Dana Frost: Yeah. That's a great question. And I think it's something that we're always thinking about, right? I remember it was probably eight years ago, Claudia. I was trying to do a stress management workshop and I will tell you no one was interested.

didn't, people didn't wanna talk about stress they wanted to talk about things that appeared to be happy things . And I found that to be so interesting. I was coming out of a decade of stress in my own life and [00:01:00] I thought we all need this. I needed it. And so I just put that workshop on the back burner and now it really is a topic that people are interested in because I think that with the pandemic, with the global pandemic, Claudia, I feel like the veil was removed from our eyes in terms of, How we were pre pandemic, the roller coaster that we were on the fast paced, go.
And when we had to stop and we had to retreat, we, our nervous system did a, she was, it was shaken up and we could see that even though it was hard. We could see that, that fast pace that we were on, it was never really sustainable. I really appreciate that we are all really looking for stress management tools, because it's all, I feel it in my own life, it's all it's ramping up again.

And the social gatherings are coming back. The [00:02:00] work commitments, people are going back to work, even though I work from home, everything is ramping up tra I'm like I'm traveling to Europe in a few weeks. things are happening again. . And so I think if we can move into whatever the new is, I don't think that there's ever really a normal, but whatever the new is, if we can move into that with some thoughtfulness and I guess that's where I would start really, when it comes to stress management is we have to just be aware.

So if I talk about, , what I do with my clients and what I learn to do in my own training, and for myself, it really was bringing awareness. How am I feeling in this moment? And how's the body responding because the body, it really is our compass. It will speak to us. So first we really, we have to understand what is the weight or what is the load of stress on our body and how is our body responding?
Cause if we can [00:03:00] tune into that and it really just starts with, if we can just take a moment of quiet and what's happening in our body physiologically, how is our breath? Where do we, the way that I teach the body speaks to us is through constriction. It's actually through the muscle responses and the way the breath is flowing and wherever we find constriction, it's the body telling us that, Hey, pay attention.

I need, I'm feeling if we're constricted at some level, we feel. So I really start with just awareness, bring some awareness to how you're actually feeling about any situation. And there are so many deep layers to this. I have found once, once you think you have it figured out, you realize, oh, there's another layer of stress that I'm feeling you're smiling.
So I'm, I think that you can relate to this

Claudia von Boeselager: totally as well. And I there's an expression. I love that. The more, the more you realize [00:04:00] how little, this yes, totally applies to this as well. Can you talk about that sort of awareness and in a little bit more detail, perhaps for people unfamiliar, what is that, what do you recommend?

Is it eyes closed? Is it breathing into, or is it doing a body scan? What are the different methodologies you recommend?

Dana Frost: Yeah. You okay. Really, I would love to share. Where I start. And honestly, it was my very first coaching tool when I did my life coach training in 2006, with Dr. Martha Beck.

And it's called the body compass . So the Bo if you can just tune in to your body and you can think about the most stressful time in your life, as long as it's not super triggering, but if you can access, when are the times in your life where you felt really stressed? I can immediately go to a decade of my life.

I can go to a period. When my parents separated, when I was launching into college, I can go to a postpartum experience, postpartum depression experience, and I can go to this decade of stress I had after we adopted two children. . So you [00:05:00] go to those periods of time when you felt stress, what were your physiological symptoms?

 not. How did you think about it? Not even, how did you emotionally feel? Because those, the thoughts. Even though our thoughts actually do determine the feelings and then the feelings can become the energy and then get stuck in the body. But the body it's just responding as an animal responds.

It's how the human responds, the body responds takes in the information. So if you can go to those periods of time when you have stress, so what are the symptoms like for me, I get herpes, my shoulders get really tense. My breath becomes shallow. Those are really the main, my, I can feel it in my face will feel tension in my face, especially

Claudia von Boeselager: around the right as well.
Yeah.

Dana Frost: Yeah. And yeah, the job, my, my smile doesn't feel. It feels a little bit forced. It doesn't feel like as flowing and natural. Yeah. Those are some of the things, but always [00:06:00] that herpes is one of the big symptoms. And then when I had this decade of stress, I was in the emergency room several times for a cough that could not be diagnosed.

Which is the vagus nerve it's, my nervous system was just, wired and yeah. And, , fatigue is a way the body will speak to us, either feeling wired or really tired. Those are some of the things, those are some of my personal symptoms. So think about each listener. What are some of the ways your body responds physiologically during stress?

And then think about the times in your life when things were. The best times in your life. . How did your body speak to you in the best times of your life? How did you feel again? Not how did you think and not where your feelings but physiologically. How does that feel? How did you feel in your body?

For me? I feel strong. I stand up with, I just, I feel confident. Like my whole, my spine is just woo it's erect. Yeah. My head is held high. My shoulders are [00:07:00] back. I feel at peace when I'm, just lounging and sitting and working the breath flows really want to tap into what, how does your body communicate with you?

That's first, that's like the very first way to start approaching stress. And then we move into the next thing I bring my clients to. And I've heard this on your podcast is the. The breath is so powerful. We know. My, my deep study in terms of breath techniques is through the Institute of heart math.
Have you heard of heart math? Claudia?

Claudia von Boeselager: Not since I wasn't looking at reviewing your details, so maybe you can share from my audience one more about heart math.
Dana Frost: Yeah. So heart map is a research Institute in California. They've been researching heart rate variability and how that impacts how the breathing patterns can impact heart rate variability and heart rate variability is actually regulated, through the vagus nerve.

