The Revolutionary Protocol for Mental Health through Mind & Body Healing

Are you tired of mental health solutions that just don't work? What if the future of psychiatry isn't about more pills, but about a whole new healing of the mind and body together? Today, you're about to meet the doctor who's rewriting the rulebook. Welcome back to Keeping It Real On Purpose. I'm your host, Edna White, and today's guest is Dr. Paul D. Corona, MD. He's a Southern California-based physician with over 30 years of experience who's reshaping the future of psychiatry and family medicine. Dr. Corona isn't your typical physician. After starting his family medicine, he transitioned into psychiatry where he developed his own pioneering method called mind and body healing. He's the author of the My Mind and Body Healing series and the latest book, The Corona Protocol. He breaks down the revolutionary strategies that challenge conventional treatments and gets real results. Welcome to the show, Dr. Paul. Thank you so much. It's great to be on with you. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. So I want to get right into it and get the flow going. Dr. Paul, you talk about mind and body healing. In my work, I see how trauma gets trapped in the body and keeps people from living fully. How does your approach actually free people from that cycle? Well, when I first got into, and when I was in medical school, I didn't really know what I want to do. I liked a little bit of everything. So I chose to become a family doctor because I thought, well, I can do psychiatry. I can do pediatrics and all this. And during the 1990s, when I started, there were some really great medications that came out. One called Effexor, which was after the first three SSRIs, like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil. And the difference is it also balances not just serotonin, but norepinephrine. So I started seeing with my patients, I was giving it to saying, you know what? My headaches are gone. My back pain is better. My neck, my shoulders, my stomach. I started seeing this physical link with, and I started to see this with emotion, that the stress was causing physical body. Irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and especially the neck and upper neck and shoulder area, that area. So I started seeing this link and realizing that there was a chemical nature to the link and that it's tied in with stress. So during the 1990s, I was just fascinated by this. And during that decade, I got more and more interested in psychiatry. And just basically in about 2000 or so, I phased into giving up my primary care practice. I think what happens is psychiatrists think about the brain, but not the body. And I think primary care doctors think about the body, but not the brain. What I kind of did is put them together. And that led to my first series of books, which took me 12 years to complete, called Healing the Mind and Body. And so I just basically documented everything I had learned. And I wrote the book because, well, I wrote the first book not knowing I would eventually write six books. The Chronic Protocol was my sixth book. But I didn't realize, but I knew that I was seeing something that I wasn't reading about. I was reading books they weren't talking about. So I started writing because I realized that this information wasn't readily available. That's good. Most of my audience has been told just manage their anxiety or depression. You don't sound like that type of person to say that. What do you say to people who are tired of Band-Aid fixes? Tired of what? Band-Aid fixes. Upstanding prescriptions? Band-Aid fixes. Like the general fixes. About anxiety and depression? Yes. Well, I mean, I think that people have to remember, everyone's got stress in their life. Everyone kind of feels sad off and on. There's a difference between normal stress and normal sadness with an actual clinical problem where with anxiety, an anxiety disorder is more pervasive, more persistent. Or with the major depressive disorder, the sadness is more than just occasional. It's just persistent. And when I hear people tell me, I just don't feel myself anymore. I used to feel good and this is not me. That's where I step in and say, okay, that's my goal with all my patients is to get them back to themselves again. A lot of people feel guilty and they feel shame. My life is okay. I don't have any reason to feel this way. So there's a lot of guilt and shame around mood issues because people think psychiatric issues are different than other areas of medicine. They think it's just all in your mind. You should be able to be tough enough, especially men. I think men get it even, men get it. Men are macho things, but men don't like to display signs of weakness. It's a difficult area that a lot of people struggle with and a lot of people struggle with the treatment because a lot of people don't want to take medication. Not that that's the only option, but it's a very good option other than counseling and exercise and all that. Awesome. Why did you stop going by that traditional playbook that everybody goes by and what made you stop doing that? Because I realized it was wrong and I realized a lot of things I was reading just weren't true. Here's a typical example, an SSRI. Well, one is the