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Breathwork for Beginners: How One Mom Used Meditation and Visualization to Heal Her Daughter's Brain · Building the Best You

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Her odds of surviving this magnitude of a rupture were not great.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: But what's worse than that was we don't know what quality of life she would have should she survive this.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But you do what you do and in dire situations you put one foot in front of the other and I had to get strong.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I had to get strong fast for her and I had to get strong and had to get strong fast for her.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: When she finished all of her surgeries procedures and she began the road to recovery, she had no use of the left side of her body.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: She couldn't talk, she couldn't eat, she couldn't even handle her own secretions.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, said to the neurosurgeon like what are we looking at?
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Like, what does recovery look like here?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And thank God he said this.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: He said look, neuroplasticity favors the young.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: She's six Other areas of her brain can rewire and take over the functions of the left cerebellum.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Like, neuroplasticity is incredible.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And, of course, because she's younger, she has more access to this.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And I knew at that moment like my only purpose, my only job right now is to make this child believe that she's going to get better.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the House of Germar podcast where wellness starts within.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: The House of Germar is a lifestyle brand, empowering women to live all in through interior design and personal wellness.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: We are a destination for women ready to reimagine what is possible in their homes and lives and then create it.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: We are honored to have you join us on our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I am your host, jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the House of Jarmar podcast where wellness starts within.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, jean Collins, and today's guest is Bridget Apostolakis.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: That's a mouthful, and hopefully I got that all correct, oh, my balls.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So I am so excited to have her on the show.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: She is the founder of a company called ThriveWell Corporate, and we are going to talk about something I'm very passionate about, which is breath, work and meditation, but those combined together, and how she helps corporations bring that into their environments.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: She transforms stress into strength.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I am so excited.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So, bridget, welcome to the show.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It's great to meet you.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me here.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It's really nice to be here, thank you, it is so wonderful.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: So we met before this.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Actually, we got introduced by a mutual friend.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: We hopped on a Zoom call earlier and she started to tell me her story and I was like, oh my goodness, we have to share this story because the story of how she got to be where she is and how she found breathwork and meditation and started her business is just really fascinating.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: So if you would mind sharing your story which I will tell everyone does have a happy ending but if you would mind sharing your story because it's pretty traumatic.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm happy to share it because it really is integral to who I am today.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Before I begin that back up, I thought I'm happy to share it because it really is integral to who I am today.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Before I begin that back up, I thought I was going to be an early childhood educator.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: That was kind of the path I took and over 20 years ago I took my first yoga class and I just remember lying in Shavasana at the end thinking, oh, I'm going to do this the rest of my life, like it just felt like home to me.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Of my life, it just felt like home to me.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: So I ended up becoming a yoga teacher and started a family and everything was crawling perfect, lived in the suburbs, had three beautiful children, until one day it all just crashed on top of me.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: It was June 12, 2020, right in the middle of lockdown, and I had this thought I was swimming in the pool with my little ones Twins were six at the time, my oldest was 16.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And I remember thinking I love lockdown.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Like this is my happy place, I'm not late anywhere, I don't have to see anybody, I don't have to do anything, I just have to hang with my family.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Like this is the to hang with my family Like this is the happiest time of my life.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I go in, I make dinner, it's about 7 pm and my husband's in the pool with my girls and one of my little girls rushed into a kitchen holding her head, saying my head, my head, feels like it's on fire and she vomits and passes out and I can't even make sense of what's happening.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking is this COVID, is this dry drowning?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But I knew something really horrific was happening.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Something was really desperately wrong.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I rushed her to Huntington Hospital.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: At this point her pupils aren't even dilating.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, she is really hanging on to life and she's six years old.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I couldn't even, you know, reconcile with this.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And, to their credit, they imaged her brain and said she has a brain bleed, which was the farthest thing from what I could have possibly imagined what this is, what I could have possibly imagined what this is.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: They rushed her to Cohen's Children's Hospital, which is just an amazing, amazing place, into the hands of a remarkable pediatric surgeon who told me that she had something called an arteriovenous malformation.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I'd never even heard of that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: That at that moment ruptured and it was a monster.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: This malformation took up 90% of her left cerebellum.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: They rushed her into surgery.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: They make a very long story short.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: She had five different surgeries procedures.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: She had a stroke in her medulla at one point.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: She was a mess and her odds of surviving this magnitude of a rupture were not great.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: But what's worse than that was we don't know what quality of life she would have should she survive this.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: But you do what you do and in dire situations you put one foot in front of the other and I had to get strong and had to get strong fast for her, put one foot in front of the other and I had to get strong and had to get strong fast for her.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: When she finished all of her surgeries procedures and she began the road to recovery, she had no use of the left side of her body.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: She couldn't talk, she couldn't eat, she couldn't even handle her own secretions.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, said to the neurosurgeon like what are we looking at?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Like, what does recovery look like here?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And thank God he said this.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: He said look, neuroplasticity favors the young.