ERIC ZIELINSKI, DC is the author of the national bestseller The Healing Power of Essential Oils. Dr. Z has pioneered natural living and biblical health education since 2003. Trained as an aromatherapist, public health researcher, and chiropractor, Dr. Z started NaturalLivingFamily.com in 2014 with his wife, Sabrina Ann, to help people learn how to safely and effectively use natural remedies such as essential oils. Now visited by more than five million natural health seekers every year, NaturalLivingFamily.com has rapidly become the number one online source for biblical health and non-branded essential oils education.
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NaturalLivingFamily.com
NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com
Facebook.com/TheEssentialOilsRevolution/
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Instagram: @drericz
Youtube.com/user/DoctorEricZ
Pinterest.com/DrEricZ

SHOWNOTES

The Healing Power of Essential Oils: Soothe Inflammation, Boost Mood, Prevent Autoimmunity, and Feel Great in Every Way

02:00 - BEAUTY COUNTER: ​​Non-Toxic Beauty Products Tested For Heavy Metals, Which Support Skin Health And Look Amazing! Black Friday SALE: 15% Off Sitewide With Free Shipping! Shop At Beautycounter.com/MelanieAvalon For Something Magical! For Exclusive Offers And Discounts, And More On The Science Of Skincare, Get On Melanie's Private Beauty Counter Email List At MelanieAvalon.com/CleanBeauty!

04:00 - LISTEN ON HIMALAYA!: Download The Free Himalaya App (Www.himalaya.fm) To FINALLY Keep All Your Podcasts In One Place, Follow Your Favorites, Make Playlists, Leave Comments, And More! Follow The Melanie Avalon Podcast In Himalaya For Early Access 24 Hours In Advance! You Can Also Join Melanie's Exclusive Community For Exclusive Monthly Content, Episode Discussion, And Guest Requests! 

04:10 - Paleo OMAD Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life: Join Melanie's Facebook Group To Discuss And Learn About All Things Biohacking! All Conversations Welcome!

8:00 - Dr. Z's Personal Health Journey And Path To Oils 

17:00 - Contaminations In Commercial Products And Lack Of Regulation 

The Science Of Skincare: Toxin Absorption, Legal Loopholes, Hidden Ingredients, Safe Makeup, And My Honest Beautycounter Experience

18:30 - Conventional Vs Empowered Personal Medicine

20:45 - The History Of Essential Oils: Biblical Oils Vs. Today

23:15 - Problems With Using Oils Improperly

25:30 - Essential Oils Vs. Conventional Medicine: Chemical Versions Of Plants 

30:30 - The Scientific Data Of Essential Oils

34:10 - Where To Start With Essential Oils?

37:00 - The Different Effects Of Different Oils

40:00 - BiOptimizers: A company whose mission is to fix your digestion! Their patented probiotic P3-OM  provides proteolytic, anti-viral, immune-boosting, digestion-supporting properties! For A Limited Time, Use The Link P3OM.com/melaniefree To Get A Bottle For Free!!!

42:10 - Smell, The Limbic System And Memory 

47:15 - Encoding Healing With Scents 

49:45 - Reacting To Essential Oils: The Role Of Intuition 

54:15 - The Organoleptic Evaluation 

58:40 - Yglang Yglang and Sandalwood As Harmonizers 

1:01:30 - Essential Oils For Self Regulation Rather Than Addiction 

1:04:10 - Use Oiling To Enhance Vs. Healing: Do Oils Become More Or Less Effective Over Time?

1:06:00 - Oils For Hormonal Issues

1:07:00 - Oils For Antibiotic Resistance 

1:08:00 - How To Use Oils? (Inhalation Vs. Topical Vs. Ingestion)

1:15:15 - Romans 5:3-5 "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

Dr. Z's Free Screening Of His 10-Part Video Masterclass 

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon:
Hi friends. Welcome back to the show. I am filled with so much joy and gratitude to be here today with... and I only have to say it once, Dr. Zielinski also known as Dr. Z. Okay, I got it out. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yay, you did great. You did great. 

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you. Thank you. He is the fantastic author of the national bestseller, The Healing Power of Essential Oils and guys, listeners, friends I've had so many requests to do an episode on essential oils and there's a lot of information out there about essential oils. There's just so much, which is why an episode was really needed. But personally for me, the work that really brought me to The Healing Power... Oh now I'm saying the title, to the healing power of essential oils was Dr. Z's book on the subject. It's a fantastic overview, it's got the science, it's got everything you could want to know and it comes from a beautiful, spiritual, biblical perspective that resonated with me on so many levels. Really start crying right now. I actually cried while reading it. It's a beautiful work. It's so inspiring and I learned so much from it and so I am just thrilled to be here today with you Dr. Z, thank you for being here.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I am honored. I really am. I'm honored, I feel chosen. I feel very much blessed. The Bible says many are called, but few are chosen. I feel chosen for this work and to be non-branded, to not represent a company, to be vulnerable to people that's hard, to go out there and be like, I'm going to educate about essential oils, but I'm not going to sell them is hard because how are you going to provide for your family? And so when I took that leap of faith and to come here now, two and a half, three years later and have over 100,000 people buy this book and have it be published in eight languages around the world and to be on your podcast, it just... Sometimes you got to take that step of faith. I'm grateful Melanie, for you and thank you. I mean really just...

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And my heart and soul went into the book and I heard so many people tell me how they were touched. They felt like touched by God because this isn't just more than using like a drop of orange to help you feel better, it's a lifestyle approach and so many people are hurting and that's really what I'm hoping people get out of this book is feeling what I went through and we'll talk, I'm sure about it a little bit, but having suffered so long and having recovered my heart, my life's mission is to help people not go through that and to have that go through the pages of the book and have people be touched by that is humbling beyond anything I can even express.

Melanie Avalon:
I love hearing that so much and I'm actually personally so grateful that when I did decide to start researching essential oils that it was through your book. I'm glad you brought this up. It wasn't through a brand or a lot of the other avenues that essential oils often appear commercially today. It was your book and the perspective, like I said, and we can talk about this more. It was just... I mean I had so many epiphanies and learned so much. I remember the first time I read it, I was texting my mother all the time. I was like, "He just said all this." I was saying how much she should read it as well because she suffers with a lot of autoimmune conditions and things like that. And I was like, mom, this book is just so beautiful and there's so much inspiration and I really feel like the healing power in it, it's got the science of the oils, but it's also got this healing modality that I think goes even beyond that. So I'm so excited to... I jumped into all of it.

Melanie Avalon:
So you did hint at it briefly just now, but would you like to start things off, tell listeners a little bit about that personal journey that you experienced with your health and what did bring you to the world of essential oils?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
It really all started with, I was never really well. I've tried to be careful when I say this because I definitely, my heart goes out to children who are sick with lupus and other diseases and cancer and things where they're at the Ronald McDonald's house and make a wish foundation. My heart goes out to these children and we're here to support them. And so when I say I was a sick kid, it never got to that place. I was never really well, and people can relate to this. It's called chronic disease and there's a variety of different chronic diseases, but I was chronically unwell. As a kid I can remember in and out of the doctor's offices, sore throats, earaches and of course what you did in the early '80s is you elect to get your adenoids and tonsils taken out, vital part of your lymphatic system. Hey, let's just take it out, right? Bad mistake. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And next thing you know, of course after course of antibiotics really start to develop significant gut issues. I just remember being a young kid through being a young adult, just keeled over with gut pain, indigestion, gas, bloating. And next thing you know, I started to develop cystic acne. And what do you do again? Back in the early '90s you get on Accutane now known as the suicide drug. Well, a couple of years later I started developing significant depression and suicidal thoughts and I was a wreck. Like I'll never forget keeled over in pain, joint pain, back pain. I went to a neurologist who took an MRI of my back and he said, what did you do to yourself? You have a spine of a 50 year old. And I was like 20 at the time. And so I can't pinpoint it to anything other than living the standard American diet. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I wasn't breastfed, formula fed Kraft, singles white Wonder Bread kid from the '80s and it just, being normal, I guess you could say in America. And I just wasn't good, wasn't doing good at all. And you know, what really got me was this depression and anxiety and then it developed into suicide ideation and I started self-medicating with narcotics and drugs and alcohol, smoking a pack of cigarettes plus a day. And I just got to this point where I was just miserable. I hit my proverbial rock bottom and March of 2003 so just about 17 years from now at the time that we're recording this, I had my revelation, I was knocked my proverbial horse and I met Christ and I became a Christian. And that was such an influential change in my life because for the first time I had hope that things could be better. For the first time I started seeing the need for change and kind of how things work out, how they do. The man who mentored me was very healthy, very much into organic living and organic...

