Bracing for the Blaze: Wellness Strategies for Bushfire Crisis Survival | Dylan Smith #122

Are you ready to safeguard your health in the face of a bushfire crisis? 

In this gripping episode Dylan delves into an indispensable personal health protocol amidst the tumultuous occurrences of bushfires and controlled burning. Drawing from his experiences during Australia's devastating bushfires, he shares vital strategies to protect your respiratory health, purify your drinking water, and fortify your mental well-being during wildfire crises.

Dylan sheds light on various Vedic practices that you can implement during times of such crisis to facilitate harmony with the laws of nature & to ensure that you and your loved ones can navigate wildfire crises with grace and resilience. Don't miss this vital conversation; it could be your lifeline during a wildfire emergency.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
🔥 Introduction to Wildfires and Controlled Burning
🔥 Protecting Your Respiratory Health
🔥 Purifying & Optimising Your Drinking Water
🔥 Strategies for Trauma Management and Mental Health
🔥 Preparing Emergency Kits for Health and Safety
🔥 Resilience Through Cultural and Spiritual Practices

Transcript

Dylan Smith: 0:00

bushfires, wild forest fires or controlled burning. If this is happening to an area near you or is going to happen in the future, this is a personal health protocol for you. Welcome to the Vital Vader podcast. I'm your host, dylan Smith. I'm an Ayurvedic health practitioner and holistic health educator who sees patients all around the world and based in Australia, where we have a lot of what we refer to as bushfires. In other places, like USA, they refer to forest fires or wildfires. There's also the notion of controlled burning, which is a tool to manage fires before the fire season starts, to burn off some of the excess residue of woods and different materials that may be building up and making the potential future bushfire worse. So within my clinic, within my community, I see people and patients who are affected by bushfires and also even controlled burning as well, and this podcast is intended to protect your personal health, the health of your family, friends and community, and hopefully you're listening to this in the lead up to bushfires or forest fires, as well as controlled burning or prescribed back burning, a lot of the time you may be listening to this during the fires. This podcast episode is to support human health during times of wildfire crisis. This is not a podcast about ecological and environmental health. There are other resources for that of how to manage fires and consulting indigenous wisdom on fire management, and I want to emphasize the importance to learn this in advance, beforehand. So when a crisis like this occurs, you already have the resources, the herbs, the knowledge, the remedies and protocols to protect your health.

Dylan Smith: 1:54

This I've been meaning to record since the 2018, 2019 devastating bushfires in the summer of Australia. It was the hottest and driest year on record and it was so chaotic. People lacked resources. They lacked access to resources. I had patients around Australia with respiratory issues and what one patient called smokey drinking water. So people who are out on the land, out in the rural areas, and it's hard to get drinking water and it's hard to treat them with limited resources. Because the same happened with the 2023 Maui wildfires and in California in 2021, it happened with my patients. We couldn't get easily the remedies and the herbs for people's health because the resources and the post systems, the career delivery systems, were jeopardized. So these are the fires.

Dylan Smith: 2:44

Of course, there is also controlled burning, which includes hazard reduction, burning and burn off back burning. So this is happening right now in Australia, as I record this in the early October 2023. And I'm even already having patients call me, even patients in the city. In the cities, they also get affected by this. So if you're a city folk, you need to pay attention, because I have had people calling me about their children suffering in the rare respiratory tract and adults in places like Western Australia where back burning is quite strong and close to high density residential areas.

Dylan Smith: 3:18

So in this podcast, I'm going to talk about interventions for health during this heated time. I'm mainly going to talk about respiratory health, drinking water and going to touch on trauma and mental health. So, first of all, respiratory health. The number one thing which gets affected by these this season is respiratory system, the responsible system that's for your lungs and for your breathing. So what are some things you can do? The best thing by far is a practice in every better called nasia pratimarsha we can call it nasia for short, n-a-s-y-a.

