Reversing Aging with Detoxification Practices

Bridgit Danner

Yes, my neighbor.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And so she was working as an acupuncturist in Portland before she moved here to Arizona. And that’s when her health started to deteriorate. And so she learned a lot, tried a lot of things, and even completed a functional health coaching program in an effort to heal herself and become a better practitioner. Although several things kind of helped nothing helped completely and she hit rock bottom in the winter of 2014. Soon after she discovered toxic mold in her 100 year old home and began the long journey of home and body repair. She got into the natural medicine field in 2000 as a young environmentalist. She practiced as an acupuncturist and integrative clinic owner for 13 years performing well over 10,000 sessions before transitioning to the online space as a functional health coach and educator. She loves to teach about everyday detox, functional living, and toxic mold illness. And she’s also the founder of a line of detox supplements called, Functional Detox Products. So, awesome. Welcome, I’m so excited to have you here.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah, detox and mold, such a important topic that we often don’t think about when we’re going through menopause and we’re just thinking about estrogen. So I’d love for starters, just, it sounds like you’ve had quite the personal journey. I’d love if you’re willing to share a little bit of that story with us.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah. And I’ll share and kinda the tie in is that I started to get sick soon after I had my son. So, some of my problems were basically attributed to the hormones, right? I wasn’t sleeping well, I was anxious, I was spotting with my periods. There were other things too, I was getting sick more often, increasing food intolerances. But I went many years, I think eight years in the same home, up and down symptoms, never suspecting mold. And even when I would see different hormone practitioners or pain practitioners, it was never mentioned until the 11th hour. So yeah, I definitely have some passion that, a lot of times I feel like women are getting beat up and blamed that their anxiety, their weight gain is their problem, it’s their stress, and they’re not good enough. 

And I think toxins are something that we’re living with. We often don’t know. And if that cause just keeps hitting you day after day, it’s like all the things you do, I was working so hard on my health, you know? Cooking everything from scratch, all the things. You know, if you’re not getting better despite all that, I think it’s really important to consider toxins. So there may be some women out there listening and they’re like, “Yeah, I have my hormone doctor, and I go to yoga, and I stopped drinking. And why do I still feel like this?” So yeah, I’m your example that it can disrupt your hormones and much more, so it’s at least good to be aware of.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah, I feel like for me, I just like to screen these things for all my patients, just to know, is this something we have to pay attention to? Or is it something we can rule out? And because it’s so epidemic these days, right? It’s such a huge issue that historically has been missed even in the alternative community. And I think it’s really getting more attention now that, wow mold can really be a root cause of feeling miserable and not being able to heal.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, for sure. You know, and even when I first learned about toxic mold a year or two before I got sick, I was like, “Oh gosh, when would I ever run across that?” You know, but it is pretty common just the way our houses are built. But it’s historical too, it’s mentioned in the Bible, mold just naturally grows, places there’s moisture, right? It’s part of our environment. And we just have to know like how to live with it in our modern homes and protect ourselves. Because that, plus all the other factors in your health and aging you become really sick. You know, I shared some things in my story, but it got to the point where I was literally imagining dying, I was suicidal ideation. I was so tired, couldn’t imagining having to do it all over the next day. And I wasn’t depressed, I just was so tired that my brain was trying to find solutions to not have to do this anymore, you know? So things got bad, my short term memory was super bad, I would lose things all the time. So it’s not something, even it sounds radical, if you ignore it and things escalate, it can get really serious.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So, for the woman listening, who maybe is just hearing about this for the first time, where do we start? Where does it come from? Where are the exposures? How can you tell? what kind of testing do you like?

Bridgit Danner

Sure, yeah, i must sound totally crazy if you haven’t heard of it yet. But yeah, we have mold in our environment. You know, we see it on our food that rots or in the forest. So it’s just plays a role in decaying things, right? So it has a natural role. There are many types of mold. In enough quantity in your house, any type of mold is a burden on your system. And then there are a handful of molds, about a dozen molds that are considered toxic. Some of the waste products are literally toxic to mammals. So it is not just humans, it’s also your pets. There’s been a lot of research in the livestock industry about mold because they’re often fed moldy grains, and then they can’t reproduce, they get sick. So a lot of our information about toxic mold came from that industry. Yeah, and can be, it’s not necessarily one little moldy spot in your sink is enough to make you sick. But often, I have a lot of friends who are mold inspectors now, and say you’re in a normal 2000 square foot house. Over time, you could have five different water damage issues, you know? And if they’re never repaired correctly, even when the area dries or looks dry, you can still be releasing these toxins. They can release them. 

