https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAP9iGcfLT0

I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on environmental strategies to thrive even with chronic illness or addiction. I'm your host, Dr. Donalee Snipes. Today we're going to review how the environment impacts stress, sleep, the immune system and cravings, and identify environmental strategies like trigger management, forest therapy, earthing, music, aromatherapy, and even colors to create a safe and empowering environment and nurture the body and the mind. Just a recap, there is a connection between chronic illness and inflammation and addiction and inflammation. Chronic illness causes and can be caused by inflammation. Addiction causes inflammation and inflammation can cause cravings and relapses. So we see that they're connected. Stress in any piece of your life, physical, interpersonal, environmental, cognitive, or emotional, causes inflammation. When we have stress, it triggers that stress response and if it's just every once in a while, it's fine. But chronic stress will trigger that stress response, which will eventually lead to uncontrolled systemic inflammation, which also causes changes in our hormones and our neurotransmitters, which lead us to feel depressed and may trigger cravings. When our neurotransmitters get out of balance, when we don't have enough dopamine, don't have enough serotonin, we start craving. Whether you're craving alcohol or chocolate or something in between, we often do have cravings. It's our body's way of trying to help us self-medicate. Inflammation itself is a form of stress. Now it's a good thing when it is appropriate. When you break your arm or sprain your arm and it gets inflamed, that's the body trying to heal itself. It's bringing all the tools and all the crews to that area to fix the problem that's going on. So of course it's going to take up more room. When the system is stressed for too long, then the body loses its ability to turn off that inflammation. So then it just starts running haywire. Managing chronic illness and addiction in part means reducing inflammation directly So if you've got Crohn's disease or celiac, not eating those things that are going to aggravate, that are going to trigger a flare, obviously we don't want to do that. Trying to manage our health so we're not getting sick, which causes stress and inflammation. And we want to reduce stress because stress indirectly causes inflammation. The environment impacts chronic illness and addiction via sensory information and prior learning. What we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we taste, and yes, I know I have that on the same line. Taste is one that may not be as prevalent for a lot of people with chronic illness. It's like, well, how is taste goiNg to trigger me or cause inflammation. But it's interesting that what we smell often affects how things taste. I was drinking goat milk the other day and first time ever trying to drink goat milk, but goat milk tasted like goats smell. And I just, I was kind of struck. We weren't even on the farm, but I was struck by how it triggered that memory I have of being around goats and what goats smell like. And then touch, which can include temperature and ergonomics. And we're going to talk about modifying potentially each one of those. This information that we get from those senses can be uplifting and empowering or stressful and triggering. We're going to start with the most mundane aspect of environmental modifications, and that's triggers. Triggers are not bad. Triggers are just something that kicks off a reaction. And so we can have something that triggers distress or something that triggers feelings of happiness and comfort and empowerment. So it's important we get away from this notion that all triggers are bad. No, we can put triggers in our environment for positive things. So we're going to start out with distress triggers because, you know, why not? Sites, things that you see, whether it's a picture or a television commercial or a television show, something that you see that triggers memories, triggers thoughts that are distressful to you. Environments that you may be in. Sometimes if you are in a really busy environment, it may feel distressful to you if you don't like being around a lot of people or being in church or in a school or in your boss's office or who whatever. There are certain environments that may feel a whole lot more stressful to you. Sometimes you can't avoid those environments completely, but sometimes you can. What can you do, for example, if you're going to a busy restaurant and you really don't like people walking around behind you? Well, ask to be seated next to a wall so you can have your back to the wall. Go during a time when it's not as busy, eight o'clock on a Friday night, Probably ain't gonna be the best time. But modify your environment or talk with whomever you're going out with and say, you know what? I'd really like to choose a place that's a little bit lower key. Those are all things we can do to modify our environment with pictures. We can add empowering pictures. We can take away sites, things that we see in our environment that add stress. That includes clutter. if clutter stresses you out, well, then clean it up. And sometimes you may not have the energy to do a lot of cleaning, so cleaning it up means getting a big old laundry basket and just wiping everything off the table into the laundry basket and setting it aside for the minute. And that's okay. Sometimes we don't have the energy to appropriately put everything away in its place. You just don't wanna end up with 15 laundry baskets that you've gotta deal with later. Colors also can add stress or can add happiness. Colors for a lot of people are associated with memories and there are certain colors that I've seen that remind me of being in a very institutional cold environment, those really bluish gray, cold colors. I don't like them. I'm not a fan of gray. Anyway, when I look at houses, when I look at the paint on the walls, if it's gray, I'm like, oh, that's going. That's going to have to be changed if I move in here, because I prefer a butter color, a, you know, moderate medium yellow, as you can kind of see on my back walls here. It's not. super bright, but it's warm. And that works for me. Some people love cool colors, and if that works for you, more power to you. It's important to know what makes you feel content, what makes you feel happy. If you can't paint the walls, okay, that's fine. Put pictures up, get throw pillows, add color wherever you can. get throw blankets, I think, oh you can't see them in this image. If I switch over here you can kind of see back on the back wall I have a, that's actually a throw blanket that is woven but it is pictures of cats and it's pretty and it's colorful and it's soft and it absorbs