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
You know, this was 17 years ago. It was when whole foods really was starting to explode and being healthy was... So kind of like a hippie, like it wasn't a big thing like now, everyone's talking gluten free and everyone knows about all the latest fad diets, everyone using essential oils, essential oils weren't really well known back then. And so I started my spiritual journey realizing I got to take care of myself. And so one by one, by one by one, these things that were aching me and plaguing me started to go away and disappear and within like a year I was like completely healed of everything, gone. Gut issues, pain issues, anxiety, panic, stress, everything. And my heart really was just overwhelmed with this passion to help others. And so fast forward to where I'm at today, I'm blessed to be able to do this for a living. I teach, I educate, we do classes. I'm on documentaries all over the world and interviews like this and TV and radio and I'm blessed.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I'm blessed to have a thriving website and my wife and I can do the things that we were doing essentially for free because this has been our ministry for all these years.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that was one of the things I loved in the book was when you talked about your personal history and one of the things you said that I thought was really beautiful was you said, on the one hand it was so inspiring how you were completely healed from everything, but you did note that it didn't happen overnight, you weren't healed of everything all at once. That it was a journey, a process and you were completely healed but how you were so grateful for it being a journey and what you've learned from that. That's really beautiful because I think people can often think they're going to find this one thing and then the next day they're going to be completely healed, which could... I mean, it happens spontaneous healing. I'm super grateful for that. But I think it's motivating to know that it is a journey and complete healing is possible, but it might still be a journey.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
You know, one of my favorite professors when I was in chiropractic college, Dr. Goldberg, I'll give him a shameless plug because he said something that I'll never forget. He goes, "The best doctor is the one who knows what it's like to be sick." And he goes, "If you don't have a story, if you can't truly empathize with the patient..." He goes, "All this head knowledge is only going to go so far." That really was the epitome and the motivation behind that statement in my book because if I was given everything like on a silver platter, I wouldn't have appreciated the journey. I wouldn't, and I wouldn't be here today at all, I would have taken it for granted. But knowing what it was like to suffer and suffer through and hit my head against the wall and when I met my wife, it was this beautiful marriage of, literally we married our individual stories together and she has a similar story. It was like we were living on parallel paths hundreds of miles away from each other. And when we met it was like wow. Wow. Right.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And we combined forces and I can't tell you how many times my wife created a gluten free extravaganza in the oven that turned out to be like a hockey puck. Like there's a lot of failure in what you do. And for me, kind of going back to what you asked earlier about oils, like oils weren't part of my healing story. You see, that was very interesting. Again, oils were not common around where I lived, again 17 years ago. So what happened to me, I really focused on exercise, prayer, meditation, nutrition, and I focused on some supplementation and just clean living, good water, good air. And it wasn't till I met my wife that I was really introduced to essential oils and like I mentioned in the book, I kind of marginalize them as smelly stuff because, she's beautiful and she always smelled good and she had her little routine every time she got out of the shower and I was like, "Oh it's just what my wife does."

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Well, it wasn't until at the time I was a public health researcher and a medical writer, one of my clients commissioned me to write a series of public health reports on essential oils. And I was like, "Okay, well it's my job now I have to read." I read hundreds of clinical trials and time after time after time, kind of like you were going through my book, you said you had a revelation. I would have revelation after revelation of reading these articles. I'm like, "What in the world, what are these things?" And I'd go to my wife and you know how women and men can be sometimes with their spouses. And she gave me that, like I told you so look, I'm like, why didn't you tell me about this stuff? She goes, "I did." And I'm like, "Why didn't I listen?" Right. And so for me, I found that essential oils were the missing link in my life.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
They were the missing link that was in my medicine cabinet because up until then I didn't know what to do for those things like infection or whatever, athlete's foot or a headache or... I just grin and bear it. I didn't have like the remedy. And I dabbled in homeopathy. I dabbled in herbalism, but I didn't have anything that had a true medicinal punch until I met essential oils. I'm like, "Oh, so this is what I need to fill my medicine cabinet with." And that's how it started. And then as research developed and as my career developed and my wife and I started doing some fun things with essential oils. I realized, "Whoa, this is a whole lifestyle." Body care, skincare, cleaning products. It's like what in the world? Right. And so I'll never forget throwing how liberating it was, how liberating was throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of bath and body works products because I realized how harmful they were. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And I like, let's replace this with essential oils. I remember, because I was that guy, I was that guy every January during their semi-annual sale right after Christmas bed bath and body works in Victoria's Secret would have their big sale and I would stock up on stuff. I'd had this box in my closet that whenever anniversary, birthday, mother's day came, I had a bunch of stuff lined up. Like I went shopping for four, five hours one day and was good for the rest of the year. And I bought, my wife, loved the wallflowers and the smelly stuff and I loved it too, it smelled good until I realized how harmful it was, like cancer causing, linked to autoimmunity, linked to allergies, linked to headaches and I'm like, "Sabrina, we need to get rid of this stuff." And just again, the liberation, the freedom of realizing, "Whoa, I was unknowingly poisoning myself and my family." Throwing it out and replacing it with something that was life giving. That was one of the most powerful events at that time in my life.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And that's what I've been really trying to devote myself to. Helping people ditch and switch, ditch the junk and switch it with good stuff.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it feels so good when you do go through that cleanup process. I know some people like to do it slowly, slowly replace the things as they run out. But for me, I'm an extremist. So when I decided to make the switch to cleaner products, it was like throw away all the things and it felt so good. I mean I've recently been doing a lot of research just on the science and the regulation of commercial products and what can be contained in these products, especially in the U.S and it's... I mean it's shocking. It's shocking. I'll go on the government website and look at the regulations and my jaw just drops at what can be in these products.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Well, here's the thing, there is no regulation. 

Melanie Avalon:
Exactly. Exactly. That's right I know.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Right. And there is none. And that's what's horrifying.

