Essential Oils for Brain Health

Introduction to Essential Oils and Alzheimer's 0:00

Welcome back to the Reverse Alzheimer's Summit. I host doctor Heather Sanderson, and I'm so pleased to have Doctor Eric C here today. He's the author of the national bestseller The Healing Power of Essential Oils. And he started Natural Natural Living family.com. Most of you know him, and I'm so thrilled to have him here to talk about the connections between essential oils and what you can do with them to help with Alzheimer's and dementia. Doctor, welcome. Hey, thank you for having me. I am really, really excited.

One, because you're awesome and your podcast just is fantastic. You're wonderful. Interviewer. I love your energy. I love this topic. You know, on the heels of this FDA drug scandal controversy with Alzheimer's drugs. I didn't realize that this was going to be such a poisoned topic for people in my new book comes out, I have a whole chapter on Alzheimer's and dementia, and I've, I've I'm really excited because I have some cutting edge stuff that no one's ever heard about before. And I don't know why, because it's in the it's in the literature.

No one just pulls it out. So this is going to be groundbreaking for a lot of people. And I really appreciate the opportunity to share the things that I've learned. Well, I'm so excited for people to take away really actual things today. So let's just dive right in. I was really like, elated essentially, to see that and surprised, you know, that you had Alzheimer's and dementia discussed in your new book. So what are some of the ways that essential oils can be used to really help with these? You know, obviously, like very somatic, awful, torturous conditions.

So, if you all don't mind a little bit, I'm I'm going to cheat slightly. I'm going to quote a couple of really, really important quotes from my book. All right. And this is special. This is special because this is like prerelease and no one's ever seen and heard this stuff before. So the answer to that question, I want to I want to relate back to a recent literature review that was published, and I couldn't make this stuff up. Again, I'm going to point out there. We're not making wild claims. I'm not saying things that are is that aren't scientific, but according to the researcher scientist, essential oils are, quote, effective against almost all currently known pathological targets of Alzheimer's disease.

Essential oils also possess neuroprotective anti-aging potentials and are effective in dementia, epilepsy, anxiety, and other neurological disorders. And according to researchers, they suggest special focus must be given on the edible ingestion essential oils which are part of the diet or is used as spices, and basically food enhancement. These researchers go on to talk about how essentially essential oils should be considered nootropics. Nootropics are smart drugs, right? Cognitive enhancers like we think of drugs, supplements, other substances to help your memory function, your your creativity, your your executive function, your motivation.

They they're proposing that we look at essential oils to be an actual pharmaceutical approach to Alzheimer's. And the reason why is the way that essential oils interact with the body is similarly or very similar and have as similar an effect, but they have the same mechanism that the primary approach that pharmacy has for Alzheimer's, which is acetylcholinesterase inhibition. We talked a little bit about that because I don't want to repeat what other experts have shared. But have you have you covered ACL, acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors in that aspect.

So we've we've certainly talked a little bit about those medications. This is like aricept. So these these common medications that are used and that don't help all that much. And certainly one of the conversations that we've had with Ca2+, Steele, Greta, and some of the other experts that we've had on is how much of an impact

Acetylcholinesterase Inhibition and Key Oils 4:15

to beta amyloid plaques really play and how much doesn't how much of an impact does a CEO calling even play what all what are all of the components? And so when I think of my training around essential oils back in my apothecary, you know, there were so many exciting things that we could do to help with the microbes that might be contributing to help with neurotransmitters and how they're, you know, all of these different facets of the progression of this destructive disease. We can, and that's why I'm so excited to be talking to the expert in this, that we can really address a lot of those in a very comprehensive way with a safe and very effective approach. That is the essential oils.

So we haven't specifically talked about this today then. Okay. So so the, the the theory and this is the approach because again there's no known medical cure for Alzheimer's. And they're just trying to slow the progression. So the long and the short of it is the executive summary version is people with dementia and Alzheimer's. They have reportedly low levels of acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter in the brain which is required for proper cognitive function. Now, the natural cycle of life, the cycle of things breaking down and rebuilding, like when you're looking at your skin, your skin regenerates itself every 28 days.

Women know this more than anyone. You're on a monthly cycle, but we're all on a monthly cycle, men included. So there is an enzyme in the body that gets naturally emitted calling zero, acetylcholine ester ace. Again, anything with the ace at the end of a word is an enzyme. And that breaks down the root word. So acetylcholine. So Ace is the enzyme that breaks breaks down. Acetylcholine is acetylcholine. And so what the what the the theory and the approach is in medicine is to have a drug that stops the activity of a seal cholinesterase so that there's more acetylcholine in the brain.

Which makes sense theoretically, is like if you're trying to have more seat opening in the brain, being just just out there to help with function, help with just synapses, to help with the, the your memory, your ability to think, your ability just to process things and a neurological level, then stopping the breakdown. Because, again, people with dementia and Alzheimer's reportedly have a problem producing natural producing naturally. And so by stopping the enzyme, you're theoretically increasing the levels of acetylcholine, because, again, you're not breaking it down.

