333-SYNCPodcast-Amy_Gaston

Jenny Swisher: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Welcome friends to this episode of The Sink Your Life podcast. Today I’m joined by a good friend, Amy Gaston. She and I had the chance to connect a few weeks ago to kind of nerd out on the topic of wearables, uh, and biohacking, but especially in the space of women’s hormone health. This is an all new territory that I’m excited to talk about with her today.

She is the VP of Strategic Growth at OM Body, which leads the company’s market expansion and strategic partnerships. Um, she’s also just. Very knowledgeable as it pertains to this topic. So I’m excited to kind of dive in with her to hear more about how we can really help women, especially with painful periods.

Um, menstrual pain, heavy bleeding, gastric up upset, all these things that we might be able to do through wearable devices. So without further ado, Amy, welcome to the show. If you would just kind of share with my audience who you are and what you do.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. Well, Jenny, thank you so much for having us. We’re so, I’m so thrilled to be here.

Um, yes, I, uh, I’m just a Texas girl who’s, you know, living life the best that we can over here. But, um, yeah, my story I think is always [00:02:00] really eclectic on how I got to own body and what we’re doing today. Um, I. Grew up in Texas, went to a Texas university, played volleyball, have a degree in political science as most, I think Asian millennials at one point wanted to be an attorney.

Um, and decided at the end of that like, oh, I just don’t think that’s the route I wanna go. So, um, I got into coaching and so I was a volleyball coach at the high school level and, um, had the privilege of coaching some of the most talented young athletes who have gone on to do incredible things. Um, but after some time in that really decided that I, I wanted to do something different.

Um, and maybe just a different pace of pace of life. And so I, uh, went to grad school at Baylor University and got a degree in sport management and really thought I wanted to be an athletic director. And, um, and spent two years in that program really at a time that was really pivotal, uh, for the university and the athletic department, amid some, um, some scandal and some really hard things.

Um, and then got to watch maybe some of the most incredibly. [00:03:00] Intuitive administrators, I think across the spectrum of college athletics and, and, and just university administration do some really powerful things in rebuilding a brand that had really suffered from some pretty public, um, disgrace, I think is the best way to put that.

And so it really inspired me to be like, I wanna be that kind of leader I wanna. Be able to take hard things and, and, and make it better. And so after that, I went on to the University of North Texas, um, in Dallas or Denton. So don’t, don’t hate me, you Denton people, but, uh, in Denton. And, uh, spent about 10 months with them in the athletic department as the, uh, in the athletic marketing division and oversaw, uh, lots of sports.

Ran, we were running about six seasons at the same time as you do in college athletics at a small D one school and really loved it. And I, I’m, I’m a person who needs to be busy at all times. And so that kind of pace of work is really conducive to my personality and my strengths. And then after about 10 months, I got a call from a gentleman that I had interned for, um, at Baylor.

He had become the president at a [00:04:00] small, uh, brand. Um, if you know it, it’s called Magnolia out of Waco. And they’re a lifestyle brand doing a lot of home. Home space and, and just good living, good, easy living, and really called me and said, Hey, I want you to come join our team. I told him he was crazy, um, that they sold candles and I wanted to be an ad, so why was he me?

Um, but he was like, no, come, come be a part of the team. So I did and I, I served the founders for a couple of months and really enjoyed that, and then very quickly transitioned into experiential marketing for the brand. So I oversaw everything that sort of drove traffic to the silos, um, which is kind of this one city block, um, of, uh, brand experience with shops and food and um, and yeah, and brand experiences, which was really great.

And then I oversaw all of the big events. So, um, hosting thousands and thousands of people in three days, um, across the, across the years calendar. And then. All the way down to small events for both the brand and, and the, the founders. And then after four years of doing that, I really decided I needed something different.

I was ready for my next challenge. And so, um, [00:05:00] in order to do that, I left that job for what I’m calling my personal sabbatical, and spent seven months traveling and reading and getting fit and refocusing and really trying to reprioritize what was important to me in the next steps. At that point, I was, um, in my mid thirties, just past the 35 mark.

I think I was three six at that time. But, uh, really needed to reprioritize and really, really think, what, what is it that I, what, what is it that’s important to me for the next steps of my life? And so I started a small business and so we do really fun tableware rentals for events and things like that.

So it’s a great creative outlet for me. And, um, and then at the same time, I, about the same time I took on a position at a VC firm, a venture capital firm. I’d never worked in vc. Didn’t know the first thing about it, but served as their chief of staff and really helped just to bring about efficiencies and to support the partners, um, and the staff as they, um, went about their, their everyday work.

And during that time, really had an opportunity to deeply understand what it looks like in the venture space, what it looks like to raise money, what it looks like to [00:06:00] then deploy that into, um, startups and, and ventures and, uh, really got. Quite frankly, a hands-on MBA. Um, I was really surrounded by men who really invested in me and were willing to teach me because I know truly Jenny, like zero.

It was truly one of those moments of like, I’m Googling every single word that’s coming out of the mouth of these individuals because I just didn’t know. Um, and so I’m so grateful for that time and then, uh, spent some time away from there after about 14 months and did some consulting. And then was called upon, um, for this role at own body, which has been just a joy.

So I oversee, um, pr, so all of our PR efforts, all of our kind of in-house influencer, um, efforts, and then all of our strategic partnerships. So both from a brand level just to walk hand in hand with the right companies who are also about. The, the de-stigmatization of menstrual healthcare and, and what that looks like.

And then also just retail brands. Um, when it’s time for us to kind of expand and go past kind of our own retail platform, um, [00:07:00] I’ll, I’ll help, I’ll help to navigate some of those conversations. So yeah, that’s, that’s me in a nutshell.

Jenny Swisher: I love that. I love that every story, everybody’s story, like weaves into how they got to what they’re seeing.

Yes. Yeah. It’s so, it, it is very much tied to just like, you know, I always think, I wish someone would’ve told me way back in the day that it wasn’t about. Necessarily what I’m good at, but also what I love to do. Right? Yeah. Because I got boxed into like book publishing because I was a good writer and a good speaker and I thought like, okay, I have to, I have to pick my path and like stay in the box.

Yeah. Realize, actually don’t like this box. Like very figuratively cubicle that I was in and I was like, I was actually living in a box, right? And so then it’s like, now of course now I’m speaking and I’m writing and I’m podcasting, like I’m doing something different. Using those skill sets, right? But I love that everybody’s story is always like this twisty, windy way of getting to where they are, but always for good reason.

So I love this and Om body is, is is something we’re gonna dive into today. We’re gonna talk more about this new wearable technology, which I’m super excited about. My listeners know that I am a total nerd when it comes to what we call biohacking our health.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. [00:08:00]

Jenny Swisher: I think I was, I wanna just say though that I think I was into it before it became a thing.

