#94 Healing in Nature with Dr. Doni

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself and in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Welcome back to How Humans heal. I am Dr. Donni and I'm so glad that you're here and that you found me and this podcast and joining me on this journey of learning what it is to be human in the world we live in and how to help ourselves stay as healthy as can be through the process. I'm a naturopathic doctor. I graduated in the year 2000. So I've been and on this path of not only helping others to understand their bodies and heal, but also on the path of understanding my body and helping it to heal for even longer than that. That's what caused me to even choose to want to be a naturopathic doctor. Prior to that, I was trained as a nutritionist and have a bachelor's in science. So I have taken pretty much every science class that there is, at least once, in some cases twice, then many times. I actually then went on to teach the science classes that I took.

A lot of my training has been in science, but not just science of chemicals and biology, but also science of the use of natural substances from plants and, and nutrients and minerals and homeopathic remedies and many, many other types of resources we have available to us on Earth to help us heal. And it makes me all the time realize how much, of course here we are, humans existing on Earth, there's going to be so many resources available to us to help nourish us, to help heal us. And it's our role, I mean, and I feel very passionate about this in my life, is to discover these various tools and resources that we have available to us that our bodies actually need and can use for health and healing and processing along the way. And so that is what I love to share here, especially when I do a one on one podcast like this with me. Also when I interview, the interviews I choose are with people who I've learned from and who I trust and who I feel like have some important information to share with all of you. And so I really hope that you take a lot away from each of the interviews that I that I bring to the how Humans Heal podcast. And I would be happy to hear from any of you who, if there's topics or people or practitioners you would like to hear more from, please let me know because then I can invite them to come have a conversation with me here and share it with all of you. So today I especially wanted to highlight my recent trip to the Peruvian Amazon. For those of you who may have always thought maybe this is something you wanted to do, or maybe some of you thought this is something you would never do, but you would love to learn about the experience. And so I wanted to share it with all of you. I just spent well, altogether it was a two week, two trip, but I was 10 days of that.

In the Amazon. And so I want to tell you some about that experience and what I learned and what I relearned, what kind of was highlighted for me in the process and what I'm bringing back to help use with my patients and in my programs every day. And what I do, you know, a lot of the experience is. And I this is based on my experience, but also other participants in the program that I was in. Really, it's about finding oneself. You know, how do you, how do you really remember and know the essence of oneself and to really connect with your, who you are and your passion and your purpose in life. And so to me it just confirms, it's reaffirming and confirming that my passion and my purpose is about helping people to understand themselves, their bodies, their minds, their spirit, and to help access these resources available to us to help you with whatever maybe symptomology that's showing up, whether that's anxiety, depression, insomnia, digestive issues, skin issues, hormone imbalances, fertility issues, infections like HPV or HSV or other viruses that can hang around and stir up trouble. We want to figure out how do we become resilient to these viruses, but also how do we become resilient to stress related health issues in general, like autoimmunity and cancer and dementia, heart disease, diabetes. These, we know, are the conditions that are most common for humans, especially over time. Because as time goes on, we have an accumulation of stress exposure. Our DNA is exposed to oxidative stress. Our bodies are exposed to all different kinds of stresses, psychological stress, toxins as stresses, different kinds of foods and ways of eating that are stressful, lifestyles that are stressful. This accumulates over time and eventually our genetics, whatever we're predisposed to, will start to show up. And we want to be able to help our bodies recover, which I really believe Is possible most all health issues. Can we. There's something we can do about it. There's something we can do to help your body heal, respond, recover, rejuvenate, get to a better place. Reverse. What if we can reverse some of the health issues that develop? And to be able to know that you have the power in your hands to do that. Now, sometimes that's scary because we're so used to the way we're doing things, the foods we're eating, the patterns of our lives, the routines, the relationships. We're so used to these patterns. It can become scary to let go sometimes. It can be scary to. To make different choices, to do something different with your time in your life. That can be so scary when you. When it's what you've known.

Excuse me. So I understand. I understand that it can be hard to even imagine some things shifting. And at the same time, it's scary to think of it not shifting, because.

If nothing changes, you might continue feeling the way you feel or worse. So it's scary to think of that too. And so we sometimes feel like we're in between this. You know, the tight spot, right? We're in between.

Between being afraid of the symptoms that currently exist and if that gets worse and afraid of changing and what that would look like in the unknown. And so we find ourselves trapped between these two spots and functioning in our lives in that tight, tight trap. It can feel trapped, it can feel overwhelming. It can feel like helpless and hopeless because you feel like, I can't decide which way to go. Stay the same, it might get worse or do something different, and you don't know what might happen. And so we, I think a lot of times live our lives in that tight spot. And what I want to help you to know is that it's possible that change can be gradual and not stressful. Change can actually, when we do it right, if we create too much change too quickly, it actually becomes too much of a Stress overwhelms us and sends us right back where we started from. So it's important to be able to make changes in a way that your body can handle it and you can move forward with it.

