189 The Role of Quantum Biology in Women's Health with Dr. Catherine Clinton

Dr. Catherine Clinton is a licensed naturopathic physician and expert in quantum biology, she discusses the intricate connections between our bodies and the natural world. And in this conversation, we talk about:

🌱 Understanding Quantum Biology

🌱 The Role of Electromagnetic Fields in Health

🌱 The Interplay of Mind and Body

🌱 Quantum Processes and Menopause

🌱 The Impact of Light on Biological Functions

🌱 The Importance of Red Light and Infrared Light

🌱 Metabolic Syndrome and Quantum Perspectives

🌱 Understanding Fascia: The Body's Communication Network

🌱 Empowering Health Through Natural Light and Connection

So if you’re ready to take a leap into something a bit different, this episode is for you. 

Catherine’s Links:

Website: http://www.drcatherineclinton.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.catherineclinton/ 

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass 2 hours] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via What’s App - https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

Sally (00:01.198)
So my beautiful, wonderful guest today is Dr. Katherine Clinton. Dr. Clinton is a licensed naturopathic physician and an expert in the fascinating field of quantum biology. She's dedicated her career to understanding how our bodies are intricately connected to the world around us, from the light we're exposed to, to the water we drink, and even the energy of our environments. She's currently writing a book called Interconnected.

She's the creator of numerous online courses on quantum biology. She's a practicing naturopathic physician with a focus on gut health, autoimmunity and psycho neuroimmunology. That is such a mouthful. And today we are going to explore our bodies and possibly menopause as well through a quantum lens, shifting away from the traditional

chemical perspective and diving into how our biology responds to the forces of nature. So, Dr. Katherine Clinton, welcome to the podcast today. How are you?

Dr Catherine Clinton (01:09.949)
I'm well and I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me on. I love talking about this and I'm really excited to dive in today.

Sally (01:19.948)
that's fantastic. I am. so glad that you said yes to coming on the pod. I think I I commented on one of your posts like, my God, I have to get you on the podcast. And you said yes, which was amazing. I was so thrilled because how I came across you is the algorithm. The algorithm showed me you. I was I I've I've kind of been wanting to learn more about the world of fascia. I recognize I've got some, you know,

some joint pain, some body pain, and I was thinking to myself, I'm sure this is linked to fascia and tension. And I'd had a conversation with Helen Eadie, who's been also a guest on the podcast, about fascia, and I knew that there was something magical, something really special about fascia, but I didn't really understand it fully until I came across one of your reels. I was like, it's quantum.

like information travels down the fascia. So I'd love to talk to you about fascia during this conversation, but first I wanna start with what the heck is quantum biology? Can we start there?

Dr Catherine Clinton (02:29.973)
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question because it's such a new and emerging field. I mean, it actually has been around since the birth of quantum physics, but we're now starting to actually have evidence that there are quantum phenomenon in living systems like our body. so quantum biology is really just the study of the smallest pieces in our world, an electron, a proton, a photon of light or a phonon.

of sound and how they impact the smallest pieces of our biology, our mitochondria, how our energy state is. There's a way to look at the body really as this flow of energy, this flow of electrons and protons in the body and how pain, inflammation, pathology, disease, symptoms are really a deficiency in electrical charge. And that's what

Quantum biology is looking at, it's looking at how light, how sound, how frequency of fields of energy, whether that's an electric field or a magnetic field or electromagnetic field, scalar field, the quantum field, biofield, whatever it may be, how that's impacting our state of health in the body. And it's actually incredible. It juxtaposes against this.

different phase of water in the body and it gives us an expanded view of how the body works. I mean, we know that what I learned in medical school and is being taught across the globe is this chemical mechanical model. So you have, you know, biological keys kind of randomly bumping around a cell, then they randomly find their receptor, unlock the receptor and action happens.

Well, we know that is true in part, but we're trillions and trillions of cells, and each one of those cells is completing hundreds of thousands of tasks, if not millions per second. Mathematically, that's just impossible with the chemical mechanical model, and that's where quantum biology comes in.

Sally (04:40.398)
Ooh, so how does quantum biology affect all of those tasks then? Like what's the interplay between the quantum and the chemical?

Dr Catherine Clinton (04:52.041)
there seems to be this language of frequency in the body. So rather than having this physical chemical diffusion where the chemical has to work its way through the body or a biomolecule has to find its way to the receptor, they can resonate. They can use vibration like two tuning forks and they can meet up almost instantaneously. You know, it's at the speed of light and begin that reaction much

faster, much more efficiently than this model of a chemical diffusion or random collision. And we know that those things are happening, but quantum biology just expands on this idea. And it's so fascinating.

Sally (05:40.888)
So I've got this vision of these cells just being like, or these components being drawn to each other like, like magnets. Is that kind of how it works?

Dr Catherine Clinton (05:50.345)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, or even just communicating, right? I think that a lot of us don't realize that our cells are communicating with light, with very weak ultraviolet light, with infrared light. They're communicating with their own electromagnetic field. So a cell creates an electromagnetic field and that communicates how it's going to behave, its migration and movement.

