Click here to listen to Episode 8 hosted by Dr. Elyssa & Dr. Katherine.
The holiday season can bring up a lot of emotions around self, family, events, food, and more. This week on the Trimester Bubble, we chatted with Jessica Van Antwerp for a better understanding of stress and learned some helpful, practical ways to tackle stress this season!
Why is Stress Management Important?
Stress levels are a key indicator of overall health (as well as nutrition and movement). It’s a contributing factor to all major diseases and changes your body’s processes when heightened.
Finding ways to manage the stress of everyday life and the added stressors of life events and holidays can support your longterm disease prevention, help you absorb vitamins and minerals better, and support your body’s innate healing process.
Stress Management Ideas
Stress management can include anything that helps you breathe and slow down. This might look like:
- Getting a massage
- Take three mindful breaths
- Meditating
- Practice qigong
- Go for a walk in nature
- Spend time in a steam room
- Paint
- Dance
- Sip tea (without your phone around)
- Put your bare feet in the grass, sand, or water
Self Care
While “self care” can feel like a buzzword, it can be pretty simple and very helpful. During the relentless pace of the holiday season, your stress management practices will make great self care practices.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to self care, but we’ve put together some ideas to get you started on your self care path:
- Take time for yourself, even if it’s a couple minutes a day
- Connect with yourself through meditation and/or movement
- Grounding (learn more in the podcast!)
- Eat nutritious meals
- Get a good nights sleep
In this episode you’ll hear about:
- The common stressors and feelings that come up around the holidays like keeping your center around family and managing travel anxiety
- Understanding “grounding” and how to do it!
- Qigong as moving meditation for health
- Pillars of health: nutrition, movement, relaxation
- How our fight or flight response impacts our physical bodies and how to deal with daily stress
- Qigong as a way to connect with your growing baby and yourself
- What is self care really?
- The importance of managing your stress and the detrimental effects of unmanaged stress
- Taking control of your own health
Resources in this Episode:
- Pain-Free Pregnancy registration
- Body & Balance website
- Jessica’s Website for wellness coaching
- Jessica’s Website for Retreats
- Intro to Chigong online course: Use discount code “alottalove” for $100 off!
Learn:
- Episode 6: Staying Healthy This Cold and Flu Season
- Episode 7: It Takes a Village – Functional Medicine
- Healthy Holiday Eating
- Stress Free Home for the Holidays
- A Good Nights Sleep
Connect:
- Boulder Locals: Join our free, in-person Pain-Free Pregnancy community each quarter. Register here!
- Body & Balance: New patients start here
- About Dr Elyssa and Dr Katherine
- Connect with Body & Balance on Instagram
- Connect with Body & Balance on Facebook
- Connect with Jessica on Instagram @integral.travel
- Connect with Jessica on Facebook: integral.travel and jessicalynbodywork
- Enjoying the podcast? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!
Disclaimer
This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of such advice or treatment from a personal physician. All readers/viewers/listeners of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Elyssa Wright nor Body and Balance Chiropractic. LLC nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading, listening or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.
Full Episode Transcript
Dr. Elyssa 00:00
Hey there, everyone. I am Dr. Elyssa Wright and welcome to the Trimester Bubble. I’m a chiropractor and dynamic body balancing facilitator at Body and Balance Chiropractic.
We support mamas mamas-to-be and babies by helping them live their best lives. Here in the podcast, our goal is to bring you our educational content for the pregnancy journey and beyond. So we have guest specialists who join us and we just want to support you during this time. We know that it can be confusing and lonely being a mom, being a parent, and all of us here at the Trimester Bubble want to support you on your journey that is motherhood and raising little ones. If you like what you hear, we love reviews. Feel free to comment. Share what you thought and anything you’d like us to bring to you. So today we have a special guest, Jessica van Antwerp. Be sure to stick around to the end – she gives away a phenomenal gift for all of our listeners, so stay tuned to hear all about that.
Dr. Elyssa 01:06
Jessica van Antwerp has been in the health and wellness industry for over 14 years as a massage therapist, a wellness coach and a retreat leader. She loves the puzzle that is the human body and the mind body spirit trail by helping people get to the root cause of their issues. Her approach to coaching centers around giving the body the resources it needs to heal itself, be it through lifestyle movement, dietary adjustments, or through small, sustainable changes.
