29: Ketamine Treatments, Sound Therapy, Neurofeedback, and Brain Mapping with Dr. Brent Jaster of Heartmind Medicine
29: Ketamine Treatments, Sound Therapy, Neurofeedback, and Brain Mapping with Dr. Brent Jaster of Heartmind Medicine
Plants Saved My Life
In this episode of "Plants Saved My Life," host Raven shifts the focus from plants to explore the world of ketamine treatments and their potential in harm reduction and education. Joined by Dr. Brent Jaster, the founder of Heart Mind Medicine, the discussion delves into Dr. Jaster's innovative approaches to holistic health, including the use of psychedelic and entheogenic medicine, neurofeedback, sound therapy, and brain mapping. They explore how these modalities enhance neuroplasticity to address past trauma and unhealthy patterns, ultimately aiming to improve mental and emotional wellness. Dr. Jaster's passion for diversity, inclusion, culture, and equity, along with his personal growth experiences, provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of holistic health.
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Plants Saved My Life is a weekly podcast blending education, scientific research, compassion, and storytelling. Featuring real stories from patients who have overcome chronic conditions with the help of plant medicine and specialized medical practitioners, therapists, shamans, and other neotraditional healers exploring non-pharmacological means of medical intervention. Join us weekly for fascinating conversations with people whose lives were saved by plants. Let's demystify and destigmatize entheogens, naturopathy, plant-based medicines, holistic therapies, psychedelics, and functional nutrition. Join us as we pay homage to the plants and fungi we owe our health and happiness.
Copyright 2023 Entheo Wellness - Plants Saved My life
Music - Psychedelic Es by Ostenvegr under Creative Commons License
Transcript
Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Plant Saved My Life.
Speaker:I'm your host, Raven, and this week...
Speaker:We're actually not going to be discussing any plants.
Speaker:This week we're going to be doing a deep dive into ketamine treatments
Speaker:and what it's like working with this substance to treat certain conditions.
Speaker:Ketamine does not technically come from a plant, but our conversation aligns with
Speaker:our overall goal of harm reduction and education within this emerging space.
Speaker:First synthesized in 1962, high doses of ketamine induced states of
Speaker:dissociative anesthesia, a trance like state providing pain relief,
Speaker:sedation, and sometimes even amnesia.
Speaker:At lower, sub anesthetic doses, ketamine seems to be a promising agent for pain
Speaker:and treatment resistant depression.
Speaker:So today, I'm sitting down with Dr.
Speaker:Brent Jaster.
Speaker:Founder of HeartMindMedicine.
Speaker:Dr.
Speaker:Jaster uses lifestyle medicine, integrative holistic medicine,
Speaker:an open mind, and creativity to help people help themselves.
Speaker:His focus areas include mental and emotional wellness, sleep, and
Speaker:helping people understand the link between mental and physical symptoms.
Speaker:Today we'll be talking about his work with psychedelic and entheogenic medicine,
Speaker:neurofeedback, sound therapy, Brain mapping, and how these modalities and
Speaker:enhanced neuroplasticity help resolve past trauma and unhealthy patterns.
Speaker:So Jaster to the show.
Speaker:But first, a quick disclaimer, while I make every effort to broadcast correct
Speaker:information, I am still learning.
Speaker:I am committed to thorough fact checking, but I realize that plant medicine is
Speaker:a constantly evolving science and art.
Speaker:Additionally, the views and opinions expressed on this show do not
Speaker:represent the perspectives of any of the institutions I teach for or the
Speaker:organizations I collaborate with.
Speaker:However, this podcast does align with my broader mission to demystify and
Speaker:destigmatize plant medicine everywhere.
Speaker:These discussions are intended purely for educational and informative purposes.
Speaker:Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions
Speaker:related to your health, and no topics are meant to be taken as medical advice.
Speaker:Awesome, well thank you Dr.
Speaker:Brent Jaster for joining me today on Plant Saved My Life.
Speaker:I'm really excited to have our conversation today.
Speaker:I know that it's not really about traditional classic plant medicine,
Speaker:but I am excited to dive into it if you don't mind introducing yourself.
Speaker:Yeah, my name is Brent Jaster.
Speaker:I'm a trained as a family physician.
Speaker:Originally, I'm in Denver, Colorado, and I've been functioning in many
Speaker:capacities since I finished residency, but most recently I started an
Speaker:integrative, holistic in the field.
Speaker:Primary care practice about eight years ago now.
Speaker:And in the last couple of years, I've been branching more and more into
Speaker:just focusing on mental health and that's included ketamine assisted
Speaker:treatments and some neurofeedback and some sound therapy protocols.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm definitely interested into diving into all those
Speaker:different modalities.
Speaker:We hear a lot about ketamine treatments, but me, myself, I'm not too familiar
Speaker:with neurofeedback, brain mapping and I would definitely want to discuss the
Speaker:difference between traditional sound therapy and sound baths and all these
Speaker:different things going into that.
Speaker:But I would love to hear more about your own personal story and how ketamine
Speaker:and psychedelics fall into that.
Speaker:Well, personally, I, I think just being someone that's been interested in
Speaker:personal growth and, being a sensitive person, at least the level of if I get
Speaker:feedback or if I get something put in front of me, I tend to at least try
Speaker:to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker:So, it was in medical school where I started to explore just going to
Speaker:individual therapy, psychotherapy, and a lot of that was focused more on just
Speaker:relationship building whether that be an intimate relationship with a person.
Speaker:Girlfriend or partner at the time, or just, I think, better understanding family
Speaker:dynamics and now, many years later, I can speak from a different frame of mind
Speaker:about all of that but My more recent personal journey, just really wanting to
Speaker:optimize my mental functioning and be a good father, good sibling, son partner.
Speaker:I, I definitely still want to keep working on myself.
Speaker:And so, that's.
Speaker:The long story short is I reached out to a colleague at one point who was doing
Speaker:Ketamine assisted psych therapy, and he suggested I come to his training.
Speaker:He was part of an organization that was doing trainings to teach physicians,
Speaker:clinicians, therapists how to work with ketamine in a therapeutic setting.
Speaker:And I've just been on that path ever since and just find.
Speaker:Ketamine specifically in this case to be a very accessible and valuable tool and
Speaker:interestingly the same mentor just sent an email a few minutes ago about an essay
Speaker:that got published in one of the leading psychiatric journals about ketamine and
Speaker:how it could be You know really helpful.
Speaker:I think one of the helpful medications, psychedelic medications to help us heal.
Speaker:Yeah, definitely agree.
Speaker:And I can definitely see where that plays a role in you forming HeartMind Medicine.
