me&my health up

Kick Start Your Wellness Journey for More Energy, Better Sleep, Less Stress and More Happiness!

October 26, 2020 me&my wellness / Anthony Hartcher Season 1 Episode 29
me&my health up
Kick Start Your Wellness Journey for More Energy, Better Sleep, Less Stress and More Happiness!
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Show Notes Transcript

Do you awake tired? Have low energy throughout the day? Poor Sleep? Would you like better sleep and more energy to enjoy the day? If this is you then this episode will kick start your wellness journey to a healthier you. This episode covers:

  • Mindset / Goal setting / Visualisation
  • Sleep
  • Mindfulness
  • Stress management techniques
  • Movement / Exercise
  • Nutrition

If you would like to watch this episode visit: me&my wellness YouTube channel

About the presenter

Anthony Hartcher is the founder and CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering. 





Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

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Anthony Hartcher:

Welcome to start your wellness journey. So if you're listening in or if you're watching the video, I welcome you to this spring into wellness episode. So spring into wellness, what I love about springing into wellness is that we're turning a new leaf where we're basically coming out of hibernation, the environment around us is warming, our days are getting longer, we're feeling likes and change. And so this is the perfect time to break some old habits that we may have accumulated in the winter months. And then what we can do is create these new habits to spring into summer. So this is spring into wellness, or start your wellness journey. And they're the same, because at the end of the day, what this webinar is going to give you and provide you insight around the fundamentals of good health. So I'm going to be covering it holistically look at many aspects of health and well being. And for you, it's working out maybe which area, you're not doing enough in and picking up some good habits that I'm going to share in that area, or could be picking out one or two healthy tips in each of the areas I'm about to speak to, and applying that. Now. And as you know, within our if we apply something for around that 21 days, that's three weeks, it will become a good habit to take into summer. So let's start your wellness journey with Anthony Hartcher, clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. So a little bit about me, I have a background in chemical engineering. So I've since those days of studying chemical engineering and being in the corporate world for 15 years, I just, I guess, got in touch with my passion, which is health and well being I'm doing what I love now, which is supporting others to be a healthier version of themselves. So I did another further two more degrees, one in complementary medicine, and another degree in nutrition and dietetic medicine. And I love to practice holistically. So you'll hear me mentioned that word a number of times, it's because I believe that great health comes when we do things in a balanced way, holistically. So you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking when I'm saying holistic in the next slide. So in terms of holistic wellness, I like this triangle way of thinking of it. For those that are just listening in, I'll talk you through it. But essentially, you're looking at building a strong foundation of the triangle. So a strong foundation, that triangle consists of sleep after having a really good sleep routine. My mindset, which sits in the middle of the triangle is the probably the most important part because with a healthy mindset, a can do attitude, we're going to implement positive change and sustain that change. So we need to work with that mindset. Hence why I've got it in the middle of the triangle as a really key piece to all the other parts of health and well being. You know, without that healthy mindset, it's going to be hard to do holistic health and have take a real balanced view of Holistic Health. The other part of the foundation of the pyramid is mindfulness and movements. So they're, you know, those foundations. So you've got sleep mindset, which is a glue, bringing all the pieces of the puzzle together. And then mindfulness and movements as really strong foundations of setting us up to making better food decisions. If we don't have those foundations, the right food decision is harder to do. And hence we're not going to cover nutrition at the start of this talk, we're going to build up to nutrition. Because if you have good sleep, you're in a good state of mind. And you regularly do mindfulness and you're regularly move your body, you're going to make great food decisions. Because when we don't do these basics or the fundamentals of health, our ability to make a good rational, healthy decision is impaired. So having a not a great foundation to good health, so we're not getting good sleep. You know, we're not practising mindfulness regularly or I'll talk more detail about what mindfulness is. If we're not moving our body, and we don't have a positive attitude towards health, then without that, we're certainly not going to make better food decisions. At the end of the day. People know generally what they need to be eating. They just struggle with More being, you know, their body telling them that they need or they're craving certain foods, that they're thinking, why do I need that sugar, I don't really I don't really need that huge carbohydrate rich meal. And now I shouldn't be having that. But I'm, I've got this tendency towards that. And it's because our hormones aren't regulated, we have inflammation, we have high cortisol, I'm going to talk to this in more detail. But when we have this dis balanced state of hormones, you know, unregulated cortisol, our judgments, our ability to make rational decisions is really impaired. So hence why we're starting with the foundations of good health. And then we're going to approach the subject of nutrition, because that's when you'll be ready for it, you'll be more receptive to hearing it and applying it. So let's start with mindset. So I have a quote here, if I'm committed, there is always a way and this is by Tony Robbins. And that's so true. If you're committed to improving your health, you will find a way to get good health. And it's the reason why you're listening to this webinar, because there's an inclination or commitment inside you, of wanting a better state of health and well being. And hence, you are directing your actions, your behaviour, to Ward's making healthier choices, healthier decisions around education. And so this mindset piece is so fundamental to bring in all aspects of health and well being together and applying it well consistently and have balanced. So in terms of mindset, we really need to get down to the underlying reason of why you're committed to your health, what is it? What is that health goal that you want to achieve all those health goals, they need to be very specific. So you've probably heard of the term smart, smart goal, being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound, we really need to set really strong, well defined goals, and have emotional attachment to them. What do I mean by emotional attachment? Well, emotions will drive your behaviour. So if you're emotionally attached to that goal, it means a lot to you is there's so much purpose behind wanting to achieve that goal, then you will actually take action to achieving that goal. If we don't have that emotion behind that goal, then we're less likely to take action, because it's not going to alter our behaviour, emotion drives our behaviour. So what do I mean by this setting, SMART goals are being really specific, making sure there's some measure how you're going to measure that you're tracking towards that goal. And you know, making sure it's attainable, realistic, and then there's some sort of time down to time down also helps us with motivation, because we're setting a deadline. Now, we want to get the emotional piece behind that. So in terms of getting that emotional connection to the goal, we need to understand that why why why is that goal? So important? So keep asking yourself, why is that goal so important, just like a kid does to their mum and dad? Why is that? But why is that? And why is that? And why is that? And if you keep asking yourself why you're eventually get to the underlying reason to why that goal has been so important that you haven't enacted because you haven't connected strong enough to your why. So really connect that goal with a strong why it will drive your great momentum, your success towards achieving that health goal. So take that exercise, there's a bit of homework to do outside of this webinar, is to really work on that specific health goal, you want to achieve that number one their biggest priority, and then break it down as to why that is so important. And the why may not be something for you, you may be doing it because you want to have more energy to spend time with your grandchildren or to keep up with them. It can be that simple. That can be the wise that I really want to spend quality time and really get involved with my grandchildren's upbringing. So therefore, I need energy to do that. And so you may be saying, well, good health. I know he's gonna bring me better energy. And so then you start forming your goal around that connection with the grandchildren. You want more energy and then it's being specific as to specific thing could be that I'm able to keep up maybe that's not specific enough, but it's sort of being able to spend the day with them without having to say look, I haven't I haven't got the energy to continue on. Oh, I can't keep with that activity, so you, maybe you like playing sports with your grandchildren, or your children could be the children. And you know, so maybe I want to be able to continue as long as what they can with the game is could be the end goal. And you could say that you're going to break that down into smaller chunks, obviously, you're not going to get to that end goal. You know, in the short term, it's going to be more medium longer term goal. But anyway, I think you really understand what I'm getting to, is you want to want to set that specific goal, that