How Your Home and Heat Therapy Can Improve Recovery, Sleep, and Performance Ep 124

Every endurance athlete remembers the moment when things finally click. Your swim feels smoother, your pacing makes sense, your fueling works, and suddenly the sport feels not only easier, but more fun. And for many athletes, that moment happens at training camp. That's exactly why we created the Endurance Edge Triathlon Training Camp happening April 22nd through 26th at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. For 4 incredible days, you'll train in a small group with expert coaches, sports nutrition support, and sports psychology guidance, all designed to help you train smarter, race stronger, and finally connect the dots in your performance. We swim in crystal clear mountain water, ride beautiful and challenging roads, run scenic trails, and spend the rest of the time recovering, learning, laughing, and eating some seriously amazing chef-prepared food. Mm-hmm. Camp is intentionally small, just 20 athletes, so you get real coaching, true connection, and amazing breakthroughs. So if you want an experience that can transform your entire season, we invite you to join us. Head to theenduranceedge.com and click training camp and reserve your spot with just a $100 deposit. Come train hard, learn a ton, and leave stronger than you ever imagined. I'll see you there! So, have you ever met someone, and they're a total stranger, and yet somehow you feel like you've shared these uncanny journeys and had these synchronicities that suddenly you're fast friends? Well, that's how I feel about my guest today. Her name is Jenn Heller. She's the host of the Homes That Heal Podcast. Now, let me get Let's get this straight. She didn't start there. And in fact, that's what a lot of today's podcast is about. Her journey from going to corporate America to now doing amazing things for all of her listeners through this Homes That Heal podcast. So when Jenn was having challenges in her health, she didn't necessarily set out looking for holistic or unconventional solutions. In fact, wellness found her after she had a moment where the traditional route didn't fully explain what was going on in her body. This conversation isn't about one right way or replacing conventional medicine. It's about listening, curiosity, and understanding that every person's healing journey looks different, especially when you're truly ready for change. So if you're open to learning how environment, heat therapy, relationships, and simple lifestyle shifts can support recovery, sleep, and performance? This episode will meet you right where you are. Let's do it. All right. Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Coach Christina Fiumara Newport, and I am here today with an amazing guest. I'm so excited to bring her on. It's Jenn Heller. And y'all, I'm excited for this conversation because we, we were just kind of joking that we literally did a podcast prior to recording this on something probably totally, well, maybe totally different than what we're gonna talk about.

I don't know.

We'll see.

So a little on topic, off topic.

Yeah. Uh, so Jen, you have an amazing podcast. It's called Homes That Heal. And the reason why I wanted to introduce you to our listeners is that The Hohman is an amazing space and we spent a lot of time there. And, you know, for our folks, maybe they're sitting on their bicycle trainer or on their treadmill and being exposed, if you will, to all these different things. And then of course we do genetic testing and we look and we see the propensity for people's ability to detoxify is a real thing. So I wanted to introduce everybody to Jen and get her to tell her story and then get a little bit more into all kinds of amazing things. So y'all buckle up, it's going to be awesome. So, Jen, start us off with your story.

