Light: Nature's Medicine with Dr. Nicole Huffman

Podcast transcription has been edited for clarity.

00:00 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

If you're not eating the right foods for you or you're snacking all day long, a lot of those things just kind of naturally throw our bodies out of rhythm. I can't stress to you how many people got rid of headaches once they started having more minerals. Not only have we been taught to fear the sun, but we've gotten so far out of this natural rhythm because, guess what, we can turn a light on in the house when the sun goes down. And now we've got these cool smartphones and you know, even as a baby, like all these moms are like nursing and scrolling at the same time and I'm like, ah, like his head is right there.

00:32

How many people are outside wearing sunglasses and then they burn like crazy? Are sunglasses to fault for skin cancer? You are going to get different signals based on where the light is hitting, what your eyes are seeing, because what your eyes are going to see are going to affect different cells in the body. Like we can't really be shielding ourselves from everything like that. That doesn't really make sense if you think about energy.

00:58 - Michaela (Host)

Welcome to the Wave Forward, the podcast that dives deep into how technology shapes our health and well-being. From digital wellness to tech innovation, to the effects of electromagnetic fields, we cover the environmental, social and physical implications of technology. Ready to navigate the digital landscape with confidence, set your dial to discovery, and tune in. You're listening to the Wave Forward, Dr. Nicole Huffman. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. So I always love starting the episode with just a little bit of background information about you. I really want to know how you became a naturopathic doctor, because I feel like, unless you were raised that way, there's usually a moment where you kind of have a little bit of a wake-up call or a peek behind the curtain.

01:43 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

So yeah, super common, right. I feel like a lot of us got into this stuff, either to help ourselves or to help a family member, or you know I mean. For me, I feel like I was that kid growing up who had really bad asthma, really bad allergies. I couldn't really do gym class cause I would always have to go to the nurse's office with, like breathing problems. I couldn't really go to a friend's house if they had animals, you know, just like that kind of annoying stuff.

02:15

And as I got older I decided I wanted to be a doctor. So I started at Loyola University in Chicago and did a year of pre-med and was like, oh, I don't want to become this kind of doctor, and I didn't know that a naturopathic doctor existed at that time. So I kind of did a whole lot of careers. I was a photographer for a while and then I ended up being a personal trainer and I learned from, like some very cool, very elite people in the industry and they were doing a lot not just with strength coaching and weights, they were doing a lot with supplements and what your body fat says about you, and where you store certain things means certain things, and we were changing our clients' labs, our lab results and liver values without really understanding any of that and I was like, okay, I need like a more foundational knowledge of some of this stuff. If we're doing a little bit of liver supplementation and their enzymes come back better, and I don't really know what that means. I just felt like I needed more training and of course there was my own like I was a strength coach, super busy in Chicago, had a ton of clients. I was always struggling with my own weight and so that was a big driver for me personally.

03:40

And turns out I had hypothyroid issues which could have been from the years of steroid asthma medications. Who knows, right? There's so much low progesterone. My hormones were a mess. So I ended up going back to naturopathic school and I remember some of my buddies who I worked with. We all kind of had like our own company. They're like do you really want to go back to four plus years of school? And I was like I do, cause I ultimately didn't really want to be a strength coach.

04:09

I was way more fascinated by the nutrition and the supplements and everything else. So I ended up going back to school and just diving deeper. I mean, school only shows you so much. There's this whole other world right. So most of us were doing seminars every weekend on top of school and I was still a strength coach at that time as well all through school. And so that's kind of what led me was like not only seeing my own health stuff improve over time by just changing what I ate or trying this supplement, but also seeing what was happening with a lot of my strength coaching clients, which were really strength coaching clients. Trying to lose body fat had nothing really to do with their overall health, but we ended up affecting it. So I just learned that the body is really smart and has so many ways of showing us what it is that it needs healing help on, and a lot of it is just giving the body that support or removing some barriers so the body can do it itself.

05:09 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, so you're still working with clients now, right?

05:15 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yes I have been working with patients. Now I've been out, I've been working with patients now for over a decade and. I already felt like I had so much of that one-on-one sort of experience. So I feel like I've been working with clients since I was 20. So that's like 20 years, but yeah, really with patients, you know, yeah, which is great.

