Melatonin Benefits: Why Your Brain Needs Darkness for Better Sleep, Brain Health, and Healthy Aging | Deanna Minich

25:54When we worked with her in front of the group, she started crying as well because for her, she didn't realize this, but it was a memory of her father taking her for ice cream on Sundays in the summer. And now she's like in her 40s, but she's still eating ice cream to try to resurrect the memory of being with her father, feeling carefree in the summer. So food is powerful, right? It's so many different things to us. And if we can unlock it and have our eating story be told and witnessed, it can be really powerful. What would you say to women who are listening right now who feel maybe stuck with their nutrition, they're feeling inflamed, they're feeling emotionally dysregulated?

26:31Where's a good starting place for them? Well, I do think that having a person, just like you were asking me, can I do this on my own? I mean, even for us, you know, Even though we can know things about nutrition, I do think that having somebody on the outside to help work with us and coach us and give us perspective. Because at the end of the day, we all have blind spots. We all have things that we need to grow from. And I do think that peering into that and whatever that takes, all the different health coaches that are out there, they all have different areas of focus. That might be something to entertain, but you have to find somebody who allows you to have the space, again, to let the symbolism come out.

27:12Get beyond the nutrition. Nutrition is just a given, right? But then there's the nourishment aspect of like, okay, how is the daily meal nourishing us in deeper ways that go beyond the physical body? I'm curious for you, what are your daily rituals that are absolute non-negotiables for staying both physically and emotionally aligned? Ooh, yeah. First of all, I have to sleep. I'm right there with you. That is a non-negotiable for me. And you know, many times what I'll tell people is you have to do at least one thing right. So whether it's nutrition, exercise, sleep, relaxation, relationships, you need one thing that just like shows up every time.

27:55and you do it 100%. So for me, it's nutrition and sleep. I think I'm less good at exercise, although that's changing because I have to. So I just tether it to the things that I do well. But just simple things that are non-negotiable. I mean, I like to wake, I'm a morning person, so I leverage the morning to do most of my brain activities, whether it's like the writing, all the emails, all the meetings if possible. But that first morning light is also really important. And like you, I'm really connected to nature. So we live in a small forest. And so I like to go outside and just have that sense of connecting.

28:41How I start my day is how the rest of my day goes. I mean, I'm not doomed if it doesn't go well. It's just that it takes me more work to get it back on track. whereas when my morning is right it's like everything moves so and that's everything from i'm hydrating i'm pooping i'm peeing i'm um with my husband we're having breakfast we have nourishing conversation i'm like petting my cat like everything just i'm listening to music i'm kind of setting that stage for like physical emotional mental like okay now i'm ready for the rest of the day kind of a thing because i'm not a night person my husband's just the opposite it.

29:20He's more of that creative musician, like that's my husband. I'm like, I don't get that. I have to like be in bed by nine. Yeah, we're sitting in Las Vegas right now. And people last night were like, Oh, come out. We're gonna go see the Wizard of Oz at the sphere. I fell asleep at seven here, which is 9pm for me. And right, like, why did you go to bed so early? I'm like, I have to, you have to, you don't want to see me on less sleep. You wrote the book, The Whole Detox, you You mentioned that earlier. What does the whole detox actually look like? Yeah. So it is a program of where you have seven different aspects.

29:56And it's, of course, connected to color. So it's 21 days. Every three days, we move through a color, the colors of foods. So the first three days are all about red. So all the red colored foods come through in the recipes. And then the next three days would be orange. We kind of move through the rainbow. But what makes this different from most eating plans is that I also embed seven parts into like the daily theme. Because I'm all into themes and colors, right? So every day is like, you know, like it's about survival, about the body. And then we move into an emotion. Like you track your emotions.

30:33You have a certain thought pattern that you're looking at. You have some small activity that you do that connects to the theme. Then you have some kind of affirmation. As you can see, I'm working up. And then you have a visualization, then you have a meditation. And all of that only costs you like 30 minutes of your time, including the recipes. They don't take very long. I wanted it to be very, very simple, but I wanted to touch on more than just nutrition. So the color message, the symbolic theme threads through the whole 21 days. Just a quick story. My father is not into health, but he did do the whole detox program.

