Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 [00:00:00] Doctor Nicola Apelian is a multi-hyphenate. She's an herbalist and anthropologist, a wilderness survival skills instructor, a biologist, a mom and a former challenger on the History Channel survival show alum. Oh, God.
Speaker 2 [00:00:15] I'm alone. Oh, wow. I just landed at my spot, and, I feel really lucky. It's beautiful. It is beautiful here. Kind of excited to be alone. I might not feel that way later.
Speaker 1 [00:00:31] She's also an author of several books, including The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies, The Foragers Guide to Wild Foods, The Wilderness Long Term Survival Guide, and The Holistic Guide to Wellness. And yes, she is a doctor. One of the most inspiring people I've ever talked to in my life, to be quite honest.
Speaker 2 [00:00:48] All right, so you know who's with us this morning to help us get moving?
Speaker 1 [00:00:51] We have fitness.
Speaker 2 [00:00:51] Expert Tracy Anderson.
Speaker 1 [00:00:54] Tracy Anderson, Tracy Anderson. I'm so grateful to her. Okay Nicole, I am so excited to be here connected with you today even though it's through technology. My aunt, who I love dearly, she's a seeker of health and she's a seeker of, you know, quality of life and vitality and longevity and also healing and also understanding and also celebrating and being in all of these things. And she love nature, too. And she came to my, my home and she brought a bunch of yearbooks. I've been on this. Personal journey as we all are. Where nature just calls me more and more and more. So I decided to use just all of my years of experience with creating choreography and research and all of this to say, hey, I'm going to make some wooden tools from nature with a community that lives in harmony with nature. And that's what I'm gonna do. And I'm going to put it out there in the market. So I pick up your book, and I was like, oh gosh, I am still so far from nature. And this woman and this woman, she she is really she gets it. I need to learn from her. And there are a bunch of your books. They're stacked. So if somebody is going to talk about where Nicole is today and they're going to go to Nicole's site and they're going to see all these amazing tinctures in ways that they can improve themselves, through what you do, like where where would we start?
Speaker 2 [00:02:32] Well, first of all, it's amazing to be here today. Thank you so much for connecting and having me on. I live in the Pacific Northwest and in bend, Oregon right now, which is where my primary home is, in the mountains. And it's beautiful here. You can tell your crews are setting off. You know, I got to walk out and do a three mile hike out my back door this morning and look at the mountains and really just be in nature before, you know, getting on technology and having this great conversation with you, which is really centering and grounding. So I'm currently writing my seventh book. Most of them, as you know, Center on Herbal Medicine, Wild Foods, Wilderness Survival, Natural Herbal Protocol, talking about herbal protocols. For me, I'm a scientist, so one of the things I love to do is deep dive into really intense data and academic research and then take that peer reviewed research and reformulate it and put it out in a way that everybody in the world can understand it, because that can be really difficult. I mean, there's so much information on the internet and it's really hard to discern what's real, what's not. And I also run an herbal business, herbal apothecary, Nicole's Apothecary. I have my my supplements into my mushroom supplements. Those are for people who don't want to make the news and things themselves or, you know, really want just to better their health. And I like to have that on offer for people. But I also teach people how to make these things at their own home.
Speaker 1 [00:03:53] Wow, what an empowering introduction. I'm truly. And, we have a a ranch in Bozeman, Montana. And, I really my husband would love to live where you live in bend, Oregon. It was through there, too, that I felt this sort of. Wow, I am so much smaller than this beautiful nature that that gives so much to us to be put there by way of my husband. It was his life dream. He's worked his whole life to say, I want to. I want a lot of land in the West and and then being there and being in the presence of that, I just, I feel so small, I feel like found. But at the same time, I feel like I have abandoned my own nature. And so therefore I need to figure out how to learn to get comfortable in this place in space that, you know, we really came from and we should understand, but we're so denatured. It's like when you say, I went out my back door and I went for a three mile hike today, did you go to a path? You could go in any direction. You could go in any direction. You don't need a path. You don't need a path back. You could just go.
