Quantum Biology of the Gut Microbiome

Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, nurse practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives. Today I had the honor of connecting with doctor Catherine Clinton. She's a licensed naturopathic physician, author, and the founder and chair of the Quantum Biology Health Institute. Today we spoke at length about quantum biology , what quantum biology actually is , how conventional biology operates at a chemical and cellular level, whereas quantum biology operates at a much smaller scale , the influence of light and the impact of chronobiology and sunlight , the influence of hormones on immune system regul ation that is dependent on light , how we can adapt our lifestyle when we are unable to be out in sun during our work day and how this impacts our physiology , the influence of structured water , as well as the impact on our DNA, mitochondria and fascia , why ground you work can be so powerful , the influence of fascia and bioelectricity, how quantum biology influences the gut in terms of energetics and autoimmunity . This is a really fascinating conversation about quantum biology and how it can be readily accessible to us on a day to day basis. I think this is one of these conversations that will really start other conversations for my community, and I hope you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it. Dr. Clinton, so good to be connected with you. Welcome to Every Day Wellness . Thank you so much for having me. I'm really delighted to be here today. Yeah, absolutely. Before we even dive into science, how would you describe quantum biology in one sense as someone who's never heard of it? And there might be people listening that aren't familiarized with this. So starting out at like the kind of basic level would be great before we kind of dive into our conversation . Definitely . I think an easy way to understand quantum biology is how energy in our environment and within the body impact biological act ion. Whether we're talking about spectrums of light, whether we're talking about sound , our relationship with nature , electric, magnetic scalar, the biofield, those fields of energy, our thoughts and emotions they all face with different structures in the body and create measurable biological action. That is really the study of quantum biolog y. And quantum biology looks at quantum mechanics, whether we're looking at quantum tunneling , quantum entanglement, superposition where a particle can be in multiple places at one time . Those used to be relegated only to the laboratory. And now we understand that those processes are happening in the human body and actually have foundational impact on our health and longevity. And that's the study of quantum biology. We look at the flow of energy, electrons, protons , a photon of light , a field of energy, and how that induces health or starts to slowly degrade that health in the body. And what got you so interested in the subject matter to begin with because I would imagine people that are listening understand fundamentally that we can measure all of what you're talking about , but it's not as tangible as many other things in terms of topics , but what got you so interested in this? I think really the turning point was when I was in my second year of naturopathic medical school and I was in that initi ation year, really long hours , long clinic hours , and I didn't have the nervous system to weather all of that incoming stress. I was diagnosed with two aut oimmune conditions. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease . I started having panic attacks that seemed to just come out of nowhere . And that's when the physician, I was doing clinical rotations underneath who is actually also my physician said, You should look at psycho neuroimmunology. And that's just a big word for how our thoughts and emotions impact our health. At the same time , I was looking at mitochondria. You know, this was over twenty years ago and mitochondria were new and emerging . I really thought that maybe I could find some key piece in the research with mitochondria that would help me get better from all of these things . And that's when I started to see this overlap between our thoughts and emotions, between our cellular energy from our mitochondria, and some of the new emerging research in the field of quantum biology from UC Berkeley , understanding how interconnected the body is and how interconnected it is in this field field of energy that we are immersed in sort of swimming in day in and day out . And that's what really led me to this approach to healing because I was in the perfect place to get better. I was at a naturopathic medical school. I was doing a dual degree in Chinese medicine, which I had to stop I was right down the hill from an alleopathic medical school , teaching school, very progressive. I had all these tools to get better, to heal . And all of them really were approaching the body from a chemical mechan ical perspective . And a quantum biology perspective just expands that understanding so that there are more tools, more avenues towards healing. And that's what I needed at the time. And I've just stayed in this field because it's so exciting. Yeah, it's so interesting, especially when we look at how our physiology as females makes us more susceptible to autoimmune cond itions to begin with. And looking at that kind of complex interrelationship between stress, the immune system and how it can imprint us to make us more susceptible . Now from my perspective and when we're helping to define what quantum biology is, we know that conventional