Melanie Avalon:
The FDA literally says that. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, there is none. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about this too. Like the essential oil and supplement industry is the wild, wild West. Anyone in the world can come out with a product, slap a label and sell it on Amazon. And unless someone dies, no one knows what's in that stuff. So CBD, your supplementation, your essential oils, you have to find a good reputable company. And it's not sometimes easy. It really isn't. It's like what do I do? There's a level of trust. You have to trust the company you buy your supplements from. And what we've learned is we've learned how to use essential oils as medicine. And so for that especially, I'm going to be very careful where I get my essential oils from because I just can't get it from anywhere. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So yeah, you're right. It is shocking because the onus is on us. But you know, it's also empowering because the more I've been empowered in this way, the more we garden, the more we make our own stuff, the more just in general, the more power has come to us where we now know how to take care of ourselves. And in my book I quote a Medscape article and it's not in front of me, but it's pretty powerful where this doctor was stating like 80% of all the people that come here for their urgent care have no business being here. Like this ankle sprains and the headaches and the coughs and the fevers and things like, they all expect antibiotics and none of them should be here.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Essentially the message in the tale that I'm trying to share with the world is we had to get back to just getting the basics, like learning how to take care of our family and then thank God for medicine. I mean when I had an argument with my car door eight stitches later, no lavender is going to heal that. I need any like medical attention, but for all the other things like I'll never forget my first time, our baby girl had a 104 temperature. We took care of it, we took care of the 104 temperature. We didn't rush to the urgent care. We knew what to do and that's a wonderful feeling. And so when you don't feel helpless, when you feel you have the solutions at your fingertips, at least the first step, the first responder approach. And if it doesn't work well, thank God you have urgent care, you have the ambulance, you have the hospital if you need it. But that's the shift. And thank God we have medicine. I mean truly speaking, it's there for emergency. It's there for the things that we need when natural solutions can't help. And that's one thing that we're really trying to help people. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And to me that's a solution to the opioid problem. That's the solution to the chronic disease problem, is knowing when to go to medicine and not when we stub our toe. Go get some aspirin because that's the easiest path of resistance essentially. So that's what I love about essential oils. It's the fact that you have something at your disposal that you can readily use immediately and the impact that can have on your body is instant, which is wonderful. And so anyway, there's a lot of things that people can do. But at the end of the day, I believe that all of our lives can be enhanced by just using essential oils in one way or another. And there's so many things we can talk about.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I'm super excited to get into the actual nitty gritty of it all. So oils to start things. So let's actually start talking about the actual oils. So excited. So one of the things you talk about in the book is the history of oils. And I think people will often think of, for example, gold, frankincense and myrrh in the Bible and think, "Okay, that's probably the first time we're hearing about healing essential oils are sacred essential oils." But as you talked about in the book, those actually are not quite what we have today. So would you like to tell us, there's a little bit about the history of essential oils and the difference between the therapeutic use of them historically versus now?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Oh, it rocked my world. So there is a huge disconnect in my knowledge and understanding of aroma therapy because I was a researcher. My background is in chiropractic as a researcher and just as a natural health guy as a whole. There was a huge chasm and a huge, huge gaping hole in my knowledge and understanding. So I went to aroma therapy school, I went to the Atlantic Institute of Aromatherapy. I'll never forget what the first things that the founder Sylla, her name is Sylla Sheppard-Hanger told us, was like, "Hey, we've got to be careful for all these internet myths that are being spread out there by bloggers." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And so I really started digging deep into some of these things and we were taught basic history and basic history is steam distillation, everyone, this is so important. Steam distillation wasn't invented until the ninth century AD by Arab alchemists.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So what does that mean? I mean, essential oils are extracted from plants by being steamed distilled. Well, steam distillation wasn't invented until the ninth century, what in the world were they using before that. Well, they weren't using essential oils as we know them today. And that's important because people out there in the blogosphere are spreading around these myths that, "Hey, if central orals were around in Jesus's time, in Gandhi's time." Like no way they weren't. They just didn't exist. What they used were [sabz 00:18:12]. They had extracts and we look in the Bible, the first blend that we see is when God told Moses to make the anointing oil in the book Exodus and He's like, "Okay, get this big old vat of olive oil and you put some castor, you put some cinnamon, you put some myrrh and calamus and let that soak for a while." And that was it. Like that was the anointing oil but it was olive oil fatty oil based. That's just like the herbal preparations that we see today. But it was very, very highly diluted with essential oils. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So it's important because the essential oil that we get today in the bottle is extremely concentrated and our ancestors never ever had impact with that. And the reason that is important is because we can't use them willy-nilly. I mean they can cause contact dermatitis. They can cause what's known as sensitization, which causes like an allergic reaction. They could burn your skin if you use them improperly. And that's where people have gotten themselves in trouble. And you go online and you see these reports of these babies and these pets and these people getting hurt and burn, well it's because they just poured oils on their skin and that's not how they need to be used.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And I'm convinced that God didn't design our bodies to use oils undiluted unless it's for like an emergency. Going back to the situations I have, because I have a lot of situations with my kids. When I was hiking down a nice steep hill with my son Isaiah and I told him, Isaiah don't run, don't run on this hill but he ran down the Hill and being a four year old, he tripped and gashed his head with a rock on the trail. Well, I mean it was a pretty deep gash. I went to the car and we had lavender because I knew that would help with the infection that might ensue or help heal. And I put lavender straight on him and it was fine. But you know what that kind of thing is like combat medicine. And that's exactly, most people don't know this, but that's exactly what medics used in World War I, World War II, before the advent of the antibiotic war time, oregano, lavender tea tree, like this was combat medicine in the war.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so yeah, for that kind of situation it makes sense but for 99% of the preparations that people use, you got to dilute. So why is it important to know histories? Because people were like, "Whoa, Jesus was given myrrh and frankincense oil and we should just use it how we want." No, no, no, no, no, no. Essential oils as we know them today are literally pure medicine concentrated. You get your bottle of lavender, you're holding in your hands like five pounds of lavender flowers. Like that's a lot of lavender flowers. Right? And so when you think about how concentrated it is, there needs to be an element of... I don't want to say respect, but we need to recognize you just don't go the aspirin and take a handful of aspirin because you want to, you read the safety label first to find the dose and that's all what this boils down to is proper dosage.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. I think that paints such a more nuanced picture of essential oils because I think people often dismiss essential oils because they can just seem very casual or okay, lavender, what can that really do? But I mean having you talk about it that way, it's really the concentrated medicinal properties of a plant concentrated. It is conventional medicine in a way and that it's taking these mechanisms and making them very potent and very powerful. I mean we know the power of plants, we accept that so easily in supplemental form for foods. So people accept taking resveratrol is a concentrated form of the health benefits of red wine or quercetin from fruits. So I think in a way the same mentality could be applied to essential oils. I mean that's fascinating that you said how many pounds of lavender might be... Four pounds, five pounds of lavender?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, and it takes roughly 40, four zero lemons, lemon rinds to extract to get a bottle of lemon.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, and just when you think of it in those terms, I'm glad you mentioned how you've got to look at it like medicine. Like where do you think... And I love this by the way, this is kind of fun where I geek out on this kind of stuff. Where do you think chemists and pharmacists come up with the chemical structures of the drugs that they create? Sound like they're creating them in a vacuum, it's not like someone wakes up and be like, "Oh, I'm going to put this isomer over here and that over there and we're going to create something." No, they base it off of the chemical structures of plants. Perfect example is aspirin and willow, I mean aspirin-

Melanie Avalon:
And salicylates.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, aspirin is made. It's a chemical version of willow bark. Well, why wouldn't we just extract willow bark, steam, distill it and create an essential oil out of it? Right. And that's why winter green, which has methyl salicylate, which is similar to that, it has a similar analgesic property. And so when you go time and time again, like all essential oils are antimicrobial, they all have different variety of strengths of fighting bacteria, viruses. Like there are essential oil blends that had been researched that literally kill the flu virus. I mean this ain't Hocus Pocus. And the thing is our ancestors have used herbal medicine since the beginning of time. That's without question. They had been burning leaves and roots forever, for instance, purposes and things like that. But they never had the true potency that we have today. So I love it. It's like we take ancient medicine with modern day medicine, our knowledge of it, and really essential oils are kind of... To me, I see them bridging the gap and I love that. I really do.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I love the fact that we have that ability at our fingertips and knowing that if we do want a true therapeutic medicinal response on our body, we don't have to go to a pharmaceutical because here's the bottom line with all of this, there is no drug on the market that is without side effects. And that's worth repeating because next time you watch TV and you see that drug commercial, especially if you're from America, like this isn't allowed by the way in other countries. But American legislator allows pharmaceutical industries to advertise on TV a drug which is illegal in most countries. And then you just have to list those side effects. But look at the commercial, someone's in euphoria, they're walking on the park with their kids and next thing you're hearing in the background, all the litany of side effects, like you don't recognize what's being happened because the audio visual cues are completely opposite.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
There is no drug that is completely safe for you. Now, I'll tell you, if you use essential oils the right way and they're simple to use, by the way, there are no side effects. Zip zero, none. The only risk is like anything in the world, someone might be allergic to it. Well, then you just cease use and you just need to know whether or not you're allergic to something. Kind of cover that in the book and we can cover that too also, but to have something at your disposal that you could use, it has a medicinal approach equal to it on par with a drug. That's what the important thing is. The physiological response is equal to the drug in many cases, but without the side effects. That is power.