Oh gosh. First of all, thank you so much for the opportunity. It's an honor and we always have so much fun talking. And, you know, my story, I always like to say that wellness found me. I wasn't exactly seeking it, to be quite honest. I worked in corporate. I was working in HR management, Coca-Cola, you know, very just hustle and grind. I got that job right outta high school actually. I started at Coke when I was 19, went into business school, like did all the things, got married, built a house, like living kind of like what I would say a pretty picture-perfect life, so to speak. Like we were very happy. And the one thing that was kind of in the background was like my health. I wouldn't say like growing up I was, I was not a thin child. I, I, I was always kind of chunky or stout or stocky, but something changed in my twenties and in my late teens and twenties. I was gaining a significant amount of weight and I just couldn't quite figure out why other than I knew I was just like, I had a job where I was sitting a lot. And so I just kind of chalked it up to that and I didn't really think too much of it, but I was actually secretly struggling a lot. Like just really, I mean, swimsuit shopping, you know, hanging out with girlfriends. I wasn't feeling comfortable in my own skin. And so one day, I decided I was going to dig a little bit deeper into how I could, you know, lose weight. I tried all the things, of course. I mean, if Walgreens had a punch card for weight loss pills, I definitely, you know, maxed that out. But something shifted in me. And I guess, I mean, the real overarching— the catalyst for it was one night I was out with some girlfriends, we were at a bar, having some drinks, having some fun. And a stranger came up to me and he was drunk. So, you know, you could, you could chalk it up as whatever, but this guy just started calling me fat, calling me fat over and over and over and all these names. And he just kept using the term fat. And I was, he was actually being rude to the bartender. He was just like one of those belligerent people in the bar that everyone's like, what is this guy doing? Like, who's, but for some reason he locked eyes with me and we, I was just like, I knew the bar owner and I was like, you're not going to act like this in my friend's bar. Like, we locked eyes and just, he tore into me and embarrassed me in front of everybody and just kind of shredded me on my personal appearance. And Chris, I went into the bathroom, I was like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm like, I just took a minute, I went into the bathroom. And something in me completely shifted. And I just burst into tears. And I just like did the whole like, back up against the bathroom wall, slid down to the floor, and just started sobbing in my sweatshirt arm. Like, I— something— I was shaking. Something in me was like, this, this perfect stranger sees somebody that, like, I'm afraid of, right? Like, I just felt so out of body. That was actually the pivotal point for me to— the next day, I was like, I am going to become the CEO of my health. Like, I am going to decide that I'm going to figure out how I can lose weight and get healthier and be healthier. So I made some appointments with the doctor, I got some bloodwork done and just started collecting data, collecting information. And I convinced myself there had to be something wrong with me. And, and so I was looking for those answers. So all this bloodwork came back and the doctor said basically like, Well, you have a thyroid issue and you're— but everything else seems to be okay. Maybe we should take your thyroid out and have, you know, remove your thyroid. Something seems to be amiss. And, and then we'll go from there. And I just thought— I remember going out to my car and sitting in the parking lot and started crying. I was like 20, I don't even know, 26, 27 at this time. And I remember thinking like, God gave me a thyroid. Like, why would somebody want to— why would they cut it out? Like, they didn't even give me an answer for that. And I just thought, well, what would be the purpose of that? And the explanation was, was like, well, your body's not detoxing properly. Your metabolism's sludged up. Like your whole system isn't working. This is what we need to do. And I just thought, what do you mean my body's not detoxing? Like, I don't, I don't, I don't understand that. I want more information and they just couldn't give it to me. So I just decided that I wasn't going to do that surgery. And I was telling one of my girlfriends that night, I was like, I'm like, I just can't, I don't understand. Like, do you just take, like, forgive me for being naive, but do you just remove organs if they're supposedly not working for you? Like, I just didn't quite understand. I've never been in like the science background. I was always, you know, interested in other things. And so I didn't quite understand the human anatomy. Like, how does this work? And so my girlfriend was like, Hmm, that's interesting. She's like, I have this friend, or I have this friend and resource, this clinic here in town that does nutrition response testing, NRT. Have you ever heard of it? And I was like, no, what is that? She said, well, my husband is going to see her, this woman, her name is Ashley, because he has Lyme disease and his body is not processing, you know, like there's some detoxification and some issues going on. And he's been struggling. Well, here I'd been friends with this woman for 15 years. I did not know her husband had Lyme disease. Like, so this was the first conversation. So she starts opening up to me about some of the struggles and what he's been going through. And I— so we just had this really great, vulnerable, open conversation about how, you know, another path, right? A different way of which you could test the body. And so I didn't know what NRT was. I went home that night, She's like, well, I happen to have one of these cards for a free consult if you're interested. You could go see her and just see what happens, right? And I was like, okay, maybe I'll, maybe I'll check that out. So I went home that night, looked into NRT, which I said is Nutrition Response Testing. Okay, well, full disclosure, I'm not a practitioner of NRT, so I'm going to probably butcher this description. So I'm going to give you the best description on how it was used for me or how it was explained to me. So I made an appointment on her schedule and went into her office. And I'll, I'll be honest, I didn't really tell her a whole lot about my symptoms and what I was struggling with. I just thought, I'm gonna see if she can figure out like what's going on. Maybe I wanna see if she comes to the thyroid. Like I wanna kind of see, I basically said I'm overweight cuz at this point I was over 100 pounds overweight. I was like, well, I'm overweight obviously. I've got some unhealthy habits, I need some help and I wanna lose weight. And she's like, okay. Get on the table. Basically, like, just kind of imagine like a massage table. You're laying on your back, put your arm up, your right arm up. And she proceeds to go through. She's like, I'm going to use your arm as the gauge. And she's like, just hold strength. She's like, your job is just to hold the strength and I'm going to use your arm and push on it and you just continue to resist me. You basically are working against me. And I was like, okay, I can do that. So she wasn't talking a lot. And so we went through this whole 5, 10, 15 minute analysis and she's putting all these different things on my body. Body, like all these little vials. And I'm like, well, I don't know what that is, but interesting. I'm just going to let her carry on. And all of a sudden she put a couple of vials like on my chest. My arm was straight up in the air and all of a sudden it just boom, it like drops down. Like I couldn't control it. I felt it and I was like, ooh, that's interesting. What is that? And she's like, oh, she's like, you felt that? And I'm like, yeah, what was that? I'm like, do that again. And so we did it again. Fast forward, turns out it was lead and mercury. It was two different heavy metals. And she said, um, again, this is like 15, 16 years ago, so I don't— I'm just, you know, ad-libbing here. But, um, she was basically like, do you, do you have any major exposure to mercury and lead that you're aware of? And I said, no, not that I'm aware of. Why? What's going on? And she put her hands right here on my thyroid And as soon as she put her hands on my thyroid, my arm went down. Like, I couldn't control it. Like, she pushed it down and I couldn't hold it up. And she's like, well, she's like, you have heavy metal toxicity. It's trashed your thyroid. It's crossed the blood-brain barrier. And she just went on and, you know, she's like, you— she's like, this is probably one of the highest levels I've ever seen. She's like, you're in trouble. And I was like, oh, okay, interesting. You know, so now I'm just like speechless and I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, what do I do? So again, fast forward. So that was basically the catalyst for me to, A, understand there's another path and way in which you can test the body, work with the body, understand what's going on versus just using blood work, right? Not throwing anything under the bus here, but like just different energetics.