SSRIs are the best first-line medication. I disagree. Most doctors will give people Zoloft or Lexapro. They do. And I think the problem is SSRIs are, I think the second best first-line treatment, not the best first-line like most doctors. The other thing is, oh, it's going to take four to six to eight weeks for this medication to kick in. Yeah, I've heard that. Yes. It's complete nonsense. It's never been true ever, but somehow that myth is out there. And so medications, especially if you dose them correctly, should take no more than a week to two weeks at the worst. There's also a lack of creativity about how to combine medications together that have different modes of action. Yes, yes, absolutely. There's a lot of just same old, same old out there. I just don't see a lot of creativity. I don't see, you know, because the rules, I think the psych effort rules are wrong. And so I started, things aren't right here. And so the conventional way to do anything is boring. It's not exciting. It's not getting fully better. You know, my goal is called remission. Remission means people getting people fully better. No symptoms at all. That's my goal with everyone. And where most doctors will get people the better. Are you better? Yeah, I'm better. But well, okay, good. Goodbye. Right, right. You can leave now, but it's like, yeah, but I'm still not sleeping well. Well, you know, get some exercise again. Goodbye. So a lot of doctors, you know, blow people off, don't spend enough time with them. You know, customer service is terrible in medicine. Usually, what I try to do with my patients is spend really an adequate amount of time with them and listen to all their concerns, explain what I'm doing, you know, which is unusual in medicine that I can actually, actually return every phone call every day, same day, every email. It's a lot to keep up with all of it, but I'm dedicated to my patients and getting them better and keeping them. I love what you're saying, because I've had a client that actually she had an adverse reaction to it when she's, you know, because of, you know, she was depressed. She got more depressed. Have you seen, you know, things like that? What's happening is it's a misdiagnosis. And so if someone is depressed and antidepressants make them more depressed, or it makes them feel suicidal, and you're going to see that with like the black box warning, and that's what scares people. Oh, you hear what they say, it's going to cause suicide. It doesn't do that. If you're depressed, truly depressed, they don't take lives. What's going on is the misdiagnosis is the person might have a subtle case of bipolar disorder. Right. I got you. Okay. Bipolar disorder doesn't necessarily mean the mania. You know, the more subtle variation of bipolar disorder, bipolar depression, which is not very pretty indistinguishable sometimes with regular depression. But if you ask the right question to get the right history, you should be able to. Right, right. And then if you so if I see that happening with any antidepressant, I pull it away immediately and go a different direction saying, okay, we start with a mood stabilizer, we need to go a whole different direction for this person. Right, right. Got you. Yeah, because I've seen even, you know, they spend a little bit of time with you, you know, and then they're already prescribing medicines and I don't like that, you know, and I'm so glad that you're talking about this now because it's so important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's so important. They just want to dole out the pills. You know, it's like, here you go, you know, and let's talk about like how medications like you said prior is how they can sometimes conflict with either other medications and, and, you know, not be effective. I'm sorry, my my volume is on. So can you ask that one more time? I said you said something about, you know, medications sometimes don't don't mix well with other medications or, you know, kind of, you know, obstruct the person. What do you mean by that? Well, it's got to be, I mean, if a medication is causing side effects with minimal benefit, it's just the wrong. For example, let's take an SSRI. Okay. Problems with SSRI, which is the most common thing given most problems common is apathy, feeling flat, feeling lack of emotion. Yes. Sexual side effects. So there, you know, I mean, but if it's working really well, it has a couple side effects, you know, maybe I add, well, you train her to take care of the side effects. So there's, you know, there's ways of mixing things together, but I want to make sure. Okay. If someone's not on the right one, I think that I think I can do better. I, you know, I'm not going to add something to something that's not already a good medication. A lot of my patients are on two or three things, but I explain to them why if they want to get that really, if they really want to get to their goal, which is, you know, the fact themselves, again, it's, it's often takes more than one, but, but again, what I do is I draw diagrams. I explain how the nervousness. That's good. I explained, here's what this medication does, but that does, I do an explanation with every patient. Here's what I'm doing. Here's why I'm doing it. But just opening, openly communicating with them and, and, and