And so [00:08:00] the vagus nerve travels, , we VA nervous travels from the brain. It goes through, it goes to the spine. It stops in the heart, goes in, the heart, goes through all the organs goes in the stomach and then it travels back. And , it's sending informa it's the information highway internally of the nervous system.
And so the heart, what heart math has discovered through their research, the heart is a powerful communicator through heart rate variability, which is the uptick and the downtick of your heart rate. It's what you see when you look at your electrocardiogram. So my. Why, how did I discover heart math is because I had this very serious health crisis that ended with a pacemaker implant.

Wow. Because I burned out my electrical conduction in my heart. It literally just doesn't work. It will pace maybe one to 3% of the time if I don't have the pacemaker . So it really , took when I had that health crisis and I had the pacemaker [00:09:00] implanted. I still felt tired. I was told by my electrophysiologist, you will feel like you're old self again, but I didn't, I was still really tired.

And so there, that was that deeper discovery. There was something else going on. So let me just go back to heart math as I, interlude with that personal story. So heart math has created, they have different iterations of devices. The one I really love is the latest and it's called inner balance and it connects through Bluetooth.
 Connects to Bluetooth. You have an app and it teaches you how to use their breathing techniques to moderate your heart rate variability. So we want that. what that tells us if our heart rate variability is strong. So if there's great distance between the down and the up and it is regular.

So you want your heart rate variability to be. To have great distance between the bottom and the high, and you want it to [00:10:00] be regular. And if that's the case, your breathing has a regular pattern and you can use the breathing techniques. I don't really use the device anymore unless I'm working with a client and teaching them how to use it.

Because once you learn you really, I wanna bring people to feeling in their body. We really, if we can go back to our true nature, Claudia, we really don't need the external things are wonderful and we love them, but we really don't need them because everything we need for stress management actually it's built into our system.

 That's the beauty of the human design, but because of the modern world, , we need these things. They teach us a lot and they help us to connect to. Our internal systems. . So with heart math, , these breathing techniques, the very first one that, and, you don't need the device to learn the breathing techniques.

 , you're, it's a visualization. You're inhaling. You're imagining the inhale and Excel to flow to and from the heart [00:11:00] center. So we'll just invite the audience to do that with us. Visualize the inhale and Excel to flow to. And from the heart center, you can do this when your heart math always says, you don't have to make this mysterious.

I find with clients it's really helpful to close the eyes down as you're learning, just because it helps us to see inward you're inhaling and exhaling, visualizing it flow to and from the heart center.

And you notice right away, the system begins to calm and then we'll invite the feeling of inner ease. Inhaling and exhaling from the heart center, with the feeling of inner ease

and notice right away, all of us can grasp what inner ease feels like, how that shifts in the body, the breath goes physically [00:12:00] deeper. So you have inhaling and exhaling from the heart center with the feeling of inner ease. Those are like the two very basic techniques from heart math that have the capacity to move us out, a fight and flight.

So we really wanna neutralize when we have stress, the nervous system is in it's, then either freeze flight or flight it's dysregulated, and we wanna know how can we neutralize that? And it really doesn't have to be it as it is as simple as going to your breath. Inhaling and ex telling, visualizing, and just connecting to yourself, calming that right there.
It calms the thoughts, but

Claudia von Boeselager:4 I love that as well. Like the embodiment as well. And, Dr. Mark Atkinson, I'm not sure if you're familiar with his work as well, but he calls it, being in the mind is like in the cave and if you drop into the body, it's like being in the ocean, it's just so much [00:13:00] more wise and there's so much wisdom there.
And one, he also recommends is like lightly smiling and relaxing the tongue, which also helps with the vagus nerve. So I think just that, that breathing and I personally as well have been, had to really work on my breathing because of bad habit for many years. And I think this is also many women, is this sort of.

Ribs tight, shallow breathing from the top part of your lungs. And if you think about how badly you breathe and if you even watch like a baby breath, I think is beautiful, you just see the whole belly, like completely inflating. And I think for so many people just even to check in with that, like how do

Dana Frost: you breathe?
 Do you breathe into your

Claudia von Boeselager: DIAP Fromm into your belly? Like this big sort of Buddha belly or inflating a balloon in your belly. And even just retraining that. And that was really tough for me because I, it was just such a habit to be breathe badly. So breath is so powerful, like you were saying.
Yeah.

Dana Frost: That was really, before I was introduced to heart math actually was before I had my health crisis. I was studying the work of Dr. [00:14:00] Andrew Wise and the he's a functional nutrition, integrative, medical doctor in the us. Who's done a lot of work on integrative holistic healing and. Through his work.

I started retraining my breathing pattern because if you remember, I talked about that cough and I did have some cranial SACL work that helped with the cough that really took it. It really actually took it away, but my breathing was still dysregulated. And so physically, when we talk about heart map, it's that visualization, inhaling and exhaling.

You're imagining when we talk about physically, where do you want the breath to do? There are four qualities from Dr. Andrew Wild's book. It's deep. So you get the Budha belly. It's quiet. So if you think about. If you're sitting next to someone and you can hear their breath it, it's disturbing I'm

Claudia von Boeselager: doing it, right?
Yeah, exactly. Or they have it's disturbing

Dana Frost: issues. Yeah. Yeah. Or you could maybe have actually some physical [00:15:00] issue with your sinuses so we want it to be quiet. We want it to be regular. And this, that regular is what I was talking about with heart rate variability, the regular breath. Moderates the heart rate variability.

