Self-Love Letter: Sit down before your body sits you down! [Video]

Let’s see what Angie Martinez, Durand Bernarr and the science of wellness resilience have to teach us about the healing power of rest.

Happy 8th of July, Byte Wellness Fam!

We skipped right over the 4th, because why am I celebrating the 250th anniversary of the creation of a country that declared "all men are created equal" while my ancestors were being held in this country and forced into labor against their will? Really? Tuh, Okay...

I did enjoy some good watermelon, barbecue and grilled veggies, though. Listen, no judgment at all if you celebrated the 4th of July. This sister circle here remains a safe space. So, regardless of how you spent the weekend, I hope you got all the rest you needed. Speaking of rest, have you seen Angie Martinez's IRL interview with Durand Bernarr? It came just at the right time to wrap up our conversations about rest in the 5th week of Wellness RESET, our 13-week course on how to build wellness resilience while living inside sick systems.

If you'd like to sign up to take the course on your own or follow along with our LIVE course, you can register here:

The part of the conversation I keyed into starts with the question "What do you do when you've stretched yourself too thin- how do you respond to that?". The following 3 minutes are wellness resilience mindset GOLD! Durand points out that if you don't rest, your body will TAKE ITS REST ("and at the most inopportune time"). Either you sit down or "your body will sit you down".

Phew. Somebody out there needs to hear this. Check out the clip above to watch it on youtube.

The wellness conversation starts at about 2 minutes and 11 seconds and lasts about 3 minutes (ending at around 5 minutes and 30 seconds).When we talk about rest in our Wellness RESET course, we're referring to stress-management AND restorative sleep as 2 of our 4 Wellness Superpowers. Remember our Wellness Superpowers are the daily habits that are foundational for fighting disease and maintaining health and wellbeing. These are stress-management, restorative sleep, nutritious diet, and frequent exercise.

We call these 4 lifestyle habits wellness superpowers because they hide in plain sight. Yet, they have an outsized impact on our health. For example, we easily ignore how desperately our bodies need sleep.We push through fatigue for days, even months to complete other priorities. But, studies show even one night of ​sleep deprivation creates hormonal imbalances​ that (if they continue long-term) increase our risks of harmful weight gain, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, dementia, and even cancer!

In fact, in last week’s Wellness RESET Week 4 journal prompt, we discussed the most common mindset traps that lead to sleep deprivation and general under-resting in last week's (Week 4) journal prompt: Where does sleep fall in your list of priorities?

Click here to watch ​last week's #PhyteWellWednesday workshop​ where we (1) discussed how we balance our need for sleep against all the other demands in our lives and (2) we checked our sleep quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index.

Let me know your answer to our journal prompt (and/or your take on the Angie Martinez/Durand Bernarr interview). Would you like to hear more public discussions of how much we need rest? I would.

Happy Healing,

Dr. Wuse

P.S We replacing most of our text message reminders with emails. So, instead of getting a text that our Dance Party starts in 15 minutes or that our #PhyteWellWednesday Workshop is upcoming, you'll get email reminders. This starts today!

So, here's a quick run-down of the July workshops that are open to our full community. You'll notice on our event calendar that each Monday and Wednesday is booked with a workshop. Use the links below to register for each virtual gathering.

UPCOMING JULY WORKSHOPS

Wednesdays: PhyteWellWednesday Workshop: Happening 7:30-8:30pm Central Time on July 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29

​https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/fFu7V6bDRwmnZGMIp0kULw​

Mondays: "Rhythm Is Resistance!" Dance Party: Happening 6-6:30pm Central Time on July 6, 13, 20, and 27

Register here: ​https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3GvhnnzmS0adcUBYBTYJdQ