Even differentiation, how a cell becomes an ear or an elbow. These are being driven by these electromagnetic fields. And this is something that's relatively new in our understanding of how the body works, but it just explains things much more elegantly. It's exciting.

Sally (06:40.642)
we see these electromagnetic fields? I mean I can imagine like how you would see the aura of a body, like we've got that Curlewian photography that can tap into that and see that, so I kind of get that the body has an energy field, but how do we see the energy and how do we interpret the energy of a cell for example that's so small?

Dr Catherine Clinton (07:06.399)
That's a great question. So we can measure it, right? So we do this all the time in medicine. We measure an EEG, the electromagnetic field of the brain, or an EKG with the heart. We can do the same thing with a cell. And it's interesting to note that our cells run on a negative charge. Most cells are in between negative 40 to negative 70 millivolts. And so we can test that. We can test what

frequency in Hertz, what's happening there in the cell. And we see pretty clearly across the board that a dip in that electrical charge, meaning that it actually gets more positive, it loses its negative charge, then, yeah, it's kind of backwards thinking, but yeah, it gets more positive.

Sally (07:57.176)
flip side, yeah. Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (07:59.303)
Yeah, exactly. It loses its negative charge. And then we see things like pathology, like cancer, like autoimmune conditions. And so we are starting to understand and make this correlation between how important these unseen yet measurable, right, we can measure them. We just don't see them in our everyday life as we would a chemical that we are taking or

a vitamin, like a substance that is in front of us, matter. And so now we can actually measure these things and we're starting to understand, and this is something that has been around for, you know, over a century. Albert St. Georgie, with his work, he was really a pioneer in this idea of bioelectricity and how the body not only communicates with electricity and the flow of electrons, but it communicates.

that way as well. It communicates and it sends energy. It can actually power biological action. And that's something that really didn't get the credit that it should have. And now we have people like Michael Levin, and he's just doing incredible research on bioelectricity. He publishes like 30 to 40 research papers each year talking about

how this is really guiding life as we know it. And we know that from the work of like Robert Becker, when we have a wound or we break a bone, it emits a certain electrical field and we can match that field and have those injuries heal much, much faster than they would without the additional electrical charge. It's almost like

you know, they're just deficient in electrons. And if we can just get that energy there, they can use that energy to heal or do whatever the body needs to do. So it's an incredible new perspective on how a body works.

Sally (10:04.792)
got this vision in my head of Dr. Beverly Crusher, know, Star Trek, did you ever watch Star Trek? And she's the she's the doctor, she's just waving this kind of electro, I don't know what it is, this this machine over the body, and she kind of directs it to the wound and it heals. And the person's pretty much healed straight away. That's, you know, maybe that's happening. Maybe these, maybe these things like Star Trek are actually now

Dr Catherine Clinton (10:11.393)
Yes.

Sally (10:33.038)
coming into a kind of reality. I think Gene Rodenberry was a genius, Anyway, I digress. I want to talk to you about positive charge. So the body is negatively charged. It needs to be negatively charged. And we know that when it starts to become positively charged, we start to develop sickness and pathologies.

So what creates a positive charge in the body that's not particularly helpful, that's perhaps in our environment that we don't realise is having this positive aka negative charge?

Dr Catherine Clinton (11:15.539)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, all kinds of things can cause that, right? Toxins and we just go down the list, right? Toxins in our air and our water and our food and our beauty products, our cleaning products. mean, so many different places we're exposed there, but the body is meant to detox. It's detoxing all the time. So there's a flip side to all that negative news.

Sally (11:23.511)
Okay.

Sally (11:40.418)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (11:41.157)
And as well as electromagnetic field stress is a huge one that can almost instantaneously change the properties in the body. And so I was recently talking with someone and we were talking about all these different things you can do and they were saying, what's your most, what intervention do you like the most? Is it this fancy thing? Is it that fancy thing? And it was like, I think just.

having some kind of stress management is the most helpful actually, know, a heart coherence exercise, a gratitude practice, meditation, mindfulness, something that helps us regulate because that's something that I think so many of us are stuck in this fight or flight stress mode that sends danger signals throughout the body and the cells just can't heal unless they're in a state of safety. So,

I think that that's maybe one of the things we don't think about, but is so powerful for our health.

Sally (12:44.918)
Yes, absolutely getting regulated. And this plays into the idea that I talk about the polyvagal theory, nervous system regulation, you know, dealing with your complex trauma, reframing, all of the things we know are helpful, but we don't necessarily understand how they work. We just call it the psyche. But actually, I wonder if there is a quantum element to the psyche. I was thinking that today, actually, as I was working with someone.

and we were talking about the psyche and I did sort of think, where is this thing called the psyche that we talk about in psychology and psychotherapy? And as I'm talking to you, I'm sort of wondering if it is perhaps that quantum element that we can direct, we can direct energy with our thinking, with our intentionality and our creativity and our imagination.

