Realfoodology - Healing Adaptogens with Danielle Broida

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

112: On today's episode, I am joined once again by Danielle Broida of Four Sigmatic.  This week she joins us to talk about the healing power of adaptogens and her new book Healing Adaptogens.  Topics Discussed: Functional mushrooms  Dosing  Cacao Why it’s important to know where your adaptogens are coming from  Properties of adaptogens that make them so powerful  Theobromine  Magnesium  Is matcha an adaptogen? How to pick the best type of adaptogens Ayurveda  Safety of adaptogens  How to find the best brands of adaptogens  Bioavailability  Sustainability Is turmeric an adaptogen? Check Out Danielle: www.HealingAdaptogens.com Instagram: @danielleryanbroida Instagram: @FourSigmatic Danielle Online Sponsored By: Cured Nutrition www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% off Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% OFF Magic Mind http://www.magicmind.co Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% OFF Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: The Power of Mushrooms

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. I think of humans interacting with adaptogens like matchmaking. It's like every experience is going to be different. That energy that happens between the two is unique. And that's the same thing with adaptogens and with true real plant medicine. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. As always, I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am an integrative nutritionist, and I started Real Foodology 11 years ago in my very small apartment in Austin when I was getting my master's in nutrition. And I needed an outlet to share all of the information I was

learning because I was realizing that not all this information is accessible to everyone. And in America, especially, we are very confused about what it means to be truly healthy. It's just hard. It's confusing. We make it so confusing in this country. And so I really sought out to make this more accessible and easier to digest. And I just want to see everyone happy and healthy and thriving and eating more real food. After starting Real Foodology, that was just a website that I had started in my apartment. It quickly became an Instagram where I was sharing all this information. And I'm still doing that Instagram today. So if you guys don't follow me on Instagram,

go find me. It's at Real Foodology. And then obviously the last two years, I have also been doing this podcast. So, and without you guys, this podcast would not be possible. So I am incredibly grateful for you. If you are enjoying and loving the podcast, if you can take just a moment to rate and review it, I can't tell you how much it means to me. And it takes about two seconds

and it really helps the show. So I just appreciate you guys so much. Thanks for listening. And okay, let's start diving into today's episode. Today's guest has been on before. She was on last year talking all about functional mushrooms. And she's back talking about healing adaptogens, which actually also happens to be the name of her new book.

It comes out next week. So if you guys are listening to this, as it came out, the book comes out the following Tuesday. So today's episode is exactly what it sounds like. We dive into healing adaptogens. We talk all about what adaptogens are, what they can be used for in the body, why they're so important, sourcing and how to get the best, highest quality adaptogens. And we just really talk about the book and how it's such a great resource for someone that is really new to adaptogens. I love that the book really acts like a guide. You can go through and find some of the different things that you may be struggling with, for example, stress, and they list off some of the amazing adaptogens and all their healing properties that can possibly help

you with your stress. This is a great episode for just overall understanding of adaptogens and how they can play an amazing role in your life, especially if you are dealing with a specific health concern. Hopefully this is maybe the first stepping stone that you need in order to find healing or hopefully the root cause of whatever it is that you're dealing with. I highly recommend checking out the book. It's called Healing Adaptogens. It is written by Danielle and also Taro,

who is the founder of Four Sigmatic. And if you're unaware of Four Sigmatic, I'm wondering if you live in a cave or under a rock because they're everywhere now. They make my favorite everywhere now. They make my favorite mushroom coffee. They also have all these different mushroom elixirs, everything from cordyceps to reishi to lion's mane. So if you have not heard of them, highly recommend checking them out. And with that, let's get into the episode. If you have been following me for a while,

you know about my health non-negotiables. One of those non-negotiables is I drink a green juice every single morning. And what I've been drinking lately, which I'm really loving, is Organifi green juice. And I add their red juice in there as well because it just gives it like a really yummy flavor. It also adds antioxidants in there and cordyceps and rhodiola and ginseng and reishi mushroom and then a ton of berries in there for the antioxidants and the amazing flavor. And the green juice has chlorella, spirulina, turmeric, red beet, wheatgrass, lemon, ashwagandha, matcha green tea and moringa. A lot of really amazing properties that are super supportive for our health and they just flood your body and flood your cells with nutrients.

My favorite thing about Organifi, and I know I talk about this all the time, and I just, you know, consistency is the key to success here. And I just feel like I need to constantly talk about this because it is so important. Organifi products are glyphosate residue free, which means that you will not find glyphosate in any of their products. Glyphosate is a herbicide that is sprayed on non-organic food, but it's showing up in organic food now and it is linked to cancer. So we do not want it in our body. Also, all the Organifi products are USDA organic. And if you use code realfoodology, you're going to save 20% off. So make sure that you go to organifi.com

slash realfoodology. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. I hope you guys love it. Would you like to do more but stress less? You know, one of the biggest keys to productivity is to make sure that you reduce your stress. Because when we're stressed out, I can speak from personal experience that if you're too stressed and too overwhelmed, you can sometimes almost become like paralyzed in your overwhelm and then you don't get anything done. Magic Mind is a little matcha shot that also contains adaptogens and nootropics that all target and help with productivity and focus. There's of course matcha in there,

so you get a little bit of caffeine, but matcha also contains L-theanine, which helps to calm you down. So you get kind of a cleaner energy without all the jitters. There's also things like lion's mane mushroom, rhodiola, there's cordyceps, and there's also choline.

All of these things are gonna help with cognitive function and are just going to help keep you focused and balanced so that you can get through whatever tasks you have at hand. They gave me a code for you guys to use. You're going to save 20% off if you use code realfoodology at magicmind.co. That's M-A-G-I-C-M-I-N-D.C-O. Danielle, I'm so excited to have you back. That's M-A-G-I-C-M-I-N-D.co. a new book coming out called Healing Adaptogens, which is amazing. I am so grateful that I got an early copy of it. So let's just dive into it. First of all, for people that are new to adaptogens, how would you explain that? Yeah, good question. They're popping up everywhere. There's all these marketing little blogs about adaptogens and adaption gummies and gas stations. And we really are seeing the word more and more. And I still find people are like, I have no idea what they are, how to use them,

how do I get the benefits? So we can start wide and then get as granular as we like. But essentially, it's a group. It's an umbrella category of mostly plants, some functional mushrooms that have certain similarities. So they're all non-toxic, meaning they're safe to use every day. It's actually the tradition. You don't just take an adaptogen once and experience a benefit. You have to take them long-term. And they're non-toxic, which means our body doesn't need more and more to experience the same effect over time. We can actually take a solid dosage, and there's not an amount that will push us over an edge or lead us into

