Welcome to the SYNC Your Life podcast episode #3! On this podcast, we will be diving into all things women’s hormones to help you learn how to live in alignment with your female physiology. Too many women are living with their check engine lights flashing. You know you feel “off” but no matter what you do, you can’t seem to have the energy, or lose the weight, or feel your best. This podcast exists to shed light on the important topic of healthy hormones and cycle syncing, to help you gain maximum energy in your life. 

In today’s episode, I’m interviewing my dear friend, 500 ERYT and breath expert, Jen Xanders. Jen and I met through yoga nearly 12 years ago, and have sustained our friendship and our frequent talks surrounding hormone health, BioHRT, and mindfulness. I see Jen as a primary mentor in my life, one who has taught me so much about the beauty of stillness and breath, and I’m excited for her to not only share her story and struggle with hormone imbalance, but also her knowledge and expertise on breathwork and movement. We cover it all in this one!

You can find Jen on Instagram and Facebook @JenXanders or find her virtual classes via Flourish Yoga and Wellbeing. She also leads teacher trainings via Flourish as well. Information can be found here: https://www.flourishyoga.biz/

If you’re feeling “off,” check out the FREE hormone imbalance quiz at sync.jennyswisher.com.

To learn more about the SYNC Digital Course, check out jennyswisher.com. 

Let’s be friends outside of the podcast! Send me a message or schedule a call so I can get to know you better. You can reach out at https://jennyswisher.com/contact-2/.

Enjoy the show!

Episode Webpage: jennyswisher.com/podcast

0:05
Welcome to the SYNC Your Life Podcast. I’m your host, Jenny Swisher, certified personal trainer, nutritionist hormone health expert and girl mom. I believe all women should be able to understand how our bodies are designed to feel. And I teach you how to sync your lifestyle to your cycle to reach maximum energy. You deserve to feel your best and this podcast is going to teach you how. Let’s dive in!

0:34
This podcast is sponsored by the SYNC Digital Course, to take the free hormone imbalance quiz to see what your symptoms could mean about your health. Visit SYNC.jennyswisher.com. That’s sync s y n c dot Jenny swisher.com.

0:58
Welcome to this edition of our podcast today I’m interviewing a good friend of mine, Jen Zander’s, super excited to have you here, Jen, we are diving into all things, yoga, hormone health, as usual, and even some breathwork. So I’m excited to dive into this Jen and I have been friends for I don’t even know several years, we were introduced through corporate yoga, actually, I was working my corporate job, and she was the lunch, our yoga teacher. And that’s how we met originally. And at that time, I was struggling with the chronic migraine. For those of you guys who have listened to other podcasts, you’ve heard my story. And Jen was a listening ear and quickly we became friends. And eventually, after a few years of struggle myself, she was the one that essentially introduced me to the world of holistic health and functional medicine by saying, Hey, don’t give up yet. Try this one more doctor. You know, don’t don’t give up on yourself. So I really attribute Jen to being sort of the starter of my journey a dozen years ago, the person who said to me, you know, stop, you know, stop, like, stop with what you’re doing stop with all of the, you know, medicinal guinea pig nonsense and try something, something in the functional medicine world. So she started my journey with this years ago, I have to give her credit for that. But since then we’ve you know, we’ve we’ve kept, we’ve kept our friendship. And I’m so blessed to have her in my life and so grateful that our paths crossed, I certainly don’t think it was by chance, I think it was definitely meant to be.

2:29
So Jen. Welcome to the podcast. I’m going to go through your little overview here to make sure everybody on the other end knows your credentials. She’s a registered yoga teacher, 500 since April of 2018, she’s a yoga Alliance YACEP provider for continued education. She’s been a Lululemon ambassador since 2012. She has her 200 hour training from All People Yoga, and her 300 hour training from Asheville Yoga Center. So as I like to say she is an accredited yoga teacher. But until you take her class, you don’t really understand how great she is at what she does. I’ve taken you know, different yoga classes with different styles, different teachers, and I always tell my friends, there’s no one like Jen, she just has a really unique way of for people like me, who’s very who are very type A, she has a really great way of wearing me out over the course of 60 to 90 minutes, so that I will eventually relax. I know she’s, she’s she’s good at what she does. And she’s she’s getting better. You’re still invested in what you’re doing. So okay, so Jen, tell us a little bit about yourself, sort of who you are, you know what your life is like, I’ll let you take it away.

