May 7, 2016
Podcast from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/05/what-is-kundalini-yoga/
[00:00] Introduction
[01:22] Exoprotein for tasty cricket protein bar
[01:45] Onnit.com
[08:53] How James and Somer Met
[11:38] James Morning Routine
[13:46] What is Kundalini Yoga?
[20:44] The Difference Between Kundalini Breathing and Wim Hof Breathing
[23:49] Why James Does Coconut Oil Pulling?
[29:33] What a Custom Yoga Routine Should Look or Feel Like
[37:10] Why James Uses Cannabidiol (CBD), and Which Form?
[44:51] Use of Cannabidiol for Women as Discovered by Somer
[47:03] How James Tap into Using Cannabidiol?
[49:05] Why James Uses Psilocybin Micro-dosing
[49:22] What Psilocybin can be Mixed with to Increase Potency?
[51:45] The Proposed Mechanism of Action of Psilocybin
[56:03] The Proposed Frequency of Using Psilocybin
[58:06] The Legality of Psilocybin
[59:09] Other life practices of James and Somer
[1:00:56] Earth Runner Sandals
[1:04] The book “Tuning the Human Biofield”
[1:07] End of Podcast
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In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:
“Cannabis has two sides of the plant, marijuana and hemp, and we derive, specifically in this conversation, we derive our CBD from hemp oil and therefore, it's classified, it has hemp oil and it can be shipped, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas,” “It is a direct link to balancing your glandular system and strengthening your nervous system which, for me, is what I found the most powerful effect of it was that a stronger nervous system, I was a pretty sensitive person before Kundalini.”
He’s an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America’s top personal trainer and one of the globe’s most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. “Power, speed, mobility, balance – whatever it is for you that’s for natural movement, get out there! When you’re working all the studies done… studies that have shown the greatest efficacy…” All the information you need in one place, right here, right now, on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.
Ben: Hey, folks. It's Ben Greenfield and last month, I had the pleasure of visiting an island of Hawaii I'd never been to because usually when I go to Hawaii, it's to do the masochistic suffer fest that is Ironman Hawaii on the big Island of Kona. But this time, I went to Kauai and I got a chance to actually hang out while I was there with a few of what I would consider to be some of the coolest couples on the face of the planet. For example, a couple weeks ago, I released a podcast interview that I did down there with big wave surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife, the volleyball Olympian and fitness celebrity Gabby Reece. We had a great conversation. If you didn't get a chance to listen to that, go back to the archives and listen in. But another couple that I hung out with quite a bit, along with my wife, when I was down in Kauai was my friend, James Rodina who's actually been on this podcast before and I will, I will jog your memory here briefly as to why he was on the podcast and what he is an expert in, but also, along with him, his, his well, girlfriend at that time, fiance, Dr. Somer Nicole, Dr. Somer Nicole, and you're gonna get to meet her in this podcast's episode.
So, first of all, let's start with Somer. I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, I actually hired an expert in Kundalini yoga and physical therapy to design a custom yoga routine for me to do in the morning, for me to open up specific chakras and specific, you know, basically energize my body in the way that I wanted to be energized in the morning, and Somer is that person who designed this custom Kundalini yoga routine for me. She's a doctor of physical therapy, she specializes in cranial sacral therapy, somato-emotional release, and she's a reiki teacher as well. She teaches Hatha yoga, she teaches Kundalini yoga, she took us through a few yoga sessions when we were down there in Kauai and she's very, very good. And, like I mentioned, she does personalized yoga videos for folks as well, and I'll link over to her and everything she does in the show notes for this episode which is at bengreenfieldfitness.com/yogapodcast, but she is here on the show along with James Rodina and he was a podcast guest in a special episode that I did on cannabidiol, and James is the CEO of an organization called EAD Labs which develops the cannabis-based formulations. He's a co-founder of the documentary that's actually releasing later this year called “The Science of Weed” that has a few dozen of the top doctors and scientists on the subject of using cannabis for healing, and he's built a hemp-based CBD product company that is really the gold standard in the industry in terms of absorption. They used something called nano-medicine to deliver cannabidiols to the body. So, between two of them, they kinda span the gamma when it comes to health, so, Somer, James, I know that when I was down there in Hawaii, we had a lot of groundbreaking Kundalini yoga sessions, we talked a lot and did a lot with CBD, we even experimented a little bit with, with psilocybin and we've got plenty to talk about on today's show, so welcome.
James: Aloha, Ben!
Somer: Aloha, Ben! Thanks for having me.
Ben: Aloha! Or as we, what was the phrase that we would use when we were down there, James, to evoke power?
James: Emuwa! Emuwa! Yeah, emuwa!
Ben: So, you guys are such a cool couple, you know, so much fun to hang out with, I had to get you on the show, but I'm curious, just if you could hit the rewind button for us real quick and tell me how you two actually met.
James: Right on, Ben. It's a funny story in a lot of ways and, we, I, I was living in Encinitas, this was about three, a little over three years ago and my best friend had hired Summer to do some physical therapy on her, on his shoulder, and as soon as the session came up, he comes running upstairs in the house and I remember he said, “James, this Summer girl, she just moved into town and I have this hit that something special between you two is gonna happen.” So I run downstairs to try to get to catch a glimpse of her leaving, but I don't catch it and he says, “Well, she's got a yoga class on Saturday.”
Ben: And that's gonna be tough because Encinitas is like the yoga capital of the world. Everybody there wears yoga pants.
James: A lot of yoga.
Ben: So you never know who this yoga instructor could have been. (laughs)
James: (Laughs) Yeah. So I walked into her class and I've never experienced a yoga class like that first of all. And then it turned into non-stop text messaging and bantering back and forth, and we just started to build a friendship. Next thing you know, turns out this is a grandmaster Ms. Pacman player and now we just had happened to have a Pacman machine in our house. And so, when she found out I was…
Ben: It was meant to be.
Somer: (Chuckles)
James: Yeah. So, you know I think one of the best parts about our story actually isn't how we necessarily how we met, Ben, because we came together really fast and then we also came apart really fast. The magic of our story is actually what we went through in order to get here today that I think is one of the things that some of the people ask us about, and you know what I had to uncover about my ability to allow love in, and for example, was something I never really went through and gave time and energy to, yeah.