Speaker:In preparation for this episode, I did a little bit of research
Speaker:and I found some scary statistics.
Speaker:I was reading that 1 in 4 people will be diagnosed with a depressive
Speaker:episode in their lifetime.
Speaker:1 in 3 adults will be diagnosed with an anxiety condition throughout
Speaker:the course of their lifetime.
Speaker:And with that said, 50 percent of those depression cases qualify as
Speaker:treatment resistant depression.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:We hear a lot about ketamine right now in the medical space, in the
Speaker:therapeutic space, specifically revolving these hard to treat mental
Speaker:conditions like depression and anxiety.
Speaker:I'd love to hear your expertise on what makes ketamine different
Speaker:than more classical treatments like
Speaker:SSRIs.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, and thanks for, I don't think I actually named the more recent Clinic
Speaker:Heart, Mind, Medicine, but yeah, that is the one that focuses on mental health,
Speaker:and I just want to say something quickly about the name is that I was working with
Speaker:a mentor probably a decade ago or more and one of the things that he just kept
Speaker:encouraging in me is to connect more with my heart and stay out of the headspace,
Speaker:the thought space, the thinking space.
Speaker:And one day that name just popped into my head, like heart, mind, medicine.
Speaker:And I sent it to him like, what do you think?
Speaker:And he just, He reminded me, it's like capital H for heart and small m for mind
Speaker:yeah, so, so when so when I think of just ketamine and in comparison to say the
Speaker:most common, commonly used medications, at least from the beginning of using
Speaker:antidepressants what's become the most common are the SSRIs, the Selective
Speaker:Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and we have variations of these medications,
Speaker:but those are still the most common.
Speaker:And I think how I've come to create my own statements about these is
Speaker:that a lot of those medicines help.
Speaker:Clearly they can help, but they don't help as much as I think we often think they do.
Speaker:So if you look at some of the raw data, and you look at the placebo effect
Speaker:versus the effect of the medication, it's actually not a very big difference.
Speaker:But in my mind, whether it's placebo or whether it's placebo
Speaker:plus drug it still adds value.
Speaker:People, when they're struggling, however they can get a boost in a
Speaker:time of need, I think is important.
Speaker:What's, what can happen though, I think, with the SSRIs, just to focus on them,
Speaker:and again, this is my experience, more my opinion, I haven't seen someone
Speaker:else writing about it in this way, but I think we know that data, the
Speaker:data supports that those drugs may only have help for up to a year.
Speaker:We don't have long term data that those medicines keep helping, but
Speaker:a lot of people will stay on those medicines much longer than a year.
Speaker:And how I reconcile all of these details is that after a year has passed, people
Speaker:have probably made some adjustments in their life, maybe a stressful event or
Speaker:multiple stressful events have lessened or gone away, and maybe they've also
Speaker:made some adaptive changes to where they're sleeping better, or they're
Speaker:eating better, they're exercising more, they're learning how to meditate, but I
Speaker:think that let's just say at that year point, things are at more a new baseline.
Speaker:But if people then try to come off those meds, my personal experience just
Speaker:hearing from people outside of my clinic, they often come off them too fast.
Speaker:And our brain has adapted to those medicines, so if you take them away too
Speaker:quickly, we may then have a recurrence of depression or anxiety or both.
Speaker:And I think we naturally assume that it's because we need the medicine.
Speaker:And I think what really is going on is that we just need to tinker from
Speaker:them slowly, so that we realize, oh, I'm actually doing okay.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:There are going to be people, though, that truly, they try one SSRI, they
Speaker:might try a second one, do the side effects, they might switch to a different
Speaker:type of medication or multiple and they still are depressed and that's
Speaker:where we've seen the most focus I think with ketamine related to mental health
Speaker:is treatment resistant depression.
Speaker:But it really goes beyond that, in my mind, because we know that
Speaker:ketamine can help with anxiety, we know it can help with depression,
Speaker:not just treatment resistant depression, but depression alone.
Speaker:We know it can help with things like eating disorders, we
Speaker:know it can help with trauma.
Speaker:And some of it comes down to what's the best medicine.
Speaker:So right now, ketamine's Legal, MDMA is not legal.
Speaker:So ketamine may be our best choice for working with people with trauma
Speaker:until we have what might be a better a medicine at being MDMA, which we hope
Speaker:will be FDA approved in the next year.
Speaker:But that's just one example I think of how ketamine can be used.
Speaker:To help people get off of SSRIs, or I think just give them additional
Speaker:support so that people realize oh, I really don't need these medicines
Speaker:the way I thought they were.
Speaker:So, it is quite common that People will try to reduce SSRIs prior to ketamine
Speaker:treatment, but it's also fairly common that people are on SSRIs, not trying to
Speaker:taper, but during the course of ketamine treatments, they can start reducing their
Speaker:medications or completely with themselves.
Speaker:With success and find that new baseline again to, I think, more
Speaker:accurately assess where they are.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:Thanks for sharing that especially because whenever I consider SSRIs
Speaker:or antidepressants or anti anxiety medications, they are notoriously
Speaker:hard to taper off or to stop taking.
Speaker:There's a lot of withdrawal symptoms, and like you said, it can cause it can cause
Speaker:disruptions with depression or anxiety.
Speaker:And another thing I like to think about with the more classic
Speaker:treatments for depression, like SSRIs, is that sometimes they take.
Speaker:And not only that, but one of the common side effects is suicidal ideation.
Speaker:Both those things in junction with severe depression can cause suicidal ideation.
Speaker:It's hard to get to the treatment, you got to survive through that period, right?
Speaker:Something like ketamine, to my understanding, is more immediate.
Speaker:It's more able to provide that relief on an immediate sense so you can
Speaker:get through to the mental barriers.
Speaker:And I'd love to hear more about the process and the actual treatment
Speaker:protocol over there at HeartMind.
Speaker:Yeah, and just before I go to that, I wanted to just comment on the suicidality.
Speaker:So that's a great point is that Most medications that are going to be
Speaker:helpful for mental health as far as a long term solution are going to
Speaker:take not just two to three weeks, but sometimes four to six weeks.
Speaker:We might start to feel a little bit of benefit earlier, but to really
Speaker:know the full therapeutic effect of a certain dose, we usually need
Speaker:to wait a full four to six weeks.
Speaker:So if someone is suicidal and we even have data that sometimes people
Speaker:become more suicidal with certain medications for mental health.
Speaker:It's a hard sell in that case if someone's suicidal and say, well, we're going to
Speaker:start this medicine and let's see if you feel better in four to six weeks.