3:38
Well, first, I’m humbled and honored to be here and to be part of your journey. And you did all the work, you just were ready to listen, I think and my background, I have been teaching yoga for 16 years. And but before that, and that kind of is partially what drew me into this world. I was working. My background and study in college. First was pharmacy school. So I have a great interest in things in the body and certainly how to study in medicine. Early on, I was one year from finishing and realize that that was not what I wanted to do. And I ended up switching to a business degree and worked, believe it or not in the pharmaceutical industry for a few years, until we had our children. So I was in that world for five or six years. The travel the work. I will say the areas I was in I was really passionate about I worked in both diabetes, which is super interesting to what we do now. And also in neurology prior to that. But that was like kind of my past life. And it’s what brought me to yoga because I was lugging around bags and backpacks I was driving 3000 miles a month, and I’m the reason I can help people get exhausted to relax I’m plenty of type A myself, consider myself kind of recovering and type A personality person. But my body was falling apart. And it wasn’t even 30. And I was a stress case all the time. And so I had been trying different types of yoga for several years, because I just kept getting drawn back, including self practice. And it wasn’t until I found, ironically, my first class was all about breathing, and we laid on the floor, and I was like, get me out of here, I could not take this I was. So it’s really ironic when you hear kind of the full circle of my journey. So it was really gentle and all focused on breathing. And I thought it was a bunch of hoo ha, and I was antsy and couldn’t handle it. And then I kept coming back around. And then finally, when I found a really physically demanding Ashtanga based practice, that was really hard and kept me coming back, that’s when I stuck with it. And I really did it for stress management, trying to figure out what was going on with my body. I guess, after a little bit of time, it became really regular part of my routine. And I started to feel better and physically. And then there was kind of that aha moment for me on my yoga mat, where I actually at the end of practice, I had a moment of quiet in my head, and I realized that I maybe had never had that before, which is pretty astounding, when you think about being, I don’t know, 26 years old, and never having had a quiet moment between your ears. And so the absence of all that busyness was so intense for me. And so eye opening that I kind of decided at that point, I wanted to understand how it happened and make it happen more. The science part of my brain wanted to understand why does it work. And I kind of started my journey. So I practice very regularly. And then that’s where the intersection of hormones kind of came into place. Because my husband and I ran into trouble having children. And even prior to that, if I really looked back in college, I had had been actually on the birth control pill. And prior to that all everything was normal, regular, regular monthly cycle, all the good stuff. And then I went on the birth control pill like a lot of us do, and are told to do. And for me, when I went off, my body did not restart cycling or ovulation. And I put on an incredible amount of weights, and went a year without a period. Since I know you all are focusing on those things, you can only imagine how bad I felt, and how not myself I was it was a really rough year. Basically the at that time I was in college didn’t really know where to dig. And this was really not even being discussed. My physician said, well, the treatment is to put you back on the birth control pill. So we did that. So then come time to have my girls. And I was cycling, but long cycling. And I just in the back of my mind, my mind was maybe 45 days ish. And I knew that that wasn’t quite right. And so I pushed very early in the process to have myself checked for ovulation. And thankfully, I did because I wasn’t at all otherwise. And so we could have been doing that for a very long time to no avail. So I am going way too off track or is this relevant to your people?

8:27
No. Yeah. I mean, you’re actually addressing my first question already, which is to tell us about your hormone journey. And I love that you just said that. Because I think there are probably a lot of women listening who are in the position of I know, I was right, of like, oh, well, when the time comes, then we’ll try for kids. Like you don’t really anticipate an issue. And there may not have even been any red flags part of that. So Right. It’s interesting that you, you know, you have that perception of like, maybe I should have this checked out. You know, right.

