Weekly Living Light Metabolic Program Q & A with Dipa [April 5, 2024]

Foreign.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Ed. Welcome. Melissa. Welcome. Deepak, welcome. Shannon. Great to see you here. Yeah, just going to send a quick message to everyone to let them know that we have started. And as I'm sending that message, if you could let me know in the chat what you're most grateful for. Okay, give me one moment.

It.

Hey, Ed says he's grateful for being alive. Thanks for sharing, Ed. Shannon says right now that my body is responding well to starting another phase of the release phase. Awesome. Okay, so for those of you who are just tuning in, let me know in the chat what you're grateful for today and would love if you could turn your camera on if possible as well. Always love to see your beautiful faces. And we'll start with a few rounds of just some conscious breathing. So I know sometimes some of you are listening to this while you're driving. So of course, course you can follow along with the breathing, but don't close your eyes. But if you can, if it's possible for you, just get into a comfortable seat and you can close your eyes if you feel comfortable or if you're able to. And just start bringing more awareness to your breath, your inhale and your exhale. Try to focus on nasal breathing, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth and in through the nose and out through the mouth. To focus on your breath.

Nose.

And today we're going to focus on a more extended exhale. So take an inhale for four seconds and I'll kind of prompt you. And you're going to hold for four seconds and exhale. And inhale. Hold for four. And exhale. And inhale for four. And hold for four. And we're going to exhale for eight. And inhale through the nose. Hold for four. And exhale for four or for eight. Inhale for four, Hold for four. And exhale for eight. Inhale for four, Hold for four. And exhale for eight.

Yeah.

And now just come back to your normal breath. Relax your shoulders, your eyes, your jaw, Your forehead. Continue to breathe in and out through your nose. And when you feel ready, if your eyes are closed, you can open your eyes. And let me know in the chat how you're feeling. Calm. Lena says relaxed. Great. And this is something that you can practice anytime throughout the day. You don't have to have your eyes closed. You can do it even when your eyes are open. And it just really helps you to shift into that parasympathetic state. The parasympathetic state is where our body does all the healing and repair and regeneration and it's the state that we primarily want to be in throughout the day. So the song that I'm playing for those of you are interested is by East Forest. I love his music. And the song is called Sing Me Awake. I'll put it in the chat. And there's a great app that you can even download. It's called I Breathe. I know I've spoken about it before. And I Breathe is an app that you can help you to stay on cadence with whatever breathing intervals you want to do. So I know Ed had messaged me and says he does 8, 8 16, which of course you know, as you work up to that, you can increase the intervals so you can do 8 second inhale, an 8 second hold and a 16 second exhale. So you can definitely work your way up to that. So the app is called I Breathe and as you can see, I have it here on my phone. But you can choose the intervals. So when you go to intervals, you can choose how long you want the inhale, how long you want the hold at the top of the inhale, how long you want the exhale, and then if you want to end, hold as well. And it basically will just prompt you to stay with that cadence. So this is something that you can have on passively when you're doing some, you know, more quote unquote, mindless work. If you need a little pause, you can take a pause and just take, you know, 10, do 10 breaths of the, of whatever cycle of breathing you want. And when you extend the exhale, as I mentioned, that's what really helps shift you more into the parasympathetic state. Okay, so give that a try this week and let me know how it goes for you if you do start incorporating it in your day to day, even when you're driving, you know, when you're perhaps in a more passive zoom meeting, if you, if you have to be on one while you're working, you can do this in the background and nobody has to know, right? It probably will help enhance creativity and focus when we shift into that parasympathetic state. So give it a try. Hey, so today I am going to do some Q and A with you all if you have questions. But I wanted to briefly talk a little bit about sleep. For those of you who are familiar or like to listen to podcasts, there is a great podcast that I will frequently listen to. It's called Huberman Labs. So it's a gentleman named Andrew Huberman who does a lot of deep dives into Certain topics and he's a Stanford scientist. And just recently he's, I think it was just this past few days that he, he's released episode one of a six part series that he's doing on sleep with a guest speaker named Matthew Walker. Matthew Walker is a sleep scientist. And I, I'm almost done episode one and I just wanted to share a few of my takeaways.

