Essential Oils for Detoxification with Jodi Cohen

Trevor:                    Hi, I’m Dr. Trevor Cates. Welcome to ‘The Spa Doctor’ podcast. On today’s podcast, we’re discussing essential oils for cleansing and detoxification support. This is one of those things that’s going to help you with glowing skin from the inside out. My guest is Jodi Cohen. She is a best selling author and award-winning journalist. Her number one best selling book, ‘Healing with Essential Oils,’ has been widely praised as one of the most well researched consumer books in years.

She’s also a founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, where she has combined her training in nutritional therapy and aroma therapy to create unique proprietary blends of organic and wild crafted essential oils. On today’s podcast, Jodi shares some specific essential oils that enhance cleansing and detoxification. We also discuss techniques for using essential oils, and how to know how to select the right essential oils for your unique needs. Even though Jodi owns an essential oil company, you’ll find that in her interview, she shares valuable information without prejudice towards her company. Please enjoy this interview.

Jodi, it’s so great to have you on my podcast today.

Jodi:                         Thank you for having me.

Trevor:                    Yeah, so we’re talking today about essential oils for detoxification, right?

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    Because there’s a lot of talk these days about cleansing, detoxification, getting your organs of detoxification clean, your liver, gallbladder, your digestion, your lymph system; all of that cleared out. I think essential oils, it sounds like, can be a great addition to that.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    Maybe somebody’s doing a cleanse program, but essential oils can help support somebody as they’re going through that process. I’m excited to talk about this today.

Jodi:                         Oh thank you. Yeah, I’m excite … I love what you’re doing, too. I think it’s so beneficial to put out the message that it’s not just putting a different product on your face, that actually what you eat that shows up in your skin.

Trevor:                    Yeah. Yup, and it’s such a … I think today with essential oils, we could talk about both what you can do internally and externally because it’s really the combination of the two. I think there’s a big part of it for me, I always think that 80% comes from internally what we can do. Then, there is still that 20% of what we put on our skin.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    When we want it to be clean. Essential oils are such a great alternative to things like synthetic fragrance, so yeah.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    Let’s get started with this. First, will you share with everybody what made you interested in essential oils?

Jodi:                         It was a little bit it showed up in my life by accident. I was going through a really rough patch. My husband is bipolar and needed to be hospitalized. Once I knew he was safe and it wasn’t really my job to keep him safe, my system just collapsed. I just shut down from kind of being in survival mode for so long. Nothing I was doing seemed to help. No dietary changes, no supplements.

Someone came over one day with a big box of oils and said, “These are really going to help you.”

I said, “Great. How do I use them?”

They said, “No, you’re very intuitive. You’re going to figure it out.” They just left the box next to me on the couch. Desperation is the mother of all invention. I was so desperate because my kids were quite little. I really needed to be able to function. I just made up my own potions, for lack of a better word, to support my adrenals, and help insomnia, and basically help to shift me out of that sympathetic dominant state.

When I started to feel better and tell people what I was doing, they were like, “Oh, we want to try it.”

I’m like, “Oh, okay. Why not.” I gave it to them, and it worked really well on them. They started testing it on their clients.

They said, “You need to do something with this.”

I thought, ‘Well gosh, I’m sure … You know, I … how can no one be doing this?’ They weren’t really looking at it through that lens. That was really how I launched the company, just realizing that there was a need for this.

Trevor:                    That’s great. It’s Vibrant Blue Oils, right?

Jodi:                         Right.

Trevor:                    Is the name of your company?

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    That’s great. How did you come up with the name for that? I love the name.

Jodi:                         You know, it’s really funny. This blue that we’re both wearing has always been my favorite color. When we were kids, my mom used to love antique stores. My sister and I would be really bored. She came up with the idea that if we had something to collect, we’d be less bored because we would be interested. My sister picked thimbles and I picked those antique blue bottles. I love them. I just started collecting them at an early age and brought them to college, and my apartments after college. I just thought it was so gorgeous. When these oils entered my life, they were in these bottles.

