Melatonin, Light, and the Mystical Mind with Dr. Deanna Minich | Episode 284

Welcome to the Spectrum of Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Christine Schoffner, and today we have a dear friend and colleague, Dr. Deanna Minick on the show and we're going to be talking a lot about consciousness and melatonin and the physical very manifestations of melatonin which are vast and also this other really beautiful part of melatonin and how it's very supportive of bringing our unconscious mind to light in our dream states, as well as connecting in meditation and our spiritual life as well. So I learned a lot today from Deanna and I hope you will as well. So enjoy the podcast. Welcome to the Spectrum of Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Christine Schaffner, and I'm thrilled to have a dear colleague and friend, Dr. Deanna Minick, on the podcast. We're going to talk about so much and we're going to talk about everything from this bridge of science and spirituality and this kind of multi layered kind of knowing of how molecules also have this deep root in the metaphysical as well. And just like really where our medicine is going. We've had just a lovely time reconnecting. Deanna and I know each other from way back and I've interviewed you on many of my summits that I did years ago. Katherine Clinton has started a quantum biology institute that we're both part of. And then we saw each other again at DOES Buy conference. So we've been in each other's sphere again. And I'm just so honored to have this conversation with you.

Gosh, I feel the same about you, Christine. It's so great to have seen you in person and to senior presentation on stage. Like I was telling you before we jumped on, that was an amazing presentation. And what I love about what's happening is just like all of these dots connecting at this time, just the crosstalk that's happening and it's just really beautiful to witness. And I'm sure we're going to have that crosstalk in the conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, I love that you really are this profound scientist. You have a PhD, but you're not afraid to really talk really publicly about this emerging bridge of science and spirituality. And I, I think that we've all kind of been there, but this is like a time where it's not just like behind the scenes, but it's out in the open now. And there's a lot, again, as I mentioned before, for this information, getting out and out. So let's just kind of introduce you to my audience. I know my audience probably Already knows you. But just a little bit about your background and your work and your passion right now.

Sure. You want me to kind of give the thumbnail on that? Yeah. And, you know, I think that this whole thing of being a nerdy scientist that got into spirituality, I kind of think that both of them have always been with me. And I think that the genesis of that has been in my upbringing. So in the 1970s, when I was growing up, I had a mother who was really into food and faith. It's like, you know, I grew up Catholic, but really Catholic, like, so Catholic that I went to Catholic school. I wore the uniforms. I was taught by nuns. At the age of seven, I actually wanted to be a nun, and I thought I did. I love the nuns. So many people had not so good experiences with Catholicism. I was just the opposite. I loved it. I loved the smell of the church. I loved the incense. I loved the nuns that taught me at school. And so much so that I actually wanted to go down that path, but I didn't. But that was part of my upbringing. And I think that it later emerged in my life after a bit of pushing back on it and then it coming forward, especially after being in science. So I kind of followed this nerdy route, and I call it nerdy because it was research oriented. You know, you. As a clinician, you know, I didn't quite have that same experience. So I was kind of trying to decide, am I going to go to medical school or not? Because I always liked science. But then I started working for doctors, and I was. I volunteered at the hospital when I was a teenager. And then every summer that I'd come home from school, I would be working in a doctor's office. And after a while, I kind of woke up to this thing of, like, you know what? I don't think I want to do that. And maybe I need to go and study health, but in a different way. So after I did my undergraduate in biology with a minor in English literature, because I wasn't totally bio at that time either. It was like I'd go and hang out with the English lit people who were kind of arty and creative, but I wasn't completely them either. I still really like science. I like the body. I like the human body. There was something really beautiful about it. I took my first yoga class when I was 19, and I started to take world religions courses and really broaden my perspective into that whole world. From there, I decided, okay, I'm not going to medical school. I am going to go to Graduate school. So I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago. I studied nutrition for three years. You know, I was working in a lab, I was doing research, I was teaching courses there. And I actually really loved it. So it's funny how that happened. And then, um, fell in love with a Dutch man and went to the Netherlands. Didn't think I would do my PhD, but I ended up doing my PhD, and that was in the field of essential fatty acids. So that was four years. So I didn't emerge from school until I was 29. And I would say that during my PhD I became acquainted with more things. Like I, I was seeking. And I think as a scientist, it's really code for like, seeking. You're seeking the truth. And how do I create constructs from which I can derive things that are truthful and that are reproducible? Like, they're always going to happen, so they, they tell you that there's something there. So I began. I was having more mental, emotional things happen to me. When I was finishing my PhD, it was pretty stressful. I was in the lab like on Saturdays and, you know, it was just kind of like, I don't know, I just needed to kind of decompress. And I started to do that through art. And not because I took an art class or anything. It actually a very creative, chaotic, messy process of. In fact, the, the painting behind you kind of reminds me of. I was drawn to red, black and yellow. Like during these times. Like, I would just paint huge shapes. I know you're into shapes as well. And it wasn't like I was painting a mountain or a structure. It was just like a shape with color. And I would put it just in my. Where I was living. And I just felt like this artwork was feeding me in a different way. So fast forward, you know, got into Back to the States, started to do different things, worked in the food industry, started working with Dr. Jeffrey Bland, who's the father of functional medicine, and really learned a lot from him on so many different levels. Like, that is not. Jeff is not just a man who's brilliant in his intellect, but also emotionally connected. He has a high EQ as well. So that was an amazing experience working with him for 10 plus years. And then I went off on my own and started to thread together. Jeff had a conversation with me at some point and said that he was really encouraging. He always held that kind of paternal, like the. I call him the cosmic father for me, you know, embodied, but as a cosmic father and always giving me this great advice and he said, deanna, I think it's time for you to go on your own and to explain, explore these things that you're interested in. I. E. Science and spirituality. But, you know, I didn't feel like, just like, flying off into spirituality. I. I felt like. I mean, I was just a scientist for so long, and just everything was logical. Even though I had this kind of arty side to me. But then I would say, like, just lately, I'm feeling more like this nudge, this planetary nudge of, like, everything is dismantling. Like, I woke up this morning even, and, like, this thing came into my mind of, like, it's time to try new things. It's time to get comfortable with chaos and with the crumbling of what we have known things to be. So, you know, more and more, I've been putting myself out there. In fact, I just had a lunch with Jeff earlier this year, and I said, you know, I just want to do more with science and spirituality. And he said, aren't you already doing that? He was, like, feeling like I was already there. And I'm like, yeah, but not in the ways that I'm envisioning, like, with you and Katherine working more with quantum biology, like, really stepping out there into that space fully.