With that in mind, I want to tell you about this trip to the Amazon. Because even then, that can feel. If someone were to jump right into it, it could feel like too big of a leap. Because not only did I fly eight hours south to Peru, which is actually on the same time zone as me, so I didn't have to change time zones, but I did fly into A small town called Pucallpa, where it's a completely different way of life. So that alone could be quite a change for a person to go into different foods. Now, to begin with, I was still eating rice and fish and broccoli and things that I'm used to eating relatively. And I went into speaking another language. Now, I learned Spanish way back when I was in high school and college. So for me, I'm able to transition into speaking Spanish. But for someone who doesn't speak Spanish, that also might be a big change. I went into using a different money. You know, we went to using Peruvian Solace, so we're using a different money. We need to be able to communicate, to get meals and water and different.

A room at the hotel. Everything is okay. How do we navigate this so that we have our needs met and we can get at that point? I still had WI Fi and phone service, so I was able to be in contact with my assistant and my daughter. Then.

When we got all of our things packed up. Now, I did a lot of research before I went, and so I learned that it was going to be better if I could get a backpack that was waterproof, because when you're traveling in the Amazon, often you're traveling on a river or a creek or in the water, and oftentimes it's raining, pouring down rain. So I needed to make sure that my things would be able to stay dry even if they were in the water. And so I purchased actually two waterproof backpacks, which I completely loved. And I'm so glad that I got them. One was larger so I could put my clothes and things like that in there. And then one was smaller so I could carry it with me with other items that I could have with me inside of the vehicle when we were transporting to the location for the Amazon trip.

And so then I put everything in plastic bags in Ziploc bags, because this way I knew that even if they were outside of the backpack, that I would still be able to keep them dry. And I also brought flashlights. I brought a battery powered.

Candle. We also had candles that I could light with a flame, which I also did. But I really liked also having a candle that ran on a battery. And I brought extra batteries and I brought a solar charger so that I could charge my flashlights that had a rechargeable battery. And I could also recharge my phone, although I didn't have cell phone or WI Fi, So I mostly use my phone if I needed to check the time or if I was going to take pictures or videos. And also I had downloaded a couple videos from YouTube so that I could use them for meditation and for exercise. And so those are the only times I really used my phone while I was there. It was essentially, if you could imagine, because I think many of you have been camping in your life, right? You usually, if you go in, you're going to stay in a tent or a cabin. Think of it like that, Like I was essentially in a cabin, a one room cabin by myself in the Amazon, which is a rainforest, in the jungle, in the forest, amongst all the trees and the plants and the insects and the birds and all the other animals. And I was on a property so it was protected, they could protect from larger animals. I didn't see any large or scary animals but. And I felt safe because I knew I was on this property where they were going to be monitoring this area. But it was a large area with small cabins all spaced out probably at least 30 to 50ft apart from each other. And the walls of the cabins is a mesh, kind of a mesh. So it's not wood or concrete, it's a, it's a mesh. So you really feel like even though you're inside this cabin, you're in nature all entirely. I could look through out and I'm. All I see is the leaves and the trees and when. And all I hear is the insects and the frogs. The frogs make amazing sounds. Of course there's slightly different sounds during the day than at night because during the day you might have the sounds of the birds and certain monkeys and frogs. Then at night it shifts to different kinds of monkeys and different kind of insects. It's actually a slightly different symphony of sounds during the day versus at night. In fact, it was so interesting because.

I always love falling to sleep to sound anyway. But sleeping in the jungle is so special because I had live music every night from the insects and animals in the jungle putting me to sleep. And then when the sound changes, when the sun comes up and the birds start chirping, it was like my alarm clock. My brain could pick up on the shift in the sounds and that's how I would wake up was when the sounds changed to the morning sound. Plus I didn't really need to wake up really for a particular time. But often because it gets dark, right? It would be dark by, I would say definitely by 7:00pm so when it gets dark and you're outside in nature, yes. I could light my candles, I could light my flashlights, I could get some light so I could read or journal. But at a certain point I just wanted to go to sleep. I would be going to sleep by 8pm, 9pm and then waking up with the birds in the sun early in the morning. It really allowed me to reset that circadian rhythm better than I ever could at home because I wasn't at home. We can so easily turn on the light, turn on the computer, turn on the tv. We, we lose track of the using the signals from Earth to teach us when we should go to sleep and when we should wake up. And so it was so amazing to get to experience that. And I think a lot of things that I experienced in the jungle we could implement at home if we knew to implement it right, if we like. I, I hope this inspires some of you to try some of this even in your own home. You could try using the signals of darkness to go to sleep earlier. You can try.