have that goal associated with a strong emotion as to why that is so important to you. Okay, so that is the mindset and with that, once you have that really strong, why strong goal, then you can start bringing all these other aspects of health and well being together to help you achieve that goal. Okay, so let's move on to the other foundation. Piece of the pyramid, or the triangle is that mindfulness movement, sleep. So I have a quote here, a good laugh, and a long sleeve, are the best cures in the doctor's book, to have great say, you know, it's so basic, it's so fundamental, you know, a good laugh. And a good sleep does not cost us money, we don't need to have money in order to have this cure, according to this quote. So, you know, a lot of these foundation areas of health and well being doesn't require large amounts of investment of money, it doesn't require investment the time Absolutely. So the time is probably the thing that you need to devote to your health. But you don't don't need don't need to think that health, you know, in order to have good health, I need to have lots of money. That's not true. You can work with the foundations of good health, without lots of money. And there's plenty of ways. And if you're committed, you'll find a way. So let me share with you some tips as to what some good habits to create around these foundation areas and mindfulness, movement and sleep. Okay, we're going to start with sleep, but good sleep, incorporate mindfulness and movement. And you'll start to see and also good sleep does incorporate nutrition. So you'll start to see how interconnected all the pieces are. And that is health. You know, health doesn't work in isolation. Health works, when we are working with nature, working with what resonates with our body, what supports our body in terms of foundations of health, once we're in that unison, that we're working with the environment, working with our body, we're nourishing our body. We're one with our environment, our spiritual beliefs, our food, what, you know, we feel so interconnected that the food nourishes us, you know, our connection to a higher being or, you know, belief in God or you know, that, that belief helps to take us through times of difficulty, and challenges. So, you know, there's all this is very interconnected. And that's what your takeaway from this webinar is that all aspects of health and well being interconnected. And that really does start with the mind and the mind is the glue. And we really need those fundamental areas of mindfulness movement and sleep. Really embedded in our routine for us to make better food decisions, making better food decisions is a lot easier when we have these foundations in place. So let's go through these foundations in more detail. Okay, so as I said, we were talking about sleep now, what's the importance of sleep? So when we think of sleep, we don't want to just focus on the nighttime activities. Okay. You know, like having a good sleep routine at night is is important. Absolutely. But there's a layer below that there's more, you know, there's, you know, that could that's really just the tip of the iceberg is that sleep routine, to put you to sleep. So the bottom of the iceberg is what you do during the day. And this is what we're going to talk about is how you can set yourself up for a good night's sleep by doing certain things during the day and doing them consistently and again, consistent, consistently, is a key point of this webinar. Or this talk, if you're listening is you need to be consistent. Applying these habits consistently will give you health success. There's no point of just trying at once For a week or two weeks and giving up and say it doesn't work, health comes, good health comes to us in time when we apply these habits, behaviours consistently, day in and day out. So you won't arrive a good sleep just overnight by addressing, you know, these aspects I'm going to share with you applying it once or twice or three times it requires requires consistent application of this. And when you do it consistently, and get it in a routine, and it's becomes habit, that's when you'll start to notice the benefits. And it's certainly more after that 21 days again, that's probably a word you'll hear a fair bit is, you know, 21 days enough time to break old habits create new ones, you've been applying it that long, you'll start to really notice the benefits, I run a 21 day programme. And a lot of the clients say that they really noticed this, the benefits after the 21 days, they start to feel them incrementally in weeks one, two and three, but they start to really come together and work as one after three weeks, consistently applying these good foundation habits. So what are they? Natural light first thing in the morning is the best starting point. Why is this? Our body works in this nine day cycle, which is called the circadian rhythm. So we need to keep our body in the circadian rhythm in order for it to function as it should. And that is doing daytime things during the day and nighttime things at night. And it it knows when to do this. When it's the sunlight, it knows when to reset the clock to say, okay, reset the clock I see daylight and this is daylight. This is not artificial light, this is daylight. So when you get outside in the morning and get that light onto your skin and feel that light around you that wants that glow. The intensity of the light is far greater than the light inside the intensity is magnitudes orders of magnitudes greater outside. Hence why you generally wear sunglasses outside and not inside when you're inside. A lot of that glare is taken away. But it's that light intensity that really switches ourselves into saying oh, it's time to do daytime functions. That's key to getting out in the morning. Getting some natural sunlight is key. So really engaging in that sunlight feeling that light intensity without sunglasses is key. Okay? Now again, too much is not good for our health too much of anything is not good for our health. Too much sunlight, obviously not good for our health too much of that glare is not good for our eye health. But we do need a levels of it. So again, it's moderation it's consistency. So natural light first thing the morning key, okay, so really, it's telling the body to do daytime functions such as digesting food, okay, getting the nourishment of that food and assimilating it, you know, into the cells that need it. You know, without having this daylight, you know, our digestion may not be you know, we're not in. So put it this way. If we're not in sync with our circadian rhythm, we're not hungry in the morning. So if you're not hungry in the morning, it may be indicated that you're out of sync with your circadian rhythm. Or it could be that cortisol is high. And cortisol is not behaving according to the circadian rhythm. Or there could be other factors as well, that could be nutritional deficiencies. But one of the factors simply could be is that your body is not in sync with the circadian rhythm. It's out of sync, you know, hasn't been getting that natural light during the day, and it's not seeing enough darkness at night. So that's the key is really fundamental doesn't cost anything, it costs the devotion of time, that commitment of time to your health. Dietary changes, so doesn't necessarily mean dietary changes that we say diet will affect your sleep will either positively affected or work against you. So for example, too much caffeine, you know, a bit of caffeine. Yeah, it's, it's not bad to you, your body can handle and work with you no amount of caffeine. So the recommended amount of caffeine, according to the studies is two milligrammes per kilogramme of body weight. So, if you're a 70 kilo body weight person, then that's 140 milligrammes of caffeine, so, that's caffeine, the caffeine content so you'll Need to look up the caffeine content you can you can go there's there's some good websites that you can Google this have good information. So make sure you get a record of all websites I can include, I actually include the link under where I post this webinar or post the podcast, I'll include the link to that, you know, finding out what's in foods, you know, there's certain foods that contain caffeine such as chocolate. You know, when you're having green tea still having element that there's still caffeine and green tea. Black tea is the same thing. It's not just in coffee, it's not just in energy drinks. So important to not consume too much caffeine and consume your caffeine, at least nine hours before your desired bedtime. So if your desired bedtimes at 10pm, then you want to make sure you have no caffeine after 1pm that allows enough time for the body to break down the caffeine and to have it at a level that your body's ready to sleep in time. This is very generic, very generalised advice, everyone's different people break right of breaking down caffeine is different. So it is very generalised and genetics generic. So don't be like some people can consume, you know more caffeine and still sleep and still get a good night's sleep others if they consume that amount of caffeine at 140 milligrammes and there are 70 kilo bodyweight person, then they may still have problems getting to sleep. So, again, the advice giving recommendations is general in nature, and it needs to be tailored to the individual. So, the other thing around by is alcohol, so, you know, we're on beverages, so caffeine is something we need to moderate, again, alcohol, the same one. So, you don't want to have more than a standard drink. Certainly in the evening, more than one standard drink in the evening will affect your sleep quality. So may, you may get to sleep with, you know, having more than one standard drink of alcohol, excuse me, and talking too much, not breathing. So, yeah, so you might get to sleep for the alcohol may help you get to sleep. However, your ability to stay asleep is impeded with excessive amounts of alcohol in the blood. So moderate alcohol consumption. one standard drink is where you want to draw the line, anything more than that unnecessary, and will affect your sleep quality. What else around diet, we want to make sure we were drinking water throughout the day, particularly as we're going into the warmer months of the years, you know, spring summer, but