Enter The Healing State via Vagus Nerve Stimulation

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Welcome back to the Restore Your Mitochondria Conversation. I’m your host, Laura Frontiero. I’m bringing you experts to help you boost your energy and fix your health so you can build the life you love. Today my guest is a dear friend of mine, Robin Ray Green. Hi, Robin. Welcome to the summit.

Robin Ray Green

Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here, Laura.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah, this is gonna be a fun talk. So this summit is full of a lot of biology. When we talk about mitochondria and cellular health, we get a lot of super deep biology conversations. And this conversation is going to be light and fun and exciting. And when people leave this talk, they’re gonna want to go learn more from you right off the bat, because we’re gonna be talking about some really fun stuff. Show me your ear real quick.

Robin Ray Green

Here we go.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Ear seeds. Yep, okay. So we’re gonna talk about how this applies to regenerating cellular health, but let me introduce you to our audience. You are an acupuncturist, an author, speaker, educator, and co-founder of Thrive Ear Seeds. That’s the topic of our talk today. And you provide tools and training for both patients and health and wellness professionals to be successful in using auriculotherapy, and we’ll unpack what that means. That’s the safe and noninvasive treatment for everything, from headaches to low energy, pain and weight loss, and everything in between. And as a pediatric and family health specialist at Detox Rejuvenation, you also help children address the root causes of eczema, allergies, and asthma, so they can find long lasting relief. And your book “Heal Your Child From the Inside Out” is a Hay House treasure and it’s helped thousands of parents worldwide. So thank you for sharing your wisdom here today, Robin.

Robin Ray Green

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to talk about this. It’s so much fun.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It is. Okay, so let’s dive in and just tell us what is this whole auriculotherapy. I know ariculo would mean ear. So tell us what this is. And how is it that working with our ear could help our cellular health and our mitochondria? That’s the crazy connection, right?

Robin Ray Green

Right, that is such a great question. So auriculotherapy, it does pertain to your ear. And your ear has thousands of nerve endings that connect with the message centers of your brain. So when we apply pressure on those special spots of the ear, it can actually impact areas of the body distant from the ear. So you can think about the ear is the keyboard and our brain is the computer. And so we’re basically typing in, when we give pressure on the ear, it’s like typing in a command and it will actually impact other parts of your body. So that’s how it can help so many different things from pain to weight loss, to improving your energy, to helping your organs function more efficiently.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Okay, hold on. So that was the easiest explanation I’ve probably ever heard. That makes so much sense. And you know this because you’re an acupuncturist and a lot of the acupuncture spots are, I mean, you’ve done acupuncture on me. And of course, first thing you did was hit my ear.

Robin Ray Green

Right, yes. And so this is actually a separate system from acupuncture that was developed by the father of auriculotherapy, Paul Nogier, in the fifties. And then it was later supported with all the Chinese medicine universities in China actually studied his system and validated it and found that indeed we have like basically an inverted baby on our ear. It’s what we call a homunculus, or our ear reflects the entire body. And so we can go in and stimulate the ear, whether that’s with just a massage or a special ear seed like the one I’m wearing now. Or there are even devices that can apply phototherapy or electrical stimulation to points in the ear. And in fact, we even use auriculotherapy to do surgeries without any anesthesia. We can actually use special points on the ear to do that.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Oh my gosh. So it just like cuts pain. It cuts pain down. All right, we’re gonna get into all the different applications of this, but tell me more about how it works. ‘Cause I think there’s more. Tell me more about how it can help stimulate the vagus nerve and help the body actually enter a healing state. And why is that important?

Robin Ray Green

Right. Let’s start right there. So we can’t heal if we are in like fight or flight. If we are in a state of stress, our bodies are protecting us, right? Our blood is shunted to the periphery. We take all our energy to flee or fight or freeze. And until we come out of that state, our body is gonna have difficulties healing. So one of the ways that we can do that is by stimulating the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve has branches that reach the ear. And so by stimulating points on the ear, we actually can turn off the stress response and help our body get into a healing state so that we can rest, digest, sleep.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Okay, I wanna point out how important this is because we have a lot of speakers coming on here talking about reducing the toxic burden in our body. When we think of the bucket of toxins, stress goes in there. One of the points that comes up over and over again in many of our talks is vagus nerve stimulation and how to do it. And there’s so many different ways to stimulate vagus nerves so you go into a parasympathetic state so your body can heal. And this is interesting because nobody on this summit is talking about stimulating the ear. I mean, we’ve talked about essential oils and we’ve talked about gratitude and we’ve talked about meditation and all kinds of things to stimulate vagus nerve. But this is something that you can essentially do and walk away from it. You don’t have to be in a, okay, I gotta meditate now for 30 minutes. I mean, you can put on your ear seeds and go, and you’re actually stimulating the vagus nerve.

