The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #356 - Erika Siegel

TRANSCRIPT

Erika Siegel
Kids can handle some pretty complex flavors, and I like to give them the opportunity to make those decisions on their own instead of me determining what was a kid food and what was an adult food. Don't think of your cilantro, your basil, your parsley as like an afterthought. Like, it can be the main attraction. You can go really big with these things.

It is not selfish to desire to care for yourself. In fact, it's your responsibility.

You get one body, you get one life, and no one says that you're supposed to give it all away. Welcome.

Melanie Avalon
to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast, where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind, we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying herein.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. Oh my goodness friends, I cannot recommend enough Dr. Erica Siegel's two-part collection, The Nourish Me Kitchen. It is one of the most stunning books I have ever come across and like I talk about in this episode, I think it can help so many people and it also makes incredible gifts. You'll understand a little bit why after listening to our beautiful conversation, we talk about all things, healthy and delicious food recipes that you can easily make at home, tips and tricks to feeding your children, including dealing with picky eaters, coffee and wine as medicinal drinks, and then so many other things beyond food, things like the importance of breast massage and how to do that at home, whether or not you actually need to wear a bra, why you should declutter for stress, how you can support healthy dopamine production in your daily life, the benefits of wearing comfortable clothing, how and why you should ask for help and so much more. Definitely take advantage of Erica's offer to get 10% off this incredible book. You can get it on Amazon. Again, it is The Nourish Me Kitchen and you can use the coupon code MELAVALON that's M-E-L-A-V-A-L-O-N on Amazon to get 10% off. Again, use the coupon code MELAVALON on Amazon to get 10% off The Nourish Me Kitchen, which by the way, it does have a forward by the incredible Dr. Zach Bush. Erica is also offering my audience a free PDF, 14 Steps to Take Good Care. Definitely check that out. You can get that for free at melanieavalon.com slash good care. These show notes for today's episode will be at melanieavalon.com slash nourish kitchen. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know in my Facebook group, I have biohackers intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life, comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love. And then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post. And again, comments there to enter to win something that I love. All right, I think that's all the things. As a brief reminder, you can get 10% off the nourish me kitchen, cannot recommend enough getting this book for yourself and your loved ones with the coupon code MELAVALON on Amazon. And you can get Erica's free guide, 14 steps to take good care at Melanieavalon.com slash good care. And now without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with Dr. Erica Siegel. Hi friends.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have. It is a long time coming.

And so the backstory on today's conversation, I first went to the Udaimonia conference, the, well, I went both years that it's happened the first year that it started, which now I don't even know which year that was. But regardless, I was at, I'm pretty sure it was at the like dinner after party of the first night. Actually, it was an event put on by the founders. That that's where we met, right? At that, that house party. We did. So that's where I met this fabulous character, Dr. Erica Siegel. She, what's really funny about this. So she has, and friends, I, I can't even express the beauty captured in this book, Walt books. So it is this, it's called the nourish me kitchen. It is a two volume set. So the first set is essential health wisdom. The second set is wholesome everyday recipes. And the forward is by Dr. Zach Bush, who has actually also been on this show. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes or was he on my other show? Regardless, I've interviewed him before. So I'll put that in the show notes. So I'm just laughing remembering because it's well, first of all, it's stunning. It's hundreds of pages, so much wisdom. So the first volume is it goes over everything related to health you could ever, ever think of. So it's not just diet. I know it's the nourish me kitchen, but it's not just diet. It's, it's about mindset and exercise and, you know, sauna therapy and contrast therapy, and literally anything you could ever think of to uplift your life is covered in this book. And she even says in the very beginning to use it as, you know, use it the way it serves you. So like as a reference, if you want to go and search for something specific or you can read it back to cover, like whatever it may be, it's a resource for you. And then the second, the second volume is all of these fabulous, stunning recipes, but there's so much content. It's so heavy. And I remember, I remember Dr. Siegel gave it to me and was like, are you okay to like carry this around the rest of the night? I was like, yeah, like how big can it be? And it's like, it's, wait, I'm

Erika Siegel
to pick it up right now. Ten pounds, the two books together. And then I remember.

Melanie Avalon
I was in my like, you know, little black cocktail dress and high heels and I was like lugging it around The night I was like, whoa. I definitely am getting my you were such a trooper

Erika Siegel
Yeah, you were such a trooper. Most people are like, Can you mail that to me, which I'm also happy to do, but you were like, No, I'm taking it home. I've got this. And I appreciated that.

Melanie Avalon
I just remember carrying it and being like, I'm getting my muscle, my workout in right now. So in any case, fast forward, here we are today.

And so I did read it, Dr. Siegel, I did read it, Erica, front to cover every single word. I mean, no, this is amazing. Your book is... I'm like, I can't even imagine. How long did this take? There's just so much in there.

Erika Siegel
Yeah, well, the book set, it took me 15 years because I was doing it bit by bit and learning as I went because I had my full time practice and raising two kids. And then I would just have like an epiphany. Oh, I need to write about this. Oh, I need to include that. And then I realized, Oh, gosh, this wants to be a comprehensive functional medicine guide. I got to go really deep. And so it really took 15 years from my first idea of it being a really robust cookbook and health guide to being the project that it became. And it was, you know, it was a collaborative effort. I had amazing designers and photographer editors. So I could not have done this alone. You know, any beautiful big project requires, I think, multiple minds on it. And yeah, it took a lot longer than I had hoped.

But I am so very happy with it. And I think it, I think it just landed exactly when it needed to for for me in my life. And for the people that pick it up, everything takes its due time. I feel good about it.

Melanie Avalon
you should. It's literally amazing. Wait, so did you take, no, actually, if you talk about it in the gratitude, you worked with different photographers, right, for the, for it?

Erika Siegel
I worked mostly with one photographer, my dear friend Lottie, who was our nanny for five years. And she just had a beautiful camera and a great eye. And I had her start taking photos of food that we would make or things that we were doing with the kids. And we just started to compile these beautiful photos over time.

And then some of them are actually just from my iPhone or my son would take them. So it was a little bit of a pull it together project. It wasn't very formal in that way, but the photos came out beautifully because Lottie Wood is a beautiful photographer and food and nature are just beautiful to me. The colors and the textures of those things, they don't really require very much.

Melanie Avalon
much that is so true oh my goodness okay it was it was the editors I think you had different like a different editor for each book

Erika Siegel
multiple editors. Yes, so many editors.

And then eventually, when it was coming into full form, then I hired real pros. I had an editor from or two editors from Food and Wine magazine that edited all the recipes, just to make sure that they were consistent and clear and easy to follow. And then I had a dear friend, Natasha Pettit, who did the first book editing.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome awesome. Awesome.

Well, I will say so one of my habits with this show is so I do all my prep for like a couple months and then the night before I just go on Amazon and I read all the reviews because it gives me like It gives me like a perspective from like what is resonating with other people Well, first of all, you have every single review is like five stars I'm pretty sure so many people and I agree so many people were like talking about how it's amazing for them But also how it's like the perfect gift and I was like, this is so true ten pounds aside Anybody they give you need a gift for like because it can be hard to like find gifts They're like applicable to everybody. This is literally applicable to everybody and it's stunning So friends get it for yourself get it for everybody else that you know stock up now for gifts And actually I'll go ahead and give listeners So if you're getting on Amazon the code Mel Avalon, so M-E-L-A-V-A-L-O-N will get you 10% off So definitely definitely use that one.

I'm really curious 15 years. That's a long time anything drastically Changed like opinion wise from the beginning of that to the end I know you said like you had evolving like like fishwheel for example I know you said you changed your mind on a bit like were there some things that changed in your perspective?

Erika Siegel
I love that question because we really want to know if health information is evergreen or if it's a fad, right? And you know, we're always being bombarded with this is the new science and new information and then it's hard because well What are we doing with the information last year that contradicts this? And so while I you know I would write a chapter and then I would revisit it in a year in two years in five years and then at the end Like okay, I wrote this now ten years ago Is it still applicable and the really interesting thing is that most of it was completely applicable? There may have been more research to support it But I there were very few things that I said, you know I want to do a 180 on this and I think it's because the foundations of health Remain the same because this isn't really about biohacking and it's not really about a new peptide or anything like that It's about foundational care and the foundation foundational requirements like hydration movement good food and Community good sleep those don't change.