And her approach to body work is all about working with the nervous system to unleash the body’s natural capacity to heal itself. Let’s get chatting with Jessica!
Dr. Elyssa 01:57
So welcome, everybody, to the trimester bubble. I am Dr. Alissa, and I’m here today with Dr. Catherine and our special guest, Jessica van Antwerp. Hi, Jessica!
Jessica Van Antwerp 01:59
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Elyssa
Yes. So we’re really excited. I mean, this time of year brings up some unique feelings for people.
Dr. Elyssa 02:19
Some of those top feelings tend to be stress, overwhelm, anxiety, along with the joy in the happiness and the excitement of the holiday season. And Jessica is a Qigong instructor and massage therapists and all types of wellness things. And we wanted to have her on to kind of talk about how to manage all of these feelings that happen around this holiday season.
Dr. Elyssa 02:42
So I know that Jessica is a massage therapist and we were chatting right before we turned on the record about things that are coming up in our practices right now. What are some things that your clients have been sharing with you around this time of year?
Jessica Van Antwerp
Yeah, there are definitely feelings of anxiety around a lot of times. You know, during the holidays we get together with family and maybe we don’t see those members of our family very often.
Jessica Van Antwerp 03:07
I know for me it’s the only time of year I see my family members and so sometimes there’s some anxiety around this old patterns and old relationships, maybe from your childhood and the way that people treated you when you were growing up. And maybe that was never really resolved as an adult or if like, for example, in my life I’ve done a lot of personal work and self-development, but the members of my family have not necessarily done that.
Jessica Van Antwerp 03:39
So that can bring up a lot of anxiety around, even for me, like holding my center, keeping my center and behaving in a way that is in alignment with who I know I am instead of sitting back into old habits and patterns around. Maybe this is the way that I acted when I was a child because, you know, all of this stuff is coming up.
Jessica Van Antwerp 04:03
So there’s that piece also potentially fear of travel. Planes, trains, automobiles. There’s going to be a lot of people moving across the country in various directions over the holiday season. And I know, for example, my husband has a a fear of flying that he’s definitely working on and has made progress on. But particularly when it comes to small planes, it can be really intense.
Jessica Van Antwerp 04:31
He was in a he was in a flight from Miami to New York City where he was in a hurricane. And so that kind of traumatized service. So anyway, that’s where some of that anxiety comes up. And then, of course, just the endless list of to do’s. You know, I’m hosting this Thanksgiving dinner for 13 people and I have to go to the store and I have to prep all these different dishes.
Jessica Van Antwerp 04:52
Part I manage my time to make that happen without feeling really stressed. And then and then even, you know, after the Thanksgiving holiday, then you start to do the ramp up to Christmas. And I have to I’m going to decorate my house and then I’m going to make all these cookies and I’m going to buy all these presents and I have to wrap the presents and then also host a Christmas feast for X number of people with all the food and all the trimmings.
Jessica Van Antwerp 05:12
And so it’s just a lot at a seeming relentless pace. So it’s understandable if there’s stress, anxiety, feelings of ungrounded ness, and also feelings of, you know, kind of a chaotic mind like I don’t even know where to begin because there’s so much to do. So those are some of the things.
Dr. Katherine
Absolutely. I, I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying.
And for me it’s the financials of traveling to see family and the financials and gifts and can definitely put a lot of stress on myself being like, this has to be perfect. So you definitely mentioned with yourself just grounding yourself. Do you have any other recommendations for your clients or anyone out there to just kind of decrease the stress of the season?
Jessica Van Antwerp 06:07
Yeah, absolutely. So many ways to decrease the stress. I’m a massage therapist, so the first thing that I’ll say is go get a massage or do something else. That takes some time for yourself, whether it be to meditate, to do qigong, which we can dive into more here in a second. I’m sure a lot of people don’t know what qigong is.
Jessica Van Antwerp 06:33
Find a steam room, maybe at your gym, at a local spa, what it takes to walk in nature. All of these things help kind of bring us back down into the present moment. Noticing, you know, the trees outside the window or even just taking three deep breaths very mindfully, noticing the breath as it goes into your body, potentially the temperature of the air, the texture of your breath, these kinds of subtle details will bring you into the present moment and help calm your mind to help you be more efficient with your time and maybe even get clarity around priorities and what comes first.
