Charis & Clarke
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Charis: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Harness Your Health podcast. I am here with Clark today, who is going to go over his health foundations assessment with me. I just thought that this would be a good way for you to see a real person who has taken the assessment, and then we can go through his results and talk about his lifestyle and what symptoms he might have.
And hopefully this can be something that you can relate to and apply to your life as well. So thank you for being here, [00:00:30] Clark.
Clarke: Yep. Thank you for having me. I'm excited, and I'm looking forward to learning some new things today.
Charis: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks. So just to start off the bat, I just wanna explain a little bit about this assessment.
So I really created this assessment because I want people to understand how interconnected the body really is, In medicine and really in health these days, I feel like people are really trying to segment the body still and pull it all apart. [00:01:00] And I understand that people do that as a reason to understand certain things about our health, but it's can also be of a real true disservice because whether we are using a medicine or a supplement or some sort of strategy to play Whac-A-Mole or to Band-Aid things, it's really the same thing.
It doesn't matter if it's a drug or if it's a supplement. And so we really need to have this overall umbrella picture of our health, and this is really an excellent starting [00:01:30] point, this assessment, for literally anyone. It does not matter who you are what you have going on health-wise. And so I just wanna set the stage with that because it is really important to realize that
we are independent, unique beings, and a lot of that is just a function of everything we've been exposed to since the time we were in utero to however old we are today, but our biology is really the same. And people do have different lifestyles, and [00:02:00] obviously different preferences, and we can always work within that.
But the assessment just is such a great starting point. So when you go through this assessment, it's 37 questions. It's on my website, which is foundations.primetonourish.com. It takes about maybe five minutes, would you say, Clark?
Clarke: Yeah. Not even- Yeah ... but still very thorough.
Charis: Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty quick.
It's a lot of different types of questions. So you had mentioned that be- before when we were talking before we started recording that [00:02:30] it's some symptom-type questions. It's some questions about your habits and things like that. But it is very to-the-point- And quick. This is not something that's long and drawn out.
And then at the end, you will get a summary, and we're gonna talk about yours in particular because it is not it's not unheard of, but it definitely is a little bit unique based on something you had in your past. But we'll talk about that a little bit. So when you finish the assessment, you [00:03:00] get an email that has your results, and then you can go in and read it.
And this is a very big overview, but, a great overview. So your top priority, which is what the assessment is designed to give you, was digestion. And the reason it was that is because you answered a question about have you ever had SIBO or IBS, inflammatory bowel disease, or celiac disease, because obviously, if you have any of these [00:03:30] conditions or diseases, you have dysfunction in your digestive process.
And so these things just by themselves don't mean that you're, like, a lost cause, nothing like that. It's just that digestion is your priority. But when we actually look at your answers, you had a very different priority for your health.
Do you wanna mention that a little bit?
Clarke: Yeah. Are you referring to the habits? And like my eating habits and the second thing that came up was the [00:04:00] circadian, rhythm stuff. That's- And, I'm, based on like recently, dialing into my health as a almost 30-year-old I am a firm believer that my habits are creating any of the questions that I answered that were not the best answer.
Symptoms that I experience can probably be related to my habits, and I know we're gonna talk about the SIBO thing. But just based on, how the SIBO has come and went in my life I've recovered quickly when I had it, and any inkling that I [00:04:30] had it another time, everything stabilized.
Charis: I'm so glad you brought it up. So the question that we're referring to is really the last question. If you take the assessment, you'll see it, and it's just what I described before. And so Clark has this history of having SIBO when he was a teenager.
A question he asked me before we started recording was, " if you've had SIBO once, do you always have it?" And I told him no. There's definitely people who have healed from SIBO and never looked back. But he has another occurrence that was more recently [00:05:00] where he ate some food that maybe wasn't thoroughly cooked or, there was something in there, and he got some symptoms that he had some GI disruption.
Like we all- ... know what that feels like. And then his body was able to recover. And so I think that's a, just a great question. The assessment is designed to put you into that digestion category, but with all that in mind, I would say that your digestion is probably actually doing really well if you're able to recover from that [00:05:30] food exposure- Mm-hmm episode, the recent one that you had.
