Essential Oils: Support For Your Blood Sugar

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Summit. I'm your host, Dr. Beverly Yates, ND It's my distinct honor to interview for this session Jodi Cohen. She has a wonderful line of essential oils and a really interesting personal history and has brought a lot of clarity and results to the world of people who are looking to have a lived experience in their own body, their own skin. It feels good to be calmer to get to that parasympathetic nervous system state and be able to chill out, not be addicted to anything and feel good real time.

So, Jodi, welcome to the summit. I'd love it if you could introduce yourself to our audience. Hi, my name is Jodi Cohen. I am the founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, its proprietary blends of essential oils that we teach people to use on very specific reflex points. Our goal is to kind of take the guesswork out of topical remedies so that, for example, we have things that can help manage blood sugar, manage stress. And my background is really I, I actually worked for either college in the U.S. Senate for Ted Kennedy very baptism by fire job where, you know, I just had to figure out how to read research and understand things.

And so I was also a journalist and I really kind of take that can do attitude to challenges, you know? And when I had an overwhelming stress and nothing was working, I rolled out my sleeves and figured something out, which is what I'm excited to share today. All right, great. We're looking forward to your information. So given that the world of blood sugar regulation, you know, glycemic control can be really complex in some ways, but simple in others, how is it that essential oils can benefit diabetes?

Yeah, I think we were talking before we started recording just about Blood sugar and basically that the hormones that all interact with diabetes cortisol is a really key one and cortisol is kind of the survival hormone, the energy hormone, you know, So it could be, you know, we all hear that proverbial lion chasing you down the street. I don't see many lions in my neighborhood, but I know that when I turn on the news and see a school shooting and think, oh, my goodness, could that happen to my child or, you know, anything else that's happening at the world, my stress just explodes all of a sudden.

You know, it's not just your physical response to stress, like the car changing lanes that doesn't see you. It's any kind of emotional stress, anything anticipatory like, oh, my gosh, something bad could happen to me or somebody I love or, you know, thinking back like something bad happened in the past. In your reminiscing, this is what trauma is. And suddenly your body is responding to that trauma. And so there are a lot of great essential oils. You know, historically, people even just smell things and that calms them down.

But what we try to do is use oils in very specific ways to basically shift your physiology, shift your body out of that fight

How Essential Oils Support Blood Sugar 3:01

or flight survival state into the I am safe state. And my body, you know, the resources can be allocated, including my blood sugar, to a more stable, steady state. Great. That is wonderful. Thank you so much. So as people are listening, I know they're going to have a lot of questions. So, folks, you know, stay tuned here because really dig in and unpack all of this. Right. So what essential oils can help to balance blood sugar? Because for some people, this really is the Holy Grail. Yeah. So therefore that we really use I mean, blood sugar is a complex system.

You know, it's not just one thing. There are things that are working together, right? So there's kind of your stress response. So we have something that is a little bit more top down where, you know, this the signal, the vagus nerve, which kind of signals either you're in fight or flight or it's safe. You have an oil for that. We have oils that help balance the adrenals, which release the hormone cortisol, you know, and the hypothalamus, which also kind of regulate cortisol distribution. The liver, you know, processes blood sugar.

So we have oils that support the liver and then the pancreas is what releases hormones like insulin into the system to kind of pull sugar out of the blood and into the cells. So we have oils that can support all of those systems. Where would your listeners like us to start? I think how about if we start with the pancreas and the organ of yours, so to speak, and then maybe we can move to the kidneys, the brain, and, you know, just roll through the various systems because they obviously interact. And the thing I always try to teach for my patients and clients is, you know, with blood sugar, your blood goes just about everywhere.

Yeah. So we care about what's going on in your blood, so take it away. So basically what we're doing is this idea Essential oils are the concentrated essences of plants, right? And most people don't realize many of the pharmaceutical drugs that we're consuming are derived from plants, for example, aspirin. Aspirin is derived from willow bark, Valium derived from valerian root. 50% of all the pharmaceutical drugs that are out there on the market have some derivation from plants. You know, we know that plants are medicine, like many of us.