Dylan Smith: 3:55

Nasia is a practice of sniffing oil up your nose daily and a specific medicated oil I'm going to get into. But what this does is it enhances the filtration capacity of the turbines within your nostril to filter out any toxins or smoke or particles which are unknown, homogenous and and not harmonious for your lungs and your respiratory system. So it filters and it also enhances your ability to metabolize whatever you breathe into your system through the nose. So this is first of all enhancing the superficial part of your nostril, but also it goes deep into the brain and the whole head, neck and throat region. So it's actually also coding and lubricating the brain, which is protecting it from any pollutants which go through the nose, can go straight to the brain and it also can go to the head, neck and throat region, the ears, the eyes, the thyroid gland, even. So, Nacia, the practice of sniffing oil up your nose protects. There's so many other benefits of Nacia beyond respiratory health, it's very helpful for brain health. So if you're feeling that brain fog or lack of energy in the brain, mental fatigue, lack of motivation, this sniffing the oil up the nose helps activate the blood circulation in the brain and fires up the neurons, as well as activating the glands in the body. So it's very important for hormonal health, for activating the pituitary gland which secretes things like thyroid hormone and reproductive hormone. So this practice of Nacia sniffing medicated oil up the nose there's a lot of information I have on it you can see on VitalVeter YouTube channel. I have a couple videos on Nacia as well as demonstrations of me doing the practice.

Dylan Smith: 5:52

But it's really simple With Nacia. I really recommend a specific oils, not just any oils. Some ayurvedic practitioners will say you can use sesame oil. What's even safer than that, at least, is ghee, and if that's all you have, you can't, don't have an ability to get the oils. You can use those things, but ideally you're using a well procured, medicated ayurvedic oil, because when we're dealing with the orifices linked to the brain and ultimately the nose is the gateway to the skull, we really want to be putting highly refined, procured oils. And I don't mean ultra refined as an ultra processed. I mean refined in an ayurvedic preparatory way, where the oil has been cooked and blended so that it makes it soft and makes it harmonious and gentle and still powerful, but harmonious with the mind. Some ayurvedic Nacia oils, some ayurvedic nasal oils, will even be specifically designed for ayurveda and for sniffing up the nose, but they're not procuring it in a refined enough way and that makes it a bit more harsh and a bit more uncomfortable, so some people don't like to sniff it as much. So the two oils I recommend is one oil called Nacica, and that is something you can get from vitalvedacomau. You just create an account and you can purchase that as well as special Nacica.

Dylan Smith: 7:23

Special Nacica is a stronger one. You should put it on your finger and then apply and rub your finger in your nostril about one or two or even three drops on your finger, then apply that to each nostril and sniff it up. You want to really inhale out in the nose, out the mouth, and you want to sniff that oil to the brain and really enhance the throat and really strengthen the system. It is the most important thing for this. So this is especially important before going out to smoke polluted areas and really enhancing those turbines in your nostrils. This is really good for anything. If you're dealing with mold, if you're working on a building site, if that's your job, any. If you're visiting a city, if you're visiting especially a polluted city like some of them in Asia, this is especially important. As well as a mask, this is kind of an internal mask as well as a superficial nostril turbine mask. So this is really important. That's a really important practice.

Dylan Smith: 8:29

That's probably the number one thing you need for prevention and even for clearing a special, especially the special nusca, which is the strong oil, it has a greater capacity to cleanse. So when you do that you may sneeze after and you'll love that sneeze. Make sure you sneeze out the mouth and you'll see it's really detoxifying the brain and the upper respiratory tract. That's a good thing if you need to blow your nose because sometimes doing Nuscia practice, it can bring it to your upper respiratory. It can bring it to your throat, the mucus, and you may want to blow your nose. That's fine. After five to ten minutes even you can blow it if it is really bringing up a lot of mucus. But this is one way to nourish, to protect and even to detox Nuscia.

Dylan Smith: 9:11

Another thing I want to mention is purifying the body, particularly purifying the upper respiratory tract. There are certain herbs which we can put into hot water or even create some certain steam in different ways to create steam. These are some herbs that are going to purify that, not only the body, but even the home. The first, best, is a formula called prana drops. This is the ideal. Prana means life force and these are drops that you Can put in water that. The second herbal formula is called citad gel. S, I, d, d, h, a, j a, l. This is a more subtle formula, it's quite similar. It's definitely enhances the prana as well, the life force, and Purifies the pollutants and really gives that that life force, that oxygen which is lacking when the smoke is overshadowing the pure prana or the pure life force which should be breathing in. So these are super important remedies to have on you and they're really effective.

