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Learn True Health with Ashley James

On Learn True Health, Ashley James interviews today's most successful natural healers. Learn True Health was created for YOU, the health enthusiast. If you are passionate about organic living or struggling with health issues and are looking to gain your health naturally, our holistic podcast is what you have been looking for! Ashley James interviews Naturopathic Doctors and expert holistic health care practitioners to bring you key holistic health information, results based advice and new natural steps you can take to achieve true health, starting NOW! If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, if you are fed up with prescription drug side effects, if you want to live in optimal health but you don't know where to start, this podcast is for you! If you are looking for ACTIONABLE advice from holistic doctors to get you on your path to healing, you will enjoy the wisdom each episode brings. Each practitioner will leave you with a challenge, something that you can do now, and each day, to measurably improve your health, energy, and vitality. Learn about new healing diet strategies, how to boost your immune system, balance your hormones, increase your energy, what supplements to take and why and how to experience your health and stamina in a new way. Ashley James from Learn True Health interviews doctors like Dr. Joel Wallach, Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Oz, Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Molly Niedermeyer on Naturopathic Medicine, Homeopathy, Supplements, Meditation, Holistic Health and Alternative Health Strategies for Gaining Optimal Health.
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Mar 19, 2024

The North American Academy of Neural Therapy

https://naant.org

naant.org

Dr. Jeff's website:

https://jeffharrisnd.com

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Get My New Book Addicted To Wellness:

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Mar 5, 2024

To book a free session with me to discuss trying this technology, visit https://www.learntruehealth.com and click Work With Ashley James in the menu!

Check out my new book! https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness

Feb 13, 2024

Hello True Health Seeker!

I am thrilled to announce the launch of my book, Addicted To Wellness: The Healthy Addiction: 12-Week Workbook for Creating a Lifelong Love of Well-Being.

You can find it here on Amazon: https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness

image

As part of my book launch celebration, the first 50 readers to post a selfie with my book on their social media will receive a fun book launch gift bag from me filled with limited edition goodies and my favorite health products!

Once you have purchased my book and received it in the mail, take a pic of my book in your hands, post it to your social media and tag me (@2learntruehealth on FB or @learntruehealth everywhere else), and then send me an email with a screenshot of your post and your mailing address so I can send you your gift bag!

I have a big favor to ask those of you who are fans of my show. After you go through my book, please consider giving it a 5-star written review on Amazon to help me promote it. The more 5-star reviews my book gets, the higher Amazon will rank it, which will help it reach more readers! With your help, my book reaches more people so that together, we can help more people Learn True Health!

THANK YOU!

 

To Your True Health,

Ashley James

Integrative Health Coach, Podcaster, Anxiety Cessation Expert & Author

PS. Want to know what my book is about? To sum it up, It's about developing cravings for wellness by experiencing fun health habits that build you up and give you more energy, mental clarity, better digestion, deeper sleep, joy, and more!

 

You can buy my book here: https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness

Feb 1, 2024

The Launch Of My Book Is Finally Here! Launching in February!
https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness

Dec 14, 2023

Check out the EMF Protection Grounding Bags here at https://www.learntruehealth.com/emfrocks
And be sure to get your listener discount by using coupon code LTH

 

Dec 5, 2023

Check out the nano silver we discussed: https://www.learntruehealth.com/silver - I got you a discount! Use coupon code LTH at checkout.
Get Keith's book for free: https://silveruseinstitute.com.

Nov 20, 2023

Black Friday / Cyber Deals: If you listen to this after the end of the sales, visit LearnTrueHealth.com/awesome to get the latest discounts I secure for my listeners on my top favorite health things!

Analemma

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November 17th until November 26th 

25% on all products using coupon code LTH25 

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Pre-Black Friday / Black Friday

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Cyber Monday

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BFLTH for 7% beginning Monday 20th and ending Sunday 26th at the end of day.

 

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10% off, free shipping, free mattress protector, free bamboo sheets, OR two non-toxic/chemical-free healthy pillows PLUS a copy of my latest book. 

 

IIN

IIN: 45% off IIN's Health Coach Training Program! (with coupon code "ASHLEYJAMES20")

Visit https://www.learntruehealth.com/healthcoachtraining to learn more and see all the courses!

Curious but want to learn more before you dive in? Get a free sample class here: https://www.learntruehealth.com/coach

The 45% off sale ends on the 25th!

Nov 20, 2023

Use coupon code LTH at energybits.com to get your supercharged spirulina and clean chlorella!

Check out becoming an Integrative Health Coach by taking the free sample class: learntruehealth.com/coach

511: Grow A Younger Brain, Phycocyanin & SOD Spirulina Algae Secrets

https://www.learntruehealth.com/grow-a-younger-brain-phycocyanin-sod-spirulina-algae-secrets

In this interview with Catherine Arnston, founder of EnergyBits, the focus is on the transformative health benefits of algae. Catherine discusses the potential of algae in improving brain function, preventing cancer, and enhancing cardiovascular health. Emphasizing the importance of choosing clean sources of algae, she explains why EnergyBits prioritizes product quality. Practical advice is provided on incorporating algae into daily meals, with a particular emphasis on the distinctions between chlorella and spirulina. The conversation also delves into the production process and nutritional profiles of these microalgae, highlighting their rich content of essential nutrients. Catherine expresses her aspiration to pursue further research in algae nutrition, concluding with a discussion on the critical role of algae in gut health and their potential to revolutionize overall well-being.

Highlights: 

  • The Benefits of Chlorella and Spirulina 
  • Spirulina Benefits for Brain Health 
  • The Power of Spirulina's Phycocyanin 
  • Investing in Health
  • SOD and Algae Supplements Importance
  • Algae Benefits for Healthy Lifestyle 

Intro: 

Ashley James (00:00.737)

Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 511.

I am so excited for today's guest and I know you will be too when you hear that we have Catharine Arnston back on the show. So excited to have you back. Welcome. 

Catharine Arnston (00:24.804)

I think this is my third, or is this my fourth?

Ashley James (00:27.340)

No, this is more than your third. Let me give you the list. You might be up there for one of my guests that's been the most frequent. Actually, frequent flyer. That's it. We've given you the Learn True Health frequent flyer. You've entered the Frequent Flyer Club.

We had you in Episode 234 talking about algae, just going deep into discussing algae and chlorella and spirulina. Episode 265, we talked about the superfood components of algae. Episode 266 was all about vitamin K2, of course, from algae, which is a great, great source. Episode 357, debunked algae myths.

I really like that one because, everyone's an expert these days and just because they have doctor in front of their name and then they write some article that was just a real misconstrued idea from one study and then all of a sudden everyone's it's bad science and everyone's running around like it's the truth and we have to really keep our heads about us and look a little deeper and so I really liked that episode.

And then you were on Episode 487, mitochondrial self-healing superfoods, which we dove deep into chlorella and spirulina, understanding how they can help us not only detoxify, not only nutrify, but also help the mitochondria be healthier. And of course, when you get into understanding the body's ability to heal itself, you learn that- every disease has one thing in common besides inflammation. Go a bit deeper than that. On a cellular level, every disease becomes a mitochondrial disease. And if your mitochondria isn't working, you're dead. 

Catharine Arnston (02:11.923)

Yes, exactly. And by the way, 90 percent of that inflammation is in the mitochondria. So their mitochondria and inflammation are inseparable. If you understand mitochondria, you will understand how to maintain, protect and regain your health. It's that simple.

Ashley James (02:28.947)

And you love digging into research and then, bringing it back to us and giving it to us in a way that we can, we can take your thousands of hours of diving in through the years. And then you condense it and give us, the bullet points we need to know so that we can walk out into our life with this information to best help ourselves be healthy, as healthy as possible. This is episode 511. Can you believe it? I know, is that cool?

Catharine Arnston (03:03.016)

Oh my god, thank you, I'm so honored.

Ashley James (03:06.222) 

I think I'm handing you your frequent flyer pin right now. And today we're gonna get into something you've been researching for a long time and seeing all the studies. And of course you see the results in those who regularly eat chlorella and spirulina. Now of course in past episodes there's really very few companies where you're gonna get clean, very, very clean chlorella and spirulina from. 

My favorite being your company, energybits.com. Listeners can use coupon code LTH as in Learn True Health when they go to energybits.com and buy Catharine Arnston's amazing chlorella and spirulina. You can chew it, you can just swallow it, or you can take a handful and throw it in your smoothie. There's all kinds of ways you can incorporate it. What I really appreciate about your chlorella and spirulina is you go above and beyond to make sure that they're very, very clean. 

So many companies out there have to have the warning on the back of the label proposition. I always forget the number. Proposition, what? 

Catharine Arnston (04:04.467)

I think it's 65 or 64.

Ashley James (04:05.873

Yes, proposition something. California says that this contain something that can cause cancer and all these things. And that's because there's heavy metals in a lot of those other algae companies because of their poor practices and you have outstanding practices. 

So of course that means it does cost more because you go above and beyond in testing and in the farming practice to this crop to make sure that it is pure. So we talked a lot about that in our past episode. So we're not gonna get into that too much in this episode because I really wanna spend a lot of time diving into what you're here to talk about today which is maximizing brain health, preventing cancer, and then of course, by doing those things, you're actually also supporting amazing cardiovascular health. 

But I really wanna make sure listeners know to go to energybits.com, use coupon code LTH to get the listener discount. Thank you for that, by the way. Thank you for giving us the discount. I can't tell you how many times my family has sat around in the evening to watch something on TV. We like learning stuff. Well, my husband does not wanna watch fake TV. He really likes documentaries.

So we've found documentaries as a family we can watch with our eight year old and we'll sit around and we will pass the bag of EnergyBits around and we'll eat it instead of popcorn.

Catharine Arnston (05:25.882)

You're making me so happy.

Ashley James (05:28.418)

It is amazingly delicious. Of course, it is a fantastic to add to your trail mix or make your own trail mix, but I'll sit there and pop them like candy and they have that wonderful crunch and that wonderful saltiness. And it's not overly salty, but it is for me better than popcorn.

Catharine Arnston (05:45.624)

Yeah, and I actually put sea salt on my chlorella and sometimes add pistachio nuts and OMG, it is my favorite food. I have them for lunch, snacks, dinner. When you add the sea salt, it's particularly the chlorella. Although spirulina tastes a little bit better, but definitely the chlorella. It's a game changer and then you're eating it, so you know you're eating food. And when we dig into the subject matter of today, I'll start by just giving a quick thumbnail overview of the different two algae, because they are quite different. They do different things in different parts of your body, and you take them at different times of the day for maximum and optimal benefits. And they work, as you said, to protect your brain health, protect you against cancer, and protect you against heart disease. And those are the three biggies in our world today. And the brain health is more than Alzheimer's. It's anxiety, it's depression, and we'll talk about some of the science that's coming out that reinforces why spirulina in particular is amazing for brain health.

Ashley James (06:54.772)

Love it. Now in becoming a health coach, I took a year long program through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. 

Catharine Arnston (07:04.294)

Me too!

Ashley James (09:05.370)

Oh really? You went to IIN? 

Catharine Arnston (07:07.222)

Yeah, but I went there the last second last year they were live classes. So yeah, I graduated in 2009.

Ashley James (07:13.498)

Oh my gosh. I love that. I, oh, I'm not sure if you had Dr. Daniel Amon as one of the teachers. Did you happen to have him? Okay.

Catharine Arnston (07:23.041)

I don't know if I did or not, but we're hoping I have someone who's setting up a meeting with me because we want to work with him.

Ashley James (07:29.977)

I want you to work with him. So I'll let the listeners know in on it. So I went to IIN when it was not live, it's all prerecorded. And it was kind of like every week, kind of like watching these 45 minute long Ted talks. You know how you watch a Ted talk and you wish it was 45 minutes long, cause it was so good? Well, that's what it was like that every single week. And there was audios and there was written stuff. And it's done in a way that even busy career moms or working women or men, time should not be an issue because you can break it down and do it 20 minutes a day kind of thing. And I absolutely love that it could fit into my busy schedule. And Dr. Daniel Amos, that week we were studying all of his work and I was blown away because he figured out after doing thousands and thousands of brain scans and then using more holistic based medicine, he was able to take people who had Swiss cheese brain, basically the scans would show that there was pockets in the brain looking like Swiss cheese that had diminished blood flow or almost like no blood flow over time, those areas were overly toxic because the blood flow can't come in, it can't cleanse the glymph, can't drain out and people's brains were just becoming Swiss cheese and eventually it was like dementia, right? But he could detect dementia 30 years before it ever took place or more. And what he figured out the number one thing to preventing and reversing. He was able to take people with Swiss cheese brain, put them on an amazing nutrition program and exercise, everything to do with helping cardiovascular health, helping the vasculature, helping blood flow. And he was able to reverse the Swiss cheese brain. So five, 10 years later, they actually anti-aged the brain, right? The brain now is younger, healthier. And that's where you live. Like, this is our house. Our body's our house. So this is where we live. And what I love, the big aha moment, is that everything you do to support your brain also supports your heart and vice versa.

So today, and yeah, exactly, right? We often think of the body as broken into these parts

that aren't affecting each other because that's how allopathic medicine works. You go to the liver specialist, you go to the stomach specialist, you go to the eye specialist, and no one talks to each other. And this is the really annoying part of Western medicine is that we're all broken down into parts when the body really should be treated as a whole. And that's where holistic medicine comes in. So we're looking at the body as a whole, but Dr. Daniel Amon was able to see, Oh wow! In focusing on helping brain health, we actually then corrected a bunch of other stuff too. So that's why I'm very excited for you to dive into brain health today. And I really hope you get to work with Daniel Amon because I'm a big fan of his work and I'm excited to hear about that.

Catharine Arnston (10:37.185)

Yes, yes, me too. Yes, and when he sees what spirulina and chlorella do for the brain, I think he'll flip out because my specialty is this area of algae nutrition and correlating all the nutrients that are uniquely found in algae, not available in any other foods, if it comes from a good source. And you're right, it's not just being the clean source, it's the production process, because, as I get into this in a bit deeper, growing Algae isn't like growing tomatoes or broccoli or carrots, it's more like wine, and when you grow and make wine, it's affected by the angle of the sun, but most particularly by the production process. And so, the thing that distinguishes us from pretty much everybody else is the production process. We do it so carefully that we retain all these nutrients that are other companies are killing because they dry their algae with high heat. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

So let's talk about that brain. But before we get to that, I'm just going to give you a thumbnail on the two algae in case you haven't heard the other episodes to understand that there are different types of algae and they do different things. So the big broad sweep is that there's something called macroalgae and there is microalgae. We're going to be talking about microalgae today but let me tell you what macroalgae is. It's that big stringy stuff that washes up on shore also known as seaweed because it's found in the sea and it's still good for you because it has lots of fiber and iodine, because the iodine comes from the ocean but there's virtually no nutrition so high fiber high iodine both of which are good for you.

Well, I don't know if you don't have a hypo thyroid condition. Microalgae is the complete opposite. It has either virtually no fiber or no fiber. I'll give you the distinction in a minute, but it has the highest concentration of nutrition in the world. This is because it's called microalgae because it's microscopic in size. You can get a million of these microalgae on the head of a pin.

Now it has so many nutrients so that when you consolidate them into these little tiny tablets it's there's nothing in the world with more nutrition than these tablets. One tablet has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables and microalgae compared to macroalgae is everywhere. Microalgae is in the ocean but it's also in the lakes, the rivers, the streams, your swimming pool, the soil and there's a few strains of macroalgae, the stringy stuff.

But there are tens of thousands of strains of microalgae. And the two that are harvested as food crops. So not from the ocean. Yes, there is microalgae in the ocean, but that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about spirulina and chlorella, which are the two microalgae that are harvested in fresh water. It's called hydroponic. And lots of vegetables are grown this way.

So number one, you need to understand that algae, microalgae, which we're talking about today, is a food crop. It is not a supplement. Supplements are made from extracts and then they're mashed up with heat in factories. We're talking about a dried type of vegetable grown in fresh water, so not from the ocean, so no toxins. And we do not use high heat to dry our algae and we do not add anything to it. So our algae tablets are whole food, they're raw, vegan, unprocessed, highly concentrated with nutrition, but they do completely different things. Spirulina and chlorella are like night and day, or chalk and cheese. Some of you maybe have family members and you're quite different from them. So is algae. The spirulina, which we'll talk about next, is completely different from chlorella. And the things that they do, it does in your body, are also very different.

So spirulina is known as having the highest protein in the world, it's three times the amount of protein, and very high B vitamins. By the way, it has 18 of the 20 aminos, including the nine that your body can't make, so it's a complete protein. And it gives you energy because of the B vitamins converting the protein, the aminos, because they're all individual aminos, into glucose for your body. And it also is a vasodilator, so it opens up your blood vessels and has lots of iron, which carries oxygen to your blood. So that's why we call it our spirulina, Energybits, because it gives you energy in the moment. But as you'll find as we get into the deeper dive on brain health and also the heart health, it has nutrients in it that protect and stimulate your mitochondria. Now your mitochondria are what generate cellular energy, which is called ATP. So you get energy in the moment when you have spirulina which we call Energybits. We also have another brand called BeautyBits. They're exactly the same, just packaged differently. But you also, because of the nutrients, we'll talk about in a minute, get additional long-term cellular energy. Now cellular energy is necessary, it's called ATP, for everything that you do. It's not just energy that you need to run to the grocery store or go do a workout. This is cellular energy that helps you breathe, that helps you think, it moves your lymphatic system, it helps your heart, it's what drives your heart to beat, your cells to replicate, or your autophagy, which is cellular death to occur. It generates everything, all energy for everything that you do. When you have cellular energy, you are alive. When you don't have cellular energy, that's when problems start surfacing.

That's when you get indigestion. That's when you have brain fog. That's when you start not being able to have a strong immune system. That's when you can't fight off cancer cells. I tell people having cellular energy is like money. You know, when you have more money, you can do more things and you have more choices. Cellular energy is exactly same thing. When you have more ATP, you can do more things and you have more choices. So everything that you do now that you know about this is you should be protecting your mitochondria so they can generate more cellular energy because that cellular energy is what helps you sleep, it helps you fight disease, it helps you recover from any kind of illness, it helps every part of your body, every cell in your body and spirulina as you're going to find out has a couple of nutrients that are particularly powerful and critical to generating cellular energy and protecting your mitochondria.

So you get that long-term energy from spirulina that is very unique and these nutrients aren't found anywhere else. Spirulina also satisfies your hunger, and it has zero carbs. We work with ketogenic physicians, fasting physicians, because it does not interfere with your fast, and yet it gives you all the energy, mental and physical, and satisfies your hunger without interfering with your fast, without decreasing your ketones or increasing your glucose. So it's a perfect food for any time of the day You could snap have some for the morning have some in the afternoon In fact, that's generally when we recommend people to have the spirulina in the morning because you're hungry and tired when you get up or in the afternoon when you get a slump or before a workout because that's when you need the nourishment for your brain and for your body.

By the way, spirulina is called a blue-green algae because it has two pigments in it. Chlorella, which we'll talk about in a minute, only has one. Now one pigment that's in spirulina you'll know about. It's chlorophyll and that's what makes plants green. And there is chlorophyll in spirulina. But the other pigment that you've probably never heard of before, it's the blue pigment and it's called Phycocyanin and I'm going to spell it for you because I encourage you to google this particularly because we're going to talk about how Phycocyanin has been proven to kill cancer cells and Phycocyanin does not exist anywhere else in the universe except in spirulina and it can only be in spirulina that has not been dried with high heat which is us or raw spirulina. So let me spell Phycocyanin for you, it's P-H-Y-C-O-C-Y-A-N-I-N. And when we get to our discussion on cancer, you can Google phycocyanin and cancer treatments and you'll see all the articles that have been in the PubMed or the National Institute of Health for a very long time. But of course, who's gonna tell you about these things, right? Well, that's what we're here for, right, Ashley? We're opening the Pandora's box to tell you things that nobody else will. So spirulina, because it has this blue pigment that has unique properties, some of which increase energy, some of which kill cancer cells, but all of which protect your mitochondria, it's pretty powerful. But chlorella is a green algae. It only has one pigment, that's chlorophyll, and indeed it has the highest amount of chlorophyll in the world. It has 25 times more chlorophyll than even liquid chlorophyll. And it also has 500 times more chlorophyll than something like arugula or a thousand times more chlorophyll than Chinese greens. There is nothing in the world with more chlorophyll than chlorella algae, which is why it's called chlorella, because of the chlorophyll. And what's so important about chlorophyll? Well, it heals your cell walls, it builds your blood, it has the same chemical composition in fact as your hemoglobin. So that's very important. It's also very cleansing. Chlorella also does have fiber. Oh, I forgot to mention spirulina has zero fiber. The reason why this is important is because this is one of the reasons why you get energy from it because there is nothing for your body to break down. There's no cellulose wall. And this is why it gets into your bloodstream so quickly and the nutrients can be directed instantly to your mitochondria or wherever they need to go. 

Chlorella has the hardest cell wall in the plant kingdom so it does take about an hour and a half to be fully absorbed but the amazing thing about that hard cell wall is that it attaches to toxins and heavy metals and when we get to brain health we'll talk about this a bit more but it pulls out any kind of heavy metals from all your cells, all your organs.

And for that reason, we generally recommend chlorella before bed or after a workout. Because when you sleep, that's when your body goes through a detox repair cycle. So if you take chlorella before you go to bed, you'll be able to have a more effective detox and remove heavy metals. Although I will put the caveat that you can have either spirulina or chlorella at any time of the day, with each other, separate, with food, without food, with water, it doesn't matter. You can have them as often as you want and as much as you want because again they are food. We generally recommend 10 tablets of each one, spirulina in the morning and 10 chloral at night. But if you have any health condition, you really should be taking 30 of each until you get a clear diagnosis. And I have way more than that and have for the 13 years that I've been using it.

So chlorella is a detoxing algae because of that hard cell wall, a cleansing algae because of the chlorophyll, and also it builds your immune system. Your immune system is primarily in your gut, and the combination of the chlorophyll, the hard cell wall which has fiber which feeds the gut biome and the bacteria down there, and also chlorella has all the nutrients that are necessary for a strong immune system.

So it's very much a wellness algae as opposed to spirulina, which is an energizing and nourishing algae. So we call our chlorella RecoveryBits because it helps you recover your health or recover from your day, recover from toxins. It even pulls out alcohol and lactic acid. So you could take it after drinking any wine or anything or after sports to get rid of lactic acid. So it's very much a cleansing algae as opposed to the nourishing spirulina. And I came up with this kind of fun analogy to help people remember the different types of algae and what they do differently and when to take them. Because I give a lot of lectures at conferences in fancy hotels. And it dawned on me that spirulina, because it's so nourishing to your body and to your brain, is sort of like room service.

It gives you everything you need for the day. And then chlorella, because it's so cleansing and detoxing and gets rid of all the junk in your trunk, it's like housekeeping. Housekeeping comes in and takes all this stuff out that you don't need. So think of spirulina as room service and chlorella as housekeeping. Another simple way to think about it, and we'll get to this in a few minutes, because spirulina is so nourishing to the mitochondria and so healing to the mitochondria and because the highest concentration of mitochondria are found in the cells in your brain you have two million mitochondria per cell in your brain two million think about that the next highest is actually women's eggs after that it's your heart and then your regular cells have maybe anywhere from a hundred to a thousand mitochondria per cell, but the highest concentration of mitochondria are where the greatest energy needs are, and that's your brain. Your brain is a workhorse for energy. So think of spirulina as brain food. You know, it occurred to me, you know, a lot of people eat fatty fish like salmon, and they know it as brain food. Well, part of the benefit of that is because these deep cold water fish have a lot of omega-3 in them. And I tell people, well, where do you think the fish get the omega-3 from? Yes, they get it from algae. So here's spirulina, I forgot to mention, has high essential fatty acids, including omega-3. So think of spirulina as brain food, just like you do with salmon or some of these other cold water fish. 

Ashley James (25:56.604)

Cut out the middleman. The salmon, the salmon's the middleman. Just go eat with the salmon, with this, the fish eat the algae, the salmon eat the algae or the salmon eat other fish. But it all came from the algae to begin with.

Catharine Arnston (26:11.146)

Correct, correct. And then think of chlorella as healing your gut because that's where your immune system is. That's where your microbiome is. And chlorella heals the gut and it's been used for IBS and Crohn's disease for decades because of the chlorophyll, the hard cell wall that attaches the toxins, the fiber that feeds the gut biome. 

So Spirulina is brain food, chlorella is gut food. And let's not forget that there's a highway between the two of them called the vagus nerve that connects the brain to the gut. And this is where the real magic happens because as you mentioned earlier, as you heal your brain you are going to be healing other parts of your body but most particularly your gut. And on the other hand, as you heal your gut, then you are also going to be healing your brain because of the two-way communication that occurs between the two of them. And think about it, if you know, that whole concept of a gut feeling, it's real. Your gut is your second brain. And on the other hand, if you are eating in a rush or standing up and you're not focused on your meal, very often you get indigestion and that's because your brain is so distracted that your body can't focus on digestion and the reality is it's not just eating nutritious food that's going to benefit you it's not just the nutrition it's the absorption. What are you absorbing? And if your gut lining and your gut biome are not functioning or they're overrun by candida and all the bad bacteria, you're not going to be able to absorb the nutrients very well and that will affect not only your gut but also your brain. And that's the other reason why particularly I like both of the algae because they're very bioavailable. The nutrients are all there ready for absorption. So anyways, that's the two differences. Spirulina nourishing and very energizing both in the moment at the mitochondria level and Chlorella is very cleansing and detoxing. it's very much a recovery algae that you would take any time of day, but definitely at night, whereas Spirulina is more of a daytime algae.

Ashley James (28:37.119)

And that was probably the best breakdown I've ever heard you do. You were great the first episode, but it's like, you have now like three PhDs into algae.

Catharine Arnston (28:56.599)

Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, in fact, it's funny that you mentioned that because I realized, oh my God, I mean, 13 years I've been studying algae nutrition and how it interacts with the body for optimal health. And I thought, maybe I should do a PhD. So I've actually found a university, there's a lot of steps to go through, but I'll get credit for some of my previous degrees. I do have a master's and I would have to write a test, but I think I'm going to get a PhD from them. So please, please. I mean, yes, exactly. Yes. That's what I want. Dr. Arnston.

Ashley James (29:26.070)

I am so excited for you. I mean, yes, yes. What, come back on the show and tell us about that. I love it. I want to go back because you, you laid down so much amazing information. There's one thing you said that I think for people who didn't hear the previous episodes would have written it off as you being just over exaggerating how great it is. So these are like little chewable tablets, they're the size of aspirins. And when our son was about three years old, I introduced him to EnergyBits and he would chew them because they temporarily turn your tongue either blue green or green, depending on which one we're eating, chlorella or spirulina. And we would play a game and we called them green crackers because they're crunchy but they look like little pills, right? But they're chewable tablets essentially, and you don't have to chew them if you don't want, you can just swallow them like pills.

Catherine Arnston (30:27.620)

Yeah, and most people do swallow the spirulina because it's very earthy and very chewy. Yeah.

Ashley James (30:32.087)

I love, I love the flavor. So the first time you put it in your mouth, you're like, ooh, because you didn't know what to expect. But then if you keep eating it, your body starts to go, wow, I really like this. And then like five minutes into eating it, you're like, mm, this is actually really good. And you start tasting all these flavors. So my son who didn't like it at first, but then we played a game where we stuck our tongues out at each other and he got excited. It's like, oh, your tongue is green. I want my tongue to be green.

Well, we both called it green crackers and he'd ask for them. And now, like I said, he's eight and we'll sit there watching TV and we'll pass the bag around and we'll be chewing them and sticking our tongues out still. And it's great, it's a lot of fun. But you said that one of these chewable tablets, right? Which is very small, size of an aspirin, is the equivalent of a plate of vegetables. And that's something that we discussed in the last time you came on the show, Episode 487, because this is actually research from NASA. Can you just elaborate a bit because again, that point seems too good to be true.

Catharine Arnston (31:30.702)

I know, I know. And just on that note, when I started this as this company, I wasn't planning on starting a company. I just wanted to help my sister, younger sister, who had breast cancer and her oncologist told her to change her diet to an alkaline diet because it would help with her healing. And I was doing international business, nothing to do with nutrition, but I just jumped in and helped her and found out and led me to algae, which is the most alkaline food in the world. 

And it turns out, it's been endorsed by the United Nations for 49 years as the answer to world hunger because, drum roll, it has the highest protein in the world, has three times the amount of protein at stake, there's tens of thousands of studies that confirm all this. So whatever I'm telling you today, I want everyone to know, everything I say is documented in the National Institute of Health and in medical libraries all around the world, there's almost a hundred thousand of them.

But we also found this great quote from NASA who's been using algae for the astronauts again for almost 50 years. And the quote from NASA, and I can give you the paper with it if you want it, says one gram of algae has the same nutrition as a thousand grams of fruits or vegetables. One to a thousand, that's a big number. So I took that calculation, that's about

30 or 40 grocery carts of vegetables, just to give you a visual. And so I was trying to communicate this to people so they could understand the concentration. And I did the math, and we sell bags of algae tablets, and I did the math based on the weight of our bags, which have a thousand tablets, and found out one bag of our algae tablets has the same nutrition as 551 pounds of vegetables.

That's probably 50 or 60 or maybe 100 grocery carts of vegetables. And our bags are $120 and with your discount, it's about $100, but that's, I would have been $1,600 worth of vegetables. And then I took it a little further that, well, I still need to get it to a level that people could really understand. Cause so it worked out to about three quarters of a pound of vegetables per tablet, which is basically a big plate of vegetables. It's three quarters of red peppers, green peppers, tomatoes, greens. 

Ashley James (33:52.181)

It's about two cups. If you think it's just maybe depending on the vegetable. It's about two cups and that's a larger serving than most people will take a vegetable. So that's a big bowl of vegetables.

Catharine Arnston (34:03.378)

Right. Yes. So the CDC says 97% of Americans do not get their daily requirement of fiber and vegetables. And after I graduated from IIN, I taught plant-based nutrition at corporations and hospitals for free, by the way, trying to get people to eat more vegetables because I had seen all the science about the importance of the alkalinity, the phytonutrients, blah blah. And everyone came up to me and they said, you know, look at my mother's been trying to get me to eat more vegetables, but they're heavy to carry home from the grocery store. They go bad quickly. They take a long time to clean. They take a long time to cook. My husband won't eat them. My kids won't eat them. I throw out half of them. So I thought, okay, I have seen the science, I've read for years the science of the importance of vegetables. If I can't get people to eat vegetables, and what mother doesn't struggle with this, I thought I have to find a way to get the nutrition of vegetables into people in a way that is effortless. And I didn't know what I was going to find, but I just re-examined everything I had found for my sister, and that's what led me truly to algae, because it comes in these little tablets. This is how they use it in Asia. They have been growing it in Asia for 60 years. They take it every day. Some of them it's in powder, but the Japanese don't leave their house without chlorella every day. And by the way, I'd like to point out they have the best longevity, lowest cancer rates, lowest obesity rates, and great skin and hair. And I know it's not all the algae, but it certainly contributes to it. And they know about the science of algae, but the trouble is here in North America, nobody knows about the science of algae. They know it's a superfood. Actually some people don't even know that spirulina is an algae. And they put it in their smoothies because it's supposed to be good for them. But they're not really sure why. So I spent 13 years discovering the why. And whoever's listening, you aren't alone in the fact that you don't know anything of what I'm about to tell you today. But that's because no one's explained it to you until I did and it's not grown here. So you don't ride your bicycle to school and go buy an algae farm but they do in Asia. You don't drive to work and go buy an algae farm but they do in Asia. So it's just never been explained and it's not grown here although I do plan to grow it in Florida.

Ashley James (36:38.864)

I would love that. I can't wait for you to grow it here. You know, the other day I was talking to one of my clients and I was getting her list of supplements and things she was taking and she said, oh, I'm taking chlorella and spirulina, but I'm not buying EnergyBits anymore because they're too expensive. I said, okay, hold on, stop. What are you eating? Which brand? I want you to go get the bag. I need you to look on it, see if that proposition such and such is on that bag because the 99% of all the brands out there that sell chlorella and spirulina, the chlorella has lead in it. And the spirulina is like highly heated. It's like flash heated. So it's dead. You're missing out. I like, let's say someone wanted to save $40. So they bought a $60 bag. And she said, oh, wait, the bag that she bought, cause she was saving, $20, $30. She goes, and it tastes horrible. It tastes and smells fishy. I'm like, well, okay.

Energybits is the only company I have found that is pure, that is highly nutritious because at every step of the way from growing it to processing it to shipping it here, every step of the way there's testing and there's things in place to make sure that it is the optimal quality and it preserves the optimal quality of the nutrition. And you can smell it and taste it because the Energybits does not taste like of rotten fish, and so many other companies do. And then I said, you don't ever, ever wanna eat chlorella from any company unless you confirm, because there's only a handful, and EnergyBits being one of them that does not have lead added to it because of the process of cracking the chlorella. And those are the cheaper brands. So if you find it cheaper, it's because they did, they cut corners, which hurt you, or there's no nutrition in it.

Now, with the supplement industry, and some people think this is a supplement, it's a crop, like you said, with food and supplements, it's buyer beware. And it's not a regulated industry like drugs are a regulated industry. We don't really want supplements to be regulated because then a lot of really good companies would go out of business and Big Pharma would be the ones running the show. We don't want that. But at the same time, it is buyer beware.

And these companies that make it cheaper, it's cheaper for a reason because they can put fillers in, because they can do processes that either harm the algae or harm you. And so really you just wasted, you think you save money by buying a $60 bag instead of a $100 bag, you actually just wasted $60 and you possibly harmed yourself in the process. So it is worth spending and like you said, get the discount, use the coupon code LTH. And that bag will last you for a month and that is giving you one tablet as a whole bowl of vegetables worth of the nutrition. And you can make it last longer than a month, like you said, eat 10 a day. I like 30 a day because I'm more focused on using it to detoxify. But for people who are just wanting to stay on top of nutrition, between five and 10 tablets a day, they could just do that. They could hand their kids. Sometimes I just hand my son three to five of the tablets, here, just chew this or swallow. And I know that he just got bowls and bowls of nutrition like comparative to fruits and vegetables. I'm still gonna feed him fruits and vegetables, but there are days I don't get fruits and vegetables into this kid. I'm just gonna hand him three to five chlorella and spirulina and feel good about it.

Catharine Arnston (40:18.589)

Yeah, right, right, and even for adults who don't have children, when you're traveling, you're stuck in traffic in between meetings, you don't have time to eat, you go to any of those convenience stores, it's just carbs, sugar, and carbs, carbs. And so this way I call spirulina chlorella, your not only your nutritional insurance, but your health insurance. And, and let's just, I just want to circle back to that comment about the young lady who didn't want to who'd stop buying ours because of the higher price. So it's like buying a car. If you don't look under the hood, maybe there's a car that's $1,000 cheaper than the other one. And you think, oh wow, I'm getting such a deal. But if you don't lift the hood, maybe there's no engine in there, right? It's just from the outside, because what do you know? They look the same, but you gotta lift the hood to find out the deeper story.

Same with algae. So here's the lift the hood thing, and we'll get into this hopefully in a few minutes.  I'm gonna do a deep dive on two nutrients that are found in spirulina that are damaged, that are killed by high heat. And all the other algae companies use high heat to dry their algae because they are cheaper and because they're less expensive algae, so they need to sell more to make money. So to get to market quickly, they use high heat.

But they kill these two important nutrients. And what do these two important nutrients do? Well, one of them is superoxidismutase, which protects you from heart disease. And the other one is the pigment that I already mentioned, the blue one called phycocyanin, that kills cancer cells. Cancer and heart disease represent 75% of all deaths. And by the way, these two nutrients also prevent brain disorders, anxiety, Alzheimer's, any kind of dementia.

So, this lady is saving $20 and not getting the benefits of protecting herself from heart disease, cancer or dementia. I would say everyone here, everyone in the world deserves to be protected from heart disease, cancer and dementia. And when you take 10 tablets a day of spirulina, same thing for chlorella, 10 tablets a day, you know what that works out to? A dollar a day. She is depriving herself of protection from cancer, heart disease, and dementia because of a dollar a day. 

Ashley James (42:52.990)

Well, I don't blame her. She didn't know this information and a lot of listeners, but it's like, this is where we have to go, we're investing in our health. Yeah, educate, we're investing in our health and it is worth spending a bit more for the highest quality product on the market. And exactly.

Catharine Arnston (43:10.045)

Yes. But someone has to tell you why you want the higher priced algae. It's just everything we do is just more expensive. I've been on 275 podcasts. I've been on 30 summits. I write all the scientific papers. I do all the research. I do all of the writing. Every single weekend, I'm working on more material to help people understand the science because whether you're buying an expensive handbag or you're buying algae, you want to know what is it that makes it better. And nobody else is telling you. Nobody else is explaining how your body works and why the needs the cellular level are perfectly matched by the nutrients found in raw spirulina or chlorella. Again, it can't be heated or you lose all those benefits. This is the key that unlocks the door to great health. That is, in a nutshell, is what good spirulina and good chlorella, i.e. spirulina chlorella, not heated, not dried with heat. They are the key that unlocks perfect health. That's what I've decided.

But you need to know what, how does that work? Like what exactly is it doing? So I'd like to unpack that for you today.

Ashley James (44:31.733)

Yeah, let's do it. I have had several guests come on and do whole interviews on superoxide dismutase and its benefits and how we need more of it and it is crucial for life and crucial to avoid disease, like an amazing nutrient for the body. And the fact that we get it through eating EnergyBits or go to energybits.com getting your stuff, because we know that your stuff isn't heated. So it's not destroyed because it's raw algae. And then of course the Phycocyanin. 

Catharine Arnston (45:13.384)

P-H-Y-C-O-C-Y-A-N-I-N. So, well, let me talk about both of those because we'll do them separately so we can do this two ways. We'll talk about those two nutrients and I'll address the three major chronic diseases, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and cancer, and address how these two nutrients that aren't found anywhere else in the world can protect you and also get you back to health and they're essential for longevity. And then we'll flip.

Ashley James (45:52.519)

Before you do that, and I want you to do that, can you tell us, like, is this something that's found in trace amounts? Is this something that is in high concentration? When you address the individual ones, can you give us an idea of how much of the superoxide dismutase, for example, is found in your algae?

Catharine Arnston (46:14.723)

It has the highest concentration in the entire universe. I don't have the slide in front of me, but there is a little bit of superoxide dismutase in cabbage or broccoli. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but if spirulina was 100, cabbage or broccoli would be 0.00000000001 percent. There is nothing, and we do lab tests that give us the concentration of super oxygen dismutase. I know I'm stumbling as well. It's also called SOD. It's a little easier to say that way. So there is nothing in the world with more of it. And chlorella has quite a bit of it as well, but half of what spirulina has. So spirulina is the number one algae for the mitochondria. And chlorella is the number one algae for your immune system. So I can dig into that a little bit deeper. So, well, since we're on superoxide dismutase, or SOD, let's address it first of all. So as I mentioned, it's virtually non-existent from any other food in the world. It's certainly not in any amounts that would have any kind of medicinal benefits. I mean, 0.000001 percent is nothing that's going to move my needle. And even if you did find some supplements with it, they get damaged, it gets damaged in the stomach through the digestion. And here's the other benefit of spirulina. It does not have a cellulose wall. So it gets absorbed almost instantly. So it's 99% bioavailable. So all of the nutrients, including the superoxide dismutase get absorbed and directed to the mitochondria so it can be put to use. If you chew it, as I know Ashley, you do, you get it within seconds because it goes sublingually through the mouth membranes. And if you swallow it, oh, it's maybe 10 or 15 minutes before it's completely absorbed into your cells. So there's nothing that's faster than spirulina for that reason. 

So, what is superoxide dismutase? One other thing I want to tell you about superoxide dismutase, the good news is your body makes it from the moment you are born, but it stops making it after the age of 30. And you're going to find this the same thing happens. After the age of 30, your body stops making melatonin, it stops making glutathione, because up until recently, we died at age 30. We have been on the earth, mankind, for 2 million years.

And up until about 125 years ago, maybe 50 years ago, we died at 30. So biologically and evolutionarily, if that's a word, our bodies think we're dying at 30. So it shuts down some of these protective measures like superoxide dismutase, which, drum roll, you're going to find out right now, is one of the very few antioxidants that can get into the inner membrane of the mitochondria, it's like an NICE unit in there, to stop free radical damage. Now, because when your mitochondria are damaged by these free radicals, they die, they mutate, and that's when your health starts to go astray. This is when chronic disease hits. This is when brain fog hits. This is when everything just slides in a downward spiral. And it's no surprise to me that most of the diagnoses of heart disease, cancer, occur after the age of 40, because that's when your body has pretty much shut down its ability to create superoxide dismutase, which is one of the few antioxidants, like I said, that can get into that inner membrane and stop free radical damage. You can eat a room full of blueberries and not a drop of antioxidants will get into that inner membrane. Your mitochondria are your only cell in your body that have two membranes. All of your other cells have what's called a lipid membrane, which basically is a fancy word for saying fats. And your mitochondria have that one too. But they have a second membrane, and I'll tell you where that second membrane came from later on, that is impenetrable by drugs. Drugs can't get in there. Almost no antioxidants can get in there. But virtually all the nutrients found in algae like superoxide dismutase, and we'll talk about some of the other ones in a minute, like chlorophyll and glutathione can get into that inner membrane. 

So what's so important about that? Well, we talked about earlier about ATP being cellular energy and you need ATP to do anything. Thinking, sleeping, walking, talking, digesting, immune health, absolutely everything. But the downside of production of ATP, the byproduct of ATP, guess what?

It's free radicals. Nobody tells you about that. And the most damaging one is called superoxide. This superoxide is a byproduct. It's a free radical produced, I think it's only in the mitochondria, as a byproduct of this ATP. And I read that superoxide is the most damaging free radical. So I was curious, well, what makes it so damaging?

So I dug around in all the different papers and I found out why. So those of you who aren't familiar with a free radical, it's a molecule that has an unpaired electron. The mother nature likes balance. And so if there's an unpaired electron circulating around the atom, it will go and snatch an electron from the neighboring molecule and so to create harmony. But then that leaves a molecule with one unpaired electron so that it steals one from the next molecule and on and on it goes so it leaves this trail of damaged tissue, damaged cells, wherever it goes. And when you have damaged cells then they don't function properly. So superoxide is so the reason why it's so damaging is it has three unpaired electrons. So it is three times as damaging as any other free radical found. And I believe that it's only generated in the mitochondria. So this thing called superoxide dismutase, the word dismutase means it reduces something. It demutes, it's like a dimmer on a light. So think about it's superoxide dismutase. It dims this superoxide. Basically, what it does is it turns that free radical into harmless water.

Ta-da! Mitochondria is hydrated. It's like having the fireman in there with a fire hose. Just puts out the fire caused by all these free radicals that are a byproduct of ATP. Because the place where the ATP is produced, which is also the place where the free radicals are, are exactly where the mitochondria's DNA are located. They are front row and center.

And if you've ever sat near a bonfire or got too close to a fireplace and sparks would fly and you might get burned, that's what's happening to your mitochondria DNA every single nanosecond. They are exactly where the ATP is produced, which is exactly where the free radicals are produced. And so they are always being burned. That's why you need the superoxide dismutase, which is like having a fireman with a hose to put it out and your body makes it for you but only until the age of 30. Right? And then after the age of 30 it makes less and less so by the time you're 40 you do not have any more firemen in there putting out the fire. And this is why people get chronic disease because their mitochondria are no longer being protected by these free radicals as they were until they were 30 or 40 and there's no food source for it. Nothing. Right? Crazy. So now spirulina comes along, but here's the trick, superoxide dismutase is an enzyme. It's an antioxidant but it's also an enzyme. And if you know anything about nutrition you know that heat kills enzymes. That's why a lot of people eat raw food because they want all the all the enzymes and all the other algae companies use high heat to dry their algae because they're lower priced to get to the market quickly. We don't use high heat. So all of our enzymes, including superoxide dismutase, are alive and well. So they can go in there into your mitochondria and put out that fire caused by the free radicals, which are a byproduct of the ATP. Pretty sweet, right?

Ashley James (55:42.560)

Oh my gosh, totally blows my mind. And I loved how you explained free radicals. I went to a naturopath with my mom when I was a kid and he would write these really cool news articles. And of course there was no email back in the eighties, right? So he would physically print it out and mail it to us, and we would read and it was like almost digesting a bunch of different journals, right? He would take all this information, but from the naturopath standpoint. And you know who it was? My naturopath when I was six years old was Dr. D'Adamo, the man who invented the eat right for your blood type diet. He was amazing. And he totally turned my life around. That's part of my health story that I was sick as a kid. And then when I was six, I went to him and he looked in my eyes, took my blood, looked at my tongue, looked at my ears, you know, did the whole naturopathic rundown. And he told us to stop eating milk, yeast, wheat and sugar. And overnight our kitchen transformed and we ate really clean and we took his supplements and I did not get sick once from the age of six to the age of thirteen when I rebelled and started eating all the junk food because I was a teenager. And I quickly learned that you can turn health on and off and you can turn diseases on and off and here I am.

But what was really interesting is I have a distinct memory and I was probably about seven, maybe eight. I was in my mom's bed and we were reading through the articles that he wrote, the newsletter, and I loved it. When you look at kids, you can tell what they're gonna be interested in their whole life. And I was fascinated by his articles. Can you imagine a seven or eight year old being like, I want to read more about antioxidants, right?

Catharine Arnston (57:37.413)

Wow. Everybody else is reading Nancy Drew or comic books and there you are reading naturopathic newsletters. I love that.

Ashley James (57:42.289)

I know, I know. And I was super fascinated but he described free radicals as a bullet on the microscopic level. A bullet bouncing through your body, piercing different cells and breaking open cells basically, but on an electron level. And it was like bullets ricocheting inside you. And  then he talked about how the foods that we can eat can either reduce that damage or can increase anytime you eat fried food, you are essentially swallowing loaded guns, shooting bullets throughout your body, like breaking apart cell walls because the free radical damage from fried foods, right? Same with overcooked red meat has the same effect. There's a bunch of foods out there that we eat as Americans, as Canadians, right, as many, many countries eat these foods that are so high in what causes free radical damage and then thus causes inflammation, right? So, we've got to stop doing that and then start doing the opposite of that, which is eating foods rich in antioxidants and knowing that specifically the antioxidant that targets the mitochondria… 

Catharine Arnston (59:05.048)

There's very few that can get in there to do that. 

Ashley James (59:06.924)

Yes. And the fact that there's very few companies out there that produce a chlorella, sorry, a spirulina that is not heated.

Catharine Arnston (59:16.742)

Right. So you're shooting blanks if you want to use the bullet analogy again. If you buy algae that is less expensive, I can almost promise you they dried it with high heat which would kill the superoxide dismutase. So it may have been there before they dried it, but it's empty now. And you're shooting blanks. And I love that analogy about the bullet bouncing around and piercing different cells because that is what happens. Another visual that just came to me while you were talking is bumper cars. When I was a kid, we used to go to the circus and there'd be these bumper cars and you just go around and you smack into everybody else and hopefully didn't damage anybody permanently. There were lots of studies done about the fact that antioxidants like vitamin E and vitamin C, they have never had an impact on longevity. And it's because I have realized those are two antioxidants that cannot get into the mitochondria inner membrane. Everything, if you come away from this podcast today, understanding nothing else except the fact that everything that happens to your health is determined by your mitochondria. And the problem is this mitochondria, like I said, they're like the ICE unit. They're in lockdown. Virtually nothing can get in there except a handful of antioxidants. Not even drugs can get in there. So the fact that superoxide dismutase is one of them that can. There's also glutathione, which also algae has the highest concentration of, chlorella, in fact, and chlorophyll. And we could talk about those as well. But, in this case, superoxide dismutase is the number one antioxidant. It's considered even more powerful than glutathione. And there are 25,000 medical studies, proving the benefits of superoxide dismutase to prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's, inflammation, any kind of respiratory illnesses, proven. So, but the problem has been your body stops making it after the age of 30 and there is no other source of it from food. And now you know you can get it from RLG or from frozen spirulina because those are the two that have not been exposed to high heat. So the SOD is active and will protect you for a dollar a day.

Ashley James (01:01:56.925)

Now what about those SOD supplements?

Catharine Arnston (01:01:59.537)

Well, they did some studies and again, they were finding that they were getting damaged during digestion and a very limited amount of those tablets of the SOD was making its way into the mitochondria. Here's the thing, those supplements probably cost 60 or 70 dollars and you probably have to take four or five a day and that's all you're getting. Think of a supplement and I've told this to people before, think of the supplement, it doesn't matter which one it is. It could be fish oil, it could be SOD, as just like a grade three soloist. And when you take algae, you've got the Boston Symphony Orchestra because it has 40 vitamins and minerals, the highest chlorophyll in the world, highest protein in the world, in this case, highest superoxide dismutase in the world. You're cheating yourself when you take these isolated supplements for isolated purposes. 

You mentioned earlier, our medical profession has become so disparate. You've got one person for brain health, one person for liver health. And so you're running around going to all these specialists and nobody talks to one another. Supplements are the same way. They are isolated. They don't talk to one another. They actually don't exist like that in nature. So you pee 90% out of what you're taking. And some people take chlorophyll water, for example. I applaud the use of chlorophyll.

Well, chlorella has 25 times more chlorophyll than liquid chlorophyll, and at the same time, you're also getting 60% protein, 40 vitamins and minerals. Chlorophyll water is just chlorophyll. So you always look for the greatest efficiency, and you usually get that from nature. Mother Nature knows best.

Mother Nature has laid out a bounty of ways for us to look after ourselves and most of them are free: sleep, walking outside, simple pleasures, lik,e community, getting fresh air, any movement, sunlight, you have to pay a little bit for your algae, but it's the most concentrated nutrition in the universe

And it was a gift to us from Mother Nature, the first life on Earth, I might add, four billion years ago. So I always encourage people to slow down and take a look, lift the hood, because when you find the truth, it resonates with you. You were saying earlier your body craves the spirulina and the chlorella. So does mine. I've been taking this stuff for 13 years. Every single time I have my first handful in the morning.

It's like an exhale. It's just like, oh, thank God. Honestly, I don't know, I do eat real food, but I don't know how I would survive without these things. It's so instinctual and my body just absolutely loves it and everyone's will too, because it's so high quality, it's so concentrated. It's Mother Nature's invention, but we do the best at preserving the nutrition that she's provided to us by growing it carefully in triple filtered spring mountain water, not using high heat, and then not including any other crappy stuff like binders or whatever. So it's as pure a food as you're ever going to get. The only other thing I could say that would be better is mother's breast milk, but you can't have that after about the age of two. So spirulina and chlorella are your next best shot. So, but pretty amazing about that superoxide dismutase, right?

Sneaking in the back door of the mitochondria to help it survive. And it's like if you had a friend who was in the hospital and they were feeding them crappy food, which they of course still do at hospitals, and then you have some friend who brings you quietly or in a hidden bag, a bag of salad and maybe some grass-fed beef or something. 

Ashley James (01:06:10.632)

The homemade chicken soup.

Catharine Arnston (01:06:14.774)

So glutathione and superoxide dismutase, they get in there to deliver what your mitochondria aren't getting from anything else. They're like your best friend.

Ashley James (01:06:25.980)

Well, I just love that, that it's putting out the fire and at the same time, transforming it into water. So it's not only stopping the damage to your cells and the DNA in your ear, mitochondria in your cells, and restoring balance, like removing the chaos, but then it hydrates at the same time. It's like here cell have more water and less chaos. That is so, so cool. 

Catharine Arnston (01:06:51.232)

And also, and because water has oxygen in it, and there's a German scientist who won a Nobel Prize back in the 30s, his name is Otto Warburg, and this will be my next segue into cancer. He discovered that cancer can only exist in an acidic environment. And there's a scale of zero to 14 that measures acidity to alkalinity, alkalinity being at the high level. And your cells need to be 7.1, slightly alkaline, your blood needs to be a little more alkaline, but when it's slightly alkaline that's indicative of a lot of oxygen that's in the cell and that the cell is functioning in a healthy way. And algae is the most alkaline food in the world and this particular nutrient as you mentioned superoxide dismutase normally reduces the fire from the free radical production, it encourages the production of water, which brings more oxygen into the cell because that's what oxygen water is made of. Pretty cool.

Ashley James (01:07:54.424)

It is very cool. So in your research, you saw that superoxide dismutase helps the cell become more alkaline, like achieve that alkalinity.

Catharine Arnston (01:08:04.296)

Well, it's actually other nutrients that do that, like the chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is probably the most alkaline lining nutrient, and it's another pigment found in both spirulina and chlorella. Chlorella has a higher amount. But this engagement of the superoxide dismutase by stopping the free radical damage of the superoxide dismutase and turning it into water contributes oxygen to the cell. But you get other contributions from other elements in the algae, whether it's from the magnesium or from the chlorophyll in particular is a very alkalining nutrient.

Ashley James (01:08:45.765)

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding around alkalinity and making sure the body's alkaline because there's certain areas of the body, we want at certain times to be high acid. For example, in the last part of digestion with the stomachs about to empty out Into the small intestines it it'll it brings it back to neutral because the small intestines would not be happy with you know hydrochloric acid but there's certain tissues have a range of like, from here to here is the healthiest range. And we have buffer systems in the body to maintain our acid and alkaline balance. And the thing is, is that the body uses our own mineral stores in our bones. So it'll have us release minerals from our bones to buffer the acid in our tissue. So if you're the kind of person who goes and drinks Coke or Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi or whatever, goes to McDonald's, you know, drinks some wine at night, eats a high acid, like the opposite of an alkaline diet, right? Alkaline diet, think of like the raw vegan frolicking through the fields, just picking wild berries and eating raw food in the sunlight, that's an alkaline diet, juicing, anything with a lot of enzymes, anything from plants. You've got a very alkaline diet. And then lots of meat, dairy, sugar, flour, fried food, and also the beverages, high in sugar and Coca-Cola.

One of my backgrounds is massage therapy. This is in Canada where I worked in hospitals and in sports medicine rehab. This is like over 20 years ago, but it's in Canada. Massage therapy is, we work alongside physical therapists. It's a two year college program, not like a 500 hour program that they do here in the States. So it's much more advanced and we would have oil on our sheets. So you can imagine massage therapists end up getting their sheets, have a lot of oil on them. And you know how we wash our sheets to get the oil stains out. Cause you know, any kind of detergent will not get oil out of massage sheets. And then the sheets start smelling rancid from the oil, from the massage oil. 

Do you know how we do it? We take a two liter bottle of Coke and we take a bucket and we put all our sheets in the bucket and we pour the two liter bottle of Coke and we let it sit overnight. And then we put it in the washing machine the next day, 100% removes oil. And if you have clothing with oil stains, I have a friend, a good friend of mine, her husband works as a mechanic for helicopters and there was a leak, like some crazy fluids from the helicopter, got on him, and it was like jet fuel and all this other fluid. And he came home soaking and smelling like just awful chemicals that you would not want anywhere near you. And the only way she was able to get it out, because she tried detergents and everything and it stunk up the whole house. And then she did what I told her, use a two liter bottle of Coke, soak it overnight and then put it in the wash. And it 100% cleaned all these oils, like petroleum based chemicals. So people are drinking this stuff. This stuff is a degreaser agent. This stuff is like this crazy, but people drink it. And that was my little side note to say, people on a regular basis, the standard American diet, which is copied throughout the world now, is highly acidic and it's unnaturally highly acidic. So the body in order to cope with it, because the body isn't running around if we were too acidic, you would just drop into a coma, right? But the body has to regulate and so it has buffer systems.

If you have to constantly use your buffer systems, you're putting massive stress on the body. So yeah, go drink your two liters of Coke and eat your pizza this weekend, but just know that your body is now leaching minerals from your bones in order to compensate. What is the saying? You rob Peter to pay Paul. Eventually, it's going to catch up to you. So yes, we have buffer systems. And that if you constantly eat an acid-forming diet, you are leaching your body of nutrients in order to keep up with that lifestyle. Whereas if you eat a diet high in enzymes and nutrients and phyto plant chemicals, high in plants, and you look for these like rich in superoxide dismutase, Chlorella spigulina, you are putting out the fire. And now you are helping the body. Now you don't have to rely on the buffer system so heavily to stay in a perfectly balanced state for those cells, those cells being 7.1 perfectly balanced. So there's my little rant about pH, because a lot of people go, what are you talking about?

Catharine Arnston (01:13.41.491)

Well, it's, there's a misunderstanding. There are organs and there are cells. And different organs like your stomach do need to be acidic. But universally, through your entire body, your body is made of cells. I came up with another analogy. Think of your body like a building. You know, when a brand new office tower is built, it's glorious and everything works. When you're a baby and you're born, everything works. 

And then in the building are offices. And so think of those offices, the equivalent would be your organs. They're gathered, they're groups, so they have maybe a city group in one place, maybe TJ Maxx is in another, they've assembled offices to have big corporations. And so in your body, you have groups of clusters of things that are organs that work together to function.

And then in the office, the things that keep, or in the building, the things that keep the office working and the people working are lights. And so in your body, those lights are the equivalent of your cells and your mitochondria. And as the building gets older and if they don't replace the lights, the people start closing their offices and leaving. And eventually the building, it's decrepit, and maybe there aren't any people there anymore.

in your body if you don't keep your cells functioning properly and your mitochondria protected, they're basically your lights. They go out and eventually just like the building that becomes decrepit, you do too. So think of your cells and your mitochondria as the lights that keep the equivalent of your building, your body, working. And part of that is, when you mention about the coke getting rid of all that grease and all the oils from the massage. Well, remember I mentioned at the very beginning that all of your cells have a cell membrane that's made of lipids. That's another word for fats. And so when you're eating these things like coke, just like the coke stripped out the oils in your sheets, it must strip out. Similarly, the oils and the healthy oils in your cell walls.

And when your cell walls are stripped of the healthy fats, they become dry and brittle. We're entering the fall here in New England. Think of a leaf that when it does not have the sunlight and it doesn't have all the nutrients and the chlorophyll, it becomes brittle and dry. That's what's happening to your cells. If you do not have the proper fats and if you eat too much acidic food, it causes your cell walls to become brittle and dysfunctional. And that causes your mitochondria to suffer because they're not getting the nutrients either and all that sort of stuff. So you can see how it's all connected, right?

Ashley James (01:16:45.595)

Absolutely. I love it. Anything we can do to keep us like just optimally healthy. I want to be that 106 year old that's still hiking, it's possible we can do it. I think you will.

Catherine Arnston (01:17:00.519)

I probably will be. But the other thing that you have to remember, because we live in North America, people want things that are effortless and simple. And if you can swallow water, although you and I chew these tablets, you can get the nutrition that you need to prevent these chronic illnesses or restore your health. It's that easy. We're not talking about going out to a cryotherapy center, although you could do that. We're not talking about going out for an IV drip But you could do that too. We're not talking about complicated anything. You're in your home. You just open your bag or your canister or your whatever you put some tablets in your mouth and you swallow them down. Seconds we're talking about seconds. This is like in fact, we're going to an IV drip show in a couple of weeks because People are getting glutathione drips. Well, you know what? Glutathione is an algae. People are getting collagen drips. Guess what? The highest collagen is an algae. They should probably have a superoxidized dismutase, but nonetheless, the highest concentration is an algae. So it gives you everything that you need for nourishment, cellular protection, and it's effortless. You don't have to cook it, clean it, mix it, nothing. Just open your mouth and take it. That's all you have to do. And at a dollar a day, it's the best prevention that you're ever going to get and those of you who currently have a condition, it will help speed your recovery faster than just about anything. But anyway, so that's  superoxidized dismutase, how protective it is of the mitochondria, and as long as you are protecting your mitochondria, everything works better. It just does. And I can walk you through some of the science behind that. 

And for brain health, the highest concentration of mitochondria are in your brain, as I mentioned earlier. And we did our own clinical trial recently. We were working with a nonprofit group called the Gray Team. They're based in Florida. And their entire purpose is to stop the suicide rate of military veterans, which is at a heartbreaking 35 to 50 percent. 35 to 50% of military veterans are committing suicide. Just let that sink in. I mean, that's just tragic, beyond tragic.

Ashley James (01:19:25.248)

That's beyond tragic. That is incomprehensible how time and time again, and I'm not gonna just say this to the United States because I mean, I love living here. I'm from Canada. My home is the States now, but it's not just America, unfortunately, because I have seen Britain, I've seen Canada, I've seen multiple countries, Australia, Asia, I've seen them just throw away their veterans like trash. And that is unacceptable. Like just for example, for this country to throw away their veterans like trash and then take billions of taxpayer dollars and give it to other countries. Now I believe that we should all help each other, right? I believe in aid, I believe we should all help each other. But why aren't we helping our veterans? Why do we just throw them away like trash? That gets me so angry. And it's not, again, not just America, it is other countries too. These people, they've been through enough, you know what I mean? And they just deserve so much better. And suicide is such a big problem, especially since 2020.

Catharine Arnston (01:20:26.914)

Oh, well, and we know it's also on the rise just in the general population and COVID didn't help. I mean, it really pushed it over the edge. So there's a lot of people suffering, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder. And you and I talked before we started recording, there's a great book that came out. I would encourage everybody to read it. You can get it on Amazon. It's called Brain Energy. And it's by Dr. Christopher Palmer, P-A-L-M-E-R.

He is a physician, a psychiatrist, at the Harvard Medical School. So he's got all the great education behind him, and he's also been a psychiatrist for 25 or 30 years. Anyways, his entire book documents how all brain disorders, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, suicidal thoughts, Alzheimer's, any dementia, all of it is because of damaged mitochondria.

Damaged mitochondria are the cause of all brain issues. And what did I just talk about? How superoxide dismutase protects and heals the mitochondria. You can connect the dots and see that spirulina is the highest superoxide dismutase as long as it's not from a heated spirulina source. So all the science points to this. So I thought, you know what? We want to help other organizations.

And we had been meeting with them. So they said, let's do a small clinical trial with our particular spirulina. So we did. And all we'd had a small group of their military veterans who had been discharged for 15 or 20 years because they'd had these mental issues that had never gone away. And all we did was give them a pouch of our spirulina tablets. So 30 tablets a day. They did nothing else. We did a brain scan before the clinical trial. And we also hooked them up

to some devices that measure their sleep and their CRV and stuff, HRV, heart rate monitor. 

Anyways, and then we did a brain scan after 30 days. Only thing we did was give them 30 tablets a day. We asked them not to change anything else, no extra exercise, no change in diet, nothing. And within 30 days, and it probably would have happened within even probably seven, that inflammation we could see from the EEG, the brain showed no activity, it was all inflammation, virtually gone, completely gone. One person had multiple sclerosis, his tremors went away. 30 days, not from a drug, but from food. 

Spirulina are raw tablets, 30 tablets a day. Meanwhile, they're still getting 64% protein, 40 vitamins and minerals, and part of the reason it worked was because of the superoxide dismutase. Also, we're going to talk about in a minute, the phycocyanin that's found in spirulina. It's also loaded with essential fatty acids. Your brain is mostly fat. One of the things I didn't mention is one of the things that superoxide dismutase also does is it protects your telomeres. Your telomeres are these things that protect your DNA. And as your cells replicate, the telomeres shorten until they get so short that the DNA gets exposed. 

And then, when the DNA is exposed, it interacts with toxins and it becomes damaged. And then when it replicates, it damages as damaged DNA. And this leads to other chronic illnesses. But when you take the superoxide dismutase, it protects the telomeres so they aren't shortening. So you start to get more functionality and this also contributed to the brain health. So, and as I said, it probably could have happened within a week or even two weeks but we did do the EEG's at the beginning and at the end and that was pretty powerful when you think of how something as simple as this whole food unheated just spirulina could do so much more than any drugs could. Amazing, right?

Ashley James (01:24:36.525)

I am beyond thrilled. So this 30-day study, did you do any questionnaire just to get an idea of their mood before and after, or did they report anything like that?

Catharine Arnston (01:24:53.797)

I think we have, there's so much data and I haven't looked at everything because I haven't been able to, we're gonna write a paper about it so we could submit it. I have to submit, I've fallen behind on that because there's a professor who also works with NASA, Dr. Dominique D'Agostino, who I'm a good friend with, he was going to help us write the paper and submit it to the PubMed and all that sort of stuff. So I have to get back on that. It's just one more thing I haven't had chance to follow up. 

Ashley James (01:25:22.561)

So it's totally fine. It's totally fine. It hasn't been published yet. These are preliminary findings, but in the preliminary findings, the most exciting thing that you've noticed is that there was definite changes in the brain scans. And what other definite cool things did you notice while just looking preliminarily through the findings?

Catharine Arnston (01:25:39.833)

Yeah, well, there's a marker called HRV, which stands for heart rate variability. And you want a high heart rate variability because it shows that under stress, your body can respond quickly. When you have a low heart rate variability, it cannot. So I just remembered this looking at one data point, this person's heart rate variability, I think went from 40 something to 80 something. It was a 50% increase which is unheard of. People brag about how their heart rate variability increased by 2 or 3%. This was like literally a 50%. They also monitored their sleep. They used something called a wavi, which is sort of like those rings, aura rings. So there's tons of data, but with science and studies, you gotta go comb through the data and you look for trends and then you have to write up the findings. It's just time consuming. And I'm running the company, I'm traveling all over the place and I'm busy with my stuff.

Ashley James (01:26:43.789)

It is totally fine. I'm so happy that you dropped some of this information, but you know what? It's like, don't wait until you're done. If you've got something, share it, right? And then you can come back, and once the paper's been written and all the scientists have poured through the data, and you can come back and share more. There's no harm in that. Heart rate variability is super interesting, and life insurance companies are now playing with the idea of using it in order to determine whether someone should be insured or not, because they have seen that it is possibly a way to determine lifespan. Because low heart rate variability means you're in a state of stress and your body can't bounce into stress and then out of stress mode, that if you have low heart rate variability, you are kind of always in stress mode and it wears on you faster and you die sooner.

Whereas, a high heart rate variability means that when you inhale and when you exhale, your heart rate changes and your heart gets to rest a bit. And so your heartbeats won't be consistent. They'll be higher and then lower and then higher. And that's the variable that's measured between the two. Liistening to my son's heartbeat freaks me out because I'm like, did his heart stop? Because in between, there's such a noticeable difference in his heart rate from his inhales to his exhales. Now he's been seen by doctors. He's been seen by naturopaths. He's totally fine. His heart's healthy. But from the untrained ear, who's used to hearing a consistent heartbeat, when he inhales and when he exhales, his heart rate changes.

And that's heart rate variability. So he has actually very healthy because there is a very clear measurable difference between his inhale and exhale heartbeat. And if you listen to your own heartbeat and you notice there's no difference between your inhales and exhales, then you've got low heart rate variability. And there's some work we gotta do to bring your stress response down. So it's really cool. That's something that largely people have been thinking heart rate variability was more associated with mental, emotional health and getting you out of stress response mentally. Of course, you know, the body can stress the stress, right? So eating McDonald's is as stressful as having an argument with your husband or drinking a glass of wine is a stressor or running up a hill really fast is a stressor. Some stressors are good for you in the long run, right? But it's a stressor nonetheless. And the more cumulative stress we have, wears us down if we don't know how to turn off the stress response, right? So with heart rate variability being so changed by one factor, which is like you said, it takes what 10 seconds – open your bag, throw the chewable tablets in your mouth, either chew them or swallow with water, close the bag, done, go about your day. And for some people, the heart rate variability changed by 50%. That is just my mind is blown. My mind is, I'm so excited for that. And I can't wait for your study to be released.

Catharine Arnston (01:30:02.761)

Well, and to have this book by Dr. Palmer, Brain Energy, the health of the brain is determined by the health of your mitochondria. And we have something that basically blows everything out of the water, all drugs, nothing comes close to the impact that these nutrients, and I'm gonna talk about another one in a minute, in spirulina and also to chlorella for protecting the mitochondria. But if you had to choose one algae, for protecting your mitochondria, it would definitely be spirulina. And if you were looking at building your immune system, it's definitely chlorella. And that's another conversation, the science is there and there's literally no question, but we've changing the perception of health in general and predictability of longevity is like moving the Titanic because we have certain ideas in our head, but the new science keeps coming out. And so, I stay in my lane about algae and I keep connecting the nutrients found in algae with the discoveries found in the longevity research and I'm going, Wow! Superoxide dismutase stops heart disease. Hah! Spirulina, our spirulina has the highest superoxide dismutase. That's amazing! Or as we're going to find out next, research finds that phycocyanin, which is the blue pigment in spirulina, kills cancer cells. And I go, Gosh! That's pretty interesting because our spirulina has the highest phycocyanin in the universe. So the science is there about these nutrients, but the scientists don't know those nutrients exist in algae or at least in our algae. So I'm sitting here, I feel like, the kid with the finger in the dike holding the water, holding a dam from exploding and I'm so eager to get this information to the world because this is why I did this. I mean I just wanted to help my sister heal from cancer and I did, and I thought if I can help one more person I'm going to just keep going and now we're in thousands of people, but it's so important to get this information out because it's scientifically proven and there's no question, but you have to know what to look for. People say, you don't notice a red car until you have one. You're not going to notice the benefits of superoxide dismutase, or next we'll talk about phycocyanin, until now that you've learned about it. Now you are informed. Being educated about these things, because nobody else is telling you, is critical. And so that's my goal, and I love educating people, because, I know Mother Nature has provided for us and we just need to get her bounty out to the world in a way that is understandable. The science is complicated but what it does in your body is so remarkable. So is Mother Nature. I mean she is so smart, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it. We are supposed to be healthy, right? But you have to follow a lifestyle that mimics the one that we were born into. I don't think Coca-Cola and white processed food and sitting all day long was the life that Mother Nature, God, the universe intended us for. We need to move, we need to hug, we need to drink water, we need to sleep, and we need nourishment.

And the best way to get it is from spirulina and chlorella. The best and easiest. Again, it's health insurance, not just nutritional insurance, it's health insurance. So it's pretty powerful. And before I swing over to cancer, I do want to make one more, just do a little mini deep dive into another benefit of the SOD. So as I mentioned, the most mitochondria are in your brain and this almost a similar amount and I have tried for months to find a number for this, but nobody, I can't seem to find a number, but virtually your retina has virtually the same amount of mitochondria as your brain, because your eye is literally another brain because it's taking senses, strings of light and and converting that into an image in the back of your head. If you have eye issues, not just your reading deteriorating, but glaucoma and other serious eye issues, they are almost 100% predictor of heart disease and a heart attack within a year. Crazy, right? And why is that, it's because of the high concentration of mitochondria in your eye. There's 7,000 mitochondria per cell in your heart and there's close to 2 million in your eye. But the eye is more visible, you can tell when you have eye issues whether it's glaucoma. So it breaks my heart because I don't think there's any direct communication between the eye specialists and heart specialists, but I have talked to a lot of heart specialists and they confirm that this situation with the glaucoma is indeed real. And it even hit home with me with a fellow I grew up with all my life. He was like my best friend's brother. We did everything together and about a year ago he was diagnosed with some form of glaucoma, but they didn't know that was a predilection of potential heart issue. And so they didn't really do much about it. He's a big skier. He was out skiing about six months ago, had a heart attack, and died on the spot.

Ashley James (01:36:31.384)

Oh my goodness.

Catharine Arnston (01:36:33.920)

So, anybody who's listening, if you have glaucoma issues going on, get your heart checked because, pardon the pun, but it's more visible. It's damage that's occurring at the mitochondria level. I know I'm going to keep hammering home. All of your health issues are determined by your mitochondria, and some of them are easier to detect, like your eye, than your heart.

Ashley James (01:37:04.776)

I have a little side story to share. I am friends with a man who is on the kind of the same health path we've studied under the same nature paths. Really fascinating guy. I've told this story before on the show so I'll try to keep it brief. I forget the names but it's like Green Beret. He was like one of those, like those Navy Seals. He was like one of those, but I can't remember which one. But it's up there. It's like he used to be one of those. But before he actually was Amish and he left the Amish community. He loves them, but he left the Amish community to become like a Navy SEAL green braid, whatever. And him and I were hanging out and he said, and we study under the same doctor. And he was telling me this story. He goes, okay, so the doctor that we've studied under, I've studied under him for over 12 years. He is amazing naturopathic physician, old school. He's like 83 or something like that.

And he was, I mean, his story is fascinating. I've had him on the show twice, Dr. Joel Wallach. And he says that he's told people for over 20 years to not eat oil or fried food. 100% don't eat oil. He goes, just cook with water. He's not plant-based. He grew up on a farm. He thinks beef's amazing. To each is own. He's doing something right. He's 83, he still works. He works like six days a week and worships the Lord on the seventh day. And he’s a very fascinating man. But he says, never eat fried food. It destroys your health. Don't do it. Don't eat fried food. Don't eat oil. Well, our friend, his name's Marvin, and he decided to eat McDonald's fries every day. And he was doing like a little experiment. He wanted to see if he could notice a difference because he ate clean his whole life, right? He was grew up on this, he grew up on a farm, but he'd never really eaten the standard American diet. And he goes, I've never been sick. My whole life I've never been sick. And he is very passionate about studying health, but he'd never been sick. So he started eating McDonald's and started eating fries, just fries, not anything else, just fries at McDonald's. He drives home and he lives in Utah.

And it's really dark out if you've ever been to Utah, but just outside the city, it's pretty dark at night. And there he is driving home. It's like the moon isn't out and there's no street lights or anything, right? It's been seven days of eating fries every day. Now, it's  not been every meal, but every day he's had large fries. On the seventh day, somewhere around there, he's driving home and he realizes, he has completely lost his ability to read signs. He's lost his night vision.

He should have glasses at this point. Everything's fuzzy. He's driving home and he goes, I can't see. Now he was a green brayer, whatever it was. He had like 40, 20 vision. He had some crazy good eyesight. And all of a sudden, seven days of eating fries every day, his night vision was gone. It was shot. And he said, you know what happened? Obviously he stopped eating fries. He went back to his healthy lifestyle. He goes, it took me a year of taking antioxidant supplements and of course eating really healthy. But it took him a year of taking everything he could he knew to nourish the eyes, except for, chlorella and spirulina. But he took everything that he knew to take for eye health for a whole year. It took him a whole year to reverse the damage that seven days of eating fries and just think about all the people that are running around destroying. And so then we go to Dr. Wallach. Well, why did this happen? And Dr. Wallach pulls up an image of anatomy of the eye, specifically the vasculature. And it is the eye's mostly blood vessels. And these blood vessels, which are very small, just like the kidneys, right? Kidneys are another thing that gets damaged by fried foods. That's another reason. Dr. Wallach's been able to take people on dialysis and get them so healthy, they no longer need dialysis. And one of the things is fried food, get rid of oil, get rid of fried food, and then also get rid of any processed meats like have nitrates or nitrites. And because the vasculature is only wide enough to house single blood cells going through. So the vasculature is thinner than hair and it becomes destroyed and inflamed. And so then everything gets backed up. And what happens is that just eating that seven days where the fries was enough to inflame and damage the vasculature of the eye and the retina and the mitochondria and just everything took it like, I could not believe it took him a year to get his eyesight back. So just really we have to listen to our body and listen to the symptoms of our body and don't just go, oh, it's cause I'm getting older. You know, if you notice you can't see it at night very well, we got to take this seriously. Just like you said, the vasculature of the eye, things to go first, right? Men won't see the doctor till they have a penile dysfunction, till they have erectile dysfunction, right? When they can't get it up, that's when they go to their doctor. Well, they should have gone five years ago when they started developing diabetes, but it wasn't until their penis stopped working. Well, their heart has been affected by their declining health and the way they're eating. So we have to listen to the symptoms of the body.

And that person, the man who temporarily lost his penis' function, that can be reversed if we catch it quick enough. But also if he had listened to his body, he would have noticed years before, starting to get tired, going towards more sugar and more caffeine for energy, because he felt tired in the morning, not being able to stay up as late, just like falling asleep while watching TV, getting acid reflux, little things that normally the average person puts band-aids on. Oh, I'm going to take an antacid. I'm going to take a Tylenol or an Advil. I'm just going to drink some alcohol here and I'm going to self-medicate, right? I'm going to take some coffee here, alcohol here. People self-medicate instead of listen to the symptoms. And if we listen to the whispers, then we can catch something, but we have to know. And so I love that you said, if anything's happening with eyesight, especially like glaucoma, we need to get our heart checked right away. We need to take it seriously. And there's a way to reverse it. And we can do that with food, certain foods we gotta stop putting in our mouth and certain foods we gotta put in our mouth  more. 

Catharine Arnston (01:43:51.713)

Exactly. You've got to give your body what it needs and stop giving it what it doesn't. But you also raise a really very important point, which I want to emphasize. Your body, there's a great expression, an old ancient Asian expression. You never step in the same river twice because a river is flowing. So every second different things are flowing by and your body is the same way.

You have over 30 trillion cells in your body and guess what? 30 trillion cells die every day and 30 trillion new cells are born every day. You change your entire stomach lining, I think it's either 24 hours or 48 hours. Other parts of your body take longer, like your skin if you're young it's a 25 day turnover as you get older it's more like 60 days or 72 days your organs.

But the point is, is that if you have a condition, like this gentleman developed, you know, an eye condition, it's not, it doesn't have to be permanent, but you have to do something about it. And the other thing is that if you slide into this, getting into a condition,, in this case, it was unusual because it did happen so quickly, but usually things like cancer and heart disease. They call it silent inflammation for a reason. You don't even know that it's going on. You may be having damaged mitochondria and cellular acidity for decades before the symptoms even start showing up. And once the symptoms start showing up, then you start noticing, because your body's like finally throwing you a flare. It's like, hey, over here, buddy, like do something. And that gets your attention, but sadly in America, we think, oh, we need to go get a pill. But what you really need to do is evaluate what part of your lifestyle has caused this condition because the drugs only mask the symptoms. They will not correct the condition. And your friend at least was well aware that he had a change in condition, but look, it took him a year to regain back all of that new damage. And so this is why I tell people, even if you are healthy now, start taking spirulina and chlorella on a daily basis because you don't know what else is going on under that hood. There may be conditions that symptoms haven't shown up yet, but if you continue down the path you're on, they will eventually. This is why I again consider these two allergies as your health insurance and for a dollar a day you're worth it. Because lots of these symptoms take a very long time. In his case it was very dramatic.

But the eye, because also it's very porous, and porous things like blood, they change very, very quickly. Organs, which are very dense cells, take a long time to either get damaged and or corrected. So anyways, I just wanna mention that. Whatever condition you have, it does not have to be permanent, but you have to make a change.

And the algae seems to be the most effortless, most powerful instrument that has been proven time and time again to have that benefit. So I definitely want to talk about cancer because we've talked a little bit about the brain health and whether it's Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, mitochondria health is critical and spirulina is proven to facilitate mitochondria health and of course that affects your brain and it also affects your heart because it also your heart also has such a high concentration of mitochondria and again that superoxide dismutase is stopping the free radical damage because it can get in there in the inner membrane to prevent all that damage. But there's another equally powerful nutrient. I have these usually these great visuals I show people It's sort of like Superman and superwoman So think of superoxide dismutase as Superman and the one I'm going to talk about now I've mentioned a couple times the blue pigment in spirulina called phycocyanin think of it as superwoman and again that spelled P-H-Y-C-O-C-Y-A-N-I-N and I'm sorry for repeating myself, but it's very important to me that you have the ability to go on Google and check some of these things that I'm telling you about and you'll see that I'm telling you the truth. But just like you wouldn't know to look for something, it's like those Rorshach inkblot tests where, there's that one picture where you see an old woman and suddenly you look at it differently and you see a young woman and then you look back and you see the old woman, right?

Now that you know some of these things. You're informed. So you can't unknow something. And so now you're more empowered to look for the things that you are aware of that will help you be healthier. And that's my goal here. So this other thing that I really want you to know about is this blue pigment called phycocyanin. So it's so powerful. I'll send you all the links so that you can put it with your show notes so people can get access to the actual links to the actual National Institute of Health studies where I get all this juicy stuff. So in this one particular study, they took a Petri dish and they put cancer cells in there and they dyed them purple just so you could see them in the Petri dish.

And then they added some phycocyanin, the blue pigment in spirulina, to the petri dish. And there's six images and it takes 24 hours. They space them, four hours apart, I guess. And after 24 hours, not all, but virtually all of the cancer cells are gone. Gone. That's because phycocyanin kills cancer cells.

And I'll tell you how it works in a minute. So I went into the study and I saw how much phycocyanin they used in this particular experiment. And I realized, and I checked our lab tests, one of our L-EnergyBits tablets, one, has 4,000 times more phycocyanin than they used in this particular experiment that basically wiped out all the cancer cells within 24 hours, gone, gone, right? I'd say that was pretty powerful. But just like superoxide dismutase, phycocyanin gets damaged by high heat. So anybody who is using, and it's 99% of the companies who use high heat to dry their algae, so these are lower priced algae companies, you're not getting the benefits of phycocyanin because they've killed it. The only other place that I can confidently direct you is to frozen spirulina because once again it has not been heated so your phycocyanin is alive and well and it will go to work for you. But let me tell you how this works. So I don't know how geeky Ashley's been on the mic. We're going deep, it's worth knowing it because again once you know you can't unknow.

So we know we've talked about this production of ATP in the mitochondria. Well, it's not like going to an ATM machine and you just get ATP. There, it's quite a complicated process. God love Mother Nature, Universe God, whatever you want to call it. It's beautiful how this all works. So the way the ATP is produced is in the mitochondria, in that inner membrane, there are these

four molecules that take the glucose from the food. So you eat food and your stomach digest it into smaller molecules called glucose that make their way into your cells and there's a process that reduces those into electrons. And so it's the passing of these electrons from one of these molecules to the next and there's four of them.

that actually, and then the fifth is where the actual ATP is produced. So think of these molecules like you would someone in a relay race. You've all seen relay races. You have four or five people. One person starts, they have the baton, they run a certain distance. They pass the baton to the next person. That person runs the next distance. And hopefully, the person who's at the last part of that group crosses the finish line and wins. So in your mitochondria, instead of,

runners, you have these four molecules and instead of crossing the finish line, you get ATP produced, which is cellular energy, so what they're passing instead of a baton is an electron and so it goes from one station and then there's a conversion that goes the next station, the next station and then boom ATP. Well it's a little more complicated than just a relay race, because in that process between the four stations, there's two other molecules. They're called transport molecules. They're kind of like having trainer wheels. They help the electron move a little faster from one station to the next. And the analogy that I've come up with is that when you're traveling, a lot of these airports are so big, and so you have to either take a shuttle bus or a shuttle train to get you to your gate. I call them shuttle molecules because they're kind of like a shuttle train. They help you, you may be at the airport but you're not at your gate yet. So you can't actually get to your plane. So there's two of these molecules that are like shuttle molecules. One of them, the first one, which we'll talk about maybe another time, is CoQ10. You've probably heard about the importance of CoQ10. And so it's a shuttle molecule and it is a fat-based molecule. And I'll do a little sidebar just while we're talking about CoQ10. Scientific studies have shown, if you have chlorophyll, and of course Chlorella has chlorophyll, and red light, so it could be red light therapy, it could be sunlight, it actually recycles the CoQ10 molecule so that it can generate ATP for you by recycling that CoQ10 molecule. You don't even have to eat. Pretty cool, right?

But that's the first molecule. That's CoQ10. And that's a fat-based shuttle bus. The other shuttle bus further down between 3 and 4 is called cytochrome c. I know these are, again, scientific terms, but feel free to go Google everything. So this little cytochrome c molecule is a water-based molecule. And guess what? The blue pigment in spirulina is a water-based molecule which I may have mentioned earlier and what it does in healthy cells is it speeds up that cytochrome c. This is one of the reasons why spirulina gives you more energy because it's speeding up the transition of those electrons through this shuttle bus cytochrome c so that you can generate more ATP at the final station. Pretty cool.

But if you have a cancer cell or what's called a zombie cell also known as a senescent cell basically a senescent cell is a cell that is subdivided so many times it's basically dead but it doesn't die it just hangs out and it's inflammatory and so you do things like fasting and cryotherapy to get rid of those senescent cells but back to the story so in a cancer cell or a senescent cell the zombie cells, instead of speeding up that cytochrome c molecule to generate energy, the blue pigment, phycocyanin, detects that it's a cancer cell and it kicks out that cytochrome c molecule completely, and that cytochrome c molecule kills the cancer cells or the senescent cells. Boom. And so just to repeat, in a healthy cell, the blue phycocyanin speeds up the cytochrome c molecule so that the electron transport chain can generate ATP for you faster, which is what you want, but in a cancer cell or a senescent cell which is a zombie cell it kicks out that cytochrome c molecule which then goes and automatically kills the cancer or senescent cells and here's the proof. Well, actually you can just google it and you'll find out about it but when you get chemotherapy, the way they tell whether it's working or not is they measure the amount of cytochrome c in your blood. Because if there's a lot of cytochrome c, that shows that the cancer cells c are dying because that's what cytochrome c does to cancer cells. And that's what they use in a lot of these chemotherapy treatments. I don't know whether it's the phycocyanin, well they do use the phycocyanin, and yes they do, sorry I was drifting there for a minute, and it kills the cancer cells. But who wants to wait to get cancer and who wants chemotherapy? You can kill your cancer cells now just by taking the spirulina tablets daily.

And daily we always have cancer cells, but if you have a strong immune system and strong mitochondria, and who does these days? Like nobody. But if you did, you can start taking the spirulina and it will start killing cancer cells immediately. Unbelievable, right? And none of this is conjecture. This is slam dunk. They are creating the chemotherapy companies in the pharmaceutical industry, they're deep in this rabbit hole of using phycocyanin to kill cancer cells. But who wants to wait to get such a diagnosis of cancer? You can start killing those cancer cells now and trust me, we all have them everywhere at all times.  Cancer is basically cells that have gone rogue. They're acidic, they are not functioning properly, they're not communicating properly, they multiply and they're so damaging and inflammatory. They take over others' neighboring cells so quickly. And by the way, while we're talking on the amazing properties of this blue phycocyanin, there's another amazing property that it does. And again, it's a bit geeky. It's called antiangiogenesis. So what that means is angiogenesis is basically the growth of blood vessels. And you need the growth of blood vessels to feed your brain, to feed your organs, to feed just about everything. But you don't want the growth of blood vessels to tumors. But that's what happens with cancer and tumors. They basically hijack your blood vessels and reroute them to feed them. So they have a blood source so they can grow quickly. And there are certain things that cause what's called anti-angiogenesis, which means it stops the growth of those blood vessels.

The blue pigment in spirulina has been proven to do that. And the process is called anti-angiogenesis. And in fact, there's a really famous nonprofit organization based here in Boston called the Angiogenesis Organization. It was formed by Dr. Li, L-I. And all their research is on things that prevent the growth of these damaging blood vessels to tumors. And I think it was about eight years ago, we got a call from his organization, which is right here where I live in Boston, and he said, we're doing our 20th year celebration conference and we would like you to come and set up a table because did you know that the blue phycocyanin in your spirulina has anti-angiogenesis properties. We didn't even know at the time and then they sent me a bunch of papers and sure enough Bill Gates was there and Bill Clinton was there. I mean very prestigious organization. Dr. Li is very well informed. He's got a great TED talk. He's one of my mini heroes. Anyways so we went and but that's just one more cool thing about blue phycocyanin. A. It kills cancer cells. B. It stops the growth of blood vessels, two tumors, and I might as well throw a third one in there while we're rolling on phycocyanin. As you know with COVID, it has those prongs that stick out from it, those prongs that stick out are how the virus attaches to your cell so that it can invade your cell. Now the cells that it invades are called ACE2 receptor cells. And these types of cells are predominantly found in your nose, your mouth, your throat, your stomach, and your lungs. That's predominantly where these ACE2 receptor cells are. And it's where all viruses enter, but particularly COVID. So blue phycocyanin has been found to sit on top of those ACE2 receptor cells and basically shield them. So the COVID virus can't get in. It's like having a superhero standing in front of your cells. And so if you got exposed to COVID, it would just slip through because it can't get in. It doesn't have the combination lock to get into your cells. And proof of this is that a couple of years ago, when we were height of COVID, the University of Pittsburgh was developing a nose spray made of algae. And I'm pretty sure it was the phycocyanin because, researchers know about this. It just always amazes me how much science is available. 

And this is why I feel I have a role in the world because I go to a lot of these science conferences and I read a lot of scientific papers. But you have to know the jargon. I mean, they speak in jargon. They don't know how to explain simple terms. Like they wouldn't know to talk about a free radical being like a bullet bouncing around or, a fireman or superoxide dismutase being like a fireman who hoped to put out the fire. But I do because I've always been a writer and it seems that I love science. So, the science has been around in many cases 60, 70 years, but it hasn't made its way out to you.

And I read a statistic somewhere years ago that said, like, once there's been a scientific discovery, it takes an average of 18 years before practitioners even know about it because it's still hanging around in the scientific world before the practitioner. And then, it didn't say this, but I think it's true. It's another 18 or 28 years before it moves from the practitioner awareness to consumers. The fact that all this research around spirulina and the superoxide dismutase, and we didn't even get to glutathione or the chlorophyll that's found in chlorella, that's a whole, another two or three hours, but the fact that the science is there's a 100,000 studies, about 60,000 for spirulina and about 40,000 for chlorella, documenting all the different health benefits, whether it's brain health, gut health, detox, skin health, stopping breakouts, wrinkles, the important ones clearly like heart health, mitochondria, a 100,000! I mean, you can't argue with 100,000, but the problem is the knowledge from these papers haven't made their way even to this practitioner community they certainly haven't made their way to the consumer and the other side of the coin is nobody knows the nutrition of algae like I do so even if the practitioners knew about superoxide dismutase and cytochrome c, most of them know about that but they don't know that you can get the highest concentration of these nutrients that protect the mitochondria from algae, 

So there's this huge void that I'm trying to fill to help people understand the science, understand algae, and so that the two worlds can meet because honestly it's from Mother Nature, it's absolutely effortless, it's so proven, but keep in mind not all algae is the same. Algae, like I said at the beginning, is like wine and the way you produce and dry and grow the algae affects the nutrient value by a hundred percent. So you can't just grow a bunch of grapes, stomp on them and then put it through a sieve and think you've got wine. You've got to let it distill. You've got to do a thousand different things before it's ready to be consumed. Same with algae. So there's all these companies. I mean, you can go to Costco, you can go to Target, you can go to just about any place, CVS, and buy spirulina and chlorella. But what you're missing are these critical nutrients, and we've only talked about two, superoxide dismutase and phycocyanin, that aren't in 90% of them, or 95% of them, because they've been killed in the production process. So people are not getting the true prevention benefits or restorative benefits or maintenance benefits. Yes, they give you the nutrition. But man, the clinical benefits far outweigh even the nutritional benefits. Of course, they're very tightly intertwined. So anyways, I just want people to understand, if you can understand your body better, it amazes me, we know how our cell phone works better than we know how our body works. And so if you can just, Body Health 101 is the first lesson is don't eat garbage and understand that the mitochondria are the key determinant for everything. And so whatever you do should be to preserve and protect and nurture, nourish your mitochondria. And when you do that, they will protect and nourish you. You guys are on the same team. I tell people I never eat alone. I always eat with my mitochondria.

Ashley James (02:08:07.140)

That's so good to think about because we tend to eat like we're four years old and we're like a kid in a candy shop. We tend to choose dinner based on what is going to taste good. And if you remember that you're eating with your mitochondria, everything you put in your mouth is going to be feeding your mitochondria. Do you want bullets ricocheting in your cells, creating cancer and creating early death and before you die early, you will have years of suffering and declining health. 

That is guaranteed because you look at the average person and the last few years of life are not pretty for those that eat the standard American diet. It is incredibly unfortunate. Or you imagine you're eating with and for your mitochondria, you're nourishing your mitochondrial cells. Okay, don't eat foods that are super fun, right? Like not everyone needs a kid's meal, right? We can be a responsible adults. And here's the thing chew your food more, get some fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, beans. And for me, it's non-gluten whole grains. I'm super into quinoa, buckwheat and amaranth, taff. The list goes on and on. You can get brown rice. You can get lots of organic non-gluten grains. So no barley, wheat, rye, oats for me. There's many benefits to avoiding those personally. But eating a wide variety of really healthy foods, incorporating algae, incorporating the energybits.com, use coupon code LTH. I want you guys to save money and also get the best one on the market. Incorporating that into your life because you're eating with and for your mitochondria. And then here's the thing, maybe dinner isn't the most delicious thing out there, but it is nourishing your cells, it's still gonna be yummy, it still is, because your body knows it's good for you. And maybe you don't love the taste of your kale salad the first time you eat it. There's ways to make it delicious. I can teach you if you want. Write me an email or find me on Facebook, we have a Learn True Health Facebook group. I'm gonna talk about that in a second actually because if you've listened for over two hours, I think we should do a giveaway for If you're still here, we will we're gonna do a giveaway but think about this, if you don't know how to make really healthy food taste good, please come reach out to me. I created a little membership. I filmed for many, many hours in the kitchen and I made delicious meals that are very healthy and also very easy. And so you go to LearnTrueHealth.com click on Home Kitchen. You could check that out or just message me, join the Learn to Health Facebook group and say, Hey, Ashley, how do I eat really healthy but also delicious? I'll tell you, I'll point you in the direction of some resources so you can find simple, quick, delicious meals. But the thing is, as you eat healthier and cleaner because you're eating with your mitochondria and for your mitochondria, for your cells, as you eat cleaner, your body actually begins to enjoy and crave those foods more. And there's a lot of studies that show that you're not only feeding your cells in the mitochondria, which are this amazing bacteria that live inside your cells, you're also feeding the bacteria that live outside your body in your digestive tract, because we're kind of like a donut. The inside of a donut is not like the little hole, is represents our intestines, and that's considered still outside the body, because it hasn't been absorbed yet. And so there's about six

pounds worth of bacteria. So think about like there's a chihuahua or like a little baby panda that lives inside you that you're feeding. And it actually helps digest our food and it's a pharmacy, it's a complicated pharmacy that creates nutrients for us, digests our food and makes nutrients for us and then we absorb those nutrients. And when you have a really healthy, robust microbiome, which I have lots of interviews about that. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com, type in microbiome, and use the search there. They can also type in viome, and use the search there, and listen to those episodes. Listen to my episodes with Sarica Cernohous. Those are really good ones to listen to for understanding more about the microbiome of the gut. But fun thing, when we feed it healthy foods, the microbiome excretes chemicals that go into our brain and make us crave those good foods. Likewise, an imbalance of yeast or candida can make chemicals that overtake your brain and force you to crave foods that feed the bad stuff.

So a lot of times we walk around thinking we're actually following our body's cravings, we are slaves to the what's living in our gut. If you have craving for donut and you're driving up to Krispy Kremes, you need to stop and go, wait a second. That's the bad guys in my gut that want me to feed them that I'm going to go eat the kale salad and throw some chlorella.

Catharine Arnston (2:13:40.605)

Chlorella is the answer to feeding your gut and your gut biome. And it's just as effortless as the spirulina. And so the other thing, you're absolutely right, but I just want to reinforce again, because a lot of people, when they first realize that what they're eating isn't healthy and they're facing this huge monumental shift in lifestyle and food choices. So here's what I want to tell you. If you did not change anything added 10 or 20 or 30 spirulina in the morning and 10 or 20 30 chlorella tablets at night as many as you can get into you just add those because that's effortless again put them in your hand swallow them down chew them whatever it takes but then that will automatically start nourishing your mitochondria your cell walls your brain your gut and it will slowly ease you into choosing on your own to make other changes. But the reason I like it so much is because we are told so many things, well stop doing that and stop doing that and stop doing that. This isn't something that you can add to your life that you don't have to if you don't want to if you're not ready yet. You don't have to change anything but just add it and that alone will make a difference because you will start feeling better. You'll be nourished.

I mean, we had this one woman who was 85 years old write us. We have people writing us every single day. And this woman was incontinent. She couldn't sleep. She had no energy. She started taking our spirulina and chlorella. And like within 24 hours, she said her incontinence was gone. She could sleep six or seven hours in a one fell swoop. Her energy was so high that she said, this is what I did today. I went to see my grandson played basketball at school, I went to see my friend at the nursing home, I did a two mile walk, I came home, I cleaned my garage, I painted my kitchen, and at five o'clock I had some dinner. Oh, and she now does CrossFit. This is an 85 year old woman. And so she got a whole new everything, sleeping through the night, not being (inaudible 2:16:00.49). I want to go hang out with her. Like any 85 year old that's doing CrossFit, I want her number. But so this is all she did. This was the same, like when we did that our clinical trial with those veterans, all they did was add spirulina. They did nothing else, changed nothing else. So, so yes, the goal is to have a healthy lifestyle that includes nourishing foods and lots of regular activity, movement of any kind, good sleep. But on the nutrition side, you don't have to throw everything out and start over again. In fact, don't change anything. But definitely add, because honestly, algae has been around for so long, four billion years, I might point out.

The Egyptians used it 2,000 years ago. The Aztecs used it 250 years ago. They've been using it in Asia for over 60 years daily. It's time. It's time for algae to be recognized. There is nothing else in the world with more nutrition, more healing properties, more nutrients that do things that nothing else can do. And so you might as well get on the algae train now so you can learn to determine the difference between a good company with nutritious, safe, clean algae. You can give your pets or your newborns or your grandparents and one that's just not well grown, not well carefully dried, missing lots of the nutrients. You've got to educate yourself so that you can get maximum benefit from your purchase. And I am very proud of what it is that we do and how

how clean, I mean, we sell through doctors offices. We do third-party lab tests. I couldn't live without this stuff. I take it every single day. I couldn't imagine a day without algae.

Ashley James (02:17:56.148)

I introduced this back when we first did our first interview years ago to one of my best friends who to this day orders on a regular basis. And she said without a doubt, she noticed a remarkable improvement in her hair, skin and nails like night and day. And now she's already very healthy. This woman is gorgeous and, and she's listening probably. But she noticed night and day improvement and also, energy, feeling healthier. But she will not be without this stuff because she said absolutely better hair, skin and nails. And of course, when we look better on the outside, it means something good to happen on the inside, right? Because that's how the body works. And I've got my bag right here. I've been you've made me want some. I've got my bag.

Catharine Arnston (02:18:52.460)

Because you're mentioning beauty, so we do have a brand of spirulina called Beauty Bits because I found when I started the company, the women didn't like the packaging of the blue spirulina. And I started the company because of my sister having breast cancer. So women's health has always been important to me. And the spirulina has more collagen than collagen powder.

It protects your elastin and your collagen production and it kills bacteria so that you don't get blemishes. So anyways it's very good for skin and hair and I wanted women to like the packaging. So we do have a second spirulina called Beauty Bits. And just again a little sort of side note so there's lots of very expensive creams that have been using extracts of algae in their formulations for at least 20 or 30 years. One that you might know is called La Mer. A small jar that's about the size of a tin. It costs $450,  but they're only putting extracts in there and it's $450. And it's only getting on your face because that's $450 you certainly wouldn't be bathing in it. But when you take algae as it's called an ingestible so you're swallowing it or chewing it. It's a more than extracts. It's the whole deal and it's going to all of your body not just your skin but also your organs, your brain, your cells, your digestion, it improves digestion improves elimination so it's a it amazes me that algae has kind of been around, but in the behind the scenes. And it's sort of like someone who's always been a supporting actor. And it's time for Algae to step up and be recognized as a, as a leading man or leading woman.

Ashley James (02:20:49.586)

Nice. Well, we could talk for many, many hours. I want to do a giveaway for the listeners who stuck it out for almost two and a half hours. I want to reward them. So so tell us the details of the giveaway. I'm going to do it in my Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. And you let us know what you're giving away and I'll create the giveaway in the group.

Catharine Arnston (02:21:20.060)

Well, because we've spent a lot of time on spirulina and because we have two brands of spirulina, how about we do a large canister of EnergyBits and a large canister of BeautyBits, because they're both spirulina. And the canister is fantastic because it comes with a large bag of tablets inside. And you open the bag, put it into the canister. By the way, the canister also comes with a really cute travel tin so you can always carry about 60 tablets with you wherever you go. And when the canister is empty, as you only get a canister once, then you refill it by buying a bag. So the canister is great to put on your counter. It reminds you to take your tablets, because they don't need to be refrigerated or anything. And the packaging is really beautiful. So how about we do that?

And again, remember a full bag that's in these large canisters equals the same nutrition as 551 pounds of vegetables. So I live in a one-bedroom condo, and I think 551 pounds of vegetables would take up all the space in my kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and eke out into the hallway. So it's a very, very concentrated nutrition.

Just again, they're safe for pets, babies, pregnant women, nursing moms, grandparents, children. Give your child one or two tablets per their age. So if they're six, you could give them three or six a day.

Ashley James (02:23:01.616)

But you can give them more. I've like just handed the bag to my son and he eats till he is done. Sometimes he'll just eat six. Sometimes he'll eat 20. We'll munch on it. You can eat more because you can't overdo it because it's like you said, it's a crop. You can't overdo it. But especially if you're budgeting, you can just give five or six to a child.

Catharine Arnston (02:23:25.298)

Yeah, I was at a chiropractic conference about four years ago and this chiropractor, I'm trying to remember his name anyways, he's a heart surgeon, his wife is a chiropractor. Anyways, they brought their little daughter, she was I think maybe 16 months, no taller than maybe two feet max, probably weighed 40 pounds if that, 30 pounds. Anyways, they've been feeding her our algae, spirulina chlorella, since she was born.

This little girl, and I have pictures of her, she's absolutely adorable, maybe I'll remember to send them to you, Ashley. She came over to my table, and she started eating our chlorella. She came back probably five times, whole handfuls, just shoved them down her mouth. She had the green on the sides of her mouth. She was making me so proud. In the space of probably two minutes, she must have consumed at least a hundred tablets. This is a year and a half child that was like maybe a foot and a half. I don't have kids so I can't figure out the weight. But I finally said, I think she's probably had enough. But they were fine with it. And so to your point, you can have as much as you want. It's very, very concentrated nutrition. So we always start people with smaller amounts just because if you have been eating a bad diet, it's a lot of nutrition to hit your body with if you suddenly chow down 50 or 60 tablets. But after a while, you get so used to it that you love the energy. You will notice when you stop eating spirulina. Your energy level will plummet. Your mind just doesn't function.

Ashley James (02:25:02.276)

It's no just to preface this you just go back to the way you were you just don't realize if you eat it and you're feeling great and then you stop eating it it's not that you go worse it's you just you go oh my gosh I can't believe that's how I used to feel. Yeah, it's not like you stop eating it and then there's like negative effects of being off of it. But just like it's amazing how we walk around.

Catharine Arnston (02:25:39.246)

Well, it's like putting gas in your car. When you don't have gas in your car, your car doesn't work. When you put gas back in your car, your car works. So think of spirulina in particular, it’s the equivalent of gas for your car, very high test gas or electricity, electricity even better.

Ashley James (02:25:42.794)

Love it. So you essentially have three products on your site. And we've talked about this in the other episodes. You have chlorella and it's packaged in different packages because sometimes people would like a caniste,r with like a bag or there's a few different colors because you notice that women didn't want a masculine bag. They wanted a feminine bag. And I'm not one of those kind of women. I don't care what color the bag is. I'm it's like the good stuff's inside the bag. I don't care what the bag looks like, but there's some women who just  want it to not look like their husband's chlorella. I don't know. And so their's more elegant, so that you could have this beautiful canister on like a cookie jar, basically on your counter reminding you to take it and that's great. I'm so no frills. I'm like, throw me the bag, I'm gonna shove them in my mouth, just give me the good stuff. But some people like the good look. 

Catharine Arnston (02:26:35.518)

Yeah. And I'm very high frills. 

Ashley James (02:26:38.324)

And that's great. I appreciate women who are. I appreciate that. That's not me, but that's cool. So, I mean, it's so beautiful how there's this gorgeous spectrum of femininity. In our femininity, we can be no frills and we can be all frills and then we get anywhere in between. So, you have three products. You have Chlorella, you have…

Catharine Arnston (02:27:04.316)

Well, we actually have two. Spirulina and Chlorella. Boom.

Ashley James (02:27:06.992)

Right, but the third one is the combination of the two.

Catharine Arnston (02:27:09.068)

Yes, so there's two spirulina, BeautyBits and EnergyBits. They're just packaged differently, but they're both spirulina. Then there's the chlorella, which we call RecoveryBits, because it helps you recover your health, recover your gut, recover from drinking, recover from sports, recover from day. Very healing, very detoxing, really builds your immune system. And we didn't talk much about the immune system, but the mitochondria health and your immune system are the two things that work equally powerfully to keep you healthy. But they do different things. So chlorella is the other part and that's the RecoveryBits. And then we have a fourth brand that's called VitalityBits, which is a blend of the spirulina and chlorella. And we did that because some people just want simplicity. They don't want to have to think about spirulina in the morning and chlorella at night. So, this way they just take both the VitalityBits in the morning and they take it at night. They just one stop shop. And one thing I didn't mention, which I should, is because there's so much nutrition in both of them, especially spirulina, it can replace many other things that you already have, like a multivitamin, fish oil, Coq10, biotin for your hair, vegetables even. So it's not that you're gonna spend more money, you'll actually end up spending less because there's less things to track, fewer expiry dates, by the way, the algae last are expired dates usually three years and it never actually goes bad.

Ashley James (02:28:39.120)

It does not, because I have found partially used bags, like in a gym bag somewhere. And I'm like, oh, that was from five years ago or something like that's from many, many years ago. And then I eat them. I'm like, that doesn't taste sale. This tastes great. So I've had that experience where I'll find like a partially used up bag of EnergyBits to RecoveryBits. And I'm like, well, we're just going to keep eating these ones. And it's great. Yeah. Just keep going.

Catharine Arnston (02:29:06.097)

So it does replace a lot of things so you ultimately will save money. Remember if you took 10 a day, it's only a dollar a day. With cancer rates, heart disease, Alzheimer's escalating, no slowdown in the foreseeable future, you just have to be very proactive and protective of your health. This is hand-to-hand combat.Take control over your life. Don't hand it off to the medical community, which as we talked before, I mean, I don't want to bash the medical community because they're very important in certain situations, accidents, major surgeries, but the prevention side of wellness is not their strength. And so things like sleep and nutrition are. And so algae is the best nutrition you can ever put in your body and by the way the chlorella even helps you sleep. So prevention is where the action is and whatever age you are whether you're 25 or 55 I tell people it's never too late to feel great. 

Ashley James (02:30:16.682)

I love it. Well, and to do a 30 day challenge, get a bag of chlorella, get a bag of spirulina, use coupon code LTH is in Learn to Health at energybits.com. Of course, these links are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com. And then do a 30 day challenge and check. Tell us about see how you like it.

In our Facebook group, the Learn to Health Facebook group, when this goes live, I'm going to make a post asking, “What is your favorite thing you learned from today's episode?” And then I'm going to pick a winner. Actually, I have my son do it. I'll give it a few weeks to fill in, cause everyone takes their own time to listen to each episode. And then, after a few weeks, I'm going to have my son pick the winner. And of course, regardless of when you're listening to this, cause it could be five years from now that you're listening to this, jump in the Facebook group, read the comments, maybe someone else learned something that you didn't or you can learn from other people's comments. And also jump in the Facebook group and share what your experiences have been with taking the EnergyBits and the RecoveryBits and let us know what health changes you noticed. Like I was really surprised that my friend was like, “My hair, skin and nails are absolutely amazing! And I think there was one point where she stopped eating it and then she noticed her hair eventually just became lifeless again and thinner and not great. And then she started eating again. She's like, “Oh yeah, I remembered, I really like these!” And she's like, “Now I'm never without them because I really notice a difference in hair, skin and nails.” And I'd never noticed that because my thing was detox. I take the chlorella for heavy metal detox and I really notice a difference. Like hugely, huge. I'll feel, I'll be in like a very toxic state and then I'll take them and I'll just feel it sucking it out of me. Like it's a natural key later. I'll just feel it sucking it out of me and I will eat them in conjunction with sauna therapy and I'll also take them when I'm really hungry but I'm also really busy and I don't have time for a meal. I'll just pop some in my mouth. Or like I said before, when we're just sitting around and we feel like we wanna snack and we wanna chew something and it's salty and it's just the best. And I smile ear to ear watching my family eat these instead of junk food. Not that we have junk food in our house, but we could. 

Catharine Arnston (02:32:40.711)

Yes, and we'll get you some more. we probably have to wrap up, but one thing I do want to mention is, and hardly ever anybody talks about it, is constipation. Whether, if you're eating a lot of bread and sugar, you're going to have a slower digestion because the bacteria suck those things up and slow everything down, which causes you to be constipated. If you are on any kind of medications or antibiotics because they wipe out all the healthy bacteria which again allows the bad bacteria to flourish, and the bad bacteria eat all your food and slow down your digestion and also just when you're older and so you're not moving as much in many cases that causes constipation and when you're traveling i mean the list is endless. Chlorella clears that up for you. 

This is another reason why we want you to take the chlorella, which is called RecoveryBits, before bed because it will work through all the stuff, the junk in your trunk, and the chlorophyll and the other nutrients in chlorella will stimulate what's called peristalsis and magnesium also stimulates that, so that's another thing you can do if you are constipated. But there's magnesium in both the algae. But it does help with that.

Like I said, it's something a lot of people don't talk about, but it's more common than you believe. So that's another sort of benefit for Chlorella, because I know we spent most of the time talking about its sister, Spirulina. So they're both amazing. So, anyway.

Ashley James (02:34:21.163)

I love it. I love it. That's so great. I hope I hope everything's okay in Boston. I feel like the entire interview, I've heard nothing but sirens in the background. I just want to like call up Boston, be like, you okay, Boston? 

Catharine Arnston (02:34:32.094)

Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Well, I live right beside Mass General Hospital. So, the ambulances normally close off their sirens by the time they get here. I'm sorry about that. 

Ashley James (02:34:41.166)

Oh my goodness. No, I was just thinking was there some kind of major emergency? Oh my goodness. When I listened to podcasts when I'm driving and if there's like that background sound, like looking everywhere. So I hope the listeners weren't like driving around listening, going, oh, is there a siren nearby? Oh, but no, and it's not your fault. I mean, other than you chose to live near a hospital, but that's what we get, right? For living in the beautiful city of Boston, right? That's what we get. Oh my goodness. It's been wonderful having you on the show again. And I can't wait to have you back.

Please come back when you earn your PhD, after all the sifting through the data of your study, when that's published, I want you back. Anytime you've got major findings, I want you back. Here's your passion and your compassion, right? You have both. You've got compassion in one hand and passion in the other, and you want to bring this information out to the world. It's not just about you selling a product to us. 

Catharine Arnston (02:35:48.915)

No, I've never wanted to be a vendor. I just want to help people, but algae is the best and easiest way to do it and scientifically proven. It slows me, it upsets me a little bit that I can't get this information out faster. So thank you actually for helping me.

Ashley James (02:36:04.857)

So absolutely, and everyone share this information with those you care about. And what I get from Catherine, her and I have known each other for a few years now, which is really cool, because you know what, when I first met you was through Shark Tank. I watched that episode live, and I despise Mark Cuban for his comments that I still remember that episode. Yes, you were there.

Catharine Arnston (02:36:29.081)

Oh my god!

Ashley James (02:36:31.617)

And then it was a few years later that we connected. And so I've gotten to know Catherine over the years. And what I get is that you brought EnergyBits to market because there's a need and there's no ethical company doing it for us. And you're the one going well, because there's so many unethical companies selling it cheaply that are harming people. We're not getting the benefits because of the way they're processing it. And you're standing up going, no, this is such a powerful superfood that has so many healing properties that could really change people's lives but we have to invest in the way to farm it and to process it so that we maintain the quality and we test for purity, so you do all that and it costs a lot of money to test every batch and make sure that everything's clean and everything's well done. So we're passing on our dollars to make sure we get a superior product. And I really appreciate you. And I know 100 years from now, you and I won't be here, but your legacy will live on and that you have been an early adapter to spread this information. And I always describe it as this visual of a little ripple becoming a tidal wave, right? So this little ripple of information needs to go out, but the listeners, the person that's going to make it grow into the tidal wave to become a roar, to help people and spread it. So listeners share this information with those you care about and share it with those you don't care about. You know, Jesus talks about forgiving our enemies. You should be sharing this. Share this with your enemies and then make them wonder if they're your enemies or your friends. They're going to be like, wait a second, she shared it with me. Am I a friend or an enemy? But forgive your enemies. Share this information with them as well. We should all want to get better together. Thank you so much for coming on the show and listeners. Please check out energybits.com, use coupon code LTH and come into the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group and join in the giveaway and in the conversation. Yes! And Catherine, I can't wait to have you back on the show. It's been such a pleasure.

Catharine Arnston (02:38:47.669)

Yes. Thank you Ashley.

We'll get that giveaway going. Yes.

Thank you. Algae is the answer. So just give it a try.

 

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Recommended Book by Catharine Arnston

Vitamin K2 And The Calcium Paradox by Kate Rheaume – Bleue

Recommended Links:

Learn True Health – Episode 357

Learn True Health – Episode 265

Learn True Health – Episode 218

Learn True Health – Episode 227

Downloadable Information About Chlorella And Spirulina:

why is our spirulina and chlorella the safest and best

mothers milk and spirulina-have the same nutritional profile chart and explanation 3 pages

chlorophyll content in sprirulina and chlorella compared to other vegetables- one page (2)

Vitamin K2 is found in RECOVERYbits chlorella, helps prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's, and osteoporosis

Nov 20, 2023

Have you seen the new page on my site where I compiled a list of everything I love and recommend health-wise? https://www.learntruehealth.com/awesome

Stay tuned for updates on the upcoming launch of my new book/health challenge journal!

 

Break Free: Defeat Cravings, Overcome Overeating with Dr. Glenn Livingston

https://www.learntruehealth.com/break-free-defeat-cravings-overcome-overeating-with-dr-glenn-livingston

 

This episode welcomes back a familiar voice, Dr. Glenn Livingston, the creator of the Defeat Your Cravings system. Dr. Livingston opens up about his personal struggles with food and how this led him to develop his groundbreaking approach. Together, we discuss his new book, Defeat Your Cravings, and share valuable insights into the process of making lasting changes in your relationship with food. We also share strategies for controlling cravings, defeating emotional eating, and finding pleasure in healthier options.

 

Highlights:

  • Food Industry’s impact on overeating
  • Overcoming food cravings and addiction 
  • Stress response and defeating cravings 
  • Understanding the inner voice and discipline 
  • The importance of breathing techniques 
  • Things to do instead of overeating
  • The negative effects of indulging cravings 

Intro:

Hello True Health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I went through something very interesting in October and that's why it took me so long to publish the next episode. I lost my voice for a few weeks and, as I'm hearing my own voice, it's not 100% back yet, but every day I'm getting better and better. So I had quite the adventure in health last month, which of course, included, like I said, losing my voice, and I'm very excited to compile everything I learned from the experience and I'm definitely going to be putting together something for you guys in the near future, where I'm going to share what I found out really worked. 

So I was hit out of nowhere with really bad bronchitis. It was the weirdest thing. I went from totally fine to boom, 100% bronchitis, which led to losing my voice, and the adventure which was last month in my health journey led me to discover a few things that I hadn't used before. I used all my whole bag of tricks, everything I normally use, all the herbs and the homeopathy, the phototherapy patches which actually was the single most important thing in getting my voice back. I went from I'd open my mouth and no sound would come out. I put one of the patches on that, specifically designed to generate healthy new tissue and decrease inflation, and almost immediately I was able to talk again, albeit squeaky and a little gravelly, but it was really amazing to see how, just how fast it helps. So the phototherapy patches I was amazed by, as all my tools I use, but none of it was 100% helping me overcome. 

And I really wanted to avoid the use of antibiotics for several reasons, one being that I am highly allergic to most antibiotics, so that is just not fun for me. In general, and, being the health nut that I am, I will choose antibiotics when I absolutely need it. But I wanted to challenge my body to overcome, and my Naturopath watched me the whole time and said yep, you're fighting it, you're good, you're fighting it, it's not getting worse. It definitely was a really bad case of bronchitis that came out of nowhere. It hit me so hard. It was the weirdest thing, but what I learned was amazing. And, of course, the whole journey is something that I take as a lesson to be able to pass on and help others. So I'm going to put together all the things that I use that really helped. 

Now I have Episode 115 and I've done this a few other times in the podcast where I've shared the tips and tricks and the home remedies for overcoming cold and flu and supporting the immune function and also just making yourself feel better while you're going through the experience. So there's lots of information I've already shared, but I'm going to give you my updated version soon, based on what I went through for most of October, including some new stuff that my Naturopath had me do and it really helped, and it's not something I'm comfortable sharing on the podcast because it's pretty interesting. But I think what I'm going to do is compile a free course, just a free mini course to give you guys all my notes, which is great for anyone who wants to boost immune system and also help yourself when you are fighting something respiratory or when you're fighting, cold or flu. It's great to have these tools. 

I believe in modern medicine, like I believe in that there's life saving drugs and antibiotics are some of them. But I also know, and I've seen so many times, that we overuse antibiotics and we tend to run to them first instead of helping the body fight the battle. So if you're like me and you're one of those people who really wants to support the body and fighting the battle and not wiping our entire microbiome every time we get a cold or flu, which can lead to so many health issues in the long run, including Candida in the gut. But also Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks about this I had him on my show before. He talks about this that there are studies that show that every time you use antibiotics, we raise our chances of cancer, and so we are damaging ourselves for our long-term health, our long-term gut health, but we're also significantly harming our immune system and leaving ourselves more susceptible to what they now call superbugs. So not to fear monger at all, but basically it's a tool. These drugs are a tool that we want to use when we need them, and we also don't want to run to them at the first sign of infection if we can fight it ourselves, and I have some amazing holistic tools that are scientifically proven to help our bodies overcome, which I did, and now my voice is healing. Every day. It's getting better and better. You should have heard me a few days ago. I sound like a Mickey Mouse, or Minnie Mouse if she had been a smoker for 30 years, which is kind of sexy but also not great for broadcasting. So I'm going to wait about another week before I start doing interviews again, but luckily I had actually done this interview right before I got sick, so I'm able to publish it now. 

I am so excited to share something with you and that's a project I've been working on. I've compiled what I've done the last 12 years working with clients. I've compiled a list of health habits, of lifestyle changes that are so significant or so meaningful that they make huge strides in health. So if you want to increase your immune function, if you want to increase your energy, if you want to deepen your sleep, if you want to lower your stress, if you want to have more joy in your body and more joy in your heart, have better digestion all these things. I have these amazing and very powerful foundational tools that are daily habits, and habits are kind of hard when the at first right, because they're such a new thing. It's not one of our habits, right, so it's easy to forget or easy not to do. But I teach them in such a way that's fun and easy to implement and you see almost instant results. And by the end of this journey you will have all the foundational tools that I teach all my clients that really help them overcome major issues and feel like they're just loving the body they're in. 

So I'm going to be launching in a few weeks my first book, which is more of a wellness journal. It's going to be the Learn True Health 12 Week Wellness Revolution Journal and in it, every week you get to do a new habit that I teach you. It's like a health challenge that you get to do for seven days and if you love it and you see a difference, you can keep implementing. Keep doing it. Most of these habits are things that are no cost or very low cost, things that are going to be easy to implement in your life and you'll see big rewards. So it's totally worth doing. It's going to be a lot of fun. And well, I think it's a lot of fun because I'm a health nut. I think you're going to think it's a lot of fun because why else would you be listening to this podcast? But I'm working on launching it so it'll be available before the holidays. 

I think it's going to be a great gift for those you care about, those that want it, no matter where they are on their health journey. My goal with my journal that I'm publishing is that it is going to meet you where you're at. So if you're someone who is just taking their first steps into health, just taking the first steps into getting their health back, or if you've been walking the health nut path with me for years, both people will benefit from this journal. So it's going to meet you where you're at and help you build foundational health habits in a fun way that you get to see results and feel results in your body, and that's so rewarding. So you can give this to those you love. You can do it with your friends. You can even get friends or family or your sister, your sisters, or get your partner or your kids or your mom with you to do it with you. And how fun would that be. And it'll also be great going into the New Year's because I think January mentally is kind of like wipe this slate clean. 

I remember just last January because we lost our daughter two years ago, and just last January I was at church and it was the New Year's and I just saw my hand. Just mentally it's like wiping the slate clean. I'm like I am closing the book on suffering, like I did my grieving. I love her, I miss her, I think of her all the time and yes, I get sad about it and I also feel tremendous love. 

And what happened in January is I said, you know what, 2023 is a new year and I'm closing the book on that suffering. And It's just another day, right? December, and then, all of a sudden, January 1st, it's just another day. It's very mental. It's a mental exercise. It's not real, we made up these days. But there's something significant when we say January 1st, we feel like we can wipe the slate clean and we can start again and we can take on new challenges and it's all just your mindset, right? So I love that idea of saying you know what, I'm closing the book on those old health habits that no longer serve me. I'm closing the book on doing things in a way that's not serving me and today, January 1st, I'm starting new health habits that are helping me become healthier and stronger. And you could start it in December if you wanted to, or you can wait till the holidays are over, but either way, my journal is going to be amazing. 

So make sure you subscribe to the Learn True Health podcast. Make sure you come into the Facebook group. If you're on Facebook, Learn True Health on Facebook you can go to learntruehealth.com and sign up for my newsletter. I send like maybe three emails a month. I promise I won't spam you, but I'll definitely be sending you updates as this journal is launched. And for my top listeners, if you are a big fan of the Learn True Health podcast or if you want to be, either way, I'm going to be offering a few of my listeners a book for free and I'm going to be updating you very soon on the details of that. So just pay attention, keep listening, because there's going to be a way to get my book for free. It's actually going to be a signed copy as a gift I want to gift some of you guys, and so just keep listening, keep hanging in there, and you'll hear from me soon about it as I launch it. 

Thank you so much for being my amazing listeners and sharing this podcast and my podcast with those you care about, because together we are helping people to overcome. And just remember that, no matter where you are in your health, think about what you have overcome and what you are grateful for, because there's always something in your body, in your life, in your health, that you are grateful for. And think about the things you don't like about your health or your life, the things you want to change, and whatever it is. There are steps to change it, there are steps to improve it, and here on my show, I'm here to help you with that and my guests are here to help you with that. So let's turn this ripple into a tidal wave and help as many people as possible to learn true health. Enjoy today's episode. 

Ashley James (0.11:38.719)

Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 512.

I am so excited for today's guest. We have back on the show with us, someone who is so near and dear to my heart, Dr. Glenn Livingston. He is the creator of the system, Defeat Your Cravings. You can go to defeatyourcravings.com to check it out. Glenn, you today are earning your frequent flyer miles pin, because you have been on our show now. This is your fifth time.

I just want to let listeners know about the other times you've been on the show so they can go back and listen to previous episodes with you if they'd like. Episode 56, all the way back when I was just a little itty bitty baby podcaster. Episode 56, you came on and talked about ending binge eating and that was like six, seven years ago. So lots happened. Yes.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.12:39.603)

When I still had my teeth and hair.

Ashley James (0.12:43.879)

Episode 231, he is gorgeous by the way. He definitely still has teeth and hair. He's just joking. Episode 231, you talked about willpower. Episode 249, we talked about the impact of eating right. Episode 423, stopping nighttime eating and cravings. But today, you're coming on the show to talk about your new system, which has been an evolution of the ongoing work you've been doing for so many years and you and your team have helped over 10,000 people, is that correct?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.13:16.955)

Well, the book has over a million readers. My Psychology Today column has over a million readers and we've had about 2000 paying clients. So, I imagine we've helped a hundred thousand people or so. 

Ashley James (0.13:33.561)

Okay. So somewhere in there, it's in the thousand. So, but 2000 paying clients, you've followed their progress and seen them overcome and watch them. And your system has evolved based on working with 2000 people. 

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.13:52.070)

Yes. Exactly. 

Ashley James (0.13.54.092)

Very cool. So I definitely want to jump into you talking about what is the difference between defeat your cravings.com, your new system and your book, by the way, holding your book right now. I love your book. I couldn't put it down. I've read your other books and they're all great, but this one I feel is, it was so much easier for me to work through the system and to look at myself and do some self-reflection and to set some rules in place. It's like a fine wine. You've refined it. And of course, after working with 2000 people, there's definitely something to say about your book, Defeat Your Cravings. And I want listeners to go to defeatyourcravings.com if you feel like food controls you in any aspect of your life.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.14:45.501)

You can get a free copy in the Kindle or Nook format there. Well, thank you, Ashley. I'm really excited to be here. We've always had in-depth stimulating conversations where I learned things too. And I've had you on my show, so I guess we're buddies. I guess we're in the mutual appreciation society.

Ashley James (0.15:04.977)

Absolutely. And you've really helped me through the years. And I don't know if you know that, but part of my podcast is that I'm on this healing journey with my listeners. I consider myself an expert. I've put in the 10,000 hours into research and working in the holistic health field, but there's no Mount Everest of health and mental wellness. Like there's just no like, Oh, I achieved it. That's it. Check that off my bucket list and I'm done. We're always growing, evolving, learning. And I just love what I've learned from you. And I've told my friends to see you and you're someone who I feel is so compassionate, so caring, but also will cut through the BS in such a loving way that you really help people just get to the heart of it and get results without having to do years and years and years and years of work. Like you just cut through in a very loving way. So I really appreciate your system.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.16:03.877)

I'm going to have to have you follow me around and introduce me everywhere.

Ashley James (0.16:08.013)

I will edify you. I hope to introduce you to other people for sure. 

Well, for those who didn't listen to the other episodes, why don't you just give us the little tiny blurb about you so people can understand where you're coming from.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.16:25.755)

Okay. So I guess the thing to know about me is I'm not a doctor who just decided to work with obesity or, eating troubles. And by the way, part of what's different about the new book is it really expands to allow people to work with anything that's making them eat beyond their own best judgment. You don't have to have an eating disorder to benefit from this. But I'm not just a doctor that decided to do that. I had an awful lot of trouble with food myself. I mean, if you went by the Woodbury Country Deli in the late 90s sometimes, and you found that they were out of pizza or pop tarts, the odds were that I was there before you. I was almost 300 pounds and I was suffering, not initially. Initially, I thought I'm 6’4 and I'm modestly muscular just genetically and so I could get away with a lot when I was a kid and I was working out all the time, but when I got married and I got a little older and I was commuting two hours each way to see patients and I wanted to help my wife at the time with her business, I'm divorced now, but I wanted to help her with the business. I didn't have time to work out and the food started to catch up to me. And it wasn't so much the physical impact at first, later on it was, but it was more the mental obsession with it. Like I'd be sitting with patients and thinking, when can I get to the deli or when do I get the next pizza?

And to be a really good psychologist, which has always been really important to me. I mean, I grew up in a family of psychotherapists and I used to have my little friends come over and lie down on the couch and tell me about their mother and it was always the most important thing to me to really help people. But, I just found that I was a little too obsessed with food to be a hundred percent present. And thank God I worked that out eventually, but, I went the traditional route, and, I tried to love myself thin. I thought if I could heal the hole in my heart that I wouldn't have to heal the hole in my stomach. And I went to the best psychologists and psychiatrists and counselors. And I went on a spiritual journey and I went to Over It Is Anonymous and everything got me a little thinner and then a lot fatter, a little thinner and a lot fatter.

I learned a lot about myself psychologically. I feel like it made me a more compassionate, soulful, in-depth person. So I don't really regret having done the journey, but, it really wasn't until about 20 years later that I started to put it together for real. And there were three things that happened that changed my paradigm. What one was that my ex wife was traveling for business all the time. So I only really saw her on the weekends for the most part. And a lot of time into my hands, and I used to consult for some of the clients that she was consulting for, except in a different way, which unfortunately were clients in the big food and big pharma industries, right? I was on the wrong side of the war. Like I'm kind of like the Marlboro man later in his life when he felt contrite. You know, when I was kind of selling sugar all these hyper-palliable concentrations of starch and salt and fat and cytotoxins. It's engineered to hit the bliss point in your reptilian brain without giving you the nutrition to feel satisfied. And as I was doing that, I really started to see how much money and time and rocket science they were putting into engineering these concoctions, and it had nothing to do with personal psychology, like the fact that there are so many calories in such a small space for so little money in a package that mimics what we would see in the wild so that we hit those evolutionary buttons that say we really need that, advertised by, an industry which was spending an equal amount of money to make us believe this stuff.

And I saw there were, five to 7,000 messages per year beamed over the airways and the internet. But hardly, hardly anything more about just eating more fruit and vegetables, right? And I said, well, these are not psychological forces. This is not a problem with my mother having dropped me on my head or her mother dropping her in her head or, you know what I mean? I'm being a little silly, but it's not a depth psychology problem, this was a problem of industry where we're living in a society with a perfect storm for overeating and, overindulging. And then the addiction treatment industry was saying, you can't quit. Even if you want to, the best you could do is abstain one day at a time. And there's no evidence of that, by the way. 

And in the meantime, there were all these fat cats and white suits with mustaches that were laughing all the way to the bank every time I'd look for love in the bag or a box or a container. And I said, okay, this is not necessarily an internal problem. And maybe I have to switch my paradigm to being the alpha dog of my own mind.

Maybe it's not so much, I love your inner wounded child, so that you can get thin kind of approach and maybe it's more so of a take charge and take no prisoners, tough love kind of approach where, it's very similar to other biological urges. Like if you really have to pee.

You don't pee in the middle of a business meeting. You tell your bladder that you're in charge and you've got some things you want to accomplish as a civilized member of society. And when you're done, that you'll take a trip to the bathroom. Or if you see attractive people on the street, you don't run up and kiss them. There are ways to go about these things. And actually, my way was usually to run the other way because I was shy. But, you know what I mean?

We're expected in our world to take control of our biology. We're not really allowed to say, well, the devil made me do it and I can't help myself. And we don't have to go to therapy for 20 years to figure out how, not to run up and kiss someone in the street. And so I kind of got tired of all the depth psychology. I loved all the personal growth, but I got tired of the implication that if I loved myself enough, I was going to be okay. And I think that was just a big distraction. Okay. Then I learned a couple of other things. I learned that the reptilian brain, which is the seat of, cravings, which is the seat of, food addiction, really, or any addiction that.

It doesn't know love. It looks at something in the environment, and its assessment is like a bad college drinking game. Like, do I eat it, do I mate with it, or do I kill it? I love your laugh. But I mean, that's what it is. It's eat, mate, or kill. The reptilian brain doesn't really care about your tribe or your loved ones or your romance or your connection. And it certainly doesn't care about your long-term goals or contributions to society, your spirituality, your art or your music or, your psychological growth, it's in an eat, mate or kill situation. And so in order to be the alpha dog of my own mind,  I'd read a little bit of alternative addiction treatment literature and it suggested, this is by Jack Trimpe, the book was Rational Recovery, it suggests that you bifurcate your mind, that you separate your thoughts into two kinds. He was talking about drinking, so he would say there are the kinds of thoughts that suggest that you'll ever drink again and there are the kinds of thoughts that say that you never will.

And I thought, okay, so I just need a line. I don't have any trouble with alcohol or drugs, but food has always been my drug of choice. I said, I'm just gonna draw a really clear line in the sand. And one of my first ones was that I would never have chocolate on a weekday again. And that way, if I knew that if I was in a Starbucks and I heard this little voice that said, Hey, Glenn! You worked out really hard today. A couple of the squares are not going to kill you. You're not going to gain any weight. Just start your silly rule again tomorrow. I'd say, wait a minute, who's in charge here? That's not me. And this is a little bit embarrassing, but I said, that's my inner pig. And chocolate on a weekday is pig slop. I don't eat pig slop. I don't let farm animals tell me what to do. It's I'm actually a sophisticated psychologist and I've been all over the airwaves, but this is what it took for me to start to beat the thing. And it wasn't a miracle, like I wasn't better right away, but what did happen was that I would wake up at the moment of impulse. And I had the opportunity to make a different choice. There's extra microseconds. It's like I managed to pry a space between stimulus and response. And what I know now is that the brain really wants to automate the acquisition of calories.

That only makes sense. It's a survival response. So actually people who have stronger cravings actually have healthier brains. It's not a sickness. They actually have healthier brains. It's just that in the modern and food environment, those cravings don't really serve us, and so that was the birth of my recovery.

Over the course of the next eight years, and and it only takes a couple of months for people to recover now when I work with them but over the course of eight years for me I worked entirely with that cognitive operation separating my thoughts into– thoughts that wanted me to break the rule and thoughts that wanted me to stick to the rule.

 When I heard a thought that wanted me to break the rule I would try to take a breath and calm down and then I would say, Well, how is that thought wrong?

Well, I mean, the way that particular thought is wrong, the idea that you could start your rules tomorrow, it'll be just as easy, is that the way the brain works, if you're craving chocolate, and you  think, I'll just start my silly rule again tomorrow, and then you eat the chocolate, you've just reinforced that thought because what fires together, wires together, and you've made it more likely that you're going to think start tomorrow, tomorrow.

So if you're in a hole, you really have to stop digging and use the present moment to be healthy And that that's an example of what I would call a cognitive refutation We figured out what the pig was saying we figured out what was logically wrong with it. And what that does is It eliminates the justification in the absence of a justification if you make a commitment to a goal and then you can't justify breaking that commitment it becomes psychologically uncomfortable to break the commitment. Not impossible, but uncomfortable. because you don't have the excuse anymore. It's kind of like if it was previously a greased chute, now you've poured some sand and glass on that chute. You can still go down if you want to, but it's not really advisable and it's not much fun. And so that's how I recovered. But it turned out for me that there were a lot of things that the pig was saying. There were a lot of lies it was telling me. 

I did it the long hard way because I only use these cognitive techniques and I hadn't really developed the methodology for flushing them out quickly, so I didn't have my systems available to me when this all started. It took about eight years keeping a journal. Then I eventually wrote a book. That book took off just around the time I was getting a divorce in 2015. I published it and it took off in 2016.

I wound up with a million readers and all these clients. Then over the course of the years, coaching those people, I develop ways to do it faster and better, still focusing almost entirely on the cognitive component, like how to fix your thinking about food, which is very important, so I was able to speed things up, but I started to see that there were things that people were doing where some people would do better than others. And they didn't have to do with fixing their thinking about food. It had more to do with self-care. Like the people who were eating more regularly and reliably and who weren't trying to lose weight really quickly, who were like prioritizing health and control over the eating more so than losing weight fast.

So they mostly would have three meals a day. They mostly weren't doing extreme diets. I would see higher levels of success with those people than the people that would say, well, I'm only gonna eat apples for a month, or I'm only gonna have one meal a day, or something like that. I've befriended many of the intermittent fasting podcasters and I don't dispute the medical benefits of it, but I just tell people that if you're struggling to get your eating under control, you should probably have somewhere between three and six months of regular reliable nutrition before you do that. And then you can go back and integrate it. So Ashley, you still there by the way? I didn't hear.

Ashley James (0.31:14.569)

I really agree with you about the intermittent fasting and actually that in your book. I'm again, love your book, Defeat Your Cravings.

I really want listeners to go check out defeatyourcravings.com. There's lots of great freebies. Like you said, you can even download the book for free if it's on Kindle. And in the book, you talk about intermittent fasting and I found it fascinating because I'm one of those health coaches who tells my clients not to intermittent fast at the beginning. And so many of my clients are like, okay, I'm ready to get my health back and I'm gonna only eat two hours a day. And I'm like, no, and fasting is really healthy and it's not healthy at the beginning especially if people have been eating more the standard American diet or processed food, but I love how you elaborated on that and explain that what you saw in your 2,000 clients that people who jumped on the intermittent fasting bandwagon, they ended up failing in their recovery or the recovery became much more difficult because they would relapse and they didn't really do the work. It's just harder to do the work and get to a place where food isn't this constant obsession in their mind or they feel like they have really great control over their cravings and their eating. And then later down the road, like you said, three, six, nine months down the road, when you really feel like you are at a really good place with your eating, then start to slowly transition into intermittent fasting and give it a try, but only when you feel like you're in control.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.32:55.102)

I think it's because you first have to normalize your blood sugar and get used to what it feels to be more even keeled. And I think you have to, getting a lot of the toxins out of your system. Your body has to do that work first. And also, when you get a lot of the processed foods, not my people don't have to give up anything necessarily. There are things in processed foods that turn off your ability to know when you're hungry and full and they mess with your leptin and ghrelin and the hunger regulating hormones and they really create cravings for themselves. And so, it's very, very uncomfortable getting off of those foods in the beginning. So if you combine that with

the fasting element that tries to speed up that production, the purging of it, it's more uncomfortable and I think a lot of people crap out because they can't get through that.

Ashley James (0.34:02.016)

Another thing about intermittent fasting that we don't consider, especially if someone has a blood sugar dysregulation, and you don't have to have type two or type one diabetes. Like you can just be like pre-diabetic or you could have metabolic syndrome or you could sort of still have somewhat okay A1C, but you could sort of go into hypoglycemia or you could go into hyper. You can still have problems with your insulin resistance  and jumping into too quickly into narrowing your feeding window, your eating window, causes you to go into stress response. And the stress response then oftentimes will trigger our desire for comfort food, right? It's like our binky. I don't mean to like make fun of people, again, everything I say is because I've personally been on this journey. I am on this journey with you, but I have to catch myself. because like Glenn, you talk about how your inner voice is your pig. And I identified in one of our interviews, I'm pretty sure it was the Episode 56, that my inner voice is my inner brat. And I am like this total spoiled five-year-old little girl, like think of in the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. What's her name?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.35:29.248)

I know who you mean. She went up having a big…

Ashley James (0.35:34.324)

She became a big blueberry! That's like me, this little brat, and she wants what she wants when she wants it. And so if anyone said to me, like, do you really need that dessert? I don't eat sugar anymore. I'm so much better than I used to be, but again, I'm not at the Mount Everest. I'm not done.

I want to keep getting better and keep getting better. But Ashley in the past would get very angry and I'm not an angry person, but there was just something in me, the brat came out and she's like, no, I want what I want when I want it. And now I'm gonna have two pieces instead of one. And it was really interesting to observe that and to them, like you said, almost like dissociate and become the observer observing the voice and going, Hey, that's not me. This voice is the brat, or for you, like it's the pig, which is great. I just love that because you call anything that is outside of your food rules that you get to create for yourself is pig slop. And and it gives us so much strength in the moment because it causes that pause. It causes that little break.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.36:47.443)

Because you'd wake up and wonder who's in charge and whether you really want them to be.

Ashley James (0.36:51.785)

And with intermittent fasting, it does trigger the stress response until you get really used to fasting. And anything that increases your stress response is going to have us be thrown back into that reptilian brain. And so that brat becomes louder, that pig becomes louder. And I just feel like it's we're shooting ourselves in the foot. As we're going through defeating our cravings, or using your system to defeat our cravings to then do stuff that increases stress. We want to do things that decrease stress and I love how in your book, you talk about how so many people have found that when we take just five minutes and anyone can take five minutes in a day or just even take three breaths, that kind of pause gives us so much more control.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.37:40.317)

So gosh, you said so many important things that I want to take off on, but let's talk about that stress response. 

Psychologists might call this organismic distress. It's really the experience of something's wrong, I need resources. Maybe I need warmth or contact or food or water or sleep or space to think, but there's something wrong and I need resources. When the reptilian brain feels like that, and it is mostly a reptilian brain function, it wants to force you to be less discriminating with food. So this is why you get the screw it, just do it and response. And this is really what the evolution of the new book was about. The original book was about fixing your thinking with food so you didn't have the justifications. And we do that in the new book also, we took the best of the best of that. But the new book is more about, what is this screw it, just do it, response all about and how do you fix that? And there are a number of things that you said that I could take off on to help people to do that.

One of them is just taking those decision-free breaks throughout the day, because the ability to make good decisions, that's what willpower really is. Willpower is the ability to make good decisions. And we only have so much willpower in a given day. We can only make so many good decisions before our willpower tank is empty. And this doesn't only apply to food decision, it's that applies to- What do I do with this email? Do I delete it? Do I spam it? Do I delegate it to someone? Do I save it for later? Do I execute on it right now? Do I reply right now? Every little decision like that burns a little bit more of that brain glucose that lets you make good decisions later on. What are you going to wear today? Who's going to take Jenny to soccer practice?

It all feeds into it. And there are studies where they show that people have trouble resisting marshmallows if you make them do math problems before. So what we can extrapolate from that is if you can take a few decision-free breaks during the course of a day. Just five minutes where you put your phone down, you turn off your email, you take a walk by yourself, you go and you take some deep breaths and there's nothing to decide. Just five minutes, 10 minutes, twice a day, it makes a world of difference. 

The other thing that can minimize the pressure on your willpower is using the hard and fast food rules. People have a lot of objections to using hard and fast food rules. They're afraid it's gonna stimulate their inner rebel, a whole bunch of things we could address if you want to. But the real benefit of it is that rules make decisions for you. If I say I'll never eat chocolate during the week again, that I don't have to make any chocolate decisions every time I'm at Starbucks during the week. If I say, I'm going to have chocolate 10% of the time and avoid it 90% of the time, that might be a great idea in theory, but how do I decide which is the 90% and which is the 10% and in the absence of a heuristic that helps me to do that then I have to make these decisions all week long and it eventually wears down my willpower. So one of the benefits and one of the reasons why people got so much better when I helped them to overcome their fear of making hard and fast food rules was that, they eliminated a lot of the pressure on their willpower because decisions were made for them. We had them make a list of all their trouble foods and only their trouble foods. You don't want to make rules about everything because it'll drive you crazy but you make a list of your trouble foods and you come up with hard and fast rules to define what role you want that food to play in your life. And it can be anything from I'll never have it again to I'll have no more than two ounces or four ounces per day, whatever it is. We have the good humor person here as we're talking, which is after a poke right. The ice cream truck is here passing by. Can you hear that in the back?

Ashley James (0.42:07.561)

Oh no. See your mic is so good. Maybe heard a tiny bit, but no, that would have been really funny if we all could hear that ice cream truck go by. That's hilarious.

Yes. Glenn lives in Florida where people eat ice cream all year round. I mean, I'm up here in Washington state where it's like 50 degrees. It's 13 Celsius for I have my computer set to Celsius. So I'm, I'm thinking it's in the fifties, but anyway, yes, we're not eating ice cream anymore up here. I love your thing about rules. Sorry, I'm going to interrupt, because you talked about how it's like when people object about, Oh, I can't follow a rule. You're like, well, would you rob a bank?  No, of course I wouldn't rob a bank. Well, would you murder someone? No, I wouldn't. So if you think about there's things in life you've decided you'll never do.

And you know you actually you don't have to have willpower to do those things. They just become part of your character. And over time, these rules that you decide, not you, Glenn, but you, the listener, decide a food rule, then it becomes part of your character. It's like, I don't do that. That's not what I do. Like, I don't murder people. I don't rob banks. I don't eat chocolate during the week or something like that. 

My food rule lately that I created and have been implementing is I never eat past 7 p.m. unless it's apples or algae, like a handful of chlorella or spirulina with my tea. I do like a golden milk, it's not milk, it's a type of Ayurvedic tea that has all these wonderful herbs. And I like to try to eat as early as possible during the day, not intermittent fasting, but I don't want to catch myself at night eating dinner, because I want to go to bed an empty stomach. And I also find that like the willpower, like you talk about, we run out of willpower. So it's like at night, if I'm hungry, the inner brat is the one making the decisions for me. Oh, what sounds good? What sounds delicious? I'm like, no, it's not at night. I don't need calories. I'm about to go to bed. 

If I'm hungry, I could drink some tea. I could have a few apple slices or I could have a handful of chlorella and, or I could just drink some water and be fine. But that inner brat, if I don't have that rule in place, that inner brats like, let's make sushi at 10 at night. I mean, I love cooking. I love cooking healthy food. I cook whole food, plant-based. I don't eat processed food, but I can still over indulge.

I can overindulge a kale salad. It is ridiculous how that inner brat, no matter how healthy you eat, could kind of go off the deep end because you said like the brain really wants to secure as much calories as possible for our survival. And I'm not in a desert. Hopefully none of us are gonna ever be in a famine, so I want to be conscious of eating healthy, but also eating healthy portions that are getting the right amount of nutrients in me. And late at night, if I let myself just eat whatever I want, I almost always will eat too much. And so when I learned about your rules, it's like, yes, at first, there's definitely a part of the brain that goes, no, I'm a rebel, this'll just make it worse. Don't restrict me.

And then when you follow the rules, it's like, oh, there's so much freedom because like last night, I came home from volunteering at the church and I'm like, okay, it's seven o'clock and that's my rule. I'd already eaten enough today. It's not like I was starving myself, but already eaten enough that day, but I came home and had slices of apples and I was so happy and proud of myself following my rule. Instead of, I did not feel like I needed to rebel. 

Dr. Seuss, that was his pen name. I don't remember what his actual name is, but he wrote about this, that in restriction, we actually gain more creativity and we gain more freedom within a set of rules. And he talks about that because he wrote his bestselling book. He was only given 50 words in order to write his bestselling book. I think it was Green Eggs and Ham. I'm pretty sure that's what it was, but he was given 50 words.

And he ended up making a masterpiece. And he said, it was within that restriction that he found freedom. And I found that by following your system, it gives me so much more freedom. Because like you said, now we don't have to constantly rely on willpower and decision-making. We have set rules up for ourselves that give us so much freedom.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.47:06.061)

Jim Rohn said that a life of discipline is better than a life of regret And I found that to be very true and there was a philosopher. I forgot his first name. I know his last name was a Bell Anyway, he explained that Freedom sits on top of discipline. It's not opposed to discipline so for example I'm actually a jazz pianist or I was 25 years ago. I wanted to be.

And I could improvise my soul and you would hear it if I was sitting and playing. But I couldn't do that if I hadn't had the discipline to study the structure of music and if I hadn't had the discipline to study the scales. So I know how to improvise away from that structure because I know where it is and how to get back to it and I know how far I can improvise away from that structure before the ear starts to hear it as noise.

And so that discipline has given me the freedom to express myself. You could also think about driving. It's only because of the discipline of the engineers that work it out so that when you turn your wheel 30 degrees, that the wheels of your car turn 30 degrees. And a lot of other things that the engineers, put into your cars only because of that discipline. That your radius of locomotion is expanding greatly, that you can drive all over town and even all across the country, all around the world without that discipline, you wouldn't have any freedom. So it's a mistake to think that discipline restricts your freedom. Discipline is actually the foundation, which enhances and expands your freedom. And I really think that life is about, as we get older, implementing new disciplines and then working on them so that they become part of your character because then eventually character trumps willpower, eventually you say, this is just who I am. I don't have a rule that says I'll never eat chocolate, again I'm just someone who doesn't eat chocolate, period end of story.

Ashley James (0.49:16.473)

I love that because the pig, the brat, that little inner voice that's always constantly, always ready to get us to break our own rules, right? That wants to convince us that discipline's bad.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.49:35.725)

Yes. 

Ashley James (0.49:37.235)

And so we have to get that like, what part of us doesn't like discipline? And is that part of us really for our best interests? Does it have our best interests at heart?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.49:49.107)

Right. And you don't even necessarily have to go that deep. At the moment of impulse, you don't have to be asking yourself, is this good for me or bad for me, or you don't have to have that, that in-depth conversation with yourself, you need to set up your rule so that you firmly believe that these are the best ones to follow.

So it's kind of like you do all the strategy work. You do the General, like a General in the army. You would be General Ashley when you're sitting and thinking through the rules and setting them up. But then you're Private Ashley when you're executing them. 

Ours is not the reason why ours is put to do or die. That's a really good motto when you're executing the rules in the moment. If you want to put on General Ashley's hat again, that's perfectly okay if you think you know something, but you do that when you've got a full belly on the rules that you followed and you've got time to think and strategize and you're being rational about it. You don't do that at the moment because the pig wants a piece of chocolate cake or the brat wants a piece of chocolate cake.

Ashley James (0.50:57.358)

So let's talk a bit about the screw it, just do it attitude. I've seen that in myself. I've seen that in my husband. I've seen that in my clients. I've definitely seen it in Hollywood, right? Like mainstream media, like, Oh, you had a fight with your husband. Just go get that pint of ice cream. 

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.51:13.874)

Or on the Golden Girls when they went to get cheesecake, right?

Ashley James (0.51:17.361)

Yes. Right. It's this idea that tomorrow is a better day. And I love that you talked about how it over time builds the neurology of our brain so that we end up just always doing that behavior. We have to think about a behavior you accept is a behavior that repeats. It's not a one off. It's not a one time thing. How do we catch ourselves in the moment and like refute the pig when the pig says, screw it, just do it. You deserve it. We can start tomorrow. Why are you following this rule today? You know, life's been hard. You deserve the food you're craving.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (0.52:04.433)

So the first thing you need to do is create at least one simple rule so that you will wake up at the moment of impulse. If you're trying to eat well or eat healthy and you tell yourself, well, I really know how to eat healthy. I just need to do it more. That's not going to cut it because there's not a clear bullseye to aim for. So you're not going to wake up if the arrow is pointing away from the bullseye. So you start with one simple rule and examples of those could be, I'll never go back for seconds, I'll always put my fork down between bites. It doesn't have to be something that restricts a particular food oir it could be, I only have pressables at major league baseball parks or I never eat bread during the week, but on the weekends I can have two slices when i'm out to dinner. You need a very clear rule so that you'll recognize any thoughts which suggest that you're going to break it so that's what creates the separation between you and your inner food enemy, but once you have that, you'll start to become aware that there are things that happen before those thoughts emerge. Like, your mouth might get a little dry or you might get goosebumps or you might start sweating a little bit. There are signals of activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which is the part of the nervous system that gets us geared up for action. That's the part that says there's a little bit of an emergency here. Now it might not be rational, but we need resources. We might have to fight off that hungry bear. We might have to find heat or shelter. We might need to reconnect with the tribe. We need resources one way or the other. This is not a time to be discriminating about food.

So you try to become more aware of the activation of your sympathetic nervous system. And then you also become aware that between the moment that you first have the thought about breaking the rule and the time when you actually execute the behavior, there's usually a series of fantasies that ensue. For example, I recently gave up all caffeinated beverages whatsoever. I was down to just drinking decaf for a long time and I decided that I had to give up decaf. I'd done it before, but it was harder this time. And the reason for that, by the way, that was my blood pressure was still a little bit high, even though I was eating so well and exercising and not having any truly caffeinated beverages, I was still having gobs of decaffeinated. So I said, okay, I got to get off that. So I made a rule that I never have any caffeine whatsoever, even in decaffeinated drinks. I'll only ever have herbal tea or, non caffeinated beverages. And once I made that, I was aware that, my pig got very active, but I was aware that there was a fantasy that would ensue the moment I started considering maybe that was a stupid role. Maybe I could actually get a little caffeine, maybe I could handle one a day. I would think about, first of all, stepping away from my computer and stopping my work and getting in the car and driving about five minutes to my favorite coffee house and getting the coffee and I put a little plant-based milk in it and schmoozing with the people behind the counter who would often give it to me for free because I was there so much. And I realized it was just this whole pleasurable experience then I'd go back into the car and I'd maybe listen to podcasts while I was drinking it or I'd call friends or my sister or something like that. And it was just this incredibly pleasurable fantasy, even before I began to get in the car.

And then I learned that I could stop that fantasy in the cradle. I don't have to let that fantasy grow up. So I started to ask myself, what authentic pleasure can I redirect that to? Now, with food and drink, it might be something that's on your plan. Like for me, having an herbal tea with a little bit of plant-based milk was almost as delicious as the coffee itself. I couldn't really get it because they didn't have that kind of tea at the coffee house, so I didn't have the whole coffee house experience, but it was equally as delicious, and it would force me to take a little break as well. So I started to immediately recognize when that fantasy would start and I would redirect the fantasy to making my mint tea at home and putting in a little bit of the plant-based milk that I kept in the refrigerator. And so you can do that. You can try to catch the urge before it gets out of hand. Then you can also do a type of breathing, which takes you out of the sympathetic nervous system, and puts you into the parasympathetic nervous system. And Ashley you told me that you were going to add a piece of this-

Ashley James (0.57:12.645)

Oh, yes I'd love to. Yes So you discuss in your book the 7-11 breathing. And we had a little talk about how I teach something, very similar to that. But I add a few details because they've done studies around or observations around, Increasing heart rate variability. So they discovered heart rate variability, I think. I'm 99% sure this is how it was discovered. That there was a Russian cosmonaut up in the space station and he was sleeping, how they kind of harness themselves to the wall or otherwise they'll float around. Allegedly, I've never been there. Just guessing on how they do it. And they were monitoring his heart rate in space. And they started freaking out because his heart rate became what they thought was erratic, but he was sleeping and he's incredibly healthy. And they noticed that when he took a breath in, his heart rate was significantly different from when he exhaled. So like heart rate speeds up and then it slows down with the breath. So imagine breathing, especially when you're sleeping should be a lot like an ocean wave, very just up and down, up and down, just very gradual, slow. And the exhale is much longer than the inhale. And to recreate this, there's no pauses.

So we inhale for seven seconds and then we exhale for eleven. There's no pauses. So you inhale, count to seven, and then immediately begin to exhale, but exhale longer. Now, for some people, this is like eleven seconds is too much or seven seconds is too much. So you can start, because some people have never really taken deep breaths and their connective tissue, the ribs, everything is, it's sort of like you're at the gym, you warm up before you do stuff. We kind of got to warm up the back, warm up all the little joints, get the ribs going. So you might start with a deep breath that's five seconds and then an exhale that's eight seconds. And then if you keep that up, you might get a little lightheaded. So then you gotta slow it down. So take the deepest breath you can. And when you breathe, they call it the three point breath, where you first of all, soften your belly. because a lot of us, especially, I don't know, there's certain cultures which people don't care, but in where I'm from, everyone kind of tries to suck in their tummy and look skinnier than they are. So you gotta let your belly just hang out, just rest and soften your belly. And then when you take a deep breath, feel your diaphragm go down, feel your belly come out, like just give yourself room in your abdomen to let yourself take a deep breath. And then on your next breath, so do the same thing, let your abdomen go down, just relax, let your diaphragm go down, so take a deep belly breath. And then at the height, at the peak of the belly breath, now try to get a few more inches in by expanding your ribs. So now you're breathing like to your sides. You can put your hands on your sides and feel them move. And then the next breath, you're gonna do the same thing. Soften the belly, lower the diaphragm, really get that deep belly breath, feel the ribs expand. And the last part is put your hand on your clavicles, the sternum and the collarbones and feel them rise. So that's the three point breath. So it's belly, rib cage, rising of the clavicles or the collarbones. And that's a really big full breath. And then slow down in the exhale and there's no pauses. So you inhale and then exhale slower and you try to get to a point where your inhale is seven seconds Your exhale is eleven you could even if you're more athletic or you're just more practiced or as you practice this you can even get to a point where maybe it's eight seconds in and twelve seconds out you can play with it, but the idea is you're slowing down your breath, you're getting full deep breaths, you're not pausing between, and your exhales always longer than your inhale. And if you do this every day, you will increase your heart rate variability. And the exciting part about heart rate variability is it's one of the accurate ways that we measure whether we're in fight or flight or not. So whether you're in the stress response, which is the sympathetic nervous system response, or whether we've switched that off and we've switched on the parasympathetic response of rest and digest, of healing. This is the response where the body is able to gain nutrients from our food, where it's able to calmly make healthy hormones, healthy sex hormones, just healthy everything. The body goes into heal mode. The body is constantly triggered to be in stress response and we're seeing this in our food. Actually the processed food triggers stress response. Looking at your cell phone triggers stress response. Looking just at every aspect of our life is constantly triggering this fear. And we're thinking about things we're afraid of, even just thinking about things you don't want to have happen triggers the stress response. So we're bombarded with stress response triggering input all day long. And yet we've never really been taught or raised to perform a habit on a daily basis that intentionally gets us out of stress response. And this is why so many people are so anxious and have sleep problems and have hormone problems and have digestion problems because when we're in fight or flight, the body stops putting resources towards long-term health and healing. And it shunts blood away from the core, so we don't digest. It shunts blood away from the logic centers of the brain. So we have a really hard time focusing and concentrating on critical thinking and higher thinking. And we become more into that reptilian brain. Now, of course, we can override this. That's the cool part is that this is not, this is not like a life sentence. This is not like you're doomed to be controlled by the reptilian brain. This is just what happens if you're not the one driving the bus.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (1:04:03.682)

Well, and the exciting thing is that you can drive the bus. The exciting thing is that the first step is awareness, but once you have the awareness, you can start with a simple breath out for longer than you're breathing without any pauses. So you can push yourself into the parasympathetic nervous system and then you have a lot of options.

See, then you've really pried yourself apart from the automatic loop that the brain really wants to set up in the acquisition of calories. And I have to admit, I didn't know everything that Ashley was just saying now. She just schooled me a little bit. 

Ashley James (1:04:41.618)

Well, I love learning from you, so it's mutual.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (1:04:45.094)

What I would tell people is, think of it like this. If you were running from a hungry bear, you wouldn't have time to breathe out for longer than you breathed in. You'd be going, “Hh–Hh-Hh-Hh-Hh”, because there was an emergency. And so it only makes sense that when you can breathe in slowly and breathe out for longer without pausing, that your brain says, there ain't no hungry bear around. I guess we can work on your strategic rules and your weight loss and all those other things. So that's how you open up the window where you can do things. Often that's enough. Then you can remove the justification we talked about that.

Ashley James (1:05:31.226)

Oh, I want to just jump in right here because I think some people's pig or inner brat might've just said to them, it's not enough. The breathing is not enough. You will always go back to eating the foods. And this is what I love about your book is that it helps us to identify that the second we start on our path of gaining control, that pig, that inner voice is constantly telling us we can't do it.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (1:05:59.902)

That you're in a pig. No self-respecting pig will let you get away with just learning how to stop eating because you started breathing. There's no self-respecting in a pig that's not going to put up a fight. But we're wired to be superior to the reptilian brain, the neocortex.

Part of its function is to delay the gratification of impulse because it turned out to be a survival advantage to be able to do that. So the neocortex and even the mammalian brain, it's layered above the reptilian brain. Reptilian brain is really in the brainstem. So, we have the advantage of tens of millions of years of evolution on our side. And by the way, some people make the creationism argument and say, this wouldn't work for them. It doesn't matter if God put it there or if this is just something that evolved, that the bottom line is we are wired with the ability to, inhibit the reptilian brand. I think it's even in the Bible sometime, like there's no temptation that I haven't given you the capacity to resist. I'm not an expert with that, but so once you have that space, you can look very specifically at what your pig is saying and disempower it. That's fixing your thinking. You can ask yourself, what do I authentically need nutritionally? Sometimes this scruge occur because you're genuinely hungry. Maybe you had a skimpy breakfast. Maybe, it's been too long between lunch and dinner.

I know that for me, I started having kale and banana smoothies when I would have chocolate cravings. So the pig will present to you that your only options are to white knuckle it and starve without the chocolate or else to really indulge and go to town. But the truth is you have a lot of other options. You could get the energy in another form, right? And for me, that was the kale, I think it was the energy and also the minerals and the kale banana smoothie and then kale celery also helped. Sometimes you just need a break, we talked about that. Sometimes you need some human contact. We're a pack animal and we get a little bit frightened. We experience that organismic distress when we are separated from the tribe for too long. So we can tolerate it for a certain amount of time. But if we really don't know where I try this, then, sometimes we really need that attention. So you can ask yourself what you authentically need and you can remind yourself that, you do deserve some pleasure in your life. Your pig will say the only pleasure you can get is from the slop, but I've got a long list of things. I like to watch movies. I have a long list of movies that I could watch again if I want to be happy. I like to take a walk on the beach. I arrange my life so that I'm right by the beach. I like to look at old pictures of my dogs and friends and family and kind of reminisce about things. There's a long list of things that give me a little dopamine hit that I like to do. And you're entitled to some pleasure like that during the day. So you can make a long list of things that would give you some pleasure, take a break from the rat race. And, it's kind of interesting. People will give themselves permission to take a break to go get a chocolate bar, but they won't give themselves permission to just take a break.

Ashley James (1:09:46.159)

Actually, I have a list right here. I made this list. Yes. So you can hear it. It's my list. I made this, this was years ago, probably right around the time that you and I did our first interview together and I had it up on my fridge and that was two fridges ago, cause I've moved twice since. And I just found it as I was going through some boxes. because I had it up on two fridges ago for about seven years or so, just under seven years. 

Things to do instead of overeat, which was the title of it. But overeat for me could also be considered, because it wasn't like I sat there and ate 20 servings, right? For me, overeating could be, I had one serving, I'm full, but then I went back for half a serving more. Like for me, that's like anything beyond what I actually needed was an overindulgence trying to find pleasure in food. And, I think you can definitely find pleasure in healthy food. And then there's that responsibility of like, okay, I'm full. Anything beyond this is just gluttony, right? Or for me, overeating might be categorized as, the screw it, just do it, just eat what you want or eat what you're craving. So here was my list. Drink water, listen to music, adult coloring, which is surprisingly fun. Clean the house, which I know that doesn't sound fun, but you can get a dopamine hit from like decluttering an area or organizing area. We just did the bedroom this weekend and every time I walk in the bedroom I feel so good. And then when I declutter and organize the bathroom for like a week, every time I go in the bathroom, I get a dopamine hit. because I'm like, Oh yes, we re reorganize the bathroom. This looks so good. So cleaning in the moment doesn't sound fun, but once you start putting on some music, once you declutter an area, for days later, you get these pleasure hits from the accomplishment. And that feels really great. 

Sauna. because I've got it. Here's my- (knocks at portable sauna) Can you hear that? That's my Sunlighten Sauna right beside me in the office. Soak in magnesium. The livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. I just got to do the plug coupon code LTH. My favorite is to soak in magnesium. That gets you out of the stress response. And you could be reading a book or watching TV or listening to music or being in a sauna while soaking in magnesium. So that's usually what I would do. Take a bath, walk outside.

