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[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the sync your life podcast today. I’m joined by my good friend on a former. This is not her first time on the show. In fact, it might be her third time or so on the show, but I’m excited to reconnect to catch up to hear all about her new program called the early morning habits.

[00:01:14] Jenny Swisher: And I think this is perfect timing because we’re heading into the new year here soon. I know people are ready to kind of. Get their ish together when it comes to their health and wellness and their early morning routines and all the things. So on a welcome back to the show. I would love for you to just give us an introduction, right?

[00:01:28] Jenny Swisher: For people who maybe haven’t heard your previous episodes, like tell us who you are and what you do.

[00:01:33] Yeah. My name is Anna, as she already said, I am a wife to one mom of four, three biological kids and one coming via adoption, my son. And I think the last time I was on might’ve been about our adoption journey.

[00:01:49] Yeah. Yeah. Wild.

[00:01:51] Jenny Swisher: We’ll update on that later on.

[00:01:52] Yeah, for sure. Um. And I am a dual certified nurse practitioner. I, my first master’s was from John Hopkins in adult geriatric critical care medicine. And then I got a second one cause apparently I thought one wasn’t enough in family medicine. And I worked in emergency medicine for 10 years.

[00:02:12] And then the long story made really short is I started a DIY blog to document our family’s fixer upper adventures just for fun. The homes that we were doing. And then that online space ended up turning into what I’m really passionate about, which is preventative medicine and completely walked away from the like home DIY decor world.

[00:02:36] And I am now honored to run my own holistic health and fitness program, combining my. Personal and professional passions in one space. And I feel so honored. I primarily serve busy, high achieving, hardworking, hustling, Christian moms. So you’re ladies

[00:02:59] Jenny Swisher: you’re in the right place then. Amen. Here we go. These podcasts is, it’s here.

[00:03:04] Jenny Swisher: Cause they want to learn more about their hormone health, but they also were here because they helped me with all the things I’ve got so much on my plate. So many things for so many people and we oftentimes don’t prioritize ourselves. So you’re in the right place here, but welcome back to the show. Um, we’re going to dive into all the stuff today and maybe by the end of this podcast, you’ll convert me to a morning person.

[00:03:23] Jenny Swisher: That’s my hope. My hope. Let’s go. Here we go. You’re all our witness. So for my listeners, I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this, but my chronotype is very much. Like I, it’s almost like I get a second wind after 9 PM and I’m on my A game, right? Like, so a lot of people will say like, no, the early morning is where it’s at, right?

[00:03:41] Jenny Swisher: Like that’s where you can get a lot done before your kids are even up and all the things that I, my body seems to like the opposite where my kids go to bed and I’m like, boom, like it’s time to rock and roll. So let’s just kind of kick this off. Like why early morning habit? Like, I’m assuming this was something that.

[00:03:57] Jenny Swisher: You know, as part of your story and something that was working for you. So I would love for you to kind of just give us some background on how, why, and how you went this route.

[00:04:05] Yeah. So it was a fall night in 2018 and I had just gotten home from a busy, exhausting shift in the emergency department and I had flopped down on my sofa and I was.

[00:04:18] You know, mouthing off to my husband about our medical system and the futility of it and how we care more about dotting I’s and crossing T’s than actually preventing medicine and how health care is a joke. It’s more like disease care. Anyway, you know how it goes. Like I was going off. I was so tired and he joked, you should make your millions blogging about our home renovations.

[00:04:39] And I said, what’s a blog? I was 32 years old. I had no idea what a blog was. I had no social media at the time. And he explained that up until that point, when I would Google search how to hang drywall, it was taking me to blogs. And he said, you could write a, people get paid to start these blogs and they get ad revenue and et cetera.

[00:05:04] Well, this opened this whole world to me because I’m a creative at heart. And. Long story short in this is that I started to deep dive into blogging and it just opened my eyes to like, you know, my entrepreneurial spirit and the creative side to me. And it was like digitally scrapbooking, which I really, really loved.

[00:05:27] It resonated with me. And it was the space from the analytical world of medicine that I needed. But what I quickly discovered is that the only time I had to sit and write. Was in the morning at the time I had a six, four and a one year old, I was the assistant medical director for two stroke programs that I had started from the ground up.

[00:05:52] I was working in emergency medicine. My husband was a full time football coach and we were currently renovating our second home. So early morning before my kids woke up at seven a. m. Was the only time. I am not a morning person by biology. So the thought of waking up a little earlier than my kids felt very, very impossible.

[00:06:12] I’ve always loved the idea up until that point of a morning routine, but I was not an early morning person at all. This girl loved her sleep and still loved her, still loves her sleep, but I forced myself to do it because I wanted that time. So I pushed my alarm clock back to six 30, got myself up half an hour earlier, made my cup of coffee and felt so productive.

[00:06:35] I loved it. So I pushed it back a little bit earlier, 615, six o’clock, because I was pounding out work before my kids got up and I fell in love with the stillness, literal stillness, something that otherwise I really never experienced except for when I was laying in bed at night. And even then it felt like my mind was racing with all the things that had happened through the day, all the things that happened going to happen the next day.

