Ep. 14 Recap

If you're not incorporating these on a regular basis, it's going to be very challenging to remember them at extreme stress moments.

Hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good 4U podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christensen Health and Wellness Coaching.

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And remember, stay open minded and integrated.

Hey, Brian.

Hello, Amy, and good afternoon. How are you?

I am. I'm doing all right. It's been a busy few weeks.

Yeah. And a bear attack to your car just for your listeners out there. Her car got eaten by a bear.

Entirely annihilated the whole inside of the car. It was. It's awful. It's unbelievable. So if you live near the mountains and it's bear season, prepping for hibernation season, just be aware. Everybody should have comprehensive coverage.

Well, you are truly, you're the first person I've ever knew to have their car. Like, I saw the pictures and it's pretty amazing. So it's a first for everything.

It's crazy. It's crazy. Let's just say that, you know, it all happened while I was moving to a new place, so that's stressful enough. I will say I've practiced many of our tips and tricks and things that we do on a normal basis. I have diligently utilized so many of our tips from previous podcasts this last week.

That's fantastic. I know. I was just looking at some of the ones where this is podcast number 14 and so clearly it looks like you probably did a lot of the breath work so much. I'm sure you did a lot of different movement. I'm sure you really utilized anger as a tool for growth. I'm sure you celebrated you're at your new place, so I'm sure you've been celebrating that win, right?

That's right. That's right. I had lots of mindset reframing, lots of meditation and visualization work, and definitely maybe not so much stretching this last week physically, but emotionally and mentally. Definitely some stretching's happening.

Well, that is very important.

And I've Gotten my creative flow out because I'm not a huge fan of the actual process of moving, but I love moving into a new place and creating it and designing how it's going to go and decorating and putting up my artwork and, you know, that kind of part. So that was a fun, creative part that's happening. It's great.

It's a really good real life example on how to utilize those tools and incorporate those into your daily life. And when they become really essential, you have those tools there for you, ready to help you out.

Yeah, we don't realize, I mean, we think these all sound kind of maybe simple or maybe people have listened to it and you and I know them, but how do they actually work in day to day life? And how do you know them well enough to utilize them when some real serious stress pops up if you're not using them fairly consistently throughout your, you know, week and day, when it's minor stresses. Right. Or no stress, but just managing your normal day, how can we. If you're not incorporating these on a regular basis, it's going to be very challenging to remember them at extreme stress moments.

Absolutely. And for those of you just listening, maybe this is the first podcast you're listening to and you're like, what the heck are they talking about? Today's topic of all things good for you is kind of a deep dive recap from the previous ones that we've done, because Amy and I were talking about all these cool tools and tips and tricks and techniques and things like that that are good for you to do. And we were just thinking about how to get people to think about changing their mindset on how to use these, because these are supposed to be really designed and optimized for incorporating into your daily practices, into your daily life. It becomes a routine. And once that muscle memory of all of these have been built up, it becomes effortless. And then when you have all these roc enroll in for you and these different techniques and tips and tricks are all incorporated, your life has such a different quality to it. So I encourage you to go back and listen to all the previous 13 episodes to really get some knowledge and hear these previous podcasts at their full length. And check it out.

Yeah, I think our point today is like, okay, how do we kind of utilize these? I think I utilize almost every single one of these every day. Neuroplasticity obviously gets a little more challenging and being able to identify it, but I think like we've mentioned before, with neuroplasticity, it's being Available and taking an opportunity for change and kind of pressing into doing something a little bit differently. So, yeah, I think maybe not on a daily basis, but pretty much a weekly basis. I would say the neuroplasticity part, even.

Thinking about the stuff that we're talking about, even if you're spending some time thinking about doing the breath work and how that feels in your body or feeling, changing your framework and your mindset, or thinking about going into the brainwave states and spending time with those. So just the thought of contemplating and where could you utilize these in your life like that in itself is feeding into the neuroplasticity piece.