Melanie Avalon:
It's incredible. It makes you wonder how different our country might look today if things had gone differently with the route of medicine, if it had taken the route of the healing power of plants rather than pharmaceuticals because yeah, that's just, it's insane.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
You know when it started? We know a date it started in the mid '40s with the antibiotic. We are in the situation we are in because as a culture people didn't want to use essential oils and herbs and things. They're messy. They're a little bit of work and it's not a pill solution that has a long shelf life that's just popping in your mouth. I'm telling you when that happened, it changed when the medical and the pharmaceutical industry came in the mid '40s and said, "Hey, we got your solutions to infection now and we've got this drug and it takes care of everything. It's simple. Boom." That's when like I mentioned World War I, World War II combat medicine changed immediately overnight. And like of course, who wouldn't want to take a white shiny pill versus have a kit full of lavender and tea tree and other things? And that started where we're at.

Melanie Avalon:
And then to that point, because the pharmaceutical industry is based on pharmaceuticals and not on essential oils, the scientific studies funded by the industry do tend to analyze conventional medicine rather than oils. So is there scientific data to support the therapeutic uses of oils? I mean, it's a tragedy on one hand because I feel like there's so much less energy invested towards it because there's not the financial incentive. But one of the studies shown is their quote scientific support in the literature for their therapeutic benefits?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Oh yeah. I mean, in my book alone, I quote 350 whatever articles. It's overwhelming once you start diving, there's thousands and thousands. And the wonderful thing is in the last five to 10 years specifically, there's been a you surgence, there's just been an explosion of research because, and thankfully multilevel marketing companies and there's been an awareness. So kind of go back to what I first said about me being not branded, not associated with a company. Hey, bless your heart. If you're a distributor, if you're a network marketer, if you sell from one of the big companies, good for you. I mean we need you on the front lines creating awareness. And because of the millions of people that sell essential oils at a network marketing level, there has been a grassroots movement that have literally caused university institutions and independent research institutions around the globe to start evaluating the claims that these people are making.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And because of that, we have studies after studies and I'm currently writing the manuscript for our third book that's going to be all about chronic disease. And I'm like, I can't get over how much research has been published just in the last two years since my last book published. It's unbelievable. So that's really what started, like I was never supposed to be the essential oils guy, like I never thought this was how God was going to use my passion to help bring healing to people. But I got to say, when you start talking about total lifestyle change, exercise and diet and mind, body, it's overwhelming. But anyone can put a drop of lavender in a diffuser to help them sleep better. And I realized that, like a lot of people say that cigarettes are like the gateway drug to harder things or whatever it might be. Essential oils are a great gateway to natural living. It's easy, the barrier is nil. They're cost effective. Anyone can do it. You get instant reaction, instant results.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so I started seeing just this wisdom and sharing this message, but it's all evidence-based and as a public health researcher, that's my commitment is to really debunk the wild claims out there and try to make sense of it according to the science.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm glad you clarified that some more. So there is science there. I feel like when it filters down into the media, it's either not completely capitalized on or not showcased or almost the reverse is true. For some reason I have this memory from when I was really young. I don't know why it stuck with me so long, but it was on CNN or something and they were doing an interview. They were like... What was it for? It was something, oh a Canadian goldenseal, non essential oil, but a natural plant thing. I remember I would always take that when I was sick because like my grandmother told me to, and I just remember seeing CNN, they were like, "Is that Canadian goldenseal real?" And they were like, "No, it doesn't do anything." I don't know. There was obviously more eloquent than that, but they're basically-

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
The scandal.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I just think it's so interesting how there's almost this resistance because of the financial incentives, but it is, like you said, it's wonderful that it is becoming more in vogue now. Kind of like you mentioned at the beginning, like how gluten free is now in vogue and the whole foods movement and everything. So I think there's a lot of potential for where everything's going. So you've touched briefly on lavender and few other oils. So what are some of your top oils? Because I know it's... I think it can be really overwhelming to people because people can be like, "Yay, I'm going to explore this essential oil world." But then there's so many and it's like paralysis by information overload. So what are your top oils? You do mention in the book your top eight oils, but where should someone start when it comes to oils?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
You know, a couple of things. Thank God for starter kits. Most of these companies that sell oils, they usually have like a three or five or 10 little pack. Right? I would start something like that. Start something that what's in your budget that gives you a little sampler and then if you were to pick my book up or another book, whenever you start learning about that oil particularly, and most of them include orange and rosemary and tea tree and lavender and cinnamon maybe or clove or something. Like there's usually normal, eucalyptus is always there and I would start with a starter kit if you just want to just kind of start. If you just don't know where to begin but you want to enhance your life. I have this article on my website about the 101 ways of using a central oils. It's fun, like everything from clean, Goo Gone, everyone loves Goo Gone. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Use orange oil. It's cheaper, it's better, it smells, it's nontoxic. Like that's the chemical structure that they got from Goo Gone. It's citrus based, like that kind of stuff. Or there's a plethora of ways of using oils, but it's just kind of starting. That's big picture. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
But what I really try to do is help people tackle those health issues that have been nagging them. And that's, you need to be driven by your pain point. So whatever your literal pain point is, whether it's diabetes or whether it's dementia or brain fog or insomnia, low libido, that's where you would start for that. And so what you would do is you learn a little bit about that. So you go on our website for example, you go to naturallivingfamily.com and you type up libido and you'll see we have feature handful of oils that have been shown to help boost libido. Well, try those oils, try the blend. Like that's how you approach a healthcare issue in a very safe way if you do it systematically. And so again, there's a big picture, I just want to use essential oils to detox my life and enjoy healthy things versus I want to use essential oils for a specific condition, a different approach. But ultimately you're using them in the right way.