8:53
I when I was at the back of my brain, I’m like, I know, I had issues a few years ago, this little long. I’m not feeling like everything’s driving, I don’t want to wait. Yeah, so thankfully, we did check. And we tried several different things to assist us and they weren’t working. And we finally ended up going through a path of infertility and through modern medicine, and I’m very grateful, because I feel like that’s the moment when things clicked and made sense. And I started to get the connection of what was happening to me and how my hormones were making that happen. When I I typically was someone who maybe had a migraine once a year, twice a year, that was kind of in they were debilitating, but I hadn’t had any the whole time I was on the pill and then when we were going through infertility, that process that they were putting me through I had really severe migraines. So I knew as they were messing with my hormones very intentionally, that my my migraines were 100% For me, related to my hormone situation. So that being said, We were incredibly blessed. We have twin girls who actually turn 18 In two weeks, which is, it’s crazy, crazy mind boggling. And for the first year and a half, two years, I was just trying to get my feet on the ground. And actually a lot of people after pregnancy, because I felt better than I had felt in years during pregnancy. And because my hormones were actually in a good place. And then a lot of people have that hangover for like a year after they have a baby. And so I felt pretty okay. But I still knew my goal was not to go back on the pill, like, the back of my mind was, when I’m ready to really dig in, I’m going to figure out what’s going on. So at that point, that is when I started looking for other types of physicians. That’s when I started looking at the details of what the symptoms could be for different hormone imbalances. And what did I have? And it led me to my doctor who I’m really grateful for, basically, for me, I was progesterone deficient, I had been the whole time, and just a simple natural replacement of that. I was cycling regularly, and then I was also ovulating monthly. And all of the side effects and symptoms that I couldn’t believe how poorly I felt for how long and how great I felt for the first time. Yeah, I was it was like it was life changing. Truly. Yeah.

11:27
Well, I remember I mean, so like I said in the intro, you know, Jen and her introduced me to we share the same practitioner, and she introduced me to her years ago. And what’s funny, we’ve joked about how we sort of have we’re almost like sisters when it comes to our bodies. We have similar similar signs, you know, migraines and the ovulation maybe maybe ovulation, maybe no ovulation, month to month issues. And, and I know that when this protect practitioner introduced me to bioidentical progesterone cream. At that point for me, personally, I was like, Sure, I mean, I’d already done. I’d already done Botox or migraine, I done. I mean, you name it, I tried every drug in the pharmaceutical library for migraine. And so I was like, you want me to put this like yam root cream on? Okay, like, let’s try it, you know. And so she took me off of cold turkey took me off of all the all the different prescription medications that I was on and said, I think you should try this cream for three to four months. And Jen, luckily was sort of by my side to that whole thing. And she just kept saying, keep using it, keep it you know, keep, keep putting it on trust that it’s a trust, trust that it’s going to work. And sure enough, like four to six months later, my quality of life was just so much better. So what could you say I know that you use you use the progesterone cream too. And this is something that I talked about in the course, because this is super common. And of course we don’t just because this is our story doesn’t mean it’s necessarily yours. But there are a lot of women who are taking my course who are saying this exact same thing. Like they get their tested, they get their testing back. And I mean, for me personally, this hit me in my 20s. Like,

13:01
Yeah, mine was definitely happening then. And I will say there is this little asterisk caveat that I have the Jen doesn’t yet. I’m closing in on like my late 40s. So this has been all really great and regulated for me. And now I’m hitting perimenopause. So it’s a whole new game. And there are some really fantastic books and people out there raising, raising awareness that I’m so grateful for that are saying the things that we kind of happened into, but they’re really like laying it out. So Dr. Laura Bryden is probably my favorite. And she does one called Period Repair Manual, which is for like those under 40s. But she’s about my age. So she now has new one for Hormone Repair Manual. And I mean, I cannot for enough, say how valuable it is. And she always starts with, you know, supplements and vitamins. But she describes all the different possibilities that can happen. And I think she does a really great job of explaining what we kind of already knew, including including the fact that when you said stay with it, or I said stay with it to you. I had figured out it took like three months for things to settle. And I think I can also attribute my yoga practice and my awareness in my body to like being super cued into these details. But I just knew like the first month is the worst. It’s like it gets worse before it gets better. It’s almost like your body is being swung into recalibration, and it’s a hot mess. Yeah. And so the first month is terrible. And I’m assuming a lot of people quit. Yeah, but then it’s like it gets a little better the second month, and then the third month everything like settles and it’s smooth sailing. And she mentioned that there’s something and I didn’t even plan to talk about it. So I don’t know that there’s something that happens in the body. That’s a three month rotation. And that basically something I know that I know that the follicle is in production for quite some time. So maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s that three month but it is literally a three month rotation and when I read it I was like I’m not imagining yes It’s real. There’s a reason.