But the problem is you're still not fixing the root cause of why acetylcholine isn't being produced at the level that it should be. And it's also hijacking a very natural regenerative process. Like we need to break things down to rebuild it. We need to break things down to rebuild that every aspect of your life, every aspect of your body, is that way. Your heart regenerates itself, what, every 6 to 8 months and we don't see what's happening at the microscopic level. The danger is when you hijack something so important in your brain, like stopping this enzyme from breaking down this neurotransmitter, that the the side effects are, are unbelievable.

I mean, including vomiting, hallucinations, dizziness, nausea, like even death, known side effects. But here's the thing essential oils, because of the chemical constituency in them, have acetylcholinesterase inhibition properties, and cinnamon bark was evaluated. The chemical in cinnamon barks and malahide was evaluated and had an 80% efficacy to to slow down acetylcholinesterase, which is interesting. I mean, we're talking at 80% efficacy. Imagine imagine, imagine if your drug had an 80% efficacy to it.

I mean, just think about the world health crisis running right now. 80% effectiveness. That's the potential of cinnamon bark essential oil. So these researchers are saying, hey, hey, hey, let's look at this. Let's because here's the thing. If used properly, essential oils have zero side effects. Beside the rare case of someone getting allergic to them or having an adverse reaction because of some sort of drug interaction, zero side effects, you're not going to have a side effect if you eat a piece of fruit or eat herbs or have a salad, there's going to be no side effects to them unless you obviously have a food intolerance or an allergy.

And what we're talking about is the same chemical structure that give your plants such good, life giving properties to your body. You can extract that and then you can create, you know, get a bottle. I mean, let's me maybe put this in the context. You're looking at roughly like 5 pounds of lavender flowers in this thing. It's hard to conceptualize when you get a a lavender petal or a blossom and you pick it up. It's lighter than air, 5 pounds steam distilled. This is concentrated, plant based matter that no one in the history of the planet have been able to really, truly enjoy.

But our generation, maybe the since the 60s and 70s, since people started really mass producing this and selling it. And this is unheard of. And so I'm going to give you a list again, this is straight from my book. This is, the Alzheimer's dementia chapter from the upcoming book The Essential Oils Apothecary. No reported side effects. Again, that's really important. Really important. These other essential oils, in addition to cinnamon bark, have, acetylcholinesterase activity, right? They can help slow that down.

Basil, bergamot and key lime. Lavender lemon balm, which is also known as Melissa lemon myrtle, bitter orange, rosemary, sage and thyme. And so what I'm what I'm proposing we do is that we look at this through a holistic perspective. And the other information that you're getting from the experts in this summit is, is life saving, life changing for people if it's applied. And what I try to tell people who I just did an interview, I just did a live Q&A just a few minutes ago to an integrative cancer group, and everyone's always looking for that silver bullet.

What's that one thing for this? What's that? One thing for this? It doesn't exist. What exist is this all sinners free type of lifestyle, this this dementia prevention lifestyle that we start with. Now, bear with me. I. The reason why I cover advanced strategies and protocols for chronic disease in my new book is because they're also interrelated. A completely healthy 65 year old with zero biomarkers for any sort of chronic condition does not. It's impossible for that person to wake up tomorrow with Alzheimer's because because these define these these chronic conditions, by definition, are rooted in childhood.

They're rooted in years and years and years of micro toxicity. Micro stress, years and years of breakdown, whether it's cancer or heart disease or diabetes. You just don't wake up tomorrow with that. You might wake up tomorrow with a diagnosis. That's a big difference, but it doesn't happen overnight. It's chronic. It takes years, and it's also a constant, and it can take some time to slow it down or time to reverse it. So when I share and I'm going to give some capsule recipes, I'll give you one straight from my book in just a minute.

And how to use it through typical, you know, inhalation and topical application stuff. It whether it's a supplement or whether it's a whatever protocol it is, whether it's an essential oil, if you don't change your your lifestyle as a whole and adapt a lot of these concepts and beautiful things that these wonderful experts are sharing, it's like taking one step forward, but 2 or 3 steps back. We got to get out of this mindset. We got to get out of the standard American diet mindset, this fast food lifestyle.

It's killing us and part of it is the unbelievable burden that we have emotionally stress, anxiety, burnout, overwhelm. It's it's it's like we're living through the dark ages emotionally right now. Outside, inside.

Capsule Recipe and Safety Considerations 13:00

Like look at like I'm living in a palace, right? Any one 500 years ago, if I were to bring them into my home, they think I would be a king. I live in a subdivision in Atlanta. This is a palace. Like we don't realize emotionally, emotionally, the stress, the trauma that we're going through is a huge component to everything that we're talking about and how we manage it, and especially because of the health crisis that we've all lived through this last year and a half, two years. Whenever you listen to this, if you listen in a replay in a couple of years from now, I'm sure the waves of the coronavirus are going to hit you.

