Preeti: [00:00:00] Learn to unwind your day. Which means unwind from home to work. Even if you work from home, make it a separate space where you're actually, you know, acknowledging my work is done. Because what happens with most of the people working nowadays, whether you have your own business, you work for someone, the work is never done.
There's always emails, there's always calls, but acknowledging if it's four o'clock, five o'clock, whatever that looks for you. And that's when you take few breath. So I start my day, I start with that intention. That's a good place to start with mindfulness. I take some deep breath. Five is just enough. The longer breath you make is the deeper you are digging in.
Not just physiologically, but spiritually, like you are really getting deep in maybe you are asking for an answer. And sometimes we try to find people, but we know the answer and those are the times which you get the answers, right. Like I said, it creates a space.
Intro: I am [00:01:00] Christina Koki, your post of the Effortless Closing Podcast. Born and raised in Silicon Valley. Now bringing the wisdom, wit, and well-oiled business strategies from my new hometown just outside of Nashville, where the pace is slower, but the revenue still runs high. With over two decades building businesses, some wildly successful others can gloriously messy.
Every step has been fueled by a love of real strategy and real results. This isn't about side gigs, and it's definitely not about hustle culture. This is about optimization and building revenue, generating machines designed to make your life and your business feel effortless. After $92 million in sales of the last eight years while raising four little ones and building it all as a.
Wholepreneur. I've created systems that scale and a business that supports my life, not steals from it. From summers in Europe to road trips across the United States, being present with my family is the greatest win. And [00:02:00] everything I've learned to make that possible is now inside the effortless closing method.
The framework behind this podcast, and here's the best part, you can build the same kind of business, the kind that funds your lifestyle, honors your values, and. Feels like you. This show is for the woman who's already doing well, but is ready to simplify the work, amplify her income, and finally build a business that flows with her life.
Every episode brings sharp strategy, honest insights, and real world tools to help you grow your business and enjoy your life in the process. We don't just grow your business, we optimize it to feel effortless. This is the Effortless Closing podcast.
Christina: Hey Prethe, welcome. I'm so glad to have you here everybody. We have Prethe J on today and she's gonna talk about mindfulness and breath work and how important it's for the nervous system. So welcome. How are you today? I'm good, and thank you for having me
Preeti: here.
Christina: Yes, I'm super excited.
This topic I love because. It's not [00:03:00] just about you know, having success in the work we do. There's so many things underlining our success and our energy and everything else that we take throughout our day. And I feel like this mindfulness is this breath work like I do a lot for calming my nervous system, right?
So it's like getting these little tricks and tips that actually make a difference can help individuals, especially my listeners. Drive greater success in their business when everything else is calm and feeling right. So tell us a little bit about what you do.
Preeti: So, I am a, you know, women's midlife age group, injury prevention strength coach, and I, you cannot do anything, be business or health or any part of your life without actually taking care of yourself.
So I'm also a yoga instructor and mindfulness and breath work instructor, and I like to. Combine all of those facets in our life [00:04:00] and in my program because if I'm very centered, it helps me think better. It helped me take the decisions better. And that only drives me to success, whichever part of my life I'm looking for.
For, so yeah, I kind of connect the dots by, you know, self-realization, like what I really need, what my goals are, and how you can, you know, put together, be it health or wealth. Right? It's basically the same thing. So yeah, I teach women who are afraid of injuries or they have chronic pain. I try to help them begin strength training.
My program is eight weeks. We work you know, live virtually every week custom workouts are given, but then we have a little pod where we just love having little support system. And so, you know, it's kind of like learning from each other, getting motivated with each other. And I use that, uh, program to kind of [00:05:00] like get started.
Or overcome the fears that women already have, which, you know, they might be ready, but either they don't have time, they don't have motivation, and they have fear. And how just having a support system and an expert with them can actually take, uh, them forward. Because one thing is not gonna change. We are not gonna get old, we are not gonna get strong if we don't take care of ourselves.
So kind of like that's the whole gist of how my program is built.
Christina: I love it. I love it. And it's so important. And it's like we were just talking a little bit before, but it's like, you know, I see people who are in their sixties and their seventies, and honestly, I'm like, don't fall at the supermarket. Like they're, they're shuffling around.
They look very frail. And if you were building an empire and you're building a legacy and you're building something you're working so hard at, and of course all my listeners know that I'm all about enjoying life while we build it, but as we go. You don't wanna hit the seven or the $10 million mark.
Let's say [00:06:00] like I'm older, so let's say I get there and I'm already in my fifties. I don't wanna have inflammation and joint pain, and I don't wanna be struggling to just get up and walk around and enjoy life. I wanna be like, Hey, I'm making seven to $10 million a year. I wanna go travel and enjoy life. So what you're doing is like the fundamentals, it helps us now, but it helps us long term.