Dylan Smith: 10:13

I'm gonna give you some home remedies. If you can't, don't have access to those herbs, once again, you can get them from vital weather dot com, dot a? U. But these are really profound formulas. I can't not mention them.

Dylan Smith: 10:24

And prana drops, especially super important. It's a very good remedy for so many things like headaches, fever, cold flu, viruses, parasites, bug bites, topically toothaches, pain. It's amazing, but it's a very, very concentrated prana. All you do is put one or two drops in a cup of boiling water and you inhale the steam and drink that. That's the mini steam which you can do on the go, even the thermos if you're out the big steam or the main steam inhalation and if this is for you, if you really need, if you really need to clear the upper respiratory tract, if you really struggling with breathing or even just slightly struggling, you shouldn't be struggling at all. If you have got a headache, if that you feel this too much in your head and upper respiratory tract and of course, if you have fever, cold flu, congestion, any of those things headache, you do a full steam inhalation which is putting a couple drops or even three drops of either prana drops or citadol and covering your head with a towel and then the big bowl of boiling water. You inhale the steam. You can inhale in the nose and exhale out the mouth and you can do that as much as you can to. The steam goes away and it's pretty full on, it's pretty strong, but it is very powerful remedy to clear the head in the upper respiratory tract. So prana drops or citadol for steam inhalation and also you can drink those and should drink those.

Dylan Smith: 11:54

Home remedy which is inferior if you don't have those herbs or formulas, is you can combine any of the above central oils eucalyptus oil, camphor, adjoin seeds, clove. So this is for steam inhalation. Only don't drink that. You can do a similar thing to purify the home. You can put prana drops or citadol in an aroma therapy oil diffuser and let that go out through the house. You can use eucalyptus. In the same way. You can use camphor oil. And what you can even do is you can Create a purifying smoke and in a clay pot or a clay bowl, use whatever you have of the below ingredients. You can line the bottom of the bowl with a bed of fresh eucalyptus leaves or name leaves and on that add one teaspoon of clothes. Also, on that, add one teaspoon of camphor Camphor. You can get these white camphor beads from Indian grocery stores If you don't know where else to get them. But you want the pure camphor, then you can add seven dried bay leaves, sprinkle a bit of crushed incense as well and add one teaspoon of ghee, light the camphor and let it burn and let it smoke fully. That although is smoke and you think you can't get enough, it actually is a purifying smoke. And smoke in Ayurveda is called Dupana. It's actually a treatment for various conditions, including respiratory conditions. But of course, if that smoke is too much, stick to the aromatherapy, stick to the steam inhalation.

Dylan Smith: 13:23

Another thing is Pranayama, which is breathing exercises, nasal breathing, super important. There are different practices of Pranayama or different breathing ways to administer breath in a therapeutic manner. One of my favourites is alternate nostril breathing, which is also known as Anulom, vilom or Nadi Shodana, and Nadi means channel, shodana means purification. So this alternate nostril breathing is very good to purify the channels. Especially if you first do the Nassia oil drops and then the Pranayama, that is very effective. So these are some ways to purify and strengthen the upper respiratory tract. There are internal herbs as well and that is definitely good to have. But for that I'll say for now to book online consultation. If you need extra help, you can do that on vitalvedacomau forward slash bookings and I can give specific for you and specific for your respiratory system. I will mention a couple general ones. One is Shodana Vati and that is to generally purify the body and keep the toxins going out on a daily basis. The other one is Suasannanda Leham and that is a general respiratory tonic. So these you can see on vitalvedacomau. You can also look in the show notes for the spelling of all these herbs in the mentioning. But if you need to have a consultation for more specific, visit vitalvedacomau forward slash bookings.