Dr. Elyssa 07:16
So and just for inclusion sake, we’ve been saying the word grounding a lot. What does that mean?
Jessica Van Antwerp
Yeah, good question. Because I do know that that, you know, there are a lot of words that are sort of thrown around in the whole health and wellness field. But, you know, from a scientific perspective, grounding is actually connecting with the earth.
Jessica Van Antwerp 07:40
Like there is this concept of grounding within electrical work, right? You have the three pronged we have a three pronged here in the US electrical outlet and not all devices is use that third prong, but that third prong is a ground. And there is literally outside of the building, the home, whatever thing that is wired to this electrical current, there is literally a rod that goes down into the ground.
Jessica Van Antwerp 08:04
And what that is meant to do is disperse any electrical activity, any excess electrical activity that comes through the system. So like a lightning strike, for example, ideally that lightning strike would get dispersed through that grounding rod. So if we take that concept and then apply it to the human body, we can understand that. It’s also the concept of us connecting to the ground.
Jessica Van Antwerp 08:29
And there is a whole practice. There’s a book called Grounding or Earthing, I think it’s called Earthing, but it’s the practice of taking off your shoes and your socks and going outside barefoot and putting your feet on the ground. And what that does is actually helps remove some of the electrical charge from the body, whether it’s negative ions or positive ions.
Jessica Van Antwerp 00:08:53:19
I can’t I can never remember. And I think it’s counterintuitive. It seems like positive would be good. Do you now?
Dr. Elyssa
I want to say positive is the bad ones, right? The bad ones, yeah.
Jessica Van Antwerp
Yeah, yeah. So our body accumulates positive ions. Let’s go with the positive or the bad. Even though, again, that’s counterintuitive, our body accumulates positive ions through exposure to electronic devices like a laptop, like your cell phone, a tablet, you know, any kinds of all these, like, waves flying through the air around us so we can even see microwaves and radio waves and Bluetooth and, you know, all of these wi fi.
Jessica Van Antwerp 09:34
So your body is accumulating these positive ions and that can lead to inflammation in the body. It can help fuel disease processes in the body. So getting rid of these positive ions actually helps the overall health of the system. And we do that through grounding, through going outside with bare feet and sticking your feet on the dirt and feel it.
Jessica Van Antwerp 09:55
And even with that practice, you can feel the whole system, the whole nervous system start to Downregulate you feel like you can breathe more deeply, you feel, again, kind of a decrease in the activity in the mind, a decrease in anxiety, more calmness, more centeredness, more presence. Now in the winter, like in Colorado, where we are maybe not a really appealing practice is to go outside and stick your feet on the earth, especially if there’s snow on the ground.
Jessica Van Antwerp 10:23
There are grounding tools that you can purchase, whether it be I have a grounding mat underneath my desk to help kind of pull these positive ions out of my body while I’m sitting here in front of the computer. i like input of positive ions, but then it’s going down through this grounding right into the earth. There are also grounding sheets that you can sleep on that are said to really increase the quality and depth of your sleep, all sorts of grounding devices.
Jessica Van Antwerp 10:52
So, you know, just Google it and you can find ways to help you ground through technology.
Dr. Elyssa
Yeah. I always think of it like, you know, my little we’re learning about positives and negatives and we have the magnets and we’re putting them together. When it’s a positive and positive, they don’t. And then you flip it around and then they stick the positive to negative.
Jessica Van Antwerp 11:13
Whenever I’m doing grounding earthing practices, that’s what I like. Imagine as the Earth is as big magnet sucking out everything that’s not serving us and our health anymore. So I always like that visual. It helps me get out of my head and just really imagine what’s happening in the rest of my body. Yeah, and you can almost visualize like the drain, kind of like everything being pulled down and out.
Dr. Elyssa 11:35
Yeah. So that’s my I like having a lot of visualizations that keeps me focused on what I’m doing. Otherwise I’m off on my next event scale to make you
So you mentioned the word qigong, which is I am excited to hear about because I know very, very little about it.
Jessica Van Antwerp 12:01
But yeah, let me give you my spiel. So yeah, most people are familiar with qigong without really knowing that they’re familiar with qigong. So Taichi is the most famous, if you will, type of qigong. And a lot of people don’t even know that it is a type of qigong. But just like yoga, where you have all the different kinds of yoga, hatha, vinyasa, restorative, gentle, you know, all of these different kind of subsections of the yoga disciplines.
