Apoday production.
We begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather today and pay our respects to their elders past and present. We extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's here today. Welcome to the Grow and Glow Podcast. I'm Ashy, I'm Kiara. This is a podcast where we learn.
Laugh, and level up together.
Let's go deep, let the emotions flow, and find the lessons to grow and Glow.
Nothing is off the table with Grow and Glow and we're here to be your expander. Hello, guy, welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining us. Today's episode it's big. It's a big one.
It's a really really good one.
And it's something I think most of you will relate to because it's all about addictions. We're talking sugar, we're talking alcohol, we're talking coffee. So if you are addicted to any of those, even if you're not fully addicted, but you feel like you maybe lean on it too much in different seasons of your life, this episode you will get so much out of. But first, my share of the.
Week is a book called Dopamine Nation, and for me, personally. This is what really opened my eyes to how many of us have day to day addictions and just how easily we can access dopamine and was really the start of this journey for me. So domination. An incredible book is doctor Anna. I don't want to butcher her last name Leurs.
Something Skia, something skey like.
She is just incredible. The way she explains everything too is really easy to digest that. She's also got videos on YouTube and stuff, and there's like condensed down versions of the book online that I've found well on YouTube. So if you're wanting to like hear the main takeaways, go have a little YouTube around this book dopamin Nation. But also like if you want to dive in and really understand it, I recommend to get the book.
Oh so good. I just love hearing your passion behind when you read books. It makes me really want to read it so much. I feel like this book really has been the change for you.
I've changing because.
I feel like you've heard bits and pieces along the way, Like I remember, even before you gave up caffeine when you were going through a really really hard time, I told you the caffeine's not great for anxiety. But I just don't think you were ready to like hear or give up on That's something. With anything, it's like you have to be ready to hear it and ready to
want to change. But this book, I feel like, was like exactly what you need to hear at the exact right moment, and it's really shifted everything for you.
And I'm such a fact person.
If there's scientific evidence to back things up, and I can understand it and go, oh, this is what it's doing.
To my body.
If somebody says to me like it will help with anxiety, I think for me, I'm like, okay, okay, cool, Like how much I don't really know? But then when you actually understand the depths of it, it's like, oh, okay, do I really want to feel like that anything?
Yeah, what's it actually doing to my body? I'm excited. My Share of the Week is something random, but it's a tongue scraper or you ever heard of it? No, So a lot of people can brush their tongues, but this tongue scrapar It's meant to help with your digestive system and clean out and scrape away any toxins that we build up in our sleep. So if you don't do it, then when you have your first sip of
water whatever, you kind of just wash the toxins back down. Okay, I haven't looked up the scientific facts and studies on it. I've been recommended it, and I've seen it on socials here and there, and I've been using it for about a year now. I don't know why I haven't recommended it sooner, But I feel gross if I don't scrape my tongue in the morning. It's the first thing that I do when I get up is scrape my tongue before I have my water, and I just think about
how much toxins I'm like scraping off. It sounds gross, but it's like there's gunky white stuff that comes off your tongue. It just makes me feel so clean and clear and anything that I think is going to help my immunity, my digestice system, my skin, my health overall. Such a little habit that you can implement and it's like second h to me. Now good. So you just get them from health food stores online. Just a couple of scrapes. You'll see it come off and I go
back in for a second one. There's hardly anything. I'm like, what does it look like? It's like an arch like a horse's hoof, Like it's just like a U shape. It just hold your handles, spaces down. I've got a metal one.
Then what Okay, Yeah, so I recommit that grandom.