Speaker 2 [00:05:02] Yes. As long as you know your general directions and you know, know where you're at. You can just go. Yeah. There's a pretty warm path from where I go now.
Speaker 1 [00:05:11] The idea of someone just being dropped in nature, going into nature and actually feeling the restorative or grounding or effects of what nature can give back to us, or what we can give to ourselves in nature, which I think is like where you're going to ultimately find the ability to find peace of mind. We have so much noise in us. Doubt in us. So have you written any books on the City Girl's Guide to Just Taking a Real Hike?
Speaker 2 [00:05:40] And I do talk about that because it's a it's a struggle. We first of all, we've had this great forgetting, right? But being dropped by yourself, in the middle of nowhere, it's not something that we're prepared for anymore because we have had this great forgetting. But in the reality of that is, is that our DNA. We're hunter gatherers, right? We're primal people. And for me, when I got dropped out in the middle of nowhere, all I could think is, oh, this is a fantastic. Or you have to hunt. There's no there's no crew with alone. For those watching, it's their only real reality show I know of because you really are dropped and you film yourself and you're out and nature opens up your primal brain. You feel joy, you feel alive. You feel everything is in the present moment. And we spend so much time wallowing in the past or thinking about the future. But living in the present moment is really what brings up joy for people.
Speaker 1 [00:06:28] Where did you get dropped?
Speaker 2 [00:06:30] The first time was in the northwest corner of Vancouver Island in the fall and winter.
Speaker 1 [00:06:34] What are you dropped with?
Speaker 2 [00:06:36] You're allowed to pick ten items from a list. So I had a knife that I helped design and one of those very specific type of knife and an ax, a saw. I had a sleeping bag, a tarp, and a gillnet and some fish hooks and line. Pot. We have a satellite phone in case we need to tap out, and. But if you call that line, you're out. That's it. Then you get picked up and you are done. So. So if there's any medical emergency, you have to be able to treat yourself.
Speaker 1 [00:07:05] What would you say to a person that that is convinces themself to do something like this? They get dropped and then they absolutely have the biggest panic attack they've ever had in their life.
Speaker 2 [00:07:15] I say, wait it out because panic. You can walk yourself through that. But I think it's important to at least try. And I've done this before. It's not like I've gone out and never been alone in nature before. I used to live in Africa. I'd be alone for six seven weeks at my lion camp with no, you know, we didn't even have radios back then in the 90s. So you. I have been alone in the in nature before, so it wasn't a first time for that. I wouldn't suggest going on a show like that, you know, or being dropped for months at a time as, as your first foray into nature. People can do four day excursions and have life altering events, you know, mentally and physically.
Speaker 1 [00:07:51] I believe that the way forward is through exactly the way that you have come to, you know, live and experience your life. I believe that it's an emergency, and that is the way forward, that you're arguably one of the most important people that we can learn from today. So how did this, how did this Nicole come to be, this doctor nickel, did you grow up in the woods?