Making all the other sounds in your environment quiet so that you can actually be responding to the sounds outside. Can you hear the birds, for example? Can you hear the quiet?

You could even put on the sounds of the Amazon if you wanted to be able to really give your body that signaling from nature.

And I did see so many amazing insects and frogs. There's these cute little green frogs with black stripes and there's a lot of other kinds of little brown frogs and so on. So many different spiders and ants and crickets, all different sizes, small and big. I never felt afraid of them again. The mesh, the cabin was mesh. Now they probably could have found a crack and gotten in, but I didn't ever see one or feel afraid of them. I also had a mosquito net in my bed. I slept inside of a mosquito net. I wasn't getting bit by mosquitoes. I had got a couple bites when I was out and about during the day. I had a couple mosquito bites on my ankles and on my arms, but it was very few. I was concerned about that before I went. But I really had very few mosquito bites. I used all natural repellent, mosquito repellent, which I put on at least a couple times a day on my ankles and my arms. And even then I usually wore long pants and long sleeves. Even though it's very hot, very, very hot. It's often so hot that you're just sweating constantly. But I still wore long pants and long sleeves most of the time. And I think that helped with the mosquito bites also. And.

So I got to see these amazing insects. I also had outdoor, basically outhouse from my bathroom. And a lot of times When I went there, I might see spiders or different insects.

Near the toilet area.

I also saw centipedes and oh my gosh, so many different kinds of insects. Lizards.

Iguanas. Definitely heard the monkeys. Again, different types of monkeys make really amazing noises. They sometimes sound like they're laughing in the trees, especially at night. And oh my gosh, bats and different kinds of birds of different colors. Butterflies, all different colors, bright blue, orange, yellow. So many different butterflies, dragonflies, fireflies, everything you can imagine. And plus all the different kinds of plants. So many different sizes of leaves and trees and vines. And then what we did is from this property they would collect certain plants. I mean, there was many to choose from, but we chose four different plants that they made a tea for me every day. So. So this tea had one of the plants is called Cat's Claw, una de gato. But some of you maybe know cat's claw because it is often available to us. It's used for the immune system and to help with different infections, like Lyme disease, for example. But I also think of it very much helpful for joints and anti inflammatory. So part of this tea that I had every day was cat's claw. Also had another herb called Bobanzana, which is.

I got to see each of these plants and trees and take pictures of them and learn about them while I was there. Bobanzana has these beautiful leaves and often grows near the water near the creek. And then also the.

Tahari, which is an anti cancer herb. And Renakia, which is an herb that's used for joints, joint inflammation and joint pain, which is perfect for me because maybe some of you know that one of my health issues that I'm always working on because I want to prevent it from getting worse and even reverse it from where it is, has to do with my joints. I have a chronic arthritis in my sternum, my clavicle. The Renickia is perfect for me because it's going to be anti inflammatory to my joints. I was just so grateful to get to have this Renakia tea. Every day I'm taking these herbs as well as there's a treatment called Kombo K A M B O which is a treatment from the secretion of the frog. The frog makes this secretion to protect itself. But somewhere along the lines, humans figured out that this exposure to this frog secretion actually supports our immune system, helps us with healing, helps us with detoxification. And so what we do is when you put it on your skin, but you just don't put it on your skin Anyway, you have to first open the dermis. They use a burning technique where you burn the skin and then you can apply this combo and it causes an immediate response in the body that triggers release of bile, which is part of the detoxification process. Vomiting, usually. Sometimes it doesn't cause vomiting, but you start to realize that sometimes vomiting is one of our body's best mechanisms to reset and detoxify. A lot of actually traditional treatments way back in history involved stimulating vomiting.

As a purgative, which is also part of the detoxification process. It's not a lot of vomiting. We're talking one or two times vomiting and you're vomiting water. Just say you drank water before the treatment, then you would vomit that water back up again. So it's not like you're vomiting for 24 hours or something. It's just a short term, usually within 15 minutes to an hour process that stimulates your body and stimulates your healing. So I have had combo before in the past, but this time I decided to have the combo right over my sternum.

It was really exciting and really good. I think it's really made a difference. I can tell already that I have less pain and inflammation in my sternum and my clavicle. Now that could be from the combo, also from the herbs that I was mentioning. And it can be from another plant medicine that I used in the Amazon, which is called ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is there's a vine called ayahuasca, and when they make ayahuasca for medicinal purposes, they combine it with another plant called chacoruna, which is a kind of a bush that has leaves. And we use the leaves along with the vine and they boil it for a couple days. So it's a long process of boiling the two together to make this liquid. It's usually a dark colored, like a brown or black liquid. And when you take ayahuasca, it does have psychedelic properties because of the DMT in the chakaruna plant in the chakaruna leaves. And DMT is a substance that can create what we consider psychedelic, which means it makes you to see sometimes bright colors and shapes, and other times you might see different visions.