I thought, ‘Oh, that’s such a sign from above. Like of course they come in blue bottles.’ That was kind of the start of it. I just like the energy of them, honestly.

Trevor:                    Awesome. That’s a … so great. I love hearing people’s stories on how they come up with names and things; so thank you for sharing that.

Jodi:                         Sure.

Trevor:                    Let’s talk about essential oils and how they help with detoxification, because … I don’t know. It’s not really something that we’ve talked a lot about on this podcast.

Jodi:                         Yeah. There are a couple things that are really interesting about oils. As you know all too well, most people that we see these days have some kind of digestive impairment. They’re not necessarily assimilating their nutrients as well as they could be. Adding more … Food is great, because it’s kind of very in line with what the body is supposed to do. Supplements for the most part are, but they’re modified a little bit and so it’s not always a sure thing that what you take internally is going to get to where it needs to go in the body.

The back doors are kind of … the olfactory system. If you smell something, it gets into your system quite immediately, and actually into the area of the brain called the amygdala in the limbic system that helps us with emotions and other things. When we feel good, we look good. Also, things that are applied topically, like … you know that hormonal creams and nicotine patches get into the system. That’s a really great direct access point. If, for example, somebody is having a lot of digestive impairment and you want to get a healing substance into the body, those channels of the olfactory system or the skin are really alterative ways to get things into the system.

What’s great about that is that if you think about the liver and how much it’s overburdened and even healthy food can feel kind of poisonous if it’s too much or it’s being malabsorbed. If you topically apply something over the liver, we know to do this with castor oil packs. You can add in essential oils that help to make the bile flow better, or the liver move and function more effectively. Then, it’s a little bit like … If you think of two people carrying a heavy object, like a chair. If four people help out, it’s just easier for everyone. It’s just an external kind of support that helps with the whole process.

Trevor:                    I love that you’re saying this, because so much of what we spray around in the air around us, cleaning supplies, beauty supplies, and then what we put on our skin, a lot of times, those times are actually toxic.

Jodi:                         I know.

Trevor:                    People are ignoring the fact that what they’re breathing in, they’re actually absorbing. What they’re putting on their skin, they’re actually absorbing.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    People are so blind to this often times. Now of course, not my audience; because we’ve talked about this a lot. But, instead of look … Now what we’re talking about is what can you do to put on your skin and spray around you that actually helps your health?

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    That helps you feel better, that helps the detoxification rather than doing the opposite. I love that, and I applaud you for doing that. You mentioned castor oil packs. For people that aren’t familiar with that, I do think it’s a great detoxification … technique.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    Explain to people how to do it and how you use essential oils with that.

Jodi:                         Okay.

Trevor:                    And how you use essential oils with that.

Jodi:                         Yeah, so there are two ways to do a castor oil pack. One is a little … First of all, what castor oil does is it helps to pull the toxins out of the system. We know that our skin is our biggest organ. When the liver or the kidneys or the gallbladder are overburdened, sometimes things come out through our skin. That’s one of the reasons that if you start to clean up internally, your skin looks better; because it’s not the forced exist channels. Castor oil helps to pull those toxins out and the complicated way to apply it is to take burlap and basically soak it in castor oil for a while. Then, apply it over your liver, which is on the right side of your body, right under your rib cage, or right under your breast, I mean.

Then, you put a plastic whatever you want over it, and then a heating pad on top of that. You lie down on a towel for 30 minutes. It can be messy. Castor oil is messy. It stains things. You can wear a ratty t-shirt. If you’re going to integrate oils, you would just put a little bit of the oil on before you put the burlap and the castor oil on it. That’s kind of the complicated castor oil pack.

The lazy man’s castor oil pack is just to wear a super ratty t-shirt, put maybe a table spoon of castor oil right under your breast over the liver, and then put a drop or two of essential oil on top of them. Then, just wear a ratty t-shirt and your body temperature helps with detoxification during the night.

Trevor:                    Yeah. They also have those roll-on castor oils, too.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    Have you seen those? Those are really handy, too.

Jodi:                         Right.

