Episode 102 - Lymphatic Bliss: The Ultimate Detoxifying Massage With Erika Tempro & Mimi Ge (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 102.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Unknown: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Amy: 0:28

Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. It's Amy and Katie and we are thrilled to be here with two amazing people. We're here with Erica tiempo who is a practitioner of holistic medicine who has been practicing massage since 2007. After a successful career career sorry, after a successful career working in both clinics and spa setting, she opened detox massage right here near me in North Bethesda, Maryland. And I've been to Erica as well as her associate and amazing practitioner Mimi, many times, highly recommends and I've been begging her to come on the show to talk all about lymphatic massage because I think it's so incredible. And I think a lot of people have been sort of hear the word but they don't exactly know what it means and how it can benefit them. I know I've been telling Katie next time she comes here she's got to see either Erica or Mimi, because it's so healing. So anyway, welcome to the show. Erica, we're so excited to have you here. For our listeners, Erica has a wealth of knowledge about the body through her experience and studies from her bachelor degree in physical therapy she obtained in Brazil, she does all types of different massages, but specializes in lymphatics. So welcome to the show, Erica. And welcome to the show. Mimi, we're so glad to have you both here chatting with us all about massage, one of our favorite topics.

Unknown: 1:50

Thank you for having me on. And maybe it's a pleasure to share some of our knowledge about emphatic drainage, we love what we do. And it's truly a pleasure for us to to share, right. And I mean when we do and having clients every day learning about this feeling better and healthier. But love seeing results. Yes.

Amy: 2:14

Amazing. So before we start, what we'd like to do in the beginning of the show, is to do a, what we call our nirvana of the week was just something that brought us joy this week could be something big or small, but something that put a little smile on your face. So I'm going to kick it to Katy to tell us what her Nirvana the week was.

Unknown: 2:35

Thank you, Amy. I'm sitting here racking my brain.

Amy: 2:39

I know it's been it's been a week. It has been

Unknown: 2:41

an absolute week. You know, there's I mean, don't get me wrong. There's been many Nirvana's this week. But sometimes they kind of just like slip into the back of their brain on a late Friday afternoon. I I think I actually just had a really nice little Nirvana and nice moment with the lovely woman who's now become like part of our family that helps me with our children. She's are up here and she's she's become part of the family. And I've noticed that she's kind of struggling this week, like the rest of us for some reason. That seems like a weird week, all around. And we just had a heart to heart and I just kind of wanted to tap into like a she Okay, and what's going on and you know, just sitting down with her and making sure that everything is fine. And that she's it. It's just like a bonding moment, I guess when you know, which is a little Nirvana, especially for someone that is new to your family. She has been in our family for just a few months now. And we have a great relationship. So I think I think that was a nice moment that I just had, it was literally in the last half an hour. It was again at the sweet it's nice.

Amy: 3:44

Yeah, to have a connection moment. Okay, so mine is kind of funny. So my little son, my little he's 13 My younger my youngest son, Jules key. My my husband and I had an event at my son's school the other night and we were out for like an hour we came home and we came home at like eight o'clock. It was early, but I walked into Jones's room and he was like, sound asleep. Like he just was so tired. I guess he had sports that day, whatever it was, he was tired. And he was asleep. And I was like, okay, whatever. He ended up sleeping all night long. So he probably slept, I don't know, like 13 or 15 hours or whatever it was, and he woke up in the morning. He's like, a slept so much. Last night. I feel amazing. And I'm like, See, I told you when you sleep good, you feel good. And then your whole day is better. And he just like clicked for him. Because you know, teenagers, they never sleep. They're doing their thing. And like, he'd like all of a sudden realize the value of having a good night's sleep, which I always tell my boys all the time. So it's just like a funny, cute moment between him and I. So that's one of my Nirvana's from this week. What about you Erica and Mimi, we'd love to hear what brought you joy this week?

Unknown: 4:53

Oh, wow. I have two daughters. One it's 15 and one, two and a half. So this week was truly special. You know, like it's a little thing, but my little one, she just decided to do her on potty training. Who's doing great is a Mama Mama and each Oh, where she was going to the toilet. So it's a truly special moment. Wow. Yeah. What about you Mimi, I was just telling Erica that yesterday actually last night, my mom was complaining about stomach ache. And I live with her and I take care of her she's a bit outwardly. And I use lymphatic drainage technique on her and help her with stomach

Amy: 5:43

healing. Okay, so let's get into it. Tell us about lymphatic drainage massage, what it is, why it's beneficial, all of all of that stuff,

Unknown: 5:53

of course. So lymphatic drainage massage is a type of modality by the work that helps to eliminate waste toxins of the body, and also stimulate the lymphatic system. So during the massage, we use the strokes we push the fluid towards the lymph nodes, lymph nodes, we have our movement, the body, but we have major groups located over the neck, armpit, barely groin area, and behind the knee. So our the strokes we send to those directions. So occasionally out that fluid, after the drainage crosses the filtration process, it goes back to the main circulation. So one of the functions of the lymph nodes is to drain, remove out the toxins whenever they leave for LIFO notes that tax let's say best selves, but she is Viers cancer cells, they work for us, fine for us, and helps with the immune system. So regulates the amount of fluid we have in our body and also works with the immunologic system. So each time we're under inflammation infection, the sciatic system is helping us to eliminate all those bed cells.

Amy: 7:26

And what Yeah, it does make sense. And I've done it and I know the benefits just because of the way that I feel afterwards. It's very different than like, what you would think about a regular massage. It's very light and relaxing, but it's just it's a different sensation. So why, like how often should someone get this done? Should they do it instead of regular massages? Should it be in combination with regular massage?

Unknown: 7:50

So let's say sometimes you do combine techniques. Let's say someone who likes to get deep tissue works, sometimes going straight to the muscle, which so deep is not the best thing to do. We like to drink first. And then we work more in deep layers of the muscles. So we drain and then by layers, we start to release that tension. So how often should it get on? I have clients we do have clients, they come here every week, sometimes every other week, but I would say at least once a month, why they come here on weekly basis. Sometimes they have chronic conditions such as lymphedema. Lymphedema, it's a condition that helps a lot after breast cancer. So as they remove the lymph nodes, like say the armpit it compromised the paddock system. So it creates buildup of fluids. So men really we find another route to send that fluid. Let's say one side is compromised what we do, we push the fluids towards the health side. So we do have clients that come as you know, once a week, and it all depends of your needs goals, target budget, I'm so fascinated by the lymphatic system, I have a chronic autoimmune disease and I have noticed that just recently, showers always make me feel better. And I know it sounds kind of silly, but I think it has something to do with my limp because I'll be going about my day and I'm kind of achy and my body feels very fatigued. And then I do my dry brushing and I get in the shower and I can be like a completely different person afterwards. I mean, it can really like turn my day, right side up. So it's just kind of amazing to me is that is that just the body holding inflammation in my lymph system is maybe not flushing it out to the best of its abilities. Without a little nudge, it does sound like that. Yes. So let's say the lymphatic system works properly. As we move, the more we move, the more you'll emphatic system will work properly. So let's say, shower, no, during this show do yourself, if I finish, you just thought certain areas of your body's going to release that tension. As we release that tension, you get more blood flow, more likely, you're going to eliminate some of the inflammation, and you get more blood flow more oxygen in your tissue gets healthier, better. So there are like I said, we do have those all over the body. But if you work in those major groups, you know that we mentioned here, let's say over your neck, behind your ears, okay, on your armpit. And sometimes we do that during the shower, like you mentioned. So you're not thinking about you doing that. So naturally, you're stimulating those lymph nodes. Maybe that's why you feel way better afterwards. Yeah.

Amy: 11:16

What about the dry brush? Katie was mentioning, she uses that. And I've used that before. Is that the same idea? Like how does that help? Because I know it always kind of feels like a bit energizing. But what does that specifically do?

Unknown: 11:28

Oh, my gosh, it's great is going to stimulate the lymphatic system, it's going to be very superficial. Okay, we highly recommend you to do yourself. Lymphatic Drainage torching those areas prior there, Dr. prosze. So first, you know, because the river runs to the ocean, imagine how the fluid of your body going upwards going towards your heart. So the final destination of all this fluid comes to above your collarbone. So we suggest everybody to start from here. So as you as you clear, your chest, those areas is going to be way easier to receive everything. So we start right here doing yourself lymphatic drainage above your wallet, Vaughn can below and then you go behind your ears, it doesn't matter if you go clockwise or counterclockwise. As long as you move in those areas, that's what we want is like a very like stretch. So and then you go to your armpit and just move in there, get close to the breast, just show both sides, open up your chest, you feel working for long hours in front of your test, make sure you open up and you stretch your chest, one of the really good technique is that there's a muscle right here, if you just kind of tuck your finger in and kind of grab on it and just move it around. That's a really good tight, very, very effect and loosen up the muscle and the fascia. And that really helps with the drainage. You do that

Amy: 13:17

first you do those, like that's the sorry, that series first and then you would dry brush because that kind of opens you up you're saying

Unknown: 13:26

absolutely. And also besides the dry brush, you can use a washer, a body washes, so this way you can it does help to bring the fluid towards those areas. Let's say you and your leg, you bring everything to the wind. You're going to work on your arm, you bring every change everything to armpit, so but it's the first just open up channels. I have a valid question. Excuse me, it's like this big and it's wooded and it has all of these interesting shapes. And I've used it a few times. I'm more I favor the dry brushing. I don't know why I think it just feels good. And it's fast and it's easy. But and also I did see that like tapping those certain spots is helpful as well like the collarbone, the armpits, behind the knees and the ankles that I saw before I started driving. Yes, you can use your fingers. You can use even any type of brush, you can use it face guasha out those things you can use to stimulate those areas. Okay, as long as we don't put too much pressure. Okay, so that's, that's, that's an important piece. So you do it gently and it does speed matter fast or slow. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter as long as you apply a lot of pressure. Don't hurt yourself. Okay, and it doesn't matter if you go to the lecture the mic just hanging for a few minutes if you feel a little bit tender. Just hanging there in a All children minutes it goes away.

Amy: 15:02

Okay, interesting. And so Mimi, you were just mentioning about helping your mom who had a stomach ache. And I know that I've read or heard that lymphatic drainage also helps a lot with digestion and bloating. And I just know from being in there, every time I come in, I'm bloated and I leave and I'm not bloated. So can you talk about the like, how it helps and what you can expect from a digestion standpoint,

Unknown: 15:25

stomach area gets really tight, because what do we do we sit a lot. And so there is a stagnation. That's why, you know, a lot of people experience slow digestion bloating. So by applying pressure to certain areas, you loosen up the tension, move with a colon to its shape. So you're you're moving toxins, you're you're improving the circulation of blood flow more blood flow more, and if there's more blood flow, the person will move faster. Yeah, that makes sense. I need to try to do what's more in my stomach, because I feel like I'm always bloated.

Amy: 16:07

Yeah, no, it would be so good for you, Katie.

Unknown: 16:12

What is the difference between modeling massage and lymphatic massage, I like to start with drainage. We always start with the drainage, we eliminate the water retention, the toxins or the waste. And after that ingestion becomes more soft. If the tissue not it's easier to mold. So I usually combine a few modalities in order to control someone's body. So the different types of strokes but we always start with the drainage, that's the first thing gets the priority. getting healthier first and being let's say, beautiful, skinnier. The main, the main reason the main function of lymphatic drainage is to be healthier. Yeah, so you can actually you use modeling to kind of like slim down, I guess. And does it help us cellulite? Yes, you can lose after three to four inches in one session, it then can serve the person how much water retention have a lot of people they love to get it down for photo shoot before red carpet. Okay, later, you're not feeling the best. So it's, it's a quick fix. So we highly recommend people to hydrate have lots of water before and afterwards. And in order to maintain the results. Reduce the amount of South Korean processed food, sugar, sugar, and you know, put in makes everybody more inflamed, more bloated. So those are things it's a no, no, if you want to keep up with your results. Yes. And more female have reaction towards wheat than male. That's another thing that I noticed. I think it's really interesting. Yeah, it's, it's interesting that you say that because I was literally just thinking in the last couple of days that I'm going to start eating more wheat again. I've been off of gluten for so long, because and I'm just like, oh, maybe I can introduce it back. But probably not the best idea. You know, we see the reaction disease gluten intolerant, but the same client goes to Europe, and they can eat bread. They can stuff up with their and have no problem. So the way that GMO in this country really? It really mess with our system. Yeah, I have clients, they they cannot have yogurt here. They travel to Italy, they eat it there they are fine. So there is something going on here the way they process the food.

Amy: 19:03

It's so true. Katie, and I talk about that all the time. Because yeah, when you're in Italy, and you have pasta and wine and bread, you feel fine. And you're not bloated. I mean, it's unbelievable. And then here it's like yeah, all of our food is process. It's a problem. Well, this is so interesting. I mean, we could go on and on. But let's get to our rap session. Just to give you guys some fun questions on this. This Friday night. Prior to cocktails, Katie's already drinking her Rosae so let's do it. What is your favorite wellness or beauty hack besides lymphatic drainage, the sash

Unknown: 19:39

I always carry my bag, a little bit of almond oil and the little guasha for my face and a few essentially, I love peppermint and lavender. So I always like to have a few drops in my almond oil. into myself, massage relieves the tension of my shoulders, my neck, and my scalp is something that I have all the time with me.

Amy: 20:09

That sounds nice. Good little pick me,

Unknown: 20:12

me, me. Since I'm a much more physical person, I like to stretch. I feel like ah, after I stretch, I feel better, like the helps with my fluid retention, you know, helps me feel better more than ever. So I kind of, I'm gonna tell me a secret. I went to the massages who with me a long time ago, and that she loves baking soda and vinegar she uses for a lot of things, right? Maybe I do I do. I use those cleaning. You know, they the very natural clean. If you put them together, they bubble up and then makes the scrubbing much easier. And I wash my hair with baking soda. And I condition my hair with apple cider vinegar. Oh, wow. To balance it to Yeah. So so it works. I have quite in the hands, you know, feels clean, soft. It's great. Wow, I feel cool, because it has a chemical that pulls more oil out of your scalp. I don't know if you heard it that. But that's the gimmick. That's the thing that they do. So you buy more shampoo. Shampoo all the time. Oh, wow. Yeah. But you dilute it, you don't use the template, of course, you put in the container. And then you know, you add water, stir it up, and then you pour. So it's very, very simple. For me, probably breathing exercises. If I if I try to do breathing exercises, I feel better, more more nirvana. Well, for me really long line. I create a space here that I really enjoyed in here and every day when I have clients coming back to see me and they talk about how they failed after the treatment is for me. It's a moment of joy. Well, that's wonderful. I'm sure you're helping so many people and let please let our listeners know where they can find you and come to see you both for lymphatic drainage massage, modeling, yeah, modeling massage, and all

Amy: 22:31

of it. Yeah, give us your website, your Instagram all the things

Unknown: 22:35

okay do not with as the Marilyn, we have natural far from Washington, just see, our website is www detox massage that CEO, you can easily find us on Instagram, which is detox massage. And the easiest way to call and talk as is through email. You go to the website and just send us an email. And it's truly you know, we really feel thankful blessed to be here and assist all this beautiful patients we have oh, we forgot to mention about the postdoc treatments that we offer. Oh, it's a big thing that we do here right? The full stop you Yes, yeah. So let's say someone gets liposuction or Mommy made overweight some Money Makeover it's a surgery that you know take care of the breast and the belly. So when they go back home they're not feeling the best in a good way to speed the recovery process is getting euphotic Trent edge immediately. When they get here we are able to assist during this process reducing the pain bruises swollen it's a it's a 90 day process the just leave walking way much better.

Amy: 24:03

So thank you so much Erica and Mimi for joining us today and teaching us all about lymphatic we got a little bit of a one on one and I think our listeners are really going to enjoy it and probably, you know check you out on Instagram and read all about you and lymphatic drainage and your content and then, you know go get a massage, get a lymphatic massage and try something new. So thank you so much for joining us. We're really happy to have had you on the show. We appreciate your time.

Unknown: 24:28

Thank you so much, Amy. Thank you Amy.

Amy: 24:32

Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to buy

Episode 101 - From Pain To Zen: The Art Of Acupuncture With Dr. Jenelle Kim (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 101.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Unknown: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. Today we are welcoming back the fabulous Dr. Jenelle. Kim. Dr. Kim. She was with us sometime last year, episode number 62. She came in and we chatted all about traditional Chinese medicine and her book my Jung Sung, the Korean art of living meditation, which I have heard is doing very well and we'll get into all of that. But just to give you a little insight. Dr. Janelle Kim is a prolifically cited wellness expert that has been featured in Forbes allure, meditation magazine time GMA and more. She is devoted to integrating the philosophy, ancient medical wisdom and expertise of East Asia, with the advancements of modern life and medicine of the West to touch and positively affect the lives of others. Dr. Kim is a doctor of acupuncture, which is what we are going to get into today. She's nationally board certified or biology and our biology, oriental medicine and acupuncture. Dr. Kim completed her extensive training in East Asia and are some of the most respected doctors in the field of oriental medicine, and is the custodian of her lineage proprietary by bung formulas. So much could go on and on and on with your accolades and your accomplishments and everything. But we are so excited we our last conversation, we talked all about traditional Chinese medicine and, and your book and everything. And we were just really excited to get into acupuncture with you. So welcome back. And that's what we're going to do today. Thank

Dr. Janelle Kim: 1:58

you so much for having me back. I also really enjoyed my time last time, and I know we ran out of time. So it's awesome to have a chance to extend our conversation. So thank you for that.

Amy: 2:08

Good to see you. We've seen your quoted recently, Katie found the article, I think it was in Forbes and the New York Times and I think it was about your book. So we'd love to hear how the book is and what you're seeing.

Dr. Janelle Kim: 2:20

Yes. So grateful. It's been a little over a year now it launched January 11 2020 2am. I getting all these numbers straight. And that is I believe soon after is when I spoke to you both and it has it's done very well it is in 10 different countries and different languages right now, which is really, really special. That really meant a lot to me to know that so many people around the world are resonating with these principles don't pass down my lineage for so very long principles of the Dow and mindfulness for all of those who may not be familiar. And last week, yes, it was number one on Amazon, for mental health and spirituality. So it just means so much. One of my greatest wish, in short, is that these principles can be applied right away. You know, it is about I call it living meditation, as we talked about last time, so I don't think we have to get so far into it unless we wish. But you know, we hear so much about meditation now, which is amazing. 20 years ago, if you talk about meditation, people would look at you, you know, kind of blank stare. And now it's the best thing and I'm so grateful for that. But these principles, the medicine, the movement, I call them, the three pillars are things that have been passed down by our ancient sages masters from these ancient practices, and they all hold a similar principle. So whether it's from India or Korea, you know, the it's the cultures and the people who have been in existence for so very long, and the ways with which we can incorporate tools that can help us everyday no matter what's going on. And I call them the three M's. So acupuncture fits in that as well, or Balaji. It's the medicine pillar, movement. And meditation, which is a living meditation. Meditation is every moment of your day. It's not just when you sit down to meditate or, you know, do certain practices, it extends truly that kind of thinking it's a training. I've started to call it actually a training, not just we train our bodies, I moved on to start to really embrace that we of course, train our minds. But furthermore, I believe, very strongly, we also train our spirit, not that we are able to train our spirit, something I've been thinking about a lot because it feels that was very active and dynamic. And that is what living meditation mean, Jung Sung, the book and the principles are all about as we have to constantly it's a constant. And if anyone thinks it's not, you know, I have news for you, whether you like it or not it we have to constantly be a part of that. And so when I say train your spirit, your spirit is there, you know, and that can be a whole other conversation. But we have to train ourselves to connect to that, you know, that's when we start to feel disconnected from ourselves, Mind Body Spirit, disconnected from each other, disconnected from the universe, nature around us. So that's kind of why I believe it has started to spread These principles in such a way I know how much they helped my life and what I've seen my entire life. And yes, I'm really grateful in the last year that people are finding it helpful. The best thing I hear is when people come to me and say Dr. Kim, Janelle, that just made sense. It made sense. And it's helping. That makes me happy.

Unknown: 5:17

That's amazing. I'm so happy for you with all this success. And I saw that you're doing a lot of retreats and you're and you're teaching us and you just did something with the Diane Von Furstenberg with her Was it her daughter that

Dr. Janelle Kim: 5:30

granddaughters? So I mean, it's so amazing. She is such an icon, Diane Von Furstenberg, someone I've always looked up to just such an inspiring woman and really cares. And she started this platform, if you will, this community called in charge, and it's really neat. So you'll have to check it out. And it was the very first wellness day. And we opened with young son moving meditation, which is one of the three pillars that movement, but it incorporates the principles, the philosophy and the movements based in Chi Gong, right. And so similar to the understanding of acupuncture, Qi, Gong, martial arts, even yoga, they may speak of it a little bit differently. It all, how can I say it all, as a way to make flow through your meridian? Right? Your body to make everything function properly. And that's the ultimate secret to everything, right? Youth health, life. And so those movements such a neat thing, actually, I just was in New York, and was part of the international aesthetic spa and cosmetic conference, I ECSC. It's one that I went through 20 years ago, when I first started in the beauty business, right? For those of you who do not know, I formulate products, you know, based on the herbal medicine that's been passed down. But it was so excited, citing because it was one of the first places I ever spoke 20 years ago on formulation and medicine. And this time when I was in New York, it was just last week, I believe, maybe two weeks ago, I can't even keep track, I presented the movement as part of beauty and wellness. So it's just such an amazing thing to see, that are part of the world, the Western culture and society are really starting to embrace this. And I know it's going to make a huge difference in people's lives at a time where I think we all agree it's very needed. So absolutely.

Amy: 7:08

Yeah, absolutely. And I also really liked how you said in the beginning, that it is something you need to train, and it's not something you just do one time in your day. It's like an intentional practice. And I think it's hard to do. And I think it's good to remember that you're like constantly training muscle. To think in that more, I guess, intentional way. With all that being said, I know last time we touched very, very briefly on your acupuncture background. And we want to hear all about that, because we haven't done a show yet really to break down acupuncture and what it is how it's helpful. And it's you know, I've done it personally before and I think it's really helped me but I think for our audience, they'd love to understand more about acupuncture just generally speaking from like a really basic,

Dr. Janelle Kim: 7:56

absolutely. Well, I love that, that that you say the basic standpoint, because it can get very complex. And that's all good. And for certain of us that's very important to know our whole lives. We study this and you could spend lifetimes, right? But to me, those basic ways of understanding are the principles. That word I probably think about the most in my entire life and that but that's so important, because that's the way to understand our bodies. So yes, let's talk about acupuncture, how it works. But I encourage everyone while hearing this, well, however, I'm going to explain it right now. Whatever comes naturally and feels like it's resonating, but to also apply that in knowing our bodies every single moment because that it's the same thing, right? So one of the ways that my teachers taught me that I thought was a beautiful way to explain because you can kind of break it down and Eastern medicine. There's even when you get like I am nationally board certified in oriental medicine, it's funny you can you can do just acupuncture, you can do just herbal medicine, then you can do Oriental medicine, I think it's still this way and spend some time but when I studied and got my license however many years ago now that's the way it is. And so it's important to kind of understand that because I come from a lineage of apologists, and there is something in Eastern medicine, I say Eastern or Oriental medicine, it's all kind of interchangeable. It's all rooted in Chinese medicine. It came from China, but then even herbal medicine and acupuncture went to Korea, for example, Japan, and those practitioners, those ancient doctors, many of them very well known, such as Hojun in the Korean, you know, medical history of Eastern medicine, they took herbal medicine and advanced it, they took acupuncture and for example, Korean medicine is known for hand acupuncture, which is something I practice when I practice acupuncture, right? Japanese have a different kind of acupuncture, but it all is rooted from China. Okay, so I think that's important for some people to know what is the difference, but it all stems from the same principles. So when you go to East Asia, there's kind of this may be spoken about maybe not that there's acupuncture and herbal or biology, right. So you have the herbalists and you have the acupuncturist, in our society. I have noticed it's very it's more mixed, you still see that A lot of acupuncturists practice acupuncture and have some herbs and the herb ologists. It's seen in our society as well. But I like to kind of look at it that way, because both are very important, right? And then the way to understand acupuncture, in comparison to or in synergy with herbal medicine, is that herbal medicine is like the gas if you're a car, it's the gas, right? You need herbs, you need supplements, including food, to nourish ourselves to supplement we have to have qi and blood, right? It all comes down to this. Everything comes down to I'm pretty certain we talked about it last time, whether it's the medicine, the movement, the philosophy, everything in our life comes down to the yin and yang. And we could have a whole week of sessions, podcasts on that. But to break it down, First comes the Dow, the universe, right then is yin and yang, night and day. Yin and Yang is shown throughout every aspect of our life. That is the training, if you will, if you think about it this way as well, constantly balancing we use that word all the time. But what does that mean? So I'm gonna go into how that how that relates to acupuncture. But to start kind of from square one, there's even young, like I said, night and day, feminine, masculine, loud and soft. So you see young is also chi, right? So Young is movement, it's more, it's bright, it's light, it's loud, where Yin is your blood, your body fluids, for example, it is feminine energy, it is more quiet, you know, it's more complex. That's the truth in many ways. And so just as we see that in the nature around us, we start to see that in our own bodies. And what I love the most about Eastern medicine and acupuncture and herbal medicine, is that when you when I first started learning, one of the things I loved so much, that was a very special teacher, Alex to bear, he was very well known in the eastern medical community. He was amazing. And I remember him very much saying what resonated with my teacher growing up my father, that 1000s of years ago, they didn't have books. They couldn't study that way, how these ancient doctors, neurobiologist and practitioners understood the human body as they looked outside, you know, to some extent, right. So I'm very much simplifying this, but they saw the way that the trees grew the way the rivers would have flow. And they started to think I wonder if our bodies work in the same manner as what I'm seeing around me. And that's exactly the best way to think of it. And it's my favorite way to think about it. So that is what I like to share. So if we think of yin and yang, and our bodies are made of all of our internal organ systems, our muscles, our joints, you know, circulatory system, nervous hormonal, all of the systems within our body, as I just said, the Yin aspect of the yin and yang duality are the body fluids, the blood, especially for women, we're blood beings. And in general, men are more cheap. It's by nature, you know. And so it is very important to have enough right to supplement ourselves, and then flow properly throughout these meridian systems. And acupuncture uses meridian systems in our body to manipulate the flow of Qi, to make sure that our organ systems are fed to make sure that our muscle joints are working properly. And so if you start to picture to some extent, we all can picture the circulatory system, we have an idea that our veins or arteries run throughout our body in specific ways. Well, the same thing happens with meridians, you can sometimes hear them as channels, right? The acupressure acupuncture channels or meridian system, there's 12, primary eight extraordinary, I'm telling you a little bit more than maybe some may want to know. But that's important to know, I'll tell you why in a second. So you have 12 meridians that run through your body that connect to all of your organ systems. And your organ systems are also once again, going back to that yin and yang separated into yin and yang categories, there's ones that kind of very simply put, create chi, and there's ones that break them down. For example, in the the your the way your digestion, your middle functions, which in my humble opinion, and many in western Eastern medicine, your digestion is everything your gut is everything. You have your stomach and your spleen and Eastern medicine and they work together. Same in western, but an Eastern literally the spleen is yen and the stomach is young. And the stomach is in charge of, for example, breaking things down. Okay, that's the young, the actual load, the active, and the spleen is Yin. And that is in charge of taking all of the good chi, all of the good energy from the things you eat the air you breathe. So that's a simple way to maybe visualize how this works. So then you have meridian systems that connect, you have a meridian system for your spleen, you have a meridian system for your stomach, your liver, your lungs, and they all connect. So maybe some of you have even seen or it might be interesting, you don't have to study it or anything but one day just Google, you know, meridian system and see how how it runs throughout your body. And so it becomes that much more of a clearer understanding, I hope of how acupuncture and herbs and movement and the way you eat and the way you think start to affect the systems of your body. So the meridians run from your fingers all throughout your body, your head, your toes, I brought up the extraordinary channels. We don't have to go into all of them. But there's two that are so important, right and it's important because we can be aware of this in our daily life, one of them the Ren, the Yin vessel, the Yin channel runs down from the top of our head all the way down in the front, right? Okay, and do goes down in the back. And so one is the yen channel one is the Yang Channel. And on those channels, they're so special. There's literally points that connect to every one of the organ systems, right. And so you can see this a bit in other meridian systems, but it's very important, particularly in these channels, you start to even see chakras, right? For those of us who understand more of either Vedic or yoga, and how there's different chakra as well, that also starts to make that much more sense when you start to understand certain channels of energy of chi that run throughout your body. So I should have mentioned, chi is a huge concept that again, 20 years ago, I brought this up, people would be like, okay, Janelle, let's not get weird here. And now, everybody wants to talk about chi, thank goodness, because it's a part of our life. She is vital energy. If I did not have chi, I wouldn't be able to sit here and talk to you right now. I'd be like a blob just sitting on this chair. Well, that's one way of looking at it's the action, right? And so going back, so we have these meridians systems. And if we think of it as river systems, just like we see a nature that run throughout our body, we will have to make sure that there's constantly flow. So what do you need to have that proper flow so that everything is fed and nourished properly, a you have to have chi, you have to have blood, so a supplement health, vitality, and that comes once again, from thinking properly from eating properly from taking the proper supplements, herbal medicine, proper formulas that I talked about a lot, not just anything, because you heard it on tick tock, many great things that come from that, but you know, know the difference or educate ourselves. And so we have these meridian systems, we have to have enough gas in our car. That's why I was going back to so to kind of switch back to that for a second. My teacher once taught me that acupuncture and herbal medicine, herbs are like the gas in your car. And acupuncture is like the starting system, right. So it's like it starts your cart pushes things through, it helps to activate different acupoints. So now if you picture you have meridians in your body, you can imagine that by putting a needle or even pressure right or even movement, or now you know something that's not so much that I'm as familiar and expertise with is Reiki or different energy healings, many people are becoming more aware of you can stimulate going back to acupuncture, acupressure, certain points along these meridians systems, where, you know, this point is known for headaches. And so people will come with horrible headaches. And they will press large intestine for and you can feel it, it's kind of right between your thumb and your point your finger and right in between that web. And oftentimes when especially when you start to feel points, and she'll feel a little hole sometimes where you feel something catch. And if you start to feel even if you take that hole, Pat and start to just rub it, it's a little sore, right? Usually for most of us, well that directly that's a huge point. It's like a door, if you will both sides and on your particular when you start to touch it and people have horrible headaches, they it's like magic, like all of a sudden, oh my gosh, my headache is gone. Or when you have trouble breathing, one of my favorite points is right on the chest, right. So if you take two fingers right on your sternum, kind of right in the center, not two fingers, let's use all of them, makes you make sure to hit the point. And you press there and then kind of with a downward motion, because now we're thinking of chi. So for example, when we get heavy in the chest and can't breathe or anxious, and you start to feel that energy build, you know, you can catch yourself before you get there by feeling chi. That's why I love to talk about these things, you have to feel it yourself first. So even in those moments, you breathe in through your nose out through your mouth, and you press kind of downward on your sternum, that can also be a really sore point. But there is no one I have met who does not like that point being touched and that that basically supports and directly connects to your heart. They call your pericardium and Eastern medicine, your upper, your upper Zhao, and so it helps to direct chi. So these are the ways in which you can see that different points along these meridians systems start to affect the flow, right. So again, if we're river system, and the ultimate goal is to now have qi and blood flow through these systems properly through our circulatory system as blood chi through the meridian system, when we start to get sick from aging, normal process, when we get hurt, right from from a virus bacteria or we fall and we hurt something what happens is, if you picture these river systems, literally you've just you've just damaged that meridian system, right damage might be a strong word, but you've affected and so what can happen is whether it like I said, whether it's just normal process of aging, whether you have a stomach condition, whatever that looks like, here's your meridian, and now all of a sudden, over time, the sticks from the river, the dirt, the sediment, maybe some trash that has gotten into the river system starts to build up and you start to have blockages and so when things can't flow, it becomes stagnant. Stagnant is the number one bad thing in our life. In very simple terms, stagnation in our thinking stagnate You know, in our life, you have to have that flow. And so what happens is when you start to have blockages anywhere throughout your body, it's going to start to affect you. And you may not feel it right away, right, that's when someone has sprains their ankle, and they work through it. And they don't do acupuncture, they don't use certain formulas to help the body heal, for example, certain movements, and they let it be, and they believe that it is that much better. And 10 years later, now, for some odd reason, not so odd when you understand that this way, now their ankle, either having really bad arthritis, or you know, it's giving out a lot or they're losing strength. Well, it's because that area was never healed. It's that simple, right. So everything has to just constantly have that flow. So in conclusion, one of the best ways that we can do so is through herbal medicine to to fill ourselves up to nourish ourselves, but the herbs also have so many functions, of nourishing of breaking things down of detoxifying all those things. And acupuncture can do the same through different acupressure points through different systems of acupuncture study, and understanding. A practitioner can use needles on any one of these points in the way that they know that they're going to affect your body in a positive way. And it starts to open things up. And in the end, when people always ask, you know, Dr. Kim, what is the secret to youth to beauty to health to wellness, I always say it comes down to two main things, which is function and flow, everything has to function properly. And when we feed it properly, with all the things I just mentioned, so we're nourished as beings, that makes everything function properly, our body is miraculous. And if we give it what it needs, it knows what to do most of the time, right. And then you have to have flow, so everything's functioning, and everything's flowing, then you do not have sagging skin, you have a lot less wrinkles on your face, because you're nourished, you know, you don't have as much pain throughout your body. And that's, that's the way of understanding it very simply put. So

Amy: 21:55

it's so interesting, is so cool. I never thought about the meridians, and like the flow piece in that way. So that's a really good visual for for people to understand it. And when you were talking about the blockages, is that also related, you know, you hear so much about inflammation. So like, does that lead to inflammation, when you have blockages, labs,

Dr. Janelle Kim: 22:17

your inflammation and one way of understanding is just your body's way of telling your brain I have a problem, like Come quick. If you look at it that way. That's right formation is right. And so it's your it's certainly an imbalance in your body that's looking for help. So

Unknown: 22:32

I love that you gave us a few small acupressure points or things that someone can do for themselves at home. I mean, I understand the importance of, you know, if you if there's a problem, you should really seek the help of an acupuncturist and everything. But something as simple as being able to relieve a headache with that is is amazing. And it would benefit someone to, to maybe if they're if they're struggling with headaches or something like that, just to maybe Google the meridian system and kind of understand where these acupressure points are just as maybe if they wanted to get their toes wet, and then and then dive deeper and go into acupuncture. So it we just covered that it can affect every system in the body, and can then be beneficial for any and every condition. Acupuncture. Sure, if

Dr. Janelle Kim: 23:22

you look at it, that acupuncture can balance imbalances. Absolutely, it can. Absolutely it can, you know, obviously there's more extreme conditions. But also part of the goal with really understanding our body in this way is to hopefully be able to catch before something bigger happens, you know, a lot of times these things, sometimes it happens and it's just, you know, it's just part of what you have to walk through in this life for a very simple way of putting it. But there are so many times where if you looked a little bit deeper, or you were a little bit more aware of your body, you could have caught something a bit sooner. And we do hear that very often on a very positive note, I felt like something was wrong. I went to this expert, they didn't see it, but I knew it how many times we hear the story. So I kept going, that's an awareness that's knowing your own body. And there's very empowering, you know, and very important to be aware.

Unknown: 24:09

Yeah, and also, you know, something to really consider if you are struggling with something and going through a journey and seeing Western doctors and you're in the process of trying to find a diagnosis or whatever it may be or you just have this concern, it can be a really great time to just go ahead and like you said, try to get ahead of it and start start with acupuncture. And also it's it works equally as well for things like anxiety and depression and

Dr. Janelle Kim: 24:34

everything very much. So herbs and acupuncture can make a huge difference in this. Especially after we all just kind of visualize this together of how everything connects in that way. You know, we because we are again we say these things a lot and one of my favorite things living meditation is to stop and think about what we're saying. Sometimes we all we often say Mind, Body Spirit, we're all aware of what that is right? But when you really think about mind, body spirit, it's that connect it like we are those three things. And so when mentally, spiritually, we feel an imbalance, especially when it's things that are a little bit harder to understand sometimes like anxiety, like panic, right, like depression, you know, I'm saying a lot of conditions right now. But we get the understanding, right? When we feel off that way, we have to remember that we can also affect those things physically, particularly with movement. That's one of the reasons why, you know, quite frankly, I didn't think I'd start teaching movement, this soon, I thought, okay, medicine, then the book will come out and later down the road. But guess what, it's catching on very quickly. And I know that the reason is that even through proper movements, particularly stemming from the internal art of yoga, of Qigong, which is what I very much resonate with, and start to teach. It also, as I said, before, starts to work with your meridian systems. So when you're feeling just like I said, You are aware enough to feel oh, wait a second, I'm starting to feel anxious. There are very quick ways sometimes the quickest is through movement, you know, through movement and breath, I really, really mean that, especially with, with feelings of anxiety, and feelings of grief, or fear, or any of the our emotions that can kind of overwhelm us to be honest, we really do have control over whether we feel like we do at times or not, we can learn to have tools to help us with those things. You know, so it's very empowering. Um, oh, go ahead.

Amy: 26:22

So I have a question that people may be wondering. So when I first went to the acupuncturist they looked at, or actually he did this, like every time I came in, yes, looked at my tongue. So what is that? What is your tongue tell you? Like? Why is that so it seems like that's a standard practice

Dr. Janelle Kim: 26:39

that a lot of the main thing is when you walk in to talk to an acupuncturist, or a bolus for that matter that they should look at, that they usually will look at as your tongue and your pulse. Right. So that's kind of a known thing. And Eastern medicine. So your tongue and your pulse, which shows all the different kind of levels of every organ system in your body, and there's different, so many pulses, to understand what's happening, but your tongue reflects what's happening internally, inside, right. And so different different, like, for example, this is one that people might find interesting, you go, and you look at your tongue, and you you can kind of know certain things yourself as well. So a lot of us will have if you if you look in the mirror, a red tip on the edge of our tongue, and that represents now understand this is different than Western medicine. But in Eastern medicine, we call it Hearthfire. Hearthfire, stems a lot from right, that or can lead to rather is the root of anxiety, you know, feeling of panic, feeling overwhelmed. And that is an imbalance, which, particularly in our society, I have a feeling a lot of us may have. And so, yes, you're, you can map out the organ systems on your tongue. That's what I'm trying to say you there's, there's a map, if you will, a system to feeling the pulse and the different organs. So it basically is a way for the practitioner, the doctor to see and not everyone, you know, everyone's at different places in their in their practice and their experience in treating patients. And that's very, very important. But basically, you can see the internal condition through the tongue and through the pulse. And quite frankly, one of my favorite ways that I was taught since I was I don't know, as far back as I can remember, and just part of natural life. But, you know, without I say, it's funny, I don't notice either in some way, but when you walk in front of me, you also look at everything in that person, their eyes, how that looks, their skin tone, and I'm not talking Oh, you look really, you don't you look, you look really tired note, it's deeper than that you can tell from someone's even their face, what's going on inside. And so it's kind of this hole. So I say if you stand in front of me, I just naturally, accidentally will always close you. And so it's not a conscious thing. But if you ask me, I'm like, Oh, yes, I already know. And it's, it's a really important practice, actually, when you do start to just pay attention. That's the thing that's so beautiful as a practitioner is our responsibility to know that I take that very seriously. But even as human beings, you know, take the time to sometimes sit, quiet yourself, calm yourself and, and really start to study in some way. Not necessarily from a peer trying to figure someone out, but really from just their presence, their feeling, you know, the eyes, show the soul and your spirit. And so a lot of times you'll see when someone you know is not having the best day or is not in a great spot. Something is amiss. That's a very interesting

Amy: 29:26

yeah, I think we noticed that because I mean, I think we observe ourselves in that way. But I think it's almost easier to observe other helplessly like if your kid Yeah, feeling ill, right because they look a little pale or they're like just you could just tell love

Dr. Janelle Kim: 29:40

that actually, yes, particularly in our kids. And and let that be a reminder of how intuitive and how much we really do know these things. You know, we can't guess there's also let me be very clear, because I think there's a lot happening in the world right now where a lot of people are sharing things that although I'm very happy, didn't know we were I was going to go here with all of us today, but let's just do it. I'm very happy that people are sharing more in this world is opening, but also let it be known, there might be a lot of information out there that is not correct and not proper. And that does exist, you know. So I'm a huge supporter of people, it's important to know where it comes from. Right? So the acupuncturist, where did they go to school? How long have they been studying, just because they haven't been there forever does not mean that they're not have a certain gift or care or are very much experts in who they are. But there's something that comes with time and experience or who is your teacher and Eastern medicine, philosophy, martial arts, yoga, any of the ancient practices, people want to know who your teacher is. And that's something that in Western society, I have a feeling we're going to start to understand a little bit more, it's going to be important, and a time where everyone is an expert, it feels our code, right? I don't mean that respectfully, but we're talking now we're working with other people use their lives, like you don't mess around with that. Not that anyone even means to, but it's very important to know who you're going to what products you're buying, who formulated them, why did they what did they know? Even your skincare? You know? So I'd say that that is a huge thing that I think is important for people to be aware of.

Unknown: 31:08

Is that so? So those are great tips for helping someone find an acupuncturist locally because it is very readily available now, which is fantastic. I mean, we have multiple acupuncturist and in my little town, so what would you say are? Do you just suggest they just write up find out ask, you know, the questions you just mentioned, how does someone know that they're going to a trusted person? Yes. And

Dr. Janelle Kim: 31:35

it is? That is yes, I love this question. I would, I think it's very important. I wish there was a perfect equation and there is not but thing is that, like I said, there are some people who are gifted, there are some people who even young have connected to a certain teacher or master. acupuncturists are of all ages. So I would start there, where did you learn from? You know, are you accredited? That's very important. I think nowadays, you don't have as much of that as you did. But at the same time, I want to remind us, you know, if you go to the mountains of China, I don't think they're going to show you some beautiful diploma, you know, and so let that be in the backyard seriously, you know, or sometimes even, you know, sharing and educating about herbs. I, I'm a huge proponent of studies and understanding and science, but also something being around for 1000s of years makes a difference. And if you go and try to ask the Korean farmer and the ginseng, you know, a mountain of Korea who's growing ginseng, and he's trying to find it, you ask him, if it's organic, he's gonna think there's something he has no clue what you're even talking about. Remember these things, but going to what you're saying, right? I mean, we have the perspective, it's the most important thing, right? But But ultimately, it is very important is going back to what you were saying, Katie, that you have to find someone who knows what they're doing, period, end of story. And you can find that out? Where did you go to school? How long have you been practicing? Do you have a certain Do you have a teacher? Do you have a route? I think that's really important. You know, it's one way doesn't mean they have to, but if they do have these things, there's a good chance that they're going to very be able to help you in a very wonderful way. You know, the beautiful thing about acupuncture. I feel comfortable saying I check myself of course. But, you know, in general, it's not as hard to hurt someone, you certainly you can don't get me wrong, it's nice to know at least that if you go and try it, you know, it's not, you know, something, if you take too much of a medication, and it's not proper for you, guess what, you're in a lot of trouble. And so someone better not terribly envy, yes, it's not terribly invasive, they can you can feel a little difference with your chi, which is not so great and fun. But you know, it's not the end of the world. So it's worth it to try and also see what people's specialties are. A lot of times, there will be certain people as as it very well should and can be that specialize in certain things specialize in helping with hormonal imbalance helping with orthopedic type of issues and imbalances, digestion, you will find people who just tend more towards a certain condition, if you will, doesn't have to be but but that's always a neat thing, mostly because they have so much experience in that. So that was the next thing. So where did they go to school? What are their their credentials? Right? Very important always. Also, how long have you been practicing? Usually, in general, it's the wisdom of things, right? If someone has been practicing for a long time, it means they've seen a lot of people. And there's something that comes with that. I don't mind that at all, you know, and then you try it, and then you're aware of your own body. So let me tell you, if you go to an acupuncture treatment, it is fine to be relaxed, calm. In fact, that's what you look for. But if you are feeling particularly drained a little off, you know, doesn't mean you go and get mad at acupuncturists per se, but just know okay, maybe that wasn't the most balanced and then also don't give up. Go and try just like you get a second opinion or go go somewhere else. Hopefully you don't even have to get there. But just know that we're all people. We all come from different stages. I'm pretty certain anyone you go to is going to care. I can't. I might be a little naive, but I can't imagine that someone would ever put themselves in that position without caring. And so you know, those are the things you can look got four. So

Unknown: 35:02

and it should yeah, go ahead. I was just, I was just gonna say really quickly that it should be noted, I've experienced acupuncture and I know Amy, you have as well for someone that never has. It's not painful. It's, you know, it can be a very relaxing, calming experience. And, Amy, after you ask your question, I'd love to, at one point get into just some of the benefits that someone should expect. But what are you going to say me?

Amy: 35:26

Oh, I was just going to make a comment. It's important about asking those questions, because which is really good. So at this point, acupuncture is very readily available on campus is wonderful. And it seems like now it's out, there's a lot of, you know, private practices, the person I went to is like a traditional Chinese medicine person. But then there's also these wellness centers, or people that do like chiropractic and physical therapy that have acupuncture. So there, which is like, great, I think, because it's integrating that practice into more maybe traditional ways of healing. But those backgrounds might be a bit different, right, than like the TCM CCed methods. And does that matter? Or is it more just like asking the questions and making sure that they're

Dr. Janelle Kim: 36:14

absolutely, I appreciate you bringing this up, because there is a difference. And let me just put it this way. My master's, I finished everything a bit quick, quickly. But you have to have a bachelor's, first of all, if I remember correctly, don't mark my words, it's been 20 years, and we have to have undergrad school, and then you go to study acupuncture. And when you get your Masters, I'm pretty certain gosh, I should have thought about this first, but it's at least three years, three to four years of schooling. And then on top of that to your doctorate is so I did not finish school until I was what 35 I mean, let's be clear here. Some of the other practitioners out there who want to incorporate acupuncture into their clinic does not mean maybe there's someone who is just naturally gifted and connects with it, maybe they have a certain teacher, and they're not necessarily an acupuncturist. But a lot of people can go to school right now, and spend X number of hours, like a couple of days and have some kind of acupuncture certificate, you know, forgive me, I don't I'm not as into acupuncture oil in this way. But I think you're onto my drift here, that there's a big difference between going and having a couple of seminars, versus this getting two years of study of acupuncture, and that's your, your focus. And that does exist. And that does occur.

Amy: 37:27

And I think that's a really good watch out for our listeners, because you really want to look at their background. So you're comfortable that this person has been studying it for years, and they're not taking like a weekend course and learning how to do because you're right, that probably does happen with places that want to just integrate that in. So it's a, it's something

Dr. Janelle Kim: 37:46

and many of them might have, this is the beautiful thing about acupuncture, going back to that understanding of how our bodies work, you know, it could just be that you stimulate a few points and all of a sudden it makes the flow happen and open to the dam, and you feel so much better. So it's not that it won't necessarily help you. But there's a difference.

Unknown: 38:04

That's it's interesting. And so the some of the benefits, I'm just curious, aside from let's say, you go to an acupuncturist for hormonal imbalance, and they help you with that. Does does acupuncture has a whole bullet? Will it do other things? Will it help with other systems just naturally start to balance all of those meridians? Or is it so targeted?

Dr. Janelle Kim: 38:28

No, I would actually it's it helps to the way I treat, right. So I at this point, I was focused more on herbal medicine as comes from my lineage. But in in clinic, when I did treat what I do find moments to treat now and again, and most of the teachers and very, very well known acupuncturist that I am aware of you treat root, right? So that's the whole point of Eastern medicine, you always look at the root. So one thing I wanted to say before is when you walk into clinic, there might be other things that occur and that diagnosis section of your time with with whatever acupuncturist or practitioner, they will feel your pulse, they will look at your tongue, they may do other things. But then there's a series of questions that they go through, that are really important to pay attention to these are things that you as a human being should be paying attention to all of the time. How are you sleeping? What is your sleep light? If you wake up? When do you wake up? Is it you have trouble falling asleep? Or do you wake up in the middle of night? All these things mean something? How you use the restroom? How many times a day? You know what I mean? What does that look like? I mean, it actually gets very specific and I speak no out now more as a doctor, but those things are really important to understand and to keep track of yourself. So that's one way I want to answer your question Katie is it is very much it's all stepped because you look at the root of the issue. Right? And so it very much can treat symptoms as well but different than, you know modern medicine and that it just treats the symptoms and does not always get to the root to try to balance that to begin with. And so when you think of it that way, that particularly a lot of the practice or cuz I know myself included, that you may come with something that you might be so specific. And I'm going to you know, you have you have a rash on your face, right? And I'll start to treat your digestive system. Right, I'll start to treat your middle. Because while you have and with, with the formulas I created as well, that's exactly what happens. You come to me you say there's a certain thing, where is it on your body? I see it for a minute, I can tell what kind of properties is it? You know, is it more internal? Is it something that kind of aggravated you externally all those things matter, for example, but there's a very good chance I will be treating your entire condition, because that is what's going to actually make it rebalance itself, if that makes sense. So when you think of it that way, I would go so far as to say I can't think of one condition that acupuncture and herbal medicine cannot in some way positively affect not one, you know, there are certain things and also I'm a huge proponent, let it be known, this might shock some people. I'm a huge proponent of Western medicine as well, but know when to use it. That's the thing, we can point all the fingers, we want, you know, but at the end of the day, your point one, three are pointing back at you, one of my favorite thing is like you have to know what you're doing. You cannot just go to your experts, they they should have a responsibility. And really hold that very, as a very important thing in life. However, you have to know your own body, like always goes back to that. So there's a time for Western medicine. When you need antibiotics, you go get antibiotics, when an incredible thing that modern medicine we have today. But don't just take antibiotics, because you know, you have a cough. I mean, even modern medicine would tell you now go home and people get mad like, No, that's a beautiful thing that they're teaching you right now. So it's just that balance. But yes, in the long run, pretty much you can treat anything, treat the wrong word, it can help to rebalance anything.

Amy: 41:48

Yeah. So I have a question. For the average person who wants to go to to acupuncture, let's just do a few scenarios. So like I was going for, for quite a long time as it was part of the pandemic, and then everything, you know, I couldn't go in session, but because I have similar migraines, and I found that it really helps with just like balancing out. So every time I'd go, I'd be like, this is bothering This is bothering me, or nothing's bothering it was more for maintenance, which I thought was really helpful, um, added a habit and they issue back however, for that for for someone who maybe has an autoimmune or like chronic condition, is it? Is it a good idea to go to acupuncture is like maintenance? And it's what does that look like? Is it once a month? Is it once a week? And then for other people that maybe just have like shoulder pain or something very specific? Like, what does that look like? Because I know some people could go to acupuncture once and be like, Oh, it did, right? Which is ridiculous. Because they have to you need to go at times in order for it to take effect. So if you could just talk our listeners through that a little bit, I think

Dr. Janelle Kim: 42:46

absolutely. So first of all, what you said I love, I love reminding people, including myself, our bodies took this much time to get to have this imbalance, you have to give it a little bit of time to rebalance itself, right. And so. So I think that's a very important thing to acknowledge. And to know, sometimes you can go to an acupuncturist, and within the first time you feel huge difference, and it's lasting. So let's put that out there as well. But yes, it can take a little bit of time, it really depends on every single person, and every single imbalance or condition that you have, you know, and that's, it seems like so redundant, but that's because it's just the truth. You know, so you are with issues with sleep, you may go with, you know, mental emotional type of imbalances, your anxiety, your, you know, you may go with shoulder pain, and it just truly depends on how your body is able to rebalance itself, how open you are to how much how many years you've had this, those things do make a difference. And so there isn't just one way. So it just the mere nature of being human means that no matter what we do, we can eat the very best we can have the perfect sleeping schedule, whatever that is, you can make a point here we can we can live a you know, relatively calm life and all these things will make a huge difference. But the nature of being human means we are getting young, it means we will always have good, but we will always have bad, you know, period if you look if you really break it down. So it's very important for us to take care and maintain. So even if we say preventative medicine, okay, I totally agree with that. But maybe it is just a maintenance of making sure we're constantly nourished and supplemented, and whether that is through acupuncture herbs, because remember, they kind of they, they can do similar things different, same, same but different. But we're so for example, for myself, I incorporate a lot of herbal medicine into my life. I'm a fairly healthy person, I'm very aware and very conscious of how I live, eat all the things. One of the most important I was actually just speaking to a girlfriend yesterday, which I say that you know, with love, and I highlight that because sometimes it's the people closest to you that you don't really have these conversations because it's just the nature of humanity and how we relate to each other. But we gotten to this conversation and I mentioned to her I think maybe the most important thing, one of the most important things in life is eating properly. And it's Simple, it doesn't have to be so extreme. Yes, don't eat a lot of greasy fatty foods, you know, don't eat a lot of fried foods, for example, eat a balanced diet. But one of the most important thing is in our health, I'm sorry, I know I'm going off a little bit, but here's our time together, is you have to eat consistently. You know, that's one of the most important thing isn't Eastern medicine to eat consistently, I enjoy two meals a day, it works for my body, if I wake up, and I'm really, really hungry, guess what, I'm going to eat something, you know, and then that's how we have to look at things. But eating is so important. Then on top of that, like for maintenance of our health, our youth, our beauty, all the things are Mind, Body Spirit. So and then maybe, maybe seasonally, seasonally is a great way, if you're feeling really great, how do I incorporate these things when seasonally is always a good, good time to do it? Right. So when the seasons change, maybe you go and you get acupuncture, you know, maybe you take a regimen or herbal formulations, internal, you know, even the skincare that I formulate for companies, you know, around the world, ultimately, a lot of those body lotions will have certain herbs that detoxify you throughout the day. So it's incorporating things into your life that will help you now if you have an actual condition, go and then depending on that practitioner and how they're going to treat you, they should give you an idea of how many treatments you're going to need. Usually in the beginning, you'll have a lot more, maybe you'll come multiple times in one week, maybe you'll come two times for a couple of weeks. And then it'll start to taper off a bit where it's more of a maintenance. Right. And so that's kind of what that looks like. As far as acupuncture.

Unknown: 46:30

Yeah, I love the idea of adding for those that that are just, you know, in kind of like a maintenance phase of adding acupuncture in seasons. As things shift and change, I might try that because it's true, this season changes always kind of just messily as

Amy: 46:45

as they do affect your body. Absolutely. Yeah,

Dr. Janelle Kim: 46:48

maybe it's a strange way of saying it, but as it should, meaning it's part of nature, you know, these things happen, it's part of time, and I feel like even when it comes to hormonal imbalance, something else I was talking to someone recently, you know, and going through menopause, I feel like we make it such a horrible thing. I'm just gonna say it for all of us. Oh, no menopause. So like, by the time even get there, your body's already so heightened and afraid and everything's off balance, you probably manifested a million more symptoms than you even need it because you were so scared. We all understand this. Let's just say it for all of us. But if we start to even start at certain points in Herbalife to realize you know it, it is part of nature, for a moment in time, I might feel a few things and it is going to be okay. And I'm going to be aware of my body, I'm going to know that by taking certain supplements, by eating properly, especially during that time, by giving myself a little bit more nourishment and awareness, I can kind of go with that flow doesn't mean it's always going to be you know, the most enjoyable experience. But just you can just feel right now coming into it a little differently, how much that's going to help because remember our hormones and our brain, they're very connected. Right, and she you can look at it that way too. And so it's just that it can be so powerful in and of itself. So

Amy: 48:05

yeah, I was also gonna say, just for for people listening, just so you know, or at least my insurance and a lot of people that I've spoken to insurance covers acupuncture, which a lot of people don't know, which I think is amazing, because it does show the value in it, and you're not paying out of pocket for all of this. So I know many insurance companies cover acupuncture, which I think is fabulous. And one other just slight anecdote, which I probably told Katie before, but and I'm sure those who are listening to this podcast already are believers in a lot of these things. But for people who are like a little bit like, Oh, that's too Whoo, that doesn't work, like whatever. I wanted to acupuncture once. And I was like, my period was late. I'm so bloated. I just felt like, just bloated and like full. And I knew my period is coming, but it like was late or stagnant. So I said to my eyes, were just stagnant. Exactly. So he's like, Oh, I just feel like balloon and like, whatever. So he forgot even where he did it next day. So I was like, okay, there you go. Like that, to me was such a turning point. Not that I didn't like I was an introvert before, but that was like very, it was very specific. And so I've told a lot of people that because like, that was clearly because he treated Yes, absolutely. You know, it was pretty direct way

Dr. Janelle Kim: 49:20

of saying, you know, you make things flow. I mean, I don't mean to but like, yeah, it wasn't like a

Amy: 49:25

situation. It was like one day Yeah. And the next day, I'll get

Dr. Janelle Kim: 49:28

great examples to that time a month for women to understand the feeling of stagnation. And then when things start to flow, and then what happens I mean, that is actually really a very good example to be aware of that. That is that is how it works with our body and all the systems not just you know that particular time, but in our life, all of it, but you can feel it. You know, PMS is a time of stagnation period.

Amy: 49:53

You know, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. We could talk about this forever, but I you know, you have limited time. And we appreciate all the time you've spent with us. And we asked you, we went through a rough session last night. So I'll just ask you one question from our obsession, because this could always be changing. So what is your latest favorite wellness or beauty?

Dr. Janelle Kim: 50:11

My latest favorite wellness or beauty hack? Oh, gosh,

Amy: 50:14

I can't remember last time remember either you said it was okay. Right now

Dr. Janelle Kim: 50:19

in my life, like right this moment? What comes to mind because I am practicing it is my movement that goes back to that right now that is very, very important in my life, because like I said, It directly affects when no matter what, if I wake up in the morning, I have 15 minutes of movement that I will start to share more on my platform. I know I say this, and then everyone's like, Well, where do I go, you know, and it can be striking I write there's a specific sequence, one of which I do have up on my website, I promise I will make more soon. But they're quick. They're quick, very proper movements that have been passed down for centuries, because they can quickly affect your body. And so that, to me, is a beauty activity. Because when you're stressed, when you are tired, your chi goes off balance all the things we just talked about. And as simple Chi Gong type of movements can make you feel like a totally different person in five to 10 minutes. I mean, are breathing it has a lot to do very least just sit down I just posted something on my social where just stop and breathe for a second that is so important. You know, even that noise is really funny. I was thinking about this last night because I what do I want to share because there's something people really resonated and loved the breathing exercise. And something that can be really important. Maybe the people around you are not going to love it that I'm sharing this with you. But that stagnation. I were like ready to leave and I'm opening up a hole I promise I'll be quick. But stagnation, no Ilana whenever the best quickest ways to kind of diffuse stagnation in our body which causes liver Qi stagnation livers are general and so you can tell when someone comes in, you're like, oh geez, here we go. Very liberties that person is you can sigh like, it sounds funny, but that directly affects your body. Right? So that's why he's physically with our breath, we can totally adjust our body and when everything's flowing and we're a little less stressed, then it directly affects how we look or beauty or wellness or health. And then of course I have to say I mean the formulas that I create I'm so very grateful for my own career and job that I do because my my bathroom looks like my lab and I'm constantly using different herbal formulations and ingredients. So that will always be so I love right now I'm loving a serum I think a serum is very important in our beauty regimen. So there you go some Chi Gong young son moving meditation and

Unknown: 52:43

love. Well, Dr. Kim, thank you so much for your time it was such a pleasure to see you you always bring us so much positive energy and so many great tips and so much loaded with so much advice and knowledge so we really appreciate your time and I know our listeners will love learning about acupuncture is a topic we have not touched at all. So it's a lot of fun to get into. It's

Dr. Janelle Kim: 53:04

I love that it's my absolute pleasure. I'm so so happy to spend time with you both and to share all that I can

Amy: 53:11

love it. Thank you so much stopping recording. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to buy

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Episode 100 - 100 Episodes! What We Have Learned + Exciting Announcements! (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 100.

[00:07] Amy: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are Sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

[00:18] Katie: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

[00:24] Amy: You um, hello and welcome back to the show Nirvana Sisters Family. This is a very, very special episode. We are celebrating 100 episodes today. I cannot believe it, Katie. I'm literally in disbelief. I know, but we're here.

[00:43] Katie: Congrats. Woohoo.

[00:46] Amy: Congrats to you too. I just cannot believe how far we've come. This was a nugget of an idea, what, two years ago? Two ish two and a half years ago, and we've done 100 episodes. So first and foremost, I just want to thank you for being my partner in crime, my sister in law, one of my best friends. I just think so much has changed over the last couple of years for us, and I think we've gotten so much closer because of this podcast, because we're connecting on things more often. We're talking all the time. We're business partners. We've become closer friends. It's just like the whole thing has been so amazing. It's just like thinking about it. We're always so rushed. We were just talking before we started this recording. We're so rushed, we don't really get a chance to reflect. So my first thank you is to you.

[01:36] Katie: That's really sweet. Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm in shock and disbelief that we're at 100 episodes, but at the same time, we've done everything souped to nuts for this thing. So it's also like kind of when you think about the weight of all the work that we've done, you can feel that as well. And it feels like a huge accomplishment. And I want to thank you too. I love you so much. And this was your idea. This is like your little you called me one day. I remember when you said this to me. I was sitting on the corner of my bathtub in my old house, looking out the window, thinking, she's insane. How are we going to do a podcast? Look, here we are. And it has it's been great. Here we are.

[02:16] Amy: Yeah, I know. It's just crazy how if you put your mind to something, you can have a nugget of an idea and you put your mind to something and do it and keep doing it and keep doing it over and over again, and it grows and more people know about it. And all of our listeners have been so incredible. So thank you to everyone listening. Thank you for all your support, all your comments, all your feedback. It's just been so encouraging to hear from you and to hear about what you want to hear about when you like something, when you don't like something. And so, yeah, we're just going to spend the next few minutes just kind of talking through the last 100 episodes and some of the highlights. And we also have some exciting announcements we're going to talk about at the end. So, yeah, just thank you to everyone who has supported and listened to us over the last few years. We're just so excited we've reached this really huge milestone and can't wait for more. So, Katie, what's your takeaway from these last 100 episodes, if you have one?

[03:11] Katie: Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's hard to just have one other than I've learned so much. And a massive thank you to all of our unbelievably talented and intelligent and powerful guests that we've had. We've spoken to some of the most amazing entrepreneurs, some of the most amazing doctors. I've learned so much. I think I could touch on a few of probably the most powerful ones that have resonated with me the most. The most recent one would be Dr. Angela Holiday Bell on sleep hygiene. She just like, tapping into she really helped me kind of understand what I need to be doing to kind of reel my sleep in. And that literally has kind of changed my life. The thing as simple as wearing blue lights when you watch TV before you go to bed helped me fall asleep faster and helping me understand why I need more time to wind down because I have a harder time producing melatonin, like does all of that. And then Jessica McGuire. Remember Jessica McGuire from the Vagus Nerve talking about the nervous system? The Vagus Nerve, I think that was the single most powerful episode out of all of our 100 episodes for me personally, the window of tolerance, understanding what it means to have a dysregulated nervous system, recognizing someone's dysregulated nervous system, and then learning how to co regulate. It's helped me. It's helped my husband, it's helped my kids. That episode was really profound for me. And, I mean, I could say that about so many of them. Natasha Brinkman. It's like a master class on skincare, right?

[04:58] Amy: Oh my God, that was amazing.

[05:00] Katie: Obsessed. What about you? What are some of yours?

[05:05] Amy: Honestly, I'm like sitting here scrolling through all of these 100 episodes, and I think for me, there were pieces of information that I've gotten from every single episode that I've applied to my life. I mean, to your point. Like The Vagus Nerve episode and breathing from Erica Brunozer and talking about parenting tips and how to talk to your kids, that one was really helpful for me. Also, shout out to Zoe Feldman. I was just looking. She was our first official guest on Nirvana Sisters in episode six. So we love Zoe, and so many of our kind of like, people that we knew, friends of friends of Friends kind of started out with us in the beginning and then we sort of grew from there. And I think I've just taken bits and pieces, like whether it be from Cat Can Cook and The Hungry Lady salad to, like you said, skincare with Natasha or hormone stuff with Michelle Aspinwall. Also, of course, one of my favorites was talking to Ellie Webb, which was definitely a dream come true for me, and talking to Brittany Driscoll and talking to some of these business leaders, just getting advice on entrepreneurial stuff and how to balance motherhood and working and all of these things. So I don't know, it's so hard to pick a favorite. I think for me, it's just taking bits and pieces of all of these things and using the ones that work for me. And I think from a listener standpoint, too, it seems like people listen to the episodes that they're interested in and then they take pieces from that. And it's like everyone that we have on is an expert in something, but it doesn't mean that what they're saying works for everyone. And so I think that using some of these bits and pieces across all the episodes helps you in whatever way you want. I also thought I'm just kind of scrolling through and looking like episode 50, the psychedelic therapy with Julia Mirror was just so fascinating. Like, it's so out of our ether and something we don't really talk about and think about, but just learning about that. And I also find now that I'm talking to people or a subject comes up and it's related to any one of our episodes, whether it was chiropractics or psychedelics or vagus nerve or chromal wellness, even, I find that I have this information somehow stuck in the back of my head and I just regurgitate it, not even realizing that I knew it. Yeah, because we're just picking up pieces of information as we go. It's just kind of like sinking in and then you do something differently and you're like, oh, yeah, I learned that in this Chroma episode. Or I learned this from Janelle Kim when we talked to her about traditional Chinese medicine. And I think we've made so many great connections with other women, which I really like, too. When we think about someone like Rachel Johnson, who we did the episode on, it was episode 63 when we talked about Green's Water Move Repeat and her whole company, AMI Health. It's just been great to meet these other women who were doing similar things to us, and we're all sort of this family and everyone supports each other, which I think is so nice about the podcasting world. There's so many podcasts, but in a good way, right? Like, everyone encourages each other and everybody wants to help, and it's just like one big podcast family, I feel like. And when we meet all these women that are in wellness or View Your Skincare, everyone's excited for everyone and everyone celebrates one another. And I really like that about this space.

[08:27] Katie: Yeah, it's incredibly supportive. I think you're exactly right. We've had a few amazing male guests also, that we've learned a lot from I think it's funny, when we first started, we didn't know if we were going to necessarily lean more female centric and it's just kind of been a natural gravitation. But it's all part of that support system and I'm really proud of it, actually. I think it's great. And it's also when you were talking about things that you learned and I was also just thinking about a way that this has kind of shaped me as a person. Doing this with you for the last two years is it's just made me more confident. When I meet new people, I almost find them. Like, I'm like and I'm not interviewing them, but I just have such an easier time meeting new people now because it's what we do. We talk to new people and we interview them pretty much weekly. And then a lot of these people are stuck in my head. They live rent free in my head with some of their amazing quotes like Andrea Marcellus, I just hear her say, like, your afternoon snack should be protein and a healthy fat. And then I hear Dr. Janelle Kim saying things like, stop being drunk on your own thoughts. Or Rachel, you just said Rachel and me greens, water, move, repeat. I can't tell you how many times these things just pop in my head. I'm like, oh yeah, that'll help my day get better. Just follow that. Follow that. So it's amazing. We're really fortunate and grateful to have come across the people that we have and had them on the show.

