Morning Mindful Mobility YouTube Playlist

Hello beloveds!

I want you living your healthiest life (LYHL), and of course, that involves you moving your healthiest and most capable. Daily mobility is a wonderful contemplative practice that puts you in tune with your body, while helping you actually become stronger, more mobile, more coordinated, have better endurance, experience better posture and endurance.

It’s hard to know what to do. I’ve seen this in my 17 years as a PT. You have been failed by your sports teams, and health class, and physical education classes. I’m here to fill in the gap. Subscribe to the Artisan Physical Therapy channel and to the “Morning Mindful Mobility” Playlist to follow along during your morning routines to get a full body workout and different options for each day to help you reach your potential.

Click here —> APT Morning Mindful Mobility Playlist

Bonus if you do your mobility in the morning and double bonus if you do it outside. Interested in joining live? Join the Morning Mindful Mobility mailing list by emailing me the subject line: Mobility Mailing List

Here to help you live your healthiest life. Let’s LYHL!

May you always see the blessing.

Dr. LYHL (Dr. Elle)

Healthy Living

What is healthy living? Someone asked me recently if I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.

My reply was "no." I said no because I used to trail run long distances previously and now I can’t/don’t. I'm not in shape to run 21 miles through mountains at high elevation. I'm not able to do an olympic distance triathlon at this time. So no, I’m not the healthiest since I used to be able to do those previously.

Pause.

With some reflection, I realized how narrow my response was. I only addressed musculoskeletal fitness and conditioning in my answer. And even within that answer I'm not sure I answered it fully. What about the mobility work and physical therapy I am doing to address long-standing mobility issues and imbalance in my neck, upper back, and shoulder? What about the work I am doing on my core and deep stabilizing muscles? What about the work I am doing on my hamstrings and glutes to strengthen them and address front to back thigh and hip imbalances and thus reduce the likelihood of injury to my knees and back?

Often moving forward feels initially like taking steps backwards.

I don't believe that health is simply our physical bodies. What about my mental, emotional and spiritual health? What about my diet, my digestion, my mood, my relationships, my interactions with work, my sleep, ability to communicate, my generosity? In these areas, I am healthier than ever, and significantly so. That is not insignificant. I am living a very satisfying, rewarding, and peaceful life. And it took work to get to this healthy place.

It was striking to me how limited my view was when initially considering my response to: “Am I the healthiest I’ve even been?”. I believe so much in integrated health. I know that there is complex and little understood interplay between these areas. I preach this to my patients, clients, students, friends and anyone listening. I believe that anything I want to impart to others, I need to first inhabit. “Do as I say, not as I do”, doesn't deliver.

But wow, not only did I not think about my full physical body - sleep, strength imbalances, stiffnesses, muscle activation issues. I considered performance in my answer. I have long known that performance and health are different things. Often doing the healthy thing means doing less. And this is remarkably hard to do in our culture. Our society screams - DO MORE, ACHIEVE, ACQUIRE! But deep, deep health comes from knowing our body and this requires sufficient slowing down to learn to hear and understand the voice of your body. I have long served as an interpreter and guide for physical therapy patients to know what their body is speaking to them. Teaching them - “motion is lotion.” Helping them release - “pain is weakness leaving the body.” Our body is us, so we need to not separate ourselves from it, but our body is also not the only thing we are.

When I partner with patients and clients, I frequently suggest that their path to greater health might be doing less of a certain thing so they can focus on underlying problems and direct space, time, and energy to address them. We struggle frequently to do the behaviors that are most helpful for us.

What do you think it means to live your healthiest life?

What healthy habits do you struggle to incorporate into your routine?

What resources are you accessing to help you LYHL?

How would a coach benefit you with this goal?

Dr. Elle

Sleep Hygiene? Part 2 of 2

Not sleeping well is a detriment to healthy living and healing. Now that you have considered the concept of sleep hygiene from Part 1 of this 2-Part series, consider the following list of habits to develop in order to improve your quality of sleep, allowing you body to heal, recover, and reenergize:

1. Exercise daily - but not too close too bedtime. It varies, but exercising too late at night can disrupt sleep, if performed 1-2 hours before trying to sleep.

2. Limit screen use (TV and social media) before bed - Neither allows you to focus and declutter your mind nor control the imagery and messages you let in. Being on the screen is also often about productivity and on social media easily brings us to envy and comparison, both of which do not promote rest. The blue light from the screen is not good for you. You can have your phone dim and switch to orange or black/white light later in the evening to assist you in this regard.

3. Prepare things for the next day ahead of time, so that your mind does not need to focus on them - e.g. set a reminder in your calendar so you remember to email that person and don't have to worry about keeping it in your mind. As you do this, move more slowly, so your body gets the cue to slow down.

4. Meditate or contemplate 10-20 minutes - in contemplation you have an affirming mantra/phrase that you keep repeating bringing your mind towards as it wanders.

5. Limit talking - decreasing your motor output will help you slow down and unwind both physically and mentally.

6. Read with low light:

   • Something engaging, but not upsetting

   • Consider something about positive human potential

   • Try not to read something so light that your mind doesn't have to focus

7. Stop being productive - don't work or study right up until sleeping, instead create a buffer zone. 

8. Practice being in the present moment - pay attention to your body, your breath, enjoy physical being with your family/partner/roommate. This is a perfect time for cuddles and getting cozy with pillows and blankets!

9. Breathe - work on slow breaths from your abdomen to ensure your diaphragm is properly facilitating your breathing and thus promoting the parasympathetic system to be active (which is your "rest and digest" system).

10. Turn lights low as you prepare for sleep and then fully dark to optimize deeper sleep states

11. Rest in bed before attempting to sleep

12. Sleep in a cool room. Too much heat can be disruptive to sleep.

13. Create quiet environment: Use ear plugs or head phones to limit outside distractions & silence your phone

14. Listen to calming, quiet music; podcasts, talks, or books that are quiet as well as affirming and positive about the human potential. Use a timer to have this turn off after 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes, depending how long it typically takes you to drift into a dream state. I bookmark my starting point in books so that I can easily come back to where I started from - some days it takes a whole 30 minutes for me to fall asleep, sometimes I am no longer listening within 5 minutes!

15. Journal to process thoughts and concerns from the day to limit them from looping in your mind

Do you have other things you practice and find helpful? Comment below.

Oh! FYI - You shouldn't have pain with waking up from sleep. This may indicate you need help from a physical therapist, but it may also mean that you need to sleep with different pillows or mattress to obtain more healthy and restful sleep.

Happy sleeping!

Elle