Welcome back to the inspired
living with auto-immunity podcast.
I'm your host, Julie Michelson.
And today I'm thrilled to share my
conversation with Jodi Sternoff Cohen
author of the bestselling book, essential
oils to boost the brain and heal the body
friend and founder of vibrant blue or.
Jody has helped over 150,000 clients
heal from brain-related challenges,
including anxiety, insomnia, and
you guessed it: auto-immunity we're
going to explore the importance of
the parasympathetic state in healing.
And Jodie has the most incredible shortcut
to achieving the parasympathetic pause.
Jodi welcome to the podcast.
I'm so excited to have you today,
Thank you.
It's always fun to connect.
I would love to start off by telling
listeners, you know, how did, how did you
just share a little bit of your story?
How did you come to
create vibrant blue oils?
Yeah, it's funny.
You know, I was always absent,
so I thought I was healthy.
And then I had my second
child who was a handful.
I kept taking parenting
classes and our big cube.
We used to point to our nose
and be like, look at my nose.
And he couldn't look at the nose.
He was so ABD and so all over the place.
And one day we were at a birthday party
and the friend complimented me on how
well behaved she happened to be that day.
And then another mom
passed out Ritz crackers.
He took one bite Jekyll
hided, and like took off.
And after I like sprinted after
him and brought him back, she
said, that's really interesting.
I'd never seen him flip from food.
You know, my brother was on Ritalin.
And it turned out, he was
just allergic to weird foods.
You should take them to a nutritionist.
And I thought that's easy enough.
You know, I've tried everything else.
I'd read like 17 books that point,
you know, to continue nutritionist
basically said he's allergic to
corn, soy and dairy changes diet.
We changed his bed and within two
days, and I thought now he's insane.
Like it was real.
I was really floored by how.
Significantly food impacted
mood and behaviors.
So I went and got a degree in
nutrition and I was trying to
help other moms with busy kids.
And I learned this handy technique
called muscle testing because
I'm in Seattle with best year.
And basically it's a way of really quickly
assessing if a is going to work or not.
And what the best remedy is, and
that came in handy oils and covered
my life during my own rock bottom.
My then husband had to be
hospitalized for depression.
And once I knew he was safe and he
wasn't going to die on my watch, it
was finally saved for my adrenals to
collapse and they, they hit really hard.
Basically my kids were five and seven.
I could barely get up from bed.
I would wake up with
them, make them breakfast.
Driving to school, come home, crawl back
into bed and set the alarm for pickup.
And it was so unsustainable.
And at that point I
knew it was my adrenals.
I knew what I should be eating.
Nothing was working, you know, it
was kind of treading water wasn't.
I was still able to get up with
them and kind of function, but
I wasn't really showing up.
I was like class parent.
I had a job, like so many
things just weren't happening.
You know, walking up the
stairs felt overwhelmed.
The laundry wasn't happening.
It was just a disaster.
And fortunately, I, you know, prior
to crashing, I had been kind of
overachiever and I had helped a friend
with a fundraiser who, as a thank you
gift brought me a big box of oils.
And when she was dropping them off,
she said, something really intriguing.
She said, you know, You've been so
high stressed for so long, and we
know that high stress means high
cortisol and systemic inflammation.
I think your gut is toast.
I bet.
The reason, nothing you're ingesting
is helping is because it's not
actually getting into your system
for your digestive tract oils.
You know, you can smell them,
you can topically apply them.
This could work.
And that was intriguing
enough that I was like, Hmm.
So knowing less than testing,
I muscle tested the box boils.
When anything I'm here to help my dream.
Got a really powerful yes.
Which is really, I'm like,
wow, hope this is encouraging.
And then I couldn't narrow it
down beyond these five oils.
I kept getting the same five oils, which
was unusual because usually I was able
to get one remedy, two remedies, and then
I had this idea like, oh, wait a minute.
They're liquid.
Maybe I can combine them.
And so I took the five oils and tested it.
I drilled down further, you
know, like three drops of this.
