In this episode, Dr. Eric interviews acupuncturist, author, and educator Robin Ray Green about the often-overlooked environmental stressors that can silently interfere with thyroid health, immune function, energy, and healing. Drawing from her own personal journey with mold illness, Robin explains how invisible stressors like mold, poor water quality, EMFs, and air pollution can overwhelm the body—even when someone is following a clean diet and healthy lifestyle.
Robin shares how chronic mold exposure dramatically impacted her health, leading to debilitating fatigue, brain fog, and burnout despite doing everything “right.” This experience led her to explore the deeper root causes of chronic illness and uncover how environmental toxins, poor sleep environments, electronic pollution, and hidden emotional stressors can keep the body stuck in a constant state of stress and inflammation.
The conversation also explores practical strategies for reducing toxic burden, improving sleep quality, choosing better water filtration systems, minimizing EMF exposure, and supporting the body’s natural healing processes. If you want a clearer, more balanced understanding of the hidden stressors affecting your thyroid and overall health, you’ll get a lot out of this episode.
Click Here [1] to listen to it on the Save My Thyroid podcast
Dr. Eric Osansky:
I am delighted to be chatting with Robin Ray Green about the invisible stressors. It’s going to be a wonderful conversation. Robin has an amazing Substack newsletter. She has a lot of great articles, but this was one of the amazing articles. I think you will find this extremely helpful.
Let me dive into Robin’s bio here. Robin Ray Green is an acupuncturist, author of the Hay House book Heal Your Child from the Inside Out, and cofounder of Thrive Ear Seeds. She is the former founder of the Center for Acupuncture Pediatrics, where she trained practitioners worldwide in pediatric acupuncture.
With more than two decades of clinical experience, Robin focuses on helping people understand the hidden factors that drain energy and interfere with healing, translating complex health topics into practical steps that actually help. Thank you so much for joining us, Robin.
Robin Ray Green:
Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Eric:
This is going to be a good conversation. We got a little bit of your background with your bio, but let’s dive deeper. Why do you do what you currently do in the health space? You can also expand on that, why you decided to create the Substack. Really would love to learn more about you.
Robin:
My background of course is in acupuncture and pediatrics. I spent many years working with kids. When I wrote my book, I really talked about solving the end wellness gap, that space a lot of people are in when they are not really sick sick, they’re not in a hospital, but they’re not well either. There is a lot of people who fall into that gap. I saw that a lot with pediatrics.
In 2019, I sold my practice and moved to Idaho. We moved into this gorgeous, huge house. I was so excited to be there. As soon as I got there, I was exhausted. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought maybe it was the stress of the move and selling my practice. A very stressful time, of course.
Then we had a leak in the roof shortly after we moved in. Within a year of being there, I started to get sicker and sicker. I had no energy. I had brain fog. I could barely work an hour or two a day. I loved to write. I have written a whole book. I could write more than an hour before my brain was just gone.
Once I figured out that mold was the culprit underneath all of that, that was when I realized that I was doing so many things right. I was getting 8+ hours of sleep. I was eating a clean diet. I was exercising four times a week. What is going on? Why am I not feeling better? This should be the best I have felt in a really long time, given all the things I was doing. I wasn’t working at the time. Turns out it was this mold issue.
When I started to explore healing for mold, that was when I discovered that this home I was living in, that was gorgeous on the outside, was really making me sick. There were many different problems with the air, the mold, the water—we were on well water—as well as EMFs.
You can’t out-acupuncture, out-diet, out-supplement those stressors that are in your environment. So many of us go on our healing journey, and we get better to a point. Then we get kind of stuck somewhere. A lot of times, it’s these hidden stressors in our homes that could be part of the picture. It’s often not addressed in protocols, dealing with the various issues people have.
Dr. Eric:
It started with the mold. The first year, you felt fine. Then there was a leak initially when you moved in. It developed over the first year, and that is when you started feeling lousy?
Robin:
Yeah, I felt exhausted initially, and then I was doing okay. It was a slow dive down into this dark place, where I felt terrible, even despite everything I was doing.
Dr. Eric:
How did you find out it was mold? Did you randomly decide to test your home for mold? Did you do a urinary mycotoxins test?
Robin:
Great question. First of all, it was really speaking with another expert and tracing back my symptoms and asking the right questions. Has there been a water leak in your house? Is there any visible mold?
