(Listen to the full episode here.)
On this episode of the Essential Oil Revolution, I am extremely excited and honored to have a returning guest to the show. She is a world-renowned essential oil expert who discusses with us how to balance the brain, calm the nervous system, support detoxification and lymphatic flow, and enhance all aspects of the foundations of health.
Essential Oils Mind-Body Synergy
As essential oil lovers, we know not to take our nose for granted. Just think of how boring life, food, and experiences would be without the enticing aromas that they exude. Furthermore, the more we study about the influence that odors have on our mental and physical health, the more we realize how underappreciated smell is as a vital sense.
Besides providing us with a richer life experience, science has demonstrated that scents have a profound impact on our memory, mood, and biology. The volatile, aromatic compounds found in essential oils also offer additional beneficial biochemical, physiological, and neurological effects. This ability to simultaneously support emotional and bodily health makes essential oils one of my favorite modalities to use with clients.
Those versed in essential oils know that their properties allow them to be effortlessly integrated into most therapeutic modalities. Yet, for the clinician and consumer it can sometimes be overwhelming to determine which oil is needed for what, much less how to apply and use them therapeutically.
Balancing Organ Systems with Essential Oils
One of the goals of this podcast is to help shed light on how to make essential oils more accessible, respected, and utilized by the healthcare community and public. And Jodi Cohen is truly one of the leading change-agents who has been working to accomplish this shift. She has created a targeted approach to essential oils based on what the body needs and has had it embraced and taken seriously by functional and integrative practitioners.
Driven by own passion to find what works clinically, Jodi’s brilliant, investigative, and inquisitive mind, melded with the compilation of all her education and training to revolutionize the formulation of essential oils in a way that is truly unique and incredibly effective. This led her to create her own company in 2012, Vibrant Blue Oils.
Vibrant Blue Oils offer organic, wild-crafted essential oils that are of exceptional quality, provide transparent analysis of compounds, and are sustainably sourced. However, what stands out about Vibrant Blue Oils is that they combine these qualities with Jodi’s masterfully crafted synergistic blends of essential oils. These powerful mixtures are intended to support weakened organ systems as they rebalance the nervous system and enhance overall resiliency. Through integrating essential oils that support our physiology rather than manipulating one’s biochemistry, the aim of Vibrant Blue Oils is to use essential oils to address the root cause of disease. This results in:
- optimized blood sugar
- better brain function and mood
- lowered inflammation and healing of the gut
- more restful sleep
- enhanced detoxification and drainage
- a balanced stress response
Yet, Jodi’s passion to spread the message of how essential oils can turn on our innate capacity to heal doesn’t stop with the work she does with her company and its products. Jodi is also a dedicated educator, teacher, and lecturer. She hosts the Essential Alchemy Podcast to a wide audience. Jodi also works closely with healthcare practitioners (e.g., medical doctors, naturopathic doctors, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, acupuncturists, health coaches, nutritionists, and yoga instructors) to implement personalized essential oil protocols to correct their clients’ and patients‘ underlying imbalances.
Through her work, Jodi empowers others with the understanding and application of how essential oils can unlock one’s inner, infinite healing power. She has curated and compiled her learning into blogs, books, and classes. Her website is an invaluable resource for online essential oils information and welcomes 300,000 visitors every year. Furthermore, Jodi is the bestselling author of Healing with Essential Oils and her recent book Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the Body.
When you meet Jodi, you will be amazed by her authentic, compassionate, and fierce drive to spread her knowledge to the world on how essential oils are a true ally to anyone who hopes to enhance their mind and body.
Anyone who uses essential oils will benefit from Jodi’s approach and expertise. This is because her philosophy, how she formulates her blends, and her application methods are part of what makes Jodi’s contribution to the essential oil community so special.
Below is an overview of topics covered on the show, but you will definitely want to listen to the whole show by clicking here.
What You Will Learn in This Episode:
- The many benefits of aromas and how essential oils constituents support our mind and body in various ways.
- How Jodi got started with natural health:
- She first discovered the power of plant medicine through using nutrition to help her son’s behavioral issues. This led Jodi to pursue her nutritional therapy degree.
- She was later introduced to essential oils to help her resolve her own health challenges, enhance her energy, and help her sleep.
- How Jodi revolutionized blending essential oils through the influence of her nutritional training and reflex points.
- How Jodi’s success in her own practice led to the creation of her unique formulations and the creation of her company, Vibrant Blue Oils.
- The different types of applications of essential oils and which Jodi prefers.
- Jodi prefers inhalation and topical use of essential oils applied over certain acupuncture/reflex points. This is related to how these methods enhance their quick, targeted and systematic effects.