Amy Gaston: Oh, you were there before. It was cool. I was there before. It

Jenny Swisher: was cool. Yeah, for sure. Like I love that. I mean, 15 years ago I was the girl listening to Dave Asprey’s podcast before he was even really well known. Um. And listening to him talk about butter in your coffee and cold showers and all these things that were, you know, biohacking of course never really specific to female physiology, but never is.

Yeah, never is. Right. And so I remember telling like friend at that time, I was get getting into health coaching and I was telling people about it, right? And I’m putting butter in my coffee and I’m doing all these like weird things and, and people are like. Okay, Jenny. Even to this day, my Facebook memories will pop up with people that are like, Jenny told me to do this, but I don’t really know what it, you know what it is.

So I was very into like understanding this idea that that health is within our control. And my, my people who listen to me often know that I’ve had to really take my own health into my own hands. Um, because you know your body best, right? And so if we can step into that, if we can really [00:09:00] step into like, understanding the patterns of our own body.

And understanding our own symptoms. If we have something flare up for me, it’s typically migraines. Um, but when, when I can look into that deeper, I can advocate for myself better. I can ask better questions. I can learn things too. It’s not always about finding a doctor that has this weird authority over, you know, your health like that.

It must have more knowledge than you. And I love doctors, right? I partner with doctors in my program, but I think that this, this. Sort of cutting edge technology that’s coming. The things that we’re already seeing. I’ve been wearing an aura ring for three or four years. I love the metrics. I love seeing my sleep scores.

I love seeing my recovery scores. And then I listen to Dr. Stacey Sims, who I studied under and I hear her talk about, yeah, but the algorithms are based on men and male physiology. And so I’m like, okay. So I, everything so far has been like, let me take this thing that they’re creating to help biohack. But then let me see how it applies to me in my, in my female physiology, because it wasn’t made for me.

It was, it was made for men or small [00:10:00] men. Now I have to figure out, it applies to me, right? And so the aura ring, um, in the last year or two, I’ve been using both Aira wand and an in Nito. But let me tell you, that’s messy. That’s like you’re testing your urine every day. I mean, it’s not, it’s kind of gross, right?

You go on vacation and you’re like, am I taking this with me? Am I really gonna do this? Right? So. I want you to tell us about own body, like what is, what is it? And we’ll just dive straight in there. We’ll just, we, there’s no reason to dance around it. We’ll talk about that. We’ll talk about what you guys are launching and then we’ll kind of talk about all the fun stuff.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. You now my brain is like, oh, I have so many comments I wanna make to everything you just said. So yes. Let’s, uh, let’s dive into own body. So, own body from a brand perspective is, uh, the women’s wellness division of a. Larger company called Spark Biomedical. Spark’s been in business since 2018, utilizing neurostimulation in a myriad of human conditions, specifically in women’s wellness.

We’re utilizing neurostimulation in our device and technology in order to help women experience better periods. I think that’s the easiest thing to say. Um, so the way the [00:11:00] technology works, um, we are utilizing, uh. The neurostimulation of your trigeminal and your vagus nerves, and specifically the auricular branches, which means just the branches around your ear.

Um, so a couple of things. The trigeminal nerve is associated with pain management, so it helps to regulate the pain that your body is feeling through different symptoms, whether you’re get all down, you’re just feeling kind of crummy. So that’s kind of helping to regulate your pain. Uh, your. And then your vagus nerve, we all know, right?

It’s the only, only cranial nerve that actually leaves your body and then it touches all these major organs and then comes back up and sends signals back to your brain. So it’s kind of the wanderer. So in Latin. Vagus means the wanderer. And so, um, we’re, we’re gonna stimulate both of those things to do a couple of things on, on one side.

By stimulating the vagus nerve, we’re actually gonna help to reduce the amount of blood loss women are experiencing during menstruation. So how do we do that? By stimulating the vagus nerve, we’re gonna send signals down to the spleen. The spleen holds about 20 to 25% of your body’s platelets. Platelets are the little things that help your body not bleed out.

So when you cut [00:12:00] your finger and you create a clot there, that’s platelets doing their job right to help. Keep you from losing too much blood. So the same kind of applies, not kind of, the same, applies with the shedding of your uterine wall. So as you’re shedding, those are little mini injuries that are happening in your uterus, which is natural and it should happen.

Um, but what we’re gonna do is when we signal the platelets in the spleen, we’re actually gonna pre prime them so that when the body calls them to an injury location shedding every unit on a wall, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna, uh, clot faster, stronger, and hold longer. Now we’re not causing clots, we’re not making them clot.

We’re not forcing a clot. We’re just saying, Hey, platelets, when the bodies tells you it’s time to do your job, you’re just gonna do that really, really well and really, really efficiently. And so in our clinical phase one trial, ac um, across our participants, we saw an average of 55% reduction in blood loss.

That’s pretty significant, especially considering that the women in our study, about half of them had a bleeding disorder called v Willebrands Disease. And in this, uh, with this [00:13:00] specific bleeding disorder, women can lose up to a liter of blood every menstrual cycle. As women, we only have four to four and a half liters of blood in our body.

Pinning the size right, bear women have little more blood. Smaller women, a little less blood. But think about that, of this living a life where every time you menstruate, you lose a quarter of your blood. A quarter. I mean, that leads to some pretty significant health implications. The other half of our, um, study were women with idiopathic heavy menstrual bleeding, meaning they were heavy menstrual bleeders, but for no known cause, no clinical known cause.

So maybe they have endo, maybe they have PCOS, maybe they have fibroids, but they haven’t been clinically diagnosed, um, as such. So, but across the board we saw a 55% reduction in the users of our device. Um, this is using it while they’re menstruating for two hours every day that they’re using a menstrual device.

So what that then translated into was a 20, excuse me, a 20% reduction in the number of days they were on their cycle. So some of these weed women are bleeding 10 plus days. So if we reduce that by 20%, again, life changing, right? So now they’re able to go back to [00:14:00] living a life, um, as they should with women.

These are moms, these are, you know, women who have jobs, women who have partners, you know, women who just wanna be social and go with their girlfriends, get on an airplane. So that, that’s the one side of own body, which is, I mean, again. Very exciting. Uh, the other side of that wa is that we are going to, through the stimulation of the trigeminal and the vagus nerve, we’re going to actually help balance your autonomic nervous system.

So one of the reasons women feel really crappy during their periods is because your autonomic nervous system is out of sorts. So during your menstruation, your body’s sympathetic tones, so your fight or flight tones actually go into overdrive, right? ’cause your body’s sending all of these resources to heal you, to help mitigate this, these little mini injuries that are happening in your uterus.

