The Taoist Map To Brain Health with Mason and Sophia (EP#177)

"Often people will come to us because they've heard about nootropics and want to get brain gains or optimisation. And for some people, that's fine. They can go straight into the Neural Nectar, receive those benefits, have their brain light up and their memory switch on. But with some people, that doesn't happen. And usually, these are the cases where we need to go a little bit deeper, look at the kidneys and start with some Jing herbs". - Sophia Richmond-Manno

The Brain, or as the Taoists referred to it, The Sea of Marrow, is responsible for so much of our moment-to-moment function- sight, hearing, smell, taste, and speech. But what did the wise Taoists know about this complex system located in the upper Dantien that western-modern medicine didn't?

Today, in conversation with Sophia, Mason speaks to the subject of brain health, touching on the western perspective and expanding into the more holistic and conceptual Taoist lens- a perspective more geared towards long-term brain health. 

The modern mind certainly has to work for its peace and solitude. Pervasive technology, busy schedules, high-stress lifestyles and poor sleep habits put the average brain under substantial pressure. Which poses the question- What are you doing to protect and cultivate the health of your brain long-term? What are your desires and intentions for long-term brain health? 

In this episode, you will learn about nootropic herbs for brain health, how SuperFeast's potent Neural Nectar blend protects and upgrades mental acuity and why brain health is ultimately a result of full-body harmony and healthy flowing Qi through the organ systems.

 

"The Neural nectar blend is a beautiful formula. It will meet someone's Western intention and bridge you into the awareness just because it happens to work on the organs. I made sure I designed it that way. It happens to work on the organs and the other systems that will lead to results that match the intention of where the scientific world comes from. But it won't take you so far into what a pharmaceutical nootropic does- where its neurological or biochemical response, whatever it is working on, isn't going to remain long term- Only the sole thing that's activated. And that comes down to not only the sourcing, but also the way we're extracting to ensure that the multitude of constituents in natural ratios are there within the extraction". 

-Mason Taylor 

 

Mason and Sophia discuss:

• The Dantiens.
• The Three Brains.
• What is a nootropic?
• The blood brain barrier.
• The six extraordinary organs.
• The function of The Sea of Marrow.
• What's your brain health intention?
• The Brain and the Kidney connection. 
• The best herbs for long-term brain health.
• The SuperFeast Brain Bundle-how to use it.
• How Jing herbs improve brain health and Intelligence.
• Neural Nectar contraindications and considerations. 
• Mason's personal story behind creating the Neural Nectar blend.
• Why the QI Blend and Neural Nectar Blend work so well together.

 

 

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Mason Taylor

Mason Taylor is the CEO/Founder of SuperFeast and a renowned tonic herbalist. On a soul mission to bring people back to their body and nature while bursting through dogma, he shares passionately and uniquely in his workshops, podcast, and content on how to cultivate healing and potentiation through health sovereignty. An expert in Daoist tonic herbalism, Mason has helped tens of thousands of people globally discover medicinal mushrooms, adaptogenic tonic herbs, and the healing philosophy from which they emerged. Mason is also a budding comedian; bursting the bubble on the “health scene” with his antics.

 

Sophia Richmond-Manno

Sophia Richmond-Manno has been a part of the SuperFeast family for almost half a decade, leading the customer care team and putting her potent heart wisdom into herbal education. Sophia's passionate presence and gift with the written word are felt deeply in the essence of SuperFeast- if you’re a regular reader of SuperFeast Taoist/herbal education, you would have read some of Sophia’s beautiful articles. Sophia has studied Naturopathy, Vinyasa and yin yoga- and is deeply interested in eastern philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, the body/mind connection, somatic healing, and astrology.

Resource guide 

Sophia's Instagram

Mason's Instagram

SuperFeast Instagram 

Mentioned in this episode 

Heartmath Institute

Brain Tonics:

QI Blend

JING Blend

Lion's Mane

Neural Nectar 

Brain Gains Bundle

Relevant Articles: 

Nootropics- What Are They? (article)

Neural Nectar and Its Incredible Nootropic Benefits (article) 

The Taoist Brains: Who Are The Tao & What Is Their Philosophy?

Relevant Podcasts:

Brain Optimisation and Neurodegeneration with Jo Grabyn (EP#09)

Superior Di Dao Sourcing From China with Mason Taylor (EP#162)

  

 

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Check Out The Transcript Here:

Sophia: (00:00)

Hi everyone. It's Sophia again.

 

Mason: (00:02)

Hey everybody. Mason here.

 

Sophia: (00:04)

So today, we're going to be speaking about brain health. We're going to be looking at brain health through the Daoist lens. We're going to be touching on how the brain is viewed in the west, and then expanding further on how the east sees the brain and talking about all the fun stuff there.

 

Mason: (00:19)

And we're doing this because brain health just continues to be in the spotlight. I think it was probably four years ago when there was a mass awakening to nootropics and you could feel there was a real mass awareness of dementia and neuro degeneration. There was always awareness, of course, and people been advocating for a long time, thousands of years in fact, and it's been something that's been in the awareness of every healing tradition, but it continues to be one of the hottest topics in the wellness world. Nootropics are so hot, isolated nootropics, pharmaceutical nootropics, herbal nootropics. It's a huge part of our community's intention to cultivate what they feel and know as the health of the brain.

 

Sophia: (01:04)

Okay. Mason, do you want to quickly just speak to what a nootropic is, for those people out there who don't know?

 

Mason: (01:09)

Yeah. I mean, there's many ways we can talk about it, but let's just very quickly and blandly non-scientifically put it as a substance, whether it's a chemical substance or a herbal substance, but it's a substance that's going to get that brain, whether it's hormonally, whether it's looking at the creation of neural pathways, and generally supporting the matter of the brain, quality of blood going to the brain, blood flow of the brain, leading to greater preservation of the tissue, greater memory, wit, recall, all of those beautiful things.