kind of a toxic effect. So they're all non-toxic. They're all normalizing. So this is super interesting. They're among the most phytochemically complex foods on the planet. So I think of them like replenishing so many organs, so many systems of our body simultaneously. They're really fulfilling multiple things, which leads into the third piece of adaptogens that often leads to the confusion, which is the fact that they're nonspecific. So typically, whether it's natural or pharmaceutical, we take something for a specific reason, right? We want to get rid of a headache or we want to support our digestive system or, I don't know, we put something on

topically because we have a rash. Adaptogens don't work in this way. They actually have compounds that work in opposition to each other. It's kind of like a gas break effect. And so depending on your body, when you meet that adaptogen, the effect will be different. So if we both take reishi mushroom, for example, depending on how well we both slept or didn't sleep the night before, what we ate, our energy levels, if we've had caffeine or not, we might experience more energy, more vitality, or we might experience more relaxation, more calm. So it's really interesting. They're working with us, which is also part of why they're so profound

to really deliver our bodies what they need and bring us back into the state of equilibrium, balance, which is why they're so often associated with stress. And probably one of the reasons they're so relevant for all of us right now and why they're popping up all over the place. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Well, it's like you said, I mean, they adapt to what your body needs in the moment, which is so freaking cool. So you said something that I want to understand a little bit more. So are there pharmaceutical adaptogens as well? Or because I thought they were all natural. Yeah, good question. They all come from nature. So they're all plants and fungi. And part of an adaptogen is the synergy. So in a natural cacao bean, for example, or turmeric root or reishi mushroom

fruiting body, there are hundreds of compounds working together. And that's really key for the adaptogenic benefits. There are isolated compounds from adaptogens. This is a really big point of difference. So you can have curcumin, for example, which is an isolated compound from turmeric that is responsible for many of the anti-inflammatory properties. Or there's an isolated compound called KSM-66 from ashwagandha. So those on their own wouldn't necessarily be considered adaptogens. They're awesome. There's a lot of clinical trials behind those isolated compounds. But if you are going to take them, I recommend taking them in conjunction with the full adaptogen that that compound has derived from. So this is kind of like taking your vitamin C supplement with an orange. Our body has had thousands of years to evolve and

recognize these whole foods and plants and mushrooms from nature. And so when we take the isolated version, it can still have benefits, but our body will utilize it, be much more bioavailable and most likely have less side effects or potential altercations if you take it with the whole thing from nature. Yeah, I mean, that's something I talk about often that I think it's really important to, instead of just take a vitamin C supplement, go to the direct source, whether it's like camu camu powder or eat an orange because I think that when we isolate something from its natural synergy in nature, we may be missing out on some of the real benefits of it because I really believe that nature has provided us everything that we need and we haven't fully studied what everything is in an orange that creates the protective component for our immune system, right? So we could be honing in on this one thing,

and it could actually be the whole orange together or the whole ashwagandha together, not just this one isolated compound out of it. So I think that's really important. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And it's so interesting because in writing this book, Taro and I read through a thousand clinical trials. And so often when you're looking at research

and these gold standard placebo controlled double blind trials, they are funded by the pursuit. What's the end goal is to have some sort of compound ideally that you can patent and sell. And so there is a big amount of research on like, okay, what is this PSK, this polysaccharide from turkey tail? How does it interfere with our gut microbiome or our immunity? And we have to keep in mind that that's just one piece of the information. Because as you mentioned, there's so much diversity that happens when we're using the whole species from the earth. And that is based on the time of year that we pick an orange, for example. We live in California. Oranges are ripe in winter,

in December. And so if you try to pick an orange in June and hope it has the same compounds as the orange that's fully riped and developed in December, not going to be the same, right? Even year to year, there's differences in rainfall, in soil. This is really important. We can talk about sourcing ingredients from their native lands. That's another big component. They're going to have a different phytochemical profile based on where they live, right? Because they're exposed to different things. The soil is different. The water is different. The air is different. And so, yeah, it's part of, I think, the complexity and maybe a little bit of the confusion,

but also part of the magic of using whole ingredients from the earth. This is so interesting because I just went to an event on Saturday. One of my good friends did a neo-emotional release event. His name is Christian, Dr. G. At the very end, they ended with, we had a little cacao ceremony and there was a husband and wife there that they actually flew in from Hawaii and they have been sourcing their cacao powder directly from Peru. And they talked a lot about this,

how they think it's so important to actually get the whole pod. So they use the whole pod and then they grind it into like a powder and then I think they dehydrate it, whatever the whole process is. And they were talking about the importance of getting it directly from Peru

and maintaining that whole pod to really get all the effects of it. And I remember, I remember thinking there, I remember sitting there thinking like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to talk to you about this because I felt like you might have more to add to that. But yeah, can we dive a little bit more into, like you said, like the native lands, the importance of getting it from where it came from and yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm so glad you mentioned cacao because cacao, in my opinion, then that Tara and I argue in the book is in fact an adaptogen.

So it's not necessarily considered an adaptogen. Well, the word is constantly changing. It's just a term that was developed in 1947. This guy Nikolai Lazarev in 1947, he was like, oh, adaptogens from the word adaptere, it means to adapt or to adjust in Latin. But the point is these ingredients, the cacao, the mushrooms, the roots, the leaves, the berries that are within this category have been used so much longer than this term was coined. And cacao is such a powerful example. It's been used for hundreds of years, so highly valued. That's the thing with many of these adaptions. They have been the most revered in the places that they originate from.

I kind of felt repetitive in the book. Tulsi, holy basil, it's the most revered leaf in India. It's the most sacred. And then reishi mushroom is the most revered, the number one superior tonic in TCM. And cacao in South America is worth more than gold. It was used as a currency for many hundreds of years. And so when we think about these native lands, something super unique about our adaptogens is the amount of stressors they're exposed to in the places that they're grown. And so a lot of these come from really remote places around the world where temperature fluctuations can range 50, 60 degrees in a day. There can be really rocky soils. There can be all sorts of extreme external conditions that they're faced with.