Robin Ray Green

Yes. That’s honestly what attracted me to them in the first place is I’m a busy professional. I’m a mom and I have a lot of responsibilities. And while I do make an effort to incorporate other ways of stimulating the vagus nerve, on those days where it is go, go, go time. I like literally put them on. Throughout the day I might squeeze them for 20, 30 seconds, but I can be in a meeting and be stimulating my vagus nerve. I can be driving and stimulating my vagus. You can be doing whatever and getting your body into a healing state and look really good doing it. Like who doesn’t wanna look gorgeous while they’re stimulating their vagus nerve?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I know. The little crystals are fun. We were recently together at a retreat and you were putting the little seeds on everybody and everybody was walking around with their ear bling and it was so fun. Plus it was really helpful. So the reason you put it on me, I mean, there was a purpose for it if you recall. When we got there to the location, we were in Park City, Utah, and all of a sudden my allergies went crazy. And you’re like, “Laura, let me just put some ear seeds on you. We can put them in the right place to help with your allergies.” And it just simmered everything down. It was like inflammation went down in my body. Within hours I was feeling much better. But even sooner than that, I think.

Robin Ray Green

Yeah. I mean, it varies for everybody. Some people get instant relief depending on what’s going on. Sometimes you’ll notice changes within a few hours of putting them on. And then in my experience, like most recently was with sleep. I was really having trouble shifting my sleep and getting a full night’s sleep. And after about seven days of wearing them very religiously, 24 hours a day, I was like, oh my God. It just clicked, everything. I think I finally got over the hump and started sleeping the way, like what I call my princess sleep, where you wake up in the morning and like, oh, your hair’s perfect. You slept so deeply. You hardly moved.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I wanna go to bed and not have to wake up and do my hair. So it’s all about putting your body into this healing state. That’s what I’m hearing. And this is what it’s all about. When we think about mitochondria health and we think about all the chronic health conditions that occur because of mitochondria decline, we have words in the Western medicine allopathic world for mitochondria dysfunction, and those words are autoimmune disease, cancer, heart disease, and then all the symptoms. So digestive issues and headaches and pain, and the list goes on and on. So those are all related to mitochondria decline. So in order to support mitochondria, there’s a lot of things you can do. But one of the things is to get you into this parasympathetic state, this healing state. You wanna share any more about why that’s so important?

Robin Ray Green

Well, it’s absolutely essential for our bodies to start repairing and rejuvenating and also sleeping. So when we’re in it, when we can get into that parasympathetic state, we can enter a deeper sleep state. And that’s when our body’s doing all the repair work, making complex enzyme chains, repairing and draining the brain and releasing toxins. So that’s why I feel like it not only stimulates the vagus nerve, but it could also really help us get into a deeper state of sleep to do the repair work.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So in addition to everything else you’re doing to support your healthy lifestyle, this is just one more thing. It’s like a… I don’t like to say a hack. I don’t like biohacking ’cause I feel like it’s temporary and like you’re cheating, but it feels like you’re bio-elevating, bio-optimizing.

Robin Ray Green

Yes, you’re absolutely optimizing. And there are hundreds of protocols. So for those out there that are really trying to heal their guts and get out of the habit of using ibuprofen or Tylenol when they have a headache or when their back is bothering them, this can actually offer them a way to, without using any drugs, totally natural, totally noninvasive way to address aches and pains in their body so that they can get on with their day and not have to deal with that pain or worry about the effects of taking medications.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Okay. So a lot of our viewers right now are high performing people, people who are up to a big game in their life and they’re watching this summit because they wanna know how to support their energy and focus. So can you share how ear seeds help with that?

Robin Ray Green

Absolutely. So what is so cool is the ear seeds actually stimulate parts of your brain. So there is a point on the ear. I’m gonna get out my little ear here. And if we go like straight into the middle and then like right in the center, where most of us get our ears pierced is like right in the center of the earlobe. If you go just medial to that on the inside of the earlobe is a point called master cerebral point. It actually stimulates your cerebral cortex. So it’s helpful for focus, for creativity, and so on. And then there are other points that we couple with that. For instance, the point on the ear in this zone here is called Shen Men and that also stimulates the brain. It’s very calming. It helps with focus so we can help someone figure out the best protocol for them based on what they need to help with attention, concentration, memory, and focus. And all it takes is a little, you literally just putting them on is gonna apply continual mild pressure on those points. And then you can give an added amount of pressure. Like I have Shen Men going right here in my ear and I can just press on this for 10 seconds and I am literally stimulating my brain and helping focus.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah, and I remember when you put those on me, so there’s the little crystal that we see on the outside, but on the underneath is like a little bit that the pressure just is continuous on. Like it’s a little raised area underneath it.