You know, we have a stomach ache and we drink ginger tea or peppermint tea. We know this works, but we don't necessarily realize is that when it's more concentrated, it can work more effectively. And the way that most of us consume remedies are we ingest them. We either change our diet and we eat healthy food or we take supplements, or we take pharmaceutical drugs. But it all goes through the digestive channel and that that works. But it also means that, you know, if there's any digestive challenges, like, say, you might have gut inflammation or any challenges getting from the digestive channel into the heart, it's just a little less of the remedy it gets there, you know, a more a more efficient route in some ways is topical application.

Like, say, for example, you hurt your wrist and you put like a pain relief cream on your wrist. You know that that works locally. You also know that if you were to put like a hormone cream or a nicotine patch on the skin, it can get through the skin into the vascular system. Carried to the heart and work throughout the system. What we try to do is we're putting oils specifically on reflux points or over the organs. So it almost gets right into the system. So that's kind of the delivery mechanism.

And then the other thing that's kind of interesting is that plants are really you know, there's there's a whole network like plants work with each other. There's that great documentary about mushrooms and kind of the web under the earth or the secret language of trees, how they communicate. We are kind of part of the plant kingdom and we can use plants to put us in balance. So what we're doing with oils is kind of combining them so that it sends a signal to the pancreas when you put it

Topical Delivery and Organ Support 7:00

over your imbalance, you know, if you've ever an example of balance is kind of teaching a kid to ride a bike, right? They've got the training wheels, they're trying to juggle how it feels and move forward. And once they kind of feel that balance and for some kids, it's 2 seconds. For some kids, it's tremendous. They don't need that support. So we're topically overlaying something on the pancreas that allows it to. Now I'm imbalanced. I can't have optimal function. Okay. So with that in mind, it sounds like people's timelines are variable the same way we know people's responses to food and their blood sugar are variable too, right?

We certainly have bio individuality with how we respond to food, to stress, to pollutants in the environment, to traumas, etc. There's a lot of different components. So when it comes to essential oils, please share with us what it is about it that really helps people to get into better balance. We know that it comes from nature. Yeah. Concentrated. Got it. What else about this is particularly going to be helpful for somebody with diabetes? Yeah, I mean, a good example, like for anyone cortisol, right?

You can measure cortisol through a 24 hour saliva test. Basically you're spitting into a tube at different times and they're measuring cortisol. What they're trying to do is see the pattern because cortisol is not flatline. You know, it's it's either too high. At one point in the day, ideally it's high in the morning when you wake up so that you have energy. And then before you go to bed, it kind of wanes. And so it's balancing throughout the day, right? And there are different remedies that can spike cortisol or can comes cortisol.

And so basically what people are doing is best guessing it. They're looking at your cortisol rhythm. They're seeing, oh, it's too low in the morning, let's give you something to spike it. Oh, it's too high at night. Let's give you something to calm it down. So they're always kind of trying. The goal is Goldilocks, right to get it just right. But they're trying to kind, of course, correct based on where they think you are. There is this concept in herbs in plants called adaptogen. And what that means is that it just needs you where you're at.

If your you know, if you're worried about something, if there's a scary news story and all of a sudden you're like physically shaking and you feel very caffeinated, your cortisol is too high, it will modulate you. It will help calm you down. If, for example, you wake up in the morning and you just have no doubt you keep hearing this news, bah, you know, you don't really want to get out of bed. You're super tired, it will lift you up. So that's what I love about plants is they're balancing, they're adaptogenic.

They're not, you know, kind of pushing you in one way or pulling you down in another. They're just meeting you where you're at and always trying to return you to homeostasis and normal. Exactly. Exactly. I think that to me, these things are all part of a spectrum of healing opportunities and in that, you know, it's correcting and it's helping you to adapt to changes in variable circumstances. Because today's world, sometimes things can change on a dime. And because of that rapid change, people often find themselves looking for a resources that won't destroy their health in order to improve it and to find more balance and ways to relieve stress and be healthy, which if you have type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes you absolutely have to be mindful about.