Dr Catherine Clinton (13:41.811)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, that part certainly isn't pinned down and there's no consensus on that. But there's incredible research out there that suggests that when we have a thought, it creates a light pattern, an EMF pattern. So the little molecules in the neurons are colliding, creating inelastic collisions that create a light pattern that can be broadcast throughout the body.

Sally (13:48.654)
show.

Dr Catherine Clinton (14:11.197)
And I think that's so interesting because so many of us experience that. It doesn't take any time for that thought to turn into something physical, right? That pit in the stomach or, you know, a tear, whatever it may be. Those things are very closely connected as far as time goes. And so it would make sense that it would be traveling in a path that isn't just a chemical diffusion.

Sally (14:41.132)
Yeah, wow, okay, that makes sense. I'm just curious, how did you go from medical to quantum? What was your journey?

Dr Catherine Clinton (14:51.445)
Great. Yeah. Well, I was in my...

Second year of naturopathic school and and to be fair, I got my undergrad in philosophy So I already had sort of this mind that liked to think outside of the box I had to go back and do all my pre-med I spent three years doing my pre-med because I didn't do any of that as a philosophy major and then it was my second year of Naturopathic medical school. I got really sick. It was that Initiation year, you know, you have to be here at seven o'clock if you don't sign the attendance sheet, then you don't pass the class

you have to take it over the next year kind of thing, long clinic hours. And it just broke me. I was diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions, Hashimoto thyroiditis and ulcerative colitis, Lyme disease, all kinds of things. It was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. And that's when I discovered

quantum biology, I was working with a physician doing rotations and she was actually my doctor as well because I was sick. I had to take a break from school and she was like, you should look at psychoneuromunology. You should really look into that field and examine your own state. And I was like, ugh.

Let's examine those patients. Like I don't, that's a Pandora's box. I don't want to do that right now. Like just need to get through school. Like what are you doing? But of course she was right. I mean, I thought it's have an incredible impact on our biology. And at the same time I was looking at early quantum.

Dr Catherine Clinton (16:27.827)
biology research out of UC Berkeley and looking at quantum coherence in cells and how photons can travel through cells by tunneling and superposition, taking multiple paths. And I was also looking at mitochondrial function. And there was a research study by Martin Picard that said, you know, our thoughts and emotions impact.

our energy state in the mitochondria and all those things combined. was like, my goodness, there's something here that we're not learning in school. And it completely, you know, blew my mind and opened the doors to quantum biology. And I haven't left the room yet because it's so fascinating.

Sally (17:10.55)
Yeah, it really is. I mean, you must feel like you're on some kind of leading edge, you're on the edge of these discoveries all the time, which are really reshaping how we see our bodies and how we view medicine. It must be so exciting for you.

Dr Catherine Clinton (17:25.065)
Yeah, it is exciting. It is exciting. And at the same time, honestly, almost with every new discovery, it's like,

That sounds like what ancient indigenous cultures used to say and that we, with capital S science, know, with the scientific revolution in the 1600s really cast aside like that's not scientific. We can't see that it doesn't exist now. It's like, yes, the leading edge, cutting edge, latest research is so exciting, but it also does bring us back to what these cultures have been talking about for

ages and so there's definitely that experience where it's like oh yeah I've heard of this before oh yeah we you know it's it's an incredible return to what we've known as humans.

Sally (18:13.742)
Hmm.

Sally (18:22.028)
Yeah, and it's funny how we've known it instinctively. We haven't really had to have it spelled out for us. And I think as we've become more more traumatized, we've cut off from our body, our innate wisdom and gone up into the head and ended up with this sort of hyper rationality or this need for hyper rationality to sort of almost perpetuate that being in the head-ness, you know, being,

siloed out of the body and maybe that's why mental health has become so bad. It's a kind of calling an invitation to go back inwards to find that place again, that internal intuitive. But now because of science and our measuring instruments, I would assume have got better, we can understand what we already knew.

Dr Catherine Clinton (19:18.856)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, I'm guilty of this on my social media and in so many places being like, look at the research, look at the research, look and believe now and go outside. You know what I mean? It's like the research says, I mean, it says it, believe me, going outside is good. You know, being heart centered is good.

Sally (19:34.402)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (19:41.653)
Being loving is good. Being grateful, having a relationship with the sun and the moon and the ground beneath your feet. So it's, I certainly use that to my advantage because so many people are in their head. And when I see patients who come in with complex trauma and chronic disease, to get them to...

just believe this lady saying, know, really it is good to go outside is really hard. So I use that sort of as this convincing tool, like, okay, I know you are in your head. So here's how you can come back and return to these relationships that are really a sense of safety. Like I have not seen a patient who didn't have a lack of belonging or

a lack of a sense of safety. And these, you know, the sun rises every morning and we can take safety in that. The ground is there beneath our feet and it is always there holding us and we can take safety in that. And so what becomes a checklist for my patients, like, okay, here's all this research. Okay, now you're on board. Here's what you're gonna do. That checklist really turns into relationships.

cultivating these relationships and returning to these relationships that modern society has done a wonderful job placing obstacles between us and the natural world and even ourselves.