I don't know where you're at 2025 or 20 26 or 2030. So all this comes into play and significant. All right. And so I want to talk about some esthetic fragrances and that danger to neurological inflammation sanitation. There's some key things we going to cover from my book I want to give you a recipe. And this is straight from my book I call it my colon stress inhibiting capsule. It's a capsule recipe that you take one drop a lemon bomb, one drop a sage, one drop a time, one drop of original essential oils.

You put them all in a gel capsule so that gel capsule like a coconut oil, actually your extra virgin olive oil. If you're a fan of CBD, it's CBD. Can't I not my opinion can't hurt. It can only help in this situation. And you ingest that. Like that would be a medicinal approach to using essential oils. We're all sinners and dementia and this brings a lot of different variables involved. Like you do this under the guidance of a health care professional, especially if you're taking other medications, because there are known drug interactions with your supplements, with your with your essential oils.

You want to make sure because there's chemical soup happening in your body, there's a lot of things happening, especially when people are on pharmaceuticals. So if you are ingesting essential oils, always, always, always be sure. And here's the thing. I'm going to, I guess, be blunt. Most doctors and pharmacists have no idea about interactions when it comes to supplements and essential oils. Why they're not taught it in school. So. Right. It was. What about it? When I hear that formula, I think of bug killing.

Like that's going to kill off yeast in the gut. That might kill off some other bugs, and someone might feel temporarily, maybe worse, for a minute, a few days as the yeast comes out, especially if they've had a high sugar diet for a while. Do you see that happening or with this formula? Is that not as much of an issue? That's a really good point. Two things on that. One is these essential oils, specifically these actually, oregano is a potent antibiotic, as strong as many antibiotics on the market.

Same thing with time. Time has been shown to kill Mersa. You know, very, very few drugs on the planet can even touch mersa. You know, antibiotic resistant bacteria, sage as well. Lemon balm less also has been shown to help with glioblastoma like brain cancer. Right. So I just want to give you a small side note saying these essential oils are rich, rich and healing components. So. You have to consider. When you take anything that you can be ruffling up some old dust that might be settled so to speak, you know, figuratively, and you might get certain things that happen.

I haven't heard specifically candied, sugar. I'm not personally as concerned with that as I am with. Okay, where are we at with symptoms related to what we're dealing with? But you make a good point that this is the point. You have to be observant. You have to observe your body like, I don't need glasses. I don't need glasses right now. I wear these because I need blue blocking support. And I've been really affected lately in a number of reasons why I have a new studio set up in my office. I had these super bright lights.

I've been spending so much time on the screen, I started getting like low grade headaches and like when the world my eyes started watering. I'm like, you know what? Even though I have the app on my phone, you know, the Nightwatch thing, even though I have f.lux on my Mac and I got this blue screen or the orange tint, I'm still being affected. And so my body was saying, I need support. And, you know, I, I'm growing like all of y'all. And I've been very sensitive that. So I get these blue blocking glasses, no jokes like overnight like boom.

It's great. I share that with you because we have to be sensitive to our body. So to your point, if you take this is really important if and the reason I got the blue blocking glasses was because after I got these new high power lights, I'm like, oh, I can't do it. It's like I felt it like immediately like I can't spend two, three hours doing interviews like I do a lot, two, three times, four times a week and not have some kind of support, cause and effect. So if you take this capsule right under the guidance from your health care professional, making sure hopefully that you guys are at least guiding biomarkers and making sure symptoms and and by the way, I do have a drug interaction chart in the book, every known, drug interaction based off a metabolic pathway which will blow your mind, blow your natural past minor.

He or she is interesting because nothing like this exists on the planet. If you're taking a drug, we'll let you know if there's any known interaction through any sort of metabolic pathway in which oils to be careful left. So cause and effect. If you take this remedy, then I'm suggesting you consider trying. And then tomorrow you start to get some kind of like skin outbreak and you start to maybe have a manifestation of, I see, I see, body odor, I see, halitosis. I see skin itching and rashes as, outbreak of candida, cause and effect.

Meaning it wasn't the essential oil that caused the outbreak. It's like maybe you're now stirring up some Candida sugar issues. I mean, I don't know. Well, that's a really good point, though. When I hear that formula, like Melissa, it's so good for for viruses as well. But it's so efficient. Alice or Lemon and sage thyme oregano. These are so good for microbes. And we know cause and effect the pigeons of Alice, some of the bacteria that can grow in our gums and in our mouth if we're not careful directly, can cause dementia.

We know that herpes can directly be in those neurofibrillary tangles, in those beta amyloid plaques. They're definitely associated with dementia, as is Borrelia in some of the Lyme co-infections. So when I hear that your your approach. Yes, the acetylcholinesterase inhibition, but also we're probably getting at some of the microbes that directly can be causal in terms of creating a brain that that basically is at risk of dementia. So there might be even more magic to these amazing essential oils than just that one pathway.

This is really exciting. Yeah. And this is where topical application and cleaning comes into play. And I want to quote a little section from my book. Then I titled get a Little dirty once in a while. And this was pretty controversial, by the way, my, my publisher and I bless their heart because they covered a lot of stuff that no other publisher would. You know, we talk about cancer in this book. We talk about fatty liver and heart disease. I mean, we covered in depth chronic conditions. And in this part of the book, my publisher was like, are you sure you're going against the CDC guidance here on sanitation?