 

Sophia: (01:41)

Wonderful. Thank you for that. And so, how do the Daoists view the brain? Let's start there.

 

Mason: (01:47)

Yeah, it's a really interesting one, when we talk about brain health, because most people will come to us asking which herbs are best for the brain. And for us sitting in a Daoist lens, we need to have a lot of understanding for what that person, that long term intention that person is tuning into, which a lot of the time, the beginning place of their journey, then where they start venturing to an understanding of the brain, how we understand it, having a lot to do with every organ system, which we'll talk about, generally it is memory. Not having brain fog when you get towards the afternoon. Having the legs, the mental legs, having the endurance to get to 2:00 and 3:00 and still be able to think in any particular way, which that could a lot of the time be addressed at looking at the 24 hour organ wheel of Daoism and seeing perhaps we are just trying to pushing stuff uphill in terms of the way that we're trying to think at that time of day.

 

Mason: (02:47)

But nonetheless, that's where people generally are. And so, a lot of people find results in that. And as I said, memory, wit, recall. You can very simply go to a nootropic blend like Neural Nectar or Lion's Mane single mushroom nootropic, which is having beautiful results in the brain, or another blend which is highly geared towards that Western understanding of that output being the Chi blend, especially having one of those at 3:00 in the afternoon, you're going to get that result. But that's because all of these things are a great starting point and you're going to get those results. And so, you can see that there's a cultivation of those, because you're focused on it. You can see your memory starts to improve and that's your entry. That's the white rabbit that you are following. And then you follow the white rabbit down the tunnel.

 

Mason: (03:39)

And then if you just keep on following that intention, maybe you don't have time in the way that your life is revolving right now to go down there yet, so you stay in your focus on it, just being memory, recall, wit. That's fine. Or maybe it's, a lot of people, it's a long term, not in a negative way, but it's a conscientiousness or fear, because family members have neuro degeneration. And so, you want to start focusing on that. You sit in those places and then as your life opens up and gives you a little bit more space to go a little bit deeper. That's when you can go deeper.

 

Mason: (04:11)

And that's why Daoist, it's so nice for Daoism and because it makes us so versatile, we can meet people in talking about those specific intentions that evolve from a Western reductionist understanding of the brain, that organ and matter that sits within the skull.

 

Mason: (04:31)

That translation of brain or central pool of matter that thinks, really we can look at the dantiens as the first place where there is a translation of the three brains or the three reservoirs in where we are collecting ourselves, life, information, matter.

 

Mason: (04:59)

And so we've got that lower dantien. I think many people would know this, but it wouldn't be bad just to go over it, just a little, the [foreign language 00:05:07] in Japanese, just that two inches roughly below the belly button and two inches in. That's like that centre of the universe, physically, and then the dantien, the heart and the middle dantien, and then our upper dantien. And there's [foreign language 00:05:26]. There's an organ system, a triple burner organ system even that is all about the communication and harmonisation of these three brains, these three central pools where we do think.

 

Mason: (05:38)

And if you look at what's happened in the west, and what we talk about now is people, and I think right now it's probably a little outdated, but it used to be one of the things when you were a new wellness influencer in your things to go and say was, did you know that there's a gut brain connection? And so we know about the neural, just the neural activity that is occurring within the gut. And likewise, if you look at [inaudible 00:06:10] Institute, they're going and studying the beautiful extent that there is neural activity within the heart organ system itself.

 

Mason: (06:18)

So when we talk about the brain, it's a weird one because it's a bit conceptual when you look at it from a Daoist perspective. But when you look at it over the span of a lifetime, it makes way more sense from to look at it from a Daoist perspective, rather than keep all of those features and those outputs located to this one organ system, because we can't ironically maintain focus on one organ system and the attribution of things like memory and recall and us having clarity and us being able to stay focused. It's impossible.

 

Mason: (07:03)

And why is that? It's because it doesn't actually fit the reality. In reality, it isn't that matter within the skull that is bringing us this ability to focus. And that's why you see people burn out from that, say, what's it? Well, it's the hectic entrepreneurial space, which is go, and then the bio hacking space, because it's a great entry, but at some point you rub up against the reality. And the reality is, like the Daoist say, that output of the health of the marrow, which is within the skull, which that's one of the what's called the extraordinary fu organs. Extraordinary fu organs is something I'm not going to go deep into, but it's a really fun one once you've gone through and you've looked at the yang organs and the yin organs and their pairings and you've learned that.

 

Mason: (07:56)

When you go to the six extraordinary organs, the sea of marrow, the gallbladder, in a bit of a different context from it being the yang organ to the liver, the uterus, the room of Jing, and the seed of creation, in both, for men and women, which is getting into a little bit of a fun conversation there. The marrow itself, the mai, which is the blood vessels, and then the bones, you see, they actually have an extraordinary function in the body as well.

 

Mason: (08:27)

And you actually start to go, okay, so that literal brain and nervous system located in the skull and the upper dantien has a description and has a function. And you're going to see though that function is different to the isolated function of the west. Both are good. It's really good exercise for your brain. If you can hold the two conversations in mutual respect, at the same time, because it'll lead you further down the road to the truth. So it's like speaking two languages though.

 

Mason: (08:54)

So, where you do lead to though is in what gives us this output of memory, long term capacity to focus on those things that matter. Well, you're going to need to transform a lot of energies over a long time in order to maintain that and especially maintain that capacity when you're getting to 80. And when you're getting to 90. And it's not just going to be taking nootropics, although that's going to help a lot.