It another whole system really of medicine. If some of you are not familiar with it, I definitely encourage you to learn more about psychedelics and how they can be used for healing processes and different purposes of healing and therapy. Because really, ultimately the psychedelics can also really help us to process our stress, our traumas, our past, help us to understand ourselves better, to see what we can't see otherwise. Right. Like sometimes again we're so stuck in our lives in the same pattern over and over, day after day, and we start to feel like that's the only option for us. And what a psychedelic medicine can do is to help take away that. Just open it up and just say, oh my gosh, I can see a whole different perspective on my health and my life that I couldn't see before. It's hard for us to see, I think, when we're in our usual state of consciousness, but when we go into a psychedelic state, we can see things from different perspectives and all of a sudden things make sense that maybe didn't make sense before, or we make connections that we weren't making before in our lives or we might feel feelings that we haven't felt. Sometimes you might experience a grief or a loss or something traumatic or something that makes you feel angry, but maybe you didn't really get to feel those feelings. We're sometimes so bus or we are told not to feel our feelings. And so when you go through some of these psychedelic experiences, you might feel feelings that had been there, but they just weren't coming up for you in your usual day to day life. But when we actually get to feel the feelings, whether it's grief or anger or happiness or different feelings that are there, but we just don't get to feel them every day, then it shifts something, something shifts inside of you, you become more yourself, you catch up to this present moment instead of constantly walking around with the past. Right. So much of the time it's. We walk around with what happened to us in the past, informing what's going to happen in the future. And my experience with ayahuasca in particular is that helps us to process the past so that we can get more into the present moment, that we can get beyond all that, let it go and, and to see bigger picture view of our life and what's happening to us. And from there be able to choose differently, to be able to choose in a way that's aligned with who you really are and what you really want to be doing in your life. So part of ayahuasca is this dmt. But actually I really think that DMT is part of the, what helps you become more comfortable with the process. Because when you can see beautiful lights and shapes, let's say spirals and hearts and butterflies, it helps you feel more comfortable with the process of whatever else you're going to have come up. Because the ayahuasca itself is the Part that I think really does a lot of helping us process our past, understand ourselves. And you go through a process of. It's not always easy. It could be, definitely. There's a lot of feeling that happens in the body that varies from person to person. I think of it like a vagus nerve reset. The ayahuasca, combined with the DMT of chakrauna signals to our nervous system, it helps us reset our stress response. Our vagus nerve, which is the vagus nerve, has to do with sympathetic and parasympathetic, the fight or flight response, which gets stuck in fight or flight. When we're under so much stress, we need something that can help us heal that whole system, heal the vagus nerve, soothe our nervous system so that we can get out of the stress response. And when we're out of the stress response, then we can really truly heal and start fresh and learn how to navigate our lives without having to go back into that stress response again. Or if we do go back into that stress mode, then we know the tools to go to, to help us get back out of it again. After you take ayahuasca and you take just a little sip, you're not taking very much. You're taking, let's say, equal to maybe 10 drops or 20 drops, depending on your experience and the intensity or the concentration of the ayahuasca that you have available. This is always with a professional, an expert shaman. The shamans, this is what they do, this is what they learn. They understand these plants, they understand the dosing, they understand the processes, they understand the contraindications. And I went through, while I was there, training to understand this as well. So I learned from the shaman, what. How do you know the person who. This might be a good approach for. How do you know the person who. This probably isn't a good approach for. How do you. How does a person prepare? How do they anticipate what's going to happen? How did. What kind of support might they need in the process? And so I went through training, not only through experiencing it myself, but training from a shaman with many, many years of experience. And so just know that, as I mentioned, this, this is not just something that you go get or order online to try on. I definitely would not do that. I would definitely work with someone who has a lot of experience and who you can trust that they are giving you a really correct and effective dose of ayahuasca. Of course, if this is something that's being made, some people might use a different recipe or they might Put something different and you, you want to be careful. You don't want to take like with anything, right? With any substance that we take. You want to know how it was prepared, what's in there, who made it and how to dose it for yourself. That's why it's so important to work with someone you trust and know if you're going to choose this. But more than anything in this conversation, I just want you to know what it's like in general so that if it might be something that would be helpful to you, that you can go and research it some more. Or you could reach out to me. Of course, if you have questions or you would like to learn more.

