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GUEST EXPERTS
The Science of Cancer and Sleep:
How to Reduce Cancer Risk
with Nathan Crane
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Healing Fibromyalgia, Low

Moods and IBS with Rodger
Murphree, DC, CNS
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Essential Oils, Cortisol and Heal-

ing Your Parasympathetic Nervous
System with Jodi Cohen, NTP
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 1

The Science of Cancer

and Sleep: How to Reduce
Cancer Risk
Nathan Crane

Misty: Hey, everybody. Misty Williams here, I expect that not only are we going to talk about
founder of Healing Rosie and your host for Your sleep and cancer, but this is going to affect a lot
Best Sleep Ever. And I am so excited about this of other metabolic issues that we’re having in the
interview that I’m doing with my friend Nathan body, and the hacks and tips we’re going to learn
Crane today. Sleep, obviously, is one of my here is really universal.
favorite topics in the world.
Like I don’t only want great sleep if I have cancer. I
And one of the things that really makes me want great sleep all the time, so I don’t get cancer.
passionate about this topic is that good sleep is And we’re going to dive into this together today.
what really promotes optimal healing in the body. So in 2005, at only 18 years old, Nathan began his
And I have a friend right now who’s 39 years old health healing and spiritual journey, eventually
and dying of throat cancer. And it’s one of those overcoming a decade of brutal teenage addiction,
doctors tried everything, and there doesn’t seem house arrest, jail, and challenging times of
to be much hope. homelessness to become an international author,
filmmaker, and speaker dedicated to health,
And I’m not in the kind of relationship with him healing, and conscious awakening.
where I could come alongside and be like, dude,
I’ve got a bunch of hacks for you to try, but this He has received numerous awards for his
topic of sleep and cancer, I think, is really hugely contribution to health, healing, and personal
important. development, including the Outstanding
Community Service Award from the California
One of the things that I’ve observed in walking Senate for his work in education and
this journey out with friends who’ve had cancer, I empowerment with natural methods for healing
had an aunt that had breast cancer, for example. cancer.
And obviously, my friend Matt now, who’s dealing
with cancer, is that once people get cancer and He’s an award-winning author, inspirational
they start taking all the drugs and the different speaker, plant-based athlete, event producer,
treatments for cancer, it seems like sleep just and 18-time award-winning documentary
goes down the toilet. filmmaker. Nathan is the founder of The
Panacea Community, creator of the Global
We all suffer. And what do we know? We know Cancer Symposium, and director and producer
that if you’re going to heal from cancer, you need of the documentary film Cancer; The Integrative
to be getting amazing sleep. So this is going to be Perspective. Welcome, Nathan.
a really powerful interview.

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Nathan: Thank you, Misty. Thanks for having probably have never heard of, and some really
me. Thanks for putting this amazing event on. practical tools to help people to deepen their
You’re talking about your friend with cancer and sleep, to improve their sleep, and to help their
also people who start down the traditional-- well, bodies heal as we are designed to do. Yeah. Thank
actually not really traditional. Let’s call it the more you again for inviting me to do this. I’m happy to
modern conventional therapeutic approach, be here.
chemotherapy drugs, radiation.
Misty: Yeah. Well, I’m really excited to dive into
When they’re dealing with cancer and their sleep everything that you have to share because this
goes out of the window, the immune system gets is a topic that we hope never affects us in our
completely destroyed, and quality of life often lifetime. For some watching, they’re in a situation
goes down significantly. where they’re dealing with the cancer diagnosis
personally. Certainly, we probably all have a friend
And I’m not saying chemotherapy, radiation or a loved one who’s dealing with this at some
people absolutely shouldn’t do it, but that’s what point in our life.
got me into becoming so passionate about cancer
was when my own grandfather when I saw him I want, like I can feel the mama bear in me rise up
whittle away from the conventional treatments when I think about my own family, my parents,
from the chemotherapy and radiation and then my siblings, all my nieces and nephews. I have this
die pretty quickly after the treatments, it just set part in me that just wants my family to enjoy great
me down this journey, which we can talk a little bit health. And I know that the cancer topic especially
more about. is really polarizing. Some people are going to feel
more comfortable going the conventional path.
But you just kind of inspired me with your
introduction to share that a little bit because I When you’re in a life and death situation, and
see so many people suffering and struggling with you’re up against I need a sure thing, you’re going
treatment protocols that are destroying their to try conventional methods. And then there’s
health, destroying their sleep, destroying their others that are equally passionate about only
immune system. alternative methods.

And that’s when I committed myself to doing For the purpose of this interview, I’m not taking
everything I possibly could to learn everything I a stand. And I would suspect that you wouldn’t
could about cancer. And that was in 2013. So now either. It’s really beyond the scope of this
we’re going almost eight years now, just really conversation to dig into how are you going to
fully dedicated to learning everything I could treat cancer?
about cancer and helping people.
But I think this topic of sleep and how do you use
So I’m excited about this topic because sleep is sleep to help you treat cancer is a really important
so important, as you said. I used to not really pay one. So I’d love for you just to start off maybe
much attention to sleep, and now I realized the with some background on what’s the relationship
value and the benefit of it over the years, so it’s between cancer and sleep?
like a huge priority for me.
Maybe pre-diagnosis even and post-diagnosis.
And I’m excited to share some really interesting Obviously, there’s a path that you go down when
things, some really interesting studies people you start trying different protocols, and you start

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running into even more challenges with sleep. understand not only is it preventable, over 97% of
Let’s kind of start the conversation there. cancer is preventable, but there are lots and lots
of people who reverse cancer every single day.
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s important for
people to have an understanding of where cancer And that’s been a big mission of mine is I’ve
was just 100 years ago and where it is today interviewed hundreds of world-leading experts.
and how we’ve gotten here, why we get cancer, I’ve produced summits and conferences and
what actually causes cancer. And then, we can documentaries and magazines and so on
understand more deeply how sleep actually helps interviewing not only the leading world-leading
our bodies to help reverse cancer. doctors who work with cancer patients and
integrative medicine, natural medicine, holistic
And obviously, sleep is one of the natural things medicine, conventional medicine, but people who
that we can do that’s free to help our bodies heal. have reversed cancer even stage four cancer.
And so the quality of sleep, the depth of sleep,
the length of sleep, all those things are super And I can tell you sleep is one of the critical
important. And we’ll get into that and also tips and components to every single person I’ve
tools and real strategies, proven strategies to help interviewed over the years who have reversed
you improve sleep, help you improve healing. cancer. The challenge, obviously, with cancer
is that it’s really the leading cause of death
But if we look back at 1905, for example, we only worldwide.
had about 0.05% of people being diagnosed with
cancer, less than a percent. You fast forward 50 I mean, just in 2018, almost 10 million people died
years to 1950. You have about 10% of people of cancer. If we’re talking about a pandemic, this
being diagnosed with cancer. Partly we’re testing is the largest pandemic really that we have today.
more, and tests are improving, but really cancer I mean, if you’re talking about a disease facing
was just not prevalent in our society until the last humanity as a global pandemic, more people
50 years. being diagnosed, and more people dying every
single year, cancer is the largest pandemic.
Well, now last 70 years, where now we’re close
to 50% of people. We have one in two men being So it is something that’s very important.
diagnosed with cancer. One in three women being Something, obviously, you can tell I’m
diagnosed with cancer. super passionate about. And it’s also very
misunderstood. And so when you understand
They’re expecting that to go up another 57% over what it is, you can be a lot less afraid and a lot
the next two decades. In 2020 alone, we had 1.8 more empowered to actually do something about
million new cancer diagnoses. Compare that it. So a lot of people think cancer is this thing that
to the year 2000, just 20 years ago. We had 1.2 you get, something you catch. It’s something from
million, and this is annually. outside of you.
So in just 20 years alone, we’ve started increasing [10:00]
over 600,000 new cancer diagnosis every single
year. The numbers just keep going up. And it’s It’s subconscious. What happens is we think like,
a little bit frightening, one, for people wanting oh my God, I got cancer. Why did this happen to
to prevent cancer, but two, it’s also when we me? God, why did you give this to me? Why is this
really pay attention to what’s going on, we can happening to me?

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And that’s a very often, a very common thing that gets rid of it.
those questions people go into when they first get
diagnosed, or even years after diagnosis. It’s this So we all make cancer. If you have cancer
subconscious feeling of like, I got this, but what right now, you have to come to this place of
we have to change is our understanding of what understanding that you made cancer. You made
cancer is. And what cancer is, is it’s not something it through lifestyle, diet, toxic exposure, too
you catch. much stress, a lot of fear and anxiety going on,
toxins could be mercury in the teeth. It could
It’s not a cold or flu or a virus. It’s not something be exposure to mold consistently. It could be a
you get from outside of yourself. It’s something parasitic infection that’s happening for years. So
from within. Your body makes cancer cells every it’s all these things.
single day. We all have cancer cells inside of us
right now. I have millions of cancer cells. We all Less than 3%, if identified, of cancer is truly
have millions of cancer cells inside of us every genetic. And even through epigenetics, we know
single day. There’s actually absolutely nothing that we can change the destiny of our genes. So
wrong with that. really once we understand that cancer is not a
destiny, but it’s an opportunity to awaken to a
That’s a natural part of our physiological functions larger lifestyle calling to change the things in our
of cells becoming abnormal and then mutating life that improve our quality of sleep, that improve
and the DNA changing and dying off. And if our healing, that improve our longevity, but not
your immune system is functioning well, your only longevity, but the health and quality of our
lymphatic system is functioning well, you’re life in the years that we live, then cancers don’t
getting all of the nutrition you need, you’re getting have to be so scary.
all the sleep you need, you’re doing all the things
that are designed to make your body function at And so that fundamental shift is so important.
its higher potential, then your body gets rid of You’re making it in your body every single day.
those cancer cells. It removes them. And we can stop making cancer. Dr. Thomas Lodi,
a world-renowned integrative medical doctor, a
Your immune system, your lymphatic system, holistic medical doctor treats thousands of cancer
gets rid of those cancer cells. It’s also one of the patients every single day.
functions of autophagy. Autophagy we’ll talk
about in deep sleep. Why the importance of deep Well, not thousands every day, but has treated
sleep is so important is because of autophagy. thousands. And he’s clinically treating patients
daily, both in Thailand and his clinic in Arizona.
Autophagy is one of those things that-- it’s one of
the processes in your body that happens during He’s a good friend and colleague of mine. He’s
deep sleep. It also happens during stages of in my documentary. He’s in our Global Cancer
fasting that allows your body to remove these Symposium. One of the things he says is people
cells that need to be removed. come to me, and they say how do I get rid of this
cancer?
So basically, cancer it’s cell fermentation through
acidity, DNA damage, and really an anaerobic That’s usually their question. If you’re tuning in,
environment. And so it’s a natural thing. It’s you might say, how do I get rid of cancer? How do
happening all the time. If your body’s functioning I take this out of me? How do I remove it? How do
the way, it’s supposed to, well, then your body I kill it?