This is often where things go wrong. Okay. Okay. So then now Jodi, share with us, if you would, about this topic, like how can you heal your body most effectively? Yeah, I mean, you know, I have very good friends like yourself who are practitioners who see the chronically ill all the time. And one of them I thought, this is so interesting. She's saying, you know, a lot of people come to me and they've seen like 50 doctors and they have this huge briefcase of all of their test scores. And, you know, I'm I kind of say to them, that's just data points.

You know, that's where you are now. Because what she finds and what I've noticed is that there are really three things. You know, it's basically eat, sleep and move. If you're not sleeping, then that's really throwing you off

Stress, Cortisol, and Adaptogenic Balance 10:49

and it can throw off your blood sugar because it throws off your energy levels. If you're not moving your body and moving your blood flow, you know, that impairs lymphatic impaired circulation. That's a problem. And then kind of eating under stress. So I guess what I try to do is like, let's start with the basics. You know, let's make sure that you're sleeping. Let's make sure that you're able to fall asleep, that you're not wired and tired and spinning at night. Let's make sure that once you fall asleep, you stay asleep.

You're not waking up at 1 a.m. wide awake, you know, nocturnal hypoglycemia. You're not waking up at 3 a.m. kind of groggy because maybe that's detox liver, our hormone our way. You might wake up and use the bathroom. Let's make sure you're getting solid sleep so that that's a good start to your day with blood sugar. Then let's make sure you know throughout the day like we were talking about. You know, I used to joke when you go to the doctor and say, oh, you have stress, just stress less. And I'm like, what am I going to do? Like go to the spa?

I still have to come home and, you know, the laundry still needs to be done. The kids still need help with the homework. It's not like I'm going to get a divorce, you know, quit my job and get rid of my children like I still everyone has, you know, we all have stress that we have to navigate. It's just what is our capacity, You know, And I do believe that there are ways that we can enhance our capacity and the example that I use that people really seem to resonate with, You know, we've all had that moment we're driving, someone cuts us off, and there are moments when we're like, whatever, you know, I hope they get there safely.

Good luck to them. You know, I like this song on the radio and there are other moments, the exact same situation. And there are four letter words flying out of our mouth. Only variable is us in that moment and how we handle that stress. The stress just doesn't change. You know, you can still have whatever relationships you have, you can still you have your work schedule. But when that really hard thing hits as opposed to it taking you down and putting you, you know, throwing out cortisol and every every molehill is a mountain.

You know, you can kind of take it with ease and say like, oh, okay, I guess we're doing this, you know, like, this is tough, but so am I kind of thing. And you just roll up your sleeves and keep going and it doesn't throw you off and it doesn't throw your biochemistry off. So that's one way that I really try to work with people with oils and we can delve into that a little bit, if that's helpful. Yeah, I think it's helpful. You know, I'm really enjoying your analogies and your stories because this is similar to how I talk to people about things and explain it, you know, to make it real.

Because you're right, most of us don't lead a life where we can just tap out and not be bothered with anything. We still have to handle our responsibilities. So then it becomes what can we do to safely and helpfully manage our own stress, not pretend like we don't have it, but also avoid any destructive responses to it because that sometimes is what happens, right? So can you tell us a little bit more about what goes on for the nervous system? You know, we've talked about cortisol, we've talked about stress.

Some other players. We know that there's different parts of the nervous system. Just so our audience really understands this, because typically at summits we have two audiences. One is the general public and the other is health professionals and make sure we bring everybody along in this conversation. No, I love that. So for those who either don't know you're autonomic nervous system, big word control is your automatic functions, your breathing, your heart rate, you know, your blood sugar balance, all the things that we do involuntarily without having to think like just food, you know?

And it's designed to keep you alive. Makes sense. And so when it thinks you are in danger, it allocates resources towards survival, which means that your blood is rooted away from your organs of digestion, detoxification, blood sugar to your arms and your legs so that you can run faster or flee or fight back. It means your respiration quickened so that you have more energy and it means that your adrenals are releasing cortisol. You need that energy to survive. But everything, not critical towards survival is kind of downregulated.