Melanie Avalon:
I love that so much and for listeners, I can recommend that you do get Dr Z's book because it provides a thorough overview of, I mean everything you could think of that you could tackle with essential oils and the ones to use, the health benefits behind that. So it's just an amazing resource. So I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes and also to your website. I would love to go into some of the ones that people might be most familiar with and might be gravitating towards if you're open to it. Well you keep mentioning like lavender for example, and I think that's one people are very familiar with. So if somebody decided to start lavender, what might they use it for and what would that look like using it?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, I love lavender. I remember the first non-toxic herbal based soap I ever use when I started becoming healthy like 17 years ago was lavender. And that imprinted in my brain. There's something to be said, and I don't want to forget this. So there's something to be said about the power of smell, literally imprinting your brain that because of neuroplasticity you could trigger euphoria or you could trigger posttraumatic stress based off of the aroma in the air. And that's the power of smell and that's something we mean you need to go back a little bit too. And so I have such a fun memory of lavender that every time I use it puts a smile on my face. And that's something that I love because it's something calming to me. It's something that we also use with our children for bedtime. It's great for massaging, it's super safe for kids and pets and it's just one of those all around, which is probably why it's been so researched over the years as one of the most well researched oils in the literature because it's been so popular and people love it so much. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
One thing though people don't realize is you don't want to be dousing yourself with lavender if you're about to present maybe like a presentation at work or if you're about to take a big exam because it's actually been shown to depress memory function because it's so calming. And so this is funny because they have a two edged sword. Like you want to calm yourself down because you might be stressed but you don't want to cause yourself not to remember certain things because you're in that parasympathetic rest and digest mode. And that's fascinating because there are certain things you do when you want to like distress. And so like if I want to get into a point, maybe a place where I want to be energetic but I still want to manage stress, I will go for an orange or a citrus oil, I wouldn't go to lavender. Right.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so it's funny because we see our brain react in a certain way depending on what we are inhaling or what we apply in our skin. And there is definitely a cause and an effect approach. And that's something that I think is really important with essential oils is that there are many oils that do a lot of different things, but certain oils can't do certain things, right? Like rosemary for example, has been shown proving cause the harbor remembrance but it's actually been shown proven to help cognitive function. It's actually been shown to increase blood pressure. So if you're trying to balance blood pressure maybe lower if you're hyper tensive you don't want to be around rosemary. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So there's certain things that you need to know because they will produce a predictable physiological response when you use them. So again, going back to the lavender, help you sleep, help you relax, but again, don't use it... I just typically advise people to use it later on in the day instead of early on in the morning because you don't want to be chilled out maybe when you go to work or good take a big exam. 

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness, you touched on so many things and I'm so happy you brought up because... Yeah that was one of the things I love that you discussed was how our sense of smell is related or connected to our limbic system. So the part of our brain that is interpreting, stressors and emotions and just the connection that it can have. And then the implications of that in our body I think are just huge. And it makes me wonder, because I first wanted to start using essential oils to address like for the calming aspect, so for insomnia and sleep issues and a, after reading your book and experimenting with different oils, I found a massive therapeutic effect from it. 

Melanie Avalon:
And then I also saw that... I think it did create a sort of, on top of the actual benefits literally happening from the oil, I think that association and that connection just built on it even more so that when I turn to the essential oil as like a part of my routine, it almost... not that it's a placebo effect, but it perpetuated the effectiveness because I had that association with it.

Melanie Avalon:
Speaking of the sense of smell and memory, I have this one essential oil. The thing is, I bought it forever ago, but I bought it when I was young and growing up in Florida at a store and I loved that smell so much and I still have the bottle today. And it's ironic because I don't know where it was made. I don't know like the purity or the quality or if it has toxins in it. But I've kept it because when I smell it, I instantly get flooded with these emotions and these memories and it's... I mean it's shocking to me almost in a way.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So the olfactory system is the only sensory system that involves the amygdala and the limbic system. And this is important because as you mentioned your amygdala, your limbic system is where your primal brain is, right? Your mood, your memory, your emotions. So it's only when I do an interview that I even talk about this, because it's not top of mind unless I run across a woman who's wearing a certain perfume and reminds me of my first girlfriend, Becky. Every time 18 years old, even today I'm 40. When I smell a certain perfume it brings me back to being 18 years old and the only time I ever think of her, Becky, I'll love Becky [Noth 00:37:38]. So when I do an interview or when I smell her perfume. Same thing with Thanksgiving dinner. I have a lot of fond memories of Turkey smell and being at grandma's house. So Thanksgiving dinner comes, I'm happy. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
But you know what? What about the flip side of that though? And this is what's really, really important for people that are trying to heal emotional burdens is that if you are around a smell that makes you agitated and you don't know why, maybe because there was a situation that maybe you had a negative experience. And I come from a place of abuse and I come from, there was also a complication my own health as well, being raised in an abusive environment. There are certain things that could trigger that. I mentioned earlier about post traumatic stress. So let's say for women, this is very serious. This is very serious and this is something we need to take in consideration. Let's say a woman might've been abused with a certain aroma in the air and let's say a man bought a woman roses on a date and ended up in an abusive experience. Roses trigger the fear, the trauma that she experienced at that moment because that was the aroma in the air and an imprint in her limbic system and this is no joke.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And we all need like, you go, everyone has a, hopefully experience like you do smelling something. Me it's lavender, other people it's something else. When I wrote my book, I stumbled upon this wonderful blend of equal parts of Key Lime and Bergamot oil. I love it. It's like writing that book was one of the most empowering experiences of my life because anyone who ever tried to write a book or manuscript, it is a big deal. It's a lot of work. You're dealing with a publisher, like my publisher is the largest publisher in the world, Penguin Random House. Like there was a lot of pressure and I got through it and we succeeded and that oil blend was something I used throughout the whole time to get me energized and to pump me up. And I just had that blend around me, literally around me all the time when I wrote the book. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So when I'm trying to do something even today, that requires even more focus. Like right now when I'm writing the third book, I got that blend. It brings me right back to that very empowering like I climbed my Mount Everest moment. So there's a flip end of that again too. So for people who practice emotional recall healing and they are going to a therapist, this is something you need to be careful of. And the power is this, especially for those people like myself had battled panic or depression or mental illness, you could use a certain essential oil to help you through this healing stage and in the future if you ever relapse or have experience that causes some sort of negative reaction, you can go to that oil and it brings you back to that time of healing.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so again, this is next level. I have power in my hand and you don't need to have oils all over you in your purse. Like there are little aroma therapy inhaler tubes that look like lipstick and that's very easy for a guy or girl to put in their pocket or purse or desk office or in your office desk or in your car door. Like there's on the go solutions for you and me and everyone, especially for those people who are going through some stuff. And it's wonderful and all of this is science-based.

Melanie Avalon:
It's science-based and it almost sounds like a science fiction superpower though. It sounds amazing because it's like you could encode in a way, if you can have this healing experience attached to these oils. Not only is the healing, you know there's the healing properties themselves, like the actual physical nature, but then encoding that memory of healing to it. And I think we see this with things like epigenetics and genetics. So I think it's clearly the huge factor. So I'm like so excited right now. Like the potential to encode that in a way, in a scent and then have access to it. Because we know we'll talk about like epigenetics and changing our environment and all these modalities, but having it in a way in a physical bottle is just kind of thrilling. It's very exciting.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, it's wonderful. The power is in your hands. If you're listening right now, you need to know you have the power in your hands, you need to know your health, your goals, your mission, your purpose. You have all the tools at your disposal and essential oils are just one of those. But this is real life stuff that you could start to have fun with and play with it, experiment. And next thing you know, you start becoming a leader. You start becoming a source of hope for other people who see your life changed. And that's really what the purpose of all this is. So now you can help others and be a blessing and people come up and go, "What happen to you only?" "Hey, let me tell you something. Let me help you." There's nothing more satisfying than being able to share and pass it forward and to create essentially a movement with all of us. And I love it.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I love it so much. I mean, how intuitive can one be or should one be when they do start branching into the oils? And the perspective that I'm coming from is, so I personally tend to be a sort of sensitive butterfly and the scents, the smells, that whole department, which is actually one of the reasons I was hesitant about even exploring the essential oil world originally because I tend to err on the side of no scents, no smells. And of course it makes you wonder how much of that comes from, I mean honestly things like once foundational state of health or gut dysbiosis or being exposed to so many synthetic fragrances and smells and just overwhelming the body system. But so when I personally approach oils, I mean there are a few oils, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. These make me feel great.