Yeah, definitely getting those challenging moments. But yeah, just thinking on new, different ways of looking and approaching things. Right. And incorporating new things is great. What else did we do? Breathing. Definitely practice breathing on a regular basis. I think you and I do breathing a lot. You know, with working in massage and working on rehab, doing deep work on people, it can get very intensive and you can get very caught and intertwined emotionally with a person that you're working on. So I know during the sessions and then of course between sessions, regularly working on like a clearing breath if I need to kind of re. Engage like a little bit of focus sometimes when, if I am doing a more meditative or relaxing massage, you can definitely kind of. I can get so mellow that I feel like I'm a sloth, you know, so utilizing like a WIM HOF breath or of fast breath to help build energy and focus. But the box breathing on a regular basis, it is such a great tool at night, calming and letting go and calming before I go to bed. Doing the box breathing, do you call it something different? Is that right?

Either global balance breathing or East, West north, south breathing.

West North. Yeah, yeah. That Chinese medicine influence, I love it gets that folding.

I did a talk recently and I borrowed an acronym from Whole Brain Living's book. She uses brain as an acronym for breathing. And I changed a couple words though, to fit more of my point in this talk. And it's kind of a good way to incorporate a lot of this stuff. So the acronym that we're going to use is brain. And B is for breath, R is for recognize, A is for adjust, I is for inquire. And then the end is for new mindset. And so it incorporates a lot of kind of feeds into that. So if you catch yourself at are being feeling edgy or you're having some negative thoughts or you feel agitated or you feel restless, any of these things that are outside of that term, Wu Wei, where things aren't just going super smooth and you're kind of not above it. You've been hijacked basically by your nervous system. And so we want to go from our sympathetic state and get back to our parasympathetic state. So this is about getting into those alpha waves. But so just stop, breathe, listen to the podcast on breathing, and utilize any of those breathing techniques. You're going to close your eyes, stop and breathe, and then you're going to recognize where you're at in those brainwave states or that nervous system level. Okay. And then you're going to adjust. So I have a metaphor. I like to think about that dimmer switch adjusting down. And then you're going to inquire, what was that about? Why did I get. Why was I feeling a little irritable? Why was I. How did this person upset me? What was this situation about? So just inquire because you're in a good space to do that. And then when you open up your eyes, before you open up your eyes, decide what new mindset, how are you going to come out of that and who are you going to be and how are you going to engage with that person? And that's a nice, simple thing to incorporate into your daily life. That gets a lot of these. So play with that a little bit.

Very nice. I like that. And you don't even have to do. I think you can do all of this even in happy states or related states or. Or enjoyment states where you can be reflective on what is making you feel fulfilled and happy. I think when you can identify and more like an imprinting of those moments when you're feeling elated and happy and just a good feeling. I don't know about you, but some days I'm just unusually happy. And it's not for any particular reason. It's not like some result of something that made me happy. I was just feeling so high on life. I think it's nice to stop and just absorb those feelings in themselves as well. Not just the bad stuff. Right. A lot of what we're talking about is strategies for stress and strategies for kind of rerouting some negativity, but definitely some ways to encourage goodness and happiness by recognizing those good and happy moments.

Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that that's also a great time to celebrate that. You know, we talked about, we had a podcast on celebrating your wins and, you know, having an awesome day, that's a win. But you're absolutely right. I Think being able to just recognize how many times you just move through your day and you don't even stop to think about where were you at in your day, you know, So I guess the whole point of this is really to get people to recognize. And we talked about earlier in prevention as a form of maintenance about fine tuning and being able to understand the little hallelujah symptoms or understand where, you know, like, you're driving that car when your lights are blinking, what do they mean to be able to listen to your body. So that's a good point about recognizing just where you're at and listening to your body and celebrating the good stuff and trying to regain control when you're feeling like you're going off path of that. And it's awesome.

I think to our point, like, every time we've talked about these different subjects, we have made an effort. We personally make an effort, but we've made an effort to point out, like, you can't just suddenly start doing these things. You have to kind of create a habit loop, right? You have to. Let's. So you have to do little triggers for yourself. And it's best to check in with yourself at least three times a day. You know, find a way, you know, is it right when you're waking up in the morning, or is it in the shower, or is it right after you drop the kids off at school, or is it on your way to work? Rather than, you know, getting road rage and anger, maybe you utilize that time for some breathing and meditation and reflection and at lunch break and then again in your evening time. So taking those cues throughout your day to look back at the different steps and how you can make this more normal and practice it and make it more consistent throughout every day. And then it becomes more like you had said originally, like, then it becomes more habitual. Right? You don't have to think every single time. So we've talked. You have a morning routine, your pmr.

