Midlife Wellness In The Mountains

The Power Of Narrative Medicine For Improved Health And Wellness with Andrea Nakayama

Season 1 Episode 30

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One of my favorite teachers and mentors, Andrea Nakayama, joined me today to discuss what she believes is missing in traditional healthcare: our personal stories.

So many of us are hyper focused on what we can do, what supplement we need, what lab to get done, what protocol to follow, how much protein to eat, etc. We are grasping for a fix. While these can be helpful, we often forget that the individual plays a critical role. Understanding our own narratives—reflecting on our life experiences, emotions, and individual histories—is often the missing piece.

Engaging with the humanities (like poetry, art, and storytelling) cultivates deeper listening and understanding of who we are. Andrea underscores that this deeper connection can facilitate healing, especially for women navigating significant hormonal and life changes in perimenopause, menopause and post menopause.

What moves us—our emotions and truths—can offer insight into our health and healing journeys. Andrea urges us to embrace our stories as powerful tools for improving our health and well-being and to include them as part of our healing journey. 

Andrea believes Narrative Medicine is what we are missing in Healthcare today.

I deeply enjoyed this rich discussion with Andrea and I know you will too. 

BIO- Andrea Nakayama is a Functional Medicine Nutritionist and educator, who has led thousands of clients, and now teaches even more coaches and clinicians around the world in a revolution reclaiming ownership of both their own and their clients’ health. As the host of the 15-Minute Matrix Podcast and the founder and former CEO of Functional Nutrition Alliance, Andrea draws on systems biology, mental models, root cause methodology and the therapeutic partnership to offer long-awaited solutions for the rapidly growing chronic illness epidemic.After losing her young husband to a brain tumor in 2002, she discovered a passion for using food as personalized medicine and is now regularly consulted as the nutrition expert for the toughest clinical cases in the practices of many world-renowned doctors. She trains nearly four thousand practitioners each year in her methodologies so that they too can become the last stop for their clients and patients as well as a trusted referral partner for doctors in their area. You can find her on instagram here @andreanakayama and onl


You can find Janel online at Mountain Rebalance
or on instagram at
@mountain.rebalance.janel


This podcast is for midlife women, in Perimenopause or Menopause, who want to understand their body better and improve how they feel, function, and age.


Janel is a board certified nutrition consultant, a certified functional nutrition and lifestyle practitioner, a doctor of natural medicine, and a lover of the wild.

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