And as a response, these plants, these fungi develop compounds to help them tolerate the stressors to become more resilient in their natural environments. And a lot of those compounds are key to what our body utilizes and helps us with similar types of adaptation to bring us into equilibrium and a state of balance. And so if we think about cacao, that's been cacao is the bean or seed or pod from the theobroma cacao tree coming from Peru, exposed to the heat, the air, the water, all that is developing compounds in response to versus a cacao that's been commercially grown indoors with added fertilizer, the profile of that bean is going

to be significantly different. And we kind of know that, I think, a little bit with agriculture. We're starting to become more aware if something's grown on a monoculture and is fed a bunch of, I mean, more extreme pesticides and herbicides, for example, or even artificial nutrients, that carrot, for example, is going to be really different from the carrot that is harvested in a biodynamic farm, how do we kind of move that understanding into our plant medicine and our herbal medicine as well, and particularly relevant with adaptogens because of how much they are grown to build these compounds to adapt to stressors, right? That is, it's like the doctrine of signatures is something I like to talk about. What a plant or fungi is doing out in nature,

perhaps what it looks like or what it's exposed to can give us information about what it's going to do to our bodies. So a classic doctrine of signatures is a walnut being good for the brain. Oh, yeah. But similarly, we can think about where these grow and what they do in nature and they're resilient, right? That is one of their common traits. This group of 30

species, they are resilient. They're able to adapt to whatever's thrown their way. And that's why we take them. So, so critical to source them where they thrive in the wild, which is they all have a different home. And that's why I put home in the book. Where do these come from? And let's try to find them from these places to really experience the best benefits from them. Yeah, I think that's really important. And that's very much in line with my message when it comes to food. So we can very, I love that we can apply that to all different aspects of whether it's our medicine,

our food, et cetera. It really is important to go to the source because that's where you're going to get the highest quality and nature expressing itself in the way that it was intended to, which I think is very important to do. So what are some of the adaptogenic properties of cacao? I'm sure people are going to be very curious about this because I was excited. I love chocolate and hearing that when you get it from the source and it's really good, high quality cacao, that not only can my, when I'm on my period, my favorite sweet treat satisfy that need for sweet treat, but it's also amazing that it's really good for the body. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things, this is always so funny,

it's just like, we want to talk about what these things are good for. And we have to keep in mind that they're going to respond differently in so many bodies. And so we can't put them in a box, but I kind of focus on, let's talk about maybe like three key benefits and then keep an open mind

if you take cacao and something else happens. Awesome, I love that. Okay. But the three big benefits with cacao are the brain support, longevity, and mood. And we can go into them each, but something really interesting, you talked about how we crave cacao during our menses. And cacao is, of all these adaptogens, cacao actually has the most identified phyto compounds of any adaptogen and any food on the planet. It's the most phytochemically rich food there is. Two of the pronounced compounds within cacao that we can bring up today and that help tie into the adaptogenic profile are

the magnesium, right? This incredible mineral, number one nutrient deficiency in the American population, which I think is so wild when we're like the most stressed we've ever been. This nation is, and it's like, well, we're deficient in the mineral that allows us to relax on a cellular level. So of course, and cacao can really replenish our stores of magnesium. It also contains theobromine, which is a really interesting compound that's kind of like caffeine's sister molecule. So phytochemical looks kind of similar to caffeine, but it's very different. The way that our body uses it is not as a stimulant. So our caffeine will kind of prop us up, which inevitably leads to a crash or jitters or whatever it is later in

the day. Theobromine gives us this sense of focus and concentration where it's kind of like, we call it the cacao flow or this flow state. And it's balanced by all these other minerals, all these other amino acids, vitamins that are working to give us this slightly heightened sense of energy, of awareness, of focus, of acuity, while being really supportive to cellular relaxation, particularly with the heart and the cardiovascular system. And so cacao really acts as, yeah, it's like doing, I almost wanted to say nervine, but it's not just relaxing us. It's bringing us into kind of a state of flow as well as relaxation. And that combination is what I think most of us are looking for. It's like we want a state of clarity and we want a state of calm simultaneously.

And cacao is a shining example of doing that for us, right? When you think of like mental wellness and think of, okay, I want my mind to be calm but focused, cacao is delivering that message. And when we talk about the theobromine in cacao as well, this is a really great visceral understanding of the nonspecific action of adaptogens because magnesium on its own, we think relaxing. Theobromine on its own, we think more of an upper, more of a gentle stimulating effect. And yet in combination, depending on the body that is ingesting that cacao,

you might feel super chill. You might feel more focused and engaged, right? And it's all depending on the state of your body. This is why I think of humans interacting with adaptogens like matchmaking. It's like every experience is going to be different. It's like you and I have our own unique beings. And when we meet other people, that relationship is ours and ours alone. Even if we're both sitting and drinking this cacao with our friend Christian, how we interact with him, that relationship, he's the same, we're the same, but that energy that happens between the two is unique.

And that's the same thing with adaptogens and with true real plant medicine. So yeah, the mood benefits, the focus, longevity, so really supporting anti-inflammatory properties and a true sense of replenishing is what I think of with cacao because of how rich it is. And again, this is like in its more raw original form. So all cacao gets picked from the bean and it gets fermented using fungi, of course, through the fermentation process. And then if we can have the cacao before it's been processed, it's this really big difference. I'm sure your audience is aware cocoa is not the same as cacao. So we want to make sure it's that true cacao bean. And that means it's retaining

so many of these properties. But a lot of those get lost in the processing, in the exposure to high heat. When we turn cocoa or when we turn cacao into cocoa, it also has removed the fats, all of the cacao butter. And so what you're left with is just a portion of the original bean. Totally different. They start from the same place, but what happens along the way will lead to really, really different benefits in the body. So look for that high quality, minimally processed cacao and then prepare it as you will. Yeah. It's interesting that you just brought that up because this cacao that we had over the weekend, they talked about this too, where they leave everything in. So it has the cacao butter in

there too, which is amazing. I love it. So it's this powder and I bought some and I've been making morning drinks out of it. And it has a bit of a filling effect there because you have the cacao butter that really satiates with the fat. And also when you were talking about how the magnesium with the theobromine, how they work together is exactly what we were just saying, is how nature really provides that perfect balance of what your body needs and why it's so important to keep everything intact. And it also reminded me of, it's very similar with how matcha works, where you have the effects of the green tea, so you get the energy,

but then the L-theanine comes in. And so it's not this crazy, frantic, jittery, over-caffeinated feeling. You have that very calm but energized feeling. Is matcha considered an adaptogen? It's not considered an adaptogen because of the caffeine component. You can overdose. You can have too much caffeine. So that's the really unique thing. It's like there's other plants and there's other mushrooms that might have one or two of the properties that an adaptogen has, but in order to truly qualify, it needs to have that non-toxic normalizing and the non-specific. But yeah, in terms of the synergy of nature, matcha is a great example, right? And we know it's not even just the