It gets stressed when it’s dry, so it can release them that way, or when you brush into it. They can emit through a wall, so my inspector friends have also taught me, about 90% of mold in your home is not visible. It’s behind your walls, it’s in your crawl space, it’s places you’re not checking, you know? If you saw my home that I lived in, you wouldn’t say, “Oh, this smelly and moldy.” It was like 99% in the walls. So yeah, it’s pretty common because we live with plumbing, and then extreme weather, and humidity, and this can create a situation for it to grow. So I’m often just trying to teach people, as much as you’re learning about your health, I’m glad you’re on this summit, I’m glad you’re learning. You have to be a good steward of your home too. It’s where you live. So, I joke, like when I was that homeowner of that home, I thought it was just about decorating full stop. Like, I didn’t care about how my gutters drained or when my attic was last serviced. I didn’t care about any of that. 

That is very important and it’s expensive and it’s inconvenient, but the prevention is worth it. And just knowing how to deal with a water leak is important too. So just a quick one really, it has to be dealt with within 48 hours. Otherwise mold is gonna grow and could stay. It’s a little better for you and I here in Arizona, it’s so dry, but yeah, generally you have to deal with it quickly. So yeah, that’s a bit about it. And as far as how it affects your health, again, it can just be a load on the immune system. If say you’re just in a house with a lot of humidity, and poor circulation, that could just be some load there that your body’s dealing with on top of every other load, right? Like EMF and toxins coming outta your carpets, and stress, and pesticides. So it can be that kind of thing and it can be, like I said earlier, actually toxic, pretty, extremely toxic to your cells, to your mitochondria. 

And mostly we inhale it and you inhale it right up into your brain. Basically it breaks down the breadline barrier and it can inflame and lodge in your hypothalamus pituitary, which is your hormone center. So, when I learned that much later in my own mold story, I was like, “Huh, that makes a lot of sense why my hormones are always so tanked out and I could never get them up.” So it’s crossing the blood-brain barrier, crossing cell walls, so it can certainly affect different areas of your brain. This is explaining why people are tired, people are forgetful. And I know like that’s so common nowadays. Like we think that’s acceptable, right? To be tired and forgetful, but it’s not you know? And it can get, like I mentioned earlier, it can get really severe. And it is associated with types of brain degeneration. So it’s not just aging, a lot of that is toxicity. So, it can be all the way from little chronic sinus issues, all the way to like really severe symptoms, depending on how much exposure you’ve had and other factors in your health, there’s really just a whole range of symptoms that could potentially go on.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So, I have a couple of questions from . Do you think cars are ever a source?

Bridgit Danner

Do they have mold? 100% Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So, for checking your cars for checking your homes, what do you recommend for the listeners if they’re like, “Hmm, maybe I should have my house check or my car checked.” Who should they call?

Bridgit Danner

Yeah so, there’s a few different options. Something like your car, we’ll just use that ’cause that one’s easier. There’s a company, can I give a name on here?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Sure, yeah.

Bridgit Danner

Okay, there’s a company called, ImmunoLytics out of New Mexico. You can buy from them a plate or a swab, they’re very affordable. You pay a little extra fee if you want them to analyze it if you get some positive growth, but that’s a way to see. Basically it’s like an algae plate thing and it is moist and so molds can grow on there. And then you send it into that lab and they analyze which types they are and stuff like that. So you could potentially do that in your car and swab the AC vent and that kind of a thing. Or you could tap your carpet, the dust on your carpet and you just follow their directions. I mean, for us, we lost two cars. And because when we were remediating our house, we just made some mistakes in what we carried around in the car and stuff like that. And we were so sensitized to our own mold that we, so we put the cars in storage, I think we sold one right away, and then we put the other in storage for the summer. 

