Women In Wellness: Dr Christina Burns of FABORM on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Slow down: Moving fast all the time puts us in fight or flight mode. We need balance with the two parts of our nervous system. I had a patient recently who felt puffy, tired, anxious, and bloated. I asked her about her routine, and she described rushing from one thing to the next. She would inhale her food just to get onto the next task. I told her to sit and chew and take a few mindful pauses throughout the day between commitments. Nothing crazy, just adding an extra five minutes to basic needs like eating. It’s critical to be in “rest and digest mode” when eating. “A few days into her new routine, she felt less agitated, less bloated, and happier.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Christina Burns.
Dr. Christina Burns is the founder of Naturna, a naturopath, a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, L.Ac, FABORM, and host of the Fertility in Focus Podcast. Naturna is an integrative health center based in New York City, dedicated to the comprehensive fusion of eastern medicine and western science. With18 years of clinical practice, Christina seeks to empower women and men to achieve their optimal life and health goals through natural medicine practices, informed integrative nutrition, lifestyle management, and personalized mind-body programs. She is a licensed Chinese medicine doctor with board certification in Oriental reproductive medicine and nine years of postsecondary education. Christina has advanced acupuncture, herbs, nutrition, life coaching, and yoga therapy certifications.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I’m a Doctor of Chinese Medicine and a Naturopath. I embarked on my journey into wellness after dealing with a litany of issues growing up. Be it hormonal, skin, digestive, or mood challenges, these niggly issues severely affected my quality of life. I bounced from doctor to doctor, took all sorts of medications, and always ended up worse off without any insight into why.
When I was 19 years old, I ventured to Asia. I witnessed a different healthcare paradigm. It was a system that considered our daily choices, which affect our health, and incorporated herbs, nutrition, and mindfulness.
I returned to Canada and studied nutrition, martial arts, and herbal medicine. I became enamored with eastern philosophy and natural medicine. In this realm, I finally found solutions for the challenges I faced. Since then, I have addressed 99% of my issues naturally.
Can you share the most exciting story with you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
Ten years ago, I had a patient desperate to have a baby. She was 39 and had a premature ovarian failure (POF). She had consulted seemingly every doctor in New York, all of whom said she would need to use a donor egg if she wanted to get pregnant. But she was determined not to take that route. With her hair thinning and her thyroid off-kilter, we overhauled her diet and got her off processed food. Although she had difficulty with the diet changes, she persisted. She also did acupuncture and took a custom blend of herbs. As miracles would have it, she conceived a healthy pregnancy.
Despite what all these doctors told her, she refused to believe it. It was her will that astonished me. The power of belief was what I took away from this experience. And the possibility of defying the odds. Statistics are not the be-all-end-all. Who says you can’t be that 0.001%? Stay the course if it feels right.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you started? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I underestimated the time it would take to get good at what I do. I started with a two-year program, thinking I would be ready to start my career. It became apparent quickly that it was the tip of the iceberg, and I needed to learn more. Next, I enrolled in another three years to perfect my skills which extended to five. I still didn’t feel ready to start treating patients professionally. I spent two more years in Asia treating patients before I felt qualified enough to return to the states and start getting compensated for my expertise. The lesson I learned is that there are no shortcuts. If you believe in something, expect to play the long game.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping make a bigger impact in the world?
My dream is to help transform the way we approach healthcare. I believe it’s upside down. We run to the doctor for our health concerns because we lack basic knowledge of how our bodies function. We struggle to figure out the best food to eat, what exercise we should be doing, and how to live a balanced life. When we get ill, we don’t know how to recover. As a naturopath, I firmly believe in the physician as a teacher. I teach and empower all my patients to take charge of their lives with the right tools to guide them in eating, exercising, and integrating wellness practices to prevent illness and treat it. It’s not as though western medicine isn’t helpful or necessary. It’s just that western medicine tends to use more aggressive methods that are overused and not practical for a variety of subtle imbalances that affect our quality of life. If we learn more about lifestyle choices and natural medicine, we will lead more enjoyable and healthier lives.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
1) Finish eating before 7 pm: You will sleep deeper and feel more refreshed. I had a patient that was self-medicating with coffee to get through the day. She had to peel herself out of bed every morning and couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t at her optimal weight. She felt puffy and bloated. Within a week of not eating late, she lost pounds of water weight, and even her mornings were more productive without the caffeine.