we need to consume more fluids and particularly water. So, water consumption. It's, you know, it's around you want to be consuming around 35 mils per kilogramme of body weight 35 mils per kilogramme of body weight. So, you know, around that 70 kilo person that's going to be just above two litres of water. And that needs to be adjusted based on activity levels, if you know you're doing an hour of exercise need probably another 500 mils. So, again, it needs to be individualised. But, you know, talking general in nature, it's 35 mils per litre per kilogramme of body weight. So making sure and why is water you know, required and important or to help our body function in the sense or it's required for getting out waste is one of the key components of you know, remaining hydrated and probably in the sleep context probably is the the waste elimination. That's key. So we want to, we don't want waste accumulating in our system. So we're not getting you know, we want to get those toxic metabolites out of our system waters, one of the key ways of getting those toxins out so, you know, by consuming water, we support our kidney health and supporting the kidneys to limit eliminate those water soluble toxic metabolites. So that's important. So having adequate amount of water throughout the day is essential. Low caffeine, low alcohol, and then consuming a well balanced diet. Well, I'm going to get into diet in more detail later on. So I'm not going to talk huge but it's, you know, ensuring that you have a well balanced diet throughout the day, minimising those more prone front amatory foods such as you know, not eating too much animal products, not eating excessive amounts of animal products, eating lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, you can, you know, you can eat a lot more of that. Certainly I want you consuming a lot more of that than what you do with animal products. And I'll get to the ratios later on in the talk. And lots of variety in that fresh fruits, and vegetables, lots of variety, seasonal, I'm going to talk to it more in detail at the end of the webinar, because remember, it's the peak of the triangle, you know, if we get the foundations, right, we can do the peak really easily. And we set ourselves up to doing the peak. So that's probably the key element is keeping or moderating coffee consumption journals at moderating alcohol consumption at night, and keeping fluids up, eating a well balanced diet, keeping it low in saturated fats, low in animal products, low in sugar, and high iron, fruit vegetables. Movements is the next point. So you know, we've covered the aspect of getting our body in sync with the circadian rhythm, you know, natural light getting natural light first thing in the morning, eating, nourishing our body throughout the day, not consuming too much of this stimulant. And I mentioned what they were, now it's moving. So the more we move during the day, we increase sleep pressure. So the more movement, the more activity, the more our body wants to repair and recover at nighttime. And that's, you know, part of the activities of what it performs at nighttime. Not only you're filtering out experiences and filtering out what's on your mind. So there's that mind filtering that's going on, whilst we're sleeping, our cells are also recovering and being restored and regenerating. So we want to increase the sleep pressure by increasing movement. So movement is just activity, it's that just being moving around not being sedentary. So it's, you know, it's walking more, it's getting up out of the seat, you know, I recommend doing every 20 minutes every 25, 20 to 25 minutes, get up, move your body is really key throughout the day. So that's going to be helping with movement, if you get up every 20 to 25 minutes, having, you know, dedicated periods to just focus on movement is important. So when we talk about dedicating time towards your health, dedicating time to move the body is important. Our body was designed to move, you know, we weren't designed to be sedentary for long periods of time. So we need to nourish our body. So the importance, you know movement. You know, it's not only we expend energy energy. So a lot of what we think today, you know, exercise movement is all about energy expenditure. Now, yes, it does do that. And it helps us balance what we're taking in in terms of calories and energy. helps balance that yes, that's one of the aspects but movement also helps remove toxic waste from our body. So it helps mobilise toxic waste buildup in our lymphatic system, helps get it out of our body helps get the drainage helps get it out through our urination. Doing number two is breathing is also a key elimination organ. So lungs. So and that's another thing about movement, right? Is when we're moving our bodies, we're breathing more, okay, so we need to breathe. Otherwise movements really challenging if we're not breathing. So movement encourages Breath. Breath is where we breathe out fat metabolites. So that's key. If we're breathing deeply, we're expanding, expanding the breakdown of fats. So if we're breaking down fat cells, we want to get them out of our system, right? We need to breathe, we need to breathe them out. So hence why you know, if you have if you're in ketosis, which some of you realise is that you're primarily burning fat as energy primary energy sources burning fat cells, or you're burning the fat from energy you're bringing into your body such as a high fat diet. If you're primarily burning a lot of fat, then your body's in ketosis. You know, we breathe out those ketone bodies, hence why people might say your breasts smells. It's part of that the ketones they can smell the ketones so yes, movement encourages breath So exercise nine good for expending energy is also good for detoxifying. It's also good for getting deep breathing using a whole diaphragm, oxygen oxygenating our cells. When we oxygenate ourselves there more, they're going to produce more energy essentially. And so it's quite counterintuitive. People think if I exercise, I'm going to lose energy, you actually exercise or do the right amount of exercise the exercise too much, yes, you'll be in an energy deficit, and you won't feel energetic. But if you do regular, consistent, moderate exercise, you will feel more energised. And it's because you're helping getting the toxins out of your body. So that helps you being less toxic toxins in the toxic when we're toxic, were inflamed when we're flying. That's when our systems don't work as efficiently. And we have less access to energy. So when we are moving, we have a well oxygenated body, our cells are getting plenty of oxygen, they use oxygen to create energy, right, so we need oxygen, oxygen comes through movement breath. So let's breathe more, let's move our body more. And that will really help with you getting more energy. And that energy expenditure helps with sleep at night. That's the finishing point. movement helps sleep more movement, the more tendency your body will want to sleep, it will have a strong pressure to sleep. That's what we want in the evening. Last points on what's important during the day, obviously, there's other points that are important that I'm touching on the major points that I see in today's world that are really essential, regular breaks. So what we don't want is constantly running around exerting ourselves so much that we're in this sympathetic dominant state, we're in this awkward sympathetic dominance is when we're in that fight or flight, state. So that fight or flight is where our body feels, it needs to exert itself continuously, in order to get away from a threat, it needs to constantly push itself in order to keep living, it's a survival mechanism. So we want to tell the body that is not under threat 24/7. And we tell the body that it's not under threat by taking regular breaks, telling the body everything's okay, I've got this, I'm under control, I'm not out of control, by taking regular breaks. And as I recommended before, taking breaks every 20 to 25 minutes is essential, okay. And that will help regulate the amount of stress hormones you have in your system that are circulating, if we keep them in check throughout the day, then they're not going to be elevated at night. That is key. If we just allow ourselves to run silly during the day, our stress hormones are going to be elevated in the evening. And it takes the body time even though you might be relaxing in the evening, the body's got work to do to reduce those stress hormones to break them down. It takes time. It doesn't you know, our body function doesn't happen instantaneously, it takes cues from the environment to take signals. Once it registers those signals, it then can start doing the right functions for what it needs to do to find that balance. Okay, so once it starts seeing the signals, that is evening, I need to relax. Then it says I need to do relaxing things functions such as, okay, I'm going to not need well, when we're relaxed, we're going to be able to assimilate food better. So that's one of the things when we're in that relaxed state is that we all will secrete digestive enzymes to break down food. Hence why if you're waking up, as I said, Not hungry, then there's something unregulated. It's not That's not normal. And one of the things that could be is that you have elevated cortisol, because you've got extra stress hormones in your body and if you're got elevated stress hormones, then your digestive system is dampened. It's reduced and it's not turned on. Once you turn your digestive system on by telling the body that things are okay, then the body will start doing digestive things such as producing manufacturing digestive enzymes to help break down that food. So let's get back to having more regular frequent Write throughout the day, I really suggest you breaking up your day into 20 to 25 minute increments, because that's what's good for the eyes in terms of you know, your script turns. Sorry, you don't want to be staring at a screen longer than 20 minutes because that result in eyestrain, not good for our eye muscles, they need to refocus and constantly moved, if like I mentioned, their body needs to move, our eyes need to be moving adjusting, okay, so they don't want to be staring at something that is at a consistent distance. for long periods