130: Listen to Your Nose: Essential Oils & Forest Bathing – with Dr. Eric Zielinski

 

Essential Oils are Still Essential 

As soon as this episode begins, Dr. Z’s passion for essential oils comes across loud and clear. 

He’s the author of two books on this topic: The Healing Power of Essential Oils & The Essential Oils Apothecary. 

Dr. Z has experienced firsthand the various ways essential oils foster healing in a person’s physical body and how essential oils help us mentally and spiritually. His many clients attest to their power. 

Your nose knows. That’s the fascinating opening point Dr. Z explains here. He shares how our modern way of life is killing our sense of smell. Imperfect olfactory senses hurt people’s health and wellness – again, not just physically but also mentally and spiritually. 

Dr. Z exposes what is causing humans to lose their sense of smell and how turning to essential oils is crucial to restoring our God-given sense of smell intended to help us enjoy a long life of prosperity.  

In this podcast, we cover:

• Why our sense of smell is disappearing
• Dr. Z’s essential oil recommendations for stress and anxiety
• Why the “ancient wisdom” of essential oils is leaving modern culture
• Some of the most significant toxic chemicals that harm people
• How to detox from chemical overloads
• How this new trend called “forest bathing” works 
• Should someone use vaping as a means to inhale essential oils? 

Modern Conveniences Gave Humanity a Bloody Nose

In his books, Dr. Z talks about the significance of olfaction – our sense of smell. Olfaction is the primal sense of humans. Our keen sense of smell was once our primary connection to the primates. 

Thousands of years ago, we relied heavily on our sense of smell. Humans have dampened our olfaction through the centuries to the point where people don’t consider their sense of smell necessary anymore. 

That is a dangerous notion.  

Modern conveniences stole humans’ connection with nature. For example, humans should not need a “smoke detector.” We need one today because our sense of smell is not what it used to be. Too many chemicals in the environment get much of the blame. Dr. Z talks a lot about these chemicals on this podcast and in his books.  

Forest Bathing for Better Health Makes Total Scents 

Here is a snippet of Dr. Z talking about Forest Bathing on this episode: 

“The thing about forest bathing is, and the reason why I talk about it in my book The Essential Oils Apothecary is the volatile organic compounds being emitted from the forest plants stimulate the olfactory system to bring you to a place of true healing. Forest bathing is tree medicine. 

And when you’re smelling something outside, even smelling blades of grass freshly mown with your lawnmower, what do you think you’re smelling? Essential oils. 

When you’re walking in densely wooded areas filled with evergreens, like Cypress and fir trees, those are wonderful. Pinene oil is a wonderfully healing anti-inflammatory mood-boosting chemical.

While forest bathing, you get aromatherapy. You’re getting the experience. Hopefully you’re grounding, but here’s the key: I’ll give everyone a tip – forest bathing isn’t about doing a mud runner or a hundred-mile run. It’s not about going to the woods with the direct purpose of accomplishing something. It’s about being, hopefully, with some people that you love, you want to be with, or maybe being by yourself and just enjoying the outdoors. 

Leave your phone in the car and enjoy nature.” 

Essential oils have never been more critical. With today’s “new normal” of quarantines, social distancing, and other practices that weaken the immune system, people need aromatherapy to strengthen their immunity, alleviate stress and anxiety, improve focus and restore energy.

Time to get back in touch with your nose. Dr. Z can help sharpen your olfactory senses back to where God intended. 

Pay attention to the aromas in your life – the results could be life-changing! 

Episode Resources: 
Natural Living Family
Dr. Z’s New Book: The Essential Oils Apothecary
Dr. Z’s National Bestseller: The Healing Power of Essential Oils
TIME Mag Article: ‘Forest Bathing’ is Great for Your Health. Here’s How to Do It

Read The Episode Transcript:

Wade Lightheart: Good morning. Good afternoon. And good evening. It's Wade T Lightheart from BiOptimizers with another edition of the Awesome Health Podcast. And today we're going to talk about forest bathing, essential oils, and tapping into the therapeutic properties of being in nature. And we have an expert on these topics, Dr. Eric Zielinski, who is the author and national bestseller of the healing power of essential oils and the essential oils apothecary. I always have to say it hard when the apothecary, I always struggle with that word for some reason. I don't know how to get it. We'll get that unplugged in a minute, but you know what? We'll keep moving on. What's interesting about Dr. Z, he's been pioneering, a natural living and biblical health education. That's really cool. The Bible is a great health book and he's trained as an aromatherapist public health researcher and chiropractor. Dr. Z start at naturallivingfamily.Com in 2014 with his wife to help learn how to use natural remedies like essential oils safely and effectively. Now visited by more than 3 million natural health seekers every year. Naturallivingfamily.Com has been one of the number one online sources for biblical health and non-branded essential oils education. Dr. Z. Welcome to the show.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Thanks, Wade. I'm pumped. I'm excited. And we haven't discussed this topic before in your show, and I don't know how many people have actually talked about essential oils, but I hope to give a very fresh new spin and really essentially my job as a public health researcher is to disseminate the information that's in the medical literature. And I hope people will leave enlightened inspired and even encouraged to expand their medicine cabinet a little bit.

 Wade Lightheart: This is such a great topic to get into and I'm really thrilled to be talking about it because the one thing that I've noticed, particularly with commercial engineering's and people living in, I would say a less, you know, forest type environment or rural type, like we look here, humanity. I was struck by this conversation of the day I had, I'll give you a background for our listeners. So a friend of mine took this beautiful picture of the Milky way, overlooking the big Sedona rocks, and he's a professional photographer and it's great. And I was commenting as he put it on Facebook. And I said, extending expansive picture. And I've go to that rock and I've seen that in real life. And it was amazing. And when you're out in the desert and you can smell the smells and the sense, and you feel the wind and you feel the hair. And then at the same time on the Facebook where the picture was, there was an advertisement for a $20 plastic digital thing where you could and it shows this girl throwing it on the bed and it's projecting the universe on a light disc on your ceiling. But isn't that perfect? You know, like with a lot of engineered plants nowadays, they, you know, they, they don't have the same scent that they had. Like roses don't smell like roses anymore. Flowers don't smell like flowers. The forest scent is oftentimes chemical with a member, those little forest scent things that you're coming, the car that I still have one, we bring out on my Christmas tree that my grandmother had 50 years ago. It's still smells. I don't even know how that's possible.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Maybe we'll talk about that. Cause that's not good. That's not good.