Ben: And you've, like since I met you a couple years ago, you actually came to like a business meeting at my house, James. That was the first time that I’d met you and hung out with you and, and we, we hit it off pretty well, but you've actually changed a little bit since I first met you and I've noticed that you've become, almost like a lot more, more open and a lot more energetic. And I never really understood why, like you told me you'd been experimenting with, with you know chakras and stuff like that, but when I came down there to Kauai, one of the very first mornings I was there, you walked me and some of the other folks who were out there, out in the backyard and took us through this routine that, from what I understand some you do every morning. Can you walk me through what it is that you do every morning and what it is that you taught us that morning?
James: Absolutely. So, for me, it was about a year and a half ago that Somer and I were about to head over India where she was going through a Kundalini training, a 30 day intensive, and, prior to that, we started to get ourselves ready for it. I think we did like we wanted to do a 40 day or 90 day challenge to get ourselves in to Kundalini and it was there that I started to experience it for myself. And there's a couple of things Ben, it's not necessarily just about Kundalini or what I do, it's more of the fact that I actually scheduled out some time in my life for the first time to commit to a morning practice, and so one of the things that I want to share is that a lot of times it doesn't really matter what people do as their modality. It's the giving themselves a space to actually do it. And in the morning, the power of doing that in the morning when there's a lot of science behind that about the planet is a lot calmer around in your area, where you go dropping, your mind isn't going as much of, you can do things right there in the morning whether it’s meditation or for me it's Kundalini and Hatha yoga, it's breath work. I incorporate all of this and what works for me and myself and my body, and it's a little bit different than what Somer uses and what she works with. It’s pretty similar, but you know every person will find their own, I think beauty in a morning practice of what their own intelligence says is their best for them.
Ben: Yeah, and I've always been into morning routines, but man, I mean like when you took me through what you were doing in, so correct me if I'm wrong what we did was Kundalini yoga right?
James: Yes.
Ben: Okay. So, so let's start here before, but ‘cause I want to hear like what your routine is James, like what you do when you get out of bed in the morning before you do your Kundalini, and then like how long you spend on it and what your personal routine looks like ‘cause I see how much it's changed you, or at least you know, not that you were like a horrible person before, but I mean like you're just it like I've noticed just like your energy is going through the roof. Somer, what is Kundalini yoga?
Somer: Kundalini yoga is known as the yoga of awareness or some people call the yoga of transformation but it's the specifically yoga for the energy body. And so, what that means is the subtle body, so your energy body consists of the seven main chakras in the body which are the seven main energy centers in the body along with the eighth chakra which is your aura, or the electromagnetic field that surrounds your whole body so Kundalini yoga, and I've pretty much studied every style of yoga in depth and many before Kundalini were the alignment based therapeutic styles of yoga, and when I found Kundalini, I can, I can honestly say, I was like, “Man this is like yoga on speed,” you know because of all the breath work that is incorporated in the repetition of the way the exercises are done in Kundalini. It intensifies or enhances the effects of the postures.
So it's a super powerful style of yoga, I still do my Hatha yoga practice to work out the kinks in my body but when I wanting, to basically do energy work on myself and, you know, clear my own energy and enhance clarity and really get tuned in to my intuition, Kundalini is definitely the most powerful practice and, and it does, it works because it's you can think of the seven main chakras in the body, they all correlate with endocrine glands, as well as nerve flexes in the body and so your endocrine system, you know are, is that collection of glands that produce hormones, you know, regulates your metabolism, tissue function, development, sleep mood, you know, among other things and nerve flexes, the autonomic nerve flexes in your body, you know, they're formed by the parasympathetic and sympathetic fibers of your nervous system and they innervate your visceral organs to help regulate their activities. So, it is a direct link to balancing your glandular system and strengthening your nervous system which, for me, is what I found the most powerful effect of it was that stronger nervous system. I was a pretty sensitive person before Kundalini and, and I found that strengthening that, my electromagnetic field and strengthening the energy centers in my body and in my nervous system, I was just able to manage stress a lot better and able to kind of just really see what's mine and what's not mine and not be so affected by, you know, other people's negative energy.
Ben: So when someone's getting like an acupuncture session, for example, and that's, that's supposedly allowing for better energy flow throughout the body, and people will do this for like injuries or for insomnia or for depression. Basically what you're doing is, is you're using breathing and specific movements to achieve something similar to what something like, like acupuncture might achieve?
Somer: Yeah! It is, it's definitely working with the energy system of the body for sure, you know, in acupuncture they call it meridians and, you know, from India they call it the nadis and there's 72,000 nadis, or energy channels, throughout the body that you're working with really, and Kundalini is also, Kundalini yoga is considered the science of angles, so it's, it's about directing blood flow and prana or that life force energy if you wanna call it, to specific organs or specific chakras. I'll give an example, like it when you do, if you have your arms overhead sixty degrees that direct sixty degrees, it directs energy to the heart. So that's one example. So it's a science of angles and it's about, you know, directing, increasing circulation and directing energy to specific areas of the body depending on what kind of effect you wanna have and Kundalini yoga has thousands, literally thousands of kriyas or sequences that you can choose from and that's why I really like it too. You can really, really hone in on what you want to work on.
Ben: So you can choose like which organ system that you want to specifically target?
Somer: Yep. Organ system, glandular system, you can target the circulatory system, you can target releasing anger, you know, you can target releasing fear, you can target developing your intuition. You name it, it's there.
Ben: Okay, interesting. So, like when I came to you and had you design a routine for me and I told you that I wanted something that was physically invigorating during the day, that worked on like cardiovascular blood flow, I primarily wanted cardiovascular and cognitive performance. What I came away with was this, this 30 minute routine and, for example, like, like parts of it I am more out of breath than when I'm like, you know, working out on an airdyne or with a battle, with a battle rope. I mean I like I hadn't really thought too much about how tired you can make yourself with, with some of these movements, but there's one where I'm just punching back and forth, exhaling with the left and then inhaling as that comes back in, exhaling with the right but it's like ohh ohh (makes a heart thumping sound).
Somer: Yeah.
Ben: And I'm doing it, I'm doing it, and it's like three minutes long, and it's just going, going, and going, then you finish and you contract your whole body for like 5 or 10 seconds and then release everything and you get this weird tingling sensation then before, before I know it, it's like another movement before I've even caught my breath, you know. There's another series of movements, and it's really interesting how challenging it can actually be, and I wasn't aware prior to you kind of explain this to me about the, the neurobiology of it, but basically it's specific angles and specific breathing patterns that target specific organs and endocrine systems.
Somer: Right. Yup. Correct.
Ben: Okay.