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: She's six Other areas of her brain can rewire and take over the functions of the left cerebellum.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Like neuroplasticity is incredible.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: The functions of the left cerebellum.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Neuroplasticity is incredible and, of course, because she's younger, she has more access to this, and I knew at that moment my only purpose, my only job right now is to make this child believe that she's going to get better.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: That's paramount to her actually getting better, if she has any shot of this.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So I dove deep into researching neuroplasticity.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: How do I, you know, double down on this?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And what I came up with was visualization.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And it's actually really interesting Whether you think of something or you actually do something.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Those two neurons, they speak, they spark and they create a neuro pathway.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And the more often these two neurons speak to each other, they hardwire together.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So I would whisper in her ear thank goodness for my yoga teacher training background.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I did a lot of guided meditation.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: So I'd whisper in her ear these very, very intricate visualization meditations about walking in sand and really feeling the weight of your body, the texture of the sand as you walk crunches.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: And she started to get better.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: She started to get better and it was incredible, miraculous.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: If you met her today, she's 11 and a half and you wouldn't know.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: You would not know she's walking around.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: 90% of her left cerebellum is gone and she does, tiger Shulman.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: She runs and plays, she fights with her twin like cats like animals, like it's.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It's just incredible.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: But something else kind of switched in me at that moment.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I realized, oh my gosh, we're going to get our miracle here, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it Like.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I was so traumatized and the rest of my family was collateral damage.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Her twin was emotionally just really not handling it well.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: She was just six years old.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Her mom abandoned her.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Her twin is gone in the middle of the night, just poof gone for six months.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Even my oldest, my straight A student, my classic overachiever, couldn't even get on Zoom school.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: She was just mentally just struggling so badly and I couldn't even drive without having panic attacks.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I remember pulling over on the side of the road thinking I'm going to have a car accident because I'm going to pass out.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: But I know how to breathe.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I know how to breathe.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Normal breath is six counts in, I'm going to pause, I'm going to exhale for six counts.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And thus I dove really deep into breath work.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Now, besides being a yoga instructor, I also had became a functional medicine health coach.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So I had a background in the parasympathetic nervous system.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I had a background in the science where breathwork, meditation, visualization meets science.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I really leaned deeply into that.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So I have a little ADHD.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So I would teach meditation but personally had a really hard time embracing it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Hence my addiction to yoga.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Because it was a breath linked, moving meditation was active, so it was.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It was quieting the voices in my head and that's why I loved it so much.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: But when I started to dive really deep down the rabbit hole of breath work, I realized wait, when I do breathwork I can meditate.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: That's the only time in my life I actually could meditate and what I learned was breathwork literally controls your nervous system, which has two branches parasympathetic, sympathetic fight or flight or rest and repair and your diaphragm touches your vagus nerve fight or flight, or rest and repair.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And your diaphragm touches your vagus nerve, which is the boss of this autonomic nervous system, trips you into a parasympathetic state, puts the brakes on stress, your heart rate, slows down all the physiological things that go along with coming out of fight or flight.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And once you're in a parasympathetic state, only then can you attempt to meditate, because otherwise, like it would be like being chased by a tiger trying to meditate, like it's just a really really hard, which is how many people feel about meditating.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I meet so many people now, when I do this with them, they're like you don't understand my brain.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Like you know, I'm like, no, I do, I do.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: But so it's that method that I created, starting with breath work to stop the stress response, moving into meditation, which is the same brainwave pattern as deep sleep.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: So all those physical benefits, those healing benefits that take place during deep sleep also take place during a meditative state.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And then I realized, wow, this visualization that literally rewired my daughter's brain, post-brain surgery, is applicable to all of us.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Like we all have patterns, beliefs that no longer serve us, like we all could use a little rewiring.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And thus the method was born Breathwork, meditation, visualization.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And visualization also is kind of rooted into energy work.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Really, you're vibrating to a higher frequency where your thoughts have power.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, so that's my story.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a big story.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, so before we keep going, let's back up to your daughter for just a minute.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: So she was sick and took a long time to get better in order to be able to come home, and so I'm asking this on behalf of everyone else.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, yeah, I can try to believe that, rewiring my brain and visualizing something, but it doesn't happen immediately.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: It is like your brain became wired based on time and based on those past happening over time.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: How did you maintain the stamina to just keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Neurosurgeons have this saying that fire together, wire together, so the more they fire together.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: So it's not one time you visualize something, once you manifest it, we're good, like it's, it's creating that super highway, that that that real, this pathway, that it can be permanent.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, with her was easy, like she wanted to get better.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I desperately wanted her to get better and the world stopped for us.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: But now, like you know, we transitioned to other things like my, her twin, like has abandonment issues.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are the things that sometimes it's a lifetime of work, right, but it's worthwhile work.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what made you to decide that you wanted to take this work to a corporation to help companies?