There are some water stains, so I don't see what these are, but let's see, exercise.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:12:27.564)

What is adult coloring?

Ashley James (1:12:30.357)

Oh, adult coloring, it's coloring books for adults. Don't knock it till you try it. 

Go on Amazon and just type in, adult coloring book and you could do kid coloring books but the adult coloring books are like mandalas or way more like detailed. I have some that are like Bible verses and yes. And you can, I mean, you could use paint or pencils, color pencils, you could use crayons if you wanted to like get out your inner child. 

You could just grab the book and do it for five minutes. The only decisions you'd be making are like what color goes where, but it's very calming. The whole world kind of melts away and you're just staring at this piece of paper and filling it with color. And it is surprisingly calming. Then as you're doing it, you're like, I'm gonna give it to this friend or I'm gonna put it on the fridge, cause why not? Yes, I'm gonna, why not? Let's see.

You could give yourself a massage or go get a massage. Do some goal visualization. Play with a child or a pet. I wrote play with our son or play with a niece or nephew or something. I wrote Marie Kondo. Yes. Well, the list, I'm not even halfway done the list. I don't know if you want to hear all of it, but I sat down and I wanted to fill a piece of paper with every activity I could do to gain pleasure instead of, eat food for pleasure. My thing is I will get pleasure out of the healthy food I eat and the healthy portions I eat. And my inner brat or the inner pig will constantly tell me that I could never get pleasure from healthy food and I could never get pleasure from healthy portions. And to sit down and write this out, that inner pig would be screaming like, you have to eat, you have to eat the chocolate or you have to eat the whatever you're overindulging in. And by writing this huge list with like the page is full, it's 39 things, once you write this list, it's like, yes, and I'm sure I could come up with even more activities that I could do to gain pleasure. And what's great is that it's way more pleasure to do these things than to say, screw it, I'm just going to give into the craving. Because for some people, for days after they binge or after they give into that craving, they feel horrible. They feel horrible about themselves. They might have eaten food that made them feel bad.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (1:15:16.160)

Most people do.

Ashley James (1:15:17.442)

Yes, they beat themselves up and they're no better off. And I love that in your book, you talk about how there's actually studies that show that when you indulge in the craving, the pig lied to you and said, this is going to give you pleasure. It actually doesn't. We think it will, but it just shows that when they did tests, they found that it didn't increase pleasure. And in fact, in a lot of cases, it increased stress and decreased pleasure.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:15:47.371)

Well, and it decreases your ability to get pleasure from the natural pleasures in life. Like if you have a chocolate bar every day, your taste buds and your dopamine response down regulates as if you've been sleeping under a subway, and you can't hear the subway anymore after a while. And you won't taste the natural pleasures in fruit and vegetables and, fish or meat. You won't taste the natural pleasures in food after a while. And that's why so many people feel trapped.

When you listen to the pig's interpretation, that the only viable pleasure is slop. You know, these concentrated forms of all the things we talked about. And you ingest that every day. Your nervous system has to downregulate it. It can't respond the way that it's supposed to respond because it's a supersized stimulus. And so over time it downgrades its response the same way that your hearing would downgrade its response if you're sleeping underneath the subway. And because it's downgraded the response you can actually get to the point where chocolate doesn't feel pleasurable anymore. It just you kind of feel like you need it to feel normal.

I was just looking at some research on this, that it does generalize to a type of, depressive mood, this thymic mood, and even the inability to think logically as well as you did before you went through this.

Ashley James (01:17:29.176)

This is so important because we see that porn, pornography, when people first start out, largely men, but I think women, there's a percentage of women that watch porn, when they watch porn and they ejaculate or they have an orgasm, that first few times.

It's a huge dopamine, like just massive dopamine, and then it crashes for two weeks. There's a dopamine low for two weeks, and people often will then chase that high. And like you said, it desensitizes to the point where they have to go for more and more extreme porn and find just more and more extreme things to participate in or visually participate in order to even accomplish the same or try to chase that high, I accomplish the same pleasure they got the initial time. Like you said, chocolate, the first bite of that chocolate wedding cake is going to give you the most pleasure and every other bite after that will be less. But yet we'll eat the whole piece because we're chasing the high, we're trying to get back to the first fun thing. And that's what a lot of people describe meth, for example, their first or second time doing meth was amazing. And every other time they did it was just trying to get back to the pleasure they got the first time, but they were always dissatisfied. There's a study about obese people and naturally thin people when it came to expectations around food and pleasure. So they like hooked them up to brain scans and did whatever they did to figure this out. But obese people will think about or obsess about food, think about their meal that's coming up and think about the pleasure they're going to get, like sitting there going, I can't wait to get the pizza, I'm gonna go to Costco and get a whole pizza or whatever it is, like whatever food, insert food that you are daydreaming about.

And they're thinking about the pleasure they are going to get, but when they actually sit down to get it, they are disappointed. They do not achieve the amount of pleasure that they expected to. Whereas skinny people, naturally skinny people hardly ever obsess about or think about the food or the pleasure they're going to get from food. And yet when they eat, they actually experience way more pleasure than the obese people do. And that described my life so accurately, it really shook me because at the time I read that study, I hadn't become conscious of just how much I thought about food and obsessed about and thought about the pleasure I will be receiving from food and the disappointment that when I ate it and then the chasing the high and trying to find more and more pleasurable foods in order to find that high. And it is such a frustrating and disappointing journey to be stuck on.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:20:28.375)

Yes. But the good news is that there's also a phenomenon called upregulation. And so that if you're having a chocolate bar every day and you stop doing that, or maybe you go back to once a week or something like that, your taste bud and your dopamine response system, upregulates to the point that I think it doubles in six to eight weeks.

You don't have to believe me about this. You just have to try it. But before you know it, you are tasting the natural differences between different types of apples or vegetables, or, you're able to garner pleasure from more things that nature had to offer. So it's not all doom and gloom. 

Ashley James (01:10:23.915)

No, yes, no, absolutely. Well, this is why I learned so much from you is that when I had cut sugar out many years ago, probably around Episode 56, somewhere around there, I had a whole episode about doing a 30-day challenge, no sugar, and I was blown away by how much sugar is hidden in our food. We have like a Whole Foods sort of and I sat there and even though it's a healthier store They say there's no GMOs and they have a list of things that they will never have their food. Almost every single hot sauce had some form of sugar in it and I was really blown away by that. That it's very hard to find an oil-free hot sauce with no sugar. And it's even impossible to find a salt-free, oil-free, sugar-free hot sauce. So I just ended up, I mostly make my own for the, for the most part. 

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:22:07.278)

I found one last week. I've had the same problem. It's called Melange of Peppers and it's from Whole Foods. It's a little expensive, but I was looking, I eat salt oil and starch free also. And it's called Melange of Peppers. It's really good actually.

Ashley James (01:22:28.260)

Nice. Well, just to prove my point, I went through every single thing I ate, looked through the ingredients, which I, at the time, was still eating some processed foods, so you still have to read ingredients, and it would annoy my husband because we'd go in to grocery shop and spend 90 minutes reading labels. But you have to be a food detective, and I just was blown away at how much sugar is hidden in our food, and also, it might not say sugar, it might say maltodextrin or fructose, or there's over 20 words that means added sugar.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:23:00.078)

Actually, when I work with people to make a sugar rule, I'll tell them that it's usually not sufficient to say, like I will only have sugar once a week or I'll never have sugar again. You need to make an inclusive rule rather than an exclusive rule. What that means is you say the only sweet tastes that I'll ever eat again are X, Y, and Z. Like, for me, it's whole fruit and berries. For other people, it might be whole fruit, berries, and honey in my tea or whole fruit berries, whatever. I mean, I'm not preaching you have to do any particular thing, but if you make a list of the sweet tastes that you will eat, as opposed to those that you won't eat, then your pig is not gonna fool you about all those other words.

Ashley James (01:23:41.738)

Yes, but you have to know the words in order to avoid them, because then you accidentally eat sugar because there it says maltodextrin and you didn't know that was sugar, as an example.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:23:50.646)

Oh yes, and in all sorts of savory foods, there's a lot of added sugar too. Yes

Ashley James (01:23:55.382)

Yes, it's just wild. So when I gave up sugar, which I was a sugar holic, I loved it. And it's been years. I talk about upregulation. First of all, I don't even enjoy it. If you talked to Ashley 10 years ago, she'd be like, who are you? I don't even get pleasure from it. It's sickly sweet.

And when I eat an apple, I have to put cinnamon on it just to dull down the intensity of the sweetness. It's just apples alone are too sweet to me. But now when I taste kale, like there's a burst of flavor. When I eat fruits and vegetables there's a burst of flavor I did not experience 10 years ago. So you talk about upregulation, it is possible, and that's why it's so exciting that you can get such pleasure from healthy foods. I still though have to separate and put a pause in between me and that brat or that pig, because that that it still comes out, especially in the screw it, just do it. If like it's really late in the day and I'm hungry and I've been really busy, oh, just order in or just get takeout or just let's just go to restaurant or just let's just get X, Y, and Z.

And that is such an easy trap to fall in. Let's just go through the drive-through, right? Like so many people fall into that trap of processed food that's fast food or easy food, because the pig says, you're tired, you've worked a long day. This is so much easier, let's just do this.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:25:28.904)

There are a few other things that we've learned in the last eight years that make the new book different than the old book. Do you think I could mention a couple of them?

Ashley James (01:25:36.813)

Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:25:38.019)

The first one is that overeating isn't a unitary habit. It's a collection of habits. And in order to really overcome it, you need to make a list of those habits and extinguish them one by one. So for example, suppose that you want to give up pizza. Suppose you're just eating way too much pizza and you need to give it up. I'm not saying you have to do that. Two out of three people will be able to moderate it, but let's say you need to give it up. And let's say you've developed a habit of stopping at a pizzeria on the way home from work at your new job. You just moved to a new city and every time on the way home from work, you stop at the pizzeria. And so you say to yourself, I will never eat pizza again. And you drive past the pizzeria and you feel the cravings and you do a lot of the things we talk about and your pig will say a bunch of stuff. Oh, come on. You could start tomorrow. You worked out hard enough. A couple of bites are not going to hurt a couple of slices, whatever it's going to say. And you disempower that and you do your breathing and all other things we talked about. And then about 30 days later, you probably should not be too bothered by the pizza cravings anymore. Research shows that somewhere around 20 to 30 exposures without rewarding the craving is what it takes. So you, right? So you have the pizza place as the stimulus as you're passing by, you don't go in, your brain tries to get you going, but you don't go in and eventually, your brain will label that craving as dormant because it no longer wants to waste energy on things that you're not going to do. Remember the brain's job is to acquire calories and automate the acquisition of calories.

So it will label that learning as dormant. That means if you do it again, it will wake it up pretty quickly, but it's not gonna bother you about it after about somewhere between 20 and 30 days. Well, then you find all of a sudden that you go to your mom's place and you're playing bridge with her and the girls. And you and your mom are accustomed to having pizza every time you go to the place and play bridge with her and the girls and you get this incredible craving and it's hard to resist and you go to time on the pizza. Well, what a lot of people do at that point is they say this is too hard, I failed. But you didn't fail. You succeeded in extinguishing the pizza place as a signal for pizza. You didn't make a plan to extinguish your mom's bridge game as a stimulus for pizza. And for most cravings, there are usually about 70 to 80 percent of the problem is tied to one particular stimulus. So you can make tremendous progress by just working on one thing But there are infrequent stimulus stimuli that you haven't thought of and they comprise the other 20 or 30 percent and it's really important that you know that so you don't give up and think that you failed.

It just means that you're going to have to have 20 or 30 bridge games before you feel like, the bridge game doesn't bother you anymore. You don't really want the pizza at the bridge game. We often have people when they make a list of all the different places they expect to be exposed to a pizza stimulus. Well, we'll kind of order them in order of how frequently they occur and how much they bother them. And then we'll have people send themselves an email to arrive, just before that's going to happen. So if you know you're going to be playing bridge with mom on Saturday the 14th, then in the morning of Saturday the 14th, an email shows up and it says, Hey, this is your higher self. Just want to remind you, you're going to be, really craving the pizza at the bridge place. I want you to have this meal before you go there. So you're not too hungry. I want you to give your mom an extra big hug. So she feels love without having to feed you pizza. I want you to figure out what you're going to do instead while you're there. And here's all the things your pig is going to say. And this is why they're wrong but you send yourself an email and that arrives that morning. Then you're going to be alert. You're not going to be caught by surprise that there's this other stimuli that you're not used to, which you thought she already fixed the problem. And this turns out to be a big vehicle for defeating the cravings.

The other thing that misleads people sometimes is that they think that the extinction curve should go straight down. Let's just go back to talking about the daily drive past the pizza place. You would think that if you decided I'll never have pizza again, day two would be less of a craving than day one, and day three would be less of a craving than day two, all the way on down to day 29 or 30 when it wasn't occurring anymore.

But that's not actually what happens, because in nature, the brain, it wouldn't be advantageous for the brain to give up on the acquisition of calories that quickly. Let's say there's this caveman named Thag, 100,000 years ago. And Thag figured out that chimpanzees, following a chimpanzee could lead him to a banana tree. Well, Thag follows a chimp to a banana tree, he cordies himself on bananas, takes him back for his family. That's great survival advantage. Thag follows the chimp the next day to the banana tree, does it all week long, he's living high on the hog, right? And then all of a sudden the next day, the chimp leads to a banana tree that doesn't have any bananas in it. Well, is it more advantageous for Thag to keep following the chimp or to go try to find other banana trees on his own?

It turns out it's more advantageous to keep following the chimp because probably that as the bananas get a little scarcer, the chimp is going to find banana trees 80% of the time and then 70% of the time. And so what Thag would actually do is double down on his efforts because it would be more painful to lose that signal and have to go find another tree, make an effort on himself to go find it, than to just put up with the 10 or 20 or 30% of the time that he doesn't get rewarded. So how this plays out in everyday life is that when the reward starts to be available intermittently, we actually crave it more. It's kind of like a slot machine. And so you have to push through. So there's like a little temper tantrum somewhere around like five to ten times. There's a little temper tantrum that your brain will pull where you're actually going to get worse cravings than you ever had before. And if you push through that, then the brain starts to go and it goes down more or less literally. And then somewhere around the 25 to 30 day mark, it's got a tiny little blip and cravings, and then it mostly goes away. 

So having that technical scientific understanding of how cravings actually work and the function they're supposed to serve, it'll help you to power through. It also helps you not to go into battle with a plastic helmet. Like this is a serious thing to extinguish your cravings. You've got to figure out what else are you going to eat? What are you going to do to take care of yourself when that temper tantrum hits? Make a list of them, but don't try to extinguish every last one of them at onceand be proud of yourself, celebrate the success when you get through. So I wanted to be sure that people knew that.

Ashley James (01:33:53.798)

Absolutely. Well, we only scratch the surface of your whole system. I definitely encourage listeners to go read your book, Defeat Your Cravings and go to your website, defeatyourcravings.comSo we have a book. Now you've got these other books in the past. And what you have now, the Defeat Your Cravings, is the evolution of all the work you've done with so many people.

And I feel it as I've as I read through your book, I felt like it was it was so much more complete, even though the stuff in the past helped. You've got more insights after working with so many people and it's concise. And as you said, people are going to get faster results with this new system. So they go to defeatyourcravings.com and they can read your book. What if they want to work with you? How does that work?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:34:46.882)

So what I suggest that you do is click the big blue button on the website, defeatyourcravings.com, and sign up for the reader bonus list. When you do that, you'll hear what it's like to work with me. You'll get a list that you've got a set of coaching sessions that I recorded, in full so you can see how this process transforms people from feeling hopeless and despairing and desperate about food sometimes to feeling confident and enthusiastic and, and hopeful. You'll get a set of food plan starter templates to help you see samples of food rules for any dietary philosophy. So we're diet agnostic. You can do this on any reasonably nutritious philosophy.

And a whole bunch of other things like little recordings to walk you through difficult moments and it's all free. So it's a whole bunch of free stuff and I recommend people start there. There's also a podcast you can subscribe to. Once you do that you will be led or you can look at the coaching part of the website if you want to we do have a coaching program, we call it the Unlimited Coaching Program because you have as many sessions as you need to with your coach with certain conditions like, you guys have to kind of agree on what you're going to do between sessions. You don't schedule another one until it's done and that kind of thing. But we do have a 90 day program with a lot of success. Part of that program are daily life support groups. So every day of the week, there is a group you can come to. If you're struggling with anything, I run several of them myself right now. I'm running four of them. I can't promise to always do that, but four days a week, I'm running a daily support group. 

If you wanted to go directly there and see that set to defeatyourcravingscoaching.com, but I highly recommend that what you do first is just immerse yourself in the free stuff. Click the big blue button, sign up for the reader bonus list, listen to the podcasts, read the articles, join our free community and talk to some of the people there. I highly recommend you do that. So defeatyourcravings.com big blue button. It's that simple.

Ashley James (01:36:59.309)

Nice. Very cool. Have you ever looked at the statistics around your system and compared it to other systems to see that you're more successful or as successful? Or like, can you talk a bit about the results you guys get in the long term?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:37:19.721)

Over the last three years, this is in the previous program, because the new program is, well, it's new. But over the last three years in the last program, in the first month, people would get an approximately 90% reduction in over-eating episodes. And that's by self-report. It's not like a double-blind controlled study published in a…

But still that's pretty darn good. When we go out to about six months, it's more like 60%, but you divide that up into people who are still using the tools and people who decided not to do it anymore. And you can see that the people who use the tools do well and the people who don't don't. So at some point I'm looking to get third party clinical trials funded so that I can really prove this and maybe work with insurance companies to bring it to the world at large.

But I'm getting a little old and that's, that's a 10 year process. So right now I'm just focusing on helping as many people that want to come from a homegrown personal coaching. I've got some coaches that work with me. But really we get much better results with people who've been listening to the podcast for a little while first. So I just recommend that you go sign up for the free stuff.

Ashley James (01:38:39.750)

Yes, I love that you give away so much and then so many people can transform themselves on their own and get such great results on their own. And it's those that a small percentage of people after doing all the free stuff, they're like, you know what I really want? I shouldn't say small percentage. I don't know what percentage it is, but you did have like a million readers and then out of that, 2000 people were like, no, I really want to work with someone one-on-one and man, all the amazing reviews for all of your books.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:39:09.082)

Oh, I mean, we have more than 20,000 reviews. So not on the new book, we're just starting with a new book. 

Ashley James (01:39:19.358)

Yes, exactly. You just came out with this book, but again, your latest book and your latest program is the evolution of everything you've done over the last eight years. So seeing that you have is the best of the best. You really figured it out. I mean, I know you figured stuff out before, but you really figured it out this time and the 20,000 reviews, people's lives are transformed. Like so many people's lives are transformed by following your system. And I love seeing that. And then people who, in addition to that, need some extra help, they can get that through your coaching program.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:39:51.255)

I haven't held anything back in the book, just like I'm not holding anything back in this in this call. I don't have a lot of money, but I used to make a lot of money. But I was on the wrong side of the war. I feel like I did the wrong thing. And so it's money is still important to me, but it's kind of on my second list. My first list is really how many people can I help? And let me get this out there. That's why the book is free for Kindle on The Nook.

That's why we put out so much free material with the podcast and all the freebies to help you walk through those hard moments. 

Ashley James (01:40:31.067)

Love it. Sometimes people can go through all the programs and all the free stuff and still really want that personalized one-on-one attention and then they can do the online course with you. But like you said, you're not holding the good stuff back for working with you one-on-one. It's all laid out for free. And should someone want the additional support or like the daily calls or the coaching, any of that is also available, which I think is really beautiful. And I love your system.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:40:59.918)

You could read an exercise book and use it to get in shape, but most people want to go to a gym with classes, and some of those people want to work one on one with a trainer also. So it's kind of like that.

Ashley James (01:41:13.254)

Nice. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I can't believe 90 minutes has just flown by. Is there anything you'd like to share or say to wrap up today's interview?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:41:23.995)

Boom, chug a lugga boom, chug a lugga boom, chug a lugga la boom.

Ashley James (01:41:30.871)

That was probably the best out of over 500 episodes. That was the best one. I love it.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:41:37.947)

I don't have anything else that's brilliant to say that I didn't get to say. I mean, I probably do. Oh, there is one thing. There is one thing, earlier you were talking about the comfort food in response to the stress response, it's important to stop thinking about it like comfort food because what you're eating is not just for comfort.

I often highlight this out, highlight this people to people, because they'll say they have to numb out. They were emotionally upset on the answer to them out. And I said, it's not really what you're doing. You're actually getting high with food and I'll prove it to you. Did you ever go to the dentist and they say we're all out on over cane and referred, we're going to have to inject you with some chocolate. But there's something else going on besides numbing out.

The things that we go to at those times are unnaturally concentrated concoctions, industrially concentrated concoctions of starch and sugar and fat and all that kind of, and then another word for that is a drug. So that's why I think it's apropos to think I'm getting high with food. The other thing is that the relationship between emotions and overeating is two ways. Most people think you have this uncomfortable emotion that causes you to want to eat some chocolate. They don't understand that the chocolate also causes uncomfortable emotions by the principle of operant conditioning. So for example, a lot of people tell me they can't get to sleep without overeating and, but because they feel too anxious.

And I'll tell them that, well, do you know that anxiety has a physiological correlate? Your blood pressure goes up a little bit and your galvanic skin response goes up and your respiration and your perspiration. And all of these are measurable. In animal studies, for example, they give baboons a sugar reward, whenever they have raised blood pressure, don't you know that those baboons can be conditioned to have a raise of blood pressure more frequently as a group.

Ashley James (01:43:57.552)

Oh my gosh, that's right.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:43:59.888)

And so if you're telling yourself that you need this comfort food because you're anxious, you might also tell yourself this comfort food might be making me more anxious. It might be reinforcing it in the long run.

Ashley James (01:44:12.364)

So your body creates anxiety, so you will go eat that food.

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:44:17.840)

Yes the body is a calorie acquiring machine. And when you show it that it can get a lot of calories, if there's a certain physiological state, it's more likely to create that physiological state in the future. 

Ashley James (01:44:32.516)

Yes and that's what we really want to have clarity over. We want to just be consciously aware of that and not reinforce that. Does the Defeat Your Cravings system help us to really be conscious of that and make sure that we don't reinforce our body creating a negative stimulus in order to gain “comfort food”? 

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:45:03.770)

All of that.Yes

Thank you, Ashley.

Ashley James (01:45:05.019)

Love it. So cool. Yeah, that's wild. Thank you. Thank you for coming. And so excited for the listeners to learn your new system and help them.You call it Defeat Your Cravings, but I think there's a lot of different words for it. It could be that nighttime eating binge eating, overeating, emotional eating, just all of it. It's that big soup. And some people say, well, I'm not an overeater. But if you feel like food is controlling you instead of the other way around, if you can't eat a healthy diet because you're going here and there, your brain is kind of guiding you. Your inner pig or inner brat is guiding you. Then you're going to benefit from doing Dr. Glenn Livingston system. defeatyourcravings.com. Awesome. Can't wait to have you back on the show. Because, you're just going to keep evolving and growing and learning. And you'll have new stuff to share with us next time. So I can't wait to have you back. And what's the name of your new podcast?

Dr. Glenn Livingston (01:46:08.718)

Defeat Your Cravings Podcast

Ashley James (01:46:09.234)

Okay, there we go. You know how to brand yourself.

Glenn Livingston (01:46:14.730)

At the DefeatYourCravingsPodcast.com. It'll just take you to a different page with a website where you can sign up for that.

Ashley James (01:46:18.606)

Nice. Okay, great. Of course, all the links to everything that Dr. Glenn Livingston does is going to be in the show notes of today's podcast, so learntruehealth.com. It was great having you on again. Can't wait to have you back.

Glenn Livingston (01:46:28.956)

Thanks, Ashley.

 

Get Connected with Dr. Glenn Livingston!

Official Website

Defeat Your Cravings Podcast

 

Book by Dr. Glenn Livingston

Defeat Your Cravings

 

Check out these other amazing episodes with Dr. Glenn Livingston!

Episode 249: The Impact of Eating Right

Episode 231 – Willpower To Stop Bingeing

Episode 56 – How To End Binge Eating

Sep 15, 2023

Webinar On The Science Behind The Organix Mattress:
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510: Mastering Wellness with Dr. Wendie Trubow

https://www.learntruehealth.com/mastering-wellness-with-dr-wendie-trubow/

Are you taking a backseat in your own health journey? This episode, featuring the brilliant Dr. Wendie Trubow, will inspire you to grab the wheel as she shares her knowledge on small daily habits that can make a big difference in your health. From the importance of thoroughly chewing our food to selecting a proper mattress for optimal sleep, Dr. Wendie walks us through the small but impactful changes we can make to achieve overall wellness. She also underscores the crucial role of maintaining a good sleep routine, and the often underrated impact of melatonin on our health.

However, our conversation with Dr. Wendie doesn’t stop at sleep and nutrition. We also delved into the role of regular exercise and sweating in our bodies’ detoxification process, and how even the busiest of us can incorporate this crucial step into our daily lives. We explore the underappreciated aspects of digestion and stress management in nutrient absorption and the potential consequences of neglecting these areas. Dr. Wendie also talks about her functional medicine approach and how telemedicine is revolutionizing the way care is provided.

In the final part of our discussion, we touch on the importance of self-love and its connection to our relationship with food. Dr. Wendie shares insights from her upcoming book and how she has navigated her own health journey through making healthier food choices. She also gifts us with her personal smoothie recipe, and the surprising ingredient she adds for prebiotic support. This episode is a treasure trove of practical tips and scientific knowledge that will give your health a major boost. So, take a seat, tune in, and empower yourself with the tools to take charge of your health today.

Highlights:

  • Improving health through small daily changes
  • Starting your journey to better health
  • The importance of sleep and health talk
  • The importance of melatonin in health
  • Chewing and stress in digestion importance
  • Controversy surrounding whole-food smoothies
  • Importance of exercise and sweating
  • Transforming health and environment through consumerism
  • Perimenopause

Intro:

 

(0:00:000) Ashley James: Hello True Health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health Podcast. We had an amazing episode with Dr. Wendie Trubow, who's coming back on the show. We had her in Episode 482, where she shared her personal story of recovering from mold and heavy metals and environmental toxins. She teaches about mycotoxins and how we can repair the gut in order to repair our immune system, in order to gain true health. That was Episode 482, and she comes back today to teach the foundations of health and where to start. If you're feeling unwell or if you're feeling good but you know that there's a better you you could have. You know that there's like man, I feel good but I'm not optimal then we're going to go through a checklist today of things that you can do to improve, to tweak, to biohack, to enhance your health tiny, tiny tweaks that make a huge difference when it comes to digestion, absorption of your nutrition and optimization of your immune system and increasing joy and happiness in your life. Basically, we're just going to go through and look through all the little things you do each day that make a huge difference. Recently, I heard someone talk about the little things that make the big difference. For example, if you skipped brushing your teeth today, there wouldn't be any substantial change to your dental health. If you went a week without brushing your teeth. Obviously you'd have bad breath and your teeth would kind of feel fuzzy, but no real substantial change to your dental health. Now you go five years without brushing your teeth and you're going to be screaming in pain in the dental chair and be very, very, very uncomfortable. That's the accumulation of little daily changes. 

Today, Dr. Wendie talks about those little things. Let's say, for example, she talks about chewing your food. We've all heard the saying chew, chew, chew your food, chew like twenty times and the average person only chews three times. I've actually counted and caught myself and went wow, I barely chewed three times before I swallowed that bite of food. We do not absorb all of our nutrition when we barely chew our food. If you could imagine, if you counted and became more conscious of chewing your food. Put down your fork, chew your food. Maybe 20 times per mouthful is too much for you, but try six chews instead of three. You've just doubled the amount of absorption and digestion from your food, going from three chews to six chews. Now try ten. Try ten chews and be mindful. You will find that you're optimizing your digestion. So we go through these little tweaks that you can make to your life that are going to make a huge difference a year from now if you do them every day. A huge difference even a week from now, if you do them every day, you will start to feel powerful changes in your life. 

Another thing we talk about in today's episode is sleep, and of course, everyone knows this. Everyone knows they should drink water, everyone knows they should get enough sleep. But if you're sleeping on a mattress that wasn't designed for your optimal sleep, then, no matter how good you are about going to bed on time, you're not getting optimal sleep. Recently I had an episode with Joey Woodward, Episode 504, where we talked about a mattress that was specifically designed as a medical device to not only prevent bed sores but to help the body heal bed sores up into stage four bed sores. They're used in hospitals today. This type of material that then they put into a completely organic, non-toxic mattress that's made by hand in the US. 

I have one. It was life-changing. Actually, my husband and I were just joking about it this morning because he was up in the night. He's doing a fast right now. God love him. He's on day four of a fast. There's somewhere around the first few days of a fast. One or two nights is kind of rough. It's just restless. The body's doing a lot of detoxing and usually when we detox we're feeling it. He doesn't have any symptoms other than he was just wide awake, probably four in the morning and he was up quite a bit. This morning he goes,”Man, I did not get great sleep last night.” I'm like, “Really, because when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night he was sound asleep.” But he says he was up half the night. He goes, you know, with our old mattress, every time I would have been awake, you would have felt it. That's so true. We don't with this mattress. We can sleep on it and he could be jumping on one side. I'm not going to feel it on the other. 

The most important thing about this mattress is you get the deepest restorative sleep. That is, of course, unless you're doing some kind of detox and fasting. Then your body's just going to do what it does but normally amazing sleep is had with the Organix mattress. I highly recommend checking it out. I do have some news, I just got this week and that's why I want to talk about it. If you listen to my episodes about the Intellibed Organix mattress, you're going to want to purchase one in the next five months. That is because the company was just bought by a different company. Unfortunately, the huge discount that I negotiated with the creator of this mattress that has been honored for the last few years, this great, great, great discount is going to be going away. That's sad, but you have five months. You have the next five months to purchase this mattress. 

This mattress lasts for over 25 years. There's people who even have had one for 30 years and still sleep it on it perfectly. It does not warp. It's amazing. It's really a fantastic investment as far as mattresses are concerned. You are saving money because it's like you're paying twice as much as a normal mattress, but it lasts four to five times longer than any mattress. You are saving money. Plus, you're getting way deeper sleep. That's going to restore your body. It feels like absolute heaven to lie on this. You can be in any position. You can lie on your back, you can lie on your sides. You'll be able to sleep soundly through the night, with no pain points at all, no stiffness. You will not wake up with any pain from sleeping positions, because it cradles your body perfectly, keeps your spine perfectly aligned, no matter how you sleep. I just cannot say enough about how much I love this and how I wish all of you had one. 

I want you to go to learntruehealth.com/bed That's where you can check out the webinar we did about the science around this mattress and the materials. You'll learn more. If you really want to geek out on understanding the studies and the science and everything that went into it, go to learntruehealth.com/bed, check it out. If you'd like to explore the fantastic listener discount and special, with all the goodies that they throw in and the discount and the free shipping and everything, go to learntruehealth.com/organix. That's learntruehealth.com/organix, O-R-G-A-N-I-X. Then you can always call them. They're wonderful. They're open seven days a week. When you call them, mention the Learn True Health podcast with coupon code LTH to be able to get the huge special. Their phone number is 866-647-5513. That's 866-647-5513. I'm going to have all this information in the show notes of today's podcast. Remember, you have five months from today, today's September 2023. You have five months in order to get this special. 

Now, their Organix company is working on a prototype right now to replace what they're using. They promise it's going to be amazing so that we'll have something in the future to offer. After five months, however, this specific technology and what I sleep on and what I recommend currently and what I love and it's 100% non-toxic, doesn't off gas, anything, doesn't smell weird and is super healthy and clean that is available only for the next five months. Until that, basically, the company that just purchased it is going to take over and stop all of the specials and discounts that was arranged with the owner originally. Check it out, get it for yourself. They also have an amazing money back policy. Really, there's no risk, just do it, just jump in. I know they also have financing, so just don't let anything stop you. 

If you know that your sleep is affected by your mattress, if you're in pain when you wake up, if you wake up several times a night to roll over because your shoulder or your hip hurt or your back hurts, just get it and try it. If you don't like it, return it, get your money back. I have had such great results with this that I really, really swear by it and I would love to see all of you getting such a deep, restorative sleep. As with our guest, Dr. Wendie Trubow. We talk about it in today's episode. 

Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Continue to come back and learn and share. Share with your friends and family. Be sure to jump into the Facebook group, the Learn to Health Facebook group and also make sure you go to learntruehealth.com and join the newsletter. I send out newsletters when I'm talking about things that are really important, like if there's a huge special on something, or if I've published an article, or if there's something that we all need to know, like something to take action on that we all need to know. I make sure I keep you up to date. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me. I'm here to help and here to support you. I'm also a health coach, so if you're ever looking to work with someone, I'm here to help. You can always find me by contacting me through Facebook or through my website, learntruehealth.com. Enjoy today's episode. 

(10:40.11) Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 510.

I am so excited for today's guest. We have back on the show, Dr. Wendie Trubow, and you can find the free, very exciting ebook that she's giving us by going to fivejourneys.com/promo. Dr. Trubow you were on the show in Episode 482, and now you're back, and we're gonna dive deeper into understanding how toxins and stress affect our hormones.

There's such a powerful need for us to focus on making sure we're being as toxin-free as possible, both from our outside world and the internal world that's going on inside us. We need to support our emunctory systems, our detox pathways, in order to maintain health in every system of our body and longevity and well into our old age to be as healthy as possible as long as possible. This is your mission and you're here for us today to dive deeper. So welcome back to the show.

(11:58.514) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Ashley, thank you so much. It's great to be here. Feel free to call me Wendie. You don't have to call me Dr. Trubow during the talk.

(12:05.650) Ashley James: Well, thank you, Wendie. Um, yeah, I'm really excited to dive in, uh, something we were talking about before we hit record, which is a question everyone has after listening to Episode 482, that the last episode that you were on and also listening to other episodes, great doctors are coming on, teaching us amazing things, opening our eyes. And then we're left after like a 90 minute interview going, where do I start? Where do I begin? 

I don't feel well. I'm not 100% healthy. I'm sick of the allopathic, drug-based, Western medical system that tells me to wait to get sick and then go to the doctor and get put on drug after drug after drug. That's not healthcare. That's disease management. That's symptom management. That's not actually correcting my body or helping me in any way. And I'm just getting worse and worse and worse and feeling sicker and sicker. So then they turn to Holistic Health podcast to see, well, what can I do? Because I'm just at my wit's end.

And all the doctors I've seen that are giving me drugs are making me feel worse, not better. This isn't help, this isn't restoring my body. They hear you talk and then they go, where do I start? What do I do? And I'd love to dive in. You have an amazing clinic. I know you've got sort of near Boston, right? You wanna tell us a little bit about your clinic for those local. Now you do telemedicine also. I don't know where to start and I just wanna see what Dr. Wendie.

(13:31.990) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Sure, so if you're at the point where you need to call the doctor, right? Like call the midwife. Interestingly, we were just parsing through the Massachusetts state laws the other day, it's really weird, if you live in Massachusetts you can establish care remotely if you live outside Massachusetts. You have to come in person to establish care. Now, that makes no sense to me because if you're remote you're remote. What difference does it make but technically we're not supposed to practice medicine across state lines. But if you establish care in Newton where our clinic is, then you can go back to having everything else be telemedicine. So it's a little goofy, but we're located in Massachusetts and we have an insurance-based medical functional medicine practice and it's a membership. So similar to joining your gym, except we're focused on how to get you to feel freaking amazing all the time. That's our goal.

(14:39.207) Ashley James: Nice, very cool. And your background, understanding gynecology and understanding women's hormone systems and understanding the body from the medical doctor's standpoint, but then you dove into studying functional medicine, and understanding how do we, instead of looking at what drug do I need to give this person, right? Cause that's a very MD approach. Let's find the problem and give it a drug.

Let's dive in and see what's going on in the body as a whole, and then help that body as a whole become healthier and healthier and healthier. And you uncover things that we didn't even know we had like leaky gut and mycotoxin exposure, right? So really, interesting things that have simple solutions once we figure out we have that problem, it's not simple when you're sitting there with brain fog and leaky gut going, why do I feel like crap every morning? But simple, once we can identify what it is and then move forward with making corrections. So someone could come, fly into Boston, then come to your clinic and see you in person to establish care and then have a beautiful vacation. Boston's gorgeous, especially in the summertime. Not so much in the winter, but  that's because I'm from the East Coast too.

I'm okay with not visiting snow in cities during winter. That's just my thing. But maybe you'd like it. Maybe it'd be beautiful to you. And then, you can go back home and continue to see Dr. Wendie and her team. So that's, that's one possibility. Another is Dr. Wendie, you've got a book coming out very next year. We're really excited about that. And you have a ton of information on your website, including the free book that you've given us at fivejourneys.com/promo. So lots of great information we can dive into. But where do we start? Let's talk to those listeners who are suffering, who have the brain fog, who have the hormone dysregulation, either it's sex hormones, stress hormones, or thyroid, and they're feeling like poop. But where do they start?

(16:51.889) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, I love this question, Ashley, because we really believe that most humans have the agency and the ability to get at least 60, 70, 80% of the way they are on their own. Like, you don't have to have me. But some people need me and some people don't. So let's talk to the people who are really self starters and wanna get things going and are like, okay, now what? So the really lovely thing is that functional medicine and our approach looks at that you're an entity unto yourself. So it's not like we're pulling off your thyroid and we're only dealing with your thyroid or we're addressing only your gut.

What's addressing one part of your body is going to address the other parts of your body because it's an ecosystem. So if you start to fix the ecosystem all of it gets better, right? The rising tide lifts all boats and so what you see is there are some foundational behaviors that are extremely impactful. Are they gonna get you a hundred percent of the way there? Probably not but on the other hand if you're teetering on the edge or if you're just a little bit dysfunctional it will go a long way. So let's dive into what those are. 

So you can't change your genes. So I'm gonna set that to the side. But what you can do is manage your thoughts because the way you think about things can serve as a toxin or a stressor. And so what you wanna focus on is that you manage your thoughts and you create thoughts. You have like 65,000 thoughts any given day. And most of them, when you're talking only to yourself, are really unkind. And those set off a cascade of stress hormones and gut dysfunction and liver dysfunction that then has you not absorbing your minerals in a state of sympathetic fight flight or freeze and not detoxing. So that's not ideal. We really wanna be in a parasympathetic state where the liver and gut and adrenals are balanced and you're able to deal with the toxins, including your hormones, because hormones can be a toxin, and then put them in your gut or your kidney, pee, poop or sweat them out and life goes on and it's a nice cycle.

So managing your thoughts so that you don't go down a stressful pathway is one critical thing to start with and it's free I'm really into like things that you have control over that are free. You might argue that you don't have control over your thoughts But I would say with practice you are able to change the way that you think to yourself, so I'll give an example, especially women but men can do it too when something doesn't go perfectly we have this habit of internalizing it, like, God, you're such a failure. God, such a screw up and there we go you messed up again you're never going to get it right obviously it didn't go right because you did it you know things that are just sort of generalizations about ourselves but honestly those things aren't true actually they're not intrinsically true. I can't knock on on that truth. I can knock on the table. I can't knock on that as a truth that doesn't hold up and yet we talk about it like it's true.

So starting to take those thoughts and convert them into ones that are kinder and actually more accurate. So instead of saying, oh, you're such a screw up, you could say something like, hmm, didn't go the way I hoped or I'm a work in progress or I worked really hard on that and that didn't go how I hoped it would. Or let me look and see what things I did that may have made that outcome not ideal so that I can not do them again in the future. These are all sort of openings as opposed to hammering you with what a failure you are. And the reason it makes a difference is the thoughts you have alter your adrenals. So let me pause there before we go into other stuff you can do. Comments, questions? 

(20:59.520) Ashley James: Yes, I love the focus on your thoughts and understanding that our mental body affects our physical body. Cause we think that our thoughts are innocent, right? That there's somehow separate from our body, but our unconscious mind is always listening to our thoughts and just based on our thoughts alone, we can trigger the autonomic nervous systems, fight or flight response just with our thoughts alone. You could hook yourself up to many machines that are measuring your stress response. And just by thinking about things you don't want, made up things you don't want to have happen in the future. We can see heart rate elevate, we can see blood pressure go up and your dilation of your eyes can change. And we can see all the indications that you're in a state of stress just by your thoughts alone, because your body is listening to your thoughts as if everything you're thinking about is happening right now. So if I'm like, I don't wanna miss my mortgage payment or I don't wanna get fired from my job or I don't wanna be homeless or whatever, I don't wanna be fat, I don't wanna be sick, I don't wanna be in pain, whatever it is that I don't want, your body cannot process a negative directly. So even if we think we're saying, well, I'm stating in a positive, I'm stating I don't want those things.

But like I could say to you, don't think of a red apple. Don't think of a green tree, right? Don't think of a blue sky. We're gonna think about, don't think of a green frog. We're gonna think about those things. So when I say I don't want, when we focus on when we don't wanna have happen, just like when we say negative things to ourselves, our body is perceiving those things as threats and going into a state of fight or flight. And so we're triggering this neurological response that turns off healing mechanisms. It's when we're in fight or flight, our body shunts resources towards immediate survival fighting and fleeing, and shunts resources away from digesting and creating healthy new tissue. And so the more we're in fight or flight, the less we're healing and restoring our body.

(23:14.691) Dr. Wendie Trubow:  Totally.

(23:16.297) Ashley James: Yeah, so I love that you're saying that number one, we have to check our stinkin' thinkin' and be more gracious and loving with ourself. Very early on, it might've been episode like 17 or 18 or 16, somewhere around there within the first twenty episodes of this show back seven years ago, I interviewed a mental health counselor that said, if you looked at your relationship you have with yourself, like the self-talk you have with yourself, as if it were two people talking, you'd call the cops on yourself.

We are so abusive to ourselves and we give it a free pass because we think it's not important, right? It's okay to talk to ourselves that way. But if we talked to other people the way we talk to ourselves, it would be perceived as incredibly abusive. So it's really good that way you're saying, just check in and you got to start treating yourself with that love and respect that you deserve. Because if you want your physical health to be healthy, you have to make sure that your mental self-talk is in alignment with your health goals. 

(24:18.357) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Totally. Train your brain.

Let's talk about the next thing you have control and agency over that nobody likes. Ready? Every human listening to this needs more sleep than they're getting. You knew it? The shoe dropped. Boom.

(24:41.2074) Ashley James: What is it? What is it? What is it about like ten-thirty at night when you know you should be in bed? It's just like, but I want to scroll. I want to have fun. I want to watch Netflix. Now it's time to do the dishes or something. No, no, no, no, no. Now's the time to be in bed. But what is it about needing that dopamine at night that is just it's so exciting?

The kids are asleep, it's late at night, now this is me time. How many moms have I heard who are sick and exhausted and have hormone problems? But it's like they won't go to bed earlier because that's their only me time, right? I had one client I asked her just switch it up instead, go to bed with when the kids go to bed and then wake up early and you'll still have your me time, but you'll have it in the morning for that and changed her entire life. She still had the same amount of me time but she was twice as productive and also felt amazing through the day.

(25:29.951) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, so I would say humans are pretty chronically underslept and the consequence of that is that you wouldn't fail to change the oil in your car or change the tires when they're bald or do upkeep on your car. You wouldn't ignore your car and expect it to perform optimally. And yet, getting less sleep than the body needs causes it to perform suboptimally. So I love that idea to go to sleep when the kids do, A. B, I'm a huge fan of get into a routine, right? So this is where no human is an island, because you're gonna need the buy-in of the people in your life. Like, I have teenagers, and they love to chat at ten o'clock at night. And I'm always like, I love chatting with my teenagers, because they're fun and they're funny, and I love connecting with them, and my oldest is going off to college, so it's particularly poignant that I only have, you know, another couple months of these interactions before she's out of the house. And yet, it doesn't work for me. Like, I need to go to bed at ten.

And so my husband is very on board with this. My teenagers, I do keep needing to say like, okay, how about you come up to the bathroom and you can chat with me while I get ready for bed instead of us chatting down in the basement, which then forty-five minutes goes by, right? That's one, get off the screens because not only are they messing, they're very addictive. And I believe that all of this causes us to want to eat more because it's all suggestive, it's riling us up.

And then even more than that, the blue light is messing with your melatonin, which means that your sleep quality is diminished. And so it's really important to establish a routine where you get off the screens by at least an hour before bed and then do things that you enjoy doing or restorative.

That doesn't include email, honestly. That does not include email. That does not include projects. That does not include working. It means you get off your screens and you start getting ready for bed. I take an hour to get ready for bed, partly because I futz around and then I go talk to my kids. And I'm not like concerted getting ready for bed. I'm distracted getting ready for bed. But essentially what happens physiologically around ten o'clock at night is that if you're not in bed and you're not on your way to bed, you get a second wind and you literally push out more cortisol from your adrenals.

So now your body's like, oh wait, wait no I'm awake, I don't need to go to sleep. Because your body thinks a lion's gonna eat ya. You just wanna look at Facebook or Instagram for a half hour, but it does have that impact of jacking up the system and having you release a second wind and then the challenge is you're not tired so you don't go to bed. So it's really important to block the light, get off the screens, have a routine and have buy-in from your partner so that they can get off the screens it's time for bed right, you have support.

(28:40.240) Ashley James: We have this go back and forth with my husband. Cause I'll be like why did you let us stay up so late? He's like, I'm taking your cue. He's like excited. He's fine with staying up late, but cause I'm the one that always has to go, okay, it's ten o'clock, we're getting in bed. Let's go. Come on. But if I don't, if I lose track of time, then he's like, oh good. I'm getting away with staying up late. And I feel like, why is it sometimes having a husband's like having a teenager? I tease him. He's very responsible about many things. Me too.  I'll catch myself be like, how is it twelve thirty at night? I'm supposed to be in bed hours ago. Same with my eight year old.

(29:19.786) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Right, well you got your second wind.

(29:21.122) Ashley James: Exactly. Am I eight year old? I mean, I want to know when second wind happens for kids because that kid man, you have to start dinner at like between five and six and then bedtime has to start at seven for him to be asleep by ten. The entire evening is trying to get that kid to go to sleep. And it's just because he has energy. I don't feed him any sugar. He's incredibly healthy. He's physically active for at least half the day. He's a very healthy kid. But this kid does not shut off. Right. He have that, I'm kind of getting tired, so I have to like make it be this whole routine where it's like, okay, now we're winding down and now we're reading a book. Now we're, you know, getting in bed and cuddling and now we're reading a book and we're, you know, making sure all the lights are off. So it's just this big rigamarole to get him to sleep. And I'm just wondering, like, when does that happen? Is that more like for teenagers? Because kids don't seem like they ever turn off. But for me, I can feel that second wind. It's right around 10:30 like clockwork, if I'm awake at 10:30, I'm gonna be awake till twelve thirty or one because I got that extra boost of cortisol. I'll be tired at nine. My body will be like, oh wow, I could totally go to sleep now. But then if I'm awake at ten thirty, I could definitely, pull half an all nighter at least. 

(30:40.711) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Time to party. So here's the problem, Ashley. Humans, it's so funny that I would say this was the best positive impact from COVID, which was that, we have all these children, they go to all these activities, and we have all these carpools. And in COVID, we didn't have any of that. And I ended up getting approximately nine hours in bed every night because I didn't have to get up until later because I didn't have to drive any carpools. They were at school, at home for school. And my office is eight minutes away from my house. That includes walking in and walking out. So it's super close. And so I ended up getting about nine hours a night. I used to be proud, I get seven hours of sleep. Okay, I got seven hours in bed. So if you're listening to this, you need more sleep than you're getting. Seven hours in bed translates to approximately six and a quarter or six and a half hours of sleep. It's not enough time for you to hit the deep and the REM and the true restorative time in which the cells in your brain and the rest of your body get smaller so that the interstitial space drains so that your toxins drain into the glymph and the lymph so you get them out of your body instead of hanging out in your in the fatty tissue of your brain and your organs and your bones. You need that time. So aim for at least eight hours in bed with the lights off. That does not like in bed reading. No, it's in bed with the lights off where you're trying to sleep because you inevitably have awake times. You're not a hundred percent efficient. So every human needs more sleep and you have control over that. You need to get in bed by ten and knock it up till six, or nine, to five, whatever. 

(32:27.223) Ashley James: Love it. You just explained how our brain detoxes. And I've seen the studies that when people are chronically sleep deprived, so let's say getting six hours of sleep a night, or like you said, they're in bed for seven, but they're actually getting six or maybe six and a quarter. They're not going into the deep sleep. Or people who sleep with like dogs on their bed or noise outside, or they don't have the kind of curtains that can block the light. So their sleep becomes disrupted, they don't get the deep sleep. Their brain does not detox and we see in the studies that it accumulates these weird proteins and that they're seeing it, there's a relationship between that and dementia. That we need to let the brain detox drain, that it's like at the end of the night, you put all the dishes in the dishwasher and you turn it on. Well, what would happen if you forgot to hit the start button on the dishwasher. You come downstairs, there's no dishes. All the dishes are still dirty. And, but we do that every single day. That is our brain, right? You didn't hit the start button and let your body wash the brain and detox it by not getting enough sleep.

And another thing you said is really important is that the screens in the blue light before bed decreases melatonin production. And what they're seeing now in studies is that melatonin is even more important than all the other antioxidants the body makes, that melatonin is a master antioxidant that's helping our body prevent major disease. For a long time we thought it was just helping our sleep cues, helping our circadian rhythm. It actually is incredibly healthy for decreasing inflammation.

They've done studies around breast cancer and seeing that melatonin production and breast cancer lowers inflammatory breast cancer. And I'm sure you'd have even more information on that, but just maybe that you could share. But melatonin is incredibly important and we have to guard our protection of it very closely. What are some natural ways that we can increase melatonin production, like tart cherry juice is one way we can support it. I know you've talked about like blue blocking glasses or just getting off the screen. So are there any other ways that we can help increase healthy melatonin production?

(34:51.004) Dr. Wendie Trubow: I want to look at it how to preserve your melatonin. So the melatonin starts to increase right around, four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Your melatonin actually does start to increase. I always think about it naturally increases and so what we want to try to do is not diminish it. So for example if you wake up in the middle of the night and you have to use the bathroom or you're awake whatever don't turn the lights on because the light makes the melatonin goes away, right? So keep the lights off

Get off the screens. Wear blue light blocking glasses. Start to dim the lights because it signals the body oh yeah right the melatonin is higher I should be going to bed and the tart cherry juice is fantastic. We actually increase melatonin intake for people who have had any type of infection or particularly if they had COVID because melatonin is such a powerful antioxidant  So increasing it in times of major stressors for the body is fantastic, and then you can start to wean down after the big pump, big pump.

(36:00.899) Ashley James: When you say increase, you're talking about taking an exogenous melatonin?

(36:05.481) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yes, yes.

(36:05.887) Ashley James: So what you're saying is not something you want to get on habitually for years and years, but is that even safe? Can we talk about that?

(36:14.700) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, sure. So it's interesting. It doesn't look like you'll necessarily suppress your melatonin unless you're doing the things that suppress it, like being on screens, being up, staying up. Chronic illness will suppress it, but just taking melatonin doesn't look like it in the short term will suppress it.

And there's a million forms, actually, that's really challenging. So you can take natural forms derived from the high melatonin-containing foods. I know there's a liquid, it's a much smaller dose because it's much more concentrated. And then there's also pill forms that you can take. So it kind of depends what, quote unquote, scene you're in and what you're looking for and whether you feel strongly that it come from food or not. So it's all over the map.

(37:04.224) Ashley James: What do you prefer for your patients and clients?

(37:07.900) Dr. Wendie Trubow: We tend to do the pills actually because it's, we have a very varied practice. And so we often do the, like a three milligram sustained release melatonin. And then anyone who's going through massive infection or some type of major immune challenge, we will increase them. Depends on the person. So I don't wanna give a number, but we'll increase them to higher numbers.

(37:37.636) Ashley James: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. And I've taken it and anything above three milligrams, like I'm not sleeping, like I'm sleeping, but it's like that weird lucid sleep where you feel like you've been awake all night and then I'm groggy all day. So there's a certain dose that can feel like you're drugged all day and then no matter what, you can't shake that feeling that you're groggy and you're asleep.

(38:01.161) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, and actually one of the solutions for that is to take it much earlier because the melatonin in our bodies is increasing around 4 to 5 p.m. And so instead of taking it at bedtime back it up by hours and take it. Well, we're recording it, you might not be listening at four in the afternoon but we're recording it four in the afternoon and that's actually when you want to take your melatonin to not only improve your sleep, but alleviate that groggy feeling.

(38:27.339)Ashley James: Oh wow, very interesting. Very interesting.

(38:29.751) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Alright, so that's the sleep. And we've only gotten two, there's a whole bunch more. Things that you can do on your own. So the next thing to do is really have an authentic conversation with yourself about your food. Because food is medicine and you are what you eat. So it's very difficult to be optimally healthy and feel freaking amazing when you eat inflammatory food that challenges the body. Because don't forget, even the best of intentioned humans who have a very quote unquote clean lifestyle, no matter what you do, you are still being exposed to a waterfall of toxins every day. Just look around. If you have a rug, unless it's wool,

you're getting exposed to some type of plastic. Your mouse, your computer, your phone, plastic and metal. The air you breathe can have various chemicals. The water you're drinking also chemicals. The food you're eating pesticides, herbicides, insecticides. So it's really important because you eat every day and you eat three to six times a day depending on who you are that you level up your food. Now perfection is the enemy of good and better. Okay you don't have to be perfect.

Really, I want to stop and repeat that. You do not have to be perfect. You have to be better. Okay? So start where you are and level up. Think of food as a spectrum as opposed to a destination.

Right, like I've been in this game for 17 years and I still practice leveling up. And I still sometimes go, oh wow, that really snuck in and I don't wanna eat that way. Right, I have three teenagers and one pre-teen. You know, they're not like, hey, cook me up some hummus. They're like, let's make popcorn and let's have ice cream. And I'm like, I don't eat ice cream. I don't like, I actually never liked ice cream, even as a kid. I know that's like not American, but I don't like ice cream.

And probably because I had a dairy allergy as a kid and now I just don't like it and I don't eat sugar. Or I work hard not to eat sugar. So anyway, to have a good honest look at your food. Basically the goal is that you eat food that looks like itself and that's minimally processed and you can recognize. Now a lot of people will say to me, I made pancakes myself and I'm like, no, no, no, that's still kind of processed, right? Because you had to grind the flour. So there are a few ways that you can do it that are better, right, if you did eggs, you did a pancake with egg and banana. That's way better than taking flour and grinding it and then making it into a pancake. So I would say grain-free does, it is a higher level. So it's an improvement. But really look to what are the ways that you can make an improvement that are sustainable.

It's not about dieting, right? This isn't a temporary thing that you're gonna do for three weeks, get your beach body on and then you're gonna go back to it. No, this is like, how are you gonna eat to promote lifelong vitality? Because that's very different than eating for a diet. It's not a diet, it's lifelong vitality  It's different, right? It's like Michael Pollan's, Forks Over Knives. Fill your plate with cruciferous and green leafy vegetables. Eat some protein of your choice, whether that's vegan, beans and lentils or whether that's actually animal flesh and if it is animal flesh, make sure it's grass-fed, grass-finished. Chickens really aren't meant to be fed on grains. It increases their omega-6 content. And so, look to where you're getting your chickens from, see if you can, or your chicken meat, see if you can upgrade. It's very challenging and it's expensive. So you know, pick a battle that works in your family. You can get frozen vegetables, organic. They're much less expensive, but do your best to level up and do your best to minimize alcohol and do your best to cut down your sugar. If you did that you'd be like wow, I really did great work is it perfect? No, but remember we talked about you don't have to be perfect you just have to be better.

(42:50.424) Ashley James: I love that you say level up because I come from many years of playing video games in my youth and like level up, Super Mario, get that mushroom level up. And just thinking make it a game, make it fun, right? How can I level this meal, right? For next time how can thinking about making dinner, what can I do to level up my dinner? The other day, we went to the beach and we live really close to the Puget Sound. I grew up on the East coast, live on the West coast now. And so we just went, we're a few blocks away from the Puget Sound, went down to the beach and I cooked a bunch of food, put it in glass container Tupperware and brought it down and shared it with all my other friends. And as we're all eating, they're looking at, it's oil-free stir fry of vegetables, mushrooms and over brown rice with some seasoning.

And they're loving it and they're like, whoa. And they look at me and one of them says, so do you cook with frozen food or is this like fresh? And how do you do this? How do you get all these vegetables in? And I said, listen, my thing is good, better, best, right? So good might be canned beans or some kind of canned vegetable, right? Better is frozen, best is fresh and pick one and try to upgrade, right? So at least you're getting, if you had no vegetables in you and a can of vegetables comes along, at least you're getting some vegetables. I'd prefer fresh, obviously, but there's times when I stock up the freezer with organic vegetables just because there's times when I don't have the time to chop up, but I also am committed to not eating out. I'm committed to 100% of my meals being home cooked. I'll take them with me as I go out, but I'm committed to never eating at restaurants because that has caused a lot of my health issues. And even if I'm choosing healthy things at restaurants, it's still the lowest quality ingredients. They're not organic. They're using omega rich vegetable oils that are just are very pro-inflammatory. And I just don't wanna feed myself that. It's fun and my addiction brain wants it, wants to just like my addiction brain would love to go to a casino and gamble, or would love to stay up all night watching Netflix or just name some kind of a dopamine rich activity. There's no dopamine rich activities that are overstimulating the dopamine that are healthy, right? I look at my longterm goals and that takes patience and emotional intelligence and it takes putting aside the dopamine for now for the dopamine later for that. So I'm like, I'm gonna eat home cooked meals and I'm gonna choose frozen or fresh as much as possible. I get vegetables in and then I get to have that reward later on down the road. And every day I feel slowly better, better, better, better. So just look at the plate and go, level up. Like you said, good, better, best. How can I make this better? How can I make a better choice and know that whatever you put in your mouth is feeding every cell in your body. So, you know, if you're eating Chick-fillet, or McDonald's, hold that in your hand, in your mind, imagine it, and go, do I wanna feed these ingredients to every cell in my body, those cells that are keeping cancer at bay and reproducing to become healthy cells? Is this gonna actually make healthy cells or is this gonna make me feel miserable? Temporarily, you'll feel good for 15 minutes, probably less five minutes it takes about five minutes to eat a hamburger. And then that's days of the body having to deal with the effects of all the toxins and inflammation from that food.

(46:46.987) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, it's funny because I have celiac disease, which is the autoimmune end of the road for an allergy reaction to gluten, which is the wheat. It's what we make our bread with. And so I don't generally eat out because I'm often very reactive to the cross contamination. But I've noticed, it's so interesting you talk about the quality of the oils, because I've noticed that when I eat out, it's like once a quarter, right? We're talking about four times a year that I'll eat out. And I really focus on trying to stay close to the way I eat at home because I find that when I not only eat out but eat food that I wouldn't normally eat, I'm inevitably sick. I'm like, oh, that wasn't worth it. That was not worth it. So it's really important, you know, if you're going to eat out, choose foods that you would normally choose at home, right? So don't go whole hog. Go, go half hog.

And the next thing I would say is, it's really important. And these are all things that you have control over, right? Chew your food. My family has not yet taken this on. I took this on about a year ago after I was reading about, if you think about food, the average human chews a mouthful three times and then swallows. However, if you have food, it then needs to be broken down and digested and the minerals and nutrients absorbed.

And the more times you grind it or chew it, the better the surface area that your body will have to work on. And the greater the surface area, the more likelihood you'll be able to break it down, then the easier you'll be able to break it down. So you wanna chew your food 20 times, 30 times? Like chew it until it's, you just can't chew it anymore. And my family always teases me because I'm literally the last one at the table chewing. They're all done, they're done. They're like, bye, ma. I'm like, guys, I'm still eating. Because when you're joking about five minutes to eat a hamburger, I'm like, oh, it probably takes me 10 now, because every mouthful takes so long, right? So when you're eating, and this kind of morphs into the next thing that you have control over, which is manage your stress. And why that relates to food is that when you eat, you want to be in a state of parasympathetic activation. So before you eat, take a few deep breaths, signal the body that a lion is not about to eat you, chew your food, breathe while you're eating, connect with people while you're eating. Now that's not the only way to manage your stress, but it's one thing that really is very glaring is when you're looking at your health, if you are in a state of sympathetic activation, as we mentioned, you're not going to absorb your food because digestion gets shut down. So you want to see the body okay. Alright guys, get ready. It's time to get the stuff that makes you feel good. Right? But be conscious about it. That's one and then the other side of that is that you want to manage your stress every day not just around food but manage your stress so that you tilt the scales. Tilt the seesaw towards rest relaxation parasympathetic digestion absorption recovery as opposed to tilting it towards inflammation sympathetic overload and ultimately disease, because the body the body gets shut down and you don't go down the pathways of normal healthy behavior and what you wind up with is autoimmune disease, chronic disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, you name it and I'm gonna say okay attracts back to inflammation and toxins so you really want to manage your stress and that's either getting out and moving your body or meditation or walking meditation or Tai Chi whatever it is that for you is that thing you want to do it.

(50:51.601) Ashley James: Inflammation, I keep hearing people say, oh, inflammation is the cause of disease. I can't think of a disease inflammation isn't present in or at one point was present, but it's not the cause. It's definitely an accelerant and it is present, right? But our behaviors and our way we eat and the way we manage stress, the way we sleep, all these things go into whether we're increasing inflammation or increasing inflammation or helping the body regulate it healthfully. Decrease inflammation and then keep it in within homeostasis, right? Keep it in a healthy healthy levels. There's a naturopathic physician that was the Dean of Bastyr. I've had her on the show, amazing woman, Dr. Molly Niedermeier. She was my naturopath with my son when I was pregnant and was our pediatrician.

She had this saying, she'd go, Do you have sock syndrome? And I'm, what are you talking about? She goes, do you eat over the kitchen sink? She had this abbreviation. Where do you eat your meal? Cause she could catch her patients, most of them, if they're female of a certain age or managing the family, they're doing the cooking, they'd be sitting there and their meal is standing up over the kitchen sink or over the stove. Just that's where they're eating their meal or just standing in the kitchen.

They don't even sit down with the family because they're busy cooking the food and then feeding the kids and then, getting the laundry done and watching the kids and making sure they eat. And then they're just standing there, shoveling a few mouthfuls of food in their mouth over the kitchen sink before they go off to soccer practice or whatever. And she's, no, you actually have to sit down and turn off the stress response and chew your food and calm down. You do need to carve out time for yourself. You can't just sit, stand over the kitchen sink and eat your meals. And that was a big eye-opener for me, this concept that there's women who don't actually have any meals sitting down because they're so busy managing everyone else that they never think that in order to digest, they need to sit down, breathe and chew their food. And that just amazes me that we take for granted how our body functions and how to help our body function optimally because we're navigating and we're kind of the cruise directors of all these little people in our life. And for me, it's like the cruise director of my whole family, and my business. And I run a giant organization of 500 mom organization of local homeschoolers. So it's like I'm organizing and being this cruise director for everyone else. It's, no, I need to prioritize sitting down, digesting, taking care of myself. You are important. I can only speak for what it is to be a woman. I don't know what it is for man but I do see my husband sitting down and eating. So I think maybe men sit down and eat more than women, but based on my experience.

(53:56.497) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Well, it's more about ownership. And I think the thing that I would say that I think is really powerful for all the women listening, and the men actually. So if you're the female, if you're the person who's responsible for this and you're eating while standing, this is what you're demonstrating. This is the role modeling you are doing. So what you're teaching your children is when you're a parent, don't take care of yourself.

So it's very important to model healthy behaviors around food because children really don't understand what to do unless they see it, right? So they learn to chew their food from you. They learn to sit and have civilized conversation at the dinner table. I mean, I have to acknowledge, I always get up during dinner, almost always. And I noticed that I sit closer to the kitchen and my husband sits as far away from the kitchen as he can get pretty much and so there's something to the seating and the responsibility but especially even if you're the man listening to this, if your partners in your life are doing this, you're role modeling for these kids and you're also not connecting. So there's tremendous value to being at the table connecting. And gosh, it's funny you say that Ashley, because I remember saying to a patient, wait what, you don't eat with your kids? She was home with her kids. In my family, what happens is we make lunch. We make lunch and we sit down and eat it together. I don't make it for them and then they eat while I'm cooking. That's ridiculous. Like that doesn't even make any sense to me. You know, you need part of the value of meals is connecting. And so it's really important to stop, make enough food for yourself and for them and sit down. If you've got to get up four times, I get it, because I get up too. But do your best, right? Better? Do your better.

(45:20.2) Ashley James: Yep. Good, better, best. Got to pick. Yep. Do, do your better and eventually you're going to be doing your best. Choose to level up. Choose an activity and do it. There's a million things we could do better. Don't feel like a failure, like you're doing it all wrong. Just choose one thing, baby steps, right? Like I committed to not eating out at restaurants. And I put a counter on a little app that counts the days since I've been at a restaurant. I found a Sobriety App, because I was like, what kind of app would just count days? Like super simple. I just don't want to have to like every time look at the calendar and be like, okay, it's been how many weeks? I just want something I can like log into it and it tell me how many days since. You can have maybe an accident app, like how many days since an accident? Or for me, I found a Sobriety App. So I'm counting the days since I've been at a restaurant or eating restaurant food and thus how many days I've been eating straight without any breaks. And I love it. So it's like this one health thing I can do for myself because there's a million things I can do for myself. This one thing, I chose one thing and I'm like, this is what I'm focusing on right now in this part of this year in my life is how many days can I go by eating 100% home cooked meals? And then it's like for me, good, better, best. It's like if I have to grab a can of food, I will. If I have to grab a frozen bag, I will. As long as it's whole food ingredients that I'm making from scratch. And it has been wonderful. I am so proud of myself and I feel so good. And the biggest thing was just committing. The biggest thing was just doing it. And then being okay with really simple meals, being okay with, okay, we're having potatoes for dinner. And then I'm gonna steam some broccoli because that's all I have the mental capacity for. That's fine, we all filled up on delicious potatoes and steamed broccoli. And then when I have more of a brain for it, I make bigger productions. I made this amazing salad that was like knock your socks off salad. And I'll recreate these delicious meals when I have more time, but sometimes just keeping it simple. Grabbing a smoothie. That's another thing I want to ask you about. So there's a lot of controversy around smoothies about making whole food smoothies. Cause like, oh, well you should be chewing your food. You shouldn't be drinking it. I'm like, I get it. But the good, better, best model allows for room for making a smoothie. As long as it's not a bunch of like potions and stuff. Like it's, you know, some people choose to do that. And that's, that's okay. But like, let's just take a bunch of real food and juice it or put it in a smoothie because it's fast. It helps break up the fiber a bit and then you're drinking it, so you're getting it in you. The best would be if you could sit down and chew everything, but what are your thoughts on making whole food smoothies?

(58:43.152) Dr. Wendie Trubow: I mean honestly Ashley, I feel like I don't really see a difference between the machine chewing it and me chewing it. It's chewed. I don't really care.

(58:52.898) Ashley James: Yeah, right. The mastication kickstart the digestion, right? So like, we do start digesting in our mouth and that kind of get kind of primes the pump gets the whole digestive system going. So if you could maybe make a chewing motion while you're also drinking your smoothie, you could just say, hey body, but you know people will inhale a burger and chew each bite once and we somehow manage to digest that. So I think we could streak a smoothie, get the nutrients from it because it's a good, better, best model. If you don't have time to cook, you definitely have time to blend something.

(59:29.606) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, 100%. I literally no problem with smoothies. I think I have them myself all the time, actually. My favorite is a blueberry arugula combo, which I know sounds weird. I actually like the sort of bitterness of the arugula. I like it. Obviously the oddball in my family, but I love it.

(59:53.684) Ashley James: We're twins, no, we're totally twins. So  what do you do? Water? Do you like almond milk? Like how do you make it? Tell us your smoothie recipe.

(1:00:02.556) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, so I actually do a blend. So I do a protein powder that's designed to support the liver. It gives the liver lots of minerals and nutrients. Remember, there's a test in Episode 482. Did I talk about my terrible genetics? So I have the worst genetics and the celiac layer means that I'm a terrible absorber. So a normal person might take two supplements, but because I'm a terrible absorber and I had this sort of hit for so many years, I take a lot of supplements because otherwise I drift too low in my mineral nutrient status. So I do a protein powder that has all these minerals and nutrients that support phase one and phase two in my liver. It's so yummy, Ashley. Okay. I add frozen blueberries, organic. I add baby fresh organic arugula leaves. I add cinnamon, I add cacao nibs, I add a powder that has glutamine in it. It's all designed to support gut function. And I add an extra boost of minerals and nutrients. And then I add water because I don't like it too sweet. I don't personally drink almond milk or oat milk because the oats are not 100% dedicated gluten free so I don't want to react. So I don't need almonds or almond milk or any almond products basically. So I just add water and then blend the daylights out of it and drink it.  It's cold.

(1:01:35.088) Ashley James: There's like rice milk, soy milk, cashew milk, macadamia.

(1:01:38.367) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, I used to do soy milk. It's just too sweet for me. It's too sweet. I don't like this. So I either had to choose the soy milk or the blueberries and I would rather have the blueberries than the soy milk because I just didn't like the flavor. It was like, I don't know, it felt like ice cream. And remember, I don't like ice creams. I didn't want to drink that.

(1:01:55.855) Ashley James: So someone who wants it to be sweet, they could choose a plant milk. Out of all the plant milks in the world, I would say never do oat milk because of gliadin, a protein similar to gluten. It's just also as humans we're not really meant to eat grains. 

(1:02:13.475) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, yeah, I don't do well with oats. I don't eat them because I don't do well with them. And I'm sure it's from the gliadin particle.

(1:02:20.757) Ashley James: Right, right. So I love it. I love it, yeah. Water, and then if someone wanted it sweeter, they could add a banana. Here's a fun thing. You probably know this, but some people might not. Get green bananas. Get the bananas when they're green. Chop them up with the skin on. Leave the peel on. Make sure they're organic and rinse them really well, and then chop them up, put them in a bag, and put them in the freezer. And you can blend. You have to have like a high-power blender, like a Vitamix. You can blend with the peel. You will not taste the peel. And that has a good prebiotic, you're feeding your good gut bugs.

(1:02:59.062) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Mm-hmm. That's such a great idea. I love that.

(1:03:01.452) Ashley James: Right? It thickens it up also and it doesn't make it too sweet because it's not ripe ripe. But it gives you some sweetness. So I was surprised. I was really surprised. My family was looking at me like I've three eyes. I'm taking the bananas, just putting them straight in the blender. And they're like, you didn't peel it. I was like, I know it's great. And you can't taste it. 

(1:03)21.611) Dr. Wendie Trubow: I gotta try that. A green banana, yes? Okay, I'll try that. I'll try that this weekend.

(1:03:28.250) Ashley James: You can blend it without freezing it. It's really hard to make smoothies with green bananas because the next day they're not green anymore. You've gotta get them when they're green. And that's why I like chopping them up. Another thing about buying green. So I go to Costco, I get some of my organic food from Costco, like the frozen blueberries. Actually my husband is a blueberry sommelier. He sampled all the blueberries. He's a huge blueberry eater.

And the best frozen organic blueberries are from Costco. 

(1:04:00.458) Dr. Wendie Trubow: They smell the best, actually. I've noticed that they smell fantastic.

(1:04:03.950) Ashley James: They do. They do, they're really fresh, they're juicy, they're great. Traditional Chinese Medicine says don't do this, but we'll eat them frozen like dessert. We'll just eat them like frozen. I get the frozen blueberries from there. I get the big bag of power greens that are organic. The thing is these are not grown in the ground, so there's not a lot of minerals. Like you can't say, oh, I'm get a bag of spinach because I want iron. Like all these things are grown hydroponically in the absence of nutrition. Green is good. The pigment itself is good. But anything grown hydroponically, if they're not adding minerals to the water, you're not getting it.

So that's the problem. We can accidentally get vitamins. We can bump into vitamins if you're eating fruits and vegetables, but it's really hard to bump into all 60 minerals that our body needs every day. So supplementing is a big deal. But I'll get the greens. And if I know I'm not gonna be consuming that in the next five days, 'cause  like all of a sudden you open your fridge and all the greens are bad cause you forgot about them. I blend them and put them in ice cube trays and freeze it. So this is my good, better, best thing, right? Like, as best as fresh. But I can take all the greens and then I can take a bunch of these trays and freeze it all and then put it in a freezer bag. And then I've got, on the go, I've already made my frozen greens. They're ready. I can grab a few of those ice cubes. I can grab some frozen blueberries and put some water and like you said, cacao nib, cinnamon, glutamate. And did you say glutamate or glutamine?

(1:05:48.181) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Glutamine, yep.

(1:05)49.257) Ashley James: I'm sorry, glutamine, very different. And whatever other, turmeric, you could put whatever other kind of good herbs and things like that in there. And then blend it, add water and blend. So yeah, I like smoothies if you're like, I really wanna eat healthy, but I have no time, or I don't know how to cook. I'm like, well, everyone knows how to hit the blender, so.

(1:06:11.599) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, I got a portable blender for when I travel or, you know, I go to conferences and present. So I actually got a blender. It's a pound and a half. It's the booger now I'm blanking on. It's a pound and a half blend jet and it's super light and cute. So I use that. No, it was heavy.

(1:06:28.368) Ashley James: So not the NutriBullet?

(1:06:30.044) Dr. Wendie Trubow: No. It was heavy. It was heavy for travel. It's not heavy for kind of being around, but it was too heavy for the travel.

(1:06:39.970) Ashley James: Oh yeah, it is kind of heavy, isn't it? And you find it does the job. Cool. Thanks for that. That's so great. Awesome. All right. Well, we definitely talked about foods. What is what's the next thing we got to examine?

(1:06:50.453) Dr. Wendie Trubow: I'm sorry I didn't just list them out, right? But the next thing you have control and agency over is your movement.

So when you look at detoxification, and by the way, we go over all this in the book too. Like the book really is a roadmap. Dirty Girl, Ditch the Toxins Look Great and Feel Freaking Amazing. It's a roadmap for how do you walk through and start taking control of all these things. So the movement, right? So you wanna sweat, sweating's good.

I can't tell you how many people walk in my office and sit down and I'm like, so do you move your body? And I'm like, yeah, I never sweat, though. And I'm like, oh man, I can already tell you you're a bad detoxor because you're not sweating. So sweating's good, and and if you're smelly, it means you're getting rid of your toxins. Have at it. So you need to move your body regularly and you need to be sweaty. Now there's a nuance here because for optimal health and what I'll call peak health, feeling freaking amazing, you need to both do cardio which will make you sweat and helps burn calories but you also need to do weights, which will build your muscle, improve your sugar, the level of the glucose, because there's more muscle to uptake the glucose. It'll protect your bones. So you need a blend. It's not like, oh, I do one or the other. You really do need a blend of building muscle and training the heart to be resilient. But you need to move your body, because if you're not sweating, you're not detoxing. And it's really important to sweat. Your skin is your largest detox organ. So it's crtiical.

(1:08:31.825) Ashley James: Yes, I've talked about this in the past on the show, but for many years, every time I went to lose weight, I would become incredibly sick. It was laughable. It was to the point where it was like, am I self-sabotaging? Do I have a demonic possession? Like, what is going on? Like every time I go to lose weight, I'd feel burning around my eyes. I'd get like a sore throat. I'd have all the flu symptoms. You know the feeling around your head, like I'm about to get a head cold. And then my body would smell like garbage and sorry to be so graphic, but number two, when I went to the bathroom, I could smell burning rubber and I could taste heavy metals in my mouth, especially in the morning when I'd wake up, it was like an ashtray was in my mouth. And that was every time I lost more than 25 pounds quickly, right? This was a long time ago back when I did not know all the cool stuff I know now, but back in my 20s I would like I'm gonna do the Atkins diet. This is before ketogenic was the thing. I'm gonna do Atkins or I'm gonna do the South Beach or whatever. I mean, I do the zone, I've done over 30 diets. Right around the between 20 and 25 pounds, this sickness would kick in and it would get worse and worse and worse and worse until I had to stop dieting. It didn't matter what diet. I did vegan I did raw foods I every everything but if it was fast weight loss, I'd get really sick and it wasn't until I started doing my interviews. I don't know which episode it was exactly but somewhere in the first two years of doing this show because I'd reversed type 2 diabetes chronic adrenal fatigue chronic infections infertility and PCOS. I'd reversed all those things but I still had this problem. I'm like, what is going on? And then it hit me. I'm like, I don't detox and I don't sweat. I didn't sweat when I worked out. I don't detox and I have a heavy metal problem. And my liver would get inflamed. That's another thing. My liver would get all stupid inflamed and it would like stick out. Like you could actually like push on it and see it. It was like pushing out. And I got an ultrasound. My doctor wanted me to do a biopsy. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. The ultrasound said, it's not fatty liver. It's not cirrhosed. It's just angry and inflamed and my lab work showed it too. What is going on? And then it clicked. I need to focus on heavy metal detox. So I got a sunlight and sauna. I ended up doing a lot of research on saunas. I interviewed Connie Zach, the co-founder of Sunlighten. I got a Sunlighten sauna. I sweat every single day. And then I did just everything you could possibly imagine holistically to support getting rid of heavy metals.

And now when I go to the gym, I cannot believe how much I sweat and I feel amazing. I've been doing a heavy metal detox and supporting my emunctory system for several years now. And now I sweat. And so when you say, if you don't sweat, you're a bad detoxer, yeah, and you're probably toxic like I was. And we've got to support the emunctory. Like if you don't sweat, you need to sweat. Like we need to get you in the sauna and get you fully nutralized and clean up your diet, and there's lots of things we can do, but that means that's a good indicator that there's something wrong. We've got to help your body break a sweat so you can get rid of those toxins. So  it is so important. It's so, so important. So moving your body. So for people who are like, I can't do the gym. What do you say? Like just go for a walk, find something you love to do. Like how do you help people or I'm too busy. I'm too busy. I have four kids and a career, whatever, like people are too busy. How do you help them move their body?

(1:12:25.994) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Look, I'm hemming and hawing because I get it. Look, I have four kids and a husband. You know, we were talking about, it's like your fifth kid or your fifth something. So there's a lot of people, my mother-in-law's local, my mom is local. I have two brothers who are local. Like, we have a lot of family. We have four businesses. We're starting another one. Like, there's a lot pulling on us. And really, from the bottom of my heart, get it. When people say I feel really pulled in a lot of directions. I'm like, hey sister, I feel you. So I'll offer a couple things one, I've dedicated my life to making a profound impact on the people around me and helping people transform their health and feel freaking amazing and so there is zero integrity in touting it for others, but not doing it for myself. And so, one of the things that I really started to look at is, okay, how can I carve it in? So one thing I literally did was I put it in my schedule. Right? Because other people have control in my schedule. They can book me, they can decide I'm going somewhere, but if I'm booked, they won't do that. So all they see is that I'm available or not available. So I actually put time to work out in my schedule so that nobody can essentially hijack the time for me to sweat.

And then I literally just did this this morning. So I had an hour blocked to move my body this morning. However, I had a podcast literally scheduled at the end of that block, which means I can't go for an hour, especially because I did my face, but I had to do my makeup. And so I was like driving to my office going, okay, do I go for a walk? Do I not go for a walk? And I remembered, I read this study that everything is better than nothing. So if you can do 10 minutes of exercise, it's better than nothing.

And so this is what the conversation I'm having with myself today. So I was like, okay, self, you're going to go park in the parking lot. You're going to go for a walk. I have 15 minutes for travel. I have a half hour for a walk. I have 15 minutes for travel. This is like, I'm down to the minute, right? It's literally that sort of regimented. Today, I had not that. I had a half hour for everything, including the travel, so I was like, okay, I'm going to go for a walk.

So I went for the fastest walk I could around the office park where I work. And then I drove across the street and went into my office. And so what I'll say to people is there's lots of opportunities to move your body that you might not even think about. Like park farther away in the parking lot. Always use the stairs. Go for a walk at lunch. If you say to me, I have too much work, my response, is your employer is not gonna pay your medical bills, so set some boundaries and go for a walk. Because, if you literally can't go for a walk, you need a new job. 

(1:15:48.213) Ashley James: Yeah, we need to take a page out of the Zennials. Is it the Generation Z? They want like a four hour work week. I'm like, you know what? They're onto something. They're okay with telling their boss. I'm generalizing an entire generation. I'm sure not all individuals, but comparing it to, for example, to the other generations, right, so let's say, the baby boomers. Man, I watched my parents, they both owned their own businesses. My dad had his own business, my mom had hers, and they both worked themselves into early graves. My mom, she exercised like crazy, but she never turned off the stress response. She was go, go, go, go, go, and she died at 55. And she was the healthiest person I knew. That was a big wake-up call. And my dad died six years later. 

The only time they took a break was Christmas or one week during the summer. But even then, my mom would bring work with her. My dad would still be on the phone. They never shut off. Now they love their work and this is what it takes to own a business, right? What is the saying? I work a hundred hours a week, so I have to work 40 hours a week. And so being a business owner, it can take a lot more. It's like another baby you have, another child.

But if you die, like my mom at 55, like what's the point? What is the point of working your butt off to make a successful business? She just retired and then died. Just died a few months after retirement. What is the point of life? She thought she was gonna live to be 90. You know, what's the point? So stop, examine your life, and set those boundaries because you deserve to have health in the long run.

People that I look up to are like Dr. Esselstyn, who had on the show, he wrote the book, How to Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease. He's in his 80s and he's still skiing, downhill skiing at Vail every year. He's still incredibly active. And that's, I wanna be that, but in order to be that in our 80s, we have to be able to do squats now. We have to be able to, like you said, walk around the park. My biggest thing is if you can't exercise because you're whatever too busy, throw on a Zumba, go, YouTube is on our TVs now, we all have smart TVs, go put on a Zumba, find your favorite 90s or dance mix from the 2000s, or find some kind of Zumba class and do it with your kids, or just do it, or just dance around the house and do a cardio laundry, right? And cardio cleaning the house. No one's watching, right, unless it's your family, but getting your body moving and moving in a way that brings you joy is the most important because if you're like angry or upset or of self-talk the whole time like oh, I'm so weak. I can't believe it, oh, I'm I feel horrible and you're kind of like griping to yourself while you're exercising like that Remember the first part of this interview like that is harming your body, right? And that's like body shaming and all that negative self-talk is actually just counteracting all the good exercise so you gotta move your body in a way that brings you joy. 

One of the midwives that I'm really good friends with, she has like lost half her body weight by doing soccer. She found adult soccer, like not professional, just like adults that are just like regular, like you and me joined a club, they get together, they kick around a ball, they run around, and she has a blast. She made a bunch of friends and she just loves it. Now that's  probably the worst thing ever. I would hate to chase a ball around, but dodge ball, if I could find a just a bunch of adults that wanna play dodge ball, I would do that. That sounds like a lot of fun. So you gotta find something fun and be able to repeat it and do it every day. 20 minutes of Zumba a day or go for that walk or park a few blocks away. That is gonna be healthier in the long run than going to the gym twice a week and then being angry at yourself and having negative self-talk the whole time.

(1:20:11.669: Dr. Wendie Trubow: Couldn't have said it better and totally agree. No question.

(1:20:16.205) Ashley James: Man, if everyone who's listening has now checked all these things off, they're already feeling better. You start doing this within a month, you're already going to be feeling better. I have a I have a feeling that hydration is somewhere in this list, though. I feel like we might be getting towards hydration.

(1:20:31.741) Dr. Wendie Trubow: I have to acknowledge that hydration for me is such an assumed that I didn't really think about it. But yes, I mean, absolutely drink.

So here's the nuance. Because we started this conversation about where do you start with toxins and what can you do? So the goal is that you give your body what it needs so that it can get rid of the toxins that you're exposed to. If the cells are dehydrated, that makes the cell wall unstable. It makes you not able to flush out the toxins. So yeah, kind of assume like drink liquid and preferably organic and filtered, and filter your water to the very highest ability that you have. So whatever your budget allows for, that's the level at which you want to filter your water and your air. 

Okay and then the next thing I would say Ashley is probably the biggest one that you can really clearly see an impact on, although all of these are really impactful. It would be to anytime you're running out of a beauty product, essentially a beauty product, something that you use to clean your house, something you're using to do your laundry, essentially anything you purchase. We've already talked about leveling up your food, anything you purchase that you're putting on your body. Anytime you buy something new, you want to check it in the environmental working group. I use their app on my phone, EWG. You can also use Think Dirty. These are great apps and they rate the product and you can figure out oh, if I wanna detox, is this in line or not in line? 

Again, It's not a moral conversation It's just like is this gonna get me where I want to go or not So anytime you're buying something new if it's not highly rated, and I go for the green one two three in a pinch, that's the rate. There's the top rated items, if it's not highly rated then you're gonna want to level up and look for something that is highly-rated. And if you think about if you do that every time you're running out of something, over the course of the year you're going to essentially transform the products that you're putting on your body, on your clothes, cleaning your house. You're going to transform a lot of layers of your health just from transforming what you're purchasing. And especially when you think about not only are these things bad for us, they're bad for the earth.

It can feel sort of woo-woo to be like, oh, I want to be good to the earth. But really, if you have children, you want to make sure that the earth is healthy and not a polluted place so that they don't wind up with tons of chronic disease, autoimmune disease, and an even shorter lifespan. We're the most developed nation and we have the worst lifespan. We're like the worst of the developed nations because of all the toxins in the way we live. And so that's fixable, right? But we also want to keep in mind, what are we leaving? Well, not only what inheritance are we leaving for our children and their children?

(1:23:38.765) Ashley James: Well, we can think about generations, but actually what the products we're using are affecting our health right now and also in the near future. Because for example, bathe in tap water from a municipal water source, they're recycling what gets flushed down the toilet or whatever, they're recycling the water. And if you're using Tide and other harsh chemicals, you're using whatever Mr. Clean or whatever all those things that, if you look on the back of, and it has some kind of like, this contains something that could cause cancer. Those go into our water supply and in some level are gonna come back to haunt us in our lifetime, not just our children. We are destroying the planet by thinking that, oh, it's okay. I'm just using this one bottle and I'm just cleaning and then it magically goes down the toilet or it magically goes down the sink and it just disappears poof and then all of a sudden it becomes non-toxic and it doesn't hurt anyone. No, it actually does. It doesn't. These are what we call forever chemicals, right? They're forever harming us in our lifetime and in our children's lifetime and all the animals, everything right now. We're killing the soil with the way we're doing agriculture. We're killing the soil and it is having an impact now on weather. I had a whole episode on this, it's really interesting, but we talk about how we have these droughts, right? And then we have these floods, and we can link it back to how we do agriculture and that we remove the top layer of soil, which means that the soil isn't retaining, it doesn't absorb the moisture, and then release it slowly. And so we end up having these big droughts, and then when it does rain, we have these deluges and we have these floods. 

And we're seeing it globally because this is how modern farming is. And now we're seeing how wrong it is. Oh, laissez-faire, it's fine. They sell it in the grocery store and therefore it's okay for me. Most of the chemicals sold in the grocery stores or sold in Home Depot or whatever is sold, sold on our shelves in the United States are illegal in the European Union. And that's why we have to do our due diligence and we have to be very conscious consumers. I like to say I become a detective. I'm like Sherlock Holmes whenever I read all the ingredients, I have to read all the labels. And I still have my eyesight so I can do that. I don't need readers. But my husband kind of gave up on that. And he's like, Oh, you're taking too long. I'm like, Well, here, read the labels with me. He's like, No, because he's like, I didn't bring my readers to read all these ingredients with you. But like you said, we can we can go on environmental working group and look. And just the other day, my husband wanted to kill some moss that was on the concrete outside. And  he was like, oh, let's buy this can of da da da. I'm like, I look on the back of the can, I'm like, are you kidding me? This stuff can kill you, cause this cancer. And if you inhale it, you're going to the hospital. So how is this even legal? You know, you need to wear like a special gas mask if you're gonna use this material. Why don't we just use, and I looked it up, boron, which is borax, boron, vinegar, and hot water, and a scrub brush will kill the moss naturally and safely and healthfully and not hurt anyone. I love using borax as a cleaner, because you can use it as a scrub, and I scrub the sink with it, and it descales, I wash my kettle with it, and we know it's not gonna kill us, it's just a mineral. So there's so many things we can do, which is some vinegar, some baking soda, and some boron. We can really change our habits around cleaning with these natural ingredients that are Grandma used to use. Got to go back to what grandma did. She was so smart and resourceful. And then we're not introducing this into our air, into our water, harming ourselves now and our skin will absorb. When you clean, your skin absorbs it. 

I have a friend who did the Platinum Energy System foot detox and it pulled out. I talk about this in a previous episode, but I sat her down, she put her feet in it and a half an hour later, the water smelled like Febreze and bleach. And it was very, very strong scent. Like the whole room started smelling like it. And I looked at her, I'm like, what's going on? This machine is like a rife machine that pulls toxins out of you through your feet. And she's like, I didn't even notice about her. She goes, 15 years ago, I was a maid and I used all the same chemicals were smelling in this water I used and I didn't use gloves. It stayed in her. It's just crazy. VOCs (Volatile Organic Compound) don't matter. Here's the thing. We go, oh, but it's low VOC. VOC has nothing to do with it. VOC is how a molecule will interact in our ozone layer. It has nothing to do with your health. Acetone, if you go to a salon and you're smelling acetone, within 15 minutes, if you're just smelt it, within 15 minutes  your liver is detoxifying it. It got into your body. If you smell a chemical, if you smell a perfume, it is now in your lymph system. Your body has to deal with it. If you're peeling an orange, that's high VOC. That's not bad for you. Low VOC has nothing to do with whether it's healthy or not healthy. So we have to know that these artificial chemicals, if you're smelling them or if they get on your skin, they're inside your body and your liver has to process it. And then that causes us to need to use up our nutrients in order to detox it.

So I'm a big, big believer in what you're talking about, that we should one at a time replace these products. Actually, I'm not as forgiving as you. I say, throw them all out. It's all trash. Everything under your kitchen sink, everything under your bathroom sink is horrible because, and here's the interesting part, everything in a container in a bottle is off gassing. I can't remember what episode it was, but it was like episode 50. It was a long time ago. This woman had a machine that she'd put in your home.

And it was like an air filter, but it would capture all the molecules that you're inhaling. And then she would analyze it, put it through a computer, analyze it. And she could tell you the brands of cleaners under your kitchen sink. She'd be like, okay, so you have the Mr. Clean, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because even though it's under your kitchen sink and you've had it for years in your kitchen sink or under your bathroom sink, it's off gassing and your body is, in small amounts, but your body is still inhaling it and absorbing it even though it's in a bottle under your kitchen sink. So I say, get it out. She even went so far as to say, if you have a garage that's attached to your home, because she can detect chemicals that are hanging out in your garage. If it's attached to your home, it doesn't have like a hundred solid vapor bearers. She says, don't even buy a home that has a garage attached. You should have a separate garage if you're gonna store bottles that are with chemicals.

(1:30:42.282) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Don't have those chemicals. So you don't have to worry about storing them right? Let me go back to this because we didn't talk about this and this is a perfect place to really have people think about is that the chemicals developed in the United States never had to be vetted before they got released on the market. So when we think about, oh, it's probably safe because it's on the market, no, it's on the market because it was never tested. And the Environmental Protection Agency has very little ability to test products unless a company self-reports. And what company is going to do that, right? Because that's their livelihood. And so the EPA tests items that companies self-report, you do not have to prove that it's safe. You should be able to show, but when it hits the market that you don't think it's gonna harm someone. But that's a very different standard, right? That's like, I don't think I'm pregnant, but you could be. So it's very important to remember that even though people have good intentions that doesn't always get represented the way we want it to. And so the chemicals that you're being exposed to, the greenwashing, which makes you think that it's healthy for you, it's not. And so it is up to you to do the footwork. And part of the reason I say go one, two reasons I say go one item at a time. One is it's extremely expensive for people. But two, really the bigger thing is it's overwhelming. People get stuck in, oh my God, what do I do first? Well, first you do what you're running out of.

It's practical, right? You can get your head around, okay, I'm running out of that. Cool. I want to level up. Let me take a second to talk about tea. You want to make sure you're buying organic tea in bags that are not made of plastic. There is plastic in tea bags unless it specifically says it does not. Okay? So you're like happy, oh, look at me. I'm drinking tea instead of coffee. Coffee's moldy. I didn't want to do that. Okay, great. You're now getting a dose of plastic with your tea. 

Get rid of the cake cups in the Keurig because you're forcing hot water through plastic. This makes no sense because you're trying to detox, you're trying to do a good job, and then you load up. So there's a lot of pieces here. 

(1:33:01.293) Ashley James: Right. Good, better, best. Choose, choose everything out of all these categories, choose something and do better. Do a good, then do better, then do best. Instead of getting overwhelmed. Cause when we see too much, Oh, I have too much, just too much, just too much to get overwhelmed. Just choose what you can do. And just ask yourself that fun question, make it a game that gives you a little bit of dopamine. What can I level up today? What, what can I do to level up and choose one from each category or just choose one from one category that we've talked about and go with it. I gotta say, one of my friends formulates 100% all natural organic skincare. And it's actually really affordable because she is just so kindhearted. She crafts it herself in her kitchen after she gets the kids to sleep and she sells it online now. Finally, she's been selling it for years locally. It's emmiesremedies.com and she's giving her listeners a crazy big discount. It's LTH is the coupon code, emmiesremedies.com. And I love it. You could eat this if you wanted to, but you know, it wouldn't taste good, but you could if you wanted to eat her face cream. And in the next year, she's been formulating and she tests this. She doesn't test on animals, she tests on humans. So she's been tested. She has a ton of girlfriends that will try out all her stuff. And so once it does come to market, it's been fully tested and used for several years.

But she is slowly launching her entire skincare line online, but so far it's just the face cream that can also be used as a body cream. It's delicious, I love it. And it is all natural. So that's emmiesremedies.com. LTH as in Learn to Health is the coupon code. And just yeah, there's so much information out there when it comes to replacing our skincare products and everything under our sink and everything on our counter. Everything on the bathroom counter, under the kitchen sink, under the bathroom sink, all that stuff, we can find natural solutions for that are not only good for the environment and like not harmful for us, but there's also ones that have ingredients that are good for us, right? In addition to that. So we can find stuff that actually helps our body, helps the microbiome of our skin, helps our stress levels, like, you know, using essential oils responsibly. We can, it's using a type of herbal medicine. We can use that and we can make our own natural cleaners or our own cosmetics. And we can have an experience where we're increasing our health while we're also replacing all the junk that's harming us.

(1:35:39.792) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, and I think there's so many things that people can do but the things that we've talked about are the top things that people people can really take control over and and do without needing any kind of functional medicine person now if you did all that and you're like, oh man I think there's room for improvement that's when you want to see if seasoned functional medicine person because you're most likely dealing with toxins at that point.

(1:36:08.398) Ashley James: Yes, but take the time to do each one. It's so important because like you said, you could get 70% of the way there feeling good. And that kind of saves you money in a sense, instead of like you go see Dr. Wendie day one, she's gonna tell you to do all this anyway. So instead of paying her to tell you to do this, go do this, see how far you can get, and then get the help, get the testing, narrow it down.

As far as diet, because diet is so big and some people are like, well, I heard the carnivore diets really good and I hear raw vegans really good. And I hear the West Beach, whatever diet is really good. Like you said, that long-term lifestyle, what's a way, instead of grabbing onto an ideology or like a diet dogma, what's a way that we can know by listening to our body or maybe looking at lab work that we're on the right path, do you have some kind of hints for people to be able to dial in foods that are healing for them instead of gravitating towards foods that maybe are dopamine increasing but not good for us?

(1:37:28.780) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Yeah, I think, I mean, this is like a minefield. So let's say there's no.

I despise the word diet and implies temporary. And it literally, think about it, D-I-E. Don't get to the T, you die. So I'm a huge anti-diet human. I really only believe in doing things that are sustainable and work for you. And then I'm gonna say that there's no one eating program that's gonna work for everyone. So what I'm gonna say is generally, right? Big broad brushstrokes, humans do better when they eat food that is less processed, avoids seed oils, minimizes sugar, and that the products look like what they started as. That would be a good guidepost. And then within that you can be vegan, you can eat dairy or not, you can eat flesh or not, but there's a lot of room to swing out and that essentially at the end of your meal you want to ask yourself do I feel good in my body? Does this food feel good in me?

Is it kind to me? Is it mutual? Right? Look, I used to love French bread, but I got celiac. It is not a mutual love affair. Right? It's a one way street here. And so don't engage in relationships that are a one way street. Make sure your food loves you as much as you love it. And don't eat it if it doesn't, because it's not worth it.

(1:38:44.241) Ashley James: Love it. Yeah, those processed foods, it's like an abusive relationship. You love it, but it does not love you back. It hurts you. So get rid of it.

(1:38:54.397) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Exactly. Yeah, have it be mutual love affair. And within that, there's a lot of room to have differences.

(1:39:01.672) Ashley James: Yes, exactly. It's been so great having you on the show again. Remember listeners can go to fivejourneys.com/promo and get the download of the How to Feel Frickin and Fantastic Ebook that you're giving us for free and we want to stay in touch because, your big book is being released, you want to tell us just a little bit about your book that's coming out, is it early next year that it's coming out?

(1:39:30.714) Dr. Wendie Trubow: We haven't set a date yet. It's probably about this time next year.

So apparently all of our books are so far based on my messes. And so I hit perimenopause like hitting a brick wall. It was really unpleasant. And one day I was sitting in the car. It was the dead of summer. The car was off. My kids were in the car, hence the reason I wasn't swearing. And the sun is baking us. And we're waiting for my husband to get in the car. I don't know what he's doing. He pokes his head in the car and he asks me something. Actually, to this day I have no idea what he asked me because I was like the exorcist. I looked over at him and I went, do you value your life? Turn on the car. And he was like, okay. So he turned on the car. We get going, I get the air blasting, I'm cooling off and I looked at him and I'm like, Perimenopause, bitch. I'm so sweaty and bitchy. And then I was like, I guess I'm not the only one experiencing this. I think we need to write that book. That's our next book. And so the first book is Dirty Girl, which is based on my hot mess toxic breakdowns. And then the second book is about transitioning into menopause. I think our third book is going to be either about constipation or about male sexual performance, ability to get erections. We're going to go down one of those two paths. And neither of those is personal. It's more just what's on our mind. But that's the book that's coming. It's really a roadmap for navigating the perimenopause into menopause powerfully, gracefully, and with your relationships, your job, and your life intact, and not only intact, but thriving. How do you thrive that process as you go into this new phase and become your next self.

(1:41:21.387) Ashley James: Love it. Yeah. Well, I know that ED's (Erectile Dysfunction) going to be big, but I have to say constipation. If you're constipated, like everything's wrong. It's kind of like LA when there's traffic backed up or any. Name a city. Look at the highway. If the highway isn't moving, it's just gridlock like that. All the ulterior, everything that feeds into that backs up. And then there's just honking and fumes and like toxins building up, especially like think about maybe Mexico city where there's, it's kind of like a bowl or Las Vegas, it's in a bowl. There's no wind. And then if there was a ton of traffic just sitting there, all the fumes from the cars are just sitting there gathering and gathering and gathering. It's getting more and more and more toxic. And that's what constipation is.

Constipation is your body reabsorbing the toxins the liver just got rid of us absorbing everything's going wrong. We're getting that build up of all the toxins from the bad bacteria. It's the constipation feeds into the candida culture of the gut that you don't want and so it's just like everything gets backed up everything gets toxic everything gets crabby.

Then we've got brain fog, then we've got hormone disruption, and it's just like every system in the body starts failing. All the red lights in the dashboard are going. It is bad news. Like constipation, which people, they don't think it's as serious as it is. It is a big deal. So that's my vote. If I could cast a vote, I would say do the constipation one because once you get the gut corrected and get poop going three times a day, you wanna poop three times a day, well-formed poops that you don't have to strain and they're so good and clean. It's like you don't even need to wipe. Like you go to wipe and there is nothing stuck to your butt. Like that, if you can have that three times a day, everything feels like you said, you could get 70% better just by correcting these things. If you have perfect poops, 70% of everything going on in your health is gonna get better. It's amazing. So for me, my vote is for the constipation one for sure, but also I don't have ED problems in my life, so.

(1:43:36.338) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Right? I only like the title because we would call it Rise Up. That's why I want to write it because it's such a fun thing. Rise Up! All about men's ability to get erections. But no.

Yeah, I can see constipation being the big thing. So the next book is Sweaty and Bitchy, From Sex to Brain Function, Master Menopause and Feel Freaking Amazing. So that's 2024, probably around May 2024, when it takes about a year to launch a book. So we've already got it written, now we just need to edit it and make the PR plan. So about a year.

(1:44:15.302) Ashley James: So cool. Well, we'll definitely have you back on the show to talk about more about your book. Every single book, just come back, just come back every time. Love to have you. You're such a blessing and thank you so much for your wealth of knowledge. You have such a big heart and you're alongside us, having these experiences, being human. I know I've interviewed these doctors who are like, they put themselves on a pedestal like nothing's wrong with them. They're perfect. And they have perfect health and they're all telling us what to do. And you're right there with us. You're sweating. No. We're all human. We can learn from your experiences, which is beautiful. So thank you for sharing them.

(1:44:54.591) Dr. Wendie Trubow: Hey, my pleasure. I hope that this was valuable for someone, right? That it makes a difference and give them the tools to take the next step and have a transformation.

(1:45:02.327) Ashley James: Absolutely. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com and check out the show notes in today's podcast, cause we have all the links, for Dr. Wendie Trubow, including her social media. And you can jump on social media and tell her how much this helped you today.

(1:45:17.883) Wendie Trubow: Thank you, Ashley. This was great.

 

Get Connected with Dr. Wendie Trubow!

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Book by Dr. Wendie Trubow:

Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great, and Feel Freaking Amazing!

Aug 16, 2023

Check out Episode 496 about the wearable tech I talked about during the show:
https://www.learntruehealth.com/phototherapy-patches

Check out Episode 106 about becoming a health coach!
https://www.learntruehealth.com/holistic-health-coach-joshua-rosenthal

Get a free Health Coach Training sample class from IIN:
https://www.learntruehealth.com/coach

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Coupon code LTH at 
learntruehealth.com/structuredwater

 

509: Ten Steps to Radical Remission

Ashley James And Liz Curran

Liz Curran explores a transformative journey toward radical remission and spontaneous healing. Through ten crucial steps, Curran guides readers on a holistic path that encompasses emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical empowerment. She emphasizes the role of spirituality and self-advocacy in achieving well-being, underlining the interconnectedness of these elements. Curran's work underscores the profound influence of one's inner strength, belief in a higher power, and a comprehensive approach to healing. Ultimately, this engaging exploration inspires individuals to take charge of their health and well-being while embracing the powerful potential of holistic self-advocacy.

Highlights

  • Ten essential steps encompassing emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical empowerment.
  • The importance of holistic self-advocacy as a crucial element of this transformative process
  • Spirituality plays a significant role in the healing journey, highlighting the connection between faith and well-being
  • The profound impact of inner strength and belief in a higher power on one's health
  • Take control of your well-being and embrace a comprehensive approach to healing
  • Harnessing your inner potential and experiencing radical remission and spontaneous healing

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. We have an amazing guest today. I can't wait for you to dive in and listen to Liz. This is exactly what the Learn True Health podcast is about. It's about showing you that there's this quantum-level healing that's available to you.

And I know that for some people, that sounds corny, that sounds too good to be true. That sounds far-fetched or just exaggerated. There's so much proof. There's so much evidence to support the idea that we can radically change our health, that even though against what all the people in lab coats have said to you in the past, that you can shift your life in a way that allows you to have true health, no matter what your diagnosis is. Liz works with people who even have end-of-life stage, beyond stage four cancer, and they go into radical remission. They go into spontaneous healings, or they go into such a beautiful remission over several months where now it's been 10, 20 years and they're still cancer free, or they're still disease free, not just cancer. 

But, you know, people take cancer pretty seriously. It's one of those diseases where people are willing to fly to Mexico and go around the world to find what's going to help their body heal itself. And so when we look at a major diagnosis, usually we're given a death sentence by a medical professional, or we're told you might have five years or, if you do all the cut, burn, and poison stuff, you may live for five years and it's so morbid. It's such a bleak outlook. And then we have what Liz talks about today, this entire other spectrum where people are plugging themselves into information that supports their body's ability to heal themselves emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically and take their body to the next level. No matter what you've been told, take it to the next level. That's what today's episode is about. I am so excited for you to dive into this because it does take a mental shift. There is a belief system change, at least taking on the hope, expanding your awareness of what's possible. That is the first step.

Before we dive into today's episode, there are two resources and a story I wanted to share with you. I meant to share it during the interview, and it came up in my mind. The conversation kept going, and then afterward, I was like, Oh shoot. I meant to bring up this one story. It's so cool. We moved almost two years ago, but like 18 months ago, we moved to a new area, 45 minutes away from where we had been living for seven years, and a friend of mine recommended a church that I join. It's a beautiful church that believes in the body's ability to heal itself, that believes that God, the divine intervention, spontaneous healings, miracles of this whole body, this whole church believes in miracles.

And it's so cool because there are hundreds of people that come to this church, and they lay on their hands, and they pray. I'm very new to this because I was raised an Anglican, which, for those not in the UK or Canada don't know much about what Anglican is. I was raised Protestant. So it's sort of like Catholic light, and I didn't have a lot of experience with the other denominations, other types of Christian outlook. So I joined this church, and I see people jumping up and down and dancing in the aisles. And I thought, well, the energy here is amazing. It was definitely not what I was used to.

I was used to incense and Nomine Padre et Fili Espiritu Sante, you know, a very different kind of church environment. But I went with it because I was like, man, people are just on fire. They're so in love. There's so there's something there. And I remember, actually, my first experience there, I went alone, and I felt my daughter in my arms. I felt this pressure right where I'd held her because I held her for hours before the coroner took her away. And right on my left shoulder, I could feel her. And when I was in church, all of a sudden, I felt her. I felt the pressure like the baby was in my arms. I went through so much emotional healing that first month, the first four times I went to that church. Each time, especially during worship, where we're singing, it was just waves and waves of grief being released, and I just brought it all.

I brought everything that I was holding on to, and it was so, so beautiful. During that time, like 18 months ago, the early part of me just plugged into this church community. There was a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I've lost a best friend to breast cancer. I know so many people who've lost someone to breast cancer. It's a pretty big deal. I know breast cancer survivors, too. I've also been friends with them also. So, it's not a death sentence. It doesn't have to be a death sentence, but it is scary. She had a tumor, and everyone prayed for her, and she prayed, and she received a very clear; she said it was a voice from God. And He said to her, I am burning this away out of you with fire. It is gone. I burned it away with fire. And she wasn't quite sure what that meant. 

At the time, I wasn't confident that I would ever hear God's voice audibly, but I so wanted to have that same experience because some people have these phenomenal spiritual experiences, these metaphysical experiences that are so beautiful and brilliant. And then there are other people who don't. It's like, well, why do some do, and why do some don't? I think we have to take the first step and say, I want this. I want to plug into this. I want to experience this. And she threw herself in, and she goes, I have faith, God, that you'll heal me. That this is what you have for me.

So she goes to the doctor, and they want to do another scan. They're getting ready to cut her breast off or do radiation, all the stuff they're ready to do. And she goes, I don't need any of that. God told me that the tumor was gone, that he burned it away. And they're like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Right. Get an MRI.

Like just, okay, sure, sure. Get it in. Like, let's just do the scan anyway. She's like, fine. Well, I don't need to prove it to myself because I believe God did it because He said so. But I'll humor you to show you God's work. And she went, got into the machine, and they scanned her breasts, and they just had a scan. They're going to compare one month to the next month kind of thing. Or it was a recent scan that they had. And now they're checking it again. In order to do surgery, they need more of an exact, like, okay, how much has it grown? Like, where are we going to cut? And they said this is so wild. It's gone. The only thing left on the scan is something that just looks like smoke. It just looks like there's smoke there on the image. That's all that's left. There's no tumor. There are no defined lines. It just looks like smoke. And she goes, I told you, God burned it away.

Now, that was so powerful. It hit me. And I know there are people out there who don't believe in God, and I'm not here to make anyone upset. I want to give you all the information and hopefully allow you to expand your awareness of what's possible. And if a woman goes in and, you know, okay, let's, let's play the devil's advocate because I am such a doubting Thomas. Let's play the devil's advocate. And I believe that there is a God. That's my own personal belief system. I believe that there's a divine creator, and there are people who don't.

So, if you're someone who doesn't, and that's you, I honor, love, and respect everyone listening. What I want for you is I want true health. I want you to feel love. I want you to feel purpose. I want you to feel that you get to have true health no matter where you come from politically, what country you come from, what belief system you have, and whether you have religion or not. You and I are connected. We're both humans. We both breathe the same air. If we're cut, we bleed. If you hurt us, we'll cry. You and I are connected. And I love you. And I want greatness for you. I want you to have your goals. And I want you to have your health. So, regardless of whether you believe in God or not.

Let's play the devil's advocate. Let's say that there's no God. Right. And now, again, it's not my belief system. Maybe it's yours, but let's just say there's not. Does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Whether there is or isn't, she's healed. Now, is it all in her mind that she heard a voice that said to her, her tumor is gone, and now it's gone?

Does that matter? So for me, it's like some people say, well, ginger, you know, ginger is super healthy for you or turmeric is super healthy for you. And some people have these amazing miraculous healings when they, when they take ginger and turmeric and some herbs and, and then, then other people go, well, we have to have studies, and we have to have science.

I'm like that. I don't care whether it was a placebo or not for that individual. They get to go home to their family. They get to hug their kids. They get to be with their spouse like they have a new lease on life. And so their belief system shifted to a point where whatever they were doing, whether it was divine intervention in God, whether it was a placebo effect of some kind of miraculous, like a mind over matter experience, whether it was the herbs they were taking, whether all of the above, the fact that she no longer has cancer. For me, that is the end result. I want everyone to have true health. Now, at the end of the day, we know that people who have a connection to the Source, a connection to their Creator, that they are generally more fulfilled and happier in life. And so, you don't have to get involved in religion, but we do talk, at some point in this interview, we do touch on this subject.

So I just want to preface it with, I want for you to feel purpose in life and to feel fulfilled and to feel deeply, deeply loved and valued. And some people get that from their connection to God. And some people get that from their connection to nature, their connection to family. Those things are things you can't buy, but you can cultivate, and you can grow.

So we talk a bit about that. We talk about a lot of really cool things: ten steps to radical remission and spontaneous healings. We're going to dive in. Beautiful episode. Before we jump in, just one more thing. I wanted to let you know about two episodes that I mentioned in today's podcast. So, I want you guys to go back because I didn't mention the numbers during this interview.

Episode #496 is the phototherapy episode. Check that out. As part of it, we discuss something that increases glutathione by 300 percent in the first 24 hours. And it's the equivalent of a coffee a day kind of thing, the cost of a coffee a day. Whereas it's actually the cheapest way to increase glutathione in the body.

It's cheaper and more effective than any other modality. And so, that's something I feel that everyone should know about, but especially those who want radical remission. There's also a way to stimulate your body's own production of stem cells at any age by increasing several peptides that have anti-cancer properties. It's really phenomenal. I have over a hundred clients using this technology now, and we're seeing outstanding results. So, definitely check out Episode #496, and I'd love to chat with you. If you want to chat with me, we can have a free phone call. I'd love to help you. I'm a health coach. I've been doing this for 12 years now, and I am deeply passionate about helping you overcome your health issues.

You can go to learntruehealth.com, and in the menu, click on Work with Ashley James, and scroll down to the first appointment. That's the free consultation. I'd love to chat with you. You can hire me as your health coach. You don't have to. That's an option for you. You can just chat with me for free. I'm going to email you some resources and help set you on your path to health, help answer some questions for you. And you can choose to hire me or not. I'm just here to help you. The last thing is, Episode #106. This is a few years ago episode, going all the way back to Episode #106 with Joshua Rosenthal. He's the founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. which is IIN, and they do the world's biggest and longest and most popular and most thorough online health coach training program. They have a 6-month program. They have a 12-month program. Deepak Chopra has now become a part of it. He's now a business owner with Joshua Rosenthal, and that together, they have even revamped the health coach training program since I took it, and they've added a lot more. It's a wonderfully transformative year. If you do it in a year, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes a day. You can do it while you're driving. You don't have to sit down at a desk, so it's designed for very busy people. But if you want to get it done sooner, you can do their year-long program, which is about an hour a day. And I'd love for you to check out the free course. They give you a sample course. Go to learntruehealth.com/coach. So if you have any interest at all in health coach training programs, or just want to look into it, see about it, check it out.

I negotiated years ago, back when I interviewed Joshua Rosenthal. I got them to agree to give a really big discount to my listeners and they honor that. So when you give them a call to sign up, make sure you mention Ashley James and the Learn True Health podcast because I get a great discount for you guys. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this episode and all of my episodes with those you care about, especially this episode with your friends and family who are concerned about overcoming major illnesses and getting their health to the next level. Enjoy today's episode. 

[0:14:21.6] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #509.

I am so excited for today's guest. We have on the show, Liz Curran from radicalremission.com. I can't wait to dive in. This is such a juicy subject. I pretty much feel like all my listeners want radical remission. So before we even just dive in, Liz, can you give us that definition of what radical remission is? 

[0:14:56.6] Liz Curran: I absolutely can. So a radical remission is, there are three points. The first one is someone that heals without conventional treatment. The second one is someone who first tries conventional treatment, which does not lead to a remission, so they try an alternative treatment, which does lead to a remission. And then the third one is, that someone that uses a combination of conventional and alternative treatments at the same time in order to outlive a dire prognosis that is less than 25% five year survival rate.

[0:15:39.1] Ashley James: So for radicalremission.com, is that talking specifically about cancer and other major diseases? Or are we also covering things like remission from alcohol, from addiction or remission from emotional trauma? Does it cover all of health — mental, emotional, spiritual, physical? Or are we just talking about physical disease?

[0:16:04.5] Liz Curran: Absolutely, we believe that these concepts, these ten healing factors that we'll share are for everyone. They encompass the mind, body, and spirit. So, anyone that is looking to heal from situations where they're kind of in a dire diagnosis of sorts, or even people who, the research for radical remission, that is the foundation for the Radical Remission Project was done on cancer patients. So, a lot of times, people will think radical remission is applicable only to that. We have another book that came out in 2020 called Radical Hope that opens up these healing factors to people who have life-altering diagnoses. And as we'll share in my personal story, my sister passed away from a very aggressive cancer. And because of her situation, I practice these from a preventative place. So I'm what you call a previvor. 

[0:17:25.7] Ashley James: Oh my goodness. I think everyone's ears are perked up. I feel like you're talking to everyone. Absolutely, everyone either has something they want to overcome that maybe a doctor has said, well, you're just going to have this for the rest of your life, or you just have this cause it's genetic or because your mom had it, or because of the color of your skin, or whatever. We're told so many lies by the medical establishment, and I feel that individual doctors have their hearts in the right place, but their training has brainwashed them to tell us that we can't heal ourselves and that we're stuck with a problem that needs a drug. I believe that drugs have their place, but I think 90% of the time we're misusing them when we need to look at

the body as a whole, our life as a whole, and that we can heal. And I love the more that we listen to radical remission stories, the more it builds our hope, and we realize that, yes, my body can heal itself, and it begins to build that hope and that vision in our mind, and we see time and time again in studies that that placebo effect — again, I'm not saying that natural medicine is a fake thing — but I'm saying that your belief system, how many books have been written on the belief system overcoming medical things and having wonderful remissions. So, of course, there's that mind-body connection. Of course, we can build that hope inside us, build that vision and that we can seek out natural remedies to support our body's ability to heal ourselves. And so I think you've touched, you've just talked to all the listeners because either they want to overcome something or they have a dear loved one in their life that can overcome something. Type 2 diabetes is a hundred percent recoverable easily. I help people all the time recover from Type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes can be helped so much that they can become so healthy and live such a long, healthy life. It's not about not having Type 1, it's about how good we can get our health, and they're told they can't. But there's so much out there in the holistic space that lets them build their health. So I'm just thinking about all the different diagnoses that, if we listen to the medical establishment, we're told we just can't heal. And that's not the case. Time and time again, it's not the case. We can heal ourselves. So Liz, I'm so excited for what you're doing. I'm so excited for your podcast. It's going to be launched soon, in the fall time. Hearing the radical remission stories — I have a feeling I'm going to listen to that show and just cry every episode. 

[0:20:16.6] Liz Curran: Well, one of the original missions of Radical Remission when the information was first being brought out was to make sure that we could share as many healing stories as possible for people who've overcome the odds of their diagnosis. So it's really making sure that people know that whether you're using treatment or you're not using treatment specifically around cancer, but in general, knowing that, again, the body has the ability to heal. As I'll share these ten healing factors from this research, it really gives people the tools that they need so that they can begin to take the reins and find their own way to healing with or without the aid of their practitioners, depending on who they feel is going to have a seat at the table.

[0:21:11.0] Ashley James: Love it. Liz, we definitely want to jump into those 10 steps. We definitely want to leave the listener with some meat. Some tangible stuff that they can start to shift their life and their hope and their health today. Before we do that, I want to jump into your story, though, because I'm really curious how you came about finding radical remission, and I hear you have your own radical remission story.

[0:21:40.5] Liz Curran: Well, I guess it all started back in 2014. My sister was diagnosed with a very rare, very aggressive breast cancer and went through the typical conventional path of chemo mastectomy radiation. And on the last day of her 30 days of radiation, she had back pain, so they gave her a scan and they found the cancer was throughout her whole body. So that was the last thing we expected and the last thing we wanted. So, that was a really hard time. And during her treatment, I really went deep into kind of like, you know, some people go into an addiction of sorts. I went into an addiction to health. I went into diet change and learning about meditation and stress reduction and anxiety reduction just for my own personal sanity. And after she passed, almost not quite even a year after she was diagnosed, I had all this information and these tools that really helped me get through, obviously, the most difficult point in my life at that point. It was really powerful for me to be able to go into health coaching and begin to share the different things that I had learned. At the same time, a couple of years after my sister passed away, a neighbor of mine was diagnosed with basically an untreatable cancer and she was 35. She had a four and five-year-old, and they basically told her that chemo would buy her time, but it wouldn't be a high quality of life, and it would not be curative.

So, as she said, she's extremely religious, a very powerful Christian. So she followed her belief system, and with nothing else to lose, she ended up going to Mexico to be treated for her cancer at a healing center with an integrative approach in Mexico. Within three months of her trip to Mexico, her tumors had reduced 50%. By six months from her first visit, it didn't even show up on a scan. There was nothing to be shown. So that was a huge wake-up call. She was shocked. We were shocked. We were thrilled. Unfortunately, during that process, we realized how very expensive getting that treatment was and how that was kind of unfair and we didn't believe that people should have to lose everything just to be able to live based on a diagnosis. So, a group of our neighbors and friends created a nonprofit at the time to help fundraise for people who were seeking treatment for cancer that was not covered by health insurance. 

So that's actually the very long version of how I found Radical Remission because it was through that work in the nonprofit that I was introduced to a dear friend of mine now, John, who was a Radical Remission survivor at that time. And so he introduced me to the book and to the Radical Remission project and told me that there was a training and as a health coach, I was a practicing health coach at the time but had not been working in the cancer realm, found that those ten healing factors were the roadmap that people needed, regardless of cancer, but just for any old health coach to use, so these great tools to guide people to a full body healing. Like you said, that mind, body and spirit approach. 

[0:26:01.2] Ashley James: What's the name of the nonprofit? 

[0:26:05.0] Liz Curran: Well, it just retired this year, but it was called Heal Thy Life. And it's spelled healthy life with a little spin on a capital T and healthy. So we always loved that Heal Thy Life kind of embodied our friend, Sharon, on her journey that was just an incredible inspiration to everyone that knew her in our area, just kind of a local celebrity for choosing that path to healing and finding so much success in it. So it was very pivotal for me in my approach to healing and approach to life really. And so once I knew of that, it kind of lit a fire in me that I never wanted anyone to go through what my sister had gone through without having all of the information because, had she had the information, she may have had more time.

[0:27:03.9] Ashley James: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've lost my mom to cancer, and I lost one of my best friends. And she started out the natural way. And then she stopped the growth of the tumors, but the tumor remained. Actually, it's just one tumor at the time. It just sat there, but it stopped. It was very aggressive, but she was able to get it to stop growing. And then she ran out of money and she had fundraised $50,000. She'd been to Mexico, just everything. And she had lost a bunch of weight in a good way because she was juicing and eating super clean, and she was doing everything right. But she ran out of funds. She couldn't buy any more of the supplements or the juice or anything. And then she talked to a naturopath. He's like, well, we need a killing agent. So, if you don't have the money for it, go for very light levels of chemotherapy, which is metronomic chemotherapy, where they do small amounts each week instead of these giant boluses. And very quickly, because she coupled that with still juicing, still fasting, the intermittent fasting, all this. And it went 100 percent away. It was gone. But then, this is where I wished, and I begged her to just stop, reevaluate, and build her health back. It's just gone. It's not on any scans. Just please, please, please trust the process. Your body has overcome it. Trust the process. And the chemo dealer, the doctor said to her, now you have to go for radiation because if you don't, it's going to come back and you're going to be wiped out. Well, that's where everything went downhill.

I once heard one of my mentors say that one of his clients said, never get radiation. There's a hole in my body that will not close and will not heal because of it. Now I'm not saying that you can't just say a blanket statement about everything, but I have not personally met someone where they had a positive like, oh yeah, radiation totally helped. I feel amazing. And my health is a hundred percent, you know, five years later. She ended up having, within the first treatment, it caused radiation scars on her lungs. And then everything went downhill from there, and she died a few months later. And the day she was in the hospital in a coma, the oncologist, the same oncologist called and said, when are you coming in for your next round of chemo? Like, come on, we got to get you back in. We got to get you back in. And I'm like, two minutes later, she died. We called them the whole time, saying, hey, she's in the hospital. It's getting worse. It's getting worse. And it was so painful because if we had just had more money. And that should not be a choice. That should not be the reason why someone suffers and dies and leaves their seven-year-old son alone. Right. And she cried and cried because she lost her dad when she was really young and she just didn't want to leave her son with the same as she loved him so much.

So the fact that we're given a wellness model that is like, if you're not a millionaire, go suck an egg. So that's why I was really touched by the charity that you guys built. And I'm so grateful for crowdfunding because we can get together and help each other. But there needs to be a better way. And I hope that what you're doing can inspire people, can inspire listeners, that together, we can figure out a way to help each other. And I just hope that the podcast that you do reaches the right person. That starts a movement. That makes it more affordable for all — I hate the word alternative care because it's like, well, this care is better — but we're going to call it alternative. It's secondary. Oh my goodness. Well, Liz, so since meeting John and being introduced to Radical Remission and beginning to work with these ten steps with your clients, what kind of changes have you seen in your own personal health? 

[0:31:17.2] Liz Curran: Well, I say that these factors brought me out of my grief. That's really how I feel. Like, they helped me with my mental and spiritual self at that really difficult time. What happens a lot of times when people don't know of the healing factors, but find their own version of healing, which I expect that you'll see the same when you see them or hear them, that people see that they've been doing these steps just intuitively. And that's exactly what happened for me. If you'd like, I can share a couple of the healing factors if you'd like for me to, as I share my story. 

[0:32:03.1] Ashley James: Is this part of the 10 steps? 

[0:32:03.8] Liz Curran: Yes. 

[0:32:04.5] Ashley James: Okay, well, okay, fine. Let's just jump in right now. 

[0:32:08.6] Liz Curran: Do you want to keep teasing them? 

[0:32:09.6] Ashley James: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to string them along for a bit. Now, you graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a health coach. And then later on, you've been studying the radical remission ways and became a coach with them. This is what I love about health coaching. It's not like one and done. Well, I mean, I guess some people could do that, but most health coaches, they're growing constantly, ongoingly taking on, bringing new tools and under the tool belt to aid their clients in the best possible health, emotional, mental, spiritual, physical. We're not like, well, you got to drink your eight glasses of water and go for a walk, like, see you next week. It's so much more than that. It's so custom tailored to each person and their unique needs. And we help them build their health based on what they want and help them. And usually, clients will come and tell you where their problems are. Like, listen, I have a really hard time with this and I really want to overcome that. And you're like, okay, let's work on it. And it's so beautiful because we pull the solutions out of them and help them take charge of their health to where it's easy. Now we take it from being hard to be easy, and then we help them master it.

And so I love the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is where we both graduated from, surprisingly. I have a feeling we graduated at the same time because I started the podcast when I graduated. I have to go back and look because it's been so long. But I think we might have graduated at the same time because I know I started it soon after the podcast. So that's really cool that we probably did at the same time and IIN has transformed so much since then. They have Deepak Chopra with all of his courses added to it. They have a lot more that's going on. And listeners who are inspired by Liz and would love to become a health coach, either just for their own personal growth, about 50 percent of people that graduate from IIN do it just for their own personal growth so that they can help their friends and family and themselves. But if you want to either add this to your tool belt because you're a practitioner or you want to just experience this wonderful transformative year of being focused on health, check out learntruehealth.com/coach that gives you a free sample class. So you can get some feel for what it's like. And then also listeners, if you have any questions at all about it, I would love to share my personal experience or answer your questions about the program. I'm such a huge advocate of the IIN's program because I see that it really helps people get that full picture of how they can support their body mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

So, okay, let's jump in. Let's jump into the ten steps to radical remission. 

[0:35:08.0] Liz Curran: Okay, now before I do, I'm going to explain a little bit about how they came to be, because I think that really sets the stage. So Kelly Turner was a PhD student from Cal Berkeley back in — I don't even know how many years ago now, at least almost 20 years ago.

And she was an oncology social worker at the time and decided to go back for her PhD to study spontaneous remissions because she did not know why no one else was researching them and felt that there was a lot that could be learned from. They're healing and what it is that they did, and I don't think she really knew what she was going to find out.

So she traveled the world. She was sponsored by the American Cancer Society, and she traveled all over the world to interview radical remission survivors and their healers so that she could figure out what it is that they did on their healing journey. And what she found was there were over 75 different factors that came up in the research on what these people did. But after researching 1,500 plus cases of these spontaneous remissions, she found 10 things that they all did. So all the people that were researched — live interviews versus also medical journals and whatnot — she was able to conclude ten factors that they all did, and those are what we refer to as the radical remission healing factors. And so I can happily share what they are.

They fall into three categories. One is physical. To no surprise, you will hear about movement and exercise being one factor, changing your diet and taking herbs and supplements from a licensed practitioner. And those are, out of the 10, those are the only three physical factors and probably the ones may be more familiar to people than the others as a healing modality. Truly each of these factors, it can be supported and is supported. We do a workshop called the radical remission workshop. And in the workshop, we talk about each factor, how it came up in the research and then peer reviewed scientific research that backs it up. And then we share a healing story of someone who changed their healing path with that factor as one of the leads. And then we do an activity in the workshop to help people figure out how to implement that into their own life. So the three physical — diet, exercise, and taking herbs and supplements — those are the physical and then the rest are emotional and spiritual. So we have one that sounds very familiar to what the kinds of things you've been talking about today so far called empowering yourself. And empowering yourself from a radical remission survivor perspective is really someone who we might think of as a typical difficult patient. So someone who's trying to ask questions and understand the medicines that they're going to be taking and maybe finding their own research and bringing it to their doctor, finding second, third, fourth opinions, different kinds of practitioners and healers that they want to have on their team. But really someone who is taking the reins and being the CEO of their own health and making sure that they are really, mindfully adding practitioners and ones that they feel really aligned with in their healing. 

[0:38:53.4] Ashley James: I love that you said difficult patients, because like it's called self-advocacy, right? Advocating for yourself. And my friend who I talked about, she brought me, and sometimes it was my husband and I, who would attend all of her appointments. She got second and third opinions from doctors and naturopaths and all kinds of practitioners that are not in the same network, because you don't want to go to Dr. A and then walk down the hall to Dr. B. They work under the same roof. They're in the same network. They're, of course, going to agree with each other. And she had a huge binder she built. And I feel like that even intimidated the doctors. She walked in with her very well organized binder with all of her labs, all of her scans, all of the notes. And she collected data and she researched, and she was so thorough with all of it. And then she always had someone with her, and we always recorded each appointment. This ensured that they wouldn't belittle her, talk down to her, brush her off, or start urging her to go to start chemo tomorrow, because they tried to do that. And my husband stood up, he wasn't being intimidating, but this woman started speaking fear into my friend. My friend had a golf ball-sized tumor, nothing else. It wasn't stage four yet. And this woman was like, we have to get a port in today and we're going to start chemo tomorrow. And this was her first appointment. She hadn't gotten any other second opinion, third opinion.

And it was just rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. And that's what they do. They try to fear you. And, of course, we want to do things in a timely manner. We also want to take a step back and really evaluate and collect data. And my husband stood up and said, if our friend follows through and you guys miraculously picked the right chemotherapy — because they weren't going to do any kind of testing to figure out which one was the right one — and let's say it goes away, what are the side effects of your chemotherapy? Tell us all the side effects, and will it cause cancer? And she said, yes, even in the best of cases, two percent of people. Oh, it's like she goes, only 2 percent of people will develop leukemia from getting this. And my husband was just blown away. He goes, no, no, no, no. That's not “only” two percent. Two percent is two people out of a hundred. That's a lot. That's not small. That's not like an insignificant thing. And they give chemo to tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Just think about how many leukemias they've created. That's just a cash cow. 

So anyways, this idea of self-advocacy, sometimes it's also like grabbing a friend, making sure that you're heard, and making sure that there's someone else that's also taking notes. That was so impressive that you do not need to be alone. My mom was so ashamed that she got cancer. She didn't tell any of her friends till she died. And everyone was shocked at her funeral because she had so many friends. She was surrounded by all these women that were in tears thinking, I could have been there for my friend, but she never even let me in. And it's just, my mom felt such shame and guilt. And I didn't understand that. Your friends want to be there for you. And yet, when we're the ones sick, we think, oh, we don't want to be a burden on someone. 

[0:42:34.7] Liz Curran: Yes, exactly. And actually, one of the healing factors is increasing social support. Because having that social support system in place — and in our workshop, we'll talk about how there's two kinds — there's giving love and there's receiving love. And giving always feels a little bit easier to be the one that's offering the help, but it's equally important to receive, if not more so sometimes, to be willing to ask for the tap back into those people that you've been there for that want to be there for you.

And I always suggest this to people when we're working together on this factor, specifically. If your best friend were to ask you to do something for them, would you think they were a burden? And I'm pretty sure most people would say no. And in fact, the joy that people get from helping others that they love, that is what we really want people to focus on. Think about it as a gift that you're both receiving. They get to help you and you get helped and it's really important for people to realize that having people, even just the little things like, hey, can you bring in my mail for me? Something as small as that. But that is a person that's going to cross your path that day that wouldn't have otherwise. And with that path crossing, you're going to have a conversation, and you're going to maybe find out what they did today, and they're going to talk to you a little bit, and then the conversation becomes something that may have nothing to do with your disease, your depression, your fear. It's a way for you to kind of get outside of your head and feel supported and feel the love from some people that are in your support system.

And like your mom's point, there's a lot of emotions around it. So I feel like that social support has varied tremendously from person to person. It's just as individual as a diet might be. Some people only want their spouse to know, and they will never tell anybody at work, and they don't want anyone to know. And then you have somebody else, the next person might say, oh, yeah, I'm on every possible Facebook page, every social media outlet. I'm sharing my story. I have a blog. I have this, that, and the other. So there is such a spectrum of people's comfort in sharing and giving and receiving that social support that it really is very personal. And it's important to respect that perspective because you don't want to push somebody that really doesn't want that to be something that they identify as.

[0:45:16.2] Ashley James: Right, exactly. Benjamin Franklin figured something out. I read this years ago and it fascinated me that there was a politician who they sort of butted heads. I think one was on one side, one was on the other. And he went over to his office and he asked to borrow a book and he didn't need the book, but he just seemed interested in the book and asked to borrow it. And he was doing this experiment and what he saw was, we often think that when we do favors for other people that that makes them like us, but it's the opposite that is even more true. That when we ask for favors, it's something in the brain that makes the person who's giving the favor like the person they're helping even more. It gains more rapport because, of course, you're doing something good for someone. It's like you wouldn't do something good for someone that you didn't like. And so he ended up turning that around to a really good friendship after a while of borrowing his books and asking for favors he either needed or didn't need just to build that rapport and that trust. So when we're sitting there worried that we're going to be this burden, it's actually like you said, that gift of giving to someone else. They become more invested in you and your health and your well-being, and they feel so good doing it. So you're giving them that gift of feeling so good, being part of someone else. So we really like stepping outside of ourselves and helping other people. It's also very cathartic for those around you. So you're not just asking for healing for yourself. You're actually helping your community heal. 

[0:46:44.1] Liz Curran: Yeah, it's pretty powerful that the power of connection, the science research that we share, which on this specific factor, social support and having the right social support is more powerful for your healing than not drinking, not eating junk food and not smoking. So combined. So, if you have a really good social support system, then that trumps all those other attributes that are also important. But imagine if you can do that with social support. It's just exponentially more healing. 

[0:47:20.3] Ashley James: This makes complete sense. I interviewed Dr. Alan Christianson, I think three or four times. He's a really interesting doctor, a naturopathic endocrinologist, and he cites a very large study. They did this nurse's study. I apologize, I don't remember the exact details, because this interview was about two years ago. But listeners can go search Dr. Alan Christianson on the learntruehealth.com and find it. It was my most recent episode with him, but he talked about this study and he also talks about it in his book, The Adrenal Health Recovery book. But he talks about how they looked at the factors of overall health and they followed people to their death, basically. They followed people from adulthood all the way to when they passed away. And they looked at what were the most important factors, and you would think not smoking would be the number one, but it wasn't. And that was really interesting that number one had to do with your stress levels. It's like, for example, not having social support is a high stressor. And when you have social support, it lowers your stress levels, just like getting enough sleep, that kind of thing. But it makes so much sense. So those people that live to be 110 years old down in the South and the reporter goes on their porch and asks them what they've done their whole life, and you're thinking they eat kale. And they say, well, I make sure I drink a whiskey and I definitely smoke a cigar. Those people probably have this wonderful support system of this very rich social network. 

[0:49:03.1] Liz Curran: Right, yeah. It's kind of proven in the blue zone theory. So those people that are most often centenarians are over 100 years old. And what do they do? A lot of times, people will research that and those people and what they do. And it's not that they're not drinking and smoking. It's that they have that social connection and that bond. They feel included, that they belong. And all of those things are just their innate things that we need as human beings.

[0:49:35.3] Ashley James: It's probably why women live longer than men. 

[0:49:38.0] Liz Curran: We're social creatures. 

[0:49:39.6] Ashley James: Yeah, because, I mean, God forbid, if I passed away — knock on my Sunlighten sauna sitting beside me — my husband, I don't know what he would do. And I'm his liaison to all social things. He would probably just crawl into a cave. Hopefully not. But I just see women definitely live longer than men. For the most part, we're also just wired to be more social generally and build networks and build connections and help each other. 

[0:50:15.9] Liz Curran: All right. You want some more? 

[0:50:16.9] Ashley James: Yes. I want some more. Give it to us. 

[0:50:18.3] Liz Curran: Okay. All right. So, releasing suppressed emotions is one of them, which is where we put in stress, anxiety, depression, those kinds of emotions that get stuck in our bodies. And we counterpoint that with increasing positive emotions. So not only is it important to release the traumas and things that kind of get stuck in us emotionally, and not just push it down, but to release it. It's also very important to increase the positivity in our lives every day. And the Radical Remission Survivor interviews defined increasing positive emotions as something that was like a muscle that needed to be worked. And it was something that they needed to do at least five minutes a day and grow from there to as much time as they could throughout their day.

And again, very personal to each person, but the research is really impressive when you look at the cancer research on increasing positivity. So there are research studies that show that when someone is in chemotherapy, they did a study where half the people doing chemo were just told to go about their business, do their usual routine. And the other half was shown comedy. And then, as they followed those in the study, they found that those who watched comedy during their treatments, the treatments were more effective. The side effects were lower. They had a higher quality of life and longevity. And that's just simply from the power of positivity and joy and laughter and finding that within. So that's really powerful. Both of those are really kind of that emotional component to those factors. 

[0:52:15.0] Ashley James: Love it. 

[0:52:17.8] Liz Curran: The next one I will share is spiritual connection. This one doesn't tie to a specific religion. It's really just making sure that people realize the power of believing in something greater than themselves, whether that's standing overlooking the Grand Canyon and having awe of nature, or feeling connected to someone that's passed away. There are ways to tap into spiritual connection that don't revolve around religion, and it's important to have some kind of connection. Again, it doesn't matter what it is. It just matters that they had one. 

[0:53:01.1] Ashley James: And if you find significance in a religion, run with it.

[0:53:06.2] Liz Curran: Oh, absolutely. Yes. 

[0:53:08.7] Ashley James: It's whatever connection you have to the Source.

[0:53:11.4] Liz Curran: Yes. Exactly. 

[0:53:11.4] Ashley James: In the Bible alone, there are so many names for God. Like we don't need to get hung up on a name. It's an intimate and beautiful relationship you have to this connection we have to our creator. And what I love is the more I look into the science of the universe, the more it becomes irrefutable that there's a divine intelligence behind it. Chaos does not create life. We've never observed chaos and randomness creating life, right? And when we look deeper and deeper into life, we see that there's so much organization, but there's something behind the veil happening in the background. And it's that beautiful belief that we are connecting. We're part of something greater, and there's a purpose for us. That is what I want you to have. I want you to have that feeling that you've been created and divinely created for a purpose, and that you matter. 

[0:54:13.4] Liz Curran: Yes. Yes. And that also helps propel that desire to be here on this planet and gives us the essence of hope. If you don't have a belief that there's something greater out there, it probably would be very difficult to find hope from within to believe that you can heal. 

[0:54:32.8] Ashley James: I personally am Christian, and I lost my daughter two years ago. Some people turn away from God when tragedy happens, and I felt Him so strongly in my life. I don't know the grand scheme of things. You know what I mean? I believe I had this belief that everything happens for a reason. I don't know what the reason is for losing her, but I believe I will see her again one day. And God has a plan for me, and I trust God. And we put that on her gravestone. We put, “Trust God.” That was my husband who said that. I said, what do you want on her? We were planning it out. And he never grew up in religion. He just always believed that there's something out there. There's something greater, that we're connected somehow. And after she died, we both felt the Holy Spirit. We both felt God just hugging us and comforting us. And we turned to each other and he goes, I've never felt this before. He goes, I feel him. I feel like I feel God's presence, like just trying to comfort us. And so he said, I want to say, “Trust God” on her gravestone.

She's buried in a child cemetery. I weep every time I go there just for all the other moms, just because these babies were loved. Just loved so much and are loved for the rest of the parents lives. And so they're not forgotten. And so you don't have to be a Christian, but if you are, then I just want to say that God loves you. He loves you regardless of whether you're Christian or not. I just know, God has love to tap into. There's a divine love to tap into. And as a side note, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I'm Canadian, so I'm very polite. But there was a bumper sticker that made me laugh out loud. My son came running around the car and he's like, what? And I just couldn't stop laughing. There's a bumper sticker at our church on one of the cars that said, “It's okay. God doesn't believe in atheists either.” And so, a lot of people have been turned off by religion because of man-made corruption. It really hurts people's intimate connections with the Source, with creation. 

So it's not about joining yourself to something that you don't align with. It's just about you and God. It doesn't have to be anything in between you and God. It doesn't have to be a building. It doesn't have to be a person. It doesn't have to be an ideology, but just sit down with God. And just say, okay, show yourself. Increase your presence in my life so that I can know you're here for me. So I can know that I am part of something, and that opens up so much. It's really cool. He's a gentleman. This isn't about like, obviously God doesn't have a genitalia, like people get all hung up on he or she. My pastor says, God is a gentleman and he will wait to be invited in, so just ask. But it's really beautiful, and for me, I don't care what religion people join. I want them to have a personal experience of God's love for them. I think that opens the doorway for so much for that person. 

[0:58:08.8] Liz Curran: Yeah, and I think that as people who are in a situation with a really heavy diagnosis, one of the other factors is to follow your intuition. And I feel what you're saying about the spiritual connection. Similarly, the way that intuition has presented in the research is that once something really big has happened to you, that will change how you view life, whether it's grief or a diagnosis. For me, my loss brought an intense validation of spiritual connection that I will never lose. And I'm grateful that that was a silver lining that can come out of something that is so difficult. And having that personal belief, and having that spiritual connection, was really powerful for part of my healing and through my grief and acceptance of my loss. And what's interesting is that a lot in the research, the following your intuition is another factor. And what Dr. Turner's interviews, they shared that some people would actually start hearing voices when they received the information that they had a cancer diagnosis, and to the point where they thought they were going crazy. They really just could not believe that they were hearing something inside speak to them. And there's a lot to be said for when your brain your mind, and your body all have this physical shift together. Things get shaken up, and you might find a spiritual connection that you may not have had before. You may find an easier way to tap into your intuition, whether it's through voice or through dreams or through guided journaling and meditation. There are lots of different ways to connect with that intuitive part. But just the way I see it, like spiritual connection, those things can birth from a big life change.

[1:00:26.2] Ashley James: I love it, and listening to that soft, steel voice — and for me, intuition is always the first thing that comes. It's always the first voice. It's not as loud as the objections because that's your logic brain going, what is cancer? Like, you wake up in the morning and it's sunny outside, and this little voice says bring an umbrella, and then you're like, why do I need an umbrella? I don't need an umbrella. It's sunny outside. And I talk myself out of this little voice. and the voice doesn't fight back. It's just a suggestion. That's why I said God is a gentleman. You know what I mean? He's just so you know, this, and you're like, well, I don't need that. And then of course we're outside, and it starts raining, and we're like, oh, that's why my intuition said bring an umbrella. 

We often will argue or dispute the little voice, the intuition. And so, instead, we need to learn to slow down. Even just prayer, meditation, or just sitting with yourself — it doesn't have to be for long periods of time to sit with yourself. Take some five slow, deep breaths, focusing on your gut, focusing on the tension, and releasing the tension in your body, and just listen and be with yourself. Then ask yourself, okay, what do I feel? How do I feel about this decision? How do I feel about this information? And slow things down so you can hear. The first thing that happens is usually intuition. Slow it down and take it seriously instead of disregarding it. Because that's what the logic brain loves to do, to just squash the intuition. So I always kick myself 'cause I'm like, oh man, like, looking back, I'm like, I knew I should have done this, but I just overrode the intuition. 

[1:02:05.3] Liz Curran: Yeah, yeah, and that's easy to do. I mean, a lot of things can be really loud in people's heads. It depends on the person, obviously, but that's something that we work on with our clients and in our workshop. It is kind of teaching people that that is a scientific part of our body and that your intuition does exist. Also, like increasing positive emotions, it needs to be a muscle that we work so that we keep it present. And little ways that you can test stuff like that or to work the muscle would be if you're standing outside of two elevator doors, which one's going to open first. Or if your phone rings, or you get a ding that you have a message, take a pause and try to just in your gut, who do you think it is. There's little tiny ways that we can try to tap into the unknown without aid. 

[1:03:06.9] Ashley James: Love it. 

[1:03:07.3] Liz Curran: Yeah. And then we only have one factor left. It is having strong reasons for living, which, in other words, is the purpose. So, that is a really incredibly powerful factor and came up very clearly in the research that everybody needed to have a reason to be here, whether it was something little like they're not going to go anywhere until they get the scrapbook finished for their grandchild. Or they want to walk somebody down the aisle, or they have a mental note. 

I actually had a client fairly recently who talked about how all they wanted when they were diagnosed was to see their kids graduate from high school. And they started crying and crying. And I thought that's great. Their kids are going to high school now, or I guess when their kids are graduating high school. And she was like, but my kids are graduating high school now, as if she was about to expire because that was happening. And it was like, well, you just need to reset that goal, that's all. You're still going to be here, and there was no reason to assume that things had changed physically just because that monumental moment had finally come. She had made that achievement, and she just needed to set the sights a little further. 

[1:04:32.6] Ashley James: When you set up a timed goal, or a goal that's like by September 1st or by March 1st next year. When you say a timed goal, at 85% of the way towards your goal, create a new goal. We are driven by that momentum. We are driven by two things: the away from — so moving away from what we don't want — and moving towards what we do want. As we get close, like a train coming to the train station, it slows down. It's like, okay, I'm approaching my goal. I guess I'm slowing down. So we have to pick up the goal and throw it further down the timeline. We don't want to always focus on what we don't want to have, because that motivation fades the further we get away from what we don't have. Those are people who kind of bounce off zero, or they bounce off rock bottom because they're only focusing on what they don't want to have happened. They have to use what they don't want to launch them to, like, ‘I don't want to die of cancer. Okay, good. Let's get to work. And then it's like the bigger thing is they need to see the future. They need to see themselves a year, five years, ten years in the future, and have those visualizations of the goal. But always pick up the goals at 85% there and throw it further into the future and keep moving towards that.

[1:05:54.4] Liz Curran: I love that. It's a really good point. With the strong reasons for living, we define that a lot of times as being the opposite of depression. So because depression is defined by not having a will to live, so to your point of making sure that you continue to have something down the road, whether you have to push your goal back or go back or reset a goal or have a new target. You always want to have the reason that you want to be here, being bigger than the fear. So, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to die from cancer. Okay. Well, we don't want that, but what do you want? So trying to have that mindset switch of trying to think positively and setting, manifesting out there, putting in a lot of traction, whatever you want to call it. But what do you want to happen as opposed to fearing what you don't want to happen? 

[1:06:51.6] Ashley James: Exactly. Love it. So how long is radicalremission.com? Like these workshops and these books? How long has this been a movement? 

[1:07:03.2] Liz Curran: So Radical Remission, the first book came out in 2014. 

[1:07:07.9] Ashley James: Okay, yeah. You said that. Sorry. So it's been around the block, but it's not ancient. It's based on all the science. But it's been around long enough to prove itself, right? 

[1:07:20.5] Liz Curran: Oh yeah. There's lots and lots of healing stories on social media or in the newsletter every month. There's another healing story that's being shared. And that's what we're hoping to get from the podcast. It's for people to be able to hear the voices of these people with incredible healing from late-stage cancers. And that's something that's been really important to me after working with these incredible people, these human beings that we cross paths with and really sharing that cancer does not equal death sentence. And even if you have a metastatic diagnosis, that does not mean that that is something that you're going to have to have the rest of your life. There are so many amazing things that can happen and changes that you can make to improve your quality of life and your longevity. And I really can't wait to share the stories of people that are years out of their terminal diagnosis and thriving and just living such cool, incredible lives that I can't wait to share those. 

[1:08:28.5] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. Do you have any right now you could share? 

[1:08:32.4] Liz Curran: Stories?

[1:08:32.8] Ashley James: Yeah. 

[1:08:33.9] Liz Curran: Oh yeah. I have all kinds of stories. 

[1:08:36.9] Ashley James: I only want to hear ones that made you cry.

[1:08:40.9] Liz Curran: Oh interesting. Well, I'll tell you one that I think I always tend to default to the story because this guy's just an incredibly inspirational man and a friend now, a colleague. He's a radical remission coach now, but he is somebody who has two different kinds of cancer naturally, through the wild. Maybe a great future podcast guest for you. His name is Dean Hall, and he has a book just put out called The Wild Cure, and he has healed himself. He wanted to prove to the world that late-stage cancer patients could still have a life. So we're very aligned in that mission. This was years ago, when he had leukemia and lymphoma, when he had set a goal to make history by swimming the length of the Willamette River in Oregon. He put everything in place to do the swim over the course of a few weeks or a couple of weeks. And during his swim, he would go into hypothermia multiple times throughout this swim, and he had to shake off his coldness. He can't feel his extremities again before he would pop back into the water. At the end of his swim, after he's done, he makes history swimming the length of this river. I think it's like 183 miles or so.

[1:10:23.9] Ashley James: 187, I just looked it up.

[1:10:28.1] Liz Curran: And he ended up curing his leukemia with hypothermia. 

[1:10:32.4] Ashley James: Oh my God, I love it. 

[1:10:34.8] Liz Curran: Yeah. And so, I'll leave you with that being as to how he cured one of his cancers. But he did cure his other cancer also through nature, and he's an incredible story. The book's outlines — it's kind of a cool book the way that it's positioned because it's all the different interviews with the people that were part of that swim in different perspectives. So, it's a really cool approach to sharing the story in writing. So, Dean will share his story in our podcast. But I'm sure if you reach out to him, he may share his story with you as well.

[1:11:12.8] Ashley James: Oh I'll get his story. Don't worry about that.

[1:11:19.1] Liz Curran: He's a great guy with a great story and really just a great soul. He really has a beautiful energy about him in the way he shares his story. So I will say he is one. And then, of course, I got to throw it out to my business partner, Carla. She and I worked together virtually. I'm in New Jersey, and she's in the Chicago area, and she is seven years in remission or no evidence of disease from metastatic breast cancer. Through all of her radical remission, healing factor usage, and finding her way to healing, she, too, is someone who continues to just inspire me all the time with her ease at just having moved on from such a big thing in her life, and embracing every single minute with joy and interest. And she's just a very passionate person. So, she's another really great person to share her story. 

[1:12:29.4] Ashley James: Cool. Just at the top of your head, is there anyone you can share that really blew you away? 

[1:12:36.6] Liz Curran: Well, I have heard of some really funky healing modalities.

[1:12:45.8] Ashley James: Alright, let's talk about it. Sure, why not.

[1:12:47.7] Liz Curran: That's some fun things to share. I mean, people try some different things, and if you're not well-versed in the alternative cancer world, then you may not know about coffee enemas.

[1:13:00.4] Ashley James: Oh honey, you're preaching to the choir. I can't guarantee everyone, but that's not a taboo subject here. So, yeah, bring it.

[1:13:11.6] Liz Curran: I'm well-aligned with the audience then. But one of the coaches on my team in my private practice is actually called the Health Navigators. And there's a bunch of us that coach together over on that platform. And one of them is my friend, Emma, my fellow coach, and she shared that she had some kind of poison from a toad or something. The terminology is escaping me right now. But she said it was an incredibly detoxifying treatment, as ugly as it was in the moment. She said it was worth it. There's some pretty fun things to hear people help people heal. And they all say, I don't know if that helped or not, but it felt right.  

[1:14:05.9] Ashley James: Yes, it is important to understand when you're up against a major diagnosis. I know the scientific way was like, well, I should do one thing at a time just to make sure I know which would work. I have clients that's like, well, you've given me three things to do, but I'm just going to do one and see how it goes because I don't know which one is going to work. And I'm like, honey, if I had a major diagnosis, I wouldn't care which one worked. I would have thrown in the kitchen sink at this as long as it's not going to hurt me. It's all beneficial stuff. It's all building the body. And sometimes, to tip the scales, it takes multiple things. It takes licking a toad and drinking juice and putting coffee in your butt. I don't know. It's just like, do it. Do it all, because what's the alternative? Cut, burn and poison? And their success rates are horrible. And then, while you're doing their modalities, it's so sad. 

Here's the crazy thing — something as simple as fasting, like being on a three-day fast before chemo — they have done these studies and people have tremendous results. They don't lose their hair. They don't have nausea, and there's a plethora. I was just looking up this information. There are hundreds of studies on ginger juice, like just taking fresh ginger root or taking ginger capsules or whatever, but just ginger between 1 and 4 grams of ginger significantly reduces nausea. But of course, doctors are not trained in this. They're not looking at it. They're only looking at what drug they can give you, and they're going to give you some anti-nausea drug. And we see that just by incorporating herbs and roots like ginger, we're helping the body and supporting the body. It's like an immune booster. So we are supporting the whole body, not poisoning it. And it just drives me nuts that there are simple things if you decide to do chemo. It's proven that fasting helps before chemo. It's proven that ginger helps before chemo. These are studies, scientifically driven. And you can do ten different things, like watch comedy. You could go down and list this stuff if you wanted to also cut, burn, and poison. If you wanted to go that route. 

Like you said, part of radical remission could also be combining conventional. I really dislike this word ‘conventional', because we say conventionally great farm produce in the grocery store and I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm 43 years old. I remember when you could buy food that was real. I remember when carrots tasted like carrots and not cardboards, and tomatoes actually were like a food orgasm in your mouth, like tomatoes had flavor. Now, everything tastes like cardboard. And a conventionally grown apple — which I think you also would have learned this is in IIN — conventionally grown apple has fifty different chemicals sprayed on it. So, of course, the tree is up taking that as well, so it's not just like, oh, it's just purely apple. Just wash the apple. It's going to wash away all the fifty man-made chemicals that are forever chemicals.

[1:17:10.3] Liz Curran: Buy their special detergent in a squeeze bottle or spray bottle from the grocery store to clean off the pesticides. 

[1:17:17.1] Ashley James: That's ridiculous. So this idea that conventional is better, this is the Orwellian language. Again, everyone, get out your tenfold. We're going to fold a little hat to put on. You know you're in the right place when you get on my soapbox and grab my tinfoil. But this idea, like, look into Orwellian language because this is part of the PR. And if you look way back to Edward Bernays, who was the nephew, he was able to make women smoke cigarettes. Women didn't smoke cigarettes. It was very rare. Only the cowboys and the bad guys, and the jocks smoked, and it wasn't sexy or cool. They didn't have filters. It was gross, right? And he manipulated and brainwashed everyone to believe that it was part of the women's liberal movement. And so, women took up smoking, and of course, they had doctors think smoking is good for you. It's all a scam. PR is a scam, and the words they use are manipulative. 

So when they say conventional treatments versus alternative, you think, well, I'm going to go with conventional because that sounds proven. No, the conventional treatments are nouveau. And alternative treatments have been around for three thousand years. Now, listen, you're going to do what you're going to do and I respect whatever decision you make, but don't let the marketing brainwash you into not being fully informed.

[1:18:48.1] Liz Curran: I think one of the important things to do, because most of the people that I work with are doing an integrative approach, they are using both modalities and I can tell without a doubt that doing the combination is the secret sauce to their success with high quality of life, high energy ability that have a life outside of working through medical treatments. So, you just have to look at a doctor as someone who's staying in his lane. And there's a lot of things that they can't and won't say to protect themselves legally. 

[1:19:31.5] Ashley James: And that's so sad. 

[1:19:33.9] Liz Curran: The culture has created this. And back to this empowerment factor, the most important thing you can do is see that your doctor is just a human being, and he is in one lane. He can be part of your team, but he does not have to be the person telling you what to do. So make sure that you feel aligned with this person, that you agree with their bedside manner and their treatment plan for you, and that you believe that what they're going to do for you will help you heal. And if you don't believe that wholeheartedly, then that intuition in your body is going to speak, and it's going to counteract the benefits that you're gaining. It's not completely necessary, but it can impact that. So, knowing that these healing factors are all immune-boosting, scientifically proven to be immune-boosting, and unfortunately, it's up to us human beings to educate ourselves on things outside of medicine and find them on our own. That's what makes it seem alternative because it's not the ‘standard of care' being the norm.

[1:20:49.3] Ashley James: The for-profit industry. 

[1:20:52.4] Liz Curran: Right. And when you go outside of what's ‘normal', it can seem risky or there can be uncertainty around that. But the thing about these ten healing factors and just lifestyle changes, health coaches that would teach people, are that these are things that you can do on your own. I mean, does it cost you anything to increase your positive emotions? It takes some effort, so there's endless listening to your intuition. There's nothing you can do to pay for that. No, you can't buy your intuition. So there's a lot of things that can be done that are free, but you have to know that that's a healing factor and also have the ability and the tools to implement them. And that's where you and I both know, that's where health coaching comes in with the implementation. How do we do these things? 

[1:21:43.5] Ashley James: Yes. Love it. Liz, tell us about how we can follow you and how listeners can plug into what you're doing. What should the listeners know so they can take some actions? 

[1:22:00.7] Liz Curran: Yeah, absolutely. So, radicalremission.com is going to be a great place to start. It will walk you through all of the different offerings, from what we do, whether it's sharing about the research. There's teacher training that we do for health coaches and medical practitioners who want to embody these healing factors into their current practices. We offer the radical remission workshops, constantly always having more workshops up on that website on the workshop page, and then there's 115 radical remission coaches certified at the moment. There's another training class starting in about a month. Those health coaches are all on the website as well so they can be connected with all over the world, all the different countries, all different languages. And the book, Radical Remission, itself has been translated into 22 or 23, I think. It recently got another language there. But you can find all that on the website. And the Radical Remission project is on Facebook and Instagram and always offering more inspirational stories to share. 

And if you are interested in connecting with me, myself, my practice is the Health Navigators. My website is healthnavs.com, and you can find myself and my team there to join in what we call the Virtual Cancer Wellness Community, because we gather people who are like-minded and bring them together. We call them our inspired cancer patients because they are always kind of looking ahead. Like what's the next healing modality? And what else is out there and sharing with each other? So, having a community of like-minded people who are overcoming a significant diagnosis, that's where you will find that. 

[1:24:04.5] Ashley James: And it's not just cancer. Although, that's really what we're up against, but there's so many other diagnoses. I have a friend who's bedridden right now, and she's overcoming some major diagnoses. She was poisoned by Monsanto, it's such a long story. She's part of a giant class-action lawsuit, and it ate her body. The doctors thought she'd died years ago. And just because of natural medicine — looking at this list of ten things, she's following this, and I can't wait for her to one day be on your show because she's in the middle of it now. But I'm really looking forward to introducing this to her because she's like, oh yeah, I'm doing that. Maybe she needs to increase this and more of that. But she's doing all this stuff, and the doctors are shocked she's still alive. 

And then I introduced a type of therapy. It's a wearable technology. It's actually really affordable. And she's having amazing shifts, like leaps and bounds. One of the things it does, which made me think of the coffee enemas. Coffee enemas are messy or can be messy if you do it wrong, and also takes a lot of time. Because if you have cancer, the thing is, they say, do it six times a day. Who has the time to do six enemas a day? When I do a coffee enema, it's like half a day to work up to doing it, all the preparation and everything. So it's definitely emotionally costly. There's a lot of energy that goes into doing these coffee enemas. The whole point of a coffee enema is to stimulate more glutathione production, and one of the things this wearable technology does is it increases glutathione by 300%, and it's less than a dollar-a-day kind of thing. It's way more effective than oral. It's way more effective, and it lasts longer than IV. 

So, I had an episode about it a few podcasts ago. But if listeners are interested in gaining more information about that, I'd love to share. I'd love to provide. I've got a whole email I've compiled with all these videos and all the science behind it that I send out to anyone who wants it. You can go to learntruehealth.com, and then in the menu it says “Work With Ashley James.” Just click on that, and then click on the first session down. It's a free 15-minute phone call, and I'll talk to you about your health, the things you want to overcome, and I'll send you all the science, the information and stuff, and help you if you'd like to try it. It also has a money-back guarantee. I pretty much don't work with any company that doesn't, because I want a company to stand behind their product. It's been around for 20 years. It has over a hundred studies, and I have about 120 clients right now using it with incredible success. But one factor is that it increases glutathione by 300%. For me, coffee enema is great. But if you could just wear a little technology and go about your day and have an even better result than oral or IV, or messy coffee enemas, and it's affordable, then it's a no-brainer. 

I've seen my son, his allergies are significantly reduced, which is really exciting since I introduced this to him. Yeah. So this is what I'm all about. Learning about these off-the-wall, not conventional but still science-based, still proven modalities that could be the determining factor for someone. That could be the difference that makes a difference. But we have to do all ten steps because, like you said, it's been proven that all these together really shift things for people, whether it's cancer or something else. We want that shift. We want you to get to that place in your life where you are thriving, and that's what Learn True Health is. It's thriving on every single degree of your life. That's what I want for everyone. Yeah. Liz. I know I've thrown many questions at you. We talked so much. But is there anything left unsaid? Is there anything you want to make sure that you leave the listener with today? 

[1:28:17.4] Liz Curran: I would say if this resonated with you, please, please reach out for a Radical Remission workshop. We do free info sessions all the time. You can find them on radicalremission.com under the workshop page. And you can learn more about the healing factors and how the workshop works. The workshop itself is usually about a 5-week commitment. It's 10 hours and all done virtually. There are local ones on the website occasionally, if one of the teachers can do something locally to where they live, or retreats, and we hope that we can answer any questions for you there. 

[1:29:01.1] Ashley James: Awesome. Thank you so much, Liz. It was such a pleasure having you on the show. I just know introducing people to this concept has been a breath of fresh air, just like, yes, this is what I've been looking for. It's proven we can heal ourselves. Our body has a God-given ability to heal ourselves. We grew ourselves from two tiny half cells that came together and made one cell. We came from one cell. And now we're 37.2 trillion cells, and if that wasn't miraculous for you, cellular biologists have described the human cell as having more things going on inside that cell than Manhattan, the entire island of Manhattan. Like, you can think about all the organizations that bring the groceries in and get the garbage out and get the electricity in. Just all the things that happen in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. There's more things that are happening inside the human cell wall. They're complex cells, right? There's so much going on inside our body that we're still learning every day. We're still learning new things. There's still undiscovered territory, and it's miraculous and beautiful.

And so, we're like, back in the day with the leeches, right? Like, doctors who are like, yup, we got to blood let. That's the way to do it. Whatever your problem is, we gotta get some blood out of you. We got to bleed the humor out of you. And these doctors are standing there with their lab coats, and they're telling you, well, you're only going to live for three months if you don't immediately cut off your breast and get some radiation. Think about it. The radiation causes cancer, but we're going to cure and kill just the cancer, but we're definitely not going to hurt any other part of your body. Well, maybe a few cells, but you will be fine. And it's kind of wild to think like this is the only model we're allowed is to cut, burn, and poison. In the United States, it is actually legally meant to be protected, right? But if you go to Europe, they're allowed to use hyperbaric chambers. They're allowed to use ozone. It's part of their scientific model for helping people overcome. And then you have Mexico, which is like a free-for-all of natural modalities that may work or may not. But at least you have access to do it. And it is such a wild thing. But to take the advice of a doctor with a lab coat and say, this is the final word, that's like going to a doctor five hundred years ago and saying, well, okay, I totally believe you doc. We gotta put some more leeches on me. They only have one piece of the pie, and we still, as humans, do not fully understand the human body. 