Somer: And like what you're doing, you know, in the punching one in particular, if I remember correctly it induces this sort of breath of fire, right, and breath of fire is like that in and out through the nose, and it's that pumping of your navel point, as you exhale the navel point draws something in, right, and yet you're pumping the navel point, which is a big deal in Kundalini yoga, it's a common thread and not all the kriyas, but a lot of them and the breath of fire, when you're, when you're really concentrating on pumping the navel point, it's stimulating all of these, these nerve endings and energy channels you have around the solar plexus, around the navel, and it's super powerful that's one of the most powerful breaths of Kundalini yoga, yoga which is why, you know, we knew we wanted to put it in your routine cause it's, like you've been telling, it's very energizing and it's very clearing, and in that 60 degree angle, the arms overhead directs energy to the heart which charges the electromagnetic field around the heart and gets your blood pumping. So, yeah, it's super clearing, pretty much one of the most powerful breathing techniques that I know.
Ben: Now, are you familiar with Wim Hof at all?
Somer: Yes.
Ben: Okay. So, he's the Iceman and, and he'll do that type of power breathing before he goes and immerses himself in cold water. You, do you know if, if he does Kundalini yoga or does he just do this, this, this fire breathing?
Somer: The documentary I saw on him, it didn't mention anything about even yoga in general. It kind of showed him doing some things like a head stand and, you know, so you kind of got the idea that he was a yogi, but it wasn't specific in mentioning like Hatha yoga or Kundalini yoga, it was just really honed in on the breath work and, from the little I know about him, it's like, you know, he, at the, at the end of it, he gets rid of all the, the exhale right and then he holds it?
Ben: Mhmm.
Somer: Right. So in Kundalini yoga, it's basically the opposite where your breath of fire, or whatever it is, for a while, you take a big breath in, and then you hold the breath in and then you lift what's called Mula Bandha and Uddiyana Bandhas, which is the pelvic floor and the naval draws up and in, draws energy up, you slightly tuck the chin and then you're basically gazing right at the, between the eyebrows, which is the third eye point for intuition, and you're drawing energy up to the crown and so that's what they're talking about when you're talking about rising, you know, getting your Kundalini energy to rise. So that's the difference, I think, between Kundalini and Wim Hof, is that, is that you take a big inhale, you hold the breath, and then you allow all of that energy to circulate around all the chakras and there's even a visualization that you can do of this that energy spiraling up the spine from the root all the way to the crown.
Ben: Yeah, and I had experienced the same thing ‘cause I've been through Wim Hof's protocol and I, I own his, his you know books and everything and you'll finish you know you'll be breathing (makes a rapid breathing sound), but then you'll finish and you'll exhale everything out and hold it out. And I think the idea behind his program is to get rid of a lot of carbon dioxide, and that's one of the ways in which he increases the body temperature and I think, it's seems that with Kundalini, it's more hyperoxygenation than breathing off of carbon dioxide ‘cause you'll finish that whole (makes rapid breathing sound) with just like a full breath in and then you hold it, and hold it, and hold it, and you're like holding it in your, I believe you refer to it as like your sexual organs right, like you're contracting those and contracting the entire body and, and it's a really interesting sensation once you actually release all that and let it go on the tingling comes down the fingertips. It's just, it's really cool. I'm kind of addicted to right now.
Somer: That's amazing, and that, that tingling that you're speaking to is, you know, and especially for you, I know your particular practice is very much centered around, you know, getting energy around the heart, and so that tingling that you that you have in the, in the fingers think of it like, you know, energy. You're raising all the energy up to the crown and then we release it, Kundalini energy descends and as it descends it goes to the heart, and then from the heart it expands out and it goes down the meridians and energy channels of the arms and then into the palms, and then that's when you'll feel that charge in the palms. So you can even, you know, have that visualization as you're doing that breath work and then from the palms you can send that out into your, you know, your immediate electromagnetic fields. So it's like you're charging your own electromagnetic field.
Ben: James, what does your morning routine look like?
James: So, first thing I do is I get up and say some words of gratitude, and I just get myself into a place of receptivity. I then do some oil pulling with coconut oil and right behind that is the cold shower, and then I, we live just a couple you know minutes from the beach. So I walk down to the beach and I sit down in the sand and I drop in with a little bit of meditation and then I start a Kundalini practice that is, I have, you know, a bag of tricks of two or three that I like to go to as my go-to, and those are anywhere from I, if I need to I can keep 'em short, under half an hour, if I want to, I can go for 90 minutes and, for me, then what I've realized, ‘cause I'm, you know, I believe that we are all our own best doctors, that we're all our own best medical systems, so I'm constantly just checking in with what's working for me not only in that practice but also in how I show up through the rest of the day, how present I am on different calls, things like that. So you know, Ben, I did a seven day silent retreat with Adyashanti a couple years ago, Somer and I did it, and it took me about three to four days, somewhere in the middle of that silent retreat to get to a place where, you know, in a sense I was, my mind was quiet and why I love doing Kundalini yoga, my breath which is really breath work with yoga is that I can, within just a couple minutes after a kriya, I can drop into a place that's so quiet, that's similar to that state that I, took me three and a half days to get to in a silent retreat.
Ben: Yeah, that's one of things that I noticed when you took me through your routine in the morning, James, was I actually like to meditate for a few minutes after I do a yoga routine, and I found that I was automatically in this, it's this strange tingly state of like a mental high in which you feel extremely connected to, to yourself and, and for me, to, for some people, they would say to the universe, for me it was to God because for me it's prayer and meditation after I finished my routine, but it was amazing how much more connected I felt after something like this, you know, and I've talked on the podcast before about how I've done everything from holotropic breath work to transcendental meditation, and with Kundalini yoga what I like about it is you're, you're pumping the bellows, right? It feels like you're really working your lungs and your cardiovascular system at the same time as you're tapping into a lot of these powers of meditation, and so it's really interesting and the first time I’d really felt that was when you took me through that morning routine. One thing you mentioned I want to hit on real quickly was the oil pulling. Why do you do that?
James: Uhuh, you know I haven't been to the dentist to actually test to see if this is working, but we've been doing this for months now and because we've read a couple different articles now that, you know, that oil from coconut oil, so I stick a tablespoon of coconut oil or three fingers full of coconut oil on into my, into my mouth and I swish it around for 15 minutes, and what we've read is it's supposed to be pulling out the toxins and the supporting, whiten your teeth, for bad breath, all the things that I would go to a dentist for, and I'm not a big fan of going to dentists, I believe personally that I can take care of my teeth on my own, and I should go to the dentist more often, but I use coconut oil pulling as a way to prolong my dentist. And Somer has some…
Somer: Yeah. It's supposed to basically delay the onset of cavities and I got in with one dentist who was open to it and, you know, it was, I had a kind of like a small cavity back there and I said, “Yeah, I'm gonna start doing oil pulling,” and he goes “Yeah, yeah. Do it and then come back six months later and then we'll see if it's kinda kept it at bay.” And it did, so I'm sold on it so I also do it every morning. It's really good.