Dylan Smith: 14:57

Now onto drinking water. This is another important thing because, especially if you're living on tank water or rain water, the smoke is going to get in. So the ideal thing which you do is you have a filter and restructuring unit. This is also really important, especially if you're involved in a fire or even your local spring water delivery, which is what is the best way to drink water from the spring and you get it delivered. They usually are mostly living on land and living in rural areas and they may not be able to deliver or they may be stuck or blocked off in certain roads. So this is another important thing and this is really important to have in case you can't get spring water and drink it. So filtering and restructuring Not only filtering, which is super important, but perhaps even more important is restructuring the water, so restructuring it to that refined molecular state.

Dylan Smith: 15:52

Because even if you had the best water filter and it purifies, whether it's tap water or it's rain water that water I mean rain water is more lively, but we still need to enliven that water, especially tap water. It's dead. It's dead water. It's been pulverized with many chemicals through the usually through the local council, which is great. You're getting rid of very strong pathogens which otherwise would probably be causing parasites and worms. But they've pulverized it. They're not only adding toxic chemicals but they're killing the prana, they're killing the life force and the structure of that water. So we want to filter that crap you want to fill to those toxins and chemicals, but we also want to reenliven that water and make it structured into its sacred molecular balance state, like a second geometrical what a molecule state which is gonna actually feed us with hydration and therefore enable our body to be hydrated and purify, because water is the ultimate purifier and when we drink it and we adequately dehydrated and we are adequately Fed with water, we have a greater capacity to detox toxins such as smoke. So filter and restructure. I highly recommend a restructuring company. My favorite restructuring company is called natural action technology. It's a company based in US. They shipped to Australia when you email them.

Dylan Smith: 17:24

Second thing is boiling water. So that's another thing. Boil the water, you give some form of product and there's another thing in a better, which is a certain seed which you can add to water. We call it cut the car or, near Mali, the English name is clearing nut tree and in the 2018 2019 bush fires we had quite a few people in our communities getting those seeds. Usually they're coming from overseas, but you can usually get them online. They're very common, well known seeds to purify water. The botanical name is strike noise potatorum and you can add a bunch of those seeds. You can even make it into powder and line that clay cup or line a clay water canister. That's, that's a great seed. Obviously it's coming from overseas. They may not be the best thing for you at the time, but you can check the show notes for the name of this clearing nut tree and also you can usually find them on places like eBay or on the internet. So that's, that's a great, very powerful water purifying herb which is usually accessible.

Dylan Smith: 18:27

Another one is to see holy basil what can? I'm sanctum. That's a one that grows around easily. If you don't have the plant and the leaves, you can just get to see teabags. I recommend organic India, great company, great to see. We've done podcast episodes with them.

Dylan Smith: 18:41

Another herb is better no need to see that, you know that and that is a route of a long grass which is beautiful and extremely aromatic. In fact, that I've. You probably know. It's in most perfumes. That General cooling sweet after these yak purifies water really well. So if you can get the roots you can even put some powder. Perhaps you can put some essential oils, which is quite common bit of essential oil. So articles on that. When you can check out Vital better dot com, dot a you.

Dylan Smith: 19:17

But all these different ways to purify water and there's. So there's a thousand one ways to structure water. Restructure it like natural action technology. It's very simple to vortex technology. It's device that last forever, basically got lifetime warranty, just like a filter. We have to change it. You just stick it, ideally, on the main of your home, so you're filtering the whole house. I think you can get. We've got one for our shower, we've got a portable one as well. So, drinking water, really pay attention and just have a plan I recommend. And, of course, if you can get spring water, that is fantastic.

Dylan Smith: 19:54

Another thing is Touch on what I touch on his trauma and mental health, and this is really where meditation comes, because when you are meditating regularly, you have established a place within yourself which is untouchable, which is Beyond resilient, and you need that deep place, that deep reserve of vitality, physically, because meditation supports that by putting you in a very deep state of rest and it establishes yourself in a state of omnipresence. And this state is untouchable, it's Can meet any demand, because it is so established in this big capital s self and the truth that you are the universe. And actually experiencing that what's gonna make or break you nothing. So this fire and this crisis and this genuinely tragic conditions are ultimately what we call in the Vedic system Lord Shiva or the destruction operator. It's that Operation mode of nature which removes that which is irrelevant, and it may sound harsh and unfortunately sometimes it has to be in a harsh way or rough way in evolution that nature organizers destruction to occur. But always Destruction is for evolution, destruction is for creation, order for creation. We need destruction. It doesn't have to go that way, though it doesn't have to be a rough path if you, if the collective. Ultimately, when it's bush wise, it's a collective Caramide, collective energy. But when the collective is adhering to natural law and paying attention to the laws of nature, living in tune with nature and respecting nature and all those things which Alliance one to nature, the path of evolution is smooth. But sometimes, when the collective or certain part of the collective is not respecting and Hearing the laws of nature and perhaps going against them, nature may need to cause some destruction to shake things up and create something new. If you're not gonna be creative in evolving in the alignment with nature's laws, then they might be a bit of destruction, unfortunately so when one is meditating there they are more aware of that and they can perceive the laws of nature operating in this way and it is not as traumatic. So I highly recommend Vedic meditation as that stable, grounded aspects.