of time, they want to be constantly focusing, refocusing adjusting. So good eye health, good. Body health, as I said, we don't want to move we need to move our body, we need to help the lymphatic system, get out the toxins that have accumulated in our lymphatic system. And these regular breaks also help us regulate our stress response. So regular breaks will tell the body everything's okay or not, don't need to be running constantly away from a tiger. I've got this tiger under control, I wrote it, I've locked it up, I can relax, I can take some deep breaths, I can tell the buddy everything's okay, I'm in control. And of course, you're in control, you're in control of every action you take. And this is a very important thing to take regular breaks throughout the day, regulate those stress hormones so that they're not elevated in the evening, so that you can sleep better. So I've covered a lot of daytime things, I've explained it in a lot of detail. And do these things consistently every day. And you will notice that your sleep gradually improves. As I said, with anything, it doesn't happen immediately. It takes consistent application of that new habit. And then you'll see a result. And that consistent application can again take up to 21 days for you to notice or see benefits, or you'll start noticing subtle benefits. So that you're you're waking up a bit more rejuvenated, you're not as tired, you're waking up, you're starting to feel hungry, you're feeling you don't feel you don't hitting that huge bump in the afternoon, you're feeling that you've got more consistent energy throughout the day. So these subtle cues, will be telling you that yes, you've got a good healthy routine in terms of what you're doing during the day is supporting your sleep at night. Okay, so this, for those watching the webinar. This graph is showing the how our cortisol is in sync with the circadian rhythm, or how it should be in sync with circadian rhythms. So for those listening in, it's just a graph of cortisol moving with how it should, according to the circadian rhythm, and how it moves is essentially our cortisol. If it's behaving in it's behaving according to the circadian rhythm, which is the night day cycle, then our cortisol should be rate rising in the morning. So we should feel more energetic. So cortisol is out, get up and go hormone writer that helps us achieve deadlines. That helps us to you know, that that motivates, you know, provides that energy that we need that drive that drive towards the deadline. So it is important to have, but we want it to be in this nice circadian rhythm as opposed to being unchecked and unregulated. And I covered some of the things that caused that dysregulation of the stress hormones, such as that consistently moving too much, and again, it comes back to balance. So cortisol should be rising in the morning, it peaks at around that mid morning. So morning tea, you should be feeling really energetic. If you're not then it may be also an indication that your body's out of the circadian rhythm. So if you should be hungry in the morning, you also should be feeling very energetic come mid morning, as opposed to feeling that no energy get through the day. You're either going too much too hard or not taking enough breaks or your sleeps impeded or you're just out of whack with the circadian rhythm. And your you have no consistency around you're going to bed and getting up in the morning cycle. Again, consistently, you know, same time the bed same time to rise. So this graph is showing that cortisol is drops in starts dropping after mid morning and it gets quite low, mid afternoon, hence the mid afternoon slump. So again, that's natural, you know some cultures parts of the world, they have a siesta in the afternoon to help them get in through to the evening. So you know, that's yesterday, you can replace that today with a mindfulness activity, which I'll get to what they are. But you know, it could be doing a meditation, it could be just getting out and moving the body getting some fresh air that can help pick you up in that afternoon. So yes, cortisol is dropping, and it's quite low mid afternoon, and then it gets

really low around 9:

10pm is when it's at its lowest. And that's when we should be really winding down and getting to sleep is when if when cortisol is really low, our melatonin can start increasing quite significantly, because you know, with high cortisol, melatonin will be suppressed. So they counteract one another. So you know, to have good elevated elevated levels of melatonin, melatonin Guf sleep hormone, we need to have low cortisol. So yeah, with rising melatonin, low cortisol, you know, our body can start to repair and rejuvenate. And, you know, melatonin is also a strong anti inflammatory. So it really helps with reducing inflammation in the body, allowing the body to repair they are in the body to repair itself. And early as the morning cortisol starts rising again, and goes through this cycle, night day cycle. Okay? Now, it's important that I address the areas of stress in your life. Now, why am I covering the areas of stress, because stress will drive up cortisol, cortisol is a stress hormone, right? So if we want to keep stress regulated, keep cortisol regulated. You know, we need to have regulated cortisol, in order to have regulated blood sugar, and all goes hand in hand, we need to have regulated cortisol or cortisol that's in check with the circadian rhythm in order for us to fall asleep in order for our body to repair. So what are the some of the sources that we may experience during the day that can rise cortisol? So when we have, you know, when we're very emotional, okay, we, you know, I'm talking the emotions of the and I, you know, like that scared, uncertainty. That induces the fear that when we feel threatened, those emotions, when we feel threatened, will drive up stress hormones, because when we feel threatened, there is some threat externally, or it could be within our mind could be playing games with us, that will inject induce stress hormones, those stress hormones will, you know, unless we do something to regulate that feeling of Fi then, you know, we will have elevated levels of cortisol. And as you, as I've explained before, elevated levels of cortisol impacts sleep, they impact blood sugar regulation, they affect our decision in terms of food decisions, right? So I talked about food being the top of the pyramid, and you know, once we get the foundations, right, we can make better decisions. This is part of the reason we need to keep cortisol regulated, because with high cortisol, it will really drive that mindset design the quick energy, because I need quick energy, quick forms of energy, quick forms of energy, or high GI or high glycemic foods, which is sugars, because they're really assimilated very quickly, right into the bloodstream and our body can utilise them so our body knows that when it's under a threat, emotional fear motional. You know, you know, we're not regulating that fear that uncertainty that where our lives are threatened, then, or the, you know, your brains rationally thinking, well, to support my survival, I need sugar, I need quick fixes. Quick, instant, quick, quick, instant energy. And you know what those quick instant energy sources are, they're the ones you're probably thinking I need less of, but it's because your emotions are regulated. And cortisol is not regulated. So that's, you know, unchecked emotions or our inability to regulate our emotions create, in like, poor eating habits. They affect our sleep, and the cycle goes on and on. And just yet we need to break this cycle. Hence why you are listening to this talk today. This is about resetting. This is about setting yourself up for success long term. Poor diet is another area that can create increase in cortisol for example, I mentioned can Same before. So caffeine will create a cortisol imbalance will push up cortisol. For example, eating lots of inflammatory foods will impair our ability to regulate, break down, you know, detoxify. So we will get a buildup of cortisol as a result of having lots of inflammation, inflammatory foods, and a lot of inflammatory foods was the result in a lot of toxins, puts a load in our detoxifying organs, so much so that we have this constant re circulation of toxins, that creates inflammation, and then it grows from there. With higher inflammation, we have poor regulation of cortisol because, you know, our ability to break down cortisol and get it out of our system is impeded, because we've got so many other toxins. So poor diet into source. And you know, a poor diet is when we eat lots of fast food, lots of takeaway, lots of processed foods. excessive exercise will also push up cortisol, so doing too much exercise causes cortisol dysregulation and will affect our sleep at night. Okay, so don't want to be doing too much. Again, it's that Goldilocks it's doing. Not too much, not too little. Just right. Okay, that's, and that's the same with food, we don't want to be having too much water, we don't have having too much of anything, we because if we had too much of that one food, then, you know, it then doesn't allow us to eat other foods that are useful for us as well, because we're having too much of that one food. So I think you get my point it is about moderation. And consistency. And, you know, constantly working on these foundations with good health. So moderate exercise, not excessive exercise. And, you know, like doing high intensity training every day of the week is considered excessive, okay, where's the balance in that? So think about if you're doing those high intensity or 45 sessions, versus every day of the week, you're not helping yourself in terms of good sleep, you know, you can actually be doing yourself a disservice. You can also, you know, be creating or setting yourself up for not great eating decisions. And, yeah, I think you understand where I'm getting to, with that point of excessive exercise, lack of sleep. So, you know, we're not sleeping well, again, it's that vicious cycle this creates, right, so, you know, a bad night's sleep creates more cortisol, more cortisol are in circulating, and our system impedes the next night's sleep. So it's a real vicious cycle, and hence why it takes time to unravel. And to get the body