My pmr, yeah. Personal morning routine is. That's critical because that's what sets your mindset for the day and how you're going to show up for the day. And. And again, I think that you have to put the most important things first. And so, you know, just like exercise, like, I love to do it in the morning because it's super important to me. So I want to make sure I give it that energy. But my PMR is essential.

I had a client I've been working with, and they are feeling they sleep well, which is really unusual because normally, like, they're lagging. They don't want to get out of bed. Kind of just want to stay in bed all day, but not depressed. I don't know if I agree with that. So one of the things that we have worked on is breathing the WIM HOF type breathing in the morning and then journaling and visualization and just working on that mindset and then movement. So in that process, it's a female. So she wakes up. As soon as she wakes up, she does the WIM HOF just laying in bed and that kind of charges her system. And then she uses her journal, which is by her bed, and she wakes up and she writes down just whatever might be on her mind, whether if she had a dream or if she woke up feeling something if she didn't, then she writes down a mindset of a focus for the day. Like whether it's a gratitude or I want to be productive or I want to express love and caring for myself or for somebody else. So she journals that out with an intention. Yeah. So she wakes up, breathes, journals, and that's the mindset. So she kind of picks how she wants to frame her day ahead of time. And then she's agreed. She gets up and she does movement. So she's doing kind of a rebounding, but without the. The she kind of does a lymphatic pump. So she just does little hops. She doesn't have the trampoline, but she just jumps and hops and hops and hops for a few minutes and then she does a couple of stretches and she's like, it's changed her entire process of how she's moving through her day. Just doing those like five, ten minutes in the morning.

Yeah, I think it's amazing. I think it brings so much awareness and obviously there's so many other key components to getting that movement and lymphatic drainage and circulation and. Yeah. So the PMR cannot be emphasized enough. There's a million apps out there, but I did download one that I'm having a good time with. Some of the plugs put in a little plug for Strides. So the app is Strides. So for those of you who are technology geeks, like I have an Apple watch and it does a lot of cool stuff, but this app's nice because it can track it different ways versus off of a percentage or how many times. So you have an option of how to do this and then like I have meditate in there three times so it's a rep instead of one 20 minute time. I'm trying to do three five minute times throughout the day.

Okay.

And so, but if I swipe right, it counts. 1. If I swipe, you know what I. It's so depending on how you swipe, it's really easy and efficient. If you're trying to eat like a healthy meal and you want to make sure you have two healthy things in your meal a day, you can add that in there. Again, exercise. I have some other things in there. Like I'm trying to call three friends a week. So I put something like that in there. But you can easily put in there the breath work and things like that. But it's kind of cool because then you get like little alerts that says, congratulations, you did it, you achieved your goal. If you do something where you fail, like I put on there no alcohol the other day and I went and met a friend and had a beer so I had to swipe the other way and it said, that's okay, tomorrow's a better day.

You're like, I don't know. Today was good too.