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So I continued to teach yoga.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Like after our world, you know, normalized and post COVID I do yoga.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I teach yoga and I have a lot of clients that are struggling with balance and I took this into professionally like, okay, wait, can we use this visualization for balance?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: So balance has a lot of ingredients, right, there's proprioception, there's vestibular, there's core strength, but there's also whether you see yourself standing in tree pose or actually coming into tree pose, you're still firing those same, you're waking up those neurons, those pathways.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: So I started to do a lot of this work for my yoga clients and bringing in more breathwork meditation.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So I work at Lifetime Fitness in Syosset as well and I actually formatted their very first ever breathwork meditation class and I'm happy to say it's huge success.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Like the different walks of people that walk into that room is just astounding to me.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Like we're all like at a place where we're just kind of open to this and are able to to jump down this rabbit hole, which makes me very happy.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And, as they said, I'm also a health coach and I realized, oh my gosh, like I spent so much time like diving into proper what's nutrition, like what's the best way to eat, dissecting sleep, how do we optimize our sleep?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And we have all these ingredients, but if your foundation is you're in fight or flight, like you're going to fight upstream in an uphill battle, even if all your habits are on point, kind of like it's never one thing right, it's everything.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So this huge piece of the puzzle which a lot of us have been missing because, honestly, it's been for decades this idea of, like grid and pedal to the metal, I'll sleep when I'm dead, it's really done us a disservice.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: It's really done us a disservice because we're kind of stuck in that chronic fight or flight Because, like everything else, the more you do something, the more you hardwire.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So if you wake up every day in a stressed state, you're going to stay there, right, you're going to hardwire that way and you're going to wake up revved up.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, it's that purposeful intention to enter peace over and over again, until it becomes your home base Until it becomes natural and you don't have to think about it again.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so out of personal curiosity, what does a breathwork meditation class look like?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So, I typically because I said I have a little ADHD I do mostly guided.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I know there are some meditation teachers out there that want to sit in silence and lead to sit in silence, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But personally I kind of need an anchor and so that's who's gravitating to me.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: So I start with breath work, and I start with two different types of breath work.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: The first one is a little bit of a faster breath work to really just awaken your energy, raise your vibration, kind of flood your body with oxygen.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So a quicker breath work would be I don't know if you're familiar with Wim Hof.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: He has this very active breath work.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Or what's making a lot of waves these days is the physiological side.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: They're doing so much research on that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So I'll start with something like that or in yoga, kapalabhati, breath of fire, and then I'll move into a slower breath and it could be simple box breath or four, seven, eight, or inhale for eight, exhale for eight, just something to really put the brakes on and you can just really feel your body start to melt once you do that and then segue into a guided meditation, and sometimes it's just.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I like the visual of light a lot, so sometimes it's just inhaling white light and just flooding your body with light.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Other times it's a yoga nidra, where you're placing your attention to different parts of your body.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yoga nidra, where you're placing your attention to different parts of your body, or sometimes it's a chakra cleanse, or just you know pretty much.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: There's so many different.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Just any type of guided meditation and then visualization could be very different, but like a blanket one for the masses.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: That I like to do is simply see the best version of you in your mind's eye.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Just see yourself blissfully happy, like the peak of physical and health, living the best version of your life, and don't see it as a wish or a dream, but see that as your reality and vibrate to that frequency and see what happens.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a good one.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I love that one.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So I would also think, as you're explaining all of this, I wouldn't have to live in Long Island to be able to work with you, to do such a thing, because everything you're talking about I can envision I could have a session with you and you could walk me through all of that over Zoom.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have to be physically in your presence, absolutely.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of remote work and I started ThriveWell Corporate as a corporate wellness company, although I do have private clients.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: But I feel like after COVID, probably before, this mass epidemic of just stress and anxiety permeates our society, and what better place than for companies to take care of their people in this way?