They really don't change and sure, we always get neat new information to update our techniques to do those things more efficiently or are we we may have better understanding of Why those things are important but you know treating a human being and taking care of this body It really is the same now as it was hundreds of years ago Sure, we have to manage and mitigate more toxins and the world is not the same place But our bodies are very much so quite similar And I just find that health information can be evergreen if it's not radical and I don't write about radical things in my books There are where there were a few pieces that I've I've given more thought on and I think I would I think I would Revise my section on intermittent fasting I would I would bring a little more nuance there and talk more about how it's not always perfect for women or Women that are premenstrual or perimenopausal. I would I would give a little bit more context there So people felt seen in those pages where it might not resonate with them to skip breakfast It might be better to eat breakfast and have an earlier dinner that sort of thing But for the most part when I when I read back things I wrote ten years ago, I thought wow, this is this is good It's still really really good. I feel I feel good about printing this publishing this and I'm sure that Time will some of those things will age differently and I might feel differently but for the most part they're just kind of standard staple foundational health chips

Melanie Avalon
That's amazing. And actually, to that point, it definitely felt timeless. Like, I couldn't tell that, you know, it was written at different points of time. Like, it all just flows very seamlessly.

Actually, the thing that's coming to my mind is like a good example, I think, of this. You're talking about, you know, it's not, you know, biohacking per se. It's just the foundations of health supporting things. Like you, like one of the very first sections of the first volume talks about the importance of hydration. And you point out that like aging really has to do a lot with like hydration. And like, you know, like drying up. And like, that's such a basic concept, but nobody really talks about that. And like in the anti-aging, you know, longevity biohacking sphere, I was like, you know, but that's really true. Like, we got to start with the really basics here.

Erika Siegel
basics. Yeah, before we start stacking all these cool new techniques, like how is your water getting in? Is it charged enough to get into your cells and is your body clean enough to be able to take it in and utilize it? It's pretty fascinating to break things down to the foundations and realize that that's actually what it's usually about.

Melanie Avalon
bell. And I love, so you say, actually, first I'll tell you really quickly, one of the sections is this overwhelming in a good way, and actually it really reminds me of Healing with Whole Foods. Is that TCM? Yes. I used to read it because it's kind of similar to yours, like an encyclopedia of all these different foods, and I would reference it to see what different foods were doing. And so you have a similar section where you go through, I mean, every food you could think of and... The pantry. Yep. Yes. The benefits of them. And I was curious to see which ones that we... Okay, so a few different questions here.

I like seeing the ones that we have overlap in being obsessed with, because there's a few that I think we are equally obsessed with. So before I talk about those, a question that haunts me perpetually is, why do you think certain people have favorite foods? Do you think it's emotional and related to childhood and upbringing? Is it a nutrient thing? Because if it was a nutrient thing, you wouldn't think that you would perpetually be needing that nutrient, but maybe you would. And also food aversions, and the whole thing on the Feeding Kids section is amazing. But yeah, why do you think we gravitate towards favorite foods?

Erika Siegel
It's such an interesting question. I've never been asked that. Well, regarding the childhood and what we were, what we were exposed to actually in utero will have some effect on what we crave. So in that section that I talk about feeding baby or nourishing our children, I talk about, I think his name's Dr. Green, who did research on babies that were born from moms in different cultures. And if they were exposed to Indian spices or South American spices, spicy food, different food, and the children would have a predilection towards those foods because they were actually exposed to it in the cord blood. So there's early childhood exposure that absolutely does influence your palate and your taste. And then there's early exposure in infancy. So you start eating, well, first of all, there's flavors that actually come through the breast milk. So when mom's diet is varied, her breast milk will have more flavonoids and polyphenols and will actually have aromatic compounds. And it will imprint on baby and baby will crave those foods. So that's a good thing for nursing moms to remember that the baby is starting to get influenced by what it is getting through the milk, what it's seeing, the colors, the variety, all of that will influence what baby likes.

And then the first foods that a child gets will start to imprint flavor profiles on them. So it is really important that we introduce bitter flavors, sour flavors, tart, all of that, not just the sweet flavors, because our bodies will crave those flavors that we have an early relationship with. Now, most people will not go for a bitter food, like most babies won't go for a bitter food right away. But if you keep introducing it to them, like you just let them try it over and over again, by the fifth, sixth, seventh time, they will actually start to create a desire for it. So they might have an ability to manage more bitter greens and bitter foods. So a lot of parents make the mistake of feeding a baby, let's say pureed kale or something. And baby turns away. And I got my baby doesn't like kale. Well, Dr. Green's research shows that if you give that baby kale, a little spoonful of kale, every other day for a week or two, the baby will eventually be like, Oh, yum, kale. So it's not that we're trying to force something on our children that they innately don't like, we're giving them their taste buds and opportunity to grow and change and actually then maybe desire it. Now, if a child keeps turning something away, I wouldn't say keep offering forever. But Dr. Green's research shows that most parents give up too quickly, they will give up on the second or third try. And they will say my baby doesn't like carrots. And then they will never give that kid carrots again. that kid may not have carrots until five years later. So with my family, I tried to just allow food to be an exploration and keep trying things and develop your own palate.

Erika Siegel
And as far as why some people are going to gravitate towards some foods and not others, I think it's really intriguing to try to understand. I don't know that I have a clear answer.

I'm thinking about my own children and observing them in the younger years, I saw that they would gravitate towards fatty foods and nutrient-dense foods a lot because their body's intelligence was telling them, we need to grow. We need food that's going to give us a lot of bang for our buck. So the salad is not as interesting, but the meat and the cheese and the avocado, that's more interesting. The smoked salmon, very interesting. It's salty. It's high in protein and high in good fat. And I just observed in my children, wow, this is such intelligence right now. They want the calorie-dense food because they need that. They need for their body to grow. And they like their fruit because it's a natural sweetener and it's going to give them energy right away. When I observe my own cravings, I notice it usually will tell me where I am in my menstrual cycle, tell me where I am with like, did I just do a big workout? And now I'm craving something more calorie-dense because I probably got into a bit of a calorie deficit.

And so now all of a sudden I want a burger. And where normally I'd be happy with the salad with a little bit of tofu on it or something. So I think it's always our body in some way giving us some information about where we are and what we need. And it's an opportunity to tune in. And even if we're craving chips, we might take that information and say, okay, I am craving something salty. Probably I'm a little dehydrated and I probably am, maybe I'm a little stressed. My adrenals are wanting that extra salt. So could I do some electrolytes in my water and then have some carrots to get the crunch to try to emulate what that craving is saying that you want? And just sort of using that as information from your body.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I loved the section on cravings and you go through all these different things and you know, what the craving might actually be indicating. I don't have kids, I don't anticipate having kids and still I was like the whole section on feeding kids. I was like, this is brilliant.

Like all of these different tips and tricks and things that I hadn't thought about before. Like you make the case of not, you know, dumbing down food for kids. Like they don't have to eat, you know, these really basic plain things. Like they can eat more elaborate concoctions. Is that?

Erika Siegel
Yeah, they can eat what grownups eat. When someone says, what should I eat? What should I feed my kids? I say, whatever you eat. That's what kids should eat is what grownups eat.

Now, of course, they might want it a little less spicy or might want it... I always joke about the toddler plate where every food is by itself. You put the broccoli by itself and you put the pasta by itself and the meat by itself because for some reason they like that categorization style, but there's no reason that they can't eat the smoked salmon or olives or a richer, rich flavored food. They actually usually like it. And I think that it's mostly our training that tells us that they want the plain noodles and the chicken fingers. I don't find that kids, when they are offered a variety of food, will actually go for the plain food. Now, some will, some children just, their body says, no, it's too much information for me. They might be sensory, sensitive in general. That might be the same kids that don't want any scratchy clothing on. Sounds can be too much for them. Bright lights can be too much for them. They may get overwhelmed with a lot of flavors. And so that can be a reason why a kid might go for something very plain. But other than that, I think kids can handle some pretty complex flavors. And I like to give them the opportunity to make those decisions on their own instead of me determining what was a kid food or what was an adult food.