I'm like, well, we have to question. We have to think, we have to look research from the Oxford Journal, and this is straight from my book. This is actually, by the way, I can't stress the importance of of an institutional like institutionalized system like Oxford. This isn't some podunk awful hall. No offense to me. And chiropractor and naturopath school. This is Oxford University, right? Research from the Oxford journal Evolution Medicine public health has found a strong link between over sanitized, wealthier countries and a higher rate of Alzheimer's conducted across 192 countries, essentially the whole world.

This is the key. The study suggests that the lack of bacteria creates a poorly on your hand skin. I'm talking the skin microbiome. That's my specialty grades a poorly developed immune system which puts your brain at risk for inflammation. So why was I saying think twice before using hand sanitizer? In fact, for 99.9%

Microbes, Sanitation, and Artificial Fragrances 22:00

of the times that you use hand sanitizer, you don't need it. And the only time, admittedly, I ever use any kind of hand sanitizer, which, by the way, is homemade. It's it's simple, simple alcohol and essential oils here it done. The only time I ever use it is if I'm on a road trip. And I have to change a dirty diaper and I got nowhere to wash my hands, that's literally like the only time or I'm stuck in my car. My hands are dirty. I just want a quick spray. That's it. And I had to get free from the addiction of having my hands clean all the time.

Hand sanitizer. It was an obsession. Everywhere I go, every doorknob I touch, every time I go into my car. Spray, spray, spray Purell. It's like. I mean, it's part of my kid's school supply list. Paper, pencils, notepad, hand sanitizer. Like, since when did that become core deep brain learning? That's an obsession. You go, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's causing superbugs on your skin. It's causing it's a it's a contributing factor to antibiotic resistant bacteria. It's a contributing factor to the fungi and viruses and and bacteria developing resistance against our body's ability to kill it.

So we don't use sanitizer like ever. And we clean with good old soap and water. I mean, there's so easy if you want a quick little recipe, it's so easy to go get a foaming hand soap thingy on Amazon. You know, an empty put some water and Castile soap with a couple drops of aloe and some essential oils. Done like that foaming hand soap. It smells like heaven. Depending on what oils you use, right? Smells like heaven. It's completely clean. You mentioned the anti-viral, antifungal, antibacterial approach.

All of these oils are antimicrobial. You clean your stuff. And the cool thing is that you don't have to do this. The other part of the equation of ingesting you don't have to worry about ruining your microbiome. There's something known as cell selectivity. And the researchers have shown, and this is I don't know how else other than explain it in to me. I have an easy job because as a Christian, my answer is always it's just the wisdom of God writes how God designed it. That that's my catch all answer.

And I'm not ashamed, not ashamed to say it. There's no reason. There's no scientific explanation for this fact. But the fact is this essential oils have what's known as cell selectivity. So when you ingest them and when you apply them on your skin, of course, diluted properly, always with gel capsules, all that stuff, the essential oils will leave the healthy bacteria alone and kill the bad bacteria. It's fascinating because you don't see that with your hand sanitizers or antibiotics or antibacterial products.

You don't see that with your antifungals. And that's where these drugs are killing everything, the good in the bad. And so when you're using essential oils and your herbs and your spices and your cell phones, you don't have to worry about developing resistance. There is no known resistance to this stuff, whether from your body or whether from microbes. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. But when you go back to sanitation, the message that I have for people, the message is strong is you have to very much be careful, very much be careful about going overboard.

And that goes completely against all the guidance. Now, all the guidance from major world health, type of organizations, including the whole sanitize everything times do and then hand sanitizer hands all the time. We are if we continue this path. I mean, this is data. If we continue this path, we are going to see skyrocketing astounding amounts of of of Alzheimer's in the next generation. If kids right now, their whole life from birth to, you know, cradle to grave of hand sanitizer and these antibacterial products are going to continue at this rate, be part of our life.

The brain cannot stop and slow down that inflammation. You have to stop the bleeding first before you put on a Band-Aid. And that's where the that's where essential oils aren't going to help you. They heal the brain until you stop the bleeding. That's number one in nothing. Nothing. You're learning here is going to stop the bleeding until you stop it. And that includes cleaning with the right products, using the right body care, and staying away from artificial fragrances like they are the plague.

Because in the context of this summit, the Alzheimer's and Dementia Summit, public enemy number one, and I'll give you this. So I'm blue in the face, public enemy number one, artificial fragrances. And if you want to create brain inflammation, smell something fake your aerosols, your plugins, your poopoo sprays, your cleaners. Absolutely devastating the brain. And here's why. And this is how we could prove it. Unlike what you eat, unlike what you touch, unlike what you sense and the other sensation, the only sensory input that has a direct, direct impact to the brain is the sense of smell.