[09:56] Amy: Yeah, and I also it's funny because I feel like we've done episodes that we aired a long time ago and some of those topics are coming up now, like Fascia or Guaca and all of these things we sort of talked about a couple of years ago that are now coming into the world. And it's just I love learning about things that we see are sort of bubbling up and trending and then all of a sudden you hear them all the time as people's regular vernacular. So I think that's interesting. We also can't forget about our product junkie episodes because I think those have grown and we've gotten a lot of really positive feedback about those. And those are definitely one of my favorites because they're just us talking and chitchatting about what products we like, which we do all the time anyway, which was part of the reason we started this podcast. Like, let's just record our phone conversations and talk about, oh, I tried this, I tried this. So just like, doing all that has been super fun and tapped into the passion that we both had for products and just trying new things and talking about those new things. But I agree with you. When I meet with people, too, I definitely feel more confident and have kind of like, more ways to communicate because I don't think sometimes I'm the best communicator and I think this podcast has helped me to slow down, try and work on not saying as much. I also think it's helped with my public speaking. So from my corporate job, just being confident to go up in front of a room of people and talk, it's like one of those things that everyone's always nervous about no matter how many times you've done it. It's like a scary thing. But I think being able to talk every week on the mic and have it being recorded kind of gives you a lot of practice. So it helps just in general with communication and active listening.

[11:38] Katie: Yeah. Also I've had some just like fun favorite moments. Like nothing is funnier to me than when we're doing product junkies and I hold up a product and you're like, yes, I have that one too. I was going to review it this week. Or how fun is I know, we're like same brain. Exactly. And then seeing our guests in the wild. How wild was that, that you ran into Brittany Driscoll in La a little while ago and then seeing Meredith Quill running into her? Well, we didn't run into her, but going to her event in Westport and those little connections are really special. So yeah, it's all just been a lot of fun.

[12:18] Amy: Yeah, I love it. And it's actually really funny too, because then you start seeing people that we've interviewed connect. Who was it? I think Brittany Driscoll and Katie Whelan, who we just had on recently, talked about all the peptide stuff. They both live in Nashville and I saw that they were on some panel together.

[12:34] Katie: Oh, nice.

[12:34] Amy: And I was just like, oh my God, that's so weird that they happen to be on the same panel. We've had them both on the show, like they're in the same space, so it's just like all these crazy worlds colliding. But I think it's just this was definitely born out of a passion project. It still is. And I wanted to also talk a little bit about the blood, sweat and tears that this has been for us because again, we're busy and running and everyone says to me, and I'm sure they say to you too, like, how are you doing at all? And the answer is, I have no idea. But I think when you have a passion and you enjoy something, it doesn't matter and you just kind of figure out a way to do it. Nothing is perfect. Of course. It's like we always say, we could be doing more, we could be doing this, we could be doing that. But at the end of the day, we make **** happen. And I think it's really hard to do being like having another full time job, being a mom, doing this. We do this on the nights, we do this on the weekends, we do it when we can squeeze it in, but it's ours and we can kind of figure it out as we go. And I think for you, Katie, a lot has evolved in your world, too, from where you were to where you are now. So I kind of want to get your thoughts on how you're balancing it and how you're feeling because I think we don't spend enough time reflecting on that part.

[13:38] Katie: Yeah, no, I think that's really true. It's funny, I have been thinking recently about how happy I am with the balance in my life right now, because when we first started, I was a stay at home mom and I was wanting something more, so we did this. But then there was moments where it was so overwhelming because I hadn't worked in a decade. And then I have just gone back to my other job recently. And while there's a lot going on, I just feel like every box is being ticked right now. Like, I have my family time, I have my passion project, my passion job, which is this that's like, fun and so exciting. I have my work, which is also great, and I'm making my own money. So while the balance of it can be a struggle at times, it's very fulfilling and well rounded. And I've had moments where I thought, how are we going to keep doing this? But I think that happens when there's unnecessary pressure applied. And I think we've both been really smart about making sure we're just continuously enjoying it and not putting so much pressure on ourselves. And as long as we keep doing that, then we just keep plugging away and trucking away. And now we're doing everything that we do. It's like we could do it in our sleep.

[15:04] Amy: Exactly. I mean, looking back when we first started editing a podcast, we were like, wait, how do you do this? And how do you do this? And now we literally do everything, soup to nuts. And it's time consuming, but we know how to do it and we've become experts in it, which is so cool. I just love learning and to be able to learn a new craft and to be able to produce a podcast. And for people who don't do it, it's really hard to envision what goes into it. But there's probably like, I don't know, 250 steps from like A to Z right, to get it launched on a weekly basis. And it's a lot. And I think just being able to learn another skill set as you're moving along your life is so important. We're learning every week. Every time we talk to someone, we're learning new information. I think we're both learners and we love to learn, especially when it comes to something that we're personally passionate about. But just learning a new skill is so rewarding. I mean, just like, this is so technical and so different than what I do in my marketing role of big ideas and all this strategy work. And this is so technical editing and producing, but I really love it, like, getting into the nitty gritty. It's actually like I love producing the episodes and launching sometimes more than other things. I don't know why. And I know for you, Katie, you didn't know much about social media before, and you've learned how to use that tool really well. And I just think it's so cool.

[16:29] Katie: Yeah, I think so, too. I'm incredibly proud of us, and also we keep each other accountable and we keep each other in the game. And if there's a time where you're feeling stressed and crazy and you're not in it, then I try to reel you back in and vice versa. And there's also times where we're perfectly guilty of like, oh, I didn't get that done this week. But it's like we don't beat each other up either. It's like we get the critical stuff done and we keep moving forward. And as we've always said, progress over perfection. And I think that has gotten us very far.

[17:06] Amy: Yeah. And I think especially in the beginning, I think the first probably, I don't know, 2030 episodes were the most challenging because I think you and I struggled a lot and had open communication. Remember, we had some not blowouts, but we definitely had some tough conversations of like, well, who's doing this? And are we doing this every week? And DA DA DA. And, like, until we got our flow, it was like a little, like, tense, right? Like, there were definitely some tense times, looking back, but now I just feel like we're in the flow. And I think, too, I was going to go back to what I was saying about you going back to work. I've actually seen a huge difference because for you, I feel like you're more in a flow than you were before because I feel like it's because you're more structured, right. And, you know, you have to be certain places at certain times. Not that you didn't before, but it's just different. So you almost are more organized and more in the flow. Yeah, I see that. I don't know if you feel that.

[18:03] Katie: But I've definitely noticed that there has been a shift, for sure. And I think also just like, having something else, having my other job, it's released some of the pressure of this and allowed me to enjoy this for what it's always been. It's been our passion and it's fun, and we love doing it together. So I think that has a lot.

[18:27] Amy: To do with it. Yeah, I think you're right. You're totally right. I also think it's given us both more perspective. Like, now that you're back at work, you have a perspective of like, oh, now you sort of know. I know what you go through and you know what I go through when we have other responsibilities that are not just family. Right. And it's like, oh, my God, I have this deadline, or I'm working all day. I'm out and I'm like, okay, I'll do this or you'll do that. I think we bounce off each other really well. So anyway, I'm just trying to think about more fun stories. I think there's like so many random things that have happened throughout the last few years. I mean, I think, again, our guests have been amazing. I think people have been so generous with their time. People have given us so much time and so much of their expertise, and it's just been really gratifying. And again, just want to shout out to all the guests that have been on our show and even some guests more than once.

[19:22] Katie: Yeah, just how generous they have been with sharing their time with not their time, but sharing our podcast with their people and kind of just giving us more exposure and being excited about being on the podcast with us too. I mean, we've had some guests that have a million followers, we've had guests that have 500,000 followers and everything below and in between and above. So we've just been very fortunate. So thank you to all of our amazing guests. And we have amazing guests lined up and more to come, so it's all super exciting.

[20:00] Amy: Yeah, lots more to come. So with that being said, a couple really exciting announcements that Katie and I wanted to share with our amazing listeners. And thank you to our listeners for loving this as much as we do. We love doing it and we do it for you. We do it for us because we love it, but we do it for you more, so because we know you love it too. And you love to get in all the minutiae of the details of health, wellness, beauty like we do. So thank you again.

[20:28] Katie: Yeah, that's exactly what I was just thinking. We have always done this to share with you all because we want you to learn and have access and to have the ability to achieve anything and everything you want for your health and wellness journey. Whether that is just making sure you get in eight cups of water a day or the fact that you do Reiki healing and you work with crystals and you go and do face yoga. Whatever your journey may be, we are just really grateful that we can be a part of it and that we can help you along with it. So thank you.

[21:06] Amy: Yes, good point. And one last thank you before we get to our exciting announcements. Wanted to thank my husband Stu, who really is sort of been my partner in crime behind the scenes in this. He was the one who really gave me the motivation to do this because he knew that I'm an entrepreneur and at heart he knew I love all this stuff. And he's like, you got to do something with it because, yes, you have your other job, but you need to put all this effort into something else. Too, for you. And he kind of gave me a lot of motivation to really even start the idea. And he also came up with the word Nirvana because Katie and I had a list of 50 different titles, which are hilarious, which we should post about one day, but he actually came up with the word Nirvana and he really captured what we were trying to get at, like, what is your Nirvana? What's going to make you feel joyful? So shout out to Stew.

[22:04] Katie: Yeah, thank you still. And thank you to my husband, too. He's been incredibly supportive. Shout out to Adam.

[22:09] Amy: Yes, they've both been super supportive. Okay, a couple big updates.

[22:15] Katie: Big announcements.

[22:16] Amy: Big, I know. So, a few announcements as we close out this episode. So, I don't know if you all know, but we have a website, Nirvanasisters.com, which we've launched kind of in a soft way a couple of months ago. Don't know if any of you have seen it yet, but we've been linking out all of our show notes there and we wanted to just call it out because it's really exciting. We've been working on it behind the scenes for a long time and we're continuing to add to it. And so if you go onto the website now, you'll see every single podcast episode that we've had out, you'll see all the show notes, you'll see all the BIOS, you'll see all the product links. It's all there in the blog. And so we wanted to have a place where you all could go and reference just more content around all of our episodes. So that's really exciting. So we wanted to make sure you checked out Nirvanasisters.com when you get a chance. And Katie. What's next? What else do we have to announce?

[23:02] Katie: Also equally as exciting, the other thing you're going to find on our website is we now have Nirvana Sisters Merch yay. We have great swags, I mean, great sweatshirts and t shirts and tumblers and a hat that I'm obsessed with. Amy has a hat on.

[23:20] Amy: I'm showing everyone the hat. Kind of 1 second. I'm going to do this.

[23:25] Katie: Yeah, the hat's. Super cute.

[23:27] Amy: Everyone check out the hat.

[23:29] Katie: Love the hat. And then check out the sweatshirt and our new logo. My tea. Keep glowing. Nirvana Sisters. Tea. So there's a lot in there and we would love you to just go on there and get whatever you want. You can order it straight from the website. It's so fun. Come straight to your house. Yeah.

[23:47] Amy: That is going to be launching the day that this launches. So our shop will be launching Thursday, April 6, in conjunction with this episode. And like Katie said, there's sweatshirts, hats. We've got a coffee tumbler or coffee mug that says Daily Nirvana. We have a water bottle that says Nirvana in a bottle.

[24:07] Katie: We have a hoodie, a few great hoodies.

[24:11] Amy: Yeah, we've got a really awesome hoodie. We've got shirts that say a few different quotes like keep glowing and hustle and doses and different quotes from a lot of our episodes. And we're going to be continuing to add new products over the next few months. So tell us what you like and we'll keep working on it. We also have our new logo. We're really excited to share with you all, so please check out our website, check out our new store with all of our new merch support us. We are so excited. We've been working in the background on the design of all of our merch. It's really elevated and we're so excited for you all to check it out and let us know what you think. And we'll post some of these products on social throughout the week so you can get a little sneak peek of the shop.

[24:51] Katie: Yeah, exciting. All right. And then here's the last news, and it's very exciting. Amy, do you want to share?

[24:59] Amy: Sure. So we are now joined with Podcast Nation, which is a podcast network, and we are so excited to announce this news. So we're really excited to join the team at Podcast Nation. We started chatting with them a few months ago and they're an incredible group of women. There's about, I think, like 20 or 30 podcasts that are part of this network. And what that means for you is the show is growing, so we'll be connected to more people, more amazing podcasters, we'll have more access to guests. We'll probably be on some more podcasts, and we'll be on the Podcast Nation channel, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, et cetera. And that's going to be happening over the next couple of weeks. But as of today, we've joined their network and we are super excited to be joining the Podcast Nation family. So thank you to that team for welcoming us with open arms as we start this journey with them. So more to come there, but wanted to make sure we shared all of our exciting updates. And again, thank you all for the last 100 episodes. Looking forward to hundreds more with my partner in crime, Katie. Anything else, Katie, before we close out?

[26:10] Katie: No, other than thank you. Thank you, thank you. We are so grateful. We are filled with gratitude for our listeners and our supporters and our guests. And this 100th episode is my Nirvana of the Week, I think of the year. So I don't know about you.

[26:27] Amy: Yeah, agreed, agreed. Huge milestone, Nirvana of the Day in the week, along with our other launches. It's all good stuff and more to come. So. Thank you. Nirvana Sisters family.

[26:37] Katie: Bye.

[26:38] Amy: Have a good week. Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would, please share it and tag us, tune in next. Week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to bye.

[27:04] Katie: You know.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Episode 99 - Wait!? Bread, Butter & Wine With Dinner? Portion Control, Exercise Tips, and Why Heavy Weights with Andrea Marcellus, PART 2 (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 99

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

[00:07] Amy Sherman: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are Sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

[00:18] Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

[00:24] Andrea Marcellus: You. Um.

[00:27] Amy Sherman: Welcome back to the show. Nirvana Sisters Family. We are back with Andrea Marcellus for part two. If you didn't listen to last week's episode, make sure you listen to part one. It was really helpful. This week. We go through many different things, but one of the things we talk about are tips and strategies for eating, especially eating out, eating during the holidays. Andrea has some great techniques that she shared with us. We also talk about why accountability is key and a lot of exercising is a mental game. We talk about different tips for exercising for your age group, and we also get into what heavy weight means. I know for me, I hear lifting with heavy weights all the time, but I don't necessarily know what that means. So she gets into that as well, as well as a few other quick weight routines. Enjoy the episode and thanks for listening.

[01:18] Katie Chandler: I love that.

[01:19] Amy Sherman: Yeah, that's very freeing.

[01:20] Katie Chandler: Yeah, absolutely. So I want to know some quick and easy you've mentioned strategy. Strategy, strategy. And I know you have so many great little tips and strategies and things to use when you're dining out, and maybe just hit us with a couple of your favorites that tend to be really helpful for people.

[01:44] Andrea Marcellus: Well, I can give you dining out. Strategy and holiday strategy are sort of the same thing. I measure food in hand portions because we're getting away from calorie counting or anything like that, and we figure out what's an energy appropriate portion of food for you. So when you approach holidays or you approach, just say, eating out, just try to think in terms of the total portion. How many hands are you going to try to eat at this meal? Like, probably two, three hands. Something in there, right? So I think of it that way. So I definitely sit down, I order a glass of wine. I get bread and butter because I love bread and butter. Oh, my God, wine and bread. I know. I'm everybody's best people. Like, my clients would be like, the first time I would go out to eat with a client for it and everybody's trying to eat right in front of me. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm ordering the pizza.

[02:44] Amy Sherman: Oh, my God, I love it.

[02:46] Andrea Marcellus: I know, but I didn't. I came from the other place. But anyway, so then you start to think about especially if you've been horse and controlling for a while, your stomach's smaller, so you have to think about it. So if, like, appetizers come out, I go, okay, I'm going to have three bites because there's other things I want. If a salad comes, I'm going to eat half the salad because I'm saving room for dinner and dessert. Dinners that come at a restaurant are always at least two food, maybe three. And you can go, okay, and this is my lunch for tomorrow. Like, I'm having this and then you know, I'm going to have this awesome, delicious lunch. That's amazing. And then you have some bites of dessert. But by thinking of it beforehand in terms of, okay, how many hands of food am I going to eat rather than like, trying to I didn't mention at all what I was eating except for bread and butter. Right. It doesn't matter what you eat. If you're portion controlling your social meals, it truly doesn't matter. And if you're optimizing the meals you don't share to be highly nutritious, boy, are you living a good life and you're setting yourself up for great health. Yeah. You're not skip the broccoli and eat all the things you can't get except for that holiday. Just portion control.

[04:04] Amy Sherman: It so about portion control and about the hand idea, I love that I guess it's dependent on the person, but generally speaking, right. How many hands should you have? Because I think we've completely like as a society have no idea because the portions in America are so big that we're all overeating because it's just there, right? Yeah. So what's a good maybe thing to think about?

[04:30] Andrea Marcellus: So in my app I have a chart that's a starter chart. And please keep in mind I literally made this up from a vision. This is literally just a guidepost. I've been doing this particular thing with people for over 15 years and it's literally just a guide to help you figure out what's best for you. And the goal is to be satisfied and have energy to take you just from meal to meal. Nobody here is a farmer. Basically, like, we don't have to eat a big breakfast so that we can get on with the day. And I already established that eating to maintain a workout lifestyle is only going to work if you are a professional athlete or if you are somebody with a very specific physical goal. You're training for an event or you're a bodybuilder. So if you're any of those people, don't listen to me right now. For the rest of us who are just busy working people and want to be able to go out and drink wine and eat bread, start with a breakfast within an hour of waking up or trying to eat one hand of food, or maybe two if you're one of those people. And then that's when the clock starts the day and you eat every two to 4 hours and you're trying to eat for snacks or small meals, you're eating one hand. For lunch or dinner, you're eating two hands. And see how that does for you. And notice I'm not telling you what a hand means. You figure it out for yourself. And I mean, I help people through this, obviously, this is what I do, but that's a guideline I could give you to kind of try to start yourself. The key is with all of these things is accountability. So we all have best intentions. And this is why I'm very happy to offer out my habits or my strategies, because I've been doing this a really long time. The missing piece of all this is when people are making a shift in life and they realize they need to make a change. Accountability helps so much. And there was one study I read where accountability increases your chance of success by 85%.

[06:45] Amy Sherman: Wow.

[06:46] Andrea Marcellus: 85%. And so it's really important to either have the help of a coach or to do things with someone else or in a group or whatever. I can't encourage that enough. And this is coming from someone who never asks for help. I just don't I'm just learning to do that. I think last year, so maybe at 49, I'm getting better. I'm 50 now. I've been doing it for about a year and a half. No, but asking for help changes your life and two, doing things in groups. I've been this lone wolf my whole life in so many ways, and only in the last little bit do I have some groups of like I have a CEO group, I have mentors, I have my bestie girlfriends that I've had forever. But sometimes I'll just get bogged down at work and not rely on that so much. Or I don't want to waste the time telling them stuff that's wrong. Well, I've learned that, wow, groups help, and I can't encourage that enough. So if you decide, look, I'm ready to make a change in my life and I want it to be a real one and a lasting one, you got to go slow and steady. You have to respect yourself and really define who you are before you even start. And then you get help. You get people to keep you accountable, you get people to keep you positive, and you make sure you tell those people your purpose. Motivation comes from purpose. And when you say your purpose out loud to people, it ends up being like in stone. And you can change your purpose, but it really, really helps. It's like dropping a flag, implanting a flag of, this is who I am and this is where I'm headed, and everybody just watch me and please cheer me on.

[08:37] Katie Chandler: I love that. That's great. That is so true. Especially the accountability piece. I mean, I think Amy and I can speak for that just because we've doing this. We have been each other's accountability partner, and I think we're like, approaching 100 episodes, so it says a lot about having somebody to cheer you on and to help you out.

[08:59] Amy Sherman: Yeah, it's so true because there's so many times and also just like, just what you were talking about for exercise groups. Like, I have friends in the neighborhood, and we'll make a plan to do a walk on the weekend. And sometimes you're like, I don't feel like going. But then you're accountable. You're like, you know what? I'm not going to bail on this person. And then you go and you feel so much better. But if you had not made that plan, you would never do it yourself because it's just too hard to motivate yourself sometimes 100%.

[09:23] Andrea Marcellus: It's a mental game. Again, a mental game. I put a feature in my app, literally, just because of this. I made up this thing where so these custom workouts, you can dial up like, you know, I have regular classes, but it's another feature, like, and you can dial up like, there's, I don't know, 30 options in there. You can even say, like, I don't want to mess up my hair. I'm at my desk. I don't want to mess up my hair. I got to zoom. I have ten minutes. Let's do something. But what's cool is you can invite other people to do the workout, live with you on your phone. It's a silent feature. So this was like I was thinking about, why do people come to me? It's to have someone to talk to or to have an appointment time. We're going to do this so you could make up a workout and then text it to your friend and be like, hey, let's meet and do this. And it's really cool, and it's a way of creating that accountability around workouts so that you actually show up for them, because you are more likely to show up for yourself when it involves someone else. Just look at your to do list today. When you look at what actually got to done, it's the things that involved somebody else, and the stuff that was just for you is like, kicked down the list, and maybe you'll get a couple of those things done, but everything for somebody else got done first.

[10:40] Amy Sherman: So true.

[10:41] Katie Chandler: Well, speaking of exercise, a couple of tips to get some exercise in. And also I saw on your TikTok page recently you were suggesting low intensity steady state for a certain age group and high intensity interval training for a different age group. Walk us through that because I'm just so curious as to why.

[11:04] Andrea Marcellus: Okay, that's a great question. All right, so both of them will burn fat and burn calories. People want to say that high intensity intervals burn way more fat or calories. Like, well, no. A recent study showed for all things kept equal, this one group lost three and a half pounds, where the other group lost two and a half pounds. Doing steady state, like, it's not a massive amount, so everybody take a breath. But here's the difference. Steady state, the low intensity steady state workouts, they are gentler, they're easier. People get into them. You kind of zone out for some people that's easier to stay consistent with. They train your stamina and especially if you're younger exercise. What we want to be training in life is stamina at that point, right? And they increase Vo two max. The volume of oxygen your lungs can push out to your heart with every single breath. The amount of oxygen your heart can push out with every single beat to get your muscles going. So that's important. The thing is that they have to be longer workouts and you risk overuse injuries. So that is something people that hang out on the treadmill all day, it's like imagine it's repetitive motion activities or runners, things like that. So just a couple of considerations there high intensity interval are really important, particularly for perimenopausal or menopausal women, for two reasons. Because they increase insulin sensitivity, your body's ability to respond well to smaller and smaller amounts of insulin. So as opposed to insulin resistance, which packs pounds on your body, okay? And we already have more Cortisol floating around your body at that time. We already have a hormonal disadvantage going on. So we definitely want to improve our insulin sensitivity. And the other thing about it is that you get this thing called epoch. It's post exercise oxygen consumption. So what happens during hip workouts are two things. One, you have stored glycogen in your muscle, that's your muscle sugar. And hip workouts are so demanding that they use up those glycogen stores very quickly. You feel that you can't go very long. They also deplete the oxygen you have available. So your body is rushing to kind of restore those glycogen stores. And in that process it requires insulin. So your body gets very responsive to insulin again, it improves that if it was not happening for you. And at that stage of life, we get a little insulin resistant. Also, when your body is restoring the oxygen levels to where they need to be, that takes hours. And so that's where after hit workouts, you get this increased metabolism, this increased fat burn for hours. And in perimenopausal and menopausal, women, there is a tendency to put on belly fat and for the body to be depositing fat. So anything that keeps us in a state where our metabolism is lifted a bit for a while is going to be helpful. So that's what that's about. They're good for everybody all the time. But a particular recommendation for, say, my age group and I talk about this all the time. I love hanging out on my Stairclimber and I do travel reservations and my text and I answer people, all the people that message me on TikTok, I'm probably on an elliptical machine or something messaging you back. But actually it works against me at this point and can increase stress. So I actually have to dial it down myself right now.

[14:56] Katie Chandler: So there is a really important piece, though, that you mentioned on the piece of content that I saw about doing hit and how some people are doing it wrong because they're not actually bringing the heart rate all the way back down. And so when you don't bring it all the way back down, I imagine that's when it starts to raise cortisol levels and become a little bit more problematic. So is that the key? You get the heart rate up and.

[15:20] Andrea Marcellus: Then yeah, it's huge. I'm so glad you brought this up because, boy, if I want to give anybody a tip, it's like, gosh, this is taught improperly everywhere, all the time. More is not more. So when you're in the Spinning class, you're doing your Peloton, you're doing your Orange Theory, you're doing whatever, like the entire concept of Orange Theory where it's like this leaderboard and it's about calorie burn. It's like, oh, my goodness gracious, those people on that board have nothing to do with you. And by the way, if you're tired, your heart's going to be faster. If you're dehydrated again, remember, I said whole humanity. These things are so arbitrary and artificial. So what they do is they're pushing people to push themselves, but not with a purpose, not with a goal. The goal isn't who can burn the most calories. The goal isn't how high can you keep your heart rate up for so long? The benefit to your body comes in the zero to 60, right? It's in the acceleration. Stay in there for a second and bring it back down. Those are the intervals. That's where it happens. So if you don't bring it all the way back down to what I call a four out of ten, then you are not getting the full benefit of that, and you are just burning out muscle sugar. And then what happens there is you feel funky afterwards. And then what do you do? You start going to eat things or drink things to try to feel normal again. And guess what? You ingested more calories than you even burned during that workout. And I know this personally. This is what happened to me over exercising as an instructor and for myself, and I'm a Spinning instructor as well. I'm telling you, when I started to really understand the science of what was going on and I changed, and it's to being gentler, where you come all the way down, then you go back up again. For us, it feels like you're slacking. It feels like and it's like, no, that's the way to do it. It's so funny. Less is a great reminder.

[17:34] Amy Sherman: That is a good reminder because I haven't done a hit workout in a while. I've been doing more low impacts, but I don't even know in my hip workouts, if I get to a point where I'm a four out of ten, I feel like they're exhausting. It's probably why I haven't done them in a while. I'm going to remember that super demotivating.

[17:50] Andrea Marcellus: But here's the thing I like to say like you're asking me for tips. I'm big on desk workouts. I don't think anybody has more. I do plain clothes desk workouts all the time. And what's awesome is you can do a hit workout between a zoom. You can sit there and it can be 90 seconds of squats, anything. And boy, not only are you going to give yourself a little metabolism boost and you're going to reframe your brain, you're oxygenating your entire body. Most importantly, you're oxygenating your brain. You're going to be able to focus on whatever's coming next in your day. And the best part, just do that for 90 seconds and tell me that you want, like, chocolate or potato chips. You don't. All you want is water. So if you're having these snack cravings in the afternoon, just doing any 60 to 90 seconds of any exercise, you know, that gets your heart rate up, boom. You're not going to want anything. It's going to get you through that moment.

[18:45] Amy Sherman: That's so great. I wanted to ask you two things. Firstly, if hit, let's say, is recommended for someone who's Perry, right? Mid 40s, mid 50s, right. Does that mean you should only do that or does that mean you should do it a certain amount a week? Or can you combine it with lower? Like, what do you recommend there?

[19:06] Andrea Marcellus: Fantastic question. No, we definitely don't want to do hits two days in a row. You have to give your body rest. And again, we are always trying not to have stress and we certainly don't want to increase stress on the body. So you want to keep these sessions shorter? I don't do it ever for more than 20 minutes or so. It's always part of something. And the workout bar in general keeps shorter and just activate your life. More of a standing and walking. You'll be doing much better, but definitely skipping a day, so maybe three days a week or something like that. And yeah, the same with your heavy weight workouts. You want to be very careful about that. Like, you have to have rest. That is one of the biggest mistakes people make. They're pushing, they want results fast. And it's hard to believe that just strategized and gentle is going to get you there.

[20:01] Amy Sherman: Let me ask you, you just said about the heavyweight workouts, and that's what I really wanted to hone in on because I don't really know what that means. What is a heavy weight? Is it £10, is it £20? And how much of that you should be doing? I used to have a trainer years ago and I did a lot of weights and it was good, but it was a little too intense. And now I'm like, I really need to get back into this strength training. Katie has been really into it lately, but it just feels like I don't know where to start. I don't know how long, et cetera, et cetera. If you could give our audience some little tips and strategies there. We'd love it.

[20:37] Andrea Marcellus: Sure. It doesn't have to be super long. It has to exhaust you and just muscle, exhaustion of the muscle you're trying to work. So that amount of time is going to be different for every person. So what you need to do is make sure that you're lifting heavy enough so that your form starts to suffer at the 9th or 10th repetition. That's kind of what the definition of a heavy weight. So whatever the exercise is, that's where you want to be. I tend to, on heavy weight days, go with a we're doing them, what, three days a week, something like that, because you're leaving a day in between. And then I might do lighter weights on other days and all sorts of things and body weight workouts. But what you really kind of want to stick to a more traditional weight training protocol for the best results with your heavy weights because also your joints are going to be aligned properly so that you avoid injury. So that's not a great place for choreography. As much as I love it, you want to kind of just really watch your form and three sets of ten. It's a good way to go. And the best thing is that it's a no brainer. Put the weights at your desk, do your three sets of ten.

[21:59] Amy Sherman: Sorry to be like so specific, but is it just three sets of ten of something or is it like several exercises? Three sets of.

[22:09] Andrea Marcellus: But I can't make you a workout here on a podcast.

[22:13] Amy Sherman: Why not?

[22:16] Andrea Marcellus: But I mean, if we wanted to break it down to the least, like your body has to work in opposites. If you're doing a bicep curl, you must do a tricep. If you're doing your shoulders I would say for the people listening here, if we wanted to really no brainer this, you're going to do a bicep curl, you're going to go a tricep kickback, you're going to do some kind of overhead press and you can call it a day. If you're really a good super achiever, you're going to do some desk push ups or some regular push ups. I'm a fan of regular push ups and getting yourself to be able to do those. And I have a great video on how to work yourself up to plank push ups, which you change as a person mentally once you can start doing those. And then you would do some bent over rows and then you would go chest back, bicep, tricep, deltoid, bam, back on my I love it.

[23:11] Amy Sherman: What's funny, you have a piece of content that I haven't bookmarked and I use it all the time. It was like for busy people, it was like the arm one where you're like, do you have this lab or whatever? I've literally done that video so many times. And it's great because you said earlier where you stand on 1ft and you do the breathing. But in this one, it was standing on 1ft and putting the foot behind and doing I think it was like bicep curls or something like that. And I love that video for our listeners on her TikTok. She's got all these fun. It's your point of like, you have five minutes in between a call. Just go on a TikTok, watch one of your videos, do one of those things, and there you go. There's like one set down for the day. I have a feeling it's really great.

[23:51] Katie Chandler: All of this is on your app probably, as well. You probably have so many resources on your app as well.

[23:57] Amy Sherman: Yeah.

[24:00] Andrea Marcellus: Like this, too. I mean, yeah, there's regular workouts, but there are workouts where I literally wore plain clothes to shoot them. I wore what I wear to work so that it's clear you are not required to change your clothes to think about fitness. And I think that's my big thing. I'm trying to change the way America thinks about fitness and fitting it into your life. Not that it's like this separate piece you have to make time for nobody. We can't do that, but we absolutely can show up for ourselves in small bites. And the fact is, the results are better. And there was just a study, again, about this that just came I love it when there's a study that comes out that kind of validates the way I've been doing things with people that I just find actually works for them, for their lifestyle. But a study just came out this week that the benefits for your heart of working out between eleven and five are higher than if you work out in the morning or the evening. So these little bits I'm telling people to do during the day. I guess your heart likes it.

[25:12] Katie Chandler: Great. It's very interesting.

[25:14] Amy Sherman: Before we get into our wrap session, where can everybody find you? Because I know everyone's going to be clamoring for all these. Your content and your app and your website. Give us all the deets to do.

[25:25] Andrea Marcellus: Is go to andlife.com and like, Andrea lifelikeyourlifeandlife.com. And you can see my one on one program. You can see group programs if you want me to come to your company. And then you can also see my app, my book. There's so many tools to help people. I really have tried to make it so that it is not about cost, that it doesn't matter what your budget is, it doesn't matter what's going on in your life, that I have some way to help you show up for yourself and feel better now. And that's really what it is.

[26:05] Katie Chandler: That's fantastic.

[26:06] Andrea Marcellus: And then, of course, I'm on Instagram at Andrew Marcellus. I'm on TikTok. I think it's Andrew Marcellus. Official. I'm on YouTube. I'm like, I have stuff everywhere.

[26:15] Amy Sherman: And you do virtual coaching. If anyone's interested in doing one on one, that's what I do.

[26:20] Andrea Marcellus: My programs are all and we have really clever ways that I fit into your busy life. And it's pretty cool. The results are insane when you sign up for a call with me because I have to do a call with people and really understand where you're coming from, make sure it's a fit because nobody fails. And I go all in on people. Nobody fails. It's pretty cool. And you get sent a thing with just videos of real people going, oh, my goodness, it's so easy. It's so much easier than what people thought. So I'm just so proud and happy of what we've been able to accomplish and just watching people level up when they've just been struggling with this for so long. And making this a non conversation so that our lives can be about more important, more exciting, more fun things and helping people bring joy and a great relationship with food, which connects us to each other. It's so gratifying. Really cool.

[27:17] Katie Chandler: Yeah, it's really wonderful. We absolutely love what you're doing. All right, so let's get into our.

[27:22] Andrea Marcellus: I'm So Glad wrap session.

[27:24] Katie Chandler: Our first question is for you, Andrea. What is your favorite wellness or beauty hack?

[27:29] Andrea Marcellus: Oh, my gosh. Well, my favorite wellness hack in general is my brain reframe I do when I'm making my courage coffee. I talk to people about strategizing, like making rituals in your day. And it's one place where I just practice focus, and I know it takes about 90 seconds for my courage to make it. So I don't allow myself to do anything but focus on the sounds of that and that's activating brain centers that would shut off the amygdala. That's my stress reframe in the day. So that's one of my favorite wellness hacks. Like that you find a little thing you already do. I also plant whatever it is, but you just give yourself something and it becomes your ritual. And then as soon as you go to do that thing every day and if you just focus on it, your brain starts to know that's a safe harbor for you and immediately goes into that state of relaxation. It's pretty rad. And then my beauty hack is anastasia has this thing called Italian Summer, and it's a palette, a contouring palette and a blush, whatever. This is all I use because you can use it for your eyes or your face. I have no time. I am all about what is the easiest one product I can use, and I have to say I'm a huge fan.

[28:47] Amy Sherman: Oh, I haven't heard of that. I got to check that out. Very cool.

[28:51] Andrea Marcellus: Yeah. A contour, a blush, a highlighter. Perfect my eyes.

[28:56] Amy Sherman: And how do you maintain your daily nirvana?

[29:01] Andrea Marcellus: Oh, my gosh. This is such a good question. How do I maintain? I live according to a code, and I have built just a little life of little habits that are easy to maintain and where. I end up showing up for myself in small ways throughout the day, every day. And so it doesn't matter what comes flying at me in a day. I always have something that I'm doing that lifts me up, and literally, it shoots out dopamine. And I know that, but that's what I try to help people do, is create for themselves. I call it a self care scaffolding, but that's how I maintain my nirvana. I love what I do. It doesn't mean it's all always going right, but boy, do I love what I do. And I have ways that I lift myself all day long. I love it. I know.

[29:57] Katie Chandler: It is inspiring. It's very inspiring. All right, well, Andrea, thank you so much for being with us today. We were so excited to talk to you. And like we said earlier, we both feel like we know you because we watch everything you do on TikTok, but.

[30:12] Andrea Marcellus: You I love it. That's so amazing.

[30:15] Katie Chandler: For sure. I want to thank you all over.

[30:19] Andrea Marcellus: Your work is helping people. This is a wonderful, wonderful space you've created. And the conversations you're having are important and vital and really meaningful. And so I'm honored to be here and I appreciate it so much. I'm so glad.

[30:32] Katie Chandler: Thank you.

[30:33] Amy Sherman: Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would, please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 98 - What To Do When Your Busy Life Is Sabotaging Your Wellness Success With Fitness Expert Andrea Marcellus - Part 1 (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 98

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Unknown: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman. And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. We are sitting down today with Andrea Marcellus, a Los Angeles based fitness expert and life strategist for over 30 years Andrea is the founder and CEO of and life it's a life maximization brand with a mission to help busy people prioritize their physical and mental well being with minimal effort and sacrifice. We all need that offering unique. So she offers uniquely engaging solutions to both individual consumers and large scale organizations. And life is scaling Andrea's personalized, proven wellness methods via its proven shape up body and mind program. Live and online events. The enlive total fitness lifestyle up and connect workday, wellbeing video library. Andrea is also the author of the top rated book the way in five winning strategies to lose weight, get strong and lift your life. So we have so many questions for Andrea she Aye. Aye. Well, both of us came across Andrea on Tik Tok. And she has the most amazing content and gives such great tips and strategies and those little brief tick tock snippets. So we're so excited to have you here. Welcome to the show, Andrea. Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Before we get started. Let's go ahead and kick it with a nirvana of the week. Amy, do you want to do you want to start? Yes. So So I guess there's been a few Nirvana's this week, but I'll say one, okay, so my Nirvana this week was an exciting one. And it's actually something Katie and I can't really talk about yet, but it's coming soon. We just signed a contract on something really exciting that we will unveil soon, but that was definitely one of my Nirvana's this week. So super excited to share all with our Nevada sisters family soon. Yeah, agreed. What about one of my Nirvana's as well, it can't wait till we can spread that news. It's very exciting. The secret secret secret nirvana? Yeah, so that was a highlight. But I had another Nirvana this this morning. We're having a some friends over for dinner tomorrow. And for the first time in I don't know how many years. I cooked for hours without a child at my feet without my husband saying I need this without having to like multitask or be somewhere I made. The time. I think that was the key why it was so enjoyable and relaxing. Because I said, I'm all I'm doing on Friday morning is cooking might be Forgan Yan for Saturday night. That's what I did. It was very relaxing. And I enjoyed it. That's amazing. So that was mine. What about you, Andrea? Oh, nice. I love that. I have a couple one, my son got 100 on this math test that he had taken twice and yay. Even though we do it, and it's like, you know, when you're a parent, and you're trying to help your kid, you know, achieve something that's hard for them. It's it was pretty cool. So that was one. And the other is I and we are having friends over tonight to play dominoes. I love playing games. I love fun. And I can't I can't tell you when the last time we've had friends, like without realizing it. It's just been a very busy time. And then, you know, sometimes you just don't make plans. So we made some plans and I've been excited about it all week. Yeah, that's so fun games like game night. That's great. I haven't done that in years. And it really is a such a great time. So yeah, that's, that's exciting. It'd be a fun Friday night. It sure will. Alright, well, let's kick it off. It's funny that you say that just really quickly because I have been hearing about this lately. But my son, I have two boys, Andrea 13 and 16. And my 13 year old is going to a party tonight. And it's like a murder mystery whodunit party, and they all get dressed up and like it's this little thing and a friend of mine at Worlds same thing. She did something like that a few weeks ago, and I was like, I love these fun interactive parties. Yeah. That's very Yeah, it's a great thing. Well, you know, it gets you out of your head. That's the whole thing like these and we'll talk a lot about stress relief today. But like that's, that's part of it. Like just even knowing oh my gosh, all I need to focus on right now is Mexican train. That's amazing. You know if you can fully focus, the good. That's really fun if you're like alright, well let's get into it because we have a lot to ask you. And first thing that that we are trying Amiens You're trying to understand. So you're a fitness expert. But it's not just fitness as an exercise and working out and going to the gym, you encompass the whole thing, the the mind, the body, the nutrition, the health, all of that, how did that start? And just tell us a little bit about about that. Yeah, because fitness is actually more about your mind than your body. That is what I've come to understand. That's the, you know, the spoiler alert moment of this whole thing I started in exercise. And you know, that's, I would say, that's truly my gift. People love working out with me. And that's what people would come for. Because I don't know, if you came and worked out with me today, I would come up with stuff I have never done before watching you move, and we would just make up things, and I'd see what your body is good at. And I'd also see where there are areas of challenge, I can just see it and I can make things up really fast. And on the fly. And that's like my gift. So that's what I love. But what I came to understand, starting out just as a trainer, essentially in a class instructor was wow, this is only a very small part of the equation. And really, it's our relationship with food. And, you know, I really the interesting thing is I spent the first 16 years of it's going to be 31 year career in in July 1 16 years doing everything you and everybody else thinks they need to do to you know, be fit. And I was an actress, I wasn't even supposed to be doing this. I went to NYU for acting, I was supposed to be a star. So this was just an artist. Thanks so much. It was just so different than what I thought. But it's awesome. You know, and it's, it's interesting. I, I was trying so hard to be super fit and back. Now this is 30 years ago. So that was like the Kate Moss era, you weren't even allowed to be like a normal human. And the harder and harder. I tried to be lean, the more weight I gained. And part of it was stress. And part of it was a really bad training strategy, which was overtraining and workout lifestyle, I call it and not really developing a really good relationship with food. I mean, it was terrible. And at a certain point, I didn't even gain 25 pounds. It was like muscle, I didn't need a layer of flab that would never go trying to maintain that workout lifestyle. A lot of people get into this rut and it was somewhere in my early 30s It was about 33 I had a celebrity client coming in. And I remember staring at the wall and going you know, I was putting together the calories in calories out equation thinking what we're going to do with this guy and I remember going this doesn't work. Like honest to goodness, this doesn't work. It's it. I mean, I'm to where I'm at, which is not even to my personal goal white knuckling it. All my clients are white knuckling it, like and it's it's just there's got to be a better way. And so what I did was start guinea pigging myself with a kinder gentler approach to the entire thing and developing a really great friendship with food. Through that very much a less is more process. And then I started introducing it to my clients who would be game for going a different route. I mean, nobody was talking about this short workouts, workouts interspersed between the day and eating all the foods, not eliminating anything unless you have a medical reason, and really working on bringing joy into your life. And the people that would do that they shrunk pretty quickly too. And before I knew it, I was starting to write a book and I was starting to codify it into a methodology and then that's become what what I do now, that's really amazing because I can see how it's all stress related. Like you were saying you're overtraining and huge stress on the body. You're overly focused on calories, that's a stress on you mentally and emotionally. You're you know, you're like people starve themselves. You're thinking about food and you have that mental stress. Right? So I get why I use the you know, it's stress, it's directly related to stress. What would you say because I've seen some of your your tips and and also some of the some of the like the little things that you talk about like food soothing and things like that. Let's talk let's talk about that. Food soothing. Yeah. So I mean and this is the really interesting thing and why I talked about my program is called the shape of body and mind program and it really I would almost call it mind and body because it comes it starts with your brain. So when we think about food, soothing, and I you know, and I just want to say right from the get go. The only reason I know anything about all of this is because I personally We know it, I've done everything. I mean, I done all this like and I, How did I manage to get myself to stop? It wasn't from some, you know, diet plan or meal plan or willpower certainly wasn't. It was behavioral changes. And you have to understand like, Well, where are those behaviors coming from? So in terms of food soothing, you have your vagus nerve, and it you know, runs from your brain, it connects. Basically, think of it this way, in layman's terms, there's your jaw, your lungs, your gut, so you have a gut feeling about something that's for real. When your body you're like, out of nowhere, you are kind of stressed out and you just go, you take a big deep breath. That's your vagus nerve, like showing up for you trying to get you to drop a notch trying to help your central nervous system, you know, take you down a notch because you're you're too keyed up and your jaw. Think about this when we were babies, you know, what did we have we had a pacifier there, that nerve in your jaw, it will help to soothe you. So now as adults, what do we do? We sit in front of Netflix, and we chew and chew and chew. So it's like, well, if these are our soothing mechanisms, like well, how can we use them to our advantage? Or how can we, you know, stay away from this mechanism of using our jaw to chew and use something else, because we're not going to stop the stressors from coming into our life, we have to get better at how we respond to them. So what I do is, I help people develop one in the moment stress management strategies where we take anxious energy, worried energy triggered energy, anger, and we shift that it's just energy energy is energy, right? So you can take that energy. And if you have some tools and some practice, you can quickly shift it into positive energy and energy that goes towards a positive purpose in your life, it's pretty cool. So you can always think of something that's triggering you is actually an opportunity to go get something done. And then we work on teaching your brain not to over respond to stress so much in the first place. And then that keeps you at a hormonal advantage. So not only is it easier to lose weight, if you need to do that, but then to maintain it very, very important. So it's, this is where calories in calories out fails, that that whole or macro count take or that whole approach, they fail because they don't take into account your humanity. The fact is, everything is running from your brain, and your brain is operating off of feelings. And you know, feelings aren't a math equation, you're not a math equation. And you know, those approaches do not take into account, you know, even more basic things like hydration, sleep, if you're in laws or in town, if your dog if you just want a prize, you know, like if you're at your wedding, and even if celebrations you see what I mean. So you've got to take your whole humanity into account and how that's impacting on your brain. And then how the brain is responding hormonally to that. I love that whole philosophy. Can you give us an example of like you were saying, if you're stressed strategies to you know, turn that around, like, give us examples of what that looks like, Oh, I'd love to, here's one of my best that I give people quickly all the time that anybody could do. So your brain, your attention and your brain, you it operates like a flashlight, right? So you have different brain centers, and you can only have certain things on or else the flashlight goes in the other direction. So think of it that way. When you're triggered, you have this amygdala in your brain, it is only triggered by one of two things threat or scarcity. So in our modern times fear city is I'm not going to have enough time energy or funds. And threat is I'm going to look stupid, or I'm unlovable it every you know, I'm going to I'm whittling this down to just I'm gonna look bad, right you get it's an ego thing. So when something like that happens, that amygdala starts pumping out adrenaline and cortisol, the cortisol, we all know that's going to create a problem with insulin that we all that's been talked about a lot everybody listening to this gets the concept of why that's not awesome. But the adrenaline becomes the issue the adrenaline, when you don't have a lion to run from our burning building, you know, and you have all this adrenaline and makes you snappy, it makes you moody and makes you make quick decisions that will soothe you in the short term immediately, but they often go against your long term goals. So the key is to short circuit, this amygdala, that when when you're triggered, and it's starting to send out what are designed to be protective hormones. This is designed to protect you to help you survive, you know, but you can teach your brain I got it, I got it. One of the simplest ways is to combine a balanced move with breath in some sort of coordination. So I literally just have people stand on one foot and just lift your heel towards your tush and then put it back down and And then just lifted up and put it back down and your hands are in front of your desk, your abdominals are deep, your shoulder blades are sliding down your back, you have the best posture, you can and you're just lifting your leg up and down, lift the heel up and down. And then we add the breath into it, and you'll take it, two counts up, and four counts down, two counts up, four counts down. That's all we're doing. So what's happening here, we're activating the hippocampus, the cerebellum and the prefrontal cortex. When those things are active, and the flashlight is in that direction, guess what has no light on it whatsoever, the amygdala, the brain cannot multitask. So in that little moment, what it takes your brain to accomplish, just lifting your heel towards your tush and putting it back on the floor with a coordinated breath means you can't be worrying, the body cannot be shooting out adrenaline and cortisol, it's busy doing something else. And in those short moments, we give ourselves enough that we can actually break away from that feeling. Now we're down a notch, you can restart your day, you know, from a different place. And over time, and with practice, we train our brain not to overstate but rover respond to stress so much in the first place. So that is one of the simplest ways that's fascinating. Yeah, I'm gonna be trying that later. For sure. Yeah, and then you said something before, which caught my attention, which was, because we're all guilty of this, but I definitely am of like, this food soothing, and like, you know, watching a show, or even like, you know, just that the habit of you know, when we used to which no one goes to movies anymore, but go to the movies and get popcorn, you know, it's just like that habit? What is a good strategy to get your mind off of like, those cravings? Are those like, oh, I need to have something sweeter? Oh, I need it. Or I need to eat while I'm watching TV. And you're not even hungry. But it just makes you feel better for some reason. Like, do you have any good tips there? Sure do. That's the whole method I teach. Because you can't, you can't, you can't get your mind not to do something. Things don't exist in the negative they only exist in the positive. So what do you do? What you do is you teach yourself and this is what I do with people individually, it's very individual. But what is the schedule of eating that is best for your body in the energy appropriate portions, these portions of the key? Figuring out what kind of amount of beneficial fats and proteins you need throughout the day and where I'm headed with this. And especially because it's usually night food, soothing, you know, we all everything like air quotes, good during the day, and then I lose it. Or on the weekends, what you have to do is make it so it is not a matter of willpower, that literally your stomach is full, that literally you can't eat another bite. And it's hard to trust because what people do is they go, Well, I'm going to eat a lot tonight. So I don't eat all day. Well, this is actually the opposite strategy of what you need to be doing. We need to be eating regularly throughout the day. High quality foods you need to give yourself social foods at night is what I call them, they might be less beneficial, but they feed our soul. And the afternoon snack is the absolute key if your afternoon snack includes a protein and or a beneficial fat. And it's just it can be very small, but it's something in that afternoon, so you do not go into dinner hungry, then the dinner won't open the floodgates for you and you will have been satisfied all day. And if you do this day after day, it only takes about three days or so you will find that at night when you sit in front of TV or something. You're actually like, wow, I'm good. Like you can have a little something, you have to be a little bit mindful for half a second. But what what actually happens is, is if you do this, you know day after day, and then a week or two goes by it actually becomes physically uncomfortable to just graze grazing is the enemy. And but you can't just go I'm not going to graze that's white knuckling it again, we have to practices in place where that is not your preference anymore. And the best way I know is making it so that the way you live is that if my stomach is too full, if I graze I become overfall it is actually physically uncomfortable. And I stop you you were in my head this past week with your afternoon snack being a protein and a good fat and I've been doing it all week and I did I do notice a difference. And the other thing also at what was I didn't see that one. Oh the on tick tock. Yeah, what was the protein that I was going to ask? Like, what are good, like, examples of what are your favorites? Yes, yeah. What are the good fats that you're gonna have with some protein? Oh my gosh, there's so many right. But here's here's a easy way to do it. I think what did you have for dinner last night? Generally people have like some I don't know there's soy protein and some vegetables. Just eat a little of that. If you don't have it if it's too hard to put something together but like, you know, a quarter of an avocado was something avocado is one of the best foods in the whole world. I have a recipe on my and Life app called chia seed pudding. This is a life changer for most people. Like, I can't wait to go to Starbucks and tell them you need to sell this. Yeah, sorry, I literally just came up with this one day, like, you know, and like, it's the one everybody loves, because you can make so many variations of it. But you're getting your omega three fatty acids. And you're, you know, it's just absolutely delicious, just a few bites of that. But truly, it could be anything, often, I will just throw an egg in a pan with some olive oil and some spinach and the eggs on one side, that spinach on the other side, it takes what 94 seconds to make that. And that's my afternoon snack, you got to think real food. And if it's coming in a package walk away, there is something fresh in your refrigerator that is going to take you less like no time. And again, you know, if real food is the key, real food is the path, not only to, you know, if you have to lose weight, you know, and to be well and to, you know, to feel lean and strong. But it's the path to longevity, we're getting nutrition, we're relying on these bars, or a protein powder or something. And I mean, I'm 50. So you know, collagen powder might, you know, into your life at a certain point when your protein meats go higher. But this is not what we want to rely on. You want to like every opportunity you can to get something from nature in your body that's going to nutritionally level you up, that's what you want to do. Yeah, that's a really good reminder. Because I definitely fall in the camp sometimes, like get in the phase of like, I need protein, I'll have a bar that has 20 grams of protein, or I'll make a shake with protein powder just because I feel like I need protein. But it's yes, it's much better to eat real food. It's just I think, like us, you know, and I love your content too, because it's for busy. Women like all of us and like just having these small ideas of what you could make like the egg and spinach or avocado and something else just to have those like ideas in your head almost makes like, it's just like the thinking about what you're going to eat is worse than the actually like doing it. It's just sometimes you're like, wait, what should I have for my snack 100%. So that's like, literally in my program, what I no brainer for people is okay, let's come up with a go to foods list for you of things. And you know, and then like on munchie days, one of the best things to do is like if you like coconut, get the unsweetened coconut flakes, and put them in a small ramekin in the front. And I put some blueberries there and I put some of that and now I'm not a grazer, I'm not a fan of grazing. But sometimes you open the fridge and some you grab something and we don't want to be doing this. But if you those things take long that takes a long time to chew, you put them together. Wow, we just got like a ton of antioxidants, anti inflammatories, beneficial fats, and we're actually satisfied for a while walk away. You know, like, that's, it's just trying to strategize. So that's what you have to do for yourself. Like that's one that works for me. But the important thing is not what Andrew Marcellus eats, the important thing is for you to figure out, what do I like. And then you'll stick with it. This is a really interesting thing. If I can just make one big long run on sentence paragraph. There's a great study in my book The Way in about, about how your brain has to like your food. Another reason diets do not work. There's this great study called the milkshake study. And this woman at I think it was Johns Hopkins, she tested these folks they came in and basically they tested the ghrelin in their stomach. Ghrelin is the hormone in your stomach that tells you I'm hungry, go find food. And when you start to eat, then leptin comes out in your brain. And leptin is the hormone your portion controlling hormone. That's the one that's like, hey, yeah, that's enough. Okay, walk away. So we want a really good relationship between these two hormones. We want a very, very loud conversation happening where they can hear each other really well. And this is one of the reasons not for grazing because that messes all that up. But in this study was incredible. She brought people in, she tested the grill and level she gave them a shake, one chocolate shake, that was about 600 calories, it said on the label and it was called decadence or something and she tested the ghrelin level in their stomach. And then they she tested it again after they after they had some and then two weeks later, they came back. And she did the same thing, trust the grill in their stomach, gave them a shake. And this one was called like since ABA or something like that. I'm saying it wrong, but it was like a diet meal replacement chocolate shake, you know, and it was like, I don't know 150 200 calories. So they think they're, they're having a diet shake and teach test the grill and level in their stomach. I'm gonna get this number a little bit wrong, but the point where we made it was either the Gremlin dropped either three times more or six times more with That decadent chocolate shake, then the shake, that was the diet shake, right? And when ghrelin drops, that means leptin shooting out telling you to stop eating. It's really important. So now here's the thing. They were the same exact shake. So what wow, people thought of the show, oh, that's a tournament when they were satisfied. And this is why I insist people like their food. And if you're dieting, it's not going to work. If you're doing what you should be doing, instead of what's bringing you joy, then it's just not going to work. And that's why it's crucial that everything like people ask me, Do you have a meal plan? No, I have to meet you. Or, you know, my app tries to help you figure it out for yourself. But you know, it's like, No, we got to find out what works for you. It's so true. So I saw this on your content as well, earlier in the week. And you're in my head. This was, I want to say Tuesday night, we had a snow day. So our kids were at home. And just it was a long day, we ordered pizza, never ordered pizza, but we ordered pizza. Kids love it. I am lactose intolerant, so I don't really eat it. And if I do eat it, I enjoy it. And I do it maybe like once a year. And you were in my head. And I thought, You know what, just have a slice of pizza with your salad, your salad with the grilled chicken. That's what I would normally eat. And I had a slice of pizza. And I was so satisfied. And I was so happy. And I was cool. Like that was that that was all I needed afterwards, I was good. Normally, if I had, you know, just a grilled chicken salad, I might want to go an hour later. And like I'm digging in the cabinets for something to satisfy that itch. I guess that's exactly what happens. And see, and we all experienced that you're talking about something we've all experienced. And so, you know, when I was coming up with this methodology, I was like, I'm just gonna give it what would happen. If I just had what I know it sounds so like, I mean, that's the holy grail to be able to do that. And I think I mean, I definitely have problems with grazing, I'm more of a grazer than like a meat eater. So like, I've been trying not to do that. But it's really difficult. Like, yeah, and that's the thing, not that I'm against therapy or people thinking about their stuff. But I find practices, best practices that walk us into better behaviors, and that just solve the problem, or kind of better way to go than wasting too much time delving into your why? How about, fix it, you know, and I think a lot of us get bogged down in the intellectual trying to understand ourselves. And I know personally, for me, just diving into solutions. And actually, you know, when you talk about stress management, you talk about chronic stress, and you talk about things like that. And I mean, I've tried all sorts of solutions in my life, but I find things that combine breath and movement, and this is actually studied to be far more effective than say, Talk therapy. at helping you overcome these moments, and I'm interested in people, you know, I'm interested in less cortisol, I'm interested in hormonal balance for what people come to me for, but you can kind of apply this to anything where, you know, you're having, you know, I, in my program, I even go into dispute resolution with your partner, your roommates, like things like that, you know, like you have to strategize this stuff. And it's like, well, how do you get to the solution faster? How do we get to faster solutions, and just being solution oriented in general, and mostly, you know, all of this is about embracing who we are rather than, like always keeping this carrot stick out there and who we want to be like, how does your life actually operate? Let's like, let's, you know, talk about food and exercise in terms of how your life actually operates. And I bet we'll get a better solution not be wishing that you were like somebody else, you know, and I think I think that's really important to always come back to, you know, who are you and maybe stop overthinking it. Maybe just try the solution on first Yeah, and then go back and and then go back and look at your stuff. I'm not saying don't look at your stuff, but I'm saying why not look at your stuff from a place where you feel better and more confident to begin with. I love that. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 97 - Lasers, Skin Barrier, Skincare HOLY GRAILS and more - Answering Your Skincare Questions With Natasha B, Beauty Junky Monkey - PART 2 (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast episode 97.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Amy Sherman: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are Sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

Natasha Brinkmann: You. Um.

Amy Sherman: Welcome back to the show. Nirvana Sisters Family. So we are here. It is part two with Natasha B beauty junkie monkey. We she promised she'd be back. She's here. If you haven't listened to episode 96, go run and listen to that one. But Natasha B is a trained esthetician skincare expert and educator. You may know her as Beauty Junkie Monkey on TikTok, where she now has over 400,000 followers and lots of helpful skincare advice. She's just growing by the second because I think the last time we talked to you, you at 350, so you are just crushing it. We love all of her advice. The last session was amazing. We talked so much about different products and routines, and we're just going to continue that conversation and get into it. So thank you so much for being back on the show. Natasha, we love having you on.

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, thank you for having me. This was way too much fun the last time. I'm like, we got to go to number two.

Amy Sherman: Absolutely. I know we still have product questions and different things like that, but we did want to make sure we touch on some of these skin treatments that we're seeing out there because I think there's so many, from micro needling to morpheus aid to the lasers to the this to the that. There's so many things. And we'd love to hear from you what your experience has been, if you recommend anything, who they're best for, all the different things that we're seeing around there.

Natasha Brinkmann: Absolutely. I have some personal experience. I will say out of the gate, I am not a licensed medical esthetician, so I don't do the lasers. I don't do the morpheus eight. Again, I still have a lot of friends in the industry, so I know that. And then, of course, with my clientele who had it done, I get a lot of feedback so I can talk about it based on that information. So I'm happy to provide that for myself. I have done a little bit of laser. I've got a little bit of filler in my lips. That's the only thing I'm really maintaining right now is just a little bit in the lips because I have those little French lips. As I age, they slowly dissipate. So I just put in just a half a syringe just to kind of back up. And I have done PoDoX in the past, Botox in the past, but I stopped it over last year because I was testing out other brands and one of my commentators said, well, how do you know how it really, really works? And I was basing it on how well it held my Botox for longer periods of time. That's how I was basing mine. And I thought, that's a very fair question. So begrudgingly, because I really love the results. I stopped using it. And I have to say, over the past, I'd say eight months, maybe. I think it's about eight months now. I haven't touched it since. And I'm just shocked because 48 years old, and I'm looking at myself going, well, I can live with that. I'm not perfectly wrinkle free, or you can see when face to face. But I don't mind the aging process. I just want to age well. And I think having a good skincare routine and then using medical aesthetics is a great thing to do. But it's really, really important to do it authentically and not to go overboard, because that's when the regret sets in, and that's when people start messing about with their face and they start going, what have I done? One of my personal pet peeves is the lip flip that they do with Botox. I've had a lot of friends get it done. And the problem is that you can't purse your lips anymore. And so eating, drinking, people can't eat properly because the food comes out of their mouth and stuff like that. And I'm like, I understand that the aesthetic part and what they're trying to do, but when you start changing how you look, because it's not natural to have that flip, right? Like most of us, either you have it or you don't. That's when you start changing, really, in my opinion, who you are. A little filler in a place that's already full, no problem. A little bit of filler here and there just to kind of touch it up. A lot of people are surprised I have lip filler. And I'm like, yeah, I only use half a syringe. I don't use a full syringe. I have, in the past, didn't like it. It was a little too much. And not that a lot of people would notice it, but I think for me, it was just like I like the subtlety of it. And that's one thing I've noticed for sure is, like, Botox is fantastic if you have those deep 11th between your eyes. Yeah, do it. Absolutely. Because product can only go so far. But yeah, I just wanted to say that right out of the gate, because I know we've seen some celebrities out there, and I'm just like, oh, no, sweetie, no.

Amy Sherman: I know. When you look like you can't even recognize them, it's so scary.

Katie Chandler: Also, I feel like I think that there can be a slow climb to this. Oh, my gosh, I've gone overboard. And I know one time I did, I think a little bit too much Botox. And I just remember looking at myself, thinking, like, I look a little weird. And it took a while for it to click that. Oh, I probably have a little bit too much Botox. Right now. Next time I should scale back a little bit. Like I would see myself in a phone. I'm like, Why are my eyebrows up to my hairline? What is going on with that crazy smile? So I think it's a good reminder when you are doing bone talks, if you get that feeling that might mean to pump the brakes. And also a really easy trick for that lip flip that is totally natural and easy to do is to just put some highlighter on your top lip line as well. It doesn't really give you the lip flip, but it gives an illusion of it. So don't go putting the Botox in there for that.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah, well, when it starts function, like you can't function and you can't chew it's like, nah, I'm horrible. I'm self conscious of that is not working. I want us to dribble it out of my mouth. I'm like, yeah, no, that's not thank you. Do I do that? No, I don't want to do the lip flip. I was just going to say right now, the little chin dimple seems to be a big deal. I'm like, really? This is a big deal? Careful with who you go to, because their job is to make money, and the more you spend, the more they make. And I mean, a good medical aesthetician will have that. Nice, okay, let's not overdo it or kind of talk you down and go, you know what? You look fabulous because you don't want to take away who you are. I have a little French bump here on my nose, and the first thing my husband said when we met is, like, you can never touch your face. You can never touch your nose. And I'm so grateful he said that, because you're right. That's who I am. It's part of me. It's part of what makes me me. And is it the perfect nose? No, but it makes the rest of my face, in my opinion, look perfect because it's me, right? And I want to look in the mirror and look at myself and go, oh, hey, that's still me with some of the procedures. I love laser treatments. They're incredible. And I think they're going to be the new microneedling coming out as they progress and they get better and better and better. Myself, I love to do the IPL laser or photofacial is what it's called, because it does so much, so it zaps out your hyperpigmentation. So if you have some really bad sunspots or freckles or really bad sun damage, it works so well, it just zaps it right out, and it naturally exfoliates out of your skin. It also helps to really stimulate collagen and elastin. So if you find that you're getting some of the deeper lines around the eyes, but you want to kind of treat that, then it's a nice way to slowly get that in there. And then when you pair that with your good products, you're going to have beautiful results. And I love how it tightens down the pores. So it really helps with texture, it helps with scarring. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on the edge of my nose. And that sucked because what people don't realize about skin cancer, the basal cell is it goes down like a trunk, but then it spreads like a tree root. So it's not that that basal cell will kill you, it's going to disfigure you because they have to dig out all around it. And I had a huge hole in my nose, which I kept covered meticulously for six weeks. And I think it's because I kept it covered, I kept it moist. I'm really good at wound care. It really started to progress very well. Even my dermatologist was like, wow, that's healing. And then I did get some laser because I did get a little bit of puckering around the edges, and you could see it. Like if I turned my head a certain way, you'd really see it. So what I ended up doing was I did five laser treatments, and now you can barely see it.

Amy Sherman: Yeah, it looks amazing. I've had actually a lot of basal cells, so on my face, it's genetic, and I've had a ton. So I'm crazy about the sun and stuff, too. But yeah, you can't even tell now when you say you got a laser for that. This is where I get confused, because I've heard about the IPO. I've never done it, but what kind of lasers, from what you know, what you've seen, what kind of lasers do you use? For what? Because you were saying that I imagine there's a laser that's better for healing a wound than explaining your face or whatever.

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, yeah. No, again, not a laser technician, but what I know from my girl is that what it does is it goes in and it helps to stimulate the collagen underneath it. So it helps to really plump that back up. Then you can do more invasive like fractal. Fractal is a deeper laser. So you do need downtime for that. Because again, working with clients, I have clients that have had facelifts, half facelifts, the morpheus laser treatments. The biggest thing I can tell you from their experience is that you really have to be mindful of your recovery. So if you do not have two weeks where you can really baby your face, do not do it, because then you risk scarring, then you risk complications, then you risk swelling. You're going to have those anyways because that's all part and parcel of doing these more invasive IPL. You don't get that as much. It's not as invasive. But the fractal, you're going to be losing a few layers or when you do any type of acid treatments. My mother in law had that done, and oh my gosh, her face looked like hamburger meat. It was awful. It was awful.

Amy Sherman: Oh my God. Like so red, right?

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, red. Raw. It started to look like yeah, look like hamburger meat. As it was, the top layers were coming off and she really had to be diligent about her care. I mean, her skin looked great afterwards, but again, it was very limited. She thought it get rid of all her wrinkles. No, it didn't. Right. It got rid of a lot of them, but the deep ones were still very there. So she was upset that she went through all of that and didn't get the results that she was looking for. Right. So that's the thing with these procedures, is we got to A, manage your expectations, and B, listen. Exactly. If they tell you avoid the sun for two weeks, we're talking avoidance. We're not talking, oh, I'll just pop in the car and run to the store. The radiation does penetrate through the window. Your skin is damaged. Putting radiation on damaged skin, bad idea. That's where scoring and pigmentation come into play. So that's one of the best things I can say about any treatment. Follow their advice, listen to them, be honest about what you have done, what you haven't had done. If you've done any type of retinol, they need to know this prior to you going in, because of course, that will affect how the skin responds with everything. Morpheus eight. I've heard mixed results with that. I've heard a lot of people have amazing and that's that deep. It's like a machine where they basically puncture. It's like micro needling, but it has a little bit of a current in there and it works really well at stimulate collagen. It's very good. Problem with that is A, you have to make sure that you have the proper technician that actually knows what they're doing. Because I had another client, she had it done, and she has these hundreds of little bumps all along her entire face and lower jawline.

Amy Sherman: Oh, my God.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah. So she went back to her technician, said, WTF what's going on? And her technician's words were, oops, I think I went too deep.

Amy Sherman: My God.

Katie Chandler: So is it permanent right now?

Natasha Brinkmann: It's there. We'll see if it stays there. I don't know if there's a laser that can help break up the scar tissue. I don't know. But that, to me, would be a deal breaker. And that's why when it comes to any type of micro needling, I'm really hesitant. I'm okay with a surface microneedling for just basic stuff, but even then, I'm like the benefits of a laser treatment outweigh the pain and discomfort, in my humble opinion, of doing like micro needling, which is pretty invasive. Right. So I guess it just all depends on what you're going for. But I'm really loving the lasers because they do work so very well.

Amy Sherman: Yeah, I've done. Micro needling. I haven't done lasers. I've done micro needling a bunch of times more surface, not like the morpheus eight where that scares me. But I have a very good person, and I love it, and I think it takes, like, years off of my skin or off of my face, but yes, have to go to someone who knows what they're doing. Like, I've been going to the same person when I first did it. I went a bunch of times, and now I'll do it like, once or twice a year to freshen me up. But yes, it's your point. If you go to the wrong person, forget it, you're done.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah, I agree. And that's the hardest part.