And so that’s why you cramp. That’s why you bloat. That’s why you crave carbs, right? Your body’s burning this energy. And so it’s like, feed me, feed me, feed me, feed me, feed me. And so what we do through our neurostimulation is we actually raise your parasympathetic tones, which are your rest and relax [00:15:00] tones.

And so by balancing that out. We’re not keeping your body from menstruating, we’re not keeping you from doing the things that we, as women are necessary for us. Then to have babies and, you know, go through menopause and perimenopause and all those things. All of that’s important and necessary, right?

Because that’s biologically what our bodies do. We’re just helping to say, Hey, body, you’re good. No need to be stressed. We’ve got this. And we just help you help the body kind of manage through that, um, easier. And so across our clinical results, we saw varying degrees of reduction in. Multiple PMS symptoms.

So cramping, bloating, an um, anxiety, uh, cravings, mood swings. So all of those levels we saw decreasing at varying levels. Right? So we’ve got women who maybe saw a greater reduction in blood loss ’cause they were really far from what the median should have been in their blood loss, but had. A little bit of cramp reduction.

We had other women who had greater cramp reduction, but because they were closer to the baseline of what quote unquote normal is for bleeding, they had lesser blood reduction. But across the board, across all of our participants, we [00:16:00] saw an increase in quality of life score, which is really the whole point, right?

The whole point is to allow women to get back to being who they are. Our tagline at Own body is because life doesn’t stop when you start, and we truly believe that women deserve the opportunity. To manage their menstrual cycle in such a way that their lifestyle doesn’t have to alter simply because we’re bleeding, which for millennia we’ve been told Yeah.

Girlfriend, second up. ’cause that’s just part of being a woman. Mm-hmm. And, and we just think, why, why is that the answer? And so I’m really, really proud of the work that our team at Embody has done to create a technology that gives women an opportunity to do it differently.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so much to say here.

Um,

Amy Gaston: as, as someone let’s unpack it.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So, as someone who, you know, diagnosed endometriosis and PCOS, who has had painful periods since the age of 14. Um, definitely with seasons where it’s been easier than others. Sure. But I’ve definitely been the person who wants to plan a family vacation around my period because I’m so miserable for those [00:17:00] three days or so at least.

Um, usually it’s, for me, it’s always migraine, which signals it’s coming, which then leads into the painful cramps for two days and then I end it with a migraine. So it’s a really. It’s a really fun week, um, for me. So I’m very used to this being sort of like a, well, we don’t know what to tell you. Like you can take some Aleve, right?

Like take some, take some NSAIDs, um, or use a heating pad. I love that suggestion. I know, because Great. Like I didn’t think about,

Amy Gaston: we all have time and we all have time to sit down with a heating pad lay down. Yeah,

Jenny Swisher: sure. Yeah. I’ll just let my kids know that I’m out of outta sorts for a few days. Sure. Yeah.

But there’s, yeah, I love this because. When I started my community in 2020, um, you know, I wanted to help women at that time. It was like, it was very fitness oriented. It was very fitness, nutrition. Let’s really, you know, cycle sink, and we’ll align everything with our cycles and on our, and our energies. And a lot of that was because my energies changed so evidently, right?

Like I was, I was very in tune with my cyclical changes because of the symptoms that I was having. And so one of the notes that I made here while you were chatting is just about. The women out there [00:18:00] who are suffering from PMS and PMDD, and it is a very real thing. Yeah, it’s a very real thing because I’m actually doing this sort of a side tangent here.

I’m doing some, some deep dives into progesterone. I’m actually working with Carol Peterson in the progesterone space and learning so much about that, which is a topic for another day. Um, but understanding that so many women deal with this, and ever since starting my community in 2020. The number of women who have, they’ve come in for the fitness, nutrition, and immediately they’re like, I’m in a safe space to ask about my painful periods.

Right? And all of a sudden it becomes, okay, so behi, besides the obvious of like the heating pad or the hot water bottle and the Aleve, what are, what else are you guys doing? Are there any herbals that I can do? Are there any, right? And so I love. I love that you guys are taking this on from almost like a neurological perspective, and this is something that I don’t see bridged in the medical space, right?

So as a migraine sufferer, this is a great example. I go to my OB, GYN, and I say, Hey, my migraines are really bad [00:19:00] around my period, right? Like, is there anything I can do about this? I’ve, I’ve lived with this my whole life. Ob, GYN says something to the effect of, well, are you sure it’s hormonal? And I’m over here like, well, I track my cycles down to my urine every day, and I know when I ovulate and when I bleed.

And yes, my, my migraines are happening around those times. Yeah. And the only thing she can typically offer me is birth control or, and IUD, right? Yeah. There’s no conversation about like, why it’s happening. There’s no lifestyle conversation, there’s nothing. But they say, oh, you’re dealing with migraines. Do you have a neurologist?

Or where, who’s your neurologist? Do you have a neurologist on your team? Sure. And then you say to them, yes, I waited six months to get into this neurologist here locally, and I saw the neurologist and you wanna know what he told me? He said, this is very much hormonal. Do you have a doctor that you’re working with for your, so they’re doing this.

Yeah. And so then they say, then it’s like, then you go into the, do I need an endocrinologist? And that’s a whole other battle. Uh, my, my, my favorite doctor that I work with here locally said to me one time, she’s like, I don’t know, a single endocrinologist who thinks she didn’t mean to be mean, but she [00:20:00] just means like.

There’s just this box and this way of thinking, right? And unfortunately, guess what? Migraine is understudied. Even though it’s dominantly in women. Probably because women are understudied, right? And so here we go again with this triangle of referrals that leaves me in a pickle, right? Of like, why am I having this?

It’s so patterned, it’s, it’s sickening that no one can help me figure this out. So what I love about this is that someone at own body, some scientific mind has said, Hey, let’s connect. The neurological here to the endocrine, right? Like, let, let’s, let’s help women with these symptoms. And it’s, it’s just like, this is, this is so where things are heading.

And I actually, you and I touched on this before we started recording, I don’t think the medical community is ready for this. Like, I don’t, I, I mean that’s my personal opinion. I think I heard somebody say recently, might’ve been, it might’ve been Dr. Mark Hyman. He said recently that like whatever is discovered now in clinical study.

Is not really carried out in practice for another 20 years. So the, it takes time, right? It takes time because

Amy Gaston: come to market [00:21:00] and then all of the current doctors who have their own way of thinking, right, have to be open and willing to continue patient. Mm-hmm. And they’re not all that way unfortunately.

Uh. There are some great doctors out there absolutely want to learn every time and teach me, teach me. But a lot just say, Hey, like I’ve been to medical school. I was there 20 years ago and this has worked and I’ve helped hundreds of women or hundreds of individuals, not even just women, but hundreds of individuals.