It sounds more what I'm familiar with as being kinesiology. So that kinesiologist will test, you know, you kind of hold your arm out and then, you know, some resistance and yeah. So clearly this has woken some stuff up for you.

Yeah. And so essentially she was the one who said, are you familiar with sauna therapy? And I said, well, everybody knows what a sauna is. I grew up in Wisconsin. Of course I do. And she said, well, we're going to talk about some different ways in which that we're going to start detoxing the body, but you've got to get these metals out. She's like, you're in trouble. This is not ideal. So we started talking a little bit about some neurological issues that could come up. And sure enough, some of the things that she was suggesting and talking about, I was experiencing, like memory loss and some things, but just some things I had kind of written off. But it's like, oh, okay, sleep disruption, you know, fatigue, memory loss, feeling like you're in a fog, you know, like your head weighs 1,000 pounds. Like, I was experiencing all these things, but I didn't realize it. So I think what's interesting is like we can get comfortable. It's almost your norm. Right. We can get comfortable managing something until we realize that it's not normal or that it gets corrected or somebody points it out and it's like, oh yeah, actually that isn't normal. So she's actually the one who, again, you know, this opened up the doors of infrared saunas for me and I started down the path of, now I'm like blinders on, first of all, I left that place, I gave her the hugest hug. And we've been friends ever since, obviously. But I remember leaving feeling so empowered. I was scared. I was like, where did these metals come from? Like, all these emotions were going on. But I was like, I found somebody that I can trust, that I can— like, I've got a ground zero pivot point where I can come back to for different measurements and different ways in which I can, I can fix this, and she's going to help me. And that's what she said. She's like, we can fix this. It's no problem. We see this all the time. It's environment, you know, probably some environmental toxicity stuff. And here are some of the things we're going to do. And so that kind of set me on my path of like, I am so intrigued on how the human body works, and how to open up these detox pathways, how I can improve my sleep, What do I need to do to feel better? All the things. So that's kind of— that's, that's what set me on the path in a nutshell.

Amazing. Did she do any— just out of my nutrition curiosity brain— did she do any chelating therapies, or did she mostly send you into more sauna-based detoxification? Like, did you take anything orally at all?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We did some chelation. Um, I'll be honest, like to think back, this is probably one of the most common questions I get asked, and I probably should actually just maybe go back and ask her because I'm sure she has a record of it. But like, what did I do exactly to start the process of the metals? I will say that when I left there that day, there were a handful of things, and I really appreciated the fact that she didn't give me a thousand things to do because I felt very overwhelmed with the information that she was giving me. But she gave me a few things to do. First thing was, is that we talked about my diet and some of the food I was eating. She immediately wanted to like my sugar consumption and my eating habits. And I had to clean some things up. For example, evening snacking. You know, I had a problem with eating ice cream. I was kind of like, that was kind of a go-to thing. There were a few habits that were not serving me well. And she very much looked me in the eye and said, if you want to heal and you want to get better, you're going to need to set that stuff down. She's like, you're going to need to break up with ice cream. I was like, okay, all right, I can do that. So she gave me a handful of things to get rid of— ice cream, snacking. I needed some more greens. She really wanted me to introduce some more nutrient-dense, like, greens. Cilantro was one that I remember, you know, just getting some more, like, cabbage and vegetables and things in. So I needed to clean up my diet, which I knew I needed to anyways, but she just really gave me the resources to do so and some specific foods that were really good for detoxification. So the food was one. She really— one other thing I can say for sure was that I told her that I had a TV in my room and that I would fall to sleep to a TV because she was asking all the questions like, walk me through your life. And I was just like, from morning till night. And the TV in the bedroom was one of the things she said, get rid of it. She's like, you cannot be staring at screens and expect that that melatonin— like your brain, you're sending a signal to the brain to wake up. Now, I know for a lot of people listening, a lot of people like, well, it makes my eyes tired. Okay, yeah, it probably makes— but make your eyes tired. But really, actually, what it's doing, it's putting strain on the brain. And so she's like, you have to stop watching TV at night. Like, that's not a way to go to sleep. She's like, either take the TV out of the bedroom or watch TV in the living room. And when it's time to go to bed, you need to shut it down. No phones, no blue light, you know, read, meditate, whatever it is you need to do, sit with yourself. But she said no TV going to bed. And I was like, Hmm, interesting. Okay. So that was another thing that I had to change. And to this day, I don't— I haven't had TV in my bedroom since. Like, it's just— that made such a huge difference. And then to answer your question about the supplements, there were a few key supplements that I took, particularly to bind the metals. One was called Metal Free, and that was, I believe, the company's BodyHealth. I believe they still sell that or they still offer that. That was a very powerful binder. And I was taking another supplement from Standard Process called Thytrophin, which was really supportive for the thyroid. And then a few other specific chelators that she started me on. But I would see her every 2 weeks and we would dose and we would test and we would dose and we would test. And we were really just like listening to the body and letting the body tell the story and say what it likes, what it needs and what it doesn't need. So, um, it was just fascinating to me. It was absolutely fascinating.