Trevor:                    You can apply it so it’s right around where your rib cage ends to, like you said, your breast. That whole area there is a great place to do that. Okay, great. What are some of the essential oils that are good for detoxification?

Jodi:                         Helichrysum and grapefruit are kind of known to be great for the liver. They’re really powerful because they help to mobilize the liver. It’s a little bit like … I’m a runner, so I think of it, you’re hitting the wall and you have some kind of goo or caffeine and suddenly a banana, you have more energy. It just gives the liver some vitality to help function better. My company, we’ve created some different blends. The interesting thing about oils is that they work amazing well as singles, they’re fabulous. Then sometimes when you combine them, it’s a little bit like going to a restaurant and they serve you something like a salad that has ingredients you would never think to put together, but somehow it tastes amazing. Oils in combination, it’s almost all chemical. They can do things like help the liver to function as it’s supposed to. It’s almost like a flotation device.

Trevor:                    Yeah, so you say grapefruit and what was the other one?

Jodi:                         Helichrysum.

Trevor:                    Can you spell that for people who aren’t familiar with it?

Jodi:                         Yeah. Sure, sure. H-E-L-I-C-H-R-Y-S-M. It’s super expensive. The best helichrysum is from Corsica.

Trevor:                    Okay. These are two are magical for, particularly for the liver? Is that?

Jodi:                         For the liver.

Trevor:                    Yeah, okay.

Jodi:                         They’re great for the liver.

Trevor:                    Okay. … Okay, so that’s castor oil packs. What are some of the other ways that we can use essential oils for detoxification?

Jodi:                         Well, one of the things that I love is the lymphatic system. It’s really the biggest detoxification organ that kind of gets the least credit; because it helps to pull things out of the cells and then actually carry them to the liver. That’s why things like dry brushing, which you recommend, is great. You can use minty essential oils, like spearmint is actually really good to help … especially with the brain, detoxifying from the brain. Just putting things on the side of the neck before you go to bed, because the brain detoxifies when you’re sleeping. Or, anything that you can do to help the lymph to move, both moving your body and applying oils, will then help to move the toxins more rapidly out of the system.

Trevor:                    Okay, great. I just thought of something. I know sometimes people, when they’re doing a cleanse or detoxification, they get headaches.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    That toxic kind of headache.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    Is that good for that?

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    Or, do you have any other suggestions?

Jodi:                         No. I have a couple of suggestions, but that’s kind of what it is because you’re mobilizing the toxins. What’s interesting , this is the main channel for the toxins leaving the body. It’s the biggest bottle neck. It’s a little bit like, in theory, four lanes for traffic to go in, but three of them are closed. Just because the lymph is stagnant or the vagus nerve, which I’ll talk about, is a little bit toxic. Things get stuck and they don’t drain, so what happens is there’s a bottle neck. The pressure builds up in the head and gives you a headache. The more you can help to move that out …

Another great oil for that is our parasympathetic blend. That helps to stimulate the vagus nerve, which is right here. Then, it sends the message through the body to switch into that parasympathetic rest and digest state, and allow the body to really heal. I know you talk about this when you’re in stress, it’s really hard to detoxify.

Trevor:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative), yes. It’s so true. I think a lot of times, people focus on just the liver; but there’s so much involved in detoxification.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    On a lot of different levels, like we’re talking about the lymph system, but also the emotional component and the brain, and how that all … neurochemistry gets involved in it. It’s not as simple as people always think, right?

Jodi:                         Yes. I think that … I don’t think you can do it wrong, is I guess what I want to say. There are lots of levels, but even if you’re just using your amazing juice recipes; on that level, you’re getting a lot of benefit.

Trevor:                    Great. What about kidneys, kidney support?

Jodi:                         Yeah. Interesting, the kidneys are kind of associated with fear. They’re right below the adrenals. The kidneys, for those of you who don’t know, are about the size of your fist. They sit on the low back, starting at the very bottom rib. Then, the adrenal glands sit on top of them. We have a really great oil for kidney support. There are a lot of supplements and nutrients that you can take as well. I think the kidneys are the forgotten organ, in some ways. They’re the ones that tend to flare with any kind of detoxification effort.