Speaker:Especially someone with severe suicidal ideation or if beyond
Speaker:ideation they have a plan, they have the ability to execute that plan.
Speaker:We really need something that works fast, and ketamine the most research
Speaker:and just literature you'll find is around IV ketamine in this situation,
Speaker:but my mentors, my educators in this arena 2 will say that in 40 minutes, you
Speaker:can take someone with severe suicidal ideation to not even considering
Speaker:suicide, and that's just 40 minutes.
Speaker:So, that's an amazingly powerful medicine in that case, and I just think that the,
Speaker:excuse me, the potential ramifications of What if everyone who was suicidal
Speaker:that ended up in the emergency room didn't have to be on a 72 hour hold?
Speaker:What if they could have a 40 minute IV drip with ketamine, speak to a therapist,
Speaker:and leave with a plan to follow up in the next one to three days as an
Speaker:outpatient, and not be worried that person is going to take their life like that?
Speaker:That could be hugely beneficial to our entire medical system, but I think also
Speaker:in, in the realm of not traumatizing someone who's already in tremendous pain
Speaker:such that they want to kill themselves.
Speaker:So, that's just one aside I wanted to draw attention to as you brought
Speaker:up the suicidal piece, because that's where we don't have any other...
Speaker:Research to support something that quick and not something that low
Speaker:intensity of hey, we place an IV, we give it an expensive medicine,
Speaker:and we can send someone home.
Speaker:There's really no, no comparison right now.
Speaker:Now, as far as heart and mind medicine you asked just how we approach things.
Speaker:Is that the basic thing?
Speaker:So, one thing I like to just clarify is that there are a lot of people out
Speaker:there offering cannabis right now, and whether that's on the recreational
Speaker:market, it can be a drug of recreation, a club drug, it can be a drug of
Speaker:abuse, it can be a drug of abuse.
Speaker:And in a therapeutic setting, there are also a lot of
Speaker:different ways to receive it.
Speaker:So, one example, a lot of anesthesiologists, emergency
Speaker:room physicians have opened up IV clinics, infusion clinics.
Speaker:And these I just think of as easy access, kind of low intensity low,
Speaker:and I say touch, but more of a, just more of the metaphoric touch.
Speaker:It's like low touch, the person that goes in there is not usually going to get
Speaker:a high level of screening, they're not going to get a high level of preparation
Speaker:during the experience, they're not going to be high level of attention.
Speaker:Getting a lot of attention unless they're in crisis and then afterwards,
Speaker:again, they're not typically going to be being walked through the process
Speaker:of integrating a psychedelic or a psycholytic at a much lower dose.
Speaker:Doesn't have to be a psychedelic.
Speaker:I can speak more about that later.
Speaker:And then there are a lot of therapists who working with a prescriber, a client
Speaker:can get prescribed ketamine and then get a oral form, usually a lozenge
Speaker:form, and they take that with them to a therapist and they use the medicine
Speaker:while they're getting psychotherapy.
Speaker:So that's where the ketamine assisted psychotherapy you often hear of or cap.
Speaker:How I just, draw attention to how we do things even different from that is that,
Speaker:I am a, as a physician, as a prescriber, I don't need another person involved, like
Speaker:I could be doing this process just myself and a patient, but I also see the value
Speaker:in having other people because my time can cost a lot more than someone else's
Speaker:time and that person might even have a lot better skill set for certain things.
Speaker:So, when someone comes to my clinic, I do a detailed intake.
Speaker:So, not just usually an hour long visit where I might do that on a primary care
Speaker:side, but a two hour visit where I really want to understand not only someone's
Speaker:medical history, but their mental health history, family history, their own
Speaker:personal use psychedelics, if they have that experience, or other drugs, and
Speaker:mainly just to make sure that I feel like the medicine is going to be of value.
Speaker:There are certain exclusion criteria that I don't want to find out after the fact.
Speaker:That this person shouldn't have received ketamine or I induced a traumatic event
Speaker:because I didn't fully screen them.
Speaker:And I worry that places that don't screen them adequately, they might
Speaker:only spend 30 minutes, are going to have a few of those cases slip through
Speaker:and people might be re traumatized.
Speaker:So after that two hour intake, we also require a prep session, so to prepare
Speaker:the person for their ketamine experience.
Speaker:Sometimes I combine those two visits, so it can be a three
Speaker:hour visit, approximately.
Speaker:But we do want to make sure that a person is in the proper mindsets and
Speaker:that we're curating the setting so that it, it feels very healing to them,
Speaker:and that could be as simple as that.
Speaker:They have a table, they can bring their own personal objects, sacred objects,
Speaker:photographs, their teddy bear, their blanket, well, we want people to feel that
Speaker:within reason that the space that they're coming into is their own for that time.
Speaker:We want them to just feel safe feel at home as much as they can and so we try
Speaker:and craft that setting to the best of our ability to meet the client's needs.
Speaker:During the actual ketamine session, we don't leave someone alone, and
Speaker:again, some of these infusion clinics, they will have people be alone, they
Speaker:might be watching them on a video monitor, but again, just aren't usually
Speaker:set up to provide therapeutic, a therapeutic setting beyond the medicine.
Speaker:So we'll stay with the client the whole time sometimes they
Speaker:want to talk, but often it's a very internal experience, and...
Speaker:People just want to feel safe.
Speaker:They want to feel like they can have that experience and not be worried
Speaker:about any other details in their life.
Speaker:And then lastly, but probably, I would say, not even probably, but
Speaker:most importantly is integration.
Speaker:Because in my opinion and a lot of people that a psychedelic
Speaker:experience is only that.
Speaker:It's just an experience.
Speaker:If a person can't then integrate that experience into their life,
Speaker:like, how are they going to learn from those experiences, the insights?
Speaker:and actually bring that into their life and make changes in a healthy way.
Speaker:So, we require all of those, and I think where we are a much more expensive model
Speaker:and I wish it weren't the case that way, but when it comes to just time and people
Speaker:who are professionally trained, to provide the medicine, to offer the integration
Speaker:with a large number of skills to go with that, whether it's a therapist or
Speaker:what we use as a professional life coach someone who also has spiritual healing
Speaker:background, Reiki background, so a lot of valuable tools for that integration time.
Speaker:And there are many people that I think can serve in that integration role
Speaker:as long as they're properly trained.
Speaker:Yeah, so it sounds like the difference between HeartMind Medicine and some
Speaker:of the other places, some of the other accessible ketamine clinics out there
Speaker:might be the attention, screening, but also even to the guidance, understanding
Speaker:their family history, their mental health history, even going into their
Speaker:psychedelic history, and then following up with integration afterwards.