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But what he says, he says people aren’t really levels are going down, and your blood glucose
asking me how to get rid of cancer. They’re levels are going down. Your body’s going into a
asking me how to stop making cancer. If you healing state.
learn how to stop making cancer in your body
and understanding sleep is one of those really Stress, well, if you’re sleeping well and you’re
important components that helps your body getting enough REM sleep, it’s balancing your
stop making cancer, then you’re so much more mood. It’s helping reduce your stress. Unhealthy
empowered to move forward. diet, even if you have an unhealthy diet, sleep
helps your body to heal from that because you’re
Misty: The question that’s bopping around in my in a fasted state.
head is like, do you see in your work and your
research a causative relationship between sleep Now, obviously, if you want to optimize your life,
or lack thereof and cancer? you want to optimize your healing journey, then
you want to optimize every one of these areas.
Nathan: Well, absolutely. And there’s a lot of
evidence actually that suggests that. And so let’s You don’t want to go, well, I’m just going
talk about that. What are the causes of cancer? to improve my sleep, but I’m going to keep
Well, technically, there could be thousands and eating a crappy diet. I’m going to keep eating
thousands, but really Dr. Sunil Pai, another cheeseburgers and smoking cigarettes, and
integrative medical doctor, a good colleague, and drinking alcohol when we know these things are
friend of mine, he really summed it up into six proven to cause cancer. If you reduce those and
core causes of cancer. replace it with a clean, healthy anti-inflammatory
cancer-fighting diet--
And if you look at all the causes of cancer,
they all can fit under these six core causes. So I just put out an eBook actually called The Anti-
what are they? They’re inflammation, chronic Cancer Diet, which is the most scientifically
inflammation, elevated blood glucose, excessive validated diet as purported by three world-leading
exposure to sugar, to glucose, environmental integrative medical doctors to help reduce cancer
toxins, stress, which under stress, chronic fear, risk. You improve the diet, well, guess what?
anxiety, depression, unhealthy diet, and lifestyle
behaviors. It’s going to improve not only your sleep because
you have less digestive problems that are waking
So let me repeat them again—inflammation, you up and heartburn and these kinds of things,
elevated blood glucose, environmental toxins, but really you’re allowing your body to heal faster.
stress, unhealthy diet, lifestyle behaviors. So the
question is, how many of these can be mitigated So my point is even if you are on an unhealthy
by sleep? Well, the answer is just about every diet and you don’t change diet at all, but you
single one of them. improve sleep, it’s going to help mitigate the
damages from that unhealthy diet because when
Every single one of these core causes of cancer you’re in a fasting state, your body’s resting,
can be mitigated and reduced by sleep. And how repairing, healing, rejuvenating. And then the last
so? Well, sleep reduces inflammation. Sleep helps one is lifestyle behaviors. Well, lifestyle behaviors
to when you go into a fasted state when you’re fits in a lot of things.
sleeping, as long as you’re not waking up every
few hours and eating something, then your insulin We can also put in there we have toxins,
environmental toxins, but lifestyle is how we

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interact with the world, where we go, do we travel body, and actually leads to a greater cancer risk.
on airplanes all the time?
So this is a very fascinating area. It’s why I’m
Are we constantly exposed to toxins outside of such a huge fan of the Amber glasses. I’ve been
our homes? Are we staying up all night long and wearing them since 2012. Every night, as soon
sleeping all day long when we know that totally as the sun goes down, those bad boys are on my
screws up our circadian rhythm and definitely face.
scientifically has proven impacts our body’s ability
to heal when we sleep. I have my friends wearing them, my family
wearing them because it’s really compelling when
Are we only sleeping three or four hours a night? you actually look at the science, and you see the
Are we doing lots of caffeine before we go to bed, studies that are being done. I mean, it’s hard to
so we don’t get into sleep and get the benefits of argue with it. So maybe you could take us in a
a deep sleep and autophagy and human growth little bit.
hormone and all the things that come from that?
I know you’ve got a lot of research there that
So lifestyle behaviors fits everything in your could really help inform the way that we take
life that you choose to do. So sleep is one of this conversation, but I’d love to just hear a little
those really important components of lifestyle bit more from you on what you’ve seen in the
behaviors. And as we’ll share here in a little bit, literature and how this can be applied practically
I’ll share my own pre-bedtime protocols, my because ultimately, it’s like these are nice ideas
own sleep protocols because I’ve been really and we know we need more sleep, but let’s get to
optimizing it as much as possible over the years, the how-to. How do we create this?
as well as my morning routine because your
morning routine is just as important as your [20:10]
nighttime routine to help you optimize sleep.
Nathan: Absolutely. So there are dozens and
But if you get these things dialed in, well, sleep to dozens of sleep studies specifically related not
answer your question, the long-form to answer only to cancer but every major metabolic disease
your question is yes, sleep actually helps to that we experience.
reduce the impact of every single one of these six
core causes of cancer. And I’ve gathered four of them, and I’ll just go
through them really briefly for everyone, so you
Misty: One of the things that I came across early understand that there is some hard data on this
in my own journey because my journey started that is in the literature, specifically in dealing with
with hormonal issues, female hormonal issues. cancer.
I came across some studies on the connection
between circadian rhythms and breast cancer in And you can go in, if you’re someone who likes
women. And through the years, I’ve actually come looking at the literature, you can go in and find
across this quite a bit, the circadian rhythm when these pretty easy. These four studies are actually
you’re out of alignment with circadian. straight from PubMed.

We’re getting bombarded with a lot of blue light And this was a study on sleep duration. I found a
after dark. It creates basically a disruption at the few studies specifically on sleep duration because
cellular level and messes up timing in the entire this is really important because the question
always is, well, how many hours a night should I

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sleep? that’s 100% accurate because these studies were

kind of smaller studies that were done, but I just
So I’ve seen a lot of data on that. We’ve seen a thought that was fascinating.
lot of people saying different times and different
hours for different ages and things like that. Well, The second study says, 23,000 middle-aged
I wanted to look at the research and the data and participants. These were people in Europe
say, okay, how many hours actually for cancer from ‘94 to ‘98. They found same thing. People
have they found per night should we be sleeping? who slept less than six hours had a two-times
And what’s the effect of that? increased risk of stroke, a 50% chance increased
risk of cancer, and a 30% chance of overall chronic
So sleep duration in all-cause mortality. Okay. diseases.
So this is dying from just about any disease. So
when they were looking at the duration of sleep So this was a major study, 23,000 people. Again,
and if it related to an increased risk of death from if you slept less than six hours, your chances of
all causes, including cancer, so this was a meta- cancer and other diseases went up exponentially.
analysis of 16 major studies. They included over And they were looking at the others.
1.3 million men and women of different ages.
Seven to nine hours was the range that they
They found that people who slept less than were comparing against. Third study, they had
six hours each night, so six hours or less, the over 1200 participants and after-- so this was an
common was even five hours, so less than six interesting study because they adjusted for race,
hours, they had a much greater risk of death from age, if people were smoking, family history, all
all diseases than people who slept seven to nine different details.
hours.
And again, they found totally different states,
All right. So that was duration of sleep. Not totally different groups of people, totally different
necessarily quality of sleep, just duration. Less years. This was in 2011. They also found people
than six, their words, significantly greater risk of who slept less than six hours per night had a 50%
death from all diseases. Okay. higher chance of colon cancer. They state that the
short duration of sleep significantly increases risk
So something interesting in that, though, was of colon cancer. Okay.
multiple studies that I found actually showed
that people who sleep more than nine hours on And then this was another study that I found
average, they actually had a slightly increased that was-- this was sleep duration from National
higher chance of all-cause morbidity. Institute of Health study cohort. They found an
increased risk in stomach cancer in males—so
So I thought that was fascinating, especially if they were studying males—who slept less than six
you are like, okay, if sleep’s really good, then hours versus those who slept seven to eight.
we should just do as much of it as possible, but
there’s actually some data out there, actually a So again, sleep duration, sleeping less than six
few studies I’ve found that show people who sleep hours, they also found increased risk in stomach
more than nine hours, so this is nine and half, cancer. So the list goes on and on, and there’s
10 hours plus a night, your risk of disease can dozens and dozens of studies.
actually, or all-cause morbidity can actually go up.
I didn’t need to gather them all and pull them
Now, I’m not standing behind that 100% saying all in here. I just wanted to show you here that

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there’s a major commonality among the scientific And so I thought it might be useful to kind of draw
literature, specifically for cancer, that six hours or a correlation here. If you’re getting really great
less per night can increase your risk of cancer as sleep, if those eight hours are truly restorative,
well as multiple other chronic diseases. then you’re going to wake up in the morning
feeling refreshed and ready for the day. And that
And the studies, again and again, showed they was totally not my experience as a young adult.
were comparing six hours or less to people who
were sleeping seven to nine hours. Fortunately, is my experience now. I am a
Rockstar sleeper, and I love it so much. My natural
So if you want to pick an hour to aim for right in melatonin is very high because of all of the things
the middle there, eight hours a night, like that’s that I’ve done. I get lots of deep sleep. And in fact,
my magic number. That’s what I aim for every I’ve been doing intermittent fasting the last six
single night because every single study that I weeks or so.
have found really points to that no matter your
age. Now, I have seen some studies that show, And my deep sleep has almost doubled, maybe
obviously, as you’re younger, you do need to sleep more than doubled. I’ve gone from about an hour
more. Children need to sleep more. and a half a night to four hours a night, three and
a half to four hours a night. And that’s really the
I mean, they’re totally in growing phase. And as only major change in my lifestyle.
you get older, I don’t agree with these. These
aren’t even studies. These are kind of sleep Nathan: Are you doing 16-8 intermittent fasting
experts that are putting this information out there or what kind of--
and saying, well, yeah, as you get 50 and 60 and
70, you can sleep five hours, six hours a night. Misty: My eating window is probably more like six
I totally do not agree with that at all because hours.
the scientific literature does not support that. It
supports seven to nine hours is that sweet spot. Nathan: So 18-6. Are you doing every day?

Misty: Yeah. So one of the things that is coming Misty: Yeah, every day. And I’m stopping around
up for me as I’m listening to you talk about this, between 3 and 4 every day, stopping eating. I
I’m remembering times in my own journey where feel really great. Like I’m surprised at the effect
I’ve always been someone who got a lot of sleep, on my sleep. I have a garment, and so my sleep
meaning at least eight hours a night, but I have gets tracked. I’m surprised at the effect on my
not always been someone who would get eight sleep, but I also feel a lot better, and I was feeling
hours a night and wake up feeling refreshed in good before. So it’s like another layer of feeling
the morning. fantastic.

Between 18 and 35, my story was I went to sleep But I want to talk a little bit about this idea of
around 2:00 a.m., and I would get up around needing to get the eight hours, but there’s people
10:00 a.m. I mean, pretty much get up and start that are getting the sleep and still feeling really
my day, but I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack truck. trashed in the morning. I think it would be helpful
So obviously, I talk about this in some other to put some qualifiers around that and talk
interviews. I was really out of whack, not aligned about some ways that you can really induce truly
with my own biology at all, and just felt exhausted restorative sleep.
when I woke up in the morning.
Nathan: Well, let’s first talk about intermittent

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fasting in that context because I’ve also recently that actually is focused on cellular repair because
started doing intermittent fasting. And I’ve been there’s three hours or more that are focused on
doing cleansing and detoxing and fasting and digesting the food.
stuff for almost 15 years now, but never really like
just water intermittent fasting every single day, So that’s something really important. If you are
16 hours without food, the time-restricted eating snacking late, if you’re eating late, if you’re waking
format. up and eating, that is something that needs to go
right away.
But the reason I want to bring this up is because
one, it is incredibly helpful for people with cancer That’s got to be a habit that’s got to be thrown
or any chronic disease. But two, the less food you out. So my last meal is at 8:00 p.m. now because
have in your body when you’re sleeping means, I’m doing the 16-8 intermittent fasting. So last
the more energy your body can put into cellular meal, I try to be done by 8:00 p.m.
repair.
And then don’t eat again until 12:00 p.m. the next
I will say that again for people because this is day. The reason for that is once you start passing
super important to get. The less food you have that 12-hour mark of no food in your body, then
in your body when you’re sleeping, the more your body starts to go into all right, let’s start
energy your body can put into cellular repair, burning fat.
into autophagy, into getting rid of dead cells,
malignant cells, cancer cells, into restoration and Let’s start producing ketones for energy. Ketones
rejuvenation. are anti-inflammatory. Great for cancer. But also
goes into once you get to that 16-hour phase
Now, I’ve had this problem because I’m a CrossFit without food, your body goes into producing
athlete for the past few years. So like I’m now more human growth hormone.
focused on adding more strength and things
like that, which means eating more than most Human growth hormone is super important,
people need to. But part of that bad habit that’s whether you have cancer or any metabolic
happened is I started eating late at night, and late disease, because it is a hormone that helps repair,
at night for me is like 10:00 p.m. When I go to bed, rejuvenate, replenish your body.
it’s like 10:30.
You get human growth hormone in three major
So I will eat a big bowl of what we call healthy times in our lives. One, after high-intensity
cereal, but I still eat like a big bowl of cereal, exercise. So I encourage people with cancer to
berries, and nuts and seeds and stuff in there at safely learn how to start doing high-intensity
10 o’clock and then go to bed at 10:30. Well, guess exercise, HIIT training. I have friends in their 70s
what? My body is in that state of, okay, we’ve got that have no problem doing HIIT training.
to digest this food for the next few hours before
Now, if you’re really depleted energetically, that’s
can even go into cellular repair.
why I said safely and also slowly build uptime, but
[30:00] there’s so much evidence. It’s a talk for another
day. High-intensity interval training, getting your
Well, I might be getting eight hours of sleep every heart rate up, resting, getting your heart rate up,
night, which is my goal and I typically do, but resting, you’ll produce human growth hormone.
there’s a good five hours there, four hours maybe The other place you produce HGH is in deep
sleep.