Dylan Smith: 22:33

Another thing is in the Vedas there's a. The Veda means the laws of nature. These are the different expressions of how nature operates. We have meditation, we have yoga, we have Ayurveda, the science of health part of the Veda. There's also a branch of the Vedic called Gandharva Veda, and Gandharva Veda is how to use sound in tune with natural law to trigger certain mechanisms of nature. For example, in terms of drought in times of bushfire.

Dylan Smith: 23:04

There are certain sounds that can activate rain, that can activate the laws of nature and the mechanics of how nature operates for rain to come, and they've done this successfully in the past of playing rain melodies, which we call it, and certain mantras, like Varuna mantras, which are primordial sounds to activate the rain. God, these help rain come even in times of drought. In Australia, transcendental meditation movement has put a lot of meditators in one place in that drought area and that collective consciousness, creating harmony with the laws of nature, has created rain in that drought area. So these are some things that can be done. You know, this distance healing or this distance collective praying, all this it's all energetic interactions with the weather and that aspect of nature and the science on it, the science on the science of praying, all these things they operated a subtle level, but they definitely interact with nature.

Dylan Smith: 24:09

Rain melody is a wonderful melody by certain. There's many different rain melodies. I recommend one by Maharishi pundits, that's a certain group of people who are chanting a specific way. That is what I believe is one of the most effective ways to utilize those rain melodies. And through certain beautiful flutes and different music and we'll link that on the show notes. You can play that in your home. You can play that loud. It doesn't even have to be very loud, but having that sound in the local environment creates that rain energy.

Dylan Smith: 24:43

Another very important thing is counseling and community. This is super important. Ultimately, this is one of the the beauties of crisis is like this is. It creates a lot of community, it brings community together and it's super important to be in touch with people. And, of course, counseling. If this has been, these parts have been traumatic to you or someone you know, make sure there's some counseling. They're talking about it. This is involved. So I hope that this podcast is given some clarity and some help around bushfires, forest fires and controlled burning, and touched on the health, health factors and health promoting factors which are going to help you during this time.

Dylan Smith: 25:23

Please see the show notes and please share this if you listening and as a preparation, as a prevention method, you can. You know I'm recording this in October twenty twenty three in Australia and eastern Australia and wed you for a very hot, dry summer and I really hope people can be prepared with having a drinking water protocol, having herbal remedies for their respiratory tract, as well as knowing foods for their respiratory tract. That's another one and also being mentally stable and having a community and having the self practices for you to Hope with the demands, the very high demands and the high stress that may come, so that it is not a stress to you. It's just a graceful way of dealing with the demand, as graceful as we can. So please share this. Can share it as instagram story with the link and share with your friends who need it.

Dylan Smith: 26:15

If you appreciate this, I'd really appreciate you to subscribe to the show if you haven't, you know. Interestingly, when I look on apple podcast is a lot of you are listening to this but not subscribe to the show. Subscribe. There's so many good episodes on the topics of health consciousness, spirituality, relationships, strong focus on natural health and expanding awareness of the laws of nature, which what we call the beta. So subscribe to be in tune with that and be updated. And also you can share with anyone you think. Leave a review as well. I would love to hear what you think of this and if you have anything else to add, please let us know in the review. And thank you for listening. I really appreciate it and if you need anything, any other tips or any one on one work, please reach out on vital beta dot com, dot a u.