Melanie Avalon
And also to that point, you said that by the time, I think by the time they were eight, they could do like, they could cook a four course meal. What is that experience like, like with the kids in the kitchen?

Like, did they help you with these recipes and everything, your kids?

Erika Siegel
Yeah, so with getting kids to cook, it is a long game. It's like giving them little jobs from the age of two or three. Okay, separate these into two piles. Here's your little tiny butter knife. You're gonna cut all these strawberries in half and you just, you keep giving them jobs and responsibilities in the kitchen. We always had this thing called the learning tower, which you could roll right up to the kitchen counter and then they would stand up and be right at your height. And so I, every time I, not every time I cooked, but a lot of the times when I cooked, I'd have them be part of it and give them jobs, either they were kind of made up jobs or maybe they were, eventually they were real jobs and they, they're just so interested in it. They love the textures, they like to taste as they go. They like to get creative. Yes, it is more messy. Yes, it is less efficient, but it is, I always considered it as their education.

And eventually it became really helpful. And now our kids are 17 and 18 and they cook the most elaborate food. I mean, really, really elaborate food. I mean, beyond my skill level of cooking and they love it. And it's a joy for them. They'll say, can we make dinner Saturday night? And they will plan it out all day. They'll shop, they'll make fresh bread. They'll make fresh hummus. They'll make, you know, Israeli salad, all this beautiful food because they are inspired and they were always inspired to be creative. I tried to give them this feeling of like, there's no real rules in the kitchen. Like sure, if we're making bread, we're gonna, we're gonna measure out how much flour and baking soda, but like outside of baking, let's let there be no rules. Let's see what happens. And if one out of every 20 things we make is a fail, well, we learned along the way. And yes, they did help with the recipes. We tested every single recipe in our, you know, we created and tested every recipe in our kitchen. And sometimes I would print out a recipe and leave it on the counter and they would come home after school. And I'd say, okay guys, this is your project, your after-school project. And I'd say, will you make this again, but with less cinnamon and more almond flour, let's see how it turns out. And they're always happy to make muffins and cookies and all of that. And, you know, they didn't have video and screen privileges. So might as well get them cooking and have a good time in the kitchen. And it was very empowering for them.

Melanie Avalon
So creating the recipes and everything. Where do you land? Because I feel like there's all these different diets out there and all these different opinions about what we should be eating and shouldn't be eating and macronutrients and et cetera. Where do you fall on how people should know what they should actually be eating?

And the kind of like a tangent off question from there is so, because I know you do make it pretty clear that processed foods, like gravitating towards whole foods is pretty important. Where is the, I don't know if it's like the line or if we're just making it ourself, then can it still be quote, like processed? Like if we're making our own salad dressings, we're making our own versions of baked goods. Like where is the line of how whole we should be in our whole foods?

Erika Siegel
Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. I think that's important to say because some people might feel like if I start processing, have I denatured the food in some way? Really, if you're using whole foods, then you can do anything you want with them. Processed foods are foods that have been manipulated in some way. Like let's talk about the wheat germ has been removed. It has been likely bleached, ground down. It's in a flower. It's now sitting on a shelf for six months. It's exposed to air and light and heat. And the oils in there start to become rancid. So it's a very different food than the original grain of wheat. And we know that when we start breaking things down and extracting food, that it no longer has the same health benefits.

It's no longer as vital. It doesn't have the same enzymes and bacteria and nutrient profile. And then it is also harder on our body to assimilate and manage. Now, if you get a bunch of ingredients and you make it yourself, it is not considered processed. Like you can absolutely make a dressing with your olive oil, your vinegar, a little garlic, parsley, whatever you want to put in there. And you've just combined ingredients, but it is still considered a whole food. Absolutely. You can throw a bunch of things in the blender. You can make a soup and cook it all down. It is still considered whole foods. It's not been denatured and processed in a way where some of the nutrients have been extracted and now it's more vulnerable to oxidation and damage. So I think that there are some things that are kind of on their way to being processed, sort of halfway, where you're like, hmm, this snack item seems pretty okay because it only has five ingredients in it. But you know that it was milled and pressed together and now it's kind of starting to become denatured. Let's say, for example, like dried mango, would we consider that a processed food? Well, I wouldn't really consider that processed or it's very minimally processed. You take the mango, they slice it up, they pull the water out, it's vacuum sealed. It's pretty much arrested in that state and it's still going to have the nutrients that the original mango had minus the water. But if you were to take a bunch of mangoes and press it and make a juice and bottle it, now that's been more processed and the fiber's been removed. So once you start removing nutrients, you make it a little harder on your body. Now without that fiber, you drink mango juice, your blood sugar is going to spike really quickly. So I think there's always a distinction somewhere along the line. But if you buy whole ingredients and you want to do anything you want with them at home, you're still having a whole foods diet.

Melanie Avalon
Amazing and i really really am how many recipes are there i'm blown away i'm looking now there's three hundred three hundred it's literally everything you could ever want to even like the burger section has five different burgers.

Erika Siegel
Oh, yes. They're so good. I love those burgers. Do you have a favorite? Yeah, of the burgers, I would say for everything. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, with each chapter, I probably have a couple of favorites. The burgers, if you eat lamb, that lamb burger is out of this world. And the veggie, the black bean burger is also excellent. So those are my two favorite burgers.

As far as favorites in the book, I would say some of my like fan favorites, like the people that tell me all the time, oh, this is my favorite. This is my favorite. There's a couple that stand out. There's the life changing loaf of bread, which is not my original recipe. A patient told me about it. I looked it up, found that it was like an internet sensation. And it is in the breakfast section. It's a not to miss recipe. It's just made with oats, nuts, and seeds, and psyllium. And you put it all together in a silicone loaf pan, you bake it, and you have the most delicious, hearty loaf of bread that it's not really a sandwich bread, but it's a really good breakfast bread with avocado or an egg, that sort of thing. And then my soups are to die for. I love every one of those soups. I think my favorite soup is the Bubbies chicken soup. That's definitely a very popular one. And then the dressings and dips, I just think are so versatile because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, you can make your own dressing. I want to empower people to make their own dressings and their own sauces because that's what makes your food come alive. You can pour that on anything, and then you have a really exciting dish. If you have your favorite creamy ginger peanut sauce or a green chimichurri, you put that on the most boring food, and it's now your favorite dish.

Melanie Avalon
When you eat out, do you bring your own dressings or do you ask for like oil?

Erika Siegel
So what I do so if I if I eat out we don't eat out all that often But we definitely eat out if we're gonna go to like an Asian like Thai or Korean I'll just kind of eat whatever's on the menu because I'm not gonna be able to Correct it very much and I I might get like some steamed veggies on the side and try to mix that in with whatever Else we got that's like probably too salty and too sweet But if I'm just going to a regular restaurant, that's you know Let's say I was wanting more like conventional food. I will probably I'm a little bit of an annoying person.

I think at the restaurant because I'll say can I get the brown rice but with the Lentils from this and can you just put the sauce on the side and I'll take some lemon and maybe a little olive oil Like I kind of like make my own Usually I'll do sauces and dressings on the side I'll ask for some lemon because I think you put lemon on anything and it's fine. It's good enough and I might ask for some olive oil and Then I you know, hope for the best basically

Melanie Avalon
That's literally what I do. I see the menu as like a list of ingredients and then what can I?

Erika Siegel
What do I want from this? It's a list of ingredients. If they have it listed, it is available.

You might have to, you know, a la carte it a little bit. And I think if you ask nicely with a smile on your face, like people are happy to help. And you make it easy for them and just say, hey, can I get this just with that? And with a little lemon, I'll be so super happy. And they're like, yeah, we can do that for you. Yep.