But if you're interested, go and look into it more. But I highly recommend it. Awesome, Okay, so let's get straight into this episode. So I'm so excited. The timing of this was so good. It was before we went into the Eden Health Retreat, which if you haven't listened to the episode, it was just our experience, this beautiful retreat that we went to. I would go back tomorrow
if I could. You started reading this book beforehand, so I feel like you were kind of like learning about it and dabbling and like wanting to maybe slow down on your coffee and alcohol. I was a full blown sugar addict. I feel like the last couple of months
I just leant on sugar. I was so exhausted all the time from I think just the news of my surgery and then processing what I wanted to do with baseline, coming to that decision, still being a mom stialking up my responsibilities I'm so burnt out, so I just needed a pick me up, and I turned to sugar. And
I love Lolly's and I love chocolate. I'll always have but it became a daily habit to the point like one of the girls at Higherway brought me this massive lolly jar and like filled it up, and I was just snacking on them all the time, like it was normal. And I literally started to normalize it. And then I realized, holy shit, this is definitely something I'm leaning on it. My skin started to break out, I started to feel bloated. I looked more inflamed, like I could tell it was
just more puffy. I definitely gained a little bit of weight. I just was not feeling good. I wasn't sleeping good. Of course, it's going to affect your moods, everything that I value. I'm like, what the hell am I doing? And then eating health treat came along, and that's when I was like, no, this is my break. And there was nothing out there that I could have that was like bad for me, your sugary and I haven't touched any lollies or anything since, and I felt so much better.
I've limited my gluten and dairy or whatever. But you do get in these little habits in a slippery slope and you start to normalize it, and then when you start to feel the effects, it's just like, oh, but it's such a hard habit to break. I really really struggled. My best when you're trying to break a sugar habit is is to replace with healthier alternatives first. Once you do that, then you just see that you don't actually
need it as much. So I instantly swap lollies for clean treats and for fruit because it's still sweet, it's still yummy. And at night time, I was having these little mini cyclone icy poles because they were mini. I was justifying it. I was like, they're only small, They've only got this mount in there, blah blah blah. So now I swapped that to like a decaf mocker or just like a healthier version of a hot chocolate or
my bye Bi bloat tea. But I've got something in to replace it, and now I'm like out of that happened most of the time. I just don't even need something afterwards anymore. Yeah, so that was kind of in a nutshell mind, But I feel like your experience and journey has been way more life changing.
Because I think the things that I've been doing, I'd been doing for so long, and I realized that these unhealthy habits were a part of my toolbox and helped me cope through daily life. But I needed to replace them with healthy ways to do that.
And was normalized too.
Yeah, it was normalized. So yeah.
I mean, Kurt and I love a drink, and it was just a part of our weekly routine. You have a big day, come home, how do you relax?
You have a wine? Yea.
Then the next day you wake up and you feel like shit and you underwy. You realize as well that when you abstain from it and you stop having it, all the feelings that you were feeling start to disappear.
When you stop having it.
The next day you wake up, you feel more anxious, everything feels even harder. You need to grab a coffee because you're tired because you're drinking the night before. And it's just this vicious, vicious cycle. But basically what made me want to do it is Kurt and I were drinking a little bit too much and I one morning when I was a bit annoyed to Kurt, It's been
completely candid and open here. He had a bit of a night out and I was a bit annoyed, and I was like, I'm going to read this book and pick it up and see what this is all about. It had been recommended to me before, and I think I knew that I needed to read it, but I feel like I put it on because I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to actually give up those things like alcohol. It definitely has been a crutch for me.
You had that awareness, You're like, I know what that book's going to tell me. It's not quite ready to hear it.
Yeah, do I want to hear this?
Yeah? Am I ready to?
So I'll Delvin and explain a little bit of the main takeaways that I took from this book and how it's kind of changed and transformed our lives. But right now I'm I think I'm thirty five days no alcohol and no caffeine.
Yeah, it was tough at the start.
I'm so proud of you liked to give up two things that are very addictive for most people. Oh, it's incredible. I'm so proud of you.
So basically, how dopamine works, which is a really good way that she explained it is it's on like a seesaw. So whenever we get a dopamine hit and we feel dopamine, our natural response afterwards is we need to feel some sort of pain. So in today's day and age, unhealthy dopamine is so easily accessible. We wake up in the morning, we check our phones.