Once I saw the mold, then I did the urine mycotoxin testing. That was really interesting because we tested the whole family once. My husband and my two sons had one type of mycotoxin, and I had five different types, which, then tracing back my history, this is not my first exposure.
When I was a teenager, we had a water leak in the master bathroom, and there was a serious mold problem in the house. Going back earlier to childhood, I lived in a house with a basement, which probably also had mold. I had these mold exposures and probably a genetic predisposition to difficulty detoxing mold. Our mold panels showed very different variations, which is why sometimes multiple people can be in the same mold environment with different reactions. That was one of the things we learned when we tested.
Dr. Eric:
Now that you’re aware of this, how common do you see it with others, not just mold, but these other invisible stressors? You mentioned the well water. You mentioned EMFs. There are other hidden stressors in our home.
Robin:
I think it’s incredibly common. I think it’s way more common than people realize. When you’re at full capacity, your cup is empty, and you don’t have a high body burden or toxic load. A little EMFs here, a little water toxin exposure there. Maybe some fluoride in your water or something like that. You’re not filtering your air.
Your body is resilient. It’s meant to heal, meant to repair. When that cup is almost full, and then you add in poor quality water, fluoride, EMFs, working in an office where I was surrounded by a smart meter and no mesh WiFi router and all of these things, I thought I was depressed. It turns out it was not that. It was the EMF exposures I was getting.
It’s not sexy to talk about, so it feels like when you can take a supplement or be on a protocol that you’re taking action, but removing things feels less exciting to do. You don’t lay in a room with a WiFi router and think, “WiFi did a number on me.” That’s usually not people’s experience. It’s after things are taken away for a while, you realize, “I’m sleeping better. I feel better.” It’s not quite as obvious, these environmental stressors. If we don’t take care of them, it’s like trying to dry off while you’re still in the shower.
Dr. Eric:
Excellent point. You do mention in an article that people keep adding solutions. They will add more protein. You mentioned going on a stricter diet, avoiding gluten. Not that these can’t be helpful, but in your example, when you dealt with mold as well as the EMFs, adding more protein wasn’t the solution. Wouldn’t have had much of an impact.
Same thing with the diet. You can make diet changes. I’m sure you talk about diet and lifestyle. Those are extremely important. That’s the one thing I always talk about. Many times, you have to go beyond diet and lifestyle. That’s a piece of the puzzle. Some people, that’s all they do, clean up their diet, manage stress, get sufficient sleep. Some people, maybe that’s enough. For others, it’s not enough, especially if you’re sensitive to mold, and you have a mold issue in your home. Other environmental toxins and toxicants.
That’s why we’re chatting. It’s such a big problem and something people overlook. You probably hear this, too, about the change in the diet. “I changed my diet and still feel lousy.” We probably need to look elsewhere.
Robin:
Exactly. I think that’s one of the things. I was that person. What am I missing? I was bootstrapping my health in every way possible. I was on cleanses and detoxes and doing all the things. That was a really important element. T
he environmental factors were affecting my sleep. When you are not sleeping well, you won’t repair well. Even if you are exercising five days a week, and you’re on that clean paleo diet, and you measure every calorie and you know you’re not overeating, and yet you’re gaining weight, I feel like I so understand what people are going through when they feel like they are doing all the right things and not seeing the results. There is usually something hidden in there that hasn’t been addressed yet.
I get really curious. If it’s my gut, what is throwing my gut out of balance? It’s an absolutely reasonable question to ask. Am I eating too much sugar? Could it be gluten? Dairy? Nightshades? Those are all reasonable questions.
Going even further upstream is like, could it be the water I’m drinking? Am I drinking fluoridated water? Am I drinking bottled water with microplastics? Is my refrigerator filter really taking care of all of the things I’m being exposed to, or just 32 of the 10,000 possible things that could be in our water?
It’s important to start asking those questions because we have to empty out that cup, so we can be able to support the body in its healing. I truly believe when we remove the interference, the thing that is blocking us from healing, that the body really does know how to heal itself, but we haven’t figured out that signal that we’re getting.
Where is that cause coming from? If it’s an autoimmune issue, why is the immune system attacking itself? There has to be a good reason. It’s just a matter of being a detective. These are those missing pieces that can make a big difference.
Dr. Eric:
I definitely agree. With the water, you had well water. Did you run testing on the well water, and after testing, switch to a different source? Or even without testing, did you start purifying your water and drink cleaner water?