So you want your inhaling Excel to be roughly the same and you want it to be the deep slow. That's the fourth one deep, slow, quiet, regular. So we, this just makes sense, right? A quick breath. We need the quick breath we're running. We're we fight and fight is a real thing we need this stress response.

It actually is. Yeah. Yeah but every day breathing pattern, we want it to be slow. So this is another like very powerful stress management tool is to begin. As you said, you had to retrain your breath. I did too. We, we're taught in our education system that the breath is a part of the autonomic nervous system.

And you don't need to think about it. But okay. We all have trauma and at some point the trauma put us in fight and we just get stuck there.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, [00:16:00] exactly. And I think, , yes, you automatically breathe to survive, it's a, and I also, the audience of this podcast, all about optimizing, right?

Like who wants to live in the basic state when you can live in an optimized state and live really well. Yes. And as you said, it's a free tool. , it's so powerful and you can do it anywhere, any time, even sitting at your desk. And it's just that. Taking two, three minutes and just reentering rebalancing.

And I there's an expression. I'm gonna butcher it, but it's like when you think you don't have time to take a few minutes to meditate or to breathe, that's when you definitely need to do it.

Dana Frost: yes, I agree. That's yes, that's really beautiful. I was thinking about another because there are so many heart math techniques, and since we're talking about stress today, I would love to share.

And it's actually a framework that they have for thinking about our emotional experiences. This was very powerful for me to learn. If you just visualize a quad, a piece of paper with a quadrant and it's, , it's, cut into a cross. So you've got four [00:17:00] quadrants and in the upper quadrant, those two quadrants, those that's a sympathetic nervous system.

 So that's when your heart rate is actually elevated and your, you can think your foot is on the gas of the car, so you're speeding up. The bottom quadrant. It's the parasympathetic. So things are slowing down. You've got your foot on the brake. We need both of those. We need, they're built into our nervous system because they're powerful.

That's how we, can have our way in the world. . If we look at the left side of the grid, those two quadrants are depleting. The right side of the grid, they're fueling . And if we look at the horizontal part of the grid represents the hormones that get released with different emotional experiences we have.

So this is how the body works. We have an emotional experience, a cascade of hormones are released, along that cascade of hormones, some are depleting and some are fueling. So if you think about [00:18:00] your emo, like where are you today? Emotionally? Are you in the upper left quadrant where your heart rate is elevated and those feelings are depleting?

 This was my case, rage, anger, frustration or the lower quadrant on the depletion side would be, could be sadness. Depression could be grief. Maybe you have the loss of a loved one or the loss of a job. I think in the pandemic, a lot of us were in that lower left hand side of the grid. If we go to the fueling side of the grid on the upper quadrant, those are emotions that increase the heart rate, thrill, excitement.
 Love is both, some emotions are on upper and lower joy exaltation appreciation. The lower would be peace, calm. Maybe gratitude. And if you just think about, you can think about your emotional experience from a day, a snapshot, you can think about it from I had to really think, oh, I've had a decade of being in the depletion.
No wonder I have [00:19:00] adrenal fatigue.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. I had it too. I, no, I went through many years of issues as well. It was almost hospitalized. So I know all about chronic fatigue and adrenal fatigue and doctors looking like, how is this possible? You don't look like this. The inside is not reflecting what's on the outside.
Yeah. Or vice versa. Yeah. That's very

Dana Frost: true. Some people are really surprised when they hear the full scope of my health crisis because I didn't present to other people that way. Yeah. , so if you think about your emotional experience and if to be human is to be, have all those emotions

we. This is the beauty of the human experience. It's really when we are spend lots of time on the depletion side, that it wears in our tissue, in our body, in the whole mind body system. So how do we move to neutrality or to, fueling the system and heart math has actually proven that simply using their tools.

 It really helps move the [00:20:00] nervous system. Now we know we need, there are many different ways to, fuel ourselves when we've been depleted. But specifically speaking of heart math tools, they've proven scientifically that using these breathing techniques, whether it's heart focused breathing, which was that imagining the inhaler neck, cell flow two, and from the heart center, the inner east technique, another really powerful one is to have.

An experience that from your life story where you had a, an emotional response, that was from the fueling side of the grid. So off the top of my head, I remember when my oldest daughter graduated from college, it was just such a big deal. Like I felt so much pride as a mom. And I use that.

I use that experience really for a couple years. You just wanna have something that's just like right there. It's just so real and you bring that memory up. You're inhaling Excel [00:21:00] from the heart center, and you're remembering everything from a sensorial, perspective and that feeling state, how you felt at that time in your life.

And you allow that memory to flow to, and from your heart center that literally moved your nervous system. over to the fueling side. If you're deplete, if you're in depletion,

Claudia von Boeselager: so instantaneous as well. It's almost recommending people listening to jot down like some of these and have them on hand at any given time,

Dana Frost: right?
Yes. So I do recommend my clients have one ready, one memory ready that you can use. It's just, it's really a powerful practice. And it, we know how powerful the mind is. So I think when we are in a period of depletion, let's say we've lost a loved one. That there's so much grief and it's we need to feel all of that and we need to move through it.

But what I had to learn to do is. Put [00:22:00] the stress on a shelf for a period of time, whatever I was, whatever I was going through. Put it on a shelf. There was, I went through this really intense marriage crisis. And I, at that time, I actually had all these tools and I proved they work.