Katie Chandler: How often do you suggest lasers? How many times a year should someone, if they want to be on that track and doing lasers frequently? Is it like a twice a year thing? I have no idea.

Natasha Brinkmann: I guess it all depends. I know some technicians suggest doing it all throughout the year. Personally speaking, I like to do it either at the beginning of the year or the end of the year, of the summer months, simply because the damage from the sun is going to happen, whether you protect it as much as you can or not. So for me, it's like, well, I want to make sure that I prevent any for. I'm trying to do the preventative thing. I don't want to get skin cancer again. That was not fun. And I definitely want to prevent having all of that damage and that pigmentation. So for me, generally, I like to do it at the end of the season. So in the fall, because the sun's not as high, it's not as intense, it just seems like I save my money to say that I save my money, right, because it's not cheap. I do my entire face into my neck and my chest, and if she's feeling generous, she'll do the back of my hands. But every area, they charge you, so they're charging you everything. You want a little extra, you want a toe done, they're going to charge you $100.

Amy Sherman: Does it hurt?

Natasha Brinkmann: No. So what it feels like is it feels like a little snap. So if it does hit that pigmentation, you're going to feel that like a rubber band snap. But it's more shocking than anything. It's more of like, okay. And then once you kind of get used to it, then you're okay. If you have a lot of damage or a lot of pigment yeah. Just be aware. It's going to feel awful at first, but again, after a week to ten days, it looks so good, and there is no downtime. You're a little pink for a while. Your pigmentation gets a little bit darker as it comes out, so it looks worse, but then it comes out and the skin underneath looks lovely. The thing that I've noticed from my melasma clientele is not really a great idea. It just does not seem to it helps to pull some of it out, but Melasma has that basically is like a hormonal trigger. So once that switch has been flipped open and the pigmentation has been charged, it doesn't go away. And so it will admin flow. It'll get lighter, it'll get darker, but it'll never go away. So IPL, unfortunately, hit and miss results. A lot of my clients say they take it, they do it for Melasma, but then it comes back. But it is good.

Katie Chandler: It's also good for sunspots and everything, right?

Natasha Brinkmann: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So you kind of have to look at the big picture and like I said, what the expectations are on that. I'm really into lasers and PRP. I don't know if you guys have heard of that one yet.

Amy Sherman: I've done it. Yeah, with my microneedling.

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, you have? Okay. So I have not tried it yet, but I had PRP, so plasma rich platelets. So that's where they take the blood out of your arm for those who don't know, and then they spin it into the device, and then all the rich plasma goes to the top, and they take that and they inject that into your wherever. Right. And I had that done on my knee after I tore my ACL and my meniscus last year. I was a little overzealous in my Zumba class.

Amy Sherman: And it helped, right?

Katie Chandler: I didn't know it did that. That's amazing.

Natasha Brinkmann: It is. It was so cool. Like, I had it done over a month ago, and now I can wear my heels. Like, this is a year long injury, so I can wear my heels again, which I'm obsessed with. I can move, I can dance again, I can twist again. I'm absolutely floored. It worked exceptionally well for me. It was worth the $500. Totally worth it. Yeah.

Amy Sherman: My friend did it for her shoulder, I think.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah. And I've heard nothing but good things, but then all of a sudden, they say, well, we can help if you have the deep crevice underneath the eyes, if you're having issues with the marionette lines, I'm like, oh, we can do that too. I know you can do it in the hair to help prevent hair loss. There's so much yeah, I'm going to be doing a little bit more looking into yes.

Amy Sherman: There's so many good things now. I mean, there's so much innovation going on. It's really cool.

Natasha Brinkmann: I was going to say one client did it, and she says I looked sensational. She loved it. And I'm like, well, that sold me.

Katie Chandler: That's all you need to hear.

Natasha Brinkmann: That's all I need. Sold.

Katie Chandler: I'm curious about what your thoughts are on these simple at home tools like our guacAs and our Jade Rollers and also the new face. Is it microelectric?

Natasha Brinkmann: Microcurrent devices.

Katie Chandler: Microcurrent, yes. What are your thoughts on those?

Natasha Brinkmann: So I'll tell you right out of the gate, the microcurrent devices are not strong enough for them to actually invoke a lot of change. You might see maybe 5%, maybe if you're lucky. Most people do not. And the thing with the at home devices is the hardest thing is consistency. That to me, I've had a lot of devices in my past, but I'll tell you, those microcurrent ones are a complete waste of time. Complete. They're just not strong enough. That's why when you go in clinic and they use it in clinic, you see results because it is strong enough. It's got somebody who's licensed. They know what they're doing. There's education behind that. So then that way that machine can be used properly. What they sell is just not strong enough. So you're never going to get the results. Jade rollers massaging tools. All they do is a nice Lymphatic draining. They do not tighten your skin. They do not firm up your skin. They do feel amazing. Like I'm just getting over a cold. And I always use mine over top of my sinus areas because I'm just like, this is bad. But it really does help kind of move everything out a little bit. Or if you're just one of those people, it just makes you feel like it's your time and you like the feel of it on your face while you're putting product in. No problem. Rule of thumb, make sure that your equipment is clean before you use it and clean after you use it. Right. Because you want to make sure that you're not spreading bacteria over your face. And most people don't clean their tools, and then they wonder why they break out the LEED. I am testing two versions out right now. So, like a body one and one for the face. It's still early, but I will say right out of the gate, if you have any type of issues with acne, this worked really, really well. I had three three pimples on the side that popped up, and I was kind of surprised because that doesn't happen for me. I usually don't break out like that. And they weren't going away, and it had been three weeks, and I'm like, I'm pulling out all my big guns. Like, I'm pulling out the salicylic acid. I'm doing all the little extra tricks I know. And it wasn't really like a couple of them would heal, and then they'd reinfect. And I'm like, okay, well, this is ridiculous. So when I got this Led mask to test, I put it on and within two days, they were gone.

Katie Chandler: That's interesting. Yeah, I bought both of those. I have the Led and the new face. And I've been using the new face religiously. The new face, I like it personally, but what I really think it is for me is it's more related to inflammation and lymphatic drainage. I have autoimmune disease, so I'm always inflamed. So I think it's kind of maybe doing a bit of the same action that the rollers or the gouache, like.

Natasha Brinkmann: Deepuffing removing the fluid, right? Absolutely.

Katie Chandler: At the same time, I have to do it pretty much every single day to still see what I'm seeing when I'm doing it. And last week I took a week off, and I was like, all right, I'm starting to look a little more puffy and droopy and blah. So I'm doing it again. But the Led, I have one, and I'm not using it, and I should because I have Acne. It's driving me nuts. So it's good to know that you feel like that's, really. When you were doing it for the Acne, did you do what light did you do? Does yours have the yeah, it's just.

Natasha Brinkmann: Like the red light therapy mask. Yeah, I posted it on. It looks ridiculous. I feel like Silence of the Lounge when I wear it. It covers your entire face, but it's really nice. It's convenient. You can still work with it on. It's got a timer on it. So, so far, my review so far is really good. It does help to tighten it down my pores even more, so I'm really enjoying that. I always want to make sure that the information I'm giving my clients and my audience is always really good, viable information so they can make an informed decision. I think it definitely has value, for sure. For certain skin types, the hardest thing for me is consistency. It's the hardest thing because it has to go on after you wash your face, and you have to let it on before you put on any serums, any lotions. Like, it has to go on clean skin. And for me, I have a routine like everybody else. I get up, I do my morning stuff, answer emails, got to go wash my face, and then I have my routine when I do my face. So to stop, put the mask on and make sure I get my ten minutes every day. Oh, okay. I didn't do it this morning, which I didn't. I have to do it tonight. Well, I was supposed to do it last night, and I just didn't get to it.

Amy Sherman: Yeah.

Katie Chandler: The mask is a hard one to do. I think that's why I can't get in the groove. The new face, I can do it with my morning routine. It's right there. But this mask, it's huge, and if it's not right in front of my.

Amy Sherman: Face, I forget to forget about it.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah, that's exactly it. But I'll tell you, when I get a zip, that sucker is going on.

Amy Sherman: It's maybe just a good tool to use when you're totally broken out. So moving in, I have a question about because I hear this word, I feel like it's a buzzword now, and I just want to understand what it actually means. Skin barrier. What does it mean? How do you treat it? What should we be thinking about when it comes to skin barrier? I don't really even understand what it means.

Natasha Brinkmann: Well, basically, it's the top layer of your skin really is what it is, right? So it's the top layer of the skin. And the reason why it's mainly compromised is people are overusing the acids, right? So they're using too many salicylic, glycolic, lactic acids or blends. They're not using the right acids for their skin type. Now, don't get me wrong, there are certain people that can use all different forms of acids, but certain ones work better than others for different skin types. And again, nobody talks about that. So that is why a lot of people, when they're doing or using too much retinol this week I've been featuring nothing but retinol.

Amy Sherman: Yes, I've been watching. Yes. So educational.

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, thank you. Retinols. What they actually do is they kill off the top layer of your skin is basically what they're doing. That's why you get in the dry down. That's why your wrinkles look worse. The whole goal is because it wants to get the newer cells to hurry up, like to kick back into gear, which they do slow down. Like when we're in our twenty s and thirty s, it takes about 28, 31 days for our new skins from base all the way up. When we age, that can take two to three months of new skin cells. So that really slows everything down. And that's why retinol is so good. But because it's killed especially Tretinoin prescription strength, people just go right to the full monty and it's a horrible process. And some people can never get past a basic retinol, let alone some people can't use retinols. So you know what I mean? It's all about stimulating the skin, stimulating and getting everything up. But then you're compromising that skin barrier, and that's the biggest issue, because once it's compromised, so you're going to have larger pores, everything is going to look way more texture because it's inflamed, right? The pores are inflamed. Then you're going to have open little channels for bacteria and dirt. And if we didn't learn anything from COVID we really live in a very dirty environment 90% of the time, right? I don't want to be like a germaphool, but if you're susceptible to acne, that's not your friend, that's not going to help you. And when you're compromising it by using these too many acids in your cleansers and your toners, and then you're putting on your retinols, well, then it's a hot mess. And then you're going to age faster because your skin is not healed. It's not performing at its maximum capacity. So I know last one you talk about niacinamide. Niacinamide is a component of the skin barrier. It's something that fortifies the cell walls within the skin barrier. The other thing that you really need to be cognizant of is your lipids, your fats. So the lipids are naturally occurring in your skin. They're created by your sebaceous gland, so your oil gland. So have you ever noticed people with really oily skin age, like, incredibly.

Amy Sherman: Barely, like no wrinkles.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yes, it's because of that fattiness that supports. So think of your skin as bricks, like you see on a house, and the fatty acids or the lipids are in between. That's your mortar. So when it comes to skincare, what you want to do is you want to tack it three ways. You want to keep the fatty acids in there so that's your lipids and your ceramides. Then you want to also keep in the hydration, so your hyaluronic acids. And then you want to keep the structural support so that's your niacinamide. So all of a sudden, you have three ingredients that you need in your skincare routine on a daily basis as you're aging, that I just talked about, that you can now do. And Skin Fix just came out with a brand new barrier serum that I'm absolutely obsessed about. I had a commenter, said, how come your marionette lines aren't as deep? Like, are you using a filter? And I'm like, no, this is me. And I was like, I am testing out a new product. And I'm kind of hush hush about stuff because it's so new for me, but my skin is so thin and so dry. I find that products really amplify very quickly for me. So I usually know within about two weeks if something's working or not. And I've been really helping with this.

Amy Sherman: I have to try that. I know we were talking about a bunch of skin fixed products last time, and that's a new one. I got to try that.

Natasha Brinkmann: It's a new one. I just pulled up my list. Here, let me pull. I can save the list. I love my list. Yeah, if it works, it goes on my list. Okay, so it's called the skin fix barrier. Oh, hang on. My apologies. So skin fix barrier triple lipid collagen niacinamide activating serum that sounds like a triple whammy. It is. Now, I didn't go into the full details yet of the ingredients, so I just want to make sure that the collagen or collagen peptides, because if it's basic collagen, collagen molecularly is too big, it's not going to penetrate the skin. I'm assuming these are the lipids. So I have to go back and still do some research on it because, again, I'm still technically testing. But I'm just letting you guys know I'm kind of excited because it's really nice.

Amy Sherman: Yeah, it sounds really nice.

Katie Chandler: Back to the skin barrier thing. Do you find that a lot of people with premature aging and premature wrinkles, it just has a lot to do with that skin barrier is compromised, and they're like dehydration lines, and those things can be fixed relatively easily. Like if you're 36, 40, whatever it may be, and you've got a lot of little fine lines, it's probably that your skin is dehydrated, your skin barrier is compromised, and you can start to just use the right products and the right routine and snap back really quickly, right?

Natasha Brinkmann: Absolutely. As long as you're diligent with it and you're doing it every day. Yeah, absolutely. Keep it plump, keep it plump, keep it hydrated. Yeah. There's a huge difference between oily and hydration. Hydration is inside the skin. Oiliness is outside the skin, which you need because it protects that barrier. Again, it's that nice glossy over. I mean, I know a lot of people who are oily hate it because it's too much. Right. It's too much of the shellac, if you will. But a nice layer is really good because it does protect the skin, and it does give it that nice little barrier. Like, little things can bounce off of it, and it's like, you shall not pass. You're not coming in. It's important. But at the same time, hydration is key. And so if you're starting to see fine lines and wrinkles really quickly, you're probably dehydrated even my wrinkles on my main forehead, like my main line right in here. If I can keep that plump, it looks half as deep just by plumping it back up.

Amy Sherman: I was going to ask you about oil. I have, like, an oil cleanser that I use, which I love. It feels so good, but I also see people use just oils that they don't wash off. Are those good for you? I have very dry skin, too, so to me, it would seem like putting on an oil would be good. I just don't like the only oil I have is a cleanser. But are there certain oils that you would recommend for dry skin that you could keep on the skin that are helpful?

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, yeah. There's tons of amazing oils. I call it skin glazing. So it's something that I throw in routines when people like you and me, we're really dry skin. That would be something I put at the end of the routine at night. So skin glazing is basically taking so you have all your water based products, right, and you put them over top of the skin, and then as you sleep, all that starts to absorb, but you also do dehydrate throughout the night. It does evaporate. So when you put something over top of it, either like Vaseline or oils, which I prefer because of the texture, it basically creates, like, a little pot, a little lid on the pot, and allows all your products, your water based products, to really absorb into the skin and keeps the top layer really hydrated. So you're getting the best you're sandwiching it in there, and you're making sure.

Amy Sherman: That this is very happy.

Natasha Brinkmann: And my favorite oil in the whole wide world and still to this day, is Herbivore Phoenix Oil.

Amy Sherman: I actually have that. And it's funny, I bought that. I mean, it's probably expired by now, but I remember buying that, and I didn't really know how to use it because it was before I was into all this stuff. Really, it was like I was just starting to experiment, and I didn't know. But now that you're saying to wear it at night, that makes sense. I had no idea how to use it.

Natasha Brinkmann: You just put it over top of your nighttime.

Amy Sherman: It just kind of sinks in at night.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah, it stays a little bit more on top, but you just kind of pat it in. And I call it skin glazing because you look like a glazed donut. When I tell people glazed, I want you to look lazy. I don't want you to look like a plain donut. We want full glow.

Amy Sherman: Love a glazed donut. Along with the glazed nails, too. We were talking about should we get into our wrap session, Katie?

Katie Chandler: Well, before we do, I want to hear Natasha's routine.

Natasha Brinkmann: I'm just so curious.

Amy Sherman: We need to know your morning and your night routine.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah, that's not fair. I'm testing I'm testing products right now, so I'm always testing. Let me be.

Amy Sherman: Yes. If you weren't testing and you were just like a normal vacation day, something like that, yeah.

Natasha Brinkmann: Okay. Would I have to be on budget? No budget. Whatever you budget. Oh, my God. Okay. No budget. I probably still use the same cleanser that I have, which is the ordinary squealing cleanser, because it's just perfect for my skin. Anything like a richer emollient is really nice on dry skin, so I love that. Or the skin fix. They have a really nice foaming oil cleanser, so any one of those would be fantastic. If I could. For makeup removing, I would do the two botanicals. The turmeric makeup removing balm is sublime. I want to do, like, a downward dog yoga pose while I'm wearing it because it's not so good. It's just amazing. For my serums daytime, there is a new product from Emk Beverly Hills called the Rescue Serum, and it's a proprietary blend, which I'm not a fan of because they usually typically don't work. But when I tried this very high end Beverly Hills, this bottle is, like, $250, and I'm really obsessed with it. I keep going back thinking, I really liked how it firmed up my skin, tightened, brightened my skin. It's just one of those ones where it just stood out from a lot of the other products I've tested. So I love that one. I definitely love the skin fix. The new one I was talking about the activating serum, because that's keeping me juicy and plumpy, so I'd probably keep that in there. And I'd have to see how the chubula would work from True botanicals, because I just ran out, and I'm really missing it. So I would use that.

Amy Sherman: This is all morning.

Natasha Brinkmann: This is all morning.

Amy Sherman: Okay, just clarifying, because we might copy this routine.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah. Again, this is based on me and my needs. I know. I'm just trying but with that being said, the moisturizer, I would probably either use the cocoa kind or the skin fix. Because I love both. The cocoa kind really is juicy and plumpy, but right now it's super, super dry here in Alberta. So I'd probably stick with the skin fix until the humidity went up a little bit.

Amy Sherman: The cocoa kind one like, what is cocoa kind?

Natasha Brinkmann: Awesome. It's a smaller company, but they have what's called poly. Let me find the name so I say it properly. You can buy it online.

Amy Sherman: Yeah, it's a brand.

Natasha Brinkmann: I just haven't resurrection polypeptide cream. It's almost like tatcha. So it looks like the Tatcha dewy water cream, but it's more plumpy. You get a lot more plump out of it. It's gorgeous.

Amy Sherman: So is that like, better during the day, not as both day or night. Okay.

Natasha Brinkmann: Or night? Yeah, you could use it both day or night. I love it because even my oily clients love it because it plumps them up, it gives them that fullness, but it doesn't make them feel oily or extra. You know how sometimes you have a moisturizer on, feels oily or not? Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't do that. So I love that one. So that would probably be my day. And then my SPF, of course, would be either my isn't tree SPF or my ilia, which is my tinted moisturizing serum, which I use all the time. And I adore that one. My nighttime would look very much the same as the morning, so except I would so wash my face. Then I would probably use either. Well, I'm waiting for Topology. Their argline solution is incredible, but they've been out of stock because they kind of went viral last year, so they're trying to play catch up. They have the best arguine solution to date that I've tested.

Amy Sherman: I know, I've watched her videos on that. I really want to try it.

Natasha Brinkmann: Oh, it's nice. And I'd even like their stick. Like, I'm digging out my stick right now because they're out of all of it. Come on. And they're matrixal. I love skin divas matrixal synthetic six. I would say neck and neck with topology. Like, it is sensational. And that one, I would use either one of those two. Then I would probably use my Beverly Hills emk serum, rescue serum, then that skin fix serum. And then I'd probably put on my retinol. I'm really in love with mailov right now. They have a retinol, so it's a step up from retinal instead of a retinol. So it's al. So it's a step up higher and it's a bright yellow. And I think it's called moonlight here.

Amy Sherman: You mentioned it last time, and I actually bought it.

Natasha Brinkmann: I haven't tried it yet. So this is something once you've done a retinol for a long time and you're feeling like, okay, I'm not really seeing fine lines. Still don't seem to be kind of progressing as well as I want. Then you would move up to this one. And I love it. I really love it. The longer I use it, the better my skin looks. And I'm obsessed.

Katie Chandler: The matrixel, is that just a nighttime thing? Because I've been using it day and night, so I need to switch to only night.

Natasha Brinkmann: Well, it can be used day. Right? There's lots of options that you can use. It's just it can't be used with vitamin C because it breaks down the bonds. So that's the trick. And if you're using a vitamin C during the day or a niacinamide, then you're covered. Like niacinamide can be used with matrixal, just not vitamin C. So it depends. I would change up my routine, though, because I love putting in certain things at certain times of the year. I also love to do copper peptides because that's a real great way. Like if you have that face dump where your face looks like it just gave up on you and you've lost all of that, and it happens. I think I got it at 46. I noticed the face dump, I'm like, what the hell? I've been loving you. What is going on? So I have to say that was a shocker. And then I got onto the copper peptides from Biosense, which is superior to the ordinary. I just want to say that because most people that try the ordinary don't see results. But with the copper peptides from Biosense, when I do like a whole bottle of that, my skin just plumps right back up and I love it. I always get, oh, you've got filler in your face. No, I'm just plumping it up.

Amy Sherman: The old and you use that at night, the copper peptides, but you can.

Natasha Brinkmann: Use it during the day. Again, in retinol weeks, she goes, Can I do copper peptides during the day and then retinols at night? Yeah, you can, and you know what, that's probably something I should try.

Amy Sherman: So after your retinol, you were talking about the retinol from May Love. Do you do moisturizer on top of that?

Natasha Brinkmann: Always moisturize, and if it's really dry, I put oil over top of that. Or like the topology has the caviar stick, which is really rich. So I'll put that on or I'm still, like I said, digging out the argoline stick that has a nice rich.

Amy Sherman: Hanging on to every last ingredient.

Natasha Brinkmann: Yeah, when you find something you love and you obsess over, that's why I share it, because I'm like, no, I only share what I feel is really good. I do share stuff. That's okay because everybody's budget is very different. But generally speaking, if it works, I talk about it. If it doesn't work, I just don't talk about it.

Amy Sherman: Yeah, no, it's so helpful. Okay, so I think we should get into a wrap session so we don't lose you and lose the answers. Okay, so quick answers. What is your favorite wellness or beauty hack?

Natasha Brinkmann: My favorite or one of your favorites? Definitely laser treatments. That to me is like a solid underscore and a little filler here or there. Like I said, for my lips, that will always be in my routine, for sure. And just the consistency of my routine. That, to me, is like my religion. That's my time. I love doing that.

Katie Chandler: The next one is your five minute flow. You just got out of the shower and dried off Ubers pinged you and they're five minutes away. So you're going to do your skincare routine that you just told us really quickly, and then what are you going to do to get out the door and get in that Uber on time in five minutes? Yeah, put it this way.

Amy Sherman: You don't have time to do that whole skin routine. Like, what are those Holy Grails that you're like, all right, if I don't put on anything else, I got to put on these things to get up.

Katie Chandler: Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, there you go.

Amy Sherman: Isn't that a hard question?

Natasha Brinkmann: That would be really hard because I would probably slap every **** thing I just quickly as I could, throw in my ilia, put my hair in a bun, and then, yeah, throw in some rule of lemons and hope to God I don't have anything sticking out of my pants. I would definitely throw in a couple of serums, probably a couple of my serums if this was the morning I'd put on. So again, one of my serums, or the one that I was talking about, skin fix and then moisturizer and then ilya over top because it's a tinted moisturizing.

Amy Sherman: That's a great one.

Natasha Brinkmann: And it gives me my SPF. It gives me everything all in one. And that would probably be the quickest thing, but I would never be late. That doesn't happen. I need my beauty routine. I have my time set aside so I have enough time to I know.

Amy Sherman: And it is relaxing, I find.

Katie Chandler: So true. All right, and the last one is, how do you maintain your daily nirvana? Maybe it's your beauty routine that maintains your nirvana.

Natasha Brinkmann: Well, you know what? It's funny because my husband and I, we do every night, we do five things we're grateful for every single night. And it's just something that we kind of got into just to stay grounded and stay in the moment, because life can get really crazy. And my husband has been dealing with colon cancer for the last four years, which we finally thank you, but we believe we're at the end of it now. And for us, it helped us keep us grounded. So you didn't get stuck in the fear. It was more for the mental health, but now we don't stop. Like last night, I'm like, do you want to do the five things we're grateful for? He goes, I'm so tired. Let's do it tomorrow. I'm like, okay. And then 2 seconds later, he goes, no, it doesn't feel right not to do it. So now it's our routine, and we just say five things. It could be anything simple, like, I'm just really grateful I had great clients today, or I'm grateful my cold is finally giving up things like that. And it changes. And we try to make sure we don't say the same thing over and over again because then it kind of takes away from the exercise. But that's what I yeah, that's really good.

Amy Sherman: I love that.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, it's a great practice. Wonderful. Well, Natasha, we are so incredibly grateful for your time and honestly, like, pen and paper and notes. So when you're listening to this episode and maybe listen to it a couple.

Amy Sherman: Everything will be in the show notes.

Natasha Brinkmann: Don't worry.

Katie Chandler: I have to hear the details over and over again on when to do this, at what time. And so, yeah, I think our listeners, this episode is going to be downloaded multiple times by lots of people.

Natasha Brinkmann: So thank you for your time.

Amy Sherman: Don't forget to follow Natasha B on TikTok on Instagram. Will you tell us your handles again, just so everybody knows?

Natasha Brinkmann: Yes, I'm on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. And Instagram is natasha beauty junkie monkey. Facebook is beauty junkie monkey. And TikTok is Beautyjm zero.

Katie Chandler: Got it. All right, well, before we go, we like to wrap with a little mantra or quote or just friendly reminder. So I think we're talking about all this beauty. So I kind of liked this one. To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. Self acceptance, do your little beauty routine to make you feel good.

Natasha Brinkmann: Accept yourself. Exactly.

Amy Sherman: And embrace yourself. Exactly. And just want to say thank you again for all your time. We could literally spend hours talking about.

Natasha Brinkmann: This stuff with you.

Amy Sherman: We just really value your time and I know our listeners will, too, so you can come back anytime. We'd love to have you as much.

Natasha Brinkmann: As you want to.

Amy Sherman: Come on, because this is just so helpful and learning how to take care of our skin and ourselves. So much fun. Thank you again.

Natasha Brinkmann: You're very welcome. And thank you, Katie and Amy, for having me and reaching out to me. This was amazing. I enjoyed it very, very much. And I'd be happy to come back. So maybe we can do a third one. Love it. Absolutely.

Amy Sherman: Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would, please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 96 - Acids & Peptides & Ceramides Oh My! Answering Your Skincare Product Questions With Natasha Brinkmann (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast episode 96.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Unknown:0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Amy:0:27

Welcome back to Nirvana sisters, Nirvana sisters family. It's Amy and Katie, and we are joined by Natasha Brinkman or Natasha b Who is a trained esthetician, skincare expert and educator. You may know her as beauty junkie maki on Tik Tok, where she has over 350,000 followers. That's how we found her so much amazing skincare advice we trust all her recommendations and all of her insight. Natasha is very unique in her field because she's completely independent of any brand. And this provides her with unbiased opinions on all skincare lines. She thrives on finding each diamond product that each brand has and shares it within her community giving others the best bang for their buck. So Natasha is online consultations, business consultation business is worldwide. She designed skincare routines for those around the world. And her success has her completely booked for the next six months. So hopefully the Nirvana sisters family can get in sooner than that. But we are so glad to have you here. Natasha, thank you so much for joining us today.

Unknown:1:28

Oh, thank you, Amy. I sincerely appreciate that.

Amy:1:31

Awesome. Well, we are going to start out we have so many questions. But before we start out, we just want to take a step back and do our nirvana of the week, something that brought us joy, happiness this week that we can reflect upon. And I will hand it over to Katie, to give us her Nirvana the week.

Unknown:1:45

Oh, thanks. So really quickly. Before I do that, I just want to say hi to Natasha and I'm so happy you're here because you single handedly saved my skin. And we'll get into why here shortly. But I think my I have probably like two Nirvana's one that happened, and then a future one for tomorrow. But I am traveling for the first time for work and a few long time not a few years, a long time. And it's just been kind of a Nirvana and it's Oh, and it's fun. It's fun to be like on the road. And I'm working for a great client. And while I miss my family, it's it's it's just been kind of exciting to do all of this stuff again. So that was a nirvana. And then my next one is tomorrow, we're in Baltimore. And I'm in Baltimore for my client, and my kids and my husband are going to come and meet me. And we're going to go to the aquarium here. And I'm so excited because it's really like one of the best aquariums in the country and my girls love and aquarium. So it'll just be a really fun day. I'm excited. What about you, Amy?

Amy:2:39

Oh, that's cute. So I would say my run of the week was last night. So I went out for girlfriend's birthday. It was just four of us, and had a great meal. And it's just so fun when you go out with great friends really close friends, and you just have those different conversations that you don't have with other people. So we laughed, we cried. We just the range of topics we talked about. Were just so funny. And so age appropriate. It was just like a great. It was just a great night. So I really appreciated that because I haven't had a good like connection with girlfriends in a couple weeks. So it was just really, really nice. What about you Natasha

Unknown:3:11

being here. This is very exciting for me, I was pretty, I was pretty stoked. I'm like, No, we gotta do this. So this is definitely my moments.

Amy:3:21

Oh, love to hear that.

Unknown:3:23

Yeah, thank you. All right. Well, before we kick it off, I'm going to just tell you my really quick Natasha B story because like I said, You saved my skin. I was using an exfoliant every day as my face lotion as serum Sunday Riley's good genes, which is a great product, but I didn't know how to use it. I was using it wrong. And I came across your content. And I started watching your videos and you taught me what an exfoliant is and why shouldn't be using it every day. Maybe my skin likes it once a week. So literally, you saved my skin. My skin was an absolute mess for maybe the last year it was dry. It was flaky. It was red. It was watching. It was acne. It was oily and it was everything. Everything. So thank you, Natasha. Oh, I love hearing this. This is this is why I do what I do. It's it's it's there's so much information out there. And they don't teach people how to take care of their skin. They don't teach people that skincare products do different things for different skin and different skin types. You know, like one person can use an acid every single day and have absolutely amazing skin. But that's a small percentage. And my biggest rant right now is I'm sure you saw is all about using Ha's and BH A's, which are acids in your cleanser and in your toners and then using it other active ingredients with it. It's just it turns into a hot mess and then you unbalanced the skin and then you're wondering where what the heck happened to my face was good and then it wasn't good. And then you keep doing the same things over processing and it just becomes a just accumulation of a hot mess as I like to call it. That's exactly

Amy:4:59

yeah, and it's to true because you're right, there's so much information out there and everyone wants to try all these products. But if you don't know how to use them and you don't know how to use them for your skin and you're not working with someone like you or someone that actually like, has expertise, you can totally mess up your skin. Well and

Unknown:5:15

also those products they always say on the bottle use day and night, like they say us once or twice a week, depending on what your skin can handle or any you know, it's like it's so it's very misleading. So having said that, let's break down what some of these products are because we're hearing a lot of buzzwords on nice synonymized exfoliants. Like you said, Ajay BHA, of course, the vitamin C's and the peptides. So give us kind of a 101 on what all those things are. So your Ha's and BHA so your alpha hydroxy acids and your beta hydroxy acids, those are basically your acids, your exfoliant. And right now, what's kind of being pushed in the industry is using that in your cleanser and your toner, specifically, if you have problematic skin, meaning if you have a breakout or two or acne skin, but the problem is, is that I don't know about you guys, but most of the people that I talk to when I say well, I have acne, it's really bad. And they're really bad is like three breakouts on the chin. So there's a there's a bit of a misconception of what acne skin looks like and what how bad a breakout is, might be bad for you, because that's outside your norm. But that's kind of like the biggest kind of people's interpretation of what acne skin or breakout skin can be. It's very broad, very broad. So of course, companies put it out there, oh, well, we use a small amount, we use a small amount. But I always go back to the old saying, Well, if you have a piece of wood, and it just needs a little sanding, and you sand it down just a little bit, then it's perfect. Right? It looks it feels good, it looks good. You can put the oils on it and hydrates, it looks great. But if you keep filing it down, falling down, falling it down, you start getting rough edges and that glow, and you start getting you know what I mean? Like the little pics of the over filing it, it's a kind of a crude way of putting it. But that's kind of how I look at using acids in your skincare. This is definitely has its place. And yes, there's certain skin types that can use acids on a daily basis, but you don't have to use it on a daily basis. Remember, companies want to sell you their product, that is their main goal, right. And very few, very few companies actually design a skincare for people or their routines because in fairness, that's tough to do. Everybody has different needs in that area. So that's where I have an issue with the hspgs being in cleansers and toners because most people don't need it there. They need it as a treatment separately on a different night. So he is nbha. So he has your your glycolic acid, your lactic acid, your Mandelic Acid, your A z like acid, those are your acids, they they take off the surface area of the skin, BHA is your salicylic acid, that's the stuff that actually goes down deep into the pore and cleans it out almost like like a little washing machine just goes in there and cleans it right out. But it doesn't really talk touched the surface area, but it can dry out the surface area. So you when you have a combination of I have really bad blackheads and I have really bad oil production then yes, and ah a slash BHA. So usually it's a blend of lactic acid, glycolic acid is what's going to be beneficial for your skin type. But if you're like me and you're dried, dehydrated skin, lactic acid is your best friend because it's a humectant and pulls moisture to your to itself. So it's not as aggressive as a glycolic, which is a smaller molecule and can really get in there and try it on the skin. So

Amy:8:39

I have a question. So all of those acids you talked about are? Are they in the category of exfoliators? Or is it okay? So are the those are the kind that like, like Katie was mentioning, like good genes where you keep it on? But what about the exfoliators? Like the ones that are textured, you know, that you just put in your face and rinse off? Is that like a different category? Because I never know which you should be using both different like, how does that work?

Unknown:9:04

Well, there's enzymes, right? And then there's a manual exfoliants right. So you manuals are like those microbeads that were really big, like 1020 years ago, remember those and they were like awesome. And then we found out oops, they're not perfectly spherical. And we're causing micro tears in the skin, which can cause pigmentation and you will basically you're opening up the skin for any type of bacteria and breakouts. But we realized that's not great. Not to mention that microbeads weren't exactly being manufactured. Well, there's some cheaper versions, which we found were polluting the environment. So you know, there's a lot of stuff that we've kind of learned throughout the years. Nowadays, I like to stay away from doing a manual abrasion type of peel. I really liked that they were really focused more on the HSBA Chase and there's different levels of course, but I really liked that because again, the other thing I noticed working with people is that people can be very heavy handed. You know when they're exfoliating they would just sit there and grind it into their skin and like oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no living organism. To Be gentle. I always say touch your face like you're touching a baby how you would How will you press a baby that's that's the kind of pressure you really want to do on your skin. You know legs and arms. That's completely different story but your face you should really touch it like it's a baby. So I personally there it does have its place in certain situations, but I tend to like to go more towards the the acids that you can use, like the ones from the ordinaries. They work really, really great. Polish choice has really good ones out there. formulations. Yeah, well, it's choice. Yeah, Polish choice switched from Sunday Riley's good genes, I think it was just too much. And like the fact that it's serum and you leave it on, I feel like it was kind of stripping my skin. So now I'm using the polished choice, but I only use it twice a week. Well, that's no That's exactly it. You use it less than you probably get better better skin out of it. Yeah. So what are what are let's get into like serum mites and the vitamin serum mites or night. Serum right and a nice and am I the same thing or no? No, not really. So nice cinema. It said I'm sorry, it fortifies the cell walls. So what it's a vitamin B three, I guess is the best way to put it. And and what it does is it helps to fortify those cell walls. So you guys can see me this is what like a poor would do. And whenever anybody is talking to me about texture, like I have a lot of texture, I have a lot of oil production, my skin barrier is compromised, it's not doing so well. What that does is it basically helps to heal those cell walls. And it helps to keep them nice and firm and taut. It's nice, that image should be technically used with everybody. It is so good. Any and every skin type can use it because when you fortify those cell walls, again, you bring down texture, so you stop getting that huge bumpiness in the skin that people find when they have oily skin. It also brings down inflammation. It's a powerful powerful antioxidant. So that works exceptionally well against the elements. Not to mention it does help brighten up the skin as well. And it also it another little superpower it has is it helps to regulate your sebum production, which is your oil glands. So it helps to relax that hyperactive sebaceous secretion that people with oily or oily magnetic skin have and it just calms it down. But the problem with niacin amide is it takes time, it takes time to kick in. And a lot of people they're like, Oh, I've used it for two weeks, I've done nothing. Well, no, it hasn't even done a skin cycle. A skin cycle would be basically from we the general consensus is between 28 to 31 days, but as we age, it slows down. So that means you're probably going to have to wait a little bit longer for your skin products to actually kick in and work. And it can take anywhere between three to six months for nice to the mind to really kick in for certain people. So and things like that are kind of what are going to help rebuild the cell wall. Of course, Sarah might also help to fortify the cell walls within the skin so you're not compromising the barrier and that's how you keep the skin looking nice and juicy and plump and not red. Okay,

Amy:12:48

so for niacin amide. Can you use it morning and night? Absolutely. Absolutely. And what is the difference between nice and amide and hyaluronic so hyaluronic acid so from what I know is like very hydrating but it's not as it's not the same asset as like the AGM BJs we were talking about before. Okay, and so I always I always get confused on the difference between nice and amine and hyaluronic because it feels like those two ingredients are in everything or Yeah,

Unknown:13:17

and for good reason. They work really really well together. Like if you have compromised skin barrier or rosacea skin or acne skin, anything like that thin skin, what hyaluronic acid specifically be five it's really unique because the hyaluronic acid pulls moisture to itself like a like a little sponge. But the B five actually helps to hydrate the cell walls in between. So it's like a little bit extra extra. When you do that you fortify the cell walls with a niacin amide you got a really nice happy little marriage of two really solid ingredients that really help to keep the skin firm, juicy, plump and hydrated. The thing with serums that you really have to remember is they are not your moisturizer, so you cannot put a hyaluronic acid and then a niacin amide and then go out and go, Oh, my skin looks dry and dull and it's it's cracking and it's well yeah, because that's not a hydrator it says it's a serum it is serums are basically like what's the best way to describe that? Your multivitamin, your dose of what you're trying to do for your skin to help get your skin nice and healthy. And then are the are the peptides the what is the Yeah, what are the peptides and what is the skin see in the moisturizer, the next step that we want to protect our skin barrier. So when it comes to peptides, there's like, oh, there's a lot. There's like different forms of peptides. There's hydrating peptides, they're stimulating peptides, they're neuron peptides that help to like the RB line or Carolina some people call it I'm Canadian, so I called it our Dline but but basically like that's kind of a neuron peptidic tells the muscles not to move as much or as deep or as penetrative. Then you have Matrixyl 3000 Which is really exciting again, was not big in the field when it back in the day. I'm glad I'm back in it now, but back in, oh gosh, 20 years ago when there was no metrics, so I don't think it came into play until like early 2000, I believe somewhere like that. So the skincare game has changed considerably. And peptides have really make a comeback. Now, there's a lot of people out there that have different varying opinions about peptides. And I, I read the research on it. So when I look it up, I'm like, it doesn't sound too promising, but what the heck, I'm going to try it. That's why I test everything that I talked about. Because I you know, I'm skeptic like everybody else. And I'm also very curious because I've also known throughout the years that you can't just look at it blindly with one set of eyes, you have to try it from different angles and see what works and what doesn't work. And for me peptides really has changed the game for a lot of women and men out there who are just trying to plump up and juice up their skin and just kind of give it the best bang. So peptides, like Metrix are exciting because they stimulate collagen and elastin production, which slows considerably as you age. And there's different versions of them different formulas, like for instance, if you're in your late 20s, early 30s. And you want like just to get a good all round peptide. The ordinary has there used to be called buffet, but I believe they calling it a polypeptide or something like that. It was an incredible formulation of different types of peptides in there, and it worked exceptionally well. I really, really love that one. But for me, I'm a huge fan of metrics or metrics or synthetic six, which is is that like a CRM, or is it a moisturizer? Yeah, it's a serum. And again, there's a lot of products that will either put it in a serum, so it's almost like your power packed your your major dosing, or they'll put it in your moisturizer, which has, you know, hit Miss results, right? Because when you put the more ingredients you put together, you're not not they don't always work, Senator son, I can't even say it today synergistically. They don't always do that perfectly together. But the same can be said about a syrup, like certain serums are just basic, and they kind of fall flat. Not because the active ingredient isn't good. It's because it's not being supported by the other ingredients that help to enhance it. So that's something I'm still learning like I I'm still doing a lot of research and going in through a whole bunch of different products. But I've been so busy doing consultations that it's kind of slowed that down a little bit. So I'm trying to get back into my you know, my groove,

Amy:17:22

I just I'm, I got a little like trial size of something called I just looked it up. It's a moisturizer, it's, it's by the brand Skinfix and it's called barrier plus and it says triple lipid peptide peptide cream. I've been using it at night, and it's really moisturizing. It feels so good, especially in the winter and I love it I don't know if it's the peptides or whatever it is but like it's just really really like creamy and thick and moisturizing. But that had peptides in it and that's what I was gonna ask you like she doesn't even work in the cream doesn't it's Yeah, it sounds like it's better to put it directly on your skin versus to a moisturizer but it doesn't hurt if it's in a moisturizer, right?

Unknown:17:59

No and there's different forms like there's hundreds of different forms of peptides out there. Right so once in this Skinfix triple lipid peptide cream. Those are really big on the lipids on the fatty acids that are within that skincare so you're not going to see a trixl in that you're going to see different forms of peptides in there. And those are the ones that protect the skin barrier. They're really heavy in the Sara mites so it's really like Skinfix is one of my cult favorites. We love that one. I said I say to all my clients if I was in clinic, I would have a wall of it with that because of the different formulations because it is so effective. So effective, no good and it's hydrating, but it doesn't. What's the best way to put it it's hydrated but it's not oily. And they love the receipt at all you know and for those that are really oily kind of oily econetic Skin their gel formulation is sensational. I absolutely love it. So those are two products and I think that's why I liked the Skinfix so much because it's a little bit more user friendly for the majority of those skin types out there. Yeah, they also have a really good product to have their their cleansers are also a favorite of mine. So they have the basic cleanser which is there my friends might have my list let me pull up my list.

Amy:19:11

Oh we love to have I have

Unknown:19:13

once I've checked once I've tested it and I deem it worthy I know that sounds so sounds so funny. I feel like a little queen in my little realm here but I didn't be worthy it makes my list. Basically basically it means I can recommend this to other people comfortably and say you're probably going to do pretty good with this. Everybody has their different experiences but this is kind of how I do mine but it's called the foaming oil hydrating cleanser which is absolutely sensational. It will not it will not compromise your skin barrier. It's not going to wreck it. It is safe for pretty much every skin type out there. But here's the thing for people with really oily skin and I'm not talking just T zone but those that suffer from really oily skin chronically. They're they're foaming clay cleanser spectacular because the CLAY actually helps absorb all that extra oil and when you pair that with you're using a niacin amide serum which is going to help bring down the hyperactive sebaceous secretion. And then you use perhaps their, I believe it's called their skin barrier nice that it might restoring gel, you're still keeping that hydration level up in the skin so the oil glands don't go crazy. And the nice citta might help to fortify and reduce the extra hyperactive sebaceous secretions. So it's a beautiful I love I love those products.

Amy:20:26

Love it. And then I know we talked I don't know if we asked you this before when we were talking about the H nbha. Is do you have I know we mentioned Polish choice? Do you have other brands that like what else what's on your list for for the exfoliators

Unknown:20:38

I have lots again, and it all depends on the individual and the type. So for me lactic acid 10% The ordinary it's, it's a cheap, awesome trick that works just just works brilliantly. L'Oreal Revitalift 10% glycolic serum. Absolutely awesome. And you can use you can just get it at your local Drug Mart and glad a glycolic acid is really good for normal skin types. You know, not too oily, not too too dry, kind of right in the middle. It's wonderful. And I like it that it's in a serum because it's a little bit more hydrating than your typical glycolic toner that you can get from the ordinary, you know, like that one, I'm not a fan of as much because it's really drying on the skin. So for me, it's kind of like oh, you know that one, I'll tell you a good trick about that. One side note. If you have really bad callus heals, throw on like put a little pouch pad of the glycolic serum, wipe it on your heels and put your moisturizer overtop skin changer. You're gonna have to try that. Yeah, it's a great little trick that it's fantastic of for people with really thick, oily skin, they can come they can get away with it, but it's not my favorite formula because like I said, it's pretty dry. And my my theory is I'd rather keep it a little bit more hydrating. That's why I like the glycolic serum from L'Oreal Revitalift. Because it's a little bit more hydrating, it's a little bit more supportive.

Amy:22:00

And so there's that, that they have like an under eye kind of serum to my thinking of the right one with like this. There's like silver, kind of like balls at the end. I don't know if that's how.

Unknown:22:10

Yeah, that's the hyaluronic acid when you're talking about Yeah, that's the hyaluronic acid you can put around your eyes. That one's Excellent. But ya know that it's generic, you know, hyaluronic acid after a while it's kind of hyaluronic acid, right? It's like, yeah, there's, there's $50 versions, do they work better than five $10 versions a little bit, you know, they're a nicer formula. They go on a little bit nicer, but they kind of technically do the same thing. So different molecular weights, there's always a little extra nuances that can make them just a little bit better, a little bit more luxurious, but I'll be damned if I ever pay 50 bucks for it. I will spend $100 on a cream if I see the value in it, but I am not going to pay $50 for hyaluronic acid. That's where I get cheap. It's so true that you can get such great products at drugstores now as well like therapy, I started using surbeys hyaluronic acid and niacin amide cream or CRM and it is fantastic. I'm I love it. And also I'm really until the Roche Posay now they're a great price point. Very nice. Yeah, very nice sign. So I'm so fascinated by this because you're so insanely educated on all of these details. So how you create these protocols or these routines for your clients. It's just brilliant. So they come to you and they say these are my problems ABCD and you put together a program for them. Yeah, yeah. Basically put together a skincare routine based on their skin type their needs and where they're at in their life because some people they're like, yeah, no, I'm okay with that. I just want this and I'm like okay, you know, for them. I have one client she's like, I know the wrinkles are coming I just My skin's just unbalanced. I just want a basic skincare routine. Nothing fancy just something I can be religious with and just have good skincare and like you got it. I had another client yesterday actually. She was amazing. She's like, I followed your routine and some of the routines that you were kind of putting together and on tick tock and she goes I had a horrible allergic reaction to a type of medication and the only place she didn't peel was the areas where she had taken care of her skin so her face her neck and her chest. But the rest of her body peeled due to this reaction she had to medication. So I just that just goes to show that your diligence you know in your skincare can make such a difference. Where could you

Amy:24:19

sorry, kidding are like 10,000 questions. Do you have a favorite vitamin C brand and question for you on that you put that on first? And then the niacin amide etc. Or like what's the order like I have a heart a lot of people get tripped up on like, what do you put on first and last but

Unknown:24:35

it depends on the vitamin C so the ascorbic acid form of vitamin C from skin deeba is truly my ultimate favorite with but that's that's a hot like that's a you worked your way up to it. If you are brand new and you go right telescopic acid you may or may not enjoy it, you know because it based on your skin type. It is the most potent I call her the diva of all of all, vitamin C. She's highly potent, highly reactive. She is also highly unstable. Oh, so she just she requires a little bit extra love. So she's, she's high maintenance but damn does she does her job like, this is the diva that's gonna sing the opera she's she's going to do it. So that's why I quite love her but I say that lovingly in the fact that your skin has to be dry. So you can technically put your hyaluronic acid and your nice and wide and all your serums on first. But the first rule of skincare is thinnest to thickest waterbased than a creams than oils. So when you're looking at like, for instance, Guindy about this one, it is a more of a water base. So that would go on first on dry skin, then you're going to let it absorb for a good solid minute, then you would put on anything that would be like a serum base, like your hyaluronic acid, you're nice and like any of those, your chebula, which is also a favorite of mine. And what I like to do, because a lot of them are carried in hyaluronic acid is when I apply it on my skin is I'll take a couple of drops and then I'll just kind of wet my fingertips or just give a light spray really far away because I don't want to overwhelm it. I just want to give it a little bit of slip factor. And then I would rub it in all over my face. let that soak in. Then I put on my creams and then my SPF and then ready for the day. That's it another tip of yours that I need to start to use and that is when you put a product on your face. Give it a second to get in there and do its job before you slap the next thing on. I'm like bubble gum, you know,

Amy:26:21

really you're rushing and you're like Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Unknown:26:25

very good tip. It's good to break it up. And you know, just brush your teeth. Go make your bed run after your kid like you know, sometimes it's good to break it up a little bit here and there. Some people ask well do I have to wait a full minute really, honestly give give your vitamin C a minute. Just give that one a full minute let her do her job. The serums are usually pretty pretty quick at absorbing like another good form of vitamin C is ascorbic acid which is not as strong but it's still very potent and that one is better on dry skin as well. Then when you go into like the texture heckled dako, ascorbic acid which is my favorite ultimate fatty acid awesome juiciness. That one works really well but you can actually layer it under your vitamin like under your serums and stuff like that. It doesn't it doesn't start working until it penetrates into the skin and it's a beautiful ingredient. I love that one. What's your view item and see for sensitive skin. Oh sensitive skin. I love herbivore Nova that that that sucker is awesome. And it's so juicy are so juicy and plumping it's got some alpha arbutin which helps to prevent excess melanin production. It does have a little bit of T chebula in there as well which is a very incredible powerful antioxidant. There's so many good turmeric as well which helps to reduce and lighten and brighten the skin like it just evens everything out. It's beautiful. But again, it's long term use you're not going to see results within like five 510 days you're gonna really have to just play the long game on it and some pigmentation just is not going to move. I have this little spot back my hand I've had it lasered I put products on it you name it I've done it ain't going anywhere she's like no you I'm with your girl that's it.

Amy:28:02

We're nasties

Unknown:28:05

so sometimes you just have to understand that there's certain things that are never gonna go away and kind of have to make your peace with that I was having such a hard time with vitamin C but I think it's because I was using the Sunday Riley good genes daily I think that was probably the culprit to all of my problems. So I'm gonna give it an I'm gonna give it another go. I'll try that one. Yeah, to try to try the Nova Yeah, that was fantastic.

Amy:28:27

So I was gonna switch topics because this is another topic that is Katie knows very passionate about which is under eyes. Oh yeah. Like dark circles bags like dry skin hollowness. What do you got? Tell us about brands, moisturizers things.

Unknown:28:48

Absolutely so did apology kind of went viral last year because they had gifted me one of their metrics holes and along with their eye patches and so forth. And although I did like the eye patches and metrics which just blew me out of the water, because what it did is it helped plump up my skin around the Holliness around my eyes as well as it again add some firmness because you're adding hydration you're basically kind of tired you were just talking

Amy:29:12

tricks that under your I got it

Unknown:29:14

oh I put that all over like I bathed in that that goes all over you want neck skin you want chest skin you want everything like I'll be 48 on Tuesday next week and there was literally your skin is gorgeous well I'm lucky because I get to play with a lot of product now that I would have never been would have never been open to in the past right so this is this is the kind of the perk of my of my job now which I'm really appreciative but I also share all my knowledge so everybody else can try different products as well and see which one's work best for their skin but

Amy:29:44

use that yeah, what what else like do you put on favorite eye creams like any tips for

Unknown:29:50

Yeah, so Charlotte Tilbury has really nice eye cream, really nice and it does help. Definitely help firm up my skin. There's another brand that I just finished Testing out and it did sensational. I used to roll my eyes. It wasn't a specific eye cream. It was the whole system itself. It's called EMK. Yeah, en que Beverly Hills. Sorry, I just have the little thing beside me because I'm gonna do a video on that. So that's my my refresher note to do that. That was an incredible system. highly expensive, though. So it is truly a Beverly Hills one, but it worked exceptionally well around my eyes. Apologies caviar stick is a great hydrator it's not going to firm up the skin. Like the Charlotte Tilbury one, but it's a great hydrator. So if you have a really dry, dehydrated one, that caviar stick is seasonal. I'm testing out true botanicals, they have an ice serum. I'm loving it, I put it on this morning, and I'm super super happy with it. So far. So good. I'm just still in the early stages of testing. So

Amy:30:44

love that. And while we're on the under ice subject, any favorite concealers

Unknown:30:49

Lancome Lancome, is it $40 One that that came out? Oh, it's been a couple years now. But that one still is a tried and true.

Amy:30:57

Okay, we're always looking for good eye creams and failure. So thank you for that.

Unknown:31:02

My page, I promise I will always keep you up to date on anything new, I try to go on as much as possible. So then that way people can make an informed decision. And, you know, know that, okay, somebody tested it, they liked it, you know, and they thought there was value to it. And that's what I love about being independent is that although I may work with brands after I like them, I don't do the other. I don't do it the other way. I was just offered a huge contract. Law and I thought was huge. And they're like, Yep, no, we want you to do this within a couple of weeks. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I gotta test it. So they're happy to do this, but I have to test it. See if I like it. And then we can talk and they're like, Oh, well, no, we need to do it. And I'm like, Nah, I'm not interested. Dude, sorry. Good for you. I worked my butt off to to keep my integrity means everything to me. And I worked my butt off to earn that.

Amy:31:47

Trust. Exactly. Yeah, I respect your opinion. So that's good.

Unknown:31:51

Yeah, so I'm not into that. Speaking of opinions, what's your opinion on skin cycling? Do you have any of your clients doing skin cycling? Well, when I put them on a, an actual program, there was a version that we actually do together. So I do put them on a program based on their skin type and their skin needs, which would consult well with the skin cycle, really. But it's not like what you're seeing from one dermatologist, I think they she came out with this, you know, do it this day to do it. They said do it this way that that will work for again, it's not a blanket statement for everybody. And it's not viable for most people, because it's not something that in a busy life schedule, works with people, right? Because when I design skincare routines, I'm like, What's your life like? Like, well, how realistic is this because I don't want you to buy all these products and do this whole thing, only to do it for the first two weeks and then go completely down the wayside. And, you know, I want to try to encourage something that they can do long term. And for certain people, they're very systematic, and they have that calendar in their head and they can do it, I say all the power to you. Just make sure you're using the right products. I don't recommend over exfoliating your skin more than, again, for certain skin types once twice max, max, max, max, some people can do three, but it's not as much as people think it is. And that's why I'm not quite a fan of that version. But again, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who have had excellent success with it. So I don't want to poopoo anybody's work, but at the same time, I just want to be realistic that it's not going to be for everybody.

Amy:33:15

Yeah, of course. What about yeah, sorry, do you have

Unknown:33:18

a favorite retinol product that you like? I was going

Amy:33:21

to ask the same thing.

Unknown:33:23

Yeah, actually, I do love the one from topology that was sensational, that when you can use every single day, Kiehl's also has a really good they're micro dose one is fantastic. May love or if they have to, they have a retinol and a retinal oops, don't want to give you the thing. So retinal is your basic has to kind of penetrate the skin and convert itself a few times so it's on the lower end but it works very very well and then they also have another one called the retinal which is a higher strength and only has to I think only has to do one or two conversions and it's ready to rock and roll so

Amy:33:56

that one like once or twice a week probably not as much

Unknown:33:59

oh no I use that daily now once you get right now to it Yeah, once you work your way up you can but I hate to do this ladies. I have a consultation to do oh my god oh my god but I would love to come on here and do

Amy:34:12

more. Yeah, let's do have to we'll have you back whenever is convenient for you because I think in the part two we want to talk about like some of these treatments we're seeing out there like Morpheus aid and micro like all the treatments you can do and also want to hear about your routine and more your favorites etc. So we'll make sure to book you so don't worry Nirvana sisters family. We're gonna get her back back. Lady,

Unknown:34:36

they come back Bye bye.

Amy:34:40

Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things Well now so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 95 - ProductJunkies - March Edition - Moisturized Lips, Glowing Skin, Hair On Point, We Got You.

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 95.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

[00:07] Amy Sherman: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of wellbeing and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are Sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

[00:18] Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

[00:28] Amy Sherman: Welcome back to the show nirvana Sisters Family. It's Amy and Katie, and it is March product junkie's time, and we are excited to share with you some of our new finds, our new favorites. I'm going to start with you, Katie. What do you got for us?

[00:41] Katie Chandler: All right, well, this is a new fave, for sure, and it is a very good drugstore find. It's a brand that we all know and have known forever. It's Covergirls clean, fresh, yummy gloss. That's actually the name of it. And it is fresh and yummy. I have it on now, and it's the kind of thing where it's so soft and nice that I just apply it all day long. And it actually lasts. It lasts a while when it comes off, if I'm eating, if I wipe it off, because it whatever, I put it back on as soon as I'm done because it feels great.

[01:19] Amy Sherman: And which color is that one's?

[01:20] Katie Chandler: Good. I have it on now, so it's actually pretty clear, but in the tube, it says coconuts about yo is the color. And there's hyaluronic acid in this, which, of course, is part of the reason why it feels so nice on. And it also has this really thick, soft adapter, which I really like, too.

[01:45] Amy Sherman: Okay, this is hilarious. And you saw that I smiled when you set that product? No, I was looking for it because I saw it. You probably saw the same place that I say I saw Bethany Frankel talking about it on TikTok, and I was like, oh, that looks nice, and she said, it felt really good on the lips. I was like, I need to get that. I looked for it in Target the other day, and it was completely sold out. There was, like, one left and it wasn't a good color, but that was the only one. Every single color was sold out.

[02:08] Katie Chandler: Yeah, my CVS a week ago, there was, like, three tubes left, the whole entire thing.

[02:15] Amy Sherman: And it's like how much is it? Like $10?

[02:16] Katie Chandler: Not even. I mean it's cover Girl. I feel like it is. Oh, maybe. Yeah, $10, which is a very good one.

[02:25] Amy Sherman: Does it smell good?

[02:26] Katie Chandler: It does. Smells like coconut. This one smells like coconut, which is really nice. The other flavors and scents are berry and pineapple, and they have a couple of colors. There's acai goji and black elderberry in it, in addition to the hyaluronic acid. So it is really nice on. I'm obsessed with it. I haven't bought a Covergo product in I don't even know how many years. It's been forever. This is like the brand that I bought when I was a teenager.

[02:51] Amy Sherman: Totally.

[02:51] Katie Chandler: So it's a good one.

[02:53] Amy Sherman: It's so funny because I've been looking for that. I haven't gone to CVS. Maybe CVS will have it, but I've been really wanting to try that because I'm really into tons of glosses lately. Okay, so that's really funny that you say that. We need to try the yummy gloss. So in the same vein, I got these glasses. These are the Nyx fat oil. What is this called? Sorry. Nyx fat oil. Lip Drip. And they're lip oils. Okay. So I saw Mikayla reviewing these on TikTok, and I got my hands on, like, four colors because I was at Target, and they happened to have it. They didn't have many left. So I just bought four colors because, again, they're inexpensive. I think they were, like, maybe $10 or less. And I got kind of like you can see kind of like this pink. I got, like, a golden brown hair.

[03:44] Katie Chandler: When I saw you last weekend.

[03:47] Amy Sherman: Probably. Yeah, I was testing it. All the colors are actually beautiful on. I'll try one on just so you can see it. I'll try on this. This one's called I'll tell you the colors I have. This one's called Follow Back. It's kind of like a bronzy brown. This one's called Mist Call. It's kind of like a pinky Neutral. This one's like a darker brown, and it's called Scrolling. And then this one's more of a red, and this one's called Newsfeed. Fun Names. But anyway, I'll try one on. They feel so good. I've been wearing them all week. I love them so much. I want to get more colors because it's literally the only thing I want to wear. Which is your favorite one?

[04:29] Katie Chandler: Look at the it's pretty.

[04:31] Amy Sherman: It's like, really like a thick applicator. Look at this. I don't know.

[04:36] Katie Chandler: You can see. You just did the full on, like, influencer. Like, this is what it looks like. Thing.

[04:43] Amy Sherman: So obnoxious how pretty it is when I tell you it feels so good on my lips. It's so nourishing and moisturizing and doesn't have that glossy feel because it's an oil. So it just sinks in. I am telling you, it feels so good, and the colors are beautiful, so I love it, love it, love it. I'm going to be wearing this for the next little while, and I'm just going to keep getting new colors because I have a feeling it's like all the colors look good, and they have.

[05:11] Katie Chandler: A wide range of colors.

[05:15] Amy Sherman: I want to say there's, like, maybe eight colors or so. And a lot of people online were saying that it's a dupe for the Dior lip oil, which I've never tried, but I'm in love. So, anyway, nyx Fat oil lip drip. Great product. Target CVS CVS wherever you can find Next.

[05:33] Katie Chandler: I'm going to pick some up next time I'm at CVS. All right, well, here's my next one. And if you have been on the beauty side of social media, you have certainly heard about this lately. It is Paula's choice. BHA. Liquid exfoliant. So we were talking about this at some point, and I can't remember if it was on the air or not, but I switched.

[05:59] Amy Sherman: I think we were talking about yeah, we were talking about this because we were talking about skin cycling, but I don't know if we were talking about this.

[06:07] Katie Chandler: I had been using Sunday Riley's lactic acid as my exfoliant, and I was using it incorrectly. Remember I told you that?

[06:14] Amy Sherman: And I've been using that lately.

[06:15] Katie Chandler: And do you like it?

[06:18] Amy Sherman: I do, but I'm using it only, like, once a week, so not every day. Like, you were crushed.

[06:25] Katie Chandler: My skin was, like, begging Ford's life. But meanwhile, I also have a lot of acne, and this is supposed to be really good for it because it is the BHA, which has, like, the sicilic acid that is the key ingredient for the acne.

[06:41] Amy Sherman: Pro salac.

[06:42] Katie Chandler: Thank you. Salicylic acid. It says it's for all skin types, which is so interesting. And listener, we have a future episode coming up where we really dive into this stuff with an amazing guest that helps us understand that. But for it to say it's for all skin types is wildly inaccurate. Maybe you can use it, but some people would really react to this, myself included. I can only use it once a week. I tried last week to use it twice with a couple of days in between, and I was, like, dry and flaky and actually even more acne because it helps the skin cell turnover. It makes everything kind of come to the surface. Right. It says it unclogs and shrinks enlarged pores, which yes, check. It does do that smooths and evens out skin tone. I agree with that. Lightweight liquid absorbs quickly. It is, but it's intense. If you have acne, though, try it. And then also when you have, like, a pimple that maybe pops up, you could also do what I do, where I just put it on that little spot that day, and it helps. It does help that pimple sooner. Yeah, I like it.

[07:55] Amy Sherman: Do you put that on at night and you just put it all over your face with, like, a cotton ball?

[07:59] Katie Chandler: Yes, I do it one night a week. Cotton ball. And then I follow up with the rest of my regimen and definitely, like, a really good face cream because it can be very drying, but I think it's working for my skin. I like it.

[08:14] Amy Sherman: Does your skin look, like, really kind of glowy the next day?

[08:18] Katie Chandler: Actually, it does. I've noticed that the day after. It's very kind of it's fresh skin almost, it seems like. And then that's when I do my retinol that next day.

[08:31] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I have that in a trial size, and I think I've only used it once. I haven't given it a proper chance, but I bought it, too, because a lot of people have said it's really good. And I also am currently testing the Sunday Riley, which I like so far. But again, I'm only using it like, once or twice a week in the skin cycle routine. And I like it so far, but I can definitely, when I put it on, feel that. It's kind of stingy a little bit.

[08:53] Katie Chandler: Yeah, this stings, too.

[08:56] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I kind of like that feeling.

[08:58] Katie Chandler: I know it's doing its job, I feel like right.

[08:59] Amy Sherman: I know you're like, okay, something's working. Okay, well, speaking of dry skin, here is another so into the trial sizes moisturizer that I tried, which I talked about recently in the show that Katie just mentioned. It's called the skin fix barrier. Plus triple lipid peptide cream. It's this blue tub, and I think the big actually, this is the trial size, and I've been using it for, like, two or three weeks, which is crazy because it really comes with a lot I don't know how many ounces this is. It's 1.5 ML. So it's a really nice trial size. But anyway, I've been trying this over the last couple of weeks. I really like it. It's so good for the winter. It's very nourishing, it just feels really good on the skin, really soothing. And I've been using this every night, and I really, really like it. My skin wakes up like moisturize. It really has been helping. So anyway, I would probably just use this in the winter. I don't know if I'd use it in the summer. We'll have to see. But it's not heavy. It's kind of medium. It's not super heavy, but it's not super light. It's like, leaning more towards heavy, but not heavy heavy, where it feels thick and greasy. Too thick? Yeah, it feels really nice. It spreads nicely. It's just a really, really good texture, like smooth. You know what I'm saying? So I'm definitely going to buy the big one once this is done. So highly recommended.

[10:20] Katie Chandler: And it's filled with peptides, which we learned recently are phenomenal for the skin.

[10:27] Amy Sherman: Exactly. It says Rich Lipid replenishment. I can't read this. Rich lipid. Rich lipid replenishment. And I think this is like, one of those that helps with your skin barrier. So while you're using all of these acids on your face, this is a really good one to use. It nice and moisture skin barrier in.

[10:51] Katie Chandler: The winter especially, too. Like, all of our skin barriers are compromised. All right, well, moving from skin to hair, I have a nice little hair product. You are the person that introduced me to this brand. It's the wow brand, and I think it's out of the UK, actually, but you can get it anywhere here. This is the wow. Extra Large Bombshell. Volumizer. This gives fantastic volume. Like epic volume without a volume.

[11:24] Amy Sherman: Is it like a texture spray?

[11:26] Katie Chandler: No, it's like a moose. You put it in your hair when your hair is damp like a moose. Anywhere that you want volume. Well, before I cut my banks, I would do it in the front, but it delivers for sure. And your hair doesn't get too heavy afterwards. I really do like it. It's a great product. The only thing that I don't like about it is that on day three, my hair is getting a little bit oilier faster when I use it because, you know, I care that I only wash it seemed for you we only wash our hair, like, once or twice a week. The volume will last for a few days, which is impressive, but I don't know, I kind of have to wash my hair sooner, which I don't love that piece to it, but I recommend it if you're looking for, like, really bouncy, luminous, gorgeous, slowly hair. It'll work.

[12:20] Amy Sherman: And do you put it in? Sorry, miss? We said you put in when it's wet or dryer.

[12:23] Katie Chandler: You put it in when your hair is damp? Yes. Okay. And it doesn't dry your hair out. The claim to fame with it is it's first of a kind, non drying, volumizing technology. No alcohol or salt, instantly thickens and lasts for days. So that's great that it doesn't dry your hair out, but it's kind of doing the opposite effect for me, where after a couple of days, it's like, almost making it a little too oily. But if you're one of those people that washes their hair, like, every other day, it wouldn't really matter.

[12:55] Amy Sherman: Right. Or if you use it, like, the day or two before you're going to wash it anyway, then it doesn't matter as much.

[13:00] Katie Chandler: Well, no, because you can't put it in dry hair. You don't want to put it in dry hair.

[13:04] Amy Sherman: I see you do it after you wash it. Good. I'll have to try that next time I'm with you. Yeah, my hair is wet. I just did my wash of the week. Okay. So I don't have a hair product. I have the next two products I have are Face products. So the first one I have is my new favorite. I was going to talk about this last month, but I didn't get to it. And it's the rare beauty bronzer stick. This one is. What color is this? It's called Happy Soul. So L, and it's so good. It's just like a bronzer stick. You literally just, like, go like this takes 2 seconds, and it just could, like, mix it in with your hand. It's such a pretty color. Very natural. It feels like nothing on the skin, and it just gives you a little color.

[13:50] Katie Chandler: It's beautiful.