Robin:
This is what I actually did. I took our purified water, which was going through a filtration system, and I distilled it. I actually have this picture somewhere on my Substack. You can see this brown, goopy stuff at the bottom. This brown oily film that was in there smelled really bad. That is what did it for me. This water is not clean.
That’s the deceiving thing about municipal water. It looks fine, but all of the chemicals that are in it are suspended, so they are not dropping out to the bottom. They are suspended in the water, so you can’t see it. It looks clean and pure. Distilling it was the thing that caught my attention. I realized I am bathing in this. I love to take baths. I’m drinking this. I’m showering in this. This is really not okay.
Dr. Eric:
I can relate. Currently, we use reverse osmosis. We used to have our own distiller, too. We would distill the tap. Unless they changed the way distillers work, as it’s been a long time, but it takes a while to distill it. You have the residue in there. I know exactly what you’re talking about. My wife and I would look at it and be like, ugh, that is disgusting, like you said. With the distiller, you can see.
Robin:
If people want to know what’s in their water, EWG has a tap water database they just updated again. You can input your zip code, and it will tell you what chemicals are in your water.
Locally, here in Idaho, look up Eagle Water to see what it had. We had uranium, radon, and other radioactive elements in the water, which is also removed when you distill. You can get rid of that.
I also think it really opened my eyes to be like, oh, I buy a kombucha. What water is in there? I get a coffee at Starbucks. Is it just tap water? I have no idea what kind of water I’m drinking. Not that I don’t ever do those things. I still do. Now I have more awareness about how much I want to do that. I think not a lot.
Dr. Eric:
We’re on the same page. You also mentioned the microplastics from drinking out of plastic water bottles. If I’m on vacation, I’ll try to bring my stainless-steel water bottles. Again, if you’re in an airport, you can’t bring water to the airport. I’ll be drinking out of a plastic water bottle. I haven’t seen in an airport yet Mountain Valley Springs in a glass bottle. That would be nice inside the airport. There is a time and place.
The problem is when someone is buying it by the case, they are going to Costco or Sam’s Club and just buying whatever 36-pack of bottled water. That is their main source. Or like you said, drinking the tap water. I don’t know which is worse. I guess the plastic water bottles, you’re dealing with plastics. The thing is, at least you know what the plastic water bottles have microplastics. With tap water, you have no idea what’s in there. There is probably microplastics in the tap water, too.
In all seriousness, ideally, you want to filter it. I use reverse osmosis. You use distilled. Both of those are good. Even drinking good quality spring water out of a glass bottle, like Mountain Valley Springs. I don’t know your opinion on that.
Robin:
There is good, better, best in my opinion. Any kind of filtration is good. I don’t want to discourage people from using their filtration. If you can upgrade to reverse osmosis or distilling, my preferred method, and add minerals back in, unfortunately, there just isn’t a clean, pure source of water on Earth, unless it’s from a glacier from thousands of years ago, which we probably don’t have access to.
I also believe in the 80/20 rule. I am not going to be perfect at it. I will just do my best. When I travel or am at airports, you just have to do what you have to do. Staying hydrated is more important. In those moments when you’re recovering, it’s important to pay closer attention and be a little stricter during that period.
Dr. Eric:
Exactly. What you mentioned is a big concern with both reverse osmosis and distilled water. People say, “If it’s removing the minerals,” like you said, you can add the minerals back. Plus you are getting minerals from the food you eat. It’s not like you’re just depending on water. Everything is risk versus benefit. I’d rather remove the toxins and toxicants from the water. Again, you can add back minerals, like you do, and I do as well. I’d rather do that than drink spring water out of a plastic bottle, for example. You get the minerals, but you are dealing with all the toxins and toxicants.
Using a lesser filter, some will use a Brita filter, not to say anything bad about Brita, but most of these over-the-counter filters aren’t removing enough.
Robin:
Forever chemicals are the big one. Brita and most refrigerator filters won’t remove the PFOAs.
There are products on the market like Aurmina and others, which are ionic sulfated minerals. It’s returning your water back to spring water again, which is amazing. That’s what we want to be drinking. It gives you all the trace minerals that you need. It’s really interesting.
Dr. Eric:
Ionic sulfated minerals?
Robin:
Yes.
Dr. Eric:
Let’s switch gears and talk about EMFs, electronic pollution. You mentioned that you have your mesh network. The smart meter, I’m curious what you did. I was diagnosed in 2018 with chronic Lyme and bartonella. At that time, I was aware of EMFs before that, but I paid more attention to them when I was diagnosed.
