Fighting Allergies | Women to Women Podcast with Marcelle Pick ft. Jodi Cohen

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Hello everyone, this is Women to Women and we are doing a podcast today. And Women to Women is all about hormones, it is about adrenals, it is about weight loss and much more. And today I have the pleasure of introducing Jodi Cohen, who is one of my favorite people talking about essential oils.

And her little puppy Simba. He is going to come out. I want one.

And so let me tell you a little bit about Jodi. She is really one of my special guests because she has so many things to offer that are really more natural, that can really have so much huge, huge differences. So let's tell, let me tell you a little bit about her. She's a best selling author, award winning journalist.

Hello? Hello? Yeah, Marcel.

Yeah, hi.

Sorry about that. That was the phone that was ringing in between times here. Multitasking, it didn't really work. She's the founder of Vibrant Blue Oils where she has combined her training in nutritional therapy and aromatherapy to create unique, proportional, proprietary blends of organic and well crafted essential oils. And if you don't know anything about essential oils, I really want you to listen today because it's just unbelievable what these have the power to do without having significant other changes in the body. And we'll be talking a little bit more about that. And today we're going to be talking about allergies and we have so many people now, I live in Maine and the pollen is just coming out and it's also really problematic in many places. So we have some options for you without taking a lot of the over the counter medications that make you drowsy. So, so that's going to be really important. She's helped over 50,000 clients. That's pretty significant.

They heal from brain related challenges including anxiety, insomnia and autoimmunity. And we can actually talk a little bit about that as well because so many people have anxiety these days primarily because of what's going on in the world and the culture. For the past 10 years she's lectured at wellness centers, conferences, corporations on brain health, essential oils, stress and detoxification. She's been seen in the New York Times, Wellness Mama, I love that magazine, Elephant Journal and numerous publications. And her website for Those interested is vibrantblueoils.com and visited over by 30,000 natural health seekers every year. And she's been rapidly become a top resource for essential oils education on the Internet. So let's kind of start with the whole idea of what are essential oils? Because some people hear about it and they don't really know why would they work? It's just an oil you're putting on and it smells a little nice. Why would it make a difference in the body?

Yeah. Oils are the concentrated essences of plants. So basically, you know, you can go to the lavender field, they cut the lavender, they put it in the vat of boiling water, it boils up, the oil goes on one side, the water goes on the other side.

And.

And so it's just, you know, most people don't realize plants are the basis for most pharmaceutical drugs. Right. White willow bark has evolved into aspirin. Valerian root is now Valium. So they take the constituent of the plants which are healing. We know in our diet, we know that certain spices, like ginger, you know, peppermint, they're all very good for soothing and balancing. And then if you concentrate them and instead of like taking, you know, the whole ginger root and cooking it into your dinner, you can just put a little dab on an acupuncture point, and it can kind of return the body to balance. Plants are really adaptogenic, meaning that they. They help us kind of restore our own internal balance. And when we're balanced, it's easier for us to heal.

Absolutely. So it's interesting, when I was in. I was in Belize, and we went into the jungle and we were looking at the monkeys, and we had a guide, and you could see where the monke monkeys were going to the different trees, that the guide would say that that monkey must have a headache or that monkey must have inflammation, because they're going to that particular tree, the plant, to get the kind of curative model. So we in medicine have gotten so far away from that because we use drugs now that have pretty significant side effects. And what I love about the essential oils is that they don't do that. So let's take it a little deeper, because so many people now, because pollen's out and people are having allergies, seasonal allergies. How in the world can and oils help with that? And what do they do? And let's talk a little bit more about acupuncture and why that's important to connect the dots to this as well.

Yeah, I'll start with acupuncture, because one of the things that. There are basically three ways that you can use oils. You can smell them, which is, I think, the most effective, because no cells are brain cells. And your sense of smell is kind of. It keeps you alive. Right. You smell food, you smell water, you smell predator odor. It has direct access to the brain, and it can Help balance the brain. So when you're having that, when you're watching the news and thinking the economy is going to crash tomorrow, it can help you calm down in the moment. The second way is ingestion, which I don't love for a number of reasons. I think it's wasteful and I think most people have somewhat compromised digestion. So it's hard to actually get into the system. Then the third way is topical application. And people think of that you hurt your wrist, right? And you put some cream on your wrist and it helps your wrist, but it doesn't help your back. It helps locally but not systemic. They assume that things need to get through your skin into your capillaries, go to the heart, then get pumped to the body to have a systemic benefit. What they don't realize is that acupuncture points, it's almost like a different pathway in the body. There are whole acupuncture lines and topically applying an oil on an acupuncture point, which is usually a divot, which helps you find it, that can have a systemic effect. And it's the most efficient way to use oils and have a full body experience.