Ben: Yeah, my kid, one of my boys, Terran got diagnosed with a little bit of like a cavity about a year and a half ago, ‘cause we go to a holistic dentist who doesn't use, you know, like toxins and you know, keeps metals out in the air and things like that, and we got him on a on a re-mineralization program that completely got rid of it and he just does a tooth powder that Jessa makes, and then he does, along with his brother, oil pulling every night with coconut oil for about four or five minutes and then he also does cod liver oil as a supplement along with vitamin D and vitamin K. And so that's like their healthy teeth protocol and I'm guessing that they're probably gonna have pretty bulletproof teeth for the rest of their lives if they keep that up. It's something I wish that I'd have done and my wife, who's had like a dozen cavities and fillings and all sorts of stuff, like she wishes she had done as well, but it's amazing how resilient the teeth are, if you actually take care of them.
Somer: Uhmm.
Ben: So, basically as far as this custom yoga routine, I do want to talk to you guys a little about cannabadiol and about psilocybin, but when someone comes to you and they want like their own yoga routine created Somer, how do you decide? Like if somebody's listening in, they're like how do I even know? Like, for me, I knew. Like I knew I wanted my heart to be open, I knew I wanted cardiovascular blood flow, I knew I wanted like a little bit of a nootropic, cognitive performance enhancing effects, but if somebody doesn't know or they're trying to decide like what they should ask for, what they should talk to you about for a custom yoga routine, where do they start?
Somer: Yeah. Well, I have 'em filled in and take form that gives me, you know, a brief history and, you know, their injuries and what not. So, you know, you start on the physical level just for me finding out, you know, “Okay, what are you working with?” What injuries have you had? Which ones still bother you, you know? which areas of your body are the most tight, which ones are the most weak, you know, if that is the case they're actually wanting, you know, more for a physical effect cause I get some people that are like “You know, I'm really just looking for a flexibility program,” and some people are like, you know, “I'm really looking to stabilize my lower back and doing some core work.” And so it just depends on the physical level, you know, what they've been through and what their goals are and then, I ask them to be as specific as possible with me about what the mental and even emotional qualities that they want to walk away with because you can get really specific with you know what you, the kinds of sensations and feelings and mental state that you walk away with from our practice depending on what breath work and meditation you do, so, you know, people can they can tell me if they're wanting to work on, you know, decreasing anxiety or improving focus or, you know, developing intuition or reducing stress or whatever it is.
So I ask them to be really specific with me and then I just ask them to, you know, if they've gravitated in the past a certain styles of yoga because I want the sequence to be what they want and so, you know, if they're really attracted to that sort of flow type of yoga where, you know, that's what they're going to get the most out of, I'll incorporate that, but if they're open and I can kind of just tell from their history and the injuries and, you know, what the mental and emotional effects that they want, I can kind of choose and I just kind of intuitively know myself like, “Okay, this is going to be more of a Kundalini practice,” or “This is going to be more of a Hatha yoga practice.”
Ben: Uhm, interesting and then it can be customized to a specific time frame or does it always need to be a half hour?
Somer: Yeah I did a couple that were, that were an hour long and it was just a bit much as far as the time it takes me to do it, and sometimes I have to reshoot the video if it starts raining or, you know, there's too many roosters in the background or whatever it is and so 30 minutes is just about right as far as what it takes me to, the time it takes me to shoot it, you know, what it's valued at, and timing to edit it and all that so I do it at about 30 minutes now.
Ben: Got it, and there is a rooster in the background of mine, by the way.
Somer: Yeah, yeah. (Chuckles)
Ben: It's comical actually, but the problem is I have rooster so I can't tell if it's your rooster or mine when it goes off, but, yeah, I literally just flip open my laptop and lay out my yoga mat and, occasionally, I'll do that – the routine. I've almost got it memorized, I still have to watch your video of you walking me through it as I do it, but I'll set my computer in front of my sauna and so I'll sit inside my sauna and I can still hear the computer through the, ‘cause I won't bring my computer in the sauna, I don't wanna melt it, but I'll put the computer outside of the sauna and I'll do I like a hot Kundalini yoga session which is really interesting.
Somer: Wow! Okay.
Ben: The way you combine the breath work with the sweat, but, but for those you listening in, by the way I'll put a link to all of the stuff in the show notes if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/yogapodcast. That's bengreenfieldfitness.com/yogapodcast, you can go to Somer’s website where she does all these custom yoga videos and see some of the stuff that she does. She's got a yoga doctors TV also where she does a bunch of yoga and meditation and holistic video, or holistic living videos. It's cool stuff.
James: Hey, Ben. Real quick!
Ben: Oh, go ahead!
James: You think we should just give everybody a little sample of a 60 second breath of hot fire so they can stand up and experience 60 seconds of this.
Ben: Yeah, if you're driving, this is the part where you press fast forward, but yeah, let's do it. I'm ready. I could use it. We're, you know, halfway through the show, so we can recharge with a little breath of fire. Let's do it.
Somer: Okay, yeah. We can just do it standing, so just have your feet hips distance apart, like press equally down through both heels and then lift the heart and the breath that will do is breath of fire, so it's a powerful inhale and exhale through the nose, and on the exhale you time the navel drawing up and in, but put equal emphasis on the inhale and exhale. Okay? So, from here, draw your arms up like a capital Y, bring the fingertips to the finger mounds and then plug the thumbs as if you could plug 'em up into the sky, and then draw the shoulder blades down the back. 60 degrees on the arms, arms straight, got it, Ben? Alright so close the eyes, roll eyes in an upright between the eye brows, to the third eye, your intuitive center and we'll just go for sixty seconds here together. Right, deep breath in and begin. (breath of fire sounds)
Take a deep breath in, without looking, hold the breath in, and then lift the pelvic floor, draw the navel up and in, slightly tuck the chin, gaze at the third eye. Now stretch everything out, spread, stretch your fingers up, hold it….. And exhale, let your arms just go down, let your palms face forward, just keep your eyes closed and take a couple of breaths allowing your breath to return back to its natural rhythm and just feel for a moment…
Ben: Love that feeling.
Somer: Yeah. That one in particular directs energy to the heart, you get that little tingling that you were talking about down the arms that charge in the palms.
Ben: Yeah. Let's go to radio right there.
Somer: Good stuff.