Melanie Avalon:
So like all the mints and things like that, they boost my energy, they clear my head. I think they're great for focus. They make me feel... This sounds weird but they just make me feel clean. It's more on things like the calming ones. Even things like lavender, I seem to almost get sort of a headache with. Like a lot of oils if I smell them I will get a headache or I'll feel like it's too much for me and I don't know if that's always going to be the case or how intuitive that is or... I don't know what part of my body is telling me that. Is it because right now I'm just not accepting of these smells or is it maybe that I'm only going to ever be quote, okay, with a few different oils.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
That's a really good question. A couple of things to unpack there. First thing that comes to mind is that I'm going to give everyone like a practical litmus test to see if there's something that you might need to work on like for detoxification or just in your health. You should, everyone should have some sort of negative reaction when they are encountered with chemicals and that means when you go into an arts and craft store or when you're walking down the cleaning aisle of a Walmart, when you're at a home and they're burning like Yankee candles. I was at a party just for new year's just a couple of weeks ago and our friend had a Yankee candle and I was gagging. I couldn't handle it.

Melanie Avalon:
I relate to this so much. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Here's a litmus test though. If you do not have a negative reaction walking into the perfume department at the department store, that is a red flag sign to say that your body has adapted to this and you've lost that sense of smell that you can regenerate back by cleansing yourself of it by staying away like... I'll challenge you. You should not be able to handle being around for breeze. It should make you gag. It should give you a headache. That's your biological, that is your evolution, that is your given by God responds to a toxin. And if it doesn't happen that way, that means your senses are being dull that you've adapted to it and adaption is how we are alive. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So thank God we have adapted to it, but it is a red flag to say you need to heighten the senses because it's going to serve you in a negative way because when we experience like heat and fire that tells us, "Hey, get away, you're going to burn your hand off." Like that pain is actually a good thing in that sense. So I want to say that's step one and you start to see, well I get a negative reaction to a certain essential oil. It could be a number of things. Number one, it could be a need for some emotional detoxification like we talked about before. Maybe there was a negative reaction around like say a lavender that you suppressed and that's a very real thing. Maybe it is some sort of biochemical interaction. That's something interesting too because we are biochemically unique. Our biochemistry's change every day depending on what we eat, what we drink, what we smell, what we put on our skin. Sometimes my chemistry and the chemistry of the essential oils because they're so potent, they don't react properly together. And you might have an adverse reaction that just says, "Hey, now's not the time for me to use this."

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I mean, it's just like a headache. Any adverse reaction to using a supplement or an essential oil means stop use, period. Just don't use it. It's another myth out there on the blogosphere that says, "Hey, if you put essential oils on your skin and your skin gets bubbles or erupts or rashes, that's detox." That's a lie, there's no such detoxification reaction that works like that. That's called allergic reaction. That's sensitization, that's contact dermatitis.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Another third reason maybe why you could have a negative reaction to smelling in essential oils because the essential oil was impure. And here's the tendency though, and this is the big thing. This is kind of where I like being not branded because I could say this and not... You know, I'm at risk of offending everybody. I'm in my own little bubble. But boy, Oh boy, you get someone who is selling essential oils they will never admit that the oil that they're selling could possibly be not pure. Right? There are accidents that happen. There is contamination. There are certain batches that just... I don't know what happens. Something from manufacturer to harvest. Something happen if an oil is not a hundred percent pure, if there are adulterants or contaminants or pesticides or something that could cause a negative reaction, but this is the careful thing. We need not to automatically blame the oil if we have a negative reaction because of the things I just previously said.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Maybe a negative experience, maybe some sort of brain plasticity. It could be your biochemistry just doesn't respond well to the biochemistry of the oil. Maybe you need a detox. Maybe you're going through a super stressful time and your body's just in this fight or flight mode. Like you mentioned, intuition is very important and so in the book I cover something that I want everyone to do for everything, not just essential oils. And boy, I wish your medical doctor taught you this. There's something called the organoleptic evaluation. You need to test to see whether or not you should take something for a therapeutic effect. So imagine like this will flip the health world upside down. Imagine before you just take your round of antibiotics, imagine before you just go through your bottle of probiotics. Imagine before you just douse yourself with essential oils is that you systematically test yourself whether or not your body's going to respond well to it. No one ever told me that and I've had a lot of negative reactions to drugs and the natural things because I didn't use them right or they just weren't good for me at the time. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so the organic elliptic evaluation is how does your body react via this six, six, not five, six senses, including intuition. So for you open up lavender for example, and you smell it and does it create any sort of reaction? Here's the key. You want a taste, test, taste, touch, smell, feeling around it. Just being around it all. Any which way that you can experience the essential oil or supplement or antibiotic or whatever it is that you're doing. And if you get any negative reaction to it, that's a red flag that you should not probably use this thing, right, in the terms of significant like severely damaging drugs like chemotherapy and others. We know we're going to get a negative reaction to that. That's your decision whether or not you want to take that risk.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So I'm talking about like aspirin and I'm talking about typical medication that people just take and it's causing comorbidities. It's causing other issues that they shouldn't even be having. So you get a bottle of lavender and you just smell it and no reaction is a good reaction. So if you don't get a headache, if you don't get wayward thoughts, if you don't get any kind of panic, that means okay, it's good. You will know immediately and then get a little bit, put some on the back of your hand. Why don't we do this with our body? We do this with our carpet. Well, it says on the carpet cleaner testing and conspicuous corner before you clean the whole carpet. Why don't we do it with the oils, before you slather oils on your skin, why don't you just put a little bit on the back of your hand? It's called this skin patch test. It's actually a medical test, a skin patch test. Put some on the back of your hand. Just a drop. See what happens. Right.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I would recommend get a little bit of coconut oil, put a drop of essential oil, rub it on the back of your hand, no reaction is good reaction. But if it gets red, if it hurts, if you get a blister, anything like any negative reaction says, nope, I should not apply this topically. And if it's an oil that is consumable, lavender's again one, you can get a little bit of coconut oil or olive oil in a spoon. Put a drop and just consume it. Like put it in your mouth. It's safe. You can do that, won't kill you and what happens? No reaction is a good reaction. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And also like you mentioned intuition, how do you feel? And this is where the limbic system and the power of smell and the olfactory system all come into play is that you should have a positive reaction. Again, if people did this before they waste so much money on supplements and all the things that people are doing with drugs, it would help ease so much burden, so many signs and symptoms that people just force themselves through like, "Oh I'm just going to grin and bear it." Says who? Nothing should hurt you. And so I wish I had the reason why something doesn't work for someone or creates a negative reaction, but theoretically, if used properly and diluted properly, maybe the smell is just too strong for you, Melanie. Maybe that lavender that's around you, I would hope that a drop, maybe two drops in the diffuser disperses it enough where you can enjoy it, but if for some reason it's just doesn't jive with you, maybe lavender's is just not your thing and that's okay. Right. Maybe there's some sort of allergic reaction there and that's okay.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
There are so many other solutions like Roman chamomile or vetiver or petitgrain or just the litmus test goes on. Spikenard that you could use for calming and sedative.

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much. That was such a perfect, thorough answer. I think we're so often scared of just trusting our intuition. We want everything to be validated or third party supported but I think there is something to be said about our inner intuition when it comes to things and I personally don't really use the lavender, but for the ones I found really beneficial for me personally for helping with sleep issues was, and I never know how to say it. You can probably guess since I don't know how to say it ylang ylang? I've been hearing you say it in the audio book, but is it ylang ylang?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah, and I get that. Ylang ylang ylang ylang, but I love that. Yeah, there's a lot we can go on ylang ylang if you want to talk about ylang ylang by being a known harmonizer. Oh.