So let's, let's start with the breath work, because I really like breath work. I remember I was talking to my husband and I love my husband, but he was just like, oh, it doesn't really work, but you could do it. And I found that I'm always in a low grade, uh, fight or flight mode. And so what I found is that people are in a low grade fight or flight mode.
We breathe quicker, it's a quicker breath. Mm-hmm. And we, yep. And then we tend to take one big breath and then kind of to catch up. And I've seen a cardiologist about it. 'cause I was like, I get heart palpitations and some other stuff sometimes. And he was like, oh, you're just a, a faster breather and it's all normal [00:07:00] and it's fine.
But when I dug into it, I was like, oh, this is like I'm stuck in a low grade chronic stress mode. I gotta train my breath to do something different so we can actually fix stuff with it. So let's talk more about that. Tell me more about it. Yeah, yeah. And it's
Preeti: funny you say the fly or fry, right? There's another one called Freeze, and I always live in.
Freeze mode, which is very shocking because, you know, I've been working on myself doing meditation, breath work for 12 years now. Wow. And I thought it was my response, like a positive response, but it was actually my coping mechanism. Which I recognized where, you know, and a lot of your listeners can probably relate to, like, I am a manager as a physical therapist in a big clinic along with what I do, right?
So when you are a manager, there's not always, you can respond the way you want to. And so my response would be. A freeze response. So like, it's not [00:08:00] just, I'm listening, I'm literally shut down. Like I have no idea what to say and uh, another coworker would say something and I will go with it even if I don't want to.
So it's funny, like you said, the words like the low and I'm like, yeah, I am actually, I don't respond. I don't do anything. It's like earthquake and I'm not doing moving, which is weird.
Christina: And it's hard because, okay, so let's talk about that real quick right before we go into like more of the breath work, because if you are in that mode.
You are trying to build an empire and it's really easy for someone to steamroll you, a coach, anybody, to be like, oh, you gotta do it this way. And you're kinda like, oh, okay. Like you don't really know and you go down that path. And that can hurt you as you're growing things. Like I know that, you know, mine is the fight or flight and I'm really kind of aggressive, but there are times when I'm super overwhelmed I get that freeze response.
'cause I'm just like. I can't make a decision. Like I literally can't process it. I can't do it. I, I don't wanna make the wrong decision. I have [00:09:00] fear around it, and then I just like, don't do anything. And then my husband's like, can you just make a choice? Like, I'm so snappy. Like, I'll, I'll do things and I know instantly I'm doing it.
And he's like, you can't make a choice on this. It's not that complicated. So let's talk about how the breath work works. Yeah. And what it does.
Preeti: And I, I, I'll just like piggyback on what we were talking, so there's, if people don't know this, there's something called this window of tolerance. And window of tolerance is what you strive for.
That's kind of where you wanna be. That's like the best most modest coming from your heart. Like right? You wanna lead with your heart, you wanna talk through your heart because that's how you attract the right people in life. That's how you attract the right business. That's how you grow. And that's what we all strive for.
But the one above and below is hyper arousal. State and hypo arousal trait. Right. Okay. So you just said something that reminded me, because some of us are like right up there, right? Like da, like this fast paced or like fast [00:10:00] reactive stuff. You know, people don't wait. They don't let other people talk and they'll just answer.
It's kind of like your defense mechanism. And the other one is what we were just talking about. Like people go in that freeze mode, they just shut down, you know, they'll come in like. Three days after with like what they actually felt. And if they're really introvert on top of all of that, they might might not even come up.
We would never know how they feel. And that's why it's even more important to identify where you are. Like what's your window of tolerances at this point? And if you have employees. How is their level of tolerances? Right? Because, and you know, if you are married, if you have a partner, that is also important.
So it kind of plays in every aspect of our life. It's such an important thing to learn. But now tying it to breath work, right? So breath work is how you achieve that steady window of tolerance. Like, yes, somebody, you know, I, I always use two things. One is a road rage, right? How. [00:11:00] I love it. You just, you just said you were in California.
I'm in New Jersey going towards New York, like we're on these like opposite coasts where road rage is just like mind blowing, right? Yeah. And I remember when I first moved, and I actually moved from, I used to live in California and I moved to Midwest and I saw my first, if anybody is from Michigan, they could probably identify the finger flicking.
And I was like, oh my God, what is that? So that tells you, because. You don't know the driver? No, nothing really happened. I mean, unless like you had somebody with a heart attack or a pregnant lady, other than those two situation, yeah, you can handle it. You don't have to show the other driver how I really feel in this moment by, you know, honking, pulling a window down and that kind of just tells you who you are.