I had never played with oils
before I put 'em in a shot glass,
put them on my adrenals on my low
back and within literally, almost
immediately, I was like, oh wow.
I can go running.
You know, I'm a lifelong runner.
I was like, Ooh, I didn't have the energy
to walk up the stairs, but I'm going
to go for three mile ride came back.
I know.
Did the laundry went to the
supermarket, made their favorite meal?
Like it was like, oh my gosh.
And I kept doing that and kept
thinking like that it's super
weird, but it works like, why not?
So I kept making up other
things, you know, because I had
been practicing long enough.
I kind of knew like, oh,
the hypothalamus is off.
Oh, this is interesting.
Can smell it.
If it gets to the brain,
like I just kept winging it.
It's almost like, you know, you
have three food items in your
house and your kids are hungry.
Like let's create a new sandwich
that maybe they'll eat, you
know, and they chew it and you're
like, all right, that one's on.
And so then when I kind of started to feel
better, my friends were all intrigued.
They're like, we want to try it,
you know, and I had this whole
nutritional therapy community, so
everyone was kind of playing with it.
And then I finally went online because
it was like, I I'm curious why this.
And I was super surprised.
First of all, that no one was really
looking at oil combinations, kind of
through the lens of balancing organ
systems and regions of the brain.
And also they made it so
incredibly complicated.
Like if I had had the bandwidth
to start with research, I would
have thought I was unqualified
and I would never have started.
And so that's kind of
how it got kicked off.
And then we went to the
nutritional therapy conference.
It was like, you know, I wonder
if this, this works for me.
I don't know if other people like it.
And I think we brought like a hundred
test kits because we thought maybe
there would be 200 people there.
We sold out the first day and I
was like, oh, this is interesting
people, people want this.
So I just kind of throw it online.
You know, I'd fill orders.
I do yoga every morning.
So like fill orders and bring them
in my little Lulu bag and put it in
the post office on the way to yoga.
And that's really how.
That is amazing.
And there's so many serendipitous
factors starting from, you know,
realizing that what your son was eating.
I mean, it, it, it is unexciting.
I say, how'd you start this oil company
and we start back with, oh, my son had
such EDD, but it was food sensitivities.
But what I love about it was, was, and
I want listeners to like really see it.
It was you being.
Right.
You just stayed open.
You found this one thing
that kind of blew your mind.
It was so simple, but yet you don't, you
know, already done all this research.
And you just, that that's where you,
how you got to where you are is because
you stayed curious and open and having
for anybody who's not familiar with
muscle testing, you know, having that.
Tool for those of us that
are familiar, it is a tool.
And that's exactly, you know, if you
didn't have that tool, Your story
probably would be really different
and maybe it would have been a
shorter exploration with oils.
But you, I mean, it really was
a way for you to literally just
know, you know, to trust yourself.
And, and that's what I wanted
to circle back for listeners.
There's a, this combo of being open
and then trusting yourself and.
And realizing.
Cause sometimes even when something's
working, if we don't understand how or
why the, you know, we don't, we don't
follow the path if it doesn't make sense.
And so I love that and I know
what a gift your oils are.
I use them, I recommend them
to my clients all the time.
And the people that I love in my life.
So I was laughing when you
were talking about, and I'm
thinking of the lucky people.
I know we're all really excited when
you show up at a conference because
you always have amazing videos and, and
it's always like, oh, I can't wait to
see what, what she's working on now.
So you talked about your
adrenals being tanked.
Well, some of my listeners can
likely relate in one way or another
to their adrenals being tanked.
I too remember.
Getting the kids off to school and getting
back in bed until it was time to pick them
up, because that was the only way I would
have the energy, you know, book-ending
the day to, to mom to be the mom.
I want to talk about, you know, how
important you, you mentioned, you know, of
course you weren't absorbing and digesting
because you were in that sympathetic.
Yeah.
Just response.
Say, let's talk about,
start with square one.
Let's talk about what is the
parasympathetic state and
why do we need to achieve it?
