Podcast INSIDER - Ayahuasca 101: Everything You Need To Know About A Potent Adaptogenic Drink

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

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Ben Greenfield (0:37)

Okay, folks, it's Ben Greenfield, and you may have been hearing a lot lately about this thing called ayahuasca.

So there was this new movie, relatively new movie called Wanderlust, and in that movie, Jennifer Aniston actually drinks ayahuasca. And there's this other video that's out there on YouTube right now where bodybuilder and six-time Mr. Olympia winner Dorian Yates is lauding the benefits of ayahuasca. And it seems to be popping up all over the place, like these ayahuasca retreats and ceremonies and celebrities and athletes beginning to use this ayahuasca stuff. But what I wanted to do for you today was really delve into a podcast that could fill you in on ayahuasca 101 and everything that you need to know about this stuff. Because it actually is a pretty cool, kind of potent adaptogen. And the fact is, if you know a little bit about it and you know how to use it right, it may be something that turns out to be something that you could use. So my guest today is Stephanie Holbrook. And Stephanie is a personal trainer and a coach over at Pacific Elite Fitness.

She's an Ironman finisher. She's done cycling, running, swimming, triathlon since 2004 She's participated in Olympic and powerlifting competitions.

So she's not one of these people who's just sedentary in a jungle somewhere doing ayahuasca. She's out there, totally modern, living the athletic lifestyle and delving into this stuff. And she even does ayahuasca retreats and all sorts of cool stuff like that. She's a Czech certified coach. She is certified by My Superhuman Coach Certification. She's an ACE certified personal trainer. She's certified by the NSCA.

She's actually got a bachelor's degree in anthropology as well. So she's a wealth of knowledge and we're privileged to have her on the call today. So Stephanie, thanks for coming on.

Stephanie Holbrook (2:44)

Well, thank you for having me, Ben. That was quite the introduction.

Ben Greenfield (2:51)

I practice that a lot, making people sound as special as possible. So, you know, I think probably the best place to dive in here, Stephanie, because I do want to hear kind of like how you got into ayahuasca and how you discovered it, but can you first explain what exactly ayahuasca even is?

Stephanie Holbrook (3:10)

So what ayahuasca is, is a drink, and depending on who makes it, it's either more like a liquid tea or more like maple syrup consistency. And the tea is made from ayahuasca vine and the tricuna leaf.

And the vine contains dimethyltryptamine, and the leaves from the tricuna plant contain monoaminase oxidate MAOI inhibitor.

Ben Greenfield (3:44)

What's an MAOI inhibitor?

Stephanie Holbrook (3:46)

So if you just drank the brew of the ayahuasca without the tricuna, your body would dissolve the, you wouldn't have any hallucinogenic effect because the enzymes in your stomach would just dissolve it. So the MAOI prevents that from happening, allows the ayahuasca to get into your system.

Ben Greenfield (4:11)

So basically this ayahuasca stuff is like a vine, and if you were to just eat the vine and forget a way to brew the vine, I guess, into a tea, you really wouldn't get any type of like a mental effect or a hallucinogenic effect or anything like that. You have to have the leaves along with the vine.

Stephanie Holbrook (4:28)

Correct. And the shaman...

Ben Greenfield (4:29)

What happens if you do the leaves by themselves, like without the vine?

Stephanie Holbrook (4:32)

Then you wouldn't have any hallucinogenic effect either. They have to be used together.

Ben Greenfield (4:37)

Okay, gotcha.

Stephanie Holbrook (4:38)

And the shaman in Peru said that they were told to put those together because they don't grow next to each other. It's really sort of crazy how they ended up brewing those two combination of plants together to make this brew.

Ben Greenfield (4:56)

Oh, I gotcha. So this vine, like the ayahuasca vine, and this leaf that's got this oxidase inhibitor on it, those aren't actually part of the same plant?

Stephanie Holbrook (5:08)

No, they're completely separate and they don't even grow in the same spot.

Ben Greenfield (5:11)

Interesting. Okay, so somebody figured out how to put these together?

Stephanie Holbrook (5:15)

Right, the shaman in Peru.

They said that they were told by great spirit or god or whatever you want to call it, to put these things together in order to get visions. So that's the theory or the myth or what the shamans say, that how they came about putting those things together.