in balance, and in harmony. So that's why I always say that you need to allow yourself time, okay? And apply these habits consistently for a period of time. Don't be impatient. Don't just give up. You know, if it doesn't happen overnight for you, it takes time. So lack of sleep will also increase our stress hormones, because that's what gets us through the day, right? You've got commitments during the day that you need to deliver timelines, deadlines, I need to serve your family in so there's plenty of things you need to do during the day. So your body will produce more stress hormones to get you through the day, so that you can survive. Then there's environmental impacts that affect our level of cortisol or affect our stress hormones. So constant pollution again, it's this whole thing of excessive buildup of toxins in our system that causes our body to poorly regulate. Hence, you know, overworked over toxified struggles to break down cortisol and other hormones that are in excess. It could be oestrogen or it could be you know other hormones that could be excessively high. You know, if we constantly expose ourselves to toxins in the environment, our body's prioritising those poisons above, breaking down cortisol or oestrogen, for example. And so those oestrogen and cortisol will build up in our system as a result of being constantly exposed to environmental toxins. What are environmental toxins, air pollution, passive smoking, EMF, electromagnetic frequencies put out put out by microwaves put out by phones. You know, electricity, you know, being close to substation, power lines, all those sorts of interference Have you know that having an excessive exposure to that creates a buildup of stress hormones mould exposure to rising damp in the house or mould in the house will cause buildup of toxins in your body and could result in cortisol dysregulation or high oestrogen, which is a female hormone. You know, so just imbalances it create. So there's some of the sources of stress, which that can cause a buildup of cortisol in your system, which impacts your ability to fall asleep at night. So it's important that we moderate these activities with forms of mindfulness, which I'm going to get onto right, so. So this is this slide. For those that are watching the webinar breaks down areas of things that up cortisol in areas that help regulate cortisol, I've just mentioned a whole lot of them, right. So I've really spoken to this slide. And probably, I don't need to talk to it anymore. Other than let's get into what helps regulate quarters are okay, I think that's important thing I've covered certainly in detail, what increases cortisol? How can we better regulate cortisol. So let's talk to some of these points will help we can regulate cortisol, telling your body that you have things under control is an important way of harming your body. Because you're saying, Look, I'm in control, I'm no longer threatened by whatever it was, that was constantly irritating me, I'm on top of these. And just affirmations around, I'm in control, I choose what I want to do, I make decisions that I want to make. I'm not, you know, being pressured by external peer pressure, or those sorts of things. So just those affirmations, to say that I control my actions. And I'm not a puppet to someone else. Someone else is not controlling my movements, my, I'm in control, you're in the driver's seat. So affirmations around, I am my own leader, I leave myself, I'm not going to be influenced by peer pressure, or by a, you know, whatever it may be, whoever pulls your strings, I'm going to speak my voice speak my mind, I'm in control. And the more you do that, the more you're telling your body that that threat. You know, our body perceives it as as life threatening, hence why it generates lots of stress, hormones, stress hormones are all about survival. And not about rejuvenation, or recuperation, or regeneration, it's all about keeping things going. So it's like that car that's not getting serviced, right. So we need to constantly pull in and service the car and reduce cortisol reduce stress hormones. One way to that we need to pull over is tell our body that I'm in control, I've got this, I've got this. And there's ways in which you can help support that or that reaffirmation of you telling yourself is surrounding yourself with people that tell you that okay, so people that pick you up that you've got this, you have it, you got an LD that, you know, guess gives you more confidence, more self belief, and then use think more positively and you believe that you're not it's not a life threatening situation or scenario, you have this under control, okay. So this feeling of being in control this autonomy is important to countering the stress hormones. Like to moderate exercise is also helpful. Forget, as I said before, not excessive exercise nature. So connecting with nature, being with one with nature, feeling that your presence with nature, so it's actually it's making yourself again, you're in control. You choose to be present with nature. So it's actually engaging with your senses, connecting with it through your senses. When you connect with nature through your senses, that's when you not only feel in control because you're controlling your action. You're also feeling with one at the environment and it brings peace of mind that doesn't feel that environments working against you. You're with one at one at peace and Yeah, pet, playing with your pet, spending time with them cuddling them. That is also engaging with nature. Spending good time with good people, surrounding yourself with great people that lift you inspire you, that support you. They're the ones you want to hang out with more doing that, that really helps regulate the stress hormones, because you don't feel threatened. You feel that you have this team around you, these team of supporters, these cheerleaders that are taking you towards your goal, not telling you that you can't do it. They're saying yes, you've got this, you can do it. Okay, so surrounding yourself with great people, supportive people that bring positive and optimism to you spend less time with those that are negative, that say you can achieve these these reasons or you know, they're just constantly negative, spend less time with those people. They're going to bring you down, they're going to increase the stress. I spend more people more time with people that lift you that rise you and make you feel better about yourself. Constant rest and relaxation. As I mentioned before, as you can probably get a feel I'm constantly repeating myself, it's because everything's connected, right? We're talking about sleep. Here, we're talking about regulating stress hormones, so you can sleep at night. We've already mentioned constant rest and relaxation, I'm reinforcing that because this is how you can regulate stress hormones. Regulating stress hormones, helps with sleep, having more laughter and fun in your day, obviously tells the body that it's not threatened anymore, I can put now I don't need to produce as much stress hormones and the stress hormones that are in the system, I can start breaking down, I don't need them. You're having fun, you're laughing, you're enjoying what you're doing. Plenty ways to have laughter, contact a mate, who, you know, makes you laugh. That saves a lot of side of life. Watching a movie, a comedy, anyone that makes you laugh, listening to a podcast that makes you laugh, could be the radio. So doing more things that makes you laugh, you know, bring out the fun in life. Kids can do it. And our kids can make you laugh, they can, you know make you see the lighter side of life, because they don't take it seriously. They take it for what it is. mindfulness activities, which are going to go into more detail obviously helps reduce cortisol studies show that cortisol is lower in people that have regular mindfulness practices. Eating comfort foods will help regulate cortisol, but they may not be beneficial to your angle, you might want to be eating less comfort foods. So the reason why I've mentioned this is I'm not endorsing it is if might explain why you're having comfort foods in the evening, right. So that's the reason why this point is here is it's probably because your body is so full of stress hormones that you want to wind down you're telling your body it's time to wind down it wants to do that, but the the stress hormones are elevated. And it it wants you to eat more foods that are going to give you quicker energy instant energy and their your more your foods, high fat, you know highly energetic foods high in fat, high in sugar. You'll be driven towards making those foods decisions. And it may explain how to your binge eating in the evening is that or if you're doing that is that it might be because you have unchecked emotions. You haven't checked in with your emotions, you're not regulating them, you're not acknowledging them. So they remain at the bottom of the iceberg. You're not bringing them to the surface, you need to acknowledge them. You need to act you need to take action. Why am I feeling this way? What's driving it? What's behind it? Who is it? Is it external? Is it within? Is it the way I think? Is it some unresolved problems? So unchecked, emotions can be driving this unchecked stress hormones, which is driving this binge eating in the evening. So again, let's get back to what's causing it. If you want to eat less of those comfort foods, and less binge eating in the evening, doing exactly what I said regularly throughout the day in terms of regulating your cortisol regulating your stress hormones will help with reducing that tendency to binge eat in the evening. Part of the reasons one of the reasons is why you may be eating or binge eating unhealthy foods in the evening is because you have elevated stress hormones. So just wanted to touch on that mentioned that point. Okay, mindfulness, what is it? Mindfulness is you being in this year and now. So it's you, essentially, have your senses connected with what you're doing. Okay? So it could be being in conversation with someone, again, your struggle to lie, if you're not present, because you don't get the joke, right, you haven't heard the joke, you're not present, you're not engaged with the joke. Or the thing. That's funny, right, you need to have