[00:07:02] So I fell in love with this time, but what I quickly started to see was that. Even though for the first time in my life, I was getting up earlier and was being more productive. I was getting more done. I still never felt like I was ahead. So I had this early morning routine for the first time, but I still felt like I was behind and hustling and overwhelmed with this feeling that I still don’t feel ahead.

[00:07:37] So one of the things that I started implementing in this time as a woman who loves Jesus and desperately needs him for survival on this side of eternity. I started implementing time in God’s word and prayer during this morning time. I had never been consistent in my time in God’s word. I talked to God all the time, but time in his word was something that I struggled with consistency on.

[00:08:02] And what I started to realize, the shift that changed everything in my life, all five dimensions of my health and how I showed up for the day and how I felt about the day happened when I started my day being, not doing.

[00:08:27] When I rose with the intention of simply sitting in the stillness to be loved by Jesus, to be filled with the truth of his word. And in his presence, even though my to do list for the day didn’t change, my perspective on it did. And that changed everything. And so it started me down a whole nother path with in the stillness, how do I maximize this time?

[00:09:04] In God’s word in prayer, how do I take this time and be intentional about it? So that I’m not just throwing a devotional here, finding a devotional there, where there’s strategic implementation of what I knew about neuroscience and specifically something called emotional intelligence. and a concept of gratitude practice and use it to ignite my time in God’s word and prayer.

[00:09:34] And it, it launched me on this whole path of what is now my proprietary practice called emotionally intelligent gratitude, where we actually unlock the power of, um, this brain changing concept of emotionally intelligent gratitude to rise calm and confident. Through God’s word and prayer and unlock it in a powerful strategic way.

[00:09:57] And that’s just a small part of early morning habit, but early morning habit, the habit that we prioritize is starting your day being still not doing more. Yeah,

[00:10:10] Jenny Swisher: that’s so good. That’s so good. I just held a call with my Perry Rx participants this past Sunday and we were talking about living in gratitude.

[00:10:18] Jenny Swisher: We were talking about the idea of, um, reflection and just sitting with gratitude as opposed to, you know, what I think a lot of sort of modern times we think like, oh, I keep a gratitude journal journal or I write down every day, like five things I’m grateful for. Right. And women will say like, Oh, it’s my family.

[00:10:36] Jenny Swisher: My kids, my husband, my house, my health, whatever. And they sort of, I’m not trying to say it’s bad. It’s just generalizing those things. So one of the challenges that I had given them was. And so if you’re journaling in the morning, great, but just for a week, let’s journal at night and reflect on what things happened the previous day that you want.

[00:10:54] Jenny Swisher: You wish you could relive it again because it was a great moment, right? Like, and so I gave the example of my daughter’s not wanting me. They didn’t want to go to bed one night, right? And they were snuggling on the couch and they wanted to hold on to my arms and they were joking around, sort of wrestling, not wanting me to get up.

[00:11:07] Jenny Swisher: So, you know, to put them to bed. And I wanted to relive that moment again. And so I just put in my gratitude journal a whole paragraph about what that felt like. And I was able to sit in that moment and almost relive it again. Almost like you would think about visualizing a 5K before you run a 5K, right?

[00:11:21] Jenny Swisher: Or the whole idea of visualizing. It’s almost the opposite of like reflecting on something that happened. And then wanting to sort of relive that again. To me that’s being. Like being present and being, um, reliving that experience again. I love that. And I think that. First of all, emotional intelligence as a whole, like, is one of my favorite topics to discuss because I just feel like it can change the world.

[00:11:43] Jenny Swisher: We’re so focused on, I don’t know, like, I think about my daughter who’s in, you know, second grade. I think about like the focus on like subject material and how, you know, for me personally, like, I, I struggled in that, like in, in school, like I, I didn’t have great SAT scores, like, but I ended up getting into a really great college.

[00:12:02] Jenny Swisher: Because they actually had an interview process, and in the interview process, I actually, it was the first time I was ever introduced to this concept, the woman who interviewed me said, you have such emotional intelligence. Like you’re so aware of like the people around you and like you’re so perceptive of just what’s Like you’re Floating above your life and you kind of have this perspective, right, which is what you’ve been effective on it is what’s shifted.

[00:12:25] Jenny Swisher: Um, and I think it’s so, so valuable. I read the book, uh, emotional intelligence. I think there’s been a couple of renditions of it. I think it’s a great, a great book, but I like this idea that you’re not just. It’s not like this early morning habit idea is focused on doing things. It’s not just like,

[00:12:41] yeah,

[00:12:42] Jenny Swisher: get your workout in and, and, you know, like read your scripture and do these.

[00:12:45] Jenny Swisher: It’s not another to do list that you’re telling women to do in the morning. Instead, it’s like, let’s just, let’s really focus on your perspective. And I love that. I think that’s amazing. Have you, have you read the book Miracle

[00:12:57] Morning? I have not actually, which is funny. I probably should. I have not though.

[00:13:03] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So, you know, so my background was in network marketing, so it was a big that we used to give out to our teams and stuff, but, um, I know it changed the game for so many people because it was very, like, I forget what the acronym is, but there was a journaling piece to it. There was, um, to it, right. And so I mentioned that, because if anybody’s listening to this, like, absolutely take on up on this, uh, early morning habit.

