Biophilia-Nature As Pharmacy

Tammy Marshall

Wow. That was long and rather boring

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Not at all. Oh my gosh. I had the exact opposite experience every time I’ve read it in preparation for this call, I’m like, “I cannot wait to have this conversation. She’s one of the most interesting people I think I get to meet.”

Tammy Marshall

If I can update it I would just say, Tammy Marshall says, just please go outside.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

That’s great. I love it. And I have to tell everyone that you were trying to take this call outside and then I was like, “No, no, we do need to record them so your delight needs to be just a little bit better, so if you could please go back inside just for the 45 minutes while we record this.”

Tammy Marshall

If anything, inside choosers still off though.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Good. So thank you for making the sacrifice for us so that we can get great video, great audio. Let’s dive in. Tell me, what does biophilia mean?

Tammy Marshall

Yeah, so I love the word, I think I say it’s pretty to say though, when you’re watching this or as you’re watching this, just try to say it with me like biophilia and it kind of covers all of the mouth and bio means life, right? The doctors know that bio means life and philia means love. So it’s kind of love for life. I just, I mean, as a word it’s beautiful, but the meaning and the research and the study behind it is really what brings it to life and we credit Edward Wilson for that. I mean really in 1984, he wrote the book, first kind of book around biophilia and from there it’s just taken a life of its own. But the premise is that humans benefit from being in and around nature and nature benefits from us in the same way.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

How great, how beautiful. And so how does biophilia impact our biometrics? So we can look at the science of this and connect this idea and I think we all feel it intuitively, right? You go for a walk on the beach and you get outside in nature and you feel better after, but we can measure this, how do we do that?

Tammy Marshall

So well, if you personally wanna measure it I can say that you could buy a heart math institute, heart rate variability and stick it on your ear and go outside and just start to walking around and your body will over time come to the human resonance, the resonance of the earth. It has its own frequency, that’s for you personally. But if you look at the research in this area, and again I’m gonna credit here a ton of people, Bill Larry, Judith Hawagon, Sally Kotlin, there’s so many people who’ve studied the biometrics of this in terms of, well, first of all, I’m gonna say from the built design standpoint, that’s what I’m talking about right now and then I can bring in the holistic nature really around rewilding, rewilding. 

And there’s another free book, “The Nature Fix” by Florence Williams, but they hold a lot of the body of the research, but in the design aspect, built design it’s really, really been studied well. And so from things that there’s 14, 15 patterns, they say for biophilic design, and that’s less friction, cognitive performance, emotional and mood preference, all of those biometrics can be impacted meaning and I like to since this is live, I’ll just go to this page. I love to say to people, if you could take this pill, would you take this pill? 

And let me just open to the page because it’s almost a no brainer, so here’s, I don’t know if you could, but here, I’m gonna read these to you and tell me if you’ll take this pill because it is a by and large the world, the Western medicine world we operate in is a pill paradigm. So I’m gonna offer you another pill. Here we go. Would you take this pill if you could reduce cortisol levels and stress hormones, elevate white blood cell counts for your immunity, improve attention and performance, in children and adults, boost creativity and focus and cognitive function and problem solving, calm the mind and boost self-esteem, improve short-term memory, reduce the risk of near-sightedness, and increase longevity? Would you take that pill?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Of course, 10 times a day.

Tammy Marshall

Yeah. And it’s just, I mean, it’s the green pill. It is being in and around nature and that’s both outside and in the way you bring it indoors.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

So talk a little bit about that, how do we bring it indoors?

Tammy Marshall

Here’s where Bill Browning really shines and he has authored a book with Catherine Ryan, it’s called “The Nature Inside.” And so here’s some very, very simple solutions that he talks about which we kind of know, but the sound of running water, even just like saying that automatically, plants obviously inside, having a view and vista of nature, whether that’s looking at a tree on a picture on a wall, has an effect on your stress response. It’s not as profound as being in nature, but having a green scape on your wall like behind you actually has a therapeutic effect like I get to see it and I can sense my. 