 Wade Lightheart: Yeah. It's remarkable. Like, how is it? Like, it's like, kind of like the inside joke, but pine tree that that's not applying tree, that's continued to smell like a pine tree, but anyways… As a doctor, how did you get into this whole aroma therapy? Because it has a long, long tradition throughout history. You know, this is like thousands of years old. And then of course it was a natural state, but now we've removed and sent is one of the things that is dropping away, which is also associated with memory from the human sensory. I would say, sensory awareness or acute sensory awareness. What's going on here.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that. I actually talk about that in my book more about how significant olfaction is. And you know, a lot of folks don't realize that olfaction is the primal sense. It's stimulates the limbic system. It's a direct communication to the brain. Again, going back to a little bit of neurobiology, your limbic system, where your primal brain is, that's the first part of your brain that's developed your mood, your memory, your emotions, your autonomic function, like heart rate breathing rate, and the only sense, sensory input that has a direct input to the brain without any sort of relay. And I'll explain that in a minute is olfaction. So case in point when's the last time, maybe you stubbed a toe or accidentally cut your hand or something doing arts and craft project. You know how there was that split second of, Ooh, I hurt myself, but I didn't feel the pain that was because the pain sensation had to go efferent afferent through the brain, through the filament, the thalamus relay center, back to your hand, back to your foot to say, oop, ouch, pull back. That is every sensory input that the body has, has to be interpreted by the brain. Well, you don't have that with olfaction. There is no interpretation. So when you smell something, it's the only sensory input that directly impacts your brain, which has direct ramifications, because that was before the advent of all these synthetic fragrances, thousands of years ago, we relied heavily on our sense of smell. You know, very much like the animals. And that's really what connects us to the primates more than anything is, is what used to be our keen sense of smell. Well through years and years, we've dampened it and we've become sense, essentially sensitized to the fact that we don't need of strong olfaction anymore. And that's dangerous you know, modern convenience is wonderful, but oftentimes modern convenience is another indication of how disconnected we are from who we are as humans and away from nature. Like for example, the smoke detector, we should not need a smoke detector. I mean, we need a smoke detector in our home because our sense of smell can not sense chemicals. Like it used to cannot send smoke. Like it used to like radically, you should not have, your nose is your smoke detector. Yeah, that right there is signed in of itself. And scientists are really, truly tapping into the power of smell. And one thing that I stumbled upon when I was researching my new book, the essential oils apothecary was that researchers and some doctors, medical doctors are now utilizing A coma Patients' response to a sensory input to determine how quickly they will get out of a coma. It's not pain, it's not taste, it's not anything. So if you want to see if someone's in a coma, how they respond to a sensory input and the quicker and the more robust the response to a sensory input. And what does that mean? You know, like smelling salts or something that obviously has a pungent aroma that might cause a movement in the body just in voluntarily, that is an indication of how quickly someone will get out of a coma. Like that's cutting edge science today as we speak. So where are you with your sense of smell? So, wait, I'm so glad you mentioned that because a lot of folks their check engine light is pretty much when it comes to their senses and here's a litmus test. Everyone can do. And let me just make a judgment call for all of us. And this is your own judgment called the how to see, well, how do I know if my sense of smell has been damaged? Or how do I know if it's keen? Well, when's the last time you've been the Walmart or let's say target or whatever. Costco and you go down that cleaning aisle, you know, that cleaning aisle with all the laundry, will you say that, but other people walk through and they get fine and dandy. If here's literally I'm telling in actual fact, if you can be in that cleaning aisle for four or five, 10, 15, 20 seconds. And if you don't get some sort of adverse reaction, like shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, nausea, headache, yuck, feeling like, Oh, I can't handle it because that is the most densely concentrated area of chemicals in that store. If you don't have some sort of adverse reaction, that's a sign that your sense of smell dampened, you've adapted to dangerous chemicals. I'm telling you that needs to be detox. How do you do that? Simply remove those chemicals from your home and your body will slowly regenerate. And your sense of smell will come back. And now you'll be like a hound. You'll be like a hunting hound. And you'll be able to smell that junk miles away. I literally have to my breath run over that aisle. Cause I don't buy any trash in that aisle ever. We only buy nnntoxic, non scented stuff. And I'm telling you, I can't even handle going into a Michael's arts and crafts store. My body just it's just too much. So people might say, well, that's, you know, you've sensitive…

 Wade Lightheart: Another one with all the crazy chemicals. If I can't go in them, it's like you go like…

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Well, some people might say, and here's my dad. Oh, I have a stomach. My gut, I have an iron gut. I could eat anything like that's a badge of honor. Some people might say, that's a sign of weakness. You can't smell this. You can't smell that. No, it's my God given protection. It's my litmus test. It's my check engine light. It's the same thing that diabetics have to worry about for diabetic neuropathy. When you don't feel and have a sensation of pain in your foot and you have sores on the bottoms of your feet. If you don't get that remedied, if you can't feel it, that's going to produce gangrene that could produce infection. That's why diabetics lose their limbs. You want your sense of pain? You want your sense of smell. You want your sense of… Right? You need to feel again be again. So why am I talking about this stuff? Well, sense of smell because artificial fragrances, arguably in my opinion, public enemy number one, linked to Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer. And of course things like you would think allergies and respiratory conditions, but again, Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer. It creates neurological inflammation. So a lot of people are going through life. Their kids become autistic and their kids have learning disabilities and they're wondering what's going on. And then they don't think because we haven't been taught this because medical doctors literally are not taught this in school. They're not taught about the environmental toxins in the air, but you know, we're coming from the wake of having our whole world shut down because an environmental threat, that's really what COVID is. It's an environmental airborne threat. What about other environmental airborne threats that are wreaking havoc on your immune system, your health, your affection, your brain, your memory, your mood, your emotions, ever walk into a room and you automatically just feel uneasy, ever walk into an environment flip on that end, Thanksgiving and reminds you of grandma and grandpa and fun and excitement. That's the power of smell. It can stimulate those emotions literally through neuroplasticity, the imprint of your body, the hormonal output, the emotional mental output triggered by smell can bring you back to being a five-year-old absolutely loving an environment around a campfire with friends or family, but can also trigger post-traumatic stress and other things it's that potent, it's that powerful and people don't even realize why is it when I walk into this area, when I do this, I automatically feel uneasy. Well, maybe has something to do with the smell so much to say. And all of that was because of your comment that most, by the way, most people don't recognize. So I want to acknowledge that from you because you're very insightful. I do this, I've done hundreds and hundreds of interviews and most people just don't think, they don't think about, wow, how is my sense of smell? Is it what it should be? Is it what it could be? Because it's so key to your emotional, your mental, and quite frankly, your spiritual health.

 Wade Lightheart: This is really great, a topic because there's so many different branches where this is used abused. And I think, for example, if there's an interesting component in neuro-linguistic programming of part of anchoring inside of that with new feelings or developing new habits is to actually associate the new feeling or the new success with the smell. Jordan Belfort talks about how he would do that. He would anchor smells with certain things. And you talked about the historical aspect. Then if you look into sales and marketing the sense that they pump into say casinos to generate certain behavior patterns inside of people. And then you have kind of like, you know, things that were used as air fresheners, which contain like mustard gas that actually just dead in your awareness of something with an, you know, who knows what damage that could be. You brought up something that I think it was critical where it starts. And that is cleaning. So one of the things that I'm really have been big on for several decades now, I'm not even sure how long it's been is, but using natural cleaners and things inside the house that I don't use toxic chemicals or toxic soaps or perfumey smelling things. I don't use those kinds of shampoos. I don't use those kinds of things. None of that stuff in my house. And I wouldn't say that I have a super level of great smell. Like I know some cooks and chefs that can smell and they smell, they can tell you every single herb that's in that air. It always blows me away. I'm not at that level, but I'm very acute of toxic smells. And so that's what I find interesting. Oh, that tells me to go away from, but I'm not quite so versed in understanding the nuances of the different spices and herbs and…