sound so that helps a lot in terms of sound. Knowing what bugs you and knowing what is soothing is important. The intensity of the sound, are you sensitive to how loud sounds are or the intensity of various wavelengths, I guess, within the spectrum. Really high treble or really low bass. are painful to my ears. I don't like to hear them. But that middle spectrum, yeah, I'm all about that. I will totally rock out. The pitch, again, the high sounds. When we talk about white noise at the end of the presentation, white noise has equal emphasis across all levels of the spectrum. And it's too hissy, too high pitched for me. It hurts my ears. I don't like white noise. I'm very particular on what brown noises I listen to. Ambient sounds. Sometimes there are sounds in the background that are bothersome. My husband jokes around here because the lawn service services our neighbors and it always feels like every time I'm ready to go out, and I know always and every time, cognitive distortions, but whatever. It feels like there's constantly what we call a weaponized lawnmower going on. It's just that loud, unending hum that drowns out the birds, it drowns out everything else. It annoys me, but there's nothing I can do about it. When the lawnmowers are out, I close the windows, I turn on music, you know, everybody's happy. voices. Voices that remind you of a stressful time in your past. Maybe somebody's talking and they sound just like somebody from your past. That can be stressful. Now you can't make them change their voice and it's probably not nice to say, you know, you're triggering me, shut up. Now that's probably not going to work. But recognizing that projection you're experiencing and dealing with it, Recognizing when this person speaks, they sound just like so and so. But based on the facts in this context at this time, I recognize that this is not so and so. And turning your attention to what is being said can be more helpful. Excuse me. Music. is something else that you want to listen to. Some people don't like opera, for example, and if you don't like opera, that's going to be stressful if it's blaring or if your neighbor is blaring it. You may choose to invest in noise canceling headphones or noise canceling earplugs. They have earplugs now that are what I call semi noise canceling, where you can wear them and cuts out a lot of the background noise, which is really cool for people who have a hard time filtering that out. But doing whatever you can to make your environment less punishing can be really beneficial. And then misophonia. And this tends to be more prominent in people who are already stressed, but not always. Misophonia is when you have a strong emotional reaction. It's just like, oh, it drives me crazy when you hear a particular sound like your spouse chewing or, you know, chewing is a big one that is very common with misophonia. My dogs, when they lick their paws, they're just licking and licking and licking and it drives me nuts. Recognizing that and saying, okay, what can I do to address it? How can I prevent it? When the dogs are doing it, the dogs get put out of the room. You know, if you can't stop licking, you're going to go out the room. Putting on, getting, like I said, those partially blocking earbuds can be really helpful because it may block out enough of that sound where you're not hearing it. Knowing what your triggers are for when your misophonia gets worse, and what makes it better? Really important because it's empowering when you know this is a distress trigger, but I can counter it with this positive trigger. I can counter it or prevent it or mitigate it this way. That's very empowering, which will help reduce your stress. Smells are the same way. The intensity of smells is, can be overwhelming to people. And I'm one of those people that my husband says I've got a bionic nose and the intensity of smells, whether it's aromatherapy or colognes or anything, can get overpowering to me really quickly. Even the air fresheners, you know, Febreze and stuff that you spray can be so overpowering that I start getting a headache and some people, it'll trigger a migraine. if intensity of smells is an issue, then knowing what you can do. And a lot of times that means removing yourself from the situation because the smells are going to permeate all the air around you. Understanding that communicating that to those around you can be really helpful though. If they know that you're sensitive to smells, you know, go easy on the aftershave because it's a little overwhelming, can be beneficial for you to set your boundary and say, that's just too much for me. It hurts. It physically hurts. I get a migraine. And smells can be memory oriented. And I've talked about this a lot with my grandmother. She always used to clean with pine saw. And whenever I smell pine saw, I think of my grandmother. When my son was in the NICU, I spent a lot of time at the hospital. and I swear hospitals all use the same cleaner. I don't know what it is, but it's the same cleaner. And every time I go in the hospital for to a doctor's appointment or whatever, I smell that smell. And it reminds me of when my son was an infant and I was spending so much time in the NICU. Rose, roses, you know, what kinds of smells? And we're going to talk a lot about smells when we get down to aromatherapy, but being aware of the smells that may have distress triggers and how can you counter them? If there's something you particularly don't like the smell of, getting some Vicks Vapor Rub and putting it right underneath your nose can help block that smell. Unless you hate the smell of Vicks Vapor Rub, then you got to find something else. Touch is another aspect of the environment and it's everything from the clothes that you're wearing to what you're sitting on. If you're sitting on a chair or something that is hard and it's uncomfortable, that's an unpleasant aspect of your environment. If you're wearing a wool sweater that just, you know, you feel like you wanna scratch constantly 'cause it's just so itchy or it's too hot, then that's going to be distressful. When you're overheated or when you're too cold, your body perceives that as a stressor. Making sure you, whenever I go out, I always bring layers because I get cold really easily, but I also get hot really easily. So I don't want to be overdressed, but I want to make sure that I can layer up if I need to. And then taste, being aware of things that you taste in your environment. That's more of a physical thing, but it is one of our senses, so I wanted to mention it. because when you smell, you also may taste at the same time. When you smell something noxious, you may get a noxious taste in your mouth. Chewing gum, sucking on a lozenge, all of those things can help kind of get that taste to go away. And I mentioned, or I referred to empowering triggers as we