If you’re in tune you can sense the cascade of your body, but these subtle things that can be built into the environment really, really impact all your biometrics. And I say that because when one there’s the evidence for it, but it’s so intuitive we make it hard and you can bring wood into your environment through your furniture, as much natural lighting as possible when you can have the window opens so that you can hear the bird song, the bird song has a profound effect on our emotion. There’s just, I mean, I could go on and on and on, but I will definitely include in this if I can, there’s a PDF with the 15 patterns of biophilic design just for people to have simple things you can do.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Absolutely. We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes. And now I wanna tie this back to dementia, that even as you’re describing it, it feels almost as important if not maybe even more important for caregivers to know this piece, because caregiving is so stressful, it can be really, really, really hard work emotionally, mentally, physically, very taxing. And so I immediately am thinking that the caregivers are going to benefit just as much as our dementia patients, but tell me exactly how it hooks cognitive function when we think of this concept of biophilia.

Tammy Marshall

Right. So prefrontal cortex, turning on the amygdala. If you put me in a high stress, even your environment can be built and decorated so that it agitates you and you don’t even know it. So building in biophilic principles like we said earlier, reduces cortisol, reduces the stress response. So I’m not turning on all of my prehistoric feelings and especially behavioral responses with dementia, you’re really turning on the feel-good hormones and shutting down to varying degrees based on the design and the atmosphere and the air quality I would even say. You’re dialing down all of the stress response hormones just by the environment. 

Now you go outside with that and it’s on steroids if you will, I mean, everything is ramped up. Although the evidence is clear, you can have the photos and the wood inside and the plants inside and still have a very, very profound impact on a person’s biometrics. But I do wanna say something about the workforce, if you don’t mind. 

There was a study during COVID at Mount Sinai and I forgive me, I don’t remember the person who ran this study but it was a partnership and they created a biophilic break room for people to go in and do what we call rest and recover for their breaks during COVID response, like the ICU docs and nurses, the ER docs and nurses, any of them really, but it was completely designed to go in and take down the stress hormone and response. And the research out of that initial study is also profound and I will attach that, it’s out. But over and over and over again, the people leaving the break room reported a sense of calm and restoration to go back out onto the floor.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

So important.

Tammy Marshall

Yeah. And imagine, I mean, in my mind I can think of a couple of break rooms I have been in in my ICU days as a nurse and well, my gosh, they weren’t biophilic

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Right. I think that that happens often, right? The employees are sort of, there’s the second thought, right, like we think about the patients that the whoever’s right in front of us that needs the services and the employees are like, it’s like the second class citizens in this whole environment. They don’t get taken care of and really what we need to do is be taking really great care of them, making sure they have all of course, enough food, good food, enough water, good water that like you mentioned, air quality are ready, all of those things that are gonna help them perform so that we get the outcomes that we want for our patients.

Tammy Marshall

Let me just think of it, when you implement the 15 pattern, do you have like the go into, I would say buckets, they stress reduction under performance, emotional mood preference. We just think about stress reduction we know when you have a visual connection to nature you have lower blood pressure and it’s down, the research is there. When you have rhythmic sensory like water, you have a positive impact on your heart rate, it is a resonance that happens, right? Presence of water immediately produces tranquility, and what does that do? Heart rate, blood pressure, I mean, you’re talking to doc, so you get this. When you play with light, natural lighting, circadian rhythms, sleep, what does that do? Right. Positive impact on circadian rhythm function, better sleep, better health outcomes, I can go on and on and on.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And these things are so simple. So tell me about applying the biophilic design in a long-term care setting, nursing homes, assisted living, memory care, senior living, of course I wanna download everything you have to say because we need to be applying it at Marama if we aren’t already, I need all the notes. So what do we do next?

Tammy Marshall

The very, very first thing I would say is, and this is I think a civil rights and a social justice issue and it’s broader than biophilia, but I would say on the topic of mirror neurons, we’re going to mirror our environment and so if someone says to me, “How do I apply this memory care?” “How do I book this assisted living?” Already I have like my hair standing up because I’m not necessarily into cohorting people together in such a way that they’re all alike each other, because I have owned and operated senior living, I have worked in long-term care for almost 25, 30 years now and I’ve seen the impact of clustering people who are just like each other together and what that does from a mirror neuron standpoint. And then when we integrate just like classrooms and in schools, when they’re integrated the reciprocity and benefit that happens there, literally people who couldn’t feed themselves would pick up forks because they’re watching the person and there’s something to just turns on. Is that everybody? No, but is it some people? Yes. And why would we cluster them together? So I’m gonna say-

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Opportunity.

