Child:
Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast. This episode is brought to you by Apollo Neuro. And if you’ve listened for a while, you know that managing stress is important for health and that getting a good night’s sleep is pivotal for our wellbeing. And those are two things we talk a lot about on this podcast, and they’re top of my priority list for this year. Now, if you followed me at all last year, you know last year was also a pretty emotionally taxing year for me. And at times I saw my sleep and my HRV especially take a hit. And one thing that helped a lot for me was the Apollo device. This is a product I use regularly to help my body manage stress to achieve deeper sleep. And even to help me focus when I’m working, I actually have this on my ankle right now while I am recording podcasts. The Apollo wearable helps transform how you feel through your sense of touch. And as moms, we can understand this because babies are so responsive to touch. And that’s actually part of how their nervous system regulates. And the Apollo uses same idea and is able to work on children and adults helping you feel well-rested, energetic, have a great mood, and become more resilient to stress. It’s developed by neuroscientists and physicians to deliver gentle, soothing vibrations that condition your body to recover and rebalance after stress, which was part of my journey this past year. It’s essentially like a wearable hug for the nervous system, using touch therapy to help you feel safe and in control, taking you from fight or flight to rest and digest, which we’ve talked a lot about on this podcast. There’s an app that lets you control through your Apple Watch or your phone and transition through day and night with different settings to help you relax or fall asleep or focus, recover, or stay calm and present. It is a safe, natural way to feel your best without drugs and side effects, and my kids love it too. As a listener of this podcast, you can save 15% on the Apollo wearable by visiting apolloneuro.com/wellnessmama. This podcast is brought to you by Wellnesse. And this is a company that I got to help co-found and formulate the products for and one that I care deeply about. Oral health has been a fun research topic for me for well over a decade. When I discovered I had some cavities and started learning about the process of remineralization and how our teeth have the ability to stay stronger and healthier, dependent on a lot of factors, including our nutrition, our oral microbiome, and the environment of our mouth. And this is why we use something called hydroxyapatite, which is a naturally occurring mineral that is used in the enamel of our teeth. And there’s some fascinating studies that show that this is really effective at helping keep teeth strong and healthy. And this is also why I chose not to use fluoride in my products. Hydroxyapatite has many of the same upsides without the potential downsides that come with fluoride and is certainly much safer for children as well. I really delved into the research around the oral microbiome. And I love that this is now an emerging area of conversation and research. But when our oral microbiome is strong, that helps us avoid both ends of the spectrum. One would be things like strep mutans, which is the bacteria linked to cavities, as well as the host of bacteria that are linked to things like gingivitis. Both of those can be combated by having a really healthy oral microbiome. So, we’ve recently released probiotic mints that have four probiotic strains that help enhance the oral microbiome and by choosing microbiome-safe ingredients, as well as hydroxyapatite for tooth enamel in the toothpaste. So, you can check out those as well as our full line of haircare products and other oral health products as well by going to wellnesse.com.
Katie:
Hello, happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of the year of the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m so grateful that you’re here. In this episode, I’m going to recap some of the top advice and tips and recurring themes shared last year in the podcast, talk about my personal and the things you will see on Wellness Mama as experiments and new things next year, and also do a little bit of a breakdown of trends and some other things that I’ve seen in the past year. I will say it’s been quite a year for me. And it sounds like from interactions with you guys in the comments or emails, it’s been quite a year for a lot of us. And for me personally, of this past year’s 525,600 minutes, I spent around 160,000 sleeping, about 15,000 listening to music or podcast, about 10,000 reading, about 9,300 minutes working out and a lot more time than that walking, about 18,000 minutes podcasting, about the same amount writing, and about 20,000 minutes cooking with my family. I’d be so curious to hear if you had an end-of-year review of your time spent this year, what would yours look like? What things did you spend the most time on this past year? Now, in the past, I’ve explained that I don’t really do resolutions or goals in the typical sense. And the reason for this is those tend to be black-and-white targets and can actually, I find, be for me discouraging if I don’t meet them. So, I do challenges and experiments instead. I’ve been mapping these out for the next year. Some of the ones that you will see outwardly facing on Wellness Mama are things like the introduction of podcasts, like this being the first, of shorter podcasts but more of them. I’ll be really excited for your feedback. But in listening to you guys, what we found, and I’ve, of course, seen this in my own life too, is that moms are incredibly busy and often have trouble listening to a one- or two-hour podcast episode. So, starting this week, we’re going to experiment with aiming for about 30-minute episodes, and with the idea of entirely tackling one question or topic and getting a complete answer in the podcast. And my hope is that this newer, shorter format will be more convenient for moms and line up with the time we might spend on a walk or on a commute driving kids around or whatever it may be. But I’m very curious to hear your feedback as we jump into this new shorter format. I would also, of course, always love to hear who you would love to hear from on this podcast, any topics that you would like us to cover. And as always, if you have a moment to subscribe to this podcast in whatever player you listen to it in and leave a rating and review, I read every single one of those. I’m very grateful for your feedback, and that helps other moms find this podcast as well. Now, another thing that’s not a new experiment, but that I am experimenting with in a new way starting today is my yearly water fast. And I’ve shared about this before. I’ve also written about this before, but I really love doing a water fast once a year. I used to do this for the physical health side. And now I find I learn much more on the mental and sort of emotional side of it, but it does have physical benefits as well. I always get a ton of questions anytime I talk about water fasting. And I want to preface by saying that I’m only sharing my experience and my research around this. This is definitely not medical advice. Definitely consult with a practitioner, especially if you have any health concerns that might make this more complicated for you. I’m always a huge fan of working with practitioners who have very specific expertise. And like I’m sure you’re probably tired of me saying by now, at the end of the day, we are each our own primary healthcare provider, and we are the ones responsible for making the choices that lead to…