Weekly Living Light Metabolic Program Q & A with Dipa April 12, 2024

Sam, It. Good afternoon, friends. Happy Friday. Welcome, welcome. Hi, Melissa. Hi, Nancy. Hi, Michelle. Nice to see you all. So as we're getting started, let me know in the chat what you're grateful for today, Wait a few more minutes for a few more people to tune in with us. As you're tuning in, let me know what you're grateful for today. In the chat, Melissa says, I'm grateful for allergy meds, although they seem to not be working as well. One thing I find with allergies is starting earlier, like almost beginning of March, because you kind of have to like, get ahead of it once, once allergy season starts, then, and then, and then we start the, you know, whatever allergy remedies. Like, it's almost a little bit too late at that point. Hey, welcome, Marissa. Great to see you. So we always start off with gratitude for those who are new. So if you could type in the chat what you're grateful for and then we'll do a little bit of breathing just to get things started. And then we'll get started with our session for today. Michelle says she's grateful for beautiful weather and a great horse jumping round for Lizzy. Okay, thanks for sharing. Yeah. So we'll talk a little bit about some natural remedies for allergies today too, because I know it's that time of year. So Michelle saying her hubby switched from allergy meds to neti pot daily because they stop working, which, yeah, would be an amazing thing to do. Really helps clear out the sinuses. And he says, my family's my family and support system. Awesome. That's so important. Okay, so why don't we do a little bit of breathing? So just settle into your seat. Just, hey, start paying attention to your breath. Start paying attention to your inhale and your exhale. Start trying to lengthen your exhale. We lengthen our exhale. It puts us more into a parasympathetic state. Parasympathetic state is where all the healing and restoration and repair and regeneration occurs. Today we'll do a little bit of box breathing and we'll do about a four second cadence. So we're going to inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds. And then we'll hold. Exhale for four seconds and then end, hold at the end for four seconds. Going to inhale for four. And then you're going to hold for four at the top. And now exhale, hold for four. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold, inhale, hold, exhale and hold. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Inhale hold. Exhale, hold. Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold. Do one more round. Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold. Now you'll just come back to your normal breath. Start becoming more aware of your surroundings. Wiggle your toes and your fingers and then you can open your eyes whenever you feel ready. Hey, how was that for everyone? Let me know in the chat and if you're able to, I'd love to see your beautiful faces so you can turn your camera on. Hi, Michelle. Hey. Good, excellent. So today I wanted to touch on a few things. I wanted to touch on sleep a little bit once again as I'm, you know, diving a little deeper into sleep. You know, a lot of things that I already knew but just want to re emphasize with you all. So sleep, we'll talk a little bit about the allergies and we'll talk a little bit about constipation as well. Okay? So with sleep, last week we talked about the four, the QQRT and this. I want to talk a little bit about our sleep environment and so specifically what we're doing, you know, an hour before bedtime. So an hour before bed. One of the things that we see in our modern day societies is a lack of darkness. Okay. And so we have a lot of light pollution, right? We have street lights and devices and TVs and you know, modern day lighting and we don't get enough darkness. And darkness is really what helps to stimulate melatonin production. And melatonin is not only responsible for helping us fall asleep, but more importantly than that, it's our most powerful antioxidant. And so melatonin is, you know, really, really beneficial for our immune health. It's also known as being anti cancer. So we really, really want to try to stimulate darkness as much as we can before bedtime. So really dimming the lights, using more red lights because that helps to block out blue light. Really trying to get off of our screens, if we can, if we absolutely must, then using things like flux that we've talked about, blue blockers, even turning your iPhone screen red, which we've talked about, all of these things are going to help to minimize blue light and increase melatonin production. Okay, so that's, number one, is really trying to focus on stimulating darkness or creating an environment where we have darkness. Number two is really making sure that we sleep in a cool environment. Okay, so anywhere from 60 to 68 Fahrenheit, I don't know what that translates into into degrees Celsius, but I think it's around 18, let me see. I just look it up quickly. Yeah, so less than 20 degrees Celsius. Okay, so 68 is 20. Let's see. So, you know, I would say around 17 to 20 Celsius. I usually, you know, especially now that the weather is, is warming up a bit, I'll sleep with my window open a crack just to let some fresh air in and to help cool because the nights are still cold here. So to help cool my room a little bit and then also making sure that we sleep in complete darkness. So if your room, if you do not have blackout shades and even some blackout shades just because of the light pollution and like, light can still get into the little cracks. So the test to know whether you're sleeping in adequate darkness is once your eyes have adjusted, when your lights go out, if you can see your hand in front of your face, that means that it is not dark enough in your room. And if it is not dark enough in