We actually came to Arizona, and then we went back, and we opened the car door, and we’re like, “Nope.” You know, ’cause we’d get sick immediately. So we never tested our cars but we knew that they were a problem. So that’s a way too, you could just put your car, don’t use it for a couple months, work on your healing, then you become more sensitive to those type of things. So you can do those same plate tests in a workplace, in a home, in apartments, there’s pros and cons of every test, just like with the body. And then another option if you’re a homeowner is to get an inspection. So that’s what we did is, actually our first step is we got an inspector. He happened to be very good, he found moisture in our walls, he found our gutters weren’t draining correctly. He swabbed samples, he did an air sample, it should be a big combination of things. It’s not usually cheap, but then they can get an assessment. Because don’t just wanna know you have mold. You wanna know where is the mold so you can do something about it.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah. And then probably the last option is, there’s a couple different dust tests where you can collect dust, swabbing it around your house and send that into a lab and have that interpreted. Yeah, I think this phase is confusing because people want it to be simple. But a house is usually large, and it has a lot of areas, and like we said, mold can be in the walls. So it’s not always so simple and sometimes things get missed by the wrong type of testing or the wrong inspector. So, for better or worse, this is a topic where you have to slow down and educate yourself so that you do make good choices along the way.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm yeah, and I know it’s time consuming and expensive, but so is being really sick. And so sometimes we just have to prioritize prevention or investigation and make that something that we can save for or plan for and make happen, so that we can, cause like you said, our home is, we spend, especially after COVID a lot of us now work out of our homes. So we’re in our homes a lot and we wanna make sure that our homes are sanctuaries, not just like you said, decorative wise, but also that they’re helping heal us and not make us sick. So, what about testing if someone’s listening and they’re like, “I really wanna know if I have mold.”

Bridgit Danner

In the body?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, luckily that one is a lot easier. So, and these tests didn’t always exist. But now with an at home urine test, you can test for mold toxins coming out in the waste, urine. There’s a few little instructions on how to best do that. You know, we sell our test. I dunno, you may be able to get it somewhere without a practitioner, but with us, usually it has to be issued through a practitioner and then we do a review of your test. ‘Cause you couldn’t get your results. And even though they look pretty simple, you still don’t know what to do about them. So we always give a consultation too. But yeah, luckily, I’ve only seen one false negative. I mean the levels can go up and down and how well you detox can depend, but we see tons of positives. So yeah, it can definitely be caught, for the most part on a urine test.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah, I see a lot of positives too. And you bring up such a good point. It’s the same thing with heavy metals that we don’t necessarily detox linearly, that the body, sometimes as we start to detox things get higher and that’s just because the body’s letting go and being encouraged. So speaking about detox, what would you like to say about detox and are there any detox tips or techniques that the listeners can institute at home, and just what’s your whole?

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, we’ll put the home home repair piece to the side, ’cause that’s a whole big issue. ‘Cause anybody listening can do detox. Like, everybody basically needs to, cause if you’re not exposed to mold, you’re still exposed to pesticides, and herbicides, and gasoline additives at a higher rate than we’d like to think unfortunately. And even our own body makes waste products and we get a little less efficient at detoxing as we get older. And as I’m getting older, I think some of the materials I wanna produce are around this detox for anti-aging and beauty, and it really makes a difference. It’s like, I think we just think diet and exercise, and I’m like, “Can we just add detox to that conversation because it’s so important, it’s so helpful?” So I love detox techniques, there’s supplements we can talk about as well. But when I was healing, a lot of the techniques are really what did it for me. And a lot of ’em around moving lymphatics. So lymphatic fluids collect toxins and bring them into the bloodstream, but they can kind of back up when we’re not detoxing well. 