05:42 - Michaela (Host)

That part of it is like it's kind of cool that you were able to get that part of it of like working with somebody and like learning how to communicate and all of that, because sometimes you go see a doctor and you're like, okay, you don't know how to communicate with your patients which is a very important skill that you need. You can be incredibly smart and have all the knowledge, but if you don't know how to communicate it to your patient, that's a barrier, you know.

06:05 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, you do need to have some emotional intelligence in there, right? Because, yeah, you can be working with the smartest practitioner, but if they can't get it across, or it falls flat or the bedside manner isn't so nice and you're like I missed the message completely, yeah. I'm way too distracted by your lack of being able to talk to me.

06:25 - Michaela (Host)

So, yeah, so what do you like when a patient comes in and they're saying you know I'm not sleeping well I'm, I have anxiety or you know, like the common things that we kind of see, a lot of things that I think mothers in particular just kind of push off as being part of motherhood?

06:42 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, definitely.

06:43 - Michaela (Host)

What do you like when your patient first comes in? What is like the low hanging fruit that you just know you start immediately with.

06:52 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, that's a really great question. I feel like a lot of it is lifestyle, right. So in naturopathic medicine we talk a lot about the determinants of health, which is you have to just have some basic things in order, and the basic things end up clearing up like 90% of the symptoms. So, before you go searching for the canary in the coal mine, right, like it's some really weird diagnosis, it's like let's make sure you're hydrated and you have minerals and that you're sleeping. And oh, you wake up four times a night. That's not great, right, let's make sure you're eating well and your blood sugar is balanced.

07:27

I know you wanted to touch on circadian rhythms. That's a big thing too. If you're on your screen past sundown for hours scrolling and you sleep until eight and you're missing the sunrise. I mean, right, there's so many basics we could go over. First, nutrition is a big one. If you're not eating the right foods for you or you're snacking all day long, a lot of those things just kind of naturally throw our bodies out of rhythm, which can create really weird symptoms like headaches and not sleeping well and not feeling energetic. I can't stress to you how many people got rid of headaches once they started having more minerals.

08:07

I mean, it's like people have struggled with headaches forever and it's like, oh, once they have salt with their water, they don't have them anymore, right? So I just think, like you said, there is like some low hanging fruit we can address first before we're like, okay, we've got to go down the rabbit hole of something weird that might be bothering your body, right?

08:26 - Michaela (Host)

I think it's really difficult for people to wrap their head around like the really simple things, because I think we just live in such a complex world now where, like it's like if you're not getting a plethora of medications or supplementations, kind of like medications, and you go into getting just like thousands of dollars of supplements and then you realize like oh no, actually you just need to like follow the flow of the sun, yeah, Right, I mean like, and it's free.

08:56

You know, my mom's been preaching this for you. She was a nurse for uh I don't know, over 20 years and then she had MS and then kind of went a completely different direction and recovered herself from MS. And she's been preaching this for years and I even struggled to like kind of come back around. So when did the circadian rhythm thing start? I feel like it's one of those things now where a lot of naturopathic doctors are talking about it. Was it part of what you learned or is this kind of new information?

09:34 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

I was going to say that's so interesting, because I actually felt like it was the opposite. I felt like we did not learn about it in school. I feel like most natural doctors don't talk about it and it's such a foundational, foundational basis and I have to admit that I mean I didn't really start focusing on it with my patients until the last couple of years, even though it is something that seems super foundational, because if you think about it, it's not even it's funny that it's kind of sort of like new information, right, because it's also it's like yeah, it's ancient.

10:14

I mean it's, it's what the sun is, the one thing that our bodies have been entrained to for millennia, right? I mean it's. It's such old, old information. And I think over time, not only have we been taught to fear the sun, but we've gotten so far out of this natural rhythm, because, guess what, we can turn a light on in the house when the sun goes down. And now we've got these cool smartphones and you can watch a movie when the kids go to bed, which I'm like not bashing on, like we all need to just watch a movie sometimes. It's all good, but I think there are ways to do it without really screwing us up. And if you're somebody who has sleep issues or anxiety issues, or your cortisol levels are really high, which just means you're stressed out all the time, then, yeah, you might need to take a hiatus from watching really stressful shows when the sun goes down.

11:10

And I really started learning more about my nervous system after I had Asher, my son, because I realized that I couldn't watch certain things anymore.

