The Experience Miracles Podcast

Doctors & Teachers Told Him He Couldn’t: Swapping Limiting Beliefs with Dr. Axe

Apr 23, 2024

How Mindset Shapes Your Child’s Healing

Episode 17, Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: April 23, 2024 | Duration: ~57 min Guest: Dr. Josh Axe, DC, MS, Physician, Author & Co-Founder of Ancient Nutrition

Key Takeaways

  • Limiting beliefs directly suppress healing outcomes. Research on the placebo and nocebo effects confirms that what a person believes about their health shapes their physical reality, children diagnosed with ADHD or autism who are told “nothing can be done” are set on a path of despair that closes the door to real recovery.
  • ADHD is not a disease, it’s a personality type. Dr. Josh Axe argues that ADHD is better understood as attention selectivity in kinesthetic, high-energy learners. Natural interventions, diet, outdoor activity, targeted supplements, and Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, address the root cause without medication.
  • 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut, and a compromised gut microbiome directly underlies many childhood mental health, behavioral, and immune challenges. Antibiotic overuse is a primary driver of microbiome disruption, and rebuilding it requires deliberate nutritional and probiotic support.
  • The vagus nerve is the master switch between fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest. Stimulating it through chiropractic adjustments activates the parasympathetic system, improving sleep, digestion, nutrient absorption, immune function, and focus in children stuck in Sympathetic Dominance.
  • Who surrounds your child, and who their doctor is, may matter more than any single treatment. Both Dr. Axe and Dr. Tony Ebel argue that finding a practitioner who believes in your child’s ability to heal is the single most critical step in the healing journey.

How Does Mindset Affect a Child’s Health and Healing?

Mindset is the highest-ranked variable in a child’s health outcomes, not genetics, not medication, not diet alone. The mind-body connection is documented in clinical literature through the placebo and nocebo effects: patients who believe they are healing consistently outperform those who believe they cannot get better, even when the treatments are identical. This is not motivation science, it is physiology.

When a doctor tells a family that their child’s ADHD, autism, or chronic illness is genetic and untreatable, that diagnosis often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Families internalize the limiting belief, stop exploring root causes, and unknowingly close the door on recoveries that were entirely possible. Dr. Josh Axe experienced this personally, diagnosed with ADHD in high school, told by a teacher he would never become a doctor, he nearly abandoned the goal before a single encouraging mentor changed the trajectory of his entire career.

For parents navigating chronic childhood health challenges, the most important first step is not a supplement or an adjustment, it is finding a practitioner who shares the belief that healing is possible. That belief, once transferred to the child, begins shifting nervous system states before a single intervention has been applied. The mind and body are connected through the nervous system, and the nervous system responds to belief.

The Mind-Body Connection: Placebo, Nocebo, and Why Beliefs Become Biology [00:00:00 – 00:08:58]

Dr. Josh Axe: Our thoughts and beliefs have a measurable impact on physical health. The placebo effect, where sugar pill groups achieve results comparable to medicated groups, demonstrates that the belief in healing produces real biological change. The nocebo effect is the inverse: believing you are sick, or that nothing can help you, makes you sicker. A documented case study found a patient died within the predicted three months of a cancer diagnosis that turned out to be a misdiagnosis, the tumor was benign and removable. His belief killed him.

Limiting beliefs show up constantly in the families of children with chronic conditions. A parent hears “it’s genetic, there’s nothing you can do,” and they carry that belief into every subsequent interaction. That belief shuts the door on everything that could actually help.

“You are one single limiting belief away from that breakthrough, from a breakthrough in your health. You just need to be able to define what that belief is and swap it for a new empowering belief.”, Dr. Josh Axe

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: The mind and body are not just metaphorically connected, they are physically connected through the nervous system. That is the literal mechanism. And the “cheat code” to healing is not a drug or even a supplement, it is locating a belief system that says the cause can be found and the body can heal, and then finding a practitioner who operates from that same framework.

The harder the condition, the PANDAS, the autism cases, the more aggressively conventional medicine tends to argue for genetic determinism. Those families most need an alternative framework, and too many of them never find one because they are told at the outset that the search is pointless.

Dr. Axe’s Story: From Failing Freshman to Doctor, Author, and Entrepreneur [00:09:57 – 00:15:44]

Dr. Josh Axe: In freshman year of high school, a teacher told me directly that with my grades, I would never get into medical school. A few weeks later, I was diagnosed with ADHD. The doctor talked about me like I wasn’t in the room. My takeaway as a 14-year-old was simple: I’m not smart. I stopped trying.

I graduated high school with a C average. I was rejected by almost every college I applied to. The University of Kentucky gave me a conditional admission, take summer classes and average above a 3.0 or you’re out. In English 101, a professor named Ms. Williams asked me to stay after class. She told me I had gotten the highest grade in the class and that she thought I should consider a writing or journalism career.

That moment was a memory transplant. One person’s belief replaced four years of a limiting identity. I went from a C average to a 3.9 GPA at Johns Hopkins. I started Ancient Nutrition, wrote over a dozen books, and became the physician I had been told I could never be.