And it’s a pretty simple thing to do. Just get that circulation going as long as your liver’s working, as long as you’re pooping and peeing, just to get lymphatics moving with dry brushing, exercise, mini trampoline, those are all good starters. I did do some lymphatic massage when I was going through my treatment. You know, there’s lots of interesting clinics now, too. There’s some here in Phoenix, right? Where you can get a lot of kind of cool techniques, like compression techniques and red light therapy, all pretty accessible to us now. I did start doing coffee enemas when I was sick and I still do them about once a week. Like I really just feel that they help me. Castor oil packs are really easy to do, Epsom salt baths, easy to do. Yeah, I think that’s some to get us started if you have any questions about those.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm yeah, I’m a huge lymphatic fan. I’m pretty obsessed with it.

Bridgit Danner

Nice.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I have lots of lymphatic techniques. I have the FLOWpresso, which is a compression that you can go into, puts you into parasympathetic. And yeah, because I do thermography scans, and what I realized is ’cause it’s a diagnostic test that can actually look at the lymphatic system. There’s not really a lot of diagnostic ways to look at the lymph. And so I’ve been doing ’em for over 20 years. And what I realized was everyone’s lymphatic system is congested because no one pays attention to it. And so I love that you’ve brought up the lymph because I am lymph obsessed. And it’s such an important piece to detoxing and I love castor oil packs, one of my favorite things. I would love for you to talk a little bit about, cause I’m sure some of the women are like, what is she stick, what is she doing an enema with? Did she say coffee enemas?

Bridgit Danner

I know I was like, “Opt in or opt out,” but I’ll just share. I mean, when I was doing my functional health coaching, they discourage coffee enemas, ’cause they were like, “Oh maybe your bile duct is blocked. And your client could go get really, have some…” So I thought, “Oh, they don’t sound very safe, or they sound a little risky, or whatever.” And most of us as Americans don’t really have a propensity to be like, “Yeah, I wanna try an enema.” But then I read a book by Jay Davidson, you probably know, and he’s in the detox space, and he outlined how to do it, and why they’re helpful. And I was like, and then I happened to interview him and I was like, “Should I try it, should I do it?” You know, it’s like I needed the full push to, and he was like, “Yeah.” So, it’s like anything, you have to get the equipment and learn how to do it. 

But once you do it like a few times, it’s pretty easy. It’s not messy, it’s just, I think, again, it’s not very modern American to use medicine that way. But it’s just another way to get, I’ll say, I call it a medicine into your body. It’s just a way to get it into your bloodstream to go to your liver. So, unfortunately there’s not a lot of great evidence on coffee enemas, there’s not much research, you know? I wrote a book about mold recently and that was probably the weakest and there isn’t much evidence on coffee enemas. But there’s some compounds in the coffee, and you use a light roast coffee, you brew it a long time. And it helps a body recycle glutathione, which is an antioxidant, and the liver, and then of course all your blood is passing through the liver as you like retain this coffee in your lower bowel. 

So the premise is basically that it helps you recycle glutathione. It also is a little stimulating, so it’s pumping bile. It’s not meant to make you have a bowel movement, but it is clearing the lower bowel, which is always helpful for detox. And yeah, once you get the hang of it, you just have to go like slow and get the hang of it. But after a few times, I just, when I was really sick, it gave me a ton of benefit. Like I was just so tired, you know? And if I could do a coffee enema that day I knew my day would be a lot better. So yeah, I just got into a routine. So now usually on a weekend I’ll still do a coffee enema, it’s my thing.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Well, it’s really, I’ll say a few things to that. So my very first introduction into natural medicine was, gosh, 30 years ago. And it was with a colon hydrotherapist who was doing coffee enemas. So coffee enemas were one of the very first things I tried, and did, and learned about. So I’ve always been a fan of them and it’s part of Gerson Therapy. So I always integrate coffee enemas in with my oncology patients or patients who are very toxic. So I think they’re very important and they can make you go, huh, What? But when you really think about it and how it’s helping to detox, and like you said, recycling the glutathione, there’s a lot of benefits. And I always say, “Hashtag, not all medicine comes in a pill bottle.” And so, there’s a very good example of how it doesn’t.