amino acid, the L-theanine and the caffeine in there. There's also so many other phyto compounds that are antioxidant and different minerals and leading to the benefits. But yeah, matcha is wonderful. It just, yeah, because of that caffeine, of course, we all experience what too much caffeine looks like. Yeah. So what... I've really struggled with chronic anxiety most of my life. I've been really honest about this on the podcast as well as my Instagram. Outside of talk therapy and really addressing the root cause of my anxieties and getting to the root of my traumas, one of the things that has really helped me the most with my anxiety is taking CBD consistently. I am obsessed with this brand Cured Nutrition. Everything is organic. They use really

high quality ingredients. And I know the founder personally. I love his mission. His desire and commitment to really high quality products is above and beyond any other CBD company that I have seen. Their commitment to quality is so high that they test all their products. So you can actually go to any of the products that you buy, look at the batch number, go on their website and see the lab results from that specific batch number. They test for heavy metal toxicity. They test for pesticides. Also, they show that the amount of CBD that they claim is in their product is actually in there, which shockingly enough is a huge problem with CBD companies. Many of these companies are claiming that they have

higher amounts of CBD than they actually do. Some companies that are really sketchy are claiming that they have CBD when they don't have any at all. So quality control is really, really important. It's super important to Cured Nutrition, which is why I love this brand so much. Also, if you guys go to curednutrition.com slash realfoodology, you're going to save 20%. Make sure that you use the code realfoodology. And again, that is cured, C-U-R-E-D, nutrition.com slash realfoodology. So what are the exact qualifications of an adaptogen? Like, how do you know what the difference is between adaptogen versus just like a healing herb that you're taking? Yeah, good question. So the original definition is like these three pillars that it hits on the non-toxic, the non-specific, the normalizing. But what's really unique about

this group of plants and mushrooms that so far adaptogens, and again, there could be more added as time goes on, but we have this really unique combination of ancient intent. So this anecdotal use case where many of them have hundreds, if not thousands of years of documented use. So there may be other plants and fungi that have been used as just as long, but maybe the knowledge, the documentation hasn't been preserved as well. So in Ayurveda and TCM and some of the Russian folk medicine, they were really good about keeping records of using these ingredients and what they did.

And then the other piece, so we have this like deep, deep lineage that's been well-documented. And then from 1950 until now, so we have about 70 years of clinical research that went into these ingredients. So it actually started in Russia. There was a group of scientists and their mission was to find the most powerful substances in the world so that they could create a population that was super resilient, that had the best Olympic athletes, the best chess players that could have strong astronauts and be sent off to the moon. And they wanted to create this ultimate type of human in society. And like, okay, let's go out into the world and find whatever is out there that can help in this process. And what they discovered was these plants and mushrooms that we now call adaptogens.

And so in order to validate the kind of anecdotal benefits, they're like, we need to put these through clinical trials. And so these specific plants and mushrooms have been through rigorous amounts, 70 years of high standard, right? So this is the double blind placebo controlled clinical trials that are usually several dozens, if not hundreds of participants to really prove what cultures have said and claimed they have been used for, for hundreds or thousands of years, depending on which species we're talking about. I love when there's a meeting in the middle of science and nature where we have true quantifiable evidence of what we've already kind of intuitively

known to be true or anecdotal. So I love that merging of two, which I think is really important. So let's talk a little bit about, so you had mentioned already that you can't really put adaptogens into a box. So how, well, I guess this is kind of a two-part question, but first of all, how, when it comes to like bio-individual healthcare, how do we fit adaptogens into this model? And more specifically, so let's say someone goes to a practitioner and they're wanting help with, you know, whatever symptoms they're dealing with. What are, how do we kind of determine which adaptogens are best for them since they work differently for people? Yeah, there's at least two parts to this answer. The first part is adaptogens are not a means to an end. You can't just take an adaptogen and expect all your problems to go away.

It should always be supplemental in addition to your diet, your exercise, all the other removing the stressors or really getting to the source and to the root of what is causing you to reach for the adaptogen in the first place. So they're not a replacement for all of these other really basic fundamental lifestyle practices that we should be using. Adaptogens also work on a spectrum. So while they have these three similarities in common, to quantify them in this one grouping, some are much more gentle and food-like. Some really are used like food. Cacao is a great example. Or moringa is more of a food, acerola cherry, turmeric even, more the spice spice food range and others are really pushy and should only be used in more extreme conditions or once you've reached a certain age and you really need

that kick in that category would be more of like our ginsengs. And so yeah, taking those both into account. And then when I work with clients, the first thing I want to figure out is what's the root, what's going on. Fundamentally, that's why this symptom is being expressed. So someone could come and you probably experienced this too, like, oh, I have headaches or I have digestive issues, or I have X, Y, and Z. And instead of using an adaptogen to address that issue, right? So instead of like, oh, I have these headaches, cacao is good for my brain. Let me take cacao for that reason. The approach should rather be, okay, how can I address the underlying systems of my body, which almost always are our gut health, which goes hand in hand with

our immunity, right? 70% of our immune cells are in the gut. So gut slash immunity, liver health is really huge. How well are we able to actually detoxify the crazy amount of toxins that our bodies are exposed to daily and our stress response, right? So these are like, we can't really address anything going on with our body unless these three have been considered and supported. And those can be dealt with in many different ways, whether it's removing foods from your diet that you're sensitive to or supporting your body's ability to detox more efficiently, gut healing teas, et cetera. But what adaptogens can be really beneficial for is when we are in more of an extreme case of like, hey, I don't even know what the root cause is. I'm chronically stressed or I've been dealing with some autoimmune condition, for example, or the medical world doesn't know what I'm

dealing with. There's no name for what I'm experiencing. I see this all the time in clinical practice. And adaptions are such heavy hitters. They really are so dense and they can kind of meet us in this state where we don't just have to take something really gentle that might take six months to start noticing a shift in the body, which ideally, in a perfect world, that would be my approach. It must be really gentle, really slow, but we're in a time in the world where we do want to support our health and we want to get rid of our issues. We want to really find what the root is. And we still have the demands of everyday life. We still have to show up as a mom and grocery shop and cook and show up for our work. And so adaptogens are, I think, kind of reemerging right now for this reason, because they are safe, they are natural.