Having a smart meter right outside our home, I was able to get it turned off. I wasn’t able to get it removed. Did you do the same thing? Were you able to get it turned off or actually removed?
Robin:
If anyone has the option to turn it off and go manual, that’d be the gold standard. Here in Idaho, we are one of the only states where they won’t remove it, and there is no replacement for it yet. We have to start legislation to change that because we have no option. We moved into a brand-new home, so we have the latest smart meter.
Inside, we have dirty electricity filters to help mitigate some of that. Our second home out from the mold house now. In the other home, we had a whole house dirty electricity filter to offset that. That was our solution since we couldn’t take an axe to it and get rid of it. I definitely think that when you’re recovering, EMFs are something that can speed things up or slow it down depending on your exposure levels.
Dr. Eric:
It’s funny you mentioned a mesh network. I was looking to change the internet in our house. When we contacted Google Fiber, they were talking about the mesh network. At the time, I didn’t know what that was. I did some research, and it’s Bluetooth and WiFi throughout the house.
Robin:
It’s amplified. The original house we were in when we moved here was 4,500 square feet. We were more out in the country, so we didn’t have good internet. We set up the mesh router in my office, so I was surrounded by my phone, computer. The smart meter was just outside the office window, and the mesh router was right next to me. I was getting radiofrequency radiation at a high level for someone who was being exposed to mold simultaneously.
What’s funny is I hated that office. I didn’t want to work in there. I felt depressed. Maybe it’s because I have a north-facing window, and I was not getting enough sunlight in the room. I had all these reasons why. We had a little sunroom on the opposite end of the house. I moved my office over there at one point, and it was so much better. It was so light and bright, so in my mind, I thought it was just the light. It was a light issue making me feel depressed.
What really convinced me that EMFs were part of the picture was when I measured. I didn’t buy an EMF meter off Amazon for $50 but a radiofrequency meter, a body voltage meter, and a dirty electricity meter. I went around the house. I sat at my desk and measured how much electricity was running through my body. The Building Biologists, for sleep, recommended your body voltage should be under 100mv. During the day, sitting at my desk, my body voltage was 5,000mv.
On top of that, the radiation was off the charts for both the EMF meter and the mesh router that were in that office.
Even though I didn’t know that was the problem, I knew I did not like being in that space at all. I was sleeping terribly, also due to body voltage and dirty electricity. There was an outlet a foot and a half from my head, and the dirty electricity, which also omits EMFs around the outlet, they talk about safe levels as 25. Mine was 725. My body voltage in my bed was 11,000mv. No wonder I couldn’t get a deep, restful night’s sleep. I had so many signals hitting my nervous system all night long. It was hard to get a deep night’s sleep.
The second thing that convinced me was I turned my breaker off at night. The WiFi was off. There was no power into my bedroom, so there was no dirty electricity. It didn’t bring my body voltage under 100, but it did bring it down to 300, which is a vast improvement from 11,000. That first night of sleep without the electricity was the first fantastic night of sleep since I’d moved to Idaho. That was probably a year and a half or so after moving, and I felt like a different person.
From there, mitigating became super simple. I need to wire my computers instead of using WiFi. Have a case that blocks radiation from my phone. I’m using a wired keyboard and a wired mouse. I don’t use Bluetooth. I don’t have Bluetooth or WiFi on my computer. Controlling those outputs. Some people do, but I didn’t need to wear EMF-blocking clothing because I was able to bring my exposures way down. That was life-changing for me. I started to heal a lot faster once those stressors were removed from my environment.
Dr. Eric:
It sounds like you have done your research. What do you think about those EMF-blocking pendants?
Robin:
Great question. Wouldn’t that be nice if you could just wear a pendant and not have to worry about it? I actually do have one. I have a Scalar Energy pendant, and I do like it. I don’t know if it’s doing anything.
What it boiled down to for me was you’ll go to the companies, and they have great marketing. They talk about heart rate variability or cortisol or other measurements that are reduced when people wear pendants. They do their own research. It may be excellent or not. I don’t know.
My personal feeling is I can trust when I can block and measure. I can turn off my breaker, and I can measure. I can turn off my WiFi and know that signal is gone. My fear with the pendants is I don’t want that to give me this feeling that I can have all these exposures. I think it’s totally fine if you like it, and it feels good for you. I wouldn’t have that as my first line of defense against EMFs.