Ben: Better than a cup of coffee. Awesome. Hopefully nobody drove off the road. Yeah. It's so powerful, so cool. So if you're listening in, you haven't yet tapped into Kundalini yoga, you, you need to try it, you know, and, and this is coming from a guy who, you know, I guinea pig everything and this is one of the more powerful things that I've experienced, especially from a yoga standpoint. So dig in to that, check out the show notes. We're going to take a little dive here in another direction but the show notes are at bengreenfieldfitness.com/yogapodcast. Okay, I want to talk a little bit about cannabidiol. Obviously James, and I'll put a link to this on the show notes, you and I have done a whole podcast on, on cannabidiol or CBD, but I'm curious on when you first started using this and why. Like were you using marijuana, and then switched to CBD as like an alternative or like how did you start to tap into the use of cannabidiol?
James: I wasn't actually a smoker prior to experiencing CBD. I had in the past, you know, high school I found myself couch locked a number of different times with some Kansas ditch weed, but it just didn't really resonate with me, you know, what I watched some of what happened to some of my friends, you know, it just wasn't resonating with me. So I didn't do it through college and, for the most part, and then you know after a night of drinking or something, but it wasn't really part of my life until a couple my friends approach me, they want to me to help do some marketing for their second documentary on the medicinal benefits of cannabis, the science behind cannabis, and that really piqued my interest Ben, because I never really thought about the medicinal benefits of this plant, and they started to share with me and show me video clips of some of the footage they received. Their first film is at marijuanamovie.org and, you know, they went around and filmed some of the best doctors and [0:38:10] ______ leaders on the subject of cannabis to really get into the science behind this amazing plant.
And so, I told and I would keep my mind open and more importantly if it worked for this little, I call him Little Lance. He's basically a little brother of mine that I've known for the last eight years. When I was running half marathons for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation, Lance was the poster child for the San Diego Chapter, and he would come in and he was seven years old at the time and he was this little tiny little guy, twig and bones, you know, nothing to him. And he was bouting with Crohn's for his entire life, in and out of hospital every single month, and so I just fell in love with him and his family, and kind of adopted me as a bigger brother and I, for the last seven years prior to CBD, I've been trying to find things that work for him. Trying to help change his diet and I'm given acai berry, all these different things and trying to get him off pharmaceutical drugs. So I said to the guys, I said, “Listen if we're going to film all these doctors, all these scientists, all these researchers about cannabis, let's also look at some, what we call now B & A, before and after. Let's give this to some people and actually film their progress.” And Lance was the first person I chose, and today, Ben, I can probably say he's fifteen months hospital-free for the first time in his life. And so, as soon as we started to see its benefits with Lance, you know, here's an example: we thought we were going to have to film 20 different people, follow them around, or giving them CBD in the hopes that we would have a seven really good stories. Well, it turns out me gave this to eight different people and every one of them made the film. Every one of them had life changing impact which was mind blowing to us. And so after I saw the real kind of, in with my own eyes of a family, basically a family member being helped with it, plus a number of different people, we got a film, I started to look more and more into the medicinal benefits, Ben, and so, going from the days of Kansas, you know, getting, getting into cannabis or marijuana for the high to where I'm really fascinated and, eyes wide open, just for the medicinal benefits is where I stand today.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha. And do you CBD every day?
James: Absolutely.
Ben: Okay. The reason I asked is I’ve – it's my gut just wrote read an article about sleep cycles and I take, you know, 20 to 40 milligrams of this, you know, this nature CBD that, full disclosure to the audience, it's created, it's formulated by James' labs you know using this nanoparticle delivery and we're not gonna get into that ‘cause we did a whole podcast on how you can make these molecules super-duper small ‘cause them to be absorbed at a rate that allows you to take about 10 times less cannabidiol to get the same effect as you would from a lot of CBD, but James as far as CBD delivery mechanisms, what kind of forms do you use? I use the Nature CBD capsules obviously ‘cause I’d helped to formulate those and that's my brand, but I'm curious how you like to use your CBD, you or Somer.
James: Yeah. Well, Ben, we have your capsules here at the house, we love taking them every day, first of all. But we have the gel, which you know is one of the things we formulated. I sent some samples up to you with that. We have also brought…
Ben: Then the gel is the one you put sublingually under your tongue and you hold, right?
James: Yes, exactly. Hold up for 90 seconds, it starts to act right away into your system. People feel it within a few seconds, and that's kind of our rapid response gel.
Ben: And what, what do people feel?
James: You know, depends on, without making any claims, Ben, but, you know, for people that like, your audience, right? Most people aren't dealing with a major ailment, if they are, then they'll start to feel kind of a, sometimes a relief in that area, I'm trying not to make any actual claims here, but for the most part people feel like this kind of like, you know when you first take a powerful shot of like even green algae or wheat grass or even acai berry for the first time, your body's kind of like just takes on this like, wow, that you can check in and feel good. That's what you get. And so most people, that's the immediate piece within a couple seconds to actually feel it in their body, and then to the – most people with, you know 10 to 20 milligrams will get kind of a clear focus. Just kind of a little presence to themselves and what they're working.
Ben: Okay. Got it. And so you've got the capsules, you've got the gel that you put underneath your tongue.
James: I brought some topical oil up to your house which is really great for sore muscles, joints, pain that happens to be in the shoulders or back or anywhere that, and then also the vaporizer, right? You know, vaporizing CBD that has basically no TCH or Trace amounts of THC, again, will produce not a high, but a just a relaxed, calming effect and presence, and not a sedative, like I need to be on the couch or sleep, but, you know, I will, if I have a lot of calls during, throughout the day, you know, I have a CBD vape pen next me, and I'll just kind of puff on it a couple times just to almost just relax my nervous system a little bit. It's really subtle, Ben, so there's not a real, expressive, what am I trying to say, dramatic effect. It's just real internal. In fact, if you're not really in touch with your body, you might not even feel. So it's so subtle.
Ben: Now the vaporizer, something like that, is, like can you travel with that? Is that legal to just like put in your carry-on bag? Can you take it on, obviously you wouldn't take it on the airplane bathroom and vape, but I mean like can you take it like across borders, across States, things like that?
James: Yeah, the legalities of our CBD is that we derive it from hemp. So it's hemp oil-derived, and so just like all hemp seeds, hemp t-shirts, hemp oil that you see in any of our grocery store, we get our CBD from hemp oil, so it's just as legal as hemp oil, it can go across all state borders, we ship to all 50 States and, so, yes, you can carry it on your checked on luggage if you want.