went through this, but empowering triggers aren't necessarily just things that you can add to your environment to replace or counter distressful triggers. You can also add empowering triggers that you don't have right now. You can, for years, I was never one who hung a bunch of pictures and knickknacks and art on the wall. That just wasn't me. And my daughter has a knack for it. and she went through and she helped me redecorate the living room and the common areas of the house. And it feels much warmer. It feels much more inviting. Was it fine before? Yeah. Did it trigger distress before? No. But now it's inviting. There's a difference. Forest therapy, also called forest bathing, Shinrin-yoku, and I probably didn't pronounce that right, but I did my best. Began in Japan in the 1980s as a national response to a spike in population stress-related chronic diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, depression, and suicide. All of these are stress-related chronic illnesses. Forest bathing or forest therapy can be done a variety of ways. You can do it guided or independently. So you can do it guided with one with a guide or you can do it guided as part of a group. You can do it guided in real life walking through a forest or an arboretum or you can do it guided with virtual reality. And they found that when people are doing guided forest bathing, that there is a greater emphasis on their sense of a change of emotion and social connection. Even if it's just guided with the guide, they don't have a whole group of people, they feel a connection to other people and that is reportedly different than when you do self-directed forest therapy. You're walking through an arboretum or a forest or a park by yourself or using virtual reality. When people do that, they notice that they're much more introspective. They're talking to themselves. They're thinking about life, if you will. They found that the best amount of time for forest therapy is 12 to 60 minutes, depending on how much time you have, every day or every other day. But it must be mindful. You can't just go to the park and go on a walk and be be-bopping around thinking about anything and everything and all over the place. That really doesn't do any good. You need to be mindful of, I'm going out here and I'm going to be in the present moment. I'm going to notice the trees. I'm going to notice what I smell. I'm going to notice what I feel and what I hear. The benefits of forest therapy are many. Improved cardiovascular function, hemodynamic, which is your blood, neuroendocrine, which are your hormones, metabolic immunity, inflammatory, antioxidant, and electrophysiological indexes. So basically, every aspect of our body machine can be tuned up a little bit with forest bathing. They found it enhances mood, attitude, and your feelings toward other things, whether it's, you know, something that you see in the environment like rabbits or snakes or dogs, or your feelings toward something else that you encounter once you're finished forest bathing. They found that people tend to be more accepting or tolerant. It improves physical and psychological recovery. It actually does heal and speed recovery, as does earthing. It promotes adaptive behaviors. They didn't really define what adaptive behaviors were, but hey, I'm good with it. It increases human natural killer cell activity and the intracellular levels of anti-cancer proteins. When you're out there, you're breathing terpenes, you're breathing aromas from nature, from plants. And a lot of these plants have aromas smells that are designed to repel bugs, to keep fungi away, to help them survive, help them stay healthy. And they speculate that inhaling these chemicals actually helps improve our immunity. It also reduces blood pressure and heart rate, which goes back up to that improved cardiovascular function. It reduces the stress hormones, adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol. Who doesn't need a little help reducing their cortisol these days? And if you've got chronic illness or if you're struggling with emotional dysregulation, if you've got an addiction, If you're in pain, yeah, you need to reduce your cortisol. It reduces inflammation, especially the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6. Okay, that's fine. Ultimately, we wanna focus on the inflammation, not the particular one, but I thought that was an interesting little tidbit that primarily affected interleukin-6. It increases the activity of the parasympathetic nerves, the vagus nerve, to stabilize the balance of the autonomic nervous system. When you're out there walking in nature or being in nature, it triggers that relaxation response. When you are being mindful of what is right now, assuming it's not a viper coming right at you or something, which would be terrifying, but when you're forest bathing, you are in this environment where you're not being bombarded by tons of mechanical noise and you're not being bombarded by your email and blue light and everything else. You're back to nature. And they found that that actually does help trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. It improves sleep. Well, anything you do to help regulate your systems and reduce unnecessary cortisol is likely going to improve sleep. So that's a win-win. People do report after forest therapy, they feel like they are more resilient and they're able to bounce back more easily. They actually did a study with emergency room doctors and found that the doctors who did the forest therapy, they were in the treatment group, felt like they had a much greater ability to bounce back when things went wrong at work. for the preceding few days. This isn't something that you do it once and you're good forever. It's something that you have to do consistently, kind of like exercising or meditating. But it does for a lot of people help them have a much greater sense of calm. In the Profile of Mood States test, it reduced anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion, and increased vigor. The point being there have been a lot of studies on everybody from people with cancer, people with dementia, people with ADHD, postpartum depression, just and doctors, who knows what their diagnosis is, but lots of different people, lots of different populations have been evaluated and they found consistent results, which means there's got to be something to it. How does it work? Well, Wilson's biophilia hypothesis says that we naturally, humans naturally gravitate toward nature. When we're in nature, we feel more connected. And that connectedness is part of what helps release oxytocin, reduce our stress levels. Remember, oxytocin is a powerful anti-inflammatory and it also helps regulate the autonomic nervous system. Forest therapy reduces noise pollution, although city parks have also been shown to have benefits