biology operates at this kind of chemical and cellular level . And what does quantum biology see that conventional biolog y misses. Like this is an important kind of distinction. Like as I was preparing for our conversation, I think most people have taken, you know, undergraduate or graduate level biology classes. So like I understand I can touch and see all of that , but how do they differ ? That's a great question . They differ in size . So when we're looking at chemical react ion in the body with an enzymatic process or a receptor or a cell membrane . We're looking at this layer of chemical biology and how that influences health . Quantum biology is looking at a smaller scale. It's looking how one photon of light can induce change in the body, how the flow of electrons smaller than an atom, right? These very small quantum particles have a massive influence on biological health, longevity , all of these measures of health in the body are influenced by these very, very small pieces of life electrons, protons , photons of light , the bonds in the water in the body, all of these things do a dance together that happens in a very small level, at these very small quantum sized interactions in the body . And they lead to some of those chemical mechanical interactions that we see so commonly studied in a biology class in a chemistry class, and that organic that dreaded organic chemistry class that we all took, right? Something I hear constantly from women in our community and something I understand personally is this nothing about your effort has changed and yet our bodies are responding differently. Your midsection feels different, your blood sugar is less stable , and your cravings may have shifted . And let's be honest, your energy probably isn't what it used to be. 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I said, just because that was to me a little less tangible. Whereas for me, I'm very visually oriented, but I think kind of classically people fear orgo because it's a lot of work. So let's talk about light. I think this is like the most immediately kind of actionable step and the most surprising to most people when we're talking about quantum biolog y and speaking specifically to light , I think most people think of sunlight as our ability to generate vitamin D or concerns even over skin cancer . But what is actually happening when light hits your skin beyond those two things? Like I think again, it's especially as a clinician myself, because this was something I wasn't quite as familiarized with when I was writing out questions and creating creating structure. It was like, how do we make this really applicable so that people have like real world explanations like light does some things, but it also does far more than that It sure does. Absolutely vitamin D , but the light in our environment is guiding and informing our biological action every single moment of the day. I think it was twenty seventeen, there were three researchers that were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on chronobiology. That's just a big word for how light impacts the body or impacts life. And they found that that impact is enormous . As in our environment enters the eye, it gets concentrated on this thin layer of cells in the back of the eye called the retina. The retina has light sensitive proteins all throughout it that are constantly sensing the light in our environment , what time of day it is, what season we're in . All of that information condensed into a signal that goes into the center of the brain, the hypothalamus, the superchiasmatic nucleus which is also commonly known as the master circadian clock . So we have that sensor in the center of our brain that communicates with all these cells throughout the body. Almost every cell in the body a circadian gene or what researchers call a circadian clock. That means that that light enters our eye, it's communicated to the brain, that's turned into a signal that's communicated to all those peripheral cells. If we think about the enormity of this , that means our cardiovascular system, our neurological system, respiratory digestive, our immune system , digestive system , they're all tuned and cued by the light in our environment. And the thing that's happening in modern society is that most of our light environment is indoor LED lighting . And the majority of the spectrum coming out of those LED lights is a very narrow band of blue light . It's telling our body essentially that it's noon, that it's solar noon, and we need to prime our cortisol production , all of these different biological functions that we do need at noon, but we don't need them first thing in the morning or late at night. What we see is that a lot of people are waking up , they're looking at their phone . That LED light from our screens, our computer screens, our phone screens, our TV screens is, again, that narrow band of blue light. So first thing in the morning, we get this influx blue light that tells our body, you're late . It's noon. We need to spike your cortisol We need to forego some of the processes that we would have done in a natural light environment. If we are not picking up that phone , if we are first getting natural light in the eyes . And that means just opening a window, opening a door, going outside , because that light enters our environment and then it takes those pathways that we talked about through the retina, the brain , communicating with all those cells . That morning light , it helps balance our sex hormones, our estrogen, progesterone, our testosterone , it converts key neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine so that we feel calm and content and motivated for our day. It kick starts our metabolism and our lipotropines , our fat burning components of the body. It also balances our immune system and our inflammatory state . All of these things guided and triggered by the natural light in our environment. And modern living has really put up incredible obstacles to this light information . And so the more that we can align with that circadian rhythm with that twenty four hour cycle of the rising and setting of the sun , the more balance it brings to our own internal circadian rhythm and all the process es that depend on it. Well, and I think this is such a kind of a simple intervention. Like I know during the pandemic at the time had two dogs. We now have three, but one of the things that we did because there was so much that we could not do was my husband and I would get out and take these long walks with our dogs . No, you know, no suns, well, we weren't wearing sunscreen. We weren't wearing sunglasses, weren't wearing hats. And it became this like new ritual s over. the So past six years , we've been doing this consistently. And I find that I crave it. And I think for someone that for many, many years was working long shifts in a hospital. I would go to work when it was dark outside. There were not a lot of windows in the hospital. I would get home when it was dark outside . Any wonder why people develop things like seasonal effective disorder or other kind of mood related issues that are a direct reflection of this lack of exposure to sunlight. And I think about, you know, anyone that's working shift work that is going against the kind of normal kind of circadian biology the way that our bodies are wired to be, not to mention the downward to effect s of all those circadian clocks throughout our bodies that get disrupted when we're not eating on our normal schedule or we're not sleeping on our normal schedule. And so the importance of light cannot be overestimated. What is a specific hormone that is dependent on light? You were alluding to some of them. In a way, most doctors, and I would say, when I say doctors, I would say most conventional allopathic providers may not be thinking about . I think we could name a handful of them, right? I think a lot of practitioners don't realize the relationship between our sex hormones and light specifically . When we're talking about hormonal issues , we're often talking about hormone replacement , which absolutely has its place and benefits. No denying that. But the foundation of how light speaks to our hormonal balance in the body is something that's often missing in these conversations. Cortisol being another one. We talk about melatonin and the need to lower the lights at night so that we have melatonin, but we're not talking about the constant stimulation that LED light is sending to our body to secrete cortisol so that our body is not having that diurnal rhythm, that slow increase of cortisol that peaks in the morning , sustains throughout the day, and then drops off in the evening That LED lighting is telling our body to secrete that cortisol at peak levels from the minute we see that screen until those lights are lowered in the evening, hopefully they are. Oftentimes they're not. Oftentimes we're scrolling in bed until we go to sleep . And that level of cortisol has a direct effect on our metabolism, our insulin sensitivity , our insulin resistance and diabetes and obesity , our metabolic pathways with leptin signaling in the brain, with insulin signaling in the brain. And just this picture of wired , but tired and irritated and stressed , they're all often isn't that correlation between in our environment and cortisol and these different diagnoses or syndromes or conditions that many people are dealing with these days . Do you have any specific recommendations for those that work indoors all day long? I mean, I think about, you know, there's many industries where people have no light exposure, understanding that that lack of light exposure is impacting nearly every body function, every system in the body. Do you have suggestions or recommendations or luxe boxes something that you recommend or is that not enough light exposure ? I think that in this field, particularly, it can get sort of it mirrors , that fitness type of narrative, that no pain, no gain sort of thing where it's all or nothing. And I really think that does us as disfavor because it doesn't have to be a lot of light exposure that helps regulate circadian rhythm. If we were to pull out a spectrometer right now, I'm inside. I have an LED light above me and one shining on my face so you can see me. If I took out a meter right now in this bright environment that I'm in, it would probably be measuring about five hundred lux. And if we were to look at the range, it would be high in that narrow band of blue light . If I were to step outside here, it's a beautiful early summer day , the lux , that measurement of how bright the light is would go up into five to ten thousand looks. A dramatic difference in how bright it is. And you would see all these different spectrums of light, ultraviolet light, the visible spectrum into the infrared spectrum. And so I think what we don't realize is that that intensity of light, how bright it is in natural environments, even when it's cloudy and gray , that is a massive signal of regulation to the body that doesn't require a lot of time. So on a day like this, if I were to go outside for five minutes in the morning, that sends enough into my system via that pathway we talked about through the retina that sends