2) Eat protein for breakfast: Low blood sugar will trigger a crash at some point. I had a patient who felt anxiety all through the day, worse at night. She would also crave sugar in the evenings. I told her to include protein in her breakfast, and within days she felt more balanced emotionally, and her sweet tooth and evening binges disappeared.
3) Get outside every day: People need nature. I had a patient that stayed inside for months during the earlier part of the pandemic. When she finally came to see me, her anxiety was through the roof. My prescription was to get outside, walk daily and see the sky. After a week of the new routine, her anxiety decreased tremendously.
4) Eat cooked foods: Digestive issues are rampant and cooked foods are often a good solution because they are easy to digest. I had a patient who described being so bloated that she looked six months pregnant. When I asked her what she ate, she said salads, yogurt, fruit, and ice water. I told her to cook everything for a week, including poaching an apple or pear if she needed something sweet. Her bloating decreased dramatically, and she felt much better.
5) Slow down: Moving fast all the time puts us in fight or flight mode. We need balance with the two parts of our nervous system. I had a patient recently who felt puffy, tired, anxious, and bloated. I asked her about her routine, and she described rushing from one thing to the next. She would inhale her food just to get onto the next task. I told her to sit and chew and take a few mindful pauses throughout the day between commitments. Nothing crazy, just adding an extra five minutes to basic needs like eating. It’s critical to be in “rest and digest mode” when eating. “A few days into her new routine, she felt less agitated, less bloated, and happier.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would integrate natural medicine with western medicine everywhere possible. For most people, their first point of contact for a health visit is their doctor. While the doctor has a lot to offer, they don’t provide much nutritional or lifestyle advice or natural options to address health complaints. When I lived in Asia, I worked in hospitals and offices where we worked as a team with an assortment of approaches — acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine, western medicine. It was glorious! Not to mention practical. If only we had a more integrated approach here, we would reduce dependency on pharmaceuticals and surgical interventions by starting with the basics. Even having doctors referred to for nutrition or mindfulness counseling would be a huge step forward. But doctors are busy and don’t necessarily seek out these resources, so I would like to start a movement that makes this a reality.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
1) There aren’t many quick fixes in a pathway to health. I thought that I could fix things immediately. It turns out that the body doesn’t always listen to our type A brains. Sometimes it takes time, and we must honor that. There is only so much we can control.
2) You can’t do everything on your own. I wish I had recognized that being a good clinician doesn’t make you a savvy businessperson. It’s overwhelming, and I would have appreciated more guidance to reduce stress and save myself from mistakes I made early on.
3) Not everyone is open or interested in natural medicine. I used to take it to heart if someone didn’t embrace my practice. I’ve made peace with the idea that it’s not my role to convince every person I encounter about the value of natural medicine. I can educate and hope they will want to open their minds to other options, but I don’t take it personally if they don’t.
4) Failures offer to lead to your most significant opportunities. Failure taught me to think more critically before moving forward with business decisions.
5) Consistency is the key to success in business and health. Stick with the program, and it will often bear fruits.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dear to you, and why?
Mental health is dear to me now, personally and professionally. I have struggled my whole life with anxiety and depression. I’ve seen so many patients facing the same issues, particularly in this era of the pandemic. Mental health is a big issue. I developed an herbal formula that got me through my postpartum depression and applied a more comprehensive application in my own life. Many of my patients have had great success with the formula. It is called “junk juice” due to the murky nature of the beverage and has worked wonders for me and many others in addressing anxiety and mood issues.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
https://www.instagram.com/naturna_life/
https://www.instagram.com/junkjuicemagic/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fertility-in-focus-podcast/id1544999680
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Women In Wellness: Dr Christina Burns of FABORM on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.