Speaker:I think that's doing really good work for people who are looking for
Speaker:ketamine for a form of relief, for people that are, that have treatment
Speaker:resistant depression, the people that really are on their last limb whenever
Speaker:it comes to mental health treatment.
Speaker:I always hope that it never comes down to the last limb, sometimes that is
Speaker:the case in the country we live in.
Speaker:To underline your point like you said, a lot of care and attention
Speaker:needs to be taken with these types of medicines because they, Our ketamine
Speaker:is a dissociative, and in this era of trauma informed care, we don't want
Speaker:to unintentionally cause someone who dissociates to dissociate even further
Speaker:and re traumatize them unintentionally.
Speaker:So I can definitely understand your point and respect you for doing that out there.
Speaker:Yeah, and that is just one example that at a low dose ketamine
Speaker:is not even a psychedelic.
Speaker:It can just make someone feel less rigid or a little bit more
Speaker:just open feel a little bit more
Speaker:But at higher doses, as we get into that realm of if someone can no longer feel
Speaker:their body, or they feel like they have actually left their body, if they've had
Speaker:a prior traumatic event where that was their coping strategy, like many survivors
Speaker:of trauma, is to dissociate, it could take them right back into that place.
Speaker:So we tread very cautiously and I definitely worry that if people have not
Speaker:been properly screened for trauma and what level of trauma, because my personal
Speaker:view is that we've all had trauma.
Speaker:It just depends to what level and how many times and how our coping strategies
Speaker:were actually played out and did we ever get any resolution of those events.
Speaker:We don't want someone to slip through with.
Speaker:severe trauma and then be on a protocol where they come in every week for six
Speaker:weeks and get six ketamine treatments because I just definitely, that's, those
Speaker:are the bad trips I think that people talk about is that people become destabilized.
Speaker:They might, even become psychotic.
Speaker:It's just a lot of ways that things can go wrong if they've had severe
Speaker:trauma or they're actually someone with schizophrenia and They slip through.
Speaker:So, so those are the areas that I try, I want to try and avoid because,
Speaker:the goal is not to cause trauma during these potentially very life
Speaker:changing and healing opportunities.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And to mimic your point, dosing does seem to be really important with
Speaker:ketamine from low dose pain relief to treating to depression, even into the
Speaker:psychedelic and dissociative stages.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:With that said, is your, does HeartMind operate on intravenous, or is it nasal,
Speaker:sublingual, or does it just depend on what the patient needs at that time?
Speaker:Yeah, in, in our clinic, we're using when I say sublingual, also
Speaker:oral just because sometimes people better associate that correctly.
Speaker:But oral, in my mind, is if someone swallows the medicine versus if they
Speaker:spit it out, so you can't do a sublingual dose without having it be oral.
Speaker:And that just depends on how long, but we do offer the sublingual dosing,
Speaker:and then intramuscular injection, and also subcutaneous injection.
Speaker:We're not offering intravenous.
Speaker:And part of that is just that it means we need another person.
Speaker:It just adds more supplies, it adds some other complications.
Speaker:And I think there's not a lot of data to say that it's much better or
Speaker:it's any better than the other forms.
Speaker:I think it may just come down to if someone were treating
Speaker:a lot of suicidal patients.
Speaker:IV still may be what's best, but outside of that, it's not clear, and
Speaker:I think we can generally get great success just with the intramuscular
Speaker:subcutaneous and sublingual dosing.
Speaker:We don't use intranasal, that is the, generally the brand S ketamine, so
Speaker:the proprietary version of ketamine that pharmaceutical companies created,
Speaker:and that just generally, people use.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Just based on technique, but also their own level anatomy, or congestion.
Speaker:There is varying degrees of absorption of the medicine.
Speaker:And so, I would just say it could work.
Speaker:From my initial research, it's really expensive.
Speaker:And even if people are not paying for it, if their insurance is paying for it,
Speaker:I tend to err on the side of, we have a really inexpensive medicine that works,
Speaker:why do we need a super expensive medicine?
Speaker:That may also work, but then it's costing our whole healthcare
Speaker:system as a whole a lot more.
Speaker:And so that's one choice as to why I don't use the intramusum.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:That compared and that injunction with your thorough screening process, it
Speaker:really sounds like you have your patient's well being first and foremost in mind.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's who I am.
Speaker:I don't know if it's always the best business model because we want to
Speaker:empower people in the end to make their own choices and within reason, like
Speaker:it, we know, we found that if people do a ketamine session, And then they
Speaker:don't come back for three months, they're not going to have as likely
Speaker:much benefit as if they're coming like every few weeks or every month.
Speaker:Because we just find that the further out you get, it's almost like the thread
Speaker:gets cut and you have to start over.
Speaker:But I also don't believe in that every person should get...
Speaker:One dose a week for six weeks because some people get one dose and they
Speaker:have to integrate for six weeks.
Speaker:They're not ready for a second dose, let alone a second, third,
Speaker:fourth, fifth, sixth dose.
Speaker:So, so that's where we do try and empower people to really listen to
Speaker:the insights they've gained, really feel into the integration process
Speaker:and let us know when they're ready to schedule again, which most commonly
Speaker:is usually within two to four weeks.
Speaker:But we don't just want to force everyone into a protocol.
Speaker:No, that, that actually makes sense that it would be another one of my questions.
Speaker:Is that, is it a one dose and then like you said, a six week integration?
Speaker:Is it a dose every two weeks?
Speaker:Is it a dose like once every month for three months?
Speaker:But as I see it, it's dependent on what the patient feels comfortable
Speaker:with, how their healing journey is going, what they're getting out of
Speaker:it, how they're getting out of it.
Speaker:So I definitely understand that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And sometimes we can't predict it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I would say that there will always be an exception, but I just
Speaker:say in general, if someone is severely depressed, and they do a session,
Speaker:and maybe they get, a fraction of improvement, they may benefit from
Speaker:another treatment two or three days later.
Speaker:Maybe, and I...
Speaker:We don't always know when that neuroplastic period ends, we usually
Speaker:just speak of it as 72 hours, but if someone's having recurrent symptoms and
Speaker:severe symptoms come back very quickly, they might benefit from rapid repetition,
Speaker:but another person Might hold the effect of the ketamine for quite some time
Speaker:and that's where we're trying to just find almost like the maintenance price.
Speaker:And for some people that could be quarterly, eventually
Speaker:it could be once a year.
Speaker:Some people may never go back to it at all, it can be that they
Speaker:just moved beyond the need for it.
Speaker:So, That's where I'm always curious just to see what her journey
Speaker:is for people, because it does seem to be very individualized.
