“We have one word for anxiety. But there are so many causes. Anxiety is like a smoke alarm — it’s your inner genius telling you something’s wrong.”
– Traci

Dr. Traci Potterf grew up in a world few kids do. The daughter of a psychiatrist, it was routine for her to join her father in the office and on visits to hospitals and nursing homes.

“I was like an emotional support kid,” she quips.

She saw firsthand the symptoms and impact of mental health struggles. The conventional wisdom of the time explained mental health issues as genetic chemical imbalances.

So, when she experienced her first bout of anxiety in the form of a panic attack, she feared it meant a lifetime of mental illness.

At the time, Traci was 19 — a college freshman who worked hard and played hard.

“I was eating more crap than ever before and partying,” she says.

While it was her first experience with anxiety, it would not be her last. Ultimately, she came to understand her personal triggers and find solutions that addressed the causes — not just the symptoms.

Anxiety Causes: Lifestyle, Stress

After the first panic attack, Traci’s father suggested medication, but she had concerns about side effects. And candidly, at the time, she thought that taking something would be admitting she had a mental illness.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to figure out how to make this stop without pharmaceuticals,’” she says. “I’m like the queen of side effects, and I just think something in me didn’t want that.”

While earning her doctorate in medical anthropology at UC Berkeley, anxiety struck again — this time, in the classroom while she was teaching.

“In grad school, I had another resurgence of anxiety because doing a Ph.D. is pretty stressful,” she says. “Suddenly, my arm goes limp. And I start feeling this panic inside, and I can’t use my arm.”

She took a pause to calm her body down and realized it was a nudge to make changes.

Traci had been learning about the impact of industrialized culture on indigenous and traditional rural communities and considered whether a more back-to-nature lifestyle could help her.

“When these people started adopting an industrialized lifestyle — drinking Coca-Cola, eating processed food, being exposed to environmental toxins — they started developing not only chronic disease like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and autoimmunity,” she says. “They also started developing mental health issues like anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, which they didn’t have before.”

A meta-analysis of 54 studies found Western dietary patterns are associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety, with a ~20% increased odds of depressive symptoms and similar trends for anxiety.

Anxiety Returns with Mold, Lead, and Lyme

While still in grad school, Traci shifted to more of a real-food diet, plus found mood-boosting benefits in meditation, yoga, and breathwork. And with a cleaner lifestyle, she no longer experienced chronic anxiety.

Following a similar path, Traci later moved to Hawaii. There, she continued meditating, eating a healthy diet, exercising, sleeping well, and healing trauma.

While she was growing up, Traci’s father would erupt into unexpected rage, which left residual trauma and her nervous system wired for hypervigilance.

But then, debilitating anxiety returned, this time worse than anything she had experienced before.

“I had all of these sleep issues, anxiety, depression, and some brain fog, memory problems, and cognition issues,” she says. “Then I developed debilitating body-wide pain and my kidney function was in decline.”

As a functional health practitioner working with clients to solve health mysteries, Traci dug into her own case. She tested herself and her home, and over time, found the primary suspects.

She had suspected mold — common in humid Hawaii — and confirmed it in her home. Studies have connected mold and increased anxiety-like behavior and inflammation in areas like the hippocampus — a region linked to mood regulation.

However, Traci also discovered lead-based paint in the home where she lived for many years.

When she first moved in, the paint was peeling and the landlord asked the tenants to paint over it. Within two years, it was peeling again, but the owners did not to respond to their requests to correct the problem.

When Traci’s health severely deteriorated, she decided to test the home — finally confirming lead-based paint throughout the entire house, including the cabinets.

“The owners refused to address it,” Traci says. That led her to leave a home she loved after nine years.

“It was beautiful and had the most stunning view — one of the most gorgeous views you could ever fathom in your life,” she says. “That view almost killed me because that was lead paint.”

MSIDS: An Immune System Breakdown

Later, she also discovered Lyme disease, which was likely reactivated from a previous exposure because of her weakened immune system.

“Most of us have some exposure to a lot of these things we call pathogens or diseases,” she says. “But it’s not the presence of the critter that makes the disease, it’s how your immune system dances with it. If your immune system can’t keep it under control or dormant or non-destructive, then that’s when you get sick.”

The combination of mold, lead, and Lyme — what she calls a trifecta — brought on multisystemic infectious disease syndrome (MSIDS), a condition in which infection triggers widespread inflammation and dysfunction across multiple body systems.

Traci’s illness left her debilitated and unable to work. Her anxiety intensified and led to frightening suicidal thoughts.