on human health. My sense is, now they didn't actually test Central Park in New York City, but my sense is that Central Park probably not as relaxing as being somewhere in Yellowstone or something, because you do have a lot of ambient city noise, but you're still inhaling those terpenes. You're still inhaling those aromas that will help trigger your immune system and reduce that inflammation. Terpenes, which are aromas. And a lot of times when we talk about terpenes, we're talking about either aromatherapy or cannabis. But terpenes in general are a group of aromatic compounds. Phytoecdysones are chemicals that plants put out through their roots, through their leaves, through their bark, through a lot of different ways to protect themselves. And alpha and beta pinene and delimonine are phytoecdysones that have antiviral, antitumor, antimicrobial mucosal and immunomodulatory effects. So sweet. Pineine comes from, guess what? Pine trees. And D-limonene comes from lemons. We're not creating, we're not talking about something that's totally foreign to people. We're talking about things that people do have access to, even if it's not the essential oil. Lemon rind. better than nothing, and smelling pine trees. I mean when you go into a forest you're not, you don't have an essential oil, you have it straight from the trees needles. Forest therapy refocuses your attention and assists with distress tolerance through what's called the gate control theory. When you are in the forest you are focusing on what's around you, you're being mindful and you're focusing your attention there so your attention is less likely to wander to something stressful or less likely to stay focused on whatever your pain is. It encourages movement if you're doing forest walking. Don't recommend it for VR unless you're really adept at that. And the multisensory gentle stimuli of the natural environment has been shown to improve mood and promote cognitive stimulation in people with dementia especially, but it does get your brain circuits going. Contact with natural elements such as green plants indoors can improve physical functions of people with mental health issues. It can be helpful to have those green plants around, but the plastic ones don't work because they don't put off the aromatic compounds. Yes, they're pretty and that helps, but they did a study with people in the hospital and they found that in terms of the amount of pain medication used, their reported quality of life and pain, and how quickly they recovered to the point where they could be discharged, those who had no access to nature, took a lot longer, used more pain medicine, were generally unhappier. Those who could see nature but not smell it did a little bit better. But those who were able to see nature and smell nature had the best reports, had the best data on their recovery progress. Indoor horticulture has proven significantly proven to significantly improve older adults quality of life, anxiety, depression, social relations, physical abilities, and cognitive abilities. People with dementia, people with autoimmune issues, people who have a lot of allergies, they can't go outside. Doesn't mean they can't participate with plants. We just have to do it inside. And they have so many tabletop gardens and different things out, whether you want to do it in soil or hydroponically. you can. Even if you don't have a south facing window, you can get the hydroponic lights and hang them right up under your cabinet, the upper cabinets. They have great little lights now that just like stick on to the bottom of the cabinets. And you can do a little bit of indoor horticulture. Spending 120 minutes a week in nature was considered to have positive effects on health. 120 minutes, two hours a week, which is roughly 20 minutes a day in nature. I think most of us can find 15 to 20 minutes a day just to be outside for a minute. Patients with windows facing nature-laden scenery experienced marked improvement in health and recovery with shortened hospital stays compared to patients with an urban view. And I think it's interesting if you're working with patients who have a stress related chronic illness, which most of them are, or a chronic illness that is worsened by stress, which most of them are, to have them try it. Have them consider having some plants around. If they've got pets, make sure they're using plants that are non-toxic to pets, of course, because that would be tragic to have them have the pet get sick, but it can be something fun. I have recently discovered that I love orchids. I never, never thought I would be an orchid gardener, but I love orchids and they're non-toxic, they're super easy to grow, and they just flower like all the time. Simulated forest immersion therapy using virtual reality, visual, auditory, and olfactory was found to be very effective. As I mentioned, the more you can make it like the person is in nature, the better the effect size is. Taking three short breaks in a virtual reality forest over three consecutive days resulted in ongoing psychological improvements. The software they used for this was Nature Treks. But again, visual, auditory and olfactory. See it, smell it, hear it. And it is important if you are simulating nature to find a nature track that works for your patient. There are a lot of nature tracks on YouTube that I've tried to listen to, but they'll have the babbling brook in the background, which is great. That's brown noise, sometimes pink noise, depending. But then they have these birds and suddenly they'll make the birds singing get so loud and it's so high pitched and it's so painful. We don't want to, if you're using an artificial soundtrack, it's really important to find an artificial soundtrack that is comfortable for your patient. If you're using nature, then it's unlikely that the noise is going to feel deafening for them. Virtual reality forest bathing in patients with depression or dementia showed a reduction in apathy and an increase in engagement during the session. Working with people with addictions, especially in early recovery, and I mean that like the first six months at least, their neurotransmitters are all out of whack. Their cortisol's through the roof. Forest therapy can be extremely helpful for assisting that person to reset their physiological parameters. Earthing is related to forest therapy. Forest therapy, you're going out into nature. Earthing, you're actually reconnecting the conductive human body to the Earth's natural and subtle surface electric charge, which systemically influences the bioelectrical function of the body. Now, I'm going to explain all this in a minute, but what it's saying is it's important for us to actually touch the ground. Go out and touch the grass, touch the ground, not with rubber soles, not with, you know, concrete between us, but actually touch the