…” I literally said, “I don’t effing care what you said. Italian kids don’t just stop eating, okay?” I mean, my kid was eating, like, octopus, and calamari, and lamb, and, you know, kohlrabi, and you name it. There wasn’t anything this kid wasn’t eating, and he wouldn’t even eat a cookie.
Like, he looked like he was dying. It, I knew something was wrong. Right. I didn’t know what it was, and then within six months, because I also learned p- certain people emit fir- pheromones that attract ticks. So by six months later, we’re struggling, we’re going to this, we’re trying to figure it out. He gets bitten by a tick.
So I was lucky to actually see that. I didn’t know he got bitten by a tick in December. All I knew was that he got sick for, like, a 10, 12-day period, and then he never ch- he never seemed normal after that. And so, and this is what many people experience, but everyone’s PANS/PANDAS journey can be [00:44:00] different.
There can be a waxing and waning, but there must be a sudden onset. If it’s not a sudden onset, it’s something called autoimmune encephalopathy, which means that it’s the same thing, but no sudden onset, right? So there’s, like, a slow build to it. And it also, people don’t get help because they don’t know that you can have a clinical issue before, right?
So you can have ADHD or anxiety, and then it morphs into OCD. But what I did is I’ve been very lucky. I’m in Connecticut. Lyme disease is named after Connecticut. Right. And I also have money, and here’s the deal about Lyme disease and PANS/PANDAS, people don’t take insurance. So I begged to go to the number one pediatric person in the world, Dr. Charles Ray Jones, who at the time was already 79. He practiced until he was 96.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: He is was an amazing human being, okay? And so I just said, “I’m here.” Had a appointment. [00:45:00] It’s, had to wait nine months. And I said, “Please, he is a three-year-old kid. Please. And I’ll take any appointment on any day, and I’m right here in Connecticut.” So they called me, and I went over there. And then this was t- over 20 years ago, so we… Or 20 years ago, so we, what did we do? We did massive blasting of antibiotics. We know way more than that now, Ben. What we know is that we have to keep the microbes in balance. If they’re completely out of control, we have to keep them in balance, but we have to preserve our system, right?
Right. We can’t let all our gut go out of whack, and our brain, and all this- Right So, but that’s what we did, and I wish I could tell you that care was dramatically better for people with Lyme disease and PANS/PANDAS. It’s better. It’s not dramatically better. So, and that’s just because there’s just a lot of misinformation and people, also, like, you know, many of these [00:46:00] major hospitals, like including Yale here in Connecticut, is just the worst place in the world for Lyme disease.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: And you have to be so careful where you go. There’s hospitals-
Dr. Weitz: Very difficult to get diagnosed because the testing they do is typically inadequate or not very accurate.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: It’s not that it’s not accurate, it’s that they don’t know how to interpret it. Okay. So the biggest… The, there are many things that have happened to us. I can do a whole episode on Lyme disease if you want. Sure. But the, here’s the biggest thing I want people to hear. So we don’t know, in the Lyme disease community, we don’t know how this happened, but for the the rate studies that they go to determine annually, like, what, you know, who has Lyme disease and where, there are submission guidelines. In order to be submitted, you have to have five active bands on this test, right? The, you know, the Western blot. And is it just a Western blot? But anyway, you have [00:47:00] to have five active bands. So that’s just to be submitted for the rate study. So instead, physicians, I hope you’re listening, have misinterpreted it and believe that you must have five active bands to test positive for Lyme disease.
Lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis, just like PANS/PANDAS. There is not a test to do it. Why do we test? Of course, we’d like to see what bugs, and microbes, and toxins are there for treatment, but it is not required for diagnosis. So that has been one of the greatest problems, is people go, “Well, my doctor told me I don’t have it.”