your senses. First of all, to laugh, you need to be present. To be present, you need to have your senses connected with what you're doing. Senses off buzzers, your visual eyes, listening, senses pay smell. So, you know, being engaged with what you're doing. So that could be engaged with eating, mindful eating is critical to eating less. So if you're concerned about the amount you're eating, engage in mindful eating, and you'll eat less. What is mindful eating, gauging your senses in the task. So things what else helps with being present or being mindful, is when we're engaged in sporting activities, we're focused on the sport, the motion the doing, and that's all we're focused on. That's you being in the here. And now, you know, athletes will often talk about being in the zone, there's present a case, when you're in your zone, you are present, okay, you can get in your zone playing with your kids playing with your pets. It's what it's whatever you're engaged with the activity tasks that you're engaged with. So when you hear the word mindfulness, it doesn't necessarily only mean meditation, there's so many other ways in which we can be mindful. And as I said, it's just connecting with what you're doing, it's been engaged in the topic can be engaged in this webinar. If you're drifting off in this webinar, you're not being present, you know, being mindful, okay? So, like, get you out there. If you're listening and tuning out or tuning into other things around you while you're listening, then you're not fully present with what I'm saying, Okay, you may miss some things, you may disconnecting. Maybe I'm not, maybe I'm taught talking points that you already know, hence why you may become disconnected but refocus now. Okay. Other activities, again, I mentioned nature, and again, I'm repeating myself, nature is a form of mindfulness with connecting our senses with nature, okay? You know, so whether it be our tactile senses, right, you know, such as our feeling of sand on our feet, bare feet, or grass on our bare feet. That tactile feeling, feeling nature, smelling, or smelling, engaging smelling in roses or flowers. That's one way in which you can instantaneously or quickly become present. And being coming present allows you to reduce your stress hormones. Again, that also sleep. Doing it regularly, consistently throughout the day will further help with sleep, and to help with energy. Meditation. So meditation, you know, there's plenty of apps. So smiley mind, insight, timeout, timer, headspace, just go into the app, you know, the App Store and type in mindfulness or meditation. You can do that on YouTube as well. Breathing exercises that deep breathing, you know, when we breathe deeply, when we're running away from a tiger, we're not taking, you know, those real expansive, deep breaths are we We're generally doing lots of shallow breathing. So it's generally once we get away from the tiger or away from the threat, we take a deep breath, you know, when you don't feel like that moment where your life threatens where rather you'd be crossing a road or you nearly had an accident in the car, whatever it may be in you straightaway after that events, and you sense that it's okay. You survived whatever's happened. You take a deep breath. Just it's a natural thing to do when we no longer threatened so why not be in control and I was talking about the economy before. One way to get in control is just controlling our breathing. Okay, so you know, that's one thing you always have control over. I mean, you do it subconsciously. Yes. And that's why it's good that it's subconscious functions, because we may forget the brief. We may be mindless for too long. And you will Yeah, it wasn't a subconscious, Otter autonomic thing. We would die quick that one way. So anyway, so you have the subconscious breathing, but breathing is something we can take control of right so we and take control of it. And we can do deep breathing. By doing deep breathing, you're telling the body that the threat is no longer there. Okay? So you're feeling it, it could still be there, you could still have that work deadline. But you can take a moment pause, in order to, it may feel like taking a step back in order to go two steps forward. But I'd much rather be doing that than non progressing. You won't progress if you constantly push yourself. So having a break, doing some deep breathing, can help re energise you gets more oxygen to the cells, more oxygen to the cells that mean they can produce more energy, okay. So if you want more energy being more productive, you need to take regular breaks. And one of these regular breaks can be mindfulness, right every 20 to 25 minutes, taking a break, do some deep breathing exercises. Last point here is dancing, okay, we want to have fun, some people really love connecting movements with breath movement with music that's being mindful, because you have to be in the here and now in order to keep your body in the movement of that beat when you're dancing. So, and there's plenty of movement exercises like yoga, which is connecting movement with breath, that's, you know, you'll be mindful in the whole practice, because you're connecting that breath with your movement of your body and you get into this flow, you know that the zone zone is when you're in the present, you're mindful. Okay, so dancing is a great way to get up every 20 to 25 minutes and Boogie at your desk, put on some cool dance music that you love, and just have a boogie. And, yes, you could also put the music on and Boogie in your head and move your body, visualise yourself, moving your body to the beat with the music, that would still work if you don't want to just want to save yourself the embarrassment if you're that type of person. But if you're, you know, if you want to be a leader, lead those around you and get them to join in, you know, 25 minutes. So we set our timer, we're going to have a break, because we're going to be more productive by having set breaks throughout the day. We have played music and you go around to each colleague, they get to choose a song and dance for five minutes and then get back to work. It's a great way to not only help your eyes, as I said, eyestrain, you don't want eyestrain, you want to keep your eyes for longer, healthier for longer. You want to move your body get the toxins there, create more energy. And to get more oxygen in it. You know, if you're moving your body, you bringing more oxygen in there has to happen. Because you need to expend energy in order to expend energy, you need oxygen anyway. It all it's all interlinked. Okay, that's mindfulness. Okay, we've spoken about how we improve sleep, we improve sleep through movement. And when I say movement, it's mindful movement. And it's also we to the just lost my train of thought we were doing Yeah, it's mindful movement. That's it. That's it, it's sleep. So sleep is a build up of regular mindfulness and movement. And we can do mindfulness movement together. And that helps us make better food decisions, which we are going to have less caffeine because we'll be eating more healthier foods, and we'll be getting the energy from those healthier foods, and we'll be getting up and moving more. And utilising more oxygen, hence, we'll have more energy, and you know, need less caffeine. So if you can start getting the flow of what I'm all about, you start doing a few things consistently, it will flow into other areas of health. Right. So, okay, how do we incorporate? Everything was spoken about into a nice routine throughout the day. So how do you incorporate mindfulness throughout the day? How do you incorporate breaks throughout the day? How do you incorporate sunshine in the morning? Well, I've got here, first thing in the morning, get up, get out of bed, move the body and get some sunshine. Okay, so you know, why not do dedicate that morning time that you are in control of your own control of what time you get up? Or if you want to be able to get up earlier, you need to start doing these things right? Because that will help with your sleep better sleep enables you to get up earlier. You know, if you do all these things were spoken about. You're in the circadian rhythm, your cortisol naturally elevated in the morning. You have no trouble getting out of bed. Anyway, I think you get the gist of what I'm all about. Morning exercise in the sunshine, do that regularly consistently. Because that way you are not going to if you've got you know if you'd say I'm going to schedule exercise at lunchtime, I can guarantee there'll be something else maybe it's some You know, a friend or someone contacts you or this guy for lunch, and then straight away you shop, you don't do your exercise your movements out, you know, if that happens, and you really want to do that, because it's a good friend, they make you laugh, and they bring you up, they help lift you up and make you feel better, I suggest you take them on on that, you know, yes, take that date on that walk to the date, maybe or, you know, maybe get off at a few stops earlier. So you can incorporate your exercise into that date meeting or that time with your friend. But, you know, I guess the point here is, if you get up early, you own that time. With that time, you can choose, you're in control of what you do in that time, and you can choose to exercise, there may be other factors, you need to take into consideration such as you have a family, you need to help them. But there's ways around that you can work with your family saying that they're on their own so many mornings of the week, this is your time, exercise time, your sunshine part, or you can do it as a family. So anyway, you can go find ways, you know, as I say, I'm talking generally, but there's ways to individualise these lunchtime, you know, lunchtime, another great opportunity to get outside, get some fresh air to do some more breathing exercises to connect with nature to do some more movement, get out and about at lunchtime, get some more sunshine. And in the evening. That's when we can embrace slower activities, we want to wind down, okay, we don't want to elevate any more stress, we don't want, you know, we don't want to create more stress and elevate stress hormones, we want to start breaking down these stress hormones. You know, with the stress hormones low, we can