When you feel like your world has there's been an earthquake . Yeah, because at that point in my life, I had all these tools. I had gone through my health crisis. I was really practiced with heart math. And it really worked. I was able to move through something that felt like my world had experienced this deep FISURE and continued to have my way.
I never, I was, yes. I felt everything but I could move through it without being drowned by it.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. and that's part of the human experience. If you ask me, I dunno how familiar you are with Joseph Campbell's hero's journey as well. And I think when you shift the interpretation of like, [00:23:00] why is this happening to me instead of this is happening for me?

 What can I learn from this? How is this making me stronger? Changing those questions, shifts the mindset from this sort of victim and poor me and negativity into this more empowering one as well. And I've through divorce and like health issues and everything as well.

So , I know all about these and I think it's so powerful to have these tools. And that's why I'm so delighted to have you on to share these with my audience as well, because no matter how stressful the situation, big or small, just knowing that there are these tools that it's not, that you have to have a certain gadget with you or something like that.

Like it's the body it's us. It's the biggest gift that we have. And it's just so powerful as well. That's such a beautiful story. Dana, thank you for sharing.

Dana Frost: You're welcome. Yeah, I love talking about it because it, I know it's a game changer for people.

Claudia von Boeselager: And so I'd like to move on with restoring energy levels.
So we were talking about breath, but what are some other strategies that you [00:24:00] recommend for getting up to high energy levels, especially coming out of burnout or maybe very, difficult situations.

Dana Frost: Yeah. So I firmly believe that you need to slow down. And I resisted this Claudia when I was having adrenal fatigue.
It took . Yeah. Yeah. Because we are high functioning people and I'm sure that if you're listeners longevity, they're optimizers, they're high functioning people. We underestimate the power of rest. And if you want to get to the time, if you wanna get to, if you wanna replenish. the body only replenishes when it is resting
And you need a, you need to really look at your sleep hygiene. So that the times when you are, sleeping, your body is actually able to restore itself and if we, we talk about food is another optimizer. I really, people whose systems are depleted, they actually need a high quality [00:25:00] from, this is just my framework, animal protein, animal fish, protein.

When your system is really depleted, there are so many amino acids you really can't get from a plant world. And I, it's just what I've, it's just what I've found with myself and with clients to, bolster your system with some really good protein. It's the building blocks of the human body.

 So if we talk about that's really important from a food perspective, being properly hydrated with a good source of water, I think making sure you have the right combination of minerals activated in your system. You may need to have, a professional to help you figure out what's your mineral profile.

Yep. And really understand what's your cortisol profile. So sometimes we really do need some hard data. To know where are we and what do we need? Like last year I was, I had almost no zinc and my glutathione levels were very low . And so I, started optimizing, actually with the technology, [00:26:00] I'm a patch technology that not for the zinc, but, for glutathione, with a patch technology that, Creates biological shifts in your body so that your body has jump started to produce its own Glu

But so you may need to get some data on what's going on with your, with everything in your body, the chemicals, the blood, everything in your body. Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Highly recommend that as well, because I think if you don't know what your baseline is, and even if you're feeling well, and I highly recommend that it's also from a functional medicine perspective, right?

Because that normal range that doctors are currently trained under is based on a white male in the sixties. And it's do you represent that person? And do you wanna be on the lower end of that range because is that optimal for you or not? And that's what I love functional medicine, because it looks at the holistic view and then you specifically, and what you would need and where your markers should be as well and optimizes for them.

And the difference is really incredible. And I think it's also so important,

Dana Frost: like you were

Claudia von Boeselager: saying, there could be just one thing, vitamin D or zinc or [00:27:00] something that, or magnesium, like the impact and the amount of people that have low levels and they start taking supplements. And within a week or two, they already feel completely different.

And without having that data without being able to analyze it, it's just so P paramount and then, gut health is a huge role. They say the gut is the second brain, I think people go through and they're, just taking, multivitamin, they're like, oh, I'm taking everything I need, a, the quality of the multivitamins, probably not where it should be B it's like, how's your diet sleep, et cetera.

So there's other lifestyle things. But I think that having that data and doing those tests, and yes, it, some of them do cost, but, does it, that's I, I think like your health tax because it allows you to be really healthy versus going down that medication route and the huge cost that entails as well.

So , that's a pretty good point about testing and the importance of

Dana Frost: that. . Yeah. And I echo your, I agree with you what you said about the gut. I think that is the other thing you really, if you are truly depleted, you need to know what's going on, in your gut, you really do so that you can have, there are times when we [00:28:00] need to have, I I've learned this in my own life.

The times when I've really move forward is when I've had somebody beside me helping me. and create, helping me create a strategy, even, , even for myself, with all my training, I actually still want another set of eyes on, on my labs, on my work. So yeah, I think, in terms of just moving from depletion to renewal, you really do wanna look at data and you wanna have a STR a very clear strategy.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. Let's talk about aromatherapy. So some people just know it as the aroma therapy for massage, and it's just this relaxing thing, but you have another philosophy or a stronger philosophy in terms of, aroma therapy. Can you talk a bit about it?

Dana Frost: Yeah, I was first, I've always been really interested in smell even, I can remember as a child being interested in smell and I've always been into [00:29:00] candles and perfume and everything.