Think of it. When's the last time you've hurt yourself? Possibly you cut your hand or your finger cutting, you know, a potato or you stub your toe. Whatever. Go back to that moment and recall that split second or two where you didn't feel pain. It was that split second. That was because that sensory input had to be interpreted by the thalamus. It's called the sign up read. I. And then it had to be, you know, input output. And then your body reacts to it. You know, your hand jerks back if it's in a fire or your, your, your, your skin.

Ouch. That hurts. And then the inflammatory response blood shunts, swells of pain throbbing, all that. There's that split second. There is no split second when you smell something. And that's important because there's uninhibited, uninterrupted, unfiltered sensory input. When you smell something, because your sense of smell is your is your primal sense, and it directly impacts your limbic system, your the first part of your brain that was developed where your memory, your mood, your emotions lie or controlled, your autonomic function, your heart rate, your breathing rate, all because of what you inhale.

And the problem in this fake smell environment when we live, most people now, especially because of the pandemic, most people are in their homes like the last EPA, Environmental Protection Agency study came out a couple of years ago, so that 93% of our time is spent indoors. Now because of the pandemic, I have no data, there has been no research or there has been no update on that. But I will guarantee he was close to 99%. Many people, many people do spend all day inside. What are you smelling? What are you inhaling?

And chances are, yeah, building materials off, gassing from all kinds of different things. Carpets, paints. You have the, the the the, the fragrances from your body care. You're cleaning products. And what that's causing is a constant influx of a neurological inflammatory response that's very low grade. And over time, this will develop into chronic conditions like allergies, ADHD, Alzheimer's, dementia, even cancer and autoimmunity have been indicated based off of artificial fragrances. And so what I've done is I've made it kind of like my platform, right?

My wife's a pageant queen. She's the 2019 Mrs. Georgia pageant winner, and her platform is awesome. My platform is to help people go back to the real smells of life, and it's so easy. I mean, I'm going to give you a recipe just because in the context, I'm going to give you something practical here. But having a diffuser like I have right here is so powerful. It's so powerful because this is my aerosol. Now, this is my poopoo spray. It's so easy to make a bathroom spray. By the way, this is an inhaler.

It's called this is an aromatherapy inhaler. And it's a glass and glass little bottle container with an organic cotton tube in the middle. Saturate that with essential oils. Again, I got all the recipes in my book, but you know, imagine you put some essential oils in here to help with memory, with with cognition. And here's one coming straight from my book. You could get ten drops of rosemary, ten drops of pine, and ten drops of May Chang, which is also known as. Let's see, could be about focus and clarity.

These oils again, think of it. The herb of remembrance. Right. That's rosemary. These oils invigorate. They stimulate cognitive function. And just by inhaling them again no interpretation of the smell. It goes right to the brain. It's powerful. The release of dopamine, the release of serotonin, the release of neurotransmitters like Gaba to help with anxiety. You know that that problem with Alzheimer's. And this is where to me, essential oils are worth their weight in gold are the symptom based management of of the things that people struggle with.

And I I'm not here at all to ever claim that, you know, ingesting that capsule recipe is going to slow the progression or reverse Alzheimer's. No, but you know what I can claim profoundly. I can prove it. There's nothing on the planet. And I'll argue this against I'm blue in the face. Nothing on the planet has such an immediate efficacy against symptoms then essential oils, because nothing is as concentrated as this like you're looking, one drop of cinnamon bark will have the same effect. It's like one teaspoon or one tablespoon of cinnamon bark powder.

It's profound. And so I created this chart I created this chart in the book about the symptoms that many Alzheimer's and dementia elderly patients deal with. And I show you which oils are best, how to apply them, and some kind of notes like everything from grieving and bereavement to circulatory issues, to gut digestion, constipation, aggression, headaches, insomnia, memory loss, or so many things. And see, this is where I want to leave people with. Is that my my suggestion? When you're looking at something so profoundly challenging and devastating, like Alzheimer's and dementia, is you need to have a big picture approach, right?

Like how to cure this thing, how to how to get better. But we got to you can't miss the forest for the trees too. Like we got to get down to like, the microscopic. Okay, let me look at the blades of grass here, too.

Diffusers, Mood, and Cognitive Support 33:30

And those blades of grass are the things that are really going to make your life worthwhile or not. How are you sleeping? How is your love life? Are you chronically in pain? If you're a caretaker, is the person you're helping just absolutely. Such a cranky mind can be blank that you can't be around them. You know what research suggests? Get a little lavender. Add a couple few drops of oregano. I'm sorry, a couple few drops of olive oil or coconut oil. Get a, you know, get a little bit of lavender and give them a hand massage.

Aromatherapy hand massage has been proven to help with aggression, especially with patients with Alzheimer's. And there's this sense of touch, this love that a lot of people get. And the worst thing, by the way, the most criminal thing. Now that that I think we've experienced enough to get political on this. But one of the worst things about the pandemic is what's happened to the elderly and how they essentially been isolated, alone, completely quarantined, with no physical contact with people. So it. Marama.