So when there is a danger, you know, you turn on the news because the car is about to hit you. Whatever is going on and that is the sympathetic branch of your nervous system, that fight or flight branch that gets activated. And then when the danger passes, it's the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system that gets more activated. And the reason I share this is because, you know, there's this great book, Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and it talks about the zebra in the wild that's being chased by the lion and runs the lion.

Nervous System Regulation and the Vagus Nerve 15:20

Then it goes on the ground and shakes. And when it shaking, what it's doing is shifting out of that fight or flight sympathetic state into that rest and digest parasympathetic state. We don't do that. Hmm. That's an important point. Wow. Okay. Yeah. We turn on the news, we see some potential drama. You know, our mother calls, she tells us another trauma. Our kids having a bad day. We get on the roller coaster with them. We're just taking a solid time, sleep, have sleep, and we never regulate. So we're pumping out all of these hormones that just regulate our nervous system and, you know, our blood sugar.

And what I want to tell everyone is, yes, the world, you know, might sadly continue to be crazy. And you can always control your response because the gear shift out of fighter flight into safety, out of disregulation, into regulation is your vagus nerve. It's the longest nerve in the body that most people have never heard of cranial nerve number ten. And it literally connects the brain to the body, body to the brain. I'm going to show you where it runs, because that's useful to know. So it starts in the base of the neck splits and is most accessible If you're listening or watching, just feel with me behind your ear lobe, you're going to feel a little divot.

That is where your vagus nerve is the most accessible to the surface right there. And that's a really important point for you to know, because this is your gearshift. This is where you are going to manually override anything that's happening out there in the world and shift yourself out of danger and into safety. And you can do that. You can just rub it with me that that works. You know, there is a pacemaker like device that can be surgically implanted. There. And the FDA has approved that for epilepsy, migraine in depressions, you can use acupuncture needles there.

We created an essential oil blend if stimulatory, it's clove and lime and you can apply it there. And what that does, it kind of works like an acupuncture needle. You know, the irony of this is you think that you need to, like, use something calming for calm, like lavender, you know, camomile. It's actually it's stimulatory. You're stimulating that nerve and it kind of gearshifts you into that rest and digest state. And if you do this, if you're listening to me and just gently massaging that place, what you might notice is you might start to feel calmer.

You know, the opposite of I don't feel safe is I have choices. When you're in that stress state, you might even feel anxious because what's happening is you're so keenly focused on the danger and survival that blood isn't even routed to the part of your brain that helps you think clearly your prefrontal cortex. You can't calmly say like, Oh gosh, you know, Well, I guess panicking and flipping out is one choice. I can tell you that I can maybe do nothing, or maybe I could do these 17 other things and then you're just able to kind of calm yourself down.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So well said. Thank you for that. That was really clear. So with the use of these items, these products, the essential oils can really help us tap into and enjoy more capacity and reserve to stay calm and to think from a more rational place rather than just react and perhaps do something. We may come to regret that part of your message completely. And you know, it's so funny. I am I'm pretty good with my blood sugar. But I've noticed when I when I've been in the hospital, like when my dad kind of he passed away, but there was a lot of up and down before, you know, he died.

And I'd go visit him and be there with him and on the way out, like I have never wanted sugar so badly. Like I would stop at Starbucks and get a cookie because I was so disregulated, you know, because I was I was so in it. And so what I started to realize that happened twice. And look what is up with me and cookies at the hospital. And I'm like, Oh, you know what? I think this is what's going on with me. And so I started proactively putting on my oils and I realized, okay, even even though this is stressful, my body is craving more sugar.

I, I can manage around this. Yeah, exactly. I'm glad you were able to observe that and know that. Hey, there's something. This is telling me something, right? Yeah, that's part of it. Too. Cookies here. And both of them here at the hospital. That's. That's suspicious. Right. Sorry for the loss of your father. And I'm glad that you got an insight from that journey. You know, I lost my mother a number of years ago, and in that that particular year, that was just so. So stressful and just rough. They were just a lot of insights gained from the whole thing.

