You look tired.

Yeah, owns eczema is really bad.

We were up most of the night trying to stop him scratching. That's terrible. Sounds like you need, double base. Double what? Double base emollient gel. It works quickly to soften, moisturize, and protect my little girl's dry skin. That sounds, perfect. Double base emollient gel. Nothing looks, feels, or performs quite like it for childhood eczema. Ask for double base emollient gel in your local pharmacy. Suitable for all ages. Always read the label. Visit mydoublebase.

Ie to find out more. Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. Send him for Dave. It's the Uge, and this is Short Stuff. I think I already said that, so let's go.

A woo- woo edition?

A little bit, depending on what your background is or what your intentions are or what you believe the effects of what you're doing are.

That's right. What we're talking about is smudging. If you're like, What is that? Have you ever heard of burning sage? Like, Oh, we just moved into this new house. We're going to walk around and burn some sage, get rid of all those bad vibes, and just welcome the newness and the goodness into this place by burning a little bundle of white sage.

Yeah, it's called smudging. The smoke supposedly does some stuff to, like you said, the vibes. It is very popular among people who use words like vibes, but it has its roots very firmly in Indigenous North American cultures, in particular, the Dakota and Ho-Chunk cultures smudged with sage. Ho-chunk is more familiar as the Winnebago tribe. Right. And they also, I guess they evolved this practice independently. But civilizations throughout time have used herbs or incenses to do things like cleanse the air or purify things. There's definitely something to it. It's just the science on it hasn't really been carried out in a lot of ways. There's a lot of people who still jump to larger conclusions than they possibly should at this point. Who knows? I think my take on it, I just want everybody to bear this in mind. If it makes you happy, if you like it, if you're doing it ethically and responsibly, more power to you.

Yeah, absolutely. Really. Burning all kinds of herbs has long been a ritual in different cultures like you were talking about. Smudging, you can also call it sageing. The word sage actually comes from Latin, from salvia, which means to feel healthy. We're going to talk about potential health benefits here in a minute. But there are people who will say, Well, hold on a minute. This is cultural appropriation, really. If you're just walking around, you throw some in you or some grateful dead, and you're smudging, you're burning that sage and walking around, then you may be doing a, not a disservice, but inadvertently- Insulting? Being disrespectful to the original, very sacred practice. So that is something to keep in mind.

And you're like, Leave me out of this.

Leave me in the crossword where I belong. Yeah, exactly. So there are people people, though, that will say, Hey, if you're going to do this, keep some things in mind, harvest it sustainably, and we'll get to why you should do that in a sec, although you should always do that for anything. And then maybe do some research on how it was really done and maybe try and honor that in some way.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe seek different sources, too, beyond Instagram or TikTok. I'm not making fun, but I know that there's a lot of people that are getting the idea to go smudge from those sources. Great. But go look up a little more about it, and that might help you feel a little better about doing it.

Yeah. If you're curious about potential benefits of smudging beyond just feeling like it's a ritual you should do when you move in or you want to get rid of some bad vibes, don't go to websites that have web pages that are turquoise.

Or in comic sands.

Comic sands, Pink script, lots of crystals. You're going to get a lot of information on those sites, but it may not be accurate because I did look a little deeper into benefits of smudging and burning sage, and maybe we should talk about those when we come back right after this.

I think that's a capital idea. All right, we'll be right back.

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All right. If you look up what are the benefits of burning sage? You will find all kinds of things from improved mood, better sleep, enhanced cognition, lowering your stress levels, antibacterial properties, stuff like that. The problem is with a lot of this stuff is it's hard to find great solid scientific studies and evidence because science doesn't usually study stuff like this a lot. The money goes elsewhere. So you'll find lots of studies where it's like there's a lot of correlation and stuff like that, a lot of self-reporting. But I was having a hard time finding some real good, hard, double-blind studies on this stuff.

Yes, that's problem one. Problem two is there are some peer-reviewed good studies or meta-analysis of other studies. But if you start looking into them, you're like, Oh, this isn't actually talking about smudging at all. Or if it is about smudging, it's not about smudging with sage. It's about smudging with havan samagri, which is an Indian medicinal, I guess, incense, which that one is widely cited because that study found that burning havan samagari purifies your room. It kills up to 95 80% of airborne bacteria for up to 30 days.

That's awesome.

So you could be like, Okay, I mean, is sage really that much different from havan smagri? So surely there's some properties to it. That's what people are doing. Or if it's a study on sage and sage's ability to enhance cognition or to fight Alzheimer's or to improve your mood or something like that, those are studies on sage extract that you're taking orally. It's not a study on smudging. That's different. Again, you can make some jumps to conclusions that may have some basis. If you burn some of the bioactive compounds in other plants, like marijuana, it does things to you for sure. How is it that far off that burning sage in its bioactive compounds could have other different effects that just maybe aren't quite as noticeable or just haven't been researched? Yes, the answer is yes. But the key thing here is to remember, it hasn't been researched. So take it all with a grain of salt. But again, if it's making you feel good, even if it's a placebo, then great.

Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, please don't put sage in your bong and inhale it.

Oh, my God, it would kill your throat.

Yeah, that would not be good for you. I think I mentioned responsible harvesting of sage. About 50%, and this is California white sage, about 50% of California white sage has been lost to urbanization. This article says the increase in non-native people sageing is posing a threat. I saw that it was more like urbanization in general, climate change, fire, drought, poaching, the usual suspects with stuff like that.

If it's California sage, that fire is contributing big time.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm not so convinced that that's true, that people jumping off of goop and buying sage is why there's a 50% drop, but it may be playing a part. Who knows?

I mean, if there's a huge decline in it naturally, then a bunch of new people coming and buying it would definitely have an impact, too.

Sure, absolutely. Carpenter bees are the main pollinator of white sage, so the loss of sage is no good, just like losing any pollinating plant is no good. Then whether or not it's If it was bad for you, I was trying to find information. I didn't see where it was necessarily bad. As long as you keep the smoke levels down, you don't want to, especially if you have asthma or something or any respiratory illness, you don't want to be breathing in smoke, period. When you say it, you want to blow that thing out pretty quick and keep the smoke to a minimum.

Yes. One other thing I did see, though, that makes a lot of sense is that the smoke releases negative ions. I saw some people say, which counteract negative energy. Not true, but it does counteract things like allergens, like dust, dander, mold, which are positively charged, typically. So that makes some sense. So there is some science to it, too. But also just getting away from all the science, getting away from applying any New Age goop stuff to it. It is like a traditional Indigenous practice. I saw actually the Mayo Clinic was boasting about how they have a smudging room at their Minnesota main campus because they work with so many Native American patients, that's one of the things they offer with their chaplains. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

I didn't see any like, this is how long you're supposed to do it, because I think, especially if it's something that's a symbolic thing that you're doing, I'm not sure you can even put a time limit on something that ethereal. But yeah, Just... I mean, we're not smudge advisors. I would say, just don't throw it away like it's just some dumb thing you're doing. Like, just let me do this. Maybe respect it a little bit, even if it's just a placebo effect. It's something that many cultures have done for thousands of years. So pay it a little respect, I would say.

So there's a ritual to it. I think originally smudging was bathing yourself in the smoke from the sage bundle, that that's really what indigenous smudging is. And then it got translated to clearing the negative energy out of space as well. But one of the things you can do if smudge is basically, you take the smoke and waft it to yourself. Basically, run it through your hair, run it over your shoulders, down your arms. Just take a quick bath in the smoke. Then you're actually doing the most basic ancient Indigenous practice with smudging. But you can also walk around your place with it, like you're saying. There's different elements to it, literally elements or symbolic elements. One of the first things you want to get that's typically used is a shell, often an abalone shell. That's the container that you're actually lighting the bundle in, and that represents the element of water.

Yeah, so not the Pucca shell from your necklace that you inevitably have on around your neck.

With the Cocopelly pen.

Yeah, something larger. Then, of course, you've got the herb itself. You bundle it together. You can call it a smudge stick if you'd like. Now you've got your fire, that's obviously an element, and then you got that smoke, which is the air element.

Howstuffworks? Did you get this from HowStuffWorks?

That and other places.

Well, somebody interviewed a writer and healing practitioner named Molly Larkin who said, Hey, man, if you're worried about insulting Indigenous cultures because you're not doing this right, you're not taking it seriously enough, they said that basically the way you can prevent that across the board is by having an intention with smudging. Like you were saying, an intention beyond listening to Eña. Expressing that intention through prayer. And that that's one of the big parts of smudging, is you say, I want to get rid of... I want to wash that man right out of my hair, or something like that. I'm going to run sage smoke through it. Or that's what most people think of a smudging, you're getting rid of negative energy in a space or from yourself. But apparently, according to Molly Larkin, you can also bring in positive energy. So you can set your intention, whether it's to get rid of negative energy or bring in positive or both, and then you just repeat that throughout the ritual of smudging.

Yeah. And just keep in mind all the science stuff we talked about.

Yes. And one other thing, too. Apparently, one of the beliefs is that the ashes contain the negative energy that you have You don't want those. Removed. You want to dispose of that ash on bare earth. If you've gone this far, you might as well finish it right, okay?

Absolutely. Hey, if you're going to finish it right, start right and grow your own white sage and use that.

Yeah, that's another thing, too. They recommend, do not buy from mass market retailers because they're probably not sourcing it ethically. They could be a part of the problem if there is a sage shortage. Ideally, you would buy it from a local Native American-owned business. And then, yeah, the second best of that is growing it yourself.

Yeah.

Wow. I love it. Wow. We really did a good job here, Chuck, if I may say so ourselves.

I think so.

Okay, well, go forth and stage, everybody, but do so ethically and responsibly and with respect. That means, of course, ShortStuff is out.

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