The Surprising Connections between Clutter and Bone Loss with Debi Robinson

pretend you're me and you're on the phone with a loved person and she's saying, okay, you know, I've been diagnosed and there's nothing else for me but to go on Fosamax. What would you say to her?

Well, I, so when I have a Heather sitting in front of me that is naturally minded and said, here's what my DEXA scan said, what do I do? So I have to first put her mind to ease, share the information that I learned from ortho. Surgeons. So I learned from orthopedic surgeons, people that are doing the surgeries that are touching the bones, that see not correlation between what that scan tells them and what they actually see. So I put their minds to ease and then I say, okay, here's what you could do. There are 3 areas that, that major areas that come into our body that lead to stress. You have musculoskeletal. So this is the physical movement piece. This is how do you move to create stronger muscles, stronger bones. And then there's the biochemical, physiological, or metabolic, which is all about supplementation and diet. There is a diet to support bone building and there is a diet that contributes to bone dissolving. So what does that look like? And then there's a mental emotional layer. Stress, stress, stress will dissolve your bones quicker than anything else. And if you don't clear the mental clutter of stress, of emotions, of whatever, you're carrying around, right? We don't even see that. We don't see that. I mean, it's so weird. I don't even think of the word clutter as much, yet all of this is clutter. If we don't clear the clutter of what we're carrying around mentally and emotionally from this lifetime or lifetimes before, from your grandmother, your great-grandmother, then you're gonna have that riding on your back and that is actually gonna be dissolving your bones in the background. So what are you thinking every day and how do you manage those thoughts? What are you eating? What could you eat or not eat? And how are you moving? Those are the 3 like main areas that I would work with someone on to naturally do what they need to do to support their bone health.

What's the connection between bones and clutter? I know there's a connection. What would you say it is?

Well, you know, when you and I were speaking, I'm super intrigued by your work because I think clutter is such an underestimated, unknown thing. Thing until you actually start to focus on it. And that's what your work does. And it really helps people remove clutter. And once you do, you feel this freedom from that, right? So when you and I were discussing, like, you brought up the word clutter, and when I thought of Bones, what I do, I thought of the clutter component of Bones a couple of different ways. Like, what are the things in our body that contributes to bone loss? So if I'm gonna talk about physical clutter in the body, I'm thinking of things that are getting in the way of bones building, instead can create a lot. And one of those would be one of the root causes is not moving enough or appropriately. So then I think about the physical clutter. And when I think about clutter, one of the things I love to share and teach is clear your cobwebs. So that is like, I think about what is stuck or sticky or getting in the way in your body that you could remove to allow for more mobility and more freedom and more movement.

I love this idea of clearing the cobwebs. When we clear the cobwebs, how do we feel? What's the benefit of clearing those cobwebs when it comes to bone health?

Well, let me tell you one thing about how I thought about this. I was on a retreat at the Isle of Wight, which is the south tip of England. And I was out, we were doing a morning walk, we did yoga in the morning, and then we were on a morning walk. And this lady said to me, she said, Oh, doesn't this feel great? We're clearing the cobwebs. And I said, are you referring to mental cobwebs or physical? And she goes, huh? And she didn't know. And so I thought about when you're talking about how does it make us feel? It depends. Like, what are we talking about? If you're doing the physical cobweb clearing, it means you can move more. So especially for those of us that are aging, meaning that we're out of our 30s. So we're in that category. Me, I'm actually a sexagenarian, just became a sexagenarian. Uh, which I love because, you know, here I am. So let me just love whatever it is, wherever I am. Uh, so when I think about clearing the cobwebs in my body, it means that I can move more. I can move more freely, which means I can go on an African safari. It means I could play pickleball. It means I could play with— I don't have grandkids yet, but if I did, it means you could play with your grandkids and get down on the floor and get up up from the floor. So to me, clearing the cobwebs means that you clear the clutter and you allow for freedom of mobility, which then allows you to dance, run, hike, and all the things that we should and could do for the rest of our lives. Well, when you have an issue in your life, it becomes your focus, right? It becomes everything you do. So I couldn't really walk. Well, by the time I had my surgery at 5 years after that tear, I couldn't walk. Like I would walk and my hip would be throbbing at night. Laying in bed, I couldn't sleep because my hip was throbbing. And so I knew there was something happening there. I just didn't know what it looked like. And then I had an MRI. Well, actually, the MRI— when you do it, when you do an MRI of a joint, it's called an MRI because it's an arthroscope, because your joints are arth— is the name there. So I had that with Di and we found out what it was. And so when I say I was living in my mind, my hip wasn't stable. I was cautious, I was tentative. I didn't know if I was doing damage. I actually used to think that that my— the top of my hip would break off. Like, I felt super fragile and breakable, which is exactly what women feel like when they get a diagnosis of osteoporosis or osteopenia. They feel fragile and breakable. They stop moving because they feel so fragile. I call it scared still. They become scared still. And when you don't move, you lose more, which happened to me. I didn't move as much because I was worried. I thought the top of my leg is going to break off, and then I would try to visualize, where will I be? Will it hurt? Will I be on the ground? Will I be able to get up? Will I be screaming? Like I used to think that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think this is probably actually common. Somebody said to me the other day, you know, I've been diagnosed with both, you know, and I guess I just have to go on the, is it Fosamax? I'm not even sure what it's called. So, so this person feels helpless. And feels like there really isn't anything she can do to help her situation out. But I think that's not true.

