Latest / The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women / Ep. 29 6 Small Daily Habits to Reduce Stress and Feel Better in Your Body

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Ep. 29 6 Small Daily Habits to Reduce Stress and Feel Better in Your Body · The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The images that we take in with our eyes get into the body.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as those images get taken into the body, they affect how we digest our food.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: If we're rushed or distracted while we're eating, it reduces our digestive signaling.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We can't effectively notice when the belly might be full because our attention is somewhere else.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to stop pushing through and start feeling like themselves again.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm CJ, Ayurvedic Wellness Guide, helping women reconnect to the natural rhythm their bodies have been craving.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't that long ago that I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn't fix, loaded no matter what I ate, and lying awake at 3 a.m.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: with my mind already running tomorrow's to-do list.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I just needed to be more consistent, more disciplined.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that my body wasn't feeling me.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was completely overwhelmed because you're not broken.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've just been living outside your natural rhythm for a long time.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Body Rhythm.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am so happy to have you here today.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're talking about tiny habits, the small things that you can do in your day-to-day life that your body will thank you for.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have been listening for a while, you know I talk a lot about rhythm, daily rhythm, right?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not rules, not more things added to our to-do plates, not another routine that we have to get right, but a rhythm that works for the life that we're living.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so today I want to get practical about what that actually means.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So six small habits that you can come back to.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: These are the ones I come back to, and the ones that I hear most from the people that I work with, that you can fit into your day-to-day life.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And before we get into it, into the habits, I just want to say that this isn't a checklist, right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not you have to do all of these things perfectly.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do each and every one perfectly, you got it wrong.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, these are small things that you get to choose to incorporate into your life that work for you.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're small doors that you can walk through throughout your day, throughout your week.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the more of them that are open, the more pauses that you take, the more small habits that you can incorporate in your daily life, the less pressure builds up in your body before you go to bed.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the less pressure that builds up, less chance of you waking up in the middle of the night with insomnia, tossing and turning, or not being able to get to sleep.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So again, you don't need to do all six, these are just starting points.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Choose one that works best for where you are right now.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: None of them need to be perfect.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you forget one, one or two, three days, it's okay.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Come back and start again.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with morning anchors.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the first one is morning light.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: If within the first hour or so of waking, you can get outside, step onto a porch, or stand by an open window.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: The light is gonna begin to do something important.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna set your circadian rhythm for the day.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It helps your cortisol curve do what it's supposed to do, right?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Cortisol is highest in the morning when we wake up and then it falls, falls, falls as we go throughout the day, eventually falling to its lowest levels at night so we can fall sleep.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when we rise naturally, when we have that first morning light first thing in the morning, it's doing something naturally for us instead of us reaching for the coffee, which is giving us that artificial energy, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's requiring our body to manufacture the energy.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, what this looks like, because I do not like to wake up in the morning, but I do have the blinds in my bedroom open a little bit so that the light comes into the room, and then that wakes me up without the alarm.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also have a bird that starts chirping around six o'clock who gifts me up as well.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But when we wake up with the morning light, first thing, the body loves predictability, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the light is one of the strongest cues.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It has just inherently we know that we wake up when it's light outside and we go to sleep when it's dark.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So a consistent light cue in the morning helps the whole day organize around itself.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We organize our energy, our mood, our eating routines all around this first cue, first thing in the morning.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't need a special lamp, you don't need special protocol or 20 minutes.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just need a few minutes with your eyes open outside near a window, taking in the morning's first light.