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so talk to me about you know, I'm assuming it would be like an HR department would be reaching out to you, right?
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: And what do you do to help companies, help their employees, you know, obviously, with stress being the pillar, which is a key.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I love that you're helping companies with their employees and helping them reduce stress.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That's amazing where we would meet remotely on Zoom and it really does, especially for those remote workers.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Like we're all searching for just social connection and it just it's the great unifier, right, we're all just kind of showing our underbelly, you know, like these are my struggles, right, I don't sleep at night, or you know, whatever it may be Like it really is a great unifier.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: See people as just people just trying to be the best version of themselves.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And typically, week one, we would really just break down what is stress, right, like how do you heal your nervous system?
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: How do we create that as our foundation?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And then week two, how do we optimize sleep?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Right, because that really is the first domino when you're trying to improve your health.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Then we break down nutrition.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: There's like a million different diet plans out there.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: There's so much confusion, like we have so much information we don't know how to apply any of it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So, really, what should we be focusing on?
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And movement exercise.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And embedded into each workshop or each week, it invariably ends with a breathwork meditation session, because yeah, that's just near and dear to who I am.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's important.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: So companies bring you in.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I love this.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: You have a multi-day platform.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: You really help people focus on stress and focus on sleep.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about sleep for a minute?
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Because I think I live by the mantra that sleep is so important and back in my day, when I worked at Corporate America, I never got enough sleep and I was like that person who was like I'll sleep later.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I need to get up to work out, and now that I have learned so much more about health and how my body works, I'm like, oh, I was not actually doing myself any service by not getting sleep and getting up to work out.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: That actually wasn't really working the way you would think mentally that it would work, because if you don't get the sleep, then everything else you do isn't working as well.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So can you talk to me about how do you because everybody's body is different, but how do you work with people to really think about sleep differently?
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I think we've all had this thought where we could trade sleep for productivity.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I could just sleep five hours.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I could get it all done.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Like we think of it as a commodity that we could trade and, as you and I figured out, it doesn't work that way.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Sleep can be your superpower.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: If you want to be on, you know more level-headed to think clear, to be more physically, you know stronger, better to show up in the world, sleep is a superpower.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So sleep is governed by the circadian rhythm.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Your circadian rhythm is governed by lightness and darkness.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: It's hard to have that shift in thinking of simple things as medicine and powerful.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: But sunlight is medicine.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: We are supposed to be timed our clocks.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: We need way more sun exposure than we're getting.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: And I'll say a little caveat I have had melanoma in situ.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Thank God I caught it early.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: But we're such a reductionist society, right, we want black and white, right?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Is it good or it's bad?
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Let me know, is sun good or is sun bad?
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Does it cause cancer?
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, sun's bad, but it's not that simple.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: There's infrared light, there's UV light, uv, yes, be careful.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying go out at 12 noon without any sunblock on, but I am saying getting that 10 minutes in the morning of sunlight, 10 to 20 minutes, to set your circadian rhythm.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: We have photoreceptors in our eyes that literally respond to sunlight and create vitamin D.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: That same pathway that we're creating vitamin D from sunlight, we're also creating dopamine.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: The human body is incredible.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: We're also creating dopamine.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: The human body is incredible.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: But to try to make that a habit to watch the sunrise and the sunset as corny as that seems is that'll do magic.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: That'll do wonders to setting your circadian rhythm and to helping you sleep.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Another thing that I found really, really helpful is investing in an either an aura ring or a whoop to track your restorative sleep, cause it's not just I got one.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, isn't it fabulous.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: People can't see the video.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I have one yeah, Mine's on my charger.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I love my aura ring.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with it.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I've been wearing it for years and it's the first thing I do when I wake up.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like no-transcript.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I had dessert, I had dessert and then all of a sudden the aura ring is telling me I didn't get good sleep.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and, and that's powerful.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: That is powerful to see in real time how your habits are affecting you.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And HRV is another really great one to to to check.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So when we are in a, are in a group health coaching session or even a private health coaching session, we really work to what are some of the well-known things that will help you get better quality of sleep, Because we need seven and a half hours, because that's roughly five sleep cycles.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Another really useful tip was don't use the snooze.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Another, like really you know, useful tip was don't use the snooze, Because I used to use the snooze for an hour because it felt so good.