[13:51] Amy Sherman: So easy. What color is that? I feel like it lasts forever. I've had this for it's called Happy Soul. There's a few of them. They didn't have many of them. I just happened to find it at Sephora maybe like, a month or so ago. And they didn't have that many colors left. And I saw this one and I was thinking maybe it was too dark, but it's actually perfect. I love it. And this is so good for travel too, because this is all you need, just like a bronzer stick like this. I don't know if you could use it for contour. Maybe you could, but I think it's too warm for contour. But you could just bring this and like a blush and you're fine. I mean, it's great. You could put it on your forehead, whatever, but it's such a good product. It's really creamy and nice and it just sinks in the skin in 1 second. It's just so easy to use. I love it. So it's the rare fruity bronze. Rare beauty bronzer. I can't talk today. Rare beauty bronzer stick in Happy Soul. And there's a bunch of different colors, but I love it. It's a great, great product. Super easy to use.

[14:48] Katie Chandler: I need to try it perfect for.

[14:50] Amy Sherman: The five minute flow.

[14:51] Katie Chandler: Totally. I need to try some rare beauty products. I don't think I have any, and I know that they have it.

[14:58] Amy Sherman: They're great.

[14:59] Katie Chandler: Nice.

[15:00] Amy Sherman: I love it.

[15:00] Katie Chandler: All right, so my next one is a supplement for your health that I didn't love. And I'm going to give you what you should do instead. All right, so all of us that are dealing with inflammation, especially people with joint problems, autoimmune disease, if you're older and have arthritis, whatever it may be, you should be taking Turmeric. Any doctor and any functional medicine doctor is going to tell you this. Turmeric, it has curcumin in it and it's just excellent for inflammation. So I tried a new product from nature's nutrition. That's the brand, and it was their Turmeric and ginger with Bioprine. Bioprine, by the way, is black pepper. And your turmeric product has to have bioprene in it for it to be effective. Otherwise it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. So make sure you're always looking for turmeric with bioprene or black pepper in it. But this one with ginger, it has really good reviews on Amazon, but it really bothered my stomach. It was really like the ginger was so strong on my stomach and it was bloating me and it was causing me to have all kinds of cramping and everything. So I was kind of disappointed in it because I think aside from that, it was doing its job. But if you have a sensitive tummy, it's a little tough. So instead I went back to the one that I'd always use that I think maybe at the time just wasn't available. And this is a good one. I've been using it for years. It's by Bioshwart, so you can get it on Amazon. And it is the premium ultra pure Turmeric per Cumin. With bioprene, it's the same thing. It just doesn't have ginger and it works very well. So that's it.

[16:43] Amy Sherman: Okay, that's good to know. I have turmeric like supplement. I never take it. I think I took it. I used it for a little while, and then I stopped. But it's a good reminder. Don't they also have Turmeric where you could drink it?

[16:57] Katie Chandler: Turmeric teas, like big cartes, like Turmeric and ginger tea? Yeah. Which I love. I love Turmeric and ginger tea. I think it's just probably the high dose that was a little Tummy that's in a pill. Yeah, exactly.

[17:14] Amy Sherman: Yeah.

[17:15] Katie Chandler: Okay. Yeah, it's a great supplement, so I highly recommend it. If you have, like, achiness or any inflammation, definitely try it and try try the bioshorts brand. So what do you have next name?

[17:26] Amy Sherman: Okay, so my last product is the same brand as the bronzer stick. It's rare beauty, and this is a good one two punch. It's the enlightened highlighter. It's so pretty. It's gorgeous. So I have a lot of highlighters. I'm obsessed with highlighters, but this one is so pretty. It's actually like a powder highlighter, but it's so glowy. And look at that.

[17:51] Katie Chandler: Yeah, that's beautiful. It's very, like, pearly iridescent.

[17:55] Amy Sherman: Yeah. So I just put it on the high points on my face. I sometimes put it in my eyes, put it in the corner. It's really, really pretty. I love it. And it's a lot in here, so it's going to take a while to get through. So this is my new highlighter that I've been using all the time. So it's like I'll use the bronzer stick. I'll use this highlighter. I'll use some, like, cream blush done.

[18:15] Katie Chandler: Five minutes super fast. And I like that. It's a powder. I've been using the stick, the creamy.

[18:22] Amy Sherman: Like a liquid highlighter.

[18:23] Katie Chandler: I either have a creamy stick highlighter or I use a liquid highlighter. And it never blends right. For me, I need to go with the powder, I think, so I need to try that one.

[18:32] Amy Sherman: Yeah.

[18:32] Katie Chandler: You were the first person that ever, like, I ever found out about highlighter from you. You're the very first person I ever saw wear highlighter.

[18:40] Amy Sherman: Really?

[18:41] Katie Chandler: What's that pretty sparklingess on your cheekbones? Yeah, I love it.

[18:45] Amy Sherman: It's so pretty. I have so many of them, I feel like, and I'm always trying new ones. And you're right. I have powder ones, I have liquid. I go back and forth because I also have the rare beauty liquid highlighter that I used to use all the time, and I still use that sometimes. But this one is the best so far because I feel like it's like the prettiest, like, most shiny. Not shiny, but, like, pearly one.

[19:07] Katie Chandler: It's really pretty. Do they have different shades and tones? Because they do. I always wonder with highlighter, how do you choose what color is right for you? We need to ask a makeup artist that question because you and I have very different skin, right. So I don't know if that one would work on me.

[19:27] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I don't know. This one's kind of like I don't even know it's almost like a goldish pinkish color, but it's fair, right? There's a couple of other colors, but I think, again, this is like the only one they have. So I was like, I'll just try this one. But yeah, it's a good question. The first one I ever tried, I think, was Fenty Beauty Highlighter, and it was almost like a yellowish goldish one. That's probably the one you're talking about because I remember a makeup artist that's a four and put it on me and I was like, what is this? It's so pretty. And that one could almost be like a highlighter or even an eyeshadow, and I still have that and use that. But yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot of ranges. I don't know what the rule is, but I love it.

[20:04] Katie Chandler: I know I have some that are pearly white like that, and then I have some that are more golden and I just never know which way to go. So you know what, folks? We're going to have a makeup artist on. We're going to talk about it.

[20:16] Amy Sherman: Exactly. It also probably depends on the time of year because if your face is tanner, you would use a different one versus the winter. But anyway, I love it. So I think that's all we have for this month. That is it. Quick episode, some quick products we're loving. Hope you can go to your local Target CVS, get some of these fun products, the rare beauty products I got at Sephora, I think the skin fix I got at Sephora. And let us know what else you want us to review next month. Bye bye.

[20:47] Amy Sherman: Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes.

[20:52] Amy Sherman: Please subscribe and leave us a review.

[20:54] Amy Sherman: Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know some wood that would, please share it and tag us.

[21:01] Amy Sherman: Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters.

[21:04] Amy Sherman: We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 94 - A Cup Of Wellness With Founder Of Big Heart Tea Co. Lisa Govro (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 94.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman. And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Unknown: 0:28

Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. It's Amy and Katie and we are here with Lisa Gauvreau, founder and CEO of big heart tea company and we are thrilled that she has joined us today to talk all about her company and her background and how her company started and the benefits of tea and how it affects our well being. So a bit about Lisa, she founded big heart Tea Company in 2012. And the company's mission is to help people feel good through healing herbs and tea. Lisa is trained in Ayurveda and combines her food medicine and culinary knowledge to create a growing line of herbal blends that taste good and make you feel that so Katie and I are drinking our big heart tea. I'm drinking the Rooibos if I'm saying that right. And Katie, what are you drinking? And I'm drinking the cup of sunshine, which is the golden tumeric and ginger and it is divine. Yeah, so we love it. And we love all the packaging. We have our little hearts hanging on our tea mugs. So I love that signature little branding moment. So anyway, welcome to the show. Lisa, thanks for being here.

Lisa: 1:35

Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, we're excited to have you. So before we get started, we'd like to take a step back from our week and talk about what brought us joy this week, big or small, what made us happy we put a little smile on our face. So Katie, I will kick it to you to talk about your nirvana of the week. Well, thanks, Amy. I was trying to think about this earlier. And it was a very small moment that just made my heart sing so much and had to do with my five year old daughter she was sick last week she had strep throat and then this week, she started feeling better. And you can kind of really see when that like the sickness goes away, and there's they start to be themselves again. And we're just in the kitchen one day and the way she just asked me for something the way she said Mama and the way you know what I'm saying? Like it was it just kind of like made my heart sing she we have an Au Pair now who is amazing because she is she's like the MPP in this house, I wouldn't be able to go back to work and do all the things I'm doing without her but the kids adore her. That's a good thing. That's a really good thing. I'd much rather have that than the opposite. But so they want to be with her a lot. And they ask for her help a lot. So when I'm around and they come to me and you know, say mama like they did when they were littler. It makes me really happy. So that was my Nirvana this week. What about you, Amy? That's cute. Well, I have one home, one from the week. And then one future one. So the one from the week is similar to yours. My little one, Jules, he's 13. You know, he's like, in the teenage years, you know, like the drama, the school, all this stuff. And he's just not as like, you know, like, not that he's not loving towards me. But you know, he's not like a little kid anymore, where he like, wants to be around me that much. So the other morning he was like, he's like, Mom, can I have my morning hug? It was so small, like, Yes, I'm like you just made my day. So that was really sweet. So that was my little smile moment of the week. But tomorrow night, I'm also going to see Seinfeld and concert and I'm super excited because I've never seen his show. So we're going with friends and during dinner and going to see a show and love Seinfeld. So super excited about that. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, Lisa.

Unknown: 3:44

Let's see, um, I have been traveling a lot lately. So just since the year started, I've been at three different shows all over the country. I'm talking about big heart. And so I've been super homesick and missing my family, my little family at home. But I called in to the team here at Big Heart just to check in on things because we just have a lot going on. And the whole production team like shout it out and said hi to me. And it like made me cry a little. I don't. I just like I just felt so like, supported and like loved from afar by our teams like working so hard here in St. Louis. While I'm out. I was thinking I was in New York at the time at a at a show and I just was feeling like overwhelmed with gratitude and thankfulness about having just such an amazing team of humans that I'm lucky to work with every day. So I think that was my Nirvana moment. That's so special. I love that all three of our moments. Were all around, you know, the people that we love in our lives. That's really sweet. That's great. All right, well, let's kick it off. I am so excited to hear about Big Heart tea, and I'm really interested in your background with Ayurveda. We have talked to somebody with that. There's an Ayurvedic specialist before, but it's such a fascinating, huge world. So tell us a little bit about your food. And I'm sorry, your food medicine and culinary journey and everything that got you to where you are today.

Lisa: 5:18

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I'm not trained to like clinically evaluated just as a site. Like, just to put that out there. My training is more from a culinary perspective. But I got into it, I didn't even realize that is so funny. So I was studying yoga in Sedona, Arizona.

Unknown: 5:39

Yeah, same. I had just moved, I was in Seattle at the time, I'd been in Seattle for about 10 years, and just was over it like needed. So I just wanted to live someplace where it was sunny. And I moved to Sedona and I just unknowingly enrolled in this yoga teacher training program. And it ended up being absolutely life changing, it was very true and authentic. It was all HOFA a lot of lecture on sort of the esoteric parts of yoga, lots of mantra, and a lot of like our your Vedic cleanses, and the food component to the, the training was all REM Vedic and so every morning, the chef would come out, and she would talk about the medicinal benefits, or just like the health benefits are really just like the reasoning behind why you would eat your meal in a certain way. So we would always start with peeling almonds like soaked almonds, it would peel the skins off, because the skins were harder to digest. And you're just like kick starting your digestive system with your first meal of the day. And we'd always like have freshly made Chai, from fresh ingredients, also to help it's all about the gut and the digestion with that first meal. And anyway, so it was about a month long teacher training. And of course, like me, being me fell in love with the food part of the training more than anything else. So I decided to stay and I just decided to stay and live in Sedona and study under the chef. And so I did an apprenticeship. And that really got my wheels turning coming from Seattle, and just at that time it was 2012 actually was TSM 11, I believe. And health and wellness was like really sort of being held captive by the health and wellness industry like it was seemed like more exclusive sort of network and using like really like language, I feel I felt like that was like creating barriers from everyday people experiencing the healing power of herbs. And so I just started kind of playing with that idea, a little bit of like, how could we make it a little bit more accessible? How can we make it a little bit more fun? Because I originally I'm from the Midwest, where I have since moved back to St. Louis, no Midwest folks are just a little bit more conservative and trying new ideas, especially like we're talking 10 years ago, consumer consciousness has grown so much since we first started the company. But I just started testing some ideas. So I I found a little trailer. And I got it. It's a 1969 camper trailer. And I just started taking that around. And it really was just my way to like sort of like sort of like a venus flytrap in a lot of ways. Like I was attracting people with this like really cute kitschy trailer, they would come inside and then I'd pour them Tumeric tea and talk about healing the the healing power of herbs. And so it really all just started with like, as an art project more or less as a way to like, just talk simply about simple, everyday changes you could make to your lifestyle to improve your quality of health and well being. Yeah, I love that. And that's what then led you to growing your brand. Were you big Hardy at that time as well. No, so we had a name that didn't make any sense of week the name of the company was retailer because we were running out of a trailer. I don't know. That's bad. So we were retailing for about five years. And in 2017 I was sort of debating on if I was going to keep moving forward because we were so hyperlocal then and it was a struggle because the tea market nationally is pretty small. But just in our small community of St. Louis, it wasn't enough to support business or lifestyle. And so it's like man, how can we make this work? Like how could I keep doing this and that's when I just decided to kind of go all in I got a little loan from a family member to bison packaging, and we rebranded as the cart. But the first five years were pretty slow. Pretty quiet. Yeah. Very cool. And so what does direct trade t mean? This was I was reading this about the company. And I think most people probably don't know what that means. If you could explain that a little bit. That'd be great. Yeah, absolutely. So, as I mentioned, I got into the tea industry because of health and wellness and herbal healing. Over time, like we all do, I've changed. And I've learned new things about the industry about how commodities are traded. And so one of the things I learned is that herbs and tea just have a really dark and dusty history when it comes to trading and international importing, exporting. And there's a lot of mystery, a lot of questions couldn't be answered in those early days by the people I was buying herbs from, I decided I needed to like have a little bit more transparency, and the the value chain. So it was like if people are using these herbs to heal themselves, they have to come from a place of health. So rather than on a farm where workers are maybe underpaid or working longer hours working conditions, depending on what tea growing region we're talking about, we started working on our trade on our sourcing model, establish direct relationships with farmers. And that's what direct trade is. And so rather than buying our tea, or an herbs from an auction, or the marketplace, that's very like herbs or interior, and most commodities are sold traditionally at auction. And that dictates the price that the value and the price of the herbs are the tea isn't necessarily what it took to grow that it's what the customer is willing to pay. And so it oftentimes the farmer and the people at the bottom, like at the beginning of the value chain are the ones that are left, short cut short on compensation. And so when you do direct trade, we're paying the farmers what they need for the ingredient, rather than what the market pricing. And so, over market price, we also pay ahead of harvest. And so we'll put in orders, usually you're out before harvest season, and we'll pay for those upfront, they have the funds to do the work that they need to do. And so and then they're you know, we're able to have a better ear to the ground. And like what's happening with the harvest set years are a lot of rain isn't going to change the flavor profile. Because these are all like natural ingredients. So it's not natural for your tea or your herb just tastes the same year over year. And so that's that's what your trade means to us. It's just a way to have a relationship and have a direct line of communication to the people who are doing the hard work on the ground level. That's great. Yeah, let's get into the the organic certified organic herbs that you use and their healing benefits and why I know our listener is going to love your tea for so many reasons. And tell us a bit about the magic of the tea. Why isn't why are they so good? Well, like let's just take it one blend at a time. So our signature blend is the cup of sunshine, which you're drinking right now is tumeric, ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon and Tulsi. So every single ingredient in that tea is anti inflammatory. And it's really great for gut health and digestion. It's energizing, it's naturally energizing. There's no caffeine in the herbs, of course, but because they're so full of like healing power, like Tumeric has a ton of curcumin, which is just like curcumin just has like a that's what lends to the anti inflammatory aspects of tumeric. That's what gives us beautiful golden orange color. And makes it so energizing. And so and just hydrating. I mean tea is 99% water. And so for folks that are constantly trying to figure out how they can get that mandatory or whatever water intake that they need on a daily basis. Tea is a great option for that as well. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's a warm cup of love, like it just is the most nurturing thing you can do for yourself. Making a cup of tea is sort of meditative and a lot of ways because it's not instant. You have to heat your water and then you have to steep your tea and you have to wait. And then just like holding a warm cup of tea is is just so comforting. And so Oh, I mean, there's so many ways in which tea is good for you. I mean, just at a very basic level, it just can literally warm you from the inside out. Yeah, it's so true. I tried your Alright, so tell us how to say it correctly, ROI, ROI boosts ROI boosts. Roi goes and so I actually my pair that I mentioned earlier, she's from South Africa and she was the first person to introduce me to Roy Bose T. And I became obsessed with it. And then I found out we have a new on and use of yours and it's so good. I love it. I drink it every night. It helps me fall asleep. It helps me another really cool thing about I was kind of like digging into my own research and I read that it shuts off your IT HELPS shut down your hunger hormone, which and so like when you wake up in the morning, you're not as hungry maybe so like, for me, you know, like hormonal hunger happens all the time. I'm always hungry. So it's, I love the ribose love and you're drinking it right now. Me Right? Yeah, it's very good. It's very good. I'm definitely like, go in and out of drinking tea. Because I drink a lot of coffee. But I do every time I do have tea. I'm always like, why don't I drink this more? It's so good. Especially drinking this one. I love it. And I agree it does have that ritual feeling. And it is a good way to get water. I never thought about it that way. Because it's most a lot of your teas. It seems like our caffeine free so you can drink it throughout the day with no problem, which is great. You were talking about the preparation of tea and you sell the tea that we're drinking, which is in which are in the sachets, but I know you also sell loose tea, and never know how to make that. So for someone like me who's new to tea drinking to questions like hey, how do you make it and be like, what's the difference between the loose and the kind in the sachet? Yeah, absolutely. Well, loose tea is well, okay, so I have a lot of chips on my shoulder, right, like so I'm like health and wellness industry. And then there's like the specialty coffee industry that like has taught us that we need to have a piece of equipment to do a thing to brew something as simple as coffee or tea. And I do not subscribe to that I think we people have been drinking tea for generations and generations without having fancy bells and whistles. We tend to overcomplicate things anyway. So like, all you really need to make a good cup of loose tea is maybe a mason jar, and a wire mesh strainer. And in many cultures, they don't even have a strainer, they're just using their upper lip to like strain the tea. So it depends on how hard you are. But really, I mean, it could be as basic is that so you would sip your tea in your mason jar, strain it through a wire mesh strainer, and bam, there you go. The difference between the tea bag and like making it loose is generally the amount of space and room that the tea has to expand in the cup. Because essential oils are medicine, but they're also flavor. And that's what's were released when you're adding hot water to this organic substance. And so a tea bag can oftentimes be limiting and like how much flavor and how much medicine you're going to get. Because they're packing so much dry ingredient into this tiny little tea. And so we designed our tea bags extra bag so that the tea could expand and release all of its flavor. So it's kind of like as close to having a loose tea drinking experience you can have without the mess. So I like that and you also your product is 100% plastic free as well, which I found interesting. And I I did see something the other day that the tea cup tea companies that use plastics that can leach into your tea is that I assume that's the motivation behind it right? Yeah, well, there's a couple of motivations one, we're like avid about sustainability here. We reuse as much as we can. And we're always trying to reduce our carbon footprint and the amount of waste that we're putting out into the environment. Like we're moms here too. So we're just trying to create a company that we could sleep at night with. And so because of that we don't use any plastic in our packaging. Definitely our tea bags, so we don't use plastic in our packaging because we don't want to fill landfills with trash. We don't use plastic in our tea bags because it does have that potential to leach micro plastics and and plus it's just like the idea of having a nylon tea bag which is made from plastic. It just kind of in your pouring hot water on it. I mean, it just doesn't really make a ton of sense to us here. So our tea bags are made from non GMO sugarcane. We recently upgraded we weren't they were made from a corn product and we updated upgraded to a non GMO product and so we're even more proud of our tea bags now. But yeah, I just think there's been a lot of awareness and companies maybe portraying, or sustainability or more transparency. And we're actually, you know, showing that there's a reason why like these simple values of like doing the right thing in business are important for us to talk about because other people aren't doing it. So if they're not talking about their packaging, being plastic free, you're right to assume that there's a good deal of some sort of plastic happening in there. Yeah, and it's also really important to the younger generation, I think they are picking brands and you know, everything from food to beauty, etc, that are sustainable, that are doing the right thing for the environment. It's it's, it's impactful that you're doing that and notice that gap. You don't really hear it about a lot to your point around like coffee and tea brands doing that. So I noticed you have this good for you collection, which looks like it's a bunch of different teas that have what some have adaptogen some have anti inflammatory ingredients, which we talked about before calming and digestive effects I wanted to hear about gut health and tea I you sort of mentioned it before, but what ingredients are good for that and which teas you have for that specific condition when we first started so like we use Tulsi as the base of almost all of our teas, Tulsi and India and our Veda is known as holy basil are the queen of herbs. It's a sacred herb. It's a powerful healer. It's also an adaptogen, which is this like super sexy buzzword in health and wellness right now. We shied away from using the word adaptogen until probably about three years ago, when it started to become a little bit more common and consumer consciousness and vocabulary. Now I feel like most people have a general idea of what adaptogens are. But the good for you collection, it's just a way to sort of like highlight a couple health benefits of a few of our teas, so that we can give the drinker sort of a next level interaction with what they're drinking because like as you get our packaging, we don't make health claims on on our packaging. We don't even make health claims on the product page. And there's a reason for that. Mostly because of the FDA but also because we don't want to like confuse people or mislead people into like thinking that we're cure for anything. Like the good for you collection that we have for gut health and digestion. I mean, are you talking about kappa sunshine, but basically anything that's spicy, that's gonna like kick heart kickstart that digestive fire. So and I made it we talk about like the Agni or like the digestive fire, whatever it's like the energy that's helping you digest and process food, thoughts, emotions, like all of those things happen in the gut. And so another one that would be really good for I know you were saying that you're a big coffee drinker, we have our fake coffee. So coffee, like the coffee bean is amazing. It has caffeine, it's like got this beautiful, robust, rich flavor. But it also has a lot of acidity and can be really hard on your digestive track. And so we have a tea that we've blended called fake coffee, which is cherry cacao dandelion root and cinnamon. And not only does that coffee alternative have no acidity and no caffeine so it's easy in the digestive track. It also isn't blended with gluten. Gluten is like really common for coffee alternatives using barley as a blend in the blend for coffee alternative and we are an allergen free facility. So we don't use barley, we don't bring any gluten and anywhere near our facility. And so that's like another tea that's really great for the gut health generally, and like tea drinkers will tell you this an herbalist will tell you this, but like the little particulates that you get at the bottom of your tea cup, just that little dusting that like slips through the mesh of the bag, that is amazing food for your gut bacteria. And it's just like a nice little easy way to just sort of nourish all of the healthy bacteria that you have going on that's helping you process your stuff. I use your lavender mint I love for peppermint. I love that for when my stomach if I need to settle my stomach a little bit. So your lavender Mint is really nice, especially in the evenings as well because of the lavender and the relaxing properties behind it. What is the name of that one? That's our royal treat. Yeah. And we actually blended that tea for adaptogenic health. So each tea is blended for a certain thing. We have a certain thing in mind. In fact, we aligned our original T's to the the chakra system. And so that's something that We could go in totally different podcast and talk about that one that royal treatment was blended for, to help our little poor adrenal system sort of repair and restore. So yeah, it's great. I love it. Well, I want to know, what are your favorites out of your collections and it for someone that's new to tea, where would like what's a good starter kit or, you know, the best one to go for? Yeah, so my, I mean, our number one best selling tea, the first tea I ever blended, the only tea we sold for the first year of business is our cup of sunshine. And that's my go to still to this day, I was just on a business trip. And I drink like, probably four cups of tea that at night, just trying to relax. Just a really nice balance of tumeric and ginger, and it has told CNN, which Tulsi is my very favorite herb. And then my second favorite would be a cup of love, like another original from the collection. It's just two ingredients, is RoHS and Tulsi I say it's just like a hug from your grandma. I love that one at the end of the day with a big big spoon of honey and some milk and sugar. So, so nourishing, nurturing sounds so good. I love tolsey too. I'm definitely gonna try those ones later. So many good ones to try. And I love all the names of your teas. Like, just as a side note, I love all the packaging and the branding and the names because they're so like fun and upbeat. And I think tea feels sometimes to people like it's serious and like, you know, very, I don't know, sophisticated or something. There's no like fun kind of brands. So that was one of the things that we were really attracted to that it's like you're not taking yourself so seriously. And it's just like this great tea but with fun, bright packaging and cute names. So yeah, it's beautiful. The packaging is so great. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it's just very vibrant and nice. So kudos, kudos. taglines is that we don't take ourselves too seriously. But we mean serious. So pretty and intentionality wrapped up in that like cute, funny, funky little package. But yeah, that was Thank you know, and I like I like that part at the ends. And it says you are awesome, which is super cute. Okay. That's just, it's just like a fun little surprise. So yeah, so yeah, we love it. So where can people buy this fabulous tea? Yeah, well, that's a great question. So the best place to buy it is on our website. So just calm. Otherwise, like your local independent specialty retailer on your main street. And we sell a lot a lot to mom and pops, gift retailers, and so much we don't have like a comprehensive list on our site. But if you if you are looking to find it someplace locally, just give us a call or an email and we'll we'll look, we'll look in our five different places where we keep that information and find it for you think just buying online is the best place right now or Amazon. Yeah. Okay. So on Amazon. Yeah, I was gonna say it's, um, it's a great gift. Because obviously the cheese, delicious, but the packaging is cute. It's just like a really nice gift to bring someone if you're going to their house for the first time or you know, something like that. So, and we are very grateful and appreciative of you because big heart T is going to offer our listeners 20% promotion. So listeners use big heart t 20. And get your big heart t as soon as possible because it's fantastic. And we love it. Yes. Thank you for that. That's exciting. All right. So let's get into our rap session. Lisa, what is your favorite wellness or beauty hack? Yes, I started doing this a few years ago, actually a long time ago. Like before, when I was like getting ready for a job interview or something like that. I would force myself to smile for five minutes. Before I would go into an interview or into like sort of a situation where I had a lot of anxiety or stress. And there's something that happens to your brain. When you force yourself to smile. It has to be like five minutes or more like it can't just be like a little bit. Like it has to be like uncomfortable like psycho smile. And I do it when I'm driving. I do it in the morning. And it really like it really puts me in a better mood just like just having a smile on my face. And then after what after a while I'm just authentically naturally smiling. And it's one way that I sort of like trick my brain into like taking me to a different state of mind. That's so cool. I've never heard that before. I need to try it. Yeah, it's funny because I have done something kind of like that where like you know how they say smiles are infectious. So you just like, if I'm ever like in a funk, I just I'll smile but I don't do like the whole five minute thing to try to like you know, shake me out of my phone. kind of thing. So it's true. It does work. It's really That's great. Yeah, I like that idea of zooming in in the car before you get to work. That's a great idea. Okay, the next one we call our five minute flow. So you just got out of the shower and dried off. Uber just alerted you. There are five minutes away. What is your quick beauty routine? Like? What are your go twos? What do you put on to get the car on time? Yeah, well, I mean, there's just a few things that I do. One, I have a rose water spray that I have to spray on my face, like I don't feel like I'm awake until like, I get that. And another thing I like to do is an iron rents. So I have this little iron Cup, where you like, put a little bit of water in it, and then you dip your put, like, throw your head back, and then you blink your eyes in the water. That's a really great way to get those like bright refresh dyes. It's something that we learned when I was doing my area of Vedic training. Just like a nice little I cleanse just was fresh, cold water, but you know, throw on a little mascara and a big heart t hat. And then I'm ready to try that. And then how do you maintain your daily nirvana? Well, gratitude. I'm really big into gratitude. Sometimes I call it procrastination meditation. Like if I don't want to get out of bed in the morning, I'll just lay there and send love and gratitude out. And also, don't forget to be like thankful to yourself for all of the hard work that you're doing every day. And all the things that you're doing that nobody sees that you see. But yeah, I think I think that is the number one thing that I practice every day, and I practice it with my family. My daughter hates it, she doesn't hate it. But one day, she'll love it just sending out love and appreciation to everyone that you can think of. I love that you said, Yeah, and it's so true. And it just puts everything into a positive perspective and fills you with positive light. And it's like Bruce shared that you said that because our closing mantra today happens to be about gratitude. And we'd like to close the show with a little reminder, affirmation mantra, call it whatever you will. But before we say goodbye to you, I'll wrap with this. Gratitude helps you see what is there instead of what isn't. Hmm, that's our wrap for today. So Lisa, thank you so much for being with us. We It was great to meet you. And we love big party. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me and I couldn't have been more perfect. So thank you and thank you for the code. We'll make sure to put it in our show notes for all of our listeners. Definitely. Yes. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 93 - How To Get To Sleep And Stay Asleep With Board Certified Physician Dr. Holliday-Bell, The Sleep MD (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 93.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

[00:07] Amy Sherman: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of wellbeing and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

[00:18] Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation. Welcome back to the show nirvana Sisters Family. It is Amy and Katie. And today we are sitting down with Dr. Angela Holiday Bell. Dr. Holiday Bell is a board certified physician certified sleep specialist, speaker, and founder of the Solution Is Sleep, LLC. As someone who formally suffered from insomnia herself, she understands the transformative power of good quality sleep and how obtaining this regularly can lead to happier, healthier, and more productive life. She's been featured on local and international television shows and networks such as The Dr. Phil Show, ABC News, and WGN Television, spreading her message about the power of good sleep. She also sits on the advisory board of Health Magazine and regularly contributes to a number of print and online publications such as the Sleep Foundation, women's Health Magazine, well and Good, and Today Show. She also helps overwhelmed workers beat, burnout, and build resilience while increasing productivity and engagement through better sleep. So we are so incredibly excited to have you here because sleep is everything, if you ask me. So welcome to the show, dr. Holiday Bell.

[01:32] Dr. Holliday Bell : Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Thank you guys so much for having me.

[01:36] Katie Chandler: Yeah, we're excited.

[01:37] Amy Sherman: Yes, welcome.

[01:37] Katie Chandler: Well, let's kick it off.

[01:38] Amy Sherman: I always tell my kids, sleep is medicine.

[01:41] Dr. Holliday Bell : 100%. Good night.

[01:43] Katie Chandler: That's the truth. We like to get started with a Nirvana of the Week. Just a moment that brought you a little bit of joy this week. So, Amy, let's start with you. What was your nirvana this week?

[01:55] Amy Sherman: Well, let's see. This week was a super busy week, and I think my nirvana this week was kind of a series of things. I just got a lot done and I was very productive this week. And I feel like every time I'm productive, it makes me feel better and I just feel accomplished and really good. And so I just got a lot of things off my list and a lot of projects done work wise and otherwise. So I was just feeling really motivated this week. What about you, Katie?

[02:20] Katie Chandler: Thanks. Mine, I think, is today, this weather. I am in New England, and it is typically very cold in February, and we have a 50 degree day. The sun is high in the sky and shining, and I can feel the vitamin D coming into my system. I've got the happiness joy of the vitamin D hitting me today, so I think that would be mine. What about you, Dr. Holiday Bell.

[02:46] Dr. Holliday Bell : I got to spend some time with my family, my parents this week, and I'm always so busy and on the go that I don't often get that time. So it was really nice to just take a second to sit back and enjoy some time with them.

[02:58] Katie Chandler: Yeah, that sounds great. That's always the absolute best. Great. All right, well, let's start out I don't know. I have a million questions, but I'll try to keep it reeled in. So to start out, let's hit some basics, right? How much sleep should we all be getting every night? Is there like a certain time? Should we all go to sleep at a certain time and wake up at a certain time? What's the 101 there?

[03:24] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, that's a great question and one I get opt in. And I always like to say sleep need is variable for every individual. So sleep need is like shoe size. There's no one size fits all. So most of us have heard that you need seven to 8 hours. That's very much an average. Some people need six. Very few people need six, but some people need six up to 10 hours. And so it's important to determine what that sleep need is for you and then aim to get that. So mine is 9 hours. I know that I need a solid 9 hours to feel rested. 7 hours, I'm exhausted. So it's important to know what that number is for you and aim for that every night.

[03:59] Katie Chandler: And do you suggest I've read before that it's good to go to sleep around the same time, have a similar sleep pattern, start falling asleep same time, waking up the same time as much as you can. And why is that beneficial? If it is?

[04:14] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yes, it's 100% beneficial. And that's because your circadian rhythm, which is the roughly 24 hours cycle that dictates many functions of your day to day life. But sleep is a big one, thrives on regularity and schedule. So the more that you keep your schedule consistent and honestly, waking at the same time is even more important than going to sleep at the same time. The more you keep that consistent, the more you entrain your circadian rhythm. Or teach your circadian rhythm to start giving you alerting signals at the time that you want it to be so at the same time each morning and then giving you signals to fall asleep at the same time each night. So it really makes it easier to fall asleep and wake up when you are keeping your schedule consistent.

[04:56] Katie Chandler: Is that same time 06:00 A.m. On the dot, or do I have a window? Let's say an hour or two wiggle room?

[05:04] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, it's best to keep it literally as consistent as possible. So we in the sleep world will say, just set an alarm Monday through Sunday and have it be that same time. But to be fair and to be honest, there is a little bit of wiggle room. 30 minutes is probably the longest. I will push it sometimes up to an hour, just depending on how it interferes with their sleep. Everyone is a little bit different with how much that may throw off their schedule, but keeping it as consistent as possible, even my down to the minute will be the best course of action.

[05:35] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I was going to just make a comment that that totally makes sense because on the weekends, because I'm not a morning person, I've become a morning person, obviously with kids and my husband's an early riser, so I've become a morning person. But on the weekends, I try to sometimes sleep late. And everyday time I do, I feel terrible that day I'm like more tired, lethargic. And I always said my husband, I'm like, it's so weird, it's because I got up late, but if I get up the same time every day, like I usually get up at seven during the week, I feel a million times better.

[06:02] Dr. Holliday Bell : Exactly. And that is your body telling you like, no, we need to keep this consistency. It screaming for that. Even down to meal times at the time you exercise. Like your circadian rhythm actually controls many different functions in your body and really likes to keep it as routine, consistent as possible.

[06:15] Katie Chandler: Sounds interesting. Okay. All right, so we've all heard melatonin, melatonin, melatonin. For a long time I just thought melatonin was a pill that I took. But melatonin is something we make, is that correct? What is melatonin? What is the science behind it, what triggers it, what inhibits it, et cetera.

[06:36] Dr. Holliday Bell : Definitely. So melatonin is a natural hormone that we produce in our bodies from the pineal gland in your brain. There's also some research findings to come out showing that a lot of meatonin is producing your gut. But the melatonin we think of that signals sleep is producing your brain, so we produce that naturally. It does also come in supplement form, and I like to think of melatonin as the hormone of darkness. So as let's say before, we had all the artificial lights that were keeping us up and awake at night, your circadian rhythm and the hormones that were released were regulated in large part by the light and dark cycles that naturally occur in the natural environment. So as the sun went down and you didn't have any more light to alert yourself, that's when that signified melatonin to be released. And melatonin helps to set the stage for sleep, so it signals to your body, okay, it's time to wind down, it's time to transition into sleep and then allows you to make that transition easier. Light is going to be the strongest thing that inhibits that. So as we're spending a lot more time in artificial light, and even if you're spending time outside, let's say on a late summer day when the sun is still out, that's going to be signaling to your body that it's time to be awake and be alert. Because there is light outside, so it inhibits the release of melatonin. So the way that I tell people to utilize their own natural melatonin release is by decreasing the light emissions about 2 hours before bedtime as much as possible. So for some people, if you have to use if you have to be on your computer during that time, using light blue, light blocking glasses, simply, if you have dimmers in your house, dimming the lights, turning off overhead lights and using instead table lamps or candles. All of those things help to decrease the alerting signals from the light and signal to your brain that it's time to start releasing that melatonin.

[08:27] Amy Sherman: So I guess that means you shouldn't have a TV on in your bedroom.

[08:31] Dr. Holliday Bell : Exactly. That is why we say limited electronics, because light is made up of a lot of different wavelengths. But the blue wavelength in particular is the strongest inhibitor of melatonin and that is the more prominent wavelength that's in electronics like your television, your tablet, your phone, et cetera. So it's best not to look at those things close to bedtime because you're going to be inhibiting that melatonin release or at least use something to block out the blue wavelength so it's not so strongly inhibiting melatonin.

[09:03] Amy Sherman: It's funny, we sometimes watch TV at night, but I fall asleep. So then I'm like, well, does it matter because I'm still falling asleep.

[09:12] Dr. Holliday Bell : That's actually a good point. So I like to say, generally speaking, some people can literally sleep anywhere, anytime, no matter what their schedules are, what they're doing. Yeah, that's an accident outside and they're fast asleep. Praise. I'm so happy for you guys. I wish I had that ability. If you do, then you don't really need to change things up that much, right? Because it's working for you. There are differences in sleep reactivity, we call it. So I have a very high sleep reactivity. My environment really interferes with my sleep. Stress, anxiety, all those things interfere significantly. My husband has a very low sleep reactivity. We could literally be getting robbed and he'll be passed out. And I'm like, how are you sleeping through this? So every person is different. But I would say for many people, and especially now, that a lot of these things like electronics are more pervasive in our society. They are starting to see those effects. And so if you're one of those people that have problems sleeping, then try to look at those things close to the time.

[10:10] Amy Sherman: My husband is like you in that he is literally the worst, worst, worst sleeper. And so this episode can be very helpful for him to listen to as well because he just really is rough and so is his mom. So it's the runs of the family, I guess.

[10:25] Dr. Holliday Bell : For sure.

[10:26] Katie Chandler: Absolutely. Yeah. I am more like you are Dr. Holiday Bill in that I have to have kind of like a bedtime ritual. I have to shut the lights, need to go down, I have to do the whole thing one to 2 hours before I want to be asleep. And if I can't, I am inevitably up later and my sleep is disrupted. So last Wednesday we went on a random couple's night, which we never do during the week. And I didn't get home in my bed until 10:00, I didn't full sleep until midnight. So it's like part of the routine and I guess it's all triggering that melatonin. So when we take melatonin as a supplement, we're really just trying to replace the lack of what we're making or not making, essentially.

[11:13] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, essentially or augmented. Like the amount of melatonin we take in supplements is significantly more than what's produced by our pioneer gland, by our brains. And so there are thoughts about whether or not we need that much. We actually often take away more than we need to trigger sleep, but it helps to just augment that process to help us accrete more so that it's moving our body towards preparation for sleep sooner than our natural release.

[11:38] Katie Chandler: Okay.

[11:39] Amy Sherman: Yeah, it's funny, even though I am a good sleeper, I do find that when we do do more of a wind routine and dinner lights and all that stuff, I do sleep more soundly and better and I don't get up in the middle of the night.

[11:51] Katie Chandler: Yeah, I'm sure. And Adam, Amy's my sister in law, so my husband is her brother. He sleeps like Amy sleeps. He sleeps like a rock. He could sleep through anything too. You guys have the good genes. So, some tips for falling asleep quickly. Do you have anything particularly that our listeners would like for that?

[12:13] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, so I think establishing a bedtime routine just like you guys both mentioned and alluded to is so important because right now we live in such busy time. We all just talk about how busy we are. We are talking about our nirvana moments and we're working and we may be parents or taking care of spouses and doing all these things and our brains are going constantly. And then many of us treat sleep like it's a light switch, so we just turn off. I'm like, okay, you can go to sleep. And again, there are those amazing, incredible superhumans that can do that, but for the most part we can't. And so your brain needs that time to wind down and transition to sleep more than just even the melatonin release. Like one of my colleagues like to say, brain waves have to slow down in order for sleep to happen. And that's very, very true. And so you're giving yourself and your brain that time to slow down. So just implementing a consistent bedtime routine will help you to fall asleep faster than if you all of a sudden try to go to sleep in the year in bed, tossing and turning and not able to do so. And then having a relaxation technique that you can engage in either regularly or after a particularly stressful day is super important. And what I mean by that is not just like okay, I'm sitting down and I'm relaxing. There are actually techniques you can do that trigger your brain to slow your heart rate, slow your breathing rate, lower your blood pressure, and signal to your brain that okay. Or signal to your body, okay. We are actually relaxed, and now we can fall asleep because whether we know it or not, when we're stressed or we're anxious and brain waves are going quickly, we start to breathe quicker, we take more shallow breaths. We do all these things that trigger to us that, oh, there is a reason that we need to be alert. And so by triggering the opposite of that, you tell your brain, there's no reason that we need to be alert. Now we can relax and now it's safe to go to sleep.

[13:54] Amy Sherman: Okay, so what are some of those things? Like breathing exercises?

[13:59] Dr. Holliday Bell : Exactly. Breathing exercises. Diaphragmatic breathing is one of my favorites because you can do that anywhere. It's easy to practice, it's an easy technique for most people to grasp, and it literally is just practicing taking deep breaths. As I mentioned, we naturally breathe more shallowly and so it doesn't allow our lungs to feel completely and it doesn't trigger that parasympathetic nervous system or the one that slows everything down. So it's literally focusing and anchoring our breath so that we're breathing more deeply to trigger our bodies and our brains to say, oh, we must be relaxed because we're able to take these deep breaths. And that triggers a relaxation response, something like progressive muscle relaxation where you literally go through every part of your body and focus on tensing and relaxing each muscle in a specific way, in a specific fashion that allows you to sense when you are tense and then to manually relax yourself is also helpful. Guided meditation. Like, I always recommend trying different ones. See what works well for you. Practice during the day when the stakes are not so high and you're trying to fall asleep, and then incorporate that into a bedtime routine.

[15:05] Katie Chandler: Oh, that's smart. Yeah, I've never thought about trying it that way.

[15:10] Amy Sherman: Yeah, go ahead.

[15:13] Dr. Holliday Bell : I say some people try like, oh, I tried that last night and it didn't work and I couldn't fall asleep. And that's because you're anxious and frustrated and trying to fall asleep.

[15:21] Katie Chandler: Hey.

[15:23] Dr. Holliday Bell : That'S not going to work. But if you practice it during the day when there's nothing on the line, it's not high stakes. You're just teaching yourself how to trigger that, then you're going to be more effective at doing it at night. So I always say practice it just ten minutes during the day and you get better at it, and then you can incorporate it at night.

[15:39] Amy Sherman: Yeah, that's a great idea. Really smart. So what would you say for people and I have this a lot, and so does my husband, where you get up in the middle of the night to have a bathroom or whatever, and then you can't fall back asleep because your mind starts racing.

[15:52] Dr. Holliday Bell : So common, they'll call it the 03:00 A.m. Syndrome because for some reason it's like around 03:00 A.m. For you, so right, yeah. But you get up and so there are a couple of factors there. The first thing is your sleep drive. There's actually, like we call it processes. So your drive to sleep decreases the more you sleep. Makes sense, right? And so the closer you get to morning, the more you've slept off that sleep drive. So that drive to sleep is decreasing. And then we're getting closer to the morning hours where you're alerting factors from your circadian rhythm will start to pick up. So it makes sense that it's going to be harder to stay asleep at that time, especially if you have a reason you woke up, like going to the bathroom and so on. And then you start ruminating on thoughts and things like that that make it even more difficult to fall asleep. So I first like to start by telling people that waking up in the middle of the night is not a problem. That in and of itself is normal. You're human, you're going to wake up in the middle of the night. We actually wake up several times as we transition through sleep cycles because some people start to focus too much on that for oh, I'm waking up, that's fine. The problem is not being able to fall back asleep. So a normal sleep latency or time it takes to fall asleep, either at the beginning or the middle of the night, is actually up to 20 minutes. It takes you to all in a fall asleep. Fine. Try to do your deep breathing, try to do some relaxing activity until you fall asleep. But if you are not falling asleep after that 20 minutes, the the recommendation is actually to get up and out of your bed and do a relaxing activity like reading a book, meditation, something like that, until you fall back asleep. The reason for this is for individuals who say every night at 03:00 A.m., I wake up, I get in bed, I can't fall asleep, I'm tossing and turning for 2 hours and it's five and I finally fall back asleep. Then my alarm goes off. You're teaching your brain that that's what we do at 03:00 A.m. In the bed is that we wake up, we toss and turn, we're frustrated, we're anxious, and we can't fall asleep. And that entrance your brain, that that is what you do. You start to connect those thoughts, those feelings, those emotions with being in the bed rather than sleep. So you want to break that cycle by getting out of your bed, doing something else to induce sleepiness, and then getting back in bed only when you're sleepy again. That helps to reestablish that relationship and makes it less likely that you'll be up for the same amount of time and subsequent wow.

[17:59] Katie Chandler: Haste. Ever tried that? Amy, her husband is notorious for waking in the middle of the night, not being able to fall back asleep.

[18:06] Amy Sherman: I don't know, I have to ask him. I know sometimes he's like, gone downstairs, got something to eat or something like.

[18:14] Katie Chandler: That, and he's gone back to sleep.

[18:15] Amy Sherman: But yeah, he's done it all. Who knows? But that's a good idea to just get out of the bed and stop tossing and turning.

[18:23] Dr. Holliday Bell : The key is not to engage in other stimulating activities. So some people are like, okay, I'm going to be on my phone or I'm going to watch some Netflix shows. All that is doing it further waking you up, stimulating you, or even eating, because then that teaches your body again, this is when we eat. So then what happens is your digestive hormone starts to release at around 03:00 A.m. Because now it learns, oh, I'm preparing for a meal because at 03:00 A.m., we eat. So it's very important to choose specific activities that are going to be conducive to filling sleep again, rather than stimulating or signal that you should be doing something else interesting.

[18:55] Katie Chandler: All right, so I have a question related to sleep and our metabolism and our weight and everything. I notice that when I am able to get consistent more longer sleep, I just naturally shut down without even trying almost. And when my schedule is more especially, like, maybe during the school year, I have to be up by 06:00 A.m. To get the kids to school and whatnot. It's not as easy. It just seems to be a pattern. I feel like I'm not burning as much at night sometimes as maybe I once did. What's that all about?

[19:31] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah. So you are absolutely right in what you're feeling in that sleep is a huge regulator of your metabolism. And for anyone who's on any type of fitness journey, I say one of the best things you can do, it's exercise, nutrition, sleep. It's right at the same level. And the reason for that is that your hormonal regulation occurs via sleep. So the hormone that makes you feel hungry, grelin, is actually secreted in larger quantities when you are not sleeping well or you don't get sufficient sleep. And the hormone leptin that makes you feel full is secreted in lower quantities. Your metabolism actually slows down when you're not getting sufficient sleep, and you're less likely to move or burn calories when you're awake when you're not getting sufficient sleep. So it's actually the perfect setup for you to gain weight. And that is why insufficient sleep leads to obesity is independent risk factor for obesity is insufficient sleep. So it's super important from that standpoint to make sure whether you're going to finish your not that you're getting adequate sleep because your body actually almost works to gain weight when you're not getting enough sleep.

[20:37] Katie Chandler: Yeah, it's wild that it regulates all of that. I do notice that when I don't get a good night's sleep, I want to nosh all day long, I'm hungry.

[20:48] Amy Sherman: Totally.

[20:48] Katie Chandler: And I always thought, oh, I'm reaching for this, for the energy that my body is missing. But meanwhile, it's a hormonal thing that's really interesting.

[20:57] Dr. Holliday Bell : Exactly. And you're just more likely to make poorer food choices. So when you're asleep deprived, you're less likely to grab that valid you're more likely to grab that donut because it's about the immediate satisfaction of that. Your rational mind and your frontal lobe are less active when you're not getting enough sleep. So you're less likely to think through the benefits of the salad versus the donut. You just want the donut. And so all those things lead to poor weight gain and then poor metabolic.

[21:23] Katie Chandler: And does the quality of sleep matter? I know REM sleep, right? So let's touch on that really quickly. What is REM sleep and why is it so important? How do we achieve it?

[21:35] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, it's so funny. There's been a lot of focus on REM sleep lately. And REM sleep is important, but so are all the other stages, I like to say so there are four main stages of sleep you have in one sleep, but you're super light. Like as you're kind of drifting off, you may not even know you're sleeping. That stage into sleep is a little bit deeper, but not the deep sleep. In three is deep sleep, which is actually that restorative sleep that we say in three. Deep sleep is restorative for their body, REM sleep is restorative for the brain. It's not that clear cut, but that's just kind of the way we think of it. And then REM sleep is a sleep that most of not all, but most of your dreaming occurs in. And your emotional regulation, your memories are laid down in that stage. So it's very resorted for the brain. But all of those stages are important and you cycle through them throughout the night. So I've had people ask, well, how do I get more REM sleep? And the answer is to get more sleep. You just need to get more sleep. And your body will give you the amount of those stages that you need with the caveat that if you're not getting enough sleep in general, your body will try to make up for a certain amount that it's missing. So you are likely to have more rim catch up, what we call a rim rebound sleep when you're catching up from not getting enough sleep. But if you're sleeping well, you spend about 20% of your time in the deep sleep, 25% of your time, and REM the other amount in the lighter stages. Now, there are medications and alcohol can interfere with REM sleep, so that can make you have less sleep. So for medications, you speak to your doctor about it sometimes benefits outweigh the risks of that. And then you don't want to drink alcohol too close to bedtime or it's just full of sleep in general. But other than that, there's not a big way to target, okay, I want more REM sleep tonight, more deep sleep, just get more sleep and then your body will regulate how much of each of those stages you get.

[23:24] Amy Sherman: Okay, yeah, exactly. It's not like when you're working out at the gym and you're like, today I want to focus on my arms. It's like your body is going to do it for you as long as you're sleeping. I had a question about jet lag and how, if you're traveling, can you regulate your sleep? Any tips on that?

[23:44] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, definitely. So jet lag is a time when melatonin actually plays a big factor, supplemental melatonin, because your circadian rhythm is thrown off from when it would naturally produce melatonin, which is really what causes the jet lag. The first thing I recommend is trying to travel overnight in general. Like if you can travel overnight and get to the next place in the daytime and sleep on the plane, that's a good way to kind of slowly get your body into the next time zone. The other thing actually, even before that is adjusting to the time zone even before you leave. So if you are going somewhere in which your sleep time will be later than your current sleep time, actually adjusting by about 20 minutes each night prior to leaving will help to slowly get your body used to it because it takes about a day, we say, for each hour time zone difference for your body to adjust. So if you can slowly do that, it makes that happen faster. The other thing is light. Light is so important. Like I said, it's a strong factor in regulating the circadian rhythm and inhibiting melatonin release. So if you get somewhere in what would be your native nighttime, but it's daytime in that place, you need to be out in the sun, out in the day, get natural light because that sends alerting signals to your circadian rhythm. Say, oh, actually it's not night, it's daytime, you need to be awake. And then as it gets closer to nighttime, take melatonin. So that because it's unlikely for your natural melatonin release to occur because it's not used to being released at that time. But you take melatonin to signify to your body that it is night time. It's the darkness here and that helps to transition things.

[25:19] Amy Sherman: Those are great things.

[25:20] Katie Chandler: Absolutely. I know it can be such a crusher. So let's talk about some sleep disorders. I know of sleep apnea, but are there others? What are they? And how would someone know that they're suffering from them?

[25:37] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, so as you mentioned, sleep apnea is probably the biggest one and can have some really significant consequences for health down the line. So that's always one that I recommend getting checked for if you're concerned. So if you're snoring every night, if you are taking. Processing your breathing, waking up, gasping for air, waking up with sporting headaches. Definitely recommend getting assessed for sleep apnea. Another fairly common one, and I think way more common than we even know is something called restless leg syndrome. And that is when you have this urge to move your legs. But really it can be any part of your body, mostly the legs, but it can actually be the arms as it gets later into the night. And it makes it difficult to fall asleep and to get good quality sleep because as you're going throughout the sleep stages, you have this urge to move and it kind of alerts you before you can get into the deeper stages and so it causes poor quality sleep. Well, one common cause of that is iron deficiency. So it's actually one that we oftentimes can manage and actually have a treatment for. So the problem is a lot of people don't know so they are not like oh, I have this urge to move my legs before I go to sleep and then they don't know that that is a thing. So education is key and it's also why I tell people if you're having problems sleeping, talk to your provider about it. People treat sleep issues as if they're just doomed to have them forever and there's nothing you can do about them. But sleep is so important, integral to health. Like if you broke your leg you were just like oh, guess my leg is broken, nothing I can do about that. You would go to the doctor, you would get it. Same thing for sleep because there's things that you may not know to be assessed for. So bring it up. Similar to restless sex syndrome, there's something called periodic limb movement disorder. It's similar in that it's movements that disrupt the quality of sleep but it doesn't interfere with the ability to fall asleep. Generally it happens like while you're sleeping you're not necessarily aware of it. You just know that no matter how much sleep I get, I'm not getting quality sleep, I'm exhausted all the time. And then you get a sleep study to diagnose any one of those things. So that's where you go to a sleep laboratory. They hook you up to these things, you sleep there. Now they actually have at home test that you can do for some as well and then they assess your movements, your breathing, your oxygen level while you're sleeping and then determine whether you have any of those things. I would say those three are the most common.

[27:51] Katie Chandler: Actually. This past summer I want to say I was diagnosed with sleep apnea but it was strange because it took me maybe six months to realize what was happening because it was like low lying. So I was shocked when I realized that that's what it was because I would wake up a lot but I wasn't waking up and bright eyed. It's that kind of thing where you wake up and you sometimes you open your eyes, sometimes you don't, you fall back asleep. But what I didn't realize that I was doing that like 100 times a night. So I was having really disruptive sleep and wasn't feeling good. But I never million years would have thought sleep apnea and since then, and using a mouthpiece and just good old snorestrips, I sleep a lot deeper. So it's fortunately, mine is an easy fix, but I think people can be surprised. When you think of sleep apnea, you think of someone that is typically pretty overweight, right. That's usually the standard that causes sleep apnea. But you can also have obstructive airway, which is what I have. And so I don't know, I think essentially why I'm saying this is if you feel draggy all day long, if you feel starving all the time, if you are gaining weight and you can't lose the weight or whatever it may be, maybe look into your sleep. Right.

[29:06] Dr. Holliday Bell : 100, you hit the nail on the head. And sleep apnea is much more it's often less diagnosed than women because of the reasons that you said it tends to be milder. It's not your typical overweight middle aged male, which is what we think of with sleep apnea. You may not even be snoring. Right. Like you said, you're just kind of like waking up multiple times, not really aware of it. And it's often misdiagnosed as like, anxiety or depression because insufficient sleep for a long period of time independently increases your risk of having those things. But instead of getting out of the underlying disorder, it's like, oh, you just have anxiety or you're just depressed. You're just these things. And we don't think to look into things that are interfering with sleep. So you're absolutely right. It can be so mild and it can be something that you're not aware of, which is why it's important to talk about it. As I'm a physician and a sleep specialist, but separately, in my role as a physician, every visit I'm asking, how are you sleeping? Because it's important and a lot of people don't think to even bring that up for themselves.

[30:03] Katie Chandler: Yeah, I'm sure that's such a good point.

[30:06] Amy Sherman: So talking about getting that good atmosphere for sleeping, I always hear, and you never know what's true or what's not, but is there a good temperature to sleep in? I heard the colder the better, but I want to get your official answer on that one.

[30:22] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah. When it comes to setting up your sleep environment, I like to say keep it cold, dark and quiet. And the reason for the cold statement is that your body temperature has to decrease by one to three degrees in order to facilitate the transition to sleep. It's actually one of the things that also triggers your peak mellows on the release is when your body temperature decreases. And so in the literature, you'll see temperature recommendations of 62 to 68 degrees. And some people look at me like I'm crazy when I say that. And I'm like, what? I keep my house at 80. That sounds so cold. And you know, it kind of goes back to shoe size and there is no one size fits all right? So I say if you're walking around comfortably in your home at 80 before you go to sleep, put it on a 77. It's not an absolute number. It's just it needs to be it should be decreased from your baseline when you're walking around in order to facilitate that transition and then blocking out light, blocking out sounds because that can interfere with sleep too.

[31:19] Katie Chandler: Yeah, I like it cold. What about you, Amy? I keep it cold.

[31:23] Amy Sherman: Well, it's funny, the older I get, the colder I like it. But I feel like I always get into bed and I'm freezing and my feet are always cold. So then I put socks on and then I warm up and then I take the socks off the night sometimes because I get like hot and cold. But I do find it easier to sleep when it's cold because you can get all wrapped up and everything and I was going to ask about that too. Do you have favorite? Katie and I are really into a weighted blanket, but do you have favorite kind of sleep items, sheets, PJs, like, all that kind of stuff that you would recommend?

[31:56] Katie Chandler: Yes.

[31:57] Dr. Holliday Bell : Anyone who knows me knows that I do not go anywhere. I don't spend a night in my own bed, in a hotel, anywhere without my blackout mask. It's like I have to have it. If I forget to pack it, I'm going crazy. And that's because like I said, my sleep reactivity is so high, so any light that's coming through my eyelids is not good. And I have the plush blackout mask. I'm not talking about like the little mask they give you on the plane, like the real deal 3D blackout mask with a plush cups. And the ones that I use actually have built in speakers. So if I want to do a sleep meditation before I fall asleep, it's like easy to do that. Number one, I have to have my blackout sleep mask. I also sleep with a fan every single night. So in addition to turning the temperature down, I need a fan. I mean, I'm in Chicago. It's wintertime. I sleep with my fan every single night. I have a little travel fan that I take with me again because it's hard to control the temperature in some areas. So I have a travel fan. I sit right there next to me on the night stand. So I would say bills are my two must have, cannot sleep without.

[32:59] Katie Chandler: What do you think?

[33:00] Amy Sherman: The noise of the fan too, is probably relaxing, I would think.

[33:03] Dr. Holliday Bell : Exactly. Yeah.

[33:04] Katie Chandler: What about Sunrise Timers? Those are new and we've reviewed a couple I know. Amy, you have one that you love, right? Is it the hatch?

[33:10] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I had one from Amazon and now I have the hatch, which I've had I need to set up, but my waking up game has significantly increased using those because it's not so harsh. It's like a gentle tap.

[33:23] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yes, I love hatch. I love hatch. It's a great, like I said, gentle way to wake up. Historically, that's how we were signal to wake up was from sunlight sending those alerting backers to our circadian rhythm and saying, okay, stop melatonin release, it's time to wake up. So it's such a gentler, more natural way to wake up. So I absolutely love hatch because I sleep with my blackout mask, it doesn't work as much for me, that makes sense. So unfortunately I personally don't utilize that as much. But for individuals like don't like blackout masks or whatever, don't sleep with them. I always recommend a good sunrise clock because it just makes it gentle. You just start your day so much better. It's more natural. I love a good sunrise clock and I also recommend blackout curtains. Like I have like two sets of blackout curtains on my window. So you're not getting that natural light from outside. So it is helpful to kind of recreate that through something like a sunrise alarm clock.

[34:14] Amy Sherman: Yeah, if it was up to me, I would sleep with the windows open because I love the natural light coming in the room in the morning. But again, like I said, my husband's like you, he's got the mask, the earplugs, the whole thing. And then what about beds? Do you have a certain bed that you like that is like game changing for you for sleep?

[34:32] Dr. Holliday Bell : You know? So I've gone through several, I went through several different beds. But what I will say in general, what I've found is that beds are very, it's different for different individuals. So I am someone, I'm a stomach sleeper, but I like a soft bed, which doesn't really make sense in the sleep space because if you are some sleeper, they typically recommend more firm mattresses because it's better for your back, whatever. For me, when I tried to like, okay, yes, I'm going to do this and because that's what I should do, I just sleep horribly. I like soft, like a cloud, like soft as possible. And so I think it's important to just find out what is most comfortable for you. Investing in that though, like a good solid mattress is going to work wonders for your sleep. So it is worth the investment, I will say. There's a brand new mattress called Kingstown that has a line that has separate comfort levels or firmness levels on each side. Like my husband prefers a firmer and I prefer as soft as possible. You can actually get the two different preferences built into the same mattress because that can really make a huge difference. So that's a one brand that I think does that well. But in general, finding what feels good and comfortable to you and making that.

[35:49] Amy Sherman: Investment, would you say that would be the same thing with pajamas and what you wear to sleep? Because like it's funny, I like to wear like pajamas, pants and a t shirt and some people wear like shorts and a tank top and I would be freezing all night.

[36:04] Katie Chandler: Yeah, I feel like an 80 year old woman in my nightgown.

[36:09] Amy Sherman: Feel like I couldn't wear a nightgown.

[36:10] Dr. Holliday Bell : That would make me whole. Exactly. Yeah. I think when it comes to what you sleep in, the fabric is more important than even like the type of clothing. So it helps us to wear light breezy like cotton, moisture, wicking fabrics because if you have some that hold too much heat, again, it causes you to warm up too much and integrate with sleep. But for some people they sleep in the nude, some people they like the full shebang pants, long sleeves. I think whatever makes you comfortable and not too hot is going to be the best thing to sleep in.

[36:38] Amy Sherman: Yeah, makes sense.

[36:40] Katie Chandler: This is all such great information. I feel like we could probably keep going and going and going.

[36:45] Amy Sherman: But I know there's so many more questions, but we know you have an amazing Instagram feed with so much good sleep content. So I know a lot of our listeners are always asking questions about sleep, so we definitely want to make sure that people are checking you out. Your instagram is the sleep underscore MD. That's correct, right?

[37:02] Dr. Holliday Bell : That's correct. Yes.

[37:04] Amy Sherman: Lots of great content on that.

[37:05] Katie Chandler: And where can our listeners find you if they want to work with you? Because as sleep specialist yeah.

[37:13] Dr. Holliday Bell : So you can find me at my website, www dot the Solution isleep.com. I offer a range of services for a range of sleep issues. If you're someone who just is like, I don't know what I'm doing, I just know I need to get my sleep on track. Or if you're someone you suffer from chronic long term insomnia and you've tried all the normal sleep hygiene things and it hasn't worked. I offer cognitive behavioral therapy for Insomnia, which is a longer term process to really dig deep into the root causes of insomnia and go into some therapeutic strategies to improve it. And then on a business corporate level, I work with different corporations to help their employees get better sleep because we know that sleep improves productivity, efficiency and the overall bottom line, companies basically lose less money per employee if the employees are sleeping well and they're investing in employees sleep. So I'll offer that. Just head over to my website, check that out. You can also find me on LinkedIn at Doctor Holiday bell. I try to give more longer form content than I can give on Instagram. So any of those avenues are great.

[38:17] Katie Chandler: That's great.

[38:18] Amy Sherman: It's amazing.

[38:19] Katie Chandler: It's so true. Like, sleep is absolutely everything. You know, all these people that are like, wake up at 05:00 A.m. And go to the gym and do all of this. I'm thinking now I need that extra one or 2 hours of sleep. I am prioritizing that and I'm a morning person.

[38:35] Dr. Holliday Bell : You will get more done in your day if you've dedicated the time to getting your sleep need and if you're like, oh, I'm just going to wake up thoroughly and go to sleep late. You're actually more likely to get less done in that time than if you just prioritize. So start with sleep in mind and adjust the rest of your day around. That is what I like to say.

[38:53] Katie Chandler: Nice. Well, there you go. You heard it here.

[38:54] Amy Sherman: So true. All right, so we're going to get into our wrap session. So what is your favorite wellness or beauty hack?

[39:02] Dr. Holliday Bell : Sleep chakra. But it's so true. Sleep is good for the skin. It's good to keep you young. It's sleep is always my answer.

[39:11] Katie Chandler: All right, this next one, we call it our five minute flow. You just got out of the shower. Uber's pinged you. They're five minutes away. What are you going to do to get out the door and get into that Uber on time? What are your Holy grails, your go to? What's the quick routine?

[39:24] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, my skincare is super important to me, so I'm always going to have a good I like the seraph in the ordinary products. So good. Face wash sunscreen is so important. So if nothing else, face wash, moisturize, sunscreen, maybe a tinted moisturizer. Eyebrows are also important to me. So fill those in, lip gloss and out the door.

[39:45] Katie Chandler: Nice. Yeah.

[39:46] Amy Sherman: Your skin is gorgeous.

[39:47] Katie Chandler: Yeah, it is beautiful. We were just talking about our love for Saravay in the ordinary, like 2 hours ago. Amy and I had funny.

[39:56] Amy Sherman: And how do you maintain your daily nirvana?

[40:00] Dr. Holliday Bell : Self care prioritizing what makes me happy and what allows me to be the best that I can for everyone else and all the roles that I play. That's something fairly recent for me. I would say in the past couple of years, I started to invest in and it's really changed my entire outlook on life and who I am as a person. So prioritizing my sleep, exercise, taking care of my skin, just the little things that make me feel like me and allow me to be the best version of me for everyone else.

[40:29] Katie Chandler: So important. The magic recipe right there. We really appreciate your time and I know our listeners are going to get so much from this. I'm definitely going to be sleeping better now as well. So thank you for being with us. And before we go, we'd like to close with a little mantra. So, Amy, what do you have for us?

[40:45] Amy Sherman: So I took a mantra or a quote from Dr. Holiday Bell on her Instagram feed. And I just thought it was so relevant for our conversation. And that quote is sometimes the most productive thing you can do is rest.

[41:01] Dr. Holliday Bell : Absolutely. It's love it.

[41:03] Katie Chandler: I have to say, I had a quote, too, from Dr. Holiday Bell's feed because it was so good. So I think we need to drop this one as well.

[41:10] Dr. Holliday Bell : Let's hear it.

[41:11] Katie Chandler: Rest is not the absence of activity, but the presence of peace. And I love that. It's such a good reminder and like to give yourself permission to rest, right?

[41:22] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yes, absolutely. Because you're being productive by resting and refilling your own cup. So I love it. Thank you, guys.

[41:28] Amy Sherman: That's so great. Thank you for joining us, and we would love to have you back any time. This is such an important topic, and I think it's gotten a lot of visibility over the last few years, and it's like a continuing subject I feel like I see all the time in the media. So thank you again.

[41:42] Dr. Holliday Bell : Yeah, thank you so much. I'd be happy to come back.

[41:46] Amy Sherman: Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would, please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 92 - Our Top Wellness Apps To Support And Elevate Your Routine (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 92.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Unknown: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Amy: 0:28

Welcome back to the show. It's Amy and Katie Nirvana's sisters family. And today we are doing a quickie episode where we are discussing our favorite wellness apps for the daily meaning ones we use all the time, or go to ones that we're really excited about. And I we have some good ones to share with you. So I'm excited. Katie, do you want to start? You want me to start? Because I've got a good one that I'm so excited to share?