Jessica Van Antwerp 12:32
The same is true for qigong. And qigong is I would I would compare it to yoga also in in so far as it’s the the meditative and movement practice of East Asia. So the Chinese, it’s within the Chinese medical milieu as opposed to yoga being in the Vedic discipline. And so those to Ayurveda and, and Chinese medicine are like the twin pillars, the oldest medical models in the world.
Jessica Van Antwerp 12:59
And so both of them have this concept of movement for pulse meditation, for health. And so qigong is the discipline within the Chinese medical model that is feeds or fulfills this, what would you call it like not requirement, but Prince principle and qigong is basically moving meditation. So if you look at the the translation of the two words chea and Gong Xi means life force or energy, and gong can be translated as cultivation or exchange.
Jessica Van Antwerp 13:37
So when you put those two together, you’re cultivating life force or exchanging energy with the universe around you. And the underlying philosophy behind this practice is that the human body and all living beings for that matter, are self-regulating organisms. That is, they have the capacity to heal themselves with the proper inputs. So if we are calling in fresh energy from the universe, then we’re giving our bodies this resource to run all of those processes that are needed to heal, whether it’s, you know, healing the cut on your finger that you sustained making Thanksgiving dinner or whether it’s healing kind of more long term patterns that are happening, whether it be in digestion or immunity or these things that kind of lead to these chronic diseases. So giving your body resources through a number of different outlets, diet and exercise are two of the most prevalent, of course, that are talked about in the health and wellness realm. But relaxation, dealing with stress is one that I think is up and coming. In terms of the conversation, we’re hearing a lot more about sleep and the quality of sleep and the importance of good quality sleep and that’s also really good.
Jessica Van Antwerp 15:00
But if you go from really deep sleep to this hyperactive state of fight or flight, you’re nervous. System is just on hyper vigilance. Then it changes the function of the systems of your body. And I’m kind of digressing here from from the topic of qigong, but I’ll get back to it. I’ll move it back. So when we’re when we’re locked in the state of fight or flight, again, the processes of the body actually change.
Jessica Van Antwerp 15:27
And this comes from kind of our our ancestors who lived on the prairie. So we go back to paleo times before electricity, before the Internet, even before cities and our tribal ancestors, their threats were like saber tooth tigers and other big creatures of prey, right? So if you imagine you’re sitting on the fire with your tribe, you just relaxing and having a good time and then all of a sudden you hear something that sounds unnatural, right?
Jessica Van Antwerp 16:00
Like it was created by some creature and you don’t know what it is. And so all of a sudden, your nervous system ramps up and your vision changes so that you can see far away. You can see an approaching predator on the horizon. So no longer can our eyes focus close up the blood and our bodies goes from the core out to the limbs so you can run away from, you know, whatever approaching threat.
Jessica Van Antwerp 16:23
The systems of the body are no longer focused on healing that cut on healing anything because you might not survive the next 10 minutes. So all of the systems of the body are focused on just survival and when you through practices such as qigong or grounding or meditation, can downregulate your nervous system and bring it into the parasympathetic nervous system activation or what we call rest and digest, then your blood can return to the core focus on digesting the vitamins and minerals from the food that you ate to again fuel these processes of your body.
Jessica Van Antwerp 17:01
Your vision changes. Everything in your body softens your body can go back to these long term healing processes. So the nervous system, I think is going to be the next kind of frontier in modern medicine that we explore in terms of learning how to deal with stress, not only on a day to day basis, but the over the long term.
Jessica Van Antwerp 17:27
And that’s the beauty of these practices, like qigong and meditation, is they have a cumulative effect. So that’s why that’s why they’re all called practices because, I mean, there’s no game. I mean, I guess the game is life, right? How are you going with these practices into play? It’s like how well am I doing in my practice so that the effects of this practice are then emanating out into my day to day life and emanating out to touch everyone around me and to influence me in those times of heightened stress.
Jessica Van Antwerp 18:00
So in those times of anxiety around all the things that I have to do with the holidays, the times of anxiety around, you know, seeing these family members that I may have some unresolved, you know, wounds from how well can I access this pool of energy, this pool of calmness and groundedness to to make my relationships better. Because I have become calmer.