Clarke: And just to clarify, it wasn't so much... It wasn't, what you would typically call food poisoning. This, it went on, it was lower, or not lower, whatever. It was GI it went on for... But it was also stomach too, but it went on for weeks. It was almost a month of me barely eating. That was when it was cause for concern. Okay, I need to start figuring out what's in there and what's not in there, and what needs to be in there, and what shouldn't be. Yeah ... but then it, it did, like we [00:06:00] just talked about, it, it did stabilize.
I just, with my diet, I didn't take any supplements that were out of the norm, but I was at the point where I may have started, I needed to figure it out, and then it just, of course, you start pursuing it and it goes away. Yeah.
Charis: That's your body in action, right? Your body knows what to do, and it knows how to support you and heal you. Sometimes it doesn't have all the support it needs. I talk a lot about nutrients and how nutrients are involved in every biochemical [00:06:30] process that your body goes through. And you had some under nutrient stores probably.
You're also young. I would consider you young. And so you have that- ... on your side. And then whatever you were taking in from a f- food standpoint was helping to support your body, and it did the magic, right? So it's partially your- ... digestion, it's partially your immune system that's able to go in and deal with whatever it is.
It's your microbiome and the connection with the immune system, and all those [00:07:00] things work together to get you over that hump. So- Yeah it's amazing that you were able to recover from that without a lot of intervention. There are definitely people who have like this recurrent SIBO process, and I will say that what I've seen in my clients is most likely due to the fact that their SIBO was just addressed from a kill standpoint.
So it's like they were given antibiotics or herbal products to kill [00:07:30] the SIBO in their small intestine, and nothing was ever discussed about their digestive process. Because SIBO is not a root cause disease or condition. It is something that has been set up by a digi- digestive process that's not working quite optimally.
And I'm not gonna go into this in depth in this episode, because I have a whole series of digestive episodes coming on my podcast. But essentially, your digestive process starts from the beginning, and really starts in your [00:08:00] brain. But if we think about it mechanically, starting in your mouth and then it finishes at the other end with your poop, right?
And so that process is a step-by-step process, and each step sets up the next step So for SIBO, your mouth digestion and your stomach digestion have to be working properly to set up proper small intestine digestion, which is what SIBO is, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
So you had, SIBO, but if you're recovered from that and you're [00:08:30] not having it anymore, and in your situation, you recovered from that more recent episode, your digestion is actually doing really well. We're gonna talk a little bit more about your assessment and really the category based on your answers that you fell into that was more prominent for you because that is really where we're gonna talk about some of your habits.
And like you've already mentioned, you've been working on some things yourself, and then, hopefully I can give you a little bit of insight to help [00:09:00] with some of these other things. From the assessment, your circadian health was actually considered primary, even though when you got your results, it said secondary.
But again, that was 'cause of the digestive piece. And then your nervous system would've been secondary. And what I always like people to know is that those two things are intimately connected because our body runs on a 24-hour clock, and certainly people have different lifestyle patterns where they get up at different times [00:09:30] in the morning, go to bed at different times, or if they have a shift working job, obviously those things are gonna greatly affect it.
But our traditional biology of us as humans is to get up when the sun gets up and go to bed when the sun goes down. So obviously in the winter it
doesn't work
Charis: quite as well because- ... the sun's going down at 4:00 or 5:00 o'clock, right? And most people don't go to bed then. But the important thing to think about here is that the connection with your nervous system, and there's so much information [00:10:00] about nervous system regulation on the internet right now, that is intimately connected with your circadian rhythm.
So- ... one of the things that I suggest that people do is think about their day as bookends, and so you have the way you start your day and the way you end your day. And so if we just look at some of your answers to some of those questions you said that you get morning light. I think the question is "I view morning sunlight outside without sunglasses for [00:10:30] 15 to 30 minutes every day."
And you said rarely, but you also said that you go outside during the day even just for a few minutes which is great. So as far as a bookend, I think for anyone, and this is where it can get a little tricky based on where you live, some people have more cloud cover, some people live further north where there's a lot more sun in the summer, a lot less sun in the winter, right?