15:01
Yeah, for sure, for sure. So what supplements just as a side note, you know, if you’re willing to share, like what supplements that you are either are taking or have taken Do you feel like have made the biggest impact on just how you feel and your quality of life?

15:14
So prior to this last couple of years, I was simply on progesterone a natural progesterone replacement. And that was enough. Okay, now it’s a different game for me. So now I am taking quite a handful. Currently, I take a combination of zinc, magnesium, calcium, I thoroughly believe that that magnesium is crazy impactful for muscle repair, sleep, wellness, but those three together three that she recommends, and I’ve noticed a big difference. So I take those every every day. I also take EstroFactor now, which is a DIM based supplement. Because I’ve noticed what’s happening is my progesterone is starting to drop, which is normal. And now my estrogen is a little bit unopposed. So I’m starting to have estrogen symptoms that I haven’t had. Yeah, so that knocks us down the DIM does that for me. Also, one of my other symptoms that was really bad was breast swelling and tenderness. And it was really severe. And it would start like mid month. And so it’d be like two and a half weeks, I started taking it iodine replacement, and that’s gone. And I realized I’m taking kind of a big compilation. It’s been like one thing at a time I’ve added. But certainly at this point, things are really steady and good. What else? The other, and the last one is ashwagandha. I take ashwagandha as well. I think it’s a great one for the adrenals. And those of us that are kind of constantly, you know, moving going and tend to be type a type people, I think it can be a really good stress, a good stress reducer. So I think that’s it. Yeah, I have another one. I’ll let you know. Oh, and B, B 6, B 12. Yeah, B vitamins are crucial. Do you do that? Do you do those sublingual or I do you do for one less thing to swallow? Yeah. Yeah, I hear Yeah. So then I still am doing my progesterone. And I’m starting to do some reading and understanding that there may be a need for me in the near future to consider estrogen. Yes, I’m not there. And so so I’m chewing on that right now. I’m good. But that’s probably my next thing that may have to happen.

17:31
Right. And I mean, we’ve talked about this, but for the sake of the podcast, like when I when I entered my 2017 sort of revisit of symptoms, like when my migraines started creeping back more more chronically in 2017. I wish that what we had done was some testing right off the bat. But instead, what we did was, and it was no one’s fault. It was just more like, hey, you know, you’ve been on this progesterone for several years, like, let’s take a little vacation from it, see how you do? Well, looking looking back, probably not the best thing because my body holds on to that estrogen, I take extra factors. I take a lot of like liver detoxifying things for estrogen as well. But at that time, it was like, Okay, this, let’s go off of this and see what happens. And then we even had somebody sort of an outside practitioner contribute the concept of well, maybe her estrogen is also starting to decline. So when they put me back on the progesterone, they also put me on estrogen. And I do realize that at some point, I might and most likely will need that. And there actually, there’s some recent studies. I haven’t shared this with you personally, but there’s some new studies that are out about the benefits of estrogen supplementation, when you’re entering menopause, as it can prevent, potentially prevent things like Alzheimer’s and dementia, which is really

18:42
Yeah, I have I haven’t heard that. Yeah. So and and two things that you said that jog two things that I’ve been revisiting, it’s so important, because if you are having estrogen dominant symptoms, or you’re out of whack, you may have trouble with elimination, right? And that is how you get the estrogen outs. So if you are having trouble and you’re having constipation, and I realized we’re talking about all the things, but it’s relevant, right, like so if that sometimes those imbalances can cause that problem, which then in turn makes you just sit in this load of estrogen, right, and you have all of these sentences, it’s active in your body. So so that was really valuable for me to come across here recently. Yes. And then the other thing is like, got my list is kind of a long list of what I’m taking but I’m not kidding when I tell you I have no migraine. I have no sleep disturbance, except for the day before I start my period. Yep. So I wake up at you know, like three four in the morning, which is pretty difficult. But those of us who are like perimenopausal that’s like all night every night. Yeah, for me, that’s gone. And the one that honestly like if we’re talking about all the things I feel like needs to be said, especially for women and because it’s important for relationships, too is like your sex drive is so tied into this and truly like, if your sex drive is in the tank, or your hormones are in the tanker. And so and and most of the no one talks about this, and I just makes me really sad because it’s relevant for our connections and our relationships. And I feel like it’s really kind of getting thrown out with the bathwater. And that was another big thing that has, you know, greatly improved for me that I really just honestly believed I didn’t have one I just believed for the longest time I just was asexual. Right? I mean, really, I was like, I just don’t have any. Whatever. Yeah, it’s another thing. I mean, that’s not the case. So obviously now, but