your room, you want to sleep with an eye mask. So there's plenty of options available on Amazon or even if you go to Bed, Bath and Beyond. But sleeping in complete darkness is going to be super important as well. For your sleep, you also want to make sure that you're engaging in activities that are more calming and relaxing. So for a lot of people, especially if you've had a stressful day or have a stressful, you know, job, you may want to take a nice relaxing bath. Listening to a 10 minute guided meditation before bedtime can be super helpful reading. I highly recommend avoiding things like the news. Reading, you know, really stimulating materials can, you know, stimulate some people avoiding, you know, conversations that are, you know, a little more controversial. Let's say avoiding those kind of conversations before bedtime, don't do like your taxes or paying bills before bedtime. Um, so, you know, you want to do things that are more relaxing. And then, you know, for a lot of people, one of the things that they struggle with is a busy mind. Right. Sometimes that can result in us having a hard time falling asleep. Or when we do, if we do wake up in the middle of the night, night, it can result in like these endless thoughts. So journaling before bedtime, getting all your thoughts out on paper can be really helpful. Just keeping like a little notebook beside your bedside. And then if you do suffer from nighttime awakenings several times a week or on a regular basis, one of the key things with that is really making sure that we switch up our environment. So, you know, if you do wake up in the middle of the night and you find that after 1520 minutes, you're not able to fall back asleep. You want to get out of your bed, which is sometimes really hard, and change your environment, and maybe go into the living room and, you know, listen to a meditation or, you know, do some light reading, of course, with, like, red lights. And then when you feel sleepy, you return back to your bed. And that's because you don't want to associate your bed with those nighttime awakenings and the inability to fall asleep. So, psychologically speaking, just getting yourself out of the environment can be helpful. Okay. And the reason why we focus so much on sleep is because sleep is, as I mentioned, you know, one of the best ways to shift your body into that parasympathetic state, especially deep sleep. And when we get sufficient amounts of sleep, when we get good quality sleep, then that's really gonna impact, literally, like, every system in your body, right? It's gonna decrease inflammation in the body. Your hunger and appetite hormones are gonna be more regulated. You're gonna crave less food. You're gonna just. Your brain function is gonna be on point. Your heart health, you know, Literally, like every system in the body, benefits from getting good sleep. And I find that most people that come to me struggle with some element of sleep, right? Whether they wake up feeling groggy or not refreshed or feel like they're not getting enough sleep or are tossing and turning a lot, have a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep. Most people have difficulties with sleep. So that's one of the reasons why we really focus on optimizing sleep so much. So if you have any questions, let me know. I can answer those. With regards to sleep or anything else as well, you're more than welcome to comment. And then wanted to talk a little bit about allergies just because I know a lot of people do struggle with allergies. So one of the main things with allergies is gut health, right? So, of course, as you've made some improvements with your sleep, with your nutrition, sorry, that's going to cause some differences in gut health. So for those of you who do suffer from allergies, you might notice that maybe this year it's not as bad, right? So making sure that we. Diet stress also plays a huge role in gut health. So, you know, keeping our stress at base sleep obviously plays a huge role in our gut health. So, you know, getting good sleep. And then also with allergies, Michelle was sharing the neti pot. That can really be helpful with just flushing out the sinuses and clearing things up. And then there are Some supplements that you can also, you know, take if you want to do a more quote unquote, natural route with allergies. And I can put that, that link in the chat. And most of these allergy supplements are going to be geared towards decreasing histamine in the body. Okay, so I'll put that in here. I know there have been a few questions in the chat, which I'll get to in a second. Let me just put the link here. I know Marissa was asking about, would you recommend melatonin to help with sleep? I always like to recommend lifestyle strategies first with sleep. Unless someone is like really, really struggling with their sleep, I might recommend something just in, you know, the short term to actually get them to sleep a little better, but then in conjunction with the lifestyle. So a lot of the things that we've spoken about, I would definitely focus on those things first. And then for some people, they may, you know, require a little bit of supplement support. Okay. So Melissa was asking about white noise or green noise for sleep. Yes. So white noise actually has been shown to help with increasing deep sleep. So if you do struggle with getting adequate amounts of deep sleep, which you would know if you have an OURA ring, I know there's other trackers out there like a Fitbit, which can help track these things for you. But the white noise can, yeah, definitely help. I personally sleep better with white noise. Like I have an air filter that runs in the background when I sleep, so it's kind of providing white noise and it's, you know, providing filtration with my, with my bedroom. So kind of does a double whammy there. So white noise can definitely be helpful. I know Michelle was asking about the sleep mask, which I put that link, something similar to the one that we sent you in the chat. There's also this one as well that's a little more cost effective and similar. I'll put that one in the chat too. Now I'll put a link for the air filter that we recommend as well. Okay. Ron says Alice suggested natural calm magnesium. I've been sleeping great since. Yes. So magnesium, there's different forms of magnesium. There's magnesium citrate, there's magnesium glycinate. You know, there's a whole bunch of different magnesiums that can help with sleep. So citrate is great with sleep. And then also glycinate can be really helpful for sleep as well. So if you. With supplement support, those are two options for, for sleep and magnesium. I find most people are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is one of the most important minerals, it's involved in over 3,000 enzymatic reactions in your body. And magnesium gets very easily depleted with stress. And. And then number two is. So stress depletes our magnesium, which causes more than half the population to be deficient in magnesium. And also, our soils are not as nutrient or mineral rich anymore, so we're not getting enough. So it's kind of like a catch 22 where we're not getting enough and we're depleting it with all the stress that we have. So magnesium glycinate or magnesium citrate can really be helpful with sleep. Any questions before I kind of move on to some dialogue about constipation? Can raise your hand or you can type your questions in the chat. Either one is fine. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about digestion specifically. You know, one thing that I find a lot of people struggle with before coming into the program sometimes, and then even during the program, they may struggle a little bit with constipation. And so constipation on the program is common amongst a lot of people sometimes for it's the other end of the spectrum, but most more frequently, it's constipation. So constipation on the program can occur for several reasons. Number one is when we reduce the fat intake a little bit, that can cause constipation for some people. Number two is, prior to the program, some people might have been having a regular bowel movement because they were eating foods that were irritating to the gut microbiome or the gut lining. And that's actually what triggered the bowel movement. So when we remove some of those triggering foods, like dairy is a great example, or even sugar, things like that, then constipation can occur because those foods are no longer causing that bowel movement. And then number three, for some people, it could, you know, especially prior to the program, if you have an existing thyroid condition, Constipation is common with, you know, And I think I cut out for a bit. Can everyone hear me now? Yeah, I froze a. So the vagus nerve is vagal nerve number 10. It's one of the most important nerves in the body. And the vagus nerve in Latin is known as the wanderer. And so the vagus nerve goes from the brainstem, and it basically travels through our entire abdomen and into all our abdominal organs. And one of the main organs that it innervates is the. Is. Is the bowels, right? The small intestine and the large intestine. So one of the ways to stimulate the vagus nerve is through breathing. Okay, so more conscious breathing and full breaths. Right. Belly breaths. Not so much breathing from our, our chest, but our ribs and our belly. Other things that can stimulate the vagus nerve. One of my favorite ones, something that I've been doing since I was a child, is tongue scraping. So when we tongue scrape, for many people, when you tongue scrape, it's going to create a gag reflex. And that gag reflex actually stimulates the vagus nerve. So who here uses a tongue scraper type? Yes, in the chat if you do, and if you don't, I would highly, highly, highly recommend, recommend one. You can get them on Amazon. They're not very expensive. I usually recommend a copper tongue scraper. So if you don't have one, I'm going to put a link in the chat. Usually they come in like a two pack. So this one here that I'll put a link for is a two pack and it is only $10. So this is a link for those of you in Canada. So that gag reflex stimulates the vagus nerve and then the vagus nerve, once we start stimulating it, helps increase bowel contractility. Okay. So, you know, you really want to make sure that you, you know, even if you don't struggle with, with constipation, stimulating the vagus nerve also helps with shifting you more into that parasympathetic state. Okay, so the, the, the gagging, I talked about, the deep breathing. Another way to stimulate the vagus nerve is gargling. So once again, in the morning, when you're brushing your teeth, if you take just a little bit of water, you want to gargle vigorously enough to the point where you're kind of tearing and it may take you some time to work up to that, but gargling can really help stimulate the vagus nerve as well. Okay, so those are just a few ways I would recommend trying to do those vagal nerve exercises at least twice a day. Other ways that you can, you know, that can help with constipation is just some belly massage. I can put a link to a video on YouTube which will give you a little more instruction on belly massage. Give me a second. And then another great tip is casserole packs. Now, of course, if you're in the release phase, we want you to avoid castor oil fat packs just temporarily for the six weeks, but after that, you can introduce castor oil back into your routine. Now, the nice thing about castor oil packs, let me just link in here for the belly massage. So belly massage the, the nice thing, sorry, with castor oil packs, it can help with constipation, but castor oil packs also help with detoxification. So what castor oil packs are, it's basically like a cotton cloth. Okay. I'll put a link for a brand that I really like. It's by a brand called Queen of Thrones. And so it's a cotton pack. And you. The one that I'll put a link for in the chat is you tie it around, you can tie it around your waist, you put it over your liver and your, your belly, and it can really help with detox, can help with bile flow. There's so many different benefits to castor oil. I think if you go through your program modules, we actually have a whole module on castor oil. An interview that Sachin did with a doctor called, her name is Dr. Marisol and she's the one who has this castor oil pack company called Queen of Thrones. And when you use castor oil, you want to make sure it's organic because it is getting absorbed through the skin. So you will definitely want to make sure it's organic. Okay, so make sure you take a look at though that module specifically on castor oil. Let me just see where it is. So belly massage, the vagal nerve exercises. Castor oil. Squatty Potty is also great for constipation and just to use in general because most of the world, you know, the way that they use the bathroom is in a squatting position. Of course, not so much anymore because, you know, a lot of the world that used to squat, like India, they have modern day toilets now. But when you get a squat, something like a squatty potty, it puts your, it elevates your knees above your hips. So it kind of puts you into that squatting position, which is the correct way to have a bowel movement. And it prevents the backflow of bacteria from the large intestine to the small intestine. That's. That's the wrong direction, right? When bacteria goes from the large intestine to the small intestine, that can cause something called sibo, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which can cause bloating for a lot of people. So I know for many of you, bloating was a big thing prior to coming in this program. And you know, when we clean things up, of course that helps. But for those of you who are still experiencing bloating, it could be because of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And so for that, you definitely want to make sure you're using a squatty potty to prevent that backflow of bacteria. Okay. And then of course, you know, for some people, like some of these strategies do take a little bit of time. So for some people, if you are experiencing any constipation, of course it can be pretty uncomfortable at times, then you may want to use some supplement support. So magnesium citrate is great because it really helps get to get the bowels moving. That's usually the first place that I'll start is magnesium citrate. And you know, it's kind of a two in one combo because helps with sleep as well as we talked about. And smooth move tea. Yes. So smooth move tea would also be a good option for if you have constipation. That is more so for like not chronic constipation. Like if you had regular bowel movements prior to the program and then you were experiencing a bit of constipation, you could use the smooth tea. I think I usually will suggest no more than like three days consecutively and then take a little bit of a break. But yeah, that, that can be an option as well. And sometimes for some people they'll do the smooth move in addition to the mag citrate. But start with one thing at a time because we obviously don't want you to go the other way either. Okay. What other questions do you all have? You can raise your hand or put it in the chat. Questions, comments? Okay. Marissa was saying off topic, but I was wondering what kind of water is best to drink. Yeah, no worries. You definitely ask whatever questions you want. Doesn't have to be related to constipation. So. Okay, water. This is a rabbit hole that I've been going down. So I'll give you in my opinion, of course, just with all the toxins out there, I would definitely recommend some sort of filtration system. So the one that I usually have people start off with is the Berkey water filter system. It is Squatty potty. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the squatty potty link. It's the wrong link. I'll give you a new one. So. And I'll put a link. So the Berkey water filter is a gravity based water filtration system. Sits on your countertop. There's different sizes available just depending on, you know, the space that you have in your kitchen. So I'll put a link for that as well. Oh, thanks Annalisa. So Berkey water filter, there's. If you live in the US it's going to be a different link if you just Google Berkey water filter, you will see a link. I think they also sell it on Canada, but sorry, on Amazon. Like trying to do too many things here. Berkey water filter. This here's Berkey Canada. So when you open up that link, you'll see what that water filter looks like. I also recommend like especially when you're traveling to have some sort of water filtration. So this is kind of what it looks like when you put on your counter. It has a little, I would recommend getting the stand and then there's like a little spigot here that you use to dispense the water. So the water goes in the top and then flows down to the second chamber where it's filtered. And then when you're traveling, I do also recommend this here. This is called the Sport Berkey water filter. So as you can see it has like the little carbon filter that goes inside of the water bottle and then you squeeze it and the water goes through the carbon filter up the straw. So this is something I always travel with. I don't know why it's so expensive. It behooves me why it has to cost $65 for like piece of plastic. You could try Amazon, it might be a bit cheaper there. But if you're traveling like a lot of people travel to the Caribbean and you know, I know I had like a client who just traveled to Africa. They're going to Costa Rica. Like definitely I would recommend this kind of. It's $65 on Amazon too, unfortunately. So yeah, this is great. The Berkey water. The Berkey also sells a travel system. So this one here is going to, you know, be a little more capacity. It's, it's quite small. It's hard to get a sense of how big it is. No, that's not the one. Hold on. It is. Let me pull it up here. So you could do the sport water bottle which is probably the easiest, but they have a little travel one which is 5.7 liters. So if you're traveling with a family, this might be, you know, a little. Once again, I don't know why these are so expensive, but it's a one time investment. It's going to be cheaper in the long run because the water filters like something like a what? A Brita. Right, A Brita. Or even your fridge filter, like these filters you don't have to replace as often. So typically speaking for a family of four, you typically replace your water filters maybe once a year. I'll show you all a comparison of. Let me see if I can find it. Of what a typical water filter filters out versus what the Berkey does. And if you guys have questions, you can go ahead and type them in the chat. Let me see if I can find that. Okay, here. Okay, My screen. Okay, so these are different water filters. This here is the Berkey. There's also Aquasana. There's the Brita. Brita water pitcher. So as you can see, obviously from a cost perspective like the Brita, it's probably, you know, maybe a bit more now, but it's definitely upfront, much more cost effective up front. Replacement filter cost, as you can see, it's $135, but that's for 22,000 liters. Whereas the Berkey, $18 for the replacement filters and it only is going to last you for 356 liters. Okay. As you can see. So this does a cost comparison to in terms of five year total investment. It's going to be much more cost effective in the long run. Okay, so this is everything that the Berkey filters out. It filters out pathogenic bacteria which obviously when you're traveling, that's one main, you know, reasons why you would want to travel with it is so that you're not exposed to pathogenic bacteria, viruses, pesticides, herbicides, aluminum. So a lot of these heavy metals, copper, iron, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, you know, Berkey filters out greater than 99% or and in some cases 99.9% volatile organic compounds. Radon removed below detectable limits. Fluoride, you do need the fluoride filter to, for it to remove fluoride. Whereas as you can see some of these comparisons, they don't filter out a lot of these things. Right. So they don't filter out the back the viruses. They don't really filter out, you know, just things like giardia, which is, you know, can cause diarrhea. When you're in foreign countries, they don't filter out parasites. In some ca. In you know, some cases, pesticides and herbicides are not filtered out with something like the Brita. Some of the heavy metals are not, so lead is, but all the other heavy metals are not. And then radon and fluoride are not filtered out with some of the other traditional water filters. So that's why we like the Bricky. Okay, not always a quick short response. Hey, Ron says he uses Aquasana. So I'll send you this link so you can see some of the differences between Berkey versus Aquasana. Definitely think it's probably a. You know, obviously better than tap water, but according to this, Berkey is probably more superior than. Aquasana. Okay, what other questions do you all have? Questions, comments? I hope you found that helpful quieter bunch today. Other questions? If you have no other questions, I will dismiss class early. Okay. Marissa says going back to sleep. How can we best avoid by WI fi while sleeping? Great question. So, couple ways. Number one is keep the phone out of the bedroom. Okay. Always want to make sure, you know, for us we don't have a house phone. So our cell phone is our primary method of communication. So I keep mine in the bathroom, which is far enough away from my, from my head and my bed. So use. Keep the phones out of the bedroom. Number two is putting a timer switch on your WI fi. Okay. So you can buy these timer switches at Home Depot or any kind of hardware store. And what you do is you plug your WI fi into that timer switch and you can program the timer switch to shut off. Let's say you want your WI fi to shut off at 11pm and you want it to turn back on at 6am so that way from 10 to 6 or 11 to 5, whatever hours you want to set it to, your. Your WI fi is off. Okay. Because that's going to be one of the most, I guess, you know, one of the things that's, that's going to expose you to the WI fi the most. Another thing is grounding. So what you can also do is get a grounding mat and a grounding mat or a grounding sheet, rather put a link in the chat grounding sheet. Or you can get grounding sheets these days. So let me just see if I can. Grounding sheets help ground you into the earth. And that can help with mitigating WI fi as well. Okay. So for the tongue scraping question was coming up, you want to go, obviously, you know, be careful with this. You want to go gently far back enough to the point where you gag. Right. Don't like do it so harshly. Just gently, far back enough to the point where you gag. Okay. And sometimes as you get used to it, that gag reflex might subside a little bit. But, you know, you do want to go back enough so that it does kind of create a little bit of that gag reflex. Just getting the link for the grounding blanket. Very welcome, Marissa. Okay, Any other questions or comments? And glad you're finding these helpful. Okay, well, I will let you all enjoy the rest of your Friday afternoon. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and we'll see you all next Friday. Bye, everyone. Have a great, great day. See you.