that circadian regulating signal . If I drive to work and crack the window , that lets in that natural light which again sets that signal, reinfor ces that circadian rhythm . If I can take a ten minute break outside at work , that is another regulating circadian reinforcement and then lowering the lights at night is a huge signal to the body on what time of day it is and all those circadian clogs throughout the body. So this can look like fifteen minutes cracking a window, lowering the lights at night. It doesn't have to be long periods of time outdoors avoiding all blue lights because a lot of us don't have that luxury. A lot of us are working indoors . Our commercial spaces, our work spaces are dominated by these LED lights. And so really taking these small steps at key windows throughout the day can really regulate and maintain that healthy circadian rhythm that's associated with hormone balance and inflammatory balance , our immune system, our metabolism, our mood and neurotransmitters. I think it's really reassuring because I know that over the years having taken care of tens of thousands of patients, that's always a concern of while I'm in an environment where I don't get any light exposure, but thinking about, you know, we're heading into a time of the year where we're getting a lot more light exposure in the morning and the evening. You know, some of your thoughtful suggestions or things that don't necessitate buying anything. It's just being thoughtful and intentional . And maybe it's time to kind of pivot and talk about structured water. This is what I find fascinating . What is it what does that mean inside our cells? So again, when we're talking about quantum biology, these are very, very tiny things that are happening, but they're really impactful . The water within us is an incredible emerging field of understanding. This is something that researchers have been hypothesizing for over a century, but it wasn't until the early two thousands and the work of Professor Gerald Pollock and his team out of the University of Washington that they were able to actually identify and observe fourth phase of water . And we're familiar with solid ice phase of water, that liquid phase of water, and then that gaseous steam and vapor form of water. But this fourth phase of water is a form of liquid water that takes on a different structure. And what we see from the research is that as water comes up to a water loving surface in the body , like a cell membrane, a mitochondri a, a mitochondrian of fascia , all of these things can change the structure of the water next to that membrane. It becomes more gel like, it becomes more viscous. And what we see from the research as well is that it has the potential to take on a negative electrical charge . Now our cells run on a negative electrical charge . This is an emerging field in bioelectricity , in bioenergetics, Michael Lev in out of Tufts University is really expanding our understanding of this, doing research with cancerous cells where he will lower the electrical voltage of the cell , a normal healthy cell, it will start replicating wildly just like a cancerous cell will. He'll re introduce that electrical voltage to the cell and that rapid cell division stops . It is so foundational to our health and this form of water around our cells has the potential to take on this negative electrical charge . As it builds , it pushes out a positively charged hydrogen , creating this zone of positively charged water. So you have the negatively charged water against the cell , the positively charged water building right outside of it . And this is exactly what we see in a nine volt battery with the positive and the negative charges right next to each other creating potential energy . And there are research articles out there showing difference between a healthy cell and a cancerous cell and how that healthy cell has more of this structured liquid crystal and water lining it with andin it versus that cancerous cell. Now when we look at structured water and the research behind it, it doesn't get a lot of funding , right? So we see a lot of research with drinking structured water in the form of agriculture where we can see clearly that it increases crop yields . It decreases the need for pesticides because it makes the crops more resilient to pests. It decreases how much water they actually need . We see research in livestock with increasing lifespan and fertility and hormonal balance, all kinds of different benefits in livestock . The study is with humans . We only have a handful of studies with humans. We only have a handful of studies structured water in petri dishes in vitro . So this is really an emerging field . But what we do see is that water can hold energy and our body seems to be able to use that energy for biolog ical action . And that completely changes our understanding of what it means to be hydrated, really . Well, and I was thinking as you were speaking about the mitochondria, which are the little, you know , I'm oversimplifying things, but they really do help generate energy and thinking about mitochondrial membranes and thinking about how as we are aging our mitochondria become more dysfunctional In some instances, you know, they get so disformed and dysfunctional. We can't generate ATP, so we're not generating energy . What would you , you know, when we're talking specifically about structured water , I would imagine that the healthier mitochondria are able to assimilate with the structured water more readily than dysfunctional mitochondria. We know that mitochondrial dysfunction really is at the basis for nearly every