Unknown: 0:49

Yeah, I can start I'll start with Oh, no, you're super excited to share with them and then dive right into that. Go

Amy: 0:54

ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Unknown: 0:55

This is a tried and true app that I have been using for years and years and years, it's pretty common. I think a lot of people know about it. But what I like about it is it's super efficient, and very easy to use, and it's my fitness pal, I don't always track what I'm eating. But I do from time to time, especially when I'm going through like a specific phase. Like right now I'm trying really hard to go through a body recomposition phase where I gain more muscle mass, and they get rid of some of the fat mass. And so I'm tracking, especially like my protein and things like that. And it's a great app. Because a there's multiple versions of it, the free version is just as easy to use as the one that costs money, the premium, you can easily plug in any food item, and it will come up with a gazillion options. It's been used for so many years, I think by so many people that it has all the brands, a lot of restaurant options. Yeah, it has everything. It's it's in there. So you plug it in what you ate and brings up all the macros and then you can track it. And it's just a really easy diary to use. And then in addition to that, they have great recipes. They have a section where you can plug in your own recipes, and it'll calculate the macro and micronutrients for your recipes. You can it helps you create your own custom macros and your goals and everything that you should be getting because of your bodyweight, and etc, so on and so on. So I highly recommend it for that. There's a lot of them out there. I've tried the other ones. I've tried like macro stacks, I've tried a couple others. My Fitness Pal is my go to always I was helping your parents with it last weekend.

Amy: 2:22

Yeah, it's a good one I haven't used in a while but I have it on my phone was funny. I was gonna I was gonna talk about that today as an option. Because I do really like that app. And I haven't used it in a while. But remind me what's the difference? If you pay for it or for it's free? Like what do you get? If you pay for it? You can just like customize more things?

Unknown: 2:37

Great question. So the premium has a really nice barcode scanning option. So you don't even have to like take the two seconds to write in that I just had turkey bacon from Trader Joe's and then you scan and it pops right up. So that's nice. And I'm sure there's some other options. I think there I think it gets more targeted and more specific and how you want to customize your macros and how you see it on, like the face of your diary. So it can just get a little bit more targeted and specific and a little bit more user friendly. But the free version is super user friendly. And it has it really has everything you need. My I mean, your friends, my in laws who are in their 70s are using it. I taught them how to use it. And it's like it's easy. So, I mean, it's definitely yeah, I

Amy: 3:22

hope my dad's been using and I told him he can't rely on my mom to track off his macros. Yeah, you have to do it yourself. So you can learn.

Unknown: 3:29

Yeah, yeah, she was doing his all weekend. It's like God for him healing them, like how many more grams of carbs he's allowed to eat. And so I was trying to,

Amy: 3:39

ya know, he like, wants someone to tell him what to do all the time now yelled at him the other day when I yell at him, but I was like, you have to do it so you can learn what to eat, what not to eat. So like if you're out, you can make a good decision for yourself. Yeah, so hopefully they're doing that. That's, that's great. I am real quick sidebar. What are you doing to you were just saying Re? Yeah, your body compositions? Are you focusing more on protein, like lifting weights? Like what's the I'm focusing

Unknown: 4:06

on, I saw, you have to eat higher protein, you still have to eat a sufficient amount of carbohydrates to fuel your body. And then the other two apps that I'm going to talk about today are helping me do it as well. So it's like, we'd love to hear about that. Yeah, it's a few its metrics and other things that help you get to that. What's your super exciting when

Amy: 4:26

I found out about this app earlier this week, is I've been using it every day. I'm obsessed, and I've gone down the rabbit hole and it's almost dangerous. But when I tell you about it, and when our listeners learned about it, you will be the same way it is called. I don't know how to pronounce it. Yucca yuk. Have you heard of this app? No. It is an immediate download what it does, okay. So you know when you think you're eating healthy and you're just like, Okay, you eat a healthy diet, you pretty much know the right decisions to make. This app tells you everything that you are putting in your body and it tracks your food and your beauty products. So all you do is you scan. So I'm going to show you this at lunchtime to show you on the screen, but you scan whatever you have. And immediately it comes up with. I'll give you an example. Let me find a good one. For example, I scanned my almond butter yesterday, it's the Barney brand and it got a 78 out of 100, which counts is excellent and it gives you the positive. So the reason why that rating it says no additives. So it has no hazardous substances in it. protein, fiber, like excellent amount of fiber, low sugar, no sodium, saturated fat, but low impact and then the negatives are just the calories but it still gives you a 78 out of 100 which is an excellent option. The reason why I did it is because I wanted to see what additives are in things like a lot of the other things you sort of know just by looking at the additives are like impossible to know. So a lot of the things that you think may be good or not. So let me give you an example of one that I was like, bummed out about a poor rating. And this is the organic Italian Romano vinaigrette from Whole Foods. It got a 49 out of 100. Okay, the reason why it says is because it has a lot of sodium, it says it's too salty soy immediately puts it in the poor category. And then it gives you the positives of organic protein, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the cool thing is a few things. First of all, if they put something in the poor category, they give you recommendations as to what you should eat instead, like so for example, this organic Italian Romain of Vinagrette. By the way, you can also make your own decision of whether you think that's poor if it's too salty, and you're like okay, it's fine. I'll have a little salt eat it. But the reason why I like it is because it had a lot of things that I didn't know that had additives, which I'll explain in a second. But anyway, this gave me like a couple recommendations. So instead of having that I could have this raspberry dressing and merit marinade from Lighthouse or this organic vinegar dressing from brag. So it is so helpful because not only is it telling you what's good and bad, but it's telling you what to eat instead. So it did some beauty products. The thing with the beauty products is it has to have the UPC to scan it so sometimes the boxes have that and the beauty products doesn't have that but you can go to the store and scan it which of course I'd started doing with food when I was at the store. So here's another one which I which I eat a lot okay, you know this super creamer. Have you seen this before in the store? This Yeah, yeah, okay. They sell it at Whole Foods. To creamer, right. Yeah, key to vanilla protein and MCT oil, super Cooper scan that the other day 39 out of 100 Poor. Here's why. It has two additives. Okay. One of them is called e 340. It's a potassium phosphate and it comes up as hazardous. Okay, so they rank the additives between like no risk, moderate risk, low risk, and hazardous. So this one came up as hazardous e 340. Potassium phosphate, and then you can click on it and learn why it's hazardous. It says it's a antioxidant, and it says it slows down the oxidation reaction of food. And then this one says phosphates contain phosphorus a chemical element that's essential to the body However, according to a n CES, our phosphorus intake is now two or three times greater than needed. excess phosphorus may increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases disrupt calcium metabolism and bone mineralization and negatively affect the kidneys, you know, right? Yeah, it's crazy. So I've been learning all about these different foods. And again, you can make your choices like like I put in randomly like mustard, right? And it came up as negative because it had too much sodium. And like this specific one was an organic honey mustard said it has a little bit too much sugar, but it just helps inform your decisions better even if you're eating healthy. I want so Aqua for my favorite thing ever comes up as bad 12 out of 100 because and I've read this before it ranks petrolatum as hazardous which is the Petrolia like Vaseline, Vaseline is simply a petrolatum derivative and belongs to the family of mineral oil. So like it says it's prohibited and food products mineral oils are allowed in cosmetics. These oils contain problematic residues such as mo as in motion. So anyway, it goes all into it. And then it gives you all the sources that the Sian list the FSA, like it's it's the company that creates this, all the information that it's coming from is from public health sources, CEC etc. So it's not like they're making it up. So all the sources, it's almost like crowdfunded in a way because it's a free app. But if you upgrade, you can start like you can't search for products unless you upgrade you can scan all your products. But if you want to search for like, oh, I want to get this, let me see what it has. You can't do that. But if you upgrade you can however, when you upgrade, you can donate as much money as you want. You could donate $1 You could donate $10 And you get the upgrade which is really cool. So it's so incredibly helpful. So like aquifer had this hazardous because of the petrolatum which I know is controversial but whatever but it gives you recommendations of doing. You could do Palmer's natural Vitamin E concentrated cream instead. And that's an excellent product at six out of 100. So the petrolatum or

Unknown: 10:03

petroleum, or is it? Are they the same thing? petrolatum and jelly like kind of like the same thing?

Amy: 10:10

Yeah, whatever's in Vaseline, it's, it's the same thing. So I've known that that's been controversial. I've heard about it, but to actually like, see it, a lot of the things I've noticed too, like, for example, I, I scanned, I had a native deodorant laying around, which I don't really use anymore. But that came back as poor because it has something called ozokerite. It shows us a moderate risk. So you know, take that with however you want it, but it says, you know, it's a mineral oil produced by the oil refining process. It's sort of similar to like this thing that I was saying before with the petrolatum. But it's not hazardous. It says memoirs, it has memoirs, which can act as a genotoxic carcinogen. So anyway, it's very interesting. A lot of things with scents came back really bad, I'm sure. Which was interesting. Um, just to do some of the things that I scanned,

Unknown: 11:00

does it do it? So it does food products and beauty products? Does it do like, like house? Cleaning products or anything like that?

Amy: 11:07

No. Okay, that'd be about doing it doesn't know that yet. But hope? Yeah.

Unknown: 11:13

That's a really Yeah. Especially if you're suddenly like somebody sorry to interrupt you, but to, to not know how to read labels, and a lot of people don't. And then also, just like you said, there was one one of the what the E two, three, whatever it was in that coffee creamer. They put they give like these fancy cover up names for things that we have heard more of that we would recognize. So you look at it, and you have no idea what what it is. So it's I love that, especially the beauty products, too. There's so many things in our food. And in our products that we're using that are endocrine disruptors, it can mess with your hormones and everything when you use them in excess, especially like sense like what you were saying.

Amy: 11:55

Yeah, like I scanned this son VM, three in one leaving hair conditioner, which my kids use, sometimes they just like spray it on their hair, again, you're putting it in your hair and putting it on your body. But hair stuff is a little bit different. Like when I skipped a lot of hair stuff, there was some tricky things in there. And it came back with like 1234, like six ingredients that were flagged, but they're all low risk to moderate risk. But like, again, the least you're informed, the things that I've been looking for a lot of things have like low and moderate risk. Unfortunately, a lot of things come back as excellent, which is great. And then the things that come back as hazardous like that coffee creamer is an example is like I'm not buying that again, because it comes back as hazardous. Like those were the things that scared me and some of the things I was trying to find an example. But I have so many things scan, I can't find it right now. But one of the things that came back, some some of the things I scan came back as hazardous. And it'll say like this has been banned in Europe, you know, by the EU. So you know, you hear about things like that. So, so interesting. So it really does the guests, it really does the guesswork for you because we all eat healthy. But still, there's certain preservatives that are in there that can impact what you're eating. And like at least you should be aware of it.

Unknown: 13:06

I just saw recently, the EU banned like six different types of sparkling water, one of which I use a lot because it has stuff in it that like this product would tell me exactly that. And you don't think something like sparkling water. Water is going to be problematic ever.

Amy: 13:24

Yeah, the I scan Lacroix. And that was great. It was like, Oh, good. Yeah, that's my top one, which was good. So And what was interesting too, is I scan some I was at work the other day and I liked wanted yogurt for lunch, and I grabbed like a trovati, which I normally wouldn't like and and if I want that, but scan is excellent. Like because it says it has protein. It has no additives, no saturated fat, you know. So it's interesting, because some of the brands that you don't always think about are actually good. So it's been very eye opening. The problem is it's dangerous because I've been a psycho all week, like literally scanning everything. Everyone's making fun of me. It's so funny, but it's so educational. I find it so educational and eye opening. And the last thing I'll say the thing that I thought was really interesting as I was showing my kids because they're always like making fun of me because I keep telling them not to eat like the junky cereal and the ramen and whatever. So we scanned all their crap that they eat and it was horrible. Like, yeah, we scanned ROM and it was like zero out of 100 like it came up as bad. literally zero out of 100 it has 12 additives of which three are hazardous. Like so much sodium, yada yada yada, so, and Jackson's like rolling his eyes, but he's like, Oh, let me see that and he starts scanning all his stuff. So like I felt like I got it a little bit into them that like no it's not that you can't have this bad food. It's just look what's inside of it. And then we scan this like fruit bar like this organic fruit bar that the kids like, and that came up as good. Yeah, they were I was like, Okay, eat as much as you want those gogo squeezes. Those came up is really good too. I think they were like 100 out of 100 So then I felt better that because my kids like pound those they've like Five of them at a time because they're crazy. But I was like, Alright, fine, eat them at least they don't have like bad chemicals, which is like my biggest concern. So all this cauliflower snacks that we eat, you know, I scan a lot of those and they all come back as good. The only reason they're flagged as negative is calories and sodium. So that's always interesting and a good flag. But anyway, yeah.

Unknown: 15:19

And that's something that you can you can determine whether or not Matt like you might need salt that day, you know?

Amy: 15:25

Yeah, exactly. And then at the end, it has the history. So it saves everything that you've scanned, and then it like grades, like all the stuff and it has it all broken out. And then you can go into your list and like, look at all the bads as an example. And then it gives you all the recommendations like what to do instead. All right, yeah, I'm getting it What's up, so you go, you're gonna go insane with this thing. It's crazy.

Unknown: 15:45

Good. I went alright, anyway, I'm excited. Check it out. Alright, so my next one, you were asking how I'm doing this, like body composition thing. And I have two more apps that will help you understand that. But the next one I am kind of obsessed with it's more than just an app. It's a scale that comes that that has all of these biometrics that that is also you have to have the app to use the scale properly. Because the scale tracks 17 metrics. And it tells you what you're obviously what your weight is, what your weight without fat, what your weight control is, what your weight control is, like where you should be for your age and your height and things like that. Your your contents of body water, and like how hydrated you are, tells you what your bone mass is, what your fat mass is your body fat percentage, forget all that your visceral fat, all of these things, your muscle mass, your muscle rate, your protein rate, your your basal metabolic rate, and then your metabolic age. Amongst more, there's other metrics as well. And it's from it's like biomechanics. I mean, it's science. I can't really totally explain it. But I've done a lot of research into what's

Amy: 16:56

the brand of the scales.

Unknown: 16:59

It is called Fit track. It's the Fit track scale, it's a little pricey, I got it on sale, I want to say like, I think maybe without the sale, it was like $90. But it's it's super cool. Because it tells you things that you can't just get from standing on a scale or measuring yourself like typically, you would have to go and get a DEXA scan to to learn like how much muscle mass you have. And it's it's a big process. I step on this thing every single day. And it tells you your fluctuations, it tells me if I'm dehydrated, it tells me if I need to drink more water, if my body waters low, I'm standing on the scale, I'm standing on a scale. I mean, listen, it's 2023. Wow, the science behind these things is amazing. So it is Bluetooth connected to the app. And as soon as you step on the scale, the app picks up all of the readings when you first get it, it you have to answer just a couple questions like your age and, and male or female and et cetera. And, and then it picks all of it up. And the app also offers other things like you can do. You can like track your your calories and all that as well. But like I said, I like my fitness pal for that. So how this has helped me get into my body recomposition goals is it has given me the metrics that I need to calculate my macronutrients how much protein I should be eating, how much carbs I should be eating to that day that well, yeah, I mean, it's not like I'm fluctuating that much. And that's the goal when you do body recomp. I'm not trying to lose weight, especially for my work. I can't lose weight. I'm just trying to recomp it. I'm trying to be more muscular, less soft, fatty tissue. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so yeah. And that's really hard. For me, I've tried to do this before. And it was so hard to tell if I was doing it, right. Because you're not like the scale doesn't tell you anything. Like it's you know, it's just whether or not it's starting to work is hard to kind of gauge. So having these metrics and applying them to my, like macros, calculators and everything that are teaching me how to how to get all those numbers that I need is really effective. And it's an it's working. I can I can tell like, I'm definitely I am a I have the energy to do really intense weightlifting workouts, because I'm eating the right amount of foods. b I'm recovering faster. And see I can I feel more toned. I feel tighter. And the scale is not really changing, which is a good thing for me right now. Yeah, yeah. So it's called

Amy: 19:29

it's the you look at the metrics, essentially. And then it kind of like helps you know what to eat, and then does it you have to tell you anything about your,

Unknown: 19:36

you have to use like macronutrient calculators that you can Google, there's all kinds of resources for that. Yeah. But I know because I have these metric numbers that I know are accurate that I can plug in, then I know that the numbers on the calculator that are coming back are gonna work.

Amy: 19:50

Does it tell you you're like BMI and stuff like that? Yeah. All of that. And you're trying to change that. Is that like, how do you measure this body

Unknown: 19:58

result? I'm trying to get It the it says that it says the BMI is an estimate of someone's health by measuring their body weight against their height and sex taken in isolation, BMI can be misleading, it's important to look at your other metrics alongside. So what I'm actually trying to get down is my body fat percentage, your body fat percentage is the percent of your total body weight that is made up of fat. Your rating is your fat mass relative to your total weight compared to your benchmarks based on your age, sex and height. So it's great because when you click on these things, it gives you all of this explanation. visceral fat index, so your visceral fat is the is like the the deadly fat, the fat that surrounds your organs, people that have like beer bellies, like the their tummies are loaded with several fat like that's what causes heart attacks and things like that. And I have hyperlipidemia it runs in my family. So keeping my visceral fat low is really important to me, so and then it also tells you your muscle mass. So like my muscle mass is 96.3 pounds. And it says muscle mass consists of three types of muscle, your skeletal, smooth and cardiac, your muscle mass value, it includes the total weight of all these muscle types combined. And then it goes into further. So I'm trying to get my muscle mass up my body fat percentage down. Very cool. Yeah. And so it's I am obsessed. It's a variable,

Amy: 21:16

peaceful Tactus brand, obviously, with all these other apps in the show notes. I want to check that out. That's, that's very cool. Yeah. Okay, obsessed. Next. My next app is a bit more of a fitness app, a friend told me about this, and I downloaded it over the summer, and it's called all trails. Okay, I know if you've heard of it all trails. And it's great because it has hikes near you or wherever you are. So a lot of times when I travel, I like to go on a hike somewhere, but you don't know where you are. This will tell you so like right now I open the app, and it gives you the top trails nearby. So it's telling me trails that are near my house, which exes some of them I didn't even know because sometimes you don't even know what's around you. And it'll tell you how far it is from you. And how long estimated the trail will take. So I'm looking at this one trail near my house. And it's it's like three miles away. But it says the estimated take, it'll take you about an hour and 15 minutes to complete. And it gives you like a little bit of description of the route like this one says, you know, generally considered an easy route, it takes an average of an hour and 15 minutes to complete, very popular for hiking, mountain biking and running. It's open your rounds, and dogs are welcome. So it's a really great way to get outdoors. I mean, now it's freezing out. But you know, once the weather gets a little bit warmer, it's really nice. And then here's this other trail that I found that seven miles from me, if I want to go to that one, and this trail is really long, it's 7.3 miles. But again, it's like an easier route a lot of people to walk and run on it open year round. Dogs are welcome things like that. So it's really great because I do like to do a lot of walks. And it's just makes it less intimidating, because you kind of know what to expect. Because I think sometimes you go on a walk somewhere and you're like how long as it like, When should I turn around? So and it gives you like, can you turn around or where it ends up and things like that. So it's really great for your own area. But I also think it's amazing for when you're traveling. Yeah. And when you're want to go on a hike or you want to go on a walk around the neighborhood that you're in, it just gives you a little bit of a estimate and know what to expect type situation. So I love it. I think it's really, really helpful.

Unknown: 23:21

Yeah, I like that you're a big hiker. I'm not so much of a hiker. I'd like to go on walks but like you would hike up massive hills and mountains and thing Yeah,

Amy: 23:30

but I mean a lot of the a lot of this is walking trails, like there's this trail near me that I'm seeing is in here, which is a walking trail. So not only is it like, you can search by like hard hikes, easy hikes. And when they say hikes. I mean, the easy ones are like walkable, nice trails, basically Nice. So yeah, it's a really, really great app, and it has like navigation and all these different things on it. So when you're on the hike, you can actually do you navigation,

Unknown: 23:54

anything like a safety score, anything like that.

Amy: 23:57

There probably is some sort of safety score or like it'll tell you, you know if it's crowded, or if people like this one talks about like, here's a moderately challenging Route near me, takes about 45 minutes to complete, popular trail for birding, hiking, walking, best times to visit March through October dogs welcome must be on leash, and it has tags that you can search by or, but I bet you it has like comments about that. It's all look around. But anyway, if

Unknown: 24:24

something's kid friendly, or stroller friendly, that also kind of helps you understand. I would

Amy: 24:28

write and it'll tell you if the likes are populated. So if it's like a crowded trail, you would know it's popular. So anyway, it's a great resource for anytime you want to take a walk

Unknown: 24:36

nice. I love that. Yeah. All right. Well, this is I have two more but this last one is the final piece to how I'm doing this whole body composition thing. And it's more than an app again, it's a massive piece of tech but I have to talk about it because it's insane. It's tonal, so we we got to tonal a few weeks ago, it's for listeners that you don't know it is basically like this giant thing that you attach to your wall that is all AI, and it has arms that come out of it that are weight controlled. And it this screen is programs like weightlifting programs and trainers. And it offers a massive variety of programs of classes, etc. When it comes to the bench and all these things and the weight on the arms can go all the way up to hundreds and hundreds of pounds. I don't know how it works, because it's just literally on your wall. But I it's the coolest thing. Because part of gaining muscle mass you have to do. It's called progressive overload. It's when you lift weights, but you have to constantly, like make it heavier or make your reps higher, you're basically from from exercise to exercise, you have to put more work on those muscles than you did the last time in order to actually gain the muscle mass. It's so complicated, it's really hard to do a lot of people can just like, sit down, take the time make their own schedule, like write out how many weights they should do, how many reps they should do this day, so on and so on. I don't have time for that. And I've been trying to do this for years total does it for me. It's it's connected to the total app. And you put in you know, it asks you the standard questions in the beginning. And then it also has you do this like introduction program where it tests your your strength, so it knows you and knows what you're capable of. And it's constantly adjusting that. And then they have different programs for if you wanted to lose weight if you wanted to gain muscle if you wanted to do a body recap. So right now I'm doing a four week body recon. And it's just because it knows me and it's artificial intelligence. It's really it knows when to put more muscle load on and it

Amy: 26:46

wow, it's it's really takes the thinking out of it

Unknown: 26:49

takes all of the thinking out of it. And it's a trainer. So she's like keeping you excited and keeping you

Amy: 26:54

so it's a class it's a classic kind of like a is that the one I get that the tunnel confused with mirror where like a person shows up? Like, like a virtual person.

Unknown: 27:04

Yeah, it's similar to mirror but I don't know if mir has the weight capacity? I'm not sure. But no, I

Amy: 27:10

think mirrors just classes. Right?

Unknown: 27:12

This is the there's a person in there showing you exactly how to do the movement on a tonal and they're walking you through everything. And yeah, I mean, it's there's a lot of different programs out I'm starting a different program than I'm doing.

Amy: 27:27

Yeah, it's so cool. Our neighbors, they rave about

Unknown: 27:30

it. I'm Yeah, yeah. And it's i It's accessible. Because it's is like a monthly you can pay like a monthly membership. It's not like you have to buy this thing for like $5,000 It's, it's something that you can so I think that they're starting to like like peloton subtotals. And all these things are starting to try to make more so you buy

Amy: 27:48

mass allotment, how much is the actual equipment?

Unknown: 27:50

I have to ask Adam but it wasn't it wasn't as crazy as I thought it was going to be because you pay you pay, you pay more monthly. It's like paying a monthly gym membership. And that's not got to like have access to the programs that's like to have the thing in your house, essentially. Oh, I

Amy: 28:05

say Oh, cool. And do they come and install it? Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. We we have like a more of a wait like an all in one kind of wait machine in the basement. That's stupid a couple summers ago, because the boys especially Jackson was starting to work out we thought about getting the tonal because our neighbors have it and they love it. But we were worried like the kids don't really like they won't. And it's just like different than just like lifting a weight. You have to kind of I don't know, we just weren't sure if like, I like it.

Unknown: 28:37

I think they would like it. Because it's it's it's like hardcore weightlifting. I mean, yeah, I'm like, I'm doing deadlifts with 50 pounds in each hand. And oh, my God, and like, I need

Amy: 28:48

to try this. I think it's so cool. Yeah, I really, I think that would Yeah, I'm curious to see like your journey with this and like, how it changes your body and like with the weights, because I've been trying to do different weight things too. But I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm just lifting weights, but I don't have any sort of guidance. And to your point, like you kind of lift the same thing all the time, you don't have a good understanding of what you should be doing next. So it sounds like this is such a good trainer and takes all the like guesswork, you just do it instead of having to think through like what am I going to do now? And yeah,

Unknown: 29:18

I mean, when you're doing I've been I've tried everything for years and years and years and don't get me wrong. Like I'm I'm in great shape, and I'm strong and everything, but I'm not achieving these results that I've wanted to achieve. And I know how you have to do it. And it's really complicated if you just do it like freehand or you have to pay to write help you do it. And this machine is helping me do it, which is amazing that I help you with the form to Oh yeah, 100% and even the machine will tell you, it senses if your form is cool, and it tells you like wow, like one step away from tonal. Like it's really it's really an impressive piece of equipment. I could not recommend it more. And it also tells me like on my rest days, it gives me active rest workouts as well. If I don't want to do my one day of my four week program, I go in and it pops up. Well, you should do this today instead.

Amy: 30:11

Sounds amazing. I need to I need to test it out for sure. i That sounds really great. I love it. Okay, so while we're on the exercise routes, I always have to give a plug to em who, Melissa what how my daily go to for all things. Love her so much love the app. I know. She recently upgraded the app. And I don't know if you've seen but like now she's got all these other people that are part of her community that are also teaching. I haven't taken any other classes because I'm biased to Melissa but I will. But she's got all these other people that do pilates and different things. But Melissa is just my go to like five minutes. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever I have time for I love our and always have to talk about that. Because that's one I use on the daily.

Unknown: 30:52

Yeah, for sure. Love him. Wh Alright, well, my last one is a pretty fast one. It's something that I have been using for years I start well, I really started when like the pandemic crazy. It's when I first started to get into meditation. It's Insight Timer, which we've talked about before. And yeah, I have a TM practice that I do. But when I'm not doing my TM practice, I still use Insight Timer. And back in the day, when I first started it, I would use the guided meditations. But now I just I love they have a timer, and they have all of these different sounds that you can put in. It's what I use when I meditate with the girls in the morning. It's just like a very easy free app, you can upgrade it and get more and detailed stuff.

Amy: 31:32

But if you may have quick meditations to write Oh, yeah, yeah,

Unknown: 31:36

they have quick meditations, two minute meditations, 15 minute meditations, 30 minute meditations and everything. Or you could just use the timer, which is what I do. So if you're new to meditating, you don't really know where to start, it is an excellent resource for that. That's how I got into meditating. And then I'm sure people, you know, advanced, people are using it regularly as well. So highly recommend.

Amy: 31:56

Awesome. Okay, well, the last one that I have, since we're talking about all these different things to exercise is for the brain, it's called elevate. And this is a really, really good app for, like cognitive function. And so I have brain fog, like a lot of us do. And I use this tool to help kind of like, keep me sharp. So every day, it has a different brain workout. So it tests or not tests, but it gives you exercises in these different categories writing, speaking, reading, math, memory. And so every day will give you different exercises to do. And like today, I opened it up and it said your workouts ready, I'm just going to press start just so you can get an understanding. So like, the first exercise that it has, for me is a writing exercise. And if I play this game, it comes up and tells you the game. And it'll do like tell you how to do it. And like this one, for example, is called rounds. And so I'm tapping it to continue I'm doing it like it'll this one is it times you like see how this says lesson you put in the s. And so see how this timer goes down. So it's all timed. And it's like how quickly you can do things. So this is just like a simple spelling test where like this has the word for example, Odyssey and the S is left out and you put in the s so you know different little exercises, it has math ones, which are always challenging for me has memory ones. And then so I think it has like, I don't know, three or four exercises a day, it takes like a few minutes, it doesn't take long at all. And you get through it and it scores you and then you know at the end of the week, or whenever you can just go in and check your score. So it's actually a really great way to just exercise your brain on the daily, I haven't been using it, this reminded me I need to start using it and then it'll give you your performance. So like I haven't done it in a while. But for example, like my writing is at the top, I have the most points going into like the advanced stage for writing. So you can see all my bars there. Mine goes writing, then speaking then reading then math and memory. So my memory is like at the novice level. So then it gives you more exercises for that. So it's really good. I think it's good for older people to like I told my parents about it. And it told them they should do it everyday. It's kind of like my grandfather, he used to go downstairs every day and do like a crossword puzzle. Same idea, right? Like just keeping your brain sharp. So it's a really good way to get your brain. You know, like sharpening in the morning. Like if you're drinking your coffee, just do a little brain game. And yeah, highly recommend really good tool.

Unknown: 34:19

It's so like, for idle time, instead of just like sitting and scrolling and consuming and having like, tick tock, someone talk to us and tell us things. It's so much better for you like for your eye. I'm going to download it. I could do it when I'm taking the train when I'm commuting things like that. That's great.

Amy: 34:34

Yeah, and it gives you an A Yeah, and I think it's good too, because it's just a couple quick fun games and some of them are fun, you know, and yeah, it's a good way to pass the time. It's not too long. And I whenever I do this in the morning, I do feel sharper. Like I feel like it's a good way to start the day because it kind of gets your brain like firing and smart

Unknown: 34:52

startup. Yeah, highly

Amy: 34:53

recommend. Nice. Yeah,

Unknown: 34:55

this was fun. I'm glad we did this because i mean i i Adam is like Mr. techie tech. And so I feel like I'm starting to get into his realm of all the apps and all the tech and everything. And I mean, you're pretty techie too. So it's all Yeah,

Amy: 35:11

remedies things. Even, you know, I think some of the things we talked about are really cool, because they have the technology, the deep technology piece, but I think a lot of these apps are just like simple apps that our listeners can use everyday like this Yukka app, right? It's like you just scan your stuff just to get a better sense of how healthy your food is. Or like, if you want to go on a walk, I mean, these are simple apps that you can use on a weekly basis that are really helpful. And then yeah, if you want to go deeper into tech, you get the scales and all these other things. But there's just so many helpful apps out there that are free and so we wanted to make sure we were sharing it with our Nirvana sisters family. So hope everyone has a great week and we'll talk to you soon Bye. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 91 - Parent Coach Erika Brunwasser Is Back - How To Stay Connected With Your Child & Stop Comparing Yourself To Other Parents (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 91.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Amy : Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of wellbeing and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana.

Erika : We are Sisters in law and your hosts.

Amy : I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation. Welcome back to the show nirvana Sisters Family. We have an exciting guest back with us. She was a huge hit when she was here the first time. It is parent coach Erica Brunwiser. My friend, my parent coach, the best parent coach around. For those of you that don't remember or maybe didn't hear her first episode, erica Brunwiser is a parent coach and educator in Westport, Connecticut. Erica guides parents and helps them to overcome challenges and thrive in parenting and family life. She works with clients to become more connected and confident in order to help them and their children enjoy life and function better. And I can speak to that because she helped me do exactly that. Prior to becoming a parent coach, erica was a New York City school guidance counselor for thousands of families. She was a school counselor at Wagner Middle School in Power Charter School and Hunter College High School. She has helped many Fairfield County adolescents and families in various settings. Work includes leading girls empowerment groups for the New Canaan, Connecticut based nonprofit organization Live Girl. Live Girl. Probably live, girl. And running the Jewish Teen Action Committee for the Ujajcc in Greenwich, Connecticut. She has a master's degree in education and school counseling from Fordham University. Let's just put it this way. She's beyond qualified bachelor's degree in psychology from the Ohio State University. And Erica is very passionate about helping families achieve a strong connection to their children to live their best possible lives. So we have her back. We're going to get into some of these great questions about what we can do for our children, what we can do as parents to improve our lives all around well being, right? It's all about the well being.

Erika : Yay.

Amy : And I will say welcome back, Erica. Your two episodes, part one and two, have been very, very popular with our community. They've gotten like one of the highest downloads we've had, so we're so grateful to have you back. And just for our audience, the last time Erica was on it was March of 22. We did a part one and a part two, so make sure to check that out because it's a lot of great information in there. So welcome back to the show, Erica.

Erika : Thank you so much, guys. I'm so excited. I had the best time with you last year when I came, and I love talking to you guys and listening to you and so excited to be here.

Amy : Yeah, it's been almost a year. I was thinking about that.

Katie Chandler: Time goes by so fast. Well, should we stop with our Nirvana of the Week? Amy, do you want to go first?

Amy : Sure. Yeah. So I would say my nirvana this week was. I went to dinner last night with my dad. We did a little one on one dinner, which was fun and cute because he's always saying he never sees me enough, even though he literally lives in my neighborhood and practically next door to me. My parents do, which is amazing. I'm really busy so I don't get to spend as much time as we would like. So anyway, we did a little one on one daddy daughter dinner, which was nice, and just caught up and spent some time, quality time together. So that was my Nirvana this week. What about you, Katie?

Katie Chandler: Sweet. And I'm going to see your dad soon. Your parents are on their way here for the weekend. I think mineirvana this week has been my other job. My other work is ramping up and I'm working a lot and I'm loving it so much. It's so funny how much I used to take it for granted ten years ago, before I was a mom. Before, like the whole thing when I used to do it, I don't know, maybe it was burnt out.

Amy : You appreciate it more now?

Katie Chandler: Probably so much more. And I have so much fun with my clients and it's just great.

Erika : I love it.

Katie Chandler: So it's definitely a nirvana for me. What about you, Erica?

Erika : Isn't that amazing how work becomes a break sometimes when you're a parent? Yeah, that's rough. Really? So mine is actually more like a Nirvana of the month. I don't know if you guys saw, but if you follow Westport mom's Instagram, they did a giveaway, like a huge holiday giveaway, and they gave away like ten things worth like thousands of dollars, a massage, a photo shoot, a haircut and color, blah, blah, blah, million things. A diamond sapphire ring.

Katie Chandler: Wow.

Erika : I won it. You did what? So I'm about to, like, collect my winning.

Katie Chandler: Nice.

Erika : And I'm so excited and like, that is so cool. I'm literally going to go get my massage and go pamper myself and have a family photo shoot on the beach all for free because I pull a package.

Katie Chandler: You won the whole thing?

Amy : How did you enter it?

Erika : You know on Instagram when they'll be like, follow this person and tag a friend and you're entered in our giveaway. So I did that and a friend screenshotted it, sent it to me and said, you won. And I said, what did I win? She said everything.

Katie Chandler: Oh, my gosh.

Erika : That's like total nirvana. Really?

Amy : Oh, my God, that's so cool.

Erika : I know. Who wins.

Katie Chandler: I know. I love it. Great. All right, well, good for you. I'm jealous.

Erika : Good for you.

Katie Chandler: All right, well, let's kick it off. So Erica has so much great content and she gives the most phenomenal advice and you absolutely have to listen to her first episodes of One and Two with us because we get into a lot. I think this time around we are just going to kind of dial into more like the wellness for you as a parent and how to keep the balance between you and your child. And there'll be some other little tips in there. But to start out, this is one that I know I'm guilty of. I think probably every parent in the world is at least the moms who knows what the dads are thinking, but.

Erika : Nothing I just get so we all.

Katie Chandler: Compare ourselves to other parents all the time. It's social media, right? We see these, like, super moms doing all these amazing things and it's really hard to not compare. So tell us about that. What are you seeing with your clients in that respect? How are you dealing with that as a parent yourself, and what can we do to keep that from happening all the time? Comparison is the thief of joy.

Erika : Yes, it really is. So it's actually interesting because I just read a book recently where the author talked a lot about this and it's called You Are Not a ****** Parent by an author named Carla Nomberg. And I moderated like a book. Talk with her through the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County. So I got to meet her and we discussed this at Link, and she was saying that in our culture, social media has played such a big role in this and it's trickling down to the adolescents and to the even like the early teens, late childhood. And I think that what's happening is we really are comparing ourselves so much, and the bar has changed for what we're striving for in our society. Whereas 2030 years ago it was maybe normal to have ups and downs and good days and bad days, now we're getting on social media and we're scrolling and we're seeing, oh, my God, this one's doing amy and Katie are doing this unbelievable podcast. Look at them. What am I doing with my life? Or look at Erica, she did a speaking engagement as a parent coach the other day. But obviously my life is nowhere near perfect. Your lives are probably nowhere near perfect, but because of the frequency with which we're looking at other people, I mean, you know how many times a day we're checking our phones? I know it's crazy and it's changing. I think the bar for what we're striving for. And it used to be that maybe you'd pick up a fashion magazine and especially when we talk about girls and body image and adolescence, maybe you'd strive to look like the girl in the magazine, but then you'd put it down and you'd get a break and you'd feel present, but it's just constant. And I think that we really need to be mindful of our social media usage, how we're modeling it for our kids, making an intention to say, I'm going to put it down between the hours of seven and nine or whatever it is, and we really need to kind of remove ourselves. And I think we need to take a little bit more control back. We've given so much control to these devices that we just can't live without and I think it plays a huge part in at the end of the day, really it's impacting our self esteem and making us feel less than when that's not the case because everyone's life is up and down and in the middle. But people are only showing the best parts of themselves, right?

Katie Chandler: And that's what is so easy to forget. When we see these influencers on social media, especially the parenting ones that are posting like every single day. They've got this new great craft that they're doing with their kid or how they've organized the playroom and done all of these amazing things. We really do have to remind ourselves that that is just a small glimpse into their everyday life. They're also dealing in the weeds and dealing with all of the **** just the same as the rest of us are. So it's kind of a matter of, like you said, removing yourself and then also removing the devices rather and then having some self compassion, right? I literally very recently Googled is it okay to yell at my kids?

Amy : I would say too, I also think social media is changing or at least what I'm seeing. And like with my other job and the way that people are approaching social, I think that people are starting to be more real and to actually talk about real things, especially on TikTok. And so I'm really happy to see that people are actually filter off literally and figuratively, right, and talking about real issues and connecting with people more and more. So hopefully the trend will continue in that way. I think it's kind of gone are the days of these like I would hope people for the most part with all these people that are thinking like everyone's lives are perfect, can kind of look at it and roll their eyes and be like okay, because it's not what you see. What's that phrase? Like what you see is not always what it is. Right? To your point, that's two minutes of their day and what else is happening? So I think I try to take all of that stuff with a grain of salt and I just think you also have to have a really good compass to be able to brush it off, which not everybody can. I mean, I know people have just gone off social media because I think it's just really hard for them to look, to see what other people are doing. It's just hard for them to not compare themselves, also feel insecure. And I think if you're that kind of person, I think it is healthy to go off. Right, but I think too we have to take all of these things with the grain of salt because nothing is.

Erika : What it seems to do and also cultivating a community around you that you know is comprised of supportive and real people, right?

Amy : Yeah.

Erika : Katie, you and I are friends for real outside of work, and I think some of the women that we're friends with here that we've met in Westport are just super real and will show up for you. And I think finding those people, it's not always easy and it takes time, especially if you're new to a community. But finding people who you feel comfortable, like, showing your messy house to or, like, no makeup or saying, like, this day is a total **** show. Because we need to have people who can normalize these things for us. Because life is up and down and we've never been so insular throughout all of history. People lived in villages, people celebrated together, people mourned together. Now we're really kind of like on an island at home. A lot of people are working from home or just kind of turning on the TV to keep our kids busy. And it's not something we should feel guilty about. But I do think to create intentional times, to surround yourself in person with others, with others who are real, with others who are also going through hard things, who feel comfortable sharing and normalizing the negative as well as the positive, I think that that's a huge piece of that.

Katie Chandler: 100%.

Amy : Yeah, I totally agree. And I would say, too, I feel like the older you get, you want to surround yourself with the people that you can be the most real with, to your point, like wearing no makeup, with complain, talk about the good, the bad, have your house messy, like, who cares? And those are the people that you're going to end up, or at least that I end up gravitating to, because who has time to deal with the other nonsense?

Katie Chandler: And also, parenting can be really isolating, I think sometimes, especially in the early years when you have babies, when the kids are really little, you can just be so entrenched that it's hard to kind of see outside of what's going on in your four walls.

Erika : Yeah, it's really consuming.

Katie Chandler: It's all consuming. It really is. Yeah. So that's all great advice. So speaking of that, it being all consuming, let's talk about I saw recently that you were imploring your followers and your clients and everything on social media to put themselves first and to take care of themselves in order to be connected and be present with their children. And Amy and I, obviously, we stand behind this. This is kind of why we're here. And what we do is taking care of yourself and your well being to be your best of us. So let's talk more about that. Why do you feel that's so important?

Erika : So when I started this business was about a year ago, and I had worked in schools, like you mentioned earlier in the podcast, and I had gone to grad school for education. And I had read all the books and done all the things and gone to all the professional development seminars, and I learned a lot about behavior and academics and kids and how to succeed and how to be mentally healthy and all that stuff. And I think that what parents were really yearning for, especially coming out of COVID was like, just give me the strategies. Just, this is happening. Tell me what to do. And they were so eager. And when I first started working one on one with them in this setting, not in the school setting, I was like, okay, well, now they're actually paying me, right? So I want to give them results. So I would just kind of like, spit out strategies like, okay, you're doing this. Get a feelings chart. This is how you're going to use it. This is a chart. This is a sticker chart. And then I thought, wait, I know in my heart that what these parents need is to feel more confident in their parenting, to feel more well rounded overall, to feel like they have some fulfillment in their own lives. And as soon as parents can get to a place where they're feeling those things, then their kids will benefit. As a result, it's not always about fixing the problem or getting them through whatever stage they're in because the ups and downs of life and development are going to happen. But you know how they say, like, happy wife, happy life? Well, like, I think like, a mom who is content and a mom who feels fulfilled is going to have a family who feels more content. And so what I started doing with my clients is really taking a look at their lives. We did this together, looking at the different areas of their lives. How are you feeling in love and romance? How are you feeling in work? What do you want to achieve in work? Really setting concrete goals. How are you feeling in communicating with your kids? How are you feeling with your home? And are you overwhelmed and do you maybe need to move some finances around to get someone in to help you in some way? Like taking the pressure off, setting concrete goals and allowing parents to feel like, actually, you know what? I'm important and I'm going to put my needs first. That has such a tremendous impact on the wellbeing of the whole family. And the kids end up being happier and healthier that way. When the parent is happier, yeah, they.

Katie Chandler: Benefit from it tremendously. Right now, I think about looking back on times maybe like this past year when I was having a harder year. Of course my temper is up, I'm more short fused. I might snap. I might, like, raise my voice more. Just generally speaking, if the if the mom, if the parent is feeling a sense of unease or stressed, like, it leaches out into everything else, right?

Amy : Your kids feel it. I mean, like the temperature of the room changes if you're in a certain mood. Like, everyone can feel that energy.

Erika : And I also think it's really important, like we were saying, with comparison, like to normalize the good and the bad and everything in between. I think when it comes to and not to knock the name of your podcast, which is an amazing name, but I don't know that going for pure Nirvana every day is actually our goal.

Amy : Right.

Erika : You know what I mean? Maybe we're going for like mediocrity in our lives. Like maybe we're like which is your.

Amy : Nirvana and that's and maybe the badges.

Erika : Are just something that come and we just kind of ride the wave and maybe being more accepting and more having the expectation that these are going to come and we're going to get through them is healthier for us and for our kids. And that when challenges come up with our kids, it's not a catastrophe, it's actually just life and we will get through it and we can get through it.

Katie Chandler: Right?

Erika : And so I think when we're talking about our own wellness, our mindset and shifting to away from perfection and to normalizing the ups and downs is a hugely healthy shift that we all should make 100%.

Katie Chandler: Speaking to that of achieving the greatest nirvana, I have been trying to live more like, you have these peaks and valleys, right? We have really bad days. We have really great days. And I think trying to live in that middle zone that like even keel all the time, things are good things. We shouldn't always be shooting for the stars every day. And it's okay if we have these really bad days. If we can just kind of like the day to day exist in the middle. For me, that's minor vana. And I think the kids can can feel that, like, sense of calm and, you know, like, we have a bad day, it's okay, pick ourselves up the next day, it's fine, no big deal.

Erika : And what goes hand in hand with that, which is maybe surprising to some of your listeners, is that if you live your life in a place where you're kind of expecting the bad to happen and you normalize, that it's okay to have positives and negatives. I think that the kids will feel less intimidated to come to you with whatever's going on.

Amy : Right?

Erika : So when you talk about like we were talking about being present and communicating, if it's expected that your kids are allowed to fail at some things or are allowed to go through hard days or don't always have to make the team or don't always have to have these perfectionistic standards, then they'll also be more likely to come to you with those things. Right? And so if you're modeling for them you know what, this is a really hard week. I'm not feeling great. And that's okay. Because I know that next week is going to get better. Then it really opens up the lines of communication between you and your kids, especially adolescents, because as you know, Amy, having adolescents, they are so high and so low. Okay? If they're feeling sad, sadness is a part of life. I'm not saying that we should be overlooking depression or any serious mental illness, but highs and lows, the Moody one.

Amy : Day, all right, whatever. Tomorrow they'll be in a different mood. It's just like us, right? Some days are good and some days are bad. Also just going back to the putting yourself first piece. They always say, which I hear all the time, but on an airplane, that comparison of, like, putting on your face mask before you put on your children, like, take care of yourself first before you can take care of your children, because otherwise you won't be able to take care of your children. So super important. And, yeah, I think it's a really good point about the Nirvana piece. And just like Katie said, I think, and we always try to preach this, too, about whatever Nirvana means for you, which could mean it's not a great day, it's not a bad day. It might just be in the middle, or maybe today is bad, but I know tomorrow is going to be good. So I think it's about adjusting that based on the day and trying to find some sort of joy throughout your day. But right. Not every day is going to be great. And totally agree that it's really helpful to share that with your kids and tell your kids you're not having a great day or something like that, because they're obviously very influenced by what other friends are doing on social media and all the things they aren't invited to, potentially, and all of that stuff. And they need to know what's up.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, very well said. I totally agree. Well, I would love to get into some quick tips that we might have for being more present with our children, connecting with our children, and opening the lines of communication. We talked about this when you were here last time, but I think it's always great to repeat some of this. So what do you have for us there?

Erika : So I think when we say being present with our kids, I think we have to define, like, what do we mean by being present with our kids? Am I suggesting that every single person put down their phone all the time and be staring at their kids? I am not suggesting that. So sometimes I really do think people put that amount of pressure on themselves, like, okay, my kid's going to walk in the door, put down the phone, be ready, not reality. So I just want to be clear, that is not the goal here. But when you do connect, and when you do make yourself available for connection, it should be as device free and as authentic as possible. So maybe you make intentional times to have family dinner four nights a week. And if that's not realistic for your family, maybe it's three nights a week.

Katie Chandler: Or.

Erika : Maybe it's that you take a walk with your kid two days a week, you walk the dog and phones are away and you're really using those device free times. There's an amazing book that I really enjoy that I think your listeners would enjoy called Simplicity Parenting. And the author is Kim Jong Payne. And it's all about how much our environment really does lend itself or not lend itself to connecting with our kids and being present. And it's amazing. Like even at bedtime, small environmental tweaks you can make like turning down the lights or turning off TV an hour before bedtime, even if you just have the news on the background, for some households, that's the norm. And just thinking about changing little details and opportunities for connection and I do think bedtime is a huge opportunity for connection. It's interesting. It's almost like our kids can read our vibes. We just want to get upstairs to our room or get down the hall to our room. We just want to tuck them in and say goodnight and get out of there and then they start opening up with everything that happened that day. So I think bedtime, if you can try to do bedtime and have a little routine for connection as often as possible.

Amy : So question on bedtime, because I think when my kids were little, that was easier to do and I could get little nuggets here and there. But now my kids are older, 13 and almost 16, and they go to bed later than me. I'm exhausted at night. My little one will sometimes be like, can you rub my back? But it's like 1030 and I'm like, I'm so tired, I can't and I feel bad. But for teenagers, I feel like it's really hard to connect at night because they're already like they're up late, they're doing their thing, I don't know. So what are you seeing with older kids and that connection at night time? Is it more during dinner?

Erika : No, I would say don't force it. But maybe it's something like you just leave your door open until then. They may just kind of come and want to tell you something or something really simple like that. Or maybe it's you peek in before you go up and say like, hey, maybe you start a new little ritual with them, like, hey, I just want you to know I'm going to bed. But I thought we could maybe try this thing where we do like highs and lows of our day. You could even suggest it at a time that's not bedtime, try to kind of incorporate it into the bedtime. But I think it's a hard balance with adolescence because you don't want to push them because then you're pushing them away, and it's okay that they sometimes leave for a bit and then come back to you. You just make yourself available. I think there are things you can do as well with all ages, like more kind of practical, concrete strategies, like body language. Maybe you're just kind of sitting in the same room doing your own thing, but maybe it's something as simple as just kind of, like, turning towards them, and then you never know what can come from that. They may open up and say something or I think we talked about this last year when I was on the podcast, but just noticing kind of really awesome things they do and saying it out loud because so often we are so busy and we're going through our days and we're forgetting to say, that was so awesome what you just did. Thank you. Like, catching them in the moment. That works for three year olds.

Amy : I recently did that the other day with my younger one.

Erika : Yeah, exactly. So that works for three year olds, 13 year olds, because he had, like.

Amy : A really good reaction to something which he normally wouldn't. And I was like, oh, I'm so proud of you that you handled it.

Erika : And what was his reaction when you said that?

Amy : I think he just, like, smiled and felt good.

Erika : By the way, they don't show you that they feel good from a comment. Like, that doesn't mean they're not good.

Katie Chandler: They are.

Erika : They're still human beings. They want to connect. They want to feel good. Think about it. Work. Like if your boss said to you, like, wow, I had asked you to work on that, and you did, and I'm really noticing a change, you'd be like, yeah, I feel good, totally. And then I think I don't know. For connection with teens, I think parents really often forget, like, you have to ask open ended questions. You can't ask yes or no questions that will totally shut them down. Did you have a good day? Yeah. Think about the difference between saying to someone, did you have a good day? Versus, oh, I wonder how that test went today. It elicits a totally different response, and people forget that using just simple statements, open ended, like, tell me more about that. Like, oh, I'd love to hear more about that. When you're more in the mood, like, not being pushy, but giving them this opportunity to kind of respond in the ways that they want instead of yes or no questions tend to really shut down the conversation.

Katie Chandler: Yeah. I just recently started saying things that pick up because I was like, So tell me about your day, and I would get nothing. So then I started saying, okay, what's one really funny thing that happened today? Give me one thing that made you laugh. Or, like, was there a time today where you were, like, a little unsure and anxious? I'm just trying to pull these. Nuggets. It's amazing how much they don't want to try.

Erika : I know. But you know what? At your kid's ages, elementary.

Katie Chandler: Yeah.

Erika : They're so exhausted at that time. That's true. And they need that break. They need the quiet. I mean, a lot depends on your kid, but if you have a kid who's a little more introverted, they may just need to sit and chill and go in the room for an hour and it may come out later, like at bedtime, when you're ready to go to bed. Right, right.

Katie Chandler: Definitely.

Erika : The open ended questions or statements are huge, and just thinking about tweaking the things you say in a way that from yes or no to open ended can help a lot.

Katie Chandler: Okay.

Amy : I've also found, and I've mentioned this before. I think I've told you this before, Erica, but I also find that my kids open up more when I'm doing something they want to do. So, like, Jackson, my older one, is starting to drive, so he really wants us to take him driving.

Erika : Driving.

Amy : I mean, he doesn't talk that much because he's just learning how to dress. He's nervous, but in general, he's in a better mood when he comes back because he's done something that he wants. Or if you sit and watch a sports game or whatever it is, they just tend to just give you a couple more nuggets because they're happy that you're doing that thing with them, whatever it is, versus being like, do you want to do this with me? And they don't want to do it. Even if it's something that you think is fun, like a walk or this, and they don't want to do it. They don't want to do it.

Erika : It has to be their thing. It has especially the little ones, you can make a huge deal of it. You are going to pick what we're doing today and it's going to be so cool. You can pick a puzzle. I can jump on the trampoline with you. Whatever it is that they like to do. And you do it and you say, this is just going to be like I say to my three year old sometimes because I know that she feels when I'm busy and when I'm cleaning the kitchen, when I'm on a work call and I'm just kind of putting on the TV for her, then I intentionally will say to her, marlowe me, and you are going to have marlowe mommy time. And I know that it's just for the next 20 minutes. I'm going to put the phone in another room and we're just going to sit and I'm going to say, you get to pick. How cool is that? Do you want to read books or do a puzzle? So that works with older ones, but especially the younger ones. Really awesome.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, that works really well with Reese, too, and she's five. It's amazing how much, like 20 minutes of doing that one thing with her. Like, we played Barbie's last weekend for 20 minutes, and she was just like, she was done. She could have played by herself, and.

Erika : You'Re all in it for those 20 minutes. And it's amazing, actually, how much they kind of will comply after that.

Katie Chandler: Yeah.

Erika : It's like telling a kid who feels like you fulfilled their need for a connection to brush their teeth is different than telling a kid who feels like they've been ignored all day.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, absolutely. Before we let you go, amy and I have some personal questions that we want to ask, and I would like to get your tips for how to handle bullying. I've got a nine year old, and she's getting into that age where it's all about social, social, and there is definitely some being left out going on, some bullying, some rocky friendships. It's breaking my heart, and I don't know what to do about it.

Erika : It's really hard.

Katie Chandler: Yeah.

Erika : It's really heartbreaking. And I think when I had my daughter Sadie, seven years ago, it was like, all of a sudden, my heart went from being in my body to now it lives outside of my body, and it's Sadie. And when she's happy, I'm happy, and when she's not happy, I'm not happy. And finding a balance for ourselves as parents, and that's why putting yourself first is so important and finding things that can kind of fill your cup, as we say, is a huge part of that equation. But it doesn't make it easier when they're going through something hard. And I think that when your kid comes to you with something hard and they are actually at a point where they're ready to open up to you about it, you got to thank them. The first thing is thank you. I think we maybe talked about that last time. Thank you for coming to me with that. I appreciate that. And then when they're coming to you, they want to know that you understand that you're there for them, that you're here for them, and they want to know that they're not alone, but they are not looking for you to fix it.

Katie Chandler: Okay, that's interesting because that's where I'm getting pushback. I tried to fix it, and then she's shut down.

Erika : And that's the thing. It's like, okay, there's this brilliant psychologist named Richard Schwartz, and his method for therapy is called Ifs. I don't know if you guys have heard of it, internal family systems. It's amazing. And I think your listeners would probably really like to know more about that so they can look it up. But basically he says that hard things are going to happen and sad feelings are going to happen, angry feelings are going to happen, but the trauma doesn't come from the hard experience. The trauma comes from feeling alone in that experience. I also want to say it's not my idea, it's Richard Schwartz from Ifs, but it is brilliant and it helps me in my work very much. So the trauma doesn't come from going through the hard experience. The trauma comes from feeling alone in.

Katie Chandler: That experience and trying to get through it on your own.

Erika : And so as a parent, when you've provided these opportunities for connection and for communication and your kid knows, my mom is here for me, she loves me, I can go to her. That is like 50% of the battle with the bullying and with whatever they're going through. So I want you to be confident because I know you as a mom.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, I'm tearing up thinking about it.

Erika : That you have done the work. I'm here for you, I love you, and you can come to me. The mean girls are going to happen. The being left out is going to happen. But the fact that she has a mom that she can go to and tell you what's going on is like, such a huge piece of that puzzle.

Katie Chandler: Okay, so I need to stop trying to fix that.

Erika : I think so, because I think what's.

Amy : Important are you supposed to empathize and.

Erika : Just say, be my formula for that, that you say, thank you, I'm here for you, and then you ask an open ended question, okay, so can you tell me a little bit more about that or what's going on with that? And then you empathize and depending on the age of the kid. So, like, Amy for you and also the fact that you have boys, they may not want a really long winded paragraph of a response. You may just say something like, that sucks. And then they're like, yeah, it does. You know, your kid, and you kind of gauge like, what the response is. And for you, it might be something like, god, it sounds like she's really leaving you out. And then you'll hear she'll say, yeah, and then this happened. And then she's like, wow, my mom really? She gets me. She's with me. And to say to her specifically, you know what, I just want you to know you are not alone and maybe you even want to share something that.

Katie Chandler: Happened in your childhood. Yeah, I haven't done that yet, and I need to.

Erika : Can I tell you something? This really reminds me of something that I went through when I was in third grade and I remember and this happened and she's like, really, mom? And all of a sudden she's validated. I think the problem is so think about if a kid came to you and said so and so didn't invite me to her birthday party. And now think about if you're the kid and you're telling your mom and the first thing your mom says is, what? How could she not invite you? You're so amazing, you're so beautiful. I'm calling her mother right now and you're going to be invited. Imagine how that would shut you down and how embarrassed you would feel and how you wouldn't want to come back to that person. And then imagine a mom who says something like, oh, that must be so painful, and they're like, yeah, and let me tell you why. And it's like, wow, my mom really gets me. And then if you do really feel the need to fix or to do something action oriented, you know how to come up with something that's appropriate for your family and your kids. So maybe it's, hey, you know what? Which girls do you really like? Who makes you feel really good? Let's invite a couple of girls over this weekend. Let's plan a really connecting with them. And I think that having that shift from in your own mind and this is really what I do with my clients, and, you know, this is that, oh, my kid cannot go through this. She's not going to be okay to normalizing it and saying, this is part of childhood. This is part of development. This is part of growing up. I am her calm, confident, strong leader, and I will help her get through this, and she will be okay.

Katie Chandler: Yeah. So it's being the support system, which is what we are as parents, is.

Erika : What we're here for, and you don't want a kid think about the people that you really like who are interesting and fun and dynamic and funny and cool. Have they been through things in their lives?

Katie Chandler: Yeah, of course.

Erika : Do you want a kid who's never been through anything?

Katie Chandler: Right.

Erika : That person is not someone I want to hang out with.

Katie Chandler: Okay. Yeah. That's excellent advice, as usual. Excellent. All right. Thank you.

Amy : I know. I'm like salivating. It's such good news.

Erika : That is so not what I do. I am so anxious and wrapped up in my kids feelings. So when we're talking about perfection and comparison like we were in the beginning of this conversation, I do not always do this. Guys, I'm striving to do this right, but I don't take the advice with a great assault. Do with it as much as you can and know that.

Amy : Even take the bosses that you remember.

Erika : Your kid will be okay.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, it's very true. All right.

Erika : Yeah.

Amy : Okay. So my question and this isn't really as deep. It's just more of just something I noticed that happens all the time, but it happened last night, and I was like, let me ask Eric about this. And I've probably mentioned it before, but my little one is extremely sensitive. Like, overly sensitive and overly reactive to many things. And in fact, I want him to go see someone just because I think he just doesn't handle his emotions well. And so this is a good example. Last night, I was already in bed, but I hear him downstairs watching the Celtics game with my husband. Something happened, and they didn't win, and someone made some stupid move, whatever, and I hear him, like, bang the sofa and he's like, screams. He's so upset and comes running upstairs, like not hysterical crying, but like crying, like something happened to him. It wasn't just like they didn't play well in the game, whatever. He's like crying. I mean, he's 13 years old and he's crying about his team losing the game. So it's a little bit overly sensitive. And he's like that with a lot of things. Like he gets this isn't the right word, but like flies off the handle really quickly for things that are not big deals. So it's like, yes, I want him to get him someone to talk to so he can have strategies. It's not like anger management. I don't know what it is. But he needs strategy is to not do that. Sometimes he's really good and sometimes but anyway, I just want to get your thoughts on it.

Erika : I want him to have healthy coping skills.

Amy : Yes.

Erika : So, first of all, I want to remind you that when you're between the ages of like twelve and 15, there is so much going on chemically for them. Like their brains and their hormones are developing in such crazy ways and the feelings that they feel are like 100 times more intense than the feelings that we feel. So I want to normalize that for you and to tell you that I do not know. And yes, I do think it's a good idea for him to talk to someone. And I'm also not a psychologist and I don't diagnose, but it's probably developmentally appropriate, it sounds like. And I also think that it's also hard. And so yes, it's normal and it's proactive to want to get him some coping skills. And so, you know, what what does he love to do? Does he exercise? Does he play sports? Does he love music?

Amy : Plays sports, loves music.

Katie Chandler: Yes.

Erika : I know some kids they'll make a playlist for when they're feeling a certain way. Maybe he wants to do something like that. Or maybe I don't know if he's the kind of kid who can transition well from like screen time, but like, maybe he does need like 20 minutes of just playing a video game with a friend to kind of wind down.

Amy : Yeah, I think too, it's late. Like, he's watching his games. It's late and he's tired probably from the day. So I would imagine just like it would be for me, your emotions are more or higher because you're tired and you're just like you lash out or whatever.

Erika : And the physiological needs are really a huge part of our emotions as we know, like making sure that he is getting more sleep, maybe trying to tweak bedtime. I do not think phones should be in the room at night.

Amy : I know, and I'm so guilty of it. It's so bad. I very hard to control when the kids get older.

Erika : But I was validated by I went to see this woman, this psychologist and parenting expert, lisa Damore. I saw her speak. She also has a podcast. And I saw her speak last night at Greens Farms Academy here in Westport, and she spoke to an audience of hundreds of parents of middle school and high school parents, and she's been practicing for, like, more than 20 years. And she said phones should never be in the bedroom.

Amy : Yeah, I got to rein it back in for him. Just tell him to put his phone downstairs at 09:00 or whatever the yeah.

Erika : And it's easy for parents to say, well, it's an outlook for them, and they communicate with their friends, and, you know, we make excuses. But when it comes down to it, if if that's going to affect physiologically what he's feeling and then in turn, that affects everything. Eating, emotions, academic achievement, really, sleep affects everything. And if the phone is going to be the key to getting more sleep, I think that's a big piece of that puzzle.

Katie Chandler: Yeah.

Amy : And I think, too, just like the wind down factor, even if he is watching the game, it's very, like, adrenaline. So, like, that's enough adrenaline. You don't need the phone to, like, texting with your friends, talking about the game. So it's just like another stimuli. So it's a really good reminder. Like, I got to have him put him put it down in the kitchen because we've just gotten a little bit more relaxed with it with him. And it's in his room, and I know he looks at it before he goes to bed or like, he watches sometimes he's, like, watching a movie, falls asleep, but still, that's not good. So I need to bring that in. The older one, forget it. It's a lost cause. I can't take it out of his.

Erika : Room with the younger one, but he's still an opportunity. Yeah.

Amy : And you know what? I feel like he's actually can sort of cope. He doesn't have a lot of those coping issues. Like, he has other stuff. And the phone used to be a bigger deal than it is now, and I feel like, yes, he's on his phone a lot, along with all of his other friends, but I don't think he's, like, up all night on the phone, and I don't know how much it's affecting his other world. I mean, it probably is, but it's also very difficult with him.

Erika : Good for them to have a break from just socialization, because think about when we were growing up. Like, we came home and there was a break, like, even if you were on the phone, oh, my God, I.

Amy : Used to come home and watch General.

Erika : Hospital every day, and I used to watch an on a two and a week, but that was a break. Like, you were constantly socializing and bombarded with group chats and group text messages.

Amy : Right. You're not talking to yourself.

Erika : It's not healthy. So we, as the parents, I think actually our whole generation of parents has to really come together and say for the well being of our kids, we need to put stricter boundaries on this stuff.

Katie Chandler: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you 100%.

Amy : All right. We've taken up way too much of your time, but we need to have you back. Yeah.

Katie Chandler: Thank you so much for being with us here.

Amy : It's so good.

Erika : I really love it. You guys are so awesome.

Katie Chandler: We're going to have you back again soon, hopefully, if we can.

Erika : Yay.

Katie Chandler: All right, Nirvana. This is just family.

Amy : Wait, I have something really funny just to close out with, something light and airy that we were talking about before, about comparing yourselves. I sent this quote or one of my friends, we have like this funny group chat speaking of group chats and she sent this funny quote the other day and it has to do with comparison and I just want to read it to you because it would make me laugh. It was from this Instagram page, lulu and Lattes. It says, I hate people who make everything a competition. I'll say I'm tired and someone will attack me and say, I haven't slept in three years and I work twelve hour shifts, so how are you tired? And I'm like and there's like 10 million question marks. And I'm like, question mark, question mark, question *****. Just let me be tired. ****, Ellen. Very funny.

Erika : Yeah, we're all tired. We don't have to be the most tired, right?

Katie Chandler: Exactly.

Amy : All right, thanks. And thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters.

Erika : If you loved what you just listened.

Amy : To or know someone that would, please.

Erika : Share it and tag us.

Amy : Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye,

Episode 90 - Product Junkies January Edition - What We’re Loving (And Not) Right Now (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 90.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Unknown: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Amy: 0:28

Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. It's January product junkies time and Katie and I are back to give you our things that we are loving right now and maybe not loving so. So we're gonna get right into it. Katie, what do you got for me?

Unknown: 0:43

All right, I'm gonna kick it off with something that it's possible. We you have reviewed this before? Because I know we've talked about it. But I want to talk about my experience with it. I over the holidays, I ordered the new face Mini. And oh, because you have it, don't you? Do you have the regular one?

Amy: 1:01

Yeah, we haven't reviewed it. We actually talked about it with Shelly Marshall and like member she showed us how to use it and did that tutorial, but I haven't been using mine lately. So yeah, like,

Unknown: 1:10

I'm obsessed. I use it every single day. And I have without a doubt 100% seen results in one week, one week, like I just it just I ordered it like, over the holidays. And it took a while to come in because they were out of stock. I have absolutely seen results. And I will show before and afters on our social to prove it.

Amy: 1:28

Okay, so you that's the that's the new face Mini.

Unknown: 1:32

It's the new face Mini, which I don't understand why you need anything more than this, this little thing, I have the big one. It's so good. It does exactly what it's supposed to it's. So for those of you that don't know, it's a micro current electrical current that sends gentle waves through the skin down to the facial muscles and it mimics and gently re energizes the body's own natural current helping to like tone and lift and contour. And then it also helps reduce fine lines and wrinkles. My thing is, I feel like I always as I've gotten older, I'm starting to see like the sagging and the drooping especially around my eyes or like down in like the jowl area which is super common that happens. And this is lifting me for sure. But I think consistency is an absolute must. I was talking to someone

Amy: 2:18

that's yeah, that's the whole thing. That's what Shelly said, because when I've used it, I've seen results, but you have to use it and be consistent every day. And that's where I fell flat and right to get back into it. It's not so let me ask you a question. Yeah. Because here's what I found with a new face which again, it does work if you consistently use it. The thing that I didn't like is I didn't like putting on like the gel on my skin and then using it and I remember asking Shelley Marshal when she was on the show what else you could use and I can't remember what she said. But she said you do have to use something that kind of like sparks the electric electro currents or whatever else that doesn't work like you can't just use the serum. So what are you using? Are you using the thing that came with it?

Unknown: 2:56

I'm using the new face gel that came with it that has hyaluronic acid in it and I actually my skin has been so painfully dry lately that that was like refreshing for me it felt great and even some days I would like leave it on and not wash my face right away. But I'm kind of annoyed because the gel that came with the product is almost gone. So it's lasted me barely like you know a week probably I might get some use out of it in the next couple of days. But I think I want to say I feel like Shelley told us that you could use petroleum jelly just something like that. And if you don't use it you feel the current and it hurts like if there's an area and you didn't have to use something Yeah, you have

Amy: 3:36

Yeah, so that was my downside and like the consistency of that so it like didn't make it feel like a good experience. But yeah, I guess there are other things to try. So you tell me the process and how long it takes you.

Unknown: 3:49

It takes and also I think speaking of other things I've also heard of people using like hyaluronic acid serums to use it like good thick ones. Okay, by it you turn it on and it you just like slowly dragon in the same place on your face. You repeat that three times and after a couple of seconds it goes beep beep beep and then that means that's when you start over. And you just you do it all throughout your face and it's five minutes it won't let you go longer than five minutes because I don't think it's safe and you're not supposed to even do it more than once a day for that reason. So what areas do

Amy: 4:22

you do it on?