[00:13:27] Jenny Swisher: We’ll talk about how to do that. But but also, like, diving into making these early morning routines and these, these things happen for yourself can really. I feel like it makes women happier because they do like enter the transition of their day of like being a mom or being a wife or heading to work.

[00:13:43] Jenny Swisher: You’re just in such a better headspace. So tell us like what it looks like. So is this an app? Is this a community? Like what have you designed here?

[00:13:52] Yeah, early morning habit is a virtual holistic health and fitness program on an app. So the community, the course material, the live coaching, all of it happens through the app.

[00:14:08] It’s a one platform program. We try to keep it very simple. So it is just on the early morning habit app. And it is a holistic health education paired with faith and fitness accountability. So when you come into it, Before we even talk morning, we actually talk evening. Because if you’re like me, something I quickly discovered is if you’re not sleeping well, you’re not rising well, let alone living well.

[00:14:45] And this was a massive barrier for me when I really started to own the fact that this early morning time changed everything for me from the inside out. It was like, okay, how do I sustain this? Cause this is where we get into trouble. We want the early morning time. And so we do what we can to make it happen, but then we burn out.

[00:15:04] And that’s partly because we don’t understand that the morning routine starts the night before. If you can’t restore and rehab your sleep, you’re not going to sustain. An earlier morning routine. And it’s not necessarily about going to bed earlier. It’s about sleeping better. So this is one of the first things that we target.

[00:15:23] Um, week one, we redefine self care week two. We work on rehabbing sleep through my, uh, proprietary sensory sleep rehab system. Week three is where we dive into emotionally intelligent gratitude through God’s word and prayer. What does that mean? How do we unlock the brain changing power of emotion? To rise more calm and confident every single day.

[00:15:50] And then how do we apply it to God’s word and prayer? What does that even look like? That’s what we touch in week three and week four is all about remodeling your body with neat ways to boost your metabolism. Holistic fitness is a gap today. And, you know, Jenny, you are working on filling that gap, but fitness and health for too long has been focused on physical that’s just one dimension.

[00:16:16] Of our overall wellbeing one and there’s five emotional, mental, physical, social, and spiritual. So although there is absolutely a place and I have a, you know, I have like top fitness and nutrition program recommendations. It’s so essential for us to understand that we are multidimensional beings. And if we are limiting our health.

[00:16:39] Rehab, if you will, or health improvement to just the physical with a little bit of mental sprinkled in. And we neglect the other three, especially emotional. We’re never going to end up where we want to be. And we’re going to feel frustrated and spinning on this constant cycle of disappointment. And so we’re really targeting all five dimensions in this program and then helping you unlock a sustainable habit.

[00:17:07] That keeps revitalizing all five day after day after day. So week four is about a holistic approach to fitness, how to remodel your body and neat ways to boost your metabolism. And then week five is all about. Confidence. We actually target this idea of how do we radiate confidence from the inside out? I brought experts in for this particular training because I have zero education in fashion, makeup, hair, none of that.

[00:17:40] But I thought, what would it be like to really even give a more holistic approach for women, because. Confidence is an issue and we have to start with the inside, which is what we use emotionally intelligent gratitude to even unlock inner Christlike confidence. But then I brought in some amazing partners to actually help us learn what it looks like to fit and flatter your body with clothing.

[00:18:02] How do you get ready in the morning so that you also can radiate the confidence you feel on the inside on the outside without letting the outside Dictate your inner confidence, right? That is a really difficult thing to hold intention. We address that in week five. And then lastly, week six is all about unlocking the wonder of women.

[00:18:24] There is a very unique gift that God has given to women as leaders in our homes and in our families. And we talk about that in week six. It is a crowd favorite in the community. Second to the emotionally intelligent gratitude to again, help us move forward with the sense of why am I even worth investing in?

[00:18:44] Why? Why is any of this matter? Why self care? So that’s what early morning habit looks like in a nutshell in the six weeks. And then, um, after that you transition into a membership in the rising stars community and we meet once a week and there’s seasonal six week challenges. Right now we’re in our Christmas morning magic challenge.

[00:19:05] It’s so special to see women have their little spots beside the Christmas tree and be like, this is my morning habit spot and send me pictures. Yeah, it’s a blessing. It’s amazing. I clearly get excited about it.

[00:19:17] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Well, and I can say too, just from experience that like. The community of women is so key to

[00:19:23] having

[00:19:24] Jenny Swisher: that space for for women to plug in and to not feel alone and to feel like, okay, like, this isn’t just a struggle for me.

[00:19:30] Jenny Swisher: Like, but now I’m surrounded by like minded women who want to improve. And so there’s so much more and early morning habit, you know, and I find myself saying this with, um. With, with sync, right? Like I’m like, it’s not sinking. Like I’m teaching you a functionless approach to your, your body and your wellness, right?

[00:19:49] Jenny Swisher: You were talking about kind of re re circling back to how you said we talk about sleep first. I love that because. It reminds me of when women ask me, well, why do I get these nighttime cravings? And I have to tell them that like, well, your nighttime cravings, like the reason that you do good all day, right.

