How to Make Over Your Medicine Cabinet with Essential Oils with Dr. Mariza Snyder

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Welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show with celebrity nutrition expert, Fitness hall of Famer and four time New York Times best selling author JJ Virgin. JJ is a warrior mom whose knowledge and expertise have helped change hundreds of thousands of lives with over 3.5 million podcast downloads and appearances on Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, the Today Show, Rachael Ray, Larry King Love Whoa, whoa, whoa.

This show is about you, not about me. I want to help you find practical, real world ways to dial in your health and mindset so you can finally lose that weight and feel strong and energized. Stop settling for less than your personal best. It's time to find out how to look and feel better than ever. And I'll be right here with you the whole way. Welcome to today's podcast. This is part two of a three part series with Dr. Marisa Snyder all around essential oils. And if you're just tuning in going part two, where was part one? This is why you want to make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an episode and I'm going to encourage you. I know this is going to sound crazy, but stop, go back and listen to episode one because we actually recorded these very specifically in this order to really help you, number one, understand essential oils. That was episode one. Here's today's episode. We are going to talk to you about how to make over your medicine cabinet all the different things that you can use in place of the toxic stuff up there so that you can replace a lot of that stuff with essential oils. Now I just came off of a major hip surgery and I did have to be on the real deal for a little bit, but as soon as I could taper off, which was pretty darn quick, I was only on those things for like five days and it was like boom, I'm out, I'm tapering. I actually didn't taper, I just stopped and switched over to much better natural alternatives. And this is something where you'd be expecting to be on major stuff for a couple weeks, by the way. So this is totally possible. And I want this for you too. Which is why we did this. Episod on how to make over your medicine cabinet with essential oils Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Marisa. She's been around for a while. You probably have heard her on my Facebook or Instagram lives or heard her on my podcast. But just in case you haven't, she is a functional practitioner and she has written seven books. She wrote the Dash Diet Cookbook. She also wrote the best selling Smart Mom's Guide to Essential Oils. We're going to put this in the show notes. This is a great foundational book where you can get resources for a lot of these different oils. Her new book coming out is the Essential Oils Hormone Solution. Super cool. The next episode, that's episode three. We're going to talk about that in specific. Amazing what you can do there. And also she's created a cheat sheet for you@jjbirgen.com hormone EO and that is a cheat sheet that tells you how to deal with cravings and energy with essential oils. Like who doesn't want help there now? Past 10 years, Dr. Maurice has been all over the place lecturing at wellness centers, conferences and corporations on hormone health, essential oils, nutrition and detox. She's been on Dr. Oz, Fox News, Health, Mind, Body Green and a bunch of other publications and places. And she's also the host of Essentially you podcast. She's right in line with me wanting to help women become the CEO of their own health. And again, I am really excited about today because this is just, I mean it is so cool. I travel with Marisa. I've been like Germany, Netherlands and I got sick on the road and boom, she pulled out something for me and took care of me with essential oils. It was really quite cool. So I've, I've seen it in action. She has. I've got literally rollers and diffusers of stuff that she's put together for me all over the place that I travel with now. So love it so much. I also love this review by Saudi 1216 says, packed with so much beneficial information. 5 stars. Thank you so much for sharing very relevant health information. I believe information is power and in these days of so much bad health being shared, it is refreshing to listen to your podcast. I love that. Thank you so much. And if you have not dropped over and left a review yet, I would love to shout out to you too. So go ahead and leave a review and hopefully you will be my next big shout out on the Show. Welcome back. Dr. Marisa Snyder. It's. It's number two in our series.

Yes, it is.