Ben: Because it's made from industrial hemp, not from like marijuana per se?
James: Correct. If you just to be really clear on this, you know, if there's, if it's marijuana-derived, let's say in the state of Washington or California, it must stay in that state, you must have a license and you must get it from a dispensary. That's the marijuana side of the plant. So cannabis has two sides of the plant, marijuana and hemp, and we derive, specifically this conversation, we derive our CBD from hemp oil, and therefore it's classified as hemp oil and can be shipped to California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas.
Ben: Okay, got it. And do use it too, Somer?
Somer: Yeah. Well, one of the more dramatic effects I feel whenever I use it is actually during, like, day one of menstrual cramps. That seems to really help, help me. It's one of the more dramatic feeling, an improved, improvement in feeling, I guess you could say, and then, in general, you know, if I have like an acute injury, I'll use it for pain and inflammation.
Ben: Okay. I didn't know that. I'll ought to fill Jessa in. So, it could be used for like PMS symptoms, menstrual cramps, things along those lines?
Somer: Yeah. I just noticed it, you know, it just kind of like relieves cramping in the gut, even the lower back a bit.
Ben: Yeah. I know that it decreases, ‘cause I did some research on CDB and irritable bowel syndrome and stuff like that. I actually, you know, what I should do in the show notes for folks is I just did a big podcast with the website Smart Drugs Smarts where we talk about all the little things that I found lately regarding CBD, so if you're, if you're listening in and you want to geek out on CBD big time, go listen to that podcast episode on Smart Drugs Smarts and I'll link to, it's episode 124, it's actually a good podcast either way that, that entire Smart Drugs Smarts thing. Were you saying something, James?
James: I was just saying it's actually one of the most common testimonies we get from women, is that to use it during this, their moon cycle or their cycle of the month. So yeah, please have Jessa try and let us know what she feels. And everybody's different, at the end of the day CBD is one of those things that's fascinating, that it works on so many different aspects of the body because the endocannabinoid system really helps regulate every system of the body, and so CBD affecting that system, it goes to, that system addresses wherever is needed, so during that time a month that's where your body needs the most love and support and energy focused, CBD goes and starts to support that area of your body.
Ben: Got it. Okay. So there's another thing that I wanted to touch on, another compound that is probably a lot more controversial, even more so than say, cannabis, and that would be psilocybin. Now, I know that you have some experience with the use of mushrooms and psilocybin and I'm curious how you first discovered or tapped into that and why?
James: I think that psilocybin, like a lot of what people call drugs, but you know we're really talking about plant date-based medicine here, is to tap into an altered state of consciousness and I think, as humans, that's something that we're always looking to do and you know, same with meditation, is that where can I get into a different perspective than my day to day normal life? And so, for me, the first time that I did psilocybin or mushrooms was back with college buddies, and we thought it was in, you know, we wanted to experiment with something and that was a lot of fun. We play, we put on some, you know old, costumes and run around in nature and things like that, and built forts and had a lot of fun, but now Ben, you know, as I look and study it more and see this, some of the other aspects of why different people are using it, now there's a lot of science about it. It is coming down to me, for me, again where I like to use it, but similar to what I did in the beginning, but I don't do as much for play and as a recreation, I do it more for dropping into nature, dropping to a meditative state, dropping into a place of getting a different perspective on life because I can be in my head quite a bit throughout the day, building companies and psilocybin, every once in a while, I like to drop into a different experience and take, for me, it allows my intuition to come out, allows me to ask questions of some bigger force, God, consciousness, whatever it is, I can ask questions there and the answers are quite profound and really.
Ben: Do you do micro dose with it? From the research that I've done like, one and a half to three milligrams or so of psilocybin is like an acceptable dose to actually feel some of the effects, but I've also heard of people using very, very small amounts for as almost like a nootropic throughout the day as like a, you know, a smart drug or a pick-me up, what do you or what have you looked as far as dosages are concerned?
James: Yeah. Ben, it's actually not milligrams, most people would dose anywhere between one and three grams.
Ben: Or grams. Sorry, yeah, grams.
James: Yeah, all good. And so, yes. I just actually started getting into this last year micro dosing, and I think it's a phenomenal place for me anyways, I'll just speak from my own experience, and one thing I want to share with you, Ben, is that, I was just shared with from this, some friends of ours from another website, that I won't mention them right now because I didn't get their permission, but anyways to mix it with lemon juice and when you mix it with lemon juice, then you can take fraction of that. When I would start with one-tenth of what you would normally take on. So start now with milligrams, instead, like 100 milligrams instead of 1 gram, if you were gonna do a one gram. And anyways, you just mix it with lemon juice, and when mixed with lemon juice, and it set for 5 or 10 minutes, and when you take it, the onset is a lot faster. Instead of taking maybe 45 minutes to kick in, it'll kicking in as quick as 10 minutes and the length is a lot shorter. And so you'll get the experience, you'll have it for like an hour and then almost immediately within a couple 5 minutes, you're off of it and you're back, to like you can't even know that it's there. And so, lemon is a way of making it more bioavailable, bioactive. Something allows it to go to in the system a lot faster and I've heard about this with cranberry juice, but not as strong as lemon juice.
Ben: Yeah. Grapefruit, they say as well, although I know, interestingly I was reading a book on marijuana, and with marijuana it's actually a mango extract that surprisingly appears to magnify the effects of, it speeds up the effects, but it definitely magnifies the effects which might be why a lot of more popular strains of marijuana seem to have mango like added to them somehow, or mango flavoring.
James: Yeah. Our CBD gel, that wraps a response gel has mango.
Ben: Oh really?
James: Yes. I believe in India, they have known this for a long time we're just and waking up to it in Western world, Dr. [0:51:08] ______ is an Indian man, he was part of the magic behind that rapid response gel.
Ben: Yeah. He was on the podcast along with you and we were talking about CBD. That's very interesting. So what's the proposed mechanism of action for something like psilocybin, like how's that actually working? Is it is similar to CBD, where it's working on something like the endocannabinoid system or do, or do you know exactly what's going on when you feel that creativeness, or, you know, when I, when I did it in an intense connection with nature, not just that, not just the same day using the psilocybin and but for the next several days afterwards. Do you know what's going on there from a cognitive or physiological standpoint?
James: You probably know more about this, Ben, than I do and I can't really speak into this as a, as a doctor I do want to plug in an amazing movie that some friends of mine have edited it called “Neurons to Nirvana” and, in there, they cover five different plant-based medicines and psilocybin and cannabidiol are two of them. And so, it's a phenomenal movie and it looks into the research and the science behind these clinical studies that are now coming out that answer these questions as to how this is affecting our body, why it's affecting the body, and what people might want to consider using it for.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha. It's called “Neurons to Nirvana”.