Tammy Marshall

First has anyone asked me about the built design for X cohort, I’m pro integration and inclusion versus segregation and I think from a civil rights, social justice, and even biometric standpoint, it helps everyone to do that.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I have to tell a quick story from Marama. I’m sure you have thousands of them have with all of your experience, but we had some concern about bringing in a more advanced patient, she had an MoCA of zero, so it was essentially nonverbal when she moved in and we had some concern that some of the other residents would feel like, oh, no, is that the direction I’m going? Is that gonna be me soon? And that there would be an increase in anxiety or concern about their own cognitive function. And the opposite is what happened. What happened was that the people who had MoCA in like the 16, 17 kind of in the teens where they’re totally verbal, but memory lapses, of course, they became almost caregivers to her. 

They found a lot of purpose and meaning and engaging with her and she is now doing so well. She in fact read the name of a name tag of one of our staff members the other day, we were in tears, we just could not believe it. Now this woman moved in in January, six months ago, not even a full six months ago. Essentially non-verbal like you mentioned unable to use a fork and knife and feed herself and if she has good days and bad days still, but she speaks in complete and very appropriate sentences now and I never would have thought that she would be reading again, just absolutely astounding what’s possible.

Tammy Marshall

Bowing to you because obviously because of Marama existed, the experience that you’ve created as possible, you’re open enough to do that. Or I think if there’s any message that we’re trying to relay, which is to open your mind, yes, you can make money off marketing memory clearance specialization and yes, you’re gonna hear ageist comments about, I don’t wanna mingle with those people, they’re not like me even though they’re both 85 and probably both have a little bit of dementia. 

All of that does happen but it is a social justice, civil rights issue in my opinion to cluster, especially memory care together without offering them a full sensory experience. I talk quite a bit and I truly believe we have sensory anesthesia and long-term care. We have deprived people of sensory experiences they’re afforded to you and me all the time, every day whenever we want it. Sensory anesthesia is a real thing and when you start darling people’s sensory experiences you can expect you’re not going to have great conversations and people picking up forks or reading books. I can go on there but, I mean, it’s part of why I wanna rewild long-term care, get people back out and out, especially post COVID out of the sensory anesthesia.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

So what does that look like? What does the rewilding movement look like? I know we can talk all day about how frustrating it all is, but what are the solutions? What can we do to respond to the social justice issue? How can we build things so that this entire generation, the baby boomers, so many of them are aging and they are going to demand that we do it right and that we do it better. What we’re doing right now is just, it’s not okay and so how do we, I’m looking to you for the answers, how do we rewild? How do we do it better?

Tammy Marshall

Pretend we’re just waking up in a memory care or assisted living community and let’s pretend we’re going to the dining room, right off the bat that first morning hour to reset your circadian rhythm. Are you going to put me in a close non window, floral curtain, 50,000 tables around me kind of a diner? Or would you be okay with sitting me near a window or even outside in the courtyard letting my circadian rhythm be reset by the sun on my forehead and the vitamin D in my body? That’s a simple thing. Do you have a courtyard? How often is it used? Do you have windows? How often are you placing people near the windows so that they are able to have that sunlight on their body?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I love that.

Tammy Marshall

At night when we can take them outside in the morning and start to reset the rhythms. I’m not saying it’s that simple but it’s not hard either.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

But there are really simple things that we can do, right, and I think that this is part of we’re holding both because throughout this entire summit, throughout my entire career, right, it’s a lot of both, it’s what are the simple things that we can do right now? And then also, if we want to dig deeper, if we wanna get into the complexity of this, we can take it further. There is a bunch of science, there are experts, there are people whose brains we can pick and we can start to apply those things and maybe it doesn’t happen today or tomorrow, but over the course of time when we have that moment where we’re redesigning the kitchen or we’re redesigning the dining room, we can take these insights that we’re learning from people like you and we can apply them when we have that opportunity. 

Or if you’re shopping for a new house or you’ve got to move mom or dad and when you go to look, what sort of facility do we want them in? There definitely better be a window, there definitely better be outdoor speeding. Right. These are all the things that we need to value, that we should value based on what you’re sharing. And then, I again, one of the calls to action in this summit is if you are in that position where you’re calling a memory care facility or assisted living ask, what kind of food do you serve? Is there a view? Ask these things, they’re so important and that facility won’t know that you value it unless you start the conversation.

Tammy Marshall

Absolutely. You could even say biophilic design and see what they say, because the principle is well certification are very clear. You’re either in a salutogenic environment or a pathogenic environment, we know that the environment can hurt us or heal us. I mean, that’s true for all of us. If I had a parent or a friend or a loved one going into a phase of dementia that I felt like I couldn’t hear from anymore and I had to make the decision, the first thing I would ask is, do you lock the doors or not? 