Speaker 2 [00:08:17] I didn't grow up in the woods. I grew up in mass in central Massachusetts, and I came out west. I only applied to West Coast graduate schools. So I got to Oregon in 1991 and came out and started graduate school here. And I knew I wanted to be out West. But growing up, my parents gave us a lot of freedom. You know, it was the 70s and they didn't have, for cell phones. No one was checking in on us. I was pretty feral as a child. And the rule was be home before dark. So even I wasn't in nature. I was in backyards. I was looking at bugs. I was running around with other kids. We just had all of this wonderful freedom. Yeah, yeah. No helicopter parents? No. Definitely not. And I believe kids should really have a lot of independence. You trust your kids until they tell you they can't. You can't be trusted. Can't be trusted. Right? My stepdad. Really? He married my mom when I was seven. He was a chemistry professor. And he really, helped foster. You really need mentors. That's so important. I think it's something we're losing in our culture because we don't have intergenerational families anymore. But he really fostered my love of nature, and it was pretty magical. And then I decided I wanted to go into biology just because of my love of the outdoors. I did my undergraduate and postgraduate degree in biology and, then did a lot of work just traveling around the world, were living in nature. I joined the Peace Corps and did that for a couple of years in Botswana. And then because I already had a graduate degree, I came on to a lion research project there for a number of years, and that really had me living in the middle of nowhere in the bush. When you live in a tent in the bush, you all of a sudden learn what I, what they call soft skills. But I think they're the most important animal communication, nature awareness, knowing what's there. Trust in your intuition. Tracking bird language. Birds will tell you everything. They're gossips. If you listen to the birds, you know everything going on in your neighborhood. And then I met up with a group of Kalahari Bushmen who are like family to me. And those where I learned the hard skills, which are. How do you make fire? By friction? How do you tan an animal? Hide. How do you look for food in the desert? Find medicine in the woods. All of those sorts of things. But those sorts of things I think are. They're important, but I think they're a little less important than the other bit with is trust your intuition. Listen to what's in nature and really just try to have that that intercommunication. When I moved back to the States in 2000, my sense of place was in Africa because I did all of that stuff there, and that's when I really buckled down and thought, okay, now I need to learn all this right here in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1 [00:10:44] I just took this call with my team and I'm like, I don't want to fall into this, like hot girl workout, hot girl meditation, hot girl, light your sage rolling, make your matcha. Because I don't believe that's real health. I believe that ego centric health, which is not really going to get deep. Have you ever felt how far we are as a society from nature?
Speaker 2 [00:11:05] Most definitely. And I think these books for me, are my way of giving back to the world and allowing people to reconnect with nature through wilderness survival. Through what eating wild foods, through using herbal medicine, through the empowerment of using natural medicine as opposed to big pharma. Because it tends to be better for us, natural medicine to the world because we have forgotten. And now there's so much scientific data to back all of these, the folklore and the traditional uses up. We want to make it, make us read, turn it into a rope, and then have this huge web of connection with the natural world. And by utilizing natural medicine, I feel like that is the way for a lot of people to be able to integrate that into their daily lives and feel connected in that way to nature and to each other.
Speaker 1 [00:11:54] I am fearful of taking things right, like I've gotten to a place in my life where I definitely don't eat processed foods. I don't like to take medicine, I don't. I get nervous about taking supplements. It would take a lot for me to even take a Tylenol, right?
Speaker 2 [00:12:09] And I don't take those things. Yeah, those are terrible for you.
Speaker 1 [00:12:12] My daughter was. She had to give some blood for, like, an allergy thing, and then she was nervous about it. And the doctor, who I love, who. I really appreciate the doctor, but the doctor was like, listen, I can just spray this thing up her nose to calm her down, and then she'll do it. And I was like, no, no, no no no no no. Like, she can do this. I'm not going to teach her to fear something as simple as a quick blood draw for unnecessary reason. And I'm not going to medicate her to to get there.
Speaker 2 [00:12:38] Those are good questions. Really good questions, Tracy. Yeah, okay. Everyone should be asking those questions. I think we're meant to feel that when we're asking those really important questions of the medical system, that for some reason we shouldn't be, but we should be asking those questions. They're really important. Or to your point, there's sort of two things. One, you say you like to really be prepared and have everything in your backpack and have everything on hand. I think that's great. I'm a prepper too. I have a garage full of food, you know. I know how hard it is to catch and get enough food to be able to sustain yourself on. It's really important. So if the grid goes down, if the system goes down, if something happens, if there's food shortages, I like having a, you know, a year's worth of food in my garage. So I don't think there's anything wrong in being prepared. You know, a lot of preparation things sort of push it with a base of fear. But the other point you were talking about is, you know, we've been we have been taught to fear herbal medicine, where in the past, that's all we use. The side effects of things, other things like herbal medicine, are so few. There are a few that interact with modern medicine, like Saint John's wort is pretty well known for interacting with a lot of Western medications. But I'm not anti-Western medication. I think it has its place and its use. Now my kid breaks his arm and we're going to go to the ER, and he's going to get it set. But as far as you're looking at pain medication and the, you know, the opioid crisis and there's so many things I go to. Herbal medicine is my first go I go to nutrition like you were talking about. This food is medicine. Yep. I go to herbal medicine. There's so much science now in the, in the field of herbal medicine that, I feel like it's caught up for the people who are doing academic research around herbal medicine. Thank goodness. It I mean, it's why I'm walking and healthy today. I mean, 25 years ago, I couldn't walk, I was bedridden for three years, and herbal medicine is what saved me.