And yet they're meeting us at this place where we can take them for a few days, a few weeks, and start to notice some shifts. And I think the biggest shift that we notice is what happens when we're not so triggered by the stresses. So the stressors aren't going away ever, but what we want to do is train our bodies to more efficiently respond to the stressor and notice when that stressor is life or death, right? How our bodies evolve to deal with stress or when it's actually not something that we should push our body and our system into a full state of alarm, fight or flight. And this is what the adaptions can do. Instead of the same stressor hits, but instead of being totally thrown off kilter, which then takes energy to bring us back into a state of balance, the adaptogen can help us slowly notice that stressor and then not as intensely react to it.

So that the downside, the replenishing act is quicker. It's not as deep. Basically, I have a graph of this. It's really hard to explain, but in the book, instead of this big energy flow, you get totally thrown off course from the stressor. And then you have equal amount to rebuild that time, the energy, the resources, the nutrients that it takes to combat that stressor versus when we have an adaptogen on board, there's a slight reaction. So we still notice it, but then we're never brought into a state of depletion. So we can stay in more of this balanced state, which then gives us way more energy to think and to go work out and to sleep better, right? We're not burning all these

nutrients that are getting lost in dealing with stressors every five minutes. Okay, totally awesome point. But so those are a few things. And then the last piece I just do want to mention is this bioavailability or this bioindividuality piece. We'll talk about bioavailability as well when it comes to extracting them. But each body being unique and each adaptogen and each plant being unique. And the way that I wrote this through in the book is about energetics. So this is a really fun way to help people choose the

right species for their body is that every one of us has our own constitution. So this is, you know, in Ayurveda, there's three doshas. In traditional Chinese medicine, there's different temperaments. In Western herbalism, which is the lens that I practice through, we have four constitutions. And in pretty much every tradition around the world, this has been recognized and we would never treat a symptom the same in multiple bodies. So Courtney, if you and I both went to a traditional practitioner in pretty much any country that doesn't practice Western medicine, and we both had headaches, our medicine that we were given would be different based on the constitution of our bodies, right? So you might be experiencing a headache because of, I don't know what it might be like.

Like lack of potassium or dehydration, something like that. Yeah. And I might be experiencing a headache because I have been moving too much and running too much and I haven't been getting enough sleep. So in order to address that efficiently so that our headaches actually go away, it's critical to understand that our bodies are different and the response is the same, but where it's coming from is unique. And so when it comes to the energetics of our body, this is almost always based on nature. So on temperature and on moisture. So it's the elements coming into our bodies. Each one of us are somewhere on the range of being hot or cold and moist or dry. Same with our plants and fungi,

all of them are either more warm, more cold, more moist, or more dry. Some things are really obvious. If you think of turmeric, turmeric is pretty drying, it's pretty warm. If you think of a plant, this isn't an adaptogen, but aloe vera, for example, is really moist and cold. right? And those are kind of opposite ends of the spectrum, but every living thing has this same elemental energy in it where it's either hot or cold, moist or dry. And so when we talk about choosing the right ones for our body type, it's important to understand what your constitution is. There's many ways to do this. And I give a little example in the book, but if you're in a room and everyone has a sweater on,

are you the one that's freezing? Are you the one that's sweating right there? Or are you prone to being more moist in the state of your skin or your hair, your digestion, and knowing your body type can then help you choose the right adaptogen to support your unique body because so many of them have similar benefits. It's like, okay, I want to support my stress response. Where do I start? Well, if you know that your body is really hot and dry, you probably don't want to choose an adaptogen that's also hot and dry, right? Maybe choose one that's more neutral or more cooling. And the benefits will be so much more profound because it's working with you uniquely. And that's, I think, another huge piece of herbalism that is really where the secret magic lies is when we can pay attention to the body type and matchmake.

Yeah. I love that. I was actually going to ask you about different body types and how the adaptogens affect them. So that was perfect. I love it. We already got there. So do you recommend outside of actually reading your book, do you recommend that someone seek out a practitioner to help them kind of figure out what adaptogens they need and what body type they are? I mean, I always suggest that people get outside help in general, but, or do you think that they can read this book

and get a pretty good understanding of kind of what they need? Yeah, good question. It depends on you and how deep you are in your healing journey. What is unique about adaptions is they're a super safe place to start. And so it's unlike many other herbal medicines where they are specific and they are intense and there is a potential toxic dose or amount that you could take to overdose.

Adaptions are a pretty seamless place to start. So a lot of them are more like food. I would always start in the more gentle category. So in the book, we break up the adaptogens based on three different categories that people are looking for support with. Either adaptogens to defend, which is a lot about immunity and skin health, gut health. Adaptions to perform, which is more about the acute need if you want to turn on your brain or body. And, adaptions to perform, which is more about kind of the acute need if you want to turn on your brain or body, and then adaptions to restore, which is more of the mood,

longevity, anti-aging, stress response. And so I would definitely start with adaptions to restore. These are going to be more gentle, more nourishing. And it's all about listening to your body. So if there was any type of herbal medicine that you're going to jump into on your own, I would say it would be these adaptions to restore. So starting with holy basil or ashwagandha or cacao. And from there, part of the work is learning to listen to your own body. I believe, you know believe practitioners can be amazing and so helpful, but our bodies want to heal. They're designed to heal. They're designed to thrive. And so if we can slow down enough to listen to the messages that our body's giving us,

we can do a lot more on our own than I think most of us are confident in right now. And so it's starting slow, starting with the gentle movers. And it's really amazing. It's like you might be experiencing a ton of stress and all these other side effects from that stress. And you take ashwagandha for three weeks and maybe a lot of

those other symptoms have gone away and maybe a few haven't but now you have a really clear idea of what's left what was a reaction to your stressor and what is what is still there to be dealt with um and and in that case it might be wise to say all right i've i've worked with this for a number of weeks or months and I have this clear picture. This one thing is still going on. Now I need outside help. But the goal, I think, if we're for you, even if it's made of plants. The goal would be for us as individuals, as patients, as clients to ask why.

What is this doing for me? What is your mindset? And eventually, the more that we ask that, it's really initiating a relationship where we want to be students. And from that, we get knowledge and we become more empowered to take our health into our own hands. Danielle, this is so important. And I'm so glad that you said this because I'm such a proponent for bio-individual healthcare in general, across the board, nutrition, healthcare, everything, because you're so right at in general across the board, nutrition, healthcare, everything, because you're so right at the end of the day.