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Well, that's a trained skill. I mean, really, quite frankly, my mother-in-law's an herbalist for 40 years, that's a trained skill. You have to develop it. You're talking a basic biological, evolutionary safety mechanism. That's it, that's really what sense is. That's what all of our senses are. That's why you have smell and to enjoy by the way. And that's where the Bible health aspect of everything that I teach about is, is we're here to enjoy food. We're here to enjoy smells, we're here to enjoy love and being outdoors. Like everything comes into play. In my opinion, God's designed to give us an abundant life. That's why we do so when you can't, how many people, I mean, this is another litmus test of how well you smell. How has your taste like, do you automatically, how many people do this? Don't be ashamed. It's okay. How many times have you been to a restaurant? And you just put salt on the food, even before you tasted it, right? Because you automatically know you need more. You just automatically know you need to douse it with flavor. Well, that's, you shouldn't need that. Typically speaking, unless it's poorly seasoned. But if you go into a restaurant, typically speaking that is because your sense of smell has been potentially damaged, dampened and then your sense of taste. So now you need, and this is the key and this is the key way. Why do or people so much inclined to be drawn to those high sugary, fatty foods? Like I will literally get sick after that. If I can't stomach that stuff, I can't go eat fried chicken and fried whatever, and then douse it with a heaven…. I can't believe they sell like this deep fried butter stuff at fairs and festivals. Like people crave that. Why that is the epitome of the most fat and salt and sugar you could get. And that's because people's sense has been so dampered, they need that to stimulate the same thing that I get from eating a mango. What happened? Why doesn't fruit taste the way that it should. And you make a good point. Maybe it's not the same food as it was 30 years ago, but okay, let's skip that. Still mangoes are still sweet. You shouldn't need to put sugar on it, right? That's the problem. You have to put sugar on your frosted cornflakes. That's not a good sign. So that's where we're at and all goes back to the census being dampen. And the more that you essentially flex that muscle really by cleaning it. And that's all I could stress y'all is your body is so regenerative is so healing. Oftentimes what you need to do is just stop hurting it and then it just, and that's the key, the metabolism, by the way, that's the key to losing weight. That's the key to helping your body, have proper function at the metabolic level is, just stop embedding it with toxins all the time. And next thing you know, it starts to function properly. And instead of now spending all of the energy that you consume to ward off toxins, your body can start to burn fat. And I kid you not. We've literally walked people. We, you know, we've walked thousands of people through diet challenges and things. And I've found that people just stopping toxic overload with the body care, the cleaning products, your poopoo sprays, your aerosols, just like stopping that stuff. People start slowly losing weight just by that note, difference in exercise, no difference in food, nothing else, but just allowing the body to function properly. And so that's a little tip for people is here. I'll challenge you. And so if everyone wants to know, okay, this is great. What do I do? Okay. This is what everyone should do, please. And don't even give it away. I know it's hard for some people, myself and my wife included to like throw something away. It's trash, it's poison. It's not even worth giving to the Goodwill. If you have anything that's synthetically fragrant. Let's start with the easy stuff that candles, the aerosols, the wallflowers, the poopoo sprays, toss it in the trash. It's a neurotoxin, neurotoxin, throw it away. Period. Now allow yourself just to smell again. And if you want to do what I do, and if you're watching right now, you can see behind me, I have a little water diffuser, Hey, 15, 20 bucks or something on Amazon. You can get a water diffuser. You can put some essential oils. That's how we create an aroma in our home. And there's so much science behind what aroma therapy does at the emotional, psychological, and physiological level to create healing. I'm just talking pleasant smell. So now you could kick away the whole, Maui beach smell that you have in your wallflower. And you could replace it with some like, you know, natural coconut lime or essential oil. And it's like, wow. And little, do you know that that's actually creating a good impulse through your brain to produce happy hormones and a slew of other things that maybe we can talk about, but it's all in my books. So that's one thing that everyone can do. And I'll challenge everyone, myself included. Every single thing that you see on the store shelves, whether it's the cleaners, your bleaches, your body care, there are natural solutions and alternatives to everything, and it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. That's the key. I get it. We're on a budget. Some people are really struggling financially right now. Well, you could start making your own stuff. And quite frankly, you'll save a ton of money, you know, essential oils and Castiel soap. And some white vinegar goes a long way for a lot of things. I mean, I'm just saying it's not toxic stuff. Absolutely. And you know, and so imagine being able to clean, quite frankly, not having to use rubber gloves because you're not afraid of the chemicals in your hands. Like that's another mindset, right? Wow. I don't need to be afraid of this stuff. And then for women, the ladies out there who bless your heart for the sake of beauty, how many of you are just inundated with hundreds, literally hundreds of chemicals through the hairsprays, the makeups, the body care like you smell great. You look great, but at what cost, and, and I want to challenge because ultimately what's happening is you're hurting your skin. You're hurting your beauty. Ultimately you're causing premature aging, but more importantly, the chemicals that you're breathing through, all that stuff, isn't doing any favors. So I understand the beauty industry really is capitalized on a lot of things, vanity self-loathing, self-esteem all this stuff, but they make everything so nice and shiny and smelly. It's like, yeah, let me do it. But at what cost. And so I read one study that the average woman walks out of her home with like 287 chemicals are in around their body. And, you know, men typically, because men typically don't use as much product especially makeup, which is a big deal. Again, you're licking your lips. The anything that hits your skin, seeps into your bloodstream. Think about that. Again, there's a definite gender difference here for most people. Like we typically do the body care, the hair care, maybe some cologne typically that's it. But you know, that's even, what's going on your skin, which ultimately ends in your bloodstream. And that's why in my book, we talk about leaky skin. Everyone's heard about leaky gut, but who's talked about leaky skin. Who's talked about leaky brain, right? These are known medical conditions that are just as Alteryx dermatologists are talking about, but that's like the primary cause of chronic inflammation. I mean, eczema, psoriasis. Yeah. That's an issue people see with their skin care. But what about internally? Like, are you saying my gut issues and my heart rate and my respiratory concerns might be because of the supper put on my skin. Yeah. Why? Because your skin is the first layer of your immune system. It's defense number one. I mean, this is immunology one-o-one, everyone. That's why quite frankly, when you're seeing these doctors in these vaccine trials, they're in hazmat suits in the labs. I mean, they're in hazmat suits because you need to be careful not only of what you're breathing, but what you're touching and your immune system starts with your skin. And if your skin isn't intact, if it's not properly moisturized, if it's overly dried or damaged because of the chemicals, then you have micro slits in your skin, microbiome, just like people have micro slits in their gut microbiome. So now more chemicals will seep into the bloodstream. I'm telling you, this is a known issue. No, one's talking about it. Well, I try to a little bit and I try to create awareness on that, but it's these little things. And then once all the dots connect, you're like, wow, I get the big picture. Now I get it. And then slowly, and that's my message for everyone and again, I'm younger than you Wade, but you know, I appreciate you've been doing this for decades. I only have 18 years under my belt, but I recognize I've been doing this for 18 years and it's taken me 18 years to develop these habits and little tricks of the trade for someone that just heard yesterday, that high-fructose corn syrup. Isn't good for them. Like they're overwhelmed listening to us right now. They're like, well, you know, take baby steps, you know, kick up the aerosols, replace with diffusers, start small, get quick wins. And I'll tell you learn from the other experts that Wade has on his podcast and learn from my books and we'll help fast track you. So you don't need three decades worth of trial and error to come up with a solution you can learn from us. And that's the benefit of the information age that we're in, because all this stuff's at people's fingertips and they don't have to struggle through.