Oh, somebody sent me a text message. Dopamine.
You go downstairs, make yourself a coffee dopamine hit. Then you go, okay. Now I'm going to have a chocolate at morning tea because that dope meine is wearing off and I'm feeling shit, So I'm going to reach for a chocolate dopamine hit.
Then the out.
Check your phone again, dopamine here. Then you go, okay. Days over, I'm gonna have a bit. I'm going to have a wine dopamine hit. But what is happening in this modern day society. It's dopamine is becoming so easily accessible that is actually throwing our balance completely off. This is why in wealthy countries so many people are so depressed because your new normal baseline is to have this
easy access of the dopamine hits. So you stop actually feeling happy and normal unless you're having them in your life. So little things like going for a walk, watching a sunset, watching a sun rise, you don't gain that dopamine hit from it anymore.
Wow. Yeah, where it's like ten twenty years ago, it just wasn't as easy to access. It's easy to access more simple things in life would give it to like connection nature. That's it.
So the only way for us to regulate that balance again and get the balance back to where it should be is either to abstain from it for minimum thirty days, which is why I've done that, or to feel pain pain healthy pain, so because they go hand in hand, right, So the best ways to do this is hot therapy, cold therapy, exercise, and intermitted fasting. So what happens is when we go and we do these things, not only
are we getting the dopamine hit afterwards. So if you go and do a long sauna, you are feeling pain. So the rebound of that is you get a dope mean hit, but it's not a big spike and then you crash. You will feel it for like seven hours of your day. So what it does is it starts to make you literally feel happier. So you can do this anything that you choose, even with you know, we're going to do a whole episode.
About digital detox.
Yeah, but if you decide to do it, say with your phone, if you're feeling like you're becoming really addicted, then this is a way to just literally make you feel less depressed and more joyous in your life.
Yeah.
Kurt and I were definitely reaching on this as a crutch in our life, and we were like, you know what, let's abstain, but at the same time, let's also do everything we can to feel pain, the healthy.
Pain, healthy pain, and healthy stress. Hey yeah, so cool.
Yeah.
So, not only did we abstain for the thirty days, but we did saunas every single day. We did cold therapy at least three times a week, We did intermedded fasting for a good chunk of it, and exercise five times a week because we were like, we want to get our baseline back to where it should be. I guess the journey of this. At the start, I was determined to do it because I was pissed off a Kurt.
And I wanted to.
Te myself course. I wanted to see if I could do it.
Which is hence away through the coffee there too, because I knew for me coffee would have been through the coffee really hard, really hard for me. Like that is what I am known as.
That love your morning coffee.
Since the day I started drinking coffee, I've not gone like a day without it.
And it's like pretty quickly as soon as you're up, like even when we can't hit it brizzy, it's like you met your coffee straight away, beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, get that dope for me, Yeah, get it in and now, Like in hindsight, I can see how addicted I was, but I can also feel the effects on my body that afternoon crash, which you probably.
Would have got from sugar too. Oh yeah, don't get it anymore, No, don't get it anymore.
Yeah.
The journey starting off was really really tough, and some tips and tricks that I feel like really helped me along the way. Burstings first, getting it all out of the house, put it away. I actually gave away some bottles of wine that I had. Kurt took all he had a carner beer, but he took it all out of the fridge so it's not cold, yeah, which worked pretty well for like the first week, maybe because you're on a roll, you're getting started, you're excited.
Motivation's hard, motivation's high.
Motivation will dip.
That's exactly right. And then we kind of started to find some replacements. So Kurt was doing a lot of soft drinks in the afternoon, but healthy ones like next Bar or Butchers, soda, water, stuff like that to kind of replace it. Non alcoholic wine is not a vibe guys.
It tastes so bad.
