Podcast INSIDER - Ayahuasca 101: Everything You Need To Know About A Potent Adaptogenic Drink

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And you may have been hearing a lot lately about this thing called ayahuasca. So there was this new movie, relatively new movie called Wanderlust. And in that movie, Jennifer Aniston actually drinks ayahuasca. And there's this other video that's out there on YouTube right now where bodybuilder and six time Mr. Olympia winner Dork Yates is kind of lauding the benefits of ayahuasca. And it seems to be kind of popping up all over the place like these ayahuasca retreats and ceremonies and celebrities and athletes beginning to use this ayahuasca stuff. But what I wanted to do for you today was really delve into a podcast that could fill you in on kind of Ayahuasca 101 and everything that you need to know about this stuff. Because it actually is a pretty cool kind of potent adaptogen. And the fact is, if you know a little bit about it and you know how to use it right, it may be something that turns out to be something that you can use. So my guest today is Stephanie Holbrook. And Stephanie is a personal trainer and a coach over at Pacific Elite Fitness. She's an Ironman finisher. She's done cycling, running, swimming, triathlons since 2004. She's participated in Olympic and powerlifting competitions. So she's not one of these people who's just like sedentary in a jungle somewhere doing ayahuasca. Like she's out there totally modern, living the athletic lifestyle and delving into this stuff. And she even does ayahuasca retreats and all sorts of cool stuff like that. She's a Czech certified coach. She is certified by my superhuman coach certification. She's an ACE certified personal trainer. She's certified by the nsca. She's actually got a bachelor's degree in anthropology as well. So she's a wealth of knowledge and we're privileged to have her on the call today. So, Stephanie, thanks for coming on.

Well, thank you for having me, Ben. That was quite the introduction. I feel special.

I practice that a lot, making people sound as special as possible. So, you know I think probably the best place to dive in here, Stephanie, because I do want to hear kind of like how you got into ayahuasca and how you discovered it, but can you first explain what exactly ayahuasca even is?

So what ayahuasca is. Is a. Is a drink. And depending on who makes it, it's either more like a liquid tea or more like maple syrup consistency. And the. The tea is made from ayahuasca vine and the tricuna leaf. And the vine contains dimethyltryptamine, which. And the leaves from the trichuna plant contain a monoaminase oxidate MAOI inhibitor.

What's an MAOI inhibitor?

So if you just drank the brew of the ayahuasca without the tracuna, your body would dissolve. You wouldn't have any hallucinogenic effect because the enzymes in your stomach would. Would just dissolve it. So the MAOI prevents that from happening, allows the ayahuasca to get into your system.

So basically, this. This ayahuasca stuff is like a vine. And if you were to just eat the vine or figure out a way to brew the vine, I guess, into a tea, you really wouldn't get any type of, like a mental effect or a hallucinogenic effect or anything like that. You have to have the leaves along with the vine.

Correct.

What happens if you do the leaves by themselves, like, without the.

Then you wouldn't have any hallucinogenic effect either. They have to be used together.

Okay, gotcha.

And the shaman in Peru have said that they were told by. That to put those together because they don't grow next to each other. It's really sort of crazy how they ended up, you know, brewing those two combination of plants together to make this.

Oh, I got you. So, so this vine, like the ayahuasca vine and this leaf that's got this, this. This oxidase inhibitor on it, those aren't actually part of the same plant?

No, they're completely separate, and they don't even grow in the same spot.

Interesting. Okay, so somebody figured out how to. How to put these together, right?

The shaman in Peru.

Huh.

They said that they were told by Great Spirit or God or whatever you want to call it, you know, to put these things together in order to. To get visions. Okay, so that's the theory or the myth or, you know, what the shamans say that how they came about putting those things together. And the indigenous tribes in the Amazon have been using ayahuasca since they can trace it to 500 BC but it's probably been used longer than that, so they don't really know the start of when they started using ayahuasca. And some. Yeah, and something that's really cool about it is the shaman now say that, you know, the reason why ayahuasca is becoming so popular is because mother ayahuasca, which is what they call the spirit of the plant, is trying to spread out and sort of reverse missionary, you know, trying to save the Earth, that the Western civilization has sort of lost their touch with Mother Earth. And. And being. Going to ceremony and drinking ayahuasca. It does. You know, it's pretty. Pretty powerful. Medicine definitely makes you take a step back and look at, like, what are you doing in your life that's affecting the planet, you know?