Such a cool journey. Oh my goodness. So, okay, so let's get into the saunas. So you're in, cuz you're in Wisconsin and like you said, you're no stranger to needing to stay warm. Did you start into like a regular sauna or did you go into infrared sauna? Cuz, cuz I know you're really big on infrared, so talk a little bit about your journey with that and then leaning into like pros and cons maybe of each and how that fit into your, your process.

So yes, Wisconsin, like saunas were not new to me. You know, heat therapy has been around forever. It's ancient wisdom, right? Most people know sauna bathing, it's fantastic purging, detoxing. So many beautiful longevity studies on sauna therapy. One of the things that changed my life was Ashley invited me to go with her to an event in California. It was an event for practitioners and she was allowed to bring a guest and I— and she asked me if I would go. I think she was just— we became fast friends, but she was also kind enamored at my case because the levels of metal in my body and how I was functioning and tolerating it was, I think, very interesting to her. Looking back at it now, I mean, it was very scary, quite honest. But she kept saying like, I don't know how you're functioning. And as you know, fast forward, we'll get to it. I did end up— I had a stroke and was paralyzed on the left side for a few years. So this journey was a bumpy one and we'll get into that in a minute. That actually started— that happened after I started therapies and started working with the detox. But Ashley invited me to go to California and attend this event, and it completely opened my eyes. It was a whole event on detoxification. There was, there was holistic dentists there. There was all these different ways in which that you could look at the body as a holistic energetic being. There were practitioners there teaching on the different ways in which you can use energy healing, light energy, all these different modalities on how just out— I don't say outside of mainstream, but it was just all under one roof. And infrared Clearlight Infrared Saunas was one of the speakers and vendors there, and they had a sauna on display so that you could sit in it and use it. And so while we were there, and Ashley had educated me a little bit because she had said, you need an infrared sauna, and here's why. An infrared sauna is a light energy that actually is so similar to the sun but without dangerous UV. It's actually sending a light energy into the body, penetrates through the skin and muscle tissue about an inch, inch and a half or so, depending on the wavelength and the, and the sauna, of course. And the purpose is to elevate your core body temperature so that you sweat from the inside out versus a traditional sauna heats the airspace. So it stops at skin surface level. And so it's a different heat application. And in my opinion, there's no right or wrong. There's no good or bad. There's no one better over the other, in my opinion. I just think they have benefits of— they each have their own benefit. For my case, in the sense of detoxing heavy metals and like actually tapping into the fat cells where these metals were hanging out in the cellular system, I needed the light energy to actually tap into the body, raise my core temperature about 2 to 3 degrees, so essentially self-inducing a fever and pushing the metals out, forcing, forcing the lymphatic system to do its job, because that was also part of my problem. Was the metabolism wasn't firing, the lymph node— the lymph system wasn't working. Like, the best way I could describe it, and Ashley always said, she's like, your system is sludged up, everything's backed up. Like, we need to just get things moving. And working out, I wasn't even breaking a sweat working out. And so we knew something wasn't functioning right. So the infrared essentially elevates core body, forcing the body to sweat, gets the blood flow going, vasodilation, circulation is moving. And the temperatures are a bit lower. Generally, a traditional sauna is like 170 to 200 degrees. Some are even as hot as 220 if you're pouring the, the water on the hot rocks, which I love, by the way. I'm a heat warrior all day long. This is a different way in which I could put less stress on my body. So not the high heat, heavy, hard-to-breathe steam. I literally just needed to sit there, which is easy, and the light energy was going to do the work. And so I also— Clearlight was also speaking at that event and really just, you know, did a much better description of what I just shared, but, you know, really talked about how our energetic light beings work with this light energy and how it's a perfect harmonious match in order for the body to release and open up these detox pathways. So I sat in the sauna for 5 or 10 minutes It felt amazing. I felt like, you know, of course I didn't break a sweat and I didn't do a full session, but I remember sitting in that sauna for the first time. In fact, I have a picture of it still on my phone to this day. I remember sitting in that sauna thinking, this feels like a healing sanctuary to me. So it felt different. It felt like a space where I could go where I could go and be with myself and sit with myself and really release. And yes, there were metals, but I don't know how to describe it, Chris. Like, we were at this venue, right? There's people everywhere, but we went in, they had music playing. It was like Native American flute music or something. It was like the most peace, like something you hear at a spa. And I remember just sitting in there and like feeling the warmth. And I was like, Oh, this is what my body needs. This is what my body needs. Okay. And so, I mean, the rest is history. Got a sauna, came home, started using it. The protocol was to use it every day for a period of time, pairing it with some of the supplements, hydration, you know, and then, and then the wheel just started, like the wheel, the wellness wheel just started slowly but surely. Down this hill of progression. So that is how I found infrared saunas.