And then you have just the most
amazing, I think, easy way to do it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So for people that don't know, your
autonomic nervous system sounds
complicated, but it really just
controls your automatic functions,
autonomic automatic breathing, heart
rate, digestion, immune function.
Anti-inflammation all the
things you don't think about.
And it's really designed
to keep you alive.
perceives everything, all of the
senses, give it input and it has,
you know, just like your car.
You can speed up, you can slow down
to kind of speed up and accelerate.
There's danger.
Either have to fight
back or run away or play.
That's called your sympathetic
branch of your nervous system.
And it's really not designed
to be, you know, kind of going
full throttle all the time.
It's supposed to be like,
wow, there's a danger.
I survive it.
And then I go back into what's
called parasympathetic where it's
like restoration, regeneration
and healing, you know, think about
you're having a party at your house.
You clean everything you
make, call this food.
Everyone comes, it kind of
gets the students everywhere.
You know, there are
drink glasses everywhere.
They all go home and you clean
up the house and you repair it.
It's not like you're constantly
entertaining and running out of food.
So that's kind of, your sympathetic
is supposed to be kind of short
and brief sprints of survival.
And then your parasympathetic
is supposed to kick in and
you're able to recover sadly.
It's not just a physical stress, like
a tiger chasing you down the street.
It can be an anticipatory stress in our
emotional stress, you know, for those of
us that have anxiety that's future worry.
Oh my gosh, this could happen.
That could happen.
So our brain doesn't know the
difference between anticipatory
stress and physical, actual.
So we can get stuck in what's called
sympathetic overdrive and it creates
this total maladaptive stress
response where you're always anxious.
You're always overwhelmed.
You never turn off.
It might interfere with your sleeping.
In my presentence weight
gain is inflammation as
pain as all of these things.
So it is oh, and the gear shift between
these two states is cranial nerve
number 10 longest nerve in the body
that most people have never heard.
It's the vagus nerve, which means
wandering in Latin because it connects
the brain to the rest of the body,
starts at the base of the head, splits
ones around both sides of their neck.
If you actually feel.
Behind your ear lobe, there's kind
of a divot between your ear lobe
and the bone, the mastered them.
That's an important point.
That's where I actually have people
stimulate the vagus nerve and turn
on their sympathetic nervous system.
Think of it as a gear shift.
This is the gear shift, you know,
and divots can always find an
acupuncture place with divots.
So there was a lot of research.
This guy, Kevin Tracy, a neurology.
Was playing with
stimulating the vagus nerve.
He actually it's a surgery.
He inserted a pacemaker like device right
there, and then another one in the chest.
So two surgeries, you know, if the
battery runs out, you have to repeat
surgery, but by using an electrical
charge to stimulate the vagus nerve, he
was able to help with depression, with
migraines with inflammatory things,
with epilepsy and the FDA approved this.
There are lots of ways to activate
your vagus nerve, you know, did she
is Carozzi and is one of my favorites.
He talks about gagging yourself with a
tongue depressor, gargling, splashing
your face with freezing water.
You know, they're breathing techniques,
meditation, all of these things work.
It's just about compliance.
Most people can say like,
Hey, what if I send your face?
They're like, no, not today.
I will take a hard pass.
But what I realized is that you can
take a combination of essential oils.
I use.
Because it's highly stimulatory and
lime, and it's really, you know, it's
like anything that you mix together
when you combine these two, you get
super stimulatory and fast acting.
So I just it's, it's literally
an essential oil bottle.
I flip it, flip it back and
put it behind the ear lobe.
And it literally is that gear shift.
Like, I, I have anxiety all the time.
I get overwhelmed and I'm able to
be like, okay, I'm just gonna check.
I'm going to pause, I'm going to pull back
and I'm like, my daughter makes fun of me.
She's like, is that a current Shetty
problem or a future journey problem?
I realized in my mental loop or
like future gee, there's nothing
I can do about that today.
It's either going to happen or it's not.
And you know, today I can
focus on this and it's amazing.
It calms me down immediately.
And it, it is, excuse me.
It is fantastic.
