Harness Your Health

Charis Sederberg
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Alternative Health
  • Updated Weekly

Harness Your Health: Rebuilding Health from the Ground Up is a podcast for individuals and practitioners who feel overwhelmed by conflicting health advice and frustrated by approaches that focus on symptoms instead of systems. Hosted by former oncology nurse and holistic nutrition practitioner Charis Sederberg, this show helps listeners step back from quick fixes and rebuild health through foundational practices that support how the body is designed to heal. Through a balanced lens that bridges conventional medicine and holistic nutrition, each episode offers clarity, context, and practical steps to help you become the builder of your own wellness.

  1. 4d ago

    The Integrated Bodies Series: What the Biopsychosocial Model of Pain Actually Means for Your Body, with Jess Mather

    A woman in her 30s had already been told she needed knee surgery. Getting it scheduled in Canada was going to take too long, so she was looking at flying to a clinic in Pennsylvania and paying close to $10,000. Before any of that, she started working with Jess Mather on what's called prehab. Jess never told her she'd avoid the operating room but instead she did slow, paced strength and movement work with her, session by session. And guess what, the surgery never happened. Jess didn't start out planning to work this way. Early in her career, in a physical therapy setting, she was trained to push a tough, previously shot patient into painful knee extension after a total knee replacement and watched him cry. That moment stuck with her, and she built her entire practice around never doing that to another person. What she developed instead is something she calls the PPP method, a way of looking at pain through the psychological, physiological, and physical pieces that are almost always tangled together, and that's the backbone of this conversation. Jess Mather is a strength and rehab professional and telehealth practitioner who has run her own virtual practice for over a decade, working mostly with clients carrying chronic pain and chronic conditions like chronic fatigue, helping them rebuild both strength and trust in their body's own resiliency. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: - The three-part PPP method Jess uses with every client, and the one-sentence reframe she teaches people to use instead of asking "what if this never gets better." (00:05:40 - 00:09:15) - Why checking and re-checking whether the pain is "still there" can actually make it worse, and what Jess tells clients to do instead. (00:12:30 - 00:14:10) - The full story of the client who avoided a $10,000 surgery and a flight to another country, and what her sessions with Jess actually looked like. (00:17:05 - 00:20:45) - Why a man who moved beautifully on every physical assessment was still in pain, and what changed in just two sessions once the conversation shifted. (00:24:20 - 00:27:50) - The reason Jess believes moving at the pace of the body is always faster in the long run, even when it looks slower at first. (00:29:10 - 00:31:00) - How her six-week virtual coaching program works, and what it actually takes to go from barely walking to kettlebell swings and loaded squats. (00:33:15 - 00:36:40) RESOURCES MENTIONED Jess Mather's TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAWnsetR8FA Jess Mather's Website: https://rebuildingbody.com Jess Mather's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liverehabited/ CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW This is the third in a series of interviews with the women contributing to The Integrated Bodies, so follow the podcast to get the rest as they come out. If this conversation was useful to you, the most helpful thing you can do is rate and review the show and share it with someone who needs it.

  2. Sep 22

    The Integrated Bodies Series: How Gina Marie Boyd Survived Burnout to Build a Whole-Person Health Framework