Yeah, I want to talk to you about that in a second, like, about, like, what you feel or kind of the effect that it has on your body. Because I think a lot of people, including myself, have kind of avoided it just because I kind of categorize it up there with, like, shrooms or other drugs that might potentially be, like, mentally disturbing. So I'm curious for you because you're like, an athlete and a triathlete and someone who you wouldn't really expect necessarily to get involved with something like ayahuasca. How did you get into all this?

Well, but I went to my 25th high school class reunion, and an old friend of mine, I was talking to her and her husband, and he just feels like, have you ever heard of ayahuasca? I'm like, no, I've never heard of that. And he's like, I think that it would be good for you. Because I was. I would say I'm pretty, like, uptight, or I was. I don't necessarily think I am now. And so he gave me a book, and really, I don't even remember the name of the book. It was about ayahuasca. I read half the book, and I was like, I'm in. I did some research. I read the. I think the tipping point was an article in National Geographic about one of the reporters who had gone to ayahuasca. And I sent the link to you so you can put it in the show notes.

Okay.

And the articles about this woman had gone to. Had suffered from depression her whole life and had gone to write a story about ayahuasca and one ceremony, and her depression was lifted and it never came back. And for me, I was really nervous about going to my first ceremony, and it was up in the mountains and we. I attend a small group, closed group, and we go to Mexico. And it's legal in Mexico, although I'll talk a little bit later about the legality in the United States. But my first ceremony. And you do hear some people hear voices. You see things, you feel things, depending on who you are and your response to it. For me, I have auditory, visual, and tactile. I feel everything. And the voice is like, oh, I'm so glad you're here. Let's work on cleaning you out. And, you know, like, you just heard.

This, like, voice in your head, right?

It's like it talks to you. And.

But what's the voice like? Is it like your voice or is it just like this other voice?

It's just another voice. It's just. It was a female voice. And although you don't always hear the same voice, because sometimes I've heard, like, a male voice. Okay, so it's not like. Yeah, so. But, you know, if you've ever done any long endurance event and you felt like part of you was talking to another part of you, and, I don't know, a lot of endurance athletes, especially, like, when you get to the ultra marathon distance, you have some. You can have hallucinations. Well, it's. It's sort of like that, but a lot stronger. So I know I've done some long events and I've felt like, you know, one part of me is like, hey, walk it. Watch out for that rock. And the other part of you sort.

Of answers, yeah, I got close to that phase, I think, one year when I went and raced Ironman Hawaii, and I was injured, so I was able to swim and bike, but actually had to walk the marathon. So I was just walking for six hours, and I swear I started to see stuff. I mean, six hours sounds kind of lame, but I was starting to see stuff and talk to myself. And I didn't actually hear voices in my head. But that's really interesting. Does that. Does the voice in your head part have to do with the monoamine oxidase inhibitors? Like, is there something going on a chemical level?

It's the dimethyltryptamine that's affecting your pineal gland. And everybody naturally secretes dimethyltryptamine from their pineal gland.

And that's dmt, right?

Right, dmt.

Okay.

And so when they die, when someone dies, they say they're actually doing a lot of research now and trying to figure all the details out, that your body releases a lot of DMT where you have visuals near death. Or near death experiences. They call it the vine of death because they say it's like you die and then you come back. You actually cannot die from drinking the actual ayahuasca. The lethal dose is like six gallons. And if you've ever drank ayahuasca, you would know that that would be impossible. The dose that they. The typical strong dose is 25 milligrams. So it's like a shot glass.

Okay, so that's not much.

No. And to get that shot glass down is rough, so it doesn't taste very good. It's the most disgusting thing you probably could ever imagine.

Like is it bitter or is it sour or what's really bitter?

And the texture is, it's really thick and there's sometimes chunks of stuff in there and it's really hard to get it down.

Like the vine or the leaf.

Well, it's because they have to cook it down over and over and over to make it concentrated. It's just, it's just thick. Thick part that's clunked together.

Okay, gotcha. Now you said that the body naturally releases dmt. Would that be like when you're asleep or is your body producing DMT all day long?

I think it's when you're sleeping. It's from your pineal gland. And Brooke Strassman did some research on melatonin and.

Yeah, because melatonin is released by your pineal gland too.