Melanie Avalon
list of ingredients I love it so I think I think the food that we probably you and I probably overlap on the most is I am very obsessed with ginger like so much I love ginger and I actually started

Erika Siegel
Did you see the centerfold, the ginger centerfold in the book? Oh, is there a ginger centerfold?

Melanie Avalon
I was reading a lot on the Kindle in the pantry section in the like spices. I am obsessed with ginger and I actually started doing since reading your book, I started doing a new habit with ginger, which is that I was I mean, I still use a lot of powdered ginger, but I've started like using a garlic press and like doing it fresh as well.

Although I need a stronger, I need a stronger garlic press because I it's like a workout

Erika Siegel
for me. Yeah, it's yeah, it is hard.

You could also do it on a microplane and just kind of go back and forth. And my son does a ginger technique that he saw online where he cuts it horizontally and then he puts it on the side. He smashes it really hard with the side of a knife and it completely like just decimates it. And then it's all it's all ground down.

Melanie Avalon
So like with the blade of the knife or like the knife handle the

Erika Siegel
the flat part of the of the metal of the the actual knife turns it on side i'm always amazed when he does it he looks like a japanese chef but there's a real difference between fresh ginger and dry ginger so in chinese medicine we utilize them differently dry ginger is so hot and drying that we'll use it for like a really wet cough but if you continue to use dry ginger all the time you can dry yourself out too much oh wow okay yeah but fresh ginger has more brightness and it's obviously more hydrated i just i i prefer it nine out of ten times that fresh ginger pressed it is so so good

Melanie Avalon
Historically, instead, I douse my food in ginger and turmeric and cilantro. I'm obsessed with cilantro.

I eat it. I eat it like I know people add it as a small garnish often, but I eat cilantro like it's spinach. I don't know if that's a problem.

Erika Siegel
It's not a problem. You know, cilantro is an absolute super food. We know that it helps to clear heavy metals and it doesn't stress your body in, you know, like you can do some things that are chelating and can be stressful to your body. But if you're craving lots of cilantro, you probably are benefiting from it because you're so healthy and you're so tuned in to what you desire that I would go with that.

Like if you want to go big with cilantro, go big with cilantro. You can make pates with it. You can make pestos with it. I have in the recipe, one of my pestos is a cilantro-based pesto. I'm absolutely on the same page with you. I try to tell people like, don't think of your cilantro, your basil, your parsley as like an afterthought. Like it can be the main attraction. You can go really big with these things.

Melanie Avalon
I really do. I go and buy seven bushels of it every time. Are you concerned at all? This is my tangent question. Are you concerned about it redistributing metals rather than pulling them out?

Erika Siegel
Right, so there's always the question of if we do anything that pulls metals out what like what's gonna happen next Yeah, like where they go Yeah So metals they get stored in fat tissue and then they get pulled out by anything that's chelating cuz Lantro is one of those things Chlorella can help with that and then it goes into your bloodstream and has to get out and the way that metals exit The body is through the stool and through the skin. So as long as you're moving your bowels regularly, which is daily and Sweating then those metals are clearing if either of those things are not happening You do have the risk of those metals recirculating and and then being deposited again

Melanie Avalon
Okay, okay.

Erika Siegel
Okay, good. Yeah, so sweating practices are really helpful for that.

And then if there's ever concern, like, like you're starting to feel, you know, people will feel symptoms of having a little excess metals like brain fog, headaches, just kind of weird, diffuse symptoms, you can take a binder to help draw it out like charcoal, or bentonite clay or something like that. And it will actually help bind it and move it into the stool.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, awesome. Yeah, it's with the sweating piece. I do my daily sauna session every day. And it's like, it's weird to me to think there was a time I wasn't doing that regularly. Like it just feels so, I'm like, how was I not sweating all of this out every day?

Erika Siegel
Right. And did you notice that you kind of got better at sweating as you started to do it more?

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, which is interesting for sure. Yeah

Erika Siegel
Yeah, people will say that they're not good at sweating and then it's actually something that your body learns to do more efficiently with more practice, with more sweating and more exercise that will stimulate that.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so I love my sauna. I love my cold. Okay, so you've said a few different words that relate to tangents I would love to go on or rabbit holes. So one, actually just really quickly, so reading your book, I was like, oh my goodness, I'm just not jealous or envious, but I'm very appreciative of like how you raised your kids and like being raised in this environment is just so incredible. And I'm like, all moms should read this book and implement this into their, you know, into their lives with raising their kids.

And what I also loved is you have a section on, I might be blending together different sections, but you have sections on like self care and you know, taking care of yourself. And for example, you point out like the benefits of I think it's like prioritizing your time and you mentioned that you even hired, like when your kids were younger, you hired somebody to like cook for a recipe prepare for you guys. And you point out that, you know, it may seem expensive or extraneous, but it gives you back a lot of time and it's worth and you compare it to like the prices to going out to a restaurant, you know, and think about it that way. So one of the things I loved, loved, loved was you, because you just seem like the like super mom and you, and you talk about the role of not losing your identity, like not having the entirety of your identity, being like a mom, for example. So yeah, how do you, how do you feel about like, I guess mothers in particular, but anybody like where their identity lies and like maintaining and taking care of yourself so that you can take care of others? Like how do you feel about like that, like self care and identity?

Erika Siegel
Yeah, I have so many thoughts on that having moved through, I guess, different identities in a way, you know, like as a daughter and as a mom, as a medical student, like all these, we wear all these different hats. And I know we all want to show up for these roles with a lot of integrity and a lot of what feels right to us.

But we can also lose ourselves in that process, whether we're maybe caretaking for someone or working crazy hours at our job or working crazy hours as a parent or some combination. And so how do we maintain sense of self while we're doing the thousand things? I think this morphs over time, depending on what's available to us, how much time is available to us, and what our needs are. But I think having some regular practices that we turn to that allow us to check in. So whether it's like a walk outside, or getting on the yoga mat, for me, one of the things I do is I go and I dance like, you know, I like to dance once a week, ecstatic dance, or five rhythms dance where I just kind of go and let that be my moving meditation. It's an opportunity for me to return to myself. And some of that requires structure and strategy. Some of it requires boundaries, like telling, you know, whoever needs to hear, like, just so you know, I'm taking my walk at three o'clock, like, Mom needs her time, or I'm gonna take this meeting while I while I go on the move, or I'm going to Wednesday night dance, everyone knows that Mom goes to dance on Wednesday nights. So it does, it requires more than just saying, I would like to do this, it actually requires that you look at your schedule, that you schedule and prioritize time for yourself, and that you create strategy so that can happen. And there's, I mean, there's a million ways where we can return to ourselves, we can journal, we can do breath work, like holotropic breathing, breathwave, anything that just allows us to tune in, maybe it's spending time with friends and people that you love that can remind you of who you are. And recognizing that it's not selfish to desire to care for yourself. In fact, it's your responsibility, you get one body, you get one life, and no one says that you're supposed to give it all away. In fact, you're supposed to treat yourself so beautifully that you hopefully have that extra energy to then give to the world. But really, you have to you have to manage yourself first. And, you know, getting to bed at a good time, eating food that makes you feel nourished and whole. And I know it's really, it's like easy for me to say now that my kids are like, you know, halfway, one foot out the door, and like, life's pretty easy for us now. It wasn't when they were two and three years old, it really wasn't, which is why I hired someone to come once a week and help us with recipes in the kitchen. We were beyond our ability to do all the things and do them well.

Erika Siegel
And so one of my strategies was, what if I have a teenager from the neighborhood come over once or twice a week and spend four hours and just work on making food, like just chop a bunch of veggies, make a batch of soup, make some beans and rice, then we have food for the week that we can pull from and just getting creative with where you need support and and implementing it instead of letting yourself really fall away. Yeah, I mean, there's there's so much I could say there, but it is very important to me that that especially mothers feel supported in taking good care of themselves.