- The impact of stress on digestion and how essential oils can support better assimilation:
- Stress can compromise digestive capacity and result in malabsorption, even if one’s diet is healthy.
- Essential oils calm the mind-body and regulate the nervous system, enhancing absorption.
- Essential oils can bypass the gut and can work even when one’s digestive system is suboptimal.
- How the survival instinct and stress (external or perceived) suppress our ability to heal and restore.
- This is through activation of the sympathetic nervous system, our fight-and-flight system, and a downregulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, our rest-and-digest system.
- Which combination of essential oils can alleviate sympathetic overdrive and turn on our “reset button”, the vagus nerve, and where we can apply them.
- Jodi discovered calming oils alone didn’t work well for regulating the vagus nerve.
- Rather, Jodi discovered that you could stimulate the vagus nerve by applying certain oils behind the ears at the mastoid bones, a point that overlaps where the vagus nerve passes under the skin.
- Jodi’s Parasympathetic blend contains 25% clove and 75% distilled lime in fractioned coconut oil.
- Clove oil is high in eugenol, is stimulating, and is anti-inflammatory. It has medium sized molecules which makes it absorb at a slower rate than tiny molecules.
- Clove oil can be blended with the smaller molecules found in lime oil to make it faster acting on the nerve. Lime oil also aids with detoxification (it may upregulate glutathione) and is uplifting.
- The body can be trained to calm down through this application of clove and distilled lime oils. In time, the smell of the blend alone can elicit the relaxation response through its association.
- The theory of toxicity in the brain and how it relates to autism.
- Essential oils and stimulating the vagus nerve may help with symptoms of toxicity (inflammation, compromise to brain circulation, etc.).
- These actions could make essential oils and vagal nerve stimulation helpful for autism.
- How the vagus nerve is important for self-regulation.
- The vagus nerve infection hypothesis:
- Toxins and pathogens can get trapped in the neck and inflame the vagus nerve, causing a systematic response and many clinical symptoms.
- Essential oils can relieve this through drainage support.
- Why you need to stimulate the lymphatic system with essential oils to help with detoxification and drainage by using the “Big Six Lymph Reset” by Dr. Perry Nickelston.
- If the lymph is congested, it can press against vagus nerve and compress it, impeding its signals. It can also constrict the fascia and cause stagnation.
- Essential oils can decongest the neck which helps with draining the toxins from the brain. They can be applied topically on the neck and to the clavicles to move lymph and unclog the fascia for better brain function.
- Jodi has a Lymph Blend that she combines with the Parasympathetic and Fascia blends to support lymph flow.
- Be sure to listen to the episode to discover the sequence for proper lymph drainage.
- How to calm anxiety in an instant by inhaling an essential oil through a specific nostril:
- The nostrils are symmetric to the same side of the brain and influence its function.
- When you have an anxiety attack, you are likely having an overactivation of the right side of the brain.
- To calm the right side of the brain, you can plug your right nostril and breathe in an essential oil in the left nostril. This will stimulate your left prefrontal cortex and calm the right prefrontal cortex, balancing the brain.
- Applying the Adrenal Blend on the small of the back over the adrenals may be helpful for calming as well. Rosemary oil in this blend helps to vasodilate blood vessels which helps with circulation and removing debris.
- Some stimulating oils that can help with brain fog, stress, and circulatory issues.
- Rosemary helps with vasodilation and oxygenation to the brain.
- Black pepper helps with circulation and absorption of other nutrients.
- The five steps to help rebalance the body based on Jodi’s book, Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the Body:
- Optimize sleep.
- Circadian Rhythm can help with this.
- Waking up at 1am could be a sign of a blood sugar imbalance and you may need the Pancreas Blend to rebalance glucose levels.
- Waking up at 3am could signify a gallbladder stagnation and the Gallbladder blend may alleviate this issue.
- Calm Stress
- Support drainage (in the brain and body)
- Enhance gut health.
- This can be helped by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system and applying the supportive oils found in the Intestinal Mucosa blend.
- Immune modulation
- Optimize sleep.
- How essential oils can optimize the brain by crossing the blood brain barrier.
- The importance of combining essential oils in blends.
- How essential oils can calm the overwhelm that prevents one from moving forward and making healthier choices.
- Which essential oil decreases histamine, supports emotional health, and may help with mast cell activation syndrome.
- Jodi’s favorite oil, blue tansy, does. It is found in Histamine Balance.
- The closing questions (1) What Jodi does daily for self-care, (2) What she thinks we can ditch and replace with for better overall health and resiliency.
Listen to the full episode here.