This is super exciting. Now if you're just jumping on, you're going number two. What you need to back it up and make sure that you got number one. This is why you want to make sure you're subscribed to the show so you do not miss out on every awesome thing going on. And what we did in our first of this three part series is we chatted about what essential oils are, what can they be used for, how to know if you've gotten a good one, what to look out for, the top benefits of it. You do not want to miss that podcast episode. And this all happened because we recorded our third in the series first, which was a little bass backwards, I admit. But once we did that, I was like, you know, we need to go deeper and actually went deep to start. We need to start with the basics. And now today we're going to talk about how to make over your medicine cabinet with essential oils. Like, how super cool is that? Because, you know, I'm kind of one of those people. I believe that we should use everything at our disposal. I just had a hip replacement, as you know, from a dog attack that made me fall on top of my hip. And, you know, there's times to use allopathic medicine, but I try to get off of that as quickly as possible. So anything that I can use where it's natural, I'm going to go that route. So I'm super excited about this episode and I'm so happy you're here, Marisa.

I'm so happy to be here. This is one of my favorite topics.

Cool. Well, then this will be even more fun. I know, I know. Hormones and essential oils, which is. Podcast three is also one of your faves. Yes. So let's dive in because in the last episode, you were talking about food poisoning and how you used essential oils to get over your food poisoning. Let's talk about how, you know, first of all, you know, I just had to use oxycodone briefly with my hip replacement, which was the worst. That was the worst part of the whole thing, not having hip replacement was getting on those and then quickly getting off of them. How do you. How do these compare? How does, how do essential oils compare to some of the different drugs? Now that's an extreme drug, but let's just say Tylenol or Advil or some of these things.

Absolutely. So when we're looking at. We all have a choice, just like we Vote with our fork. We're making good food decisions. We also need to make good decisions around our medicine. And everyone, we struggle, every one of us is going to struggle with pain at one point, even if it's recovering from a surgery or we're struggling with immune system support or digestive support or respiratory support, cuts and scrapes, I mean, you name it. Stress, sleep, we're dealing with all those things, but probably maybe not a day to day basis, but they come up once a week, once a month. And it's important to have your medicine cabinet stocked. And I remember deciding that I wanted to make a choice. Although it's nice to have those over the counter drugs, I wondered to myself and having that research background, like, what are the repercussions of taking something like that all the time? What is it doing to my liver? How is it having an effect on my gut? What other areas of the body does it have an impact on? So when I started studying the benefit of essential oils, really what it came down to is we get a lot of the same benefits, but these aren't designed to create side effects. What oils, I've learned is that oils don't really have a lot of negative side effects in the body. They have a lot of side benefits. You know, if you're taking something for, let's say, lavender for a headache, and you also find yourself relaxing and reducing stress levels, well, that's a side benefit. So what I realized and discovered is that you can literally make over your entire medicine cabinet. You can throw all of that over the counter medicines away and replace them with an essential oil counterpart. And that's what we've done for the last six years in our home. And I have not gone to the drugstore one time because the oils work pretty much every single time. For minor things, you're stepping into a situation like a hip replacement. You're probably going to need something a little bit stronger in the beginning, but then you could probably move over to oils after about a week or so.

Yeah, and that's a huge thing. Especially like I look at, not just forget something strong like what I was on, which I know there's like this like epidemic, you know, of addiction out there in the world. But even just using things like Advil, which makes your gut leaky, can hurt your liver. You know, there's all these things come with risks. And that's the cool thing about oils, is the side effects are benefits.

Exactly, exactly. You know, the reason why I even started this wellness journey was I had chronic migraines for 15 years. And when I was a teenager, my parents let me dose out whatever I needed. I had a bottle of Imitrex, a bottle of Excedra, Migraine always in my purse. If you walked around with me, you could hear them rattling in there. And then what we found is that I had severe leaky gut. I had ulcers in my stomach because I was taking, I was washing them down with Diet Pepsi, jj. I mean, it was, behold, I was a hot mess. And none of that was, you know, if I would have known I had oils, I could have avoided all of that.