chronic disease state that we see . That's exactly right . And on top of that , mitochondria are making water . They're making this form of water every time a molecule of ATP is created . So we have four protein complexes in the electron transport chain within the mitochondria. That place where ATP the cell ular energy is created . Every time those electrons quantum tunnel through that chain , that fifth complex ATP synthase, it creates a pull s a proton down and creates ATP . The complex right next to it, Complex four in this chain it creates water . So right there at the end of this energy chain , water is being made right before ATP . And a lot of us think that water and hydration, the water that we're drinking is the only way we get hydrated . When really when we look at it, we see that supporting our mitochondria, yes , supports that vital cellular energy that you just talked about. Any dip in that is associated with chronic disease and aging , but also those mitochondria are creating this cellular water that's so important to our health . So that tending to our mitochondria actually is a way to stay hydrated. And we know relationship between hydration and aging as well . Just simply put , if a protein in a cell membrane isn't hydrated, if it doesn't have that water shell that we're talking about , it can't change confirmation . And the way a cell functions is if that protein changes confirmation or changes shape basically, that's what dictates what that cell does. maintaining and being able to change that shape of the protein is so important and it can't do that without the water . And that makes mitochondria essential for our cellular hydration, our cellular function, our overall health and longevity . And there are other ways to hydrate that aren't just drinking water. That's why understanding within the body and the different states it can take and the different energies that it donate to the body are really important. There's a way to look at the body where pain, inflammation , symptoms, disease states are all a deficiency in electrons or a deficiency in that negative electrical charge. And this water a reservoir, it's really a repository of these free electrons, of that electrical charge, which makes it so important in our understanding of how the body works and how to stay healthy. Yeah, it's so interesting. So inevitably the question will be, are there meaningful differences between tap water, filtered water, spring water, and structured water in terms of their biology because inevitably someone will listen and they're like, What does this mean? Does this mean that I have to go buy structured water? Can I get away with filtered or spring water? Should I avoid tap water ? What are your thoughts? Of course, that is the first question, right? Well, I know I know my listeners, they're going to be thinking that is their listening to our conversation . I think first what we should do is delineate the difference between water that we're drinking and water inside the body . So want to build that water that we are talking about in the body. And what does that ? Infrared energy. Infrared energy created by the mitochondria. Infrared energy that's so abundant anytime we go outside and the sun is up. Doesn't matter if it's a beautiful sunny day, if we are in the shade, if it's cloudy and gray and we can't even tell where the sun is in the sky , we are enveloped in infrared energy. All of that is going to be important for the state of water in the body . The same can be said for the water we're drinking . So first of all , we have to talk about the state of cleanliness of our water , right? There's a lot of stuff in our water that we wouldn't necessarily want to put in our body , meaning that filtering our water can be important . And so when I'm talking with people about water , we talk about filtration and getting kind of filtering system that removes some of those , you know, that long list of things that's in our municipal tap water . And then making sure there's some mineral content , right? Going back to those basic biolog y and chemistry classes we took in high school , osmosis, that water is going to follow the minerals. So having some mineral content and this doesn't mean that we're constantly adding electrolytes that just a small amount of minerals in the water that we're drinking can really help it get into those extracellular and intracellular spaces. So making sure our water's clean, making sure it's mineralized, and then adding that understanding of structuring . So this is going back to some of that research and how really we only have a handful of research studies out there But what they're showing and that's a handful of research studies in humans, but what they're showing overall with agriculture and plants and animals and humans is that we can add energy to our water and it seems to act like an antioxidant . So how do we add energy to our water? One of the ways is vortexing, stirring the water . You know, structured water has become kind of a trendy and a buzzword in certain circles. So there's a lot of and companies out there selling structured water devices . But when we look at the research, we see that adding infrared energy to the water is what gives it that structure, what gives it that higher energy level, right? There seems to be a consensus in the water science community that water can take on an excited state. So you can have a ground state of regular water or you can add energy into the water and create what people are calling structured water, energized water, coherent water . And we can do that by stirring it, by creating a vortex . We