Right. And then later he did research with DMT in the pineal gland. There's a movie on Netflix about it. It's called dmt, the spirit molecule. And they used concentrated DMT and injected it. That's a really fast response and it lasts a really short time. An ayahuasca ceremony from beginning to end is about four to five hours. So it's a long time.

Okay, so basically if you take this DMT that your body would naturally be producing and you somehow inhibit this monamine. What's it called? The monamine oxidase oxidase inhibitor. Okay, so you're inhibiting monamine oxidase with a monamine oxidase inhibitor. Basically. And that's allowing DMT to act in a way different than it would normally act if you were just kind of making it yourself naturally while you were asleep or whatever. Right, okay, interesting. Got it. So you mentioned the word ceremony. I think was. Was the way that you described it.

Right. So I.

So you just, you don't just go walk in and like toss back a shot of ayahuasca and.

No, and I would never Ever recommend anybody ever doing that? Because it could be really super scary. So you can't die from the actual ayahuasca, but you could die from things.

You could do, like jumping off a bridge or something.

Right. Or like, you know, walking into a car, even after. Because our. Our shaman was trained by Don Jose Campos, who. I'll give you a link in the show notes. And he's. He actually travels around the world and does ceremonies. He sort of reminds me of, like, you know, an old Methodist minister. I don't know if you know the history where the ministers used to travel from town to town. So our shaman does that. He comes through town every so often, and that's when we meet up. And then, because according to the shaman, we're dealing with the spiritual realm, there's a lot of preparation to make sure that we're only dealing with, you know, good vibes. So they use a sage stick and palo santo, and they smudge the room and the area. And then everybody.

They smudge it.

Right. So it's smoking sage, which. Smoking. They let the sage smoke the room.

Okay.

And it's called smudging and palo santo wood, which is sacred. It's a sacred wood. And then everybody, before you go into ceremony, then they. They smudge you front and back and. And under your feet. And. And then you go into the room, and everybody has their little spot set up, and they have their mats out and pillows. And. And then the shaman does a prayer in the beginning and then does an opening part of the ceremony. And then everybody goes around the room and says something that they're grateful for and their intent for the ceremony. So the ceremony structure. He learned the Shipibo practice. That's the ceremony part of it from the Shipibo people. So that's.

Who are the ship people?

They're a tribe in Peru.

Okay, gotcha. So this is all coming out of Peru, right?

It's all from Peru.

Gotcha.

It's. It's the same ceremony that they've been doing for eons. And he's very. Because he. He's our. The shaman who. Who I attend his ceremonies, he's very particular about making sure the ceremony he does is exactly like the ceremony that they've done thousands of years.

Okay.

So. And then. So he has this tobacco, sacred tobacco called mapacho. Is this like.

Like tobacco tobacco, like the same stuff as you find.

It's a special tobacco that's in Peru, and it's called mapacho.

Okay.

And so he takes the tobacco and blows it into the bottle of ayahuasca and then blows it into the cup. And then he usually has a helper with him. Most of the times it's the shaman's wife, but sometimes it's just another, you know, he has someone else else come with him. And then the helper goes around and puts agua fria, or Florida water sacred, or camphor, which are both considered sacred, purifying. And he puts it on the back of our neck, the top of our head, and then on our solar plexus. So that's another level of protection. And so we go around the room and then one by one, each person goes up and takes a drink. You tell the shaman how many you want. Some people take 5 milliliters, some people take 25. That's the, you know, up to 25. And then some folks are really resistant. You know, it takes a lot for them to have a journey, and it all depends on you. And sometimes they get 30 or 35. Pretty much. No one takes more than that. So you're not ever taking more than like 50 milliliters. I don't know that anybody of anybody who's ever taken that amount. Right. You drink it, and it's sort of amazing. The first time you drink it, it doesn't taste bad. Every other time after that it does. So it's.

Why is that?

I don't know. Talk about adaptogenic herb.

Interesting. Yeah. And I want to. I want to ask you too, about how this compares to other adaptogens. But before I do. So once you, once you do all that, what happens then during a ceremony?

