Episode 55: Managing Stress with Adaptiv

doTERRA: Stress is something that basically every person encounters. We all live busy lives and there are things that pop up every day that are ready to cause us stress. It might surprise you to know that the concept of stress is a fairly recent discovery. It actually wasn't until the late 1950s that endocrinologist Hans Selye first identified and documented stress. Of course, the effects of stress were felt long before they were defined, and people have always looked for ways to find more relaxation in their lives.

That's what we're going to talk about today is how you can reduce stress and increase relaxation in your life.

Introduction

Welcome back to Essential Oil Solutions with doTERRA. The podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful, and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field. If you like what you hear today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. We always appreciate hearing from you. 

Today, we're excited to sit down with Dr. Marissa Heisel, a chiropractor and a midwife, to talk to her about using Adaptiv™ to manage stress. 

Marissa, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us and talk about this really important topic. I know this is something that a lot of people deal with in their everyday life, and we want to make sure that we're giving them the best resources that we can to help them manage this. 

So Marissa, why is managing stress so important?

Marissa Heisel: First of all, thank you so much for having me on. This has been a topic of huge importance to me in my professional life, long before I even—was—knew of doTERRA or was in doTERRA. You know, the reality is that about 264 million people in North America experience stress on a regular basis. 

Effects of Excessive Stress

We know that stress—cortisol levels in our body rise. That's something that I saw regularly even in my chiropractic practice. I had left midwifery and gone back to chiropractic, and I was doing testing of patients, and I had a lot of pregnant women in my practice who were showing incredibly significant signs of stress.

And when I dug into that a little bit, one of the things that I learned is when women are extremely stressed during pregnancy, they tend to give birth to children with a lower threshold for stress, meaning that it takes far less to stress those children out. And at the same time, I was—as I was seeing those women, I was also seeing children from a very young age, some fairly significant—I would say symptoms and signs of being stressed even at the age of three and six. And definitely once they were in school.

And so even before I was in doTERRA, I was really thinking about how we can go about addressing these things because it impacts so many people so significantly.

doTERRA: And that is incredible. It's really impacting every aspect of your life, every aspect of your body. And what kind of an effect does that have on our day-to-day lives? As we go throughout the day, what kind of effects are we seeing?

Marissa: We're seeing things like impatience, avoidance, procrastination, constant worrying, what would be called catastrophizing even, and what we really want to see is an adaptability based on the needs of that moment and that day.

So if something feels stressful, we would respond to it appropriately, in a healthy way, and then be able to relax and settle back down again. But in a stressed brain, we really don't see that adaptability. We start to see an inability, almost, to shift back into relaxation.

doTERRA: And that definitely is something that I want to avoid, I think everyone wants to avoid. We want to have less stress. We want to avoid those uncomfortable consequences that come with stress, those impairments that we can encounter when we have a lot of stress going on. 

I know one of the things that a lot of people worry about is finding natural solutions to these things. We don't want to add more toxins into our body or more strain on our body by introducing unnatural solutions. So what are some natural ways we can go about reducing stress?

Marissa: There are quite a few things that we can do. 

Exercise and Nature

I mean it starts with even a little bit of physical fitness or exercise in a day. And by that I don't mean—you know—having to run a marathon, having to go to the gym even, but even walking can be extremely helpful, getting back out into nature—into the healing nature. So the healing nature, but you understand.

doTERRA: Right.

Marissa: Getting back outside, grounding ourselves, being close to the trees, all of that will help. 

Meditation

Any form of meditation. And—you know—when we're North American, unless we're in certain cultures, perhaps we're not familiar with meditation, or it feels really challenging. But one really simple way into that even is breath, following our breath. And it doesn't have to be anything fancy. It can literally be closing our eyes and breathing in slowly and breathing out slowly and really grounding ourselves, feeling our feet on the floor, our hands in our laps, dropping our energy down in our bodies. Because one of the things that happens when stressed is, if you could visualize stress, it would almost look like a whirlwind going on in somebody’s head. And we need to remember that we have a body in those moments, and breath is one of the things that really helps us with that. 

Nutrition

You know, interestingly, even nutrition plays a huge role in this. There is a massive connection between gut health and brain health. And if we are eating really poorly, choosing a lot of processed foods, eating a lot of sugar, we're not going to be affecting good, healthy brain chemistry in the way that we can be. And so, I would say getting back to that more natural lifestyle.

Now one of the challenges with that, though, is when we're feeling really stressed, those things that I just described that sound like they should be simple do not feel simple at all. That feels really challenging. The thought of getting outdoors—and getting outdoors in the snow, somebody would be like, “It's too cold.” Or trying to breathe when you're feeling super stressed is one of the things that becomes even more stressful for people. And they don't understand that if they can just stick with it for 30 seconds, it starts to shift that brainwave pattern that they're in, it starts to shift that state of alarm that we're in, and we start to be able to get into and shift our brain chemistry and settle down. But that is where we can bring in a lot of really beautiful solutions to help us when we're in such a stressed state that even doing simple things feels like it's too challenging.

doTERRA: I love that point that you brought up of sometimes even these simple things face us like an insurmountable mountain, and we just don't even have the energy or the capacity to do those simple things. Even though we know they might help us. 

So shifting then into the essential oils side of it, doTERRA has created this new Adaptiv line that they released last year. So what does the Adaptiv line do to help promote relaxation?