20:37
We’ll see if this part gets edited out the podcast, but for me personally, like when I So Chris, and I were highschool sweethearts. And so you know, before birth control was ever introduced to me, you know, and you’re when you’re a teenager, especially like, Whoa, I know. Yeah, we were, the hormones were there. And so. And then in college, when I kind of went on this, like, birth control, I don’t even know what it was, I tried three or four different brands trying to find something that wouldn’t make me feel crazy, because they all made you feel crazy. Yeah, I literally just kind of felt asexual like I didn’t, I felt like it just completely suppressed. So that sex drive and then of course, then you fast forward. Coming off of it. Of course dealing with the migraines at that time, I could only think about the migraine like I was in so much headache, I was in so much headache pain that I didn’t pay any attention to anything else. And so when I was introduced to progesterone cream, and to the supplements that could help my body with ridding estrogen, it was like a whole new world was like a whole new world of death, when it came to not just sex drive, but just how I felt overall, like my 100%, my energy, everything. So I love that you’re saying that because like everything that you just listed, I take every single supplement that you take aside from the iodine, I know we’ve been talking about that. Yeah. But I, I can’t, it’s funny, because I just want to pause for just a moment and say, if you are I hear this every day, when I’m talking to the women in my course, if you’re going if you’re if you’re listening to this and you’re going to your OBGYN or your practitioner and you’re saying something is off, my sex drive is off, or my vaginal lubrication is off or sleep or I’m having headaches or whatever the case is where I have this weight gain and it won’t go away. If your doctor is responding by saying, let’s try birth control or another form of birth control, I’m just going to go ahead and step out on the wire here and say that that is the wrong doctor. So I’m not here to say that doctors don’t know what they’re doing, because I certainly respect and value their education. But at the same time, I myself had been introduced to over a dozen doctors that were not benefiting me, they were wanting to treat my symptoms and not necessarily get to the root cause. So that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about functional medicine and holistic health. Okay, so I want to I do want to make sure we have time to talk a little bit about sort of your yoga practice. And obviously, you’ve kind of given us an introduction already into how you got into that. I know now you you train people. So you know,

22:50
I do, I train, I train people to teach yoga. And actually, I’m in the process of starting the advanced level training, hopefully in January. So there’s a 200. And then there’s kind of the MBA of yoga teacher training, which is 300. And I recently submitted curriculum and hope to start doing that in January. So that’s pretty exciting.

23:09
So I want to know, like, you know, you’ve taught a lot of people over the years, not just teaching people how to teach yoga, but also just teaching the classes yourself. What is one of your favorite things as far as seeing somebody come in for the first time who has maybe not been introduced to yoga before? And watching sort of their I’ll say evolution over time, get get into it, you know, I want to hear from your perspective, like what is the one thing that’s sort of a recurring theme that you see and people who sort of establish an awareness.