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So when you get to that deep sleep, that’s when it should be functioning, you won’t have a cancer
your body is producing HGH. And the third place diagnosis.
is when you’re fasting. At the 16-hour mark is
typically when people start producing HGH. It’s when our systems get bogged down from the
They will also start going into autophagy. They’re food, from the stress, from the lack of sleep from
burning ketones as energy. on and on and on and toxins and chemicals and
all these different things, then the immune system
So again, a talk for another day, but I just want to doesn’t function well, and we end up with a cancer
point that out there that intermittent fasting along diagnosis.
time-restricted eating is going to improve your
quality of sleep because the less food you have, Well, it takes at least 7 to 10 years for cancer to
the deeper you can get into sleep. even be identified in your body. So when you get
a cancer diagnosis, you’ve been forming cancer
And so let’s talk a little bit more about why that for years before it even was identified. In most
happens and then some more things that people cases, there’s some new tests you can find it
can do. One, obviously, we know two major earlier now, but anyway, that’s an important thing
hormones that affect our sleep. to understand is that when your immune system
is functioning at its potential, you won’t even have
You have melatonin, and you have cortisol. The cancer.
melatonin should start going up at night when
the sun goes down, and that starts shutting your Okay. So you have cancer. Well, so your immune
metabolic processes down and says, hey, it’s time system is even more important. More important
to sleep. to enhance your immune system. Well, melatonin
does this, and it’s not just about taking melatonin
And the cortisol should spike up in the morning as a supplement.
when you wake up the first half-hour of the
sunrise, and that starts telling your body, okay, You can do that. It’s about naturally secreting
it’s time to wake up. Let’s get some energy going. melatonin through your lifestyle behaviors at
Let’s get a little bit epinephrin, some adrenaline night. The reason the body starts producing
going, that sort of stuff. melatonin is because there’s no more light coming
in.
Well, what’s the significance of these two? One is
melatonin’s a natural antioxidant, and it detoxes Well, we screw that whole system up just like you
free radicals. It helps with bone formation and were talking about because we’ve got so much
protection, and it helps your immune system and blue light and red light and all these lights coming
your cardiovascular function—so important to in from computers and phones and televisions
understand with cancer with the immune system. and light bulbs.
Dr. Lodi, again, in my film, he says there is a cure
for cancer. It’s called your immune system. So it totally messes up melatonin production.
It reduces melatonin production, so you’re not
Every integrative medical doctor I’ve talked to going to sleep as deep and have that deep quality
have all agreed with this statement because I all sleep that you’re talking about where you wake up
ask them this question. They say absolutely. If feeling refreshed.
your immune system is functioning at its normal
potential, that’s higher potential, at the potential So getting these things dialed in, and I’ll share
with you my entire sleep routine of how to do

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that here in a moment, but really important to throughout the day because we’re stressed out.
understand the natural sleep cycle, the natural We’re worried. We’re anxious. We’re fearful.
circadian rhythm that your body wants is start Here’s the significance of this.
winding down less and less light. Candlelight is
fine because there’s no blue light coming off of it. When cortisol is elevated over longer periods
of time, it downregulates your immune system.
If you had candlelight coming off of like a beeswax Cortisol up, you just got stressed out because
candle, for example, but there’s things you can you watched the news. You’re driving to work.
mitigate that with because we live in modern Someone cuts you off. You get stressed out again.
society where we’re surrounded by lights.
Moonlight is fine. Moonlight has also been found Now you’re thinking about that stupid person.
to actually be healthy for your sleep. It doesn’t Then you’re at work, and you’re mad at your boss,
affect your circadian rhythm in a negative way. and then you go home, and you’re watching the
news again, and you’re angry again.
Actually, it affects your circadian rhythm in a
positive way, but streetlights do affect you in a And it’s just cortisol is elevated all day long. Well,
negative way. Melatonin, super important for the guess what’s happening to your immune system?
immune system. Instead of being upregulated to get rid of cancer
cells, it’s downregulated. Cortisol stress hormone
Cortisol, on the other hand, in the morning, we actually turns your immune system off. Literally
should go out in the morning. We should bring turns it down.
in that natural sunlight first 30 minutes of being
awake. I do yoga. I do some meditation. I do some So that’s where cortisol, as a stress hormone,
reading. I’ll sit there and read and drink some tea starts to become chronic, starts to become a
and watch the sun come in, just pour it in through problem. So getting our circadian rhythm in
the windows. balance is super important that we get that
natural melatonin production at night. We get that
Hopefully, it’s a sunny day. But still, even if it’s cortisol release in the morning.
behind the clouds, you’re still getting sunshine
coming in. And what does that do? Well, that tells And then throughout the day, we’re doing stress
your body okay. It’s time to go into active mode. reduction, practicing meditation, practicing yoga,
Tai Chi, qigong, going for a walkout in nature,
It increases glucose in your bloodstream. It sitting outside.
enhances the brain’s use of glucose so you
can start thinking. But also, cortisol makes the I love to stay outside between interviews or
availability of certain substances in your body to between work and get away from the computer
repair tissues. for 20 minutes. I’ll sit outside in the sunshine.
Even if it’s cold, I’ll put warm clothes on, but I’ll sit
So cortisol is not all bad. It also helps reduce out and get that sun just coming into my face.
inflammation and regulate your metabolism.
People think, oh, cortisol. It’s a stress hormone. I’ll read. I’ll relax a little bit, different relaxation
It’s bad. No, it’s not all bad. It’s actually a really techniques to keep your cortisol levels down
important hormone. during the day. And at night, it’s super important
that they go down as well.
We need to get it balanced. When it becomes
bad is when we have chronic cortisol production So that’s getting rid of the blue lights. It’s getting

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rid of, as you said, you wear the glasses. I actually REM into the deep, and everybody does. We cycle
changed all the light bulbs in our house to blue- through these things. So the more deep sleep in
light-blocking light bulbs and changed-- your sleep, the better.

I’ve got some apps and stuff I’ll share with people And generally speaking, there’s a number of
that you can change the computer screens, studies on this that I’ve found. There’s a number
change the lights. Your phone changes the lights of various percentages, but generally speaking, if
automatically, so all those things start to happen you can aim for 20% of your sleep in deep sleep,
more naturally. 20% or more in deep sleep, then you’re hitting
a very healthy number by all standards of sleep
So I don’t know if I answered your question, experts, sleep, scientists. So 20%.
but I wanted to give that framework for people
to understand the importance of the immune So if I’m sleeping eight hours a night, that’s an
system function, the importance of your hour and a half of deep sleep. And speaking of
circadian rhythm because cancer is all about your you said you have a garment. I use a WHOOP
immune system. So you get these things dialed to track sleep. And I’m not endorsing them by
in appropriately and get them in balance, and any means. The only way people can know-- I’m
your body’s natural ability to heal itself starts to pulling up my app right now so I can share with
increase. people.

Misty: So why don’t you just kind of go into your The only way you can know that you’re getting
morning routine and evening routine. I know you how much REM sleep, how much deep sleep is if
shared a lot and what you just described for really you track it. And so for these kinds of devices, I
helping with balancing cortisol and the immune highly encourage people to get them to track your
system, but why don’t you talk to us about the sleep to really see because I used to be in bed
routines that really help to induce great sleep? for eight hours. So I thought, oh, I’m getting eight
hours of sleep, but I started tracking it, and I’m
And I’m extra curious, as I told you before, we like, I’m in bed in for eight hours.
even started recording, about your deep sleep
hacks and the things that you do to induce deep I’m only sleeping six hours. What the heck is
sleep. So your tips, and then let’s talk about how going on? Just that knowledge helped me to start
to get deeper sleep when you are sleeping. optimizing even more. So I went from six hours
to six and a half and six and a half to seven and
[40:00] seven. And now I’m even in bed more.
Nathan: Absolutely. So deep sleep, why is it super Like last night I was in bed for almost nine hours,
important for people with cancer? Autophagy, which is more common for me now because I
anti-inflammatory. It helps your body to restore, know if I’m in bed for nine hours, like I got eight
repair, regenerate new cells, importance of deep hours and 14 minutes of sleep last night for being
sleep—so critical. A lot of people don’t recognize in bed for eight hours and 49 minutes. I know that
the difference between-- they think REM sleep is because there’s times when you’re awake, even
deep sleep. It’s not. though you’re not consciously awake.
Deep sleep is a totally different cycle. REM is You have your light sleep REM. So last night, I got
super important for your brain, for your mind, an hour and 46 minutes of deep sleep. And then
for your emotions, but you got to get beyond

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two hours and 10 minutes of REM sleep. And the But also, those things stimulate your brain and
night before which I came up with a 97% recovery, keep your brain awake. So you need to start
same thing, an hour and a half of deep sleep, getting your brain ready for sleep an hour and a
three hours of REM sleep. So even more than half at night. There’s something, at least on the
normal. But my point being is that tracking this is iPhone.
super important.
Again, I’m not endorsing Apple, but that’s the
I also have a disclaimer there. These devices are phone I use. There’s something called night shift.
Bluetooth, and Bluetooth is an EMF. We know So if you go to settings, you go to display and
EMFs are inflammatory and can lead to cancer. brightness, and you go to night shift.
Well, it’s a low-grade Bluetooth. They have it like-- I
forget what’s called. It’s like a really low second- I have mine set for 8:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., and so
grade Bluetooth. the screen gets darker and darker and darker in
the evening to where it’s like you can’t even barely
But what I do is about once a month, I take it off see it like after 8 p.m. So it’s an automatic way for
for an entire week. Okay. Because I’m tracking your kind of a phone hack. And that’s called night
mostly for performance, human optimization, shift in your settings.
health, and healing for being an athlete, so I wear
it more often than maybe somebody else needs I have an app on my computer. If I’m working at
to. I take it off a full week and let my body totally night, which I rarely do anymore. I try to be done
detox every single month. by 5:00 p.m. every day now, even though I used
to work like I’d go like an entire 48 hours without
I think it’s super important because some of sleeping, working. I don’t do that to myself
these sleep hacks I’m going to share with you are anymore. I value sleep way too much, but there’s
about that. So here’s my personal sleep routine an app on the computer that’s called F.lux, flux.
at night. This is for increasing melatonin, is for
upregulating cortisol, downregulating cortisol, F.lux, so I think it was free when I got it a long time
upregulating your immune system. So imagine ago. It turns down the blue light. The computer
camping or living sustainably in nature. That’s like screen starts getting darker in the afternoon.
the most optimum way. Caffeine, like caffeine, has a half-life of six hours. I
stop caffeine eight hours before bed. So if I want
Your phone’s off. You have no internet. You have to be asleep by 10 o’clock, I don’t have caffeine
no outside artificial lights. The sun goes down, and after 2.
you might sit by the fire for a couple of hours, and
you go to bed. Now, how can we kind of emulate If you’re sensitive to caffeine, you even want to
that here in our modern world? go longer than that, 10 to 12 hours. So I just don’t
have any caffeine after 2 anymore. You can be
Well, one, technology off at least an hour-- We’ve one of those people that go, yeah, I can have a
been doing an hour and a half to two hours at cup of coffee at night and still go to bed.
night before bed. So we turn the TV off. And we
might read, talk, do some different things in the Fine. Yes, you can. But I would challenge you to
evening, but turning that off to one, turn all the go 8 hours to 10 hours before bed for at least
lights off, technology coming from your television a couple of weeks, track your sleep and see
or phone and things like that. how much your deep sleep and your REM sleep
improves.

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It has been proven. Caffeine is in the system boom, I’m out. 10 o’clock, 10:30 at the latest, I’m
when you’re sleeping it absolutely puts a negative out. And so when you add them all together, now
impact, a negative effect on your REM sleep and you have the stacked huge nightly routine that is
your deep sleep. easy to do.