So.

You know, one thing that he really discusses in this podcast is a three hour podcast. So it's great to listen to if you're in the car or if you're, you know, doing some housework or whatever it might be, if you're at the gym or going for a walk is of course the importance of sleep, which we've emphasized with many of you. You know, throughout this journey, sleep pretty much impacts almost every element of your health, right? Your mental health, your insulin sensitivity. So, you know, the more quality sleep you get, the more of quantity sleep that you get. Um, it's going to help improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugars helps, as I said, with emotional well being, you're going to be less reactive, more calm, more grounded. When you get better sleep helps with brain function, some more focus and, and creativity. Obviously, energy levels is a huge thing when it comes to sleep. So your energy levels are going to be way more optimized when you're getting good sleep. And you know, for some of you, I know on this program, for some of you, you have an OURA ring because it was included if you chose the longevity or legacy program. And so that's really going to help give you some objective data around your sleep. But you know, for most of us where we can, you know, if someone asks you, oh, how did you sleep? You can probably intuitively say, oh, not too good, or I had a great night's night's rest. Right? So intuitively you kind of know. But something like the OURA ring can give you a little more objective data. And when you have that objective data, it can really help you modify your sleep behaviors. And today I kind of wanted to discuss these four main elements with regards to sleep that Matthew Walker talks about. And the acronym is qqrt. So it stands for Quantity quality. Oh my God, I'm drawing a blank. Quantity, quality. I just spoke about it too. Quantity, quality. Give me a second. Timing is the last one. The T, the R I believe is.

Shoot.

What was it? I literally just spoke to a client about it before this. Q A. Quantity quality. And the fourth one was, I think it's restorative. I Think that one the R was. I'll, I'll, I'll double check. But quantity obviously is obvious. So we want to make sure that we're getting at least seven to nine hours of sleep. Okay. Many of us maybe get a little less than that. So really make sure that you're getting at least seven hours of sleep at a minimum. Okay. When we get less than seven hours of sleep, one of the main impacts of that is going to be, as I said, your emotional well being. You might be a little more snappy or irritable that day. When we get less than seven hours of sleep, it also dysregulates our hunger and appetite hormones. So our hunger hormone is ghrelin. So when we get less than seven hours, our hunger appetite is our hunger hormone. Ghrelin is going to increase. So no matter what we eat, we're not going to feel satiated and our appetite hormone called leptin is going to decrease. So no matter what we eat, we're not going to feel satiated. Okay. We also end up eating about 350 more calories when we don't get enough sleep. And those calories that we're going to gravitate towards are those carbohydrates, right? The breads and the pastas and the cereals and the pastries. So, you know, obviously that is not ideal. So you want to make sure that you're getting the right quantity of sleep. Okay. The next one is quality. So quality is if you have an aura ring. The nice thing about the OURA ring is it measures something called sleep efficiency. So sleep efficiency is simply the amount of time that we're asleep versus the amount of time that we're awake. So if you are, you know, for example, if you're in bed for nine hours or for eight hours rather, and you're only getting six hours of sleep, that's a sleep efficiency of about 75%. Right. So we really want to make sure that we're not having frequent awakenings and that we are, you know, sleeping throughout the night as much as possible. Okay. And then the R, I'll come back to that. But the T is timing. So timing, you know, even if we get seven hours of sleep and we're not really waking up a lot, if the timing is not right, that's not ideal either. And with all four of these elements, it's not like, oh, you know, I got seven hours of sleep, but, you know, I was awake a lot throughout the night. You want to make sure you're hitting all four of them. So they're all equally as important. So you can, you can't compensate for one and not pay attention to the others. Right. You have to pay attention to all four. So the T is timing. And ideal timing is going to be around 10pm to be in bed by some people. You know, maybe you might go to bed a little sooner or earlier and then, you know, typical wake time, depending on how much sleep you specifically need, might be a wake time of 6 or 7am okay. So for sure we want to try to be in bed by 10 because that's going to be most aligned with our circadian rhythm. Okay, and then the fourth one, the R is. Give me one second. It is. I have to get back to you about the R. I don't know why I'm drawing a blank. And I talk about these things all the time, but it's just I can't remember what the R is specifically stands for. But basically, you know, you want to make sure that you're hitting, as I said, all of those elements. The R is regularity. Thank you, Deepak. Okay. Yeah. So regularity means that you are trying to stay within. So like I said, if your, if your bedtime is around 10 and your wake time is around 6, you want to make sure that your staying within that window, plus or minus 30 minutes. Okay. So it's really about the consistency. Right. So you don't want to be going to bed at like 10pm one day and then 11 the next day and then midnight the day after. You want to try to stay as consistent with your bedtime and wake time. Like I said, plus or minus 30 minutes. Okay. So it's quantity, quality, regularity, or consistency and timing. Okay.

