How Did We Get Here?
We are now 5 weeks into the New Year! Did you make any New Year’s resolution to live better, be healthier, feed yourself better or lose weight? How’s that going?
The majority of people in the US were challenged beyond compare with their health and well-being in 2020. From mental to dietary to physical and spiritual, we all have been reconnecting with what is truly important. In the face of the enormous loss caused by the pandemic, social strife, the economy and the state of a fractured democracy, it is important to learn to plan what you are prepared to do for yourself. Face it, you wouldn’t have made it into this new beginning without yourself.
Taking care of oneself means we may want to try something that will elevate our health and bring greater balance. For our journey into this newness, we looked to Amma Healing, a health and wellness company, and their hemp-based CBD product line. Amma Healing has a proprietary method of extraction that is distinct from the majority of other processors. The products are stages beyond what is widely accepted as broad spectrum.
We learned from the founders, Ted Moskovitz and Danielle Sunberg, that they bring years of corporate legal, finance and entrepreneurial edge. They also bring knowledge and wisdom acquired from years of studying holistic health, psychedelics, cannabinoids, performance and longevity healing. They are guided by an ethos… that Danielle describes coming from being a Reiki Master that is the source for company leadership and culture to embrace balance, inclusion, and dynamic awareness of the self and of others. With years of experience in certified coaching, they learned you can alter your wellness in a variety of ways. They stated that “we’re all about is blending modern science with ancient wisdom to help people feel good in their own bodies.” Currently with 5 products called Soothe ( a pain relief salve), Focus (a gel cap with CBD and curcumin), Rest (a CBD gel cap with melatonin), Balance (a broad spectrum+ hemp oil) and Elevate (an elixir using broad spectrum CBD combined with quillaja extract). We found that Amma’s CBD line is no ordinary product as it stands apart in a category full of “snake oil” brands. They are bio-hacking combinations that provide so much more than just the CBD oil benefits.
A “Happy Accident”
Ted shared about the “happy accident” experience of creating beverages for the Elevate Hemp Elixir. While developing the products under the AMMA Healing brand, one of their suppliers had let him know that they were working on a food grade CBD oil and invited Ted and Dannielle to try it. They put together launch parties with friends and acquaintances and besides glowing reviews of the goodie bags people got, they wowed them with the drinks they made.
Out of that “aha” moment, Elevate was born and they enlisted a mixologist to refine some of the drink recipes served to guests at launch events and to offer the recipes to their customers so they can “sip without sacrifice.
Hence, AMMA created a recipe booklet for you to try at home. Besides the individual benefits using herbs and natural juices, each drink has a distinct occasion for consuming tied to time of day like morning coffee to seasonal beverages like Ray of Sun. Other drinks have names like Inflammation Fighter, New Fashioned, Another Day in Paradise, Spring is Coming, Spiced Cider, and my new favorite, The Quarantini. You can make your drinks with or without alcohol. I would recommend without as the benefits of the Hemp Elixir allow you to protect your brain, detox your liver, enhance your mood and are calorie free.
Basis of Product Development
As we’ve stated before, this is no ordinary CBD. Have you ever heard of broad spectrum+? That’s right. Ted taught us, literally, that the traditional method for removing traces of THC involve a high heating process and one that uses alot of solvent. Broad Spectrum+ is a proprietary method used by Amma Healing to remove any traces of THC from the hemp is more like a whole-plant cold press juicing process. That’s the biggest difference. It’s cleaner without the “high heat and additional solvents” as may be the case with others in the market. Hemp lacks a “particular enzyme that converts cannabinoids into THC.” Yet there exists a variety of strains with hemp, similar to cannabis strains, just without the higher concentrations of cannabinoids that become THC.
They are in development of genetically modifying cannabis and hemp so that the traces of THC are so low, they can remediate that for a THC-product. Also, they are isolated just terpenes and water for increased efficacy of the benefits from CBD. More to follow soon on that.
The main innovation premise that drives AMMA to deliver the best they can is they take products to a tight circle of like-minded supporters and bio-hackers who are looking into quantifiable effects of the formulas they create to be able to distinguish products married to specific treatments or experiences people seek. “We’re looking at what really happens to your physiology when you take this. We’re seeing people switch from high-beta brain wave activity to alpha brain wave activity, we’re seeing activity of the parasympathetic nervous system,” Ted informs us. According to Healthline, “the parasympathetic nervous system controls bodily functions when a person is at rest. Some of its activities include stimulating digestion, activating metabolism, and helping the body relax.” These hallmarks of relaxation are measurable which allow you to quantify effect. Pre-covid, AMMA had been hosting live events and sampling opportunities and received feedback from people who tried their products validating what AMMA had learned from their circle of friends.
Trying Out New Wellness Products
After interviewing them, I ordered the AMMA Elevate Hemp Elixir to try with my coffee, juice or other beverage, and the Phyto cannabinoid-rich (PCR) broad spectrum+ gel caps of AMMA Curcumin to try out for a few weeks before I finished writing this story.
For those who may not be aware, curcumin is the bright yellow chemical that comes from the Curcuma longa plant, the same plant that gives us turmeric. Curcumin has been used for musculoskeletal disorders that has been found as an effective therapeutic agent for osteoarthritis. While the technical science sounds like jazz to me, the key point was that as people age, the consequences of living on the edge in their 20’s and 30’s will manifest in some form of osteoarthritis.
A key source that validated my choice to try this was a review last November where scientists and clinicians also looked at curcumin as part of a broader study on therapeutics titled Dietary Supplements and Cognitive Function, Dementia, and Alzheimer’s Disease: What the Science Says. Curcumin in particular “in preclinical studies” showed that the chemical “targets inflammatory and antioxidant pathways as well as (direct) amyloid aggregation.” That means that as proteins fibers toxify in our bodies (we all get some form of this), especially on our brain’s receptors, that toxification is reduced by curcumin. BOOM! That’s exactly what someone needs, especially during all the isolation of the last 11 months, is to clean your system, including the brain, of the toxicity we have acquired during this time.
Of course, this all warrants specific clinical trials for any organization to say with certainty that it absolutely does work positively on brain function. I can absolutely tell you that in my experience, the two benefits I am seeing results in are in my aforementioned body aches and pains, and the greater clarity and focus I am now feeling is leaps and bounds from where I was last year at this time.
You can try out the Quarantini as we included the recipe here.
Ted and Danielle are committed to continually look for ways to expand and improve human potential and it’s clear that with AMMA Healing, that they are on the cutting edge to meet the challenges people have in seeking moments of satisfaction and serenity.
As a special reward for AloftMagazine.com readers or followers on social media, use code ALOFT and you’ll get 15% off your order on their website. Check out AMMA Healing here.