Oh, man. Yikes. So let's, let's like, say we get to do the sneak peek. I'd love if you put in the show notes a picture of your medicine cabinet. That would be so cool. And for you listening, you're going to want to grab the show notes because we have Dr. Marisa's cheat sheet, her cravings and energy cheat sheet there@jjvirgin.com Hormoneo for essential oils. Now, someone opens, goes into your house, and, you know, I'm sure I'm not the only person that occasionally will be at someone's house and kind of look in their, their medicine cabinet. Admit it, admit it.

Right? Who doesn't look in the medicine cabinet?

At the very least, you're in the bathroom kind of checking out. Oh, what do they use? Right? So someone goes in, sneaks in and opens up your medicine cabinet. What are they going to find in there? What are your, what are your remedies? What are the go tos you have?

Yeah, so we always have a go to digestive blend. And if anyone comes over, they're struggling with digestive issues. We've got a blend. So it says digestive blend. It's got fennel, ginger, and peppermint. And I'm talking about, let's say you accidentally ate gluten. Or maybe you didn't accidentally eat gluten. Maybe you intentionally did it. You've got gas, you've got bloating, you've got stomach discomfort. I'll tell you what, I can't tell you how many times someone has been dealing with a stomach issue at an event I was teaching at or in my own home, they rub that blend over their stomach, and within two to three minutes, they forgot they even had anything going on. So that is a blend. We have our sleep aid remedy, which I talked about in the last episode, which is lavender and vetiver. I don't care how jacked up you are on energy or if you're wired and tired. Lavender and vetiver will knock you out. I call it the TKO blend. It will do it every time. Yes.

I haven't even heard of vetiver. Vetiver.

It comes from Haiti. It's a root, and it is literally a natural sedative. It's one of the most powerful natural sedatives I've ever gotten. Gotten my hands on. If I want to put Alex to sleep, even though he doesn't want to go to sleep, jj, I just diffuse that blend near him somewhere. He just starts to, like, he just. He falls asleep.

Every parent needs this. Every parent.

Every parent needs a diffuser. Every parent needs those two oils. I've had thousands of moms over the years use those two oils, and it works every time for their kids.

Wow. Okay. What else?

What else? We've got tea tree oil. So tea tree oil for cuts, scrapes. Let's see. I mean, I've had people use it on toe fungus. I mean, jj, I've had people send me before and after toe fungus pictures. I can't tell you how many of those I've received over the years.

It's like getting the poop shots great.

But, like, guys with ingrown hairs. I always call it the guy oil, but it's like your first aid oil. And we also use melaleuca or tea tree oil. Either name works for all of our green cleaning needs. So we've made over all of our green cleaning, too. Our cleaning cabinets been made over. Melaleuca can be used for a lot of things. So then lavender. So lavender for cuts, scrapes, burns. We use it for mosquito bites or any type of bug bite. Allergies. We have an allergy blend that's lemon, lavender, and peppermint. So seasonal allergies. That is your go to blend. We also have frankincense. I have frankincense in there for helping to reduce stress levels, but also it's great for wound healing. And then I've got my immune system blend, which we talked a little bit about in the last episode, which is tea tree, eucalyptus, and clove oil. Those three oils are powerful at knocking out any viruses or bacteria that could be causing some immune system issues. Headache blends. Lavender, peppermint, frankincense, or even if you just have peppermint, you could use that for headaches as well. You got a sore knee. Peppermint and frankincense. I mean, so you'll see all of these blends, but then all of these cinco oils. And depending on what's going on you really only need about five oils. I always say about five oils will get the job done for most things. And those are the five oils that we travel with everywhere. So if you're ever traveling with me, like JJ and I travel together a lot, you've got a situation on your hands. Most likely we'll have an oil for it.

Yes. It's great to travel with you, by the way. You're fun to travel with and like easy, very easy to travel with. There are very few people I travel with. You are a great travel travel buddy. So let's talk a little bit. You kind of mentioned it, so let's go there. Any other tips around the household? Because I'm always looking. I'm a big fan of my green fills for all our laundry. I'll put that into the show notes. But like any other stuff, because to me that is such a big source. I think people don't think about. You want to, you know, not only detoxify your medicine cabinet, but you want to detoxify your whole house. Right.