ground. This stabilizes physiology, reduces inflammation, pain, and stress, improves sleep, blood flow, and lymphatic and venous return to the heart, and produces a sense of greater well-being. Now that sense of greater well-being is probably a byproduct of improved sleep and reduced inflammation and pain, but hey, I'll go with it. How Earthing works, and I know the text is a little small, but I wanted to get this all onto one slide. The Earth has a continuously renewed supply of free electrons that give it a natural negative electro electric charge. Free radicals, also known as reactive oxygen species, and we talk about free radicals a lot in terms of oxidative stress. Free radicals are positively charged molecules that strip electrons from healthy tissue, resulting in damage. So you've got free radicals floating through your body, and they want electrons. and they can't find them anywhere, so they're stripping them from your healthy tissues. Well, when you get grounded, you absorb a lot of free electrons. So those free electrons, just like when you have two magnets, a negative and a positive, they just find each other and they're just like, glob on to one another. That's what happens. So these free electrons can neutralize the free radicals. It's super awesome. Every cell produces billions of free radicals every day. It's the byproducts, it's the waste products. It has to happen for us to exist, but we need to figure out a way to neutralize it. Earthing permits huge numbers of free electrons to be absorbed by the body, where they move through the nervous meridian and circulatory systems and neutralize those free radicals. Neutralization of the free radicals leads to powerful anti-inflammatory effects and reinforcement for the immune system. Earthing rapidly reverses both acute and chronic inflammation and again, rapidly. It does so really quickly, which is awesome. They found in one study they took athletes and they put one group through earthing and the other group just as normal. And they found that the group that went through earthing had clear evidence of pain relief and reduced inflammation after intense workouts compared to their counterparts. Another one that was super cool, they found that earthing with NICU babies, helping the NICU babies actually get ground, physiologically, electromagnetically grounded, significantly increased heart rate variability. Now, heart rate variability is good. You want the variability to be large. So increasing heart rate variability indicates improved vagal tone. And because that shows that when you get stressed, the ability of the vagus nerve to bring that stress response down and down quickly is more robust. So I thought that was really cool. NICU babies also benefit from it. Interestingly, medication dosages may be reduced in some people because earthing has a mild blood thinning effect and may improve thyroid function and blood sugar regulation. Well, if it reduces stress and it reduces inflammation, then we're probably going to reduce the stress response, which is going to reduce blood sugar being secreted and reduce stress on the hypothalamic thyroid axis. However, we'll take it. Whatever is causing the improvement in thyroid function and blood sugar regulation, we'll take it. Increased blood viscosity in the general population may be perhaps the newest risk factor in cardiovascular events because of its negative effect on blood pressure, thrombogenesis, and ischemia. A lot of us are getting really thick blood and earthing helps thin that blood out a little bit so it's not all clumpy and thick and stiff. sticky, which makes everything else flow better, basically. Reduced inflammation and pain in patients with chronic fatigue and autoimmune disorders has been seen. Improved gut microbiome due to reduced inflammation. When we have stress, it causes inflammation. When we have inflammation, it causes stress. Both of those cause our gut microbiome to get altered. to become inhospitable to the positive bacteria. So as people reduce stress and inflammation, the gut microbiome improves. We see improved immunity, slowed aging. Well, if you are neutralizing inflammation. When we have stress, it causes inflammation. When we have inflammation, it causes stress. Both of those cause our gut microbiome to get altered, to become inhospitable to the positive bacteria. so as people reduce stress and inflammation, the gut microbiome improves. We see improved immunity, slowed aging. Well, if you are neutralizing those free radicals, then you are definitely addressing one of the issues that has been linked to aging and improved wound healing. So, I mean, earthing super positive. There are two ways of earthing. I know. All of you are going, okay, this sounds great. How do I do it? Two ways. Indoors, you can use earthing systems and you can get them off of Amazon or somewhere. They're not all that super technical. They are conductive mats, pads, body bands, or patches that you use while sitting or sleeping. You plug them into a grounded outlet and if you have a pad, a lot of people have a pad they put under their desk and they set their bare feet on that pad. and that grounds them. You don't actually have to go outside. My guess is they weren't taking these little NICU babies outside and putting them in the grass. They were putting them on a pad that allowed them to be grounded and absorb those electrons. By spending time barefoot outdoors in contact with natural conductive surfaces like grass, soil, gravel, stone, and sand, you can also do earthing without spending a dime. The recommended amount of time for earthing each day is at least 30 minutes once a day. You don't have to do it all at once. You can do it 15 in the morning, 15 at night, whenever. But again, because it's 30 minutes and not everybody likes walking around barefoot, you may opt for one of the pads that you can set under your desk and put your feet on, or one of the pads that you can put on your bed and sleep on. The athletes that were in that study on delayed onset muscle soreness actually slept on a pad that allowed them to absorb the electrons. Aromatherapy. Essential oils come from seeds, stems, leaves, needles, petals, flowers, rinds and fruits, woods and resins, roots and rhizomes, and grasses. Essential oils come from plants and every part of the plant can potentially have a therapeutic benefit. Essential oils in general have been found to be antimicrobial, analgesic, they relieve pain, anxiolytic, they reduce anxiety, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor. A lot of them have also been shown to help with cognition and uplift mood. Essential oils increase neurogenesis. That thing that we talk about all the time when we get too stressed, we start killing brain cells. And what do we need to do to heal? Well, we need to reduce stress, but then we also need to promote the