So that didn't work for me. But in the afternoon I did the same sort of thing. I would have, like a relaxing tea, because what I was searching for and what my body wanted was to relax at the end of the day. I was wanting it to help me switch off. So instead of reaching for the red wine,
I was making myself like a camera mold tea. Also, what we were doing is giving each other time to go have a sauna so we could get that you know, relaxing time on our own as well that we were both obviously craving at the end of each day when we ran for a drink and then with coffee at the start. We replaced it with teas and bone broths and it wasn't quite cutting it. So then we started
actually treating ourselves. I think it was like twice or three times a week, and we'd go out and buy a decaf one from a restaurant.
Most of the time it tastes pretty dunk close.
Yeah, sometimes it's really bad, but you will find the cafes that are right for you, and that tastes a right But just the effects on how I feel afterwards, and I've done a whole episode on my period how much I feel like this has had also an effect on my periods as well, which is crazy.
And just been huge and so important. Huge.
Yeah, I just feel so much more regulated, I feel so much more grounded. I feel like I'm way less frazzled, and I just feel alive.
I feel alive, I look alive.
I feel fantastic, And I can't believe that I put my body through that stress for so long and even so many times in my life day and day out. I was having a glass of wine through heaps of times of my life. Every time I'm cooking dinner, I'm gonna have a glass of wine if it came a part of my normal routine. And until you actually, and it's not the first week. You won't feel it because it stays in your body, I think for up to five days. So you've got to give yourself. That's what
they say. With the abstaining as well, it's got to be a minimum of thirty days. And at the end of it, like I turned to Ashley and I said to her, I was like, I don't even know when I want to have a drink again. Like I thought i'd get to the end and be like, oh, I'm going to have a champagne to celebrate. Yeah, And we even went to events and stuff like that, and I was like, even the last night dinner, I was like, I don't want to.
Yeah, I feel too good, so good.
And I'm not saying that I'm never going to drink again, but I'm going to do it when I feel like it's the right time, and I'm not going to overdo it. It's not going to be a thing where it's like once a week or once a month. It's just going to be like when there's an occasion or when I feel like it.
Yeah, you know.
But I also am so mindful now of seeing the effects on the following day that I'm like, do I want to feel that tomorrow?
Is it worth it until you.
Actually stop it and you can feel the effects. You don't even know then how good you can feel if you are struggling with anxiety. If you can take anything away from this, please even if you don't drink alcohol but you drink coffee, try because even what we do at home is we will use a decaf and add some caramel like zyrup in it just to give ourselves like something nice because we're not having a normal coffee.
Just give it a go.
And this includes pre workouts. Yoh, I'm so like. It makes me so sad to see so many women post about anxiety and hormone issues and can't sleep and they're taking pre workouts because they think it's better for you than a coffee. If you're gonna have anything, a coffee is better than pre workout. Like most pre workouts, you look on the back at the amount of caffeine they have. It has not one, not two, sometimes three or four
times the amount of one standard coffee. There's like anywhere from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty milligrams of caffeine and you're having that in one hit. If you have any tendency to be anxious, like get rid of the pre workout and get rid of the caffeine. It will change your life.
It will change your life.
I've never been a huge coffee drink cerup, but years ago, I don't know if you remember, when I brought out my own magazine. I had Ashleybind's magazine that was sold in coals and news agencies. It was really big achievement. At the same time, I was also publishing a book. You guys don't know. I'm an author and I have my own book. It's called Fifteen Lessons That Have Changed
My Life. And we did this in the same period of time, and I was stretched, like writing a book is huge, Creating a magazine and all the content for a magazine like, oh my goodness. And I always thought, like Steve's a massive coffee drinker. Most people I know a massive coffee drinkers. And I thought, gosh, I'm going to try drink coffee because I'm tired, I'm exhausted. And I thought everyone else seems to love it and be fine with it, like okay, cool, I'm going to try it.