So.

The other things that he speaks about is obviously the positive impacts that sleep has on your health as well. Right. Sleep is also highly correlated with things like heart health. Right. So if we're not getting enough sleep or getting good quality sleep has a huge impact on our heart health too.

Right.

So really making sure that we focus on sleep, in my opinion, to a certain degree, I feel like sleep is more important than what we eat as well. Right. So it's definitely a high priority when it comes to our health. And unfortunately, just the way our western world is, which is so hyper focused on productivity and being on the go, go, go. And you know, it's like a badge of honor if you're, if you're able to like be super productive and compromise your sleep. Right. So we want to shift that because when you get good quality sleep, when you get the right amount and when your sleep is really dialed in, it's actually going to make you more productive. Okay. The hunger hormone is called ghrelin, so that's spelled G H R E L I N Ghrelin. Okay. So any questions about any of that or, you know, I'll open it up to questions in general. You can raise your hand, raise your zoom hand, you'll see it at the bottom, or you can type your question into the chat. Shannon, go ahead and unmute.

So my question is. And I have a quick. I could also share something. It was a lesson from the previous rounds. I have a question. But I guess what I'd share is that it was when I started wearing the aura ring, it was very humbling for me to realize I actually wasn't getting as much sleep as I thought I was, you know, when going to sleep and waking up. So that that data was made me more honest because I thought, oh, I was getting seven or eight, but I was actually getting six or seven. And not because of the efficiency, but actually because, you know, you don't really see when you fall asleep and wake up. And then the other humbling thing is that I really had to accept that seven hours isn't enough for me. I will start having those cravings at seven hours. So I'm like, if you really just left me sleeping naturally without alarm, I'm like an eight and a half hour person. I'm on the far end of the spectrum. And that's. I work in a field that requires a ton of work and it rewards people who don't sleep. So that's been a really, really humbling thing over time. But, you know, but important to know. And my question is, and you and I went through this before and I can't remember how we fixed it is that when I go into the release phase, I wake up at like 4 in the morning and I'm usually a very good sleeper. And then so what that's for. It's usually, let's say I go to bed. I go to bed. I'm actually my circadian rhythm. I'm actually more of like the. I would like to be the early bird, but I naturally am an 11 to sort of 7 or 8 o' clock present. But so yeah. So why this kind of waking up at 4 in the morning?

Okay. So do you, do you remember from previous rounds that you've done, if it's just something that happens within the first week or two and then kind of goes away?

I think it was persistent.

Okay. So what can happen sometimes for some people is usually waking up in the middle of the night. One of the main reasons is that you might be going hypoglycemic. So that's when your blood sugar drops. The only way, like if you were away, what would happen is you would probably get like a sugar craving or you feel really tired or sleepy when your blood sugar drops. So the only way to raise your blood sugar when you're sleeping because of course, sleeping, so it's not like you're going to get that sugar craving is to raise cortisol. And cortisol is our awakening hormone. And so cortisol, when we, when we raise cortisol, it, it increases blood glucose. That's what causes the nighttime awakening. So one way to help is what time are you eating dinner? So if you're going to bed at 11, then what time are you eating dinner?