Robin Ray Green

Yeah, see my light there. There we go. So that’s the little bead and it comes on an adhesive tape that’s totally nontoxic and safe. And then you just apply the little, you can look in like the mirror or have someone do it in the beginning for you. And then you just literally, we have little tweezers that come with it and then you just take it off and you find the spot and just apply it. You push it on. That’s it. It’s really that simple.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So really anybody can do this. It’s not hard to do. Anyone can use it.

Robin Ray Green

Anyone can use it. Anyone can do it. It does take just a little bit of practice in the beginning to get it down. But once you get it down, it’s just very accessible for everyone to have access to this.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Now let’s talk about pediatrics and how this can be used in kids, ’cause you have a long history working in the pediatric space and helping families and parents. So obviously this is gonna help all of the adults. We’ve just talked about how it can help your parasympathetic stimulation. It can help with energy and focus. It can help with pain so you can avoid medications like ibuprofen and Tylenol, like you mentioned. Well, let’s talk about kids because this is something that could actually be fun for your kids. And I’m sure if your little boy doesn’t want crystals, then there’s another option for non-crystal too, right?

Robin Ray Green

Yeah. You can’t even see it on my ear, but right here, I’ve got two gold beads. And they’re so tiny. You can barely see them. So for boys, we just do either stainless steel or gold, little beads on the clear tape that are dark, aren’t really even visible.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Unless your boys want crystals, which is-

Robin Ray Green

Unless they want them. Yeah, totally. We have plenty of boys that like the crystals. The kids used to, when I had my acupuncture clinic, that would be the first thing they’d want. They’d get on the table and be like, can I have my crystals? They wanted their bling. But it was the moms that were always like please put those, like hyperactivity, sleep, focus, digestive symptoms. But a lot of the kids, even with itching and things like that, we were able to apply the ear seeds. And most of the time the kids responded really, really quickly.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Wow.

Robin Ray Green

And so they became the most requested service in my practice that was non-acupuncture. And then around town, like chiropractors and other people, they might bring their kids to knew they were my clients because they would come in with their ear seeds on.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I love that. I love that. So it sounds like it’s really helped kids and parents and helped kids accelerate, I’m sure accelerate at school. And kids that are considered problem kids, which really they aren’t. They’re just high energy. I remember my daughter, she was a kinetic learner. She really moves around a lot and her teachers didn’t know what to do with her. I actually had a teacher who said, “I don’t know how to teach your daughter.” And it’s ’cause she wanted to like stand next to her desk and she wanted to tap her fingers when she was learning. Or she wanted to doodle. She doodles and learns at the same time. It’s made her teachers crazy her whole life. If I had known about this when my daughter was young, what might have we experienced?

Robin Ray Green

Right, we might have experienced her being able to sit more, focus more, just have a little bit of a calming effect. But not in a sedated way, but in a very balanced way.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I think that that would apply for adults who can’t sit still for long. And if you’ve got sit in front of a computer for five hours and pound out a project, it might help you do that without going outta your skin.

Robin Ray Green

Right, absolutely. Absolutely. And also when we’re thinking in terms of healing, like healing the gut, healing our energy, we can also help our internal organs as well. So we can apply points for the pineal gland, for adrenals, for different internal organs that need additional support that are gonna help raise our energy and help us focus and function better.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So good. It sounds like there’s nothing they can’t support. Well you said your ear, what did you call it? There’s a baby?

Robin Ray Green

There’s an inverted baby on the ear.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

What does that mean exactly? ‘Cause that’s interesting.

Robin Ray Green

Picture here. So what this means, that’s what it means. This little baby right there is an inverted mirror. So that means like the feet are up here, all of the head and brain points are down here and so on. So it’s just reflected on the entire ear with all the different points.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Oh interesting.

Robin Ray Green

Over 300 points on the ear. That why we actually help train people so they know exactly how to find the most important ones that are relevant to them.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Okay, good. Now how long can you wear the seeds and are there any special types of seeds?