 

Mason: (09:18)

However, we need to realise that all the major, we can just start here, all those major five organ systems thinking in their own particular way, processing emotions in their own particular way, having their contribution to say something which is very important to mental health, long term, in creation and movement and nourishment of blood, what these five organs do that thinking and that processing of that Qi or substance, or you can go into the chemicals. Then they go and they get cultivated within the health of the dantien. They feed that dantien health and then the dantiens have that cultivation. And then they can communicate and keep the system moving forward, healthier and healthier, which is, yeah, it's very fun. And you only go so slow in terms of what your mind can handle.

 

Mason: (10:07)

And so in terms of embracing that more holistic Daoist perspective, Daoist perspective is really nice, because it really is approachable language. And in terms of, it's rolling out a project, just go through simple phases. Phase one, we'll just talk about dantiens. And phase two is just considering that, oh, that's the sea of marrow in the skull and the sea of marrow emerges from the kidneys and is governed and nourished and loved by the kidneys. So the physical brain is connected to, and it's an extension of the kidneys and that's a real great first phase for you and a really great mental exercise.

 

Sophia: (10:55)

So listening to you explain all that, Mason, what comes to mind, just like everything we speak about in Daoism when we are talking about outcomes, brain health is an outcome of full body harmony. We are talking, we're looking at all the organs and how they work in harmony with each other and the circulation, the free flow of Chi throughout the body. So it is a really beautiful way to start to look at brain health.

 

Sophia: (11:19)

And especially I loved how you touched on the kidneys and all the different levels that you can start at. Because often people will come to us and they've heard about nootropics and they want to get the brain gains or the optimization. And for some people, that's fine. They can go straight into the Neural Nectar and really feel and receive those benefits and have their brain light up and their memory switch on and all that sort of stuff. And then there's some people where they don't, that doesn't happen. And then we always say to them, okay, we need to get a little bit deeper and we need to look at the kidneys and start with some Jing herbs.

 

Mason: (11:50)

And that's a real, yeah, it's such a beautiful entry point and it gets really complicated and it's really nice for us to eventually land in that place of just, we can start with Jing herbs and you're going to see a blossoming of that brain health. And also just acknowledging in terms of where we're going to be looking at in terms of brain health and intelligence.

 

Mason: (12:13)

It is attributed to the sea of marrow, in being a seat of intelligence. So it is referred to, as you know, you can see the crossover there. As well as you can see, bringing the obvious acknowledgement of the sea of marrow, having a lot to do and having the majority to do with sight, hearing, smell, taste, and the function of speech.

 

Mason: (12:41)

However, what you see that function being the liver, having so much to do with the peripheral nervous system is in that input of what we call the sensors and then the processing of that input, if we can pause and that neurologically active heart organ system or the heart fire, that sensory information from the liver can go to the heart and we can feel what input is coming about.

 

Mason: (13:07)

And then that information physiologically and electromagnetically and in other ways goes up to the sea of marrow. And the sea of marrow is with intelligence interpreting. And this is where the connection between gut and brain happens within the Dao. That our spleen and that spirit of the spleen, that is real based in intelligence and that grounded analysis and in what's occurring. But we can't have a grounded analysis unless the heart can actually feel what's happening in reality.

 

Mason: (13:38)

And so that processing of that information from the sea of marrow, that then, that information comes back down to the heart, but then more appropriately, the spleen in order for us to express with clarity, with focus, all of that, which has come from that sensory information.

 

Sophia: (13:57)

And what I love about what you were speaking about there, I was reading a little bit earlier. You're speaking about how I guess the whole system is processing incoming information in various ways. And then the heart's action, through the sharing I'm assuming, is the best use of that information. That's how the wisdom connects in.

 

Sophia: (14:15)

So when we're talking about herbal nootropics, we're talking about, like I said before, really nourishing that tissue and getting blood and nutrients to the brain as we know it. But we're also over time when we start to bridge in these other lifestyle elements or deeper philosophies, we start to go, okay, well, it's not just my ability to process information because we're in a sea of it at all times. It's how do we derive the best action based on that information? How do we over time weave in our wisdom? And I think that's a really cool element to bring into that takes you to that next step. Other than just brain function.

 

Mason: (14:51)

It takes a lot of pressure off, which is what a lot of people, we need to meet a lot of people listening and go, just tell me what I need in order to find memory to be that up. And it's like, cool. There is still, for us, we can still give you a herb that hoping at this point, you're at a place where lifestyle can still have that impact and there isn't anything else going on. And if lifestyle, if you really dial in your sleep and if you really dial in a grounded herbal practise and maybe take some Jing herbs, or if you're ready to go to the next level, take Neural Nectar or Lion's Mane. And if you breathe, and make sure that you're working with are we in a yin time of day, are we in a yang time a day, be appropriate with that.

 

Mason: (15:29)

If those simple lifestyle things aren't having an impact, all right, now it's time to go to a practitioner. But a majority of you listening are still going to be in that purview or the people in your life who are complaining about their memory going, are still going to be within that domain. So you can just give them a herb, get that shift and then watch them continue to go down that trajectory and make that desire to cultivate that, maintain that sea of marrow and maintain your Jing and cultivate enough Chi through the day that you can feed the sea of marrow with all that Chi and the organs can process and cultivate all that Chi themselves so that the organs are thinking.

 

Mason: (16:08)

And that's the other thing, all the organs are thinking. We're not going to go through it all now, but we want the liver to get that input and for us to feel that pent up anger and frustration, and for that to go through that manifestation and think its way, evolve its way, plan its way, create its way into a place where there's some patience or foresight. That's the beauty of the long term intention.

 

Mason: (16:33)

But yeah, it becomes multifaceted, which is relieving. Because quite often people are like, well what do I do? I just cross my fingers and hope that I don't get this degeneration or that my memory doesn't continue to slip. It's like, well hopefully, maybe, but we just can only go so far with that intention. And then when you start looking at the multitude of different phases.