So I started having two coffees a day, morning and lunchtime to get me through. And I also had a lot of photo shooes at that time as well, so I feel like I have a lot of time to eat and coffee is a bit of a suppressant, so it helped me get through my mornings. I was intimitate
fasting without even realizing it. I'd just have the coffee because it would get me through to lunchtime, and what do you know, started to feel anxious, started to feel like crap, and going through that process, I was like, Ah, Intuitively, I wonder if I've just always known that caffeine isn't good for my body, and now I've experienced having it lots. This is why I don't have it, and I'm the same. It's not that I never drink coffee. I absolutely love
the taste of coffee. If there's coffee flavored ice cream, a coffee flavored sweet, I love coffee. The taste of it is so frickin delicious. But I always get a decaf or like once a week before my big group booted glass that I do. I get the before you speak coffee sachets. I'll have a quarter of the sachet. So it probably doesn't even do anything. It's just like the placebo effective. O Oh, I've got a coffee Shen'll literally have the tiniest little bit, but it's in control.
It's not a tool that I lean on all the time. And for someone that has had anxiety in the past and panic attacks, it's just why would I do that to myself? Like you're asking for trouble. If you're going to keep consuming caffeine, it's not going to make you feel good. And it's so cool to experience that myself and then to watch you go through this and coming out the other side. And then also Megsie, my girlfriend,
like she went through the same with alcohol. She loved to party and she's done like nearly too years of no our cool now she just had like one or two here and there, but she said it was just life changing. And when you think about all the things that you value, this is what makes it's so clear
and easy. It's like, you know, people like me and you, we value our health, our skin, our energy, connection time with our family, being good role models for our kids, having no brain fog, sleep, all those things that we value. Our coohol doesn't fit in with that now, so if you are having our cohol regularly, you're dishonoring all those things that are really important to you. You have to be living up to your values to live your best life. It's one thing to say that you value those things,
but do your actions actually meet it? Are they aligned with it?
It is when something.
Do you justify I've worked hard today, Yeah, I just like it's not affected me that much. It's not that it's because I've got my period. It's cause works really heavy, and you see all the time. And I don't judge anyone when I have these conversations. I'm not one to go and like preach to everyone. We're sharing this because we've experienced it. We want to help just open your eyes up to maybe this is something you want to try.
But I can see when people are justifying and I'm like, oh, you don't know how good you can feel, you know, and everyone will get there on their own journey. But hopefully today after listening, you're like, oh, maybe I am grabbing my sugar hit at three pm in the afternoon. Maybe I could try and not do that. And then when you see how hard it is, you know you've got a problem.
That's exactly right.
When I found it really hard to not grab the handful of lollies. I was like, this is a problem. I would get at nine am and the jar was staring at me and I felt like I had no control. And people started laughing and making jokes and like remember one on the staff it was filmed me and uploaded a TikTok, and I was like, wow, this is becoming like a joke within the office. I'm like, this is not funny.
This is not making me feel good. And people joke about it with coffee and alcohol to normalize it because they want it to be normal for them, but it's not actually healthy and not actually serving you. So it's just something to really reflect on. And it's such a common thing in today's society, especially with men. The alcohol. It's how they connect, It's how they let their walls down, get rid of their ego and just like have some fun. It's how we relax, it's how we distress. It's just
what most people do. Right, it's normal. But when you come out the other side, you're like, wow, I don't want that to be my normal. And I know for myself, I didn't want my kids seeing that as normal. I didn't want them to think, Oh, every time you are stressed, you want to have fun, you want to connect, you want to DeWind, you want to I don't know whatever you describe a drink. Yeah, if that's not how I want them thinking life's normal and same with anything.
There's so many as well, Like even in this book dopamin Nation, she talks about simple things like our phone. I know a few people that are sold to their phone. I can't go literally two minutes about checking it. And it doesn't even need to be if you don't relate to the alcohol thing, don't relate to the coffee thing, don't relate to the caffeine. It's like, how about your phone?