We still do not understand fully how our cells work. So to have a doctor say, this is the way and the only way, is ludicrous. That's why I love what you're sharing today. What you shared today, Liz, is that it has opened our eyes that our body can heal itself and that we can take charge. In NLP or neuro-linguistic programming, there's a saying, ‘who's driving the bus' and you started off by saying that we want you to empower yourself. And that's you stepping. Just imagine yourself visually, you stepped from being the kid in the bus. Now, you stepped over from that seat, in the bench seat. I want you to stand up in your mind. Go sit down in the driver's seat and put your hand on the stick shift. In your mind, you know how to drive a stick? Okay, if you don't. And you're going to drive that bus. 

This is your life. You get to drive. You're the one driving the bus of your life, and you get to build your team of professionals that are there to help you and support you. And you get to fire professionals if they're not in alignment with your goal of 100% radical remission. And I love that you can plug into this whole group of the support network for radical remission to see that it's possible, and to have other people say, yes, it is possible. It's a worthy goal. You are worthy of this. So thank you. Thank you, Liz, for coming today and sharing this. Please come back on the show anytime you have more to share. We'd love to hear more. 

[1:33:08.3] Liz Curran: Yeah, it's been so much fun chatting with you and getting to share the Radical Remission stuff. And I look forward to connecting again in the future. 

[1:33:17.3] Ashley James: Yes. And I am going to be your number one fan the moment you hit publish on the first episode of the Radical Remission podcast. Can't wait to hear it. 

[1:33:25.3] Liz Curran: Thank you so much.

 

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Aug 9, 2023

Get your Analemma Structured Water Device:
Coupon code LTH at 
learntruehealth.com/structuredwater

 

508: Healing Waters: Science of Structured Analemma Water with Dr. Eric Laarakker

 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/healing-waters-science-of-structured-analemma-water-with-dr-eric-laarakker

Ashley James And Dr. Erik Laarakker

Dr. Eric Laarakker discusses the paradigm-shifting concept of using Analemma Coherent Structured Water to support the body's natural healing abilities. Dr. Laarakker emphasizes the scientific basis and studies that back the effectiveness of this structured water device, challenging mainstream beliefs. The conversation delves into the partnership with Viome to investigate how drinking Analemma water can positively impact the gut microbiome, a crucial element for overall health. Dr. Laarakker's holistic approach to medicine is rooted in the idea that the body possesses inherent healing power, and his work involves resetting the body's information systems to trigger this process. He draws a parallel between the body's functioning and that of a bioquantum computer, emphasizing the significance of water and information in this context.

Highlights: 

  • Using Analemma Coherent Structured Water to enhance the body's healing capabilities
  • How consuming Analemma water can positively influence the gut microbiome
  • Activating the body's intrinsic healing potential by resetting its information systems
  • Dr. Laarakker's extensive experience with animals and children
  • Exploring photon emissions from living organisms
  • Noteworthy experiments involving structured water on plants

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm going to make this super and jump right into today's episode because it's such a good interview. Oh my gosh, the amount of times my jaw hit the floor is amazing. I can't wait for you to hear it. But first, I have to say a big shout-out to my husband. Today is our 15th wedding anniversary. He's my best friend. He's my teammate, my partner in life, my partner in business, my partner in every aspect, and I feel blessed beyond measure that he's in my life. So, I just want to let you know that if it weren't for him, I wouldn't even be here doing this podcast. You see, he's my rock, and he supports me so much that I just want to basically say my little love message to him. Thank you, Duffy, for everything. I love you so much. And I'm so grateful I can be here helping all of you guys, helping spread this information of health and healing. Our body has an amazing ability to heal itself. We have a God-given ability to heal ourselves. And if you're sick and suffering, I'm here to tell you that there is a way. And through all the information that I bring to you on my show, I hope that I can give you the answers that you're looking for. I was sick and suffering for many years, and my husband married me even though I was sick and suffering. And together, we went down this rabbit hole after rabbit hole, discovering what true health is. Now I have shed all those diagnoses, all those diseases and illnesses and syndromes.

I'm still in my health-healing journey, but I no longer have type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, infertility, or polycystic ovarian syndrome. I am a world's better than I was. My husband has also gone through major transformations as well mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, both of us. And I've learned so much from my own show. I'm just sitting in the audience with you guys, just munching on the popcorn, going, “What? I can't believe this.” So, although I consider myself a health expert because I've dedicated tens of thousands of hours of research and diving in personally to help myself heal, and then also over the course of the last ten years helping clients support their body's ability to heal themselves and helping them overcome major health obstacles, I have seen people heal and recover from things that they were told over and over again by medical doctors and the mainstream medical establishment that they have to be on drugs the rest of your life and they'll always be sick. And I'm here to tell you that, most likely, that is not the case. We can support our body's ability to heal itself. 

Today's episode is one of those things. It's one of those things that is totally outside of the realm of mainstream, and yet, there are plenty of studies and science to prove that we can use the analemma structured water device to support our body's ability to heal itself. We're going to get into that with Dr. Eric Laarakker right now. I want you to go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater to check it out. Read all the studies for yourself, and they're to be publishing even more studies because their ongoing studies are constantly coming out with them. I'm super excited that Dr. Eric announced that they're partnering with Viome. I have two interviews with the Viome CEO and the top scientist. You can go to learntruehealth.com and search Viome to listen to those. It's all about the genetic expressions of your microbiome, which is absolutely fascinating. But they are partnering with them to do some really interesting tests to show how drinking analemma water improves your gut microbiome, and it's all about the gut. Everything is about the guts. We heal the gut and get strong, healthy, robust microbiomes. Everything else is so much easier to fall into place. And if you don't have that, that is one of the major pillars of health. So, I'm very excited about the ongoing studies. So, constantly check in on that. Go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater and use coupon code LTH, as in Learn True Health, to get your listener discount. Then, come join the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group and join the conversation because we're talking about it. Some people say, “I don't taste the difference,” then people jump in and go, “I definitely notice the difference.”

And it's okay. It's okay that some people can taste or feel a mouth difference when they're drinking this water, and some people. Some people just aren't as necessarily as kinesthetically sensitive as others. But the real thing we're looking for is the proof in the pudding, whereas the real thing we're looking for is the results. That's why I want you to come join the Facebook group if you're going to drink the analemma water, and I'd love for you to share your experience. We've got plenty of listeners sharing that they definitely feel a difference, just like I did and just like so many others in the studies that they've done. So, thank you so much for being a listener. And thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Together, we're turning this ripple into a tidal wave and helping as many people as possible to learn true health. 

[0:05:40.3] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #508. I am so excited for today's guest. It's been months that I've been waiting to have today's guest on the show. I'm going to do my best to say your beautiful name, Dr. Eric Laarakker. Did I say it?

[0:06:05.8] Dr. Eric Laarakker: It's almost perfect, thank you.

[0:06:10.5] Ashley James: I almost got it. You know, I got an app on my phone for my son, who we homeschool. He is eight years old, and he wants to learn languages. I thought maybe he'd learn French or Spanish, and he wanted to learn Norwegian. So we're hearing these very different accents as he's been studying these languages. He's kind of popping through different languages that we're not used to hearing. Your last name reminded me of some of the words he's learning. 

[0:06:42.4] Dr. Eric Laarakker: You know, there are only five million people who live in Norway, so why does he want to learn their language?

[0:06:49.6] Ashley James: I don't know. 

[0:06:51.5] Dr. Eric Laarakker: But anyway, I'm not from Norway. I'm from The Netherlands.

[0:06:55.5] Ashley James: Oh, yes. No, I'm sorry. I know you're from The Netherlands, and it's the beautiful sound of your name that reminded me of the interesting language that my son is trying to learn right now. We tried to explain to him that it's a very small country, but he's stubborn, so he's becoming a linguist.

[0:07:13.9] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, good for him. He should be stubborn.

[0:07:20.0] Ashley James: You know, that's a gift. It's hard on the parents, but it's really good when they grow up. And he's an independent thinker, which is great. One thing he's loved since we introduced it to our household has been the analemma, the ability to structure our own water. It's interesting to watch our 8-year-old really get excited about something, when he starts to go, “Wow, this is interesting. I can feel the taste. I can feel the difference in the water analemma. I can even taste the difference in the water. I can feel the difference in how I feel. We have used the analemma to structure all of our water since November. So it's been a good nine or ten months or around there that my family has been only drinking structured water, and there's been a lot of really cool changes that have taken place in our lives. And we noticed that we jumped out of bed in the morning. We sleep deeper. We feel happier. One thing that helped me is — our daughter passed away two years ago, and I was going through PTSD and grief — when I introduced the water. I've been doing a lot of stuff to heal. But when I started drinking the water, I noticed, within days of beginning to drink the water, the constant low-grade sadness that was in my heart all the time, just sadness in my chest, had been replaced with a constant joy — just this low-grade, just background noise, just feeling of happiness. I haven't stopped drinking the water because I love this feeling.

[0:09:06.0] Dr. Eric Laarakker: That's so beautiful to hear. Thank you so much. 

[0:09:09.4] Ashley James: I want to have you here today to understand the science behind it because we feel like it has transformed our lives suddenly. It's subtle, and then I look back and realize how significant the changes are that we feel healthier in our bodies. And then, of course, we start putting it on our house plants, and they started growing like we're in the jungle. And I thought, man, this is just proof like, “Look, our house plants are doubling in size.” And we've had them for years, and now they're doubling in size after we started feeding them the structured water. And, of course, this is how I feel inside my body. Now, I'm kind of getting a visual of what's happening inside my body with my husband. So, Eric, I'm really excited to have you here today to dive in.

[0:09:54.2] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, thank you so much. I love those stories. 

[0:09:56.5] Ashley James: Yeah, absolutely. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structured water and use coupon code LTH to get themselves an analemma device that you place in your water and stir, and it allows you very quickly to transform the water to permanently structure it to coherent structured water. It is very interesting because it's like a science experiment. Every time my friends come over, I do it for them, and I give them a glass that hasn't been stirred and a glass that has the analemma device, and I blind test them. “Which one is the stirred one?” And they all cannot believe the difference. It definitely has a mouth feel. The water feels wetter. The water feels smoother, silkier, and wetter. How interesting. So, I'm really excited to dive into the science today. Before we get into that, can you share a bit about your background? I know that you have extensive knowledge around holistic care and that you practice as a veterinarian, and this is right up your alley. You're just as passionate, maybe even more passionate, about structured water and how we can use it to support the body's ability to heal itself and the planet's ability to heal itself. What happened in your background that led you to get so excited about this?

[0:11:14.7] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, it's a long story. To be honest, I finished university already in 1993, so that's about thirty years ago. Actually, already in the university, I had some issues with the Western way of looking at medicine. Usually, we don't read the symptoms, but we never treat the origin or the cause of the disease. And actually, a lot of problems that we face are chronic. There are multiple causes and not just one cause. Causes could be food, environmental, congenital, emotional, microbial, toxins, etc. So, I went into holistic medicine, and holistic medicine is about trying to find the cause of the problem and treat that problem. So if you go back to the root of the problem, heal that, and then actually, the body will heal itself.

Our body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. It just has to push the right button, and the train will run by itself. That's how I usually try to explain it. An issue is we don't really understand exactly how our body functions or how our internal communications system works. Our body, while more and more has been looked at as a bioquantum computer, it's called quantum biology finally to me. I'll look at it that way. Your body is like a quantum computer. If you manage to reset a computer, the body will heal itself. Actually, as doctors, we don't heal our bodies. We try to reset the information system so it can heal itself. We are just nature's assistants.

We don't heal anything, and if you combine everything, that's true holistic medicine to me. Like in my clinic, we treat horses, dogs, cats, and human beings with a whole staff of veterinarians and human doctors. Personally, 50% of my patients are humans and 50% are horses. We use a lot of different modalities to heal. Actually, my first acupuncture school for humans was already way back in 1986, so that's a long time ago.

And the reason was healing and healing energy; trying to understand how our body functions has been an obsession for me since I was a little kid. I was growing up in the forest next to the river, and nature and water. Actually, they were always my biggest teachers. I spent all of my life almost in the forest and near the water, and really, they were my teachers. They taught me a lot. After my first acupuncture school, the holistic way of thinking grabbed me so much that I traveled literally all over this planet to study all different modalities in holistic medicine, both in humans and veterinarians, like homeopathy, herbal medicine, chiropractic osteopathy, energy treatments, and everything. And then we started to combine all of them in our clinic, and it gave us completely new ways of treatments, and that's what we apply now in our clinic. Water and information, both of them play a key role in all these modalities.

Actually, working with animals gave me the most knowledge, and it was beautiful. You talk about your kid already sensing what's good for them is the difference in the water. It's the same with animals, and they don't have a placebo effect. If it works, it works, especially in chronic diseases. Since I'm a veterinarian of over 30 years, I have seen many of my patients for a whole life, and that's usually a chance you don't get as a human doctor. So it can give you a lot of knowledge about how you can have a long and healthy life. That's why I still like working with animals. It's very pure. It's the same as working with kids. I also work a lot with kids. They are a lot purer, so if I push the right button, it is just easier to cure them than most grown-ups, unfortunately.

[0:15:17.6] Ashley James: And that's so true about the placebo effect. Children and animals do not have the placebo effect. So when you see something working with babies, toddlers, and horses, then it really gives us an insight. So you have a beautiful background. What led you to work with analemma, with the structured water, and study it? 

[0:15:46.4] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Water was always talking to me. Water is very important. If you look at the body, 99% of our body molecules are water. We usually say 70%, but it's in mass. But actually, 99% of your body molecules are water. If that is so, then water is the most important ingredient in your body. And about seventeen years ago, I met my colleague, Dolf Zantinge. Actually, it was quite a funny story. I was giving a 60-day course on how to measure energies in and out of the body with a Lecher antenna. And that's how we measure our patients. And it's a system we developed over 30 years. I can only think in energy, not in the physical part, if you know what I mean. Everything which is physical is also energy. Dolf was one of my students, but I only saw him on the first day. A lady told me that he was so allergic to horses that he couldn't join the classes anymore. And since I teach him at a horse clinic at ten and the classes were not an option anymore, but Dolf was very eager to learn how to work with the Lecher antenna, so I gave him private lessons on that. That's how we came to talk and share our ideas and our worries about this planet and the fast speed at which everything goes down, especially the whole immune system of this planet but also in humans and animals. 

Thirty years ago, we didn't see any, almost no allergies, no auto-immune diseases, no cancer in horses. But we see it daily these days. So, something is happening over there. So we decided to join efforts and start a laboratory to understand something more about what life is about. We don't understand what life is. Nobody knows what life is. So in the last decade, actually, we have been working on this water. We know that there is more between heaven and earth than science wants to make us believe. Nobody knows what life actually is, but mankind acts as if it knows everything and that we are a coincidence on this planet. I personally don't believe that. Since we were very concerned at what pace the planet is moving to destruction and, like I said, having a chronic disease becomes the norm, and life shouldn't be. So we decided, like I said, to just start a laboratory just to do open science and hopefully find something which is easier to use, to help to restore diseases and this planet. Although I did a lot of modalities, almost all the modalities you can find in regular and holistic medicine, I still miss a thing. And that is what I call the life force, so to speak — the glue between all these different modalities. And that's how we came up into water. 

[0:19:05.0] Ashley James: Is water the life force? Can you explain that a bit more? 

[0:19:08.7] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Maybe I can explain a little bit more how we got into water. And of course, like I said, water has always been very important in my life. But first, what we did was dig into all the scientific possibilities that were available to study life, especially on energy levels in plants, animals, and humans. Then we stumbled upon the work of the famous Professor Fritz Popp from Germany, who proved that all living beings are midlight, the so-called biophotons. The amount of biophotons says something about the health of that system.

By that time, Fritz Popp had ended his career, and we were able to take over the whole laboratory, including the scientist, and move it from Germany to the Netherlands. We want to find out what were the most important parts of living systems and how we could influence it in a positive way. We didn't actually know what to look for. We just started more or less blindly to see what research will bring us. Soon, we discovered that water and information were a crucial part in the biological systems. So then we started to focus on water. 

[0:20:16.9] Ashley James: A lot of us think water is just like a rock. It's just inert. It's just a substance that isn't alive. And the modern-day idea of water is that we should sterilize it, that it's dead. We should sterilize it, and that's the best way. Or filter it, sterilize it; that's the best way to drink it. Or manipulate it in some way so that we have to remove chemicals from it. Make sure there's no bacteria in it. But there's no concept of the structure of how the molecules that exist inside the fluid can influence us. People just think water is water, like dirt is dirt. It's not that important. A rock is a rock. It's not alive. And your experience is quite different.

[0:21:17.1] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Completely different. Actually, we bought a 6-acre greenhouse to do just tests on tomatoes. We decided, okay, let's go for a little bit easier, a challenging test in the beginning, done on humans and animals. So we bought a 6-acre greenhouse, and we were just testing on all kinds of vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, et cetera, and measuring the biophotons. Of course, they have a very short life cycle, so it's easier to test. And just by changing the structure of the water, we saw a tremendous difference in the amount of biophotons. So the amount of light which is in a tomato, from 60% up to 150%, 200% more light emission is constantly over when we use analemma water. We tried all kinds of different water. We tried to do different things with it and then see what happens with it. But actually, one of the most important things we could do, an easy thing we could do, is to change the amount of biophoton in a plant. So, if you have more biophotons, it actually means more mitochondrial activity. So we have a healthier plant.

When we're very sure about the outcome, then, of course, we start digging into other kinds of research because measuring biophotons in humans is not easy. That's why we went into other kinds of research, like the microbiome brainwaves, ATP GlycanAge, etc. And every time we did research, we saw there was a difference. For me, it is very easy. Now, it's very easy. Of course, the issue is we only use our eyes. So, only what we see is what we believe. But if you look at what we can see, it's just a few nanometers of the whole electromagnetic spectrum, and there's so much more that we don't see, which is immeasurable, and water plays a key role in this. Water by itself is a broadband absorber for all the electromagnetic fields, only not if you conduct in visible lights and about a few feet, which water doesn't absorb that well.

It's such a genius — water. Think about a very simple thing. You learn at school that we live on this planet because we have an atmosphere around this planet, and this atmosphere absorbs about 70% of the income of harmful radiation. Now, that's very smart of water. But if you look at the whole electromagnetic spectrum, maybe it becomes a little bit difficult. But if you go from the ultra-low frequencies, radio waves and microwave, gigahertz, infrared, visible light, UV Express cosmic armor, so from low to high frequency — from this whole scale, the only part water doesn't absorb actually is the visible light and part of the UV which are only two of the octaves of the whole spectrum. It is so genius because if what would absorb the visible light as much as X-rays and cosmic armor, etc., then it will be dark on this planet.

That's very clever of water. All these things are just in front of us, and actually, you can find them on Wikipedia, but we don't think about it. So, what is a broadband absorber for almost all electromagnetic frequencies, and we are electromagnetic beings? It's very simple, and there's a beautiful book written, the Electromagnetic Manwhich was written, I think, twenty to thirty years ago, which beautifully scientifically explained that we are electromagnetic beings.

And so our water — now we go back to the body — if you push all the vapor which is in the atmosphere, push it together into a liquid form, it's only 3 cm of water. Only 3 cm. Think about it. Now, go back to your body. 99% of your body molecules are water. So, you are the definition of broadband absorber for all the electromagnetic frequencies. 

[0:26:01.1] Ashley James: Boom. That hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh my gosh. Think about the cell towers, all the electromagnetic, just static out there, the frequencies. I'm surrounded right now by wires and electronics. And thinking about all the different broadband, all the different signals and frequencies all across that spectrum, and if you’re 99% water, we’re clearly highly affected by these entire spectrum of frequencies. 

[0:26:47.3] Dr. Eric Laarakker: And it's a big issue to me, to be honest, and science defines the harm done by EMFs by how much your body has been heating up. I mean, it's just a definition they give. And if we get the whole perspective that we are a broadband absorber for all the electromagnetic waves — maybe I can tell you a funny story I did last year. I was in Corsica with my kids and my wife, and in the South, they have this beautiful place over there which is on top of a mountain. More or less in the harbor, you park your car. So we went up to this village and we could hardly see somewhere down there, where my car was parked and I showed him one thing. I used my automatic key for the car, when I pushed it to open the car, you didn't see anything. Then I held it against my head, I pushed it and then we saw our car opening. So our head full of water is an antenna. We are antennas.

[0:27:51.7] Ashley James: I learned that from my husband. When the car is on the other side of the parking lot, we can't find it. He puts the car key, the key fob to his chin. He puts it right to his head, and he says, we act as an antenna, and it always works. It always works. He can hit the alarm button because we can't find the car. I mean that almost never happens. We know where we parked our car. But if we get turned around or it’s like Ikea parking lot and where we have no idea where we are, you can hit that button and then we hear our car alarm way off in the distance really far away. But if you just stood there and clicked it, nothing would happen. But when you put it against your head, you are the antenna now and it always works. 

[0:28:35.5] Dr. Eric Laarakker: So it also works the other way around. 

[0:28:39.8] Ashley James: Because water is that absorber, the broadband absorber. So, 99% of us by molecule is water, where we are highly absorbing that entire spectrum. But how beautiful and brilliant and intelligent it is that there's this huge spectrum that we can't see. We're kind of in the middle, right? There's like all the stuff we can't see that is lower than our vision. All the stuff we can't see that’s higher than our vision. We’re sort of somewhere in the middle in terms of our very small bandwidth of light that we can perceive through our eyes, and water absorbs everything on each side but not in our own vision. That is brilliant. I love looking at science to see that there's God, to see that there's this beautiful intelligence behind the scenes. The more I look at science, the more I see it's irrefutable. This is not random. This is so beautiful. 

[0:29:42.5] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Life wouldn’t be possible on this planet if water would absorb everything. It is as simple as that. And what I purposely don't understand, I mean, the science is in front of us. You can find it everywhere. And people still misuse it. Personally, I don't understand why we do any research on this whole 5G satellite stuff, etc. It's almost like the microwave was sending to this planet its complete destruction. To be honest, we proved already that our water is quite stable in it. So that's a lucky part of it. But still, I'm concerned about the trees and everything around us. We are just bombarding everything with loads and loads of the wrong information.

We are electromagnetically beings and we used to a certain amount, which is been there for ages and, but the last, especially, 20 years we're bombarding ourselves constantly with a lot of information. That's one of the reasons why I always tell people, okay? It's very hard, not to deal with it. But at least what you can do always switch Wi-Fi off at night. You will sleep a lot better, if you do. And almost everybody I know uses the phone as alarm clock. Why?

In our house, the mobile phones. Also, not with our children are allowed in the bedroom, never ever, put your Wi-Fi and your Bluetooth on only if you need it. Both of my kids and my wife, when I put the Bluetooth on they feel it immediately in 2 seconds. The issue is, if we have, if you're confronted with so much radiation then more or less, you get used to it. But it doesn't mean that's how harmful compared with smoking. If you smoke one cigarette, you become sick, but if you start keep on smoking a package today, you won't feel it in the end anymore, but still harmful. So, people would tell me “I don't feel it.” Well, it doesn't mean that is not harmful and we created a lot with all the devices in your home. Everything these days is on Wi-Fi, Smart, everything is smart, smart watch, everything. Actually, not at my house, I don't want to have it.

[0:32:19.06] Ashley James: Smart. I always sleep better when the power goes out. When we have a storm and the power goes out, I sleep so well, or go camping, I sleep so well. The other day, our son was over at Grandma's for a sleepover, and I had to have my phone on just in case an emergency happened, we have to stay in contact and I got such poor sleep not because I was worried about it but just because of my phone was on and I try to keep it as far away from me as possible, it's still in the room, and I don't know, I could feel it. I don't I don't like that. Definitely, I don't like it. I've done a few interviews on EMF. But one of them is really interesting, I mean all of them are interesting, but this one, Episode 445 with Arthur Firstenberg he wrote The Invisible Rainbow, now coming with the analogy you've given us, listeners, if you haven't already go back and listen to Episode 445. With this knowledge that your 99% by-molecule water, it is a Broadband absorber and then go listen to his interview and his books are phenomenal. He shows that every single major health like pandemic that's occurred in the last over a hundred years has been directly related to when a technology gets introduced and he shows it all, it's really, really interesting. But here you have a more proof. You know, we are made up of a Broadband absorber. And now we're introducing these frequencies into our atmosphere, into our bodies, and look what happens. It's haywire, it's causing the whole system to go haywire. So let's go back to the tomatoes. You wanted to measure the biophotons from plants and using structured water, see how that could help. Could you go back a little bit before that? What made you guys decide that water needed to be structured in the first place?

[0:34:33.88] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, very simple. Like I said, 99% of our body molecules is water, so water must be important. I always had this feeling that water was talking to me. So already before we even did this research, I was digging into water-structuring devices.

There are many over there. There's a lot to find information over Victor Schouberger. He's one of my heroes and he did a lot of research on it in the beginning of the 1900s already. And if you look at how when water is vortexing, what the energy, how it gives. If you walk in the mountains when the water comes down with a waterfall and it starts vortexing, it gives you completely different kind of energy. So we already knew there is something there about water. So we started to test all kind of different devices which were on the market and they gave some results. It's not that they don't give any results but they had one big problem and they were not stable. After, it depends on how you shield it, after being produced, it works like for half a minute up to one and a half day, depends on how we shielded with aluminium foil or stuff like that, but then it went down. So we knew it was not good enough and all of those devices actually they are made out of crystals, vortexes, electricity, et cetera.

And so we knew this was not good enough, we had to dig deeper into it. And so actually what we did, we first did a whole study for years on different geometric forms, metals and cosmology, before we were able to combine all of it in one device. It's not like this device was there from one to the other day. We did research at it and we saw an amazing improvement already on those biophotons. But then we discovered that we needed more and that lightning played a role. Try one thing, after lightning, go to a lake and see how it feels. It is like the water's been charged over there. So we needed to add lightning to it. But then still, it went better. Bio-photon emission became better. But then we realized we need something more. And then I go back a little bit to the discussion before. We need to get it open to the cosmos. Because we need information out of the cosmos. We are constantly bombarded from out of the cosmos with all kinds of electric-magnetic frequencies, with everything out of there, from all the planets, the moon, the sun, etc.

Why do you charge your energy in the sun? Because actually you're charging your water system. So then we created a third device and to make it more open to the cosmos. And then we realized another thing is that biology is never ever the same. And that's a big mistake that we make in medicine anyway. We always think that everything is the same. Nobody is the same, luckily. And even your liver, your kidneys, we found out there is a rhythm in energy. So even the frequencies of your liver for your kidney, everything in your body is actually changing every day. And so that's when then we realized that if we want to make the mother water it would take us a year. So it takes us a year to make the mother water because we want to have all the seasons in. And that's actually the reason why we call it Analemma water. Look at the internet what the Analemma is and you see this infinity sign. It's the position of the sun to the moon and it's very important.

So if you want to have all the frequencies in, all seasons in, we need one year to create it. And then we knew, okay, now it's ready. And actually from that moment on, we start putting it on the market. But it took, actually the whole research until where we are now is about 17 years.

[0:39:04.93] Ashley James: Wow.

[0:39:06.46] Dr. Eric Laarakker: And because we were not doing this research trying to find a device and sell it for a lot of money or whatever. We really were trying to find something which helped. And we want to be sure scientifically that it does what we think what it does. So we heavily invested last year, constantly we're heavily investing in research.

A double-blind placebo-conformed randomized research in ATP. We did in a microbiome, brain wave studies, etc. It's constantly going on. Constantly we are doing research.

[0:39:51.08] Ashley James: I want to talk about the research for sure. I'd like to know when you first started drinking the structured water after you created the mother, and for those who haven't listened to the first episode that we did, Episode 498 about the Analemma Water, and the inside of this device, and they call it a wand. You're not performing magic. It's not, but it is the shape of a wand that you would stir the water, and inside it is the mother water. And the mother water, like you said, takes you a year to make, and that it connects with, and you can explain this much better than I can, but it connects with your water and tells the water inside the glass to structure in a way that is coherent and beautiful, not chaotic like the structure of our water that comes out of our pipes, comes out of our municipal water system. And we did dive more into that in Episode 498, but I'd like to go back. When you first made the mother water and you first started making structured water with it and you first started drinking it, what was your experience?

[0:41:08.70] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I will never forget because actually at that moment we were doing research in the south of Germany in organic farm and the device, our first device is huge. It's like one by one by one meter. And very heavy.

So we brought the whole device over there and it was very exciting for us. We need to write pressure and stuff like that. So when the first water came out, we drink it. And it was for me, it was like we knew this is it. It was like, how can I say? For me, it was like an explosion of light in my body. I never had it after that.

Yes, how can I say? It was like a very instant change. And also because we were excited and we want to know and to test it and to drink it and feel what it is. I will never forget this moment. We were drinking it. We looked at each other and we were like instantly happy. Let's put it that way.

[0:42:17.60] Ashley James: That's it. That's me too. I have to tell you, I was really, really, really skeptical. I was so, so skeptical, but it was introduced to me. It was offered. Just try it. I was like, okay. And I remember I was standing at the kitchen and I got out two glasses. I filled them both with our filtered water.

And it's municipal water, so it's been through all the pipes and through the system. The chaos is known. If you if you just imagine in your mind how many pipes and 90-degree angles and near power lines and just like how bastardized this how abused the water is. Fluoride, chlorine, trace pharmaceuticals, just the way they scrub it, all this stuff is, it's not natural, right? It's obviously, the water's been very abused. And now that we understand water absorbs, water absorbs information, it absorbs energy. And so it's just taken a beating, but before it comes out of your tap, and then I put it through a little plastic filter that filters the crap that they put in, fluoride, chlorine, that kind of stuff. And I put the water into two glasses, and I stood there and I counted, then I stirred for about a minute and I brought the glass to my lips and I took a sip and I said, no way. I said it out really, I said it out loud, really loud. And I just, a big smile came across my face. I said, I cannot believe it. And then I took another sip. I said, no way. This is absolutely, and it just hit me. I couldn't believe it. I was kind of freaking out. I was called over my son, called over my husband. You gotta try this, you gotta try this. I can't believe it.

And I was from that moment, a believer, but I was so skeptical, but I was willing at least to try it, but I was so skeptical. And some people say they don't taste a difference. Some people say they definitely taste a difference, but there's a feeling in your mouth of it's how water should feel. And it's kind of like, do you remember as a kid that carrots were sweet and tomatoes were
like an entire meal, you could just eat it. You could eat it, you take a whole tomato and cut it up, put a little bit of salt and pepper on it. And that was like fulfilling. It was so rich and it was so delicious. And now carrots and tomatoes taste like cardboard. They just don't have the energy, the minerals, the nutrition, the vibrance. Food is dead and water is dead. Like the way we've treated it, it feels dead to us. It's not nourishing us and disease is prominent. And when I first drank that structured water, it was like my cells woke up and I remembered, this is what it's supposed to be like. It feels very natural. Now, structured water does occur in nature, but not everywhere. Can you talk a bit about that?

[0:45:26.36] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, yes, I can. The issue is, to be honest, that there are not many places left anymore where the water is coherent. And I must say the whole idea of coherency is a theory. Nobody knows exactly what's happening over there. And maybe I could first explain a little bit more how I look at it, what means coherence, to understand it a little bit better.

If you would have the most powerful microscope and you would look at the water and you would see the molecules of normal chaotic water you would see that they had randomly bumped against each other so they're not in sync and what I think what we did, what we managed is that all the molecules start working together you know they're in sync moving in sync and they start behaving like a crystal. So if you would have the strongest microscope, probably you would see the most beautiful crystals. And crystals are very important, very important. And that's also the reason maybe we can talk later about why we use quartz glass as the outside of the wand. Crystals can receive, store, and give information. Think about the first crystal radios, they were there to receive information. So…

If you manage to structure the water, and like I said, it's a theory, and nobody saw how it really looks like, then you would see all these beautiful minerals, and they are constantly in tune, like the first crystal radios with the cosmos, and that's very important. That's how they receive the pure information what we need. The funny thing is that most people who drink water, become more conscious. So on a conscious part, it's very important to drink that water. And we see that constantly when people start drinking the water, they stop, you know, destroying this planet by themselves because you become aware that you are just a part of everything. Me is you, you are me, everything is us. And we're not divided from each other. And by drinking that water, it makes it clear that you're part of one big whole.

So that's how I look at it. You know, it's a beautiful crystalline form. You can compare it a little bit. I love to compare it with a laser light, although it's not completely the same, but just for the comparison to understand a little bit more. If you would have a five watt lamp, you know, it's just giving a little bit light and it's not coherent light. If you would make this five watt coherent, that means that you let the waves of this electromagnetic frequency work together, then those photons, when they start working together, you get a laser light and a 5 watt laser, it's a very strong laser, I'll tell you that. So in the same way, I look at that water. And so it's very important for all the systems when you get that water, it starts flourishing, it's a lot more energy into it. Like I said, in the biophotons in those plants, you talk about these tasteful carrots and tomatoes. Well, start using Analemma Water and you get them back. For sure. And now go back to your question. Sorry for my diversion. In the past we didn't have so much like you said energy lines, Wi-Fi's, 4G, 5G, whatever. Everything is over there. And water is also reacting on our thoughts.

Look at the last couple of years where we are, everybody's afraid of everything, from COVID to CO2 to whatever, we just live in fear. And that doesn't help water. In the past, people lived near natural streams. And they were moving from what we call meandere, they go from left to the right, they make a left vortex, a right vortex, a left vortex, a right vortex. That's no coincidence. And it's not what people say, it's because they search their way.

Nonsense. Why there's always a left turn and then a right turn and then a left turn and then a right turn? That's energizing themselves. So water comes pure out of a well and then it keeps on energizing themselves. And that is the issue. That's not happening anymore. Just a few people maybe are lucky enough to live close near the most perfect well. We tested water from all over this planet and most of it was not stable. That's why making the water stable was so important for us. Otherwise, you can use your wand once or twice and then you can throw it away because it doesn't work anymore. We tested water in the laboratory which was standing there for over a year near the wifi router and we tested it on tomatoes and it gave the same amount of biophotons. So the stability is very important and there are not many places to find over here and we tested from the Ganga water to whatever. I even took water from the South Pole when I was there, from Greenland etc. And it's not stable so it very easy falls back into the chaotic state. So if you're lucky and you live near a beautiful pure well, of course, you're a lucky person. But how many people on this planet live in that opportunity. In my country, nobody.

So that's why, unfortunately, we didn't find a lot of structured water on this planet anymore. But in the past, but in the past it was necessary because nature did it by themselves, but we destroy so many things in the nature. Like you said, we have straight lines, we have canals, and the water doesn't like to go in curves of 90 degrees. Water doesn't want to flow in a straight way. And that's what we do with water.

[0:51:48.84] Ashley James: We force it to do that. Yeah. One of my mentors, who's also a veterinarian, Dr. Joel Wallach. He's also a naturopathic physician and a research scientist. And he's in his 80s now. He's still active. Amazing man. He discovered that we're largely minerally deficient. We require 60 essential minerals. And the way that they farm the last 100 years, they just pillage the land, they tear off the first layer and then they till the water, or they till the soil, sorry. And then, and the way they farm, it's destroying the minerals in the land. And so now we also know now, between using the way that we channel water on, straight lines and 90 degree angles around farm lands also isn't very helpful, although we need to give our plants water, but it's not structured.

And then we use pesticides, herbicides, all kinds of chemicals, it's ridiculous. A conventionally grown apple in the United States has 50 different chemicals found on its peel. Just by peeling the peel away doesn't remove them because the whole tree is absorbing these chemicals as well. So it's inside the apple. But just to give you an idea, and that's just one apple, an eating organic
is definitely necessary this day and age. I used to have chronic monthly infections for which I was on constant antibiotics for this is 15 years ago. And when I switched to eating organic that my very first month, my chronic infections went away. So that would that told me how important it is to avoid as much as possible what they're spraying in the farms. But what Dr. Wallach said, he goes, look at where our minerals are going. And he goes, it's not just us, it's the planet. Because if you look, he uses the United States as an example, but many other countries do this. All of our major rivers are damned for energy, which I mean, that's clean energy. That's great. But look, he goes there. We are, what we're doing is we're stopping water, sorry, we're stopping the minerals. The trace minerals that are supposed to naturally go into the ocean and feed the ocean were stopping the silt from reaching the ocean. And looked in the science behind it and everything, and he saw that man has influenced almost every major river in the world. And those rivers feed the ocean. And we've been doing that for a while, right? So between that and what you've talked about how water is a broadband absorber and we have frequencies either from ourselves, you can actually measure fear as a frequency coming out of our own body. And then we've got cell towers, you name it. And so water's just here absorbing it all and being coerced into a state that makes it so that our water system around the world cannot restructure itself naturally. So that's one thing.

I had Igor Smirnoff on my show back years ago in Episode 161, because I was interested in his research around structured water and cancer. And he was looking into how to structure water, but he didn't figure out what you guys figured out, cause his structured water device doesn't keep the water structured, it doesn't keep it structured after a few days. Like it doesn't hold the structure like yours does. But what he talked about, which was fascinating, is that those from Chernobyl, they were sent to different hospitals with radiation sickness and poisoning, and there was one hospital up in the mountains and they had a well, and the well was structured water and they didn't know it at the time but everyone who drank it got better and didn't have cancer. And then they finally figured out, like why did everyone have such good results in this one hospital, but not in the others? And they figured out it was because everyone was drinking structured water. So there's a aspect of structured water that helps the body remove radiation, remove free radicals. Can you talk a bit about that?

[0.56:24.85] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, yes. Well, then I have to first enter one very important topic in that, and that is the microbiome. Because I tell my students, the way I look at the body is that we are a heap of bacteria in a pool of water run by the cosmos, a colony of bacteria in a pool of water run by the cosmos. And everything is 100% true. And don't forget the microbiome because it's told you a story about the antibiotics. And one other thing that we do with all the pesticides, et cetera, the biggest issue is on the microbiome. As you maybe know, Parkinson's disease has been proved that it comes from the pesticides. And most brain diseases now have been related to the microbiome in your gut. A healthy gut has over 1200 different species of bacteria in your gut. In your bladder, you have 60 species, 600 plus species in your lungs. On your skin, 1000 species. And they recently found even, I think, over different genes of the microbe in your brain. We are a colony of bacterias in a pool of water run by the cosmos. Those little creatures are so important, so, so important and even our mitochondria who produce ATP, which is our energy. And as you may know, probably noted that all the chronic diseases, cancer, etc. has to do with retarding of mitochondria. Now it has been proved that mitochondria actually were bacterias before. So even inside of every cell, you have 500 to 3000, 4000, 5000 bacterias.

We are a bacteria colony. So, and also these bacteria colonies can be harmed by radiation, by toxins, et cetera. And the funniest thing is, is if you look at it like for horses, vitamin B12 is not essential. Why not? Because they make it themselves, if they have a good microbiome. Cats need taurine, and we don't, because we can make it ourselves. So the microbiome is a very intelligent thing.

There is something which is called biologic transmutation. And what it means that actually bacterias are capable of making from turning one material in another mineral, so go from one mineral to another mineral. Think about chickens. They don't eat as much calcium as they lay every day with their eggs they return silicates, they eat silicates and they make calcium out of it.

[0.59:25.90] Ashley James: Really?

[0.59:26.98] Dr. Erik Laarakker: Yes, so this is called biological transmutation and under our soil, in our soil, that's where all the good bacterias are that we need. That's why we need contact with the soil. You need to dig with your hands in the soil. Kids have to play outside and not behind a computer to get in touch with the soil because that feeds them with the right bacteria. if you have good soil. And so he's completely right that by using all the toxins we put on the soil with farming, et cetera, it kills the bacteria. And for me, that's even a bigger problem than the minerals because first it starts with the bacterias and then the minerals go down. All of it is true. But for me, the minerals are on the second place, if you know what I mean.

[1:00:21] Ashley James: Yes, I'm hearing that.

[01:00:24]Dr. Erik Laarakker: If your microbiome beautiful and perfect and it does its job, you need less minerals because they do a lot of job for you. That's what we found out in our clinic. And water plays a key role in the microbiome. We did a double-blind placebo controlled research with people and we found by drinking the water that the bioindex of the microbiome went up dramatically. So your microbiome, they love the water, the good bacteria, they love the water and it's crucial. So we talked about the information side, what the Analemma Water could do, in the information part, we already talked about that you have a lot better information system in your body that you need, but on the microbiome part, it's very important. We literally could prove that your microbiome becomes better from drinking the right water. In that way, your microbiome will produce a lot more nourishment for your body.

[01:01:33] Ashley James: I did two interviews with a lab called Viome, and they test over 100,000 gene expressions of your microbiome. You send them a stool sample. It's a home test kit. You send them a stool sample, and they send you back just pages and pages of data. But really interesting. I know that we need good bacteria in our gut, right? Like we have about six pounds of bacteria, between four and six pounds. So it's like a little chihuahua basically living inside us. And we can have an overgrowth of fungus, an overgrowth of candida. We can be out of balance, right? A lot of people are. And we all know that they've done studies on those who are naturally skinny, they could eat whatever they want and they're kind of like just naturally skinny and their microbiome is diverse and those who are obese, no matter what they do, their microbiome is not diverse, right? It's unhealthy and they've done fecal transplants where they take the microbiome of skinny people, put it into overweight people and the overweight people lose weight.

So we see this, like you said, we were seeing in Parkinson's, there's a lot of different illnesses where we're seeing that we have to look at the microbiome. But what I learned in those interviews about the biome is that, we eat food and we think we do all the digesting and all the absorbing, but the microbiome actually will eat our food and poop out nutrients for us to absorb. So we have inside our gut a pharmacy.

And I had started to get heart palpitations and I'd gone to a cardiologist and he said I was fine. And I was like, what's going on? And I noticed that my heart palpitations were correlated with when I ate eggs, but I didn't have an egg allergy. I got tested, it wasn't an allergy. I didn't have histamine problems, but I could eat an egg and within minutes I would having heart palpitations. And the cardiologist who wasn't a big help because he said, basically, come back when you're so sick, I can give you drugs, you're too healthy.

But he did say the heart will have palpitations because it's intelligent and there's something that's irritating it. There's something that's inflaming it and it's trying to reset itself. So it's not having heart palpitations because it's weak. It's having heart palpitations because it's strong and intelligent. And I was surprised to hear that coming out of a cardiologist's mouth, but how interesting.

And then I had this interview and she looked at, she was one of the chief scientists there and she looked at my Viome results and I didn't tell her about my heart palpitations, but she said, oh, this particular bacteria, which is actually really good for people, it does a lot of good stuff, but one thing it does is it will convert the nutrients from eggs into, and then she explained stuff that went over my head, but she said it converts it into something that causes irritation on the heart and can cause cardiovascular problems. And so, I mean, I cut out eggs right there. That was it. That was done with eggs. But how interesting that our microbiome digests our food, helps us with nutrients, or can harm us because we've taken a bunch of antibiotics and we have an overgrowth and we have, we all know that we can have dysbiosis and not so healthy gut bacteria, but we want to get to a place where we have very healthy, robust and diverse microbiome in the gut. And you're saying that there's a correlation between that and creating that and drinking structured water. You did some tests. Can you explain them?

[01:05:33] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, we did a double bind placebo controlled test with people and asked them to deliver the stool and after three months did the same thing. And actually we want to test now also with this Viome company, do the same test again with a lot more people. And we found out that the Dysbiosis index actually improved for 30% in three months.

And so the diversity of the microbiome was a lot higher and the harmful ones went down, which is very important. And there is something you think of and this is the nervous vagus, which is very important to mention in this whole area because our brain is directly connected to your gut. You have the nervous vagus, and it passes the heart. It touches actually, your throat, your heart, your stomach, and then it goes to your intestines. And there's a two way communication. So when you're craving for sugar, actually these are the bacterias in your gut to tell your brain that you should eat sugar. So probably in your case, that you got your heart palpitation was because of the feedback from the bacteria to your heart, if you know what I mean.

That's why it goes so fast. It's one of the most beautiful nerves, which is there. And I also call it the nerve of alignment. When that is literally when you're aligned, that nerve works, in two way up and down very well. But go back to the research. So we literally could prove by drinking structured water that you improve your microbiome a lot.

Like I said, over 30% of the microbiome index. And that's a lot in three months time.

[01:07:32] Ashley James: Yeah, that's huge. So for those who are having digestive problems, have you collected data for those who have digestive problems and then drink the water every day and then they report back to you that their digestion is improving?

[01:07:50] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, and many people report back that it's improving. Actually it did it for me. Before I drink the water, I have a lot more like bloating problems. After dinner you know you have this bloating of your stomach and it all went down after drinking the water after two three months. So many people report that back and we see of course in animals we see the also the same especially with horses, they have a lot of problems with the appendix and after drinking the water, you see a lot less problems with that. So of course it's not the only thing, but all those bacterias and also we proved it in a soil because what we did, we did on soil which was damaged completely with Roundup, we did a trial and one got normal water and the other one they got the Analemma Water. And the good thing is after a couple of months, the amount of variation of bacterias in the soil with Analemma Water went up. So it's not only in your gut, but also in the soil. That's why it's very important to get this water back into the rivers, back on the soil. And actually, personally, I think that is the main reason why tomatoes, cucumberss, etc. give a higher photon emission is because you get more beautiful bacteria which you want, the right microbiome back in the soil and also everything is the same also with vegetables. Those plants are being fed from the microbiome in the soil. They need a microbiome. That's one reason why I never want to eat plants which has been grown on aquaponics. Because you need the microbiome of the soil that makes the plant healthy, that gives them the taste, that is giving them the nutrients.

So it's all the same, it's the same cycle in human beings, in the soil, in rivers, in the sea, everywhere, it's the same story. And those, the microbiome is crucial in that. Information is crucial in that. Water is the key player in that. Because water is in the middle of all of them. So that's why we stepped into water, because it's the most important ingredient. It's the most important ingredient in life. It's in the middle of those three.

[01:10:28] Ashley James: If we were to look under a microscope and observe water that comes out of our taps and observe the coherent structured Analemma Water, could you describe what it looks like?

[01:10:44] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, first of all, those microscopes doesn't exist. And it is a hypothesis.

[01:10:53] Ashley James: Haha! Electron microscope, maybe?

[01:10:54] Dr. Eric Laarakker: No, what I think, but it's a hypothesis. Probably what you would see. Well, actually that's the main reason why we test the water in biological systems and not in physical chemical point of view.

Because most research what had been done was on a biochemical physical point of view, but it doesn't say it's healthy. And we want to prove the benefits of it. What I think is that we managed to structure the chaotic water in structured water. So the chaotic water, so probably you would see that in chaotic water that all the H2O molecules will move at randomly and bump constantly against each other.

And probably you would see some strange clusters in it, which is the information of the toxins in it. You can take the toxins out of your water, but still the information of the toxins stays inside. That's why it's very important, even after the most beautiful cleaning with reverse osmosis, whatever you want, that still you need to make the water alive again. And so the information will stay.

So probably you will see clusters of different toxins still over there. And in coherent water, you will probably see that all the H2O molecules work together and thus form a crystalline structure.

Like I said before, you can compare it with the first crystal radios. A crystal can receive, store and send information. I personally think that we managed to create water with the most optimum crystalline form or probably crystalline forms that can receive, send the harmonic optimum information for your health and for your consciousness. So what you would see under the perfect microscope, probably you would see the most beautiful crystalline form or many crystalline forms over their own specific functions in just one glass of water. That's what I think.

[01:12:54] Ashley James: And you guys use a quartz tube.

[01:13:00] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes.

[01:13:01] Ashley James: You put the mother water in it and you made a tube and then there's a little holder at the end, like metal holder at the end. And that's what we use to stir the water. I fill up my mason jar, I have a glass mason jar, about 32 ounces of it, about four cups. And I sit there and I'll just stir it for one to two minutes and I'll watch in about a minute in.

The water, you can visually see it change. Something shifts, the viscosity changes, and I can see the viscosity shift. And it's almost like oil. It stirs differently. And now, because I do it every day, I fill up about six to eight mason jars at a time, and then I'll sit down and just stir about one to two minutes. But I'll sit there and I don't even use the clock anymore or count anymore because I guess I'm very, very in tune. And as I'm stirring, I feel the resistance change. It's hard to explain, but I feel a lightness. I feel a charge. I feel my hand feels it and I go, okay, this one's done. And sure enough, I go and I taste, I could do a taste test because sometimes, we'll stir like just a few times like, oh, we're on, we're on a rush. We're running out the door and I'll just stir a few times and it's, Nope. That wasn't enough. Uh, it's definitely, I could definitely feel it in my mouth. I can taste it, but I can also feel it in my hand as I'm stirring. The resistance changes. It just, it's like a flip of switch. It's kind of like making butter. If you've ever churned butter, you're just like churning and churning and churning and churning and then boom, it happens. There's like a some kind of chemical line. I know the end-limits causing like a chemical reaction, but in butter, it's causing something to shift and it goes from the buttermilk to butter. And that's sort of the same feeling. It happens in an instant as I'm stirring, it just all of a sudden shifts and the water changes. And it's so interesting. But like I said, I refuse to drink any water that's not structured. So I've been drinking all my water structured.

And now you guys have a device that you can hook up to the house that makes all the water in the house come out of all the taps in the house structured so people can actually bathe in it. And I'm really intrigued to know about the latest studies because we've touched on it a little bit in Episode 498, but the studies really hadn't come out yet. And I think that there's some preliminary information that you could share with us.

[01:15:45] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, to be honest, I really recommend to bathe in it. And if you don't have the whole house on Analemma, you can swirl your bath. You know, like you said, when it's ready. And it's not like, OK, for glass, you need for half a minute. So you have to swirl for half an hour. It's not true. Actually, for me, it's my belly. The problem, my microbiome knows when it's ready. Then I feel, you know, it's like the energy starts flowing. And we were surprised actually how much beautiful results we had. There is a spa now in the US where people come and just lay down in the Analemma Water and they have a tremendous positive results with it on the cardiac output, stroke volume and the blood viscosity. People are measured by doctors and now about 100 people are under research and we have beautiful results with it. And what is the reason for that? One is probably
that your skin has a huge uptake of water, but personally I think there's something else going on also and maybe more important. We talked before that water can make disharmonic tones in sound and in electromagnetic harmonic. What Analemma Water does specially that will tune your energy field from a disharmonic into a harmonic communication system. So personally I have the idea that bathing in Analemma Water even works better than only drinking it.

So I really would recommend it. There's people now, more and more people they use for the swimming pool. And they claim tremendous results with it. And like I said, there are now 100 people on the research and almost all of them have a beautiful difference on the cardiac output, stroke volume and blood viscosity.

[01:17:38] Ashley James:  So for those who don't know what that means, what would you feel? How different would you feel if you had those results? If you had this more viscous blood and cardiac output. What would that feel like? Are you calmer? Are you happier? Or like you're, you're

[01:17:58] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I bathe in it myself. Actually I shower with it every day because I have this whole system in my house. I feel energized. Better connected. Less stress.

To be honest, I need to do it. I'm hooked on it before I go to sleep. I do it twice a day in the morning and in the evening. I know it's not good on spoiling of water, but a lot of my patients actually are not in a good shape. And we do, we work with acupuncture, all kinds of healing stuff, et cetera, et cetera. And all those patients, they drain me a lot. When I take my shower, everything is over.

It reloads, like I said, it reconnects again, and all the negative energies, whatever which are on my body, they disappear. And I just feel recharged again.

[01:19:06] Ashley James: And your showers before you installed the Analemma house unit, they didn't have that effect?

[01:19:14] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, it had also a certain amount of effect, but there's a huge difference. I mean, showering by itself is cleaning your energy field. It's not only about, you know, getting your sweat from your body and stuff like that. But for me, it's always all of my life. I love showering. You know, if there's a waterfall, I like to stand under it, especially when it loads yourself.

The sea, all the negative ions which are there, they reload you. But I don't have the sea near my house and I don't have a waterfall near my house. So I have to do it with a shower. And for me, it's a big difference. I can feel it now, I just was sort of three weeks in Sweden, Norway. And I didn't like to take a shower over there in the houses where I was. And when I came back home, the first thing what I did is take a shower. And it's a complete different feel.

[01:20:13] Ashley James: Interesting. Have you guys had any observations around heart rate variability and bathing in Analemma Water or drinking Analemma Water?

[01:20:23] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Actually, to be honest, we didn't do any research in that, but I'm quite sure that's something we want to do. But on the other hand, we did a lot of research on brainwave activity.

[01:20:42] Ashley James: Yeah, tell us about that.

[01:20:44] Dr. Eric Laarakker: And so we saw a huge difference in that, by drinking the water, like we did for example, a test on a twin and one got Analemma Water, one got the other water, normal water, and with the twin who drank the normal water we didn't see any changes in the one who drank the Analemma Water, you saw a lot more coherence in the brain, far more relaxed, the brain waves start working a lot together. I'm not a specialist in brain waves but the results were tremendous in that way. Then we changed it around and we saw that with the other person.

After that we did a lot of tests with a lot of people and especially you see almost the changes immediately on the stress levels and the alpha state and the beta state you see a lot of changes in there almost immediately after drinking the water.

[01:21:39] Ashley James: Phenomenal. Do you think structured water protects us from different types of radiation? Like what we're exposed to? We keep going back to 5G, but cell towers, the cell phone, the computers, the Wi-Fi being constantly surrounded by electronics. Does structured water act as a way to suppress the effects of all the electromagnetics.

[01:22:11] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, because the water is stable. Like I said, we did tests on plants with one year old water, which was standing next to the wifi router. We found it by coincidence and it gave the same results. And actually in the middle of testing it now. And there's one other thing which EMF does and it is destroying the microbiome. And we also proved that the microbiome diversity went up after drinking the water. So in two ways, it helps, protects, against EMFs. I cannot say anything about 5G because it's not on this planet long enough. We're actually in the middle of testing it, but I don't see any reason why that will be different. And that is one of the go back to the showering and laying in the bath, all these negative information has turned into positive information. So I'm quite sure that it's very beneficial. And actually we tested that on a microbiome and in studies before by feeding that water to the plants and people who are, it's not that you not don't feel it, maybe you even feel it better. If I looked at my own wife and my own kids, they're very sensitive to radiation, but it's very smart if you know what I mean. Because the body tells you this is not good. You should worry if you don't feel it anymore.

[01:23:48] Ashley James: Yeah. Becoming habituated to something that's bad for you, like alcohol, cigarettes, sugar. That just means you're feeling low grade sickness all the time, but you're used to it. And we want people to rage against illness, to stand up and say this is wrong, to just reject it, reject illness, reject this sick mentality.

I'll give you an example. 70 percent of adult Americans are at least one prescription medication. This is how sick we are. But we've bought into the sickness mentality because we've been sold on that this is normal. And being sick is not normal. We need to reject this model that we've been sold is normal. Like you said with horses, where was cancer in horses a hundred years ago? Where was all the allergies? Horses having allergies a hundred years ago.

[01:24:53] Dr. Eric Laarakker: You don't even have to go far so bad. But now in 93, when I finished University, I became a horse vet. Most horses I saw were crippled or some had maybe some skin diseases, but not so many. And now the biggest issue is the gastrointestinal issues, autoimmune diseases, immune diseases. In 20, 30 years, it changed completely.

Even cancer now is a big thing with horses. We didn't see that 30 years ago.

[01:25:24] Ashley James: And look at humans. Look at the amount of children that have illnesses is crazy.

[01:25:32] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I think now in our country 43% of 20 year olds already have a chronic sickness. And this is evolutionary, this is nonsense. So if it is that case, then there's something wrong.

[01:25:45] Ashley James: Yeah. If evolution was the model we were looking at, we would be getting healthier and healthier, not sicker and sicker, right? No, there's something wrong with our air, food, water, soil. There's something very wrong with our entire environment. And we have to stop accepting that this is normal, because it's not. And

[01:26:10] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I fully agree.

[01:26:10.97] Ashley James: I was talking to a client yesterday about this, warning them about a few things. And they said, how do you not have constant anxiety thinking about how there's so much out there killing us? And I said, you know, where I focus is I focus on the safe waters. I'm imagining that you're in a boat and there's rocks underneath the water all around us.

And I want to tell you where the rocks are so you can avoid them. But don't focus on the rocks. Focus on the safe water. So you can steer safely and keep traveling through the safe waters. But we have to know where the rocks are. And we can't accept like, oh, well, this is just how it is. I'm just going to crash up onto the rocks because that's just how it is. And that's what we do. We take our bodies to the wrong doctor most of the time. And they just want to give you drug after drug.

We go to the grocery store and we buy food that's covered in poison and lacks the healthy microbiome because what they're spraying is killing the bacteria that we're supposed to be eating, right? We surround ourselves with electronics that are harming us. We're drinking water that is polluted and chaotic. And then we wonder why we're so sick, right? So we want to make sure that everything that's in our environment and coming into us is clean and for our best good.

[01:27:39] Dr. Eric Laarakker: That's why it's so important to drink the right water. Because the body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. And never forget that. We don't need to do a lot. You just have to push the right button. And water is the key player in all of that. Because that's a communicator. So if you want to change one thing, if you only want to change one thing, of course, you have to change all of it. It's 100% true, but if I had to choose for one, I would choose for water.

[01:28:11] Ashley James: Yeah. Well, because like you said, we're 99% of our molecules is water. That just makes sense. Now there's a lot of talk about hydrogen water and, you know, pH water, like having alkaline water and there's all kinds of waters out there people talk about. When we use the Analemma to structure our water, does it do anything different to the hydrogen in the water? Does it do anything? Could you explain, from a science standpoint is there anything different?

[01:28:42] Dr. Eric Laarakker: No, no, it doesn't change the pH and it doesn't change the hydrogen in the water. These are two different things. And so I don't have anything against the hydrogen water. And some people use the wand after they create their own hydrogen water. And all before, some people before and after, that's a good idea. But I don't want to drink hydrogen water all the time. And I don't want to drink alkaline water all the time. Alkaline water can be okay for, to recover after sickness or whatever, but it's not like using for constantly drinking that water. Actually, the most devices who create alkaline water de-structure the water because it's done with electrons.

[01:29:34] Ashley James: Oh, interesting. So even though people-

[01:29:39] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I see it as medicine, if you know what I mean.

[01:29:41] Ashley James: Yes, right. You wouldn't take one medicine and give to everyone all the time. You use it when it's needed, but they should, if they're using like a Kangen machine or something, they should follow up with the Analemma to structure the water after they've changed the pH because the kangen is destructuring the water. Interesting. Yeah.

[01:29:59] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Exactly.

[01:30:01] Ashley James: Interesting. So my husband and I, we try to be as healthy as possible. We try to make the healthiest food choices possible and we often will juice a few times a week. Like for breakfast or lunch, we'll have a big glass of vegetable juice that I'll make in the juicer. And my favorite is beet, carrots, celery, beet greens, little bit of ginger.

That's usually what I put in, oh, and cabbage. And my husband came up with the idea to then, after I've juiced, because we drink it really fast, like within, we try to drink it within 20 minutes to 30 minutes of making it, because that's where everything's still alive. And he decided to structure the juice after we'd made it. And…

[01:30:52] Dr. Eric Laarakker: He's a wise man.

[01:30:54] Ashley James: That I mean, well, he really follows in his intuition. He also had the intuition to take the Analemma and he used medical tape and he strapped it to his chest, his sternum, and he really felt it. And I talked to Mario about that and he said, well, we're gonna come up with some jewelry that people, so they can wear the Analemma. So it's right by your heart structuring all the blood. And that is just brilliant. But so I started doing that. I started holding the wand up to my heart and I've really felt it. And it just feels so good. Spending a few minutes just holding it there. So my husband decided he would stir it and I don't know if he told me, but he handed me the juice and it was an explosion in my mouth. It was like, I'd never drank juice before. It was a completely different experience. So for anyone listening who likes juicing, you need to try it. You need to structure the juice afterwards. Just spend, a good one to two minutes stirring it and then drink it. And it's a very different experience. It's as if it was completely alive. Like I just got it out of the garden.

[01:32:04] Dr. Eric Laarakker: True, that's what we do.

[01:32:06] Ashley James: You do that too?

[01:32:08] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it restructures almost everything. Even for the people who like to drink a beer or a glass of wine once in a while, you can use the one for that. And it's not an excuse to drink more.

[01:32:18] Ashley James: (Laughs)

[01:32:21] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I must say, but the taste is going to be different.

[01:32:25] Ashley James: Well, I don't drink a lot of coffee, but when I do drink a glass, I will, or a mug of coffee. I will use structured water to make it. And it is a different experience. It definitely changes the flavor. All my tea, I structure it first before I make tea. And I just, it really changes the difference. And, my husband said the other day, he goes, we should, we should open up a chain of restaurants with the Analemma Water.

And everyone's going to freak out because the food is going to taste so good. Because all the food will be made with the Analemma water and all the water we serve will be Analemma water and I was like, you're brilliant. This is genius. You know, I think that I think you're onto something.

[01:33:09] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, I'll be the first one to come and join in your restaurant for sure.

[01:33:14] Ashley James: I love it. I really want to make sure that before we finished today's interview, that you share what is most important to understand in terms of the science, the discovery, like especially for the people who are skeptical like I was, right? This isn't woo-woo, this isn't a new age woo-woo device. Like there is so many results, that you've used the scientific method, you can clearly see across the board, in animal, like you said, there's no placebo effect, it helps animals, and you've used the Analemma Water with animals.

Could you just leave us with what is the most important thing that we need to understand about the science around this?

[01:34:00] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Actually, one of the most important things for me is the results on the microbiome and on the brainwaves and on the ATP. And we did a double blind controlled research on ATP, on ATP in blood levels. And in three months time, we saw an increase of 23% of ATP in the blood.

[01:34:25] Ashley James: That is wild. So for those who don't know ATP is cellular energy made by the mitochondria. If you don't have ATP you're dead. It's the one difference I could say between people who are alive and people who are you know six feet under is producing ATP. So it's like you're 23% more alive after three months of drinking the Analemma water.

[01:34:46] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Almost all the chronic diseases, mitochondria play a key role. In aging, mitochondria play a key role. So for me, that was one of the most impressive research that we did. It was even more than we thought it would happen.

[01:35:02] Ashley James: Did you do a telomere measurements or are you going to do that?

[01:35:08] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Actually we now have a talk, the next one probably is going to be the Viome test. We did of course the glycan age study and there's a lot going on, in how important telomeres are. The science is a little bit changing so and it's not easy to do research on and of course we have to pay all the research ourselves so. We're actually now in the middle of making our choices where to do research in.

[01:35:41] Ashley James: So let's talk about Analemma and the future of using structured water to help humanity, help the planet. What are you most excited about that you've got kind of in the hopper coming up in the future?

[01:35:52] Dr. Eric Laarakker:  Well, I will share you my wildest dream.

[01:35:55] Ashley James: Okay.

[01:35:55] Dr. Eric Laarakker:  Our goal for the future actually is to make all the waters on this planet coherent. It would help this planet and all living things on this planet to become healthy and more conscious. Imagine what would happen if all the seas, lakes, rivers, all the drinking waters would be coherent. The microbiome of this whole planet would revive and this would help to clean up all the toxins in the water and soils of this planet. It would help tremendous in making this planet and all living healthy again. We would become the conscious healthy humans that we should be. And that's one of the effects of this water that we touched upon is that it raises the consciousness of the one who is drinking it. And for me, it's very simple. A higher consciousness would never destroy this beautiful planet and would do everything to bring beauty and harmony to this planet. That is for me one of the most beautiful side effects of the Analemma water. I can tell you one more research what we did, which proved it more or less. And that's been actually a test we did already years ago. With biophotons, we were measuring on seeds. Some seeds got normal water, other seeds, they got Analemma Water.

And we were measuring the biophotons over a long period, over days. And the funny thing is the water with the seeds who got the Analemma Water, there was like a sonazoid going on, there was a harmonic rhythm. And with the normal water, we didn't see that and we didn't know what it was. And then we found out that actually the seeds who got the Analemma water were reacting exactly on a moon cycle.

[01:37:44] Ashley James: Oh wow.

[01:37:45] Dr. Eric Laarakker: So that means they are in tune. The biggest issue, as I see it, that we have on this planet, is that we think we are kind of coincidence over here and that we are the master of this planet and the master of the universe. Well, we're nothing. If we would come in tune again with the cosmos, with the God, whatever you wanna call it, with the quantum field, then we would stop by ourselves to destroy this planet and do everything to bring beauty to this planet. Actually that is our wildest dream.

[01:38:17] Ashley James: There's no separation between us and our and each other and between us and this Earth. Like you said, we think we're like separate, right? We're like people think that there's somehow separate from what they put in their mouth. They can go to McDonald's and that they're like somehow they're just eating for pleasure, but they're putting poison into every cell of their body, right? But we think we're separate. We think that there's a difference between us and the Earth and our behaviour as a specie has made it so that the Earth is mirroring how sick we are, how angry we are, how disconnected we are. And this isn't political. And that's one thing that I always want to leave people with is that I'm not saying this isn't talking about climate change, right? Because that's so political. This is talking about we can all agree that pollution is bad for us. Remember back in the 80s, acid rain, like where did that go? With their spraying, the man-made pollution is bad for us. Let's not even talk about carbon, because people are like, there's too much carbon. Well, there's some science showing that there's too little carbon. It's kind of ridiculous. The problem is the mainstream media has us looking in the wrong place because they're like puppeteers. They're like, look over here, look over here. And they distract us.

Look over here. Don't look at the fact that we're spraying your air, you're putting chemicals in your water, putting chemicals in your food. We're feeding you artificial food, bio-engineered, genetically modified food. And for every 278 Cheerios, you're eating one Cheerio, the volume of glyphosate.

So like, would you sit there and put a straw to a bottle of Roundup? But that's what we're doing. And this is killing us. It's killing all of nature. Luckily, we still haven't gone past the point of bifurcation, right? We can turn this around, but each of us has to, instead of feeling guilty or shameful about this, we have to go, I love my body, I love my planet, I love the universe. I love the cosmos. I love God. Like I love it so much. I'm going to take care of myself and take care of this planet. We have to use our wallet to influence, right? So, so you're vote with your fork, vote with your dollar and invest in and get active, get vocal, invest in companies that are here to protect us and help us and help the planet, so organic companies.

I love the Analemma Structured Water Device. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. Definitely use coupon code LTH and thank you for that. It's already incredibly affordable, which we talked about in Episode 498, how it's very affordable. And that's wonderful for you guys, because I know that you guys could be charging five times as much or more and you're not, because you're making it accessible. Make sure that we find the companies that want to help us and help the planet and help our food and help our soil, just help all of us be as healthy as possible.

I believe in that consumerism can be harmful, but we can use conscious consumerism to be helpful. And so that's why I think we can turn this around, that as individuals together, we can turn this around. Stop waiting for some government to do something. We need to, as individuals, rise up and make sure that our choices are in alignment with helping our health and the future of our planet and the planet right now. Because if you structured all the water in the earth, just imagine how quickly we could start turning things around, it's beautiful. Don't support the companies that are hurting us. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Man. I wish I could have you on for like four more hours talking about all this. I know it's really late at night for you right now.

So I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. And I would love to have you back on the show as more studies come out. It would be so brilliant to continue to share this information. You've shared so much already. Is there anything that you want to leave us with?

[01:42:43] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Thank you very much that you want to have me in the show. Let's put it that way. And I fully agree. Let's not go into fear, because I think I see these times where we in. These are one of the hardest times maybe ever for humanity. But it's a big chance. It's a chance to wake up. And, you know, sometimes you need chaos before you get a new order. And luckily, our water can bring order and chaos but there are many other things also over there. And to be honest, my God tells me we are heading to a beautiful world. And so don't go into that fear because it's not helping. That's why they want to have us, because if we are in fear or in anger, it doesn't matter, you're not in your alignment. And we should be, as soon as you are aligned, you bring beauty. And this is an energy nobody can stop. And think about that. Just keep aligned. Then things will change.

[01:43:52] Ashley James: Love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Eric Larreker.

[01:43:57] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Perfect.

[01:44:00] Ashley James: It was such a pleasure having you on the show and I can't wait to have you back. And listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater, use coupon code LTH, try it for yourself. Come join the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group, and lots of people talking about the Analemma and the structured water and sharing their results and their experience. We'd love to have you come join the group and join the conversation. Eric, can't wait to have you back on the show. Thank you so much.

[01:44:27] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I will thank you so much. Bye bye.

 

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507: Understanding the Polyvagal Theory with Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie

https://www.learntruehealth.com/understanding-the-polyvagal-theory-with-dr-elizabeth-guthrie

Ashley James & Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie

Herbalist Elizabeth Guthrie, Ph.D. in Natural Medicine, shares her insights on the multifaceted world of plants and their significance in promoting well-being. She emphasizes the valuable role of invasive species in soil amendment, dispelling misconceptions and illustrating how these plants can be harnessed for nutritional and medicinal benefits. The discussion expands into the anxiolytic effects of Mimosa pudica bark and its role in downregulating the nervous system, with a focus on polyvagal theory and its implications. Furthermore, Elizabeth delves into the significance of the vagal nerve as a conduit of memories and the intricate connection between the gut and brain in shaping overall well-being.

Explore the transformative power of your unique plant allies as you harness nature’s wisdom for healing and resilience — and embark on a journey of self-discovery, connecting you deeply with the natural world. Sign up now for the free training— learntruehealth.com/plants

Highlights: 

  • Mimosa tree insights
  • Anxiolytic effects and relaxation
  • Beneficial invasives may provide nutritional and medicinal benefits
  • Untapped nutritional value in roadside plants often dismissed as weeds
  • Anxiolytic effects of Mimosa pudica bark and its role in soothing the nervous system
  • Vagal nerve's holistic role
  • Holographic nature of the nervous system

Intro:

Hello true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health Podcast. We have Part 2 with Elizabeth Guthrie, who we had since the last episode, Episode #506. She was a Ph.D. candidate, and now she's officially earned her Ph.D. in Natural Medicine, and she comes back on the show to dive deeper into this discussion of using herbs as our own medicine at home. And we discuss how you can work with herbs, for your own somatics, for your nervous system. I know you'll love today's interview. I hope you go back and listen to Episode #506, which was Part 1. We just continued the discussion. So, even if you didn't listen to 506, you'd still be able to gain lots of information from today's interview. And I apologize; my microphone is just a little bit off. You're still able to hear everything and gain knowledge from the episode. A knob got bumped, so it's just a little bit off, and I apologize. I'm going to correct that and get it all fixed and sound great again. 

So this interview took place a few weeks ago, which we're publishing right now. But today, I just finished an interview with one of the top scientists around structured water and the analemma, and I'm very excited to be publishing that. And that is going to be the next episode, Episode #508. So be sure to check that out. It's going to come out in the next few days. And Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie is giving us access to her free course, so we want to make sure that you guys know to go to learntruehealth.com/plants and sign up for her free class that she's giving on Saturday. And even if it's past the date, go ahead and go to that link because I'll make sure that it forwards to the course she's giving and any future free talks she's giving. But this particular webinar is going to be fascinating. And if you have any interest in utilizing plants and learning more about natural medicine, learning more about emotional and physical health, emotional, mental and physical health, and working with plants, then I invite you to check it out. I think you'll really like it. Learntruehealth.com/plants takes you to sign up for her free talk coming this Saturday. 

Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen from, whether it's the Apple podcast app, Android, Google, PodBean, Spotify, even on Amazon Podcasts, all kinds of places, or just on the learntruehealth.com website. You could be listening from there. Wherever you're listening from, make sure that you subscribe so that you get the notifications for when episodes come out.

I want to make sure that you definitely hear next week's episode. It's going to be amazing. I was just floored. There were several times when my jaw was on the floor, and I just can't wait to give you that information. With these interviews, it's like gold is coming out of the mouths of the guests that I have on, and I get so excited thinking about these little tidbits. Sometimes it's just one sentence. Someone says one sentence, and it is all the insight that was needed to spark the action, the mechanism of action for you to take your health to the next level. And certainly, I learned so much from my guests that have taken my life to the next level. So, I'm so thrilled to share this with you. I know today's interview will give you lots of gold, lots of insights as to what you can add to your life to enrich your life and your health and your continued growth in your well-being. And next week's episodes are going to be amazing as well. So remember, go to learntruehealth.com/plants so you can get access to Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie's talk coming up soon, and have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today's interview.

[0:04:17.4] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #507. I am so excited for today's guest. We have back on the show — I think it's the third time we've had you on the show, and now I can say, Ph.D. Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie. Welcome back to the show. It's so good to have you. We recently published an episode with you where it was just before you got your credentials, and you're saying, “Any day now, I might find out,” and then, of course, it was days after I saw you on Facebook going, “Yay, I got it!” So you've been Ph.D. for a while now. Although I've just published that episode. It was actually a few months ago. So it's been a few months, and so much has happened in your life. I'm really excited to have you back on the show because what you teach is a type of medicine that is so accessible. We actually all used to use it. Our ancestors only a few generations ago had such vast knowledge, and we've lost it in the last hundred years because of –, and I don't want to get into sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but it's the truth — that there was a concerted effort by those who owned the pharmaceutical companies to make it so that we didn't practice natural medicine. Instead, we focused on just going to the doctor and buying drugs that were petroleum-based patented drugs. And three generations later, we have no idea what herbs do other than maybe drinking some peppermint tea. And yet, right in your backyard, you have access to amazing herbs. 

My friend, last year, got stung by a wasp really bad, and a friend of his who, I believe, is a First Nations person, a Native American, or has that background, turned to my friend and said, “Oh, go grab that yarrow right there. Chew it up and put it on the wound. Put it on the bite.” And my friend, who was in immense pain, did it, and within seconds, it felt like the pain just went away. And he was like, “Woah, what was that?” And his friend was like, “Yeah, yarrow. It grows everywhere and really good for…” and he started listing off all these things, and it was right there. He got stung, and he didn't even have to take a step. It was like the yarrow was the medicine.

And the cure to the problem was right there at his fingertips. And this is what it's like in our backyard. You could just reach out. You can just walk ten paces, reach out, touch, and as long as you don't have just a manicured lawn, you can grab something that has wonderfully beautiful medicinal properties. There are trees that I know in our area that grow the seeds that fight parasites. There are things that we think are weeds that are growing up between the cracks in the cement, making wonderful poultices for eczema and bug bites and for calming fevers. The list goes on and on. It's amazing that we could just take a little bit of time, learn from Elizabeth today, and begin to cultivate this excitement around how we can use plant medicine to support our body's ability to heal itself. Even in some cases, in the first stage, just to calm the nervous system and bring in nutrients, decrease inflammation, swelling, and pain. 

So we have lots to talk about today. I'm really excited that Elizabeth is doing a free introductory event to plant medicine. You're going to learn so much. I want you to sign up for it. Go to learntruehealth.com/plants. I just tried to make it as simple as possible to type in instead of having to type in plant medicine. So just type in learntruehealth.com/plants, and that'll take you to her free introductory event, where she's going to teach you lots of great information, even more than we're going to discuss today. So, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here.

[0:08:39.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Thanks. I'm thrilled to be here. 

[0:08:41.1] Ashley James: Absolutely. So, take us back to the moments we hung up the last time, and then days later, you finally got your credentials, your very hard-earned Ph.D. in Natural Medicine. Let us know what's happened since. What has unfolded since? 

[0:08:59.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Wow, there's been a lot of different fascinating discussions with people. I got my Ph.D. in Natural Medicine because it was accessible to me. It was something that I was able to do. I was able to really buckle down and do a lot of hard work around it. I've learned a lot about natural medicine in general and, of course, my focus on plant medicine and the way that it can help after significant emotional distress or trauma, depending on the situation. And it is a little bit different from Naturopathic Medicine. There are naturopathic medical schools in both America and Canada that can teach you how to become almost like a primary care physician. This was more research-based, but it's been really helpful in my practical application as well because I do support people in a clinical setting to help them find out what their bodies need and what's going to help them the most. 

I guess it's been about nine months. It has been a whirlwind. I got to teach a class for the American Herbalist Guild on polyvagal theory in herbalism. I've begun to train in somatic practices. So I was already doing some somatic work, and, of course, I've been training for yoga therapy and things like that. But I've really started to do these professional level trainings with Dr. Peter Levine in somatic practices in order to better merge plant medicine and what's happening in the body, how we can really come in contact with our body, and really get to that point where we feel embodied. So that, then, our intuition is a little bit clearer. When we look out into nature, we look at the different rhythms that are happening in nature. We look at the things that are occurring, the seasons, or sometimes the doctrine of signatures for the plants in the way that the plants look or the things that were called to. If we are more centered on ourselves and we understand a little bit about the plants around us, it becomes easier for us to intuitively reach for the right things at the right time. And that's a lot of the work that I've been focused on.

[0:11:29.5] Ashley James: Love it. Well, since we talked, I've been having tea a lot with my son. He gravitates towards them much more intuitively than even I do. And it's cool because he's very sure of himself, and he's very grounded in knowing who he is. He knows what he likes and what he doesn't like. And he asks for tea, and that's so cool. So we've been playing around with the different teas, and he loves Sleepytime tea and all those herbs that are just calming and soothing right before bed, and I noticed he does definitely seem to just ease into bedtime a bit better. So we enjoy, and we each share a cup of Sleepytime tea. On the back, it says do not let children drink it, and I noticed that after about the fifth time, we were drinking it. I was like, “Oh no, why?” It's not like I'm giving him five tea bags. It's not strong. I'm not making a strong one. But I was like, “Why is it saying this?” So maybe you could enlighten me. Are there teas that they sell on the shelves of the stores just like premade kind of tea mixes that are unsafe for certain ages? Obviously, I'm not feeding it to an infant. My son's 70 lbs, and he's drinking one cup. So maybe you could enlighten us on that. And what we've really enjoyed is that he likes picking his own herbs and making tea like peppermint. He likes picking fresh peppermint, and he'll make his own teas without me prompting him. He kind of just knows how to do it, which is amazing. He's got this innate knowledge. 

And then lately, I've been making a turbo moon tea elixir where I've mixed fifteen different herbs. I felt really drawn to that Ayurvedic mixture. Let's see, I have got like ten to fifteen of them, so I don't know if I can name them all off, but I've got like licorice root, dandelion root, a ton of turmeric, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, ginger. The list goes on and on. And then I blend them all up with pepper, with some coconut milk and water, and then I put it in the fridge, and it becomes this congealed, very thick substance. So it's a concentrate, and I just take a spoonful of that — and ashwagandha, a ton of ashwagandha — put it in a mug of hot water, and I stir it, and then that's the tea. My body loves it because it's so calming, so relaxing. I fed some to my husband last night, and he fell asleep within five minutes, snoring on the couch. I was like, “This is really good.” Any time I do this moon tea — I call it moon tea, but there's way more in it than the normal moon tea — I just notice that my nervous system loves it, and I have even better sleep. And, of course, my husband, it just knocked him right out, which is wonderful. A lot of the stuff in there helps detoxify, and it's antiparasitic. Its anti-inflammatory and its adaptogenic herbs are helping to stabilize the body. Ashwagandha is good for men and women. I always thought it was just women, but I started reading about how ashwagandha is good for men, and I thought, “Oh, I'm going to feed this to my husband.” And he loves it. 

So you've inspired us to play with herbs since we talked. So thank you. Thank you for that. So you came up with this course — the introductory events and then the whole course that comes after it. So, fill us in on what we are going to learn. Or can we dive into what you are so excited to teach us today? 

[0:15:33.2] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: I think it's really interesting because your comments about your son and his intuitive sense towards the plants, making the teas, and choosing the things that he's really drawn to at that moment is a natural intuition that we all have. And I believe that a lot of the time, one of the reasons that we have this kind of deeper homesickness, this deeper sense of “I don't quite feel like I'm in the right place,” comes from our lack of connection to nature.

When we look around us, and we connect to nature, we connect to the rhythms of the universe and what's occurring. And when we can start to really find ourselves in that deeper relationship — first, it may just be like, “Oh, this is nice,” but the more that we do it, the deeper our relationship becomes. And we can get to a point where that stillness actually becomes part of what we experience on a regular basis. And once we're at a place where we can embody the stillness of just knowing that these rhythms are a continual thing, “this too shall pass” — some of the stuff that we teach in mindfulness-type practices — then we can really get to a point where we can listen to our deepest consciousness and understand more about why we're here doing what we're doing. Like what our purpose in life is or the way that we can better connect to things, that kind of ancient wisdom that everybody holds, but we may not be able to access as easily when we're so disconnected from our natural state. And that's a lot of what we're talking about. 

Now, of course, we're getting into, “Here are the different plants you can do for this, and here's the teas that you could talk about or hear, the different essential oils.” But the core essence of this course, starting with this free introductory event, and then, of course, if you decide to come into the main course, we're really getting into tapping into that more natural intuitive sense to help to build and strengthen that relationship with the plants that are around us and what that means for each of us individually.

[0:17:53.1] Ashley James: So what herbs have you been featuring the last few months? What herbs have you been most excited about teaching or using yourself, seeing that they are so needed right now?

[0:18:08.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So, it's interesting that you ask me that because I've been chomping at the bit to talk about invasive species. Think about dandelions. For a lot of people, it is considered invasive, and the entire plant dandelion is helpful. The new leaves that come out in the spring they're nice on a salad as part of the bitters. There are a lot of benefits to the root. You can get roasted dandelion root to add to your coffee for people who drink coffee, and that's a really interesting flavor addition, and it has benefits. So there are all kinds of different ways you can use dandelion, and yet a lot of people see it as an invasive weed. 

To answer your question, one of my favorite plants right now is the mimosa tree. And it's really funny because the woman that you shared on your Facebook, I know that woman. That's one of the herbalists from our area. She and I have a very similar view on Mimosa because a lot of people go, “Oh, it's so invasive. It's terrible. I hate it. I can't get rid of it.” And I'm not saying that it's not very frustrating if it takes over and you don't want to take over. But I was very excited this year when one finally popped up. My neighbors have one on the property line, and every year, I've been like, “Okay, come here, come here.” And this year, what has finally popped up on the property? The bark and the flowers both have anxiolytic relaxing effects to them. I love this plant, and I use it for flower essences. I use it in tincture form for this anxiolytic effect. So, I am thrilled that this little baby has popped up on my property.

And so we don't need to just see invasive species as a pain. Sometimes, they're helping to change the soil. So, a lot of the time, these things that we consider invasive may actually be helping to amend the soil. Also, even kudzu has some properties that are beneficial. I don't use it very much. And so those kinds of things we can harvest without having to worry about the sustainability of it. Some plants we have to be more careful with because we've never harvested them. But a lot of these invasive plants that have benefits, either nutritional or the medicinal herbal side of things, whatever that is, we can harvest these and use them. 

I was recently reading a book by Pascal Baudar. It's his new book called Wildcrafted Vinegars. And one of the things that he mentions is that there are all kinds of different plants. He used to live in California, and there were all kinds of different plants that would just grow on the roadside and all over the hills that had nutritional value to them. But people saw them as weeds and never did anything with them. And you know, when people are concerned about, are we going to have enough access to food. Are we going to have enough capacity to take care of ourselves and things like that? So it may be more on the proper side of things, but still, we can look at those. And there are certain foods that can come from these things that we call weeds. There are medicinal benefits and survivability benefits. I encourage you, whatever you have around you, to get out and start learning about it and start understanding what these plants are. Not just the native plants but the invasive plants that we have in our area that might have benefits. Sometimes, you can find some really strong allies in those plants that we might normally think of as kind of a pain. 

[0:22:23.8] Ashley James: So the Mimosa pudica bark, you said the word anxiolytic? Can you explain what that means? So, if we were to take the bark and make tea out of it and drink it, what effect would it have on us? 

[0:22:36.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So it helps to reduce the feelings of anxiety. It has a very cooling, relaxing type energetics that helps you bring the nervous system back down. So this gets a little bit into the polyvagal theory — the sympathetic state, that fight or flight response. If somebody is really into a fight or flight mode, then the Mimosa can be very helpful on that front. 

[0:23:04.4] Ashley James: I can hear people say, “What if I poison myself because I don't know what I'm doing? Or what if I drink too much of it or have a bad reaction?” They're thinking, “I have to call poison control or something.” Can you maybe relieve our tension around the fear of using plant medicine because we're so used to picking up a prescription bottle and seeing how many to take and knowing that it's controlled, even though tens and thousands, if not a hundred thousand people a year die of improperly using prescription medication, not including the deaths overusing them? We think prescribed medicine is safe, and it's not. There's also a risk to that as well. There's more risk because the safeguards from nature have been taken out. 

I think we've talked about it before, but it's worth repeating that the willow bark was where we get aspirin from. Willow bark in its whole state; if you were to make a tea out of that, for example, or tincture, if you consume too much, it would cause you to throw it up. So it helps prevent you from overdosing. Whereas aspirin, they removed those things in nature that help us. I'm not saying every plant has the safeguard because, obviously, there are many plants that you can't eat, and that'll kill you. But there are even more plants out there that you can eat, and that will help. It's like snakes. Most snakes won't kill you, but it doesn't mean all snakes will kill you, either. So, a bit of knowledge goes a long way, and having a healthy respect for plants, just like having a healthy fear of human-made medicine or chemical-made medicine, we should just use more caution and look into each thing more. So, for all of us who have a mimosa tree in our backyard, why don't you just run out there right now and start gnawing on the bark. 

Tell us about the safeguards of beginning to use plant medicine just so that we can be rest assured. Like my son, without any thought, he will run outside, pick some bush, and start eating it because he loves plants. And I'm like, “Sweetie, there might be something in this garden that could kill you.” I know there's at least one plant that is in Washington State. I mean, it's killed one person in the last 60 years, but it could make people very sick. And I've told him not every plant is safe. We should really know what we're putting in our mouths. But he's like, “Well, you told me vegetables are good, and this is green, so I'm just going to eat it. He likes foraging, but he does it without me. So he just comes home chewing on something, and then I have to say, “What did it look like? Hold on, let me look it up.” So we want to go in our backyard or out in nature, or just go to the health food store, maybe. Sometimes, I start there. Can you teach us a bit about the safeguards, though, while we get into this?

[0:26:23.4] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So I encourage people to look into local guides and their plants, what they have locally grown. There are all kinds of different books that are available to give you an idea as to the safe dosing of different plants. And I will say, when you start looking into this, a lot of the dosing is based off of somebody who weighs about 150 lb. And, of course, children's dosing is a little bit different. But when it comes to an adult, usually, if you're looking at a bottle, it's kind of based off of somebody that is 150 lb. If you're heavier than that, sometimes you'll need to take more. But when you get into that level of taking capsules and taking a lot of it, and maybe there are some extracts, or maybe there's something else, that's where I think it's really helpful to find a clinical herbalist in your area, and work with them to learn a lot of these safeguards, a lot of these things that we're finding out. 

I think what we got into talking about last time with turmeric and the fact that there are some extracts now that may be giving people problems. We don't quite know yet. Is the whole plant or the whole root safe? Are these extracts, these curcuminoid extracts, giving people problems like, “What's happening there?” And you can work with a clinical herbalist to get a better feel for that. But there are a lot of plants that we can get into, most of which are in the teas that we see at the grocery store, like we're talking about, that are generally recognized as safe. For most people, there's not going to be an issue. If you have a lot of chronic illness, if you have a lot of unusual allergies, that would be a good time to say, “Hey, I think I am going to at least try to get an idea of what I want to do together.” Take it to an herbalist and just pay for time to sit there and talk through it with them. Maybe it's not like a full consultation, but maybe it's almost like a mentorship session. Consultations are good too, but if you're already kind of taking it into your own hands, you already have an idea; maybe you sit down for an hour of mentorship with them where they can help keep you in that safe range. But generally speaking, if you're in a situation where you're relatively healthy, and you're trying to just start to explore these things, then a lot of what you're talking about, like peppermint, is relatively safe for most people. There are going to be some people that may have some issues with acid reflux with it. But for the most part, people are going to be okay, and it's going to be fine, like lavender and chamomile. 

So there's a lot of these different herbs and a lot of the adaptogenic herbs that are very safe for most people. So there's a lot of those herbs that you can learn a little bit about, learn a bit about the dosing, and very quickly benefit from them. For instance, with the bark, it is about 10 grams into a decoction, and that's what people can use. Now, it's going to be lower if you put it into a tincture. But it's a pretty decent amount of it that is considered, at this point, safe to use. So it's definitely like an entire conversation in itself, like safety and safety buffers. And I think it's just really important to recognize that you don't necessarily read an article on the internet and assume that it's right. Go back to these people who are herbalists who have been doing this for years or who have credentialing. Notice that I used that separately because there are a lot of people who don't have credentialing who are very good herbalists and have experience. So, both of those things are valid career paths. So look for things like K.P. Khalsa's books. It's a little bit older, but Louise Tenney was a master herbalist who has some good reference guides. Obviously, Rosemary Gladstar's work is really amazing. Now I'm freezing up on the man who did the adaptogens. But David Winston has an adaptogens book if you're into that. So there are all kinds of different places you can go to find out what people are generally seeing as safe dosing.

[0:30:54.3] Ashley James: And they can also go to you, right? 

[0:30:58.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: I'm here. I just don't want to be totally focused on myself as perfect, like I know all of this. A lot of this I'm learning from. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants with a lot of this information. We have a lot of indigenous healers who have given us a lot of information, and we've got a lot of these people who have really studied and codified what these dosages look like. But yeah, absolutely. And there are ways to look at this from a more energetic angle. So, the first interview I did with you was on chakras and talking about energy healing because, at the base, I am very much an energy healer. And so there are ways to get into plant medicine where we are focused on very low dosing or drop doses that are focused more on the energetic train and less on the chemical constituents. There's just so many different ways that you can go with us. And yes, that is absolutely an option as well.

[0:31:59.1] Ashley James: So, bringing us back to the Mimosa pudica plant, which I first learned about because I had Dr. Jay Davidson on the show, and he talked about using it in conjunction with other herbs. But he used it from ayurvedic medicine to rid himself of 12-inch worms that were parasites in him. And then, he created a line of parasite-cleansing supplements in which Mimosa pudica was a main component of that. Mimosa pudica seed, I should say. So I became very excited about Mimosa pudica, but then I learned that it's sort of like the dandelion. We can use the flower. We can use the leaves. We can use the seed. We can use the bark.

Tell us about the other parts of the Mimosa pudica. Let's pretend 20 years from now, when you have this thriving Mimosa pudica tree in your backyard, what are you going to do with all the properties of this tree and beyond the bark, helping us calm ourselves from anxiety and the seeds that have antiparasitic properties. What other healthy properties do the other aspects of the plant have? 

[0:33:15.6] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Mimosa pudica is actually a different species from Albizia julibrissin. It's very similar, though, but the Mimosa, which is called Mimosa pudica, is actually like the one you're talking about, where I think it's used a lot in Ayurveda and TCM, maybe.

[0:33:35.9] Ashley James: Oh, so these are like cousins?

[0:33:37.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah, they're kind of cousins. And so, Albizia, you'll hear it is sometimes called silk tree, but it's also called Mimosa here in the South. But our main invasive mimosa is the Albizia julibrissin. The bark and the flowers are the two things that I use most frequently. So with pudica, I think you use the seeds, and maybe the roots are another aspect that you can get into. But for this plant, the Albizia julibrissin, that's the one that I work with most. I tend to get the flowers in the late spring when they bloom and tincture them, and then go back in the fall when it's time to trim it back, and trim it back and take the bark, and I do it right before it starts to get really cold because obviously, the energetics move into the roots when we get in the late fall and early winter. But in mid-fall, probably mid-to-late September, I'm going to trim it back and take the bark and put it into the same tincture I put the flowers into. And then, I use that as one of the relaxing, cooling herbs and formulas that I use specifically to support people who are dealing with that sympathetic fight-or-flight state. So that's a lot of it for me because a lot of the time, I am working with people that have a lot of autoimmune issues or maybe chronic pain and things like that. But a lot of the work that we're doing actually starts in the nervous system.

And so, when I'm using things like Mimosa and things like that, I'm not worried as much about the anti-inflammatory properties. They are good. But what I'm really focused on with it is the cooling and relaxing properties that it offers the nervous system to help bring them back into balance, so that their body is no longer in that alarm state, so that their body can start doing what it naturally does to reduce inflammation and flush everything out and get them back into balance. So that's kind of where I use it. I know there are other people who use it in other ways, but that's one of my favorite ways to work with it. 

[0:35:57.7] Ashley James: Very cool. I love it. And it's so interesting about the idea that an invasive, not noxious species, but an invasive species could actually be there for our benefit to help balance the ecosystem or prepare the soil or something maybe medicinally that we need. I think of other examples of that. So, there are a lot of invasive thistles in Washington State. I'm thinking about the invasive trees and plants. Not the noxious ones, not the poisonous ones, but the ones that are safe to eat, but they're just kind of taking over. And I'm just wondering if you could share, if you know a bit more about other ones that are known medicinal invasive species.

[0:36:50.2] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So I can speak mostly from the South because that's where I'm at. But like kudzu, it is rampant here, and there are traditional uses for kudzu. There's kudzu jelly. There is a reason that some people use it for headaches and things like that. There's all kinds of things like that. Somebody said English ivy, but I have not played with that. I've not dug into that. And I'm trying to think of ones that might be out there as well. And chickweed, is chickweed something that you all have? 

[0:37:34.1] Ashley James: We've got English ivy, knotweed, Scotch broom, ragwort, Kitsap weeds. There are a lot of different thistles, although I don't know their names. Dogwood trees take over everywhere. Well, it's something like you said — it's very regional.

[0:38:02.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Right. And that's the beauty of getting out there and really learning from a local herbalist. I'm happy to help anybody get started on that side of things. A lot of the work that I do doesn't consist of necessarily, specifically, it's more about the connection once you find plants that you're interested in. It's more about encouraging the exploration of this plant. So now, locally here, I've got chickweed. Like I was just saying, that is invasive, but it's edible. There are so many different things you can do with it, and there's all kinds of stuff like that all across the world. 

[0:38:40.5] Ashley James: Okay, so let's talk about chickweed. I'm going to Google it so I can know what it looks like. But let's talk about it. So you can eat it. What is it good for? What does it help people with? 

[0:38:50.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Chickweed, I tend to use it just as part of the food. That's the beauty of a lot of these plants. There's a medicinal side to them, but then you also have the fact that a lot of these things are edible, and they can be fermented into really interesting culinary things that people can use. A lot of the time, chickweed is something that people are talking about for digestion. I see it a lot because it is a spring herb, so it's kind of part of those clearing herbs that we use early in the spring. Some people use it to try to help with the kind of systemic inflammation that leads to circulatory problems. I can't think of the official word for it, but obesity and things like that. But I don't go too far into that because I have a doctorate. I have a Ph.D., but I'm not a medical doctor. So, I'm less worried about diagnosing somebody with diabetes or metabolic syndrome. That's the word I couldn't think of. I'm not looking to diagnose somebody with metabolic syndrome and say, “Oh, here are the herbs that can help you.” I'm more about the rhythms of the seasons that we're in. So, in the spring, we eat chickweed. We eat dandelion leaves. We do things like that to help clear the system, to help clear the congestion from winter, to help our body to prepare for the spring energies that are coming up. 

If somebody comes to me and they've got metabolic syndrome, I'm less worried about metabolic syndrome and more worried about what are the energetic patterns happening in their body. Is there a lot of stuff? Usually, somebody's coming to me because they've got some form of trauma or emotional struggles and things like that. They really want help with mental health-type things. So we're looking at the nervous system first, like, what's happening in the nervous system? There is a lot of heat and irritation in the nervous system that we can use to cool things, like chickweed is kind of cooling, right? And it can help to cool the body down and bring it back into balance. And that's where some of the polyvagal stuff comes into play with a dorsal vagal versus sympathetic. And if somebody's in a sympathetic state, there are certain herbs that energetically have benefits for that sympathetic state versus the herbs that are going to be more helpful for the dorsal vagal state, where somebody's body is almost too cold, and there's almost not enough movement. And their nervous system has almost slowed down too much, and we have to warm it back up and bring movement back in. 

[0:41:45.7] Ashley James: Just to clarify, for those who just need a refresher in dorsal vagal, polyvagal, fight or flight, sympathetic versus rest and digest, parasympathetic, or maybe, like you said, they're having trouble getting proper vagal tone. I don't want to say fight or flight, but when we need that cortisol, we need that stimulus, those healthy cortisol levels, it's just not there. So, for me, I had a really bad end stage, chronic adrenal fatigue. So bad that if something were to happen, I wouldn't have been able to jump up and run out of a burning building. I didn't have to get up and go. And then, out of nowhere, I'd have these adrenaline dumps where I felt like I was dying. That would happen occasionally, like my body was like, “Okay, come on, let's go. Come on, let's go. Let's just release the cortisol.” And it was dysregulated. That was not healthy, and it took nutrition and dietary changes and lifestyle changes. And then the final thing really was minerals, remineralizing my body. But it took a lot of healthy changes to get me back to where I was balanced again. 

And thinking about the herbs that I was regularly using, I can remember cinnamon. I was taking cinnamon capsules. It had a few other things in it, but it was like some minerals packed with cinnamon. That was brilliant for me, the minerals. Cinnamon is the only herb I can remember. I know that there were a few other ones. This was like twelve years ago. But I was very exhausted all the time and didn't have to get up and go. So, for me, I was like the other side, where people who are living on cortisol, they're living on adrenaline. They're kind of tired-wired at night, and sometimes they can't bring themselves down. They might go, go, go during the day, but then when they need to relax, they can't, and then it gets to the point where they're burnt out. So when they need to get up and go, they can't. So, the vagal nerve is brilliant. We definitely want to talk a bit more about that. We've discovered it before, but it's so worth talking about more. It's a wonderful nerve that runs from the brain to the gut. And there's so much to discuss because there's a direct connection. We've got like a brain in our gut. We have a brain in our heart, and we have a brain in our head. And that's why we're just discovering what kind of what we know in natural medicine, in indigenous medicine, for hundreds and hundreds of years. We're now just discovering in the West that there are bundles of nerves in the heart and in the gut and that they're communicating to the brain. We used to think the brain just tells the body what to do. But we actually have a brain in our heart, a brain in our gut telling our brain stuff. It's like a consciousness, like thinking that we do in our head. Sometimes, I go all over the place, but it makes sense in my brain. 

There's a really great book written a long time ago, and I read it back in 2005, and it still sits with me. It's called The Holographic Universe, and it talks about how we think that all of our thinking is in our head, but it's actually stored holographic throughout our whole body. And it's so beautiful — this idea that our nervous system is actually throughout our whole body, and we can store memories. People will have transplants, like a heart transplant, and then they'll have memories from the person they got it from. There was even a little girl who had a transplant, and she had perfect memories of the murder, and they were able to use them in court and convict the murderer. And that was the organ that she received from the murder victim. We've got several other cases in which we've seen that memories exist outside the brain because the stored holographic leads to the whole nervous system. So that's why I love the vagal nerve because it's this superhighway from the gut to the brain.

And there's more going on in the gut that we need to acknowledge like a thyroid hormone is turned over and produced in the gut that we always think it's just in the thyroid, but there's actually stuff in the gut that's very important. Something like upwards of 70% of our serotonin is made in the gut. There's so much going on with the 6 lb of bacteria in your gut that's making so many of our nutrients for us from our food. So you eat that McDonald's, that's what you're using to build yourself. But that's also what you're using to build your microbiome and feed your microbiome, and you feed the wrong microbiome. It's a bunch of sugar and flour. The bad microbiome is going to produce bad chemicals. So I could go on and on. But the vagal nerve is so important on an emotional level, mental level, physical level, energetic, and spiritual level for our being. 

So there's my little soapbox rant about how much I love the vagal nerve. But you talked about the vagal nerve when it comes to herbs and how we can acknowledge, “Okay, I'm kind of running empty.” How can we restore ourselves? “Okay, I'm running. My body is running like there's no tomorrow, and I need to calm myself and put myself in healing mode.” When we're in fight or flight, we're not really in healing mode. Our body shuts off in somatic processes for long-term healing in order to survive the day, the fight, or the flight. So we want to bring restoration because it's good to have the ability to fight or fight when we need to. It's good to have the rest when we need to have to bring ourselves back into the balance. And that's what I love. You teach us how to think about plants as our support system for bringing the nervous system back into check.

[0:48:07.2] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah, and there's a lot of nuance to that. And that's some of what we get into in the course. It's like, “Well, if you have this going on, then is it sympathetic? Is it dorsal vagal?” Sympathetic means fight-or-flight. The dorsal vagal is a part of the vagus nerve that creates the freeze response that shuts down. And so, what do we do when we're having those responses? How do we balance that back out? And those responses are healthy in certain situations. But like you said, what's happening for a lot of us, especially with the life that we have to live to survive in today's society in a lot of situations that get thrown off, a lot of that is being held in different parts of our nervous system. A lot of the frustrations or the traumas or whatever else, the memories, as you said, like with the holographic body, that's getting held in other places in our nervous system. And so a lot of the conversation becomes, “What are the herbs that we are drawn to?” Because we can talk about medicinal plants. But we can also have plant friends that we don't eat. But the energy, the resonance between them and us, is something that you can't replace, and it feels comfortable, and it feels safe. A lot of the times when you've been through a lot, and things have been very bad chaotic — there's good chaos, and there's bad chaos — but when you've been through something that's overwhelmingly chaotic, sometimes it can begin to feel like this is too much. Everything feels like I can't get to a point where I know what's going to happen next. And if you have a plant ally, a plant buddy, if you will — it sounds fancy to call it an ally, but — 

[0:50:06.6] Ashley James: Emotional support plant.

[0:50:08.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Right. It becomes an emotional support plant. And I have some of those. I have this bloodleaf. I don't use it for anything nutritional-based. I don't use it for anything in the medicinal realm. But the plant itself, I feel comfortable with that plant. And when I'm around that plant, I get the same feeling from that plant. And so now that becomes almost a regulation tool for me. So, there's a side to polyvagal theory called co-regulation. Usually, we talk about it with adults and children. If the adult can consciously allow themselves to stay in that ventral vagal state, which is a part of the vagus nerve that helps us feel connected. It allows us to go into rest and digest where the healing can occur. If the adult is able to consciously do things to help themselves stay in that state and their child is dysregulated, the child can begin to see the adults and see the adults' facial expressions and body movements, and they will begin to regulate. And if the adult can continue to keep themselves in that ventral vagal state, it helps the child to regulate. And so adults can do this for each other. But I have begun to realize that you can get some of that from plants. It's not quite the same thing as being around another mammal, and so on and so forth. But you can get some of that from plants. If there is a plant that you enjoy, that you feel safe enough to really get into that place where you can begin feeling healed, that connection is important. 

So, in this course that I'm doing, we're not just talking about, “Use this for this nervous system state. Use this to help your digestive system.” We are talking about some. We might talk a little bit about the different plants that people bring to the table, depending on what they've got going on, and so on and so forth. But really, the core of this is there are all kinds of ways that you can learn from different books, or I can teach you about the different herbs. At the end of the day, what really begins to matter, once you understand enough safety to keep yourself safe, like, we're not eating datura over here. But once you understand that and you're able to keep yourself safe within working with these plants, then there's a whole world to explore that allows us to realign our nervous system, realign our body in general, and get back to a place where we can listen to our intuition and decide what our tea needs to look like this morning. What are the plants that I'm being drawn to right now? Once our nervous system is back in alignment and that vagus nerve is feeding the brain the right information again, then our subconscious can begin to direct us toward the things that we need on a regular basis. 

[0:53:09.1] Ashley James: Can you give us Beginner 101 going into the grocery store? I hate to say grocery store because I only go to the holistic grocery stores. I go to the grocery stores that have the bulk section of herbs, and I'm like, “I'd like a spoonful of ashwagandha today.” Sometimes, I'll buy the big bulk things, and sometimes, I know I'm not going to go through this herb enough. I've learned my lesson. So I'll just go to the bulk section, and I'm like, “I'm just getting two tablespoons of this root,” because I am not buying a $50 bag of it. I have an apothecary near me as well, and they sell so many herbs, dried herbs in bulk, as well as tinctures. But when I'm working with herbs, I like to start with the herb itself without it being a tincture because I can ease into it if it's new to me. Like tea is something that is so gentle, and they'll get into a tincture for bigger things. 

I like to think of it this way — the size of the medicine should reflect the size of the problem. I know several people with cancer, and they're like, “Which tea should I drink?” I'm like, “Lady, this is when you bring out the sledgehammer.” This is when you want to go big and go 100%. You got to change your diet and your lifestyle and bring everything to it. But if I feel a little stressed, I don't need to bring the sledgehammer. That's what I like about homeopathy or Bach flower remedies. Let's bring some gentle energy to nudge the body back into balance. And those are very powerful medicines. Even in themselves, they are energetic medicines. But they're not a sledgehammer necessarily. You can do it gently. The way you do it properly is you do it gently.

So, with full herbs, I can make a tea and just experience it, and then I can go from there. So, let's say everyone's had peppermint tea, and everyone's had some experience with general herbs. What would you say if they could walk into a holistic supermarket or an apothecary, and what are your five favorites to have in the medicine cabinet for those who want to take it up one more notch beyond chamomile peppermint and lavender?

[0:55:57.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: In a lot of these, I will say you do have to explore and see if it works for you because, again, depending on your nervous system state, depending on your underlying energetics, there are all kinds of different caveats to different options. But one of them that could be really interesting is Damiana. Damiana is normally thought of as an aphrodisiac. Yeah, it's really very spicy in smell, but it has a very warming effect. Now I will tell you, if you've been through a lot of trauma and you naturally tend to dissociate, Damiana is not something you want to try. But for people who are not experiencing that, Damiana may be something you want to go play with and see how it makes you feel. 

Holy basil is generally a great one for almost anybody. You can use any of the three subspecies and usually get very good results. It's not an official adaptogen by whatever the fancy version —

[0:57:16.4] Ashley James: I was going to say the National American Adaptogenic Society. 

[0:57:20.6] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah, I can't think of the right phrase for it. But it's not an official adaptogen if you look at it from the definition like what David Winston uses for adaptogens. He's one of the foremost experts in my mind on adaptogens. But it is adaptogenic. So, it has a lot of those qualities that help the body to adapt to different stressors. It does build that buffer for people, so that can be a fantastic one for just about anybody.

Rhodiola is good if you are dealing with a lot of the spaciness that the dorsal vagal kind of shuts down. Now, if you are like me and you run on the sympathetic nervous system side, then that's going to be a little bit too much, and it may actually make you feel more anxious. But for a lot of people, Rhodiola can be a very, very beneficial option. 

Hawthorne is usually thought of as a heart herb, but it doesn't have to be just heart. There's also that warming energetics behind it. It's really beneficial for a lot of people. So if you're dealing with a lot of burnout or compassion fatigue, that sense of, like, “I'm tired of trying to be caring.” That happens. That's a thing, and Hawthorne is a great one for that as well. 

[0:58:45.0] Ashley James: I had a bit of that after the last three years. I'm so empathetic, and there's been so much turmoil in the last three years. But I found myself becoming cynical. When you describe compassion burnout, I feel like I've recovered somewhat from it because we've had a bit of relief. But the last few years have been pretty intense, and there's so much polarization in families. And it's kind of disgusting when you think about politics, and I don't think this was handled very well on any side. It doesn't matter what side you're taking. No one handled this well, especially the government. And the people who loved each other were fighting and at each other's throats and saying really nasty things that we all kind of regret. Even if you try to stay out of it and even if you're just a neutral party, we all felt horrible for those who were suffering — suffering from loss, suffering from being through illness, suffering from isolation, suffering from having fights with family members or losing their job, or whatever. It hasn't been that great the last few years, and I find a lot of people are acting like they have amnesia. What is that when you go through trauma, and then you're like, “I'm just going to compartmentalize that in a part of my brain and lock it away and not think about it anymore.” And then they're like, “Oh, we're just back to pre-90s. Screw the 2000s. Let's go back to the 90s.” But my brain is like we're back in 2019. We just kind of skipped over the last few years, and that's trauma. And I really think the globe has been through trauma. And if you haven't personally, if you just somehow managed to isolate yourself in the cave and not go through trauma, you've witnessed trauma. You've witnessed people experience it instead of locking it away because so many of us have to skip doing what we're doing to survive and keep a roof over our heads. You still have to go to work. You got to come home and do your laundry. Your days off aren't spent healing. Your days off are spent doing groceries and taking care of the kids, or the husband, or yourself, and your cats or dog, or whatever. But no one has sat back and gone, “Okay, as a society, let's start healing from this.” It's just like, “Nope, let's go back to normal. Come on, go back to work.” So I think that acknowledging — and that's what we talked about a bit in the last interview — acknowledging the trauma that we've been through and then, obviously, we can use herbs and plants as a support, but we need to acknowledge the last few years that there's some level of acute stress. And when you go through acute stress for years, there's a drain on the body. 

And I just realized, when you said compassion fatigue, I was like, “Oh, that's why.” I didn't like feeling cynical. That's not my nature. So I became the observer, watching myself become cynical and I'm like, “This is very uncomfortable. This is not me.” That's, I think, the defense mechanism for having compassion fatigue. And I love Hawthorne, and yes, it is wonderful for the heart. But also because it is so anti-inflammatory. As you are mentioning these herbs, I'm thinking we have to stop thinking about herbs like they're drugs. Like, “These are the effects, and these are the side effects.” No, drugs were copied from herbs, and herbs have so much more. So, for drugs, they took one chemical component or more from a plant, and then they stripped it of minerals and nutrients. They strip it of the thousands of enzymes, phytonutrients, and phytochemicals that make plants beautiful, and then they use some kind of petroleum-based chemical to then make a patented compound with all kinds of side effects, and the body just gets so confused when given drugs. I like drugs to save someone's life. I'd rather you be on a drug and be alive than not in debt. So drugs have their place, but they should not be the first thing we jump to. Unfortunately, most of us only know to go to one doctor, which is the drug-based doctor, and that's why my show features people like yourself from so many different paths so listeners can know that there's more than one choice. Because mainstream medicine is the mainstream — I get that I'm going to sound like I'm a conspiracy case, but it's all true. Just go look it up — almost every single TV show or movie is produced by or owned by corporations that are either owned by or funded by the pharmaceutical industry. And so they have a reason for not featuring — can you imagine if there's like a Grey's Anatomy made, but it's plant-based medicine, herbal doctors? I think it'd be fun. It would be a lot less drama because you're coming in to help people meditate and calm, and like, “Here, have some tea, and let's discuss this. Let's bring in nutritious herbs to help yourself heal.” I think it would be interesting. But it would make for really boring TV because we're not feeding into the drama of it all. The whole system of what we've been raised in is designed to make us think that there's only one form of medicine. And that's part of the PR that has brainwashed us for the last three generations. But if we go back to our great grandparents, they would look at us like we're aliens because they just went to plants as natural as breathing. They went to plants as herbs in their cooking, as herbs in their stews, soups, teas, as herbs that they would use on a regular basis through the seasons, like you talked about using plants in season. They would deworm all their animals, and then they would use the same herbs to deworm themselves. We had to use herbs to survive. That was our medicine. I just want us, as a society, to recognize and be taught that, to this day, there are more options than just drug-based medicine. Plants have always been around, and like I said, you could walk out of your front door and grab a plant and probably have a wonderful time brewing tea and supporting your body. Hawthorne is beautiful. I love it. One of my friends used it to heal her heart condition, in addition to using other herbs. But Hawthorne was her daily go-to. She made a huge 4 liters of sun tea, and she just sipped on it, and Hawthorne was one of them. It was so important to her because if she didn't drink it, she'd have heart palpitations. 

[1:06:47.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: It's an amazing herb. One of the things that's really coming up for me as you're talking is remembering that a lot of the times — of course, people knew this plant was good for this, but there was also some intuition that came into play there especially when people are first trying to figure it out, like the plants. And a lot of the indigenous folklore, the plants speak to people and tell them what they're good for. And we have a lot of those pieces that I think people are working to reclaim at this point. In some traditions, it was never lost, but for many of us, it was lost, and we're trying to reclaim that. The last three years have really brought people to a point where they want to know that trauma thrives in isolation and in fear. Trauma occurs when things happen too much, too fast, and too soon, or when it's not enough, too slow, or too late, And we had a lot of that. We had a lot of isolation. We had a lot of unknowns. We had things happening too fast or too late. There was a lot of that over the last three years, and a lot of people who had not struggled before are now struggling, whether it's related to things that had happened or if it's just related to the stress. There's a lot of brain fog. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of emotional struggle for people. One of the things we can do to really start to heal from these moments of compassion fatigue and things like that is to start turning back to nature and exploring what's around us. So what's in our backyard? Like you said, if it's not manicured and you've got a more natural backyard, you're going to have plants in your backyard that are probably beneficial. You just have to learn about them and start to learn how to ID the items in your area.

The fifth herb that I was going to suggest — maybe some of the other apothecaries have it because I haven't seen it a lot in our apothecaries here — is dandelion. Dandelion has several different parts to it. So, like we talked about earlier, you can use the roots for certain things. You can use the leaves for certain things. The flowers make beautiful teas and breads, like people make dandelion cookies. So there are all these different ways that you can use dandelion and the different parts of dandelion. So if you mindfully learn about it and you mindfully start trying like, “What do I feel?” Not just emotionally, but what are the physical sensations that occur when I use the roots versus how is it different when I use the flower head? What does that feel like? So, for me, I have a downward rush of energy. I can feel my nervous system almost rushing, like bringing my attention downward almost to my root chakra into the ground, which makes sense, with the root being a little bit more grounded or connected to the earth. Whereas I feel a lot of warmth in my chest when I'm using the flowers, which is interesting because, from a chakra angle, I might have thought of the solar plexus. But for me, it's in the heart region with the flower. 

So these things are going to be different for everybody. But when we start noticing those sensations, what that brings to the table, the intuitive thoughts that we have behind those sensations, the emotions that those physical sensations create for us, the things that we're reminded of, we can easily start to think, “Oh, I like this because it helps me feel this way. I like this because when I'm feeling scatterbrained and I drink some tea that has dandelion root in it, I can feel my energy starting to settle back into a lower center of gravity, so I feel more focused.” That's the kind of thing that people want to look for, and it's really hard. We've got a couple of hours here where we're talking, and it's really hard to encompass that entire feeling. But that's where I would start — playing with plants like that and just getting to know a little bit about them in order to notice your responses to that plant. What is the intuitive feeling that you get? Do you hear something? Do you hear a phrase, or do you get a visualization? I get a visualization of places sometimes, and that can tell me some about my relationship with that plant. It doesn't always have to be a single plant. So if you're in an area that only has a grocery store and doesn't have an apothecary section, you can still get a tea — now you're dealing with three or four plants at the same time — but you can still notice what sensations are created for you and how that relates to you. What are the intuitive thoughts that you're getting? What's happening on a somatic level? And all of that combined can start leading you towards, “Oh, I need this for the part of my healing journey,” or “Oh, this is going to be a lifelong friend.” 

[1:12:18.5] Ashley James: Now, one thing you're asking us to do is something that many of us really need to do and don't do, is take a moment to turn off the devices, close our eyes, and just be in our body, and take a breath. That's why I love the idea of tea. It's so nourishing just to hold the cup. Now, of course, we're getting into summer, where it's blistering hot outside. You might not want to have hot tea, and it's okay to make what's called sun tea, where you just put the bags or the herb itself into a big glass pitcher of clean water or purified water overnight. You can place it in the sun like in the window if you'd like or just leave it in your kitchen and it doesn't have to be hot. You could even serve it over rice if you want to, although in certain medicines, like Chinese medicine, they say never to drink anything cold ever. There is no way to do that. So it's room temperature or warmer. And then I have Canadian friends who swear that if you drink hot things in the summer, it'll make you feel cooler because it stimulates your body to open up your blood vessels and to sweat, and then that cools you down. But I argue with them that you're introducing something hotter into the body, which is just increasing your temperature. But they're like, “Well, it makes you feel cooler.” And then they will actually drink cold things in the winter because then it forces their body to warm up. I'm like, “No, just going outside in the winter is fine enough for me. My body will be triggered to warm up.”

But you can play around with hydrotherapy and drinking hot or cold. Either way, you're stepping inside yourself. And this is something that we so need to do because I feel like we're rushing around like we're floating heads. Do you ever feel like you've dissociated from everything below your neck and you're just ignoring your hunger cues, your thirst cues? You're just ignoring everything until the end of the day, and that's when people stand by the fridge at 11 at night going, “I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I have a craving.” It could be thirst. A lot of times, people think that they want to have a cigarette or have chocolate when their body is just really thirsty and very confused because they have not tapped into what actual thirst is. Hunger versus craving dopamine. 

[1:14:49.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: This can be daunting. When somebody is being told, “Hey, it's time to tap into your body.” This can be a daunting task for a lot of people. If you have a lot of chronic pain or if you've been through trauma, every time you start to notice your body, you start to really reverberate with that trauma. That can be a very unnerving thing. So that's the time that maybe you need to come to talk to me and let's get a plan together. But for general purposes here, I will say that when you start to do this, if you find yourself feeling very uncomfortable or very unnerved, or you start to feel overwhelmed by it, back off and just do a little bit. This doesn't have to be a 30-minute practice, just like two minutes or maybe even thirty seconds, and then come back to it later. And as you begin to increase your capacity for it, it becomes easier and easier to tap into that side of things. And then you're getting into what you're talking about, Ashley, where you're really being able to cue into those hunger cues and those thirst cues and understanding what the cravings really mean at the base level. 

[1:16:01.5] Ashley James: Yes. I'm imagining holding a nice warm cup of tea because in Washington, where I live, it's like 66° in the morning, and it's 78° in the evening. So, in the morning, it's very nice to have a cup of hot tea. And then in the afternoon, it's very nice to have iced herbal tea. But holding the hot cup of tea of herbs that you've chosen to experience, or one herb maybe, one herb at a time, and just sit there and breathe. We talked about this in the last interview but just start by closing your eyes, taking one breath, and just noticing how much tension you can let go of. Can you let go of the tension in your jaw? Can you let go of the tension in your shoulders? My mom always used to say, don't wear your shoulders as earrings. Can you let go of the tension in your belly, in your chest, in your abdomen, all these muscles? Can you feel yourself sinking into the couch a little bit? I'm not asking a hundred percent. Just a little, and just noticed how much. If it's five percent, good. If it's ten percent, good. Just notice how much you can release in that one breath, and then take it inhale through your nose. Hopefully, you're not stuffy, and take an inhale through your nose and just be aware of the sensations. 

So I'm not asking you to become aware of just your body alone because, as you said, with trauma, a lot of times, people will have racing thoughts, and they get agitated by the racing thoughts. It will bring back things they don't want to think about. But what I'm asking you to focus on is your experience of your body in relation to the experience of the herb because you're inhaling it, and then just notice how you feel. Become the observer going, “What is that smell like? How does my body relax into that? Do I like it? Do I like the sensation? Do I feel comfortable with this?” And then take a sip and just notice, like you said, you notice where it affects you. So obviously, you might feel it down your throat, you might feel it in your stomach. But then you might notice other body parts relaxing, enjoying, singing with it, or nothing at all, and that's okay, too. And just being with that tea, with that herb, taking that moment to disconnect from the world and be with yourself, like you said, it could even be 30 seconds. What a great way to start to become aware of your nervous system. Because sometimes we are going at 11 and we really want to bring ourselves down to 5. That is such a beautiful practice because we can tap into the experience of our body in that moment of the herb, of our nervous system. 

A lot of people discredit the importance of your stress because people go, “Stress isn't an emotion. So I'm not stressed.” I've had clients say to me, “I'm not stressed,” and I'm like, “Okay, so your mom has cancer. You're taking care of five family members. You are a manager. You sleep 5 hours a night.” I'm listing off all the things, and they go, go, go, go, go, go. They never have a day off. They work seven days a week because they're always taking care of other people. And I'm like, you don't feel stressed. But your nervous system is in a constant state of stress, meaning that you've shut off processes for long-term health and healing. And you've shut off even access to the logic centers of your brain. So there are so many benefits to just taking a moment and supporting the vagal nerve and tonifying it and coming back into balance. 

So I love that you introduced that in the last interview and that you talked about how we can have a beautiful relationship with these herbs and also, at the same time, train ourselves to feel where we are and to bring that calmness back down. A lot of times people, especially women, say, “Well, I need the stress in order to do everything I have to do today.” They're afraid that if they weren't going, go, go, go, go, then they would just stop, and they would lose all motivation or all momentum. We could definitely talk about herbs that help with that. But I propose that by getting into a calmer state, they were able to sustain themselves.

[1:20:36.6] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So in Western herbalism energetics, you have hot and cold, damp and dry, tense and relaxed. In a lot of people, the stress that's occurring in an energetic standpoint is tension. And there needs to be a balance. We have to find that balance between being atomic and totally relaxed to the point of things like leaky gut. In the digestive system, we see more of that atomic relaxation that creates that leaky gut. It makes it easier for stuff to get in the body. But in the nervous system, we have the relaxation kind of into that dorsal vagal shutdown response. Or we have the tension that takes us into that sympathetic fight or flight response. And a lot of people really need to be able to find that balance and that center. Now, I will say what people are talking about when they say, “Oh, I'm afraid that if I let this go, then I'm not going to have the energy.” That can happen sometimes. That's actually what we see sometimes when people start healing from trauma. More of it starts to bubble up when they first start feeling safe because their body is like, “Oh, now I'm in a place where I can really, really work on this.” 

The same thing happens when people start to relax; their body goes, “Oh, I can finally take a nap,” and then they want to sleep for 19 hours. And so if you find yourself in those situations where you're beginning to allow yourself that space to heal and you start to notice that it's overwhelmingly headed one direction or the other, you can talk to your body about this and say, “Hey, I have 30 minutes a day set aside for us to work on this. It's going to take a while, but we're going to get there. But we're going to work on this for 30 minutes a day. And then we have to get back to it so that we can survive.” It's that kind of thing for some people that makes a big difference. It keeps stuff from bubbling up in the middle of the day. It keeps it from feeling like we're just not going to be able to do anything because now that we're able to relax, our body is just totally giving out. Things like that where you're even acknowledging to yourself, it sounds silly to do that, but if you can just acknowledge yourself or even say it out loud, like, “Okay, I have 45 minutes, I'm going to do a Yoga Nidra for instance, like a guided meditation. And then I'm going to get back up, and I'm going to get back to my day.” Recognizing that I'm going to get to do it again tomorrow or I'm going to do it in a couple of days again, and I am acknowledging this. I am working with this, and I'm working to heal. Sometimes, that can keep it from becoming that overwhelming sense of exhaustion that can hit.

[1:23:17.7] Ashley James: Well, that's what I want. I want everyone to have a growing experience of being tuned in to their nervous system and tuned in to their body, and then have the tools to support their body coming back into balance when they catch themselves off balance like we do in life. We're human, and I hear it so often. I know all the things I need to do, but I don't do them all the time. And then I catch myself, and I'm like, “Oh, I'm over here, and I know some things I should be doing.” So everyone does it. I hope everyone knows to drink an adequate amount of water, and then sometimes you catch yourself with a dehydration headache. And you're like, “Oh yeah, I forgot.” Or everyone knows certain things, like everyone has certain foundations, and we forget, and then we remember, and we go, “Well, I know I should be doing this, and I need to come back.” Often, it's just because we dissociate from our body and we prioritize the dues. Like we're not human doing; we're human beings. But we have to do what we have to do to keep the roof over our heads, and our family is fed, and take care of our loved ones, and we prioritize. There's a bunch of things we do, and we don't put our bodies first. 

Our body is our home, and it's our sacred temple. If you're religious, look at all the texts that talk about how it's the God-given temple. It is the house you have, and you're not going to get a second one. Not in this lifetime. You're not going to be given a second one. I like to read, and sometime in the past, I've read sci-fi. And there was a cool sci-fi book written by the same author that wrote Like Water for Chocolate. That is not a Sci-Fi novel, but her second one was, and it was all about how you could take your consciousness and put it in a new body. And I thought, what a thing to think about. The prisons were full of love because they thought people who went to prison for doing something wrong just really needed to heal, and they needed love. It was a really cool, interesting society to think about sci-fi. But the idea that stuck with me is that we don't have the ability to take our consciousness and put it in a brand new body. So why do we take better care of our car than our own body? When the check engine light comes on in your car, you are going to drive around for months and months and months and ignore it. I know some people do. But for the most part, if the check engine light comes on in your body, you're just going to ignore it. Some people just take drugs just to push down the symptoms, ignore them, and put duct tape over the body's check engine light. But you wouldn't do that for your car. So, if there was a fuse box blue in your house, you're going to fix that quickly. But if your nervous system kind of starts getting fried, people just want to ignore their bodies. This is the body you have, so let's take care of it. Let's prioritize it and learn some herbs and how to have a healthy relationship with them and use them like a tool. To support your body's ability to heal itself is just like prioritizing the only house you have, which is your body. 

[1:26:46.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And when we look at the rhythm of the seasons, there are certain things I'm going to do in the winter that I'm going to do differently in the summer. And if you're into Ayurveda, there's a lot of discussion around the different elements. We see this in traditional Chinese medicine as well. The elements rule the seasons, so different things are going to be beneficial at different times. People will do different cleanses based on the seasons in order to try to keep their bodies in that rhythm. And that could be very helpful because we can get off the bandwagon, so to speak, for certain things that could be really beneficial. But if we're constantly looking back to these cycles in nature, whether it be the moon cycle or the seasons, or whatever it might be, then we can really help to bring ourselves back to what we need at this moment. What does our body — with its very unique constitution, with its very unique makeup — what does it need at this moment? I think we may have talked about this last time, but one of the things that can be really helpful is what is growing in abundance around me right now.

So, for me, in the very first year of the pandemic in 2020, lemon balm just exploded. Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact, it was right before I realized anything was actually happening. And, of course, lemon balm is prolific, right? Lemon balm meant things like that. If you don't want it to scatter across your yard, you definitely keep it in a planter. But I don't mind because I make tea with it and everything. So, I just let it do its thing, and I collect it and bring it in. But that year, it particularly went wild in my yard. It took over the mint section. I had to really keep it pruned back several different times. And I understand now why because when everything hit in March, I was completely in mental chaos from it all. Not to mention, I was in my masters of Public Health, and I was taking the epidemiology classes as all this was going on. So it was a really weird combination of learning about things in real-time, trying to process everything, trying to understand the what-ifs. And that lemon balm tea really made a difference for me and for some other people. I had a lot of it, and I was able to pass it around. There was plenty of it. 

And so this isn't necessarily something you're going to catch on day one, but as you start to do this and as you start to grow a couple of things or maybe you are really getting out there and noticing what you have around you, if one year you notice there's a lot more of a certain plant, pay attention to that. Look at it and see, “Is this something that I need to look into? Is there something to this?” For instance, I would probably say with you and Mimosa because it seems like Mimosa has come up a lot for you in the last few months; I would maybe dig into that and see if there is a relationship to be had there. Anyway, I think it's really interesting to really attune yourself to those rhythms because sometimes those rhythms can help us to remember different beneficial actions that we can do throughout the year or throughout the month if we're going on the moon cycle. And it also just helps us to become more in tune with how our body is responding to those different things. 

[1:30:16.1] Ashley James: I love the idea of looking into the plants that are kind of taking over in your area. I was thinking about a garden I had back at the same time as you in 2020. It was a beautiful vegetable garden that was spontaneously taken over by creeping buttercups. When you dry them, they lose their poisonous effects and can be used for several things, but one thing is bronchitis and inflammation. What we were all afraid of experiencing was problems with the lungs, right? Isn't that interesting? I love nettles. Nettles just exploded in my area. I accidentally touch nettles everywhere, and they're just wonderful. I didn't harvest them this year, but in years past, I've harvested them in huge garbage bags and then put them in giant pots of boiling water to get rid of the little needles, the stinging part of the needles. It's so delicious putting them in a soup, like you would with spinach. We make a fermented sauce with it. We take it and blend it with a little bit of salt and nutritional yeast, pine nuts, and garlic. It's like that kind of green sauce, that Italian green sauce. Why am I not thinking of it? 

[1:31:57.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Pesto?

[1:31:58.2] Ashley James: Pesto! Thank you. Yeah, we make a pesto out of it, and then it ferments a bit because we make many jars of it, and it's so good. It's so good, and it's so nutritious. And then, of course, drinking the nettle tea is wonderful, but don't do it at night because it's a diuretic, and I learned that the hard way. I was up all night running to the bathroom. But it's so nutritious, not something that comes back to with herbs, as long as you understand the safety of eating a bunch of it. Like with nettles, it's a food as well as an herb. You can eat lots of it. But it's in this natural form, not concentrated. It's the moment you concentrate something into a tincture to be more careful of dosages. But eating it, eating these herbs is so nutritious. They are superfoods. They're densely nutritious, and that's part of the medicine as well.

[1:32:56.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yes, and it's really important. You were talking earlier about the connection between the gut and the brain and how the ability to absorb is also part of having all of the beneficial bacteria in your gut. And when we have the right minerals coming in, nettles are usually highly dense in minerals. Chickweed, which we talked about earlier, is really helpful for absorbing more minerals into the body. And when we do that, we're giving ourselves the trace minerals that we don't normally get. Then you're feeding your body, you're feeding your nervous system, but you're also giving the right nutrients to the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Now, if you are somebody who has a tendency to order out a lot, DoorDash has been your best friend, I get it. I've been there and done that. Like when I was very fatigued, we had to do that, or otherwise, there would have been no food in the house. But if you're starting to try to turn away from that and you notice like, “I really don't feel good after I eat this food. This is supposed to be more beneficial for me.” A lot of the time, that has to do with the less beneficial bacteria beginning to starve, and now it's kind of mad at you, and sometimes it's a matter of releasing chemicals in your body to make you feel bad, to make you eat the food that you know isn't as nutritious. And so when you start noticing that, even just adding a couple of more veggies and adding a couple of things that are more beneficial and slowly shifting, that can be the way to handle that. And when you do that, and you get to a point where you do have these more beneficial herbs getting into your body, and things are more balanced, your inflammation levels usually will start to lower. Well, I think we talked about this last time. Inflammation actually exacerbates trauma. It makes it harder to heal from trauma. So all these little things, getting connected with these different plants and nettles, is a great one. Of course, with nettles, you do have to be careful. If you are going to go wildcrafting nettles, make sure that you're getting it from a good area. Soil test it if you need to, to make sure it's not taking the heavy metals. But usually, nettles are great. It's wonderful. And those kinds of things can really make a big difference as to how your body is responding to your attempts to heal the emotional side of things.

[1:35:44.2] Ashley James: In healing the physical body, also healing the mental body, emotional body, we have to understand that they're not separate. We like to take off our heads and dissociate from everything else, and just be human doing all day. But really, we need to understand that our body stores trauma, emotional trauma. And I've had episodes; I have this amazing episode with the doctor who invented the emotion code. That was really interesting. I remember I was in massage therapy college — in Canada, it's like a $5,000 program. It's not like a 500-hour little course. In some states, I'm like, “What do you learn in 500 hours? I went to college for three years to learn massage therapy. What did you guys do? You went for like two months?” Everyone does the best they can. But in Canada, in some provinces, massage therapy is in the hospitals. We're alongside the doctors. I remember working in the Scarborough General Hospital and in Toronto General, working in the upper motor neuron lesion ward and working with a physical therapist. 

It's fascinating when you can plug in as someone who's there to help with rehab can plug in into a medical system and that they acknowledge massage, which I mean, of course, it's a physical manipulation. But in massage, we know that the body is also energy and spirit. It is connected to spirit, and it is also connected to our emotions, connected mentally. It's all connected. We have to acknowledge that. In massage therapy college, I was at the table, and our teacher was showing us a specific technique, and she was isolating my scapula and working up around the back of my underarms. And I burst into tears, and I could not stop crying. Everyone went to lunch, and she sat with me, and I said, “I don't know why I'm crying.”. And I'm not a weepy person. I feel I'm very strong, like I think of my Russian-Polish grandmother, who was strong like a bull. And I just think of all the strong women in my family, and I felt like I was one of those. Then she touched a spot that was tender, and it triggered some trauma, and I was crying for an hour, just releasing, just crying and crying, and I've no idea. And that was my real first experience of, “Oh, wow. There's some trapped trauma, and I didn't know, and it's physical. I got triggered by something physical, and that was so real. 

And so I've had these guests talk about how we can clear it from the body. We need to process it in and then release it, which I do with timeline therapy. It's an amazing technique to help the mental body heal. But it's all connected. And so, you talked about using herbs for healing the body, but we're also connecting to and recognizing that there is an emotional element to this because it's not separate. We cannot separate one part of ourselves from the other part of ourselves. You've mentioned how Rhodiola is great for spaciness, and it reminded me of how many people — this is probably just my algorithm when I go on Facebook — so many people are talking about ADHD. I feel like it's the new buzz term, like people are recognizing that there is an ADHD spectrum, and so many of us are on it.

Early on in the podcast, in the first 100 episodes, I had people come on and talk about how they were diagnosed with ADHD as a child and were put on medication, and then they came to natural medicine and they “no longer have ADHD.” But really, what I'm seeing is it's more of how we process information and that it could become dysregulated. Through holistic medicine, we can become healthier and, regulate better, and learn strategies for success. But that ADHD is a real nervous system regulatory, or how the person sees the world– they call it neurodivergent — but how we process information, how we see the world, how we function. I'm not saying we want to fix it or cure it, but how do we support the mind and the emotional body to function as healthy as possible when feeling like ADHD is dysregulated within someone?

[1:40:47.3] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: As a matter of fact, there's a joke with some people — is it ADHD, or is it trauma? Because a lot of the same or similar symptoms can show as both ADHD and trauma. They're just very similar to a lot of people. I'm neurodivergent, so I have a lot of unusual processing, and my brain works a certain way that has created many hilarious stories through the years. For those of you who are old enough to remember Amelia Bedelia — I had several moments like that. And I think it's really important to remember that there are times when accommodations are the right move. It's not a matter of, like you said, we're not necessarily looking to heal people. We're not necessarily looking to change somebody's brain from a function that your unusual brain can actually create solutions to things that a neurotypical brain can't. So, there is a reason to celebrate that side of things. There's a reason to really embrace that side of things. But neurodivergent and things like ADHD can cause herbs to be a little bit different. 

I have a friend who works primarily with people with ADHD because she also has ADHD, and the way that the herbs work for her subset of the population is a little bit different. It's like caffeine. For some people, caffeine really makes them focus, and for other people, it can make them really hyper and really fast. And so, she has a slightly different way of using the herbs with people based on a certain diagnosis or a certain type of neurodivergent. That is more of the reason why taking the time to learn about the herbs in relation to you and your specific experience on this planet is so important. If you are able to do that — because I can tell you all day long, why I prefer Asian ginseng over rhodiola in certain situations. We can get into all of that nitpicky conversation, which is fun, and I love it for research. You can get into a lot of really interesting things, but at the end of the day, your experiences with your plants are what is going to help inform your healing process. And so I really have gotten to, and I love helping people to really dig into that, and that's part of what this class is all about. It is really opening up that experience so that you can start to figure out what this means for you and how this is going to help you on this journey that is our experience here on Earth. 

[1:43:44.2] Ashley James: Beautiful. I love it, and I love that you brought up that. Again, it's that spectrum of ADHD — because so many of them, my husband included, he could drink a venti and fall asleep. I drink a venti, and I'm up for three days. Our bodies will process stimulants differently. Now he, on the other end, if he drinks caffeine on the other end of sleep, he'll fall asleep on caffeine, but he'll wake up at 5 in the morning. So I know that it's definitely affecting his melatonin and his stress hormones on the other end of sleep. But he can fall asleep on caffeine. I cannot fall asleep on caffeine to save my life. He processes pain meds differently. He has to tell the anesthesiologist, “These are my things.” They usually ask these kinds of questions, but when it comes to things like local anesthesia for tooth stuff, he has to say to the dentist, “Listen, you have to give me twice as much as you think you need to give me. And you have to ask me in half the amount of time you think you need to ask me if I'm feeling something because my body processes pain meds way faster than you think.” And he'll give the whole speech to the dentist. They won't believe him, and then in 10 minutes, he's like, “Ow, ow, that hurts.” And they're like, “It already kicked it. I gave you the stuff.” And then he's like, “No, no, no, listen. You have to give me more.” And his nervous system, his body, his clearance, whatever it is, he processes herbs a little differently, processes stimulants a little differently. He falls asleep on stimulants. 

So yeah, we've got to check in with ourselves, and that's why I like starting with something simple like teeth, something gentle, and then working your way up to the stronger one, should you need it. But off the top of your head, is there like, “Oh yeah, these adaptogens are always good for ADHD people,” or is there like a Ritalin of the herbal world? “Come on. Give me a quick fix. Give me a blanket that is good for everyone. There's got to be one out.” 

[1:46:04.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Right, no. It is interesting. I will save it. The stimulating adaptogens like rhodiola or Asian ginseng tend to be the ones that I see as helpful when somebody has an ADHD diagnosis. But I don't always reach for that because just because you have an ADHD diagnosis doesn't mean that you're always in a dorsal vagal state. There may be other things happening, but that dorsal vagal shutdown that causes us to feel more spacey and it causes us to be a little dissociated is sometimes part of that ADHD experience. And so, it makes sense that Rhodiola and Asian ginseng can be helpful. But everybody is a little bit different. My life would be easier if I could name stuff off and just be like, “This is it, boom! I fixed it.” Like I'd be rich. But that's just not how it works. And this is part of what this class is for. We are going to talk about different herbs, different adaptogens, and nervines like the lavender and the camomile that we talked about earlier, which I think we talked about in the last session as well. And we're going to talk about some of those, get a little more in-depth on them, and then we're going to be doing these guided visualizations where you're actively tapping into your subconscious, and you're really trying to discover more about what your body is telling you in this moment, in a way that allows you to also connect with nature. 

And so in those moments, I'm going to give you some information. I'm going to give you some ideas about how to stay as safe as possible based on what we're talking about. But then we're also going to get into that intuitive space. So we've got our boundary set up, and now we can just play in that intuitive space within the safe boundaries, and that's where the real healing comes from. I know we call ourselves healers, but the reality is I'm just kind of a facilitator. I'm just telling you these things and letting you understand what we've learned and then trying to help you create space for your body to tell you what it is that you need in these moments. Again, when somebody's got a chronic illness and things like that, there's more nuance to it, and we can work one-on-one and talk about that. But in general, having the space to explore, in my mind, is one of the most powerful ways that you can find what works best for you and your situation.

[1:48:37.9] Ashley James: And you're teaching a person to fish rather than giving them the fish. You go to a doctor, and even a doctor of natural medicine, they're just going to say take this and this. They might tell you what it does, but there isn't a huge education piece, or at least teach you how to get into it and listen to your body. The body speaks to us, and it really does tell us what we need. But again, we're floating heads. We've cut ourselves off, and we really haven't been trained to tap in and listen to our bodies. One of my mentors is an old-school naturopathic physician in his 80s, and when he trained me in this, he devised a way to understand nutrient deficiencies based on the symptoms the body is speaking. I can talk to someone for 10 minutes and say, “Okay, these are the nutrients your body is saying it's missing,” based on having a conversation with someone. And we didn't need to do expensive blood tests and hair analysis and all that. So, it's interesting that we can look at it from a physiological point of view, like, “Okay, muscle cramps, problem staying asleep, urinating in the middle of the night, falling asleep after meals, weird symptoms, eye twitches.” You can give me all kinds of interesting symptoms, and then I can say, “Okay, these five symptoms are all related to the same problem, and I'll explain why.” But beyond that, it's impressive for you as an individual to learn, just like for me to learn how my body responds and what it needs. 

And so your body will buzz and love the feeling of an herb when it's good for it, like I made that tea, that turbo tea that I've been really drawn to make. I've made it before in the past. I kind of go through phases where I'll drink it for a while, and then I'll move on to something else. But I was really drawn to it for a while. So I'm like, “Okay, it's time to make it.” And we love it, and my body buzzes and loves it. It feels so good when I drink it, and I'm really called to it, like my body just says, “This is what I want.” And when you tap into yourself, and you learn, like Elizabeth teaches you, how to listen to yourself, your body is going to say what it needs. Now, this is a good feeling. The good feeling you get is not the artificial good feeling you get from sugar from cocaine. Yes, everyone's done cocaine. You know what I mean. Some people think about street drugs like, “Oh, you know, it's very artificial. But they “feel good” just like alcohol.” “But wine is healthy for you. There are antioxidants. There's resveratrol.” I'm like, “Then eat the grapes.” You don't need the toxin. “But it feels good after I drink alcohol.” I'm like, “Yes, and so do street drugs.” But you don't do them. If you want to drink alcohol, I'm not judging. I'm just letting people know there's a difference between the artificial feel-good, which is harmful. And then the really healthy for you, that buzzing — like if you drink organic juice, freshly-made juice drink, and now all your cells are filling with an abundance of vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients, and antioxidants — that good feeling when your body buzzes, it's so delicious. It's so wonderful. Again, you have to re-attach your head and allow yourself to start to tap in and listen to your body. And it's like a muscle. So, at first, you might not know, you may not be aware of your body, or know, the more you do it, the more you'll strengthen that muscle till you get a feeling, you'll just go, “Oh, wow. My body is saying to me, “I want some peppermint tea,” as an example. You just feel at the end of the day like, “Oh wow, I could really use this at the end of the day to bring myself down into a nice state,” or maybe in the morning, you feel like trying all the herbs that can be put in a chai. It doesn't even have to be caffeine. If you want, you can just do all the herbs in a nice warm tea milk kind of thing. I'm not milk or whatever. But the point is tapping into the body and listening is this beautiful thing, and I love that you emphasized this because not many practitioners do. Not many practitioners teach people how to be their own physician, in a sense, because their body is the one that's telling them what they need. 

[1:53:09.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And I think it's important to recognize that — talking about some of the stuff you're talking about, like, with wine and feeling good — a lot of the time, we are chasing the excitement of feeling blissed-out or feeling powerful. Like a lot of times when somebody is angry or frustrated all the time, it's that feeling of power that keeps them going to that. Or if we're trying our hardest to almost disconnect and ignore the things that are happening to us, we're chasing that sensation of being blissed out and the excitement of being blissed out. And the reality of our human experience is that it is cyclical, like nature is cyclical. There are going to be highs, and there are going to be lows. And when we can approach it from that place of equanimity, then we are better equipped to experience those highs and lows in a way that gives us the full spectrum of the human experience without the overwhelm. Plants offer us a way to really buffer so that we have that tolerance to stay in a state of equanimity more often. 

[1:54:29.2] Ashley James: That's really beautifully said. We're chasing the artificial stimulants because we have dissociated from that, and we don't have that equanimity. So you're teaching us how to really get the true highs, feeling the true healthy highs in life by getting back into our bodies. 

[1:54:55.3] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: But I wouldn't even call it a high. This might be kind of a disappointment for some people, like “sorry.” A lot of people chase the highest success, right? They chase the high of “I got this done,” or “I can check this list off,” or “I watched this TV show,” and it gave me that artificial high, or like, “I'm going to feel so blissed out all the time because I am just on top of the world.” The high that we get from natural things is not even a high. It is like a deep knowing, a deep understanding that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. You can't crash from that the same way you can crash from the highest success. 

[1:55:53.0] Ashley James: Wow. For me, it's a joy. I remember being sick for so many years, and when I wake up in the morning, and I jump out of bed, and I don't have aches and pains, I don't have brain fog, I don't have the headache, and I don't have this gross feeling like a prisoner trapped in a sick body when I jump out of bed, and I am on, and I start my day, and I love my life and I love my family — I mean, I got lots of stuff I want to improve in my life, don't get me wrong, there's definitely a few things I want to be better — but I guess what I bring in within the first moments of me being awake is I have a sense of gratitude throughout every cell in my body, because I remember being sick and suffering, never to the point where I wanted to die, but to the point where I wanted a new body.

[1:56:54.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And you have the tools where if that happens again, you don't fall into despair. It's like, “Okay, I can do this.” You still have that gratitude. It may not be the same level of joy that you have in a moment where you feel full and complete. But you still have that ability to know, “Okay, I know where I need to go.” It's not the same thing as the despair that can happen after those artificial crashes. And that's what I love about what we're doing with natural things. 

[1:57:24.5] Ashley James: Love it. That's beautiful. So there is a spiritual, emotional, mental, and energetic component to physical health, and we have to acknowledge that and just know the body is a whole. The body is all of those things, and that is life. That is why I say the Learn True Health podcast is not just about learning true physical health. We'll have guests on about homeschooling, about relationships, and about a healthy workplace because it's life. Nothing in your life and body happens in a vacuum. Your body can be affected by every aspect of your life. So that's health. Health is bringing awareness and balance, joy and gratitude, to every aspect of your life. And let's not be afraid of plants. Let's use them because they're given to us. They're surrounding us. They're here for our use and it's a tool that we got to tap into for optimal health. You know, those people who are preppers or afraid of something bad happening in the future, it's very real. Just over a hundred years ago, there was a solar storm that took out so badly. It melted all the wires that they were using to send communications. Why am I forgetting the name of it? Dang it.

[1:59:06.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: The Telegraph.

[1:59:08.5] Ashley James: Thank you! Okay, so what herb do I need because my brain is forgetting words? I'm like, the rest of the day, I'm going out being in the sun with friends at a pool. So I think my brain is like, “Goodbye!”, walks out the door, slams the door. It's so funny. So, anyway, the solar storm made the telegraph go away. Thank goodness we haven't had one, but it could happen again, and it would completely melt and destroy all electronics and whatever part of the Earth was facing the sun at the time. And we only have about 8 minutes of warning because it takes 8 minutes for the solar storm to hit us. So it's not even like the end of times, like nuclear fallout, or all the kinds of things they talk about. But God forbid — I don't want you to imagine this too long because it will cause anxiety — but imagine something happens, and we are left with no communications, and the world's a little bit chaotic because there's no electricity. What do you do? Do you know how to go into your backyard and pick some herbs and do some medicine for yourself and your family? Do you know how to forage food? Do you know the basics of survival? And that's not a whack job crazy to think about. I don't want anyone to be obsessed about it and worried about it every day because, again, that's not healthy. 

But just taking some time to learn basic survival skills, foraging skills, and learning the basic herbal medicine of your region is intelligent. And if you have children, do it with them and learn together. In our area, there are a lot of local foragers that will take you to the woods and teach you the good plants from the not-good plants. “Don't eat those. Eat these.” And that's something that I think we should all just have an understanding of. And I love that you take it to a level of supporting the emotional body's ability to heal along with the physical, which is something that, like I said, I don't see many people doing. And so I really like that you're focusing on that.

[2:01:31.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: I agree, and I don't even think it has to be as catastrophic as something like that. It can be as simple as, what's happened with the eggs? I mean, now it's back to normal here. Our prices are back down to normal. But for a minute there, it was a luxury to have eggs. Things can happen in the supply chain. But whether it does or doesn't, the thought of being more connected and more aware of my surroundings is important to me. Feeling a little bit self-sufficient, feeling a little bit like I can walk outside, and instead of being aggravated at the bugs or annoyed by the different weeds that are growing, I can walk out there, and I can see the magic, the beauty that is our universe. Being able to connect into that on a physical level from the self-sufficiency angle, but also the emotional level, just to be able to reconnect to things that are going to be here hundreds of years after I'm gone — there's something to that, that is powerful and emotionally healing, as well as physically healing. Whether you choose to come to check out the free introductory event and get a little taste, I'm going to do a guided visualization to a meditation-type thing in this event. Whether you choose to do that or not, I hope that you will go outside and start to notice the things that are around you. Maybe get a plant idea and start trying to see, like, take a picture of that plant and see if it brings up the right plant, check it, and make sure that it matches up. Just start learning those little things that can teach you more about what you have in your area. 

[2:03:13.5] Ashley James: I'm thinking about Pokemon Go, which I never signed up for because the moment it came out, I just knew me, and I have an addictive personality. And I chose never to install that app because I knew if I did, I probably wouldn't have even done the podcast. I'd be out there. Maybe I'd be like a hiker because I'd be walking everywhere. That would be good. But I kind of knew it would take over my life, so I didn't do it. But I'm imagining a Pokemon Go, but with plants. Just make it fun, like geotagging or something. Make it fun, like how they do bird watching. Like, “You have to find these ten birds.” Imagine it like, “I'm going to find and learn about five new plants today in the wilderness of my park nearby or whatever.” You could kind of make it a game like Pokemon Go but with plants. So get a plant identifier app and then just make a goal, or get the family together, and they'll get their phones and this app, and it's like, “Okay, the first person to identify ten new plants today wins. Make a little scavenger hunt, and it's learning. It's walking, and it's fun. And then maybe pick something, maybe just a little bit to bring it home or something, I don't know. I'm a homeschooler mom, so I'm thinking about all these like; I could totally do that with my homeschool group.

[2:04:40.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So, I know a lot of people, especially since I have this long COVID, that has really limited my movement. I've gotten a lot better, but for a hot minute, it was scary how limited my movement was. So if you're stuck inside or if you're wheelchair-bound and you can't get out into a park, or at Oak Mountain State Park here, there's no way you can get a wheelchair up half the trails. But if that's happening to you, you can still connect with these things. There are all kinds of ways. Teas alone, ingesting the tea, is a form of connection. But you can also watch videos with the different plants. You can look out a window and see the plants that are around you. There are ways to still connect with those vibrations that don't necessarily have to be totally hands-on. So whatever it is, whether you're able to gamify it, like what Ashley's talking about, or if it's just something that you have to adjust, these practices are pretty accessible for almost anybody. And I encourage you that if you haven't heard something that totally resonates with you today, play with it, sit on it, and maybe meditate on it if you have time. “How can I begin to connect more deeply with these plants?” If you have a lot of severe allergies and you're afraid of drinking tea, then maybe, like we were talking about earlier with the flower essences, that is an energetic signature. There is no physical component of the plant left in a flower essence, and maybe that's how you begin to connect. There are all kinds of different ways, and when you find the right thing for you, and you find the right way for you to go, when it clicks like that, it makes a world of difference.

[2:06:26.6] Ashley James: Love it. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/plants to check out the free introductory event where Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie, PhD is going to be teaching the awesome stuff we've talked about today and share with your friends too. Send them to learntruehealth.com/plants. Share it with your friends, go check it out together, go geocaching together, and make tea. We talked about that in the last episode, where every friend gets a different tea herb, and then we all get together and have a little tea party and experience it together. You can make it fun. You can do it with friends. If you have mom friends, if you do it with your sister, your family, or your neighbors, or if you're not near your friends, you guys can get on a video call together, and everyone can sip their tea on video call together and talk about it. We can make it communal, or if you're an introvert, then just do it alone in the corner, wrapped around a blanket, like my husband would be totally happy being all alone wrapped in a blanket with his tea. However you are comfortable, let's enrich our lives with these plants. 

Thank you for coming on the show again today and sharing. This is beautiful, and I love that you're giving us another tool for emotional and mental healing, along with physical healing. I really, really appreciate that, especially in these times when we are all looking to come back into the healthiest versions of ourselves. 

[2:08:12.4] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And this is the perfect time for us to do this. If we can really take responsibility at this point for the healing from the chaos of the last few years, and if we can really take the time to reconnect to nature and to reconnect to ourselves and our body, it is what we need for emotional and physical healing, we set ourselves up to really be able to support our communities and offer healing overall for the next several years. I think this is the perfect time, as the dust is settling, to set ourselves up to be as healed as possible so we can take care of each other and create the kind of community that allows us to feel supported and loved. 

[2:08:57.4] Ashley James: Brilliant. Beautiful. learntruehealth.com/plants.Thank you so much for coming on the show, and let's have you on again when you've published your next book or your next course. You've got more to teach. We'd love to have you back. 

[2:09:11.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Always thanks.

 

Get Connected with Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie!

 

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The Trauma-Informed Herbalist

Essential Oils for Trauma

 

Jul 27, 2023

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506: Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie’s Guide to Herbal Wellness, Somatics, and Healing

https://www.learntruehealth.com/dr-elizabeth-guthries-guide-to-herbal-wellness-somatics-and-healing/

In this engaging podcast episode, host Ashley recounts her personal journey of discovering the transformative power of herbs, essential oils, and holistic wellness practices. Her guest, Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie, a seasoned herbalist, joins the conversation in part one, providing insight into trauma-informed practices and their intersection with herbal remedies. Drawing from her background as a 911 dispatcher and her own experiences of trauma, Dr. Guthrie explores the intricate relationship between trauma, herbs, and somatic experiences, shedding light on how trauma can reshape our responses to herbs and meditation. Her expertise underscores the importance of trauma-informed care and the diverse manifestations of trauma in individual lives. As Ashley and Dr. Guthrie share their wisdom, listeners are invited to embrace the multifaceted realm of herbalism as a pathway to holistic healing and self-discovery. This episode offers a tantalizing glimpse into the symbiotic dance between nature's remedies and the human journey toward well-being and resilience.

Explore the transformative power of your unique plant allies as you harness nature’s wisdom for healing and resilience — and embark on a journey of self-discovery, connecting you deeply with the natural world. Sign up now for the free training— learntruehealth.com/plants

Ashley James & Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie

Highlights: 

  • Ashley recounts her introduction to holistic spa experiences in the 90s, where she discovered high-quality essential oils and their potential benefits
  • The profound connection between trauma, herbs, and somatic experiences
  • The nuanced ways trauma reshapes individuals' responses to herbs and holistic practices
  • The wide spectrum of trauma manifestations
  • The importance of trauma-informed care in herbal wellness approaches
  • Herbal medicine's potential for promoting resilience, holistic healing, and self-discovery
  • The intricate interplay between nature's remedies and trauma-informed practices

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Before we jump into today's episode, there are a few things that you need to know about, and that is that my guest today has a free online event coming up where she's going to teach an hour-long class, and I want to make sure that you know about it so you can attend and gobble up all those amazing information that she's giving for free, in this hour-long live training that she's doing. In this training, you're going to learn how to choose the right plants for you to accelerate your healing. You're going to learn somatic practices to calm your nervous system and help you to gain access to tools to support your body's ability to heal itself. And isn't that what the Learn True Health podcast is all about? It's helping us to learn how to support the body's ability to heal itself emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically. Health encompasses our entire life. Taking a moment to see that there's nature around us that we can utilize and connect to, even something as simple as a cup of tea can help us and gently push the body in the right direction. And that's what Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie comes here today to share. So I want to make sure that you know that you can jump in. Go to learntruehealth.com/plants and sign up for the free talk that she's giving on Saturday, August 5th, at 10 a.m. Pacific time. And if you don't think you can make it, still sign up because a lot of times, these talks are recorded, and then they send the recording out. This is totally free. She does also offer a course that will be offered at a later date. But right now, she is just out there sharing and caring, and teaching. 

This episode today is part one. The next episode I'm going to be publishing is Episode #507. That one will be part two because we have a continued story, an update from Dr. Guthrie. So enjoy today's episode. Please share with those in your life who would love to learn how to utilize nature and the plants around them to support them in healing trauma and healing themselves both physically, emotionally, and mentally. One more thing I want to guide you to, and that's my last episode was about using the modern science of ancient wisdom with Dr. John Douillard, Episode #505, and he specializes in Ayurvedic medicine and using herbs from all around the world to support the body's ability to heal itself, and he has an amazing store, and there's some free stuff to check out in his store as well — his four-day cleanse which he gives for free on his website. You can go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa. I got a 10% off coupon code for you guys every time you order there as long as you order $50 or more, which I think you have to buy two or three bottles. You would definitely be able to get that 10% off. The coupon code is LTH, as in Learn True Health. Go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa. I love his stuff. His herbs are wonderful. His experience is amazing. So tapping into utilizing herbs to support the body's ability to heal itself, I have learned from Dr. Guthrie, our guest today, about how to incorporate herbs in my daily life, and it has really enriched my life and my health and helped me as I've been on my journey of healing emotionally and physically. So I hope that you also gain those tools today as I have. Make sure you go to learntruehealth.com/plants and sign up for her free class. And enjoy today's episode. 

[0:04:17.7] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #506.

I'm so excited for today's guest. We have, back on the show, Elisabeth Guthrie, who is now a PhD candidate. Congratulations. Elizabeth, you were on the show five years ago, Episode #201. So we're going to do a bit of a catch-up. We're going to play catch-up and discover what has happened in your life in the last five years. I know when we talked to you, we were just diving even more into studying. And now you're at the point where you're just waiting to hear back. You've submitted everything required for your Ph.D. So that's really exciting. But catch us up, and of course, you've published your latest book, The Trauma Informed Herbalist, the discussion around effectively supporting clients who are struggling with trauma, which I think is so cool. And you got another book coming out next year, so I'm sure we'll be hearing — you're not going to wait another five years before you come on the show. Let's just put it that way. But you've been busy both working in the field and also as a student to get to the point where you're now just a few moments away from officially being a Ph.D. So exciting. So catch us up with what has happened in the last five years. 

[0:05:43.0] Elizabeth Guthrie: Oh, so much. So, I finished my undergraduate work in Complementary Medicine. I know we had talked that I was interested in becoming a naturopathic doctor, and fate had different ideas for me, and I ended up with a Master's in Public Health with a concentration in Functional Nutrition. And as you mentioned, I am finishing up my Ph.D. As a matter of fact, I said I'm finishing. I have finished all of my work for the Ph.D. I'm just waiting to hear back about the final exam. The final exam was a thousand questions and took over 18 hours to complete. So I understand why it's taking them so long, but I've got my fingers crossed, I hear something back very soon because I'm very excited.

I worked for a while at the integrative medicine clinic at UAB Hospital here in Birmingham, Alabama, and learned a lot about research and how conventional research strategies sometimes don't match what we see in the field. Of course, some of that I got through my public health degree, but a lot of the more hands-on understanding of how to approach natural remedies in research came from that time with Dr. Salvador at the integrative clinic. And, of course, I have my own practice, and I've recently written — you said another book, but this is actually my first book — The Trauma-Informed Herbalist, and you can read about it at my website, traumainformedherbalist.com. I do have it available for bookstores. So if you're a bookstore owner and you want to get a copy, you can go through New Leaf Distribution for that. And yes, I am doing a second book. So many people were fascinated by the chapter on aromatherapy. I actually originally had kind of a companion guide to this that was going to come out. But so many people came to me about aromatherapy and said I really want to understand more. So I put the companion guide to the side and started work on the trauma and essential oils book that will be out in April of 2023. 

[0:07:49.4] Ashley James: Was it another? Because I didn't know if you knew, but I looked into this crystal ball, and you've published many books in your life. And so, I just got confused as to which one was the first one.

[0:07:59.7] Elizabeth Guthrie: Right. Well, I've written so much. But this is my first real book. 

[0:08:05.5] Ashley James: Yey. Well, it's such a labor of love, and I love that you got feedback, and so you're just taking the feedback and what to write next based on the feedback. I think that books on aromatherapy are really important because it's such an underutilized modality. Back when I was a teenager, I had such a really fun and interesting childhood. Now, looking back as an adult and as a mom, I'm looking back. And as a teenager, my mom introduced me to her friend who ran a holistic spa. Back then, that wasn't really as common. But it was called beauty comes naturally, and it was a hundred percent organic and natural. This is back in the 90s spa, and there are no chemicals and everything like that. And so I interviewed for a job there, a summer job, and every summer, I worked there, and I studied and learned about essential oils because we had a bunch of them. And I was the receptionist, and I was also the salesperson just helping people buy stuff, and there's all kinds of goodies. You would love this spa because it was kind of like a health food store mixed with a spa. This was back when Aveda was like from the original creator of Aveda, and it was really crunchy, and they were focusing on a lot of just pure, no chemicals. So there was a huge wall of essential oils and different brands. And I started to get a nose for the really high quality because this store had low-end, medium-end, and then high-end essential oils based on people's budgets. And you could really smell. You can smell the difference. And I can, to this day, really smell the difference between low-quality and high-quality essential oil. But I became really interested when — because I thought it was like this is just smelly stuff. I didn't know what it was. But one morning, I woke up, and I had gastritis. I was about fifteen, fifteen, or sixteen years old, and I was throwing up. I was nauseous, and I had a fever. I was really, really sick. And my mom called her friend and said, “Ashley can't make it today.” And so my mom's friend needed someone to be there for a few hours. My mom, who's on vacation, went in and helped out in her store.

And then my mom came home with lavender and peppermint from the spa. Her name was Carrie Foreman. She's still around. Her name is Carrie Foreman, and she said, “I want you to take some olive oil.” Because I think that's the only oil we had. “Take some olive oil. I want you to put a few drops of the lavender in olive oil. Rub it all over her chest and her tummy, and I want you to brew some hot water. Put one or two drops of peppermint in the water and let her smell it, and let her sip it. Now, I've been non-stop vomiting. Immediately, once I smelled the peppermint and sipped it, the vomiting stopped. When she rubbed the lavender on my chest and my tummy, I fell asleep. When I woke up, the fever had broken, and I was fine. Of course, I spent the rest of the day resting because it was pretty intense. But that quick of a transformation, for me in the past, homeopathy was very quick for me to have that kind of effect. But have essential oils go boom, like nausea gone, boom! Fall asleep, boom! Fever broke. Like it was supporting my body's own healing mechanism, and that's why I became obsessed with learning and studying it, and I loved it. 

So many times, I came in as far as, “You have to try this. You have to smell it. Did you know this absorbs into your skin and goes into your lymph system, and it helps with the communication between cells and it's antimicrobial?” I'd go on and on and on. I'd geek out. You and other listeners know I just geek out at all this health stuff. But can you imagine this teenager just going on and on and on about how cool it is? People would walk out having bought hundreds of dollars. Carrie, the owner, must have loved it. I've sold hundreds and hundreds of dollars every day for these essential oils. But I believed in them, and it's herbal medicine. But because they're sold in spas, and they smell good, it's kind of fun. And when we think about it, this is like massage oil, right? It's not even an oil, which is a misnomer. But we give it this idea that it's some kind of frou-frou luxury spa thing when it's, in fact, really concentrated powerful herbal medicine. 

