Miscellaneous
Welcome to Season 3 of the Body Wisdom Podcast with Dr. Michele. This season the podcast will be focusing on healthy habits. As your host, I’ll be recording solo episodes which will answer some of the most common questions I’m asked as a physician such as “how do I build a new habit?” "which habits are essential to get healthy again?" "what can I do to lose weight?" "how can I look and feel younger again?" "how can I start exercising again if I haven't done it in years?" and more. I will also be coaching patients and clients live on-air, and conducting interviews with other health & wellness experts. Of course, I am always open to new topic ideas, so if there is a topic you would like me to address or if there is a question you would like answered, please reach out. Email me directly at dr.michele.colon@gmail.com. Today Dr. Michele discusses "How to Take the Chaos Out of Your Morning Routine." I hope you enjoy the show! About Dr. Michele: As a physician & surgeon, certified Ayurvedic and Autoimmune health coach, yoga/anatomy teacher, and overall health & wellness expert, Dr. Michele Summers Colon is an Advocate for Women's Health. Her passion is helping women help themselves to heal their body. She is the author of Body Wisdom: 10 Weeks to Transformation, the creator and host of the Body Wisdom with Dr. Michele Podcast, and the leader of the Body Wisdom Membership Program. She has been interviewed and quoted in many prominent publications including USA Today, US News & World Reports, Health Magazine, Yahoo! Makers, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. One of Dr. Michele’s greatest strengths is her ability to help women create balanced, healthy lives by looking at the whole picture. She combines the best of Eastern and Western medicine to create individualized health & wellness plans for her patients and clients. For over 24 years, Dr. Michele has dedicated herself to maintaining a private medical practice and providing exceptional care to her patients while at the same time studying holisitic and integrative medicine. Dr. Michele believes that food is medicine and that yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation are the keys to perfect health. Dr. Michele has a Bachelor’s degree in Physiology from UCBerkeley, a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and a Doctorate degree in Podiatry from Barry University, and graduated from a Foot & Ankle Surgical Residency in Los Angeles. Dr. Michele is also certified in Ayurvedic as well as Autoimmune Health Coaching, Yoga, Reiki, Reflexology, and Laser Therapy. Dr. Michele specializes in Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Therapeutic Yoga to provide the most healing, relaxation, and rejuvenation to her patients and clients. Dr. Michele has studied Ayurvedic Medicine extensively and has worked with some of the best practitioners throughout the United States to bring Ayurveda to the forefront of medicine. Combining yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation is one of Dr. Michele’s passions so that she can spread the word to as many people as possible that this is the path to perfect health. Show Notes: This season we are going to be talking about Healthy Habits so that we can feel younger and healthier. This habit is about lining up with nature. Waking up at the right time of day to be aligned with the expansiveness of the universe’s energy is important to feeling great energy in the day. When you’re lined up, you are more at ease. When we aren’t in alignment, we experience stress, there’s a loss of energy, and we feel dull and out of tune. Habits that we have that don’t line up with nature don’t serve us. Look at the big picture: why are we doing all of these habit changes? They’re hard. Tap into your WHY. Why do you want to feel healthier and younger? Don’t try to be a perfectionist. Success isn’t doing any of this perfectly. Perfectionism will get in the way of you experiencing success along the way. Perfectionism leads to “the what the hell” principle: throwing in the towel if you can’t do it perfectly and don’t do it at all. Starting the day right is all about the energy in that part of the daily cycle, during vata time. Movement stimulates the peristalsis. We experience time opening up. The sacred time of day is the early morning. When we start our day right, we wake up with the sunrise, connect to the universe (in our own way), hydrate, and eliminate. That's it! What is one small change you can make with getting up early, connecting to the universe, hydrating, and eliminating? You can do a very quick and simple one-minute meditation to get in alignment with the expansiveness of the universe. What also helps me on some days is to just take a minute to connect with my breathing or with a feeling of gratitude for the day ahead. I lay in bed for a minute, do a minute of deep breathing, and with my eyes closed, I get right into gratitude for my day, for my life, for my daughter (I think of 3 things to be grateful for today, each day), then I think about my day ahead in the most positive light way I can (like this: today is going to be so great, I’m going to make a nice breakfast for the two of us, I am going to jog around the block for 20 minutes, I am going to enjoy the sun and the fresh air while I’m outside, I am going to teach this class at 4:00, and I am going to go out to dinner at 6:00 with my boyfriend. Yes, it is going to be so amazing!) I say this to myself everyday, even if it’s a Saturday and I have no plans to leave the house. On a day like that I might say “today is going to be so relaxing and easy, I don’t have to be anywhere, I am just going to enjoy watching movies with my daughter, I will cook us some yummy food, and I will do a 20 minute yoga class video in my living room. Today is going to be so awesome!”). What this does is set up your day to be in ease instead of in stress. Then I sit up and drink my water. I usually drink about 4 glasses of water. Then I get up to go to the bathroom to eliminate. Sometimes it’s a full elimination and sometimes it’s not, but I don’t worry about it. If it’s not complete, I just know that I need to drink more water or eat more watery foods (like juices or soups) during the day so that tomorrow will be better. I also take some herbs to help me with elimination because I used to be one of those people that was constipated for a long time. I take Triphala or Triphala plus with each meal. You can take it at bedtime too. Check in: Are you eliminating first thing in the morning? Are you sleeping through the night? What are your morning habits? Are you waking up early, are you hydrating, and are you eliminating? Hydrate until you poop. It might seem weird for people to drink a quart of water to try to create peristaltic pressure, but it works. This is where Eastern and Western medicine differ. Ayurveda addresses things like constipation naturally with water. Western medicine gives people prescriptions for constipation (I know from personal experience). Add lemon or ginger to your water if it’s nauseating. Or take it slowly one cup at a time. If you are really that dehydrated, you need to take in more water throughout the day. You will probably lose your morning appetite if you drink that much water. During the vata time of day: Wake up, hydrate, eliminate. Tap into the Vata energy which is full of expansion and super easeful in its essence. Take a walk or sit to meditate. Hydrate, eliminate, then get into an easeful relationship to life. Either you’re aligning with nature or you’re making life harder for yourself in the short term and the long term. Morning people exhibit traits like being agreeable and conscientious. Vata becomes prana, which becomes consciousness. Tap into consciousness which contains space and ease. It’s free and available every morning, and we can honor it every day. Figure out your own way to honor this time of day. Remember that Vata’s qualities are clear, expanding, mobile, subtle, the qualities of consciousness itself. Prana is exquisite in this time frame every day. How are you going to plug into this power source every day? These habits should be non-negotiable for us, or they should be becoming non-negotiable. We can try to get away with cheating, but we are cheating ourselves and we are going against ease and a stress-free life if we do that. Try to work in these habits so they become your standard. For more tips on How to Take the Chaos Out of Your Morning Routine and start your day right, click here for your free tip sheet and worksheet. Namaste, Dr. Michele ****************************** If there is a topic you would like me to address or if there is a question you would like answered, please reach out. Email me directly at dr.michele.colon@gmail.com or schedule a coaching call with me so we can dive deeper to find out what is going on and come up with a plan of action for you: drmichele.com/schedule Today’s show was brought to you by the Body Wisdom Membership Program. For more information, head on over to my website drmichele.com and click on the JOIN NOW or WORK WITH ME tab. All of the information is there about my group programs as well as 1:1 coaching. If you have questions about your health that you would like me to answer on air, you can email them to me or go to my website drmichele.com/get in touch to contact my team. If you have questions you’d like to discuss with me directly, sign up for a coaching call at drmichele.com/schedule. Contact Information and Important Links for Dr. Michele: Dr. Michele can be found online or by email. Dr. Michele is currently accepting new 1:1 coaching clients as well as new members into her Body Wisdom Membership Program. If you have questions about the Body Wisdom Membership Program or about how you can make lifestyles changes to improve your health, check out the Dr. Michele website or sign up for a coaching call with Dr. Michele here: drmichele.com/schedule Namaste, Dr. Michele Here's Where You Find Dr. Michele: website - drmichele.com email - dr.michele.colon@gmail.com twitter - @doctormichele facebook - @doctormichele instagram - @drmichele