Unknown: 4:22

I do it on my jawline right beneath my jawline, I do it on my cheekbones and up on each side. I do it around my eyes, my crow's feet up and the whole thing is that you always have to work up and then I do it like up on my eyebrow and lift up that way this area through here is where I have noticed the biggest difference Yeah, it

Amy: 4:44

does. look nice. Yeah. Do you do your neck too or no?

Unknown: 4:47

I do like right here like right under like where you would have like a double chin situation and look it is tightening my it is tightening those muscles because I was starting to get like a like a drop down. loss

Amy: 5:02

Oops. Okay, I love that I'm gonna I'm going to start using mine again. I've been lazy and you use it in the morning or at night.

Unknown: 5:07

Whenever Whenever I have time to do it, just squeeze it on.

Amy: 5:10

Okay. Okay, I'm going to use it again. Good reminder of some new face and we'll have to watch to find those videos with Shelley because I feel like she did some demos. I can't remember but we'll look for it. Yeah, for sure. All right, what do you Okay, so I'll start with the face product. So I've been following this new person on Tiktok and Instagram Erica, I can't remember her last name but we'll put it in the show notes and we're going to try to get her on the show. She's amazing. And she does great. Like makeup tutorials and hacks for women over 40 And she just is hilarious and just a great follow but anyway, she recommends it I'll actually a few of my recommendations are from her this month but she recommended which I've heard of before I just never tried it to say slip 10 Oh nice. has SPF 35 And it's just like a tinted moisturizer but I really liked this one because it's very thin. And it just is like a really nice glow but not too glowy where it feels like shiny. So I've been putting this on every day and just as like I mean I guess you could probably just use it as a moisturizer. I haven't done that yet because my skin so dry I'll put on my moisturizer and then put this over it almost like a makeup but it's not even thick so it's almost just like can I just smooths out all the redness and smooths out your face that looks I'll I'll do a video or something for social today show the before and after. But it's such a nice difference from like just putting it on and it just refreshes your skin and just makes it look really awake and nice and glowy and smooth and glassy. So I love it. So it's my new thing. The texture is really nice the color. The color that I bought was three which is like a light color and it's tinted but it doesn't come off on anything. You know how sometimes a tinted moisturizer when you're not wearing makeup you throw on a tinted moisturizer and it can like get on something if you have like like other colored clothing on this doesn't do any of that it's almost just like a moisturizer that sinks into your skin. So I'm also going to try it without moisturizer just to skip that step and see how it goes but I really have been loving loving loving this lately. I've been wearing it every day.

Unknown: 7:07

Do you feel like it like just gives you a little bit of a darker shade? Like I'm getting so pale? I'm getting like the winter

Amy: 7:13

Yeah, no, I mean, I guess you could get a darker shade but it really just like here I'll put on a little bit so you can see I don't know if you'll be able to see through the lens. I don't know my light on but

Unknown: 7:21

it's a nice nice kinda.

Amy: 7:23

It's dewy, it feels really good on the skin and adjust. It just smooths you out. I can't explain it just kind of evens your skin because I've been having like some redness and like uneven looking skin and it just smooths it out very light. Very easy. And you could just put this on and go nice. It's like a good five minute flow.

Unknown: 7:44

Yeah, yeah, I like that one I need I'm looking for a nice tinted moisturizer. Awesome. Great should have asked me

Amy: 7:51

out really great. And it has SPF so that's why you probably don't even need regular moisturizer because my moisturizer has an SPF so that's why I use that. But if your skin's not that dry, you could probably just use this and not even you know put on your serums and then put on this I'll try that too and see how it goes but it's a great I'm loving it.

Unknown: 8:09

Sweet. All right, well that is a great segue into my next product because speaking of like red and uneven I was getting a lot of that especially because my skin was so dry and I was trying to figure out, you know, going on to Tik Tok listening to some of these influencers and by the way I only when it comes to skin products, the only people that I listened to are the ones that are either esthetician or dermatologist like I don't listen to some 30 year old that likes a product and tells right gotten by it. So I was trying to figure out what what is it that I need that's going to smooth me out and I learned that it is niacin amide is good for like clearing up redness and unevenness. So I went to the good old drugstore and Sarah vai This is a new Holy Grail. There's so many products now that have the niacin amide and the hyaluronic acid and you can spend 5080 $150 on a product with those two ingredients. Or you can get this survey which I want to say I spent like maybe I remember like $25 Not even yeah like and it's doing the job it's clearing of the redness really quickly within days I would get a lot of I had like a lot of uneven patchy redness around my nose and my like upper lip area I get that and it started to it's already starting to clear it up so I want to say I've bought this in the beginning of the week. So it's a real it's a survey Hyaluronic I'm sorry Sarah Bay hydrating hyaluronic acid serum with three essential ceramides hyaluronic acid and vitamin B five.

Amy: 9:44

Nice Yeah, so you just put that on as a serum like is that the first thing you put on or you put on your vitamin C and then that something like that

Unknown: 9:50

I haven't been using vitamin C because I was reacting too much to it. So I this is the second product I use a poor refining serum and then I use this and then I use my moisturizer

Amy: 10:00

But and what's the feel of that? Is it tacky? Or is it like smooth?

Unknown: 10:03

Oh, it's a nice smooth. It's like in between a serum and a moisturizer. It's a little thicker than a serum not super heavy as a moisturizer. It's very nice and it in your skin just soaks it right up. And it doesn't it leaves no residue it ends up kind of like almost mattifying and sinks on beautifully.

Amy: 10:24

Next product is the two faced fluff and hauled laminating brow wax.

Unknown: 10:31

Oh, I just heard about Yes, yeah, it says it do the job.

Amy: 10:35

It is so good. I'm going to try to do it again. I don't have my light. So it might be hard to say. really gets your eyebrows like I'm not sure yeah. Oh, yeah,

Unknown: 10:45

I see. Yeah. And does it stick? Oh, that really is doing the job

Amy: 10:49

if you want that laminated look, literally. I mean, you don't have to use it for that. But

Unknown: 10:54

does it stay?

Amy: 10:56

Yeah. Because I used to just use a clear gel. And now I'm using this and my eye brows. Like I did this yesterday. It was and I was in the office and literally it stayed like this all day.

Unknown: 11:06

Up. You just look like you like you just lifted like your whole

Amy: 11:10

now. Yeah, it's insane. Wow. So I'm obsessed again. It's the toothpaste fluff and hold laminating brow wax. And so I've been using this everyday and so instead of a clear, you know, mascara or whatever, it's God, this is so much better. Again, I think Erica or girl might have told us about this and it is so good. It stays all day. It doesn't like stick in there and get hard, you know, when you go to wash it off later. It's just like, super easy. Yeah, so I use it and sometimes I fluffed them up and they sort of have that laminated look or sometimes I'll just kind of like you know, comin back down but it's a really really great nice product.

Unknown: 11:47

Nice. Okay, two faced good old two faced all right, brilliant. All right, well this next one has been a total game changer for me and I think you're gonna want to get it too. I have never had long eyelashes and my eyelashes always are like dry and break off so they're thin also, and it drives me insane and I have to like put pounds of mascara on to get nice lashes. So I tried the score Oh lash eyelash volumizing growth serum. And it is working for sure.

Amy: 12:21

What's the brand score? Oh

Unknown: 12:23

lash, s t o r o l a s h it's definitely legit like I don't have that much mascara on and it's they don't look like massively long but you've got to understand before when I have no mascara on and don't look like I have lashes and I also have a missing eyelash few eyelashes and an area where I had a chickenpox as a kid and they've never grown there and I think they're starting to grow there. So it's it's very good it works

Amy: 12:52

and do you put that on at night just on the top of the lash line?

Unknown: 12:56

No put it on at night at the top of the lash line and it's really important to do it at night at bedtime. I've done it a little bit earlier in the evening and then like my eyes started to get irritated so it's right super low

Amy: 13:08

when your eyes are closed it like goes into yeah yeah it's funny that you say that because I just started use a grande lash I don't have a review for it yet because I haven't been using it long enough because same thing like I feel like my lashes I mean I've been wearing for the last six months eyelash extensions which have been like a game changer I just because my eyelashes are so light that I have to wear mascara every day and frankly I just got so sick of taking off mascara every day and like it just bothers my eyes so much she's like a makeup remover and like rub my eyes every night take it out so when I got the eyelash extensions it's so great not having to wear mascara and like barely having to wear makeup makes such a difference on my face but anyway it the maintenance of it is painful and I can't I'm like taking a break for right now so I was like I when I got them off I'm like oh my god I have no lashes this looks crazy. I look like yeah, that's a little washed out. So I started using the Grande last to try to grow them a little bit longer. I mean they're never going to be dark so I still will always need mascara but at least maybe they can get a little bit more volumous so I bought the sample of like the Grande lash lash and then the Grande lash brow like they come together at Sephora just to try them out. So I'm still using Um So more to come on that but that's uh that's good to know that that one works because if this doesn't work maybe I'll try that

Unknown: 14:21

yeah, I'm sorry did you get that definitely a fan of it. I ordered it online I one of my friends is has also been doing eyelash extensions for so long that she says that she has like literally no eyelashes left. So that's the thing. I mean, I understand the convenience of it when they're on there and it's great but like you said the maintenance and then potentially ruining your lashes is a tough deal.

Amy: 14:44

Yeah, and I think with these serums and stuff the other thing I heard they're great but again, it's consistency like yes, like I started of course I start doing grinding left earlier so we can the last few days of course I forgot before I went to bed, but it's like if you keep doing it your eyelashes will grow. It's just when you up, they won't that's really good to know of that brand. And I'm also in the process of reviewing a few DIY eyelash extensions. So I'll be back in a later episode with that, which is really fun. Okay, great. Okay, so my next product is on the same realm of the eyebrows. And again, two faced for the win. This is called the to face brow wig. And it's a natural brush on hair, fluffy brow gel again, similar to the waxy fluff and hold but this one is different because it has a color. So I guess you could probably I've been using both I've been using the fluff and hold and then I throw in this brow wig because it has a color. So the color that I got the colors natural blonde, and again, since I have such light hair, and this just kind of like fills in the gaps a little bit. So again, like you will probably just do this use this without the wax but I use it on top and it just fills them in a little bit. But to me, I know we've had a couple of pencils that we've reviewed on the show, but to me this is easier. And it just fills in kind of like where my eyebrows are a little sparse. And

Unknown: 16:09

that just a combination of that with a lamp is actually really good. What you just Yeah, so

Amy: 16:13

I've been using these two together and it's been great. It's made such a big difference. So highly recommend two faced brow wagon. There's tons of different colors based on your eyebrow color. So nice big fan base. Alright really that with the say you're good to go? You're sad.

Unknown: 16:28

Okay. All right, fantastic. So this is going to be a holy grail for any of my girls that deal with acne. And it's so wild because I've had the dry skin but also acne and my skin is really dry but I've been having breakouts and I think it's because I was like I was using a product daily that I should not have been that I think was just really breaking down my skin and clogging my pores with like dry skin and everything. So it's hard to find a product that is going to be good for acne when you have dry skin because it'll dry you out really quickly right usually comes along with like oily skin. So this one so the Roche Posay EFA klare it has Adaline gel in it which is at a higher percentage is prescription only so it's very very effective. It's a once daily topical retinoid dermatologist developed and tested product and I use it I started skin cycling we talked about that in our trends episode and I think we're gonna have somebody come on maybe dermatologist to talk us through that more this year, but I started skin cycling so I'm doing my retinal treatments with us twice a week

Amy: 17:37

so that's that that's substance like a retinol treatment. You mean I use it

Unknown: 17:41

in addition to my Sunday Riley Vita retina so I use both on on my retina Oh no. Yeah, it's working. It's 100% working like I had really really bad breakout on both sides of my temples and there are gearing up after using it for about maybe two

Amy: 18:00

okay. Okay, so on your retinol night you're using your Sunday Riley retinol as well as that and then a moisturizer on top

Unknown: 18:08

and then a moisturizer on top. Yeah, I do. So for the skin cycling the first night I do an exfoliant which is like a lactic acid VHA or an AJ or like folic acid. And then the next day I do my retinas moisturize and then the next day I rest and I just do one more stressor and my niacin amide serums and then you do it all over again.

Amy: 18:32

Yeah, so I've been trying that I've tried in the past but I haven't been of course consistent but yeah, I always for the I have dry skin too. So every time I use a retinol same it gets like so dry and then I noticed that like if I put on makeup or like anything with like a brush it gets like dry up here on my forehead so that way, so I did buy a new retina which maybe I'll review next time if I like it that I'm testing so that's good to know about that one too. I'm gonna try that L'Auberge La Roche Posay I feel like there's a lot of really nice products

Unknown: 19:01

they do and what I really love about it is I don't have to go all the way to Sephora to get it I haven't had CVS carries their whole right they sell it at CVS. I know nice. It's a really solid price point for the quality of the product as well. Yeah, what do you have next?

Amy: 19:15

Okay, so once you have your sace Lipton on and your eyebrows done your finishing product is I found a perfume which I am as you know very sensitive to smells and I love perfume but I haven't worn perfume literally for like five years because the scent I get a headache and I don't feel good and I can never find like the right one. That doesn't give me a headache or like whatever. Yeah, but I did find one that I liked. That doesn't bother me and I'm so excited. I got the little trial size at Sephora. It's called Gucci flora. It has pear blossom accord white gardenia, nature print and grandiflorum Jasmine combination,

Unknown: 19:56

Jasmine. I love that smell. Yeah, like normally

Amy: 19:59

I actually They don't like I usually like more of like the pair type sense. But I think the reason why I like this is because it has the Jasmine. But then it also has the pair. So it's sort of like, has this really nice balance. So I've been loving it. And I love the rollerball because it's just like, throw it on. And yeah, and it's not too strong. I mean, I think a lot of people I was reading reviews online, were saying that it doesn't stay on all day, it kind of fades, but I don't care. I don't need it to stay on all day. I feel like once it's on it kind of like is there in the background, and that's fine. But I'm loving it. And so I've been able to wear perfume again. So I'm really excited about it. And they have two versions, they have this pink one. And then they have another one called Gucci Flora gorgeous Jasmine and it's in a really pretty aqua blue bottle. And that one has different ingredients, Mandarin essence, Jasmine and Magnolia. I didn't really like that one as much. But this one, they describe it on the website as delicious, gorgeous and joyful. So anyway, I'm really loving this and I'm so excited. I found a perfume that I can actually wear and enjoy.

Unknown: 20:57

And I love the Sephora with their sample size bottles, I think is genius.

Amy: 21:01

Oh my now it's and they last so long. Besides it's it. Yeah, it's

Unknown: 21:04

like a it's it's grown in

Amy: 21:07

your bag. You can throw it for travel. Like I don't need like the big thing because, uh, you never use the whole thing.

Unknown: 21:12

Yeah, I have. I have large bottles of perfume in my bathroom, like six of them that have been there for years.

Amy: 21:20

Yeah. You don't wanna throw them away, but they get nasty.

Unknown: 21:23

Yeah. All right, so my last review, I do have one after this. That's that that's something I'm not so pleased with. But this is my last one. And this is a holy grail. Game Changer. It is called Hi smile. It is a color correcting serum for your teeth. And

Amy: 21:45

never heard of a color correcting serum for

Unknown: 21:47

me either. It's so the tube is purple. And the toothpaste itself is actually purple. And it seriously well it's toothpaste toothpaste. Oh, but it doesn't take place of toothpaste, you still use regular toothpaste and then you do this afterwards. And I have like I have a lot of bonding work and I have bonding work that I did like 10 years ago and I bonding with it I did three years ago and then I have teeth that don't have it. So it's very my smile has always been very like uneven because it's hard to match the bonding to old bonding. So like the yellowing and everything was driving me absolutely insane. And this has has really corrected a lot of it. It has really started to like balance out the weight of my teeth and my smile and everything and I have before and after pictures too that I can that I can share. So

Amy: 22:32

you brush your teeth and then you put that on. Yep. And how do you apply it

Unknown: 22:37

just with a toothbrush? You just literally like brush your teeth with it.

Amy: 22:40

Oh cool. Did you do it morning and night

Unknown: 22:42

I do it. Yeah, I do it morning at night. I mean, I'll do it as many times if I want if I'm going out and I want my smile to be extra bright I do it you know, it's like you can do it as often as you want. And they have a lot of products so they also the package that I bought also came with this pen that you put on and it's a red gel and the red only is red. It goes on clear and it shows up red where you have staining and you need extra attention and then you use this other toothpaste to clear it so like I got a package with a with multiple items that I'm using.

Amy: 23:17

But where did you find did you buy it online?

Unknown: 23:19

I bought it online. Yeah, of course what's in it it was social media buy you're so influenced. I know Tiktok made me do it. So funny do so I don't know exactly what the active ingredient is says V 34 is best used as a post whitening treatment however it can be used on its own daily or before an event to eliminate unwanted yellow undertones on your teeth. And it has phenomenal reviews across the board. Like that's why I bought it. It just seemed a little too good to be true but it is it is really good. I was going to buy that the snow the snow whitening thing, but it's pretty pricey. So I want to just start with this first. I mean this was a really good price I think like right now you can get it for $23 so great. Yeah, try that. It's legitimate. It really does work fine. Yeah, it's a great find. Alright, so do you have any more?

Amy: 24:08

Yeah, so my last one is is not a beauty product but it is a comfy cozy product and I'm wearing it Oh nice. It's this sweatshirt which I don't know if I showed you when I bought it. Amazon of course influenced by Tiktok it's a dupe for like the Lululemon like scuba hood or something I don't know. But this is the women's hooded pullover sweatshirt have super cropped hoodie. Fleece lines colors up up. Literally they have 10 billion colors. The one I'm wearing right now is light gray. It's $42 super cheap. I got a size medium just so it's like a little bit bigger. But it's great because it's a crop so it doesn't feel like so shitty when you're wearing it. It looks like nice with like jeans or whatever. And they have a million colors. They have like pretty greens. They have hot pink, they have purples, whites, lots, lots of nice colors. I just got the gray but I'm gonna get another one. I love the front pocket. And it's just like a nice A little bit more of an elevated sweatshirt and I love it and it's $42 from Amazon, so I'm wearing it today so I figured I'd share the love. Yeah, great.

Unknown: 25:08

No, I love it. Like super close, right? Like a Lululemon pretty collar. Yeah, a Lululemon sweatshirts probably like, what? One 151 80 Something like that. Like it's a good Yeah. And it has a HUD so like, it's good. It's got

Amy: 25:22

a hood, but it's not like a sloppy hood. It's like nice, cozy, and it looks good.

Unknown: 25:26

Nice. I need to get it. All right. I love that. Well, you know, we'd like to talk about things that we love and we like, but occasionally we need to mention the things that we try that we don't like. And yeah, fortunately, this was a very cheap buy, but I haven't tried to find a makeup setting spray. My journey has only just begun I thought I would start low before going into the high try some of these drugstore brands. So I went and bought the Mulani make it last original natural finish setting spray. And it's uh, won't, won't won't. I don't like it says 16 hour where it's supposed to prime correct set. It's supposed to keep your makeup from like going into your creases and everything. When I spray it on, it makes me overly dewy. So then I have to put a lot of powder on top or wet it's super wet. Makes me overly do I have to put a lot of powder on top and then I kind of feel like a little oily and greasy. And then it doesn't I mean it does keep my makeup on. But I still get like creases from from my makeup and everything. So I don't know I just don't love it. I don't love the way it makes my skin feel. So at first it makes my skin feel oily and greasy. And then as the day progresses I start to feel to dried out. So I just don't think it's it's yeah, you know.

Amy: 26:42

So that's it. That's surprising and I'm glad to hear because I feel like I've heard about that one. Well that is it for January product junkies. Hope you enjoyed all of our recommendations this month and let us know if you have other things you want us to review and have a good

Unknown: 26:58

week. Bye bye.

Amy: 27:02

Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 89 - Peptide Therapy and Hormone Optimization with Katy Whalen, Co-Founder + CEO of Joi Women’s Wellness, What are Peptides? (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 89

[00:07] Amy Sherman: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of wellbeing and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are Sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

[00:18] Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

[00:28] Amy Sherman: Welcome back to the show Nirvana Sisters family. We are so excited to meet Katie Whalen who's the co founder and CEO of Joy Women's Wellness which is an innovative peptide and hormone balancing therapy brand. I'm so excited because I just hear so much about peptides and aminos and omegas and there's all these buzzwords going around and we really want to get deep into what this is and how people can benefit from it. Your skin is glowing. So I'm already knowing that this is going to be a helpful therapy for our listeners. But I'm just going to give a little bit about Katie before we get into all of this. Katie started Joy because she knew she wasn't alone. She had a long journey through infertility miscarriages IVF. And finally giving birth to her little boy left her feeling fatigued, hormonal overweight and struggling with brain fog. I think we can all relate to this. She searched for a holistic solution that would help her feel like me again. And that's when she learned about hormone optimization and peptide. Therapies, the only problem is they were so hard to come by. So after both her and her husband began to experience amazing results with both peptide and hormones, he knew she had to share them with women everywhere. So Joy is a place where women can find answers, manage their health, holistically and truly start to feel like themselves again. Looking better too is just an added bonus because you know what? We all deserve to fear our best from the inside out. So welcome to the show, Katie. We're so excited to have you here. Thank you for spending your time with us today.

[01:58] Katy Whalen: Thank you ladies. I'm super excited too.

[02:01] Amy Sherman: Yeah. So let's get into it. Well, actually, before we get into it sorry, I'm just rushing right in because I'm so excited to hear about this. Let's take a step back and talk about our weekly Nirvana now. We are taping this right before the new year so I'm going to kick off with well, actually I'll move it to Katie or Kay. We're going to call her on this episode, Katie Chandler. Katie to talk about her Nirvana of the week.

[02:24] Katie Chandler: Yeah. Thanks, Amy. Well, Katie, we are so excited. I actually was with some friends last night and they know a little bit about this. So I was salivating being able to talk to you and then come back and say, well, I know a little bit about it too, so we're very excited to get into it. But my Nirvana this week I think was work. I've mentioned I've gone back to work, I'm a fit model and I was a little nervous about how that was going to pan out. Being a seasoned model these days, I didn't know if the work was going to roll in, but I have been manifesting work and abundance and it is happening. I worked. I had a full day job all day on Wednesday that just popped up and more work is popping up and go see and all kinds of stuff. So it's just exciting because it's going in the direction that I hoped but wasn't sure if it would. But if I look tired today, that's because I am exhausted at this whole going back to work, being a mommy, being a podcaster juggling situation. Not exactly like hitting it out of the park in all arenas, but it's okay. So that was minor. Van. What about you, Ave?

[03:36] Amy Sherman: That's awesome. Katie, I'm so proud of you. I know we've been chatting on text and it's just like it's so nice to see you kind of back in the game. And Katie, you had taken a break for how long, ten years? Yeah. So I was saying it just must be nice to have something for yourself where you're not having to attend to little people all the time. So I've had a lot of nirvana lately. We recently got back from an amazing international trip to Israel for my son's bar Mitzvah, so we'll talk about that another time. But I would say this week I had a nirvana at work, too. I had this big deadline looming over me and I finally completed that deadline this week. And so it just was such a relief to get this big project off of my brain. So I just feel relieved. And that was just like a nice moment to be like, okay, now I can do these couple more things and then kind of enjoy the holiday for the next two weeks. What about you, Katie?

[04:30] Katy Whalen: You know what? Mine nirvana is actually going to be this afternoon. I had emailed you guys a little while back and asked to move the podcast recording up because my daughter is turning five this month and with a new business and with two little kids, I constantly feel like I'm struggling to have quality time with my kids. So a couple of months back, her grandma Gigi sent her this American Girl doll catalog and she's been dreaming of this doll ever since. So I'm surprising her today. This afternoon took some time off work and we're going to go to the big store, get her a doll, and we're going to do the whole party with cupcakes and tears.

[05:12] Katie Chandler: Oh, that's so fun.

[05:14] Katy Whalen: It's fun. And I obviously feel like the whole week I'm excited. I'm like, I'm 43 and I'm like super excited to go.

[05:21] Amy Sherman: That does sound fun.

[05:22] Katie Chandler: That's great. I have a five year old and we did that with my older daughter when she turned six. That exact experience at the cafe and the whole thing with the doll and they have the little seat for the doll. It's the cutest thing and she's going to have the time of her life and so are you.

[05:36] Katy Whalen: It's really sweet.

[05:37] Amy Sherman: That is so cute. I haven't gotten to experience that because I have two boys, but I'm going to vicariously live through both of you and I need to see pictures because that sounds so fun and right up my alley. Okay, amazing. So let's get into your company Joy, and kind of I have so many questions about peptides. I don't even know what they are really other than I know they're really I hear they're amazing for you, but if you can kind of break it down for us, give us a 101 on what peptide therapy is, what peptides are, and about your amazing company.

[06:08] Katy Whalen: Yeah, so peptides, I didn't know what they were a little over a year ago either, but I used them to help me kind of like after I was done having kids to really help me propel my health and feel better. So now I'm obsessed. But what they technically are short chains of amino acids and they direct ourselves to perform specific functions. So I think of them as like a key to open a door. And of course as we age our levels decline. So peptide therapy is just adding back in some of those keys to open more doors. So you can help maybe with symptoms you have or even if you have no symptoms, there's lots of just benefits and overall vitality you can get from it.

[06:53] Katie Chandler: And amino acids, those are the building blocks to protein and to muscle building, correct? Is that right? Yeah.

[07:01] Katy Whalen: And so when we say short chains, it's literally from like two to 50 chains of these bonded together and a protein is over 100 chains of the amino acids. And that's about the extent of my science knowledge. Yeah, that's exactly right.

[07:21] Amy Sherman: And so are there all different kinds of peptides and do you use different ones for different treatments?

[07:32] Katy Whalen: Yeah, exactly, there's a lot of peptides and I think more peptides will be discovered in the future. I mean we have right now naturally occurring in your body like something like 7000 peptides. So we have probably peptides that we offer right now, I would say a dozen peptides for different things. And there's a peptide for gut health and inflammation. There's a peptide, a couple of peptides for weight loss that are super popular right now. One of my favorites is a growth hormone releasing peptide which tells your body to release more of its own growth hormone. We have peptides for skin health, hair health, basically you name it. I say there's a peptide for that.

[08:19] Katie Chandler: Amazing. So how did Joy tell us how you got started with Joy and what exactly Joy is doing for your clients?

[08:29] Katy Whalen: Yeah, I mean it was all based off my own health experience. I got married when I was 35 and right away, started focusing on a family and before that I was being single in my thirty s. I had time and resources and just took such good care of myself. Looked great, felt great. It was just a great time in my life. When I got married at 35, started on the you know, family train right away. Had a ton of you know, difficulty with my ability journey and really became this like warrior determined to make it through and have my family. I had four miscarriages and IVF and all the things that so many women do but when I finally had my babies I woke up at 41 and going holy moly. At the last six years of my life I haven't really taken care of myself. I was just focused on all the things and now I have two little ones and I'm overweight. I have brain fog, I have who am I and is this the new me or can I get back to some of those self care routines so I can feel good myself and have the energy to take care of these demanding little beings. So I started, the first thing I started actually was getting on testosterone because my phone was super low and I started to see some great change, more motivation at the gym. I started to be able to notice I was getting stronger. It helped me lose some of that fat and gain some muscle which was pretty exciting. And then I learned of peptides and started testing some of those out, did the weight loss peptide which I was amazed to get to my, I had a goal in mind and I was like I'm going to try to get there but in my mind I was like it might not be possible. Got there, actually went past it and I was just like this is insane and other women need to know about.

[10:26] Amy Sherman: Past, I need that ASAP. Okay.

[10:31] Katie Chandler: I have to say did you say you were 43? Is that how old you are? I was floored. Because you look like you are in your early 30s. Without a shadow of a doubt. Right Amy?

[10:43] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I was very shocked too.

[10:47] Katie Chandler: Those are the peptides then. Hard at work.

[10:50] Amy Sherman: Let me ask you a question just backing up to like when you were saying you were taking testosterone, who did you go to and why did they prescribe that? Like was it a regular doctor, a functional doctor? Just because I feel like and Katie and I talk about this all the time. There's this whole world of this more holistic well being that's super popular but there's not a lot of resources and there's functional doctors, there's regular doctors. Sometimes the regular doctors don't really believe in it. Like how did you establish your first step and then from there?

[11:19] Katy Whalen: Yeah, I mean you're so right and it's frustrating that some of these things are so hard to come by and unfortunately so many doctors aren't trained in this, and it's not their thing. And we even have patients that will come to us and be like, well, is my doctor confused or blah, blah, blah. So it is tricky. So for me, there's a little bit more of a backstory because my husband actually went through his own issues first with his hormones. While we were struggling with our fertility, we had a lot of stress and his testosterone tanked, and it was so bad. He had no libido and we didn't know what it was. And I thought, oh, it's me. I'm gaining weight. You're not attracted to me. We found out through his own health journey that it was his four months, so he started getting the help first. So I saw him, his struggles and his change, and then he actually started the men's side of our company first before Joy. That's called blokes. And I was able to then get treatment from the men's side of our company. That's when I was like, we need this for women. I was not planning on starting this. I was totally happy being in the newborn stages and not thinking about what my career would look like. And then I just 40% of our traffic on the men's side was actually women, so we were like, It needs to happen. But so that's how I was able to actually do it. Pretty quickly, my husband went through a couple of years of getting told that he was fine when he wasn't.

[12:56] Amy Sherman: And what doctor did he go to that determined it was his hormones? Because that's also, like, for men, probably even harder to find a doctor that would say that or identify that.

[13:09] Katy Whalen: Yeah, because they work in these ranges, these lab ranges that are the average person that goes in there with something wrong took a test, and that's where you are. And he was on the very low end of the average range of sick people, and it was fine. So it's really what we try to do is say, you know, how you can feel, how you're supposed to feel, and you really need to take control of your own journey, not get discouraged by a doctor that isn't trained in something that it is what it is. You have to take control of that.

[13:45] Katie Chandler: Men, I feel like, women, we've been told over hormonal health. Hormonal health, it's going to be a thing when you get older, it's going to be an issue. And I don't think men have as much of an awareness that they can experience it as well. And it's like they don't know that it's possible that that can happen to them sometimes. I think so. A lot of times, maybe they just go and deal with it and just think, I'm getting older just like so many women do, and that there's nothing that can be done about it. So I think it's amazing that you have this company for men as well.

[14:24] Katy Whalen: I think it's important for women to know that was my experience. My husband was like with no libido, he didn't really care because it wasn't an issue for him. It was me that was like, this is not working. So I think it's important for couples to both feel their best together and both kind of be on the same page with that because I know sex and marriage is a big issue. One of the top reasons people fight. Right?

[14:51] Katie Chandler: Right. Yeah. So true. Interesting. Okay so the peptide therapy, let's do a little bit of a deep dive because who would be a good candidate? I mean are you seeing women in their 30s that are needing peptide therapy as well or is it mostly just.

[15:10] Katy Whalen: As older age groups? I think anyone really interested in their health journey, their own health is a candidate. And certainly I wouldn't say a healthy 18 year old looking at peptides because it is something that levels decline with age. But I do think 30s mid thirty s and up is somewhere where people will really start to see some benefits. But it really depends. I think BPC 157 is like the Swiss army knife of peptides. It has a lot of uses and it's really great for people with autoimmune, people with chronic inflammation, gut health issues. It could be injected into the site if you are healing from some kind of a surgery, wound healing. So there's certain peptides that even younger people could benefit from.

[16:05] Katie Chandler: That one. Kind of like the society knife. Does that also address some of the other issues? Like is it kind of a broader spectrum where it'll hit the hormonal imbalances and do some good for your skin and hair and nails as well or does it get very specific when you start to target those things?

[16:27] Katy Whalen: I think it gets specific but I do think BPC is a great general one because it targets general healing, gut healing and inflammation. So obviously we know everything starts and ends in the gut. So I always thought I had good gut health and I wasn't really one I was interested in. But then just recently I started taking it because I realized that even if you're doing all the right things, all the toxins in the environment and just our basic lifestyle can really affect your gut. So I actually even though I feel like I have a decent gut health, I just started taking it because I feel like in your 40s things get a little wacky and beneficial for just inflammation.

[17:10] Katie Chandler: Sure.

[17:11] Amy Sherman: So I have a question, stupid question probably but how is the peptide ingested? Is it a shot? How does it work?

[17:20] Katy Whalen: Not stupid at all. So there's lots of options. There are definitely peptides that are injected and we use sub queue only. So it's super small needle, super easy to do and then there's peptides. So BPC comes in both actually an injection or a capsule, so you could do either. And there's different methods that probably we would recommend for different things. So if it's just general gut health, I would say take the capsule because it's absorbed better that way. But if it's actually like a wound or a soft tissue injury, then I would inject it. We have nasal sprays as well. There's one for mental clarity. That's a nasal spray. There's a skin cream that's just like a regular skin cream that goes on your skin at night. So there's lots of different ways applications for them.

[18:10] Katie Chandler: Interesting. And tell us about your team. You have a very impressive team of people at Joy. Are these the people that you go to that tell your client, this is the exact one that you're going to benefit from and you should be taking it this way? How does that work when someone wants to start with Joy?

[18:30] Katy Whalen: Yeah, one of our co founders, Dr. JC. Fulkers, he's kind of the petty guru, and he comes from a more functional medicine background and can tell you all the sciency things. So he's kind of the head of our peptide program. And then we have providers that you'll talk to during your Zoom call that a lot of them are on all these peptides and know them too. And then we have some medical advisors as well on our team. Dr. Melissa Loewski has been treating women and men. And then I'm super excited because I've been fan Darling over Dr. Amy Hillen for a while, and she actually just decided to join us as a medical advisor.

[19:16] Amy Sherman: Oh, amazing. Yeah.

[19:18] Katy Whalen: So excited about that one. We do have some great people on our team.

[19:23] Amy Sherman: I know you said you're based in Nashville. Is it a physical location or is it virtual? How does it work?

[19:29] Katy Whalen: Well, virtual right now, I think we've talked about in the future having some stores and some pop ups, which would be super fun. But right now we have our hands full. So, yeah, we're virtual. We do everything, all our visits via Zoom. And yeah, we're licensed in all 50 states, so it makes it easy.

[19:47] Amy Sherman: That's amazing. Okay, so our listeners can actually get a consultation with a doctor you just mentioned and then if they wanted to continue is it prescription or does it work?

[19:58] Katy Whalen: Prescription based?

[19:59] Amy Sherman: All prescription.

[20:00] Katy Whalen: It's a health history. Everyone has to fill out just to cover all the bases and then figure out what's going on with your goals, what's your symptoms, and then your therapy shipped right to your door.

[20:12] Katie Chandler: And what is insurance? Does insurance come into play? No coverage. Is it out of pocket?

[20:18] Katy Whalen: It is, yeah. Unfortunately, healthcare does not want to pay for. Right.

[20:28] Katie Chandler: What's the price point?

[20:29] Amy Sherman: I'm curious.

[20:31] Katy Whalen: It varies depending on which peptide. I would say average. So I have a face cream, and then I also do the growth hormone releasing have, and I think those are right around 200 each for a month supply and then our weight loss peptide is probably our most expensive and that is, you know, depending on dosage, could be 250 or 300 a month.

[21:00] Katie Chandler: Okay, got it.

[21:01] Amy Sherman: And then how long? And I'm sure it's very individual, but how long if someone was interested in doing peptide therapy, how long do you do it? Do you do it? Is it like you always do it or you do it until you feel better and then you do something else?

[21:14] Katy Whalen: Yeah, not up to you. You certainly don't have to be on it forever. It's something that you can just try see what's working for you. We actually recommend that you should cycle off every once in a while. Like I'll do mine for six months and then I'll take a month off and that kind of just helps you reset, also helps you figure out what's really working for you and kind of see the benefits that you're getting. But yeah, you can always try something else or just get off if it's something that you're not feeling is helpful.

[21:48] Katie Chandler: Tell us a little bit about NAD therapy because I have seen this at my wellness center where I get IB therapy infusions. Are you combining is NAD peptide or is it something different?

[22:05] Katy Whalen: It's not a peptide but it's technically a coenzyme.

[22:09] Katie Chandler: Okay.

[22:10] Katy Whalen: But we offer it and we think it's pretty cool.

[22:14] Katie Chandler: It's powerful. Right? And doing it in conjunction with the peptides probably does a lot for people.

[22:20] Katy Whalen: Yeah, it's certainly one you can try on its own too. So NAD is in every cell of our body and we need it to live and of course levels decline. But what it really mainly does is it helps with metabolism, it helps convert your food to energy and then it also protects our DNA integrity. So think of antiaging or think of disease prevention. So you can do it in an IV clinic? Through an IV. We send ours out as injections and it's kind of cool. It's one that you feel right away, you'll feel like a flush feeling and I like to kind of sit down and breathe and kind of relax and meditate for about 1015 minutes and I feel that freshness and you just have a little boost of energy.

[23:06] Katie Chandler: Nice.

[23:07] Amy Sherman: Yeah. I've heard a bunch of different podcasts and read a little bit about NAD and is that a more it seems to me from what I've heard and this could be completely wrong, but that it's like a more intensive treatment. Like, you only do it for, like, a short period of time, or no.

[23:23] Katy Whalen: I think when you're doing it with an IV, it's pretty intense. I think you have and I haven't done it that way, but I think you have to sit there and have you done it that way?

[23:32] Katie Chandler: Maybe I haven't, but it is very intense and you have to be monitored by a nurse when you do the IV. Way, and it takes a long time.

[23:42] Katy Whalen: It takes all day.

[23:44] Amy Sherman: I feel like that's what I've heard.

[23:46] Katy Whalen: That it can be uncomfortable. I think it's something that they really give you a lot of at that sitting. So what we do is we recommend weekly injections so you could do it at your home and it's just kind of 15 minutes of a flush feeling. So it's certainly a lot easier that way.

[24:05] Katie Chandler: More tolerable yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So you're also doing HRT or hormone replacement therapy, or is the peptide considered HRT? I was looking at your content. Is that what it is?

[24:26] Katy Whalen: They're two separate things.

[24:27] Katie Chandler: Okay.

[24:28] Katy Whalen: Yeah, we do HRT. We believe in a hormones as being like, such a foundation. I mean, each hormone has its own benefit and function and they all need to be in the right levels. I always think of hormones as story of goldilocks. You don't want too little or too much of anything. You want it to be just right for your levels, which is a little bit different for everybody. But if one level gets thrown off, then you can really a lot of things off in your body. And I think for women especially, there's such a gap in you're done having your babies and you're in your forty s and who's caring for you now and what's like I just think I'm excited because I think there is a movement to change that and a lot of companies that are offering support. So I'm excited for that. But I think a lot more is needed.

[25:22] Katie Chandler: It's so true. Our health care system just kind of looks at post baby years, like, periodopausal. Menopausal, women is just like, all right, well, you're all on your own, go figure it out.

[25:32] Amy Sherman: Oh, you're getting older, that's what happens. You're not supposed to feel great, right?

[25:38] Katie Chandler: Of course we love our OB gens and they serve a massively great purpose, but once we get to this spot, they're like, say in our go find.

[25:49] Amy Sherman: Somebody, come in once a year for your Papsmear. There's no continuity.

[25:57] Katie Chandler: Do you do lab work and testing as well for your patients? You send them off, they get their labs done, and then your team looks at the results, et cetera?

[26:07] Katy Whalen: Yeah, prescribing labs. And certainly if you're thinking of a hormone, you definitely need to do some labs. And then we continue to monitor people on treatment with labs. So we have a partnership with a few different people. LabCorp is one of them, so it's easy if you have a LabCorp menu. We also partnered recently with Get Labs and they come send a mobile phonomist to your house. So that's pretty cool. For people that are in urban areas, that's a really great option for convenience. And then we also partnered with a company called Tesla, which is like a device that sits on your shoulder and can test your hormones as well. Something that you do at home and then send back.

[26:47] Amy Sherman: That's interesting.

[26:50] Katie Chandler: Yeah, that's cool. Nice.

[26:52] Amy Sherman: I have a question about the hormones too. Do you see a lot of women taking hormone replacement and peptides at the same time? Or is it two kind of separate strategies?

[27:07] Katy Whalen: I mean, I do that, I believe in that for sure. If something is off with your hormones, then you should absolutely do that. And then peptides to me is just like icing on the cake. I think it really is woman dependent. I think there's still a lot of people that aren't educated on hormones, hormone therapy, or maybe dangerous, or think it's not natural to help your hormones. So I think that there's just different people who are looking for different things or have different comfort levels.

[27:39] Katie Chandler: Okay, I have a question that you may or may not know the answer to. We can edit it out easily, but have you heard of HMVs? Is that a peptide? Do you know? I've just recently started reading about HMB.

[27:52] Katy Whalen: HMV, I haven't, but I will definitely look that up.

[27:55] Katie Chandler: HMB as in boy. And it has something to do with leucine, which I think is an amino acid, and it helps with just muscle growth. And even if you're not training, it can help maintain muscle and prevent muscle waste as you're getting older. And then if you are working out and training, it helps build the muscle faster. Which, as you were saying earlier, part of the problem with aging that is a massive culprit is the fact that we lose muscle mass over time. And that is so important in maintaining all of your overall health, metabolism, hormonal, health, everything. So I've just recently been looking into that.

[28:40] Katy Whalen: Yeah, I'll ask JC about that. Personally, I haven't heard of it, but for sure I'm interested in all the things muscle related because that's certainly part of the key for vitality, sort of.

[28:52] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I was just listening yesterday to something about aminos, which again, I don't know the difference between aminos and peptides. I guess it's all related, but there was, like, some sort of amino someone was talking about who was getting older and saying that by taking this, it helped them. They said, like which is so true when you're working out a lot and you feel really toned, and then you take a break for like, a week, the older you get, all of a sudden you feel like, wait, I looked good a week ago, and then what happened to my muscles? Where to go, where'd it go? So by taking aminos, I guess, or peptides can help you sort of maintain that muscle mass a little bit better than was it, what, creatine?

[29:34] Katy Whalen: Maybe? I think that's an amino acid.

[29:37] Amy Sherman: I don't know, I can't remember. I have to look. It was a podcast I was listening to and it was a company that did more like amino kind of supplements, I'm not really sure, but basically. The same idea as Katie was saying, it helps to keep that muscle mass or your muscle more together than like totally.

[29:55] Katy Whalen: Yes.

[29:57] Katie Chandler: Funny sidebar. Total sidebar. But something interesting that I just learned about muscle growth and building muscle and exercising, there's like a mind muscle connection. And when you're training muscles because I'm trying to train my glutes, apparently my tush is a little on the flatter side. If your brain isn't attached to the muscle that you're exercising, it doesn't fire as much and you can be totally wasting your time. So I just learned recently that there's, like, with the bands for your legs exercises before you start to train and lift weights, that you do, like, two minutes of exercises with bands contracting that muscle and really focusing on the fact that you're contracting that muscle to help then activate the muscle so that all the work you're putting into it is actually efficient. And it can be a total waste of time if you don't have the mind muscle connection. Isn't that just the most bizarre thing you've ever heard? It seems like pseudoscience and absurd, but.

[31:02] Katy Whalen: It'S a fact that makes total sense to me, actually. I bar method or bar class. I feel like it wasn't until I have also felt like my butt has never been very muscley, a little bit flat. And I feel like I recently started I'll do some bar classes and it's really a mental thing. I'll have to think about contrasting that and I think it's exactly right. I feel like, okay, now I know how to use that muscle.

[31:33] Katie Chandler: So you get the results.

[31:35] Amy Sherman: Yeah, it's so true. I do a lot of Melissa with health, and in her workouts, she always says, like, if you're doing an arm thing, I was doing it yesterday, and she's like, be intentional. She like, think about what you're exercising right now. When you think about it, it sort of like fires it up because you're right, if you're not thinking about it or really intentionally targeting that muscle, it's just like you're doing the whole thing, but you don't get in that little area, which is so similar yes. To the Pilates and bar classes. And you're like, oh, that's the muscle. That's the little thing I never knew I had. So yeah, it's really interesting.

[32:09] Katy Whalen: Totally. Yeah, that makes sense.

[32:12] Katie Chandler: All right, well, before we get into our rep session, I would love for you to just let us know where our listeners can find you because I know they're going to be super interested in working with Joy and yourself.

[32:23] Katy Whalen: Yeah, you know what? We hang out on IG a lot, so would love to for you to follow us there. It's Joy women's Wellness. And Joy is spelled. Joi and then online, if you want.

[32:35] Katie Chandler: To consult, we are Choosejoy Co. Nice. Yes.

[32:40] Amy Sherman: And then if someone wants to consult, they just sign up and it's a zoom. Like the initial meetings. A zoom.

[32:45] Katy Whalen: Yes. Consults are just 25 and then just sign up online and then we'll have a patient coordinator call you to set that up and set up your labs if a lab is needed.

[32:54] Katie Chandler: That's great.

[32:55] Katy Whalen: What did you say?

[32:56] Amy Sherman: You mean I said I will be doing that. Okay. So I feel like there's so many more things to go through with peptides. So we may need a part two at some point because I feel like Katie and I are just starting to learn about this area and I feel like it's this emerging I don't know what's the word?

[33:13] Katie Chandler: I want to get like cutting edge.

[33:14] Amy Sherman: Yeah, you hear about here and there, but I feel like it's going to be mainstream really soon. So thank you for all of this information. So get into our rough session. Quick answers, ready? What is your favorite wellness or beauty hack? Peptides.

[33:33] Katy Whalen: I call it my whole body antiaging. I do a growth hormone releasing peptide. I just sit on my tongue every morning. It dissolves and then I have a ghkcu face cream that I use on my skin.

[33:47] Katie Chandler: Nice. This growth hormone that you use, is that HCG?

[33:58] Katy Whalen: H is growth hormone, but we're not actually putting growth hormone. It's actually growth hormone releasing peptide. So it's a peptide that tells your body to release more of its own growth hormone.

[34:11] Katie Chandler: Okay. I'm very interested in that one sidebar. All right. This next one we call it our five minute flow. You just got out of the shower and dried off and Uber is pinged you. They're five minutes away. What are you going to do? Your Holy Grail to get it together and getting that Uber on time.

[34:27] Katy Whalen: I'm a little bit hippy. I'm fine going makeup free sometimes, but I absolutely need my moisturizer when I get out of the shower. I'm addicted to that. So I have like a dry oil, a little recipe that I use. Quickly throw that on all over. And then I also need a hat. I'm a hat girl. I love my Chemo Savvy sets and hats. And I feel like you can get away with a lot more makeup free days and bad hair days if you.

[34:55] Katie Chandler: Can throw on a hat and you're in the right town for that hat, I tell you. We love a good hat in Nashville.

[35:04] Amy Sherman: Okay. And how do you maintain your daily nirvana?

[35:09] Katy Whalen: I'm always trying to work on that and it's a balance of getting in enough self care and spending quality time with my family.

[35:19] Katie Chandler: Yeah, amen to that. Right?

[35:22] Katy Whalen: Good answer.

[35:23] Amy Sherman: And you'll be spending quality time with your daughter today in America.

[35:27] Katie Chandler: That's going to be so fun.

[35:29] Amy Sherman: Yeah.

[35:30] Katie Chandler: Well, Katie, thank you so much for being here. This is a very exciting conversation and we can't wait to learn more about it. And we have to have you back on for part two. So thanks for being here with us. And Amy, you're going to close us out with a mantra and I think it's a mantra from Joy.

[35:44] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I found two quotes on Joy's Instagram that I love, so I'm going to say them both. So the first one is really funny. FYI menopause is not the end. That's what we should be telling our doctors. That's one. And then the other one I liked was just it's a quote that you have on the little billboard. There's a peptide for that, which I think is so cute, like a good saying. Because next time I'm feeling a certain way, I'm just katie and I are going to be like, there's a peptide for that.

[36:13] Katy Whalen: Peptide for that.

[36:14] Katie Chandler: We might need to call up Katie wayland.

[36:16] Katy Whalen: Exactly.

[36:18] Amy Sherman: Thank you so much for being on the show and enjoy your day with your daughter and we'd love to have you back anytime. Thanks again.

[36:25] Katy Whalen: Thank you so much.

[36:26] Amy Sherman: Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know some one that would we've sherrod and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye..

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Episode 88 - Our Top Wellness + Beauty Trends To Buzz About In 2023 (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 88

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie Chandler: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

Amy: 0:27

Have you new here, it has been a couple of weeks since Katie and I have been on the mic together. And we're so excited to start the year together and with you all, and we're going to talk today mostly about things that are trending in 2023 in the beauty, wellness, self care space that we're seeing that are happening that are new and exciting, and also a little bit of ketchup because Katie, it's just been a while I haven't seen you while we did go to Israel together, which we haven't even talked about. So let's tell our listeners about that.

Katie Chandler: 0:59

Happy New Year, because we really haven't seen or talked to each other in weeks. I feel like since before you went to Mexico.

Amy: 1:06

Yeah, it's I know, I miss Hill.

Katie Chandler: 1:10

Israel was amazing. We were there. As listeners know, for me, son, Jules is Bar Mitzvah and it was just such an epic trip. And when people asked me about an AMI that like, where did you go, and I say we saw the whole country. Basically, that's what it felt like we did so much. And Amy did the most phenomenal job planning it we were in type Varius, which is in the north and on the Sea of Galilee, and then we went to Jerusalem, and that's where the bar mitzvah was and and it's just such a beautiful old city there. It's gorgeous. We saw the Dead Sea. We went to Tel Aviv it was just one epic thing after the other like, what was your favorite part of it? Excluding jewels Bar Mitzvah moment, because obviously, that's what it was all about.

Amy: 1:55

I know I was thinking about this the other day, because I feel like there were favorite parts of each area we went to I mean, obviously, the bar mitzvah was my favorite part. But outside of that, I think it was just there. Well, I loved Masada, because it was just so beautiful. But I honestly it was just so fun to be together. 14 of us is like one family all together, traveling together. I mean, it was definitely a lot and could be, you know, crazy and hectic. But it was just so fun. Especially all the kids being together and seeing them together. So happy. And so join us and it was just so great to spend time with everybody because like when do you ever get, you know, 10 days of spending time with your parents, your grandparents, your children, your you know, niece and nephew, your sister in law brother in law. I mean, that was probably the best part for me from a family perspective. And yeah, I did love Masada and I loved just Tel Aviv is such a cool city. Yeah. What about you?

Katie Chandler: 2:48

I mean, various similar things. Masada was my favorite moment aside from Joseph's Bar Mitzvah, there was something about that that was just so peaceful and just felt incredibly unique and one of a kind and the surroundings where you are just it's like nothing I've ever seen before. And yeah, and the exact fact that there's so much history in the ruins and everything. And then I agree, like,

Amy: 3:12

I also like those grotto was really beautiful in

Katie Chandler: 3:14

Yeah. It's hard. It's surely Schroer. Lanco hunka hunka I have no idea.

Amy: 3:21

Railroad neagra. But I don't remember where that was in the

Katie Chandler: 3:25

north. It's on the Mediterranean. It was stunning. And yeah, the family being together seeing the kids they were so happy. I was relieved because I was concerned taking you know, recent Maddie abroad for the first time at young ages, how they would do and they did like such a great job.

Amy: 3:41

They were rock stars. I couldn't believe they were hanging in like they did not have any meltdowns. Yeah. So I think it's

Katie Chandler: 3:46

because they were with their cousins and having like the best time you know what I mean? If it was just like me and Adam, they would get bored with us and want to bail. But all of it. The whole thing was epic. So yeah, that was great.

Amy: 3:59

Yeah, exactly. Well, onto 23, and all the fun stuff for this year. So Katie and I have just been researching some trends that we wanted to share with you all that we think are things that are going to be focus areas in this space this year. And you know, some of these, at least in my research are things we've already covered, which is cool. Some of these are things we probably want to cover. So without further ado, Katie, you want to get you want to talk about the first trend that yeah,

Katie Chandler: 4:26

we're probably going to have some that are the same. But I'm gonna I'm gonna start with skin cycling. Have you heard of skin cycling? Yeah. Yeah, it's like I think it's definitely it's not anything new. But it's for sure, trending and becoming more like the rage and people are also taking it very seriously. I know someone that has an Excel spreadsheet for her skin cycling program. So oh my god, it's hard. But basically skin cycling is when you exfoliate one night you do your retinal program that night. Next night, and then you have a rest night. And then which is you don't put any retinoids or anything is the rest night like as many days as you feel like your skin needs, it's it's just like unique and you have for me I don't do well with retinoids every day. So I was doing my retinoids only once a week, but I wasn't really seeing results. So I'm going to start to do this and probably take like two to two rest days. I would think maybe, and give this a try.

Amy: 5:25

Yeah, I am. We posted. We posted a tic tac video last year about skin cycling. I can't remember the doctor will put it in the show notes. That's the one who invented like the name skin cycling, but she is the best one to follow because she talks about this protocol. And it's worked really well for people. I tried it last year, but I wasn't like I wasn't disciplined and I need to be more disciplined. But yeah, I heard it's really I haven't been using retinol for a while. So I need to get back into it and do that. Because I did hear I mean, you see.

Katie Chandler: 5:54

Yeah. And I want to have you try to try now. And that's the one that I want to try.

Amy: 5:58

Yes, I've tried Trent Nolan. I've been I probably have been using it on and off for the last year or so I used a company called cure ology, C U R, o l o g y. And you can because it's prescription so you can just order it online. And I use them for a while I still have a lot of bottles and I have to get back to using that because that I think was pretty good. And it's a little bit stronger than just retinol. But it also had some other ingredients. So it wasn't really that harsh. So yeah, that's a good reminder to start doing the skin cycling with the Trenton Nolan or retinol and see how it goes. I also like haven't been doing a lot of stuff on my face because I was telling. I was telling you Katie I got like this, this rash. just side note, this is so random. But when we're in Israel, some of the days I had like a cold I had a sore throat. I checked medication, you know, whatever Advil and stuff and it was fine. But then a couple of weeks later, which I didn't even realize was linked to it. I got this like it's called gut tait psoriasis, which I didn't know what it was. But it's not. It's not psoriasis, that like comes back like the autoimmune it's just specifically related to a virus that is in your throat like a strep or some sort of viral infection in your throat. The the dermatologist told me that every time he's seen got to eats rice, it's it's linked to some sort of strep throat infection. So I've never seen anything like it. I had these, I still have them, they're still healing. And you can see these red dots. But I had like, these red, almost like tear shaped drops, arms, legs, chest, stomach, couple of my face, everywhere. And so it wasn't really uncomfortable is a little itchy, but not bad. But it was just like crazy looking. And I was like I thought it was just going to go and go away. I just thought it was like, I don't know, dry skin from the winter. I had no idea that it was related to that. And I was so glad I went to the dermatologist because he was like, no, it's actually probably, I mean, related to what you had a month ago or whatever it was. So he actually put me on amoxicillin for 10 days and like a prescribes like cream, which I've been putting on. So I'm still finishing out the amoxicillin and agreement is helping but it's still not gone. So hopefully it will go in the next that's crazy. But anyway, yeah, I wrote that. So once that's all done with I'm gonna start my skins.

Katie Chandler: 8:09

Again. Nice. Okay. All right. What's your day?

Amy: 8:13

Yeah, my next trend that I read about or and know about is scalp and crown care. So this has been, you know, all over over the last year. But one of the things that I read from Pinterest predicts they said that Gen X and boomers will prioritize scarification which is a focus on the scalp and crown of your hair. Which I've seen a lot of stuff around this and I know last year we interviewed or was it gosh, I think it was like 2001 I looked back it was episode 21. We interviewed Dr. Reese Rubin, who was the founder of seen scalp care. So we are ahead of the crowd I still use I still use it to it's incredible and yeah, she obviously saw this was emerging and now it's like such a big priority for people because again, according to printers predicts things like scalp massage techniques, clean scalp, scalp treatment for dry scalp, natural hair mask for growth, clean scalp build have been up in search volume over the last, you know, year or so. So that will be a big focus for people and also kind of related to this is reducing that stigma of hair loss because again, there's been a lot of conversation around hair loss, hair shedding. One study showed that 22% of people hospitalized from COVID experienced hair loss, while many less severe cases also reported increased shedding. So like that's been a big topic. So I think again, there'll be this focus on really taking care of your scalp and products that are going to be there already invented but even more products coming out to address hair loss and thinning hair and all that kind of stuff. So

Katie Chandler: 9:55

that also just happens to women naturally like especially after a pregnant Disease and then as we get older with hormones shifting and everything as well, hair loss is a major factor. So that's Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah,

Amy: 10:07

I've seen a lot of TiC TOCs recently of people showing their scalp routine where they like oil their hair, and they massage it and they do like a, like an exfoliator on their scalp once a week. And that's like a whole routine. So I don't do that. It sounds

Katie Chandler: 10:21

like you'd be relaxing also.

Amy: 10:23

I know exactly.

Katie Chandler: 10:24

My next one is the little nail trend that I'm seeing a lot of I'm seeing it all over tick tock and I'm starting to see it around town. Glazed nails, I'm sure you've seen it. Have you seen the glazed now? A little bit like a like a doughnut? And look, it's big on like, I think I want to say Haley Bieber probably started the trend, but now I'm really seeing it, you know, like locally, so I feel like when it's off of the celebrity, that's when you know that the trend is starting to spread around.

Amy: 10:55

And is it like the nude nail or it can be any color, but it's just has like

Katie Chandler: 11:00

a glazed look. But I'm seeing a lot of like, white or silver or gold with the glazed look. It's pretty. I don't know how to ask for it. I don't know where

Amy: 11:12

I now I was just gonna say what do you ask for? Because I actually need to get a manicure. I'm like, well, maybe I should try that out. I don't really know

Katie Chandler: 11:17

her, I guess Yeah, she'll send a picture. And I'm pretty sure it's called the glazed donut now, so we'll we'll confirm that. We'll put it in our show notes so that you know where to go. How to ask for it at your nail salon.

Amy: 11:28

That's fun. Yeah, I was reading something about not specifically that but just nails in general and trends of people having shorter nails.

Katie Chandler: 11:37

I saw that on the shorter nail, which thank God because I can't grow my nails to save my life. I know they break soon as they say like the centimeter on them. Right? What do you have next?

Amy: 11:47

Okay, so what I have next is something I read in well, and good, which is mobility workouts are going mainstream. Meaning searches for mobility exercises, mobility training, increased 50% on YouTube and Google in the past year. And I guess there was this video, which I missed. But again, we'll post it in the show notes of this doctor who shared a video of three simple moves that you can do before bed, and it got like 10 million views and went viral. And it's really just kind of like they're saying it's part of your well rounded fitness routine. So like strength training, cardio and flexibility. And then this mobility piece. So like, it's actually defined as a joint ability to move actively through a range of motion. Mobility has long been part of modalities like yoga and pilates. So it's kind of like if you think of the mobility involved in like, cat cow or thread the needle on yoga, things like that just becoming more to the forefront because I think people you know, we're sitting a lot, and they want these exercises to really get that flexibility and mobility back. Sorry. That's that's Vinnie

Katie Chandler: 12:52

is I wonder also, if that's similar to like, fashion movement, like what Lauren? Lauren Roxboro does. And I've also seen Shelly Marshall do it where yeah, like, you're literally just kind of swaying around almost like you're dancing as well. And like moving your hips around, like in rotation and everything. That's right, and I started doing that and you can really feel it kind of loosen up your body, and it feels good. I mean, and also you you end up moving your bodies, your body in ways that maybe you don't with exercise. I think that's like the cat cow is not something you would never really do in exercise aside from when you're doing Cat Cat. Right. So

Amy: 13:32

and when you do it, it feels so good. But yeah, you're right. Lauren has tons of videos on her feed about mobility exercises. So yeah, good call. What do you

Katie Chandler: 13:41

have the next one is an I would be shocked if this is not on your list is peptides, the use of peptides.

Amy: 13:51

It's not on my list because I feel like well, Nirvana Sisters, we do have an episode coming out. I think it's going to be the week after this airs on peptides. And I cannot wait for you to hear that. But I feel like we talked about it. Did we talk about it last time? Or do we not I know it's coming I

Katie Chandler: 14:07

haven't talked about it. And for those of you that don't know. Alright, so there's a lot of science behind it. And it's very hard for me to articulate it. So it's a great thing that we've got this new episode coming out but it's it's different forms of amino acids and all of these natural occurring peptides that are in your body that doctors can now give to someone to help with things like inflammation and weight loss and muscle recovery and immunity and so on. And the episode we have coming up to discuss it is super interesting. And then I also did a consult with with joy wellness, who is who we are going to be airing our episode with soon. And I think you did AMI as well and we need to bring the doctor on to talk about the science behind it because it's very, very interesting. So I Think we're gonna have probably two episodes about peptides. But if you have been following the Kardashians, which it feels like, literally, unless you're under a rock and a cave, in the middle of, I don't know, Syria, you can't not follow the Kardashians. And they part of what they're doing is to, you know, like Kim Kardashian, like she's lost a lot of weight recently. And I kind of think she's going a little overboard.

Amy: 15:28

Was that how she Yeah, I

Katie Chandler: 15:29

kind of think she's going overboard, don't you like she's getting a little too thin. But it's like celebrity thing. And so of course, as I said earlier, when the celebs start doing it, people start wondering what the heck is going on. And it becomes a trend. And the cool thing, though, is that there are more of these wellness, functional medicine doctors that are making this readily available. It's not cheap, it is expensive, but it's accessible. And I think we're probably going to start to see a lot more of it.

Amy: 15:58

Yeah, there's a lot, a lot of virtual companies doing it. And I think, yeah, to your point, I mean, hopefully, insurance will start covering some of these things, too, because they really do help with a lot of things. We Yes, like Katie said, we'll have this episode coming up. But we'll also have our own journeys on peptides, because I'm going to start doing something soon. And we'll talk about it on the show this year. So excited about that. Okay, my next one, which we've talked about a little bit on the show, but not too much is hot and cold therapy. So I'm reading and hearing and seeing that hot and cold therapy is about to be accessible to the masses. So like, there's a lot that goes into hot and cold therapy, and I don't pretend to obviously be an expert in the philosophy of it. But it really does help with reducing stress, it like speeds up your metabolism. And so actually, it's funny because I had been reading a lot about hot and cold therapy. And I've been at the end of my shower. I don't know for the last couple months, doing like a cold shot like a freezing cold water, which is brutal, but like I've been trying to beat my record, which I really can't get past 30 seconds. And you're supposed to do it probably for like a minute or two. But it does increase my energy for the day. Like I feel like a burst when I get out of the shower. So that's just like one small way to do it. That's free. But there's so many different things, you know, there's ice rollers, there's, you know, these infrared spas, but then there's companies I forget the company name that a higher dose, like they have those infrared blankets that you can get much more affordable than obviously getting a big infrared sauna for your house. But there's just a lot more devices that are coming out that helped that help with you know, eliminating toxins and reducing inflammation and boosting your immunity and all of those sorts of things. So it's, it's, um, you know, practice to utilize as part of your routine and was funny, I was reading an article, I think it was in mind body green, and someone had mentioned, the editor favorite, which was the solo wave one, which is funny because Laura and Roxburgh. Roxburgh talked about it when she was on our show the solar wave, and I ended up buying it, they actually had this deal on the holidays, it was like buy one, get one. So I bought one for me, and I bought one for my husband to use. So I haven't used it too much. But it's that red light therapy, one that you put on your face, so it like kind of gets warm and you put it over your face. So I haven't used it enough to have an opinion on it. So maybe it'll be in a future product junkies. But anyway, I just thought it was funny that that that came up because we just talked about it with Lauren shoes. It's like part of her five minute flow, she does that one too. So more to come on a hot and cold therapy and how you can implement also,

Katie Chandler: 18:35

cryo therapy is which you know, places like restore hyper wellness offer cryo, right, and they're a really simple and affordable way to do it. It's probably a one time investment as people are doing punch baths in their backyard. And like, you know, you fill up a big it's, it's an outdoor bath, it's probably copper or something. Yeah, he literally fill it with ice water and people go outside and just plunge and come out. So it's I couldn't ever do that in a million years. But I know a little bit of the science behind dynamics and why it lowers your stress levels is because when you're actually in the moment of the cold therapy, it piques your stress response. And so what ends up happening is you build a tolerance to stress. So in just essentially levels up your body's ability, your physiological response to handle stress period, like any kind of stress, which is the really amazing thing about it. So that's that That much I know about the cold therapy, it's great for inflammation in many things.

Amy: 19:38

Yeah. And according I know, I had listened to a whole episode and again, we'll put it in the show notes with neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. And he talks it's like I think he does two episodes on hot and cold exposure. I listened to it a while ago and he suggests doing deliberate cold exposure for at least 11 minutes per hour total. Each session should be between one and five minutes in length. So yeah, good luck. But that's like his recommendation. And he also said, What did he say here that I wrote? He said, Yes, he said, you can achieve the benefits of cold exposure and the water should by doing that, and the water should be uncomfortably cold yet safe. So, and he's got a whole philosophy on the hot stuff too. Like he his morning routine. It was like, you know, he does the cold plunge and then he does the infrared sauna. Like he goes back and forth a

Katie Chandler: 20:26

couple times. Yeah. It's interesting that at a spa once before it was, yeah, me too. I

Amy: 20:31

did it over vacation this winter. They had like a hydrotherapy like session, and I did it. And it was incredible. All right.