creation of new brain cells. And essential oils have been found to do that. They've been found to help regulate hormone levels. selectively stimulate certain brain regions, and alter blood biochemistry affecting both mood and emotions. The effects of essential oils, this isn't just me saying this is what happens or random people saying, oh yeah, it made me feel better, it helped me balance my hormones. They have data. They have a lot of data recently. I was amazed since I did my first aromatherapy presentation five or six years ago, there has just been an absolute flood of clinical research on aromatherapy, which is fabulous. Same thing with forest bathing. But they were looking at the brain using an electroencephalogram and functional imagery studies, and they have identified with certain essential oils that certain oils will activate different areas of the brain. So we know that for certain things, that they will have a particular effect on the person's brain. Essential oils are different than smells that simply trigger memories. However, they may have a similar effect on the autonomic nervous system. Smells like walking in and smelling brownies or when I smell pine saw, because it reminds me of my grandmother. It makes me happy. It makes me feel content. It triggers that wash of relaxation chemicals. It probably doesn't activate the brain in the exact same way. And the smell of brownies certainly doesn't have anti-tumor and antimicrobial effects. So essential oils are kind of like smells on steroids, if you will. Aromatherapy has been found to benefit sleep, especially lavender, bergamot, peppermint, chamomile, rosemary, clary sage, lemongrass, eucalyptus, and rosewood. Different odors, different aromas work for different people in different ways. Clary sage, for example, I find to be extremely uplifting. I don't think that's probably going to help me sleep. Catnip, on the other hand, and patchouli, I find to be extremely calming. One study found that a single aroma inhalation with lavender was the most effective for improving sleep. I know there are a lot of shampoos and candles and other things out there that are lavender and chamomile. A lot of people swear by them. So use what works. lavender works for you. Great. Lavender and chamomile. Wonderful. Something completely different. That's fine, too. Try it out. When you smell a. An essential oil, suss out how you feel. Does this make me feel calm? Does this make me feel energetic? Does this make me feel like I'm gonna barf? What's going on here in terms of probably going to help me sleep? Catnip, on the other hand, and patchouli, I find to be extremely calming. One study found that a single aroma inhalation with lavender was the most effective for improving sleep. I know that anxiety, citrus essential oils and rose essential oil were both effective at regulating blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability in clinical trials. They're uplifting, but they're also not overstimulating. Cognitive dysfunction. There was a fascinating study that I actually shared in the community section on the YouTube channel. There was a fascinating study that showed that older adults with cognitive decline who inhaled menthol, evidence there are a lot of shampoos and candles and other things out there that are lavender and camphor, an improvement in their cognitive functioning. And even those with dementia showed improvement. A lot of people swear by them. So use what works if lavender in their cognitive functioning. Citrus oils and lemongrass have also been studied in different situations with people with cognitive decline or who are just burned out and having difficulty focusing. And they found that those can also be effective for cognitive dysfunction. With people with dementia, rosemary, camphor, and lemon have been found to be effective for daytime use because we want people with dementia to be awake during the daytime but not anxious. and genuine lavender and sweet orange have been found to be effective for nighttime use. Now, so this study found that it wasn't single lavender, it was lavender and sweet orange that were effective for nighttime use. During the day, the patients with dementia wore an aroma pendant. So every time they moved, they got a little whiff of it. And then at night there was an ordinary diffuser that was placed in their room. They've also used essential oils in emergency rooms to help reduce people's anxiety and found a lot of benefit from that. In terms of anti-inflammatory, rugosa rose alleviates inflammation and oxidative biomarkers such as nitrous oxide and reactive oxygen species or free radicals. Lavender also has been found to be a potent anti-inflammatory. Lavender is kind of I think it's the one that's the most studied. So I'm not gonna say it's the best at doing a lot of things. I'm saying it's the most studied for a lot of things, but it does have a lot of benefits. To combat fatigue, citrus essential oils like lemon, orange, orange, and bergamot were found to be very effective. As a note, essential oils can be very toxic if ingested or even absorbed, like through massage. Older adults, children, pets, and those with liver or kidney disease may be more significantly impacted. Always start low and start with the least invasive. Start with, you know, exposure through inhalation. Let them smell a cotton ball or something. And anytime you apply essential oils to the skin, makes works for you. Great. Lavender and chamomile, wonderful. Something completely different. that's fine too. Try it out. When you smell an essential oil, suss out how you feel. Does this make me feel calm? Does this make me feel energetic? Does this make me feel like I'm gonna barf? What's going on here? In terms of anxiety, citrus essential oils and rose essential oil were both effective at regulating blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability in clinical trials. They're uplifting, but they're also not overstimulating. Cognitive, you read the directions on how much to dilute it so you don't cause a photosensitivity or some sort of allergic reaction or worse. Aromatherapy activates the olfactory system. through your nose and produces immediate changes in blood pressure, pulse rate, muscle tension, pupil dilation, body temperature, and blood flow. When you smell the essential oil, those molecules travel to the olfactory bulb where it triggers signals that are sent to the amygdala, fear processing, which triggers an emotional response. And hopefully it's not fear. And then that emotional response may also communicate with the hippocampus to figure out what memories are being triggered at this point in time. There are a lot of different essential oils, and I did a relatively in-depth overview of essential oils in another video. Not going to do a deep dive on those here. Of dysfunction, there was a fascinating