[00:20:05] Jenny Swisher: So to speak, and I put that in air quotes and then you, you want the pizza and the donuts or the cookies at nighttime is because you’ve most likely under fueled through your day. And as a result, your body has a biological need for that food, right? So you start having the craving. So is it willpower or is it a biological need for, for fuel?

[00:20:24] Jenny Swisher: Same thing here. Women are like, I could totally see where women would be like beating up on themselves because they’re like, I can’t seem to get up early, right? Like I’m really struggling with this or early morning routine that everybody says I need. Well, most likely it’s again, it’s coming back to like, What was your routine the night before?

[00:20:39] Jenny Swisher: Were you down regulating your nervous system? Were you preparing yourself for good quality sleep? Like, or was it not a priority to you, and you went to bed at midnight, and now you’re struggling to get up to do the early morning habit? You know, so, so I think that’s so smart to start there. I also think, um, I love that you’ve incorporated confidence into this, because I, I remember when you were first telling me, like before this was all done, like when we were having conversations, Rebrand and everything you were doing.

[00:21:04] Jenny Swisher: I remember you talking about this, this part of it, and I, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I was like, okay, so early morning habit, but then there’s like fashion and and makeover, right. Trying to figure it out. I’m sorry, what? Now? Like, as you’re explaining it, it makes so much sense because mm-hmm. It’s so true.

[00:21:19] Jenny Swisher: Like, I mean, I, I actually have the thought in my brain almost once a day when I’m scrolling social media where I see she is always just so put together, right? Like you can see when women. Um, just it has nothing necessarily to do with like that morning routine, but like, you can just see when it’s it’s a priority.

[00:21:38] Jenny Swisher: Right. And I know for me, like, I work out in the afternoons. Like, that’s when I do like my exercise and all that kind of stuff. Again, my chronotype is a little backwards, but. I therefore like I like for me, it’s like if I work out at 1 PM and then I shower and fix my hair and get ready to go pick my daughter up from school, like it just helps me feel better for the day.

[00:21:57] Jenny Swisher: Right. And so I think that is such a valuable piece. It’s funny to me how many people I’ve had. In my community, just through sync or even previously in health coaching. And this is a huge struggle for them. It is a huge struggle for them because they might be doing the things they might be exercising, they might be focusing on proper fueling.

[00:22:15] Jenny Swisher: They might be kind of doing the surface level things they need to do for their health, but then they still don’t feel good about themselves. Right. And so I kind of combined that, like you said, it starts with the gratitude. It starts with that emotionally intelligent gratitude. But then from there, you know, we just feel better when we look better.

[00:22:31] Jenny Swisher: So.

[00:22:32] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve been designed to appreciate beauty and this is what gets this tension is so hard because the problem is our society has created worth in beauty. which is a wrong twisting of how God has designed us. We were meant to appreciate beauty. And I think women especially bring that dynamic to the world in a really beautiful pun intended way.

[00:23:04] We have a unique eye for beauty. I would say, generally speaking, more than men were able to pause and be like, Oh, look at that. And the problem then is when that gets turned into our worth. And our value. So how do we hold that intention where we’ve been designed to want to be beautiful? We’ve been designed to want to see beauty.

[00:23:27] And that that’s in fact, a reflection of God’s heart for us without letting society make it about our worth. It’s tough. Yeah. And that’s what we address.

[00:23:38] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Well, and it kind of leads into that when you said the wonder of women, right? Like what is it that makes us, right? We are. And. You know, I say like every episode, I say women wear the hats for everybody else.

[00:23:49] Jenny Swisher: Like we, we are a lot of times we’re caretaker, we’re nurturer, we’re lunch packer, or we’re laundry. We are, we make sure that everybody else’s, um, is, is ready to go each day.

[00:24:01] Surviving.

[00:24:02] Jenny Swisher: Surviving. Yeah. And I think about like, I, sometimes I have this thought, like speaking of emotional intelligence, I sometimes have thoughts in my brain that are literally just, my husband doesn’t worry about this stuff.

[00:24:12] Jenny Swisher: Like he doesn’t. Yeah.

[00:24:13] It’s

[00:24:13] Jenny Swisher: tough. Right. And so I like that this in, in essence, like teaches you why you’re wired the way you’re wired. And I liked that. It’s so faith based because that’s so true. I remember having somebody on the podcast actually had two different guests come on this past year. I really wanted to really address diet culture mentality because it is especially with women.

[00:24:34] Jenny Swisher: And, um, both guests said the same thing. They were both And they both said that for them, what, what was a turning point for them was being able to ask the question is what I’m telling myself in my head right now. Really true. Is it what God says? And I think that the faith focus and this is because again, it’s shifting your perspective from what are these little, you know, Um, what’s the word I’m looking for?

[00:25:00] Jenny Swisher: Like the little characters on your shoulder, you know, like from the movie, what are they telling me? Like, what is my mean girl on me and what is actually true? And I think that when we can have that sort of evaluation, um, you can move the needle. You can start to actually feel confident. You can start to feel like who you’re meant to feel like.

[00:25:17] Jenny Swisher: So that’s amazing. Um, okay. So I wrote so many things down. I got to figure out what I want to talk about next. One thing I do want to say is. My audience is very, I’ve been getting this question a lot lately, which is around productivity around your menstrual cycle.