So this is what I’m doing. And then. So you have that layer, but then you have this whole new generation of doctors coming through med school right now, and it takes a while to get this technology into their textbooks. Right. Which again, their professors are then saying, well, we’ve taught this way, this way for years.

So, yeah. Again, I don’t think it’s a, I don’t think it’s malicious, like I realize Oh, absolutely

Jenny Swisher: not. Absolutely. It’s not malicious.

Amy Gaston: It’s this pattern of, it’s the nature of Yeah. It’s the system that they’re in right now. Absolutely. You know, I, I think a lot about, you said earlier, um, or small men, which is like hilarious.

I, I. Love this notion of that we just keep saying, women are not small men. Yeah. They’re not men. If I can birth a baby and then also feed that baby from my body, [00:22:00] that makes me fundamentally different than a man who cannot do that.

Jenny Swisher: Right.

Amy Gaston: Can’t actually sustain life. A man’s body cannot sustain life and a woman’s can’t.

And so, you know, this, this transition that we’re trying, we’re coming in and I do think that we’re in the upward trajectory, right? Like more money than ever has been invested in women’s health. There’s no research than ever, but it will take time. And, and to your point, Jenny, like. What what we love about own body is, you know, we’re going to market as a, we we’re in market as a wellness device, so you can buy it directly from us and use it without your doctor’s prescription.

If you have severe symptoms, we, we do suggest talking to your doctor and ensuring that you on that. Um, because we, we wanna walk hand in hand with doctors. We don’t wanna be the anti OBGYN in the room. Sure,

Jenny Swisher: absolutely.

Amy Gaston: We truly wanna be a tool that OBGYNs feel confident that they can, they can suggest and give to their patients.

Jenny Swisher: Um,

Amy Gaston: but, but that, that, um. That shift has to continue to be made by women like you who are saying enough is enough and it has to be better. And keep questioning. Keep pushing. Yeah. Um, you know, and. [00:23:00] I, I don’t know. I, I, I almost, it, it, it makes me a little sad, right? To think about these generation of women. I think about for us, and, you know, our, I think Jenny, you and I are about the same age, you know, we’re the generation that they gave birth control to, like candy.

Jenny Swisher: Oh, absolutely. Like if I had, without ever seeing a doctor, yeah.

Amy Gaston: I have bad skin, I have mood swings. I’m cramping, I’m bleeding excessively. Yeah. It’s just this pill. And, and that pill was developed on white, middle aged men. And so we’re still, still living on science that was developed pre the ability for the, for clinicians and researchers to, to test on women and children, right?

Pre 1994, we’re still living in that sort of. You know, tidal wave of what that was and, and, and the idea that like there’s this uphill battle into just providing for half the world’s population quality care. Right.

Jenny Swisher: Right.

Amy Gaston: Is is kind of mind blowing.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. No, I, yeah. And you know what, when you were saying that, it made me think of, I listen to Dr.

Kelly Casperson and she always says that people ask her like, well, why are you taking, why do you [00:24:00] have a podcast? Like, why do you have this like, personal brand? Why are you not out educating other doctors or educating? No. And, and her perspective on that is. That will take too long, um, to change the minds.

Whereas if I go directly to the woman who’s suffering and I put the power in her hands, um, things can change. And that’s, that’s the way I feel too. And I, and I feel like devices like this is gonna do exactly that. Right? Like to, to be able to put the power in a woman’s hands to say like, here. Like you are your own best doctor, truly.

Um, and, and help you walk alongside the right, the right doctor to really figure, figure things out. So when you, when you were talking about, you know, I don’t wanna get too sciencey, but Yeah, that’s okay. Come on. Yeah. When you were talking about like trigeminal and vagal nerves, right? I, I made me think, obviously trigeminal nerve is, is, I like to say my best friend, like every, for me with migraines, like everybody wants to talk about the trigeminal nerve and the migraine bucket and all the things.

Um. But the vagal nerve, and I, I, I kinda wanna touch on this, this sort of like autonomic nervous system side of things, because so many women will say things like, they notice that their [00:25:00] moods change right before their cycles. Right? And so when they can step into the power of understanding how they’re not meant to be the same all the time, how they’re meant to kind of have these ebbs and flows of their moods and of their energy.

When they start to see that, they start to notice like, oh, well this is maybe how I’m supposed, this is how my energy is supposed to be. But then there are other women who may suffer from like P-M-S-P-M-D-D, who it’s really a tumultuous time. Um. You know, medications can be prescribed in, in some cases for this, right?

Like women can get really depressed. Um, and so, like I said, I’m studying and digging deep into progesterone and, and the cool power of that from sort of the, the bio HRT side. But from your perspective, I love that this has this sort of like vagal nerve component. This is something that we’ve, I’ve taught here on the podcast with Kaylee Calabrese and some others, just this idea of how we can really sort of like.

Pay attention to our nervous system as women. ’cause I don’t think we do. I think we, we serve everyone else. We make sure everybody else is fed before we feed ourselves. And so our nervous system is often [00:26:00] affected. And so it’s interesting to me how women will sometimes say. I had the worst period, right?

Like I just had the worst period, the worst cramps, I dunno what’s going on. And then you talk to them and you’re like, they just came off of a really stressful month, right? Like, maybe they’re going through a divorce or maybe something’s going on with their child. I’m like, well your stress is so much a part of your, your hormone, um, balance your hormone system, right?

And so if you’re stressed right, it’s of course it’s gonna impact your period, it’s gonna impact your cycle. So can you talk to us more just sort of about this. Sort of nervous system side of the device. Um, because I, I don’t know about you, but I’ve, I’ve, I’ve tried some other things. There’s like the Apollo out there, there’s some other things out there that are ti like meant to be like neuromodulators, so to speak.

So I’d love for you to sort of touch on on that.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. So it’s interesting that you talk about the stress side. Um, spark Biomedical, our parent company that I spoke of, we have an entire division. Dedicated to stress management in applications around, um, opioid dependency withdrawal and PTSD [00:27:00] and just overall stress.

And so there’s a lot of, um, research continuing in that space. Um, in fact, we have an FDA clearance in that space for usage around stress, for opioid withdrawal. And so that same technology, ’cause you’re right, right, like stress does affect your body. I wanna go back to this point of like, you know, women take care of other people and whatever.

And I think part of it is because culturally, for millennia, we’ve been told as women, you’re, you’re too sensitive, you’re too emotional. This is why you don’t belong in a boardroom. You know, so we’re, we’re managing these things while being asked to maintain on the surface level. This, this idea of normal, right?