I like a lot of the immune points. There's a spleen point, that's spleen six. It's the inside of your ankle, it's four fingers up and there's a divot there. That's a really great one for so many things. There are a bunch of lines that intersect there. And it's great for allergies, it's great for immune support. And just putting the smallest drop of oil on that acupuncture point have a systemic effect in the body. In terms of allergies, it's really your immune system.

Your immune system is designed to respond appropriately to the threat and then calm down. It's a little bit like Goldilocks. It's supposed to be the just right response. But so often what happens is either stress and cortisol kind of keep us so hyper alert that the immune system isn't on at all, it's under functioning, or we start to get overzealous and hyper function. So what we really want to do is modulate it. We don't want it to be overactive and responding to every flower and tree that we interact. And we don't want it to under function where there are pathogens or toxicants that it's not responding to. And so those kind of build up and become a bigger problem. So we're really trying to just write it and that's why I really love plants, because they are so adaptogenic, meaning that they meet you where you're at. So if you're overactive, they can kind of calm you down. If you're underactive, they can turn you back on. And I found it's. It's interesting because obviously in nature, plants, plants grow together, right? They kind of create their own blends. Like, it's rare. If you walk in a forest, you're seeing different kinds of trees, you're seeing different wildflowers, right? And so that's part of the reason that I do blends because I feel like it kind of mimics nature. So we have a blend that we call histamine balance that is primarily blue tansy, but other immune modulating oils. And it's really great. You can put it just behind your ears, back of the neck, bottom of the feet. And what it really does is kind of bolster your own immune system's response to the allergen so that you're better able to tolerate it.

So kind of going back a little bit more to acupuncture. Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years. You know, it's not a very new model. It's a model that's been around for ancient times. And what I like about what you're saying is we're blending the notion of the herbs or the plants that have actually been produced into medications without the side effects. Then they were using the acupuncture at the same time, which is great. Tell us a little bit more about allergies in general. Say, for example, we have so many people that have food sensitivities now. I'm true. They almost act like an allergen or people that are very asthmatic when they're around perfumes and around toxins, because so many people have that problem. How can the essential oils be helpful in that regard as well?

Yeah, well, you know, allergens are kind of an over.

Basically what happens is you start to lose tolerance, so you start reacting to everything. And that's where it gets really tricky because you get people that are down to like they can eat two foods, right? That's not particularly sustainable for a long time. So what you want to do is build back up their tolerance and their ability to self regulate. So it's almost like the immune system. Think of your phone, your phone glitches. It's kind of offline. So what you want to do is restore it to factory settings. What you're trying to do is help your body kind of get back to where it's supposed to be. And I wouldn't say oils are the magic button in and of themselves. Like, if you're celiac and you're going to continue to eat pizza, it's probably going to be problematic. But what I like about them, especially if you're having any gut inflammation or reaction. So many of the remedies that we use to help people require ingestion. If you're ingesting something and your gut is already inflamed, it may or may not actually get digested, absorbed and assimilated. But if you're topically applying something, especially on an acupuncture point, then you know that that remedy is actually helping. And the other thing that people don't realize, the sinuses, when we think about the body and when we think about everyone kind of knows the gut's important. Most people know the adrenals and hypothalamus are important. People don't really realize the role of the sinuses and their proximity to the brain and how the nose, everything can get in through the nose and the blood brain barrier is thin there.

The good things can get in and the bad things can get in. So what's nice, we actually have a sinus support blend. It was Nasopodica. A naturopath I worked with asked me to produce it. Just taking a Q tip on the oil and basically gently swabbing around the nasal pathways on both sides. Some people actually leave the Q tips in for up to 20 minutes, but that's a really good way.