So quitting caffeine at least eight hours. As I They all just fall on top of one another pretty
mentioned earlier, we changed all the light bulbs easily, but they deeply improve the quality and
in our entire house in every room to blue-light- the length, and the depth of your sleep. And then
blocking light bulbs. I got those on Amazon. I’m in the morning, same thing, super important.
not proud of that, but I did.
I already shared that. Get up in the morning, get
We read to the kids at night as part of the routine. that cortisol from the sunlight, do something
So I have two kids, 10-year-old, 5-year-old, so my active, get the body moving. So all of these things
wife and I will either read to them together, or impact your circadian rhythm.
we’ll take turns reading. It’s just part of our nightly
routine. When you go to sleep, it should be the same time
every night. When you wake up, it should be the
As everyone here probably knows, darkroom, same time every morning. And then your routine
all lights off, not a single light in the room, all should be very similar, and your circadian clock
technology off right before bed. So Wi-Fi, I have it gets dialed in, and your sleep improves and your
plugged into a surge strip. Come down here, click chronic disease as well.
the button, all the Wi-Fi is off. All the phones are
on airplane mode, all these things. Your body’s ability to help get rid of the cancer
cells improves significantly because of, like
And then your routine is you’re getting into bed. we talked about, anti-inflammatory effects,
All these things I’m sharing with you are proven autophagy, immune system is upregulated,
lifestyle changes that not only help your length of getting rid of cancer cells, lymphatic system.
sleep, as we know seven to nine hours is ideal, but
your quality of sleep and getting into that deep So I get up in the morning, jump on a little-- we
sleep. have a little bounce trampoline. Do some yoga,
get moving, read, have some tea, boom, ready to
So all the technology off and then a gratitude go for my day.
practice. So whatever your practice. It could be
a spiritual practice. It could be prayer. Mine is a Misty: Yeah. As we’re wrapping up here, why
gratitude practice. don’t you finish us off by talking a little bit about
deep sleep because that’s really what I think we
I’ll lay there in bed, my eyes closed, and I’ll just all want to aim for is outside of just being in bed
think about all the things I’m grateful for the day. and getting sleep is we really want to foster lots of
And I ask for guidance and kind of a little prayer deep sleep.
for guidance for the next day and the things I’ll be
grateful for for the next day as well. I know we’ve talked about a few things already
during this interview. Do you have any other
And then from there, I’ll either immediately fall interesting hacks or strategies for helping to
asleep because that gratitude practice is like a induce more deep sleep in the body?
meditation, and you just fall asleep or 90% of the
time I read, so I’ll read 10 to 20 minutes, and then Nathan: There is so much to be said for exercise,

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and I only mentioned it briefly, but actually it is of getting that out of your system eight hours
proven that especially if you have cancer-- so I before. It’s going to help your deep sleep a lot.
have a nine-module masterclass I’m teaching in
July called Becoming Cancer Free. But again, I just can’t speak enough about the
importance and value of exercise. People don’t
I have an entire module on this topic alone and necessarily associate exercise, fitness, what I call
all the science behind exercise and how it affects medicinal movement with sleep, but it absolutely
your sleep and your deep sleep, but I’ll just put it improves the quality and the depth of your sleep.
super simple
Misty: Awesome. Well, this has been a fantastic
If you exercise at least five days a week, really six conversation. Thank you so much, Nathan, for
days a week, and you do a combination of balance coming on and sharing with us and giving us so
training, high-intensity interval training, weight many great insights, not only into the science,
training—and yes, this is for people 60 and 70, which I personally find that understanding the
it doesn’t matter your age—weight training, and science and why things work like they do gives me
cardiovascular training, so you don’t have to do all leverage to actually implement all of the hacks
four every day, but all four are super important to and strategies.
spread out throughout the week.
So it was really great to get a nice overview of
[50:00] why sleep is so important and how it’s connected
in the literature, but then also so many great
You should be getting close to an hour per day. strategies for what we can do to improve our
I know it’s going to scare most people, but the sleep. So if someone is interested in finding out
science shows us if you want to improve your more about you, where can they find you online?
quality of deep sleep, if you want to improve
longevity in your life, if you want to improve Nathan: Yeah, the easiest place is probably just
the quality of your body’s ability to heal itself, Nathancrane.com, and then you can get to the
you want to get all four of these things spread various projects and documentaries and different
throughout the week at least an hour per day. An things there. Thanks for having me, Misty. I
example might be like I go and jog or fast walk or appreciate it. I appreciate everybody here for
cycle for a half hour. tuning in. So I wish you all health and happiness.

And then I do a little bit of weight training. It Misty: Awesome. Yes. Well, thank you so much,
doesn’t have to be crazy heavy. It doesn’t have to Nathan. And thanks, everyone, for joining us. We
be CrossFit, even though I do CrossFit. I love it. It will see you soon. Bye for now.
doesn’t have to be CrossFit.

For you, you can get a personal trainer, help you

with some weight training. All of these different
things help your body’s natural ability to do what
it was designed to do, which is at night, be tired,
melatonin turning on, immune system turning on
saying, it’s time for sleep.

You go to sleep. You get into deep sleep. Again,

I talked about caffeine a lot, just the importance

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Healing Fibromyalgia, Low

Moods and IBS
Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Misty: Hey everybody, Misty Williams here Orthomolecular Medicine, and Heart Disease: What
your host for Your Best Sleep Ever and founder Your Doctor Won’t Tell You. Welcome Rodger!
of Healing Rosie, and I’m stoked about the
interview that I’m about to do with Dr. Rodger Dr. Murphree: Well thanks Misty, I’m delighted
Murphree. Many of you guys know that I recently to be here. I really think this is such a needed
lost my cousin to fibromyalgia, rheumatoid conversation that we’re going to have about how
arthritis, diabetes, she had a whole host of deep restorative sleep is, I really believe, the key
medical issues. And was following a conventional for good health.
treatment path to try to get well that included lots
of opiates and narcotics and medications. Misty: Yeah, well I would love for you to kind
of just open up with a little intro. I was really
And I’ve happened to know a lot of women who’ve interested to hear before we started, kind of
really struggled with fibromyalgia and different how you got involved in this fibro space. And this
autoimmune diseases as they’re getting older. So, is, this is going to be interesting and important
this conversation is a really, really, important one to those that are dealing with fibromyalgia
for all of the women and even some men who especially, or if you’ve got some kind of
are dealing with autoimmunity and dealing with autoimmune disease or you’re seeing in your
fibromyalgia and really struggling to get sleep. markers that you might be trending or you’re
And struggling to feel better and feel your energy wondering what might be there. I really loved
restored and really feel well again. hearing how this whole space unfolded for you.

So, Dr. Roger Murphree is a board-certified Dr. Murphree: Well you know, so you asked me,
chiropractic physician and board-certified I think a lot of times people ask me well, “How
nutritional specialist. He’s an international did you get into fibromyalgia?” And part of that
recognized fibromyalgia expert and his Murphree I think is because they’re questioning my sanity.
Method, a combination of functional and I mean, why would you do that? And I can say
orthomolecular medicine, has helped thousands that with really, with affection and all the love
of patients get healthy and feel good again. that it deserves because I’ve been specializing in
fibromyalgia for twenty years and I know these
He’s the author of three books for patients patients so well. But nobody would choose
and doctors including, Treating and Beating fibromyalgia as a physician because they’re so
Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, hard.
Treating and Beating Anxiety and Depression with

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But that’s exactly why I ended up choosing that I felt like would help my patients. And twenty
them twenty years ago. I had a patient that was years later, now I’m using all of that knowledge
referred to me, Sheila Jones, and she had recently that I’ve gathered over the last twenty years to
been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, now twenty have success with this thing called fibromyalgia.
years ago we really didn’t know much about
fibromyalgia, in fact I’d really not heard the name Misty: So why don’t you, for those who maybe
mentioned hardly at all back then. have a fibromyalgia diagnosis and they don’t
really understand what it means. Or for those
But Sheila came to me, because I was known kind who are dealing with autoimmunity and are still
of as the doctor to help medical misfits. People getting educated about what this is and what it
who have kind of tried everything, couldn’t get means and what’s happening. Why don’t you help
well and I was doing functional medicine. Some us understand what fibromyalgia is?
real cutting-edge testing and nutritional therapies
for my patients. Dr. Murphree: Yeah, Misty, that’s a great question
because there’s so much misinformation out there
And I was able to get Sheila well in three months. about fibromyalgia. I mean, a lot of people don’t
Now, for those of you that have fibromyalgia, believe it exists. I mean there’s medical doctors
when you hear that that’s an instant, “Yeah right. even today who won’t acknowledge the existence
It doesn’t happen that way.” And it has never of fibromyalgia which is very infuriating to me and
happened that way again, but I was just naive... certainly to the fibromyalgia community.

Misty: It was a little kiss from the universe to say, Fibromyalgia is a name. It’s a name given to a
here’s the path. group of symptoms that people have in common.
And we call these symptoms fibromyalgia. So
Dr. Murphree: I quickly came down to earth those symptoms include diffuse, sometimes
and realized that it wasn’t that easy. Because debilitating disabling pain, chronic pain, low
what happened was I had become known in energy, poor sleep, irritable bowel syndrome,
the community, again from, in the conventional restless leg syndrome, anxiety, depression, the
medical community I’d done a lot of research list can get rather lengthily because once a person
work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham starts to develop these symptoms associated with
here in Birmingham Alabama, and they found out fibromyalgia it’s a matter of time before there
I was helping people with fibromyalgia, you know health continues to suffer and the symptoms
one person. continue to add up.

And they started sending me all these fibro But fibromyalgia is a syndrome, so it’s a name
patients, Misty, because they didn’t know what given to these group of symptoms that people
to do with them. And I had a choice I could either have in common, what makes it a challenge
sink or swim. I could either turn them away or I is that fibromyalgia itself doesn’t cause pain.
could really try to figure out you know, what is this Fibromyalgia itself doesn’t cause the low energy.
all about. And luckily and I think rightfully this is Fibromyalgia itself doesn’t cause the low moods.
what I was put on the earth to do. There’s underlying reasons for these symptoms.

I went for years going to anybody that was having Unfortunately, in conventional medicine that’s
any kind of success at any component of health not how conventional medicine is set up.

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Conventional medicine, as you well know from Misty: So, the fibromyalgia patients that I
your journey, is set up to treat the symptoms. And know, that I have personal relationships with,
then by treating the symptoms, if we can manage exhaustion, not sleeping, just debilitating brain
the symptoms, then typically the patients happy fog seem to be hallmark conditions. Why are
and the doctor’s happy but with fibromyalgia it people struggling so much with energy and
doesn’t work that way. sleep when they have any kind of auto-immune
diagnosis?
One reason is there’s just too many dang
symptoms. So, with fibro if you’re trying to drug, Dr. Murphree: Well, for the
use a drug for every symptom. Pretty soon you’re fibromyalgia community it’s again, this is a name.
on half a dozen to a dozen drugs and then that’s And we could call it Jane Doe disease, we can call
a recipe for disaster. Drug therapy alone is a dead it Roger Jones disease, I mean it doesn’t matter
end for these people. putting a name on group of symptoms. But if you
look at these symptoms a lot of people in our
Misty: So how does fibromyalgia get diagnosed, society have some of these symptoms, some of
is it diagnosed based purely on symptoms? Is them have all of these symptoms and have never
there something that we’re seeing in lab work been diagnosis with fibromyalgia, they just don’t
that kind of correlates the symptoms to indicate a feel good.
fibromyalgia diagnosis?
And with the fibromyalgia community though,
Dr. Murphree: Well typically the diagnosis is what we see is really the catalyst for this
a process of elimination. And it may take, the syndrome is stress. And I think catalyst for most
diagnosis is happening quicker than it used to, but diseases, and you ask most doctors if they’ll be
it can be up to seven years and twelve different candid with you, eight five percent of the disease
doctors before you ever get the diagnosis. And processes that are out there, whether you call that
part of that is because doctors are looking at an autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis
blood work that normally comes back normal. or you have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or you
have type two diabetes or high blood pressure,
There’s not, often times the inflammatory markers whatever it is. A large majority of that is brought
are normal, there’s not anything in there that on by stress.
we’re seeing that stands out. But it’s really a
process of elimination to make sure they don’t And in the fibromyalgia community in particular,
have rheumatoid arthritis or Sjogren’s or MS or this stress is something that plagues them for a
maybe rule out they don’t have Lyme disease, and number of years typically until something comes
some of these other things that are out there. along that’s the straw that breaks the camels back.
And that could be a surgery, you know ninety
And then eventually though the doctor, he or eight percent of the people with fibromyalgia are
she, will tell them you’ve got fibromyalgia. And women. So, it could be hysterectomy but it could
then typically when that happens, the patient is be any type of surgery.
told you’re just going to have to learn to live with
it, we can give you some drugs to help manage It could be some time of illness that they had
it, but you’re going to have to learn to live with come down with, whether that’s a real bad case
fibromyalgia. of mono or something they developed in upper
respiratory infection. It can be some type of

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trauma. But something is the stressor, it’s the last understand the landscape of what internal stress
straw, that comes along and that’s it. And they could be, it’s like vast. What could be stressing
can’t recover from that. you out internally you could have viruses that
are going crazy. I personally was infected with
They get so run down that they can’t recover. Epstein-Barr virus my practitioner suspects it’s
And the first symptoms typically are generalized been a thirty year, chronic infection that has just
aches and pains. So maybe they have some worn my body down over time.
aches and pains in their shoulder or their neck.
And then that starts to develop maybe into their It can be gut infections, it can be heavy metal or
extremities, so they see it in their legs and their mold toxicity. I mean there’s teeth, dental issues,
feet. there’s so many things that we wouldn’t even
think of that could be creating stress.
And then the next piece of the domino that falls,
that really is the last piece that then propels And then of course all the external stress and the
them into this thing called fibromyalgia is they trauma. Unresolved things from childhood, you
don’t sleep at night. So, they start to suffer with know Dr. Keesha Ewers calls it capital T trauma
insomnia and once that happens it’s only a matter or lower t trauma. And you kind of lump this
of time before they start to see all the other whole conversation into this metaphor of a stress
symptoms of fibromyalgia show up. savings account. Why don’t you tell us about each
one of ours stress savings account?
The fatigue, I mean if you’re not getting a good
night sleep, if that’s a rarity then obviously you’re Dr. Murphree: Sure, sure. I like to use this
going to be tired. But we also see if you’re not analogy that we’re all born with a stress coping
getting a good night sleep, you’re going to have savings account. And in the stress coping
low moods. You’re going to feel more anxious, savings account we have certain chemicals,
you’re going to feel depressed, you’re going to see we have hormones like serotonin, dopamine,
that irritable bowel starts to show up, restless leg cortisol, DHEA, we have vitamins and minerals,
syndrome starts to show up. magnesium, pantothenic acid, but we have these
So, I think that stress is really the catalyst for most chemicals that allow us to be able to deal with
diseases but in particular fibro it’s really the thing stress.
that just brings on this exhaustion that they can
never recover from. And we’re all under stress, I mean all day long
we have real or imagined stress. And as we go
Misty: Mm-hmm. So one of the things that’s through each day we’re able to draw from this
coming up for me is something that I learned savings account, use these chemicals, that’s what
pretty early in my journey, I had a teacher who they do, they allow us to be able to handle stress.
told me that there was one reason that we got But for those with fibromyalgia or someone with
sick, one reason that our bodies were breaking a chronic illness, if they’re not careful they can
down, one reason that we were struggling and deplete and actually bankrupt their stress coping
that was stress. And that stress could be internal savings account.
stress or it could be external stress. And really
what our job was, was to figure it out. And when that happens, now what we start to see
is they’re waking up everyday trying to face the
Well little did I know at the time, now I really stressors, real or imagined, that they encounter

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on a daily basis and they have no chemicals. opportunity to repair itself.