It's 100% not true. And that is why I do what I do. That's my mission to globally change the way we diagnose, manage, and treat bone health. We have a broken bone healthcare system. It was scan with a DEXA scan, diagnose and treat. And the only tool in the toolbox were medications. Then they started to recommend calcium supplements and vitamin D. Calcium supplementation in excess actually can contribute to heart attacks. So they started to pull away a little bit from that. So we actually have a completely wrong system for managing women's bone health. It is so completely backwards. And that's why I do what I do, is to empower women to take control of their bone health naturally. So when it comes to movement, I first wanna say musculoskeletal. Let's start with joint alignment and posture. If you are not aligned properly, half of all the fractures are in the spine and they're in the front of the spine. So head forward, poor posture is going to lead to fractures. And so posture and postural awareness becomes so critical. And, you know, you don't have to go to the gym, pump iron to have strong bones. You don't. So the—

I'm so glad. I'm so glad.

So let's do a little visual thing that I love that feels amazing for all of us. We could do it. Take your hands on your shoulders. So people know, they hear the word rotator cuff. Sometimes people call it a rotator cup, but it's a cuff. It's actually 4 tendons that actually holds the humerus bone in the socket. The shoulder is a ball in a socket. It's a very shallow set joint. But if you take your, your, your, you make your own rotator cuff and you just bring your elbows up on the inhale. And down on the exhale. Up on the inhale, down on the exhale. Now, if you imagine that you're up against a wall and you push your head back like the center of your head touches the wall, I want your elbows to slide up and down the wall. You want to be as close to the sides as possible. You are clearing the cobwebs from your shoulder blades. Your shoulder blades are actually going out and back down like your wings are opening and coming back to center. This action here is clearing the cobwebs in your shoulders. So freeing up your wings. And the whole subconscious component of what happens to the jaw. And when we sit a lot, this whole area fascially is connected to pelvic floor. So talking about an upright spine posture, bone health, spinal health, critical. So those little things right there. So I gave you a couple, I gave you 3 scoop ice cream. You're gonna keep, where's your 3rd scoop? Always, where's your 3rd scoop? Don't let it be forward. Put it back where it belongs. Put, stack your, your scoops. That's one piece. The other one was to make your rotator cuff and go up and down so that you're, and you're You're stretching here, all the musculature and all the tissue underneath the arms, lots of lymphatic vessels here. So you're starting to get lymph flowing. That's gonna be clearing that internal environment. Important for hormones, important for fat-soluble vitamins moving around and immune function. Number one bone dissolver of all is stress. And if you could eat perfectly, give up all those foods, eat perfectly, you could do crazy exercises every day, all day. And if you do not manage stress, You are gonna be dissolving bones all day long. It is the biggest bone dissolver. Actually, the musculoskeletal system, the bones are actually one of the first body systems to respond to stress. When we need, when our body thinks it needs to get the heck outta Dodge, the bones dissolve the minerals they store, the body systems to function. We take our, our energy moves away from digesting the foods that we're eating. So get muscles so we could get out of here. The pupils dilate, the brain goes into a place where we're focused so we can look for the threat, the threat, the threat. So brain fog. The lighter path is to realize that you are actually in control of everything. You're in control of the way your body ages. The, what you bring into your being. You're in control of understanding that you're a human being and not a human doing. So the tools in yoga, the tools that I share is the present moment awareness. Look around. What are you consuming with your eyes and bring beautiful things in. Beautiful. And especially when we're in nature, this is why nature has such a healing therapeutic effect on all of us. So then we bring in, if we're gonna stimulate prefrontal cortical brain, this is a sensory brain. This, you go to the place of feeling, the brain is incapable of feeling, which is choice brain, human brain, higher intellect, and thinking at the same time. The brain cannot be in the feeling zone and thinking zone. So get out of the thinking zone, come into the feeling zone, whether you're doing breathwork or meditation. In yoga, we do things with our hands called Mudras, we might say things, you might repeat things. And can I give you my favorite?

Yes.

So the word mantra, the word man, it's Sanskrit. The word man means mind and tra means tool. Now, when I first started yoga, I'm like, wait, I'm not Indian. Is this Hindu? You know, I thought, I don't wanna do those things. And then someone said, but we have our own mantras. I'm too fat.

I don't have enough money.

I don't have enough time. I don't have the energy to do that. We have all this negative mantras that we say over and over. So it's just words we repeat to ourselves. So close your eyes, sit up straight. Whoever's listening, you wanna have those 3 scoops nice and arranged, pelvis, rib cage, head, and then have your elbows under your shoulders because that will help to keep the shoulder blades in the back and support your posture. So I'm gonna give you a little mantra, a little self-talk. To clear your mind, to bring you to present moment, and to put your body in the bone-building zone. So repeat to yourself silently, I am safe.

I am safe.

And feel what that feels like. I am safe in this moment. I am safe now.

I I have enough. I have enough. And the next one, I am enough. I am enough. Say that to yourself, own that, feel that, experience that. And then go ahead and open your eyes.