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What happens is, you know, different. It can vary based on the shaman, but from the shaman that I've worked with, it's essentially about a four or five hour process. When you take ayahuasca and you experience it as the vagus nerve is resetting now, that means you might experience nausea, you might vomit up the ayahuasca that you just took because it is a purgative. That's part of the function of ayahuasca, again is to stimulate the digestion, to stimulate the vagus nerve and potentially to stimulate vomiting. It's not a lot of vomiting, it might be once or twice. And you're just vomiting up the ayahuasca that you just took or any water that you drank so it doesn't end up to be depleting. I think so much of the time when we've experienced vomiting, we get very afraid of it because believe me, I've been there, I've had food poisoning.

I've traveled around the world. I've had different kinds of infections at different points in time where I was vomiting for more than 24 hours. I had migraines for over 20 years that caused vomiting. I understand that vomiting is no fun, especially when it goes on and on and you get very depleted and dehydrated. I want to be clear that that's not what happens. From my experience with ayahuasca, it just can stimulate vomiting in the moment because it's so stimulating to the nervous system. You also can feel shaking, you might yawn, you might sweat, you might see colors and shapes because the nervous system is in the process of healing. Ayahuasca is also anti inflammatory through the whole body, including the nervous system. It's an analgesic, so it decreases pain. Any pain that I'm experiencing, like say in my sternum or head pain or any kind of discomfort, when I take ayahuasca, it goes away because I can tell that it's working as an analgesic and it doesn't have any side effects. So if we think about other anti inflammatory or analgesic chemical substances that people might take for pain, oftentimes they have other negative side effects or addictive qualities. And this is the thing with ayahuasca is it's not addictive and it doesn't, other than perhaps causing some sweating or yawning or vomiting a couple times, it doesn't have other side effects. So it's not going to have an, you know, it's not going to be damaging to your stomach or it's not going to be damaging to your nervous system. So to me it's. Whenever we think about different plants as healing.

Resources available to us, we want to understand the properties of the plants like some of them that I've mentioned today, if they might be anti inflammatory, if they might help us reset from stress, if they might help decrease pain. Also a lot of these plants have been shown to be anti cancer, help prevent diabetes, prevent dementia. They can have so many healing properties. And so that's the reason why they are researched. That's the reason why we've learned how to use them effectively and safely and to realize that it's possible to use plants for healing versus chemicals. Now sometimes we might use chemical substances, right? Pharmaceutical companies are producing different chemical substances for our healing. We might be going to the pharmacy to pick up a pharmaceutical prescription, let's say for helping the nerves heal or anti inflammatory or to help with pain or antibiotic. We can use these Chemical substances that luckily, scientists over time have figured out and created. And at the same time, unfortunately, sometimes we become dependent on these medications for mood or for sleep or for pain.

For me, the way I think about it is, yes, we could use, and I have sometimes symptoms, we need these medications. But if we can find a planned medicine that can have the same properties or even help us heal beyond so that we don't even require the plant or the chemical anymore and we feel good, that would be optimal, right? Optimal would be to be able to heal and completely eliminate the need for the treatment to begin with. Or if it's something chronic, maybe we can find a substance that helps us feel better, but doesn't cause other complications or addictions. That's my interest. That's where I get really passionate, is about how do we find those resources available. If it's a plant, if it's a mineral, if it's a vitamin, even if it's a chemical, if it allows us to. If it actually helps feed ourselves and help our immune system improve and help our nervous system recover from stress, then to me, that's worth trying. And that's why I'm so committed to just continuing to go where I need to go, learn from the healers I need to learn from, so that I can have that information for myself and share it with all of you. Because then we don't have to be limited by our location on Earth. We don't have to be limited by insurance that only covers certain substances. We don't have to be limited by certain views of medicine. We don't have to be limited by any of that space and time. We can actually.

Realize that a lot of these tools are here on Earth, and a lot of people already figured it out. They've been studying ayahuasca for, I don't know, thousands. We don't even know thousands and thousands of years. It's been used way back in time by the Incas and the civilizations before them. It's also been used not just in Peru, but in other countries like Ecuador.

These are substances that have been traditionally used over time. Thank goodness for the people back in time who were willing to try these plants, because I'm sure sometimes they tried plants that were poisonous to them or were dangerous and harmed them. And then the people learned from that and realized, oh, this is how you can. Here's the plants we can use and benefit from, and here's the plants to stay away from. And this information exists so we don't have to rediscover it. We can just learn from what's already known in different. I love to travel and discover different healing tools around the world, so I hope to be able to share always even more healing possibilities with all of you. But from this experience in Peru and my prior experience in Peru, from last spring I went to the Sacred Valley, which is near Cusco in the mountains, and learned also about combo and ayahuasca and something called San Pedro, which is a cactus which also has healing properties and many other plants and dietary changes as well. On this trip to the Amazon, I also eliminated all sugar, all caffeine, all salt even and all dairy, all gluten, all red meat. It was completely plant based, dairy free, gluten free. There were eggs and there was quinoa and rice and sometimes vegetables like broccoli, carrots and cucumber. And I had two meals a day. So that means that I was also intermittent fasting. I was fasting usually from about maybe 5pm My last little meal would have been maybe by like 4 or 5pm and then the next meal of the day might be at like 11am.