 But it was after I was a coach and I don't know where, but somewhere I was reading about essential oils and I learned that, when we use our sense of smell, we're tapping into the limbic part of our brain, which is the impetus between behaviors, memories, and motivation. . And I was like a light bulb went off and I was like, oh my goodness.

If I use essential oils for myself and with my appliance, when they're in these dealing with life transitions, big issues in life, how powerful is that if we bring in essential oils , and the sensory sense of smell . So that, that started that. And as I, engaged with it, I realized this is these plants, these essential oils, aromatherapy, they come from nature.

And how [00:30:00] powerful is that to use something? It's something from nature in our healing journey, the body re recognizes like, and so if we think about healing and we use nature as a part of our healing journey, the body easily recognizes it. And responds to it. We don't always respond to pharmaceuticals and there, why do we have all the, there are side effects to herbal medicine and herbs and plants and stuff.

Essential oils are delivered. Aromatherapy is delivered in such a gentle way that unless you have, there are some genetic, coding that actually the sense of smell, there are some like real specifics for people who have some issues in that way, that's a deterrent, but for most of us using the sense of smell, and if we're just doing it from the aroma therapy, from the smell perspective, there are no side effects and it actually does shift things internally.[00:31:00]

If we put them on our skin, the skin is the largest organ. The skin absorbs them and also creates biological changes. It's just so it's such a powerful healing modality that is gentle. That's why I love it.

Claudia von Boeselager: Can you give some examples of different essential oils that you recommend? Obviously everybody's different, but just in general.
Dana Frost: Yeah. Yes, I would love to. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring up lavender. Everybody knows about lavender, but what they might not know about lavender is that it makes you more productive. And this is a study that comes out of Japan, fusing lavender in, in an, I don't know which office, but in, in Japan, in an office, it increased productivity.

Why? Because it calms the nervous system. So if you think about your most creative, we are most creative in the nervous system is harmonious and lavender brings that harmony to the nervous system. So [00:32:00] I think that I love that one because it's no, we don't think about it. We think, oh, lavender's going to chill.
, I'm gonna get chilled out with lavender. I go to sleep with lavender. Yes. You can still chill out with lavender, but actually if use it during the day, it has this effect of making you more productive. I like to layer it in my aromatherapy diffuser I like to layer it with a citrus because citrus has, it brings happiness it brings an uplift to the system.

It brings vitality. So if you combine lavender with this citrus oil, it has really a very powerful effect in terms of you just honestly try it. It's it is just really interesting how it really brings this, mood, this very vibrant mood I can imagine. I really like to recommend also to put drops of, citrus soil in water.

Claudia von Boeselager:
So I cause a fresh lemon in, does that count

Dana Frost: yeah. That's yeah, it does. No, I, I start my day with fresh lemon water. Yeah. If [00:33:00] you're just as a habit to bring, layer that hydration with some different oils, so citrus, because it's just easily accessible for people, citrus oil is not expensive, even organic citrus oil.

Isn't expensive. So that's why I suggest that, but it could just as easily be you could use like the mint, just getting a SPR of mint and doing mint tea mint tea, or just mint in your water. Got it. That is in essence, that is aromatherapy in essence , you're adding, you can do it with drops or you can actually just do it with putting the Frigga min in or as you said, lemon as well.

 I also, this is a really interesting way that I use aromatherapy is. In the Bino? No, in the UK, a lot of people don't use dryers, but in the us, we use dryers for our clothes and, what was popular for all my growing up years or dryer sheets. And they're actually quite toxic. It's this sheet that you put, are you familiar with those?

Claudia von Boeselager: I know them very well. Yeah. I've lived in different places through the us, but [00:34:00] here, in London, I know a lot of people have dryers as well. And the dryer sheets. Yeah.

Dana Frost: So substitute that for this really cute wool ball. , it's a wool ball and you put it in your dryer. It takes the static out of the clothes and sprinkle it with essential oil.

And there's your aroma in your clothes? Oh, that's your sheets, your towels, your clothes. I, every time I dry something, I sprinkle, I have Rosemary, lemon grass. Citrus lavender. Bergamont you choose anyone that you, the aroma that you like sounds nice. And that's another, there's so many ways to use aromatherapy and then even just on the tummy, if you rub aromatherapy, let's say you have some digestive issues and you can rub a mint on your tummy.

 Licorice. I'm trying to think of the I'm blinking on the essential oil that is, is actually like behaves like [00:35:00] licorice from the plant.

Claudia von Boeselager: It'll come to you. It'll come to

Dana Frost: you. It'll come to me. If I don't think about it, it could be with the woo and ball for the

Claudia von Boeselager: dryer. Is it just an your, like what type of woo and ball is it like

Dana Frost: cotton wool?
No, no it's wool. It's I don't know if it must be sheet. It's a it's wool. It's real wool. It's in it's a ball. Is there? You can get them. Yeah. Brad, you can get them on Amazon. Okay. It's just, it has a little, they're so easy. If you just go wool ball and it's cheaps wool.

Claudia von Boeselager: Okay. And it's,

Dana Frost: and they come in like a pack of six.
Okay. And then when you're pulling your sheets out of the dryer, they fly everywhere. Because they get stuck in things, but, yeah, that is, that's a really fun way to do aroma therapy. One that people may not think about that I use in one of my blends is winter green. Winter green and this came from my grand, my paternal grandmother, who she grew up on a farm and she would make different concoctions.