Bridgit Danner

No, it’s very affordable, you can reuse the equipment, you can do other detox techniques while you’re in there. You can do a castor oil pack, you can meditate. You know, I’ll often do my weekly planner. Like again, it’s not messy. It’s just like my little hour of me time. It’s like just one thing. I’m surprised how many of my clients actually are doing it. Not even ’cause I said it, it’s ’cause they’re a community that’s really dealing with a lot of toxicity and they’ve heard about it. So I know a lot of people do actually really like it.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Well, that’s great. So, you mentioned supplements and I’d love to hear what your faves are or what you think is important.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, I mentioned I wrote a mold book this year, so it was tough ’cause I had to organize. You know, there’s so many supplements out there and so many techniques. So I picked my five top techniques, my five top supplements as just a base, you know? Things that I found to be important for me and my healing. And then from there, I gave a lot more options, but since we mentioned glutathione, you can take glutathione, you can take it’s precursor, NAC as well. Yeah, some people don’t tolerate glutathione, just like some people don’t tolerate everything, you know? There’s always, take it with a grain of salt, but mostly it’s pretty well tolerated ’cause it’s just an antioxidant our body makes. And when you’re in chronic toxicity, that important antioxidant is gonna tend to lower right when you need it the most. So it’s just, and I actually love all antioxidants. Like I probably will write my next book about antioxidants ’cause I don’t think they get enough play in the detox world. We all think, oh like liver and pooping, but it’s like, you’re antioxidants are doing a lot of the work to reverse all that oxidative damage of the toxins you’re exposed to. So, if you don’t tolerate glutathione, you can do vitamin C and there’s like just tons of antioxidants, green tea, lots of things out there. So glutathione’s one, I chose electrolytes in the top five because when you’re detoxing from mold, you’re hopefully using a sauna quite a bit.

We actually didn’t mention sauna, but that’s another great technique. And then you’re often peeing more because of a certain hormonal imbalance. So you have to just replete those electrolytes. Broccoli seed and sprout, I actually chose, I already loved it for detox and protecting the liver. And then I found out it actually works really well for mycotoxin detox as well. It’s very gentle, so that’s one of my top. CoQ10 made my top five because it really helped me a lot. Like I mentioned earlier, it affects your mitochondria or your little energy makers. So that deep fatigue, it could also be your thyroid’s off and this and that, but your mitochondria are often disrupted, especially with mold. So I love CoQ10, again as an antioxidant. So that made my list. And then last is binders, which people may or may not have heard of, but it’s probably the most common detox supplement. It’s either physically or chemically binding toxins, usually in the intestines so that you poop them out instead of recycle them back in with the bile. So those can be a nice aid, especially when you are like actively pushing the lymph and trying to detox, you know? You know, your practitioner said, you do have heavy metals, you do have mold, just a way to capture things and help them leave the body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love that you gave a shout out to antioxidants. I don’t think anyone is loved on antioxidants yet. And they are so important.

Bridgit Danner

They’re so important. They’re so easily tolerated. Yeah, I think I’ll do one of these summits just on antioxidants. ‘Cause I’m like, they’re not getting enough attention.

Dr. Sharon Stills

They need more press.

Bridgit Danner

They do. Yeah, they’re so important. And one thing I learned in the last year is, if you don’t, you can’t recover from exercise well, you’re not able to exercise like you used to. That’s often poor antioxidant status too. So that might be a little tip for women out there. You know, that’s not just aging, that’s antioxidant status. So you can literally like me taking antioxidants more on days you work out or before you go work out. So yeah, they’re really important.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And you mentioned the mitochondria, which it’s hard to have good hormonal balance if you don’t have happy mitochondria. So I’m glad you gave them a shout out as well. All these important pieces. What about, and yes, definitely the sauna, we actually have high tech health is sponsoring the summit and we have a whole talk on sauna therapy and-

Bridgit Danner

Perfect

Dr. Sharon Stills

How important it is and how one of my dreams is to have a sauna in every home. Because it should just really be something that we are doing naturally. Like you mentioned in the beginning, we talk about diet and exercise, which obviously are important, but detox has to be part of the conversation now because of all the toxins, and all the different type of toxins, and the amount of toxins we’re all exposed to. I mean, I do toxicity testing, and mold testing, and so forth on my patients. And you don’t see anyone who doesn’t have toxins,

Bridgit Danner

No, nobody.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Metals, mycotoxins, pesticides. It it’s not, “Oh, I’m looking to see if you have them.” It’s, “I’m looking to see how much

Bridgit Danner

Yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

It’s sad, but it’s the reality of our times. And so if that’s the reality, then detoxing and doing the things that you were talking about, just have to be part of what we do. We shower, we feed ourselves.