And so you do have to adapt a little bit to what your personal situation is, [00:11:00] but the minute you go outside in the morning when you get up, even if you're not going out at sunrise, which most people don't wanna get up at 5:00 or 6:00 right now, right? If you'd woke up at 7:00 and you just went outside first thing in the morning, what that does is that sunlight goes into your eyeballs, and it tells your brain that it's morning.
And we have a very typical hormone profile, which most people are familiar with cortisol, and a [00:11:30] lot of people think of it as a stress hormone, which it is. However, we have normally higher cortisol in the morning, and then our curve should go down as the day goes on. And so another question that you answered was
I have trouble getting going in the morning.
Okay. And
Clarke: so yeah, the daily sunlight exposure getting up in the morning, seeing the sunlight, not as disciplined as going outside right away and seeing it. I'm not driving at the crack of dawn to work. [00:12:00] I'm usually out and about around 7:30 or 8:00 AM.
Charis: Yeah.
Clarke: And so I do get that initial, like I walk to my car, I see the light. But especially in the winter, like you talked about, ... in the mornings, it is even worse not seeing the sun. It's been harder to wake up recently, and then, I wake up I basically am getting to the coffee, and getting in the shower when I, based on our conversation, it would be more beneficial for me to go see the sunlight basically as soon as you... I [00:12:30] actually want to be awake.
Charis: Yeah.
Clarke: And,
Charis: It feels- But- I think it's... What people really need to think about this and I say this with complete understanding, 'cause this was me, is I was like, "I'm not gonna go outside first thing in the morning," it's literally just such a change of habit. And so I started doing this, and it helped me tremendously. I just felt so exhausted every morning, and I tried this years ago, and it was life-changing for me. Okay. And I will [00:13:00] say that from an energy standpoint, also from a digestion standpoint, there's a lot of people who are constipated, struggle to have a bowel movement at all.
But really we want you to be having a bowel movement in the morning if possible. This is perfect thing to do to also set your digestion. Because your large intestine- Okay ... which helps produce your bowel movement, is more... most active in the morning. And so it's just... it's such a good anchor to your [00:13:30] day. So yes, I would... It doesn't really matter what time you're waking up. I would literally just start with going outside when you get up. And, you guys have dogs. I have a dog. Sometimes, I think in the beginning when I started doing this, I just took my dog outside, 'cause that was my excuse to go outside.
I was like, "Oh, I'm just gonna take her." Yeah. And so whatever trick you need to get yourself out there. Yeah. And start with a few minutes. I live in Colorado. It's almost always bright and sunny in the [00:14:00] morning. If it's not like that where you live, it's okay. You really need to spend a little bit more time outside, but don't stress about that part, just give yourself five to 10 minutes, and then after a week, notice... do you notice a difference? Yeah. And if you don't notice a difference, I would say that maybe you need a little bit more time each day outside. And so maybe you could make it a full-on walk, or you could drink your coffee outside, yeah, that's right. Or grab it outside.
Clarke: Or delay the coffee as you, you know- Yeah. I
Charis: mean-
Clarke: It's,
Charis: I know that's a better [00:14:30] thing to do, ... delaying the coffee is a little bit of a part of it, too. The, we don't really have a question about that in this assessment, but just so people know, if you are relying on coffee to get your cortisol up in the morning and to get you going, it's really just such a false habit.
It's doing it, it's getting it up, but you want your body's own hormonal system to be, like, working as it's meant to work. And so that's why the light and being outside is just really helpful. It gets your [00:15:00] cortisol up, gets you, your body reminded, "Oh, yeah, it's light. I'm gonna start my day."
So that's really the morning anchor is just getting that habit in place and starting. And if you miss a day, don't stress about it. Just get... start over, and just do it again- ... the next day, none of us are perfect, and consistency is very important. But I usually tell people to give this two weeks.
Give it two weeks, be consistent- ... and then evaluate and see. Maybe you need a little bit more [00:15:30] time. Maybe you need something else. Maybe you need a little bit of exercise with it. Everybody's a little bit different.
Clarke: It's a tangible too. From someone, taking this assessment, and obviously never taken it before one of the goals was to get a couple tangibles out of it and a couple things that we're talking about the why, but also what to do.
Yeah. So I just wanted to add
Charis: that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I love it that you brought that up. Yeah, and so I really like to start with the morning. If you can build on the morning routine and then work your way through the rest of the [00:16:00] day, I feel like that is really the way our bodies were meant to work.
But sometimes people just struggle with that for some reason. The other bookend of the day, which is probably obvious, is the end of the day, and that is sometimes easier for people to manage, sometimes not.
But you answered a couple questions in the assessment about your energy during the day. "I experience an energy crash later in the day," and you said, "often." "I use caffeine and sugar to keep myself going [00:16:30] during the day." You replied, "always." And I will just say I have been here
Clarke: more so caffeine.
Charis: Yeah, caffeine.
Clarke: Not... Yeah I'm pretty good with sugar for the most part. Okay. I'll... that's- ... any form of sugar. But s- Yeah ... yeah. Go ahead.
Charis: The caffeine, yeah. So-
Clarke: Yeah ...
Charis: basically, when we don't feel the energy... And really, the lack of energy can be from multiple different things. But Also, we have to think about our nervous system and how regulated we are.
So most people think of this [00:17:00] as a stress thing big stressors in your life family things, relationship things, obviously.. This is not about that. The biggest thing you can do for your nervous system that's gonna provide you with regulation to help give you energy is to have these daily rhythms in place.
It's amazing when you have just a morning practice of going outside in the morning, how it helps regulate your nervous system. The second step to that, you did mention that you eat breakfast within about an hour of waking up. [00:17:30] Like you mentioned already, eating, drinking coffee on a empty stomach is not super regulating to your nervous system.
So if you started the circadian rhythm morning light habit, and then got that under your belt, and then decided to start eating breakfast and drinking your coffee with your breakfast, that would be a next great step for you. Because that is going to bring you regulation the rest of the day. Your nervous system needs certain [00:18:00] things.
It needs food, and that doesn't mean that people who fast can't do this or use these strategies. They certainly can with a little bit of nuance. But also it needs protein. Your protein is really something that helps sustain your hunger and keeps your hunger at bay, and then it needs the circadian rhythm hormonal input because the other thing circadian rhythm does, or I should say just light input in the morning, is it helps regulate your leptin.
And leptin [00:18:30] is huge, has a huge hormonal influence with your cortisol, with your melatonin even. It's all of our hormones work together. None of them work separately, and so thinking about it in a, this daily fashion is just a great way to think about it.
We talked about the energy crash a little bit. I would say the other thing that kind of jumped out at me was that you eat, Let's find the exact question. I eat dinner and stop eating at least three hours before going to sleep. [00:19:00] This is so common. I feel like so many people eat late, especially in the summer.
It's harder. We have more stuff going on, right? And then you're tired at the end of the day and so you go to bed. It's so common, and especially in our modern society, I think. And then of course the snacking, the treats, all that at night too. I feel like I hear from people that they're eating for hours sometimes because of that.
So the way that this is so [00:19:30] disruptive is really about your melatonin. So if we were thinking about cortisol in the morning is high, we want your melatonin to be high at night because that is the hormone that signals for your to be low so that you can go to sleep. It also has a very intimate relationship with insulin.
So insulin is a hormone that is secreted when you have a blood sugar that needs to be managed, basically. So if you're eating food, and oftentimes the foods that [00:20:00] we eat later at night tend to be higher in carbs or sugar, and so we have more insulin on board because our body is trying to move that blood sugar out of our bloodstream and
store it, basically, into your liver or into your fat. And so you literally cannot have high melatonin when you have high insulin. And so this is a premise for people who have trouble sleeping, which your answers don't really indicate that you do but if someone does have trouble [00:20:30] sleeping, this is strategy number one.
I know I said earlier that the morning was really important, but I almost think that if you have trouble sleeping, you're eating late, this is probably the first thing that you should work on, is creating this window. And so a lot of people hear three hours and they just are like, "I can't do that." And so it- this is not something that you usually change overnight. I would suggest let's say you're eating at 8:00 and going to bed at 9:00 or 10:00, just work [00:21:00] on that window a little bit. Eat a little bit earlier. If you're going to bed at 10:00 or 11:00, that's pretty appropriate.
If you're staying up later than that, that's like a whole nother conversation. Again, like aligned with our biology, we're meant to go to sleep a little earlier. Obviously, that can't happen every night But just push that window out a little bit, start with making it two hours instead of an hour and a half or something like that, and
gently work on that. Work on it every day as best you can. [00:21:30] And again, if you have a party or a late dinner or something like that, don't beat yourself up over that. Just start again the next day because what's more important to your body is the consistency and not dwelling- ... on those individual events, if you will.
Clarke: It's not a unique experience, but my perception on it, it's like chicken or the egg. The end of the book or the beginning of the book where do you attack it first? Which is, like, all true, right? It's a really good way of framing it.
My personal experience, [00:22:00] as we talked about the cortisol spike, whatever, is struggling to eat during the day, during a busy workday. So even if the time may be there I will get rushes at work, whatever naturally your cortisol's gonna go up a little bit.
Just it- that's a normal response to being that busy. The morning is something I need to implement. At night I have been preemptively doing what we discussed, is just try to work everything back.
Baby steps. Started by pushing my bedtime back, and then from there [00:22:30] push, or, forward, not back. Earlier. To, to around 10:00. And then it's okay, now we're gonna eliminate the carbs, okay, at night. And then now we're gonna push it back and keep, less carbs, earlier dinner, and whatever.
But it's really finding those pockets in the day that my cortisol isn't suppressing my appetite. So- Yeah ... just being super disciplined, finding things that are healthy, that are, good for my blood sugar that I like- ... and just being disciplined about putting them in my body within those hours of the day [00:23:00] when I should be eating- Yeah
In order to move my bedtime back. Because what'll happen is, go to work, high cortisol all day. Finally it crashes, now I'm hungry. Yeah. I... Now I'm not busy, I'm not in survival mode, dealing with customers and, I know it sounds silly, but, ... and then, you get home and now I can eat.
Now my body, I, I went out, I hunted, I took the hunt over to the, the cave, and now I can eat. Yeah.
Charis: No, I'm so glad you brought this up because this is so common for so many people because [00:23:30] we do live in a busy life. Our modern society is busy, and if you're working a job during the day or at night, it doesn't matter, most people's jobs are busy and they're on the go.
And I think the important things to think about... in an ideal world, if we could do this, let's just take the work part out of it, right? We don't have to worry about work. It would be better for us to eat bigger meals- obviously always well-rounded, like obviously with carbs, protein, and fat, depending on, those amounts [00:24:00] depend on what you need individually, but always balanced.
And that is so important for so many reasons, obviously from a nutrient standpoint. But when we eat like that, our body has all the co-factors together in our food to have the nutrients it needs to function. And then, protein and fat also help to stabilize your appetite, let you go for four hours between meals, and so you're not constantly snacking all the time.
That is super disruptive to your digestive process. But in an ideal [00:24:30] world, it'd be great if we could eat more during the day and a lighter dinner, and that is really hard for people to wrap their heads around. I am in that same camp, but I have managed to do this, and I would say that one of the things you could think about for the middle of the day, and so maybe it's not your breakfast is a big meal, 'cause that would be challenging for a lot of people.
Maybe it's your lunch or whatever your second meal is. And like you mentioned, if you are busy and your cortisol is [00:25:00] high, you're not gonna be super hungry And so how can you down regulate yourself to be able to eat? Now, you might not get to the point where your stomach is growling, but there are couple things that you could do that could help down regulate you.
One of them is some breathing exercises, and it sounds crazy. You're like, "I just got off the phone with a customer. I'm busy working. Oh, I'm just gonna do some breathing now?" But it really does work, and if you do it your [00:25:30] body will start to respond because it knows what you're doing.
You already mentioned that you don't have an appetite when you're in this more sympathetic state anyway. You're not, also not gonna digest your food very well. Your body cannot digest when you're in that sympathetic high-stress state. And so figuring out a few things you can do to kinda down regulate yourself.
What I do, just because I work from home and it's just easy for me to do it, is I just go make a couple laps around my yard, and so I walk around in my [00:26:00] yard bare feet. And so it's got the grounding principle with it. I'm outside. Hopefully it's not snowing. It's summer right now, so it's usually-
decent weather in the middle of the day, and I go out there and I just take it all in, and I start doing a little bit more breathing right then. And then I usually eat something for lunch that's fairly easy to put together, either because I planned it that way or that's, it's just leftovers or something.
And then by the time I come back to the kitchen, I'm already down [00:26:30] regulated, and I might not be hungry, but like you mentioned, I am planning on eating. And so- ... what this might look like for you, if you're not really eating very much now in that time period, is just starting with something small, you can gradually work your way up to more food and bigger meal that you can actually digest because you also don't wanna have that opposite effect where you eat something big and then you're just like, food coma for the afternoon, right? So it's- [00:27:00] Mm-hmm ...... a little bit of a balancing act, and I usually have people think about this for, something like this for like, a month.
And that might sound crazy to people to think about something for that long, but you literally just can think about it for a month. So this first week, I'm literally just gonna work on eating something well-balanced in the middle of the day. Maybe it's only a couple hundred calories, but it's better than zero, which is what I was eating before.
Do that for a week, and then see how you feel. Then the next [00:27:30] week- ... can you increase that a little bit, maybe you do need a little routine like I have, going outside. Most people can go outside. I've heard people say I work in a office building," or something like that, "and I just can't go outside."
I'm like, "Why can't you go outside?" You can go outside. Yeah. Those are just- Not a
Clarke: prisoner ...
Charis: beliefs that we put on ourselves, right? And so- ... you just need to think, make it simple for yourself, and make it be something that you're like, "I can do this. I have five or 10 minutes. It's worth [00:28:00] it to me to bring this into my process."
Clarke: Yeah. I think the breathing was a really good suggestion anyone in the holistic sphere or, natural sphere is always said that, they're just, when you talk to them about any of this stuff. But it's so true, it's not like I'm not putting it off.
I'm saying I were to make that a big staple is that any time you wanna eat or, like you talked about your routine, whatever mine is gonna be, but, breathing is number one in there. It has to be. And now intentionally doing it, thinking about "Okay, I may do this [00:28:30] subconsciously," like I may, go to the bathroom or I can step outside. I'm able to step outside at my job. But even doing it intentionally might reinforce that the pattern of doing it, and also just what it's meant to do for me. Because even if I can get myself to eat which I may be able to do, it's like I still want that second part of that, which is digesting the food well.
So- Yeah ... yeah, that's a really good suggestion.
Charis: Yeah. So I think, we talked about a bunch of different strategies here, and this [00:29:00] assessment gives you that primary, secondary thing that you need to look at, but also just do something, right?
Pick the easiest thing that you think is easiest for you to implement because also the way our brain works is we implement something, we're successful with it, we're much more motivated to keep going. And so once you have that intrinsic motivation and you're like, "This is working for me.
I'm feeling a difference," then you're like, "What am I gonna do next?" And so you can come back [00:29:30] to these strategies, to your assessment, and think about what you can do next. Even though, if circadian rhythm is your priority on your assessment, yes, I will always say that going outside in the morning is important, but if you pick to actually eat lunch where you're not eating lunch or to bookend your day at the end of the day like we talked about earlier, those are also great strategies, and they just build- on each other.
Clarke: Yeah that's been my struggle and it's it's been [00:30:00] changing over the past couple years just because of awareness. But then it's, you bring the awareness, you bring these ideas, and then you see what life is gonna throw at you that's gonna knock you off course, what are you dealing with for, let's say you plan for your last meal to be at go to bed at 10:00, finish by 7:00 PM, okay? Then X happens, then you're dealing with something from 6:00 to 8:00, and so that's where you talked about, that's just a day though.
The next day is the now another day. So- Yeah ... go back to what you did the day before, even though that happened that day. Yeah. [00:30:30] So it's consistency over time and not getting discouraged. Even if I try to do it and the first three days don't go well, just, day four and just, but the awareness of I didn't realize all of these things were causing the issues or could cause long-term issues that maybe I yet wasn't experiencing yet long-term health issues. But this was, like, as a kid, I, I say kid, but young adult, it was eat a banana for breakfast, maybe something for lunch, probably something bad because that's what looked [00:31:00] good enough to eat, and then dinner was do whatever you want, eat as much as you can to make up for what you didn't eat, and then go right to bed after. So it's like it was, headed to an early grave doing that,
Charis: You've had that routine for kind of a long time, right? So it's good to be aware of that and to be gentle with ourselves and realize that this has been going on for 15 years.
You're- Yeah ... essentially the same pattern, but you can start these interventions now and make it, it'll make a difference quickly. That's the thing is your body [00:31:30] physiologically responds very quickly to this. And, I hear from people, and knowing myself having a lot of nervous system dysregulation the key to regulating your nervous system is starting with your physiology.
Because if you have your physiology in place and you're eating, enough food and you're eating at the right times of day and you have this kind of bookend thought about your day, then if you do have a huge stressor, it's definitely not gonna be as impactful to [00:32:00] you as if you were completely dysregulated from a nutrition standpoint and a rhythm standpoint.
Clarke: Yeah, it's like being prepared for life, like being equipped, physically equipped and physiologically equipped to handle what life is rather than like one of my questions was how do you respond to stressful situations, and it's not so much my mindset. It's more some of it's mindset, but that's, those are separate issues that, you work on.
But it, you put yourself at a disadvantage out the gate by not [00:32:30] doing these simple, they're simple, not easy, but simple things to put yourself in a good position to, to deal with life. Yeah. You're starting with one, one leg, whatever, you know. You're pulling extra weight for no reason, for most days of the week or month have control over,
Charis: yeah. A lot of people are dealing with things, like really stressful things in their lives. There's no question. It's just that if you can control some of these things, you, it will have such a great impact on your entire physiology, but your nervous [00:33:00] system - most importantly, and if you are feeling like you just can't regulate your nervous system, this is the right place to start
Clarke: yeah. For sure. And it's like when you, once you start seeing these things too which I have as we're having this assessment conversation I put some of this stuff in play. It's more so at this point in my life about the discipline and
having this just be what I do.
Charis: Yeah.
Clarke: The same way I would brush my teeth, or the same way I would drive to work. Like- Yeah ... I do, I get up and I go to sunlight, and then the, it's [00:33:30] not something I have to think about. Having it be effortless is what I'm trying to say is the goal, I think, of anything you try to implement like this.
Charis: Absolutely. Yeah, and so that's why, starting some of these habits which might be a little more challenging for you to switch whatever you can do to make it happen, telling someone that you live with, telling your dog , taking your dog outside. Most people's dogs that I know are gonna love going outside in the morning, right?
Even if you're just wandering around your yard or something like that. And so [00:34:00] it's whatever you can do to make it happen for you
until it
Charis: is automatic that's really the key for all of us- Yeah ... 'cause we're human, after all.
Clarke: Yeah, not everything's, good or bad,
I never used to drink coffee.
Charis: Yeah.
Clarke: So now this is something that I it's not that I do it, it's necessarily bad, it's just how I do it. But if that was never a habit other things that aren't habits can now be habits,
Charis: awesome. Thank you so much, Clark.
This was wonderful. I really appreciate you going through this with everyone, and all of your [00:34:30] comments and insightfulness is just, it's really helpful. So is there anything else you wanna add before we sign off?
Clarke: No, just really refreshing and I have stuff to work with.
Charis: Yeah.
Clarke: And things to focus on in a good way.
Charis: Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Have a great day. And if you need the link to the assessment, it will be in the show notes, or you can go to foundations.primetonourish.com. Thanks,
Clarke: everyone. Thank you so much.