So then they have a candle going and they. They blow up the candle so it's dark. And then he asked for a moment of silence. Well, moment. It's like 45 minutes of silence. And then for you just sort of meditate and wait for the medicine to work. I mean, sometimes you feel burning in your stomach and sometimes you feel chills. It's. It's sort of crazy because I've done about 20 ceremonies, and I have had four ceremonies that have been pretty much exactly the same. But aside from that, they're completely different. You don't know what's going to happen, which is, I guess, a little disconcerting, but it's whatever. A friend of mine who attends the group that I attend said, you don't always get what you want, but you always get what you need. And I think that's about. That pretty much sums the experience, you know, whether you see scary things, happy things, or whatever, it's not the actual ceremony that you're benefiting from. It's the feelings that you get afterwards that you're like, I. You feel a sense of relief if you feel burdened, you still. Or a sense of like, you know, being able to focus on things. I'll use the example. My last ceremony I went to was I never thought of myself as a controlling person. And it had not been something. It had been something that had come up, but mildly about like, hey, you need to relax more, you need to take it easy. But the last time I was like, no, apparently I have not got the hint that I need to be less controlling. So I pretty much had like a three hour slideshow of every moment in my life where I had been a control freak. And I. And I was talking back like, hey, can I just have a break? And the voice back was like, no, you have to get through this. Because apparently I had not learned my lesson. And afterwards, it was amazing the weeks and months after that, that how much freer I felt about some big things, about saying no to people who. Things that I didn't really want to do, but I felt like, oh, I needed to do to like, go out with my friends or just staying focused on the things, you know, tasks that I need to accomplish. I'm not doing a very good job of describing that. But not the last ceremony, but a few ceremonies back.

You're thinking about this though, like you're coming to these realizations during or is it after? Like after the stuff.

Like the things that you need to work on and then, or then after you're like, oh, I get it. So that's the important part of it. It's not the actual ceremony that you receive the huge benefit from. It's whenever you're done and interacting in your everyday life. They call it integration, integrating what you learned into life. And there's been some discussion with some folks I know who do research on entheogens about the need for some sort of therapy to. Or discussion to somebody who's familiar with that type of ceremony to help them integrate it into their life. Because it's a lot different in Peru. You grew up with those ceremonies. You have, you know, a lot of people in the tribes don't go to ceremony unless they're sick, they have an ailment, they're. You have a disease that they need to be cured from.

Yeah, interesting. Okay, so. So you're. So you're talking about how like for you, you'd use it to help yourself not to be a control freak. So does that mean that when you feel like controlling a situation, after you're kind of off the ayahuasca, after the ceremony is over, maybe after you're, you know, back home or out in a training session or whatever, are you just remembering back to the ceremony? And that's what's keeping you to be a control freak? Like, the. The way that you felt when you were in the ceremony, think it's just.

More of, like, the need to. To control the situation is just gone. And that's just one example. I mean, the. After my first ceremony, I grew up with alcoholic parents. My dad and stepmom were both alcoholics, and they were not. I mean, they were just not very caring people. And I, you know, always felt like no matter what I did was not good enough. Like, it. I mean, I completed an Ironman, and afterwards I was like. That just didn't give me the sense of reward that I was, like, seeking. And which is crazy because that's a pretty big accomplishment. So.

Yeah.

So after. After my first ceremony, that feeling of, like, not ever, no matter what I did was not enough. Was gone. It was like, poof, gone. And it never came back. I mean, and I obviously had more things to work on and. But it was. I was like, I'm going. I. You know, I'm sold. I can. You can't. It's a great feeling to be relieved of those sort of burdens. There's a lot of folks who've been addicted to drugs like heroin and cocaine and stuff, that ayahuasca has really shown to cure those folks pretty rapidly without the same, you know, withdrawal symptoms. And I. There's a few folks who go to ceremony who. The regular ceremonies that I go to who have been addicted to. I don't know what they're addicted to, but they know they were, you know, had pretty bad addictions that were. Controlled their life, and they're free from those addictions, and they don't have any craving or need or want to.

Yeah.

To go back, I will say I did have an addiction to diet Dr. Pepper. That seems like it. That's a mild addiction. But I. But, I mean, diet sodas are pretty.

Yeah, you gotta drink some of the. Some of the zevia. The. The Dr. Zevia stuff. That's the best one. That's the best alternative to Dr. Pepper I've found so far.

So I do drink Zevia soda, and I really like them, but I don't even feel like I need them often. And I don't think I've probably had the Dr. Pepper in probably a year.