Speaker 1 [00:14:27] That's another part of your journey that is so extraordinary is, you know, here you're accomplishing all of these things. And then to have a diagnosis like I missed it. Was that a big driver in your research where you wanted to be a self-advocate with the knowledge that you have, where you're like, no, no, no. Yes.
Speaker 2 [00:14:44] It was my primary driver. So I'm in my mid 50s and I was 30 when I got diagnosed with M.S. and it shut me down. I lost my eyesight is what first went and balance issues and then I went downhill really quickly. Huge amounts of nerve pain, always feeling I was being burned by a cigaret lighter. Tonic spasms where I fall to the ground. And finally I progressed to a cane, then a wheelchair at night. And then finally I was just bedridden and I tried every I tried. You know, I was scared. I was 30 years old, I was terrified. I really wanted to have, you know, get pregnant had I have to my next two sons, I didn't know that's what I would be having. But at the time, I wanted to live my life. I was hopeless, you know, I felt there was absolutely no hope. I couldn't think properly. My concentration went. And, you know, I really love my brain. It's one of my best qualities. Right? I love this brain. And, you know, I couldn't concentrate on anything. And so I finally went off the Western medication. I had this intuitive feeling. My gut told me. And I really am a strong proponent of gut health. And because I feel like it covers everything and listening to your gut and my gut told me this isn't working, I'm not getting better, and you need to do something else. I was on drugs. I was on drugs to counteract drugs. I was giving myself daily injections. I was getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And finally I said, I can't. If this is the quality of life I'm going to be living, I don't want to live it. So I need to try something else. So I started down the path of artistic medicine, and then I decided to do research on my own, because then that got me far enough that I could think again. And as a scientist, I could delve into academic journals, and most of them were at the time. We're out of Asia and medicinal mushrooms are at the top of the list lion's mane, reishi mushroom and turkey tail at the time and now cordyceps. I integrate, but the changes that those were able to make to myself, I started being able to move again, exercise again, you know, and really food is medicine. So I went gluten free and gluten free for 25 years, before it was popular. Right? I really watch what I eat. I eat a lot of vegetables. I'm very careful. I don't eat, you know, a very few processed foods. And I say very few because none of us are perfect. I always say when I have people ask me, you know, what should I do? I say, you know, do 80, 20, 80% of the time, you know, eat really well and then 20% is cheating. And I find if I tell people to do 8020, they tend to do 95 five. But if you tell someone to do it 100% of the time, every time they cheat, they're going to eat the whole box of cookies, right? Yeah. Whereas if you have an 8020 mentality, you can eat that one cookie. You'd be like, okay, the cookie, but I don't have to eat the box because I didn't really ruin it. It's an interesting psychological sort of experiment. And my audience.
Speaker 1 [00:17:27] Knows this too. Like, they know like, I, I I'll drink wine, I don't like, I don't drink a lot, but I'll drink like 1 to 2 glasses there. And they're like, and I love cocoa smells and cocoa smells are not. I didn't pick them out of my backyard. I won't eat a bag of Doritos anymore. I'm not going through Burger King anymore. Like I used to be. Like, oh, I love right from McDonald's. I love this from Taco Bell. Like, that girl's gone.