You think about this toxic load that we're so concerned with as leading to other chronic conditions. And who doesn't want a non toxic cow's hold? You know, when I ask that question, everyone raises their hands. And the one area we really don't look at is our cleaning cabinet. We don't look to see the, you know, you go down that Target aisle and you practically suffocate because it's so strong with those toxic fumes. But we eat off those countertops. Our, you know, families are eating off the countertops, you know, everything that we touch. So we want to really be careful about what we're using. You know, move over bleach. I mean, you can just get away with baking soda, vinegar, water and essential oils. Essential oils, especially citrus oils like lemon, grapefruit, lime, wild orange. Any of those have antibacterial properties, antimicrobial properties. They are disinfectants, they are deodorizers. I mean, you really cover a lot of what you're looking for when it comes to these citrus oils. You could use tea tree oil as well. Tea tree oil kills mold, it kills other germs, again, 100% micro kind of antimicrobial, but also killing bacteria, killing viruses in the environment. And so just a matter of having a couple of ingredients that you probably already have under the sink, adding about 10 drops of essential oils to that, and you have got an all purpose spray that will pretty much nick and kill whatever you're looking to do in the house.

Well, that is super cool. And by the way, I'm assuming it's going to be a lot less expensive, too. And plus, you're not having to do that whole big carbon footprint of buying plastic overnight. Exactly. We just use.

I mean, this is how we use old Pellegrino bottles for our little spray bottles around the house. And yeah, you're talking about, let's say a drop of lemon oil. Runs you 3 cents.

Bottle. How does it spray it?

You take a little spray the little spray bottle from something else, and it just literally screws in. I've been using the same Pellegrino bottle for five years.

That is super cool. Okay, let's switch gears. Crazy. Stress, anxiety. I know we talked a little bit about some of that, like, getting on a plane stuff, but. But what do you have to support? Just freak out. Oh, yeah.

Freak outs. Meltdowns. Absolutely. So, I mean, probably the cornerstone to so many of these oils you think about in Europe, jj, where they rely on little capsules of lavender oil to lower anxiety levels. That's like one of the top recommended prescriptions in Europe. We're so far behind here in the United States. So lavender, we talked about those oils for sleep, kind of shutting down the system, but you can use a lot of those same oils. So for extreme anxiousness or those kind of meltdown moments, I would just take lavender, bergamot, and vetiver and just simply breathing them in. You definitely got to stop. I always say stop. Stop at that moment. Stop whatever you're doing. Grab that roller blend. It's just 10 drops of each. So 10 drops of lavender, 10 drops of bergamot, 10 drops of vetiver. And if you don't have vetiver, you can use frankincense.

Those.

Those work. That one works, too. Roll it over the palms. And remember, it's about really taking that moment and stopping and just recognizing that you're going to take care of you for a moment, no matter what's going on. Roll that blend over your palms and do just three to five deep belly breaths. Because when you combined breathing with the power of these oils with these chemical constituents, that can lower stress levels, lower the. The hpa. I call it the HPA axis, Right? The hepatothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, the system that really jacks you up and gets you going. We want to shut that system down. Those three oils will do it, and they'll do it every single time.

So you've got your book coming out, right? And your book, the essential oils Hormone solution. Plus you have your smart mom's guide to essential oils. I think like jump on Amazon and make sure you get both of those because it seems like they work really well together. And in the next interview, and this is why this became a three part series, we really dive into how you can use this for hormone health, which is like crazy cool. So I'm not going to like even go into that. You're going to want to tune into the next one. This is why you want to make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out. But let's talk about the cheat sheet you've got for everyone, the energy and cravings cheat sheet. And you'll be able to grab that jjvirgen.com hormone EO. What are they going to get there?