    Gina Marie Boyd was president of a company managing an IPO when her life fell apart. A few weeks earlier, a woman she'd met by chance in a coffee shop had told her, "I'm in AA. If you ever need anything, call me." Driving home after her lowest point, Gina had one clear thought: I'm not going to survive the next one. That's when she reached for the number. What came next wasn't a straight line to wellness. It was two years in sweatpants reading everything she could find on spirituality, Ayurveda, neuroscience, and integrative medicine, because none of the professionals she saw were looking at the whole picture. Her doctor checked her labs without asking about stress. Her therapist and psychiatrist diagnosed her without asking about her diet or lifestyle. She was living inside all of it at once, and no one was treating her like a whole person. She eventually went back to school and is now an integrative health practitioner, finishing a PhD in transpersonal counseling, and a contributor to the upcoming Integrated Bodies book. This conversation is about what she built instead: Realign, a whole-person framework that looks at body, mind, and meaning together. It's also about why your nervous system doesn't care about your ten-minute meditation if the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes of your day are chaos. We get into the three questions Gina uses to get underneath a symptom, why some very common symptoms aren't normal just because they're common, and what it means to stay in the room at your doctor's appointments and take an active part in your own care.   IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: The three questions Gina asks before treating any symptom as a fixed diagnosis, and why skipping them means you outsource your own body to someone else's guess. (00:06:10 - 00:08:40) Why your nervous system isn't regulated by the meditation you did this morning, but by the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes you didn't think about. (00:14:20 - 00:17:05) The real reason Western medicine splits mind from body, and what a 17th-century mathematician's deal with the Catholic Church has to do with your last doctor's visit. (00:19:30 - 00:22:15) What happened when Gina stopped treating every text and email as an emergency, and why that one change mattered more than any supplement. (00:17:40 - 00:18:50) How to tell if your doctor relationship is a red flag, and what it actually looks like to ask for something different instead of settling. (00:25:10 - 00:27:00) Why Gina sometimes tells clients who want ayahuasca to wait, and what "less is more" means when someone is reaching for the most extreme option available. (00:33:15 - 00:35:00)    RESOURCES MENTIONED Gina Marie Boyd: https://www.ginaruccione.com/    CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW This is the second in a series of interviews with the women contributing to The Integrated Bodies, so follow the podcast to get the rest as they come out. If this conversation was useful to you, the most helpful thing you can do is rate and review the show and share it with someone who needs it.

  3. Sep 15

    The Integrated Bodies Series: Integrative Practitioners, One Book, and What They're Trying to Support, with Jess Verrill

    There's a component of what you know about your own body that no lab test and no expert can hand you. That's one of the things Jess Verrill says in this conversation, and it reframes self-advocacy in a way that isn't adversarial toward medicine at all. We get into why a one-size-fits-all blueprint fails in health for the same reason it fails in business and relationships, and why more information has never been the thing that was missing. We also talk about what to do when something isn't resolving and you're still not getting answers, and why looking for something else doesn't just mean finding another doctor in the same specialty. Jess spent years navigating her own health issues and those of the people she loves, and got frustrated with how siloed the systems are. That frustration, paired with a background in health and wellness and two decades studying energetics, led her toward collaborative publishing, where she brings groups of women together to share what they know. She now works primarily with women who have lived something worth writing down and can't yet see the value in it, helping them articulate what they already know and find the thread running underneath it. Jess Verrill is a USA Today bestselling author, publishing strategist, and founder of House of Indigo, where she helps women turn their ideas, expertise, and lived experience into powerful bodies of work. She specializes in the intersection of authorship, publishing, visibility, and legacy, helping women articulate what they know and position it in a way that creates lasting authority. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: Why a one-size-fits-all blueprint fails in health the same way it fails in business and relationships, and why two people with the same diagnosis can need completely different things. (00:05:15 - 00:07:55) The question Charis asks when someone brings her a lab result, and why so many people go quiet instead of answering it. (00:08:35 - 00:09:25) What to do when something isn't resolving: why looking for something else may mean a different lane entirely, not another doctor in the same one. (00:09:30 - 00:10:40) Why the most exceptional clinicians are the ones who know enough to relax into instinct, and what the opposite looks like from the patient's chair. (00:26:24 - 00:27:32) The look-back exercise Jess gives every client who believes they have nothing worth saying: who were you three years ago, what have you overcome, and what were you wishing for then that you already have now. (00:30:44 - 00:32:30) RESOURCES MENTIONED House of Indigo: https://www.houseofindigocollective.com Jess Verrill's Published Books: Amazon CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW This is the first in a series of interviews with the women contributing to The Integrated Bodies, so follow the podcast to get the rest as they come out. If this conversation was useful to you, the most helpful thing you can do is rate and review the show and share it with someone who needs it.