Yeah, I think it’s really helpful to support the kidneys. I also think just … being in the parasympathetic state … really taking a moment before you have your smoothie or whatever you’re doing to detoxify, to just … relax so that all of the nutrients can be assimilated and all of the toxins can be excreted. One minute.

Trevor:                    Right, and so what are some … Are there any particular essential oils that are particularly good for the kidneys then?

Jodi:                         We created … You know what’s interesting, I work with a lot of clinical practitioners. They test different things for me. There’s not one that always tests well for the kidneys for everyone, because we’re all different. Different oils work better for certain people, like nutmeg in theory is supposed to be great for the kidneys and the adrenals. That, in my experience, didn’t test for anyone. We created a combination of blends for the kidneys that work really well. It’s called their kidney blend.

For people at home, lavender is actually really great. You can smell it through when you tend to be anxious, that’s associated with fear. That’s often the right part of the frontal lobe that’s overacting. What you want to do is stimulate the left part, so just smelling lavender through the left nostril can be very soothing for the kidneys.

Trevor:                    Through the left nostril.

Jodi:                         Right, because you’re trying to stimulate the left side of the brain to put it into balance.

Trevor:                    Okay, all right. Great. Lavender, yeah. Lavender seems to be one that’s great for a lot of different things.

Jodi:                         It’s amazing for everything, I think. If you had to pick one oil, and one only oil to go to a desert island with, I would pick lavender.

Trevor:                    Yeah. The only problem with lavender is that I feel like it’s in so much … so many scented things.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    And synthetic and natural, that it’s kind of almost become overdone.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    That some people are tired of the lavender smell.

Jodi:                         You know, you’re right. Lemon is great, and especially lemon balm. It’s very refreshing. Anything citrus-y is another thing that helps to reset the energy and the mood. Like for headaches, lemon is great, orange. A lot of little kids really like orange, grapefruit. They all kind of help, because when you’re detoxing, it’s work for your body. It can be very exhausting.

Trevor:                    That’s great. Yeah, I love it and I love it for the whole family. It’s not just for adults. It’s for kids, too. We do have … There are some … a little bit of safety things around essential oils, right?

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    Do you want to talk about some safety tips?

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    Especially if you use them on your entire family.

Jodi:                         Yeah. I don’t recommend using oils on children under two. I just think that it’s … risky and it won’t necessarily hurt them if you want to put like a drop on a cotton ball and just put it in their crib or near their bed so they can smell it but it’s not too much for them. Then, always diluting. You get the oil and it’s [neat 00:16:59]. I say dilute aggressively and kind of ween up to what that means. That can be as complicated as you measure out the exact amount of drops with the exact amount of dilution, which can be … You can use any other oil. I like coconut oil, olive oil works, almond oil.

Or, you can make it more easy, less complicated. Take about a tablespoon and put maybe a drop or two and just mix it in your hand, and then you can rub it on your feet. The feet are really a great application point, because they have reflux points for the entire body. The soles of the feet are really thick, so some of the oils feel a little hotter and could … like even peppermint can sometimes make your skin turn red; but if you put it on the bottom of the feet, it doesn’t seem to have that effect. That’s really the safest place for everyone.

Trevor:                    I love that. That’s actually, it’s funny, that’s what I do a lot with my daughter. At bedtime, she’s having a hard time … She’s ten. We’ve been doing this for years. If she has difficulty sleeping, I’ll get … I’ll have some almond oil, and I’ll put a few drops of … often times it’s spearmint, peppermint, or citrus, sometimes lavender. I’ll put that on the bottoms of her feet and give her a foot rub. That, it’s always worked really well for her to help her sleep.

Jodi:                         It’s magic. You know what else you can do? You can do an Epsom salt bath first. There are different recipes. I like two cups of Epsom salt, one cup of baking soda. Then, I put the [inaudible 00:18:24] … the bath, because the bath opens up the pores a little bit so they’re more absorbent. That’s another thing people don’t know. If you have a cut on your skin, don’t put oil on that, because it gets into the system faster. When your blood flow is moving more rapidly, like after you’ve been in the bath, or a shower, or exercise, it’s going to assimilate faster. Just, if you’re working with young people or sensitive people, be cognizant of that. That it might, if you put it on right after a bath, it’s going to get into your system faster than if you do it right before you go to bed when you’re kind of cold.