Sally (21:14.699)
Yeah, so beautifully put. I'd like to get to menopause if that's all right. I'm sure people are listening going, has this got anything to do with menopause? And I think it has. think there must be. So how does, how do our quantum processes, if you like, influence our bodies, especially during menopause? Do they have an influence on our hormones or perhaps our hormonal symptoms or our menopausal symptoms?

Dr Catherine Clinton (21:42.535)
Absolutely, I think that it's really important for women to know in, even before perimenopause, right, to understand that we are really affected by our light in our environment, the natural light in our environment, the artificial light in our environment. And as we enter into perimenopause and menopause, we become much,

more sensitive. We see this in young children as well. The sensitivity to the light in our environment. You know, when we go out, before we started recording, you asked me what I had done this morning. It was like, well, I went outside and that's my morning routine. I go outside, I ground, I get natural light in my eyes because what that does is getting that morning light in our eyes as it signals all these different biological cascades.

including our sex hormones, our estrogen, our progesterone, our cortisol, and that gentle rise of cortisol that happens in the morning that sets up this regulated system so we aren't having dysfunctional bursts of cortisol and palpitations and panic and stress throughout the day. Those cascades are so foundational and getting out in the

morning light really sets that in rhythm. And I'm out there for like 10 minutes and it's not beautiful today. is.

cloudy, is dreary, it is gray, so it doesn't have to be beautiful sunny day. It is nice when it's that way. But just the natural light, the full spectrum light, you get all the visible light, you get some ultraviolet light, you get infrared light, which helps our mitochondrial function. So many different things that are happening just by getting out in the morning light for a chunk of time. And it doesn't have to be long. Getting natural light through

Dr Catherine Clinton (23:44.747)
throughout the day. And then especially important in menopause is lowering the lights at night. So when the sun goes down here in my house, we're moving to something like the salt lamp that I have behind me. We're lowering the lights because the lights in our modern housing in LED lights are a narrow, narrow band of blue light. And that's very confusing for our body, especially after the sun goes down, our body says, okay, well,

there's blue light just like there is at noon so I'm gonna raise our insulin I'm gonna raise our sugar blood sugar I'm gonna keep all these metabolic processes going and that

wrecks havoc on our biology. It sets us up for metabolic issues, which are so common in menopause, and something as simple as lowering the lights, putting in a few incandescent bulbs, lowering the lights, not only in intensity, so the light is actually lower, but also in height, right? So moving to lights that are on tables, hip.

sort level lights, mimicking that setting sun. What that does is it allows that pineal release of melatonin. Melatonin is a master antioxidant in the body. It's involved in over 250 different biological actions. It really helps us.

get into that rest and repair and sleep. And there's so many things that are tied to that. Our leptin, our metabolic health, our insulin, our thyroid, all our metabolism, our immune system. And when we enter into perimenopause, we're sensitive. We're much more sensitive to that. So bright light, maybe in my 20s, I could still maintain that

Dr Catherine Clinton (25:48.285)
release of melatonin with a little bit of light. But in my perimenopause years and my menopausal years, I can't. That bright light we are much more sensitive to and it will block that release of melatonin and everything that needs to happen as far as repairing cells, getting rid of dysfunctional cells, priming the metabolism, sex hormones, the immune system, the whole gamut.

really is tied to that circadian rhythm. I think it was 2017, three researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on chronobiology. And that's just a big word for how light impacts our body. And we are so impacted by it. mean, almost every single cell in our body has a circadian clock in it, circadian gene.

And that means that our cardiovascular function, our hormonal balance, our digestion, our respiratory, I mean, you name it, neurological function, all of these things are tied to the circadian rhythm of the sun. And when we aren't tied to that, we can experience a lot of difficulty.

Sally (27:07.79)
That's so powerful and I think it's really a testament to those circadian rhythms and actually how when we do things is often more important than what we're doing. know getting up and getting outside first thing in the morning as you say is incredibly important to the light. How does the brain actually receive, how does the brain know what the light levels are?

Dr Catherine Clinton (27:33.833)
That's a great question. That's a great question. So.

Sally (27:35.843)
Ha ha!

Dr Catherine Clinton (27:37.173)
When we, you know, when we go outside and we get natural light in through our eyes, and I'm not talking about staring directly at the sun, I'm saying that all that light, even when we're in shade, that light is reflected, you know, so that natural light, that full spectrum light enters into our eyes and it goes to the back of the eye and it hits that retina, that thin.

layer of cells that's on the back of the eye. And those cells, some of them are rich in melanopsin. And melanopsin is a light sensor. It's a protein and it senses ultraviolet and blue light. And that's what happens in the morning. We get that rise of the sun. It's rich in red and infrared energy. It's very soothing to our nervous system. It tells us that we're safe. It allows a gentle rise in cortisol and then more

blue light starts to come on as the sun begins to rise about 10 degrees above the horizon, sort of within an hour after the sun rises, more ultraviolet light starts to come on the scene, more blue light comes on the scene that tells our body, okay, like you're safe, you're okay, and now it's time to have a day, right? We gotta get moving, we gotta get things going, we gotta have these hormones going, this metabolism going, it dumps serotonin.

and dopamine so we feel focused and happy and content and then that light

that hits our melanopsin-containing cells in the retina in the back of the eye, it's turned into an electrical signal. And that signal travels into the hypothalamus, into the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or the SCN for short. And that's our master circadian clock. And it takes that light information and it spreads it to the cells.