Marama is the residential care facility I started for the elderly for an immersive experience and this lifestyle that is proven to reverse dementia and we opened March of 2020, the week before the world shut down. And everyone who's moved in there has gotten better at some level, they've gotten healthier and no one got Covid. And I'll tell you one thing we do not use any artificial fragrances. We have an organic ketogenic diet. We have a completely nontoxic environment. We have caregivers who know what they're doing.

They're well versed in the protocol, and they expect our residents to get better. We also have brain stimulating activities all day long and everyone has improved. They've either stopped the the, the decline of, the cognitive effects. But even those people have reverse diabetes, have reduced their inflammation, have overall the side effects of this like like you talked about is really a reduction in overall health issues and a reduction in the amount of medications they need to take. So my question to you is I've really said that we don't want any smells.

So everything is fragrance free and organic, but I would love to be adding some aromatherapy that like if we could choose 1 or 2 of these to use, maybe like a morning and an evening. Yeah. What should we have in the diffuser at aroma? Oh yeah, I would suggest that, you have to be very careful in a group setting and you have just like, depending on the individual's ability to communicate, your team needs to be. And everyone listening, by the way, whether you have children or pets, you need to be very observant to enrich your own body as well.

Like how kids and pets respond. Right? Don't put an essential oil diffuser in the nursery and shut the door and, you know, like that's not safe for baby, not really safe for anyone. Need fresh air and open. But you got to be aware and you got to look at the little cues and, you know, reaction, quite frankly, is the reaction that we're looking for, looking for benign response. So any essential oil can produce a desirable response if it's in the in the world of calming, relaxing, energizing. Right.

So to answer that question, I would experiment with a couple and it might be relative. You might see that patient in the room. Number one really responds while the lavender but another patient it does great with lime. And the thing is, overall though, I'll give you some generalizations overall, especially in this kind of environment. In your own environment, we want to feel better and I think we need to feel better. I think as a whole, we need to do things to combat the constant anguish and mental stress that we are under, especially today.

And so there's nothing like citrus oils, nothing. And if there's one recipe that everyone can try, I hope you can get your hands on it. But most essential oil companies, by the way, have their own versions like Citrus Delight or vanilla, citrusy whatever. But vanilla and orange is a fantastic blend, and it's something that my kids and I love to drink through an Orange Julius. Maybe you've heard that recipe or dreams. The Color Creamsicle. One research study evaluated the effects of two different people, two different groups of people, in a task that was designed to be impossible to solve.

What they were trying to do was put two groups of people together to essentially solve social discrimination, racism, to produce frustration. They were trying to see how these people responded to an unsolvable task hopelessness, helplessness, and frustration. Those are the three things they were trying to stimulate. And so one group had nothing other than a piece of paper and a pencil and 15 other people to look at in a miserable, sterile clinical environment. The other people same experience, but they had limonene and vanillin diffused, which is essentially orange and vanilla.

And the people in the control group were absolutely miserable. The experience was horrible. They, of course, couldn't like, how do you going to solve racism with 15 other people in the end of ten minutes or whatever they had? Right. It's just it's it's ridiculous. They're frustrated. They're burdened. They had hopeless. It's this hopeless. This is helpless. It's not going to happen. I can't do it. The other people still can solve the problem, can write in a group in that situation. But all of them reported enjoying the smell, which is really interesting.

So that's like a ubiquitous smell. Like almost everyone likes every one of them reported enjoying the smell. And here's the key to the point. This is so important, by the way, is how relative this is, to the point that they enjoyed the smell, they enjoyed the experience better, or they hated it less. However you want to look at it half full of empty, the less hopeless they felt, the less helpless they felt, the less frustrated they felt because all of them had some level of hopeless, helpless frustration.

Because again, they're assigned a task that you can't solve. But those people that really, really love the smell, that was okay. Yeah, the experience was all right. They didn't really want to do it again. But I'm okay. Yeah, it was okay versus the socks. This is worse than all week. So what's that say number one orange vanilla. And my wife has called it I mean we know this stuff. We just go off of instinct quite frankly a lot of things intuition. But we we know how well orange respond. We know how well our bodies respond to orange.

We know that orange is a is a proven antidepressant. We know that clinical trials have shown that it helps with mood and work life balance, and help people with overwhelm and and burnout and stuff. But so we've been adding orange vanilla and again it's vanilla CO2 vanilla absolute. It's not McCormick's vanilla extract that you get at the store. That's the kind of a big deal, right? So you can get it at the store. And a lot of companies sell their like Citrus Dream or Citrus Delight blends, whatever you want to call it.

But we've been putting that oil on our kids forever. I mean, my, we have this, you know, like a light, like a bottle like this, filled with, you know, Hoba. And we'll put like, 15 drops of orange, 15 drops of vanilla, mixed it up. And that's what we essentially anoint our kids with every day before they go to school. We just put it on their bodies like, hey, this is your morning moisturizer. Like they don't know anything else. They don't know what normal lotion is. It's kind of cool. And we send them out.

And always, always, always we get from our new teachers and old teachers just how great they smell, but how they make the whole room smells good and everyone just is happy. Like, your kids are always so happy. Oh yeah, they have bad days too. But we didn't realize essentially what we were doing before I started doing this more professionally and writing on my books and stuff. But tap into that. So now for you. But for everyone listening, of course, your clinic. But try it. Try a couple drops of orange and a couple drops of vanilla.