Basically, the nose goes directly to the brain and the membrane, the blood brain barrier and the membranes into the system are thin there and it's right near the blood flow. That is a fabulous non invasive way to support allergies and support the sinuses and support drainage so that everything continues to function. Especially if you also are having gut issues or you also are having brain fog or other things are tricky. So it makes it harder to, you really benefit from remedies really quickly.

So let's draw in something else which is important. You know, in my practice over the years, I've had a lot of people have had chronic sinus infections and I, you know, when we did a mold test on them, mold was very high for them. And they oftentimes, in my opinion, had Candida in their sinuses. How can the sinus support blend? Can that help that as well?

Yeah, I mean, it's a multifaceted project.

Right.

You know, if you have mold and you're living in mold, it's going to be hard. So you have to remediate. You have to move. But then, yeah, it can help, too. I mean, what happens is it just. There's stagnation, right? And things just fester and grow. And so you really want to help move things. You want to help with the drainage. So you want to help with essential oils for lymph drainage on the neck so that we make sure that things are draining and leaving. You know, if you're listening right now, just go ahead and feel on your two clavicle points. This is actually one of my favorite things to do. If there's any tenderness at all. That's just a good point to kind of gently massage. You can use essential oils. You can use cypress. That's a good one. We have a lymph blend, we have a circulation blend, we have a histamine blend, but that's just making sure. It's kind of like you can yell fire in the movie theater, but if the exit doors are closed, all you're going to get is a bunch of people running around and bumping into each other. That is sometimes what happens when we start the detoxification process. The toxins are trying to leave. But let's say that the neck is congested because you have lymph, you have bone, you have muscle, you have nerves. And sometimes it's a little bit like sitting in the middle seat in the airplane between two linebackers. Where are you going to put your arms? That's so true.

I just had that happen. It's like, oh, my God.

Yeah, I've had that happen, too. It was actually a very long flight. Reading your book like this is not quite the same, but imagine all the garbage that wants to leave your head and neck, and it just gets connected, congested. So oils are wonderful for that. They can. Basically what they do is they vasodilate so they can help expand the vasculature so more things can flow. They also, some of them have kind of, you know, herbs that are. Have deep roots in the earth, like vetiver, for example. They help to pull fluid down, they help with directionality so that things are actually flowing in the right direction or not staying stagnant.

But that's one thing when you were asking about the sinus drainage. So what we can do is either the sinus support or histamine balance kind of helps to loosen and mobilize the toxins. And then you want to make sure that it's draining through the body from the lymph. We have liver support we have gallbladder support. And then I really love binders to make sure that when things hit the gut, it's almost like a magnet. The binders just make sure that they leave the body and don't get recirculated.

And you have natural oils that are binders as well?

No, I actually recommend. I like the cellcore products.

I like hmet, heavy metal, environmental toxin binder, and then biotoxin for mold.

Yep.

I agree with you. I use the same things as well.

Yeah.

And let's talk a little bit about the gut, because one of the things that I see is, you know, when I was in still seeing people one on one, I was 80% of my people, 85% of my people had gut issues. And I think it's even worse now. The enormity of the stress that everybody has, from the COVID to the war to the economy, to just kind of like life feels overwhelming for people. What about the gut in terms of that? Now, that stands to reason that we're talking about eating a healthy diet. Minimum sugar, no artificial color, sweeteners, dyes, organic as much as possible. 85% of the time, we're not perfect. So we need to live, but generally that the diet's really clean. What do we need to do in regard to essential oils for the gut?

Yeah, this is one of my favorite ones. Like, what most people don't realize is you can be eating the perfect diet, but if you're eating under stress, when you're under stress, the priority is survival.

Absolutely.

Blood flow is routed away from digestion towards the arms and the limbs.

So you can fight back, Right, Exactly.