Speaker:Yeah, I like that it's individualized, and I like that there's such a heavy
Speaker:emphasis on the integration portion.
Speaker:Whenever we look at traditional Western medicine, even whenever we're
Speaker:talking about treating depression or something obviously there's
Speaker:going to be lifestyle changes, eating better, exercising more, etc.
Speaker:Hope, as long as you're listening to the general protocol for
Speaker:how to treat depression.
Speaker:But it's nice that...
Speaker:The integration portion of this is part of the ketamine portion.
Speaker:It's not one or the other, you're getting both whether you like it or not.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I would like to hear if you don't mind speaking a little bit on
Speaker:the actual mechanism of action of ketamine and the neuroplasticity.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And one, one just follow up quickly is that we do require
Speaker:integration in our clinic.
Speaker:So for an example, like if people come for a intake or a followup,
Speaker:The integration is part of the cost.
Speaker:We're not going to force, we're not going to force them to come back and
Speaker:integrate, obviously, but if they don't do that integration, then they
Speaker:can't keep doing cannabis sessions.
Speaker:So we feel it's that important that people are going to pay for it upfront.
Speaker:It's not optional.
Speaker:And it really is usually after the fact, people realize ketamine is like the
Speaker:catalyst, but the integration is probably the medicine part of the experience.
Speaker:So, right, right.
Speaker:So, as far as the mechanism there are so many medicines, I think examples where
Speaker:when you read it, it says mechanism of action is not fully understood.
Speaker:And ketamine, I think all of the psychedelics, we know a little bit
Speaker:but we know that when we use ketamine we're stimulating a certain receptor.
Speaker:And there are multiple ways we can stimulate the brain to go
Speaker:into this neuroplastic state.
Speaker:So whether we're talking about LSD or we're talking about ayahuasca or
Speaker:ketamine or psilocybin, we know we can induce these neuroplastic states.
Speaker:In people.
Speaker:So, I think that's probably the most important thing in my mind, is just
Speaker:what is it that we can do safely and in a way that doesn't create dependence,
Speaker:addiction, to get people into these changeable states more likely to change,
Speaker:and we know that just looking at the world, say, if a woman becomes pregnant,
Speaker:that Often the most likely time in that individual's life that they're going to
Speaker:make a change and it's usually not only for their own health, but for the health
Speaker:of their baby that's growing inside.
Speaker:And so I think when we talk about medicines, especially for And I'll use
Speaker:that term loosely, just medicines or therapies that create this neuroplasticity
Speaker:is how can we do it in a way that allows us to become less anxious about
Speaker:things that aren't going to harm us.
Speaker:We're not talking often life or death situations.
Speaker:It's a test or a difficult conversation or an event in our
Speaker:past that we're holding onto and we keep having negative thought loops.
Speaker:occur.
Speaker:How can we use a medicine to get us into that state of mind to become less rigid?
Speaker:And so ketamine, as this example, we know that after a ketamine experience,
Speaker:people are generally just less rigid.
Speaker:They're, whatever they believed, Before the treatment, at least for a period
Speaker:of time, they won't believe it as much.
Speaker:And that could be, I'm a bad person, I'm not lovable I can never
Speaker:grow beyond this traumatic event.
Speaker:We tell ourselves a lot of different things every day.
Speaker:But usually with the ketamine session, if we're still having that thought,
Speaker:it's just, it's the more fleeting.
Speaker:It's almost I liken it to a meditative practice when a a meditation master
Speaker:describes what Meditation, sometimes it's not that the thoughts ever
Speaker:stop, it's just that we become less attached to them and we're more easily
Speaker:able to just let them pass through.
Speaker:And so personally, my first ketamine experience and I passionately believe
Speaker:that if we're going to offer medicines, Within reason we should experience the
Speaker:same medicines, and I know this can't always work, but I think especially in
Speaker:the psychedelic realm, if we're going to be offering ketamine, we need to know
Speaker:personally what ketamine feels like and what it does, and same with psilocybin
Speaker:or MDMA so when I first experienced ketamine, it was the first time that my
Speaker:mind ever just stopped thinking Normally I have a million thoughts a day and, you
Speaker:stick me on a yoga mat or a meditation cushion and it's okay, clear your mind.
Speaker:And then 30 seconds later, I'm like going through my laundry list of my, oh
Speaker:God, I need to go to the grocery store.
Speaker:So my mind was never good at just...
Speaker:Slowing down and clearing it.
Speaker:But after ketamine, it was the first time that I ever believed it's possible.
Speaker:That it was like, oh, my mind's not racing.
Speaker:It's not thinking about a million things.
Speaker:It's just, it's there.
Speaker:I know that it's there.
Speaker:I can access it if I need it, but it's not running the show.
Speaker:And this is where sometimes I go back to that idea of heart over
Speaker:mind, or is that in our society, we tend to be overthinkers, just as a.
Speaker:A broad stroke, but personally, I know I'm definitely one of those people that can
Speaker:overthink, and I'm not living from a heart space very often but it was the first
Speaker:time that I just saw that my mind could slow down and I could be less attached to
Speaker:whatever, whatever thought loop, positive or negative, that was going on and that,
Speaker:that was no shorter than miraculous for me, it just gave me a lot of it.
Speaker:Hope, both for myself and others oh, okay we can actually...
Speaker:Teach people, not by some theory in a book, but by an experience of where
Speaker:the mind climbs, where the mind is more moldable the mind, and what, and I'm
Speaker:saying mind, but that just that someone can feel more connected to whatever that
Speaker:is, that some people have experiences of God or what Feeling more connected to
Speaker:nature, but I think ketamine can be both a unifier in just terms of how people
Speaker:think about the world, they see themselves as a part of something bigger, and they
Speaker:can break some of those obstacles that just keep them living in the world.
Speaker:Life of struggle.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:First off, thanks for sharing your first Ketamine experience.
Speaker:I, myself, I've read a lot about how ketamine works with the glutamate
Speaker:receptors as opposed to like serotonin and epi norepinephrine,
Speaker:like traditional SSRIs.
Speaker:And I think that might be a.
Speaker:Not only a pivoting point in our pharmaceutical world, I think that we're
Speaker:going to see a lot more glutamate based antidepressants in the future, not just
Speaker:ketamine, but additionally, what I like is that it promotes that neuroplasticity
Speaker:when, like you said, it allows us to break free of that negative thought
Speaker:loop or that constant narrative that kind of starts to take over your life.
Speaker:I find that there's tremendous therapeutic value in freeing yourself
Speaker:from that narrative just long enough to realize that there is a narrative, that
Speaker:there is a story going on constantly.