And to be the same and to be kind and to smile and to be pretty, and to deliver and to be helpful, right? So that’s what society is telling us. Well, to your point, on the inside we’ve got this like tumultuous stress level going up and down, up and down, up and down, driving our hormones, causing, you know, our menstrual cycle to be different every month, depending on our stress levels.

So absolutely we, we feel that stress has a direct correlation to the way that women [00:28:00] are experiencing their menstrual cycles. And so as we’re, as we’re stimulating the, the nervous system, um, through the vagal nerve, um, really the, the hero of this are is the ability for us to be able to raise your parasympathetic tones, right?

To really calm. It sounds so weird. ’cause it, it sounds so. Um, you know, like yoga e and it’s, it’s more than that, right? It’s more than just this external thing that releases stress. Your stress is actually happening to your point on the inside of your body, and it’s directly tied to your autonomic nervous system.

And so, you know, our bodies are really incredible things, and when it senses an external threat. It’s gonna go into a survival mode, right? Like your, your body is, is designed to help protect us as we experience, again, external things. And sometimes those external things become internal things in our mind that drive stress higher, right?

’cause our minds are working, I dunno about you, but I can tend to spiral, like stories spiral in myself when I get super, super stressed out, right? And so if, if we can help alleviate some of that by [00:29:00] truly just elevating those parasympathetic tones and reminding our. Um, and reminding our, uh, oh, am I frozen?

I’m so sorry. I can pause. Oh, I think I’ve lost you. Can you hear me now? Oh, shoot. Hold on. I don’t know what happened.

Jenny Swisher: Can you hear me okay?

Amy Gaston: Yes. Oh, there you are.

Jenny Swisher: Okay. You’re back. Yeah. You froze for a hot minute.

Amy Gaston: Yeah, I’m so sorry about

Jenny Swisher: that. Okay, no worries. So you were talking about the parasympathetic Yeah.

Raising that. Yeah.

Amy Gaston: So really the hero is around raising the parasympathetic tone within your nervous system so that your body can manage that stress better. Stress is normal. Stress is a part of life. Stress is a part of our everyday experiences, but there’s a way for us if we can. Safe. We, and when we safely and, and, and effectively manage your parasympathetic tones, your body’s just going to be able to take a deep [00:30:00] breath and manage that stress better.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting because I, yeah, it’s, it’s so, I don’t wanna bring up this whole progesterone thing, but it’s like totally on my mind. It just makes me think about sort of the, the combat of relationship between like adrenaline and progesterone. Yeah. Like this, this idea that women in particular, right?

I noticed that a lot of women who suffer from. Issues like we’ve discussed, whether it’s migraines or painful periods or whatever, tend to also be the women that wanna do it all and carry it all.

Amy Gaston: Right? Yeah, we, I mean, as we both

Jenny Swisher: like, that would be us. Yeah, for sure. Um. And I, I once had a doctor tell me, like way back in the day when I was struggling with migraines in my twenties.

She was like, well, people that get migraines like this, they’re just, they’re people who give a shit, is what she said. And she’s like, oh, that’s hilarious. I love that. But she was saying it like lovingly to say like, yeah, you gotta let go a little bit. Right? Like you, you’re so, like you’re quantify this because of your own stress and it’s so true.

Absolutely. I feel like women especially can just fester in their own stress. For so long, and it’s [00:31:00] like a lot of that is just self-created. And so, you know, you hear everybody, like you said, like the, the yoga stuff, right? Like you hear people from the outside like, oh, well just do the breath work, or do the meditation, or go for a walk, or all these awesome ideas until you are in the festering internal anxiety attack situation of your nervous system, right?

Attacking and no amount of walking is,

Amy Gaston: is releasing that.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. I mean, we could go into the whole, right? We could go into the whole conversation even like. Mast cell activation and histamine and has that, as that rises in your, you know, perimenopausal years and what it’s likely what sends a lot of women to the emergency room for things like anxiety attacks, right.

When they’re in, in that over 40 category. And the reason for all of this is our nervous system, right? Yeah. And so I love that there’s an aspect to this of like, let’s see if we can’t interrupt a little bit of that signal again, biohacking this, right? Because yes. Do the breath work, go for the walk, do the thing.

Absolutely.

Amy Gaston: Those are positive things. Absolutely.

Jenny Swisher: Absolutely. But I love that this is another option to say, Hey, like, let’s also try to intercept this too, right? Mm-hmm. Like, let’s try to help you out there too. I, I wanted to really briefly [00:32:00] about the ear, ’cause I think this is so fascinating. Like, when you and I were first talking and you’re like, it’s, it’s the ear.

And I’m like, I kind of wanted to be like, see. Because I, so I have been having, are you a fan of the ear, Jenny? I’m a fan of the ear. Okay. So let me just go on my little ear tangent. Okay. I wanna hear it. This is random. Um, and it may not even make sense. Like probably sciencey people would be like, what is she even talking about?

But I have had, so when my migraines started to come back, so I, I dealt with them in my twenties. Got them under control thanks to progesterone in my thirties. They started coming back now as I’m 41. And one of the first symptoms that I started having with the migraines coming back was vertigo and dealing with, um, my, I literally, the number one complaint that I had in the beginning was my ear, like my right ear.

It feels muffled. It feels full. It feels different than the left ear, right? So I would go to my doctor, and of course I have been through all of the ear tests, like I’ve been to three ENTs and odor ologists. I’ve done VNGs, all these [00:33:00] crazy tests where they tip you upside down on a table. They blow water into air, into your ear.

Like I’ve done all the things. That’s all the scans. And they’re like, your ears are completely fine. Yeah. And so just last week I went to a new ENT because it’s still been bothering me, and he sat down with me and he’s like, I hate telling you this, but he’s like, I, there’s nothing I, there’s nothing with your ears.

Like everything is totally fine. He’s like, this is all part of your migraines. And so everybody has kind of come back to that of like, oh, this is all just connected into your, to your, your migraine. So the fact that you’re telling me that this wearable device goes on the ear and affects the trigeminal nerve.

And the vag older, like this is all so connected for me and it’s of no surprise that like, you know, of course the ENT is, he’s used to looking at like sinus issues and all these types of, well,

Amy Gaston: they’re looking for some blockage. You know, ENT is like, is there an infection, is there a blockage? Is there something Keeping your ear from doing what it’s supposed to be doing

Jenny Swisher: to be doing.

Hearing that, right, because he said to me, he’s like, are you able to hear? And they did a hearing test and I said, yes. And he’s like, then it’s, I can’t help you. Right. I listen, I follow like [00:34:00] Dr. Kerry Jones and some others, um, who I really respect in the hormone space. And they talk about how, guess what, over the age of 40 women will start to experience itchy ears.