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the anchor.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing is hydration before caffeine.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this one might not be popular, especially for all my coffee drinkers, myself included, but it's drinking water before coffee and not just plain water, but some warm lemon water or some warm uh lime water.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Overnight, your body's been without water for hours.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your body's been fasting.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if first thing in the morning you drink a cup of caffeine, that's the first thing that hits your system on an empty, dehydrated stomach, well, that can be a signal of stress.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if your system is already a bit heated, such as we are in summer right now, that can create these feelings of nausea, of irritability, of sour stomach.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So a glass of lemon water, of lime water before you drink your caffeine, your coffee is a way to gently awaken the body in the morning.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: The water also supports digestion, gut motility, it supports your nervous system, it begins to support your whole bodily system before you ask more of it as you go throughout your day.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And one more thing, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because coffee is a diuretic.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Coffee makes you pee more.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're releasing more water, we're becoming more dehydrated.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we have the cough, the water first thing in the morning before the coffee, we're already beginning to rehydrate the body.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And just a reminder: when we drink coffee, we have to drink more water throughout the day, the day to replace the water that we're losing as we pee.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about giving up coffee, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it is about taking care of ourselves before we have that first cup.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: If caffeine and coffee is part of your daily routine.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: The third habit is a little bit different.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is tongue scraping.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And tongue scraping is something old, but it's something that a lot of people don't really know about.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So in Ayurveda, tongue scraping in the morning has been done for thousands of years.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: As we sleep, the body detoxifies.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the toxins that are brought up during the night, during the detoxification process, come up on the tongue.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the residue that's on the tongue in the morning when we wake up are the toxins that the body is trying to get rid of.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so tongue scraping from the back to the front is a way to get rid of these unwanted toxins.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Ayurveda, if you wake up and the toxins are on the tongue and you don't scrape, but you drink your water in the morning, then you're just reabsorbing the toxins that the body is trying to get rid of.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we start the day with a gentle check-in with our body before anything else happens.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can look at the color of our tongue and see what kind of residue is arising.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if we have a more of a whitish residue on the tongue, then we have more kappa in the system.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: If we have more brown and gray residue on the tongue, then we have more avata in the system.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if we have more yellowish on the tongue, then we have more pitta built up in the system.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: These are just some ways you begin to see what's happening in your body.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is that modern research is looking at bacteria that live on the tongue.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And some of those bacteria are involved in producing nitric oxide, which plays a role in circulation.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's emerging research connecting the oral microbiome, what's happening inside the mouth, to blood pressure regulation.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought this was just so interesting is that the bacteria on the tongue might be connected to how well our blood pressure is regulated.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's so awesome that modern science is connecting the dots for us, connecting what Ayurveda has been doing for thousands and thousands of years.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the body is deeply connected, and these small habits that we incorporate in our routines influence our physiology over time.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so our gentle daily support is not optimization necessarily, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an aggressive routine step by step that we have to do perfectly.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a specific uh mouthwash that's all the craze.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an aggressive tongue scrape.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's five to ten tongue scrapes from the back of the mouth forward using a tongue scraper or the back of a screen every morning.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It takes about 30 seconds.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a moment of noticing, of checking in what your body might be holding that you're not even aware of.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Another anchor for your day in the afternoon is to eat meals without screens.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our digestive system needs our parasympathetic nervous system to be on, our rest and digest system to be on.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're eating while we're scrolling or watching something or reading something that triggers us, that uh gets our nervous system activated, when we're answering the demanding emails, our body doesn't fully get the message that it's time to rest, digest.