It's a beautiful story. We have a lot of common threads. It's probably why we resonate so much. I grew up Catholic, and I also always, like, seeking, like, these deeper truths. I. I remember taking Buddhism in school and just always, like, very curious. And I also thought I wanted to be a medical doctor. Instead of going the research route, I went, you know, the clinical route and took a real leap of faith with becoming a naturopathic doctor. But it was the right path for me at this time. And so, yeah, a lot of parallels. I love it on this journey. And, you know, I guess I love how this is, like, your intention now, you know? And again, I have perfect you ever since I've met you, as already bridging and weaving the science and the spirituality, you know, but we all have our time, right? We all have our time. And, you know, there's like, maybe, like, we knew that that was the direction we're going, but there's, like, this depth of experience that continues to happen. And so one of the conversations that I love that you bring to the table, and many people are starting to understand this, you know, many, like, I would say, multidimensionality of melatonin. And maybe we can start there because that's a, like, the quintessential bridge, right? Of the science, the molecule. And there's this whole, like vast, mystical, spiritual aspect of that, I guess, wherever you want to start with melatonin, because I know you've done so much research.

On it, you know, I. I didn't even think that melatonin would take me into spirituality like it did. I began working with a company by the name of Symphony Natural Health in June of 2022, and one of their products is a plant, melatonin. So I just started doing some. And, you know, as a nutrition scientist, I really didn't stumble across melatonin that much in my training, except for maybe looking at like tryptophan and conversion of tryptophan into melatonin, but otherwise, not too much. So then I started to get into it. We wrote a review article and published that in Nutrients, the journal. And as we were writing that, as you know, because you're a very deep thinker, the more that it's like a spider's web, like, the more you're just tugging on one part and you're looking at one molecule. So in this case, melatonin. But quite honestly, we could have another conversation about estradiol and go deep into the web of humanity with that as well. For me, it just so happened to be melatonin. So one of the things. And I also, Christine, whenever there's something really polarizing in the milieu of what we live in, I always feel like there's something that's trying to emerge. That's true.

Yes.

And there's kind of this tension, you know, like the push, pull of it. And with melatonin, what I was noticing is that there was like a love hate relationship with melatonin. And people were like, either really for it or really against it, saying, oh, don't take melatonin, it's dangerous. You know, it was just kind of interesting to me. So just to kind of give the listeners a little bit of an idea of Melatonin. So melatonin is. It was discovered in 1958 by a dermatologist, actually. And if you go back into the history of melatonin, it's so fascinating that, you know, back I think it was in 1917, there was a publication about having the pineal gland of animals into a vat of frogs. The frogs turned white. And this was published. And I don't even know, like the full story of that. I just remember getting glimmers of it, but that Dr. Aaron Lerner, a Yale trained dermatologist, found this literature and he was looking for something that would help with skin lightening. So actually the path of melatonin came from dermatology, not even like endocrinology, it was dermatology. But actually the, the melatonin has nothing to do with skin lightening. So that was soon dropped. Right. And from that point, and I think, you know who. Dr. Russell Ryder, I call him the father of melatonin, like I call Jeff Bland the father of functional medicine. Dr. Russell Ryder is in his 80s now and through a project with, I think it was the military, with the government in some way looking at just melatonin, looking at hibernation of people going into space and whether or not it could be a hypnotic agent. So anyway, I've actually met with Dr. Russell Ryder in person. He started, he's amazing. He started doing that in like 1961, and he kind of carried that forward into, I would say, more of what we have come to know melatonin for, which is what he calls. He has a publication in 2010 referring to melatonin as a multitasking molecule. But Christine, what was really interesting for me, just aside from before, we kind of get into the functions of melatonin, just to back up, because one of my loves as part of my whole journey with nutrition has been plants. Plants to me are like the, the, the intelligence of the planet. We have 80% of the biomass on the planet is plant. And so as I started to go down the path of looking into melatonin, just personally, before I started talking to Dr. Russell Ryder and doing all of that, I noticed that melatonin was a. It was found in plants, especially in reproductive portions of plants like nuts, seeds, flowers. And what it seemed to be doing in the plants versus in people, because plants don't have brains like we do with the pineal gland, is that it acted as a growth factor. So it was actually making things like glucosinolates, which we know would be therapeutic compounds for a variety of different things in the body, everything from hormones to detoxification. So if you look at some of the, the plant pathways and what was being done in agriculture, melatonin would be put on crops in order to help them grow better.