  4. Sep 9

    Foundations Series, The Hormone Hierarchy: Why Cortisol and Insulin Come First

    If you've been prescribed thyroid medication or hormone replacement therapy, watched your labs move to where your doctor wanted them, and still felt exactly the same — this episode explains why. The short version: those hormones sit downstream of the ones your body actually prioritizes, and if the upstream problem isn't addressed, the medication has nothing to work with. This solo episode is the one I've been promising for several episodes, and I held it until I could frame it the right way. We're not doing a list of every hormone and what it does. We're doing the bird's-eye view: your hormones are one interconnected system, your body ranks them in a strict priority order, and the things at the top of that list — your nervous system, your cortisol, your insulin — decide what's left over for your thyroid and your sex hormones. I walk through the cortisol awakening response and why morning sunlight matters more than any supplement, how chronically elevated cortisol blocks your T4 to T3 conversion, why dysregulated blood sugar quietly shuts down sex hormone production, and the roles your liver and gut microbiome play in clearing estrogen so it doesn't recirculate. I also name the everyday physiological stressors that make your nervous system read "unsafe" — and none of them are what most people expect. If you take one thing from this: don't play Whac-A-Mole with individual hormones. Start upstream. Start with one thing. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: Why hormone replacement therapy and thyroid medication can normalize your labs without changing how you feel, and what that tells you about where the real problem is. (00:02:39 - 00:05:04) How the body's hormone priority order actually works: nervous system first, then cortisol and insulin, with thyroid and sex hormones as conditional, negotiable, and the first to be sacrificed. (00:05:04 - 00:06:07) What the cortisol awakening response is, why morning sunlight within an hour of waking reinforces it, and what the downstream cascade sets in motion. (00:06:07 - 00:07:06) Why chronically elevated cortisol impairs the conversion of inactive T4 into active T3, and why "normal" TSH and T4 labs can hide the problem entirely. (00:07:34 - 00:08:29) How chronic high insulin limits how much estrogen and testosterone your cells can actually use, and what that means for energy, libido, cycles, and fertility. (00:08:29 - 00:10:22) The role of liver function in estrogen metabolism, why poorly cleared hormones recirculate instead of leaving the body, and why that makes adding more hormone a bad idea. (00:10:22 - 00:10:54, 00:16:46 - 00:18:26) The everyday physiological inputs that make your nervous system read unsafe — irregular circadian rhythm, inadequate nutrition, lack of movement, eating late, fasting while already stressed — none of which are what people usually mean by "stress." (00:11:29 - 00:12:54) Why circadian rhythm is the first place to start with cortisol, and why most people never need the cortisol supplements at all once that's in place. (00:20:04 - 00:20:59)     RESOURCES MENTIONED Health Foundations Assessment: https://foundations.primetonourish.com CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW Subscribe to the podcast for upcoming episodes on nutrition, digestion, nervous system regulation, and circadian health. To begin identifying your own healing priorities, visit Prime To Nourish (https://primetonourish.com/) and take the Health Foundations Assessment (https://foundations.primetonourish.com/).

  5. Sep 1

    The Self-Care Trap: Why High-Achieving Women Burn Out and What to Ask Instead, with Carrie Holland, MD