31:10And it was really interesting because he wore different colored T-shirts for each of the days of the program that would coincide with the color of that day. And you can see like on the red days when he was starting, he was looking kind of crotchety. But from that, you know, he didn't really want to listen to this. But then by the orange and the yellow, like and by by the end, just watching his pictures every day, it's like, oh, my gosh, you look like a new person. And, you know, you're never a prophet in your homeland. So when a family member does something and has a great experience, it really means something.

31:45What is the biggest lie that women believe about their symptoms? That there's nothing that they can do about those symptoms. They feel really locked in, that they feel almost as they go through this life path that we're on, it's like they're not comfortable with who they are becoming along that path, right? And they kind of feel like they're locked into that. And I feel like it's like art. It's like sculpture. and we're constantly reframing and reshaping who we are. So to me, the ultimate is, I mean, women are so creative. We're physically creative, right? We think of pregnancy and babies. But that aspect of creativity carries over into the times that we're not fertile anymore.

32:26So bringing that aspect of creative expression into our beingness in that second half of life, I feel like that's the biggest lie. Like we're not really embodying and knowing that we have creative potential. Do you think that this lie is something that women have created or that perhaps the narrative in medicine has created for them? And then we've been conditioned to accept this, that like there's nothing you can do about it. This is just part of being a woman. I think the latter. I do think that society and the culture shape the imprint intellectually and emotionally. And it takes a lot for a woman to kind of buck that tide and say, you know what, I'm going to feel differently about this.

33:12And because not everybody around her might be supportive in that way. And maybe it's at the workplace or in the family or even with friends. And so I do think it's because we don't see it in all cultures. You know, I lived in, you live in Mexico, I've lived in Europe, and you just don't see it quite to the same degree that you do in perhaps places like the United States. You really feel it. You feel the polarization. Yeah. So I want to ask you, is there a pattern that you have seen where symptoms show up when it comes to emotions that haven't been processed? Yes, I do think that the body speaks.

33:49It speaks in metaphor and in symptoms. And many times the placement of those symptoms in the body can tell you what the message is. So, and in fact, when I first started seeing people just one-on-one and working through the therapeutic encounter, you know, everything was very physical. It was kind of like, okay, you have inflammation, let's deal with it this way. But then the more that I started to track people and work with them, I started to realize like, oh no, inflammation is not just physical. It's emotional. It is mental. It is even spiritual. So I do think emotions are a powerful vector.

34:26At least what I see in nutrition is that many times our emotions are fueling what we eat, how we eat, and when we eat. So emotions do need to be worked through. And I think that so many women have a discomfort of that because we are told that emotions are weakness. You know, get over it. You're emotional. Yeah, you're such a crybaby. You know, what's with you? I mean, just even from a very young age, girls, I believe, are treated differently than boys with respect to emotions. I mean, sometimes there is some latitude there in terms of acknowledging that, but sometimes it can be derogatory. So I was one of those girls, actually, very sensitive.

35:07And that is the way that the nervous system processes those emotions. So when we shut that down and we say, stop crying, or all the different things that we

35:20actually changing how we cope and how we can move those things through the body, which is why I do think that creative expression later in life, because we haven't had coping mechanisms, is so important. And that can come through in so many different ways. It can come through in interior design. It can come through in fashion, in visual arts, in sound, in poetry, in even beauty, like application. I see now, you know, so much in the way of aesthetics. And to me, it is the suppression that we have seen with creativity. And now it's just coming out in so many different ways. It's trying to get out.

35:57Okay, this is a bit of a tangent, everyone, but you might be listening and having the same question or made the same observation other people have made. Beige aesthetic, we have lost color in the world. Even Christmas has gone completely white, beige, people are not necessarily having like colored lights. I say this because we're recording right now in December. And it's been an observation that a lot of designers, so interior designers, are recognizing that we are not bringing color into our lives. What are your thoughts about that? Where do you, I would just love to hear your perspective because you're like the color guru in my space.

36:31I was like, what is happening that people are just going all beige? And is that actually good for our health to not be surrounded by color? I'm smiling because Pantone just released its color of the year for 2026. I reject you, Pantone. And it was white, white. And so, you know, what do we do with that? I mean, we can see things very metaphorically, like it's a blank slate or it's, you know, time to clear the slate or it's purification, cleansing. You know, every color has a message. So I don't want to bash beige because beige has a place in the rainbow, just like black does and brown. When it comes to food, let's just start with something really physical, right?