I know. So you got this. Hey guys, it's Brian. I just wanted to take a pause for a moment in the middle of this podcast to thank our sponsors, Ouch, who's helping to make this podcast possible today. Ouch believes everyone should enjoy what life has to offer without enduring pain. They are a pain relief company. Listen guys, I use their products a lot. They're proprietary herbal formulas built on top of a 2000 year old formula, giving it time, tested, effective results and I'm going to listen to that any day of the week. The combination of that with the founder having over 22 years of actual hands on experience treating patients for musculoskeletal pain makes Ouch a very special company. Ouch is made with the highest quality of certified herbs and CBD from organic hemp oil. Their ingredients are extracted with the utmost integrity to ensure the healing properties remain pure and concentrated to promote natural muscle pain relief and other benefits. I gotta tell you, I appreciate that so much. As a consumer, I want to know what I am getting is exactly what's being sold to me. So they take it a step further. They have a certificate of analysis for all their ingredients before it goes into production and after production to ensure that you're getting what you're paying for. Listen here guys. Don't settle for a lesser version of your best self today. When you can feel your best today, check out Ouch shop that's spelled out for a full line of their products. They're an amazing company. I use their products on a daily basis, so check them out. But with the brain, that little breath work thing, I try to do that as many times as possible. And on busy days when I'm seeing patients, sometimes while they're getting on the table, I just close my eyes and literally just take 30 seconds, check in. Where am I at? Am I in sympathetic system? Am I in parasympathetic? I picture that dimmer switch adjusting as I do my breath work and dialing down. I get an alpha state. That's flow state. I'm focused but calm. And then I walk into the room. So that's kind of a hooking habit. So just like, I'll get a drink of water. So maybe you have your big personal morning routine where you're incorporating some of this. But then if you could have a little habit that you could hook onto or piggyback onto throughout the day, that is going to keep consistently reminding you. So even if you can close your eyes and do that two or three, four or five times a day, that's huge.

Yeah. And you can find like little habit loops. Like, I really enjoy. You know, there's several books out there about building habits, but the atomic habits really nice. And talks about just having those little triggers. Like every time I walk to the bathroom, you know, I'm going to stop and breathe. Or every time I go to the bath, after I wash my hands, I'm going to stretch, touch my toes, whatever the cue might be, then drink more water. Finding ways to just incorporate those little cues throughout your day to check in with yourself. And you know, we talked about anger, obviously this week. This week I expressed a little bit of anger. But you know what? I am pretty expressive when I'm frustrated and passionate, no matter what I'm feeling. But the anger moves pretty quickly. Like, I don't remain angry. I kind of just get it out. Like, I just feel like I got to get that energy out of my system. So there was definitely some anger. But then very quickly, I mean, within 30 minutes of processing what was happening, I reframed it. A lot of breathing and definitely some particular movements that were happening. But I was able to just kind of reframe it and just find humor in it, honestly. Because, I mean, I'm referencing the bears eating my car. They didn't just eat my car. They had like a whole party in my car and a potty.

I think the bears were angry. I think the bears needed to do a little breathing work. What did you do to the bears?

I know they were angry. I didn't provide good enough snacks apparently, so they just decided to leave all kinds of things in my car.

Trail mix. What a cliche.

What? Jarred olives. Who's doing that? Who leaves jars of olives in your car?

But next time put a little charcuterie, a charcuterie board in there.

Please don't eat my car.

Don't piss them off. It is amazing though. They took the whole roof off. That was impressive.

The whole, the doors, side paneling, electric, everything. The dash was eaten, like everything. The entire seats.

I feel like we could have, we could just talk about this going back to anyway.

Processing the anger, letting yourself be expressive, let it happen, understand the anger, but then being able to reframe it. And I really believe 99% of the time that the universe is working for you and that you can find a silver lining in something and turn a negative around. So I was able to pretty quickly just kind of find the humor in it and be rather impressed with the amount of damage that this bear or bears did and then just look forward to the fact that. Thank you. That I have good insurance and that it's something I can manage. So I've turned it around to be like, yay, new car.

Yeah. Well, I was, I will give you kudos. I was super impressed when I talked to you the other day and you were explaining this in the middle of your move. And I know all the pieces that you had going on and all the balls you were juggling and you were really, really pleasant and really light. And so again, like, if you weren't doing some of this on a regular basis, you could picture the type of personality that could come out of somebody. Right. And we talk sometimes about, you can really see somebody's truth when they're in a stressful situation. But really that's not their truth. Right. Like, that's not their core truth. That's a conditioned state of mind. That is a state of mind that they're operating from, that that's been trained into there. So you did a good job of not letting some of those epigenetics and kind of pre programmed stuff from our childhoods and growing up and all that take over. You really operated from a higher place. So kudos to you.