Wow, I saw that.

It's interesting. I didn't. I mean, because, you know, the plant science, agriculture, it's kind of like a separate world from human biology. Right. And if you look at even human nutrition, much of that came from animal nutrition. So sometimes those worlds collide. But this one I found interesting because when I hear people talking about glutathione, the master antioxidant if you actually look at the pathways, melatonin creates glutathione as well as many other things. It's like, it's stimulating it. So mel. Melatonin has been with us, like, through the process of our evolution as humans. The moment that we developed a mitochondrion and started to engage in aerobic respiration and we started to take oxygen and create ATP. You know, we've had melatonin a long time. In some papers, they refer to it as an ancestral molecule. And just to jump forward, where is that taking us with the whole aspect of the feminine, the yin, the maternal. Obviously, we know that the pineal gland, which is producing melatonin in response to darkness, or again, the yin, the feminine. What was that? The void. Exactly, exactly. We also see that the higher amounts of melatonin are produced by the mitochondria in the cell. So the mitochondria can make their own melatonin and it can also take up melatonin in the cell. So that's where we have a high concentration. So one of the functions of melatonin is that it's a mitochondrial regulator. Most people think about it, they just kind of, you know, it's interesting how on social media, people just want sound bites, right? So it's like melatonin sleep, but actually it's like that is a byproduct of everything else that it's actually doing. So I don't see melatonin for sleep as a primary. I see it as the circadian rhythm signal, as the primary function, which, underneath that, we get to sleep, we get to regulating body temperature, we get to regulating, like, a number of different things. But first and foremost from the pineal gland is truly that sense of circadian regulation.

Yeah, I. I love the, you know, just the story of melatonin. And then I think people are finally kind of giving it credit beyond the pineal gland, like, you know, great thinkers like you. And then, you know, we also think of it as, you know, I have gone on a journey not only through the pineal gland and the mitochondria, and I'm sure you'll talk about the gut microbiome as well. There's a little. We can go in all of those directions. I just want to plant a seed maybe for a direction of the conversation. One of the things that I've been seeing a lot of in my patient population is this mast cell activation, kind of this loss of coherence. And the mast cell, it's cranky and hypervigilant, making everybody super Reactive and stressed out, you know, and it's responding. And I, I looked up the other day that melatonin, you know, is actually there's a receptor for melatonin on the mast cells because there's a kind of a great driver I think for coherence with the mast cell through the melatonin pathways that I never would have thought about. It just kind of dropped in one day. And so there's like a, a lot in like the chronic illness community, circadian rhythm as well, which I think is really exciting.

Wow. I just learned something new. I didn't know that. I mean I know that melatonin plays a huge role in the immune system and certain fractions of the immune system are actually very responsive to melatonin. But that's fascinating and you might, you probably know of Doris Lowe's work on things like phase separation within the cell and how viruses that are setting up factories within the cell kind of creating their own phase melatonin is able to break that up and also able to break up like amyloid protein aggregation within the cell as well. So you know, I, I love what you're saying about the mast cell because I mean just even the anti inflammatory effects. So just a short list just to kind of help people keep it in perspective because there are a lot of functions of melatonin. In fact, many people say oh it's a hormone, don't take it. You know, it is a neurohorm because it is released with a pineal gland in response to darkness. So it has this kind of overall taking the central clock and synchronizing the peripheral clock. So it does have that function as a neurohormone. But it's actually, I mean what you said, it has a role in the immune system. It has a role as an anti inflammatory agent. And that really came through a lot. Just even looking at Covid, looking at upregulation of or just looking at the cytokine storm and people started using melatonin and melatonin in higher doses. One of the other interesting features of melatonin, if we just look at as, as a molecule for a second. Right. Because I'm really intrigued like you are with this benzene ring, right, with some kind of hydroxyl group hanging off of it. And melatonin has that. And it seems that it is, it's organic chemistry, its structure is unique. So it is what we would call amphiphilic, meaning that it can flex to being in fat and in water, which makes it perfect. I'm going to take us back up to the brain for a second to talk about the glymphatic fluid. You talked a lot about the lymph in your presentation at desbio, which was great. I mean, I feel like lymph fascia, all of that is. You even called, I think, the fascia, the feminine, like liquid. Liquid feminine or something along those lines, which I just loved.

You know, tissue or system of regulation in the body. When we think about my bioregulatory roots, because, yeah, we can go there, but there's, yeah, so much of us kind of balancing that feminine aspect of our physiology. And this is another piece of it. Yeah, right.