37:10Yeah, I was really hoping you would go with food. Well, one of my books is called The Rainbow Diet. So, you know, I can't help but see it that way. And when we think beige, everybody lean in. They drop it for us. So I do think of the color spectrum with respect to food. And if we're eating brown, yellow and white foods, it does say something about our lives. Are we feeling more inflamed? Are we feeling burnt out to a crisp, like a brown food that has been grilled, baked and fried? Or are we just feeling kind of lackluster? Like we don't feel nourished. We don't feel alive. We don't feel that vitality.

37:44And when we change how we're eating, what's also really interesting that I have heard from people is that they start changing what they're wearing. They also start changing their environment. Case in point, I had a woman go through, well, I had like a large group go through this more colorful way of eating program that I call Whole Detox. And so I get people focused on the food. But what ends up happening is they start redoing their environment. I remember one person talking about how she had a charcoal sofa. Now she had to, like, change it up. A woman working in a gray cube had to rainbow-fy it because it was just so suppressive.

38:21So I guess, Jolene, the question is if people feel nourished by beige, because for some people that's like a really nice grounding color and it looks good on them and they feel good with that. I'm literally wearing a beige. I was going to say, you must feel good in it. You got to go with that. It makes my hair pop, okay, everyone? Well, the green that you were wearing that I saw you in was also really stunning. That is what Pantone missed out on. That green has been like my recent obsession. And I really thought like that's going to be color of the year. But you know what an interesting phenomenon is I'm wearing this green.

38:57I've already decided like my gym, I'm like getting paint swatches and stuff. I want to paint it this green. This is like in October. Pantone comes out with this color. And I watched this phenomenon online of everyone saying, no, it's actually this green. Yes. All these people sharing the same green that I've been wearing, that I've been thinking about. And so it can't be that I was influenced by people saying this, right? We were all somehow on the same wavelength of what we thought the color of the year would be. And even, shout out Tonester, their paint colors are phenomenal. They were even presenting this green color.

39:32And I'm like, everybody was vibing green. How did Pantone get it so wrong? You're right. I saw that as well. And let's just kind of feel out the energy of green for a second, because green is the color of nature, healing, health, growth. And I feel like so many people need that right now. They don't need as much white, where white is, again, blank slate, not nourishing. You know, white has its time and place, but green is earthy, and it makes us feel connected to something that's bigger than us. And if you even look from a marketing perspective and how they use color psychology, green is used in businesses of health.

40:09Blue is used in businesses that create authority or a credible voice. Like every color has its intention. And sometimes when you see fast food with red and yellow, I mean, there's a reason for that. I was going to say, talk to me about McDonald's. What's going on there? Well, red is kind of in two paths. So red is urgency, emergency, action. So it kind of has this anger almost feeling. It's reactive. It's the immune system. It's inflammation. So we need little bits of that, just not too much. The other side of red is passion, vitality, blood flowing, you know, the heart. We think of Valentine's Day.

40:49But it's a very active color. All of the warming colors, so red, orange, and yellow, all inspire us to physical action. Green, blue, and purple all cause us to go on the inside, and they're much more introspective colors. So that's why it's kind of like in and out. Get your burger and leave. Be active. Get that food. And it's a color that draws us in. Yellow is the color of optimism. So if you see yellow and you see red, it's like, okay, I need to be active with something, some kind of response, and then I'm going to have some joy. And there'll be something optimistic and happy. so it's actually a very smart color combination from that kind of a business yeah so talk to me if we're thinking about like the indigo the blue the violet like this is the side of the spectrum and the green it's more introspective everybody gravitating toward this green maybe like this we're all thinking we need to cultivate like our inner self this awareness what is beige then doing Like, what is the vibe of beige?

41:55You're saying clean slate. And I just almost feel like if you are the ones who set the color of the year, then you understand color psychology. Let's just guess here, right? We don't know for sure Pantone's intention. But like, if you were to pick beige and tell the world embrace beige, what is that message behind that color? It's grounding. Okay, okay. Yeah. I mean, okay. So each color has - That's very positive. I really - It is positive. I like that vibe. And that's why I feel like beige has its own medicine, right? So every color has its own spectrum. So let's just take beige. So we have kind of like a tan beige all the way to a deep hue of brown and even into burgundy.