And you don't have to do everything all the time. You can do five minutes on the yoga mat. It's okay to go to your yoga mat for five minutes and breathe and go into a child's and then go back to parenting or working. You know, sometimes we have to just allow it to be enough drinking up a quick glass of water when you get, you know, a glass of water for your kid and weaving your self-care into your day, even five minutes at a time because you're worth it.

Melanie Avalon
I love that too that it was like a teenager that came over because now you're giving them an opportunity, you know, to have like a job and I would have liked doing something like that. I remember because I remember I did not like babysitting that was like not my calling. But if there had been like things like that, I could do that one, you know, and it does

Erika Siegel
to be perfect, right? Like, so they're gonna, you know, make a mass sort of fine. We're all messy around here. But at least we have another hand that's helping.

Melanie Avalon
I love it. I love it. There's just so many treasures in this book. One of the sections I really loved and then actually one of the Amazon review people mentioned it as their favorite too. So I was like, okay, this is not just me. This was such a gem to me.

The role of clutter in stress. I was wondering, yeah, your thoughts, so like in your living situation and what is the role of clutter and decluttering and letting go of things. How does that actually affect us with stress?

Erika Siegel
The reason I added this into this section on, I think it's within the pillars, about clutter is because I noticed a rhythm in myself that every time I would set aside time to work on my book, which would sometimes be every month, sometimes it'd be every three months, I noticed a pattern in myself, which was I had to completely clean my work spaces. I'll have to do the laundry, oh, I need to do this. And I thought I was procrastinating, procrastinating, and I was, but also there was a certain energy that I needed and mental space that I needed when I was writing. I needed for like everything to be off the plate.

And I started to notice that sometimes I would write best or actually often write best, like when I was on an airplane sitting, I had nowhere else to be, I had nothing to distract me, or if I would take a weekend away and get a little Airbnb at a mountain or something, there was nothing else to distract me. And I started to look into, why is it that I'm so distracted by my life otherwise? And it's this sense of when you're looking around and you have constant reminders of all the things that you need to do, put away and manage, if there's piles of bills and dishes and laundry, it's this constant drain on your energy telling you, like, you need to prioritize these other things, they need to be dealt with what you're doing, which is kind of a challenge. It's the work that you're doing that is a lot of mental work. You can't quite do that yet. You need to take care of these other tasks. And so I actually got in touch with a friend of mine who this wonderful woman Penelope Miller, who she is an organizer. She goes into people's homes and she helps them recreate a relationship with their home by recognizing that their clutter is an energetic drain from their overall energy and their nervous system. And she taught me a lot about how the space that we're in, where our eyes go to even like the quality of light or proximity to a window or the sounds and smells of our environment are constantly being entrained on our nervous system and we are responding in kind. So we'll start to notice those patterns in ourself that we will want to sit next to a window and gaze outside at a beautiful vista because it really calms our nervous system. If we take our eyes and then we move it into our kitchen and our kitchen is filled with life, we can feel a little dysregulated. And so that's why I think it is important to try to create areas, not to be every area, but some sacred areas for you where there isn't clutter, there isn't the reminder of the 10,000 things and allow it to be sort of a gift of that space to your nervous system because it's really, your space is a reflection of your inner state, which is what my friend Penelope Rose Miller says. And it's in constant dialogue with your nervous system. So it's like either promoting ease or adding to that sort of sense of alarm. So I think it's really worthwhile to have an honest conversation with yourself about all the stuff that you're around.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it resonates with me so much. I have the exact same experience as you, which is that, especially if I'm running behind with everything and I'm stressed about getting everything done, then I have to clean everything first. And like you said, I'm like, am I procrastinating? Yeah, and I was reading that it has a lot to do with our nervous system. Basically, all this stuff that's out, and you kind of touched on this, but it signals to us unfinished tasks. So we can't really focus if there's all this stuff that we have to be doing.

So I do this little thing where I call it throw one thing away every day. And so every day I try, well, I do, every day I throw something or give away or I remove something from my apartment. And then I put a little sticker on a calendar to give myself a dopamine hit. Oh, another C word, so clutter. You also mentioned briefly clothing. Because this is like, friends, there's just so much guidance and wisdom in this book that people just don't really talk about or think about. And one of the things you point out is the importance of the clothing that you wear being comfortable. And I literally wear... So I have three copies of this one dress, like a black halter dress. And that's what I wear every single day. Because unless I'm going out, then I wear gowns and stuff. But I don't want to have to deal with making the decision of what to wear. And I want to be super comfortable. And so that's what I wear every day.

Erika Siegel
It's so wise, really, it's so wise to find something that works for you that makes you feel like you and then you're going to, you're just, I, I notice I completely feel like a different person depending on what I'm wearing. If I have my work clothes on, I'm in my work mode and then I put my cozy clothes on. And then like, if you, if you put like really cozy clothes on and slippers, like don't think that you're going to, you know, make a lot of, you're not going to make a lot of progress with your clutter probably because you're just like too cozy.

So recognizing like just putting the sneakers on will allow you to move differently in your house and, you know, that black halter that you feel cozy and you feel yourself in and you feel like you can be productive, you can, you can be all your people in, it's, I think that's so wise. I love that you found your, you found your outfit.

Melanie Avalon
My outfit. I often wonder because I work from home, but I have to leave the apartment every day.

So I go to cryotherapy every day. I go to Whole Foods every day. I'm like, I wonder if these people notice that I always have the exact same thing on. And I don't even adjust for the winter. So when it was in the teens last week, I still wear my summer dress to Whole Foods and people stare at me like I'm crazy. And they're like, aren't you cold? I'm like, yes, but it's good for you. Like you don't have to be, you know, perfect ambient temperature all the time.

Erika Siegel
Oh, that's great. I would love to see you in that dress.

Melanie Avalon
Well, I'm just going to say it's pretty much I wear it a lot on all my photos unless I'm wearing gowns. But oh, okay, so here's something I do clothing-wise that relates to a topic that I know you're passionate about. So I don't wear bras. I don't remember, I do not remember last time I wore a bra.

And I don't have, I'm very like flat chested, so I don't really need one. But the breasts and the health of our breasts, so you have a really, you have a whole section on like the importance of like touch and massage and you know, therapeutic touch, and in particular like massaging our breasts. And what should we know for our breasts as far as like food, massaging, do we need to wear bras? Like am I, is it okay that I don't wear a bra?

Erika Siegel
It's 100% okay to not wear a bra. Bras are meant for our physical comfort and our, you know, if we have a certain desire in the way that we want our breasts to look under clothing. But bras are not necessary at all. It is not problematic at all for the breasts, even pendulous large breasts to be without support. That's really just a personal preference.

Okay, so what should we know about the breasts? So I love talking about this. I do lectures on this. I entitled How to Love Your Boobies. And it's always a really well-attended lecture because it's just fun to talk about this part of our body without it just being pathologized or sexualized. It tends to be one of the two. It's like either we're like looking for cancer and we're scared or we're trying to figure out how to make our breasts look best, you know, either not clothes or clothes to attract other people. But I like to think about the whole area of the chest as a very, it's a very important area. Metabolically, it's really important. There's a lot of lymph activity. There's glands and, you know, that's where milk is produced. There's just so much going on in this region. And I like for people to recognize that this part of the body really does want touch, just like your neck and shoulders want touch, your whole chest and breasts want touch. And this is a great opportunity for us to get in touch with ourself. We spoke earlier about like, what's, you know, what's kind of like, how can we return to ourselves? Well, breast massage is a great way to return to ourselves.