And I know on that journey that many people listening have had that or a similar or some other event in their life. So I would just say to everyone, please be kind to yourself and have patience. Don't blame yourself. Whatever response you're having, you're having a response. How you responded to it is what's in your hands. So don't beat yourself up if you have a multiple cookie day or whatever it is. These are normal responses. It's because stress pushes us in a certain way and we do release more cortisol, more adrenaline letting and growling to other hormones, getting into play with people, having cravings, having a hard time knowing when it's time to stop eating and telling that they're full, etc.. Right.

And so tools like this, like essential

Managing Emotional Cravings and Common Myths 20:38

oils, can help you get that control and regulation back quickly. Okay. Yes. Yeah. It's just another strategy. You know, like and I think I love what you said that was so kind and thoughtful. I think that sometimes there's always an opportunity to learn something, too, you know, like even it was really dark moments. You can see more clearly. Yeah, it's challenging, but that's real. You know? That's real. Are there any common myths or misperception about the use of essential oils that you run into?

Oh, so many. I think that there's a lot of fear mongering. And I think, you know, common sense is key, right? Like you're never going to smell is interesting. Smell actually provides a sense of safety. Right. Because you smell food, you smell water, you smell predator odor. It goes directly into the brain and can kind of calm the nervous system, you know, And it often triggers memories. Like whenever I smell raspberries, you know, I think of my my grandfather had a huge garden with raspberries. It reminds me of him.

But I don't think you can ever go wrong with smelling things. I don't think you need to, you know, don't don't kill yourself worrying like, is this good enough? Is it okay? You can pretty much smell most things. You know, you can pretty much safely topically apply things. You know, you can always dilute them with other oils. I would be careful about what you drink. You know, there are some practitioners like oregano. Oregano can kill a lot of things, but, you know, it's not necessarily a do it yourself drug because it can kill the good with the bad.

So if you're working with a practitioner, absolutely. Just, you know, be careful what you drink. That makes sense. Right? So oregano in terms of its opportunity for like antiseptic effect, maybe it's killing off the good gut bacteria, for instance, along with something you're actually trying to get rid of. Exactly. And people that you know, you know, it's just kind of a common sense don't don't take too much and don't don't do it at home because it. Yeah. Are you saying more isn't always better.

I was I am saying moderation is key. I that you know I just feel like culturally some of us we really struggle with that because the marketing messages we get more it's always better more it's always better completely out of context. Right. And well, even, you know, like when I when I used to run marathons, like, you need that down day, you should not be running seven days a week. That is actually not going to make you better, you know. Yeah, we do need recovery time. We thank you for that reminder, Jodi. Okay.

Are there any other things you'd like to share with us about how essential oils can help us to heal? Naturally? I think the main thing I just want to kind of leave people with, because you were so eloquent in your description of how stress can throw everyone off. And I think that, you know, now in particular, I think a lot of people feel disempowered or they don't really feel like they have choices. And one of my favorite quotes is from Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. He talks about between the stimulus and the response, there is a space, and in that space lies our power to choose our response.

And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. I think that even when you're having like one of those really overwhelming, paralyzing moments, you are able to calm your nervous system. And there are a lot of things you can do. You can apply essential oil, you can rub on the mastoid bone, you can tap, you can practice breathing techniques. But basically what you're doing is you're giving yourself that space, that pause, you know, by calming your nervous system and allowing yourself to see options.

And I would just encourage people, no matter what is happening in your life, what is happening right now, just give yourself that small window and know that you have choices. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that you brought this up right before we hit record for the session, you and I were having a discussion about how food stresses. Right? Like it can grab somebody right up by their collarbones, their genetic color, so to speak, and slam them up against the environmental and epigenetic expression or whatever their weak links may be in their genetic heritage.

And with that in mind, the more ways we have to unravel how stress impacts us and so we can have a lived experience of feeling good in our bodies, something safe, something natural, something that you can't get into an abusive relationship with, etc. Unlike some prescription options, which absolutely because of the fact they are so distal and potent, can cause problems, they can also help with healing.