Yeah, thank you. So some other things that we can do to incorporate from our past. So we talked about a little bit of everything but movement. Obviously we've talked about, you know, get out and move yourself differently. It's great. Get exercise, go for a run. If you're a runner, go to the gy gym and lift. If you're a lifter, whatever, but get a little fun in your week. Like, how can you incorporate something even if it's just, like, in your own kitchen or, you know, I like to do it walking down the street, Brian. Freak people out and just move funny.

I don't know if I should elaborate on that. Yeah, and that goes to that neuroplasticity thing. I think reframing on when you have the opportunity to do some of this breathing work, right? Like, why not while you're sitting on the toilet? You're on the toilet, you have nowhere to be. So why not take a couple extra, you know, 30 seconds to close your eyes, breathe, check in with yourself, reframe, like, the toilet. It's a great time to pause, stop, and like, how do I want to leave this bathroom? What type of person do I want to show up as? So we get in that state where it's like, well, this is. You go to the gym to work out. You have to go sit in a quiet place to get your meditation in. And it has to happen at this exact time. And so let's break all the rules, let's bend them. Or let's just think about, like, why can't I do this when I'm walking down the hall? Can I do some lunges on my way to go get my clothes out of the closet?

So stretching seems to always be. You said something about it doesn't have to be as formal or rigid, and it also isn't as overwhelming. Like, you can stretch and make a difference if you're doing it. I think on our podcast, the research showed, like, if you just did it for one minute, the same muscle group five times a week, you're going to see a difference. So you're making that consistent change. So you can find five minutes. You can find one minute five times a week to just get in and feel how your body's feeling and do some stretching. I know that's probably one of the areas that I was challenged in this last couple of weeks with everything going on is I was moving by lifting and moving heavy things. So this next week is going to be a recharge of stretching and kind of resetting some restorative activity to my muscles, my joints. But we can find one minute. If you're not moving and fighting off bears, you can find one minute.

That's right. I love hallways for stretching. Again, just step outside of the box. But, like, again, when I'm waiting for somebody to leave, you know, my room or go in. Sometimes I'm doing like standing windmills against the wall or wall angels. Or have my butt on one side of the hallway and stretch and put the palms of my hand on the other side of the hallway. And again, I need to do it more, too. But anytime you can find an opportunity while you're waiting for the dryer to finish, if you have a couple minutes, you know, anytime you're doing laundry, maybe that's your thing.

You get your calf stretches in standing at the counter. You can do that at your desk. To stand up and use your desk, you can do pec stretches. I'd like to see it be more of a routine in the corporate world where people are just comfortable standing up and doing some basic stretches, get out of that seated position and get their bodies loosened up.

That would be awesome. And again, so that taps into the creativity podcast, too. So just to think about that, get creative, like, look around you. What opportunities are there for me to utilize something around me to use this for, you know, for stretching or, you know, what opportunities are there. It's amazing all the different things that we could be doing if we just again, allow some creativity with it.

You know, creativity. You know, on the creative podcast, we talked about ways you can encourage your own creative process. But even going to an art museum or an art gallery, really absorbing and reflecting and enjoying art when you have. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, Brian, but if you've ever gone and then you come back out and literally the colors outside look different. Like everything's more bright or intense. I always feel so enlivened after going to an art museum. So I wasn't even doing anything creative. I was just observing creativity.

I think I need to go. The new art museum opened in Denver, so I feel like I need to go in there with that perspective. I love art, but I gotta tell you, sometimes I struggle and I get too much in my left brain and I'm. Instead of like, trying to figure out or just how I feel and just let be in my right side. Like, how does that. Like, what is that feeling I'm getting by looking at it? And sometimes I get in my head and I'm like, what the hell was that artist thinking? Or what was. You know, I got to shift gears a little bit. So I'm going to go to the art museum and get in my creative space based off your recommendation. And I'm just going to observe and I'm going to walk outside and look at the colors.

I like that. But I also think it's important to ask, what the hell is that artist thinking? I think that's part of what art does, is make you go, what makes you Question. Makes you maybe look at something differently. Yeah, that's pretty funny. We went to do the immersive Van Gogh and that was a very neat experience. But we, you know, creativity. Not just that. I mean, you could doodle. You could have adult coloring books. I want an entire wall. I want like adult coloring book wallpaper where I could just go and fill in and color in wall size. Coloring wallpaper.