We get out of the shower, put a yummy oil on, know that anything you put on your skin is going to absorb into your body. So make sure that oil is really simple and organic, like an organic almond oil, maybe with some rose essential oil added in, something delicious like that. And you just massage the whole region of the breast. I'm doing it right now, you can't see. But you can lift your arm up in the air and like massage your armpit down into the bottom of the breast, go in between them. It's not about really like squeezing, like you would, you know, squeeze the neck and shoulders. It's more like long, lovely strokes. You're doing it in a fashion that feels good to you. It's not about it being a certain technique. Any movement of the breast tissue is going to increase the lymphatic flow and that return of lymph right there in the chest. And it will actually reduce density in the breast tissue. If you do it regularly, you will have less density in the breast, which is important because density in the breast can get in the way of getting a really good mammogram. Or sometimes density in the breast can be painful and create pain, especially right before our menstrual cycle. So regular breast massage will reduce the lumpy bumpy breast tissue. It will increase lymphatic drainage. There aren't great studies about this, but my guess is that it absolutely would reduce the risk of cancer because you're quite literally moving things out. You're moving toxicity out and increasing blood flow.

Erika Siegel
And anytime we do that, we increase the health of the tissue. So I think all of that is really just important for our mental health, for our physical health.

And then we can do other things for our breast health, like avoiding the foods that will create the density. So that's, unfortunately, black tea, red wine, coffee and chocolate. It's like the four favorite things for a lot of women.

Melanie Avalon
I'm in. The tannins or like, is that a compound?

Erika Siegel
Yeah, it's a lot of the tannins that do that and they create density in the breast tissue. Now, that recommendation is really only applicable if you have dense breasts and you want to try to reduce that and it wouldn't be to avoid them all the time, but maybe switch out your coffee for green tea or even better matcha because that has breast supportive nutrients in it.

Matcha is a really good superfood for the breast tissue and coffee has that other effect of maybe increasing density. And then there's a lot of superfoods for the breast. So we know, I just mentioned matcha. We know that maka is really good for hormone balancing, for estrogen and for the breast tissue. Chatabari is great, that's an Indian asparagus root and it's just kind of a really neat root that you can get in a powdered form and add it to a drink. Turmeric is good for the breast tissue, all the antioxidants, all like the berries and colorful foods are going to be great for breast tissue. And lastly, y'all mentioned that flax and soy are really good for healthy breast tissue, like organic edamame, something like that. I wouldn't say like tofu necessarily because it's pretty processed, but having some organic soybeans in your diet is actually good for the breast tissue as well as ground flax seeds. And I would say that's probably good for most people to do like a heaping tablespoon of ground flax seed. It helps to bind the excess estrogen that comes through the gut and move it out of the body. And that's one of the pathways to getting estrogen out, which we really want to do because we don't want excess estrogen hanging around, it can make our breasts tender and it gives us an increased risk of any estrogen sensitive cancers. So I think all those things together really do support overall breast health and I just love the idea of people becoming comfortable with massaging and touching their own breast tissue.

Melanie Avalon
I love this, and I really like habit stacking, so I think I might start doing this like when I'm in the sauna, would that work?

Erika Siegel
Yes, great idea. Yeah, so bring in an oil that you like and just start with your armpit and move down the breast and chest and just do your whole chest and you can do your belly too and get under your ribs and get into your liver and the whole abdomen, the whole torso wants touch. So you might as well do it while you're in the sauna. That's a great idea.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and I really appreciated the touch section, my theory here, and I had Dr. Gabor Mate on the show and he confirmed this is probably what caused this because, you know, he thinks everything is trauma, which maybe it is.

I was born, like I was immediately put into one of those like ICU boxes when I was born. And I, so I'm very, I have like a mechanism. I don't like hugs, for example. I don't like people touching me. Like I can warm up to it, but I immediately have, and it's not me cognitively disliking it, but it's, there's like a wall there. So I'm really intrigued by like the therapeutic benefits of touch and how to get it, like how much do we actually need it? So I get like massages that I really like, but yeah, like touch in general, is it super, is it important for our health?

Erika Siegel
Yeah, it's actually when I when I researched for this particular section on physical touch I I was surprised with what I learned because I learned that that we're really wired for touch and it is obviously like our first instinct with a baby is to hold them and Swaddle them and cover them and and for that skin to skin contact our skin Which is you know largest organ of our body covering the whole thing is is somatosensory? It's our main somatosensory system. So it's constantly receiving information about where we are sensing the environment for cues of comfort safety Is it hot is it cold? Do I trust this person? It's oh, it's like always on alert And when we are touched by a loved one or someone we you know Trust our body is receiving that information is like, oh, okay. I like I'm safe I'm loved for it increases oxytocin But we can actually give ourselves that too So if it's startling for your nervous system to be hugged or embraced or touched by someone else You can actually get the same benefit with your own hand on your chest or you know Rubbing your neck like those are those are some really sensitive areas that will respond to that type of touch I noticed myself like I'll like self-soothe in the middle of the night and I'll just like rub my clavicle in my neck And I'm like, oh, okay.

I guess I'm like getting myself back to sleep and we really are just wired for that touch It's it's so interesting and when we don't have touch over time We can actually feel hunger for it and I notice this with my patients a lot I'll notice it with especially my Older patients who are not partnered and I don't think they're getting a lot of touch in their life And I always start my sessions on the table I do acupuncture with a lot of my patients and I always start with my hands on their feet or at their forehead and Oxiput but I always start my sessions with some touch and I'll spend five minutes doing like some reflexology massage and I can kind of get a sense for people that are are a little starving for touch because they they're their body will just sort of melt into into me and And they'll they'll make you know, sweet little sounds like oh Thank you, you know, like they're just I can I can sense that their body is like, oh my god I didn't know I needed this so much and You know, it makes me happy that I'm there doing that But it makes me sad that they're not getting more of that in their life And it could you know, they could get it from a loved one But they could get it from a pedicure massage or you know Maybe someone that they could trade foot massages with something like that but I really think that we we really do need touch it's so powerful and It also comes it's like, you know It's kind of like loaded too because we can't just request touch from anybody and it doesn't necessarily feel safe from from anybody But being touched in a pleasant way it contributes to our total system rebalancing. It's like a it's like a reset

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so I definitely loved that section so much. You mentioned sleep, actually before that, quick question about soy because you mentioned the edamame.

I feel like there are a few categories of food that are very hotly debated, especially in the health and wellness sphere. And soy is definitely one of them. And it's weird because it's proposed as addressing or causing the same issue. So it'll be like soy causes too much estrogen, but also soy is good for estrogen. So how do you feel about soy? Yeah, soy.

Erika Siegel
Soy, I think some of the reasons that soy gets a bad rap is because non-organic soy is a very unhealthy food. It is heavily, heavily sprayed and soy is making it into so many processed foods. It's like in burgers and in weird fake meat and it's everywhere and it's in a form that is not good for us. And so I think soy is like being blamed, but the soybean, an organic soybean, is not really all that different than a garbanzo bean or a mung bean. It has protein. It has some calcium in it actually. And what's unique about soy is it's lightly estrogenic. So it has phytoestrogens in it. Now, phytoestrogen foods are unlikely to elevate estrogen levels for someone who has high estrogen or someone who has cancer. They only lightly bind to the receptors. So when people say, oh, I have a risk of breast cancer in my family, I'm supposed to avoid soy, that is a total misunderstanding. And the reason that they think they should avoid is because they think it adds to their estrogen load.

But what it does is it lightly binds to the estrogen receptor. So technically, that means that it competes with more aggressive forms of estrogen in the body. So someone who is at risk for breast cancer technically should be eating regular soy in their diet, like a, you know, a cup of edamame every couple of days, because that will compete and lightly bind to that receptor as opposed to because it has more estrogen in it, as opposed to the estrogen that's in your body, which is estradiol, E2, predominantly, which is going to have a stronger estrogenic effect. So it's really a misunderstanding of that biochemistry when we're demonizing soy as an estrogen rich food. It only lightly produces or binds to those receptors, meaning it will have a light estrogen response. Now, if a woman is perimenopausal or menopausal and her estrogen is going off the cliff, that light receptor bond will actually help normalize her estrogen levels and give her a little boost. But it is not, I never consider it risky in a breast cancer patient. I consider it more harmonizing. And I just don't think it needs to be demonized. Yeah, if you eat a ton of tofu all the time, it might act as a goitrogen and kind of slow down thyroid function, but eaten in small amounts, maybe as some miso or fermented as tempeh or cooked as just, you know, edamame, I think it's a fine food to have in the diet.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Yeah, it's it's crazy how polarizing it can be that food

Erika Siegel
Yeah, because soy milk is not great probably for anybody, but a cup of edamame, I don't think it's gonna hurt anyone.