But then I go and look at the test, and I’m like, “You totally have it. See this ac- see this band right here?” And they’re like, “Oh, well, my doctor told me I need five.” “Well, ’cause your doctor’s wrong.” So, and this is like, you can go to the International Lyme Disease Association. This is ca- this is, you know, we’re trying to spread this information. It’s a wonderful organization. They have a wonderful conference. I’ll be speaking at it in [00:48:00] October here on the East Coast. It’s in northern Virginia, near DC. But just so much misinformation about Lyme disease that really stops people from getting proper care.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. So besides Lyme and nutrition, what are some of the other levers we can pull, things we can look at that are biological stressors for the nervous system?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. I mean, I think our biggest biological stressor that we all struggle with is devices, right? So devices keep us, right, they’re like an ex- I remember going on vacation and my then maybe, like, seven-year-old drew a picture of me with a phone in my hand, and I thought, “Oh, shoot.” I’m in trouble. But I was like- Right
“I’m able to be here, Giancarlo, because I can do my work on my phone.” You know? And I was like, “Oh, shoot. He’s, like, really seeing it.” That was like a mirror for me. So the devices are not the devil. We [00:49:00] just need to moderate usage, and you have to have time away from it. Don’t… The number one thing a person, a parent, can do is get your device out of your bedroom, right?
Don’t let your kids have a device in your bedroom. Have a docking station. And have downtime away from your device. That’s just a simple thing that is anybody can do. But if you’re a parent, you have to lead with it, right? You have to show, just like me, I was like, “Oh my God.” I’m, like, out here on the beach, like, j- you know, I’m sure I was doing, I know I was doing my work. I wasn’t on social or anything.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: And so you have to be mindful. That is a really very much a helpful. And then just, you know, getting out into nature. Like, we’re not saying you have to go for a run, but can, you could just go outside for five minutes.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Get some sun on you. Get some grass under your feet, if you can.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Great. So- Yeah … let’s bring this to a close. How can listeners find out more about your work, get your [00:50:00] book? Do you have courses available?
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Yeah. So, I, first of all, they can go to Dr. Roseann anywhere, and that’s D-R-R-O-S-E-A-N-N.com, or any of the, just search Dr. Roseann, it will come up, and my, you can find The Dysregulated Kid is on every platform. And right now, yes, I have very actionable things, right? People are choking on overwhelm, so I try to make easy-to-use, quick resources that are step-by-step guides. But our calm certification is coming out, and that’s really a multifaceted thing. We’re gonna certify parents, very easy ways to regulate your nervous system, but also to learn what the science behind regulation first.
And then I’m certifying practitioners with CEs- Oh, right … both medical and and mental health. And then we’re certifying companies, because we wanna bring this to companies because the n- first of all, the number one reason employees take [00:51:00] off and take leave is their child’s mental health or behavioral health.
So we can help with all of that, but also this is applicable to every organization to learn how to regulate first. It helps you get along with others, it helps productivity, all those things that you can think of. But it, if you don’t… All these people, these thousands of people that work with me, the number one thing I did was regulate their nervous system, and unlocked their body’s ability to heal- And for those people, and some of the people I worked with, they worked with some of the most well-known physicians, who were incredible, by the way.
But then the physician said, “This person’s nervous system i- is keeping them stuck.” Yes. So if you’re stuck and you’re not getting better, you must address your nervous system. How can you intentfully do that? And that’s what all my work is about, whether you’re listening to the podcast or buying the book or all those things.
I wanna make things as actionable as possible because, again, we’re all living, [00:52:00] modern life is very busy, and I think that’s probably just the biggest change in this last probably 15 to 20 years is our lives are very busy. And it’s not going away. We’re n- I’m not moving to Tahiti. I like fast life. I’d love to actually get an apartment actually in New York City, ’cause there’s always something going on. But I have to regulate, and I do it so many ways, you know? And it’s, everybody can do it, and it’s one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself and to your kids.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you so much.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge: Thank you.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five-star ratings and review. As you may know, I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition and want to prevent chronic problems and want to promote longevity, please call my Santa Monica White Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310-395-3111, and we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine. And I will talk to everybody next week.
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