 

Mason: (16:57)

And remember, Daoism is just a map. You can get rid of all of this terminology where you talk about. It doesn't require for you to have any understanding of the liverwood. But it's there, it's just mapping something that's there in reality. It's like when people get into astrology. It's like when people get in whatever. It's just a map and only use it and stress out about all this terminology as far as it's useful. But it's somewhat of a nice map for some of you at the moment. Or you guys can, maybe you are where I was at in the beginning. I was like, don't tell me. I don't want another philosophy. I just want to make it my own. I want to feel. Great. If you've got that energy for yourself. When I talk about the liverwood, take that languaging or that map or that clue into your own world view and your own terminology right now.

 

Mason: (17:42)

It's just pointing towards a reality of what you're experiencing. And if you can undergo that awareness as where moving into the say liverwood season right now, where we take a full general of an army stock of what are my skill sets? What did I screw up last year? What did I do well this year? How much can I realistically get done in this campaign going into the warmer months when the snow melts and I can get through the passes? So on and so forth. How much Jing do I have? How many responsibilities do I have on my plate? What's my work doing? What's my family going to require? What's the phase of life?

 

Mason: (18:16)

You get to go through that. You will see that just going through and respecting that phase and then your plan altering and falling more into reality and getting rid of those delusions, it means you're going to be on the track with what I might call your destiny or you're in flow or come whatever the cold term, or cold or real Western civilization term you want.

 

Mason: (18:39)

You're going to tell me that's not going to have a long term impact on your brain health. That's going to have a massive impact verse pushing shit uphill, taking nootropics, having nootropic stacks in your coffee every day and trying to compensate the fact that you're not on track with all these other sleeping hacks and hacking the body into other hacky little bits and hacking to the point where you're like, just maybe this isn't it. Maybe just go through a different little phase. Maybe it is it. You just needed to transform your consciousness a little bit.

 

Mason: (19:07)

So that's where it's exciting. And that's what's nice. That's the dangle where like Neural Nectar, Lion's Mane, that's our in. And we are making sure that we are getting really proud of offering those nootropics and making it a real easy one for people to go, oh, brain, Neural nectar. Great. That's an in. An afternoon brain tonic, Neural Nectar, Chi, great, a little hot water, or put it in your coffee. That's accessible. Great, but always remembering there's this huge world. If at any point you just want to come and visit us beyond that gate of it being a nootropic, this is all here.

 

Sophia: (19:40)

I liked the hack point, because I think we all do that so much in the modern world because we kind of have to fit ourselves into these, contour ourselves into these little boxes continuously to fit to what's required of us to pay the bills, support family, whatever it is. And you can't out hack your system. And I think we all get to that point. And that's really when we zoom out and go to the distinction between someone who needs a Jing herb first and someone who is cool with Neural Nectar. It's someone who's not out hacking their system because you can only get so far. And I think that's a really sobering moment for all of us and we've all been through it. We all continue to ride those waves. But yeah, it's a nice one to remember and to not be hard on yourself, if you're in that point and just go, okay, cool. I've got an option. I just go working on my blood, working on my Jing, working on my rest, my sleep.

 

Sophia: (20:31)

And I think, yeah, that's a cool thing to remember, living in a world of acceleration where everything feels like, it can feel like it's just never going to end and it's just this endless race to nowhere. Remembering you can't out hack a system and you'll get to where you're going, if you just stop.

 

Mason: (20:48)

Because hacking or hustling, they're so fun and they're cool and it's just everything in its place. And sometimes that's simple. Sometimes it's a simple little like, oh yeah, I've been doing a lot of that. And maybe that's because you've been trying to maybe move through a phase.

 

Mason: (21:09)

I've got a nearly five month old and a five year old. There's no hacking my way through this. And if I want to get out with, let's look at a real, I'm thinking about my brain function. I think if having it be something that wasn't, this is interesting because I'm just trying not to come up with a rote buzzword because it doesn't deserve that. But if I go into extreme hack mode, we go into a little bit of it. It's really fun. And I really like it. And I've been doing a few of those little things in order to give me a little bit of an edge and then everything has another side and it's nice to recognise you're going into that phase and then go into ally mode.

 

Mason: (21:56)

And so the ally of sleep, because there's no hacking your way for this phase. So people listening, you might be like, yeah, well you don't, like what used to happen to me when I was 26, talking about this, is like I have four kids now and I'm running a business and these things are going in my life. It's like, yeah, cool. Which is you're not going to hack your way into those. So those things that I've got a timeline and that's it, and you want to get out thriving or whatever word, that's I like using it, but that can, in its own way, that can be its own hacky word. Thriving on the other side, getting out alive or maybe you just don't want to slip. Maybe that's it.

 

Mason: (22:33)

So going between that hack and hustle mode to going to the allies and the tonic herbs might just be more of an ally at the moment to bring in. Not as something that's a hack, that's going to get you an output, but something that's going to bring the same way you need to be. Just rest back into sleep. Sit back into just a little bit of a morning sun on your face practise with a tonic herb. And that will get you through this phase, because you don't know how long this is going to be, this foggy phase that you're in, but you know that this too will end. And so you can utilise the herbs during that phase with a different, it's just a little tweak of intention to make sure you're not excessively going into one way of quickly speed this up because it's just like surrender, surrender. You're not going to speed it up. Go slower to go faster.

 

Mason: (23:23)

So the reason we're talking about this guys is because we've, for me even really 11 years doing the tonic herbs and so it's helped really flesh out that domain of customer service, which is something that's like, I'd say, world class at this moment in SuperFeast and going to go universe class as we keep on evolving.