Melanie Avalon
sleep, the importance of sleep. One of the things I loved that you mentioned because I definitely in my life have done a 180 on sleep. Like I went from thinking I'll sleep when I'm dead to I must get all the sleep. You point out like with naps that, you know, the most productive people take naps. Like, you know, it's a good reframe for sleep. How do you feel about the importance of sleep?

And that said, I still have, and it's weird that I have had this for so long, but I still have this weird guilt, like this tinge of guilt that I feel like, oh, I need my like nine hours or I'm going to take a nap. I don't know if that guilt is ever going to go away. And I'm like, where does this come from? So how do you feel about sleep and particularly like feeling guilty about sleeping?

Erika Siegel
Oh, I think that guilt comes from just really productive people thinking like they should always be producing. So it's just part of that hard wiring of like my worth is somehow wrapped up in how much I get done in a day. I tend to be one of those people and I have a very strict relationship personally with sleep. I will not compromise sleep for pretty much anything because I started to recognize how I felt with less sleep and it wasn't okay. Like I could not show up in the way that I want to show up. I want to work hard, play hard, be really present, be there for my family. And I would say that sleep is probably my number one requirement for that.

And for me, it's seven and a half, seven and a half hours is my like minimum. I really like eight or more. Now they've done studies that show that women need a little more sleep than men, 30 to 60 more minutes a night. So I like to remind people of this because some men like to brag that they do great with six hours and they don't understand why their wife doesn't. Well actually we're different and we need more sleep. So if anyone tells you how much sleep they need, they're right. If it's 10 hours, they're right. If they think they're getting away with five, they're probably borrowing from Peter to pay back Paul and are going to suffer from it at some point. Sleep is such a metabolically active time. It's not just like what we do when we run out of ideas of what to do in the day. It's when our glial cells, that's the most abundant cell in the nervous system, sweeps out and detoxifies brain cells that are actually no longer useful. Essential hormones are produced and regulated while we sleep, so we make growth hormone. We do a lot of repair while we sleep. So much of our endocrine function requires that we get good sleep. One of the things that a lot of perimenopausal women will complain about is that their sleep is getting affected and it is actually one of the reasons why they're starting to gain more weight. Because if you don't sleep enough, it is really hard to keep your weight in a healthy range. You'll have more dysregulated cortisol. It's like a long list of things get affected by not banking enough sleep. It's when we do our growth, it's when we do our repair. The science is clear that sleep deprivation accumulates and has significant detrimental effects and unfortunately, we're able to mask it fairly well with caffeine and sugar and stress and so we might not notice that we are chronically sleep deprived. We might think, okay, I get away with six hours a night and then I drink three cups of coffee a day and then I drink wine at night to settle down and I repeat. They basically are hiding the fact that their cortisol is all out of rhythm and that they're using caffeine and sugar to keep themselves going or maybe they're even using stress to keep themselves going. But if they were honest with themselves, they would realize that they're actually pretty exhausted. So seven to eight hours is a goal and as far as naps go, I like to think of naps as little brain resets and for me, I take a nap when I can't figure out what else to do.

Erika Siegel
I don't want to chart. I don't want to clean. I don't want to do anything in front of me and then I ask myself, would you like to take a nap? And my body's usually like, yes, that's exactly what I wanted to do and I will set an alarm for 30 minutes and I will put on meditation music and my goal is not to fall asleep. My goal is to rest.

I may or may not fall asleep, but at the end of that, I feel completely refreshed and the science is very clear that that break and that amount of time, about 28 minutes, it is like an opportunity for your brain to do some clearing and it's not going to get you into REM sleep, but it's going to be a refresh for your brain and give you a new start. So I'm a big fan of napping, but if you nap for longer than 30, 35 minutes, you might start to get into sleep cycles, like a deeper sleep cycle and that could mess you up a little bit. So I usually recommend the cat nap, like under 35 minutes.

Melanie Avalon
So my hack for naps that I love doing is I have, so the sauna I have is the sunlight and the solo unit, which is, I don't know if you've seen this when you lay down in, your head is like outside of it. It's a hard shell dome. So it's not like a blanket or anything, but so I take sauna naps. So I will like take a nap in my sauna. So then it's kind of like I got a cardiovascular workout and detox while taking a nap. So it's multitasking. So I love that.

And then that reminded me, because you're mentioning the alarm, I loved the chapter and I mentioned this topic a little bit earlier, but you have a section on like healthy dopamine levels and supporting dopamine and all the problems about, oh, like that's something I learned that like teenagers actually like need more dopamine, for example, but I am like you, like I love encouraging dopamine drips, like healthy ways of getting dopamine throughout the day. Yeah, so what do you do with that with like, with many drips of dopamine in a healthy way?

Erika Siegel
Yeah, so we we want dopamine throughout the day because it's very motivating for us. It keeps us in the game It keeps us sharp. It gives us the sense of pleasure and We have unfortunately gotten entrained to desire bursts of dopamine instead of like the slow the you know The slow release is what you're mentioning Dopamine is produced a variety of ways we get dopamine from eating protein When we have regular protein throughout the day, it stabilizes our blood sugar And it increases our dopamine and I think that every meal and every snack should have some protein in it So it can it give me nuts. It could be beans eggs. Well source meats whatever We don't want to skip meals because When we skip meals our blood sugar is going to get wonky and our dopamine is going to drop and then we will probably We could go for something that's not a great choice for us.

So that's when you start reaching for the chocolate cake We know that movement exercise is a great source of dopamine So I recommend that people move throughout the day They don't have to just do their one hour at the gym But take five minutes to do some body weight squats or hang from a bar or do some Pull-ups or take a walk around the block and it's okay to space your exercise out You can do these little exercise snacks throughout the day does not have to happen all at once The research is pretty clear that you can do three 10-minute walks and it's the same as doing your 30-minute workout your 30-minute walk So I would say spreading out movement is really helpful or just like trying to stay in motion quite a bit throughout the day Obviously sleep will affect our dopamine production So lack of sleep will disrupt dopamine levels if you have a bad night of sleep You usually will have reduced concentration in coordination the day after and maybe like crave carbs sugars And that is largely due to a lack of dopamine So that's like something interesting to observe in ourselves Like if we had a bad night of sleep or not enough hours We might wake up that morning and all of a sudden that's when we want like a bagel and cream cheese instead of our Normal healthy breakfast. So that's like back to our cravings talk at the very beginning Like your body might be telling you like oh boy. My dopamine is a little low now I want sugar to overcompensate because if you have sugar, it's going to give you a quick rise in dopamine as opposed to proteins slower progressive rise in dopamine studies have shown that listening to favorite music especially instrumental increased dopamine levels So that's something I encourage my kids to do if they're studying something that they really don't want to study I'll have them put on like binaural beats or something like really low-key jazz in the background and see if it helps them and one of my kids That helps him tremendously and he has found his study his study rhythm With music and he knows exactly what he listens to Depending on what type of homework he's doing and it will keep him It'll keep him focused and in the game And then setting small goals like if you if you can have like kind of like,

Erika Siegel
you know You're through throw one thing away or give one thing away each day Like that's actually a little dopamine hit you're like, okay. I found the thing So if you set these small goals like usually something that takes three to seven minutes to complete like okay I'm going to unload the dishwasher for five minutes or i'm gonna Forward the laundry like kind of like these small goals throughout the day They give you this this reward feedback and then look now your kitchen's cleaner because you've rewarded yourself with these little tasks Yeah, there's there's just like a lot of different things.

I'm getting sunlight Meditating and then of course there's supplements that will help boost dopamine like be complex and magnesium will help you keep your levels up

Melanie Avalon
Now that I think about it, that's what I do. Especially to break up time of sitting and working for extended periods of time, I break it up with little mini cleaning tasks and such.