And, I remembered this because she used to make my dad [00:36:00] a, a gel for muscle aches and she had winter green in it. And you can get winter green as an oil, and that's really good for your muscles. I combine it with lemon grass, winter green, coconut oil is a nice carrier oil. If if you just can, bend it on, even just any almond oil, any kind of oil, olive oil and you put that on your, the Palm of your hand and, dabble it with other oils and then rub that on your body.

Those are. We forget that we can just have those single oils with our, clean version of lotion and combine them, taking a bath is a really powerful way to use aromatherapy because water and oil don't mix. And so what happens when you drop your oil, your drops in, and I, I usually like I'm like 20 drops of oil in a bath depends how much water you have when as soon as you get in your skin is opening up and the oil goes automatically to your skin.

Claudia von Boeselager:
[00:37:00] Yeah, and such a wonderful way. So thank you for expanding on that. So many great tips that I need to try out now as well. Yeah. Dana, do you have some key strategies that help one feel younger while growing older? What would you say are your top five strategies to keep that youthfulness?

Dana Frost: Yeah, that's such a great question because that is, that's what my podcast is about.

Feeling younger while growing older. I will tell you, I'm gonna just everything that we've talked about, let me just preface. That's all a part of it. Yeah. But I'm gonna share two. I wanna share one practice, Ute yoga. K a I U T . That was actually the inspiration, my practice and experience with coyote.

Yoga really was the inspiration for that phrase, feeling younger while growing older, because when I was introduced to coyote yoga, I was actually in the middle of my marriage crisis and, [00:38:00] coyote yoga taps into what they call three girdles, shoulder, hip, and ankle and through the nervous system and the Musco skeletal system.

We know that issues get stuck in our tissues and really what carries the brunt of that. It's our joints, it's all of our joints. And at the time I had very limited range of motion in my left shoulder. . And I remember my very first exposure to Ute yoga. We were sitting on a bolster with our legs crossed in front of us, and my hips were in so much pain.

All I could think about, I just wanna get out of this pose.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. I've been my hip flexes. Yeah.

Dana Frost: yeah. And I have to tell you, I can sit hours on the floor now. I. My, my range of motion. My shoulder now Kaiyote yoga is gentle in the approach because we wanna feel safe. We want the nervous system , and the, from the coyote yoga [00:39:00] perspective, we use the body to expand the mind

And so we're accessing the mind through the body and the body has, as we talked about the body compass, Claudia, the body re actually the spine is the library, the spine, and the body is recording. Everything that's ever happened to us. And the, and then the body responds with constriction and we can set the body free.

 It really is amazing. I was, I went on my first Ute yoga retreat and. I was a little bit tentative because I'm not like super yoga girl. I had a yoga practice that there were so many poses I couldn't do. And I love going that I had to have lots of props and and this was a yoga group from Boulder and I'm like, oh my goodness, Boulder, Colorado was like the epicenter in the United States for yoga and like super athletes.

And I'm not either one of those things. And I was like, oh my gosh, what's this gonna be like? And I was [00:40:00] shocked. There were, I was one of the youngest people I was already 50. I was one of the youngest people and these, they, some of them were athletes. Some of them weren't, they all just looked like normal people.
And, but, a lo a large portion were like seventies, a couple women in their eighties. Wow. And. What they could do in terms of just function of the Musco skeletal
 system, the potential in the Musco skeletal system, how we were originally designed as humans. , we can be on t

he ground. We can sleep on the ground and be comfortable.
Our joints are designed to have amazing range of motion and our ankles are designed to have tremendous pressure. If you think about walking barefoot as ancestral humans, and Ute yoga, really, it is restoring that. And what I can do, I don't, I have cellulite on my arms. It's not like I look like the super fit woman, but what I can do after, I think it's been five, it's definitely been [00:41:00] five years with coyote yoga.

 , it's amazing how the fun, I feel so much younger. Then I did in my physical body. And so Cayo yoga. , you can find it online. You can put a link in the show notes to their website. I'll send them

Claudia von Boeselager: to you. I will definitely do that, but I, I am so interested because I have a reoccurring issue with my right shoulder that, with osteopaths and I've got, brilliant osteos and things, but still trying to get down to the bottom of it.
So I'd be really curious if you can just walk through, what is that process like? What are you doing? Is it certain positions and movements? Yeah. A mixture of mind. Body

Dana Frost: training. Yeah. So in a Cayo yoga class, there's no music. The instructor is considered an instructor. The you're not mimicking what the teacher is doing.
You're listening to the cues and you're moving through a sequence of poses. There are hundreds of sequences. I'm trained in the first 100 of the sequences. There are hundreds of sequences and you're really, [00:42:00] You're in the, you're doing different poses. You're moving through sequences of poses and each class is anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour.

 And you're just, you're present with your body. You're feeling everything. And if you need, if it's too much for your nervous system, like you really, then you are gonna stand up and walk around. So in one class you're gonna. However many students there are in that many different bodies

And so one person may need to be actually sitting on three bolsters to be comfortable in a position. You may have some, you may have somebody in a chair doing the position. So we're moving through yoga positions, that access the shoulder, hip and ankle girdles. And you can, they say it's , the octopus, the onion and waves.

So we know the onion metaphor that there are layers and layers. This is you uncover layers in your tissues because you've got, the fascia, the, you've got all these layers in the human body. , it's [00:43:00] like an octopus in terms of it has tentacles and you'll feel something, a sensation in your body and it, it moves out to other areas.