Quality, Safety, Sleep, and Final Resources 24:58

It's kind of a double edged sword, right? So so in that what are the kinds of things that would help people to know about quality and processes around essential oils? Years ago I had a background as a wild crafter, as an herbalist, and I'm very sensitive to the topics that go with quality. So I'd love if you shared with the audience some. Of organic, you know, because it's the concentrated essence. And if you're concentrating pesticides, that concerns me. There is one other tip that I'd love to share about oils.

So our colleague Titus Chiu, who is a functional neurologist, taught me that I'm prone to anxiety attacks. I have anxiety attacks in supermarket checkout line. You know, you have your cart full of stuff and all of a sudden he'd be hot and overwhelmed. And what he taught me is that when you're having a panic attack, that is the right frontal lobe, your right forehead area of your brain that's over activating. And what functional neurology does is it tries to balance the two hemispheres. So he taught me that if you plug your love nozzle and honestly from the supermarket, you can just smell an orange because the oils live in the peel of the orange.

Smell it through your left nostril and smell is a little bit like hunger. Like at a certain point you're ravenous, you know, and whatever appetizer comes in halfway through the appetizer, like I'm not starving anymore. You start to stop smelling at a certain point, just smell it enough. You know, the nasal passages are kind of the elevated to the brain. It goes directly to the left frontal lobe that answers the two hemispheres. And you feel less anxious, You feel less overwhelmed. So this is great for, you know, it could be anything.

You could use an orange. You can have a little oil in your purse. For kids who like having anxiety attacks around homework or sports events or school, it's just a really nice trick to keep in your back pocket, quite literally. That's a great tip. I love it. Can you share with us a tip for people who struggle with sleep? Because that's a common one for sure, especially for blood sugar issues, because blood sugar and sleep sometimes aren't good friends. Yeah. So the way I describe it and feel free to look at it, collaborate on this, but the sleep hormone is melatonin that is released by your pineal gland in response to darkness.

It works collaboratively with the stress hormone cortisol because, you know, if the line is chasing you and you fall asleep, you're probably going to die. So it's almost like a teeter totter. You know, if cortisol is high, that forces melatonin low. If melatonin is high, it forces cortisol. So it's this kind of delicate balance. And so we have created an essential oil that basically triggers the penile gland to naturally release melatonin. So you're exhausted. Your body just wants to hit the mat, but your mind is like, wait a minute, I've got that meeting and I have to make sure to coordinate with my spouse to get kids here.

And you just can't stop thinking your monkey mind just will not turn off. So we call it circadian rhythm and you put it on the top of the head sides of the ears. But this is actually the area where the skin is the thinnest, like above the earlobe on the skin right there. It's great vision point. And the pineal gland is literally in the middle of the brain and then the back of the head. I don't tell anyone to put oil on their face before they sleep because I'm a bit of a as attorney sleeper and I don't want oil to get in your eyes in the middle of the night.

But that's a great one for falling asleep. That's a wonderful tip. I'm sure people will benefit from it. And I love your references because, you know, these are experiences we can all relate to. Yeah, Yeah. I know. Very cool. Very cool. All right. Any parting words of wisdom before we bring this wonderful session to an end? I'm just so excited that you're putting this out there. I think this is such a gift to help people naturally balance their blood sugar. So thank you for doing this. You're welcome.

Thank you for being our guest here. And fans, you know, please share these sessions as we have our summit live with anyone you know who cares about their health, people who have blood sugar problems, who have diabetes, people who care about people who have these issues, coworkers, colleagues, friends, neighbors, etc. The more we all link arms and partner together, the healthier the world will be. And one of the reasons I always am excited to work with people who have type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes is because you can do something about it.

You know, there's so many chronic illnesses that are not necessarily that lifestyle sensitive. This one is probably the most lifestyle sensitive, which means you can be in charge of right there. Jodi Cohen, thank you for being our guest. Where can we find out more information about you and your products? You can head over to Vibrant Blue Oils vibrantblueoils.com and learn more. We're also on Facebook and Instagram and we have you know anything in this talk was interesting too you can go to boostthebrainbook.com/gift and download more on the vagus nerve in the parasympathetic nervous system.

All right, great. Thank you so much for sharing and everyone, hey, have a great day. Thank you for taking time to invest in your health and to watch the summit take great care.