Speaker 2 [00:17:50] Like I probably eat 9010, right? But that's fine, because where I'm at in my health journey, I can eat 9010. Yeah, but when I was, when I was first so super, super sick. So if someone is coming out of a really bad EMS journey or an attack, you can't be eating, you have to be eating really well. At that point. You got to be doing 95 five, right? For me, I pulling out of of, you know, being told basically there was no hope. And I really expected to die fairly young to all of a sudden within a year I was able to have another child. I was able to get my life back. I was able to work again. I quit my job, which I loved the time, and I was all of a sudden I, you know, was healthy again. And this was no longer even part of my identity. It wasn't until a loan came out in 2016 that really it became part of my identity again, and that people needed to hear my story.
Speaker 1 [00:18:40] They needed to hear your story?
Speaker 2 [00:18:41] Yes, they needed to hear my story. Because after that show aired, that season two of alone, I had tens of thousands of emails of people asking, I have an autoimmune illness. What do I do? How did you do it? And I thought, okay, now it's time. I need to get this information out to the entire world. Now, tens of thousands of people have used my protocol and use. There's a woman named Doctor Terry Walls who does wonders with with food research. She's an incredible medical doctor, and she and I work together on some things. So by providing herbal medicine, which is why I started my apothecary was to build things, get things, make things for me, and then friends and family and then so many people wanted them. I started this business, but I'm not. I've not even personally with a business woman. You know, I'm a scientist. I wanted to help people.
Speaker 1 [00:19:25] I can the mushroom tincture that you mentioned, that seems to be one of your superhero discoveries and tinctures, your concoctions or whatever that you created. Can that but can everyone benefit from taking that?
Speaker 2 [00:19:37] They have so many properties. They're immuno. They're the nice thing is for people with autoimmune illnesses is they're not immuno stimulatory. But the ones that I take, they're immuno regulatory. So they regulate your immune system which is really important if you have an autoimmune disease. And I got to say, there's a lot of people walking around with autoimmune diseases that don't necessarily know it, and a lot of it's gut and diet based person, I'd say change your gut and diet and then herbal medicine is is key because it. There any cancer there, any viral or any inflammatory. You know, there's some that, you know, lion's mane mushroom for anyone with Alzheimer's that the Alzheimer's gene, it actually rebuilds nerve growth factor, which is really important. I have a brain bundle on my website, which is specifically for that, for people with who have those, those genetic markers in their family or who are struggling with it. There's research, you know, really amazing research behind those herbs. But all of these, you know, cordyceps is really in the fitness world is really people use it a lot because it's also so good for, you know, regenerating muscles and energy. And people use it when they travel to high altitudes. And so for people in the fitness world that's been used for quite a long time, one of the things that I, I just want to mention, because so many people are doing this and I there's nothing wrong with mushroom coffee. Mushroom coffee is fine, but you're only getting the water soluble components of the mushrooms. And when you take it in a dual extracted tincture like I make you get both the so in in a in water soluble tincture, you get things like beta glucans and you get all the polysaccharides, which are great. They're the anti cancers. But you're missing all the things that are the all the hormones, all the things like, you know, jerk acid, which is so important in reishi mushroom, you're missing all the things that are soluble in alcohol. And I always think if you're taking a mushroom, why not get the full spectrum of medical components right and medical compounds? That's why I know I should say through scientific research it's so important to have a dual extracted form. So very simple. Yeah. Within five minutes this is in my bloodstream because it goes through your skin. Right. So you're actually taking it and it's able to absorb into you. And a lot of people with well a lot of people just in general and a lot of people with health issues have gut problems. If you're swallowing something and has to go through your stomach and into your gut, you're not going to absorb that much of it. So this is a really good way to get something directly in your system and to be able to access the full spectrum of medicinal compounds. And I just think that's really important information for people to know.
Speaker 1 [00:21:55] Oh my gosh, it's huge. So you do you take supplements or is your main regimen your tinctures.