then listening to them and listening to what are your concerns? What have you tried in the past that didn't work? What are you, you know, so you just have to really be open communication with my patient. Sure. You're empowering the patient. That's great. Empower them. And, and, and yeah, so that's, isn't that, and in my, my success rate is extremely high because I've had so much experience doing things the way I do it. And it's, it's kind of my own method, but in the sense that I learned how to do it on my own, really without much guidance, but just figuring it out on my own. You help your clients, your clients or your patients understand mental health. And sometimes we want it to work really quickly. How do you help them understand? It's not a quick, you know, not a quick fix, but it's a balance. Well, it's fairly quick. I mean, the medications should work within a week or two. It might take more than a day or two, but the first week we're going to see something positive by the second week. It might be just kind of telling them ahead of time what to expect. And then if you're, Hey, if you're not seeing what I'm just saying right now, call me, because if you're not seeing, because I, what I do with every patient, every new patient, especially, or every time I start a new medication, I tell them to call me in a week, call me in a week and let me know how the first week goes. I can tell by the first week of someone taking it, if it's the right fit or not. And I might, after the first week say, okay, that's good. Let's try increasing the dose to here before I see you before I talk to you again. And so I do things very deliberately, but I work quickly and I don't want people suffering needlessly when the, when the, when I, when I can fix it super quickly, usually within two to three visits, I get almost pretty much most people better, which is within a month. Well, why do you think they're saying, you know, um, it takes so long to get a result from it? Why do you think that's being said? What, why it takes so long for things to work? I mean, yeah. Like, you know, initially they said, Oh, it takes up to four to four weeks or something to get into your system. They're not being aggressive enough. So they, okay, we're going to be on this. We'll put you on Zoloft 25 milligrams for a month or two. It's like, no 50 for a week, a hundred for a week. So what I do is I, I work quickly and most doctors drag their feet and then at two or three months for passing and barely anything's happening. The thing is a lot of patients are going to drop out by that point. They're going to say, forget this. It's not working. I didn't think it would work. So then, then all of a sudden you lose that patient and that patient may never get treated the rest of their life. Right. Exactly. They got the doctor. Didn't tell it wasn't aggressive enough. And then, and then, and then that person suffered needlessly probably the rest of their life because they don't trust the doctor anymore. They say, Oh, well, I've tried that. Well, maybe you didn't try the right thing or maybe you didn't go to the right doctor, but, but a lot of time, you know, and again, in this area of medicine, you know, we, you know, the, the consequences can be dire. If someone isn't treated properly, we got a possibility. If someone feels hopeless, I'm never going to feel better as well. What's the point of being around anymore? So there's a lot of that, I think, unfortunately. Yeah. That's good info. That's good. What he had said is really good info. Listen to what he's saying. It's really good. Okay. So we're going to switch the gears to your new book, the Corona Protocol. Yeah. So what, what happened? One insight. Give us one insight that'll blow the conversation about treating mental health wrong for decades. Or that I, after my first few books, before I talk about that, I wrote, I wrote two books for doctors. I really realized I really need to teach. I need to teach doctors, especially primary care doctors. Put them aside. Then I, the, well, the, the, my new book, one thing is the title of the subtitle is the part that like blows people away. It was called the Corona Protocol, a scientifically proven medical solution to stop addiction, bullying, homelessness, school shootings, and suicide years in the making. So this, this book, basically what I did, like, I kind of changed directions with this book because I've always loved fiction. I'm a fiction reader. So I wanted to debate this more about storytelling. So basically the book, 30 original short stories about different people that have different struggles and I tell their stories and I, and I, that I tell like how I treated them. And, and so I, I, you know, I talk about anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders. Then I talk about personality disorders like narcissism and sociopaths and, and then I talk about all those things on the subtitle I just said. So it's a very, it's a lot, a lot in this book. I'm, I'm really proud of that. How it came out. It's done very well. And then after I finished this book, I completed a couple, a month or two ago, I, I, I went back and, and finished my, the other two teaching, teaching books. And so those are, those are being manufactured currently. And so then I'll have my, my, then