Trevor:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative). Going back to the bath for a second. We’ve been talking about kids, but also adults. How much essential oil do you put in a bath?

Jodi:                         Yeah, and that’s actually … Thank you for bringing that up. You want to mix the essential oil in with the Epsom salt before you start running the water, so that it doesn’t float on the top. I tend to do probably two or three drops. I put the Epsom salt in the tub and then I add the oil before I add the water, and I kind of mix it around in the tub first.

Trevor:                    Okay, and so what was the ratio again? You said baking soda-

Jodi:                         For adults, two cups of Epsom salt, one cup of baking soda, and two to three drops of lavender. Then, for children, just half of the recipe.

Trevor:                    Okay, okay. Of course, it depends on the person’s size of their bathtub.

Jodi:                         Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor:                    If you have a really large bath tub, you’ll want to use more. If you have a smaller bath tub, use less.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    If you have a little baby tub, you know, that’s totally different.

Jodi:                         If you just ran a marathon, go nuts. Use the whole box.

Trevor:                    Right. All right, great. Any other safety tips to think about? Things to avoid or … What do you think about essential oils internally, like ingesting them?

Jodi:                         I don’t think it will actually hurt you. I mean I think a lot of the things like Purell that we put on kids’ hands before they eat are probably far more toxic. I just haven’t found it to be outrageously successful; because it has to go through the systemic process in the liver, I personally think a lot of people that talk to me are smelling it when it goes down, because they’re putting it in their water. I don’t think it will hurt you, but I don’t necessarily feel like that’s the most effective way to use oils. I feel like topically applying them is more successful.

When I test clients and kind of say, “Well, let’s just see. Let’s see if this is working,” because if you swear by it and you love it, it’s not hurting you. Do what you … Trust yourself and your intuition.

Trevor:                    Yeah, I agree. I think that sometimes putting a drop of lemon essential oil in water is really refreshing.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    But like you said, part of that’s the aromatic part of it, of smelling it. Tasting a little bit of lemon or maybe some of the mint family, that can also be a nice way to make water taste a little bit more interesting.

Jodi:                         Oh yeah.

Trevor:                    Yeah.

Jodi:                         Yeah, no. It’s not terrible. It won’t hurt you. I know there’s a lot of … fear campaigns that if you only buy a certain oil blend, or company’s blend, everyone else is bad. I don’t actually think they’re bad. I think that to your point, a lot of the toxic chemicals that we’re using every day are much more harmful.

Trevor:                    Right. Okay, so let’s talk about the purity of essential oils, because that is something that comes up a lot.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    Because there are companies that are making essential oils that really aren’t pure essential oils. They’re diluted with other oils.

Jodi:                         Yeah.

Trevor:                    There may be even synthetic fragrance in there. There’s a wide range of products out there. How do you people know if something is a pure, clean essential oil.

Jodi:                         I think, I mean just trusting the company. Every time I walk by those body works stores in the mall, I get a headache. You can kind of tell. You can tell when it’s synthetic, because it doesn’t smell the same. Any of the multi-level ones, Young Living, Doterra, Vibrant Blue, we’re not multi-level. Rocky Mountain Oil, Sage, Plant Therapy, I think they’re all good. I think they’re all high quality. I think the ones that are dedicated essential oil companies are pretty good.

I think the concern, you’re right, is using synthetics or altering, or … I would say look for an organic label, because that’s the concerning thing. If they’re grown with pesticides, all of a sudden when you concentrate them, because oils are highly concentrated essences of plants. You’re concentrating the pesticide with it.