can do that by placing it in infrared energy, putting it outside , making some sun tea, back to Professor Gerald Pollock and his team out of the University of Washington , they found that many traditional remedies increase structure in the water . So holy basil, tulsi, different traditional remedies and te as that we would make actually increase the structure of the water, the energy of the water . We can also add heat to the water because infrared exists as heat as well. So drinking a warm tea has the potential to add structure and energy to the water as well . Have you seen any information? A couple questions came in. I have a couple Somavadics in my house. Are you familiarized with the technology? Because I think one of the proponents was that if it's within proximity of a Somavadic device, it will actually restructure the water. Is that actually factual? We see from the research that they post on their website that there is that change in the structure of water . And there's two ways to look at water research. So we can tell that the water takes on a different structure by looking at spectroscopy and different imaging techniques within a laboratory Another way that has actually been correlated with those laboratory techn iques something called water crystallography . So they're take a sample of the water and freeze it and look at the pattern of the water crystals . And this is sort of a controvers ial area of water science, but it has been correlated the water samples that are creating those beautiful crystals of water are also structured from a laboratory perspective looking at an NMR reading or a spectroscopy reading . And the research out there around Soma Vedic, there's some other research related devices. I think when people ask me about devices , my go to is to say if that device is really doing it and they have tested it , they will put that research on their website because it costs a lot of money actually to do the research, right? And so that's something that we can feel confident in is that if there's a third party doing that research then most likely that is showing exactly what they found. And we see that with Somavedic, we see that with Onolimo water . We see that with Evo Drop. That's another water structuring company. And those are the three that I'm most familiar with and I have no affiliation with them . I make no money from this, but I love to stay on top of the research and they're the ones that I know, although there may be others. So if they are doing what they say and concerned about the results, they will show that research online. Oh, it's so exciting. Let's pivot a little bit and talk about grounding electrical fields. We built a house in twenty twenty into twenty twenty one and we used Brian Heyer, you know, he works in this kind of electrical field space . He evaluated our house in Northern Virginia, evaluated the land before we even started building, and we have some things set up in our home because apparently, I'm the canary in the coal mine. I'm the one that's sensitive to electrical fields as evidenced by the fact that anyone that's listening knows that Northern Virginia has I think more data centers than anywhere else in the United States, I think other than California . And in the time that I spent in Northern Virginia, my county, Louden County , they literally have there are so many data centers. We were recently back in April and I said to my husband, I was like, the proximity to housing and the proximity to schools and other things. And the things that I started to see as a clinician at a very early stage was people saying to me, I haven't been sleeping well since this was, you know, and they're also very secure. You can't get on the land where the data centers are. I understand why boards of supervisors like them because it brings money into the tax base. With that being said, this is not meant to be a controversial. I'm just offering up that some of us are more sceptible and more sensitive to these electrical fields . So what is actually happening when someone is standing I would say this is the perfect time of year. It's warm outside. We're standing in bare feet on the ground so we're grounding . What is actually happening? And this is scientific. So for people that say to me, this is woo woo, and actually there's actual research behind all this, but the connection to the electrical magnetic field of the earth is very nourishing to our bodies . It is. And it's so funny that it is termed wooboo, right? We wouldn't say that about charging our computer . We wouldn't say that about the scientific experiments where, you know, I homeschool my kids. We did that experiment where you run an electrical circuit through a lemon , right? You can do the same thing holding them . My kids once tried to freak me out by using the remote to send a signal through their cheek. You know, it's like, our body is an electrical system . It is sensitive and communicating with electromagnetic fields. I think a lot of people don't realize that our cells create their own unique electromagnetic field and that guides their movement, their behavior, their differentiation , how a stem cell becomes an ear or an elbow, that information's held in the field. And when I plug in an appliance into the wall, the common thought is those electrons that e,lectrical current goes through the wire like a hose, like water in a hose until it gets to my appliance and starts giving energy. And that's not really how it works. Those electrons aren't flowing like water. They are oscillating back and forth, creating an excitement. That movement creates that electromagnetic