Decoded | Unlock The Secrets of Human Behavior, Emotion and Motivation

What if the anxiety, brain fog, fatigue, intrusive thoughts, or dysregulation you're experiencing isn't coming exclusively from your thoughts? And what if a physical symptom isn't exclusively physical either? In this episode of Decoded, Elisabeth McKay sits down with functional medicine expert Dr. Will Cole to examine the intersection between mental health, cellular health, inflammation, hormones, environmental exposures, gut health, and behavioral patterns. The central question is one that conventional conversations often separate into competing camps: Is the origin of a symptom physiological, psychological—or both? Dr. Cole explains how functional medicine approaches that question through comprehensive lab testing, tighter functional ranges, health history, and bio-individuality. They discuss cellular aging, mitochondrial dysfunction, metabolic health, thyroid function, environmental toxins, mold, intrusive thoughts, trauma, peptides, IV therapy, and why receiving a diagnosis still doesn't necessarily explain the mechanism that produced it. They also get into the philosophy behind longevity. Dr. Cole distinguishes extending healthspan from the pursuit of immortality and discusses the spiritual dimension of health explored in his new book with Dr. Josh Axe, Heal Yourselves: Reversing the Irreversible. In this episode: Mental health symptoms and cellular dysfunction Why mental health and physical health aren't separate systems Intrusive thoughts and neuro-immune-endocrine dysregulation What functional medicine actually is Optimal lab ranges vs. conventional reference ranges Why the same diagnosis can have different underlying mechanisms Autoimmunity, thyroid function, and metabolic health Cellular aging and mitochondrial function Mold, biotoxins, heavy metals, pesticides, PFAS, and microplastics Stress, trauma, shame, and physiological dysregulation Healthspan vs. the pursuit of immortality The spiritual component of longevity Biomarkers Dr. Cole looks at when evaluating cellular health Why peptides are a tool—not a substitute for addressing underlying dysfunction When IV therapy may be useful and when it may simply become an expensive bandage The point isn't to decide that every psychological symptom is secretly physical—or that every physiological symptom can be changed through thought. It's to stop forcing the human body into an either/or framework when the systems affecting your behavior, emotions, brain, immune function, hormones, and cellular health are constantly interacting. Watch the full conversation and ask a better question: What is actually upstream of the symptom you're trying to change? 🔗 Find out your Brain Pattern Type: https://predictivemind.io/ 🔗 Learn about Rapid Emotional Rewiring: https://breakmethod.com/ 🔗 Grab a Copy of Heal Your Cells: Reversing The Irriversable: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=heal+your+cells+by+dr+josh+axe&hvadid=810242586169&hvdev=c&hvexpln=67&hvlocphy=9029650&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=3115731636250114120--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=3115731636250114120&hvtargid=kwd-2486225119640&hydadcr=11928_13659523&mcid=07dbe94efda0309f9c54d23f4f7ebffd&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_6w8kwzbyh6_e_p67🔗 My Peptide Supplier: https://elliemd.com/bizziegold 🔗 The Only Sauna I Recommend: https://www.healingsauna.com/bizzie?rfsn=8731070.5183d1 (Use CODE: BGHEAL for $200 OFF + Free Shipping) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What separates an intrusive thought from a delusion? And at what point does your interpretation of reality become so rigid that contradictory evidence can no longer reach you? In this episode of Decoded, Elisabeth McKay breaks down the difference between intrusive thoughts, delusion, and psychosis—and why understanding that distinction matters far beyond severe psychiatric illness. Using the Lindsay Clancy trial as a starting point, Elisabeth examines how reality testing deteriorates, why emotionally driven interpretations can become self-sealing, and how persecutory, referential, grandiose, jealous, somatic, and nihilistic delusions actually function. She also explores the complicated intersection between spirituality and psychosis, gaslighting and coercive control, and the role agency and metacognition play in keeping you anchored to objective reality. The episode also returns to new evidence