Dr. Eric:
Makes sense. I don’t have one. I have thought about getting one. You don’t know 100% if it’s working. You’d still want to take other precautions. It’s like insurance or backup.
Robin:
The very technology they say they are using to mitigate the waves is literally untestable. Other than testing the physiological effects, like with Scalar Energy, you can’t test for it to see that it’s changing the harmonics of the EMFs.
Like I said, I still have one. I think it’s really cute, so I still wear it from time to time. That’s not my first line of defense.
Dr. Eric:
Out of curiosity, when it comes to measuring, do you have a favorite online store? Do you get them on Amazon? I think LessEMFs.com is one.
Robin:
I love them. That’s where I got my body voltage kit. The initial meter I have, they don’t sell anymore. I found a similar one on Amazon. You can purchase it from Amazon. The dirty electricity meter, you can also get on Amazon or Green Wave Filters. They have a nice one. When you plug it into your outlet, it will show you your dirty electricity reading. When you mitigate, it will show the drop in percentage. You just dropped your dirty electricity by 75%, etc.
Dr. Eric:
We spoke about mold, water, and EMFs. What other invisible stressors would you say people need to be aware of?
Robin:
Air quality is really important. We are taking 20,000 breaths a day. Our lungs don’t have a filter the way our digestive system does. If you eat a toxin or something with heavy metals, you’re going to filter some of that through your digestive system. It won’t go straight in.
Your lungs don’t have that. If there are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or if you live in a place with mold that you haven’t been able to mitigate, I mean, mold is everywhere. That’s the honest truth. We won’t be able to get away from it. We just don’t want high levels of black mold in our environment.
Having an air filter. If you can only do one place, I would do one in your bedroom. You’re spending hopefully 8+ hours in there. At night, when your body is meant to repair and relax. We have air filters. We use the AirDoctors. We have one in every room.
I also have, which is amazing if you do have mold in your house, a pure ozone air purifier. It has a regular filter mode, and it will produce ozone. If you have a room with mildew or mold, you can put it on purify, and there are different protocols.
One is where everybody leaves the house, and you set it for 24 hours. The ozone kills mold and all that stuff in the air. If there is smoke or other things, it will get rid of that. That is my next level one that I break out occasionally, especially after 4th of July. There are a lot of air pollutants from fireworks. People love fireworks in Idaho. It’s like a war zone. It’s going on for hours. We have those air purifiers going after a night like that.
Dr. Eric:
I don’t have the office any longer, but in 2017, we moved into an office in a building. Right outside the office was a water fountain. Who knows how long it was there. I guess it was either the first or second day we moved in that the water fountain leaked and went all over the office. My staff person, Kate, she is still with me, but she is very in tune with mold and EMFs. She uses a router shield and all that. She had an ozone generator, so right after that happened, she took her ozone generator into the office. We were out of there for at least 24 hours.
We never had any issues with the mold. If we didn’t know any better and left it up to the maintenance for the building, we very well might have. Great advice.
Having HEPA air filters. AirDoctor is a HEPA?
Robin:
Yeah, ultra-HEPA.
Dr. Eric:
There’s IQAir and a number of other good ones out there. If you could only have it in one room, like you said, the room where you sleep. If you have children, it would be nice to have multiple air filters in different bedrooms.
How about the mattress you sleep on? You mentioned VOCs. There is flame retardant. I can’t say I have all-natural furniture throughout the house. I’m sure there is some off gassing. Same thing if you get a new car. That is a drawback. It is difficult to avoid it.
You mentioned having an air purifier in your room. Hopefully we are spending at least 7-8 hours in our bedroom sleeping. I talk about a natural mattress. Not to run out to get a new one if you don’t have one now, but something to consider when you are in the market for a natural mattress.
Robin:
Absolutely. The off gassing that is happening from the flame retardants, you have to go to lengths to find one that doesn’t have all that. In a pinch, if you’re concerned about it, you can layer a wool blanket over the mattress. I’m like the princess and the pea. I have a blanket and this memory foam one and this bamboo one over that. I have multiple layers on top. You just do the best you can. If you have air filtration in there, that will be helpful.
Let’s say you just got a new mattress. If you can, let it off gas for a few days before bringing it into the house if that’s available to you. 100% agree.
The next mattress we upgrade to will be a natural one. Wasn’t on my radar when we moved here. It was after we got the new mattress that I should have fixed that. A wool blanket is a good mid solution if you’re in that spot right now.