Yeah, no, that's so cool. Uh, well, what I appreciate about that story is that there was a level of awareness that you were able to tap into to say this feels good. And I think especially in the population that we're speaking to is hard-driving endurance athletes, high achievers, like go, go, go, ignore everything, including the fact that you're not sleeping well or that you're in pain or that something just doesn't feel right. Yeah, that it is good to be aware and to tap into what your body is telling you. And I also find that fascinating, sort of circling back to that gentleman in the bar who was like, I'm going to make you feel something. And boy, did you feel something. And and set you onto this path of starting to tune in. I'm always fascinated also, like you had mentioned, like Ashley saying, how are you functioning? I've seen some labs like that. I'm like, literally, how are you functioning? Like, you know, these, these numbers are bananas.

Alarming. Yeah, that's what she said. And I was like, well, my mom always said I was a high achiever. I'm like, I guess I'm a really good sick person too. I don't know. I don't know how I was functioning. The best way I can describe it is that you just keep going. And like I said, at the time I was in a hustle and grind job, like you just don't stop. And so to your point, I think that's what was really interesting in that moment when I sat in the sauna for the first time and was like, I kind of just checked out of everything else and just tuned in for just 5 minutes, I just tuned into myself and I'm like, yeah, this feels good. This feels like something my body needs. And the quiet and the disconnection, like, I've always been a nature person. Like, I take solo trips. Like, I do, you know, I'm a very solo person and can be in my own quiet. I love it. But there was something about this where it was the mind-body connection. For some reason, it felt different. And the light energy does that. Like, that's something— I mean, if you listen to my show, I'm constantly talking about, like, Your sauna is just not a hot box for you to go in and sweat. It's like, sit in meditation, like pray, like listen to yourself, like sit with yourself and think about what do I need to do today? How do I want to feel? Like, don't make it another task, another thing you need to do. Like, really tap into what is going on with your body. And what I found is after because of that feeling that I felt that day sitting in the sauna for the first time. Every time I sat in it afterwards at home, like, I remembered to remember. Yes, I remembered to remember that I wasn't going to bring a bunch of noise into the sauna with me. It was going to be— this is going to be my gen time, like serious gen time. And that is what I mean. The heat therapy, yes, it detoxed me. I lost over 100 pounds. You know, it You know, all of these beautiful physical things happened. The metals were removed, everything. But what really happened in that hotbox, Chris, was that I found myself. I found myself. I listened to my heartbeat. I listened to my body. On days when I needed to turn the temperature down a little bit, I honored that and I turned it down. If I had to open the door a little bit, I opened the door and got some fresh air instead of like hustling and muscling through it. If I, if I needed to sit there for an extra 10 minutes and cry, because I mean, which always happens in the sauna because you're crying and you're releasing and you're just like, oh, no one's watching. Just let it go. But it just became this release and this, like, so call it detoxification, but it was like this purge and this release of everything. And then I started getting clear on, like, do I really like my job? Am I really happy in this marriage? Like, what's going on? Like, we can do a whole show on what I did after, but it's like, It really got me tuned in to my mind, my heart, my body. Like, how did I get myself into this space? How am I functioning with Mercury sitting on my brain at a level of which I should die? And which, of course, you know, as I said, I had a stroke. It ultimately did create a situation— too much stress because I did make some very wicked changes in my life. Um, got divorced, quit the job, did all these things, slung myself into entrepreneurship, But, you know, next lesson for me was, okay, I did all these detoxification things, but I did a little too much at one time. The body let me know it. That's another warning shot. You know, fast forward, that just set me on another path of some more healing, more journey, you know, more things. But really what my detoxification process truly was about was just like coming home to myself. And really understanding what was not serving me and like literally living in my body and how, how I needed to remove it.

Oh, that's— that like gives me chills. So good. You had mentioned that Ashley wanted your sleep routine to be better and to remove your TV. And then you're mentioning how in the infrared sauna it's your gen time. So Tell me a little bit about digital detox. Is that a clear boundary that you have for yourself or your loved ones, for your space? And what does that look like?