[00:25:30] Yes.

[00:25:31] Jenny Swisher: How women change and shift over the cycle too.

[00:25:34] Jenny Swisher: So I’d love to just kind of, um, talk about that for a moment because this is something that I’m really passionate about as someone who deals with hormone imbalance, which is why I’m in this position to even have this podcast. Um, I am somebody who definitely notices her highs and lows. Like, because I’m very prone to migraine headaches and I, you know, I can kind of see like, okay, it’s coming.

[00:25:57] Jenny Swisher: Like I can feel the energy drop. Like sometimes I’ll even say to my husband, like, Oh no, it’s here. You know, cause I just feel it. And I know a lot of women don’t like, they don’t have that sort of. Intuition to, to feel that, or maybe it’s very seamless for them to kind of have the highs and lows. Um, but I think when women can understand how we’re meant to feel over the course of our cycle, it also helps us make sense of the world, you know, like, this is why I’m more irritable right now, or this is why I actually look, science is actually starting to prove that women do need more sleep on their menstrual period.

[00:26:28] Jenny Swisher: Right? So when we can do those kinds of things, we can, we can feel better. So I’d love to just sort of hear your perspective on that too.

[00:26:36] Yeah, I think it speaks to one of the concepts I talk about a lot, which is as women, one of our daily battles is to fight the all or nothing mentality. A lot of it is societally driven.

[00:26:50] It is made worse by social media and our digital access to endless information. and other women’s lives. Once upon a time, you had exposure to your own physical real life community. And outside of the news, you didn’t really know what was going on inside people’s homes. Now with social media, we have constant access and curated snapshots of what women’s lives look like.

[00:27:25] And even when those women have the best of intentions, even when they are being authentic and saying, Hey, my house doesn’t always look like this, or I don’t always get my workout done, but they look perfectly filtered, unflawed with their super cute matching workout. Clothes that look nicer than half of my real clothes.

[00:27:46] It’s really hard to believe the authenticity that is trying to be conveyed and that they actually live a balanced life and that they don’t live in all or nothing because in your head, in order to get that, you have to go all or nothing. And so there’s this constant tension that we feel that we are striving for this perfectly curated best life.

[00:28:14] Endlessly, and we’re tired of the hustle rather than the ideal, which is just rising to live and imperfectly empowered. Well, life, what would it look like to live a life? Well, as opposed to a best life, even the best life hustle is exhausting us. And so I’m addressing this only in this context, because I think the pressure that we feel, why we don’t like to slow down is because it becomes this feeling of anxiety, like, well, I need to do all these things.

[00:28:54] In order to stay ahead. And so what we’re really pressing back on is that very concept, just with this intention of, no, you start your day being period, whether you’re on your period. You’re going to start your day being because that is how we were designed is to be still that’s actually what is going to recharge us more than hustling harder.

[00:29:18] And, you know, the morning routine is to start your day with God’s word and a workout for anyone that’s like on the website and looking and being like, wait, the workout piece, you didn’t mention that. So the workout in the morning is just meant to be. We want you to start your day before. For your, the opposite of what Jenny does is why I love this is awesome is to get it done before your day takes off.

[00:29:42] And that’s different for everyone that might be 11 AM for someone. Generally, I say, get it done before lunchtime, get it done before lunchtime. Um, so you can experience fitness freedom. That’s what I call it. The fitness freedom of getting your workout done. So it’s not hovering over you in the back of your mind and stressing you out and you end the day and workout clothes sans workout.

[00:29:58] It’s a miserable feeling. My story for many, many years. Um, so anyway, I’m, I’m just basically, I think hitting what I think is at the root of the struggle for us there is we don’t like to rest and stressed is our new rested and I think God has given us periods, literally. Two forces to rest. Yep.

[00:30:25] Jenny Swisher: That is so good.

[00:30:27] Jenny Swisher: That’s going to be my mic drop moment for our audio, for our video clip. It’s so good. I wrote so many things because I, I totally agree with you. And also, I just want to plant this seed too. This will blow your mind. When we live in a circadian world, As infrequent beings. So when school is 8 to 8 to 3 and work is I’ve and, um, we kind of, you know, women, yes, we have circadian rhythm as men do, but we also have this extra layer of our infrequent rhythm and our menstrual cycle.

[00:30:55] Jenny Swisher: It, we can feel out of alignment, right? Because of that, like still have to go to work from nine to five when you’re on your period, right? If you’re working that corporate job, like that kind of thing. And so those types of pressures, you don’t see them as pressures because that’s how society has conditioned us to be.

[00:31:10] Jenny Swisher: And so those types of things, like without talking about the patriarchy, right? Exactly why I think a lot of times women do put so much pressure on themselves. And so then, like you said, like. We then become afraid of rest, or we don’t know what rest truly looks like. I mean, my community of women could prove that to you, because I mean, on a daily basis, I get messages basically asking for permission to rest.

[00:31:32] Jenny Swisher: Hey, I’m feeling off, I’ve got a two day migraine, like, but I’m following the fitness program, like, what do you think? And I’m like, I think you need a day off. Like, I think you need to rest. Right? Um. And so I feel like I see this every day. Like I see diet culture influences. I see societal influences. I see so many women living in fight or flight.