Speaker 2 [00:22:01] Main regimen is my tinctures. And then I do take some supplements just because I'm low on some things. But I've researched really carefully the things that I do take and I had for free on my website what what I take every day. So if anyone wants to look it up for the things I take for like fish oil and things like that and vitamin D, because they're very important for, especially for people with autoimmune analysis, all of that is available, no charge for anyone who wants to look up my protocol grid.
Speaker 1 [00:22:26] Maybe going out. What about I what about all of these like we are, we are still in this Instagram stage where so many people are putting their dollars to the things that are not going to get us. They're not going to get us over that. Right. You know, it's a huge question.
Speaker 2 [00:22:41] One of the things about that is that I think most people come at that question never from a place of fear. Yeah. And I want to come at that question from a place of empowerment. Yes. Right. And that's a that's a big step, right. How do you get from fear to empowerment. And I think that's the question because once you're empowered then you can have action, right? If you're just afraid, then it's hard to make the those next steps to actually take important action. And, you know, they always say that, you know, oh, one person can't make a difference. But in reality, that's all that ever has. It's people who are disruptive. And so people are willing to go against the system. It's there. People are willing to honestly to be a little disagreeable and step up and and spout out what they really believe and let the world know that this is not okay. And those are the change makers, right? If we each find our own empowered, actionable lane and we all are and all have our different lanes and we're all going to make a huge difference. So I love training people on herbal medicine or yes, yes, or wilderness survival or any of those things because it empowers people and it takes fear away. And when you're at a place for fear, it's really hard to do anything. But if you're coming at something from a place of love and knowledge, that's that's the money spot.
Speaker 1 [00:23:51] Yeah. And your 50s, you look like completely full of vitality, like beautiful, bright and all of these things. How does it feel to know that you got yourself here, but also changing the face of what a debilitating diagnosis would, would definitely have said, you're not going, this will not be you in 20 years.
Speaker 2 [00:24:13] First of all, thank you. And secondly, yeah, it's been a huge shift. Yeah, I feel I feel healthy, I feel, alive, I feel vital, I feel loved, I feel like I have I'm living my best life. I don't, I don't feel that in every moment. Right. Just like reality check, right? We. None of us do. Yeah. Of course, we all have trauma. Of course we have bad days. But there are a lot of things that we can do to get us through that. You know, one of the things that I really discovered about myself when I went on the show alone was out for a couple months by myself is, I'll say, like what? What did you discover about yourself out there? And, you know, when I went into that, you know, I overcome my mess. I lost my oldest son two years prior to that. So I'd been through quite a bit of trauma. The realization I had is, I've come through all that with peace and joy in my heart, that that was huge for me to be able to come out of that and say, you know what? I'm okay now. There's more stuff that's come up since then and more stuff always comes up. But having the ability to move through trauma and come out the other side with joy in your heart, oh, that's important. And that was a real lesson I learned.
Speaker 1 [00:25:22] These things are not talked about enough. This resiliency, this regeneration, this respect for when dealing with the mess and then dealing with this loss of your, son and then turning to nature because having a mess and then dealing with the trauma like that, it just to me points to your process, who you are, that brain that you love, that soul and that spirit that you love in the way that you are. So. You know, life giving in so many ways. Did you ever say like, okay, buddy, how am I going to get you? Through this?