They have nothing there to be able to handle
these situations. So now stress becomes more But you’re also, during that time, you’re making
magnified. Little things that used to not bother deposits of serotonin, which is the happy
them. hormone, people probably associate that with
moods, low moods or anxiety. But when you’re
You know my patients in particular, the thought getting this good night sleep you’re filling up your
of going to Walmart or the thought of going to stress coping savings account with serotonin and
the grocery store, the thought of hosting a dinner dopamine and cortisol and DHEA and all these
party, I mean these are things that can send them things that you need.
into a flare that may last two or three weeks.
It’s the things that you and I, Misty, we take for But if you’re not getting deep restorative sleep,
granted, it’s just daily living. you’re going to become deficient. And then it sets
up this vicious cycle, because if you’re not getting
For those with fibromyalgia who have depleted deep restorative sleep and you wake up the next
their stress coping savings account, these things day, you’re going to be more anxious, you’re going
are insurmountable stressors that they can’t to be vulnerable to stressors because you don’t
tolerate and they generate all sorts of symptoms. have those chemicals to deal with it. And I said, it
Whether that’s more pain, more problems with becomes more magnified, and then you further
fatigue, anxiety, depression. All these things start deplete your chemicals, you get into further and
to show up when you bankrupt your stress coping further deficit.
savings account.
Serotonin is so important in the fibromyalgia
Misty: I love the idea that it’s actually a set of community and really for most individuals, in
chemicals because I think that makes, for me particular females. Serotonin, as I mentioned,
anyways, I’m actually kind of visualizing a little bit is the happy hormone. But the higher your
more of what’s happening with the stress in the serotonin level, the higher your pain threshold.
body. And these chemicals all tie in to sleep. So, we see with fibromyalgia or other chronic pain
states, we see that if you have a low serotonin,
And so I would love for you to kind of break you’re going to see your pain threshold goes
down the chemicals in the stress coping savings down so pain is magnified.
account that you’re specifically talking about and
where relevant, tie that back in, so that we start And it doesn’t matter where that pain is
understanding what’s really happening and going coming from. If the pain is being triggered from
on if we suffer from fibromyalgia rheumatoid osteoarthritis, wear and tear arthritis, then it’s
arthritis, auto immune stuff, we’re having those going to be more magnified then it normally
flares and we’re at our whit’s end and want to would be. If you have osteoporosis, if you have
understand what we can do about it. bone loss, that bone loss is going to be, the pain
driven from that is going to be more pronounced
Dr. Murphree: Yeah, so you know the way that than it would be if you had a higher serotonin
you make deposits into the stress coping savings level.
account is by getting deep restorative sleep. And
when you get deep restorative sleep, what we Same thing for scar tissue or failed surgeries,
call delta wave sleep, that gives your body the so the key in the fibromyalgia community, in

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particular, is to raise that serotonin level, because have an amino acid in there called L-tryptophan,
as you raise the serotonin level what you see is when you eat those foods, that L-tryptophan
the pain threshold goes up, pain goes down. As should then when combined with B vitamins
you raise the serotonin level you see that they’re and magnesium and vitamin C, it should turn
able to handle stress better. It helps with mental into serotonin. But if you have a genetic glitch,
clarity. It helps obviously, it’s the happy hormone, just the way God made you, you can’t make that
so it helps with moods. It reduces anxiety. And conversion.
the other thing it improves is irritable bowel
syndrome. And now you’re at a disadvantage because for
a number of years you do okay but then in your
So, people may not make that connection but we adolescent years or maybe your early adulthood
have more serotonin receptors in our intestinal you get under a lot of stress from whatever
tract than we do in our brain. And that’s obvious reason, and now you can’t keep up with the
when you get nervous, you get under stress, you demands of serotonin that you need because
get butterflies in your stomach and not in your you can’t convert the food that you’re eating into
brain. So, this low serotonin state creates irritable serotonin so it sets up this deficiency.
bowel syndrome, as well as it does the pain, and
the fibro fog or brain fog, and low moods and Most patients who have fibromyalgia are told
anxiety. that they need to be taking an anti-depressant.
Now most patients with fibromyalgia suffer from
So, the first key, for my fibromyalgia patients is anxiety and depression. Erroneously they’re often
getting them going into deep restorative sleep so led to believe or told that their low moods are
they can make these deposits. And the one that the cause of fibromyalgia. And that’s not true.
we really want to get the deposits up there is the What is true is the flipside of that which is the
serotonin. Super, super important that we do fibromyalgia is triggering the low moods.
that.
I mean who wouldn’t be anxious and depressed if
Misty: So, if you don’t have a lot of those you had an illness that nobody really understood,
chemicals, doesn’t that affect your ability to get and nobody really could help you with. That’s
into deep restorative sleep? pretty depressing. But serotonin comes from
an amino acid tryptophan, that turns into
Dr. Murphree: Absolutely, so the thing is about 5-hydroxytryptophan which you can buy over the
serotonin, people are familiar with that because counter, and that combined with these B vitamins,
of anti-depressants. One in ten women in the magnesium and vitamin C, that makes serotonin.
United Sates, I think has either taken an anti-
depressant or is taking one or more. The statistics And the great thing about 5-HTP is it also
are pretty shocking. But no one has an anti- increases your natural sleep hormone, melatonin,
depressant deficiency. by two hundred percent. So if you start to use the
protocol, and I’ll get into those in just a moment,
But you can have a serotonin deficiency and you you’ll see pretty quickly that not only do you start
develop that by not getting the rest that you need. to raise your serotonin levels and you have less
pain, mental clarity improves, moods improve,
Now you can also have a genetic glitch to where irritable bowel improves.
the foods that you’re eating, the proteins that

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But you also see that your sleep starts to With my fibro patients this is what I have them do,
dramatically improve and now you’re making I have them take 5-Hydroxytryptophan, you can
these deposits and you actually start to build up a find it at any health food store and you want to
reserve of these chemicals, especially serotonin, start with one hundred milligrams thirty minutes
that allow you to be able to handle the stress that before bed, on an empty stomach with just a little
you’ve been under. bit of grape juice. It doesn’t take much, you don’t
need much, maybe about an ounce mixed with
Misty: So why don’t you kind of segue here and water. And that helps it to get past the blood brain
talk about the sleep protocol that you recommend barrier quicker, so it works quicker.
for your patients. Because this is an area that
you’ve had lots of success and I’m sure there are But you start with one hundred milligrams and
people that are kind of nodding, like you’ve seen you increase each night up to three hundred
me nodding, as you were talking, understanding milligrams, or until you find that you’re able to fall
how all of these correlations could happen. Talk to asleep within forty-five minutes and then sleep
us about what we need to do, if we find our self in good the night. Again, 5-HTP is going to increase
this situation. your natural sleep hormone melatonin by two
hundred percent.
Dr. Murphree: Yeah, well so in the
fibromyalgia community in particular, the number Now one of three things happen if you start taking
one thing they have to get right, and I’ve learned 5-HTP. One, you fall asleep and you sleep through
this the hard way for twenty years. They have to the night and we’ve got you fixed. Two, you take
get deep restorative sleep, they have to get their it and it doesn’t do anything and that’s typical, so
serotonin level up. And you don’t have to have you increase the dose two hundred and then the
fibromyalgia for this protocol to help you. next night you go to three hundred. If it doesn’t
work after you get to three hundred milligrams a
If you find that you have low moods, pain is night then that’s when I recommend you start to
more magnified, you struggle to fall asleep, you add if you’re not done that already, melatonin.
struggle to stay asleep, maybe you’re withdrawing
from life, you know you’re kind of hibernating, And my patients start with three milligrams,
you’re kind of removing yourself because you preferably sublingual, so you let it dissolve
feel overwhelmed and stressed out . These are underneath the tongue, so it bypasses the liver
all signs of low serotonin. And if you have low and gets into your blood stream really quickly. But
serotonin you’re going to find your sleep is going sublingual melatonin, start with three milligrams,
to suffer, whether you develop fibromyalgia or you can go as high as ten milligrams and you
not. combine that with the 5-HTP and then hopefully
that’s successful to allow you to fall asleep within
It just happens with fibromyalgia that once they forty-five minutes.
start to suffer with poor sleep, that’s the slippery
slope, that’s the last thing before they actually The third thing that can happen, Misty, is patients
come down with fibromyalgia. But if you have any can take the 5-HTP and instead of making them
of those triggers, if you have any of those things sleepy it makes them more alert. Now, the people
going on that I mentioned and that I just shared that are watching this, you know who you are,
with you, then you would benefit from taking you’re the weirdos, you know there’s one in every
5-HTP. crowd, right. Not to pick on you because I work

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with a lot of patients who are special. And they’ll wake up in two and half, three hours.
take the 5-HTP and typically they’re people, Misty,
who they have funny reactions to medications, But the first thing I focus on in this thing called the
they have chemical sensitivities, and their liver Murphree method is deep restorative sleep. If I
can’t break down that 5-HTP fast enough so when don’t get that right with my patients, so that’s the
they take one hundred milligrams it’s like taking first thing we have to really, hurdle we have to get
two thousand milligrams, it’s too much. It’s too over. Nothing I do, nothing I do helps.
much.
So, twenty years I’ve specialized in helping people
If that happens don’t become discouraged. Take with getting that deep restorative sleep. That
the 5-HTP during the day, since it makes you process, getting it back on track, because I know if
alert, but take it with food, it will slow down the I don’t I’m never going to make progress with that
absorption as well. And then what you want to patient.
do is take it, one hundred milligrams at lunch, do
that for three or four days, make sure you’re not Misty: So, you’re talking about getting to sleep
having any kind of reaction you shouldn’t. and staying asleep. My question is just because
you’re sleeping through the night, are we
And then increase it up to three hundred making an assumption that you’re getting deep
milligrams with food. You’ll still see the benefits restorative sleep? Like how do you work with your
of taking the 5-HTP when combined with a good patients to make sure the sleep they’re getting is
multi-vitamin. Less pain, increased mental clarity, actually deep restorative sleep?
improved moods, probably see IBS improve,
and then you’re going to see that your sleep will Dr. Murphree: Well, they feel restored. They feel
improve as well. like they’ve rested. Now, you can go into dream
states, you know it’s a whole series that you go
Now there’s also the challenge with, there’s through. Alpha, beta, theta, delta, you know delta
people who fall asleep but then they can’t stay is the deepest. But you go through these dream
asleep. And for those individuals there’s a whole states and you could wake up in the morning
list of things that need to be explored, whether feeling exhausted from the dream states.
that’s low blood sugar, elevated cortisol levels, low
DHEA levels, there’s a whole list of things that can But typically, what I’m looking for, for my patients,
happen to generate waking up in the middle of what I want to hear is, “Dr. Murphree I’m feeling
the night. more energetic. My mental clarity is better.” You
know, I’m hearing these things. Now, I don’t know
But an easy fix for that, just to keep things simple about you, Misty, but at fifty eight I don’t wake up
for this presentation, is that if you do wake up in bright eyed and bushy tailed and part of that is
the middle of the night there’s natural things you I’ve got a million projects going on, and probably
can take to help you go back to sleep. Gamma don’t get enough rest. You know six hours is kind
aminobutyric acid, L theanine, valerian root, of what I need, and that eventually catches up
ashwagandha and I’ve developed certain products with me.
for my patients that they use that helps, to when
they take this it will allow them to go back to sleep But typically, you’re going to know that you’re
within fifteen or twenty minutes. They don’t feel getting enough sleep. A lot of people with these
hungover, don’t feel dopey, even if they have to Fitbits, these things that they have. I personally

