conscious consumption
as a trainer and nutritionist, i’ve had the opportunity to have a front row seat in many different lives. one of the best parts of my job is having the opportunity to connect with all kinds of people from all walks of life. something that i’ve noticed as a constant for people, regardless of background, is their understanding of their bodies and the constituent parts of their “selves”. it brings much joy to have the opportunity to ignite their curiosity and stoke their interest.
what makes us
you may have heard the saying that “we are star stuff”— while true, this take is a bit ethereal and keeps a bit of a chasm between the cosmos and little old us as individuals. are cells are made from the materials we consume from our skin (both inside and outside). through an extremely reductionist perspective, the air we’re surrounded by, the food and beverage we intake, and the vibrations of the sounds that surround us influence our make up on a cellular level.
the act of being well in our bodies becomes a multilayered, highly nuanced/individual pathway which, in my opinion, should offer a sense of relief. the more variables there are, the less complicated it happens to become.
assimilation
in ayurveda, the things that we consume are transformed through three main theories of metabolism. we can take the opportunity to unpack those theories another time, for now— we can focus on the concept of irrigation as our main framework for understanding. in a theory of irrigation, what we consume is first absorbed by the skin tissues (most often recognized by the ones in the gut).
after consumption, our other tissues (called dhatus in ayurveda) each progressively get to pick from the remaining nutrients. this path begins with the blood plasma and ends with the organs of reproduction. along the pathway, disturbances in a tissue can indicate a root issue earlier on in the pathway or, if you’re really keen, can give you a sense of what to expect next without taking steps to change.
it’s the practice of intuition for me. it boils down to getting uncomfortable and then getting familiar with yourself to tap in and take small daily steps to keep you body and spirit fresh.
elimination
as the saying goes, “you are what you eat”— but the addendum is the key to the castle. “you are what you eat and assimilate”, the vital things that are taken in by your body become you, but the things that are waste products to your body are eliminated. it is in these two processes that we are able to maintain towards balance. when we experiences blockages, the stagnant waste products start to be assimilated into our tissues.
when this happens, we begin to experience the things like lethargy, brain fog, anxiety, insomnia, gas, bloating. so be it the food we eat, the spaces we inhabit, or the language that we use towards ourselves, we can find wellness through discerning and addressing that which doesn’t serve us versus that which does.
the value of daily routine
our cells, our organs, and our bodies are like well made swiss watches. we are a part of nature and therefore move like nature— just like the 24 hour cycle of a day, or the seasonal transitions of the year. we perform best when we maintain organization through routine.
by nature, we have evolved to operate much like energy-efficient appliances. both sleep-time and wake-time having a part in our cellular repair and organ recovery. but in this modern time, it’s quite tough to find balance through something as simple as daily routine.
how do we “make time” when time is money and popular concepts of “self care” looks a lot like vegetating in front of the television? start small, and remind yourself that just a few minutes of intentional practices make a world of difference in your rhythm.
routine and digestion
our digestion, or our agni, is like a furnace that has peak times and down times. our body adapts to when nutrients are introduced to the body and begins to plan accordingly. before food even hits your tongue, your body begins sending hunger signals the the brain and primes the gi tract for food introduction. when we eat irregularly, it leaves our body in a state of being “on call”, which fatigues the signalling systems and may also contribute to indigestion and poor assimilation.
as the day turns to night, our furnace starts to cool down— rerouting the energy towards healing and higher level digestive processes (think small/large intestine). if you continue to take in food, the workload gets backlogged and you end up with fermenting food stuffs in your gi. gross.
eating at regular times everyday sets your internal clock on a path of success (big bonuses if you eat most of your nutrients before 5pm and cease intake after).
meals and bedtime
we don’t get the privilege of learning much about sleep other than the high level “get 6-8 hours of sleep” and “sleep is good for brain health”. sleep is this incredible adaptation that allows our body to shut us down just enough to preserve energy used to reharmonize our organs and heal from metabolic waste product accumulation.
part of what makes mondays so unpleasant culturally is the misunderstanding that “8 hours of sleep” equates to great sleep, no matter what time you head to bed and wake. so when the weekend comes around, it’s compelling to indulge in later nights (culture of alcohol notwithstanding) and later mornings. in essence, this pattern sets us up for weekend-jet lag and dysregulates our sleep hormone balances.
as it pertains to routine, meal times, and sleep— keep it simple and plan to go to bed and wake within a two hour window every day (yes, even the weekends), and plan to get in bed no sooner than 3 hours after eating your last meal.
contemplation and mindfulness
at minimum, giving yourself time to connect with the world around you in an intellectual way works wonders to stabilizing the outcomes of poor routine. conscious awareness, mindfulness, has an incredible way of slowing time down. taking just a few moments to expand your perception or sense experience attunes you to the infinite nature of the now.
not to parrot this popular/toxically positive narrative that “there is only now”— what has been and what will be hold significant places in your present tapestry. reconnect with time to begin with the end in mind, to set your highest goal and then try to reach it locks your sights on a tangible target, instead of simply floating along to the rhythms of the world around you.
explore how your day unfolds when you start and end your day with yourself, a moment of appreciation, enthusiasm, or pride in something you have (or hope to) create hits like a jolt of lightening and lays the groundwork to your most successful behavior changes.
stress: an overview
an appetizer
the act of living is an acceptance of the inevitability of stress. be it fluctuations in internal temperature, reactions to workload, or heated conversation— we all deal with it, and we all should have tools to heal with it as well.
whether external or internal, disruptive forces are frequently at play and our bodies, ever the mediator, are persistently striving to re-calibrate to balance. stressors are literally stimuli that disturb our bodily homeostasis. homeostasis is the state of balance that our bodies are fine-tuned to regulate to. the first step on the path to healing is always awareness so… “if you don’t know, now you know”.
the main course
when we sense something disruptive to our equilibrium every system in the body does it’s part to support the response. some systems get lit up and others downshift to preserve energy. You can find the nittygritty elsewhere on the internet (and eventually I’ll write a blurb on the juicy bits)— but for now, suffice it to say this: when the body is out of balance, it’s a stressor. full stop. of course we differentiate the quality of the stress on intensity of response, and so we might lose sight of how small things contribute to the big things.
alas, the small things tend to be the most controllable things and so minor stressors like seasons changing, weather variability, disturbed sleep, “multitasking for efficiency” keep our bodies in a subdued (but persistent) state of alarm. our systems are always on guard so things like ongoing, slightly elevated inflammation levels or down-regulated hunger signals become the subtle antagonists. illness and disease don’t exist in a vaccum, there are weeks (if not years) of perpetuated imbalance compounded that leave the system vulnerable.
TL;DR— cave people didn’t just wake up one day to a full blown ice age, it took time for temperatures to drop, for the climate to be juuuust right for the continued accumulation that was the ages of ice.
just dessert (but more optimistic)
stress is a non-negotiable in our daily experience and lawddd do I know that there are factors that are well outside our control— but we can’t forget that which is in our control. keeping things simple seems too hard in our complex lives, but that’s just where we should be— the motto: work smarter, not harder. something as simple as having awareness of your stress response works wonders on mitigating aforementioned stress response. it’s incredible.
and, while it may be compelling to conflate simplicity with lack of action, there’s a sense of agency that comes with identifying and acting upon the controllables. on the path to healing, you start with awareness and you follow that with recognition (an act of identifying or labelling the state you’re in). at that point, the decisions to follow are up to you: are they acting in accordance with support, balance, homeostasis— or are they perpetuating the imbalance.
we have much more control than we think we do— start small (like even smaller than you may be thinking) and start minimal. find one thing that feels like it gives you balance and prioritize that. observe and reflect on your distractions— explore and take action on your passions. do something and let that first step empower you onwards and upwards to become an actor in your own life.