Dr Catherine Clinton (29:35.643)
all throughout the body via an electrical signal. So we have light coming in through the eye that gets turned into an electrical signal that is then communicated throughout the body. And it is affecting almost every single biological action that we have in the body. It's incredible.

Sally (29:39.682)
Sally (29:53.952)
Wow I love how you explained that and it does make sense now you mention it like I remember Andrew Huberman saying the eyes are the brain of the face yeah so think of your eyes as an extension of your brain like out in the world detecting everything yeah

Dr Catherine Clinton (30:15.453)
Yeah, absolutely.

Sally (30:16.896)
So red light, I never associated, I never thought of that idea of red light as being safety and almost like nourishment and nurture and warmth and like the bosom, like you're being held in that space. Because people buy like red light masks to wear first thing in the morning, don't they? To mimic that red light. Do you like those?

Dr Catherine Clinton (30:42.953)
Yeah, I think that can be really helpful. And I think that if we have, you know, we're living like we did a few hundred years ago, we wouldn't need red light devices, but I think we can.

kind of broadly generally say that we are red light deficient. We're starving for that light nutrient, red light, infrared light. And a lot of our lighting follows that same kind of story. We used to have incandescent bulbs, halogen bulbs that gave more infrared light spectrum. And we don't now. Our LED lights have a very narrow band of blue light that doesn't have

that red light and that infrared light. And so our biology really mimics that. mean, there's incredible research out there. Glenn Jeffrey has done wonderful research with red light showing that it really acts like a metabolic signal. And it tells our mitochondria to work, to pull in blood sugar, to do all these different functions, create ATP, create energy.

Whereas blue light kind of puts the stop on that. And we see that it also kind of creates this irritation. So this blue light dominant environment that we have in our houses, in our workplaces, they make us sort of irritated. They increase our blood sugar and our risk for metabolic syndrome. And it's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense with what we've seen in the last.

few decades is we've gone from lighting that had infrared light, had some red light in it, to light that was just pretty narrow in that blue light. And we're stressed out, we're irritated, and we've got metabolic issues. That sure sounds familiar, you know? So I am a fan of red light devices to help supplement that for sure. But I think that...

Sally (32:37.56)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (32:49.619)
that relationship we have with the sun and that red and infrared light at sunrise and sunset is deeply nourishing on many different levels, including a just straight light level. But I think it holds more benefit than that.

Sally (33:06.614)
Hmm, I do love a sunrise and a sunset. my god, I'm east-facing and the sunrises here are just stunning and I have to go out to see the sunsets. But yeah, I feel so lucky. I feel like it's a moment of spirituality, know, when you see the sunrise and you're flooded with that red light, those warm pinky orange glows. It definitely does feel like a warm hug and like...

like the galaxy or the universe is just sort of saying hello in those moments, like I see you, you know? That's what they feel like to me. Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (33:44.863)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's, think how medicinal that is to have in our day these opportunities to be hugged by the universe, like you said. I mean, what incredible medicine that is.

Sally (33:58.062)
Definitely. okay. Metabolic syndrome. So many, I know you've touched on it, but I think one of the biggest issues for women going through menopause is this weight gain, this slowing down of everything, kind of somebody, somebody described it as you are once, you once had the burning capacity of like,

10 million candles for example and now you're just a little tea light. So our power if you like because of the hormone changes changes massively. So what is metabolic syndrome from a quantum perspective and how can we power ourselves up again? I know you've been talking about it but I wonder if there's anything else you'd like to add.

Dr Catherine Clinton (34:49.395)
Yeah, I think when we're talking about metabolic issues from a quantum perspective, it really does boil down to some of these unseen frequencies, right? So we're talking about dialing in our light environment, which we've been talking about, getting natural light, lowering the light at night. And then our mitochondria, every molecule of ATP, and ATP is that energy source of the body, every molecule of ATP that a mitochondrion makes.

Sally (35:02.711)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (35:17.563)
It creates bio photons. It creates light. And when we have that dip in mitochondrial function or that we could say dip in mitochondrial light, then we're going to feel less powerful. We're going to feel less energy. And that's not something that we have to feel as menopausal women. We can go through that change with healthy mitochondria, with mitochondria that are working together as a community, creating energy.