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Every time I can go back, I can go back, but I was killing an hour of restorative, what could have been restorative sleep.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And that restorative sleep towards the morning is really heavier.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Leaning to REM stage Earlier in the night is heavier, leaning to deep sleep.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: But REM stage is where you, you know you really your brain detoxes, that beta amyloid plaque detoxes, you file your memories.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, there's, there's some actionable items that that we like to go to go over, but those are pretty much the big ones, you know.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Sit your cloth with the sun.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Don't eat late at night.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: And awareness.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Awareness, like you said, I think awareness is something that you know the Apple Watch, the Oura Ring, all the other devices at least for me personally, it brought such awareness to the quality of the sleep.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just the amount of hours that I was lying in bed, but it was also what's the quality of that sleep and seeing things like what's going on with your heart rate and waking up in the morning and having the ring tell me that you know what, my resting heart rate was actually too high, right, and I was like, oh, you know, I went to bed and I kind of felt stressed and then seeing how for myself, how that carries over into the quality of my sleep and some people are like me, some people aren't, but I kind of get addicted by the score it's going to give me and I'm like, oh, my goodness, my readiness is in the toilet today.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It's telling me I need to take a nap.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: We all engage in magical thinking, right I'm?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Like whatever it tastes good.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: How bad could this be, exactly?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: When you see it show up like oh my God, like my body struggled last night, Like if I eat like a heavy meal or a bad meal or ice cream or something bad before I go to bed and my respiratory rate's elevated, my heart rate's elevated, and it's like oh my gosh, like that's like significant, Like my body struggles all night long.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Right and that really is a great, you know catalyst for behavior change.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It is and it helps you make informed decisions.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And it's like it's not to say, oh, I'm never going to eat a big heavy meal, or I'm never going to drink at night, or I'm never going to eat past eight o'clock, but recognizing that if that becomes your everyday pattern, that actually really isn't good for your body.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: And so if you can make different choices on a regular basis.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: That actually is good for your body.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And then I also find, because I try to meditate in the morning and I find if I don't sleep well, meditating is actually that much harder because my body is working and I'm not a scientist, but like my body is working on all these other things to try to keep it functioning because it didn't sleep well and it's not rested.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: So it makes meditation and just that quiet time that much harder.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Right, it's a stress on the body and it puts you into some static.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: But coming back to that, not to say that you'll never do a bad you know bad habit thing again, but what also is extremely eyeopening to me is a few times and let me know if this has happened to you Like I'll go to like a wedding or I'll go to some event where I did not eat well, I ate too late, but I had a great time right Dancing, just laughing, and I'm like I should be trashed right now.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Like my recovery score should be trash, but no, and it's like, oh my gosh, my recovery score should be trash, but no, and it's like, oh my gosh, social connection trumps bad on occasion it does.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: On occasion it definitely does Correct the joy of laughter, the movement, what you're getting back?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It's really awareness I think is so important for everybody.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: So what does wellness look like in your life?
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I'm always fascinated by people who are in the health and wellness field and I love to share you know what does every wellness look like in your life.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I'm always fascinated by people who are in the health and wellness field and I love to share you know what does every day look like for you and what does health and wellness look like for you personally.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: So look, I think I'm kind of fortunate and this is how I get my kicks right, like I get my kicks going to yoga classes, working out, eating healthy.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I went to bed early.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I feel great, like this is like.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: So I think I'm pretty fortunate in that way, like I'm a wellness nerd, but I think like what true wellness for me really means to really always be aware of my foundation.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Because, look, once you've been through something traumatic, your nervous system's like revved up right, it's just.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Your nervous system's like revved up right, it's just it's ready to go back to fight or flight very, very quickly.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: So for me it's rooting myself in a foundation of calm.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: So that means I start my day with breathwork meditation, I end my day with breathwork meditation because who knows what happens during the day?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Right, who knows?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: We can't control what happens, but it's accessible if it's right under the surface, like it's easier for me to take a few deep breaths and, like Pavlov's dogs, just boom, you know, spark up that parasympathetic branch again.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that is for me personally, just trying to keep that foundation of calm.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you teach this to your kids?
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Because a lot of times people ask me about that.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: How do you?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: How do you teach it downward?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: So I have two children.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: One is like really like open to it, and the other one's just like can we read, can we?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So?
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: But I think, like everything else, you just practice what you preach and it's not what you say, it is what you do, and our nervous systems, as just creatures, we co-regulate to those that are around us.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So if I can be calm, they can co-regulate to me.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've all seen it Like if I come home stressed, like they're screaming suddenly, so to really just try to be the calm.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: But there's also some great kids ones like there's hot cocoa breath, where you imagine you're holding hot cocoa and you smell it and you cool it, and then there's like roller coaster up and down.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: So there are some really, you know, cute ones for children also, which helps.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what's on your bucket list, personally and professionally?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: What do you want to?