They will start to experience perhaps what they feel like is hearing loss in one ear because there are estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors in the ears, right? So as hormones start to become affected. Ears become affected. When I posted in my community a couple weeks ago and I asked, uh, what is your number one pet peeve, perimenopausal symptom, the top two were one, one person saying, ringing in the ears or itchiness of the ears.

And the other one was saying something about like funky smells. Like a, a smoky, oh yeah. A lot of women were saying that they smell like a, a campfire all the time, which is interesting. So anyways, I would love for you to touch on why the ear. I mean, obviously it’s because of those nerves, but if you could tell us more about sort of the, the decision there and why that was chosen, that’d be cool.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. So specifically the ear selection for us is the location of those auricular branches. Um, so our, our ear piece is, um. Is disposable and it sits [00:35:00] on your skin surface. So it’s non-PE tip, so nothing’s piercing your ear, which would be super uncomfortable. Nothing’s entering into your skin. And so as we, as they look at the easiest way to activate those auricular branches or those branches, um, they sit.

Like off of your ear and your cranium, like right at these spots. I don’t know if you can see. So right on either side of your ear. Um, and we’re able to target through our, um, through our frequency, those specific branches right here on, on your cranium. And so, um, the, the work, um, behind, Hmm, okay. I’m gonna pause this real quick.

I’m so sorry. ’cause I wanna make sure that I get this science right. Yeah, you’re

Jenny Swisher: totally fine. You’re totally fine.

Amy Gaston: Let me shoot Navi a note really quick. I’m sorry. I wanna make sure I can No, no,

Jenny Swisher: you’re, we can come back to it too. That that’s okay. Okay. Let me,

Amy Gaston: um, Hey, tell me why. Uh, like,

Jenny Swisher: well, since, since we’re paused, I’ll tell you, I think I told you that I met, and I can’t remember the gal’s name.

I met, [00:36:00] I’m meeting with someone else. I’m interviewing someone else that has an earring. Uh. It’s an earring. Oh,

Amy Gaston: Ancora.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. In Cora. We love

Amy Gaston: them. Yeah. Yeah. They’re they’re, I was gonna bring them up in a second. Yeah. I was like,

Jenny Swisher: have you heard of Ancora? So the, the fact that there’s two of y’all doing this with the ears, I’m like, I’m not crazy.

There’s,

Amy Gaston: we, uh, we always joke that the ears having a moment.

Jenny Swisher: The ear is having a moment and I’m here for it because I’ve been over here complaining about my ears and everybody looking at me like I’m crazy.

Amy Gaston: No, no, no. I mean for sure. And you talk about the itchiness of the ears.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah.

Amy Gaston: It was two days ago. I couldn’t hear it outta my left ear.

Yeah. It was like awfully. And I was like, oh shoot. Oh shoot. Oh shoot. Oh shoot. What? It’s annoying.

Jenny Swisher: It’s

Amy Gaston: very annoying. It’s very annoying. And so I’m like, what? And I actually didn’t think about it being perimenopausal. So now I’m like, now I wanna talk to my doctor and be like, hi, what is happening? 40. So, and I’ve been perimenopausal for about, um, I would say like two years probably.

Yeah. Um, but the ear things have been very apparent as of late. Yeah.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I’m telling you like I, I feel like I’m just like extra in tune with my [00:37:00] body to the point. Like, my doctor’s always like, you’re very, very in tune. And I’m like, yes. And I’m telling you that like my ears were getting muffled, like weird ling, like first, that was like one of the first things that I had.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. Um.

Jenny Swisher: And then everybody just wants to tell me like, oh, it’s just part of your migraines. Or you know, they call it vestibular migraine. And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t buy that. Like, something’s going on here that just

Amy Gaston: happen research,

Jenny Swisher: you know? Yeah,

Amy Gaston: for sure, for sure. Lemme be the Guinea pig.

Jenny Swisher: Lemme be the Guinea pig.

Uh,

Amy Gaston: he’s typing right now. I’m so sorry. I just wanna make sure the Yeah, you’re

Jenny Swisher: totally fine. What we can do is we can move on and then we can, and I

Amy Gaston: can come back. Okay.

Jenny Swisher: Yep. So one of the things that I love about you guys too is, you know, that I, you said this in, in your bio, we said this, that it’s drug free solutions for women.

And like I said before, you know, even just last week, I had a really, this is probably TMI, but I had a very long period, I was so frustrated. It was like six, six, never.

Amy Gaston: TMI, by the way, we, we talk about periods every day. Okay? Yeah, I know.

Jenny Swisher: Well, I know it’s just, but it’s one of those things where it’s, my husband’s so sick of it.

He hears about it all the time, but I’m like six days of bleeding. Right. And it was probably four days of heavy bleeding, two days of moderate bleeding. But it was like, it’s, it was [00:38:00] taking forever. Right. And then it’s like, my kids wanna like go to the pool and do all these fun things. And I’m like, oh, I just, I don’t even feel that great.

Like, I just don’t. Right. And so, and I’m taking the herbals, I’m using bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. I’m sleeping extra. ’cause I know there’s more sleep required on your period. Like I’m doing all the things like lifestyle wise. Yeah. Um, but even still, I have to reach for the Aleve. Like I can’t make it, it seems like I can’t make it through the first couple days of my cycle without Aleve.

Um, for the, the menstrual cramps alone. Like not let alone the headache. Right. And so I, I take that, I use the heating pad. I buy those on the go heating pads or you like stick them to your belly? Stick them. Yeah. Like one of these days, like probably my kids, by the time they’re 50, they’ll be like, you used to do what?

Right. Because you’ll be wearing like an earpiece. That controls their, their menstrual cramps. Right. So own body it’s fine. Yeah. Happens. Exactly. I mean, the things we used to do is what we’ll say, oh, the things we to do to get through my period. Right. Um, but, but yeah, like I, I I, I, I might be saying it out loud, but so many women on the other end right now are like, yeah.

Like I, [00:39:00] I have to carry a bottle of Advil with me, or I have to have all these things, or I have to take the day off work. Right? I, I don’t know the statistic off the top of my head, but a large percentage of women have to call in,

Amy Gaston: uh, like 26 million women call in 8.9 days per year.

Jenny Swisher: Because of their menstrual pain.

Amy Gaston: Because of their

Jenny Swisher: mens pain. And then you look at the women in perimenopause who all of a sudden you’re, you’re having crime scene periods.