And then I think the flip side to it is this change is normal, right? When we talk about quantum biology, I think it's important to note that we really get power by syncing with the rhythms. So the rhythm of the sun, the monthly rhythm of the moon, the seasonal rhythms and not fighting against that cold weather, letting it inform our biology.

or the heat of the summer, whatever it may be, aligning with those rhythms really gives us power. I think the same thing can be said about the cycle of menstruation in a woman's life. And that when we come to perimenopause and menopause, there is a shift from go out, go out, go out, and it's more go in. And that feels different. And it may feel like a loss of power, but it is an

beautiful opportunity for us to work on our coherence and work on our internal coherence. that can be extremely powerful. I mean, we probably can think of right now a woman in our lives, a grandmother or an elderly woman that exudes that emotional coherence and that power and that leadership, not from a

go, go, go, I'm busy, I'm productive, I'm doing this. No, it's just a solid standing in your power, knowing who you are, holding steady to that power. And it feels different, but it's just as powerful.

Sally (37:31.104)
Yes, yeah, it feels really steadfast and grounded and you know that you can tell that they've been through a lot and they've unraveled a lot of, you know, they've worked on themselves and they've got themselves to that place of real, you know, they know who they are, they have a strong sense of identity, a strong sense of self, they know their mind, they're not frightened of setting boundaries.

They don't placate others. Yeah, yeah, they still have their challenges, but you know, they're a really good influence. you know, when you're talking about co-regulation, brilliant to co-regulate with those elders like that. Yeah, so we must never undermine our elders because they're regulating forces that can help us.

Dr Catherine Clinton (38:23.871)
yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that's one of our major missteps that we've had in modern society is kind of like, okay, you're done with the productive side, right? Like you're not contributing a monetary value. And now it's really about contributing in a different way and recognizing that power and that...

Sally (38:40.268)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (38:50.991)
knowledge and wisdom that's offered there.

Sally (38:54.648)
yeah beautiful beautiful is your dog with you yeah cute i do love dogs right okay i would love to talk to you if you've got time to just talk a little bit about fascia are you okay you're totally distracted there

Dr Catherine Clinton (39:00.007)
Yes, did you hear the dog?

Dr Catherine Clinton (39:17.521)
No, I'm getting the dog to sit down and we're ready to talk to you about fascia, Jasper and I. So, yes, no.

Sally (39:21.102)
that's alright.

Sally (39:28.334)
He's more than welcome. Yeah, so tell us about fascia then from a quantum biology point of view and why it's just this like incredible thing that is so actually overlooked. Like people don't really take fascia seriously.

Dr Catherine Clinton (39:47.931)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, when I was in naturopathic medical school, when we were in cadaver lab, fascia was that thin white covering that you would remove to get to the real thing, right, to study the heart or whatever it might be. But we now and that's true. It is the scaffolding of the body. keeps our internal organs in place. But we are now understanding fascia in a different light. Fascia connects to every single structure in the body. It's as if our

Bones are a loom and fascia is this fabric pulled across creating a body wide network.

And our fascia is mostly connective tissue, which is mostly collagen. And collagen is incredible. It is a semiconductor. So it can capture, receive, it can harness and use, and it can transmit energy. And our fascia is piezoelectric. So when we deform our fascia by movement or body work,

it creates an electrical charge, just like a quartz crystal is piezoelectric. And when we use pressure to press on a quartz crystal, it creates an electrical current. Our fascia is the same way. It's incredible. And so you have this system in the body that is starting at our most external layers of our skin, all the way down to our internal organs and creating this

network of both communication but also of energy transfer throughout the body. And I think we have to talk just a little bit about the form of water that forms on

Dr Catherine Clinton (41:35.317)
This water, when it comes up to a hydrophilic surface or a water loving surface like collagen, it takes on a different structure. It becomes more gel-like and viscous. And so this fascial network is completely covered in this liquid crystal water, this easy water. It was Gerald Pollock out of the University of Washington that first discovered this.

first identified this different phase of water and his book, The Fourth Phase of Water goes into this, but he's prolific researcher always publishing about this.

phase of water and how it takes on a different structure. Like I said, he proposes a hexagonal lattice like a honeycomb, and it is also negatively charged back to the beginning of our conversation on how our cells are negatively charged and how our cells are creating this network of electrical charge in the body.

water network, this water that comes up to fascia and organizes in a different structure and takes on this negative electrical charge, really supporting this electrical charge in the body. Not only that, it allows the electrons in this configuration to become mobile. So not only does it itself

have a negative charge, which is supportive of our health and our electrical charge, but it has free electrons that can mobilize and move throughout this fascial network.

Dr Catherine Clinton (43:22.151)
where there is a energy deficiency, where there is a need for an electrical charge or a deficiency in electrons. So you've got this collagen, which is semi-conductive, and it can capture this energy and transmit it. And it's completely covered in this easy structured water that also has a negative charge and can transmit electrons. So you have this beautiful system throughout the body.

that really is supportive of our electrical nature. know, Gerald Pollock was studying Nafion. It's a synthetic hydrophilic or water-loving surface. lets water come right up to it, doesn't repel it away. But then he started looking at natural...

things, natural substances. And he looked at collagen and our fascia, like we said, it's mostly collagen. And when you look at the structure of collagen, we're used to thinking of the double helix with DNA, but collagen is a triple helix and it forms a tube. Researchers call this tropocollagen nanotubules. That's a mouthful, but really they're just very small tubes of collagen.