And if they lock the doors I wouldn’t go, because we know now from research from Jennifer Carson out of Nevada and we’ve seen now two pilots that I know in the United States, one in North Carolina and the other in Portland completely unlocked and the outcomes of a resident experience with dementia profound, because all of us know, including the team, the workforce, when we’re being locked into something it just that click happens and I mean, I won’t get into the prison studies, but we become institutionalized along with everyone else. And there is a knowing, deep primal knowing that you’re locked inside. So first question I would ask is, do you lock the doors? And I say that probably 99% of Americans want me to say, yes, I locked the doors because you’re paying for safety, but a lot of dignity.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Yeah. So in the State of California, you cannot lock the doors to the outside, right? ‘Cause that’s a fire hazard, it’s a risk issue. And so having places built in, certainly Marama is built around that ability to just walk right outside and it’s so important we watched the residents that you know they do, they take us up on the offer to get out there every day.

Tammy Marshall

From a workforce perspective and promoting the workforce health also, what are the ways that you help people become mobile to get outside? Because lots of times you’ll hear, “She’s just not able to get out or she doesn’t walk or the wheelchair this, or the Geri Chair that.” What kind of environment have you built outside to promote the team’s comfort and the residents comfort to dwell outside and enjoy all the soft fascination of nature.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

It’s so sad because there is this tension, right, in a care facility like that where the caregivers, if someone falls it’s a risk, it’s a big problem and we can go downhill very, very quickly. And like you mentioned about the locked facilities, the families wanna know that their loved one is safe, they don’t want them falling, they don’t want them breaking a bone. And so the care staff is really incentivized to keep people in a wheelchair or in bed, not moving around, which is the opposite of what’s good for them and really what would promote more health. So how do you help people help care facilities? What have you done in the past to kinda address that tension?

Tammy Marshall

So I created a program called Safety Third, and I had to talk to a lot of people, lawyers, insurance companies, you name it to make sure that I could promote it because if you’ve been through many medical school, nursing school, anything in medicine, safety is the first priority, is like stamped on your head. If you go to a hospital elevator door open, if something is unsafe, please report. Right? So safety first, I get it, I love it, I practiced it and I do practice it in certain areas, but I don’t do it over a person’s choice, especially someone who has the ability to make that choice for themselves, either through their verbal words or their body communicating to me that they don’t want it. 

Though the program at Safety Third had three elements; What’s the resident asking for, what’s in the way of it, is it the daughter doesn’t want them to have it? Is it a state code regulation? Is it a policy we’ve created that’s stopping it? So what’s in the way? And then how do I remove the barrier so that they can reach their choice? Simple, simple one is the ice cream. Diabetic person, the area’s in a sea of a dining room, everyone is eating chocolate ice cream, he’s got this strawberry sort of drink yellow staring at it at night, right, everyone else, I want chocolate ice cream. Can’t have chocolate ice cream, you’re a diabetic, your daughter doesn’t want you to have it, your blood sugar will raise. 

What will happen, you go through all the things, right. Though in a Safety Third model, you’re calling the daughter, sharing the experience you just had in the dining room and your dad wants the ice cream. And getting people through education to a place to say, it’s really guilt, the daughter’s usually, or I say the daughter because 92% of the decisions we make by the daughter when there’s a daughter involved. Trying to provide education around it so that they feel, one, the guilt burden is off, we’ll take the guilt for you. 

What could happen? Maybe there’s gonna be an adjustment in the insulin, maybe tomorrow there’s gonna be a little more protein, different ways that you can work with it. In terms of mobility if the person is alert and oriented, one fall daughter calls, let me say the son ’cause they don’t wanna always go to the doc. Son calls, “I want my dad in a wheelchair, I seen other people in the wheelchair. I want my dad in a wheelchair.” “Your dad doesn’t need a wheelchair.” “Well, he fell, I don’t want it to happen again, put him in a wheelchair.” “Well, I’m gonna ask your father and then I’ll call you back.” Of course, what does the guy say, “No, I don’t want damn wheelchair, I wanna walk. If you put me in the wheelchair, I’d rather die.” It’s so often the language, right? It’s getting people to a place of choice, good, I hate good, choice is the goal. Self-directedness is the goal.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Agency.

Tammy Marshall

These are adults, these are not people that you, if we didn’t allow, then we show this picture, I don’t have it with me now, but I show a mother and a child crawling on the floor together because it’s the same thing that happened to me and the same thing that happened to you. Our parents let us crawl and walk and fall and walk and fall and walk and fall until and we broke bones and I have a scar right here. 