So if you do nothing else but, like, take a couple deep breaths, say a prayer. We have an essential oil blend that I call parasympathetic that you put on the vagus nerve, an acupuncture point that basically turns on digestion. Digestion begins in the brain. It's the vagus nerve telling the mouth to release saliva, to start to break down the carbohydrates, the stomach to release hydrochloric acid. So you don't have acid reflux or gerd. The pancreas to release the enzymes, the gallbladder to release bile, and then the whole digestive cascade. I almost call it the moving sidewalk between the small intestine and the large intestine. And if it's not moving, then it sits too long and it can become irritable bowel or sibo or other problems. So really just activating the vagus nerve, and you can even do it with your fingers. Just gently reach behind your earlobe. If you feel that divot. Remember, acupuncture points are often divots. And just gently kind of massage there while you take some deep breaths. You can hum. That's a great way to activate it. But anything that you can do to shift into the digestive gear is going to hugely help with your digestion. And then we also have the histamine balance. Oil can be used around the gut to kind of help calm inflammation. And we have an intestinal mucosa blend because that's another challenge. People are taking probiotics and think of intestinal mucosa like the glue that holds the wallpaper to the wall. Right. If it's not there, then the good things don't necessarily stick to the microvilli and get through into the gut.

What I love about what you're talking about is we're really talking about systems and we're talking about the whole complex of things. That's what functional medicine is really about is the matrix of issues. The endocrine system, the heart, but also heart issues emotionally, also related to the gut, related to allergies, related to our environment, related to breathing, related to hormones, related to everything. And it's a system. It's a system. And I think in medicine, what we do now is we look at the diagnosis and we treat it and then we've got other medications for the side effects of those medications. And we're never getting to the root of the problem. What you're talking about is where did the issue start? And how do we, in a gentle way, find a solution so that everyone can use it? And this is over the counter stuff, which is what I absolutely love.

So if people are really wanting to kind of begin the process of figuring out how do I even start with this? But let's also talk, Jodi, about anxiety because one of the things that I see more than I ever have before is depression and anxiety. When is this ever going to end? Now we're talking about more Covid and this winter is going to be terrible. And now we've got the war, we've got gas prices, we've got inflation, we've got just trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma. People are so anxious. How can we help them? Kind of you and I, as much as we're able to realize that they have some choices and they have some solutions, but they can also do things like the parasympathetic blend. What are some other things that they can do as well?

Yeah, it's funny that you say that I always look for inspiration in people that have kind of survived hard things. Like Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. In his book Man's Search for Meaning, he states that between stimulus and response, there's a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. And to me, what that means is, yes, you can turn on the news and feel overwhelmed by things over which you have no control, but you have tremendous control over your response. And that's what's really interesting to me. When you're in kind of that fight or flight stress state, the resources to survive, you really can't contemplate every possibility. If you want to survive, you have to either figure out how you're going to fight back or flee. When you're able to activate your parasympathetic nervous system with essential oil or I actually have a book if they want to grab it@boostthebrainbook.com gift it's 25 strategies to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. But what's fascinating is it shifts you into safety. And when you're in safety, it kind of unpacks a lot of that emotional gridlock and mental gridlock, because all of a sudden you see choices, and the minute you have choices, you feel less overwhelmed. I think anxiety is like, back to the wall. Like, oh, my God, I don't know what to do. And then suddenly it's like, oh, I could. Maybe I could do that. Or, gosh, I could call that friend. They might have a good idea. And then you're able to be proactive and have power. You know, you can't. There are things we can't change, obviously, but we can always change how we respond to them. And I think that just knowing that sometimes is very powerful.

You know, one of my favorite sayings is, in some ways, it's exactly what you're talking about instead of, why is life doing this to me? Is it possible that life is doing this for you? And is there some place for you to grow in that experience so that you no longer feel like a victim? I think that's the most powerful piece to the puzzle. Some people are, oh, my God, if anything happens, it's going to happen to me. That's the mentality that will keep you stuck. The mentality of, okay, what is it? Perhaps if there is such a thing as a lesson, which I believe there is, if I'm getting the same thing over and over, what part of this am I not learning? And how do I change exactly what you said. I'm not up against the wall, but I have choices to make things different. Maybe I can try this instead of this. Using essential oils, in my opinion, can facilitate that. Especially when you're doing it with other techniques that you love.

Well, yeah. And I think what's nice about it is for anyone that gets hangry, you're starving, you're at the restaurant. The server couldn't be any slower. But the minute you get the salad, the appetizer or whatever, and you take a couple bites, you feel better. Like, it's a very different experience. It doesn't really matter what else is going on because you're kind of safe and solid. And I think.