field . And that field holds energy and information . That's why it's instantaneous when we plug something in and it begins to charge. We don't have to wait for that water in the hose to get to the appliance. The same thing can be said of the Earth . The Earth is lined, the surface of the Earth lined with an infinite sea of electrons . It has this electromagnetic field on the surface . And when we come in contact with that, our bare feet, our hands when we're gardening, for sitting on the ground, for touching a tree , all of those connections allow us to be connected to that electrical field of the earth . We can drain and discharge that positive electrical charge. Just a minute ago we talked about how pain , inflammation, symptoms, disease states, trauma all are associated with an increase in positive charge . And another way to say that is deficiency in electrical charge, a decrease in electrical negative electrical charge . So by touching the surface of the earth , we can dis charge some of that positive charge that we've accumulated throughout the day and we can be immersed in that field that can kind of excite our electrons and help build that negative electrical charge. It's similar to how we place our phones on a charging pad or our tooth brushes on a charging container. They don't have to be plugged into that source of electricity because the energy is held in that electromagnetic field . Same thing with the earth. There is energy held in the field on the surface of the earth and the plants that are embedded in the surface of the earth. So if we are touching them with our bare skin we become embedded . We can lose some of that positive charge that we've picked up and we can gain some excitement. 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It did all sorts of things. One thing that he asked us to do, which was easier to do when my kids were younger, you know, now they're adults. You know, he wanted us to have, you know, turn all the cell phones off at night. And I was like, I've got kids in college now. There's no way. Like if there's ever a reason to have your cell phone on at night, it's so that if someone needs to reach you. But you know, having a specific area in your bedroom that is designed to have below EMF, like just to be as you're sleeping. You know, we have mattresses that don't have coils in them. I mean, there's a lot that I've learned . And in our last house, we had grounding mats underneath all the beds until we replaced all the mattresses. So there's a lot to this. And again, not sharing this in any other way other than I'm the canary in the coal mine, I'm the person that didn't sleep well. There was a house that we lived in, second house we lived in same neighborhood, did not sleep well the entire time I was there. And when he evaluated our house, he said, I have never seen electrical fields in a house like this. Like he was shocked. He's like, I evaluate homes all over the United States . And so I just mentioned this just to share, but not to have anyone worried about anything they're exposed to. Like I would say knowledge is power . It is power. And you talked about some pretty simple ways to navigate that , right? I will get the same kind of feedback. Well, I live in an apartment, there's no way I can control all of that the fields are around me. Another thing to remember is this law of inverse square. So the closer we are , if we're sitting right by that wireless router, if we're holding that phone to our head , the amount of radiation that we're being exposed to, the amount of electromagnetic radiation that we're being exposed to is so much higher than if we move it a foot away or if we move it five feet away or fifteen feet away , right? So making sure we don't sleep right by a router . We have our router outside , we have ethernet and wireless , but we unplug it at night and it's on a timer. My children are twelve and sixteen, so I still get to manipulate their electromagnetic environments. Everything shut down at twelve because sometimes my husband would stay up late working. And so he was like, I need it on until at least twelve and then we would shut it off. But now it's like my kids are night owls because they're my older one in' collsege, my inner one will start college in August, but you know, they're night owls. It's a very different. So ten years ago they were eight and ten, so I could get away with shutting off the Wi Fi, that was not such a big deal. Let's pivot and talk about fascia. I think fascia is absolutely fascinating. I think in many ways it's really having a moment. I think that for many of us in traditional allopathic medicine, we thought about fascia as just this overlay of connective tissue on top of a muscle. It's not relevant, it's not important . Talk to me about how it's a communication super highway within the body. I think you're right. Fascia is fascinating. So fascia is this connective tissue web throughout the body . And when I was in school, it was something that we would remove in Candaverlab to get it the real thing, right? It was just the scaffolding . But now what we're realizing is that this fascial web of connective tissue has many different roles in the body. It's mostly collagen. Collagen is pizoelectric, just like a quartz crystal when, we can compress that quartz crystal or when we expose it to pressure, it creates an electrical charge . Our fascia is the same way, and it's semiconductive. So it can hold that electrical charge and transmit it throughout the body . And fascia is lined that interfacial water that we were talking about, that organized liquid crystal in water . So all of a