I hit the corner of a coffee table four times. We think somebody was up there, I don’t know how old I was I just know I have the scar and that’s the story, but I was allowed to make the choice and guess what? I’m a walking adult because I had agency, my parents let me take the risks, they took the risk with me, they didn’t take my choice away. If that didn’t happen with children, we’d all still be crawling around. Why do we insist one fall, two falls, even a fracture that they have to go? And we know what happens once they do, they don’t go out of the wheelchair.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

No, they lose their muscle mass, they lose their ability. Yeah. It’s not giving people an agency.

Tammy Marshall

Soul goes first,, the soul goes first. If you sit down with a person who’s been having that and here’s what they say, “I’m doing it for my daughter, I don’t want her sitting home worrying about me if this makes her happy,” because I’ve operated these for years as you are, right, that’s the stuff you hear. They’re making decision to make everybody else feel better while there’s very few people who want to troll around in a wheelchair because they want to.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Right. Oh, so challenging.

Tammy Marshall

I’m positive, but I’m just trying to share the real experiences. Right?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Well, I think you’re speaking to not, I mean, you’re speaking to our audience, right? This is exactly the real conversation, it’s so challenging to have someone you love aging for them to be losing their agency and that’s why we’re having this, that’s exactly why we’re having this conversation, right, is to identify what are the barriers? What are the things that come up? How can we have a different response so that people get to maintain not only their lifespan, right? Like they’re not just living, they’re not just alive, but they’re really living, they’re really engaging. We’ve had this conversation over and over while recording when somebody said, “Our elders are at the height of their wisdom and experience, they have so much to offer and yet they end up in wheelchairs eating ice cream, not engaging and not contributing in a way that gives life purpose and meaning.” And that’s a choice that we’re making as a society and we can choose something different right now.

Tammy Marshall

Yeah. Completely ages society, youth addicted. There’s no other way to say it, we’re youth addicted. Even people not wanting to make these, it’s a fear of our own aging process.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Well, I’ll admit that I live in this world, this is what I work in and yet I still have in my mind, when I go to think about my parents and myself, I’m like, “Oh, that’ll never happen to me, they’ll never end up in a place like that,” and yet that’s the reality, they will.

Tammy Marshall

I’m so glad that you said, most there’s a large portion that will and then you have to make the decision. Like even when I built my house, I don’t know, 20 years ago is a peace of mind that you give not everybody can do this, I’m not saying everybody can, but I happen to be able to do it so far just because of the way I was in the world of long-term care parents, that wasn’t the choice that they wanted or I wanted to have to make, built a home that would accommodate that over time if need be. 

In fact, I just sat out on the porch last weekend looked right in her eyes and said, “You know that this house was built for the long haul.” But last year when my dad had a heart attack and a stroke, I looked at him and said, “You’re not ready to come here, you get yourself to PT.” I mean, I’m not gonna let him, not let him it’s not my choice, but I didn’t want him to give up on himself. I mean, obviously he didn’t move in and he’s back to almost full functioning, but it’s choices that we need to make, even with food around memories way before we ever have to get here but because our youth addicted and scared of our own aging process, we don’t sit in those conversations.

At the root it’s like, the fear of death and the fear of that conversation, not literal death but death of dignity, death of independence, death of mobility, all of that is hard stuff. You need someone to foster that in families, if you’re not of a family or as a physician, that’s the real art of the work, the fostering that conversation is hard stuff.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Very challenging and yet if we don’t have it you’re left without choice.

Tammy Marshall

Yes. You’re moving away from no choice one fall, one accident and if you haven’t had the conversation you’re probably going to a rehab and possibly not going home.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Oh. So heartbreaking. So that’s why we’re here, it’s to avoid this heartbreak and make sure people know they have options and to just start exercising them, start having these conversations, start designing, the first time we chatted that was one of the things that was so inspiring. It’s just like this idea that we’re redesigning, we’re thinking about the social constructs and the structure that we have in place and it’s optional. We can think about it in a really different way. So you’re hosting an event, would you just share what that’s all about and what conversation you’re hoping to have there?