Melanie Avalon:
What do you mean by harmonizer? 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Oh boy. Lavender is not a harmonizer. Lavender, like peppermint will produce a physiological response that's predictable. So meaning lavender should calm you. Peppermint should excite you. Ylang ylang will do what your body needs. 

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, like adaptogens.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yes. So they've shown in clinical research trials on humans. Again, this isn't fufu stuff. Competing contrary physiological measures, blood pressure and pulse rate balanced by using ylang ylang. So for example, ylang ylang was shown to increase blood pressure but decrease pulse rate, which is the counterintuitive because when you increase your blood pressure, your pulse rate should increase. It didn't happen that way. Ylang ylang provided, just inhalation of ylang ylang help balance competing physiological measures. And so sandalwood is another known harmonizer, whether Indian or Australian. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
I was going to say ylang ylang and sandalwood are the two that... Yeah.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Maybe for whatever reason your body is just kind of in a state of flux and it happens. I think we need to be more understanding that our body is under constant attack at all times. Our body's constantly adapting this environment. And I got to say I've shifted, I'm about to celebrate my 40th birthday. I mean my thirties were kinda tough. Kids are going to school and raising a family, starting a business, like you go through different stages of life and I found in my thirties I really craved harmonizers because my body was just all over the place, right? So yeah, there's certain essential oils and have a predictable physiological response. Like lavender should calm you, peppermint should perk you up, rosemary will increase blood pressure. But there's a lot of essential oils that create homeostasis in the body. And so it's fascinating because it's a different approach to healthcare when you use essential oils in a way that aligns itself with vitalistic philosophy.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And this is something that I learned in chiropractic college, is that we want to give the body what the body needs to heal itself. And that's what you ylang ylang and sandalwood have been shown to do it for whatever reason. I wish I could say we knew the mechanism, but we don't. And I have my own thoughts. It has to do a lot probably with inflammation, has a lot to do with like the cellular level because we got to remember essential oils when used topically penetrate into the cellular level and within the bloodstream within minutes. When you inhale them, right, they go right into your limbic systems. So they affect your brain. When you ingest them again, they get a complete systemic effect. So what we're talking about, impacting the body at its fundamental places in the body. Right. The cells.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so when you can provide your body with something that can create homeostasis, that gives your body the ability to self regulate. And that's really the purpose that I see of natural medicine is more of this inside out approach versus outside in approach. And see the thing is the last thing I want, truth be told, the last thing I want is for someone to be on essential oils the rest of their life because you're trying to treat a disease. I mean, I don't want you to be a slave to essential oils like a lot of people are slave to a blood pressure medication or a blood sugar regulating medication or whatever. I want you and me and us to use essential oils and natural therapies to get us through to the place where we're healed. Then if we ever relapse or if we need support, we have it available.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
But to me the wonderful thing about essential oils is to use them to enhance our life to... Who doesn't like to smell good? But what are you going to use? A toxic perfume or cologne? Who doesn't want their house clean? But what are you going to use? A toxic chemical? So that's really the benefit that I see is in this lifestyle approach. But to kind of flip this whole concept on its head, instead of like using an essential oil to lower your blood sugar or lower your blood pressure, why not find out what's wrong to begin with? And let's start looking at root cause resolution and you'll find that essential oils can help with that. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And one thing that I kept on going back to over and over and over again in my book, because the research kept on suggesting it was inflammation. And at this point it's beyond argument that inflammation is the cause of autoimmunity and the cause of cancer and the cause of most mental illness. And it's about, okay, how do we stop that? How do we stop that chronic inflammatory response and essential oils can help with that too. Using oils like eucalyptus and we've talked about some of the calming oils like vetiver and Roman chamomile and lavender, but any oil that has D-limonene and that's all the citrus and I'll give you a list. Lemon, orange, grapefruit, neroli, palmarosa, any of those oils that are in the citrus family, they're rich in D-limonene which are anti-inflammatory.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so you just start incorporating them into your life and your body care and your cleaning products and you'll find like you're living this anti-inflammatory lifestyle that hopefully will lend itself to anti-inflammatory cooking and anti-inflammatory, just living, exercising and everything. Next thing you know your body has a chance to recoup, your body has a chance to fix itself and that's wonderful.

Melanie Avalon:
You just touched on, yeah, something huge that I'm so glad you brought up. That was one of my questions. How do we use them in the most healing holistic perspective where they're enhancing our life versus addressing an illness or a condition? Then becoming, like the tension between them being... not a bandaid but constantly addressing something and needing them for life compared to enhancing your life. And so it seems like that's very possible, especially people are addressing health issues that they could use them therapeutically in the shorter term to heal and then beyond that using them to enhance. Yeah that was one of my questions was is it a thing where the more you use oils, do they become less or more effective over time? 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Oh good question. 

Melanie Avalon:
Because I know with things like CBD, which is not an essential oil, but that's an example of something where they'll say the more you use it, the more it just fine tunes your system. Same question. Do they become more or less effective over time?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Yeah. You're asking fundamentally does the body develop resistance to essential oils. That's really an age old question to all natural therapies from what we could tell because the body completely metabolizes plant-based matter, which is fundamental. I mean your body will never completely metabolize drugs or any sort of chemical because the body doesn't have the proper neuro receptors and mechanoreceptors. It's just no interaction with it in a proper way. It's like the body doesn't know what to do with it. That's not like that would plant matter. Again, it's just the design of God that you'll find the body completely metabolizes essential oils within an hour and a half, two hours. So theoretically speaking, there is no resistance that can develop by using essential oils. However, I just know just the wonderful adaptability of the body and I still recommend people to switch up their protocols every month and I know because our bodies... And women know more than anybody, right. You're on a monthly cycle, men to our hormone cycle, our skin regenerates itself every month. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I think it's wise and there's also research has shown that it typically takes four weeks, three to four weeks to create a physiological response. That's why most research studies that are short term are usually three to four weeks. It's all you need. So if you want to see if an essential oil wall work, you got to give it a couple of weeks. But if you find something that you're trying to manage, like a chronic illness, a mental illness, something that has been... that will take a little bit of time. That's when having multiple approaches will work. But using essential oils as a whole, know that there's no risk of using of resistance. But the thing is, I just don't want people to get into the habit of using peppermint every day for the rest of their life because I suspect that after a while you might have to add two, three, four drops and their body might get a little bit of adaptability there but we have no risk that we know of, of creating super bugs. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And that's another thing too when it comes to MRSA and antibiotic resistant bacteria and antifungals, these drugs create super bugs where essential oils have been shown to kill them. Oils will kill MRSA. It's the only thing that will and that lets me know that nature has not developed resistance to essential oils. So again, we shouldn't either, which is fascinating, really fascinating work because we've created essentially a bubble that people are just getting sicker and sicker and no amount of drugs will help because again these superbugs are just annihilating people's immune system.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm glad you touched on the hormones and women and the cycles and everything and that was something that you do go into deep detail in the book is how women we can use these oils to help balance... I mean balance is like the perfect word, the crazy transitions of hormones and all the effects that those can have and I was really intrigued by that was something you mentioned in your book, the importance of switching out the oils after a few months based on cycles and things like that. And I thought that was really, really interesting. So I think our listeners probably have a lot of questions about what this actually looks like practically because I know... I don't think we even really hardcore discuss that because I know that. I mean, we talk about using them in inhalers, we've talked about putting them on skin, there's also, using them ingesting them, which is a whole nother ballpark. And I know we're coming up on time, so I will refer listeners to your books for all of that.