Speaker 2 [00:25:55] Yeah. No, I definitely did. I mean, you know, any sort of trauma, any sort of loss, any sort of. And I agree with losing a child is the worst possible thing it could ever happen. And your body responds to. Right? I mean, there's no way when you know, our minds and our bodies are connected. For me, nature was the biggest killer. I have a cabin on the coast, and I just spent a week, kids. And I just went out there all the time and just spent incredible amounts of time in nature. And for us, that was that was our biggest healer. We sat around the fire, we told stories, on the anniversary of his death, we'd sit around the fire and we would share stories about him and and connect. There's something about sitting around a campfire, and you're able to talk to kids, especially about things that are hard when you're sitting around a campfire. People share stories and they share intimate stories, and they share grief, and they share traumatic stories, and they share funny stories, too. Great. All sort of things. But because you're looking at the fire and not directly in each other's eyes, especially for kids, it is such a great place for healing. So the healing power of nature and the healing power of fire has been integral to my life, has been integral to my parenting style, has been, really what what has helped bring me through a lot of a lot of really, you know, intense trauma that, you know, most of us experience in life, no matter what it is. And we're not going to do trauma comparisons. Right? Everyone has karma. Yeah. And everyone has to deal with it. And the people who don't deal with it and aren't able to talk about it or move through it, get stuck. And getting stuck in your grief is a really hard place to be and then and affects you physically. So I think the ability to move through and be resilient and have places to voice my trauma and be able to be in the wilderness and have spaces of healing, is what has allowed me to become a, you know, or stay, I should say, despite, you know, those times of of deep grief, a peaceful, joyful person who wants to give back to the world, but knowing that you have the way to deal with them that is tried and true is really helpful and really helpful as well.
Speaker 1 [00:28:02] My mom. Yeah, we had many a campfire when I grew up in Georgia, and my mom was the mom that was like, get go in the woods like after school. Like she would literally ring a bell for us to like, so I guess I want to ask you a little bit about the circadian rhythm and, you know, turning off, I read that you have the same bedtime. It is very difficult for me, especially with my daughter, who's super social.
Speaker 2 [00:28:25] For me, bedtime is key, right?
Speaker 1 [00:28:27] Like, what is your magic bedtime?
Speaker 2 [00:28:28] You know, consistent bedtime has been shown in regular sleep, has been shown to be one of the number one things for aging, for health, for happiness, for mental stability. I tend to go to bed, and I really have shifted that lately because I know how important sleep is. I'm an 8.5 hour girl, like I need that much sleep at night, I really do. I can't do 6 or 7 hours like some people say they can. So I have a very strict bedtime routine. You know, I always read before I go to bed. For me, I find it relaxing. Generally, I go off around nine, I have my bedtime routine and I fall asleep by 10 or 1030. And usually I wake up around seven and to fall asleep I use my sleep blend because I do need. I have always had trouble sleeping, so I have a sleep fund and herbal blend that I take every night before bed because it works and that's really important to me. But sleep is key and I have to be, you know, I and I want to be tired by the end of the day. So having exercise during the day, having spent time outside, all of that definitely matters because you don't want to be physically tired, right?
Speaker 1 [00:29:31] So in today's world of tech, what are your rules like? Are you do you have like electromagnetic field boxes that you like to play the phones down on or you just have a general healthy relationship with it? Give us some advice on that.
Speaker 2 [00:29:45] I try to stay off my phone as much as possible. I think having notifications on your phone is a way to, you know, not great on social media. It is, you know, it's designed to suck you in. Right? So I'm really careful about not being on social media very often. You know, I post and I go, I give my information and I'm out of there.
Speaker 1 [00:30:05] I like it, it's like you've created something, you're going to give it out there to her and then that's it. It's like an artistic approach to it.
Speaker 2 [00:30:11] Exactly. And that's what I have time for. You know, I have time to post and go. I don't have time to sit and interact and scroll through other people's things. As much as, you know, it could be interesting to scroll through what else is going on in the world. I would prefer to connect in person or, you know, I do zoom calls with friends and things like that for people who live far away. But it it is hard nowadays, especially with kids and technology.
Speaker 1 [00:30:32] So, hormonally speaking, are you in perimenopause? Menopause? Post menopause?