Like 6.

So I would probably shift the dinner a little later if you can, like even to seven. So that way, you know, by the time you finish your meal, you're not going like, you know, over four hours without any food. You're, you're kind of, you know, pushing that meal timing, making sure that you're eating a lot of free vegetables as well. Going to be helpful. Sometimes people forget about the free vegetables or, you know, skip out on those. So definitely would not recommend that. You want to make sure you're getting a lot of free vegetables. See how that helps and then let me. Yep.

Okay. Thank you so much.

To fall back asleep or are you having a hard time falling back asleep once you.

I definitely have a hard time falling asleep. I can see in the rain sometimes it's like for an hour and a half I'm tossing and turning and then late. Like I would fall back asleep at six and then, you know, have had the luxury of being able to sleep.

In a little bit.

But. Yeah, it's disruptive.

Yeah, exactly. It's not a fun feeling. So, yeah, let me know how that helps. And then if it, if you still feel like it's happening, I'll give you a few other tips perhaps.

Okay.

Thank you.

Welcome. What other questions do you all have? And sometimes it might just happen like the first week or so because your body, like your blood sugars are, are rebalancing. And then sometimes after the first week or two, it, it may subside. Okay, Lena, go ahead and unmute.

Oh, one second.

There we go.

There we go.

Yeah, I've been kind of noticing the same thing. Like I had, I, I didn't fall asleep the easiest prior to starting the program.

Yeah.

Because I'd be on my phone and all that kind of stuff. But I found like, since this was my first week, I've been finding that, like, I wake up like almost like at 1 and then like 3 or something like specific times. And I'm like tossing and turning all night. And then I wake up at seven, I do my spray and then I'll like, I'll go back to bed for an hour or two because I'm just so tired. So it's probably like getting everything regulated or I don't know exactly what's happening. I'm assuming it'll get better, but it's been. It's been a week with sleep.

Yeah. So hopefully like that sleep disturbance can be common in the first week or so. So once your blood sugars kind of start balancing out, it should improve. I'll ask you the same question as well in terms of what time are you typically going to bed and what time are you eating dinner?

I would say dinner because I'm doing like the 12. Between 12 and 8. Around 7, I would say. Okay, and then I'll go to bed. The regularity isn't there right now, but I. I've been trying to go to bed at 10, but it's been more like 11. But then it's. I can't fall asleep. Like, I even meditate beforehand and that usually knocks me out, but that hasn't been helping either.

So. Okay, so a couple things with. And so falling having a difficult. Having difficulty falling asleep. Was that happening before the program as well?

You said a little bit here and there. Yeah, because. Because of like being on my phone and just like not taking it serious. But.

Okay, so with trouble falling asleep, sometimes it can be due to. To screens because the blue light is very stimulating. So I know you. I think I know you have an iPhone. Did I send you the instructions on how to turn red? Have you done that yet? Okay, good. So if you are going to be on your phone, you know, make sure it's red using the red light bulb. So really, really trying to get rid of as much blue light as possible the hour before bedtime. You know, in some cases I would even recommend two hours before bedtime is going to really help increase melatonin production. And you know, melatonin, of course, we all know it's helpful for sleep, but it, it's actually one of the most powerful antioxidants in our body. And if we don't have proper melatonin levels Then it really puts us at risk for things like cancer. So really making sure you're optimizing those melatonin levels by eliminating blue light one to two hours before bedtime is going to be important. And then the other thing, you know, sometimes I know, you know, I, I know you, you're a business owner. So sometimes there's like a list of never ending things to do. And so if you keep like a journal beside your bedside and do kind of like a brain dump, because sometimes it's like, oh my God, I got to do this tomorrow, that tomorrow. Like if that's kind of. Those are the thoughts that are running through your mind which are stopping you from like falling asleep. Just do like a brain dump and just get it all out on paper so that those thoughts are not continuously like repeating in your mind. Okay, so try those two things and then keep me posted with whether those nighttime awakenings improve or not. And then also, you know, making sure you're getting your spray in three times a day is going to help as well with regulating and resetting your, your hormones, specifically your cortisol. And if you are, you know, forgetting, then putting an alarm in your phone can be helpful to remind you to, to get your spray in. Okay, what other questions do you all have? Yes, I will send you that link.