Sally (44:32.682)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (44:38.473)
that are covered on the outside and the inside with this specialized water. And it was Pollock's work. He and his team out of the University of Washington took a collagen tubule, put it in water, exposed it to infrared energy, that energy that is abundant every time we go outside and the sun is up, even in shade, right? So he took that collagen, put it in water, exposed it to infrared energy, and he saw this.

liquid crystal EZ water form on the outside of the tubule. Not only that, he saw it form on the inside of the tubule. And what you see with this water in biological systems is it builds with infrared energy. It has a negative charge, but not only that, it kicks out a hydrogen or a proton, a positive charge, and creates this zone of positively charged water.

So now all of a sudden we have this water battery. We have the separation of charge between the negatively charged water that's right up against the fascia and this positive zone of water. That separation of charge, just like a nine volt battery, is able to produce energy. In the laboratory, Pollock put an electrode in the negatively charged water and one in the positively charged water, and it was enough to light a light bulb.

Sally (46:04.641)
Wow.

Dr Catherine Clinton (46:04.807)
And so this, right, it's absolutely incredible. It gives us a whole new perspective of what's happening. And in a fascial tubule, not only is this structured water created and this water battery created, but if it's exposed to infrared energy, it propels water through the tubule. It propels that water, it propels particles, and it propels protons. Protons...

can also hold information. So all of a sudden now we have this image of this collagen fascial network that is spanning, like I said, from our external layers of our skin all the way internally to our internal organs covered with this water. It's a repository or a reservoir of electrical charge that can travel on this network where needed.

It can propel information and particles and energy throughout the system. Absolutely incredible and such a step away from this, it's just the useless scaffolding of the body. It's really this quantum communication highway of energy and information.

Sally (47:24.11)
My mind is blown officially. So really what you're saying is, that fascia, because of its nature, is quite fundamental to our health because it moves energy around the body. So if there are certain parts of the fascia, mean, what makes that electrical signal not flow through the fascia?

Dr Catherine Clinton (47:27.061)
you

Sally (47:54.21)
Like don't, in Chinese medicine, they call them blocks, don't they? Like energy blocks. And I believe that there's something, there's some thoughts around fascia holding the key to the acupuncture points.

Dr Catherine Clinton (47:59.306)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (48:08.521)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. There has been research kind of correlating the two, showing that the fascial network kind of mirrors some of those meridian systems and that that deformation that happens with...

Sally (48:14.712)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (48:24.859)
acupressure or acupuncture can create an electrical charge and get that moving through the systems and you're absolutely right. They talk about blocks in that flow of chi, that flow of energy, and in fascia we see when it becomes dehydrated, right, back to this water, when it becomes adhered either by physical trauma or emotional trauma, that there can be a block, a

Sally (48:49.283)
Mm.

Dr Catherine Clinton (48:51.347)
a stiffness in that fascia and making sure that we're working on that from a mechanical point of view, facial maneuvers, facial release, working on scar tissue, but also from an emotional standpoint as well, making sure that we aren't stuck and ruminating in a certain emotion. It's so interconnected. It's absolutely fascinating.

Sally (49:18.21)
Wow, yeah okay. So you talk about structured water. Can we drink structured water to improve the fascia, the flexibility of the fascia?

Dr Catherine Clinton (49:31.455)
There is some compelling research out there. It's pretty limited in humans, although there are a few studies out there, but there's tons of studies out there with agriculture and plants and animals. And it shows that we can add energy into our water just by sort of adding this infrared energy into it, right? We can put it out in the sun. We can stir it to create sort of this vortexing. We can just put energy.

into our water. There are amazing researchers out there, late Masuro Imodo and Veda Austin that has continued this idea of water crystallography and looking at the structure of water by how it freezes. And they both would be big proponents of the idea that our thoughts and emotions and the state that we are in when we are drinking water.

and how we can be mindful and grateful for that water and how it changes the structure of the water. So you have many different sort of ways to look at this from, know, Raman's spectroscopy to how the water freezes, showing that it can hold energy and that energy can be transferred in the body and be of some benefit.

Sally (50:52.812)
Hmm I have got I'm going to show you I bought these Coasters they have the phy in them the Fibonacci sequence yeah, and I mean I don't know if it works, but I place my water on it with the intention of you know creating Charged water and I've been doing that for a while, but you don't really know like is there a way that you can

Dr Catherine Clinton (51:00.943)
Yeah

Sally (51:21.758)
look at your own water molecules? Is there a test that you can do for yourself to see if your water is better after having gone through a little process that you've put it through?

