Get Into Your Flow - Daily Routines for Balanced Health

To maintain our overall health, the mind and body need to find a regular rhythm -- particularly one that works with nature and the movement of the sun.  A wake-sleep cycle in balance helps to manage cortisol, blood sugar, hormones, and inflammation.  It also helps to regulate digestion and appetite as well as energy levels.  Many health ailments we experience can be positively impacted by simple adjustments in the way we plan our day.

Why is Routine Important?

Routine helps the body to know what to expect and supports the natural alignment of our body's innate rhythm.  When we wake up with the sun, eat meals at regular times for peak digestion, exercise at times that will not impede digestion and go to bed with the setting sun we give our body what it needs to do what it was designed to do.  With modern inventions such as lights, computers and cars we have slowly adapted our routines to fit more with modern conveniences than the natural function of our body.   We stay up later than the sun, we eat around our work schedules -- including not eating at all -- while leading more sedentary lifestyles due to driving to most places and jobs that require sitting.

We tend to place investing in our mind and body’s needs secondary to meeting and achieving external goals which, overtime, lessen our mental and physical resiliency. 

So, what does a balanced routine look like? Below is a general picture of a good routine for balancing mental and physical health. While it may not be achievable for every person exactly as written, small adoptions of these routine suggestions can make a big difference.

• Wake up with the sun, meaning wake by 6:00am each day.  Waking cortisol is dependent on consistency in the wake-sleep schedule and the sun naturally stimulates cortisol production. Light entering the eyes stimulates the brain’s master clock encouraging the system to wake up.   

  
  

• Eliminate – It is ideal to pass urine and stool in the morning within the first hour of waking.  If this is not happening, there could be many reasons and irregular or odd schedules can contribute. 

  
  

• Cleanse the Mouth – Ideally the mouth should be cleansed before you ingest any liquid or food in the morning. The mouth has developed bacteria during the detoxification process that happens overnight. It is important to remove the bacteria before eating or drinking to avoid swallowing it back into the body.

  • Brush teeth – Cleanse the teeth with a preservative and chemical free toothpaste and floss. We carry some good options in the pharmacy.

  • Tongue Scrape – Have you ever checked out your tongue in the morning?  It can usually have some build up especially near the back.  Tongue scraping helps to gently pull those toxins off the tongue and out of the mouth.  Take the scraper and gently pull from the back of the tongue to the front 7 times.  Rinse the scraper between each pass. 

  • Oil Pulling is the practice of taking up to 1 TBSP of coconut oil placing it in the mouth and swishing it around for up to 20 minutes to help eliminate and prevent bacteria in the mouth.  The fatty outer membranes of oral bacteria naturally adhere to the fat in the oil and swishing pulls these microbes out of hard-to-reach spaces.  It also inhibits plaque accumulation and prevents bacteria from adhering to the enamel. 

• Have a cup of warm water with lemon or lime, before coffee or food.  The body is naturally dehydrated upon waking as it has gone several hours without liquids.  Having this simple drink in the morning hydrates the cells, stimulates your digestion, while encouraging detoxification.  Avoid lemon or lime juice if you have acid reflux.  Sip on warm water instead.

  
  

• Breathe - Take a moment in the morning to regulate the nervous system and set up your intentions for the day. This can be a simple quiet moment with a few deep breaths and a guide word you choose for the day. Or, it could be more elaborate with a meditation or prayer practice that lasts a bit longer. The length does not matter, it's the intention that counts.

• Exercise - It is best to exercise in the am before the day gets started preferably by 10:00am as it stimulates metabolism and energy for the day. If you can't fit in a morning sweat the next best time is around 4:00-6:00pm before dinner. Avoid working out during meal time, especially lunch. Your body is ready to eat midday and exercising can throw off your metabolism and digestion, while potentially contributing to long term issues with metabolic health.

• Cleansing - This is an important aspect of self-care as it symbolizes care of the physical body through applying oil to the skin and cleansing the body with water. Abhyanga or self-massage is a common practice in eastern traditions as part of the cleansing routine. There are many benefits. 1. It helps to soothe the nervous system. 2. It protects the skin from the elements and strengthens it's resiliency through aging. Here is a link to more instructions for self-massage.

Self-Massage Instructions

• Eat Meals at Regular Times – For balanced blood sugar and regulating digestion eating meals throughout the day is important.  Individual physiology and specific health needs may be better supported with some fasting, but it's important to know if this is the right step for you before making it a regular practice.  Snacking can be seen the same as fasting.  It can be good for some and not for others.  Below is a baseline for regular meals.

  
  

  • Breakfast by 8:00am - The quantity here will differ per person. Listen to how hungry you are and eat accordingly.

    
    

  • Lunch between 12-2pm – Should be the most calorie dense meal of the day as digestion is the strongest at this time.  No one should skip lunch regularly outside of occasional planned fasting!  Smalls snacks for lunch is equivalent to skipping!  Missing this main meal weakens your metabolism, causes an accumulation of toxins, and disrupts your body's natural rhythm.  This is the halfway point for our bodies during the day.  We ask a lot of our brain and body for the first half of the day and will continue to do so after lunch.  It is only fair that we give the body proper nutrition to support what we are asking it to accomplish. This means lunch needs to have adequate protein, fat and especially fiber from vegetables and complex carbs.  Complex carbohydrates like quinoa, beans, lentils or sweet potatoes help to manage glucose levels and give our brains the right kind of glucose it needs to avoid an afternoon crash. 

    
    

  • Light dinner between 6-7pm.  Keep it light! Your digestion slows as the day goes on.  This means that snacking for dinner is more appropriate than for lunch. Consider eating a much smaller portion, having a broth based soup or a vegetarian dish for dinner to ease up on the pressure to digest heavy food at night. Consider larger breakfast and lunch or regular snacking on the days when you know you will have a later evening to avoid eating after 7:00pm

    
    

• Sit and Eat - Nourishing our bodies takes intention and focus. When we multi-task while eating we lose the impact of stimulating the right kinds of enzymes to help with digestion. The visual presentation, smell, and taste of the food are all part of our digestive process. When something looks good we get very excited to eat it and that means our digestive system is ready to assimilate the food. So, sit away from your desk or the TV and enjoy eating for the sake of eating as it is an important process in our daily self-care.

• Walk after meals - Most importantly try to walk after lunch. Again, this supports better digestion and metabolism.

  
  

• Go to sleep by 10:00pm - There is a sleep window and if we miss this window, the body reignites cortisol and gets a second wind. Studies show that the deepest REM cycle is between the hours of 10-12:00pm. Sleep slowly lightens as cortisol gently begins to rise around 2:00am and continues to slowly build until 6:00am. Getting to bed early means we get the deepest most repairative sleep.

  
  

What Happens When We Get Off Routine?

Everyone will get off routine!  This is normal.  There are many outside factors that influence how we address our routine.  Some interruptions can be managed by with preparation, other interruptions are a complete schedule takeover and require a full shift from the norm.  When your routine gets interrupted:

• Try not to get too stressed!– This will make the impact harder. Try to go with the flow of the change and make some good decisions for yourself where you can.

• Choose the most nourishing meal that is available to you.  Sometimes routine changes come with eating more meals away from home or only having time for something quick.  Try to stick with whole foods over shakes and packaged bars and choose take out meals that have good quality fiber, protein and fat when they are available.

• Get back on track as soon as things settle down.  This may take a minute, but try not to stay in the imbalanced pattern or this may be where issues with sleep and metabolism start to develop.

What Happens When Schedules Work Against Regular Routines?

For example, what if you are someone that works evenings or overnights which throws off eating and sleeping routines or your family's activity schedule impedes normal eating and sleeping times? These schedules are not ideal long-term, but there are ways to reduce their impact.

• Some physiologies are more adaptable than others.  There are some people where these schedules are not as impactful as they might be for others.  People that have good stamina and are fairly unaffected by routine changes can manage this set up much better than someone that is more high energy, easily worn out or that need more sleep and nutrition.

  
  

• Generally, even if you are on an odd schedule, try not to eat past sundown.  For adults,it is best to try and eat a large meal by 2:00pm and have dinner by 7-8:00pm. If working overnights, try to have a span of 8 hours overnight where you don’t eat and stay hydrated with water or herbal tea.  If you need to eat, have easy to digest foods like fresh fruits or vegetable soup. 

  For children with activities later in the evening, it is still important to have nutrition when they feel hungry. It is not ideal to eat late after their activity, but they are still growing so if they are hungry then food is necessary. Try to stick with easier to digest options like fresh fruits, rice, scrambled eggs or oatmeal.

  
  

• Keep this schedule as short term as possible.  The body will struggle with the inconsistency and alteration from the patterns where the body feel more at ease. Consider finding regularity on days when there is an earlier schedule. Listen to your body's cues and honor them. If you have late shift or an overnight work schedule try to keep it as short term as possible. Most physiologies will start to show adverse effects when out of sync with the natural circadian rhythm for a prolonged period of time.

I know it may seem there is no way that all of these suggestions can be followed. I promise they can, but with flexibility when necessary and making changes slowly and gradually. Adhering to a specific work or activity schedule may not be changeable but the other decisions you make still matter. So, choose somewhere to start that feels possible. Make gradual shifts like moving bedtime back 15 minutes a week until you hit your more preferred time. Focus on increasing fibrous veggies and complex carbs into 1 meal a day or take a breather in your morning to gather yourself for the day. No matter where you start, making small changes will lead to long term positive impact on your physical and mental health now and for your future self.