11:23

It was like everything just felt so much more sensitive to me. I'm literally covering my eyes and my husband's looking at me like when did this start, you know, and so it. For me it was a very big like - Gosh. You know, my nervous system can't handle this stuff, especially not at night. Like if there's a stressful movie and we have the ability to watch it while he's taking a nap on a Sunday, like that's way better for me than doing something in the evening and then trying to go to sleep. But everyone's different.

11:52

I mean, my husband can watch that stuff and still go to bed, although I would arguably make the case that it's still not great for his melatonin production, his neurotransmitters, his cortisol levels, that even though he can sleep well, it's like well, but there still could be underlying levels of inflammation, right. So I think there's a bridge, or like what's the word? Like there's something that would bring you to deciding that this is a priority for you and for me it was more like hormones, nervous system stuff for my patients it's, you know, sleep issues. For system stuff. For my patients it's sleep issues. For another patient it's anxiety, right. Like there's something that's going to bring you to like okay, I need to start paying attention to this more.

12:35 - Michaela (Host)

Right, well and just so. When I started kind of relearning all of this stuff, I started really paying attention to how disconnected we really are, just like in the unconscious day. Like you get up, you put your shoes on, you turn on all the lights. Maybe the first thing you do is look at your phone and you just start your day like that. You never, you never touch the earth, you never see the sun. Just then you get in the car. Your windows are up, you have AC on, you have your sunglasses on, you're driving to work. You get into your work and you know my, my work doesn't even have windows you can open. You know, not my work but the office that I come to.

13:11

And so you know then, your fluorescent lights all day. It's just like, oh my gosh, like, even being conscious of it, I'm realizing like, wow, I really have to put in effort to connect again, which is wild.

13:26 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yes, it's so true, Whereas, like, that's just what we did. This is going to sound so silly, but we live in a ranch and we started with chickens, and I think chickens are like the gateway animal.

13:40

Cause we quickly went from like chickens to ducks, to horses, to donkeys to just like gotten completely out of control. But I think I can learn a lot from chickens, which sounds so bizarre. But they, as the sun is setting, they put themselves away, no matter where they are on our property. They put themselves away in the coop and they are asleep when the sun goes down, so asleep that if one of them doesn't make it in, they're literally just like sleeping on a bush somewhere and you're like let's go inside - mountain lions. And so in the winter they sleep a long time and in the summer their sleep cycles are much shorter. And that's nature, right, that's basic.

14:23

And yeah, a lot of us are not going to go to bed at like 5 PM when the sun sets in the winter. It doesn't make sense. But there is that, like slowing down, making bedtime a little bit earlier, doing less, right, like maybe resting more in the evenings. Um, and so I think I think we could learn a lot from the seasons of when is the season to push really hard and when is the season to rest more, and I don't know. I feel like chickens do a really good job of showing you what's going on.

14:57 - Michaela (Host)

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15:46

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16:27

So what does that actually look like? How do you explain what's happening with sunlight and and the body?

16:35 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

That's a great question. The coolest thing about the sun is where it is in the sky is kind of telling our bodies to do different things at different times. And it makes sense if you think about it, because our bodies shouldn't be doing everything all at once or the same thing at every single hour of the day, right? So we've got different signals that are turned on and off based on, really, where the sun is. So if you're in a perfect world, right, you would wake up, you would not look at your phone, you would go outside, you would sit outside, you would let the sunrise and all of that hit your eyes unfiltered, so no glasses, hit your skin. And it would signal to your body to make pregnenolone, which is our mother hormone that makes all of our other good sex hormones. It would tell our mitochondria we're not in a fight or flight situation. Life is good. Let's slowly increase cortisol, because it's a, it's a nice, it's a certain wavelength of a light that's so different than our cell phones, right?

17:39

Or all the lights we're throwing in in our house as we're walking to get outside. So don't do that. You know, like you wake up and then you like walk outside, without hopefully tripping over anything, and just you know getting out there, and then, yeah, extra bonus points for, like putting your feet on the ground, sure, and then in the evening, and it's right, it's still it's telling our body we don't need to make melatonin anymore. Um, and signaling. It's way more complicated than that, I'm sure, but that's like the very basis. And then it's also telling our bodies, hey, the sun is going to get really bright and really intense later. So I'm also giving your body this cue to kind of prep your skin and get your skin ready for that really intense light.

18:21 - Michaela (Host)

And you should notice so it's like going to produce melanin to help yeah, exactly to help everything.

18:26 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

And I have noticed. I mean, like I said, I live on a ranch, I'm outside all the time, I'm at 5,000 feet, the sun is intense, I'm a pale person, I'm like all Northern European, I am not really meant, I don't think for the weather here and I don't really burn because I am out every morning and then when I do go out in the midday, I'm not out for like hours and hours without wearing a hat or you know, at some point deciding like okay, my skin's had enough, but I'm getting those cues in the morning, at sunrise, and then we're out at sunset too, and those cues from the sun as it's setting are very healing for our skin. It's like healing from any of the damage that we potentially got midday and then also telling our body to lower that cortisol to prep for going to sleep, to start increasing those melatonin levels. There's just so many cues going on and you're going to get different ones depending on what time of the day. So even you know I I'm on zoom a lot, I'm on the screen and I have, you know, certain software on my screen that makes it not blue, and I try to do all the things, but it's 90 degrees outside here, so my windows are closed, air conditioning on.

19:40

But I try to go outside multiple times a day to just get those light breaks and get the sun on my skin, to just keep telling my body where we are during the day, what cues can you be telling my body? And I think honestly, like that's the best I can do on the weekends. I'm outside a ton right. So you, just you do what you can do. And if you are somebody who, like you, has a commute in the morning and you can have your windows down so you're at least getting some of that light and some of those signals hitting your skin, then great. I think we all have to kind of start somewhere before we can. If you have the ability to really change your day and alternate it so that you're able to get, you know, four hours of outside time, that would be amazing. I just don't know that that's realistic.

20:25 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, we just bought a flower farm, so I've been getting up now in the sunrise going out there because it's so hot. We live in Texas, so it's 103 by midday. And I've noticed the same thing, like getting up early and going out into the garden. I've burned. Because I'm Irish, I burn so easy.

20:45 - Michaela (Host)

I'm like so much less with having giving my body those signals. It is so cool to see.

20:52 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

It's super cool, I love it. I know it's neat and I think it just makes a big difference. I mean, I've even just and this maybe is like a whole controversial topic- but, you know, my son goes to an in-home daycare, so it's not a corporate one, and so I really have the ability to say he doesn't need sunscreen. You guys are outside for 30 minutes at a time.

21:14

There's shade and sun. He's outside in the sunrise with us every morning and he goes outside with us every night to feed the animals, so he's getting those cues and you guys aren't outside for like an hour in direct sunlight, right, he doesn't need sunscreen. Now, if you guys are at some point you're doing some activity and it's then sure, here's like a tallow based one or a mineral based one or whatever, and he doesn't, he's not burning, so we don't need to slather all of that stuff. Like that's where he's getting his vitamin D, right Is, and all of the other important signals.

21:48

I think so many of us are stuck on like, well, the sun gives you vitamin D and that, but it does so many other things that I would rather his skin be able to soak up all of those other things than you know be trying to like ward it off with, like, the horrible sunscreens that exist out there. And I play by those same rules, right, it's like if I'm going to be out on a trail ride for two hours and direct sun, sure, okay, we might need a little sunscreen. I'm not, like you know, one of those really extreme people, but there's a, there's a balance.

22:23 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, I think you were actually talking about this on your social media but about just like, instead of trying to kind of hide from everything or trying to combat everything all the time, it's like giving ourselves and our children the tools to build resilience, yes, and to learn how to adapt to the natural world.

22:42 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Right, yes, because we didn't used to be afraid of the sun, and Jack Krause, who is very big on circadian rhythms - I've learned a ton from him and he's been talking about it for a very long time. I mean he has really interesting. He has a map of the United States on where the skin cancer is the highest, and it is not in the sunniest States, it's in States like Montana. It makes you just be like - is it sun? I And hey look, my dad passed of melanoma. So I am so sensitive to that argument of like you're not wearing sunscreen and it's going to kill you and blah blah. I mean I lost my dad way too young. However, I do think lifestyle plays a ton into it.

23:32

And so it's - again. It's not like an all or nothing. There's a middle ground, and I just think we can also kind of think for ourselves like, do I really need to put sunscreen on my child at 7 am when they're going out at noon for 20 minutes? I don't.

23:47 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, that's so awesome. I love that. So okay, I've heard this kind of said and I don't know if there's a deeper explanation to it or if you could speak into it all. So the eye is where we're getting the most of the sun, right, the signals that we need. Our skin can also, but the retina is where the communication's happening. But I also hear a lot like every cell in our body has its own circadian rhythm, right.

24:22 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

So, from what I understand, I probably couldn't speak to the super nuance of every cell. However, I will say your eyes are - from what I've learned and experienced, the eyes are the most important. Meaning, if you're going to be watching a movie when the sun goes down, which I'm 100% guilty of, I usually wear, like the Amber or red glasses which, yes, change the color of what you're watching a hundred percent, but that's my compromise. And then, in a perfect world, you would also cover up your skin so that, like, blue light is not also hitting your skin.

25:04

But it does seem more important to do the eyes because, if you think about it, how many people are outside wearing sunglasses and then they burn like crazy? In fact, some of the arguments are like - are sunglasses to fault for skin cancer? Because, again, you've shaded the eyes, so you're tricking your body into thinking it doesn't need to produce all of the wonderful things to help protect you from the sun. Right, and it's confusing. It's like, oh, is it nighttime? Is the sun setting? I mean, I'd like to think our bodies aren't like that, like confused, but I do think it is a very confusing signal.

25:42

So, from what I've seen, it does seem very, very important to have the eyes be bare, way more than the skin. But then you think about your skin and your cells. Not all cells do the same thing, right. Different cells are in charge of doing different things, so you are going to get different signals based on where the light is hitting what your eyes are seeing, because what your eyes are going to see are going to affect different cells in the body too.

26:11 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah. So I think you could probably get that kind of communication to all the cells to do whatever they're supposed to be doing at that particular time of day.

26:20 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

That is what it seems like to me, and then I think there's also, of course, some communication with the light directly hitting the skin.

26:27 - Michaela (Host)

Right, okay, that's really wild. So for like blue light versus like blue light blockers versus like the amber glasses, like, do you have a recommendation for when to use those?

26:41 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, from my understanding, when the sun is like just setting or just has set, I usually do amber. If it's like pitch black outside, whether it's before the sun comes up or after the sun goes down, I would go red glasses then. Okay. But when you're in kind of that, like dawnish or um, like right after sun, sunset time or right before, I think amber is great and they're way easier to see through. So that would just kind of make sense, whereas, like the red ones are a lot darker, so that would more mimic, you know, like a fire. If you're after sunset, right, that's the whole idea of like red light can like mimic like a fire, essentially in that same kind of light, and then just for the daytime I think is the best to just use like the blue blockers, and I wouldn't do I personally wouldn't do amber during the day, I feel like that would be another kind of confusing signal.

27:40 - Michaela (Host)

It's almost like wearing sunglasses or something.

27:41 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, correct, I just also feel like one of the problems with blue light. Like I said, I'm using a software on my screen that makes everything kind of yellowy because we don't really have unopposed blue light in nature. That's not something that's like a natural signal for our bodies. And there's a mouth device that has just blue light and that can be really good for killing infections and so you can use it. I know they have one for masks on the face for acne or bacterial infections, but that's not something we really see unopposed, which is why the computers all the time and the cell phones all the time if you're not using any sort of filter, I think can be really confusing for the body.

28:28 - Michaela (Host)

So what kind of software do you have?

28:30 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, so I use one called Iris. It's I just Iris, i-r-i-s, and it just turns your screen. I don't even notice it anymore, right, because it's always been like that. But when it turns off I'm like whoa, it's like super blue. And then another good trick is turning your cell phone screen red in the evening times or in the early morning, and that will help with that signal too. There's a lot of people that are like I use my cell phone for an alarm. It just is what it is. Then it's like okay, well, at least make your screen red, right, do something that's, and not like the red that the phone kind of does when it turns like. You can make it super red by going into like I think it's accessibility and there's a couple little steps to get there and that will kind of help that unopposed blue light and the signals that it's sending as well.

29:25 - Michaela (Host)

That's awesome. Yay, okay, I got to get that because I'm on my computer so much. Okay. So how did you start kind of discovering EMF and the role that it plays in health?

29:39 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

That's a great question, so I, right after I graduated, I worked at a clinic in Southern California, and California we know is like amazing in a lot of ways and, in my opinion, not so great in a lot of other ways, and one of the things they're amazing in, though, is that they're they're really pioneers in the holistic health world for the most part, and so I started learning a lot about EMFs there.

30:07

They had a couple of different conferences where they would talk about all sorts of really crazy topics that are super controversial, and one of them they would talk about was EMFs and how it's only getting worse with, like, the 5G towers and that's only going to get worse too and all of the different, all of the different health issues that come along with that, and the scariest part about it all is that we can't see them. Right, and so many people are like, well, if we can't see it, how do I know it's there?

30:38

And that, I feel like, is also the problem with all of the wonderful devices that are out there like Aires does as well which is like all these different, like the beautiful pendant that you're wearing and the thing that I have like right in front of my computer is that you can't see what it's doing, right. And so because we can't see it, then we're like, oh, it doesn't exist. But we're starting to see this mountain of research that's growing. And there's this great book called the Invisible Rainbow that talks about a lot of it as well. And so I've kind of been experimenting with different companies and different devices and trying to measure how I feel. And there was this one company I'm not going to be able to tell you the name because I honestly don't remember, but they offered us on trial at the clinic to do some EMF blocking devices on, like the smart meters and the different things, and everybody in our clinic got really sick and people really did not feel good.

31:41

And what they said, the company said, was that it was like a detox reaction from blocking the EMFs, and we were like - that's interesting. And so the idea was then to start really slow and do like an hour and then increase and increase. But you know a lot of us, so we all, a lot of us use muscle testing and different energetic things, and a lot of us are sensitive in general, and so we didn't know if it was that or if it was, but we started experimenting with different different things, right. Cause we were like, should we be feeling like that bad?

32:15 - Michaela (Host)

I don't know. That's so strange.

32:15 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

So strange, and so that of course there were a lot of, like the stickers you would put on your phone and like does that work and what's happening, and anyways. So I feel like that's when we really all started doing a deep dive, which was probably about 10 years ago, and ever since then I feel like little things have caught on right. Like in a fertility clinic they will say don't have your cell phone in your pocket if you're a man or you know like. So I do feel like there's certain things that are kind of starting to click, even in the very traditional medicine, but I still don't think it's talked about nearly as much as it should be.

32:52 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, it's so funny because I started out as an affiliate for Aires maybe like four or five years ago and then I had the CEO on my old podcast - just like a personal podcast that I had and it was really mostly about business.

33:06

I had like business people and you know and, and so he came on and we did talk a little bit about business, but then I really got to understand kind of the history of the product and it being, you know, like a military funded thing from a couple decades ago and the whole thing. So I got really really interested in it. And then, like the EMF stuff, like I just slowly started unlocking and unlocking and I'm like, okay, there's a lot of topics, especially like with COVID happening and all of that, like there's a lot of topics that were very controversial that, like you know. But my mind about that was like, okay, everyone can educate themselves on those things and then make the right decisions for themselves, their kids, their family. All of that with EMF, it's not really an option, like it's already deployed. You know what I mean.

33:50

Like it's already out and about like we're living amongst it, and like we didn't have the choice right? And we were so worried about all of this other stuff and fighting for all of this other stuff that's also important. But you know whether we felt like we did or not we did have some sense of a choice. You know of what we did in those times. So, yeah, that's when I started getting really passionate about EMF was like okay, hold on a second, because we have to start kind of taking our power back in our own home, because that's really the only place that we have a choice about this you know, it's so true building resilience in all of these ways, so that our body can contend with what we're already living amongst.

34:32 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Oh, absolutely I. There's this website out there, and maybe you would know it more than me, but it tells you like what towers you're by or like how many airport scanners you're by, or just all the different you know, cell phone towers etc.

34:49

And where we live we're pretty rural and so that's the benefit of having like land and a ranch right, you don't have neighbors that everybody has their Wi-Fi on and everybody's all around them, which I lived in for a very long time in condos in downtown Chicago, so I like have seen the difference and even when we lived in Orange County and we had, you know, everybody's like on top of each other, like I saw my dog, he was like an anxious mess all the time and I was like, is it the people or is it the wifi?

35:21

Right, Like you just wonder cause you'd flip up your phone and there'd be like a hundred different ones you can connect to, and now, where we live, there's not that much. However, still on my computer, still on my cell phone, right. So there's still this level of you know, even as a baby, like all these moms are like nursing and scrolling at the same time, and I'm like like his head is right there. And so I just think that, even if you do live in a place where there isn't as much around you, you have at your fingertips a device that can be extremely harmful, especially to babies and kids, and so it's just really about starting to learn ways to arm and protect yourself, right?

36:04 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, yeah, learning about the kids thing was really eye-opening, because it was like, oh my gosh, they're so much more vulnerable than we are and we really have to be thinking about it.

36:14

You know. I'm a huge proponent of Aires, I love them, I'm also like, unplug your Wi-Fi when you're not using it. Do everything you can. You know, don't just get the product - yes, it's amazing that we can put a slab of product on our neck or put one on our phone or put it on a computer, and that's going to benefit us in this area. But, when it comes to kids and stuff like that, do the best you can to just mitigate as much as you can. You know, I went to Phoenix, Arizona, for a work trip last week and I was amazed by the amount of towers. There would be like three just right next to each other and at school grounds like I got a ton of videos of towers being in school grounds, like right next to the playground, and where we live in Central Texas we really don't have a whole lot of that.

37:07

So I was really paying attention to it, like this is major cities, this is what it's like, and I felt disconnected, like I was draining. And for my kid's head, like these beanies and stuff that we're putting on our head because they're electrical beings and we rely on those electrical signals to communicate. So what happens when we're blocking the natural EMFs?

37:52 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

That's the whole thing. I think, when people think about EMFs, they're thinking about native and non-native, right? So when we're talking about the dangers of EMFs, we're really talking about the non-native, the ones that, like, man has created. But there's, like EMFs that are really beneficial, and the native EMFs and like what comes off the ground and all of that, and so, yeah, I think you're so right. It's like we can't really be shielding ourselves from everything like that. That doesn't really make sense if you think about energy.

38:25 - Michaela (Host)

Right, and this is our world now. So we got to start giving our body the tools it needs, and that's what you were saying about giving minerals and watching that. I feel like all of that plays into being able to contend with the technology that we're around and the bandwidth that we're around all of the time is like giving our body those tools and resources to just build resilience, build strength, and that way we're not constantly trying to fight it or hide from it or any of that.

38:58 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, cause that's not gonna work, that's not. And then what if the one chance you're like, oh, we want to go to Disney World, I don't know - Right now that doesn't sound like a fun thing for me.

39:07

But, like, you decide you want to do that because your kids, at an age where that's what they want to do, they're going to like literally just like collapse because you're surrounded by millions of people with cell phones, right, so it's like that ability to build resilience so that when you're in an area where you can't really control, which is a lot if you're not at home that you, you can tolerate, that you can have fun, you can make the most of life, I mean,that's the whole thing. I think if you're approaching life always in this defending sort of like a position, you're not, it just doesn't make sense.

39:45 - Michaela (Host)

I don't feel like that's good.

39:47 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

If we're talking about energy, that's not like a good energetic way to live.

39:51 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so where do you treat people from afar? Yeah, so talk a little bit about your work - your thing.

40:04 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, I do mostly remote at this point. There was just a need for it and so that's sort of what happened when I left California. And then I do see patients in person one day a week in Loveland, Colorado, at a clinic.

40:22

Yeah happy name too. It's like hearts everywhere. What's not to love? But otherwise, yeah, remote all over the world, honestly. So there's a lot of time zones that I'm still trying to figure out where people are living and like trying to figure out the timing, but yeah, really all over.

40:40 - Michaela (Host)

So where do people go to connect with you?

40:42 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, so I'm pretty active on Instagram. I am not a TikToker, I just - I can't do it. I feel like Instagram is time consuming enough.

40:50 - Michaela (Host)

I tried multiple times as well and it was like no, this is not for me, can't do it.

40:55 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah just can't do it. It's just, I'm not a TikToker, so I'm just drnicolenmd - D- R-N-I-C-O-L-E-N-M-D, which stands for naturopathic medical doctor. So Dr Nicole NMD at Instagram, and then my website's just drnicolehuffman.com. Pretty easy and through the website. If you have inquiries, we have a little spot on there where you could email us and if you're interested in becoming a patient.

41:22 - Michaela (Host)

Yay, thank you so much. I so appreciate you taking the time to chat with us and hopefully we can have you on again soon.

41:27 - Dr. Nicole (Guest)

Yeah, it was super fun to chat with you. Thanks for having me.

41:30 - Michaela (Host)

Hey guys, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like, subscribe and check out the show notes at wave.airestech.com.