And you know, the way that I see the energetics of the body and I don't know if we sync up on this, but when I'm thinking of things that are structural, like protein and minerals, it's kind of like the more masculine yang component of the body and the yin, the more adipose, the lymph, the kind of. Yeah, so kind of those aspects. So the neat thing about melatonin is being that it can flex to being both fat soluble and water soluble, is that it can traverse between places like the cerebral spinal fluid to the brain to. That's why it can be everywhere. Because if you look at where melatonin is found, being that it's found in nature, it's found in animals and plants and in us, I think I was trying to find, like, which parts of the body would melatonin not be found in? And the only places that I could find was the hair and the nails. So essentially the parts of us that are not living right, they're kind of like this inert tissue. But you do find it everywhere else. So you mentioned the gut microbiome, the gastrointestinal tract, and what we know from just the research on neurotransmitters and different hormones with the GI tract is that we have a large amount of them produced there. We have the gut associated lymphoid tissue, the galt, There's a lot of immune activity. So I think even from the gut perspective, melatonin is there as a protection against things like just anything. It could be pathogenic, it could be oxidative stress, it could be endotoxins. In fact, I was talking with Dr. Joe Pizzorno. He and I were traveling together from the UK last year and he's all into arsenic. And I said, have you seen the literature on arsenic induced toxicity and using melatonin? So melatonin has. I just see it as this very nurturing maternal, protective. It co evolved with us. I mean it is part of us and it's in the foods that we're eating in small amounts and it's in our bodies, whether it's the pineal generated melatonin or it's the extra pineal. So and some people will say, well, but you can generate enough melatonin from your skin if you subject yourself to near infrared light. But we just have to keep in mind that the placement of where melatonin is will determine if it's autocrine kind of working in the cell, if it's paracrine kind of just produced in the skin and working in localized cells and then truly endocrine, meaning from a gland like the pineal gland.

Yeah. So yeah, that's beautiful. It's like so many factors. And where do you stand right now just to talk about physical. Because I'm sure people are thinking like where do you stand with the supplementation? Given the vast, you know, use of melatonin within the body and the need, you know, for it on all of these levels, kind of how do you think about supplementation these days?

That's a good question. And it's very nuanced in terms of where to take it. Right. There's almost a spectrum because I have talked with people like Dr. Paolo Lasoni, who is one of the first forerunning oncologists in Italy, who was using it in conjunction with chemotherapy. And he's a really interesting guy in terms of finding even that people that would take the melatonin there was an interaction with their psycho spiritual status having an amplified effect. So he used high doses, you know, double digit doses, but under clinical supervision. Um, I know some people are more loose on this. I usually just for census, just the general public. And this is not advising anybody of anything specific. Right. This is just information to check back with their practitioners. But I do think that looking at physiologic levels, right. So if we look at the amount that the pineal produces throughout our lifetimes, what we see is that children are at their peak. So pre puberty a child has the highest amounts of endogenous pineal melatonin that they will produce their whole lives. And from there it just kind of goes down like a slippery slope, kind of like most of the other hormones. In fact, I was on a podcast and Dr. Dickon Weatherby was interviewing me and he said it sounds like melatoninopause. I said yes, it, it's just like menopause andropause all of the Pauses. There's no exception with melatonin. So I think to answer your question, with supplementation, if we just first talk about the dose and then we talk about the format, the dose. I think for most people, in fact, I was going back and forth with Dr. Matt Walker on social media about this because he had his position on melatonin. And I don't think that there are a lot of long term studies on higher amounts that are supraphysiological on giving melatonin. Right. So that's why I think doing that under the guidance of a practitioner would be wise. But I think repleting physiologic levels so at that less than 1 milligram range, but then maybe flexing upward a little bit depending on need, whether there's more oxidative stress. I know when I Travel I take 3mg and sometimes a little bit more just to kind of get me over the hump because I'm thinking of like radiation in the plane and just the stress of travel and then resetting my circadian rhythm. You know, sometimes you need a little bit more to kind of overcome that. But I think for the large percentage of the population, if we're going to be taking it consistently, then to stick to those lower doses is my take.

Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that when you go higher, which I, I will in my practice, it just needs to be under guidance and then, you know, what happens, you know, in the body when that happens. I do a lot of detoxification and my patient population and also am supporting the immune system. So we used it a lot for the cytokine impact.

Interesting.

You know, melatonin as part of the protocols. And then, you know, I, I'm very comfortable using like suppositories that are 50 milligrams and then even going a little higher and then whether the person's going through a cancer process or it's justification is different. But yeah, you have to screen people like for serotonin, you know, other pathways that couldn't be. Yes, you know, feeding into that and making sure people are safe and you know that we're doing this in a way that's not forever but for a period of time. So I do find it is. I was actually nervous in the beginning when I started using higher doses, but it actually is very well tolerated and very helpful when it is the right time for people. So no, I love the recommendation you gave and then just sharing kind of what happens in my practice. So what have you kind of seen in your not only research, but your life experience with the more of the mystical aspect of melatonin.