I have used it.
And as I said, I, I recommended, I, I
love you're talking about compliance
because we do know there are so many
things, you know Not, not as extreme as
surgery and thank goodness, you know,
that, that surgery really taught us a lot.
Right.
It gave us this idea of like,
okay, how else can we do that?
yeah.
But like you said, with anything and
being a coach, I know compliance is key.
If I can't get somebody to do something
consistently I, you know, it's,
I have so many clients who know.
Exercises or no ways that work
for them to stimulate their vagus
nerve and they just don't do them
or they don't do them regularly.
So I love how easy the oil is.
Well, and you know,
it's really interesting.
Like there's a lot of research around
smell as a trigger, you know, like my
Grammy used to wear lavender proceedings.
So whenever I smell lavender, I
think of her, you know, there, there
a, you can almost use smell it.
It's almost like a Pavlovian experience.
Like the dog hears the bell rang and
know there's food coming, you smell this.
And you're like, oh yeah, I get you to.
It trains you and, and it's, it's
just a really easy way to get there.
You know, people who meditate,
sometimes they have a mantra.
Sometimes they have a certain setting.
It's just a cue to your body.
Like, oh yes.
I crossed the finish line.
I can calm down.
Yeah.
And cause as you said, I just had
this conversation this morning.
Actually I say it all the time.
We don't, you're aware you, if you get
in the forward thinking anxiety loop,
you, you clearly are very aware of that.
But even without that people say to
me all the time, oh, I'm not stressed.
And then I look at what's going on
in their life and I'm like, yeah, You
don't actually necessarily need to be
aware that you're feeling stressed out.
I say anybody living on this earth in this
moment is experiencing chronic stress.
And as you mentioned, our
system, isn't set up for that.
We're set up for acute.
And so I was thinking of when you
were talking about stressors, the
other thing people often don't
consider are positive stressors.
The body doesn't know the difference.
Something like buying a new house
or moving or getting married or
wonderful thing, having a baby,
all of these things are wonderful.
Yeah.
And they're also stressors and, and tend
to overlay, you know, when nobody has just
one thing going on in this day and age.
That's completely valid and
indicators that you're stressed.
I mean, you can like check your
heart rate and kind of see getting
contested heart rate variability.
Are you bouncing back quickly?
You know, it's very obvious if you feel
you're having panic attacks, feeling
anxious, feeling overwhelmed, you know,
pain is an indication of stress here.
Mental energy being able to
focus, you know, Feeling exhausted
more than you usually are.
All of these things.
And here's the good news, you know, I,
I really do think the body can heal.
You know, I, I joke I live in Seattle
and you know, if you want to drive
to Portland, it's a couple hours
south and I five, you know, maybe you
went in the wrong direction and you
realize, oh wait, I'm going north.
You can always turn around.
You can always.
Returned to balance, you know, and
you, that is within your control.
Like, I love that quote by a Holocaust
survivor, Viktor Frankl's man's
search for meaning, you know, between
the stimulus and the response.
There is a space and that's the space
that I call the parasympathetic part.
And what I really, the message.
I really want people to hear.
I mean, there's a lot that's
happening right now that feels
very outside of our control.
And that can really feel overwhelming,
especially if one of your you know,
coping strategies is to try to control
things and you have no idea, you
know, you might have a trip planned
and you know, is the airline, it's an
airplane going to, you know, what is it?
I think all the flights got canceled
blend day, you know, that's outside of
That's what I was with you that day.
Yeah.
I didn't know if I was going to get home.
Yeah.
I mean, there's just so much going
on right now that so much unknown.
Yes exactly.
But our flight did get canceled at
the 11th hour, you know, and I had
returned the car and we didn't have
a place to even get our bags and I'm
like all outside and that control
like nothing I can do about that.
So I'm just going to calm my nervous
system so that I can think clearly,
because this is really interesting.
One of the things that the parasympathetic
nervous system changes is your.
Your pupils get bigger and black part
of your eyes, and it's called selective
attention because, you know, if you're
contemplating your navel and Alliance
chasing, you're probably going to die.