Most people have a smell memory. Like, for me, my cousins had a cabin, and it always smelled like really ripe blackberries. So whenever I smell really ripe blackberries, it's like I'm traveling back there, you know, it was such a positive experience. And I think most people can correlate, like, their grandmother's cologne or the smell of their old teddy bear or whatever it is. Smell is very correlated with safety. And so that's a very easy way to calm your nervous system and feel safe.

Absolutely. And also music, for many people, can do the same thing, which is it gets you back to that space, especially if you have music that you really love as well.

In a daily routine for people, especially when we have so many people feeling up against the wall, what are your recommendations for them to really get out of that anxiety state and really begin to kind of look at how can I do things a little differently? Because the same old, same old is.

Not going to work.

It's going to really require somebody to be different about their approach.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think this is what's hard.

Right.

Because most people kind of know what to do, but it's hard to make it a ritual. And. And so I guess I would encourage anyone who's listening to, like, let's just commit for the next two days, even to just waking up and doing something to move your body. And while you're moving your body, maybe just try to be grateful for one thing, and it doesn't need to be. You know, like, people always pick, oh, I'm grateful for my health or my dog or my loved ones, whatever it is, it could be grateful for something that's happening in the future. Like, I am really looking forward to. I'm going to go to the store and make my favorite grilled food tonight or whatever it is, just kind of putting something out there that they can look forward to. And you know, if you want to, you can smell something, you can put a little oil behind your ear. But just getting up, moving and having gratitude, that's almost like pre paving your day and setting yourself up for success.

Absolutely. So for those people that don't know Tony Robbins, one of the things for some people that might be helpful is he has something called priming. It's a 10 minute video in which he actually walks you through three minutes of gratitude, three minutes of kind of giving out some of your love to other people, and then three minutes of imagining things in the future.

My suggestion to anybody that's listening is it's the discipline of that that makes a difference. Just doing it once in a while doesn't work. And then incorporating some of the things that we talked about today, they can be immensely helpful in changing so much of your body when you start to lose weight to use it. Now, if people don't know acupuncture points, do you have examples of where they should put them when you send out the vibrant oils?

Oh, yeah.

We swim in information. Yes. We have charts and things that you can download on the site. When they order, we include it in the order. But the main one is just literally, again, feel behind your earlobe and that divot between the base of the earlobe and the mastoid bone right there, that's really my favorite one. You don't need to. There won't be a quiz. You don't need to memorize everything. Just remember that one and you'll be good.

Let's review what we've talked about then, because I really love doing that at the end of any of the podcasts. We talked about allergies, we talked about histamine response in regard to seasonal allergies, talked about allergies, about the gut, we talked about food, we talked about anxiety. We also talked about the importance of daily ritual. And I couldn't agree with you more. I think so many, especially what I see in women, Jodi, right now, is they are so overwhelmed with trying to multitask and do so much that anything that we can offer them is going to make a difference. I think your idea about just two days of changing your ritual and possibly even not looking at email first, not looking at your phone first, really taking that out of the equation, even if you work and your work is on the phone, is to avoid doing that and possibly even taking a sabbatical from watching the news. We can get that information on the phone. And there have been some interesting studies with medical students looking at those that watched war and rape and those that watched. I know. And those that watched Mother Teresa, and they watched and looked to see what the immune system was doing. And indeed, the immune system got much, much stronger and robust when they were looking at Mother Teresa and actually decreased when they were looking at war and when they were looking at rape cases. So from that, it's really important to understand that what you surround yourself with, what you watch and what you kind of take in does affect your immune. And all the things that we talked about today can really help get the immune system a little stronger. So how do they find out more about you? How do they find out where to get ahold of you, how to begin to order some of these amazing remedies and oils? Where do they even begin?

Well, let's send them first to the free gift@boostthebrainbook.com gift and then you can find me@vibrantblues.com if you're new to oils, we have a free course quiz that you can take that might give you a sense of where you might want to get started. And you're always welcome to email us at infoibrantblue Oils with any personal questions.

Awesome.

Thank you so much. I really think that this is going to be helpful for a lot of people, so we'll have it available to people that couldn't see it live as well today. So thank you once again. I love doing this with you and.