 Wade Lightheart: Great stuff. And I I'm so big on this topic because I think once you start experiencing aroma therapy, as in its natural state, you can quickly determine the difference between an artificially generated chemical and how that feels versus a naturally occurring one. And I use essential oils, we have a diffuser that we put out, we give away as gifts actually, we don't sell them. We just actually give them a yeah. And a little diffusers and I'll put the scent in. And it's interesting when you go to maybe a care place and you walk in and instantly you feel that nervous system flip. And I think with so many people being stressed out and overstimulated and you're talking, you said something here that I think is really important. This is a direct non feedback system that you instantly can shift. It's a fast, it's a fast response mechanism. So what are some things that you can suggest maybe that, or some essential oils that tend to be able to take a person they're coming in from a stressful work day or they're coming in to their house, or, you know, whatever's been going on and they need to flip that switch really quickly and, you know, clear their head as a lot of people say the clear my head, you know, any suggestions on that?

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'm gonna actually, I got my book in front of me. I want to read a list because I think this is important for those people who take notes. This is coming from the essential oils apothecary new book. And you want to focus on linalool and lineal acetate rich essential oils. I just named two chemicals that are naturally occurring in plants that are found in high quantities in these essential oils. And these are the oils that can help stimulate and put you in that parasympathetic state immediately it's calming. These are sedatives. These are anticonvulsants and Anxiolytic oils. So let's start with the top, in everyone, you and I'll preface this by lavender, right? Everyone talks, lavender. Everyone usually recognizes lavender as being a wonderful calming, but lavender is middle of the road. When it comes to the true efficacy, it's a wonderful smell and people love it, myself included. But when I create this list, when I read this list, we're talking from top to bottom, meaning 95% of whole wood essential oil contains linalool. So, if you want to really tap into the calming sedative effects of a chemical known as linalool, you want to get Howood is really earthy, deep rooted.

 Wade Lightheart: How do you spell that?

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Hoe H O and then another word wood, w O O D.

 Wade Lightheart: Howood.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: 95%. Now Rosewood down a notch about 85% or so depending on the type of oil, coriander seed is another good one. Again, top to bottom Magnolia leaf, Magnolia flower, by the way, a little side note on Magnolia, I have what I call my heavenly scent blend. I'll never forget moving from Michigan down to Georgia, where I now live. And I remember for the first time smelling a Magnolia blossom, I just can't put any other words to say. It smells like heaven on earth to me, it was like this wonderful, sweet smelling citrusy lemon, subtle aroma of just life, love. It was refreshing. And so when I smelled Magnolia by itself, it's a nice aroma as an oil. But when I add Magnolia to lemon and lime, it creates what I call my heavenly scent. And I kid you not, this is kind of funny. That's my cologne. So whenever I go out, especially in a group setting, the compliments I get, especially from the dudes, like, well, what are you wearing? You smell good, bro. Like, it's funny because it attracts people. They like are drawn to it. Why? Because it's calming, it's parasympathetic stimulating, but the, with the lemon and the lime is very invigorating in that it's mood boosting and it's just smells good. It feels good. Then you become like this infectious walking diffuser that makes people wow! Smile on their face. So Magnolia is number four. Burger mountain mint that's number five, range from anywhere from 25 to 55% of the oil contains linalool, quickly now down the list, Neroli love it. That's orange blossom. I have wonderful stories about driving in Florida and just smelling like what is that beautiful smell? And I just see orange groves and blossom. Wonderful, wonderful. But here it is. Middle of the road, lavender right next on the list is Elilang Lang and then petty grain, bergamot, Clary, Sage, and geranium. Now we hear, we see similar oils in the lineal acetate. Again, it's a different chemical, still sedative, calming anxiolytic, top of the list is Clary Sage. And a lot of women's blend use Clary Sage. On the side note, Clary Sage has been proven, inhaling Clary Sage during labor, during labor talking birth Clary Sage inhaling, it has been shown to decrease the pain related the first stages of labor just by smelling it. Why? Because it triggers that parasympathetic calming effect, puts the mother at ease and just, and you know how they do it. They just get a little cotton swab and put five or 10 drops of oil on it. And just let the mom just, again pin to the gown in labor and hospital done. Now down the list again, Andy Petite grain, wonderful oil, the citrusy type of oil lavender, again kind of higher on the list will lineal acetate, but we got bergamot mint, sweet margarine, neroli and cardamom. These are the top oils with the highest concentrations of those two chemicals that you want to tap into. These are the same chemicals that chemists and pharmacists are tapping into make their anticonvulsant type of drugs too. They just synthetically manufactured. I'd rather get the real deal from plants. So again, when you look at essential oils, especially if you're watching right now, I'm just holding up a bottle of oil for those who are listening. But you're looking at roughly two to 300 different plant chemicals here, two to 300 different plant chemicals. And that is steamed distilled to make this bottle. And what is this? You're looking at three pounds of lavender flowers, and that's hard to conceptualize because you go to your garden like we have, and you pick up a lavender blossom. It's lighter than air three pounds of that steam distilled get one itty bitty bottle. It takes extreme, excessive, tremendous amount of plant matter just to get one Eddy bitty bottle. So with that, I stress a caution in that you're not going to walk into the lavender field, the Rose garden, the orange Grove, and see a pool of essential oil. Let that sink in, their natural in so far as they are extracted from plants, but they're manufactured, which means they're taken out of context to what we see in nature. So you can't just use this stuff straight onto your skin drinking in a bottle like you drink a juice, no, this, this is highly concentrated plant-based medicine. Like your supplement has an infinitely less therapeutic effect than the essential oil, because it doesn't have the essential oil in it. Your supplements been dehydrated, your supplement, your food doesn't have this concentrate again. This is concentrated plant matter. And when I look at the research, when I talk about diabetes and obesity in my book, we're looking at cinnamon bark while a lot of people diabetics ,you cinnamon bark powder to help balance blood glucose at a minor level, but one drop, one drop of cinnamon bark can have the same effect as up to a tablespoon of cinnamon powder. Just conceptualize that for just a minute. One drop of peppermint will have the same effect of up to 20 bags of peppermint tea. So a little goes a long way, but what I want to stress is the importance of recognizing this stuff as a true therapeutic therapeutic intervention and nothing. Again, that's not the takeaway from supplements or food because I love my supplements. I love my food, but nothing can have the profound therapeutic efficacy similar to a drug. And that's where we see time and time again, when anxiety stress pain, we see that these essential oils are very comparable to, if not better than using pharmaceuticals. And the key is there are virtually zero. Yeah, I will say again, zero side effects when used properly beside the rare case of someone might being allergic to them. If you use these things the right way, again, you're not drinking 15 drops straight in your mouth. You're not putting a half an ounce on your skin. You use these the proper way. There's like virtually zero side effects and no drug on the planet can boast that.