And then I basically clean the apartment throughout the day, get little dopamine hits, break up being sedentary. Yeah, it works really well.

Erika Siegel
I do the same thing. Yeah, it's rewarding and it just allows the tasks to feel less intimidating too.

Melanie Avalon
Exactly. Okay.

One other last topic, maybe you, so this is something that definitely affects people's neurotransmitters and is heavily debated and it's two beverages that maybe health beverages or maybe not. So coffee and wine. So what are your thoughts on coffee and wine?

Erika Siegel
Coffee and wine, right. I know. Yeah, these are two beverages that we use as medicine, right? We are utilizing these plants for their medicinal action. And this is like when people say to me like, oh, do you think like herbal medicine really works? I'll say, have you ever had a cup of coffee? And then they look at me, they're like, oh, okay, I didn't realize that was an herb I was drinking every day. All right. So let's, we'll hit both of them separately. Coffee, friend or foe. Well, it is so individualized to the person if coffee is a match for their body or not. Now, first, actually, before I talk about the individual ways we might interact with coffee, I first want to say that coffee can be grown in a way that is not healthy for us. It could be loaded with pesticides and mold. So I'll say that anyone who does drink coffee, please drink a well sourced coffee, fair trade, mold free, organic coffee, because it's really important how you source your coffee, especially if you're going to have it every day, make it really good for you, allow it to be the superfood that it has the capacity to be.

Okay, that being said, and don't forget out of a plastic cup, come on, like we, we deserve better than that. Some people respond to coffee in a way where it has the benefit of increasing blood flow to their brain, increases nitric oxide, it increases their muscle firing capacity, their memory, cognition, and that's why we love it because it gives us sort of a superpower. Now that superpower is limited and then people might decide to continue to do that throughout the day and maybe then they get to a point where they're sort of wired but tired at night and they need that wine, that depressant to bring themselves down on the other end. And so this is an example where you're using this plant medicinally, but then it can become a problematic in your body as you know, the dose increases. So it is very dose dependent to figure out what your specific dose is where you are not going to increase cortisol, increase anxiety, maybe get heartburn from it or lose stools or you know, have trouble sleeping, because all of those things are very possible with coffee. All of those things can happen to any individual and it is dose dependent. Now for me, I can't tolerate any coffee. I literally don't take more than a sip because I know that too much coffee absolutely over stimulates my nervous system, over stimulates my gut, affects my sleep and is not a friend for me. So it is not a medicine for me. It's more like a poison, but that's just because that's how my body metabolizes and interacts with it. So it is up to each individual to figure out how their body is going to interact with it and have an honest understanding of that. Now some people recognize that they love coffee, but they're not sure how it works for them and they maybe take it out for a little bit and then they realize, you know what, I actually have more energy without coffee because I'm allowing my adrenals to sort of communicate with me like what I need throughout the day and I'm not over sort of overriding it.

Erika Siegel
And so that is what some people will recognize. Some people will recognize that they do better with green tea or urban mate or some other caffeinated beverage. And then some people come back to it and say, you know what, coffee is an absolute match for my body. And I say for them, great, just use it responsibly.

Have one cup, see how you do. If we're up to three or four, it's probably too much for most humans. And just recognize that that relationship and the limits of that relationship, having a real honest assessment of that. Like I've had patients come to me that have chronic heartburn and they want to know what herbs they should take for it. And then I do a system review and I said, well, you're drinking coffee every day. Do you think it could be contributing? And they're like, oh God, I hope not. And I'll say, let's take it out for two weeks and see what happens. And then sadly, some of them come back and say, I cannot believe this. I've been drinking something every single day that gives me heartburn. So just recognizing the power of it, both good and bad, and having an honest relationship with it.

Wine is made from grapes. We love grapes, especially if they're organic. The fermentation of those grapes is going to create something that your body now has to metabolize in a very specific way. So when we drink any alcoholic beverage, our liver has to basically metabolize it and get the acetyl alcohol converted to something where it can be moved out of the body. That process does take a lot of work and it can be for some people too much work and can overwhelm the liver's capacity. Now, there's a lot of genetic variants and how well we metabolize alcohol. So some people can have a drink every day and it's kind of health giving to them because it's relaxing, it's social, it's fun. They enjoy it and it just brings, it lightens their life and in lovely ways it uplifts their life. But other people could have that same beverage and it can make them feel tired the next day. It can affect their sleep quality. It can make them bloated, puffy, and put a strain on their liver. So it is absolutely something that I think people should recognize their own individual response to, which might change over time sadly. A lot of women will say as they enter perimenopause, I no longer can deal with alcohol while their liver is overwhelmed by everything else it's up to. And yeah, it probably can't metabolize alcohol like it used to. So that's a time when maybe you decrease or stop. I don't think alcohol is good for anyone physiologically, but I know emotionally it has a lot of benefit, you know, socially has a lot of benefit. So just having again that honest conversation with yourself and recognizing where it might have benefit, where that benefit runs out and it's becoming more problematic and maybe finding some replacements that are less of a challenge for your body to manage.

Melanie Avalon
I love this perspective on everything and on the coffee front, I will have to send you. I'm actually launching a coffee this month, hopefully.

But it's going to be, you know, like you said, organic, clean, all the things and we source the beans to be super high and CGA content and then roast it to preserve that. So it's basically, you know, the highest antioxidant potential that you can get. So I will have to send you a bag once I have it.

Erika Siegel
Yeah, that's really great that you're bringing something like that to the market because it is a medicine and it has such high antioxidants and has such good potential for people and people already have adopted it as a medicine, so now they just need really good sources of it.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Well, Erica, this has been absolutely amazing. Again, for listeners, I cannot recommend the Nourish Me Kitchen book or books two volume series enough. It is a game changer for you, for the recipes, all of the guidance when it comes to health. And just it's really a holistic approach to everything. And then like I said, makes a very great gift as well.

So you can get on Amazon. The link for that is nourishme.com slash nourishme-book, or you can just search for it on Amazon and use the coupon code MELAVALON to get 10% off. And then Erica is so kind. She also has a free PDF that you guys can get. It's 14 steps to take good care. So we will make a link for that. So if you go to melanieavalon.com slash good care, we will have that PDF there. So you can download that. So Erica, thank you so, so much for everything that you're doing. Like I said, I'm just really stunned and in awe with what you're doing. And it's helping so many people. The last question that I ask every single guest on this show, and it's just because I am very obsessed with the importance of gratitude, which is also something that you talk about in the book. Oh, that your acknowledgement section. I was like, I bet she's going to have a very long acknowledgement section. I was like, called it. What is something that you're grateful for?

Erika Siegel
Well, I'm so glad you're giving me the opportunity to say this, because I was just thinking, gosh, I'm so grateful for how much time and attention you spent with the material that I created and the integrity with which you have with your show, that you're really doing deep dives. You're not just doing a cursory look, have the interview, and move on. This is obviously very important to you. And I'm appreciative of that, because I have done podcasts, and I know what it's like for folks to do the quick read and then they move on, because life is busy.

But I really appreciate how much time and attention that you took with my work, and I know you take that with everyone's work. And I just love that we're resonant in these ways. I always think my books are gonna resonate with people that they're in the right time and place for. And you obviously took the time to really dig in, and you highlighted some really important things that I really want to share with the world, so thank you for giving me an opportunity to share it more widely. Yeah, thank you for your work, Melanie, really.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, thank you so much. It's just such a treasure and such an honor. And like I said, I'm really, really blown away. So thank you.

So friends, go get it now. Get the Nourish Me Kitchen now. You will not regret it. It can really, really help your life and those around you.

And hopefully we can hang out at another conference soon.

Erika Siegel
I would love to see you in a gown or your black halter anytime.

Melanie Avalon
is amazing. All right, we'll have a good rest of your day and we'll talk soon. Take care.

Okay, bye Melanie. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line AvalonX. Please visit MelanieAvalon.com to learn more about today's guest and always feel free to contact me at contact at MelanieAvalon.com and always remember, you got this.