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Links to learn more about Jodi Cohen, Vibrant Blue Oils, and Her Work:
- Website: @ Vibrant Blue Oils (Affiliation Link)
- Facebook: @vibrantblueoils
- IG: @vibrantblueoils
- Linkedin: @vibrantblueoils
- Podcast: Essential Alchemy Podcast
- Youtube
Resources for Vibrant Essential Oils:
- Where do I start with Essential Oils
- Vibrant Blue Oils Blog
- FAQs on Vibrant Blue Oils and Essential Oils
- Sleep Checklist
- Free Gift! The Parasympathetic Toolkit
- Practitioner Account
- Classes (Parasympathetic Activation, Boost the Brain and Heal the Body, Healing Stress with Essential Oils, Reboot the Brain, and Gut Repair)
Books by Jodi Cohen:
- Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the Body (Free Bonus Chapter)
- Healing with Essential Oils
Previous Episodes with Jodi Cohen, MBA, Founder of Vibrant Blue Oils:
- Ep. 321: Switching From ‘Fight or Flight’ to ‘Rest and Digest’ w/ Jodi Cohen
- Ep. 243: 5 Easy Steps to Better Health Using Essential Oils
Additional Resources Mentioned in the Show
Bio of Jodi Cohen, MBA, Founder Vibrant Blue Oils
Jodi Cohen earned her MBA from Columbia University and is an award-winning investigational journalist. She has worked as a marketing executive at Microsoft, Time Inc., and US News & World Report, and as a legislative aide to Senator Ted Kennedy. Due to her personal health issues of anxiety, insomnia, and autoimmunity, her career shifted into wellness. As a result, she holds certifications in nutritional therapy, functional neurology, herbalism, and aromatherapy. She also has extensive educational training in plant medicine, brain health, Chinese medicine, and integrative medicine.
Today, Jodi is a well-known, internationally renowned, sought-after essential oils expert and masterful formulator of essential oil blends. Jodi has taught more than 65,000 practitioners, individuals, and families across the nation on using essential oils to balance the body and the brain. She has lectured at prestigious wellness centers, conferences, and corporations and has been featured in The New York Times, Wellness Mama, Elephant Journal, and numerous publications.
Driven by own passion to find what works clinically, her brilliant, investigative, and inquisitive mind, and the compilation of all her education and training, Jodi revolutionized a method to combine essential oils that is truly unique and incredibly effective. This led her to create her own company in 2012, Vibrant Blue Oils. Vibrant Blue Oils are organic, wild-crafted essential oils that are of exceptional quality, offer transparent analysis of compounds, and are sustainably sourced. The company also provides the clinician and consumer a user-friendly and systematic approach to essential oils. Specifically, Jodi has crafted synergistic blends of essential oils which support weakened organ systems as they rebalance the nervous system and enhance overall resiliency.
Still, Jodi’s passion to spread the message of how essential oils can optimize our health doesn’t stop with the work she does with her company. She has curated and compiled her learnings into blogs, books, and classes. Her website is an invaluable resource for online essential oils information and welcomes 300,000 visitors every year. Furthermore, Jodi is the bestselling author of Healing with Essential Oils and her recent book Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the Body. When you meet Jodi, you will be amazed by her authentic, compassionate, and fierce drive to spread her knowledge to the world that essential oils are a true ally to anyone who hopes to enhance their wellness. Her passion is driven by the success stories she hears daily. Knowing that she is making a difference serves to fuel her desire to continue to discover and dig deeper into perfecting the merger of the science and art of essential oils. Through her work, she empowers others with the understanding and application of how essential oils can unlock one’s own innate, infinite healing power. You can find out more about Jodi and Vibrant Blue Oils at https://vibrantblueoils.com/.
Naturopathic Medicine and Holistic Resources for Hormonal, Mood, and Digestive Support
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- Tools for coping with isolation and separation.
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Many blessings.
References:
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23790471/
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120425140118.htm
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6770193/
- https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-black-pepper
- See additional references in linked articles
Disclaimer: This material is for information purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prescribe for any illness. You should check with your doctor regarding implementing any new strategies into your wellness regime. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. (Affiliation link.)
This information is applicable ONLY for therapeutic quality essential oils. This information DOES NOT apply to essential oils that have not been tested for purity and standardized constituents. There is no quality control in the United States, and oils labeled as “100% pure” need only to contain 5% of the actual oil. The rest of the bottle can be filled with fillers and sometimes toxic ingredients that can irritate the skin. The studies are not based solely on a specific brand of an essential oil, unless stated. Please read the full study for more information.
Thanks Pixabay and Canva.