So since that's something you're working on for your next book, and it's in The Trauma Informed Herbalist, I'd love for you to definitely talk more about that because we all want to learn more about essential oils. It's an easy herbal medicine that you can practice at home, that you can use at home, and that's already made for you as opposed to having to get a bunch of leaves and brew some tea or make some mixtures. It's less messy and cumbersome that way. So yeah, that's really exciting. And I love the name of your book because a lot of us have been through trauma the last few years, and many of us recognize now, looking back on our childhoods, I think we all have something to heal from. But I'd love to know why you named your book, The Trauma Informed Herbalist. What happened in the last five years that you went, “Aha, this is what I'm going to write about.”?

[0:13:20.6] Elizabeth Guthrie: Ah, storytime. Thank you for sharing that. It's actually interesting because a lot of people like you said, see that as frivolous, and I think we see that with some herbs in general, but really with the essential oils, a lot of people see it as a treat or as something that is not a requirement in order to heal. And in some cases, it might be an add-on. But in some cases, there are a lot of instances where essential oils are the main thing that gets somebody up over the hump and back towards healing. So I really love that you mentioned that. 

Where to start with the whole trauma-informed discussion? So about a decade ago, I was working as a 911 dispatcher, and that alone can create secondary trauma. At the time, they didn't want to admit it. At the time, they were like, we were just listening to stuff on the phone. How bad could it be? And since then, we have discovered that, especially since you don't have any control, all you can do is try to speak to somebody and try to help them from a distance, but you have no physical control, and you're stuck sitting in the chair. And you don't have a whole lot of any sort of control over the situation, and you can't give in to your fight or flight response that occurs during some of the calls. There are a lot more dispatchers that have PTSD than people want to admit. On top of that, I loved the job. I loved it. I felt like I was able to help people, but what changed is I ended up in an abusive relationship. The man that I was with at the time kind of isolated me from everybody and was initially just emotionally abusive, but he became physically abusive. And I started having a lot of issues after I got out of that relationship, and it's really interesting. 

Again, when you have trauma, sometimes you don't have any of the symptoms until you're safe again because your body starts to recognize that it's in a place where it can process through some of the stuff. And so some of the more obvious symptoms don't occur until you're safe again. And I had my adrenal episodes which I think we talked about last time. I had my adrenal episodes pretty soon after leaving that relationship and getting out of that scenario. And another thing that I noticed around that time was that I had a change in the way that things like meditation, certain herbs, especially adaptogenic herbs, and the way that my body responded to them completely changed. I've been around herbs for the majority of my life. I was in some form of energy work from the time I was 12 years old on. We did a lot of Qigong as a child, and I got into Reiki very early on in my late teens, and all of that was great. The meditation was amazing. I could take all kinds of herbs and feel like a superhero until I went through trauma.

And then some of it still helped, but some of it made things worse. Meditation was one of the first things that I noticed, and I would sit there, and I could meditate. But then I would start; I thought I was hitting enlightenment. I'll be honest, Ashley, I really was like, “Oh, man, I have figured this out,” because I would space out so badly, and I would get bragged on by the people at the facility because we would have these all-day Sunday retreats where you would sit there and meditate and I could go all day. But what was happening was I was dissociating. And the reason that I found out it was dissociation is because I couldn't come back into my body afterward.

So, when you are doing meditation, most people feel a little fuzzy afterward. That's expected. But if two or three days later, you're still feeling dissociated from your body; then there may be something going on that you need to try to figure out. Is this trauma-related, or is this something else? But in my case, it was trauma-related. And there were other instances where I couldn't get into a meditative state, specifically because my brain was on high alert and was trying to pay attention to what was going on, not in the room, but actually out around us to make sure that we stayed safe. So there's a lot of really odd things like that where I couldn't refocus on what I was doing because I was going into these heightened states of alertness or full-out dissociation.

And then, the herbs started bothering me. And the first one that really struck me was Rhodiola. Rhodiola is this amazingly beautiful adaptogen. I love the smell of the tincture. The Latin name is Rhodiola rosea, and it has that very rose-type scent to it, a very spicy smell, and I loved it after exercise. But what was happening was I would take it, because normally you would take it after exercise and it would help you to recover faster. It has all kinds of good benefits for your body and everything. But instead, it was throwing me further into a panic attack.

And so I started asking around about this. Are other people experiencing this? And I would kind of get the side-eye from some of my mentors. There would be a couple of people who would be like, “Yeah, you know, I've had something like that happen.” But for the most part, people were like, “That's not what's happening. It has to be something else. You have to be misinterpreting it. And we do that sometimes, right? Sometimes, coincidentally, we will get sick at the same time. We take something, and then we'll think that that's what made us sick, and in reality, it had nothing to do with it. That happens. But this was happening frequently enough to where I knew something else had to be going on. 

And as I continued to study, I had this feeling that something was wrong with me. Like, I am wrong. Here I am; I'm an herbalist; I've done this. I've been in some form of herbalism my whole life, but I've done clinical herbalism for the majority of my adult life. And here I am; I can't even take the herbs because I have these weird responses to some of them. And then, I stumbled across the work of Dr. Peter Levine. Dr. Peter Levine talks about somatic experiences in the body and what we feel in the body. The more popular version, which I read after Dr. Levine, is Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps the ScoreAnd these people have started to teach us about how our body, when we have an experience that creates trauma in our body, the brain, and the body is reacting in order to keep us safe. And the body is having these responses that don't have anything to do with you overpowering it with your mind. They occur because the body has biochemically changed. There are physical changes that occur in the brain when we go through trauma, and it takes time to rewire these things. 

So, I do want to clarify real quick about trauma. When I talk about trauma here, of course, we can talk about trauma in the form of if you physically injure yourself, you have physical trauma. And some people call trauma the event that has occurred. But when we discuss trauma and a trauma-informed environment is what I'm trying to help practitioners to be able to understand a little bit better. Some people are already starting to see these things and already starting to find their way with this. But there are a lot of people who didn't even know that this was a thing. And so I'm really trying to help people to understand our field. And trauma in a trauma-informed environment is defined as the body's response to an event that felt overwhelming. So that's why something that happens to you could cause trauma in your body. But I did not experience it the same way, and therefore, I do not have trauma from it. And that's why when I experience something that creates trauma for me, the person sitting next to me may not have had that overwhelming sensation. They may have felt more in control at that moment, and their body may not have created a reaction that is meant to keep us safe. But once it goes a little bit too far and becomes a chronic thing, now we're no longer safe. We're just having the trauma response. So that doesn't make you weak. It doesn't mean that you have failed at biohacking your brain in order to be better. It just means that you went through something that's extremely difficult and that your body and your brain have done what they think is best to help keep you safe. And now, it's just a matter of working to rewire what has happened in order to help your body know when that response is an appropriate response. Was that a lot?

[0:23:08.9] Ashley James: No, no. It's a great way of putting into perspective that trauma is more about whether you feel out of control at that moment. That's interesting because two people can go through the same experience, and one ends up very traumatized. Just like when people come home from war, not everyone had shell shocked. I mean, not everyone went through the exact same experience, but there were some that felt more fragile than others. I don't mean the word fragile in a negative way. It's just there are some people who really broke them. I have witnessed; I've been with vets who were in full-on PTSD, and it takes them hours to get out of it. So whatever they saw or did in those moments was very lasting. And then there are others who have been through similar experiences, and I always think, “Are they just burying it?” Does everyone who comes home from the war really, really traumatized, and some bury it? But maybe not. Maybe some are not traumatized that they didn't feel out of control in those moments. So that's interesting. 

[0:24:37.4] Elizabeth Guthrie: It brings up another interesting point because when I say trauma-informed, I don't mean that you have personally been through trauma, and now you think you know how to work with everybody who's had trauma. There are a lot of different imbalances in the body, and once you've been through it, it makes you a better practitioner. So, for instance, if you have fibromyalgia and you learn the different imbalances that are occurring in your body that have made fibromyalgia an issue, other people who have similar imbalances that create similar symptoms can benefit from your knowledge. But in trauma, my response to trauma is different from your response to trauma. So one vet may bury it down, and he may go home, and he may be a horror behind closed doors, or he may not be a horror behind closed doors. He may absolutely be bottled up and miserable and sick and can't do anything about it. It's not that he lashes out, but he's almost imploded and withdrawn from it. Whereas another person may be out in public and have an anxiety attack. All of these can be responses to trauma. And so, when a practitioner has gone through a traumatic experience, that can help open the door to explore the different ways that trauma comes to people. There are different types of trauma, and there are different layers of trauma that occur. Depending on the different types and the different layers, a person's personality, maybe even their constitution, or even their inflammation level can change how they respond to these events. And so it's a much more broad study than, and not that, the personal experience doesn't matter. Because obviously, my personal experience brought me to this and other people who have personal experience study and understand this, and then they're able to help people more. But personal experience is just the first step when it comes to trauma, whereas with some other things, personal experience can be what makes you the expert in that matter. 

[0:26:57.7] Ashley James: I really like working with practitioners who have empathy. They don't have to have the exact same problems that I'm struggling with. But the fact that they're open enough to share what they've gone through, how that level of empathy, of understanding, like when on the outside it's so hard to see what people are struggling with on the inside. I remember the first day I left the house and went on my own and ran an errand after our daughter died. I was standing in line at Chipotle, and I looked over at everyone. I texted my midwife, and I said, “I just wish I had a neon sign over my head that told everyone how I felt on the inside so that people knew.” Because I looked around, I'm like, everyone is standing in line. Everyone is serving food. Everybody is eating food. There could be people in this room that are hurting as much as I am right now. that are in as much grief as I am. And if we had some kind of neon sign above our heads, that's kind of like The Sims video games. If we could just walk around knowing a bit more about the inner workings. Imagine if you walked across the street and someone was on the street, and the little signs above their head showed just how hurt they are; you would just stop and be like, “Can I give you a hug?” And I just wanted that. I wanted everyone around me just to know and share what I was going through. And I'd love that. I'd love to be able to just look at others with compassion and be like, “Hey, I know what you're going through.” But of course, we don't have these neon signs above our heads, and we all walk around like everything's fine. 

If someone asks, how are you, we always say fine, no matter what. And that just feels so inauthentic. I actually remember in the last year just hating it when people ask me, “How are you doing?” I hate being asked that question because do you really want to know? That's what I want to say, “Do you really want to know how I'm doing?” Of course, I'm doing much better now, thank you. I had a discussion yesterday with a friend, and I said, “You know, I feel really, really happy now.” I'm in a really good place. But I can look back on the last 18 months, and I've been through stuff. Now, of course, I have a way deeper level of empathy. I may have lost my parents. I've lost friends, so I've been through loss. But I have a level of empathy. But that's what I want from a practitioner. I really don't like it when practitioners act cold and professional. Of course, I want professionalism, but cold professionalism, distance, and a wall — that makes me very uncomfortable because, I don't know, I feel judged. I feel like I'm the crazy, messy mom. And this person is looking at me, going, “What's wrong with you? Why can't you keep it all together?” So I want a practitioner to be like a little bit of a hot mess. I wanted them to be good at their job. But I want my practitioner to be still having some little baby throw up on their shoulder or something. Just show me your humanity. Show me you're real. Show me your humanity and have that empathy. 

A lot of practitioners feel like they have to wait to be perfect in order to help people. I did not wait to be perfect to start my podcast. I'm still on my health journey. I've healed a lot, and I'm sure about that. I've reversed many health conditions, and I'm still on my health journey. I'm still not like Mount Everest of Health, like the peak of Mount Everest. So I'm still working on myself. We're all on a journey. But I really got that if we all waited to be perfect — like if someone is listening as a practitioner, or a coach or something and they're still working through their emotional trauma, don't wait to be perfect. If you have the capacity to want to help people, it's okay. If you're still struggling with your fibromyalgia, but you want to help people, do what you can, and like you said, let your trauma inform you. Let your healing be that way of further helping other people heal themselves because you can be that mirror. You can show them like. “Hey, I can still live a life while I'm healing. I can still help people. I can still make a difference. And so can you.” So, as a practitioner, by you being authentic, you actually encourage other people to heal even further because you allow them the space like it's okay not to be perfect. We all can just be a work-in-progress together.

[0:31:40.7] Elizabeth Guthrie: And that's the beauty of this. When you find yourself in a situation where you had trauma, and you start learning about how to recognize trauma and how trauma affects people, you start seeing yourself in certain pieces, and you start being able to recognize how other people might be affected differently. When we look at trauma, you've actually described some different types of trauma here, right? Acute trauma is something that happens very quickly. There may be repercussions for months or years afterward, but they've usually lasted a couple of days. They're very sudden, a sudden death of a loved one, physical attacks — things like that are all considered acute trauma. And that's the stuff that we normally look at and say, “Ahh, that's traumatic.” But we also have chronic trauma, and they are usually more subtle. And some people may not be able to recognize them right off the bat — things like living in an unsafe neighborhood where you're constantly on alert and unsure of who's safe and who's not. Is that car safe? Are they going to give me trouble?– that kind of thing. Discrimination in general, when you have people who are in group sitters are discriminated against — that can create forms of trauma, and those are chronic traumas. And another thing that speaks to some of what you and I have been dealing with is a chronic illness, which can create trauma. And a lot of people who have chronic illnesses have been in situations where they feel isolated, where they feel like they cannot get what they need. 

I know, from my journey with long COVID this year — I got sick in December of last year, and by January, I was having to strategically plan trips to the bathroom — and I remember that there have been times when I wasn't in a position to get myself a drink of water, and I had to wait on somebody to be available to help me with that. And those moments can add up. Not everybody is going to walk away from chronic illness or trauma. But a lot of people who have chronic illnesses have chronic trauma, and they don't even know it because nobody has ever said to them that, yes, this is a form of trauma. Trauma thrives in isolation. When someone is isolated — when they feel like they're unheard, when they feel like they're not connected to others, which has also been the reality for most people for the last two years — trauma thrives in that environment. And you end up with a lot of people who have complex trauma. C-PTSD, that's complex PTSD, that's usually when multiple sources of trauma have occurred, and it can create other types of symptoms that are very specific to complex trauma situations like a very, very strong inner critic that just berates you. That's a very C-PTSD-type symptom. 

So, there are all these different types of trauma. And then, of course, that's not even getting into the layers of trauma where you have generational trauma. Maybe it's something that's happened to your parents or grandparents, and it affects the way that they treat you. For instance, I have an aunt who died of leukemia, and I actually share her birthday, and I can tell, looking back on my childhood, how that changed the way that my grandparents and my parents treated me because of the trauma that came from Catherine dying. And it wasn't bad. It wasn't that they created more trauma for me. It just changed my environment growing up. And there are times when it just changes your environment. And then, sometimes, our generational trauma begets more generational trauma. And we see that a lot where the abused becomes the abuser, and we see that through the generations. And then of course, community trauma and things like that. So there are all kinds of different ways that trauma can occur for people. And the easiest thing to remember is if you feel isolated, if you feel alone, or if you feel helpless, those are moments that can make you more susceptible to trauma. And if you have felt that and you feel like you've had trauma symptoms afterward, you may not be diagnosed with PTSD, but there may be some trauma things that if you start looking at it like, “Well, how can I adjust things to bring myself back into a place where I feel more connected, where I feel calm and safe with people?” That can bring you to a place of better healing.

[0:36:34.3] Ashley James: Now we have laid out some ideas about trauma because a lot of people didn't know. So I was emotionally, mentally, but never physically abused, but in some cases, it would have been easier if you'd just hit me because then I could have ended it. If someone tries to physically abuse me, I'm not going to take it. I studied martial arts for many years. I’m not looking to pick fights, but I'm going to defend myself. I'm going to block. I'm going to throw you because I studied Jiu-Jitsu, and I'm going to sit on top of you until the cops come. 

[0:37:13.7] Elizabeth Guthrie: Which is you being able to honor your fight or flight response? And you can’t do that as well with emotional trauma. 

[0:37:19.5] Ashley James: Right, right. So I didn’t actually recognize it, and I could not really see that it was emotional and mental abuse until I got out of it and left the country to move to the States. And then, looking back, I was like, I had to get distance, and I became a master practitioner trainer of neuro-linguistic programming, timeline therapy, and hypnosis. One of my friends who also went through the same courses, we'd often help each other get perspective because when it's our own life, it's better to talk about it, get it out of you, like talk therapy. As long as it’s a safe person to talk to, sometimes it's just good to just get it out because when you hear yourself say it, you’re like, you just got a different perspective. And we were talking, and I realized just how abusive it was, just how manipulative and controlling and how bad it was. But at the time, when we’re young, you just want to be loved, and I was like a martyr. I just wanted to do whatever just to make him happy. That kind of thing. And then I was. “Wow, that was a really messed-up relationship for five years.” Like you said, he’s isolating you from other people, not letting you have friends controlling where you go. It got bad, and I'm so glad I'm out of it because now I know how to healthfully enforce my boundaries. Those relationships allow us to learn what we want and what we don't want, and it allows us to learn how to support healthy boundaries when we experience them. That’s what I don’t want. Now I know how to teach people how to treat me because I know what I don't want. 

So looking back, sometimes you’re just listening — I'm sure as people are listening to us talk, they're going, “Oh, wow. Maybe I was in some of those situations in my past, in my childhood, where we didn't feel safe.” Those kinds of things. So we have emotional trauma trapped in the body. I've had several interviews where people have touched on this, including the man who invented Emotion Code, and that's really amazing how he detected and saw it as practice — that people had trapped unresolved emotions in the body and how to resolve them, how to release them from the body. And then, the subsequent physical healing that would occur because of that, or their pain or chronic pain would immediately disappear. Those kinds of things were really fascinating. We have to understand that we can see physical bodies, so we honor it, like, yes, the physical body exists. But we don't see emotions like we all see the mental body, the emotional body, and the energetic or spiritual body — we don’t see it. But it is there nonetheless, and each one affects our physical body. 

We can tell very clearly that we can hook our bodies up to machines. We watch a stressful movie, like a zombie movie or something, and we can see that even though you know you're safe in a movie theater, you know you're safe. If you watch a stressful movie like Schindler’s List or something, you're living through something. Even though you know you're safe, your stress hormones will go up. Your heart rate will go up. Your physical body is being affected by this experience. I know some listeners might be too young to remember 9/11 or at least have had an emotional impact on themselves. But for years, I felt that there was an impact that, collectively, we had trauma. And then, in the last almost three years now, collectively, we are all sharing in some degree of trauma. I don't believe in supporting the victim mentality. What I mean by victim mentality is holding on to it and being like, “This is why this is happening to me,” and then not giving them the tools or supporting them in the tools to allow them to step into their power so that they can heal. We don't need to be stuck in this trauma. Acknowledging it or recognizing it is a good step, but then, of course, your whole book is now, how do we support them — and I don't want to use the word empower because actually, the root of empower means that they don't have the part of themselves and you're lending them your power. I want to help them step into their own power so that they are able to use these tools to help them along their healing journey. So, I'd love for you to go through some of the things in your book that really helped people to step into their power. 

[0:42:26.0] Elizabeth Guthrie: Right. So one of the things that I mentioned earlier in passing is that I see this is a form of rewiring, so you're not going to balance something back real quick. Normally when we look at emotional things or a lot of the energetic work that I've done in the past with the chakras and things like that, there's a lot of balancing that occurs, and balance is good. We want to come back into that place of homeostasis, or on a more ethereal level, and be back in alignment so that everything slows the way that it should. But then there's a rewiring that has to take place when it comes to trauma, so we can get the physical body back in balance. But then we have to really take some time and recognize that. Whereas with balance, maybe like a seesaw, you may just put one thing on it, and the seesaw comes back to a balanced state. Rewiring is more like — have you ever walked into one of those server rooms where all the wires look tangled up, and you're never going to know where one goes unless you follow it with your fingers? What we do when you have trauma, and you have to eat to help your body come back to a better state is, we're now taking those wires, and we're untangling them and putting them back in order so that it's very nice and organized, and that takes time. So, when you first come out of a situation where you've had trauma, you may start noticing — if you've already been using herbs, essential oils, mindfulness yoga, anything — you may find that you’re responding differently to the natural remedies. Or if you're a practitioner and you're working with somebody, and you suspect there may be some trauma whether they've revealed it or not, then you may start to realize that they're not responding to the recommendations that you've made in the same way that you would expect. And there are a lot of things that can come into play here. A lot of the time, when trauma is involved, it makes it harder for somebody to hold down a job. They might struggle financially if they weren't already in a situation to begin with because people who are in disenfranchised groups tend to have more trauma. So there may be things like that that are causing them to not feel like they can afford the remedies. They may not feel like they can keep making the recommendations that you've made, or they may physically be having an odd reaction, an anomalous reaction, if you will, to what you've recommended. 

And so, it's really important to recognize that this is not making an excuse for people. Like I actually said, we're not looking to support an idea of victim mentality. “Oh, whoah, it’s me. Nothing can be done. Look how awful my life is.” That's not what we're after here. But what we can recognize is for a lot of people, what we would consider the “normal options” aren't necessarily going to work if they've been through trauma. So if somebody comes to you and says, “Hey, I've used this, and it's making me anxious.” Valerian is one of those. But sometimes, somebody would come to me and be like, “I'm anxious on it now,” and we can shift to other things that have similar properties that maybe will work better for them. And to me, that is the big thing, and I'll talk here for a few minutes about some different herbs and things. But I really want to get people to recognize that a lot of the times, what I'm saying about these different herbs can be helpful for people, but we also have to recognize that we need to honor when somebody comes to us or if you're doing this for yourself and if you're trying some things for your body. Just because I said that passion flower is relaxing for the majority of the population, if passion flower is not working for you, change it up and find another nervine. You don't have to go with something just because I think that it's a wonderful option. However, the most important part of this in my mind is to pivot, to be ready to change. If you need to adjust something, adjust it. The dangerous thing here isn't moving forward, changing, running into roadblocks, and having to shift. The dangerous thing here is to stop altogether and allow yourself to stagnate, throw up your hands and say, “I give up. I'm not going to find the connection I'm looking for.”

So, before I get into the herbs, I did want to say one more thing about polyvagal theory because, to me, this is the important piece that will help because you can say, “Well, okay, Elizabeth, I hear your truth. I hear what you're saying. But how do I know when something is helping me come into a state that's going to help me heal from trauma?” Because when I go to my therapist, and I talk, and I come out of there — I have a talk therapist that I've had for, oh gosh, I don't know. Six years now. I love her to death. I don't even know how long it's been. It's been at least six years. And that has been some of the best spaces for me to go and clear my head and come up with new things to help me. And she helps me process through the why of what's occurring. Why is my brain going this way? Why am I having this response to this conversation? But a lot of the time, the work of what — what is it that I'm experiencing, what is it that I'm feeling, and how do I process what's happening in my physical body — is what I'm doing as an herbalist. And a lot of that comes into play through the polyvagal theory. 

So Dr. Stephen Porges created the polyvagal theory, which helps to explain the way that our parasympathetic nervous system and sympathetic nervous system respond to stress. And this is a very, very quick overview. I'm not going to say that this is the end of it. Doctor Porges has written several books on it. Deb Dana has also written some very practical guides to utilize polyvagal theory. For those of you who are therapists or do some of this work already, she's got some really interesting stuff on that. But to summarize, the polyvagal theory indicates that we have three different states of being when it comes to our nervous system and the response to the environment around us, whether it’s dangerous or not. Our response to the environment around us is either sympathetic, dorsal vagal, or ventral vagal. 

The sympathetic state is your fight-or-flight state. It’s where we're heightened. It's where we feel like we can fight back. It's the place where if we can run, we're going to run. The adrenaline is pumping, and we’re ready to go. The dorsal vagal state is the place where we feel trapped, and it's the freeze response, or in complex trauma, sometimes it creates a fawn response, which is where a person doesn't necessarily want to give in to what their abuser is suggesting. But they give in to it in order to try to keep themselves safe. That kind of comes from a dorsal vagal response as well. And that is where we don't feel like we can fight anymore. We don't feel like we have the ability to flee the situation. We're stuck, and our body freezes up. And then we have the ventral vagal state. If you can't remember sympathetic and dorsal, that's fine. Don't worry about it. One just means fight-or-flight. The other really means freezer fawn. Again, it’s very simple, but for the purposes of this discussion, that's all you need to know. The ventral vagal state is the important state because that is the place where we are calm, where we are connected, and that's where healing occurs. 

So when we're looking for herbs, and we're looking for essential oils, and we're looking for flower essences or activities, we want to find things that help us to return to the ventral vagal state. For some people, this is yoga movement, and it can be different types of yoga. I have some clients that when we work together, we do a lot of restorative yoga poses and just lay in a position where we're fully supported for several minutes at a time. I have other clients who, if I did that with them, they would run out of the room screaming because that puts them in a place where their brain is almost like it starts to come up with all the ways that things could be going wrong. And because you calmed everything else down, now the alarm bell starts going off in the brain, and it can become very overwhelming. So instead, for those people, restorative may not be the answer. We may go for something like a gentle flow. Something that is a little bit more Vinyasa in nature. There's a lot more movement to it. So that the mind is focused on the movement of the body and not focused on what alarm bells could go off if we sat there long enough. And we do the same thing with herbs.

So there are certain people who have a lot of fantastic benefits from the nervines and the adaptogens. Depending on how your body responds, depending on whether you find yourself in that fight or flight or the freeze and fawn response, it can determine which herbs might be better for you. And that's where a lot of the herbalism work goes for me. And I will say this because it never is as simple as if you're in this group, go to this. If you're in this group, go to this. There are always people where it's the opposite, and that's okay. What I'm encouraging you to do when we're talking about these things is to try something, and if you find it's helping, stick with it. And if not, then adjust and try something else. So nervine herbs are things like passion flower, lavender, and valerian. There are several different options. Skullcap and hops — these are all different options for nervine herbs that are available. Most nervines tend to be pretty relaxed. There are some stimulating nervines, but most of them are very relaxing, and you're going to find them in things like sleepy tea or de-stress teas. I love Starwest Botanicals. They are probably my favorite herb option in the area. If I'm going to order something, I’ll probably order it from Starwest. But you don't necessarily have to go order yourself a bunch of cut herbs and put it together. You could actually go to the grocery store just to start, just to try it the first time. Go to the grocery store and pick out a couple of relaxing teas. Brew yourself a cup of the tea, and then spend some time just mindfully smelling it, noticing how it feels. Sipping on it, noticing how it tastes, and spending a few minutes after you're done with the cup and see where your body lands. Do you notice yourself feeling a little bit more grounded and a little bit more focused? Do you find yourself starting to fall asleep? That happens sometimes. But see where it lands with your body and spend that mindful few moments seeing what happens with your body and seeing if that's the right tea, and try another one. Try two or three different types of tea. It’s even more fun if you’ve got a couple of friends that you can sit down and talk this through with, and you all can each buy a box and do a tea swap where you get two or three packets of each of the teas. Then you get to try them and see what tea blends work really well for you. And you might notice, what are the herbs that we see in those tea blends? There might be certain herbs that you decide, “Oh, you know what, I could grow that in the garden.” And that might be an herb that you keep on hand. But start with tea. Start with that area and just see, are there nervine teas that could be helpful for me?

[0:55:25.9] Ashley James: Can you spell this? Is it ‘nerving' teas or ‘nervine' teas? I'm really down, but I wasn't sure what you were saying.

[0:55:35.4] Elizabeth Guthrie: My Southern accent says ‘nervine'. It's n-e-r-v-i-n-e. And if you all hear me on other discussions, I slip into ‘nervine'. I believe the majority of people call them ‘nervine', but you will hear me call them nervine. I'm talking about the same thing. I'm just from the Deep South.

[0:55:58.2] Ashley James: I appreciate all accents. I've been in the States long enough that I can pass for an American. But then, once in a while, I say ‘house' or ‘about'. But everyone knows where I'm from. I can't say ‘about' like an American. How do you say ‘about'? 

[0:56:15.0] Elizabeth Guthrie: It's very nasally. So you're doing it, like, in your throat. ‘Almost' and ‘about' is up in your nasal passage.

[0:56:22.3] Ashley James: It feels so weird in my mouth. I appreciate everyone's accent, and I love your Alabama accent. It's so much fun. But nervine — I've written it down so I know what it is — that's so great. I love those combination teas. We don't get sick often, but when we do, I am right there with the Breathe Easy tea and the Throat Coat tea, especially if I'm waking up in the morning and I have an interview, and my throat starts to feel scratchy. I'm going to get four bags of Throat Coat tea and throw them in the pot and brew a big pot of it. And I really like those Sleepytime teas. They do a number on me. My body is like, “Yes, give it to me.” So I can feel it. 

When I am in the ventral vagal state, I know it. I know it because I've done in the past years, like you said, Qigong. I'm not great at meditating. I've got to admit. I appreciate those who can meditate. But I love prayer, and I love yoga. It's movement, moving, and stretching. I'm one of those people. I love Qigong and Tai Chi, just the slow-moving, and that is good for me. I feel a difference there. I can feel the calmness, and it's almost like someone is taking a weight off my shoulders and a weight off my chest. Because my mom was like a type A personality, go, go, go, go, go, she used to say don't wear your shoulders as earrings because you start getting tense. When you're in that fight-or-flight, and your shoulders just get tense, and they start creeping up towards your ears. Just remind yourself, don't wear your shoulders as earrings. Just let them drop, pull them back, and relax. But there's a hurry variability, a lot of the smartwatches now and those little devices, all those kinds of things, can track your hurry variability, which is a really great way of measuring your stress levels. It's kind of like measuring your basal metabolic rate. We can measure our base stress rates, and our base stress levels. 

Maybe you could coach us a bit for those who haven't done years of yoga, meditation, or Tai Chi and are not as in touch with their body. I noticed it because stress is not an emotion like it's easy to know, “Oh, I'm in anxiety.” Sometimes people don't even know they're in anxiety. They're just feeling like a lot of stuff, but they're not recognizing what emotion it is, like, when you're happy, when you're sad when you're angry. We know when we're happy, sad, and angry typically, but because stress is not an emotion, it's harder to say, “Oh, I can definitely feel that I'm in this healing state, this ventral vagal state. “I'm in the rest and digest state,” unless we have these devices telling us. But could you share with us what are clear signs that we're in that state? Let's say we've had that tea, gone for a walk in the woods, did a two-minute hug with our loved one, rolled on the ground laughing, and had a dance party with your kid. It doesn't always have to be this calm moment. They could be loud if that's what your nervous system likes. But what can we see, feel, or know to inform us that we have switched from fight or flight to rest and digest?

[1:00:31.3] Elizabeth Guthrie: A lot of the time, it's a matter of how present you feel. I'm the worst interview guest ever because everything is, ‘it depends'.

[1:00:43.1] Ashley James: You know it's okay. Everyone says that. We're not cookie-cutter. But you're going to give us some examples, and everyone takes away what works for them, so don't worry about it. 

[1:00:53.7] Elizabeth Guthrie: A lot of the time, what I have found to be helpful is how in your body do you feel. Because a lot of the time, we get into a place where we feel calm and soothed. But even with all of the somatic work that I've done, and like you said, the Qigong and things like that, there are even times for me where I have to kind of check-in like, “Am I in the moment? Or am I going into that dorsal vagal or that freeze response?” If I feel like I have control over how alert I am, that's a big one for me. If I find myself in a place and I'm like, “I don't really know if I feel ventral vagal right now that calm and connected place.” I'll see if I can bring myself back into a little bit more of an alert state and do I have the ability to soften back into almost sympathetic and dorsal vagal responses. Those are healthy responses. But it's when we get stuck in them that the sympathetic becomes fight or flight, and the dorsal vagal becomes freezer fine. So if we can find ourselves having some level of control over how alert we are and how well we are interacting with our environment, that's usually a pretty good sign that we are in a ventral vagal space. So if you don't have any idea and you're out of touch with your body, which is very common, the intero and extero reception gets really messed up when you have trauma. One of the easiest things to do is just notice, “Am I able to come back into focus or allow myself to relax back into a little more fuzzy state?” And when you catch yourself in those moments — Deb Dana called some glimmers of the ventral vagal state where just for a moment we feel really connected, something just feels right. Notice what you feel in your body. It's like you're saying, “Are you wearing your shoulders as your rings?” At that point, your shoulders are usually relaxed and may be back a little bit. They may be hunched for it if your posture is generally not good. But if they're relaxed and down, notice that. And so when you find yourself at the sympathetic or the dorsal vagal state, and you notice your shoulders coming up like you mentioned, relax them back down. Or you may notice that you feel a warm sensation in your stomach. There are all kinds of different ways that you would feel the ventral vagal state in your body.

So for me, the key is noticing when I first have the moments of ventral vagal connection and then where do I feel it in my body. Noticing when I feel in control of my state of alertness, and then noticing when I'm in that control, where do I feel it in my body? How can I hang onto that for just a second longer? You were talking about different types of ways to bring yourself back into that. One of the things that we see is group activities and connections with others through group activities. It can be very helpful to bring us into a ventral vagal state. One of my friends, Dr. Jessica Ogle, just did her Ph.D., and her thesis was on drumming. It's not just a drum circle. She was actually using drums in a therapeutic setting. But drum circles can help people come into a ventral vagal state. Yeah, there's some really cool stuff out there. And if you find yourself getting into a ventral vagal state and you really want to stick with it, you're like, “Okay, I'm feeling it today. I really want something to help me stick with it,” that's when I start encouraging my clients to look at adaptogens.

So Adaptogens are herbs that help the body adapt to stress. And there are different forms. There are stimulating adaptogens, and there are relaxing adaptogens. The three I mentioned in my book are probably my top three favorites for working with people who may be dealing with some sort of trauma response. The first one being holy basil which is also known as tulsi, and it's not officially an adaptogen for herbal purists out there. Technically, we say that it has adaptogenic qualities. It's not been labeled an adaptogen, but it has very similar qualities, and it's really nice. First of all, holy basil grows like wildfire here. I love it. And it's got a very rich taste. I used to love prunella for the same reason. It has this rich, spicy flavor to it. And if somebody is dealing with a lot of brain fog, that tends to be my go-to for them to work with the holy basil. 

And we have Ashwagandha, which is nice because it has anti-inflammatory properties, and we haven't had a chance to talk about information yet. But inflammation is a big thing when it comes to trauma response. And Ashwagandha is really helpful, just pretty much in general. It's a wonderful adaptogen, but it also has anti-inflammatory properties. You're seeing it become a lot more popular now because people have caught on to how great it is. But just be aware that if you go and you decide to get yourself a supplement of Ashwagandha, check on the label and make sure it's not blended with other things because there are a lot of supplements that are called Ashwagandha and when you look at the label it's blended with other adaptogens, and you don't want to get Rhodiola and whatever. Not that Rhodiola is bad, but if you have a natural tendency towards that fight or flight response, Rhodiola may amplify it. 

And then the last one that I wanted to mention was Shatavari. It is an ayurvedic herb as well as these other two, and it's the one that I go to when somebody has just been beaten down over and over and over again, and they're like, “That's it. There's nothing left. Like I don't even know how to heal at this point because I've been through so much that I don't even remember what it feels like to feel normal. I don't remember what it feels like to be able to have a safe connection with people.” So those are my three kinds of adaptogens that can help when you're trying to get more and more into that ventral vagal state.

[1:07:39.0] Ashley James: I love Ashwagandha. 

[1:07:41.2] Elizabeth Guthrie: Ah yeah, it's a great one. I was just going to recap. Nervines have a lot of good, relaxing properties. They help the nervous system to bring things back into balance. And then, once you're starting to get glimpses of the ventral vagal state, finding yourself an adaptogen that you like to help amplify those times when you are in the ventral vagal state can really help with that rewiring process. 

[1:08:07.8] Ashley James: For those who don't know, could you explain what the word adaptogen means in the context of turning on the rest and digest response? 

[1:08:17.2] Elizabeth Guthrie: Yes. So adaptogens help our body to adapt to stress, which I think I kind of said earlier. We're getting into the window of tolerance discussion now, and we didn't talk about this earlier. But we have what's called the window of tolerance. And if you imagine a tiny little window and you have to stay within that window in order to stay in what would be considered the ventral vagal state, adaptogens help to stretch that window out. So there are different things that help to stretch our window of tolerance, like therapists are trained to stretch us to the edge of the window of tolerance when we're processing through things, and they help us to stretch into build resilience. And the adaptogens do a similar thing on a physiological and ethereal level. It is helping to open up that window of tolerance and make it bigger.

[1:09:18.5] Ashley James: I first learned about adaptogens from a friend of mine years ago, a naturopath who used to call me Ashwagandha because my name starts with Ash. “Ashwagandha, how's it going?” He's like, “Actually, I think you should take Ashwagandha.” And I love making moon tea with Ashwagandha. And I learned this really great technique where you can make a concentrate of moon tea. So it's a can of coconut milk. I'll see if I can put the recipe in the show notes of the podcast. I actually made a whole video. It's on my website in this thing called Learn True Health Home Kitchen. But it's a can of coconut cream, and then we measure out all the different herbs and spices, and it's antimicrobial, so it's anti-parasitic. And it's great for when you want to just bring yourself gently down into a wonderful sleep. My body responds so well to Ashwagandha. So we'll mix in or blend in the Ashwagandha, the coconut cream, some clove, some cinnamon, some turmeric, and some pepper. I'll put the whole recipe in the show notes. And so, yeah, not peppermint. I meant to say pepper because the pepper activates the turmeric. And then we mix it up together. And then what we do is we need to concentrate, leave it in the fridge. It lasts for a while, like weeks. And then at night time, I take a mug with hot water, and I take a big heaping spoonful of the stuff and mix it in, and then if you want sweetener, you don't have to, but if you want sweetener, you can do whatever floats your boat like honey or maple syrup, or monk fruit, whatever floats your boat, to taste. But the largest herb there is the Ashwagandha. But we do put a lot of other warm and spicy herbs that just bring a nice heat to the body, and, like I said, it's also anti-parasitic. So it's anything to prevent worms, those little creepy crawlies we don't want in our gut and unhappy about. But yeah, it originates from India. But I love making the concentrate, and I learned that from a friend of mine because he's sitting there and having these twelve jars and having to like to put it all together every night. It's just like a pain in the butt. So he just makes it once, and then it lasts for a few weeks. Just that, oh man, it's really just deep, deeper sleep. 

But the first time I did adaptogens, it was a blend, and maybe Rhodiola was in it, I don't remember. This was over twelve or thirteen years ago. It made my heart race, and I thought I was going to die. I was so terrified, and I was really, really scared for many years. I have waited all the adaptogens until my friend was like, “Listen here, Ashwagandha, you need to try some Ashwagandha.” So I was like, “Okay, not every adaptogen is bad. But like you said, try one at a time instead of a blend because I did, and that really freaked my body out, and my body went into complete panic mode. I had a huge adrenaline dump. It's like we have to have the same reverence and respect for herbs as we would do walking into a pharmacy. It wouldn't be like, “I was going to take a handful of whatever random pills.” So you don't do that. Herbs have their place, and they're amazing. We should reach herbs first. But we have to be really careful in terms of dose and know how our body responds to it. So would you say start out small, be more conservative, and be like trying a teaspoon? Yes, let's talk about dosing. 

[1:13:33.8] Elizabeth Guthrie: Okay, so first, let me finish that little bit by saying you're right on track with that. So a lot of people who naturally run into a fight or flight response with their stress will have that kind of response to stimulating adaptogens, like what you're talking about. Whereas if somebody naturally runs into a freeze response, their normal instinct is to freeze when dealing with stress. Then stimulating adaptogens can sometimes be very helpful for them. So it really does depend on, again, we're back to sympathetic versus dorsal vagal and how it works with the herbs. But yes, dosing — okay, let me caveat this by saying I have had clinical herbalists who think that I am looney and that I have no business suggesting such low doses because — those of you who are listening to this and know what I'm talking about, please don't hate me — but there are some people who really believed in the physical capacities of herbs, and that's really as far as their training has gone. There are very good herbalists, and if you have somebody that works with you and they go from that angle, I'm not suggesting you should leave. But they don't like the way that I recommend doing dosing because my dosing method is focused more on the ethereal side of things, and I believe that you should do a very low quantity to start. That's why I start people with tea. I don't start people with tinctures which have a higher dose to them. And usually, when I start people on tinctures who have dealt with a lot of trauma, I start with drop dosing or very low dosing with tinctures. The reason for this is that if we're focused on what your symptom set is, and is it indicating that there's a lot of heat that needs cooling? Then I'm working on cooling herbs, and I'm going to be using a much lower dose. Is there a lot of cold that needs warming back up? Then we will be doing warming herbs, and it's not going to need this high of a dose because it is, again, kind of energetic based. And I believe that this is best for most people who have dealt with high levels of trauma because, like you were talking about where you had tried that adaptogenic blend, and when you were done with it, you thought you were going to die because it just blew your body's response up. 

For people who have been through trauma, their resilience level is lower, and that window of tolerance — remember, we're talking about the way that would be adaptogens — can be stretched a little bit. Usually, when you first start to heal from trauma, that window of tolerance is a lot smaller. So when somebody's window of tolerance is very small, and then they have a few herbs in their system that causes them to have a response that they don't like, instead of it being a slight inconvenience, it becomes a much larger feeling of being overwhelmed. And so if we start with a smaller dose, if there is a response like that, then there's not as much of a response, and it doesn't feel as overwhelming. Plus, like I said, a lot of what I work with when I work with people is more on an energetic level anyway, and I focus on the energetic. And the funny thing is, when we do that, a lot of the time, the therapeutics tend to fall into place. You tend to end up with the right physical therapeutics as well. But because I focus on the energetics, I do suggest starting with a much lower dose.

That's why I like it if you're going to try this for yourself; if you are a practitioner, I have classes. We talked about this. You can get the book and start there and kind of see if it's something that makes sense for you. But if you're trying this for yourself, then I encourage you to start with teas or just a very small dose of something in whatever form you can. If it's Ashwagandha, you're probably going to find it in capsules and things like that. But that helps you to determine, “Do I feel a little bit good, or do I feel a little discomfort?” Determine from there. Is that what you want to continue using? If you're feeling a little bit good, maybe go up to the full dose and see how that feels. Sometimes the full dose can be a little too much, and it can start to feel a little over-stimulating. And so you find, “I'm just going to stick with the half dose,” or whatever you chose to begin with. So yes, I definitely encourage you to start with a lower dose and work your way up.

It's the same thing I do with essential oils, minimum effective dosing. The smallest amount possible to get the best results. First of all, it's cost-efficient. You're not spending a whole lot of money overusing a substance, but you're also minimizing the chance that you're going to have a response to something that makes you uncomfortable and makes you go, “Maybe this is not for me.” 

[1:18:42.7] Ashley James: I like that very solid advice. Start with teas like the entry-level, nice, safe dose. On the other side of the spectrum, it's the concentrate, which is like tinctures and essential oils. And the capsules are somewhere in the middle because you can regulate that. Once I know I like something like Ashwagandha, I'll get a whole bag of it, an organic, good source, big bag of it in bulk because, like I shared, I can then make my tea with it. And you can get a machine to encapsulate your own stuff if you want to save money. But I'm just throwing in smoothies. Just scoop it up, throw it in there, blend it in, cover it up. You can do that with lots of mushrooms. There are so many good tonifying mushrooms for the nervous system. That's really helped me as well. Do you touch on that? I know you are teaching your courses, and I definitely want to make sure the listeners know about that. They can work with you in that capacity. But do you have anything to say about mushrooms? 

[1:19:54.1] Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah. Actually, it's interesting because I almost forgot to talk about the autoimmune discussion. So one of the things that we have found, and there are a lot of different things that point to this, is that there may be a connection to somebody having this lasting trauma response and having high levels of inflammatory markers in their body. And so we're beginning to see that there's some sort of connection between inflammation and trauma setting into the body and making it harder to heal from trauma. And I have several clients who we end up — I almost feel bad for him because they come to me, thinking we're going to do a lot of nervous system herbs, and then we end up totally down the immune path, and they're like, “What's happening? This is not what I signed up for.” Sometimes that is what is standing between people and their healing. It is an inflammatory response. It's out of control and is making it impossible for their nervous system to ever get to a point where it can heal because the inflammation response is blocking it. 

So, a lot of the mushrooms have immunomodulatory properties, and those immunomodulatory properties can help to bring things back into balance and to help with an inflammatory response. Now, of course, there are other things you can do. You can look at healing leaky gut. I know you've had some good people on here talking about inflammation in the past, so you all may want to look up those episodes as well. But as far as herbs, any kind of immunomodulatory herb, a couple of cups of green tea, if the caffeine doesn't bother you if it does, then stay away from it, but the L-theanine in the green tea is a fantastic option to help with calming and relaxing. So, for most people, if you drink a cup of green tea, then you're getting a balance between the two. But things like stinging nettles can be immunomodulatory and very helpful, or like you said, the reishi mushrooms, that kind of thing, could be extremely useful for immunomodulation. So if you think that you have an inflammatory load that is higher, then that may be a good thing to be doing alongside some of these nervous system herbs that we've discussed. 

[1:22:25.5] Ashley James: Are there cultures that have noticeably lower rates of autoimmune inflammation? Do you know of any? I'm just thinking of, for example, Asia, which probably consumes the most amount of green tea. They are naturally getting good amounts of L-theanine, and then also, Asia loves reishi. They are widely accepted and taken mushrooms. I just wonder if certain cultures, because they include these foods and beverages in their daily life and in their culture, like, “See here, these guys are doing this, and they have 25% less autoimmune than those in America,” for example, who consume less amounts of these things. I wonder if we can look at each nation and see which ones have significantly higher rates. Of course, who's tracking all this? But it would be interesting. I know that cardiologists have done studies of the Japanese population versus the American population when it comes to heart disease or cancer rates. And so I just wonder if we're tracking autoimmune now as well, as we tracked those other issues? 

[1:23:50.4] Elizabeth Guthrie: So interesting because as you were talking through that, I was Googling. Google is the best and worst thing ever, right? But hey, so I actually found some information. I'll try to send you this link so it can be in the show notes for anybody who's interested. But on statista.com, there is a prevalence of diagnosed autoimmune conditions in selected countries, and it is not very many countries. But since we're talking about the United States and Japan, it's showing a 2% rate in Japan and a 7% rate in the United States in 2019. Now, does that mean that it's absolutely that, or maybe they're not diagnosing it? We'd have to look at their structure and how they chose to diagnose because, obviously, undiagnosed stuff happens all the time. But I suspect that you're probably on to a bit of something there. 

[1:24:46.6] Ashley James: Well, yeah, and I've had several guests on how to reverse autoimmune, and it's largely diet. Surprise, surprise. Largely with diet, we can wreck a lot of major issues and discussions, and that's why we listen to this show and learn from these guests in how to take control — and there's that word again — the feeling of being in control. We're giving that feeling back to the person who is listening because “Here's something you can do. You can go to the store. You can buy this tea. You can take it.” Like now, they feel like they've got something they can do. So many times, I've heard so many stories of people going to their medical doctor. The medical doctor is basically saying, “You just got to live with this and just deal with it.” 

Again, I'm not ripping on all medical doctors. You can't do a mass generalization, nor do I. However, with our observation of their education, we have to understand that their education has informed them, and they see through a lens that is different from those who have been holistically trained. It's a different lens to look through, and they really will have the hubris to believe that they have the answer and no other answers exist outside of their body of knowledge. Not all MDs, but there's been so many cases, and so many people have just, like you said, thrown your hands up and given up because you've been told by the authorities that what you have is something you'll always have. And that's not the case. There are so many answers out there. A medical doctor that I interviewed was really interesting. She ended up going a hundred percent holistic and became a functional medicine practitioner because she became incredibly sick, and no medical doctor that she went to could solve her problem. And they basically said, “Well, now you're just going to have to live with this,” and she was just bedridden. And so it took natural medicine, and she was infuriated because she spent almost half a million dollars and up to twelve years of her life becoming this highly specialized medical doctor, and that all went out the window. Now, that education would help you stop an artery from bleeding out and help someone recover from a stroke or heart attack, broken bones, and certain infections. There's a time and a place for this amazing emergency medicine that I value and trust, and I will be the first person to go to a hospital in those emergency situations. But you don't take your car to a plumber. Why are we always going to the same? And this is the system that we live in because it's a for-profit system. So they've set themselves up as the only doctor to see. 

And that's why we have to reach out to podcasts like this, to learn from people like you, so that we can take matters into our own hands and start to explore. We can do this on a daily basis to improve our health through nutrition, herbs, whatever practices like going for a walk in nature. Move your body in a way that brings you joy. Like I said, I love Tai Chi and Qigong, and you can do it in a structured way, or you could just throw on some music and dance. These things really do affect your hormone levels. They really do matter. They really can bring down inflammation. These activities in your life — when you go to sleep, when you wake up, when you enter nature, and what you eat — all play a major role in affecting your body and honoring that. And then this doctor, I asked her, “Why is it that so many medical doctors — not all of them, I'm not throwing them all in the same category — act as if natural medicine either doesn't exist or that it's some snake oil quackery, and that pharmaceutical-based medicine, that allopathic medical system, is the only medicine?” And she said, “Listen, we invested almost half a million dollars and eight to twelve years of our life, just depending on specialties and stuff, invested a huge amount of time, a huge amount of energy, a huge amount of blood, sweat, and tears, essentially, and we come out of this believing that we must have been taught everything that matters. And if they didn't teach it in the last eight years and half a million dollars in education, then it isn't important.” And that is what every medical school is pushing, right? 

And so what we have to do is understand that the practitioner you go to is incredibly important in what you choose. And also, do not let their opinion be the end-all-be-all. Do not let them dictate your healing because I was told I'd never have kids by an endocrinologist. After a battery of tests, I was told that I was barren, and that's ridiculous. We have a wonderful boy that's almost eight years old, and it was a natural medicine that brought my fertility back. I reversed a hundred percent of my polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I was told by many people that you cannot reverse it. And I'm like, well, I'm about to show you. 

[1:30:02.0] Elizabeth Guthrie: And so, when you're coming to all of this, and you have had trauma. It's interesting when we're talking about nutrition, and my Master's Degree, there was a focus on functional nutrition, and there is a strong movement that says that autoimmune concerns are a nutrition thing. Diet, diet, diet. And that is true for a lot of people. But there are also a lot of people who have trauma around food, and they may have an eating disorder, or there may be nutritional concerns that make it difficult for them to hit that from that angle. And if that's the case, be aware, and listen to what Ashley has said about it. There are other things. There's Tai Chi, yoga, and there are herbs that can help. There are ways that you can focus on your health that don't include nutrition. 

Now, for those of you who are able to work with nutrition and it works for you, there are some amazing options there, but don't feel like that is it. This is what I'm talking about with trauma-informed care — pivot, pivot, pivot. If you have an eating disorder, or like a lot of people with adoption trauma, they have concerns around food, and they may be fighting food, hoarding, and things like that. There are a lot of restrictive diets that are used to help people heal up the leaky gut and things that can actually activate those responses where somebody now is struggling to fight the need to hoard food in their room because they can't have certain things. So all these little nuances like that, if you're listening to this and you're hearing the things, don't get stuck on just one thing. Recognize that there are other things that we are talking about and don't hear, “Oh, it has to be nutrition,” because Ashley mentioned all these other things too. That's the kind of thing that I am trying to help practitioners to notice and to recognize because there's a lot of stuff that we've been taught that we see as, “Well, this is the way.” And then, we have to recognize that we can become creative and we can still stay evidence-informed. We can recognize that there's empirical evidence for these other methods that maybe aren't as simple as looking at something from a nutritional angle. There may be a little bit more complex. There may be a little more nuance that we have to wrestle with. But when we do that, we are becoming more accessible to other people. 

So there's amazing stuff that's being done. And what I encourage you, as practitioners who are listening to this, is to constantly be willing to expand your horizons. Look at different options, and learn about new things. If you can't carry it, then find people in your area that you trust, or find people who work virtually, like I do, that can help you as a referral system. Build your referral network when necessary. And then, of course, those of you who are listening have hope that there are options available. It just may take some time to find what works for you with the situation that you have dealt with. You told me about homeopathy at the beginning of this, and it may be something like that. It may not be something that has a physical component. It may be something that is purely energetic, like flower essences, which is not exactly homeopathy, but it's kind of a form of it. And what I work with a lot are flower essences and aromatherapy, and herbs. The flower essences help a lot when somebody has struggled on the physical front. 

[1:33:40.2] Ashley James: I love that you keep preaching the willingness to try new things. I don't want to say get out of your comfort zone because that can kind of trigger the fight or flight response. But think of it from this perspective of being in control because, like you said, that's calming when you're feeling like you're in control. So you get to brew the tea, you get to sip the tea. You could put on a YouTube video just to see what basic Tai Chi is. It's really fun, actually, stroking the horse's mane. I went and did Tai chi. I remember this was like 20 years ago, and I was heavily into studying martial arts, to study Okinawan goju-ryu karate, and jiu-jitsu. And then we did a little bit of gōngfu and some Tai chi. And I go with my sensei to this town that only has like 100 people, and it's small. I was in rural Canada. And it was in the senior center, and it would be a senior center gymnasium filled with eight-year-olds, and he would lead the class. It was so cool just to be there and do this in rural Canada with a bunch of seniors when I was in my early twenties. 

It feels really interesting because how many times in our life do we breathe and move slowly like sloths? We never do that, but what an interesting thing for a nervous system because, especially for me, I'm a busy mom. I'm running around doing so many things. I always kind of catch myself going, “Wow, I feel really crazy right now.” You know what I mean? I feel not crazy, but I feel really like a mom with her head cut off, like a chicken with its head cut off. I'm making food. I'm packing food. I'm taking the kid here. I'm homeschooling there. Go to this class, go to that class. I feel really productive and great, but even though you're still having fun and being productive, how many times are we surviving on fight or flight? Many women I talk to believe that, “I need this adrenaline. I need this cortisol to get through the day.” I need to be in fight or flight to get through the day, to be productive.” And they think that they need it to be productive. 

And to do something like Tai Chi or Qigong, where you intentionally move slowly to something we don't do, and you intentionally breathe controlled and deep and really oxygenate your body, especially in the last few years, so many of us really do need that. And what happens is the nervous system goes, “Oh, okay. We're not freaking out. We're not putting out fires. Wow, there are no fires to put out.” And then you just feel your body, like you said, come into the now and relax. If you can hold on to that while you're being busy through the day, you not only really enjoy being productive. You'll just be, like you said, centered, calm in the now, and you can be busy and productive, but you hold on to that state where you're telling your body, telling your nervous system, that everything's okay. That you're safe, that everything is fine. So you don't have to trigger the fight or flight, and your body can continue healing and assimilating food. Being in a fight or flight, sometimes we lose our hunger, or when we eat, it sits in our stomach, just like a pit in our stomach because our body is not digesting it. You're not digesting when you're in fight or flight. And so if you can eat a meal and you feel like you really digested — it's not sitting there, and it's not stagnating in your gut — that is so good because your body is able to assimilate those nutrients. 

So I love the little tips you gave us. Start with the tea, then get experimental, but have fun with it. Choose something that you don't feel is scary. But trying new things from the standpoint of it is going to be fun. This is going to be an experiment. Maybe include your girlfriends, like you said. Everyone buys a different tea and you can all share with each other. I love that. Or essential oils — you and your friends could take some different essential oils and share them, and you have an essential oils party. There are so many things that we can do together to make it fun. Making it fun is not triggering the fight or flight response. If you can make it fun, then it's not threatening. 

[1:38:21.6] Elizabeth Guthrie: It's fine if it's a healthy expression of the sympathetic nervous system. And I love that you've mentioned that because, to me, it is so important to come to a place where things are enjoyable. We want to be able to dip into the dorsal vagal, which becomes a freeze response when we're dealing with trauma. But we want to be able to settle in front of a fire, surrounded by loved ones, and be in almost a meditative state. I don't want to call it a dull state because I'm not trying to call it negative. But it is almost like the mind becomes a little fuzzy, and you are just able to sit and be with people. That is a little bit of an expression of dorsal vagal. And we want to be able to have those fun moments of a little bit of sympathetic expression. They're supposed to be there, but it's being tempered by the ventral vagal and coming back into that connection. 

And another thing that I mentioned in the book is there are ways to make your own flower essences with the flowers that you have. And so, if you have a flower that you're particularly fond of, you can make essences. You can do it direct if it's something that's edible. If it's something you shouldn't be eating, you don't have to do a direct flower essence. You can actually put the water next to the plant. So there are all kinds of different ways to make this interactive. The book, of course, is called The Trauma-Informed Herbalist: A discussion around effectively supporting clients who are struggling with trauma. But I had a lot of people read it who aren't practitioners and who love it because I am talking to practitioners through a lot of this and talking about being willing to be flexible and find other things. But my whole essential oils chapter has a whole list of different oils and the ways that I have found them to be emotionally useful for people. Or the plant spirit connections and digging into trying to find more aetheric ways to connect with plant medicine. And when you do that, you are reclaiming that autonomy when you are making those choices. That's where you will find yourself able to get back into a place of ventral vagal connection more frequently.

[1:40:39.2] Ashley James: Love it, love it. Thank you so much for coming to the show and sharing those things. I want you to tell us how we can take your courses.

[1:40:49.4] Elizabeth Guthrie: If you go to traumainformedherbalist.com, you will see at the top and or the bottom that there's a place where you can go to my classes under Empathic Coaches Academy. It is the name of the school. And if you go to traumainformedherbalist.com, you'll be able to see about my work about the book if you're interested. The classes range from — like, I have one class that's specifically trauma-informed aromatherapy. I'd love for us to get on that topic next time because that is a fun topic. It's a six-hour class that digs into trauma-informed care from an essential oil standpoint. I'm currently teaching trauma-informed herbalism, so you can go, and you will find that there as well. And then, of course, I have my full practitioner program that's available for people who are looking to dig even deeper.

[1:41:43.9] Ashley James: Love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything you want to leave us with? Any homework, maybe?

[1:41:52.5] Elizabeth Guthrie: My homework to you is to try something. I'm not going to tell you that you need to go do the tea activity, even though that mindful tea activity is my favorite thing, where you drink the tea and you smell it, and you just spend some time with it. I encourage you to take one thing from this session and go this week and try it out. See what you notice about how you feel when you try it. And from that, what would you do differently or the same? So if it is the tea and you go, and you get three or four of your friends together, and you all do a tea swap, did it work? Did you find something that you felt was really good for you? How does that change what you're going to do from here on out? Making these small little steps is the way to rewire. Remember the visual I gave you at the beginning? We're not looking to balance a seesaw and fix things overnight. We are unplugging one thing, untangling it, and plugging it back in. Unplugging the next, untangling it, plugging it back in. Slow and steady is what's important when it comes to healing from trauma.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me at any time. I am here to support you all as much as I can. But I genuinely feel like your best decision is to brainstorm some of the stuff that you've heard today. Brainstorm it, take it, and try something out and see what you can find that can bring yourself back into more of that ventral vagal connection. 

[1:43:28.6] Ashley James: Awesome. Awesome. Let's all go do that. I love it. I love it. You know what? I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to write a little sticky note that says ventral vagal stimulation or something to remind me, are you in the rest and digest? And I'm going to put that on the fridge or something. Sometimes it's nice to have little reminders. I write notes to myself and put them on the fridge. Oh yeah, put it in the bathroom. Just remind yourself and go to the toilet. You can put a sticky note right across the hall, or whatever wall is in front of you or near you, or near the toilet paper, because you're sitting there for 30 seconds to minutes, or however long you're there. You've got some time to check in with yourself, check in with your body, do some deep breathing, and maybe visualize what you want to have to happen. 

That's a big thing I teach people when I teach them to get out of their anxiety. It is to imagine what you want to have to happen because we are always imagining so much of what we don't want to have to happen, which triggers the anxiety response. Imagine what you do want to have happened today. And that tells the body that we're not under attack. We are in a safe place where you can imagine what you want to have happen. Even if it's like, “Oh, I imagine making myself some moon tea tonight, having had a really good day.” Just imagine yourself making it, sipping it, having it hot, and smiling to yourself at how great today went. That's it. You don't have to imagine the whole day. Just imagine that, at the end of the day, you're saying, “Hey, this was a really good day.” That's enough to tell your body, “Oh, I'm not under threat right now.” Taking those times to just check-in. So I love this whole discussion, and there are so many actual things, so much homework that we can do. So, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with us today. 

[1:45:29.1] Elizabeth Guthrie: Thank you, Ashley. I'm thrilled that I've been able to do this. This has been amazing. And I hope that as people begin to find themselves more and more in the ventral vagal state, they're able to make connections with each other. And that's how we're going to eventually heal a lot of the wounds that have happened over the last few years. It is to bond together in safe and effective communities. So I thank you and thank you to everyone who is listening to this because we've covered a lot. It's been a lot of material. But you people are the ones that are making this change. We're sitting here, we're discussing these ideas, but when you go out, and you make those changes, and you start healing yourself and your families and your communities, that's where the real legacy stands. So, thank you. 

[1:46:17.9] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's episode with PhD candidate, Elizabeth Guthrie. Looking forward to Part 2, which will be the next episode that I publish, in which you will hear the update from this last interview. You can go to learntruehealth.com/plants to sign up for the free webinar that Elizabeth is putting on. She's going to be teaching a really interesting herbal, somatic, aromatherapy, clinical herbalism. It's all really interesting. So if you like today's interview, it just gives you a whole new thing to add to your tool belt — this idea that you could add essential oils and teas. You don't even have to get into the heavy-hitting stuff like tinctures and extracts. You could really work very gently with herbs to nourish the body and support the body in emotional, mental, and physical well-being. And so you're going to want to sign up for the free talk that she's giving. It's a webinar. It's coming up Saturday, August 5th, at 10 a.m. Go to learntruehealth.com/plants and just sign up for the free thing. Even if this is after August 5th, still go to that link because I'm going to be making sure that we get the link to her ongoing stuff that she's doing and making sure that we link to that because she's giving ongoing talks and training. This is a free webinar that she's giving, but she also does paid courses that you can take in the comfort of your own home. And you, too, can become an at-home herbalist to support yourself and your family in amazing health and healing. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Please share this episode with those in your life who you think would love to use plants around them to support them in healing emotionally, mentally, and physically. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day.

 

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The Trauma-Informed Herbalist

Essential Oils for Trauma

Jul 22, 2023

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505: Quantum Healing: Bridging Ancient Wisdom with Modern Science | Dr. John Douillard

https://www.learntruehealth.com/quantum-healing-bridging-ancient-wisdom-with-modern-science-dr-john-douillard 

Today's podcast discussion centered around quantum healing, ayurvedic herbal medicine, and the benefits of drinking structured water. Dr. John Douillard, an Ayurvedic physician, shared his experiences with structured water and how it positively impacted his energy levels and mental clarity. The conversation also touched on the universality of Ayurveda and how its principles of living in sync with natural cycles apply to people from different regions and cultures. Dr. Douillard emphasized the importance of using whole herbs and their natural microbiomes to support the body's innate healing abilities. The discussion highlighted the synergy between ancient wisdom and modern science in promoting overall well-being and health.

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Ashley James And Dr. John Douillard

Highlights: 

  • The benefits of drinking structured water and its impact on energy levels
  • Living in sync with the natural cycles of nature and how Ayurveda promotes this approach
  • Ayurveda is described as a universal study of nature that can be applied to anyone, regardless of race or location
  • The significance of using whole herbs rather than extracts, as the synergy of the entire plant with its natural microbiome supports the body's healing processes
  • The benefits of ashwagandha, an adaptogenic herb known for its ability to support relaxation and energy levels
  • The importance of a diverse gut microbiome and how Ayurveda recognizes the role of beneficial microbes in health.
  • Ashley shares her personal experience with a moon milk recipe containing herbs like ashwagandha and how it has improved her sleep and overall well-being.

Intro:

Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #505. 

[0:00:13.6] Ashley James: I am so excited for today's guest. We're going to have a really great show, I can tell. We've got Dr. John Douillard here with us, and in our pre-talk, before I hit the record, I was like, “Okay, we're all set. You got your water.” He's like, “Yeah, I got my analemma water,” and I'm like, “What?” We're both drinking structured water right now. This is so cool. 

So John, tell me, so you just started drinking about a month ago, and then now you're drinking, all your water is structured. That's what I do. I stir all my water. I've been doing it since just after Thanksgiving. So it's been, what, seven, eight months that I've been drinking the analemma structured water, and I do notice more get-up-and-go, and my plants look crazy. My plants look like I fertilize them with crack, I don't know. It really does make a difference. But you can't just do a little bit. Like you said, you started drinking a little bit, and then you started drinking more and more of your water with structured water, and then you noticed more energy. It's really interesting, isn't it? 

[0:01:13.9] Dr. John Douillard: Yeah, it really is interesting. I think when I really said, “Okay, I'm going to make sure I drink this water, and also, it helps make me drink more water because I really want to get the effect of it. So I started stirring it. Actually, my staff have one too. So they're stirring it into the big kind of glass, the all filter thing, that they just stir all the water for the day in that, so they're using it too. When I started drinking a little bit more of it, just like three big glasses, like 16 oz glasses a day, I started feeling more energy, more lighter. I always have good energy, but I feel like the energy was so much clearer. I was clear-headed, and I was less weirdly distracted by the world we live in, social media, this, and that. I was way more focused on my quiet time, my spiritual time, and I'm more motivated. I always have that motivation, but sometimes I can get distracted, and other things pull me up. But with this, I just felt like it changed my vibration and my brain or something. So I'm still a rookie at this, but I am giving it a good go, and I'm excited about it. 

[0:02:30.9] Ashley James: That is so cool. I don't know if you know this, but they came out recently with the whole house unit, and my listeners get 10% off coupon code LTH, as always. Our listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater to check it out. Plus, also check out all the studies that analemma puts out. They're putting out a study around bathing in the water, and they found that it changed cardiac output for the better. Now, I'm not a cardiologist, but I read through the study, and I'm like, “This sounds great!” I have no idea what it means, but it was very sciency. I'm sure, John, you would understand it if you read the study. I know that you told me that you read studies every day, the latest studies that come out, and I love it when doctors do that; that they are plugged into the latest science. So I'm excited to see the studies as they come out in terms of bathing in structured water because I believe in frequency medicine. And so it just makes so much sense to surround the entire body with structured water and see how that's going to help us. They take already healthy people and do these studies to see how average healthy people would benefit instead of taking sick people. They want to make sure that they're not crossing any lines in seeing this medical device. Although I'm sure one day, we might be able to start to see studies about that. But already healthy people have improvements in skin health and heart health, and it's very interesting. So yeah, I love drinking it. I wonder how many things you and I have in common. This will be fun. 

[0:04:13.4] Dr. John Douillard: And I love the fact that when you actually stir it into the water, it's permanent. Like a lot of structured water, they're very temporary. With this one, you create that structured water, and it stays forever, which is kind of really unique other than the quality of their structure. But that's kind of where you need not worry. You can do a whole batch and then have it last, and it's always there for you.

[0:04:39.3] Ashley James: That's what I do. I fill up all my mason jars and sit down, and I'll stir them for 2 minutes each. Or I'll fill up really big containers of water, and I'll just sit there for like 10 minutes and just stir, and I'll be doing something else, like talking with the family or whatever, listening to something, or watching something, and it's meditative. For me, I love it. I feel a sense of productivity, and I'm like, “Okay, my water is stirred for the day.” But I got to be honest. I can't wait for the day that I have the whole house unit. I think I'll miss stirring it, but at the same time, it will be wonderful to bathe in it as well. It's really, really interesting. 

I'm really excited to get into what we're going to talk about today because you have such a depth and breadth of knowledge when it comes to taking ancient wisdom and modern science and showing us the way, showing us the light, right? There's so much diet confusion, even herbal confusion, and medication confusion, and we're all bumping around, sick of being sick and sick of feeling like we're kind of lied to by the mainstream medical system that claims that they've got a pill for us. Whatever your problem is, they've got a pill for us. And that's just suppressing the body, trying to force it into suppressing a symptom, forcing it into a way of being a state. But as we know, when there is a disease, it's going to show up somewhere else. So we suppress something. It's whackable. It's going to pop up somewhere else, and now you got five more symptoms from that medication to handle. Whereas if we come in and look for the root cause, support the body's innate God-given ability to heal itself. Instead of trying to play god, let's step back and go, “How can we support the body's ability to heal itself?” Now we will be able to watch the body come into correction. 

So you have a wonderful store. We're going to talk about that later, where you provide herbs and herbal blends that will all support us as tools. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa and use coupon code LTH to be able to access the products that we're going to talk about today as you teach us about using food as our medicine and using herbs as our medicine. I'd love to hear what happened. How did you figure it out? How did you get super excited about Ayurveda and using this ancient wisdom along with modern science to guide people?

[0:07:17.9] Dr. John Douillard: Well, back in 1986, while I was a Chiropractic, I heard the word Ayurveda and I was studying acupuncture at the time. And for some reason, I just loved that word, and I wanted to know what it was, and it's the kind of traditional system of medicine from India that's thousands and thousands of years old, and I was just so intrigued by that. So I ended up having a chance to go to India for a four-week, six-week trip to learn Ayurveda. And I went there and found an Ayurvedic teacher there, and I was invited to stay there and train with this Ayurvedic physician. And so I had to practice in Boulder, Colorado, at that time, and I called my partner up, and I said, “Hey, I don't know when I'm going home, but I'm not coming home for a while.” I literally closed my practice by phone. He could barely hear me, and this was the 1980s. There was no cell phone. It took an hour to get a line to call from the United States to India. 

And so, I just closed my practice, and a year and a half later, I came back, and somebody I didn't even know was driving my car, and things in different houses everywhere were scattered. And when I was there, I met Deepak Chopra. He was opening up a center in Massachusetts, and he wanted someone who had been trained in Ayurveda to do it. So at the end of my training, I also, more importantly, met my wife in India, even though she was from California. Along that way, in that year and a half, we got married, and now she's pregnant. We were living in India with my pregnant wife, who couldn't handle the smells in India at all. So she needed to get out of there, and Deepak said, “This is perfect timing. I'm opening up this center once you come back and run the center for me.” So we did, and literally, the day I got there, it was like November day. We walked into his new clinic, and there was a doctor's conference that I was supposed to teach. I literally got off the plane and started teaching. So I started teaching medical doctors Ayurvedic medicine, and I realized really quickly that this was not going to work — a chiropractor teaching medical doctors Ayurveda unless I had some science to back this up. So that sort of launched me into finding not only the ancient wisdom, which I'm so fascinated by but by the science to back it up. And that's what I do to this day. I write articles and do videos on ancient wisdom, modern science. And if I can find some ancient practice that's been time-tested and still in practice today, and I have science to back it up, I feel like that's what we should at least look at. I mean, science alone can prove coffee is good; coffee is bad. It's always good. It's always bad. Whatever it wants to prove, it sort of proves it. So without having some time-tested wisdom behind it, I feel like you don't really know for sure. So that's what I do.

[0:10:15.2] Ashley James: I love it. You know, some old-school doctors will say, “Well, this medication has been on the market for 50 years. So I would rather go with this medication that we have had for centuries, look at it, and see that we know very clearly what the side effects are and what the effects are. And I'd rather give you this medication than the new one that's been on the market for one month, and we really don't know what it does.” And then we have Ayurveda which is thousands of years old. And it's funny to think about medication, “Oh, it's a 50-year-old medication. Wow, that's really old.” Well, how about a system of medicine that's thousands of years old and has been proven time and time again, tried and tested? It makes so much sense. Now, Ayurveda is cultivated in a specific area of the world. Can it be rubber-stamped to any culture, to any people? Because we have very different climates. We have very different access to food. Can someone in Chile, someone in the Yukon, and someone in the Netherlands all feel the benefits of Ayurveda, or do they have to adapt it to their climate, to their seasons, to the herbs that are accessible to them? 

[0:11:40.6] Dr. John Douillard: That's the beauty of it, really. That's such a great question. My teacher literally drove it into my head again and again. He used to tell me, and he goes, “Ayurveda is not Indian. Get it into your head. It's universal.” It's a universal study of nature. ‘Ayur' means life, ‘Veda' means truth. So it's the truth or the science of life. So it's about living in sync with the natural cycles of nature. It's going kind of downstream with the rhythms of nature as opposed to feeling exhausted at the end of every day. You feel like you have to work your butt off, and then you kind of have to recover on the weekends or have to have that glass of wine to come home. 

Life has become a struggle for a lot of us. But traditionally, if you listen to nature and watch nature, watch the birds, the deer, the animals, they're not struggling. We're struggling. And it's about living our life in that natural way. For example, the beautiful thing is just the food we eat. In the winter, we all know pretty much, let's say, North America, it is cold and dry, and nature has an antidote to that coldness and dryness, and it's the harvest which is nuts and seeds that grow. That's what they eat in the winter to give them a higher fat, higher protein food to insulate them for those winter months. It makes perfect sense. In the spring, when it's rainy and muddy and allergy season, the harvest is completely different. It's a very austere, leafy green harvest with some berries and some bitter roots, like all the dandelions in your yard that the deer are digging up. Those bitter roots will scrub and clean up all that mucus that builds up in your intestinal tract during the very wet, rainy, congested, mucousy spring months. And in the summer, when it's very hot, nature gives us cooling fruits and vegetables. So, that's the study of nature. That's what Ayurveda is based on, and that applies everywhere, anywhere, anytime.

[0:13:39.9] Ashley James: I love it. And when it comes to the herbs, there are herbs that can only be found in the regions of Asia in India. Are these herbs applicable to every race? Do we see that people of Caucasian descent have a different reaction than people of Asian descent or universally to everyone, no matter our genetics, responds well to the same herbs? 

[0:14:09.7] Dr. John Douillard: The cool thing about Ayurveda is it gives you ways to classify the herbs according to their taste and their quality, which can apply to anyone from any race, anywhere. But what's really important about it is that you have herbs. You know, in old age, they say you eat stuff that's local, and I understand that that's really important. And we use a lot of Western herbs and classify them ayurvedically, which makes good sense. But there is a study, Ashley, that was done about ten years ago in Utah and in New Mexico. And they went into a museum that had Indians that were a thousand years old, and they took their poop, and they measured it. They were able to figure out a way to measure what kind of bugs they had in their poop. And they found that there were these massive numbers of bugs with lots of diversity. They compared that ancient thousand-year-old poop to modern poop, and there was such a lack of diversity in our guts that they called it an extinction of that — the lack of microbial diversity in the last 30 years. The food that we eat has reduced in diversity, different kinds of food by 50%. So, in other words, by eating the same industrial food again and again and again, we were losing that diversity. So going to Europe and traveling to Asia is a way to get more microbial diversity. 

I've actually done studies on that with my patients to back that up. So that's a really important piece of the puzzle. So in the [inaudible 0:15:40.3], I would say, “Yeah, I want to eat local stuff and eat the food which makes sense. They want to get the right bugs for the right season, for the right place in your gut at the right time. The problem is we spray pesticides on so many things that we're eating food, and the soil just doesn't have those bugs. So when we get herbs, we get them from Indian organic farms. They are certified organic. We have to get them tested by the FDA to find out exactly what bugs are in there. And as long as the bugs are good, and they're usually loaded with good probiotics, and you actually ingest those foods, you're actually inoculating your gut with the right bugs for the particular condition you're trying to treat. But also, I always like to prescribe herbs based on the season they were harvested. There is an herb called ashwagandha. Everybody's probably heard of that herb. Now, it's harvested in the fall for the winter. It's a warm, heavy, sweet root that builds resilience, endurance. It's an anti-aging agent. It's just an amazing herb, an adaptogen for stress and things like that.

When you take the whole herb with the bugs on it, you have a synergy. There are what are called bacterial endophytes, which are bugs that are on the plants naturally, and those bugs on those plants support the intelligence and the potency and the benefit of that plant. It's like if I took all the bugs out of you, you would be a completely different person. If I take all the bugs out of our food when we sterilize them with pesticides, that's not going well for us — all these kinds of sterilized foods, processed foods. And the same thing happens when you take an herb versus an extract. If you take an herb and you take the whole plant, and then you create an extract, you've created a sterile compound. It's completely sterile. So when you take what we do in America — because I want to make that herb more potent — I want to take that herb and concentrate it by a hundred times and make it bigger and better. So it's the American way. 

But the study showed when you take curcumin, for example, out of turmeric, which is one of the three hundred constituents out of the whole turmeric root, and you make it into an extract, you made it into a drug, and it is going to be a drug. It has been shown to help people reverse colon cancer and breast cancer, and prostate cancer. It is a really powerful drug. But whenever you make a concentrate like that, you're going to have consequences, side effects, just like the TV commercials for the drug companies. So when you take the whole plant with the herb in the natural climate microbiome that's on that plant, you have a food that works in synergy with your body. It supports the body to do the job for itself, for it to do the job for the body. And that's what I really love about Ayurveda. That's what I have, and it is obvious in our stores. It's whole herbs, and we test them for identity. We test them for bugs. We test them for heavy metals. We test them for everything twice. We test them twice when I get the herb and after we make our formula, and then we know that these are just really polyherbs. So I take these herbs personally and give them to my patients for years and years because they're inoculating their gut with the bugs that we desperately need. We need a diverse microbiome, and we just don't have that anymore. That's the difference between Ayurveda which is like, “Hey, let's use the whole plant. Let's use nature the way it came and not try to mess with it.” Who are we to think we can make it better? Let's use what nature provided for us and watch it work for us and with us, as opposed to overruling us.

[0:19:20.1] Ashley James: I make moon milk, like a turbo moon milk, that my husband and I drink every night, and it has over ten herbs in it, including ashwagandha, which I just love, and a ton of turmeric. I've been thinking to myself lately; maybe I want to try making this with fresh turmeric, like with the turmeric root. I've been using powdered turmeric. And, of course, that's more concentrated. It's been dehydrated and ground up as a powder. 

[0:19:50.6] Dr. John Douillard: No, no. Not really. If you get the fresh ground turmeric, that's completely fine. It's when you take just one constituent out of it and concentrate that one thing that it becomes an extract and is going to be sterile. But when you have just ground-up turmeric powder, that's perfect. That's great. There is a pretty amazing study that shows that if you mix that sixteen parts turmeric with one part black pepper — this was at the St. John's Hospital in Bangalore in the year 2000 — it increases the absorption of the turmeric by 2000%. So all you gotta do is add sixteen to one, a little bit of black pepper to your turmeric, put that in your mix there in your moon milk, and you are going to make that turmeric so much more active.

[0:20:36.4] Ashley James: Love it. Yeah, definitely. That is one of the spices, that is, the black pepper, and I've learned not to put too much. There was one time I made it, and I put way too much. I'm like, I do have that American; if something is good, more is better. And I often overdo it, and there can be too much black pepper, so I have dialed in for that. I'm actually going to be posting this soon on the website as a blog. I want to share my recipe because I've been playing with it for a while, and I've got it dialed in. I'm really happy about it, and it tastes so good. It's such a beautiful ritual at the end of the night. I like to try to eat dinner earlier and then go to bed hungry, like going to bed on an empty stomach. And so I like to have that moon tea right around maybe 8 p.m. when the body goes, “I wish I could have a second dinner,” and I'm like, “No, no, no. I'm going to drink this.” It's delicious, and it's calming. It's a beautiful ritual to just smell it and sip on it and feel the nervous system calm down and get ready for bed. When I introduced it to my life — I already got good sleep — but I noticed it's even better sleep, deeper dreams. Like I have these wild dreams. And every time I do something that I know helps me for my sleep and deepens it, I'll get even wilder dreams and even more colorful dreams, and I'll wake up remembering all my dreams. I just know that whatever I just did, that was good. I can keep doing that because it's deepening the sleep and the restoration. But I noticed that I am even calmer. Not that I'm prone to anxiety, but I just noticed that I'm calmer and happier and don't yell as much. The nervous system feels like it is much more stable just introducing, like you said, ashwagandha and the other herbs into my little ritualistic evening drink.

You were saying bugs, and I know I have to clarify because lately, there's been a big push for us to eat insects. When you were saying bugs, you did mean healthy gut bacteria, a diverse microbiome of the gut bacteria, and not crickets and roaches and other things that there have been people saying, “Oh, let's eat mealworms instead of beef or something.” I just wanted to clarify for the listeners that are going, “I don't want to eat crickets.”

[0:23:11.7] Dr. John Douillard: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. It's all about these microbes. In fact, in the Ayurvedic textbooks 2500 or 3500 years old, they talked about invisible bacteria. They called them krimi, and I talked about how they could cause problems and they could be actually beneficial. They talked about this, and they couldn't even see them. I don't even understand how they knew this. And they also said that the ones that actually caused problems, you don't want to kill them. You want to change the host, and change the environment, as opposed to killing them. It's something we're just beginning to understand now. When you kill bugs with antibiotics, you're killing so many good ones, and that's part of the reason why we have such a lack of diversity which we now know as an extinction event. That's what I love about ancient wisdom and modern science. It's like they knew that this microbiome existed thousands and thousands of years ago. And they also had some really amazing insight into how to manage all these microbes that can do good or bad. 

I love your drink. I want to see your recipe. And you should know that in Ayurveda, it's always said that you need energy to go to sleep at night. And I can say I'm too exhausted. I'm too tired. I'm wired and tired; I can't get to sleep. The reality is you need energy to go to sleep at night, and ashwagandha is one of those adaptogens that's literally named after putting folks to sleep. The botanical name is Withania somnifera, which means put you to sleep. That herb gives you the energy so you can sedate yourself into sleep, but it also allows you to run a marathon or take your SATs in the morning. That's the sign of a really good adaptogen. It's something you can take at night before you go to bed and also in the morning for energy because you don't want to stimulate your body to make the energy you don't have where you're going to debt over time. You have to pay it back at some point. That's the beauty of it. You have to understand, like, okay, you know, a little bit of caffeine here, and it is fine, but let's not get dependent on things that are going to, possibly down the road, deplete you. 

[0:25:24.8] Ashley James: So it builds you up. I saw a study about how we need more ATP. We actually have healthy people who have healthy sleep and healthy energy levels. They have a surge of ATP, which is cellular energy made by the mitochondria right before sleep, and I thought that was wild. Of course, more ATP doesn't make you jacked up like you just drank a Monster Energy drink; you're not all jittery. It's just more access to cellular energy. When I thought about it, it made complete sense. What do we do when we sleep? Our body detoxifies. So the cells require more cellular energy to go through the process of detoxifying, which means we should also have more antioxidants readily available. 

What is melatonin? We're now seeing that melatonin is a powerful antioxidant. In some cases, it's even more powerful than glutathione, and we need healthy levels while we're sleeping to help the cells detoxify. So that makes complete sense. We need to give the body what it needs to go deep, deep, deep, detoxify, and restore itself at night, and then come up and have lots of energy during the day. So the more energy we have during the day, the deeper we can go at night, but if you're kind of just crawling through the day, you're going to be tired at night because we need that beautiful rhythm up and down. And we need nutrients. 

[0:26:46.8] Dr. John Douillard: I love the fact that you know about that study. Very few people know about that study. And that is exactly right. Before you go to bed, just like you said, there's a surge of ATP. ATP is adenosine triphosphate. Right before you go to bed, when the body uses that energy to get you to go to sleep, the adenosine breaks off, and you're left with triphosphates that get wasted, get excreted as waste, and you are left with adenosine. Caffeine is a blocker of your adenosine receptor. So when you drink caffeine, the adenosine is trying to sedate you. It's a sedative. So if you have a bunch of ATP before you go to bed, the adenosine breaks off from the phosphates, and you have this adenosine that actually sedates you into deep sleep. But you also get that surge of energy that you were talking about, just like when you drink coffee. The adenosine receptors are blocked. So it will literally not let you get rest if you need it. So it does, in a way, overrule your intelligence. Not that it's bad, but it needs to be done intelligently. But that is such a great understanding of them. And everybody wants to sedate someone, and most of the time, people are so exhausted that they can't have the energy they need to put them to sleep. So they take a sedative to make an already sedated person more sedated and more exhausted, as opposed to deeply rejuvenating them, giving them the ability to make that ATP so they can have that energy they need to go to sleep. But that's the science behind it. The adenosine breaks off, and that's what puts us in and gets us to drop into that deep sleep. 

[0:28:19.9] Ashley James: So we got to step back and go, okay, how do I support my mitochondrial health? What kind of nutrients does my body need? What do I get to do to make sure I protect my mitochondria because mitochondria are related to gut bugs? It's really, really, really interesting. But anything that harms bacteria in the body can also harm mitochondria. So we want to support it, and I just want to kind of hold the mitochondria like it's a baby, a newborn baby, and just protect it and give it what it needs and know what it doesn't need. So what do you recommend? Of course, everything is in balance, right? We don't look reductionistically and say, “Let's just look at the mitochondria.” But what are the things that are really bad for the mitochondria, and what are the things that are really good for the mitochondria?

[0:29:13.0] Dr. John Douillard: Well, the best thing for mitochondria is what actually makes mitochondria energy, which is infrared light, which is basically the light in the morning. As long as the shadow that the sun makes in the morning is longer than you are tall, you're getting pretty much unopposed red and infrared light, not any UV radiation that could actually potentially do some damage in excess. And that infrared light actually penetrates your skin inches, even through your skull, and activates an enzyme called cytochrome c oxidase which is an enzyme that actually activates the mitochondrial energy in your body. So they said we didn't do photosynthesis in Biology class, but now we know that infrared light actually does activate energy from the sun. 

And here is the crazy thing — you mentioned melatonin. Well, I'm a big fan of melatonin. But only 10% of the melatonin in your body is actually made to help you go to sleep. 90% of the melatonin is made by the infrared light from the sun. So whenever your body makes energy, just like any energy plan, there's going to be a lot of waste products, and those are called reactive oxygen species, and the inability to make that energy or get rid of that trash is what causes accelerated aging and mitochondrial damage. So the body had to figure out a way to use an antioxidant to make an antioxidant inside the cell to take out all that trash. Otherwise, it would accelerate the aging process. The antioxidant that the body chooses to make from the infrared light of the sun through the same cytochrome c oxidase enzyme is melatonin. So the body makes 90% of the melatonin. It stays inside your cell. It doesn't have anything to do with you going to sleep at night. But it is inside your cell to shovel out all the free radical damage that comes as a result of energy production. 

So the sun is going to give you massive amounts of energy in the morning, particularly infrared light in the morning. The more of that morning sun you get, the more mitochondrial energy ATP you're going to get throughout the day and the more melatonin you'll produce at night. So that's one way that you can really help yourself. You should clean out in the summertime, and you can get outside and get that morning light. It's so critically important. You know, 90% of the time, the average American is indoors. And all the new lights, the LED lights, don't have any infrared light. You know the old incandescents would burn you if you touched them. And that's infrared light. It is hot, heating. So a lot of us are now having an infrared light deficiency which is really an important piece of the puzzle because it's so powerful to protect us from DNA damage and mitochondrial damage and accelerate aging, things that don't have to happen if we actually recognize that the sun is a really important thing. 

In fact, we also have this paranoia about UV radiation. But did you know that in 1901, UVA radiation, the stuff that the sunscreens block primarily, won the Nobel Prize for healing skin disease and autoimmune conditions, and all types of conditions? That literally won the Nobel Prize. That's why those old-time pictures of hospitals where they wheel people out on the balconies and they'll be out there in their hospital bed in the sun, remember those pictures? That's because of UV radiation, the thing that we were so afraid of. So we got to be aware of that. The sun is not our enemy now, obviously. And the infrared light in the morning will prepare you for UV radiation in the afternoon. And again, as the sun sets, the infrared light at sunset is going to heal any potential damage that might have been caused by excess UV radiation during the day. 

So, the sun really had a plan, and we were supposed to be in it a lot of the time. But we just take our little dip in and out of it, and we become really super sensitive to UV radiation. And I think it's something we have to realize that we really would have to be outside and in nature, under the trees in the forest. You get all that radiation bouncing off the leaves, and it's a really safe way to get all the health benefits of nature therapy and all that. And that's primarily because you're getting literally blasted with infrared light. It's really fun to go on Google or whatever and then search for infrared light in a city, and the photography of infrared light in the city looks exactly like a city normally would — it would look like bricks. But if you take an infrared picture of a forest, it's an explosion of white light, like you went to heaven, and you're just like, “Oh my gosh, it's just an amazing difference.” What is happening in the forest is all the infrared light is just blasting around underneath the leaves and bouncing off of you and everywhere. 70% of all solar rays are infrared, so we really need to have them. And if we lock ourselves in the house all day, we're not going to get them. So that's a big piece of the mitochondrial puzzle, big-time. 

[0:34:40.8] Ashley James: I just looked it up. I just looked up ‘city,' and I looked up ‘forest,' and you're right. It looks really different. And the forest is so beautiful. I'm in Seattle, just north of Seattle, and just this morning, I was surprised that it wasn't sunny. Usually, in the summertime, it's sunny. But no, we have a really thick overcast right now. So on days when it's thick and overcast or on times when it's winter, I am so thankful I have my Sunlighten Saunas. It's near-mid and far-infrared. Is that a good second to the actual sun, and should I be getting it into it first thing in the morning instead of in the evening because the infrared helps the body more in the morning?

[0:35:24.4] Dr. John Douillard: I think it is a good thing to do first thing in the morning. Although, because we have such a deficiency, I think doing it anytime will actually help us. But doing it first thing in the morning sort of helps to align our biological clocks. Normally, most traditional cultures are up to the sunrise. They watch the sunrise. They got this blast that says, “Hey, the sun just came up. The infrared just clobbered me on every level, and this is literally my nighttime biological clock turned off and my daytime biological clock turned on. So it's like synchronizing our watches to be, “This is the time when I shifted gears,” and it's kind of a night way to help us make that happen. But, as I said, I'm doing an infrared sauna. I'm a big fan of those definitely if it's in a near-infrared and red near-infrared light combination. That's the combination you're looking for. Far infrared is a little more heating, a little more therapeutic, but you have to limit how much of that you get. 

[0:36:19.6] Ashley James: Oh yes. And I, of course, have overdone that as well. I figured it out.

I'm about 20 to 30 minutes maximum. You know, too much water and too little water can kill us. And so it's like the sun. Too little sun, too much sun also can be harmful. There's a sweet spot, the Goldilocks effect; none of us are getting it. Most of us aren't getting enough water and minerals, let alone enough sun, and enough earthing, getting our bare feet out on the ground, and making sure obviously the grass you put in your bare feet is not pesticide laden. And that's a problem, though. So you got to make sure it's a yard or a lawn or forest that you trust. But touching the earth is so important. I have had several interviews on earthing or grounding, releasing the excess electrons back into the earth, and getting to earth's potential. And that's something that is backed by science as well, but we're so insulated. 

Think about our lives. Think about how artificial our lives are. We are so disconnected from nature. We are so disconnected from where our food is coming from, and so many hands have touched it by the time we get it. It's been so adulterated by the time we get it. Even the frozen organic — sometimes you get frozen organic vegetables because that's better than nothing at all. So if you're super busy, but you want to eat vegetables and you want to eat healthily, I'd rather you have some frozen organic than go for completely processed crap. But even that has been washed in high concentrations of chlorine, and we just don't even know. We're so disconnected from our food sources, from nature, from the earth, from the sun, from the sky, from clean air and clean water. We're so artificial. We're so insulated that we end up collecting these excess electrons in our bodies because we're always away from the earth. We're wearing rubber shoes. We're driving a car with rubber tires. And if we finally just took off our shoes and walked in the grass barefoot in the sunlight in the morning as a routine while sipping some wonderful herbal tea to hydrate ourselves and get the good nutrients in us, that would be an amazing, multi-purpose ritual to bring in each morning instead of dragging ourselves out of bed and running to the coffee machine to trick our body into thinking it's not tired. Like you said, how it blocks the adenosine.

I love that you're bringing these ideas to us. You have really interesting thoughts about diet. Can we talk a bit about your book Eat Wheat?

[0:39:14.1] Dr. John Douillard: Yes, of course. 

[0:39:17.7] Ashley James: I'm gluten-free, by the way. So when I saw that you wrote a book called Eat WheatI was like, “Okay, this is going to be interesting. It's fine.” I don't believe in diet dogma. So I'm not going to sit here and go, “Everyone has to eat the way I eat.” But I took it at face value; I was like, “Okay. He's just going to tell us we need a lot of wheat. Here we go.” But actually, I loved it when you and I talked a bit about this. I got so excited because it's such a wonderful concept. So yes, please tell us about your book, Eat Wheat

[0:39:44.7] Dr. John Douillard: Yeah, it's not really about wheat. We have talked about pesticides. Pesticides on our foods literally have been studied to kill the bugs in our mouth that make the digestive enzymes that help us digest things like wheat, dairy and nuts, seeds, lectins and phytic acids, and ketogenic and oxalates. All these things that we're being told don't eat, don't eat, and we're literally bubble wrapping our diet. And then, we talked about an exchange in microbial diversity. Well, this is how we get it. It's by eating a variety of foods. Those foods we've been eating for millions and millions of years. I'm not saying we should eat processed wheat. I'm not saying we should eat a food if we feel bad eating it, obviously. But if you eat a food and you feel bad eating it, then we should not say, “Hey, I'm going to stop eating that food.” You put gas in your car and this car stalls. You don't think it was the gas. You'd think, “Something is wrong with my car.” So that's what we should be thinking about — what can we do to strengthen our ability to digest our food the way we were designed. And so, the reason why I wrote Eat Wheat was because the whole gluten-free industry was sort of based around the fact that folks weren't feeling good eating wheat. A lot of it was the processed version of it, but a lot of it wasn't. A lot of it is the fact that folks just aren't digesting the way we should. And then they eat the hard-to-digest food, and then they pay a price for it. So they, obviously, logically think it's the food, so I should stop eating that food.

Studies have shown now that when folks are gluten-free — and I'm not trying to promote eating wheat. I'm trying to promote strengthening digestion to fix the upstream cause. Weed is a canary in the coal mine. If you eat that wheat and you can't digest it, then you need to ask yourself the question. Why am I not digesting that well, and how can I reboot that digestion? How can I troubleshoot every aspect of my digestion and figure out where my digestive system is broken down? Well, the wheat here is processed, and it's sprayed with glyphosate. It is. But everything is sprayed with glyphosate because it's in the rainwater now. So you have to be able to digest well to detoxify well. If you don't have good digestive strength, you're not going to detoxify, and ETA 2019 and 20 reported 70 million tons of toxic chemicals dumped in our atmosphere every year, which filters down into the water we drink and the air we breathe. So if you eat organic food, you're still getting those chemicals on your food that don't really wash off. So if you don't digest your wheat, your dairy, and your nuts and seeds well, sure don't eat them. But don't stop there because that means your ability to break down the toxins in the environment, which can cause real problems for you, are also going into your intestinal tract undigested, and they'll find a way into your tissues, into your brain, and they're going to wreak havoc down the road. So that's why I didn't like the idea that we were being told to bubblewrap our diet and not really fix the upstream cause. 

And studies have shown that when folks compare people who eat wheat to people who don't eat wheat, gluten-free versus non-gluten-free folks. And these are not Celiac patients. They found that the folks who ate wheat had significantly six times less mercury in their blood than the people who were gluten-free. There are significantly more good bugs and less bad bugs than the gluten-free folks, and they had significantly more killer T-cells than the folks that were eating wheat. Now, what that means is that these harder-to-digest foods have a hormetic effect. That thing that says, “If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger,” like the cold bath plunges and all that. It doesn't kill you, but it makes you stronger. The harder-to-digest foods that we've been eating for millions of years, the nightshades, and all these foods that we are being told to avoid, the phytic acids, the lectins, and things. They're naturally occurring. And if you take them out of your diet, you're going to surely lose your digestive strength. They did a study — I thought it was a really amazing study — with kids with asthma. They found that the Amish kids who have cows as pets — so they run barefoot in the barns and stuff — have the lowest rates of asthma on the planet. And they did another study with their genetic cousins, the Hutterites, who come from the same valley in Switzerland, but they became modern farmers, and their kids have the highest rates of asthma on the planet. It doesn't make any sense. Like it is not a genetic thing. It's just something's going on with these kids. Well, they measured the Amish kids, and they found out it was the dust in the barn that they were breathing that would cause allergies for some kids, but it was actually creating a hormetic effect or hormesis effect that causes an immune reaction against them getting asthma. 

So we have to not bubblewrap our bodies. We have to challenge it. That's what wine is. Wine is a xenohormetic which means xenohormesis, made with plants that struggled in their life growing in really dry, harsh environments; deliver delivers the benefits — the antioxidant, longevity, and resiliency benefits to humans as hormesis. And that is what our foods also did — the lectins, which are on every bean, in every nut, and pretty much every vegetable. This is why eating a vegetarian diet is a little bit harder for folks, actually. Eating grains is hard for folks, right? And if you don't have really good digestive strength and you become a vegetarian, and you never fix the digestive problems, that's why a lot of vegetarians don't do well in the long run. A lot of them sort of crash and burn like the guy Leo. He started having real severe issues, and they go back, and they started eating meat, and they felt good again because wheat doesn't have any nutrients in it. 

Now I'm not suggesting people eat meat, but I am suggesting that we fix the digestive system and make sure that we don't leave that stone unturned. And that's why I wrote Eat Wheat. It's more of a troubleshooting guide for your digestive system to find out what part of your digestion is broken. So you're not in harm's way down the road. Eat beef if you want, but boy, be careful if you start seeing yourself taking one food out of your diet, the next food out of your diet. While I was in practice, I graduated in 1984 and started seeing patients. I was a natural chiropractic practitioner with a lot of nutritional support, and my patients would come with digestive problems. We take them off of wheat, and they get better. We put them on probiotics, and they get better. But shortly thereafter, the problem would come back, and I realized taking them off of wheat, dairy, or whatever, wasn't actually solving the underlying problem. There was an underlying weak link in their digestive system. And I started digging into the underlying causes of what's causing wheat. So they tell us, don't eat this, don't eat that. That's because that's not the cause of the problem. Humans have been eating a variety of foods for millions and millions of years. Now, pesticides, that's the cause, and we have to get rid of processed foods and pesticide-rich foods. There's no question about that. But you can get really good wheat. You can get really good grains, and that is a signpost of whether your digestive system is really strong. 

So that's why I really wrote the book because I saw so many people being duped. And we now know that when people are not able to eat wheat, they are letting other undigested or harder-to-digest proteins and harder-to-digest fats which are in our environment that you literally cannot avoid. The studies show that they will go undigested or incompletely digested through your stomach and your small intestine. And because they are incompletely digested, the pesticides, the environmental pollutants, and the harder-to-digest proteins are going to irritate the lining of your gut. And an irritation of the lining of the gut is going to cause inflammation in your gut and compromise and end up getting up taken into your body's lymphatic system causing lymphatic congestion, which is linked to extra weight around your belly, tiredness, fatigue, stiffness, achiness, brain fog, skin rashes, breast tenderness when you menstruate. 

These are all drain-clogging events that come from undigested proteins and fats that should have been broken down upstream in your digestion and end up in your lymph, which is the trash can, and also carry in your immune system. And when that system gets stuck in traffic, you're going to pay the price, and that price is a symptom of an underlying digestive issue and your gut immunity, which is 70% of your immune response, is in your intestinal tract and is actually linked to your respiratory immunity.

And I wonder, and I've seen some emerging studies coming out about this, but when you have a broken down digestive system where you can't eat XY and Z and you sort of bubblewrap your diet and not fix the real problem, then we have a pandemic that requires your skin of your respiratory tract and the skin of your intestinal tract to be as strong and resilient as it possibly can. If we don't have that, we are going to be a vulnerable host for any opportunistic bacteria or viruses that come our way. There's going to be another crazy virus that's going to come, and we need to be strong as a host and not depend on a vaccine or a killer powder or whatever because there's a lot of controversy there. But if you're getting your digestive system strong and your body strong, that's the source of our immune strength, and that sort of is what I'm all about when it comes to wheat. It's not about saying, hey, wheat is really good; you should eat it. Even though it's processed, it's got a bunch of glyphosate on it. I get that, and I know people and they go to Europe, and they feel better. I get that. The thing that we're doing is we're not looking at the elephant in the room, which is the digestive weak link.

[0:49:54.0] Ashley James: You know I'm smiling ear-to-ear. You're saying exactly what I feel inside. It's like thank you. Thank you for saying that. It's like what everyone's thinking in the holistic space. It's not about waiting for Papa's government and Mama's pharmaceutical company to come to take care of us. On Facebook, a lot of people will have this ring around their avatar that says, “I have an immune system.” I know that was a little bit of a show of where we stood, and a lot of people took it as a political stance. It's not. It's saying, “Listen, I'm not going to buy into the propaganda. I'm sorry. You're not brainwashed.” Like, so many people are brainwashed, but they were fear-mongering so heavily. And I know many of my listeners did get the experimental gene therapy injected into them because their parents did it. Their doctor may have said their whole life that this is so good. You should definitely do it. Their job said they had to do it. Everyone around them, their neighbors, said they had to do it. And I have watched in such sadness as so many people's lives were destroyed by that. And, of course, we don't talk about that, or you're a conspiracy theorist if you talk about that. But really, be careful what you put in your body. And like I said about the drug that's 50 years old, “Okay, well, we can trust that a bit more because we've seen it work on people for 50 years, and we know what it does and what it doesn't do. Something that just came to market, and they're suppressing the effects of it. Why were their parents giving their six-year-old children this is beyond me. But that's how intense the fear-mongering was. And I am so sad and sorry for the teenagers, the amount of teenagers, and all the people that died suddenly and unexpectedly, and all the young people now that have heart disease that didn't before, and of course, getting the virus itself wasn't fun either. 

Like you said, we have to look at why it was that some people that were healthy walked around, like — like my husband — when he had it, he was at the height of his infection. He had like 100-degree fever, and he was mowing the lawn for 4 hours. We lived on 5 acres, and he had a push mower. We had the driving one, but there's something about walking and mowing the lawn for 5 hours every two weeks. It was fun for him and was a great exercise. And I watched him from bed as I was sick, and he can eat wheat once in a while, and it doesn't affect him like when I eat it. And I've had heavy metal toxicity so bad. I would wake up tasting heavy metals, and my liver was inflamed. That's why I've done the Sunlighten Sauna to help get rid of my heavy metals and the PES and take the chlorella and all the herbs. And I've detoxed from heavy metals for the last four to five years, and I feel like a whole new person. And I've been working on my gut health for the last few years. But at the height of my infection, I was in bed, feeling miserable. I watched my husband mow the lawn for 4 hours, and my husband has amazing digestion. It makes sense. So we have to go; what's the root cause? Let's go all the way back to the center of our body, our digestion. It just makes so much sense. 

If we don't have a strong digestive fire, we're not getting in nutrients; the body has all these leaky guts. The things that aren't supposed to be entering our lymph are entering our lymph. And a lot of people talk about the byproducts of the bad bacteria entering the body like a toxin in itself, sort of the poop of the bad bacteria, getting into our lymph and into our brain, and making us just feel miserable all day long. And there's no pharmaceutical that's going to be your knight in shining armor. If you have poor digestion, everything's broken down. I had a doctor on the show. He simplified it, and I love this analogy. There are 37.2 trillion cells in the body, and they're all very, very different under a microscope. But there's one basic truth. If you can bring the groceries in and take the garbage out and do it successfully and repeatedly, then you're going to have health. And I take his analogy one step further, and I say inflammation is like what we look at on TV, and we see that there's a flood somewhere, and people are sitting on the roof. And there are helicopters trying to save them, and there's dirty, muddy water up to the eavestrough of the house. You guys in America called it the gutters of the house. But you can just see the one or two-story houses are just completely underwater, and all the families are on the roofs waving at the helicopters to come to save them. When we see that, imagine that every cell in the body that has inflammation is like that. The groceries can't come in, the garbage can't come out, and it's not functioning. And that sludge, the lymphatic sludginess, and we have to go upstream and go, “Where is this coming from?” Go all the way back to digestion, like you said. And we have to honor that 6 lb of hopefully healthy bacteria in our guts. I alluded to a chihuahua or a little panda, some kind of animal that's small, maybe a kitten that's about 6 pounds that you like. When you used to imagine, you want to hold it and take care of it. This is the gut bacteria in your gut and is helping you digest your food. It stimulates the nutrients. It is our pharmacy inside us because it can transform our food into other compounds and chemicals that our body needs. 

And so it all comes back to that. Like you said, it's so important — the bacteria that are on our food instead of sterile food, the healthy bacteria on our food. That's something I learned from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition when I took their health coach training program. There was this video where they showed a strawberry, and they said, “This strawberry grown in organic soil has this kind of bacteria on it. And when you eat this raw strawberry, if you've left it on the ground, the bacteria would have digested it. We've seen those videos where they'll speed up the camera, and you'll watch a fruit dissolve into a fuzz and then get back to the earth, like becoming earth again. And when we eat it, the bacteria that are on the strawberry helps us digest and assimilate the nutrients of the strawberry. And it blew my mind like it was fireworks going off of my head. I was like, “Oh my gosh, you just expanded my universe.” Because I was raised, like everyone, to think that the sterility of food was what we needed. You have to have the milk go through the pasteurization process. You have to have pasteurized food. Sterile food is best. When you bring your food home, you wash it, soak it in the tap water that has all the chlorine, and kill all the bugs. Meanwhile, if the body is sterile, we die.

We need the gut bugs. We need that. So I love that you're talking about this and that we got to wake up and go; it's not about removing the food. It's not just about removing the food you're reacting to because, eventually, you'll have nothing to eat. And I have friends who are now eating the carnivore diet because they are left with nothing. They cannot eat anything except meat, and they're suffering.

[0:58:07.8] Dr. John Douillard: A hundred percent right. That's it exactly because the meat doesn't have anti-nutrients. So it is easier to digest for folks, and that's why we keep going down the road of like, “Oh, I don't feel good with this diet. I'll try this next diet.” They keep going down this next diet and trying to fix my problem by changing my diet, going from one extreme diet to another. And you know, I've been in practice for almost 40 years now. I see the casualties of these extreme diets. When I help people get their digestive strength back, they can start having a variety of foods like your husband. A digestive system that is not only digesting wheat if you want it. But they have an immune response that is 100% dependent on our digestive strength and ability to detoxify, which in this toxic world we live in, if your digestion is not strong, your ability to detoxify is going to be compromised, and that can create a real problem. 

I was teaching a seminar years ago at Tupelo, the Elvis Center, back on the East Coast. One of my patients did a show, and one of my students came up, and she said, I found this McDonald's hamburger underneath the seat of my car, and that was there for ten years. That's a true story. And it looked exactly like a McDonald's hamburger. It hadn't been done with the strawberry that you just mentioned. It was completely recognizable. Everybody was just shocked it didn't degrade. It just looked like the hamburger. It was amazing. So yeah, we really do have to understand the digestive system. And the very first system that's evaluated, which I think is so cool, is the lymphatic system. It's called Rasa. And the study of Rasa is called Rasayana, and the study of Rasayana is the study of longevity. And there is a whole branch of Ayurveda about living a long, healthy life. And so, understanding the lymphatic system is such an important part because it's not only trying to take the trash out. It carries your immune system and also delivers properly broken-down fat as baseline energy to every cell of your body. So if you don't have good lymphatic flow, then you're going to start to feel compromised immunity, more vulnerable to allergies or hypersensitivity reactions. All of the undigested proteins and fats are going to end up in the fat cells around your belly and hips. They are going to go into your brain lymphatic system, called the glymphatic system, which dumps 3 lb of plaque out of your head every year while you sleep at night, causing brain fog and cognitive decline, information, infection, and even autoimmune system concerns, according to the science. 

I did a debate with Dr. David Perlmutter when my Eat Wheat book came out. He wrote the book called Grain Brain.

[1:01:15.9] Ashley James: Yup, I had him on the show.

[1:01:18.0] Dr. John Douillard: And you can watch the debate. My mother said, I definitely want a debate, so I'm pretty sure I did. 

[1:01:23.0] Ashley James: I can't wait to see it.

[1:01:25.5] Dr. John Douillard: But, you know, what was really interesting was there was so much science on the other side of the ion. He actually did finally admit in our second debate that wheat isn't really that bad. And the diet that he eats today isn't the same diet that he ate when he wrote that book, by the way. And that's what I also love about Ayurveda. It doesn't change. You don't say, “Oh gosh, you know what? We made a mistake; you shouldn't eat this or that.” They've been using the same diet forever and ever. We should eat what comes out of the ground in the season because we have no other choice but to do that. And when you do that, you change the bugs in your gut from one season to the next. Studies are now showing good science from Stanford to show that the bugs in your gut are supposed to change from one season to the next to the next. So we shouldn't knock our gut with the food, with the bugs, with the microbes from the foods in that season. And studies are now showing those bugs on those foods, those microbes, actually support the function of those foods. So if you want to have foods to help you decongest from allergies in the spring, you eat the foods that are in season because they have the right bug for the right season. Same thing with dissipating heat in the summer. They seem to be boosting immunity in the winter. The science is in on that, but we haven't had anybody write a book. 

My second book is called The 3-Season Diet, about eating according to the three major harvests in nature. I do know that there are four seasons, so people question me on that. But there are three harvests. There's a spring harvest, a summer harvest, and a fall harvest for winter eating. Generally, nature takes a rest like we should. Everybody takes a rest. And those diets change dramatically from a very high-carb diet during the end of the summer, and that high-carb diet is really important in nature. If you're going into winter and you haven't eaten a lot of fruits to convert into fat and reserve fuel, all the grains that will harvest that excess fuel convert into fat and reserve fuel. You need that when the winter months are coming. That's part of nature. And the spring is a very austere harvest where you go into ketogenesis because you're not eating anything. There's no food. Think about the spring. Look out your window in the spring and see what you can eat. If you're living off the land, you would naturally go into a ketogenic diet naturally occurring. You burn your own fat, and that's how you would be in ketogenesis because there's no pasta. There's no pizza harvested in the spring whatsoever. 

This winter time is a naturally occurring high-protein, high-fat time of the year because you're not growing anything. You're probably going to have to do more hunting. And that's what our traditional ancestors did. They all had to have a little bit of meat. They didn't need a lot of meat. But they had a little bit of meat, and it was mostly seasonal. Why would you kill your chickens in the summertime when you can eat the food out of your garden fast enough? You know what I mean? So nature really did have a beautiful plan that we've gotten ourselves far, far away from. And now we're beginning to see that all of these diets are actually okay. But whenever you go into an extreme diet, the next best-selling diet is usually giving you permission to eat the foods that the other diet says you shouldn't eat because you're craving them. And if you go on any extreme diet for a little while, you're going to feel better, but the test is will that diet provide you a lasting benefit where you really feel good for the long haul. And now, I would recommend folks take a look at eating foods that are in season. We put together a free — nobody read my The 3-Season Diet. They thought I really didn't know that there were four seasons, so they didn't read it. I don't know what they thought, but it didn't do as well as I thought. But the point is that I've put all the recipes into a free eating guide that people can get for free. Every month we put out a recipe guide, a grocery list for every month of the year, and superfoods for every month of the year, so you can get, “Okay, here's what's happening in July. Here's what's happening in August.” And you can just get a list and eat more of those foods in that season. That's the key that, hopefully, folks will take away from this. It's, hey, you know what? It's the summertime. I'm gonna give myself personally way more vegetables. It's winter time. I'm going to give myself personally way more fiber, way more fat, way more protein. In the spring, I will intermittently fast way more aggressively. I'm going to force my body into a little bit of calorie restriction because that's the hormesis time. That's the time of the year that provides strength and resiliency, and immunity because we are giving the body a sort of a nature break from eating lots of heavy food that we did in the season prior, which is the winter. So you have a beautiful understanding when you look at nature and tell yourself, hey, I want to try and mimic that somewhat.

[1:06:25.2] Ashley James: Oh, I love it. So here's the idea. Let's take your book, and you're going to do a relaunch, like a second edition or whatever. But instead, call it The 3-Harvest Diet, and then you can do some kind of subtitle about The Ancient Wisdom and Science of Eating with the Seasons. Just do it. To do that, people are going to buy it and read it, okay?

[1:06:52.0] Dr. John Douillard: I'd love that, but I hated that. But the people at Random House were like, “Oh, we're going to call it The 3-Season Diet.” I'm like, I don't even get that. They just overruled me completely.

[1:07:04.9] Ashley James: Really? Well, go back to them and tell them my idea and say, “I know what I'm talking about,” and just say, “The Ashley James said it, of the Learn True Health Podcast. She knows what she's talking about. Put your foot down.” 

[1:07:19.5] Dr. John Douillard: Which is true. 

[1:07:21.4] Ashley James: So most of the population that's listening is living three to four seasons. Well, I joke about the third season because I'm in Seattle. We don't really have three seasons or four seasons here. We just have rain, cold, and mud, and then a beautiful spring, and then an amazing summer, and that's it. And so fall, and winter is just like cold, mudded rain. So I joke that we have three seasons. Actually, mud is the season here. But what about people in the subtropics and equatorial regions of the world where they have access to fresh fruit all year round?

[1:08:02.7] Dr. John Douillard: They do. But there is still harvest there. There are still seasons there, and they can still eat foods that are locally grown, that are naturally occurring, and are still sort of natural cycles there. And also, the people there are different from those in the northern hemisphere. We go from a 72-degree house to a 72-degree car to a 72-degree office. So we never really experience the changes as much, like if you live in the tropics or in Florida. It can be 50 to 60 degrees in the wintertime, and it can be 80 to 90 degrees in the summer. That's an almost 30-degree difference. So they're actually experiencing that every single day, almost every moment of the day, and they sort of do the air conditioning thing now but not as much as we. We are so much more insulated, and that's where you really lose that natural rhythm of nature of helping to strengthen that hormesis effect of dealing with cold and being stronger for it.

[1:09:01.2] Ashley James: You keep talking about building on the fat for the winter like, “John, okay, I've got a few winters on me.” I'm sure there are some listeners who are like, “As much as I want to eat with the seasons and heal my body, can I skip building the fat for the winter? And could I just go straight to burning fat for next summer?” So what do you recommend? Of course, go all the way back to healthy digestion and lymph, right? Because you talked about how that buildup creates unwanted belly fat. But for those who want a good healthy digestion and also want a really strong healthy metabolism and equally strong detoxification to handle the toxins as they burn the fat. But what do you do for people who are really ready to get down to their ideal body weight? How do you help them to build that fire in them?

[1:10:01.1] Dr. John Douillard: Well, in so many ways, obviously, there was a time when we really needed that extra fat, and this is not that time. Most of us need to help lose a few pounds and get ourselves back to energy balance where we're putting in, reusing, and not storing excess, right? So there are lots of ways. Every spring and fall is a really great time to do a calorie-restricted type cleanse. We have Ayurvedic cleansers that folks can do. We have a four-day cleanse, which is really super easy. We have a 14-day which is more of an overhaul digestive reset that folks can do. So there are ways that they could do that. In our 14-day cleanse, people usually lost about 17 pounds on average, or short home cleansers, which is an ebook. Anybody can download it for free. Woman's World magazine called me up one day and said, “Can we do a cleanse?” And I said, “Sure, you can take my short home cleanse right on my website, and you can get it for free.” They did it. I didn't hear from them for almost nine months. They called me up and said, “I want to do a fact-checking test interview with you.” I go, “For what?” And she said, “Well, we did your cleanse, and we had 40 people do it. It was mind-boggling. People lost 11 pounds on average in just four days; It was an amazing reset. 

So there are simple ways to just kind of reset your ability to burn fat which is a really important thing. I did a study with my own patients. Once, we had about 25 folks to study, and we had them eat breakfast, lunch, supper, and no snacks. And they were like, “Wow, no, snacks.” That was hard for them, and they complained for the first two weeks, and they started feeling better at the end of the two months of study. We measured their anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline. We measured their sleep. We measured their anxiety, their exhaustion, their exhaustion after work, and their weight loss, and all of those. Sleep also was significantly better. They lost 1.2 lb every week during the entire study.

One of my patients, one of those people in the study, would come in, and then every week, we'd meet, and she'd go, “I love this. I'm feeling so good. I'm not snacking and feeling great. And a lot of them said, “Well, you know, I'm feeling so great with just breakfast and lunch. I don't even want supper.” So many of the folks felt like they could just skip supper and go down to two meals a day, which they did, and they lost even significantly more weight. But the lady who kept saying, “I feel so good. I'll never stop eating this way,” she said, “But I haven't lost a pound.” I'm like, “This is a study. It would be great to have you lose a few pounds. It would be great for our numbers here.” And every day, every week, she came in, and she hadn't lost a pound, but she felt great. Six months later or something, she walked into my office as a patient, and I said, “How are you doing?” And she says, “Great! I lost 25 lbs.” I said, “How? When?” She goes, “I don't know. I told you I never stopped doing that, eating breakfast and lunch and no supper, or a lighter supper, or a soup-like supper. And I just somehow slowly lost the weight.” And she was a really type A go, go, go, go person yoga teacher and mom. There's just so much going on her plate. And I said, “I just think it takes time for your body to feel safe enough to burn the fat.” We store fat when we're under stress. That's where understanding that the harder you push, the more devices you have. This is crazy. I'm going to store the fats under the mattress for a rainy day. And that's what is so important for us to meditate, do yoga, or breathing practices, some type of prayer, some type of downtime where we're not just going, going, going. It is a really important piece of the puzzle. 

A lot of the things that impact our physiology are our crazy mindset. That makes us do the same dumb things again and again and again and again. I already talked about this years ago. I called it mental armor or unwanted emotions. And are, according to research, the molecules of emotion; we know that those are actually stored in our fat. And they actually are little energy, kind of pre-recorded stress responses that make us do the same dumb stuff again. But when you burn fat, you free and release those, you have access to those old underlying emotional patterns of behavior, like during a cleanse when you force that metabolic, if you do self-inquiry, which we give people a self-inquiry guide. In that process, they can begin to go, “Wow, I see the reason why I go home for the holidays; I start acting like a four-year-old again.” And then the key is to begin to take action to free ourselves from those old patterns by not responding to their stress but by looking through the window of compassion and understanding. And instead of reacting to them, respond from what's really inside your heart, which is that you love and care for them. But there will always be like them who trigger us. And then we end up trying to engage in behavior to make them change, to be something that we think they should be. If they were the way I think they should be, I would be happier; they would be happier, and there would be a happier place. So it never really works, so that's part of it as well. Ayurveda understood that this crazy mind of ours gets our senses in big trouble. So we have to pull every string, the upper digestive string. How do you reboot digestive strength? How do you detoxify the lymphatic system? How do you shed all unwanted emotions? How do you force the body into fat metabolism so you can get into energy balance? All these things apply, and they can be done gracefully throughout the year. And it becomes kind of a beautiful way of life where you really feel like you're going downstream with the current, and you don't feel like life is a big struggle any longer, and that's the key. 

[1:15:42.6] Ashley James: Ayurveda was never just about physical health. Like it wasn't just, here's the food and the herbs, and when you eat it, and when you take it. Ayurveda was true holistic medicine in that, looking at the body and life, and your being as a whole, your life as a whole. In the Learn True Health podcast, I always say that you're not just your physical body. We are emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and energetic. And even every aspect of your life is your health — the health of your marriage, the health of your relationships, the health of your career, while you're driving, while you're walking, while you're brushing your teeth, what's going through your mind, your self-talk. Every single aspect of your life can be kind of looked at and examined. Is this in harmony? Do you have joy here? Do you have a blockage? Is it toxic for you? Are you stuck? Are you growing?

We do not practice reductionistic medicine like MDs do. We don't reduce us and break us down into our parts. And so what I hear from you is that Ayurveda is that true holistic medicine and that you're looking at everything, every aspect including your emotions, but also your mental strategies and maybe the unwanted strategies that were developed in childhood that aren't serving you, looking at that as well and seeing how it is now affecting everything. How does that affect digestion? How is that affecting detox? How was that affecting your weight loss? It's all interconnected. Nothing in the body happens in a vacuum. We have to remember that. 

[1:17:32.0] Dr. John Douillard: Yeah, I know, that's a hundred percent true. In Ayurveda, it's that you feel the pain or distress in your heart and that stress is then carried to your brain, and it's actually etched into the white matter of your brain, which is where the waxy myelin is like etching the stress and recording it in a certain part of your brain. Well, they now have discovered that part of the brain that cleans that out, and it's called the glymphatic system, where it dumps 3 lbs of black trash out of your head every year while you sleep. I did Ayurvedic panchakarma detox retreats for 26 years. So people come into our clinic, and they would do a detox retreat, and I would guide them through this for many, many, many years before I started writing and teaching more. And one of my patients — there's a technique called Nasya where you actually sniffed medicated oil into your sinuses, and you clean out the brain lymphatic system. It is what happens. It's a pretty elaborate procedure, and I have a video on my website about how you can do it at home. But it was the thing that would actually help people crack that emotionally. You know, sometimes patients can't get over that emotional hurdle to get themselves to feel at peace and turn off the alarm bells so the body can actually heal. So she did these treatments, and I gave her her self-inquiry guide, and she was writing it in her journal after she did this because the brain is kind of sniffing medicated oil up into the sinuses. But it was after a really big head massage and eucalyptus steam to visually dilate the head and the vessels in the head as much as possible, and then you sniff this sort of medicated oil to trigger a brain lymphatic sinus dump.

And after she did it, she said she was sitting there and writing in her journal, and she said, “I had this epiphany where I was abused when I was 14 years old and should have completely blocked it out of my mind.” She was probably 35 years old at that time. “It was so amazing for me to see this event. But what was really, really weird was I wasn't affected by the event. I was completely taken by my childhood. Before the event, I was just a happy-go-lucky kid. Then this even happened, and then I became this type A hyper-vigilant corporate executives perfectionist. I even have a color-coded closet. Everything was perfect in my life to keep me safe. And I looked at my life before, and I looked at my life after. After that event, I said, this wasn't worth 25 years of my life.” And she said, “I just dropped it.” And she let it go. She came to me with a goiter in her neck, the size of a grapefruit or a cantaloupe. You couldn't miss it. Within the week of the Ayurveda detox, I swear to you that goiter was gone. You could not see it. Her numbers were measured, and it came down by 200 points. She had hyperthyroidism. Within six months, her hyperthyroidism was completely normalized. Two, four, or five years later, or something like that, I was in Denver at a Christmas party, and she came running up to me — I hadn't seen her in a long time — with two little kids in tow, and she said, “I just need to introduce you to these kids that I would never have had if this didn't happen.” So, the idea that the emotions are just in your head, in Ayurveda, they don't compartmentalize. Those emotions are physically based in our body, and we can detoxify them out of ourselves so we can have access to them mentally and emotionally, make transformational changes, and free ourselves from underlying emotional patterns that aren't serving us any longer. And that's what Ayurveda means. 

Ayurveda means truth. It means the truth of your life. We know 95% of the things that we think and say, and do as adults come from impressions from the first six years of life. So most of us walk around, pretty unconscious, thinking of doing stuff based on old impressions that saved us and helped us survive and navigate our childhood. But becoming conscious is what Ayurveda was all about, like freeing ourselves from those old protective patterns and letting something real, more powerful, more beautiful out, letting the delicate petals of your flower really open and letting that vulnerability out, letting that love out and even your power out. What got me was guiding people through this process and watching them transform. Oh my gosh. You ask about their digestion, you ask about their back pain, you ask about their heartburn, “Oh, that's great.” But when you see someone light up because they're free from those old emotional traumas, the underpinnings of their digestive health, and you really see it's all tied together. It's not just one or the other. It can be. If you fix heartburn, they feel better; that's great. But a lot of times, it's all one thing. It just kind of morphed into different expressions. 

[1:22:27.8] Ashley James: Yes, the root problem has a bunch of branches. So the symptoms are showing up in different ways, and you take a stressor, and then the bodies are sympathetic, and then they're not digesting, probably, and then they're not sleeping. And because they're not sleeping, they're taking coffee, and maybe they're super stressed, so they start drinking, and then they start yelling at their kids. It just got snowballed, like you said, unconsciously. At that point, it feels like their health has so many symptoms. It feels like a kitten has been playing with yarn. How do I get this back to an organized ball? Where do I begin? It's just a tangled yarn, and so many people grab supplements. And I love supplements when they are high quality, and they're meant for you. But we just kind of grab it desperately, hoping for a solution, or grab onto a diet because the marketing around diets is wonderful. 

The doctor that wrote Proteinaholic said, and here goes chapter one, and I started crying. It was just so beautiful. He goes, “These diets, you did not fail these diets. These diets failed you.” And then he proceeds like the whole book is demystifying these diets based on science. He has a really interesting story. He had humor that's, “Oh, I'm a doctor that cuts your stomach out, and I'm going to help you lose weight by cutting your stomach out and telling you to eat a ‘low-fat', highly-processed, 1200 calorie-a-day diet.” But then, in his thirties, he began to become sick and fat, eating the diet that he puts his patients on. So he had to eat humble pie and go back to the drawing board. He did not start going, “I want to become vegan.” That was the last thing he wanted to do. But after looking at everything, he's like, “Oh my gosh. Everything I've been saying is wrong, and everything I've been saying is like cutting up people's stomachs. It was just a temporary solution. This wasn't the long-term solution. But, like, “Oh, you have a sore throat. Let's cut out your tonsils,” It's just like, “Oh, but the problem is the gallbladder. Let's cut out the gallbladder. Let's just remove body parts. That's the solution.” That's when clients coming to me — I'm a health coach — and they have all these symptoms, I'm like, “Okay, so how many body parts have they removed from you?” Because so many times, someone starts talking about their digestion, I'm like, “And when did they remove your gallbladder?” And they're like, “How did you know?” I'm like, “Well, this is a dime a dozen.” How many people have had their gallbladders removed or other body parts removed? Because, you know, it offended the MD. 

I love MD drug-based medicine for when it can save someone's life, but they suck at chronic disease. They cause more chronic diseases. They do not help fix it. They will help you manage the disease, keep the disease, and make other diseases happen. They're great for emergency medicine. That's where they shine. I love them there. But they're the worst. We're taking our cars to plumbers is what we're doing. And we have to stop believing the propaganda that drug-based MD medicine, allopathic medicine, is where we should go when we have multiple symptoms and chronic illnesses. We need to go to doctors like you who look at ancient wisdom and the latest science to get to the root cause and support the body to come back into balance. It just makes so much sense. 

I'm really blown away by this idea that as we burn fat, we're processing stored emotions. I always knew that as we burn fat, we're processing toxins and heavy metals, like the things that were storing the fat. But the idea that then we would be unlocking old patterns, old negative beliefs, and old unresolved emotions makes sense if you're changing your diet. You're changing old, old behaviors, so there's some stuff that comes to the surface there. But then, just the process of burning fat is going to bring up stuff to resolve. It's really such an interesting way of putting it. You talked about these different detoxes, and I'm really, really interested if our listeners have identified with what you talked about and say, yeah, I think my digestion needs some support. I feel like my lymph or my glymph could really use some support, and I'd like to burn those 11 or 17 lbs. You said I'd like to get my metabolism fire going, and I'd really like to address this. If they could pick one cleanse or one protocol on your website, what would it be?

[1:27:11.9] Dr. John Douillard: I think that the first one is as simple as this 4-day short home cleanse, which is a free book that you can get and takes you step-by-step through the entire process. It gives you some herbs. There's one herb we call Gentle Digest. It's just a combination of five spices — ginger, cumin, coriander, fennel, and cardamom. You can make your own mix with that and spice your food, cook with it. And the studies show that it will actually increase the strength of your stomach acid, increase the amount of bile that you produce from your liver and your gallbladder and increase your duodenal pancreatic enzymes. And if you have that upper digestive coordinated, you won't let undigested proteins and tabasco, undigested into your intestinal tract, irritate the lining, and find a way through into the lymphatic system where they cause all kinds of havoc. And like you said, on why doctors are taking parts out, started here. It started by bubble wrapping our diets. So instead of fixing that problem I just mentioned, we just say, “I'm not going to eat this. I'm not going to eat that. I'm going to go on a low-fat diet. I'm going to go on a high-fat diet. I'm going to do all these extreme diets trying to dance around, without realizing it, dancing around the underlying problem. And that’s the beauty of Ayurveda, their thousands of years of experience being experts in rebooting and strengthening digestion. 

You probably know Dr. Bernard Jensen from years ago. He was a great doctor about gut health. He created the first cleaning boards for the colonics. He created iridology and had a health clinic out in Escondido, California. I was a big fan, a real longevity nut. I got to meet Jack LaLanne. I was a fan of Paul Bragg. I was a fan of Bernard Jensen way back in the day. And I finally got to lecture with Dr. Bernard Jensen, and he was my mentor. He has written over fifty books. He’s just a really brilliant guy. But he is old now, probably in his late 80s. And his belly was really super distended. His assistant told me that he had to take 17 digestive enzymes with every single meal, and I was like, “God, that can't be right.” 

And then, when I went to India and I studied Ayurveda, they were so kind and gentle to the intestinal tract. They would never clobber with really aggressive agents that could irritate the lining. It was all about creating a really nutritive environment for the good bacteria to proliferate, and they weren't about killing the bad, ripping the guts to shreds with antibiotics, or heavy, aggressive cleanses or coffee enemas. All of those can work medicinally, but in the long run, you want something that's going to be sustainable. And so it was really an eye-opener for me about how we do it in the West. It is so aggressive — more is better, push harder — versus in India, where they had thousands of years to figure this out, and they knew that they got the environment. Like you said, it's Goldilocks — it can't be too dry in there, constipated. It can't be too wet in there, mucousy. It has got to be just right for the good bugs to proliferate and for the lining to stay intact. And if that lining breaks down, you know we're in trouble. And that's what happened to us. That filter in our intestinal tract doesn't really get replaced. It can just break down over time. So that's what Ayurveda is really about. It is understanding how to reboot that upper digestion and heal the lining. There was a study that came out just a couple of weeks ago that showed that when you actually heal the gut, that actually was the key to longevity and when they've healed the gut, it actually had a cascade effect of healing every other organ in the body. We all know gut health is really important. But to have science to show that gut health is the kingpin, the organ responsible for our longevity, that's new science. And that's what Ayurveda said thousands of years ago — the seat of your stress in your nervous system is in your gut. It takes a beating, so it keeps on ticking, but we really have to care for it with kid gloves and create an environment that’s so conducive. That's why the cleanses we do are gentle. It's not like an endurance event. You eat. You're not starving because if you're starving, the body stores fat. And just like we said, when you're under stress, you store fat. Well, when you're not under stress, you release the fat. But when you store the stress as fat, what is that? That's emotional stress that got stored in your fat, and when you actually force the body to release the fat by creating parasympathetic dominance, it’s taking away the emergency of the body from naturally burning fat and releases those emotional toxins and patterns of behavior that were there because of a stressful situation recorded because of the stressful event that scared the heck out of it. When you were ten, you went into a cave, and a bear chased you out. You are never going to forget that. It’s a species survival thing, and we hold on to those memories. But a lot of them don't need to be remembered. We can let them go. 

[1:32:08.5] Ashley James: I love it. And earlier, you talked about how the study with people eating wheat versus not eating wheat. The people that didn't eat wheat, which we don't expect to be healthier because they're gluten-free. They had higher levels of mercury, and the first place my mind goes is, “Oh, gluten-free products are higher in mercury.” But that's not the point that you were saying. What you're saying is that people who have stronger digestion also have stronger lymph, have stronger detox. The toxins are able to move through and get out. And that they're able to eat some poison. They're able to actually eat like you need a little bit of poison to strengthen the body, in a sense, and test the body. But when you have all those aspects in alignment, then if you eat something with mercury, your body is going to get rid of it, which is people who are removing food after food after food, eliminating the gluten, eliminating the dairy, and the eggs. And they just kind of start going down this list of all the things they can eat, or, now, I can't eat nightshades, and now I can't eat legumes, and now I'm sensitive to apples, and can't eat bananas. They just keep removing food after food. They will feel temporarily okay, but the root cause is not being addressed. So their lymph is still backed up. Their digestion is still compromised. Their immune system is compromised. The integrity of their detox pathways and all the ways that we eliminate them is weakened. And so then, when heavy metals get in us through our food, and if someone has amalgams or gets injected, they just stay in the body. So it's really interesting. We can't just assume, “Oh, this person ate this, and this person ate this, and here's the outcome. Oh, it means that food is bad and that food is good. Okay, done. I'm going to stop thinking and just take it at face value.” There's so much more to this, and we have to go deeper.

That's why I love this conversation today. You're probably now one of my favorite guests. You're right up there, and I got to have you back on the show because this is just scratching the surface of what you know and teach. I'm so happy to bring your information to the listeners because we are all desperately seeking, if not for ourselves, our friends and family. We're all looking for the answers to help us. Now, I know there's not one one-size-fits-all, but like you said, with Ayurveda, it's looking at the body as a whole and helping the body come back into balance and supporting the nature that we've observed for thousands of years on how the body is able to the function. And for those who are religious or spiritual, it just only makes sense to eat the way God intended. It just only makes sense to eat what God has provided. And I can’t think of a religion where fasting isn't part of it. And so, people who aren't tuned into religion or to any spiritual practice, they eat three meals a day and some snacks, and they think fasting is ludicrous. 

One of my friend's partner just goes, “I think fasting is unhealthy,” and she fasts. And she goes, “What makes you say?” And he goes, “I don't know. I just think it's unhealthy. I don't have any basis. I just think it's unhealthy.” His blood sugar is above 400 all the time. We keep showing him this information and we feel really bad for him because his health is deteriorating and he's so young. But he's got this belief, “If fasting is good for me, my MD would have told me.” It’s what he said. Unfortunately, there's a percentage of the population who believes everything their MD tells them is right, and if their MD didn't tell them, then it's not worth knowing. And MDs are not trained in this. Again, taking your car to a plumber; plumbers are great for leaks in your house. They may not know how to fix your car, but we have to think critically. And I love that you're showing us how to think critically around our health and how to dig deeper. So listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa and use coupon code LTH and definitely get the four-day free cleanse there on the website. Out of all your products — we didn't really talk a lot about your products — is there something that you want to let us know about on your site because you've designed so many amazing herbal products? Is there something that stands out that you'd like to let us know about?

[1:36:58.2] Dr. John Douillard: There are probably two, and one of them is the one we talked about today. There is that formula we call Gentle Digest, which is ginger, cumin, fennel, coriander, and cardamom. Take a couple of those before each meal to reboot your upper digestion. And then there's an herb called manjistha, which is the Ayurvedic lymphatic herb. It's phenomenally important for helping that extra weight around your belly and making sure whatever you eat, if there's some undigested food, doesn't end up creating lymphatic congestion, which can cause so many health concerns. Many of the things that most people are experiencing are lymph-based, and we don't really look at or think about the lymph. There's nothing really in Western medicine about the lymph. There's no medical pharmaceutical-grade drug for the lymph. But in Ayurveda, there are a lot of herbs for the lymph. It’s the first thing we treat. So those are the two I would say to start with for folks, and they are very safe. There are the Whole Herbs, all the natural conditions, all the bugs, all the natural microbes that are there. They've been used as food for thousands of years. It is like taking a thousand times potent extract that can actually do good but also have some consequences. That's the beauty of it. It's really kind and gentle and very safe. 

[1:38:12.8] Ashley James: How do we take it? Both of them. 

[1:38:16.0] Dr. John Douillard: The Gentle Digest is a capsule, one or two capsules before the meal, and the Manjistha is also a capsule, and you take probably just one of those after the meal, and you’ll be set. 

[1:38:26.4] Ashley James: Nice, it’s very cool. I really want to have you back on the show. I’ve got a list of things. I want to talk about parasites. I want to talk about breathing. Oh my gosh, there are so many things we can geek out. There’s a lot of really cool stuff. So please, please come back on the show. And then go back to your publishers. I want your book to be relaunched with my title that I came up with. You don't even have to give me credit. Just do it. I want people to read it. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for coming on the show and introducing these concepts to my listeners, who, in turn, are going to share them with their friends and family. My goal has always been to help end suffering. I suffered for so many years. I know you've listened to a few episodes. I don't know if you know my story. In my twenties, I was so sick. I suffered so much. I’m not suicidal. I never wanted to die, but I’d cry. I felt like I was trapped. I was trapped in my body, and I had chronic adrenal fatigue and type 2 diabetes, and it was out of control. I was on constant antibiotics. I couldn't even process human language in the morning. It was really bad. I was just exhausted and sick all the time. And I was hungry all the time. It wasn't me. My spirit inside did not match my body. I had to turn away from MDs because they didn't have anything for me. They said I would always have PCOS. I'd always be infertile, I always had to be on drugs, and I’d always have diabetes. They just told me, “I'm sorry, you're stuck. This is your plot in life, your genetics.” And just the lie after lie, and the hubris, and the poison they gave me. It was disgusting, and they acted like they had the answers and there were no other answers. And so many people are suffering. 

So when I found natural medicine, actually, I re-found it because I went to a naturopath as a child, and then I rebelled. So I had to refind it and use food, herbs and supplements, vitamins and minerals. But that was when I was in my twenties. Now in my thirties, I’m getting my body back, and we have a beautiful son. And I don't think we're done having a family yet, but we lost our daughter two years ago, and I gained 40 lbs. I didn't feel like I ate myself into those 40 lbs, which is really interesting because I ate so clean during pregnancy that within weeks, like two or three weeks after the birth, I was back down to my pre-birth weight. So it wasn't like I gained weight during the pregnancy. I was really good about my nutrition. And it was after losing her that I put on 40 lbs, and these are 40 grief pounds. I had PTSD, and just when you said that, it's really interesting because I pretty much lost it now, but it was a struggle. And I kept coming up against, and like now, seeing when you talked about losing weight, it can bring out the emotions that were there.

And that's so true that I felt like I was really going through some stuff while losing it. But it was a different weight loss than what I've experienced in the past because it was so charged with emotion, let's just say. So now this really makes sense, and we can be gentle with ourselves and forgive ourselves. I can only say what I feel like as a woman. I don't know what it is to be a man. But for women, I feel that we hold a lot of guilt and shame for not looking like magazine models. Maybe we looked amazing in our teenage years, in our twenties, and then it kind of all falls apart after a few kids. Although I do have a friend who's had five daughters, and she still looks like she's 19. But for most of us, there's something that happens, and maybe it’s trauma like you said. There's a lot going on in digestion, pesticides, and drugs that kill our good bacteria. But there's a lot of guilt and shame. And much of the weight that we are carrying is emotional. So thank you for bringing that up, and I wanted to share that with the listeners so that I can give them the grace that they can hold mercy in their hearts for themselves and let go. Hold that grace and love themselves enough to let go of the guilt and the shame so they can take the steps towards health and healing and heal emotionally while they heal physically. 

I want our listeners to go to your website, learntruehealth.com/lifespa. It gets you there with the coupon code LTH. Go check out those cool products, get the books, and tune in for the next time we have John on the show because I can't wait to have you back. This is going to be a lot of fun.

[1:43:30.6] Dr. John Douillard: Well, I'm honored, and I would love to come back. All the things you just mentioned, I feel like there's just so much to talk about there, and it can help so many women. I'll tell you, in one of John Hopkins’ studies, 40% to 60% of women during and after their pregnancy have what's called a hiatal hernia, where the stomach pushes out from the baby so hard and herniates through the diaphragm and causes digestive problems, breathing problems, lymphatic problems, and cognitive problems for decades. And I wanted to write a book called I've Never Been Quite the Same Since My Pregnancies, and my publisher thought it was a bad idea. I think I’ll get a new publisher. But the idea is like, that doesn't have to happen. Those things are reversible, and I treat so many women, decades after that, with proper breathing exercises, reboot their digestion, and all those problems go away. And along with that is the emotional peace where you can shed some of those old, unwanted emotions. And those patterns of behavior that just haunt us, and they don't have to. Yeah, I can't wait to dive into that with you next time. 

[1:44:37.5] Ashley James: Cool. Alright. Sounds good. It’s a date. Looking forward to it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Can't wait to talk to you again. 

[1:44:44.2] Dr. John Douillard: Great. Thank you. 

[1:44:45.1] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's interview with Dr. John Douillard. We're definitely going to have him back on the show. He has a whole talk on how to reactivate the diaphragm so that we breathe correctly. And I thought it was really interesting that they did a study and found that 93% of athletes, or gym goers, people that run on the treadmill are not using their diaphragm correctly, that something's blocking them from full activation of their diaphragm. I guess I'm not one of those people because I feel like I breathe really well. But my husband and I were on the treadmill this week at the gym. And he turned to me and said, “I don't feel like I'm breathing correctly.” That was really interesting because I'm watching him as he is

running, and then he stops the treadmill, and he's kind of winded because he just sprinted, and he's looking at me and goes, “It doesn’t feel like I'm breathing correctly now.” We see the chiropractor, and we see naturopaths, acupuncturists, and all kinds of really cool holistic practitioners. But he just had that realization that he didn't feel like his diaphragm was fully engaged. And then right after that, I interviewed Dr. Douillard, and he and I got to talking about it, and that's why we’re definitely going to have him back on the show to teach us this because it's a real thing. 

I recently had a client who I've been working with using phototherapy patches. I discussed in a recent episode having amazing results, and she noticed that her diaphragm came back online. She said that when she would fall asleep, her oxygen levels would drop into the 70s, and she is on monitors. She's on medical monitors throughout the night. And so she knew this and that after using the phototherapy patches, she felt like it awoke something in her diaphragm. It re-engaged it, and she started breathing better. And when she sleeps now, her oxygen level stays in the 90s, and I thought this was fascinating that we can reactivate. First of all, I never thought that the diaphragm — unless we had some kind of major brain trauma or some kind of major neurological troubles and kind of major structural trauma — I didn't realize how common it was for people to not be engaging their diaphragm correctly and the auxiliary secondary muscles that help to control the rib cage and the sternum. This whole upper body thoracic structure could be off. Just like someone could be walking, like their gait, they could be walking. And some people are walking, and everything's fine. But then you look at someone, and you're like, “Hey, your foot kind of bends inwards.” Or the way you're walking looks like the rest of your body is kind of off because of the way your gait is. Well, just imagine breathing; I always thought we all breathe pretty well. And according to Dr. John, we're not. Most of us aren't doing it correctly. And we can, with some exercises, reactivate and bring online the full use of our diaphragm. How cool is that? Especially for my husband, who is getting really great numbers in the gym, running more and more, and sprinting more and more. And he wants to maximize his experience on the treadmill. So I thought that was really cool. I'm excited to have him back. 

I don't know if you remember the very beginning of this episode; it was a long time ago, almost two hours ago. At the beginning of this episode, we opened the episode talking about structured water, which surprised me because he's like, “Yeah, I got my analemma water right here.” And I had my analemma water. So we had a good conversation about it. If you don't have your structured water device yet, what are you waiting for? Go out and get it. It is not that expensive compared to all the other machines out there. It's under $300. I think there's one that's like $170, plus we have a coupon code. So you use this little device, and you stir your water with it. We have an interview I've done about it. We have an interview coming up. I'm interviewing one of the scientists that do the studies, and he's got some really cool things to share. I’m going to be interviewing him next month. That's exciting, so tune in for that. You can go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater and be sure to use coupon code LTH for the listener discount. Get your savings when you buy your analemma structured water device. Check it out. And if you like your entire house and all the water in every tap and faucet coming into your home already structured, then you can also check that out there as well, because they have the device that you hook up to your plumbing and then you can bathe or shower in structured water, which they're releasing the studies. And there are already some studies you can check out by going to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. The preliminary studies are fascinating. I thought it would have to do more with skin health, but they're seeing that it actually has to do with heart health. They're seeing vast improvements in heart health, and how cool is that because that affects every cell in the body. They also say that if you want to improve brain health, improve heart health because the major aspects of brain health have to do with making sure that we’re getting the flow of nutrients and oxygen to the brain and removing the junk. It's all about bringing the groceries in the cell, and just like a house, bring the groceries in, take the garbage out. As long as we do that effectively, then every cell can be healthy.

Now, if you'd like to get some of Dr. Douillard’s wonderful Ayurvedic herbs, supplements, and also his free guides — he talked about his four-day free cleanse that he gives — you can go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa. Make sure you use coupon code LTH. They're giving us a 10% off on orders over $50, which is pretty easy to do. You buy two bottles of something, and you're over $50, and then you get 10% off. How cool is that? And that’s a repeating coupon code, so you can use that every time you go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa coupon code LTH and join our Facebook group. I'd love for you to come in. Tell me what you thought about this episode and what you learned. I thought this was amazing. I got off the interview with my husband. I said that this might be in the top 20. I mean, we’ve done over 500. So to make the top 20 is pretty big. But the amount of wisdom that Dr. Douillard just landed on us and it was so cool. I just love that you can walk into your kitchen and take cumin, ginger, turmeric, and black pepper. These kinds of herbs are just sitting there in our kitchen, and we can use them to support digestion.

I had just been recently reading some studies because I’m in the process of writing a blog that I'm going to be publishing about my moon milk that I've been drinking for quite a while. He had mentioned some of the spices. I'm like, “Oh yeah, those are all the herbs that are in my moon milk.” I've been doing research on ginger, fennel, coriander, cardamom, and cumin. Those were the five he talks about that are in his supplements. I've seen that in their studies, it’s like, “In the six-week study, someone took a teaspoon of this herb every day, which you can easily do.” And I’m like, yeah, sure, you can put it in tea or make moon milk like me. You can also just throw it in your soup. If you want to, you could put it in your smoothie. That would be an interesting smoothie right there. You can put it in your juice. You can blend a bunch of juices together and make a virgin caesar. But there are all kinds of ways you can get these herbs into you. And in the six-week study, they found that taking these herbs significantly decreased bloating, decreased gas, and increased the ability to perform digestion. The list goes on and on. I was using them. I have about 15 herbs I make in my moon milk, and most of these herbs are probably already in your kitchen, which is so great. And there's just a handful that I go to the store for, like the adaptogens I love to add, like ashwagandha. These herbs not only aid in digestion, but they also help to balance out hormones. They help to get rid of parasites. They help to boost the immune system, decrease inflammation, aid in sleep, and just on and on and on. Everywhere I look, it almost seems like it just helps every single system of the body, and it's so easy, and it's almost free. Just walk into your kitchen. You already own most of these spices, so start using them on a daily basis to gain the benefits. 

I just love Dr. Douillard’s methods of bringing in that ancient wisdom and now also using modern science to understand what they've been teaching for 5,000 years and using in these ancient ways. But now we can look at it through the modern lens and go, “Yep, yep. These studies prove what they’ve been saying for 5,000 years. And now, we understand the processes as to why these things work so great. So yeah, definitely get his free cleanse. Go to learntruehealth.com/lifespa, and if you do decide to buy any of his herbs, which I've checked out and I really like, that's coupon code LTH. Come join the Facebook group, Learn True Health on Facebook. Would love to see you there. Tune in next week. We're going to have a two-part interview, more about herbs, actually. We’re diving in and learning more about herbs, and it's pretty exciting. I love what we learn in the next two episodes. So tune in for that. 

Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. If you're a new listener and someone shared this with you, guess what? They care about you. It was like sending you a big virtual hug by giving you this episode, just so you know. So definitely share this with those you care about and tell them, “Hey, I like you, and I thought of you. This is my little virtual hug sending you this episode.” And then tell your friends to come join the Facebook group community, the Learn True Health community, because we love supporting each other in our health success. We're helping as many people as possible to learn true health, and you're part of that. So thank you.

 

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Body, Mind, and Sport

Eat Wheat

The 3-Season Diet

Jul 13, 2023

Webinar On The Science Behind The Organix Mattress:
learntruehealth.com/bed

To learn more, explore and see the deal Joey has given us:
learntruehealth.com/organix

Or Call 1.866.647.5513 and remember to mention Ashley James and the Learn True Health Podcast (LTH coupon code) for the amazing deal!

Come join our FB group! Learntruehealth.com/group

 

504: Revolutionary Medical Mattress: Heal and Sleep Deeply

https://www.learntruehealth.com/revolutionary-medical-mattress-heal-and-sleep-deeply/

In this interesting podcast episode, Ashley and her guest delve into the world of an extraordinary American-made mattress that originally served as a medical device designed to facilitate healing, even for severe bed sores. Joey Woodward, the current owner of the company, takes the spotlight as they discuss the mattress's unparalleled quality, meticulously crafted by hand in Salt Lake City, Utah, using exclusively sourced US materials. He shares the mattress's intriguing history, originally catering to hospital patients, and emphasizes its durability with a generous 20-year warranty. The podcast encourages listeners to explore the scientific evidence and testimonials on the website, offering an exclusive discount for this exceptionally remarkable health-promoting mattress that promises to be a transformative addition to one's well-being.

Discover the wonders of the Organix Bed by placing your order through this exclusive link: https://www.learntruehealth.com/organix or use coupon code LTH or call 1-866-647-5513 and mention Ashley James and the Learn True Health Podcast to get the listener special discount! How do I choose a healthy mattress? Join the FREE Webinar hosted by renowned sleep expert Jason Payne. Register nowfree of charge! https://www.learntruehealth.com/bed

 

Highlights: 

  • Ashley's personal experience with health tragedies, highlighting the importance of a comfortable mattress during recovery and bed rest.
  • The significance of the mattress for bed-bound individuals, especially senior citizens, preventing bed sores and discomfort.
  • Testimonials from customers and hosts praising the mattress's unmatched comfort and the desire to have it even while traveling.
  • Comparison between Organix mattresses and cheaper, potentially toxic alternatives, emphasizing the longevity and value of Organix beds.
  • Discussion of the mattress's health benefits, focusing on its non-toxic and safe materials, making it the healthiest sleep option.
  • A dive into the materials and studies supporting the health benefits of Organix mattresses.

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health podcast. Today features my favorite health device. Out of everything I have in my arsenal, this is the one I use the most — it's my mattress. It began as a medical device that helps the body heal even up to level four bed sores. Those are usually fatal. You can go back and listen to Episode #355 with Bob Rasmussen, who was the chief engineer and founder who originally designed all this. And since then, my guest today has taken the reins of the company and is ensuring that the quality continues well after. The company's been running for 30 years and will continue to hold the highest standards. All materials are sourced in the US. It's made in their facility by hand in Salt Lake City, Utah. But this bed, which, of course, you're going to listen to the interview so you'll hear all about it. I just want to make sure you have this information at hand, so grab a pen if you can, learntruehealth.com/bed, and that takes you to the webinar that I did with Jason. He goes through the different slides that show the science behind it. If you are like me and you kind of geek out on the science and you want to see the studies they've done and see how they measure pressure, go in your mattress, lie on your side, and see how many hours you can lie on your side before you're so uncomfortable on your shoulder and your hip that you have to roll over. I can sleep the entire night on one side. That's how amazingly supportive this mattress is, but at the same time, it's not soft, so you don't sag and hurt your hips and lower back. It keeps your spine perfectly straight while making sure that your shoulders and hips have no pressure.

With that said, learntruehealth.com/bed gives you the science webinar if you want to geek out like me and see the science. If you want to look at the website and explore the mattresses that Joey is going to talk about because we're going to talk about the health benefits of this mattress versus other mattresses and the things to look for, especially if next time you are ready to buy a mattress, and what not to get if you're not going to get this kind of mattress that we're talking about. At least there are certain things to avoid to maximize your health, and so we're going to talk about that. So things I think everyone should know because, as far as I know, everyone sleeps on a mattress. I know a few people that sleep in tents and like to sleep in hammocks and maybe sleep on futons or sleep on the floor. Most of the population spends a third of their life on a mattress, and so we all have that in common. You got to know what not to get. There are certain mattresses, many mattresses out there, that are slowly poisoning you and your family. So we'll talk about what to do, what not to do, and then the best options. You can go to learntruehealth.com/organix. And then you can also call them. They're really friendly. That's 1-866-647-5513. And we talked about this near the end of the interview, but Joey, my guest today, gave us an amazing discount, and that's because before he took over the company, I worked at a deal, and I got the best deal that anyone else has ever gotten for their listeners. I love love, love helping save you guys money. So actually, when he looked at the deal during the interview, you can hear his voice is like, “Oh wow, I have never seen a deal this good.” I love helping you guys save money. I love saving money. It's part of my values. I want health and financial freedom for everyone.

So enjoy today's episode. Please share it with any friend you can possibly think of who is in pain, who is suffering, who has disrupted sleep. This could be a huge game-changer for them. 

[0:04:14.5] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #504.

I am so excited for today's guest. We have on the show the owner of my favorite organic, healthiest mattress you will ever own. I'm so excited. Joey Woodward, it is such a pleasure to have you here. My life transformed about five years ago when I got my mattress. We've slept on it every night for five years. My son has jumped on it. We've done everything to this mattress, and it has not changed. It is not warped. Just like Bob Rasmussen, the founder, the creator, and the original inventor of this technology, promised back in Episode #355, he talked about how he invented this technology originally wanting to support people who are bedridden or are chair-bound and support the body to not only not produce bedsores, but to help the body heal should they then have a bed sore. And they saw such incredible results in the medical field. He thought, “What if we brought this into the mattress industry?” And sure enough, it allows your back, no matter what position you are sleeping in, to be completely straight in the proper alignment while also taking pressure off the shoulders and the hips, and those pressure points. I was so amazed, this was back five years ago when we started sleeping on this mattress, that I had to go to the chiropractor less. And when I went to the chiropractor, most of the time just for check-in to make sure everything was good, they were surprised. Because I saw two different chiropractors in the same office, they were both surprised that I would most of the time not be out like I used to be three times a week. And then I started only needing to go once a week, and then once every two weeks, and then once a month, just for checking. Then sometimes, it takes several months, or not even, to see my chiropractor. I came in, and they were like, “Wow, you're good,” and I said, “Yeah, I'm out of pain. I sleep deeply.” I sleep so deeply that there's drool on the pillow. It's incredible. 

So when people say they have sleep problems, I'm like, okay, well, there are certain things we got to do with diet and exercise, and getting out in the morning and in the sunlight, and avoiding blue light, and avoiding sugar, caffeine, alcohol. There are all kinds of things we can do for sleep hygiene. But if you have a bad mattress, I don't care what you do with all those things you can do to improve your sleep. You're still not getting really good sleep because your body is constantly moving because of those pressure points. 

So Joey, what you do with Organix is amazing, and thank you so much for coming on the show. We're going to talk about the studies and the science, and we're going to talk about some testimonials. I just wanted to open it up by giving my mind that this is the last mattress I will ever own. I mean, I'll definitely buy more in the future for the guest rooms in my house or when our son outgrows his bed. But this is the only brand I will buy for the rest of my life. It's non-toxic, and it's made of organic materials. I remember Jason even saying at one point that he looked into all of the ingredients that went into making it, and it's even vegan. He was just going down the list, making sure that it was super healthy. Most importantly, it sets your body up for a perfect deep sleep. It helps people with pain. It helps people feel comfortable. My husband and I, who could never agree on a firm mattress or a plush mattress, have what would be considered a plush mattress, but it holds you like you're on a cloud. You feel like you're floating, but you're not sinking. You just float there, so I love it. I love it so much. Welcome to the show. 

[0:08:13.4] Joey Woodward: Thank you so much, Ashley. Yeah, so the pleasure is all mine. She is exactly right when it comes to this mattress. I have the same one she has, and I drool on my pillow almost every night. It's funny that you say that, Ashley. It's something that definitely will get you into the three and four stages of sleep. It keeps you there. It's pressure-relieving. That's the biggest thing that people don't realize, Ashley. And if you have a mattress that can relieve pressure from your body, it literally can take away the pressure. It is going to allow your blood to flow through your skin so you don't have to wake up and try to move your body and rollover. And so that's a lot of times what happens when you don't have a good sleeping surface, something that can actually relieve pressure. And like you said, Bob Rasmussen, back in the day when he wanted to make this into a mattress. Very, very smart man. I'm glad that he did that because he was able to bring this to the market and make it so that a lot of people are hitting that stage 3, stage 4 sleep and getting through the whole night dreaming deeply. 

This technology was originally made for patients in the hospital, believe it or not. And that was something that, of course, people in a coma, and burn victims, obviously can't move in a bed. And so, having this technology relieves pressure on their body and helps them sleep. So now it's a technology that will last for a very long time. Twenty years is our warranty, but I believe it's going to last longer than that. It's a gel matrix. It's not going to break down heat, moisture, or oxygen pressure. It just does not break down, and it just protects all the other materials inside the bed. 

[0:10:06.7] Ashley James: Back a few years ago, when I had some health tragedies — pregnancy, lost our child, and then immediately after, had COVID, and then had some recovery complications — I think it was directly related to grief. But I had to be on bed rest, and there was a lot of time I couldn't, and I obviously don't sleep on my stomach, and I was just on my back a lot of the time. It was interesting because if you've ever been on bed rest or had a cold or flu and you had to be in bed for a few days, you're so achy. After 12 hours of lying in bed, it is just painful. You get achy. And I was in that bed for a few weeks, and I did not experience that at all. I thought this was such a blessing for people who need to be bed-bound.

And I'm thinking about our grandparents and our senior citizens, our aging population, and how there might come a point in their lives when they are bed-bound. I have a friend whose mom was bed-bound for two years before she passed, and I know so many people in my life who have died from bed sores. One of my dad's best friends, this was back in the 80s, he had a heart attack. He was in the hospital. He was bed-bound, and he was finally about to come out. I think he had so many complications from a heart attack, and he died of bedsore, and he was young. I've seen people both at home and in hospital settings, and in nursing facilities. But imagine if you have a loved one at home and they're bed-bound. This is a necessity. This is an absolute necessity to purchase for your grandparents or for your parents, absolutely.

It's funny, now that we have this mattress, we don't really want to go on vacation because we joke, “Can I bring my mattress with me?” At one point, we had an RV, and we had our mattress in our RV. I just imagine if I'm going to travel, I want this with me. So that's just the downside of having this mattress. It's like it ruins it for any other mattress. But what's great about when we go on vacation is we come home, and we're like, “Oh, we're so happy to be home.” We like going out and exploring, having fun, and visiting friends in different states. But then we're like, really looking forward to coming home to our bed. I just think how interesting it is that usually, people are kind of sad that their vacation is over, and we're kind of like, “When can we get back to our bed because it's so comfortable?”

[0:12:53.8] Joey Woodward: That's so true. I can't tell you how many times I've heard our customers say that to me. I say it myself. My wife says it too. And whenever we go on vacation, we do say we miss our bed. Nothing really compares to it. We have an RV as well, and the same thing. We can only stand a few days there, and coming home, we can't wait to get back to sleeping again. And a lot of our customers, like I said, feel the same way. I've had reviews on our website that say that people call in and say, “Thank you so much. I can't go on vacation, though, so that's bad.” But they appreciate our mattresses. 

[0:13:35.2] Ashley James: Your mattresses are more expensive than, you know, I could go to this thrift store out in Monroe in Washington that sells $200 mattresses. And I don't think I would sleep very well on those. I don't even know if that's better than sleeping on the floor, to be honest. But they sell these wooden and spring things with toxic materials. I've walked by them, and it's like off-gassing. I can smell the formaldehyde, so it's off-gassing. And they sell for $200, $300, $400, and $500, just depending on the size of the mattresses. So you can go and get a really cheap mattress. And the thing is, the Organix beds aren't necessarily out of your price range. I guess for me, I had to shift my mindset because we had spent about $4,000, which I thought was a lot of money on a mattress back in 2013 somewhere around there. And by the time it was 2017, that mattress we bought from Mattress Firm or Mattress Train or Sleep Country, whatever their name was at the time, was completely warped. It was so warped that we went back and we said, “Hey, there was a warranty,” and they said, “Oh, I'm sorry. The warranty degrades every year.” I felt like it was a bit of a scam. But the entire mattress was so warped you could see indents of where our bodies had been. It was really interesting that we had spent so much money on what I thought our mattress was going to last us a long time, and it didn't. 

And then we got our Organix bed, and now it's been about five years. It is as new as the day we got it. And this is what Bob had said, that in all the testing you did, you saw that they last over 25 years. So my thing is, it's non-toxic. It's safe ingredients; let's just say materials and not ingredients because we're not going to eat it. It's non-toxic. It's safe materials. But from an environmental and financial health standpoint, you don't need to buy a new mattress every five years because this one mattress is going to last you for over 25 years. So there are less mattresses you're throwing away in the landfill when you see how long it lasts. It is like the Cadillac, but the old kind of gear. They used to say, “This was the Cadillac of whatever.” This is like the Cadillac of beds if Cadillac lasts ten times longer than all other cars. This is amazing. So I really appreciate that. So when you look at the value of the mileage you're going to get out of it, you get so much more mileage. It's actually cheaper than buying other mattresses. But my biggest thing for me is that it is the healthiest mattress that my listeners could sleep on. So I'd love to dive in and talk about the materials and the studies done around this. Just share with us why the absolute healthiest sleep you could get would be on this type of mattress. 

[0:16:48.5] Joey Woodward: So I always say to our customers and friends and family, it's like buying two mattresses, but you're getting four. The biggest thing is most people don't realize that their mattress is probably hurting them before year 8. Typically, they need to change it. It just depends on the product, obviously. You get what you pay for. We all have heard that, right? And so, with this product, it is like that. You're literally buying two mattresses, but you do get three or four mattresses, and just because of how long it's going to last you. It doesn't break down very fast. 

Now, how to choose the correct mattress? You could go out there and buy a $200, $300, $400 mattress, even a $1,000 mattress. But then the chances of having VOC exposure, EMF exposure, there's a lot of different things out there in memory foam. And so, just go Wikipedia memory foam. You'll find that it's a pretty good chemical cocktail of different things. There's formaldehyde, asbestos, chloroform, and there's propylene oxide. There's all types of stuff there. And so memory foam is in 90% of mattresses. And the other percentage out there is everybody's trying to get the cleanest, most non-toxic mattress out there. And so, the issue with that is people are looking for a hundred percent organic. Well, that's great and all, but a hundred percent organic means that it's just like anything else that's made by earth or food. It's going to break down, and it breaks down fast. So typically those mattresses that are out there, you'll see warranties of 20 or 25 years for those non-toxic, fully organic mattresses. But the issue with those is that if you look at the actual warranty and read the fine print in there, you'll see that their prorated warranties after year 10, they only give you 60% back. After year 15, you get another 15% off of that, and so on and so forth, all the way up to the 25th year. While this warranty is 20 years, no questions asked, it's no-nonsense. Literally, you get a new mattress if the mattress sags a quarter of an inch, which is not going to happen. I'd be surprised if you found that. 