These practitioners are experts in their own field, right? They're experts in the human body or whatever their expertise is, but you are the expert of your own body. It's so important we all get to know ourselves in that way and to learn how to really tune in and tap into our intuition. I think a lot of us as we, you know, just with our modern lives and we're not as connected to nature anymore. And I think as a result, we're not really as connected to our own bodies, our intuition. And I just think this is such an important component of this entire

conversation is really learning how to tap back in to you and really figuring out what is best for you. You know, you can get out figuring out what is best for you. You know, you can get out all the outside advice that you want. You can read all the books, but at the end of the day, we really truly know what is best for us. And something that helps along this journey, you know, maybe as someone that's starting to try out new adaptogens and whatever is start keeping a little log, whether it's on your phone or in a journal or whatever it is, and write down kind of the changes that you've seen with the different adaptogens that you've tried.

I mean, I can speak personally, in my own experience, the ones that have worked best for me, I've struggled with a lot of anxiety in my whole life, basically stress. And when I found ashwagandha and holy basil, I was like, oh, like, oh my God. There's just the way that they work with my body. I'm like, wow, this is really what I needed.

And different people have different stories with different components. Like I have some friends that swear by cordyceps or reishi. And it's like, you kind of really have to figure out what works best with your body and what's going on. And they'll change over time too, depending on what's going on in your life. And I was gonna say,

I really liked the way that you guys set this book up because it acts like a guide where you can go through and be like, okay, what am I dealing with right now? And read about the different adaptogens that might help you through whatever you're going through right now. I'm so glad you mentioned the feeling

how it works in your own body and assessing that. Really like a little plug, but we can actually share it with anyone here as well. But in my practice, I have a before and after checklist. And so this is before we make a dietary change or add a new supplement or start a new adaptogen or plant medicine, whatever it might be in someone's routine. Because so often, Courtney, when people start getting better, they forget. We all do this. We forget. It's wild. I've had clients that are like, I forgot that I had headaches three days a week

for 10 years. It's really wild, extreme things. And so it's actually the pre-order offer right now is this checklist that I made specifically for the book. So you can go in and it goes through all different areas of your body. So some that you're like, what's my eyesight like? How is my hearing? What's my state of my mind? My digestion, of course, the skin moisture levels. I mean, it's really comprehensive and you fill that out for you and you alone. And then you put it aside. You start taking, my suggestion is one adaption at a time to really get clear of how that works in your body. And four to six weeks is the gold standard amount of time that you would use it every single day. And then you fill out a brand new fresh sheet, the same one, without looking at the original,

and you fill it out again and then you compare them side to side. And it's just for yourself to know, wow, I thought my vitality of my energy was at an eight all along, but actually four weeks ago or six weeks ago, I was at a four and now I'm at an eight or these shifts that are subtle. And when someone else isn't telling you those, you're improving and it's your own scale. It's so much more empowering and we can all do that. Absolutely. Yeah. And the key is to write it down, like you said. It's cool. I love that it comes with that little checklist because I think that's super important. Well, and just helpful. So you mentioned talking about, well, in the very beginning, before we started recording,

about sourcing. And I know this is something that has happened in the food industry. And I'm curious to hear what you have to say about in the functional or in adaptogen world, when things start becoming really popular and all of a sudden, you just see it all over the shelves and you walk into the gas station and there's little adapt you know, like adaptogenic sprays and stuff. How does someone navigate finding really good high quality source adaptogens? Like, how do you know? Are there certain things you need to look for, certifications? Five pillars that I'll share.

And again, this is like teaching the woman to fish instead of giving the fish. In the book, we do... And I can offer right now some brands that I suggest, big brands, small brands, places to buy them. But that doesn't go very far because this information should be evergreen. And there's new brands coming on the market every day. And my goal is for every person listening and every consumer to know the right information so that they can source appropriately whatever brand they choose to buy, whatever format they choose to buy. And so with that, there's really five big things. The first one is the form. And this might seem silly, but it's making sure that you're getting what you're intending to

purchase. I can't tell you how often I see this. It's crazy. But in the book, I write out the Latin name of every adaptogen. And so this is like your full birth name. This is the actual name that doesn't change no matter where in the world you are. So no matter where we travel to, you're Courtney Swan and I'm Danielle Breda, right? That's it. But we might have these nicknames everywhere we go. And so same thing with our adaptogens. Ashwagandha, for example, is not necessarily called Ashwagandha everywhere in the world. So its true name is Withania somnifera, or Tulsi. Yeah. So Tulsi, oh, so interesting. Tulsi, we call it Tulsi or Holy Basil, or there's all these other names, but it's so interesting tulsi you know we call it tulsi or holy basil or

there's all these other names but it's optimum sanctum right we have these these true latin names and so when you're purchasing making sure that you're you're actually getting what you're wanting this is really big with like ginsengs because there's so many different plants and roots that are called ginsengs that are actually not true ginsengs at all. There's like American ginseng and Asian ginseng and European ginseng. I mean, it's all over the place. And so really looking at, okay, what's the Latin name on this? And you can reference it in the book or other books and say, okay, am I purchasing what I'm purchasing? And the other piece of this, all within the form checklist is that you're getting the right part. So we talked about this a lot previously with

mushrooms, right? Making sure you're getting the real mushroom, the fruiting body, but this is relevant with our plants as well. If you think of it, each species has the power hub. It's the area where the adaptogenic compounds are really concentrated. So for Tulsi, it's the leaf. In ashwagandha, it's the root. You don't want to be buying ashwagandha berries or ashwagandha fruit. It's in the tomato family, right? It's a nightshade. The fruit looks really beautiful and bright and shiny as like orange red fruit, but that's not where the medicine is, right? And so we really want to make sure you're getting the right part. This is huge. So make sure it's the actual Latin name and that is the right part. That's all within form. Number two is the dosing. And so we talked about this before the show, but I think cannabis has been really

confusing the whole industry for people because there's these really low milligrams that can be effective for people. It's like, oh, I only want five milligrams or 10 milligrams. And so then our minds kind of conflate that to other plants. We're like, oh, cool. A mushroom, five milligrams, that's not going to do anything for you. So you want to make sure you're like, oh, cool, a mushroom, five milligrams, that's not going to do anything for you. So you want to make sure you're actually getting an amount that your body can experience benefits from. It's different for every species, but typically it's around 200 to 500 milligrams as a starting dose, sometimes more, sometimes less, but really get the right amount per serving. And this is like, it's a lot of marketing on bubbly drinks or gummies or things

where they're like, made with this ingredient in such a tiny minuscule amount of the formula that you're actually not going to experience benefits from it. Yeah. We see that a lot with CBD. For sure. It's like CBD is sparkling water. And then I read the back and I'm like, this is the smallest amount of CBD. It's not going to have any effect. Yes, exactly. Same thing. So yeah, we should take that same lens through all the things that we're ingesting. Purity, I know you know about this through and through but we need to make sure that our products are clean right the quality of them so especially with you know our mushrooms which