[00:31:51] Jenny Swisher: Um, ever since I started partnering with Dr. Page for telehealth consults, I’ve had the great fortune of meeting with over a hundred women and just. Um,

[00:32:00] and so

[00:32:05] Jenny Swisher: it’s just, it’s amazing to hear her reiterate to so many women on those consoles.

[00:32:14] about

[00:32:14] Jenny Swisher: this whole fight or flight, like you’re living in fight or flight, like, and we can now a lot of times prove that through your Dutch test.

[00:32:20] Jenny Swisher: So we can actually show you your cortisol levels and how it’s now wreaking havoc on your menstrual cycle. And we have to learn how to slow down. We have to learn how to slow down. So I love that because to be honest with you, I think I have a little bit of PTSD from like my network marketing days of everybody telling us we had to get up earlier and we needed to get, if the workout happened at 4am, it happened at 3am.

[00:32:40] Jenny Swisher: And it was, but it was, uh, it was in a different. Tone. The tone was very much more. You should be doing more earlier. And I love that this is actually, Hey, that to do list is going to be the same regardless of what you do, but like, maybe the goal here. Is to focus on the being and like the rest and the peaceful space and like the down regulation.

[00:33:02] Jenny Swisher: I also just love that idea of starting your day with a regulated nervous system. Like, can we just give out a slow clap? Because, you know, for me, like, yes, I’ve mentioned my backwards chronotype, but I find myself like at four or five o’clock having to sort of take a breath, like, like I’ve through the day and like, I have to reset my nervous system around that time.

[00:33:22] Jenny Swisher: Right. Like my kids would come home from school and, A lot of times they’re fighting already, right? And I can find myself back in that trap. Whereas I could see where first thing in the morning, even, even if I, even if I decide I’m not going to wind my clock back, right? Like at the end of the day, like just saying for 10 minutes before I exit my bedroom, I’m reading a scripture, you know, doing something with gratitude.

[00:33:44] Jenny Swisher: Like I’m setting my mind and setting my intention for the day that I can. Exit that doorway or walk into my living room and just be in a different headspace. So there’s so much there. I feel like I just bottled it all into one paragraph, but I feel like this idea of avoiding rest could be a whole podcast in itself.

[00:33:59] Jenny Swisher: Like women avoid rest. We avoid peace. We avoid calm. We avoid nervous system regulation. And so I’m so glad we called this out because I don’t want people to listen to this and think, oh, I should just get up earlier and do more. That’s not the point. The point is actually, let’s actually do this in a calmer way so that, A, your body feels safe.

[00:34:19] Jenny Swisher: Because I bet you, you’re listening to my podcast to begin with because you’re dealing with some sort of hormone health struggle. Or you’re like, I don’t know why my energy’s low. It’s because you don’t even sit down to eat lunch, sister. Like, you are literally standing at your counter, eating lunch, wondering why your body isn’t losing weight despite you doing all the things.

[00:34:35] Jenny Swisher: And so this is not about doing more. And, and, and handling more and putting more on your plate, but like, it’s more about how can I do this in a calmer way with more awareness, which leads me to my next topic, which is this idea of awareness. Um, It’s funny to kind of circling back to that idea of Dr.

[00:34:51] Jenny Swisher: Page’s consults. Like we just had one recently where the woman who was on the concept was her second consult. And she was sharing with us. We had kind of sensed it from the first one, but she’s really been struggling with her work situation. She was commuting an hour to and from work. She has small children.

[00:35:09] Jenny Swisher: And of course she was, as we all do trying to fit in all the things, right? So she’s working in network marketing business and she’s listening to calls and all the things on her commute and all this stuff. And of course, her hormones are kind of all over the place. She’s in perimenopause and. You could tell in the first consult that like the work situation, like it was like a post COVID thing.

[00:35:27] Jenny Swisher: Like they’ve brought her back to the office. So now she’s driving back and forth to work and good old Dr. Page, like loves to kind of like indirectly be like, you know, have you ever, like, is this serving you? Like, is there anything, you know what I mean? Like not telling you, you should go quit your job, but like, have you had a moment to even just hear yourself and what you’re saying?

[00:35:47] Jenny Swisher: Because hearing this woman, she’s living a life. She’s not loving like she’s, you know, and I get it that like, We have to have jobs. We have to earn money. Like I get it. But at the same time, it was really cool in a second consult to see her say, you know, actually I’ve had a lot of time to think and process.

[00:36:03] Jenny Swisher: And like, I I’m out, I’m actually seeking a new job. She’s like, I’m actually putting my resume out there because she’s just not, and that will have huge ramifications on her health because a, her mental health is affected. Her nervous system is affected. Her stress is affected. Right. And so, um, I say that because I do think That awareness, like awareness of your, of what you’re doing each day, awareness of is so huge.

[00:36:26] Jenny Swisher: And I, I think that more than anything, that’s what this early morning habit can really teach people is like, how are you facing your day every day and being able to have that hot second to be like, what, what am I today? Like, what am I doing today? Right. Or to even have that awareness is so key. So I don’t really have a question.