Okay, here we go.

Just put it in the chat. Yeah. So for those of you who have an iPhone, even if you use an iPad, I would highly, highly recommend. Following the instructions in the link I just sent. So if you see when I press my power button three times, it's a little glitchy. Oh, I think I have to unlock my phone first. My screen turns red. So that's going to drastically help reduce blue light. So you want to do that on your phone, on your computer. If you are on a computer one to two hours before bed, there's a software called just get flux dot com. It's free and you can put it in. I think it's called dark room mode. Yeah, it's called darkroom mode. And that's gonna make your screen like red and black. Basically I just put in dark room looks funny. Okay. And then the other thing, nice thing about flux is that so it's normal to get blue light exposure throughout the day. Specifically, you know, the sun emits blue light. So it's completely normal to get blue light exposure throughout the day. But our screens do have an abnormal amount of blue light. So let me just show you this. One second. I'm going to share my screen. Just pull it Up.

Okay.

Okay. So if you can see my screen, so this is a typical LED bulb. Right. And even our screens, like our computers, laptop, I want, as you can see, the spectrum of blue light is like abnormally high. So if we were outside in the sun, it would be like, follow this curve. Right. It wouldn't peak like this. Okay. So probably see it better now. It would basically follow this curve. Right. So on our screens, even during the day, if you get the flux, I think I put the link in the chat, it's going to really soften your screen more. So like right now, when I'm looking at my screen, it's more of a yellow tone rather than this like bright white tone. Okay. And then even with your iPhone, like if you go into the settings, Android phone phones have this as well. And if you go to display and brightness, you can set it to night shift mode. So when the sun sets, it's going to be more of like a yellow tone rather than this like bright white. And then one to two hours before bedtime, you can put it in the red mode. And then if you do watch TV before bedtime, then as far as I know, most TVs unfortunately don't have. I wish my husband and I were just talking about it yesterday where we're like, we wish the TV had like a flux type of app that you could download to make the screen red. But as far as I know, most TVs don't. So we usually recommend blue blocker glasses, which look something like this. Specifically, there's different types of lenses, so you specifically want to wear the red lens one to two hours before bedtime because this is the one that's going to completely block out the blue light. So that same graphic that I showed when you wear the blue blockers, as you can see, it completely eliminates that green and blue spectrum of light. Okay. So I can put a link for these as well. And lighting is something that we don't think about enough when it comes to sleep quality. So we definitely want to focus on the lighting before we get go to bed, but we also want to try to focus on the lighting that we're exposed to during the day. So I talked about it with little bit with the screens putting the flux on so it, you know, is not as harsh of a screen. But then also getting out and getting frequent sun breaks. So first thing in the morning, within an hour, if you have a dog, then it's actually perfect because you have no choice but to get outside. But first thing in the morning, within that first hour that can really help reset your circadian rhythm and help get a better night's sleep. And then there is another app called that I have. I know these days we all have so many apps, but it's called Circadian. And the Circadian app, what it does, is it based on where you live. So for me, I live in Mississauga, Ontario, and it tells me what the sunrise is, what the sunset is. And then there's. You can get a free account or a paid account. I just have the free account. But you can. When you have a free account, you can set up to two notifications. So the notification that I have set up is it gives you five reminders throughout the day to get a natural light and movement break. Okay, so let me put the link for the app in the chat. So like today, for example, where I live, the sunrise was 6:51am and then it gave me a notification at 8:21 to get a natural light and movement break. My next one was 9:51. Next one after that was 11:21. I have one coming up at 12:51. I don't always, you know, get around to these breaks, but it's a great reminder. So I would recommend the app. And then let me put the link for the blue blocker glasses. Okay. What other questions do you all have? How's everyone's program going? Anyone have any issues about the release phase or loading phase? Make sure you're drinking plenty of water. Lena says it's going well so far.