I I've felt this. In the, in my coyote yoga practice. And then it's like waves. You'll have you'll notice waves in your body, in a coyote, yoga sequence. You know what my most recent, , once I, now that it's been a couple years where I've had better range of motion in my shoulder, what I'm finally tapping into in my spine is my thoracic spine, the mids spine.

I'm finally, it's been so stiff all my life and I'm finally, I feel, I now feel things happening in my thoracic spine. Wow. So that is what coyote yoga is. Series of poses and no music. And it's actually not, it's not a spirit kit. Francisco Ute is the founder and creator of the method, and he really doesn't want there to be barriers to coyote yoga because it.

It's for everybody. [00:44:00] He says it's yoga for everyone. And so we are not really attaching a spiritual practice to it. Each person has their own spiritual practice. The meditation is actually you being present with your body and what's happening. In the practice. So that's, I would say, is a little overview of coyote, yoga.
.
Claudia von Boeselager: Thank you so much for sharing that. I hadn't come across it before and it sounds fascinating. So I'm definitely going to check it out. So thank you for that inspiration. Dana. I'd love to do a few rapid fire questions at you before we, we finish up if that's okay. So thinking of the word successful Dana, who's the first person that comes to mind and why?

Dana Frost: Okay. This, the first I was like, who's come. First person was L Louise hay. Popped into my mind for people she knew. Yeah. Say who she's yeah, so she is no longer alive. She is, was an American woman who came up with you can heal your life. You can [00:45:00] heal your body. And she convey the metaphysical connections between emotions and physical physi physiology.

And, so she started hay house publishing company. Some of your listeners may be familiar with hay house. They have published a lot of self-help books and, she did not start her work until in her late fifties. I love that. That's beautiful. And she, if you listen to her talks, I think in her seventies, she started working on her handwriting and gardening.

, she was vibrant until the very end, so she just that's who popped into my mind. Amazing.

Claudia von Boeselager: Now, if I understand correctly, you have five children. You're an entrepreneur you've lived and you have 32 years of a successful marriage.

Dana Frost: So what is your morning

Claudia von Boeselager: routine? How do you start your day to be at your best?

Dana Frost: okay, so my nest is empty now. I will say that it's been empty. My oldest, my youngest daughter graduated from college last Friday. Oh, congratulations. Thank you so much. So [00:46:00] I started with a morning practice, Claudia, when I was in high school. And it was through a, a spiritual mentor and that has evolved.

So even when my kids were younger, I had this idea of a quiet time in the morning . And so I raised my kids knowing. Mom has a quiet time and it's evolved through the years. But that is the foundation. What do I do? What I do during that time has evolved also through the years.

 Really at the heart of it is being quiet with myself. And sometimes it might be gratitude meditation. I do Ute every day, so that's a part of my practice, early on it, it started with praying and prayer request. And when I had that, after we adopted and I was in my, we adopted two children at the same time, a brother and sister what happened in my quiet time, Claudia?

I was so tired. And the stress was so heavy. I lost all my words. I had lots of words in my quiet [00:47:00] time before that and I just. The only thing I could do was to sit and it taught me how powerful that was. I, wanna cry thinking back to that period in my life where I really learned.

Sometimes we don't even need words for our prayers. Yeah, it's all universe already knows everything. That's in the depths of our heart. Sometimes it really is just sitting. So that time in the morning, I it's an, I can't start my day without it. Number one, but it really has shifted to the years to like right now I've been in my for six months because we have.

Home in Miami. And every day I walk barefoot in the sand, in the water. , that's been a PR you know, that's been the consistent thing that I've done. So it really shifts what

Claudia von Boeselager: I do. I love Miami I'm there a few times a year as well. And, yeah,

Dana Frost: you need to, we need to get together when you're here.
Connect

Claudia von Boeselager: next time. I'm there. I'd love that. And for me, the moment of bliss is when I'm on vacation is the toes in the sand [00:48:00] toes, in the sand, like warm weather. And you just feel super connected to nature. I love the ocean. I feel super connected as well. So yeah, I, I'm envious that you have a daily practice of toes in the well,

Dana Frost: Ted, this, I will tell you, this morning I did my last, before I go, I'm going back to Chicago for the summer, although I'll be here a little bit this summer, but, my last morning walk was this morning before I leave.
Cause I leave in the morning and. Yeah, it was very sentimental.

Claudia von Boeselager: I can imagine. It's so beautiful there as well. Yeah. And in the last five years, what new belief or behavior habit has, would you say has improved your life the most?

Dana Frost: I would ha if we say the last five years, I would have to say Ute yoga, Claudia, cuz it's been five years and it has really dramatically improved my life in terms of what it's done for my Musco skeletal system that has tapped into my nervous system.

Claudia von Boeselager:
Definitely gonna be trying this out. Dana, when [00:49:00] you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what are some of the strategies you use to recenter?

Dana Frost: I drink water I, my breath. So we've talked about breath and I drink water and if I can, I might go outside when I really feel like my system is.
 Agitated. I will make sure I get outside. That's not always, yeah. I mean that, there are times when I haven't been able to do that. So I may use music. I have a playlist chance for this label chance for the soul. I might access the music. But those are the things I do.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. Yeah. Walk in nature is so powerful that grounding as well. Dana, do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice? That's been a real game changer

Dana Frost: for you?
The game changer for me, Claudia is understanding at a very deep level that all the answers are actually within [00:50:00] me. I can remember in. After my pacemaker was implanted and I had waited for months to get into this integrative physician I showed up and I had the wrong day in my calendar.