[00:36:45] Jenny Swisher: I was just

[00:36:47] like, I love it. I love it. And I think you highlighted something that we’ve not really talked about yet, which is that emotionally intelligent gratitude piece. Why is it so powerful? Yeah. And you know, without even diving into how we practice it through God’s word and prayer, just the concept of Emotional intelligence is the first key to what, what you’re saying is how do we become more aware of what is happening in our bodies and then how it’s dictating the way we live.

[00:37:20] Which is really what you’re communicating there. And how do we create that awareness? And I’ll touch on this really quickly. Emotional intelligence is comprised of three concepts. It is emotional awareness that is identifying what you are feeling. Emotional literacy that is simply verbally expressing what you are feeling.

[00:37:42] And then three is emotional regulation. This is the key. Emotional regulation is the one people don’t understand and why you can be super emotional, super aware, and have a low emotional intelligence, because emotional regulation is what unlocks this brain changing power that helps you actually create behavioral changes in your life.

[00:38:04] So emotional regulation is where gratitude comes in. What emotional regulation does is once you are able to be aware of your emotions. verbally express them, which let’s not underestimate how difficult that is for some people. I grew up in a very Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Dutch, white culture. That is no joke.

[00:38:27] And for some people, they just have to start there. They’re not even aware of what they’re experiencing or what they’re feeling, let alone how to put words to it because they did not grow up in a home where emotional awareness or expression was highly encouraged unless it was the comfortable ones. Love, peace and joy that we accept anger.

[00:38:46] extreme sadness or fear. You shut that down because that’s disruptive. So I don’t want to underestimate or downplay how difficult those first two are for a lot of people. And we talk about that, but emotional regulation is really what the key is here. And that’s where you take uncomfortable emotions, fear, sadness, and anger are the core ones.

[00:39:12] And you convert them to comfortable ones, love and joy. And one of the things that we do in the first two pillars that I just mentioned, and I’ll touch this just briefly is we deconstruct the morality that has been created around emotion that many of us grew up with, that there are positive emotions and negative emotions.

[00:39:33] There’s good emotions and there’s bad emotions. Emotion is an energy, not an identity. And I quote Shahana Alibi on that one. She said that Dr. Shahana Alibi said, emotion is not an identity. It’s an energy.

[00:39:49] Once we can appreciate that reality, that emotion is in fact reflective of the God who created us because he is emotional and it is a beautiful image as we are image bearers of him. So they’re an energy inherent to this experience on this side of eternity and even reflect God. They’re not good or bad.

[00:40:12] How we respond to them is where the good or bad choices come in, but feeling emotion and expressing it. is highly natural and even a reflection of God. So they’re either comfortable or uncomfortable, not positive or negative. They’re comfortable or uncomfortable. So emotional regulation to what, what you’re speaking to is where we learn to start becoming more aware of how our body is responding to what we feel, which is that whole think, feel, behave, Neuro linguistic pattern and then emotional regulation is when we start to capture the uncomfortable emotion that we’re feeling when we feel fear specifically, which I believe is actually the core of all our uncomfortable emotions and is actually the only emotion never ascribed to God, by the way, which is interesting.

[00:41:07] We see that Jesus was sad. We see that he was angry in a righteous way because. He’s the God of hope, but he was never described as afraid. That is a human based emotion because of a broken world that we live in. So let’s just use fear because if you’re like me, anxiety is rooted in fear. And that is something a lot of us struggle with.

[00:41:28] And I’m also going to argue it’s why we go into the all or nothing mentality. Why? Cause if we rest, what do we actually feel anxious and even afraid that we’re going to fall behind and not be enough. So how do we become more aware of this fear? We let ourselves start to recognize the thoughts that create the emotion and then how that emotion dictates our behavior, which if you’re like me, often results in control.

[00:41:54] We want to control everything. We want to control how our children are doing. We want to control what our husband does or doesn’t do. We want to control our coworkers who can’t get themselves together and get it done. We want to, we love control. It makes us feel safe. Okay. It’s also debilitating us. We want to control how we look.

[00:42:12] Do we look young enough? Do we look right? We’re just grasping for control. So emotional regulation is the process of being able to take that, become more aware of it, and then actually convert fear into love and joy. And gratitude is the key. That’s how we unlock it. So all that to say, that’s basically that awareness piece.

[00:42:36] That’s what we’re trying to create. And then actually giving you a tool to not only become more aware of it, but then to actually convert it, base it head on and then convert it.

[00:42:47] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. You have my brain spinning. Cause I mean, so many, I mean, capturing the uncomfortable emotion, like hearing, like just even just hearing that stated that way is just, um,

[00:42:59] I

[00:43:00] Jenny Swisher: mean, I wish there were people like on here live.

[00:43:02] Jenny Swisher: Cause I would say, isn’t this so good. So I’ll just ask the question, like, isn’t this just so good. I love this. I wish, I wish this could be a two hour, um, interview. Cause I feel like we’re just, we’re just diving into this, but, um, this is so good and I, my, my community will, will probably be waiting for me to say this.

[00:43:20] Jenny Swisher: But, um, you know, we talk about when it comes to hormone health and really. I’ll put under control, which as you said, we don’t roll right. Because that’s living in fear. But when we kind of really focus on the things we can control, we focus on these five fundamentals, which is sleep supplementation, that’s individual to us, nutrition, fitness, and managing our traumas.