Cool. Interesting. Okay, so tell me, tell me a little bit more. Like, describe to me and the listeners how you feel. Like you talked about some auditory and some visual hallucinations and the voices in your head. Can you delve into basically your best description of how you actually feel and how long it takes for you to start to feel this stuff after you take this 2550 milligram dose of ayahuasca.

So when you first drink it. And it can start right away, or it can start, you know, an hour or two in. I've had some ceremonies that took like up to an hour and then nothing was happening. And then. So the shaman will ask you if you don't feel anything after. I think it's two hours, I don't remember, but he'll say, hey, you know, you can come up and get more. And I went up and got more. And as soon as I drank like a little bit, and it wasn't even enough to get into my system, it was like full blown, like Technicolor kaleidoscopes. About half the time I get where I get like where I feel like I vibrate, like shaky. And one of my friends was like, oh, that's the kundalini. Kundalini energy. And I'm like, well, I didn't know exactly what it was. But the shaman, before your first ceremony, goes over every possible scenario of anything you feel could feel in detail to all the new folks. And he does that so you don't freak out because you're like your body's vibrating. And I felt like I have had. Had a lot of stomach problems for years, like digestive problems, which thankfully they're all cured. So I'm regular and everything works, but in a place where I had surgery, my appendix out and a lot of scar tissue, like I could feel pulling and tension. And the whole time, you know, she. The voice in my head saying, just relax, we're just taking care of some stuff. And they say it cleans out your liver and cleans out your lymphatic system. And I don't know really how much that's true. I know that it does. Definitely. You can have a fair amount of vomiting or diarrhea or both at the same time, which I have had both at the same time before.

What is it that's causing that? Is it something other than the, than the, the DMT or the, the monoamine oxidase inhibitors? Like, is there something in the vine.

Or in the leaf that's.

That's A digestive irritant.

I think it's just part of the. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I just know that not everybody.

Ayahuasca is paleo or if it's. Yeah, it's destroying your stomach.

Ayahuasca is paleo because it is from plant material that you could have eaten thousands of years ago.

Interesting.

But I, It's. You don't always get sick. I've had ceremonies that I haven't even had a cough or a sneeze or anything. It just depends on what you need, is what you get, so.

Gotcha.

My first ceremonies were all more upper, like I was always vomiting. If I, If I did vomit.

Does that bother you? Like, does that concern you? Making. Does it make you think at all about whether or not it's going to do long term damage or have you started to look into long term safety?

Well, there's been shaman who've been doing it since the time they were kids until my friend just got back from Peru. And I actually don't know that much.

About shamans and whether they. They die earlier than the rest of the population or not.

Well, so there's a. My friend went to Peru and worked with the shaman and his grandfather or his great uncle. It was his, and the great uncle was over 100 years old. My friend is like a super fit, amazingly fit guy. And he said he had a hard time keeping up with this man through the jungle. And so he had asked me, like he was telling me, I think it really helps your endurance because this guy is so fit. I had gone on a bike route one weekend here in Phoenix and it was a hilly route out through Paradise Valley. And the next, the following weekend, the Friday night, I had a ceremony and then I came home. Saturday I was home, and Sunday I went and rode the exact same route. The weather was pretty much the same and. And my time was like within seconds of the previous weekend. So I'm pretty sure there's nothing that's, you know, either hurting you or it's making you feel worse or giving you any additional endurance. There are a lot of folks. The movie that I sent a link for the Sacred Science is about these people who are a group of people who were, some of them terminally ill, seriously sick or had chronic diseases. And they took them to Peru to a dieta. A dieta is different than just a ceremony. A dieta is like you're on a special diet and you're doing ayahuasca ceremonies plus other indigenous plant Medicines to heal you. And in the movie it's pretty amazing because there are some pretty dramatic results of people getting better from chronic or life threatening diseases. So that was pretty cool.

Interesting. So what about anything else that you've looked into or found in terms of like sports performance, muscle gain, fat loss, like pros, cons, can it inhibit muscle gain? Does it affect fat loss or metabolism in any way? Like, have you ever found any interaction at all or come across any literature about that?

I haven't come across any literature and I can tell you it hasn't ever helped me with fat loss or performance gain. But I can. I think a lot of our performance is mental, our mental state. And the things that I tell myself when I'm doing endurance events or in training about like, I talk to myself differently instead of saying like, oh, this, this ride is so horrible. I'm like, oh, I'm so strong. I'm so happy to be out here on my bike ride. So it's just the things that I, the way I talk to myself. So in that respect it has helped my performance and it all has to do with my mental attitude. As for the physical body changing, muscle gain, fat loss, it has had zero effect on that.