Addressing the Causes of Anxiety

Traci relocated from the toxic home and began slowly healing herself using functional medicine, nature-based practices, and nervous system work.

Though the progress seemed slow, she eventually felt better and regained her energy and mental clarity, and her anxiety and dark thoughts dissipated.

Looking back at her life experiences through the lens of medical anthropology, Traci found that each bout of anxiety had a distinct cause: lifestyle factors, traumatic stress, pathogens, and environmental triggers.

She saw the same patterns in her clients and how finding the root causes resolved their anxiety. That led Traci to shift her focus to help others as a functional anxiety detective.

“We have one word for anxiety,” she says. “But there are so many causes. Anxiety is like a smoke alarm — it’s your inner genius telling you something’s wrong.”

After 20 years of working with clients, she categorizes anxiety triggers into a few major groups:

  • Lifestyle — Habits like sleep, food, movement, relationships, and thoughts. “In order to be mentally healthy, we need to avoid toxic foods that poison our brains and nervous systems as well as nourish our brains so they can repair themselves,” she says.
  • Microbiome imbalances — Including parasites and dysbiosis.
  • Hidden infections — Such as Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr virus, and long COVID.
  • Toxin exposure — From heavy metals, mold, and everyday chemicals.
  • Changing hormones — Particularly during perimenopause and menopause, including in men.
  • Blood sugar levels — Which can cause anxiety when dysregulated.
  • Mineral and nutrient imbalances — Certain genetic predispositions and health issues can cause imbalances that can manifest as anxiety and other mental health issues.

She describes our bodies as having a “bucket of tolerance.” When the bucket overflows, symptoms begin.

To uncover causes in clients, Traci runs functional lab tests that look for imbalances, pathogens, and toxins. Then, she helps determine a science-backed natural path to address them.

“The problem is, we have made ourselves so sick by diverging from nature and then we try to fix it with the same thinking that caused it in the first place — one example being patented synthetic molecules in the form of pharmaceuticals,” she says. “I’m not judging people who take meds. I’m not saying there’s no place for them. I’m just saying they’re like duct tape. They don’t fix the problem.”

Lifestyle Changes for Anxiety

In the short term, lifestyle changes can help ease anxiety — including eating unprocessed, whole foods like grass-fed meat, wild-caught seafood, vegetables, and moderate amounts of fruit. Traci emphasizes the importance of high protein for lasting energy and optimal mental health and aging.

Adequate sleep is critical, and Traci advises weaning off caffeine and limiting (or stopping) alcohol and replacing them with healthier choices that are still pleasurable — what Traci calls “healthy hedonism.”

“Watch out for bio-hacks that may not be good for your body,” she says. “Like fasting and coffee on an empty stomach in the morning that may spike anxiety. Caffeine in general can raise anxiety.”

She’s also a big advocate for meditation and breathwork to calm stress and build a resilient nervous system.

Root-Cause Solutions for Anxiety

A comprehensive approach also includes nervous system retraining and functional health support to correct imbalances in hormones, gut health, nutrients, toxins, or pathogens.

As people work to address the root causes of anxiety — sometimes seeing results in weeks or months — Traci notes other health improvements as well.

“There are all these side benefits,” she says. “What you need to do to heal anxiety is actually going to heal your life. It’s going to heal your biology, your gut, your hormones. It’s going to help you age more healthfully.”

Can We Expect Anxiety Sometimes?

“It’s normal for anxiety to be an occasional emotion,” Traci says. “But it doesn’t have to be what we call a debilitating disorder.”

“You’re not defective. You’re not broken. Your body’s not betraying you,” she adds. “It’s your best friend.”

Find and Follow

Learn more about Dr. Traci Potterf and her work as a functional anxiety detective:

The Steps That Helped

  • Detoxing from environmental toxins — Traci used sauna, binders, and supplements to gradually remove mold and lead from her system, which significantly reduced her anxiety symptoms.
  • Addressing root causes — Through lab testing, she identified hidden infections, hormonal imbalances, and toxic exposures contributing to her mental health struggles.
  • Lifestyle overhaul — Over the years, she shifted to a whole-foods diet, prioritized sleep, eliminated caffeine and rarely drinks alcohol, and embraced daily practices like yoga, red light therapy, and meditation. She also added nature-based practices like earthing, time in nature, and cold and heat exposure.
  • Nervous system retraining — Traci incorporated tools like visualization, cognitive reframing, and breathwork to calm her body’s stress response and rewire anxious thought patterns.