You know, I've been a hormone hot mess and I was like, what were the areas that I needed? What was the support that I needed? Because let me tell you, when you're stressed out, that cupcake that's been staring at you for the last five hours at the workstation or wherever they are, eventually you're going to cave. And I want to make sure that we're prepared for those emergencies. So this cheat sheet addresses some of the big core issues that I see that women are dealing with when it comes to hormone imbalance. One Cravings, right? We're stressed, we start craving things or we're overwhelmed or we're bored. People just, we eat and crave foods at the wrong time. So we cover that. I cover instant energy because I find that so often the reason why we crave sugars or different foods is because we're exhausted. At least that was my case. And then the last one is my go to recipes for lowering stress levels. So I pretty much knock out those top three concerns with my best essential oil blends and remedies.

Perfect. All right, so I want to remind everyone. Grab that. Jjvirgin.com hormoneo Be sure to tune in for the next part of the three part series where we talk about how to use essential oils for women's hormonal health. And I want to thank you so much for taking your time out to do all three of these sessions with me. Marisa, I so appreciate you.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been so much fun.

Jj. Yes. Now, after the break, I'll be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer listeners question. Be sure to be joining me on over at Facebook JJ JJ Virgin Official and Instagram JJ Virgin. You can DM me, you can join me on a live. You can write on my page. My walls we grab questions from all over the place. This is one that seems to always come up as I'm recording this right now. It's winter and I always get questions about immune health. So I was not surprised to see another one, Maria coming in saying what are your favorite things to do to help not get sick during the winter? And the other question I always get of course is do you get a flu vaccine? No, I personally do not do flu vaccines. What I do is this. Here's my single biggest tip I would say for immune health. Well, there's actually three. Okay, there's three. Here are my three top immune health tips. Number one, make sure your vitamin D is optimized. I think one of the reasons we get sick in the winter is we don't get the sunshine we need. Our vitamin D levels go down. Your number one nutrient for for immune health is vitamin D. Now you want to make sure you take vitamin D with K. I've got a product called vitamin D plus, that's vitamin D with K. But you want to optimize your levels to at least 50 ngs per milliliter or above. You do that by taking a 25 hydroxy vitamin D test. If you're sitting here going, oh my gosh, she's talking so fast, what you can do is get the show notes jjvirgin.com forward/hormone EO will all be in there. But vitamin D is the first one. And in the winter I actually take 10,000 IUs of vitamin D, vitamin D3 and then I'm also of course my vitamin D's got K in it. So that's the first thing is make sure that your vitamin D stays optimized. You will probably need to supplement with more vitamin D in the winter unless you're living in Australia. And remember, if you're out in the sun but you're wearing sunscreen, you're blocking that vitamin D anyway. And genetically some people just aren't able to make vitamin D from the sun like other people are. So that's number one. Number two, sleep. I find that the only time that I get sick is when I mess up my sleep. And so I am like a, I am so careful with my sleep. In fact I use multiple tracking devices. I've been really monitoring it right now for, for quality. But sleep is so key for your health. Quality sleep, not just quantity sleep, quality sleep and during the normal circadian rhythm. And number three, sugar. Now grab the Sugar Impact diet. Look at how you can wear sugar sneaking in by taking the sugar sneaky sugar inventory and lower your sugar impact. Because sugar is going to be one of the biggest things that takes down your immune system. In fact, vitamin C sugar competes with vitamin C to enter the cell. So that is super huge. So three things key. And then of course you can grab Dr. Marisa's books and have her essential oils remedies at bay should it hit. I mean like when I was in Germany, bam, I went down. I'm still not quite sure what happened. I think it was probably a sleep issue because I was still eating pretty pretty well and supplementing so. So there you go. Vitamin D. Optimize it, always take your D with K, make sure you're sleeping, quality sleep and lower your sugar impact. Those three things. Alrighty, I will see you next week. I just want to remind you, make sure that you subscribe so you never miss an episode.

That's all for this episode of the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show, which marks another step towards a healthier body and mind. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the show and we'll talk to you next week.

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