We've had customers that have called us up and said, “Hey, my mattress is sagging. It's in the center, and it's coming down.” Well, the first thing we look at is their frame. Is their frame supporting the mattress the way that it should be? And every single time, we've not found one where the mattress was sagging. It was actually the frame. We'd have them go get a level, put that on it, make sure that it's level on the base, and then put the mattress back down, and their problem is fixed again. 

[0:19:50.2] Ashley James: I had that a few years ago. I was like, “What's going on with my perfect mattress? Come feel this. It's feeling weird on this side. This can't be.” Probably my husband was like, “Just check our frame.” Because we have a son, and I tell him not to jump on the bed, but he still jumps on the bed. Sure enough, it wasn't the mattress. It was absolutely the frame. And we got everything fixed. My husband used to be a carpenter. So we just zip, zip, zip. He fixes it, and then it's like, oh, it's perfect. I was like, “Oh, yeah, of course. I would not lose faith in this mattress.” And something to be aware of is everything underneath the mattress has to be good also. Our mattress is heavy. Our movers said, “This is the heaviest mattress.” I mean, it's substantial. It is a substantial mattress. You can't go to the thrift store and buy the used $50 frame for the bed. You have to have a substantial frame for the substantial mattress, and that's going to last you over 25 years. So yeah, just invest in a good frame. I believe you guys also sell a frame as well. 

[0:21:04.5] Joey Woodward: We do, yeah, and we offer box springs as well. Most of the time, Ashley, their bed frames are going to be just fine. It just needs to be adjusted or whatever. So if anybody out there has an existing bed frame with an existing box spring or even just a platform bed with those slats on it, I'd say nine times out of ten, your frame is perfectly fine. It just needs to be something that's going to hold the mattress flat. Now, it will work with adjustable bases, and most of them out there are great bases. So you can put that on it, and they will support the mattress just fine as well. And so, we also offer those as well.

[0:21:47.5] Ashley James: And then I wanted to just hone in on what you said about what are the materials that you will not find in the Organix mattress, which is the memory foam. When I heard that memory foam, specific kinds of memory foam, increased sudden infant death syndrome.

[0:22:10.1] Joey Woodward: Yeah.

[0:22:11.0] Ashley James: I believe they ended up determining it was like a mold, or something, that was growing inside it. But once they removed that type of mattress, they saw a significant reduction in SIDS. That's really scary because in America and in other countries — I'm originally from Canada, but I live in the States — and we have the same philosophy in Canada. We trust that if something is to market, if you can buy something online or at a store, that it's safe. But that's not the case. So the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, rubber-stamp tens of thousands of new chemicals and building materials every year without doing testing. They can't. There would be too much of a backlog. They do not test for safety. I have a whole episode on home building materials and the safety and the studies around it, and how many of the materials that you could go to Home Depot to buy are incredibly dangerous for us and toxic, and they off gas and they stress our livers out, and people become sick. But they don't realize it was something that they bought because it was at Home Depot or Lowe's, or something they bought online, because we think we're a great nation. We're America, right? We think everything is safe, and it's not. Really, it's left to the individual company to be ethical enough to make a safe product. 

So a lot of mattresses out there off-gas formaldehyde. They are not safe for us. They're toxic. They're damaging, and they cut corners to make profits. They make something feel good and plush while you're in the showroom. But then it is damaging to your health. And that is another reason why I am passionate about Organix mattresses because you guys go above and beyond. You're made in the US by hand. Tell us about that. It's kind of old-fashioned, but I love that you build these by hand, and the quality is there because you're making sure that no corners are cut. Everything is to the standards that you sleep on. Everyone sleeps on an Organix bed, works at Organix. You guys sleep on your own mattresses, so, of course, you're not going to put something toxic in there. 

[0:24:43.4] Joey Woodward: Yeah, we make it directly here in Salt Lake City. We source all of our materials from the US, first of all. They don't come from out of the country or anything. They're all from the US, and they're all super clean and non-toxic. No VOCs and all that stuff. When we put this mattress together, it's the same person that's been doing this, and it's his team and him in Salt Lake City that's been doing this for the past 30 years. There's no reason for him to change, and he's got an apprentice that's also been doing this for 17 years. So they'll be doing this for us for a very, very long time. It's great. You can go to our Instagram and watch some of the videos where they actually are building that. It's just at organixbed.com, and you can see how they're putting that together by hand. 

But yeah, all the materials are super clean. They are in a clean environment. If you go to our website, you can read some of the reviews and just search for the word ‘smell.' I dare you. You're going to see that all these people, they actually have even mast cells, which can smell everything, go through and say this has no smell. No, not at all. And so when they receive the mattress, you would think that it would be, “Hey, you probably should go off-gas that for about a day or two.” Nope, you don't need to do that. You just open the mattress, which of course, we bring it in your home for you and set it up. It is full-service delivery. And then you will notice right away there's no smell. So you might ask, you know,” Hey, what store can I try this in? Where can I go find this? Where can I lay on this?” Well, we don't offer that. It's actually not in stores. The reason for that is one, of course, the cost would be higher. The mattress would be more expensive because we'd have to pay for brick and mortar. So your costs are less, but also you would find that if you were to go try a mattress out in a store, any store, most of those mattresses that are sold through stores have a higher return rate than we do at Organix Bed which is kind of interesting. You would think that they would have it lower, but when you try a mattress for the first time in your home, and then you try it for 30 days, which we do have a 90-day trial, by the way. You can try it for 90 days again until you keep it. But 4% to 5% every year is our return rate. Stores are 15% on average, so that kind of gives you an idea of the difference there. People think that if they're going to lay on it at the store, it will tell them, “Oh, this is the perfect mattress for me.” But what you're not really thinking about is you're not sleeping on it there in the store. And what's more important in a mattress? Are you going to lay on it and watch TV, or are you going to sleep on it? Sleeping on it is obviously the answer there. And so get it in your home, try it for 30 days up to 90 days, and if you don't like it, we'll take it right back. No questions asked, no restocking fees, and any of that stuff. We come and pick it up for free. We'll box it up for you and literally bring it back, and you get 100% back on that mattress. 

[0:27:58.7] Ashley James: That's so cool. Now, let's assume the person isn't going to return it. When they bring the mattress in, do you remove the old mattress as well? Is that part of the service, or is that something they can pay for? 

[0:28:11.4] Joey Woodward: We do offer that service, and it is available to pay for. We used to offer it for free, but because of COVID and all the companies that we work with, in order to get the mattress to you, it's freight companies, and they're all third-party. I wish we were as big as FedEx and we could have a shipping company too, but we're not. 

[0:28:33.9] Ashley James: One day. Just keep dreaming. Everyone needs this mattress, okay? Every hotel. Can you imagine? Oh my gosh, I would specifically choose the hotel chain just if they had the Organix bed. So I hope you guys knock on the hotel doors, but AirBnB should definitely have this. Because it lasts longer, think about it, hotels usually buy mattresses that last longer, and they don't feel that great, and they should be buying your mattress. But that would be like a destination, to go to sleep on one of your mattresses. 

Now, you guys are giving a really great discount to my listeners, and I'm so grateful that you guys do this. You can go to learntruehealth.com/organix. Of course, the links to everything that we're talking about today are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com. And you can check out the three different beds, the three different mattresses there. We are going to talk about them in a sec. And you can check out some of the testimonials and the facts, but also see the discount and see the cool things that you guys are gifting my listeners. So thank you very much. 

And then there's also a webinar that I did a few years ago with Jason. So people who are visual, and usually people who are visual, don't listen to us. I'm also kind of visual. I like seeing stuff. But here, we have an auditory experience listening to podcasts. But if you want the visual, to see the slides where they're showing the people sleeping on this mat that measures the pressure points, it's cool. It's a cool visual. So go to learntruehealth.com/bed to check out that webinar that shows you the visuals of the studies. But in the last three years, can you tell me what's new? What's up? Has there been any studies that have happened or any cool new information that's happened in the last three years since you joined Organix?

[0:30:50.2] Joey Woodward: The biggest thing, I guess, that has happened is we've added a couple of more mattresses to our line. They are the Sereniti, the Tranquiliti, and the Harmoni. In terms of firmness versus softness, people have asked, what's the firmest, the softest one? The Harmoni starts out as the firmest one, but it's still a really nice, plush mattress. It is about 11 inches thick. The Tranquiliti is 13 ½ inches thick and it's kind of right in the middle. But it's soft and firm. It's one of the most recommended mattresses, the Tranquiliti, by any other health and wellness expert out there, as well as chiropractors and spinal specialists. There are over 1,400 of those that have recommended the Tranquiliti. And then the Sereniti, which actually has just come out over the last couple of months. And that's the same mattress as Ashley's and mine. I like that one the most because it's the most plush, but it also is the most supportive. But again, they're all going to be great. 

[0:31:51.5] Ashley James: Yeah. So, the Sereniti is the upgraded version of the one we have, that you have and I also have. I have a California king-size because my husband is six foot seven, and he likes that extra length. So, California kings are long in height but a little bit narrower than a king. But still, I feel it's very big. Our whole family fits on the bed. It's wonderful. So mine is the Sereniti. But you guys have upgraded. You've added a few new things. But it's so comparable that if I were to lie on my bed versus the new upgraded one, I couldn't really tell the difference. So in terms of the support, it's as plush. My husband likes a firm mattress. I like it soft. But soft is bad for the back on any other type of mattress because you're sagging. You don't sag with this technology because it collapses exactly where it needs to and holds you exactly where it needs to. So it relieves the pressure. Again, you can watch the webinar at learntruehealth.com/bed to see what I'm talking about. But these columns collapse like a honeycomb. It's so comfortable. How many times can I say it's comfortable? So you've got these three different mattresses, and I know you said the most recommended is the Tranquiliti, and everyone says it's the best. It's kind of like the Goldilocks. So I'm going to tell you, Sereniti all the way. That's my favorite. 

[0:33:21.6] Joey Woodward: Yeah, I agree with you there. I like the Sereniti. My wife likes the Tranquiliti. But we've kind of met in the middle, and the Sereniti is definitely the one that we got and love. And so I recommend the Sereniti as well, but the Tranquiliti is a gray mattress. You're not going to go wrong with that. The Harmoni is a great, great mattress if you want to put it in a second bedroom, put it in your kid's bedroom, or even have it for yourself. It just depends. If you like a more firm, go with the Harmoni. If you like something that is still firm but soft, go with the Tranquiliti. And if you like something that's supportive and, like she said, it's not going to sag or anything — of course, none of these mattresses do — go with the Sereniti if you want something softer. And so, they're all great. We do offer another mattress called the Athos Aria. If those three mattresses aren't at your price point, it's still a great low to no-VOC mattress and no-EMF mattress. If you take a look at that, it has an organic cotton cover and organic materials inside of that as well. And so that's on our website, Athos Aria. That one starts at around $2,700 in a queen, and Tranquiliti is around the $5,000 mark in a queen. And so it just depends on your budget, but they're all great mattresses. 

There was a study by Dr. Robert Troell. He did this a few years back, but it's still current today, for sure. People that have slept on this technology sleep through stages three and four. 80% longer than any other technology. And so this technology, like I said, is one of those things where you can't really find any other technology out there that's going to relieve pressure from your body. Some of the things to think about with the health effects of VOC exposure — it can cause short-term headaches, dizziness, throat, eye, and nose irritation, nausea, and vomiting. Those are things that people might experience from sleeping on a mattress with memory foam — long-term exposure, central nervous system damage, cancer, kidney, and liver damage, of course, where we went into SIDS with babies. More than anything, I recommend staying away from anything with memory foam in it. If you don't go with us to get this mattress, definitely stay away from any mattress with any VOC exposure. EMF is another thing as well. Definitely, if you can stay away from a mattress that has little to no EMFs. There's been readings and tests on these mattresses where people have actually come to our facility and tested these beds, and they found that there are rooms that are empty that actually have higher readings than directly next to the gel line of this mattress. So it's kind of interesting to look at that. 

[0:36:31.4] Ashley James: That's cool. So it's like the batch almost protects you from the EMFs. I had a really interesting interview. I don't remember the number right now. It's somewhere in the 50s. Sal, he's a Ph.D. This was seven years ago, so I'm just thinking he's a Ph.D. electrical engineer, I believe. His passion was to go around helping people fix the electricity in their homes because there's dirty electricity in so many homes. He talked about how there was this one MD who hired him to come in because his kids couldn't sleep. They're just up all night, and he goes, “There's no medical reason why they should be like this.” And he used the readings and found that there was so much metal in the crib and in the mattress of the baby, and the entire house had dirty electricity from the transformers. So the whole neighborhood had dirty electricity. But if you have a metal frame, or a metal mattress, the mattress has coils in it, and these coils are often touching all the metals. It's on a frame inside the mattress. All the metal was radiating this electromagnetic frequency that was just so unhealthy for them. They were just wired. And so he moved in the short-term to fix everything. He unplugged everything from the walls near the beds and moved the beds away from the walls that had outlets or wiring. He even goes so far as to say, if you can shut off the breakers in that side of the house, do that as well. Unfortunately, you have to go upstream and change the whole neighborhood, like changing the transformer, but that's what it takes. 

And he said there's a town in either Arizona or New Mexico, there's a whole town that would hear humming when they went to bed every night, and they thought it was aliens or something, and it turned out the entire town had dirty electricity. And think about sitting in a bed, and you have lamps plugged in on either side. This is back in the day when we didn't have a cell phone waking us up in the morning. They had their radio alarm clock plugged in on one outlet and a lamp on the other. And then, on both sides, there was at least a lamp on both sides. And the bed is in between two outlets that are plugged in. And if you were sitting in bed reading, you would hear this humming, loud humming. And that was the dirty electricity humming through the metal in your mattress. He has all sorts of stories about how he would enter someone's home and use this equipment to test the electricity. And his number one recommendation for sleep is don't sleep on a mattress with metal and unplug everything from the wall around the mattress, or turn off the electricity going to that area. Turn off your Wi-Fi, just everything. 

And what I love about the Organix mattress is that the coils are all wrapped together. Everything is done in a way that's so comfortable for the body, but also its low EMF. It does not take the EMF in your room or the outlet. So you don't have to go and unplug your electricity every day from the breaker downstairs, in the basement, in the garage, or wherever your breaker is. You don't have to. I have to go outside. My breaker is outside. It is kind of ridiculous. Sometime in the winter, it was raining. I tripped a breaker because I used too many gadgets in the kitchen. And I'm standing in a puddle with my bare feet about to touch the breaker. I'm like, I don't think I should be doing this. This is the worst place for a breaker. Oh, man. So I was like, you know what, I don't want to win a Darwin Award today. So I walked back inside the house. I'm like, I need to go get my shoes or just do it another time. I don't need to touch a breaker while standing in a puddle.

But the difference between virtually all mattresses out there and yours is that we can sleep comfortably, are non-toxic, and do not have EMF exposure. So just the list, we kind of go down this list and then wonder, all the health nuts like me are raving about you. 

[0:40:41.8] Joey Woodward: Yeah, in fact, there's a customer out of California; they called us one day. He purchased our mattress that day instantly when he found out that there are mattresses with little to no EMFs. And he said that his current mattress literally was pointing north. He said that his friend came over with a compass, and they were testing some things in their house to see whether he had EMFs, and his mattress was pointing north. I don't know how that would be something that you can test, to point out.

[0:41:13.7] Ashley James: Polarity. They are testing the polarity. So, I mean, that makes total sense because you can alter the polarity. If you take a compass and put it near an electromagnetic field, it will move. It will move to the electromagnetic field. So our body has an electromagnetic field. I think it's too weak to move a compass. But running water has an electromagnetic field. Running electricity through wires has an electromagnetic field. And if you take something, a strong enough electromagnetic field, and you move a compass towards that, it will align with the polarity of the electromagnetic field. So this is just showing the EMF. His old mattress had such an intense EMF that it had its own polarity. It's stronger than the earth's polarity. And that's what most people sleep on.

[0:42:07.4] Joey Woodward: That's a first for me. I hadn't heard that one. He's been saying to me since then that he loves us. He always calls me, and I talk to him, and he's actually a great guy. He loves his mattress. But it is definitely one of those things where I believe that this mattress helps a lot of people sleep better. It's obviously one of those things where if you can't get enough sleep at night, it's going to affect your day. It's going to affect your life, and you're on a mattress for a third of your life. Why not invest in something that will help that and help your life because it is one of the most important things out there, aside from food, exercise, and all that stuff. Sleep is one of the most important out there. 

[0:42:50.2] Ashley James: You will have a longer life if you sleep better. So many studies show that at night if we don't get enough sleep, our brain can't clear out the excess proteins that build up. These proteins build up, and they see a link between that and dementia and cognitive decline. Try not sleeping really well for a few nights, like okay, have a baby. And then try to think. They call it baby brain. My husband and I have this rule. We don't make any major financial decisions while we have a baby brain because we made some really weird decisions that we laugh about to this day when we were both under the haze of a baby brain. And men have it too because their sleep is not as much as the mom, but their sleep is definitely being disrupted, and if your sleep is disrupted, you got what we call a baby brain, but you just got a bad sleep brain at any age. Kids will express it through hyperactivity. They'll seem disruptive and hyperactive because they can't regulate their emotions if they don't get sleep well enough. And I got to tell you, our eight-year-old son loves our mattress. I look forward to the day when he outgrows his because I'm definitely going to be buying an Organix for him. But he would prefer to sleep on our mattress, regardless of whether we're in it with him or not. He would rather fall asleep on our mattress then we move him to his because he senses it's way more comfortable than anything else. And kids know. They're intuitive. 

Also, if we don't get enough sleep, the next day — they've done studies — we'll consume an average of five hundred more calories, and we'll have dysregulated cortisol levels which also affect insulin. So we'll have dysregulated insulin, blood sugar, and cortisol levels will be hungry, or will be more likely to give in to cravings. People with addiction tendencies like needing to chase dopamine will be more likely to give in to those. They lose willpower. Willpower becomes less abundant after a night of poor sleep. And if this is your chronic state of sleep, this is all you know, and you don't know a world where you get deep restorative restful sleep or you feel more in control of your body the next day and your emotions and your thoughts. 

And I had an amazing naturopathic endocrinologist on the show, Dr. Alan Christianson, and he talked about, I believe, the longest and the largest study on the causes of early death, all-cause mortality, and what we attribute to the length of life. So if you want to live a long, healthy life disease-free, there's one factor — that's not smoking — and it shocked him, and it was directly related to sleep. It is your body's stress level. If you have poor sleep, you have lower heart rate variability. So, therefore we can measure your stress levels, and we are in a higher state of stress after a bad sleep. We are in a lower state of stress after a good sleep. The body can reset and recalibrate, detox, and do the things we need to do with good sleep. So, I mean, everyone listening knows sleep is good, but you don't know that you have a bad sleep until you get an Organix mattress, and then you go, “Wow, I didn't know I could take my sleep to the next level.”

So again, I'm a giant cheerleader for you guys because it's like a tool that everyone needs. Like you said, one-third of our life is in this. Why would you hum and haw over money when it's something you're going to use for over 25 years and beyond at one-third of your life? Don't you also offer financial assistance or some way of doing a payment plan for people who don't have all that money upfront? 

[0:46:43.0] Joey Woodward: We do, yeah. Right now, we have two options; one is through PayPal. Everybody loves PayPal, but the other option is through a firm. So we have both those two options. Both of them are offering 0% interest for six months, and then, of course, if you need longer-term financing, then you can go up to 36 months. And, of course, that's a little bit of an interest payment. But you can definitely get financing for this mattress. There are a few options through our checkout. You can call us, or you can look at our website. I just want to bring up one last thing. You mentioned your son. I think he's going to love this for sure, once he gets it too, because, obviously, he's sleeping on your bed. But my son — I have five kids — he's fourteen, and ever since we got him this bed, and I don't know if this is before the bed, or maybe he's just responsible, he's just a good kid, I don't know. But he actually is one of those kids that wants to go to bed every night. At nine o'clock, he goes to bed right on time. He's like, “Hey, I know this show's on, and it's a cool show or whatever, but let's stop it and watch it tomorrow.” He goes to bed and literally stops watching TV. And then he wakes up by himself. We don't have to wake up like a typical teenager, like some of my other older kids. I have a twenty-one, twenty-two-year-old. He did not have this bed growing up. But we're terrible at waking them up. But this one, he just wakes up and goes to bed on time. Like I said, I can't say that this is the mattress. 

[0:48:17.8] Ashley James: Well, this is what I see with my son. When I say, “Okay, let's go brush your teeth. It's bedtime.” Like we start the bedtime routine, he goes, “My bed or yours?” And then sometimes I'd just be like, “Just go get in your bed. Come on.” And there are times I'm like, “Okay, let's lie down together and read a story or something.” And when he lies in our bed, in our Organix Sereniti, he falls asleep half the time. Sometimes when he lies in his bed, it's like he's calling out to us like, “I'm still awake. I can't fall asleep.” But I'm like, “Just go to bed.” And there's a distinct difference between the two. We do lots of stuff for him. Like, we noticed a huge difference and improvement in his sleep when he started doing the magnesium soak, and I have over five episodes about the magnesium soak. It's the world's longest name, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com, coupon code LTH for the magnesium soak, and it is phenomenal. The thing is, if you have a magnesium deficiency, soaking in this every day while you're at your computer, while you're in your sauna, while you're eating dinner, while you're watching TV or reading a book at night, but soaking your feet in a minimum of 20 minutes, maximum of up to 60 minutes. He soaked every night for 30 days. Most people reach full cell saturation in that period of time, and people are chronically magnesium deficient. So we did notice, and we started doing magnesium soaks with him. This is back when he was a toddler. He went from fighting us all night long to go to sleep to saying like, “Hey, I'm kind of tired. It's bedtime,” and I looked at him, like, “Who are you?” But then when he gets in the bed, if he's in our bed, like I said, if he's in our Organix bed, he falls asleep half the time. I'm just waiting for him to outgrow his mattress, but maybe I should just pull the trigger. After you said that about your fourteen-year-old, I feel like, you know, that meme where Fry is holding money, shaking it, and going, “Take my money, take my money.” Just take my money. I need that mattress for my son. Because you're right, he does way prefer falling asleep in our Organix bed versus his. So that makes sense. Like I said, I'm kind of kicking myself right now. Why haven't I just pulled the trigger?

[0:50:47.2] Joey Woodward: I'm sure some of it is lying next to his mom. It's that relaxing feeling. Plus, it does sound like one of those magnesium soaks that are really, really relaxing. 

[0:50:56.6] Ashley James: They are super helpful. But you know what? I say it because there are times when I don't practice what I preach, and I'm on my computer working at night when you're not supposed to be on a computer working at night. But I'm like, “I got to get this done.” And I say, “Okay. You got to lie down and go to bed yourself.” And so, he'll fall asleep in half the time, regardless of whether I'm in bed or not. He will fall asleep much faster in our bed. And that says a lot about your mattresses. I love that there's a return policy that is so easy. I love that you give people 90 days to try it. I love that you can use a firm. I prefer firm, but I mean, I've been with PayPal forever, but I prefer firm. I've bought some stuff and used them, and I really appreciate how easy the process is to buy things through them so you can do the payments. And there's really no risk then because try the mattress for 90 days. If listeners call your company, they want to definitely mention the Learn True Health podcast with Ashley James so they get the discount. I believe the coupon code is LTH, as always, Learn True Health LTH. But what are the things that you're giving the listeners? Tell us about the goodies.

[0:52:22.4] Joey Woodward: Yeah, definitely call us because, in this day and age, it is hard to get a hold of companies. We actually answer the phone. We love people calling us. The number is 866-647-5513. The goodies that come with this it's actually one of the best deals that we have ever done. It's 10% off the purchase, which, if you think about the price of this, is definitely a lot of money coming off of the mattress there for you, $400, $500, or $600, depending on the mattress, that you get 10% off. And then also, if you don't live in the city of Utah, there's not any sales tax because you're actually buying online with us. So that's one of the great things about buying from us versus buying from a local store. Unless you live in Utah, sorry, you got to pay tax. But in other states, you don't have to worry about that. As far as the other goodies that come with this, there are sheets that come with this, and it's sheet sets by Malouf, hypoallergenic sheet sets safe for babies. It's a great company. They have a 5-year warranty on it. There's a mattress protector that comes with this that has a 15-year warranty on it. And the mattress protector, if it fails in the time of that 15 years, in other words, water comes through, or you spill something on it or whatever, they actually will come out and clean your mattress for you.

[0:53:52.0] Ashley James: What? 

[0:53:53.3] Joey Woodward: And as long as it's on the receipt, it has to be on the same receipt as the bed, that they'll come to clean your mattress if it fails. And then, if they can't get the stain out, they'll actually replace the mattress too. So it's made by Malouf. You might think a mattress protector, though, might be plastic feeling or whatever. No, it's not. It actually feels like just a tightly woven fabric. It's very nice to put your sheets right over it. You don't notice it's there. Also, the sheets are deep-pocketed. They'll handle the 17-inch mattresses. The Sereniti won't have any issues with that.

[0:54:28.9] Ashley James: Nice. And I don't recommend regular cotton sheets. It's actually better to have bamboo, like organic bamboo, because they do have a big give and stretch. Whereas if you put really, really tight organic and you really make it tight, it's almost like a drum, and you don't want that disruption because the mattress is meant to collapse naturally, where your shoulder is where your hip is. It's meant to perfectly align you. I just personally found that I feel as though it doesn't disrupt the mattress when you use that more stretchy fabric like bamboo. 

[0:55:07.7] Joey Woodward: Yeah. Actually, the bamboo sheets are great. And then it does come with the full-service delivery, and that's normally a $369 service that we include in this. So you're saving roughly $600, $700, or $800 depending on the mattress that you get with all of these things. So just as a recap, you get 10% off, free sheets, a free mattress protector, and free full-service delivery. And again, they'll bring that mattress into your home, set it down, discard the plastic, the box, all the stuff that comes in, and then leave you with a nice mattress to sleep on for that night and, of course, the rest of that time. 

[0:55:46.4] Ashley James: Nice. And also, there are a few other things you guys sell. So I recommend checking it out. I personally love your pillows. Do you guys still sell the pillows? 

[0:56:00.4] Joey Woodward: We do. 

[0:56:01.4] Ashley James: Okay, I was like, “Uh-oh.” Because this was five years ago, stuff changes, but you guys still sell the pillows. I really love my pillow, and Jason said, “You know, I love my pillow too, but some people don't like it, and some people do.” I'm like, “Yeah, not everyone wants perfect protection for their neck.” I don't know; I just love it. I love the pillow. I feel like it perfectly contours my head and supports me. But everyone sleeps differently, right? So if you're kind of sick of your pillow and you're looking for a more supportive pillow, you should totally check out the pillow they sell as well.

[0:56:38.2] Joey Woodward: Like our mattresses, they're Oeko-TEX certified, safe for babies, CertiPUR-US certified. It's all super clean, hypoallergenic great stuff. There won't be any off-gassing or anything with that stuff to you with the pillows. And yeah, we do offer adjustable bases if you'd like that. Once you get one, I warn you, you're going to be in your room a lot more often. Maybe in front of the TV on your bed instead of down on the couch or whatever. But the adjustable bases are super nice with a mattress like this. 

[0:57:12.8] Ashley James: Yes. Like I said, I've had times where I had to be in bed, bed-bound, bed rest in the last five years that I've owned this. There had been times when I had to be on bed rest and 12 to 24 hours straight in bed, obviously going to the bathroom but otherwise being in bed. There was no pain, no stiffness, no achiness. It's pretty remarkable how different the experience is on this bed versus any other mattress. So it's a tool. It's a tool we should all have. It just makes so much sense to me. So I love everything. I love that the materials are safe. I love that story about the low EMF, and I love the discounts you are giving us. The fact that we can call you guys and chat with you guys and also no risk to trying it. We can definitely return it within 90 days if we don't like it. But few people do. I would never. I would fight you if you tried to take my mattress away. I'm going to fight you. 

[0:58:20.2] Joey Woodward: What I love to hear, Ashley, is you like your mattress after five years. You know, there's a lot of people like that, ten years, 15 years. We hear that all the time. “I still love my mattress.” And they always talk about they can't go traveling and all that stuff like we went over, but yeah, and you're going to love it for 10, 15, 20 years. It's going to be something that you'll always feel the same about. It's a great mattress.

[0:58:42.9] Ashley James: Yeah. And when Bob and I talked about this in Episode #355 that originally, the oldest mattresses that they made were still good so many years later. So yes, the warranty is 20 years, and they can see that even after 25. There's no wear and tear, and it's still supportive. It's so great, but it is still holding up. But there are people who have even older, and it's doing well. So I'm like, “I wonder, can this be the last mattress I buy for me?” I don't know. I'm excited to see how long it lasts before I need to replace it, and I know that it's going to be a very long time. So that's exciting. I can't wait to get one for my son. I can't wait in the future to get one for the guest bedroom. Although I have had problems where guests never want to leave. So maybe, not right now. But I do want to be able to give people the experience so they never want to leave because it's such a nice experience. Every time I go to visit other people, their mattresses are really horrible in the guest bedroom. Like people usually take the passed down like grandma slept on it, and that we slept on it, and then our kids slept on it, and now it's your mattress. It's like a hundred years old, and I just had the worst experiences. I love my friends. I love visiting them, but their mattresses all really suck. I can't tell you how many times I have been in a foreign state or country and needed to go find a chiropractor because it was just such bad sleep being on someone else's mattress. So it'll be really, really nice if money wasn't a problem to invest in a guest bedroom bed that would just knock people's socks off and make people feel so welcome, so comfortable. I don't know. That's just me. I just like pampering people. I like pampering myself. But it seems like a necessity since we know how important sleep is.

Before we wrap up today's interview, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all this information. Of course, listeners can go check out more by going to learntruehealth.com/organix, and they can also go to learntruehealth.com/bed to check out the cool webinar we did with all the science stuff. Are there any other stories of success, stories of testimonials of people's cool experiences? Maybe people have had health shifts or noticed that their pain is going away. Those kinds of stories when they started using the Organix bed that you'd like to share with us?

[1:01:17.7] Joey Woodward: Definitely, yeah, there is a ton out there. More notably, I think there are a lot of people that did come find us when they were looking for a mattress with no smell. We get that a lot. There are a lot of people who call in, a lot of people that come to our chat on our website and ask questions about the smell. And there was this one customer. Her name is Christy, and she is a great customer. I gave her my personal cell phone and talked to her for a while, just to make her feel comfortable because she was actually very concerned. She went from one bed to another. All these mattresses that claim to be no smell, a hundred percent organic, and things like that. She told me about some mattresses that she got that were a hundred percent organic, and she's one of those that cannot be in a fragrance aisle or be in an area where there's any sort of smell. She'll get sick. And so she could smell the mattresses that she was shopping for and buying, and she bought a mattress that she said smelled like a farm. But nobody else was saying that. She was saying it smelled like a farm and it was just an organic mattress. And so what she asked us to do, which was really unusual, and we've never had this happen before — she wanted us to wash the outer cover of the mattress twice with borax so that it would actually get rid of more of the oils in the organic fabric, which I assured her that all the oils were gone already, and there are no issues there. But we went ahead and did that for her just to make sure that she was happy when she received the mattress. And, of course, when she received it, there was no smell for her. And that's one of those things where she was super surprised. I was actually surprised that she could smell because she could probably smell things that anybody could not smell. But she can smell it. She's that type of person. And so I'm very happy that she's happy with the bed. She said that she was going to recommend it to everybody. And so that happens, not exactly that, but a lot of those people with mast cells come back and say there's no smell, and so they just love our mattress.

[1:03:40.8] Ashley James: We have to recognize that when we can smell something, it has entered our body. We often think that we have some kind of magic force field like, “Oh, I'm just having it. I'm selling something, but it's not going in me.” If you smell something, your liver, within 15 minutes, is processing it. Smelling is the act of inhaling vapors, which are tiny molecules of liquid right off a chemical, and it gets stuck into the mucosal layer of the sinuses, the lungs, and the esophagus, and we swallow, and it goes into our stomach. And also it absorbs in through the mucosal layer of our respiratory system, leading into the lymph system and then moving towards the liver. Low VOC is good, but not all VOCs are bad, like the orange peel. Opening an orange peel is high VOC, and that is not unhealthy. There are many chemicals that are incredibly toxic, and they're not VOCs, volatile organic compounds. Those chemicals interact with the ozone. So it's more of an environmental thing and not necessarily a harmful thing. But the fact that you can smell acetone when walking into a spa because the women are getting their nails done, and within 15 minutes of smelling it, your liver is processing it. And there's no VOC in that instance. So to smell a mattress, you are inhaling chemicals. Just like if you smell new carpeting, new linoleum, that new-car smell. All of it can be formaldehyde, and it's incredibly toxic, like thousands of other chemicals. There are 80,000 new man-made chemicals in our air, water, soil, mattresses, cars, and building materials. And they're allowed to be there even though they're incredibly harmful. So if you don't smell anything, what we're saying is that you're showing through one of your senses that the off-gassing isn't there. That isn't foolproof because there are certain chemicals that are odorless. But there are plenty of mattresses out there that you can definitely smell something. And if you smell something, your body is processing it as if you ingested it. Because you did, you ingest it into your lungs.

So I love, love, love that people who are so sensitive become sick, sick from anything that has an ascent because their body cannot process it; that they do not become sick when they use an Organix mattress. And that makes me really excited to have something that's safe for us that we should all be using. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing. And I know you said there are hundreds and hundreds of testimonials we can see on the website. Remind us again what the phone number is. 

[1:06:40.5] Joey Woodward: It is 866-647-5513, and there's only two options after that. It's customer service and sales. Number one is sales, and customer service is number two. So it's fairly simple. But yeah, give us a call. Feel free to call us anytime. We're actually open seven days a week, by the way. So if you're listening Sunday, or whatever, if you're catching this later, call us on Sunday. We are open until 5 p.m. Mountain time. During the week, we're open until 7, so give us a call. 

[1:07:16.0] Ashley James: Very cool. And for people outside of the US, do you only ship to people in the US, or do you also ship to other countries?

[1:07:24.5] Joey Woodward: We ship to Canada and the lower 48. If we need to ship to Hawaii or Alaska, we can do so, but there is an additional shipping charge. We would give you a quote based on where you live. Same thing with Canada. We can't ship to Canada for free, but we will credit you $369 toward that shipment. What we have found by shipping to Canada, though, is that, of course, one, you get this mattress. You can't find it in Canada, but you get this mattress. And then, two, if you find anything that's comparable out there, you're going to spend more money on it even with shipping costs. And so, give us a chance to give you a shipping quote, and we'll definitely ship it up to you, and it goes pretty quickly. Shipping times all across the country and to Canada or anywhere is from two to five weeks depending on where you live. Of course, if you live in a rural area or some small town, it might take an extra week or something. But in a big city, it's fairly quick. And keep in mind that we don't roll it up in a tiny little box and ship it to your front door. So that's why it's not three days. It's going to take a little bit of time to drive a very large mattress across the country or wherever you live. So that's the reason. But it's worth the wait. 

[1:08:51.0] Ashley James: Yes, it is. And you will feel like Princess and the Pea lying on the perfect mattress. When you do get it, you'll just lie in it and go, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” The experience is that you are floating. It's like a cloud, but it's supporting you perfectly. It's suspending your body, and you don't feel any pressure anywhere. It's the coolest thing ever. And you did mention that if you've found something comparable, you'll spend more money. There are copycats out there, and I did purchase one before the Organix, and I have to say, I was incredibly disappointed. I don't want to disparage any companies publicly, but I will say, a horrible experience with that copycat company because other people saw the technology that Bob created and wanted to copy it, and there were lawsuits and all kinds of things that I'm not going to disparage anyone. But what I will say is that you will save time, money, and energy to get the real McCoy. Instead of trying to go after a copycat, get the original that has the science behind it. Copycats are just a poor-quality second, and I had a personal experience with it. And I'm glad I did so I could go, “Wow, the original is worlds beyond and worlds better than the copycats out there. 

So thank you, Joey, for coming on the show. I really appreciate your time. And I wish you the best of success because the work that you're doing is really helping people and improving the quality of people's lives. So it's companies like yours we need more of. We need more companies with integrity that are focused on our health first and companies that make a product that lasts longer. You look around, and you see washing machines only last five years. After seven years, it's like they break down. If you go into a house that was built in the 50s and comes with a washing machine from the 80s, you know that washing machine is never going to die. You see these things. I've had this experience where it's like, “Yeah, okay, the appliance is four years old. It's not going anywhere.” But the appliances they sell today, good luck in trying to get that appliance to last you forty years.

There's something about how we used to make things to really last. I just love that your company is about making a product that lasts, that's non-toxic, that's safe, that's healthy, and that actually promotes healing. You're like, we're only not going to not be harmful. We're going to help the body heal. And so of course there's a higher price for this. This is made by hand. This is non-toxic. This is a white-glove service, and we can do a payment plan. At the end of the day, this is going to last you over 25 years. So it's going to save you in the long run. But I want more companies like yours out there, so I believe in voting with my dollar like I vote with my fork. I buy organic. I support local farms. I put my money into the companies that I want to see do well because they're doing well for us. So thank you for all that you do. Please, listeners, use the coupon code. Tell your friends, especially friends that are sick and suffering or friends that have relatives that are having problems with bed sores. This is a technology that everyone should be aware of because it makes such a difference in the quality of our lives.

And Joey, you're doing great work. So keep it up. Thank you so much. And if you ever in the future have any scientists or studies, or things that you want to share, come share them, and we'd love to hear them. 

]1:12:35.3] Joey Woodward: Awesome. It was my pleasure. It was a great time, for sure. Thank you so much, Ashley.

[1:12:40.0] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Joey Woodward. Wasn't he great? You know, it's interesting, after doing over 500 interviews — I've actually done probably close to 530 because I have not published everything that I've done. And there are certain ones that I chose never to publish because you know what? Some people just don't make it. Just because they get on my show doesn't mean that they are good enough for you to listen to. I'm sure they're wonderful people. It's just I feel very protective of you guys, and I wouldn't publish something that was not helpful or beneficial, or sometimes guests just aren't that great. So I do my best to only publish what's going to help you and what I know is going to be a positive influence. And when I listen to people, they're real. These are real people. These aren't like paid doctors. These aren't trained professionals. You listened to Joey. He's just so authentic. He's being himself. You can hear his passion. 

As I was getting today's episode together to publish, sometimes I sit back and listen because I'm on the hot seat when I'm an interviewer. So, I'm kind of listening for when they are answering the questions for the first time when it's live. I'm always listening for, what is the question the audience has. Like, what is the question you have for him? And then, when I sit back to listen to it afterward, I can hear it like it wasn't me. It's the weirdest thing. I love my show, and it's sort of like listening to someone else's show because I sit back and I forget what I've even said sometimes in the interview. I remember the content. Like, I remember what the guest said. But sometimes I forget what I said. So I'm listening with new ears. I can sit back and relax and just be in the moment and hear him. And when I'm hearing his voice, I don't know if you noticed this, but he's very chill, right? He's just happy. He's chill. He's calm. I'm just imagining you own a mattress company for a living. You definitely want to make sure that you're getting good sleep. And he just sounds very calm, but he also sounds like he's not a trained professional guest on shows. He's not trained professionally to public speak. 

And that's what I wanted to say — it is that a lot of my guests are real, so real. And they're here to share information, and they're not perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm trying to get better and better. Everyone does. Everyone tries to improve. We are not polished. This isn't mainstream TV or mainstream radio. This is just real people, and that's even better, getting real information, learning from real experiences, and real people. I love podcasting, that we can throw away all that junk that the middleman filters of the advertising companies, and the ratings, all the stuff that kind of warps politics. If all that we could throw away and go, okay, let's just be real people and help each other.

So listening to his voice, I could hear his love and authenticity and hear his excitement, and it was cool. It's cool that he stepped in and took over the company as Bob retired and kept it going. So, it's neat. I just love that this company is supporting American workers. It knows where every single aspect of its materials comes from that's actually non-toxic, super low EMF. Just all the stuff that you could do, the science behind, how you could examine this mattress to see the quality. I just say jump on it and sleep on it, and then you'll feel it for yourself.

Just in case you didn't get these web links written down, I wanted to make sure you had it, learntruehealth.com/bed gets you the webinar. And then learntruehealth.com/organix gets you the special deal, the web page that Joey designed for us. Actually, it was the previous owner that designed it for us, and Joey's honoring it — the really, really super good deal that he talked about in the interview. And then, of course, you can call them at 866-647-5513 and mention the Learn True Health podcast with Ashley James, coupon code LTH, and they should be able to hook you up with the exact same discount. They will give you the same discount and all the special deals and goodies that get thrown in when you go to learntruehealth.com/organix. But they should be able to answer your questions, help you with financing if you'd like that, and just make it all smooth for you. And if you have any questions or concerns, or you want to tell me how great your experience was with Organix and any of that, please email me at ashley@learntruehealth.com. I'd love to hear from you. 

You can also talk about it in our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. Jump into the Facebook group with us. I would love to see you there. We all support each other. It's a beautiful community. Just search for Learn True Health on Facebook, or you can go to learntruehealth.com/group and join the Facebook group. Even if you don't do Facebook, just create an account for this. Sometimes people just join with no profile picture and a fake name, just so they can be in the community. I know. I'm sorry, it's Facebook. It's just one of those platforms. I'm not saying that I align with any major company or any social media company. It just happened to be the best way to get a community together, and you can use the search function in the group because the group's been around for, I think, five or six years now. And since then, we've answered so many health questions it's become almost like a directory. You could type in any problem you could think of or any symptoms. And there are already answers and already so many resources, and there's so much information. We have holistic doctors in our group that answer questions, and dentists, nurses, massage therapists, herbalists, acupuncturists, and midwives. There are so many professionals that are in the holistic space that are coming together, answering questions, along with myself and a lot of other health coaches and experts. So it's a really supportive community. That's why I keep saying, come on, join us. Let's all learn together because we all deserve to have this holistic information, so we don't need to suffer anymore. We have to take action and go out and seek the information, and that's what I'm here to provide for you. 

Check out the episodes coming up. I've been very busy editing. I don't know if you've checked out the website lately, but I've also been posting a blog post like I've got the yogurt one up, which is the lactobacillus reuteri from Dr. Davidson's last two episodes, and that is so delicious. It's made from cashews. You can make it from other things. I have a listener who made it from blanched almonds. She had to remove the skins, and she did that. She said it turned out amazing. I personally love the cashew yogurt. So check out that link. I'm going to be publishing a blog post very soon with detailed instructions on how to use a sauna and a few other things that are around your house to help the body detoxify heavy metals properly or healthfully. And then I'm going to be posting soon my turbo moon milk recipe, which I've been using. It's so delicious, and I use it at night, and it's a wonderful elixir that supports. It's with a lot of adaptogenic herbs, so it helps the body to regulate and come back into balance, decreasing inflammation. It's antimicrobial, a huge immune booster, really supportive of the gut, just increasing the gut strength and health in digestion, helps with anything from sleep and inflammation to hormones, and just all of it. I put this together, and I've been sharing it with some friends, and they loved it too. I shared it with my family. As for me, I like it too with ashwagandha, and those were in there. But all the herbs are super healthy. A lot of them are already in your pantry. 

What I like is the ritual at the end of the day to sit there. I've already had dinner a few hours before, and I'm on an empty stomach. Maybe I'm a little bit hungry, but I'm not going to because I want to go to bed on an empty stomach. And I sit there, and I drink the moon milk, the turbo moon milk. It's like an elixir, and it sets the body up for a really healthy detox while you sleep, and it just calms the body. It's not like I am frazzled or anything. I think even really healthy people notice that they feel good drinking it. And then people who are suffering from parasites, or inflammation or just toxicity, or liver problems or hormone imbalance of any kind, or sleep issues, any of those — they will find that drinking this elixir before bed supports them in a gentle way and they'll start to feel a difference. 

So check out those blog posts that are going to be coming out really soon. It might already be out, depending on when you listen to this episode at learntruehealth.com. Just go to my website, learntruehealth.com. Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener and sharing these episodes with those you care about. My goal is to help. Originally, seven years ago, when I started, I said I want to help a million people, and I'm like, you know what, that's too small because there's a lot more than a million people suffering. Let's just help as many people as we can. Let's turn this ripple into a tidal wave. Keep sharing. Let's tip the scale. Tip the tides towards health for everyone because suffering should be optional. The information is out there, but people don't have access to it until we show them, until we say, hey over here, look over here. So you can always use the search function on my website to find all kinds of great resources. There are over 500 episodes. So there's lots and lots of information on every single symptom, condition, and health goal. Just go to learntruehealth.com and check it out and have yourself a fantastic rest of your day.

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Jun 30, 2023

Episodes About Fasting Mentioned In Today's Episode:
230: https://www.learntruehealth.com/fasting-for-healing
369: https://www.learntruehealth.com/cancer-causing-chemicals
390: https://www.learntruehealth.com/modified-fasting

Self-talk episodes: https://www.learntruehealth.com/?s=self+talk

Go here to check out the answer to our broken health insurance industry 
learntruehealth.com/healthcare

 

503: From Self-Talk to Autophagy: Ashley’s Inspiring 5-Day Water Fast Experience

 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/from-self-talk-to-autophagy-ashleys-inspiring-5-day-water-fast-experience

In this captivating podcast episode, Ashley and her husband Duffy delve into their transformative experience with a water-only fast, shedding light on its profound effects on their minds and bodies. They explore various intriguing topics, including the power of self-talk, the remarkable process of autophagy, the intricate workings of the addiction brain, and ultimately the liberating sense of freedom they discovered through this challenging yet enlightening journey. Tune in as they share their insights and reflections, offering a fascinating perspective on the holistic benefits of fasting and its impact on overall well-being.

Highlights: 

  • Ashley's first five-day water-only fast
  • Power of self-talk and overcoming resistance
  • Autophagy and its healing effects
  • Insights into the addiction brain
  • Discovering freedom through fasting

Intro:

Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 503.

[0:00:13.9] Ashley James: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health podcast. I just finished my first five-day fast, and I know my husband is shaking his head. He feels like I'm really late to the party. How many fasts have you done? How long have you been fasting? 

[0:00:33.7] Duffy James: At least, maybe, half a dozen, or maybe more. I don't know, eight?

[0:00:37.1] Ashley James: Yeah, we kind of lost track. But when did you start fasting? 

[0:00:40.3] Duffy James: It was right after I stopped eating meat since early 2018. My first one was around July mid-2018, I think. 

[0:00:55.2] Ashley James: I remember one that you did in 2020, February of 2020. I remember that one because it was like 17 days, and that stuck in my mind. I remember what we were doing. It was right before all the COVID shenanigans, and that was a 17-day one. How was the longest one you've done?

[0:01:17.9] Duffy James: I can't remember if it was 21 or 28 days now because I don't keep track of it.

[0:01:23.0] Ashley James: You just kind of go, and then the days go by.

[0:01:25.1] Duffy James: Yeah, they do. 

[0:01:27.3] Ashley James: So my husband has slowly become way more of a fasting expert than me.

[0:01:33.6] Duffy James:  Not an expert. I just can do it. It's system muscle, right? 

[0:01:37.2] Ashley James: Yeah, well, so this has been, I guess, my third official fast in my life. I did when I was a kid because I had to because they were doctor's orders. Actually, I wasn't a kid; I was thirteen. And that was the doctor's order, though, because I had a stomach bug. And he's like, you have to stop eating. I'm like, what? And then I did it, and I was fine. I was just hungry all the time, but I was 13.

[0:01:58.6] Duffy James: Well, it wouldn't work now because you don't take orders from doctors. 

[0:02:00.9] Ashley James: Yeah, I don't take orders from doctors. I do take advice from holistic doctors.

[0:02:05.1] Duffy James: True. But you don't want medicine—those kinds of doctors.

[0:02:08.8] Ashley James: Yeah, those kinds of doctors. Then they also had me on antibiotics. So it was my first time ever to be on antibiotics, actually. I was thirteen, and it's totally my fault because I binged on Halloween candy against my mother's wishes. And that's what you get when you rebel and eat too much sugar.

[0:02:26.5] Duffy James: You have an addictive personality. Is that what it is? 

[0:02:27.7] Ashley James: Yeah, and you also happen to have an addiction brain. But I learned my lesson. So, yeah, I just finished my first five-day fast, and I've gotten a lot of insights, and I wanted to hit record and share it because I thought it would be really helpful. But I wanted to just jam with my husband Duffy here because he's done so many fasts since 2018. How many years did you think you did? 

[0:02:55.1] Duffy James: I think, two. It's been two. 

[0:02:58.0] Ashley James: Yeah. I mean, sometimes when you just don't eat, you're just like, I don't eat today. And you will just do it. And then sometimes it'll be like, I didn't eat yesterday, so I guess I'm fasting.

[0:03:13.0] Duffy James: And I don't feel hungry anymore. 

[0:03:14.7] Ashley James: Did you feel hunger before fasting? 

[0:03:18.5] Duffy James: Yeah. Even on the first couple. But these last few I've done, it's just like, okay, I'm not going to do it, and then I don't, and I don't feel any hunger or any shift until my body starts slowing down for not having enough fuel. 

[0:03:35.3] Ashley James: I wanted to definitely ask you a few questions since you've done so many fasts, and now it's transformed your body. It transformed more than just physical. It has transformed your relationship to food, your relationship to hunger and hunger cues, and food doesn't have that hold on you as much as it did. So I definitely want to ask you a few questions. But I'd like to share some of my stuff. 

Okay, so before I get into my story, I wanted to say to listeners because I know there's going to be one, just like my mother-in-law freaking out right now because on day 2 of my fast, she goes, “What about the people who die of starvation?” And she's looking at me, and I'm like, “Do I look like I'm going to die of starvation in five days of not eating?” But for someone who's never missed a meal or never has missed a day of eating, for so many people who eat three meals a day, the thought of not eating is crazy. It's ridiculous. And Duffy did that. He's making gestures with his hands, like putting his hands by his head and going ‘boom.'

[0:04:39.3] Duffy James: I think I could do that because I have a face for podcasts. 

[0:04:42.5] Ashley James: Yes, and you have a voice for podcasts too. But it's definitely a mental shift, and I resisted fasting so much. But I had Dr. Alan Goldhamer on the show back in Episode #230. I remember that because that is Duffy's, one of his dad jokes. What is keto, the joke?

[0:05:06.5] Duffy James: You already said it. 

[0:05:08.4] Ashley James: Well, I didn't say the joke. 

[0:05:09.2] Duffy James: What's the perfect time to go to the dentist? 

[0:05:10.9] Ashley James: It's what?

[0:05:11.8] Duffy James: It's at 2:30. 

[0:05:12.3] Ashley James: 2:30. Tooth hurty. Yes, your tooth is hurting, so tooth hurty, yeah. So, Episode #230 with Dr. Alan Goldhamer. He runs a fasting clinic, and he's a holistic doctor. It's really interesting this whole episode because he talks about an example, one of them being a woman who came to his clinic with end-stage cancer and left his clinic a month later without cancer. So what happened? What happened in that one month? And he talks about autophagy and this amazing process of how the body, after 30 hours of fasting, is digesting pathological tissue. It's like turning the dishwasher on. We need to clean out our bodies and clean out the pathological tissue. And we were actually supposed to fast. And he talks about how we, as humans, fasted regularly out of necessity before we figured out how to store food, so our body went into healing mode as a means of survival and cleansing. And so he reassures us that anywhere from one to five days is completely healthy under normal circumstances. I mean, if you're on a bunch of medications, you should definitely speak to someone, like speak to the naturopathic physician or licensed doctor that's also hopefully holistic-minded that can guide you through it. 

[0:06:43.6] Duffy James: Usually, a lot of churches can help too because that's part of the.

[0:06:46.9] Ashley James: Oh yeah, that's why we keep hearing our church say stuff like, you got to fast and pray, fast and pray. 

[0:06:54.4] Duffy James: We got the fasting part figured out. 

[0:06:56.4] Ashley James: We definitely got the fasting part figured out. I always wondered why fasting and praying. Is it just because you're sacrificing yourself? Is it because it really prepares the mind?

[0:07:05.6] Duffy James: It changes your frequency, right? Remember, that's what got me started in fasting. It's that episode you did with the woman, I don't know her name, but she talked about the different energies of food and how that animal is like the lowest frequency that you can get your body. 

[0:07:21.4] Ashley James: Robyn Openshaw? 

[0:07:22.2] Duffy James: Oh, okay. 

[0:07:23.2] Ashley James: Yup, Robyn Openshaw came on the show a few times, and one of them was Episode #390, and in Episode #390, she talked about how we can do modified fasting for people who are maybe on medications or can't do full water-only fasting. There's a way to do modified fasting or eating a little bit, but it's under a certain amount of calories so that you still trigger autophagy which is the healthy, programmed cell death star. I'm sorry, that's apoptosis. Autophagy is the healthy cell cleansing where the cell digests its own pathological tissues and digests scars and cysts. This has been published in clinical observations, but in some cases, tumors are even known to be digested by the body during an extended fast. 

Another really interesting episode I did was with Troy Reicherter, and this was Episode #369. That's another one to check out if you're interested in learning more about fasting. He does a 30-day fast once a year. And you got him beat because you do two fasts a year. You're not doing a full 30-day fast, but you do two or three weeks fast.

[0:08:38.0] Duffy James: It's kind of three. I think there was a year that I skipped because I think I've done eight. So, however many that is.

[0:08:46.9] Ashley James: Well, okay, eight very long fasts compared to me.

[0:08:51.9] Duffy James: Well, now that you're doing it, I'll probably do it more. 

[0:08:54.1] Ashley James: We'll see. 

[0:08:55.7] Duffy James: We'll see because you've had success. 

[0:08:56.4] Ashley James: I've had success, and I'm looking forward to doing more. Let me walk you through my fast and why I did it. Sometime about a week ago, maybe it was in church; I can't actually remember when it happened. But I got a voice saying, you're starting a fast on Friday. And I'm like, okay. 

[0:09:22.9] Duffy James: But what was the date?

[0:09:24.7] Ashley James: I don't remember. Do you remember when I told you I was going to start the fast? Because I was like, it might have been last Monday, but I got a message.

[0:09:38.7] Duffy James: Oh, that. I don't think you shared that.  

[0:09:41.0] Ashley James: No, I know. That's why you're looking so surprised because I haven't told you this yet. But I got a definite divine…

[0:09:47.5] Duffy James: Request?

[0:09:49.9] Ashley James: Command? I don't know. 

[0:09:52.4] Duffy James: Well, you have free will. 

[0:09:53.0] Ashley James: I do have free will, but it was definitely like a strong suggestion. But it wasn't an internal voice and nudge. It was a spiritual nudge. It was a divine nudge. So the Holy Spirit said, “Hey, guess what? You're doing a fast on Friday.” And I'm like, “Alright, I'm ready.” And the thing is, every time I thought about doing fasting, I would always come up with excuses like, “Oh no, I have an interview next week.” There are no five days in which I didn't have something on my plate, and I'm like, “Well, I have to have to be eating for this.” That was my first excuse. My brain would come up with all kinds. So the body doesn't want to fast. Your brain wants you to keep eating, and it doesn't like the idea of fasting. So it's going to tell you all kinds of things. So my brain was like, “Well, you have an interview. You can't do it. You have this business phone call. You have these client calls. You can't not be eating.”

[0:10:56.1] Duffy James: You know what I'm thinking of? It's how your dad was a master salesperson. So you got him in your head, selling you. You've got his skills in your head, so you can talk to yourself at a master level. 

[0:11:13.9] Ashley James: I have my own sales. 

[0:11:16.1] Duffy James: And then with all your training, and all. 

[0:11:17.2] Ashley James: Yeah, you know, like the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. I've got a little salesman on one shoulder. It's my body speaking to me like, “Okay, these are the reasons why you're not going to do it. I'm going to totally sell you on not doing it.” So your brain can be pretty convincing. And then the other reasons were like, “Well, you have to cook every day for your family. You can't do that. You can't fast, and there are lots of reasons.” But something happened, and I think it's been working on me for a while. I don't know if you've ever had that experience where you feel like the holy spirit's working on you for a while, and it's suggesting, nudging, and bringing things to your attention, putting videos in front of you, or putting whatever it is in front of you over and over. You feel like it's maybe whittling away layers of, I don't know…

[0:12:07.2] Duffy James: Pulling out the spiritual earplugs. 

[0:12:09.3] Ashley James: Yes, yeah, and those layers of resistance of, “No, I don't want to change. I like being comfortable. I don't want to be uncomfortable.” So I'm just going to say the holy spirit said, “Go fast.” And it was Friday. It was just very specific. So I said, “Okay.” And I looked at my schedule, and it's like, “Well, I guess we'll see how I feel. I might have to reschedule this. I might have to reschedule that.” But you know what? I'm ready. I've been thinking about it for a long time.

[0:12:38.7] Duffy James: I was really excited for you when you told me. I would have been way more excited if you told me about the spiritual nudge.

[0:12:45.1] Ashley James: Right. 

[0:12:47.2] Duffy James: I get what it was for now.

[0:12:47.6] Ashley James: Yeah, it was for now. He's smiling. I wish you could see him. He's proud of me. That's cool. So here we have this, “Okay, I'm going for it.” I did not want to tell Duffy because I'm then committed. Once I tell my husband, he's going to feel like, “Where's this fast?” if I back out, if I chicken out.

[0:13:09.8] Duddy James: I'm going to hold you accountable. 

[0:13:10.5] Ashley James: I know. So I told him pretty much right away, though. Because I remember, I think we were standing in the kitchen, then I was like, “Hey, so by the way, Friday, I'm starting a fast.

[0:13:19.8] Duffy James: Yes, you were pretty excited.

[0:13:21.6] Ashley James: And I knew the second I said it, it was real. So I had to do it as soon as possible before I chickened out. And then Thursday, I had plans to go to the spa with my friend to celebrate something that happened in her life, and I really overdid it. We spent like three hours in the hot tub and then in the sauna. And I was chugging water the whole time, but I was acting kind of invincible, and that's not recommended. Usually, when I do infrared, it's for thirty minutes, not for three hours. So I came home very dehydrated with like a heat stroke headache. I pulled out all my holistic stuff and got myself on the mend. But that was an interesting way to start a fast because the next day, I was kind of wrecked from being in a sauna and a hot tub for three hours, feeling a little bit hungover. But I was committed. I was like, “Okay. Now I'm starting my fast.” I've been drinking water. And so all day Friday, I just felt really awful and hungry, and at some point, the headache from the heat stroke went away. And then the headache from not eating took over.

[0:14:31.9] Duffy James: Yeah, Friday was pretty rough for you. 

[0:14:33.4] Ashley James: Friday was rough. But all in all, it wasn't unmanageable. I never needed it. I don't go on pain meds. I have to be feeling really bad to go to an over-the-counter. Yeah, I would have to be really, really bad. CBD cream on my neck and shoulders helped, magnesium soak, and doing a PS really helped. I used the phototherapy patches. That really helped. And I used bioactive carbon supplements through Dr. Jay Davidson. He is amazing. Go listen to his two episodes. I don't have the numbers pulled up right now. But if you type Jay Davidson in learntruehealth.com, you'll listen to him. He created a carbon supplement that soaks up toxins, and it really works. I took four of those capsules, and within twenty minutes, I felt it sucking away the toxins, and I started really feeling better. You can check that out by going to learntruehealth.com/cleanse

So all of these things — I'm pulling out all the stuff, and of course, the phototherapy patches were so helpful. Hunger was manageable. It was just drinking water, but what was really interesting was every fifteen seconds, my brain would say, “Hey, it's time to eat. You're hungry. It's time to eat. You're hungry.” I wonder if you've ever had self-talk that was insistent, like your brain and body are going,” It's time to eat.” And then I would say — I would think this in my head, “No, I'm fasting.” And then my brain will go, “Oh, yeah.” Fifteen seconds later, “It's time to eat. You're hungry.” And I always had this constant OCD thought. I had to constantly remind myself. It was really interesting. I had to constantly remind myself, “I'm fasting. Oh yeah,” over and over again. It was like noise in my head, just constant noise. And so this was it. But on the first day, I was like, this is impossible. It was just like the chatter. Like, “I'm hungry,” and I had to keep saying, “I'm fasting. I'm fasting. Drink water, drink water.”

The next day, Saturday, I was feeling pretty good. I was a little tired in the morning, but I was in a good mood, and I noticed that it was only every forty-five seconds I had to tell my brain that we were fasting instead of every fifteen. I felt just a little bit light-headed, not too bad, and it would come and go, and it was totally manageable. And then we ended up taking our son to the park. We went for a long walk with our friend and her kids, and I felt great the whole time. I thought I brought enough water. Always bring more water than you think you need because I brought what I thought was enough water. And then our son spilled half of a jar, and then he drank the other half. So I ended up running out of water, and so I'm like, “No, I got to get home.”

[0:17:29.3] Duffy James: That's one of the main things I like about fasting. It's so easy to get water in. You just chug it.

[0:17:37.1] Ashley James: Yeah, you got to drink it. Also, I want to know how much my fast was helped by drinking the structured water from the analemma; all the water I stirred with the analemma. And I have an episode about that, with structured water. You can check it out on the website as well, learntruehealth.com. You can find it there. And so, Saturday, I came home, and I had a tiny, maybe 1 out of 10 headache. I drank some water. I even went to the grocery store to get some supplies for the kid who never stops eating and is growing like a weed. I came home, and I just felt good. And then, Sunday, I was on top of the world. That was just day three.

[0:18:29.6] Duffy James: I believe that's the high.

[0:18:31.5] Ashley James: I was on top of the world, and I was just really full of energy. I was actually surprised at how full of energy I was. And we ended up going to church, and I couldn't believe that I stood, we sang. I felt so good. I felt so full. And I noticed something shifting because that constant, “You're hungry. Eat. You're hungry. Eat,” was gone. Maybe three or four times that day, it was like, “I'm hungry.” And I was like, “Yeah, but we're fasting.” Okay, and I'd drink some water, and it would go away. The hunger doesn't stay. It would come, and it would be painful. Not painful, but it would be uncomfortable, which is what we don't like. We don't like being uncomfortable. Our body doesn't like being uncomfortable. But that's something that we need. We need to be uncomfortable at times to push, grow, and learn. 

So Sunday, this is day three, I just felt amazing. And I noticed these moments where my mind was empty in a good way; that I was just being in the now. And I kind of lost the capacity, somewhere around day two, to fully multitask. Women can sometimes listen to the radio, listen to kids talking, text, do three or four things at a time. 

[0:19:54.8] Duffy James: Yeah, I see you do that. I still don't believe it. I don't know. I can't. I'm, like, one channel.

[0:19:57.2] Ashley James: I can do it. Usually, I can multitask.

[0:20:04.6] Duffy James: I know. I still won't believe it when you do it. 

[0:20:06.5] Ashley James: I know. I can do it. But on the fast, there was only one channel. And so, when I was driving, our son started talking to me, I'm like, “No, no, no, I'm driving. I can only focus on driving. I can't also focus on you talking.” And I just noticed that this single channel took over. And that's where I think the praying, the fasting and meditating, or fasting and praying, comes in because there's no chatter. There's no chaos going on in my brain. It was peaceful in my brain. Other than the occasional, like my body nagging for food.

[0:20:43.0] Duffy James: When your brain has changed its state, it's in a break state.

[0:20:46.4] Ashley James: It is a break state, yeah. 

[0:20:47.8] Duffy James: And on a slower time frame. 

[0:20:52.1] Ashley James: So then Sunday afternoon, evening, I started getting this huge rush. Now, I was also wearing the phototherapy patches, which I definitely think was one of the reasons why I had this huge rush of energy, and I spent hours picking away at the house, cleaning, running around, and Duffy just wanted me to sit down and chill with him, and watch some TV which he normally does not. He very seldom. 

[0:21:17.3] Duffy James: I needed you in the evening to slow down.

[0:21:19.1] Ashley James: Yeah, he was trying to get me to slow down so he'd put on something on TV for me, and I was like, “No, we're cleaning. I want to run around.” And I got really productive. I also noticed that I was very hot like I was making a lot of heat in my body. So it was like burning off energy, and I just felt happiness, peace, and I felt fulfillment. Not full of food, but I felt full of spirit. So then, I don't know what, I hit a wall. So Sunday was the best. That was day three. Originally I was only going to do a three-day fast because I wasn't told how long the fast was supposed to be. I was just told you're starting to fast on Friday. And originally, I was going to do three days, and then Duffy's like…

[0:22:02.3] Duffy James: Well, you don't get the benefits until day five.

[0:22:04.9] Ashley James: Well, come on. You do get some benefits on day three. The big stuff happens on day five, like the human growth hormone spike and the stem cells spike. There are some great benefits for 5-days. To be honest, there was, I think, a part of me that was kind of terrified because we have a friend, who's a naturopathic doctor, and she's afraid of fasting because a long time ago, she had a boyfriend who fasted, and then she had to rush him to the hospital. This was back before she was a doctor, and she didn't know what was going on and so she's afraid of fasting. She's like, “Don't ever fast. It's so bad for you.” She was so afraid of it. And I've talked to so many doctors there since then who were saying, “Yeah if you do it properly.” Sure, some people can experience some issues, but for the most, it's very safe. There are ways to get around issues and start slow. Don't do more, like Dr. Goldhamer says, don't do more than a five-day fast. Like he says, one to five-day fasts is totally safe to do at home as long as you're in fairly good health. You're not on a bunch of meds. And then my husband's like, “No, I'm just going to listen to my body, and I'm just going to keep fasting until…

[0:23:19.3] Duffy James: Yeah, I didn't really have any trouble. Something comes up, usually, and it's like, I should probably get back to food. I think every time I end it, it's because of some external circumstance. But I wanted to keep going. But it was like, in my best interest to eat. 

[0:23:34.2] Ashley James: Yeah. But it's usually like two or three weeks, and then you refeed. So, something happened yesterday, and I hit a bit of a wall. Wall in that, I was hoping the energy I had on Sunday would continue. And that was not the case. My body wanted to rest, and maybe that's because I was kind of coming out of the third day. I'm coming into the 5th day, the fourth day. There were some big transitions for me, and my body wanted to rest. And so we went to the park; I brought my lawn chair, and I sat in the sun, put my feet up, and closed my eyes. My friend, we were talking, and half the time, I couldn't even keep my eyes open. I was yawning, chugging water, yawning, watching the kids play, and just relaxing. And what I noticed is that that level of peace deepened, and I had really just a deep and full sense of peace. That's when I was like, oh yeah. I get the whole meditation, praying, or fasting thing because I'm already there. I'm already halfway into meditation, just sitting in my lawn chair, just relaxing into my body. There's definitely an experience of emotions, an experience of the spiritual aspect of yourself and of life. And I started to reflect on the things I've been working on, on myself, and the things I'm improving. I'm healing, and I'm grappling with the idea of an addiction brain and how I would look at food, like preparing food for our son or you. I'd look at food while I was on the fast, and I'd look at it, and I go, you know, there's this part of me that it's like, there's never enough. There's a pit inside, and nothing will satisfy that pit, and I think that's the addiction brain, right? Like nothing will satisfy that, and it was an interesting observation. I kind of looked at this from different angles throughout the years, but to look at it from a fast, it's like it's okay. It's okay not to try to fill that unfillable void. 

[0:25:53.7] Duffy James: It's a totally new perspective for your brain. 

[0:25:56.3] Ashley James: Yeah. And also, it's like looking at a part of me that I'm ashamed of. Because in society, it's definitely not respected to have an addiction brain and to talk about it, right? And so, I feel vulnerable talking about it, but at the same time, it's like I'm also working on it. I'm looking at it like, when did this start? And I was asking myself, when did this start? As a kid, I remember I did not care about food. I did not think about food as a kid.

[0:26:30.7] Duffy James: But when you usually talk about it, you'd say, “I turned into a teen. I started to rebel.” It was high school when you'd buy french fries in the lunchroom.

[0:26:39.0] Ashley James: That's exact. And that's when I was at the park and with my eyes closed, just with the sun and the breeze, and just being with myself; it's like the fast gave me the ability to not have any mental capacity for handling tasks. I was not a taskmaster. So I just sat there, and I was just with myself. I remember as a child, I just ate what was put in front of me, whether I liked it or not. I wasn't happy when they fed me fish. I didn't like picking the bones out, but I ate it because I didn't think that there was a choice. And they would put food in front of me, and I'd eat it. Sometimes I'd like it, and sometimes I didn't. Once in a while, we'd go to the restaurant. I liked that. But during my life, I wasn't even thinking about food, overeating, emotional eating, or caring about it. And then, right around thirteen, when I had the antibiotics because I rebelled and ate the candy. That's my first experience with antibiotics. And so, just looking at the shift, and then I saw in my teenage years how my mom would put me on a diet after diet even though I wasn't overweight. 

[0:27:51.0] Duffy James: And so, that might have messed up your metabolism that you're learning now.

[0:27:55.7] Ashley James: Yeah. And then going towards food, because I had this void in me, the hurt and the rejection, and all that stuff from my parents and from being an angsty teenager, food is the drug and can be used like a drug. But now, coming out from the fast, it's like, I can see more clearly that part of me. When it's going like I just want 100 bowls of that food, or whatever it is, there's that part that's just there's no satisfying it. And can I quiet it? I don't always have it. But it definitely became loud in the fast because I wasn't eating. And that's what it wants. It wants to be fed.

[0:28:51.8] Duffy James: But I think what you'll notice when you start eating as you're refeeding is that your relationship with food will have been completely reset. And the cravings, or at least this is what I noticed, that the food cravings or the need to eat out of boredom or anything like that, I felt like I had a completely new perspective on it. And I could just not be interested in it like I was for the same reasons that I was in the past. So it will be interesting to hear if you noticed that too.

[0:29:27.4] Ashley James: Well, my second official fast, which was…

[0:29:31.4] Duffy James: What were your two experiences?

[0:29:34.2] Ashley James: So this is my third fast. My first was when I was thirteen. My second was right when we got the Sunlighten sauna, and our son broke his arm, right? That kind of happened right around the same time. That was 2017. So in 2017, I did a 3-day fast, and then I broke the fast because our son broke his arm. We had to go to the hospital, so I wanted to eat something so that I could handle the mental hula hoops I needed to go through because we were going to a children's hospital. 

So overall, I had a really good experience. I noticed fears coming up around food, like interesting thoughts, and they weren't me. Sometimes it's like your thoughts, aren't you right? And so, I've become the observer of these thoughts, and I'd say, “That's interesting.” Like, this is an interesting thought because this thought was recurring. So I'm like, okay, so there's something to work here and uncover. It would help that I'd say, “Hey, this is a thought that I keep having, but it's not me. I don't own this thought, but it is a pattern, so there's something going on. And this thought kept coming up like, almost a few saying something like, “What if this doesn't fix me?” These are the fears. I know it's illogical, right? Fears aren't logical. But I kept going. This is interesting. So I go to the kitchen, and I cook you guys some food. I wouldn't eat, and then the chatter would come back. “Oh, I want to eat that.” And I'm like, “Well, how much do you want to eat it? Like, how much do you want it?” It's like, “I want all of it.” That void is like I want unlimited amounts. So the void, the addiction, the craving, or whatever it is, is like there's none. And I kept looking and going, but there was no amount that would satisfy that craving. So I don't need to try to satisfy it because there's no amount that would. The fear was something like, what if when I refed and got back to eating, it's all going to be the same? You know what I mean? What if this doesn't change me, or will this work? It was a weird, interesting thought. And I was like, okay. So I'm just observing this. I'm observing this thought because it's an irrational fear, right? But it was interesting because I guess these voices — not these voices. They weren't voices like a possession or demon or something. It was just more like the voices of this draw, this pull, this addiction. I keep calling it addiction because it's the best way I can describe it. Maybe I could call it a relationship I have with food and my self-talk around food. And so I just got to examine it. 

So anyways, I had dinner tonight. This is my refeed, and it was a very small meal because it was like I did three steamed carrots and a little bit of mashed potatoes. I ate slowly. I chewed. And I noticed that I got full really fast. I mean, that's predictable, right? But I put the food down, and there's still food in the bowl, and I'm like, I'm fine. I'm done. And that's something I expected. I expected to do that. But there was peace. There was peaceful eating, and there was peace afterward.

[0:32:59.8] Duffy James: But did you notice that when you set it down when you haven't finished it, you felt complete with it, instead of needing to feel complete with an empty dish? That was my thing because when I grew up, you ate everything on your plate, and it had to be done that way. So I think I had been programmed to finish my plate no matter what, and then the fasting showed me a feeling of need in the moment, instead of the need my brain is telling me or my programming is telling me to eat, to clear the plate. 

[0:33:34.6] Ashley James: Not until too full. Like, we would just eat too much. And you know, the studies with longevity are that those who eat nutrient-dense food, low calories live the longest. They have the least amount of disease, and we can survive on way fewer calories. I know calories are not a good measurement for food because really it's about nutrient density. We don't need as much, and there's something beautiful about eating simple. And a lot of people rebel when I talk about cutting out oil, cutting out sugar, cutting out flour, cutting out salt. “What am I going to eat?” Or cutting out meat, or eggs, and dairy.

[0:34:14.6] Duffy James: It seems when you're cutting out all these things, you have to buy or worry about, or it will go bad, or all these things. You just have to worry about so much less.

[0:34:26.0] Ashley James: Just try. Try cutting out these foods. They're left with, “Well, food is not going to taste good.”

[0:34:32.8] Duffy James: It's better.  

[0:34:34.0] Ashley James: Well, it does. But first, you have to adapt your palate to that. And a lot of times, people's addiction brain comes up, or their relationship with food, and their rebellion with food, and how they seek pleasure and comfort from food — that comes up. And it's a big conflict because they want to stay comfortable instead of making themselves uncomfortable to get healthy. So it's a challenge, but it's interesting. Ask anyone who wants to be healthy. Ask them, “Are you willing to give up these foods in exchange for these foods and just eat vegetables, fruit, starchy vegetables, and some non-gluten grains? Can you eat brown rice, kale, and broccoli? First, they think it's going to be gross. I'm not going to get pleasure. What about the holidays? And that's just like me and the self-talk at the beginning of every time I thought about doing a fast. That self-talk comes up. It's like, “What about this? What about that? I couldn't eat that way. I couldn't do it.” It's like, why not? It's because of your relationship with food. 

And so I was going into this fast. My intention really was to go into the experience. Everyone talks about how cool fasting and praying is, or fasting and meditating. So I wanted to know what's up. Does fasting really help prayer? Or does it feel like you're more connected to the source? And certainly, I did when I prayed because it's the only thing happening in my mind. It was the only thing happening in my body. I was so in the moment. That's another thing I haven't talked about. I was so in the moment. It's like the past melted away. The future melted away. I did not know what was happening in five minutes. I did not know what was happening tomorrow, and there was no anxiety about it, no worry about it. There's no thinking about the future. I was so in the now. My body was so present. I was just melted. It was like I melted away, and I just became the observer being in the moment. Even when we were cleaning, talking, walking, or just sitting, whatever I was doing, I just felt like I melted away, and I was just being in the moment. I had long stretches where there were no thoughts in my mind, and it was so peaceful. I was just in the moment, and I wasn't even trying to. That was just an effect of the fast. So I was like, there's something really cool about this. But everything came to the forefront and was really loud, so I could examine it easily. 

[0:37:16.2] Duffy James: That's a good way to put it.

[0:37:18.9] Ashley James: Yeah. It allowed me to mull over things like, “Oh, what's going on here?” Sometimes our worst enemies are our habits have created our own health problems — the things we choose to eat, the habits we choose to do, and the things we choose not to do.

[0:37:39.8] Duffy James: And supporting those toxic systems that want you to eat toxic food.

[0:37:43.9] Ashley James: Right, yeah. And all of that can be let go, and there's going to be resistance in your head. I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's the ego or if it's the unconscious, or if it's some kind of programming, or if it's the body, or if it's the dopamine you're seeking. Whoever it is, there's something in us that fights change, that fights the uncomfortable, that fights taking away little pleasures that are hurting us. And that fast brought forth a lot for me to process. So it was worth it. I really loved it, and I love that I had my husband here to cheer me on. And also, I can complain to him and say, “I'm hungry,” and he's like, “Keep going. You can do it.” And I'm like, “I know, but I'm hungry.” And then I would drink some water, and we would do something else. Oh, today, I'm on my fifth day, he gave me a foot rub, and that was really sweet of him. So thank you. 

[0:38:45.9] Duffy James: You're welcome. 

[0:38:48.3] Ashley James: So, your experience with fasting, did you have any ‘aha' moment that you can remember? 

[0:38:53.8] Duffy James: I think the reset with the relationship with food, and it's more of a body experience instead of a mind or brain experience.

[0:39:06.1] Ashley James: Yeah, cool. Anything you learned from refeeding after your fasts?

[0:39:12.2] Duffy James: Oh, that. I suck at that. I go straight for food. I take the pain. 

[0:39:18.7] Ashley James: It's not good for you.

[0:39:19.5] Duffy James: It's just easier for me to do it that way. I know you freak out about it.

[0:39:24.5] Ashley James: I definitely support him in refeeding by making him soups and smoothies, and what he's supposed to eat like soft foods for a few days, and then he's like, “Whatever! I want a burrito.” 

[0:39:38.4] Duffy James: I was like, “When I'm done, I'm done.” 

[0:39:40.6] Ashley James: You can't just go for a burrito. You need to not eat salt. You have to definitely make sure you avoid any form of added salt. 

[0:39:51.1] Duffy James: But that's just my personality. 

[0:39:52.6] Ashley James: I know, I know. For me and for the listeners, do you have any advice for people who've never fasted?

[0:39:57.6] Duffy James: Well, do it. You just start. For any length of time, just pick a length of time and go for it. 

[0:40:07.5] Ashley James: For those who've never fasted, how do you get over the initial hunger? How do you get over the initial feeling of being tired? How did you do it? 

[0:40:16.3] Duffy James: Brute force. This is what's happening, and any pushback is ignored. 

[0:40:25.9] Ashley James: I kind of felt like I had to dig deep into that. I know deep down I'm really powerful, and I can do whatever I really, really put my mind to.

[0:40:36.3] Duffy James: I'd use a whole lot of won't power. I just won't do it. 

[0:40:42.7] Ashley James: Right. I'm just going to drink water and not eat.

[0:40:47.0] Duffy James: Right. Just set the intention and go. 

[0:40:48.4] Ashley James: And warn your family that you might be grumpy because there were a few times I was hangry and…

[0:40:53.5] Duffy James: You weren't that bad.

[0:40:55.1] Ashley James: I know. But I wasn't sweet.

[0:40:59.4] Duffy James: I can't see that any other way, so I don't know.

[0:41:01.6] Ashley James: Look at this kissing up to me. Love it. Did you observe anything in me during my fast that I haven't talked about? Were you surprised I did five days? 

[:41:19.0] Duffy James: No, I knew you could do it. I was bummed when you ended it because I was like, “Oh, go for seven,” because it gets better.

[0:41:27.4] Ashley James: Tell us about how it gets better after day five.

[0:41:30.3] Duffy James: I just remember it gets better. I need to journal because I don't.

[0:41:36.2] Ashley James: Oh, you need to journal. You need to journal. 

[0:41:42.2] Duffy James: There's no need to edit.

[0:41:44.4] Ashley James: I'm not taking that out. It is down. You said it. It's on.

[0:41:49.7] Duffy James: It's been said before. 

[0:41:52.7] Ashley James: It's been said. That would be so cool. You should totally journal during your fast. 

[0:41:56.5] Duffy James: Yeah, maybe I will. 

[0:41:58.0] Ashley James: And that's why I'm doing this. This is my journal, by the way. You could do an audio journal if you wanted to. 

[0:42:03.0] Duffy James: Click play, episode 510.

[0:42:10.4] Ashley James: I think this is going to be 503. I'm not sure. I got to look. But yes, I'm going to play it for you, and you're like, “See? Listen to yourself. You say you need to journal.” Why are you sticking your fingers in your ears? What have you said in the past? This marriage didn't come with earplugs?

[0:42:28.6] Duffy James: No, I did not. 

[0:42:29.2] Ashley James: No? Alright. Well, I do remember on your fast that somewhere in week two, you're just kind of so happy. And you've never had moments where you can't drive. You act like yourself, which is great because I'm down to one channel. I can only do one task at a time when I'm fasting. And you, you're great. You do the dad stuff. You drive our kid around. You do stuff in the business. But in week two, I do notice that you sort of kind of got cold.

[0:43:13.3] Duffy James: Oh, one thing that I did notice with two of the fasts that I've done that are longer than a week, is I was not strict with what went in my mouth. The gummy supplements we have, I would take a couple more. I would take a handful of cashews; that won't hurt anything. And that's a slippery slope. That's a lot harder to cheat. It's very hard to recover. Whereas if it's a strict fast, it's actually easier. You're not taunting yourself. So that would probably be the biggest advice. Don't even cheat a little bit, even though it's still considered fasting if it's less than 300 calories a day.

[0:44:19.2] Ashley James: I think it depends. Yeah, somewhere around 500 calories. It's like if you're going to eat complex or starchy carbohydrates, it will take you out of ketosis. But there are certain foods you could eat. It's more of individuals. I know someone who could eat asparagus or zucchini, and it takes them out of ketosis. Whereas another person could eat a potato and they're still in ketosis.

[0:44:42.3] Duffy James: I just found it was best not to. It's a slippery slope. 

[0:44:47.0] Ashley James: Sometimes, occasionally, you would have an electrolyte drink or clear vegetable broth with no sodium, just for electrolytes, and you felt fine. But anything beyond that would put a monkey wrench in the whole thing, and then it would make the fasting really hard. You kind of got grumpy.

[0:45:13.8] Duffy James: Yeah, and then I'd give up. I know I said they ended up external. There were two of them. Now that I'm thinking about it, I sabotaged it. I did not, really, because it wasn't like six cashews. It was only five.

[0:45:30.9] Ashley James: Yeah, you justify it. Those are the voices in the head. I know we're justifying it. This is just this. It can totally be fine. And those little voices, you got to observe them and then talk to them. Glenn Livingston, I had him on the show, like, five times, and he's amazing. You should definitely check out his episodes. Glenn talked about how we have this inner. He calls it his inner pig, and I call it my inner brat because I totally have a brat that's like, “I want what I want when I want it.” And Duffy definitely has his own inner brat that we all do. Is it a brat? 

[0:46:16.4] Duffy James: Uh-hm.

[0:46:18.0] Ashley James: Yup? And sometimes, we get stubborn, and we just want what we want when we want it. There were a few fasts I noticed where you got cold. Your hands got cold. Do you always get cold during fasting or just sometimes? 

[0:46:37.6] Duffy James: I think so. That's just part of it.

[0:46:40.8] Ashley James: I noticed I was cold. Actually, I was cold today. I wanted slippers on my feet, and I did notice that I was getting cold. So that's part of it. Nothing to worry about here. Cool. And sleep, was sleep deeper for you on fasting? Because I noticed some nights, I was in a deep sleep, and some nights it was almost like I felt I was still awake. I think I was detoxing. I noticed I felt like I was awake half the night. 

[0:47:08.3] Duffy James: I'm not as in-tuned in my sleep as you are. I just do it. Whether it was good or bad, I slept.

[0:47:19.5] Ashley James: So when is your next fast? 

[0:47:21.5] Duffy James: I don't know. Do you want to do it together on your next? 

[0:47:25.7] Ashley James: Ah, yeah. But this isn't going to be like…

[0:47:29.4] Duffy James: Would you ever do five days or not? 

[0:47:31.3] Ashley James: I'm probably going to do five days again. 

[0:47:32.2] Duffy James: I want double digits. It's more fun.

[0:47:33.5] Ashley James: Oh, I don't know. I'll work up to it.

[0:47:35.1] Duffy James: Okay. Well, I'll do it with you. I'm getting on the next one.

[0:47:38.8] Ashley James: Yeah, sure. I'm very happy about this fast, and I'm glad we could come on and share about it. It's an interesting experience. I like that I set an intention. I like that the universe, God, Holy Spirit, whatever we call it, was like, “All right, you're ready. Let's go.” So it does kind of help to have a higher power telling you, calling your name. But then, just the observation of what's going on mentally, what's going on emotionally — and the best thing was when I could become the observer instead of buying into the drama. If the brat was still freaking out in my brain about how hungry I was, or how I just wanted to eat, or “I'm so grumpy today. I just want to eat.” Well, I could just watch that and go, “Wow, this is an interesting behavior.”

[0:48:34.5] Duffy James: I think the biggest thing is the change in perspective because it's completely different. 

[0:48:38.4] Ashley James: Well, like today, when I had dinner to break the fast, it was a very small amount of food. I felt satisfied. I put the bowl down. There's still food in it, and I took a breath, and I felt my whole abdomen. I just checked in with it, and I went, “This feels right. This feels good. This feels right. This is good. Okay, cool.” And I noticed because we've been having this talk with our son who's fighting us on eating healthy. Well, we don't serve him junk food, but I'm trying to get more vegetables into him, and he's like, “I don't like vegetables.” He's decided he doesn't like them.

[0:49:12.7] Duffy James: Can you blame him? 

[0:49:13.8] Ashley James: I love vegetables. They're so healthy. 

[0:49:15.6] Duffy James: I don't.

[0:49:15.9] Ashley James: I know. Dude, you can't be a vegan that doesn't like vegetables.

[0:49:20.7] Duffy James: But I do it. 

[0:49:21.7] Ashley James: I feed him vegetables. So, I'm having these conversations with our son, who's like, he didn't want to eat dinner tonight. He's like, “I don't like the taste of this,” and he starts crying. He's eight years old. He's like, “Oh, please don't make me eat this.” I'm like, “I'm not going to make you eat it. But yeah, we made this, and we don't want it to go to waste, and it's healthy for you.” And so I negotiate with him. “What else will you eat? Pick another vegetable.” And I keep talking to him about how it doesn't need to taste good to make it healthy for you. That's just enjoyment. That's just a bonus. But it's okay to eat something that isn't the tastiest thing in the world, as long as it's healthy for you and it's building your body. So I don't love cooked carrots. I really don't. It's not on my top 50, and yet that's what I cooked, and that's what we had in the fridge. And I was like, fine, I'm making it. And I ate it, and I enjoyed it. It's not my favorite. I don't love it, but I'm like, I'm just going to be here in the moment chewing this food, feeling it, and asking it to nourish my body. And I'm going to be okay with and be at peace with eating food. 

I already eat super clean and healthy. I'm very, very good about the food. But I did in the past find that I was choosing meals based on the pleasure factor instead of the health and nutrition factor. Even though I was still eating whole food, plant-based, super clean, and organic, I still noticed that cravings would come up there. Like, oh, you know, don't eat that, eat this, because of the pleasure. I'm like, that's not what I want. I want to be able to make food choices based on how good it is for me and be okay with the different levels of pleasure I may or may not get from food. So that was another thing that I got out of this fast. Yeah. Awesome. 

[0:51:19.2] Duffy James: Well, thanks for having me on. 

[0:51:20.9] Ashley James: Yeah, thanks for coming on. Maybe we'll have you on again. 

[0:51:23.8] Duffy James: Yeah, we'll see how when my arm heals. Maybe I'll come on again. 

[0:51:30.4] Ashley James: Well, welcome to the 500s.

[0:51:32.1] Duffy James: Yeah, thank you. It took me that long to bring up the courage to do it. 

[0:51:36.5] Ashley James: But I think you said one sentence in an episode, like, maybe twenty episodes ago. So yeah, good job. 

I hope you enjoyed today's interview with myself. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with my husband, Duffy, and me. I was talking about our experiences with fasting. When I recorded this conversation that you just listened to with my husband, Duffy, I had just finished my 5-day fast, and it had been a few hours after my first meal breaking the fast. Now, I'm sitting here about to hit publish. I wanted to update you. So it's been two days now into refeeding. A really interesting development — I thought the hardest part about fasting would be hunger. But the hardest part is refeeding. I just want to go back. I just want to jump back into regular food, and you can't. You really shouldn't. The longer the fast, the more gentle you should refeed. And as Troy Reicherter said in our interview, Episode #369, where he tells his story, he fasts one to three times a year doing these really long 30-day fasts. So you definitely go back and listen to Episode #369. He's been on the show a few times. Interestingly, he has spent over $40,000 of his own money and invested in blood testing because he wants to prove that we can use fasting to get rid of forever chemicals out of our body and to take out these chemicals that are known carcinogens, known as cancer-causing. So you can go back and listen to that Episode #369

One thing he tells is a story about how he got a little cocky. He had to fly to Asia. I believe it was a funeral he was going to. He is kind of distracted. He was just wrapping up a 30-day fast. And on the flight, he ate a bag of peanuts or whatever they gave, like pretzels or whatever they gave out. And I've seen the video where he's like, “Oh, I'm at the end of a fast. It's fine. I'll just eat regular food.” And the problem with that is, and Troy explains to us in the interview, our kidneys, while we're fasting, are so efficient. Then when we stop eating food, they concentrate our electrolytes. So they'll concentrate the salt and the potassium. They'll concentrate the wonderful electrolytes. And those who have kidney problems, if you're on medication or have any organ issues, you definitely want to talk to a doctor. 

You know, you could talk to Dr. Alan Goldhamer. That's Episode #230, and you can contact the True North Medical Center. That's his center, and it's a non-profit. It's a live-in center where you go and stay there. You can stay there for a week, for a month. He's had one man do a 100-day fast with him successfully, very healthily because you're constantly monitored by doctors. It's on my bucket list. I really want to go there. It's just a matter of money, and maybe when our son is older, so I would feel comfortable leaving my family to go do that or maybe taking my whole family if we could afford the expense of it. Last I looked, it was something like $180 a day, which is room and board. And when you're not fasting, they feed you amazingly healthy, delicious food. They have classes, and they teach you, and you're surrounded by holistic doctors who are all there to support you in your success. So it sounds wonderful. For me, it's just like a vacation. Like, I want to go to a fasting clinic where it's like a little fasting resort in California. But the True North Medical Center has Dr. Alan Goldhamer and other doctors you can call and do a consultation. Just go to their website. Just Google True North Medical Center and you can talk to them. So if you're concerned like, “Hey, I have these issues, and I'm wondering if fasting is good for me or right for me,” there are doctors who are really well educated on fasting. A lot of doctors aren't educated on fasting. So they would just kind of tell you what they think, but they wouldn't have the background, the science background, or the clinical experience to inform you correctly. 

So having said that, Troy ate some peanuts. Now, remember, the longer you fast, the more your kidneys are being very smart in that they're reclaiming the sodium and concentrating it, so instead of you urinating it out, it's keeping it, putting it back in the blood, And so, when you start refeeding, you want to eat soft foods like steamed vegetables, or broth, soups, juices, smoothies. But you want to make sure that it's soft. There's no added salt, no sodium added. I mean, if it's naturally occurring, like a carrot, there are five micrograms of salt and sodium in it. Okay, it came from the ground. And you do this for several days and slowly until you can eat solid foods again.

Well, he just fasted so many times. He was like, “Oh, what could this do? It's just a bag of peanuts.” And you are on this very long flight, coupled with maybe the stress, and maybe he's not drinking enough, and even just flying tends to kind of bloat people — well, he almost died. He ended up with his whole body becoming a balloon. His fingers became like sausages. He couldn't close his fingers. His feet wouldn't fit in the shoes. He ballooned out, and I think he told me he ended up going to a hospital or almost did, and then he realized, “Oh yeah, I broke my fast with possibly the saltiest snack in the world, with peanuts from an airplane.” That's a really good indicator, a really good warning. 

So it's so important whether you are doing a one-day, three-day, five-day, seven-day, whatever water-only fasting you're doing, you want to make sure the whole time that you're healthy with your electrolytes. If you start to get cramping or have any of those symptoms where you may feel like your electrolytes are a little off, I hear that diluted coconut water is a great natural electrolyte without fully breaking the fast. And so is the sodium-free broth. Not low-sodium, not regular broth, but clear, no sodium, vegetable broth. There's only one brand I can find, and it's at Sprouts. And so I buy up a few and keep them around for when Duffy's on his very long fast. When he does several weeks, he likes to drink one once in a while and just a little bit to keep him balanced. 

So, I refed and slept the last two days. And you know, five-day fast refeeding takes like two days. It's not that big of a deal. I'm back to eating solid foods again. I noticed that I eat slower. I chew more. I mean, I'm asking myself to chew more, but I also chew more because I'm really enjoying the flavors. I noticed that during the fast — I didn't mention this in our conversation when I talked to Duffy — I noticed that through the fast my sense of smell was heightened. Or maybe I did talk about it. I can't remember now. Because Duffy and I did mention — he says he has kind of, like people who say, they quit smoking and all of a sudden they can smell food again. They can taste food again. It's not like they couldn't before, but now it's just that everything's elevated. And that's what I feel, like my senses elevated, but I was expecting that to not be as intense and in a good way. And what's great is, now, two days after the fast, my sense of taste is elevated, and I am so chewing, and I'm going, “Wow, what's that flavor?” I made a salad, and I'm like, “Oh, what's that flavor? What was that? That was a tomato? What was that? That was some cilantro? Oh my gosh.” 

I noticed that I'm happier. I'm just happier in my body. Not that I was sad before. I'm generally a very cheerful person. But I have this peace, and I'm not going to say it's gone completely, but the intensity of the self-talk around food is calmer and more peaceful. Once in a while, my self-talk is a little judgy, like, “How many of those are you going to eat? I'm like, “Wow, a judgy voice in my head.” I'm going to eat one because I'm going to just feel my body and see how I feel. Even if it's healthy food, it's like, I could eat a salad, and this little voice in my head is going, “Wow, you're eating so much.” I'm like, “Where did you come from?” But I can hear those voices now instead of it being like this constant frustration, and the fast brought them forward. So now I'm working on the self-talk. And I've had interviews, by the way, on self-talk. Type in ‘self-talk' at learntruehealth.com. I've had some mental health counselors come on and talk about working with self-talk and, why did we develop negative self-talk, and how to calm it, how to heal that or get rid of it. I've had different guests come on. So I've been leaning on those tools and listening to the self-talk; I'm going, “Wow, this is really interesting.” 

It's much calmer. There's much more peace in my head and in my heart. But in my body, there's a feeling — and it's so cool because I didn't know this would continue — but since the fast, I feel elated. It's very similar to euphoria, but it's not ungrounded. I feel grounded. I feel in the now. I feel at peace. My cells are buzzing with happiness, and I'm eating good food. Everything I've been eating has been pretty much vegetables, really healthy stuff, a little bit of fruit here, and I've got a lot of vegetables. I just made the most delicious white beans with garlic. They're so good. And I just had a little bit, and I'm going, “I can't believe how good this tastes.” I can feel my body is just happy. So I really wanted to share that with you. So if you're someone who has been just frustrated, struggling with their emotional health or their feelings around their body, please try it. Just try it for whatever you can. If it's right for you, do it. It's beautiful. It's similar to when I switched to whole food plant-based, and I started going, “Wow, I'm feeling happy. I'm feeling happy.” Every day was like layers and layers of inflammation went away, and also the gut microbiome and everything. My body just felt more and more happy with my choices. 

I love how Duffy mentioned cognitive dissonance. And when you have cognitive dissonance, there's that really uncomfortable right before the shift where you make your behaviors be in alignment with your values. That's uncomfortable to be there because part of you wants to keep doing the old behavior, but you know it's not right for you. For example, eating meat with something, or eating cheese, or eating pizza, or whatever. It's just, “I like it. I don't want to give it up, but I know it's bad for me.” And then if you do give it up and instead you replace it with amazing delicious, whole foods, and then a week since that, you're going, “Wow, I didn't know this could taste so good. I didn't know I could feel this way. I didn't know I could feel this feeling I have in my body 24/7.” It is way more important and worth way more than a slice of pizza. Like, a slice of pizza and beer gives you what? Fifteen minutes of pleasure? And then, the rest of the day is this constant background noise of misery because the body is suffering, and that spills over into emotions. So your physical health, your emotional health, your mental health, your spiritual health, all are connected. And when you do something for one, it helps the other.

There is one more thing I wanted to share, and that is that when I was talking about my three-day fast that I did back right around when our son broke his arm, it was almost at the three-day mark, and I didn't know he'd broken his arm. I know he had a fall, and then we put him down for his nap because he was a toddler, and everything seemed fine. And while he was down for his nap, I had this intense voice in my head, kind of similar to this voice that told me to do this fast. And this voice said — and it wasn't me, it wasn't a voice in my head because I was actually doing really well. I was totally congruent. It was right around day three, the time when everything started getting really good in fasting because your body switches over from burning glycogen, which is our sugar stores, to burning fat for fuel, which is ketosis. This isn't the ketogenic diet. This is the actual state of ketosis, which is burning fat for fuel and making ketones for your brain, and for your body, for fuel, instead of relying on what you're eating, which is glucose. 

So our son's down for a nap, and this voice says, “You have to eat right now.” I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was like, “You break the fast.” I think the voice was ‘break the fast' because I remember it was like a very short sentence. It was very clear ‘break the fast.' And yeah, that was it. And then I was like, “Okay, I'm listening to this voice.” Because it had been just like within hours of being on a three-day fast, I was like, all right, you know, it's not much for refeeding. I'm just going to serve myself what Duffy was eating, which I think was mashed potatoes and vegetables. It was something soft anyway. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to sit down and eat some of this. And I did, and right as I finished my meal, our son started screaming. He was waking up from his nap screaming, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, that's intense.” And then I went and got him, and then that's when we realized, oh, wow, yeah, there's something wrong. He couldn't move his arm, and that's when we rushed him to the hospital. And then Duffy asked me, like, “Why'd you break your fast?” And I'm like, “Well, it's good that I did because I needed the energy to be up half the night, waiting in the hospital, and x-rays and the doctors and everything that had happened. I don't think I could have really been there and been present while fasting, or at least it wouldn't have been fun, like, it was fun anyway. It was much more manageable, having had a meal going into that situation. 

I didn't mention that in the previous conversation that you just listened to because it just didn't come to mind to say that. But I didn't break the fast after we knew his arm was broken. I broke the fast right before we knew his arms were broken because I got a clear message that told me to do it. I don't know if you've ever had that, where you've had a voice not your own, but a familiar and not a threatening voice not your own, say something with a very clear message to follow it. I've heard some people say, “Yeah, I heard change lanes, and then I almost died in a car accident,” or, “Marry that woman.” Sometimes we are guided divinely, and we just got to listen. Listen to our intuition, which is listening to our own self, but then sometimes we receive divine guidance, and at least that's my experience of life. 

So thank you. Thank you for being on this journey for me. And if you do decide to fast, come into the Facebook group. I'd love to hear about your experience. The Facebook group, you could just search Learn True Health on Facebook, or you can go to learntruehealth.com/group, and that will take you to the Facebook group. We have a wonderful listener community that's there to support you in your success, and I love answering your questions. The group comes together, and we all help each other as we're growing on this journey. 

I've mentioned here at the beginning of this episode the three episodes you can listen to for more information on fasting and the science behind it — Episode #230 with Dr. Alan GoldhamerEpisode #269 with Troy Reicherter, and Episode #390 with Robyn Openshaw. So you can go ahead and go to your favorite app for listening to episodes, listening to podcasts, or you can go to learntruehealth.com and search for those.

Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing my podcast with those you care about. I don't know if you know my story. I was sick and suffering for so many years. I had multiple diseases. I was told by doctors I'd never get better, and I turned to holistic medicine. I was able to get my health back. I was able to reverse and end all those diseases, including I was told I'd never be able to have kids. But we have an amazing son. And it sparked a fire in me to want to help drive a passion for helping people to no longer suffer the suffering. It's so horrible that so many people out there have health problems, and there are answers for you. And the answers aren't readily available because the mainstream medical system is by profit, not by results. So, if you're new to this podcast, if maybe someone shared it with you, come on this journey with me. Through my interviews, let me show you how to no longer suffer, how to take control of your health and your life, and learn true health.

 

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Jun 24, 2023

Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering 90-Year-Old Dr. Henry Buchwald exposes what's broken in our current medical system and brainstorms how to fix it.

 

Go here to check out the answer to our broken health insurance industry 

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BOOK: Healthcare Upside Down: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice

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501: The Most Comprehensive and Affordable Health Coverage

https://www.learntruehealth.com/the-most-comprehensive-and-affordable-health-coverage

In this podcast episode, Ashley James interviews Dr. Henry Buchwald, a 90-year-old physician with extensive experience. They acknowledge that the medical system is broken and driven by profits rather than patient outcomes. Dr. Henry suggests that individuals can take action by voting with their dollars and engaging in consumer activism. They can choose alternative healthcare plans or insurance options that offer better coverage and are more affordable. The episode emphasizes the need to support healthcare solutions that prioritize patient well-being over profit and to seek out individual doctors who can provide personalized care without being constrained by administrative demands. The aim is to shape and reform the broken system through collective action and make it more patient-centric.

Highlights: 

  • The current medical system is broken, with the United States spending the most on healthcare yet having poor outcomes.
  • The system is driven by profit rather than focusing on patient well-being and true healing.
  • Dr. Henry Buchwald, a 90-year-old physician, suggests individual actions to combat the feeling of helplessness.
  • Consumer activism can be exercised by voting with our dollars and making conscious choices in purchasing health insurance or alternative healthcare options.
  • There are affordable alternatives to traditional health insurance plans that offer comprehensive coverage with no network restrictions.
  • The broken medical system benefits companies that profit from keeping people sick rather than helping them get better.
  • Seeking out individual doctors not bound by administrative constraints can lead to more personalized and holistic care.
  • By collectively engaging in consumer activism and supporting healthcare solutions that prioritize patient outcomes, the broken system can be reformed to provide better care.

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health podcast. I know you're like me, and you are here because you believe that this medical system is broken. There's something wrong. There's something very wrong. We spend the most in the United States than any other nation on our healthcare, and yet we have some of the worst outcomes. It's a for-profit industry, not a for-results industry. It's so corrupt and so sick, and yet as individuals, we feel so helpless. Who are we against these giant industries that have made billions on our backs? They have made billions on keeping us sick and preventing us from knowing the true nature of healing. Because they have to find a drug for that, right? 

So I have an amazing guest here today. He's 90 years old. He's been practicing medicine for sixty-three years, as a physician, as a surgeon, and as a professor. He's written an intriguing book where he shares his sixty-three years of experience, and he saw the system changing. We're not saying it was perfect sixty-three years ago, but it has certainly gotten worse. My guest today is Dr. Henry Buchwald. One of the things that he suggests, which I thought was really interesting, that we could do as individuals to stop feeling so helpless against them — the 99% against the 1% — well, together, we can vote with our dollars. Another way to say it is consumer activism. But you don't have to go and get out there with a picket sign and march around. When I say activism, a lot of images come to mind of protesting together. We can protest with our purchases. We can choose to buy health insurance or alternatives to health insurance that are even better, that are cheaper, and give us better coverage. 

And that is why I was so excited about this, when I talked about it in Episode #50 because not every single state has it yet, but most of the states in the United States have this alternative to health insurance that is so incredibly cheap, and it's so incredibly affordable. I think it starts at $78 a month for individuals, and it is $600 or something a month for the average family. It's so comprehensive; there's no network. You can go to any state and go to any physician or any doctor, and you'll be covered. If you are like me and you'd like to put your money towards anything that has to do with helping to solve this problem, solve the juggernaut that is the broken medical system. And when I say broken, it's by design. It's broken when you look at it from a patient standpoint, but it is working very well for those companies who wish to make a profit off of our illness and not help us get better, either. They keep us sick because that is the most profitable thing for them to do. 

So, I'd love for you to go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare. Check it out and let me know what you think. I am very excited about it. You can purchase for your family an alternative to health insurance that is taking your dollars, and instead of putting it into an insurance company, it's putting it into a healthcare plan that is more comprehensive. They'll give you more coverage. It gives you more freedom, and it takes the profit away from the problem. Now, you can also go out and find licensed naturopathic physicians and osteopathic physicians, and other forms of working with a physician that is not buying into or putting your dollars into the problem, which are these clinics or these hostile networks that are run by the doctor's answer to the administrators. Instead of them being able to practice medicine, they have to adhere to the administration that they are being hired by. 

So instead, go find individual doctors. Seek out the holistic-minded doctors that are not part of those networks. I sit with my doctor for an hour, sometimes 90 minutes. I mean, this is amazing care for the same price because many of these physicians are covered under insurance. Or, as I pointed out, go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare, and you can get an alternative to health insurance that gives you even better benefits for cheaper, and that is because what's popping up now are the answers to this problem, which is finding the care you deserve.

I don't want to put my money towards those health insurance companies that are part of the problem. I don't want to put my money towards clinics or those clinic networks or hospital networks that are part of the problem. That's why I go seeking individual doctors that don't have to adhere to or answer to an administration. And I go seeking health care that doesn't pay into the problem. So if we all get together, it's called consumer activism. If we voted with our dollars, we could help to shape this broken system, to turn it right side up, so that it can be focused on patient outcomes first, which is what we deserve. And that's what we talked about today with Dr. Buchwald. I'm so happy you're here. Please share this with those you care about and share this with those who are just sick and tired of being squished by the boot of this broken medical system, this for-profit medical system. It's really disgusting that these companies are getting away with it, and we've let them. But it happened so slowly that we didn't really see it coming. 

And now we listen to a 90-year-old doctor who's like, “Hey, wait a second. It used to be better, and we need to make changes because it's getting worse and worse and worse.” They are able to squeeze more and more profits out of us and get less and less results. Actually, they get results. They're just really bad outcomes. I want to see all of us be healthy, and we all deserve the best care possible, and that's not what we're being given here.

[0:07:10.4] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #502.

I am so excited for today's guest. We have with us an amazing doctor, Ph.D., surgeon MD, teacher, healthcare pioneer, patient advocate, and author. For over 60 years, you've been in this field advocating for us and speaking out about the injustices in the healthcare system, Dr. Henry Buchwald, it's so good to have you here, and I can't wait to talk about your book, Healthcare Upside Down: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice. We're seeing this as patients. We've been personally experiencing this, and we talk about it all the time on the show. How many times did we go to a doctor and, like we talked about before we hit record — “Oh, your disease is just a little bit. Let's wait till it becomes worse, and then we'll give you a drug.” Well, why not practice prevention? Well, there's money to be made. I believe that when people go to medical school, their heart's in the right place. I don't think that they're evil. I think the system is broken and designed to make a profit. The number one goal should be designed to help people live long, healthy, happy lives. But it's not designed that way. It's designed to make a profit first. And this is the problem. It is the moment that there's money involved then their corruption can pour in. 

So before we jump in to talk about your book, I'd love for you to share with us what happened in your life that made you want to become a doctor. Was there an “aha!” moment when your eyes were opened, and you realized, wow, this system is completely broken?

[0:09:06.1] Dr. Henry Buchwald: Well, thank you, first of all, for having me. It's a pleasure talking with you. I never wanted to be a doctor when I was young. I wasn't one of these kids who said, “I'm going to be a doctor. I'm going to be a doctor.” I liked learning. I like two things — athletics and learning. So as I went through school, every subject interested me. And when I went through college, Columbia College, everything interested me. My friends were going to medical school, so I said, let's go to medical school. The other area which interested me the most in college was philosophy of religion. And I spent some of my courses at the Union Theological Seminary with the great theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. But I didn't want to become a philosophy or religion teacher. So I went to medical school. Everything in medical school interested me. And then, finally, when I got into surgery service in my third year of medical school, I was at an externship in Cooperstown, New York, and I went to Columbia University Medical School College of Physicians and Surgeons, now called the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. And they had a rotation in this wonderful little place in Cooperstown, New York, Mary Imaging Bassett Hospital. So when I went there, it all jelled. Surgery seemed to fit me and, pardon the pun, like a glove. One day, my wife and I were at the lake where we lived close to Lake Otsego, and I listed all the things that were good about medicine, internal medicine, and so on. She said, follow your heart. And it took me about one second; I said surgery.

Surgery has always been my aspiration from thereon in. After my service in the Strategic Air Command on flying status as a flight surgeon, I went to Minnesota, finished my residency, and I've never left there. I am now at Emeritus status, having been a Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering and the first Wangensteen Chair in Experimental Surgery. During this time period, medicine and the practice of medicine changed. Looking at it from two ends — let's say, three ends — in the beginning, administration served the profession. The doctors, the nurses, the medical schools, the hospitals — administration was there to facilitate. The medical professionals — doctors, nurses — were independent. They did what they and their patients disseminated could be done or should be done. 

And let me get to preventing disease in a couple of minutes into this. And the patients felt they were patients. They went to a doctor. They were being taken care of. And this was epitomized in the patient saying, “My doctor.” What does that mean today? That has changed. It's no longer “my doctor.” It's a conglomerate. It's a bunch of robots. There is no “my doctor” anymore. And the doctor would say, “My patient.” It doesn't mean it's a possessiveness of a patient. It means, “I take responsibility for you.” And so that has been shattered. So if we look at the three elements again, the patient — and this is one of the chapters in my book — the words precede the actions. George Orwell, in his book 1984, knew this. So the patient is no longer called a “patient.” It's called the “client.” That's a business term. And the doctor is no longer called a “doctor.” The doctor is called a “provider,” and the doctor is no longer an independent entity. Essentially, all doctors, except rural physicians or those that work for government agencies, are employees. And then, finally, this administration that used to be the facilitator has become the dominator. The administration is in charge, and they run healthcare like a business model. Actually, I used to go to a nursing station. It's now called a firm. 

And so the changes come, in my lifetime, from a doctor-patient relationship where the patient was a patient, the doctor was a doctor, and the administrator was a facilitator, and it's now turned. That's why I called the book Healthcare Upside Down. Now, the administrator sits on top and dictates what's going to happen to the employee provider, and the patient is left out of this. There are so many examples. For instance, if you call your “doctor” today, you don't end up talking to him or her. You talk to a robot, and probably the robot sends you to another robot, and then they send you to an inquisitor who wants to know everything about you. And really, do you ever talk to the doctor? And then, finally, you might be told, “Well, there are lots of providers. Doctor so and so could see you in two months. But in the meantime, you can see so and so.” Why? Because it's a business model. Because the second so and so has an opening. So you got to fill it to make the money to pay this person. 

And so, it has changed. And what I provide in this book is not only an analysis of how it's changed in the teaching, in the medical school, in the clinic, and in the hospital. I take on COVID, socialized medicine research, public health, etc., and end up with ten recommendations of maybe how to change this and put healthcare right side up. But the whole idea of the book is to draw attention to the fact that things have changed. And to do this, I don't want it to be my opinion. So throughout the book, everything is verified with statistics, with facts. I don't want statistics to be boring, but statistics have to be looked at, and I'll just give one. We have the life expectancy of a third-world country. And every country in Europe, Western Europe or Australia, New Zealand, and your home state Canada has a longer life expectancy. And within our own country, we have disadvantaged populations — native Americans and African-Americans. In every category of world statistics, how we do with heart disease, etc., diabetes, we're nowhere close to the top, except in one category — cost. Our healthcare takes 17% of our gross national product, and the nearest neighbor is at least 4% or 5% further down, and that is Switzerland. 

So, we are upside down, and I don't see any American would tolerate this in any other area. I'll give you an example. If you wanted to take your kids to the ball game, and you called and said, “I want a ticket,” and the person at the other end said, “Yes, we'll send you two tickets, but we'll tell you what day you can come. We'll tell you what teams are playing, and we'll tell you where you'll be seated.” Wouldn't you go? You wouldn't buy a car if the dealership would say, “No, I don't care what you think. You're going to get that car.” But we do this today with health care. We pay for it. That is “we” — everyone pays for it in one way or another; taxes, private insurance. And yet we have no say in what happens. And this transition has come about in my lifetime in medicine. And so I thought, okay, I'm no longer young. Can I at least write a book about it to call some attention, and maybe America can wake up and say we can do better? 

[0:19:10.3] Ashley James: I hope it's okay for me to say you're 90 years old. Is that correct? 

[0:19:14.2] Dr. Henry Buchwald: That is absolutely, and I hope to be older. 

[0:19:19.1] Ashley James: You don't look a day over 75. So you're doing something right. And what I love is that you're standing on your soapbox saying, “Hey, there's something to learn here.” We need to look to the wisdom of those who have come before us, and you, in your lifetime, have seen the change. It's easy for us to believe that how it is now is how it's always been. And that's a fallacy that keeps the wool over our eyes. Well, this is just how it's done. And yet it is not the best way. It's the most profitable way for those in charge and at the expense of us, at the expense of our mental health, emotional health, and of course, our physical health. Our physical health is degrading, and also our financial health. That is, half or more than half of all bankruptcies in the United States are because of medical bills. And yet we have the worst outcomes of all first nations. Like you said, we're the equivalent of third-world nations when it comes to our health outcomes in statistics, and yet we pay the most as a country. We pay the most than any other country in the world, and we get the worst outcomes. How is that even possible? Well, it's possible because, like you said, it is turned upside down; it is a for-profit industry. 

Now, I had my first experience when I was a teenager, and I needed medication temporarily because I had bronchitis or something, and I didn't know as much about holistic health as I do now. So I got a prescription. This is back when I lived in Canada. I remember paying $20 for it. I got so upset because, in Canada, it's supposed to be covered. Healthcare is supposed to be “free” because almost half of our paycheck goes towards paying for these social services like free universal healthcare. And the pharmacist looked at me and said, “Honey, in America, this exact same medication costs $400. So your $20 is not a big deal.” And I went, “Oh, I didn't know that.” And then, when I was visiting the States, I tripped on something. I twisted my ankle and went to the hospital. They took a good twenty X-rays. I thought this was complete overkill because, in Canada, you're lucky to get three. Usually, you only get two X-rays for something like an ankle or a leg. You got one angle, and you got the other angle. That's all you need. There are only two planes. Why would you do more than two? And they kept doing so many X-rays, and it dawned on me. I'm like, this is a for-profit country when it comes to healthcare. And in Canada, it's a “how much can we save on the medical.” 

So in Canada, the pressure on the providers, the pressure on the doctors is, where can I cut costs? So it is still money-driven, and the outcomes are not incentivized. Like, how can I make my patient the healthiest person? Let's focus on that only, even if it costs a bit more. In Canada, no, you got to cut costs. So you only get two X-rays. You don't get three, even if three was optimal. It's not about optimal. It's about cutting costs. And in America, it's about making money. So we're going to take as many X-rays as we can because we can get more money that way. Neither system is perfect because neither system puts the patient first.

[0:23:15.6] Dr. Henry Buchwald: Absolutely correct. It diminished, but we used to have an exodus from Canada for surgery. And why? Because they were on our waiting list. And a waiting list in countries with so-called socialized medicine, such as Canada, has several purposes. One, it delays costs, and also, there's a sort of hidden hope that maybe you die in the meantime and you won't need the surgery. And so we had an influx of people who could afford to come down to Minnesota for heart surgery. And neither system, I won't even say perfect, but neither system is adequate. One thing that people in this country don't realize is that 60% to 65% of our healthcare is socialized medicine. If you count the armed forces, the VA system, the NIH, the Indian services, and above all, Medicare, and medical assistance, you come to about 60% to 65%, and the rest is paid for by private insurance. And these private insurances, their CEOs take home 20 or 30 million a year or more, and all their staff takes home a lot of money. Where does that money come from?

If you have a business model, the business model provides the money. But the money is going to that top administrative group of people. And if you look at the Fortune 500, many of the top companies are in medical care or pharmaceuticals, instruments, and so on. And so they're getting the money. It means the providers themselves — the doctors, the nurses — are not getting the money. And the money is not going into actual patient care. I'm a great believer in capitalism. And if you wanted to invent a hula hoop that's better than any hula hoop that's ever been invented, and you become a billionaire by selling it, that's wonderful. But I just don't think that people at the top administrative level should profit from denying or overdoing healthcare for the actual patients. I don't think socialized medicine is the answer, and I don't think our current system of insurance medicine is the answer, either.

[0:26:25.4] Ashley James: Is there a country out there that's doing it right? 

[0:26:28.7] Dr. Henry Buchwald: I don't know. Socialized medicine may work for some countries that have a smaller population and a uniform population. Every time you look at that, you find some countries, for example, Austria. Most of the Austrians are happy. The people are happy. The doctors are happy. But there are flaws in it. Is there a perfect system? Probably none. As I said at the end of my book, I gave sort of ten suggestions. I can't change the healthcare system. But I give ten suggestions, and one of them is healthcare through not government per se and not-for-profits per se, but through some sort of fraternal organization. For instance, a huge fraternal organization is the postal workers and the Teamsters. Why shouldn't these groups self-insure or work through a group that will offer what they need, like a USAA? I belong to USAA because I'm a veteran, and their insurances are excellent policies, and it's a fraternal organization. 

These things can exist. And the unions, when they meet with management, and management says, “We can spare you some dollars.” If we eliminate, let's say, obesity surgery or eliminate this; they have to say, “No, we have to treat all diseases. We have to do this, and you guys have to take less, and we'll maybe pay a little more.” So if the people who are the end beneficiaries of healthcare can maybe get together in their fraternal groups, maybe this is a way of financing healthcare. But the current system is upside down, and if you just say it's a business model, it's a failure of a business model. What business should succeed by charging the most and giving something that's inferior? That's not good business.

[0:29:16.0] Ashley James: That's broken into parts because if we look at it, right now, we're talking about health insurance or healthcare coverage. And that's one piece of the pie that's broken, but there are other pieces of the pie that's broken, and of them is, like you said, the organizations that employ the doctors themselves dictate how the doctors should provide care. It's called the practice of medicine because doctors should be allowed to practice it. In the last few years, we came across something we've never before had, in that doctors got their hands tied. They were not allowed to practice medicine when it came to treating patients with COVID-19. The institutions that employed them said, “You are not allowed to provide these drugs. You are not allowed to do this. You're not allowed to do that. This is the only way we're doing it.” And that made a lot of people very uncomfortable because providers and doctors have always been allowed to practice medicine. But the firms and the institutions that employ them, or the hospital networks that employ them, are the ones making the rules. And so the doctors found themselves with their hands tied, unable to help their patients the way they saw best. 

The doctor should be empowered. They should be given the power to make the close calls because they're eye to eye with their patients, looking them in the eye and going, “I think that this is what would work.” And the doctors are the ones who've gone to medical school, who can read the latest literature, who can be up on the science. Medical decisions should not be made by people who don't have that science background. Instead, the decisions were being made by the institutions, the firms, the hospital networks, by administrators, not doctors. And that scares me. Can you speak to that? That section of healthcare is incredibly dangerous, people are dying, and people are suffering because the doctors' hands are being tied and the medical decisions, in some cases, are being made by administrators.

[0:31:28.0] Dr. Henry Buchwald: I agree with you. Forget all the controversy about COVID-19. But administrators in just ordinary times have come to dictate what operation should be done because of time in the hospital and what drugs can be used. Administrators like to get people into the hospital. Let's say a surgery patient — obviously, I know the most about surgery — comes in, let's say, the night before a surgery, oh there's a lot of money to be made. There are X-rays, there are labs, there's everything. That is great. And then comes surgery. Oh, there's a lot of money to be made. But then the patient is in bed for a day or so and recovering and then paying. That's not much money to be made. And so there is a push to get the patient out of the hospital. From the administrator's point of view, let's get them into the hospital, and then let's get them out as fast as possible. And this is being sold as this is the best thing for the patient. It may not be the best thing for the patient. It may not be the so-called “doctor,” now the “provider vendor” would like to do. But often, their hands are tied. And so many days after a gallbladder, one day you're out, and so on. Making individual decisions have to be justified over and over again rather than thwarting a rule. You have so many days to get this kind of patient out, so many days to get this kind of patient out. It was very different. 

Let me give you anecdotes of a retelling. When I was a medical student at Columbia, my wife had the flu. And I somehow talked about it or mentioned that my wife had the flu on rounds. And a distinguished professor of medicine, Dr. Pereira, overheard me. At 8:00 that evening — and we lived in a fifth-floor walk-up — on the door, there was a knock. I opened the door, and there was Dr. Pereira with his little black bag. He said I heard your wife may have the flu. I came to listen to her lungs if that's okay with you, and make sure she doesn't have pneumonia. And, of course, I welcomed the man in. He saw my wife, and he left. As he left, he said, “I expect that when you graduate, you will carry on this tradition of taking care of other physicians. So there was “medical courtesy.” But today, there are at least three or four laws on the books that do not allow doctors to do pro bono work or give medical courtesy to fellow physicians or to anybody. I mean, I know in my practice that patients who couldn't pay, I didn't charge them. But today, that's against the law. Unless you do it in an organized fashion. If your institution says, “We, as an institution, are going to help this Native American tribe,” that's okay. But you, as an individual, once again, the independence of the physician, cannot say, “Hey, listen. Forget about it.”

My first patient I misdiagnosed. I had two months before I needed to go, or wanted to go, to the school of aviation medicine to get into the air force on flying status. And so I went in what sort of a locum tenens in a community up in the mountains of New York, and a woman came to me and had lymph nodes at the back of her neck. And coming from a specialty institution, I said, “We have to go to the hospital and get some tests tomorrow morning.” And in my mind, I said, she may have lymphoma. The next day she called me, since I couldn't go to the hospital, “Can you come to my house?” And I thought, terrible, terrible. So I went over, and she had a big rash. She got German measles from her kids. And so I was wrong, and I was happy to be wrong. She was not a wealthy woman. She was in an impoverished area, and I didn't charge her for that. So it was a different time, and nobody would put me in jail for not charging her. So that has changed. So many rules, as you said, or even laws, are placed upon the practice of medicine today. And, of course, one of the main things that have become so evident is the loss of a physician, the loss of a personal doctor. 

And again, if we look at personal experiences, 1st of February 2016, I was thrown from a horse. Now, I've been riding horses all my life, and I was on a ranch, and usually, I went on roundup sitting and rode a lot. And anyway, for the first time in my life, the horse threw me. And I had eleven broken ribs, a comminuted scapular, a displaced lung was pushed over, and so on. So I was in the hospital for thirty-three days, half of which was in intensive care and then in rehab. Well, in intensive care — this was a hospital — every day, a new person would show up, usually a very, very young person, and he would say, “How are you?” And I would say, “Well, all right.” And he would say, “Good. Bye-bye.” And I never see him again. There was never a time somebody came over and said, “I am in charge of intensive care, and I'm your doctor.” It never happened. And then, when they transferred me to rehab, it was wonderful. The same hospital, but it was wonderful. It was run by an old man, relatively at the time. He was in his sixties and seventies, and I asked him, “How come this is so different on both sides?” And he said, “Well if they ever try to change my division, rehab, I'm leaving.” So, I was in that transition period. And that's what's happening. I never had a physician at the time. It would have been nice to have had a physician. 

[0:39:33.2] Ashley James: The gentleman who was in charge of the rehab, can you illustrate how your care was there versus the ER, where people were just coming and going? “How are you doing? Okay, bye.” And there was no point where you could communicate with the same person through your care in the hospital. There was not one liaison for you. It was just a bunch of random doctors and healthcare providers, which is very disorienting. But that's the experience now when people go to the hospital. And then you get upgraded to rehab; tell us what that care was like.

[0:40:18.4] Dr. Henry Buchwald:  Well, first of all, at 7:00 or so every morning, he showed up in my room. He made rounds. And we at least had a small conversation. He outlined the program where I would get out of bed, walk again with a walker, and then walk without a walker. He assigned me physical therapists, mostly people who would walk me, and then exercise therapists, who were superb and who were happy. And the same person came back the next day. I got to know them; they got to know me. It really helped me with rehabilitation there because this man was in charge, and everybody worked on the plan, and I had therapists who knew me and worked with me. It wasn't such a thing that every day I saw a different face, who really didn't care about much of anything, and I would see somebody else the next day. It was because he was an old-fashioned practitioner. 

[0:41:43.2] Ashley James: And you saw the same team. You were part of a team, right? 

[0:41:46.4] Dr. Henry Buchwald: Right. 

[0:41:48.2] Ashley James: And they had a goal for you, and it was a team of health providers working with you, for you, the patient, to get you to the end goal. You all were working together towards that goal, and you felt supported.

[0:42:02.6] Dr. Henry Buchwald: Absolutely. I think you said it perfectly.

 [0:42:06.5] Ashley James: So you said this was the transition time. You've illustrated what it looked like 60 years ago in medicine, where we could see it on black and white TV like Leave it to Beaver. Like, you go to your family doctor, and your family doctor sees your parents and sees your grandparents. It was the same practice and the same doctor. You had the same dentist, and you saw the same nurse. It felt very reassuring that someone knew you for most of your life and was able to guide you through your transitions in life because they really knew you, and they knew your family. They knew your medical history as opposed to the telemedicine or going to a clinic, and they're complete strangers. They're not really checking in on your health records. Your health records are incomplete. They really don't know your health history, and it's like getting in and out as fast as possible. He can't see a doctor for more than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes would be amazing. People usually see doctors for nine minutes or less. And they don't really know you. How can they provide care if they don't really know you and your medical history, and you're not just a bunch of labs on a piece of paper? There's more to you. And so that's what healthcare is now. But back then, someone really knew you. And there was definitely a sense that people were happy. No, not everyone. It's not right to paint a picture that everyone is happy. But they were happier people in healthcare as teams, working with you towards goals to better serve you, the patient. And now it's the opposite. It's upside down, like your book illustrates. 

I'm sure it happened slowly because I think people would have really revolted if, overnight, this healthcare system had changed. But can you say approximately when did you start to see red flags that it was really going south?

[0:44:07.1] Dr. Henry Buchwald: I should say it went slowly. It never went overnight. As you said, people would have revolted. I think maybe twenty years ago, it started this pattern. I think in the 21st century, we started the top-down administrative rule of medicine, the loss of independence of the medical staff, and the feeling by the patient that they really didn't have a doctor. They had some sort of conglomerate. Do you know what I'd like to do if you would let me? Can I read you a couple of paragraphs from the end of my book, from my epilogue?

[0:45:06.5] Ashley James: I would love that. Yes, please.

[0:45:08.6] Dr. Henry Buchwald: Alright. “The opening moment of life, birth, involves healthcare for mother and child. Growing up and achieving adulthood involve healthcare. Being able to live a mature life, to work, to love, and to have children, is dependent on healthcare. And the final chapter, aging, can be realized and even made pleasurable by healthcare. Healthcare therefore enters and comes to life from beginning to end. Healthcare is not a commodity but a necessity. Healthcare needs to be treated with respect. The establishment, practice, and financing of healthcare affect everyone. It should not be neglected by anyone and must be the concern of all of us.”

“I've been a doctor for sixty years, and during those years, at times, I've also been a patient. I've held the hands of my patients. I've been the one whose hand has been held. I have received trust and given trust. The therapeutic decisions my patients and I reached were not subject to the interdiction of a third party. I do not want to have my life's role as a physician and surgeon by joining the process usurped by an ‘administocracy.' I coined that word. As a patient, I do not want to hold hands with a robot and confide my health problems to a faceless entity. As a doctor, a patient, and a person, I reject the currently shattered doctor-patient relationship. Healthcare is upside-down like I said it, right side up.” That's the end of my book.

[0:47:06.5] Ashley James: I love it. How can we best navigate this broken system?

[0:47:12.4] Dr. Henry Buchwald: I don't know an answer to that. I mean, when I first wrote the book, my daughters and my wife said to me, “So what? What are you going to do? All you've done is complain. You've put down the facts in this, the statistics to back up the complaints, and you've told the truth and all that. But what are you offering?” And I said, “Well, I look upon myself like the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen's story of The Emperor's New Clothes. Here comes the emperor walking down the street, and he's naked. His retainers are holding an invisible rope, and a little boy says, “The emperor has no clothes!” And then I always loved the line in that book which says, “Hear him, hear him!” And I am hoping that people will hear me.

Then I said, “Okay, I'll write a chapter with at least some suggestions.” And so the last chapter are ten suggestions. The role of medical schools, the role of individuals, the role of bodies of professionals like the American College of Surgeons, American College of Physicians, AMA, the role of government, the role of politicians, and most importantly, the role of media, people like yourself, to get the word out there, and then the role of fraternal institutions that I touched upon, and the final thing is, the role of everybody. This is not something that people can say, “Well, it's not my concern.” It doesn't matter how young you are. It doesn't matter how healthy you are. The odds are, one day, you're going to be a patient for something. And if that's true, what kind of care do you want? And if you're in the healthcare profession like I was, or I still consider myself to be in, I always considered it a calling. It was a calling for me. It wasn't a job. And I took joy in my work, and people have asked me, “What were the happiest moments for you?” I said, “My family.” And “What was the next happiest moment for you in your life?” I said, “Being in the operating room.” I love being a surgeon. I love taking care of people. 

Today, if that is missing, how can people be happy in the field? But with that comes what we've talked about. For instance, I not only show in my patients before we elected from surgery as a joint decision. But I saw them at the moment of surgery in the morning. I was in the hospital at six, and I saw the patient. I saw the relatives. People don't do that anymore. And then, after the case, if the patient was still half-asleep, I went out to see the relatives, and I talked to them. And then, I would see the patient when the patient woke up. And then, before I went home, I would make rounds and see the patient and again talk to the relatives if they were there. And that's the way I practiced. It was a calling, and it gave me joy. That's missing when you don't have patients but you just have clients. And you do things as a big amalgamated group. Well, I don't have to go see a patient. The nurse will see the patient. I don't have to do this. Somebody else will do this. And today, that's very true. Surgeons are kept in the operating room because that's where they can make the money for the whole group. And so we have people who can't make that much money in doing something over a period of time, and they can do the other things that a doctor really should be doing, holding the patient's hand.

[0:52:18.5] Ashley James: Right. There's a big billboard in the university district in Seattle that has a picture of a doctor, and it says, ‘This is the number one surgeon in Seattle,' or ‘This is the number one doctor in Seattle.' ‘Come to our hospital network because this is the number one doctor.' And I spoke to a doctor in the area, and he goes, “You know how they determine that he's the number one doctor?” And I'm thinking, “Outpatient outcomes? He must be incredible. You must be divinely guided to having the best outcomes.” And he said, “No, that's not determined by outcomes. It's not determined by patient care at all. They determine who the best doctor is by how much money he makes for the hospital system.” So when you're sold on, ‘we have the number one doctor,' ‘this is the number one doctor in this hospital,' that's the one you don't want to see you. You want to see the worst doctor, according to the hospital, because they're not going to put you through needless tests. 

Another thing that the doctor said to me is, “If you can help it, never go to a hospital in the last week of the month because, just like police, you definitely don't come to a complete stop at stop signs and don't speed in the last week of the month because cops have quotas. Some of them are given quotas for how many speeding tickets they have to write and how many citations they have to give. And doctors and hospital networks have to fill a certain percentage of beds and a certain amount of MRIs. They have to accrue dollars and profits. And so if you come in, they're like, “Well, you know, we could have handled this with an ultrasound, but I'm just going to send him in for an MRI.” It wasn't medically necessary, but it would have filled his quota. They might do that. They're incentivized because they have a mortgage to pay, and they have been put under pressure from the system that they belong to. The organization that they belong to — the firm — puts pressure on the providers, the doctors, to not put the patients first in every aspect of our healthcare system. It is how much money can be squeezed out of these patients and out of the insurance. And the insurance is going to do the opposite and try not to provide the care also. So we're left really kicked to the curb. 

And then you touched on it — that we have the underprivileged, the victims of the system. We're all victims of this broken system. And even further, the statistics show Native Americans, African-Americans, the list goes on and on, especially the disabled, the elderly, that they have worse outcomes because they're marginalized. They're not listened to. African American women, when they go to a hospital to give birth across the board, have worse outcomes and more deaths than any other race. I'm thinking, what is going on? But if they do home births, they have just as much success as any other race. So it isn't that African-American women genetically will just die more or have more infections. In general, it's that the healthcare system is not listening to them. It's treating them differently than those of other races. 

So what is up with the underprivileged in the medical system? I know I'm asking for help. I'm asking, how do we navigate? But maybe where you could help us, because again, how we fix this problem is we have to stop feeding into it. And that's kind of dangerous because what are we going to do? Stop paying for insurance? Stop going to the hospital? They know they've got us. They've got us by the neck. But we have to figure it out. Maybe we've got a lobby. Maybe we've got to elect the right people. Maybe we've got to write letters. Maybe we have to stand up and start taking action and do whatever we can. 

I like the idea of finding insurance that isn't traditional insurance, like healthcare. I actually just did an interview about this. It's like a health insurance alternative that actually covers everything, but it's a nonprofit. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare for more information about that. So I like that idea of not putting your dollars into the evil system, the broken system, I should say. And we can't go to the hospital if we need a hospital. But maybe we got to do research and find a hospital network that's smaller, that has better outcomes, that has less pressure on the providers to make money rather than put the patients first. But maybe you could help us with this. How can we self-advocate? As a doctor, I'm sure you appreciate when someone says, “Hey Doc, I have a few questions,” and they start self-advocating. Can you teach us how we should self-advocate while we navigate this broken system? And especially those who have been made out to be victims of this system, in that they typically have worse outcomes. How can they self-advocate?

[0:57:48.9] Dr. Henry Buchwald: I don't know if I have any answer to that. I guess, reasoning. I guess, conversation. I think you need goodwill, and you need people at the other end who are willing and able and have the moral commitment to do better. To sort of give you an example: when I was in medical school, usually all major teaching hospitals associated with the medical school, such as mine, Columbia Johns Hopkins, where my wife's uncle was a cardiologist, had three distinct areas geographically. One was private and at Columbia Presbyterian in Harkins Pavillion. It catered to celebrities. I took care of several celebrities, or I was a card in the wheel as an intern. But they had private rooms. They had a fancy restaurant, etc. And then there was semi-private, and those were people who had insurance and maybe had two people or four people in a room. And it was very obvious they had a doctor, or in my role as they were under a surgeon's care. And then there were the ward patients. There were twenty-four people in a ward or more, like twenty-eight, separated by curtains, and they were given the care of the house staff, who were sometimes better than anything else. But primarily, they had no private doctor, and they had essentially no insurance or very little insurance. 

Then I came to Minnesota, and under Owen Wangensteen, one of the greatest names in American surgery, I went on the surgery service, and there were only rooms for four people, and for very sick people, one to a room. And I said, “Which is the ward? Which is semi-private? Which is private?” And they said, “There is no such thing. Everybody is treated equally.” The house staff is responsible for everybody, and the attending staff, the senior sergeants, are responsible for everybody. So when we made the rounds, we could enter a room where there would be a patient who had insurance, a patient who had zero insurance, and a patient who was extremely wealthy, and we had no knowledge of what their financial situation was. The attending — and then I came, of course, I was the attending. I was the professor — would go to each bedside with the same house staff, and we treated each patient equally. Whether I was paid as the surgeon or not paid at all, every patient was treated equally as a patient. And so here was an institution that in 1960 was doing that, and other institutions had to follow suit. We have to get away from this business model, and we have to do it on a patient model.

[1:02:00.3] Ashley James: I so agree. I am glad that you're opening up this conversation so we can examine it and we can say, “Hey, this isn't acceptable.” It's been going this way for a while. I know you said it's been the last twenty years. But in looking at the healthcare system, right around Nixon's era, doctors were practicing medicine as best they could to help cancer patients. And some of them were using juicing, liver cleanses, the things that supported the liver, and what you would call alternative medicine. They were doing that in conjunction with the medicine that they had access to at the time. And then there was this war on cancer that came out, and all of a sudden, if it wasn't pharmaceutical, it wasn't allowed. And only oncologists — so we've developed this — that only oncologists are allowed to treat cancer. And they're only allowed to use what is allowed to be used. They can't go outside of that. 

There are things that, in Europe, they're allowed to use, like ozone therapy, and they have studies to back it up. It's not quackery. And they have these chambers that they put them in, that increase oxygen, and they're finding that they're getting really good results. In conjunction with everything they're doing, they're increasing their usage of these different alternative modalities that are proven successful and have better outcomes. And like you said, we see better patient outcomes across the board in Europe, and yet those are not allowed in the hospital systems here. So who is at the top saying, “This is not allowed.”? When we look at the government and the rule-makers, they're being lobbied by those who are making that money — big pharma. The pharmaceutical industry is also making sure they have their foot in the door, stopping anything that could help positive patient outcomes if it means cutting profits for them. 

So you've talked about how it's a broken system on multiple fronts. We have policies that are driven by administrators to make profits for the company, the institution, the hospital, or the clinic institution. We have enough time in the hands of the doctors. We have the pharmaceutical industry with their foot in government and policy-making also to make sure that we're not cutting profits for the pharmaceutical companies. And then we have the insurance, which is equally as corrupt because they're seeing where they can cut their costs, meaning their costs are our care. So at every level, it's broken. 

One of my mentors is an old-school naturopathic physician, and before that, he was a large animal vet, pathologist, and research scientist. He's slightly younger than you. I think he's eighty-six right now. He grew up on a beef farm in Missouri, and he saw it as a kid that we would feed calf pellets which had lots of minerals and vitamins to prevent them from getting sick. And he said to his dad, “Why don't we make sure we're taking all the nutrients we need so we can prevent getting sick too?” Because if you had a cow that was undernourished and they got sick, and then they got an infection, then it would drive the cost of beef up, and your burger would be $50 instead of $12. They keep the cost down by making sure the cows are as healthy as possible, practicing preventive medicine. But where's our preventive medicine now? Now, it's “Wait till you get sick enough so I can put you on a drug.” 

So the entire thing is upside down because they're making profits off of us. If we flip it back, right side up, like your book talks about, where you put the patient at the absolute top, and everyone is serving us, and the ultimate goal is to make us healthy, money will happen. Everyone will get paid. It may not be millions of dollars for you guys, but everyone will get paid. Just make sure the patient is the healthiest and the happiest. And that's the number one goal. That's what we would love, but that's not what we have. And so we have to fight for it because we got blindfolded somehow, and slowly they slipped in and started creeping in more, and they saw, “Oh, we can make more money, and we can make more money.” How far can this go? How much can they bleed us? I mean, how obvious is it? Like you said, we're paying the most money in the whole world, and we have the worst outcomes. How far can they take it? I think they've taken it far enough. So I'm glad you are bringing the fight and enlightening us and showing us that we can stand up because we have to go back to the way it was because the way it was, we definitely had better outcomes. And you've looked at the statistics in the last sixty years since they've made these changes in the last twenty years. Can you look at patient outcomes in America? As a result of this slow shift into making healthcare completely upside down, can you see the outcomes are even worse as a result?

[1:07:31.9] Dr. Henry Buchwald: I think you just have to look at COVID. We're still in COVID. When we reached the million mark of deaths, dead people from COVID, that was the largest per capita. I don't know if I can believe the statistics from China or from Russia, but in all other countries where you can believe the statistics, the European countries, New Zealand, etc., we were way ahead. Why should our medical system, our care of people, our prevention, — as you keep saying, prevention, prevention, prevention — why should we have the largest number of deaths per capita? Would you say it is so true that whatever makes money rules politics, and politics ruled the day in so many areas? It's ridiculous the state that we treated COVID. We're still having COVID. But we didn't do well with COVID. Maybe it's going away. Other things have gone away. The Spanish flu went away without vaccination. Maybe this will go away. I hope so. Or maybe we'll settle in like the flu season every year or common colds. But certainly, as a nation, we didn't do that well. And here was a national emergency, and we didn't do very well at all. 

[1:09:27.3] Ashley James: I had a doctor on my show a few years ago during the pandemic, Dr. Brownstein. He's been a medical doctor practicing for over thirty years, or it might be forty. He's very well-versed in being a family physician, and he has some alternatives that are soundly in science. He recommends certain nutraceuticals to support the immune system in addition to other preventions. And while you're going through any kind of viral experience, upper respiratory viral experience, he has some stuff he's been doing for his entire practice, and he gets great results. So he wrote a blog about it. He has a blog. He's had it since the nineties, where he explained, “Hey, everyone. Here's what I'm doing in my practice.” He had five hundred patients with COVID. All five hundred of them survived. Maybe if he'd treated a million, five hundred is still a small subsection of the population, but he had such great results. He published it, just sharing the information, and the government contacted him and said, “You can't do that.” And he said, “What do you mean I can't do that? I've been sharing my blog talking about natural medicine in conjunction with everything else I do as a physician since the 90s.” And they said, “No, you're not allowed to say that there's a treatment for COVID. You're not allowed to.” And he goes, “What are you talking about? I'm practicing medicine.” They said, “You have to take it down,” and then they started to take legal action against him, so he sought a constitutional lawyer. The constitutional lawyer said, “Under any circumstance, I'd say fight this.” But the government is saying no one's allowed to say you can treat COVID because they would lose the Emergency Use Authorization. The vaccines back then weren't approved, so they were still in the Emergency Use Authorization. And therefore, if there was a proven treatment, they would lose that. So this was legal. This was political. 

Again, this was not a doctor being allowed to practice medicine. So he ended up writing a book about it. But he had to take his entire blog down. And this is where we see again an example that doctors should be allowed to utilize all their tools, not just pharmaceuticals, and not just what the government wants, which is administrators making decisions and not doctors making decisions. When it's safe, it's proven is healthy, it's effective, we should be allowed to have access to that information. So we should be allowed to make these decisions and be given this information. But the information was prevented by the government because they were protecting the Emergency Use Authorization at the time. So we see the corruption, and we need to protect ourselves as individuals. We need to fight and stand for what we believe. We definitely want to buy your book and check it out. Of course, the link to the book is going to be in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com — Healthcare Upside Down: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice. I think we should buy it for our doctor, although no one has a doctor anymore. So buy it for the next doctor you see. Leave it in the waiting room at your clinic. 

I actually see naturopathic physicians go through medical school just like MD's. What's really interesting is in the states and provinces where they are licensed to be physicians, the insurance covers them, and you're allowed to see them for sixty to ninety minutes at a time instead of that 15-minute window for MD's. So, when I see a naturopath, I see her for a full hour, and I appreciate that. I have to seek out and build a relationship with a doctor that sees me twice a year that we check in with my lab. I want that model that you, as a doctor, grew up in, that model where you see the same doctor. So as a patient, I recommend you go out and find a physician that isn't in a big network, either a naturopath, an osteopath, or a medical doctor, that's in their own clinic or at least the smallest network possible. The smaller the network, hopefully, the policy that's tying their hands. Either that or find one that's independent. You got to go out of your way sometimes to find someone as independent and then advocate for yourself. Ask questions, like you said. Be curious, and ask questions. Another thing is, be willing to fire your doctor. As long as your life isn't in danger, not in the ER bleeding out, and you're not in an immediate medical situation, it is okay to fire the doctor. If you don't feel you're getting the best care, fire that entire institution and go find another clinic or find an independent doctor. 

I also had a gentleman on the show recently who's an advocate because his daughter was killed by the policy in a hospital, and he is working with lawyers and speaking out. And he says the best thing you could do is research all the hospitals in your neighborhood, in your area, or find an independent hospital. Find a hospital that is in the smallest network possible and look at its outcomes; just do your research. Know the clinics, know the hospitals, so you can make the right choice when you go to the right one. And definitely be willing to talk to the doctor and ask questions. 

When I was at the ER with my son a few years ago, they started putting needles into him, and I turned and said, “Wait a second, I need informed consent.” And she turned to me, and she actually was surprised, and then happy, and I was so relieved because I thought maybe a doctor would be angry at me for saying that. And she goes, “We're administering magnesium” because we came in with respiratory distress. And then she proceeded to explain, “This is not a drug. We're putting magnesium intravenously. And then, every time they did something to him, she came to me, and she said, “This is what we're doing. These are the possible side effects. These are the alternatives.” She gave me true, informed consent, but I had to ask for it. And I believe we should ask for it. Ask for the known side effects. What are the alternatives? What kind of outcomes do you expect? And we should work with the doctors to advocate for our own health. 

I'm very happy to have you on the show and to expose this information. Is there anything that you came here to say that you didn't get to say yet? Is there a message that you definitely want to make sure that you hit home with us?

[1:15:58.7] Dr. Henry Buchwald: Well, I agree. Everybody has to think this over, and let's just say, is this what we want? And I think the answer is no. And then how can we make it better? Again, I don't think the individual can. I think I've seen individual doctors revolt against individual patients. They don't get anywhere. You have to use your group. Now it could be a professional group, like the American Medical Association, and it could be a union. A major union that says, “Listen, our job is not only to get the highest wages and shortest hours. Our job is to get the best healthcare.” And they have to become knowledgeable and negotiate for that. 

So I guess my message is for every American to realize that we're not getting our money's worth. To get our money's worth, you have to do something about it. And probably the best way to do something about it is through some fraternal organization. And a little sidebar to that, I'm for entrepreneurs. As I said, I believe in capitalism. Now let's just say an entrepreneur says, “I'm going to start a medical center where you will see individual doctors. They will be your doctors. I'm not going to take an exorbitant multi, multi-million-dollar income home. You don't have to do the first thing you do, come in and pay a co-payment before anybody will even say hello. I'll do all that. And I think that person might get a tremendous following and make money for themselves, for the organization and have happy patients, and do medicine right. Entrepreneurship and capitalism can come in and win this day. They just don't have to be greedy for the top but give what they are supposed to give, and then everybody will be served. So certainly, I'm in no way against business in medicine, but it has to be business first for the patient and not for a client. Thank you. 

[1:18:55.3] Ashley James: Yes. And the clinics and the hospitals that organize that model will transition to move to them. If someone invents a better system that is pro-patient, they will get all the business. So if anyone's listening that has the capacity to do that, go do it because people will navigate towards that. People want to vote with their dollars. And right now, people don't even know that there is an alternative, that there's a better way. But we need to invent a better way, and we need to fight for it. I need to get your book and read it to really understand and have the full picture — Healthcare Upside Down: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice

Dr. Henry Buchwald, it has been so amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much for advocating for all of us.

[1:19:43.9] Dr. Henry Buchwald: And thank you ever so much for having me. It's been a great pleasure. 

[1:19:49.5] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Dr. Henry Buchwald. It definitely gives us a lot to think about and how important our individual choices are because, collectively, we can make a difference. We can fight back; we can push back. And if you'd like to fight back and push back, provide your family or just yourself, if you're single, with better healthcare, if you live in the United States and you are sick of paying into a system that's broken. Check out learntruehealth.com/healthcare and check out the previous episode, Episode #501, for more information. 

You can always reach out to me through our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. Come join it, reach out there, or you can write me ashley@leantruehealth.com. I'd love to hear from you. If you do decide to jump in and purchase that healthcare for yourself, then let me know. I'd love to hear your results. I have been talking to some others who have that coverage, and they've been sharing with me amazing stories about how well they've been treated. They are able to go to any doctor they want, in any state they want. They can get any surgery. They can go to any hospital, get any surgery. 

I have a friend where the surgeon wanted to do a specific kind of surgery with a newer apparatus that's 3D printed, with surgical material, and it would have been a much safer, shorter surgery. It would have meant faster healing time, and recovery time, that for the rest of her life, she'd be better off, and the insurance company said, “No, we're only going to pay for this type of surgery.” We have to cut her open six inches and do a bunch of other stuff that makes it twelve weeks of recovery, and they would not cover that. The surgeon went to battle and fought them and fought them, and the insurance company said, “No.” And if it had been this alternative to health insurance, learntruehealth.com/healthcare — if it had been that one, the one we talked about in Episode #501, they would have covered it, and it would have actually been cheaper for her. This is just mind-blowing that we've been conned by these industries, and they keep squeezing us and squeezing us. 

I've been paying for health insurance for so many years. It has been over nine years, and every year I noticed that I was paying more for my family. I'm paying more, and not just because we're getting older, but seriously paying hundreds of dollars more for less and less coverage. And in the last year, it was ridiculous. It went up several hundred dollars per month, and it felt almost like they cut our coverage in half. It was crazy, and they're going to keep squeezing and squeezing us because they can, and we need to push back. I'm calling for a healthcare revolution. We need reform. We have to stand up for ourselves and do it ourselves because the people we elect into office are bought by these industries. And so we have to vote with our dollars. 

Collectively, we have the power to overthrow a corrupt industry. And I've seen it time and time again. When consumers decide to cancel culture, cancel that old thing, it goes down the tubes. So with our dollars, we can, as collectively, make the right choices. If all of us follow our values and put our money towards the practitioners, the healthcare, that alternative to insurance — for example, if we put our money towards maybe smaller run clinics, individual clinics, instead of the group clinics, where we're going to actually receive better care, more individualized care. If we collectively do that, we can overthrow it. 

So make sure that with every purchase you make, put it towards something that you believe in. Buy organic. Buy local. Connect with local farms. Buy from them. Put your money towards things that are going to build your health and also build the health of our future.

So it's learntruehealth.com/healthcare. Check it out. Let me know what you think. Thank you for being a listener, and thank you for sharing these episodes with those you care about. And if you haven't already, go back to this Episode #500 because that was a really amazing episode filled with some wonderful stories of success. And who doesn't like to hear stories of success? I know I certainly do. Stay tuned. I have a bunch of episodes I'm going to be releasing, and they've all been really great interviews. So I can't wait for you to hear them. Have yourself a great rest of your day. 

Get Connected with Dr. Henry Buchwald!

Website

Books by Dr. Henry Buchwald

Healthcare Upside Down: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice

Surgical Renaissance in the Heartland: A Memoir of the Wangensteen Era

 

Jun 14, 2023

For all the details visit learntruehealth.com/healthcare 

 

501: The Most Comprehensive and Affordable Health Coverage

 https://www.learntruehealth.com/the-most-comprehensive-and-affordable-health-coverage

In Episode 501 of the Learn True Health podcast, the host, Ashley James, introduces Megan Williams, who discusses a better and more affordable alternative to traditional health insurance in the United States. Megan explains that she discovered a system that offers comprehensive and affordable coverage aligned with holistic and preventive healthcare values. They discuss the challenges of navigating the healthcare market and the benefits of this alternative system. Megan highlights that the system is non-profit and aims to provide a solution without someone profiting from it. They address concerns about coverage limitations and the simplicity and effectiveness of the program.

Highlights: 

  • The importance of having access to holistic and preventive medicine that aligns with our values
  • Introducing a system that offers affordable and comprehensive health coverage
  • The challenges faced by self-employed individuals and the flaws in the current healthcare system
  • A non-profit, non-insurance alternative that aims to provide a solution for healthy individuals seeking alternative healthcare options
  • The system offers freedom and control over healthcare choices, including access to chiropractors, naturopathic doctors, and telemedicine services.
  • The need for accessible and affordable healthcare options

[00:02.1] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 501.

Intro:

I am so excited for today's guest. We have Megan Williams on the show of the system. I've been looking high and low, for years, for a better way to do health insurance because I'm self-employed. My podcast is my income and all the other things I do like holistic health coaching. I'm self-employed, and so for years, I've had to buy my own health insurance, which usually our family of three pays $1,400 a month for an okay health insurance. It's not that great because we still have to pay $9,500 out of pocket before we really start getting coverage. It's just been very expensive, and we can only see our chiropractor ten times a year. We can only see our naturopath a few times a year. We get one free visit a year, and then everything else is just pretty much out of pocket. It's been very stressful to have to pay for our own health insurance. 

Talking to a lot of my friends, even their health insurance is covered by their jobs, and it's really not that great. A lot of my friends either end up buying secondary health insurance to try to pat on and compensate for what they have, or some of my friends simply don't have health insurance at all. I have one who just had surgery to remove a benign tumor, and she doesn't have health insurance. It's really scary out there. Her husband's work provides health insurance, but the insurance they sell to the employees is so incredibly expensive and has way worse coverage than I have at $1,400 a month. 

I'm from Canada, originally, so this concept of paying for health insurance and having to go on the market every year and go on the exchange — I have a broker that I talk to — and having to shop for your health insurance to get locked into for a year; it's been super stressful. I look at spreadsheets and compare them all. But at the end of the day, I've never had a good experience with any health insurance company since I've been self-employed back in 2010, so I've been looking and looking and looking.

I have a friend who was in a health share system, and she had some good experiences, she had some bad experiences. I've talked to a few other friends that have done more alternative styles. Some had really great stories; some were okay. And nothing was as bad as the traditional health insurance that we have now. But I've been looking. There's got to be a company out there. There's got to be a better way. Because I want to have access to preventive, holistic medicine. This is what I invested in. I invest in my health. So I want my health insurance to also be something that reflects my values. I know that a lot of my listeners want a type of health insurance that reflects their values of focusing on freedom of choice, focusing on being able to make holistic preventive medicine affordable. 

That's how I found Megan Williams. So in walks, Megan teaches me all about this amazing company, and I'm really, really, really excited. This is for people in the United States. I get it, my Canadian listeners. Maybe you'll just find this interesting simply because it's like looking at a different planet when it comes to how it works in America. But most of my listeners are in the United States, and even if you do have adequate coverage through your work, you might have kids that have outgrown your system. If they're 27 years old, that can't be in your coverage anymore. And there are so many people that don't have good health insurance simply because it's unaffordable. 

Megan, I'm really excited to have you today because you're going to teach us about your system that helps us to have affordable coverage that's comprehensive and that aligns with our values so that we can go see a chiropractor. We can see our licensed naturopathic doctor. We can get the lab work once a year to look at everything and make sure that we're on the right track — everything that I normally go to, all the cool stuff I normally go to. And then, of course, having the whoopsie daisies in life, like the ER visit because your kid broke his arm or something like that; that's all covered as well. So I'm very excited to talk to you today because I think that this is a tool that's going to help so many of my listeners, and it's so needed. And it's so frustrating and heartbreaking for people who don't have the coverage, especially the coverage that rewards them for making good healthy choices, like holistic and preventive health care.

Now, listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare to check out this system and see if it's right for them. I was first amazed by the amount of money I would save. It is like a fraction of the cost, and I actually thought the numbers were wrong. I was like, this can't be right! There's going to be a glitch or something. It's way more affordable. And I've always kind of looked at health insurance like it's a racket, like there's someone at the top making a ton of money, jumping into piles of bills and swimming in it, like that cartoon duck that swims through his money. I just imagine there's this evil billionaire sitting at the top of the food chain, collecting all the money because health insurance is so crazy expensive. And so here we have the system that you provide and teach us about, which allows us to pay a fraction of the price and yet have more coverage and better coverage than what I've been paying for years. So I'm really excited to get into it at learntruehealth.com/healthcareDefinitely, for listeners, this is a need. I know you'll love it. 

Megan, please share with us how you have been doing with this and with all of your clients, helping them. I know you have a ton of stories. I'd love to hear a bit about how you got into all this. 

[0:06:34.5] Megan Williams: Absolutely! Well, first, Ashley, thank you for having me today. I love sharing and giving value, and you have been doing this for years, which is so exciting that you've got so many people who have been blessed by your insights. And just listening to you, you are an expert already at all about it. You know, even though I know you claimed to be Canadian, you definitely have the terms down as we Americans do. That, dang it, it stinks when you are an independent contractor, and you have to pay for yourself. And you hit so many points that I think are difficult points for so many of us. You hit how much it costs every month, and then can we even afford the out-of-pocket deductibles and copays that come along with that. Even when employers are offering it to try to retain their clients, they're getting priced out of good plans, so you're getting subpar. And many providers, doctors, and hospitals don't even want to work with it. Then the fact that you even mentioned that there are brokers out there that are trying to be solution-oriented and make a little bit of money trying to help people like you and me in the marketplace. But the problem is if you're looking at the price point, you're cutting out all the care. And so this has been something that really is difficult, and just like you, I've been an independent contractor for the last 17-plus years. Prior, I taught high school, and my husband was in law enforcement. So those are “jobs that give you benefits,” right? So you're thinking, “Oh, this is great. I get these benefits.” But there are so many fine little gotchas in those contracts that we've learned over the years. 

Let me just give you a little background. I have been offering solutions for high prices for a lot of different essential services for the last 20 years. My husband and I really love helping people. We love bringing them more value. We love getting to have great relationships, just like you. And what was so interesting is we were introduced to our healthcare option here with Impact, and we knew that we were not going to offer something that would not really be a solution. Like, money is number one. It's like a house payment; you have to pay for it, right? Or you have to knock on wood and pray nothing happens. Like you just said, so many people go without it. And Ryan and I were not going to even say one word about it unless we knew it was going to be a good solution. 

So I would love to hit some of the points that you talked about and why this is so great. But I do want everyone to understand that I get it. I get what people are paying for. I get what people are not wanting to pay for. I'll give a great personal example, and then we'll get into the benefits of this. So we had healthcare through our great providers, that are the ones paid for, and I had twins back in 2010. I had to take one of my boys to get an x-ray because he was crying, and he never cried. He was like the happiest baby ever. He's about ten months old. We got there; I called the insurance company and said, okay, where should I go? What's your “in-network”? And we go over to this facility to get an x-ray. The doctor saw us for literally maybe 8 minutes after the x-ray. He told us he just needed a sling, and his little collarbone was broken, but that's how you repair it. A few weeks later, I got a bill for $13,000, and I was like, are you kidding me? So I called up this big major insurance company that's supposed to be included. All the stuff is supposed to be included. They're like, “Oh, well, if you have gone to the hospital at this entrance, then you would have been a network. But because you went to their outpatient on the other side of the building, that wasn't in our network.” And I said to them, I am paying you $2,400 a month to have healthcare, and you're telling me that you're not going to help me work this out? They're like, “No, it's out of network. So you're responsible for this.” Now that's normal. Out-of-network for a family can be close to $22,000 a year. I was ticked. I canceled my insurance that day. I called the little outpatient I thought hospital and worked with them, and I ended up paying cash and renegotiating prices. Mind you, this was 13 years ago, and I thought this was ridiculous. Well, I was like, I don't want healthcare. I'm not paying for this; I'll just pay cash with cash as king. At that point in 2010, you could just pay cash. You didn't have to do it. And then the government changed the rules, and you were fined if you didn't have health care. At first, the fines were not that expensive, and then once you made too much money, the fines became out of control. And so they then instilled this idea of affordable health care. But the problem is anybody in this country who makes a decent living cannot get the subsidies. Or they can get subsidies until they show that they made more income, and then again, you have more fines. So it's this broken system. 

And so, again, Ryan and I were looking. We have been praying for solutions, and we have tried everything. We've gone with big disabilities. We've gone with low payments, but then it has a lot of piecemeal coverage, and then we pay cash for things. But ultimately, with three boys, there's no way we can live life like that. And so when we were introduced to this, we were blown away. I will tell you, first off, everybody, the neat thing about this option in this group share program is that it is a non-profit. So there isn't someone at the top trying to make all the money on us. That got me really excited that nobody owns it because it's not a company. It's a non-profit, non-insurance alternative that gives us a solution. And so, just like you were saying, Ashley, that for most of us who are generally healthy, we were paying into a broken system — a system that is 3% or maybe 5% of the country that really needs health care. But the rest of us, we are healthy and are looking for alternatives. We want to use chiropractors. We want to use holistic ways. And even today, I had a good friend call me. She's been in our program, but she's been so afraid to use it because she thought there were gotchas. And then she used our telemedicine which we have unlimited access to everyone with $0 provider fees, and she was blown away. She's like, “In two minutes, I was talking to a doctor, and I told her what was going on, and they got me two prescriptions in one hour. I was worried for nothing, and it was so simple.” And I started laughing, and I said, “I know. We are brainwashed to think it is going to be complicated, and it's going to be difficult.” And what our group has done is modernize this, made it affordable but giving us, just like you said, the freedom and control back to us. 

[0:14:05.2] Ashley James: Right. So there's a monthly fee that you pay which is a fraction of normal health insurance like I'm paying $1400 a month for ‘okay' health insurance, which is not that great. I'm frustrated that we have to pay out-of-pocket $9,500 before we start really getting coverage. Our family, knock on wood, or knock on my Sunlighten sauna, which is right beside me — that's wood; I know that's wood — thank God, we're in good health. You know we have the oopsies that happen once in a while, and that is why we have insurance. But like I said, I want to go to my chiropractor. I want to go to my acupuncturist. I want to go to my licensed naturopathic physician and to my holistic providers, and I want them paid for. I'd love to have access to quick telemedicine to speak to a doctor, just to be like, “Hey, should I go to the clinic with my son? He's got a weird rash.” And you know that it's free. I'd love that. The gotchas are something that is looming in my mind; like that sounds too good to be true because it costs so little, and you're getting way better coverage. I have a friend with a different company who is in a sort of a healthcare thing. And it was like, “Well, if you do this, then we'll drop you.” And so the fear is, is this something that is in a regulated industry? Can they just drop you if they decide to? So we definitely want to talk about those red flags, these elephants in the room. 

But one thing that I first want to talk about though is this idea of in-network and out-of-network. What you described happened to us similarly, but this is back when my husband was a foreman union carpenter. This was about 13 years ago, also in 2010. And so the carpenters' union, I thought, had good health insurance. He had an oopsie, and we went to the hospital. He had to have an emergency experience at the hospital, and it was a hospital that was in-network. Then we get the bill. And the anesthesiologist, although working at the hospital at the time, was out-of-network. How is this possible? So we had to pay the entire everything for the anesthesiologist because they wouldn't cover that bill. And yet I'm like, how is this possible? We went to a hospital that was in-network, and my husband got rushed off to an ER, and any of the practitioners in that ER could not be covered by the insurance. And I hate that. And when I gave birth to our son, we got a $5,000 bill within weeks of giving birth. I'm like, I did all the work. What is going on? You guys didn't do anything. I did all the work. So I hate it that you have to pay every month. I don't use the word ‘hate' often, but I just loathe this system that makes us feel like we're indebted slaves. It is not freedom, and you get surprise bills, and if you don't pay them, they're going to send you to collections really quickly. And it's a surprise! We get to charge you with whatever we want because it's out-of-network, and we decide what's in there, and you don't know beforehand, even though you do all the research. We could switch out an anesthesiologist and put in one that was out of network, and you don't get to decide. 

So this idea of in-network and out-of-network feels like a total scam. So the company that you're working with, that you're telling us about, there's no such thing as out-of-network?