study that I actually shared in the community section on, on the youtube channel. There was a fascinating study that showed that older, but I did want to highlight that the ones in green, black pepper, rose, angelica, thyme, peppermint and rosemary have all been found to be very helpful for people who are in recovery to help them reduce cravings and stave off cravings. Black pepper is particularly helpful allegedly, for people who are in nicotine withdrawal. And time has been found to be particularly effective for adults with cognitive decline who inhaled menthol, evident effective for people in opioid withdrawal. And rose is particularly effective for people in withdrawal from benzodiazepines or your anti-anxiety medications. But all of the ones in green have some clinical evidence that they help reduce stress and reduce cravings, partly by altering the neurotransmitters and the activation of receptors in the brain. Music therapy is characterized by personally tailored music interventions initiated by a trained and qualified certified music therapists. This distinguished an improvement in their cognitive functioning, and even those with dementia showed improvement in their cognitive functioning. Citrus oils and lemongrass have also been studied in different situations with people with cognitive decline, which is music therapy for music listening or music medicine interventions offered by healthcare or who are just burned out and having difficulty focusing and they found that those can also be effective for cognitive dysfunction. With people with dementia professionals, so just putting that out there. Let's talk about music and mental health. Music listening or music medicine. Listening to music impacts your autonomic nervous system. We've all listened to a song that we've heard and it's just got us super excited. and a song that we've heard that we start boohoo crying, and a song that we've heard that we're just like, you know, let's rage. Okay, it impacts our autonomic nervous system. Listening may trigger reminiscence and stimulate cognitive activity in people with cognitive decline or dementia, which is really interesting. If you put on some big band music or some Lawrence Welk, it may remind people of that time in their life. And remember, people with dementia, the window for people with dementia is 15 years to 30 years. That's the period of their life that most people with dementia remember most clearly. So finding music from that genre can be really helpful. Listening to music also can be useful for pain management because it helps with Rosemary, camphor and lemon have been found to be effective for daytime use because we want people with dementia to be awake during the daytime but not anxious and stress tolerance. If people are listening to music and they're getting relaxed or they're turning their attention and getting immersed in the music, they're not focusing on how bad their arm hurts or their back hurts. Genuine lavender and sweet orange have been found to be effective effective for nighttime use. Now, so this study found that it wasn't single lavender, it was lavender and sweet orange that were effective for... Listening to music has also been associated with emotion regulation. People can listen to music and feel connected to it so they can have a good cry with a song, then the songs, oh nighttime use. During the day, the patients with dementia wore an aroma pendant. so every time they moved, they got a little whiff of it. And then at night, there was an ordinary defer, and they're like, ah, okay, song's over. I'm feeling better. Kind of like after you go out for a run, your heart rate goes way up, but when you stop running, your heart rate stops. It. Your body recognizes. Okay, we're switching gears now. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Singing improves social bonding and oxytocin. released when groups vocalize together. Now, singing itself, when you take in a deep breath and you just belt it out, you're slowing your breathing, you're slowing your heart rate, you're activating that vagus nerve. So singing itself does great things, but when you sing with a group, it actually also increases the release of oxytocin and increases feelings of connectedness, which I thought was kind of cool. And it doesn't have to be singing any particular songs. It can be chanting. It can even be just any kind of vocalizing together. If you're chanting at a football game or something, you're actually releasing oxytocin. Who knew? Drumming promotes focus and flow. Flow is a state where you're deactivating your prefrontal cortex. You're not thinking anymore. You're just getting into a zone. A lot of runners, get into a flow state when they're running because they're just very rhythmically running and every step is at about the same pace. You can do the same thing with drumming if you're not a runner. The other benefit to drumming or running but with drumming is bilateral stimulation. You can tap, tap, tap, tap user that was placed in their room. They've also used essential oils in emergency rooms to help reduce people's anxiety and found a lot of benefit from that. In terms of anti-inflammatory, Rhodosa Rose alleviates inflammation and oxidative tap tap or you can alternate between the two of them, but that helps keep the mind engaged to what's going on. And finally, noise. White, brown, and pink noise. I mentioned at the beginning that I really hate white noise. It hurts my ears. Biomarkers such as nitrous oxide and reactive oxygen species or free radicals. Lavender also has been found to be a potent anti-inflammatory. Lavender is kind of, I think it's the one that's the most studied. So I'm not going to say it's the best at doing a lot. There's a quality across frequencies, so it sounds more like static that you hear on the television or on your radio when you're turning the dial and you run into a station you don't get or the AC when it kicks on. White noise can significantly improve relaxation as evidenced by reductions in blood pressure and heart rate. A lot of things I'm saying is the most studied for a lot of things, but it does for some people. As I mentioned, it ain't gonna do that for me, but So we don't want to tell all patients, well, white noise is going to do it for you. Because they may try it and they go, no, that hurts my ears and gives me a migraine. Okay. White noise can help quiet the mind and induce a meditative flow-like state for some people. Acoustic white noise benefits cognitive function for people with ADHD. Finding that white noise, not all of it has to sound like static. but finding that equal white noise. And you can go to YouTube. There's also a variety of different websites that are designed that they've created products where you can have try out different types of white noise to see what works for you. Low intensity white noise