 Wade Lightheart: Very fascinating this topic. And of course, I think some of the origins of your work is kind of trace back to biblical origins. If you think back through much of the, actually the historical or spiritual texts in all cultures with you're going back to the Upanishads, or you going to the Gita or you go to the Christian Bible or these various texts, they'll talk about different types of oils are used for different events and ceremonial practices or for healing stuff. How did your own journey start to leverage kind of this quote, unquote, some people would say ancient wisdom, and then what happened? How did we lose it? All of us, like, it just seemed to go like it was passed on for generations and generations and generations and then suddenly it's all disappeared.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Well, my journey started when I became a Christian and it was one of those. I was blind. Now I see moments. I was, I was an addict. I was an alcoholic. I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I was abusing street, drugs, narcotics. I, you know, the say I hit my college years and my teen years, it wasn't that it was to another level because it was rooted in clinical depression, anxiety, panic attacks, at one point I was contemplating suicide. So I really hit my proverbial rock bottom. And then I met Christ and I had a Christ consciousness or moment in my mentor said, Eric, your body's a temple of the Holy spirit. You to take care of it. It's like your spiritual act of worship. Because when I met him, I'll never forget going to a neurologist because I had a scoliosis developing chronic pain. It like early twenties. And he looked at me, he's like, what did you do to your back? You have a spine of a 50 year old, like what happened to you? And I can maybe go back and trace back, you know, living in an abusive environment and bad food and or antibiotics taking Accutane, the suicide drug. When I developed cystic acne, when I was a kid, I think all those things compounded to just really create a place where I wasn't feeling well. And the key though was I didn't have purpose in life. Like I was purposeless. And me, as you could hear, maybe some of the passion in my voice, there's always been this passion, this fire in my bones. And if I didn't have an outlet, it just welled within me. And it ended up rotting within me, quite frankly. And that created a deep, deep depression, a deep depression. So for me, it was the revelation that I got to take care of myself and then seeing net natural healing gifts from God were the answer that I needed. But interestingly though, essential oils, weren't part of my story. My story had to do with food, prayer, meditation, mind, body, yoga had to do with supplementation, a lot of good things, but it wasn't until one of my clients. Cause it was a research writer for hire at the time, commissioned me to write a series of public health reports on essential oils, that it was like my job, my job to read hundreds of research trials, I was like, Whoa, what is the stuff? And Wade, this is the key for me, I was at a point where I was so hesitant because medicine hurt me. I don't want to say I was a victim of medicine, but you know, it didn't do me favors. I was a medical failure. And in a lot of sense, I call that were doctors couldn't help me. Medicine couldn't help me. So I was very much hesitant and gun shy, you know, because of that. So if I ever developed a headache and infection, whatever it might be even a pimple, I would never go to medicine like out grin and bear it and just deal with it. And that was my life for several years. I always yearned for a medicine cabinet that had that effect. And that really is what essential oils did for me. It filled up my medicine cabinet to like, wow, I actually have a solution now for athlete's foot or a pimple or a headache or whatever. It might be indigestion, nausea. Like everything people have in their medicine cabinet, the Pepto-Bismol, the sleep Aid, the pain relief. I don't have any of that. I have oil version of that. And then I met my wife who is beautiful, Mrs. Georgia, 2019 smells great all the time. And she's been using the essential oils and she's been a teenager and it kind it all fit together. It's like, Oh wow. You know how two people come together to compliment one another. And she started teaching me and showing me like, she's a formulator of all of our DIY recipes. I'm just the researcher, Sharon, what the, I got the easy job. All I'm doing is talking what the researchers have proven. That's my job. Right? I try to do it in a way that makes sense to people, but she's the one who gets her hands dirty to make stuff. And I love that because she's the one who come up with all these body care and cleaning products. So to answer your other question, how do we get into this place? Quite frankly, it's because of our lust for convenience. And I don't want to say laziness, but in the mid forties, the antibiotic was invented and introduced to society. And we changed from that moment on before the antibiotic. And this is historically proven is before the antibiotic, it was plant medicine. And what, here's a rhetorical question, right? The answer is, what do you think we're talking about? What do you think medics used as combat medicine in world war one in world war II in the comp we're talking to the front lines. What do you think was in the medic kit to prevent gangrene and help on the front lines of the world wars, essential oils. I mean, that's all they had clove, eucalyptus, tea tree, lavender, oregano time, lemongrass, depending on what country they're from. They had their own flavor and spice. Right? That was what our medicine was. And then yeah antibiotic came in, boom. Who wants to smell like a pizza? Who wants to get their hands messy? I've got this white shiny pill, like it solve your problem of course, I'm going to take that. It's convenience. And we see the same thing. The microwave boy, great promises. Hey, who wants to wait? Now? Five minutes to heat up food. You could get it in five seconds. It's like, are you kidding me? I can soften my butter and you know, whatever. It's the lust for convenience and speed that has been the demise of our society in a lot of ways. And so when you go back to nature, it really is more of a slow healing, slow eating, slower more natural, more sustainable lifestyle that gets us out of this fast food mentality that could go zip right in, get my food zip right out and end up with a Pepto-Bismol as my dessert, because I can barely handle the ingestion because I'm eating so fast. Well, that's a problem. And so what we've seen is a reversal because now this new generation of people like me who have been failed by medicine, victimized by their, I say misinformation over the years, the first thing a child gets is an antibiotic for any sort of infection. Well, Hey, I think that's the last thing a child should get. We should try a couple of other things first. I'll never forget. And this is my wife, not me. I'll never forget my baby girl. My first, I have five. My first daughter, I'll never forget her as a baby. We're talking 11, 12 months having a one O four temperature. Now parents would rush to the urgent care, get the antibiotic, whatever it would be that they do. I remember always saying, don't worry about it. Like again, I'm a dad, I'm a newer dad. I'm kind of freaking out. My baby, right? My wife got some orange oil, some pepermint oil. She mixed it in her hand with some coconut oil. So it's diluted. She gave my daughter a back rub, a foot rub, a head rub. Within 20 minutes, we measured it. It was down to one-o-one like, wow, the next day it was one O two. Well that's better than baseline, baseline was one O four down to one-o-two. She did the application again within 27 minutes, it dropped to like 90, 99, 98, nine half or so. Well, the next day she was completely fine. That was my aha moment. And by the way, that 20 minutes and I mentioned is clinically proven. We've seen the research show that topical application of essential oils within 20 minutes, the full concentration of the linalool and the lineal acetates all those plant chemicals I mentioned will be in your bloodstream. Detected, detectable, but here's the key within an hour and a half or two hours they're gone. You can't find them. They become completely metabolized. Like that's pretty important. So we can talk a lot about why that's important, but you can't say that about drugs. Like how many drugs are completely metabolized, not many, by the way, they get stored in your bloodstream or they get stored up in your fat cells, your kidney or liver, they damage your body. Biotoxin buildup is a known thing. But also the reason why I mentioned that is we have to be applying essential oils regularly for trying to treat a disease. And that's why your 24 hour DEET spray going back back to your example about that air freshener. Those are chemicals, chemicals surfactants, in these products that are keeping the smell encapsulated. Your detergent should be washed out by the water and especially the heat. It was going through a drying cycle, like a dryer. You should not smell a strong smell of your clothes two to three days after you do your laundry. I mean, that's not good. That's chemical surfactant, capsulate the toxic smell that you're now wearing 24/7. Do you have skin issues? Do you have rashes? Do you have just aches and pains? You can't describe maybe because the clothes on your body are just wrapping you with toxins all day long. I'm not kidding. This is real stuff. People don't think about that. Like, wow, this smells so great. No, it's not good. That's a hundred percent completely unnatural. It should. It shouldn't be like that. So that's good.