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: do you know?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: So my kids are little now but I have never been to a yoga retreat Like I.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Just I really want to go to like maybe Tulum, mexico, mexico, somewhere, like beautiful and going to yoga retreat hopefully my children will get bit by the yoga bug and go with me, but I really just want to immerse myself in just yeah yeah, anything professionally that you want to do, that's on the list.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't mind being on a TED talk?
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: yeah, yeah, that I wouldn't mind being on a TED talk.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't mind that.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: There you go, yeah.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and I think, professionally, like I just kind of like what I do, I like sharing what I do, and I don't have any grandiose big, big plans.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I just I kind of like just plugging away and just whoever needs to hear this message, hopefully attracting in my stratosphere.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Right Energy Likes attract like.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: From an energy perspective.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Probably my website or LinkedIn.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Brigitte Apostolakis, my website is thrivewellcorporatecom, so one word thrivewellcorporatecom.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Beautiful and I love that.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: You just have a mission to help people reduce stress.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: That's a beautiful thing.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: So before we go, I always ask my guests if there is a book or books some people recommend multiples books that has changed your life, either personally or professionally.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I believe books change lives and I try to read most of the books that my guests recommend.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: So what book or books would you like to recommend to the listeners?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: All right, because there are.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: So many good books.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: There's so many good ones.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of brilliant people in the world.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, the first one that really opened my eyes to kind of energy was it was probably 25 years ago I read Deepak Chopra's the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and it was really the first time I kind of like heard or embraced this notion of be the change you wish to seek, like, rather than focusing all your attention on I want this, I want that, I want to achieve that, like because the only thing you actually have agency over is yourself.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Right, and that's very in line with a lot of energy work that I would later, you know, come to embrace.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So that was an eye-opening book for me in this genre.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And then, but lately, there's so many good ones, good Energy.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Casey Means like she's a rock star.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it's never one thing, it's everything, and she pulls it all together in such a beautiful way.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Atomic Habits is fabulous and the Compound Effect fabulous.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: So I'd have to say those are my current favorites.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: But Deepak Chopra really did just kind of awaken something in me which is a great one, and no one's recommended that one in a while, so thank you for doing that.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: We go through phases where people recommend the end of the same thing all the time.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: From a business perspective right now, I would say 10X is easier than 2X.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite business books right now and I would say Gabby Bernstein, definitely had a huge impact on me.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: You know, the Universe has your Back is a big one, and Change your Mind and your Life Will Follow is another one.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: That is really good one, good one, yeah, yeah.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, but no lack of them.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: You know like most of us like to read a lot, and I probably have 30 books sitting on my kitchen counter.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: That are on the list to read and there just are so many good ones and I feel like just more and more keep coming out which is super exciting, especially in the space of personal wellness and mindset, for sure, yeah, yeah.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Well, bridget, thank you so much for joining your story.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: As a mother, I can't even imagine like I can feel your pain as you talk about the story with your daughter.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: You got our miracle, you know, yeah, and.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: But also huge kudos to you for really like rising up and learning and embracing the knowledge and embracing the science and then figuring out how you can apply that to help your daughter and then now help others, because I think it's really impactful and you come across as just a very normal, like the lady who's next door, but yet happens to be very grounded in knowledge, grounded in knowledge and education and how to use some of these practices that I really, truly believe can impact and change lives, whether it be breathwork, meditation and visualization.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: All three are amazing.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for sharing.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I will link everything in the show notes so people can find you, they can reach out, they can either do private sessions or business sessions if they're interested.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: So, thank you, I appreciate all of your time too.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: It was a pleasure.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: You're welcome.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Have a great day.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: We'll stay in touch.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for another episode of the House of Germar podcast.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Where wellness starts within.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: We appreciate you being a part of our community and hope you felt inspired and motivated by our guest.
• 37:16
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• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Building our reach on YouTube and Apple podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to.
• 37:26
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• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Building our reach on YouTube and Apple Podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: You can also follow us on Instagram at House of Jermar and sign up to be a part of our monthly inspiration newsletter through our website, houseofjermarcom.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: If you or someone you know would be a good guest on the show, please reach out to us at podcast at houseofgermarcom.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: This has been a House of Germar production with your host, jean Collins.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining our house.