I would say that I started to open up to other expansive use of melatonin when I started to look at the brain chemistry. So to really go deeper and as you know, you've been through and looked at Dr. Joe Dispenza's work. He's very enamored with the pineal gland. And I started looking at the brain physiology, especially what happens at night, because we get this peak of endogenous pineal melatonin between 2 and 4am 2 and 4. It's like, you know, you. You can see. It's like you. You're on the slow increase, like as it's dim, and then all of a sudden peak. And when you look at what's. What else is happening in the body at that time, there is kind of this upregulation of a lot of the different antioxidants defense enzymes. So things like glutathione peroxidase or even superoxide dismutase catalase, glutathione goes up, which I think is really interesting. Like how at this, there. There's even a study that is looking at, like, at different time points and these different antioxidant defense enzymes and how things get triggered to go up at this time. And I think it's being stimulated by melatonin. We don't know that because it wasn't looking at melatonin levels as it relates, but they all just kind of come up. So it's. It's like we're undergoing that rejuvenation and the detoxification of the glymphatic fluid, potentially at night, because there is some preclinical work to suggest that melatonin is a conduit of transporting from the brain matter into that perivascular glymphatic fluid cell space, the. The different metabolites that the brain wants to get rid of, whether it's toxic amyloid or tau proteins. But it seems like melatonin is playing a role in that. And most likely because of its amphiphilic structure, right? Because it can be a little bit liquid and a little bit fatty at the same time. Now, from an answer to your question, like, where I got to this more mystical, expanded view of melatonin as a molecule of consciousness is because, you know, I was kind of curious, like, I would get a lot of questions on podcasts, like, well, Deanna, why do you think this is that melatonin goes up between two and four. And I started to think about it and I'm married to an acupuncturist, so I'm already like by, I would say default or just by living with him for so long that I knew about TCM chronotherapy and I knew that we have liver time between one and three, right. So I'm thinking, oh, this is cleanup time. Well, then I also knew that we have certain sleep states, right? So we've got non rem, we've got rem. And it seems like melatonin is increasing the REM state, the dream state. And then I was thinking, you know, one of the side effects of taking melatonin for people and why they stop it is because they start to have nightmares or their dreams become very vivid and disturbing where they don't, they don't want that. But then I was thinking, isn't that a form of detoxification? Like, don't we need to go deeper? Maybe those are the things we need to come to the surface and melatonin is actually bringing us there and bubbling those things on up. So that was something I started to think about that are we afraid of the darkness? Are we plummeting in our endogenous melatonin levels due to all of the artificial light at night, the hyper productivity states that people want to be in, and also just the being enamored with technology. Right. So it's hard for us to get off of technology. So we're distorting this yang yin balance in the body through the conduit of a molecule like melatonin. And what's really interesting, Christine too, I, I stumbled across a study that was done in a sleep lab. And what these researchers found was that full moons change melatonin levels. Like they actually go down. So then I was thinking, okay, well I can justify that from an ancestral point of view. Like maybe when it was brighter outside, people had be more alert, less sleepy. But then I'm also thinking in a symbolic spiritual way of like, if you have full moon, like full feminine, full yin, maybe you don't need as much melatonin to kind of jump in there. Like there's that balance. So that's kind of how I got started thinking about all of that.

Yeah, no, I think there's. Yeah, I loved how you kind of laid that out. And I, in my research, you know, as well, you know, the stages of sleep are, you know, really interesting of what the brain and the body are doing. And then on this kind of rem, I read Matthew Walker's book too, I love we're talking to him about, you know, his, you know, kind of whole kind of conversation around traumatized. We don't get into REM sleep as much because it's such a period of like very much, you know, processing and consolidating and working through emotional states, you know, too through this dreaming aspect of the body and, you know, what's happening on a molecular level. And Joe, when I've gone to a couple of his conferences, he actually would even get us up for the pineal meditation at 2 o' clock in the morning. And so we would go, wow, okay. You know, his idea was when it was peaking, you know, we would be, you know, experiencing that. He talked a lot too, about the derivatives of melatonin and the molecules that melatonin breaks down into and kind of like how they are, you know, relatives to DMT and kind of this, you know, more mystical molecule by definition. So I haven't deep dove into that in a while, but it is kind of fascinating because I know a lot of us when we kind of go into these kind of corners of life, there is a lot of mysticism around the pineal gland and connecting to the greater fields of awareness and consciousness around us.

Yeah. You know, why did Rene Descartes, who was a French philosopher, mathematician, I love that combo, by the way, you know, calling it the seed of the soul. Like, how did that even come up? Right. So looking at it through like a science lens in this day and age now in the quantum field, what we see, like even if we look at that benzene structure and what you were saying about dmt, consciousness. So what is consciousness? I mean, it's hard to even define consciousness because it requires our consciousness to define it. So we're not completely like taking away from it. We're still very subjective. But the way that I look at it is states of awareness, states of being. Right. And so if you look at some of the aspects of neuroscience, there is talk about conscious states. So we know, like with traumatic brain injury that you start to see changes in melatonin levels. So the levels, just endogenous, endogenously, are disrupted in states of reduced consciousness. Right. And so also under stress, under certain mental disorder type of conditions, there is a change in melatonin levels. So, and we know that melatonin, just like you mentioned with serotonin, there's a very close relationship with them. So it's going from tryptophan into serotonin and into melatonin. And I came across a paper, Christine I don't have it here right now, but essentially it was talking about how people have certain configurations of certain serotonin receptors. And if I remember it right, it was something like 5 1A. Like there are certain formats of the receptor. You might even know which one. Right. And if you have certain aspects of that receptor combined with serotonin, you actually can reach states of self transcendence through that interaction. Yeah, it's an older paper too. It was not even something recent, but as I got into melatonin, I was thinking, I need to look at the precursor of melatonin, which is serotonin. You know, you look at that serotonin, melatonin, balance of. You know, no wonder the pineal gland in certain aspects of the brain were seen as very mystical. Right. So, yeah, thinking about that and then thinking about how in neuroscience, just to go back to that, if you look at. So I'm no expert in this, by the way, so I'm not going to be able to expound upon it. But let's just touch the surface because this is part of the talk that I gave. So aspects of consciousness are seen to be connected to what is called microtubules in the brain, like these very beautiful geometric structures that are lining, like the pathways of information or the photons that are transferred throughout the neurons. Right. And we know that melatonin is part of that process. So there is a relationship between the microtubules and melatonin. Again, melatonin is acting as that safeguard, the protection. We know that melatonin has neuroprotective effects. Overall, there is a nice paper that has been written about that. So, yeah, I mean, again, like this whole aspect of the brain, these aromatic rings that form these oscillations, these movements within the microtubules that eventually lead to the transference of conscious states is what the thought is. Now, again, this is very emerging. This is not like slam dunk, we're done, we get it. No, this is like this whole thing has just started to open and there are some people and his name there. There's an anesthesiologist out there, you might even know his name. But he has ventured into this space somewhat to talk about it and others in neuroscience are kind of intrigued with this concept. So anyway, that. That's where, you know, we start to see that melatonin, because of its structure, because of its concentration in, in neuronal tissue, that, and also glymphatic fluid, seems to be part of this whole cascade of consciousness.