Also, don’t stress over every little thing. I don’t want anyone to walk away from this podcast thinking they’re doing it all wrong. I fixed all these things over time, over the course of a few years. We fixed this thing, then the next one. Do it as you can, in stages. If you do something consistently over time, you will be in a much better place.
Dr. Eric:
Another invisible stressor is the cleaners and cosmetics we use on a daily basis. I agree with you. Just start with one or two things that you use the most if it’s overwhelming to you. If you’re using 409 to spray everywhere, maybe replace that with a more natural cleaner. Replace one once a week or even once a month. After a year, that’s 12 new products.
Robin:
Honestly, the microfiber cloth for me, as the person in my house who wipes the counters down several times a day, I do a lot of cleaning. It’s a cloth and water, and that’s it. It cleans up fantastically well. You can just get them on Amazon. I bought a starter kit for $25, and it’s been going strong for a long time.
Just one little change here. Let’s not get the Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. There are these natural pellets you can drop in. They fizz and do their thing. You wipe it down, and you don’t need a gas mask to go in your bathroom.
Dr. Eric:
In the article, you mention your Clear LPFs framework. What is that? What does LPF stand for?
Robin:
That is from traditional Chinese medicine. It stands for Latent Pathogenic Factors. The way we see it in Chinese medicine, LPFs are these elements that hide in the body. From a modern perspective, in Chinese medicine, we would call them the six evils: heat, damp, cold, dryness, things like that. The translation is that it’s more like infections, toxins, metals, mold, things that create mayhem in the body. It can even be emotions and stored trauma that can all be in your body.
Your energy gets tied up constantly dealing with it. You talked about having Lyme and bartonella. It’s that type of stealthy infection that can come out. Your body’s resources get tied up fighting it, and you feel exhausted. If you don’t feel like yourself and all these weird brain fog and fatigue and sleeping problems and hormones go out of whack. They’re hiding there.
Most conventional investigations and labs are not going to necessarily catch them. You have to search harder for these guys. Some of the modern ones that show up a lot are parasites; liver and gallbladder congestion; stagnant, sluggish bile; people having difficulty digesting fats. They have done a lot of work on their diet, but their gallbladder is not giving them the bile they need to digest their fats. Heavy metals, toxins, mold or chemicals. Stealth infections.
Alos, a lot of unprocessed emotions and patterns. Maybe beliefs that we got programmed in childhood. Beliefs about ourselves or healing can also be latent and affect how well our body is able to heal.
Dr. Eric:
You mentioned stealth infections. I mentioned my experience with chronic Lyme. We are always going to be exposed to viruses, Lyme, all these things. EMFs drag down the immune system and make you more susceptible.
I had a question about EBV. Is there any way to get rid of EBV? If it reactivates, with these viruses, I know I still have Lyme. There is some debate. Some say you can get rid of it. Once you have it, you have it, is how I understand it because it’s intracellular. I feel fine. If I didn’t know I had Lyme years ago, I wouldn’t know. To me, it’s living in harmony. By addressing a mold issue, reducing EMFs, reducing your overall toxic burden will help you live in harmony and reduce the impact of those stealth infections.
Robin:
I love that, living in harmony with them. It’s almost like when we’re affected by those LPFs, they become pathogenic. As we remove those, they are in a less pathogenic state. They’re in a more harmonious state with the body. I feel the same thing with mold. I may never get it all the way out of my body, but it doesn’t have to be dragging my energy down and making me feel awful.
Dr. Eric:
Good point. That is a concern with some people. There is only so much I can do. Even if I address all the mold in my home, maybe my friend’s home or mom’s home has mold, or if I go on vacation, I don’t know. If you’re greatly reducing your toxic burden and doing things to support detoxification, it can help you better tolerate the exposure to mold.
Overall in your home, you won’t get rid of all the environmental toxins. You could do the most in your home. Once you’re outside, there’s only so much you can control. In your home, there will be things you’re exposed to, but the lower your toxic burden, the more vigorous your immune system will be, and the more you can deal with mycotoxins, environmental toxins, and toxicants.
Robin:
I noticed in myself a trauma response to mold almost. In those first few years, while I was detoxing and healing, if I was in an environment that had mold, I could tell immediately. I could feel it. I could feel my sinuses getting clogged. Then the fear would come, of “Oh no! I’m being exposed again.” That’s creating a whole physiological cascade that is not supporting healing.