Jessica Van Antwerp 18:29
I’ve learned to let things go. I’ve learned to just love them because I think feel like that was a big digression from chew gum. But but that’s the that’s the effect. That’s the why. Right? And the what and the how you get there, I feel like is less important than than the why do this And when you can improve the relationships of your life and you improve your whole perception of all of the things that are happening to you, I feel like that’s the magic.
Dr. Elyssa 18:59
It’s really the, you know, it’s really unbelievable. Yeah, that’s what it comes down to. I mean, you’re talking to two chiropractors. We live with some nervous system talk. Yeah, Yeah, right.
Dr. Katherine
Yeah. I would say, I don’t know, maybe 90% plus of all of our patients talk about having some kind of anxiety or trouble sleeping and just, like, trouble settling down after work school.
So, yeah, having tools like Qigong to implement in their life just to get centered and work on their core and their relationships and can have great effects on their entire life.
Jessica Van Antwerp
Yeah, and I’d say most importantly to one thing that I’ve been focusing on recently in my practice is my relationship to myself. You know, because Qigong is about connecting with the universe and calling in this energy that I mean, this energy moves the planets in their orbits.
Jessica Van Antwerp 19:59
And if this energy can move a planet in space, then what effect can I have on my body? But and I feel like so the relationship to self sort of gets lost in that broader, expansive relationship that we’re cultivating in the practice. But to also be cultivating a relationship to the infinite part of one’s self, the part of one’s self that exists beyond this body, the part of the self that doesn’t change as the body ages.
Jessica Van Antwerp 20:30
And we look into the mirror and we all of a sudden see saggy eyelids and goes around our eyes like, you know, maybe our chin is sagging and we’re just we just get older. But the spirit feels the same age. And so that’s why sometimes you look in the mirror and you’re sort of like, Wait, what’s happening? That’s the part of yourself, the ageless part of yourself that is so important to connect with your own essence.
Jessica Van Antwerp 20:55
The the essence that cannot be touched by external influences, right? The essence that can’t be hurt by anyone. This is like the prenatal essence. And so this is, you know, kind of a perfect segue way back into I know your specialty of working with pregnant women and babies and, you know, the soul that is coming into life through the womb that is growing inside this woman’s body.
Jessica Van Antwerp 21:24
This is the part of ourselves, though, that is essential to maintain contact with, again, for the improvement of our relationships to others. And our ability to handle stress during these times is knowing that there are some part of us that is untouchable. You know, and I think that’s a great way of putting it.
Dr. Elyssa
I always we always hear, you know, this time of year and this falls into that part of the self-care, the self-care, the self-care.
And so much of self-care is doing right, go do this, go do that versus connecting. So it’s a really nice reminder that part of self-care is connecting. To yourself.
Jessica Van Antwerp
Yeah. And I have and I’m guilty of this also, and I have so many students who have told me, like, I just can’t sit down and do nothing. I can’t sit down and meditate, I can’t do this, I can’t do this.
Jessica Van Antwerp 22:22
And so I would say that it does help to have a guide, have a teacher do a guided meditation. So instead of just sitting there and kind of stewing in your own thoughts, like trying to meditate and then your mind is going like, this isn’t working. I’m not in my meditating, I’m not meditating. I’m thinking like, I’m not going well.
Dr. Elyssa 22:40
And then you get an old like advertisement come in like the downy episode from the nineties pops in your head and you’re like, What is happening?
Jessica Van Antwerp
Yeah, but if you get if you can sit through that and, and deal with it, then more power to you because that will start to settle and kind of like ripples in a pond.
Jessica Van Antwerp 23:00
Those thoughts and feelings will start to emanate farther and farther away from you and help you come back to a place of peace and quiet. Finding quiet in your your head, in your mind. But again, if that is too difficult and I understand I mean, I’m a seasoned practitioner and sometimes some days I just I just can’t I can’t get there.
Jessica Van Antwerp 23:21
I can’t get there, but I do the practice and I set aside the time anyway. And not every day is going to be, you know, the most amazing transcendental experience I’ve ever had. But again, that’s why it’s called a practice. So having a guide, having a teacher, someone to help you get there, is very beneficial. And also if you do need to have someone I mean, even the “doing” could be like going to get a massage.