 

Mason: (23:45)

It's we watch the journey that people go on and that's the journey of where and respecting, like just say, you're at a place where you're like, I need my brain to be faster, and I completely empathise because I'm probably in that phase. I'm not saying you are in a more immature phase. I'm in that phase with say parenting or in business to some extent. So we're all doing it, but it's important to honour it and we want to honour it. But then the knowing that if what you are really talking about is something kind of different because you can't hold onto that idea of Western neurological brain health on its own long term. And eventually it eases into your lifestyle practise. And then that's when you're going to get these long term results, ironically, in all these things, memory, and so on and so forth.

 

Sophia: (24:34)

And I think also when we've spoken about it before with using tonic herbs, especially of the calibre ours are due to our sourcing philosophy, they're so full of Chi. They're just so full of this beautiful energy. And so even to start to cultivate the capacity to hold the consciousness it takes, to be able to know when you're in a hustle mode and know that you're going to stop at some end, to hold those textures in between, if that makes sense, I think is another thing that working with these herbs really brings you. And especially over time, you start to get a little bit more space between maybe the overwhelm or the stress or the extreme pressure when you're trying to just punch through and survive, knowing that's not the long term strategy, but the strategy for this little trajectory you're on.

 

Sophia: (25:21)

Holding that trust in yourself and trust in your body and your organs. There's a different texture there. I've definitely experienced it. And I think that's the magic that they really bring in the spaces in between, the striving and the development and all that sort of stuff. And it's really magic.

 

Sophia: (25:37)

Alrighty. So we've kind of gone really deep, which is cool, but I thought we could sort of come up for air and we can speak to your intention behind creating the Neural Nectar blend because it's a beautiful story. And then I thought we could jump into the herbs in the blend and just speak to them a little bit.

 

Mason: (25:52)

Yeah, it's going to be fun. And the nice thing is about taking a lot of the herbal nootropics and especially let's look at the nootropics and the formula, the Neural nectar. There's a beautiful crossover. It will meet someone's Western intention and it will bridge you into the awareness just because it happens to work on the organs. And I made sure I designed it that way. It happens to work on the organs and the other systems that are going to lead to results that match that intention that we have from where the scientific world is coming from. But it also won't take you so far into say what a pharmaceutical nootropic is going to do, where it's chemical response that it's going to initiate, or maybe it's a neurological or biochemical, whatever it is that it is working on, isn't going to remain. Just the sole thing that's activated.

 

Mason: (26:51)

And that comes down to why not only the sourcing, but also the way that we're extracting to ensure that the multitude of constituents in natural ratios are there within the extraction. That we are not, not that I don't like this way. If you're in a real Western hectic studies kind of world, cool, go nuts, where you start focusing on increasing the percentage of active ingredient in a particular herb. That's cool for those kind of short term, real hectic game kind of like times, but then it's going to reach its peak and it's going to get to a point where you're going to be working long term with the nootropics, like tonic and tropics that are extracted in a particular way, especially from a way that's Dao, focused on the whole, rather than isolated west chemical that we know through scientific Western analysis so that you can see the full system gets cultivated.

 

Mason: (27:36)

Not saying that there's still not going to be times where you're like Neural Nectar, it's like, ah, I don't, I know I'm going to go lower in that blend. Or it's like maybe you don't want to take it for a few months or maybe it slots into the perfect time for you. But the thing is you've got the capacity to develop a relationship with that blend for those reasons.

 

Mason: (27:55)

And what it's focusing on is the mai, which is the blood vessels, which is really, because that's where, that's a particular extraordinary, which is delivering the blood to the organ system. And that's where a lot of that clarity comes from, is that distribution of nourishment of the blood, especially crossing that blood brain barrier. And you can see what happens with so much processing of information and the interpretation of information can happen when you're getting a nourishment of that sea of marrow.

 

Mason: (28:24)

The building of blood itself, from a yang point of view and the nourishing of the yang Jing, which is that active Jing. Let's get up and go. And so that's quite often what we are thinking about when we think about the nootropic output from the west, is we are thinking about the yang, not the cultivation of our capacity to think.

 

Mason: (28:43)

And so that's kind of a nice one for people to be like, oh, Neural Nectar, thinking, mind, okay, that's the one that I take in super fu range. Yeah, but that's to get that yang output where we've got a little bit of ensuring that those Chi tonics that bring an enrichment and an enlivening to the blood and get that blood distributed, get that blood built and nourished to an extent, although you're going to want to make sure that you're not deficient in blood before you're taking that on.

 

Mason: (29:14)

Don't worry. It's not a massive thing that you, it's not like a massive problem if you do, but you'll feel it sometimes if you're like, and you're like, oh no, that was too much activity. And perhaps that's in relation to maybe a little bit more yin cultivation of blood is what's going to be appropriate there.

 

Mason: (29:33)

Likewise, the lungs and the spleen cultivate the Chi that feeds the sea of marrow and feeds those functions, which leads us to feel like we're kicking it, kicking it out of the park and in flow states, because you need that daily Chi in order to very quickly process emotions that are going through your organ systems and nourish those organs. Ensure that you're not taking Jing from the kidneys. You're actually getting it from your herbal practise, from your food and from your breath, from the sun. And so the herbs in Neural Nectar, that's where they're focused on and we'll go into the herbs doing it. And a little bit of extra spleen nourishment there, with the Lion's Mane.

 

Mason: (30:13)

So Ginkgo, classic nootropic herb, especially for the support that it has on the blood vessels, especially for the support it has in enlivening, invigorating the blood and ensuring that blood can get into those places. It's got enough movement to get into those places, which are a little bit more difficult and just increasing that blood flow. And so you can get an increased capacity to process information and get that Chi moving through the body and transforming through the body really quickly. And especially nice in facilitating the transformation of Chi, which is where most people associate getting fogs and getting fog and getting stuck. It's where the Chi stops transforming, which is called the [foreign language 00:30:57]. So it stops transforming between yin and yang. And because a lot of tonics, but especially Ginkgo is really great at supporting that.