And do you need work? I'm not saying to shame anybody, I'm saying this to self-identify your triggers. [00:12:00] Right, and even in that moment, if you find yourself again and again and again every day, right, you reacted. The way you deal. It is just a nice deep breath. Right. So you just mentioned that you're like, I'm on the low shallow cycle and then I take a deep breath because you, your body needs to function that whole, the lung, lung, knee, air.
Right. So you go in what we call physiological sigh. Like you go like. Right. Your body just gained all that, all that bad toxic carbon dioxide came out, and that's, if you can practice that on the hour, just five D breath. You can start and strive to achieve that window of tolerance. Yeah, and I will say this, and this is for every listener, every human being, if you could do that before every meeting, every phone call, every interview, your performance is gonna [00:13:00] shoot by at least 20%.
Oh, I love that. Because you just shifted where you were to where you're going, not just, and I, I like to tie in with spiritually a little bit because again, it goes by, I wanna lead through hard, but if I bring something because somebody did not drive the way, I think driving is correct, I can bring that home to my family, to my kids, or to my work, to my interviews, to my, you know, calls.
And I think just doing that, our body starts to self-regulate. Self-regulate. Self-regulate, and it's kind of like you're just reminding, right? People who are very spiritually inclined, they will say, find an intentive word. Yeah. Like what's your intention? Set an intention for the day. And you could say, if road rage, again, going back to the same example, you could say Peace.
If I see myself losing my mind, my, maybe I just need peace, but if I see myself really having a hard time talking [00:14:00] over, like, you know, my own employees, like trying to manage them, I may see stay strong. I wanna be a strong person because I don't want my employees below me. Boss me out. Right? And sometimes we can't talk it out, but sometimes it's hurting us somewhere inside our body.
And that also is driving us in that hypo arousal mode if you are not a hypo. So just kind of like putting that in context of where we need to be is we need to kind of like take a step back and decide who I am, how I process, how I should process. And then it's almost like teasing that answers, you know, through our own, our own, uh, actions.
Christina: Yeah, I love that. And let's talk a little bit about if you're comfortable with it, about the nervous system. Right. So like, I've been working on trying to get out of the fight or flight mode on the breath. So I'm trying really hard with these breathing techniques to like get more, what I find is I feel like I'm having a panic attack [00:15:00] because.
It's like a deep breath in, you know, and then I'm holding it and I'm trying to let my abdominals expand versus my chest. Like there's a lot of stuff I'm doing, but what happens is I'm so used to that fast breath that my heart almost sputters, like it's waiting for, for more breath. It's like used to it.
So let's talk a little bit about the nervous system and how breath work can really calm it and what it really does with it. So, you know, there's two systems that our body kind of like relies on. Right. So it's, you know, just to get a little geeky about, it's like the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, everybody talks about it.
Preeti: Yes. When you strive for parasympathetic, which is your rest and digest, like that's when you know, you find that window of tolerance that we were talking about where we can kind of like bring things to peaks where it's how your heart. Rhythm should be how your speech should be like, some people are just like this high talker or whatever, but going back to you saying, you know, you are striving to get that abdominal breathing.
Mm-hmm. Right. [00:16:00] For someone that's, uh, it's hard to get back to that rhythm of. Kind of like Vegas nerve, nerve reset, right? A lot of these words, like people just hear these stern, I love it. We,
Christina: and we gotta explain 'em too, because I feel like they're so critical like I said, you're building an empire.
We need longevity. We need to have a healthy body. And we're finding out all these things. It's like, well, it's not just put the effort in. Do the grind, make the success. It's like if we're not taking care of ourself and we're not fixing the things that we have, that we're given our tools, our body, our brain, our minds, all that good stuff, that's important.
Then we fail. It's really hard. And so go into a little more what each thing is, because I think that the techie stuff, I think that getting deep into these. These words and what people are saying and getting clarity around it will help a lot of the listeners really say like, oh, I kind of have this, or, Hey, I wanna kind of do that.
So go into it more.
Preeti: Yeah. Yeah. So one thing I'll say so people don't get too confused is, is really trying to be, bring yourself to a calm state right [00:17:00] there. There's so many protocols that you can, you know, find or learn about, but really what it means is. Deepening and slowing your breath. Right. The best example I like to think of is elephants, right?
They live the longest because their respiratory system, like their breathing pattern is the longest compared to human beings, you know, compared to other animals and the way you can only do it, you know, there's, there's different ways. But you were saying something like a holding breath, right? Yeah, I like to say.