Bridgit Danner

Right, you brush your teeth, yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Detox.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, and it doesn’t have to be extreme, you know? You can get up and have a lemon water in the morning and do some squats and arm circles to move your lymph. It doesn’t have to be expensive or a lot of work, but it’s just learning and you’re gonna learn ideas on the summit. It’s learning little techniques, and getting into new habits and then just letting those become part of your life that you actually start to crave it, right? I mean, it sounds weird, but I’m just really craving my coffee enema, you know? I am, I’m not making myself do it, I actually like it now. And you’ll start to crave your lemon water, just like you will coffee or something. So once you just try stuff on you get a bigger and bigger menu of things you could do within a given day.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly, and it’s good to have a big menu, so you don’t have to become rigid where it’s like, “Okay, I wake up and I do this, I do this, I do this.” Like, you can have a menu, so today I’m gonna do this for my detox today I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna drink, I’m gonna move, I’m gonna sweat, I’m gonna do an enema. I’m gonna make sure I take off my shoes at the front door all the time so I’m not tracking in all the pesticides from outside. I’m gonna check my home. I’m gonna start changing my cleaning products, my beauty products, my food. I mean, there’s so, it can be overwhelming, but if we just start to pick away at it, we can really transform our lives, and really helps to… We have these body stores, but we also have what’s coming at us. So we have to do our best to reduce. And then we have to support our bodies so we can be getting rid of what we’re exposed to.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, 100%. It’s just like I talked earlier, you can’t just learn about your body, you have to learn about your home. It’s like if there’s inside and outside, because we are interacting with our external environment. So yeah, you have to support both, otherwise well said.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah, it’s not always easy being healthy, but it’s certainly worth taking the time, and energy, and attention to do the things that need to be done so that you can have vibrant health, and age gracefully, and have hormones that aren’t going wonky on you because of underlying toxins.

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, exactly. And it does become easy, easier, and easier. And it’s like, you wouldn’t wanna go back to eating fast food and staying up all night. ‘Cause you just know it just doesn’t make you feel the same, right?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly. Yeah, I always say I’m grateful I was sick as a child and that I have a weaker constitution because it keeps me on the healthy path. It keeps me choosing healthy things because I’d rather choose healthy choices and feel good than partake in unhealthy habits and then feel like crap.

Bridgit Danner

Right.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So it’s worth the work. So anything else about this hormonal transition, and detox, and mold that I didn’t ask you about that you wanna share with the listeners, or did we get all?

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, maybe I’ll just tie in hormones a little bit more because I’m sure you have a lot of other great speakers, but yeah, you can take supplemental hormones or eat certain foods to support hormones, but you have to have the whole thing working, right? You have to have a healthy gut to detoxify hormones and you can’t have this like heavy toxic load for your hormones to function and communicate correctly. So if your cells are inflamed, hormone signals often just can’t get inside. So it is just a piece of the hormonal picture. It just is, so it may not be a huge piece for you or it could be, however much is affecting you, could vary, but just keep it in mind. And definitely know like what Sharon said, having a less toxic home is gonna make your menopause easier. And you’re not risking as much like weight gain and symptoms. ‘Cause yeah, you’re just taking that load off. Hormones are such a delicate balance, especially as we’re aging and that’s all changing. It’s already in a bit of an uproar. So you just don’t wanna add any factors to make it even worse. So yeah, just keep it in mind as part of the picture. And I think there’s still tons of hope too, right? And I’m almost 48 and I’m really taking good care of my hormones and my health. 