Tammy Marshall

Yeah. So one of things that I’m really, really passionate about and I try to promote it in every kind of setting in medicine that I can is, like we learned a great body of knowledge from the genome project, a great body of knowledge. Like what are we doing with that? What are we doing on the topic of epigenetics and how that could be used to cause health, not wait until there’s a health episode but how can we learn from the genome project how to cause health so epigenetic approaches. So that was the dream and then we overlaid, there’s a group of us working on this, overlaid the topic of dementia on that because it is, you know the numbers where that is going, if don’t do something drastic about. I think of Dr. Bredesen in his whole mission to stop the exponential spread of Alzheimer’s and dementia. 

So put a group together to, we’re having a summit, it’s called Dementia Verse and it’s in Atlanta at Serenbe where it happens to be the Biophilic Institute is there and we’re taking it and putting a program together on a three lenses, genome project epigenetics, prevention, so that’s Dale, Dr. Dale Bredesen and yourself that you’re in that first morning program. So that’s the whole biology and then you’re the actual experiential you’ve done it. You’re like everyone’s gonna wanna hear from you because people say, you’re a talking head until someone says, “Who’s done it, show me,” when you can do that. You can do that, which is a huge to have at this conference. Next section of the conference is the built environment and the environment in general. So we’re going to have Bill Browning, he’s hands down the world’s expert on biophilic design right now and the built design. 

We are having Emmy Kyoto, she runs a Bosch cafe and her whole lens is environment to support the social network. We know from the social determinants of health, you’re gonna become like the top five people you hang around and if you don’t have that one good buddy, one good buddy, your health outcomes change drastically. So she’s gonna talk about from a global perspective how around the world, Peru, Philippines, Japan, she’s started these older adults, she calls them Bosch cafes and what’s happening to help the outcomes as a result of that. So that’s environment. Al Power, Dr. Al Power and Jennifer Carson are gonna really go on a home run. 

They got a book coming out about the civil rights, social justice issue around locking people up in long-term care environments. So we talk about memory care as a lock up, but there’s almost all of them have some form of quote security or pushed button and what that does to the person who lives there and the workforce. And Jennifer’s studied this for years and she’s out of the university of Nevada. Ending the program with the real life strategies you can do, so we’ve got Lisa Feiner from Sharp Again Naturally. If you go on her website, it’s just fun to go there, it’s like brain games and diet and-

Heather Sandison, N.D.

She’s so awesome, I just have to plug her talk on this summit, so go listen to that one as well ’cause she dives deep and goes into a lot of these things that you can do and from her kind of health coach perspective and why it’s so important to work with one.

Tammy Marshall

And she walks the talk outside here, I’ve known her for quite a long time and she’s amazing, actually I adore her.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

So articulate. Super brilliant. Yeah. I can see why you guys get along really well.

Tammy Marshall

She’s kind, she’s got good fashion and she’s.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Impressive and always.

Tammy Marshall

She is. She is and she walks the talk, that’s what I love most about her. Let’s see. So that’s the last section is really tying all of what we learned together so that people can walk away and not feel like, “Oh, this is so much. We just learned like, how do I pick one or two things that I can take back?” Even if it’s I move the dining room table in my own home toward a window, even if it’s I serve, that’s the one thing I forgot to say, we’re having a connection. We’re having this provider, his name is Everyday are his, company’s called Everyday RX. And what he does is take information from you, creates a prescriptive diet that is either typically it’s anti-inflammatory diet and so forth. I won’t get into his thing, but we’re tying the diet to it. So it’s a full circle, environment, lifestyle, biometrics, all in one program and the real focus is on dementia because by and large people feel like once you have it it is the sentence, right? That’s a common myth I think out in the public.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Right. And that’s part of why we wanna be having these conversations earlier is because it’s so much easier to prevent than it is to treat. Right? So if we can start having the conversations about what it takes to treat it and we can do those things earlier, not only is it less expensive, it’s just so much less work and you don’t have to go through the suffering and the struggle, a bit certainly encouraging people. Go ahead. Sorry.

Tammy Marshall

Encouraging people.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Oh, just to talk, have the conversations, I think that’s just such a big part of the message here to have the conversation because we’ve been told for so long. I mean, I heard it when I was in training from very, very well-meaning professors, don’t give people false hope, there’s nothing you can do about dementia, but what that signals is, don’t talk about it. There’s nothing you can do, so don’t admit to it, don’t talk about it. And I wanna flip the script completely, talk about it immediately. The second you start to notice, I should have remembered that I would have 10 years ago, I would have five years ago. That’s the time to act.