James: Yes, three films.
Ben: I'll put a link to that in the show notes. The only thing I've heard about psilocybin is that it can mimic the effects of serotonin, right. So, so basically if you get like a dopaminergic response, like a big dump of dopamine or big dump of serotonin, and it's considered to be like a feel-good type of chemical that enhances everything from like sex to creativeness, to your perception of colors and, you know, I'm sure that there are some other neurotransmitters being released, but I know one of the, one of the big, big things that it causes is a serotonin dump which is, I suppose, you know, they have these selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors that flood the brain with serotonin for people who are depressed. I would imagine that someone at some point has probably looked into psilocybin as a treatment for things like anxiety and depression.
James: Absolutely. That's what the studies are coming out right now is that they've got some major universities and backers, some of the best clinical studies are happening really around anxiety, depression, things like that and, you know, because it is the serotonin boost, Ben, like everything we've got it, everything in life should be used in balance, and so I just want to give that disclaimer. Is that, you know, using it for recreation or maxing out three grams or more, you can really mess with your system, so, you know, just always come back to the people. Know your body, know your limits, and you are your best doctor.
Ben: Now what do you, you know, if, for example, when I've used psilocybin based at a bowl, it was mixed with things, do you take it in an edible form, do you take it in, in like a tincture form, do you just choose the raw mushroom? What is your preferred mechanism of delivery?
James: You know, up until just this recent lemon oil, where I've taken this powder and mixed it with lemon juice for micro dosing experience, I would buy it with from people that I know that have mixed it with chocolate, raw chocolate and they would also mix in some other superfoods, and that would be other mushrooms, you know, and different experiences that you would want to have. So now there are chefs that can mix it in with chocolate and create an experience in itself. The last time I purchased it from a raw chef, actually. He asked me, “Do you want the one that's more creative, uplifting, and fun or do you want one that's gonna allow you to be more meditative and do some work?” And so the chocolate form is a great way to do it, powder and lemon juice, powder, you know, a lot of people just mix it with any kind of food or pizza, hide it because it can taste a little bit, interesting and, I think in the future, Ben, we're going to start to see a little bit more into people making experiences like in capsules where you have some other herbs like your CBD formation's a great example. CBD or psilocybin, it's one part of it, but mixing it with other herbs for synergistic effect, let's say ashwagandha or lemon balm, like your current formulation, would allow for a different experience than mixing it with some moringa like for example. I think we're going to start to see a little bit more of that as the science catches up to how beneficial this aspect of the mushrooms can be.
Ben: Interesting and so, in terms of frequency, how frequently would you use something like that if you're using cannabidol every day, would psilocybin be just like a weekly, like a monthly very, like, special type of trip you go on for micro dosing? Would it be a daily or what exactly would frequency look like?
James: So, you know I can only answer for myself. For me, personally, I like to do a little bit of a stronger piece, only when I'm called, I don't have a set routine, but there are times in my life where I feel like, wow this would be really good, opportunity. I've been working hard, or I've been going, just to really drop into nature and really get into a place of, where I believe new pathways are being built in my brain from this and there's some research out there about this, and it really just disrupts my normal way of communicating, my normal way of being and so it flips the perspective on its edge and then that's for the bigger times I like to do it, so maybe a couple times a year and then on the micro dose, Ben, again, I find my own place of balance around it, and I've been talking to a number different people reading some different forms that you know doing it once, every week, every, not in a prolonged time but by just two or three weeks at a time, will get, I'm experimenting with that right now is what I should say, is to see how that shows up when I'm not on it, because for me one of the biggest things that I want to experience through this is getting and taking less and less and less of it, Ben, and still being able to access those points, if that makes sense. So, same with cannabis is that when I smoke there, I like to smoke go into meditative state because it allows me to drop with and you go drop with a mind for a minute, but as I take less and less and then, that's the point of micro dosing, take less and less to still get you to that place so that, I would love to be at a place where I was an enlightened guru where I didn't need the external things down allow me to drop into that quiet place of nothing.
Ben: Right, right. That makes sense. And with the psilocybin, is that actually illegal everywhere to use? I mean what's the legality on that? Is it just kind of one of those gray areas where you can pick a mushroom if you're walking through the forest and it's, it's, you're right or how does that work exactly?
James: You know that's, it is illegal in the United States. I think there's a couple different countries that still allow for it to be sold, but as far as in United States it is still considered a scheduled one drug and therefore has potential for abuse. And it does grow wild, like you can find it here in Kauai. I have gone picking before and, so there is, apparently there is no restriction for cultivation as long as it's not, it's not been intended to use, to be used as a drug. So whatever that means.
Ben: Yeah. I'm just curious. Apparently, I have some here in the forest on my land that one mushroom expert who was walking through the forest with pointed out to me, but I was just curious about the actual legality regarding harvesting in and use, etcetera. So you guys obviously live pretty, pretty connected lives when it comes to your physical and spiritual awareness everything from Kundalini yoga to cannabidiol, the psilocybin, I'm curious though, just for everybody listening in, are there any other practices, like physical practices or spiritual or medicinal practices that you would consider to be crucial components of your lives that people might not know about, that fly under the radar, right. Like a lot of people living normal day to day lives they don't think much about using things like Kundalini or CBD or psilocybin. Are there other things that you guys have tapped into or discovered?
Somer: I'll speak for myself and, for me, you know like as James had said, you know, I start the morning with gratitude, and sometimes I'm called to do a mantra for forty days, so for whatever and just like yoga and breath work, there's different mantras for different things that you can work on so, you know, in Kundalini we learn to do anything for forty days, it develops a habit and so sometimes I'll do either a certain practice for forty days or a mantra for forty days. Meditation is always a vital element of my day and I try to do, I always get in a morning meditation and I'm just now trying to do twice a day, so one in the morning and one in the evening, and I always do prayer in the morning and it's just right at the end of my yoga practice and then for me personally, you know, I and I tend to need a lot of grounding, and so for me it's you know getting my bare feet on the sand, hiking, you know anything that I can do to connect with nature on a daily basis is super grounding for me and helps to just, you know, keep me in balance and there's actually a book called Earthing that, you know, they say if you just get your bare feet on the earth, you know sand or grass 10 minutes a day, the earth's electromagnetic field helps to normalize your biological functions and, for me, yeah, I find that to be very, very helpful.