 

Mason: (31:06)

Going into Mucuna Classic. It's more of a late come to the tonic herbal system and it's one that's a tropical herbs. So, as you see, it's not there in the ancient classics, but one of those incorporated later on tonic herbs. Another one that really comes out of that Central America, South American system. Mucuna Matata, real famous for it's L-dopa content and for the cultivation of dopamine, which you can just... Most people, it is something where dopamine is getting dragged out, getting used and misused. But I don't like focusing on it too much because like I said, that's not real long term, focusing on a herb just to have dopamine isn't real long term. Just more the quality of the way that we're interacting with things like phone and substance and food is.

 

Mason: (31:54)

But nonetheless, Mucuna is in there more so because of just how incredible it is. It's a yang Jing tonic that leads to... It's got that particular yang expression and cultivation that leads to particular good feelings coming out of that sea of marrow.

 

Mason: (32:13)

And then the third major herb in there, being the Lion's Mane, just got a lot of attention. I don't even know if I need to really go into it in terms of what its brand is for. For just everything nervous system, in creating new synopsis, for lots of people using it for nerve pain, nerve damage. A lot of people using it in instances, mysterious instances, of instances of fibromyalgia and vertigo. All that whole chain of neurological, those symptoms that have neurological groundings, beginnings maybe. Maybe that's just a symptom of something else going on, but for us it's just a magical Splain Chi tonic.

 

Mason: (32:59)

And just remember, that function that the spleen is going to have on an emotional level, which is even if we keep it into biochemical, neurological, biophysical, pulse wave, hormonal or electromagnetic kind of understanding of how we're generating brain health. It still has such a huge impact on the gut and the brain in helping that.

 

Mason: (33:25)

But for us, it helps us really ground in the way we're thinking and thinking in an intellectual manner in that late summer spleen energy, which is going, am I making good decisions? And am I going in the direction of my destiny? Which is very grounding. And if you've got too much coming through and you're not nourishing your spleen, you're not going to be able to process the amount of information coming through your system fast enough. Therefore, you're going to get backed up. You're going to get a heavy spleen. You're going to not be grounded anymore.

 

Mason: (33:53)

Then supporting rhodiola, it's just so powerful. Almost too much, for some people, as a major herb. And that fell into its nice little supporting stage, but in terms of another yang Jing and Chi tonic. Just so, just such beautiful. It brings in a lot of lung energy, along with the Ginkgo, by such a powerful punch of just getting the oxygen into the system and having such a beautiful nourishment of the kidneys there, that it's just such a beautiful herb in craggy rocky area. That just brings that tenacity to the system.

 

Mason: (34:29)

And finally White Peony, very anecdotally a nootropic, but it's there for me as that liver support as so much information comes through. That's the supportive herb, because as we know, you do a lot of good work. It's the liver that is going to have the job at processing, all of that Chi. And then through that organ of the gallbladder, dispersed and ensure that we're dispersing that Chi in a way that's pretty smooth. And it was really funny watching, it had such an effect, because it's quite a yang tonic and it's again that yin grounding through the peony.

 

Mason: (35:04)

And it was interesting in the beta versions watching, without that yin and without that liver support. Not that there's not other liver herb, supporting herbs in there. But that real focus, it was the difference between people feeling like they were extremely caffeinated and not having there be a full stop on or an integration of that energy that's generated. Because it's like a lot of people take Neural Nectar, especially if you take too much at the beginning, in terms of half a teaspoon. You're flying a lot of the time. People feel like a lot of the time because all of a sudden the blood flow is so immediate at times that people feel like, yeah, they're caffeinated and it's like, it can be overwhelming at times.

 

Mason: (35:44)

So you just start slow, because remembering these tonic curves are supporting the multitude of functions that go and lead to you having what that Western understanding of brain health is, which you're feeling on, you can focus and it's really good, especially in that 9:00 to 11 window. If you're looking at efficiency of work, that's a beautiful time to get down and dirty and do that deep work. Maybe you're doing the can't remember productivity hacks where you're going, cool. I'm going to do 20 minutes going deep. And then I'm going to have a five minute off. Or if you're going into an early meeting and you can have it in the afternoon as well. But if you're going into a meeting, it's amazing how many times people have said to us, this is the biggest corporate blend that we have.

 

Mason: (36:27)

I love hearing it. And some people they go, right. We've got three hours in here and they put a jar of Neural nectar down, because they don't want to be smashing coffees. And there was one workplace. I can't remember it. They still do it. They still write to me sometimes and say had another neural meeting where they go through, punch through a hundred gramme jar of Neural Nectar between them and they just find it fun.

 

Mason: (36:48)

And it's kind of like, you can have that fun with tonic herbs. That's like when I used to go and get half a cup of goji berries and soak it overnight in orange juice and put that in the fridge and then I'd put a heap teaspoon of Schisandra in there and I'd blend that whole thing up and I'd down that and it'd be like a crazy high that I'd have.

 

Mason: (37:06)

It's fun doing those things. It's like when I was fasting and taking reishi mushroom, nothing but reishi mushroom and water for 10 days. It's fun to have these deep dives. Do you need to do it? No. But tonic herbs are amazing. Everything in moderation, especially moderation. That's where it takes a certain amount of discipline for you to actually adhere to. Yeah, my lifestyle's grounded. My spleen's happy because there's a certain amount of consistency. Then you can explore all of those edges, like having a crazy meeting between six of you where you punish a 100 gramme jar of Neural Nectar and you guys are getting high on your own blood supply.