Just a nice deep inhale and exhale works just as much as a starting point than like the holes, right? So, I mean, I've done a lot of videos when I'm like the four, seven, and eight and the, you know, all of those at the box breathing. Yes. And, but if you think of the crux of it is a nice deep inhale. Nice deep exhale.
Now, if you got that right. The next step is making sure you're doing it [00:18:00] through your nostrils and you're not using your mouth right? So basically you're inhaling nice and deep through your nose. You are exhaling through your nose. That's step two.
Christina: Step two. And why, real quick. Why through the nose? Why is it so important?
Through the nose,
Preeti: your mouth was meant to eat, and nose was meant to breathe. I love it, right? Yeah. So if you really put the science of why certain things were built now if you, so the reason is most of the people are mouth breathers because nobody teaches you how to breathe, unfortunately. Right and the shape of her jaw.
A lot of time as we evolved from, you know, from like going back to when we were in the e evolution stage the shape of the jaw and the shape of the nose kept changing to adapt how we should breathe. So there's so many studies, and actually there was something recently on, uh, Dr. Huberman on Huberman lab too, where they've studied and they've started to talk about how you should tape your mouth.[00:19:00]
Christina: Yes, I know a lot of people who do that. I haven't done it
Preeti: yet.
Christina: I've been, I've
Preeti: been waiting that, that, no, but if you, if a young child does it, their shape of their jaw is like very modelist. Like they, they, these are the people with beautiful jawline, with like, I never had braces or dentures. And now that I have the best, a teeth, but it's better than my own son. And I can say that because I think these things were inculcated in me, as in my family early on. Yes. When I talk to my patients who are like kids and you know, middle school and high school, nobody knows. Like when we talk about breathing, they think I'm asking them to do something totally opposite because nobody knows.
And so going, you know, we are totally tangent on a different thing. Going back to starting to do that nostril, you know, there's different practices. So let's say you start doing nostril. One technique I tell everybody to do is you need to put your hand right below [00:20:00] your nose.
?: Okay.
Preeti: And then just do normal breathing.
And every three, four hours you do it, you will realize one side of your nostril is more active than the other. Okay? And that really goes a little bit into the feminine and the masculine side of your body. Every 90 minutes. Our body channels, we, we need both masculine energy. Plus feminine energy to channel our ourself, but we need to balance it out, right?
So if you always are in this masculine yang mode, that's again when you need nervous system regulation. And then to, you know, come. But then if you're this feminine and nurturer, you are never, never able to speak up. And that's when you need to, you know, kind of like why I need both. But if you tend to find one side of your nostril is the one always active, that's when you need to teach or learn your other side.
And that's kind of where pe because you still need to breathe and people go in a mouth breathing pattern. And so it's an [00:21:00] adaptive survival pattern, but not a scientific natural pattern, if that makes sense. Right. So yeah, so deep inhale and exhale. The second one is nostril. The third one is using your hands as a tactile feedback.
So use your hand on your belly and feel, is my belly really rising? Or do you feel the chest happens first? And that's kind of like, now you're really using. That nervous system, like, you know, all our senses, like our touch, you hear your breath, you kind of like feel it. And so that's kind of how you progress.
So once you reach this state, that's actually when you should add holes. Okay. What people do is people get, you know, it's like yoga or some other like, fancy techniques. We just wanna do, uh, the end crazy, fancy looking thing, uh, which may or may not be something a body's ready for. And, you know, going back to where I see clients, right?
That's when people hurt [00:22:00] themselves. Uh, people who do, oh, I do, I do breath work, I do breath work, and they're doing 4, 7, 8. They're doing all these different versions that they learn from even box breathing, where at the end they're holding. And they're not channeling the right areas of their body. From kind of like the rest and digest the awakening.
That's kind of where you kind of sometime live in that shallow zone because you never taught to all the way feel, you know? I'm also a pelvic floor therapist and a lot of time I'm like try to have, especially women, I mean men and women, really, this applies, but especially women because we go through so much in our pelvic area, having kids and other trauma, there's abuse like blah, blah, blah.
Right? All of that together. Just connecting your pelvic floor to your breath is like another level. It's, it's like now you went to advanced strengthening class, right? Yeah. Because your pelvic floor is your core of your, uh, floor of your core. So when [00:23:00] I breathe, not only my belly goes out, my belly goes down, and what's down is my pelvic floor.
Now I gotta teach my pelvic floor to move with my breath. So going back to what you said, if you are always shallow, and I don't know this, I'm just making it, making it get up. If I had to look at your pelvic floor, I may find hypertonicity, which is, they may maybe increased tone. So if you've had some issues with kind of like, let's say getting intimate and all of that, that would be an area to look into it or like have pain and cramps UTIs, like all of this can be, again, it's all the breath work.