Speaker 2 [00:30:38] I'm through menopause. I started perimenopause at 40 and this is such an important subject. And, yeah, finally hit menopause, a couple of years ago and went through it. But it was a real struggle to get my hormones balanced and no one. Talks about it known. It's such an important subject. All women go through it and no one talks about it. Here we. I'm coming out with a menopause blend this summer that I take every day. The hot flashes for me and the night sweats for keeping me awake. And I use a blend of red clover and black cohosh. And then I take vtx in the morning and the black cohosh and the, the red clover blend as a tincture knocks everything out for me. Oh, this is one more. I think it's important to talk to an M.D. and really get your hormones balanced, because a lot of women don't know about, you know, they might be taking estrogen and progesterone, but they don't realize that, you know, a lot of women need to add in testosterone, in order to keep their sex drive high, which matters. Right? It's not commonly as commonly offered in the States as it is in, let's say, England, where they're a little more advanced in, in menopause research. I think it's really important to be on some sort of, natural or hormonal blend because, you know, we're, you know, we weren't really meant to live this long in the past. Right? And if you can find ways and strategies to get your hormones balanced and your mind back together and really be as healthy and as happy as you can be, why not?
Speaker 1 [00:32:03] Understanding hormones is huge throughout. Yes, in our entire life, even when we're satiated or not. Do you mind me asking if you went through it holistically or did you do any bioidentical?
Speaker 2 [00:32:15] I don't mind you asking at all. I will tell you what I do. Yeah, because I think it's important for women to know that you can blend Western medicine and herbal medicine, which is exactly what I do. Yeah, I take, I take, I do hrt, I think it's for me, I do testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. And I actually gave my own prescription to my doctor and said, this is what I need.
Speaker 1 [00:32:33] Is it bioidentical? Is it like, yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:32:35] But do whatever works for you. You know, if you don't if you if you don't have an NDA or you don't have the finances to do it, do regular hormones through your doctor, if that's what makes you feel better.
Speaker 1 [00:32:43] I go to a couple of different doctors, like I've got my regular ObGyn, but then I, I see doctor friends. Littman who's more you know, he's a functional practitioner and I like the different I like the spectrum of opinions. Right. And then I can decide for myself what I feel comfortable with. But my bloodwork was showing that I was like entering perimenopause. And then I made this. Then my next round of bloodwork, like, I don't know, eight months later. And he was he was like, he's like, did you go, did you take something or whatever you do? You go on hormones and there's no it's not showing that you're they're really in it. And and the only change they made when I started eating, I went vegan and I almost vegan. So food is really medicine, but I feel really good. And I feel, you know, connected. And I'm not, I'm not I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm open to a mixture of the things, you know, I don't I would only do bioidentical if I did it, but I also want your tinctures because I would always start there. To me, I would always start there.
Speaker 2 [00:33:40] Yes. That's where I started. And the mushroom also is really good because it does help balance hormones, lower cortisol levels, lower inflammation. But it really does help with hormonal balance, which is really important. A blend of HRT and herbal medicine is really what that's what worked for me.
Speaker 1 [00:33:56] It's so interesting because with your Ms.. The neurologist path was making, you didn't.
Speaker 2 [00:34:02] Work.
Speaker 1 [00:34:03] More, you know, and the holistic yes worked which just shows you. But then it kind of pours. You're like, hey, I will do a combination of both. And that's working for me. Right.
Speaker 2 [00:34:11] So it's it's working for me.
Speaker 1 [00:34:12] Yeah. Fix to be open to also like not just do what one doctor with one prescription pad says. You are definitely, definitely contributing to the world, evolving the chances of us evolving healthier. Yeah, really, really contributing. I could talk to you literally for days. So are you going to continue your your tincture line and all of that? Because I think that that's not something, you know, that's a really a market that we need real scientists and people like you really understand. Yeah. So you're going to continue growing that.
Speaker 2 [00:34:45] Yeah. Nicole's apothecary is growing strong. It's going strong. And I'm going to be continue out and putting out a couple new blends this summer. So yeah, I think it's really important to have people to have access to herbal medicine and herbal medicine that is made in the right way.
Speaker 1 [00:34:58] I just want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart for the books that you author, your research, your, resiliency in life, and your, ability to see this greater good that you can contribute so much to because you are you are the brightest shining light.
Speaker 2 [00:35:18] Thank you. I really enjoyed today. It was so good to meet you here.
Speaker 1 [00:35:21] Thank you.