Ben: It's a really interesting document, the grounding, the earthing one, and I've talked about this on a podcast recently about how I'll even travel now with these earthing sandals. They're called Earth Runners, and they have like these copper conductive laces and copper plugs on the bottom of them, so can stay earthed or grounded, even if you happen to be you know walking through an urban area on concrete, and I can't reveal my big ugly bare feet. But yeah they're really cool, they're called Earth Runners. I'll link to them in the show notes, people who are interested. What about you James any, any last little things that you do?
James: Absolutely. So, Somer and I have been talking about this a lot lately is that I'd like to have a whole set of tools for modalities in different aspects, for me, I'm all over the place, you know, like we talked about Kundalini, we regular have the Hatha yoga, breath work is really important to me, why I like mantras, sound healing is one of my favorite modalities of all time so, you know, he set me in front of a couple gongs or a drum and I'm just taken away. I don't have to do anything, and so all these for me, Ben, are ways to get me out of my mind, allow the ego to take a backseat and just drop into like a real quiet, self-awareness self-realization, which is, you know, one of my highest goals in life as much as possible. You know, another thing that takes me there Ben, and you know this, is the action sports. You know so I surf, you know, but it also can be hiking in nature, and it's really you know getting so dialed in and present in the moment. That's the same to me as mantra, breath work, meditation, and yoga.
Ben: This sound therapy that you're talking about, can people purchase like, like these gongs or drums and ring them and use them that way or do you just like put on music? Like how exactly does that work?
Somer: Well, yeah you can do either or, I mean I have reiki drums, so I actually use it in my individual healing sessions with people to help and clear energy, think of it as like vibrational healing, helps to unblock stagnant energy. So you could use it like that, or you can just you know literally, you know, you can look on Spotify and type in, you know, gong or chakra balancing music or, you know, Native American music or drum or whatever it is that you want. In Kundalini yoga, specifically, they're really big on the gong and so we would have that whenever I was in India at the end, at the end of our practices they would do the gong for 10, 15 minutes and I just, it was just totally refreshing and it just felt like a super deep like powerful nap almost that you that, you went through and then you just really clear whenever wake up. So, yeah, it's like vibrational healing.
James: Sound's been around since the beginning of time, as you know, Ben, and so you've been, even for some people guitar, right, playing music, but you can buy Native American flutes, it doesn't take any experience to learn. Drumming is another great thing that, hardly any experience and you can pick it up. Another thing, you know strum sticks or guitars, things like that. The string instruments, they produce vibrations and when you're quiet and you're playing those, actually they do work on your body without you having to anything.
Ben: Yeah. I actually had a very interesting conversation at a conference I spoke at with a woman who wrote a book called “Tuning the Human Biofield”, and what she does is she trains you. She sends you tuning forks that vibrate, and she trains you how to use specific notes to address specific areas of your body because different notes from a tuning fork resound and with a different frequency. It was really a very interesting discussion, I tend to be a little bit more organic like you, James, and I'll just, you know, sing, which has been shown to activate your vagus nerve or your parasympathetic nervous system, or I'll strum on the guitar just cause, frankly, I'd rather be playing Johnny Cash than waving a tuning fork around my head, but it really is an interesting book. I'll link to it in the show notes, it's called “Tuning the Human Biofield.” It's about healing with vibrational sound therapies. So we, we have obviously dug deep into the wooh-wooh on this episode from the Kundalini to vibration sound therapy, to psilocybin and beyond, but for those you listening in who just like to do, say, I don't know, riding a bicycle and wearing a Fit Bit, you're missing out on a lot if that's, if that's your idea of what makes the whole body physically, mentally, spiritually, etcetera, and I'd really encourage you to, to delve into some of the notes that I've created over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/yogapodcast and consider, you know, just picking one or two things and maybe delving into some of this stuff a little bit and seeing how it changes your life cause, like I mentioned, my morning has dramatically changed my life, has dramatically changed by using a lot of these things from plant-based medicines to breath work to different forms of yoga, and James and Summer certainly taught me a lot over the past month or so, and in a lot of the realms that we just got done discussing. So, James, Somer, I want to thank you for coming on the show and being so generous with this information.
Somer: Thanks for having us, Ben! It's our pleasure.
James: Ben, to you and your amazing following community, aloha from Kauai.
Ben: Aloha and emuwa!
James: Emuwa!
Ben: Emuwa! All right folks so this is Ben Greenfield, James Rodina, and Dr. Somer Nicole signing out from bengreenfieldfitness.com. Check out the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/yogapodcast, and have a healthy week.
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Last month, I had the pleasure of visiting Kauai, Hawaii and hanging out with a few of the coolest couples on the face of the planet. One such couple was big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife, volleyball Olympian and fitness celebrity Gabby Reece. You can listen to my podcast interview with them here.
Another couple was James Sol Radina and Dr. Somer Nicole, who you get to meet in this podcast episode.
Dr. Somer Nicole is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and specializes in CranioSacral Therapy, SomatoEmotional Release and is a Reiki Master/Teacher. She has teaches alignment-based Hatha Yoga and Kundalini Yoga, has been teaching Yoga since 2002 and travels internationally for workshops and retreats. She also creates personalized Yoga videos for clients, lives in Kauai and has created an online platform for Yoga, Meditation and holistic living you can access at www.YogaDoctors.TV.
James Sol Radina, has been a podcast guest before in a special episode on CBD. He is CEO of EAD Labs, a co-founder of “The Science of Weed,” a documentary releasing in late 2016 that features over 40 of the top doctors and scientists on the subject of using cannabis for healing, has built a Hemp CBD product company that is the gold standard in the industry.
My time with James and Somer in Hawaii included some groundbreaking personal discoveries into how to use kundalini yoga, experimentation with psilocybin, more insight into the science of CBD and much more. During our discussion, you’ll discover:
-How Somer and James met…
-What Kundalini yoga actually is, and how it works from a scientific standpoint…
-The difference between Kundalini breathing and Wim Hof breathing…
-Why James does coconut oil pulling…
-How to decide what a custom yoga routine should look or feel like…
-Why James uses cannabidiol (CBD), and which forms he uses…
-The surprising use that Somer has discovered for CBD, specifically for women…
-Why James uses psilocybin micro-dosing…
-The proposed mechanism of action of psilocybin…
-What psilocybin can be “mixed” with to increase potency…
-And much more!
Resources from this episode:
–Book “Tuning the Human Biofield: Healing with Vibrational Sound Therapy “
–The movie “Neurons to Nirvana”
–Ben’s SmartDrugSmarts podcast episode on CBD
–My podcast episode with Wim Hof