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don’t put a lot of stock into those. For some Dr. Murphree: Absolutely, so we look at, there’s
people six hours is, I mean, if they get six hours, I really four things that really are what I call the
mean they’re a new person. For other people they jump start process for helping patients to get on
need nine. the right track with fibro. Deep restorative sleep is
number one.
And it’s a matter of finding that for you but if
you’re, and I think maybe just to kind of see where Number two, and if you have fibromyalgia you
you’re going with this, if someone’s asking well, struggle with your sleep, if you don’t struggle with
“Do I need to be taking 5-HTP or do I need to be your sleep you don’t have fibromyalgia you’ve
taking melatonin or something else to get me into got something else. So, you’ve been diagnosed
a deeper sleep.” I would say, if you don’t struggle incorrectly. Number two is adrenal fatigue. You’ve
to fall asleep, and you don’t struggle with waking got to fix adrenal fatigue.
up in the middle of the night to back to sleep, I
don’t think you really have got an issue with low So, your adrenal glands are these two pea sized
melatonin or needing to boost your serotonin. glands that sit on top of your kidneys and they’re
super important. They’re small but they’re really
Now that may change if you have anxiety and important because they release your stress
depression. You know we talked a little about coping hormones, cortisol and DHEA. And not
that. But how would you know? You would only only have my patients depleted their stress coping
know by just experimenting with taking a low savings account but they’ve also bankrupted their
dose maybe of melatonin. And I think that’s a stress coping hormones, cortisol and DHEA.
smart thing to do because as we get older, we see That leads to stress becoming more magnified
our melatonin levels really go down, they really go and be more vulnerable to flares.
down year after year after we get into our forties
and fifties. So what happens is, patients get a good nights
sleep and now because they actually have a
Misty: So, I want to ask a bonus question brain that actually works, they have a little bit of
because, because I can. (laugh) Because you energy, have less pain. They overdo it. And for
said something that I have seen a lot lately in my them it could be something as simple as going
community, it seems serendipitous that we’re to the grocery shopping but for others it may be
having this conversation because it’s come up a something much more demanding or stressful
lot this week. I want to talk a little bit about the like working in the yard all day, or planting a
fibro flares because this is something that a lot of garden, or you know whatever it is.
women find themselves dealing with.
But if they’ve not fixed their adrenal fatigue then
It’s unbelievably debilitating. It seems to knock off they can’t, they don’t have the stamina and the
everything else in the body, there’s women in my resistance to stress. So it really takes it out of
community who have fibro flares and it knocks them and that’s when they start to develop a flare.
their periods of whack, and it just seems like And that flare can be triggered, and this sounds
nothing is right in the world. They’re not sleeping. really silly to a lot of people out there who don’t
If you have a patient that is experiencing a fibro know about fibromyalgia, but those who have it
flare do you have a protocol or recommendation totally get it. But that stressor could be a change
for them? in weather.

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You know stressors, that stress could be bright can handle stress, so you can have more stamina
lights, loud noises, crowds, it could be simple to it. So to answer your question, how do they
things that you and I, Misty, we take for granted. handle the flare? Well first of all, making sure
We don’t think about that. But for them it doesn’t they’re building these chemicals up so they have
take a whole lot because they don’t have the them, and then second if they do find that they’re
stamina, the resistance to stress. All it takes is a in a flare, I would get them to increase the 5-HTP
phone call from their sister at eight PM with some up to five hundred milligrams a day.
bad news, something stressful, and they don’t
sleep for two or three days, they’re in a flare for Because we want to get that serotonin level
two or three days just from that little bit of stress way up because the higher serotonin, the more
that’s impacted them. mental clarity you have, the less anxious you are,
the less depressed you are, less likely to have
So the second thing that has to happen is to fix irritable bowel, your pain goes down. All those
the adrenal glands. And you do that, you can do things are super important. So, we increase the
it with prescription Cortef, which is one fifth the 5-HTP and then we double the dose of the adrenal
strength of prednisone, so it’s safe to take on an cortex, depending on what that patient is taking,
ongoing basis unlike prednisone a steroid that can depending on the testing.
cause weight gain, supressed immune system and
all the bad baggage that goes with that. But if you’re taking it on your own, then whatever
the dose you’re on, typically I recommend two
But in my practice, I use an over the counter hundred and fifty milligrams at breakfast, two
glandular, which is a supplement, adrenal hundred and fifty milligrams at lunch. And you
cortex glandular that helps to start to the fix the can just double that dose when you get under a
adrenal gland problem. So when patients start flare.
to get deep restorative sleep and they’re taking
adrenal cortex, and they’re also by the way taking Now the other part of that question is, how do
a high dose multi-vitamin that’s five hundred you prevent a flare? So if people are, patients are
times stronger than the RDA, and I call that the working with using the jump start process, these
recommended disease allowance. four things we’re working on. Then they can go
ahead and increase their 5-HTP and increase the
It’s just enough to keep you from getting scurvy or adrenal cortex when they know they’re going to
beriberi, you know like a One-a-Day or Centrum get in a stressful situation. In laws are coming.
Silver, it’s, you know when you’ve got a problem (laugh)
like fibromyalgia or some other chronic illness
taking something like that and expecting it to Misty: Right.
even do anything. Number one you can’t probably
absorb it because it’s so many fillers and things Dr. Murphree: Or Christmas, or whatever it is,
in there. But you replenish your stress coping you know not to pick on in-laws, I’ve got some
chemicals, deep restorative sleep but also taking great in-laws. But you know teenager troubles or
these high doses of vitamins, minerals, amino your daughter’s coming home from college, or
acids and essential fatty acids that I recommend whatever it is. You know going into it that you’re
to my patients. probably going to be under a lot of stress. So I
have my patients go ahead and increase those
And then you start to fix the adrenals so that you supplements and to go ahead and get their

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chemicals up so they’re able to better handle to try to help people, just you know where do
these situations. you start? What do you do? There’s so many
symptoms with fibro, you know what are some of
Misty: Awesome. Well this has been amazing. the things you can do on your own, changing diets
I love it when I can have a super practical and some of the things that don’t really require a
conversation with someone about all of this lot of expense or time.
stuff. And I hope everyone watching, especially if
you really resonated with having fibromyalgia or There’s things that you can do that can be helpful
dealing with a lot of fatigue, you feel excited about to get you on the right track. I think that’s so
actually having something proactive that you important because patients are told that they
can do. If Dr. Rodger, people want to learn more have to learn to live with. Well, you know nobody
about you where could they find you online? wants to learn to live with this stuff. It’s just
existing, it’s not living. And so, my goal is to be
Dr. Murphree: So I’d recommend they just go able to teach people, be able to share with people
to my website, there’s a lot of free videos, free how to start to overcome it and that’s really my,
articles, there’s all sorts of things on there. So that’s my mission.
it’s yourfibrodoctor.com and each and every
Wednesday night I do a Facebook Live for Misty: Thank you so much Dr. Rodger, this was
my community and that’s, Your Fibro Doctor, phenomenal. I really appreciate it.
Facebook page.
Dr. Murphree: Well thank you, Misty, you’re a
They can go there and each and every Wednesday delight. And the service that you’re providing and
night at six PM central standard time I do a live the resources you’re providing are so needed. And
Q&A for my community. Where they can come I’m sure your audience just feels really blessed
on, I do a little bit of a training, I talk about some that they’re a part of what you’re sharing. And
different issues whether that’s fibro fog or restless thank you.
leg syndrome or whatever it is we’re kind of
working on that week. Misty: Yeah, thank you. All right we will talk soon
everyone. We’ll see you all.
And then I open the dialogue to a Q&A session

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Essential Oils, Cortisol

and Healing Your
Parasympathetic Nervous
System
Jodi Cohen, NTP

Misty: Hi, everybody. Misty Williams here, Jodi: Oh, gosh, thanks for having me, and sleep is
founder of Healing Rosie, and host of Your Best my favorite topic.
Sleep Ever. And I am so excited to have my friend,
Jodi Cohen, join me today. Misty: Well, it’s mine too, as luck would have it.
So this is going to be an awesome conversation
We are going to talk about something that you today. I would love to just kind of open this up
guys know I’m super passionate about, and that is with a nice frame where we talk a little bit about
circadian biology and timing in the body and how circadian biology and our body’s clock and how
the parasympathetic nervous system works. the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous
systems set within that framework.
Throughout the summit, we actually, in several
of the amazing conversations I’ve had with our Jodi: Yeah, that’s a great question. So most people
experts, talk about the parasympathetic nervous don’t realize we kind of have our own operating
system and biological timing. system, and certain functions are designed to
be more optimal at certain times of day. And so
And for me and my understanding of how the that kind of entails-- there are chemicals that are
body works and the progress, I’ve made over the released.
last 10 years in my own healing journey. There’s
so much of it that goes back to the clock in our So when we wake up, we’re supposed to have
body and our timing and understanding how to energy. So if anyone has ever done kind of the
align our lifestyle so that we are taking advantage cortisol test where they spit into a tube and
of how the body is wired to help us heal. capture their saliva levels throughout the day,
it’s not flat line. It’s supposed to be higher in the
So we’re going to dive into this fascinating topic morning so that you have more energy.
today with Jodi. She is a best-selling author,
award-winning journalist, functional practitioner Cortisol is also the hormone that’s released
and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, where she has when there’s any kind of stress in the system,
combined her training in nutritional therapy which kind of relates it to the nervous system. So
and aromatherapy to create unique proprietary basically, timing of the body is kind of critical to
blends of organic wildcrafted essential oils. when certain hormones are released. So cortisol
is supposed to be high in the morning, wane
She has helped over 70,000 clients heal from throughout the day. And then the sleep hormone,
brain-related challenges, including anxiety, melatonin, is supposed to increase in response to
insomnia, and autoimmunity. Welcome, Jodi. darkness.

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Now, as long as those kinds of rhythms are And the on-off switch, the gear shift between
flowing smoothly, your sleep is not interrupted. these two branches, is your vagus nerve. Cranial
But if they’re disrupted, that really throws a nerve number 10, quick anatomy lesson, it starts
wrench in things. For example, if cortisol is high in at the back of the head, splits. One is around the
the evening when you’re trying to fall asleep, your ear, right here on each side, then innervates the
body prioritizes survival. So if the lion is chasing throat, the mouth, the heart, the lungs, every
you, falling asleep is probably going to get you organ of digestion and detoxification.
killed. So you stay more in that anxious, worried
space. Why that is relevant is because at any point
where the nerve access is, be it your breathing,
So, where the parasympathetic nervous system your heart, your gallbladder, if you stimulate
kind of plays in is that plays a role in why your that area, that helps literally shift gears into the
cortisol levels might be high at the wrong time parasympathetic state where healing can occur.
of day. So just backing up a little bit, your body’s
operating system is the autonomic nervous And most people don’t know this. They think like
system. someone tells them, oh, you’re stressed. Just
stress less. And you’re like, I’m trying really hard.
It controls the automatic functions, so your I’m trying to do Zen things and meditate, but the
digestion, your heart rate, your breathing, your laundry still needs to be done. The bills still need
ability to detoxify, anti-inflame. And your heart to be paid. I still have all these external factors
rate is really critical in restful sleep. that are causing stress.

It’s supposed to kind of slow down when you’re And what I really like to talk about is you can’t
sleeping so that you can relax and get into change the landscape outside of you, but there
that restful REM state. If it’s beating too fast, is this gear shift in your body. You can basically
that’s what throws off your sleep. That’s what stimulate your vagus nerve to switch gears, and
might contribute to nighttime wake-ups or to then that helps you to rest and digest and heal
nightmares or to kind of panic attacks, things like and turn off that high cortisol level at night so that
that. it doesn’t interfere with the release of melatonin.