Katie Chandler: 20:37

All right. My next one is from Forbes magazine. And this is part of their to the 2023 Wellness trends. And that we've heard this from a few people now, micro workouts, which is great, because like, I always do a micro workout. It's like 1520 minute hit here or there, whether it's low impact, whether it is high impact, just trying to squeeze in throughout your day, what you can to get your movement in, and maybe that's 15 minutes in the morning, and then 10 minutes in the afternoon, or maybe all you're doing that day is 20 minutes. But to quote Adrian Richardson, he's the Senior Content Strategist for Fitbit, Google says these short takes on fitness add up to big results, and are a delightful and fun way to get moving. And I mean, if you think about it, it's just so much easier to make happen with our busy schedules and our busy lives. So also, we were talking about that, again, with Lauren Roxboro. About the you just kind of like fit in what you can throughout your day. And next thing you know, you've done like a 40 minute workout if you add it all up together. So I love the idea of micro workouts. It's it's I think the days of like, feeling like you've to go in and crush it in the gym for an hour or two hours, just you know, walk out of there. Like you can't know, you know, legs shaking and can't walk. But those days are gone. At least for me. They are so

Amy: 21:57

Yeah, exactly. No, I read a lot about that too. And I think we've talked about Melissa health a lot on the show. But that's like a great way to do these micro movements. Because you'll have like a five minute arm workout. And so if you're at your desk, and you do some stretches and do that for five minutes here, and then you meet going to walk later. And then yeah, it all adds up. And I think that's a great way to get all your movement in. I love that I read about that, too. Okay, my next trend, which I had heard recently, on a podcast, and I've also read a bit about it, but workouts that align with your menstrual cycle, which is really funny because I feel like probably you and I do this intuitively. But it's really like this. There's been an increase in all of these like period tracking apps. And basically it's, you know, doing the type of exercise that your body needs during whatever, whatever what is it called the luteal cycle that you're in for your, for your menstruation. So sometimes that could be cardio, sometimes that could be a walk. Yeah. And I had I had read that like working out the same way every day isn't exactly conducive to someone's menstrual cycle. So again, it's just like, recognizing that you're always fluctuating and then adapting your body to what your body needs at that at that point. So as an example, I had read about someone who had said she was doing high intensity workouts the first week after her period, and then she's winding down and doing something else the following week. So just an interesting trend that I keep hearing about. And, and another trend, I'll say that's part of working out and sort of part of these Well, I wouldn't say it's a micro workout, but it's kind of in the same vein that I'll mention because we posted about it last year was the incline incline walking challenge, which is the 313 for 30. So it's you're on a treadmill, you're going three miles per hour, you're doing it for 30 minutes at 12. Sorry, did I say 313 30 or 313 12. But essentially, it's this idea where I mean I've been doing it so you're on a 12 incline so it feels like you're doing a hike and you're doing it at you know three and you're doing it for 30 minutes. So when I saw that on tick tock and posted on Instagram last year, I started doing it and so now I've incorporated it, I tried to do it once a week, it's really hard, but it feels really good. And I also like it because it's like set it forget it you just put the put the tripping on 12 And you just walk in like I'll watch the Kardashians or just like do or listen to a podcast while I'm doing it at least I don't have to think and I just kind of like do it and it's a really good way to get sweaty but like also feel really good but you're not running where you kind of get so winded it's a really good way to get a bit more of a high intensity workout. So I just thought that was cool that I saw that incline walking challenge listed as one of the I

Katie Chandler: 24:37

think I have been seeing a lot about this exercise cycling as well. And it's you're right like it's kind of just if you're intuitive with your exercise I feel like that's what as women what we're doing when our bodies can't you know sometimes I'm like really revved up and I need an intense workout and sometimes I it's I'm dragging to do something so I just do like a nice slow yoga Though and it's it has a lot to do with hormones so to sync it up is really smart and also when you're overdoing it in the gym like you're messing with your cortisol and everything. So that has a lot to do with like, like you said, the micro workouts and just kind of taking it down a notch and not killing ourselves in the gym anymore ticket results. We don't have to, you can get results.

Amy: 25:19

I know I want you to try the 12 drive the 330 12 and I want to see what I need to try out though. I really like it. The first five minutes for me are always the hardest. I'm like dying and then after that, it's it gets easier. But yeah, I want to know what you think about that. And you tune around a sister's family. Let us know if we want to if you try that. Yeah,

Katie Chandler: 25:36

agreed. Or yes is my next one. I think we're gonna start to see a lot behind sleep hygiene. And when I say sleep hygiene, like oh, yeah, people are definitely paying more attention to their sleep to how they fall asleep, how they stay asleep. There's a according to Forbes, there is a big trend called Sleep sinking. And that's when you adjust your sleep cycle to the rhythms of nature, like the sun and the moon and tuning it into your circadian rhythm. And you know, we saw that you were one of the first people I know with the what is called hatch the sunrise timer. And that's when you it's a it's an alarm clock that literally like lights up like the sunrises for when you set it so you slowly wake up. Have you been using that? Do you use it all the time? Oh, is it every day? Yeah. And the other you know, mouth taping people. So this is like a whole thing, right?

Amy: 26:33

I've heard Lauren Bostick on the skinny confidential, she always talks about this because she now tapes while she's meditating. But so you literally just put this tape on your mouth and intentionally breathe through your nose, which is probably really hard to do. I feel like it'd be like,

Katie Chandler: 26:46

I know, I haven't read it. It's also for your teeth as well. It's good for your teeth, like mouth breathing, it breaks down the degradation of your teeth. Yeah, which is interesting that so, you know, tape up the old mouth. And then the other one is I feel like people are becoming more aware of sleep apnea. And this is not just for necessarily like older people, very overweight people, there's obstructive airway sleep apnea, which I found out I have, but the reason why I think this is going to be more of a trend to just pay attention to it within the sleep hygiene is because now you can do at home sleep apnea test. Now they have small little like, portable, easy sleep apnea devices, all of these things, right. So my father's had sleep apnea for a long time. He is like he looks like an elephant with this giant thing sticking. It's a mask that he would put on at night that's connected to this whole concoction. It's horrible, uncomfortable, miserable. But if you have really bad sleep apnea, you have to use it because otherwise, you're it's bad for your heart. It's cardiovascular wise, Sleep Apnea is like one of the worst things for your heart. So now that they've made advances, I think it's just going to tie into the sleep hygiene, focus and people really paying attention more and putting an importance on what we can do to sleep better. Sleep is everything.

Amy: 28:09

Yeah, I always hear about sleep apnea, but I don't really know what it is like other than like snoring. But do

Katie Chandler: 28:15

you stop. So I tell you exactly what it is you stop breathing because your airway is obstructed. And when you stop breathing part, why is it obstructed but people that are instructors are like little overweight, because the weight like literally can push into it. So I found out that I have a very small airway. So my I use those Invisalign mouth guards. And they were how it changed. My bite ended up actually making my airway smaller. So that's why it's become a bigger thing for that. Yeah. So when you stopped breathing at night, a it may or may not wake you up, but what it always does is it raises your cortisol because you're obviously not breathing. You cannot breathe for seconds at a time. And that over time, these are constant like shots of raising your cortisol affecting you physiologically starts to affect your heart. And for some people, they they stopped breathing like 200 times a night. It's insanity. Yeah. Oh

Amy: 29:15

my god,

Katie Chandler: 29:16

I did my test. I don't know maybe in the spring and I think it was like, like, at times that I stopped breathing or something. And you just ignore it. Yeah. So you end up never being rested and you don't really know why because you don't always totally wake up. So it's kind of wild. I mean, there's it's definitely a good thing for people to be aware of and that there is something you can do about it.

Amy: 29:37

Yeah, I read a lot about sleep to being a very hot topic, sleep hygiene, sleep, wellness, all that stuff. And I think too, there's a lot of now devices to track your sleep like there's one. What's that? Where that trend is really also or? Right So yeah, that's that's, that's a big one and I think we'll continue over the next few arrows as people are really paying attention to that, Deb and I, okay, so the last one I have, I just thought was kind of funny and I can very much relate to it. And Katie, you probably can do as reading and pure, round article about some trends. And one of the things they said it was coined by this workout place, I guess, in New York called the NES, but they call it the AARP special. So it's, it refers to people of all ages, eating dinner earlier at times previously only preferred by preferred by older people. So I was laughing when I read this, but like they were saying that this person was saying that we're already seeing a shift to earlier dinner reservations across the hospitality industry and the additional information people can get from wearables, people are more informed of the effects that late dinner has on their sleep readiness and recovery. So they said expect to be seeing a lot of wellness gurus eating early with plenty of time to digest and set themselves up for a successful sleep routine. So I can totally relate to this. I love to eat dinner. Yeah. So I just thought that was so funny. And the tagline I

Katie Chandler: 31:06

could literally eat dinner at five o'clock every night. And we did a couples dinner a few weeks back with a friend of mine. She's fairly new friend. And it was with the kids. And I said what time let's do an early dinner because we have the kids. I'm thinking she's gonna come back with Okay, how's 534 30 I was like, You were Beth, we are now.

Amy: 31:26

You're like, you're my girl.

Katie Chandler: 31:28

We literally went to dinner. 430 It was fantastic.

Amy: 31:31

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, they say that you're not supposed to eat. I think it's like two or three hours before bed. I was also listening to something the other day where they were saying, You should stop eating when the sun goes down. So I do I mean, it's just it's obvious when you stop eating, and then you go to bed and your stomach isn't full. Like you feel so much better in the morning. Like how many times have you been to like a late dinner where you're eating this heavy meal and then you can't sleep? It's horrible. Yeah, loving.

Katie Chandler: 31:55

My last one is definitely in line with this month because it is dry January, but I think we are going to start to see a big trend of sober curious, and more and more products for those that are super curious, but what it feels like we're having a mocktail, or even there's now products that have like nootropics and adaptogens and Botanics in them that are supposed to kind of give you a relaxing feeling or even sometimes lift you up. It's a big trend with again, these celebrities making these brands you have Katy Perry has destroy Luna de la sobs has photos a lake lively has Betty buzz and Bella Hadid has Kenny forks, which I have tried. And I like can you Forex, Adam loves it. It's a little pricey. It's $57 for a pack of 12. Yeah, that's kind of absurd. But I think the point is, is that we're just gonna see it more readily available. And a lot of people are just kind of like, not so interested in drinking as much alcohol, which I think is great. I, you know, it's like Gone are the days of I think the social society, the pressure of always feeling like you need to have when you're out at a party or something. So I think it's a good thing. It's definitely a wellness trend. All right, well, this is a good, awesome little 2023 forecast. And I would say that we will definitely be featuring a lot of what we just talked about in our upcoming episodes this year. So we'll get more into the nitty gritty of all of it.

Amy: 33:26

And if you all have seen trends, let us know, DMS, tell us what you've seen. And we'd love to look out for all these trends and keep you guys updated. So yeah, hope you enjoyed this show. Lots of new fun stuff coming up in 23. We are excited to start the new year with you all. So I have one little exercise that I did not exercise but thing that I did. We posted it on Instagram the other day, and I thought it was super interesting. So I don't know about you all but planning for the new year and goals and vision boards. I used to, you know, have a journal where I'd write things down. And I haven't done that for like a year or so because I just find it like mentally draining sometimes. And I know like people do these vision boards and it looks like so elaborate and fun. But I put this on the other day because I saw this tictac are saying this and I actually thought it was really genius. It was like, Okay, here's like a quick way to put together a vision board just like go on your phone, find 12 images that you like put them all kind of like on your phone together and then take a screenshot of it and put it on your homescreen on yourself. It's

Katie Chandler: 34:32

a good idea.

Amy: 34:32

So that's what I did. I don't know Katie if you can see this Yes, because you're constantly referencing it. So let me get my notifications off my screen to show you my screen. So I tried it well you'll see my notifications but see how I have like a vision board.

Katie Chandler: 34:47

So you screenshotted different things and then you put them all together. Yeah,

Amy: 34:51

well I Yeah. So I basically like if you if you kind of like favorite photos and then like duplicate them or just copy them and put them All in like an album, basically, if you want, there's a couple of different ways to do it. Will reshare the will reshare, the the Tiktok that I'm talking about. But yeah, and you literally just put it on your home screen, because I used to have a different, you know, more kind of serene home screen. So when I first put this on, I was like, I don't know if I want this on my home screen, because I feel like it's annoying. And it's giving me to dues, but then I changed my mindset around it. And I'm like, No, actually, it's a really good reminder of the things I want to focus on this year, whether it'd be like movement, or you know, any beauty things or, you know, focus I have like a little thing about protein, because I wanna focus on eating more protein, stuff like that. So it's actually like a really good reminder. And you pick up your phone a million times a day, I just thought it was such a good idea. Instead of doing you know, journaling it this was just kind of like a super quick way to do it. It took me like two seconds, and I just found some photos that I liked on my phone. This person said she just wanted to like her Instagram and looked at things that she liked or that she saved. And like just save them down and put it on her phone. And I just kind of went through my phone and my Instagram and see kind of the things that I had looked out over the last year and did it so anyway, I chose I love that. Not a trend but a 2023 exercise for everyone. Yeah, I

Katie Chandler: 36:12

have to say I was I've been working on a mood board and it's taking me forever because I'm not buying a lot of magazines and the clippings and the whole thing like I don't you know not a movie but a vision board. So yeah, that's great, and I'm going to do it. Alright, well I love it. Thanks for listening Nirvana sisters family and we are excited for this year ahead with you so happy happy new year.

Amy: 36:34

Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 84 - Breaking Down The Brow With Celebrity EyeBrow Artist Daria Kruchinina

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 84:

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman. And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. It's Amy and Katie and we are here today with the eyebrow guru expert. Darya cucina, none I probably said her last name wrong, but it's all good. She's telling me that I said, well, so okay, I'm feeling good. We're so excited to talk to you today, Daria, because we haven't talked about this topic on the show. And eyebrows is such a thing that we don't really know too much about. So we're excited to learn from you. For our listeners, Daria is an award winning makeup a natural brow artist. She began her career in Russia, where she worked with top models and prestige, fashion and beauty brands. Seeking international experience. Daria took her talents to New York in 2017, and quickly made her mark as a freelancer collaborating with beauty icons like Natalia vindman Jacoba, which I can't even say you have editorial work appearing in numerous publications worldwide, including Vogue, UK, Vogue, China, Vogue, Russia, and many, many more. And I know that you work with many, many stylists, many celebrities, etc, etc. So we are super excited to have your expertise in the show to tell us about all things. Eyebrows. Welcome to the show, Daria.

Unknown: 1:47

Thank you ladies appreciate having me here on your podcast. I'm really, really excited to share all my experience and knowledge with you today.

Katie: 1:57

We're excited to hear it. So before we get into all of our millions of questions, we just want to take a step back and do our nirvana of the week was just really just something that gave us joy this week, made us take a pause, put a little smile on our face, and I will take it to Katy to let us know what hers was this. Thanks. I was just thinking about that. And I think it was over the just the past weekend like The Last Sunday we took the kids to the pumpkin patch. And you know, we're on the east coast and in New England, and Westport is like it's like you're in a Lifetime movie. Like it's such quintessential fall it you know, it's my favorite season after being here for a year. It's really beautiful, the foliage and everything. And then the pumpkin patches. It was just beautiful. So just see the kids running around and picking out their pumpkins and having apple cider donuts and there was a little petting like farm situation. And while it was very cute and festive and for the season, it was just Yeah, it was yummy. What about you, Amy?

Amy: 2:56

That's such a good one. I haven't done that in a long time. I love those pumpkin patches, though. It's so like, yeah. So I would say we hits a really nice milestone here at Nirvana sisters we have published well now it's probably over 7677, maybe even 80 episodes by the time this airs. So Katie and I are running so quickly building this podcast in business. And it was just nice to kind of get a notification of like you hit a milestone you've posted 75 podcasts. It was just cool. We've been working really hard over the last two years and our two year anniversary is almost coming up. So that was a little something that brought me joy this week. What about you, Daria,

Unknown: 3:37

I really enjoy hearing what you ladies did. It's amazing. makes me so happy. So my highlight of the past week was meeting with my friends who I didn't see for seven years. Oh my gosh. They live in London. I right now based in New York. And they had a flight here. So we spent amazing three or four nights out just exploring the city and I took days off. So yeah,

Katie Chandler: 4:03

yeah, that's great. fills your soul and love it. Alright, well, let's kick it off. First of all, let's start at the basics. Tell us about what you do and your specialty of natural eyebrows.

Daria: 4:19

So honestly, when I say when I try to explain to my new clients or to people who are not in the beauty field, even for those who honestly in the beauty field, what I specifically do

Unknown: 4:33

it takes me like a couple minutes to get through it because I work on the natural eyebrows, which means that I provide shape tint walks lamination and sometimes threading. But the thing that makes me very different from any other eyebrow specialist is the technique that I use for shaping which is which I call signature. I brush shape. It is made with a tweezers. So I basically tweeze eyebrows but not just around how we usually do it. But I open the eyebrow and look through the hair and remove the hair that we don't need that this hair usually either too old, too thick or trimmed before. So instead of just plucking around the eyebrows and creating the typical thing like the shape, I go in the eyebrow and create feathered natural looking eyebrows.

Katie Chandler: 5:33

Oh yeah, that's interesting, because I have been really curious about how this new eyebrow trend of like the longer fuller more grown out. And I've tried to do that but it's so uneven and kind of wack and I assume I probably need you to get in there and take out the ones that don't make sense in order for that to happen. Right?

Unknown: 5:57

Yes, I would say there are so many different techniques come into the market. And sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it completely does not make any sense like we have this trans like bleaching eyebrows every year right so mad gala or I don't know the autumn trends, we keep seeing different things happening. But I believe to have a good shape to have a really clean eyebrows and I talking about clean not on your skin but in your eyebrows. This is what makes any face brighter. You have lifted kind of eyes, open eyes brightened look and you just look fresh. This is how this is how I'm trying to explain these things to my man clients straight guys clients constantly are afraid that it will look too feminine or too manicured. So it takes it takes long time. It takes long explanations showing like examples, but it's definitely worth it. Nice.

Amy: 7:03

Okay, so how does one at home get natural looking brows or how do they sort of maintain maybe in between brow visits, but I know like Katie was saying there's been like this emphasis on this natural brow and how do you what do you recommend for people at home like looking to keep their eyebrows in check

Unknown: 7:27

for my clients in between appointments I recommend to moisturize eyebrows. So basically there are a couple things that you can use couple of treatments and ointments that you can apply and it will provide the moisturize for your eyebrows because we apply a lot of masks and conditioner to our hair right but my eyebrows and eyelashes, that's true. So I would say just keep it moisture noirish do not trim I'm very very against of trimming eyebrows. And I don't know just normal maintenance, I would say monthly or like for some people once in two months appointments are enough, but nothing difficult. If my clients prefer to have some eyebrows routine, like makeup routine, I would say I would provide the specific list and I usually send the eyebrows guide to all my clients or people who are interested and I'm very happy to share with you like people who listen to the podcast for free the guide How to maintain what to use and it's all divided into shapes, colors and like you know options, pencils, gels, clear gels,

Katie Chandler: 8:42

a lot of options.

Unknown: 8:45

So I'm I'm really happy to share

Katie Chandler: 8:47

nice I love that.

Amy: 8:48

And then how did you were mentioning some of the things to do to keep your eyebrows moisturize and condition what what type of products would you recommend for that?

Unknown: 9:01

I recommend to use natural product it is called tuya This is the brand is step three after elimination but what exactly this product does is that it has a little bit of oils and it is wheat oil. It has argan oil but it is not heavy. So the problem with moisturizing eyebrows and a lot of people get misunderstanding that you cannot apply 100% oil like castor oil or flaxseed oil or peach oil on your eyebrows because it's simply not going into the hair. It's not going to the cortex it's not it's not doing anything it just sitting on the top like you know

Amy: 9:48

so castor oil does not make your paragraphs I've been using no one.

Unknown: 9:56

And what is really important about all More than 100% oils, it could have the consequences as allergies. So for example, this is what I, this is what I was through when I just started to grow my eyebrows back because I started my career with horrible experience myself. And this is how I became eyebrows artists, I was like, let's let's do it myself, no one can do that I will do it. And it was a big misunderstanding in the beautiful that if you apply castor oil or our argan oil or flaxseed oil, your eyebrows will grow or eyelashes? No, it will not. And second, when you apply those oils for your lashes, and you go to slip, it's naturally because we have the gravitation, right, it's still works. It's got it can go to your eyes, or very close to Derma. And could clog your pores on the on the line where the lashes grow and could cause allergies in the future. So my recommendation for someone who would like to grow eyebrows or eyelashes is to moisturize to use serums during the morning or the daytime instead of the nighttime. And do not use 100% oils. Just use professional things. Like

Amy: 11:21

the product that you were just talking about is something that could help with hair growth.

Unknown: 11:25

It I wouldn't be honest, it's not providing the hair growth. I didn't care for the hair that you already have. Got it any serum any, any product that promises you, I don't know 200% Extreme lashes. Yes, it will help for the amount of time you use in this product. As soon as you're going to stop, your hair will be normal. What is not great about this option of choosing serums that trying to help you to grow things, like grow your hair is that we have a specific amount of follicles in our eyebrows and eyelashes during the life. And if you try to speed up this process, there is the chance that by the age of 70 or 80, you will have less eyelashes or eyebrows naturally because you already overstimulated your growth.

Katie Chandler: 12:20

Oh, that's interesting.

Amy: 12:24

So then what do you do if you want to grow your eyebrows? And you don't want to use one of those serums Do you just keep them conditioned and

Unknown: 12:31

you keep your eyebrows and eyelashes condition and you do massage? So when I when I'm talking about massage, you know this single single brushes from Sephora or like single mascara wands. Yeah, so you just brush it up. Really like you need to feel it on your skin and then just like, like, push get

Amy: 12:50

in there. Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 12:51

So you brush it up, you brush it in a diagonal way and you brush it down, like two minutes each eyebrow and just massage in a circular way. Because this is what we do with the hair. we brush our hair, we go to treatments, we do all this stuff. And we need to remember about our eyelashes and eyebrows. It

Katie Chandler: 13:12

seems like it would feel good to or to do that. Right?

Unknown: 13:15

Because it's the stimulation for you. Like literally you stimulate. Yeah, nature.

Amy: 13:21

Right. So that helps to stimulate the follicles which will then grow. Okay, good

Katie Chandler: 13:25

to know, I want to know how someone figures out the perfect shape eyebrow for their face. I've seen formulas before and I'm curious what yours is?

Amy: 13:35

The formula? Yeah. Is that correct? No. Okay. All right, let's hear it. Katie's doing Katie's doing the point up from the nose and then the angle like what you always see. Yeah.

Katie Chandler: 13:49

Take a pencil. Right?

Unknown: 13:52

I haven't. Yeah. So the typical formula that we can find somewhere on I don't know social media platforms all over the internet. And I believe those pictures honestly, they've been there forever, like from five to 1000 Yes, maximum. So it's like this one, you put it to your nose, you do the arch and you do the end of your eyebrow. The problem with this method is first that you cannot measure it correctly. Because if you a little bit tilted here, right, it could be here my orange could be on this point. But if I move it could be here also. So how could you know and it depends where you look. If you look straight, you will have one point a point. I mean the arch and when you slightly move your eyes and you need to measure it somehow you need to put the mark like it could be not even over the time we have this interest in fashion and styles. So sometimes it's a little bit wider. It's it could be a little bit more straight, a little bit more arch. So honestly So, what I say to my clients is that we need to see what the person has. If you have amazing straight eyebrows, what's the point trying to get extreme there is no point because there will be not enough hair on the top of the eyebrow and we would remove too much in the bottom of the eyebrow. So instead of trying to be like you know, this trendy eyebrows shapes for 2020 20 We're just trying to maintain what we have naturally and make it look as good

Katie Chandler: 15:33

as possible. I like that I have always kind of liked the straighter eyebrow on myself and then I also thought there's all these trends right that you were just saying that what's this trend were like now they're like going up and everybody thinks it makes you look really lifted. What is that called? There's a name for it.

Unknown: 15:50

I honestly, it's been forever, like okay, not forever. For the last three years we have this trend when people started to work tapes to make up also, I see this everywhere. Like people were tapes and stuff like you see my normal eyebrows and then they put the tape and it's gone like this right? Where's the eyebrow is going a little bit up so you have the more straight eyebrow less arch. But at the same time, it looks a little bit odd

Katie Chandler: 16:23

you know whose eyebrows now jelly and naturally it's like the Kendall Kendall Jenner I think her she has like very so that's what I saw on social media and the other one that I that I really do love that I think is very chic and looks great on everyone is like it just kind of like grown out and just like super, to your point super, super natural, but like thicker and fuller and longer. So brow is what it's called. So brow.

Unknown: 16:46

No, no, no, I didn't think this is the same. So I would say the the first one that you mentioned, like grown out supernatural one. It is referred to models environment. So every time I do talk, top models, eyebrows, I never remove too much hair underneath. I'm never creating the like, no, the full shape will live in some options for the makeup artist who is going to work on set. But so brow look is actually elimination.

Katie Chandler: 17:21

Okay?

Unknown: 17:23

So people who I believe don't want to do elimination, they create, they can create the same effect with a soul bro. And so bro originally was the name of the brand, but not but now it's like, you know, any brand could say so bro. Okay. And

Amy: 17:40

yeah, I don't even know what lamination is. I've heard of what it is.

Unknown: 17:45

So let me nation is the camera. This is the conversation I had with my morning client. She scheduled everything like everything, all the possible options, and she's my first time client. And I'm usually very straightforward with first time clients. I'm like, Hey, what is the goal? How do you want your eyebrows to look like? What is? How do you want to maintain? Do you want to take any? Any possible like new things? Do you want to add something to your beauty routine? She was like, no, no, no, no, no, I want like easy maintenance. And I want elimination. But elimination is not is maintenance because elimination is a chemical process, two step process for your eyebrows. With the first step we apply the chemical that helps basically to ruin the hair structure. Because in that case, we can move it we can make it flexible. And if someone has eyebrows that going down or too much sideways, we can straight it up, but not 90 degrees, like this way maybe like 65 degrees, right 45 Even. So we're the first step we just ruin the hairs structure. Unfortunately it is what it is. It's not a spa procedure. It's not wrist restoration or something. And with the second step, we apply the ointment that helps to keep the structure of the hair back and to provide the normal hair pH balance. And with a third step, which is the same two year or ointment. It's like the oily the oily third step ointment that helps to give it moisture because lamination dries the hair. So in New York specifically, I'm not sure about other states, but in New York specifically in the area where I work. I see a lot of ladies coming to me with burnt eyebrows. And when I see burned, it's literally Ginger, Ginger red color because the hair is burned from the inside. And in couple of months it's starting to fall off why this happens again, because lamination is not a spa procedure, it's not. Treatment elimination is a chemical chemical procedure. So I believe elimination should be done with a professional who understands the timing, the specifics of your scheme, the specifics of your eyebrows, and the look that you want to keep and maintain. Because it requires extra moisture for your eyebrows, it requires the client to purchase this ointment, and actually to apply it every like once in a three four days. And coming back to the soul bro. So the soap brow they help this is like the actual soap, you brush, you go through your eyebrows backwards first like this way, and then you brush it normally like in the in the direction of your hair growth. It helps to create delamination look for a day, it definitely needs to be washed. In the end of the day, people cannot sleep with this because the soap is drying your hair structure. So the hair is getting a little bit more fragile, dry. And I would say people should use if they want this lamination look but don't want to use the chemical they can use so brow for maybe like twice a week, but not often.

Amy: 21:28

And it is the elimination help like does it.

Unknown: 21:31

But elimination helps to create thickness illusion, or to redirect the hair. So for example, for my clients who have really odd hair growth, for example, from this side, sometimes hair grow in this way, we can use lamination but only like 40 degrees or 50 degrees. Because if you will swap the hair 180 or even 90 degrees, it's going to just fall off. Because the air cannot do it redirected this much. There is a certain proportion that we can use and can apply.

Katie Chandler: 22:06

So that's more distinct and get the eyebrows to go the way that you want them to go. It's not so much like a look of fashion style a trend like the soap brow is correct me if I'm wrong as the soap or other trend where it just looks kind of like oily and in place and long. And like sticking up words and everything. Yeah, I really liked that look. I've been trying to figure out how to.

Unknown: 22:32

So brow helps to achieve this over laminated. And when I say over laminated because good lamination should not should not look super slick, it means that the hair was burned, and it's eventually going to fall in couple months. So yeah, so brow can help to create lamination look without like with minimum damage. Okay, with minimum that so

Amy: 22:57

you mentioned something earlier about cutting brows. So you're saying that's not a good thing to do. So my eyebrows are curly, like I feel like they grow and they get curly and I haven't cut them in a really long time. But I used to go to people that would like thread or wax or whatever. And then they'd like cut up here just so they were like tight. Why is not bad.

Unknown: 23:20

I mean, it's a very serious condition. So this is why most of my clients keep they just traveling from I have clients coming from Florida from LA, like at least once in three months. So this is the circle that you in the circle called trim, and trim. Why? So your eyebrows are getting curly, right? It bothers you it's getting long, you cannot style it, you go to the place, and they brush it up entering. And in three, four weeks you like oh my god, it's again curly, right? Yeah, I didn't know what to do with this. So this is the circle how to break the circle. Why first? I will explain why your eyebrows are getting curling? Probably naturally. You have a little bit wavy hair. Yeah. But what's going on with eyebrows that are trimmed? We have the hair that okay, it's I know it will sound very basic basic information, but we all know this. So this is the skin layer, right? We have the hair growing from the skin. The follicle is based in the skin. So it's growing long. You don't like it, you trim it. So the hair keep growing from from the skin right from the follicle. But the tip is already flat. It's not pointed, it's flat. And the hair is getting sicker because it cannot naturally fall off. Because the hair that we lose in it's fallen off because of the weight or because The damage so the hair is getting thicker and thicker, and because of that it's starting to grow. So instead of trimming again, I would recommend to do good shape. That means slowly removing trimmed hair. And I may be trimmed twice in my life for someone because it was, you know, just one specific hair or like the hair that I cannot remove because it's creating the base and the structure of the eyebrow. And it should be trimmed in the diagonal way not to not flat. Yeah, like, if someone is brushing and doing this shouldn't be trimmed like this. It should be trimmed with a specific scissors like

Amy: 25:45

this. Yeah. Bunny. My eyebrows, like, over the pandemic, I just like didn't get them done. And I actually think by accident, they got better because they got longer. Because they haven't done anything with them. And they're almost like, I mean, I still need to get them shaped but I don't really feel the need to cut them anymore because they're just like kinda there but I think I accidentally did a good thing by not cutting them.

Unknown: 26:11

I mean, that's great. And honestly, most of the people in our industry in eyebrows industry all over the world, they still trim eyebrows because it's very easy fix

Amy: 26:23

right brush,

Unknown: 26:24

all like from from the beginning to the end, you just brush and you trim. That's easy for the professional, but I prefer a different approach because I believe that we're here to create long term beauty not just easy fix for all of us. And I know that it takes about a year to regrow all the trimmed hair in your eyebrows. regrow I mean still have an appointment once in a month and a half or like a month. Because you need to remove this hair you need an the new hair thing good thing not trimmed. So it takes kinda a year to regrow trimmed eyebrows but it's definitely worth it.

Katie Chandler: 27:12

What do you think about all of the different I mean I know you prefer to pluck but threading I've never had threading done have you had threading Jenny me? I don't really

Amy: 27:21

Yeah, that's usually what I do. Is it

Katie Chandler: 27:23

is it better than waxing if you know if somebody like can't tolerate the plucking what would you suggest

Unknown: 27:32

sometimes I do spreading for my clients but only for people who have allergies for walks and this is obvious if my client has the allergy for natural or artificial walks we definitely try to clean the baby fours at least here on the top of the eyebrows by spreading but the thing with the threading is I do not like to create the shape with a thread like the you know traditional way how in India they do or in the south of Russia for example, we have a huge community that are very into threading they all have this thinner eyebrow look which was was in a trance long time ago but not anymore. And with a specific and with this specific signature eyebrow shape that I do, it's not enough used I still need to go through the eyebrow and block some hair that we don't need. And some of my clients are really like crying, the cursing but in the end they all very happy and I'm like okay okay just do whatever you want you want to cry I want to talk all this bad things okay, that's fine. In the end of the appointment everyone is happy

Amy: 28:50

and I'm sure so you do only plucking you don't do waxing or you do you do wax?

Unknown: 28:55

I do I do like sometimes when I see that we need to remove that pause or it would just look much cleaner. But if my client has some condition like if the skin is irritated or too dry, or I don't know it's changing of the season and I see it's not going to be good. We skipping waxing. Yeah.

Amy: 29:19

And is I don't know if this was like an old like Wyldstyle but isn't plucking supposed to be the best isn't waxing like can't think if this is probably just like hearsay and not true but can't wax and give you like more wrinkles than plucking. I feel like I heard that back in the day. Did you ever hear that one? And I've always plucked like I've never I mean I've waxed once in a while but I usually pluck or do threading or something.

Unknown: 29:41

I honestly think it depends what kind of wax is used and applied and how it is removed because that's the thing with the thread and actually what I do not like about threading and the hard works that removed with this, you know the paper stripes?

Amy: 29:58

Yeah, yeah,

Unknown: 29:59

I did not Like when they need to hold it and to stretch the skin, right? Yeah. So this is the thing was threading if you would calculate, like, if you would start threading at 14, and you thread till 60. Right? How many times you stretch your eyes and when you do blowing it up? Yeah, you need to stick like good point.

Katie Chandler: 30:22

What do you think about tenting? Eyebrow tinting? I've done it once.

Unknown: 30:27

I mean, if it's, if it is a correct tint color, that's good. If the tint could report both horrible anime

Katie Chandler: 30:37

I, that's when I first had it done. I was like, Whoa, and it was way too much. But now when I look back at pictures on it, I actually thought it looked nice because I've blonde eyebrows and it felt filled them out. This whole conversation is reminding me of something I did as a child to my eyebrows. And I have to tell you guys, I was reading like a Cosmo or glamour and there was just talking all about plucking. And I was maybe eight or nine. And I was too afraid to pluck so I shaped them. And then I accidentally like they just because I like accidentally went too far. And so like I shaved one and so then I had to shave the other one.

Amy: 31:14

Oh my God, that's awful. We need to see a picture of that I

Katie Chandler: 31:17

actually have a school it was right around school photo time. So actually, but I was with my family and I had cousins in town. And I was just waiting for like somebody to call it out. I didn't want to tell my mom. And one of my cousins said, Oh my God, what happened to your eyebrows? And then I was

Amy: 31:35

oh my god, I never knew that story. That's so funny. So how long did they take to guard ever? And

Katie Chandler: 31:39

I still feel like yeah, I feel like my eyebrows are so so thin. And it's probably because I shaved them.

Unknown: 31:47

It happened to me too. I was like 14 or 15. And I remember my mom coming back from work and I plucked and somehow I had only this area and nothing after the art now. Oh my god. I looked like this, you know, like, like a crazy person. Daria, it was it will never grow back. What did you do? And I started to cry. I burst into tears. So it took me like, half a year to grow back.

Amy: 32:17

Oh my god. So speaking of dying eyebrows in the same realm, what what do you think of eyelash extensions?

Unknown: 32:25

Oh, honestly, I don't have anything against eyelash extensions, because in most cases, right now it's done in the right way. It looks natural, at least like the lash artists that I'm following. It looks natural and good. The only problem I think in the industry right now is lash elimination, and lash burm, which I see as a big problem. I mean, again, I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And I have no idea. I have no idea who is doing that. But we have couples specialists around who who applied too much. And for too long, the lamination process. So what's happening, I see clients who step into my office, and they come for example for eyebrows appointment. But I could see that the elimination didn't go well for eyelashes, because they see the scary to do

Amy: 33:23

on your eyeliner. So close to your eye. It's scary,

Unknown: 33:27

I would say in the way that it is super close to your eyes, you need to understand how to maintain this thing because there is a special silicone pad that they apply. And then they brush up with the like glue and the first step ointment, your lashes up to hold it to like ruin first, the texture of your eyelashes and then to fix it back. So what's happening what I see and this is really, really a big problem in the industry right now. People who provide the service cannot apply the silicone pad actually close to the growth of your lash line. So it creates this L shape in the end of the procedure. And what client would have is the difficulty to apply mascara and this L shape thing. It will create the option or the potential potential option to break your lashes because it's getting very fragile in this degree. Because our hair normally doesn't grow like this. We have natural curl, but when it's buckling this and basically broken it could just fell off.

Katie Chandler: 34:49

Yeah, yeah. Very well. I am going to come and see you and get my eyebrows done really soon. So I need

Amy: 34:57

and can you put it on camera Katie? Watch because When I come to New York, I'm gonna go to you too. I used to have this great person in New York a bazillion years ago and I just haven't found anyone good since so we'll be visiting. Yes. Welcome

Unknown: 35:08

ladies.

Amy: 35:10

You're in New York City. You're Are you in the city or in Williamsburg?

Unknown: 35:15

I'm in Williamsburg. But it is one stop from the city.

Amy: 35:18

Yeah, no, I used to live there. That's great. And I know you also know like all the makeup and beauty trends for the fall. So give us a little give us a little insight into what you're seeing. That's like the new or the, you know, some fun makeup things that you're seeing.

Unknown: 35:35

Um, honestly, I am this type of person who believes that everything is already created. So we have kind of the same tiles over the years. And as always, during the autumn season. It is reds, red, it could be red lipstick, a little bit more red. I would say burgundy color for your check. Cheeks. Blush maybe. And my thing my favorite thing is to apply the same blush for your lips for the blush area and a little bit on your eyelids. It looks really fresh and it looks you know like normal. It's not off. Another big trend in the industry right now for the makeup is liners. But colorful liners. So it is not boring. Okay, not boring, but it's not just classy black. But dark brown. Again, burgundy Gray, and maybe some I don't know reds.

Amy: 36:39

Do you mean liner or your eye?

Unknown: 36:41

Yeah, why not? My I just colorful liners. And no makeup makeup is always every year in high demand. So yeah, it's pretty good options. We have

Amy: 36:55

this I like the idea of doing a fun liner because it's true. Like I feel like I always put on black but like to have like a burgundy or something would be fun.

Unknown: 37:02

Try dark dark brown or brown. That's

Katie Chandler: 37:06

what I stopped using black so long ago because for whatever reason it always I always felt like it looked too harsh. And then so I switched really dark brown and it just kind of blends better. But yeah, soften the no Minca Yeah, yes,

Amy: 37:21

that's like my goal. Always the no makeup makeup.

Katie Chandler: 37:26

Daria, thank you so much for being with us. This was so fun. So tell our listeners where they can find you. Do you have what's your you know, your Instagram handle? We'll have it all in our show notes as well.

Unknown: 37:38

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here and talking and have this amazing conversation. I'm happy to share my experience. So I I'm always on Instagram or like email, but I have the office in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. So people can stop by the office to make an appointment.

Amy: 38:01

And is your Instagram at Daria Creech. I'm not even gonna

Unknown: 38:05

doubt this is Christina dot prod. Kru c h i n i n a that prom.

Amy: 38:12

Okay, we'll put it in our show notes too. And you have a website as well which will lead people to Okay, so let's do a quick wrap session. Okay, you ready? What is your favorite wellness or beauty hack?

Unknown: 38:24

Sleep well eat well be yourself. This is my wellness hack. Yeah, I love those. Good one.

Katie Chandler: 38:31

The next next one we caught our five minute flow you just got out of the shower and Uber is paying do they're fine five minutes away What are you going to do to get into that Uber on time.

Unknown: 38:43

So I honestly I hope that by that time you have the moisturizer on so it's kind of like prepped, you know, if not just have moisturizer in your arms and apply it to the to the lines so like fine lines, massage lines, you just applying it in the way you lift in your face. The same with a quick BB cream or my favorite is Chanel foundation. It's super thin, really nice. And I would say a little bit of blush, as I said on the cheekbones on the lips a little bit on the eyelid. Same with my favorite product. This is Charlotte Tilbury filter. It's kind of highlighter, but it looks supernatural. I don't know I would I think you can squeeze in mascara application and cool week Bro. Bro gel application. Yeah, that will be the thing. Nice.

Amy: 39:42

And how do you maintain your daily nirvana?

Unknown: 39:45

I started to meditate. Two months ago I started meditation. And I feel it really helps. You know? It really helps. Yeah.

Amy: 39:55

Do you listen to guided meditation or do you do your own meditation

Unknown: 40:00

I do the breath work in the morning. Yeah, I go to a local yoga studio. So that helps me to be in the moment and to be in the local community at the same time. Yeah, well,

Katie Chandler: 40:13

thank you so much for being here. This this is such a fun conversation. And now I'm going to be obsessing over my eyebrows until I see which I'm going to be in the city next Friday. So

Amy: 40:21

oh my God, I need to like do a brush up I need to need to judge

Katie Chandler: 40:28

Alright, so before we let you go, we'll wrap with a little mantra. This is just kind of a cute month since we've been talking all things beautiful. Letting go is hard, but being free is beautiful. So kind of inverted that says eyebrows. Yeah. Maybe we should do that when I literally in my brain inverted a couple words, so it made more sense.

Amy: 40:52

What do you mean?

Katie Chandler: 40:53

Did I just I said it's Friday.

Amy: 41:00

It's Friday. Okay. The quote is, it's Friday and thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 83: Product Junkies December - Holiday Edition - Things We Are Loving Right Now (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 83.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Unknown: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman. And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation back to the show Nirvana sisters family, it's December and you know what that means holiday time. And we are back with a product junkies episode for December. We're going to talk through some of our favorite latest products that we're trying and loving. These could be gifts, they could be gifts for yourself, they could maybe help with holiday travel. So with that being said, we will jump right into product junkies December. I'm going to start with you, Katie, what do you have on her? Right? Well, let's see. I'm going to start with things that you're going to need for your next holiday party. Oh, you're gonna go out you're gonna want to do your makeup a little bit, right? Like the fun of these holiday parties is kind of getting dressed and you know, going the extra mile and having like a fun fabulous night out. So for that I have a really excellent lipstick like very glamorous, neutral but sexy lips situation whooping and it is the beloved Charlotte Tilbury it's her lip Lester and pillow talk. And it's just like a very sexy neutral that has just enough pink just enough of a pop. And it's a really nice texture as well. It comes in like a lip gloss tube. It's not super shiny. So I kind of like when there's a little bit of a matte to it. Like it's not Yeah, super super glossy. Yeah, so it's they they're marketing it as a dreamy nude pink lip gloss for a luminous luscious Pillow Talk pout and it's $22 and it lasts it stays on which which I really liked. So this is just a really great like go to color for a night out. Yeah, you know, I didn't know that Charlotte had that in a gloss form or whatever they're calling it. I just knew that pillowtop lipstick and and like liner but I didn't realize they had Oh, that's so pretty. Yeah, that's a good news. Like I could put it on heavier and it would be a little stronger. Right Are you lying on top of something. Okay, and what's the product and the Charlotte Tilbury lip is that a gloss it's the lip Lester lip luster. Okay, love. Okay, so I have this new thing I did a little research at Sephora the other day because I've been looking for a bronzer that is a liquid because I feel like I have a lot of blushes that are liquid or cream but it's hard to find a bronzer because usually it's like more of a contour stick but the contour stick color isn't like exactly your bronzer. So I found this iconic London shear bronze formula and I know how to describe it and it's in this little tube like this. And it's a really pretty bronze and it's an it's somewhat shear very natural. But you literally just take a tiny tiny amount I mean this bottle is going to last forever. Take a tiny amount and just kind of put it here and it's just like a nice little bronzy glow. Tonight if you don't want to do a lot of bronze because I feel like on an everyday basis you know me I'm always looking for like every day. This is really good. So if you just throw this on and maybe throw on a liquid blush, it just it's nice. I've just been liking these liquid and cream blushes and bronze is more so than the powders because I just feel like they look nicer on the skin. They're not so dry. You could you could do a little right up here on your forehead to Yeah, just a little touch and it'll make your whole face look like he had been on the side yeah so and this is very buildable so you could just put on a little bit for just like that little funky skull but you could put on more just to like you know make it heavier or mix it with another with another bronzer. So this is again it's iconic London and it's $27 and this will probably last me like forever so really good purchase. I hadn't heard of it before I just found it as I was doing a major search around Sephora for liquid or cream. Bronzer. So good one good one for the holidays. Good one for holiday parties to to match with the pillowtop nude. What's next on your list ad All right, well, this goes straight into the same situation for your holiday party. I have a really great glamorous smoky eye that I found at the drugstore. It is Maybelline Color Tattoo 24 hour long wear cream eyeshadow say then it's only $7.99 I love and they have have some great colors. This one is high roller Oh print and I wear this when we were in Israel. It's very much like like when we went out to dinner it's a really nice creamy Chateau which I love because they're just so easy to put on. You can literally put them on with your with your finger. And it just has a nice like sexy smoking is so good and I love this hydrating. I feel like when it's a cream, it's more hydrating. It doesn't get Creasy Yeah, no, I totally agree. I mean, wow, that like what a big difference. It makes your eyes. Yeah, I like barely even putting any on. But I used it during the day as like an eyeliner with a really thin brush and then I put it on at night like a shadow and it's just a night it's a very nice creamy consistency. It's, it's I would compare it to like, NARS is Fimi eyeshadow really? doesn't last long. How's the stain? Yeah, no, it totally holds up. I mean, look like this half of my face is ready for a party and obviously looks so good. I love that. That's a good one. We love a good start fine. And it's one of alors best of beauty for 2020 You know, couple years ago, but still, it's holding up. Yeah, I love that. Now I have to even out my eyes. So I'm gonna do my other side. While you talk, what do you we can show our listeners what you're doing. Okay, so I have like, it's the same category. So I'm gonna do two reviews and one and one of them we've kind of talked about a long time ago, but I ran out of eye cream. So I was looking for a new one always looking to test new ones. And I remember that when we had a loan on the show, he talked about the inky list caffeine eye cream. So I bought this and it says it's best for tired eyes. And the inky list is so great because I think the ingredients are really good and it's also very affordable. So this is keyless caffeine eye cream, it's $10 really good ingredients. And I just started using it the other day. So this one says it's best for tire dyes that helps to reduce the appearance of tire dyes essentially so it has a really really nice feel to it. I also have decided that I can't stand when eye creams are in a pot and so many of them are in pots. So I always tend to default to the ones that are in tubes. I just think it's so much easier to apply so much easier to travel with. It doesn't get like in your nails. But anyway, this texture is really nice, really hydrating and I have noticed it does make my eyes look less tired. So depending on the day, I will use this or I will use this other incredulous product which I just got, which is the brighten eye cream. And this one says it's best for dull under eyes and it helps to brighten instantly over time. And this one I'll use like if I just feel more dull. So it just depends on the day. Because lately in the winter, I'm just feeling some days I'm tired. Some days my face just looks air. So this one again is in a tube. This one is $11.49. What I really liked about this is the applicator. See how there's like this? Oh yeah. So when you put it on, it's like even without the cream, it just feels good because it's cold because it's metal. So it's this metal applicator tap, you put a little bit in like literally just a tiny little drop. And then you'd like spread it around here. Hold on, I'll show you. There we go. Do you keep it in your in your little fridge in your bathroom, I don't I actually haven't used that for a little while I have to get a new one it kind of broke. See how you just kind of like put it on. And first of all, it just feels good. It's kind of like a nice little self care moment. And secondly, it really does help to brighten so I've just been using both interchangeably to see what I like better, but I have decided that I don't think that there's one eye cream for every day. I think it just depends on your vibe. So that's why I bought Chu and I liked doing it with brands like the inky list because they're cheap. The ingredients are good, good, good packaging like easy to transport. So I've been testing these to brighten eye cream and caffeine eye cream and I'm a fan. So that's what I've got an ice cream. It's a really good price point for an eye cream that exactly does what it does. If you want to try a few and you want to like have a little bit of a variety. Yeah, for sure. I'm gonna get that one it looks I have like sinus pressure today. So I feel like that would feel so good right now under my nails really good. Nice. Okay, yeah. All right, well, my next one, my next one would be a good gift for your sister, your best friend your mom. It would be a great item to purchase if you're going on a long trip for the holidays and you need to wear something comfy on the plane. And Amy, you saw me in this recently. I wore it coming home from Israel. And this is it's like it's such a good steal. It's a great find. I got it off of Amazon. It's called pretty garden women's 2020 To fall fashion outfits that the brand is pretty good. We will post the link to peace sweat suit. They have like a bunch of different colors, but it's really really cozy like medium weight fabric, not your traditional like sweat suit fabric that you think it is just very soft and kind of like silky. And the fit is really good. You know when you're good and the whole outfit looks so chic like it was cute pensive it doesn't look like an Amazon purchase. Totally. It was 38 Oh my god, half of them insane pants on top. And, like of course it's a Dolman sleeve which is like the big kind of like bat wings situation and then the sweats have nice little pocket and they're jogger with like the cup on the bottom. And they come in a million colors. I mean, like really cute stuff. And I went with black just because I feel like it's classic and no one could tell that I weren't on the plane there and on the plane. But yeah, yeah, I think I'm gonna get it for my mom for Christmas. I think she'll really Yeah, I was just but yeah, that's such a great gift for girlfriends or moms 100% Yeah, highly recommend. I love that. I'm gonna have to check that out how many colors like a million maybe you'll get one as a girl. Oh my getting a little prelude to the gifting. They have I'll tell you how many they have like a beige they have multiple green shades. They have multiple Gray's multiple blues they have pink they have like lavender, they have maroon I mean there's a whole array of really cute they have white which would be you know great for the summer. So yeah, okay, it was so good. I had a good head like a comfortable sports bra on under it and I felt like I was in my pajamas the whole time which was you know, yeah, so long for such a good fight. Yeah, well speaking of gifts, still in the eye subject there's one thing that I did want to mention as a holy grail for 2022 I've decided I did review this in a product junkies episode maybe in the beginning I can't remember but it's the Milani supercharged brightening under eye 10 This is Oh yeah. The best concealer I will say that I've used this year. So it's almost like a color correcting tint. But for anyone with dull dark circles under their eyes. I've just been using this like Katie as an example. I just use this in Israel every day when we were on our trip. I never put on concealer. I just use this real Yeah, your skin looks Yeah, so this is I just find that when it's more of a color corrector it takes that darkness out and it brightens your eyes so I found that I really don't need anything other than this. And the formula is so much it's almost like it's very hydrating so it's not you know some concealers are so dry. This is very very hydrating. So it's almost like a serum you're putting on it's almost like skincare in a way and it really covers up those dark circles and then you know if you're going out at night maybe put on a little bit more concealer but you might not even need it like some days like you know depending on the night before. I can just wear this would be fine. I would say 90% of the time I can wear this and be fine but I just had to mention it again because it's such a good good product. It's the Milani supercharged brightening under it when it's 1099 you get to Ulta they have a few different colors but it's again more of like a tint less of a concealer but I use it as a concealer and it's such a good every day and so like this is like such a fun gift for girlfriends because it works for everyone. And it's just a fun little gift to give away to give to friends family whatever. So anyway, just wanted to highlight this is like a 22 favorite. Yeah, I have that also and I have used it a lot and actually I forgot about it. It's in my drawer somewhere I need to get it back out now. It's like I forget about it too. And then I started using recently and it's it's so good for travel too. Nice. All right, well back onto the travel deal. This was another one of my hacks on our long flight so if you're going somewhere for the holidays, you're gonna want to order this stat oh it is the T RTL travel pillow. Of course it was like Instagram. You know marketing. I was like they're listening. They know that I was about getting this. Yeah, every five seconds and so I ordered it but it's like it's the coolest neck pillow because you wrap it around your head like a scarf. I'm gonna do it wrong because I'm on camera of course. It's like a scarf that you wrap around it has velcro on on each end. And on one end of the scarf inside is this shaped thing that cradles your neck and your like the sight of your way in your in your cheek and then you snap it on. Like a scarf that is so in your head. It's like looks like a half neck brace. That's exactly what is that's Yeah, it's like a half neck brace. That's probably where they got the brilliant idea. And your head just completely like stays in place the whole time when you're sitting on a plane. Oh my god, you know, you have to sit up, right? It's like because of this side is wrapped in like a scarf. Your head doesn't wobble. That way. We don't get those pains in your neck. Yeah, and you don't get woken up because you're going like this every five seconds. Right? You know what I mean? Just keep it like. Yeah, the ones that go around your neck, they're just like squishy. I just don't think they're that great. So and also what else? The other thing that was really cool. Like when I turned to lay on my side, it kind of conformed to the seat. So it was really, it was really comfortable. Yeah. And then you got some old time picking like me. I searched like a solid seven hours. Unreal. Like, how much does that cost? 4249. Okay, not bad. Right gift? Yeah, it's a really, it's a it's an essential like, anytime I'm on a flight that's longer than like, I don't know, four hours from now on. I'm taking cozy like it looks like it's warm around your neck. It is. It's the fabric is fleece. Ah, nice. So it is super cozy. Yeah, that is needed. That is such a good invention. I love that. You know, it's genius. Best Travel Pillow ever. That's a great gift. Okay, so I am completely switching topics. I'm gonna give you two things again, because they kind of go together. And it's very random. But it's a good find. So I think I told you about this. And I'm actually eating this right now. So I found Okay, so I love bagels. And I don't eat them that much, obviously, because they're so bad for you. But once in a while, you know, you get that good craving for a bagel. And sometimes they do just have that bagel. But if you want to bagel more often, I found this product at Whole Foods called the better bagel. I think it's new. I hadn't seen it before. I mean, here's what it looks like. I'm showing you my sandwich here because they made a little sandwich with eggs on top. But I've never had a bagel that tastes good. That's like, you know, low carb. So the idea is they call it this is what they say transforming the most carb heavy foods into the least meat the better bagel and so essentially, it has five grams net carbs, one gram sugar that you know high in protein. It's 40 carbs, but it's 35 grams of fiber. So really, it's five net carbs. And it's 26 grams of protein. So it's great. I know. So I've been obsessed with these. They have all different flavors like the one that I'm having now is an everything bagel. They have plain I think they have cinnamon raisin and chocolate. So she could find totally, I mean, it's not exactly like a real bagel, but it's the closest I've found and it's yummy. And so I've read a lot of what's in it. Okay, so the ingredient list I didn't think was very bad. So I'm going to read the classic. It does have wheat, okay. But here here's the ingredient list water, wheat protein isolate. Modified wheat starch, modified food starch, agave fiber, extra virgin olive oil, yeast, sea salt and enzymes. That's not bad. At least it's like stuff we can pronounce. Yeah, you know, it's not too many ingredients. It's not a list of 50 things. It was at Whole Foods. So I figure I can't be awful. So again, not eating these every day. But when I want to bagel this is what I'm eating now. So I'm obsessed. And by the way 35 grams of fiber is like nearly your daily nutrition need for fiber which so that's great. Yeah, I know. I guess the fibers coming from the the agave fiber which I've never actually heard of, but I know sounds clean. I don't know. And then yeah, they have classic which is plain everything cinnamon vegan chocolate chip. So I showed them so like a good fun product especially as we're like getting into winter and holidays and you want more of that cozy food a little heavier food. I thought that was good. And then with that, and we may have talked about this on the show before I can't remember but I've been topping it with the Kite Hill chive cream cheese. Yeah, favorite. So good. We've talked about this brand before we love all their products. The chive cream cheese is really yummy. So I'm currently having the better bagel with the Kite Hill chive cream cheese and a little egg on top. So kind of loving this situation so and does the bagel doesn't like because that's a lot of fiber for one meal. It doesn't bother your stomach or make you feel like crazy full or anything afterwards like probably no more than no I don't feel crazy full. I feel full. Like I feel like it's good because sometimes you just crave a car. It definitely feels like you're eating a good car, but it's you know, five net carbs instead of 40 like a normal bagel would be. Yeah, that's me. Yeah. So I am obsessed. It's my new favorite product at Whole Foods. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, my last one. Interesting, because it's not our traditional recommendation. It's not really a product. But it is self care tool. And it is like totally in line with wanting to like, feel good and look good, especially like maybe at the end of the holiday season when you've done your party circuit. And maybe you ate all the holiday cookies and drank all the holiday drinks and everything. This is a good way to maybe just slowly get back into your routine and to feel really good. And to get your face snatched after shoving all of the junk food in your mouth for the month while you've been partying. And it's an app. This is my new favorite app. Oh, it's called. Hold on a second. Wait to go. Alright, one second. I had it here. And I accidentally extended it. Actually, I'm just gonna do it from my phone because I haven't on my phone. So it's the lovely app, l UVLY. And what it is, is it's a face yoga, and face massage. Oh my gosh, and genius. I'm obsessed. It's so genius. I started doing face yoga. Like last week when you know, we got back in town last week. And you and I were both just like, totally wiped out just like crazy. I couldn't do anything I couldn't work out. But I just sat there. I was like, I gotta do something i. So I thought, Oh, let me do some face yoga, because I'm about to turn 41. And I just, you know, let's like see if I can do something with these wrinkles. So I found this app 10 minutes a day of a different face yoga routine every single day. And then it also comes with a 10 minute lifting face massage, which is the same one all the time. But it feels amazing. And I use Shelly Marshalls fabulous face oil. And I follow and it's great because the app is it's a picture of it's a video of a woman sitting down and she's showing you everything to do while there's a voiceover telling you everything to do so it's very easy to follow. That's good. It's great. And they also have like one minute breathwork skincare insights like all of these great little tips for your skin. It's free. How to relax your face. I think I paid like, I want to say it was like I think 299 for the month or something. Okay, so I think it's totally reasonable. Yeah. And and it's worth it. I have legitimately noticed the differences. Well, yeah, I mean, I know we talked about this in our episode with Shelly Marshall. I don't know if it was last year or the beginning of this year. And it was all about face yoga. And she was saying like, what a big difference it makes. And I don't even think she was doing Botox and stuff anymore, because she's been doing face yoga so much and I follow her stuff on Instagram, but sometimes it's like, yes, that consolidated an app. So it's hard to find and know exactly what to do. Right. I because I think she has a web I think I think she has some exercises on her website too. But I love that idea of having an app that you can just show them and it's a day and actually but to plug Shelley because she I went she was the first resource that I went to because you know we love her and her website she does have a new subscription model where you can get all of her videos teaching you how to do everything and just because I've have my phone around me more often I just like an app was a little bit more streamlined. But like all day long we highly recommend beauty shaman Shelly Marshall, but yeah, so she I mean she she has kind of the reason why I wanted to give it a try and I noticed a difference in my fine lines around my eyes pretty instantly and my neck and feel like I have like this double chin several times and I've well no but it's like the it's this muscle I was doing all this research on it. This muscle right here the older we get it like loosen right and so it just doesn't look as defined. So I've been doing that and yeah and I'm obsessed so now it's like in the morning when I'm having my coffee when the house is quiet I might do my little 10 minute face you're like the lymphatic drainage in your face. Exactly. That's my age such like I am on the lymph train like I feel so strongly in it being very powerful especially for my autoimmune because your immunity lives in your lymphatic system and I have I just feel so much better after I do like my dry brushing and my shower and all of that so it would only make sense that it would help with the face and you know I get my face gets really puffy and everything is probably from lymph. So I'm inflammation. Highly recommend. Yeah. I was it's funny, I was watching, I'll try to post it if I can find it when we aired this episode, I was watching this tic tac the other day of this girl who's had been doing face yoga for the last year. And she showed her face a year ago now and it was looked so much different, like her face a year ago was like puffy or just looked a little bit more inflamed. Like she was holding fluid in it. And now it's a lot more to find. And so it was like a really good before and after, to really show that if you stick with it, it does work. Yeah, I think I think consistency is definitely key. Like, I don't think you can do it one day a week and expect to get results. I think consistency is like in every day. It's like folding it into your practice of whatever else you're doing. Just add it on to the list of all the other things we women have to do I know right. But then we've got to do it a couple of days a week, at least it's like, yeah, I mean, thank you. But I would say I would imagine that like the least like three days a week would give you results. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. And that's a really good takeaway for the holidays too. Because you're right, it's it's the season and all of a sudden, like the next few weeks are going to be drinking and eating and all the things which is so fun, but it will be good to come back and have tools to access like face yoga and like our from a reset that we love and all of those things to come back in the new year and start fresh. So good one. Absolutely. Well, Nirvana's sisters family hopefully this was helpful to get some gifts and some fun little things for your friends and family and hope you have a great holiday season. Thank you for everything over the last year. We have more episodes coming in December. But if we don't get a chance to say happy holidays, and thank you for all of your support and feedback. We love it. And we will talk to you soon. Oh, I'm gonna say this. Oh, we promised that we would give a little recap on our trip or Israel trip. So I think expect to catch up episode from us in January and we'll chat about the holidays and our trip and everything good and sure it's good wine with you because it was yes, epic. It was epic dress. We're still recouping but it was epic. Yeah. All right. Happy holidays. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you've just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 82: Fascia Health And Kinesthetic Intelligence- Revolutionizing Your Wellness Routine With Lauren Roxburgh (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 82.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Amy: 0:00

We are so excited for you to dive into this episode with Lauren Roxborough learning all about fascia. Make sure you listen until the end where we are going to be talking about a giveaway we're doing with Lauren. Enjoy the episode and stay tuned till the end Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie Chandler: 0:33

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Amy: 0:43

Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. It's Amy and Katie and we are here with Lauren rocks Bora, who's dubbed the body whisperer. She is a world renowned board certified Structural Integration bodywork practitioner, you've probably seen her on Instagram, doing all of her amazing fascia workouts which we're here to you're all about. She is a Pilates Pro and author and educator specializing in fascia health and mind body alignment. Lowe is the co founder of aligned life studio, which is a virtual platform that offers a new paradigm in health and fitness, which we're super excited to hear about. And she has a unique focus on fascial wellness designed to help people align and strengthen their bodies shed physical and emotional weight while enhancing resilience and confidence. So welcome to the show. Lauren, we're so excited to talk to you.

Unknown: 1:33

Oh my gosh, you guys, Amy. And Katie, thank you so much for having me. It's so fun to do this kind of thing. So I'm excited to dive in.

Amy: 1:41

As to before we start off, we just want to do a Nirvana moment around the week and talk about something that brought us joy this week. So I'll kick it to Katy to talk about your Nirvana this week. All right.

Katie Chandler: 1:53

Thanks, Amy. What Yes, Lauren, we're so excited to talk to you. I have so many great questions for you. But before we do, I think mine Irvine, I was kind of going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to share this because it's personal. And it's probably a little too early to share it. But I thought it was a really special moment. So I'm going back to work as a model, which I once was many years ago. And I signed with my agency the other day. So that was exciting. That was a fun moment. So yeah, that's it.

Amy: 2:22

That's super exciting. You scared me for a second when you said I haven't taught and when I say you're pregnant.

Unknown: 2:28

That's so exciting, though. Wow.

Katie Chandler: 2:32

Thank you. And the reason why I'm like, kind of keeping it close to the chest is because like, who knows how it's gonna pan out. We'll see if the work starts rolling in. But you know, I'm gonna go back and give it a go. It's a science experiment. And it'll be fun. Beautiful. That's

Amy: 2:47

amazing. So proudly, so

Katie Chandler: 2:48

what about you?

Amy: 2:49

So well, my younger so I have two boys, Lauren, and my younger son just turned 13. And he had his bar mitzvah this weekend, this past weekend. So it was an incredible weekend with family and friends. He did so good. I was so proud of him. It's so hard, I think to get up there and like, read through, you know, read the Torah and talk about what your Bar Mitzvah means to you. It's just, you know, it's it's a big challenge. And I think it's really given him a lot of confidence to get through it. And just He did such a great job. And we had such a fun party for him. And just, it was just really, really special. And then we're taking him to Israel as a part to which cage is joining us for doing a big family trip and a couple of weeks. So future nirvana. But um, yeah, so it was just a really fun time and wonderful, amazing. We can sell oh my god go on this week. Yeah. And that's a transition in life. That's beautiful. Big one. Yeah. What about you, Lauren?

Unknown: 3:49

would be it's actually that we're you know, living in the South Island of New Zealand and Spring has sprung and it is just absolutely stunning. Here. The sun is shining. The grass is green. The flowers are blooming we planted our veggie garden and so it's starting to really blossom like we can already eat from the garden. And to me that's Nirvana at its greatest, lifeforce energy, connecting with mother nature and being present and watching the growth happen every day and putting love into it and doing my sound bowls over it. And you know, watching the sun, just open it up. So it's really beautiful to see nature in action for me. I love that. Yeah,

Katie Chandler: 4:30

that's amazing. And we should say, Lauren is coming into coming to us all the way from New Zealand and she is in the coolest space right now. What did you call it? What did you say this space was before? Give a name for it.

Unknown: 4:41

This is a geodesic dome. It's my healing dome where I do all of my programming, record all my videos and webinars and podcasts. So it's a great little sanctuary for me away from the noise of like home and kids and all of that so it's my little escape hatch.

Katie Chandler: 4:59

Yeah.

Amy: 5:00

Looks like oh, is it like, is it? Is it like near your house? Or is it somewhere you go.

Unknown: 5:05

So it's uh, we're on about an acre of land. And so it's like a I don't know, maybe about a 20 step from our deck to, like, gosh, garden and I can see the lake in the mountains and everything. So it's,

Amy: 5:18

it's very nice.

Unknown: 5:19

It's pretty awesome. didn't ever think we'd be living here, but we're making the most of it. So

Amy: 5:25

yeah, it's beautiful for our listeners will, will, will, will show some pictures of Lauren's amazing, beautiful space your your aligned life. mini studio over there.

Katie Chandler: 5:35

Exactly. All right. So that's okay. Do we have any questions to ask? And Lauren, you I know. You cover so many amazing things in regards to health and wellness and alignment and balance and but we are super interested in your very interesting perspective. And like, it's nothing I've ever really heard of before. It's like a very specialized thing. And that's fascia. And I would love for you to just help us better understand help our listeners, some of our listeners have probably never even heard the word. What is fascia? Why is it important? Why are we why should we be taking care of it? Why do you specialize on it?

Unknown: 6:24

Great questions. So it's really an interesting one, I never really thought I would just, you know, stumble upon this system of the body. But when I was it was about in 2008, I was going through a really tough time in my life. And I discovered the work of Ida Rolf, which is called Structural Integration. And it's the thing that I'm board certified in and essentially what it is is Ida Rolf discovered fascia in the 1960s. I mean, the ancient wisdoms like iron beta and Chinese medicine have known about it for ages. But it was the first time kind of Western medicine was acknowledging the system in the body. And she was actually in the 1960s. Either off was a rocket scientists studying the human body and gravity. And she was really curious. And she studied osteopathy. She looked into all the ancient wisdoms and yoga and all kinds of different like Reiki and healing modalities. And she decided to create a system, a systematic approach to bring the body into better structural alignment. So her whole idea was that when your body is functioning well, and relating to gravity, well, then the healing energy within you will just basically pulse through you and kind of fix and cure everything. So I found it in 2009. And I started getting really curious about it, I had a session myself with my teacher. And I just got off the table. And I felt like I had had 10 years of talk therapy and 10 years of physical therapy in 190 minute session. So how to learn this, like I and I was going through so much I was going through divorce from my ex husband, my mother was very sick with cancer, I was going through a traumatic thing in my work life, I was being embezzled, all of these things were happening, I call it my perfect storm. But I found this work. And I did the work. And I signed up and I did the two year program. And it just like I found my purpose. So I realized that when I was younger, in high school, I was never really that great at school, like writing and all of those things and math, but what I figured out is that I had something else called kinesthetic intelligence. And so that means basically, that you're really good at feeling, feeling through your hands or feeling through your heart or feeling on all of those levels. And so what's exciting to me about fascia is that it is now being called the sixth sense. So if you think about like the nose is to smelling, the ears are to hearing the skin is to touch the tongue is to taste the eyes are to sight the fascia is to feeling and so I stumbled upon this amazing system in the body. And I realized that it was my way of really learning about the body through like learning about the anatomy, learning about energy learning about structural imbalances, when people have, you know, issues within the body like compensations, postural problems, trauma, tension, all these things that layer up into the body, they create this buildup within the fascial system. So it's really an interesting question, because it's quite a large answer. And it's sort of very comprehensive. So I had to kind of do the work myself, go through my own, you know, turning my own pain into purpose, and then realizing that this was actually my gift and I found my gift through are going through the mud, you know, like the lotus flower rising through the mud. And so now I feel super lucky and blessed to be able to share this with more and more people on the planet because now especially we've had so much more trauma, collective trauma in our world and every human on the planet have had some sort of extreme trauma in the last few years, with all of the grief of everything we've felt from the world, and also all the transitions and transformations we've all had to go through. So right now, there's never been a better time to get to know your fascia, which is considered the sensory organ. So as we know, we think of when we can feel feeling is healing. So feeling is the beginning to creating the shift within which helps create the shift on the planet. So it's a really powerful part of the body that science in the last few years has just recently create had been had the chance to use new technology, new cameras, to see fascia in a living body. So for years, we always thought, oh, yeah, fascia, it's a scaffold teen it's holding you up and gravity, some people would call it the organ of shape and form. It's this webbing, you know, structure are holding you up. It's Think of it like, you know, the white part on chicken. So that's like the fascia. But what we didn't realize until the last few years is that it's not just holding us up. It's actually enabling cell communication. It's touching every single cell of your entire body. It's like a living tapestry intertwining every system of the body, all 12 systems. So the lymphatic system, the nervous system, the endocrine system, the organs, all of it, it's, it's just absolutely incredible. So it's so exciting to me, and even when you're looking at it in the spiritual world, it's also the way consciousness is transmitted through us. So it's how we move energy. So it's how the brain talks to the gut, the heart talks to the brain is through the fascia, the connective tissue, and what it's made out of is collagen and elastin. And it also has a water shell around it. And the water is what creates the electricity in the body. So how cool is that? A bash shell, like cytoskeleton, like a soft skeleton, but it also transmits energy and information. It's the biological fabric that keeps us elastic, but also helps the energy and the information and the nutrients pulls through us. So cool.