Yes? And if not your phone.
There was a guy in the book that was addicted to sex, and hearing his story and how his addiction completely ended up ruling his life. It's just one of those books that I feel like everyone needs to read because it's really eye opening. And one other thing too that I wanted to touch on. I had so many people messaging concerned about withdrawals.
Oh, so many people like going, you go? How was it? So?
My number one thing that I would say is if you are a heavy coffee drinker. If you are someone who was drinking like double shot in the morning and double shot at ten o'clock, don't completely go cold turkey. Start off doing half shot, do that for like a week, and then go down to one coffee. Because I was only having half strength anyway, because I knew it made
me feel shit. So I was like, I was just do a half strength, but I had a couple of like light headaches, which, just being completely candid, I also got botox right near the start of it, and that hells of my headaches, you know, the it does hell's with my headache. So I was like, it could have been potentially a lot worse if I didn't have that.
But yeah, I would definitely recommend that if you are somebody who is having it and a lot of it and very regularly, maybe just do a slow approach over like the first three weeks and then completely get rid of it and start to abstain. Because I knew so many people would think like, how can I go with withdrawals, Like I'm worried about the headaches, I'm going to cope, And that's all so valid, but it's also a reason
to stop you from taking the action. So yeah, I would just slowly decrease, and even the same with wine if you're having one Like this is even something that I've done previously. I was having a wine at four in the afternoon. This is when I was in my bad and zone, and I started pushing out, like, hey, now I can't have one till six, So like push the time out so you can only fit like one in and then like do half a glass and then do you know, I think that whatever works for you
to get to that point. But if you're worried about withdrawals, then maybe do a little bit of a slow approach. Maybe do one month cutting back, yeah, and then one month abstaining.
Really good advice. Yeah, and probably increase your water tenfold to help with the headaches.
A one, one hundred percent.
But you know what, as well, The crazy thing is, since I have stopped drinking coffee and I've stopped drinking alcohol, I am drinking so much more water because every time I went for a drink, it was something unhealthy for me. It was a coffee or a wine. So in my morning, I've like got a coffee all the time. In my afternoon, I've got a wine all the time, so you actually end up upping your water intake naturally.
Anyway, It's so called this role and effect too. It's like you cut the alcohol and the caffeine and you replaced it with bone broth and tea and more water. When you feel better from that, then you want to choose healthier food. When you're choosing healthier food, you then have more energy and vitality about you, So then you have more energy to go to the gym. When you go to the gym, you start to feel better, you start to feel more confident. Then your cup's getting fulled.
Then you overflow that to your relationship. You're being an example for your kids. It's like this isn't just one thing. This is going to positively impact everything in your life. It's important to you. Amen.
Girlfriend, Wow, Amen my energy levels. So I was worried as well. How am I going to go without coffee? I had this story that I needed this for energy.
Yeah.
I feel more energized now and less sleepy like you might have even noticed on this trip.
Yeah, generally I'm cooked. Yeah, I do actually feel like you're being way more energetic.
We didn't have the best sleep last night, no, but I don't have the colmdown that I'm putting in my body, especially the coffee. I feel like the coffee in all honesty, I probably found harder than the alcohol. I had a couple of moments as well where I found it really really tough, and I thought maybe I would share about that.
So we went to a event and there was free alcohol the whole.
And we're staying up here, and normally too, when Kurt and I go away together, we go out and have a drink. We go have some tapis somewhere, have the drink together, and it was a huge challenge for both of us. Curtie really struggled, which is fair enough. And when we went out that night, we kind of just said to ourselves, so I'll just get a lemon lion bitters to start off with, see how we feel, and just like, you know, soda water whatever they had there.