Speaker:So if Pedemian is able to let you break free of that and let you just observe
Speaker:that constant narrative, and I think that is the true healing potential there.
Speaker:And I really like that you're keeping the ethos alive of heart over mind.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I know we're talking primarily about ketamine today, and that's certainly
Speaker:what I'm doing the most of right now, but in Colorado I think I said that, or
Speaker:you said that, but in Denver, Colorado is where I'm located, but in Colorado, like
Speaker:Oregon, we recently passed a new law that has psilocybin becoming illegal medicine,
Speaker:and in the future, other medicines, like mescaline ibogaine, and marijuana.
Speaker:We know that there are multiple medicines that are going to help us in this realm,
Speaker:and I think it's just going to come down to how do we use them appropriately
Speaker:and therapeutically, and I don't know if we'll get to this directly, but
Speaker:my biggest concern too is just that we're also not appropriating ritual and
Speaker:sacred nature of a lot of these plant medicines from their appropriate plants.
Speaker:Original sources, indigenous peoples throughout the world and we will have
Speaker:that opportunity not only to separate the active ingredient from the plants,
Speaker:but we might also have, we will have the opportunity, whether we do it correctly
Speaker:or not is what I'm most worried about.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:If you separate the medicine experience from the land, say the original land
Speaker:or region or words or incantations or that's where I think we might lose
Speaker:the power of some of these medicines.
Speaker:Maybe not completely, but I think we might lose a lot of it.
Speaker:And there are, I was at the recent psychedelic science conference and.
Speaker:There was a legitimate protest by a few indigenous peoples there just talking
Speaker:about their own concerns of Thinking that people may get sick by using
Speaker:these medicines inappropriately and I'm not going to argue against that.
Speaker:I think that we have to tread very cautiously that we are using
Speaker:these medicines correctly and that we're getting a lot of input.
Speaker:From various people and organizations and nations and tribes such that one is
Speaker:appropriate use of some of these medicines and it may even be that some just are
Speaker:off limits, unless they're used in a sacred context of say indigenous people
Speaker:so it's it's part of the conversation here and I just wanted to bring that up
Speaker:because it's ketamine, I think we could bring You know, me, as someone who does
Speaker:not identify as Indigenous, it's, even though we've found it in nature now, we
Speaker:do know that a fungi can create ketamine.
Speaker:It's different than, say, a mushroom creating psilocybin, in that.
Speaker:Yeah and where, at least as far as we know, there's not an indigenous group
Speaker:using this other fungi that produces cannabis, but that's just one example,
Speaker:or if we create something in a lab, or we believe we've created it in the lab,
Speaker:and it doesn't exist in nature, then we It's a little bit easier as a Westerner to
Speaker:fully embrace that medicine as something I know I'm not appropriating from
Speaker:another culture, and I think, ultimately, hopefully we realize that a lot of these
Speaker:medicines overlap and there are many ways to get to that that point of healing.
Speaker:In a way that doesn't oppress any person or oppress any group of people
Speaker:or extract resources from somewhere.
Speaker:And I'm thankful that at least we're talking about it right now.
Speaker:I think for so many generations it wasn't even talked about.
Speaker:It was ignored.
Speaker:But I know we have a lot of work to do in this realm.
Speaker:But I do like the idea of using things like MDMA or ketamine.
Speaker:That we can take away a little bit of the potential controversy of the
Speaker:medicines when we start talking about peyote, mescaline, ayahuasca, and, DMT,
Speaker:and just the, we were talking about a frog, for example where we might
Speaker:be destroying not only resources, but we might creating extinct chemicals.
Speaker:Plants or animals because of demand.
Speaker:So, so those are the questions I just also think about to my own practice and
Speaker:when there were 12, 000 people at this conference in Denver two weeks ago.
Speaker:It's amazing and it's exciting and it's also a little bit scary that...
Speaker:I hope we do this right.
Speaker:I hope that...
Speaker:We do this right and we don't go back to the 60s of, backlash to make these
Speaker:medicines illegal or we don't go back really to yesterday because it's been
Speaker:still happening, but to where we're taking resources from indigenous groups.
Speaker:Yeah, I think you very well said, and I'm glad you brought that up, I was actually
Speaker:going to ask if you were, if you got to witness the protest while you were there,
Speaker:I was going to ask about your thoughts on the psychedelic science conference,
Speaker:because I did see the indigenous people there protesting, and I thought that
Speaker:they brought up a lot of good points that Plants that used to be medicines like for
Speaker:instance, we had cocaine was taken from indigenous people, cocoa was, and now we
Speaker:have cocaine issues all over the world.
Speaker:Opium was, now we have opioid addiction all over the world.
Speaker:Tobacco was, and now we have cancer all over the world caused by smoking.
Speaker:And that's an example of removing the plant, removing the culture,
Speaker:and also removing it from the plant.
Speaker:But, I think that there's many lessons to learn about not removing the plant.
Speaker:Medicine from the plant, from the culture, being able to preserve the plant or
Speaker:the animal, and preserve the culture at large, because the protester said,
Speaker:they're being tokenized and just sprinkled into this renaissance, and that's not
Speaker:right, because this is something that they've had for thousands of years.
Speaker:They know this realm more than anyone else.
Speaker:So, I respect what you're doing and Staying safe by working with ketamine
Speaker:working with something that you're able to explore, something that Western
Speaker:culture is more likely to embrace.
Speaker:Maybe that's why we see things like MDMA and ketamine gaining a little bit more
Speaker:traction is because they do have a more, they adhere better to the framework that
Speaker:we have here in Western pharmaceuticals.
Speaker:So I think that's a huge portion of it, but also because we're not
Speaker:trampling on any cultures or anything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah and this is a, maybe a podcast for another day, but how
Speaker:do we create more opportunities?
Speaker:And I don't even know if this would be something that there's demand for,
Speaker:but I imagine with so much change historically with moving Indigenous
Speaker:peoples off of their proper lands, if we have someone say living in Denver,
Speaker:And they identify as as a group that is hundreds of miles away normally
Speaker:if they're on their original land.
Speaker:Could they also be accessing a medicine?
Speaker:Would they want to access a medicine like ketamine?
Speaker:Even though their preferred medicine might be peyote.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:I'm certainly curious about how do we potentially work together.
Speaker:I know there are a lot of indigenous peoples who don't believe that
Speaker:any sacred medicine like peyote or ayahuasca should be offered to
Speaker:anyone who's not an indigenous.
Speaker:And I'm not gonna, I'm not going to be the one to argue that, these are
Speaker:valid points because how do we know.