[0:17:57.3] Megan Williams: Correct, and it's amazing! So the main point that I'm just going to hit, and then we're going to hit all these points you just said, is yes, there are no network providers. And now, no provider network in general. So if something happens and you end up on a vacation at a hospital with your finger cut and they've got to do stitches, there's no triple the price because it “was out-of-network.” You can go to every doctor, every provider that you like and you're used to. And even if they've never heard of our group, Impact, what's neat is we have what's called an EDI number, and that EDI number is what they have in their systems for every network. So we have our own licensing. Currently, we are in 47 states, so that we can have service then in all states and all the countries around the world if something should happen. But the neat part is that they will not triple the price because you're “out of network,” and that is really nice. The other great thing is because it's comprehensive medicine, anything you go to the doctor for, even before your deductibles are met, they do what's called reference-based pricing. And so, again, they are working to be our advocates. 

So that's what's so neat about it. It is that we've got an amazing price point, and we're going to explain how that works. We're going to answer that question that you just asked about. Could they kick you out for no reason? No, because we've got guidelines that are our legal standing, that makes this work for everybody, and you go in totally transparent, and you know exactly what you're going to get without any gotchas, no provider restrictions, which is huge. So again, no double or triple prices, and we've got this advocate with Impact that's going to work with us and help us every step of the way, which is so unique in this industry. It just doesn't happen anymore. You know, it's just all about the bottom line, and for us, it's not. And so I think the neat thing is when we really are trying to help as many people as possible, and it's inclusive. 

So a lot of the background about sharing groups that we've heard is they're all religious-based, while ours is under the umbrella of love thy neighbor because that can be any religion. So we have no religious affiliation. Everybody is welcome. And really, there is no denying being part of our group. The big thing is we do have a 36-month pre-existing, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But what I want to explain to everybody is we're looking for generally healthy people. All of us who don't go all the time and will love the idea of alternatives. Well, because of that, the only thing they look at is the oldest member of the household's age and how many members are going to be part of the group. So it will be one, two, or three and more. So you could be a family of eight, and it's the same price if you're a family of three. If you add more children, it doesn't hurt you. Again, that's kind of unheard of too. 

So like you said, the average American's paying $1,800 a month for decent health care coverage, with a $10,000 family deductible and $22,000 out-of-network. That's what we're used to. Usually, you get a 20/80 split when it comes to your co-shares and things like that. Well, let me explain how ours works. 

[0:21:28.9] Ashley James: Could you just explain what 20/80 is? So let's just slow it down. Normally what people are paying — so like I said, our family of three is paying $1,400 a month, and we have to pay out of pocket $9,500 in a year before they start really covering things, and we have a few things. Like I can go to see a chiropractor ten times a year, and after that, it's out of pocket. Like, I have to pay 100% of it, basically. So I've got a few things, but it's like you're just buying car insurance. You're just hoping you don't get into an accident, but you're glad if you have it because it's going to sort of help for the big stuff. So the 80/20 split, can you just explain that? That's the standard health insurance that we are not happy with. It's like a train wreck. It is a broken system. Okay, broken system explanation. 

[0:22:23.9] Megan Williams: Yes. So the way it works in traditional health care is you have it as a deductible, and usually when you go to the doctor, you have to pay a copay or provider fee upfront. So then you get the full bill. So you pay your provider fee then they send the bill to the insurance. The insurance reprice as is. If you have not met your deductible, then you pay that repriced bill to the doctor, and they apply it. The problem is, as you are starting to utilize that, then you get to a place where now you've met your deductible, and you have to pay 20% of the bill, and they then will cover 80% of it. Well, normally, that doesn't have a limit.

So let's say a child, heaven forbid, gets cancer, and you meet your in-network deductible of $10,000 for the year and even some out-of-networks because, again, like we just heard with sweet Ashley, is that the anesthesiologist was not in-network, so you have to pay that price. So they try to tell you, “Oh, max out of pocket, it would be $12,000.” Or, in her scenario, it was $9,500 if it was in-network. Out-of-network, that max might be $22,000. Well then, after that, heaven forbid, your child has to continue getting therapy and continue being in the hospital off and on, you then pay 20% of those bills, and if a bill comes to a million dollars, you are now responsible for 20% of that. And what we've found is most of the bankruptcies in the United States come because we cannot afford this healthcare. When something tragic comes, and, like you said, these oopsies turn into something really big; now we're in a big bind. 

Well, the neat thing with our guidelines and the way that they have set us up for price point is it is the oldest member of the household. So in my family, I'm the oldest member of our household, and we have five members of our household. And so, our price point is determined as I age, not by what medical expenses have happened in our family, which is huge. But we also know that no matter what threshold we pick — I'm going to explain in just a minute how this works — you get to pick four options. One is the amount of your deductible, which we call a primary responsibility amount, and then you pay your monthly rate, or what we know in traditional health care is called premiums, and you decide if you want to pay less every month and have more exposure on the backend with our deductible. Or would you like to pay a little bit more for your monthly premium or standard rate and then have a household deductible that's much lower? And then once you meet that, we would then have a 10/90 split, but it maxes at $5,000 for the whole family for the year. So that same million-dollar incident would not cost a family more than the amount they picked for their deductible, which thresholds are $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, or $10,000 and $5,000 in your kosher amount. So you could be as little as $7,500 for the year to $15,000 for your whole entire family. And you know going in that if something happens, this is all that I would come out of pocket besides my monthly rates. And that is a huge place to start from, where most of the time, we start at, like you said, $1,400 a month. It's piecemeal. We don't really know what they're going to cover and what they're not going to cover. And then all of a sudden, we have bills coming out because some were in-network and some were out-of-network, and it is a colossal tough situation. 

[0:26:25.5] Ashley James: You said the million-dollar — God forbid, knock on wood and knock my Sunlighten — medical bill, which would be over $200,000 for average healthcare, your health care caps off after you pay your deductible. It caps off at that $5,000. 

[0:26:47.0] Megan Williams: Yes.

[0:26:47.5] Ashley James: Per family. 

[0:26:49.3] Megan Williams: Yes, which is so incredible.

[0:26:51.5] Ashley James: It's amazing! So like you said, the 20/80 split, it's a 10/90 split that gets capped at $5,000. That is insane, and I love it. It's so freeing for so many families. I just looked it up; 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States are caused by medical bills. 

[0:26:51.5] Megan Williams: That's right.

[0:27:14.9] Ashley James: Really, it's really sick. It is a broken system that keeps us so stressed out and so stuck. The way the financial system is going, the way our food costs have risen, we've got to get more creative when it comes to saving money and still being healthy. This is a perfect system to do that. This system is the perfect system because I order, for example, as your standard — I'll make sure the link is in the show notes — as your standard is a produce company that gets organic fresh from the farm kind of thing, and you can also do both. I buy brown rice and beans in bulk. I save a ton of money doing it. I buy my sprouting seeds in bulk. I get frozen organic produce and fresh organic produce through them, and they get it directly from the farm, and they promised that it's not radiated, that there's no Bill Gates spray, that new kind of spray they called Apeel, which has been around for a while for the last few years. That's not sprayed on their produce. So they're fantastic. I've been buying from them for years, but when my friends were like, “They're a Christian-based company,” I love it when a company is like, “Hey, these are our values, and we just want you to know that we're not going to poison you.” That's how I save money because even though I'm pinching pennies, money's tight, and I'm not going to sacrifice my family's health. So I will still continue to buy organic, and I'm just going to find more and more creative ways to do so. I'm throwing my own potatoes in my backyard. That kind of thing. So I'm buying from companies that I can buy in bulk and save money and looking at how I can cut costs, but not cut care, and not cut quality. And what I love about your company is that it's a fraction of the price, and we're getting even better care. 

Now, I know you have so much to talk about. But I got to tell you my absolute favorite part, besides the fact that you're not going to get surprised by $200,000 bills. So there are no surprises when it comes to bills. But what I love is that you have so much more access to holistic health providers. So, let's talk about what you do get to do with this insurance. Do you call it insurance? 

[0:29:53.4] Megan Williams: We don't. We call it healthcare or health sharing or a non-insurance alternative. And it's very nice because the only thing about our platform is it's a five-year-old group that's been around for five years. But what's so neat about it is they took this modern approach, and the CFO and the board have come together from past experience of what works and doesn't work — what are people wanting, what are they looking for, what do they need. And even to this day, there are some things holistically that we can't share yet. But there is so much more available here than I've ever seen, which is incredible. I absolutely love it. So I'll give a great example of that. 

With our group, everybody in the entire group gets a wellness visit, and they get $150 of labs without having to pay into their PRA or deductible that comes first. And then, as you are getting treatments and you're working with new situations, they will actually share or apply visits up to fifty per member for either chiropractic, physical therapy, mental health, things that they might need like respiratory therapy, the things that sometimes are overlooked. And if we were doing them, it would prevent other things from happening, right? And I really like that because my chiropractor and I had worked out a way to be affordable and be able to use him because my children are so athletic. We tend to have things pop out and hurt. My knees have popped out. We've been in and out of the ER for a lot of stuff, and we have found that utilizing our chiropractor has prevented a lot of these issues. Well, when we came to Impact, we were really thrilled to know that each person got to come by and visit. So let's just say we pay cash $200 for our chiropractic visits as a family every month — I'm just going to use that number because it's a round number. It is easy, right? Maybe it was $100 a visit. Well, what we worked out with Impact is we pay the hour $100, and then our chiropractor's staff then sends the paid invoice with the correct codes of treatment to Impact. Well, Impact then worked with him and said, okay, listen, this is a new treatment, so we need these codes. They worked out the correct code, so everything was right. And then, they could take that bill of $100 and apply it to our deductible. So things that I had been paying cash for years, 10-15 years now, actually got applied to our PRA. So then one of my sons needed physical therapy, a new therapy for an injury that he had. Again, we were able to take that physical therapy bill, get the code, submit that to Impact, and have it applied to our PRA. Before, we would just go and have that therapy done without getting any type of application to it. So it actually went to something, and that was huge. Oh my gosh, that was huge. 

And then, over time, we had other preventive care that when you're in your forties, you need. And those were getting applied. But the amazing part was, in some of the scenarios, they would readjust those prices, and in some of them, it was just what we paid cash. But it got applied. And so, very quickly, we had chosen as a family, we were paying, just so everybody knows of our background; we had gotten it whittled down to about $1,800 a month for healthcare with a $10,000 family deductible. Now on Impact, we pay $605 a month with a $2,500 household PRA or deductible. So very quickly, $2,500 between five people and little incidents adds up quickly. And it just made it so nice because as things were coming in and different processes and bills were coming in, Impact kept all that transparent. They worked with all the different providers. Over the last year, we have seen checks come back for things we paid for in cash with that 10% taken out because they're like, “No, you've met this PRA now. We got to make sure you guys get your money back.” So everything's doing the right by us, and that was huge. 

[0:34:35.2] Ashley James: As I said earlier, when I looked into how much our family of three would be paying, it came out to be about $600 with, like you said, the $2,500 household deductible. Now with the insurance I had, it was $9,500. So that was a huge difference. And I was paying $1,400 a month, and now they're closer to $600 with you guys. I was sitting there going, something was wrong. I didn't input something correctly. There's got to be a glitch.

This is amazing paying for it, and I love that you called it a non-health insurance alternative because that sounds like my latte. It's like I'm going to have the non-dairy alternative. It's better, and it's healthier. This is like that — the healthier, non-insurance alternative. This is the holistic non-insurance alternative. It just sounds like my entire diet. It's like, I'm going to have the non-meat alternative or whatever. 

[0:35:42.2] Megan Williams: Yes, it's so true. It feels like that. You're absolutely right. So for those of us who are used to non-traditional, this is a perfect solution. Now, there are scenarios, Ashley, 100%, that we're not the right fit. But it's not all or nothing. And that's some of the things that really blew my mind as I was helping families trying to find solutions. I'll give a great example — we had a mom who has been diabetic since she was born, and she needed very specific medicine, and it was very, very expensive. And so, on the marketplace, there are some great plans that are out there. But again, it's nice. Like you said, there are brokers who actually helped. And so, in our hunt for helping people find solutions and really trying to find the best so people can come to our group, we have made some really great strategic partnerships. So this family comes, we look at the price point, we look at everything it covers, and she goes, “Oh my goodness, this is perfect for my husband and kids. They don't have any issues. This is what we've been looking for.” Well, they were a family of four, and what we did was we were actually able to put the entire family in our group with Impact. She worked with a broker that we knew and got great diabetic coverage for what she needed because that was pre-existing for her. But she can utilize our group as her secondary. So she gets her wellness visits, you know, included. She gets her normal thing. She gets all the benefits of the discounts for our prescriptions, but she gets what she needs with traditional. So, yes, they're paying a little bit more. But if they had kept the family on that traditional plan for the four of them, it was going to be $2,800 a month. Instead, she could have that plan for right around $600, and the family, including her, could be with us. They were a little older than us. So it's about $650 a month with a $2,500 deductible. Well, that was still $1,200 less than the $2,800 they would be paying if they were all on traditional. So it's not an all-or-nothing scenario. 

We've had people who have high blood pressure. It's pre-existing. With us, any of those bills or doctor visits about high blood pressure would not be applied to the deductible or to sharing. But if they had a heart attack, or they ended up in the hospital thinking they were having a heart attack, that would be shared with the group because that pre-existing does not affect future cardiac and vascular events that could come up. So again, it's not an all-or-nothing for individuals with us. It just is; what do you feel comfortable with? We sometimes have where the parents don't even come to Impact. They stay with their employees' coverage, and their children come to us because it's so much more affordable to mix-and-match per se. So again, this is the non-traditional approach, folks. It's not all or nothing. It's crazy, right? I mean, they pay into any type of chiropractic, physical therapy, vision therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, or respirational. They look at mental health. They want to help us. With preventative ladies, we all get our preventative care and work with all of those things, and they'll share in it. It is big. They have limitations, but the limitations can be for a favor and/or protect us from people abusing the situation. So it's really neat how they word our guidelines. And when you go to Ashley's link, you can look at the guidelines and see the transparency of it, which is huge. It's fantastic, so we love that.

[0:39:38.2] Ashley James: So it's learntruehealth.com/healthcare. You definitely want to check that out. I love that I can go to my chiropractor every two weeks and not have to worry about it. I like to see my naturopath once every six months. I don't have major health issues, but I really like to check in twice a year. I like to do some blood work if we feel like we need to. Pretty much I like to do blood work once a year. But if there's anything coming up, I like to just check in on it. I like knowing that I have access to these other services, like physical therapy. I got to tell you physical therapy for women after giving birth is the most life-changing thing. I have an interview about pelvic floor therapy, and it's not just for women. If men are having trouble urinating, have pain during sex, and pain during evacuation, they can also have a disruption in their pelvic floor. So I had this great interview about pelvic floor therapy. I've seen three different pelvic floor therapists. I had one before my second pregnancy and two after. And one of them did a type of massage. Yes, it's a vaginal massage. They wear gloves and everything. What she did was she broke up scar tissue. I didn't even realize that this was the problem, and it corrected everything. It was amazing. I could walk properly. My chiropractor pulled me back together because my pelvis was twisted. But it's really interesting how scar tissue, after giving birth vaginally, can throw off the whole pelvic floor, which throws off the glutes, which throws off the hips, which throws off our gait. It is all connected, and I ended up because my crappy expensive health insurance wasn't covering it. I had to pay $5,500 out of pocket for all the PT I got, and it was so frustrating. I am paying so much money for health insurance, and on top of that, I have to pay for the care I need because I was in pain, and this might be TMI. Well, my listeners know me. But intercourse for seven years was painful, which doesn't make it fun for the husband because he's like, “I don't want to hurt you.” But that was the scar tissue left behind, and that was the stitches that the doctor did without really consulting me, and it caused so much scar tissue that it wasn't fun. It was no fun experience for the last eight years. And then I had the PT, and it was like everything down there was reset to pre-having kids. I couldn't believe it. And then, finally, there was no pain during intercourse, and it was like, I didn't realize how much I missed not having pain down there until it was reset. But this is pelvic floor PT, not covered by a lot of very expensive health insurance companies, and here we have something. These are licensed physical therapists. This is a legitimate service. This is a legitimate physical therapy, and it can be covered by this non-insurance, healthier alternative. 

[0:42:55.3] Megan Williams: That's right. No, it's really true. So let's talk about maternity because that's one of the big questions. I have a new member family that is young. They have two children. They want to have another one, and they have been looking. Her husband changed jobs, and with the new job, healthcare wasn't really a viable option for them and their family. They're like, “It's not really providing us care. It doesn't do what we want.” And she just happened to see one of our posts on Facebook, and she sent me a message. Her mom and I have been friends for years, and she's like, “We really want to have another baby.” I said okay, stop right there. If you come to us, we need to get you in the system fast because you need to be a member for one year before that baby is born. So she's like, okay. So she's been a member for one month, and she's been waiting for three months. “So four months total before we started trying for another baby,” and I started laughing, and I said, “Yes, because with our program, you guys, you get up to $150,000 towards any single pregnancy event that is shared in the group.” The neat part, just like you said. Afterwardsafterward, physical therapy would be something that would definitely be shared with the group. You can also pick which kind of doctor you can be performed with. So you can go to a facility. You can have a midwife come to your house. You can have a water delivery as long as the midwives/PA are all certified and registered in that state for delivery as long as they're properly licensed. 

Now this is a huge option because so many people now are looking for alternatives for that. It is great. And then, of course, the newborn will become a member and be added right when they're born. So it's perfect. And then they get extra visits that first year and then up to the age of six. They get all their visits, and all that stuff included that is shared with the group to make it very affordable for us. And so I think that that is a really huge blessing because, like you said, these doctors, in and out of network, all of a sudden emergencies happen, and you get these extra bills. And that's not what you want to be focused on when you have a baby. That is a fantastic added benefit. For our members, they really want us to recover, and they want us to have great options. And absolutely, that type of therapy would be included because it would fall under physical therapy. So it's fantastic.

[0:45:29.8] Ashley James: Absolutely. I'm so excited. As far as people with pre-existing conditions like asthma, for example, they can still use your non-insurance healthier alternative, but when it comes to their pre-existing condition, it is not covered for the first 36 months. 

[0:45:52.5] Megan Williams: Correct. In our guidelines, let me just say it exactly right so everyone understands — so pre-existing medical conditions are conditions that are known signs, symptoms, testing, diagnosis, treatment, or other use of medicine occurring within the last 36 months. Now asthma would be something that would be pre-existing because it's been diagnosed. But at the same time, the nice thing about asthma is that besides having a prescription and being aware of it, there's no long-term effect. So a lot of people would say, okay, I could come to this group. I know my prescriptions are going to be discounted because I'm not part of the group anyways, but maybe if I have a special respiratory scenario, if they've just been recently diagnosed prior to coming to the group, that would be considered pre-existing. But some people haven't had treatment. They may have just been on medicine for the last ten years but have not had any type of diagnosis or treatment per se in the last 36 months. So anything new coming up would not be considered pre-existing. 

I'll give an example that happened to me personally. So I have acid reflux from having twins. They always say when you're pregnant, you have heartburn. Well, let me tell you, when you have twins, it has nothing to do with the hair on their head because my two are bald. But it definitely was something that I got, and then I continued to have it off and on for the last thirteen years. Well, when I was with my last traditional insurance, they saw on my doctor's notes that I had gotten a prescription for heartburn, and they told me that it was pre-existing. And if anything ever comes up — an ulcer, esophagus cancer, anything — we will never cover those things because you have a pre-existing. Now mind you, I've gotten medication once in the last six years, but it was in my records. So I came to Impact, and at that point, I was so mad that I didn't get prescriptions for it. So I haven't had a prescription for that for years. I just use over-the-counter stuff every once in a while because it's there. Well, on my application, when we become members, you fill out things that, have you had any issues? So I put in acid reflux because I'm honest. Well, then later, I talked to Impact, and I said, listen, I have acid reflux. I take medicine for it every once in a while. I said, is that a pre-existing? They said, no, it's not a pre-existing condition in a sense; it's for your future care. So I thought, okay. Well, I went in to be scoped for both my colonoscopy and endoscopy. I think it's how you say it, through your throat, to make sure you have no cancer. Guys, when you're in your forties, they care. They want to make sure, and it runs our family, so I had to go get checked. And I've been avoiding this for years, by the way. Well, the doctor goes in and realizes I have a herniated esophagus. He did some different things during the procedure that helped immensely. And I'm sure he put it on the bill, but what I did realize on my bill is I got all of that shared “covered” with the group, and it was not considered a pre-existing. 

And so that was a huge thing for me to see that they said, “Okay, you might have gotten that prescription years ago, but we're not going to hold it against you even though I'd still take medicine for it.” And I think that that was huge. That was a really big thing. So again, it's not all or nothing. And when anyone joins our group or wants to even ask, they can talk to Impact prior to joining and ask all their personal questions and feel super comfortable about those answers just in case. So it's really nice for them.

[0:49:56.3] Ashley James: So they can go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare, and that's where a lot of the information is, and they'll be able to find the phone number to talk to someone.

[0:50:09.6] Megan Williams: To request, absolutely. 

[0:50:12.5] Ashley James: To talk about pre-existing. So I'm a little confused, and if I'm confused, then there's got to be a lot of listeners who are confused. Again, I'm a Canadian here.

[0:50:20.9] Megan Williams: Yes, I know. I know.

[0:50:22.4] Ashley James: That's making sense to me, right? You know an American can walk into a Canadian hospital and get care and not be kicked out. But I'm not saying their system is any better. The healthcare system is broken because it's all about pharmaceuticals and profits. And in Canada, it's not about profits. It's about cutting costs. So, it's, again, a broken system. But we're doing the best we can to navigate a broken system by choosing freedom of choice, which is why I love this non-insurance healthy alternative to insurance because we can have the freedom of choice to choose our practitioners. There's no network. And I want to talk about this. You can go to a different state, and if you're in a different country. You'll get coverage, and you're protected under this umbrella, which is what insurance is supposed to do. But I love that you have the freedom to choose your holistic, licensed practitioners, and that makes me so excited.  

So let's just talk about this just so we can fully understand it. If someone has a pre-existing condition, and then they join this wonderful non-insurance healthier alternative to insurance after being with you guys for 36 months, are there pre-existing conditions that are covered or pre-existing conditions that are never recovered? 

[0:51:46.7] Megan Williams: Okay, so let's use an example. So the condition has to not have had a treatment or a diagnosis or any signs and symptoms testing in 36 months. So I'll give an example of my friend who had shoulder surgery. So she just had a treatment. She had a shoulder repair a year and a half ago. She joins Impact. She knows if anything comes up with this left shoulder of hers, physical therapy, or she goes and gets more treatment on it, that would not be shared with the group. Now, Impact would help reprice any of those expenses. They would help be the liaison. But because that experience happened within 18 months, it's still in that 36 months. Now, let's say she doesn't have any issues. Her shoulder's been fine, and we finished 36 months, even though she's only been a member for that 18 months because now the total amount has been 36 months of that time of treatment, diagnosis, surgery, whatever — now, anything that comes up from that shoulder would be shared with the group. It would be able to not be all out-of-pocket expenses. And so, it's not about being a member for 36 months. It's when did that sign, symptom, and diagnosis happen.

So, I have a friend who had a heart attack, and he has a big family. They were paying $3,200 a month for the health care for their family of eight, and they were able to come to Impact for $700 a month. And his biggest concern was I had this heart attack. While he gets a screening every year, he has not been on medications. He has not had a diagnosis. He has not had treatment for that heart attack for more than thirty-six months. So, according to Impact's guidelines, it's as if it never existed. 

[0:53:49.8] Ashley James: Got it.

[0:53:51.3] Megan Williams: So even though he gets a screening for it, that's not a treatment or test. See the difference. So that's why this is so neat because, for example, if you've been diagnosed with cancer and it's in complete remission, and you're only undergoing testing for surveillance purposes, as long as that cancer hasn't been treated for 36 months, it is as if it never happened. 

[0:54:19.7] Ashley James: Now, let's say he did, for example, had his heart attack and then immediately joined, and let's say it's an ongoing problem; it's a pre-existing condition because it's within the first 36 months he has joined. Is it like 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years that forever it's not covered, or is it just not covered for the first 36 months?

[0:54:50.5] Megan Williams: I'll give another example of someone who had a heart attack on New Year's Eve. He has joined Impact while still getting treatment and medicine for that. So that portion, he gets an employee stipend for his medical. But his wife does not. So they decided to both come to Impact because the medicine that they prescribed him was $700 a month. Through Impact, though, because he's a member, it's only $73 a month. So even though he has traditional health care that's going to cover his pre-existing heart attack scenario and all the testing and treatments he is still going through, he's almost done. The doctor's like, “I can't believe how well you're doing.” Let's just say that by October, he no longer needs to have treatment or medicine; they'll just do a screening because everything's looking great. From October now, the clock will start for 36 months. So even though he's been a member since January, that one condition, the clock starts once the treatment stops. 

So it's not about membership. It's about when the treatment stops before you come. But he wanted to be a member, and it's his actual secondary as a member because he wanted the medication discounts that our group got him. So it was worth it because he saved $600 a month on the medication even though he's paying for a secondary with his wife with this. Actually, this is her full coverage, and it's his secondary. But they're both on Impact because he wants those benefits. So again, it's not all or nothing. But the nice thing is, yes, he has a heart attack, but if he had a stroke, that has nothing to do with the heart attack. Or if he got colon cancer, that has nothing to do with the heart attack. So all those things would be shared with the group and have “coverage.”

[0:56:53.6] Ashley James: And so in a few years, let's say he's heart attack free, the heart's fine, cleans up his diet, listens to my podcast, learns how to prevent and reverse heart disease — that's a really great episode with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, How to Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease. Just so you know, if you know anyone with heart disease, this is the book. The interview is amazing, obviously, but the book is phenomenal because he performed the world's longest study using food to reverse heart disease. Within two years, they've taken photos, and they show you that there are four blockages in the heart. These poor people who are too sick; they were on death's door and too sick to have stents put in or have surgery. They were within weeks of dying. Too sick to do anything else, so he was like, okay, well, let's just try a diet. And he gets them on a whole food plant-based, no salt, sugar, oil, flour, or alcohol diet. And there is also stuff you have to eat that increases heart health, that helps the endothelial lining of the cardiovascular system. It's like science. You're eating six times a day of all these different foods that are all heart-healthy, and he gets people to go from four blockages in the heart to zero blockages in the heart. Angina pain is gone in the first month. Blood clots in the leg are gone very quickly. It was absolutely amazing. 

So anyway, let's say one of your guys has a heart attack, buys your non-insurance, healthier alternative to insurance, and gets this coverage, and then he cleans up his life. He doesn't have any heart health issues for 36 months, even though it was his pre-existing condition. But 36 months of no health problems around the heart, according to you guys, it's no longer a pre-existing condition, and should he have heart issues in the future, like five to ten years down the road, then it's covered?

[0:58:55.3] Megan Williams: Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You got it!

[0:58:59.1] Ashley James: Yey, I understood it! The Canadian's got it.

[0:59:02.7] Megan Williams: Now you did perfect. And I love that podcast because I have friends who need to listen to it too. 

[0:59:08.4] Ashley James: Yes, all your friends need to listen to my show. Absolutely. It's amazing. Our body has a God-given ability to heal itself. We can heal ourselves. I reversed five major diagnoses, and so can you. Your body can heal itself. We just have to stop doing what everyone else is doing because everyone else is sick. Just go become a black sheep, go against the grain, cannot eat like everyone else, can't stress out like everyone else, right? Listen to my show.

[0:59:37.7] Megan Williams: It's so true. Well, that goes to this whole thing of thinking outside the box. So then a lot of people ask me all the time, and they go, “What about the providers? Will they even work with us? Because most people haven't heard of Impact.” Let me give you a little scenario. Most marketplace plans are just the bare minimum. So what that means is the provider might get 70% of what medicare pricing is, or 80% or 90. Sometimes they're lucky. With the Blue Cross Blue Shield, they still get 100% on certain things. Well, the new thing is when Impact looks at reference-based pricing, they're not trying to get the cheapest thing that nobody wants to work with us. They actually start their pricing with 150% of medicare pricing. So now, the doctors like working with us because the price point isn't insulting them, which is so good too. And again, when you're thinking outside the box, half of these medical professionals have just been beaten up. They've been told that they're not worth what they think they are. And we'll say, no, you're worth it, and we want to work together to find solutions. So when you are talking about how your body can heal, we can also heal these relationships with doctors and facilities. All of us, because we're coming to the table, not just trying to find solutions for us, but also for the providers. That's a really good place to be because it's about solutions, and that's what makes it so nice. You know what I mean? So I really love that. I love that your listeners listen to outside-the-box thinking, but in this scenario, just like in yours, it's a win-win because we got to be smart. We got to make everybody feel important. So we're cutting the cost but not the care. The providers are not getting gouged and say, “Oh, we don't care that you have 20 years of experience. We're not going to give you what you deserve.” No, we're going to help you get what you deserve. 

[1:01:46.4] Ashley James: It's not a pyramid where there are these shareholders at the top going, “Mwahaha, I like sitting on and swimming through bags of money.” All the other traditional health insurance companies gouge the customers, and they gouge the providers. They keep the profits for themselves and are just evil. And we have you guys, who are the non-insurance, healthy alternative to insurance. Why should listeners go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare? You created a great website that explains this a lot. You can play with the quote and see how much your family would be paying, or individual. Maybe you're not a family member, just an individual. You're a single person. How much you'd be paying, play with the quote meter — but what else will they see at learntruehealth.com/healthcare?

[1:02:38.3] Megan Williams: Well, what we love is we really wanted everyone to understand why this is so different. And so, on the homepage, I do a 7-minute video that breaks down all the benefits of our program and helps you feel comfortable. But then we included videos that Impact has made over the years about important facts and why this is such a smart, different way of thinking. But on it, you could even see testimonials. You can see what groups could pay. We work with businesses where they've been priced out of healthcare options for their employees, and so they're losing employees to other companies. And we have an entire page where you can get a quote for your company. We also have wonderful videos that explain going to the doctor and how we work with everybody and their no-network restrictions. It is very transparent. But when you're on the guideline little page, the overview is directly linked with our share group. So it's updated as they make legal changes. Everything is transparent. Everything is there. 

And what we love is that you don't have to try to figure it out. I have a lawyer who's in our group, and when he read the guidelines, he's like, “Oh my goodness. This is one of the best-written documents I've had.” Because if it's not in there, they're going to share it. They're very specific about what is a concern and what's not a concern. And as you said, we can play around with the pricing. Our individual starts at $73 a month, families at $250 a month with a family of two, and then, of course, three and more. We are not trying to make this difficult. We want everyone to feel very comfortable. So, when you're on our site, you can even request more information and hear from Impact themselves and/or our associates because we've had so much experience as members of the program to help out as well. We run live events that you can register for and learn more about. And, of course, working directly with Ashley's group and this community, we really know that we'll be able to give great solutions, and it's really nice for that too. 

[1:04:58.5] Ashley James: I just love that you can get all the coverage you want, and it's cheaper than your car insurance. Well, at least it's cheaper than what I'm paying for car insurance. And I'm a good driver, and knock on my Sunlighten sauna; I haven't had any tickets. I don't know; I think I was in my twenties the last time. Oh, I mean, I had a parking ticket a few years ago. But other than that, I haven't had any traffic violations. Knock on my Sunlighten sauna; I haven't had any traffic violations. But car insurance is expensive, and you guys are cheaper than my car insurance. I'm shaking my head thinking about how many Generation Z people, young professionals — I'm friends with some of them — who don't have health insurance because they're like, “Well, I can't afford them.” $73 a month? Yeah, you can. 

I have a friend who's a chef, and he's like, “I can't afford.” Half the year, he lives out of his truck because he loves to travel. He works at resorts, out in Vail ski resorts, and then the rest of the year, he is traveling and having fun, and he's just like, “I can't afford health insurance.” I can't wait to tell him it's $73 a month. He can absolutely afford it. And then when he cuts his thumb off or whatever, then he does something stupid while in the kitchen, or burns himself, or something. I mean, he's traveling, and what if he gets chased by a bear? He's traveling all throughout the country, living the van life half the year. I'm thinking he would love this type of insurance, so he could go to any licensed provider in any state and be covered. 

How cool is that, that you can choose where you want to go. Your location doesn't matter. The insurance that I've had for many years, that I've been buying for many years, the traditional insurance — I couldn't even go to the other side of town. It wouldn't cover me. I had to only go to this one hospital network. It's just ridiculous. They say you're covered pretty much in every ER, but then if you're transferred from the ER into care, it's just ridiculous. The traditional system does not work. And I love that you can even do your non-insurance alternative to better insurance. You can do this as a secondary, which gives you even more coverage. So, anyway, I like the savings. I like the savings, and I like that I can now see more of my providers. That's super exciting. Tell us a little bit about traveling. So you could choose to go see a doctor or clinic in a different state. And also, what about traveling, like you're in Mexico or you're in Cancun? Tell us a bit about how that works. 

[1:07:42.1] Megan Williams: Absolutely. So the neat thing is, there are no provider restrictions. We had a young member who was diagnosed with cancer in the Arkansas area, and the doctors just weren't a good solution for this type of cancer. And so, he ended up going to Dallas with his family and getting all of their coverage. Well, after the repricing and everything like that for the year — I mean, we're talking a couple of million dollars of procedures — the out-of-pocket for the group was only around $280,000 for the year because the markup is so absolutely insane. Well, the new thing is if you were just traveling and you have an emergency, that also is covered. So you can have planned trips in America and go to any provider as long as it is not elective. So still today in healthcare, elective surgery is not covered. So sorry, ladies. Facelifts, botox, and all the little fun extras that people might pick, like hormone therapy, those things are not covered. Same with out of the country. So if you planned a specific surgery out of the country because it was cheaper, those are also not covered. But if I'm in Mexico, which I was a couple of weeks ago, and having a situation with coral that I needed to go and run to an emergency room quickly, I got that bill, and I could submit it to Impact. And yes, it was shareable with the group, and yes, it would be covered. So you could be traveling anywhere in the world, and if you end up in an emergency situation, those bills are going to come back through the group and get shared. And the nice part is there is no lifetime limit. So if you end up having a big scenario, you're not kicked out the next year because you cost the group too much money. That's very important. 

The other really great thing is, right now, we do have a yearly or annual limit per member, not per household, of $500,000. But what they found in the last five years, even with these huge expenses with the reference-based pricing, we aren't even getting close. I had a friend who was out golfing and all of a sudden had abdominal pain that he thought he was dying. They rushed to the emergency room to a hospital. He thought it was an appendix. Well, he ended up having a ruptured spleen, and he was in the hospital for five days. The entire bill came to over $152,000. It was actually four days, and then he was out on the fifth day. It was $152,000. Well, with the reference-based pricing, it came to $36,000. So he didn't even meet his max limit of the $5,000 10% co-share because they were able to reprice it so much lower. 

And so, this is a really great thing because, again, you've got advocates. And he said the best part was the little lady in billing at the hospital who came in and said, “Don't worry, Mister Chris, we've got everything. We've talked to Impact, and everything's being paid for a hundred percent. You don't have to worry about a thing. I'm working with them. You just get better.” And then, when he got home, he had a message from Impact saying, “Hey, we know you've had the surgery. We hope you're feeling better. If there are any questions or any bills come, let us know. We'll help take care of everything.”

[1:11:08.1] Ashley James: What??

[1:11:09.9] Megan Williams: What is that? Because this is more personable, it really is about making it a better scenario. 

[1:11:19.8] Ashley James: I love it. I was a little slow in catching the numbers. So it's a $150,000 hospital bill. How much did he have to pay out of pocket?

[1:11:31.0] Megan Williams: Well, I actually even have this on one of our Zooms, and we were working on some of these kinds of examples so people can see. While he was repriced to $36,000, he paid $150 for the provider fee for the ER. So he paid $150, and then he still had about $1,588 left on his deductible or his primary responsibility amount. He paid 10% of the co-share of that $36,000. So out-of-pocket for that entire expense, he paid $5,200 and not $152,000.

[1:12:14.4] Ashley James: So $152,000 — that's like buying three brand new cars — got down to a $5,200 hospital bill when the whole thing was said and done. Now let's say that happens to one of our listeners who joins, who goes to learntruehealth.com/healthcare and checks out the cool Zooms and the videos and does the quote. They join their whole family in. If something, God forbid, happens to them and they need this kind of emergency medical help, and then they get on the other side of it, and then they get the bill — so it's $52,000 — do they have to pay that all at once? Can they do a payment plan? How does that work? 

[1:13:02.2] Megan Williams: Very good question. So the nice part is once Impact has negotiated and they send in their portion that they pay, then legally, the hospital — that includes all the providers; this list had everybody on it from the anesthesiologist to the pharmacy, when he was leaving the hospital — once they accept that reference-based price, then that bill is locked. They can never come back and ask for more amount. But Impact then would send you, “Okay, your portion is this.” And then they send you where to send the bill. And absolutely, you can call their facility and say, “Okay, I'm making plan payment.” And you might pay $1,000 for the next five months, and then you'll be done. So the nice part from my experience is, with them getting the lion's share of what they really needed and then you paying your percentage, they work with us as humans to make those payments.

[1:14:07.8] Ashley James: Who are you paying that to? Are you paying that $5,200 to the hospital, or you're paying it to Impact?

[1:14:11.4] Megan Williams: Yes.

[1:14:12.4] Ashley James: Okay. You're paying it to the hospital. So you can negotiate with the hospital and pay $200 a month instead of $1,000 a month? 

[1:14:19.9] Megan Williams: Yes.

[1:14:20.5] Ashley James: You can make it manageable. Yeah. Okay. 

[1:14:23.0] Megan Williams: But they got the big amount. So they are feeling the burden off their shoulders. So then they are so much better at working with us. The problem is when people say, “Oh, I have a two-million-dollar bill, and I want to pay you $200 a month.” No, that's not how this works. So absolutely, that's what's so nice about it. But the best part is that they legally can never come back and say we want more money from you. So the nice part of having someone like Impact as your advocate, and it's in the system legally, they can't come back and say, “Oh, we changed our minds. We don't want to just accept $36,000. We want you to pay $50,000.” They cannot do it because they accepted that price and took the money from Impact. So that's what's so nice about having a person like this and not just being cash-paying where you could get screwed because you don't have an entity that is your facilitator. Impact has a legal team, and they know all the rules. They know how the system works, and it's a fantastic peace of mind.

[1:15:30.9] Ashley James: Now, something you don't know about me is that twenty years ago, I was an insurance salesman. Funny enough, it took me this long to actually think about this and go, “Oh yeah, I used to sell insurance.” I mean, it was twenty years ago, a totally different lifetime ago. It was door-to-door. It was a combined, and this is in Canada. I don't know if you've ever heard of combined health insurance, but this is, again, twenty years ago. It was either they had accident insurance, and they had sickness insurance. For Canadians, our health insurance is like you pay almost half your paycheck to social services. It's like we get taxed through the nose. It was just crazy. It's like something between 46% and 48% of your paycheck is bye-bye every month, just paying all the social services. Healthcare is not so great in Canada, but again, pluses and minuses all across the board, I don't think Canada is better than the United States or vice versa because it's a very different system, and the system's broken no matter where you go. So you got to think holistically and go to the right providers.

But there I was in Canada, and I was selling door-to-door insurance. What it was is you paid $14 a month, and then if you broke a bone, they would give you $1,000, or they give you $1,500. If you had a car accident, until you've missed some work, for every day you're in the hospital or ICU, they would give you $5,000. They would basically be giving you money to get injured. Obviously, don't go buy the insurance and then injure yourself. I've actually met some people who had injured themselves and received the payouts. And they're like, “Yeah, this company is amazing. They really do pay out.” And then they had sickness insurance. So if someone was in the ICU because of an infection, or in the ER because of infection or whatever, if they had to miss work basically and that they live in the hospital because of the infection, they got paid every day a certain amount. There was a limit, though. There was a cut-off. It's like you can only have this many days in the hospital that we're going to pay. So we're going to pay thirty days, for example, because it wasn't a traditional health insurance. It was just more like an accident or sickness insurance. It was more like your paycheck insurance. It's what it was, which I thought was an interesting safety net. Because life happens not to everyone, but life happens, and it's great to have a safety net. 

Anyway, that was an interesting experience. I got to see that world while I was kind of figuring out life, and I did it for a summer. It was interesting. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I'm meeting a ton of people and learning about the industry, which was interesting. And so the thought that came to mind, I know this is not that, but is there a limit to how many days someone could be in the hospital? Like you said, you get to see fifty providers a year with all these different services. So all these services are covered, but is there a cap, or they're like, “Sorry, you've been in the hospital for fourteen days now. You're cut off.” Is there any kind of gotchas like you said?

[1:18:53.0] Megan Williams: I love it. I was going to say, I know exactly what you're saying. So this is a great thing to be paired with something we call in the United States, disability insurance, or, like you said, paycheck insurance, like Aflac, where they'll match, or you can get reimbursed for those copay provider fees and things like that. But what's neat is if somebody is in the hospital, like we add another friend who's been in Impact and she was in the hospital for almost a month, and Impact shared everything with the group and repriced it all. So there isn't a limit to those kinds of things. There is an in-patient limit or things that are not eligible, like in-patient rehab or residential drug alcohol treatments. So they give a specific list that is not eligible at all, and it's normal things that they don't share or cover in normal insurance. But there are no limits if someone ends up in the hospital for a month because of whatever disease is going on. Like this little boy, who had been relocated to the hospital in Dallas for months at a time, there is no limit on that. Like I said, with a repricing, then they have not met that limit for the annual amounts either. And so I think that what we can really know is that they're going to do their very best to make sure that we're taken care of. 

Now, there are some limits for home care as well. So, some of the things they do share into are forty visits for a member who has home care. So, let's say they have an RN who has to come to the house, and they're in their homes, that is limited to forty visits for the year per member. And if someone needs transportation, like air ambulance and things like that, they are limited to $25,000 lifetime limits for those kinds of things. Usually, an ambulance is about $500 to $600 of usage. So that gives you a lot to work with. But there are some specific limits. Anything that is a limit, they specifically tell us in the guidelines. And if it doesn't say in the guidelines, then there's not a limit, which is really cool. 

[1:21:16.9] Ashley James: Oh, I like it.

[1:21:19.7] Megan Williams: Yes, it's very transparent that way, and that's a great question, Ashley.

[1:21:24.5] Ashley James: And all these details can be found at learntruehealth.com/healthcare. I love that you lay it out. You made the website so easy to understand, and you've got the videos, and people, like you said, can read through everything, see what the limits are, see what the limits aren't. And if it isn't listed, it's not a limit. Even though it doesn't provide rehab facilities, for example, it does provide mental health. So someone could go to a licensed mental health professional and work on healing through addiction. 

[1:22:04.7] Megan Williams: That's right. Absolutely.

[1:22:06.0] Ashley James: It's not that we're saying those people are screwed. It's just you're not going to pay for the Betty Ford clinic experience. 

[1:22:14.8] Megan Williams: Correct. As long as people are honest about it. We're looking for people who are making wise choices. So, for example, my husband always says if someone wants to go skydiving, good for them. There's no limit here. But some insurance companies won't care or cover any skydiving accidents. But my husband says, the way they worded it in Impact is, let's say I wanted to go skydiving and I decided to throw my shoot out first, then dive to my suit and put it on. Well, that was negligent behavior. And therefore, when you are hurt, injured, or killed, they're not going to share into that because it was stupid. Like if you're using illegal drugs, that's stupid. But if someone happened to get in a car accident and they had been drinking, yes, those are going to first go to your car insurance, but Impact is going to share in those medical expenses as well because those kinds of accidents do happen. They weren't trying to be grossly negligent, if that makes sense. So they do have a little provision that protects people like us who don't want people to do stupid things and think that then we'll share it. But I mean, hey, you got a little life. Have fun and go river rafting and do fun things, or have a life. It's really nice because even motorcycle accidents are covered up to $125,000 per incident, which is a big deal. It's a really big deal. We had a young man who's 17, whose friend ran into him and severed his toe, he almost lost his life, and Impact has shared to the whole entire situation, even though he was on a dirt bike. He wasn't being negligent, and it was an accident. And I think that that's also very important to understand that there is a difference between negligence and accidents, and they work with us and help us, which is fantastic. 

[1:24:12.3] Ashley James: Love it, love it. And another thing, again, I've been looking for this solution for years, and I had not found and had not been satisfied by all the other companies I've seen until I found this company. I was like, finally, this is exactly what I've been looking for. I'm so excited. So, my friend who's in a health share, it's a Christian health share company, and at first glance, it looked good. And then I looked further, and it was like, well, you have to be this BMI — body mass index — meaning, you have to be skinny in order to be a member. We're going to weigh you. So I get it; they just want healthy people. And if your cholesterol is at this level, you can't be covered by us. And if you join us and you're skinny but then you gain weight, you're going to get kicked out. And so that kind of health share company, I felt, was too restrictive. It wasn't giving freedom of choice. What I love about yours is, let's say someone is obese and they're working on themselves to be healthier people — and one-third of the American population is overweight or obese, so that really limits you if you were to not allow those people to join — and so there is a small, increased fee. I saw that, and I thought that's amazing. It's worth it for someone who's overweight, who knows they're overweight. They're doing their best. They're looking at being as healthy as possible because weight loss should be a by-product of a healthy lifestyle. It's not the goal. It's the by-product of the goal being to be as healthy as possible.

[1:26:00.0] Megan Williams: That's right. 

[1:26:00.6] Ashley James: So eat healthy, exercise, lower your stress, get good nutrition. The weight is going to come off, and you're living healthier and healthier and healthier. And even skinny people can die of a heart attack.

[1:26:13.5] Megan Williams: That's right.

[1:26:14.9] Ashley James: But the point is that you guys don't exclude people who are overweight. Or let's say everyone in the household, except for the dad, is overweight. You're not excluding the whole family because one member is overweight. The people who have some weight that they want to lose, they get to pay a little bit more, not an exorbitant amount. Just a little bit more, and then they get to be covered. And I thought, how inclusive is that? I love that you would include people of all faiths. You include people of all bodies and health. I love that you don't charge people more because they have a large family. So a family of eight or a family of three, they've got enough expenses if they've got five kids, or they've got six kids or seven kids. They've got enough expenses, and you're not going to continue to gouge people who have so many kids. Typically, kids don't have a lot of health issues compared to adults. Hopefully, fingers crossed, they will listen to my show and follow all the wonderful health tips. So I really love that. 

I love that you can travel. You can travel to different providers in different states. You can go to different countries and feel rest assured. I used to buy travel insurance. Being Canadian, I used to pay for and buy for a few hundred dollars. I'd be traveling. Every three months, I go down to the States because I was doing different conferences and stuff like that. This is back in my twenties, and I would pay upwards of $500 for coverage, and I never had to use it. I never used it. But I didn't want to be in the States without health insurance because I just knew that that was a bad idea. So I bought traveler's insurance every time I went somewhere outside of Canada before I moved to the States. And just to know that you're covered is so reassuring. That is so cool. 

[1:28:09.8] Megan Williams: Yeah. It really is peace of mind, and that's what we're trying to do with our group. And, Ashley, I think all of your listeners are the kind of people who want that. They want to have choices and freedom, and that's what we're really trying to give. And what we love is grassroots movements like this being able to share with people and let them make an educated decision for themselves. What is the right fit? I love it. You're individuals, and you're a tribe, I want to say, or educated. They want to have better options and solutions, and you are giving them that every single day and I love that. I think that's fantastic.

[1:28:50.1] Ashley James: I think I know the answer, but I want to check. So vision and dental supplements are things that are not included?

[1:28:58.0] Megan Williams: That's correct. A lot of times, everyone thinks in insurance, you have to have dental and vision. Well, you can get a policy for that very easily anytime, anywhere, from any group. So what Impact has chosen to do currently is that if it has a medical connotation, like you were injured and you need surgery on your eyes, or your mouth, or your jaw — I had a young man whose roommate hit him in college. He had to have jaw surgery. The dentist came in and did that reconstructive surgery. Those are, of course, all shared. But when we're dealing with just having our teeth cleaned and our eyes looked at, that is not part of this group. But it is definitely something that people can find in America with tons of different brokers, and that's not a concern. I use Costco for one of mine, and I've got a great family dentist that works out stuff as a small business owner for other business owners. So again, those are things that are not on our guidelines because they're not as expensive to manage for a family. 

[1:30:06.6] Ashley James: But if it was like an abscessed tooth or like an eye infection, would that be covered? 

[1:30:11.9] Megan Williams: Yes, because the eye infection would come from something that was medical usually. And so then it starts at a medical. Now, the neat thing is, you don't have to go to a doctor to get a referral to another doctor to have this be “covered.” If you were having infections, you could go right to that kind of doctor, like my sister, who has been a member, and her knee started bothering her. She went to a specific orthopedic that she had heard was the best, and she didn't have to see seventeen doctors beforehand and spend all the extra money. She just went right to him and started doing work with them.

[1:30:49.7] Ashley James: I love that. My friend is from a different company. She's with a health share company. She has stenosis in the neck. She was in a car accident years ago, and stenosis is like the bones are closing in around the nerves. So she had pain going down her arm, and every few years, she gets a CT scan. She has not gotten surgery for it, but she's debating and does everything natural to keep it at bay. She's doing a really good job managing the pain. But she found a search, and she's like, “I'm really interested in just cleaning up the bone spurs that are pushing on the nerves.” And their insurance is like, “No, you have to do it in this order. You have to see this doctor before you see this doctor. You have to get this scan before you see this doctor.” And it was so confusing and so annoying. She couldn't just go see the guy. She had to do all these other things first, and they wouldn't even cover her to see him until she had met their criteria. 

So I love the freedom. Like we said at the beginning, this gives freedom of choice and allows us to navigate the whole medical system, which is weird. It allows us to choose the providers that are holistic that are preventive, that help us to gain our health, to build our health up. You should only ever see a doctor who believes that you can build yourself up and you can become healthier. And if they think that you're sick and you just need to be on drugs and you can't get healthy, then you need to get a second opinion or third opinion and see holistic doctors because they believe your body can heal itself. So the fact that we have the freedom to do it and the freedom to even cross state lines, I love it. 

Now, another thing you do is you also help companies to create plans. So it's the whole company. Suppose you have someone, like, for example, a listener who has ten employees, or fifty employees, or five hundred employees; they can talk to you. And also, if we have a listener who is an insurance broker, they can talk to you. We can hook you guys up with Megan, and she can talk to you because insurance brokers love to provide this. And also, small businesses love to provide this because it's cheaper for everyone and gives better care, gives better coverage, so everyone wins. So Megan can talk to you. In addition, you've been doing this for twenty years. This company has been around for five, but what you've been doing even before this is you help business owners, you help families, you help professionals to cut costs of other services. And so I'm excited about there too because we're living in a day and age right now where I am unwilling to eat conventionally-grown food. They call it conventional. It's the weirdest thing. It's like conventionally grown should be organic. They should call conventional food pesticide-laden. But it's all marketing. Obviously, we're all paying more for food. I'm paying more for organic, clean food, and prices of everything have gone up, and they're going to continue to rise. Unfortunately, this is just the state of affairs. 

So for us to be able to afford being healthy, we have to figure out how to save money. And Megan showed me how to save hundreds of dollars on other things that I paid for already, which I'm really, really excited about. So, Megan does that. That's what she does for businesses; she does it for families. And this one thing, though, is what I was looking for, which is the ability — the learntruehealth.com/healthcare — to get the coverage that you want at a fraction of the price and take those several hundred dollars that you would be saving. Like, for me, it goes from about $650 for my family that I used to pay for $1,432 or something. So I take that savings of hundreds of dollars, and I put that aside in my savings account, and I then get to put that money towards the things that are healthy for us, like supplements, and just to save it for a rainy day. Because it's in my budget, keep it for when our family needs the help it needs. And just a peace of mind that we get that we're not shelling out $1,400 plus a month to a broken medical health insurance system.

[1:35:31.4] Megan Williams: It's so awesome. That's it, exactly.

[1:35:32.4] Ashley James: Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. Yes, exactly. Megan, it's been so wonderful having you on the show. 

[1:35:37.4] Megan Williams: Thank you.

[1:35:39.5] Ashley James: I love the stories that you shared. I feel like this was God-driven. Bring me to you at the right time, and I think this message is landing for people at the right time. Now, here's another question. Usually, to buy insurance because this isn't insurance; it is an alternative to insurance. It is better than insurance in many ways. The insurance industry has an open calendar period where you can only purchase, like in January. You could only purchase from December 15th to January 15th. That's the open calendar. And if you get dropped coverage, you don't have coverage until January or until the end of December. So you're SOL if you're not able to stay covered. And some people lose coverage halfway through the year because they're changing jobs or it got too expensive; they lost their job. This covers you right away, right? 

[1:36:36.1] Megan Williams: That's right. Yeah, there is no open enrollment. There is no time frame. You can sign up on the last day of the month and have coverage the very next month as long as you do it by 10:00 at night. But the nice thing is, yes, absolutely. We don't have to be worried. Now, there are people, even with small businesses, that may have signed contracts, and they have to wait until open enrollment to turn that off and bring their whole company to us. But we can start with new employees that are coming in, and we can get them coverage right away. We can also do it with families. So I started the minute we got it. I started June 1st. I didn't have to wait until October or November to get on it again. And it's just amazing that they look at every scenario that can happen for families, individuals, and businesses, and they are finding that solution. So absolutely no restrictions. Let's get you signed up right away, everybody, and get you the best plans. And you can cancel your other health care the next month. So you can pick a four-month window when you go in to sign up for when you want it to start, and it gives you time to turn off your other insurance that you had before.

[1:37:50.7] Ashley James: Oh, that's so cool. So you say next month. So let's say it's the end of June, and I sign up, then at the beginning of July, I am covered, or do I have to wait until August?

[1:38:01.3] Megan Williams: Nope. It's the next day.

[1:38:06.3] Ashley James: If I signed up on the last day of June, let's say at 6 pm, I go to  learntruehealth.com/healthcare and I sign up, then the next day, which is the 1st of July, I'm covered?

[1:38:24.2] Megan Williams: That's right. Absolutely. It's that good. It's that quick, and it's amazing. And the process to sign up takes less than ten minutes for an individual. When you have a family of more, then they have a few questions about everybody's health, and you do need to know your kids' heights and weights. But that is about what takes the longest. What we love is that it can work for anyone who's a resident of the United States legally and is welcome to be a member as well. So there are no restrictions on that either. So, you can get signed up right away, your kids can, and it will take you about 15 minutes to be in the system, and you're good to go for the next month. 

[1:39:06.0] Ashley James: That was actually a question I didn't think about. So you can be abroad, just living in the States, and you don't have to be an American citizen?

[1:39:15.1] Megan Williams: Yes, as long as you're here with the correct documents, like a green card.

[1:39:21.7] Ashley James: Or a visa, a student visa. Can it be students from abroad?

[1:39:25.9] Megan Williams: Yup.

[1:39:27.0] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. 

[1:39:28.3] Megan Williams: Yup, employees. All sorts of things, and even in scenarios where the oldest member of the household isn't a citizen and maybe their spouse is not, but they're younger, that household can get coverage, including the non-resident. It's kind of crazy. It's very, very good. So Impact will help in any of those scenarios. Get the right documentation uploaded so they can have coverage for sure.

[1:39:53.9] Ashley James: Awesome. Listeners, go to learntruehealth.com/healthcare. Check it out. Share with all your friends who need this kind of coverage. I'm very excited that this is something that we can use to go to the kinds of practitioners we want, that we're not restricted by networks or by state lines, and that we can go and see that amazing naturopath in other states. Or we can go get the care we need in a different state, in a different county, or whatever, and that we can get telemedicine. There are just so many things that we can get, and it's just amazing that it's way better and also way cheaper. That's what I want from everything. I want everything to be way better and way cheaper. 

So, thank you, Megan, for coming on the show. This has been so exciting. I just know this is going to help. I can feel it. I can see my listeners. I know that this is going to be the answer to so many people's problems. Like we've discovered, 66.5% of bankruptcies are from medical expenses. How many people are suffering, either spending too much or they don't have any coverage at all, and not having coverage is dangerous because then we ignore the little thing. We should do blood work every year. We should look at the labs but with a good holistic practitioner that can examine them and go, “Okay, you're not optimal. Let's get you optimal. Let's make these slight changes to diet, lifestyle, and exercise. Let's make these changes and help you get optimal.”

So, my thing is holistic health is about addressing every part of our life, including preventive medicine, and helping us become optimal in every aspect of our health. And we can't do that if we keep our heads in the sand. We can't keep our heads in the sand. We have to look. And they say women live longer than men. I think it's because we're willing to look, and men are like lalalala. No, if I don't look at it, it doesn't exist. Lalalala. I'm just going to ignore it. You can't do that. We can't ignore what's going on. We have to listen to the symptoms of the body because that is the way our body communicates things to us. Then we also get labs just to check and see what's going on. But when you go to a holistic practitioner that's licensed, they can help guide us and keep us healthy and make the right choices so we can have optimal health and get so healthy we don't need medications. That's my goal for everyone, and we can accomplish that. Now we can accomplish it with cheaper coverage. So love it, love it. 

Thank you so much, Megan. I'm so excited. Definitely, check out all the videos that Megan made at learntruehealth.com/healthcare. And then, for those who want to contact you directly, should they be business owners that want to get all their employees, they want to offer it to their employees? 

[1:42:57.3] Megan Williams: There will be a place on your site in the link where they can request information, and we will work directly with them to help them. But definitely, through your link, everyone utilizes the link to get connected. So we can know what kind of mindset you're coming from, and we'll have the best solutions for you. 

[1:43:16.1] Ashley James: Because you're going to take care of my people. 

[1:43:18.1] Megan Williams: That's right. 

[1:43:19.1] Ashley James: My listeners, you're going to take care of them. Thank you, Megan. Thank you for taking care of my listeners. I want to make sure that we help those in need, and that's why we're here. So, I appreciate you and what you do. And I know that I really want to have your husband on at some point because he's got some amazing stories. So I will be hearing from him at some point. I'm just telling you I'm going to interview him, so now you know.

[1:43:48.4] Megan Williams: Perfect. You know I love that, and he'll give us a whole different insight into this. For those of you who aren't convinced yet, you'll want to be part of this group when it's all said and done. It'll be great. So thank you again for having me, Ashley. 

[1:44:00.7] Ashley James: I appreciate you, Megan. Thanks so much.

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Jun 3, 2023

Testimonial #1: Mary

Official Member of the LTH Listener 500 Club!

Mary recommends listening to the following:

Episode 443 Dr. Laura Kelly, Treating Osteoporosis and Osteopenia Naturally

https://www.learntruehealth.com/treat-osteoporosis-and-osteopenia-naturally

 

Episode 294 Magnesium Soak with Kristen Bowen

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com to get the listener discount!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/magnesium-foot-soak

 

487 Catherine Arnsten Chlorella and Spirulina (Recovery Bits are Chlorella, Energy Bits are Spirulina, Vitality Bits are a 50/50 blend of each)

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at EnergyBits.com to get the listener discount!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/487-mitochondrial-self-healing-superfoods-high-potency-chlorella-spirulina

 

Episodes 292 and 293 PES Ionic Foot Detox with Kellyann Andrews

https://www.learntruehealth.com/creating-wellness

 

Episode 343 Debugging Your Health with Susan Luschas

https://www.learntruehealth.com/debug-your-health

 

Episodes 178, 358, and 390 with "Green Smoothie Girl" Robyn Openshaw

https://www.learntruehealth.com/high-vibration-foods

 

Testimonial #2 Katrina Reeser - Breast Implant Illness Survivor! 

Katrina recommends:

Episode 457

Breast Implant Illness (AKA Forgine Object syndrome)

https://www.learntruehealth.com/breast-implant-illness-signs-symptoms-treatment

 

Follow Katrina on IG!

IG: Bii_warrior_

https://www.instagram.com/bii_warrior_

 

Testimonial #3 Linda Valdez 

Linda recommends:

Takeyoursupplements.com helped her father-in-law get out of pain, improve his cognitive function and come back to life!

 

Magnesium Soak

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com to get the listener discount!

 

Chlorella and Spirulina

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at EnergyBits.com to get the listener discount!

 

Medicinal Aloe Vera Drink:

Learntruehealth.com/aloe

 

Testimonial #4 Mellissa Lee Diaz

Migraines are Gone, Perimenopause symptoms are gone, and improved immune health.

 

Mellissa recommends:

Episodes 292 and 293 PES Ionic Foot Detox with Kellyann Andrews

https://www.learntruehealth.com/creating-wellness

 

Sunlighten Sauna: 

Be sure to get my listeners' discount when buying your Sunlighten Sauna!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/sunlightensauna

 

Analemma for increasing/improving hydration

Be sure to use coupon code LTH for the listener discount!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/structuredwater 

 

Melissa also had great success using the supplements she got from Takeyoursupplements.com.

 

Testimonial #5 Morgan

All symptoms are gone after using the Phototherapy Patches to correct polarity. 

 

To get on the phototherapy patches, please schedule a free call with me (Ashley James)

https://learntruehealth.as.me/phototherapy

 

Testimonial #6 Dana (read by Ashley)

Episode 479:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/479-our-amazing-grace-whistleblower-reveals-how-he-lost-his-daughter-to-medical-malpractice

 

Episode 107:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/jj-virgin-miracle-mindset

 

Episode 477:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/proof-of-heaven-neurosurgeon-shares-his-journey-into-the-after-life-dr-eben-alexander

 

Episode 224:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/safe-vaccines

Also, be sure to listen to the follow-up interview with Dr. Paul Thomas:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/study-outlines-key-factor-in-chronically-sick-vs-healthy-children

 

Episode 245: Sunlighten Sauna

https://www.learntruehealth.com/sunlighten-saunas

Be sure to get my listeners' discount when buying your Sunlighten Sauna!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/sunlightensauna

 

Episode 294 Magnesium Soak with Kristen Bowen

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com to get the listener discount!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/magnesium-foot-soak

 

Episode 484: Ozone

https://www.learntruehealth.com/484-at-home-ozone-therapy-for-immune-mitochondrial-health-eileen-durfee

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at https://www.learntruehealth.com/ozone for the listener discount!

 

Episodes 401 & 474: Medicinal Aloe Gel Drink

https://www.learntruehealth.com/the-benefits-of-taking-aloe-vera-gel

and

https://www.learntruehealth.com/aloe-the-magic-formula-for-achieving-optimal-gut-health

Be sure to use this link to get the listener special:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/aloe

 

 

Testimonial #7 - Listener gets off nine medications!

Listener shares in the LTH FB group how she quickly got her health back and got off of 9 of her ten medications thanks to the advice followed in the episodes as well as the wonderful guidance and supplements she got from Takeyoursupplements.com. 

 

Episode 366: Earthing and Grounding with Clint Ober

https://www.learntruehealth.com/grounding-and-earthing

 

Episode 402: Dr. Stephen Sinatra Earthing and Grounding

https://www.learntruehealth.com/earthing-grounding-benefits-heart

 

Episode 294 Magnesium Soak with Kristen Bowen

Be sure to use coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com to get the listener discount!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/magnesium-foot-soak

 

Testimonial #8 Natalie is beating Type 2 Diabetes

Episode 233:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/reversing-diabetes

 

Episode 489:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/mastering-diabetes-how-to-reverse-insulin-resistance-and-restore-insulin-sensitivity-with-robby-barbaro

 

Episode 492:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/healing-insulin-resistance-and-diabetes

 

 

Testimonial #9 - Ruth and ending anxiety's control over her life

Check out episodes on how to eliminate anxiety:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/?s=anxiety

 

Schedule a call to work with Ashley James:

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=12204555&PHPSESSID=3o6ua8405rd85stonlituathiv

 

Testimonials 10, 11, 12 & 13: Heavy Metal Detox with Platinum Energy System

Call Kellyann: 1-877-225-3388 - 8:30 am to 5:00 pm PST

Visit https://platinumenergysystems.ca

 

Interviews about PES Ionic Foot Detox with Kellyann Andrews

Episode 292: 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/creating-wellness

 

Episode 293: 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/balancing-ph

 

Episode 329: 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/stories-of-success-through-detox

 

Episode 330: 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/holistic-habits-and-success-stories-part-two

 

Episode 396:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/emf-heavy-metal-detox

 

Episode 454:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/small-changes-in-daily-habits-can-make-the-biggest-difference-for-a-clean-and-functioning-body-mind-and-spirit

 

500: Stories of Success and Tools for Optimal Wellness

https://www.learntruehealth.com/stories-of-success-and-tools-for-optimal-wellness/

In Episode 500 of the Learn True Health podcast, the host, Ashley James, reflects on the journey of reaching this milestone. She expresses gratitude for the listeners who have shared their healing testimonials about improving their health through holistic methods, shares her story of healing from chronic illness, and discusses the importance of taking small steps towards better health.

Ashley emphasizes the body's innate ability to heal itself, highlighting the complexity and interconnectedness of its processes, and encourages listeners to challenge limiting beliefs and take control of their health by understanding the root causes of their diseases. Through testimonials, Ashley demonstrates that small steps can lead to significant improvements, no matter where someone is on their health journey. The episode concludes with gratitude for the listeners and a reminder to continue sharing and learning together.

Highlights: 

  • Magnesium soak and its benefits
  • Experience with the Platinum Energy Systems ionic foot soak
  • Using ionic foot soak and RECOVERYbits for faster recovery from illness
  • Breast implant illness survivor's journey
  • The positive impact of takeyoursupplements.com
  • PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) treatments
  • Managing perimenopause with Sunlighten infrared sauna
  • Using phototherapy patches to adjust polarity

[0:00:02.6] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is episode 500.

Intro:

Hello, true health seekers, and welcome to Episode 500 of the Learn True Health podcast. This is very exciting. I remember the day I decided to do this podcast and one of the people I really looked up to had over 800 podcast episodes, and I thought, man, if I could get to 800, that would be amazing. Of course, now he's like 3000 episodes. But 500 feels like a milestone, and I think I got the hang of this now. After about seven years, I think I know what I'm doing. It's amazing. One foot in front of the other, and you can be a complete beginner at anything. Anything you want to learn, anything you want to do, just set your mind to it and put one foot in front of the other. You could be an absolute and complete beginner, not knowing what you're doing. Just like me, I had no idea, and I just put one foot in front of the other and learned as I went, and look at me now. Look at me now.

So here we are, Episode 500. We have some amazing testimonials lined up today. I just love it. In the last few months, I've spoken to over 100 listeners and heard your stories. And a lot of people are super shy to get on the microphone. They'll tell me their story. They gush and cry and tell me these amazing stories of healing, amazing success stories of people turning their lives around. They're so grateful, and then it's like the scariest thing in the world is to get on the microphone. So I commend those who did get on a microphone and share because I get it; public speaking is scary for a lot of people, and thank you. Thank you for submitting your testimonials and for all those that were too shy but have had amazing results with everything. I know thousands of listeners have learned from the podcast. Just thank you for continuing to share these episodes with those you care about. That's really where the rubber hits the road. It is when we can take an episode and share it with a friend or text with a friend and be like, hey, check this out. I've listened to you. I thought of you. This made a lot of sense to me. This podcast, or this information, has really helped me. Maybe I could help you too if you give it a try. 

Just opening people's eyes and minds, and hearts to the idea that our body has an innate God-given ability to heal itself, that we grew our cells from a single cell. I mean, think about it. The sperm and the egg came together and made one little cell, and now we are 37.2 trillion cells. A cellular biologist, I heard one say, when you actually study the cell, like PhD-level studying individual human cells, there's more complexity in our cells than the entire city of Manhattan; that there's more going on. It is like thousands of these genetic expressions because we can epigenetically have expressions turned on and off. We can have enzymatic processes, we have the Krebs cycle, and we have electrons going here and there. We have mitochondria producing cellular energy. We have detoxification. Nutrients are coming in, and hormones are signaling. It's just amazing how there's so much going on, and yet we could really nail it down to something very simple.

I had a guest say once he was dying in the hospital. He himself is a doctor, and he was dying in the hospital of liver failure. His doctors said go home, put your will together. You've got two weeks to live. And as he sat there, he thought, well, I know how the body works. Let's just chunk it up to each individual cell like a house, and the house needs groceries to come in and garbage to go out. And as long as we get the groceries in and the garbage out, what is stopping the groceries from coming in, and what is stopping the garbage from coming out? Then he thought about everything he had to do to get the garbage out and to get the groceries into every cell in his body, including his liver, where the liver failure was, and he lived a good fifty years more. So we can make this concept simple and take these beautiful simple baby steps no matter where you are in your health. 

I remember I was so incredibly sick. I was on prescription drugs and constantly on antibiotics; I had Type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and infertility. I was a mess. I was hungry all the time. I was gaining weight out of control. I couldn't exercise. I actually had this weird thing where I constantly twisted my ankles. I was inflamed. I was in pain. I had headaches. I couldn't think straight. And this was in my twenties. We're supposed to be having fun in our twenties, and I felt like I was dying. I feel like a prisoner trapped in my own body. My body was so ill that I would just cry. I haven't talked about this a lot in the podcast, but there were moments, and I remember them well, where I felt as if I was dying. My heart would start racing out of nowhere. I had this feeling like I was leaving my body. I hope you've never had this before. But I felt like I was leaving my body, and my heart would be racing. And I had this weird sense of dissociation, like my body became distant from me, and I'm like, what is going on? Usually, what would happen is I'd be lying down, and I would get really scared. I was young. I was in my twenties. I'm like, what is going on? And I wasn't drinking or doing drugs or anything like that. 

What I finally figured out later on in life, once I started studying holistic medicine, was I actually had adrenal dumps. So I'd have cortisol dumps, and that's part of the process of going into complete adrenal fatigue and burnout. You'll have these moments where you are having these huge dumps of adrenaline. And so I'm actually having these adrenal dumps, but I'm lying down, and what's causing it? Where is it coming from? I don't know. At the moment, I had no idea, but what I figured out was I could do some deep breathing. I would get in the shower, do hydrotherapy, do hot and cold, and do some deep breathing, and I could calm my body down. I felt like my body was my enemy. It was an unpredictable enemy, and it was a scary place to live. And now, my body is my home. My body is my friend, and my body and I love each other. We've been through a lot together, and I feel so comfortable in my skin. I'm so grateful for the health journey I've been on. I'm so grateful that I was able to turn my health journey into a tool, into something that could teach others, because I want to reach into all of your earbuds and your speakers and your phones. I want to reach in through there, hug you, hold you, and let you know your body can heal itself.

If the doctor told you, you had this because of your genetics, because of your age, because of your race, because of your sex; I want you to say no, thank you. I don't buy into this belief system. You aren't sick because of your age, race, sex, genes, or whatever it is. That's not the cause of it. You can actually turn off Type 2 diabetes. You can reverse that type 2 diabetes. If you have Type 1, you can get your body so healthy that your insulin needs to go down. Like within the parameters of Type 1 diabetes, we can even improve health. So I have seen people reverse major health issues that MDs told them were life sentences. If I had believed the MDs, I would have never taken the necessary steps to no longer have Type 2 diabetes to no longer have PCOS. I was told after a battery of tests by an endocrinologist that I could never have children. And thank God I did not buy into her belief system because I believe the body has a God-given ability to heal itself, and all we got to do is bring the groceries in and take the garbage out. 

Now, inflammation; well, inflammation is not the root cause of disease. It is present in most diseases. But what causes the inflammation? We have to go even further upstream to figure out what caused the information. So inflammation is like a flood. If you've ever turned on the weather news and seen a part of the world where there's a flood happening, maybe after a hurricane, and people are sitting on their roofs, nothing good is happening. The groceries are not coming in, and the garbage is not going out. That's inflammation. Inflammation is a flood that surrounds the cells and makes it hard for the cells to get the groceries in and get the garbage out. 

So think about the little steps we can take every day; sometimes, this whole idea of holistic health seems so big. Like, oh, I feel so sick. How could I make these major changes and get on the other side of this? And people don't even believe they can. But my goal for episode 500 is to show you that some people were incredibly sick and took little baby steps, just like me, and got on the other side of it. And some people were listeners who didn't have a lot of health issues, but they thought they were in perfect health and even improved their health. So no matter where you are, you can get that. No matter where you are, you can take your health to the next level, even if you are bedridden.

I have a client who's currently bedridden. And just with some holistic health changes, she's even improved her health, and I'm so excited. I'm going to have her on the show at some point, sharing how she was knocking on death's door at absolute rock bottom. And she is now improving her health in leaps and bounds. It is so exciting. If she had listened to her doctors, she would have died years ago. So don't let other people's belief systems tell you you can't heal yourself. I know it seems cliche; never give up, keep at it. But the truth is, if you believe you can't, you won't even take the first steps. So you have to believe your body has the ability to heal itself, which it does. And so we've just got to take one foot in front of the other and take the steps. 

What I love about the testimonials that you're going to hear today, some listeners share the episodes that made the biggest difference for them, and they share the tools, and even some wonderful insights and daily habits that they do that make a big difference in their lives. So you can listen to other listeners and hear what they're doing and check out the resources. Of course, all the links are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast of learntruehealth.com. So be sure to check out the show notes, or wherever you're listening from; iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you're listening from. You can click on the show notes or click on the details of today's episode, and you should be able to see all the links there. 

Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Health is so important. It's not just physical, right? It's not just eating salad and exercising. Health is emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, and energetic. It exists on all these planes. And health is as much the health of your relationships, the relationship you have with yourself, your experience of the world, your career, your family life. Every aspect of your life could be considered part of your health because nothing happens in your body in a vacuum. Here's an example: you could have thoughts that affect your physiology, and every day they do. What you think about affects your physical health. You could say that everything about your life is your health. So if there's a part of your life you want to improve, let's improve the health of that part of your life. And that's what my show is about. Learn True Health is about improving every aspect of your life holistically because it all matters to you. Every aspect of your life matters. By improving the parts of your life that are not the best; so maybe for you, it's physical health, mental health, spiritual health, or the emotional health of your relationships, right? Every aspect, whichever one you want to work on and improve, that's going to affect the overall health of your life and your experience of your life. So let's do that together. Keep sharing this podcast. Keep listening. 

The first testimonial up is Mary entering the LTH 500 Club of Learn True Health listeners because she has now listened to 500 episodes of Learn True Health podcast. So she's just like me. And I know I have a few more of you out there because you guys have been in the Facebook group saying I've listened to every episode and are super excited. So go back and check out all the other episodes that make a big difference for people. And I love Mary's advice. She's got some great advice. 

Enjoy today's episode and learn from everyone else, and check out the future episodes because I've got at least 20 lined up in the hopper ready to publish that I'm looking forward to you guys hearing. Jump into the Learn True Health Facebook group. Just search Learn True Health on Facebook, or go to learntruehealth.com/group to find the Facebook group. It's so supportive there. Anytime you need any help, you can reach out to me there. It's a great community. I love answering and helping answer questions, and helping people as well as the other listeners chimed in, and we all learn from each other. So it's a wonderful place. So when you have questions, it's a good place to come for resources as well. The search function on my website is a great place to go as well. You can search for different topics on learntruehealth.com. Now there are 500 episodes for you to lean on, learn from, and enjoy. 

[0:14:40.9] Mary: Ashley, dear friend, this is Mary. I want to thank you for helping me, and my loved ones have better health. I would consider myself a generally healthy person. I just turned 50 in November, and I've been eating well for a long time and exercising lightly. What you gave me are tools to help my health and life be even better. Actually, there's a request from my friend. What can I do about osteoporosis and osteoarthritis naturally?

I dug in and started to do my research and found your amazing podcast. I started with Episode #443 with Dr. Laura Kelly and her book The Healthy Bones Nutrition Plan and Cookbook. I learned so much from your podcast and was especially amazed to learn that you also need magnesium to hold your calcium. I purchased two other books—one for me and one for my lonely library. In the book, there was a recipe for magnesium spray, and I had the thought; I remember Ashely mentioned something about a magnesium soak she loves. I searched and found Episode #294 with Kristine Bowen from Living the Good Life Naturally. I was amazed at what I learned and quickly devoured the other three episodes by Kristen and was convinced to try the magnesium soak. I bought the magnesium soak and didn't expect to have anything happen. But I wanted my whole family to try it, so I soaked my feet too. I didn't notice anything right after soaking. But the next morning, I realized that I had slept through the night for the first time in ages. I found that soaking in magnesium has helped take some of the swellings away from my fasciitis and my shoulder, and I can sleep on both my left and right sides now because my sinuses are clear. And my knees don't bother me when I climb the stairs or try to chase the dog in the yard. I can tell my body is less inflamed. I'm so grateful for this. I even explain the magnesium soak to just about everyone I see. It's easy to share your podcast so that they can learn more about it for themselves. I never recycle an empty magnesium bottle. Instead, I put enough in it for two magnesium soaks and give it to someone I think could benefit from it. In fact, in my notes, I realized I've helped at least fifty people experience magnesium soaking in just the last year.

In December, I had the privilege of making the pilgrimage to Logan, Utah, to pick up my magnesium order in person. On the way, I wanted to stop and share it with a dear friend of mine. She hesitated to have me come because she was sick. I told her I'd be fine because I use magnesium and chlorella. Well, I had a wonderful visit with her while soaking her feet and giving her some chlorella to eat. In the form of recovery, that's two. Not long after my visit, she reported that she and her family were healthy and cleared to go on their international trip. She thanked me for sharing these tips with her. 

Looking further into your podcast, I found the Platinum Energy Systems ionic foot soak from Kellyann Andrews. Your first episodes with her are #292 and #293, plus four more. I was intrigued and decided to purchase the PES ionic foot soak system for our family. First of all, Kellyann is amazing. She will spend as much time as you need to complete your first ionic soak, even if it's an international call. She's so knowledgeable, patient, and kind. I've had a wonderful experience working with her. I know I can email her or call her with any questions I have. That's the kind of help and support you get from the products you recommend on your podcast. It's so awesome.  

The ionic soak helps me move along much better. After my first soak, I felt so energetic, even though it was later in the evening. I woke up the next morning wanting raspberries though it was February. So I dropped my son off at school and went to the store to get raspberries and chlorella. Chlorella was another tip from Kellyann. I bought and ate the raspberries and some of the chlorella. Suddenly, my body felt better. My guess was my body wanted more antioxidants to help clear the toxins that the PES ionic foot soak had undrowned and needed to clear out of my body. I've continued using the ionic foot soak for myself and my family members. It's been so helpful. In June, I became sick and realized, wait, how about I soak in magnesium? The magnesium made a big difference. That made me realize how to use the ionic foot soak in recovery. 

I learned about recovery in several episodes with Catharine Arnston, but my favorite episode is probably #487, where she talks about both the RECOVERYbits and ENERGYbits. So I used the ionic foot soak and RECOVERYbits two days in a row, and it really helped me recover quickly from being sick. My fever broke after the first session with the ionic foot soak, and most of my aches went away too. I've used this ionic foot soak on my parents too. My mom loves it and has noticed that the neuropathy in her toes isn't as bad after each use. She's also hooked on the RECOVERYbits and ENERGYbits too. She finds that she can stay on top of her arthritis pain mainly by using the magnesium soak and the chlorella. She used to have big bottles of Tums and ibuprofen that she'd buy. But now she doesn't use them much at all, and she's almost entirely off of her blood pressure medication too. Recently, her hairdresser commented on how quickly her hair has grown. My mom thinks it's due to the recovery, but I wouldn't doubt it. I feel so blessed to be able to share these helpful things with her.

I have been introduced to so many wonderful people on your podcast. I often turn to Susan Luschas' website debugyourhealth.com from Episode #343. She has so much information there. I love the science, and she certainly has it. It's easy to share Susan's website with others, and she's really good about answering questions too. 

You also introduced me to Robyn Openshaw, the GreenSmoothieGirl, in Episodes #358 and #390. I liked what she had to say, so I went to her podcast live to listen for more. She has a recommendation for a dentist in our area, Michelle Jorgensen, at Total Care Dental. My son was told that he needed his wisdom teeth out, and if so, I wanted it done right. So he went for an evaluation, and as it turns out, he doesn't need them pulled. Thank goodness for an honest evaluation. I decided to go with Total Care Dental for a new patient exam as well. I was thinking I had pretty good dental health, which I do. But they were able to do an upper and lower jaw CAT scan, and the things that they could see there were amazing. My ex-dentist couldn't see them on the X-rays that he'd been taking for years. I had two cavitations from my wisdom teeth being pulled over 25 years ago and a failed root canal. They cut off to see that my airway was small, probably due to inflammation from the cavitation infections and the root canal. I also have a moderate tongue-tie. I've since had two mercury fillings replaced at their office. The failed root canal was pulled, and the tooth cavitation was cleaned out. I've been amazed at how much happier my body is. It's like I got a metabolic reset. My body knows how to handle food, and it's been incredible. 

Before I had the two mercury fillings replaced, I started on Dr. Jorgensen's detox protocol, glutathione, vitamin C, releasers, grabbers, minerals, and vitamins. By the end of the first day, I had a major headache. This happened three days in a row, so I stopped the protocol. Then later, after listening to one of your podcasts, I had an epiphany. I didn't have enough grabbers. I started the detox protocol again, and this time I added fifteen RECOVERYbits three times a day to the regimen. This time I had no headache. Once again, Ashley, you helped me figure out how to use the tools in my help toolbox even better.

I purchased at least a dozen other products you've recommended. I've been very impressed with each one. Each one has been very high quality and improved my family's health. I appreciate your recommendation. When in doubt, use coupon code LTH. Thanks for the money savings too. Your podcast has served so many helpful gems. Many of the things I've learned from your podcast are completely free. Some of the free, or at least low-cost health hacks that I've added to my life because of you are: I sun dry my mushrooms for extra vitamin D and use them often; I make my own sauerkraut and other fermented fruits and try to eat some daily. I do more deep breathing with a longer exhale, and breathe as much as possible through my nose, even during exercise. I try to approach things in life with curiosity and love. I'm better at acknowledging my emotions and allowing space through them. I check my morning PH to see if my body was building or breaking down during the night. I avoid fluoride. I drink filtered water. I even gave our children [inaudible 0:22:32.2] for Christmas. I include more omega-3 in my meals. Now, I have no more cracked skin, even in the dry winter. I keep my cell phone on the desk instead of in my pocket. I try hard to go to sleep at an earlier, consistent time. I walk through the yard more often with my bare feet. I try to go out and greet the sun in the morning. I try to spend more time in nature. I eat more plants and grow more sprouts. 

I recently joined Learn True Health Facebook group and have been amazed at how responsive and helpful the community is. I appreciate connecting with other like-minded people and look forward to contributing and learning even more in this group. I enjoy sharing these podcasts and insights with my family and friends. They may think I'm nuts, but I'm enjoying better health because of you and your podcast, and I want to pass it on. Thank you for sharing, teaching me, and being the open-minded skeptic that you are. Thank you as well for being my friend. I've listened to all of your episodes, several of them, multiple times. I'm looking forward to being an official member of the Ashley James Learn True Health Podcast 500 Club. So thanks for inviting me. Thanks to you, my sleep is better. I feel more energized. I've lost weight, which I wasn't even trying to do. I've learned so much from you and your podcast. My health and the health of my family and friends is better because of you too. Congratulations on your 500 episodes! Keep up the excellent work, and always remember you are loved.

Sending you and your wonderful family love, happy thoughts, prayers, and birthday wishes to you, Ashley. Your friend, Mary D. Thanks again, Ashley. You're amazing.

[0:24:08.8] Katrina Reeser: I started listening to Learn True Health with Ashley James back in the summer of 2018 when I first started having systemic symptoms, numerous doctor visits, 911 calls, ER visits, lab scans, and testing procedures. The specialist couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, and I just got sicker and sicker. I was determined to figure out what was wrong with me. I stumbled upon Learn True Health that summer. Not knowing what was wrong, I listened to every podcast Ashley put out. Using the knowledge she shared, listening to her podcast gave me hope and comfort. All the while, I was learning. This continued from 2018 through 2021. Still learning, in the fall of 2021, I became bedridden. I had nothing but time to listen, learn, and use what Ashley and Learn True Health was sharing.

My health came to a point where I had lost 45 lbs in 4 weeks, so sick with systemic symptoms that I couldn't lift my head off the pillow. Specialists and tests still showed nothing. I prayed a prayer like no other. God, let me die or lead me in the direction of what was causing my illness. The next day I stumbled across breast implant illness. I knew then and there that after reading the list and the symptoms, that was what was wrong with me. I met with a plastic surgeon two weeks later and had an emergency explant on December 1st, 2022. Almost immediately, the symptoms were gone. I have been healing and detoxing over the past year. I truly believe that Ashley James and Learn True Health podcast and using all the information I learned from her many podcasts, is why I heal so quickly from all of my systemic symptoms. I was so healthy once the implants were out. This past year I continued and still listen to her podcast every week.

I'm always learning, and I feel like she is one of my closest friends, and I haven't even met her. Thank you, Ashley, and Learn True Health for educating me and giving me hope and healing. I never gave up. I created an Instagram after I explanted — bii_warrior_ — in hopes of spreading awareness, educating others, and mostly giving hope, like Ashley gave me hope when I thought there was no help left. Thank you, Ashley. 

[0:26:28.8] Linda Valdez: Hello, my name is Linda Valdez. I just wanted to share some thoughts about the Learn True Health podcast. I've been listening to the podcast for years, and I've learned so much. There's a wealth of knowledge there on everything health. As of yet, I have not had to face a serious diagnosis. But I do work on improving my health, especially as I get older. But I have friends and loved ones who have had various serious diagnoses. Often I share what I've learned from the podcast. 

Recently, we had my 89-year-old father-in-law move in with us. When he came about five months ago, he was on about 12+ medications. He's kind of out of it; he has early dementia. He also had a very painful hip and knee joint for years that was not improving. I heard about takeyoursupplements.com on the podcast. So I reached out and got him started on the vitamins and minerals. We also weaned him off of most of his medications. Three months later, he rarely complains of any pain. He is alert. He has conversations with us. He jokes and laughs. He walks much better, and he has literally come back to life. It's really been an incredible change. 

I often share episodes with my patients from the dental office I work at. Many have begun using the magnesium that Ashley recommends from Living the Good Life Naturally or taking algae from the ENERGYbits to help them detox, or they are using the aloe vera from Haley's. People listen to the podcast, learn how it can help them, then they order the product, and it improves their health. I'm amazed at how we can heal our own bodies if we just know how and what to use. The podcast has been that link we need to get there.

I can't say enough of how grateful I am that Ashley has put together this podcast and websites that are so easy to navigate and find what you need. I love listening to her on the podcast, explaining what's been said so that anyone can understand it. She has shared her family and some very personal things in her life. I feel it makes her real, as if I know her personally. Thank you, Ashley, for all you do. Please don't quit. This world needs more people like you.

[0:28:56.6] Mellissa Lee Diaz: I'm Mellissa Lee Diaz, and I've been listening to the Learn True Health podcast for a couple of years, and I just briefly wanted to share my testimony of all of the health benefits that I have personally received throughout that time, and following protocols from the people that Ashley has interviewed. So I have struggled with migraine headaches for about 18 years. And I've also most recently been diagnosed as being in perimenopause. So I have also been having hot flashes, mood swings, anxiety, sleepless nights, and whatnot.

I have been listening to the protocols from Dr. Kellyann, who has a foot detox that I decided to purchase. I would say, a few times, after doing my foot detoxes, my migraines started to decrease rapidly. I also decided to purchase one of the Sunlighten brand infrared saunas that have also played a huge part in perimenopausal symptoms. I no longer have hot flashes. I've been sleeping a ton better. I have also had lots of less anxiety. I've also done something that wasn't actually brought up by Learn True Health, but I did want to suggest that Ashley do an interview with someone that offers PEMF treatments because that is something that I did, that is a holistic protocol on a machine that is an electromagnetic field generator. Again, it's PEMF. And I also received a ton of health benefits by going that route as well. So I'm hoping that at some point, she'll be able to interview someone that speaks on PEMF because that is also another major influence that I've had, positively affecting my health in an amazing way. 

Most recently, I also tried the analemma stick crystal that you put in water. And I've noticed that I've been much more hydrated than I was previously. And I can actually taste a difference, not in the taste of the water, but in the texture of the water, and it seems to give me major hydrating benefits. And I've also gotten sick way less this year. I think I might have battled one cold in a total of 18 months. So there's something to be said for all of the benefits. I have been migraine-free as of now from doing all of the things that people have suggested on her podcast. I haven't had a migraine in six months and counting. I also have today no symptoms of perimenopause whatsoever. I sleep amazingly. I stay hydrated. I have little to no body aches. And honestly, I have felt better now at 46 years old than I did when I was 30. So kudos to you, Ashley. I am so very grateful for your podcast. Keep going. I love this holistic advice that you give people, and I have been totally blessed by your show. Thank you.

[0:32:13.1] Ashley James: Thank you, Mellissa, for that. I wanted to make a little side note and tell listeners that Melissa has had seven children. So for a woman who is in her forties and has had seven children, she feels better than she did in her 30s, using holistic health and these simple tools, one at a time. Sometimes it's drinking more water, getting a structured water device, and drinking more water. Sometimes it's detoxing. I love the PES for detoxing. And I also know that Melissa takes the supplements from takeyoursupplements.com, and if you go to takeyoursupplements.comthere's a video of her and her gorgeous daughter giving a testimonial in a video form that she did a while back. The supplements there, I know she has been on for quite a while because she actually used them for her last and final pregnancy. Although I don't know, maybe she wants to have more kids, which she'd probably say she's done after seven. But she did take those supplements during her last pregnancy. I remember her telling me that it made that seventh pregnancy the easiest and the best pregnancy out of all of them and that she just kind of flew through that pregnancy, and actually, it was like the healthiest baby. I mean, all her babies are healthy. It was the healthiest. It was the easiest birth and the healthiest baby. It was the healthiest pregnancy, and she really attributed it to all the wonderful advice she got from takeyoursupplements.com. 

Those supplements that she's on are the same supplements I've been taking for 12 years. My family takes the majority of it. It is liquid plant-based, plant-derived, bioavailable minerals and other nutrients that fill in the gaps in her diet. So, no matter which eating style you choose to do, it's really hard to secure our minerals because the farming practices of the last 150 years don't remineralize the soil. So it's easy to accidentally get vitamins and eat enough plants. So if you're on a diet that doesn't include enough plants, if you're eating the same American diet, you're definitely not getting enough vitamins. If you eat really healthy, you can accidentally get all your vitamins. It's very hard to get all your minerals, unfortunately, because of the farming practices. So a lot of times, people walk around minerally deficient, especially in magnesium and zinc, but they don't know it; there are only symptoms. It's really interesting how the body speaks in symptoms. 

And so, takeyoursupplements.comyou fill out the form, and they talk to you for free, and they're trained by the same naturopath I worked with, and it's amazing. Actually, the head coach there is Jennifer Saltzman, who's been on the show three times, and she has the world's biggest heart. She wants to help you, but only if you're ready. If you're ready to get healthy and you want to take your health to the next level, and you want to fill in the gaps of your nutrient deficiencies, talk to her. Go to takeyoursupplements.com. I love those supplements. They're safe because they are dosed based on body weight. They're actually safe for anyone at any age. I know that there are pediatricians that use it for infants, infants, and up, basically. One of my mentors designed the supplements, and I love the science that went into designing them. They are really beautiful in that they're all balanced. So nothing is high doses of anything. It's all very balanced, and it's what the body really needs. If we lived in the Garden of Eden, that's basically the nutrients we would be getting from our food. If we had just the perfect soil, this is what we'd be getting anyway. So I really do love the supplements from  takeyoursupplements.com.

Next up is Morgan. She left it as a voicemail when she gave me a call, and then afterward, I asked her permission to share her voicemail with you guys. And she said, sure. So, as of now, I have about ninety of my clients using the phototherapy patches that I talked about in Episode #496 with Trina Hammack. Since Episode #496, I've had an amazing personal experience with the patches. My clients have had amazing experiences, and Morgan is one of them. She in the first week of using the patches, had a complete reversal and elimination of these crazy symptoms that she's had for the last several years, and it's been wonderful. We're having these really cool experiences with my clients. I have some words like, it's subtle. I have some words like, yeah, I noticed more energy. Wow, I'm getting deeper sleep. Oh yeah, my aches and pains are going away. I have an amazing couple who are using the patches, and one of them has several fractures, and it's healing much faster than the doctor expected. It triggers, through the phototherapy process, our body's ability to optimize certain physiological functions, including increasing stem cells and increasing glutathione-balancing hormones. It's really neat. 

I have one client who was eating Tums and drinking Pepto-Bismol like it was candy because of how bad her heartburn was. And she reported to me that after three days of doing the phototherapy protocol for supporting gut health, she no longer needs to take the Tums and drink the Pepto Bismol. Yes, we're supporting the body's ability to come back into balance. So it's not anything you're absorbing, which is so neat. It's just a frequency medicine that's gently pushing the body back into balance and asking the body to optimize certain processes. I know it sounds totally wild. There are over a hundred studies around it, proving that it does what it does. And these are double-blind placebos and all that. There are these super cool studies, and then they've been around for 20 years. So it's not like this new fly-by-night kind of thing. It has been proven. 

So if you're someone that would love to try this out and support your body's ability to heal itself, increase stem cell production, and gently bring the body back into balance and it is safe for all ages. It doesn't go against any medication, so it's safe, and all those scenarios, which are really neat. It's gentle, and we see amazing results. Like I said, I have ninety clients wearing these and experiencing phenomenal results, like the testimonial you're about to hear. And if you would like to try the phototherapy patches, I'd love to talk to you and help you order the right ones to get on the right protocols for you. You can go to my website, learntruehealth.comAnd on the menu, it says, “Work with Ashley James.” So go to learntruehealth.com and just find the menu, click on “Work with Ashley James,” and it's the first option as you scroll down. You can book a free consultation with me, and I will answer your questions about it. I'll also send you a big email full of really cool videos and stuff you'll geek out on.

If you like my podcast, you'd love the email that I can send you with all this information. And I can invite you to our hidden Facebook group of practitioners so you can learn the protocols and you can see the testimonials; it's wild. We have bald men and women growing their hair back. We have age spots going away, wrinkles going away, and waddles under the neck tightening because one of the patches stimulates collagen production. So we have a full-on facelift, breast lift, and neck lift protocols. It's not medicine. It's not surgery. It's not anything the body absorbs. It's just phototherapy. It's patches that change the frequency of the photons our body admits back to us to stimulate a specific function. I could send more information. All I could say is I've got several really cool science videos that go into explaining this, and it does kind of feel like we're in Star Trek, basically. I love it. 

There's a combination of these patches I wear. When I started wearing them, I was consistently able to do 5 minutes on the rower at the gym. And after I started wearing them, I went from 5 minutes on the rower to the next day, 23 minutes on the rower. I was consistently getting kind of exhausted after 5 minutes. You know, when you push yourself, and then your body's like, okay, I need a break. I need a few minutes. I hit that lactic acid wall at 5 minutes. And then, the next day, I did 23 minutes. I was like, woah! It wasn't like I went from 5 to 6 minutes. I went from 5 to 23 minutes. And there's something said about these phototherapy patches that have been really cool not just for me but for all my clients that get on it. So if you want to try it, definitely reach out to me because I love it. I love the results we're getting, and it's wild. Listen to this testimonial. You can hear about how wild it is. 

[0:41:36.3] Morgan: Hey, Ashley, this is Morgan. Hey, I just wanted to tell you how incredible the patches are so far, and just adjusting my polarity, which was running completely backward. It has made such an incredible shift in my life in such a short time. In probably the past six years or something, I've been going from practitioner to practitioner, trying to figure out all these crazy symptoms that no one could explain, anything related to grounding or anything that increases the earth or water element. I would be riddled with anxiety and have massive bloating and this kind of dizzy feeling. It's hard to explain, but I just felt like something was so off. And after adjusting the polarity, everything shifted. I can drink water again, which I couldn't do before, like with any minerals. I'd have to do reverse osmosis because I couldn't handle any kind of minerals. They would make me just feel so out of whack. And I'd have urgent urination and just an intense rapid heartbeat. I can be around trees again and listen to music again. Before, I couldn't handle anything that had a heavy bass or many kinds of music. Even a female voice was too grounding to listen to. Sleeping was insane. I couldn't sleep because every time I lay down, I would just have really intense symptoms. Even walking into my house, because it's on the ground level, with lots of trees in the yard, would throw me into a dizzy state. I can do breathing, meditation, or stretching. All of those things were too grounding. Even reading and writing were really tough. 

So anyways, long-winded, but those have all shifted in just one day or two days. It's doing the polarity switch. So I just wanted to tell you that I'm so grateful, and I broke down a couple of times this weekend in tears out of just straight gratitude for this technology and healing message that you're sharing with people. So, thank you so much. I do have a couple of questions about the next steps, so I'll just email you about that. But I just so appreciate you and wanted to let you know. Thank you so much. Okay, hope you're having a nice day, take care.

[0:44:11.7] Ashley James: This testimonial is from Dina. She shared it in the Learn True Health Facebook group, and it made me cry. I love it. It's a true testament to the power of the body's ability to heal itself with natural, holistic-minded medicine and how we can take all the great information from hundreds and hundreds of amazing guests and use it in everyday, real applications to save our lives, to save the lives of our loved ones. So here's what she says.

[0:44:46.8] Dana (read by Ashley): How has Ashley and the Learn True Health podcast helped me and my family? In more ways than I can count, each and every day, in some large or small way, but for this post, I will rely on two major scenarios where Learn True Health has guided me and my family through important decisions. Get comfortable. This is going to take a minute. Hospital scenario: let me start by talking about a medical illness where Learn True Health insights guided me just one day before my eighty-year-old mom was hospitalized with COVID-19. I had coincidentally listened to Episode #479: Our Amazing Grace, wherein a father, Scott Schara, described how his daughter's fatal experience, which began as a COVID admittance to the hospital, could have been avoided. The interview left the listener with a heightened awareness in, a perspective to be cognizant of a hospital's transparency and the operational protocols often based on revenue streams instead of the patient's positive health outcomes to not implicitly, without question, trust the white coat; to not allow hospital staff and doctors to bully or belittle you in your role as advocate for your loved one; to ask uncomfortable and difficult questions of doctors and nurses and so on. 

My mom was in the ICU for ten days, and my sister and I took alternating 24-hour shifts as her advocates. As the 10-day ICU ordeal began to unfold, I watched in mounting frustration and then in dismay as an eerily similar scenario to that which Scott had described unraveled before my eyes. My sister and I asked a lot of questions as to each physical protocol and each medication. We were not argumentative or disruptive but wanted to understand. Some of the nurses and both doctors in my mom's case clearly did not want us in the room. My sister and I were repeatedly bullied and were actually yelled at on multiple occasions. The supposed life-saving prone positioning protocol ordered by the pulmonary doctor was not being carried out by the nurses in the least. And the deadly mixture of drugs prescribed in the case of Scott Schara's daughter was being duplicated in my mom's case, even though the package inserts indicated not to mix them or use them for several days together. About midway through my mom's ICU case, it became clear to us that we needed to transfer our mother to another hospital. We were successful in arranging that transfer. 

Also, early in the ICU scenario, other LTH episodes came to mind that bolstered my own endurance in my difficult role as an advocate. I recall Episode #107, where JJ Virgin describes her role as an advocate for her hospitalized son. Helping me advocate for a critical patient can be rigorous and exhausting, and how JJ Virgin knew in Episode #107. She had to keep up her own wellness routines in order to have the strength to continue in the advocate role. She talked about ways in which she supported her health and stamina during the long hospital hours by doing things like climbing hospital stairs to replicate high-intensity workouts and using the corridors to get in her steps. She talked about making sure she did not give in to the convenience of inflammatory hospital cafeteria food and how she prioritized sticking with her own foods and supplements. She also talked about how she used her knowledge as a functional medicine practitioner to support her son's recovery by doing things like bringing in nutritional supplements and healthy foods for him. 

So, I took many cues from JJ Virgin's hospital survival kit in Episode #107 of the Learn True Health podcast and replicated her practices in my role as an advocate and part-time hospital dweller. In addition to bolstering my own health, I supplemented my mom's hospital protocols with vitamin D and other nutrients. For example, I brought in thermoses of bone broth. She didn't have an appetite for many solid foods. Another episode that helped me during this ICU time was Episode #477: Proof of Heaven, with near-death experience survivor Dr. Eben Alexander. From day one of my mom's ICU stay, the pulmonary doctor's outlook for my mom's survival was bleak. She had severe pneumonia. So facing what might be a fatal outcome, I came prepared to read to my mom passages from Dr. Eben Alexander's book, Proof of Heaven, in the hope that I could minimize her fear of death and of what might come next and offer some level of comfort that if death was what she was facing, she could at least visualize a place of love and safety as Dr. Alexander described in his near-death experience. 

Alternative childhood vaccine scenario: The first episode I've ever listened to on Learn True Health podcast was forwarded to me by my daughter, a first-time mother, five months in. It was Episode #224: Safe Vaccines, wherein Dr. Paul Thomas describes the pros and cons of childhood vaccines, promotes parental informed consent, and offers a vaccine schedule alternative to that of the CDCs. This episode was so informative that it started me and my daughter on an in-depth journey into the world of childhood vaccines which, after a study period of about six months, led my daughter to quit her job and stay home with her daughter in order to have the freedom to choose an alternative vaccine schedule without the strict daycare vaccination rules governing her decisions as they relate to her daughter's health. Ashley's episodes on homeschooling also gave my daughter the courage to embark on this journey that she had never before considered for herself.

My own health journey: I'm presently diagnosed with mycotoxin illness, which, if not eradicated, would likely lead to one or more of the following; cancer, kidney damage, liver damage, Alzheimer's, or Parkinson's. The only remedy is detoxification by supporting all of my body's functions and elimination pathways. In addition to my clean diet and supplement regime, I have learned of some other excellent health-promoting modalities through Learn True Health, which I am now using to amplify my overall resilience in detoxification ability. These include infrared energy therapy Episode #245 with Sunlighten sauna, daily magnesium foot soaks for maximum cell saturation and overall mineral support, Episode #294: Magnesium Foot Soak, the use of ozonated water and ozonated oils to eradicate biotoxins and pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, parasites and molds in Episode #484, and the medicinal drinkable aloe gel for reducing gut inflammation in Episode #401 and #474 and starving any cancer cells that may be taking root in my body as a result of mycotoxins. Many, many thanks go to Ashley James. Her quest to share important, empowering health information is quite a calling. She is an excellent podcast host, as well as a self-informed and certified nutrition and health coach. I completely trust Ashley James and recommend her podcast to friends and family every chance I get.

[0:52:44.2] Ashley James: I loved reading this. The first time I read it, I was crying. I couldn't even finish it. The tears were filling my eyes. I was just thinking about her mom and how that could have been a really bad outcome. That could have been a devastating outcome and a horrible way to pass alone in a hospital if it wasn't for her family advocating intensely for her. And I weep for all the families who lost loved ones in the last three years who were left alone, neglected in the hospitals. I know that there are nurses and doctors out there who have really big hearts who care, and there are also a lot of really burnt-out nurses and doctors. And the worst thing is the hospital protocols are horrendous and are not designed to support our overall health. I don't know if her mom would have lived if she hadn't heard that episode on my show where she learned how to rigorously advocate and how to look for the signs of malpractice, essentially. She did an amazing job. Her whole family did an amazing job supporting her mom. And the fact that they were able to have such a positive outcome is why I do this. I do this show so that your mom's life can be saved, so that your dad's life can be saved. 

I couldn't save my parents. I lost my mom when I was twenty-two to cancer, and I lost my dad six years later when I was twenty-eight to sudden heart failure. And that should not have happened. They should have lived. I didn't know at the time what it would take to prevent and reverse heart disease and cancer. And through my own personal health journey in the last fifteen years, and then the last seven years doing this podcast, if I had a time machine, I could go back, give my parents this information, and they would still be alive today. Think of all the loved ones that you can take all the information from my show, and you can help yourself and your children, your friends, and your family to live long, healthy, disease-free lives in optimal health regardless of where you are now, regardless of how old you are now, regardless of where your health is right now.

Every day you can build your health. Either you tear it down, or you build it up. Every day, every decision, every meal, every glass of water, every walk, every time you go to bed at a decent hour, just every little thing that seems insignificant, is actually monumental. And then the little things add up. If you can make it a game and make it fun, you know, let's see. Can I get to sleep before 10? Can I get it with 120 oz of purified water? Can I get my 10,000 steps in? Can I get 50 grams of fiber from a variety of plants throughout the day? Can I have three healthy bowel movements a day? Can I get out in the sunlight first thing in the morning? These little things can become a game. Can I walk outside for 5 minutes or 20 minutes with my bare feet on the ground or in the grass? Obviously, make sure you don't step in dog poop or walk in pesticide-laden grass. These little things — hydration, nutrition, fiber, sleep, moving your body in a way that brings you joy, grounding or earthing, loving yourself, watching your own personal self-talk, correcting it — so you become nurturing inwards and nurturing outwards, and decreasing stress, getting out of the stress response, having tickle fights with your partner, your kids putting on comedy shows, doing zumba in your living room to 90s music, or rock and roll or whatever. Have fun and do the little things, and every single day you will be building yourself up. Make it a game and see how many of these fun little activities you can incorporate. 

Take a little account of yourself. Go write down everything, every symptom. If you want, I can give you this if you email me or you message me on Facebook, or if you email me at support@learntruehealth.com. I'll send you my symptom inventory checklist. I can also include it in the show notes of this podcast. But the symptom inventory checklist is phenomenal for doing a once-a-month check-in. You just write every single thing you don't like about your health, every symptom, even the ones you were told that you have because you're a woman, or because you're a man, because you're older, because you're young, or because of your genetics, whatever excuses they've given. If you could have a magic wand or Aladdin's lamp, come and grant your wishes and remove every single symptom and bring you optimal health; you think about it from that standpoint. You write down everything you don't like about your health, and you grade it — intensity, duration, and frequency. Then, once a month, you come back to this list, and you'll see if things are getting worse or better or staying the same.

When I work with my clients, they are surprised at how this list changes just in the first month alone. I've had clients cut this list in more than half in the first month of working with me when we adjust supplements and diet and lifestyle changes, and we get to the point where there's nothing on their list. There are no symptoms that they are unhappy with. They get to a point in their health where they're happy about every aspect of their health, their body, and their emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical health. So this is a great way to keep track. 

I've actually had two clients who forgot they used to have chronic migraines before working with me. And how do you forget chronic, almost weekly, daily, or monthly, really intense and often recurring headaches or migraines? I reminded them. I asked both of them on two separate occasions, two different clients. How are your migraines? And they both looked at me like, what do you mean? I had to remind them. And they're like, oh yeah, I forgot. I forgot I used to have daily headaches. I'm like, how do you forget? But this is what we do. We just forget. So if you write down your symptoms now as you make these healthy changes, you might forget how bad you felt, and then you get this great health routine, and then you think, well, I could stay up late. I can do whatever. I can drink some alcohol. And then we build these habits, and then we can fall out of our habits. And we forget how great we feel when we're in these habits. 

So keeping track of that, we can go back and say, okay, I have a motivation. I have a reason to stay on these healthy habits because they've built me up. They've removed all these symptoms, and I don't want to go back to the way it was because I could recreate type 2 diabetes. I could go to McDonalds every day. I always pick at McDonalds, but you know, insert fast food restaurant. I could just eat the way everyone else is just eating a standard American diet. And sure enough, I could recreate type 2 diabetes. I don't have it anymore, but I can recreate it. So we can turn disease on and off with nutrient deficiency, with stressors in life, with living the sad life, the standard American diet life. We can turn disease on, and we can turn it off with these health changes. The whole podcast, all 499, now 500 episodes, is about the little changes you can make to support your body's ability, the God-given ability you have to heal yourself. 

And if you believe you can't heal yourself, then you have already lost because your belief system matters. It does take you believing that your body can heal itself. If you don't believe, you won't even take the first step. So you have to believe, and you have to visualize and see yourself healed. See you that you want to have in the future, and see that future you and believe it as if it is now and real, and go, “Okay, future me, I'm going to I'm going to see you soon, and I'm going to do the things it takes to be there and do that.” And then you have to forget everything every MD ever told you because everything they tell you that has to do with limiting your own body's ability to heal itself, you've got to throw it out the door and say no, I do not take that in. That is not my belief system. I believe my body can heal. Because if I believed what the MD said, I would still be sick because I would never have taken the first step.

The next testimonial comes from the Learn True Health Facebook group, and it's more of a visual thing. So I'll describe it to you. It's an image of a Facebook message that I got from one of our listeners, and she shares an image of a large ziplock bag filled with ten big prescription bottles, and she says, “Check this out.” All the things that she's been doing since listening to the Learn True Health podcast, she goes, “This was my bag of prescription drugs that I had to take before the Learn True Health podcast,” And she goes, “and this is now.” And it's one drug in the big bag instead of ten. So she's removed nine. Her doctors have taken her off nine prescription drugs since listening to the Learn True Health podcast. And I said, “Woohoo, congratulations! That's so awesome. May I share this?” And she goes, “Yes.” And I said, “What is the last drug?” She says, “Blood pressure. But I'm conquering that too.” And she shared what she has done to get off of nine of her ten drugs. You can see this if you go to the Learn True Health Facebook group. You can see this post there. Just type testimonial in the search bar of the Facebook group, and you'll see it. But she says that she did grounding or earthing, and you can learn more about that by going to the Learn True Health podcast and listening to Episode #366 with Clint Ober. It's fascinating — grounding and earthing — and also Episode #402 with Dr. Stephen Sinatra. 

She also used the magnesium soak, which I love. If you take oral magnesium, you're getting only a tiny percentage of that actually is getting in your tissues. Oral magnesium is the hardest way to absorb magnesium. And the best way, besides paying for very expensive intravenous, which is not achievable for most people to do long-term, is soaking in the magnesium in this undiluted magnesium soak is amazing, and you reach full cell saturation. About 70 to 60 percent of people reach full cell saturation within 30 days of soaking every day. You soak for a minimum of 20 minutes, a maximum of an hour, and you just put it in a bowl with your feet. You don't even have to have a bath to do it. I do it when I'm watching TV or when I'm just relaxing and doing some work at the computer. I can put my feet in the bowl there, and I can also do it in the sauna. So there are plenty of ways of getting it in while you go about your day. As long as you can sit still in one place and keep your feet in a bowl for 20 minutes, you're good. And that is several episodes with Kristen Bowen, but the first episode worth listening to is Episode #294 of the Learn True Health podcast. She gives a great discount, that coupon code LTH when you go to livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. That's her website. She has very high standards for ingredients and makes sure that everything is pure and ethically sourced. Everything that she sells, she uses herself. She uses it with her grandbabies and her family. I just love connecting with ethical, like-minded people and supporting these small businesses that are committed to helping our health. So Kristen is one of those women who will do everything she can to help you, and she suffered so greatly. I'm not going to do any spoilers, but I will tell you, you've got to listen to Episode #294. She was in a wheelchair, under 100 lbs, barely able to talk, having thirty seizures in a day, and she was on death's door. That was about twenty years ago, and now she is vibrant and healthy and has a huge beautiful family. And she's a grandma of so many amazing kids and a mom to amazing kids, and she's the founder of a beautiful and wonderful business. So I love that it provides people with a great workspace and then provides the customers with high-quality ingredients. But the magnesium soak is like no other, and you cannot get it from Epsom salt. It is not even comparable, and she talks about that in our interviews. You can't reach full cell saturation with magnesium flakes. It doesn't work with Epsom salt. You can't reach that full cell saturation, and she goes into explaining why. That is Episode #294. Then you can go to the Learn True Health website or wherever you listen to Learn True Health and search for all the other episodes with Kristen Bowen because we have several of them. Remember to use coupon code LTH on her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com, and grab yourself a few jugs of her magnesium soak.

Also, I love the cream. I love the muscle cream. Those are delicious as well. That's great for local applications. If you just need to relax some tense muscles, it definitely works. And then our listener — just for privacy's sake, I don't share her name — she was kind enough to share this information so that I could pass it along and give people hope. The last thing she did to make these changes and get off her nine out of ten medications very quickly was she went to takeyoursupplements.com and signed up to have a free conversation with Jennifer Saltzman. Jennifer has been on our show several times, but you can listen to the latest one, which is Episode #458 of Learn True Health podcast. I have been on these supplements for 12 years, and so is my husband. Our son's been on these supplements his whole life. And I've had the creator of the supplements on my show twice. They are phenomenal, and they're plant-derived. They are very bioavailable. They're all in balance with each other, so there are no high doses, and it fills in the gaps of our nutrient deficiencies that we have because of the farming practices of over 150 years. They do not remineralize the soil, so we are left with anemic plants. You can eat spinach, but the spinach could have zero iron in it, literally zero iron. And even though we were raised to see Popeye and think we're getting our iron when we eat our spinach, well, spinach used to contain high iron just like Brazil nuts can contain selenium, but it doesn't mean they do. Because you can grow plants in water and sunlight, and some NPK does not need to take all sixty minerals. Our body needs sixty minerals. But the farmers do not remineralize the soil, so that's a really big problem with modern farming. And then in addition to that, we treat our crops with the types of pesticides like Glyphosate, which is a chelator. This is not the only one that does this, but it binds to the minerals and heavy metals and carries it away. And the way we farmed, the way we till the soil, the rain washes away the nutrients, and we're left with anemic plants. Of course, now, a lot of plants we buy are grown hydroponically, especially if you're buying your microgreens. I buy these power greens from Costco in a big bag. It says organic, but you know as you're eating them, you go, this is too clean. This just looks like something that was grown in a factory, not something that was grown in the ground that contains minerals. So it is really important to get our minerals, and I love the liquid minerals that takeyoursupplements.com can provide you with. 

So those are the three biggest things that she did. She grounded herself, or she did earthing and walked outside barefoot. You can also get a crowning mat or mattress pad for indoor use, but it's free if you just put your feet barefoot outside. I even had a listener, and I loved this; this was so great. After hearing this episode, the grounding episode, I think she was in Minnesota when she went outside in the middle of winter and dug some snow until she found the grass, bundled up, sat in a lawn chair, and put her feet directly on the grass. And I'm like, that is my kind of woman. And she's like, “I am earthing right now. I heard this episode, and I'm going to earth right now. I'm not going to wait for springtime.” And that's the kind of passion you need to have when it comes to gaining true health. When we put our feet barefoot, directly on the soil, directly on grass, plants, or the earth, we are getting back to earth's potential. You are releasing electrons which are free radicals that are causing damage to your body. You are releasing excess electrons, and you're getting back to the earth's potential. That's what we're supposed to be.

Think about if you've ever gone camping as a kid, if you ever slept outside, or maybe when there are power outages, and how good you sleep. You sleep so well when we're not around all this wi-fi and electricity, when we're touching the ground, if you've ever slept on the ground, besides the fact that the ground is hard and you use a mattress, or maybe you've taken a nap outside. Just go lay down in the grass and let yourself connect with the earth, in that you are releasing electrons and getting back to the earth's potential, which is discussed a lot in Episode #366 as Clint Ober talks about the several studies that he funded to learn more about the effects on the body of doing earthing and grounding. So you're going to love to dive into these episodes if you're like my listener and you're carting around a gallon bag full of prescription drugs, and you don't want to be on prescription drugs anymore. You want to be so healthy that you don't need to be on these drugs. If you want to be so healthy that your doctor says, “Well, we got to definitely take you off these. What are you doing on them?” If you want to be so healthy that your body is drug-free, that your body has just energy abound, that your body heals itself quickly, that you bounce back quickly from colds or flu, that you jump out of bed in the morning, that you have a full day that you feel like in love with life on every level, then you want to listen to and do what all the other listeners are doing that they were able to cut their prescriptions. I once helped a woman cut her prescriptions. And how she had two drawers full of prescriptions and cut them in half just by making tiny changes. And she could have done more, but she just did a few tiny changes. These are suggestions that are shared in the podcast and suggestions that I love to follow. She made these suggestions, and it's madness that MDs don't have these tools. To help you get so healthy, you don't need to be on meds. That's not their training because the system is designed to sell drugs. Now, I appreciate and love MD-based medicine when we need it. Allopathic, drug-based medicine for emergencies is wonderful, and it's the best thing we got. But when it comes to chronic health, they only have drugs. And you have to go to a functional medicine practitioner or holistic health coach to even find the information on how to support your body's ability to heal itself, so much so that your body gets so healthy that your doctor takes you off those drugs that you no longer need to be on drugs. And that's the kind of doctor you want to see.

You want to see a doctor that says, “Yes, let's get you so healthy. I don't know enough how to get you so healthy, but if you get healthy, I want to take you off these drugs. There are some doctors that won't even take you off your drugs if you get healthy. You got to really watch out for that. So interview some doctors and find one that goes, “Yes, I want you to get so healthy that you don't need to be on drugs.” And look at how simple this was for her. She stood outside with bare feet in the grass. She's soaked in magnesium. She took some supplements. She made a few dietary changes. She started moving her body in a way that brought her joy. She started hydrating herself, and she cut down her pills by 90%. Her prescriptions got cut down by 90% in a matter of months. How amazing is that? That's so cool. 

So I just love all the testimonials that are shared in the Facebook group. I love that we can make such a huge difference in people's lives. I am so proud of Natalie, who is our next testimonial. Natalie has been listening for, I guess, over a year now. She was struggling with prediabetes even though she was doing a lot of healthy things that kept creeping up on her and creeping up on her. And then finally, she ended up with an A1C of 9.6, diagnosed back about five months ago, where she was in full-blown diabetes. And she was just so upset at herself. She'd been listening to the podcast. She'd been making a lot of good health changes. But one thing that hadn't changed, even though she was eating very healthily, was she was still eating foods that we'd see cause insulin resistance. And so, I encouraged her back in December to listen to Episodes #233, #489, and the most recent #492, and especially to get the Mastering Diabetes audiobook. I love that audiobook. They come on and give updates. So, when you buy a physical book, it's like the author can insert updates, maybe if it's an ebook. But what's great about the audiobook is that they don't come on and give some updates as new science and stuff come out. It's one of the guests I had in those episodes. He is a Ph.D. who wrote his thesis on insulin resistance. The whole premise is how we can use the food you don't eat and the food you do eat to heal insulin resistance and support the body's ability to heal itself and become so healthy that the body naturally loses weight, lowers triglycerides, develops healthy cholesterol and develops balanced, healthy blood sugar. 

So Natalie came to me a month after being on the program. It's only a month, and it does take time. So don't expect to be completely done in one month. One month is just the beginning, and that's the hardest part. The first month is the hardest part because, a lot of times, people are battling. They don't even realize how intense the food addictions and cravings are when they cut out those foods. So Natalie went through her first month of eating a super clean way and battling what we all go through when we cut out the foods that our bodies are addicted to. And at the beginning, she had an A1C of 9.6 back around January of this year. And in April, so four months later, her A1C was 6.7. I am so proud of her. This testimonial that she gives, she recorded in January, a month into her program. She was already seeing success, but I got an update today from Natalie, and I want to share it with you because I want to celebrate with you her success and just how proud I am of her. She's really been struggling for years like so many people, even though she makes really healthy choices. She doesn't eat the standard American diet. There are so many things she does right. And that's the frustration. We can feel like we're already doing so much, and then we're still unhealthy. Sometimes it just takes a few simple changes. Sometimes it takes a major overhaul. But being willing to look at your numbers now and go, “Okay, here's where I am, and here's where I want to be, and I'm going to get there. I'm going to close that gap between where I am and where I want to be.”

I talked to her a few times back in January, and she felt defeated at times because things were not progressing fast enough. I said, “Just keep at it.” And she was not happy with me. She wanted me to join the pity party with her, and I totally understand that. When you just want to complain with someone, and then you want them to join your pity party, and I'm like, “I'm not having it. You are going to keep going. You're going to keep doing this.” I was her cheerleader. She wanted me to get out the violin for her, and I'm like, “No, you keep doing this, and you're going to be amazed at your results.” And here we are, only a few months later, like five months really into it. She said she didn't start getting super serious until February. So I'm going to give her the five months into it because she really did start about five months ago. So here it is in May, she said, “I was super serious starting in February.” But she started easing into it at the beginning of January. But here are her numbers so far. So please, I want you to put your hands together for Natalie.

I'm so proud of her. When she started back in December, when she came to me, her fasting blood sugar was in the 180s. That was waking up in the morning, not having eaten for 8 to 10 hours, and it was 180. Now it should be below 100. A good fasting blood sugar is between 60 and 80. And hers was 180. Now her fasting blood sugar is between 90 and 100, and I'm so proud of her. Now, she's not done yet. She's still helping her body heal itself. But look how far she's come and not even six months. It's not even half a year. Look how far she's come. Her blood sugar, when at two hours post meal, used to be in the high 100s or the low 200s, usually around 200. It's now between 120 and 150, two hours post-meal. So I'm really, really proud of her.

I'm so excited to see what her A1C is going to be in a few months because she's trending in such a great way. But another really big change for her is her weight. At the beginning of this, she was 250, and now she's 190. She's lost 60 lbs. You have to get between 10 and 20 lbs. When we lose weight, when we adapt to a healthy eating lifestyle, a lot of that is water weight. That's inflammation. So it might not all be adipose tissue that the body is losing. But she definitely has dropped her body weight when she's eating vegetables like crazy. Basically, she's eating just lots and lots of wonderfully healthy, healing vegetables. She sends me pictures of some of her meals, and I'm drooling. And Then I send her pictures of my meals, then she says, can I come over because your food looks better than mine? I'm like, hey, we're just eating our medicine. But the fact that in such a short period of time, she was able to get such traction and remind her today was great. Because sometimes we're just in the thick of it, and we're staring at the scale every day, we're looking at our labs, or looking at a glucometer, and it doesn't feel like it's budging, right? We're making all these healthy changes, and the progress is so slow it is frustrating. And the addiction brain wants us to give up and just go eat the thing that we're addicted to because we need to have that pity party. The addiction brain is going to latch on to anything to tell you you're not progressing fast enough, so you might as well have a cheat. Well, this isn't working. I might as well go eat some chips, or chocolate, or ice cream, or whatever Chinese food. 

What I'm telling you is to imagine yourself wherever you are a year from now, having achieved the goals that you have for yourself and every day working towards them; surely and steadily, you will get there. And I kept telling Natalie that, and it came to fruition. And here she is, coming out of diabetes like a champ, feeling amazing. She now can believe that she can see herself at her ideal weight, feeling so confident. But in her first month, her numbers started to come down and level out a bit, and what she did see right away was energy. That's one of the first things we get when we start eating super healthy. She said, “Oh my gosh, my energy is really good. I'm really feeling it. And my body composition is already changing.” So listen to her testimonial and listen to this woman back in January, who was just starting her journey, still a little unsure about it all, but trusting the process and doing it. And as you listen, just remember that a few short months after she had recorded this, she had lost 60 pounds and shed several points off of her A1C. Three points off of her A1C. I love it. And now her fasting is under 100, and how exciting is that? So big congratulations to Natalie. 

And this is what I live for. I live for helping people to get on the other side of it, whatever they're facing, help them get on the other side of it, and get their progress back on track. I love doing blood sugar coaching. It's one of my favorite things to do. You can go to bloodsugarcoach.com if you'd like to check out working with me. I'd love to chat with you about it. You can message me on Facebook or email me at support@learntruehealth.com. I love doing health coaching. Everyone is unique. Everyone's life is a bit different, and I love to plug into someone and listen to their health goals, figure out where the roadblocks are, and help them create habits that stick and strategies that get them there. So if you want to be like Natalie and see significant progress in a few months, then I'd love to be your coach. 

So, listen to Natalie, and give her a big round of applause. If you see her in our Facebook group, tell her how proud you are of her because I'm certainly proud of her. Natalie, thank you so much for coming here today. And as a listener of the Learn True Health podcast, you wanted to share to encourage others. You've been through your own health struggles. Natalie came here today to share some of her stories and to help and encourage those who feel like they are stuck, or they're suffering, and they feel like they're at a dead end in their health. So Natalie, what were your health and your life like before you discovered the Learn True Health podcast?

[1:26:07.5] Natalie: Well, you know, I thought I was pretty healthy. But as you listen to the episodes and then you hear about all the things that you could need, like magnesium, and that when you're tired, it isn't that you need more coffee. You're actually either not getting the nutrients you need or you're not getting the exercise you need. You start to really rethink about how healthy you really are. And then, when I got diagnosed with diabetes, that was just such a hard hit for me. I knew I'd been working hard to try to be healthy, and I had prediabetes, and so I was like, no, I got this. But then that does kind of came as a hard blow, and I think if it wasn't for your podcast and really starting to implement the changes I really needed to do, your heart changes. But I wanted to do it. I mean, it's like the proof is in the pudding. 

As soon as I started implementing some of the changes from your podcast and other great advice from your guests, it was just like you could just see it. My blood sugar started dipping down, and I started getting into those normal numbers that I needed. My energy and all the things I thought I was so healthy, I was just like, look at the inflammation. Look at how much it went down. Look at how my energy is up. I can go up a flight of stairs, and I'm not so winded anymore, and that's only from just small changes. I can't imagine how many more changes I can implement and how much better I can get as I keep listening to you and the things that you have to share with us. The way that you come about talking in the episodes, it's just like you're talking to me. Like, you're talking to a friend. I just understand you. And you also shared a lot of things from your life, and I just feel like I know you on a personal level, and it just makes it so much more relatable to me and to my struggles too.

[1:28:10.0] Ashley James: Thank you so much for sharing that. What I love that you shared is that so many people are suffering, but they think that they might already be healthy. And when we dive down this rabbit hole through all the episodes that we've done, all 499 episodes, and we start really realizing that there's a whole level of health we don't even realize we're missing. And so with you, within a short period of time, implementing some of these changes, some are easy, some are hard, your energy has improved, and your body composition has changed. You would describe it to me that you once were feeling like you had lost the battle. And through implementing these small daily changes, now you're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Now you're seeing that you can recover your health. There is going to be a Natalie, soon in the future, that doesn't have diabetes and that you're well on your way. 

[1:29:12.3] Natalie: Exactly! I am one hundred percent agree. Again, it's not easy. It's not easy to do the changes because they take real work. And I think the other part of the podcast is it keeps you motivated because you hear the person talking about the changes they made, or there's a sharing of what you can do. And you said, yeah, I can do that too. I can make one more step. I can do one more thing. It's like stacking things. You can't do all of them at once, but little by little, you can add a little bit more, and a little bit more, and that gets you closer and closer to that healthy person that you want to be. 

[1:29:47.8] Ashley James: Awesome! I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that, Natalie. And I can't wait to see where my podcast takes us — takes me, takes you — and where our health

goes and grows and improves through the next 500 episodes. 

[1:30:01.4] Natalie: Thank you for having me. 

[1:30:03.6] Ashley James: This next testimonial is from my dear assistant Ruth, who has been working with us for years. She's amazing. I am so grateful to have her in my life. I saw her struggling during the last few years, especially in 2020, when so many people were in fear. Not everyone knows this, but I've been teaching health coaching and neuro-linguistic programming, which is a combination of behavioral psychology and cognitive therapy. I help people reverse and end anxiety's control over their life. So I have techniques that I teach. One technique takes 30 to 90 seconds, just depending on the person. We turn anxiety 100% off at the moment. When it comes back, you got to do the technique again. So every time anxiety comes back, you got to do the technique, and then it turns it off, do the technique, and then it turns it off. But I teach people how to gain control over their lives again, so anxiety is not controlling them and running rampant. And I also teach tools so that you can rewire the brain to no longer create anxiety. And I have at least a dozen interviews that you can find. Just type in Ashley James anxiety, or Learn True Health podcast anxiety, or just go to learntruehealth.com, type in ‘anxiety,' and you'll find some wonderful episodes where I teach these techniques for free — how to eliminate anxiety. And if you want hand-holding, I can coach you. I can do coaching. You can go to ‘Work with Ashley James' in the menu of learntruehealth.com, and then you can schedule a time to chat with me. You can hire me as your coach if you'd like to work with me. I've been doing that since 2005. I've been helping my clients using your neuro-linguistic programming and timeline therapy to end anxiety's reign in their life, to just completely dominate anxiety and be able to have control over it and learn how to turn it on and off, which is phenomenal. 

So with Ruth, she started experiencing anxiety. And for a lot of people who normally aren't anxious people, they'll go through a traumatic experience, and then they have anxiety, and they don't even know it's anxiety. So they're having panic attacks, and they don't even know it's anxiety until someone says, hey, that might be anxiety. And this was happening to Ruth. She thought she was dying, which, you know, I've had that before. I've had a panic attack, and I thought I was dying because, at the moment, it doesn't feel like it's in your head. Your heart's pounding, and your palms are sweating. Your chest hurts. It's hard to breathe. You're dizzy. It feels like a heart attack. And yet it starts with our thinking, with our stinking thinking. So I sat down with her and taught her some of these techniques, and she was able to gain control over her anxiety. Just being given the ability to understand when it's anxiety, and then given the tools, you can choose to do the tool to turn the anxiety off. It is so empowering for people to know, wow, I've control of this. It doesn't have control over me. 

And so Ruth wanted to get on and share with you her story. So, if you know anyone who has anxiety, please find my episodes; just pick one of them. Just go to learntruehealth.com and type in anxiety. Pick one of my episodes. So I teach these techniques and share them with those you care about because everyone needs to know these tools. It's so important. It's like, we weren't born with a manual, and I feel like if we had been born with a manual, that would be in the first chapter — here's how you turn off anxiety. It's so important. I teach how to manage stress and how to understand it. It's really hard to understand and process our emotions in a way that allows us to navigate this world so that we're not a victim of it. You look for those free resources, and then if you'd like to hire me and work with me, if you want that one-on-one, I'd love to do it with you. It's a big passion of mine. I've been doing it for a long time, and I love helping people to get on the other side of it.

I also do timeline therapy, where we get to the root cause and release the unresolved trauma in the body. We release anger, sadness, fear, hurt, and guilt so that the Gestalt, the entire chain of all the past, unresolved negative emotions, are completed, released, and resolved. You'll be able to think back to your past, and you won't have negative emotions come up for you because you resolved them, and your body lets them go. This technique is very powerful. So if you want any of that, check out those episodes I did. And then, of course, you can reach out to me if you'd like to schedule time to work with me. 

[1:34:36.8] Ruth: Hi, my name is Ruth. I am Ashley's assistant. I've been working for Ashley for the past six years, and I'm very thrilled to share with you my testimony about the incredible treatment that I received from Ashley to help me manage my anxiety. First, let me give you a short background about how my anxiety started.

It was in July of 2020. We were five months into the pandemic. The virus was slowly getting closer to my home, and the death toll in my country was continuously rising. The media talked about COVID and death every day. A lot of people that I know, like my relatives, close friends, and loved ones, started to get sick with COVID-19. Unfortunately, some of them were not able to survive the virus. My worst fear was for my family to get sick because I thought back then that there was just a little to no chance for a person to survive if they got the virus. So I started to worry for my family's life, especially for my senior parents, for my parents-in-law who are seniors as well, for my husband, for my kids, and for myself.

At that time, I thought COVID was synonymous with death, so I was totally over-thinking. So that thought kept repeating inside my head until I could not control it anymore, and I started to have panic attacks. I felt palpitations. I felt light-headed. I'm having a hard time breathing. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to go out of the house. I didn't want other people inside my home, even family members that we didn't live with. So I knew within me that there was something that was not normal. So that was the first time that I ever felt it. So I didn't fully understand what anxiety was, like what's going on inside my body when I feel anxious. Why did I find it difficult to breathe when I felt afraid? Why did it feel heavy on my chest? So aside from my anxiety about COVID, I also started to overthink my symptoms. 

So back then, again, I didn't fully understand what was going on inside my body. I thought I was having palpitations. I was having difficulty breathing because I was having heart problems. I started to overthink again. I actually thought before that I was just about to die. So it was a never-ending trail of overthinking. So I went to a doctor. I asked for something to help me sleep or relax because my head was really aching. It's been days since I last slept, and I didn't feel really good. The doctor prescribed a medicine to help me sleep, but that didn't help me at all, actually. It made me feel worse. So I decided to also see a cardiologist. This was during the height of the pandemic, so it was really a struggle for me to finally take a step out of my house and leave my comfort zone. But I was really paranoid. Most of the time, I was wearing two layers of masks, one surgical and one N95, plus a face shield, and I was also wearing gloves. So I was asked to take some laboratory tests like ECG, x-ray, ultrasound, and blood tests, which all came out normal. So I thought, okay, so you know, I don't have a heart problem. Then why do I still feel the symptoms? Why can't I still sleep? So that's the time when I finally decided to ask for help from Ashley. Right there and then, she called me up; she helped me to understand my symptoms and realized that it was anxiety and not a heart problem. She taught me how to control my breathing and how to recognize when I'm having an anxiety attack. She patiently listened to my fears and worries and explained to me the science behind anxiety and how my body reacts to it. She gave me strategies to help me cope and manage my anxiety. And she helped me to see the reality and accept it. She taught me that it's okay to feel anxious because it's part of being human. 

So all these helped me to gain control of my anxiety and cope with it better. But you know, though sometimes I still have anxiety attacks every now and then, I'm happy that I can manage it now a lot better. So I'm glad that I took the step and opened up to her. I am truly grateful for her help and guidance in helping me to understand and manage my anxiety.

[1:39:44.1] Ashley James: Kellyann Andrews has been a guest we've had on the show at least six times that I can recall — Episode #292#293#329#330#396, and #453. Each time, she brings a wealth of information about making the body so healthy that disease can't live in it, creating balance and pH, getting rid of heavy metals, and getting rid of excessive lactic acid. And as she describes it, it's making your fish tank so clean and healthy. Clean up the fish tank so it's crystal clear, and then the terrain of the body is so healthy that disease doesn't live there. Her device, which we've had guests talk about and even in testimonials here, has talked about Platinum Energy System. I love it. Our family uses it. I've had great results with it, personally. It helped me overcome acute mercury poisoning. It also helped me to detox heavy metals, and it was an essential component of my recovery from heavy metal toxicity. 

I've also used it in times with my whole family and with my friends when we experienced a low immune function. It really helps get us back up on her feet fast. It's such an impressive technology, and she, of course, shares about it in the episodes that I just mentioned. So you definitely want to check out my episodes with Kellyann Andrews. She shared with me some testimonials from our listeners, those that have been written to her, and I thought it was so cool that she has permission to share these. So I wanted to read a few of these to you. It is this neat. It is actually just such a really cool device to have. You're going to love hearing these stories. So I'm going to leave their names out. So I'll just say the first initial. This is from A.

[1:41:41.1] Testimonial A (read by Ashley): My experience with Platinum Energy Systems has been nothing but positive since bringing one into our home. Five weeks ago, I underwent an invasive surgery and had 10-year-old breast implants removed. Along with all the medications they had me on and the amount of toxic waste that came from the old implants, my body was feeling extremely overwhelmed. I was suffering from a massive migraine for one week after my surgery. When I was finally feeling good enough to sit up and soak my feet, I did two sessions back-to-back. The amount of metal that had sunk to the bottom of the base after my session was like nothing I'd ever seen before. With that, my migraine had reduced by 70 percent. The following day, I did two more sessions, and again, an alarming amount of metal was dumped out of my body. I was relieved. Up to 95 percent of my migraine was gone after four sessions, and after a good night's sleep, I woke up, and it was gone. 

The Platinum Energy System has been, without a doubt, one of the best investments I have ever made. You can truly feel relief through the body. I've actually done it before. I've done about maybe twice. I think I've done back-to-back sessions where at the end of the 30 minutes, I was like, nope, I need to go again. And it was definitely worth it. But most of the time, after the 30-minute session, I feel like junk just got sucked out of me, and it is the coolest feeling. You'll feel so light. Your legs feel so light like things just got sucked out. 

[1:43:14.0] Ashley James: Now, here is one from a woman. I'm just going to say her initials, A.M.

[1:43:20.1] Testimonial A.M. (read by Ashley): As a certified lymphedema therapist, massage and bodywork therapist, yoga teacher, and Ayurvedic Wellness consultant, I do my best to help my clients live in their bodies with more ease, comfort, and energy. In terms of detoxification and rejuvenation, the Platinum Energy foot bath system is the single best tool I have ever integrated into my practice. There are few things that act upon the tissues as effectively and quickly as this does. I am incredibly relieved by the truly remarkable results in my own health since making it part of my regular self-care regimens, such as a decrease in tension, lethargy, gastrointestinal bloating and digestive distress, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. With the drainage effect of the foot bath, I can feel all my lymphatic tissues and inner organs release that heavy tension of stagnant energy. There is a palpable cellular sigh of relief and a feeling of lightness throughout my body that would make a whole lot more sweat, effort, and time to achieve without the foot bath, and I would probably not do it as effectively. If you haven't tried this, you must. If you're a practitioner thinking about getting one, just do it. Talk to Kellyann, and she will help you.

[1:44:38.6] Ashley James: I know Kellyann is wonderful. In our Learn True Health Facebook group, you could probably type in PES or Platinum Energy System or Kellyann, all one word, into the Facebook group search and find dozens and dozens and dozens of testimonials for people saying Kellyann is amazing. She spends so much time on the phone with you. She's so supportive. She has such a huge heart, so I just love, love, love her help. 

Now, this is from a person with the initials OI. 

[1:45:10.1] Testimonial OI (read by Ashley): Platinum Energy Systems is a game-changer. For the past five years, I have been trying out different approaches to functional medicine and holistic modalities. Some were effective, and some were not. I'm a person with an autoimmune that has affected me more or less my whole life, and in the past years, has had some chronic health issues. When I heard about the PES on one of my favorite podcasts (Learn True Health) about the science in holistic approach behind it, I knew I had to get the system to try it for myself. I must say it was like the icing on top of all the detoxes and modalities that I have tried to help my body heal. The PES was so gentle yet impressively powerful. The first day I did it, thanks to Kellyann's patience and phone support to set up the system, my body that night felt an instant charge. I actually had energy and didn't crash into bed like I normally do. Slowly, I started noticing the constant stuffiness in my nose cleared up. My brain fog was gone, and I was more alert and energized. When I wake up in the mornings, I feel refreshed and don't find myself dragging out of bed like I normally do. I felt a difference when I stopped using it for regular maintenance. It's important to use it at least once a week to help your body stay maintained and supported.

[1:46:34.3] Ashley James: Now, listeners can go to platinumenergysystems.ca and check it out there. But really, give Kellyann a call. Her phone numbers are on the website. It's also in the episodes I talked about — Episodes #292, #293, #329, #330, #396, and #453. And, of course, those will be linked in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com. You can also just search Kellyann at learntruehealth.com, and those episodes will show up.

The last testimonial is from H, who consistently uses the PES with her eight-year-old son. 

[1:47:12.1] Testimonial H (read by Ashley): We can't believe our eyes as to how well S is doing. I really am astounded. He's never done this, well, consistently, without taking steps back again. I do believe in the science of the foot bath, but I never dreamed it would be as dramatically helpful to him and this quickly. Don't get me wrong, we have a long way to go, but it's just so dramatic. The school can't believe it and is baffled by how he's improved in the past few weeks. Just to list some of the things that have improved, the most noticeable is temperament. He would quite frequently be irritable and have a dysregulated mood, but he is dramatically more mood stable and easygoing, and less rigid about things. His speech is coming along wonderfully. He has a lot more interaction in attempting to play with his sister and classmates at school. He has much more focus, can gain his attention, and keep it more easily. Generally, there's more of a glow about him, and his complexion is better. We're just thrilled and so happy that we decided to try your system. May you continue to change people's lives.

[1:48:17.9] Ashley James: That's how I feel about it. I went to take a friend whose son was about four or five at the time. This was a few years ago. You couldn't understand him. His speech was so slurred. It was like a mouth of marble. It was really hard to understand him, and we had him sit with his feet in the PES. It's not even the full session. After about 20 minutes, he started talking, and you could understand him, and the mom was freaking out. She was filming it. He was able to spell his name and was able to say, ‘My name is,' and he and you could understand him. I'd been hanging around this kid every week because our kids would go play together. We'd go to the same gymnastics classes. I'd seen this kid every single week for months, and after one session, it was like his brain just cleared up. Maybe it brings out inflammation. I don't know what it does so quickly. But it went from not being able to understand his speech to having a completely clear speech, and that was such a mind-blowing experience.

I first learned about this device in my episode with Dr. Klinghardt. So you can go back and type in heavy metals Dr. Klinghardt in learntruehealth.com. He talked about how he uses this as part of his routine in addition to using the Sunlighten sauna, which I highly recommend, in addition to using the ENERGYbits, chlorella, which I highly recommend. And, of course, I get great discounts for the listeners at energybits.com, coupon code LTH. There's a great discount for the Sunlighten sauna when you mention Learn True Health. And then, when you talk to Kellyann about the Platinum Energy Systems, you have to call her to buy it. She gives a huge discount to listeners, and that was so, so cool of her to do that. So she really, really does take care of you. She talks to you for a long time and makes sure you're fully set up before you buy it, after you buy it, when you're setting it up, and when you're using it. She's very supportive and gives a great discount to listeners. So she's just absolutely wonderful. 

But I first learned about this through Dr. Klinghardt, who will take people who are on the spectrum, do heavy metal detox holistically, and then they're no longer on the spectrum. They're no longer showing any symptoms of heavy metal toxicity in the brain, and they're no longer showing any of the symptoms. So, then the doctor says, well, I guess we must have misdiagnosed them. And that's the thing. Are we misdiagnosing most children nowadays because what we actually have is heavy metal toxicity as one thing? So this is what Dr. Klinghardt proposes, and he talks about it in his interview with me, that a lot of the neurological stuff their kids are being diagnosed with and treated for is incorrect. They're being misdiagnosed, they're being mistreated, and we need to clean up. As Kellyann says, we got to clean up the fish tank. You clean up the fish tank, and everything works better. So clean up the internal environment of the body, and everything works better. This machine helps, and it's so gentle kids can do it. It's so effective; we see results in the first session, which is so exciting. Awesome. 

I'm so glad I could share this tool with you because I love finding game-changers. I love finding diets that are super healing for the body and reverse major diseases and sharing these game-changers with you. I love finding tools, devices, supplements, and lifestyle changes. Sometimes these things are free. Go put your feet out inside in the grass, as Clint Ober talks about in our interview about earthing and grounding. That's something you could do for free. Get your feet out there on the dirt or the grass outside as soon as you can every day, especially first thing in the morning. If you can walk out on the lawn, that's even better, as long as there are no pesticides and all that stuff sprayed on it. That is free, and so healing for the body. 

All my 500 episodes are filled with ways that you can support your body's ability to heal itself. Some you have to pay for, but I always try to get you a discount as much as I can. For the most part, everything that I found that are real game-changers that make a huge difference, I get the company to give a discount. And then there's lots of great, free advice. I got this one episode that teaches you how to walk better, that'll take the wear and tear off your knees, and it's called chi running and chi walking. I think I did that one year ago, but that one still sticks with me. When I go walking, I still do what he taught. And it's funny because it's not a visual thing. He's just describing it, but you have to feel it. So you just go for a walk, put on that episode, and then as you're walking, do the steps that he tells you to do; you change your center of gravity and change your gait, and you will take the wear and tear off of your limbs and joints. He does Iron Man's. He does his 500 miles in the desert Iron Man. I think he's in his 70s or something, but he's figured out how to because no one teaches us this. No one teaches you how to walk optimally. How do you position your body to walk? Everyone's got bad posture, right? And imagine if we were taught how to have good posture and how to use our core. How do we use this body we've been given optimally? 

So my episodes are filled with amazing advice. Lots of it is free. Some of it you got to pay for, but I get you a discount. And between everything you learned in the last 500 episodes, you're going to find so many game-changers. You're going to take your life to the whole next level. I'm so excited to be here with you on that journey. Join our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group, as we help each other. I'd love to see you there. And as always, you can reach out to me. You can email me at support@learntruehealth.com. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to see you in the Facebook group. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing these episodes with those you care about. We are going to change the world together, one episode at a time, with everyone we care about. If you can imagine if every episode we shared with a handful of people that we know would make a big difference, that will spread like wildfire. And I want to turn this ripple into a tidal wave and help as many people as possible to learn true health.

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Mar 23, 2023

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499: Gut to Glow: Improving Health, Skin, and Collagen with Lactobacillus Reuteri

https://www.learntruehealth.com/gut-to-glow-improving-health-skin-and-collagen-with-lactobacillus-reuteri

 

It is a pleasure to have Dr. William Davis back on the show today! We discuss the importance of gut health and how it can help us look and feel younger. He has devised a convenient supplement that people can take in lieu of making the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. We are exploring this solution and how it can benefit us.

Ashley James & Dr. William Davis

Highlights: 

  • Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt for depression
  • How phototherapy patch complements other modalities
  • Lactobacillus reuteri supplement helps the gut and has anti-aging benefits
  • Dr. Davis' supplement increases collagen production.

Intro:

Hello, true health seekers, and welcome to another exciting Learn True Health podcast. Episode 499. Oh my gosh, it's almost episode 500. And you guys must be like, where's Ashley? Because it's been weeks since I posted an episode. Since I posted the episode about the phototherapy stem cell patches, my phone has been blowing up. It's been amazing. I've talked to so many listeners. I've had so many client calls every single day. My calendar is full of amazing conversations with the listeners and with my clients about the phototherapy patches. I've had at least thirty clients get on the patches, start using them, and get on them. They had outstanding results using the phototherapy patches in helping their body address different issues, which is exciting. I've been pinching myself because how does something so small have such a profound effect? And that's because it's frequency medicine which is fascinating stuff. You'll want to go back and listen to my recent episode about phototherapy stem cell patches with Trina Hammack. And if you want to have a free phone call with me, go to learntruehealth.com, and in the menu, it says Work with Ashley James. Click on that, and the first option is to sign up for a free phone call with me to discuss the stem cell phototherapy patches. And if there's anything else I can help you with and send resources to answer questions, please jump on a phone call with me. I'd love to help you.

There are some amazing results that we've seen. I had one client with all of the crazy symptoms that she's been experiencing in the last six years. She'd been suffering horribly from weird symptoms that no one knew what they were from. And in about a week using the patches, we corrected her polarity. And she was just so excited that all of her symptoms went away. I'm beyond excited for her because you imagine feeling dizzy and out of it and having all these weird symptoms for six years, not knowing what's happening. And then we use a very gentle yet powerful frequency medicine. When I say gentle, it can be used on babies. It can be used on animals with great success. So it's gentle for everyone, animals and humans, regardless of our size or age. And it doesn't disrupt medications. So there's no contraindication like medications or anything like that. We see fantastic results. I have personally had some amazing experiences. 

I have a family member who now has benign tremors. She doesn't have Parkinson's. She's had a battery of tests several times by neurologists, but they don't know what's causing them. But she has a tremor so bad she couldn't hold the newspaper and read it. She can't drink, can't eat soup, because it would just all go everywhere. Her hands and arms would shake uncontrollably. She's had that for a few years and tried many things. We started patching her a few months ago. And she's had great success with correcting a lot of stuff. She has a better sleep, energy, less pain, a happier mood, and better digestion. Everything is getting better and better. And then, about three and a half months into patching, she started noticing that her shakes were diminishing. And just the other day, she could hold the newspaper and read it. It's just a dream come true because she thought she'd never be able to do that again. Her handwriting is improved. She used to do calligraphy, and she hasn't been able to do anything for years with her hands. 

So this is giving people freedom. And what's cool about the phototherapy patches is that they complement many other modalities. It complements taking your supplements, and herbs, eating healthy, and exercising. It doesn't add anything to the body. It puts a frequency in the body that asks the body to perform a healthy task more. So the glutathione patch increases glutathione by 300% in 24 hours within the moments of putting on the stem cell patch. People's pain diminishes and sometimes goes away completely, and their inflammation decreases. They're turning on thousands of dormant gene expressions. So this is an epigenetic thing. It turns on healing genes to help the body in amazing ways. So many people who start using the patches to support one thing end up seeing many other things improve. 

And then, just for the first aid benefits, I accidentally got kicked in the face the other day. My son, who has been doing Taekwondo for a long time, is a good kicker. And he was kicking the blankets off of him at full force as I was coming in to wake him up in the morning, and he didn't know I was there. And boom, I got kicked in the face so bad that my head spun, and I had a bleeding nose immediately. I had all the concussion symptoms, which was scary for a minute. I immediately took one of the patches designed for first aid use and put them on my nose. The bleeding, inflammation, and swelling stopped. I thought that was so cool. I put the patch for inflammation on the back of my neck with the stem cell patch lowered down on my spine. And then, for the rest of the day, I was using the patches around my head, which you put inside a hat so you can take it off. It's pretty cool to do that. And I used the protocol for concussions. And then, that night, I went to bed with five of the special protocol called brain bouncer, and five of my favorite patches, the ones that decrease inflammation. They do a bunch of other things, but it feels so good. That's my favorite patch. And it's funny because my mom's friends, whenever I give them this patch, they go, “This patch makes me not yell at my kids.” Because it just makes people calmer and happier and puts them in a better mood. It actually helps balance dopamine in the brain and brings down inflammation. So you feel like you can handle more stress without getting frazzled. Well, I put five of these on my head and went to bed that night. And the next morning, I woke up, and 100% of my concussion was gone. My brain was back to my usual self. How cool is that? 

Now I've seen testimonials in our wonderful secret Facebook group of practitioners. It's like a team of practitioners that I've been learning from and working with and all of their clients. And even though it feels like an intimate community, it's actually close to 55,000 people, but it's a secret group. So if you want to be in the group, let me know. You must email me or book a free session, and I'll get you into this group. And in this group, people share their protocols and testimonials. And I see people in this group who've had major brain damage and bad concussions where eight months later, they're still in the fog and suffering hugely. They start using the patches to bounce their brain and support healthy brain function. And within ten minutes, they start feeling the fog lift, and the brain returns to balance. Hundreds of studies on these patches show that we're reversing early-stage dementia. There are so many benefits around neurology, but it also helps with fertility, hormone balancing, addiction behaviors, and 66% deeper sleep, which they did studies on this. The list goes on and on. The thyroid is the easiest thing to support the body's ability to fix. We're supporting the body's ability to help itself become healthier. I have seen many people reverse their hypothyroidism to support their body's and thyroid's ability to come back online and produce healthy new thyroid tissue in weeks. It's so exciting what we can do for the body. There are testimonials of people with heart damage and heart disease also reversing that. 

So anyway, the list goes on and on. It's very exciting. So if you're wondering where Ashley has been, it's because I've been busy every day, seven days a week, weeks and weeks ever since I published that episode, chatting with amazing listeners and clients and helping everyone get on the phototherapy protocols. So if you want to try it too, I'd love to help you. The things we're helping people with have been amazing. Everything I've ever discovered in the last twelve years, this is the coolest, most effective, most versatile health tool. The thing is, eating healthy is really important. Moving your body in a way that brings you joy is really important. So many things are important to your health, and we must ensure we cover all the foundations. You can't out-patch a bad diet. You can't take phototherapy patches and handle a nutrient deficiency. We must eat healthily, move our bodies, drink a lot, and hydrate. But if you do all the fundamentals and you're still frustrated with not getting on the other side of a health issue, you should try the phototherapy patches. You want to join that Facebook group. And if you don't do Facebook, you'll want to talk to me, and I'll hook you up with the protocols. The protocols supercharge your results because we're utilizing acupuncture points in addition to the phototherapy. So we're putting the patches on acupuncture points, and we see outstanding results. So go to learntruehealth.com, and in the menu, see Work with Ashley James, and book your free conversation with me; I'd love to help you. 

Let's finally get to today's episode now that you know what I've been up to in the last few weeks. I had a birthday, by the way. I'm 43 now. After the age of about 35, birthdays are surreal. You're like, I remember my parents at this age, and they seemed really old. I totally do. I totally remember my parents in their 40s. I thought 40 was really old. And I'm like, oh, 40 is not really old. 90 is likely old. I have to change my mindset. 90s is old and 40s is young. So this episode is wonderful. I love Dr. William Davis. He has been on the show before and twice, actually. So this is his third time. And he shares with us some amazing stuff he's been up to since his last episode with us. 

We talked about Lactobacillus reuteri about a year ago, which profoundly affected one of my family members. It helped them get on the other side of a major health issue. It also helped me overcome the daily post-traumatic stress panic attacks that I had due to still being in grief from losing my daughter. And the day I started eating the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt, the daily outbursts of crying and sobbing uncontrollably stopped. And it's so cool that it had such an immediate effect. I've never been on antidepressants, but within three days of eating that yogurt, it felt like what I imagined being on antidepressants would be like if they worked. It just felt like the cloud had lifted in my spirit. And I felt like there was a chance at joy. There was a chance at happiness. And that was such an interesting experience to have such a strong emotional response to a gut-healing food. We know serotonin is made in the gut. We know that the nerve that runs from the gut to the brain has this connection. We know that there are neurotransmitters in the gut and that there's a huge connection between gut health, brain health, and emotional health. I felt it so profoundly and so quickly. 

So having Dr. William Davis back on the show today, we discuss how he figured out how to develop a supplement that people can take for those who don't want to go through the hassle of making the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. And it is a hassle because you have to get a special instant pot or you have to get a special yogurt maker that holds things at 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 36 hours. You have to sterilize your equipment. You have to get either organic dairy or make it with cashews, which I like. I've experimented with making it with soy, coconut, and cashews, which seem to work well. And then you have to make, mix, and blend it with a high-power blender like a Vitamix. So there are so many steps to doing it. I have made this stuff every two weeks for the last year, so I'm used to it. But it is time-consuming, and you must have all that equipment. So for some traveling people who just want the benefits but do not want to go through all that, he figured out how to isolate and make this beautiful supplement. They call it Gut to Glow. At first, I thought it was a skin supplement, like a skin cream. But what it is, is it's a wonderful Lactobacillus reuteri supplement that helps the gut but also has anti-aging benefits. Women and men also see that their skin looks much younger because it increases collagen production. And that's something we discussed in this episode and the previous one about Lactobacillus reuteri. One of its benefits is that it increases or stimulates collagen production in the body or stimulates that. 

So we talk a lot about gut health in this episode, but we also talk about his supplements. If you'd like to try his supplement, go to learntruehealth.com/glow. He gave us two coupon codes. One is 10% off your first order. And that's LTH10. Then if you ever want to get on auto-ship to order it monthly, he gives 15% off to our listeners for the subscription. And that's LTH15. Go to learntruehealth.com/glow to check out his supplement. And enjoy today's episode. Dr. William Davis is amazing. I have really enjoyed his work. I love his books. They are so informative, and he's so generous with his information. He has a really caring spirit. He wants to help people get healthy. He filled this entire episode with wonderful tidbits of health information. So enjoy today's episode. And if you have any questions about all the cool things I do, I'd love to work with you if you want to be one of my clients. If you'd like to get the phototherapy patches, go to learntruehealth.com, and click on the menu Work with Ashley James. Sign up for a free session to chat. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day, and enjoy today's episode. 

[0:16:57.0] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is episode 499. I am so excited about today's guest. We have back on the show Dr. William Davis, who's one of my heroes. So it's just so wonderful to have you back. Welcome back to the show.

[0:17:19.7] Dr. William Davis: Thank you, Ashley. Thanks for having me back. 

[0:17:20.5] Ashley James: Absolutely. I know Dr. Davis was in Episode 167. We talked about his book Wheat Belly, which was so cathartic for me because my whole family went gluten-free 12 years ago, and it made such a massive difference in our lives. And it was so big, but everyone around us was laughing at us and telling us we were crazy. It was right around when we discovered your book. Finally, there's more validation for us that what we're doing is right. And look, there's so much science behind it. And now, of course, everyone's heard of being gluten-free. But back 12 years ago, it was still so unheard of. It makes such a big difference to remove something in the body that is inflaming the gut. And it just affects everything because inflammation in the gut cascades to our neurotransmitters, affecting our brain and how we think, feel, and behave. It does cascade into our whole life. So for those who've never tried going gluten-free, I'd suggest at least 30 days of no barley, wheat, rye, and oats and see how you feel. I love the takeaway from that episode. Dr. Davis was teaching us that we could use a glucometer even for those who are not diabetic. Use a glucometer to monitor how our body responds to our foods to keep our blood sugar within those good ranges. And then let that be your guide to choosing really good healthy meals. So there are so many great takeaways from Episode 167

And then we had you on again just a year ago, Episode 476, about the Lactobacillus reuteri. And your most recent book about healing the gut was amazing. My listeners have been raving about that for the last year. We have a Facebook group community where we all make that yogurt together. Since my whole family is allergic to dairy, I've been experimenting with all the different plant-based ways to make Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. I've made over 30 batches in the last year. I perfected making it with cashews. I tried soy, coconut, and cashews. It's delicious. I have that recipe I can share in this episode's show notes and the Facebook group. 

I'm excited to hear what's happened in the last year for you and everything you've been doing and producing something really exciting for the listeners. I know they're going to love it. I have to share something with you. Your episode with us a year ago had two huge impacts on my life, and that is when I interviewed you. I don't think you knew this then, but I didn't even realize what happened until I talked to a psychologist friend. I was having post-traumatic stress, PTSD attacks. I was still recovering after losing my daughter. And when I interviewed you, I was breaking down and cried every day. And I'm a very positive person. I'm just the opposite of depressed. I'm just always happy. That's my normal personality. So to break down crying every day, a little something would happen. The glass would fall over and spill, and I would melt into a puddle. I had no idea what was happening, and I was not functioning like I thought I should be. 

And then I did the interview with you about the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt, and I was so excited. I immediately ordered all the supplies, and I made it within days. The only thing I had in the house was an open tin of soy milk. I do not recommend making the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt with soy milk. It was not delicious. But I drank it or ate it. However, it was curdled. So it could have been better, but I took it in. And that day, I felt something shift in me. And the daily breakdowns of crying stopped. Three days after being on it, my counselor friend was talking to me, and she said, “How are you doing”? I said, “Well, I'm not on drugs, and I've never been on antidepressants, but I feel like I'm on an antidepressant.” I feel like the sadness is lifting. I'm feeling like a new person. That Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt was such a game-changer for me. 

[0:22:05.8] Dr. William Davis: That's great. 

[0:22:08.5] Ashley James: It was huge, and the PTSD attacks stopped. Those big attacks stopped, and what I've had since are just tiny events where I might feel overwhelmed or like I need to take a breather and do a little grounding and calm my nervous system. But it's manageable. I went from unmanageable to manageable with the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt.

We go into great detail as to how it affects the body. It increases serotonin. That's episode 476 for those who want to go back and listen to all the benefits of the Lactobacillus reuteri. And I also recommend getting every single one of Dr. William Davis' books. It's all incredible. And you also now have the gut-healing one on audio that came out last year. So that's fantastic. 

But here's the second story. I told you there are two. I have a very close family member who, for years, suffered from such bad chronic diarrhea. They could not leave the house most days. They go through cycles where it is so bad that they can't go from the living room to the bathroom. They'd have an accident along the way. And there were times when they did have to leave the house, and their pants were stained with diarrhea. It's so sad for this person to have that level of intensity. They tried everything. They went to various doctors, eliminated some foods, and nothing worked. And I gave this person a batch of the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt you taught us to make, but I made it plant-based because it is delicious. It's cashew yogurt. They'll like it anyway for breakfast. It tastes amazing. And so it's wonderful to tart. It's as creamy, and I thought this person would benefit from helping with sleep. This person was not sleeping well, and I thought it would help them sleep. It has also been known to help people lift that depression, and this person was going through some stuff and not feeling great emotionally. So I was thinking about those benefits. Three days into eating it, they call me and say, “I need another batch. I never want to run out of this stuff. My diarrhea is gone”. 

It has been almost a year or about nine months since I gave it to them. And I have been supplying them for the last nine months. Every two weeks, I make that person a big batch that lasts two weeks. I make a huge batch, and we all eat it. But they don't want to be without it because this is the only thing, and there's no pharmaceutical that has stopped their diarrhea. There's been no food change that stopped their diarrhea. The only thing that's ever worked has been this. So it's given this person their life back. Now they're doing up to three exercise classes a week, and they can go and just be so much more productive. So you have changed my life, and you changed their life. I know you've changed thousands of lives, and I want to thank you. And many listeners in our community are making the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt and sharing about it in the Learn True Health Facebook group. So we're having much fun with everything we've learned from you. So thank you, I appreciate you. And I can't wait to hear what you have been doing the last year since we had you on the show. So what's been going on in your world? 

[0:25:46.8] Dr. William Davis: Those are some pretty incredible stories. You know, you can see why I get so excited about this, just restoring this microbe that virtually all of us have lost. That is this microbe that all other mammals carry. Squirrels have it, and dogs have it. Camels have it. But we've lost it. Indigenous humans have it, you know, people not exposed to antibiotics, chlorinated drinking water, etc., glyphosate. They all have this microbe, and we've lost it. And you know, these wonderful experiences we're all having, like the ones you describe for yourself and your friend and other things people are experiencing, reflect just how necessary this microbe was. But the thing that gets me excited is the social effects of reuteri. So we boost the hormone oxytocin. If we believe the animal evidence from MIT, we've tried to reproduce that evidence. We're having a hard time measuring oxytocin. Measuring oxytocin has been for decades a very difficult thing to do. And we're struggling to do it also. So we still need to corroborate in humans. But if we believe the animal data from MIT and some other places, that reuteri tells your brain to release more oxytocin, the hormone of love and empathy. And so what people are experiencing, as you have experienced, are emotional and social effects. Mostly it increased the intensity of love and affection, generosity, and my favorite is accepting other people's opinions. 

Now, when you think about that, this is all occurring at a time when we've lost that microbe. Almost all of us have lost that microbe. And thereby presumptively, the ability to provoke oxytocin release at a time we're witnessing record social isolation. Even pre-pandemic, this was true. So record social isolation, record suicide, even pre-pandemic, divorce, shootings, and political discord. Humans have always been evil to each other. There's no question about that. But it doesn't seem to think things have gotten worse. Now, that's hard to prove, except that people who get the reuteri restored, as you and your friend and your followers have, will tell you, “You know what, my relationship is better.” I had this one woman come on and say, “You know, my husband is normally not a guy who expresses his emotions very clearly. One time I was sitting across from him, he said, I've always liked you. But I like you more now. Come here and sit next to me.” Little things like that. Or people say, “I'm in line for coffee at Starbucks, and I find myself introducing myself to strangers.” In other words, these little things in social interaction change. And people are getting rid of depressive thoughts and suicidal thoughts. I'm not suggesting it as a cure for everything. But we've pushed the needle towards better social behavior and connection to other humans. And there will be better skin, muscle, libido, sleep, etc. But the thing that really excites me is the change in the social fabric.