I had to do some of my own trauma work to release the trauma of the mold. Now that I’m five years out from that initial exposure, I can still tell there is mold. I don’t want to flee from the room immediately with mold now. It’s a common thing. You go to a hotel. There could be water damage. You could be staying in a place with mold. It’s getting to a place, both physically and emotionally, where if you have that exposure, you know it won’t cause a major setback.
Dr. Eric:
Before we wrap things up, if anyone listening to this is feeling overwhelmed, because you gave a lot of great information, when it comes to those hidden stressors we spoke about, what are some things you would say to start with? Pure water, get an air filter, unplug your WiFi? 2-3 things to get started?
Robin:
I would say to prioritize your sleep environment. Everything gets harder when your sleep is off. That is where I would do some exploring. Try turning your WiFi off at night. Unplug it. Remove your phone from your bedroom. I have a battery-operated alarm clock now. I don’t have my phone in my room. Your room is your sacred space. It’s dark and cool.
The biggest thing that interferes with our sleep is EMFs. Your body voltage, especially if you have a plug-in bed. Sleep is when your body detoxifies. It’s when it repairs. It’s when it balances things out. If sleep is broken, it’s harder to fix things. That would be my first place to start.
If I had to give a second, it would be switching water. Filtering or distilling your water and adding back in some minerals. That alone is huge for recouping energy to do healing work.
Dr. Eric:
Anything else that I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Any last words of wisdom?
Robin:
The emotional and spiritual layer of healing. It often gets overlooked because we’re so focused on the protocols. It’s something we can actively do. Protocols are important. I learned through my mold recovery that there is often an invisible layer underneath—beliefs, patterns, emotional programs—that can keep the body stuck, even when you’re doing everything right.
I think there are some questions worth asking. Being really curious, not judgmental. This is something in my own work I have done, asking myself, “What have I gained from being sick? What did my illness protect me from?” It gives me chills to ask those questions.
There were things I gained from being sick. It did protect me from some things. What happens in my life if I actually get fully well? What does that mean? It’s not about blaming, or you manifested your illness. I don’t believe any of that. It’s curiosity about what might be running underneath some physical symptoms, especially people who have worked hard. They have addressed hidden stressors and their diet. It’s important to go alongside healing.
In addition to the protocols, a missing piece is often another supplement or an environmental stressor or an emotional pattern that hasn’t been unwound yet.
Dr. Eric:
If you could remind people where to find you, the Substack. I’ll let you take over.
Robin:
My Substack is “Solving the Unwellness Gap.” TheRRGSubstack.com.
I have a wealth of information on my website, RobinRayGreen.com. I offer clarity sessions, where I use pattern recognition, intuitive insight, and my 20+ years of clinical experience to help people figure out the answers to chronic, complex, and mystery symptoms, especially when your labs are normal. I help people narrow in on what those root causes might be and what their next step is.
Dr. Eric:
You also have a recommendations and easy swaps list. RobinRayGreen.com/Recommendations.
Thank you so much, Robin. You gave a wealth of information. I like to say this with every interview I do, but this one could really benefit everyone. We all have invisible stressors. Some people do more than others. Without getting stressed out, there is usually more that people can do. The first thing is awareness. I’m sure there are people listening to this who aren’t aware of what you brought up. Thanks for bringing awareness, so people can take action.
Robin:
It’s been delightful to have this conversation and share these different stressors. Like you said on my recommendations page, all my easy swaps. I have researched everything, personally tested it. These are the things that survived.
Whomever is listening to this, decide on one thing to do, and do that. You’re on the right track.
Dr. Eric:
Great advice. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed chatting with you. Definitely need to have you back in the future.
Robin:
Would love that.
***
Dr. Eric:
That was a wonderful conversation with Robin. We discussed turning off your smart meter. I mentioned how when I dealt with Lyme, I was able to do this. I had to get a medical doctor to do this. It’s now been almost eight years.
I was working with a functional medicine practitioner. The head of the clinic was a medical doctor, but I was working with a physician’s assistant who had a history of Lyme herself. She was able to write a letter to Duke Energy to turn off the smart meter and monitor it manually. Not every place is able to do that. Something to look into.
I did not know if the smart meter was causing a problem. It was a suggestion by the practitioner I was working with. I was honestly a little bit skeptical whether EMFs were a big issue, if an issue at all, with Lyme and bartonella. It wasn’t a big deal. I sent in a letter, and they turned it off. If they didn’t turn it off, they wouldn’t have. They do have shields on LessEMFs.com for your smart meter as well.