 Wade Lightheart: Yeah. The question on that, because I think a lot of people might find surprising and you talked a little bit about it, but the toxic buildup that can happen over the course of a lifetime. And certainly, you know, for example, I'm dealing with a client right now, very successful person, really takes care of the health and moved into a new, build out a new home, built out this whole great thing. And all of a sudden starts has this uncontrollable itching factor, right? It's crazy histamine response. And you know, we're starting to like, we're looking at every foot size. So you'll see some people that, you know, all of a sudden they'd start developing eczema or they start developingneurological conditions or whatever. Have you been able to determine, number one, over the course of the lifetime, when did people start implementing these things or what are triggering chemicals that tend to put people over or events? Cause I know Udo Erasmus, for example, got exposed to fertilizers and almost killed them. And that's what got him into fats that heal and fats that kill, for example you know, there's other, there's other stories that people have these kinds of life-changing things where they got interrupted, but then they found a way to detox. What are some of maybe the big violators that really mess people up? And then what is your strategy for kind of cleaning that toxic load out? So you don't get these issues,

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: The one thing and I wonder if this is your client, my initial thought is, has he tested his air quality for mold?

 Wade Lightheart: Yeah, we actually we've run that one because it's a huge issues in a desert brand new home, no more. There was some off… We felt there was some off gassing with rubber or plastics and things but still we're going through every possible things that I'm just looking for clues.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Yeah. And it might just be something rare that is a sensitive trigger to him for such an odd reason. But when you mentioned the general ones, the one that usually comes to mind is mold. That is a big deal in a lot of folks at what do I do, right? And so that's a tough.

 Wade Lightheart: Move burn the house down.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Ideally. Right. And so that's a tough one though, but they're also, the thing is, is that you have to be sensitive to any changes. And ideally you're at a point, people are at a point where they recognize their body responding differently to different things. And so it could be a number of things. I mean, really an off gassing is a big concern, but they're also this thing where Wade, I kind of want to temper it with, you know, we could develop a significant OCD where it's like, wow, everything where it's like the carpet and this and that you do what's best, but I'll say the best solution for me. And I think everyone, you need a high quality air purifier. Like there's, there's no way I could live my life without having quality air. Cause the thing is, I know just by virtue of living in an environment with all these different, like again, even this, this styrofoam on my microphone, God knows what, what is this truly made out of, but you got to live and that's where the thing you got to live. And so we have air purification in every room household we, you know, the things you can control in your home, your food, your water, your air, and those are the three non-negotiables, if you do your best. And also I find that people who are triggered by things, it's essentially like a pre auto immune condition where the body is so heightened and alert and gets triggered quite unnaturally where it's like the body should be able, you know, a friend of mine, who's a homeopathic physician, Joe at Colibri in by everyone to check out her website. She's awesome. She said, you should be able to go eat a happy meal or McDonald's and not feel sick. Your body should be strong enough where you could handle that. You know, again, not for lifestyle, but it shouldn't cause weeks worth of, you know, things. And so that, that's just kind of a, just a mindset. But I wish I knew in the thing is it's so rare for so many peoplecause it's almost an unlimited amount of things that you can get testing on, but hopefully you'll find, and it, quite frankly, it could be something that you would never expect a new body care, a new cleaning product or something like, wow, what is this? It doesn't make sense. But typically itching, headaches, nausea, brain fog. Like these are the kinds of basically they're auto immune symptoms, but these are the kinds of symptoms that happen when you're introduced to something but my heart goes out to your client because I know how challenging could be, but here's the thing once you find it, it's like almost overnight things change.

 Wade Lightheart: What I was actually specifically asking is do you have any techniques on detoxing, maybe overall toxic load that people might have that, that you find for people that may have been subjected to an overload chemicalized.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. And me personallyI guess I'm old fashioned in that a good old water fast or I believe fast. I mean really at the end of the day less is more. And I have found personally that allowing my body to heal itself and typically speaking food and other things really just compromise the metabolism. So if someone could go through a supervised extended water fast, that really is ideally one of the best things someone can do. Depending on their diet or persuasion, maybe easing into that with the juice fast, my friend just did a one month juice fast and it was, it was freeing spiritually, emotionally, mentally for him. And, you know, it's interesting you'll you don't recognize how much energy and metabolic burden it takes to digest food. And so I would say just for me, it's always going back to fasting. I'm less is more kind of person. I know people swear in my life.

 Wade Lightheart: You do fasting?

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Yeah. I do intermittent fasting and I've gotten it. I will say it's been out of a habit ever since I've had younger children. I have gotten out of the habit. I used to fast every week. Just a full day water fast. And that's something that I'm getting back into, but I regularly intermittent fast. Like I'll eat once a day and that's really helped me really stay clean, sharp alert, but yeah, water fasting, especially for extended periods of time, like three, four, five days is wonderful. I made, it's just wonderful. But I would say start one day, just see what it's like doing a water fast and ideally like on a weekend or a day where you don't have to like perform mentally. Cause if you're like me, I'll weigh you down. But Wade, that's my suggestion and I have friends, detox experts that have all these regimens and things and I'll leave that to the detox experts. But I will tell you though if you're doing something one can think I can help. We actually have this in my new book, we have a detox bath recipe that could at least help from the outside in, and that I'll give you the recipe. Well, I'd probably with this. I don't have the measurements on my head. I'm an Italian. Okay. So I'll preface that we just throw ingredients together. And so here's my recipe. I get a handful of Epson salts. I get eggs. I get an in a cup. So you get like a, whatever, a glass, you get a handful Epson salts get, you know, a couple dollops there of, let's say olive oil. And you put in a little dollop there of Apple cider vinegar, couple drops of lemon, couple drops of lavender. I want to preface, don't use coconut oil because it will harden in your pipes depending on where you live. And that could cause a problem, a big problem. So my, a friend of ours had a dredge out a hundred feet of his pipe because he used too much Coconut oil is horrible. So anyway, you get all that together. And why do you use olive oil or Hudoba because you want to dilute the essential oil, but the Epson salts, the Apple cider vinegar having the essential oils, lavender opens up your body open, you know, opens up your airways, opens up your pores, calms you down. Lemon is very detoxifying. It's very healing. You can put it in a little bit of Roman chamomile, but we find that as a wonderful detox bath, it's also great to help with sleep, helps with mood. Going back to your earlier question, stress anxiety. When's the last time you've given yourself a little bit of me time. And quite frankly, when push comes to shove, especially with so many spas and massage therapist out of business because of COVID and things, a lot of people have neglected self-love and me-time and treatments. And so I love it. I mean, I just gave you a recipe that no joke probably costs a buck 50, maybe $2 on the high end. You can afford that hopefully two bucks that gives you $2 worth of an hour's worth of self spot time, get some maybe lavender scented candles, like real lavender, not fake, get some nice calming music, put yourself in an environment where it's just about you. And it's just about taking care of yourself for five minutes. Now you're at the Ritz-Carlton spa joining a thousand dollar treatment. You're at the four seasons. That's one of the keys that I love about essential oils is because it creates the environment around you. But again, that's a strategy we do. I would water fast. I would do a detox bath. And that's my strategy for overall on detoxification.