So within your autonomic nervous system, you Misty: What is the role of light in that whole
really have kind of different gears. Like you might process and then that switch?
even think of it like gears on a bike. If there’s
danger, the sympathetic branch of your nervous Jodi: Yeah. So melatonin is released by the pineal
system takes over and allocates resources to keep gland, which responds to darkness and where it is
you alive. in the brain, it’s actually right in the middle of the
brain.
Cortisol is released. Oxygen and blood are
transferred to your arms and your legs so that Like if you were to go through kind of the bridge
you can flee and survive and away from digestion of your nose, it’s exactly in the center of your
and all rest, digest, and heal functions. And then, brain, and that allows it to perceive light and
when the danger passes, you switch into the perceive other things.
parasympathetic branch of the nervous system,
where ideal sleep can occur. And one of the challenges of sleep and even
taking melatonin is it’s really hard to get the

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right remedy into the right region of the brain hormones are pretty trashed. We’ve done a lot of
because your blood-brain barrier is such a great things to try to bring them back online.
bodyguard.
Two things, I had hormonal issues with
It blocks everything but super small fat-soluble endometriosis, but then I had mercury filling
molecules. So that’s why I use essential oils, improperly drilled from my teeth, which is when
liposomal remedies. There are certain ways that everything really crashed and bottomed out. So
kind of bypass the bodyguards to get things into lots of detoxification. I’ve been on bioidentical
the brain. hormone replacement therapy for probably seven
years now. So all my hormones, we have to do
Misty: So I think basically we’re taking in light, a lot of doctoring to get them to the levels they
optic nerve, which, I mean, you can kind of see if need to be.
I could take off my head here. Right behind my
eyes would be that pineal gland that is stimulated But my melatonin is in the top 10% or 15% of the
or stimulates melatonin in response to light. range, which isn’t really aligned with how all of
my other hormones work, but it’s just a powerful
I think that this can’t be overstated, and I’ve said it testament. I don’t take anything. I don’t take
in so many interviews, and it’s amazing to me how melatonin, and I never really have.
obvious and linear this relationship is between
light and sleep. Melatonin has never been something that I’ve
tried for sleep. I have tried CBD in the past to help
I mean, even a lot of our experts don’t wear the calm my sympathetic nervous system at times
Amber glasses at night and practice good light when there’s things that are off in my body.
hygiene in response to this, but at this stage, so
my journey is 10 years old. But I would love for you just to talk a little bit
more about the role of light. We’re talking about
In 2012, I started wearing the Amber glasses as this master clock. Really help us understand the
soon as the sun went down, and I have really role of light and the downstream triggering effect
Rockstar sleep at this stage of my life starting of being in these artificial environments.
out, and I’ve said it in other interviews, with really
crappy sleep where I woke up feeling like death, [10:00]
like I’m pulling myself out of this drunken stupor,
even though I hardly ever drink. Jodi: Yeah. This is not my core expertise, but it’s
kind of an area I’m interested in. So there’s a
I just always felt awful in the mornings. And I lot of belief that light is actually kind of the big
really attribute the foundation for good sleep stimulation for the body, and Gerry Pollack talks
for me to be my honoring of light cycles. And the about the fourth phase of water and how water
friends that I do have that do this, and I have a lot is structured and organized. And it’s this idea that
now because I’m very persuasive on this topic, all it’s the light that sends the signal.
100% across the board, everyone enjoys better
sleep. So even getting outside and getting direct sunlight
not only does it boost your vitamin D, it’s almost
But it’s the cumulative effect over time that I like a reboot for your cells. Your phone glitches;
feel I’m really benefiting from is years and years you restart it. It works better.
and years of training my body. And on my latest
DUTCH test-- it measures melatonin. So all my When we have the proper light signals, that’s

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when our cells function well, but they also need-- Misty: Yeah. I mean, I was really messed up. So
everything in the world is cyclical. The tide goes in; understanding how the body works and why we
the tide goes out. The sun comes up; the sun goes do things I think is really important so that we can
down. bring our will into alignment with these amazing
changes.
There always needs to be a balance. And so
when we’re inundating ourselves, especially with And I’d love for you to talk a little bit more about
artificial light, which we don’t really know what to cortisol too. In my own experience, I remember
do with, that really throws off that natural rhythm trying to figure out what to do about my
and confuses us. endometriosis, why I had mysteriously gained 45
pounds in like six months.
So I love that you’re doing the Amber glasses.
That’s a brilliant reset, and actually, I think A lot of things were happening inside my body
requires a commitment. A lot of people that feels around the time of my surgery, 2011 to 2013,
like too much work, so they don’t really know where it was like I would take one step forward
what to do. and five steps back.

Misty: Set an alarm on your phone for sunset and I mean, it was just shocking to me, as I started
put them on. paying more attention to the health, some of the
setbacks that I would have. And now I have the
Jodi: And I 100% agree. And everything is like I tell benefit of a decade, so I have some perspective
people no electronics in your bedroom, like no on what was happening and why certain things
TV. Ideally, if you have an alarm clock, keep it far happen and what brought it into alignment.
from your head. I even tell people to pull their bed
away from the wall so that the electrical current And the thing that I started doing that really
that’s running through the wall doesn’t affect moved the needle for me is figuring out what was
them as much. Yeah. That’s great. really triggering cortisol.

Misty: I think understanding how our body works And there was a lot. In my case, I had a chronic
is a really powerful motivator for making lifestyle Epstein-Barr infection that was probably 30 years
changes. And that’s why I think this conversation old. We think that would flare every time I was
in particular and a lot of the conversations that under stress, which would add an unbelievable
we’re having on this summit are super important additional layer of stress.
because it’s hard to change ingrained habits. And
it’s really for a lot of us. Talk about messing with your sleep and
everything. I had unbeknownst at the time. I
And for me, I mean, I’m the first to say if I didn’t figured out in about 2018 that the mercury fillings
understand the why to make a change, there’s were improperly drilled from my teeth. And just
no way that I would have stopped going to bed at all these things that were stressors.
2:00 a.m. because I got a huge payoff in getting
that second wind around 9 and getting that rush I had a parasite infection. I had gut dysbiosis.
where I got so much accomplished between 9:00 I mean, I lived a stressful life, not because I
p.m. and 2:00 a.m. necessarily had a lot of drama in my life, but
because I was an entrepreneur, and I just tended
Jodi: It’s cortisol. to take on a lot of responsibility in life. So I’ve
had to get really introspective about this, what’s

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creating the cortisol issue for me. can contribute. It can be kind of a part of your
brain called the amygdala that really responds to
But cortisol is almost like this mystery thing of danger.
like, where does it come from, and why is it being
triggered? And just like you said, Jodi, like I’m Like if you’ve ever been walking in the woods
trying to do the meditation and the Zen stuff and and you think you see a snake and you might
trying to do these cortisol lowering things. And it involuntarily jump back, that’s your amygdala at
can be frustrating, really frustrating dealing with work. Your amygdala has a partner in crime. It’s
the cortisol issue. called your prefrontal cortex. It’s your forehead.
It’s your executive function.
There’s a role that cortisol plays in this whole
picture. And I’d love for you to help us understand So what’s supposed to happen is the amygdala
a little more how cortisol is interacting with the notices something. It could be a snake. It checks in
parasympathetic nervous system. But maybe we with the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is
can get really practical here and talk about some no, that’s a stick. You’re totally safe. And you keep
things that people can actually do to lower their moving. But what can happen is like whatever
cortisol. muscle you work the most gets the strongest.

Jodi: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what you just If the amygdala is overreacting all the time,
described is like 95% of my patients. They’ve it’s called amygdala hijack. And so every stick
had all these things going on. They feel really becomes a snake, and you’re always kind of in
overwhelming. They have a huge file folder of high alert, and it’s a vicious cycle. You create more
their test results, and kind of to your point, what and more and more cortisol.
I really try to land on is, first of all, let’s look at the
root causes. Let’s just clean up things that are You also mentioned toxicity, the mercury
correlated with cortisol. amalgams. What happens when there’s like a
pathogen or a toxin is it turns the immune system
I personally work with essential oils because I on. And then that causes inflammation and kind
found that they lend themselves really nicely to of this cascade of chemicals.
those five underlying root causes. So basically,
what I want to say is a lot of the test results are So there are a lot of things. Any kind of physical
data points, and it’s okay because there are a lot trauma, especially to the head because your neck
of good ways to clean it up. is such an important part of communicating from
your brain to your body, your body to your brain,
So cortisol is basically what your body releases in sending signals.
response to stress, and that stress can be from
your nervous system being stuck in overdrive. So basically, when these things are kind of out of
balance, your nervous system, your endocrine
It can be from your endocrine system. Your system, which also controls your energy to heal,
hypothalamus is kind of the CEO of the endocrine your ability to kind of get good things in and get
system. It tells the pituitary to tell the adrenal bad-- garbage in, garbage out.
glands to release cortisol.
Oxygen, nutrients, and your immune system kind
Sometimes when the hypothalamus is of stuck in the wrong gear, and you’re sleeping off,
overwhelmed, even though cortisol levels are those are the five things that I think really cause
sufficient, it doesn’t say to turn them off, so that the whole cascade of everything to go out of

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balance. Cortisol is related to all of them. little bit and talk to us about maybe the role of
essential oils in helping to assist, give a bodily
But the message of hope I really want to share is assist to the healing we want to take place.
that it’s entirely possible to kind of return these
five systems to balance, to shift your nervous [20:00]
system into the parasympathetic gear, to help
start sleeping, like not only falling asleep but Jodi: Yeah, and I love essential oils. I mean, my
staying asleep through the night. own story, the reason I found them was my
husband at the time was bipolar, and I thought he
To make sure that there’s often congestion in the was going to die on my watch.
neck with the lymphatic system and the vagus
nerve. To make sure that you kind of calm the And so I moved him to a residential treatment
inflammation and the congestion is another facility, and the minute I knew he was safe and it
reason oils are good. wasn’t my job to keep him safe, I hit rock bottom.
My adrenals were like out of steam, and nothing I
They help to move fluid so that the good things was doing seemed to help.
get in, the bad things get out so that they don’t
keep kind of triggering that inflammatory cascade. I was ingesting all these nutrients, adaptogenic
Your hypothalamus-pituitary axis and limbic herbs that were supposed to make me feel better.
system those can be kind of calmed and settled Nothing worked. I had a really good friend who
down so that your energy is being allocated more worked with oils and said, you have been so high
appropriately and you’re not over-producing or cortisol for so long that your gut is toast.
under-producing cortisol.
It is chronically inflamed, and nothing is getting
And then your immune system modulated like assimilated. Let’s try other avenues. Like from
the Epstein-Barr. Many of us have these kinds of hormonal creams, anything you put on your
chronic underlying infections that are constantly-- skin gets into your blood in 20 minutes, be that
it’s like when you have too many tabs open on a nicotine patch or hormonal cream. Anything
your phone; the battery dies faster because you smell gets into your brain in two seconds. It’s
there’s just extra resources being put to use. really quick.

So there’s a lot that we can do to address those And most people don’t realize your nose, your
five issues. And just kind of clearing the tabs, olfactory channel, those are brain cells. And smell,
closing all the tabs on your device, suddenly the above all the senses, has the most direct route to
battery has more fuel. the amygdala.

Kind of addressing these five underlying issues, Remember, the amygdala is the big fire alarm that
suddenly, your body needs less cortisol energy releases all the cortisol. There’s amazing research,
to respond to it. And you’re more aligned and in actually, a Seattle-based researcher named Linda
balance. And to your point, like patterns do take Buck who was kind of researching your smell
time and consistency to kind of unravel, but there pathway, your olfactory receptors, and mostly in
are a lot of ways you can do it. response to predator odor.

Misty: Well, let’s just start talking a little bit about So she identified specific predator odor receptors,
that. You’re talking about these five underlying and then she took it one step further and found
systems. Why don’t you just break this down a that smelling roses, rose essential oils, stopping to

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smell the roses, that basically turned off the fear more.
signal.
Jodi: Okay. So the other thing we talked a little
So the sense of smell is a really powerful way bit about the vagus nerve being the on-off switch
for anyone that’s kind of stuck in anxiety, panic between the sympathetic: fight or flight danger,
attack, overwhelm. It is the fastest way to reset crazy cortisol release, and the parasympathetic:
the brain. Think of it like your phone. It’s glitching; rest, digest, and heal. Anywhere where you can
you turn it off. You reboot it. It works great. activate the vagus nerve in the body basically
helps you shift gears.
You can use that. And my favorite way of doing
this—our friend Titus Chiu taught me this— Think of it like a bike gear into the
different parts of the brain do different things and parasympathetic state. And Datis Kharrazian, who
the different hemispheres, right, left do different I really admire, talks a lot about gagging yourself
things. If you’re ever having that overwhelming with a tongue depressor, gargling, splashing your
anxiety attack, I am the poster child for anxiety face with freezing water, doing a coffee enema, all
attacks. I used to have them all the time, but this things that had low compliance because no one
helped me. really wants to put themselves through this.