 

Mason: (37:38)

But this is something where it can be integrated. And it's not that it's stimulating, but if I'm having one at 2:30 or 3:00 PM, I'm only doing quarter teaspoon. I don't need more than that, but I'll do a heap teaspoon of Chi. And then just Chi just will enliven me. And that ensures that the spleen's getting that bit of nourishment, lungs getting that bit of nourishment to produce that Chi and cultivate that Chi that's going in and energising me for the day.

 

Mason: (38:07)

And I can do that in the afternoons, in a way I'm still, you can feel the energy starts to drop and I'm starting to descend and I'm doing, I'm approaching work. You can still do very important work, but as long as you're making sure that you're not trying to approach from that same hectic energy as you were at 9:00 AM or 9:30 or 10:00 AM.

 

Mason: (38:27)

And trust me on that, I seriously, I just really want to make sure that everyone can hear that. It doesn't matter what. You might be going and talking at a Raji Baji entrepreneurial conference. It doesn't matter. You can still bring energy, but you can discern the difference between the energy that you bring at 9:00 AM and the energy that you are bringing at 3:00 PM. It's a discernible difference. You can both, a lot of the time, the output and the way that you turn up, in terms of being excited and passionate, it's still palpable, productive. It's still palpable, but you really need to discover what the difference is, in terms of the way that you personally tune in and approach the day and therefore, how you approach your herbal practise at that day. Because you'll only get a certain amount of time that you can use it as a hack to bypass the down flow of yin at that time of day. So on and so forth.

 

Mason: (39:15)

So yeah, not that I'm trying to create a perfection. Kind of you're never allowed to be excited. It's just none of that. Bypass any of the thing your brain thinks. It's just a different, just go in and discover what the difference is between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. I believe a lot of you already know it, but that's very different in terms of the way you approach your tonic at the end of the day.

 

Mason: (39:33)

It's a beautiful... Neural Nectar is a beautiful blend. I designed it to be good for my mom, who has permanent brain injury from an aneurysm and help her not slip backwards and hopefully help her get better. But that's hard, when you got that level of a brain injury. So she could utilise it and integrate it into her world.

 

Mason: (39:51)

And just, so yeah, just for God's sake, please protect the brain, protect the sea of marrow and protect all the organs that generate the health of that output that I want her to have, as well as all the other herbs, all the other Jing herbs and things that she's on.

 

Mason: (40:07)

And for me, when I have that Raji Baji entrepreneurial. I only want my brain to be hammering and I want it to be on and I want be witty. And I want to recall the things in deep dark crevices of where I'm at. That's where I cultivate it, as well as in the middle. It being something that people could work with long term to ensure that long term, as we do in tonic herbalism, that those qualities are maintained.

 

Sophia: (40:33)

Awesome. And I think it will sort of segue into the brain bundle because the brain bundle, if you haven't seen it, it's using our Neural Nectar and our Chi blend together to really optimise brain function. So Mason just gently touched on before how we would use a less amount of Neural and then round it out with the Chi blend. Do you want to speak to that? The intention behind why we're bundling these sorts of things in the brain bundle?

 

Mason: (40:59)

Yeah.

 

Sophia: (41:00)

And then we're running a promo this September where we're focusing on brain health. And so when you purchase our brain bundle, you get a free 50 gramme of our Chi. Do you want to speak to why that's our favourite combination when we are looking at brain health?

 

Mason: (41:18)

Yeah. I mean, long term, as I said, if someone goes like what's the best brain tonic? I'll go in and gin comes into the conversation and Lion's Mane comes into the conversation so on and so forth. But when we sit in, if we just sit in what the pure intention is, as we've talked about, the Neural Nectar Chi, Chi is an incredible brain tonic, just from what I said. Chi, with any blend, a Chi's like the plus. You add that with any tonic. I've talked about this before. It's such a good hack. Anyone going, "Does Chi go well?" I'm like, "Yes, yes. I don't mind what you're going to tell me. Chi does work." It's a magnifier because it's Chi that does the transformation in your body.

 

Mason: (41:56)

And so when you have that support, then it increase in the amount of daily Chi that you have to work with, it's going to get behind that Neural Nectar and everything that's doing for the blood and for the vessels. So on and so forth. For the lungs. And just that specialist way that supports the lungs and that specialist way that it supports the flow of all lung metal and the specialist way it's supporting the flow of kidney water and the specialist way that it's supporting liverwood through the peony and the specialist way that's it supporting spleen soil and the specialist way that it's supporting the heart fire through the Ginkgo as well.

 

Mason: (42:35)

That leads to an experience and a cultivation of the flow and transformation of yin yang, that leads us to going, oh, my brain health, or going like, oh my brain's really on. I love that blend. And then you whack in Chi blend after it and it's just going to magnify that. Because it just works purely with the intention of cultivating the daily Chi that leads to us moving electromagnetic channels of communication, biophysical, which is pulse wave, biochemical communication, hormonal, endocrine, and many others, and neurological communication through the nervous system.

 

Mason: (43:12)

It fires up and supports all of that. No matter what. Anything that goes into metabolism, anything that goes into that brain processing and it almost helps integrate the Neural nectar. And we're giving free Jing because by right you could say that supporting the kidneys is going to no doubt bring a cultivation of that sea of marrow a little bit and just ground it out.

 

Mason: (43:36)

But yeah, I could have put Jing in the bundle, but no, it's got its own specialisation there and it's hard. You can't take a formula at SuperFeast without it supporting the sea of marrow on the brain, because everything's integrated. The specialist combo is Neural Nectar and Chi. Yeah. Get onto that.