 Wade Lightheart: Yeah. And we're going to put some links to the book inside this interview. I want to go, just switch gears a little bit because for those who have been listening to the podcasts and know, they know I grew upin an extremely rural situation, five miles to my nearest neighbor off a dirt road, literally and I got used to being in the forest as a young person, and it was part of my upbringing and the sounds and the senses and an acute sense of a liveliness and awareness of being in a forest environment. And at the time I was a little disappointed. It was moved away from my friend and put into it, but then I got to know what it was to be quiet or to bein this kind of very, very, I would, it's like a hyper aware soft state. In other words, you're very present. And as we live now, now today, I live in, you know, one of the craziest cities in the world, Los Angeles, super toxic environment, super, you know, you got the sound, you get the smell, you got the pollution, you got the traffic, you got the planes going overhead. And I'm just a straight shot right out here at the beach. And I always find it interesting how, if I can just get past what I call the electromagnetic field and you can feel it. And when you walk out past Venice beach, there's a, there's a point you walk past the field and it's like, you enter into this new world, like I'm out of the Truman bubble. Yeah, exactly. Bell the ocean. And you can feel the ions and you hear the birds and the sun and all the craziness kind of drifts away. It's fascinating too. It's a fascinating thing. Talk about this new trend, which is really an old trend because it was, you know, that's how we lived is of this whole thing about forest bathing and people going into the forest for therapy and enjoying that and picking up the natural senses and the sounds that occur in these places.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: So last year I had the challenge, the burden, the privilege of writing this book in quarantine. And so I'm going to, I want to read the first paragraph of the introduction because it kind of just sets the tone to why this is even important, on April 15th, 2020, when most of America and the world were under shelter in place orders due to COVID-19, Roger's say Holt MD posted his pandemic update 56, what is forest bathing? And can it boost immunity against viruses? He posted on YouTube, hit millions of views. It quite frankly, up until then. I've never heard of forest bathing. I experienced for bathing, but I never knew of it as a here. Yeah. And so it started me and, but I want to preface this discussion. Can it boost immunity against viruses? And what, what Roger was talking about was, is there a danger in being endorsed too much. Now up until, now this crazy situation we've been in, we had a record high 93% on average of our time has been spent in doors. I mean, that's scary when you think of it, most of the time…

 Wade Lightheart: Which is interesting because the virus actually spreads in doors. Which is the ironic part, which I think I was listening to Eric Weinstein excuse me, Bret Weinstein, who was an expert in these type matters says that that's why he feels that the lab theory is the most likely one, because most viruses are born outdoors, but this virus grows indoors, which is indicative that they present engineered potential, like some sort of engineering process that has gone horribly wrong, which makes you wonder that putting everybody inside the consequences. And then of course, these guys come in and say, Hey, no, we got to get outside.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: So you have before, before COVID 93% of our time collectively, we spent indoors. After COVID, I don't even know the data cause it hasn't been done yet, but I can only conjecture literally. Yeah. Collectively I've met people. I know people who had literally haven't left their home in a year. So this is why Roger's talking about this. Again, this was in the middle of the lock gum. This was when I'm writing my book. I'm like, I felt quite frankly it was divine inspiration. I felt it was a gift from God that experienced this to see this, to go through it. I'm like, what is this forest bathing stop. And that's when I let Dr. Jingly and again, please check out his book on Amazon type up forest bathing Dr. Lee. That's when I let him just teach me. And here I am in my infrared sauna, enjoying quarantine, I'm at home reading this book enjoying it. I'm not kidding. It was a wonderful, just okay. It was my reset button. And I started aha moments, after aha moments I have started experience the revelation. Wade, basically what we're talking about is what Japanese culture considers in coins. Shinran Yoku that's forest bathing. It's being outside in a densely wooded area. And what the effect does again, going back to Dr. Roger talking about its immune boosting property. I'll give you a little kind of tidbit, one forest bathing session. Again, just again, give little nuances in a minute, but just being outside in nature, no joke. Being outside in nature for two hours, we'll have an impact on your immune system that increases your natural killer cells, which by the way, is what fight cancer, will lower inflammation, boost your immunity for 30 days, just one session outside. And I started looking again, this was a doctor Dr. Roger was talking about and in his YouTube video. And then I'm like, well, what else can it do? And that's where Dr. Lee covers all the benefits. And literally when you go to Japan right now, there are dozens of forest bathing centers. Like they actually have a healthcare practitioner doing pre and post evaluations on you to guide you on what to do. And then they're doing actual physiological measures. Like your blood pressure, your heart rate, your stress levels. They prescribed being out in nature. Why, because you mentioned about the negative ions. You mentioned the feeling, you mentioned the actual physical sensation of being outside. Well, that's part of it, but what about the site? The ocular sensation, you know, in English we woefully lack descriptive language, you know, in Japan or Japanese, there's a word to describe the type of light that shines through the leaves from the sun that's forest bathing. Again, it took me 10 words to describe that. There's one word for that. I can't pronounce it, forgive me. But again, you're outside. You're looking at the sun glistening through the trees. You're looking at the sacred geometry. Our brains have been wired to see patterns. And there are patterns in every tree, every plant, every year, grain of dirt that brings a piece of calm. That's a parasympathetic state that we're in calming, peace, healing, and then your listing. And you allow the, you know, your sense of sound, hearing to minister to your spirit, where research has shown. Again, this is on the context of forest bathing research has shown that the sounds of the city, even the hum hum, hum of your fan and your favorite sound spot trigger stress, triggers a sympathetic response when you're outside the rustling in the wind that birds chirping, the whistling of whatever it might b, the reeds and the wind or the stream, the waves of the sea produce calm and peace. And this isn't the make everyone sedative. This isn't the kind of make people, no, we're talking parasympathetic state is where you heal. Parasympathetic state is where you get out of this crazy rat race. It's where you can think be creative. It's when emotions and mood balances, you will feel better. You'll be happier. You'll actually be more energetic. And the thing about forest bathing is to me, the reason why I talk about it in my book, the essential oils apothecary is the volatile organic compounds being emitted from the plants, stimulate the olfactory system to bring you to a place of true healing it's tree medicine. And when you're smelling something outside, even smelling blades of grass, being freshly mown with your lawnmower, what do you think you're smelling essential oil. So when you're walking in a densely wooded areas, especially with our evergreens, the Cyprus and the fir trees, they're wonderful. The pine, pinene is a wonderfully healing anti-inflammatory mood boosting chemical. That's fine. That's found in these evergreen trees. So you get the aroma therapy, you're getting the experience, hopefully you're grounding, but here's the key. I'll give everyone a tip forest bathing isn't about doing a mud runner or a hundred mile run. It's not about going up there with a direct purpose of accomplishing something, to leave your phone aside. It's about being, it's about being with hopefully some people that you love, you want to be with, or maybe being by yourself and just enjoying outside. It really is one of those things. If you want to, you could read, lay down, you can walk, you can do a little yoga or you can just kind of like what I like to do. I like to put my baby of a six month old. I like to put them in my, a baby carrier, I just like to go outside like the walk and put my hands into a stream and get back into that experience where I'm going back to nature. So Wade, what you're talking about was you were raised in arguably the most healthy healing environment on the planet and everything that we've done. And now it's kind of funny where you're in LA, right? It's the exact opposite of that. But you know what the thing is, we could still hack in. We could still bring it inside. That's why right now I'm literally diffusing oils from the trees. I'm diffusing woods, the oils right now. And it's interesting. I can't, and I'll never say this. We can't be essential oil deficient. Like people could be deficient in vitamins and minerals. Like those are essential nutrients you live, you need to live, you don't need essential oils to live, but research has actually suggested that you need essential oils and bioactive compounds to have a robust health. Actually, that's a proven concept straight from the research. So I found myself Wade in the pandemic, quarantine craving tree oils. I love being outside. I love it. I'm a hiker. I live right near forest. It's thankfully across the street from me. And I, you know, even if you don't have a forest, hopefully you have a city park or anywhere where there's trees or plants nearby gardens. I found myself craving that smell. And so during last year, craziness, I found this Douglas fir orange blend was my jam. It got me through the pandemic. It really did. And you mentioned about how you could use smells for a lot of neurological imprinting. See that's called or one thing, one healing mechanism. My friend, Dr. Tony Jimenez from the hope for cancer clinics utilizes his emotional recall therapy. And he has his emotional recall therapist use essential oils to help imprint the brain while these beautiful men and women heal from cancer. And it brings them back to their healing sessions. So for me, we had a very victorious experience through the pandemic because a lot of the things that we had set in place and a lot of the support that we had, and those smells had brought me through a lot of challenging times, but that Douglas fir those tree oils, that orange oil it's my thing now. And I know, because I know this is, I know this is just how physiology works. I know that when something happens in the future, that brings me to maybe a state of overwhelm I'll burn in anxiety. Like I experienced this last year, going back to those oils were bringing me to the place of healing, bring me to the place of conquering that mental attitude. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Like these are the mantras that I spoke when I smelled these oils when I was in my sauna, reading the books. And it's one of those things that I know I can tap into whenever I need.