So you're trying, you're trying in the breath even. And the other part is if women who have natural vaginal deliveries, they land up having, uh, weaknesses, right? So their pelvic floor is like a different person in their own body. They forget that we need to connect with our breath again. And the easiest version I'll say is as I [00:24:00] breathe in when my belly goes out.
My pelvic floor goes down and open just like it's a nice salon door, opening doors, and as I breathe out, not only does my belly comes back in, in place, my pelvic floor lifts up because there is no air left. There is, there's no need of space scientifically.
Christina: Wow, that, that's cool because it's like, it's not just, you know, the breath, it's the whole body.
And I feel like, so I've had five full pregnancies, all vaginal. I've lost a child, so I only have four living kids. But like I tell my husband, my body will never be the same. Like, it's, it's completely different. And my one son, you know, he was so big and had so much fluid that like after him I was like, oh, like it just ruined everything.
So it's like one of those things where it's like. Our body, we forget things over time, our brains forget it. A lot of that stuff. And we, when I realized that I was in this fight or flight mode and I was just always getting this fast [00:25:00] breath, I realized that, I thought that's how I was. I thought I was born like that.
And after doing a lot of research, I realized no. My body adapted to that. That's where it's created. So that's something for our listeners, like if you feel like you're always in this high anxiety and you're always just running and you're always struggling and you're not feeling your body and you're not recognizing different things, then maybe breath work is really just the place to start.
Right. And feeling, because I will tell you. This is not my first business that I've built, right? Nor will it be my last. And I have another business I run side by side that is already very, very successful. And I've created a lot of businesses in the past that weren't so successful. But I will tell you, getting successful and getting up the ranks, it's stressful.
And if your body can't handle it and can't do it. It's very easy. I hear so many women who are like, I was so overwhelmed I had to stop doing the course creation, or I had to stop selling my [00:26:00] products because it was too much and I took six months off. Well, you lose all that momentum, right? Uhhuh. And so that's all this stuff that this breathwork can help.
Now I wanna get into really talking about mindfulness, right? I think that's something that would be really cool. So, how can we practice? Mindfulness that would help with our, our bodies, connecting our bodies and helping us to feel safer.
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Preeti: So the easiest version, and I always try to find easy, right?
Yeah. Because it sticks. People remember those is. If you are listening to me right now, just look around you and find five things around you. Right? So kind of like we get so used to in our space, the forget and forget to appreciate our space, right? So it could be a photo frame where you know the photo frame exists, but you really don't acknowledge that photo frame.
And just that acknowledging that think in the [00:30:00] moment is mindfulness. Because the definition of mindfulness is being present without judging it. There is no reason of judging why the photo frame is there. You put it with so much emotion. It could be your child, your dog, your parents, your marriage. It could be anything, but go back in time and think of that love the joy that brought when you did put up.
So that's kind of like the crux of what mindfulness is. But day, day in and day out, you know, we are so used to social distraction. There is no moment, and I'm sure a lot of people listening right now is doing another thing. While they are listening. Yes. Uh, including me, right? I love to work out and listen and consume where I am learning and working out.
It just makes my life easy. Most of the people drive and listen, right? But what if we took five minutes of our drive? So like the moment we get in doesn't mean you just switch on whatever you're listening to. Take a little moment [00:31:00] and be present. Because the truth is a lot of accidents happen because we are not present.
Christina: Yeah.
Preeti: A lot of missed opportunities in business happens because we are not present. Yeah. We're so used to social distraction. So, you know, coming back to mindfulness is the biggest thing, is the gratitude practice. Right. Again, it's acknowledging, like being thankful for what you have than what you want.
Right. I do this first thing in the morning. I mean, I have a whole thing of practice that I do, but. If I am busy, mom, I have two kids. I have two businesses, right? So just like everybody else, like I'm running around as all the other women listening to this, but what I do is write in bed right before I'm ready to wake up.
I will say my little gratitude like, and, and I'll mean it. I'm not saying because, oh my God, I have to say 1, 2, 3. It's not like I'm have to brush my teeth. It's like I see my husband's face and I'm like, oh my God. So thankful for this. You know, I see my little boy's [00:32:00] face and I'm like, I love how he creeps in my bed every day, even though at night I'm not happy with it.
And that genuine connection is mindfulness. Right. And then during the day finding, like I said, listening to the birds chirping voice. Being present again, right? And just enjoying that. Drinking the sip of tea without having another thing going on with you. Right? So being present is being mindful, uh, being intentionally present, is being grateful and just kind of like tying those concepts.