I was having long periods of intermittent fasting. And when you do that, it also stimulates something called autophagy. Not only did I have decreased inflammation because I was not exposed to things like sugar, alcohol, dates, I was already decreasing my inflammation. But also when you increase your intermittent fasting, you also start stimulating something called autophagy. And autophagy or autophagy, which some people say it that way it helps the cells clean out. It helps your body, stimulates your body and your brain to notice cells and debris that is no longer needed. And it starts to clean it out. It sends it out through your lymph, through your digestion, through your skin, through your sweat. You start clearing out anything that's not necessary in your body, in your cells.

Not only does it help clear out, but it also stimulates the growth of new mitochondria. A mitochondria in our cells is where we produce energy. We want new, healthy mitochond because they help us to have energy, to think, to do, to be ourselves, to be healthy. And so this autophagy and mitochondrial reset is happening at the same time as dropping inflammation and dropping the stress. Because I didn't have the sounds I was exposed to was the sounds of nature. I didn't have the sounds of my phone ringing. I didn't have the bright lights, artificial lights. I didn't have, you know, sounds of horns, honking or anything else that we often get exposed to in our Modern lives.

Colors and bright lights. The only colors was coming from the psychedelics, from the. From the plants, so. And the bright, of course, greens and the leaves and the frogs. So it was like the colors of nature is all the color, greens and browns and whites from nature instead of from artificial colors.

This made the experience, such as to me, such a stress reset, because I'm resetting circadian rhythm. I'm resetting my metabolism by doing the intermittent fasting. I'm resetting my immune system, not just with the combo treatment and the herbs, but also from changing my diet and decreasing the things like sugar that. And I usually don't eat barely any sugar anyway, but to take it to zero and the caffeine to zero. I usually don't drink much caffeine, just herbal, like green tea. But I didn't even have green tea in the jungle. So it's such a huge reset. And again, I didn't just dive into it. I've been preparing for this. I've prepared by going through ayahuasca ceremonies in different settings. I've prepared by already shifting my diet in different ways, practicing more intermittent fasting. So there's ways that I prepared for going into this whole process. I really think that's important because while yes, some people just dive right in, it could be quite a shock to your system if you just drop yourself there without preparation.

Also, I tried to have with me the things that I thought would help me get through. In fact, one of my favorite things was before I left the little town of Pucallpa, I purchased a tapestry from one of the local women that was hand painted that had she painted on there the frog and the ayahuasca vine and flowers and nature. And I put this tapestry on the floor of my cabin. So it felt like home to me. It felt like I could entertain and sit on the tapestry. I could do my journaling, I could do my meditation, I could do my exercises and do all of that on this beautiful tapestry. I also had a hammock in my cabin, so that was also fun to get to just lay in the hammock surrounded by nature, reading a book. And so I'm just trying to totally immerse myself into this experience. At the same time, I became essentially, I served as the doctor of the participants in this group, of which it was about 30, which showed me that this was what I love to offer. Right when you're in a group of people and you can offer what you're passionate about. And for me, that was passion for being there for other people and helping them understand their bodies and what they needed to heal. Whether they had a rash from, say, a poison ivy or a bug bite, or maybe they had a blister from the shoes they were wearing, or maybe some of them fell in the mud because it's raining and it gets muddy and slippery, hurt the elbow. So then we need to help heal that wound or ear infections or headaches or menstrual, because women would get their menstrual cycle while we were out there. So I really enjoyed getting to help all of them with their health issues. I had a first aid it with me and I had brought with me some of the things that I thought might be needed with some of the most common situations that might come up. And I am so grateful that I had those tools and that I could help them. And they. If they would feel so vulnerable coming to me and I would feel so grateful for the opportunity to help their bodies heal. So it really made a difference for me to get to serve them in that way because they all gave back to me in their own ways. When things came up and I needed help, they were there to help me. And it just made such a beautiful reciprocity. So to be able to have both opportunities to be alone on my own, sleeping and living in nature, and also opportunities to be within a group of people who are also on this same path of learning about themselves and learning about nature and processing their past experiences and healing their bodies, mind and spirits. So it's a group of people who are highly motivated to understand themselves and to heal. And so it was, you know, really a beautiful reciprocity. But also overall, how often do we have that opportunity to get to be in a group of people with those same intentions and supporting each other in such a loving way, you know, that's. It just shows how important community is in our lives. So much of the time, actually in my life, I spend quite a bit of time alone on my own because I live alone. And so living in the Amazon, even though I was some of the time alone in my one room cabin, I also had time when we might be in a class or a workshop with learning from the shaman, learning about these plants and herbs, learning how to make ayahuasca, learning about all the tools that the shaman uses in ceremonies, from the drums to the Chicago to the. To the tobacco that's called mapacho. We learn about the use of these tools to help a person who's going through a healing journey. And. And so that was such an amazing. I Always love to learn, and I love to learn along with other people who are just asking amazing questions and really with this intention of. Of helping themselves and helping other people. And so that, I would say, describes a lot of the experience that I just went through. And then it's the process of also traveling through the Amazon, which could be by foot, it could be in a truck, it could be in a boat. We also went to an animal rescue, which is such a beautiful experience. I love animals, as many of you know. So to get to spend a couple hours in an animal rescue, observing the monkeys right up close, even out of cages, and observing them and seeing how they interact with humans. Different kinds of monkeys, also different kinds of parrots and macaws, also wild cats like Oslo and Marquis. And actually the woman who runs the animal rescue was asking for my cat expertise, because when I told her that.