 

Mason: (43:51)

If you're listening in time, get onto that. Get that free Jing. And maybe you are listening to this in 2040. Give us a call. Maybe give us a call in 2040. See what specials are going on. Maybe we haven't got this one on, but we can see if we can help you on, if you've missed it, and you can just see that bundle's there. Wouldn't it be amazing to see if that bundle was there in 2040?

 

Mason: (44:12)

Go get it. Go get it now. It's going to be, I'm sure it's still amazing and the best thing you can have, and maybe there's some weird interactive ancient way that we've been able to offer and teach you how to take it. But nonetheless, go get your Neural Nectar and your Chi. Get that bundle. Brain health bundle.

 

Sophia: (44:29)

And just a reminder to everyone, Chi is the animating force. So when Mason is talking about it as a magnifier, you can think about leaning to your understanding of what animation is. And so when you bring something in that's animating your body on more levels than one, then you can really start to understand that energy output and that ability to feel like you're out of the limitless movie. That's what it's doing. It's animating and bringing nutrition to yourselves. That's saturating yourselves with blood. They're enlivening them. It's like if you think about you don't water your plants, they're going to die. If your cells don't receive blood and oxygen, they start to atrophy. So that's what we're talking about when we are looking at Chi herbs and we're looking at the Neural Nectar blend. They're just bringing nutrition and saturating your whole system with that nutrition so it can function and be animated and be enlivened and express.

 

Mason: (45:21)

Yeah. And then remember blood follows Chi. So if you've got the lifestyle that's grounded in somewhat of what you might understand is nourishment and has that consistency and enough downtime over end to do what's difficult to do, which is to build blood. It's a little bit more, or it's a lot more. Women release blood and then need extra time to cultivate that blood. And that's why we recommend staying in that four season flow between bleeds. And for guys, it's going to be a little bit easier because you maintain your blood, but for you, keeping your Chi in a smooth flow, that's where the challenge can be.

 

Mason: (45:56)

So, but nonetheless, it doesn't bring us away from the fact that blood follows Chi. So lots of Chi in there, along with a nice healthy amount of blood and you're going to see nourished cells, nourished organs. So on and so forth.

 

Sophia: (46:09)

And I'll just add in quickly, just that there's a few little contraindications or considerations you should take into account when you're using Neural Nectar. Particularly if you're on blood thinners, like warfarin, it's best to not use any other herbs that have that additive effect. If you're on any prescription medication, as we say with all our herbs, there's too many variables there. So it's best to tune in with your healthcare practitioner. And those of you who are breastfeeding, it's best to, if you want to support brain health, etcetera, go for Lion's Mane, while you're breastfeeding. Just because there is, I think there's like one or two studies showing that Mucuna inhibits prolactin, which is a compound that helps the milk come through. So we just say error on the side of caution and go for Lion's Mane while you're breastfeeding rather than Neural.

 

Sophia: (46:57)

Is there any, a final sort of wrap up, you want to speak to us about?

 

Mason: (47:05)

Yeah. I mean, look, when you're looking at, a lot of people, since I've developed Neural Nectar, I've had a lot of people who have, some with neurological disorders or neurological symptomology or they're on particular medications that are given directly for mental health conditions. There's been a bunch of times when we've had anecdotal testimonials coming through, which are amazing. And other times when it didn't work. I'd love to be able to talk about them and I'd love to, but I just don't know where it lands and where it doesn't land. And I know sometimes I'm like, but if you're getting such a severe one and people using them to get off particular medications. But we don't know. Maybe sometimes in those instances it takes them deeper into a particular state and to try to use this formula to get off medications wouldn't be appropriate. We just can't comment really.

 

Mason: (48:00)

But not saying that these herbs don't have a place in those protocols, but that's where you go on the hunt for your practitioner or your course, because there's so many other factors in terms of getting off particular medications. There's such a multitude of things that should be going into a protocol and there's heaps of, there's people out there. There's lots of people who try and find the one that's not so anecdotal, try and find the integrated practitioner that has a roadmap for you and working in a bit more of a holistic way and just be like a dog with a bone. It's not worth it. Just like throwing Neural Nectar randomly at it. Neural Nectar is the one we would say don't throw randomly at it.

 

Mason: (48:43)

But then certain, going away from that conversation, general supporting herbs, like Lion's Mane, it's a pretty gentle herb. It's really nice one just to support the body. Not actually facilitate you going, lowering things, if that's where you want to go to or helping mental things, if that's what you're wanting to do. Things like Lion's Mane, I'm not bring it in there. We're bringing Lion's Mane in because it's just like, Hmm, that's good for the body. Or maybe something really more approachable, like the Mushroom Mate, our capsules. Eight mushrooms. Great. Just support the immune system. Why not? That's a really great one because you...

 

Mason: (49:20)

Ashwaganda capsules. That's a good one to give to someone who's going through this. Help them support their nervous system, support their sleep so that they have somewhat of a strength, more of a strength and support to go through that transformation that they're going through. That's a really good way to approach this.

 

Sophia: (49:37)

Awesome. Well, I think we can wrap it up there.

 

Mason: (49:39)

Thanks everybody. I'm feeling alive, feeling reimbued with passion around this multidimensional way that we can approach brain health here at SuperFeast. Honouring those that are just like, yeah, I just want Western, I just want to look at a Western sense. Yeah, we can have that chat and we've got you. And then I know probably a majority of the people who are in this community now love to know where it fits long term. So that way we can move towards a way of relating to brain health that's going to integrate with our personal family cultures and personal lifestyles that we're cultivating.

 

Mason: (50:10)

So it's been really exciting. I've had a few new insights and learned a few things today, which has been really cool. So thanks, Sophia.

 

Sophia: (50:18)

My pleasure. Thanks everyone.

 

Mason: (50:18)

See ya.

 

Sophia: (50:18)

Bye.