So we just drank drinks like that. They made us feel like we were kind of drinking and it was something out of the norm for us. But what I would say is in those moments, because as we walked through the door, they went to hand me a champagne and I told myself in my head I'm just going to have a different drink first, and once you have that first, you're like, this isn't so bad. Yeah, so
your first drink, and then the same thing. When I went to an engagement party last weekend, I told myself, oh, I'll just have just a soft drink first, or a can butcher first or whatever it is, have that first. And then as soon as you have that first one and you're talking and you're chatting and you're socializing, and you're.
Like, I don't need it.
I don't need this to feel comfortable. You're going to feel a bit nervous when you're first walking in some way anyway, whether you have a drink or you don't. But I think we go, oh, we have it so we can socialize, so when you feel relaxed. But it's
like you can do that without it. Yeah, you have this story, like especially someone who I feel like, I'm definitely getting way better at this, but back in the day, I had really bad at social anxiety and sometimes in my life and I thought in my head it made me more likable, I felt more.
Comfortable, more out there.
I actually feel more comfortable when I'm not drinking. I know I'm not saying anything stupid. I know I'm saying things that are aligned with who I am. I know I'm showing truly who I am in my core. And it's not just the alcohol speaking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when you're like that too, you're going to attract and connect with people that are more aligned with you. Whereas when you're being like not that you're drunk, but when you're being silly and tipsy or whatever, you're probably attracting people that aren't actually aligned with who you truly are.
And you remember everything, are left making better connections than I previously when I was drinking, because you're not just like drinking and talking to your partner. I was like, Oh, Mom's going to go walk around the room chat to everyone like met Ale these people, these incredible stories. At the Operation to Smile event, it was so amazing. Spoke to surgeons and this and that, and I was like,
that's really cool. Rather than me lining up waiting for the friggin like the line for the alcohol huge Yeah, stand there half the.
Night each time you run out of drink lining up for another one.
I was there, chatting with people, being present.
Wow, But you think it's.
Actually in these moments and being at these events that these are the moments when you know you need it.
Yeah, but it's actually really.
Beautiful to night have it so frigging co open eyes and caffeine apparently stays in your body. I can't remember if it's twenty four or thirty six hours. It stays in your body quite a long time. So they say, don't have caffeine us twelve o'clock, but it's actually longer. Lieout. Your body has still got caffeine in it. You're not gonna have a good quality sleep. And it's the same with sugar. If like you have dessert, you are literally
putting that body into your body, your insulin spikes. You were putting your body to work because it has to now work to digest and put that energy somewhere and do something with that energy. So if you have a shitty nights sleep and you had dessert before you went to bed, no wonder.
Yeah.
And same with alcohol. It's full of calories and sugars and whatever, bed whatever else. It's not going to give you a quality sleep.
Even in my Periods episode when we spoke about HRV levels, which it measures your nervous system, something that Kurt and I have realized is if we eat dinner too late, it's spikes as well.
It's not good.
And also we went through a phase of having dessert before bed, having these little cookies and yeah, spiked it as what It's like, why are we doing this when we wanted to have a well, restless sleep and wanting all the other things. You should at least have like three hours before.
Going to bed that you eat.
Yeah, and then same as having a sweet treat, it hugely impacts your sleep. Yeah, and seeing that firsthand and actually seeing how it affects it, it's like, why would I do that to myself? That, yeah, help yourself out, but yeah, I would give yourself. How you said the twenty four hours or thirty six hours a caffeine, Yeah, I think alcohol's around five days. But all of it, I reckon. It took two three weeks and I was like, oh my gosh, I feel incredible. Before that, I was
like not really noticing the difference. So don't let that be your thing that makes you go, oh, I'm not really feeling a change. I'm going to go back and start doing it again. You need minimum thirty days.
That minimum, that's just like it's so cool that you haven't straight away gone back to it, because it's how you feel after thirty, Imagine after sixty, imagine after ninety. Yeah, like it's only going to get better and better. Yeah, and then you really will not be repulsed by it, but you almost be like like, no, why would I want to.
That's it was said to Ashley.