sudden , we go from scaffolding of the body to this bodywide web that can create an electrical charge . It can hold it, it can transmit it. It's covered on the outside and the inside with water that can also hold and transmit an electr ical charge. And when we think back to that idea that pain, inflammation, symptoms are a loss of negative electrical charge and there is a highway throughout our body, a web that can transmit and donate that electrical charge, fascia starts to look much different . Then the understanding of fascia as this bridge between our environment , the nervous system and our brain , it is densely innervated with nerve end . And it really responds to input in our environment and communicates that information bidirectionally with the nervous system , which then takes that information to the brain. So we see that it has a sensory component as well. It's not just inert scaffolding of the body . It seems to be intimately connected with our emotional processing, our perception of pain. There was just a fascinating research study that was published in frontiers and it was called Fascia's Role in this continuum in mental emotional health. And the researchers were arguing it's really the frontier of psychiatric interventions because the health of the fascia plays such a role in our sensory perception, in our emotional processing, in our perception of pain, which all of those things are intimately intertwined with our mental state . So it's really starting to emerge as a much more important component of the body than we've given it credit for. Yeah, it's interesting. I try, try to get therapeutic massages at least twice a month. And with the amount of business travel that I do , you know, sometimes I fall asleep on airplanes, you know, you just your neck gets stiff. And the one thing I've learned from this fantastic massage therapist and he really is fantastic is that he's taught me a lot about fascia work that a lot of, you know, when I'm feeling stiff and feeling tidy, it's like, it's not about the muscle. It's more about the fascia. So are you properly hydrated? We always have these conversations. Cynthia, you have to make sure you're properly hydrated. I'm like, I think I do a pretty good job. And he said, You could probably do a better job. So he said, I can even tell when I put my hands on you if you have enough hydration because the fashion moves more readily than when you're dehydrated . And I think for a lot of people , you know, when you're cleaning chicken, like I'll use the best example, sometimes we'll see that kind of almost transparent kind of white over almost opaque overlay over the chicken that we generally are cutting off , that's usually the fascia. So if you think about it, it's this overlay , but you can imagine that if you're not properly hydrated, it's going to be sticky. So it's going to not move as readily. And as you're talking about this kind of quantum functionality of fascia. It's with the understanding that hydration plays a huge role in whether or not it is functioning optimally or dysfunctioning. It's been a long day. Third podcast on a little t ongue tied. But with that being said, I think it's really interesting . Let's kind of round out the conversation today talking about quantum biology of the gut. Obviously the gut is something I'm super interested in. Why does the ener getic environment of our gut matter as much as microbiome that lives there? Why is that so important ? I love that you asked this question. I don't get asked this question enough . And I think it's so important because when we're thinking about the gut and the gut microbiome , and you know, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was in school. So I have always had an interest in love of gut health . And this understanding that we have that is chemical really in nature , right? What we put into the gut, what we are eating has a profound impact on the gut . Absolutely, right ? But there's an energetic perspective of the cells that line the gut and whether they are healthy and whether they are creating nice tight junctions so that we don't have intestinal permeability . And also the gut microbiome. So for example , both of those things sensitive to light . They are sensitive to circadian rhythm. Our gut microbiome has its own circadian rhythm . And if that circadian rhythm is at a mismatch circadian rhythm of the cells lining the gut , we're going to see gastrointestinal issues start to come up . And that really kind of highlights that circadian rhythm and the importance of it in the gut. But red light therapies have been shown to have a beneficial impact on the gut , right? These things that aren't the food that we put in. And even if we talk about the food, right? We talk about resistant starches, for example. They get to the large intestine , they are not digested, so the gut microbiome ferments them into short chain fatty acids. Well, those short chain fatty acids go directly into the mitochondria of the cells lining the gastrointestinal tract. They feed them. Those mitochondria, when they're fed by short chain fatty acids that the gut microbiome ferments , they are healthy, they are happy, they are helping those cells not have intestinal permeability. They're supporting those tight junctions of the cell . And we could go on and on in this energetic perspective . The gut microbiome communicates with electr omagnetic fields . So our understanding that gut health and the gut microbiome health is only chemical. It's only what we eat, or maybe even taking it to the gut brain axis and saying it's also a stress as well . Yes, absolutely . And