are bioaccumulators they have to be organic they really should be third-party tested this is the case you know some of the adaptogens like goji we do want to source them from their native lands, but there are a lot of protocols that we want to make sure they aren't sprayed through customs or going through, you know, with cacao, like the high heat and processing. So making sure that they're pure, that they're in the authentic form where the benefits are. Fourth, we'll go quicker, is bioavailability. So this is so important. A lot of these ingredients have to be extracted or they should be boiled in hot water if the medicinal compounds in them are water soluble or some of them have fat soluble vitamins. So we want to add a fat compound to them. So really making sure that they have been either extracted if you're buying them pre-extracted, or if you're doing it yourself, you're buying reishi slices to make sure that you're

tincturing or you're making a long hot water tea to coction out of them so that the form you're using, your body can actually use. It's like the most expensive supplement is the one that doesn't work. Often this comes down to bioavailability. Like, has it been processed properly so that we can use it? And then fifth, this is kind of about the native lands, but also really important to me as an herbalist is sustainability. So making sure that you're choosing brands and companies that practice really good manufacturing practices and are transparent in their sourcing that are not getting the plants from places where there's

a shortage of them. Where you want to source chaga, for example, in the taiga forest, most abundant source of chaga in the world versus some places in Canada where Aborigines and Native people depend on that sourcing of chaga for their medicine and their livelihood, right? So sustainability and sourcing kind of hand in hand. And if we can knock those five out, right, if we can get the form, dose, purity, bioavailability, and sustainability, like regardless of the brand or the place, big box online, small health food store, if those have been checked off, amazing. You're good to go. Yeah. And I would add on to this. I mean, it's basically

adding on to the last thing that you said. It's so important to make sure that you're getting from a good source, from someone who's protecting the farmers and protecting the land that they're farming it on. Meaning, you know, they're not spraying with all these pesticides. They're maintaining the health of the soil. The farmers are getting living wages. They're not being taken advantage of. This is so, so, so important. And also not only is it important for the environment, for human rights, for protecting these people, but also it's going to result in a healthier adaptogen for you as well. And we can apply this to food. We can apply this to everything. It's why quality really matters and the sourcing really matters.

Yes. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Yeah. The energetic imprint of it too, beyond just what it's doing. When we hold companies to those standards, it's really our way of purchasing that product and saying like, hey, I'm spending my dollar to invest in your practices and the practices you support. And so it really becomes powerful if we can think of it like that. I'm not just buying this for me. I'm actually investing in what this company is doing, because I want to see more of that in the world. And it goes both ways. If we invest in companies that aren't obtaining solid practices, we're saying, this is okay. You can keep doing that. I'm investing in what processes you're following. And so, yeah, it becomes like, I feel so motivated by that. I'm like, wow, I can really vote on what I want to see more of in the world with every dollar I spend and every product I'm investing in through that purchasing power. Yes. And this is a question that I get from people all the time. How can I help? How

can I make a difference? How can I make an impact? This is a huge way that you can help and make an impact and make a difference. And it feels so small and attainable to be a part of that difference, which is really cool. Yeah, it is. Every single... We're all buying things every day. We're consumers. And it's like, if we can get really mindful about having the power to shape future industries based on what we're purchasing today, what's a more profound way to make a difference than that? I know. I love that. So I really want to know what your personal favorite adaptogen is and how did it impact your life? Oh my goodness, there's so many. I think I'm going to start with turmeric today. I think it's not thought of as an adaptogen as often. It's so well known and yet the benefits that we can experience from it are so multifaceted. There's been so many experiences with turmeric, both internally, topically. I lived in Asia and studied in Asia for many years. And one of the first

experiences I had with real raw turmeric was I was living on a sticky rice farm outside of the town of Pai in Northern Thailand. It was called Taco Pai. And they were like, oh, this is a permaculture farm. It really was. And it was like, oh, geez, super rustic. I was living in this shed with more spiders than I've ever seen in my life. Oh, no. And I was riding a motorcycle in and out. We ride these little scooters around there.

It's the only way. Or I would hitchhike for transportation. And there's a thing called Thai tattoos in different Asian countries. It's like, okay, you basically get a big burn on your leg from the motorcycle, from the exhaust pipe. Do you have one? It's gone away now because of turmeric. It probably would have been a Thai tattoo for life. So of course, there's more internal amazing benefits of turmeric that I'll share as well. But one of my first real raw experiences was I get this Thai tattoo. I'm like, it's burning. Don't know what to do. I'm living at Taco Pie. I just pulled in on the motorbike. And there's a man named Sandot who owned the place. He had one eye and was this amazing farmer. And he goes and he harvests this root and

he puts it in his mouth and he starts chewing it up and he spits it out and slaps it on my big burn. And me coming from a Western mind, I'm like, oh my God, his saliva is dangerous. What's going on? I had no idea. It was just really deep orange root. I didn't realize at the time it was turmeric. And he was like, leave it on, leave it on. And I was still in this mindset. I would like to take it off and like put some Neosporin and wash it with soap and water. And then he'd come back and put more turmeric on it. And we'd had this like back and forth for a few days. And it was pretty miraculous. Like I didn't really know, you know, that it was even turmeric turmeric again it was that we never communicated on that latin name it was a different common name in thai um but it was this just incredible real raw farmer you know

foreigner experience where you're pulling something right out of the ground that it's you know evolved to grow in extracting it right he right? He was extracting it, chewing it, matting his saliva, throwing it right on me topically and me really witnessing. So a lot of times we can't see the anti-inflammatory benefits and the healing that is happening internally. So it was a really amazing way to visually see in the course of hours to days how that curcumin and all of these other amazing compounds in the turmeric were accelerating my body's own healing process. That's what I found so unique. It's not that it was dampening and suppressing, but it felt more like an ally. I talk about adaptions a lot as allies. There are

homies making what our bodies already are built to do more effective, right? For some reason that these different actions have been suppressed. Maybe it's because of a nutrient deficiency or because of stress or lack of sleep, but our bodies want to heal. And so adaptions can basically be like, hey, like a friend, I'm coming along, we're going to go do this thing. I got you, together we can make it happen. And so, yeah, I mean, since then, I mean, turmeric has exploded. It's probably one of the most popular adaptions on the planet. And for good reason, right? We see this topical, this internal, the gut healing, the immune supporting benefits, the skin health. Oh my gosh. Now,