“If I would’ve held on to my one limiting belief, none of that would’ve happened. There are a lot of people out there where you have a limiting belief about yourself or your kids, and because of it, nothing happens. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”, Dr. Josh Axe

I wrote Think This, Not That while bedridden with a spinal infection, unable to walk for a full year. A doctor told me I might be permanently disabled. I chose to focus instead on athletes who had been told the same thing and were now walking. That mindset shift, not just medicine, is what drove my recovery.

ADHD Is a Personality, Not a Disorder: Natural Approaches That Actually Work [00:15:44 – 00:27:50]

Dr. Josh Axe: ADHD is not a disease. It is a personality type, the way many high-energy, kinesthetic learners are wired. Kids with ADHD are not incapable of focus. They are highly capable of focus on things they care about: a soccer game, a video game, an imaginative book. The problem is not the child. The problem is asking them to sit in a classroom for eight hours.

This has been said by many recognized psychologists, including Jordan Peterson. Most boys simply are not designed for that environment. Einstein, the apostle Paul, several U.S. presidents, all reportedly had ADHD. These are high-output people with selective, powerful focus. Calling it a “deficit disorder” serves one purpose: selling the pharmaceutical solution that requires you to believe you are broken.

Here are the natural interventions that actually move the needle:

  1. Awareness and reframe. Understand that your child’s design is not a flaw. Schools are not built for these kids, that is a structural mismatch, not a medical problem.
  2. Diet. Excess sugar and processed carbohydrates directly increase hyperactivity. Food colorings are linked to hyperactivity in clinical studies. A diet built around meat, vegetables, and fruit, with fruit as the only sugar source, produces measurable behavioral change.
  3. Targeted supplements. B vitamins (methylated or standard), omega-3 fatty acids, and calming herbs like L-theanine and CBD can meaningfully support nervous system regulation in kids with ADHD.
  4. Outdoor activity. Kids who are stuck on iPads before and after school have no outlet for their energy. Forcing outdoor movement before school and enrolling them in sports after school releases the excess energy that then disrupts the classroom.

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: There is a fifth element that changes everything, and it is the cheat code: Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care. When a child’s nervous system has been loaded with stress, prenatal tension, birth trauma, early antibiotic use, chronic ear infections, the sympathetic dominance that results turns a natural high-energy personality into a behavioral crisis.

“There’s a cheat code called neurologically-focused chiropractic, where the adjustments we make get into the sympathetic nervous system and release that stuck excessive stress. Nerves that fire together wire together. We can pull off that sympathetic stress.”, Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP

When we activate the vagus nerve through adjustments, ADHD kids sleep better first, because the raging bull brain cannot wind down. Sleep improvement leads to gut improvement. Gut improvement makes dietary changes actually land, because digestion works again. You cannot absorb the clean food you are trying to feed them when their nervous system is stuck in fight-or-flight.

Teenagers are the patients who transform most visibly. The moment a teenager meets a doctor who says “you are not broken, your design is a superpower, your nervous system just needs recalibration”, they begin to heal before the first adjustment, because the belief shifted.

Choosing the Right Doctor: Why Your Provider’s Mindset Is a Health Variable [00:27:50 – 00:38:01]

Dr. Josh Axe: We become who we surround ourselves with. A Duke University study found that people who want to get fit should spend time with physically fit people, the behavior transfers. The same is true for health. If your doctor is only prescribing drugs and telling you that your condition is permanent, that message transfers too.

Look at your doctor’s health. Look at their family’s health. A practitioner who is unhealthy, stressed, or operating purely from a pharmaceutical framework cannot lead your family toward health, because they have never been there themselves.

There is nothing wrong with conventional medicine for emergencies and crises. But chronic childhood conditions are not emergencies, they are root cause problems. A doctor who received zero nutrition training and no coursework on actual health cannot address root causes. The analogy holds everywhere: you would not hire a financial advisor who had only studied business failures. You would not hire a coach who had only studied losing teams.

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: Conventional pediatricians are not trained in health restoration. That is not a criticism, it is a job description mismatch. They are trained for crisis management, and they are excellent at it. My son’s life was saved by emergency medicine. But health restoration is a different job, and it requires a practitioner with a different training and a different belief system.

The single most high-leverage thing a parent can do is find a doctor who believes their child can heal.

Antibiotics, the Gut Microbiome, and Why the “Second Brain” Matters [00:40:24 – 00:45:07]

Dr. Josh Axe: Antibiotics kill the majority of beneficial gut bacteria, and that bacterial population is extraordinarily difficult to rebuild. The gut lining, which is primarily made of collagen, can develop what is known as leaky gut syndrome when that microbial balance is disrupted: the gut barrier loses integrity, and undigested food particles, proteins like gluten and casein, heavy metals, and pathogens enter the bloodstream and trigger systemic inflammation.