I spend some of my time helping with feral cats, I really come to understand cats and how they communicate and what they need. And so she was happy to have my help with understanding her wild cats there, the animal rescue and what they need and what they. What would benefit them. And so it was really just so amazing, let alone just traveling through these towns and understanding the way that people live and their challenges and their stresses and what that looks like. Just different ways of life, I think, always helps us reflect. And I got a lot of this passion, I think, from my grandmother and my. And my parents. But my grandmother, my mom's mom, always loved to travel. And even she went to see the Amazon when she was 86 years old. And my mom reminded me how much my grandmother wanted to experience the Amazon. And so it was so interesting to me to think about that. When I'm choosing to go to the Amazon or whenever I'm choosing to travel, I really am always so much inspired by my grandmother, who loved to travel. Even back when she was my age, she traveled. She wanted to travel all around the world. And I think she made it to every continent before she. She died. And so I'm so proud of her and inspired by her. And that's what some people say, how do you travel like that? And I just say it's because I love it. It's. I'm passionate about it. I always love learning from different cultures and from different healers, because then, you know, what we have, we're just here, humans living on this earth, wherever you happen to be. But that could be limiting based on your. Whatever's available to you in your location. And I just feel like, why be limited by that.

We have the ability to travel. Even with the pandemic. There's ways to be able to travel safely and smartly and then to be able to get access to this information and experience. Because ultimately the thing is, with the pandemic, it's been so, so stressful. On top of the usual stresses of our lives, then we also have the stresses of a pandemic where we can feel all these different rules and laws and guidelines and scary information about viruses and what ifs and all of that becomes such a stress for all of us. More than ever, we need a stress reset. More than ever, we need an opportunity to have a break from all of this media and information, have a break from our day to day expectations and schedules and routines, have a break from even our usual diet and patterns. Because then you can actually reset. You can actually learn from your body what it needs. You can actually choose differently based on information you can get from this kind of a reset. Now, some people may go on a vacation. Maybe you go a week or 10 days to a resort somewhere in the world, which is amazing and beautiful. Believe me, I've done that too. On that vacation, you might eat more foods that you wouldn't usually eat. Maybe you're eating more sugar, drinking more alcohol. So we might be drinking and eating substances on our vacation that actually make us feel worse. We might not be sleeping enough. We might, you know what I mean? A vacation could actually make us feel worse. And then we come home from vacation feeling like we need a vacation to recover from vacation. And so what I. One insight that I had was just the idea that, hey, instead of going on a 10 days where you're, where it's harder on yourself and your body, why not choose 10 days where you're actually helping your body heal? You're exposed to diet and herbs and processes that help you heal instead of making you feel worse. Imagine that, a healing vacation. And that's what what I experienced was really an experience, a healing experience, a learning experience.