I am so grateful I get to be here today with you, right? And I'm seeing so grateful. That people are listening to me. And these are little things that we can always include in our day to be present. Uh, going back to something you said earlier, right? Like, women are also stressed out and, and anxiety and they're losing momentum, and [00:33:00] the opposite happens with breath work and being mindful.
And they're kind of like in, in, in innately a same thing, right? Because you're trying to be mindful, suddenly your nervous system relaxes. Right? You are in nature. Suddenly you breathe better. And what I wanted to say is suddenly it gives you space. Mm-hmm. So you will not need to lose that six month to lose momentum because you just created space.
In the moment, we will. Everybody has the same 24 hours. We all make use of our 24 hours differently. And just to create space. Like I said, I'm a busy mom. I'm a busy professional, but we all need to prioritize only by doing what is most needed. But most needed comes from starting with you kind of, right?
Yeah. So create space for you. Suddenly the whole schedule falls in place.
Christina: I love that and, and I'm really big about, I, I have to be honest, I don't do it a ton. Like I struggle because it's like I get up, I go and I, I always, I used to try to write [00:34:00] things when I woke up, but. It's like by the time I wake up and the kids are running around and they're going, and then it's like the get out the door on time is always a struggle with my four kids, right?
And it's like getting it all together and to go, and I don't do it as much as I should, but I know that when I take those moments and I like to do grounding for, for my listeners who don't know, grounding, I just take my shoes off. Bare feet on my grass in my backyard, I face the sun. So I get the morning sunlight in my eyes.
I don't look at the sun, but I close my eyes and I get the light on my skin. I get to my feet on the ground. I start grounding. And I have my coffee, well, my imitation coffee 'cause I'm allergic to coffee. So I have my mushroom coffee. But like I sit there and I drink it and all I do is I just breathe. And I'm just like, I feel the warmth of the sun.
And I'm like, Ugh, it's so nice. And I don't say grateful, maybe I should say that, but I'll be like. It's so nice to feel the sun. It's so nice to have my feet on the grass. I'm so lucky that I'm able to carve out this moment in time where I get [00:35:00] to stand here and do it. I'm an entrepreneur. I pick my own business.
I get to do what I want. I schedule the day of how I want it. And I am grateful for doing it. I'm happy and I enjoy, right? And so as I'm getting ready to make a move to my new house in Brentwood, Tennessee, we haven't bought it yet, but I told my husband, I really want a resort style pool the way I see.
It's like a rectangular type pool that comes out of the home with seating on it. And he is like, why do you want that? And I'm like, because I wanna sit out by the pool. And have my coffee and look at the trees like I want to. Yes. So I'm like, it's not a, like, I want this huge pool. Yes, I love pools and my kids will enjoy it, but I wanna have more time to relax, more time to step back.
And I think a lot of our listeners are, are missing that mindfulness piece. I feel like it's so critical. I wish I could do it more and I wanna do it more. So I'm slowly trying to make it part of my day. I do meditation, which I love meditation. Mm-hmm. There's so, so many cool things [00:36:00] that we can do.
So let's talk a little bit more about going into all of this. So we're, we're talking about the breath work, we're talking about the mindfulness, we're talking about how it plays in. Let's talk a little bit more about. Really how they could use it like today to get started in just getting a little more relief.
And it could be both of them together, it could be just one. I know we talked about a little bit of the simple breathing but for the entrepreneurs listening, for the women who have those busy lives, what is something that they could do right now to just get a little more relief in their day to get their system calmed down and just feeling a little bit better?
Preeti: I think the one word or two things I'm gonna go with, the first one is called unwinding. Learn to unwind your day. Which means unwind from home to work. Even if you work from home, make it a separate space where you're actually, you know, acknowledging my work is done. Because what happens with most of the [00:37:00] people working nowadays, whether you have your own business, you work for someone, the work is never done.
There's always emails, there's always calls, but acknowledging if it's four o'clock, five o'clock, whatever that looks for you. And that's when you take few breath. So I start my day, I start with that intention. That's a good place to start with mindfulness. I take some deep breath. Five is just enough. The longer breath you make is the deeper you are digging in.
Not just physiologically, but spiritually, like you are really getting deep in maybe you are asking for an answer. And sometimes we try to find people, but we know the answer and those are the times which you get the answers, right. Like I said, it creates a space.
So start your day if you can. Just verbally mention yourself. You know, there's a lot of things Mel Robbins talks about it, right? A lot about look at, look in the mirror on and, uh, kind of like say, think good things about yourself. Right? I love that. I've tried that and it worked great. I [00:38:00] don't remember that all the time because again, I'm busy brush and get out of here.