Yeah, great question. So one of the things— I think one of the biggest overarching beautiful things that happened in all of this, even the stroke, like, I'm grateful for all of it. Was that over the last 15, 16 years, however many years it's been now, is I have created— I have leaned into understanding that our home is our sanctuary space. And that, you know, I travel all over, you know, we're on planes, we're here, we're there, but like, home base for me needs to be sanctuary. And so I have spent a lot of time and money and energy into harmonizing my home into a space in which It's literally a healing space everywhere in our house. And so I don't live like a nomad. I don't live in a yurt with no technology. Obviously, I'm in my office and we have this, you know, I have all this stuff, you know, for this. But there are very clear boundaries that I realized that I needed to create for myself. The TV was just one of them. That was just the start. But what that did was it kicked the door open for me to understand Where else am I completely, like, sucking the energy out of my life? Like, where else are these electronics in my home? Where's the router for our Wi-Fi system? Like, where's the smart meter? If the smart meter's up against your bedrooms or your kiddos' bedrooms, like, figure out ways in which that you can deter those frequencies because they're constantly pinging us, pinging, pinging, pinging, like life-sucking energy out of us. So I started moving myself around my entire house and just doing different things in different areas of the home to harmonize it. And when I say harmonize it, I just mean minimize EMFs, minimize the exposure, and then create very clear areas where there's no EMF, which is like our bedroom. There's no TV, no electronics, like the WiFi. Everything is completely on the other side of the house. I have different crystals and stones and things for mitigation. I have an old school alarm clock, the sunrise alarm clock. So if I have to wake up, I wake up to the birds chirping and it's just run off of a battery and plugs into the wall. Literally no electronics in my bedroom anywhere near it. And my husband, who, you know, likes to sometimes break the rules and bring his phone in the bedroom a little bit just to do some what I call doom scrolling before night once in a while, like, that's fine. But that phone is going to go back out of the room when we go to sleep. That is 100% boundary. And anybody who knows me, even my mom, when I go to her, like, that's a wicked boundary that I set because When I go to sleep, my body is resting and restoring. It's recharging its batteries, resting, digesting. I'm asking the body to work for me when I'm resting. What I don't need to do is give it 75 hurdles and a ring of fire to jump through while doing it because if I do, I'm going to wake up mediocre or I'm going to wake up tired because the body couldn't do what God asked it to do or has given us to do. So, you give it the tools or you remove some of these tools that are around our home and give it the space to create and give it the space to feel good. I mean, I can tell you within a week or two of not having a TV in my room, I did feel more rested. When you start tuning into these things and you're like, hmm, yeah, I actually woke up and I didn't have a headache, or I actually woke up and I'm I could open my eyes instead of like peeling them open. It completely makes a difference. And so yeah, that's a non-negotiable. Anybody, guests who come to our home, you know, there's certain things, you know, we don't have like TVs, we have no smart devices. Like, I shouldn't say no, we have a couple smart TVs, but very few devices in this house. Like, it's, it's harmonized in a way where you walk in here and it feels different than most places, I would say, because I've energetically created a space where we're not being pinged all the time.

That's so cool. And I'm, I'm glad you mentioned that because we were talking about this before we came on the podcast. I was like, oh, we need to start recording. I think that that is something that we are likely trained out of recognizing. Yeah, is the energy in a space Yep. So, I mean, I'll give you guys an example. Like, if you walk into like a big conference room and there's a lot of people, like, you can feel that there is a certain energy in there. It doesn't necessarily have to be bad or good. It's just a different energy, right? And then let's say you walk into somebody's house and they're arguing. Like, you can feel that energy. And, you know, granted, perhaps some people are less intuitive than others and That's fine. But I also think that part of that is training, that we have trained ourselves out of recognizing some of those things and like trusting our gut and trusting our intuition and sensing whether a place feels right to us. So your house sounds amazing. It sounds like it's one of those that you just like, you just go, it's like walking to a spa, you know, or just like, oh, okay.

Well, that's what it is. And that's honestly like, I'm so glad you brought that up because that's actually what I tell people. They're like, oh, your house sounds fabulous. And I'm like, but everybody's house can do it. It's literally like we pay to go to the spa. Why don't we just create it under our roof? Like, I want to create a life I don't need a vacation from. Like, every day is a day at the spa. I mean, it's not all rainbows and unicorns over here, don't get me wrong. I'm living regular life just like we all are. But we've created a space where it gives us the tools so that we can disconnect. I can tap in when I'm in my office, I'm full, I'm around electronics all day long in my office, but then the rest of the house isn't pinging. And so what's also interesting to me too, and, you know, I work with a lot of professional athletes, like I've been in the sauna business now for many years working in red light therapy. I've been so grateful, you know, I quit that corporate job and I opened up a wellness center and started, you know, detox and wellness that are started helping people on their own journey and have been doing this now for years. I work with some amazing athletes, professional people of all kinds, celebrities, singers, like people who are high-level performers and want— like they need to be on, on, on, on. And there's all these tools and there are all these gadgets like the Oura Rings and like all these different things. And we think that we need all of those because we want to collect the data. But what I always tell people is like, it's fine to have the data, But like, where are you going to like get away from that? Like, when does the body get a break from all of the things that you're throwing at it? Like most of us, if we look at screen time, or if we look at the amount of time that we're away from digital, like the digital detox, so to speak, it is not common for people to think that they can function and live without these things. And I just think, I think there's a shift happening where people are starting to be, get attuned to like, they don't want all of these like gadgets and things in and around them because they can start to feel that they don't feel great around them. Lights, you know, all, even all these different things. But it's interesting how less sometimes is better, like just simplifying it and You know, Morgan, my niece, who, you know, we've talked a bit about Morgan as my 19-year-old niece that lives with us. And, you know, talk about a generation that's like grow up on their phones, right? Like, she doesn't even know, you know, when she came to live here with us, and I was like, here are the rules, here's how this is gonna go. You're not sleeping with your phone. This is the kind of alarm clock, like, and she was just like flatlined, like, what, what is happening? Like, no, I need my phone. Like, no, you actually don't. You actually don't. And I'm going to show you how and why you actually don't need to live on this thing or be that tethered to it, because that's not healthy. That's a codependency. So, you know, she would feel anxious about something, or she'd like have something she needed to work on, but like, go lay out in the grass, go out in the grass. So now she knows if she asks me what my first, my first answer is going to be, I don't know, did you go lay out in the grass? Did you go lay under the sun and figure, like, figure it out? Like Earth's energy, Pulse, pulse PEMF energy. It's in the earth, literally bare feet, body on the earth. That's the best charge you're ever going to get.