That is your right frontal lobe, your right forehead But then around the time I started my company,
over activating. So the fastest way to calm that Vibrant Blue Oils, in 2012, there was a New York
down is to do something to stimulate your left neuroscientist by the name of Kevin Tracy, who
forehead. The fastest way to do that is to smell started playing with electric implants around
anything through your left nostril. the neck, like a pacemaker-like device that was
surgically implanted to stimulate the vagus nerve
It could be any oil you have in the house. Oils are right here behind the ear.
found in the peels of citrus fruits. You can peel a
Tangerine and smell it. Simply take right thumb, And that technique has actually been approved by
plug right nostril, smell something through left the FDA for epilepsy, depression, and migraines.
nostril. Three to seven breaths, it will stimulate What I realized in playing with oils and especially
the left frontal lobe, balance the two hemispheres, combinations of oils, sometimes you can use
and the panic attack will go away immediately. oils like for acupuncture points because they’re
stimulatory.
Misty: That’s amazing.
So clove oil, super stimulatory. It has this amazing
Jodi: And the cortisol that you’re like basically constituent eugenol, which I’ll talk more about in
blasting into your system when you’re having-- for a bit and combining it with lime, which has super
me, it’s always like my heart feels like it’s going to small molecules and then if you take it one step
explode out of my chest. further, most people don’t realize that carrier oils
can kind of either enhance how quickly things get
That comes down too. So that’s just a really quick into your system or kind of time delay, slow them
immediate-- my kids have test anxiety. We do down.
that all the time before a test. Any moment where
you’re just so overwhelmed that you want to crawl So I like fractionated coconut oil. You just apply it
out of your body. right behind your ear on that bone. You can, even
if you’re listening, feel and do this right now and
Misty: Wow. That’s awesome. All right. --some

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stimulate it that way. And I just was mom’s helper from the age of six
or seven. I have memories of taking on things and
That literally activates the vagus nerve, gearshift watching my sisters that I look back now and see
into parasympathetic. So back to my point. Like my six- and seven-year-old nieces and nephews,
I tried meditating. I tried doing yoga. I tried all like what?
these things that were supposed to help, but my
life was still crazy around me. I don’t even know what made that even seem
okay for an adult to put a child in that position.
And what I realized is my life is always going to be And, of course, my family was doing the best
crazy around me, but I can control how I respond they could, but these things get ingrained in our
to it. So many of us we’re driving in traffic, nervous system.
someone cuts us off, and we’re like, whatever.
You’re not in a hurry. You’re good. And we find that we’re vibrating at a certain
level, and we feel powerless. Like in some ways,
Next day, same exact thing happens, and the four- I have felt really powerless over how I’m wired.
letter words are flying out of your mouth. It’s the So I’d love for you just to talk about that a little
same external situation. The only variable that’s bit because I’m sure that we can all tell stories
different is your resilience in that moment. of things that happen that have kind of wired an
amygdala-induced response in our lives and what
So the more you can kind of stay in that cool can we do about that from a practical perspective
cucumber place of like, oh, look at this crazy to rewire ourselves?
election and political climate and whatever, I’m
still good, the more you don’t release that excess Jodi: Yeah. I’m also a poster child for that. I’m
cortisol. assuming you’re the oldest.
Misty: Yeah. Releasing the excess cortisol. There Misty: I am.
was a couple of times that you were telling
different stories, and I was actually feeling the Jodi: Yeah. I was the oldest child and the oldest of
surge, seeing the snake that’s not a snake. You are the cousins. Yeah. And it’s been really interesting. I
feeling the surge. mean, I think necessity is the mother of invention,
and I was such a pleaser that I kind of listened to
And it’s one of the things that happens to I think everyone else and was trying to do what I was told
a lot of us is, especially everything goes back to do. And it wasn’t until my life hit the ultimate
to childhood. Whatever we experienced in our rock bottom.
childhood, we kind of conditioned our nervous
system to vibrate at a certain level. My 12-year-old son was killed in a car accident two
years ago, and his dad was driving. There were
My nervous system was conditioned as a child other boys in the car. So not only do I now have
to vibrate at the level of over responsibility. I am a dead child, but two of the other boys wound up
responsible for everything. I need to be hyper- passing away. There were all these legal things
aware of my environment. going on.
I’m responsible for creating the peace in the I was trying to just keep my head above water. I
house. And the peace would look like dinner is had a company. I had people that relied on me. I
made. Chores are done. Sisters have done their had my daughter. I had to kind of find a way to, no
homework, whatever it was. matter what was happening in the world around

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me, stay calm. And my predisposition also was you going to fight? If you’re going to flee, what
to kind of catastrophize and go to the immediate direction you’re going to run.
worst-case situation.
All of those things kind of shuts down your
And there were certainly people in my life that connection to your higher cognitive function. And
kind of they would call me up, and often what so that means if someone comes up and triggers
they said wasn’t actually true, but they would a pattern, you’re more likely to fall back into the
really kind of-- I would feel my engine revving up. default pattern.

And so I guess what I’m trying to say is, first of all, So the first step in shifting that is really getting
you absolutely can do it. What was fascinating yourself in that parasympathetic state. And I have
to me is that there wasn’t really a roadmap that this blend, parasympathetic, that I swear to God,
resonated with me. So I kind of made up my own, like election night, I was thinking of drinking it.
which I’m happy to share. And I’m like, no, I’m just going to apply this every
five minutes.
And once I made it my own, then I started to find
more people like our mutual friend, Michelle I’m not an alcoholic. That’s never been my thing,
Norris or Anna Cabeca. There are other people but I’m like, this might be an interesting time to
who had something horrible like this happened take up day drinking, just being honest.
to them who survived and wound up going on
to do amazing things, but that wasn’t kind of out Misty: It’s a good choice, Jodi.
there in the mainstream. So what happened to
me? What you’re really talking about is pattern Jodi: Thank you. But what I’ve found is the more
interrupt and reframing. you feel safe, and you’re like, okay, I’m okay, then
the more able you are to kind of look at options,
And so the first step is really awareness. And for like, okay, I can totally flip and go and do this. Or
me, what helped with that awareness was feeling maybe there’s more information that I don’t know.
safe. And so, when you’re in the parasympathetic
state of the nervous system, you feel safe. It’s almost like when I was in second grade, my
best friend, Amy, and I decided to come up with
Like one thing that I see happening a lot, different ways to write our name. There aren’t
especially when I see people kind of going at each that many options for Amy and Jodi. So we started
other on social media, when you’re feeling like adding in like stars and numbers. And we wanted
your survival is at stake, when you’re in fight or to find a hundred different ways to write our
flight, basically your focus changes. Your pupils, name.
the black part of your eyes, get really big.
And the reason I say that is that even when
[30:00] you think you don’t have choices, you have
lots of choices. And the more you start kind of
And that’s to enable you, like, if you’re in a life-or- brainstorming options and potential options,
death situation, seeing all the variables and all the the more new ideas will come and the more safe
options, you’re going to be paralyzed, and you’re you’ll feel because I think there’s a correlation
not going to survive. between control and safety. And when you feel
like you don’t have choices, you feel completely
So you really can only focus on the next viable out of control.
option. Like, if you’re going to fight, how are

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The minute you’re able to see like, oh, I could do So I can’t need, but there’s a lot in my own healing
this, I could do that or maybe my friend, Sarah, journey that shifted not as a result of wearing
has more information. Maybe I can call her. It just the Amber glasses and detoxing my environment
shifts the dynamic. It’s a really powerful pattern and doing a lot of the lifestyle obvious things but
interrupt because, as opposed to just thinking you doing some of the deeper, emotional things that
only have your default past tense choice, you start start with, like you said, getting present to what
to see other potential options. you’re really feeling and what’s really happening
so that you can make some shifts.
And then the opposite of a vicious cycle, it’s like an
empowerment cycle. You’re like, oh, wait, and you I’d love for you to talk a little bit more about what
start to kind of feel like there are more places you you’ve practically done to create these shifts so
can go. that if someone is listening and resonating with
the experiences you’ve had, you’ve also shown a
Misty: Yeah. I just love what you said because I’m light on some useful perspectives and strategies
thinking about the way that I was brought up and that might help you get through
kind of programmed to be in control. And the real
freedom that I found, especially in the last five Jodi: One, I am certainly the poster child for
years, I would say with like letting go and being anxiety, and the way that presents to me is
surrendered and having the experience that in overwhelm. And so sometimes, when things feel
surrender everything is okay. too hard, I do nothing.

And moving to a place where there’s a lot of Like when I don’t know what to do, I do nothing.
ways things can go, opening up to maybe I don’t When things feel too hard, I do nothing. So the
have all the answers, but that’s actually a really best advice I got early on, my best friend happens
empowering place to be because I can take on a to be a really good psychiatrist. And she said all
new adventure and looking at other places and you need to do is eat, sleep, and move.
entertain the idea that maybe there’s a way to
resolve this that hasn’t occurred to me before. And that felt manageable. And so for moving,
movement’s amazing because there’s so many
And with what we’re experiencing politically in the systems like the lymphatic system in the body that
United States right now, the thing that makes me really don’t have their own pumps. So the more
feel less at the effect of is focusing on what I can you can move, not only is it good, does it bring
actually control. And what are the things I should oxygen to your body, but there’s something about
be trying to control? And certainly, the more I’m the eye-tracking, the right-left movement when
able to lean into that, the more at ease I feel. you’re moving.

And I think in some ways this really points to the Like so often, overwhelm, and anxiety is because
need that all of us have for community and safety we’re stuck. There are too many choices. We
and having people that we trust that can support can’t decide where to go, but the moment like my
us as we’re navigating because I was kind of daughter, has anxiety about starting homework.
taught to not need anybody, not verbally, but non- She can’t do it. She doesn’t understand it, but the
verbally growing up in my family, having another moment she actually dives in and starts, she’s
need when there were so few resources would be fine.
such a tremendous burden.
And I think that’s true of most of us. So just

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physically moving, you can walk as slow as you in my neighborhood, Bounty Kitchen. I’m good
want. You don’t need to go that far, but the eye- friends with the owner, and they had one salad
tracking of movement kind of breaks that pattern that I could make myself eat.
because it gets you moving, and you pick. You
make one choice. I’m going to get out of the door And so my friends one on rotation, I think I
got that salad delivered every day for like four
Misty: And I had a friend actually tell me when months. Yeah. It was very thoughtful, but it’s so
I was feeling really overwhelmed about what funny because everyone wants to bring food.
was happening politically last year, I made an
off-headed comment: I think I just need to go I don’t do gluten. It was just like, really, you’re
meditate. And he said, no, you need to go move. going to give me like more crap that I have to
throw out? It just didn’t feel helpful, but what’s
Jodi: Yeah. And you can do moving meditation. interesting and important is that if you can eat--
That’s one reason I like to run in like yoga. I do remember when you’re in danger and survival
think it’s very hard for me to sit still. I’m so darn kicks in, digestion is not prioritized, so your blood
fidgety but moving, I can kind of get that calm. isn’t routed to your organs of digestion and
So like that, and there are oils like Cyprus is a whatever you’re eating really isn’t being properly
great oil, mint oils, things that kind of enhance assimilated and broken down.
circulation.
And if it’s not broken down properly, like if protein
But literally even just walking out of the door isn’t properly metabolized, it can trigger the
and walking around your block because the light, immune system and cause more problems. So
you’re getting natural light, you’re interacting with anything you can do, it can be this free gift.
nature. Like that’s a really fabulous way to just
calm your nervous system and reset. Try to get into the parasympathetic state before
you eat so that you allocate your resources
Anything you can do, actually, I have a free gift. I towards digesting your food and help your
can give out 25 ways to activate your vagus nerve healing, and don’t amplify other problems.
and parasympathetic state. Some of them are as
simple as sleeping on your right side. You only Misty: Yeah. I could talk to you for another hour.
need to pick one.
Jodi: I know.
So that’s moving. Sleeping is so critical because
that’s when the brain detoxifies. It’s when your Misty: This has been so great. I really hope
body resets. Amber glasses are great. I’ve got everyone watching has gotten a lot of great gems
different oils. out of this interview. I just love this conversation
so much because it’s very practical. And I love
Some people really do like CBD oil or sublingual some of the tips you shared. I’m going to watch
melatonin. However you’re able to actually get this back and write down your essential oil tips.
restful sleep, that is foundational. That gives
you the energy, the focus. It helps your body to Jodi: Or I put them all-- I have a book, a new book.
detoxify, so there’s less garbage to process. It’s so
Misty: That’s right.
critical.
Jodi: Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the
And then eating. Eating was the hardest for me
Body has everything in there. And I even give away
if I’m going, to be honest. There’s one restaurant

Your Best Sleep Ever!

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all my recipes. Yeah. Just because I feel like it’s so

darn hard to get things into the brain.

The blood-brain barrier only lets really small fat-

soluble molecules like oils through. So it’s just
another tool in your toolkit to kind of help you feel
better and sleep. I have a whole section dedicated
to sleep.

Misty: Well, why don’t you tell everyone where

they can buy your book and where they can find
you online?

Jodi: Well, you can download that free chapter

for the parasympathetic stimulation strategies at
boostthebrainbook.com/gift. And that will kind of
show you.

[40:00]

It’s available everywhere, like Amazon, Barnes

& Noble. And I am at vibrantblueoils.com. And I
always answer questions if you email me at info@
vibrantblueoils.com. Thank you.

Misty: Awesome. All righty. Well, thank you

so much for joining us today, Jodi. Thank you,
everyone, for joining us, and we’ll see you again
soon. Bye for now.

Your Best Sleep Ever!