 Wade Lightheart: Very, very, very good! One final piece, I want to add. Cause I'd like to get your opinion on it. I have a friend who use vapes, different types of herbs and things like that. And then add essential oils on it too, which will be vaporized through a kind of a German vaporizing machine. And you'll elicit different designs. Anything about the effect on the lungs or things like that or breathing essential oils that you might be cognizant of.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Yeah. I'm very cautious of that. And I highly recommend using any sort of vaping smoking type of mechanism that puts highly concentrated, essential oil vapor in the lungs directly like that. And also C-PAP for people that have C-PAP, don't do it. I don't care what your, I don't care what anyone says, it's you don't need highly concentrated, essential oil vapors. It's creating can create more lung respiratory irritation, inflammation having it be in the natural state, right. That's where a nebulizer and that's where I'd argue anyone who says to me that it's safe, a nebulizer is a diffuser without water. So again, I'm diffusing essential oils. I got six drops of essential oil in 150 milliliter water tank, right? I mean, we're talking nothing highly dispersed and it's diffused for eight hours. A nebulizer is a diffuser with just essential oils and it just diffuses pure essential oil vapor. I put myself in a situation not knowing better that I end up getting dizzy credit vertigo, nauseousness, because I wasn't in a well ventilated area. We can't truly process, highly concentrated plant molecules like that. And I would just say, I'm definitely not a fan of vaping on any sense. And I would say use it in a more safely precautionary manner.

 Wade Lightheart: Great stuff. All right, well, let's find out where people can get more information about you, your book, follow this stuff because I think there's going to be some very powerful ideas. I can't wait to get a copy of the book myself. I didn't get a chance to read it before I got here before I got on the podcast, but I'm particularly interested in concocting my own essential oil blends to start using it because it's something my mom did. And it's something that I want to engage in because you know, I've got these little diffuse of here and I've noticed the improvements and I've got them in different rooms and I start playing with it. And I just liked the feeling. I like, there's something magical about it. People comment about it when they experience it. So it's like, I want more of this. And it sounds like what's beautiful about your book is it's not associated with any brand, any company, anything else? This is all about you talking about the things that you've discovered, Your expertise and how people can use these powerful historical oils to elicit a whole bunch of positive, healthy responses.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Yeah. My book's called the essential oils apothecary and it's a continuation of my first book, this book is about advanced strategies and protocols for chronic disease. So for people that…

 Wade Lightheart: Oh, so that's the first book, by the way, we need the first book too.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: Yeah. I mean, that's a one-on-one version. It's international bestseller. It was wonderful. Still is it's called the healing power of essential oils. You can pick it up everywhere. Books are sold Amazon it's, you know, it's right there. It's readily available, so I wrote the healing power of essential oils to give everyone the basics, let's cover all that we talked about detoxing, but we had so many questions. Like what do I do for cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, libido, sexual dysfunction. And I want to be very careful and say, I'm not claiming cures for death, but I'm telling you there are. And I have 50 pages of references to prove it. There's a substantial amount of research to show how essential oils can help people successfully manage chronic disease and even prevent it. And so we're trying to help people look at chronic disease as a whole, and let's stop this epidemic because really truthfully, the reason why the world stopped because of COVID. It was because the world was sick and we know that obesity, diabetes, heart disease, primary risk factors, primary risk factors to determine someone's susceptibility of getting effected and dying of the virus. And if our nation wasn't obese, if 50% of the people weren't obese, we wouldn't be worried about this. I'm just telling you flat out sick people are worried about getting sick, healthy people aren't. And so if we, and this is why this is so important because people weren't talking about co-morbidities people weren't talking about these other things before now, now it's like, Whoa.

 Wade Lightheart: And the people who have been hospitalized is obesity.

 Dr. Eric Zielinski: So we can help. That's why I have a chapter on obesity and diabetes. So anyway, the essential oils apothecary, everywhere books are sold. I got a special gift for people too, because my wife and I love teaching. And we have teaching videos that walk you through how to make several of these recipes. We're talking 20 of them. And we talk a lot about little things that we couldn't fit in the book because the book, you know, we filled up the pages go to eoapothecary.com and get the book bonuses by the book and join the movement.

 Wade Lightheart: There. You have it folks. Dr. Eric Zielinski, he is the author of the national bestseller, the Healing Power of Essential Oils and the essential oils, apothecary. Apothecary. I still struggle with that word. I'll get it one time. Anyways, guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. And you know, this is one of those things that you really need to put into action. Go out, get the books, watch the videos, and start cooking up your own little formulas and start playing with it. And you'll be surprised of how fun essential oils can be. I'm a believer in a recently discovered… Rediscovered, I should say the power of essential oils, and I hope that you and your family do the same. Thanks so much for joining us today. That's another edition of the Awesome Health podcast, and we'll see you on the next episode. Take care.