Speaker:I know personally, I've been invited to ceremony and felt honored that I would
Speaker:be invited and I tried to just, with the utmost respect, take the medicine
Speaker:that was offered to me and partake in the celebrations and the rituals and
Speaker:such and know that's might be accessible for me in the future, but by invitation
Speaker:only, where it's not for me to go out and harvest a cacti to do on my own.
Speaker:But that's my own personal belief.
Speaker:And I just hope that we can continue these conversations to figure out
Speaker:well, how can people who may not have access to a medicine man or woman
Speaker:that can hold a all night ceremony.
Speaker:For someone who's in, in the middle of an urban setting or such, so, so
Speaker:logistically, I just think about these things too, is how do we make all of these
Speaker:medicines more available to more people in a way that's, is safe and also respectful?
Speaker:And that's where we are, where really the a point with many
Speaker:paths, and I hope beyond hope that we're all going down those paths.
Speaker:With similar intentions.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean you've def we've had a little bit of time now that it's after the
Speaker:psychedelic science conference to really decompress and reflect on all of it.
Speaker:And I think what you said was exactly right, that it's exciting,
Speaker:it's awesome, it's innovative, it's but also, it's incredibly scary.
Speaker:Cause we need to do we only get one chance to do this right.
Speaker:Obviously we've not done great with cannabis.
Speaker:Not done great with tobacco or any other Either medicinal plant, mind altering
Speaker:substance, anything from the native people, even their land, for God's sake.
Speaker:We've messed up all those things.
Speaker:So, I am very hopeful that with all like minded, forward thinking
Speaker:people, that we really do have a chance to do this correctly.
Speaker:Yeah, me too.
Speaker:So I know we've been talking about ketamine for quite a bit but I know
Speaker:you utilize other modalities like sound therapy and brain mapping.
Speaker:I'm not too familiar with those, so I'd love to hear a little bit about them.
Speaker:Yeah, so the,
Speaker:the brain mapping essentially It's another way to speak of like the
Speaker:EEG, the electroencephalogram.
Speaker:So we often hear of the EKG, which is the, like the German spelling
Speaker:with the K, but then we have the ECG, which is the Western spelling.
Speaker:But the electrocardiogram, how we can monitor basically the electricity of the.
Speaker:And then we have an EEG, the electroencephalogram, where we
Speaker:can measure the electricity of the brain in different regions of
Speaker:the brain through using different electrodes in different locations.
Speaker:So when we talk about a brain map, we're talking about an EEG or a QEEG because
Speaker:they're not quite as expansive as if you go into a neurology office and you do an
Speaker:EEG but they give us an incredible amount of information, different regions of the
Speaker:brain, regions that we know can be be more likely to be hot or cold depending
Speaker:on underactivity, overactivity balance state that might also lead to things
Speaker:like obsessive compulsive behaviors or
Speaker:anxiety or depression or
Speaker:trauma.
Speaker:So it's quite amazing and fascinating to sit with someone who's trained
Speaker:how to read these things to just.
Speaker:Because it's almost like fortune telling, like I've heard of a
Speaker:very experienced therapist, who when she's worked with clients.
Speaker:She's been referred to almost as if she's a magician, or almost as if she's
Speaker:a conduit to, in this case, this example they were referring to her as if she
Speaker:were talking to their god, that's how powerful it can be just to read these
Speaker:with some level of ability to predict oh, well, you probably have a hard time
Speaker:concentrating, or It appears that there's been a traumatic event in your past at a
Speaker:major level and so at that level, it can be very helpful if you're, if you have
Speaker:a preliminary brain map, and then you do another modality such as neurofeedback,
Speaker:or it could also be, in my mind, intensive therapy, psychedelic therapy.
Speaker:And then we can look at the brain map later to see that there's
Speaker:changes that have been made.
Speaker:And so we just know that whether we're talking about alpha waves or beta waves or
Speaker:delta waves, we can see certain patterns and certain regions of the brain that
Speaker:might make it harder for people to sleep.
Speaker:And so how, when I describe it and purists may have a different way to
Speaker:do this, but if I just think of, say, biofeedback, how do we learn, how does
Speaker:our body learn from getting feedback?
Speaker:And there, there are many different biofeedback mechanisms out there,
Speaker:some for training us to hold urine appropriately and not be incontinent.
Speaker:Or that's one example when I first learned that biofeedback was in a gynecologist's
Speaker:office during my training and the women in this case were learning how to basically
Speaker:strengthen certain muscles by seeing feedback on the screen as to when they
Speaker:were appropriately contracting the muscle.
Speaker:So now when we go to a brain level, biofeedback, the name changes to nerve.
Speaker:But we can teach ourself, teach our own brain, by visual stimuli.
Speaker:And that's the most commonly used one, but you can also do it through sound.
Speaker:And it, and then these types of modalities.
Speaker:overlap with sound therapy protocols, excuse me such as, and you talked
Speaker:about this, what's the difference between a sound bath or a sound healing
Speaker:or a gong bath they've been called?
Speaker:And I've been to those in the past at yoga studios and frankly there
Speaker:may not be anything different.
Speaker:There's, there may be healing going on at the same level with different frequencies
Speaker:of this instrument or this gong, but where the research has been done.
Speaker:is when we take music and we filter it, essentially removing certain frequencies.
Speaker:We have some level of research that we can change the nervous tone in our body.
Speaker:We can downregulate the nervous system.
Speaker:We can stimulate the vagus nerve.
Speaker:There's a lot of talk out there about polyvagal theory.
Speaker:And so we know that some of these sound therapy protocols can be helpful for.
Speaker:Optimizing mental function or performance.
Speaker:There can be some protocols that help people who have
Speaker:sensory processing challenges.
Speaker:Often called sensory processing disorder, or being a little bit more
Speaker:accepting that we're all different, sensory processing differences,
Speaker:or someone who's neurodivergent.
Speaker:We do have protocols that have been shown to help people on the autism,
Speaker:basically the autism ASD, the spectrum and, or they have attention challenges,
Speaker:or they are anxious or depressed.
Speaker:So there's.
Speaker:There's some interesting protocol, or trial, there are some interesting
Speaker:protocols that, that we've seen can help, helpful, and, ultimately we
Speaker:just have to see more sorry, let me turn that off, we'll see more people,
Speaker:hopefully more research, and more, both anecdotal evidence, but also more
Speaker:scientific research studies to look at.
Speaker:How can we use visual stimuli and or neurofeedback and or sound therapy,
Speaker:different types of filters for frequencies to, to help us feel better?
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's that's really amazing.