Every single medication depletes the body of nutrients. Antibiotics alone deplete probiotics, B vitamins, iron, zinc, and glutamine. Each prescription creates a downstream nutrient deficiency that then produces its own symptoms, which then get diagnosed as a new condition.

“Every single drug is depleting your body of vitamins and nutrients. So it’s causing another medical condition. And the big thing is, there is a better way, there are natural antibiotics, there are natural ways to heal the gut.”, Dr. Josh Axe

The gut microbiome is the second brain, it contains the second-highest concentration of nerve tissue in the human body after the brain itself. Hippocrates said all disease begins in the gut, and modern research confirms the mechanism: 70% of the immune system lives in the gut, and 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced there. Depression, anxiety, ADHD, learning disorders, many of these are downstream consequences of a disrupted gut microbiome.

To rebuild it: consistent use of a broad-spectrum probiotic (including soil-based organisms), collagen protein to restore gut lining integrity, and a diet anchored in meat, vegetables, and fruit, eliminating processed foods, sugar, and inflammatory inputs. If children have had antibiotic exposure, these steps are not optional. They are foundational.

The Vagus Nerve: The Switch Between Stress and Healing [00:46:08 – 00:50:24]

Dr. Josh Axe: The vagus nerve is the regulator, it maintains the balance between the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest). When the sympathetic system dominates, blood flow is routed to the brain and extremities for emergency response. Digestion shuts down. Absorption stops. Hormones go out of balance. Cellular cleanup halts.

Almost every chronically ill child, and most chronically stressed adults, lives predominantly in that sympathetic state. Their bodies cannot heal because healing requires parasympathetic activation: rest, digest, repair, absorb, detox.

Stimulating the vagus nerve activates the parasympathetic response. When that happens, children digest better, absorb nutrients they were unable to absorb before, sleep more deeply, and their immune systems begin functioning. Multiple clinical studies have found improvements in acid reflux, high blood pressure, ear infections, and athletic performance under chiropractic care, all because the adjustments are restoring sympathetic-parasympathetic balance through the vagus nerve.

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: We treat Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care as a third branch of healthcare, distinct from both conventional medicine and general natural health. Conventional medicine is irreplaceable for emergencies. Nutrition and natural health address critical inputs. But when a child’s nervous system is so deeply locked in Sympathetic Dominance that nothing else is landing, the diet isn’t working, the supplements aren’t absorbing, the sleep doesn’t improve, the missing key is the nervous system reset.

Once that parasympathetic-vagus nerve activation happens, everything else works better. Parents who have tried everything and feel like they have hit a wall often find that chiropractic care was the unlock. The adjustment opens the door; everything else they have already been doing can now walk through it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my child’s mindset really affect their physical health, or is that just motivation talk?

The mind-body connection is well-documented in clinical research through the placebo and nocebo effects. When a patient believes they cannot heal, especially a child who has been told their condition is genetic and permanent, that belief suppresses healing at the physiological level. Conversely, children who are told by a doctor they believe in that their body can heal show measurable changes before any treatment is applied. Mindset is a biological variable, not just motivation.

Is ADHD really not a disorder? What can I do instead of medication?

According to Dr. Josh Axe and Dr. Tony Ebel, ADHD is better understood as a high-energy, kinesthetic personality type that does not fit the structure of conventional schooling, not a disease or neurological deficit. Natural approaches that move the needle include removing sugar and food colorings from the diet, adding B vitamins and omega-3 supplements, maximizing outdoor movement before and after school, and addressing nervous system dysregulation with Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, which releases sympathetic stress and activates the vagus nerve to improve sleep and digestion.

How does antibiotic overuse connect to my child’s behavioral and mental health challenges?

Antibiotics destroy the gut microbiome, and 95% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. When that microbial balance is compromised, serotonin production drops, nutrient absorption fails, and the immune system weakens, all of which show up as behavioral, mood, and cognitive symptoms. Rebuilding the microbiome with probiotics (including soil-based organisms), collagen, and a whole-food diet is a foundational step for any child with a history of antibiotic exposure.

What does the vagus nerve actually do, and how does chiropractic help it?

The vagus nerve is the primary controller of parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) function. When it is underactivated, as it is in most children with chronic stress, birth trauma, or nervous system dysregulation, the body stays locked in sympathetic (fight-or-flight) mode, where digestion, sleep, immune function, and healing all suffer. Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic adjustments directly stimulate vagal tone, restoring parasympathetic balance and unlocking the body’s ability to absorb, rest, and repair.

Why does it matter which doctor my child sees?

Because the practitioner’s belief system transfers to the family. A doctor who only prescribes medication and tells you the condition is genetic will close the door on every root cause investigation. A practitioner who believes in the body’s ability to heal, and has the tools to support nervous system restoration, opens it. As Dr. Josh Axe says: we become who we surround ourselves with. That applies to your family’s healthcare provider as much as anywhere else.

Where can I find a practitioner who practices Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care?

The PX Docs directory lists trained neurologically-focused pediatric chiropractors across the country. You can search by location to find a practitioner near you at Find a PX Docs Office Near You.

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