Try getting a citrusy blend. Or if you don't have it, just try orange. I mean, orange is wonderful. Orange. Lime. Neroli. Green bergamot. Grapefruit. These are fantastic. Fantastic mood elevators that everyone can benefit from. Now that's in the daytime. I think it's a great daytime blend. Again, the first thing we do when I when we wake up with the kids, but I'm not putting in on them at night. I kind of want to flip the switch a little bit. So that's where the lavender comes into play. The Roman camomile German camomile.

That's where, you could put, you know, vetiver or some of the roots or oils like cedarwood, sandalwood. These oils calm. They put people into the immediate like lavender, ylang ylang. These oils would immediately put people into the parasympathetic state. Like it's proven like just boom down, down a notch. So that could be a nice way of like, okay, guys, nights out, imagine a routine and elderly patients I want to understand and you know more than I, I don't have the clinic with hourly patients, but to my observing and when I understand older people, you know, crave routine like younger people do, it seems like when we're in this like 20 to 67 year old range, we kind of rebellious against a lot of routines, but we're routine oriented and kids thrive on a routine.

So do older patients and older people.

Forest Bathing, Air Quality, and Nature Exposure 43:00

So imagine you have your hey, good morning, Mr. Smith, and you boom, you put on this citrusy delight, and diffuser and then let that go out throughout the day and. Hey. Okay, good night, Mr. Smith. It's time to turn off the lights, blah, blah, blah, and boom, you know, you put on that nighttime blend having that kind of thing and maybe something in your lobby or maybe something in the activity room where you. Let's bring the trees. And I I'd be remiss because I mention that blend that mentioned pine, but I re remiss to talk about forest bathing and the importance of being outside.

What if you can't spend your time outdoors? Like many of us can't, or you physically can't, right? You can bring the healing power trees inside. And so the the volatile organic compounds being emitted from the cypress trees, the pine trees, the fir trees, these are wonderfully soothing and healing emotionally, mentally, physically. What they do, they actually stimulate these specific the research has shown these specific oils from the trees stimulate natural killer cell production, which are the immune function that kills cancer.

And that's something we all should be thinking about, I think today. Right. Especially in the in the guise of this essentially immune deficient outbreak that people are having, we just are struggling to fight against a pandemic that our bodies theoretically should be able to handle. Right. And so imagine bringing that forest bathing aspect and part of it will, some of you might appreciate is what the experience is of being outside. If you haven't looked into it, if you're interested in this topic, just type up forest bathing and and Google or DuckDuckGo.

Look it up and just. I'll invite listeners to also head over to Tammy Marshall's conversation, where she talks about biophilia and grounding, and wilding is what she calls it. Really beautiful words to describe, forest bathing, just like you are that that connection to nature being so essential to our nervous system and and certainly to cognitive function. Yeah. It's important. It's important. There's a great book. My doctor, Lee on Amazon said about forest bathing, but it blew my mind because you mentioned a couple things there, and it's just not being outside, like when you're outside in forest bathing.

Shenron Yoku is a Japanese healing art, and it's actually part of their healing culture. It's wonderful. They have forest bathing centers all throughout the country of Japan, and what you do is when you're outside, you, of course you're grounding. And this is not exercise. You have no other intent but to be outside and just be for a minute or two. They have found that one quote forest bathing session for two hours has a lasting, immune boosting, a lasting immune boosting ability to last 30 days a a 30 days.

Your natural killer cell production will be elevated just from being outside for two hours. So I'll challenge everyone. Go on a day trip, go to a local forest. Even if you live in New York, go to Central Park and go to go to some densely wooded area as much as possible. You're breathing the fresh air, which is important. Negative ions. You're looking at leaves. It's like, I can't I can't do sacred geometry. But to get away, you know, one research study showed and I got this from Doctor Lee's book.

Fascinating. One research study showed post-operative patients restoring themselves and healing quicker by having a view, simply a view of nature in their room versus having the window look at the parking garage or having no window at all. So you inside your hospital bed, your room. Looking outside and seeing trees helps you heal quicker. And the sounds of nature put us in the parasympathetic state. But the sounds of commerce and the sounds of industry, the sounds of city, produce a sympathetic state, which is scary.

Even the hum hum hum of your fan and of your white noise thing can possibly produce a sympathetic state because it's not natural. It's why we need natural sounds, right? And natural sounds is why I crave listening. And that's where you get your your white noise maker thing to put sounds of nature. The birds chirping, the leaves whistling in the wind, wrestling in the wind, waves crashing like that sound our body responds well to. So it's hearing nature, it's seeing nature, it's smelling nature, essential oils.

It's feeling nature that is the most healing place on the planet. And if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective, that's where we evolved outside. It's only a relatively new thing that we've been in these, you know, houses. And even though we've enjoyed shelter for many, many years, this is relatively recent that we've been cooped up in this air tight box with windows. So get an air purifier in your home, please, please, as much as you can afford it. There's one thing everyone use whatever excess money you have.