Melanie Avalon:
But what will this look like practically if somebody did want to jump into the essential oil world? Can they use it in all these different mechanisms of using them or is there one way you recommend starting? Where should listeners go for that?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So traditional aromatherapy uses oils three ways. Inhalation through a diffuser, a personal inhaler, steam. Like when I was a kid, my mom used to get a pot of boiling water, put it in a bowl and put some Vicks VapoRub and put a towel over my head. Like you can do that with essential oils, right. There's that inhalation benefit. Also topical, just literally putting on them your skin and ingestion which is consuming them. And one thing that we need to realize is that the food and flavor industry is the number one industry that consumes essential oils. Number one industry, like what do you think flavors your Coke or your peppermint patties or whatever? Right. And so the difference is whether it's a natural flavoring, which is essential oil based or an artificial flavoring, which is chemical based, but still based off of the chemical structures of essential oils.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
So essential oils have been consumed by us forever. I mean even eating, like if you were to... Like I love smoothies, I'll put a whole lemon in my smoothie, there's about three drops of lemon oil in the rind. Well, I'm consuming oils in whole form, we all do it. If you eat a fresh herbs, you're consuming micro doses of essential oil. It's just a matter of dosing. So I want to put that to rest because it's very safe if done properly to ingest essential oils, but you got to know oils and water don't mix, neither fatty, like there's certain rules that got to follow if you're going to use them. But hey, I got to say a drop of peppermint in my matcha green tea latte every morning. I love that. I mean that's a nice safe, effective way of getting a nice natural boost and enhancing the flavor of my tea, but also getting the antibacterial properties and just being healthy and yummy. You never, by the way have had guacamole unless you add a drop of lime or cilantro. It's like whoa. Right. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
And so that's a safe, effective way through culinary use. But if you want to use essential oils and medicinally like you really got to take a little more time. It's definitely out of scope of our quick conversation. Like there's a lot you need to know about dosing. There's some things you need to know about dilution percentages. Like you need to treat topical application completely different on a baby than you would an adult and even geriatric because the skin has become damaged over years and thin and oftentimes scaly or whatnot. So it does take a little bit of trial and error. It takes a little bit of research, but between those three ways, you can use essential oils and at the very least, I hope that people, if someone wants a practical step like today, like what do I do? Kick-out aerosols. Just throw away your aerosols, throw away your Glade Plugins, whatever it is, and buy an ultrasonic water diffuser and get it for 20, 30 bucks on Amazon, whatever. A nice diffuser that uses water to disperse vapor into the air. Put three, four or five drops of essential oil and let that thing run throughout the day. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
What essential oil? Well, depends on what you want. Like at nighttime, we'll diffuse our calming oils like our vetiver, Roman chamomile, lavender and in the daytime, we love our citrus oils because there had been shown proven antidepressants help with anxiety and stress. So diffuse some orange or lemon or lime or things like that. And then you kind of have fun. You can start making your own blends, or for those people who just want to get started, whatever company, wherever you're buying essential oils, you're always going to find pre-made blends. It's wonderful. It's a great way to get started. And right now it's cold and flu season. So get the, quote, immunity blend. There typically is a blend that includes oils like cloves, cinnamon, eucalyptus, lemon and orange in a mixture and that's the mixture I shared earlier. The blend that has been shown to kill the flu virus. Well, what better? It smells like apple pie, right? What better blend to use during the cold winter months to help counteract any sort of flu virus or a cold or sniffle at the same time make your house smell good. That's a really nice practical way to start. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Another good hack is that, let's say you want to make your own body care, but you don't have the time to get all the raw ingredients. Well, here's the easiest thing to do. Get some unscented body care, typically whole foods or a natural health food store. Make sure hopefully it's something without a lot of chemicals in it. Maybe shea butter based or coconut oil based but you get unscented based product, you add just a couple drops of essential oil and boom, you're done. I mean, again, what oils do you want to use? All depends on what you're trying to do. Like if you want to increase your mental focus, you could use cedar wood. Frankincense is great. Marie's great for that. Eucalyptus is wonderful for a variety of different things. It's really the sky's the limit, but I don't want people to feel like, "Oh, I don't have the time or the money to do all this." No, there's a lot of little ways that we can speed up the process and just adding a dab, adding a drop here, adding a drop there, it can make a lot of difference.

Melanie Avalon:
So fantastic. And again, for listeners, you've got to get the book. It's got recipes for all of these things. It's got all the science, all the details. So if your ears are perking up and your... I was going to say your sense of smells, your memory, if it's all happening, definitely get that book because it's got all the resources that you could ever want for that. So running up on time. I do have one last question and it's the last question that I ask every single guest on this podcast and it's just because I've realized more and more how important mindset and gratitude and spiritual health is for everything. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
I'm grateful for the community that we're all part of. I'm grateful that we're not alone. I'm grateful that we may never meet in person, but through the airwaves and through the community, we've created like a brotherhood, a sisterhood, a family. And that's why when we created our website and we rebranded it, we rebranded it The Natural Living Family. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful for everyone listening who want to try, who maybe some people are more advanced than others, some people are teachers, other people are students. But I'm grateful for this community and truthfully, the power that we have, we have the power to vote. We have the power of the vote with our dollar, power to vote with our ballot. We have to power to vote with what we share with our children and the legacy that we're creating.

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
It's a tribal community and we're all United. If I'm speaking somewhere, if you see me at a store, love it when people come up to me and be like, "Hey" It's like instant connection, instant love, and I'm unbelievably grateful that I'm not alone. And I hope wherever you're at to know that you're not alone because maybe your family or friends don't support your decision to live on natural lifestyle. But you know what I do and Melanie does and I'm sure she's got millions of viewers and listeners that support you as well. And that's something that I want to leave you with is that we are all in this together.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, thank you so much Dr. Z. That is so beautiful. I'm so grateful for your work. Actually one of the things that's not even related to the oils, so one of the things that I took away from your book the most was it was a Bible verse I hadn't actually heard before. I think it was Romans 5:3-5 I think it was the one that was talking about how, and this is me paraphrasing, but basically the idea was that how we're not scared or even grateful for suffering because suffering leads to perseverance and perseverance leads to character and character leads to hope. And just really thinking about that. I was just so beautiful and I really feel like it encapsulates in a way everything that we've been talking about because we have these challenges, we have these struggles, but we can persevere through that and that builds us as human beings, that builds our character and ultimately that does lead to hope. 

Melanie Avalon:
And I love how the followup first clarifies in a way that having hope is a beautiful thing. It doesn't put us to shame. So that's really what I took away from your book was this sense of hope and healing, so thank you. Thank you so much for all that you're doing. You are offering our audience a free screening of your 10 part video masterclass so super grateful for that. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Again the show notes will be at melanieavalon.com/essential oils and are there any other links Dr. Z that people can best follow your work if they would like to learn more?

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
Thank you for everything by the way and this opportunity. It's a privilege, it's a privilege to share and I hope people check out my masterclass because we'll teach step by step because some people just need a visual representation. That's really what we did. We just did a video version of the book and guiding people. My website, that's it. Check out naturallivingfamily.com and get ahold of what mama Z and I do everything from organic gardening to making your own body carers. It's wonderful and so a wonderful lifestyle that we've grown to develop. And I want to thank you and your work and your listeners and hope that we, regardless of what it is that we're dealing with in life, there is always hope and never give up. 

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, well thank you so much. I'm just filled with joy right now and gratitude so... All right, well, hopefully I can talk to you again in the future and I wish you the utmost best and a wonderful rest of your evening and week. 

Dr. Eric Zielinski (Dr. Z):
God bless. Bye bye.

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you. Bye.