Jessica Van Antwerp 23:46
I’m doing something. But then while you’re there, you are forced to kind of lay there and do nothing and receive. And that, I think, is a lot of what people are lacking in their lives too, is like is receiving. And even opening them. Just because you go away on a massage table doesn’t mean that you’re open to receive either.
Jessica Van Antwerp 24:05
Let’s make that distinction clear too, right? You could still be racing in your mind, thinking about all the things that you have to do while someone is like, you know, rubbing your body. So using that time to meditate, to consciously slow down will increase the effect of the body work that’s being done. So, you know, I say there’s no right way to do self-care. There’s no prescription that’s going to work for everyone. So you have to find, you know, is exploration. You have to find what works for you.
Dr. Elyssa 24:39
Yeah, absolutely.
Like looking at our notes of all the things we talked about as like where we go now, I have so many questions.
Jessica Van Antwerp
Well, it’s also interrelated, but it’s not sequential, you know what I mean?
Jessica Van Antwerp 24:53
It’s hard. It’s definitely the the web that has many different avenues. Yep.
Dr. Elyssa
Yeah, I you know, everything rolls back to stress. That’s why we wanted to have you on, was to look at stress through a different lens. So we have qigong, we have meditation, we have grounding, and those are just little snippets of things that we can do to help manage stress.
And you know, what are your takes on why managing stress is even important?
Jessica Van Antwerp
I mean, again, it goes back to the health piece, the overall health of the body, which I talked about a little bit before, that the processes in your body change when you’re in a state of heightened stress and it has a detrimental effect on your health.
Jessica Van Antwerp 25:47
I mean, stress is on the list of contributing factors to all major diseases in the world. And as a little personal anecdote, my step mom, who is a nurse practitioner so steeped in Western medicine, has just finished her last round of chemo last month for a recurrence of cancer. So this is the second time she’s had cancer. And we are all convinced she even and my dad also, who has been, I think, the last one on board with my sort of like health and wellness alternative lifestyle thing.
Jessica Van Antwerp 26:23
We are all convinced 100% that the stress of her job and the stress in her life is what gave her cancer. And had the circumstances been different, had she had different stress coping mechanisms in place, she would not have gotten cancer either time. So and that’s not the only I mean, I’ve heard stories from other Western medical practitioners who have the same viewpoint in terms of stress being a contributing factor.
Jessica Van Antwerp 26:51
One of my clients told me last week her friend, who was a nurse, had breast cancer and attributed that to stress and so we’re starting to hear more and more about the detrimental effects of stress and being locked in this fight or flight. Nervous system activation where in the modern world the threat is a sabertooth tiger hunting you from the horizon, but rather your boss sort of breathing down your neck for a deadline at work or the time crunch of like getting to work on time.
Jessica Van Antwerp 27:24
Like I’m running late, You know, I have a million things to do, our kids to get ready and kids to get to school lunches to make, and then not to mention my own stuff, you know. So if you want to be healthy, if you want to prevent long term disease, then this is the the best thing that you can do for yourself.
Jessica Van Antwerp 27:44
I don’t care if you are taking every supplement in the world and vegan and eating, you know, a really clean diet. If you’re in a state of stress and heightened nervous system activation, you are not absorbing the vitamins and minerals from all the supplements you’re taking in your food. Your body is not healing itself from the inside out.
Jessica Van Antwerp 28:05
So it doesn’t matter how many supplements you take if your stressed out, the best thing that you can do to then increase the effect of the supplements and the diet and the movement, the best thing that you can do for your own health is manage your stress. Find some way to do it. Whether it’s something that we’ve talked about here on the show today, whether it’s something else entirely, whether you like to paint or dance or, you know, have a hot cup of tea in front of a fire, whatever it may be, whatever helps you be able to take a deep breath and say and a large sigh of relief.
Jessica Van Antwerp 28:48
I’m like, wow, here I am. That’s the best thing that you can do for your health.
Dr. Katherine 28:55
Yep, yep. I love that. Everything you just said and thank you.
Dr. Elyssa 29:02
So at the end of every interview, we like to ask everyone a question. And Dr. Katherine, I want to take the last question away.
Dr. Katherine
Of course. So, Jessica, what would you say the seat of health that you want to implant with our listeners is?