42:36And you can get into the reds there. But basically, brown is a grounding color. I connect it to the root chakra, which is all about survival and safety, like the lower body. So we go to beige and browns when we want to feel earthed. Yeah. Right. So that's kind of how I think about it. Orange is an interesting color. I want us to wax on orange and pink. Let's go. Because of your focus with women's health and what's really well, I have a personal story around orange and pink, which this is the color that I'm wearing, which has been challenging for me because growing up, I would never wear anything pink.

43:11And even now I'm still. I didn't wear pink until my 30s. Yeah. Because I felt very. I don't think I was consciously aware of it. But it just felt too soft and I had to show up strong in the world. And it felt at times too apologetic, which it's interesting because I had color analysis done before. And, you know, that was something that the woman had said to me, you can't wear apologetic pink when you do the work that you do on stage. She's like, your bold red lip is the color you need. like the color and I had been told forever like you can't wear black and white right no one's supposed to wear black and white and she's like wearing black and a red lip is your your message is bold like that like you have to be that kind of like strength and she's like and then in in your personal life that's where it's like lean into the pink lean into the softer and it was just such an interesting perspective that I had it had never clicked for me that like I was consciously not choosing pink I think until I was like 38 but I was like okay interesting let's go Interesting.

44:18Yeah. Well, let's just go back to food for a second because part of my master's study was on carotenoids. So carotenoids are plant pigments in nature. So they usually embody as the red of lycopene, like in a tomato, or the orange in a carrot or an orange. And then the yellow of like, sometimes you can't see the yellow outright, but like in kale or spinach, underneath that green, you have yellow, like lutein. So I studied the carotenoids, like this whole, like the carotenoid family. And so orange connects to hormones. And if you look at the ovaries, they concentrate certain carotenoids deliberately.

44:57Up to 14 different carotenoids have been identified in the ovary, which is kind of like, why? How did that come to be? The corpus luteum, which has that yellow color, is actually from the carotenes. So there have been studies looking at for women that eat more orange foods, how does that impact their ovarian health? And there are a few studies, not a lot, showing better ovarian vitality. We need those carotenoids. They go into our skin. They go into our brain. Anything that's fatty, they're fat soluble. So that's where they go. But yeah, orange is kind of that warm, playful. It's even a sexy color.

45:34Like this is just a fun fact. But when I was doing research for the rainbow diet, I came across literature on guppies and birds that would exhibit certain plumage or something on their gills when it was time for mating, when they were more fertile. And usually it was the male that would want to look like a lure and have more orange, right? It's kind of like it's an attractive warming color. It would catch the eye. So orange is, I kind of think about it like that. It's a fertility color. It's connected to the carotenoids. And it's so much a part of like connected to our fat, I would say throughout our body, our adipose tissue, but then subcutaneous fat, like all the different kinds of fat, which I see as very yin.

46:18You know, people might be polarized against fat because it has a negative connotation. But to me, I see the body in terms of metaphor and energetics. So to me, those colors, like the orange and the pinkish tones that you would find in a flamingo, as an example, with the carotenoids and then connected to fat tissue. I know it might sound kind of like out there, but it's kind of like a spiritual thing. It's like it's pointing us to the feminine aspects. Yeah. I feel like I hijacked your pink story by me talking about pink. So tell me your pink story. Sure. Well, I was a nerdy scientist. I still kind of am.

46:56and so I would always wear a lot of black and white kind of like you and just kind of like maybe green or blue or purple sometimes but really you know I didn't put too much stock in clothing but I had this just a negative feeling about pink anytime I would see marketing around pink it felt like it was I don't know connecting to women in a way that was kind of connected to a cultural stereotype that I didn't want to be associated with so fast forward I'm doing my PhD in my late 20s and I would get stressed out repeatedly. And on the weekends, I started painting and I would start to paint. And this is where I would let go of my intellect and just be like ponytails, sweatpants, messy.

47:40This is where my perfectionist self would not show up. And I would get messy with paint. And I noticed I would paint in pink, gold, and orange with big swirls, like sweeping swirls. And then I had to have them all around me. Then I met my, who is now my husband, and he would look at these paintings and he said, Deanna, you're putting your ovaries and your uterus everywhere. And it was really true because I had endometriosis. I had a blocked fallopian tube on my left side. And yeah, there was something coming through that my body was speaking to. And the color that I kept painting was like a nutrient.