You know, I think the difference will be it'll just be like random times. It won't be a regular thing. And when I have it, I'll sip on one glass of wine. It won't be like I'm going to drink a bottle.
And it's also evaluating, like say, if you incur up here and you had a night up here and have to attend to the kids next day, you probably have the space to have a sleep in, take it slow. But if you've got to look after three children, it's like, oh is it worth it? Because you know you won't be you might be a bit more snappy, a bit more tired, you won't have the energy to run around
after them. So it's just evaluating each situation. It's not that you're never gonna have coffee or never have a drink, like you'll just learn where you've got the capacity to have it, where it's worth it. How much you can have as well, like two might be too much, but one might be perfect, or the courtin might be force's limit. Like Steve, he knows after three he's not going to feel great, yes, but he can handle two or three and feel pretty good the next day.
And that's what it says in the book, So the very end of it. So she has an acronym for each one, dopamine. So the last one is experiment. So at the end of your thirty days, test yourself. Yeah, try having one, see how you feel, and if you start to go back into your old ways, abstain again for thirty days perfair. So she's got all these little steps along the way, which is really cool.
Oh, I need to read this book.
And coffee, Yeah, I don't think I'll ever have it again. Really, isn't that wildt nuh Yeah, So I was pretting to Actually, I think the other day somebody accidentally gave me a coffee. They did I know it was an actual coffee. I felt like I was pinging.
Oh, what is going on? And not even one shot though you reckon it felt like.
Because I got a medium, so that would be two shots.
Oh, I felt awful.
I had to go on a massive brisk walk. I had to go to the gym try to move the energy. I felt awful, and also that it was still in my system a little bit.
Now we speak about the timing.
There is not one part of me that is interested to feel that way again. I know how to affect my body, and I think to it highlights it when you have a break and you then have that caffeine You're like, why.
The fuck did I do that?
For some Yeah awful. I love what you said on your stories the other day. It was like I love myself too much to put myself through that. And it's like, when you truly love and respect your body, you want to treat it with love and respect. You think about the way that Like now we get so parent on you're like when our kids it's so healthy and organic, and like do I have too much sugar or whatever? You just want the healthiest body, Like you should want
that for yourself. Like you cannot be the best parent and the best person and the best at your job or achieve your goals if you're not putting your health as a priority. It is our home. Your body is your home. It's the only thing we really have. Over the years, you think the span of five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, the good habits that adds up, that makes
huge impact. You might not think like one piece of white bread every day makes a difference, but over a span of five ten years, if you would swap that for a healthier option, that has huge impact. So just checking in seeing how things are feeling. Getting honest with yourself too, because I know a lot of people like, oh, no, cope,
it doesn't affect me. My body handles it so well, or oh it's only one Yeah, I know that you handle it so well, exactly exactly, And so many people what have you normalized?
That's it? So many people.
Want a well regulated nervousism. They don't want to be snappy out their kids. They don't want to be this, they don't want to be that. It's like, start with you, yes, start with you. Take a look the mirror behind choices. Caffeine. I tell you it will change your life.
Caffeine, sugar and our cohoal Yeah so bad?
Yeah balance, uh huh.
Wow. What an awesome episode. There's going to be so many takeaways from that, and like I said, everything that we talk about is to help you grow and glow. Like it's helped you grow and learn more about yourself and to come out the other side glowing. But we have to go through these different situations and experiences and read more and learn more and experience more to come out the other side. That's a part of the journey. That is PS. Your life is always moving in the
direction of your strongest thoughts. I love that. Very relevant, very relevant, because your strongest thoughts right now are to remove addiction, to be healthy, to be aligned, and that's where your life is going now, because that's where your strongest thoughts are. That's on the forefront of your mind. Yeah, same girlfriend.
PS.
The extra hour of sleep, those healthy meals, that gym session you didn't skip, that walk you went on are all investments in your future self. And the more of those since you make, the more your future self will thrive. My advice invest as often as you can.
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