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  SPEAKER_00: It stays in activation mode.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And also those things that we're looking at, that we're scrolling through, the images that we take in with the images that we take in with our eyes get into the body, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as those images get taken into the body, they affect how we digest our food.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Also, if we're rushed or distracted while we're eating, it reduces our digestive signaling.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: We can't effectively notice that first verb or notice when the digestive system, when the belly might be full, because our attention is somewhere else.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this might tend towards overeating or eating foods that we don't feel taste that great or are enjoyable.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't become an experience, it just becomes another thing that we're doing.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so your body digests better when it feels safe.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And safe here is not just present, but it's away from the screens.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not multitasking just for a few minutes, it's taking a few bites without anything else demanding your attention.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where eating and nourishing yourself is the only thing that's happening.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Another anchor that you might incorporate is breathing, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: We can breathe anytime, anywhere.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: But this one is more specific.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's slowing, it's extending the exhale, it's breathing through your nose and making your exhale a little bit longer than your inhale.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because breathing patterns influence your nervous system in real time, when we are breathing shallowly, shallowly from the chest.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: That usually it is signaling that our nervous system is more activated, that we might be feeling a little bit more anxious and overwhelmed.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so when we begin to lengthen the exhale so that it's longer than the inhale, it signals to the nervous system that it's okay to settle a little bit.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to soften.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to go from that anxious feeling to a more rested feeling.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me, who at one point couldn't even inhale for a count of one, I could barely exhale a count of one.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's enough, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're just beginning to bring awareness to it.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I would do this at small pockets of time throughout the day, maybe even for 15 seconds.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I was beginning to create awareness of what was happening inside the body, and eventually I was able to extend the exhale to a count of two.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then for me, that was a lot at that time.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly you begin to extend a little bit longer and a little bit longer, and then the nervous system begins to come into balance.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is also a great tool to use when you're stuck in traffic, or you had a difficult conversation, or there's a meeting that you have to go to, or there is something waiting for you.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: A few slower exhales through the nose.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Something can shift slightly, and that can make a big difference in your day.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's also some evening anchors, right?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: An evening window routine because your nervous system needs a transition.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's been working all day long, it's been going all day long, dealing with all of the things, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it can't go from full speed handling everything to sleep all on its own.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we need a transition time.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is especially true in our modern life where our days are taken up by staring at screens of taking in all the stimulation from all over the place all day long, all of the sounds, the noises, people.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so our transition time in the evening doesn't have to be elaborate.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's dimming the lights.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's your favorite cup of chamomile tea.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's some gentle movement, some gentle stretching, or listening to a meditation, or resting in a restorative pose.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's some gentle classical music.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the eyes are taken away from the screen.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter which thing you choose, it just matters that you do it, that you do something that works for you.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And your body become begins to recognize this as a signal that your day is ending, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so you do it day after day, you create consistency, and then the body begins to rely on that consistency and it becomes easier and easier to transition into sleep.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if your nights get interrupted, say around 2, 3 a.m., then this is a great practice to begin to incorporate into your daily rhythm.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So six small things, morning light, morning hydration, eating away from screens, uh gentle tongue scraping, slower exhales through the nose, uh, an evening transition.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Choose one that might work for you today, this week.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't have to be elaborate, it just has to be something that you can commit to, that you can do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Try for 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know what would work best for you.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Healing, feeling better is built through consistency, it's built through repetition, it's built through daily rhythms that we can actually sustain.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's slow repeated signals, repeated over time.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is how we begin to uh feel better in our bodies.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not built through extremes, it's not built through perfection or constantly trying to fix yourself, but your body begins to listen to what you repeat daily.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to do all six perfectly, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: But again, choose one that feels the most doable for you.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because these small rhythms become powerful over time.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the ish hits the fan, right?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like me these past two years, when you've already started these habits, then it's not something that you incorporate when you're all stressed out and frazzled.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's just one small thing that you can continue to come back to, even when all the chaos is happening around you.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like help figuring out where to start, what pattern your body might be doing, and how your symptoms are showing up in your body, then take the hidden stress pattern quiz.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've linked it in the show notes, and it will begin to show you how your patterns are showing up as symptoms in your body and some small habits that you can begin to incorporate to change those.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're not chasing a perfect routine.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're building a rhythm, building a life that feels good with small, repeatable signals over time.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how we live longer, that's how we feel better in our bodies.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Please email me, let me know how it goes, let me know what habit you've chosen at Chelsea at Chelsea JohnsonIyurveda.com.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you what's working, maybe what's not, what you're having trouble with.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for joining me today.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't already, please like, subscribe, share this with a friend, and I will see you next week.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Be well and nourished.