 And I was devastated. I burst into tears. Right there with the poor receptionist and that it was a month actually. My appointment was for a month later and that lesson for me was. Stop looking outside of yourself. And that particular doctor really did help me. So it's not that I didn't need those strategies.

 However, the deeper lesson that really we it's inside of us, everything we need and, , I think that, I think that's a really powerful lesson to learn trust yourself. Sometimes there, you've gotta work through the layers, but the knowing the why our teacher is here inside yourself.
I love

Claudia von Boeselager: that as well. And I think if something triggers you, it's always like going back to why is it triggering me? [00:51:00] And like it's from it within. And you can realize that it's a choice to let it trigger you or not. I try and teach my kids. This they're five and eight years old. They're a little bit younger.
They like, what is she talking about?

Dana Frost: okay. I wish I could go back in time and have this information I have now. Because our kids are sponges, they can absorb all these beautiful, all the, beautiful work that you do in the world. It's wonderful that you still have kids that you can impart that to.

Claudia von Boeselager: They hear me. I dunno how much they're going. They're probably again, but I'm, I have a morning practice routine as well. And they know it's my morning time. And they're amazing. They just do their own thing, even if they wake up early during it, cuz they know that's my blocked off time as well to have that morning primer.

Yeah. It's so amazing. Dana, what's been the most exciting purchase you've made in the last six months can be something very inexpensive, but something that you love or that's

Dana Frost: impacted your life. That's such a fun question, Claudia. Two things are coming to mind. One [00:52:00] thing I'm so excited about, but I haven't had a chance to learn about it.

I just actually shipped it yesterday to Chicago. It's called a spooky two machine. It's a rife machine that, I need to learn how to use it, but it's a, he it's actually a healing machine. How do you spell spooky? S P O K Y two number. So I'm really excited. Number two number? Yeah, just the number two.
Nothing to

Claudia von Boeselager: do with Halloween, right?

Dana Frost: no, it's nothing. I know it's a strange name, but if you look up rife machines, there are other rife machines. I just have the spooky two. I was introduced to it through my best friend from my childhood, her dog trainer uses it. So I won't get into the story, but that's what I honestly, I'm excited to learn how to use that when I'm back in Chicago.

 The other one, this is like super personal, but it is something I'm excited. I have a new wedding ring and that sounds so silly, but that's beautiful. I actually am very excited [00:53:00] about it. I've been, as you said, married for 32 years, we've gone through a lot together. We got married really young we obviously have raised five children.

We've lived on three different continents. We had a very ugly crisis that we both chose to lean in and get counsel and therapy and healing. And my wedding ring hasn't fit me. My real, my original wedding ring hasn't fit me in a decade more, maybe more than a decade. I just wanted to do that when it felt right.

And I just am so excited. It has so much significance to me. So my wedding ring.
Claudia von Boeselager: Thank you for sharing that. That's beautiful. Yeah. What advice would you give to a smart driven 18 year old or college student about to enter the real wor world? And what advice should they ignore?

Dana Frost: Oh my goodness. Gosh, I'm thinking about all the different things I tell my children.

 Number one. Trust yourself. Learn how to trust [00:54:00] yourself. Do your work. The first time I saw a therapist, I was in college and, when I've needed that things haven't shifted until I've made the decision to get. And, life modern life is really complicated. It's there, the answers, I think are very simple, but getting to that simplicity can, and with the complexities of modern life, I think many times we really do need out outside perspective and it's brought a lot of really good things into my life.

So don't be afraid to get help. Know what you're chasing, know what is your end game and that this is something my husband and I knew early in our marriage and it's what helped us to make a decision when we were in a crisis and I'm not against divorce at all. I'm not like I everybody's relationship is different.

We're all on our own sole journey. So my scenario is not other people's scenario. It's just my scenario. It's my human experience. But know [00:55:00] what you're going for? Know what your endgame is. When we started with our kids, we. We wanted to be friends with them when they were adults. . And so that with that end game and focus we parented a certain way.

 So know your end game, know what you're chasing. You can chase a lot of different things. But know, be purposeful about what they are

Claudia von Boeselager: so powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. Dana. So for listeners interested in finding out more what you're up to and to follow you, where can you direct them to, you have your podcast, obviously website social

Dana Frost: media.
Yeah, the vital U podcast. That's really where I'm super active right now. I'm active on Instagram. My website is Dana frost.com. So super easy and all those, Instagram I'm Dana frost vitally. You. Very easy to find me and I would love to connect and I do, I have a free download. I got your download yesterday, which was super fun.
Thank you. And it's a check yeah. Checklist for vitality and it's really everything I learned in my own health crisis.

Claudia von Boeselager: So wonderful. Thank you for sharing then. [00:56:00] Dana, do you have any final ask recommendation or parting thoughts or message for my audience?

Dana Frost: Gratitude actually, it's just very nice to be here and I think gratitude is a really something that we can all benefit from.
We started our conversation with both of us, acknowledging that it's so nice to meet the people that we have, the, Opportunity to meet through the world of podcasting. Actually I just would like to offer up my gratitude. Thank you so much. I'm

Claudia von Boeselager: gratitude to you for coming on today, sharing your wisdom, also with my audience as well, and so wonderful to connect with you.
So thank you so much, Dana, for coming on.

Dana Frost: Thank you, Claudia. It's been a pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you.