Trevor:                    [crosstalk 00:22:37] Absolutely. I think that’s such a great point, because when we … concentrate things in supplements or essential oils, or oils in general, we have to think about what … How many of that … How much of that plant is used to make that? That if it’s sprayed with pesticides, it’s going to concentrate the beneficial parts of the plant, but also those things that are on the plant that shouldn’t be there. Yeah, I think that’s really a great point. Organic is one of the ways that can help us be aware of that. What are some of the things that you do with your company, if you’re okay with sharing this, that help ensure that you’re providing a clean product? Just you know, because … I mean I think we have a great opportunity right now, talking to you, as someone who manufactures, what … Maybe, because I know what I look for, for my skincare products to make sure that they’re clean, and that are absolutely the must-haves and our process of looking through that. What about with your company? How do you know that your products are clean?

Jodi:                         I source through a woman who’s been doing this for 30 years. She actually visits the farms. She has relationships with the owners. She watches them, and then she tests it. She gets every batch in and she tests it, and she makes sure that it’s clean on multi-levels. Then also, kind of … There’s an energy of oils. If you’re in a mass production line, it’s very different than if you have someone who really loves the plants and is caring for them, and picking them. They find different healing benefits, actually, for even if it’s grown in the same region. She only buys from certain regions in the country. For example, you only buy blue [tanzi 00:24:17] from Morocco, or helichrysum from Corsica; because they’re different. You can get them cheaper in other parts of the country, but they have different healing potentials.

I’ll just give you an example. I grew up in Seattle, which is apple country. Then I lived in New York, which is also apple country. The apples do not taste the same on the West coast and the East coast; just because of the climates. They’re different. Both of them are beautiful, but I think really when you’re looking to use oils in a therapeutic capacity, you really need to be quite clear on the benefits that you’re looking to derive. Then, you kind of reverse engineer of it needs to come from the most indigenous part of the world so that it grows a certain way. It needs to be harvested at a certain time by a certain quality of people. The minimum, you know they’re not using pesticides and adulterants. You’re not diluting it.

That feels like the bare minimum. Then, it’s a certain level of quality on top of that, and trust, and credibility, and integrity.

Trevor:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative), absolutely. Great, thank you for sharing that. When it comes to massage, I know essential oils are often times used in massage. That can be a great thing to have with detoxification to help with the lymph flow drainage.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    What kind of essential oils and in what manner should they be used for that?

Jodi:                         That’s a really great question. The one thing that I do want to say is that when you’re moving toxins and moving debris from the body, it’s really important to make sure they leave the body. The two aspects of that, you want to make sure that you’re supporting your gallbladder and that you’re also giving someone binders so that things … The gallbladder dumps the bile into the small intestine. You want it to leave the small intestine.

I think in terms of oils that you can use, it can be a variety of things. I don’t know that it’s a cookie cutter answer, because different people will have a reaction. Some people like different smells. I think that can be very personal. They’re all going to kind of mobilize toxins and get things moving in the body. If somebody hates peppermint, why would they use that for their massage? It’s like how much salt do you add to your food? It’s a very personal choice. I do think that the mint oils tend to help with the lymphatic system; but if that’s not a smell you enjoy, you’ll get the same benefit from different oils. Just be clear. If you’re doing a massage or some kind of aggressive manual technique to move toxins, make sure that you are regular, that you’re not constipated, that your bile is moving these toxins out of the body. Then, make sure you’re taking a binder like [chlorella 00:26:52] or charcoal, or [psyllium 00:26:54]. You get to pick, but just something so that the toxins actually leave the body.

Trevor:                    Great tips. Yes, of course. I love that this is … this can be a personal thing. When you say it’s personal, it’s almost like you’re … You’re almost tapping into your intuition a little bit.

Jodi:                         Exactly, exactly.

Trevor:                    Just like this one smells good right now, and it may not smell good to you another time. But if you’re drawn to it, maybe that’s something you kind of need at that moment. Pay attention to that.

Jodi:                         That’s exactly what I think.

Trevor:                    Yeah. I think a lot, as we open up books, and I think those are great; but allow yourself to just have some different essential oils right and smell them and kind of feel into it a little bit, right? I was like that’s what you do.