Gotcha. Okay, interesting. So how close to like, like a workout or something like that should you avoid using ayahuasca? Like how often are you doing a ceremony? Is this, is this once a year? Is this like every week that you're using this stuff or I do a.

Ceremony like once every three months.

Okay, gotcha.

So it's not like they're close together. I mean you have to sort of be.

Do you follow like a special diet or anything like that?

There is a special diet that they recommend for ceremony. Some of it has to do with actual. The ayahuasca can thin your blood and, or make your heart race. And some of it's because what you see. So there's absolutely no fermented foods three days before and after the event. And that is something that is pretty.

No fermented foods. You mean like probiotics and stuff like that, right?

No pickles? No.

Why is that?

Because of it reacts with ayahuasca.

So if it's like the histamines or something in that, right?

Like the aged or aged or anything like that. The other things are more spiritually related. Like no. And I think some of it too is because you don't want anything heavy in your system. No red meats or heavy meats a week before and after because it's harder. It Takes longer to digest. And you don't want that stuff coming back up.

Yeah, I wouldn't imagine that'd be pleasant if that meat's coming back up after ayahuasca.

Right. And then with a ceremony, you fast from noon on.

So what time is the ceremony?

Like, if you're fasting, it starts about 7pm and ends about midnight.

Okay. So you're on like a 7 to 8 hour fast by the time you even start the stuff.

Right.

Okay.

Some people fast all day. Some people fast like days before, but I don't do that. So no strong alcohol, beer, wine, a week before and after. No hot food, red peppers, or anything like spicy food. And I'm sure that's the same reason you don't want it coming back up. You don't want it to agitate the system. And moderate consumption of salt, sugar or honey three days before or after. And that's because it's. You want to keep your body as clean as possible. And then. Absolutely. After the ceremony. No, no other anything like you don't want it. They say no sex within three days after the ceremony too. But why is that? Because, I guess because you want to focus on what you learned and not share it.

So you don't want to be distracted, basically.

Right. And. Yeah. And what's that? The soldiers for mdma.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, you no MDMA anywhere close to when you have ceremony, because that will mess you up. I. I think it leads to serotonin. It could lead to serotonin syndrome.

Yeah, because. Well, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor would act actually pretty similar to a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. So I could see it affecting your mood or potentially even causing a rebound depression type of effect. I know that's one of the reasons you want to be careful with stacking different types of things that are going to inhibit reuptake of serotonin or act similarly on a neurotransmitter level. So that makes sense.

Right. And you absolutely, absolutely know no antidepressants within, I would say, I think they say three months of a ceremony.

Okay.

You want to have absolutely no antidepressants in your system. That's really bad news. Or have a heart condition because not that the ayahuasca can't kill you, but you could see visions that could race your heart and make you afraid, and that could cause your heart to have a problem.

Okay, now what? Now for that reason, this kind of brings up another thought I have. Is this stuff like, let's say you do an AYAHUASCA ceremony, and two weeks later you have, let's say, an Ironman triathlon or something like that. What's the whole deal with the World Anti Doping association and any of these things that might still be in your bloodstream after ceremony? Like, is this stuff sanctioned by any sports body as far as legality is concerned?

I don't know about that. I know in the United States, the only groups that are approved to use ayahuasca are ones that Native American church. And there's a. Or one of the Native American churches got approval, the Santa Diamond Church and a few others have gotten approval to have ceremony.

So you can't just like, go out and buy this stuff in the liquor store?

No, because DMT is illegal. Not the actual. You can order ayahuasca vine and chirkuna leaf on the Internet, get it sent to you and brew it, but good luck on making that work. But they have a whole ceremony when they brew it. But the DMT in those, in the ayahuasca is considered illegal. Okay. And straight DMT is illegal. Rick Strassman had to go through a jump, through a whole bunch of hoops to actually do the research he did on dmt.

And is he the guy that did this documentary?

He's the guy who did the research and wrote the book and then later other folks did a documentary from the book.

Gotcha. Okay, interesting. So basically you should. If you're going to use this stuff anyways, is there like a certain period of time that you would say, to be safe, that you found for it to be out of the bloodstream, like the DHT or the monoamine oxidase inhibitors or any of that stuff.