Speaker:It's really high level, almost i science fiction type stuff.
Speaker:But I think of is.
Speaker:Forgive me if this is out there.
Speaker:I can feel that I'm going to lose a hundred listeners just by saying this.
Speaker:I...
Speaker:You'll gain 200 more.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I'm thinking of how we have deep roots of intelligence agencies in
Speaker:Hollywood that have used their, the different observational techniques
Speaker:using like psychedelics or informed...
Speaker:Informed interrogation techniques to find out how to use media to stimulate
Speaker:or facilitate or even catalyze certain states of consciousness.
Speaker:Be at that state of consciousness, be like, crap, I'm scared as heck
Speaker:of this horror movie, or I'm very hungry and I need to go buy something
Speaker:at this commercial right now.
Speaker:These are real tactics that are really being used in media all the time so
Speaker:it's really nice that you're Flipping the switch and using those same sort of
Speaker:tactics in ways like I would consider neurofeedback a similar form of that
Speaker:in ways to actually help people in ways to rebuild the pathways that have been
Speaker:harmed by our society, by being a human and the human condition as a whole.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, and I think to go off of your example there, if we're
Speaker:talking about Hollywood, I.
Speaker:I was considering adding another type of neurofeedback in the clinic.
Speaker:We were trained and what we were using was the infraload frequencies.
Speaker:That's not as common as some of the other neurofeedback devices.
Speaker:And I was going to experience this other form of neurofeedback.
Speaker:And even though we did it also, the Inferlo form, but because it was
Speaker:me doing it daily for a while oh, I should say once a week for one, one
Speaker:day a week, I think I did for many weeks when I was watching movies.
Speaker:And so, I'm trying to think.
Speaker:I'm sure some of the movies were high quality and others weren't so much but
Speaker:the idea is that I was simply watching and what was being fed back to me,
Speaker:though, was different frequencies based on how the image presented itself.
Speaker:How the sound changed a little bit and yeah what if we went to watch, a Marvel
Speaker:movie, but the whole time we're getting neurofeedback could we also potentially
Speaker:be giving mass therapy to people?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know if that's what Hollywood wants or what a, what corporate executives
Speaker:want, maybe they want people to.
Speaker:Notice the cola that's on this, that's being placed in the movie, or the type of
Speaker:cigarettes that someone's smoking, but...
Speaker:But yeah, I think we could use similar psychological strategies for good even
Speaker:though we've learned about a lot of them in the past, using them for bad
Speaker:purposes or questionable purposes.
Speaker:Well, I'm glad to have you, Dr.
Speaker:Jaster, on the side of good, thank God.
Speaker:With that said, where can listeners find you online and
Speaker:what are you working on next?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, my, the easiest way to reach out to me, I tell people, is just my website,
Speaker:HeartMindMedicine, so it's the three words, heart, mind, m i n d, and medicine.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:And there's a form there that if you complete that basic
Speaker:form it'll directly email me.
Speaker:Right now there's no one else answering those emails, so, so
Speaker:you'll hear from me pretty promptly.
Speaker:There's also a phone number on there if people prefer a phone.
Speaker:And then, yeah, what I'm working on it's an interesting time
Speaker:coming out of that conference.
Speaker:My personal critique is that there was so much information, but very little
Speaker:bit, very little of it was done in depth, like I would have preferred
Speaker:to have half as many choices, but twice as much time for each content.
Speaker:And the good news is that there are a lot of people out there that
Speaker:I believe, are doing this because they see the healing potential.
Speaker:We can get conflicted depending on perhaps how large our profit motive is.
Speaker:And maybe whether we're trying to patent a part of a plant that's been
Speaker:used by a certain indigenous group for thousands and thousands of years.
Speaker:I think that's where the uncertain edges are, but in general, there are a lot of
Speaker:people doing a lot of fascinating things.
Speaker:And personally, I'm feeling some pull towards working with psychedelics
Speaker:and I'm just using that globally.
Speaker:Bye.
Speaker:Psychedelics for end of life support and I don't know, I don't know if that
Speaker:would go anywhere right now but it's what tends to be pulling my attention a
Speaker:little bit, so generally I'll spend enough time investing in that and researching
Speaker:that and networking just to figure out whether that's a good area to enter into.
Speaker:I tend to be drawn into areas where a lot of other people aren't already doing it.
Speaker:So, I might see myself as just meandering down a lazy river for a little bit
Speaker:and wondering which direction I go.
Speaker:But I see a lot of power for healing, of generational trauma ancestral
Speaker:burdens is another way to say it.
Speaker:If we can be using these medicines, I think at another time in people's
Speaker:lives where they are more amenable to healing and resolution and
Speaker:peace and I can just see a huge power of helping people die well.
Speaker:and helping the family members around people to gain healing
Speaker:in that process and some peace.
Speaker:So, so I, that's where I'm hoping to, just keep going and maybe those
Speaker:doors will close and others will open.
Speaker:That's what's drawing my attention right now, but beyond that, I think
Speaker:how do we create more accessible, meaning affordable, psychedelic medicine
Speaker:therapies because the people that need it most, and I would say just from a
Speaker:point of view of resources and people living in poverty and people living
Speaker:with trauma, those are generally just going to keep cycling for generations.
Speaker:So, I would love to just figure out a way to also have a non profit, or work with
Speaker:non profits, or work with employer based insurance, or federal insurance to make
Speaker:sure that these medicines are available to people no matter where they are.
Speaker:Well, thank you so much for coming on to Plant Saved My Life today, and I agree
Speaker:with you wholeheartedly, I really think that these do harness the power, not only
Speaker:to heal generational trauma, but to heal individuals And heal communities too.
Speaker:So I just want to thank you for doing the great work out there, Dr.
Speaker:Jaster, and thanks for being on the podcast today.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:It's been a great pleasure to chat.
Speaker:Okay, so that is all we have for today, everybody.
Speaker:That was Dr.
Speaker:Brent Jaster of HeartMindMedicine.
Speaker:You can find more of his work at heartmindmedicine.
Speaker:com, located down in the show notes.
Speaker:I'm your host, Raven, and I thank you very much for tuning in to this
Speaker:week's episode of HeartMindMedicine.
Speaker:If you enjoyed this conversation, I encourage you to share it with someone
Speaker:else who you know would enjoy it.
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Speaker:to go ahead and give the show a five star rating on your favorite platform.
Speaker:That helps us spread the love far and wide.
Speaker:Thank you again for listening.
Speaker:For any questions, comments, and community, feel free to connect with us on
Speaker:the miscellaneous social media platforms.
Speaker:Until next time everyone, have a beautiful week.