Katie Chandler: 12:40

I never know that it was that complex. I always, of course, I had no idea but I always just thought it was it was something that was related to your muscles. And it was that sound. So I thought so it Yeah. Is it? Does it live? course through your

Unknown: 12:55

muscles? No, no, no, that's great. Actually, this is what I always thought too. And this is how I wrote about it for years, because I didn't know the next, you know, kind of evolution of what we're able to see now under the microscope and through science and case studies. So I always thought like, oh, yeah, it's just it's superficial fascia. So it lives right underneath your skin, and it wraps around your muscles individually and also wraps around the joints. But there's what we're realizing now and what we've found is that it does that but it also weaves deeper into this into the deeper they call it deep fascia. So their superficial fascia that lives underneath the skin, that's the one we want to have plump, and hydrated. That gives us that radiance and flow and juiciness on the skin. Because when we have good healthy collagen, full fascia that's, you know, that's moving and juicing itself and staying hydrated, then our skin gets plumped up. But then we have it weaving through, it's inside the lining of our guts. It's also around each individual organ, the heart, the lungs, the bladder, the kidneys, the adrenals, it's everywhere. And it's it's even in the scalp and the face. So it's wrapped around our whole body as like a kind of an Saran wrapping. Under The Skin. Some people call it the second skin but also goes deeper into that kind of weaving that tapestry and through the entire body, touching every cell and every system. It's fascinating.

Amy: 14:24

So it is fascinating. And I'm sure there could be like a whole discussion about this. But to break it down for the listeners in terms of like what they can do at home, like do you go to get a treatment done? Or can you do it yourself with tools? Like how does one start like I want to start work? I don't know what the word is working out my fashion tomorrow, like what do I do? Where do

Unknown: 14:46

we start? I know I would say, well, fashion is my love language and it's called me communicating with you. You know this, it's the origin of sense and feeling. So it's always talking to you. It's speaking to You through sensations it speaking to you through your phone, the pulse of your heart, the speed of your breath, butterflies in your belly, the weight of the world on the shoulders, pain, gut feelings, intuition, all of the sensations, maybe even like arousal, contraction, expansion. All of those things are messages from your fascia from your sensory organ. And so how do we start working with it, we have to, we have to listen to it. So we need to not numb we need to realize that pain is a message. Reframing the relationship to pain as a way to understand our body, learn the language and master the language of our body. That's I mean the language of our body the secret language of our body is coming from our fascia. So when we do that, we have the opportunity to really heal and to transform on so many levels. So the things that I recommend it's funny being here in New Zealand, I had these total epiphanies because I used to go and have the bodywork done that I was also learned and coming here There isn't anyone that does it because there's only 3000 people in the world that are actually trained in this type of bodywork. So if you're in big cities usually can find someone we're in a very small town village and I so I thought well, okay, I guess I'm gonna have to be my own body worker. So I'm I have designed these self bodywork tools for people to like, open their diaphragm open their lower back there QL their feet, their jaw, the cranium, all the different areas. So I'm actually creating a whole program around this to do the self bodywork. But for people to get started, it's very easy. You lay on a foam roller, you're addressing your fascia right away. What I love that is it's helping you drop into the parasympathetic state of the nervous system, which is about rest, digest and heal. Everyone's talking about this right now. But when we get on the roller, we're addressing the fascial system, which is helping our body go into healing mode. So rolling, rebounding breathwork going in an infrared sauna is phenomenal for your fascia, going and doing earthing getting natural sunlight in the morning is one of my big rituals. It's like it's my one minute morning ritual, get my coffee, walk out on the grass stand on the grass barefoot or some kind of dirt barefoot, let the natural light come into my eyes and just fill me up with you know, my my, my body with light and actually thinking of the fascia, the you know, the the webbing the collagen network, and then the water that's wrapped around it. So the sun is coming in to kind of turn on the electricity in the fascia. So recharging your body battery, and then the earth energy is doing the same. So those are phenomenal. And then just getting up and doing some really, they're called like, whole body stretches. So moving your body in different directions of like multi plane work. So twisting, inverting, walking, any kind of deep. I don't necessarily think of yoga as fascia opening, of course it is addressing it. But we have a different way to do it, where it's more like you're thinking of stretching all the way from your foot to the back of your head. Because there's 12 planes of fascia. It turns out that those planes of fascia, so I'll give you an example of one, the backplane goes from the bottom of your feet up through the back of your legs up through your back and that to the top of your head. So that's the back line. It turns out that these fascial planes relate and correlate to the 12 acupuncture meridians. So we're addressing our meridians and our chi, when we're doing stuff with the fascia. So thinking of the body, not as spot treating it, but thinking of it more holistically and systematically. So if I do anything to my feet, I know I'm addressing my head and neck and jaw, and vice versa. So those kinds of things are very powerful ways. It's like looking at it with x ray vision. And, you know, working your body in the different planes of movement, getting yourself upside down doing inversions, any kind of twisting, even if it's just going for a walk and channeling your inner Giselle with more transverse motion breathwork, self bodywork rolling, all of those things are phenomenal ways. Everything is in the Align life studio where I put all of everything that I've learned, I just experiment things that have actually worked for me and my friends in my community and my clients. I put in the in the line life studio, like for instance using that squishy ball. And like I haven't, it's back there in the frame. But it's a squishy ball and you use it to roll your belly out and you roll your organs out and that is addressing the vagus nerve, it's flushing the lymph in the belly in the gut, then you have more access to your core when you're doing like stuff to actually strengthen. So my whole perspective of like fitness has evolved because what I now know is that it's not about doing a million reps or Are you spending an entire hour in the gym or in the studio? It's actually about how do you use your body throughout your day. It's like how we use our body throughout our day is how our body will be shaped. So if we're hunched over the whole time, and we never kind of undo that, then we're going to be shaped like that. You see people walking down the street looking like that. That's the fascia gluing itself, becoming thick, dehydrated and brittle. So it's fine. If we need to hunch and be on our computers and tax and all of that. That's cool. It's like that's not going away. But we need to undo it on the daily and bring that juice back in and that hydration and that suppleness. So just like even turning on some music and doing some somatic dance or jumping around on the grass, or the sand or the beach, getting fresh air, all of these things are addressing the fascia, and

Amy: 20:49

how I see them many rebounder behind you. So that's a good way to loosen things up. So absolutely.

Unknown: 20:58

Movement medicine.

Amy: 21:00

Yes. You know, it's funny that you're saying this, I just My older son, who's 15 has been having back pain for like, like, all year, he wrestles, and we went to like an orthopedic guy. And he was like, Yeah, you need some physical therapy to stretch out and stretch out those areas. And he did it. But then he wasn't doing it at home. Of course, like he's, you know, teenagers not like doing his stretches. But we just went back last week, because his back still hurts. Did an x ray, everything's fine, thank God, but he's like, your hamstrings are so tight. You need to do these stretches. And I'm sure the stretches address the fascia and everything else. But he's like, you have to do these stretches like twice a day to loosen up your hamstrings, which is why your back is sore up. So it was like my husband and for him to hear that from some I've been telling him that but it was good for him to hear that from somebody else. Yeah. But you know, it's all it's all connected. Do you

Unknown: 21:57

really is

Katie Chandler: 22:00

why I was just gonna ask why is it so painful when I get on the foam roller? And I do my legs? Like, is it something that if the more I do it, the easier it gets?

Unknown: 22:11

Yes. So it usually has to do with the firmness of the roller as well. I prefer a more softer like it's a medium density roller because you can use it just to work out and do the Pilates moves and use it for rolling. But what we're now finding is a lot more of the research in Germany and through the really through the anatomy world is that we shouldn't be doing aggressive hard rolling because it's especially because what we're doing when we're rolling is addressing the superficial fascia. So we want to make sure that we're not digging into the bone but we're actually trying to get into that matrix that lays underneath the skin and above the muscle. So great question. The more you do it the less it hurts 100% So start and just go really slow. Use your breath you can also warm up sometimes I recommend warming up with like dry brushing to get the limp going before you do your rolling and then finishing with a five or 10 minute bounce on the rebounder to really flush so your dry rushing gets the limbs going the rolling gets the fascial matrix clearing kind of like flushing the congestion or the the scar tissue or the what it was like calling it the other day that Grizzle the gristle in the tissue and then you're bouncing which will help your body again flush everything out like really get that lymph going and then your body will flush whatever has been broken down from the toxins in the tissues as well because a lot of times we don't realize it but within that scar tissue is is a pool of congestion or toxic buildup. So when we when we flush that through then your body has to eliminate it so you want to support it through that and I recommend also doing the sauna too as part of that sequence of people are going to it sounds like a lot and if you can't if you don't have a sauna although the higher dose sauna blankets are pretty amazing now and making it more accessible for people and more affordable. My like protocol with our community is dry brush Foam Roll Bounce and then finish with a sweat and it sounds like a lot you only need to do each of them for like five or 10 minutes and then you've got this amazing holistic healing protocol.

Amy: 24:18

I love to do that.

Katie Chandler: 24:20

You do it every day.

Unknown: 24:22

I do I really do. And I'm a big fan of 8020 rule like be and I'm all about like detox to retox like I'm really about balance I don't I don't like to over drink or anything but I do like have a glass of wine in the evening and have my coffee in the morning and then I do that and I feel so clear. And so vibrant. And so kind of like it takes this film away like it fully is the the clutter of the mind and it flushes the clutter of the body. It's like an inner exfoliation if you want to think about it like that. Like we always exfoliate our face and we floss our teeth. Doing that to ourselves. In our tissues from the inside out, that's what our bodies need more than ever speaking of the immune system, that's another system that's addressed. Whenever we work with our fascia, we're boosting our immunity, because we're getting the white blood cells pumping through our body better so phenomenal for preventing getting sick. I need

Katie Chandler: 25:18

to get some of your tools because I have like the foam roller from hell and I, I've just started dry brushing daily, I'm, yeah, it's too firm, I need to get some of as Lauren for the listener, she she has an entire array of her of her own tools that she sells. And I also saw that you're you are rolling out your fascia with a small ball as well, not just the large foam rollers. So there's a variety of tools that people can use, right.

Unknown: 25:47

Yeah, and the reason I did that I originally came out with my first book taller, slimmer, younger, which was about the big 36 inch roller because it was the one I was using with all my pro athletes and my celebrities. And then I you know, I was doing the bodywork with them and the workouts and I realized like there's this the deeper layers of the fascia as well. So the the bigger roller is good for the superficial fascia. The deeper I mean, the smaller tools are better for the deeper fascia. Like I was saying earlier, you can get into the belly and really flush the gut out lymphatic Lee but also from a tissue perspective. And then the Infinity roller, which is like two little nodules, kind of like two tennis balls and a sock, which is what you know, if you've ever been to physical therapy, you know that they use that for like your shoulder blades or your feet. So I just thought you know what I was over the whole thing slipping away. So I created a tool, it's a little bit softer than tennis balls. And then you use that for your feet. For a lot of places where the muscles attach to the joints that you can't get to with the bigger the bigger roller. So that's why I have multiple tools based on the two books that I wrote. And one was about superficial and the other one was about going a little bit deeper.

Amy: 26:54

Yeah, I was gonna say I am I have those balls that I would like if my back gets tight on like put it in a sock and like rub it against the wall. But yeah, it goes all over the place. You can't like exactly get it but it's very hard. Yeah, speaking to your point about like, is something like that those athletic ones too hard.

Unknown: 27:12

You know, this isn't what you're seeing question and I'm happy you brought it up. Because I with all the new research, it's quite important to be saying out loud right now that the aggression with the fascia is not where we're going. We do not like shoving and you know, I won't use the word but like we we want to give the fascia love, we want to think of it like sending your body like these love notes, through working with the fascia and tuning in and listening aggression with fascia will just build up more scar tissue in the long run and will also make your nervous system go into fight or flight, which is the exact opposite of what we're trying to do. Which is why I think my method or philosophy is so much more of a feminine energy thing. That doesn't mean it's just for women, it means it's just more nurturing, more loving, more supportive. Those harder balls in the new science is saying no, we do not want to be doing that we want to go slow, we want to breathe, we want to feel like almost like a memory foam is kind of cradling the tissue and then wringing it out, you know, you see a lot of them attic stuff, it's quite light. So you know we're working with the limp, but then we're going to deeper layer as well with the fascia so softer and more present, really feeling into it and listening and figuring out where the blockages are. So it's not about getting on a roller or doing body rolling. fascial work is not about like rushing through anything. It's about really tuning in words and feeling again, it's really

Amy: 28:45

and then on your website do you have sort of like you're saying this like sessions on if I wanted to do a 10 minute whatever in the morning to like, loosen out just the whole body like you have things like that

Unknown: 28:58

got like the rise and shine on the roller. We've got all kinds of like seven minute fascia flows now because we're finding those that New York Times article based on a lot of great research that people were getting insane benefits from working out for like seven minutes a day. I know I remember something about Mary when they were like seven minute ABS or seconds. I'm like that reminded right. I love that movie. I love her. But anyway, so it's just one of those things where we realize like, also people only have so much time. So my thing is now not overwhelm people with like an hour of content at one time. Put it in the morning, if you can do one seven minute thing in the morning, and then do like a five minute thing before bed you will sleep better and deeper or you'll go into rest and digest and heal more efficiently. You know, you can tap into that vagus nerve and those kinds of things. So, spending and also thinking of your body throughout the day listening to the sensations and remember you take 26,000 breaths a day, you know, I mean, it's like every breath you take is an opportunity Unity to create shift or release or metabolize stress better as well. And every step we take, we take 10,000 steps a day without even going for like a long walk, every step we take is an opportunity to kind of move and strengthen your body I think people forget also that just sitting burns calories, you know, moving throughout your day, your your body is working really hard, you don't have to go and like burn 600 calories on the treadmill. That's an old belief system that actually doesn't make sense. So how can we make our bodies more efficient? How can we support all of our systems, metabolism, digestion, you know, endocrine system, the hormones, why not this fascia is touching all of those systems. So use it for enhancing every part of you.

Katie Chandler: 30:50

It's really revolutionising a way of self care. I feel like because you're saying that, for so many years, it's been all about like, work harder, you know, push through, you have to sweat, you have to do these massive workouts to get the type of body that you want. And what you're saying is, if you slow everything down, and you do it in a nurturing way, and you're taking care of your body, and you're releasing the stress that we all put on ourselves, that things will start to, hopefully, potentially work in which they should, right and heal themselves, which will give us results.

Unknown: 31:26

That's it. Yeah, you're rebooting, you're resetting. Everyone has the same muscle musculature underneath all of the layers of stress and armor and fear and unworthiness. We all have it under there. So a lot of times we put excess weight on as padding to protect us from the outside world, whether that's from trauma, toxins, tension, fears, whatever it is. So if we can realize that all of those messages are there to help us learn and grow and evolve the weight, whether it's physical or emotional weight, will, it will actually melt away and I know it sounds like magic. But when you work with the fascial, you people realize it's not the fat, it's the fascia. I mean, it's the weakened connective tissue, and it's the congestion that happens that builds up the kind of areas that we end up holding extra weight, or even thickness or density in that armor. It's really powerful. It is a whole different. It's a new paradigm, new paradigm shift.

Katie Chandler: 32:27

It sounds like it. It's very exciting. Now I would be remissed. And I think some of my, some of our listeners wouldn't be too pleased if we didn't ask about cellulite. Because I know we have all you know, we've anytime I've heard of fascia, I've thought that it had to do with rolling that out. So I don't know if that is true or not or what's up with that?

Unknown: 32:48

You know what, I love this question too. And there's quite a bit of information out in the world now about fascia and fascia blasting for cellulite. And thing is every woman is going to have some sort of cellulite and maybe there's like 2% of the world of women that don't naturally and that's probably has to do with hormones or genetics. So we all are going to have a version of it. But what it is, is it's essentially weakened connective tissue so that means that the collagen has broken down the elastin has broken down. So the best things we can do to regenerate our connective tissue and you know, reduce cellulite are getting the lymphatic system going so flushing the toxins through but also strengthening the actual webbing of the tissue. So creating more of that collagen and that's why I created a whole thing called fascia foods. We have recipes on this. There's specific things like color, I mean, like a bone broth and vitamin C, all kinds of you know, you need zinc and copper, vitamin C like certain minerals, magnesium that will help regenerate and strengthen the collagen. So also supplementing with collagen. If you have the right collagen can help as well. But drybrushing the same sequence that I recommended as well you know, the sweating and getting that moving, but also you can do something called body wash WA, which is a little bit different than the way I see fascia blasting, which I know I mean the Kardashians got fascia blasting on the map, which is good because that puts fascia in the mainstream media which I'm happy about. But I feel like again, it's more about using a tool to be more soothing and smoothing and loving rather than blasting. So I recommend using a body guasha tool, there's one that I'm actually coming out with it's like a mushroom I call it combing out the tangles of your tissues. So after the shower with the body oil I created this called the body elixir and so you put the oil on after you're hot and then you scrub yourself or you you know you basically comb out the tangles of your tissues. That is phenomenal for even crepey skin it can really help reduce crepey skin like that we start to see in the arms as we get older, around the hips. In inner thighs in the stomach, especially after having babies and your your tissue has, you know, expanded so much, or C sections where you have scar tissue. All of those things are really helpful in helping regenerate the collagen. So whenever we're working with the fascia, I think it's just really important to think of like, don't go against it, but go with it. And it's similar to dry brushing, you want to go in the direction of your heart, you may have certain areas where you take that body wash while and you scrub a little bit, but then you're always flushing it toward the heart to flush you know the toxins out and regenerate the tissue. But the other really important piece for cellulite is obviously hydration, and building musculature and tone. And that's where my method is a little different than other foam rolling methods out there. Because we do a lot of this opening and creating the space and the hydration. But we're also building strength from my Pilates background. So we're building that sustainable, elongated balance strength. That's what gives you that beautiful, graceful physique that everybody loves.

Katie Chandler: 36:05

I love Pilates. Oh

Amy: 36:06

is the guasha and the dry brush. Do they serve similar purposes or is the dry brush more like external and the guasha gets a little bit deeper.

Unknown: 36:13

You got it. You nailed it. Yeah, so the and the dry brush you want to do when you're dry before you shower. And then you write a warm and you can do some stretches in the shower and open things up. And then you slather yourself with this amazing oil that's super clean and has an olive oil base has Arnica in it and hemp seed oil, all of these in beautiful scent. And then you kind of can do affirmations while you do the body wash wha so you're really making it a ritual, it only takes like maybe two or three minutes. I mean, like all we're all so busy, like but if I can find like two or three minutes throughout the day, these little pockets or Windows, then at the end of the day, I've done an hour because I've done like two minutes here and five minutes there and a little bit of breath work and maybe a little sweat, you know, then I've actually done accumulation of an hour, but it didn't feel like it. And I've enjoyed every moment of it too.

Amy: 37:02

Yeah. And do you think? Is it better to do the foam roll part in the morning or at night? Or does it not matter?

Unknown: 37:08

I mean, I prefer if you have to choose doing it in the morning, because when you get on the roller, you're turning on something called proprioception. And that's awakening your body's relationship to the environment to gravity to balance all of those things. So if you have that on for the rest of your day, you're gonna also be able to be strengthening your muscles just throughout your day in a better way. So people not a lot, when should I roll before I work out? Or should I do it after you always want to roll it out before you work it out? Because you're you're bringing in the hydration, the blood circulation, the awareness, the proprioception, so all of those things are very helpful, not just in your workout, but in your life. So when you're waking up things and rolling out, you can do it before you go for a hike or a run, you will have more flexibility, more range of motion where you'll prevent injuries. So beautiful way to start the day. Yeah,

Amy: 38:05

yeah, I used to, I had a trainer for a few years. And we always foam roll in the beginning for like 510 minutes. And it made a huge difference. And she introduced me to those ball things. And she had this other thing it was sort of like, I don't know, it was like the same material as the small balls would have like a stick with two kind of wheels at the end. And I would do my feet on that I'd never done anything like that before it was crazy. Because my body would like shift, she'd be like, Oh, you're right, shoulders higher. And then I would she would like to help me do it on my feet. And then I all of a sudden would be like my heart felt flat or to the ground. It was amazing. So that's

Unknown: 38:41

what you're what you're feeling is that that's the sensory organs. So whenever people do one side of the body, and then you get them to walk up, walk around and feel the difference, like whoa, I feel lighter, you're actually you are feeling lighter, because you're you've actually like literally like scrubbed away whatever was in the way so you you do your legs feel lighter. Like let's say you're gonna go do pilates and you're like, Oh, my hamstrings are really tight. I'm gonna try to do my, you know, inverted core work or whatever stomach series and Pilates. If your tissues really tight like you were saying your son, his tissue is really tight, his legs will actually feel heavier. So by freeing up density and releasing the tension in the tissue, but also in the joints, and really lubricating yourself and feeling that sense of lightness, you'll be able to hold your legs up more efficiently. You won't have to use your lower back or your hip flexors, you'll actually be using your core. So it makes your body way more functionally, like biomechanically more efficient as well. That's why the athletes love it.

Amy: 39:41

Yeah, it makes sense. I was in a really good cadence with it and I got I got away from it and every time I feel more, I always feel better. So I gotta you remind me I gotta get back into it every time I workout because it really does make a huge difference. I know I need

Unknown: 39:52

to add it into my routine, more benefits from whatever you're going to do next, but used for you know,

Katie Chandler: 39:59

that It's motivational. Yeah, that's very motivating. Well, before we get into our rap session with you, I would love to hear, let's hear about your community and the aligned life studios and everything that you have created where our listeners can find you most importantly,

Unknown: 40:14

yeah, so for the last few years, I guess it was in 2021, it really took off when everyone had to stay home, you know, for COVID, we had already ramped up and started the membership program. And so my commitment to the community is to basically go and it's like, I'm possessed by learning about fascia and, and body alignment and building graceful strength. And so I it's my mission, I and it's so fun, I get to serve with joy and love, it's so great. So I go out, and I learn and I study and I research and I bring it into the studio, and we film, you know, multiple times a year, depending on how inspired I'm feeling. And then I put everything that I love. And that really works into the aligned life studio membership community. And every month we give the community a new drop, we call it with new flows and sequences. And so we have, we actually have bar in there, now we have yoga, these are all, you know, with the through line of fascia, all the people that we brought in, have the education background and have the fashion world in there as well. And then we also have fashion foods, the meal plans and meal guides. It's a whole web app, which we'll be ramping up a lot more, because people always like, Well, okay, I'll do the fashion flows workouts, but how do I eat to support that. So we have all the different tools that you see behind me here, the rollers, and the rebounder, and the fascial flows just on the mat, too. And so I continue to keep putting stuff in there. And then we also have our free community called the aligned life collective. And that's where I go in and I do webinars, so that I like to say that that's where I go and educate and inspire. It's kind of like our Facebook, but off of actual, it's not on Facebook, it's like you know, people at Facebook groups, we've actually decided to get away from Facebook, because of all the drama, we wanted to do something where it's more focused, you're not getting ads sent to you. So it's very specific, anyone can join there, it's just called the Lyne life collective.com. And then the Align life studio is sort of my Netflix of wellness, it's where we put all of these great flows and sequences, and we're continuing to evolve and expand it, and I'm coming out with my certification next year as well, which is very exciting, it's I think

Amy: 42:27

we're gonna is exciting grit.

Unknown: 42:29

And it's going to be a very basic certification so that people don't necessarily need to teach it. But if they want to learn and go deeper and really embody this work, at a deeper level, they'll learn about the emotional components and the physical components. And it's really, it's going to be very exciting. So I'm excited for that.

Amy: 42:49

That's great. And we can't forget about your Instagram, because I'm always looking at your Instagram, it's so inspiring and relaxing. And I like see some of the exercises you do. So that's also a good resource for people to check out.

Unknown: 43:03

I love I've actually using going that one. I know in the beginning, I was like, oh, Instagram, it feels so intimidating. And now I'm actually loving it. So it's fun. It's a fun process.

Katie Chandler: 43:12

That's nice, congratulations, or it's all very

Amy: 43:15

bite size pieces of fascia work we can all get during the day. Well, that's awesome. Um, we're definitely going to be checking that out. And I love that there's a whole like, it sounds like library of content. So you can do the fascial work, but then you can do flows that are aligned to that. So you feel like it's all kind of Yeah, connected, which is nice.

Unknown: 43:34

And you can pick things like if you need lower back love, or you know, you're having issues with your feet, or you want to connect to your deeper core or your bloating or you're feeling like your gut is off or whatever. There's so many different ways to target different areas of the body, but then you can do total body ones as well. So I want to share with your community also that we're going to give you guys a code so that you guys can join a go and get 30% off so we'll be sharing that

Katie Chandler: 44:00

soon. That's amazing. It's so generous. Thank you.

Amy: 44:02

Oh god, that's so exciting. Yes, yeah, I think our listeners will love that and report back on all the things they're learning Yeah, about fashion as well if they feel Yes, all of us will be. Okay, so let's get into our rap session. So what is your favorite wellness or beauty hack besides fascia work?

Unknown: 44:22

Oh, I have been loving the using red light therapy for the face. So those led masks and there's a little one that I've been using as well called the solar wave and I love it in the morning after you know you sleep on your face and you're all squished and you have those sleep lines. And you take that red light and you can kind of do fascial work with it but also the red light the red light stimulates the collagen and it just it feels so good and it kind of wakes you up for the day. And I also think it really helps with the beauty aspect to

Amy: 44:53

it for the Naskh Do you have a good recommendation? I've been looking at those and there's so many of them.

Unknown: 44:58

I did a ton of free Search and I found the Dr. Grossman one. Yeah, three minutes. So you and it has there. Wow. And then the red and the blue light that you can combine together. So the red lights College and the blue lights for like antibacterial or breakouts, it's great for the teenagers that they're getting breakouts. But it's three minutes. So anyone can do this what was saying

Amy: 45:19

like and it's a mask, so you could walk and you could actually walk around you could film or all while you're wearing your mask.

Unknown: 45:25

Laundry, do your tax scrape.

Katie Chandler: 45:28

Alright, that next one, we call it our five minute flow. You just got out of the shower and dry it off. And Uber has pinged you they're five minutes away. What are you gonna do to pull together and get in that Uber on time your holy grails your go? twos?

Unknown: 45:41

Whoo. Okay. Definitely, I probably wouldn't have time to do my body wash while in five minutes. So probably be mostly focused on the face. So I would put my vitamin C serum on because I'm obsessed with the vitamin C first than I do high colonic acid next. And then I do face oil, which I use my body lyxor as my face oil and so concealer that has you know, Hyrule onic acid and some cheeks and lips and mascara and brow and then I'm out.

Amy: 46:13

Good routine. Yeah. streamlined. Okay, and how do you maintain your daily nirvana?

Unknown: 46:19

Hmm, I think all the things I've shared with you guys just Well, I think the big one is also perspective. So really shifting perspective on everything that's happening instead of to us, for us. So it's there to go through it, to learn from it to realize that even if it's collectively or you know, personally, or in our family, there's always a reason and sort of embracing that. And, and then I think getting better at metabolizing. The stress that comes, you know, comes from that experience too. So working with their fascia is the way personally for me and because I'm a kinesthetic learner and a feeler. That's how I move through things and let them go. So with compound with love,

Katie Chandler: 47:07

that's really beautifully said, I, we always wrap with a like a mantra or an affirmation. And there's one that I saw all over your Instagram page and on your site that and I'm gonna butcher it. So I'm hoping you, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Unknown: 47:23

It's not just about feeling better. It's about getting better at feeling. Feeling better. It's about getting better at feeling. Yes. So that one is on a couple of times. You're right. So it's really about not only Yeah, not only trying to just feel your best all the time, but just feel all of it, feel the pain, feel the discomfort because those are messages to create a shift or a change and listening and tuning in. And the other affirmation though is every little cell in my body is well, I use that one with my kids a lot to want anything like that.

Katie Chandler: 48:01

That's fantastic. All right. Well, thank you so much. For your work. Yeah, I'm

Unknown: 48:07

always doing like the era polls with them or like, the cranial stuff or the feet stuff. They love it. It's cute. That's great.

Katie Chandler: 48:15

That's $1 how to do it.

Amy: 48:16

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This is such an invigorating conversation. I'm getting very motivated to get back into into the routine. So saying, This was awesome. Thank you so much.

Unknown: 48:27

Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. Thank you guys for having me. And I look forward to doing more in the future.

Amy: 48:35

Happy Holidays Nirvana sister's family. So I hope you enjoyed that episode with Lauren all about the fascia and you can incorporate some new routines as we mentioned, we have an exciting giveaway with Lauren we are going to be giving away three annual memberships to the Align life studio, as well as the travel roller all you need to do is follow Lauren Roxboro on Instagram, follow Nirvana sisters at Instagram and comment on our last post. You can tell us what you liked about the episode you could put an emoji anything really but that will enter you into our giveaway. We are so excited for you to enjoy the lion life happy holidays. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

Episode 80 - Goodbye DIY Health! Functional Medicine & Nutrition Talk With Lahana Vigliano, CEO Of Nuvitru Wellness, Part 2 (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 80

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie Chandler: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation. I don't know because you tell, I think you know that hidden cause to bloat, I have a feeling you do. So tell us, what is it? What are some, you know, what's causing some of this split for all of us.

Lahana Vigliano: 0:43

So some things are simple, some things are just eating too fast. So you got to slow down, you'd be surprised how many times I have to tell people this, too, is also something simple up someone is eating, and they're constantly in a fight or flight. So they're eating on the go, they're eating in the car, there's two phases of your nervous system, there's sympathetic and parasympathetic. So there's your rest and digest, and there's your fight or flight. If you're in your fight or flight, you can't digest, a lot of people are in their fight or flight when they're trying to eat. So then they leave their meal and they're insanely bloated. Like of course, like you're not your digestive system is not working. So those are the simple things, the more intense things are usually the microbe. So having a parasite, which is also more common than you think bacterial imbalance, yeast overgrowth, those things can be happening and causing bloat. The other thing is problems digesting food, again, pretty common, having trouble digesting fats having double trouble digesting carbs and proteins. So that's why stool testing is helpful. Because we're looking at these enzymes, we're looking at fecal fat. So how much fat is in your stool, we're able to see like how you're digesting. So sometimes supplemental support is needed. But ideally, we don't want to rely on supplements forever, we want to make sure that we're optimizing just our gastric juices and enzymes naturally. And then food sensitivities. I'll say my last one, but I say this with like a huge asterisk, because I know it's super common. And everyone's testing, which is the conversation and of itself, of all the testing that I don't agree with that is 99% of tests on the market. But if you are being triggered by a lot of foods, yes, you can take out the foods temporarily. But most of the time, there's a root cause of why your body's reacting to the food. Usually it's something gut, so not being able to digest your food or bacteria, parasites, yeast, that is typically what's happening. So the solution isn't to avoid the food long term. It's to actually do a stool test and understand what's going on in your gut.

Unknown: 2:32

Yeah, that makes sense.

Amy: 2:34

That's so true, Katie, because we did an episode like in the beginning, and we both did a food sensitivity test by everlywell. Love your opinion. And it was so interesting, because I was like highly not highly but very sensitive to like, all these foods that I didn't even know. And I don't even know if it's true. And Katie had like a very limited amount. And I'm like, This is so weird. You're more sensitive to things than I am. So I was like, This is bizarre, but I don't know what your thoughts are on the I know, you probably that's probably a whole nother podcast all these at home tests. But

Unknown: 3:05

So real quick, I really well and 99% of that Mark market tests for IgG as a response to food sensitivities. Therefore, they assume that when IgG is elevated, inflammation occurs, that's what a food sensitivity is, it creates inflammation. Now, the thing is, is IgG is like the mailman. It doesn't always deliver inflammation as next step, it can just sometimes be elevated, because it's recognizing that you ate it and you eat it a lot. Now, food sensitivities can kind of happen if you overeat or eat something pretty consistently all the time. But that doesn't mean inflammation is the next step. There's also food sensitivities that are not immune globulin related, so it's totally missing those sensitivities. So I'm not a fan of IgG testing, because it just doesn't show the complete picture. It's kind of like my thyroid, like with TSH and the full thyroid panel, like it's just not enough information to actually take action on it. But again, you don't want to just be avoiding foods long term because some people that could be most foods that's not sustainable by any means. Is it true right?

Amy: 4:06

And would you then say the same thing sorry, Katie, the for the hormone tests like the like they have another one like that's like a women's health test. Is that the same thing? Are they not?

Unknown: 4:17

No, they're okay, but I know you brought up Dutch Dutch is the queen hands down like the best I do mine. I'm actually doing mine this month. I do mine every year. Because you get way more information. And then with the the women's health I think has estrogen and progesterone. And it just depends on your cycle because there's certain parts of your cycle that certain hormones are high so I just feel like it's It's okay. It's not the worst but like if you want to deep dive into hormones, do the Dutch Yeah, I want to do 100% Back to the bloating really quickly. Is it true that I've read this and tell us is it true that you make your digestive enzymes in your mouth and so that's why they essay, chew your food more. And don't drink water while eating because those digestive enzymes you like wash them out if you drink too much water. And if you don't chew quickly enough, if you chew, not enough, you don't produce them. Is that true? So digestive enzymes are made like all throughout. So like pancreas makes them, obviously you have your stomach acid, but there are digestive enzymes made in your saliva. And mostly, it's not really to break down too much fats or carbs, it's more so amylase, which breaks down carbs. Or I said proteins and fats. So it mostly breaks down carbs in your mouth. So that's why you do want to chew slow because it's like pre digesting carbs. And I'm not a fan of drinking water. I've never heard of that digestive enzyme, which makes sense. But more so can you know, your stomach acid is trying to ramp up, right? It's saying like, Oh, foods coming in, like, let's try to you know, optimize that. And water can obviously make you feel full when you need to be focusing on you know, eating because the under eating is an issue with so many women. So I'm a fan of like, don't try have to have any interference that can affect appetite pay. Oh, that's interesting. Why do you feel that way? Not 90% of women that come to us say I'm eating, I'm following my hunger cues. I'm eating good. I'm not starving. And then I look and I'm like, we're not huge on numbers. But we do like to take a little peek see, and have you tracked for maybe a couple days. And hands down. Women are eating like toddlers, they're eating 1200 calories. And I'm like, your body's just used to that. So your hunger cues are wrong. And so I That's my issue with intuitive eating. I do believe you can get there. But I don't think a lot of women are there to start. And maybe it's subconscious of diet culture. Maybe they've been dieting for decades. And they actually don't know how much they should be eating. And so just from experience, most women are under eating 1500 calories. And that's not okay. Like how do we expect to thrive as a woman create babies, and we're barely giving our body fuel, like our car wouldn't work if we didn't give it gas. So it's just crazy. Because some women just like, like, no, that's not me, I eat I'm not hungry. But their bodies are like, No, you girl you need like 1000 More like, that's how much more you need to be eating. And they're like, what, like, That's so weird, because I'm following my hunger cues. So it's interesting that the intuitive eating and the hunger cues because like if anything is out of whack the hormonal imbalances, it it your body thinks you're hungry when maybe you aren't, or vice versa. And like there's even hunger, hunger, hormones, leptin and ghrelin, and all of those things that tell you when to eat, and those can be totally out of whack as well, right? Yes, yes. So that's why I do believe you can get to intuitive eating, but you have to actually assess and look at my eating enough. So you may need to grow into that. So a lot of the times that's a slow process, it's just adding more slowly over time. Once you get there, once it feels good, then most of the time, your appetites up, it will trigger, it will trigger you and say, Oh, you are hungry. So that's just my little snippet there. I do believe it's, you can attain that, but it's not typically where I like to start, because women just aren't very off.

Amy: 8:20

Yeah, and this is like resonated by me so much, because I think I probably under eat even though I probably think I overeat because I've actually been tracking. So do you know that lumen device where you breathe into? So I've been tracking, I've been using it for a while just to kind of see different things and like, you know, you blowed into it every morning. And it's you know, I don't know how accurate it is. But it's it is very interesting, like when I'm burning carbs and fat. And I've just been doing it every morning and seeing how it changes throughout my week based on what I'm eating. However, with that it tells you like how many, you know, fats, carbs and protein to eat. So I've been following that. And I've just been really, really mindful of eating more protein because I don't think I'm eating enough. So I've been eating more protein, and I've been following the macros pretty much and to your point, it's probably not I'm not necessarily trying to diet but when I follow that it's probably around 1200 to 1300 calories a day just by what I'm eating. And again, to your point I'm like I don't it's I haven't been hungry or anything and I'm not necessarily trying to diet I'm just trying to see like how my body's working but I don't know it's strange because there's probably all these apps to your point including this one that maybe not giving you the right information about how much you should be eating. I mean my whole focus has been on just like training more protein but it's interesting to watch to talk more about that.

Unknown: 9:48

That's a goal for sure. I most women don't eat enough protein at all. So it definitely needs to be something that's worked on. Lumen actually does have a lot of science behind it. Yeah is typically the gold standard. I have like measuring metabolism in that way. And I was actually going to incorporate that and give people that in our practice instance, because I feel like it can get a little obsessive. And ultimately, again, I don't, I don't think people need to be obsessing over that to show how they eat in the long term. But yet, like I said, like you said, you might not give you the right information based on your whole person. So like, when we do our first session, we're going back to elementary school, you're telling me physical abuse, sexual abuse, antibiotic usage, you were always SEC like, I mean, we're looking back at the full person. And I feel like those type of apps are technologies, that can be great, but just take it with a grain of salt. Like, don't let that be your Oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Amy: 10:51

I've tried it myself, too. Yeah, I've been using it directionally. And I what I've noticed is, I've just been doing it in the mornings. And it's so interesting, because sometimes, like if I have a night where like, I just eat whatever, and I binge and I have wine and whatever, and I'll blow in it, I blow like a one. I'm like, How is that possible? And then on a day where I'm eating like, really good and protein and clean a blow when it's like a three and then most of the time, it's like a two or three, just depending on mostly a theory. And like literally everyone was telling Katie this every single day since I've had it and I flooded it. It's pretty much a good two or three, mostly three. And it's like today's a low carb day. I'm like, like, every single time I'm like, Alright, see?

Unknown: 11:29

I used to Yeah, same thing. It's very it's hardly day to

Amy: 11:34

day. I'm

Unknown: 11:34

like complicated. Yeah, nice. I don't know. I know.

Amy: 11:37

But it is interesting. It is just like puts you a little bit more in tune. But I think to your point Lohana. Like, if I knew more about what else was going on, then that would be a helpful tool. But now it's just kind of like I'm using it just to kind of like experiment. But yeah, I think in tandem with like, a real team of doctors, then it would be better for me.

Unknown: 11:56

Sure. Yeah. It's also interesting. I I'm really curious, you know, out of everything that you've told us, what are the some of the big takeaways like what are the keys to improving your metabolism and feeling good in your body and kind of bouncing your your hormones out. I mean, if you could just give our listeners a few pieces. Yeah, definitely eating enough. We'll we'll go through on that. If that's like my biggest thing, please eat enough. That is hands down. The most important thing you can be doing building muscle strength training as the anti aging key, that's the secret is building muscle, we lose it naturally as we age. So there's we can't go against that. It's just our natural aging process. So the more rebuild, it will boost our metabolism, and it will make us look good and eat good. So that's a huge fan. Optimizing protein amounts for sure. Most women, it's very different. But most women should be over 100 grams, at least. And then from there, it's just different based on activity and goals. Gentle walking, I think a lot of people like underestimate walking for metabolism, but it's amazing, and it's gentle, and we definitely should be active and then optimizing your thyroid. So that could be making sure you're repeating any nutrient deficiencies you have reducing stress because stress blocks going back to the stressor, it blocks thyroid conversion and thyroid production, addressing any gut issues that can be triggering for autoimmune thyroid, because your thyroid is the little gem to host your metabolism. So supporting that is really important. Okay, that's great. Yeah. And to your point earlier, you can have a healthy thyroid that is in range, but not optimal. And I know just from experience with hypothyroidism when I like I have my own optimal that is even like smaller than what maybe a functional medicine providers optimal would suggest, but I just know my body. So it's something to keep in mind because I know Amy, you've dealt with that with like higher TSH levels, and your doctor said it was fine, but Maybe for you it's not optimal. And something like something like like zinc or selenium supplementation. Lohana Is that where you point your patients to that are trying to optimize their thyroid with supplementation? We like to test we have a test that does all vitamins, amino acids and minerals. So I just like to test to see what you're even deficient in. And even things that might be borderline. I'm a huge fan of like food first and so just focusing in on those foods a little bit more. So that's typically our like next step because I hate blindly messing with like supplements, even though some supplements are kind of harmless. I just don't know. I just don't like wasting money and like potentially dangerous Yeah, yeah, just like yeah, yes. For sure. So yeah, I like repeating nutrients because you could even have perfect TSH, perfect thyroid hormone, but turning it into active thyroid hormone T three could be sub optimal. And every woman is different. So ideally, we'd like that to be above a three, but women who are like to point A can feel like crap. And to them that's really low and so optimizing that and they feel great once they get above 3.2. So every woman is different. So even with optimal ranges, there's still that bio individuality that roll.

Amy: 15:14

I have a last question about the hormone stuff for our listeners. So if someone is on birth control, or an IUD, can you properly test for hormones or your hormones kind of like screwy because of that?

Unknown: 15:27

No, it is impossible. And I don't do that a lot to balance hormones. When you're on a hormonal birth control period, it's always going to shut down your natural hormone production. It's exogenous form. So it just kind of takes on that. So even your bleed that you have, if you're on birth control to regulate things, it's not getting regulated. It's just truly a bandaid. So the moment you get off birth, control all your issues, you're gonna come back, so no waste of money, please do not test like the Dutch and stuff. I always when people want to do. I'm like, Nope, you're on birth control. It is a waste of money. Don't do.

Amy: 15:59

Okay, now, that's a really good note and even an IUD.

Unknown: 16:03

Yeah, if it's hormonal, yeah, interesting. Okay. Not the copper. The copper is not hormonal. So you could test right. And but obviously, that in and of itself can cause issues and heavier bleeding and copper toxic. So

Amy: 16:15

how do you then work with people? I mean, just because there's I'm sure a lot of people out there that are on an IUD or birthing, like how do you work with people that are on that? Or do you tell them to go off of it?

Unknown: 16:25

No, I feel like technically, most people that come to us are people trying to get off of it or are off of it, basically. But if they are on it, and they really want to stay on it, we just have to change expectations and say we're not bouncing hormones, it's impossible. But what we can do is support your body in different ways. We can be on top of nutrients, testing your nutrients regularly, because birth control depletes you of nutrients. We can support gut health because there is connections with birth control affecting intestinal permeability, which is leaky gut. So working on gut health and then optimizing liver, because there is a higher risk of liver disease and stuff for people taking birth control. So liver, gut nutrient depletion, that's where we'll focus. We can not focus on hormones, though. Okay, unfortunately, no. Okay. All right, well, Lohana where can our listeners find you you are at new V true wellness in Austin? Yes, yes. And that's our website and UV true wellness.com. We openly share how we work our pricing. So if you're interested in becoming a patient, we're virtual, feel free to check us out there. And then Instagram is our favorite. So Instagram Stories is where you see more behind the scenes, but Instagram is our favorite platform. But I believe that we're everywhere. Facebook, tick tock,

Amy: 17:39

I don't you do do virtual. So for our listeners who are all over, they can contact you. Okay, that's great. Yes,

Unknown: 17:44

yes. Yeah, testing is really easy. We can just ship you a kid, the only state that's a little bit funky as New York. They have very, very strict labs. So we can't run Labs in New York and stuff. So just FYI. Interesting. Okay. All right.

Amy: 17:56

Good to know. So before we close out, let's get into our quick wrap session. Okay, what is your favorite wellness or beauty hack?

Unknown: 18:04

Right now? Red light therapy. I love it. Yeah. Or ice rolling?

Amy: 18:09

Yeah, have a good ice good ones. Good ones. We love those. Both. Yeah,

Unknown: 18:12

this next one is your five minute flow. You just got out of the shower and dry it off and you over pings you there five minutes away? What are you going to do to get yourself together and out the door? eyelashes and just a vitamin seems nice? Which one? Do you? What's your fav Vitamin C Serum? I think I've used lately, the cocoa chi and I think I just grabbed that one from Target, which is great when I can find a good brain at Target. So I think that one's the one I've used mostly.

Amy: 18:42

And I hope some luck because you're in Austin. Yeah. Okay, and how do you maintain your daily nirvana.

Unknown: 18:50

Being in the word is really important to me, especially in the beginning of the day. It's that's my whole days. It's my whole week. So I'm connecting spirituality is probably my most important thing that I can do. That's nice. That's beautiful. Alright, so before we go, let's close with our mantra of the week. Amy, do you have one for us?

Amy: 19:10

I do have one. So this is one I saved from a brand called weather urban that I follow. And I liked this quote it was or this affirmation, I guess we could call it and it's the whole point of life is to change to evolve to grow. Don't resist it. Embrace it. Oh, yeah.

Unknown: 19:28

I love that. Yep. Hopefully this episode helps our listeners do just that. Much. I think it will. I Ilana, thank you so much for being with us today. Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Amy: 19:41

Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out For all things wellness so you don't have to buy

Episode 79 - Goodbye DIY Health! Functional Medicine & Nutrition With Lahana Vigliano, CEO Of Nuvitru Wellness, Part 1 (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 79

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here or view our podcast episode guide.

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie Chandler: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. Today we are sitting down with Lohana vogliono. She is the CEO and founder of Nuvi true wellness and she's also a board certified clinical nutritionist. The hunter holds a Bachelor of nutrition science degree and a master's of human nutrition plus Functional Medicine degree which is all super impressive. She's currently a doctorate student in clinical nutrition. And she has so much passion in helping women realize that there's a root cause for their symptoms, especially when they have been dismissed by health care before which we've all been there. Her company knew the true wellness specializes in women's hormones and gut health and uses functional medicine lab testing to personalize the patient's journey. Goodbye DIY. It's so true. We're all our own science experiments, right? That's what it's Yeah, she is obsessed with creating natural remedies, researching reading romance books, lifting heavy and cooking meals for her family. Outside of work. She's a mother of two and a wife. So we all have a lot in common here. And her family was the inspiration behind New vitro and continues to encourage her through everything. So welcome to the show. Lohana

Lahana Vigliano: 1:43

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here and to talk about all the fun things. Yes.

Unknown: 1:48

We can't wait to get into all of it. But before we do, let's kick off our nirvana of the week. So Amy, I want to hear yours. What do you got?

Amy: 1:57

Um, so it was funny. I was thinking about this this morning. And it's the fall and it's busy season I feel like and I I feel like I've been running a million miles an hour and I haven't really stepped back and I was like, I don't even know. Like I don't even know what brought me joy this week. I'm sure there's there's been some little things and big things but I guess the other night or one of the things that was sweet was the other night I was my son came home from my younger son came home for basketball practice later and so we had dinner for him and he was just you know, kind of sitting eating his dinner I said you want me to sit with you while you eat? He's like yes it with me, which was sweet. We just had a cute little conversation one on one. So that brought me joy. And we're hugging afterwards and hugging the dogs. There's just as like a sweet little moment because I don't get a lot of time with I just feel like the kids are so busy too. We don't get a lot of that one on one time. So it was sweet. What about you?

Unknown: 2:51

It is really sweet. Those like little intimate moments that are hard to catch when they actually talk to you. You know? Yeah, exactly what I was thinking about this we've had a couple but I know you're saying it's like the insanity things are really busy. It's probably the days are flying really quickly. I came home from some family stuff. Last week I had to travel for to do peloton bike that my husband which was a year I was very surprised by it.

Amy: 3:21

I didn't even know you guys were looking at that I did I know

Unknown: 3:24

we were either. Apparently this is a plug for peloton but they have a good new membership model. So it's the kind of situation where I don't know if we're renting it or if we own it. I don't know what it is. But it's a membership model. It's just a it's more accessible for those that are maybe interested. And it's the new one where it has the TV screen that turns and you can access all of their classes. So you can do like weights and yoga. And like, you know, all kinds of other stuff off of the bike. So that was a little nirvana for me. I've been using it this week. It's it's that's a sense of price. Yeah. What about you? Lohana What was your Nirvana this week? I definitely agree with you guys. It has been pretty crazy. And it just last week was even crazier. So honestly, it was just some silence and some wind down like we had family in town. Work was busy. We were under contract for a house and that was unexpected. But a good deal just came up and so that it's a lot so honestly just slowing down and just doing low Netflix days. Like I remember earlier this week, I was like you know what, I'm gonna do my appointments. I have a couple. But the rest I'm just gonna like Netflix. I'm going to just enjoy I'm going to work out I'm just going to do me stuff. Yeah, I

Amy: 4:43

love that. I actually I had I had a good night to watching a Netflix show with my husband. We have like a lot of shows that we will end up watching at night. We tried to put our phones away and watch the show together and I saw the I don't know if you guys watch Handmaid's Tale Yeah, you've been watching you know, like This week's episode, literally, I couldn't stop talking about it was so good. I want to know, listeners haven't listened. But like, I was just I couldn't it was so good.

Unknown: 5:10

We all need those chills.

Amy: 5:13

I know, I know. Awesome. Well, it's so nice to meet you ohana. And I feel like there are so many questions that I have. And Katie has, and our listeners will have. But I think because I've actually been like, looking into this topic a lot lately, because I'm just feeling like off. And I think like, we hear so much about gut health and microbiome and hormones. And I'm just confused, like, Where does someone start? Like, kit? Is there a home test? You can do you have to go to a doctor, you have to find a functional? Like, where do we start?

Unknown: 5:44

Yes. Usually, for good testing, you will have to have like a good partner. And that could be a functional medicine doctor. That could be though we are not doctors. We are dieticians and nutritionists. But we have access to labs and stuff. So any functional medicine provider, you'll definitely want to partner up with because there is so much information and it's so confusing. And just because you hear something doesn't technically mean that's what you need to do. And so I'm all about like, not DIY in anymore and understanding like what does your body need and moving forward. But a great place to start with, which is something you mentioned is gut health. So if you do struggle with like bloating, or diarrhea, constipation, acid reflux, abdominal cramps, anything and anything in the gut, that is where I typically like to begin, because it really all does stem there, there's so many different connections of how that affects our hormones, sex hormones, adrenals, you name it. So if you had to, like narrow in on just like a focus got would be my favorite because while you are focusing on gut, you do end up trickling into other areas at the same time.

Amy: 6:48

And if you want to focus on gut like, what do you do you go to your doctor and you say, I want to get the I know we've talked about this before on this show the Dutch test or like, what do you say specifically

Unknown: 6:58

for gut you would want a comprehensive stool test. And if you're seeing someone who's functional medicine, there's a variety of them. A lot of practitioners do like gi map, but there's stuff from Genova. But if you just a comprehensive stool, a functional medicine provider will absolutely know what that means. Just to circle back quickly, you're saying you want to team up with a functional medicine provider? It's so interesting, because I think most women when they think hormones, they think OB GYN, right. And I I've been there, we've all gone to that doctor, and it's it really is not their purview, you know, they're there. They're like going there to like, keep your uterus healthy help you have babies. And that's it. So the hormonal stuff that kind of blew my mind. And I think I know a lot of people that were surprised and really kind of let down by their OB Gen, because they just say, oh, like, yeah, everything's good, you're fine. You're fine. So that's good to know, for the listener. Okay, so help us understand that gut health and hormone connection. So you, are you just saying that with gut health comes? Like, explain how that all trickles down? Yeah. Yeah. And I want to say to a lot of providers that are in the traditional health care field, they're looking for pathology. So disease, that doesn't always mean though someone has a disease, you can have like an imbalance or something a little off. And that's why things aren't caught, per se. So like, we hear all the time of like, Oh, my doctor tested thyroid hormone for an example. And they said it was good. But then when we look at it, when they only tested TSH, which is not the like, it's one marker of the full thyroid picture, not the form, you can't just rule out thyroid with just that. But that is hands down what most providers do. And then the second thing is maybe they do get a full thyroid panel, and then they look at it. And yeah, nothing's out of range like crazy. They don't have hypothyroidism. But you can see a little bit of sub optimal, like their sub optimal, they're not the best level that they should be, but they're not disease wise. So they typically will be you know, shoot off. So that's, that's a it's very, very different. And yes, I think if you're looking to just longevity and just be healthier, that's where you got to get someone more in the alternative realm. But gut health is my favorite thing ever. Because I feel like it it feels so like, how the heck is that even related to hormones because it feels so different, but it's not. So there's a couple different ways that poor gut health can affect hormones. And a lot of that is well one thing is your bacteria balance. So we always have our probiotics, which is our good bacteria. And then we have opportunistic bacteria, which is bacteria that will always be in the gut, E coli, Staph strep, but when they are at higher levels, it causes chaos. That's why they take opportunity to cause chaos and give you bloating and all the really fun symptoms. So when you have this imbalance bacteria, we call it dysbiosis. It increases an enzyme called beta glucuronic days. And this enzyme actually can reabsorb estrogen and toxins that have already processed through the liver, it reabsorbed them back into the body. So that can be a reason for things like estrogen dominance of having just too much estrogen in the body. So that's one way. Another way that it affects hormones, and the adrenal round, which is our stress hormone. When you have stuff going on parasites, yeast, bacteria, you name it, that is very stressful on the body. And so that will actually stimulate your adrenals that makes our stress hormone, and it will stimulate cortisol or stress hormone. So this is a low key chronic stressor in the body. So whenever we bring up the stress conversation, we have to not when I think, I think when people think of stress, they think of Oh, yeah, my boss sucks. I had a really bad day, my grandpa died. But no one's thinking the internal stressors, and those mean just as much as external. So if your body's stressed internally, it's going to affect your cycle, it's going to affect other things. And then the third way that gut imbalances or gut issues, cause issues is when you are not able to digest your food properly. And we do see this quite often, whether it's people having trouble digesting fats, proteins, carbs, you're ultimately not able to absorb your raw materials that is needed for hormone production, every single process in the body hormones, not hormones, you there's a nutrient related in there, and it's helping the process come along to producing the hormones from the raw materials, and then ends up testosterone and estrogen and progesterone. So if we're not able to get what we need from our diet, then we're gonna see a kink in the hormone production. So isn't it it's wild, how complex our bodies are. I mean, it's really it like blows my mind. It's really cool. Do you I've heard that, like eating a lot of fiber is good, because it helps flush out the excess estrogen that's in your bowels and in your stomach and everything. And so would that excess estrogen be coming from the liver? Like you said earlier that infiltrates the system? Is that how that works? Yeah, so I mean, we always problems we're done with it, we process it through the liver, or fiber does help. I know, raw carrot salads are a thing right now, to help kind of bring that bind it and take it out in the body. But I mean, if you definitely have some microbial stuff going on in there, it can definitely still influence any reabsorption later on, not just for hormones, but also for toxins, which I feel like is a woowoo topic, but it shouldn't be because there's a lot of research showing like phalates, and parabens and BPA, and all these environmental toxins do affect hormones. So it increases reabsorbs those so that can you know affect hormones as well in the long run.

Amy: 12:52

So I always feel like to I hear about inflammation, right? And when we hear about inflammation in the body, what does that mean? Is that like, does that have to do with hormones? Does that have to do with gut? Is it just like, I just feel like, again, that's one of those words where you're like, Oh, you have inflammation everywhere? Like, what does that mean? And like, how do you address that,

Unknown: 13:15

it's actually kind of like your immune system is being very over reactive. And you know, our immune systems, you can think of it like when you get a cut, and your cut gets inflamed, that's just because there's a lot of chemical processes that are attracting your immune cells to help fight off any, you know, disease and pathogens. So more on a cellular level, that's kind of what's happening. But then with inflammation in general, it does just like a cut, it gets like big and red and sore. And so internally, I guess you can think of it the same way. It's just like, you might hold on to water and you might not feel well, you might get headaches. So we want to make sure that yes, our immune system is always active, it's always fighting for us. But we just got to make sure that we're just not chronically asking for it to always be on and these are like gut health and all these other things that I feel like functional medicine, actually acknowledges is the root cause of why people are having chronic and this chronic inflammation can lead to all sorts of problems like autoimmune disease and everything. And that all can start with what you're putting into your body, what you're feeding yourself and how all these imbalances are manifesting right

Amy: 14:28

now. Go ahead and yeah, and sorry, one more thing. I've just I feel like I've been like listening to a lot of podcasts about this lately, too. And it's like, you know, there's what you're putting in your body and and also what you're supplementing your body with, but then I feel like there's all these other like you were saying Lohana environmental factors. As I was saying to my husband the other day, I'm like, I feel like we need to change all of our cleaning products. Yeah, like, right, yes. Yeah, like we need to do a full sweep of that because I don't know like, just like my husband has a lot of allergies and so I feel like Do we need to do a full suite? Because there's so there's all these other things that you're not thinking about? Yeah, which is scary, but,

Unknown: 15:07

and it's scary, because it seems like oh my god, there's just so much stuff like eff it, like, I'm just not gonna do anything, right. I'm a big fan of like, take control, like with what you have control over what you put in your body, what you put in your house that you're putting on your body, like your beauty products like that all matters. And if you just slowly change each thing, before you know it, you've taken a lot of risk and reduction of, you know, chronic disease in the long term. So I'm such a huge fan of doing that, because studies do show that it literally inhibits because it hormone production is like a little we always forget the term for this assembly line. And so along the assembly line is little enzymes. And so these toxins affect these enzymes, and they either can slow it down. And again, there's the kink in the system, or it can even increase certain enzymes, like there's an enzyme called aromatase that increases testosterone to turn into estrogen. So and that's all like BPA does that. So it is very much a thing and should be taken as seriously as diet. That's really interesting. This next question is a bit personal because I was dealing with this myself, I don't know if you know 100, but I have hypothyroid and Addison's disease, so my hormones are just always a mess. But I think I'm getting to that age where they're getting a little bit more interesting as we know, ladies. So all summer, I was dealing with blood sugar issues, and I've never had blood sugar problems before. I'm not like pre diabetic or anything, but I would just I would be eating carbs or the wrong thing. And I would be a mess. Whereas I used to handle it. And I wouldn't get like the big rush of energy and the heart palpitations and then the heavy heavy crash. So why why does that? How's that connected to two hormones and hormonal shifts as we age? Yeah, oh, I love blood sugar, because I feel like it's one of the foundational hormones that needs to be in balance, for sex hormones to be balanced for Yes, adrenals to be balanced, because it can it can drive inflammation, it can stimulate stress, and cortisol. When you're like on that up and down roller coaster, in an intense way. You're kind of always in a little mini roller coaster, but any too low lows too high highs are problems, but it regulates your energy gives us clarity, and then influences our weight ultimately, as well. So insulin is our fat storage hormone. So it's really important to make sure that this is balanced. And so we love doing like continuous glucose monitors and really like playing around with foods and how they react with the body. Hopefully they know the importance. Okay, it's interesting how you said I never thought about how to fix cortisol because I don't I don't make cortisol. So I have to take cortisol. So when I was having these ups and downs on these roller coasters, I thought it was affecting it was affecting my Addison's and I would need more steroid, and then that causes all of these other problems. So it was just this massive, crazy shift. But for the rest of the population that isn't as screwed up as I am. That blood sugar, you're up, you're down. And when you're crashing, you're thinking I'm hungry, I feel lightheaded. I feel I feel so sluggish. My brain fog, I should eat more. So it's just this like constant cycle, right of probably choosing the wrong foods and doing the wrong thing to feel stable and you never feel stable. Personally, the shift happened for me when I switched to paleo, and I was able to stabilize better. So that's just a tip for anybody out there that's dealing with blood sugar issues, could always try that.

Amy: 18:35

What's also interesting is Katie, and Lana, and if you've heard this, this episode, and for listeners, you can go back but we interviewed the founder of criminal wellness, Lisa Aden Weller, and we had a long conversation about blood sugar and like how it should remain stable because so many foods spike it like she was saying oatmeal can spike your blood sugar and then you're down again. Whereas like if you try to stay in that window of like in between, you don't get super hungry, and then you don't have those crashes. But we had a conversation about that and she was saying she wears a blood sugar or glucose monitor to really see how all of the foods are affecting her which sounds like it can be individualized for many people but

Unknown: 19:14

oh yeah, that's why I love the CGM is some people do fine with sweet potato and some people like no not fine so that's where a lot of the just because you heard like oh don't do potato it's so bad for you it raise my blood sugar that does not mean it's going to raise up blood sugar for the other person right there are more foods that are more likely to but I definitely firsthand have seen so many people respond differently to bananas and to grapes and to potatoes and to rice is very different so that's why I love it because it gives you that like inside feel of like oh this is what works right? That is your go to monitor the kind that you can put on your arm Do you suggest that to your to your clients? So it's constant which is super cool as opposed to the traditional diabetics, they just prick their finger and check occasionally throw of the day.

Amy: 20:00

So what is it, you just wear it and it tells you what your blood sugar is all day long.

Unknown: 20:05

It's a prescription. So you have to work with a provider to get it. So when we we have a doctor that prescribes it for us on our team, but it's so amazing. So it goes in the back of your arm, and it measures your blood glucose 24/7. So while you're sleeping all throughout the day, so 24/7 just seeing what it is. So you open up your app, and then you see like what's spiking, it's really interesting to see your nighttime as well, because it can be problematic if by chance you are spiking at night or going too low. You can do things before bed, eating certain things, doing certain things that can help like balance that out. So some sometimes people need like a bedtime snack that's really balanced like proteins, carbs and fats, some people don't. But I think it's awesome because it can also tell us like how you do with fasting because the adrenal blood sugar is very intertwined. Because if you're either running, if you're not eating breakfast, you're most likely running on cortisol, just FYI. Which is why I'm I think intermittent fasting and fasting can be helpful for women who have good hormones, and they're balanced. But a lot of people just want to do that. But you're running on stress hormone. So if you're already having adrenal issues, now you're just putting an extra burden on it. So we want to balance that blood sugar because the reason you're running on cortisol is it's tapping into stored glucose in your liver and in your muscles. Because that is what balances out your blood sugar levels. So cortisol is like crap, we're not getting into glucose. Let me knock on some cell doors. Let's bring it out. And let's balance your blood sugar. So that's why I say you're running on cortisol. If you're not, you know, eating breakfast, you're using up stored glucose, but you really got to tap in and use those adrenals.

Amy: 21:44

So is that the same thing for men like our men and women the same in that

Unknown: 21:48

area? Yes. And also Adrenal Fatigue is also a very real thing. It's not it's not an AMI, have you? Have you heard of adrenal fatigue? Because it's not I have adrenal insufficiency. So that's a totally different thing. But it's, it's it's kind of a hot topic, right? Adrenal Fatigue, and it's when people are like you said, probably running on spiked levels of cortisol and it can feel you just like you always feel kind of rundown and you think, oh, I need more coffee, but that actually makes it worse. It's that always feeling like stressed feeling right, is that yeah. And usually when someone gets to adrenal fatigue, the correct clinical description is HPA dysfunction, which is hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal dysfunction. And it basically just means that from a long term stressor, maybe you were just really busy for the last year just always stressed, eventually, your brain kind of takes a break from your adrenals. So the communication between those two organs are like, Hmm, let's go on vacation, let's just take a break. So when it then now people will tend to have low cortisol, because that brain, that communication of the brain to the adrenals is not functioning as well. So the adrenals tend to be very low, so then you're going to be tired and just feel like crap. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, people want to drink caffeine and, you know, add on more feel better stressors, but it makes it worse, but you actually need to slow down. Yes, you need to slow down or body rest, don't be excessively working out. It's the opposite of what you should a girlfriend of mine has been doing the her functional medicine person caught the adrenal cocktail, and it's the pink Himalayan salt and lemon juice, right? And that kind of just like helps replenish things. Yes, typically, when adrenals are low functioning, it needs a lot of love and nutrients. So some adrenal cocktails, will be like a little bit of orange juice with collagen, some coconut milk to make it like more of a balanced carbs, proteins, fats, but then they'll add electrolytes because your body just needs extra amounts that needs extra amounts of vitamin C, when your adrenals are low, lots of B vitamins when they're low, because that's really what helps them work and thrive. So when it's low functioning, you just need extra nutrient lab support. So adrenal cocktails are a great way to get into like Dr. electrolytes, the orange juice can also provide a little vitamin C, stuff like that. So yeah, that's a really popular tool that even interesting.

Amy: 24:10

I have a question too. Because again, like we were saying, there's so much information out there and like, this stuff is so individualized and like the more and more I learn about it, I'm like, I just needed to have a functional doctor because there's so many things and it's like to your point, like no more DIY because you try to you try this one day you try it and you don't even know what you're addressing, really because you don't know what you have to work with. So I guess my question is, how do you find a good functional doctor? Like I have a friend and I asked her the other day, I'm like, some of your functional doctors. She was like, Why have one but the waitlist is six months and I have another one that's virtual, but I'm like, how do you vet a functional doctor because I think it's so important to have a regular doctor and a functional doctor. See you have a team's like always know what's going on with you, especially as you're getting older and your hormones and gotten all these things are changing.

Unknown: 24:55

Well, I'm your girl. No, I'm just getting.

Amy: 24:58

I was just gonna say are you for Jonathan Yeah, we

Unknown: 25:00

do work virtual, we're actually all virtual. So even if you're not, I'll discuss to see you again. And then but I it's just like any doctor, you kind of have to interview them because I've even seen functional medicine doctors, you know, just to make the theme more difficult that I was turned off because I was pre med. So I was turned off by a pill for every ill. Yeah, now I also see functional medicine doctors doing a supplement for every ill. And so I feel like even though it's natural, we're still prescribing like, Oh, you have inflammation? Here's turmeric, well, what the heck is inflammation occurring? Why is that even happening? So I see a lot of that in functional medicine space, so you still have to be careful. I feel like you just have to, like, if you're a practitioner is always asking why, like, Okay, I'm feeling like, that's okay. Why, okay, then this happened. Okay, so why, why, why why I feel like most of the time, then you're going to have someone who's going to dig enough and deep enough for the root cause. And that's what the most important thing is, you can start off finding, I think it's ifm.org their website you can find if you want someone close to I think you can search by zip code. So that's a thing, but I don't know I feel like most people find people based on like podcasts and obviously budget because it's functional medicines typically self pay, so that plays a role too. So yeah, I feel like people just kind of hear on like social media and then they reach out to them. So I don't know if there's like an official way. That's good to hear that and I have found with doctors that you just have to vet them yourself. Like you have to understand what it is that you're looking for. And you know, like for my endocrinologist I interviewed like five this year before I found somebody so yeah.

Amy: 26:38

Stay tuned for next week, where we continue our discussion with Lohana we talk about all sorts of things hidden cause for bloat how women are eating too little keys to improving your metabolism, the secret anti aging key and much more. See you next week. Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listen to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.