48:14I kept avoiding pink and orange and gold, but yet I needed it. Like there was something in those colors that I needed, just like carotenoids, you know, in food. So that's, that's kind of it. And now I try to embrace all the colors. Like I'm very purposeful, even about my wardrobe. So like I have it all segmented into the rainbow. I do too. Okay. I do too. Oh my gosh, you guys, I will take a photo and post it. You post it on Instagram too. We'll share it with you guys. But yeah, I also have my library the same way. Do you? Oh, I've thought about that. The health book section only because like I also read Romanticy and those are usually like gray.

48:53Like they're black, you know, like the health books. And it's so interesting to me how to see the certain categories and what they gravitate towards. And you know, the publishers know the marketing around that. Right. My books are like fuchsia and yes, and pink and purple. And you know, there's but there's a whole spectrum of like brain books, and they're all white, like they're all colors are white. Yeah, that's true. A lot of the health books are white with some pop of color. Yeah. And that's I like that you do that with your books. Yeah. Purple is is not a common color within the health sector, which is kind of interesting.

49:30And purple also is an interesting color because it rarely occurs in nature. So when you survey people about the colors of food that they're eating, purple and blue kind of together is that's the color category that occurs the least in what we're eating, which is unfortunate. It's a brain color. But it's interesting that we don't even see it in the spines of books or like, at least I don't see it. I do have a segment in my library of spiritual books. And then I start to see more magenta and violet. And it is seen as more of a regal or a precious or even a spiritual or a metaphysical color. So yeah, what you're saying, you know, there's a time and a place and there's a certain connection to every color.

50:13Yeah. Let me ask you, for women who are listening right now, if there was one thing that you would encourage them to stop doing in their life, right? We're always focused on giving women more, do more, add this. If there's something you would encourage them to stop doing today, what would that be? Look at your self-talk, you know, what we tell ourselves. And I feel like I'm just going to toss this out there. So many women are straddled by perfectionism and including myself in my early days. It was kind of like wanting to be perfect, needing to show up in a certain way, being the people pleaser, all the Ps, right?

50:51And so I feel that we put ourselves in boxes. And then after a while, we kind of move into the 40s and 50s and 60s. And we move into this space of more acceptance. So for women listening, you know, how do you embody that sense of love, acceptance, letting go of the perfectionism, the control, you know, things needing to be a certain way? And really just go with your flow. I feel that the more, when I look to elders, when I look at people that are role models for me, whether they're more celebrity figures or just even people in my lives, my own life, what I see is like, I just like the feeling like they don't really care so much now what other people are thinking.

51:34They just show up with who they are at that moment. Like not every hair needs to be perfectly in place. Makeup can be off. You know, maybe they stop wearing makeup. You know, I really love the authenticity of that. So for all women listening, you know, to release the hold that you have on yourself and all the expectations. I'm sure other people have said that because I feel like it's a message that needs to get out there and to know that it's safe to do that. and that when you do that, it gives permission to other women to do that as well, which is a great gift. Nothing about your answer is fluff, but I feel like some people to go the extra step are gonna need it rooted in a little more science.

52:15So let's tell women, what does negative self-talk do to your inflammation at a cellular level? Well, as above, so below. So as above in your mind, if you continue to tell yourself these self-deprecating thoughts, your body just goes on alert. It starts to set up immune signals, inflammatory response. And so like now, like there's a sense of distrust in the body, like lack of love of self, you start to contract, you know, posture may even change. Like so many different things about us could change. You know, one stressful event has been shown to lead to leaky gut. So, you know, just keeping ourselves in check and reminding ourselves that without the full love of ourselves, we can't really expand into the life that we have.

53:08So one quick thing, if you want something really practical, because I know what you're getting at in terms of like, you know, again, Bruce Lipton would tell us that your biology becomes your psychology, your psychology becomes your biology. Dr. Carolyn Mace talks about that too. She has a really great book called Anatomy of the Spirit. It's an oldie, but it's a great book. And it does talk about the connection between body and mind, right? So if you have a symptom, yes, look at the physical aspects, but then also look to see what do I continue to feed myself in terms of a thought or an emotion that I haven't dealt with?

53:44You know, I just recently posted on lymph, the science and spirituality of lymph. Oh, we could have had a whole hour on just lymph. I know. I think it's so fascinating. And we don't talk about it enough. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a real delight to have a conversation about color. I don't get to do that very often. So thanks for opening that up.