I'll have finished six books and then I'm done writing. No more, no more after three years and six books is enough. And then I'm sick of writing. You're the, you're like the third author that said that no more, that's it. No more, that's enough. That's enough. Yeah. But the book, you know, what's nice, you know, there's, there's so many stories in the book. I think people really love, you know, there's some sad endings. There's some happy endings. It's just like, just, it's not every, not everything is a happy ending. And, and so but yeah, but I think it's an inspiring book. People said they're very inspired by it. And then realizing that, you know, I have, I sound like that story, you know, that story sounds so much like me. So I tried to make some of them are based on real patients, just change the specifics. And some of them are, are based on some patients, but I tried to make each story relevant to people. So anyone who's struggling with any type of mental health issue can find at least one story in this book that's going to be helpful. Okay. All right. What's one thing that, you know, one, you know, maybe one conversation or, you know, a chapter that would be so outstanding that set out for you that you, you know, you like the most. I know you like every bit of it, but just one part. Like, I guess the first chapter is on anxiety disorders. Gotcha. I tell a couple stories about the two different people who struggle with it. Why that chapter? Because anxiety is the number one thing I see it. Yes. And I hear it everywhere. Whether it's social anxiety or generalized or phobias or whatnot for generalized anxiety or panic attacks. I mean, it's, it's the most, it's a miserable condition to have. And it's the most common. So that's why that I wanted to make that opening chapter really. And so I think that chapter turned out really well. And then the depression chapter, the bipolar chapter, I think I like them all. You know, I really put a lot of time into developing each story. You know, it took me like, I don't know, four or five years for me to finish this book, but I took the time with it to make sure I got everything right. Right. Okay. Good. Good stuff. So you're bringing this message also to more people with the Dr. Paul show. Yeah. From your perspective, why do we need to have these conversations out loud instead of behind the doctor's office doors? Well, I got approached by my, a patient of mine sent a woman and in my book, my recent book, she owned the TV network and drew a Roku and Amazon fire anyway. And she, we had a zoom meeting and she said, do you like my book a lot? And she said, you know, would you be interested in doing a reality show based on what you do? And so I said, sure. And so we are in our fourth or fifth season now, but basically the show is me. Most of the show besides the interviews I do is me sitting with patients. So I basically pick people with really interesting stories who are willing to come on camera. And we sit down usually about a half hour and basically they go through their story and then what led them to see me. And I talked about the treatment and then they usually they're all happy endings because I wouldn't probably have men otherwise, but they're all like live testimonials. And then after I'm done, I try to get four people to come in and make it worthwhile to get my videographer to come in. And then I, after I'm done with all of them and after everyone leaves, then I take my whiteboard out and then, and I go through each patient. Okay, here's what I did. And I, I draw out the neurons and which are nerve cells and explain, okay, here's what this, so I explain on the, on the board, what each medication actually does. Oh, that's good. Um, but yeah, now, and it's gone really well. We're up to over 7 million views worldwide on Roku. Wow. On our YouTube channel, we're up to over 140,000 views. We're, we're getting over 5,000 new views a week on my YouTube channel. Wow. It's really blowing up. And, and so, and it's, um, if you want to find it on YouTube, well, it's the Dr. Paul show on Roku, but if you want to find it on YouTube, you have to specifically put the, the Dr. Paul show, all lowercase and all stuck together with no spacing and no period. So it's still T-H-E-D-R-P-A-U-L-S-H-O-W. So you put it all like, just like that scrunched together. Then you can see if you get a free channel and, um, yeah, but I'm really proud of the show. It's doing really well. People love it. Um, we're, we're doing a season right now on PTSD. Um, so I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm having a veteran with a purple heart who, um, come on and, and I having, um, you know, people who I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm attacking, I'm, I'm talking about PTSD with different people, you know, emergency, EMT, first responders, veterans, you know, people who've gone through really traumatic experiences. And so that's what we're doing this season. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's really, it's fun. It's been fun to do it. It's been very impacting. I'm also blowing up on TikTok and Instagram. I'm my social media sites were doing really well. Um, yeah. And so it's, it's been, it's been great. And I, and I, and I'm on the first three books, uh, healing the mind and body series. I'm, I'm, I've re edited them. So I'm, they're coming out with new covers and new, Oh, that's beautiful. A relaunch. Everything's getting relaunched. Yeah. And then I want to teach, like I said, I might, I want to give back. I really want to give back by talking to doctors about how to do this and how to do it correctly. And I think primary care doctors like myself are the, really the ones who need this. Yeah. They need you. They definitely do. Also psychiatrists. I mean, not, you know, not the rate, but they often do things also the same. Same old way. And they're not really very creative. And so I want to, I'm hoping even to get the psychiatrists, if they're willing to listen to me being a family doctor or everything, but I think I have some insights that I, that, you know, that I think would be helpful for them too. That's great. Well, this is the last one. And this is a big one. If someone's listening right now, it feels like they tried everything and nothing has worked. What will you tell them today about not giving up? They probably really have not tried everything. They might've, you know, so I have a lot of patients who come to see me that I've tried everything and they haven't. So then I look at back at what they have previous doctors tried and they're like, well, they're just doing the same thing over and over again. They're just, you know, you're on the, they've tried five SSRIs. They've tried this. They haven't, they haven't stepped back. They haven't gotten the diagnosis correct. So that's the one thing is to make sure that the diagnosis is correct and that have they tried the correct medication. There's other alternatives. There's, there's psilocybin, um, um, microdosing mushrooms. That seems to be very hopeful. You know, there's a lot of increasing evidence. There's ketamine, which has gotten more popular, you know, there's safety concerns. But if you do it, if you're, if you go to someone knows what they're doing and then there's, we call it TMS where you sit in this chair and they have, it's not like, you know, they have these things around your head. But that's another expensive, but that's, that's when medications don't work. So not to give up. Um, if you have a struggle, just, there is an answer out there, but, you know, maybe even if you haven't found it yet, don't give up. There is, um, you know, if you're struggling, it's real and, and don't let anybody ever tell you, Oh, just get over it. Just try harder. If you feel the way you're feeling, um, and you know, most of the reasons for it is genetics. Genetics is the number one reason people go to me and people are looking at situations more and thinking like, well, my situation is okay. Why would I feel? Well, it's not always, I look at your mom and your dad, your grandparents, your siblings, you know, I mean, you guys, here's an example. I mean, Robin Williams and, and I know you've heard, you might've known Twitch, you know, Twitch, I mean, um, both of those suicides, uh, really blew me away. I mean, you know, Robin Williams, happy guy, always cracking jokes, everything. Yeah. She's always smiling and dancing and he has two young kids at home. So you wouldn't expect. And you think, well, someone who like that is that they were probably doing great with money. They're at fame. They have all these people love them, these things. And well, you know, and why would my, my son was really mad. He's like, geez, I'm mad at Twitch for doing, I go, look, don't be mad at him. He was miserable and he, he was super, he was depressed and he didn't see a way out and he did that. And, and so it, it, it, things don't make sense often in this area, you know, but the, but there's a reason for, I think things happening and there's, and there's typically a really good solutions. Hmm. That's good. Wow. This conversation has opened my eyes and I know audience it's opened your eyes. So if this has done some work, you know, something for you in this healing journey, by all means stop by and visit the, the Dr. Paul show and buy his book today. Okay. Don't forget one, one quick thing. My, my books are available. My, my books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Walmart. And my newest product is also on audible and on audiobook and audible. Yes. All right. Yes. So, you know, we, we, we love to have like people in the show to have the, just the, you know, involved in so many things and we all about mind and body. So guys, I want you to check us out, watch this and then get the book. You can find it anywhere. Just look up Dr. Paul. Let's do that. Dr. Corona, look him up and you'll find all his books and please visit his show. The Dr. Paul show. And if you like this episode, please like subscribe and share the episode with some people that can break free from the old way of thinking. Join us here on the YouTube channel, keeping it real on purpose. And thank you for visiting us today, Dr. Paul, and see you next time. Bye for now. We've all done it. Stock our fridge with good intentions only to sacrifice nutrition for convenience. Keep your body and mind nourished with whole body meal shakes from Kachava. It's got 25 grams of protein, six grams of fiber greens, and so much more, but it actually tastes delicious. 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