[0:29:12.2] Ashley James: Now, when we talked in Episode 476, what they saw in the animal studies was that when we have the correct amount of Lactobacillus reuteri in our gut, our body produces more collagen. 

[0:29:29.5] Dr. William Davis: Once again, if we believe the mouse studies and limited human evidence, as some of our own evidence too, by the way, in our first human clinical trial, there is an increase in collagen in the skin, in the dermal layer, the dermis. So in our clinical trial, we did something called high-resolution skin ultrasound to measure the thickness of the dermis, and we got a 14.5% increase in dermal thickness over three months. That's with a product and not just with reuteri. You know, these studies are very difficult and very expensive to perform. So we can only do limited numbers of people. But with a combination of reuteri and some other things, we get an increase in dermal thickness consistent with what they saw in the mouse studies and the limited human evidence. So in the mouse studies, there was a huge increase in dermal collagen, dermal thickness, and thereby loss of wrinkles. And they did take ladies. Remarkably, they had volunteers submit to puncture wounds in the forearm, which is tough to persuade somebody to accept a puncture wound. But these ladies did that. And while healing time in mice is accelerated dramatically, it cuts healing time by 50%. So healing is much faster. It was more like 35% in humans, but still quite substantial. If you think about that and if this holds true in future trials, there might be when incisions after surgery, burns, or injury, we can accelerate healing time. That's something I'd like to see explored over time.

[0:31:11.4] Ashley James: Well, if we can speed up the healing time of the skin, that also decreases the chances of getting an infection, right? Because when the wound is open, we're more susceptible to infection, especially for burn patients, as you said. But if we could take something like a salve that speeds up healing time by 35%, that's worth it. So that's going to help prevent infections. 

[0:31:43.9] Dr. William Davis: And it gets even better because we have to be careful in those animal studies. We extrapolate from animals. But so far, everything that's been in this instance where we talk about reuteri and oxytocin and the pieces examined in humans have proven true. What we've seen in mice has held true. We need to explore more, but many of the observations made in animals have also held true in humans. Things still need to be corroborated in humans, though. It was a huge improvement in the immune response in these mice, both in wounds and systemically. So one of the things that happened in the mouse study was something called thymic involution. All that means is the thymus gland, right in front of the heart underneath your sternum, reaches its maximum size and capacity to produce T lymphocytes or T cells that protect you from infections, including viral infections. It reaches its maximum size in T cell productivity at age 15. And then, every year after that, it shrinks. So that by age 70, it's only 10% of its original size and capacity to mount an immune response. And this is a big part of why you can die of flu at age 72 but not at age 18. So, when they gave elderly mice reuteri, they watched the thymus gland restored to its youth. So the reversal of the thymic involution would be very different. It's a tough thing to reproduce in humans. We could try that, but we don't have the budget. I'm hoping somebody does that study. Because when you have a thymus that's restored to youthful capacity, you're protected from things like pneumococcal, pneumonia, flu, and cancer because T cells are responsible for the process of immunosurveillance that is looking for cells that have mutations in them and uncontrolled growth or cancer in other words. The whole reuteri oxytocin thing will be the subject of many examination studies in the coming years because it is so exciting. 

[0:34:02.0] Ashley James: For those that have yet to listen to episode 476, a really important point to understand is that, as humans, we're supposed to have Lactobacillus reuteri. It's like we're supposed to have three arms and walk around with two arms. And we all think we're supposed to have two arms. We have all been missing an arm. As you said at our last interviews, if you have one course of antibiotics, it's wiped out. It's passed on through breast milk. So if you were bottle-fed, if your mother, grandmother, or even yourself as a child had antibiotics, even like you said, glyphosate drinking tap water with chlorine. There are all kinds of ways we can kill it. It's quite sensitive, as good gut bacteria go. But we're walking around, as a species, largely missing this piece to the puzzle. And this is where we're walking around missing part of ourselves. What we understand now about the gut, and maybe you can talk a bit about this, is that we're just beginning to understand the microbiome, and we thought the microbiome is about 6 pounds, right? Give or take about 6 pounds of bacteria that live inside our gut, but it's also all over our body. There's a microbiome surrounding our whole body that, like cell-to-cell, we're more bacteria than humans, and these bacteria in our cells help digest our food and assimilate certain nutrients for us. And that if we were completely sterile and had none of these bacteria, we could not survive. It would not be a healthy lifestyle; we need it all over our bodies.

[0:35:56.0] Dr. William Davis: You're absolutely right. I cringe to think how little we knew before we started thinking about the microbiome. I have a new granddaughter, about nine months old, and I watched the baby's mom go through prenatal care, delivery, and early infancy. I saw all the things that she was not told. This girl comes from a wealthy family with no shortage of resources, yet she was told virtually nothing. She got five antibiotic courses during the third trimester and after delivery, so I had to educate them. For instance, if a woman has vaginal dysbiosis, that disrupts the microbial composition of the vaginal canal, which is at least a third of the entire female population on this planet. The vaginal microbiome is much more definable than the gastrointestinal microbiome. It's much simpler. That microbiome is meant to be dominated by specific Lactobacillus species, specifically Lactobacillus crispatus. 

If a woman lacks that microbe and allows perforation, which is very common in species like gardnerella or atopobium, you have problems. You're more prone to vaginal infections like candida infections, you're more likely to have a miscarriage during pregnancy, and you're more likely to deliver your child prematurely. Because when you have that vaginal dysbiosis, it's inflammatory. It inflames the cervix, and the cervix tends to relax prematurely. And as you know, if you deliver a child at 30 weeks, that's a catastrophe. That child's going to be in the ICU. It's prone to necrotizing enterocolitis, psychological, etiological, and social deficits and learning impairments. So, why not correct vaginal dysbiosis. It's easy to do. I saw many things not being done. We may have touched and passed on this idea that a very specific species, Bifidobacterium infantis, has been lost by moms and is also not passed on to the babies, which might be passed on at vaginal birth and then also through breastfeeding. If the baby does not get that microbe, it does not grow as well as it should. Neurological growth is impaired. The babies are more likely not to sleep well and have more regurgitation of breast milk or formula. It has more bowel movements, diaper changes for mom and dad, and more health problems. They are more prone to diabetes, obesity, and asthma. But suppose you restore infantis to that child, especially if the mom is breastfeeding, Bifidobacterium infantis would allow the child to metabolize human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). In that case, that baby has accelerated neurological maturation and has a better immune response, has 50% fewer bowel movements, thereby 50% fewer diaper changes, is more likely to sleep through the night, has less asthma, less Type 2 diabetes, less obesity, and has a higher IQ. That's how important getting the microbiome can be.

[0:39:20.4] Ashley James: Oh my gosh, all the moms listening just perked up. Now, if our kid's already born and they have some of those conditions, what can we do to help them? We can give them the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. But is there a specific yogurt we could make for them, or could we ferment something to help them once they're born?

[0:39:47.4] Dr. William Davis: You raised an important issue that is hard for many people to get their arms around earlier. I encourage people to avoid the idea of treating things. That's what they do in medicine, right? They treat high blood sugar and they treat high blood pressure. Never once asked me why that condition emerged in the first place and what we could do to correct the whole situation. So, I encourage people to avoid this idea of treating things. If you treat somebody's high blood sugar with drugs, that person will still have heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, amputations, gastroparesis, etc. What if, instead, we address the factors that allowed those conditions to emerge in the first place, regardless of the label? Regardless of whether the label was asthma, hypertension, coronary disease, cognitive impairment, rosacea, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, or Type 2 diabetes. Let's address the factors that allow those conditions to emerge in the first place. So we got to go back to the old conversation. We do wheat and grain and sugar elimination. As you've experienced yourself, the underlying cause for so many health problems, despite being pushed on us by government agencies, dieticians, and doctors. So getting rid of these things that never belonged to the human diet, in the first place, corrects common nutrient deficiencies. We're supposed to eat magnesium by drinking water from rivers and streams. We can't do that. It's got sewage.

[0:41:26.2] Ashley James: Especially now, with all that runoff from Ohio. If the listeners may not have known, there was a massive chemical spill, and my friends are just across Lake Erie. And they were telling me, for a week, they could taste the metals. They could taste the chemical smell in it. Even indoors, they could taste and smell it. And now they're saying the air is safe to breathe. The water and the soil are all safe there. Everything's safe. But my friends, who are 200 or even 400 miles away, say they can taste and smell it. This has been ridiculous for days. If you look at the streams from that area in Ohio, that runs off into that basin, into what's in Mississippi, and then goes out into the Gulf of Mexico. And there's our fish or shrimp. If you eat seafood next year, the fish and shrimp will have those chemicals. And I'm terrified of what we're going to face. Is this going to be like Minamoto, Japan, back in the 1930s, where children are born with multiple arms and eyes? It took them 20 or 30 years until they figured out that it was the mercury poisoning the downstream from all the factories dumping the mercury. This is another disaster they're covering up. We have to be very careful with the water we drink. It is tainted, right? 

As you said, we can't get our minerals just from drinking clean spring water because there's no such thing as clean spring water anymore. There are eighty thousand man-made chemicals in it. Since I was born, 80,000 man-made chemicals are now in our air, food, water, and soil. It's just prolific. And they say here in Seattle that we detect mercury from the ashes falling on us from China's coal mines and energy factories. So this isn't just, “Oh well, I'm here in this state, or in this province, and it's pretty clean here.” Now we are affected by what everyone puts in the air. For me, this isn't a political thing. I don't care what political affiliation you have. We can all agree on one thing: pollution is bad for us. Let's not talk about global warming because then people politicize it. Let's all agree on one thing. Pollution is bad, and no one wants to drink the water from Ohio after the accident recently. So the point is, pollution is hazardous and harmful for us, killing the microbiome of the soil and our bodies.

And we can't get the nutrients, as you said. I know I went off on a tangent. You were talking about the body's most important mineral, magnesium. It is used in over 1,800 enzymatic processes in the body. It is incredibly important, but we can't get it from nature anymore because of pollution. So, I went off on a tangent, but it's relevant because we can't be naive. We have to take the wool off our eyes and realize that our lives are under the constant stress of the pollution surrounding us and that stress is killing the body's microbiome. So we have to be proactive in supporting our body's microbiome because it's under constant stress from everything around us. Okay. Back to you, sorry. I got on my soapbox. Okay, I'm getting off.

[0:45:06.5] Dr. William Davis: But I couldn't agree more. You are right. It's a scary world out there. But with this idea, rather than treating things, we will address the factors that allowed diseases to emerge. There are more than four, but the four that played significant roles are magnesium, iodine, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D. Now, the great thing is, you combine those four and also throw in the diet, and you reverse this very fundamental processes of insulin resistance and inflammation. Those processes lead to obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke. So you've addressed the wide swath of human disease just by doing that. As you know, we all should go to the microbiome, the gathering, and testing microbiome, because what's happened with a lot of people is overexposure to antibiotics, toxic heavy metals, industrial compounds, chlorinated drinking water, and other prescription drugs like stomach acid-blocking drugs, statin cholesterol drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, food additives like preservatives. They kill microbes and food and then you. 

The mucus barrier is very important. Many food additives disrupt the mucus barrier, like ice cream's mixing agent polysorbate 80. And so this onslaught of things that disrupt the human microbiome, among the effect is that we lost literally hundreds of healthy species that were doing good things for us. One of the effects that I think should be discussed more and that we have to start talking a lot more about is that healthy microbes keep unhealthy microbes at bay. Those unhealthy microbes, like E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter, are mostly fecal. Many people recognize those microbes because they are also the microbes of food poisoning. These microbes proliferate, and then they do something extraordinary. They ascend into the 24 ft of the small intestine, and the small intestine is not well adapted to having fecal microbes. It has a thin and fragile mucus layer protecting itself, unlike the colon, where microbes are supposed to be, which has a two-layer and much thicker mucus barrier. So fecal microbes make their way into the 24 feet of the small intestine. They only live for a few hours. So when they die, trillions of these microbes shed their by-products. But there's one that's really bad, called endotoxin, which can penetrate the mucus barrier to the intestinal wall and enter the bloodstream. When endotoxin enters the bloodstream, it is called endotoxemia. 

But that is the crucial process that has been corroborated numerous times in clinical studies. Now we understand how microbes in the gastrointestinal tract can be experienced as depression in the brain, Parkinson's disease or Lou Gehrig's Disease or Alzheimer's, dementia, muscle and joint aches of fibromyalgia, or rheumatoid arthritis, or skin conditions like rosacea or psoriasis, or metabolic conditions, like fatty liver, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity. In other words, we now understand that microbes in the GI tract play a role in virtually all common chronic modern diseases.

[0:48:51.0] Ashley James: How would we know if we're over-toxic with endotoxemia? How would we know that we have endotoxemia? You've mentioned a bunch of different things. But if someone wonders if their depression is endotoxemia, would you say go for a lab test, or are there easier ways of telling? 

[0:49:13.7] Dr. William Davis: There are a number of ways. One way is to look for what I call telltale signs. Telltale signs would be food intolerances. If you say you can't eat eggplant or other nightshades or histamine-containing food like cheese or wine, or legumes or nuts, maybe not a hundred percent but close to 100% of food intolerance, all these things modern people are experiencing that your grandmother's not. Those are all from this process. So it's called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). And that's the price that causes a high level of endotoxemia. So if you have any food intolerance, think plain SIBO. If you have fat malabsorption, you see fat drops in the toilet. That's a very high likelihood of SIBO and endotoxemia. So if you have certain conditions that are virtually synonymous with SIBO and endotoxemia, such as restless leg syndrome, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease, celiac disease, and autoimmune or neurodegenerative condition, or fatty liver, there's a very high likelihood.

At first, I thought this was a rare process until I did two things. One is a consumer device now, and it's called the AIRE. It came out in 2018 and was invented by a Ph.D. engineer in Dublin, Ireland because his wife had irritable bowel syndrome and she was told to go on a low FODMAP diet. When you limit fibers and sugar in a person with IBS, they have less bloating and diarrhea. We saw how often she got tripped up when exposed to something fibrous or sugars and had bloating, diarrhea, etc. So he invented this device to detect hydrogen gas on the breath because that's produced by microbes when they are fed fibers and sugars. Well, I got a hold of this thing. I called him and said, “Angus, that's not really what this thing is.” This is a mapping device to tell you where microbes are living in the gastrointestinal tract. There is a specific way to use it based on timing. That's all on my Super Gut book on my website https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com. It's about $150 to $200, so it's not cheap, but it's far cheaper than a test you can do in the lab or clinic using a similar technology. The AIRE device is superior to the lab or clinic version because you're blowing directly into the hydrogen gas detector with the AIRE device. When you do this in a clinic or lab, you blow breath into a vial, trying to capture the smallest molecule of hydrogen gas. It's very easy to escape. So the AIRE device is superior. 

I started having people test for hydrogen gas using this timing issue. What you do is get a baseline level of 0 to 10, and you have a horizon of 4 units. So you get a baseline level. Let's say it's 1.2. You eat something that microbes eat, like inulin powder, which is a good one. It's a prebiotic fiber you put in your coffee. So drink your coffee with inulin and test every 30 to 45 minutes. And if you have a rise, let's say at 45 minutes it is 9.8, then you have microbes that are way high up in your GI tract. Producing hydrogen gas is normal from the colon, but the colon is 24 ft down or more from your mouth. It can't make that 24 feet in 90 minutes or 45 minutes. So any positive reading before 90 minutes, you know microbes live in the upper GI tract. After 90 minutes, we can't tell the difference between the distal small bowel disruption of microbes and colonic microbes. But doing this test, I was shocked. It was the exception of those who tested negative. People were testing positive left and right. So I returned to the scientific literature of all the studies where they took some conditions and asked what proportion of people with this condition tested positive for SIBO. One easy example is a fatty liver. So in the US, with 330 million people, we know that 50% of the US have fatty liver and are on their way to cirrhosis.

Based on the published science, 50% of people with fatty liver have tested positive for SIBO. So if there are 330 million people, half have fatty liver. That's 160 million or so. That's 80 million people there alone. How about irritable bowel syndrome? We know 60 to 70 million people in the US have irritable bowel syndrome. A proportion tested positive for SIBO. It varies from study to study, but it's around 40% or 24 million people. Add up all those other conditions like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and neurodegenerative conditions, and you have over 150 million people. There's some overlap, of course. How about an obese Type 2 diabetic with fatty liver? There will be some overlap, so it's not an exact number. But you can see, you can get very high numbers very quickly. So the bottom line is it is common. It is, in fact, very common by my estimates. It's somewhere around 1 and 2 people, 50%.

[0:55:00.3] Ashley James: You know, when we look at labs, there are these ranges that say if it's normal. And I question normal, especially hearing what you've just shared because normal doesn't really indicate healthy. We understand what a healthy range is. But naturopathic physicians will look at labs differently than how MDs have been taught in school. And it's interesting because there's normal, which is like, okay, so what's the average population? The average population is in this range. Well, I don't want to be part of the average population, especially if most have endotoxemia. And then, in the naturopathic realm, they typically look up what is optimal when they're looking at lab ranges. They're looking for how to get you to be absolutely in the optimal range. It doesn't sound like optimal is common among Americans. We're talking about Americans, but many other countries are catching up with America regarding our diseased state. 70% of adult Americans are on at least one prescription medication, so we have a very sick nation. We as a nation spend the absolute most on health care. I laugh, calling it health care because it's disease management. Of course, you wrote a book about how the medical system is failing us. So we have to learn, and that's why we're here. We're learning from you so that we can take charge of our health. If most of the population is so sick and has endotoxemia, that is not how we want it to be. We must make decisions to go against the norm to have optimal health. We have to do something different than what everyone else is doing to achieve optimal health. 

Going back to the idea that endotoxemia comes from the small intestine, how much does a leaky gut play a role in this? Is the endotoxin being deposited into the small intestine? Is that traveling up into the small intestines because of our diet? Can you go upstream and help us understand what is causing that? Let's say we're super healthy people just doing healthy things. We're exercising or drinking clean water. We're trying to eat as healthily as possible. We're avoiding the polysorbate 80 and ice cream. We're avoiding drugs as much as possible and keep being as healthy as possible. And yet, endotoxemia still exists. So what is causing that to happen? What is causing it to travel up and then die in our small intestines and release the endotoxins to be absorbed into our body? What are we doing wrong?

[0:58:11.0] Dr. William Davis: So, all those factors we discussed disrupt the microbial composition of your GI tract, such as repeated antibiotics. It's not uncommon that by age 40, most people have taken 30 courses of antibiotics. Glyphosate and other herbicides, pesticides, carbonated drinking water, halogenated hydrocarbons — all those things conspire to kill off numerous microbes. That also hints at a solution here. So as you know, if you have SIBO and endotoxemia, that's 30 ft of trillions of microbes that don't belong in the small bowel. If you took a commercial probiotic, would it go away? No. You might reduce some of the symptoms of bloating or some of the diarrhea, but you'll still be left with 30 ft of fecal microbes. And so I asked a different question, a conventional solution. If the mainstream doctors even knew what it was, and most of the time, they'd say things like, “Did you consult doctor Google again, Ashley?” Or, “There's nothing wrong with you. Don't waste my time. There is no such thing.” All these silly answers because they're not keeping up with the science. That's always been true. It takes a generation for the current practicing physicians to catch up with the science. I know you, me, and your listeners are unwilling to wait twenty or thirty years. That's how long you must wait for John Q's primary care to catch up. 

So I asked different questions. If SIBO was 30 feet of microbes, including 24 feet of the small intestine, what if we chose species we've lost that have two characteristics? One, they colonize the small intestine. That's where SIBO occurs and produces what is called bacteriocins. These are natural antibiotics effective against the species of SIBO, like E.coli and campylobacter. So I chose three. I chose a strain of Lactobacillus gasseri and Lactobacillus reuteri. Those two colonize the upper GI tract. Gasseri produces up to seven bacteriocins and reuteri up to four. I also threw in bacillus coagulants because it's got a good track record for eradicating irritable bowel syndrome. And by the way, it is the most delicious yogurt you'll ever make. We make yogurt from this, different from what you get in the grocery store. I regret calling it yogurt. It looks and smells like yogurt, but it's not yogurt. It is a fermentation vehicle. So we get these three microbes and co-ferment them together for 36 hours. It's a very unusual extended fermentation. That was a method I developed and we formed something called flow cytometry on the yogurt to count the microbes, and we get somewhere around three hundred billion microbes per half-cup serving. 

And so these microbes that we've lost, used to colonize the upper GI tract and produce bacteriocins, are a big part of why we've got SIBO. Now, the good news is there is this anecdote of the forty or so people who made this SIBO yogurt. 90% now test negative by the AIRE device. Even the conventional antibiotic for SIBO, Xifaxan, is only about 50% to 60% effective. I had hoped and would have been thrilled with 50% effectiveness. I did not expect 90% effectiveness. Now we will do a formal clinical trial down the road to validate this. If I said the solution to SIBO is to take out your intestines or some awful thing like that, we better be damned confident of what's going on. But what if the solution is something akin to yogurt? And so I've drifted towards this kind of thinking. If you think you have SIBO, make the SIBO yogurt. This can sometimes happen with the reuteri yogurt. I suspect that's what happened in your instance when you got rid of some of the dark feelings, and your friend got rid of diarrhea. It was probably because of SIBO eradication, the reuteri upper GI colonization, and bacteriocin production. I have a microbiologist friend. Oddly, I just moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to suburban Chicago. But in this general area, especially in Wisconsin, there are numerous and the largest probiotic manufacturers in the world. It's because of the dairy industry and fermentation. But there's a microbiologist, and his name is Suresh. He told me that he sometimes uses Lactobacillus reuteri to clean his fermentation vats that they use to produce microbes. I said, “Really? Come on!” So I called another microbiologist friend, Dr. Raul Cano, from Cal Poly Tech, and said, “Hey Raul, Suresh says he cleans his fermentation vats with L. reuteri. Does that sound right to you?” He says, “Oh yeah.” That's how potent a micro reuteri is. Ironically, it's also extremely susceptible to common antibiotics like Amoxicillin. So if you took Amoxicillin, maybe 20 years ago, for an upper respiratory infection, it killed off your reuteri and some others. That opened the door for small intestine colonization and endotoxemia.

[1:03:36.5] Ashley James: To clarify, with the microbiologist using the L. reuteri to clean their devices, is it because it digests other bacteria or somehow fights them off? How does it effectively help to clean the devices?

[1:03:59.2] Dr. William Davis: The pharmaceutical industry constantly looks for new antibiotics. Do you know where they're discovering them? From microbes as bacteriocins. We don't have to get involved with the pharma people, but it tells you these bacteriocins are potent and specific for fecal microbes. So I think that's why we're seeing many people normalize their breath hydrogen gas. They wouldn't be that interesting if all they do is normalize your breath hydrogen gas. I'm also seeing that something normalized your hydrogen gas and then says something like, “I lost 73 lb in your program, but I hit a plateau. I could not lose the last 35 lbs. I now lost it.” Or, “I was a Type 2 diabetic. My hemoglobin A1C was 11.7, which is terrible. I did your program and dropped the 6.1%. Much better but not perfect, which is 5.0 % or less. I normalized my SIBO hydrogen gas. It's now 4.7%.” Or, “My rosacea is 80% better on the program, but it's not gone. I have occasional flare-ups. I got rid of the SIBO and endotoxemia.” I see case after case of residual health problems finally going away for good.

[1:05:21.6] Ashley James: Oh, I love it. So many listeners are in that spot where they hit a plateau. They'd cleaned up so much of their lives and got good results, and then that plateau happened. But it could be better. Especially the “Oh, I can't eat this, and I can't eat that. Now I can eat this.” And I know some people who can only breathe air. I have one friend who had to resort to the carnivore diet. She loves vegetables, but now she has just reverted to being unable to eat anything except meat. She really would love to be able to tolerate vegetables. I did get her to read your book. I know that she started off with making the cranberry juice ferments, and I need to talk to her and see how that went because I had sent her to you to start studying from you. Lactobacillus reuteri is like nature's version of an antibiotic, which will help clean up the area of an overgrowth of something we don't want. 

[1:06:36.4] Dr. William Davis: Exactly! And it colonized the upper GI tract. In other words, it goes where the battle is waged in the small intestine and produces those bacteriocins. By the way, maybe your listeners want to know about that juice you're talking about. So I call that Saccharomyces boulardii sparkling juices. It's so easy. If someone's new to fermentation, it's a really easy and simple way to get introduced to it. You get some juice. Hopefully, it's real juice. It just can't have any preservatives like potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate. Nothing like that, just juice. Preferably a pulpy type juice like apple cider or mango. Empty one capsule of Florastor. It's a commercial probiotic and includes the fungus Saccharomyces boulardii. It is the cousin of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, used to make wine and beer. So empty one capsule, cap it, lightly agitate to mix, loosen the cap, and put it on your kitchen counter. In 24 hours, you're going to see it bubbling. It's producing vast amounts of carbon dioxide. So keep that cap loose because it can explode if you don't. At 48 hours, you have beautiful sparkling juice. The microbes have reduced sugar content by about half, but some sugar is still in it. So use small portions, no more than a quarter cup, several times daily. It's one of the most powerful things you can do to help rebuild a broken microbiome. If you must take a course of antibiotics, this juice is the best thing to protect your gastrointestinal microbiome from further damage.

[1:08:20.7] Ashley James: What I love about that is it so affordable because that one bottle of the Florastor will last you a lifetime. If you're making this juice with one capsule and then drinking small amounts throughout the day, you can use it for a long time. So many people spend $30 to $50 per bottle of probiotics and keep having to buy it every month. Whereas you teach us how to take it and then culture it so that we're only buying one bottle every six months and culturing it to way more than what was in that bottle. Like when we make Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt, we culture it so much.

[1:09:10.0] Dr. William Davis:  Good point, Ashley. You're right. You save money because you make the next batch from a bit of the previous one. And you're exactly right. You can do this with probiotics also and save a ton of money. One of the things we need to know is there are ten different microbial species in your probiotic. Several batches, in relative proportions, are going to change. I generally tell people that when you're about seven, eight, nine, or ten batches in, start over again. So you go back to the start if you want to continue. Let's say you plant backyard zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We know that zucchinis are aggressive and will eventually take over the garden. It happened with microbes. They are competing with each other, and it's going to change relative proportions. So when you're several batches in, think about starting over again. But you're still saving a huge amount of money.

[1:10:07.2] Ashley James: Got it. I've been thinking about skin, knowing that bacteria live on it and that we used these antibacterial soaps in the past. Even things with fragrances can disrupt the microbiome. And now, I understand that our skin's microbiome is very delicate and really needed. Some women have acne that goes away by focusing on protecting the skin's microbiome. You mentioned the rosacea going away, but at the back of my mind, what about people with eczema and psoriasis? How does restoring the microbiome help them as well?

[1:10:54.7] Dr. William Davis: I urge people to start with the basics: diet and nutrients affecting insulin resistance and inflammation. That also plays a significant role in skin conditions. But you're right. SIBO, endotoxemia, and dysbiosis confined in the colon also play a role. If you have a condition like psoriasis or rosacea, what needs to be clarified is how much benefit there is to addressing the skin microbiome directly. There is some preliminary evidence that when you have a skin rash like eczema, there is an imbalance in the relative proportion of the normal skin inhabitant called staphylococcus epidermidis. And there's an increase in unhealthy microbe, staphylococcus aureus. We still need better information, but believing that you can restore staphylococcus epidermidis and other healthy microbes in the skin is tempting. It could further impact the skin rash.

[1:11:58.5] Ashley James: When we say that your skin is a reflection of your gut, and your skin is a reflection of what's going on inside you, and often we see that by removing gluten grains, the skin improves. Even with the Lactobacillus reuteri supporting a healthy gut microbiome, we see skin improvement, just like your studies showing that the dermal layer is increasing. We have an increase in collagen production. We see outward beauty, and there are anecdotal stories about women noticing wrinkles going away. We see the skin become more vibrant when our internal health becomes more vibrant. I don't want to look fifty when I'm fifty. I want to look super healthy because I worked hard on it. 

Don't we all want to look super healthy on the outside when we're doing so much to be healthy on the inside? I want everyone to feel amazing inside and have that outward reflection. I don't think he was joking, but I got mistaken for being in my twenties at the bank the other day. He thought I was the daughter of my mother-in-law. He was shocked to hear my age, and I was on a high rest of the day. But I have also been doing a lot to be healthy for many years, and it's paying off. I see it in the mirror. 

You talked in episode 476 about the women who noticed that they looked younger and more vibrant when they looked in the mirror after correcting their gut health and introducing Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt into their lives. I want to dig deeper into this. You have done some human clinical trials, and you were talking about something you invented that has Lactobacillus reuteri in it for the skin. Can we get into that?

[1:14:07.1] Dr. William Davis: Sure. Many ladies are making the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt, but they keep saying, “I'm sick and tired of making the yogurt. Do you have some way I can just buy it?” Or, “I'm traveling and don't want to bring my yogurt-making apparatus.” So I formulated a product that included Lactobacillus reuteri and added components like marine-sourced collagen hydrolysates and hyaluronic acid. That combination has been working very well for us. We had a preliminary trial, and we got very nice results. We did a formal clinical trial and did measures like high-resolution skin ultrasounds and did see improvement in dermal thickness as well as the investigator dermatologist and participant ratings on such things as moisture, glow, and luster. 

We got very nice results and will continue to explore and validate all these kinds of effects, but I'm very encouraged by what we see in our preliminary trials. It is consistent with all the things seen in the mouse trials and other human evidence. So we're on the right track to providing a product called Gut to Glow that contains Lactobacillus reuteri with added components to stack the odds in favor of better skin. 

We know from other people's science that there is much evidence that collagen peptides reduce skin wrinkles and make your joints better because joint cartilage is mostly collagen. There is good science to tell us that when you ingest collagen orally, it gets to the joints and the skin and the hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is the body's master moisturizer. So you take it orally, and it gets to the skin, moisturizes the skin dermal layer and not just the epidermis, like a topically applied hyaluronic acid, and it also adds to joint lubrication. I believe we're going to start seeing evidence that hyaluronic acid also has beneficial effects on the brain because the brain has a lot of hyaluronic acids, and so do the uterus, cervix, and vagina. Dryness is a problem for ladies in their late 60s and 70s. Hyaluronic acid is a major component of the female reproductive tract. So, we will have to validate these kinds of effects over time. But so far, even in preliminary evidence, we've had some very nice results.

[1:16:41.3I] Ashley James: While listening, I thought, is this a face cream? What's going on? So you've created a way to take it internally. It's a supplement, and we see results on the skin. But when you see the skin getting better, we also know it affects the skin on the inside, right? Because the lungs are related to skin tissue, the gut is related to skin tissue. They're very related to its use of collagen, and it won't affect the skin on the outside. It's going to also play a role in helping on the inside as well. 

[1:17:25.6] Dr. William Davis: Absolutely. It is reuteri, after all. We use a different strain than the one that was used in the MIT studies, and we're validating how much this one microbe does. We did some animal work, and we're doing some human work with that strain. So much more must be explored, but we see very positive effects. So many more clinical trials are planned, all the way to budget. But we see some exciting early effects as you've experienced in your friend's experience and some of your listeners. So that's why I cringe to think how little we knew just a few years ago. 

When you factor in all the effects of the microbiome, you know almost nothing about health. But it plays a huge role in all aspects of health. We are seeing big effects on many emotional and mental issues like anxiety. One of the biggest effects of endotoxemia is anxiety. Also, fungal overgrowth in the gastrointestinal tract is a common symptom of anxiety. I see people being prescribed Xanax and other anti-anxiety drugs when, a lot of the time, it's overgrowth either of bacteria or fungi or both. And we see dramatic reductions in anxiety. Not from the Gut to Glow. This is just addressing the overgrowth of bacteria and fungi. So we see dramatic effects on the reduction of anxiety and depression. 

[1:19:00.5] Ashley James: Yeah, I know you have to be careful when formulating and selling a supplement to make medical claims. And I know you need to be very careful with your language. But we can look at the effect, what each ingredient is, how all the science around it, and the results you would get from it. And then, we can hope to get that same result by taking a supplement with those same ingredients. I'm excited to hear more about your clinical trials. Is there anything else you can share specifically about your clinical trials or upcoming projects you are working on around this? 

[1:19:44.8] Dr. William Davis: I can't say everything until our patents are filed because of some intellectual property issues. One of the things we saw in our first human clinical trial was an unexpected dramatic change in body composition. So we're going to explore that. And I'll talk about that in the coming months or years as we surpass these patent protections. Suffice it to say that we have the capacity, I believe, or will in the future, dramatically affect the body shape.

[1:20:15.7] Ashley James: Wow, that is very cool. Please share your hypothesis around why you believe that effect happens. 

[1:20:27.5] Dr. William Davis: I did design a very elaborate clinical trial. It won't get done for another six months because it's costly, and we will look at things like DEXA for body composition, baseline, and follow-up. So we can measure endotoxin; it's called LPS serum. I believe that we're going to see an improvement in insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is the fundamental process that drives risks for diabetes, heart disease, dementia, cancers, and other modern chronic conditions. If you can improve insulin resistance, you greatly impact that person's health. So we need to document if there is a change in insulin resistance. I think there will be, but we need to prove that. You know these very popular drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic, are called GLP-1 agonists because they reduce blood sugar. But you may have heard that people are scrambling for these drugs because they lead to weight loss also. They work because they're GLP-1 agonists. That's one thing we also have to explore. Do we have a GLP-1 agonist alternative? We have yet to find answers to many things, but we will explore clinical trials. 

[1:21:49.5] Ashley James: That's so exciting. We need a listener who just won the lottery to just donate a million dollars. We need someone with just a few million dollars, and it's burning a hole in their pocket. If I won the lottery, I would be spending for some really cool clinical trials. I think it will be a lot of fun to fund holistic clinical trials that could help revolutionize the world and the whole planet as we know it. If we could introduce everyone to these seemingly simple aids, tools, and solutions, make the Florastor juice, or try some of the Lactobacillus reuteri to correct their gut and endotoxemia, many people would get off of anxiety and sleep meds. Many people would get off of antidepressants or antacids. Just think of all the things that people could correct. 

This is something that a lot of my listeners know already, but maybe some don't, but every time we take a drug, it depletes the body of key nutrients because the liver and the kidneys have to process it, and it forces the body to do something. It forces a physiological effect. It's not gentle, and it's not natural. And so a lot of times, these drugs people take deplete the body further and further when the body was already depleted, to begin with. I see a world, my kind of Utopia, where everyone is so healthy they don't need drugs, or 90% fewer drugs because we're so healthy, we don't need them. Think about people with chronic pain. 

You mentioned fibromyalgia. A friend had a morphine pump surgically installed in her body. That's how much pain she was in. This was fifteen years ago. She brought me into her bedroom and showed me her two drawers in her bedside table dresser. She opened both doors and said these are all my meds. And she goes, “Most of these are pain meds.” She was not overweight, ate very healthily, and she was in chronic pain all the time. And I heard about how certain key nutrient deficiencies can exacerbate and sometimes even trigger chronic pain. And so I got her some vitamins and minerals, especially selenium. There's been a link to low sodium levels leading toward exacerbating that chronic pain known as fibromyalgia. I preached to go gluten-free, but I don't know if she did. Within a few months of doing that, she told me, “You know, those two drawers, just with the changes, I got rid of one drawer.” Fifty percent of her meds were reduced in months by taking some minerals and vitamins. And maybe she did listen to me and got rid of the gluten.

If we can make that change. If we could just increase certain nutrients or correct the gut and someone could eliminate their meds by 50% or 75%, their quality of life is going up and up and up. So that's my vision for the world; to have the tools you teach in your books and on your website. And then now, I love you've created the Gut to Glow formula so that we can help people restore themselves from the inside to glow on the outside. So I get the marketing, and I like the name. It's simple, and it's catchy. I like it. 

[1:25:56.6] Dr. William Davis: You make an excellent point, Ashley. That is the unintended adverse consequences of pharmaceuticals. Even drugs that people thought were benign, like stomach acid-blocking drugs, or statin cholesterol drugs, are now known to have very serious impacts on health and on the microbiome. So stomach acid-blocking drugs turn off stomach acid and allow oral microbes. The mouth is second only to the colon in the density of microbes. Think about that when you're kissing somebody. So when you lose stomach acids, oral microbes populate the stomach and duodenum, and fecal microbes ascend in the small bowel. This is all from just blocking stomach acid, likewise statin cholesterol drugs. Even if you're slender and young, it turns your gastrointestinal microbiome into the microbiome of an obese Type 2 diabetic. And that's the presumptive reason to explain why there's a 30% to 50% increase in your likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes when you take a statin cholesterol drug.

[1:27:02.9] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. Yes, we did have a conversation in one of our interviews. It might have been the first interview we did about statins. Because I get on my soapbox with them on how absolutely horrible they are for our health, and the benefits are so minuscule in relation to the horrible effects of statins, and you were able to outline that. What people don't understand is that it harms the liver. It makes the liver not produce the cholesterol our body's trying to produce, and it doesn't actually correct. Heart disease isn't caused by the cholesterol. Cholesterol is wrapped up like smoke. You see smoke in anything and call that there must be a fire. It's like smoke is causing the fire, right? It's the other way around. There's inflammation. There's our whole lifestyle that's leading to that disease. Taking a statin is just going to disrupt so many functions. Everyone thinks that they need to lower LDL. With your background, what is the best way to help the body lower LDL cholesterol, have good healthy cholesterol, and be free of heart disease?

[1:28:27.5] Dr. William Davis: I tell people to get a big black magic marker, cross out those numbers, and ignore them. There is a lot there to talk about. But the real tragedy of focusing on cholesterol is that it took everybody's attention away from the real causes of heart disease. You're exactly right. Statin cholesterol drugs reduce cardiovascular events in a very minor way. They help a little bit, but what about all the other causes you mentioned, like insulin resistance, inflammation, vitamin D deficiency, omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, and endotoxemia? Those are all very important causes that any cardiologist hardly ever mentions. So, what I do is throw away cholesterol testing. We do the real test, which is lipoprotein testing, like an NMR Lipoprotein testing. We measure insulin resistance, like fasting glucose, insulin, and hemoglobin A1C. We look at your vitamin D status with the 25-hydroxy vitamin D. We look at your thyroid status with TSH, T3, T4, and Reverse T3 thyroid antibodies. 

You can add other things, but if you just do those basic tests, you will see that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease. In the 1950s and 1960s, cholesterol was meant to be an indirect marker for the factors, like lipoproteins which are the fat-carrying proteins in the bloodstream, that actually cause heart disease. During those times, it was very difficult to measure lipoprotein. So they devised very crude indirect methods to quantify them, and they said, measure cholesterol. It was not meant to be the cause. It was meant to be an indirect marker. But it became viewed as the cause because it makes a lot of money for the pharmaceutical industry. When you focus on cholesterol, this outdated house of cards, you start to come away with false lessons. That's why 80 million Americans take statin cholesterol drugs, but there's been no reduction in heart disease incidence. And that's why your local hospital can add on a hundred million dollar new cardiovascular wing because heart disease remains hospitals' number one money maker. So the dirty little secret is my colleagues like that there continue to be lots of heart disease because they're not focusing on the real causes. The truth of it is, managing cardiovascular risk is easy and almost free and does not require a drug in 99.9% of people.

[1:31:03.5] Ashley James: I love it. Thank you so much for clarifying that because our friends and family need to hear this. The second you go to a hospital, you go to your doctor, and you're over a certain age, they automatically want to put you on a cholesterol med. I feel the pharmaceutical industry sends those doctors to Jamaica once a year or something, there's got to be some kind of incentive because of how prolific it is. It depletes the body of CoQ10, and it bruises the liver, which produces healthy cholesterol. People end up with neuropathy, and they're falling down, breaking their hip or whatever, because they're not able to feel. I have an uncle who can't feel his hands and feet and has not been able to feel them for years. He's been on statins for years, and I've been begging him to please get off them. And he's like, “No, my doctor is smarter and knows what he's doing.” Then he just falls down all the time because he can't feel his hands or feet. It's the neuropathy from taking the statins, and it's just mind-blowing. Everyone is just keeping the wool over their eyes. “Nope, my doctor knows what they're doing. I'm not going to question anything. I don't want to be accused of listening to Dr. Google.” It's like, “Advocate for yourself.” This is a for-profit industry, right? Like, people question the dealership more when they're buying a car than they do their doctor when they are being put on a drug. 

[1:32:26.8] Dr. William Davis: Very true. That's a critical thing to understand. It is exactly a profit-making venture. Sadly, it shouldn't be that way. But what's put first in the healthcare system is revenue and profit; it's not health.

[1:32:45.4] Ashley James: So I know we've got a bunch of black sheep salmon swimming upstream, kind of listeners who are ready and willing to do what it takes to regain their health. But our friends and family love their statins, and the damage has been done. And, of course, all the drugs people take also disrupt the microbiome. Because it affects the mitochondria, we're really just only beginning to understand everything. I feel like a hundred years from now, we'll look back and look at these drugs like we do now, when we look at leeches and end up bleeding the body. Like in the 1500s and 1700s when bloodletting was all the rage, and now it's like drugs are all the rage. In a hundred years, it's definitely going to be microbiome-based medicine. That's for sure. 

I see that we're going into an era where we will be using light as therapy and phototherapy, and we will be using the microbiome and supporting using different healthy bacterial strains to balance the body. Especially if you can take one and increase your collagen. It's amazing that you can make your skin beautiful. How long do people start to notice a difference in their skin? That must take time. Like when you take certain supplements for hair, skin, and nails, it's not right away because the body is doing triage work on the inside. And then maybe three months down the road, you start noticing better hair, skin, and nails when you're taking those kinds of supplements with niacin and the different biotin in those kinds of things. But how long do people see results when they take the Gut to Glow formula? 

[1:34:26.4] Dr. William Davis: We've seen subtle changes at four weeks that become more marked at eight and then twelve weeks of the fine, low volume wrinkles like crow's feet around the eyes, and the smile line. Those tend to recede visibly by twelve weeks. The deeper wrinkles, like nasolabial fold along the sides of the mouth, the big ones, or the forehead wrinkles, those require more volume, so we don't know. Our clinical trials have only gone to twelve weeks or three months. We don't know just how much you can expect long-term, but I predict that they'll have an effect longer-term. But we're seeing an introduction to fine wrinkles at twelve weeks, increasing skin moisture so much that they are telling us they don't need to use as much moisturizer on the face and hands anymore, and there's a kind of glow. I think that's the increase in sebum, which is the moisturizer of the skin. That's among the earliest effects. The increased moisture can happen within days, visibly by four weeks, but more so by eight to twelve weeks. 

[1:35:30.4] Ashley James: You've mentioned the other areas for females, like vaginal dryness when we age. Are women noticing that by taking this, they're noticing they're less dry in other areas? 

[1:35:44.6] Dr. William Davis: We haven't looked at that in our clinical trials because it wasn't among the endpoints we're looking at. Every week, I have a two-way Zoom. Like last night, I did it for two hours with ninety-eight people. I casually asked them, are you experiencing an increase in vaginal moisture? Let's talk about this for a moment. As ladies get older, through menopause, particularly in their late 60s and 70s, it becomes universal that a woman will experience what the gynecologists now label as the genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM). The three facets are loss of libido, vaginal atrophy, dryness, irritation, discharge and pain, and urinary complaints like urge incontinence. You pee when you cry, cough, or repeated urinary tract infections. So it's lost libido, vaginal atrophy, and urinary problems. 

I believe we can address the whole thing, but that's another formulation I created. I can't tell you fully. I'll probably talk about that when I'm back within the next year.

[1:36:51.5] Ashley James: Well, come back in a year and update us. 

[1:36:56.0] Dr. William Davis: But I will tell you, I think the reuteri may be key here. So we have no clue or data. I'm going by what is known from some other people's science that the reuteri, I believe, is a key component for ladies to regain vaginal moisture. And it doesn't hurt to throw in hyaluronic acid because the cervix and vagina are largely hyaluronic acids. 

[1:37:21.7] Ashley James: Love it. Well, I can't wait to hear about stuff happening in the next year. We'll definitely have you back on with this. We should do an annual meet-up over the minds and hear all the updates.

[1:37:35.5] Dr. William Davis: I'd be happy to, Ashley.

[1:37:36.3] Ashley James: I will start hunting for a millionaire to invest in more trials for you. I'll let you know when I find one. I'm sure there's one out there that is excited as me and wants to get where these clinical trials are going. That would be fun. 

When we talked about making the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt, you were clear that it needs to be made with something that contains fat. And I remember looking around, going at plant-based options. I need to make sure there's something really fatty, so I came upon cashew yogurt. It works really well with the cashew

[1:38:12.7] Dr. William Davis: I'd love to see your recipe, by the way.

[1:38:13.4] Ashley James: I will gladly share it. It's amazing and so delicious. As I said, I've made over thirty batches, so I played with and perfected it. I make it thick, like Greek yogurt. I tried coconut yogurt with coconut cream. Honestly, it was disgusting. The soy one was even worse, but I got the results. I felt it was the worst thing I've ever eaten/drank. It was like liquid, so I just drank it. It was the worst-tasting thing ever, but I was willing to do it because I felt amazing. But now I've perfected the cashew yogurt. It's thick, like Greek yogurt. It's so delicious, I'm actually salivating right now thinking about it. 

But when you said it's really important that we make Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt with a fat component, that surprised me. I guess it shouldn't surprise me, but it does because I always think we need carbohydrates when we ferment. So to hear that, we got to make sure that there's some fat in this, and for me, it's a plant-based fat coming from cashews. But, can you explain why a Lactobacillus reuteri or why this particular formula requires us, when we take or ingest it, to have fat? 

[1:39:37.5] Dr. William Davis: I think what's confusing is, most yogurt is low-fat or nonfat. I reject the whole notion that we should limit fat, and so I use organic half and half, which is 18% fat because I think we should get that. Dairy's got tissues, but the most beneficial component of dairy is the fat, ironically. So it's just part of my rejection of the low-fat notion. But you actually don't need fat. You can ferment, for instance, salsa which is very low in fat. Hummus is also a good vehicle. I've never done the cashew, so I'm dying to see your recipe. People always ask, “I don't want to do dairy. What else can I do?” I've been suggesting coconut milk, which makes an okay yogurt. 

[1:40:24.0] Ashley James: It's gross. I'll share mine. You'll love it. It's delicious. You'll want to do it instead of cow milk. Does the body need to have fat to utilize Lactobacillus reuteri, or is it just because you see fat as a healthy component of our diets that we shouldn't shy away from it? 

[1:40:52.3] Dr. William Davis: As you pointed out, the microbe just needs some kind of either fiber or sugar. It doesn't really need the fat. But you need fat. A total of forty years of this ridiculous experiment in cutting total fat and saturated fat to show us how harmful that is, in some ways, I'm grateful that the government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry screwed up so badly because it shows us what happens. Because we now have an epidemic of unhealthy humans — obese, diabetic, with autoimmune diseases, and greater cognitive impairment all because of misguided dietary advice, absurd pharmaceuticals, and a predatory food system.

[1:41:43.4] Ashley James: Oh, that's so well put. I was just explaining the predatory food system the other day. I do it all the time, but the other day I was talking to a personal trainer who's super into health, and he said, “Yeah, I can't get my kid to stop eating Doritos.” I'm like, “Wait for a second, you have Doritos in your house?” And so, I had to back up in a super loving way. Just something to understand, if any food comes from a manufacturer, that company has hired food scientists to make it hyper-palatable and to tickle your brain as cocaine does. If it comes out of a package, every single company has figured out exactly how much salt, monosodium glutamate, red dye, how much of everything it takes to light your brain scan up, like the Fourth of July, so that you will keep eating their gross excuse for food. We're addicted as a world to these processed foods that are highly Frankenfoods. But they light up our brains and make us feel good, and we think, “Oh, we feel good. We got to keep eating this.” 

And as Dr. Joel Fuhrman says, cocaine can make you feel good too, but it's not good for you. So stop thinking that food that makes you feel good is good for you and focus on foods that don't come from manufacturers but from a farm. Eat food that comes from a farm, not a manufacturer, and you'll be doing so much better with your health. I had a food scientist on the show, and she explained that crazy world behind the scenes of how they will look at brain scans. This is like the company that makes these things like Doritos. They will do these neuro studies on exactly how much of each of these ingredients they need to put in to make you as addicted as possible, to make the dopamine go up as much. So we got to be really careful. And then how much do all those chemicals affect the gut microbiome? Whatever we eat is not only feeding ourselves, but it's feeding the bacteria in our guts. You have to be careful because what you feed in your gut is what you're going to get in your life. 

[1:44:03.6] Dr. William Davis: I couldn't agree more, Ashley. Modern processed food is a disaster. 

[1:44:10.8] Ashley James: I'm spinning thinking about the possibilities. So in your book, there are many other things to look for. I love that you have this table of different strains of bacteria, and it's almost like you're looking at a pharmacy for your gut. If these are your symptoms, you go for this. If this is your problem, then start with this. Athletes can take a different probiotic for this function. I'm thinking about kids because kids don't necessarily need Lactobacillus reuteri. Maybe they do, but can kids benefit from taking Gut to Glow? Or is there a different strain that would be better for them? Or maybe tell me who would benefit most from taking the Gut to Glow formula with the Lactobacillus reuteri in it? 

[1:45:13.0] Dr. William Davis: I look at the Gut to Glow as a convenience for someone who doesn't want to make the yogurt and wants a better skin effect because of the added components or does something like travel and doesn't want to bring their yogurt-making apparatus. But there's another question here. Who needs reuteri? The only group I think that should not do the yogurt as written are pregnant ladies because when you approach the two weeks or so prior to delivery, the density of oxytocin receptors goes up to a hundredfold in the uterus in preparation for delivery. That's why, say you want to deliver your child on Wednesday, August 23rd at 8 a.m., you're instructed to come to the hospital, and they put an IV, and they give you the oxytocin injection, and it causes uterine contraction. So it's probably not wise to get that super duper high counts of reuteri, and thereby presumptively oxytocin in a pregnant woman. 

But when you think about it, if all primitive humans have reuteri, if all mammals have it and we're the exception, and by the way, there is evidence to show us that only forty years ago, the majority of people had reuteri. Now almost nobody has it. So I think having it is good for everybody, even a pregnant woman. What I don't know is the three hundred or so billion microbes in the yogurt for a half-cup serving. Is that advisable? Probably not. And so what I tell ladies who are pregnant or of childbearing age, or children, is you can make the yogurt, but do a mixed culture yogurt. Think about if all you grew in your 10×10 backyard garden are tomatoes, you can have a lot of tomatoes. What if you grew tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and squash, how many tomatoes will you have? You have far fewer. So you can do a mixed-culture yogurt. One easy trick is to start with your reuteri. You can start with capsules or tablets, or you can get some reuteri yogurt from someone else or probably a batch of your own, and then get a commercial yogurt with four or five other microbes and mix them together. So you have maybe four or five or six different microbes, and you won't get those super duper high counts that are perfectly safe for kids or for a pregnant lady.

[1:47:55.6] Ashley James: Oh, that's brilliant. Now I have noticed since I've been eating it for the last year that I can eat it for a few days and feel the effects for weeks. I feel most of that euphoria, and then I feel it slowly drop off, and then I eat some more. So I don't eat it every day now. I used to, but now I wanted to see how long this lasts. And it does last. I feel like it lasts for a few weeks, and then it drops off. We talked a little bit about this. I want to know if there's any more science that you follow up on all the recent studies around it. Have we figured out, or are we any closer to figuring out how to repopulate the gut with Lactobacillus reuteri so that it sustains itself?

[1:48:49.0] Dr. William Davis: It's a fundamental question. It's a very critical question that we don't have an answer to. So if mom gave you reuteri by passage through the birth canal and breastfeeding and barring exposure to things like antibiotics, you will carry that microbe for a lifetime. But if you get it from yogurt or a capsule, you get it for a few weeks at best. What's the difference? Microbes live in communities, just like humans do. In other words, we don't live by ourselves. We have partners, families, co-workers, neighbors, and communities. Microbes are the same, though it is called guilds or consortiums in the microbe world. We don't know yet who else is supposed to be in the reuteri guild or consortium. So I think the probiotic of the future, or the way we'll do it in the future is reuteri with maybe seven other species that are required, for reuteri to take up permanent residence. So you can take that capsule for maybe a week, and you'll have it for a lifetime. But so far, no one's worked out the details. 

[1:49:54.3] Ashley James: I was fascinated to learn that there's a type of bacteria that's very common in the gut that digests and eats candida. Candida is its food. Candida is needed in the body, but 90% less than everyone actually has it. It's food for these bacteria. It made me think; so, when your body is imbalanced, your little bit of candida, which is the food that's growing like grass for cows. It's like the grass growing in your body to feed this bacteria that's really healthy for us. And it made me think maybe that Lactobacillus reuteri is supposed to eat and digest something and it's missing also. Like there's this wonderful colony, like the microbe guild that that lives together that feeds each other and balances each other out and protects each other. 

And we've really messed ourselves up in the last generation. From my grandma to where we are now, we've just been messing up the entire human race by wiping out so much of our microbiome. I wish I had a time machine and could go a hundred years in the future and see what kind of advancement in understanding how we can restore the gut. But I can't wait for the day that the labs figure out what's the perfect balance for that microbe guild so that we could really get a leg up. But you're on the right track with teaching us how to ferment and bring it into our bodies within food in such a natural way. 

I really feel like you, out of all the doctors out there, have your finger on the pulse of restoring the gut and thus cascade effect of restoring the whole body. So thank you so much for everything you do. I love your work and I love your books. You're so easy to learn from. Like I told you many years ago, just discovering your work was so cathartic for me because finally, it's validation. I'm on the right track with removing these grains from my life and seeing such a positive result. That brings me to one of my last points, which is that some people say, “Well, I don't feel a difference when I removed wheat. So, therefore, I'm not allergic to it. I don't have to remove it.” And I think that that's a misnomer for a lot of people if you don't do an air quotes here, but like feel a difference. I don't think that you're supposed to feel how good an apple is for you when you eat an apple. I'm studying the nutritional aspects of how that pectin is helping you and all the things that are feeding in your gut. You don't feel it. It's not an emotion, just like stress is an emotion, but you could die from too much stress, right? So you don't necessarily feel the body. I am definitely noticing for me the feeling of oxytocin and feeling balancing for me, but some people don't feel anything. Like with changing their diet, they don't feel it at first. But can you give us some hope and some encouragement and say how long should someone sick and going grain-free, for example, or removing the gluten grains, or trying Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. Is this something like, giving it a shot for three months, and then measure some noticeable outcomes? Can you give us some some hope because so many people will try something for a few weeks and say, “I didn't feel a difference.” So then they just stopped.

[1:53:46.5] Dr. William Davis: You're right. There's a mixture of perceived benefits, but there's also a lot of unperceived benefits that occur below the surface. So, for instance, my whole thinking on wheat and grains began to start when I took wheat and grains out of the diet because people had heart disease. By the way, this was born out of fifty-five clinical trials. This is not just some anecdote. What I saw on people with coronary disease is that the most common cause for coronary disease, heart attacks, angina, and sudden cardiac death, is an excess of small LDL particles and not LDL cholesterol, that crude indirect marker, but the actual lipoprotein particles themselves or small LDL particles. These are small particles are not recognized by the liver and so they persist in the bloodstream for 5 to 7 days compared to large LDL particles that lasts for 24 hours. Small LDL is much more prone to oxidation, much more prone to cause inflammation when it gets access into the wall of an artery. In other words, the small LDL is this little evil thing, perfectly crafted to cause heart disease. 

When you eat one bagel or slice of pizza, you've got oodles of small LDL for a week. There's no way for you to tell that. You have to do an NMR lipoproten analysis to find that out. So that's one example of the many non-perceived effects of consuming grains. When you stop eating wheat, grains and sugars, and small LDL drops from say, 2000 volume to 0, you won't be able to tell that. Likewise, if your blood sugar drops from a pre-diabetic range to the normal or ideal range, you can't tell that either. If you're exposed to the gliadin protein of wheat that increases intestinal permeability in everybody, not just celiac people, and thereby increases endotoxemia and raises blood sugar and blood pressure and plays with your moods, anxiety, depression. You might not be aware of that. You might not believe that that was due to the fact that once you stop eating grains, a lot of those effects go away. So, there's a lot of things that happen that people don't understand and don't recognize that it's being due to the grain consumption or lack of reuteri or whatever. So, I think it's a mistake to say, “I don't feel any different. Therefore it must not be doing good for me.” Because you'd have to do a more deep exploration to understand the full impact. 

[1:56:24.1] Ashley James: Got it. And so it's better to just take the science, take what you've shared and just go with it. Make those changes and give it time instead of judging it too quickly. Because you don't necessarily feel all those physiological changes. But eventually, down the line, people notice their body composition changing. People notice those inches going off. Sometimes you don't see pounds going off but you see inches go off. Sometimes it's just the body shifting and you just give it time. I feel so good off gluten and off those grains. I feel so good with Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. For me it's fantastic. And I'm so happy that you formulated this Gut to Glow because there are people out there, like you said, who can't make the yogurt for whatever reason. Their life is super crazy and busy or they're traveling, and they just want to keep getting the benefits of it. 

So you've produced something that's going to help everyone, men and women alike. I think men like the effects of looking good too. But also you said, it helps joints there with the known ingredients that help joints. So overall, everything's good. I want to have you back a year from now or less when you've got these studies and these other things that you're working on down the road. Any other projects you can share with us? You're so busy. I was curious to know if you have ideas for the next book, but I know you're really focusing on this. So, is there anything else, any other projects that are in the pipeline?

[1:58:11.0] Dr. William Davis: I'm thinking about a number of things. One of the things that's changing my life is the fact that people like you and me, other podcasters, YouTubers, and bloggers, have all been blacklisted by major media. I believe it's because the big pharma pump so much money into media. That if you write a book on health and nutrition, you can't get on TV anymore. And so that hurts book sales, of course. I've even had publishers say to me, “You know, if we can't make money publishing books on health, maybe we won't publish books on health.” That's the impact that the pharmaceutical industry has had. So what does that mean for the future of books or other things? 

By the way, I'm so appreciative of what you're doing and other podcasters and bloggers. Because if we're all, not just me, blacklisted from major media, how do we get the word of truth out to the people? That's what you're doing. So that's why I support what you're doing, because we have to get this word out to people. So does that mean if you want to write a book on health, do you have to not use a title that suggests about it? I've been playing with that idea. It's still a lot of fun writing books and get your message out and it's a great way to learn something; to sit back in your chair and read about some new ideas because it's not going to come from the doctor. We all know that the last person to consult on health is the doctor. I'm talking about mainstream doctors. The naturopaths, chiropractors, and functional medicine doctors do get it, but the John Q mainstream doctor does not understand it. So how do we get that message out? So, I'm thinking about several books, but we got to somehow work around this off of blacklisting process. 

[1:59:57.7] Ashley James: Okay. I've got a title for you; Wink, Wink. This is definitely not a health book. Just make the title Wink, Wink, and have you winking in a lab coat with a stethoscope. That's the next book, and then I'll write your foreword or something. I love it. Well, I'm going to make sure I share my cashew yogurt with you which is super delicious.

[2:00:27.4] Dr. William Davis: I'll give proper credit.

[2:00:29.9] Ashley James: Oh, fantastic. I love it. It's a win-win for everyone. You know, I played around and did some batches with adding other strains that are in your book and it was fun doing that. So not just L. reuteri but also playing around with the other strains and I highly recommend that listeners go and check out everything that Dr. Davis has written and done in his website. Of course, the links to everything is going to be in the show notes with today's podcast of learntruehealth.com. We're going to make sure that we link the Gut to Glow formula so that listeners can get it. And all the links there, including all the books is going to be there in the show notes and in the description of this episode, wherever you're listening from. If you're listening on your Apple podcast or Spotify, Rumble Library, or wherever you're listening from in all the alternative spaces that we're on as well, just look in the show notes in the podcast app and you'll find all the links. I'm going to make sure they're all there.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. It was so great chatting with you and I'm just such a huge fan of all your work. Thank you for being so approachable and so open and willing to educate us. The root word for doctors is “docere”, which means teacher. That surprises people because our experience is like the old school teacher that would slap you with a ruler; the very not approachable teacher. That's like going to the doctor. You are I think what they meant when they came up with the word “doctor”, the “docere” and the idea of teaching us health. And that's why my podcast is called Learn True Health. As doctors, you're here to teach us, achieve it, find it and create your health. So thank you so much for being such an advocate for us to gain our true health. I so appreciate what you do. I can't wait to have you back on the show.

[2:02:29.1] Dr. William Davis: Thank you, Ashley. Anytime. It's my pleasure.

[2:02:32.7] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Dr. William Davis. He's amazing. I love him. If you want my Lactobacillus reuteri cashew yogurt, delicious recipe, please go to learntruehealth.com and you'll find it there. It's also in the show notes of today's podcast. You can also go to the Learn True Health Facebook group, and you'll see the recipe there, along with comments and conversations in the group with other listeners. You don't have to make it out of the oven cashews. You can make it out of other ingredients. And if you want to discuss that, you can jump into the larger Learn True Health Facebook group. And we can chat about other methods to make the Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt. Or if you just want to get the benefits, do it without having to make two yogurt.

Definitely check out Dr. William Davis', Lactobacillus reuteri supplement, which he calls Gut to Glow. You could go to learntruehealth.com/glow and use coupon code LTH10 for 10% off your first order or 15% off your subscription with coupon code LTH15. You can book a session with me to chat about the amazing phototherapy patches if you want to increase your body's glutathione production, stem cells, balance your sex hormones, your stress hormones, your thyroid regrow joints, arthritis, lowering inflammation of bone density, increase bone density. People are seeing wear and tear on their body. There are studies showing that this increases bone density. People are getting out of osteopenia and out of osteoporosis, and increasing muscle mass and endurance. People are having an amazing experience. I am especially loving it. I'm loving the amount of energy. I feel like I'm a seven-year-old again. I've tapped into this never-ending deep well of energy. I've been enviously looking at kids for the last seven years wishing I had that abundant energy, and now I do. That's from the phototherapy patches. 

If you want to try that too, let's jump on a call together. I'd love to talk to you. Go to learntruehealth.com and up in the menu, you can find where it says Work with Ashley James. Sign up for a free phone call with me to discuss the phototherapy patches. You can also email me at support@learntruehealth.com. Connect with me on Facebook, but it's best if we talked and you jump on a phone call with me. Book a session to chat about it so I can help you specifically pick out the right patches for you based on your health goals. 

Awesome. Well, thank you for listening and watch out for our next episode. Episode 500 is around the corner and soon will be filled with beautiful testimonials and stories of success from our listeners who have been impacted by the Learn True Health podcast. If you have a testimonial and you'd love for me to share with the listeners any kind of positive impact that my podcast or my guests have had a difference in your life, please send it to me. There's still time to submit your testimony, as you can submit an audio testimonial, a video testimonial. Just turn it into it audio or you can email me one and I'll read your testimony on. You can put it in the Facebook group. You can email it to me at support@learntruehealth.com and I'd love to hear from you.

Have yourselves a fantastic rest of your day, and I just want you to know I love you so much and I appreciate you so much, and I want you to feel your best. I want you to be as absolutely optimally healthy as you can be every day, building up, healthier and healthier and healthier. That's what I want for you, and for me too. So, we're all building healthier bodies. We're not aging, or we're not going downwards. We're going upwards. We are building ourselves up at any age. We have so much absolute potential at any age to build healthier bodies. And that's what I want for you, and we're doing it together. So thank you for sharing these podcast episodes with those you care about so we can help everyone we love through Learn True Health.

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Feb 17, 2023

The Best Coherent Structured Water Device:

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498: Rejuvenate Cells with Structured Water, Mario Brainović

https://www.learntruehealth.com/rejuvenate-cells-with-structured-water-mario-brainovic

Mario Brainovic, CEO of Analemma Water, is a leading expert on the astonishing science and impact of coherent water. He explains the overall benefits of why all living things should drink structured water.

Ashley James & Mario Brainović

Highlights:

  • Reversing cellular age through drinking structured water
  • Difference between regular tap water and structured, coherent water
  • Results of using Analemma Water
  • Using GlycanAge testing as an accurate assessment of your overall health and wellness
  • How to measure mitochondrial energy in the body
  • The correlation between the state of your microbiome and the state of your water

Intro:

Hello true health seekers, and welcome to another exciting Learn True Health podcast episode. Today's finally the day I'm publishing the long-awaited structured water episode. I've been hinting about this episode in our Facebook group to our wonderful listener community and talked about it in a few episodes. I've been using this device since Thanksgiving with remarkable results. We get into that in the interview. But as I do with all these wonderful experts and companies I interview about holistic health devices and supplements, if there's something I want to try out and love, I want to share it and ensure I get a coupon code. So here it is, coupon code LTH as always. And you can buy yourself one of the structured water devices by going to learntruehealth.com/structured water. That's learntruehealth.com/structured water. Or you can look in the show notes of today's episode, and you'll see it right there in the description of this episode's show notes. Wherever you listen from, the link will be right there. So be sure to use the coupon code LTH to get your discount. 

I was shocked by the results that I got. This has been my favorite magic trick to play. It's a great parlor trick to play on your friends. Take the device, and use it for 1 minute on their glass of water. Pour two glasses of water so that they can drink the regular water first, and then they try the structured water that's only been treated for one minute with this device. It requires no batteries or electricity; you can travel with it. You have to be careful not to break it. But other than that, I've been traveling with it. I've been sharing it with my friends, and everyone is amazed. Make sure that you treat the water. For about a cup of water, you must use the device on the water for one minute. For me, I drink out of a mason jar, which is quite a bit of water that's close to 30 oz of water in here. I like to stir with the Analemma for a good 2 minutes. Just know that when you do buy one, the instructions say to use it for 30 seconds; don't do that. Maybe in America, we use huge glasses. This was initially designed in Europe, and I think everyone has 8 oz glasses there because all of us in America have 20 oz glasses or more, especially my listeners who are well hydrated and drinking out of 30 oz mason jars like myself, you need to use the device for about 2 minutes which is neat. As you stir the water with it, it changes the structure. All of the molecules line up in a way that becomes a coherent crystalline structure. Just watch as you're stirring it at a slow, nice pace, and in about 1 to 2 minutes, you will see the viscosity of the water change, which is the coolest thing, and then I know it's done. I just watched, and I could see the viscosity change. Then when you put it in your mouth, the water feels different. It tastes sweeter and feels different in your body. 

So I'm so excited for you to hear from one of the experts working with this company. And he also talks about the studies that they've published. They have crops and have huge yields just from using this water. Since this interview, I have done a little experiment where we've been feeding our plants this water. We do not get much sun up here in the Pacific Northwest, and are almost at the Canadian border. And here we are in the lowest amount of sunlight. My plants are going nuts. I have this big window where all my plants are, and they only get sun for a few hours because it's facing west, and there's an obstruction. So they only get about four hours of sunlight. Since I started Analemma water, they're growing. These small house plants are not supposed to be that large, but they have grown inches. So I've been watching them sprout up like crazy. It's been so cool to see that. 

And we talked today about how using structured water makes mitochondria function and makes the bacterial cultures in the soil and our body improve health. The cascade effect goes on and on. Ensure you use coupon code LTH because I want you to get a discount. But this device is affordable compared to all the other structured water devices. And this one maintains the structured water. So use it once, and the water is structured forever. Whereas other devices only temporarily structures water. It is really interesting. 

I know you'll love the science behind it, which we will dig into today. Please share this episode with all your friends who love to hydrate or who don't like to hydrate. Now they should because this makes water so delicious and changes its feel. It makes people want to drink more water. It's such a fun little tool to improve our health and the health of our pets and plants. They're coming up with systems for agriculture and noticing that when the farmers collect the seeds and reuse them, by the third generation of those plants, they're saying they need almost no pesticides and chemicals. The plants become so healthy that they require less and less of those things. Imagine how much we could impact the world if the whole planet did this. 

It's exciting what you can do for your health. The implications are exciting if we continue with this technology. So that's learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. Use coupon code LTH, and come into the Learn True Health Facebook group so that we can chat about this as you use the device. I want you to know that if you don't notice a difference with it, it means you're not using it or stirring it long enough. I've talked to at least a dozen people, and when they use it for a good one to two minutes with their water, they notice the difference. So, that's the one troubleshooting thing I would say. If you already bought it, you've got to use it for at least one to two minutes in your big glass of water. In my case, it's a big jar of water, and I use it when cooking. I treat the water before making coffee or tea. Something so cool is that we noticed it changed the flavor. It made it more delicious. So there's something about it that's super neat. 

So, enjoy today's episode, come to the Facebook group, and let me know your thoughts. Let me know what your experience is with structured water. I can't wait to hear from you guys and wait for you to hear today's episode. 

[0:07:30.2] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James, and this is episode 498.

I am so excited about today's guest. We have on the show Mario Brainovic, the CEO of this fantastic technology that my husband and I have been using in our house for a month and a half now. It is our new favorite thing. My husband will only touch or drink water if this device has first touched the water. My husband is obsessed. He loves it so much. I do too. I got some of the water right here. I'm just so mindblown by what you've created. By the way, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming today, Mario. 

[0:08:22.0] Mario Brainovic: Thank you so much for having me, Ashley.

[0:08:25.9] Ashley James: Before we dive into you explaining what this is and the science and story behind it, I want to take a quick moment to share my story of being introduced to the Analemma. Your office reached out to me before Thanksgiving. I received an Analemma, and I was very skeptical. This concept of stirring something in my water for a minute, completely being transformed and restructured, and changing the magnetics of the structure on a molecular level all sounds too good to be true. I say in the show that I have a very open mind to try new things, but I'm also incredibly skeptical. So with my skepticism and open-mindedness, I said sure, why not. Let's try it.

Then a good friend of mine comes over, sees the box, and says, oh, you got one, too. I love mine. And I'm like, wait a second; I know people who have this? It turns out that I have friends who already have an Analemma, and they love it. They're using it in their water and seeing a big difference. I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I went and used it. When we first received it, I stirred water for a minute, took a sip, and I said, what is going on? No way. And so then I grabbed just regular filtered water, and I compared. I could not believe the mouth feel. The water completely feels different when you use the Analemma. It feels like all the molecules are lined up in your mouth. It just goes down smoother, and drinking water with no resistance is easier. It's the weirdest thing to say, but it feels silkier and easier to drink. It just goes down and has a sweetness, so it does change the water experience. 

We even took our Analemma to friends' houses when visiting them. It's been our new favorite health toy. Whenever we go for dinner or hang out with friends, we bring it and do this magic trick. Okay, give me two glasses of your water. We will stir this for one minute in one glass, and then you'll try to see which one you like better. Everyone loves the water and can't believe how different it feels. As I walked up the stairs today to get to the office for this interview, my husband said, “Make sure you tell them this is my favorite thing.” There's another thing he's been doing called phototherapy patches, but he goes, “This thing is amazing. Please tell them how much I love it.” Of course, I am going to tell him that. My husband is such a good sport doing all the health stuff I do. I've been introducing him to many things throughout the 15 years, constantly getting him to do healthy things. He is a good sport and dragged along with it. But now he will not let us drink water unless treated with the Analemma. It is so easy to do. It blows my mind. I fill my jars every morning and spend a few minutes stirring the water for the rest of the day. I'm standing there thinking, “How does this work?” I've seen the science and everything on your website, but I still need help understanding it. So I'm so excited to have you today.

The biggest thing I got excited about was the study that showed that drinking this water for three months reverses cellular age. So I can't wait to get into that. I noticed I had results when we started doing it right after Thanksgiving. Like everyone, the holidays are a bit stressful. This is our first holiday season without our father-in-law. My dad died fourteen years ago, right after Christmas, and this was the anniversary of his death. So there are just a lot of emotions going on around Thanksgiving. And during the pandemic, I had a child and lost her. So even though I did a lot of emotional work and healing, I had this low-grade constant sadness in my heart. I hadn't changed anything else at the time. Everything's been pretty much the same and with even higher stress because it's going into the holiday season. But three days into drinking the Analemma water, I did a check-in and realized that sadness had gone. It was replaced with low-grade joy and a sense of completion, happiness, and fulfillment. I can get upset and frustrated because I'm home-schooling a seven-year-old, and that's expected. But even when I am a little upset or frustrated and all these other emotions, I feel happiness beneath all that. 

Have you seen anything around your specific structured water affecting people emotionally? You also studied brain waves, so I want to get into that. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structured water to check it out and use coupon code LTH. By the way, thank you so much for giving our listeners a discount. I appreciate that. I'd love to understand how you came about discovering this. How does it work? 

[0:13:55.2] Mario Brainovic: Thank you for sharing your beautiful story. We are receiving so many stories from all over the place from people using it. Stories are remarkable, and hearing what this water does never gets old. To be honest, we all in Analemma feel that we are serving this water, not the other way around, when we realize its profound effect on all biological systems. We tested it on humans, animals, and plants; the results were always remarkable. We see that it is a blessing, and when you see it that way, you cannot own it. We are stewards of it and want to do everything in our power to get it to as many people as possible so that they can get the benefits. Not only that, we will go into all of the details. There are profound environmental effects of this water. We can catch up on that as well. I love how this water enriches whatever you expose it to. So I'm grateful to be part of this project, and I'm so happy when I hear the stories. All of the work that we are doing is beyond justified, so thank you, first of all, for sharing your story.

[0:15:22.9] Ashley James: Absolutely. I started this podcast because I suffered for so many years from health issues. Through natural medicine and good nutrition, I was able to reverse type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, infertility, and polycystic ovarian syndrome. And the doctor said you'll never reverse. This doctor said I would never not have the polycystic ovarian syndrome. I was told numerous times I'll always be on medications. Now I'm free from medicines and super healthy. I still have health goals, and I'm still working on myself, and I want to help end the suffering of so many people. So when I find something that is easy, affordable, and has profound effects, why not? I think we should all be drinking healthy water. 

I took chemistry in high school and loved it. I'm from Ontario, Canada, and at the time, we had Grade 13 in high school, which was the equivalent of a first-year university. I took OAC Chem, which was like first-year university chemistry. I remember understanding and learning about the magnetics of water and how the H2O molecules are very magnetic. And so, understanding that most people drink water through a bunch of 90-degree angle pipes, the molecules have become chaotic, right? So we're not meant to drink water that's been through the system it has been through. But even water straight from the ground isn't necessarily structured either. So I'd love for you to explain the difference between the regular tap water from the city and structured water.

[0:17:21.1] Mario Brainovic: Yeah, now we are getting into the whole magic of things. First, I would like to emphasize that most people aren't aware that 99% of our molecules are water. We are 70% water in mass but 99% in molecules. So that shows you immediately we are very clever H2O. That shows you there is something magical and extraordinarily important about water, and nobody talks about it. So as you mentioned, water at this point is everywhere, and we tested all kinds of water. It exists in the chaotic state of H2O. Molecules in water move chaotically. They crash into each other constantly. All of this happens at an atomic level, so nobody knows it. Two scientists, Dolf Zantinge and Dr. Eric Laarakker started working on it, and I joined the team a bit later. So we found a way to bring order back into that chaos.

I will explain the science of it. Since water is a broadband absorber, receiver, and energy transmitter, it will pick up the dominant frequency. So, however, colloquially speaking, you treat water, the vibration, the frequency, and the structure will form that particular structure. As you mentioned, water goes through a piping system, dramatically killing the water's vitality. So, we managed to create a dominant positive frequency in the water. This is what we call mother water. It takes one full year for us to create this special water and put it in a crystal vial. Crystal serves as a superconductor, but it's not there. So it creates a barrier between the mother water and the water you are swirling the Analemma through. But frequency-wise, it's like it's not there. Any H2O molecule that comes into close proximity to the mother water starts to mimic its exact structure. So then you have exactly the same water as the mother water inside the vial. Water enters this special liquid crystalline structure, and we call this full spectrum coherent state. So it's very different from the other works of several scientists who developed some form of structured water in various ways through a vortex, seeing through magnets, or using crystals. 

There are various forms of how you create a structure. But the main difference between Analemma Water and all these other structured water is its stability. With all the other structured devices we tested, water goes back into chaos within a couple of minutes in half a day with almost all of them. With just one treatment of Analemma, just one swirl in the glass of water, that water will stay in that very particular state virtually forever. So we have tested it for five consecutive years, and it always remains in a state of coherence. 

So that stability is where it's very special. This very particular structure has a profound effect on all biological systems. Now, I can jump into the remarkable studies we made. The fastest result you will have with this water is in brain waves. We did this double-blind study with identical and genetic twins because this is the golden standard. These two people are genetically identical, so we gave one twin regular water and Analemma Water to another. The doctor administering the test didn't know which one was which, and the twins didn't know which one was which, and we were observing the changes in the brainwaves. As soon as you sip this water, there is an almost instant change in your brain waves. The left and right hemispheres of the brain start to communicate much more efficiently, and there is an instant cooling effect on the brain waves, which is extraordinary to observe. We repeated the test a couple of weeks later and gave Analemma Water to the other twin to see what would happen. The results, again, were very distinctly the same. So your brain waves will change instantly as soon as you sip this water. So this is the first and the fastest effect or impact this water has on human biology, and then we can go into all of the studies that we did, the long-term effect of drinking water. It's really profound. 

Then we decided afterward to pick a test that would definitively prove that something biologically remarkable happens when people drink this water. So we were going about various tests, and we came upon GlycanAge. GlycanAge measures the biological age in contrast to chronological age. There are various other tests that you can do. But what I love about GlycanAge is that it gives you a pretty accurate assessment of your overall health and wellness. Why? Because through the state of glycans, you can see your immune system's state. Glycans regulate the activity of T cells. So T cells are the number one cells of our immune system. So whenever a pathogen like viruses, bacteria, or fungi invades our body, these cells are the ones who capture and destroy the pathogens.

So if your glycans are in good shape, you have a powerful immune system. The other thing about GlycanAge is that there are two kinds of glycans, pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory. This balance is crucial for overall health and wellness. Now everybody knows, and I know your audience is familiar with low-grade inflammation. It is the number one cause of any chronic disease we develop throughout life. If you experience changing glycans, that means your overall health is changing for the better. So we did the baseline test with everyone in this study. We measured their biological age, and I have just discussed the final score of all these. And then they just drank a liter and a half of Analemma Water per day without changing anything else in their world. They didn't change their exercise regime or diet, and we did another test after three months. In almost every single person in this study, there were between one and twelve years of biological age rejuvenation. Their whole system regenerated on a cellular level, which was remarkable. It clearly proved that when you drink this water, there are really powerful changes in your biology.

[0:25:44.4] Ashley James:  After only a few months?

[0:25:46.4] Mario Brainovic: Only three months.

[0:25:49.6] Ashley James: Many people will drink more than a liter and a half. I drink about 4 liters of water a day. 

[0:25:54.3] Mario Brainovic: And you can imagine what effect that would have on your biology.

[0:25:58.7] Ashley James: I feel it, and it's pretty amazing. My husband and I both feel it. So whenever our seven-year-old son asks if he can have some water, we hand him one, and he says, “Is this structured?”

[0:26:15.1] Mario Brainovic: I love what you mentioned. It's like, you cannot miss it. Once you take a swirl of Analemma through the water, you cannot miss the change that happens. Water enters this very special coherent state. And just like you eloquently explained, you cannot miss the change in the water. 

[0:26:34.9] Ashley James: You taste and feel it. A friend said, “I don't know if it tastes different, but why does it feel different in my mouth? Oh my gosh, this water is feeling different in my mouth. This is so weird.” You can exactly feel the change.

[0:26:54.6] Mario Brainovic: I can explain why. 

[0:26:55.1] Ashley James: Okay, good. Why? I thought it was maybe magnetics. But it feels like all the H2O molecules are lined up in a row instead of being chaotic. That's my explanation. 

[0:27:07.5] Mario Brainovic: Most definitely. You've explained it very well. But I would like to add that when you bring the water into a highly structured coherent state, the true power of water is unleashed. You can look at it like if you have a light bulb; it has five watts. It will give you some light. But if you have a 5-watt laser, it will drill a hole through your table. So laser is a coherent form of light. The true power of water is unleashed when you bring it to a coherent state. So our early studies were always on plants. There is this special method, a delicate technology that can capture light. Every living organism exudes light biophotons, and we have this device to capture every single biophoton. The more light you exude, the more vitality you have. 

In our early study, we had a big greenhouse in the Netherlands where we did many tests. We grew tomatoes that we watered with regular water and with Analemma Water. And we realized that tomatoes grown with Analemma Water exude 60% more light. They have 60% more vitality. If you eat that tomato, all that energy will end up in your cells. But then we didn't want to stop there. We wanted to see how that correlates with humans. So we did a double-blind, placebo-controlled study measuring the rise in ATP levels. We're talking about mitochondrial energy, or the energy in your cells. We used this method with luciferase. Luciferase is an enzyme that catalyzes light production in bioluminescent organisms. Due to its extraordinary sensitivity, we can measure the intercellular ATP level in animals and humans. And we did the baseline tests, and people again just drank a liter and a half of water a day without changing anything else in their world. After two months, we did another test, and there was a significant rise in ATP levels. So the entire mitochondrial energy in their body increased by over 20% just by drinking the water. 

So then, I can return to the studies that we did because there is a great correlation between all of our studies. We're very passionate about the quality of soil because this is a huge agricultural problem in the world today. The soil is almost completely destroyed everywhere, and they cannot revive it. They cannot bring it back to life. Then whatever you grow on that soil will not have the nutrients necessary. We took completely depleted, destroyed soil and watered one part of it with regular water, and one part of it was watered with Analemma Water. Nothing happened with the one we watered with regular water. Everything stayed the same. But there was a huge explosion in the biodiversity of the microbiome in the part we watered with Analemma Water. And so much so that the bacteria that exploded in the soil started to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in the soil where it belongs. 

So the soil became fertile. You could grow any food on it again. This inspired us since the microbiome changed the soil. Let's see what's going to happen with humans. So we did a double-blind, placebo-controlled study where we measured the dysbiosis index of the microbiome. So dysbiosis index describes the degree of deviation within the microbiome, taking into account all the bacterial phyla and species and their Wayne factor. And we had an absolute improvement of 38% in the dysbiosis index of the microbiome just when people drank this water.

[0:32:02.0] Ashley James: Oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind.

[0:32:05.5] Mario Brainovic: In the last decade, there has been so much research in the connection between the state of your gut, your microbiome, with basically any area of your health — mental health, physical health. The state of your microbiome has a powerful effect on anywhere in your body. We proved that when you drink this water, the state of your microbiome improves significantly. 

[0:32:36.1] Ashley James: I interviewed Dr. Igor Smirnov in episode 161 several years ago. He's a Russian, and he has been doing studies for years on different structured water. Not yours, but structured water in general. What sparked his interest was that the people in Chernobyl who experienced radiation were sent to various hospitals. And one hospital, in particular, was up in the mountains, and an artesian well fed the hospital. And those people miraculously got way better than anyone from Chernobyl who went to another hospital. Russia was like, what's going on? Why is everyone getting better over here, but aren't getting better in every other hospital? And they finally figured out that their water was naturally structured in some way from the pressure coming from the earth. Of course, not everyone can access an artesian well up in the mountains. We need to figure out how to recreate that. That's what you've done in a very affordable way. I've seen these machines, and as you said, these machines not only keep the water structured for days and days. It's structured temporarily, and then it falls apart. These machines are worth $500 to $1,500. I've looked and seen it. But what piqued my interest was what Dr. Smirnoff said: they see antioxidants in structured water that were mopping up the radiation in these patients. I don't know if that was true, but it did something. Maybe it was because it was protecting the mitochondria. So I'd love to know, have you noticed, or have you had studies where you're seeing that structured Analemma Water has an antioxidant property?

[0:34:46.9] Mario Brainovic: I can tell you that the study of it is remarkable. Dolf Zantinge, one of Analemma's founders, was CEO of the largest Dutch telecom. So he's very familiar with the EMFs and the effects of radiation of EMFs on human biology. We did several tests with Analemma Water and 3G, 4G, and 5G radiation, and the results were really interesting. There are many effects, but I can speak of the one we thoroughly tested. So when you use your cell phone for two minutes, there is a profound chaotic effect on the state of your brain waves. We've tested and seen it every single time. But what we did was we gave regular water and Analemma water to some people after a couple of minutes of using the cell phone. Nothing happened with their brainwaves for the people who drank regular water. Their state stayed the same. Whatever happened, they stayed there. But as soon as people start drinking Analemma Water, as I mentioned, there is a cooling effect on the brain waves. The brain waves came down from the chaos into a coherent state.

[0:36:28.0] Ashley James: That was fascinating. When someone has this change in their brainwaves, what do they experience? 

[0:36:34.3] Mario Brainovic: In my experience, I can just share because many people wrote us, and we have a lot of testimonials from people. It's very personal. Every single person is unique, and they have their own unique response. So as you mentioned, you clearly shared your experience. We received so many various experiences from people. They all have their own path and experience with it, but every single time is extraordinarily positive. 

[0:37:14.5] Ashley James: Can you share some testimonials that stand out for you? 

[0:37:19.3] Mario Brainovic: There are a lot of them. We don't want to go into all the details because this has yet to be designed to treat and heal people. We were advised not to make health claims in that particular way. But I can tell you that many people had incredible physical, mental, and emotional results in various ways. When you drink this water, this water is in this very special coherent state. As I mentioned, 99% of our molecules are water. So we enter this very special coherent state. When your organs, tissues, bones, and mind where electromagnetic beams enter a state of coherence, effects will be experienced on any level. So it's just a matter of time. 

[0:38:21.9] Ashley James: Does it make water more conductive?

[0:38:24.2] Mario Brainovic: We had this really interesting experience. We developed this technology with one professor in Austria. So we asked him to create a device that would immediately show on the spot which water is which. During his research, he found this correlation between the sun and water. Water changes electromagnetically daily due to the sun's position towards the Earth. So water is an electromagnetic phenomenon; it changes. So we realized that the electromagnetic potential of water is anywhere between 150 and 300 millivolts. But when you swirl the Analemma through the water, that potential jumps up to 300 %. And that's very measurable. So, that's where you can see the difference. The difference is not just in taste, which ends our studies. We have done 15 studies up until now. So all of our studies confirmed that. But the whole energy about it is remarkable when you swirl this little stick through the water. It really changes dramatically.

[0:39:46.4] Ashley James: Why sell the Analemma device, which allows us to make as much water as possible? It's like teaching a man to fish instead of giving him a fish. You are giving us the tool that, for the rest of our lives, we can make all of our searches with water. It is very generous that you do this, and as I said, this is such an affordable device compared to all the other ones I've seen out in the market. So you guys are being very generous because you could have created your own Evian water, or an Analemma bottled water, from some source and structured it yourself because it maintains its structure. You could have sold it worldwide in bottles.

[0:40:27.6] Mario Brainovic: Just so you know, this is all intentional. So we are aware that we could put this five times the price and it will be sold exactly the same way. But we wanted to keep it affordable to almost everyone on the planet. Just like you mentioned, this is something that we are now exploring. We will bottle it, so if you are somewhere in the cafe and don't have your Analemma, you can order one and get it. But we wanted to make it affordable to people. 

Our mission statement is to make all bodies of water on this planet coherent. We have already developed technology that we can install in the wells of the biggest rivers. Because we know we've proven that the microbiome and the water would change, will enter this coherent state, and all the life down the stream would thrive. And not only that, but all of this water will enter the oceans, and then the oceans will become coherent. And then we would have a coherent planet. Just like our body becomes coherent, if all of the water on this planet, which is the earth's blood, becomes coherent, we are part of the earth. Even though it's not good for our business model, we don't care. The main thing is this water has the power to change the world for the better. So we're having these greenhouses issues and CO2, which we try to solve but cannot solve. But, as I mentioned, if we water the earth everywhere with this water, the soil's microbiome would change, and those bacteria start to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

[0:42:31.2] Ashley James: And into the soil, which will feed the plants, right? If you think about farming, we're having a massive global crisis because of the drought. But before the drought, we see that farming practices have contributed to the drought. They remove the topsoil, intended to keep the CO2 in the soil. It's supposed to be there to feed the plants. The decomposing matter creates CO2, which is supposed to be in the soil to feed the plants. So it's part of the fertilization cycle of plants. 

Because of the mass farming practices of the last hundred years, farmers scrape away the topsoil and turn the soil over, which we now know destroys the soil's microbiome and releases CO2, a fertilizer for the plant. It's supposed to be in there. And by turning over the soil, they're killing the microbiome. They're making a very artificial environment and then treating it chemically to force the plants to yield high. But because of all this, the water runs off and does not stay in the soil when it rains. And then when it gets hot, it is supposed to evaporate, creating more rain, right? So it's supposed to be that cycle, but it's runoff now. And so, then we have droughts globally. Then, we're cutting down forests to feed the cattle. Large forests, for example, help to make rain because it's how nature works. So with all that, we have removed topsoil, turned it over, and now we've affected how the earth makes rain, which has then caused drought.

This is just one contributing factor. But now, the farmers globally are having many issues, and we're not even touching the supply chain issues, diesel prices going up, and all those other issues that are compounded. But what we're looking at is the health of the soil needs to be re-established. Now this information is increasing, and farmers are saying, “Oh wait, I should do more biological farming. So, I don't turn and never move the topsoil.” So some farmers are trying to understand that is a better way to go. But right now, if they could feed the soil your coherent, structured water, that would immediately begin to revitalize the soil's microbiome. The healthy bacteria of the soil suck the CO2 back into the soil, feeding the good plants.

So it's all this beautiful dance. And I know you said we're part of Mother Nature. We came from the earth, right? The minerals of the earth are in us. We must remember that we drink water from the earth and we eat food from the earth. So the earth's health represents the health of our bodies. And I love that you're taking this globally. That was beautiful.

In 2004, I saw “What the Bleep Do We Know!?”. That's a great documentary. Everyone should watch it. They showed the studies with water that they did in Japan and how by simply

yelling at water or loving the water, or basically talking to the water or emitting an emotion at the water and then freezing it, they would see that the energy, the frequency of love, for example, would create these beautiful structures. And a frequency of hate would create these ugly mucky structures. But they did it repeatedly, and it would get the same result. 

My husband and I did it too. We got a bunch of ice cube trays, yelled at one, and loved the other. It was wild. We got that to see that little experiment in our freezer. But just the idea of simply expressing a vibration of emotion to water, that the water would hold on to it like a memory. It's like a hard drive for a computer; the water remembers.

[0:47:40.0] Mario Brainovic: It's incredibly like the computer, as you mentioned. Dr. Eric Laarakker, one of our founders, intends to prove that water is a bio-quantum computer. So, as I said, water is a broadband absorber, receiver, and energy transmitter. Whatever you send out to it, it will stay there. You mentioned the work of Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto. He was the pioneer that helped people understand that there is so much more to water than meets the eye. You mentioned your own kind of experiment. Do you know what he did that anybody can do? You take rice and put some water in it. He just expressed love to this jar with water and rice, and in the other one, he expressed anger or hatred. Just after a week, the one you express love to has this beautiful fermented smell, and it's completely intact. It has a beautiful smell, and you can actually eat it. But the other one where you said, I hate you, or you were angry at, started to decompose heavily with a bad smell. It's the same rice. The only thing that changed is our electromagnetic energy, which we focused on.

Dr. Masaru Emoto clearly explained the importance of kindness. As you mentioned, we are very clever H2O; when we are kind to each other, we send something, and that individual's water holds it. So whatever you send out stays there, which is profound. And there are many kinds of religions in the world. Like in Christianity, before you start to eat food, you say a prayer because that prayer profoundly affects the state of that food. And then we eat it. And then this food has a profound effect on our biology. 

I must mention one more study, which was an “Oh, my God” moment for us. In our early research, we were studying the effect of our water on seeds. So we took seeds, and we watered with regular water, and some seeds we watered with Analemma Water. Those seeds that we watered with regular water didn't exude any biophotons. They were just dead. There was nothing there. It would be just a flat line. But we started to observe this sinusoidal shape for the ones we watered with Analemma Water. So we began to see these peaks and valleys of biophoton emission. We were thinking, “What is this? What is going on there?” And we realized that it coincides with the tides. So we realized that this water connects you to the natural movement and rhythm of the Earth. So it moved with the tides. It opened our eyes that this connects you electromagnetically to something more significant. We always think like we're confined to this body. But when you drink Analemma Water, you get connected more profoundly.

[0:51:45.5] Ashley James: Talking about the prayer, that makes sense because, in prayer, you're bringing in gratitude and love. If you're being authentic with your prayer around the table or over your meal, you're exuding love and gratitude. And because your water on the table holds the memory of the frequency of the emotions, it can be influenced by the frequencies. Have you guys done a study where you've hated on water? Like, love was done with some water, hated on the other water, and then treated it with the Analemma. So after one minute of swirling the Analemma in the water, does that overwrite the hate?

[0:52:45.8] Mario Brainovic: We have yet to actually do the study because we have too much reverence towards water now. We don't want to treat it that way. But definitely, all of our research proved that water is going to react to the dominant frequency. That's why exposing water to the highest positive frequency is important. That's why prayer comes in. But we managed to create the mother water with an extraordinarily positive effect. As I mentioned, we try to push it into chaos in many ways but have yet to manage to. So we radiated it and did all kinds of things with it, but it remained stable. So that's where it's incredible.

I can tell you one more thing. It is actually progressive. What we did is that we watered tomatoes with Analemma Water. We took out seeds, replanted them, and we did this for three generations. After three generations, these tomatoes almost don't need any pesticides. They become so resilient. I always invite people to do the test by themselves. If you have Analemma already, or if you buy it, you have to buy two basil plants. I did this, and it's remarkable to observe. So anybody can be a little scientist. You water one basil plant with regular water and one with Analemma Water. After three weeks, you cut their water supply. What's going to happen after two days is the one watered with regular water is just going to shrivel down completely. And you can see the difference in the basil plant watered with Analemma Water. You will clearly see the resilience of the plant. So if you just put a couple of drops of Analemma Water into it, it will return to a hundred percent vitality. And the one you watered with regular water will have difficulty bouncing back.

We received so many emails when people used Analemma Water on plants. People tried to grow a plant in their apartments, and they changed or shifted spots and couldn't get plants to thrive. But when you use this water, you are assisting that process in a remarkable way. I can tell you one interesting thing. During the GlycanAge study, since we realized the correlation between water and the sun, we asked all the participants in the study to expose the Analemma to the sun every now and then. This lady has this small meter-by-meter or a bit larger kind of garden, a very short plant. And so, in the middle of it, she put her Analemma daily. After a month, she sends me a photo. It's like you drew a circle around the Analemma. All the plants grew an inch and a half taller than anywhere else. So it was tough to ignore if you knew what it meant. This is the effect it has on plants.

All of our studies clearly showed the great correlation between any biological system. So whatever we proved on plants worked exactly the same on humans. I have another amazing anecdote. For many years, we used this big greenhouse to test our water. So one Dutch farmer picked up the whole greenhouse and continued using the water. So he started to grow this particular kind of cucumber. And this kind of cucumber always gives fruit ten to twelve weeks within a year, and that's basically it. Now, he's at twenty-four weeks to grow. Usually, it gives yield, it gives fruits ten to twelve weeks, and then it cannot anymore. Then you have another cycle. So he doubled the cycle. 

Now, we are actually creating because we know that if we're going to change the world, we need to change the agricultural system and we need to change the food people eat. So you are definitely aware of this. But you know, spinach had 80% more nutrients fifteen years ago than now. So you have to eat five or six times more spinach just to have the same amount of nutrients you received from spinach ten to fifteen years ago. We really want to change this. So now we developed an agricultural system for Analemma Water and are investing a lot into studies. Farmers are only interested in two things: shelf life and yield. But we want to prove that if they use this water, they will have a higher yield and a longer shelf-life because the fruit's vitality will be higher and stronger. As a result, everybody will get healthier food, which is our goal. You know when you eat cucumbers, fruits, and veggies, you will get that vitality and nutrients. 

Just to come back again with this study that we did on soil, the microbiome change, and the mineral retainment. So you mentioned that all the minerals go out. When you water the soil with Analemma water, all the minerals stay in the soil. And then the plants can pick up those minerals and nutrients, and it all ends up in the fruit. So one of the powerful avenues we are exploring and investing a lot in now is agricultural studies. We have irrefutable proof that when you use this water in agriculture, you're not going to just exponentially increase the nutritional value of the fruit and the energy of the fruit and veggies. But you're also going to increase yield and shelf-life.

[0:59:43.9] Ashley James: Absolutely fascinating. I had a guest on my show who's an organic farmer in California. I will definitely hook you guys up. He would be totally interested in joining your studies. He has acres and acres of fruit trees and all kinds of amazing organic stuff that he does in Northern California, so I'll definitely be hooking you guys up. I want to make sure we stay in touch. I want to know about your studies around farming. I think we need to change something. 

I saw a video the other day. It was speaking to both sides of the political spectrum. Globally, people want to “stop global warming” or “stop climate change.” They are really concerned about this. And then, there are other people who just want their nine-to-five job. I just need to survive. I just need a paycheck. I just need to get through. I just need to protect my family and earn money. I'll do whatever I need to do to help my family. I'll push the button that makes more black smoke go into the mixer pollution and the world, as long as I can get a paycheck to feed my family. And so, we have these two groups of people clashing, and the speaker was talking to them. But he was talking a little bit more to the people who want to end pollution. I see both sides. I'm standing in the middle going, I want to end pollution not because of anything political. I want to end pollution because it's horrible for our health. It's horrible for our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and the health of all the amazing animals. 

We are supposed to be stewards of this land. If you take the Book of Genesis seriously, we are supposed to be stewards. We are supposed to be here to protect this land. We were gifted this land. The Book of Genesis is in many religions, not just Christianity. But if you think about it, we are stewards. We're either going to destroy this world and thus destroy ourselves. But at the same time, I completely understand those people who just need to pay the bills or feed their children. Because currently, millions of children are dying of starvation and malnutrition. And it is horrible. So this man says to these two groups of people, “We are not going to solve it by fighting. We will solve it by creating new technologies and advancements that will solve these problems in a way that solves both people's problems.” We need to make technologies affordable for the person who's starving of malnutrition, whose daughter and son are starving of malnutrition. We need technologies that will heal the water, the soil, the land, the sky, and our food supply and make it affordable so that the millions of people who are sick and suffering or malnourished will have access to this. And then when we do that, these technologies that we create will heal the planet and help to heal malnutrition. 

So he makes this big 3000 ft view. It's like, we need to stop fighting and start advancing technologies that heal the planet. And what you have is the technology that will help heal the planet because it will make it so that agriculture doesn't have to pump thousands of tons of chemicals into the water supply. If you say within three generations of this tomato plant, they don't need pesticides. If it heals the soil, making the microbiome of the soil come back to life, so now we don't need to pump a bunch of fake chemicals for fertilizer or pesticides. We can have these plants and soil within a few growing seasons just by structuring the water. We don't have to add any more chemicals. 

[1:04:17.7] Mario Brainovic: I agree with you. And not only that, as I mentioned, if all the rivers and bodies of water become coherent, everything is part of one ecosystem. What happens there doesn't happen over here. No, whatever happens everywhere happens to every single one of us. That's why I love what you just mentioned. We are people, and we are fighting. We are in a chaotic state like the H2O molecules are now. But if we learn from the water, when we join hands like H2O molecules joined hands, the true power of water is being unleashed. So when we unite in one mission, we can heal the world in one generation. It will not take more than that.

[1:05:11.5] Ashley James: I love your vision and the work you're doing. I am obsessed with the Analemma. I feel so grateful that you guys reached out to me. And I've just had so many confirmations that this was the right thing, seeing that friends already had Analemma and were using it. My husband and I, our son, and everyone we've introduced it to have noticed the difference. 

I introduced Analemma to one of my engineer friends, who is like this amazing Tesla-genius level. He said, “This makes water wetter. This makes the water more absorbed into my cells. So there's something about the charge. Can you speak about that? Does it make water wetter or better absorbed into cells and the body?

[1:06:20.3] Mario Brainovic: As mentioned, the true power of water is being unleashed. So when you drink this water, you bring much more energy through your cells. And we did this double-blind, placebo-controlled ATP level study, where we measured the rise in cellular energy. So your entire body's cellular energy increases by over 20% within two months.

So there is a phenomenon happening in your body. More energy is absorbed. Not only that, people had various experiences. You will start drinking less if you don't need as much water. If you need more, you're going to start drinking more. Every body has its own kind of rhythm. But you find coherence within yourself. This is what happens. And I also mentioned this seed study where you become electromagnetically part of this larger ecosystem. We are one planet. We are one being. And when we start to live that way, everything is included, and nothing is excluded. And then there isn't going to be any conflict, and we will be able to solve any problem this planet has.

[1:07:49.1] Ashley James: I love it. Awesome. I know there must be something proprietary about this, but can you tell us or teach us about the mother water you described as being in the device too? Can you explain how you created it or came about discovering it? Again, I don't want you to share it. I'm not asking for proprietary information. 

[1:08:13.2] Mario Brainovic: I can't share too much. I can say that we are not using vortexes, magnets, electricity, or crystals in that particular way. We have a very particular system, as I mentioned. It takes one full year to get it. It's all mechanical processes, and there are several phases in which we go about it. And when you go through the last phase, the water enters into this very highly structured, coherent state that it doesn't come out of it.

[1:08:49.3] Ashley James: Love it. Reading about the device and how to use it, it says that it will maintain that charge, and definitely, this is something you could pass on to generation after generation.

[1:09:04.3] Mario Brainovic: Yes, you have to take care of it very much because it is fragile. So if you drop it, it will break. So you really have to take care of it. We will be coming out with the whole house Analemma, so we have already developed it. It will come out very soon. So you can install it in the piping system of your house, and all of the water you have in your house will be coherent. Because we have incredible results and people are returning to us, we will study bathing with it. When you bathe, just stay in the water for 20 minutes, and they have phenomenal results. So if you fill the bathtub with it and lie in it for 20 minutes, the results are extraordinary. So we will do a study on it to have science behind it, and it's not just anecdotal. 

But that's one of the ways; you don't even have to use a whole house system which will be coming out very soon. You can jump on the website, and you can jump on the pre-order system because we are still not out with it. But then you can install it in the piping system of your house, and all the water is coherent. And I'm telling you, you will see results when you shower with it or bathe in it. 

[1:10:29.2] Ashley James: You can cook and garden with it if you have a hose. 

[1:10:31.3] Mario Brainovic: Everything.

[1:10:34.0] Ashley James: I have a friend, and we brought it over to her house and showed her how to use it. She got excited, and she bought one immediately. And then she goes, “Okay, so how do we make it so it comes out of all my pipes?” I also have a friend who was already lined up to buy it. I contacted your office, and they told me that you were in the process of coming over the whole house system. And she is probably your first customer to buy it. She's all lined up and ready to go. I could see the benefits of it. 

I understand that lawyers have told you not to say things that sound like you're treating anything. I respect that, and I don't want you guys to get into trouble for saying that people get healed from the water for anything specific. But could you share any anecdotal stories about bathing in the water?

[1:11:35.1] Mario Brainovic: We have to keep with this water is not intended to heal or treat. But I can tell you we received so many results in many ways. Some are extraordinarily fast, and some take a bit of time. But the results are awesome.

As I mentioned, our studies are done on healthy people. So we always have to do studies that prove that even when you're healthy, your health gets even better. With the studies we already did, we proved biological age, and we proved the ATP levels where your body's entire energy increases. We proved the state of your brain waves and the microbiome. We will go into other studies because we already know the inflammation and everything. So we are going to do many studies. But as I mentioned, we don't want to go into any healing effects of this water. We don't want to claim, and we don't want to say anything. This is just water, as God intended. Let's just go that way.

[1:12:47.3] Ashley James: You're not claiming it's a medical device, which is important because you don't want those restrictions put on. 

[1:12:55.5] Mario Brainovic: No, this just changes the state of water and profoundly affects biology. It's in the area of general health and wellness, and that's basically where we are sticking to. So we are not going to claim anything else. If you start using the water, you will have your own personal experience with it. If we mention the whole tub experience, you'll already know since the skin is the body's largest organ. And then, since this water gets absorbed intensely and much more powerfully, all this energy ends up in your cells. And not only that; there were people who actually carried Analemmo, even though we told them not to do it because it can break, they carried it around their necks and had incredible results. 

As I mentioned, when this lady put her Analemma in the small garden, you see its effect. Because a lot of people asked us to, we are going to start creating pendants. So you have it in a crystal, drop-shaped small container. It will have a mother water inside, and you have it around your neck. It's near your heart area, and you know the heart pumps blood all over. We will also do some studies to prove that if you wear this, it will have a special effect on your entire biology. But as I mentioned, we always stick to general health and wellness. So we've proved that you will have awesome results when healthy people wear it. 

[1:14:53.7] Ashley James: I love it. So speaking of plants, I don't know how to describe plants, but in my kitchen, the window jets outwards, and there is a ledge with two shelves to put plants. So it's like this little solarium that jets outright by the sink. So I can look out, I can see the sky. It allows me to see more and have all my plants. We live in a townhouse that doesn't get any sunlight at all, except for this one window. And so, all my plants are huddled there, and then we have a little patio courtyard with all my plants out there that can withstand more extreme temperatures. Although we live north of Seattle, it doesn't get that extreme. But that's where we also place the Analemma, right above the sink, right by my plants. I also have been feeding my plants Analemma Water. And since doing that, one of my plants doubled in size. I don't know what it's called, but it's a cute little plant that has been an inch and a half tall forever. And then now it's huge. I thought Analemma was helping a bit. It could be because it's springtime. I don't know; it's not even springtime yet. It's January. So it's getting the least sunlight and has doubled in size in the last month and a half. So, that's interesting. I'm just trying to think about how my plants have been reacting since I've kept the Analemma there and kept feeding them the water. 

My mother-in-law had a houseplant that was just limp, yellow, and almost dead. She would throw it out, and I said, give it to me because I like reviving plants. I don't have a big green thumb. Most time of the time, I kill them. But I just want to see if I can revive it. And I fed it with Analemma Water and put it outside in the sunlight. So within a few hours of feeding it the water, the leaves poofed back up. 

[1:17.4] Mario Brainovic: Yes, that's the effect. Analemma has a powerful impact. I love what you did with it. People worldwide send emails with pictures of what Analemma did for their plants. 

[1:17:19.3] Ashley James: I wonder about pets too, like people with fish tanks with plants in them. I think aquariums would want to use it, and also dogs and cats. 

[1:17:33.1] Mario Brainovic: We will now do an extensive study on animals. We already know that the results are there. We tested so many times. But we're doing the proper study to document all the effects. And we will also create a water feeder for dogs and cats so owners can buy and pour the water in. Animals will get all the benefits. So the biological age of the animals is the number one thing. So we already know that there is a profound effect on biological age.

[1:18:12.5] Ashley James: So your pets will be with you longer and won't be as geriatric. 

[1:18:21.9] Mario Brainovic: Exactly. It's the overall health and wellness of the animals and their lifespan. 

[1:18:26.9] Ashley James: I love it. Thank you so much for coming to the show. I want to ensure we touched on all the important information you came here to share. Is there anything else that you want to make sure you share today?  

[1:18:39.9] Mario Brainovic: Jump on our newsletter because we are constantly doing new studies. That's the way you can follow our progress. I would love to come to your show again when we do more studies to share because I love to share with people like you who are dedicated to bringing light to the world. 

You could choose to do anything with your life and your time. And you decided to bring health, healing, and the best of the world to people. I admire that. Thank you so much for doing it because you are becoming a beacon of light. And we need to make a network on the planet. Then we are actually contributing, exactly like you were doing. So, thank you for that. 

[1:19:38.5] Ashley James: Absolutely. Thank you. I'm going to own that beacon of light for the world. You know, I suffered for so many years, and then I was able to reverse that, and I wanted to end the suffering. I want to help and spread this information. That's why we call it Learn True Health because we learn that this whole level of health is out there that's not being taught. This is true health. We have access to true health, but we have to almost unbrainwash ourselves from the mainstream media, Hollywood, all the junk out there, all the processed food junk out there, and the culture that says eat a pint of ice cream. Go drink a bottle of wine if you're stressed out, or your boyfriend broke up with you. If you feel bad, go to the gym and exercise for twelve hours because you don't feel good about your body. It's just like, where is this love for your body? Where's this balance? Where's the true healing where you can move your body in a way that brings you joy, and not because you're not moving your body because you feel guilt or shame, right? How about love? Why not do things just because you love your body? There are just so many nutrients out there that will heal disease. 

One of my mentors did a $25 million federally funded study in the 60s and 70s, where he discovered the cause and cure for nine hundred diseases that cross species lines. He discovered the cause of cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy and then was blacklisted from all research institutions that get money from big pharma. That's when he became a naturopathic physician, helping and healing people with food supplements and nutrition. He helped me see that we've been fed many lies since we were infants, even starting with just formula. 

Now, I love that there are formulas for most mothers who can't nurse. I couldn't nurse. But we were told as mothers, when formula came out, that it was more nutritious than mother's milk. And now we know that is wrong because mother's milk is a probiotic, is the child's immune system, and is so protective of the child. I'm glad the formula exists for those who need it. But to convince women that it was better than nature, that same tactic has been used against us for everything: from food, from how we view our body to how we view health; that chemical man-made thing is better than nature over and over again. And so true health and Learning True Health is about uncovering the information you share today that will allow us to reclaim our health, transform our temples, transform our bodies as God intended, and be truly healthy. 

So thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing. I love that it has the potential to transform the planet and transform our lives. Blessings upon you. I am so excited about your work, and I can't wait to have you back on the show, especially when you have more to share about the studies you're doing about bathing in this coherent, structured water and agricultural studies. I'd love to have you back for that as well. I'll make sure I hook you up with my farmer friend, who was a guest on the show. I know he'll be interested in this. 

It has been such a pleasure, Mario. So let's stay in touch, and thank you again for coming on the show and sharing with us today. 

[1:23:33.7] Mario Brainovic: Thank you so much for having me. Let's stay in touch. I'm going to send you everything that we're doing. We're constantly doing a lot. So I will send you all of the studies that we are doing and thank you for being the beacon of light that you are and for sharing the relevant information exactly. I love everything that you just mentioned. So we need to return to the natural ways of health and not get diluted by all the information coming out. We need to return to the natural sources of health, and water is one of the important ones. Thank you for having me. 

[1:24:21.8] Ashley James: Wasn't that an amazing, mind-blowing episode? I am so excited for you guys to try the Analemma and see how you like it. They have now launched the ability to sign up for the home system pre-order on their website. I can't wait to get my home system because I want to bathe in this water. I want to know what this feels like. It feels so good drinking this water. I have taken the Analemma, held it to my heart, and held it close to my body for a few minutes. I'm very in tune with energy, and I can feel it. I feel so good. It's almost euphoric. I really feel good when I'm holding it to my body. It's structuring all the water inside me. 

My husband juices daily, usually celery juice with lemon or lime and ginger. And then sometimes we will add beet, carrot, or cabbage. But most of it is celery. If you've ever had celery juice, it is kind of gross. It's not my favorite of all the juices. After juicing, he stirred it for about two minutes. It was a big jar of juice. He stirred it for about two minutes with the Analemma and then said, okay, try this. And, oh my gosh, it changed the flavor of the juice. It tastes amazing. It's not because of stirring it vigorously but because of the device. So we've done this several times with our juice, and it's so delicious. There's something about it. Our body loves it. I cannot wait to bathe in the structured water and see the results there as well, shower in it, take that hose, and use it in the garden. 

So the system they're selling for $1,800 gives us a 10% discount. The coupon code is LTH. So, you could use that home system, and your entire house, garden, and everything would have access to it. So you don't have to stir your water anymore. Now everything coming out of every faucet in your house is coherent, crystalline structured water. It's really exciting. I can't wait to hear the effects from listeners, especially the bathing, the idea of getting all the skin benefits, and how that will help people. And then, of course, the garden. If we double our yields and the results we get in the garden, it will really make it worth gardening. It's just amazing to get delicious fruits and vegetables every summer. 

So thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for sharing this episode so we can help as many people as possible to learn true health. Go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater and use coupon code LTH and get the Analemma for yourself so you can structure your own water you cook with and drink. Also, sign up for that pre-order for your whole house unit. After you try the Analemma, you'll say it really works. I can't wait to experience it for my entire house, and it's also a sneaky way to get into the rest of your family, right? You don't have to do anything. You just hook it up to your house, and then that's it. Anytime we can add something that improves our health without having to think or do something, it is so worth it. Awesome! 

Thank you so much for listening, and stay tuned for the next episode, which will be with Dr. William Davis. It was amazing. I just finished that interview today and can't wait to publish it. That will be episode 500, and that's the testimonial episode. So, please get your testimonials in. You can record them on your phone and shoot me an MP3. I'd love two to five minutes of you sharing what changes and improvements have been in your life because of the podcast and the guests. I'd love to hear your testimonials. It might not seem like a big deal to you, but for the listeners who are suffering, it would mean so much to us to hear stories of hope and inspiration and to hear stories where people have improved their health. So if my podcast has made a difference in your life, please share that with me. You can either write me an email. I would love to hear an actual MP3 of you talking. Don't worry about sounding perfect or being perfect. It's not about being perfect. It's just about being yourself, and everyone will love it because hearing the results of how you've improved your health can cascade and can ripple out and help many other people. We want to help as many people as possible. So please email me at support@learntruehealth.com with your testimonial so I can include that in that episode. Thank you so much, and have yourself a fantastic rest of your day.

 

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Feb 12, 2023


Check out Chef Mark Reinfeld's upcoming courses and online culinary trainings: Learntruehealth.com/nourish

Phototherapy Patches:

To work with Ashley James and try the phototherapy, Go Here:
https://www.learntruehealth.com
In the Menu, click Work with Ashley James

The Best Coherent Structured Water Device:

Use coupon code LTH at

https://www.learntruehealth.com/structuredwater

 

Online Health Coach Training Program:

CHECK OUT THE FREE SAMPLE CLASS: 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/coach

I love IIN; the Institute for Integrative Nutrition is where I took my Health Coach Training and where you can transform your life and become an Integrative Health Coach!

The whole program is online and designed for busy people, so anyone can do it!

 

Free 7-Day Holistic Doctor Course by Ashley James:

FreeDoctorCourse.com

 

Join the Learn True Health FB group:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/group

 

Ozone Machine:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/ozone

Listen to episode 484 for more info on why and how to use ozonated water made in your home for energy and mitochondrial function:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/at-home-ozone-therapy-for-immune-mitochondrial-health-eileen-durfee

 

High-Quality NAD Brain Supplement:

Use coupon code LTH at

https://www.learntruehealth.com/nad

 

Listen to episode 460 about the benefits of high-quality NAD on cellular function, energy production, and mitochondrial health:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/nicotinamide-adenine-dinucliotide-supplement-nadovim-nad-the-missing-link-to-energy-brain-function-and-longevity

 

 

Sunlighten Sauna - the sauna Ashley uses, loves, and recommends:

Be sure to ask for the listener special!

https://www.learntruehealth.com/sunlightensauna

 

Listen to episode 245 to learn from the founder of Sunlighten Sauna as to why this sauna is the best tool for your health journey:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/sunlighten-saunas

 

The World's Most Effective Magnesium Soak:

Use coupon code LTH at livingthegoodlifenaturally.com

 

Listen to episode 294 to hear Kristen Bowen share her story of recovery and discovering the world's most absorbable form of magnesium:

https://www.learntruehealth.com/magnesium-foot-soak

 

Ashley's Favorite Spirulina and Chlorella:

Use coupon code LTH at EnergyBits.com

 

497: Healing Deliciously: How To Nourish Your Life Through Food

https://www.learntruehealth.com/healing-deliciously-how-to-nourish-your-life-through-food

In this episode, Chef Mark Reinfeld teaches us how to make plant-based healing food to prevent cancer and other diseases. He will also discuss the benefits of using food as medicine, which can benefit our overall well-being.

Ashley James & Mark Reinfeld

Highlights: 

  • Holistic Doctors Make Healing Delicious
  • Nourish Your Life Through Food & Living Beyond Cancer
  • How to take healing foods and make them so that your kids want to eat
  • Benefits of increasing nutrient-dense foods in your diet
  • How to make plant-based foods taste good
  • Marinating a Portabello mushroom with balsamic
  • How the Doctor and the Chef works

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health Podcast. 

We have such a fun episode today with Chef Mark Reinfeld. He is a whole food plant-based chef, and he married an amazing woman who is a naturopathic physician. Together, they marry holistic medicine using food as medicine and all the science behind that, with delicious culinary recipes. How amazing is it that we can nourish our bodies and use food as medicine to heal every cell in our body and bathe every cell in nutrients? 

I have been doing this podcast for seven years. March 1st will be the 7th anniversary. But way back in the day, I interviewed an amazing doctor on his deathbed, and basically, the doctor said, your liver is in absolute failure. Go home to finish your will and say goodbye to your loved ones. Your life is over. And he sat there on his hospital bed, ready to pack up his stuff to go home and die, and he thought to himself, wait for a second, I understand how the liver works. I know how the body works. And he just got this vision. There are over 37 trillion individual cells in your body, and here he is about to die. He's thinking, every cell in my body is like a house. My body is like a county. Your body is like Manhattan with all these individual homes; each home is a cell. There are certain things every single cell needs. It needs to bring in the groceries and take out the garbage. And something's gone wrong on a cellular level for my body. My body is not bringing in the groceries and taking out the trash.

That very simple idea is what he went home with. And he goes, how can I help my body? And what did he have to lose? He was dying anyway. Then he said, okay, I'm going to do everything I can to support my liver to decrease inflammation because inflammation is like when there's a big hurricane, and now there's a flood around your house. The groceries can't get in, and the garbage can't get out. That's what inflammation is. It's a flood around your cells, not letting the good stuff in and the bad stuff out. And there's an order to things. So he got rid of the flood between every house in his body, and then he started to bring in the groceries and take out the garbage. He supported all three systems in his body, including the different detox pathways. And he lived for many years, went on to write many books to all the doctors' amazement, and to helping other people heal. And I love that image, which has always stuck with me. 

This is what our guest today does. He helps you make mind-blowing delicious food that helps the body bring the groceries in and take the garbage out. Anytime you can make it healthy, easy, delicious, and fun for you and the whole family. That's a big win. So you don't have to be vegan or want to be vegan to listen to this episode. Our chef today teaches using a whole food plant-based diet. Everyone can benefit from increasing nutrient-dense foods in their diet. Doctors show, and it has been proven in many studies, that increasing antioxidant and polyphenol-rich foods in your life can prevent cancer, decrease many diseases, and improve outcomes. Plus, it brings so much flavor with all the spices and herbs in healing the body.

Mark is here today, and he's going to share with us some amazing recipes and ways of thinking about eating and adjusting your life so you can get in even more nutrition, more nutrient-dense foods, get those groceries in the cells, and take the garbage bags out of the cells. Mark is about to launch two courses. He's also working with other holistic doctors; one is called Living Beyond Cancer. We talked a bit about that; the other one is called Nourish Your Life, and both sound delicious. 

You can go to learntruehealth.com/nourish to see more information about Mark's upcoming courses. They are starting very soon, so if you're interested, you'll want to jump right in and check them out. That's learntruehealth.com/nourish. And of course, the links to everything will be shown in today's podcast at learntruehealth.com as well as whatever podcast directory you're listening to us from. You'll be able to go into the show notes of the description in this episode, and you should be able to find those links. 

I have had such an amazing time since I published the last episode. On the previous episode if you hadn't listened to it, I said, hey listeners, if you want a call with me, you want to talk about the phototherapy patches, then sign up for a free conversation. I have been slammed from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. talking to people, and it's been amazing. So many of the listeners are trying the phototherapy patches, and now the listeners are reporting back to me who bought them because they got on them and we are getting some incredible results. There are some testimonials about getting thyroids to come back online. There's a very easy protocol for detoxing the thyroid and then turning the thyroid back on with the stem cell patch. In talking to some other practitioners and looking at the testimonials, I'm seeing that women in as little as three weeks are needing to go back to their doctors, get tested, and needing to be put on lower medication. And in some cases, completely taken off their thyroid meds in as little as three weeks. Now, any improvement from something that supports the body's ability to stimulate, the body's ability to heal, is amazing. The glutathione patch increases glutathione by 300% in 24 hours. The stem cell patch boosts stem cells in the body, turning on thousands of gene expressions. We are seeing some tremendous results. 

I've got these people reversing osteoporosis and osteopenia. People are gaining muscle. People are healing concussions, like chronic concussion post-concussion syndrome. They're seeing that their brain is coming back online. Brain fog is going away. The stuff is returning back to normal. I have seen great things around anxiety and sleep. For me, my energy is through the roof. And now I'm leaving just a bucket of sweat on the gym floor because I'm pushing myself so much harder because I have the energy for it. I have this abundant amount of energy that feels just like childhood. This is the kind of energy that I've been wanting. Have you ever just sat around the saddle and looked at kids or grandkids and go, where do they get the energy from? And then remembering when you had abundant energy like, oh I wish I felt that way. Well now, I feel that way, so I love it. And if you want to try it, I'd love to help you. I'm just in awe of the results we're getting, and I'm having so much fun helping the listeners. We've had some amazing conversations. I've connected with some beautiful people who are like friends for life now. 

So if you would like to chat, go to learntruehealth.com, and click “Work with Ashley James” on the top. The first option is the free photo therapy session where we'll have a conversation. It says it's 15 minutes, but most of these phone calls have been longer because of all the questions people have, and I am totally fine with that. I've been adding a little time in between the calls just in case they go over. So bring your questions to me. I'd love to chat with you. And if you're shy or you just don't have time to chat, because my schedule is being booked up pretty fast, and you want to talk sooner, you can always email me at ashley@learntruehealth.com. I'd love to chat and help you. You could also message me on Facebook. You can come to Learn True Health Facebook group at learntruehealth.com/group to find us. Come join us and talk to me. I'd love to hear from you. 

And get on those phototherapy patches. There's a money-back guarantee. For me, I love things that are no risk. And I figured out the way you can order these packages to get the best benefit. It saves you $70. I'd love to help you make sure that you order the right patches for the right protocols, and also save the most money because I'm all about saving money. I have purchased over a hundred different holistic things in the last ten years, and I love experimenting. And you know, it's the spaghetti test. Most things are pretty amazing, and in the things that aren't, I want to get my money back. So I love that this company stands behind its guarantee, which is awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Together, we are helping people to end needless suffering; so that holistic medicine can bring them health and vitality. Sometimes it just takes a little shift in the right direction, and the body is going to take over and start running with it, and I want everyone to have true health. 

That's what we're doing here today. So take what Chef Mark says, as a sign to try out new vegetables, try out new flavors, and try out new things. Look up certain foods, spices, and herbs that nourish and heal the body, and see how you can play around with them. He's got some amazing books, and we talked about recipes. If you want to learn how to conquer your kitchen and own it, you'll definitely want to take some of Mark's classes. You can do that by going to learntruehealth.com/nourish. 

I promised in the last episode that this episode would be about structured water. I apologize, but stuff got turned around. People made requests, and I'm publishing this episode. So you're just going to have to wait one more week, and then I will publish the water episode. The structure of our episode will blow your mind. It's awesome. So watch out; you'll want to listen to the next episode. And without further ado, enjoy today's episode. 

[0:11:19.7] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is episode 497. 

I am so excited about today's guest. We have with us an amazing vegan infusion chef, Mark Reinfeld. It's so good to have you on the show. Our good friend, who's been in the holistic health space for many years, introduced us. And what I love is Mark has such a talent for taking plants and making them amazing and so delicious. He teaches how to take healing foods and make them, so your kids want to eat them; they taste so good. What I also love is that Mark not only has a partner for life in your wife but because she's a naturopathic physician, you guys partnered together in business. And that gives us such an incredible compliment because there are so many doctors out there, and I've read lots of those healthy cookbooks for the doctors trying to come up with the recipes, and it's like something horrible. Their information is sound, but they tell you to eat plain oatmeal or whatever. It's just so gross. Whereas you take your amazing culinary skills and then couple them with your wife's wonderful information on using food as medicine. And together, you combine that so that people can heal their bodies while still enjoying the food on their plates. 

It was so funny because yesterday, my son was eating something; I can't remember what it was, but he goes, why is everything healthy for me taste bad? That's just such a funny thing. He was parroting what we often say, like, drink this medicine or aloe juice. And then he paused, and he goes, it doesn't taste bad. I like it. But he chooses to eat raw vegetables. I cannot cook him a vegetable. If I steam him some broccoli, he looks and goes, what did you do to my broccoli? He just wants to eat plain raw food. I can't even use these tools to make things taste good. 

But we have Mark here who has all these skills, and I want to hear your ideas so that all of us in the kitchen can spice something up and add something to our dishes tonight. So I'm not saying everyone has to be a vegan, but everyone can benefit from adding more nutritious foods. And you're here to teach us how to spice it up, so welcome to the show. 

[0:14:09.2] Mark Reinfeld: Thank you so much for having me, Ashley, I'm excited to be here. 

[0:14:13.2] Ashley James: And I hope that after today, I've learned some tricks that I can take to the kitchen, and my son will never say again, why is my healthy food always have to taste like this? He knows the buttons to push on our kids. It's so funny how family does that. And then he sits and eats it all anyway, so I know he likes it. But I want to make something taste amazing, and I know you can help us. 

And what I also love is what's coming up, and I want to make sure listeners know about it. You are launching two courses with your wife on February 15th and 16th. One is called Living Beyond Cancer. So we'll get you to talk more about that because nutritional oncology is coming into this and setting your life up in the kitchen to maximize the healing for someone facing cancer and recovery. And then you also have Nourish Your Life, which is soon being launched, and just taking these principles of using everything you put in your mouth as your healing, but also doing it in a way that's just so delicious. 

You've been a chef at restaurants, and you have won awards. My friend raves about you. So I'm very excited to have you on the show today. So before we jump in and learn some tricks in the kitchen from you and about your wonderful programs that are coming up, what should we know about the life of Mark, this vegan chef? What should we know about you to be oohed and aahed? 

[0:15:57.3] Mark Reinfeld: Well, that's a great question. Plant-based cuisine has been my passion for many years, to show people how to make plant-based foods taste delicious. So, a lot of times, we could learn about how important it is to include more plants in our diet and not know how to go about it, or sometimes the food just doesn't come out that good. For me, if the food doesn't taste good, no matter how much intellectually we might know how important it is, I don't think you can make those long-lasting changes. So for me, it's one of my missions to show people that everyone has the capability within themselves to create food that tastes good and they enjoy. And so I've been doing that for decades. As you said, I've worn many hats, from running a restaurant to writing several cookbooks that we can talk about to running the kitchen at major vegetarian festivals. So, I've been around the block for over 25 years in this field. I love sharing what I have picked up along the way with others. 

[0:17:15.7] Ashley James: I love it. Didn't you run a restaurant in Hawaii?

[0:17:22.7] Mark Reinfeld: We did. I went to Hawaii for a two-week vacation, and we wound up

staying there for eight years. So it's one of those longest recorded two-week vacations in history, and a group of people turned an internet cafe into a vegan cafe. And I have had several years of consulting and menu and recipe development experience. So when I landed, it was the perfect storm, and we opened the Blossoming Lotus Restaurant on Kauai shortly after I arrived through our mutual friend, who was also involved in the restaurant. 

[0:18:00.6] Ashley James: Since you're so good at menu creation, I was hoping you could create for us a Learn True Health podcast menu that we can make in our kitchen for people who might be afraid of cooking vegetables, afraid of bland food, and maybe even have some picky eaters. So what is super healthy but delicious that we could whip up for beginners?

[0:18:27.9] Mark Reinfeld: For our listeners right now?

[0:18:31.5] Ashley James: Yes, just something at the top of your head. Please think about the first thing that comes to mind that's easy to make but delicious. 

[0:18:38.8] Mark Reinfeld: Pestos are the first things that come to my mind and are one of my favorite things to make. They're really easy to make. There are a lot of fresh herbs, and you can use garlic and green onion. I like spicing it up with some chili peppers or crushed red pepper. And those could be over either a simple roasted vegetable dish or with noodles. So we'll talk more about my go-to meals, which I call a monk bowl. This is also through our friends who shared that with me many years ago, using a combination of a green and a protein. You could whip out these simple meals. And if you have this lovely pesto sauce, it's a winner.

[0:19:25.9] Ashley James: So, I am oil-free and gluten-free. And what I like to do when I make pesto; I learned this from one of my friends because she has a gardener husband, who often brings or harvests too much arugula, if you can imagine too much organic homegrown arugula. But there it was. They could get quite spicy. And so he's harvested these pounds and pounds of arugula. So she took arugula and some of the nuts you put on this thing. What are they called?

[0:20:08.6] Mark Reinfeld: Pine nuts.

[0:20:09.9] Ashley James: Pine nuts, thank you. She only did a few pine nuts. She did a lot of arugulas, some raw garlic, a few liquid aminos, nutritional yeast, and then some pine nuts. But not a lot of pine nuts. She blended it like crazy, put it in jars, and kept it for so long that it fermented. It was delicious, and it lasted for a while in the fridge. But we would take that, scoop it, and slap it on our bowls. So that's my favorite pesto. But see how it's so easy. You can do pasta with basil, but you can also do it with other herbs. You can play around with it. But, as you said, play up the spiciness, and that's fun. 

[0:20:56.2] Mark Reinfeld: You could also do an oil-free pasta. I like to put some avocado in there too. That gives it some of that oil. And it's one of the ways that I encourage people to get creative and break out of the recipe trap by viewing recipes as templates or the underlying formula. With the pesto like you mentioned, you could replace the basil with arugula, or you could also use parsley or cilantro. So there are tons of ways to make pesto.

[0:21:28.0] Ashley James: I sometimes hit that wall where I'm just burnt out. I have a great selection of things in the kitchen, but I get stuck in that trap where I repeatedly cook the same few meals. What is a great unique recipe, maybe from one of your books? We can talk about your books. What's a great recipe that shakes it up and gets people out of their food routine where they got burnt out?

[0:22:02.4] Mark Reinfeld: That is a great question, too. Depending on the type of dish, I like getting creative by using a seed and a nut crust on dishes. You could do an encrusted portobello mushroom. I like doing it with tofu cutlets, where you could use things like macadamia nuts or hemp seeds to make these flavorful mixtures that could then be added to give that texture of a crunch to different vegetables and tofu as well. So the super firm tofu is my go-to for that. 

[0:22:41.7] Ashley James: I love it, and I love that idea of a portobello because I like marinating portobellos with balsamic and then roasting them in the oven with other vegetables. They've got a flavor that a Portobello will absorb. This was way before I became plant-based. A vegetarian friend once told me she ate a portobello mushroom at some event. It was like a vegan wedding. She goes, that portobello was marinated like it was steak. She said it was so delicious. And she talked to the chef, and they did marinate it as if it were steak. So they chopped up some onion, garlic, and all these herbs in a balsamic and wine and had them all soaking in there. I don't know for how long, but as long as you would marinate a mushroom. Then they roasted them or grilled them, and it was just mouthwatering.

My husband, a meat eater, just woke up about 5 or 6 years ago and said I would never eat meat again. It's just that something switched his brain, and I would have lost that bet. If someone had told me when I met my husband that he'd one day not eat meat because that's all he ate and he hated vegetables, he just switched like 100% overnight, and his personality went from 100% meat. He will tell a joke about vegans all suddenly becoming one. And so I had to learn on the fly because I cook all the food in the house. I had to learn how to cook this way. On day three, I served him something, and he said this tasted so good. He goes, vegetables taste so good. If you had told me that this would taste as good, I would have quit meat years ago. It has worked for him. In the show, I don't like pushing any diet dogma. I believe in using food as medicine. If you can find healing by introducing more nutrients into your diet, that's great. And so we look to power couples, like you and your wife, where you're combining medicine and culinary skills to help enrich our health through making delicious food. So I've put you on the spot long enough.

[0:25:01.6] Mark Reinfeld: That's good, and I'm reflecting on it also. One of my really big tips is to create global spice blends or to utilize global spice blends, which is a big part of vegan fusion cuisine, which is my cooking style. And so, it could be as simple as purchasing the Caucasian mix, Ethiopian mix, or Moroccan mix. There are a lot of pre-made spice blends, and I love sharing how to make global spice blends that open the door to a whole world of cuisine for people. So if you're in a culinary rot, getting familiar with some of these spice blends, you could turn simple stews and soups into this whole array of world cuisine. So that's another one of the ways to break out of a routine.

[0:25:54.0] Ashley James: I have never actually gotten into Ethiopian food, and everyone kept telling me to try it. So I bought some Ethiopian spice blend and put it on plain potatoes from the instapot. I cut up some potatoes, steamed them, sprinkled them, and was blown away. I've never had these flavors this way, and it's interesting how the spices overlap with India. Because of the spice trade they were creating, there's that overlap. It wasn't curry. But there's a bit of overlap with some of the same spices they used in Indian food. But I loved it. I love that idea. In America, we are so used to doing more Italian or BBQ. But then, jumping over to two different cultures and trying their herbs, you could cook the same food, like potatoes, add those herbs, and bring it up to a whole new level. Or sometimes, eat steamed vegetables, then sprinkle some herbs on them. It doesn't have to be super complicated. Sometimes I'm just in a rush, and I throw a bunch of vegetables in and steam them, and then I can choose whatever spice blend to sprinkle on top, which changes the whole experience. 

[0:27:16.3] Mark Reinfeld: Yup, it's one of my big tips. 

[0:27:19.2] Ashley James: So, as you and your wife have worked together, can you tell us how that has worked in terms of helping people reclaim their health? How does the dynamic of a naturopathic physician and a chef bringing their skills together work?

[0:27:40.7] Mark Reinfeld: We formed our business called The Doctor and The Chef, which makes sense given she's a doctor, and I'm a chef. It's like pairing plant-based cuisine with natural remedies and plant-based nutrition, and it's like a return to the origins of medicine. As you said, food is medicine. You touched on it earlier by saying a doctor alone can tell you what to eat and maybe why to eat it. But combining that with the chef, who has decades of experience, can create the flavors people enjoy, making it sustainable. That's what we love doing, as we like taking people from wherever they're at from the beginning. So in our course, we start with me pointing to the kitchen. That's where the kitchen is. And then we get to the kitchen and the knife; this is the sharp end of the knife. So this is where you hold the knife. So we start with background zero and then guide people to make these changes stick. So that's what it's all about for us. Food is a core part of what can bring us health, mental clarity, and energy. And so, utilizing the principles of plant-based nutrition and making it taste good is the absolute winning combo.

[0:29:14.3] Ashley James: Has your wife ever been into plant-based nutrition? She's a doctor, so she's got to look at the science behind it, right? So tell us a bit about how she decided as a doctor that this is the best way to help people heal. 

[0:29:29.4] Mark Reinfeld: She has a unique journey. She went to a naturopathic medical school in Portland, and they are not so much into plant-based nutrition there. In her studies and reading, she realized the importance of plant-based foods and the phytonutrient and creating a healthy microbiome. And there are also other aspects of why people eat more plant-based. And so, it's the combination of her nutritional knowledge, understanding, and other beliefs surrounding preserving the environment. So when we met, she studied for years to get her doctorate and then realized I needed to learn how to cook. I need to know how to make the food, and that's what my calling has been. That's how she came to it. And then realize the importance of showing people the need to reclaim our health. And a big part of that comes from learning how to prepare our food. It's wonderful if you have access to prepared food in your community or good restaurants that you can order from. But nothing compares to the kind of love and attention you could put into creating your own meals, and you could decide how much salt to put in. So, things like that help control your health.

[0:31:10.5] Ashley James: You're making a good point that most people eat takeout or go to restaurants. I have a form that all my clients fill out when they start working with me. It asks what percentage of their meals are home-cooked. I very rarely ever see where it says 100%. Most people are between zero home-cooked meals, and there are a few people who say I eat 100% take out, then there are some people who go; even though I eat at home, I'm eating one hundred percent packaged pre-made foods. I have to open a can to eat or microwave something from the freezer. And then some people say, okay, about 75%. So it's rare that I even get someone saying 90%. Then usually, when I start talking to them, they usually realize that even though they wrote down 90%, it's more like 50% of their meals are eaten out, like every morning it's Starbucks and then breakfast sandwich, and every lunch is Subway sandwich. So, that kind of thing, like wait, I'm only eating seven meals at home a day which is my dinner, and then half of that I'm bringing home takeout. 

It really adds up, and I think we have a blind spot. Like when we stopped looking at our bank account. Have you ever done this in your life at any point? There are a lot of people who are responsible for their bank accounts. But have you at any point, maybe when you were a teenager or in your twenties, don't look? And if I don't look, there's money in there, and we don't get in touch with the numbers. So when we go unconscious of certain areas of our life, like going unconscious with our finances or going unconscious with our eating, that's when drama happens, right? Like you've got drama from bills or drama from health because we are eating more and more processed food even though we may not admit it to ourselves. 

And with the problem with processed food, especially eating at restaurants, you can attest to this as a chef and someone who's run restaurants. The restaurant owners are not bad, but they don't think about your health. Like, I've got to make sure I select the highest quality oil, and I have to make sure I pay the most for this organic produce that's locally grown and the most nutritious oil. They're thinking about the cheapest oil possible, especially because prices have doubled for restaurants and the cheapest GMO pesticide-filled foods, and then they put oil in everything. You get rice from a Mexican restaurant, and it is covered in that very cheap oil, and it's very unhealthy, and we know now it causes cancer, right? This is where I had to have a little come-to-Jesus talk with myself last year. You don't see the chain of custody even when you're ordering out and think you're making good choices. You don't know the quality of this food if it's GMO or not, or if it's organic, or talking to be organic if the restaurant doesn't say it's organic. And then, on top of that, it's covered in these low-grade, low-quality oils. So anything that isn't you cooking from scratch, you don't know the chain of custody, and the quality is just not there. That's filled with pesticides, and we don't know.

[0:34:50.7] Mark Reinfeld: Agreed. 

[0:34:51.8] Ashley James: It comes back to, we need to arm ourselves with really quick, simple, delicious healing recipes so that it is almost as easy as ordering takeout. It's like a door dash. It seems more complicated than just dashing into the kitchen and throwing something together this delicious. We need that. But when we start to feel better, we understand why it's so important. Then committing to 15 minutes in the kitchen every day, or 20 minutes in the kitchen every day, then that's like, okay, now I can be on board. We got to start shifting over to increasing more home-cooked meals. So I love that it's what you're doing because I've had doctors tell me this: I can't come home with you and get you to do these changes yourself. I could tell you what to do based on your lab results, based on the science of the studies, but I'll see you in six months, and good luck. But you're taking the patients, and you're like, alright, here's a chopping block, and here's an onion. Let's get going. 

[0:36:08.3] Mark Reinfeld: Definitely, yeah. We have two kids, so quick and easy is my mantra in the kitchen. I want to get the meal done in 20 minutes, and as you know, the books are called The 30-minute Vegan, and there are four books in the series. So for years, that's been a priority. And never more than now, with two kids and a pretty busy lifestyle, it's all about minimizing the dishes and maximizing the flavor.

[0:36:39.3] Ashley James: Many people think the word vegan means healthy, and it isn't. There are a lot of unhealthy vegan foods. I talked to many clients who said, ” Oh, I was vegan, or I was vegetarian in the past, ” and it made me worse. Way back when I was a teenager, I tried to be a vegetarian. The word vegan didn't even exist in the 90s. As far as I was concerned, it was vegetarian. I tried to be a vegetarian a few times, and each time within a month, I'd gain weight. I was feeling horrible. And I thought I was making the right choice because all I was doing was eating fast food without meat. So I was eating pizza. And I knew that dairy was not good for me, but I was like, pizza is vegetarian, and that's healthy. This is coming from a sixteen-year-old who wants to try vegetarianism. And I tried to get it at nineteen and twenty. But every time, I got more and more unhealthy. So then, that means eating meat is healthy. But I ate way more processed food because I lacked culinary skills, so I switched over.

Many people think vegan isn't healthy, and it doesn't mean you're healthy. So what you're doing is helping us learn how to include super nutrient-dense foods into our lives in a way that will be incredibly healing for us. I'm going to put you on the spot again. I'll prepare myself to take a deep breath. Since you have two kids, what recipes do you have that are kid full proof? What are some excellent, go-to recipes for anyone with a picky eater or kids?

[0:38:42.0] Mark Reinfeld: I'll share that. I want to comment on the going vegetarian thing. A lot of times, that is the case when people say they went vegan or plant-based, and it didn't work for them, and on further inquiry, they became pastatarian, and they were eating a ton of pasta, and Oreos or vegan, for instance. So that's an excellent point. And as far as kids, one of our sons will eat anything literally. Like he'll eat fistfuls of cooked spinach, our other son will contemplate a grain of rice from six different angles before he eats it. So I put him in the picky eater category. And for us, it's trying to discover what works for him. It's like a balance of the mental health side of it, to not wanting to put pressure on them or have the dinner be stressful. He happens to love the way I cook tofu. So I do a simple marinade with tamari and a little oil. You can leave the oil out and roast it at 375 for about 20 minutes; he loves eating that. The vegetable that he does like is steamed broccoli. It's just discovering that he does like his hummus sandwiches. Like your son, he likes raw vegetables. He's comfortable eating half a dozen cherry tomatoes. So as parents, we're just trying to nurture the foods that he does want to eat and do our best to get the good foods in. He likes avocados too. So we're fortunate in that there are some healthy foods that he does want to eat. But you probably know the hiding trick, also. So if your kid doesn't like avocado, and if he likes peanut butter and jelly, you could get a thin layer of avocado under the peanut butter. There are ways to sneak the food in, and that's our strategy. I wish I had more to share.

[0:40:58.7] Ashley James: No, that's great. I like it. I have snuck some things. My son is almost eight and is open compared to other children. But I've made some fun things. He's allergic to avocados now, which is sad because he loved them when he was younger. But who knew that somebody could develop an allergy to avocado? I used to make avocado chocolate pudding, and you can also do the same with yams. You know those yams that are nice and orange, right? And I would bake them till they're done being baked. And then, take the skin off and throw it into the food processor with some plant-based milk and some date syrup or stevia maple syrup. The maple syrup is my favorite because it gives a little smoky flavor or the date syrup. You don't have to put a lot because the potatoes are already sweet. You don't have to put in a lot at all. You could try it without, and then just put organic cacao powder and blend that. And you do not need to put in a lot of plant-based milk at all. I blended that like crazy, and then I would serve him bowls of this for dinner. And he's like, hahaha, I get chocolate for dinner, and I'm like, hahaha, he's eating an entire sweet potato, the entire yam. But he likes it as it is anyway. But it's so much fun. If you want to blend some gentle greens like spinach, it is really easy because it's such a gentle flavor to mask in there. 

I used to make “ice cream” in the summertime, where I'll take frozen fruits and a little bit of coconut milk from the can so it's nice and thick. I'll blend some greens with the banana and the blueberries well, making this wonderful, rich sorbet. That's, of course, with the vitamix except it's green. That's how I do it with spinach, kale, or whatever. But I can't do it on kale because it has a distinct flavor. But I get lots of greens in there. And then I'm like, look, it's mint ice cream. Yeah, it's fruity, and he eats it. It's a great way to sneak the vegetables in as well. He always likes it, but if sometimes I overdo the vegetables, he looks at me like, this is more green than usual, and he now knows. He knows I'm getting more vegetables in him. But he will readily eat a bowl of raw vegetables. He'll attack the kale on the way home or sometimes while we're still in the grocery cart. He'll sit in the grocery cart and start eating the kale before we have even paid for them. We're going to be paying for them. It's by the bush, not the pound, so it's okay. But he'll attack the raw leaves, so I feel blessed. But he is also a picky eater. Roasting vegetables is your friend because it can get super delicious, easy, and quick. So that's a lot of fun. 

Now, you talked about microbiomes. Your wife is interested in helping people build their health from the ground up, knowing that gut health is the most important thing. Do you have any recipes she encourages her patients to use to build a strong microbiome?

[0:44:39.4] Mark Reinfeld: Her main suggestion is variety. So we do an exercise to see how many different foods you can eat in a week. And that, from her perspective, is one of the best ways to create a healthy microbiome.

[0:45:03.3] Ashley James: Love it. Is that a variety of cooked and raw? How did she go about bringing that up? 

[0:45:09.6] Mark Reinfeld: It could be cooked and raw, and it ties into the question that you also mentioned about the kids doing superfood smoothies, and our kids love that too as a great way to get nutrients and a variety of ingredients in. So we put some of the superfoods like hemp seeds and chia seeds. So we do maca powder and other greens to get both varieties in starting our day. So that's the other one of my recommendations, along with the spice blends, for how people could get started using those superfood smoothies.

[0:46:00.7] Ashley James: Love it. Yeah, you can ramp up the smoothies. I've had Green Smoothie Girl, Robyn Openshaw, on the show before, and I've been on her show. She was sick. It was in her early twenties. Since she had a child that failed to thrive, she remembered what her grandmother had done. This is like, did they even invent blenders back then with her grandmother exactly doing concentrated drinks with vegetables? This was before the word smoothie was even created. And she remembered hearing the story about what her grandmother was doing, and it helped her. So intuitively, she went to the kitchen, threw vegetables and fruits into a blender, blended it, and just started drinking it. Her child, a young toddler, saw her drinking this and wanted it. And then she's like, oh, I don't know. So she tried not to give it to the kid to see what happened. And the kid's like, no, I want this. And she's like, okay, like reverse psychology on the toddler. And the toddler loved it. And so she gave it daily to her toddler, and the toddler went from failing to thriving fully. And she got her health back. 

All her children and the whole family grew up having these green smoothies. But the variety of what you put in it is essential, like just rotating everything. She raised a bunch of kids, and the first thing she did before she cooked dinner was chop up a ton of different vegetables, make a big vegetable platter, and just put it on the table. And I love this idea, especially for teenagers. It's like when you're hungry when you come home from school or work. Imagine if there was just this beautiful vegetable platter, with some other dips already made for you, and you could sit there and snack. Even though some of her kids ended up rejecting healthy stuff, wanting fries instead, and being picky eaters, they all would snack on and graze on all the vegetables. So by the time she was finished cooking, they had all gotten a bunch of vegetables in them. 

So, I tried this with our son, and it works. I tried this with my husband too. So I would chop up a bunch of carrots and all the kinds of raw stuff and put it in containers and a timer on the go, and I'm like, grab your carrots. 

[0:48:36.9] Mark Reinfeld: That's a wonderful idea. That's great. 

[0:48:38.9] Ashley James: Grab your carrots and celery sticks. It's just great because sometimes we'll be going out to run errands, which turns into an entire day out, especially when I go grocery shopping. I'm hungry and tired and don't want to sit and cook. I want food now. The worst habit to get into is running your errands and then using that as an excuse to eat takeout, especially if you've gone through all the trouble to buy all this healthy stuff for yourself. So always have freshly cut vegetables put away and prepared for you, and then grab them on the go, especially just apple slices sometimes. We will snack on them in the car and between our errands, and then we'll feel really good and be energized. And I'll likely want to cook a nice, big meal when we get home from all the errands or running around. So just these little tiny habits such as taking a few minutes can save you a ton of money because eating out is expensive.

[0:49:42.7] Mark Reinfeld: Grocery shopping when you're hungry is off. My wife can always tell when I will pick up all these random items that I normally wouldn't, because I was hungry when I was shopping. So that's a good tip.

[0:49:58.5] Ashley James: We're like hunter-gatherers, right? So we're just hunter-gathering in the grocery store. And of course, if you're hungry, that part of your body is like I'm just going to gather more. Whatever it is, I'm just going to gather more of it. My wallet has definitely felt bad, so you had to eat before you go grocery shopping. That's a good one. So you guys have been teaching people for years how to transform their habits in their kitchen to heal their bodies. Now you got these courses coming out, and I want to touch on both of them, but Living Beyond Cancer is near and dear to my heart. My mom died of cancer. One of my best friends died of cancer. I've seen so many people, and I also know people who have survived. Not to be so grand, but I've had several friends who beat cancer. But I've seen the amount of suffering that people go through and how important food can play a role in their healing. So tell us about your course that's coming up. What led you guys to want to pair with an oncologist to create this course? 

[0:51:09.2] Mark Reinfeld: It's a deep topic that is not to enter lightly. My wife lost her brother to cancer, and I've lost family members to cancer. Dr. Robert Ellis is a board-certified medical oncologist and integrative medicine specialist. He's a third-generation oncologist. His grandmother was an herbalist who specialized in it. And so he's been in practice for 30 years. The course is focused on remission and survivorship. So it's really geared towards maximizing and enhancing life when you're in remission and during survivorship. He actually took a course of mine several years ago in Portland, and he recently retired. We created a course together for continuing medical education. He's part of the Oregon Society of Physicians, Osteopaths, and Surgeons. We did a CME course together, where he would lecture on plant-based cuisine for half the day, and then we would take the doctors and nurses into the kitchen. I would show them these simple tools that I share on how to make the food taste good. So that's how he reached out after he retired, and wanted to work together again. 

Ashley and I developed this nourish program, and so we thought to combine forces to create this program, Living Beyond Cancer. Basically, it uses all the recommendations from the American Society of Clinical Oncology in the National Institute of Health, and also the recommended lifestyle modifications of MD Anderson on survivorship. A lot of it relies on proper nutrition. So the course focuses on the first pillar of plant-based nutrition which is what Ashley and I specialize in, and Dr. Ellis has had a lot of success bringing in the other pillars, which are mindfulness and exercise. He likes to say that the way to maximize survivorship is going from the couch to the kitchen to learn how to cook. The couch to the cushion to create some form of mindfulness and stress reduction practice, and then the couch to 5K where you build up, to where you could walk up to 5K. So we're really excited and honored to be working with Dr. Ellis, and it is a matter that's near and dear to our hearts.

[0:54:19.1] Ashley James: That's brilliant. So listeners, you definitely got to share Living Beyond Cancer with all your friends and family who are battling cancer or who are on the other side of it and now rebuilding their bodies after battling cancer. It's such a juggernaut. I have had many interviews with holistic health professionals, including oncologists who kind of gone rogue. I've had at least one oncologist who had his license taken away because he was too busy helping people cure themselves and not radiating them. So you always want to find the doctors who are being mavericks in their field while getting results because the status quo is not good. The survival rates are not acceptable. I want 100% success and the body has an amazing ability to heal itself, and we've seen that. There are outstanding results you can get, but you have to go outside the conventional system to get them. Even just outside of North America or I should say Canada and America because in Mexico, there are a lot more choices there, but out in Europe they use treatments in their hospitals that science has proven to work and oncologists are not legally allowed to use them here. So why would a country not let doctors use therapies that are not drug-based, are cheap to administer, and have incredible results that do not harm the patients? And yet only allow them to do surgery, radiation, and drug-based therapies that have horrible side effects. And speaking with an oncologist, she said that chemotherapy has a 2% chance of giving you a different kind of cancer, like leukemia, for example. If you want any kind of chemotherapy, and I'm sure it's different between each one, but just across the board, that's two out of a hundred people. At first, it doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually is a lot. Because if there is a 2% chance that there's a bullet in the gun that you're holding to your head, you're not pulling the trigger. I don't care if it sounds like a little, but two percent is a lot. And yet there are natural treatments that are incredibly effective, that have no negative side effects like causing other cancers, and they are illegal to use or administer for the oncologist to even give out here in the United States. So it is a for-profit industry. We're being censored to the point of not being given all the information in the mainstream. That's why I do what I do to spread this information. But hospitals in Europe are doing treatments that are not being allowed to be done here, and they're doing them successfully. It just breaks my heart to think of how many grandmas, moms, dads, and brothers are suffering, because they go to the oncologist and the well-meaning oncologist who wants to help are limited in what they can offer you because of the way the system is setup. They are limited in what they can offer you. 

So here we have, putting the power back in the hands of the people. You're doing Living Beyond Cancer. But, of course, that is giving them the tools to slowly build their life back and get walking and heal themselves, decreasing stress and increasing nutrients from their food. So this is good. 

I saw it over and over again when one of my friends battled cancer. It's a long story, but she battled it for a long time holistically, and she ran out of money, got too tired and tried chemo and radiation, and died almost immediately from that. But she lived for quite a while doing it. She lived with it for a long time. And then the radiation just puts holes through her body. I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy. But she noticed that on the months that she was stressed out, all her numbers would get worse and her tumor would hurt, and it would grow. Then in the months that she really focused on eating healthy and exercising, just like walking in the woods, and decreasing stress, all her numbers would get better because she got blood work every month. Her tumor would shrink. The inflammation around her tumor would go down. Her pain would go away. It was just remarkable. One stress that would happen, and it was, boom! Everything would be just like losing a fraction of all the good stuff. So, stress is such a huge role and so is your nutrition. It plays such a huge role. So I love that you addressed that in your course. 

[0:59:40.7] Mark Reinfeld: He is like, you have your personal mission, and I have mine. Dr. Ellis has devoted his life to helping people navigate this landscape. He is a really amazing individual. Every time I talk to him, I'm inspired, specifically by this survivorship. And looking at the recommendations from major health institutions like MD Anderson, this fits with the recommended lifestyle modifications. So it's not like a fringe type of thing. These are things that major organizations recommend. And we're just really honored to be able to work with him to bring some of this information out.

[1:00:33.1] Ashley James: The major holistic alternative therapy treatment centers are out there. I'd love to have him on the show. I'd love to pick his brain. Definitely set that up; for sure, it's so cool.

[1:00:50.2] Mark Reinfeld: Yes, definitely. He'll light you on fire. He's very inspiring.

[1:00:55.2] Ashley James: Nice! We'll do that. So those who are listening and want to take a course, Living Beyond Cancer, and work with an oncologist that will light them on fire and get them super excited and take all the steps to healing their body and learning those tools, you want to check that out. The links to everything we're talking about today will be on the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com and in the podcast's description, wherever you're listening from.

The next course is Nourish Your Life. This is similar to the first one and not for people overcoming or rebuilding their bodies after cancer. So who is Nourish Your Life for? 

[1:01:35.5] Mark Reinfeld: This is for anyone who wants to incorporate more plant-based foods into their lives but needs help figuring out how to do it. So we developed this course, as I mentioned, for wherever people are at. We meet them where they're at. We do a 90-minute Zoom interactive presentation once a week for six weeks. And Ashley, Dr. Budai presents the nutrition side and gives people a basic understanding of plant-based nutrition. Do you often need that fortification of whether I am getting enough protein or calcium? Or what are the healthy fats? So it's a good solid understanding of plant-based nutrition. Each week of the program, I go through a really ground zero. This is the sharp end of the knife. This is how you stock your pantry. This is like a basic equipment list you could use to start. You could go with just a knife and a cutting board. So I like to encourage people to make it easy to move into this. So we set up a membership community where people can ask questions. 

Our mission is to help people sustain a plant-based lifestyle or include more plants in their lifestyle, whatever that turns out to be. As you said, the vegan police are not present in any of our classes. Everyone is welcome. I love seeing people light up when they realize I can cook. I can make this food taste good. I can prepare healthy food for my family. Ashley and I have 45 years of combined experience living a plant-based lifestyle. We share much of what works for us, and it becomes second nature. So the course is for anyone wanting to include more plants. We work with doctors who are busy cardiologists.

As you know, there are more studies and research that are coming out to show that a lot of the major health challenges that we are facing as a society, particularly cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, and certain forms of cancer, can be prevented and reversed by including more plant-based foods in our diet. So busy doctors don't have time to show people what to do. They could say you need to eat more plant-based or reduce your meat consumption, but people must learn how to do it. So it's for anyone advised by their doctor for these conditions to include more plants. So that's who we love working with and helping.

[1:04:52.3] Ashley James: I've had cardiologists on the show who have reversed heart disease, unclogged arteries, using a whole food plant-based oil-free diet. But even the word plant-based, I think, is like the word vegan. It does not mean healthy because I can get a Beyond Burger or whatever burger. It falls into the vegan junk food category if you want to eat that. If you want to try it, go ahead. Beyond Burgers is safer than the other ones because the other ones have GMO ingredients or weird lab-based ingredients. But all those “plant-based” foods got these fake alternative meats, which is the same as going out and eating at a restaurant. You don't really know the chain of custody. They're not choosing the highest quality ingredients for you. You are way better off learning how to make your own lentil burger at home. 

I have done some amazing experiments. Be willing to burn food, like me. I hate wasting food, but be willing to make something bad and throw it out because you've learned. It's like you are Edison, and your meal is the light bulb. And you will get it the more you try, I promise you. 

[1:06:26.2] Mark Reinfeld: I like to say there are no mistakes in the kitchen. 

[1:06:29.1] Ashley James: There definitely are when you have many hungry family members waiting for you. But this is why you practice on your own time or make a backup meal if you're experimenting. It's so funny because I always experiment. My husband looks at me sideways, like, am I the guinea pig today? I'll hand him something, and I keep smiling at him, but in the back of my mind, I want to say you might not like it because I burnt it or overseasoned dinner. He's taught me just to shut up and smile at him and wait till he says something.

[1:07:05.5] Mark Reinfeld: Like I used to say, there are no mistakes in the kitchen. If you go to a restaurant with a smokey navy bean soup, someone may have burnt the navy beans earlier in the day, or you could call it rustic if it doesn't come out quite the way you wanted it to. So I really like that. In all my classes, I encourage people to keep a positive attitude, be gentle with themselves, and keep trying. I like the Edison metaphor. That's great. 

[1:07:41.9] Ashley James: So I remember these burgers I made were so good and were just three ingredients. I know it's all ⅓ of something, like ⅓ brown rice, ⅓ black beans, and ⅓ quinoa. I just blended it together. You can probably do ½ cooked brown rice, ½ of some bean, and then blend it. And I added a bunch of chipotle-style Tex-Mex kind of spices and squished them into patties on a parchment paper baking sheet. I baked them until they were crunchy on the outside but not burnt. I sliced a bunch of avocados, and I also had in the fridge a mango salsa, which is from Costco. This is the one thing that I didn't do. It's a little bit spicy. Then I took a beautiful purple cabbage, and I took the brawl leaves off. So that became the burger. It was so easy to make. 

It was really beautiful because of the purple leaf. And then I put the patty in the leaf and the greens. So you got the purple, the green, and the brown, and then I covered it with this beautiful salsa. You pull over the purple cabbage and eat it. The burger is still hot, so you have the hot burger and a little bit of the crunch. And then you have that sweetness and smoothness of the avocado and the cold crunch of the cabbage. It was delicious. We had guests over, and I'm just throwing something together, and we'll see what happens. And we ate all of it. Everyone wanted seconds and thirds. It was so beautiful. I would take that over Beyond Burger or some Frankenstein, lab-created fake meat. Just try rice and beans.

[1:10:08.0] Mark Reinfeld: You'd be great as a cookbook author because that perfectly describes the food. You used a lot of good descriptive adjectives. 

[1:10:16.7] Ashley James: Nice. All right, maybe I have a future in that. Thank you. 

[1:10:21.6] Mark Reinfeld: The purple cabbage is funny because my sister got my son to eat purple cabbage just by calling them cabalicious chips. Somehow now, he likes purple cabbage just because they're called that.

[1:10:39.9] Ashley James: Yes, you do have to play around with words with kids for them to like it. And that is funny. Last night, he really wanted to eat bok choy. I didn't have any, but I had napa cabbage. I'm like, here, I bought you his cousin. And I handed him a bunch of washed leaves of napa cabbage. He looked at me, ate it, and said, yeah, this thing is related to bok choy.

[1:11:06.0] Mark Reinfeld: Very cool. 

[1:11:07.1] Ashley James: You got to play with it. And I like that idea of variety because I've heard from many doctors that different plants' fiber feeds the gut bacteria. And so it really is that variety of both cooked and raw from organic sources. That would be great if you could get more than thirty of that variety. Some indigenous cultures live off the land, and they're not vegan. If they get to kill a pig, which doesn't happen often, most of their diet comes from foraging, and they eat over a hundred different varieties. And these are the tribal people that we're discovering have the most diverse gut microbiome and are the healthiest. And those microbiomes are missing from the Western world because of antibiotics, like lactobacillus rotor, which has been completely wiped out from the Western population because even one dose of antibiotics will wipe it out. They have seen the correlation between eating more variety of plants with a more diverse microbiome, which leads to a stronger foundation of health. 

[1:12:22.2] Mark Reinfeld: It might have been thirty a day. 

[1:12:27.8] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. We must have Dr. Ashley on the show when she returns from her trip. I would love to have her on the show and have her share some of her science and what she loves about using plant-based to heal the body. You did talk a little bit about your books. Tell us more about your books. Which one is your absolute favorite? If we could only get one of your books, which would be the life-changing of all of them?

[1:12:53.3] Mark Reinfeld: That's a good one. That's a really tough question. It's like asking who your favorite kid is. The first book, which is out of print, which I co-authored with Bo Rinaldi, Vegan World Fusion Cuisine, is the summation. At the time, that was a life workbook, a culmination of years of traveling and culinary exploration. It was magical when Bo and I met; he'd been traveling and was accomplished on his own. That book is out of print. If I had to say a book that's most readily available, it would be Healing the Vegan Way, which has over 200 recipes and contributions from many leading plant-based doctors and nutritionists. So many of them you would be familiar with. There are oil-free variations and gluten-free variations for all the recipes. It also has a nutrient reference chart that talks about which nutrients are essential for which body systems, like the cardiovascular, skeletal, and nervous systems, what the plant source of those nutrients are, and which of the recipe in the book provide those nutrients. So it's a fantastic reference guide. 