You really just need to focus on your
options at the moment, but that shuts
down your access to kind of your
higher cognitive problem solving.
So, so many of us are kind of in this
survival panic state and we can't access.
Access our higher problem-solving skills.
So step one is to calm
your nervous system.
You know, like once I was able to calm
down, I'm like, all right, priorities,
rebooking the flight number one.
So we'll, we'll take care of that.
Cause I need to know if I need to find
a new hotel, how many days does the
airline want us to stay somewhere?
Did we get to pick and what's available?
You know, like once you're kind of
aware of what your options are, you
can work within those parameters.
So.
That's that's really kind
of my biggest headline.
is, is so huge.
And I need to really drive home.
When you said, you know, you believe
the body can heal, the body can heal.
It's designed to heal.
And anybody listening to this has probably
heard my story and knows, you know, I, I
always say, you know, it's never too late.
It doesn't matter whether it's physical,
whether it's emotional, mental,
whatever it is you're dealing with.
Like you said, you can
always turn the car around.
And I, I, you know, I work with
people that are just diagnosed.
I work with people that have been
struggling for decades and decades,
and this first step has to be.
Three introducing that
parasympathetic state into your life.
And that is why they
call it rest and digest.
It is the healing state.
And so when people say, well, I'm not
stressed, or I don't want to work on
mindset because it's a physical problem.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We need to be in that.
you can't clean the house.
If you can't open the
front door, you know, like
Yup.
step for everything and then
it makes everything else.
You know, like just the minute I kind of
realized, like, I I've limited options.
I'm going to let that go.
I'm just going to kind of
see what's available in it.
And it all worked out.
Yeah.
Oh, and it always does.
I mean, that's the thing.
If we don't get caught in the, in the
tizzy, I believe at least my experience
has been, it takes practice to.
Put yourself in that state or take
that parasympathetic pause, find it,
be aware that you have that power.
Yes.
you know, people always say to me,
well, you know, I'll, I'll do it when
I'm stressed and I'm like, oh, but if
it's not in your toolbox, you can't
reach for it if you don't have the tool.
And so.
And I, I do find, I'm sure
you see this all the time.
People when you're in a situation
like that, and you take your
parasympathetic pause, people are amazed.
They're like, how did you
handle that, that way?
It's like, well, you
know, there is this space.
So how do you go about, you know,
setting the routine that allows
that to be the tool in your toolbox?
Yeah, I really, I I'm very religious
about a morning and evening routine.
Like.
I always start the day with gratitude
because gratitude actually puts you in a
space of parasympathetic and then goals.
I kind of combine gratitude and
goals and it could be something
like I could wake up and be like,
wow, that is such a pretty sunrise.
Or my dog could be like, especially cuter
when he was a puppy, like Aiden, he on
the bed, you know, that kind of thing.
It could be.
It's silly, but, and then at the end
of the day, I really tried to kind
of wind down and again, what am I
grateful for about today and what
am I looking forward to tomorrow?
What's important to me.
So I do, like, I tell people
when they start you just
leave it by your toothbrush.
You know, everyone knows to brush their
teeth first thing in the morning and.
And just do it then.
And the most people, what they
realize is like, oh, this helps.
Like, I feel good.
And so sometimes they like,
don't leave home without it.
And it's always in their
purse, so it's in their pocket.
But to start, you know, just three
times a day, like first thing in
the morning before bed, if that's
how he can handle, that's fabulous.
If you want to start adding it, you know,
before meals so that you are in a more
receptive state to digest your food.
Great.
And then as needed, like, I think.
I probably used it every five minutes.
You know, when you
I love that.
That is so amazing.
I was doing a round table over the weekend
and somebody was asking me for tips about.
You know, how do you get yourself
in the state to digest your food?
And I, I had a few tips, but
I'm totally stealing on an anti
mat into the repertoire, because
that is, as you mentioned, it
was such a part of your journey.
We can't observe or nutrients
when we're in fight or flight.