discussed in the Lindsay Clancy trial, including searches allegedly made while Lindsay was away from the home, and the questions those details raise within Elisabeth’s stated hypothesis about Lindsay’s psychological deterioration. These are presented as questions and hypotheses—not established conclusions. In this episode: Intrusive thoughts vs. delusions vs. psychosis What reality testing actually looks like How to separate evidence from assumptions Persecutory and referential delusions Grandiose and spiritual delusions Jealous, somatic, and nihilistic delusions Why contradictory evidence can strengthen a delusion How spirituality can become entangled with psychosis Gaslighting, coercive control, and destabilized self-trust New questions raised by the Lindsay Clancy trial Why intrusive thoughts do not equal intention Agency and metacognition 10 rules for protecting your grip on objective reality The central question isn't whether you've ever had a disturbing, irrational, or emotionally charged thought. It's whether you can still recognize that a thought is a thought, a feeling is not evidence, and your interpretation is not automatically reality. Watch, reflect, and ask yourself: What do I actually know using only three-dimensional evidence? 🔗 Find out your Brain Pattern Type: https://predictivemind.io/ 🔗 Learn about Rapid Emotional Rewiring: https://breakmethod.com/ 🔗 Grab a Copy of Your Brain is a Filthy Liar: https://www.amazon.com/YOUR-BRAIN-FILTHY-LIAR-Self-Deception/dp/1967424284/ 🔗 My Peptide Supplier: https://elliemd.com/bizziegold 🔗 The Only Sauna I Recommend: https://www.healingsauna.com/bizzie?rfsn=8731070.5183d1 (Use CODE: BGHEAL for $200 OFF + Free Shipping) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if mental illness isn’t where the problem actually begins? In the Season 3 premiere of Decoded, Elisabeth McKay challenges the dominant framework for understanding mental health and presents a different hypothesis: what we call mental illness may be a downstream expression of a much larger neurocognitive process that begins with how the brain perceives reality. The sequence matters. Childhood experience creates underlying rules. Those rules shape perception. Perception generates biochemical states. Familiar biochemical states influence behavior. When that process becomes sustained, rigid, and difficult to interrupt, the downstream symptoms can begin to impair relationships, communication, decision-making, emotional regulation, and daily functioning. In this episode, Elisabeth breaks down: What “mental illness” actually describes Why a diagnosis is not the same thing as a cause How distorted perception changes behavior The role of childhood in constructing underlying rules Why intelligence doesn’t guarantee objective perception The Neurocognitive Funnel Emotional homeostasis and why the familiar can feel safe How perception generates biochemical responses Anxiety, depression, agency, and self-efficacy Why self-regulation is not the absence of emotion Metacognition and the ability to question your own thinking Why adaptive communication matters The chemical imbalance model and its limitations Why medication cannot explain the root cause by itself How parents can build self-trust, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and metacognition in children Why mental illness should never become an identity What it means to intervene at the root of the process This episode does not argue that suffering is imaginary or that biological factors don't exist. It argues that treating behavior or biochemistry in isolation leaves the rest of the process untouched. If mental illness is produced through a process, then understanding that process creates opportunities to interrupt it. 🔗 Find out your Brain Pattern Type: https://predictivemind.io/ 🔗 Learn about Rapid Emotional Rewiring: https://breakmethod.com/ 🔗 Grab a Copy of Your Brain is a Filthy Liar: https://www.amazon.com/YOUR-BRAIN-FILTHY-LIAR-Self-Deception/dp/1967424284/ref=sr_1_1?crid=390FC0W304YNI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.I8_kpD55nc-N5yNG8B9OPQ.Q7fi8mscYcCo01FBkOKtQgnXw7exKMp_Qus3pkQiQDw&dib_tag=se&keywords=your+brain+is+a+filthy+liar&qid=1767306891&sprefix=your+brain+is+a%2Caps%2C212&sr=8-1 🔗 My Peptide Supplier: https://elliemd.com/bizziegold 🔗 The Only Sauna I Recommend: https://www.healingsauna.com/bizzie?rfsn=8731070.5183d1 (Use CODE: BGHEAL for $200 OFF + Free Shipping) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices