VC4HW Ep. 1: Nurturing a Healthy YOU Through Meditation and Self-care

Welcome to the Virtual Center for Health and Wellness Premiere Podcast - Advancing the Human Condition. Join Dr. Aurelia Bickler and her guest, Dr. Cynthia Akagi as she offers simple and achievable tools to insert meditation and self-care through our day-to-day lives. 

Topic Quick Links
Calm: www.calm.com
Headspace: www.headspace.com
Youtube: www.youtube.com
Noom: www.noom.com
WW: www.weightwatchers.com
MyFitnessPal: www.myfitnesspal.com

Transcript

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00:04
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
Welcome to the Virtual Center for Health and Wellness advancing the human condition podcast. I am the center's director, Dr. Aurelia Bickler. And today marks our very first podcast. Our mission is to improve the human condition by learning from highly competent professionals and their contribution to their respective fields that we come from the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences perspective, we plan on bringing experts from diverse backgrounds to offer a systemic and comprehensive set of skills, techniques and research findings to the table. 

You can also expect this podcast to inspire authenticity, and even discomfort, as we will host vulnerable conversations with people from all walks of life that are willing to share with us the different ways they address their well being, whether that be around physical health, nutrition, emotional health, mental health, or even financial health. 

It is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Cynthia Akagi, to speak with us about health and wellness, and living in a healthy way. Thank you so much, Dr. Akagi. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

 01:07
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
Well, I'm a health educator with 20 years experience teaching health education, and I'm just passionate about living healthy, because when we do we have lots more energy, we can enjoy life. And so it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

 01:22
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
I love what you're talking about regarding energy, I am craving more of that myself being a mother of three. I feel like they know how to drain me quite a bit. So I'm just wondering, when you think of the world healthy? What does it mean to live healthy? What is living in a healthy way?

01:40
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
Well, I have to take it back a step medically, it's if we're at a healthy weight, not too thin, not too heavy, if we're trying if we're generally eating healthy foods, because that's what gives us our energy and our brain power. And if you aren't, emotionally, you know fighting chronic depression, anxiety, and those sometimes there's psychological imbalances, or chemical imbalances in the brain. So overall, you're a good weight, you're eating healthy most of the time and just enjoying life, then you're considered healthy, if you're able to get kind of through the ups and downs of life.

02:18
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
After the wonder about how we recognize that within ourselves, how do we know we're doing things? Right? I know, again, you know, life kind of takes us up and down. And sometimes we're more with it, we're working out better, or sometimes we're eating healthier. And then the next week, we sort of fall off the bandwagon. How do we know that we're maintaining the level of health that's acceptable for us and not falling off? And yet, allowing room for that flow, you know, that that that natural flow?

02:53
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
Well, I really feel I think the hardest time to really maintain that health, we want to maintain it, sometimes we just set our expectations too high, is when you're raising children, I remember well raising my children going 24 -7-90 miles an hour, and you just don't feel like if you just get their food on the table, you're doing a great job, and then you pop something in your mouth. And you're like, when does it stop, you know, during our childbearing years is is is the toughest, I think, and I think there are things First of all, you have to forgive yourself, we're gonna fall off the wagon, and that's okay. 

And I think women especially you have to be in touch with your menstrual cycle to, there are just certain days of the month right before your period or on your period when you just feel Ricci and you just need that chocolate and you need whatever it takes to get through the day. And that's okay, forgive yourself for that. And take those two, three days and then go back and, and embrace the carrots and celery in the middle shelf of the refrigerator. But for those three days, you needed that, you know, chips or something. And that's okay, because that's just your hormones. That's natural. I think for women especially that's a tough one. Sometimes we get so busy and we don't even realize what our menstrual cycle is doing to us.

04:11
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
I know our listeners cannot see us but I know that you can. And yes, my chocolate is right here. So I appreciate you giving me the freedom to to dig right in. It's funny because as you're speaking I I feel like the word burnout comes to me. There's just so much going on in the world and raising kids is only one giant aspect of life, but our listeners might be in very different stages of their lives. And maybe they are raising kids. Maybe they're not even close to thinking about having kids and maybe they're done raising kids right. But there's so many things going on whether it's our you know, work life or personal lives, our health, our finances. You feel like we're in a period in the world where things are just hitting us from so many different angles. I'm wondering, what is burnout feel like? How do we know we have? We're suffering from it? How do we prevent it? I know it's too many questions, but help us.

 05:17
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
Okay. Let's take a let's take them one at a time. So how do you know if you're in burnout? For me, it was when I started disliking my job, disliking having to be a parent. And I had to really take a look at how many things that I have on my plate. And I'm an oldest child, so I tend to take on a lot. And it was learning to say no, when, and especially when you're working full time and going to graduate school online and raising children. My professor gave me the best advice, she said, cut everything out, except the work you have to do your family and going to school. So you can't teach Sunday school right now you can't be on the parent teacher committee at school, tell them that you'll be back as soon as you finish your doctorate. But right now, you can't. 

And it's just, you know, as we're because family and our children are priority. And then as you said, Now, some people aren't in child rearing right now. So maybe it's their job, and they have a high pressure job, but they still want to get their advanced degree, and balancing the two, or the older people that have the older students that are going back for their degree, maybe they're a caregiver to their mother or father. And that just zaps your energy from you. And so when you start feeling resentment or depression, you know, that's, maybe you're not normally a depressed person. 

But all of a sudden, you're just feeling yucky all the time. That's a sign that  you're suffering burnout, and you need to take a look at what's on your plate. You got to ask for help. For some of us asking for help is so hard. We just that's we don't want to do that. Ask for help. Look at what's on your plate. And you got to take some things off. Because burnouts real, and you need to deal with it, because it's just going to take you to a downward down hill spiral. Which is not good, which is gonna affect your health. Yeah. Your physic it'll affect you physically.

07:29
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
Yes, yes, I feel that sometimes when I'm particularly exhausted, I can feel it in my body, I can feel it in my back. I can feel it in my energy level and all of that. And yet, the idea of dealing with burnout sometimes to make it feel like a an additional task to take care of right, something else on my list. Let me now deal with my burnout. Why don't we write? Do you happen to have some like simple, achievable ways to address burnout without it being an additional burden?

08:03
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
Well, what has worked for me, and it took me a long time to embrace it, because at first I pushed it off, and I said, Oh, no, no, that's just for the granola hugging group. But little meditation in the morning, while the house is quiet before the kids got up. And when I was raising kids, I got up 15 minutes earlier, when the house was still quiet. And I just set my well I actually I set an alarm because I didn't have a smartphone back then. But you set your smartphone for 10 minutes, and just sit and meditate and it feels weird at first. And thoughts keep going through your mind and you acknowledge them and you throw them back out. I always meditated on energy coming through the top of my head, going down through my heart and to my limbs and just healing soothing energy. 

This was my energy. This was me taking care of me. And after a while when I kept doing it, some days will be better than others. But I still do that to this day. And I think it's so important for young people who have stressful jobs, older people who are caretaking a parent, just just simply 10 minutes. And at first it seems like oh my god. 10 minutes is never going to it's so long. And then now, boom. 10 minutes go so fast. But there's just that relaxation, centering yourself before you start your day.

09:36
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
I love that. It's funny because I see it even in children that need to just completely detach from everything right? We're talking about ourselves as adults and I think the majority of our listeners are definitely going to be adults. But if we live with children in the house, I think many of us might relate to their own stress and their own need to learn how to meditate. I think it's such an important tool What did people say to you? You know, I don't have 10 minutes. Is it? Is it worthy to meditate? Even two minutes?

10:07
Dr. Cynthia Akagi

Oh, oh, yes, two minutes, three minutes, start out small, whatever you got. And you brought up a great point with kids. And I was so excited to see this on the news during the pandemic, or No, I think it was before the pandemic, there was a school district. And they introduced meditation to children. And they came in and they sit in the class and the first thing they did before the start of the day, they meditated. 

And we can do that with their own families. You know, they I just heard the news article, though, yesterday, about the increase in teenagers during the pandemic thinking of suicide. Yes. And oh, goodness, it, you know, we should have had meditation medicine, messages during the pandemic, the whole family can sit around in the living room, and just have quiet time and meditate. And for for children, three minutes is an eternity. So yeah, two minutes, three minutes, whatever you've got, but just quieting yourself, you know, start out two or three minutes.

11:07
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
Yeah, you know, I do something in my home that I that I love, because I have three kids, and they're young, right? So my youngest is three, then I have a seven year old. And then I have a nine year old. And so sometimes the idea and I have two dogs and a bird, the house is always kind of loud. But one of the things that that we incorporate is we we almost always have a giant puzzle on our kitchen counter that we all contribute to. 

And it's our it's unspoken as meditation, but it feels so much like meditation and watch my kids sit at the counter and start just just focusing on the one or two pieces that they're just, you know, just thinking about in that moment, and I can feel their focus on letting go of everything else and genuinely being directed on. Where's my next piece going in this puzzle. And it's just it works for our family. I just love it.

11:59
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
That is a beautiful example. 

12:02
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
Thank you, to pick your brain. I know you've been doing this for many, many years, do you recommend any particular resources for our listeners, around health around wellness, meditation, or even prioritizing which you beautifully mentioned earlier, the idea of just letting go of the things that you just can't handle? Do you have easy I'm, I'm hoping that our listeners can even walk away with one tiny thing, one tiny shift that they can incorporate in their lives.

12:31
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
I love the advent of the smartphone, because it does help us it can be a very big help. And there are so many helpful apps. And so I have you said one or two but I'm just gonna have to share more than one or two here. And then your listeners can pick out which one they want. So for meditation, there's calm, and there's headspace. And we'll provide links for these. And then don't forget the old YouTube, I have a five minute Tai Chi routine on YouTube five minutes, that just helps center me It's so wonderful. 

For if you have gained some pounds, and you're sitting there thinking, I need to get that off. Noom is the big new thing. And oh M or the old weight-watchers, which is now WW. And they have personal counselors that you can talk to on your phone. I mean, and they're all of these are very low cost, it's worth the investment in you to check these out and pick one you know, that can help you. You can try it out for 30 days, then help you you can check a different one out. Don't let apps rule your life. But just one or two that might help. My Fitness Pal is an oldie but goodie, that you can shard your food intake and your exercise. I have lots of people who use that. And there are a lot of other different fitness apps too. So those are just a few that have been helpful for me have been helpful for friends of mine. And you can check them out for yourself and see if they might work for you.

14:19
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
So thank you so much for all these important tools and helpful resources. Cynthia, is there anything that maybe we haven't touched upon that you'd like to add?

14:29
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
I would say, Just forgive yourself when you fall off the wagon. Try to look at all the things you've got and see if there's some things you can cut out if you're feeling overwhelmed, and just love yourself. If someone's not around to give you a hug, hug yourself and try try for two minutes a day just a little meditation or a quick walk outside. Try to have a little bit of me time daily that will go a long way.

14:55
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
I love that. Thank you so much for that. And thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate your time and your knowledge and your expertise. And I look forward to learning more from you throughout our time together and I'm excited that you are contributing to our center.

15:10
Dr. Cynthia Akagi
Thank you. I'm really enjoyed our talk today and helping you and I can continue to help others.

15:16
Dr. Aurelia Bickler
Thank you. Stay tuned for our next podcast. I am Dr. Aurelia Bickler and I look forward to embarking on this journey with you. Until then, breathe intentionally. Love wholeheartedly. Connect within and towards people who inspire you and who bring you joy.