can suppress pain, have a lot of benefits. To combat fatigue, Citrus essential oils like lemon, orange, and bergamot were found to be very effective by reducing activity in brain circuits that process pain. I thought that was kind of cool. Pink noise. These are lower frequencies than white noise. So it takes out that really high treble sound that sounds like too hissy. This is more like rainfall, the wind, or the waves. It creates a calming atmosphere masking disruptive background sounds and helping the brain relax, which can reduce stress and anxiety. I think a lot of us have either listened to the waves or listened to a really a range of. As a note, essential oils can be very toxic if ingested or even absorbed, like through massage. Older adults, children, Pets and those with liver or kidney disease may be more significantly impacted. Always start low and start with the least invasive. Start with, you know, exposure through inhalation. Let them smell a cotton storm, hard rain coming down, and found it relaxing at times. Pink noise can cotton ball or something. And anytime you apply essential oils to the skin, make sure to distract from pain and chronic discomfort and clinical observations suggest it may improve mood, motivation, focus, and reduce brain fog. I actually tried turning on some brown noise, not pink noise, but brown noise while I was writing this presentation, and it did feel like it helped me focus better. So encouraging people to try different types of noise. Pink noise stimulation appears to reduce cravings in people with addictions by dampening activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region involved in the emotional and motivational aspects of craving. Brown noise is a deep, soft, and rumbling sound similar to the roar of a waterfall, distant thunder, or heavy rainfall, or my favorite, an ocean liner. If you've ever been on a boat in the middle of the ocean, especially at night, I don't know why at night I find it more calming, but at night, and you're just going through the water. And that's the only sound you hear is the boat cutting through the water. It's very relaxing. Promoting relaxation with its deep, soothing sound, brown noise can aid sleep and mask disruptive background sounds. Make sure you read the directions on how much to dilute it so you don't cause a photosensitivity or some sort of allergic reaction or worse. Aromatherapy activates the olfactory system through your nose, enhance concentration, and provide relief for tinnitus and offer general well-being due to its gentle, non-intrusive nature. This is a much more steady state, stable, but low frequency sound you hear in the background and produces immediate changes in blood pressure, pulse rate, muscle tension, Pupil dilation, body temperature, and blood flow. When you smell the essential oil, those molecules travel to the olfactory bulb where it triggers signals that are sent to the amygdala, fear processing. Modifying your environment can reduce stress, inflammation, and symptom flares. If you've got diabetes, it can improve your A1C. If you've got an autoimmune disease, it can reduce your pain flares and your inflammation. It can help with trigger management because you become more aware of what's stressful in your environment so you can either eliminate it or mitigate it and you can add more things in your environment to make it go from being fine to being inviting, to being comforting, to being nurturing. Forest and nature therapy in real life or through virtual reality has been found to improve most parameters including blood pressure and immunity. One of the most important things is to make sure that all your senses are involved. If you're doing it with virtual reality, you want to be able to smell, hear, and see nature. Earthing is making contact with earth so we can absorb those electrons and you can do that with a pad that you get offline, and you can do that in the house. It's associated with rapid decreases in inflammation and improvement in sense of well-being. Aromatherapy can be used to help target different areas of the brain and promote clarity, help people feel uplifted, reduce anxiety, help reduce pain, It's been used with a lot of different things. Start low and go slow. Start with like one drop on a cotton ball and hold it out here for somebody to whiff. Don't overwhelm them with the scent all at once. Let people decide how intense they want the scent and which scent, which triggers an emotional response and hopefully it's not fear. And then that emotional response may also communicate with the hippocampus to figure out what memories are being triggered at this point in time. There are a lot of different essential oils, and I did a relatively in-depth overview of essential oils in another video. Not going to do a deep dive on those here. Work for them, which sense makes sense. Music, songs that we listen to, singing and drumming can all contribute to the mood and the energy in your environment. And white, pink, and brown noise can all be used to help create a sense of calm by providing an ambient, but I did want to highlight that the ones in green, black pepper, rose, angelica, thyme, Peppermint and Rosemary have all been found to be very helpful background noise that is close to nature and that promotes that biophilic hypothesis that as humans we are drawn to and feel more connected to the world when we are immersed in nature. For people who are in recovery to help them reduce cravings and stave off cravings. Black pepper is particularly helpful, allegedly, for people who are in nicotine withdrawal. And thyme has been found to be particularly effective for people in opioid withdrawal. And rose is particularly effective for people in withdrawal from benzodiazepines or your anti-anxiety medications. But all of the ones in green have some clinical evidence that they help reduce stress and reduce cravings, partly by altering the neurotransmitters and the activation of receptors in the brain. Music therapy is characterized by personally tailored music interventions initiated by a trained and qualified certified music therapists. This distinguishes music therapy from music listening or music medicine interventions offered by healthcare professionals. So just putting that out there. Let's talk about music and mental health. Music listening or music medicine. Listening to music impacts your autonomic nervous system. We've all listened to a song that we've heard and it's just got us super excited. and a song that we've heard that we start boohoo crying and a song that we've heard that we're just like, you know, let's rage. Okay. It impacts our autonomic nervous system. Listening May trigger reminiscence and stimulate cognitive activity in people with cognitive decline or dementia, which is really interesting. If you put on some big band music or some Lawrence.