start producing our sleep hormone melatonin. Okay, so in the evening, you want to have a nice evening routine. And I'm going to go through that evening routine what that looks like. Here it is evening routine. So we want to be getting to bed at a consistent time. And therefore that consistent time which you choose to go to bed, you need to start your routine, at least two to three hours before that time you want to fall asleep. So if you want to fall asleep at 10pm, you need to start your nighttime routine at seven. Okay? Again, you need to allow time for your body to produce the hormones. It needs to produce to do nighttime things such as sleep, and it needs to stop doing the daytime things. So for example, now, I won't talk to that right now. Right, we'll get to it, I was gonna bring up the concept of having bright lights and excessive screen time in the evening and how that's telling the body it's still daytime and to do daytime functions. And that's not to produce nighttime hormones, you got to raise that up, I think you'll call OB. So early dinner is key because again, it's the Goldilocks scenario, you don't want to go to bed hungry, because that will impede your ability to fall asleep. And it'll probably wake you up if you're starving out of bed starving. So it's the golden locks scenario, not too much, not too little, just right. So you don't want to have a big dinner. You don't want to have a too small over dinner, you want to have something that's just right. And then you know, there's going to be individual for everyone, I can't tell you what that is. Because, you know, we all completely uniquely different. And we have different lifestyles. But the point is, is choose your endpoint, the time in which you want to go to bed, subtract two to three hours. And that's your time, which you want to start, you know, you don't want to be eating two to three hours before you go to sleep. So you want to stop eating at 7pm. If your bedtime time you want to fall asleep is 10pm. Because that allows enough time for that food to start really, really digest have been well digested, and enough time to not be hungry. If you do want to say I'll follow what I say. So what do you do after having you know finishing eating at 7pm You want to start winding down. So again, it's doing things that are going to elevate those stress hormones, which we covered earlier. So it's relaxing, it's relaxing after then or watching a live show. It's not watching heavy documentaries, documentaries that make you think and get that mind turning over. It's watching shows that just lots and easy and stress less so it's not watching the news. The news will stress you out because there's so much or according to the media, there's so much bad happening in the world, but they never balanced that view. They just like putting that view out there so that their view of the world will only create stress. I can't imagine people get enlightened or feel satisfied with all the bad and the World. So don't watch the news watch a show that relaxes you. And that's different for everyone. Herbal tea. Again, it's the herbal teas that relax us such as chamomile tea, lemon balm, you know, those night tea. So lemon balm, Amal peppermint. Probably yeah, I mean it will help with digestion help, it will, it's calm calms the body. So put them into anyway, they're not syllable tea, he get what I mean. No caffeine, obviously, limit your alcohol to one standard drink. At this time, you want to be reducing the lighting light, light, okay, reducing light. So perceived light light around you. So that is reducing screen time or using those glasses that filter the blue light, the white light. So you can buy those goggles or glasses, that help filter you know, if you if you really want to wind down watching TV, you want to wear these glasses that filter out that light and you can turn your devices, most phones these days had that nighttime filter. So put all the filters on. Ultimately, it's just not having device time. It's you know, you spend enough time on your devices during the day. So have device free time. engaged in a book or magazine engaging some nice, beautiful conversation. Just engage in not thinking, relax, you know, rest your mind. If you are someone that is very wound up in the evening, have lots of thoughts processing and all that and unwinding. Write on the paper. Studies show that those in the cohort that wrote more than those that wrote nothing and right little they had better quality of sleep, okay, there was a study done on it. So the more you write, the more you put on paper, the more to do list you put on paper, the more feelings thoughts emotions you put on paper, the more you Journal, the better off you are. And I always suggest you finish that journaling with gratitude. So what are you thankful for? You know, there's always something to be thankful there was something that happened, there is something and if you can't find anything, it's because you haven't switched on your reticular activating system, to being aware that that's important to you. Okay. So if you start saying, Oh, I can't think of anything to be grateful, I'll release you will at least tell yourself to look out for things and the more you do gratitude journal, journaling, the more you will find things to be grateful for, the more you're grateful, the more content you are, the more happy you are. Okay, because we just, you know, Happiness can be just being content with what we have. And the more you can sit and be comfortable with what you have. The more peace you have, the more happiness you have. Okay, so I suggest gratitude journaling, it's a really good thing to do because it finishes the day on a great note, because you're looking to give saying, and when we're giving thanks, we're recognising the great things, we have an ally and we we more content. So it's a good way to one wind and to unravel. Another thing to consider incorporating in your nightly routine is Epsom salt bath. So that's the magnesium sulphate bath. With some of those essential oils that help again, it's the lavender, it's the lemon balm that really helped wind down and relax. So magnesium relaxes the muscles when the muscles are relaxed. It's telling the body that we're not no longer running away from the target because our muscles are under tension when we're running away from the tiger. So we can fool the mindset thinking that everything's all good, like I said, with breathing by just relaxing the muscles. So that could be a Epsom salt bath. If you don't have a bath, just a foot bath, create a foot bath, get a bucket, put some hot water in Epsom salts and put your feet into that far and read through a bit of self care at this time. You know, it's great to have self care in your evening routine. It really helps relax you and reduce stress hormones, like stretching is also beneficial because that again is loosening up the muscles. It's telling them to no longer be under tension. When they're not under tension. They feel a signal to the body that everything must be okay because I'm no longer running away from that tiger. And, you know, if you do all that, then I can go and see there's two or three hours that have passed. The melatonin would have been increasing cortisol decreasing cortisol that stress hormone melatonin, sleep hormone increasing cortisol decreasing and you'll start feeling sleepy the more you do the task and eventually you get into bed and you're so you know, you have so much melatonin that you fall asleep, sleep inducing. So without any drugs without any, you know, sedatives, you can fall asleep naturally by just allowing the body to do what it does best. And you need to support the body to help it regulate and to do nighttime functions. So have a sleep routine. I've just mentioned a whole lot of activities you can incorporate in your sleep routine. The key here, again, I'll reiterate it, it is being consistent, right consistent to bed, consistent with your routine. Consistency, routine, being peace of mind, peace of mind means there's less stress hormones, because if you've got a peaceful mind, you can't be perceiving stress at all. He you know, at the end of the day, you you're filling your mind that you will live in a stress free world and you can do that. And it will you know, the mind will say to the body, Yeah, I'm good, I'm happy. So keep filling it, keep filling the mind or things that telling it that it's everything's okay. Routine consistency will help to do that healthy routine. Apply consistently, will bring about strong foundations for health success. So I've covered sleep, we've covered mindfulness, we've covered movement and the importance of all that in terms of laying those strong, rock solid foundations of your pyramid. Now we can get on to healthy eating principles. And you know, as I said at the top of the pyramid, because if you have those foundations in place, you make better eating choices, because your stress hormones are better regulated, your blood sugar's better regulated, got less information, you get to make much better eating decisions, it will become easier for you. So focus on the fundamentals, get them right, again, eating healthily as part of those fundamentals. So is always the link but I think you get what I mean. Healthy healthy eating principles, what does this look like? So again, it's another pyramid this time it's the Mediterranean pyramid. So for those listening in I'll incorporate some links to the Mediterranean pyramid for you to follow Birzeit also include a link to this presentation that's probably better so that you have in your listening notes, links to the visuals so the Mediterranean pyramid is rich in you know what's the foundations of the Mediterranean pyramid What is it rich and predominantly in its rich and predominantly rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, legumes that makes up the foundations of healthy eating is those Whole Foods why variety and apply consistently will result in ultimate energy ultimate thinking called Mission function. So get those foundations right and this is what we don't typically get right we've got it in reverse we eat too much meat too much protein and not enough whole grains whole vegetables, whole fruits and beans and legumes we need to our foundation so two thirds of the plate we want to have made