I know you asked me for my favorite, but the last book was the one that I co-authored with Ashley called The Ultimate Age-Defying Plan. It has a foreword by Dr. Klaper. And with that book, some recipes are seven ingredients or less. So it's straightforward and easy to follow. It also breaks it down based on the crucial nutrients for each body system, where and how to get them, and what recipes provide them. So that's the one I'd like to give as a giveaway. It's The Ultimate Age-Defying Plan. 

[1:15:06.3] Ashley James: Oh, that is so nice of you. I'm so excited. Will you give us a link so we can download it? 

[1:15:12.4] Mark Reinfeld: I could send you a copy. But it's like a giveaway to someone.

[1:15:22.4] Ashley James: Okay, so here's the thing. You're going to give away that book, seven ingredients or less, which you've written with your wife, a naturopathic physician, where you're making nutrient and healing recipes. I want listeners to go to the Facebook group learntruehealth.com/group. From there, I'll make a post. It'll be pinned to the top, and I'll ask you guys to say something, and I will have my son pick a person. I want to avoid having my bias pick the person. It will be random. But I'll open it up and say, okay, scroll through here. He can read now. I used to do this when he couldn't read, and he would pick people based on their profile pictures. Now, if your profile picture has an axolotl, he'll probably pick you.

But right now, whoever wants to be part of the giveaway, I'll have him pick someone, and then we'll get your address and send you the books. That's really generous, thank you. So off the top of your head, or you can grab the book, can you share a recipe or two from that book? I love the idea of the seven ingredients or less recipes. 

[1:16:55.7] Mark Reinfeld: Can you pick a type of dish that you would like?

[1:17:03.9] Ashley James: Do you have sections like salad, appetizers, entrees, and then desserts? You can open up the book randomly in different places.

[1:17:17.8] Mark Reinfeld: So here's a berry chia bowl with pomegranate I just opened to. It uses fruit-sweetened chia pudding with pomegranate, cacao nibs, cardamom, strawberries, and sweet and spicy plantains, an amazing food. It has chipotle powder, allspice cinnamon, cilantro, and lime juice. We have a macro meal using vegetable stock with the sea vegetable arame, roasted veggies, and adzuki beans. I have a pecan sage holiday loaf recipe, so you say it's making a casserole. I do list optional ingredients. The core ingredients are seven, but there is more if you want to do more. I have a chili peach pepper jam or ruby sauerkraut.

[1:18:35.6] Ashley James: I'm still back on the first recipe. So, I have this gift. I thought everyone could do this, and my husband pointed out that only some people do this. If you list ingredients, I can taste them. It's like synesthesia. Not only can I taste ingredients, but I can taste them when you mix them, and I can taste the final product when it's cooked, and in my head, I can taste it. I thought everyone could do that. So you're listing off these ingredients, and suddenly you throw in that cardamom, and I am drooling.

[1:19:04.4] Mark Reinfeld: That's one of my desert island spices, the stuck on a desert island with one spice. Chipotle powder is probably my one spice, but cardamom is a close second.

[1:19:18.2] Ashley James: Cardamom is so underutilized in the American diet, and you don't need a lot. There's just something about it. So you've got some really amazing, powerful flavors in these recipes. I'm also hearing the healing modalities in each recipe. You're going through pomegranates being incredibly high in antioxidants. They found this micro-blue zone in the United States where pomegranate was growing along the southwestern United States where the railroad was. Those from Asia brought over pomegranates, and as they built the railroad, they would spit the seeds out. So along the railroad, it's just miraculous, like Johnny Appleseed but with pomegranates. They found that they were just in this area, and it usually was poor farm towns where they lived off the land. So they were foraging all these pomegranates and eating them. And those who were growing up eating pomegranates their whole life, that micro blue zone, had more people living disease-free beyond one hundred, than those only a mile or two away that didn't have access to the pomegranates. I'm not saying it's the silver bullet to everything. But they're so good for you. So you can add them to your breakfast a few times a week. I love the cardamom with all those other flavors. I want to get your book now. 

Do you have any stories you want to share with us? You've been in this so long, and sometimes when we get in it, we forget how cool it is for someone to say, hey, I'll try using food as medicine. I'll try going plant-based, but not the twinkie plant-based, and the pasta kind of plant-based. It's the plant-based that's like, I'm going to play this game called “how much nutrition can I pack onto my plate every day,” as Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks about the nutritarian diet. So he's not necessarily saying you have to go vegan. So he's saying you must crowd your plate with the most phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals you can possibly crowd your plate with and see how you feel after doing that for a while. 

That's why I love it because it's not about dogma. It's not about telling people they can't eat meat. It tells you you can eat these foods that contain antioxidants and are amazing for your gut, energy levels, and skin. So the list goes on and on. And as you said, some people are healing heart disease, healing their bodies from very common illnesses like type 2 diabetes, using this food. 

Do you have any success stories of people who reluctantly started eating this way, knowing they needed to heal their bodies, and then shared their results with you? 

[1:22:50.2] Mark Reinfeld: I do, actually. If you have 4 hours, I could keep talking about them. There are so many, but I'll start with the latest one. In my classes, there are people from all walks of life. I had a cattle rancher take my class, and she did a video testimonial. I don't think she realized what she was saying. She was saying on camera, well, everyone knows we should be eating less meat. It was one of those funny moments. But starting recently, in the class I'm doing, we have a retired Navy officer who then went into Homeland Security and retired. He basically found out he had diabetes, and his doctor said you're going to be on medication for the rest of your life. He did some research and came upon The China Study. He's not vegan, but he mainly ate plant-based and reversed his diabetes. He is no longer considered a diabetic. That was over a couple of year period. And then he returned to his doctor and said that my only change was changing my diet. They nod their head and say, that's great. It's like what we talked about earlier about the institutions and the recommendations that doctors have to make based on certain protocols. It's really frustrating when you see how many people's lives could be enhanced by making these changes to diet and lifestyle. 

I have this retired firefighter whose doctor said he had diabetes and needed to go on medication for the rest of his life. He was in Taiwan, where he called his wife and said, we're going vegan, and we're going plant-based. So he changed his diet and went back six months later to his doctor. The doctor was like, I've never seen anything like this before. I don't know what you're doing but still keep at it. He reversed. 

Another student came; he was very overweight and had diabetes. He was really concerned about taking my class, and he came. After the first day, he texted me and said his blood results had never been this good. And that was just after one day of eating plant-based, and then he went on. His story and the firefighter's is in the Healing the Vegan Way book. But he went on primarily raw foods, and he reversed his diabetes.

Another woman, who was only thirty years old or in her late twenties, had really high cholesterol, and her doctor said she needed to go on statins. And this is what you will deal with for the rest of your life. So she went plant-based. 

I've literally lost track. That's just off the top of my head of people who have made positive changes to their health. Even if it's not 100% vegan, it's just becoming, like you said, crowning it out, eating more plant-based, more nutrient-dense, and healthy plant-based foods. Things are slowly gaining traction, specifically with heart disease and cardiovascular disease. This is a very positive way that you can make changes for the better in preventing and reversing many of these diseases.

[1:26:55.2] Ashley James: Dr. Esselstyn is one of the doctors that published the world's longest study on reversing heart disease using diet. His book is incredible. I recommend just getting it for any of your family members who have any inkling of heart disease. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease is the name of his book. I had him on the show. He was doing autopsies on twenty-year-old soldiers during the Vietnam War when he saw that heart disease was already occurring in them. So you can imagine that heart disease starts in our teenagers from the food we eat. I'm not pointing the finger and saying meat is bad. But, again, I don't want to paint this as a black-and-white thing. I'm not a vegan police. I'm saying that the standard American diet, filled with fried food and really bad, low-quality oils, is just saturated in all the food. If you want to eat healthily, buy rice and beans at a Mexican restaurant. It is filled with cancer-causing, heart-clogging oils. And this isn't my opinion. This is the science.

So Dr. Esselstyn figured out a way to reverse even up to four clogs in the heart. He had people with clogged sewer on their deathbeds and eating this way. It was a very simple way at first because he didn't have recipes. He was like, you stop eating all these foods and only eat these plants. And, of course, it was just plain and gross, and no one knew how to eat delicious back then. But those who stuck with it all reversed the heart disease super fast. 

I had a client who was going to lose his job, and he loved his career. But his career required him to be within certain parameters with his blood pressure and cholesterol. Even though he was healthy, muscular, and super-fit, his cholesterol and blood pressure were through the roof, and he was very quickly going to be laid off from his career. So he was desperate, and I gave him all this information. Here's what Dr. Esselstyn says, and you can choose to follow that. But I've seen him get the fastest results in one month of eating this way. His blood pressure and cholesterol were within normal parameters, and he got to keep his job. And he loves his job, so for him, it was worth it. And just that kind of how quickly someone can reverse the health condition or can get back into normal parameters; I'm so excited to see that. 

You mentioned statin, and I have to say this because many people don't know this. I had a doctor on the show who's not plant-based. He's a cardiologist, a research scientist Ph.D., and his name is Dr. Fleming. He invented the Fleming test or the Fleming method. He's been saying for 30 years that the beginnings of heart disease and cancer are the same. The beginnings are the detection of inflammation. He's very upfront about being pro-drugs, but he can't deny the evidence that food affects our health because so many doctors say, ” Oh, you have to be on a drug. Diet's not going to affect that. Really? So food doesn't affect our health, but drugs will? But he believes that food plays a role in healing. But he looks at it from the medical standpoint. So he invented the test that hospitals use to detect heart disease, the quickest and the soonest way when it is in the earliest stages of heart disease and long before you've seen massive clogs in the arteries. And his whole thing is understanding that the beginnings of heart disease start years before as inflammation and that he sees that the foods we eat are causing the inflammation. So we need to create a diet that decreases inflammation and can reverse these illnesses. 

But here's the thing about statin drugs. Long ago, they were saying cholesterol is the cause of heart disease. Dr. Fleming and other mavericks in the research world were being canceled. So there's cancel culture back then because they said no, it's not. It is a symptom of it, as it happens later down the road. But we see inflammation early on, and then cluster occurs down the road. It is not the beginning cause. It is something that happens because of heart disease. Cholesterol deposits aren't the actual cause. It happens because of heart disease. They were saying giving people statins is not going to solve the problem. So we need to back up and go down earlier up the stream to the origins. 

Back when they first introduced statin drugs up until about 10 years ago, so for at least 20 years, they required that you had to get a blood test every six months to make sure that your liver wasn't being too damaged by the statins. This is how statins work. Your body makes cholesterol. So I get my fat from wholefood plants, so I'm eating an avocado, not the avocado oil. I'm eating flax seed and not the flax seed oil. I'm eating an olive instead of olive oil. But I choose not to eat super high fat foods all day long. So I'm eating naturally low fat. Cholesterol is so important to us. It's the building blocks of your sex hormones, your stress hormones. It is what protects our nervous system. It's the myelin sheath that goes around like an installation around our nervous system and it makes up every single cell wall in the body. We've got over 37.2 trillion cells that require cholesterol to make the cell wall healthy. So we need to have healthy cholesterol. If you don't eat it, your body is going to break down the food you eat and make cholesterol. The liver is responsible for doing that. 

So the doctors would take your blood and go, oh look, bad cholesterol. We have to lower your cholesterol. And instead of saying, by the way, maybe you should stop eating pro-inflammatory foods that are oxidizing your cholesterol causing LDL. Low density lipoprotein is a sign of oxidation in the body which is a free radical damage, like increasing antioxidant-rich foods and getting your fat from healthier sources, getting some good exercise in there, as well as all the lifestyle changes you can do. They just said okay, we're going to create a drug that damages your liver so much. It bruises your liver so much, it ceases to function correctly and it stops producing cholesterol. But they didn't tell you to stop eating it. This doesn't make any sense to me because if the problem was too much cholesterol, they never said stop eating the cholesterol, or stop eating the foods that cause the inflammation, and that cause the oxidative stress to the fat that's loaded with lipoprotein. They're saying, let's just damage your liver. If the pharmaceutical company was completely like this, it's so obvious that they showed their hand. How obvious do you have to be? These doctors have good intentions to help you. I've asked every cardiologist I had on the show if statins make a difference, and they say they do more harm than good. There's only one study that shows that if you took statins after your first heart attack, you'll be less likely to get your second heart attack. But I'm like, by the time you're having your first attack, there's some major damage and we need to reverse some stuff. But all these cardiologists said, statins do not prevent the first heart attack. It's damaging the liver. 

But you brought up statins, and I think it's a really good point to take a step back and say, wait a second. I need to question everything I've been taught about food, healing, and medicine. I have to start thinking for myself and start looking around with what's working. And what we see work is taking that nutritarian approach of using the most nutrient-dense rich foods or fiber rich foods and adding those to our plate. That's what we're seeing really works. 

[1:36:57.4] Mark Reinfeld: It's like the future of medicine is returning to the origins of medicine and Hippocrates saying, let food be your medicine. I think you come full circle to realize the important role that choosing the right foods plays in our overall health.

[1:37:14.7] Ashley James: Isn't that wild? Do you have any go-to recipes for your own healing? If you have a headache, do you like to reach for the coconut water? Or if you injured yourself, do you make sure to add turmeric to your food. Do you have any first aid foods that you incorporate in your life? 

[1:37:37.2] Mark Reinfeld: I would say making turmeric milk, or gold milk. My sister has done a lot of healing and has come across studies of the core foods to include and the turmeric milk is definitely one that I noticed helped me pass through if there's something going around here. I just dose up on the turmeric milk. You can make a really simple tumeric paste with powdered turmeric and a little ground black pepper. And I like cardamom. Whenever I could put cardamom in something, I do. So I put a little cardamom and cinnamon, and some cayenne in it as well and you could just mix that with water to form a paste. I feel having some warm plant-based milk helps me kick the latest thing that was going around. 

[1:38:44.4] Ashley James: I love that. I do something really similar and we call it moon tea, but I make a concentrate of it. I can send you my recipe. This is after me playing with it. But I'm going to try adding cardamom. I haven't done that. But I'll add some ashwagandha, some mushroom powder, and also ginger and clove. They are antiviral and antiparasitic. And ashwagandha is so great for sleep. So I do all that and I make a concentrate. I take a scoop of it, put it in hot water, and then a little bit of coconut milk. You can add a little bit of date syrup or stevia if you want. My favorite is a little bit of maple. I'm Canadian, okay. 

[1:39:35.4] Mark Reinfeld: Maple syrup is my go-to sweetener too. What form is the ashwagandha? Is it the powdered form? 

[1:39:43.8] Ashley James: It's powder. 

[1:39:45.3] Mark Reinfeld: Okay. 

[1:39:46.2] Ashley James: If there's a better way, tell me, because I just buy a big bag of organic ashwagandha powder. 

[1:39:51.8] Mark Reinfeld: Okay, that's cool. Yeah, we have the tincture. 

[1:39:54.1] Ashley James: Okay, yeah. You know you're definitely getting a more concentrated amount. I already sleep really well, but I go to bed on my side and I wake up on the same side when I drink the stuff. I don't know if it's just because of the turmeric that's anti-inflammatory or it's coupled with the ashwagandha. I have an amazing bed that absorbs all the pressure points, and doesn't cause any pressure points. I have a whole interview about this technology that they invented originally to cure bed sores. So I can actually fall asleep and stay asleep for 8 hours on my shoulder and on my hip and and have no pain the next day. But I'll fall asleep in one position, and I'll stay asleep the whole night. If I drink this stuff, it's like I did not move the entire night. 

[1:40:50.3] Mark Reinfeld: I love to check that out. That's amazing. The food is crucial and the sleep is very important. And that reminds me of something called The Nourish Plan, and we go through that in in the book, The Age-Defying Plan. But sleep is definitely a core principle for health. Pushed in a corner, I might even say sleep is the most important. They all fit together, but I'm glad you touched on the sleep topic. 

[1:41:31.2] Ashley James: Yes, the S is in the beginning. You have to come up with the word that meant nourish but started with an S.

[1:41:36.5] Mark Reinfeld: Well, that's what the S is for.

[1:41:40.5] Ashley James: Can you tell us what the other ones are for?

[1:41:44.6] Mark Reinfeld: Yeah, the N is for nutrition. So that's looking at the food and energy and phytonutrient that comes from plants. O is for oxytocin, which is just feeling the happiness hormone and feeling that sense of joy and connection. The U is for use it or lose it. So that's where the movement and the exercise or whatever can fit into your life. It doesn't have to be pumping iron all the time. The R is for relationships. So it's the importance of our fast-paced, digital culture, like the real importance of having that connection to others and the support of friends in your community. We all have our own stories to share the. The I is for intention, and that's where the mindfulness comes in and just bringing intention into how we live. I think that's an ongoing exercise for all of us. The S is for sleep. If there was a way to put S first, I might. Then the H is for hydration. It's the importance of water. Hydrotherapy is something that's really big in our house; the hot and cold with water, steaming, and just drinking good quality water. That's our Nourish Plan.

[1:43:30.1] Ashley James: I love it so much. The S and the H are competing for the number one place. So one of my mentors has been practicing for 35 years, naturopathic physician, Dr. Molly Niedermeyer. She used to be the dean of Bastyr Naturopathic Medical College and she's delivered over a thousand babies. She's an amazing woman to pick her brain and I was fortunate to have her as my doctor for several years and I've learned so much from her. This is a tongue twister. She said 5% reduction in hydration leads to a 25% reduction in energy production. By the way, it takes a week to become dehydrated. Like if you didn't drink enough water and drink too much coffee that one day, but if you repeat that for seven days, and you have chronic dehydration. And it takes seven days of drinking half your body weight in ounces, plus any extra to recoup from sweating from exercise and from stressors like caffeine. But it takes you seven days. It's not just one day of drinking enough water and it's good. You have to do it every day for seven days and now you've recovered from chronic dehydration.  

Imagine if you just drank 5%, that's like maybe 5 ounces. So 5% is not a lot. If you think, oh I drink 70 ounces, I'm good. I drink 60 ounces, I'm good. But if your body even needed 65 or 70 or 80 ounces, and you're missing just 5% of your hydration, it leads to a 25% reduction in your body's ability to produce ATP which is cellular energy. It also reduces your ability to clear toxins away from the cells and to bring in nutrients. 

I had a doctor on my show who was on his deathbed and he used this thought process to heal his body. All the doctor said, go home to die, and he used this one process. He was in sepsis and his liver was in liver failure. He was really bad and he said, okay, I understand how the body works. I need to think about how to make a cell healthy. It's like every cell is a house. Take out the garbage, bring in the groceries. The cells have inflammation around it. So the groceries can't get in and the garbage can't get out. It's like a blizzard has come in, and surrounded each house. And now the organelles inside the house are stuck in going. I can't get the groceries in, and the garbage out. That's what sickness is. 

So he had to break it down and he used hydration as one of his ways. And to everyone's amazement, he lived and thrived after that. I got to do everything possible to bring down the inflammation. So I hydrate so I can get the groceries in and the garbage out. 

[1:46:34.3] Mark Reinfeld: Wow, that's a great metaphor. That's a great story. 

[1:46:37.3] Ashley James: So your food and your nourish plan is getting the good groceries in, and getting the garbage out. And that's fantastic. I love that, and I love that you bring in intention as well. We don't realize that mindset is everything. If we're not moving towards the way we want to be, we're like an untethered boat just bobbing around in the ocean. We start to feel like we've lost a purpose. If we know where we're going, and we know that it's possible to have healing, which it is. 

And many listeners know, but some new ones might not, that I had chronic adrenal fatigue so bad, I couldn't process human language in the morning. I was a wreck and I had type 2 diabetes. I was hungry and had to eat every 45 minutes. I had out of control blood sugar. I cry every day because I was a prisoner trapped in a really sick body. And this was in my twenties. My twenties were supposed to be going out partying and having fun. I was just sick all the time. It was holistic medicine that I was able to also reverse polycystic ovarian syndrome. I was told after a battery of tests that I'd never get pregnant. And we have an amazing son. I was able to reverse polycystic ovarian syndrome. It's no longer in my blood work and I no longer have the symptoms of it. So I was able to reverse infertility, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. I was able to reverse chronic adrenal fatigue. That was the easiest, fastest thing to leave my body; and its nutrition. So if I can heal my body using food, so can you. And also, filling in the gaps with those wonderful supplements. It's like the mortar, food is the brakes. You can't add supplements on a bad diet. But also sometimes we need that extra support from herbs and minerals. So I love that. 

I'm going to just jump into your books and I can't wait to add more cardamom to my diet. That sounds delicious. And we're doing a giveaway on the Learn True Health Facebook group. We've talked so much today, but is there anything we haven't talked about today that you really wanted to make sure we touch on?

[1:48:53.1] Mark Reinfeld: One thing I'd like to say is what I've come across in just tuning into this idea of purpose and what our role is here. For me, like I mentioned, I just love showing people how to create plant-based food that tastes amazing. And so, I came out with these seven culinary keys to create amazing plant-based foods. If we have the time, I could just do a quick overview of them. But this is consolidating 25 plus years of working with them. 

So the first is palate development. This is something that develops over time as you learn to develop the subtle flavors of food. So I like doing palate development exercises with people, of tasting garlic all the way from raw to burn or tasting water with different flavors, like salty, sweet, sour, or pungent, so you can develop your palate over time. 

The second key is this template recipe format where you learn to see the underlying formula of a recipe. Once you see that underlying formula, you could see that by changing the different components you could create a new recipe. And that NOURISH course we offer; there maybe twenty-five or thirty recipes we share, but you're actually learning hundreds, and even thousands of recipes when you implement that template recipe format.

The third key would be the global spice blends that that we talked about. It is just the simple act of stocking your pantry with these blends. Like you said, you could take a baked potato and create world cuisine just by adding those different spice blends. 

The fourth would be world sauces. So it's really diving in and getting creative with your sauces. They could just be things like barbecue, Thai peanut, pesto, sweet and sour teriyaki. So, once you start adding all these world sauces into your repertoire, your creations really take off. 

And then the other step I call is veganizing, where if you love your bacon cheeseburger, there are ways to create plant-based alternatives that could satisfy the craving. These might be in the transitional food categories that I don't recommend all the time. Like a vegan mayonnaise, is not the same nutrition as a shot of wheatgrass. But if it helps you overcome a craving and you're heading towards that, a whole food plant-based diet, I feel that they play a role.

The sixth key is superfood nutrition. This is what you talked about, adding nutrient-dense superfoods, as well as raw foods, just to maximize the vitality of your meals. Then the last would be experimentation. 

And the three most important thing is our practice, practice and practice, and you touched on that also. We're just experimenting in the kitchen, use different ingredients and techniques, and over time, you'll see your skills and your confidence and creativity will definitely start to expand in the kitchen.

[1:52:25.0] Ashley James: I love it. Many people have heard of this, but I feel like I'm kind of late to the party, but there's something called ChatGPT, and it said, open source AI software, meaning you don't have to pay for it. So my husband and I had a lot of fun playing with it, and I typed in give me ten recipes. So I asked for recipes, and what it did is just gave me a list of ingredients, and it said, you got to experiment yourself with the different ratios. But this is more like an idea instead of sticking exactly to recipes. It's more like, throw in the pan and see what happens. And I asked it to give me ten dinner ideas for whole food, plant-based diet. This is an AI, an artificial intelligence, but it's crazy. I had so much fun. So here, I just typed it in because I couldn't find my chat before, which had some really delicious, and I was reading it like, my mouth was watering. But here we have quinoa stir-fried with vegetable and tofu. You don't need a recipe for that, because you could choose Italian seasoning or you could choose maybe curry, and there are different kinds of curries in the world. But I could make Japanese curry kind of gravy, or I could do pesto. So here we have quinoa stir-fry with vegetables and tofu. The second one is lentil soup with bread, chickpea and vegetable curry, roasted eggplant with humus and whole grain pita, stuffed bell pepper with rice, beans, and veggies, spaghetti with marinara sauce, of course, and roasted vegetables, sweet potato and black bean tacos, avocado and tomato sandwich with whole grain bread. It just goes on and on. My last one is grilled portobello mushroom with baked sweet potato and steamed greens. I didn't mean to let an AI replace you. That wasn't the point. Although you should feel a little threatened. The AI is coming after the vegan chefs, I'm just saying. 

But if you need these ideas, there are so many out there. But for me, when I look at recipes, I'm looking at how much dense nutrition profile does this have? I'm not going to choose the one with pasta and the the pita bread and all that, because those foods don't contain a lot of dense nutrition. Those are fun to eat, sure. But I'm looking for the dense nutrition and anything that has lots of vegetables and lots of flavor. That's why I like your recipes because you've got your wife looking over shoulder going, okay, we should add the antioxidant-rich foods into this recipe. So I love that you got this doctor at your side going, all right, I really want you to create a recipe that has this many antioxidants in it. It's like, let's get at least 30 vegetables a week. I thought it was funny because you said per day, and I'm like, 30 plants a day kind of sounds like more than 15 minutes in the kitchen. That's like, you have 30 seconds per plant.

[1:55:45.0] Mark Reinfeld: Well, picture how many could be in a nice salad. You could hit 15.

[1:55:48.8] Ashley James: That's true, exactly. I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I think the point is that for people who feel intimidated by the kitchen, there are so many resources for you. And in a very short period of time, you could go from not knowing how to cook, or not liking cooking, to really enjoying it. Because when you make delicious food and your family loves it, you start to feel healthy because of your food. It is a super big motivator. But we have to start with really simple, delicious, and nutritious recipes, and that's what you started with, to teach us the habit in the kitchen to build our confidence up.

[1:56:36.6] Mark Reinfeld: Totally. That's what it's all about for us. 

[1:56:39.6] Ashley James: Awesome. Well, good luck with the launch of your two courses that are coming up really soon. I'll make sure all the information is in the show notes of today's podcast, learntruehealth.com, and in all the podcast directories as well, so that they can check it out. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show and please, I look forward to having your wife on the show. And I definitely want to interview anyone that you recommend because you are so well-connected with all the amazing holistic doctors that are helping people heal their bodies, especially with food. 

[1:57:10.3] Mark Reinfeld: Thank you so much, Ashley. It's been a pleasure speaking with you and I've learned a lot from you too. So thank you for all these tidbits. 

[1:57:18.2] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Chef Mark Reinfeld. And I am still drooling thinking about that cardamom in that dish, and I just love how he pairs some of those flavors. I love that he's thinking about people who are just starting out in the kitchen and especially those of us who are trying to get our health back. We're already tired. We already got a million things to do, but we know that eating out really deteriorates our body. It does not build us up. We're either building up or we're breaking down. That's how the body works. It's either going in one direction or going in the other. This myth of homeostasis, if we never achieve homeostasis, we're always trying to achieve it. We're always moving closer to the mark or away from the mark. So if you think about like, oh I'm too tired to cook, I get it. I have spent way too much money eating out. There's the cost on your wallet, but there's the cost on your long-term health. Your cells now have to figure out how to build new healthy cells with this limited amount of nutrients, because we are not getting the optimal quality nutrients when we eat out. We just aren't. 

And so the best thing to do is to learn how to make simple meals. Now, I do. It takes me about 15 minutes from start to finish, to make delicious multi-vegetable meals, and it just takes practice and takes getting in the kitchen. The biggest thing I could say is, if you are feeding yourself or even if you're feeding your family and you only have enough time to cook once a day, you should make more. Double the recipe, or triple the recipe. Cook like you're cooking Thanksgiving, and cook a much larger portion. You can always freeze it. You can always portion it out. Leftovers taste better so you can heat it up, and eat it for lunch the next day. Heck, I've eaten dinner for breakfast the next day. It just saves you so much energy and time. Because if you're prepping everything once and you already have it out of the fridge, you're already cooking it. All it takes is just two more minutes to prep a little bit more of the same vegetables and the same foods. My biggest thing is I always triple or quadruple recipes, have leftovers for three days, and then it's just easy breezy, lemon squeezy. 

So check out Mark's stuff. Go to learntruehealth.com/nourish, and see his beautiful recipes and know that everything that he does is approved by a naturopathic physician who is very hypocritical of the work because it's his wife's of course. She's looking over his shoulder and telling him what she believes are the healthiest foods to heal and nourish the body. And then he comes up with the amazing flavors. If we can enjoy health, then that's perfect. That's exactly what we need. So speaking of which, I'm going to go eat the leftovers. I cooked at lunch and I made enough so that I can have the same meal for dinner, because I wanted to save myself some time and energy and be able to do other things around the house, including publishing this episode. So, I'm going to publish this episode and go eat my delicious lunch part 2, for dinner. Have yourself a fantastic day and watch out for the next episode because it will blow your mind.

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Jan 26, 2023

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496: Phototherapy Patches

Ashley James & Trina Hammack

Trina Hammack explains the benefits of using biophoton therapy patches to increase stem cell production and metabolism, lose weight, and stimulate the body's ability to burn fat healthfully and detox. All these things and more will be discussed in today's episode.

Highlights: 

  • Biophoton therapy patches
  • A protocol for pain and decreasing inflammation in the body as a whole
  • Cutting-edge technology stimulates the body's ability to make new peptides and create new stem cells.
  • A technology that stimulates your body's own healing mechanisms
  • Energy patches can increase your fat burning by 23%
  • Holistic medicine and healing the body

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health Podcast. Today is fun because we have Trina Hammack back on the show to share some amazing technology my husband and I have been using along with some other family members and friends, and we love it. The results are outstanding. I've been studying this and diving into it. As you listen to this episode today and want to try this technology, you can book a session with me where I can help you figure out exactly what protocol you need. 

Go to learntruehealth.com, and right at the top, it says, “Work with Ashley James”. When you click on that, the first thing at the top will be Free Phototherapy Discovery Session. It’s a 15-minute phone call. Book it, and then I can help you pick the proper protocol. This doesn't make much sense because you haven’t listened to the episode. I just wanted to arm you with all the information you needed. So as you're listening, if you say, “Ah, this is really for me. I want to try it, ” then you can go ahead and book a call with me, and I'll help you through it. And I have access to many excellent practitioners who have been using this type of technology. This technology helps increase stem cells in the body, muscle mass, bone density, and collagen. People's cellular age is getting younger. People have more energy and more endurance. For those looking to increase metabolism, lose weight, and stimulate the body's ability to burn fat healthily and detox, all these things and more we discuss in today's episode. Suppose you are interested in using a type of phototherapy that's easy to do, you don't have to buy a machine, and you can do it at home in such an easy application compared to all the other big machines that people have to invest in to do phototherapy; this is amazing. I'll not say much more because you'll learn about it in the episode. I just wanted to ensure you had all the necessary information to take action when ready.

So go to learntruehealth.com at the very top, click “Work with Ashley James,” and then from there, sign up for our free 15-minute phone call, the Free Phototherapy Discovery Session. If you have any questions, you can also feel free to email me at ashley@learntruehealth.com. Enjoy today's episode and share it with your friends who want to get a leg up. So maybe they've hit a wall, hit a plateau, and they want a cutting-edge, they want to get on the other side of something, they have a fantastic protocol for pain, a fantastic protocol for decreasing inflammation in the body as a whole. Be sure to share this episode with your friends who have pain or inflammation or want more stem cells, youth, muscle mass, and bone density. We’ll discuss all these things and many more in this interview. Share this episode with friends interested in the cutting-edge technology that stimulates the body's ability to make these new peptides and create new stem cells. It's wonderful because it's not something you have to add to your body. It’s something that stimulates your body's healing mechanisms. So it's right up your alley if you love holistic medicine, as I do. Excellent. Enjoy today's episode, and have a fantastic rest of your day.

[0:03:43.6] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James, and this is Episode 496. 

I am so excited about today's guest. We have the functional practitioner, Trina Hammack, on the show. Oh man, the things you do are so exciting. Trina, was it Episode 156? She blew my mind. We talked about getting rid of mold and mold toxicity in the home and how hidden mold can disrupt so many functions of the body, throw the immune system off balance, and throw detoxification off balance. And because of her, I went down the whole rabbit hole and interviewed several other experts on mold, and I had two experts from Green Home Solutions on the show. And so people listening, or like, “I have mold in my home, and I'm sick,” you guys have got to go back and listen to Episode 156. Then, of course, you can go to learntruehealth.com, type in mold, and find all those other interviews. 

But Trina opened my eyes to many cool things about healing the body. We need to take back our health. We need to put our foot down and say, “I am done with waiting to get sick and going to a doctor who will put me on a drug that keeps me sick. I appreciate drugs for the ones that work, and when we need them, they are there. But I want to say 90% of drugs on the market are not only not helpful but also toxic. They’re harmful because they create a mentality that we wait to get sick and then get put on a drug when holistic medicine is out there. Every bite of food we take is our medicine. Everything we drink is our medicine. Every activity we do in our life is our medicine. There are so many herbs and supplements. There's energy work. And when I say energy work, there's science behind it, like frequency-specific microcurrent. I have a fantastic two-part interview on that, which speeds up the healing time after surgeries. So much, so that sports teams like the NFL use them to get players back on the field faster. These are multi-million-dollar industries, and they use them in their locker rooms and physical therapy.

So, Trina, you use many of the devices and the incredible healing modalities that are so far out to me. They are so far out because we don't see them in the mainstream. Hollywood does such an injustice because you watch Grey's Anatomy and all these shows like Hollywood emergency medicine. But really, Hollywood has painted us a picture of the Western medical machine. This big machine is where you wait to get sick. You go to the doctor. They'll send you off for tests through machines or blood work, and then you'll get put on drugs. But medical doctors are not trained in holistic medicine and healing the body, getting the body so healthy, and supporting the body's ability to heal itself. They're not trained in that. So we're missing. That's only a fraction of the pie of medicine. But that's the only part of medicine we are exposed to daily, right?

It's like, 5% of medicine is that type of medicine, and yet we’re exposed to it as if it's 95% of medicine. So there's the oldest medicine out there that's holistic, supports the body's ability to heal, and gets you so healthy. You no longer have diabetes and heart disease, which is reversible, and polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is reversible. How do I know? I reversed it. I used to have really bad PCOS. An endocrinologist told me I was infertile and I’ll never have kids. Guess what? I have an amazing son and don't have polycystic ovarian syndrome. I don't have diabetes and chronic adrenal fatigue anymore. I don’t have chronic infections for which I was on monthly antibiotics. Many things are reversed, and I've helped many people reverse other issues. Trina has as well. There are thousands of people that Trina has helped. So I know I'm on the soapbox. I’m coming in hot. I'm super excited today because Trina introduced me to something I've been using on multiple friends and family members for over a month. I've seen some mind-blowing results, and I've been super excited to share them with you guys. I wanted to try it, and we've been using it daily. And we've seen some phenomenal results of importing through science.

Trina, I'm so excited to bring this to the listeners today because those listening are sick or suffering. They have friends and family who are sick and suffering, and they want to end that suffering. Some people have already changed their diet. They're already on supplements and doing healthier things, moving their body in a way that brings them joy. They're doing a lot of things. They cleaned up their home. They got rid of all the toxic chemicals underneath the sink, and they stopped using those cleaners. They’ve stopped using cosmetics that have all the horrible things. They got rid of processed foods with dyes, chemicals, and pesticides. So they've cleaned up their lives, and maybe they're still sick. They still have some issues. They are still tired and still in pain. And what you're here today to share has taken people's health to the next level. Even people who've tried everything and they’re still sick. So I’m excited. 

This is one of those keys that maybe you haven't cleaned up your life, but you want to enhance your body's ability to heal itself while you're going through and cleaning up your life. Or, as I said, you're on the other side; you've already cleaned up everything, but you still have some nagging issues that aren't moving, and you're like, why am I doing all this stuff? 

Today, Trina will share something that will make a difference in your life. So welcome back to the show, Trina. I'm super excited to have you here today. 

[0:10:05.6] Trina Hammack: Thank you so much. I love getting together with you and sharing with your listeners all this fantastic information they may still need access to. 

[0:10:18.4] Ashley James: So, diving right in, because it's been a few years since you've been on the show, I want to know what has happened in the last few years. When we had you on the show, you were helping people to detox mold out of their bodies and out of their homes and helping people regain their immune systems, immune function, and detox pathways, clean it up after mold exposure. You also help people with other chronic diseases like Lyme disease and many other chronic issues. So what has happened since then? Catch us up. 

[0:10:55.8] Trina Hammack: Yeah. So back then, when we were talking about mold, my whole family, including the dogs, were going through cleaning up for the mold we had been exposed to. And I had been exposed since I was five. Having genetic SNPs is challenging for me to get rid of mold. So I colonized it. So for me, it’s work. And so when we did that interview, we were in the middle of cleaning up our own systems. We were doing well, but I didn't realize how much better I could be until I was exposed to a technology developed for the Navy Seals twenty years ago, and we started using this technology. At first just with my family, and this was after our interview. So I wish I had known about it back then to tell you about it, but here we are now. So I started using biophoton therapy technology to help my body detox differently than supplements and binders, and other therapies didn't cover this detox component. So when we started using this therapy, we started feeling better faster. My brain function became even more precise. My energy became more on-point and robust, and so did my stamina. So everything started to take on a new level of healing once I started using these biophoton therapy patches. That's what we were doing right after we spoke. Everything just turned on a dime from then on. We got better and better. 

[0:12:40.4] Ashley James: You’re a functional practitioner. You have a clinic, and you work with clients. You started using it with your family, and then you started using it with your clients. What happened then? Please give us the timeline. 

[0:12:54.5] Trina Hammack: So it was crazy because when I first heard about this, I was, sure, yeah, right. I'll bite. I had tried everything, but I still wasn't where I wanted to be. I was close, but it wasn't enough for me. So anyway, I hear about these, and I’m like, I’ll buy it. I bought them and started using them. And almost immediately, I started getting my energy back. My allergy symptoms from mold were getting better. Then I started doing some detox processes, and I kept improving. So my whole family was using them, and they were getting better. We used some of them on dogs. I would see immediate changes because our dogs are mold poisoned too. I was committed to using them just for my family for a while. And I wasn't going to bring them into my practice yet because I needed to vet them.

So anyway, I haven't used them with anybody. Then one day, one of my clients in his 70s came in, and he was mold poisoned. He had Lyme, and he didn't sleep well the night before. So he went in, sat down, and couldn't speak to me. He was like, comatose. I can't even believe he got to the office. I was like, oh my gosh, do I call 911, or what do I do? And then it came to me, just in a flash, to use the biophoton therapy brain injury protocol on him. So, I took these biophoton therapy patches, stuck them on the inside of a ball cap in a certain configuration, and I just put it on his head, and I don't know what to do. I'm just going to Hail Mary in here. And I put it on, and in under two minutes, this man had color back on his face. His eyes lit up, and he started talking up a storm as if he had just woken up. He was just normal, and I was like, holy crow. Oh my gosh. And I said, hey, just wear the hat the rest of the week. You’ll probably get a good week's wear out of these patches. Just wear it and let me know what's going on. So I text him later in the day. I said, hey, how's it going? And he said, oh, I ran errands all day. I went surfing.

Okay, here we go. So that was the first person I used them with within my practice. I still wasn't convinced. I'm like, okay, we'll see. And the second person came in; she had been a practitioner here, and I hadn't seen her for a while. She had gotten mold poisoned. We found mold in her home, and it triggered Parkinson's. My heart just dropped when I saw her. She was tremoring, and she had a shuffling gait. Her speech was prolonged, and she had two frozen shoulders. And she came by, and I'm like, what do I do, because I didn't know enough yet. I knew enough to put this brain hat on her for the brain injury, and it was incredible. Her tremors stopped instantly. Her speech cleared up, and her gait opened up. I'm like, wow, I just watched it before my eyes. Oh my gosh. 

And then I patched her shoulders, and it took about two minutes, and she could lift them straight up in the air pain-free. She couldn't even take off her jacket a few minutes before because she couldn't raise her arms. And at that moment, I said, all right, everybody who walks in the door is going to get patched. And it's so true. We have excellent proprietary protocols that combine acupuncture and biophoton therapy for everybody who comes. When you know how to use them, it's incredible. You can see the pain disappear in under a minute. I've seen it disappear in ten seconds. I've seen inflammation go down before my eyes. There are so many ways to use them. So I’m beyond grateful that we have access to these protocols to know what to do with these patches. 

People may wonder, what the heck is biophoton therapy? Well, these patches were invented for the Navy Seals twenty years ago. David Schmitz created these to help them with their strength and stamina for being in the submarines for days. They had sustained energy and brain function. They heal faster and all this stuff. 

And so these patches get activated by the heat and light from your body when you put a patch on. You're not absorbing anything into the body which is not transdermal, which is fantastic. There are no contraindications when you use them if you’re on medications. So I use them on babies, all the way to older people with no contraindications. The light from your body will activate the patch, depending on which patch you put on. Hey, this stem cell activating patch; let’s put that on and raise your copper peptide levels so your body can make more stem cells and use them wherever you need them. Or let’s put on this carnosine patch to raise carnosine for tissue healing. I put a stem cell patch on an elderly dog this morning who had been traumatized from being at a puppy mill. I put the patch on underneath her collar, and I watched her eyes transform right before mine. The fear just melted away.

It's fantastic technology. I'm beyond grateful for having found this because it takes every single protocol I do here and allows the person to take fewer supplements and move energy through their acupuncture meridian system, which is like your electrical system. So when you start moving energy through that system, it takes things to another level. 

[0:19:42.9] Ashley James: You talked about light and heat that activate the patches. So I started digging into the science. I said this before on the podcast; I am an open-minded skeptic. I'm a huge skeptic, but I'm also equally as open-minded. I feel like I should go in and try new things. I thought everyone did this. Have you ever had the experience where you thought everyone thought the way you think until you meet someone that thinks so opposite you? You think that this is just normal human behavior. And then, like, oh wait, no. This is a gift. This is my unique gift; maybe a lot of people do it, but many people don’t. 

So, I have a family member who never wants to try new things. She wants to go to the same restaurant. She never wants to go to a new restaurant and only orders one thing off the menu. The first thing she's ordered the first time she goes, she will never deviate. She hates change. I am the opposite. I will never order the same thing twice on the menu. I also don’t want to go to the same restaurant. I’m just using it as an example; I try not to eat out. I love trying new things. Instead, I'd try something new that may disappoint me, then stick with the same thing all the time. For me, that's learning and growing. And of course, if something works, like I make a delicious salad, I will repeat that delicious salad. Of course, I’m going to do that. So if something works with me, like there are a few supplements that changed my life twelve years ago; I'm still taking them. I'm not going to stop just because I want to try something new. If something works, I'm going to keep it. I love trying new things, but I'm also skeptical about new things, so that I will use my critical thinking. Anything to do with patches, I've been skeptical. It was introduced to me a few years ago about these nutritional patches that promise you that you can get all your vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and all your fatty acids or mega fatty acids from putting a patch on your body, and your body would absorb everything. And I'm looking at you like, okay, so you're telling me that my body will get something that should be like a handful of things, right? And it's going to fit on a tiny sticker, and you're putting it on my body. So I've been very skeptical because there's been a lot of patch companies out there that have said that they are nutritional patches. That's why I've been very unsure about that. Although I believe we can absorb certain nutrients through the skin, like transdermal magnesium. It’s amazing. We can absorb certain nutrients that go through the skin. Absolutely. 

And then you and I have been friends on Facebook since you came to the show. I've loved everything you've shared. Back last February, almost a year ago, you shared some science about these patches helping people with stenosis and spine issues like the degeneration of the spine and the disks, and how there was science to show and that there have been studies that people are regrowing bone density and healthier bones. Their pain is going away, like things like that. I had two friends with stenosis, and I said, give me that information. I want to share it with them. So I started to look into this. Then life got busy, and I kept going and didn’t think about it. 

And then, a few months ago, my son was very hyper when sitting down and doing some homeschooling. He's free-range, like how a boy should be. He'd instead climb a tree than sit and read a book. Is there anything we can do to calm his nervous system enough to concentrate? We do not feed him sugar, and he acts like we do. He eats a very clean, safe, and healthy diet. I was trying some homeopathy and acupuncture. Everything helps a little bit. I noticed a slight improvement here and there. It's just a seven-year-old boy, and getting him to sit down for a few hours and focus on stuff he’s interested in isn't necessarily fun. But I was getting frustrated, like, is there anything we can do to calm his nervous system? 

Since our daughter died, I have been doing a lot better. But I noticed for my nervous system, it's much easier to be frazzled, to a point where I would get overstimulated quickly. This is part of healing from post-traumatic stress, and I would feel like my nervous system is just shot. Have you ever had that experience? Like, I need to lie in a dark room without noise. I don't want anyone to bother me for fifteen minutes. I need a break. So I never had that before. I'm an extrovert; I want to be with stimulus. I love stimulus, but the last few years have been difficult, coupled with trying to get a kid to calm down. He's enough stimulus as it is. 

So I reached out to Trina because she had been posting some really interesting information about this technology, and I said, hey, could this help a kid to calm down and concentrate? She says, “Oh honey, boy, I have some cool stuff for you!”

Plus, our son has allergies, and we need to understand where they came from. Maybe it's mold exposure because we did have a moldy bathroom, and he did grow up with a moldy bathroom. We didn’t know it until we did that interview 156. But he grew up as a baby and a toddler with mold exposure. That could be the cause of his allergies and asthma, which we have under control. 

But I was talking to Trina about this stuff, and other things started to come up. Like, well, I have this other family member with these problems. No matter what we do, she can't sleep; she has insomnia all night. But she has to nap all day long. It's just like flipped. She has constant worry, and she's unmotivated. Her hands are shaking. She's got all these different issues. My husband and I started listing all the things he wants to heal. And then, I started listing all the things I'd love to improve in these areas of my life. 

And so Trina’s like, let's get you on these specific protocols. So I'm like, let's do it. So let's try it and see how it goes because they have a bit of a money-back guarantee. So let's try and see how it goes. 

Our shipment comes, and this is just at the end of November and the beginning of December. That day that our package arrived was perfect timing. I look back, and I always think God lightens things up perfectly to have these experiences to learn from. That particular day, my nervous system was so fried. This happens once every three or four months, which could have been better. Our son was hyper and loud, and then my husband was loud, or whatever was happening. I told both of them I needed to lie down for fifteen minutes. I don’t want anyone to talk to me. And, of course, they did not listen to me. They were following me into the bedroom. I’m like, leave me alone. I need a few minutes to lie down. My nervous system is very fried right now. So please, I just need to reset. So they finally left me alone. I was lying down doing some breathing, just like, what is going on? Why am I so on edge? It’s almost like PMS when you feel like you're on edge. So that's precisely what I felt. 

So then our package came, and we got on a video call with Trina. I'm like, this is where I'm at right now. I am really on edge. My nervous system is fried. I feel pressure and tension in my body. And Trina goes, okay, you're going to make a hat. So we got a baseball hat and stuck the patches in specific places for the head. And my husband put the hat on my head, and it felt like you grabbed the knob in my brain and turned it down 75%. I'm like, what just happened? I felt everything come down like you just turned all the knobs down. Within about three minutes, I said I felt out of my body. I'm feeling very calm. I’ve become the third person, observing myself, feeling relaxed, and that pressure is gone. My nervous system’s not fried. I'm not as frustrated. I was 500% frustrated before you put on the hat, and it all came down. Then I can hear my son and my husband. I could tolerate their presence, whereas I couldn't before. For me, that's part of the healing with whatever residual is going on from post-traumatic stress, which, as I said, I've been getting better and better. I had been the worst it had been in a long time. And so putting on that hat was like me showing you contrast within minutes. I could not believe it, but I felt it right away. That was a good experience, but I’m not 100% sold. Let's try a few other things. And we did try a few other things. 

My husband loves them. He will not go a day without them. He loved them. So the day his dad died last April, my husband has been doing hospice care. He moved out of our house and moved in with his parents and lived beside his dad, doing 24-hour hospice care for five months. He got interrupted sleep and wasn't eating great. I kept coming over and trying to cook for him and stuff. He was just not in a great position, throughout his neck or whatever he did. 

My husband had to go in for an emergency root canal on the day his dad died. However, they had his neck in the root canal for like seven hours. It was crazy. Whatever they did caused him to have daily, almost migraine-level headaches. I'd touch his upper trapezius muscles, and they would be hard as a rock. It would radiate pain up into his head and eyes. It’s a typical upper trapezius trigger point headache. It would be debilitating. He'd have to lie down and couldn't function. So we went to the chiropractor. There were several chiropractors we went to. We went to acupuncturists. We did craniosacral therapy. We did intercession with prayer work and laying of hands. We did emotional work. Everything helped a little bit. He took anti-inflammatory supplements. I did a massage. We would do heat. Everything would work a little bit, and then it would come back. He went from daily headaches to once every second day, but it was like clockwork. Oh, today's a day I'm getting a headache. Tomorrow I won't have a headache. The next day, I will have it again. We just knew it, and then it went once every three days.

And then we got to the point we were doing all these therapies, that it would be six days with no pain and the seventh day with pain. And they would come back again. The headache has been three times this week, and it might be two in the next week. But it was consistent from April to December when we got these patches. We made a little progress with all these therapies, throwing everything at him. I even listed everything we threw at him, but he still had them. 

So, we get these patches and do the pain protocol. There's a patch for decreasing inflammation and patches for pain, and we put them on. And by the way, he stopped taking drugs like Advil and Tylenol. So every drug you could think of, he tried. I don't like taking pain meds, but he was in so much pain, he just needed some relief, and no pain meds touched the pain. That was bizarre. It wouldn't make it go away. So he just stopped taking them. He's like, well, the pain meds don't work. So I'm going to have to deal with it. But we kept being in action, trying to get rid of this headache. 

So as I said, we got these patches. His shoulders get increasingly tense, and he can feel the headache coming on. So we put the patches on, and he said, within minutes, he felt like he took Advil, but it worked; it kicked in. It feels as if he had taken pain meds, which were supposed to take away the pain. So we would put them in a specific pattern on his upper traps, and we played around with their placement of them. These patches would reduce the pain significantly within five to six minutes of having them on. Sometimes, if he did it soon enough, like at the beginning of a headache, it would just feel like it wouldn't manifest. 

[0:33:14.4] Trina Hammack: Wow. 

[0:33:15.4] Ashley James: And he's been doing that. He doesn't do the pain patches every day. He does the patches for increasing stem cells and decreasing inflammation, having energy flow correctly, like you said, through the body and the meridians. He's doing the patches that stimulate the body's ability to heal itself. His headaches have stopped. 

So I'm trying to think back to his last headache. It's been a few weeks since he said, oh, I feel like one is coming. This was about three weeks ago, right before Christmas. He put the pain patches on, and it was gone. So he hasn’t had one fully manifest in many weeks. But, as I said, it was daily, then weekly, and multiple times a week. Sometimes we would go six days without one, but that was rare. It was like two, three, four times a week. And these patches have been the single most effective way of getting rid of it.

The second thing with him was making repetitive motions involving his foot, which would hurt. What's funny is my husband, and I usually get the same problem. So he broke his foot, and I had a different injury that hurt my foot. But he’s like, I'm going to try these patches on my feet. So we looked up the protocol because, as you said, there are over eighty specific protocols. So we looked up the protocol, he did it, and he said, I didn't think I'd be able to walk. Today was so painful. And within minutes of putting it on, he's like, I can walk. This is amazing! 

And then I hurt my foot. You could see the inflammation on my foot. This was two days before the Christmas concert. I'm in the choir, and we were going to sing. We were doing a huge Christmas concert for over a thousand people. I was going to be standing for hours. They took our seats, so we had to stand the whole time. I was terrified. My foot is inflamed, and it's excruciating. I'm not going to be able to do this. Then the day before the Christmas concert, we were doing a full-day practice, so I had to stand for two days.

So, I put these patches on to decrease inflammation and pain. You know the feeling when you had an injury, but it was like two or three weeks ago, and it's just a little achy, but it's getting better. That’s the feeling I got after a few minutes of putting them on. This stuff is fantastic. It’s amazing! I rarely have injuries or pain, so I don't often need to use something for pain. But that was, for me, incredible. I also put patches on my back because I just wanted to ensure that I didn't have any back stiffness from standing for two days straight in a restricted place in the choir. I was able to stand, and I had abundant energy. I was able to do the whole thing. I thought I’d be shot because standing and performing for two days is exhausting. Afterward, I was like, hey, let's go out. Let's take the kids out to the play area. Let’s do this, let’s do that. I didn't even want to go home afterward. I just had so much energy for the rest of the day. So that’s what this has helped me with. It has helped me with this abundance of endurance, even beyond what I get from supplements and all these other things. 

So then, I woke up with a headache. When you wake up, you're just like, ” Oh, I slept wrong. I barely get headaches, but I'm like, hey if this is working for Duffy, my husband, I'm going to try it for myself. The headache was getting worse and worse, so I finally put the patches on. It was around noon, and I had a playdate to take our son and other kids to the park. I don’t even know if I can handle a car full of kids, driving them for twenty minutes to a park. You don't want a headache and a bunch of kids screaming in a car, yelling, singing, or whatever. They’re not going to be quiet. So that’s one thing we know they’re not going to do. 

So I put the patches, just like I've been doing on my husband for his headaches. So I put them on, and within a minute, it felt like I had taken drugs like Advil or something. It felt like something had kicked in. As I'm driving to the park, I notice the headache is gone, but the tension’s not gone. All I'm feeling is a lot of tension in my shoulders, but there's no pain anymore. By the time we left the park to come back home, the tension was gone. And I was like, this is so cool. So I've had to experience it personally where the pain is gone away. My husband's chronic headache is significantly better; he hasn't had one in weeks. 

Then our close family member went from feeling distressed, worried, and afraid daily. She's on multiple medications for it. She's just feeling overwhelmed with dread. She doesn't sleep at night but naps all the time during the day. So with this family member, I was like, let's patch you up. So we did the protocol for anxiety, and she felt calm, and the worry subsided. We've done the protocols for balancing the vagus nerve, and she functions better throughout the day. We did the protocol for sleep, and then we did the protocol for energy. She typically naps after every activity. She'll go grocery shopping and take a nap. Then she’ll clean the house and take a nap. She naps all day long. We will visit her, and then she'll be like, I did lie down and took a nap. So it's just been nap, nap, nap. This last week, she had a lot to do, and we're going to do the patches for adrenal function and increasing energy in the body and the flow of energy in the body. So we do this. The entire day, she did a bunch of stuff with no naps. She's sleeping better, and she's waking up happier. There are fewer occurrences of feeling dread and worried. It’s far less, and she's generally in a much better mood.

Then we're watching her because of this, and she’s starting to make better choices for herself and no longer wants to drink alcohol. She wants to actually go out and socialize and wants to go to exercise classes or be with friends. We're just starting. Because it shifted her mood, she's making these progressively better choices for herself, and we've seen this.

For our son, we put the hat on him, but he keeps it on for only a short time. I asked him, what do you feel when you have this on you? He goes, this is my idea hat. It gives me so many ideas. My mind is filled with these amazing ideas. I want to draw and create. So he calls it his idea hat. But we do keep it on him a bit. Although he is fantastic at schoolwork, we noticed he could sit down and do more math. And that was a thing for me; if I could get him to sit down and complete his math work, that's his least favorite thing to do, although he's good at it. He could go from doing one or two pages of math work in an hour to six to nine pages in an hour. The math work only gets more challenging and not easier. So I see on several levels that it is working. 

A friend of mine's stepfather is on daily dialysis, and they did some blood tests to see his stem cells. I'm not sure why; I will get more information about it. But she said he's been using the patches and seeing great results. He’s been wearing the patch that increases stem cells in the body. So I have a few friends who have been using them all, noticing more energy, getting better sleep, and generally functioning better. But I love that I have more stamina, and I generally feel like I'm in a better mood, and my nervous system feels like it's healed. It feels like it's functioning better. I haven't had any more occurrences of PTSD since starting to use it, and that's been over a month that I've been using them. 

[0:41:50.2] Trisha Hammack: I have the biggest smile on my face hearing your stories. I think it’s incredible. It's just so wonderful to restore your health and see results quickly. 

[0:42:04.2] Ashley James: This morning, I put on a new patch that I've never tried before. We just got it in the mail, and it's for mood enhancement. I wasn't in a bad mood, but I'm like, hey, give me the new batch. I want to see what it does. So all of us, even our son, is like, I want to try. We all woke up in a good mood. It's a Saturday morning, and we all feel great. But I want to try it. 

I guess I’m sensitive to energy, and I feel things. Some people would call this a placebo effect, but I did not believe so. I love trying new things because I'm also so skeptical. I don't think that they're going to work or not work. So I don't know if it's going to work. I even said to Duffy as he handed it to me, I'm in a good mood, and I don't even know if this will do anything. So I put it on, and almost immediately, I go, wow, I can feel a lightness. I feel this lightness in me that feels nice. 

Because we eat fruit or something for breakfast, I’ve gotten into the habit of every morning, before, during, or after breakfast, where we'll just be sitting on the couch with our son doing English work, and reading together. We just get it done. Let's get some schoolwork out of the way before we start our day. We're sitting there and both in such a good mood together. I’m not saying that we aren't usually, but it was just, wow! This is the mood enhancer one, and it is neat. So I'm wearing it today for the first time and experiencing it, and I'm looking forward to trying it out with some other friends and seeing how they like this one. 

But what I liked were the protocols. I have talked to several friends doing these patches for a while. They weren't taught because they're not part of this group that has these proprietary protocols of over eighty different protocols that combine Chinese medicine, acupuncture points, and where you put the patches. And I have played around with them, and it makes a big difference where you put them. 

You talked about how they are activated. And when I looked into the science, I was like, am I absorbing anything? What's going on? Why is this working? Why is it working through hair? You put the patches on a hat. Why is it working through hair? The body emits light. We can't see the light spectrum, but specific cameras, like night vision cameras, can pick up this light. Our body emits a light wave, and the patches are designed to bounce back this light wave back into the body at a specific frequency, stimulating the body to create these new peptides and new stem cells. It naturally triggers the body, which is called photon light therapy. And that's precisely what it does, so you’re not absorbing anything. 

You wear them for twelve hours, and most of the time when you're wearing them, people don't see them because they're under your clothes. So I'm okay with wearing them where people can see them because I'm getting results. Then I’ve had people go, oh, what’s that? I say it’s like acupuncture. And I start talking about it, and they’re super interested. So I loved that. Most of the time, people don't even see them because they’re on your back, under your belly button, or on your shoulder, so they don't see it. 

So do you want to talk more about the science behind it? Because, yes, it was designed originally for the military. It's been around for twenty years, and people have had phenomenal results. I love that this company has invested so much money into science. There's proof that this increases bone density, health, and muscle mass. 

Oh, I've got one more testimonial. So ever since my last pregnancy, I've had a problem where my right leg is far weaker than my left leg. I've gone two months with physical therapy, weekly chiropractic, and acupuncture. I've been throwing everything at this. I thought going to the weekly physical therapy, and all the exercises they give me would fix it. Every doctor I visited said, “Oh yeah, this is because this is pinching this nerve. You have to stretch this out and strengthen this.” And I've been doing it all. But we live in a two-story townhouse, and walking up the stairs, I've been taking it one leg at a time. Because this leg is so weak, I just thought it was bizarre, but it’s ever since the injury from that pregnancy. Sometimes, it'll take me a few minutes to get up because I'm just going to force myself to use the weak leg to strengthen it. It’s like the signals from the brain are not getting to the muscles. Something's not working right. I don't know. Is it weak muscles? Is it an impinged blood supply? 

Every doctor had a different explanation. And it’s not that big of a deal. I don't have pain from it. It's just more of an annoyance because every time I walk up the stairs multiple times a day, it reminds me that something is not whole in my body. That brings on thoughts of shame and guilt, like, what am I doing wrong? Like, I’m such a healthy person. What's going on? I need to work harder on this. Walking up and down the stairs has been a struggle. 

A week after wearing these patches, we were doing a bunch of laundry, and I remember we had the music on. We were all in high gear, like, let’s clean the house. And I ran up the stairs. I get to the top landing and like, what just happened? I just noticed that the weakness in the leg was gone. This reminds me of the time when I went from being super weak with both my legs to having the energy signals get to the muscles. The muscles are working. This is great. Ever since I started wearing these patches, I've noticed that I can run up and down the stairs and that weakness in the right leg is not there like it was. As I said, it was so bad that I had to take one step at a time. So that’s my other testimonial. They have hundreds of studies on increased muscle mass and increased bone density. So there are effects of anti-aging, looking younger and better. 

I just realized I'm doing all the talking. I need to end the talking, but I'm just excited. I've waited over a month to share this with the listeners. I'm going to stop talking. Tell us more about the science behind it. 

[0:48:52.0] Trina Hammack: I taught science way back in the day, so I love that this is backed by real science. A research study is on increasing glutathione levels in the body or hormones or strengthening your DNA. There is study after study that backs this up. You can't deny it when you also bring in experiences like this and see it happen before your eyes. What was going on with all the examples you gave was that there were blockages in the acupuncture meridian flow. You open that flow back up, and then energy could move. So then you felt better, the pain went away, and brain function returned.

The website has studies about osteoarthritis and double-blind placebo pain relief studies. The studies continue, and David Schmidt is entirely dedicated to having this backed by true science. 

So you know, we are emitting infrared light. You can't see it, but it's there and activates this crystalline structure inside the patch, which has amino acids and certain frequencies of peptides. I look at it like a frequency device, like my frequency-specific microcurrent, my BEMER, or my SCIO. It’s a frequency type of medicine that you can do at home. You don't need to have fancy schmancy equipment. You can slap a patch on it and feel how things shift as the energy opens up in the body. 

Many people are chronically ill because their energy is running backwards through their bodies, and they don't even know it. It would be like the equivalent of the electricity going backward through your house and blowing out your fuse box. And when you're in a chronic situation like I was when we were moldy, you couldn't quite snap out of it. This helps correct the flow, so it moves in the right direction. And we have a system that you know about now, where we check that energetic flow. We can check to see if it's running backwards or not, and then we can correct it with a specific correcting polarity patching protocol. 

I learned about this one the hard way. We were up at our house in Mount Shasta a few years ago, and it was in the summer, and our AC system went out upstairs. Downstairs was okay, but upstairs went out, and it was 115 degrees. I went into vertigo for three days, and literally I didn't know about polarity and that I could change it with a patch. I had just started using the patches. And so, for three days, I'm lying in bed. What do I do? And then, I reached out to a senior practitioner or the one who writes all our protocols, by the way. She's a master at this and said your polarity is backward. And so she had me do this simple protocol with five patches I put on for fifteen minutes, and then guess what? Boom! It was gone. My vertigo was gone after three days. It’s because the heat triggered my nervous system to go into overload, and my energy started running backward, so I had vertigo. It was incredible.

So now I teach all my people, as I taught you, how to check and correct their polarity and then re-train the body so that the energetics run the right way through your system and your meridian and open up blockages. When you got pain, you get a blockage. We can open that up and get things moving again. So we go through a little process of opening up and correcting the polarity, and then we start building a foundation, get the brain function going, and get your adrenals and kidneys stronger. You can see inflammation go down. The adrenals help to keep the inflammation down. Mine were trashed, and my kidneys from mold. And a lot of moldies have really poor energy. The first one I ever did was an adrenal kidney protocol, and I felt better. 

[0:53:48.6] Ashley James: I love that protocol. 

[0:53:50.3] Trina Hammack: Isn’t it amazing? 

[0:53:51.2] Ashley James: I love it, yes. I didn't want to do the polarity thing. I don’t want to jump right into that. I did the polarity thing because you told me to. I don't know why; maybe it’s my intuition, but I was super excited and totally drawn to the kidney adrenal protocol. I can’t wait to do that one. And then there's the other one I really want to jump into, which is the metabolism one that increases muscle mass, supports the body, burns fat, increases energy, and increases leg muscle mass. So I really want to get to that one. But you told me there's an order to things. We want to ensure that we’re getting the polarity together and the energy up in the body, like the adrenals. So we want to ensure that the body’s detoxification pathways are open. And you can get to this other fun one. 

So I have gone through the steps. I'm glad I listened to you because I felt a shift and difference each step of the way. But I love that energy one. And now, I like doing the advanced energy protocol one, and I get even more to that one. 

[0:55:00.9] Trina Hammack: Yeah. 

[0:55:01.8] Ashley James: I feel it. As I said, I survived two days of standing and singing with that one. We've been a very professional choir, and it was intense. It was like doing a marathon for singing, and I could not believe I was like, go, go, go. I felt so great. Even the next day, I didn’t feel like I was thrashed. I didn’t feel like I’d been through something big. I was like, okay, another day. I was expecting to feel trashed from being so active. Being onstage, singing, and standing for hours to perform in front of a thousand people, takes a lot out of you to give it your all. I was expecting to be trashed. I did that protocol and felt amazing the next day, the next day, and the next. It didn't even affect me.   

Oh, one more thing. I keep thinking of testimonials. We did a really intense walk around Greenlake. It was 2.8 miles. My butt was burning because I was trying to keep up with my husband. My husband is almost 6 ft 7 with very long legs. One stride of his is a one-half stride of mine, so I was keeping up with him. Our son was on a scooter, so we were trying to keep up with him because if we didn't, he would be chasing the ducks in the lake any second. Oh my gosh, it’s like having a golden retriever. We take him to the park, and I look at all the people with their pets. Our son is intelligent, loving, and smart, and people often think he's ten or eleven years old just because he's so mature. But you bring him to a park with a bunch of dogs, a ton of ducks, and a shallow lake, and he wants to go chase. It was January, and it was cold, and he asked me, did you bring my towel? It seemed to me he was going swimming. I'm like, sweetie, you can't go in the lake. No! So he is off chasing the ducks, petting the dogs, and running down the dock. There are several docks. He thinks he's going to go swimming. So we had to keep up with him. So we're like pumping our legs, which is a great exercise. It's like the car right in front of you, but it’s us chasing our son for 2.8 miles. My butt was burning. You know that feeling when it is like you’re anaerobic and making lactic acid? 

[0:57:31.6] Trina Hammack: Oh, yeah.

[0:57:32.5] Ashley James: And we were go, go, go, go. And then I thought I would feel this the next day. Then the next day happened, and this was just this week, but I didn't feel it. I thought for sure I was going to feel soreness or something. Then I’m like, sometimes it’s not the next day, but the day after. And the day after was Thursday. I thought, for sure, I was going to wake up feeling sore on Thursday. I woke up on Thursday, and no problem. I'm like, what? I don't even feel that I walked. I was doing 2.8 miles around this lake, chasing our son, and I didn't even feel it. That was huge because, before these patches, I'd go to the gym and feel it. At least you’d feel like you did something the next day. I didn't even feel like I pushed myself. I'm going to have to force myself harder. So I know I am doing all these other things, like eating healthy, taking supplements, and doing everything, but I would still feel sore after a workout even with all these good things I'm doing. Since I started patches, I don't feel sore after a workout. There you are; that's another thing I just realized that was different. 

[0:58:41.7] Trina Hammack: I’ve got another one for you. My husband had two wisdom teeth and a molar taken out 48 hours ago, and in under 24 hours, all his pain and inflammation were gone with just patching. You can't even tell; it's just incredible. He slept off the anesthesia, and then we had him all patched up. There was no inflammation or pain. He'll heal a million times faster. It’s pretty incredible.

[0:59:20.2] Ashley James: I love that. Do you have any other stories of success from your clients? I remember that there was a baby I saw. I know you have this private Facebook group for listeners; if you want to try these patches, you might do it. We can get you on that. We could add you to the Facebook group. But there is a woman who had a baby with teething, and she took before and after pictures. She said it was four minutes. And she put the patches on the baby’s jaw for pain and to calm the nervous system. The baby went from full-on freak out from teething to sleeping in four minutes of wearing the patches. So to hear that your husband has no pain inflammation and feels great…

[1:00:08.6] Trina Hammack: Three teeth were extracted. It was intense, and we didn't take any pain meds. We just patched it. But I have one gal come in, and she had neuropathy in her thighs from chemo, and she was bone on bone in her hips, and she would wear these tiny high heels or these tall high heels that were skinny. And I’m like, how do you do that? She was in constant pain in her hips, and her thighs were on fire with pain from the chemo. And so she came in and didn't know how to patch yet. That's why she brought her patches over, and I patched her thighs. And the next thing I know, she's standing up and down, no problem. She had a hard time sitting in her chair; the next thing you know, she was up, down, up, down. Like, hey, how are you doing? Oh, I'm great! And she didn't even think twice because the pain was gone and just disappeared. So we opened the channels and got the energy to move, so it wasn't stagnant and moving backward.

Another gal called me, and she had patches. She called me freaking out with major panic attacks and anxiety and said, I don't know what to do. She couldn't even think. So I had her do the anxiety protocol on the wrist, and we got two of them placed on the phone. They're six, and we only had two on, and she said, hey, can I already be feeling better? She was already calm with two of the six patches. They can work that fast. I've seen swollen ankles. I still do Rolfing bodywork, and people will come in with sprained ankles. I'll pop a patch on there, and you'll watch the inflammation go down. And you can see the ring where the inflammation was in a matter of minutes and then where it is now. You're getting things to flow, and I see it every day; we use them. We have an excellent protocol for people in our weight loss program to help them burn more fat. Studies show that the energy patches can increase your fat burning by 23%. Hey, who wouldn't want that? We incorporate them into almost every protocol, whether people are moldy, have anxiety, or have a lot of GI issues. We’ve even seen parasites come out.

[1:02:47.1] Ashley James: I’ve got another one for you. I just remembered. Okay, so my husband is a trooper for tagging along with all my health stuff. But he's also a guy. We have this joke because he'll do something like your stereotypical man, and I'm like, why did you do that? He's like, a was being a typical man. He kind of like that he’s got a cape on. When I met him, he didn't have fat on his body. But he always looked like Bart Simpson. He would have that big, bloated gut. But he is so tall that you don't see it. He's always got this nine-month pregnant gut, despite not being overweight. And he's changed his diet throughout the years, which was at first like pulling teeth. He had an addiction to dairy. Who wants to give up cheese? But he did, and then he saw the results. He stopped being gassy. He's like, woah, that's amazing. He gave up gluten. He lost 25 pounds of water weight. He’s like, wow, I feel so much better, so I’m not going to diet anymore. So one at a time, we took away sugar. That was the first thing we took away from him. 

When he met me, I got him off alcohol, and he was an alcoholic. I don't have any alcohol in the house. I'm an oddity. I just think alcohol is poison. If you're going to drink, just maybe once a year. So it was alcohol and sugar. Caffeine is kind of an on-and-off thing for him. He's like, give me this one thing, okay. It’s just one pleasure that I have left. So we've taken away everything gluten and dairy. He got progressively healthier with his choices, like adding more vegetables. And it's funny because he got really upset with me the other day because I added more vegetables to his meal, and he's like, what are you doing in my dinner? I look at him, and I’m like, you are vegan. He's chosen to be vegan. Vegetables are the only food you have. So why are you angry at me? A few minutes later, he says this tastes pretty good. But he doesn't love eating all the vegetables. Like, he's still a guy, so he just wanted to have his beans and make it taste like a taco; you still want him to eat that.

But we know he's had some gut issues, and we had him tested for SIBO, and things like that, for small intestine bacterial overgrowth. I just suspected candida for a long time. I interviewed an amazing doctor on candida, Dr. Michael Biamonte. So Duffy decided to work with him and his telemedicine. He decided to do the Candida diet even though he's vegan. So this is eating non-starchy vegetables. That's his life right now, and he's doing it. So he stopped eating all the foods that bloat him. So he's doing this Candida thing. But right before he started on this, he would eat like four bowls of rice or something starchy like a bowl of rice and beans or potatoes. His gut would be hard as a rock, and you could knock on it. It would be hard, and he’d be just so uncomfortable. And it's all gas and inflammation in there. Even though he's eating organic, clean whole foods, it was still feeding the candida, and we had him tested by Dr. Michael Biamonte. Sure enough, it was just tons of overgrowth of candida that's been the problem. But right before he got on the Candida Diet, he ate a bunch of rice, and of course, he was totally bloated.

I've been studying the patching protocols. As you said, our group has over eighty patching protocols, and I've been studying them. I said, hey, there's a gut health one, and he goes, I'm going to try that tomorrow. He got super excited. Now we know, like clockwork, if he eats four bowls of brown rice, he will be hard as a rock bloated the whole day. It's not like there’s a day he eats rice and isn't bloated; it's every time. So he puts the patches around his bloated stomach. Another thing, we never hear any noise from his stomach, like gurgling or anything. We usually don't hear anything yet, which is surprising because it looks like it's just full of air. And you start to hear the stomach making noise after putting the patch. It has lots of gurgling like something's moving, and we're like, what's up with that? And then he's, like, I will eat the same stuff I did yesterday and see if I react. He's so excited, and he’d go to the kitchen, like, let's do some science experiments. And he eats the same food he ate the day before, and his stomach stays soft. It didn't bloat, and he got super excited. 

Now, he's in the middle of his candida protocol. He’s doing well and not bloated. Of course, he's not using the foods feeding the candida, and he's been taking all the supplements that kill candida that strip the biofilm out of his body. But he's been doing the gut healing protocol, which he felt the difference. And he loves the energy protocol. He loves the anxiety and sleep protocol, and there's one for the pineal gland. So he walks around with the patch on his forehead, like, no shame. And he loves sleeping with that one. He's having so much fun with it. As a man, he does not look pleased and said I took them away. But I have shown him the information; he says I can't drink alcohol after knowing what it does to my body. And I can't eat sugar after knowing what it does to my body, or milk or something like that. I can't do these things to myself. So he's chosen to eat healthier and healthier, taking away all these bad choices in his life. Now, he’s just loving it. I've never seen him more excited with two things — the patches and structured water we've been using. Those are the two things he's super passionate about, and I've never seen him take it off. I think if you give someone like a family member, even a husband who doesn't like to do health stuff, and you provide them with a result, like, let's take away a headache, let's give you more energy. Let's give you better sleep. If you do that by just putting some patches on them, they get excited about it and want to keep doing it. And it's an easy shift. 

So like I said, our family member, who we've been giving these patches, started feeling so good. She started making better choices for herself. That's motivating because we love our family so much, but we can't make them do healthy things as much as we want to. But if they are feeling better and better, sometimes they make better choices for themselves.

[1:09:55.6] Trina Hammack: Yes, they want to and may not even understand why. But it makes you want to strive to improve and make better choices. I see it all the time, yeah. My husband patches, and he's bone on bone on his knee, and he's a golf marshal. So he's in there on the golf course all day long and in zero pain. So yes, there's got to be something going on here. They recently came out with these two aromatherapy mists, which have been shown clinically to raise testosterone levels. 

[1:09:55.6] Ashley James: What?

[1:10:36.3] Trina Hammack: Yeah, and guess what? You said earlier that the base is structured water, herbs, and some essential oils, which you spray on your wrist. There's one at night, and you breathe in seven or eight times. I thought I was sleeping well, and I was, but when I started using the one before bed, it took my sleep to a deeper level, and now I have more lucid dreams. It’s pretty cool. So I thought I was at the top of my game with my sleep; now, it's even better. I can't wait to go to sleep because it's just amazing. So yeah, we have some great tools at our fingertips, and I love sharing these. 

[1:11:26.8] Ashley James: I'm not a vain person. I only wear makeup when I have to, and the makeup I have is clean, with no toxic makeup. I can't cry with this mascara because mascara’s made of tree bark; I don't know what. But when I wear makeup, it's clean, non-toxic makeup. I'm very picky, but I only wear it if I have to. I don't even like washing my face. I just rinse it with water. I don't like disrupting the microbiome of my body. Some people use soap on their face twice a day, or cleansers and stuff like that. You're just stripping the body of the oils. 

I grew up being a tomgirl, like a real nature-crunchy person. And I believe in letting natural beauty shine through. So when I look in the mirror, I don't want to see a bunch of wrinkles. I'm in my forties and don't want to look like I'm in my 50s. So when I'm in my fifties, I want to look like I'm in my 40s. I want to keep protecting the skin, so I'm 5% vain. But when I look in the mirror, I know my health shines through in my skin. And I want to have clear, beautiful skin. So I like feeling moist skin, especially in the winter when it's really dry. I like putting moisturizer on. 

I found it hard to get good-quality moisturizers because I'm very picky with ingredients. There are only a handful of companies that I trust, and I've tried. They did come out with this one, and I always ask, why wouldn't a health company come out with a face cream? I'm like, why? Why don't you guys do that? You guys are not in the beauty business. You're in the healing business. So when are you coming in with face cream? And I have seen this with other holistic companies; they do this. So why are you guys not doing this? And then I tried the cream, and like, oh, it's because you guys got something this good. So I'm just going to try the cream because I saw some testimonials, and one was a video testimonial of a gorgeous woman. By the way, she has no makeup on, and her skin is amazing. And then she says her age is seventy-five. I'm like, what? She's been using this like forever, and she looks like she might be in her fifties. She's gorgeous, and you would not believe that she's seventy-five. Like, okay, fine, I'll give this a try. And the cream works in conjunction with a patch that stimulates the collagen and elastin and stimulates the skin to hold more water, be moister, and have fewer fine lines and wrinkles. But just structurally, on a cellular level, be healthier. There's a day cream and night cream, and I tried it out. I am in love with the smell of it. First of all, it's great and very hydrating. It's not oily. But I'm in love with the scent. It's just like five different essential oils, and it's very light. You can't smell it if it's on someone five feet away from you. It's not like perfume. It's just like a hint of essential oils.

So my husband comes up to kiss me and asks, what is that smell? And he starts muzzling me and kissing me all over. He was, what is that smell? We’ve been married for almost 15 years, and this is the first time I've ever worn an aphrodisiac. He loves that. I have to put it on now because he comes to bed, and he's like, oh, you're wearing it, and he smiles at me. Whatever blend of essential oils it is, it is an aphrodisiac, and I love it too. It smells like maybe a little bit of Rosemary and vanilla, and there's this hint of orange. I can't quite place it. But it's not like this artificial smell, which I'm so thankful for because I don't put artificial fragrances on my body. It just smells like nature, though it was an aphrodisiac. So there's like a little bonus. But I love how it feels on my skin, and I love the results, and I'm looking forward to fifty when I'm seventy-five.

[1:15:30.5] Trina Hammack:  Me too, I love it. It's so light, and I don't like smelly products. If it stinks, it's out. I'm not going to use it. And the patch that comes with it not only repairs skin and increases collagen. This is the only product I know that has been shown clinically in research studies to lengthen telomeres. And when you lengthen your telomeres, you are reversing the aging process. That combination is just brilliant. It's just beautiful. 

[1:16:05.1] Ashley James: Yeah, what they discovered about telomeres is that it's the length of the end of the chromosome. And they figured out that telomeres are like when you cut down a tree and see the centrifugal rings, and you can count the rings, like, how old this tree was when you killed it. When you cut it down, you can see how old it was. That's like telomeres but in reverse. So they have a certain amount of length. Then as we age, every time the cell has to split and create new cells, the telomeres shorten. And the shorter the telomere, the expiration of your life is nearer your cellular age. So you're aging greater and greater by the shortness of the telomere. So if you lengthen your telomere, you are reversing cellular age on a DNA chromosomal level. 

I've been looking into telomeres for at least ten years now, as more and more research is coming out. And I find it fascinating that there are certain foods, key nutrients in extracts, and concentrations that have effects on telomeres. But then to take this phototherapy and be able to stimulate the body, the peptides, and whatever it's doing throughout the body to increase the telomeres; that's phenomenal. You can read all the science papers, and we'll link that in the podcast's show notes. So people can see the results better, like fewer fine and wrinkles and more muscle mass. And then they can even see a DEXA scan. There are so many testimonials of people with stronger bones, that they can see it through the cellular age-reversing. They can see in the mirror, and they can see it in the labs as well. 

[1:17:50.0] Trina Hammack:  When they came out with their second stem cell activating patch, I'm like, okay, yeah, we'll see. I'm skeptical even though I've been using them and was in love with them. The second patch that came out was for strengthening your muscles and increasing stamina and strength. So I said, let's see what happens if I do a really hard spin class and how I feel afterward. I picked the most challenging class I could find on my Peloton and put both kinds of stem cell patches on. And I sailed through that class. Then I just got off the bike and carried on. I used to crawl off the bike and say, hey, sweetie, where's my shake? And I just got up and kept going. My strength, stamina, and all of that have been phenomenal for my overall health and athletic ability. It's just been amazing.

[1:18:51.6] Ashely James: Oh, you were going to teach us how to do polarity. 

[1:18:57.6] Trina Hammack: Yes, so we talked about how energy runs through the body. So I do a lot of frequency work here, correcting frequencies that are off when you're ill. Your body, organs, or glands may not be coming at the right frequency, so I'll use frequencies to correct them. Well, patches do that too. But if you're chronically ill like I was with Lyme, mold, and even ovarian cancer, my energy was running backwards. 

And there's a simple way to check to see if your polarity is backwards or if it's correct. You can do it right now. It takes about 30 seconds to do. You stand up and put your feet together so they're touching. I usually do it barefoot. And then you take your dominant hand, place it palm down a couple of inches above your head, and just close your eyes. Relax your body and breathe, and feel which way your body wants to sway. Does it want to go from the left to the right for back circles? What way does your body naturally want to go? And then once you get that, flip the palm so it faces toward the ceiling, relax and see which way your body wants to sway. For most people, their energy will be reversed and go every which way except correct. Now, with correct polarity, if your energy runs properly through your body, when you have your palm facing down above your head, you should sway forward. It may be a little sway or a big one. Once I corrected it, I sway big now. But face down with the palm, you go forward and face up with the palm, you should sway backwards. Any other combination tells you that your polarity is incorrect. 

So we use our correcting polarity protocol and follow it up with a protocol called 4 Gates that many acupuncturists use. It’s common for them to get energy moving in the right direction. You want to teach your body to move in this direction continuously. So the longer I patched, the harder it was to throw me off and to reverse my polarity. It just doesn't happen anymore. Or, as when I was sick with mold, I was reversed quite a bit and had chronic pain. So I had anxiety through the roof. So I put my patches on, and it would stop on a dime just like that. So, checking and correcting your polarity is essential to ensure you get the most out of your protocols. 

[1:21:55.6] Ashley James: You've been doing this with your clients. What do people notice when their polarities are corrected? Do they come back and tell you? 

[1:22:04.7] Trina Hammack:  They are more relaxed, have less pain, and feel more grounded and centered. They’re sleeping better. Their chronic issues are starting to shift. Like I say, it's like your electricity is running backwards to your house and blows out your fuse box and your nervous system. So this helps diffuse that static in your nervous system, making you feel calmer and more centered. You can handle the day more efficiently. It's like what you were feeling. You can see the overwhelm. You start to hold that more and more. You start holding your polarity correctly, and everything starts to be easier. Then you want to make changes, like your family member. As she starts to feel better, she starts to make better choices. You see a lot of shifts like that. And they start feeling better overall. 

[1:23:12.6] Ashley James: So, there are the skeptics. I know I've had, for example, some Christian listeners who feel weary of anything to do with energy work. I fully agree that there is evil in the world, and there's good in the world. As Christians, we've been warned not to go down this path. So, for example, don't go down the new age path because there are a lot of bad spirits if you go down this path and want to stick to a righteous path. So when we go into holistic medicine, it is a buffet. It's a free-for-all. If you are one religion, you might end up stepping into an area where you wonder if it’s a gray zone.

When it comes to energy work, although some people doubt, for example, the use of crystals, pendulums, and things like that; for some people, they're like, rock on. Others, especially Christians, and Catholics, are like, no, that sounds like contacting spirits, and I'm not into that. No way. I'm not even going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. For many people, anything to do with energy work, I'm going to say, it’s not what I'm doing because I'm nervous I might accidentally step over into the gray zone. So I want to be respectful of everyone's religious and spiritual beliefs. This energy we were talking about is not spiritual, and I am a spiritual person. I am a Christian. But I've experienced energy in my life in many capacities. This is not the spiritual energy we’re talking about. Although if you're communing with the Holy Spirit, then rock on. That's an energy I want to be part of. 

So for those who are into Reiki, that's a form of energy work. So there are all kinds of “spiritual healing” and energies. This is not what we're talking about. This is actual physical energy. You can't see it with your eyes, but it's like you look up in the sky; and I'm going to tell you that there's air current right now, like the air stream is above you. You cannot see it with your eyes, but it's there. And with specific equipment, we could test and show you that the air stream is above your head and that there's an air current. So you have energy flowing in and around your body, and there's a way to test it. 

So if you were to, God forbid, go to the ER because you have some symptoms, such as heart or brain issues, they would hook you up to machines, and these machines would read the energy signatures from your heart and your brain. So we have energy that can be picked up and read by machines in a hospital. So it's a state-of-the-art Western medicine. 

Then we have energy that flows to the body that's part of a 5000-year-old or more ancient way of healing that has been proven repeatedly to be effective in terms of acupuncture. So in traditional Chinese medicine, they've observed for thousands of years that the body has a flow in which we can see veins flowing through the body. We can see blood flowing through the body and invading our arteries. You can see lymph flow. And then this is something you can't see, but we definitely experience. Because when you go to acupuncture, and they put a needle in your wrist, you'll feel it somewhere else in your body because it's connecting. 

I have a great side story. When I was pregnant with our son, he wanted to come out feet first. He's always wanted to hit the ground running, which is his personality. And so he wanted to come out feet first, and he was facing forward. So, if you can imagine, his feet were down, and he was facing forward. He'd push his head up to my heart or push it out. But that's how he was, and he's a long kid, like 22 inches. He's a big boy inside me. He wasn't heavy. He was 70 pounds or something. He wasn't heavy, but he was long. And he was coming out feet first, and I did not want to have a C-section.  

I had a midwife that then transferred me to an OBGYN at 36 weeks. So I'm almost at 40 weeks. I'm almost at the time of delivery. And this OB is like your traditional Western medicine method. She has a drug pad in one hand. She's an OB and says you should go for acupuncture. I nearly fell off the table because I was not expecting that. And she goes, many studies show that acupuncture is very beneficial for reversing a breech pregnancy. So I found an amazing woman. Her name is Jasmine Bay. If you're in the Seattle area, she's well-known as the woman to go to if you are pregnant. She does a little family medicine, but for the most part, she does acupuncture for pregnancies. So she flips babies, basically. 

So I go down, and she puts two little needles in my ankles. I was lying on the table and propped up a bit, so I was more like sitting back on the table. And she says these points are the energy points that travel up. It's like a button on your body that travels up. The energy travels up into the uterus and tells the baby to spin the energy in the other direction. The baby feels it, and it turns. I'm looking at her like, are you kidding me? Again, I'm an open-minded skeptic. I love new things, but I'm also not believing at the same time. So when things were happening, I was like, this is so cool. I'm just sitting there believing it would work because I didn't want to have a C-section.

As I'm lying there, it's been less than 15 minutes, and our son pushes his head up like something out of an alien movie and turns halfway. And we watched it happen. He pushes up and turns. And by the time we got out of there, he had turned the rest of the way. We hadn't even reached home yet; he finished turning the rest of the way and stayed turned in the correct position. I've loved acupuncture my whole life, but that was like, are you kidding me? I was sold. 

So, when it comes to energy channels in the body, I believe they exist, and I've experienced them personally. And using these photon therapy patches and specific patterns to go along with acupuncture protocols gives you incredible and better results than if you just put the patch wherever you wanted. So even though they've done studies and shown that the patches work no matter where you put them, when you put them in conjunction with the meridian and energy points, we're seeing much more significant results in our group. 

[1:31:00.2] Trina Hammack: Yeah, that's for sure. I have everybody in my practice go into the group and learn these protocols because there's no other place to get them. This is the only group on the planet that has them. And I feel like God led me to this group, honestly, so we would have these resources to help more people. And on another side note, I had acupuncture while in labor. My acupuncturist came to the hospital. He put in two needles, and I stood up, and my water broke just like that. So I'm like, oh, thank you, David. 

So yeah, it does work. Pregnant women use these patches to help them through their pregnancy for many reasons. And those points on the ankles that your gal stimulated with the needles, we do not patch those for pregnant women because we don't want them to have the baby early. 

[1:31:58.7] Ashley James: Yeah, absolutely. It's good to work when you're using this in certain circumstances. It's good to work with someone trained in them and who studied the protocol. I've been studying the protocols; you've done it for years. And then we've access to this community of practitioners who do these protocols. And I love that this group shares testimonies. I love using the search function in the group and going through testimonial after testimonial. 

There are over fifty thousand people in this group, and they're sharing so many testimonials of success. And then people come in and ask their questions to you, like, hey, I've got this problem. What should I do? And then there's a bunch of practitioners that jump in and share what patching protocols have worked for them. So that's how I figured out how to do the foot thing. Because I was like, I don't know if I'm able to stand, and I went into the group, then I typed in the foot problem I had, which was different for my husband since it was more of an ankle. But either way, it's close enough. But for both of us, it worked. And it's the same with headaches, digestion, energy, and sleeping. So it goes on and on. So I'm very excited about this. 

Are there any of the stories you wanted to share? Was there anything else you wanted to make sure that you conveyed?

[1:33:18.1] Trina Hammack: I like to empower my people with knowledge and tools that they can do themselves. I want them to be the strongest they can be so that they can do what they need to do in their life. And this is one of the best tools you can have at your fingertips that doesn't cost you a bazillion dollars to buy, you know, a new piece of equipment or something like that. Put one little patch on sometimes, and it can change everything. It's so empowering to know that you have this knowledge, and I'm so grateful that I gave them a try because, you know, I am a healthy skeptic. And I know that every day, my health gets better and stronger, and if something comes up, I've got a tool I can use and take with me everywhere. I patch everybody. I patch everything. And that little dog this morning, just watching her eyes change when I put this patch on her, and you could see it was like she was running around for years in PTSD. So when I met her and put the patch on, it just dissolved.

[1:34:33.7] Ashley James: It does calm the nervous system. 

[1:34:37.0] Trina Hammack: Oh my God. And then I put it on the woman whose dog it was. And I watched the same thing happen to her. And everybody in the pack is going to get better that way. Do you know what I mean? So, give it a try. It's incredible. Empower yourself with this technology. There's a lot to learn, but you can also keep it simple at the same time. 

[1:35:05.9] Ashley James: Yes. So that's why I'm here. I want to help you guys. And so if anyone wants to try this, if you heard it and something resonated with you, and you want to give it a shot. First of all, I love that they have a money-back guarantee and that they stand behind it. I've worked with a handful of companies that do that, and I remember how much money I wasted on supplements and different things. And then when it didn't work out, and then it's like, there are so many companies that won't stand behind their stuff. So, when there's a company that 100% stands behind its stuff, I'm more willing to give you a try. It makes me suspicious of companies that don't stand behind their stuff 100%. So I love that. But I want to work with anyone who's listening and wants to try this. So I want you to work with me. 

 If you go to learntruehealth.com and then in the menu, you'll see Ashley James. You click on “Work with Ashley James,” then set up a 15-minute free discovery call with me, and we will chat. I will help you pick out the proper protocols for you. I'm working with Trina, and then I'll get you into that private Facebook group where you can see all the protocols. You don't have to learn it all. I'm learning it all because I work with people as a health coach. But you can go to that group and learn for yourself. Type in your issues and then try it from there. You can sign up for a free talk with me, and I'll help you get on it. 

And Trina's always here to help. Trina even said that she'd be here in any capacity. I could always message her and say, hey, I've got a listener. It's this problem. What kind of patching protocol would help based on your experience? And you've been great because there was this one time right when we got our patches at the beginning of December; I remember we were out at a Christmas party, and one of my friends was crying. She's like, I don't know why I am so depressed all day. I'm in tears. This was a beautiful happy Christmas party we hosted for our homeschooled kids, and the kids had so much fun, and she couldn't stop crying. So I pulled her aside, and we sat down together. I was a shoulder for her and listened to her. There was so much going on for her. I guess it's because her family ostracized her and had a big fight with her extended family. So I messaged Trina, and I'm like, okay, I've got a mom that can't stop crying. What should I do? And you're like, take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. I know; I'm just so excited.

So we put the patches on for the vasovagal, for the vagus response to calm the nervous system. And this was right at the end of the party, so we were out in the parking lot. I put it on her, and I said okay. I hugged her and said, “Okay, you let me know how this works for you. She messaged me, and she goes, it's all gone. She goes, I don't know what came over me. I couldn't stop crying all day long and was so overwhelmed by sadness. After I put on the patches, it was just like she was back to her usual self. She's like, yeah, I feel like that's all gone. And she's been in a much better space since then.

I want to use them too, progressively, as I work through and heal things, grow, and get healthier and healthier. But it's also cool to have something in the medicine cabinet for emergencies, like dental surgery, or if someone just fell. It's having arnica at hand, something that decreases inflammation and takes pain immediately, and calms the nervous system immediately if you have an emotional upset. Just having some go-to for intense situations in life and seeing how fast it helps is phenomenal. So listeners, if you are interested, contact me and get on my schedule. Let's chat, and let me help you get hooked up with this. And then, for whatever reason, you're uncomfortable because sometimes people are shy being on the phone, and I get that; you can email me at ashley@learntruehealth.com. If you don't hear from me, that means that it went to spam. I'm going to check my spam, but email me again. You can also find me on Facebook. You can go to the Facebook group learntruehealth.com/group. It gets you there. You can message me on Facebook, or you can email me. You can go to learntruehealth.com, go to the tab, the Ashley tab in the menu, Ashley James, and then “Work with Ashley James.” And from there, you'll be able to sign up for a phone call. If you want a phone call, an email, or a message on Facebook, I'm here to help. 

I'd love to see you guys be able to experience these results. And then for those practitioners, because 20% of my listeners are practitioners, health coaches, dentists, and many outstanding practitioners, this stuff's incredible. I want to see dentists use the patches. Can you imagine if you could decrease anxiety right away? Put the patches on the specific protocol on the wrists, and it decreases anxiety right away. If you put the patches on the jaw, it helps to reduce pain and inflammation right away. I could see this affecting the dental industry hugely in such a positive way. And you could sell retail as a practitioner. But I'd prefer to help people get the wholesale discount, which I did, and I want you to as well. But again, as you said, it's not like you're buying an expensive energy machine, right? Like, I wanted to buy the BEMER mat that you lie on, but it's thousands of dollars. And I opted for the Platinum Energy System foot detox spa and the sauna instead, which was thousands of dollars. I would love a frequency-specific microcurrent machine, and I'd love the SCIO. I'd love all those machines that are thousands of dollars. And these patches are so affordable. It's not like buying giant machines and they get the results like these giant machines. So I do love that. That's so great. 

Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing. Is there anything else that you want to share? This is stuck in my mind because I'm sure some listeners went, what? But you mentioned ovarian cancer, and we didn't talk about whether it was gone, so I want to check in with you. 

[1:42:09.1] Trina Hammack: 15 years ago, I was diagnosed with aggressive stage 3 ovarian cancer. And I'm, like, wait, what? I mean, I am like you. I was a Big Sur mama, and I was eating clean. And I've got all of this technology. I'm a holistic practitioner now of 27 years, but fifteen years ago, I got this huge tumor diagnosis, and I did not understand what was happening. Anyway, so they took it out, and I refused chemo. I did a holistic therapy program with Hope for Cancer and am good friends with the medical director there, Dr. Jimenez. I've been fine ever since. From that experience, I learned German New Medicine which is the emotional part of any disease. And so that was my blessing, my silver lining in that. But honestly, it's a walk in the park compared to Lyme and mold. 

But I've been great. I never did chemo, and I didn't do radiation. Yeah, it's done. It was an emotional trigger. It was a repair phase of an emotional trauma. The one thing that I like to tell people is anytime you feel symptoms, whether it's a pain, inflammation, or sore throat, ask yourself what you just let go of. So what did you resolve to have your body go into this healing phase? Then you can use patches to help you smoothly transition through that healing phase and get better faster. 

When the body goes through repair, that's when you have symptoms. When it's in a conflict or has some conflict, you don't know that it's breaking down or building up some tissue. But when you let go of that emotional problem, it's like after being through a really stressful time, like, the finals. You're stressed out, and you get a cold or the flu afterward. It's because your body is in a phase, and that's when we use microbes to help us repair. But now you have tools to help you get through that, to keep your immune system stronger, so there's less body breakdown while you're stressed. 

But thank you for asking. I'm really good. I got to learn all about German New Medicine and help people on that level now too. 

[1:44:44.9] Ashley James: Yeah, I learned about Dr. Hamer in 2005 when I was studying neuro-linguistic programming, and what a rabbit hole to go down.

[1:44:53.1] Trina Hammack: It sure is. 

[1:44:53.7] Ashley James: It is such a beautiful rabbit hole. So I'm so glad you offer that, along with all the other tools you offer in your functional practice. So let's make sure we plug you as well, trinahammack.com. And, of course, the links to everything we've discussed today will be shown on today's podcast at learntruehealth.com. And I can't wait to help you guys with this.

If you want to get and try these patches for yourself, and try these protocols, please contact me. Let me help you get on it and try it for yourself. And thank you for coming on the show. I would love to interview your friend there at Hope for Cancer. So I hope you can hook me up with him. I'd love that.

[1:45:37.1] Trina Hammack: I'll hook you up, absolutely. 

[1:45:38.6] Ashley James: And I want to interview more people like scientists associated with these patches, dig deeper into the science behind them, and go down this rabbit hole. 

[1:45:54.0] Trina Hammack: Let's get you hooked up with the founder.

[1:45:56.6] Ashley James: Yeah, let's do that. That would be a lot of fun. Awesome. Is there anything else you want to ensure the listener knows about today?

[1:46:06.9] Trina Hammack: I think we're good. I feel complete. How about you? 

[1:46:13.2] Ashley James: Yeah, nice and cool. Awesome. 

[1:46:16.2] Trina Hammack: Thank you so much.

[1:46:16.8] Ashley James: This has been fantastic. I'm looking forward to helping everyone interested in taking their health to the next level. Trina, you're welcome back on the show any time because you're such a fountain of knowledge, 27 years being this amazing practitioner, the healer, and your fellow country mom, that you are. We appreciate that. Absolutely. I think it's essential to help people heal from all their emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual issues, get to the root cause, and support their body's ability to heal. 

We help people remind themselves that they have the power. The word, empower, is not the right word to use because the root of the word empower means they don't have the power. You're lending them your power. But truly, they have the power within them. The body has the ability to heal itself. You're just reminding them. You're their navigator. 

And what I love about these patches is that they stimulate the body's healing mechanisms. And so we're stimulating the body to heal itself, but of course, accompany that with good nutrition and everything else you do. But it just accelerates it and takes it to this whole new level. So I'm already doing all these other healthy things, and it took it to the next level. 

And then my family member, who's not doing anything good or not doing anything healthy, like drinking alcohol, and eating whatever she wants, is a standard American kind of person; it helped her so much. I'm like, holy crow. So it helps both people and animals. As you said, you can patch horses. You've patched cats and dogs, and they have no placebo effect. Like, they think it's going to help them. So when you see that their limping goes away, their pain or anxiety behavior goes away after putting them on these animals. Even a patch has been designed specifically for horses because of how effective they are. And think about it; this is no drug. We're not putting something in the body. We're just stimulating the body's own healing mechanism, which is phenomenal. I love it. It should be in everyone's medicine cabinet. Everyone should try this and use it. This is a key that has been missing for so many people, so I'm really excited. I can't wait to talk to the listeners and help them get on it. And thank you so much for coming on the show. So if you ever have anything you want to come on the show and share about, you're welcome to come back. And maybe next time, I will actually let you talk.

[1:49:05.5] Trina Hammack: Hey, I loved hearing all your stories because it's only been a couple of months since you guys used these. I know where you started, and it was so great to get filled in with Duffy and Brave and your family member and stuff like that. So thank you for sharing all that. 

[1:49:24.1] Ashley James: Remember you told me I love new patchers! Because we started getting excited, and we're texting each other, you're like, I love new patchers. I thought to myself, and I can't wait to say that to someone else. I can't wait till I am helping other people, and they're like, I'm getting these results! And I can't wait to say to them, I love new patchers! It's just so cool to pass something on to someone that makes such a big difference and helps them. So just the one thing, like taking his headaches away. He was debilitated from constant pain for almost an entire year, from April to the end of the year. And like I said, it's every other day, at least once a week, then three or four times a week, and sometimes daily. And now he doesn't have that. How cool is it to have something you don't have to put anything in the body? So you stick something on his body, and it takes away the pain within minutes. 

If we could take away people's chronic pain with just that one thing. But it does so many more things than that.

[1:50:33.9] Trina Hammack: You have nothing to lose by trying something new. And if you don't like them, send them back. Honestly, my people don't because they get it. So you have nothing to lose. And why not try? That's how I look at it. 

[1:50:54.2] Ashley James: Love it. Thank you so much, Trina. And I look forward to having you back on the show. 

[1:50:58.8] Trina Hammack: Thanks, I can't wait.

[1:51:01.3] Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today's interview with Trina Hammack. Wasn't that amazing? I just looked at the calendar and realized that my husband and I have been using this technology for 56 days. Since using it daily, I have been jumping out of bed way earlier than I used to. My sleep was already good. I've been on a healing journey for many years. I am incredibly clean, but I'm still healing my body. I still have a ways to go before I am a hundred percent satisfied. So I've got my own health goals that I'm working on

But I noticed that it improved my sleep, which was already good. We're just cool. It improved my energy, which was already good. Then it increased my strength. I can run upstairs. I have more strength that I feel my muscles are just stronger, and I'm lifting heavier things. It just feels easier. And my body composition has changed, which is interesting. I put clothing on, and I'm like, wow, that is fitting differently. The scale is telling me, but I'm also losing inches. My husband goes and hugs me and goes, woah; your body is shifting and changing. And it's fantastic. So my body composition is changing. They did studies and found that the specific protocol that I'm doing increases the body's ability to burn fat by 23%. 

There are so many studies that you can look into if you want. Just send me an email at ashley@learntruehealth.com, and I can share the studies with you. Or you can book that session with me. Go to learntruehealth.com, and at the top, it says, “Work with Ashley James” click on that, and the first session at the top, you can book our free 15-minute phone call, and then I can help you. I can help you get on the protocol that you want. If you're interested in trying this out, I'd love to help you. Also, the company, which I really appreciate, stands 100% behind its products, and they have a money-back guarantee. That's something I look into when I work with any holistic company. I look at many factors, including reviews and quality control, how long they've been around, the studies that they have published, and labs that are published about them. And then I look if they have a guarantee. Because if they 100% stand behind their product and will give you your money back, then that is amazing. And this company has such a good money-back guarantee. They really believe in their product, and I can see it for myself. So it's 56 days that I can really feel it. And I'm so excited that I was turned on to this by Trina. 

So if you want to get involved, I'd love to help you experience it yourself. Go to learntruehealth.com, chat with Ashley James book, and book a session with Ashley James. And then, boom. Let's have a discussion, and let me help you. And I've got access to Trina and many other holistic practitioners in our group that work with this technology, and I've been learning so much. I've been helping some people already with this and having some really fun results. So I'd love to help you as well.

I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your day, whatever you're doing. Have a wonderful time, and I look forward to the next episode because I am super excited to publish it. And I've got a few more episodes until episode 500. That's going to be an amazing testimonial. So if you have a testimonial of health and healing that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it. And I'd love to share it with the listeners because we're in the business of helping people to end their suffering. So, if you have a story of the success of healing, please share it with me. I'd love to share it on episode 500. That's coming up.

But pay attention to the next episode because there's another thing I'm excited to share with you. We're just kicking off the year with so many remarkable technologies. So stay tuned, and make sure you subscribe to get notified. I'd be publishing that episode soon. Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing my episodes with your friends and family. That's how we grow, and that's how we help as many people as possible. I want to help over a million people to learn true health and end their suffering, and to be able to finally gain the knowledge that they need to be able to be truly healthy in their bodies. So, thank you for spreading this information and helping your loved ones. And if you want to join our community, we have a free Facebook group. I'd love for you to be part of it as well. You can go to learntruehealth.com/group, which will take you to the Learn True Health Facebook group, and I will see you there.

Get Connected with Trina Hammack!

 

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Jan 12, 2023

Your Three Action Steps:
1) Please share your testimonials by emailing support@learntruehealth.com
2) Get the foundations of health at FreeDoctorCourse.com
3) Structured Water! Check it out and use coupon code LTH at:
https://www.learntruehealth.com/structuredwater

 

495: Unlock Mental and Emotional Freedom, Dr. Dain Heer

https://www.learntruehealth.com/unlock-mental-and-emotional-freedom-dr-dain-heer

Our emotions are constantly on the move, rising and falling as we try to navigate through life. Our reactions to what's happening in our world may cause us to hold ourselves back from going after what we want (or are afraid of) which creates discord and imbalance in our lives. In this episode, Dr. Dain Heer speaks about tools and strategies to help us work through this process of emotional healing so that we can create more balance in life and feel happier!

Highlights:

  • Access Consciousness
  • Anti-consciousness
  • Tapping into awareness of the future
  • Finding your inner authentic voice
  • On the issue of suicide
  • Asking yourself, “who does it belong to?”
  • POC and POD

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast and welcome to 2023. I know we’re in full swing now. Can’t believe this is the 12th day into 2023. I feel amazing, by the way. I’ve had a really amazing New Year’s. Very cathartic and I can’t wait to share more with you in the next few episodes as kind of my story will unfold. But I do have a few things I want to tell you that are really important before you get to today’s interview, which is phenomenal, by the way. I’m really excited about the techniques that he teaches in today’s interview. I think it’s beneficial for everyone to hear. 

First of all, episode 500 is coming up. It’s a pretty big deal. I’d love to hear your testimonials. For episode 500, I’m planning a testimonial episode. I’ve had some really great ones shared with me. And if you have a testimonial, and what I mean by that is, you’re in healing journey and if anything you’ve learned from the Learn True Health podcast or our Facebook group, anything you’ve learned from me or my guest has helped you along your journey, I’d love to hear your testimonial. You can record yourself. Just put your phone on you and record yourself and then shoot it to me. You can email to me, support@learntruehealth.com or you can find me on Facebook. If you go to Learntruehealth.com/group, that’ll take you straight to our Facebook group. Feel free to join it and you can hit me up there and give me the testimonial. Or you can type it out if you like. Or transcribe it. Or just record an audio, however you want to get me. Your testimonial – I’d love to have it and it could be two minutes long or ten minutes long. Either way. 

The reason why I’m collecting these testimonials for this episode, for episode that’s coming up, episode 500, is when I was suffering and throughout my life there have been moments where I was at really low points. Hearing stories of success because I couldn’t see my way out of the darkness, of the pain, and seeing people who had been through what I had been through or in a similar experience and then come out the other side and they were thriving, seeing them succeed gave me hope to keep going. And I want to give that hope, I want to extend that hope to those who are suffering. I suffered for many years and the suffering didn’t have to happen, and that's the part that angers me but motivates me, right, because the suffering is optional. But when I was going through it, it wasn’t optional. It was what I was going through. And I found the tools and the resources to end my suffering, to heal my body emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, I was able to overcome those things. That's why I do this podcast, to share these tools with you to help you and your suffering, to help you get on the other side of your healing.

Now, healing is a journey whenever done, right? You don’t just go, “Oh, I’m done, I’m healed.” You're always growing and so am I. But I’d like you to get a point where life is like living is easy. Like it’s not uncomfortable to be in your own body, right? Living is fantastic. I want you to be on that side of the river with me, right? So I’m going to help you. We’re going to build that bridge to get on that side. Because right now, I’m on that side. I’m still growing, I’m still healing. I still have health goals. My life in my body is no longer suffering. 

So, with testimonials, you get to hear from real people, real listeners who have been able to cross that bridge and get to the other side. I want you to have the same thing. I’ve got some great testimonials about migraines, hormones, digestive issues. There's even one testimonial where a listener was able to save her mom’s life. Just big stuff. So, no matter how big or how small you think your testimonials, if you have one, please share it with me. I’d love to include it in that episode. Let’s help inspire those who want to be able to get on the other side but maybe just they can’t see their way out and let’s help motivate them and encourage them to get to that place. 

So anyways, who doesn’t love a great success story? Who does not love that? I cry, I weep, tears of joy and love and gratitude and praise. So happy to hear people’s transformation stories. So, please, share them, support@learntruehealth.com, I’d love to hear them.

The next thing I want to let you know. This is the beginning of the year and a lot of people are looking to create new health habits. I’ve got a fantastic free course for you that I designed with some naturopathic physicians. We filmed it. It’s called Freedoctorcourse.com and I mean it, it is free. There's no strings attached. It’s just I filmed it with some of my favorite local naturopathic doctors and they give you the foundations of health that they do with all their patients that if you’re missing even one of these, you could be suffering needlessly. What’s crazy is that medical doctors will actually try to medicate these symptoms and the symptoms are like dehydration, for example, right? Just absolutely crazy that there's medications out there to treat symptoms that are completely resolved when we cover the foundations of true health. And that is what is offered in Freedoctorcourse.com. So go to Freedoctorcourse.com, put in your information and you’ll get 7 emails from me, one every day with a video from a naturopathic physician teaching you and other foundation of health, easy steps that you can take and such a great time of year to do it to solidify your new health resolutions. Right? We all want to feel better. No matter where you are on your health journey, you need these foundations of health. So there they are. Freedoctorcourse.com, go to that, check it out.

Lastly, I have a story, I’m going to keep it short because I want you to get to this great interview. I’m going to be interviewing the creators and the scientists around this thing. But I was going to wait until I did the interview which I’m going to be doing next week. But I can’t wait. I have to tell you about it. If you’ve been a long-time listener, you’ve heard me say I’m the world’s most open-minded skeptic, right? I think that's how we need to be. We’re discovering new things, right? We have to use our critical thinking, right? Not just blindly accept anything but at the same time, be open-minded enough to at least take in new information especially if that information is so new. I think there's little bells and whistles that go off in our mind. It’s like oh, that sounds so new, it’s probably not true or it sounds too good to be true. Well, sometimes in holistic medicine, there are things that really work and they do sound too good to be true. But then there's a lot of I don’t want to say snake oil but there's a lot of not-so-great stuff. So, how do we navigate that? Well, we got to really get in touch and listen to our heart, listen to our intuition, take in all the information, look at the science, look at the results, and then try it on for ourselves. As long as there’s no negative side effects, try it on for ourselves as long as we feel like it’s safe to do, and then see what kind of results we get. So, that's what I love. I love experimenting with new herbs and new supplements and new machines and new habits. Like, I’m going to skip breakfast or I’m going to skip dinner or see what happens in my body, or I’m going to drink even more water, or I’m going to try a new exercise. Just you’re always experimenting trying new things. Get new health habits and try them on. 

So, I was introduced to this company and I’ve heard of structured water for a long time. I even have an interview on it which is amazing. I have this amazing interview. He’s a little hard to understand because I felt he had a very thick accent but if you strain really hard, you get some great information when you listen to him. He’s a Russian scientist who discovered with this group of scientists that discovered that structured water is what had the people in Chernobyl had them survive. So, there's a certain amount of people from Chernobyl who had radiation poisoning sent to this one particular hospital up in the mountains and he tells the story and they drink structured water. The other people were sent to other hospitals. Well, those people all suffered how we would predict with radiation poisoning. And yet, the ones that drink structured water did not, and they got better. They were like, woah, what’s going on? Like, this is the clear night and day difference.

They finally discovered that it was structured water that they were drinking, that it’s very specific places in the world where it comes up, it has to be under pressure, underground, and they’ve been trying to recreate it. If you’ve been into the health space, I’m sure you’ve heard of structured water before. Well, there's lots of machines, there's lots of expensive machines, there's all kinds of things out there that you get for structured water. I was introduced to this one company and, you know, I’m skeptical but I’m open-minded so I’m going to try it, so I tried it. And I really didn’t believe I was going to notice a difference. You simply use it in your glass of water. So, I fill up a big mason jar of 24 ounces, 30 ounces of water, and I use it. I swirl this thing in the water for a minute and then I drink it. I did not have a belief it would work because I was like, come on, really? I’m going to stir something in my water and it’s going to structure it. Well, sure enough. And you could stir water with a spoon or a knife or a chopstick. It’s not going to change the flavor of it. It’s not going to change how it feels in your mouth. Well, I used this device in the water for a minute and then I drank it. I was like, what just happened? Then of course I get another glass of water, pour it out of my filter to compare. Straight out of my filter I drank it, I’m like, okay, yeah, that's what water normally feels like in my mouth, normally tastes like. And then I drank the structured water again. I’m like, I cannot believe this! So, then I go grab my husband and our son, and I go okay, blind test. They don’t know which one is the structured water. I’m like, “Drink this, now drink this.” And they both were like, “What is this? This is amazing.” In one minute of using this device. And I’ve done this with every friend that’s come over. It’s been the funnest magic trick to do when friends come over, is the blind test. “Okay, drink this water, now drink this water, and tell me which one you like better.” The structured water tastes wetter. It feels different in the mouth. It tastes a bit sweeter and more natural just like more how water should be and it goes down your mouth like when you swallow it, it feels like everything is in alignment. And this has blown my mind.

So, I have a friend who also has the device and she says she’s loved it. So, I started sharing this with my friends and every single one of them has gone like, “I have to get this. This is crazy. This is so good.” Three days of using this, and this is the big thing for me because I don’t know if you know my stories, you might be a new listener. Listeners who have been listening for a while know that we’ve been through a hard time. Our family, we lost our daughter, and I’ve been doing a lot of healing work. What had been sort of in the background for me had just been like this low-grade sadness, just like really almost like a static noise sort of just always there, somewhere in my heart, just low in my heart, just always there, three days of drinking this water. One of my friends said, “How are you doing?” I did an internal check and I went, “It’s gone. It’s gone.” Wait, what? For the first time in two years, I was able to answer, “I’m actually doing really well, thanks for asking. Like I feel really good.” There was just this congruency in my body three days of drinking this water. I feel so good and my husband is like, refuses to drink any water other than using the structured water. You can use it in your cooking. It changes the flavor of your coffee, by the way. If you structure the water before you make coffee with it.

So, we’ve been doing it since right around Thanksgiving is when we got this device. I wanted to give it like a good enough trial before I introduce you guys to it because I like to experiment and see if something really resonates and really helps. Well, the studies around this structured water is that it reverses cellular age and people had their cellular age reversed up to 12 years younger in three months of drinking this water. I feel amazing. I know I’m doing a lot of health things, right? It’s hard because you’re doing so many different things, you don’t know which one is the one that's doing it. But I hadn’t really changed anything right around when I started using this device to structure my water. And I haven’t stopped using it. And I feel amazing. I’m a big water fanatic, I think we all should drink over 100 ounces of water a day that's purified water. But it makes me want to drink water more. It makes me enjoy drinking water. And there's a huge difference when I use it. Also, it affects well water too because I went to a friend’s house, we tested it on her well water and sure enough, I thought well water might already be just naturally structured coming from the ground. Sure enough, it changes well water as well. It feels wetter and it just goes down your throat easier and it changes the flavor of it like more enjoyable. Anyways, enough about that. Look forward to that interview. I’m going to be doing that interview next week. We’re going to get into the science of why. It also changes brain waves. It makes them healthier. They’ve been doing studies for about 12 years now on this particular device, but there's so much science around structured water. It’s really fascinating. So, check out this device that I love and of course, I asked them if they would give our listeners a discount. Learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. That's Learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. Use the coupon code LTH as in Learn True Health. Check it out for yourself. What I like about this is it’s actually way cheaper than all the machines out there probably because it’s manual and it’s not a machine that you're stirring your water with it. Check it out. So far, I really enjoyed communicating with this company and I’m really looking forward to having their scientist and their founders on the show and just digging into like why is it that the structured water, first of all, how is it that in one minute of stirring this device in your water is going to change it so much and how is it that it’s affecting people reversing their cellular age, affecting their brainwaves. How is it that it affected my emotional body, my energetic and emotional body, and that residual sadness that wasn’t going away went away. How is that? 

So, very excited to bring you that information. Go to Learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. Use coupon code LTH, try it for yourself. It is the most affordable structured water device I have found which is great. Yeah, I want to know your feedback. Come to the Learn True Health Facebook group and let me know what you think about this device. Now, remember, testimonials, I want them. Please give them to me because episode 500 is coming up. Then, Freedoctorcourse.com, go get the foundations of health. I want you doing those things for your benefit and share it with your friends and family. Enjoy today’s interview. It’s a fantastic episode. I really, really loved it. It resonated with me and I hope it helps you as well. Have yourselves a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today’s interview.

[00:16:17] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James, this is episode 495.

I am so excited for today’s guest. We have on the show with us Dr. Dain Heer. Boy, this is going to be one of those episodes where you’re just going to sit back and you're going to feel like a transformed person by the end of it. I’m excited for 2023. The last few years, I just want to, I don’t know, I kind of want to put it in that little box in my mind like was that the dream like Dorothy waking up and being like, it was a dream but you were there and you were there. So, let’s just all wake up and 2023 will be like this beautiful technicolor life. Let’s take everything that we want to transform and work on that but in a really positive way see ourselves in the future having achieved those transformed goals. And we have with us an amazing expert to help us get there. Welcome to the show!

[00:17:20] Dr. Dain Heer: Ashley, thanks for having me.

[00:17:22] Ashley James: Absolutely. Now I’d love to hear just a little bit about what had you become the expert you are now. I know that sort of started out as a chiropractor which I absolutely love chiropractic care. But so many chiropractors I have interviewed have gone on to do so much more and it’s really cool that you can take that as a foundation and then go and do like emotional work and healing and energy work. There's so many modalities that can come about from that foundation.

[00:17:57] Dr. Dain Heer: Yeah, it’s wonderful. Chiropractic is sort of a gateway drug for possibilities. It’s like, “Hey, you want to learn chiropractic? Hey, how about some other stuff now?” For me, I was a chiropractor, I was living in Santa Barbara, starting my second practice 22 years ago. I felt like I didn’t even do chiropractic very well. I had studied so many different techniques, you know, emotional, untwisting the tension from the dura, I mean, and about 30 others. I was at a point in my life where I was done because I was going to every weekend workshop I could. I was reading every book I could on personal development, self-help, money, relationships, all the stuff. And what would happen for me is I’d go to a weekend workshop and I’d feel like I finally had the answers by the end of the workshop and I was finally going to be able to create the life I wanted and then by Wednesday of the following week, it would all go away and the universe would cave in on my head again. It was literally a Wednesday after one of these workshops 22 years ago where the universe caved in on my head when I thought I had finally found the answers I was looking for and I said, “I’m done. Universe, you have six months. Either my life changes or I’m out of here.” I literally set a date to end my life. I knew how I was going to do it. It wasn’t around anybody’s birthday. It wasn’t around a holiday. I didn’t want people to mourn for me. I just wanted to get out of my suffering. A week later, I came across an ad for something called Access Consciousness that I had never heard about before. It said Access, all of life comes to me with ease and joy and glory. I got furious, I threw the paper away. Because my life was pain and suffering and gory at the time. I happened to see this little add in the paper the following week and I learned along before if there’s something you hate or something you love, there's something in it for you. So, I called and I was thinking nothing was going to happen. Called and made an appointment and had this girl come to my office for a session. I went into this session angry, depressed, suicidal, looking forward to leaving the planet and I came out with a sense of gratitude for being alive that I will never forget. 

In contrast, everything else that I had done up until that point, it didn’t go away. I got a tool to use each week because I started doing these sessions once a week and what would happen is, when the universe wanted to cave back in on my head, I would use the tool and it would expand back out and I would have that space again. Then, I would get the session and then my space would expand more. And I started walking around with something that very few people seemed to have or allowed themselves which was actually a sense of space no matter what happened. So, I could go through the trials and travails of life and observe it rather than be in the middle of it. That was 22 years ago. Few months after that session, I met the founder of Access, a man named Gary Douglas and he came for a chiropractic session in my office and we became fast friends and started creating this body of work that changes every day and grows every day based on how much more quickly can we help you create change. Because Access is about accessing, the knowing that each of us has within us. When you access that, you start to create the life of your dreams that you always knew was possible. There's stills ups and there's still downs but the downs are far less and the ups are far greater and that starts to become the new trajectory for your life.

[00:21:54] Ashley James: So, you want to unpack a bit about what this is? Is it energy work? Is it meditation? Is it talk therapy? What is it?

[00:22:03] Dr. Dain Heer: Yes. It is so many things. I mean, we have probably 8000 tools at this point that are different ways of handling things in the trenches of life. But its basis is that the only time we create a difficulty in our lives is when we function from less than the consciousness that we are. So, what it’s about is actually undoing the unconscious and anti-conscious points of view that we have which is all the places where we stick ourselves. When you do that, the being that you are actually is conscious.

In certain spiritual circles, they talk about having a higher self. Well, that never sat well with me because inherent in that point of view is you must be the lower self. What this is about is accessing your being, the part of you that actually knows. It’s like if you ever had a choice come up and you knew not to do it, and you did it anyway. And it turned out just as poorly as you know it would, well, that's an acknowledgement that we knew ahead of time, we can perceive these things. So, part of what Access does is there's a part of that’s verbal processing, there's a part of it that’s hands-on which is the session that I had which is this thing called The Bars, which is a light touch technique that’s done on the head and we’ve done scientifically valid studies and found that it decreases anxiety, stress, and depression at an average of 87% with one session. So, there are also body processes to change things in your body by getting your body more conscious. So, it’s got a lot of aspects to it. Describing Access is kind of like hey, describe the universe in three sentences. It’s like, it’s really big.

[00:24:08] Ashley James: This sounds a lot like neurolinguistic programming or timeline therapy. Or there's a lot of other modalities that I know of. Does it pull from other modalities or is it 100 percent its own unique thing?

[00:24:21] Dr. Dain Heer: Nope. It’s 100 percent its own unique thing.

[00:24:26] Ashley James: You mentioned the term “anti-conscious”. I understand consciousness, I understand the unconscious mind or the subconscious mind. But what is anti-consciousness?

[00:24:36] Dr. Dain Heer: Well, let’s actually unpack the unconscious or subconscious. Because what we call our subconscious mind can actually oftentimes be our consciousness in action. See, we have done ourselves a dynamic disservice by equating cognitive and conscious. They are not the same. Cognitive is mental. Conscious is your connection with everything and the awareness you would have as an infinite being. So, if we look from that perspective, I’ll give people a moment to digest that sentence. Kind of one big sentence there which is that we as beings are conscious. In other words, we have infinite knowing, we have infinite perceiving, we have infinite receiving and infinite being. Those are the four aspects of an infinite being, but those are also what we would have as the consciousness we are.

So, unconsciousness is actually where you allow yourself or enforce upon yourself to be unaware of something. Anti-consciousness is where you actively choose against the consciousness that you are. This is what I see with a lot of people is for example, in that case, of you know, everybody out there, think of one thing that you knew not to do and you did it anyway. Then think of how it turned out just as badly as you knew it would. Even though you went through the check box, you listed out your pros and cons, or it looks so good it must work out well. Well, that's a combination of unconsciousness and anti-consciousness. The unconsciousness is I’m going to make myself unaware of the future this will create because each of us has an awareness of future. The anti-consciousness is “Oh, I just got the awareness of the future and I’m going against it now.” That’s what gets created when you function from less than the consciousness of you which occurs in either of those forms.

[00:26:49] Ashley James: I feel like a lot of people might be questioning you on this awareness of the future, like, “I’m not psychic, I can’t predict what other people are going to say or do or how they're going to respond.” Then, how do we tap into our awareness of the future and check in with ourselves and make sure that we’re not actively choosing against the consciousness that we are?

[00:27:17] Dr. Dain Heer: Well, that definitely takes practice because look at it, we’ve all grown up being taught that there are right and wrong choices and the way to know how to choose what’s right is to write down if you're going to do anything, you write down the list of pros and cons, and if the pros outweigh the cons, then you do it. But I’ve seen a lot of people who got married to people who the pros appear to outweigh the cons who suffered dynamically for years. So, what else is there? Well, when you say a lot of people would say “I’m not psychic,” I know and yes, you are. I totally get it. I was functioning from the same place, so I totally understand. I totally understand if I say hey, you have this awareness of future. And people would resist it like I did. You know when I first heard that too, I was like, “You are full of crap!” So if you think I’m full of crap, I totally understand.

In fact, probably the most common thing I hear is “I thought you were full of crap when you said this but I found out you’re not.” I’m like, yup, I get it. I understand. It takes practice. But here’s the thing, is let’s take psychic out of the card reading, future predicting type of thing and let’s acknowledge that it’s awareness of the energetics that occur but also that will occur. So, you don’t necessarily know what somebody else is going to do or what they're going to choose. You could probably predict it with some reliable probability but that's not actually the point. The point is actually getting the sense of I choose this, what space or lack of space will it create for me? A great question to start practicing that is if I choose this, what will my life be like in five years? Not look like because you can’t see it. The future is wisps and whispers of energy. I made a concerted choice to even bring up this topic because I do realize how out there it can seem for some people. But unless we start to realize that we are aware of the energetics, the fundamental sort of sense of lightness or heaviness of what our choices create, we’re going to keep ourselves in the dark thinking that we have no clue what to choose. That's one of the biggest things sticking most people right now. I say right now, it’s probably been forever, is the idea that they don’t know what to choose because they don’t know what the outcome will be, so then they go to their minds to try to figure it out and they go through the checklist and then it still doesn’t work out well.

And yet, if you recognize that even while you're doing the checklist, even while you're exploring whatever the subject is, you will have a sense of whether it’s light or not. See, what’s true for you always makes you lighter. A lie for you will always make you heavier. The more you choose the things that are actually true for you, whether they are for anybody else or not, the lighter your life gets over time.

So, like if for example, well, right around 22 years ago now, I got engaged. Why did I get engaged? Because I had a desire to get married at the time? No, I didn’t but I knew that my girlfriend at the time desired it and in a sense required it because that was the next step we were supposed to take and she needed that for me to prove that I loved her. Because I’m a bit of a romantic, okay, I’m a total freaking romantic, don’t tell anybody, that's just between us, okay, even while I was planning this wonderful way of asking her to marry me, I felt like the walls were closing in. I knew not to do it. I did it anyway. Well, that was like opening Pandora’s box. There was so much heaviness associated with it. But I was going to be the right man who was doing the right thing.

So, my previous conclusion about what I needed to be for someone created the place where I couldn’t look at the effect or wouldn’t look at the effect that it would create even though energetically it was right in my face. We ended up breaking up about three months after because I could no longer go down that path because it just got heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier. The thing is, I knew before I chose it. Which is why I’m bringing this up to people and I also realized, you know, to a certain extent, people, if they're listening to a podcast or they’re usually thinking they're going to get some slightly different version of what they already know. And we’re greater than that. We actually have awarenesses. It’s easy to reject something because it doesn’t match what you thought it was but that's the recipe for keeping the same life that you’ve always had. This conversation is about let’s embrace that we might have more awareness than we think and let’s use it on our behalf. You don’t have to throw out anything. Anything that you’ve learned, anything that you know, because what’s true makes you lighter, a lie makes you heavier. If I say something and it makes you lighter, take it. If I say something and it makes you heavier, feel free to leave it. It’s your choice, it’s your life. But we are greater than we have ever acknowledged or given ourselves credit for. And us trying to pretend that we’re normal, trying to pretend we don’t have the level of awareness we have is killing is, literally. 

[00:33:16] Ashley James: I’m going to play the devil’s advocate for just a moment because I think it will help us better understand. What if 20 years ago, those feelings that you had were not your tapping into understanding your future, but were coming from a place of your unconscious limiting decisions or negative emotions or negative beliefs about yourself like marriage is hard, I’m not loved, I’m going to screw this up, or I’m going to be trapped or whatever. People come up with these limiting decisions that they end up living by that they’ve created through their childhood.

[00:33:56] Dr. Dain Heer: Totally.

[00:33:58] Ashley James: And people will often live as if these unconscious negative beliefs are the truth, right?

[00:34:05] Dr. Dain Heer: Totally. That's what Access changes. That is exactly what Access changes. I’m really grateful you're bringing it up because this is a thing that so many people don’t realize that they're just living the negative beliefs that they grew up with and basically bought as theirs. That they just basically climbed into the box of somebody else’s limited reality and they're trying to decorate it better. So, it’s like absolutely, I’m 100 percent with you.

[00:34:40] Ashley James: Because when people, they're coming from a negative belief and then they try something, they go to do something but they're still believing they can’t or it’s going to screw up, I’m going to screw up, I’m not good enough, I’m not loved, whatever the thing is, and then when it does mess up, they're like, “See, I knew it. I knew I can’t do it,” and they're finding the evidence that they can’t do it. They’re finding they’re living through evidence and proving evidence that they can’t do it. People will live from their unconscious beliefs as if that's reality. Then, they’ll go on proving. So let’s say an unconscious belief is I’m not loved or if it’s like a marriage thing like they saw their parents struggle and divorce and maybe they've seen broken marriages, they grew up in a broken home, they believe that they can’t do it, I can’t do it. Whatever it is about relationships, they can’t do it, or I’m bad at relationships, no one loves me, whatever their belief is, it’s unconscious. They're not consciously aware of it, but what they're aware of is they’re constantly finding evidence to prove their belief system is true and they're negating, the unconscious mind is negating. Distorting, generalizing, negating the proof that they are loved or the proof that anything that goes against their belief system.

So, if they go and they go “Well, I couldn’t possibly do this marriage thing. I’m feeling trapped, I’m feeling like the walls are closing in,” and they call it off and they're like, “See, I knew I couldn’t do it.” But it wasn’t them predicting the future; it was them fulfilling their limiting beliefs or their negative beliefs that they’ve created, that they're living by, and then they're constantly finding evidence to support that their negative beliefs are reality when in fact they're not. 

[00:36:40] Dr. Dain Heer: Like I was saying, those negative beliefs, those limiting beliefs are actually what Access changes. The thing about looking at the future is you're not predicting the future, you are having an awareness of what that choice will create. In other words, the energetics of what that choice will create. So, with this, for me, what I did was I started using these Access Consciousness tools because the thing is, when something is heavy, we know it. We just know it for whatever reason. And what Access gives you is a way of changing that. So, because what we tend to do is we tend to lump all kinds of things together. It’s like we’ve got the love we didn’t get from mom and the love we didn’t get from dad and like the insecurities you’ve grown up with and the future we’re looking at that we don’t know that we can do and we put it all together in one thing, it keeps us from getting clarity on what’s actually going on. 

So, I totally agree with you about our past limiting points of view that we’ve adopted and most of those, we have adopted and bought from other people who had a similar point of view, so we don’t really even know what our point of view is most of the time unless you're willing to explore it. What happened for me was that’s exactly where I was functioning and it was so heavy, I went, “I need to do something.” So, I started asking some questions like what is true for me here that I haven’t acknowledged. What will my life be like in 5 years if I go through with this? What choices do I have available that I haven’t acknowledged? And what is it I’m trying to create here and for whom. 

Then we also have another thing in Access which is a way of, well, basically changing anything you want to change. It’s called a clearing statement. It’s based on the idea that the “conscious“ part of us, I hate to put it in those terms because I would like all of us to be conscious. But if we were totally conscious, we wouldn’t create difficulties. But we have this way of changing your limiting points of view and also unlocking the fix points of view that keep you from getting in touch with what’s true for you. I don’t normally go into it on an interview like this because yeah, it’s a lot of weird words and I’ve got a 20-minute video explaining it online, so I usually just point people there so they can have access to it if they're interested. But for me, it’s something that I use every single day because let’s face it, stuff comes up in the world we live in, you know.

[00:39:32] Ashley James: Well, I definitely want the link to the 20-minute video and I’ll put it in the show notes of today’s podcast at Learntruehealth.com and any podcast directory wherever people are listening from, they can just look in the description and I’ll make sure that that link is there, so 20-minute video, I’ll make a little note of that. How can someone tell the difference between the unconscious sort of limiting points of view or the limiting decisions, negative beliefs that they’ve been living by or they created themselves or they adopted from their surroundings either from marketing, from their friend’s family. They’ve been living as though that's the truth and letting that sort of be their guide stone. How can they tell the difference between that which when they make decisions based on that guide stone, they’re coming from definitely a place of scarcity and fear and cutting themselves off, right? How can they tell the difference though between that and that connecting with the part of themselves, connecting with whatever you want to describe it, people would say god, universal energy, their higher self as you’ve said some people call it that, but connecting with that within you, your intuition that knows what’s going to create more space, lightness, a better future for yourself, how can you tell the difference between those two voices?

[00:40:57] Dr. Dain Heer: Once again, it takes some practice. The thing is, we live in a world where it’s like okay, give me the one answer that will solve my life and it doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to go on a journey where we’re willing to actually uncover and explore but the beginning of that is, ask this one simple question. What will my life be like in 5 years if I choose this and get a sense of whether it’s lighter or whether it’s heavier, whether you have a sense of more ability to breathe like more relaxation, more space, and/or if it seems contracted. Or of contraction of any form, and that's also different for all of us. But the thing is, it’s like when we’re choosing something that is what we’ve been conditioned to choose what other people require, it’s an energy we can learn to recognize. I mean, let’s face it, for most people, before this conversation, they didn’t really have it sort of pointed out in black and white. Like here’s one of the things that may be going on. So, it’s got to be a bit of an exploration of okay, and maybe one thing that would help is write down a couple of things that you’ve chosen in your life that just turned out way better than you could imagine. Get the moment where you chose that and get the sense of that. When I say the sense of that, it’s like hey, how was that? Like, what were you being in that moment? Be with that for a minute because that, for you, it’s unique to each of us, you know. There may be commonalities or similarities but it’s unique to each of us. But what were you being in that moment? Like, just get the sense of your space, your headspace, how your body felt. Be with that for a moment and then look at a couple of things that you’ve chosen that you knew you did it because you were supposed to. And look at the space you are choosing now or the lack of space.

A lot of times people will say “Yeah, I feel like I’m just all in my head” or “I feel like there's a band around my head when I think about that.” And yeah, it’s because we’re trying to use our computer to figure it out rather than letting our being access what it knows. We all have so many obligations and expectations from others that we’re spending our lives trying to fulfill, thinking that somehow, if I can just fulfill all of their expectations, then I’ll get the love that I want, that they won’t judge me anymore, that I’ll be a good person and not a bad person. All of these things are ways of opening the door to judging ourselves.

And in Access, we have a definition of consciousness which is where everything and everyone exists, and no one and nothing is judged. I guess a definition, a description, however you want to put it, and from that, you realize that if you’re judging you, you're not doing a kindness to you but that’s what we’ve grown up with in our entire world so it creates a place that when we go to choose something especially something we consider a large choice, we put our judgement system on overdrive most of the time, and you’ll notice if you look back at something that you choose that seemed to have space and relaxation to it that turned out wonderfully, usually it’s because it wasn’t a significant thing for you. So, when we have things we consider significant or big choices, we go the exact opposite of the way that will work. We go into more judgment, more trying to figure it out, more trying to understand it, rather than basically expanding out, getting some space for us as beings to approach the situation. 

[00:45:13] Ashley James: I’m trying to relate to what you’re saying but I’ve done so much personal growth work in my life and like thinking about all these major issues, I’m going, well, what I do is I usually, whatever the outcome is, I always try to learn from it. So, whether I’m like, okay, well, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but look at all the things we learned and look at all this growth and like now I know more of how to navigate this and so we’re always asking ourselves what’s good about this. My husband and I are always kind of going through what’s good about this. But the one thing that when you said take one thing that turned out really well and what was the moment, it was when I decided to say yes to my husband to marry him. I totally get back in that space and get right in my body in that moment. There’s so much possibilities, infinite possibility. There’s maybe one percent fear like what is the future going to bring? I don’t know. But there was so much love, so much possibility like oh, this is beautiful. It’s a beautiful space. It’s expanding, it’s light, it’s energetic. It’s exciting, thrilling. And that's like we were just talking today because a friend from 10+ years ago, coworker I had many years ago reached out and he just this morning shared with me that he is struggling in his relationship and doesn’t know what to do. I look at my husband and I’m like, you know, him and I always think about and talk about the things that we don’t like, the things we want to improve, the things we’re kind of frustrated with in our life, the messes in our life. But I said, you know what, I’ve been taking for granted the things that are amazing because like our relationship is amazing. I feel like I have the most solid relationship in the world and so I take it for granted. There's people who really want this and I have it. I started to think about all the things that wow, I’ve taken for granted so many things that are really working in my life because I’ve always just been fixated on the few that are not working. And that you're right when you think about the things that are working and the choices you’ve made that make it work, it’s a totally different feeling in your body. It’s a different feeling in your body. 

So, now it has shift. My choices and beliefs around the things that aren’t working so that I can have that on the same frequencies with the things that are working. Right?

[00:47:23] Dr. Dain Heer: Yeah, exactly that. I think that's the thing that like you said, one of the questions we have in Access, well, there's a few. One is what’s right about this, I’m not getting. Because also, it’s like every choice I make, my point of view is all is well that ends in more consciousness. Which is more awareness. Like you said, I made these choices, they didn’t work out well, but I look at everything I learned. And I have a similar point of view and also, it’s like how great would it be to be that space like when you said yes, to be that space with all of our choices. This is what I see people being able to step into, is they're no longer in conflict with themselves when they start to have a sense of who they actually are. And unfortunately, we live in a world where people think they are the image especially now, especially since the onslaught of social media, and I’m sure it was there before that in other ways, but people unfortunately are trying to uphold this image of who they are that’s primarily for other people. But they have to buy into it to a certain degree to try to see it as a reality and it’s really destructive because we’re far greater than that. And what would it be like if we could have a lot more space and a lot of our choices, number one, occur from that space that you're talking about when you said yes to your husband. But number two, also have the result. Because when you're doing it from that space and you choose, that's usually the result. It turns out awesome, it turns out greater than you can ever imagine. And you’re correct, we have to get in touch with how does this feel in my body, like how am I sensing this? Like, what is that?

And okay, so if you’ve had a time like that, then go there and then bring it here to the degree that you can to apply it to this situation and then see what you see that you didn’t see otherwise. 

[00:49:31] Ashley James: So now that we’ve established that you can feel in your body, and some people are more aware, more kinesthetic, they're more in tune with their feeling, and some people, they're going to have to work on this, right. But when you maybe just sit quietly for a few minutes and be with yourself, be with your breath, and think about, for example, like reflect on how you felt and the space in you, inside you, when you're making choices that turn out really well, that you felt totally in alignment with, there's no conflict, there was just feeling of congruency in your body, and then versus the times when you felt a lot of conflict, your incongruency, and yet you did it anyway, sort of like, I don’t know, I’m walking out and it’s a sunny day and my intuition says bring the umbrella, and I’m like, I override that soft voice in my head that says “bring the umbrella”. And I’m like, I don’t need to bring the umbrella, it’s sunny outside, right? Or I’m about to go to the car and the voice will say to bring a pair of batteries. I’m like, “I don’t need batteries. This doesn’t make sense.” And then later on in the day, I needed the batteries or I needed the umbrella. I’m like, “Oh, I was supposed to listen to that voice.” I don’t know. Why do I override it? 

But when you follow that voice versus when you don’t follow that voice or you make decisions when there is incongruency or like you said, almost like that feeling of less space closing in on you maybe, or darkness, or whatever it is, we start to establish that feeling. When we’ve established that feeling then, let’s say we have a choice we need to make, maybe start with some smaller ones about major life choices, like what to make for dinner, when we are sitting with ourselves and we’re feeling the incongruency, what’s an exercise we can do to find that authentic direction, the authentic voice inside us that’s like hey, this is the direction we’re meant to go and that this is authentically me?

[00:51:27] Dr. Dain Heer: Well, first is, you want to ask who does this belong to? When you're having that mental staccato, you know, the snare drum in your head or the out-of-tune band as your monkey mind goes into high rev, you want to ask who does this belong to. One of the things we’ve found in Access is that 98 percent of our thoughts, our feelings, our emotion, our stress, our anxiety, our depression, our suicidal thoughts, our anger and our fear, and our doubt, and all kinds of other things, are actually things we pick up from other people. And if we extend that a little bit further, what you realize is a lot of us for doing any sort of healing or personal development work, a lot of us have the awareness that I’m acting just like my mom, I’m being a slightly better version of my mom or my dad or both. And we realize that we seem to have the same limitations with money, we seem to have a similar thing in relationship.

So, we can ask. There's a tool. We even have a free app. It’s called Who Does This Belong To? So if you're in the middle of like you can ask it to any thought, feeling, and emotion, or any one of like the weird energies and when your mind starts going, if you go, who does this belong to? If it lightens up at all, it’s not yours. Just return to sender with consciousness attached. And one of the biggest things that we can do for ourselves is look back over our lives, and one of the questions I ask people is, what percentage of who, what, where, when, why and how you are, or that you think you are, did you buy from your mom and your dad before the age of two? People get up into the hundreds of thousands of percent and which is interesting because you would think there should only be able to be a hundred percent, I guess we just buy it over and over and over, it’s kind of like if you think about your family life and all the energies that were around, we were aware of all of those, but nobody ever pointed it out as us being aware of something. It was always like, “oh, when I’m around mom, I feel this way.” “When I’m around dad, I feel this way.” “When I’m around both of them, I feel this way.” 

Well, those were all energetics. It’s kind of like we grew up swimming in carrot soup and if you swim in carrot soup for 15, 25, 35, 45, 55 years, somebody pulls you out, you look like a carrot, you smell like a carrot, you taste like a carrot, but you're still not a carrot. But we’ve been swimming in the carrot soup of all of these thoughts, feelings, and emotions and points of view thinking that they belong to us. This is a way of undoing that. It’s one of the things I use to heal myself of depression 22 years ago. Any time any of that would come up, I’d go, who does this belong to? And it would lighten up a little bit and I’d go, okay, not mine. I just tune my radio to that frequency. So, I’d be like, okay, return to sender with consciousness attached. 

Well, you can do that also with things that you bought a long time ago. And let’s say you're having one of those moments where things are not light, you're trying to look at a situation and it’s not, just go, “Who does that belong to?” Whenever I bought this as mine when it wasn’t, POC and POD, which is the short form for the clearing statement which I mentioned earlier, just POC and POD all that. POC and POD. POC and POD. POC and POD. POC and POD. And return to sender. What happens is, probably about 85, maybe 90 percent of the time, you get some lightness, you get a little bit more space which allows you then to grab on to the thread of your reality so you can start to get to the lightness that you get to when you're functioning from what’s true for you.

[00:55:35] Ashley James: You brought up suicide and I think it’s really important to talk on this a little bit because it’s the second leading cause of death for ages 10 to 14 and 15 to 34. This is in the 2020 statistics. It’s a major issue that we’re seeing. Maybe social media is playing a role in increasing this, but you mentioned that if 98 percent of our thoughts and even like suicidal thoughts are not our own, they're coming from other influences, we need to sit down and sort of who’s me and who’s not me. Because so many children are being fed this negativity. Whatever they're being fed, it’s causing them to want to take their own lives. What can you say or what techniques do you teach or at least begin to unfold for us that can help people or we need to recognize that “wow, I’ve been thinking about some pretty dark things, I’ve been going to some dark places,” “wow this is not me, this is not who I am, this is coming from outside”?

[00:56:49] Dr. Dain Heer: Well, I’m glad you brought it up because it is such a big issue and becoming greater every day. If you look at the statistics after COVID, the world suicide rates rising like skyrocketing. So here’s the first thing we have to recognize about a lot of those that are getting to that place or think they might be. These tend to be the sensitive individuals in our world. It’s part of the reason I brought up who does this belong to out of the thousands of tools we have in Access and ways of changing things. Because somebody who’s sensitive, and here’s the other part I need to address also, is so often it’s the sensitive people of the world that are the ones that feel like it’s their responsibility to take the pain and suffering of the world on their shoulders because they perceive it so dynamically and more than people who don’t have that level of sensitivity.

So, a sensitive person, if we look at this idea, and a lot of people when I say 98 percent of your thoughts, feelings and emotions aren’t yours, people are like “yeah, you're crazy,” I’m like, “I know, I thought so too.” So I started using it on myself and I started finding it works with almost every single person that I do it with. We have over a million people that have gone through Access Consciousness classes at this point. And so many of them have gotten freedom from this. But if we can recognize that those people who get to that place are sensitive, what does that mean? Well, their awareness of well, everything around them, energetically, is off the charts.

So, for a “normal” person although I hate that word, for a normal person, their volume knob for picking up other people’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions and their depression and all of that, their volume knob might be at a 1. For some of these highly sensitive people, it’s up at 1000. So, what happens is, very few people recognize this. See, I see this sensitivity as a gift now because I’m one of those people. But also, it used to seem like a curse because I was always the one that was like, can’t you tell that these people are angry? And they're like, “What are you talking about?” 

So, they’ve been so invalidated and there hasn’t been anybody to come along and say “You know what, you’re sensitive,” or ask them. Actually, I would never tell somebody anything about them. I always ask them a question. But if somebody would come along and acknowledge that they have this level of dynamic awareness and what are you aware of, and how much of this is your awareness, how much of this is something you're perceiving, and how much of it is something that’s actually being generated from within you. I will ask people who are going through this. And I can’t tell you the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times where I’ve assisted people going through what seemed like depression or anxiety or suicidal thoughts or “I just want to die.” It’s always got a component of them having this level of awareness. One of the things I ask them is, what’s the difference between I’m sad and I’m perceiving sadness? Of course, perceiving it is “it’s there, I’m here”. I am sad is now “it’s here and I am in.” This is one of the crucial distinctions that we haven’t been taught to make that really, our entire perspective could change if we recognize that there's a level of sensitivity that a lot of people have and nobody has ever acknowledged them for it. They just want to take them and get rid of it and put the people on drugs, etc. And there are a number of people that I’ve worked with where they were experiencing something like suicidal thoughts, depression, whatever. They were convinced of the utter wrongness of them because that's the other thing that goes along with this. They’re very sensitive to that energy, that vibration of wrongness that people walk around with and they always want to try to take it away. They don’t want other people to feel wrong.

So, when I say, okay, are you having this or are you perceiving this? They go, “What?” I’m like, okay. I run through the thing with them about sadness. And they go, “Oh.” And I say, so, are you having this or are you perceiving this? They go, “Oh my gosh. I’m perceiving so much of it. It feels like me.” I’m like, “I know.”

Then our next step then is to create the distance between I guess I’ll call it distance, to create the awareness in their world of exactly like you said, what is theirs and what is not theirs. It’s why we develop this idea of if you ask who does this belong to for three days to every thought, every feeling, every emotion, every yuck, every stuck, every weird twisted energy, every mind going crazy, and if it lightens up at all, it’s not yours, return to sender with consciousness attached. At the end of three days, you walk around like you're in a walking-talking meditation. Literally, no thoughts in your head. Like I can walk through any city in the world and I’m glad I have this because I travel a lot facilitating classes and have no thoughts in my head. You know, it’s just in Rome, just enjoying Rome, there was none of the monkey mind because if you’ll do that for three days, you start to break the machine that makes you believe that everything you perceive and are aware of actually belongs to you. 

[01:02:52] Ashley James: And is generated from you. Right? Like, oh, the sadness is me. That makes so much sense. So my background being in neurolinguistic programming and in Time Line Therapy and hypnosis, as you're talking, I’m reminded of Dr. Milton Erickson who he’s sort of the creator of the modern-day, very ultra light state of hypnotherapy where you would just be in conversation with him. And through a conversation, he could put you in a light state of trance and he can slow your heart rate down, slow your breathing down. He would watch your pulse. He was very talented at observation because he had polio twice. He had to learn how to walk three times in his life. He would sit there, as he was crippled and recovering, he watched his younger sibling learn to walk for his first time and he became hyper aware of certain things. Like he could look at you and could tell you what your pulse is because he could count the pulse on your ankle or your neck.

So we’d watch people and as he used hypnotic language patterns just in conversation, like you said, the “normal” people, would be talking to him not really feeling any kind of a different conversation. Okay, this guy talks a little slow. But within minutes, your heart rate would be lower and you would walk out of a session with him much more positive, focused on positive things. He had one man come to him who said “I have to stop drinking. I’m ruining my life.” And this is back in I think in the ‘70s. It was long time ago and he said to the guy, this is in Arizona or in New Mexico, somewhere in the desert, “I want you to go and look at a cactus and tell me how it can survive without drinking water.” He just gave him a thought. Just something to think about, something to look at, and years later, a woman came in and said, “I have to meet you.” And he’s like, “Okay, I have an appointment too but I guess I can meet you now.” She’s like, “No, no, no, I just have to meet the man who told my dad who was beating my mom and destroying our lives and a complete drunk, who couldn’t keep a job. He was told to go look at a cactus. He quit drinking, sobered up, moved us to California, got a job and became an amazing dad and husband. I just had to meet the guy that told my dad to stare at a cactus and his whole life changed.” 

But it’s like a perfect example of this input coming Dr. Milton Erickson, right? It’s an input. It’s outside of us. It’s a conversation. It’s thoughts. But it’s not our own. It didn’t generate from us. And he’s inputting stuff and your critical faculty is allowing it and you’re allowing these thoughts in. Then, it makes positive changes. Well, the same can be for negative. Right? We’re allowing in hypnotic language patterns. Anytime you turn on the radio, watch the TV, listen to other people, go through a grocery store and over here, other people talking, these are all hypnotic suggestions you're allowing in. If you can’t tell the difference between the external world and your internal world. Then you perceive all that external stuff as you. And that would make anyone incredibly depressed and sick especially if they have more empathy, they're more empathetic, they're leaning, like you said, they're sensitive. You use the word “sensitive”, I use the word “empathetic.” But people who are more perceptive, those people are a sponge for everything around them and the if they don’t have the tools like you teach these tools, they’re thinking it’s all self-generated, it’s all them, and they cannot tell the difference. There’s no barrier, there's no boundary between who they are and the outside world. That would be horrible. You think about those who have autism, like over stimulus, it’s just agony inside them. There is no separation between this outside stimulus and the inside world, and it’s just like clattered. Just disruptive of the nervous system. But that's what we’re going through too, all of us. Because we’ve allowed the hypnotic language patterns of the world, the hypnosis of the world to enter us and confuse us and trick us into thinking that that is who we are.

So, excellent. Excellent idea to do. It’s kind of like needing to do the laundry in my bedroom. I don’t know if anyone is like me but there's a laundry pile here on the floor, there's a laundry pile on the bed, there's a laundry pile on the dresser. But it’s like you need to kind of go through the laundry and be like, oh right, there's all these piles of clothing I need to kind of like sort and figure out which is the dirty, which is the clean, which gets hung, which gets put in the drawers. We need to do that inside ourselves. We need to sort the laundry in our own heart, in our own mind, in our own thoughts. And go, is this me? Is this really me? Those beliefs you’ve been holding onto for so long might not be me.

[01:07:56] Dr. Dain Heer: In fact, most of them are not us, which is a little confrontational for some people to hear, but when you're functioning from something that’s not truly you, it’s always heavy. It doesn’t have a lightness, it doesn’t have any peace to it. And yet, we keep trying to take those things and find a way to rearrange them in our head or think if we just do something different or we’d be something different or we say something different and we think something different, then somehow it’s all going to become light rather than going through your house and going, “Holy crap, I have 2000 pieces of laundry and only six of them are mine.” 

[01:08:36] Ashley James: Well, yeah, right, because I’m doing the family laundry. But this is like doing the world’s laundry. You're driving down the street listening to the radio and people are throwing their laundry at you.

[01:08:45] Dr. Dain Heer: Totally. How many times have we had that? As another acknowledgement of this, it’s like, how many times have you been having a great day, things are wonderful, you're happy, you're on cloud 9, man, you're driving to work and all of a sudden you get this ping or this something where you're like, “Oh my God, I’m afraid, or I’m angry,” or, “Oh, I don’t like my husband,” you know, where you probably don’t have that one because of your relationship which is awesome. Okay, but a lot of people do because they're primed for it. It makes sense to them that that could be something that they would feel and then what do they do? They go back and look over their day and look to the last day and look for the moment that justifies that emotion. But what if it’s just somebody driving by you having that very intensely and they're throwing their laundry on your car and in your car? And this occurs all the time and nobody is talking about it. Even when I say it to people, they're like, “Oh, that couldn’t be the case. Somebody would have told me by now.” I’m like, that's why I’m here. I’m telling you. And they’re like, “Oh, it couldn’t be the case. That's just too big. That's too much.” I’m like, “No, it’s actually what goes on.” And I am blessed to work with people and see this concept as it dawns in their world change the exact physical and mental and emotional thing that’s going on for them. But 

[01:10:19] Ashley James: But there's also past unresolved events where we’re holding on to this gestalt of negative emotions from the past, negative emotions that we created, that we had a response to something. It could be anger or sadness. Then, we’re holding onto it and caring it with us. This was years ago, but I remember very distinctively we’re driving on St. Rose Parkway in Las Vegas with my husband. I say something and his response was not what I expected. It was like frustrated, angry, kind of combative. And I’m like, wow, what I said did not warrant that. I look at him and in an instant, I wanted to engage in a fight and defend myself. But instead, I paused and kind of took a breath, and this was years of personal growth work. I was like, oh, finally, I can put a pause in between and go, wait a second, interesting response, not what I expected. Where is this coming from? And he goes, oh, because he kind of started picking a fight with me. He thought I was going to engage in this fight and I just sort of backed off and went, “That’s not mine. I don’t own this.” 

[01:11:29] Dr. Dain Heer: Cool. 

[01:11:31] Ashley James: And it was silence for a few stop lights and then he said, “I was just talking to my ex-wife. Whatever you said, however you said it, whatever angle your face was, whatever it was, I was in a conversation with my ex-wife and I was fighting with her. You were not in this vehicle with me. It was my ex-wife.” And I’m like, wow! That's really amazing that sometimes we’re bringing our past and projecting it onto the current person or current experience, and it’s nothing to do with the now. How does that play into this role of who does this belong to? Because what if it belongs to us but it really doesn’t belong to this circumstance or the person we’re talking to?

[01:12:13] Dr. Dain Heer: Yeah. So a couple of things with that. I just want to acknowledge your response to that because let’s look at the other side. Had you chosen to resist and react, now we would have a fight on our hands that had nothing with either of you, which is where a lot of people are living and then it gets so twisted that it creates such separation. This is always when that occurs. If the fight or if the disagreement or the argument actually has a basis, then if we’re interested of course in becoming more aware, we can almost always get to what’s actually underneath it, if we’re willing to be vulnerable enough and go there. But if it doesn’t, it creates this weird twist that leaves a really bad taste in both people’s mouths and once again, nobody’s ever looked from this place of what if it’s not mine. So, to address your actual question, I just wanted to point this out because I know a lot of people have had arguments with people where they're like, what did I do wrong? What? And this actually explains it and this is why for me, having access to these tools is so valuable which is what is this, what do I do with it, like what is this really? And is it mine? Is it theirs? What do I do with it? Can I change it? And if so, how?

So, another thing that can be helpful in this regard is who am I being? Or, who is this person being? Where you're doing something and you know it doesn’t feel like you and that time you’ll know because we’ve learned, like he said, he was having an argument with his ex-wife, and that was probably something where he learned to be a particular thing for someone based on whatever was considered love in his family or hers, which isn’t necessarily love. But we will do the strangest things because we had people who said they loved us and yelled at us. People who said they loved us and judged us. People who said they loved us and abused us.

So, we’re like, “Oh, I love you, I’ll do the same thing because that's love obviously.” And so, we can ask, who am I being and how old am I being. Then, if it’s a who am I being, get the sense of like, wow, I sound just like my mother right now. Or, this is exactly the energy I saw my mom and dad have with each other. Okay, cool. Well, everything that is, POC and POD which is that clearing statement thing, which goes back to the point of wherever that was created and undoes the polarity of it, allows it to dissolve. So, that can be who am I being, how old am I being. We have so many instances, so many situations we have been involved in over the course of our lives. It doesn’t have to be a really big thing. But if you ask how old am I being, oftentimes you’ll get a sense of an age and then an energy of a situation which is like okay, and then you go, okay, so what happened? Oh, okay, two. What happened at two? Oh, my parents got divorced. Okay. So, what part of this are you playing right now? Is this truly you? Oftentimes that acknowledgment of “it’s not really me”, because the thing that we will fight the hardest for, the thing we will get most intensely defensive about and for, is the thing that we bought when we were younger that is not ours. And it’s very intense when we do that.

So, asking these questions can start to give us some awareness, adding this clearing statement to it and we now have awareness. The clearing statement allows us to undo everything we’ve aligned and agreed with, resisted and reacted to. Everything we’re avoiding and defending that holds it in place as though it’s ours when it wasn’t. 

[01:16:33] Ashley James: When someone is in an intense emotion, I’m going to use myself as an example, because this is first thing that came to mind, but like, I’m homeschooling and I get super frustrated and I know these are not my emotions. I know they’re my mom. I act like my mom so much when I get in a state of frustration. But in the moment, it’s like, it lit up in my neurology. I’m feeling it in my heart. Like my heart is beating and I’m just feeling it through my body. And I want to get back to me. I want to stop being my mom and stop playing that role, I’m going to get back to me. But in the moment, it’s like I got my adrenals going. It’s kind of like asking her to slam on the breaks, right? So, what do you have as a technique for doing that state change, doing that shift? Like, you're shifting from the fifth gear to the first gear, right? And so, in the moment though, there's a little resistance like I don’t want to give this up. There's like this righteousness, right, in a not-so-great way. This is like getting a little pay-off, like a little payout from being this charged at people. But we know in the back of our mind, we’re now like, hey, you're acting like your mom now, this isn’t really healthy.

So, you have some awareness that you shouldn’t be doing this but at the same time, you're asking your neurology to like, okay, shift down to first gear. What do you have as a technique for helping us to get back into who we are, our authentic self, and separate from and kind of like send it with love back to sender, getting back to who we are and acting from those emotions, the intense emotions?

[01:18:21] Dr. Dain Heer: So, number one, we’ve got to have the willingness to not be right in that situation. We’ve got to go “okay, I realize I’m trying to be right here.” And then, do that thing of “Am I truly being me? If not, who am I being?” Two other things you can do. Number one, you go POC and POD everything I did to buy this as mine when I wasn’t. POC and POD everything I’ve created and uncreated as a result. And now return to sender and then POC and POD all that. POC stands for going back to the point of creation of the thoughts, feelings, emotions immediately preceding the decision or the point of destruction of the same, because we can create limitation in two ways. We can create a limitation, a fixed point of view, or we can destroy in that moment what’s true for us and take on something that's not, which is what this is. 

The next thing you can do is use this tool. Everybody out there, you can take some upset that you still have in your world that’s been there maybe for the last few days or weeks, and just do this interesting point of view. I have this point of view. Which is Point of View, by the way. IPOV. Interesting point of view, I have this point of view. Usually, what will happen is it’ll shift a little bit and then again, you go, interesting point of view, I have this point of view. It’ll shift again. Interesting point of view, I have this point of view. Interesting point of view, I have this point of view. Interesting point of view, I have this point of view. Which is what you were doing when your husband was having an argument with his ex while you were there. It was like interesting point of view, it’s okay, no problem, no reaction, no resistance. What this does is it takes us out of our resistance and reaction that we think we are justified for going into when somebody pushes our buttons or brings up something that’s intense. 

Another part of it, we can say interesting point of view, they have this point of view a few times, so that we’re more willing to be in allowance of their point of view. Then, the last one is, interesting point of view that I have this point of view, that they have this point of view. Usually, that creates space. 

[01:21:01] Ashley James: Brilliant. Luckily, we transcribe all these episodes, so listeners, go to Learntruehealth.com. It takes us about two weeks or so after we release the episode to all the podcast directories, but you should be able to go back to Learntruehealth.com in a few weeks and we’ll have the transcript up. So, we can go through and read this and then, copy, paste, put it in your cellphone, put it in your notes and put it on sticky notes, put it around the house. And practice it. I just love this idea if we could just clear out the internal laundry. Like you said, you went around Rome just with no thoughts in your head and it’s not that you weren’t there. You were there but you weren’t carrying the world in your head. It was you were just enjoying yourself, you cleared out everyone else. Just you and your head. That's so nice. It’s so peaceful. What a vacation, right? Just you and your head. And how happy we would be removing 98 percent of the world’s depression, suicide, anger, addiction, all this stuff going on. The conflicts that are out there on purpose, right, because the media feeds off of your fear and creates conflict. Right? Instead of unity. And how much of that have we taken on? So just imagine a world where it’s only you and your head and your own feelings instead of taking on the world. 

Beautiful. I love it. I know you have to go. Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing this wonderful information and all the links to everything that Dr. Heer has is going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at Learntruehealth.com. I want to make sure that you come back because this whole time, I’ve been thinking, man, I’d love to do an episode with you around addiction and addiction brain and helping people who are at this stage in their addiction when they're ready to give it up, they want to, or they’re fighting it, and they still keep having those internal fights and they want those tools. I feel like it would be great to have you back on the show for those who are actively working on healing their addiction brain.

[01:23:08] Dr. Dain Heer: Cool. Thank you.

[01:23:10] Ashley James: It’d be great. 

[01:23:10] Dr. Dain Heer: It would be my pleasure.

[01:23:11] Ashley James: Yeah, thank you so much. It’s been great and I can’t wait to talk to you again.

[01:23:15] Dr. Dain Heer: I look forward to it. Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley James: I hope you enjoyed today’s interview with Dr. Dain Heer. Wasn’t he amazing? I just love his work and I can’t wait to have him back on the show to dig deeper into this wonderful topic. Sounds like he’s got a lot of even more tools that he can share with us. I want to make sure that you remember. I want your testimonials, so please, give them to me if you have one. You can email me support@learntruehealth.com or come join the Facebook group at Learntruehealth.com/group to get into the Facebook group, and then just message me there or share it with the group there. Remember to go to Freedoctorcourse.com to get the foundations of health, all free. Then, check out the structured water device. Go to Learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. Use the coupon code LTH. Check it out. If you get one, I want to hear what you think, come into the Facebook group and let us know. I’d love to hear your journey with it and what kind of results you get with it. Awesome. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about and helping to end people’s suffering because this suffering is needless and I want people to have that experience of true health inside them mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. I want that for them. So let’s keep sharing this podcast and helping as many people as possible to learn true health.

Get Connected with Dr. Dain Heer!

 

Website – Dr. Dain Heer

Body Whispering Playbook

Dr. Dain Heer Podcast – https://drdainheer.com/podcast/

 

Books by Dr. Dain Heer:

 

Body Whispering

Being You, Changing the World

Return of the Gentleman

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