It only. It doesn't like after your ceremony is over, it's like after that five hours, like, you don't feel anything. It's not like alcohol where you drink and then you may have a hangover.

The next morning, so it gets metabolized pretty quickly.

Right. And I know they say that you can have more vivid dreams like three days or week after, but pretty much after that it's. It's gone out of your system. I don't have the exact time, so don't. Don't quote me on. But I know if you waited three months, I. I doubt that it would. For it could be tracked or it would even be in your system. Plus your brain, your body makes DMT and many.

Yeah, that's true, but I mean, like with testosterone, I mean, like, you know, you. You have base levels, but then if you have, you know, More specifically, if your testosterone to epitestosterone ratio is way off, that's a big red flag. Flag. So I was just curious if you'd come across anything as far as legality.

Is concerned, but I've not, I haven't done any races or anything around a ceremony, so I didn't really think about it because I. It wasn't. I had nothing that was anywhere close to a race.

Yeah.

Before, after. And I knew after my bike ride, it's not like it's going to help me with a race, so.

Yeah, well, it sounds like, I mean, if it's thinning your blood and things along those lines, it may potentially. I mean, I guess it all depends, right? Like marijuana and endocannabinoids, for example. Those are banned by the wada, but they're in fact performance inhibiting. But one of the arguments that's out there is that they could potentially relax you so much or alter your mood so much that you may have some kind of a performance enhancing effect. So it's interesting. Is this stuff addictive?

No. Because you actually have to talk yourself into drinking it the next time because.

It'S so disgusting, it tastes so bad. There's no way you could get addicted. Right.

And it's not like. And you go. Because you think, you know, I really felt so much better after ceremony, and it really helped me. I mean, I feel like it's helped me be a better mom to my kids because I don't get so uptight whenever they do stuff.

How many?

Yeah, I'm more relaxed. I have two boys, 20 and 16.

Okay, gotcha. Interesting. So when, when you're using this stuff, I mean, it's, it's labeled as an adaptogen and I use adaptogens. Like I use this TNT stuff, for example, that I've talked about on the podcast before. How is this different than other adaptogens like Ashwagandha and Eleuthero? Things along those lines, like, where does it rank?

Well, I've used TNT before and I actually really like it. But it's adapt. An adaption. The fact that if you, no matter how much you take, you're gonna get the results that you need. So some folks, I mean, even me, I've gone to ceremonies that I'm like, I'm just gonna take a little bit because I, I don't. I want to be able to have a light ceremony and not be too. I don't want to go so deep that I don't know where I am or anything. Just. I just had Plan to. I was making sure that there was soup out for everybody in the group after the ceremony. So I didn't want to go too deep because I didn't want to be groggy to put out the soup. So that was my plan. But I just took a little, you know, I think a 20 milliliter. Not even 20. How much was it? Like 15 milliliters. And nothing happened. I was like, zip. And I was like, well, I don't want to just sit here all night with nothing going on. So I ended up going up and just getting five more milliliters. And it was like I didn't know where I was, who I was. And I was coughing up, like, coughing a lot. And like, more of like, getting rid of things. I was holding, actually, the voice. My head's like, you just need to get rid of things you're holding on to, like irritations or being upset with people. And so for the next three hours, I pretty much was coughing and, you know, and really completely out of it. And that. That was not my intent. And that was a small dose. Like, it was not especially. I typically take a little higher dose because I don't usually. It's. I'm a slow responder and my reaction, you know, and I don't go very deep, but that little bit pushed me over the top. And I was like, I. Apparently that was on the agenda for either, you know, spirit, mother, ayahuasca, or whatever. That's what needed. And I felt great afterwards. And I was fine to get the soup out. Like, it all wore off by the time ceremony was over and I got the soup out and everybody had soup and it was good, so it doesn't matter. And I've had ceremonies. Like, I really want to get a lot of work done. I have, like, a lot of stuff on my mind that I really feel like I need to work through. And taken like seven. They measured 5 milliliters as one. So I've taken like 35 milliliters. And it was hardly anything. And I was like, I. It was, you know, frustrating, but.

Okay, gotcha. What do your friends think about this? Like, because honestly, you don't see a lot of, you know, kind of like middle aged female endurance athletes going around doing ayahuasca. Like, what. What's the feedback that you get from your friends or do you even talk to many people about it?