But I love that strategy. That's what, you know, it's like, works for you. And a great place to do that is, is when you get ready, right? We constantly look and see how we feel, and you can just give yourself a little acknowledgement of you are beautiful and you know, things like that. So again, you're present, you are acknowledging and loving the moment, like you gotta love yourself first kind of a thing.
And then start with, like I said, the practice. Just some deep breaths. You back to work, do some breath work between, between meetings. Every time I say have that little 10 uh, minute of buffer calls, I love how Calendly allows that internal build 10 minute buffer calls because yes, we need to go take bio breaks.
Yes, we need to take breath work breaks, right? A little munching, but involve that and people who actually have a real office. Bio breaks are the best way to kind of like dissociate yourself from others, right? Like go to the bathroom, [00:39:00] just take that nice like sigh. Because most of the time we take that deep sigh in front of other people.
They think something's wrong with you. Yes, yes, exactly. You're like, you don't wanna do it. Yeah. We just really need that because we haven't taken long, deep breath throughout the day and that's how your body's catching up. If you see yourself doing that a lot. Take take a day off, like half a day off. Just go do, go for a hike and you know, maybe take the meetings to the hike or something like a lunch walk, you know, meeting lunch or something where you really, that the external environment is doing the mindfulness because you are not able to give time to the mindfulness.
So that's another way to kind of like hack this. But every time you come home. Take that break, take dissociate yourself with it and take that. And really the most important part, which is my second thing, like I said, unbinding is the first one. There's a technique in cognitive behavior therapy, uh, called [00:40:00] scheduling worries.
And the way that works is, and I absolutely love it, there's three stages of that. The first is kind of like identify, right? So a lot of times somebody says something and you don't realize, but you're certainly not feeling good. It's just icky feeling, right? So acknowledge that something happened, okay? And then schedule a time.
So let's say for me, eight or 9:00 PM is my unwinding time. Like the kids are in bed, you know, everything is situated, the alarm is on. I'm back in bed, and that's the time I'm gonna really try to reflect on it. So schedule a time because our brain likes that. There's like an open loop, something happens.
Somebody said something, an email was not what I expected, and I just started to feel, and now suddenly my breath goes fast and heavy and shallow and I don't know why I feel panic attack. The only reason people feel in the beginning stages, I'm not saying when it [00:41:00] is more clinical, right, where you need medication in the beginning it's really a matter of.
People don't wanna take a little moment to be like, who said what? So if you can identify what it is, you acknowledge that you address it, you schedule it, our brain is like, oh, thank you. Thank you. You gave me a time. But go at the end of the night, whenever that time was. Acknowledge it. If that was the time you gave on your drive back home, acknowledge it.
Because again, it's almost like you know, you, you cheated a little kid. Like we promised them, I'm gonna give you an ice cream. And we just tried to like take them. The kids never forget that they didn't get ice cream. They never forget all the other important things. And they kept saying, mom, you never got me that ice cream.
You never got me that ice cream. You never got me that ice cream. That's how your brain is. Your brain is like you never, you never address the problem. You never address the problem. And we start going in that panic mode then. And then if that's too long, that becomes a clinical problem.
?: [00:42:00] So
Preeti: act before that becomes, you know, you can control what others say.
You can control what you do. I love that. So act on it.
Christina: Yeah, those are great. Like for me, mine is more of like, I get all those thoughts in my head. So like, even like this morning, so I had a, a podcast that I was on this morning, not mine, but like another one I had to prepare for and I had all these thoughts in my head like, oh, I gotta create my son's birthday invitation 'cause I forgot to do it last night.
Oh, I have to do this. So I literally put my phone in do not disturb and I had a little note up and every time I thought of one. I put it on the note because if I don't do that, your brain has an open loop system and so if it's not resolved, it's gonna keep bringing it up until it's like checked off, resolved.
And so I was like, well, I'm gonna put this on here so my brain can stop thinking about it. 'cause it knows that I'm gonna take action and then I can focus thoroughly and be present in this moment. Not think about, oh, do I have to do these a hundred other things? Like, no, I wanna be here. I wanna enjoy our conversation.
Right? So those are like little things that I do, but I [00:43:00] love this. This is fantastic. I think it's so powerful. I want more women out there doing this because we need to get better. We need to feel better. Especially if you have kids and you're a mom, life can be crazy, right? And there are so many times where I will be like at the end of the day and I'm washing my 5-year-old son and I literally am like showering him and I just stop while I'm showering and I'm like.
