Do you feel like there aren’t enough solutions for mental health? In this episode of The Darin Olien show, I chat with Dr. Ellen Vora about the anatomy of anxiety. While most of us believe that we have a predisposition to certain mental health illnesses due to our genetics, this isn’t necessarily true. The truth is that anxiety and other similar types of disorders are activated by environmental stressors, which then pull the trigger on genetics. Thus, understanding how to create an environment that is beneficial to your mental health and not detrimental to it is the first step to ensuring the production of serotonin. We also chat about the two different types of anxiety and why one is considered to be false anxiety and the other to be true-form anxiety. Dr. Ellen Vora dives into the different pillars of health you should address before you turn to big pharma to feel better. Ellen Vora, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist, acupuncturist, and yoga teacher, and she is the author of The Anatomy of Anxiety. She takes a functional medicine approach to mental health—considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root. Dr. Vora received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.D. from Columbia University. What we discuss: 04:12: About Anxiety 06:22: When did Dr. Ellen’s interest in anxiety start? 11:22: Why did Dr. Ellen write her book about mental health? 16:18: Are doctors equipped to take care of mental health? 20:44: How are the pillars of health related to mental health? 25:02: What are the two different types of anxiety? 35:00: What do you need to know about the anxiety process? 37:49: Are you destroying your health for pleasure? 39:30: What do we need to do to protect our health? 42:40: How is the attention economy affecting our mental health? 44:29: How does a day in life look like for Dr. Ellen? 48:51: What was Dr. Ellen not thought at medical school about spirituality? 53:41: Why does society think that crying isn’t accepted? 56:23: Where can you learn more about Dr. Ellen? Key Takeaways: