Unlocking Health & Longevity Through Quantum Biology with Dr. Catherine Clinton- Ep. 306

Discover how quantum principles are transforming our understanding of health beyond traditional biochemistry. In this episode, Dr. Catherine Clinton shares insights into the energetic layers of the body, the role of water, fascia, and light, and practical principles for optimizing vitality naturally.

Key Topics:

• The foundational role of quantum biology in health and longevity
• How water’s structure and electromagnetic fields influence cellular function
• The fascia as an energetic communication network and its connection to emotion and trauma
• The impact of light, grounding, and natural environments on vitality
• Seven principles to harness energetic health: water, light, water, coherence, fascia, microbiome, and nature
• Practical strategies for enhancing biological water and electromagnetic energy
• The significance of EMFs, cellular biophysics, and energetic scaffolding
• Emerging research on energized water, structured water, and biofield communication
• The power of mindset, emotion, and consciousness in health optimization

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction to quantum biology and its role in health
2:50

Meet Dr. Catherine Clinton

4:45

Why Quantum Biology Matters

10:05

Beyond ATP: Light And EMFs

11:45

Heart Coherence And Mitochondria

15:55

EZ Water As A Battery

23:02

Bioelectric Fields Guide Cells

27:20

Can You Drink Structured Water

35:20

Sun, Grounding, Fruit, And Flow

42:45

Thoughts, Safety, And Healing

53:40

Fascia As An Information Network

58:25

Summary And Where To Learn More

Resources & Links:

Connect with Next Level Human
Website: www.nextlevelhuman.com
support@nextlevelhuman.com

Connect with Dr. Jade Teta
Website: www.jadeteta.com
Instagram: @jadeteta

Transcript

Why Quantum Biology Matters

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Welcome, welcome, everybody. It's uh Dr. J. Tita here. This is the Next Level Human Podcast, and I have a very sweet friend of mine and teacher. Uh, I would actually call her a mentor of mine in the space that we are going to be talking about uh today. And I would also say, uh, Catherine, that you are one of the few practitioners right now, uh, and you have been doing this, probably the earliest ones, talking about this in a way that makes it accessible for non-science-based individuals, right? And I know there's a lot of science that we're gonna get into, but we're talking about this idea of quantum biology. And for those of you who do not know Dr. Catherine Clinton, she is somebody who has been very much in this space uh for a while now, teaching a lot of us, myself included, uh some of the advanced science that's coming out and teaching us practitioners how to put this into practice. And she has now written a book. I actually have it on Audible right here. Uh it's called Optimize. I listen to all my books, right? You know, so it's like Optimized is the name of the book, a groundbreaking seven-step plan to health and longevity through quantum biology. And so now, Catherine, you're actually bringing, you know, this information to the lay public. I know you do a lot in this space, but first of all, I just want to start out by saying thank you so much for the work that you do. You know, here at Next Level Human, we have this thing that we say that there's work that only we can do in the way that we can do it. And from our point of view, we call this our essential. It's kind of your essential nature, your earned wisdom, and your intentional purpose. And I just want to say thank you so much for you doing this work, for educating me and educating us all. Let's start out with the, you know, what got you into this space in the first place? Because it certainly is not the mainstream. You and I are both naturopathic physicians, so of course we are used to not being in the mainstream, but even for us, this is not typically what you would hear a practitioner talking about.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Well, first of all, Jade, thank you so much for your gracious introduction, your kind words. I so appreciate you and the work you're doing. And I um I'm excited to let people know about this new perspective, or you know, it's a perspective we've kind of walked away from, right? It's not exactly new how the terrain around us feeds into our biology. But that's really where I got started was in my second year of naturopathic medical school, long hours, and my nervous system didn't have the foundation to weather that. So I was diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, I started having panic attacks. It was just like this domino effect where my health really went downhill. And I was in the perfect place to get better, right? I was at naturopathic medical school, I was doing a dual degree with Chinese medicine, I was right down the hill from alleopathic medical school. And I did. I got better. I was able to be functional again. I was able to go back to school, I was able to do my clinic shifts, but there was still a piece missing. I wasn't vital, I wasn't healthy, I was still really unwell. And I think a lot of us who have chronic disease can kind of understand that perspective where we are able to go from this debilitated state, and we are able to regain health and be productive members of society again, but we're still not feeling well. And that's where I was. And that's where I found this quantum biology approach to healing. Actually, it was one of my physicians who I was doing clinical rotations underneath, and she was actually my physician. She said, You should look at psychoneuroimmunology, and that's just a big word for how our thoughts and emotions impact our health. And of course, she was right. And that opened up this door to this energetic perspective of the body, how our thoughts and emotions, how light, how the water within us, how electrical, magnetic, electromagnetic fields direct our biology. They have measurable impacts on our biology. And it was just an incredible new understanding that, like you said, I didn't learn in school.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, you know, it's really it's so interesting this approach. And obviously, for all of you listening, we're gonna get into this, and the book covers this in detail. But I do want to briefly stop here just to talk about this journey because right now we're in this really interesting place where, you know, you and I, uh, I think you're younger than me. I don't, I don't know, but like you and I have been around this space for a while. I, of course, when I went to naturopathic medical school, I had no idea that this was going to become mainstream. But what I've seen now is that you've got kind of the individuals like us that came up sort of maybe early in this process, the allopathic medical, conventional, traditional medical model. I don't really like calling it traditional because it depends on how far we go back, but we'll call it the more conventional. And then we've got this middle area now, which we might call functional medicine, that has taken a little bit of both the conventional model and the alternative model, but none of them, in my mind, are really um doing a very good job translating this old new information that we have about how our body uh holds on to charge and how it holds on to energy, how we gather energy. The old model is simply it's about metabolism and it's about you know eating foods and mitochondria, translating that stuff into ATP for energy and all these things. And now we know this is not uh false. It's just not the entire picture. And so one of the things I would love for us to start with, uh, if you don't mind, is this energetic model and the way that most people see this. So when I think of this, I think of quantum biology, quantum metabolism, right? So this idea that there are quantum effects going on inside of the body and inside of the mitochondria and inside of the water that occupies our physical structure. And so, from my perspective, I'm wanting to know how this actually works and why someone should be paying close attention to this, other than just what they're eating and how they're exercising and what supplements they're taking and what drugs they're taking.

Beyond ATP: Light And EMFs

Heart Coherence And Mitochondria

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yeah. No, that's a great place to start because that's what we've been taught, right? This chemical mechanical model. It's what we are taking, it's what we're eating. And you and I both know that's foundational, right? This quantum biology approach to health doesn't negate that, but it opens up an expansion of our understanding of what it means to be healthy. Because when you're talking about the mitochondria, I mean, that's what we were taught in school. We have these chemical inputs, right, that goes through the citric acid cycle, it's broken down. That's how our food enters into the mitochondria. We weren't taught that light has such a foundational impact on how our mitochondria are processing, how they are creating ATP. We didn't learn that electromagnetic fields have such a huge impact on our biology, on our, you know, ATP production, if we just want to stick with cellular energy, just looking at that piece, our thoughts and emotions. You know, two years ago I founded the Quantum Biology Health Institute, and we last year partnered with UC San Diego to do a research study on heart coherence practice and mitochondrial function. So we had uh, you know, a little over 30 participants all over the world. They tested their mitochondrial function pre and post and did they did 42 days of a heart coherence exercise. It was just over five minutes, just five minutes of deep breathing, of entraining the heart with the brain, and we're just now getting the results back. We don't have everybody in, but we have a majority of the people, and we're seeing really dramatic effects on mitochondrial function, on ATP production, cellular energy, on the mitochondria working as a community. And this is just from our thoughts and emotions. And so I think that we're really taught, I mean, so this is still how this is taught in schools around the world, right? That chemical inputs lead to cellular energy, but there's more to it. Light, the water within our mitochondria. I mean, when you look at that ATP production in the electron transport chain in the inner membrane of the mitochondria, those protein complexes right next to ATP synthase, right? We've got those four complexes where the electrons are quantum tunneled. That fourth complex makes water right next to that ATP synthase that turns, it creates infrared energy, and you have this incredible recipe for this liquid crystal easy water that is lining the proteins in the electron transport chain. It's really acting as this battery for light, for EMF, possibly for our thoughts and emotions, right? We certainly don't know, but it makes sense that those benzene rings and that lattice formation that that liquid crystal water takes is acting as a receiver, as an antenna for this frequency information. And so this is a way that really not only expands our understanding, but you know, I think of like that chemical mechanical model, like I can send you a letter in the post office, right? I can mail you a letter, it's tried and true, we've been doing it forever. Maybe there's a mistake on the address, it gets sent back to sender, I can fix that and get it to you. We know that's true, just like this chemical mechanical model. But if I want to send you a message right now, I'm going to send you a text or I'm going to send you an email and I'm going to use these waves of energy and information that we have in our Wi-Fi units. Our body has that same capacity. And it's really important now, especially when we're in this epidemic of chronic disease, that we understand all the tools that we could be using for health and longevity. And so it's, I think it's just an incredible expansion of our understanding.

EZ Water As A Battery

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah, I love it too. And I think, you know, correct me if I'm wrong here, but when I think of this, it's like I'm listening to you and it's like, okay, so the old model is there, right? But what you're saying is there's something underneath that, let's call it an energetic scaffolding that our physical bodies and biochemistry sit on top of. So what we're really talking about here is this old conversation of the quote, you know, let's call it the biofield that is then translated into biology and biochemistry. And I think what you have really drawn my attention to, and as I've got into this world, I am seeing is that this translation cannot really happen without the quantum effects. And we do know that this is going on in photosynthesis, it is going on in our enzyme systems, quantum effects. Like literally, we used to think it was too wet and wild in our biology to have these quantum things going on. Now we're seeing that they're there, and it looks like, based on what you're saying, that our biological water might be that key translation mechanism between biofield and biochemistry. And that opens up an entirely new understanding of what's going on, perhaps a much faster, and I love the way you prime this up, a much faster uh communication system than what we had originally sort of understood with nervous system function and biology and biochemistry. So it's not that none that stuff doesn't exist and is not accurate, it's just that we're finding underneath that something uh faster and perhaps more foundational. And so let me ask you um about this. So when we think about this, you mentioned emotions, you mentioned thoughts, you mentioned the idea of the mitochondria producing a specific and special kind of water. You also mentioned light in there. And so, how can we understand this? When I think about it, I essentially go, okay, these are different ways of charging perhaps the human body or measuring the energetics of the body. And we used to think of it as just ATP. So are you saying that we can pull electrons down from other areas, pull it up from the earth, perhaps, uh, make it from the light that, you know, kind of hits our body, uh, you know, have this biological water uh and the way that it behaves inside our tissues creating charge as well. Is this what you're saying? And if so, this seems incredibly magical and uh amazing for a new understanding of health.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yes, it it certainly is. And there is a way to look at health, pain, inflammation, symptoms, pathology as a decrease in this valuable, vital negative electrical charge that we have. And when we're talking about this water, I mean, this is the work of Professor Gerald Pollack and his team out of the University of Washington. But many have talked about this and validated this in their laboratories around the world. When water comes up to a hydrophilic or water-loving surface, right? It's not hydrophobic, it doesn't repel the water away. The water can come right up next to it. And when it does, something incredible happens. It changes structure. It becomes more gel-like, it can becomes more viscous, it takes on a negative electrical charge. And when we're talking about that, it's important to note that that means that it has a lot of electrons, right? This negatively charged water is a repository of electrons. It's a reservoir of electrons. And if you think of what's happening in the body with water, I mean, we are 60 to 70 percent water by weight. Molecularly, if I were to line up all the water molecules and line them up, because the water molecule is so small, we're almost 98% water. So we can't go very far in the body without bumping up against water. And this gel-like, easy liquid crystal water holds a reservoir of electrons and creates this network where those electrons can be donated in areas where there is a loss of that negative electrical charge. And so this is an emerging understanding of how the body works. We see this in different measurements of cancerous cells and healthy cells, where in a healthy cell we see a really thick, robust lining of this easy water, this liquid crystal, negatively charged water, it's on the outside of the cell, it's on the inside of the cell versus a cancerous cell where that has diminished, that zone of water is diminished, and that negative electrical charge. I think yes, there's a way that we could say this water within the body is a repository of negative electrical charge of electrons, and we have this water network where there's this potential for electrons to move throughout the body to donate energy. We could also look at the science around bioelectricity in general, right? Um, and and this started with Albert St. Georgie and Robert Becker. Michael Levin is doing incredible research out of Tufts University. I mean, he's prolific. He's uh publishing 30, 40 research articles each year. And what they are finding is that our cells create an electromagnetic field. And, you know, when when electrons move, we have electricity and we have an electromagnetic field that's created. And our cells create their own unique electromagnetic field, and that dictates their behavior, their movement. It guides differentiation. So how a cell becomes an ear or an elbow. And this is not something, again, that we were taught in school to consider that electrical fields hold not only energy, but information for biological action. It's it's a such an exciting expansion of what it means to be alive.

Bioelectric Fields Guide Cells

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, I love this so much. And I love the way that you're talking about it as an expansion to what we know, not something that is, because I do think, you know, we tend to, as humans, we tend to go, oh, all that other stuff is no good. This is, you know, the new way of looking at it. But what we're really saying is that all of that stuff we know in science is true. We're just looking at something, you know, different now that is having profound uh you know ramifications. And you know, it's like funny, we may not have learned about it, but you know, like I oftentimes think about these studies that they were doing way back where they would take a salamander, chop off the salamander's tail, apply electromagnetic fields, you know, to this area and watch variations of that salamander's tail come back or turn, you know, a leg into a tail. And they were doing different things. And so we knew that this stuff was going on, we just didn't know how to necessarily harness it, and we didn't appreciate that we as biological energetic beings are also likely having this impact. What I want to just get out of the way, because I know people are gonna ask if they are a lay person who doesn't really do this work, is can we generate this water simply through drinking water? Because that's the first thing people are gonna say, right? They're gonna go, okay, Jade, you know, Dr. Clinton, I want to have this effect. I want more energy, so I'll just, you know, kind of drink more water. What is the difference of what we're talking about here?

Can You Drink Structured Water

SPEAKER_01 21:53

That's a great distinction because we're really looking at two different things. Like, first, yes, we need to be hydrated, right? We have to have water in the body to create this kind of water. Professor Pollack and his team found that it was infrared energy that builds this water within us. And, you know, it's incredible. We talked about this negative electrical charge, but as that water builds, it pushes out a proton, a hydrogen, and creates this zone of water, they're calling a proton-rich zone or a proton wire. So you have this separation of charge between that negatively charged water and that positively charged water. And it creates this like a nine-volt battery, the source of potential energy. And so it's infrared energy specifically that's building that. They've found that ultraviolet light excites it, gives more charge, you could say, to it. But it's infrared energy specifically that builds that. And how do we get that as humans? Well, our sun is the biggest source of infrared energy. I'm here in the Pacific Northwest. Today is a very rare day because the sun is out, but usually it's behind a you know thick blanket of clouds. It's gray, it's rainy. But even on those days, anytime the sun is up, we are enveloped in infrared energy if we go outside, right? It doesn't have to be that beautiful sun. It can be Any kind of weather because that infrared energy penetrates through. And so movement, infrared energy from the sun, saunas, warm baths, sitting by a fire, all of these things, temperature changes, having the mitochondria function, right? We talked about that fifth complex, that ATP synthase, that creates infrared energy. So that's how we're thinking about building that energy and that water battery within us. And of course, water is a foundation of that. But there's also exciting emerging research out about what people are calling structured water as a drinking source, right? And this is very new and not well funded. But we see a lot of research in agriculture, we see it with livestock, that this energized water where you're using magnetic fields, you're using vortexing, stirring, um, putting through a unit that vortexes the water, introducing more oxygen, more capacity to create this coherent, energized water. And it's a handful of studies, you know, six or seven studies out there on humans. There are lots of studies out on agriculture. It takes less water to hydrate the crops, better yield, more resistant to disease and pathogens. But in humans, we're also seeing some benefits. We see that there's uh a balancing effect to the oral microbiome, uh topical use for wound healing. We're seeing uh a handful of studies out from a commercial company that makes these wands to help energize the drinking water. And those studies aren't published, but they are from a third party and they are um double-blinded. And they're showing improvements to mitochondrial function, improvements to the gut microbiome, uh, a decrease in glycans that are associated with aging. Uh, we're seeing in, and those are in vivo, right? With groups of um participants. We're also seeing this in vitro. So in a petri dish, we're seeing this energized water stops the progression of tumor growths. They're increasing intestinal uh integrity in intestinal epithelial cells. So it's exciting. We we really need some more research around this. It's starting to look like this energized water maybe acts as an antioxidant. I mean, it's it's kind of too early to say exactly what's happening, but you do have these two things going on the water that we drink and the water state in the body.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yeah, you know, I tend to think of it and tell me what you think about this. But when I think about this idea, I go, okay, so there's the water we drink, and we are having some growing research suggesting that perhaps we can do things to our drinkable water that uh may enhance it. And right now, I guess we could say, you know, spring waters, natural spring sources, those kinds of things, which are few and far between in the modern era, but perhaps they have a benefit. We're also making our water, that mitochondria makes this uh biological, you know, water. Um we also can eat our water, you know, in terms of eating this biological water in terms of you know, fruits. I think you and I talked about this. I think it was you and I, but whenever I go down to Costa Rica, like one of the things that happens to me is I immediately shed like, you know, a bunch of weight without doing anything. In fact, I'm less active, and one of the things I'm doing is drinking um very little water actually, but eating a lot of fruit in Costa Rica and sitting out in the sun. And immediately I feel incredibly different. Uh and I notice this, you know, but not besides the fact that I'm surrounded by green, I've got bird sounds going all around me, I'm walking on the beach. And so when I am reading your book, right, I'm like, oh, Costa Rica is like this perfect place for Dr. Catherine Clinton's prescription in Optimized, right? Because it's about, you know, I'm barefoot walking on the beach, I'm grounding, I've got this sun coming in, I'm eating lots of this biological water. I'm drinking, they have a lot more pure water sources there in Costa Rica than we do here that are coming off those mountains. I'm drinking a lot of water that way. And I'm, but I'm not, you know what I'm not doing, Catherine, is I'm not working out like I typically would. I'm not doing my yoga. I'm not, I'm doing some of my breath work, but it's really kind of a vacation. I'm not eating a bunch of junk either. They tend to have a very bland diet, the foodie in me doesn't love Costa Rica, but they tend to have a pretty bland diet. But I feel incredible in that place. And I do think it's partly because of what you're talking about with this. One, the kind of water that I'm consuming, two, the fact that my mitochondria are free of a lot of the things that I'm doing here in terms of the junk that I'm putting in. Uh, next, the the sun that I'm exposing myself, and then the grounding where I'm pulling electrons sort of from the earth. And so I want to just see as we kind of get into this, as you as someone goes, well, how do I take advantage of some of this, Dr. Clinton? Like, is this, if you had to say, because you have seven principles here uh in this book, what would you say are the big ones? And and then, of course, I want to talk to you a little bit about, you know, feeling and emotion and thought and also music, but what is going on with me in Costa Rica that would make sense to you?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Oh my goodness. Well, so many things you brought up there, right? There is the light, the light that is balancing hormones. It is doing all these different biological cascades in the body having to do with our metabolism, our immune system, our hormones, our inflammatory state, right? Uh and not to mention its interaction with the mitochondria, making that flow of energy and ATP more efficient. Being outside is also this, you know, huge exposure to negative ions. And negative ions have a profound impact on our immune system, our neurological state, right? I mean, we can't get past this idea of how our thoughts and emotions guide biology. And I think, you know, you're asking which one of these seven steps is most important. And I think that is the one that is with us at all times, that we have control over at all times. You know, I teach a practitioner course and someone uh does medical care in prisons. And she's like, prisoners don't have control over when they can go outside. They can't control what they eat, right? All these different variables they can't control. And I said, Well, the one thing they can control is that internal dialogue. It is that train of emotions and self-talk and coherence in the body. So when you're in Costa Rica, you've got the light, you've got the negative ions, you've got the grounding when you're bare uh walking barefoot on the uh sand there. The wet ground is really fertile in those uh free electrons that excite the system. We also would have to talk about your diet, right? You're getting bioavailable water there, but you're also getting, I'm sure if you're eating the fruits and vegetables, a huge supply of polyphenols, right? That also go into the mitochondria, have this conversation where they help create more mitochondria, right? Uh, mitogenesis. So there's all these different things that are happening when we're in a beautiful place like Costa Rica and we're exposed to the ground, the sun, the negative ions, the food, the seasonal food that's there. You know, oftentimes when we're talking about places like that, we're not talking about these imports of tropical fruit to that location. These are local fruit. They have their own light spectrum as well, right? So in our agriculture supply, people are now scanning different fruits, spices, vegetables to see what kind of light that they emit. So our mitochondria create biophotons, a very weak form of ultraviolet light. Plants have the same thing. And so they're using these sensors to tell how fresh that food or spice is, right? And when you're getting that local food, it's just rich with these light signals, it's rich in polyphenols and all the phytochemicals. So I mean, you're doing so many things, not to mention probably some of that psychoneuroimmunology where you're on vacation, your whole system can kind of exhale, right?

Sun, Grounding, Fruit, And Flow

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting, and this is where you and I, you know, I think uh are very much in alignment, and my followers were will very much love this idea of the psycho-neuroendocrine immune. And when I think about that model, I do think of it as kind of a hierarchy, right? You know, I don't know that it was initially, you know, kind of looked at that way because the the body goes in, it's a holistic, you know, sort of vessel. And so it's it's difficult to see it in a hierarchy, but I do, I do go the psychology impacting the neurology, impacting the hormones, impacting the immune system. But then I go one step beyond that and go, well, consciousness or our identity structures and story structures will influence the psychology that we find ourselves in, the neurology that we find ourselves in, the hormonal system we find ourselves in, and the immune, you know, sort of interaction that we find ourselves in. And I do think it's really interesting for practitioners like you and I, who've been teaching this for some time, to kind of go, oh, wait a minute, right? You know, there's all these people talking about nervous system balance and immune function and hormone therapies and things like that. But if you go backwards and listen to kind of what you've been saying and what I'm saying related to the psychology and the identity structures underneath that, even the psychology, this is essentially where this kind of breaks, um, I think breaks the typical mold of what we think about for health, because now all of a sudden we're going, our respiration is what, 12 per minute, our heart rate is 60 beats per minute, but our thoughts and our feelings are continuous and constant. And what you're pointing to is that they are, we are bathing in these thoughts that is influencing the psychoneuroendocrine immune system. And I think influencing this energetic as well. You know, it makes me think when I think about listening to music now or when I'm doing my breath work or when I'm activating my fascia, which I know we'll talk about here in just a second. You know, when I'm doing all of that stuff, I oftentimes will feel that goosebumpy, energetic type of feeling start to flood my body as if I'm building up energy from within. And I do think that this is another piece that you're talking about when we're talking about coherence breathing, when we're talking about some of these things of mindfulness and amplifying elevated feelings and thoughts. And I think it it pushes us to kind of understand that, yeah, it's not just the food we're eating, the exercise we're doing, it's the light, it's the biological water, it's the thoughts, it's the feelings. And then that starts to make sense of why some of us, no matter doing all the things right, are perhaps not feeling the energetic positive charge and health and vitality that we would want. So, my question there, I I said a lot without a question, but the question would be when you see these thoughts and these this feeling-based aspect of things, how are you coaching people in that regard? Uh, what is actually happening there? And is there any science you can point us to about the best ways to amplify that? Because it's very difficult for people to change their thoughts and feelings.

Thoughts, Safety, And Healing

SPEAKER_01 36:49

That's true. That's true. And I think my approach maybe is a little bit different from other people's because you know, given my history, uh my patient base is uh autoimmune conditions, right? So I have yet to see a patient that feels safe, that fee has a sense of belonging. There's this lack of of safety, this sense of of not belonging, not being safe. And there's usually some kind of trauma wrapped up in there. And whenever we're talking about this, myself and my patients, there's this idea of when is when do I get fixed? Right? Like it's a light switch. When do we flip the switch? And I think that's how a lot of people look at how we address our thoughts and emotions. Like, okay, now we're seeing some of the negative self-talk we have, we're seeing some of the patterns, we might become aware of some of the trauma that we're holding. And so now we're gonna fix it. We're gonna think differently, we're gonna try and force this and that. And really, what I have noticed is that if first that person can be in a space where they feel safe. So when I first graduated and first started seeing patients and people would start talking about their trauma, I was like, oh my gosh, like let's get your referral to a talk therapist. Like, I that's this isn't my my thing. I I treat the body, right? I'm a naturopathic doctor. Let's look at your diet, let's let's do all this other stuff. And then I realized that just me being there, just me creating a safe space for them to talk about whatever it might be, allowed this incredible resonance, right? So instead of leaning in and trying to meet them where they're at, and and I saw a lot of um combat veterans from the Iraq war when I first started in practice. And I would that's what I would do. I would lean in, I would feel the emotions, I would, my heart rate would go up, I would feel these things, and I started to realize this is not helping anyone, right? So removing myself back, creating a safe space, and then regulating my own sense of coherence allowed them to maybe for the first time in a long time feel a sense of ease, feel a sense of safety as they were talking about these difficult things. And so when I am talking with my patients or training practitioners, what are we doing here? We're creating a resonance, and that person is also creating a resonance, right? So often we're thinking, okay, I he I see this negative train of thought, and now I'm gonna try and fix it and remove it and put some other program in there. But I think just by creating a little bit of safety and space to observe where those thoughts come from, where they are, just the act of doing that takes on a completely different electrical charge, we could say, right? Because it's it's not about fixing those things. Those things aren't gonna go away. These are integral pieces of who we are, but being able to hold them with the same weight as uh a memory we have about going to the park as a kid, right? Being able to hold them with that same charge so that it's not this all-encompassing um event or or something that we're reliving. And so really what I'm working with people on is just being able to hold those thoughts and emotions, just get to a place where where we can fold that into our being. Um I when we talk about trying to repattern the body, I love having people, and I'm sure you've experienced this so many times. Someone in front of you, there's some kernel of I'm not safe, I'm not worthy, if only this was different. And so we turn that into a mantra. I am safe, I am worthy. And then we use that. Um, I really love using that self-talk in that liminal space when we first wake up or we're just falling asleep, right? So many of us have like 30 different tabs open when we're going throughout the day, right? Like, gotta do this, the grocery list, all these different things. But that liminal space between waking and sleep, there's just that one voice. And it can be really powerful. I've had people record these mantras and then listen to them as they're falling asleep, just creating this ripple effect. It's so powerful. And I've even gotten to the point where just that, just using someone's words. I've seen just frank pathology on imaging go away just by using a mantra, just by using the self-talk.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

It's you and I haven't had a chance to talk about this yet, but I'll share a case study that I did a podcast on with you because I think you'll find it interesting. I think the listeners will find it interesting. But my approach to this is exactly kind of what you're saying. And a lot of people would say, well, I don't have trauma, so to speak. But what I say is I'm like, well, you may not have trauma, but you have drama, which means things have happened to all of us, and you've written a story about who you are and how the world works, and that's largely subconscious. So when you're talking about going into this liminal space, one of the things I have done, and this is what next level human really is all about, I've created a way of dropping people down into a lucid dreaming state, alpha and theta brainwave states, but mainly theta brainwave states. And in those brainwave states, we have them revisit uh the memory if they have one, although it's not necessary to remember a memory. You can focus on a sensation, you can focus on emotion, you can focus on a pattern, you can focus on a sign or a symptom, you can focus on your illness. And they go into this state, they re-uh-imagine this situation, emotion, pattern, memory, etc. And then essentially, from that perspective, they look at it as not something to get rid of, but something to integrate as part of their wisdom, something to hold as part of their new identity. And we use things like, you know, uh 432 hertz or 528 hertz music, and we have breathing going. But what ends up happening is they come out of that with reimagining the suffering in a different way. And this one case, a colleague of mine who had never talked to anyone about some abuse she had, sexual abuse she had as a young teenager, repeatedly, never told her mom, never told her husband, is in an event with me, and she has this shedding begin to occur. This thing comes up, she sees it, she approaches it in the way that we talk about it. She begins to cry for the first time. She has a pretty um, pretty profound sort of body effect, shaking on the ground, different things. You see this in somatic practice, but and and by the way, any of you who want to uh learn more about this, I have a podcast I did with Naomi's her name. She tells the story a lot. Uh but what's interesting about this, Catherine, is she had uh hepatitis B for uh I can't always get the date wrong. It's either 18 years or eight years. And she was in a study for hepatitis B, and she is a practitioner as well, a nurse practitioner. And this uh right after this event, her viral titers disappeared, her immune um, her uh enzyme, her elevated liver enzymes uh went. Down. She has is now, for all intents and purposes, after two years in this study where they were measuring her every six months, is completely free of hepatitis B. She swears it's as a result of this work. And what it points to is this idea that if we are these energetic beings, and if we hold these patterns in particular ways, and if we can find a way to integrate them and begin to uh vibrate at a different frequency relative to our suffering, we can see some pretty profound things. Now, I know you hear things like this coming out of people like Dr. Joe Dispenses' events. I have seen it myself now numerous times. Back pain, hip pain, autoimmune conditions, um, uh hepatitis B, like all of these things related to this. Now add on top of that, some of the stuff you're talking about where you're like, you know, we need to get you inside of light, we need to get your fascia moving, we need to get you, you know, get this biological water on board, we need to get you energizing yourself. And people's uh lives and health change pretty dramatically. And so they are somehow seeming to hold these emotional constructs and identity structures in their body. And this brings me to our final discussion, then we can wrap up, which is I think this is happening, and I think we can be pretty sure that it's going on through the fascia. And someone like you who's also studied acupuncture and oriental medicine and this type of stuff, you're well versed, I think, to talk to us about some of this idea where fascia may actually be the scaffolding, energetic scaffolding that this biological water that you're talking about is using to send these hyperfast signals around the body. And am I getting that right? I really want you to educate me a little bit on fascia as it pertains to all of this.

Fascia As An Information Network

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Yeah, you're you're spot on. And when we're talking about fascia, we're talking about this web of connective tissue, mostly connective tissue, which is made up of mostly collagen. And collagen is semiconducted, so it can hold an electrical charge and it can transmit it, right? And it's also piezoelectric. So, like a quartz crystal, when it's exposed to pressure, collagen can create an electrical charge. So we have this collagen network in the body that connects to every structure in our body, right? It's what you and I learned of in in school as the scaffolding, right? But now we know it's much more than that. When we look at the architecture of fascia, we see that we're used to thinking of a double helix with DNA, right? Like that twisted ladder formation. Well, fascia creates a triple helix. They call it tropo collagen nanotubules because this triple helix creates a tube, really small tubes. And so you've got these layers of tubes creating this fascial network throughout the body, starts at our external layers, goes all the way internal to our bones. And this fascia, these tubes are lined with this water, right? This specialized water on the inside, on the outside, and it creates this incredible communication network. We talked about how this liquid crystalline water can create a separation of charge, a potential energy, like a battery. Professor Pollock did a study where he molded a collagen tubule, immersed it in water, kind of mimicking the conditions of the human body because we are so aqueous, right? There's so much water within us. He put this collagen tubule in water, exposed it to infrared energy, and he saw that yes, that water started to build against the wall of the tubule. It created that water battery. But he also saw that as long as infrared energy was present, it propelled water, particles, and protons. And you pair that idea with some of the work like from Nassim Harriman, where a proton can hold an immense amount of information. And so all of a sudden, we have now not only this electrical conduction, but we have this information system, like a fiber optic cable, right? Because our fascia is communicating with light, it's communicating with sound. We see in some recent studies where there's this association between different emotional states, different mental emotional states, and the adhesions that we see in fascia, right? Fascia is meant to glide smoothly. But we see in research that it can get stuck, it can become adhesed, it can become dehydrated. And especially they were looking at the trapezius muscle, and they saw that people with anxiety and depression had more adhesive fascia. In a different study, they did fascia releases to this area, and the symptoms of anxiety and depression lessened. Very high pay, stressed work environment. And they took this group and they separated into two groups, and they said to one group, okay, you guys just go take a break, go lay down, go chill out. And the other group, they did a myofascial release to the occipital area, right? Where the neck and the skull meet. And both groups had lower heart rate, lower respiratory rate, right? One is chilling out, laying down. But the group that got the fascial release, they saw an increase in their heart rate variability, in their state of heart coherence, in their vagal tone just by doing a fascial maneuver. And what we're starting to appreciate about the fascia is that it is a vast sensory organ as well. It is sort of that first line. And when you look at all the connections that fascia makes, it can go, it can insert into cells via these integrants. And we see this amazing relationship where the fascia seems to be picking up on danger signals that it then transmits into a cell, into the mitochondria, and then the mitochondria then communicate that with the immune system. So it's just absolutely mind-blowing. This interconnected web, this capacity for the fascia to possibly hold emotion, hold trauma, this relationship with water, so that you know, we talked about looking at pain and inflammation and symptoms as a deficiency in electrons. And all of a sudden now we have this understanding of this water fascial network that can transmit electrons, it can transmit protons with information. I mean, we think of electrons as the flow of electricity, right? If we have moving electrons, then we have electricity. The same thing applies to protons, even though we're not used to thinking about it that way. We have proton force motors, people are looking at the flow of protons as alternate sources of energy right now. So we see a similar energy source happening in our fascia. It's just absolutely incredible, much more than the scaffolding that we learned about in school.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yeah, it's so incredible. And I love that you're pointing out this idea that it's not just the energy that's moving through these systems, but it's information that's moving through these systems, communicating. And it makes sense because if you think about now, once you understand this, you go, this is making some sense now that the nervous system, while fast, is probably a little too slow for some of the things that we encounter in our lives. Like, you know, it it is this is a much faster uh communication system. So I want to be aware of your time, but I'm just gonna sum up essentially what we said and let you uh correct me in any areas that I get wrong. And so your new book, Optimize, is really talking about this idea that there's a whole other layer of uh you know biology that we need to understand that is operating more on quantum principles versus classic biology and chemistry principles, and that we can begin to harness these things through the things that you talk about in the book light, uh paying attention to our water, our emotions uh and our uh thoughts, uh grounding uh and sun exposure and uh understanding what's going on with our fascia among others, and that this is perhaps a place where we are missing and draining our vitality because we're not necessarily aware of all these other things that we would have been naturally exposed to. Um, this is where the naturopathic you and I come in, and why we went into this that we probably would have been naturally exposed to in more uh natural settings, but no longer are. And so is that how you see that? And is that any other thing that I I missed there in summing up some of this work?

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Uh no, I you were spot on. You you um summed it up quite well. I mean, that's those are the seven steps. I talk about water, I talk about light, electricity, I talk about our relationship with nature in so many different ways. I talk about cultivating that coherence in the body. I talk about the last chapter, it's all about the microbiome and the immune system and how we think of them as this chemical mechanical defense system, right? But they're communicating with light, they're communicating with electricity, they're communicating with sound, they are using these quantum mechanics. So you summed it up perfectly. There is this expansion to this chemical mechanical model. And I think it's important that we understand that and and we have all the tools in the toolkit to apply to our health and longevity.

Summary And Where To Learn More

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Yeah, Catherine, thank you so much for your work. Thank you for hanging out with us. And again, just so you all can see it, here's the book. I have it on my phone. Optimize is the book. Uh I and I regard this as uh the cutting, you know, we are you and I know we're in this field. We get books constantly. Practitioners are writing books. I am so was so excited uh to see this because I do think it is uh at the forefront. You are a thought leader in this space. I'm so grateful for you. And everybody should, in my mind, if you want to optimize your health, be getting this book. And just my sincere gratitude to you, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Oh, Jade, my sincere gratitude right back to you. I'm so grateful that we're doing this together.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Um, hundred percent. We got we got a long way to go. And for those of you who want to uh learn more from uh Catherine, you can find her uh on all the all the places, but mainly you spend a lot of time with whatever you spend most of your time, Instagram. That's where I usually follow most of your work. But tell them where to find you also to get more of your work.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah, I'm I didn't have a fancy name. I didn't get creative. I'm just Dr. Catherine Clinton. That's my website. That's who I am on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. And I just love sharing this information. I'd love talking about it. And and Jade, I love talking with you. So thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Appreciate you, my friend. And I'm trying to get uh Catherine to be on Substack, everybody. So hopefully she's gonna sign up there soon and come on over and hang with us. But do me a favor, Catherine, just hang on the line real quick because I want to make sure this uploads. But for all of you that hung out with us live, appreciate you so much, and we'll see you at the next conversation.