And I look at celebrities who are a little older than me and like, “What are they doing,” you know? It’s like, they’re not just calling it in, they’re eating real food, they’re drinking a bunch of water. Like Jennifer Lopez doesn’t drink alcohol at all because she doesn’t want it to affect her skin, you know? So, there’s secrets, but they’re not really secrets, right? It’s just taking good care of yourself through this time. And for me, nearing menopause, I don’t have to look like a celebrity, but I just wanna feel vibrant and great in my body, and just feel confident. And I think if we’re getting sick or sicker and symptomatic in menopause, we can kind of lose some confidence. And it’s really sad ’cause you still have a lot to offer, you’re still an amazing person. So I think, taking your symptoms and taking your health into your own hands so that you feel like, “I’m gonna like get through this still like feeling great, looking great.” Like you can, it just is learning how, you know? ‘Cause it is a huge transition. So I’m glad that you’re putting on this event so that people can like have these conversations, you know? Know it’s not just automatic to look like Jennifer Lopez, you gotta do the things. But we can all do ’em, they’re accessible to all of us. So yeah, we talked about a lot of heavy stuff, but there’s like a lot of hope. And like in my own story, my health completely transformed. And it sounds like in your health too, so any picture can be changed when she put in the effort.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, I like that you brought up JLo. I just finished watching her documentary.

Bridgit Danner

Oh I loved it, did you love it?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yes, I loved it and I never knew that I was so upset she didn’t get her academy award. I was like, “She was robbed.” But yeah, she’s such an inspiration and really just, her attitude and everything was really inspiring. And I think, just to end, just reflecting on what you said is so important that, it is, and as we’ve been learning here, I call this the sacred second act of our lives. And it really is a time of rebirthing and coming home to ourselves and our creativity and all the magic we can put out in the world. But if we don’t feel good, if our physical bodies are not supporting us and they are dragging us to pain and suffering, it’s hard to really step into all the beauty we’re talking about.

Bridgit Danner

Exactly, yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Who are listening. And so that’s why I created my RED program, which stands for Reinvent your health, Explore your spirit and Discover your sexy. And even though I think a lot of things can start out here in the energy, and can be emotional, and traumas. Sometimes just going in and paying attention and doing things that serve and nurture the physical body, including a lot of the things we talked about today and detoxing, can really just help our energy and our emotions just relax and release. And so we have to pay attention to this beautiful vessel that we are given. And unfortunately, toxicity is a big part of that. And we have to go after it not being afraid or freaked out, but just saying, “Okay, this is the reality. It’s now a toxic world.” I don’t see that changing any time in the near future. 

I mean, I hope it does, but I don’t see that really happening. I see just more and more chemicals being put into the air, and the water, and the soil, and all of this. And so we just have to empower ourselves, say, “Okay, we are gonna do what we can do.” We’re not gonna get crazy, we’re not gonna become insane about it because that’s not healthy either, but we’re gonna have an awareness. We’re gonna think about the things that Bridgit just talked to us, see where it applies to us, and we’re just gonna start instituting and having knowledge, and taking steps. And that’s how we really do embrace aging and our hormonal journey. And just not only mastering the menopausal transition, but just mastering our experience of being alive and how we wanna go through that journey. So thank you so much for what you shared with us. If we wanna find out more about you, where do we find you?

Bridgit Danner

Yeah, my main website is just my name, which is bridgitdanner.com, Bridgit, with an it.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And, and it’s B-R-I-D-G-I-T, right?

Bridgit Danner

Yes, that’s very good.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Okay, and of course, if you all want to have less mold in your environment, you can come join Bridgit and I in Arizona where it is very dry.

Bridgit Danner

Yes, there’s lots of us actually who’ve moved here for the dry climate.

Dr. Sharon Stills

That’s for sure, it’s super hot when we’re recording this right now. It’s funny because we went down to the high nineties today and it was like, “Oh, we’re having a cool wave and we can go out now.” And it’s all your perspective of how you view things. And so here exactly here in 98 degrees, we’re putting on jackets ’cause it’s a little chilly out.

Bridgit Danner

Yep.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So thank you so much for being here and I love your story. You’re so inspirational and just living proof that it doesn’t have to be your destiny if you were suffering, if you have mold, but there are solutions and you can turn it around and be beautiful, and vibrant, and productive, just like Bridget. So thank you-

Bridgit Danner

Thanks everyone.

Dr. Sharon Stills

For being here, being a part of the summit and bye everyone, be well.