23:39
So I love when people show up frequently, unless they have a background and some type of movement already, often people show up really disconnected from their body, they’re really in their head, and they’re wearing their attention, you know, in their body. And so they show up and they’re nervous about how to move, but I love to watch people show up and kind of gain the awareness and kind of their own understanding of their body, but then this personal power in how their body can move and how strong they are. Really kind of lights me up I love to see people realize they’re stronger than they thought and to connect to listening to their body and what a powerful conversation that is to be able to kind of ask what it needs and listen and how that just snowballs into like more and more. And often what you see is they tend to soften a bit and tend to just be a little lighter, you know, just feel a little better like a lot of their stress rolls can can roll off. I don’t know if that was exactly described about but it’s like people show up really tight and tense and even like angry like walking kind of irritated. And they leave even after the first class like relaxed and smiling and ease like ease is probably the best. Like me being able to help people find some ease is huge. And it’s just a, it’s a gift to me. And it’s a gift to be able to share. Yeah. And I feel like we need it more than ever. Like, prior to 19 months ago, I really felt strongly about the ability to help people invite ease into their life. You know, this last 19 months, everybody’s world has shifted multiple ways, you know, based on what type of lockdown you were in, based on how you were able to move based on who was in your immediate environment. But you know, and and even if it was all okay, it still was extra stress when we were already pretty high strung to begin with. Right. And I think, I think that that idea of ease is part of what really I love about the breath, and how it ties into the nervous system, and how we can use the breath, and the movement and the awareness to intentionally shift our nervous system. So what I’m saying is, like, prior to the last 19 months, we all were pretty fight or flight focused anyway. fight flight freeze, right? Like, don’t forget, freeze freeze is important. Because you know, like, when you get overwhelmed, and you just like can’t do anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s actually more more likely, honestly than flee. So when you know, you’re working in that part of the nervous system, it’s preparing for battle. And your body’s constantly in go mode. And it’s like scanning, and it’s looking and it’s preparing. And what it’s not doing is healing, relaxing, digesting, sleeping, and taking care of hormones. That all happens when the parasympathetic nervous system can be engaged. And so we all had this natural tendency to be overstimulated all the time. But then this last 19 months, like, I feel like we went from level eight to DEFCON 10. And most people don’t even know they’re there. Like, they may kinda know, but like, people’s fuses are really short right now. And I feel like it’s a lack of downregulation of the nervous system. And that’s where movement awareness and breath is enormous, enormous, because you can very intentionally, in a very short amount of time, shift yourself into a place of rest, digest relaxation, repair. I mean, we basically made repair and rest. We’ve made that whole system like we’ve made it optional, or like when I have time, right. And it’s not happening when we sleep, especially if we’re way overstimulated, because I mean, our sleep gets screwed up when we’re all the time in the sympathetic nervous system, too. Right? It’s kind of ties in.

27:58
Yeah. Well, yes, for sure. And I want to, I definitely want to make sure we round things up talking about breath work, for sure. I’m reflecting back on sort of by first my first time walking into a yoga class. And what this has looked like for me specifically, you know, the first time I walked in, it was literally I was at a breaking point with my migraines, and it was like, okay, that’s fine. I’ll try something else like acupuncture less straight. Let’s do it. Right, like Botox, let’s do it. Right. Yoga, okay, sure, like not gonna hurt. And so I walked in, like, I’m assuming a lot of people do nervous, and feeling like the class itself was going to be about touching my toes, or about flexibility that I wasn’t so sure I have, especially sitting in corporate America. What I came away with was for me, and it was perfect for my personality, because it was a challenge. And I came out thinking, oh my gosh, like, that was like, way, I don’t want to say harder. It was just it was exactly what I needed. And I remember thinking that for the first time and months, I may not have been breathing properly, or like doing things the first time, like, you know, correctly, if that’s the word you want to use, but I left thinking, oh my gosh, like I literally just did not think about anything else. Except what I was doing physically. Right for that entire 45 minutes. Right? And so that itself brought me back. It was like okay, well, if it was a distraction for me from the pain or was a distraction for me from the stress. I’m going to keep coming back and so that that’s what brought me back and of course, I like a physical challenge. As I’ve learned about myself, I like I like that I like to work out. And so I kept coming back and then I remember you know, years later, Jen actually taught yoga in my, my my gym when we had our gym, and I remember I was getting ready to go on a trip this is that you know, this is years of me taking Jen’s classes and into yoga at this point. I was going on a trip. I think it was our Italy trip for our anniversary and I said to Jen like I’m so I hate flying. Like I hate flying on an airplane like I just like freakout like is there anything that you take, you know, because I think she was expressing the same the same sentiments that at one point I don’t love to fly. And I remember you looked at me and you were like, brief, just remember to breathe. And I remember like being on the plane and being like, okay, like I can control my breath. And if I can control my breath, and I’m controlling my thoughts, essentially. And if I can control my thoughts, then I’m controlling everything about the situation. And so that was my first sort of click moment of like, oh, okay, so this is what that means. Now, Jen can tell you that I am the worst as far as, as the yoga term shavasana goes, like when it comes to Okay, Jenny’s time to lie still, I mean, Jen can tell you that I always give her a look of how long is this gonna take? Because I just being still is always been a struggle for me. And I think it is for a lot of people. So I just wanted to share that because I think there’s probably people listening who are, you know, they think that yoga is all about the flexibility, or they think it’s something that’s going to be like a gymnastics type of experience. And it’s totally not. And I love that you’re always using the phrase practice, because that’s essentially what it is. Like, there’s no perfection in the yoga game. It’s all about the practice of finding your body moving in your body, feeling that breath and controlling what you can control, which is so powerful. So so let’s talk about the breath. I know we only have a few minutes left here, so I want to make sure so yeah, um, what would you say as far as I mean, I feel like I should just open up to you because you know more of what we need. But what would you say that people need? Or what can you tell us about breathwork that most people don’t know.