I don't really tell people about it. I don't. Like, I. Unless someone's interested in information or say something about it, I'll talk about It. But otherwise I'm like, I don't really, you know, I feel like this is my religious practice and I don't want to, like, I don't want people to push their spiritual beliefs on me, so I don't push those things on them.

So that's got it. So overall, would you say that this would be something that you would kind of like recommend everybody do? Is it something that you would more use on a case by case basis for if someone is trying to deal with a personal issue or, you know, address something like the control freak type of aspect that you were talking about? I mean, what are your general recommendations as far as.

Well, I think it's definitely a person by person basis. It's not for everyone. If you, if you're listening to this podcast, if somebody's listening to this podcast and they're like, oh my gosh, I really want to do that, then that, then it probably is for you. But if you're like, no way in hell would I ever do that in a million years, then it's probably not. So you just sort of have to go with your gut instinct. And just like my friend's husband, he just felt like, oh, that would be something that I think Stephanie would benefit from. And that's why he told me about it. So, you know, if I'm talking to someone like, and they seem open to it and they're not, and I'm like, well. And I say, how have you ever heard of ayahuasca? And I have a few friends that I've done that, you know, said, hey, have you ever heard of ayahuasca? And, and they've been interested and I send them some videos and stuff. The different, the thing is, like, I'm in a closed group and unless some people leave the group because the shaman only comes through so often and we go to Mexico, so it's not like, not everybody's going to go to Mexico. Then those. Then I pretty much don't say anything about it. But if someone's interested, then there are some resources. There's always. There's dietas in Peru, where our shaman was trained was Don Jose Campos. And then there are some groups in the United States that people can go to. And I think it. They say that you don't find ayahuasca. Ayahuasca finds you. So once you put your, you know, you're open to it, it usually comes to you.

How do you know if where you're going is safe? Like, is there, is there a website you can find that shows certified. What would it be like? Certified shamans or certified organizations.

Amber Lyons is, was a CNN reporter. I heard her information on the Joe Rogan Experience and she talked about setting up a website where they people can rate shaman.

And is that set up or is that, were they just talking about it?

I think she's still working on it. I don't know if it's set up or not and, but I do know if someone's interested in a dieta. The Don Jose Campos is a good shaman. I did talk to our shaman about organizing a group in San Carlos, Mexico for one time to see if people were interested. And that would be September 26th, 27th and 28th. So if people are like, oh, I really, really want to go, if I get a big response, then maybe we can organize that.

But how would people be able to contact you if they wanted to do something like that? Like go to a retreat that you put together and organized, you know, safe way.

Well, I've been working on putting together a website, Stephanie Holbrook Fitness.com and it's just like a blog and information. And when is this podcast going to go out?

We'll release it around the end of June. So actually, but if I send people to that website to stephanieholbergfitness.com is that gonna be up? Like, will there be some information or.

At least where people have all the stuff up? I mean, I have a, we've got.

Your contact details at Pacific Elite Fitness too, because you're, you're a coach over there. So I know people can get you through there too.

Yeah, so I'll have the stuff up about it by then.

Okay, cool. So it's stephanieholbrickfitness.com I've also got a link to all these other things that you sent over, like the Graham Hancock's TED Talk, the National Geographic article, the Sacred Science movie, all that stuff. So folks, if you're listening in and you want to go kind of delve into this a little bit more, then head over to the show notes and you'll be able to hunt that stuff down and also go check out what Stephanie is doing over at stephanie holbrook fitness.com and I can also leave questions and I'm sure will you jump in and respond to comments and stuff? People comment on the show notes?

Oh yeah, I can do that.

Okay, cool.

And I love the Graham, Graham Hancock talk because he does such a good job of explaining it. I don't, I don't feel like I explain it that well. I'm so because mostly I just do it to make it because I want to be a better me. A lot of folks go to ayahuasca ceremonies because they want to have a spiritual experience. And it is definitely they call it the vine of death for a reason. But I don't have any higher aspirations but to be a good mom, a good coach, and a good, you know, sibling. Sister, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I hear you. Well, cool. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put all these links up in the show notes. So if you're listening in, you have more questions about ayahuasca, you've used it before. You have your own tips to add. You want to join the discussion, anything like that, head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and we'll have all the information for you over there. So, Stephanie, thanks so much for coming on today. Great.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

All right, folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Stephanie Holbrook signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

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