And it's, it's not woo. I know a lot of people might be like, oh well, whatever. No, like, take a meter, stick it in the ground. Yeah, there is some definite healing energy.

Yeah, well, the earth has a heartbeat, you know. Mother Earth does have a heartbeat. I don't— I think we can all agree on that. Um, you know, if you follow Schumann resonance science, great. If you don't, look it up, it's interesting. But, you know, the Earth has a pulse, it has a heartbeat just as we do. And I think when we get back into rhythm with that, whatever we're trying to do in your goals for training, whether it's jobs or focus or balancing life stuff, when we get into rhythm with that, we feel like we're more in flow. We can actually get clear, make better decisions. So that has actually been one of my go-tos, especially after my stroke. I mean, that was another whole like, oh, interesting, what I needed— I, I mean, I spent a ton of time like grounding and earthing, like I had to, because I was— um, a stroke is a neurological condition, obviously, uh, and for me it was actually a couple things. It was the metals, the residual from some metals, and then also when I was 15, I was, uh, unfortunately there was an explosion, an accidental explosion that I was a part of or was witness to, uh, and it was massive. I mean, my boyfriend, my then my high school sweetheart, was killed that day. It was very unfortunate, very traumatic. I fortunately was somewhat sheltered. I shouldn't say fortunately, another person, uh, I was in an area which I was sheltered from any metal shrapnel and glass in the blast. Um, I took very little impact from it, but I, I was thrown about 8 to 10 feet from the impact from the, from the, um, blast, and it was on the right side of the brain. So that was actually the real reason, the real major reason for the stroke is cuz I had massive brain damage from that day that went untreated. It was a massive concussion. Because I was one of the least injured that day and it was chaos, um, I never went to the hospital. I was never treated. So it turns out, after the stroke, we did some MRIs, we did some things like, where did this come from? Combination of the metals and the stress. But it was the damage on the brain. So I just want to clarify that so people aren't thinking I had a stroke due to mercury or lead. It was— that was a piece of the puzzle, but really what it was was a massive concussion and damage to the brain that was the perfect storm, you know, 15 years later. And so again, getting grounded, like, how do I heal my body? How can I put it back into rhythm? And I needed to get back to some basics.

So speaking of basics, are there any specific basic things that you get to do on either a daily basis, a weekly basis, call it a routine, call it a ritual?

Well, as you know, and as you know, anybody who's landed on my site or listened to my show, my house is what I would consider kind of a wellness fortress. So I have a lot of different modalities and things, and I literally could spend all day doing a morning routine. And I think that's where some people get hung up a little bit is like, oh, I need to do all these things. You know, some days, you know, maybe like my weekends look a little different than my weekdays, to be quite honest. Like I do have some non-negotiables in the morning where just consistency is key. I start with a few things like my prayer, my meditation, my gratitude, my grounding, you know, drinking some water. Lemon, warm lemon water has been something I've been doing since day one. Ashley mentioned that to me years ago, just kind of kicks the liver in a little bit when you first get up in the morning. So that's definitely just something I do to kind of get the body moving and rolling. I do sit in a lot of stillness in the morning. I like my quiet time. And I have a machine called the BrainTap machine that I use quite frequently, actually. That's a, that's a light frequency machine. I don't know, are you familiar with BrainTap?

I am not, but I'm getting introduced to one on Friday at my chiropractor.

So you are—

she's got like this little recovery room. She's like, you can use all the things. I'm like, I don't even know where to start.

Yes.

And that's going to be my next question, like, where do we start if we're like at ground zero, or what might be ground zero?