Yeah, that's awesome. I hadn't put together the way the benzene ring creates oscillations in the microtubulin. And I know this is emerging. It's not Clinton's stone, but that's been an area as well that I love to noodle on kind of these different densities and connections of the, you know, really the fabric of the connective tissue. Right. And the microtubules are, you know, connected to the extracellular matrix through the cell membrane. You know, and so it's this. I. I always go back to James Oshman because he's the one who connected all the dots for me in my brain around this. And this is kind of. This is the language and the fabric with where consciousness or energy medicine, you know, traverses in the body, which I think is really fascinating because of the, you know, really where electromagnetism is, you know, generative and photons and even sound and, you know, all of these kind of really emerging higher order kind of thinking states. And then the whole thing, I think you're touching on it with the benzene ring. I think there's so much geometric patterning that happens in the body that we're just skimming the surface. Because how do you observe that? Right. It's, you know, a living person in different states. And, you know, the person absorbing that person is impacting it as well. And I'm sure we don't even have the technology yet to look at it, but I, I feel like that's where we're going, you know, in medicine. And, you know, then we have this, like, really beautiful story of, you know, how we are in the driver's seat of our, you know, and it's, you know, if we can, you know, really interact with states of consciousness greater than ourselves to impact our physiology, there's a lot there, you know, and it's. I'm excited about it. I don't know how you feel about.

It, but oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. And I love how you summarized all of that and how do we interact with our biology? Like you're saying to impact these states. Because if you look at the science of meditation, people who meditate, and I'm not talking about just like a weekend meditator, but like people who have consistently meditated, they have higher levels of melatonin and I believe even serotonin than non meditators.

Yeah.

So can we affect melatonin in states? Are these states of consciousness resulting in higher amounts of the molecules to support consciousness? Right. It's like we can potentially generate them through our behaviors, which I love that idea of. As well. And by the way, the. The name of the person that published his name came to me. Stuart Hameroff.

I've read his papers. Yeah. Yeah. They're fascinating.

Yeah. And he's the person who. I believe he's an anesthesiologist who published a lot of that work on the terahertz oscillations of the microtubules and how the pineal gland is also filled with these microtubules and the melatonin as well. Yeah. And. And so perhaps the point of entry, just to kind of speak to what you were just saying, is that we can temper the amount of consciousness by adequate amounts of light and darkness. So the way that I think about light and dark, I started calling them circadian nutrients. I mean, being that I'm always, like, thinking about nutrition, nutrients, what we need, what changes our physiology, our psychology. You know, if you think of it, even something subtle like this, I mean, you are very in tune with the whole aspect of light and sound and sh. Shape and color and frequency, all of these things. But I would ask the question of people, and especially of clinicians out there, are your patients darkness deficient? Are they deficient in the nutrient of darkness? So are they not getting enough of the yin. Are they not getting enough of the void, the void of creation, of allowing things to bubble on up to the surface? And maybe the reason, in part, that we're having so much on the horizon of just mental health issues, anxiety. You talked about mast cell activation syndrome and kind of looking at this hyper. Just this vigilance, sympathetic dominance. Is it because in part, do we need to be looking at this from a clinical perspective to nourish the darkness? Because if you think about it, even with children, and I can remember when I was younger, I was babysitting kids, and, you know, there was this thing about being afraid of the dark, and there's this sense of, like, the darkness is bad. You know, back to our Catholic upbringing, Right. It's like light and dark. Like, you want to go towards the light. Don't go into the dark, the darkness. It was very funny because even my mother, who continues to be very religious, and I love having conversations with her because she's still really healthy and vital. And so I was telling her about this. I said, mom, you know, just darkness just seems to be so important for our health as well. And she. She had a funny comment. She just said, deanna, you know, nothing good comes of darkness. And I said. And I said, but I came from you. I came from the womb.