there's so many other times. Living in India, I used to put turmeric all over my skin for acne purposes and just like inside, outside, it has so, so many benefits and it's so revered for such good reason. And I do love the like visceral image when we can really see what turmeric is. One of his names is gold to the gods. You can see this bright orange hue and we know as nutritionists through the colors of our food, that's one of the most profound messages of what type of antioxidants and polyphenols and different compounds are in there that are going to be beneficial for us. So to see it and actually put it on and eat it and have this, what's good for us inside can be good for us outside and really incorporating like full body. Our skin is an organ, right? So our largest organs. So it's like, yeah,

supporting both and seeing it and seeing the color of the root. Yeah, turmeric's my adaptogen of the moment. I love that. I loved that story too. And I was also thinking that I love something that I really love about adaptogens and just this more natural non-toxic approach in general is that you really get these amazing healing benefits. And like you said, you get these allies in supporting your own body's mechanisms of healing because we already have those mechanisms in place for our body to heal. I think we forget often that our bodies are so miraculous. And like you said earlier, they want to heal. And so having these modalities or these functional adaptogens that we can help assist that don't have all these negative side effects. Because you think about pharmaceutical

drugs where, of course, no one's arguing that we have amazing drugs that have really helped us along the way. But there's always something that you have to like, there's like a payoff, like a harsh side effect that you have to deal with as well. And obviously there's a time and a place for it. I'm not arguing that. But how amazing that we also have these, we have access to this plant medicine that we can use and can really help us. And then we don't have to worry about all these horrible negative side effects. Yeah, it's really, it's really amazing. And I do think we need both. And we're in a time where we're like, Hey, something that I've been taking for whatever ailment for X, Y, or Z amount of years isn't working anymore. Or as you mentioned, I traded one side effect for another or one symptom for another. And so we're like,

what else is out there? And I see this, it's like mind, we're opening our eyes to society and really more open than I've ever seen us before towards remembering. Because again, it's not new. We're just remembering that we have all of these allies that the earth gives us to support so many ailments and more. We've evolved with them. Our bodies recognize them. They're safe for the most part. Of course, there's toxic plants and toxic mushrooms. But a lot of them, we've gone too far in that extreme of like, oh my God, I'm not going to touch a mushroom. What's it going to do? Or I don't know enough about it. And we're kind of like, hey, what else is there?

And we're open to experimenting and playing. And adaptions are such a fun way to start that process. So we can really feel what they feel like in our body, notice and observe pretty real shifts in a relatively short amount of time for the world of natural medicine. And it increases this believability and it develops this relationship with nature, which I think is so profound. Then we start really looking at the earth in a totally new way. Like, wow, I'm not just walking among random shrubbery. When I walk down the street, I'm walking among medicine. I think that even living in Venice, I'm like, I walk by

passion. There's passion fruit vines, passion flower all over. This is medicine. Or there's dandelions coming up from the sidewalk or yarrow is everywhere. And there's medicine all around us. And it's really asking for us to take a look and to pay attention and to say, hey, I'm here to support you. And now it's our turn to be like, okay, I'm open to it. It takes two. Yeah. Yeah. As you were saying that, I was thinking in my head, my dad and I have been getting in so many fights, not like big fights, but just kind of bickering about, he goes out and sprays, he kills all the dandelion in our yard. And I'm like, dad, dandelion are incredibly healing plants. We need them for our liver. And I don't know, it just, it makes me mad. I'm like,

it's medicine. It's not just like a thing. What do we call it? Weed that you need to get rid of. Yeah. The difference between a weed and a medicine is your perspective. Yes, yes. I love that. So before we go, is there anything else about the book or just adaptogens in general that we didn't go over that you feel is really important for people to know? It's just such a beautiful time to be having this conversation. I think for the very first time in history, adaptogens are so widely available to us. I think it's important to recognize that these weren't always on a grocery store shelf or available to purchase on Amazon. They were actually reserved for the emperors, the most revered.

You had to trade or walk thousands of miles to get your hands on one cacao bean or one reishi mushroom or travel for months to find a rhodiola root. They have been revered because of how unique, how sacred, how hard and difficult they were to access. And they're available, right? They're right here for us. And it blows my mind. So I'm like, they are so shining. They're rearing their heads and being like, hey, I'm ready to help you. And when we look at what we need today as a society, not only are we more stressed than ever before, we talked about this. I know your audience knows we are more nutrient deficient than ever before, even eating the same foods we ate 50 plus years ago. The kale today isn't the same as it was 50 years ago, right? It's lost so many of those nutrients. And so what that means is our bodies have less tools to deal with all

the stress and all the compounding things that we're faced with day to day. And so there's this alignment happening where we look at the state of our body, the state of the world. We look at the availability of these allies that are here to help us. And it truly feels like the one missing link is the education, right? That bridge to help people go from where they are right now to a life of incorporating powerful plant and fungal medicine into their daily routines. And I hope that this conversation and this book and whatever follows can be a part of building that bridge for people. I love that. So since you have been on the podcast before, I've asked you this question. So I was trying to think of a way that I could adapt it a little bit. Adapt. Didn't even mean that one, but there we go. So, cause you know, normally at the end,

I ask everyone what their health non-negotiables are. So do you have an adaptogen non-negotiable where you're like, I need to take this every day or every couple of days, something that you really like rely on? Yeah. The five functional mushrooms that are adaptogens are so strongly non-negotiables in my life. I swap them out based on time of year, seasonality, what I'm going through. But starting my morning with, lately it's been lion's mane, is is something that i i will never stop doing um it's it's like when we talk about breakfast being the most important meal and waking up in our morning routine and i truly think you know we're already doing that if we can have it stack and add an adaptogen to get us going on the right mindset physically mentally energetically, there's so much that can happen downstream.

That just makes life so much easier. Yeah, I agree. I put some form of mushrooms in my coffee or I've been doing matcha lately as well in my drink because they really just help with brain health, immunity, stress, all of it. Well, for everyone listening, where can they find the book? Where can they find you?

Any kind of information you want to throw out before we leave? Yeah, the book can be found at healingadaptogens.com. And I can be found mostly all over Four Sigmatic. So at Four Sigmatic on all social channels, foursigmatic.com. My personal website is daniellerionwellness.com or at daniellerionbroida on social. Awesome. Thank you so much.

I really loved this. This is super informative. Thank you so much for having me. Such a blast as always. Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone.

The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie, spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.