Yeah. So like I said, I guess for me, my routine's a little bit different because, you know, when you chase your health backwards— and this is one of the reasons why I've created my show, this is one of the reasons why I do what I do, you know, open my center, continue to teach— is like I chased my health backwards after I got it to a level of apparently I was managing it, but I— it wasn't, it wasn't a good situation. And so being more proactive and just kind of putting the hands on the wheel of your life and, you know, bringing in some of these modalities are great, but also just getting clear on slowing down a little bit and getting some routines in your morning, um, to kind of set your day, to set your day so that it's not chaotic. I saw almost every day. I do cold therapy, whether it be in my cold plunge or I just, you know, cold, cool shower kind of wakes me up a bit. Like I said, my grounding and my outside time. Something we didn't talk about a ton, but I wanna mention is our circadian rhythm. That was another thing going back to the sleep thing is when we're looking at artificial light, it's, it's really sending signals to the brain to confuse it. And that's just kind of the easiest way to say it. So getting our bodies back in harmony with, with natural sunlight, sunrise and sunset. You know, years ago she had mentioned, you know, people love to see a sunrise and a sunset, and it's because the red light, the, the red, the natural wavelengths that come off of the sun during that time. If you can get outside and get your eyes on sunlight in the morning, you have no idea how much, how beneficial that is for you just to help balance the hormones, harmonize it. It's sending the signal to the body it's time to wake up, it's time to be awake and alert for the day. And then the same at night is the sunset, you know, you're kind of sending the signal to the body to calm down, relax, it's time for rest and restore, which is again why stimulating ourselves with TVs and iPads and computers and phones after dark, it's, it's sending the wrong signal to the brain. So just finding some of these rhythms and working with nature and working with the body Those are really my daily non-negotiables, actually. Like, if I do nothing else, it's just get some sunlight, uh, put the phones down before bed, you know, drink plenty of water, which is great. But it's just kind of going back to some ancient wisdom, like ancient, legit ancient wisdom.

That's so cool. And I was gonna actually ask you, like, what, what are your 3 main takeaways for everybody listening? And I think, I think you beat me to the punch Oh yeah, I think, you know, anybody who's interested, the heat therapy is amazing.

As you know, that's been in my— that was— it saved my life. Infrared sauna saved my life, and I don't say that lightly. It literally saved my life. Like, I sat in that sauna and watched the metals pour out of my body while I sobbed and cried and wondered, how did I get to this point? We did find out the mercury was coming from cavities in my mouth, which I I've obviously since had removed and did that whole chelation process working with a holistic dentist. You know, if you're going to do— go down that path, make sure you're finding a dentist that follows those protocols. Very, very important. A lot of information online. In fact, I interviewed a fantastic dentist, holistic dentist, earlier this year that just really talked about the evolution of the dental industry and why so many people have mercury, you know, how that is causing issue. And then the lead, we just discovered that was just some lead-based paint that I was exposed to and some things that were environmental And so again, just going into discovery and figuring out what those things are. But all of this stuff, you know, a lot of different gadgets and things that I've used over the years. I've tested a lot of things and a lot of things worked, many of which are, you know, on my website. But really my main takeaways for people are get back to basics and eliminate the things that are causing stress and noise in your life. What I like to say is on a scale of 1 to 10, if it's a 5 or higher in the noise category, bringing stress to your life, you should probably find a way to set it down, let it go, bless and release, or find a replacement. That was huge for my life. Like, I had to get rid of some stress. Number 2 was bring in a couple of key modalities into my home so they were under my roof so I had access to them at all times and I didn't have to be on someone else's schedule or deal with traffic or or somehow talk myself into saying I wasn't going to put myself on my schedule today. It's under my roof. It's, it's available to you at all times and you should be using it. And so finding out what those key things are for you is important. And then number 3, just protecting your sleep and your peace and just getting enough rest. I worked myself to the bone and then was like, oh, why is this, you know, why is, why am I overweight? Why is this not working for me? It's because I wasn't giving my body the rest and restore that it needed to get up and perform for me the next day. And so those are probably the three, my three biggest takeaways.

Ah, so great. That was lovely. Um, all right. So Jen, how can people learn more about you, learn more about your show? Learn more.

They wanna learn more. That wasn't enough. Um, um, so my show is Homes That Heal. Like I said, it's really just, um, a lot of great conversations, some solo shows and some with some other people that have helped me along the way. That's Homes That Heal. My website's probably the best way to find me, jennhellerlifestyle.com. That has all my Jen Recommends things that I have, home health books, connections. You know, if you're looking for the— some of the people I've mentioned today, they're most likely on my website. That's kind of the storefront, if you will, of everything Jen Heller. So jennhellerlifestyle.com.

That's awesome. Yeah, because I, I feel like people can get very overwhelmed in this space and they're like, oh my gosh, how many thousands of dollars am I going to spend? But it sounds like your push is just to protect their sleep, you know, start small. And then because we've done like kitchen detoxes with folks and they're like, oh my gosh, you're asking me to throw away all my pans and buy all new pans. I'm like, well, it can happen. I think of it like a ball of wax. You know, like start small and then maybe you throw a few away. Maybe you buy one here or one there or, you know, it's like, like you had said, it's been a 15-year-plus journey of creating this new space. So, so cool. Awesome. All right. Well, all of your goodness will be in the show notes and Jen Heller, thank you so much for joining.

Thank you, Chris. It's a pleasure.

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