Jodi:                         Yeah. What’s interesting is that as you heal things, like something … I’ll give you an example. My gallbladder was very congested. I had two kids. I was under a lot of stress. I would get the gallbladder headaches all the time, the pain between my shoulder blades, motion sickness; all of those gallbladder symptoms.

When I first created our gallbladder blend, when I would smell it, it was like candy. It was delicious to me. Any time I got a serious headache, the gallbladder’s associated with headaches. That would nip it in the bud right away and make me feel better. I did a really aggressive gallbladder protocol. I really focused on it with my diet, with supplements, with this oil, for about two months. Then, it started getting better. In fact, we went on a cruise and I was worried. I didn’t want to take any drugs or wear those bracelets. At one point, the water was pouring out of the pool. Normally, I would be very motion sick, and I was fine.

I could tell I was done. I picked up the gallbladder oil to smell it, and it wasn’t unattractive, but it just didn’t smell right. It’s like when you have your period and you need chocolate. Then, when you’re not on your cycle, you can take it or leave it.

Trevor:                    Not necessarily that we all need to eat a lot of chocolate when we’re [crosstalk 00:28:46] …

Jodi:                         No. No, no, no.

Trevor:                    But yeah, I know what you mean. Part of that is … One thing sometimes people need when they’re craving chocolate is magnesium.

Jodi:                         Yes.

Trevor:                    A lot of women need that when they’re menstruating. This is a side note that has nothing to do with essential oils, sorry.

Jodi:                         No, no.

Trevor:                    Sometimes I go off on tangents.

Jodi:                         I think that’s right. You crave it because you need the nutrient. That’s exactly right, perfect point.

Trevor:                    Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. Any other essential oil tips for digestion to help people with that?

Jodi:                         We’ve found that … one of the triggers for digestion is the brain basically sending a signal to every organ to drop into that rest and digest state. When we’re in stress, our body prioritizes stress, so all of the blood flows to the muscles and the limbs so that you can flee stress. Basically, anything non-critical to survival shuts down, including digestion. You can stimulate the on/off switch between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic state is cranial nerve number ten, the vagus nerve. It starts at the back of the neck and winds around on both sides of the body, and then goes through every organ of digestion.

It’s most accessible to the skin right here. It’s clove, which is highly stimulatory, and then lime, which has incredibly small molecules. Then, we dilute it so that it can go right here, stimulate that parasympathetic response and turn on the whole digestive cascade. The mouth releases saliva. The stomach releases stomach acid. The gallbladder releases bile, pancreas releases enzymes. Also, it’s really great for if you have any constipation. It’s a really great tool. It smells good, and it helps to drop you into that parasympathetic state where all healing can occur.

Trevor:                    That’s fantastic. Okay, well thank you so much for the information today. Tell everyone how they can find out more about you. Then, you also have a way for people to download a free chapter of your book, right?

Jodi:                         Right, yes. You can. My company is Vibrant Blue Oils, V-I-B-R-A-N-T, blue like the color, oils dot com. Yeah, I wrote a book, ‘Healing with Essential Oils,’ that has a whole chapter on detoxification. You can get the first chapter, which is a little bit on why essential oils work and how to use them.

Trevor:                    Great, fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing this information. It’s been a pleasure.

Jodi:                         Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Trevor:                    I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Jodi and you got some great information and tips on how to use essential oils safely and effectively, and with confidence; that you’re going to be using something that when you smell it and when you feel it, when it touches your skin, that these are things that are actually have the possibility of improving your health rather than taking away from it. Definitely something that I hope you’ll start incorporating in your life. It’s a great alternative to synthetic fragrances using essential oils. Of course, the health benefits that we’ve talked about today.

To learn more about Jodi, you can go to my website, TheSpaDoctor.com. Go to the podcast page with her interview and you’ll find the information and links there. While you’re there, I invite you to join The Spa Doctor community, so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows and information. Also, you can find the show on iTunes. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you take the skin quiz. Just go to TheSkinQuiz.com. You can find out your unique skin type and get some great tips information on how to address your skin and health issues from a root cause approach.

I also invite you to join me on social media on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube; and join the conversation with us there. I’ll see you next time on ‘The Spa Doctor’ podcast.