Mesh network concerns. I mentioned how once I was trying to speed up the internet in my home, and they brought up a mesh network, I wasn’t sure what that was. Before having it installed, I did some research and realized that it is Bluetooth everywhere, something I didn’t want. I didn’t go for that option.
She mentioned how she had a mesh network that was affecting her health. She seemed to be somewhat sensitive to EMFs. Even if you don’t feel you’re sensitive, I don’t, but that’s why I wasn’t too concerned about the smart meter. I was concerned to a degree, but personally, I didn’t feel it was responsible for my Lyme and bartonella.
I think it was already installed when I moved into my current home. When I moved in, I wasn’t thinking about removing a smart meter. When I was diagnosed with Lyme and bartonella, I wasn’t thinking about EMFs. Even though I wasn’t stressing about the smart meter, I wasn’t about to add a mesh network into the home when I learned what it was.
Not only concerns with me but concerns for my family. The smart meter is right outside my office. At least my family wouldn’t get as much exposure as me. The mesh network would affect the whole household.
If you have one, up to you to decide to keep it. If you were thinking about getting one, you might want to reconsider.
Distilled water versus reverse osmosis. She mentioned she uses distilled water. I used to have a distiller. We had a distiller for quite a long time. We had a few different ones that we purchased. We definitely saw the leftover gunk in the distiller. You could see what it gets rid of.
I think reverse osmosis is just as good. Both of those could remove most of the toxins and toxicants. They both do remove minerals as well. As I mentioned in previous episodes, you’re not getting most of the minerals from the water. More recently, over the last couple years, I did start adding minerals into the water. You could take a multivitamin with minerals. You are getting minerals mostly from the food you eat. Again, you can supplement if you’re concerned.
Choosing an air purifier. She said she uses the AirDoctor, which is a HEPA air filter. I have heard good things about it. I have a few Blueair filters in my home and one in the office. I have heard good things about IQAir.
Getting an air purifier and then keeping it in your bedroom. If you have multiple bedrooms, ideally you’d want to get one for each room. An alternative is to rotate the purifiers through the rooms, as long as they’re not too big. We can move ours from room to room if we wanted to. That’s the case with many air purifiers. If you need to, start with one, and rotate.
Speaking of the bedroom, focusing on the bedroom. Toward the end of the interview, she said this would be the #1 thing she would focus on, if we had to choose one. She said #2 would be water. She would focus on reducing/eliminating EMFs and replacing the water with, in her opinion, distilled water, and in my opinion, reverse osmosis water.
I think I mentioned this, spring water out of a glass bottle, like Mountain Valley Springs, is also an option to consider. That does have the minerals. Either way, if you’re drinking tap water and/or water out of a plastic bottle on a day-in, day-out basis, definitely want to replace your water. To me, that might be #1, before focusing on your bedroom.
Getting back to the bedroom, I did ask her about getting a natural mattress. I think I mentioned previously in other episodes that I have an Avocado mattress. There was a little bit of controversy over their certifications. When I first purchased it, they didn’t have as many certifications as some other companies like Naturepedic.
We tried out Naturepedic. There was an Asheville, NC store before the pandemic, where they had Naturepedic mattresses. They were okay. We decided to give Avocado a try, even though we couldn’t try it. We had to order it and give it a try. They had a guarantee that if you didn’t like it, you could send it back. They were a newer company. They didn’t have as many certifications, but they had some. They were up and coming. We figured, “Hey, let’s give them a chance,” and we did.
There was a lawsuit against them, which I’m pretty sure was overturned. I think everything is good with their mattress now. But we’ll see. We’ve had their mattress for a while now. Close to 10 years. We might be in the market soon for another one. We’ll have to see.
From a comfort aspect, we do like Avocado. We’ll have to revisit the certifications. It’s definitely better than it was when we first bought it. We’ll have to look into it more deeply. I don’t think anything came of that. Just making you aware. In case you’re in the market for a mattress, do your research. Maybe Avocado isn’t the best mattress to go with right now. Maybe look into Naturepedic or some of the other ones.
I think that’s all I want to say here. Again, this was really enjoyable. Definitely recommend to check out Robin’s Substack, and my Substack, too. Healing Graves’ Naturally on Substack. I also have a newsletter you can subscribe to, SaveMyThyroid.com/newsletter.
Thanks again for tuning into this episode. Hope to catch you on the next one.