[00:43:41] Jenny Swisher: And it was actually 2024, just a few months ago when we added that fifth fundamental of managing our traumas. So hearing you talk about like, how was emotional intelligence handled in the house we grew up in? like how was How does childhood experience influence this? This side of us is so huge. I mean, we now have Dr.

[00:43:59] Jenny Swisher: Sarah Gottfried and others who are pioneering research in this space, um, on why women have more autoimmune disease and they’re in their 40s and perimenopause, like. And she, she makes the direct correlation to childhood trauma. And so it’s just, it’s so interesting that when we can kind of, I keep thinking of or visualizing this sort of like out of body experience, like, when I can sort of remove myself and see my life for what it is on the day to day.

[00:44:26] Jenny Swisher: Um, it makes sense that I would then be able to convert that fear, sadness and anger to love and joy. Like through this product, like everything that you’re saying makes total sense. So in the sake, for the sake of time, I would love for you to just tell us, you know, how can people do this? How can they do early morning habit?

[00:44:41] Jenny Swisher: How can they, where can they find you? What’s the best first step?

[00:44:47] Yeah. So the website is pretty self explanatory. It is early morning habit. com. And if someone is listening and you’re like, Ooh, I’m in, I need that. I’m ready. The instructions are there, how to sign up and join. If you’re thinking, Oh, I’d kind of like to learn more.

[00:45:06] I’d kind of like to get like a free sneak peek sort of into what. What these things look like and take a slightly deeper dive. I have a 60 minute free masterclass and it’s called rise renewed. I will make sure that Jenny has that link that gives you so much valuable information, regardless of what you do with it, the actual class itself.

[00:45:28] And, um, I’ll make sure that that link is available as well.

[00:45:32] Jenny Swisher: Perfect. So we’ll put all that in the show notes for you guys so you can swipe up to, to click on those. Okay. So I realized I forgot to ask you, we’ve got to do like a, the personal life update, because like I said, we had you on the show, we talked all about like, do you guys want to hear us rant more about modern medicine and all the things that Anna chose to go on the proactive side of wellness.

[00:45:51] Jenny Swisher: Like we do have show notes. We also did when I did a feature on adoption month in November a year or so ago, two years ago. So, um, I had you on to share your unique. Adoption experience, which is still in the works. So I would love for you. Yes, I’ll link that up to in case people want to hear more, but. Tell us where you’re at with that.

[00:46:08] Jenny Swisher: Cause you, you mentioned, you know, your son is coming. What’s the status?

[00:46:12] Yes. Yeah. Well, and I should also add one of the unique elements we’ve added to early morning habit is to help that accountability piece. When you rise for yourself in the morning, um, you track it in the app. And at the end of the six weeks, we give you a progress reward to give forward to a mom, adopting and raising funds to bring her son or daughter home through life song for orphans.

[00:46:34] It’s one of the parts of it that makes me the happiest and the most excited. So we have an adoption fundraiser, accountability, he is sort of incorporated into early morning habit. Um, and that was really initiated by being adoptive mom myself and this just amazing journey. So we. The update that we have is God willing, we will be able to bring him home the beginning, the first quarter of next year.

[00:47:00] So he’s from the Pacific Island of Samoa. Yeah, I know. Oh, yes. Yes. God willing. It has been a very long, so long process. I mean, he’s been

[00:47:10] Jenny Swisher: identified

[00:47:12] and yes, we are matched. You will

[00:47:14] Jenny Swisher: get notified and then you and your husband will travel there and And bring him home.

[00:47:19] Yes. And prayers appreciated. We would like to take our three biological kids as well.

[00:47:23] Because they’re older and we would really like them to be able to experience his culture. It’s gotta be weird to just like bring a kid home, right? And then for your other kids, it’s like, Oh, it’s like you just mail ordered him, you know? So we really want to like, if you know, Lord willing. And, uh, flight prices, right, willing, we will be able to take all of our kids just so they can be part of the orphanage and rub shoulders with his culture and, and have to really wrestle with the reality that like, yeah, we have to leave all these kids and, and let the Lord use that in their lives.

[00:47:56] However he will. And I don’t know how I’ll leave the kids. That’s maybe the bigger question.

[00:48:01] Jenny Swisher: Right, right. How

[00:48:01] old is he right now? He just turned seven. Yeah.

[00:48:06] Jenny Swisher: Okay. Well, I, I know that like every time you post anything on your social media, I’m like, I got it. Like, actually, you, you posted something like a couple months ago and I was.

[00:48:14] Jenny Swisher: You know how you do you like, I’m scrolling and I’m my husband. Yes. And I literally was like, I can’t, whatever, just stop your saying. I gotta see what’s going on. I’m so, I just, oh. Obviously adoption has a special place in my heart. Yes. As of myself and having two girls adopted as well, so, yes. Um, yeah, so I’m so eager to see how this turns out for you and, um, thank you.

[00:48:34] Jenny Swisher: For your family as well. So awesome. You guys, well, this is going to chat with Ana and her early morning habit. Again, I’ll link everything up for you guys in the show notes. Thank you so much, Ana, for being here. We’ll talk soon.

 

[00:48:44] Thanks, Jenny.