31:38
Okay, so the very simplest thing you can possibly do is close your mouth. So first and foremost, nostril breathing versus mouth breathing. And as simple as that sounds. Check yourself this throughout the day. And unless you’ve intentionally been practicing nose breathing, you likely mouth mouth breathe more than you nose breathe. There are so many reasons it’s beneficial one, you have actually natural filtration through your nose that you don’t have through your mouth. Number one, but number two, when you’re breathing through your nose, it’s telling your nervous system, that you’re actually in a steady state. When you’re breathing through your mouth, it’s like, oh, we’re preparing for something like it’s stressful. Okay? So super simplistically, put, breathe through your nose, the second, simplest thing to do is to slow the breath down. Like in a ideal world, six to eight breaths in a minute. But here’s the deal. Most of us that would really be in intense and hard to do, because you haven’t done it before. So don’t just jump into the deep end. Start really slowly. There are all kinds of things we can ways you can build up. But you can really shift your breath control in a big way. Look at free divers look at people that climb you know, really intense sights like there are ways to shift your ability and your body’s ability to breathe. And that’s what yoga one of the limbs of yoga pranayama it’s like controlling prana, the lifeforce energy, your breath. And so there’s all there are a million different types of breathing techniques. But the simplest thing is slow it down, breathe through your nose, and then maybe shoot towards slowly working your way to six to eight breaths in a minute. That’s, that’s a system that’s really integrated, and actually in a good place. If you are closer to like 15 breaths or you’re in a high state of arousal most of the time. And what’s interesting is, you know, disordered breathing, when we look at what that looks like 15 to 20 breaths a minute. Generally, asthmatics heart disease, sleep apnea, chronic pain, anxiety, panic disorder, and inflammation, like all of those things are associated with people that breathe in that space. So you really change your whole biology by how you breathe. And there are all kinds of reasons I mean, it changes the pH of your blood, it changes the body’s ability to heal like it’s, it’s, it is not just, I like the science part to prove why yoga had this working. Like it worked for me. And then I’m like, why is it working? And then I kind of went the other way, right? So so your goal would be to get to 6 to 8 breaths in minutes. And if I had to guess people are more like 15 to 20. Right. But if you push too fast, too hard, it’s anxious. It makes you anxious. Because when we hold the breath, it’s it’s the first thing actually tied to like our anxiety response. And there’s a whole reason for that, and we don’t have time to get into it. But another simple breath practice that it can give you that kind of builds on what we said is square breathing. It’s probably the most neutral breath you can do. And it simply would be inhale, say to the count of four And then pause for the count of four. And then exhale for the count of four. And then pause for the count of four. And then just keep repeating. And in just even one to two minutes of simple breath work, if you can notice a really big shift in how you feel, mentally, physically, emotionally, all of the above.