    The skill that helped you succeed at work, the ability to ignore your own needs, is the exact thing keeping you stuck now. That's one of the sharpest observations Carrie Holland makes in this conversation, and it reframes self-care burnout in a way that actually makes sense. We get into why giving yourself a meal plan or a fitness routine isn't the problem, and why understanding the thoughts underneath those habits is the only thing that actually moves the needle long-term. We also talk about why the term "self-care" has become one more thing to fail at, and what to ask yourself instead. Carrie spent over a decade as a family physician before realizing medicine wasn't the finish line she thought it was. That career change in her 30s led her to personal training, health coaching, and eventually life coaching, where she found the work that actually brings everything together. She now works primarily with high-achieving women who have spent years taking care of everyone else, helping them reconnect with themselves and figure out how to start exercising again, eat better, and think differently about what they want. Carrie Holland, MD is the founder of Fit Life with Carrie Holland, MD, and host of the Strong Is A Mindset podcast. She brings the clinical background of a physician and the practical tools of a certified life coach to help women reinsert themselves back into their own lives.   IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: - How thoughts drive results through confirmation bias: believing "I'm a hot mess" causes the exact behaviors that prove you right, and why the goal isn't eliminating negative thoughts but managing what you do when they show up. (00:15:35 - 00:19:40) - How the coping skill that got high-achieving women to the top, learning to ignore their own needs, becomes the exact barrier to reconnecting with themselves later in life. (00:21:05 - 00:22:40) - How self-care burnout happens when self-care becomes one more to-do list item to fail at, and why asking "what does relief look like to you?" works better. (00:25:40 - 00:26:40) - Why "what does a life coach do" has a concrete answer: coaches focus on why habits have never worked in the past and address the mindset blocking them, not the plan itself. (00:29:05 - 00:30:30) - Why going from zero exercise to five days a week at 45 minutes predictably fails, and how two 10-minute sessions produces 20 more minutes of movement than someone currently doing nothing. (00:37:00 - 00:38:25)   RESOURCES MENTIONED Carrie Holland MD Website: https://carriehollandmd.com Strong Is A Mindset Podcast: https://carriehollandmd.com/podcast/ Health Foundations Assessment: https://foundations.primetonourish.com   CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW Subscribe to the podcast for upcoming episodes on nutrition, digestion, nervous system regulation, and circadian health. To begin identifying your own healing priorities, visit Prime To Nourish (https://primetonourish.com/) and take the Health Foundations Assessment (https://foundations.primetonourish.com/).

  6. Aug 25

    The Gut-Brain Connection: Why Anxiety and Depression May Start in Your Gut with Jenny Olson

    Forty percent of Americans have quietly stopped doing their normal routines because of digestive symptoms, and most of them never mentioned it to their doctor. That stat stopped me in my tracks when Jenny brought up the Trust Your Gut study, because it captures something I see all the time. People normalizing bloating after every meal, fatigue after eating, and brain fog until their quality of life has eroded without them fully realizing it. The gut isn't operating in isolation, and this episode is really about understanding why symptoms that seem unrelated to digestion, like anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, or mood shifts, may have their roots in an imbalanced microbiome. I'm joined by Jenny Olsen, a board-certified holistic nutritionist with years of clinical experience in functional gut health. Jenny walks us through what a healthy microbiome actually looks like, why dysbiosis is a stage rather than a diagnosis, and how the gut-brain connection is more accurately described as a whole system. She also introduces the concept of psychobiotics and shares research on specific strains shown to blunt stress response and influence mood. If you've been trying to work on your gut health and want to understand the deeper mechanisms behind why you feel the way you do after eating, this one is for you. Jenny Olsen is a board-certified holistic nutritionist and lead clinical science liaison at Microbiome Labs with a background in functional medicine, clinical practice, and public education in the nutraceutical space. She has spent the last decade working at the intersection of gut health, clinical science, and patient outcomes.   IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: - Why the microbiome is now understood as a separate living organism whose bacterial genes far outnumber human genes, and why that distinction changed how we test and support gut function. (00:04:45 - 00:09:25) - How dysbiosis is a stage the gut is in rather than a diagnosis you have, and how bloating after every meal and fatigue after eating are warning signs most people normalize for years. (00:14:25 - 00:18:25) - Why conditions like IBS and IBD are now classified as gut-brain disorders, and how fecal transplant studies in mice have replicated depressive-like behavior by transferring the microbiome of patients with both IBD and depression. (00:21:00 - 00:25:45) - How feeling tired after eating and experiencing sudden mental clarity during fasting both point to insufficient bacteria that can't break down food properly, linking gut health and anxiety through a shared inflammation pathway. (00:27:10 - 00:31:40) - How a specific psychobiotic strain, B. longum 1714, was shown to blunt brainwave activity and perceived stress during a social isolation experiment, connecting probiotics for mood to measurable neurological outcomes. (00:34:30 - 00:38:15)   RESOURCES MENTIONED Health Foundations Assessment: https://foundations.primetonourish.com Prime To Nourish: https://primetonourish.com   CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW Subscribe to the podcast for upcoming episodes on nutrition, digestion, nervous system regulation, and circadian health. To begin identifying your own healing priorities, visit Prime To Nourish (https://primetonourish.com/) and take the Health Foundations Assessment (https://foundations.primetonourish.com/).