And so if any of you think that that may be something of interest to you, please feel free to reach out to me and I can tell you more about how to learn more or potentially consider a trip like this for yourself. And I also encourage all of you who are listening to just again, take pieces of this information that match up for you. It's all about exposing yourself to information and then check in with yourself and see, hey, where am I now? What feels right to me? What do I feel like is what I need at this moment? And it can make a big difference to just take little small steps. Even if you start to take little bits of what I've described and implemented into your life little by little, even if it's just making small dietary changes to drop your inflammation, we can do a food sensitivity test and see which foods are most important, important for you to eliminate. Maybe you want to start to try intermittent fasting, but you're going to start little by little. Maybe start with 10 hours of not eating overnight and maybe 11 hours, maybe 12 hours. Take it slow. Listen to your body. Maybe we need to help you reset by understanding where your cortisol levels are at this moment in time. Your adrenaline, which is part of that sympathetic fight or flight response system. We can measure the cortisol, we can measure the adrenaline. In fact, I would love to do a study where we measure the cortisol and adrenaline of participants before they go to the jungle. Then they go for this 10 day experience. Then we measure again their cortisol and adrenaline when they get back. In fact, actually I measured mine not too long ago. I should measure it again and then I could compare to after the experience. I can see how the cortisol and adrenaline, which are our stress hormones, our stress responders, that's how we know how stress is affecting you. A lot of people assume, oh, I must have high cortisol, I must have high adrenaline. Now some people do, I measure them all the time. And sometimes maybe 25% of the time people do have high cortisol or adrenaline or both, but the rest of the time they have have low cortisol or low adrenaline or both. So it's really important to measure so you know exactly where you are, where's your cortisol, where's your adrenaline? Because the treatment is different now. Yes, the 10 days I just explained would be good, I think, for both high or low cortisol and adrenaline. Well, there's certain approaches that are different. Based on your cortisol and adrenaline adrenaline, you might need a different herb, you might need a different nutrient, you might need it at a different time of day. So we can fine tune your stress recovery by knowing whether your cortisol and adrenaline are high or low. We can get so much more efficient about your healing. In fact, this is what I've been writing about in my book that's coming out in May called Master your Stress Reset yout Health. When we can master and understand how stress exposure affects us. And then we can use these various approaches that I call care in the stress recovery Protocol to help you heal and recover from stress. I write in the book about some of these same things I experienced in the Amazon. The elements of nature.

The spiritual elements of nature, the ayahuasca and other plant medicines. This is what's coming out in the book, so I'll also share a link where you can pre order the master of your Stress Reset yout Health book so you can make sure you get it right when it comes out on May 3rd. I'm so excited for that because this experience the past 10 days just reconfirmed everything that I put into the book, including about how to drop oxidative stress, how to stimulate autophagy, how to help your body and your vagus nerve reset from stress and ways you can implement it in your day to day life. Even if you're not going to go to the Amazon for 10 days, how can you implement this healing and stress recovery in your usual day to day life? And that was my goal in writing this book is I want all of you to walk away with your own self care plan, your own stress recovery plan that you can implement every day, little by little to help your body reset, recover and become resilient to stress. That's my vision, that's my philosophy and that's what I've seen. That's what I've seen work for myself and for my patients. That's what I want to share with all of you. Thanks so much for listening again today to me here at How Humans Heal. I can't wait for some of the upcoming interviews that I have already for you. Please subscribe or like or follow however you're listening to. Make sure that you receive the next episode as soon as it comes out. I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to write to me or write in the reviews about your thoughts and experiences listening in to how humans Heal. And I would love to hear if there's other topics that you've been wondering about that you'd like to learn more about so that I can bring that information to you again. This is what I love to do. This is who I am and what I am doing with my life. And so I would love to hear from all of you so that I can do more of it and do it together. I feel like I'm here with you, learning with you. I think so much of the time in medicine and practitioners, even other naturopathic doctors, sometimes you experience it where the practitioner is like, I don't know, almost comes as a better than or smarter than or knows more than or something. There's this greater and there are different levels of experience. Right. And what my hope is to just show up as another human. Yes, I have all of this training and background and experience, but that doesn't mean that I'm any different. I'm just a human who happened to put a lot of time and money into learning about the human body, mind and spirit and how to help us through our lifetimes, through our experiences. So that's just I put all of that into it out of my own passion and I'm sharing with all of you also out of my own passion. And so I really hope that you all experience it as a safe place where you can come and be with me here also, all on a healing journey, learning and discovering about ourselves and, and our time here on Earth. So please, you know, I hope that's how you experience me and this podcast and any other program where you interact with me, including if you choose to. If I can help you one on one or in one of my online group programs, I'd be happy to. Of course, the whole idea is I want to be able to share this information with you. So please reach out if you need more help or if if you'd like to work with me one on one, my office and my assistant would be happy to help to arrange that. And also that's why I make it available in the online store to make available to you products that I can have access to and ship to you where you know you're getting the highest quality from the highest quality companies that are reviewing their ingredients, products from nature, nutrients, herbs, homeopathic remedies. These are tools and resources from nature that we can put into liquids and capsules and powders so that and I can teach you how to use them effectively to help your body heal, to help you recover from whatever health issues that are coming up. It's not about the health issue or the diagnosis. It's about how do we help your body to heal and recover so that your goal is always on really believing and knowing your bodies can heal when they're given the right support. So that's who I am and that's what I do here at How Humans heal and@drdonnie.com and I'm so glad you're listening in and I'd love to hear from you and look forward to connecting with you in the next episode. Talk to you soon.

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