Good.

Good to hear that. And you know, with water intake, you want to aim for at least, you know, around 80 to 100 ounces while you're on the release phase. And make sure you put a little bit of salt in your water, too. A pinch of salt can really help you stay more hydrated. And herbal teas also count towards water intake, so you can have herbal teas as well. Everyone's taking the their sip of water.

Good. Okay.

Lena says it's been easier than I thought it would be. Yeah. And the point is for it to be easier. Right. We want you to really simplify the way you think about food. Right. It doesn't have to have like, be these fancy meals. Right. We really want you to hit the main food groups and with this meal plan, you don't really have to think a lot about macros because everything's kind of calculated for you in. In the measurements. So keeping it simple, keeping it clean. Right. I'm sure many of you, as you're going through this, you feel lighter. You Feel more energetic, Trying to exercise more and drink more. But I wish it would warm up outside. Yes, I think that's Ron. Hey, Ron. Nice to see you and, and nice to have you here. I think for those of, those of you who live in the Greater Toronto area, I think starting tomorrow it's supposed to be nicer. I agree. Yesterday I actually, I, I didn't. It was probably around. What time was it? I think it was like 6:45ish. And I'm like, shoot. I didn't really get much exercise today. I'd been sitting a lot, doing a lot of, you know, work at my computer. I had to pick up my son from school, which is like an hour hour. Like, you know, getting there and back is an hour. So I was sitting a lot. So I'm like, maybe we should go to the gym. But then I was like, it's kind of late. I don't know if I want to go to the gym. So we went for a walk outside and, and it was very difficult to, to go outside because it was a windier and colder evening yesterday. But you know, my husband was like, let's just go. It's, it's. We're gonna, we're gonna like dread it right now, but we're gonna feel so much better after we go. And so we decided to go and we went for probably like a 30, 35 minute walk. And we did feel so much better when we got back. Right. So even on those days when we, you know, feel less motivated, just try to go out, even if it's just five, ten minutes because it'll definitely shift your mood, right? That's one of the. Because, you know, it was like that 7 o' clock time frame and he's like the healthier thing. Rather than going to the gym and being on a treadmill, let's just go outside, get outside, get that sunlight exposure, get the fresh air. You know, you're not exposed to these bright gym lights later in the evening. So it's much easier now when, as the days are getting longer and warmer. But get outside as much as possible. We are indoors way too much. So whenever we have the opportunity to get outside. Especially living in North America, right. I think we live a much more sedentary lifestyle than, you know, Europeans. Shannon, I've been looking at your journal entries. You're like, I biked here, I biked there. I'm like, we don't do that here, right? We just drive everywhere. So, you know, as the weather improves, try to get more movement that way. Too right. Unfortunately, things here are much further away, which requires us. Sometimes we have no choice but to get in a car. But the other. When was it? A couple weeks ago as well. In the morning. We usually like to go to go to the gym in the morning. And my husband was like, as the weather gets nicer, like, because usually we'll go to the gym and then we'll drop my son off at school because it's kind of on the way. And we're like, we both don't need to be in the car. He's like, one of us should walk home. So I was like, okay, fine, I'll try it today. So I walked home, and it was like an hour walk from the gym to home, and it was like, it was such a nice walk. So, you know, sometimes we feel like we can't walk or bike somewhere because we're not used to it. But as the weather gets nicer and of course, as time permits permitting on your schedule, try to do more things like that. Hey, what other questions do you all have?

Questions?

Comments? Shannon, go ahead and unmute.

Yeah, I mean, since there weren't a lot of questions, I thought I'd throw out just additional thoughts from you. I know we've talked about it a little bit, but, you know, since I did the program a few years ago and starting again, but just in general, in the interim, obviously I've had some things happen that have my nervous system gave it a really big shift in a not great direction. And so maybe just. I mean, the question is just what are the top, you know, things that you recommend to keep the parasympathetic system at most in play, you know, to continue that shift. Because that's where I find the real difference from where I was before is my natural state of being is a little bit more agitated.

Yes, well, great question. So a couple things that come to mind is sleep, right? Especially deep sleep. Deep sleep is. Body really shifts into the parasympathetic state. Another thing, I know you have an aura ring, a new feature that they added just, I think, beginning of February. When you open your app, you probably now see, I'm just opening up my app. But at the bottom, you see home readiness, sleep activity. And now there's something called resilience.

I had the old one. I don't know if I have that. My ring is now three years old. I don't have that.

Are you paying the monthly subscription?

No, because I'm grandfathered into the old ring.

Oh, you are? Okay. I am, too. I would so you don't see it at the bottom there?

No, I just have Home readiness, Sleep Activity, and Explore.

Okay.

As buttons on the.

If you go to your app store, see if there's an update to the app that you need to do.

Okay. Okay.

That might be it. You might need to update the app. But they have daytime resilience now, which is nice because it, you know, traditionally speaking, the Oura ring only measures HRV at night, and HRV is a measure of how resilient we are to stress. So now it does daytime stress. So the reason I bring that up is because that'll kind of give you like, a baseline in terms of what your daytime stress levels are. And from there, you know, when you make certain modifications, then you can see how, you know, that improves. Right. So really shift your body into the parasympathetic state is going to be breathing, breath work. Right. So similar to what we did at the beginning of the session is, you know, breath work practices can really help shift you into the parasympathetic state. And the point of the breathwork practice is, yes, you do it for, you know, those five or 10 minutes, but really trying to carry that with you throughout your day. Right. So sometimes there's a term for it. It's, you know, when we check our email, for example, there's a tendency sometimes to hold our breath. Right. So just becoming more aware of your breath throughout the day and just making subtle shifts to it. Ideal, just regular cadence of breathing is 6 seconds on the inhale, 6 seconds on the exhale. So you could even have that I breathe app just kind of, you know, in the background as you're doing work or in a meeting to just prompt you to breathe more consciously and then getting out in nature, like nature walks, right. Forest bathing really helps to lower cortisol. And then just, you know, and I know you've kind of been doing a lot of this is things like yoga, things that really bring you joy, whether it's, you know, an art class or whatever it might be. Anything that can kind of bring you more into the present state is going to be helpful with shifting your body and your physiology more into that parasympathetic state.

Yeah, it's interesting because one of the things you mentioned, because the body work that I'm doing is finally one of the practitioners figured out that, like, my breathing got stuck. Yeah, right. In one place. Like, the stomach part was good, but the chest was really tight and I wasn't breathing. And so the. The. What was it called, the big muscle below Your lungs that goes up.

Diaphragm.

The diaphragm.

Yeah.

It was super. That hair was super tight. Yeah. And so it was really clear that while I go to yoga and I can drop in and do it in the day, you know that like the habit has shifted about like how I'm reading. So how are there any, that's a good idea to kind of put this app on while you're working so you kind of remember to shift your breathing. Are any other tips that you have around? Because I kind of feel like I need to rewire so the part of my brain and how I'm actually walking around so I'm not. So the breath isn't like that.

Yeah. So there are, there is a tool. I actually have to set it up.

It's called oxa.

I haven't, I haven't personally used it yet, so I can't speak to it as much. But it's also like a breathwork training tool. Sachin. Sachin's used it and you download the app. I can put a link for it in the chat, but does help you with breathwork practices. I'm actually going to try it this weekend just because I can obviously then speak to it more intelligently.