If you're investing, get good portable air purifiers in as many rooms as possible that you spend your time in. Use the air. Air at the jets that we use, the IQ air, the GC multi. But which is your favorite? Oh I like air Doctor. That's one of my favorites. Yeah I have a yeah I really enjoy your doctor. I found it to be my saving grace when my wife and I were recovering from toxic mold in our home. Get one that works. Air purifier. Yeah. And there's a broad spectrum of them. And I think that a lot of kind of go astray when they just get anyone.

But I love that, like, Air Doctor is a great one. Austin. Er and then the I rants I think are really helpful. Yeah. People like molecule like don't go to Home Depot and get whatever big box John because I did that. I made a mistake like, you know, I hope you're following someone like if you're interested in if you like what I've been saying, go to natural living family.com type up air doctor, I have a product review. I interviewed the inventor of it like, and it works like it's been actually shown to filter out 99.9% of bacteria and viruses.

I mean, there are multiple good products out there, but get one, clean the air and then kind of reconstitute the air back with nice essential oils, have your windows open as much as possible to get fresh air. Have scenes like I'm looking, you can't see it, but I'm looking at a beautiful like landscape art in front of me. Like you want to stimulate the mind. You want to stimulate your senses with as much nature as possible and get outside. You know, for those working adults right now, I'll tell you something.

You're rarely ever going to find me on a video zoom meeting. Other than these interviews, and everyone's on zoom now. Everyone's doing work from home. I'll take my stuff outside and bless your heart. If we're on a conference call, you're going to hear birds chirping. And that's okay. I got to get outside and I and my wife makes fun of me because I'm a pacer and do very well sitting, and I'm pacing back and forth and I'm got my shirt off, I'm getting vitamin D, I'm breathing my air, I'm doing my business.

And I'll tell you, that's something I've had to adopt and adapt to with this. Not in the quote. Stay at home new normal. But I have a home based business. And so I had to learn these things over the years. And even when I work at an office, you know, I manage the bank. I, I wish to go out and have fresh air breaks.

Resources, Book, and Closing Remarks 50:30

I used to argue, hey, if Joe Schmo and Mary Smith can have smoke breaks every hour, why can't I go outside? So I just went outside. Let's get some fresh air. He had a tennis ball or racquetball would throw it against the side of the wall. People thought I was crazy. But you know what? I have to decompress. I need to breathe some fresh air. I need to see nature get out of this box. Like we're talking Alzheimer's and dementia. We're talking not just neurological stimulation. We're talking neurological reset.

We're talking getting back to who we are as human beings. And it's wonderful. And it has wonderfully affective, like we're talking instantaneous brain instantaneous results to headaches, the pain to mood issues. I mean, you got to be a a real professional curmudgeon to be super angry when you're outside in a beautiful environment with nice sun breathing fresh air, like you have to be a professional curmudgeon to to suffer through that. Like you just breathe, breathe, relax and let the sun do its work.

Let the fresh air do its work and you automatically just feel the edge off and it's physiological, what happens to you. And so when you really get receptive to this stuff, you start to realize, wow, I know when I need, when I need and I know where to go. And it's never, never inside a cardboard box with fake fragrances poisoning me. It's like, get out of that stuff. And I'm sure you have heard from people I certainly have patients who can't even go into Walmart or Target or one of those boxes and let alone go down the cleaning aisle, they would just be floored.

So I we see this with people who are really in tune. I certainly have to avoid it now because I'll start getting stuff. Come on. And I'm relatively healthy. But people who are sick, people who have dementia, this is going to be an even bigger stressor on their body, adding to more inflammation. Doctor Z, this information that you've shared is so important, so essential, so vital for all of our listeners to learn and and start making actionable decisions. And getting this very practical advice from you today is so, so helpful.

I want to make sure that everybody knows where they can find out more about you and get that book. Yeah, got my website again. It's Natural Living family.com. The book is the essential oils Apothecary. It's that one right next to me. They're everywhere. Books are sold comes out September 7th, and my wife and I have a gift for y'all. If you go to e o apothecary.com it's EO apothecary.com. We created about six hours worth of masterclass videos where we make a bunch of the recipes. We have over two dozen recipe cards and PDFs, actually the Alzheimer's and Elderly symptom chart.

We talked about the elderly patient symptom chart. We put in a beautiful printable PDF for you. Just go download your bonuses, pick up the book and get at least the best information available regarding essential oils. And I encourage you people to pick up the summit too, because this information is valuable. You're going to want to chew on this later. And the other experts I mean, this is truly life changing information. So thanks so much for having me, doc. I really appreciate it. And I hope everyone got a thing or two that they can take away from it, I certainly did.

I'm excited to get some the creamsicle and the citrus and vanilla going on in the activity wing at Marama when they're doing those really hard puzzles. That was such a great takeaway. I think it's going to really benefit the folks there. So thank you, doctor Z. It's been an absolute pleasure. I can't wait for everybody to put this advice to work at home.