up of our strong foundations which is again vegetables fruits, predominately what makes up those two thirds and then you know whole grains beans, legumes predominantly making up the most of your plate in saying that it's not you know, focusing on the grains it's you know, focusing on the vegetables that is at the very bottom of the pyramid. So focus on what's at the very bottom and have more of it and then we can't forget about yes we do need other forms of protein we do need food that comes from the sea you know whether it be siwi or seafood we do need the sources because that's where it comes from either means essential for healthy thyroid healthy thyroid is the governor of metod metabolism you know the the metabolism the breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. So we do need ID and it comes from the sea yes, we need seafood or we need sources that come from the sea. It could be seaweed if you're vegetarian or vegan. And I have dairy eggs and meat on the top of the pyramid because animal products the only way you can get the 12 and B 12 essential for soul Excel is out reproduction. Neurotransmitters it's you know, immune Hell, even our blood cells, we need to be 12. So be tools essential, we cannot live without it. And it's only found in animal products. So if you're vegetarian or vegan, yes, you will need to supplement the 12 and see a health care practitioner that can help you with the right dosages, and the right supplement to keep you healthy. So I love the Mediterranean diet. The reason why I love the Mediterranean diet, it's the most researched die has the most studies done on it. And for the most diverse range of outcomes, healthy outcomes. So healthy heart, healthy mind, that good mind health, good cardiovascular system and good gut health. And the three essential functions to make up cardiovascular health, we need that we need good gut health, good gut health interacts with all other systems of our body. And we need good minds, we need to be good functioning, you know, we need good cognitive function. So Mediterranean diets great for all these aspects. And most studied diet. And with that, I can Yeah, it's most evidence based. So yes, I embrace it, embrace it, for what it is, and it's Whole Foods, lots of them as the bulk of what you're eating, and then smaller amounts of animal products, and you know, in the middle is seafood. Okay, so what else do I love to incorporate into healthy eating is the well, it's the acronym slow. So what I mean by flow, I mean, low mindful eating. In today's world, we eat too quickly, we consume food way too quickly. Before our body realises that it needs to produce digestive enzymes, it's already got a tonne of food there to process and that's why you feel so incredibly uncomfortable for so long is when you're not chewing. Chewing is where digestion starts, right, we start secreting digestive enzymes to break down fats and sugars in our mouth. And the chewing process helps breaking down food, obviously. So the more we chew, the less work that needs to be done down below, which helps with us not feeling this. Okay, so generally, if you're eating fast, you feel earth or you're eating too much you feel Earth. And if you're not engaging in your food, so you're not mindful you, you feel a longer because your body is producing the digestive enzyme it needs to break down the food. So, what I mean by this is if you're against stret, lots of stress hormones, lots of stress hormones, that means less risk and digest function. So, less digest function means less digestive enzymes. Less digestive enzymes means you struggle to break down your meal and assimilate the nutrients from the meal. So we need to be in a stress less state a mindful state which is a stressful place state in order to optimise digestion okay. So that's eating slow these up to 20 choose only swallow when the foods liquid. Now what is the acronym sample s flow started flow is seasonal full of vitality, okay seasonal fruit produce seasonal produce is full of vitality. So we need to eat seasonal how do we eat seasonal go to your local farmers market that will be seasonal produce. As part of slow we have the next letter in the acronym is L L for local. So why is local good was not only good for the environment in terms of less carbon, reduce carbon footprints. It is also good because the food is more vibrant. As a higher energetic state it has decomposed or wilted or you know everything ages over time and everything ages with temperature time. And oxygen. So yeah, so what I'm getting at is it's stored for less and less time in transit. So it's, you know, if you buy something local, it's going to be more full of vitality and instead of the environment and better for you. Oh in slow is organic where possible. I'm gonna go through for those that thinking organics expensive Yes, it is. Mind you, the more we buy, the less expensive that will become because the demand will increase and supply will eventually meet the demand increase. And the prices will come down. All will be the more affordable anyway. So organic where possible. The reason for this is we're bringing in less toxins into our body, you know, if we have food that's been heavily sprayed, it's more work on our detoxifying organs. And therefore they'll prioritise getting rid of the pesticides because they're poison and leave high cortisol, high stress hormones, high oestrogen, you know, higher other hormones in our system, which will have other impacts on our function. So we reduce the pesticides coming in, then the body can help modulate or help regulate cortisol help balance our hormones, whether it be oestrogen and progesterone, testosterone, yeah, we'll just have better regulation, if we've got this toxins coming in. So organic where possible. And last point, or the last letter of the slow acronym is Whole Foods, and wide variety. So W for Whole Foods W for wide variety. So that's another important aspect, or fundamental principles to healthy eating is the flow principle. So for those that are thinking, I can't afford organic, I'm going to go How about you go clean 15 and Dirty Dozen. So what is the clean 15 clean 15 fruit and vegetables that are not heavily sprayed or have a coating or cover up, you know, like pineapple, for example, you don't eat the cover of the pineapple. And if pineapples are sprayed, I don't think they are heavily the fairly protected, aren't they? Then you know, there's less pesticide so you can consume that as what is classified as more conventional produce. So the list is here, you know, avocados, bananas, sweet corn, they're all got covers having a protective coating. So yeah, Google claim 15 or, yeah, just eaten for those listeners Googlers. Or just have a look at the slide when I incorporate the side pack with the listening notes. Or just Google Dirty Dozen clean 15. And you'll you'll see what I've talking about the Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables that are heavily sprayed so that you berries, yeah, apples. Potatoes are in that. So yeah, the stone fruits, when you're generally eating that out the coating. Yeah, and they're the ones that are attacked by the bugs. So yeah, the Dirty Dozen clean 15 If you can't afford organic, sorry, that is it. It's been a long chat for a long time to listen or a long time to visually commit or you know, but as I said at the start, this is laying strong foundations of health success. So it was worth listening to the foundation principles of health success, reiterating what they are the base of your pyramid, his sleep, again, in the middle of that pyramid, holding everything together his mindset. The other side of the pyramid. The other segment of the base is mindfulness and movements, which are critical to sleep. And critical to good mindset. Actually, I mean, if you're not, you know, you don't have some of these foundations that hard. It's hard to think optimistically or positively when you know when your emotions are working against you. Because there's high stress online, and see how everything's interlinked. So that's the foundations of the pyramid. And as I said, if you get the foundations right, it will make it easier to make better eating decisions. And you'll be able to eat better, which you know what better eating is generally, it's just that you don't set yourself up for better eating decisions because other aspects of your health are out of balance. And when they're out of balance, you're not operating optimally. You're not making rational decisions around eating, you're making more emotional decisions around eating hence worse choices. So get the foundations right, it will make the nutrition side of things easier. And for those that would like more individualised support because as I said this this talk this presentation has been predominantly around general advice. If you want more specific advice, please connect with me. You can connect with me via Facebook, which is me and my wellness.com. Au, which is the same as my tag, Facebook, which is me and my wellness. All one word.com.au Is my Facebook tag. And my Instagram tag is me and my wellness. Simple as that you'll find it under me and my wellness. My wellness is my company. Visit my website for more resources. And to connect with me personally, you can dispute by website to book an appointment with me visit my website. I'm here to support you. I also have a podcast, which is we may be listening to on this, you may be listening to this presentation on my podcast, which is me and my health up. So go on to any of the podcast platforms, whether it be Apple, Android, or Spotify. And look for me and my health off. Again, me and my all one word, health that two different words. Just search for that you'll find me in my health app and follow my podcast, lots of good information, lots of good into interviews with other healthcare practitioners and it's all about holistic health and well being which is what I'm all about. And it's what I want to share with you so that you live more optimal health. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Take care, please feel free to connect follow me and I wish you the best on this start to spring into wellness or your start your wellness journey. This is just the very beginning now it's up to you. I'm here to help but all the best take care. Bye for now.