Amy Gaston: That’s right. And never before. Yes. And never before been heavy. That’s me. I’ve never been really heavy menstrual bleeding, but every like third period, now that I’m in perimenopausal, suddenly I’m like, whoa, whoa, look.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s happening? And my menstrual disc is no longer enough to mitigate. The blood I to control the bleeding, you know? And so suddenly I’m like leaking through my pants when I’m wearing a disc and I should not be leaking. But it’s so overflowed with blood that my body’s like, okay, we’re done and we gotta excel it, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Right, right.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So I love, I love that. And so I just wanted to just, I mean, there’s no real question there. It’s just more of like, I love that this is a, an option for people and a solution for, for women to say, Hey, like, let’s try this. I mean, you talked about how. You know, you’re able to, I think [00:40:00] you said 55% reduction in blood loss.

Um, and even just the, the, the improvement in like, cutting down days of bleed or, you know, intercepting that sort of pain, um, pain signal. So I’m, I’m excited for this. I can’t wait. I, I, when you first said, we just launched, I’m like, okay, well I’m hopping online. Yes. All day. Absolutely, this is gonna be the most exciting wearable yet.

Amy Gaston: Well, and you talk about the pharmaceutical side, but you haven’t mentioned the surgical side, right? Right. So if your heavy bleeding is really, really bad and phar pharma can’t help you or hasn’t been able to alleviate that, you know, your other two options are an ablation. So cauterize your uterine wall, which is not even permanent.

Right. So, and most women aren’t receiving, are receiving like topical and like onsite pain relief for that. But that procedure is very, very painful. I’ve said, I’ve had several friends who’ve done it and they’re like, I thought I was going to die. It was worse than childbirth. Yeah. And I’m like, that is terrible.

Jenny Swisher: Oh, thank you.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. Or number two is a hysterectomy, which can either throw a woman into menopause early, which. Not what we want or can. In the case of my college roommate ended her fertility journey far sooner. Yeah. And her family [00:41:00] planning far sooner than she was ready to. But her bleeding was so intense and was so, so bad.

Her doctor was basically like. This is the option. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what we are. And now she’s discovered even post hysterectomy that she likely has PCOS. Mm-hmm. And she’s like, gosh, if I had known that’s what that was, she started bleeding when she was eight and, and very heavy bleeding, like migraines, vomiting.

Yeah. I mean the whole thing. And had she known she had PCOS, which wasn’t even a thing when we were in school. Right. Like, I think I’ve only known about PCOS in the last like four years. Really? Maybe not even that long. She’s just like, I would’ve. I would’ve done this differently. Yeah. I would’ve sought different help.

And now she is seeking help, which I’m, I’m so grateful for her. But gosh, you know, she wasn’t done with a family and had to make that decision. And I think for us, I think about my niece who’s 13, um, just started her, her period, if someday she were to experience heavy menstrual bleeding or severe cramps.

I’m so grateful that there’s something on the market like own body that my sister-in-law can turn to [00:42:00] as a solution as opposed to giving my very sweet, thin, tall, beautiful niece hormones, right? Because that. The, the longer we can keep those kinds of hormones out of the bodies of young women, the better chance that if and when they decide they wanna be moms and they wanna start families, their bodies are not going to have to then negate all of the extra hormones that have been placed in their body for years and years and years.

Right, right. So I have lots of friends that have been on birth control since they were 14, 15. Yeah. And then in their thirties trying to family plan have had tremendous difficulty in that.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. That was me. Yeah, so, so that was me. The fact that we

Amy Gaston: can, we can help that, or women, you know, who are in religious sectors where hormonal birth control isn’t an option.

So now they’re just suffering through heavy menstrual bleeding with no solution as outside of, and painful periods outside of. Heating pads, Aleve, you know?

Jenny Swisher: Yeah.

Amy Gaston: And whatever that might look like.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. And like you said, a lot of times it’s because, you know, because a, a young girl or woman is handed birth [00:43:00] control and we bandaid the symptoms for, I mean, I see women go through perimenopause on birth control, and that’s, that’s everyone’s choice.

Right. It’s not a bad choice. Um, but if they do that, they don’t, you know, what happens is the root cause is never really addressed. Yeah. So, like you said, right, like with PCOS, same thing goes for like endometriosis. I have a friend of mine who. Had large fibroids. Um, she was like in her late forties, they decided to operate, take them out.

She had full hysterectomy. Thankfully, like she’d gone through my course and like knew what to ask about when it came to like hormone replacement because that’s a whole other subject.

Amy Gaston: Oh yeah. We could spend another hour another, yeah. The medical

Jenny Swisher: community does not typically just say you should go on hormones, but hey.

But they do say we are gonna take them all away. So, um, so anyway, she went through that and then. We start having conversations about the fact that I’m like, well, you know, let’s talk about how those fibroids got there to begin with. Right? Like, let’s talk years of painful periods that you’ve had that maybe you’ve never mentioned, or, yeah.

And so let’s talk about maybe access estrogen, right? Let’s talk about what’s actually going on because Yes, now they’re gone. Now your cycles are over. Yay. Yeah. Yay. But like. [00:44:00] Guess what? Access estrogen can lead to other, other forms of cancer, can lead to other issues, right? So, um, getting to the root of it is, is the whole thing.

And I, I get frustrated. I have a whole podcast I can link up for people on PCOS because it’s one of the biggest questions I get. I get moms in my inbox who are like, I think my daughter, you know, my daughter has PCOS. What do we do? And so I did a whole podcast on this about number one, I feel like it’s broadly misdiagnosed.

I feel like a lot of doctors. There is no androgen testing to prove PCOS, but they just assume that because a, a young girl is having irregular cycles or trouble, oh, it must be PCOS. We’ll just lump it into that category. Right. And so PCOS is really just a diagnosis for a set of symptoms instead of true diagnosis that that involves any sort of approach.

Right? Yeah. And then, and then you throw in the, the handout of oral contraceptives and all that stuff too. Um, whereas really it’s like, well, let’s take a look at it because over 80% of PCOS. Is really comes down to your blood sugar control. Right? And when I look at, especially young girls, especially young athletes, I’m like, are we eating enough?

Are we eating enough protein? Are [00:45:00] we satiating the body? Are we feeding those hormones? ’cause if we’re not, we’re gonna be stuck in a blood sugar rollercoaster, which is gonna then tell your body and give your body all these signals of, hey, you’re not, it’s not safe. Right? It’s not safe to reproduce. So therefore we’re gonna kind of shut down the menstrual cycle.

Like that’s where this is all coming from. Yeah. So we can understand that like. Whether it’s xenoestrogens and endometriosis and understanding like. Excess estrogen and clearance of that and methylation, and which no one’s talking about until we, until we really become, that becomes part of what women get as part of their healthcare.