Yeah. So I think that's a beautiful point because especially in this, you know, when we talk about these molecules, you know, we can generate and be more generative and connected to these and up regulate them in our system through a lot of what we're talking about. But the fact of the matter is we have to be very aware to do that because there's so many things impacting our serotonin and melatonin in modern life. You know, kind of taking us out of those states and so choice. And I'm noodling on this right now because we're talking about the void. I, I love Nassim Harriman's unified field theory and what he talks about as kind of from a cosmic and then a subatomic level. There are these black holes, right? So we know the black hole and you know, the galaxy. And he's like, it's not something that just kind of stuck, sucks energy in and swallows it. It's actually a void of creation. It's where matter emerges from. And again, I'm not a biophysicist in any means, but I'll take his, you know, he has done a lot of science to support this and he talks about that in the space between the protons and electrons, you know, there is that black hole type phenomenon of where matter is coming from. So I think ultimately there's so much that you're saying not only about getting enough darkness in your life, right? You already have better sleep, you can get stillness, you can get out of these artificial states. But I've been really noodling on. This is the space where we heal, right? This is the space where we create, this is the space we come from. And you know, there is a lot of, you know, bringing in that feminine kind of part of medicine that is balancing the over masculine conversation, right. We need both, but it's kind of bringing them both together. But it's such a reframe of, you know, the darkness of what we all want to avoid as you know, Catholics and kids. So yeah, and as you know, there.

I mean it's very trendy right now. But there are even darkness retreats where people are paying to go into a cabin of complete darkness for like seven days on end. And then they emerge from those situations with such emotion. Everything is hyper vivid and alive. And I think that all of this, not full spectrum light of the sun, but the artificial blue light, the Alan artificial light at night is endocrine disrupting. Like it's changing us, it's changing us at this endocrine chakra level. And it's distorting us and it's disconnecting us. The other point about light too, that I just want to mention and I want to touch on, because it was fleeting through my mind, as you mentioned, feminine. I'd like to talk about menopause as we come to a close. But before that, I just want to say one thing and that really drives that Dr. Fritz pops his work with biophysics and also looking at ultra weak photon emission upe. So if we have too much light or oxidative bursts in the mitochondria, we know that this is damaging. We actually want to conserve our light. And then you look at the EWA sign, kind of this symbolic enlightenment. The light is inside, right. It's not like we're exuding the light. We are, we are harnessing the light from within that potential. And what melatonin is doing, again, is quelling and helping to mitigate a lot of those oxidative bursts at the level of the mitochondria to protect the mitochondria from the potential damage. So a lot of different things can change those ultra weak photons from emitting. Right. And there are not. Well, you might know about this. I don't know a lot of clinical tools that can measure the spray from like fingertips. But I know that there are research tools and there's, there are even publications on this. But certain things can be done in order to reduce the spray of ultra weak photon emissions. Right. So looking at even meditation, you know, getting into that state of calm and certain, certain times of the year, we're going to have higher emissions. So like summertime, when actually melatonin would be lower because we don't get the darkness. Right. It's just amazing when you start thinking of life through the light and dark lens, you start to see it very differently. It's like, okay, summer's there for a reason. We need to be fully in that, but then be fully in the darkness when it does come so that we can have enough of that balance throughout the year. Right? So. But yeah, summer leads to greater ultra ultra weak photon emission, and that's just because of the ultraviolet light. Right. We know meditation, we know that a diet rich in antioxidants can also lower this spray of photons, which makes sense because it all tracks back to the mitochondria.

Yeah, yeah. Such an intelligent part of our design. And I love Pop's work. And I would say it's the Goldilocks, right? It's the Goldilocks amount of light that we want, you know, to be emitting from our cells. And I. I think that you and I are both in tune with darkness and light and our seasonality. In the Northwest, there's a defined dark time, and the Northwest is a very defined, expansive light time. You know, our sun will set in the winter at 4pm after rising at 8, 8:30. Right. It's a very limited window of light. And. And then in the, you know, summertime, the sun is up at 6 and you know, you know, the sun sets maybe 9:30, but it's very light out much later. So we're like, in this very expansive time. So I think we get that very visceral experience in our seasonality here.

It's true. It's true. And perhaps we just need to allow ourselves a little bit more rest and darkness in those winter months, even when we live in the Pacific Northwest, where we feel like there's less light than in other places. I mean, there is, but I think that everything balances out if we. If we ride the wave of nature. When we. When we try to push against it and we try to just, again, infuse our environments with things that are unnatural, that's where things start to happen.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, I love that conversation around melatonin. So many directions we went there. I'd love to wrap on menopause because I know that is such a big topic now. There's a lot of thought leaders and influencers talking about it as many women are going through menopause just with the age span that we have in our country. And so, yeah, I'd love to hear just kind of your perspective of this time.