Robin Ray Green

Great question. So you can wear them four to five days. It depends on how sensitive your ears are and if you can sleep with them or not. So if you have no problem sleeping with the ear seed, they will last for five days before they need to be replaced, which is great because you can get a lot of wear out of your seeds. And then you do wanna give your ear some time to breathe at least for a couple hours. So in between, after those five days, you take ’em off, let your ear breathe for a couple hours minimum, and then you can reapply. And that’s what we call a cycle. So we typically recommend people wear them for about a five day cycle, take a little break, do another cycle and then reevaluate their symptoms and see. But if someone’s like healing from chronic illness or undergoing like really, really big stress in their life, something like Shen Men and Point Zero which are really stimulating to the vagus nerve would be something they would wanna just wear on a continuous basis to support their body and get them back into that healing state.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Oh my gosh, so good. So where can people get these? I know people watching right now are going, “How do I get this? This is amazing.” Where do they go?

Robin Ray Green

So they can go to thriveearseeds.com to purchase a kit just like this. Either we have the kits with the gold and the clear crystals or just the gold crystals. And if anyone is interested in getting access to hundreds of protocols, A to Z, we also have the Thrive Ear Seeds membership. And we’re offering anyone here from the summit that wants to join us and check it out a free seven day trial.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Oh, that’s amazing. So we’ll have that link for you on your speaker page. That’s incredible. So Robin, this is just one thing that you do. You’re also an expert in root cause medicine and identifying root causes. And on this summit, we’re talking a lot about root causes. So in the last few minutes that we have here, I’d love for you to shed your wisdom to our audience on… This is important to have these types of treatments to support you, but at the end of the day, if you don’t deal with the root cause things, then you’re probably not going to get well. At the end of the day if all you’re doing is this and not some root cause investigation, you’re just kind of hacking the system and you’ll be doing this forever, right? So tell me what you would say to our audience about what they need to investigate as they’re using these ear seeds.

Robin Ray Green

Right, that’s such a great question. Such an important point because we never want to focus on, like, bandaids that are temporary. When it comes to root causes, we’re really thinking about environmental exposures. Like have you been exposed to mold in your home, in a previous home, in school? Do you live on a golf course? Are you being exposed to herbicides, pesticides through your food, through the air, through the water? And we also wanna consider other industrial toxicants that we may be exposed to, because those all come together. They impact our gut. They impact our brain and our ability to heal. And if we don’t get to the root of those and figure out where some of those are coming from and relieve the day-to-day burden with solutions that are accessible and easy, which they are there and out there for people. That’s really the key. And in the work that I do with families, what we’re finding is that so many of the families that like the adults are struggling with anxiety and low energy and body aches and other issues and then the kids have focus issues and hyperactivity and eczema and asthma, underlying that is almost always high levels of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup and unknown exposures to mold and other industrial toxicants. And then your gut and your brain are just on fire and it becomes very difficult to heal. So I just say out to all the moms out there who have a child who maybe is being told that they’re neuroatypical or that they’re hyperactive or they’re a problem child and that your child is really under those symptoms waiting to come back to you once you address the root causes. Because once we do that, we see amazing turnarounds.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah, and you do work with families on that level. So if people wanted to learn more about that side of working with you, how do they find you?

Robin Ray Green

They can go to robinraygreen.com and I’ve got a pediatric ebook out there just to help families get started on their next steps.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Thank you, Robin, for being here today. This is a fun conversation. Like I promised, we’re gonna talk about something fun. Oh wait! There’s one more thing. I think you’re wearing something on your chest.

Robin Ray Green

Yes. So the ear seeds are actually, they’re an acupressure device so they’re not limited to wearing them just on your ear. So I’ve actually got some, I don’t know if you can see it. Got some bling on my arm there. I’ve got some on my chest. So being an acupuncturist, whenever I’ve got something going on I like to just stimulate my acupuncture points and my ear points. And then of course I wanna look cute while I’m doing it so I choose the crystals.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I just had the funniest thought. It beats the heck out of walking around with a couple needles sticking outta your chest all day long.

Robin Ray Green

Yes.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

‘Cause I’m sure you’ve done that. I’m sure you’ve like, okay, I need put a needle in and then you’re just going around your daily business and you might like bump it or hit it.

Robin Ray Green

I’ve done a little crown of needles and forgotten that they were there and gone to the post office and people are looking at me like, “What is she doing?” Oh no! I’ve got needles in my head. So yes, this is a much more subtle way to stimulate my acupuncture points.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So good. Very subtle. People don’t know what you’re doing. They just think you’re setting a new trend.

Robin Ray Green

Right, body art.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So good. Thank you so much, Robin. Thanks for being here. You take good care now.

Robin Ray Green

Thanks for having me, Laura.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Bye now.