Okay.

But that is something that can help with just bringing more conscious awareness to your breathing throughout the day. And then the other thing I was going to talk to you about is especially if you're saying that you're holding a lot of tension in the diaphragm. Just give me a second, I'm going to put that link for the OXA and then I'll talk about the other thing.

Okay.

And then the other thing is. These self massage balls and there's one ball specifically. Share my screen. Okay, so these are self massage balls and what they do is they help with something called myofascial release. And you know, we store a lot of emotions in our fascia and so when we use these balls to self massage, it can really help us release some emotions as well that we might be holding on to. And so I, I have this, I just got the whole kit and includes a book as well, which gives you, you know, more direction in terms of how to use the ball. But there's one ball that comes in this kit specifically and it's called the gorgeous ball, which is this big purple one. And especially if you feel like you have some tension in that diaphragm area, you, you kind of just gently lay on this ball and that can really help with myofascial release, especially in that area and stretch out the diaphragm. So and these are great because you can kind of use them at your convenience without having to go see a massage therapist like every week or two weeks or month. Right. So this is something you can use on a daily basis. Like, for me, just know because I sit a lot, I get a lot of tension in my neck and my shoulder, so I just use this green ball and I kind of just like roll it on my traps and my, my shoulder and my neck. I use the cordis ball a lot because I've had several abdominal surgeries. So kind of just helps with a lot of the. The scar tissue that I have just from those surgeries. I use these balls. So see how they come in a mesh net and you can keep them like that and you can roll them spine. So, yeah, I, I found these very, very helpful. So I can.

Great.

Those. Yeah.

You're welcome.

Ron was saying I can't get used to the mouth taping. I get really weird dreams when I try it, which makes me wake up usually. The mouth taping should help increase deep sleep. This kind of might tell me that it's increasing. Perhaps your REM sleep. I would say just meet yourself where you're at with the mouth tape and maybe just practice wearing it during the day and get used to it that way and then see about shifting to wearing it while you're sleeping. But the mouth tape, for those of you who aren't using it, really helps to shift your body. Really helps you just breathe more through your nose rather than your mouth while you're sleeping. And when we breathe through our nose versus our mouth while we're sleeping, we're going to decrease nighttime awakenings due to urination. We are going to help increase deep sleep, which is in turn is then going to help shift your body more into that parasympathetic state. It's going to reduce mouth dryness. Number one cause of cavities is mouth breathing. So making sure that you keep your mouth shut while you're sleeping because that helps maintain oral microbiome health. So better oral microbiome health, which means less. Less dry, less cavities. My wife may prefer me with my mouth tape during the day, but good idea, I'll try. Thanks for sharing. And it says, I know it's weird at first. Now I can't sleep without it. Yeah, it's like a soothing effect, right? So same with. Same with us. We've been doing it for three and a half years now.

And it's.

It's weird when we don't have our mouth tape if we forget it when we're traveling or whatever it might be. Okay, well, great session today, everyone.

Can I ask one more quick question?

Yeah, of course, of course.

But you had mentioned as you were talking so much about breathing and then I realized and I loved, you know, when we had the James Nestor sessions and I read the book Breathe Etc. You mentioned that you and Sachin once went on a retreat. A breathing retreat.

Yes.

Is that something that he repeats or that's available?

It's actually coming up in a few weeks. I think it might be sold out, but I think he does them once or twice a year.

So just like on his website. James Nestor's website or. Let me check. I think that's something. It's far away enough that I think you have probably the plan in advance. Okay, let's see if I can get the look. Okay. Here.

Costa Rica. Yeah. So it's a wait list at this point. It's April 27th to May 4th and I think it's sold out. But I'll put the link here.

Okay.

Okay, everyone. Well, I do have another Q and A that I have to run to, but thank you for being here and hopefully we'll see everyone next week.

Thank you.

Happy Friday. Have a great day, everyone.