I don't think I even took a moment to like see him today. Like he's been here. He is, been with me and I'm just like, I love this kid. He's so spunky. We call him our 24 karat gold kid because he is gold hair, gold skin. Like, he's just like the gold. So we always joke about that. Now he is getting tanned, so he looks even more gold.
And I'm just like, I love this kid. And so I try so hard with myself because I work from home. I'm here all day. Yes, I have an office that I work out of, but. I'm all over the place. I'm doing laundry, I'm doing all sorts of stuff. I try so hard when I pick them up and I bring them home that I [00:44:00] don't do any work for two hours.
I don't. I try not to think about work. It's hard, but I don't do anything. I just wanna acknowledge them. I wanna play with them. I wanna sit with them. I wanna be with them. Right. I think we need to do more of that as women, and I think we're forgetting a lot of that. So this all has been amazing. Before we get to how people can find you and get your amazing services that you provide, is there any last thought that you wanna leave everybody with about these topics that you think is really important for them to know?
Preeti: I would love everyone to test something out for themselves, so like involved in self care. To me, this is self-care, right? I, we, we were talking before the call longevity because if I feel good, I'm checking the boxes of mental health is better, which is a problem. And like this generation if I am taking care of my body, my physical health is better.
So I'm taking care of that. So the [00:45:00] only parting thoughts I wanna say is, you know, they will never be tomorrow. We gotta do it today, we will always have reason and new commitments, and we will never have enough time. So, you know, hopefully this is an inspiration for everyone to just reflect on one thing, one thing you need to do to add into your calendar that you can really commit to every day, and it's not gonna take more than two minutes.
I think everybody could give one 22nd of their life in 24 hours. So, yeah. That's all I have to say.
Christina: I love that. I think, you know what I tell my daughter, so I I, I'm on social media in the sense of like, I have my business, but I, I hate consuming it. It literally makes me tired when I'm on it. And so my daughter's on TikTok all the time, but then she'll be like, I don't have time to do the dishes.
I'm so busy and I don't have time for my homework. And I'm sitting here going, we all have 24 hours in a [00:46:00] day. Okay, so maybe you take eight hours of sleep. What are you doing the rest of it like? Like how is it? So I think a lot of us get in our minds that we're busy, but we're not really busy. And there's so many things nowadays with all these chirping and chimes and computers and watches, and we lose track of what we're really doing.
So I love this like be mindful around all of that too. Find the space. To do this stuff because I will tell you when I am able, and I'm trying to get back to doing more, like in the winter, it's hard to do grounding and being outside. But now that the weather's nice, I try to do it every day and it makes me feel good.
Like I actually start the day feeling like I have more energy, I feel good, and then when I get to work, my mind's clear. So it's like, just, just take a little section out and then just remember all the stuff you're doing. Is it really moving you forward to success, to the life you want? Or is it hindering your life?
Is it making your life worse? And I think a lot of people don't realize all this stuff [00:47:00] we're doing, we're not moving the needle forward. We're just staying in a circle, running laps. That's all we're doing.
Preeti: Yeah, like a hamster wheel and we're trying to figure out, you know, how to end it and it doesn't. I, I do wanna say something about the grounding.
You said because of the weather, because I live in the east coast, right? Yes. So, another way to do grounding when you cannot really connect physically or you know, feet to the outside, onto the grass, is being in child pose and connecting your forehead to the floor. Because really you're not doing the floor, you're connecting to earth.
And that's one of the greatest grounding poses. So in a lot of cultures, you will say, when, see, when they pray, they pray to the ground. So it's kind of like acknowledging again earth mother nature and acknowledging, you know, the dati or whatever they're praying for. Uh, so that's another way of grounding, which you can literally practice every day if you cannot get out and because of weather, because of time or whatever that is.
Christina: I love that. Oh, [00:48:00] you have been a wealth of information. Thank you, Dr. Preti. Ja, I really appreciate it. Now I want my listeners, to be able to find you because I know you have some really cool stuff. So let's talk about where they can find you, some of the courses that you have and how you can help them.
Preeti: Sure. So I'm on Instagram mostly. It's called Pure Rehab Yoga. If you look up Dr. Preethi, Jah, you'll probably find me too physical therapist. I have a big nurse strength training guide, which all of your listeners are gonna get so they can start working out if that is something they think they're ready for.
I have a program called Strength Shift where we don't just change or make you stronger physically, but we make you stronger physically and mentally, so you're just ready to tackle anything. So yeah, that's a program I do every other month. I start a new cohort. And you welcome to join if Yeah. That's something you're ready for.
Christina: I love it and I'll put all the information in the show notes below, so you'll [00:49:00] have all that. Thank you again for coming on. We appreciate it. It was a great conversation today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I.