35:27
Yeah, I love that you said that I have a, I feel like I keep turning into stories. But when I was in my sort of struggle phase here three or four years ago, and looking back obviously needed to be on the progesterone and wasn’t I was dealing with extra anxiety, which the progesterone I’ve learned has really a big calming effect on me. Neurologically speaking. And so when I completely stripped it from myself for that little hormone vacation, I really struggled with anxiety, like, to a degree of I was nervous to get in my car, like I was, I felt like I was in a state of panic all the time. And like my brother, actually, who lives out west, he was a psychology. He has his master’s in psychology. And I called him in the middle of like, what was basically a panic attack. And I said, Oh, my gosh, like, I don’t, I’m freaking out. Like, I just I couldn’t, I couldn’t even form words. Like I was literally in that freeze, you were explaining the freeze freeze mode. And I was in freeze mode, where I couldn’t even communicate how I was feeling if you if you’ve seen the show, this is us, right, Randall when he’s just like frozen on the floor, like, that’s the feeling. And I remember my brother just said, Okay, he’s like, I want you to listen to my voice. And he went through the square breathing before, you know, inhale for four, hold it for four, exhale for four, hold it for four. And we did it over and over. And almost just like that yoga class years ago, that distracted me for 45 minutes, it was listening to His voice and just following the cues. Yeah, maybe my brain gave my brain something to focus on. And by, by controlling that breath, totally put me into a more relaxed state. So I love that. So So you’re saying that people that are listening, if they want to try something to kind of get control of the breath, that that’s a great place to start?

37:10
It’s a great place to start. And, and even the awareness of there’s a lot of information out there that that our breath is cueing what’s happening way before we figure out what’s happening. So your breathing changes way before your mind realizes stresses on the horizon? Yeah, perceived stress is on the horizon. Right? Sure. And so kind of making your awareness with your breath, so that when you notice, it’s shifting into a place that’s kind of preparing for a spiral in a way you don’t want it to go, shifting back. So using it to catch on sooner, to recalibrate sooner before you get into and, and the other big thing is practicing these things. Before you’re in the scenario. Yes. So that you have them familiar in your toolbox. So you know, to go to it. Because if you haven’t practiced it enough that you’re like, Oh, my breathing, my square breathing will help you forget, yeah, we’ll forget because you’re so busy over here. But if you’ve, or remind somebody that you you know, you love to give it to you, or put it in your phone and have even your own voice guiding you through it in your phone. Yeah, that’s great. But that’s, you know, the extreme, but we all have it to some degree. And so, because stress is part of life, and it’s not all stress is bad. I mean, if we didn’t have it, we wouldn’t wake up in the morning. Right? So the question is, how do we recalibrate stresses is okay, even exercise is stress, it’s intentional stress. But do we down regulate and recalibrate and have equal rest and healing? And that’s where I think our we’re kind of off kilter. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Especially as women, I think, for sure, especially as women.

38:54
So okay, so I want to make sure that we close this out. Obviously, you guys have heard from us today about how impactful everything is, from the breath to moving the body to getting to the root cause of what could be going on for you to supplementation to sleep, like we really covered a lot in just a short span of time, honestly. So what I want to do is I want I’d like for you to give us just what would your advice be, you know, to a woman in her 20s 30s or 40s, a cycling female who feels off she feels maybe a sense of stress, or she feels like something on her body is off, what would your advice be on where to start?

39:30
I mean, my first thing would be listened to your guts. And if it’s off, don’t, don’t ignore it. And if your physician or some you know, find a find a, the books that I recommended are huge and find someone who’s doing the work in these areas, so they can champion for you. And just be patient because it’s a process. It is not, you know, it is not a instant gratitude. Fix by any stretch but it is so worth it. Absolutely.

40:04
Yeah, we’ll link up the the book recommendations that Jen gave those are both I love Laura Briden’s books, we’ll put those in the show notes for free guys so you can have access to those. So where can people follow you, Jen? Where are you on social? Where can they find you?

40:15
So I’m on. I’m on Instagram, and it’s just my name, you and also my classes at Flourish Yoga. Flourish Yoga + Wellbeing all my classes are both live and virtual. So you can do any of my classes with me via wherever you are. I also have a decent Facebook presence. And my music which I super adore music. It’s on Spotify. And it’s all my name. There’s nothing too. Yeah, perfect. So I’ll link all that up in the show notes as well. But thanks so much, Jen. I know you have places to be and things to do. So I’m so grateful for your time that you took for us today. So thanks you guys for tuning in. We’ll talk to you next time

41:00
Thanks for listening to this episode of the SYNC Your Life Podcast. I hope you found value from today’s episode. If you did, please share it out to your friends or leave a review. Remember your cycles are your superpower and by aligning with them you can live your life with all the energy needs to be a mom, wife, daughter and friend to those you love. Until next time.