Do it in your new place.

Maybe just go for it. I think they make it. I really think there's wallpaper out there that's basically like those adult coloring books that you can order. That'd be fun.

I know they have a bit. They have big sticky, sticky notes, like very large ones. You could just cover your whole wall in giant sticky notes. So our goal today, just to reiterate, because I know we can bounce around a bit here, is to spark a deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep interest in you. To want to create a mindset of how you can incorporate all these little things that we've talked about in the past 13 podcasts into your daily life and want to want it so bad. It's like that breath of fresh air that you haven't had in a while. Just to feel all of this come together and to have it just part of your routine and it's not even work anymore. It becomes effortless. And that is something I would love to. For you to have a desire for personally.

Yeah. Do we want to do a really quick. Just another walk down of the list of things they need to work on.

Take it away.

So neuroplasticity. So being open and understanding that looking and doing challenging things can literally change your brain. Breathing. We talk a lot about that. Brain waves kind of resetting where you are in a state of brain function. You can do that through meditation and breathing and mindset work and then mindset. Right. Reframing situations, changing how you are perceiving something or feeling about something. Not necessarily dishonoring your feeling, but taking it and accepting for what it is and then seeing how maybe it can serve you and others in a good way. Movement. So obviously just exercise in general, moving that body, but also finding new ways to be playful or diversified in the way you move your body. Subconscious, we didn't really go into that much, but it kind of ties into the mindset and brainwaves. Right? Like, yeah, recognizing, like, where is that Coming from what's the really deeper surface or undercurrent, as I say, like what's running under the current here of the feeling? Where did this come from? From your past or, you know, a family trait, you know, recognizing there's some subconscious beliefs that set us up for interpreting life in a certain way or having a belief about what we can or cannot do. Anger. We like that one. Just understanding that anger doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's a signal from your body that something isn't going the way you perceive. There's some sort of offense happening to what you think should be happening. And understanding how to express it safely and then utilize it again as a tool for productivity in a different direction. Stretching. Literally stretching your body. So getting in and moving your body in different positions and checking your joint length and strength and keeping that fluidity moving through your body and celebrating your wins. Right. So even we talked about this in the podcast about it. Don't have to celebrate every tiny thing and then understanding dopamine fluctuations and baselines of dopamine. But definitely take time every day to reflect back on things that went well and happy moments and just doing little things that like Brian does where he does his own. Brian Bowen is in the house. What did you say you do? Yay, Brian Bowen.

I have. They just have to go back. There was too many. For every little thing, there's just a different celebration. So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then creative with that, you get creative with it and then creativity and how important creativity is for just expressing yourself, but learning a deeper connection towards with yourself, but also for analytical processing. Taking a creative break helps you actually be more productive. And like, if you're stuck on something at work, taking a minute to be a little bit creative and play or doodle helps break your brain out of a rut, so to speak. And oftentimes pushes you through on a project you might be stuck on. So getting creative.

You did a really good job. There was one of the second one we did or the third one had to do with maintenance as prevention.

Yeah.

And so it got into, you know, utilizing massage and stuff like that. But all of these really are part of that. Right? All of these are maintenance, even more than maintenance. But we'll just kind of keep it that kind of theme for a minute. But that's becoming really aware of where. How you're operating and all the little alarm signals that could be going off and staying ahead of it before. Before things have gone too far and we're in crisis mode. So this is all maintenance as prevention. So you did a good job, Amy. All right. I love that. And please, if you haven't listened to some of these podcasts, go back and listen to them, but just really try to make it part of your lifestyle, part of who you are, and just reframe your mindset and desire to want to dig deep into some of this stuff and start putting this into your daily life and fall in love with it and share what you love about it and what you might not or where your challenges are with us.

Yep. Get out there, ask good questions to the world, to others and to yourself. Right.

Awesome. Appreciate you guys. Appreciate you, Amy. Thank you so much.

Thanks Brian. Have a fabulous day.

You too.

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