Dr Catherine Clinton (51:34.069)
Yeah, I think most of us don't have like a Raman spectroscopy meter or some of this laboratory equipment. But that's what makes Veda Austin's work so incredible is you can just take water and freeze it in a little Petri dish or a little glass dish and look at the pattern that is created. So she's routinely freezing the

Sally (51:39.246)
You

Dr Catherine Clinton (52:01.141)
natural spring waters, mineral waters, water that is approached with intention and love and gratitude. And it forms these beautiful crystallography images. And she has a special technique. She kind of flash freezes it. She doesn't freeze it all the way. But in her work is just you can find it at vadaaustin.com. But she

allows for just anyone to do this. You know, if you have water and you have a glass dish that you can put in the freezer for a couple minutes, then you can kind of have this inside peek of what does the structure of the water look like. And you can compare it. You can take, you know, sort of what we would call dead, bottled water and put that into a dish, see how that structure looks, maybe municipal tap water, you know, looking at all these different

forms of water, what the water looks like before you approach it with gratitude and afterwards and just kind of play with that. I think that that's a really fun tool.

Sally (53:06.208)
I'm so going to do that. just going to buy a few petri dishes and totally play with that. Yeah, I can't wait. Brilliant. Right. OK, so I'm just looking at the time. So I mean, I've learned so much from you and I've found our conversation really inspiring, but I'm hoping that people that are listening to it will.

start to maybe take away a different way of thinking about their menopause, about their health, and maybe some of the things you've said might have gone over some people's heads, and I get that it's quite a complex subject, but you can always ask, know, drop you a message or Google it, put it into chat GPT to find more information. But for women who are feeling quite overwhelmed by...

the traditional medical model, how might a quantum perspective empower them to kind of take ownership of their health?

Dr Catherine Clinton (54:04.021)
That's a great question. And I think that what I talk about most often are free accessible tools, right? So taking control over our hormones by getting up and getting some morning sun, taking natural light breaks throughout the day and then lowering the lights at night. We're talking less than an hour a day. And we're talking about just incorporating this into a rhythm. So maybe it's taking a phone call outside or taking lunch outside.

That in and of itself can be so powerful and it's free and accessible. Putting our bare feet on the ground, having some kind of stress management technique like a heart coherence exercise or a gratitude or just taking a moment of silence. All of these things are free and accessible and because we often associate price with power, it's important for people to understand that these are

Sally (54:40.462)
again.

Dr Catherine Clinton (55:03.477)
incredibly powerful tools. I've seen so many people transform their health, transform their menopausal experience by doing these free techniques, free things to add into their routine, and they can be incredibly powerful. So I would really encourage people to learn more and take steps to empower their own lives and health with this information.

Sally (55:32.236)
Yeah and what I also love about this is that it brings us back to connecting with the environment around us, excuse me, you know like connecting with the earth, connecting with the light, connecting with water, connecting with our hearts, our emotions, with love.

And all of those things that perhaps we become disconnected from when we are chasing the dopamine, when we're in that fight flight mode, when there's lots of stresses around us and we think we've just got to tick off all this to do stuff. So it's very empowering. It's very beautiful. It brings us back to nature. brings us back to ourselves. I feel like this whole discovery is really helping us to come home to ourselves, which ultimately is like the thing that heals people the most.

Because we're so fractured, aren't we? Our souls are so fractured in this day and age. And I really do hope that the people that need to hear this episode really hear it, really get the message, get the takeaways and follow you, Dr. Catherine, because your reels, your social media is just exceptional. I love your images, know, the videos that you use to really explain that one with fascia.

where there's, I don't know what it's doing, but I think it might be the tubules that are moving. Yeah. I was like, wow, I get it. Okay. This is really good. So that's awesome. Would you tell everyone how, how can people work with you? What do you offer? Where are you most active on social media?

Dr Catherine Clinton (56:57.525)
Yeah.

Dr Catherine Clinton (57:13.769)
Yes, well, I didn't get creative with my name. I'm just Dr. Katherine Clinton. That's my website. That's where I am on Instagram and Facebook and longer form on YouTube. And really, I have a small practice, but I don't take new patients right now. Really what I do is give out information. So I have some courses, some trainings, but I have so many free resources. They're available.

on social media on my website downloads that you can get about about the fascia about this water we're talking about about returning to these relationships because I'm just so passionate about giving people that information and and you know, I receive Comments and messages all the time like just these things that you're sharing have changed my life And so to me, that's what it's it's all about. So I'm just sharing this information

all the time.

Sally (58:15.182)
That's amazing and you do have a book coming out is that right?

Dr Catherine Clinton (58:20.985)
it is in the works, yes. Yes, I do.

Sally (58:24.526)
They take a long time don't they? things. Okay, I'll be looking out for it because I'm sure it'll be wonderful. Listen, thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing everything with us and yeah, I'm full of gratitude.

Dr Catherine Clinton (58:43.835)
Likewise, thank you so much for having me. It was a beautiful conversation we had today.

Sally (58:49.452)
Yeah amazing thank you.