Tammy Marshall

A hundred percent. Beginning to know the fear that you have of even as a son, daughter, friend, when you notice things that are just not quite right earlier, earlier, the better we know once we see things that are suspect, things have been going on 15, 20 years prior. So people talk about prevention and I think that’s great, obviously we’re all about prevention, but I’m really trying to promote ahead of prevention which is causing health, causing health. I see a very distinct difference, prevention feels like I’m trying to catch up, but causing health for ourselves, our children, our families now.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Yeah. Choosing, choosing health. Yeah. I love that idea. Love, love, love. And you also have a pharmacy. It’s Biophilia Pharmacy, right?

Tammy Marshall

Biophilia Pharma.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Pharma.

Tammy Marshall

Words to say that non-pharmacological approaches to wellbeing. So if you’re on my website, nature is one of those non-pharmacological approaches. I think medicine is important, I don’t have a thyroid, I have to take supplement and I have none and I’ve tried other ways even through energetics to try to function, I happen to have to take a synthetic, so I’m not anti pill. I know we’re in a pill paradigm in this country, but I am for natural non-pharmacological approaches like nature, like food, like movement, like sleep, like friend.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I mean, the science is here as well. Like you’re like me, you’re into to biohacking, right? And so this is really using the best technology and the latest and greatest and merging that with the ancient wisdom, by putting in the best of both of those worlds and getting the benefits of them. So tell me a little bit about your favorite biohacking approaches.

Tammy Marshall

Oh gosh. Well, I think the morning is important, morning is very important, especially if the grass still has a little bit of water on it to, what happens if you go outside in the morning and you put your feet, bare feet, rubber soles was the startup of chronic disease if you go back in time, post-industrial rubber shoes, chronic disease, blah, blah, blah. So going out early in the morning with my shoes off, when the grass is a little bit wet still because then the ionization and the conduction is happening and I can, I dunno, I have a relationship with the grass. 

So I’ve just taken the, I hear the bird song so I know, but one of the most beautiful things that I think about when I’m outside in nature is that, and I don’t know if you’re familiar with this but when we breathe even right now, it’s so bizarre to think about but it’s been studied and I love to read the research on it. But even right now when we’re breathing, we’re sharing our unique essence, right? I’m not in your space right now, but whatever is around me when I’m breathing in and out, like sharing a unique essence out into the atmosphere. And we know from the research that my breath and even your breath, four to five days from now will be part of the air particles in France, in Italy, in Rome. It is within four or five up to seven days, our essence is on the other side of the world. So just going out in the morning and taking us, like I breathe in Africa and I breathe in Malaysia and I breathe and I just feel better doing that.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Love it.

Tammy Marshall

Being near trees. My next second biohack is trees and then, I mean if you went to my center downstairs I’ve got every piece of equipment imaginable to do biohacks, I mean, I can go on and on, I’m a little junky in that way.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I love it. That is something that I’m very hopeful that other facilities will start picking up. I’ve told a few people this, but my goal was starting Marama was not that Marama becomes the end all be all for every senior. I don’t think anyone could, but that the other facilities start to behave more like us, that they come in our direction and that we can be a kind of a thought leader and an example in the field. And one of the things that we’re doing is we do, we call it the Caseta or the circuit where we take our residents through some of the biohacking equipment. And certainly from a cost perspective, if you’re in a facility and you can take 15, 20 people through it in a day versus just having one, 2000 or $20,000 piece of equipment at home, it gets so much more mileage out of it when it’s in a facility in a group setting. 

And so it’s really fun that the residents love it and you can watch them kind of brighten up afterwards, after some red light therapy, the bio mat we’ve got there, we’re doing brain tap now, we have a lever to a contrast oxygen machine, we’ve got saunas and rebounders. And so everyone gets to do this each day and we have the best staff. I’m so proud of them and so inspired by them because they’re fired up and they’re excited and that it’s infectious that their enthusiasm for these things and they even on their breaks they go do the circuit. So it’s really great and fun and fun to watch everyone engaging. So now I’ve given you our list, so you’ve gotta give me a few of yours. What have we got down there?

Tammy Marshall

If you went downstairs, you said a lot of mine. So sauna, rebounder, biomat, lymph mover, I don’t know if you’ve seen those, like the-

Heather Sandison, N.D.

The vibe plate kind of?