Well, the only reason I mention it is because of exactly what you said. It's very topical and also it does tie into melatonin. And I feel. So I'm 54 and I just went through menopause. Completed that 12 final month of my no period when I was just about 53. So I'm not that far out of being through that whole experience. But one of the things I came to was the energetic view of menopause and how I kind of feel like there's like this Yang kind of scrambling of like, we gotta figure it out and like, we need to, you know, just quell the symptoms, just get on hormone replacement therapy, menopause replacement therapy, you know, just kind of like get in there, patch the gaps, get our lives back on track. And there is a piece of that. You know, every woman has her own journey, and I honor that And I also take low dose hormone replacement therapy, so I'm not opposed to that. I do think, however, if we look at the paradigm of honoring a woman's wisdom through her body, like, what is it? Even from a chakra perspective, if we look at like, how she's lived so much of her life in kind of like, you know, getting safe, having that sense of survival, the root sacral chakra, looking at her connection to relationships, her solar plexus, like just being out there in the world. I kind of feel like menopause is the time to. It's like we're ratcheting up. We're going into the spiritual terrain versus the earthly. I mean, we're still earthbound, but it's like it's. It's uncomfortable to move into this next phase of life in some ways. But how do we honor that fully? How do we not patch it over? And how do I. We allow ourselves to blossom and bloom into our new, I would say, Phoenix rising kind of identity in the second half of our lives and at the same time also be able to function where, you know, we're not impacted so much by hot flashes. So I'm going to mention melatonin with this because there were a few indications in the literature that I saw in terms of even supplemental melatonin being helpful for helping with some of the symptoms of menopause. But I kind of approach. And the way I look at menopause is like full spectrum, right? Like, how do we honor the yin? How do we, you know, my husband will. Will say, at least in tcm and, and you know this as well, like, for women that have yin deficiency, they have the worst experience of menopause. Like they don't have the yin to balance the Yang. So then you get the Yang rising, you get the hot flashes, right? So if we were more in our yin and more in that energetic, you know, balance throughout our lives, then it's kind of like we integrate as we go through menopause, right? Like we bring the aspects, the different energies of ourselves together in that flow and really see what like, comes forth in that new again, like that spiritual terrain of, of life and what we're now heading towards, which is truly like our meaning, our purpose, even more, even more than in our 20s and 30s and 40s, right? It's like now we're amping up that consciousness factor.

I love that perspective. I haven't heard people talk about that piece of this journey. And yeah, I do think it's a time like the sage, right? The, the Wisdom, you know, to honor that and to step forward from. From that place rather than, you know, when we're younger and forming our wisdom. No, I. I think that's a really beautiful aspect. So, Deanna, I love talking to you, and I'm sure there'll be many more interviews to come as we, I guess, end our conversation. I'd love to hear anything, you know, personally that you do to tend to this part of yourself that could be a nice invitation for others, especially to balance the dark and the void in their tangible, kind of fun way that.

You interact with that dream analysis. So I. I worked with a shamanic woman, actually. You might even know her, Char Sundust. I studied with her for a few years in my. In the early 2000s. And one of the things that she brought forward as a tool for me, I mean, dream analysis is not like a new thing. It's been around. Right. But there are different approaches to it and what you can do with it. And if melatonin is the divining rod into your subconscious space and bringing that up to the conscious reality, it's kind of like, what's the gift in that for you? And even some of the dreams that don't feel so good, it's almost like I feel like they need airing out. They need to be brought into the light. And so that all pieces of ourselves can kind of. In the shamanic world of like, soul retrieval, it's like a mini soul retrieval every night when we're dreaming. And if we negate and we block and we say, I'm not going into that. I'm not going into the. The scary dreams, and, you know, there could be reason, trauma and things like that, that we don't want to get into that space without a therapist or somebody to guide us. And that is absolutely valid because some dreams can be terrifying. Right? But I. You're asking for me personally, that's what I have used in terms of getting into my dream state. What? And oftentimes, like, my husband and I will have breakfast together. Cause that's kind of like our time together. And I'll ask him, like, what do you think this means? But, you know, really, I'm the only person that knows what that means. Right. And like, to. To go into that. So the dream is the nexus point of subconscious talking to my conscious through that language of melatonin, through my biology, and bringing that forward into how can I make my life better? What am I not seeing? What is in the dark that needs to be seen. So I would say that's that's probably it for me.

I love that. I. I'm inspired by that. So thank you for sharing. Um, Deanna, where can people connect with you and what are you up to and how can people learn more from you right now?

Yeah, um, my website is pretty much the hub of all things deannaminick.com and I've got resources, blogs. I do offer trainings in what I call food and spirit. So that's that. You know, in, in the world of my consultations with people, that's what I do with them is a lot of what we talk about. I go along that spectrum of looking at what's happening in their physical reality and how do we make symbolic sense of that. So that is, that's what I'm about. And I'm also just to close on the melatonin. So I'm also chief science officer at Symphony Natural Health, which is an awesome company, has very targeted high integrity plant products. And one of them is a plant melatonin. It's called Erbatonin. So I love the product. I use that myself. So in case people are thinking like, well, what does she think about, like, what kind of melatonin that would be? The one that I like. And it comes in a low dose and it comes in a, like a 0.3 milligram and it comes in a 3 milligram. So symphonynaturalhealth.com would be another great place.

Awesome. And many of my patients might know the feminescence. Yes. And you know, all of the other beautiful plants that are there to support, especially the hormonal transitions. So I love it so well, it's always a pleasure to be in your presence and to have these conversations. I so enjoy them. And it's just. I'm very grateful for your time and thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Oh, thanks for having me. I feel like we're on the same wavelength, so it's easy to have these conversations.

Thank you for listening to the Spectrum of Health podcast. I hope you enjoyed my conversation today with Dr. Deanna Minick. Please check out all of her information in the show notes. She's a wealth of knowledge. She's also corrected, connected rather with a great product line and I hope you really enjoyed connecting with her wisdom. So have a beautiful day and thank you so much for being part of my podcast community. Bye, everyone.