Um, it’s important that we can, you know, this is an awesome option to alleviate the pain and the symptoms, but also like digging deeper into. What’s causing this to begin with, right? Yeah, absolutely. ’cause we shouldn’t be feeling this way. And I, I, it, it pains me, I mean, I have a friend of mine who’s probably listening, who is in my inbox right now, often her daughter, her 17-year-old daughter, they had to pull her from school, um, pulling her because of painful periods in migraine headaches and this, which is

Amy Gaston: wild by the way,

Jenny Swisher: right?

It’s happening. Yeah. It’s, it’s wild. But that was me in high school. Like I never got pulled from school. But [00:46:00] I was miserable. I was miserable with migraines. I was miserable, miserable with painful periods. And then, um. The women I’ve met along the way who, you know, have just have to have, have had to just sacrifice.

Yeah, a week, a month. Um, for something that’s just ridiculous. So there’s so much to be said there, but I just, I just think, I just want people to understand that yes, biohacking and, and technology and where it’s headed is so exciting because it’s kind of like I said, putting the power into our hands to understand our bodies better.

But also, it really still comes down to that self-advocacy and really understanding where this is coming from. Because PCOS is a diagnosis, basically, it’s a label for a set of symptoms. Right. I remember when a doctor told me 20 years ago, like, oh. You have, we, we did your brain scan and you have occipital neuralgia.

And I remember I got in the car and I called my mom and I was in tears and I was like, I have a, how scary. I have a diagnosis, like it’s occipital neuralgia. And she’s like, what’s that? And I was like, I don’t know. And so I Googled it mm-hmm. And it was like occipital neuralgia pain in the back of the head.

And I was like, [00:47:00] so I told her, I was like, it’s, it’s pain in the back of my head. She’s like, well, didn’t you already know that? I’m like. Yeah, I know I have pain in the back of my head. Oh wait, this isn’t a real, like, it’s not a diagnosis, it’s, it, it’s a naming of what you’re feeling. It’s naming of a, a set of symptoms.

Right. And that’s, that’s what people need to understand is that’s happening in women’s health. We don’t really know what’s going on, but we have a name for it, right? Like we have, we have a name for this thing that women come in complaining about, or we have a name for this thing that you’re suffering from, but we don’t really know how to, how to help it.

So anyways, all that to say, um, yay for alternative medicine. Yay. For like root cause and, and digging into it, but. Um, all this is, is, is so exciting. So what I wanna dive into is, and I know I’ve kind of shared this already, but um, is really just the, the ear.

Like, why did we choose the ear? Um, I know for me personally, I’ve had lots of weird ear symptoms, whether it’s ear, itchiness, ear, you know, ear muffled ear. Uh, ear trouble. And EMTs have all told me, you know, your ears are fine. Right? And so I know it’s hormonally related. I know it’s tied into my trigeminal nerve and my migraine issues.

Um, so when, when I was [00:48:00] talking to you, um, and actually another wearable device company that also is utilizing the ear, I thought, well, there’s gotta be something to this. Like, why are we, why are we attaching this to the ear? Um, for women. So I would love for you to touch on that.

Amy Gaston: Yeah. So for, um, one, that company you’re talking about in Cora, I’m gonna give them a shout out ’cause they’re amazing and, uh, their team and I talk a lot about that.

You’re having a moment. So it’s really fun to be in a space, uh, that’s, and, and, you know, and be specifically targeting for women. Um, and, and some symptom relief for women’s. Um, so the ears specifically for centuries. Acupuncturists have been utilizing the ear to target specific cranial nerves for health and wellbeing, right?

So already there’s, there’s this historical kind of support of targeting the cranial nerves around the ear in order to alleviate pain and symptoms. Um, right now, um, non-invasive vagal nerve stimulation is really, um. Is really a growing field, right? And, and there’s all this talk around vagus nerve [00:49:00] and specifically when you look at that and what’s coming out of that research, it’s happening either around the ear or the neck.

So, so those are kind of the, the best places to kind of trigger the vagus nerve. The ear offers kind of this more friendly, user-friendly version, right? So there’s some devices right now that go on the neck that almost looks like a. Like a paralyzing stun gun and you know, and you have to kind of hold it to your neck and, and it stimulates and it tells you, you may feel facial muscle contractions and that feels scary.

And so our device doesn’t do that. Um, it’s again, non-invasive. It sits on the skin and it’s gonna stimulate this really mild form of, of, of currency down your ear. So, of current, excuse me, not currency, mild, current, down your ear. So that’s, that’s helping that. Um. That, that’s one of the reasons the ear as opposed to the neck right, is ’cause it’s just a little, um, user-friendly, more user-friendly.

Um, and then the other part is that because our device activates both the trigeminal and the vagus [00:50:00] nerve, the ear is the best place to do both of those nerves together. And so because those bundles sit relatively side by side, um, on your, on your head, um, the ear just offers that, the best place for us to trigger both of those.

Jenny Swisher: Perfect. That’s what I figured you’d say, but I I, I wanted to hear it from you. I love that. Okay. Awesome. So we have covered so much, um, on the topic of just how, how women can help themselves really, and right how this is a new tool in their toolbox. So I would love for you to share with us, you just launched, so tell us how women can get ahold of this.

Um, and then of course, ladies, we will link this up in the show notes for you as well.

Amy Gaston: Yeah, uh, we, we did, we just launched and we’re very excited. Um, we would encourage everyone to go to our website, www.ownbody.com, O-H-M-B-O-D y.com, and, and search around, look at our science, read our articles, read our blogs, um, ask questions.

Um, but you can buy that directly from us and then it ships. Uh, relatively quickly out of our, uh, out of our Houston based distribution center. And [00:51:00] so, um, yeah, go check it out and we’re, we’re excited to hear from your listeners and, um, follow us on social. It’s a place to engage with us to share your own experiences, ask questions.

Um, we really hope to be more than just a brand with a product that’s really great, but we hope to be a brand where people can come and, and feel like they have a safe place to, um. To, to your point, Jenny, you know, your community feels really safe to come and ask questions that they don’t feel comfortable asking their doctors or maybe their moms or the women in their own community.

Um, but we wanna be a safe place for that. And so we would encourage everyone to come in and, and, and share their own experiences with us.

Jenny Swisher: Perfect. I love it. Well, I have your website already pulled up because when you, okay. When you told me you launched, I was like, okay, I’m here for this. So this is gonna be exciting.

You guys, you’re gonna hear about my own journey with this, ’cause I’m gonna use it myself. I’ll, I’ll come back and report back to what I’m learning. Um, I’ll add it to my arsenal of my eto, my mirror, my, my Apollo, and my aura ring. Um, you can call me a total nerd, but I’ve, I’ve loved meeting you, Amy, thank you so much for taking your time to, to be here, [00:52:00] um, to share with us this, this exciting new tool.

Ladies, I’ll have everything linked up for you in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we’ll talk next time. Bye-bye.