Tammy Marshall

Love that, sauna, I think not everybody would do this, but I think clonics are very good for you. They’re not necessarily on the biohack spectrum, but they’re moving your stuff is good for you. So whether that’s lymph, circulation, and especially digestion, we know from the microbiome, very, very, very important to get that stuff moving. Let’s see what else. A lot of light therapy, spectrum therapy, Hertz grounding machines. I don’t know, the earth has its own at 7.83, but getting on a higher Hertz so you feel that grounded experience if you can’t get outside so it resets your body, anything in your environment where you have EMF exposure, just simply put it inside of a tin, any kind of a tin so it breaks up the EMF. 

There’s no need. I mean, that oftentimes we see and I hope people are gonna do some more research on this, especially people living with dementia. The sensitivity around that that we don’t think about, especially when we’re building environments, that it does impact our patients. So anywhere in which you can disperse the wifi and all of that, it’s good for the team too, it’s good for the team.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Hardware or turn it off.

Tammy Marshall

Or if you can’t do any of that, you’d put your cell phone inside of a tin, the brownies in or something, the metal tins.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Or even just on airplane mode.

Tammy Marshall

Yes.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Yeah.

Tammy Marshall

When I start talking about these things, these are not conspiracy theories, this is science folks, even going outside in the dew in the morning is science, my breath with the Malaysian, African, that’s science.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I love it.

Tammy Marshall

Talking about it. It’s past the woo woo people. It’s like, no, this is science and how can I help you learn that?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Well. What’s so I think important to take that back to is the science of our own experience, right? Like you and I, we can walk outside and we can put our feet in the grass and feel the dew and watch how different your day is. You can feel the change and that personal experience is more valuable than what’s written in a paper by some nerd or PhD. Like that of course it informs us, but that personal experience is more valuable than anything that you’re gonna learn on the internet or any paper anybody’s ever written. And listening to that, how do you feel when you kinda create these patterns or these habits in your life, if you’re choosing kinda healthier things or less healthy things, then what are those and get that feedback, listen to your own body.

Tammy Marshall

And for people who resist that too, I think about, at some point you give up trying to convince, like I can hug a tree and literally have cried. I don’t know why it’s not every tree, but there are trees I’ve found in certain places and I’ve had a real response with this tree, no idea why. If you say that to the average person, it’s like okay, but at that point and it probably that point in my life now that I’m just gonna role model, I’m not into convincing anyone because to your point, Dr. Sanderson, the lived experience is the teacher. 

And I know that these folks who laugh at me for going out barefooted are the same folks that say, “Oh, I feel so good walking bare foot on the beach.” And I just turned my head and say, “Okay, but you don’t think it’s true for the grass. Okay.” “My whole family is going to the beach, we love the beach, we love walking on the beach.” Yes. Because it’s good for you, you’re having a biometric response to that beach same as I do going out in the grass in the morning. But it’s no sense if they’re not there they’re not there, but role modeling, it’s a duty to role model.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Right.

Tammy Marshall

For the workforce, because I think of opportunity, plus just education on the topic, it’s not always out there in the way that it could be. It’s also very intuitive.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Great. Yeah. It is so intuitive. And coming back to that intuition, reminding yourself how valuable that is, and also getting the permission, right? Like that is important. Your lived experience is important, what your body is telling you is important, listen. Thank you, Tammy, for educating us on all of these super important things to be considering in terms of how we create our environments, what a healthy environment looks like, what to think about for our loved ones and for ourselves. It’s been absolutely wonderful to chat with you and I’m so excited that we’re going to get to work together moving forward and I can’t wait to just download more of your wisdom from your decades of experience and so excited, thrilled to be sharing it with our summit attendees. Thank you.

Tammy Marshall

I can’t wait to see you and hear from you. And I definitely wanna get out to Marama and come-

Heather Sandison, N.D.

We can’t wait to host you at Marama, it would be so fun. We’ll have you for a meal, a super yummy ketogenic, organic keto meal, yum outside of course.

Tammy Marshall

That’s it. But if you can’t be outside I have these little bio-hacks next to me, do you know the rose has the most hurts of any flower?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I didn’t, but I’m not gonna take them out now, we have them, we have a bunch growing at Marama and I that’s so funny. I’m so glad we’re having this conversation because that’s like we should have something edible or we should have something negative, but we’re gonna keep the roses. So tell me exactly the hurts.

Tammy Marshall

It has the most energetics of any flower, you can obviously, you’re gonna ask the plant for permission to cut it because I’m doing it for total vanity. So every morning I have a routine, I ask permission, I cut it, I bring it in and we’re just friends all day long. And it makes me smile and I know it has the most energetic vibration of any plant. So we’re just hanging out.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.