Marissa: So what I know about doTERRA’s goal in developing Adaptiv was that it was to provide tools for people to be able to manage the stress in their lives in the moment that they were experiencing it. So it's—it's when we're in that state, bringing in Adaptiv, using it, opening a bottle, applying it, just smelling it even, helps us in that moment that we're—that we're experiencing with stress so that we can—the word I use is pivot—so that we can pivot in that moment and find the tiny, little opening of the space that we need in order to be able to stop, to regroup, to breathe, to—to settle into our bodies again, and shift out of that state immediately.

Adaptiv is really developed to help support our ability to return to a calm and balanced state when we've been thrown off course. Adaptive provides us with that that complementary, or synergistic, palette between both the oil blend and the capsules that we can choose from to really support us in a way that we most need to be supported.

doTERRA: And you're absolutely right. And like you mentioned with the Adaptiv line, there is the oil blend, there's the touch roller for topical application, and there are the capsules that you can take internally, which gives it a lot of that versatility and makes it work for everyone in the way that they need.

Marissa, can you tell us a little bit about the oils that are in the Adaptiv blend?

Marissa: Of course. So Adaptiv oil blend has a number of really beautiful oils in it. It's made up of Wild Orange—which we know as that uplifting, joyous oil, Lavender—which we all know is a—we know it is a calming oil, Copaiba—which has such profound effects, Spearmint—which is also uplifting, Magnolia—which I love to think of as a really heart-centered blend, Rosemary, Neroli, and sweetgum—which is new to doTERRA. And the beauty of all of those oils is that some of them are uplifting and some of them are calming, but it helps to support and balance us, really, whichever way that we need it. 

Adaptiv Blend

When we use Adaptiv, either in a diffuser—when we drop a few drops of Adaptiv into a diffuser, even if we were just to open a bottle, or roll it on, when we diffuse Adaptiv or allow it to be in our environment aromatically, we help to calm those stressed feelings, and we bring about a measure of really composure while we encourage tranquility and a balanced and centered mindset.

doTERRA: And I think the diffusing is the one that I've had the most experience with, and the scent really is just so beautiful. Those oils come together in such a powerful way to really create that very calming, relaxing atmosphere, and it's incredible. 

What are the ways that we can utilize the Adaptiv line in everyday life? What are the ways that you've utilized it?

Marissa: So I will add it to a diffuser with other oils that I know are centering and calming. I love it with—with Balance^®. I love it with a little more citrus oil, maybe with some Wild Orange or some Tangerine. I'll add a little bit more of Peppermint, if I need it, or even Frankincense—it will really depend on—on what I like in the moment. 

Adaptiv Touch

I love Adaptiv Touch for its ease of use. I've got one in my purse, I've got one in my office, and I've got one in my bathroom as well.

I've got a seventeen-year-old son in grade twelve trying to get into a very challenging engineering program. He's got it in his backpack, and that made a huge difference to him at the beginning of the year, when the stress and the immediacy of needing really high grades this year in order to get into this program that he wants was really impacting him. And so, he started putting it in his backpack for whenever he needs it. 

The beautiful thing about Touch is that it offers a sustained delivery model, due to the Fractionated Coconut Oil that it's diluted with, and it really acts as an anchor to prevent the oil from splashing off as its applied, so you can take the Touch and apply it to your shoulders and your neck. You can remember the power of touch when we're feeling stressed and ask a loved one to even apply it for you and rub it in. I love it on the wrists and the temples and one of the things that Desiree Mangandog teaches is to apply it down the forearms to quickly gain composure and to change perspective. So I love Touch in that way. 

Adaptiv Capsules

So the Adaptiv Capsules were really designed to work in harmony with the Adaptiv oil blend, and they help with improving cognitive function, with promoting positive feelings, and they really help with relieving stress and anxiousness.* For some people that might be something that they use on a daily basis. For others, it might be something that they use when there are moments of particular stress. Again referencing my seventeen-year-old son who just had exams last week, those exams were for finals in some of his grade-twelve classes. That feels very challenging when you're in that, it feels like this is a do-or-die kind of moment. And for him taking Adaptiv Capsules at night that week was really helpful. For other people they might be using it more regularly. 

There's a lot of research and knowledge that—that went into the formulation of the Adaptiv Capsules. And the three delivery methods the drip bottle, I'll call it (the 15 mL blend) and then the Touch bottle and then the Adaptiv Capsules really work in harmony beautifully together to help us find that peace and confidence, and I'm going to say relief when we need it most.

And I really appreciate the fact that there were human clinical trials that were conducted on the line that showed significant reduction in markers of stress in the body and an overall resting effect that was created in the brain. So my—my doctor side of my brain loves all of that, while the momma side of my brain loves seeing the immediate effect that this line has when it's used in harmony together.

doTERRA: Marissa, thank you so much for sharing those tips for utilizing this line in everyday life, and I hope that everyone was able to get something from that and to gain a new way that they want to try Adaptiv in their life moving forward.

And Marissa, we really appreciate you coming and sitting down with us and taking the time to teach us about the Adaptiv line. 

Marissa: You're so welcome. Thank you again.

doTERRA: Thanks for joining us, and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you liked what you heard today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Also, if you want to try any of the products you learned about, go to doterra.com or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.