  7. Aug 18

    Why Am I Always Bloated? A Q&A on Leaky Gut, Nervous System Digestion, and the Two Habits That Actually Move the Needle

    Eating six times a day, something many of us were literally taught to do, turns out to be one of the worst things you can do for your digestive system. In this solo Q&A episode, I work through the most common questions I've been getting since the gut series and nervous system episodes dropped, and the answers keep circling back to two surprisingly simple starting points that most people overlook entirely. I cover why bloating after almost every meal is rarely about the food itself, what the migrating motor complex actually does and why constant snacking shuts it down, and how the parasympathetic state is the non-negotiable foundation beneath every other gut health strategy. We also get into leaky gut, which is absolutely real despite being a wellness buzzword, what morning sunlight has to do with your digestive capacity, and why seed oils and inflammation belong on your radar if your gut feels like a mess. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: - Why eating in a sympathetic state is likely the most common and overlooked reason people feel bloated after almost everything they eat, and what parasympathetic eating actually looks like in practice. (00:03:00 - 00:05:30) - How constant snacking and eating six times a day disrupts the migrating motor complex, the internal cleaning system your gut needs to keep food moving and toxins clearing between meals. (00:06:30 - 00:08:30) - Why leaky gut is a real and repairable condition, how the protein zonulin controls your gut's tight junctions, and why chronic stress is likely the number one driver of intestinal permeability. (00:10:00 - 00:15:00) - Why seed oils and inflammation, refined sugar, and refined flour are the dietary factors most worth addressing after you've stabilized your nervous system and meal spacing first. (00:20:00 - 00:21:00) - How morning sunlight triggers the hormonal cascade that drives digestive enzyme output and insulin sensitivity, and why skipping morning light may be quietly undermining your gut health. (00:24:30 - 00:26:00) RESOURCES MENTIONED Health Foundations Assessment: https://foundations.primetonourish.com Prime To Nourish: https://primetonourish.com CONNECT AND SUPPORT THE SHOW Subscribe to the podcast for upcoming episodes on nutrition, digestion, nervous system regulation, and circadian health. To begin identifying your own healing priorities, visit Prime To Nourish (https://primetonourish.com/) and take the Health Foundations Assessment (https://foundations.primetonourish.com/).

  8. Aug 11

    A Short Note from Charis

    No episode this week, I recorded a short note instead. See you next Tuesday.

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About

Harness Your Health: Rebuilding Health from the Ground Up is a podcast for individuals and practitioners who feel overwhelmed by conflicting health advice and frustrated by approaches that focus on symptoms instead of systems. Hosted by former oncology nurse and holistic nutrition practitioner Charis Sederberg, this show helps listeners step back from quick fixes and rebuild health through foundational practices that support how the body is designed to heal. Through a balanced lens that bridges conventional medicine and holistic nutrition, each episode offers clarity, context, and practical steps to help you become the builder of your own wellness.

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