And so we need those nutrients to
heal and we need them to function.
And so I love that idea.
Well, as, you know, a mom, like
that's something, oh my God.
The struggle to get my kids to
take supplements, you know, I've
grind them up and apple sauce.
But, you know what, like putting
something behind their ear or on the
bottom of their seat, that was easy.
No, no pushback, no struggle.
That's amazing.
I I'm, I'm so excited because you just
totally, you always do every time I
talk to you, I get new ideas and new
tools, but I love so the, the specific
oil that we're referring to today,
Parasympathetic.
You can actually, if you go to, I talked
about this a lot in my book, essential
oils to boost the brain and heal the body.
If you go to boost the brand.
Dot com backslash gift.
You can download a guide, a free
guide of like all the different ways.
If you're, if you're not in a Royal person
that you can activate your parasympathetic
nervous system, but there is then a coupon
for the parasympathetic oil, which is
clothing line smells great, smells like
a half gallon box just right behind your
ear lobe, but the divot between your
ear lobe and that bone, which is your
master down is the perfect application.
And if you want to even try it now,
just take your fingers and kind of
gently massage there that that helps to
activate your vagus nerve most accessible.
They're closest to the surface and, you
know, stimulate your calming response.
I love that and see, you just gave me
a new, I hadn't even thought about it.
And next time I use it, I'm going
to think about, I have dollar box.
Yeah.
There's plenty of listeners who have
no idea what that is, but if you do
now, you know what the oil smells like.
Yeah.
It just smells like and like yumminess.
Happy.
It smells happy, but more important
than how it smells, although
it is essential, a smells good.
So you want to put it on as
what it, what it can do for you.
And like I said, I've not only have
I used it myself, but I recommend it
often with my clients because it works.
And as you said, it's so easy to do that.
People are compliant and it,
and it really does allow you.
To heal or manager daily
things that come up.
Yeah, it's an easy one.
You know, like I spec it plans.
Maybe not oil don't need
to change on my clothes.
Don't need to do anything else.
Don't need you to adjust anything that.
Yeah.
I love it.
I love it so much.
And I will add.
When we visit the parasympathetic
state, when we take that parasympathetic
pause, you know, I mentioned how in
a stressful situation, people notice.
But also I can tell you you're,
you're a better mother, a better
partner, a better friend, a better.
Like.
No, I'm serious.
There's so many times when you know,
all the alarms are going off and I'm
like, I'm just going to be coming.
It's going to out, you know,
and the less that I react to the
baster, like she processes through.
Yeah.
So I call this a cheat for me.
This, this is the shortcut
to the parasympathetic
pause because it is so easy.
It's no excuses.
I always ask, so I know listeners
are waiting at the end for the,
what your tip is going to be.
I'm pretty sure I know what it is, one
step that listeners can take today to
start to improve their health would be.
Her parasympathetic pause.
I find whales to easiest, but
again, I have 25 strategies.
Most of them fray.
If you go to boost the brain book.com
backslash, if you can download a
guide that goes into more detail
about the parasympathetic nervous.
You're like me and you like to
read things and maybe highlight
and then gives you 25 strategies
that you can start today, you know?
it.
And the easiest of which is the oil
and telling you guys get the oil.
It's amazing.
So before we wrap up, I will have links
in the show notes, but where's the best
place for listeners to find you if they're
intrigued and they want to learn more.
My website is vibrant blue oils.com.
We have tons of blog posts.
We go into a lot more detail.
You can take some assessments and see, you
know, what the best oil might be for you.
And just kind of learn more about
how you can topically apply essential
oils on acupuncture points to
balance organ systems and regions.
I love it.
Jodi, thank you so much
for being with us today.
You shared amazing gold and really I
cannot encourage listeners enough to, A
focus on, finding that parasympathetic
pause, but really your oils, all of
them, but the parasympathetic is amazing
and it really is a shortcut to healing.
For everyone listening.
Remember you can get the
show notes and transcripts by
visiting inspired living.show.
I hope you had a great time and
enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
I will see you next week.