Jessica Van Antwerp 29:20
I would just like to say to everyone that’s listening that you are more powerful than you know, Don’t farm out your health and your health care to other people and have them tell you what’s best for you. There are so many tools and resources that are available and with that, you know, the prevalence of the Internet and Tik-tok and YouTube and there’s so much information out there that will help you increase the health of your body, of your mind, of your spirit.
Jessica Van Antwerp 29:54
And you have more control than you know, more influence than you know. So I would just like to encourage each and every one of you to explore that and take your health back into your own hands.
Dr. Elyssa 30:09
Yes, I love that. That’s something that we preach to of you know, we are doctors. We only we know what we know.
But at the end of the day, you know your body, right? Find those things that that, you know, in your heart of hearts are going to help you.
Jessica Van Antwerp
Right. And, you know, I’m a massage therapist and so I am part of people’s health care regimen. But there’s only so much that I can do in my one hour or 90 minutes with people.
Jessica Van Antwerp 30:39
And then they go out into their lives and they have all the other hours of all the other days of all the other weeks and potentially months before they come back. And so all of that stuff has way more influence than I do in my short amount of time that I spend with a person. Yeah,
Dr. Elyssa
Yeah. So if our listeners will learn more about qigong.
Jessica Van Antwerp 31:01
Yeah, good question. I have actually an intro to Qigong Online course. It’s a self-guided five part series that’s available on my. I also run wellness retreats and so it’s available on my wellness retreat website. Integral Travel dot com. There you’ll see an education tab and under education you’ll see a Qigong section.
Jessica Van Antwerp 31:25
You can find the intro to online course and as a special for your listeners, a holiday gift to your listeners, I’d like to offer a $100 off coupon code from the normal price of 149 so you can get it. It’s essentially 66% off and the coupon code is a lot of love, A-L-O-T-T-A-L-O-V-E, and maybe also you can put it in the podcast notes so people can make it easy.
Dr. Elyssa 31:53
Yeah, it’ll be it’ll be in the podcast notes and 100%. That is such a generous offer to share with all of our listeners to help the season just get a little lighter for everybody.
Jessica Van Antwerp
It’s a pleasure. And you know, the course is designed to fit into a busy lifestyle that the classes are no more than 30 minutes. In fact, as we go through the five courses, they start at 30 minutes and then kind of get shorter and they’re split between theory and practice, because I do think that an understanding, a theoretical and intellectual understanding of the practices that we’re doing helps deepen their effect and helps make the the effects of those movements and practices
Jessica Van Antwerp 32:33
That I’ll teach you more profound. And then the practices themselves can be done in as little as 5 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day. Once you learn them and kind of understand what you’re doing, then it’s a really simple I mean, you could do it in the in the line at the grocery store if you if you don’t mind looking like a weirdo, you know.
Jessica Van Antwerp 32:56
But yeah, I mean, I like to do some of those movements while I’m waiting for the water to boil for my tea in the morning. Just use that first 5 minutes of the day to kind of wake things up and move some energy. So that’s great. And I also I do have a wellness coaching practice and if anyone wants to learn about that, that’s on my other website, Integral Wellness Dot Center.
Dr. Elyssa 33:20
We’ll have both of those websites and all of Jessica’s information in the show notes. So thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us.
Jessica Van Antwerp
It’s a pleasure. I could talk about this stuff all day long, but as you can see, I just, like, waxed philosophical. Yes.
Dr. Katherine 33:39
Thank you again. That was a joy.
Jessica Van Antwerp
Pleasure. Thank you so much.
Dr. Elyssa
All right. Until next time. All right.
Jessica Van Antwerp
And happy holidays, everyone.
Dr. Elyssa 33:55
Thank you so much for joining us on the trimester bubble. We so appreciate your support. If you know another mama or mama to be who could use the information in this episode, please share this link with them. And remember, thank you so much to Jessica again for sharing the discount code for her intro to check on online course.
Dr. Elyssa 34:16
You can find that at her website and then go travel dot com and then click on the guide button and down to education and qigong. Remember to use the coupon code. A lot of love for $100 off her course. We also love hearing from you and please send us a message letting us know if you have any thoughts or questions.
Dr. Elyssa 34:39
I’m Dr. Elyssa with the Trimester Bubble and we’ll see you soon!
