057: New Fun Way to Destress and Unwind

 Today's episode explores different methods for relaxation and unwinding after work. Mike compares using a makeshift sauna with towels in the shower to traditional methods like bathtubs and hot tubs, discussing the advantages of his approach in terms of convenience and effectiveness. The discussion also emphasizes the importance of finding healthy and productive ways to unplug and relax before bed, contrasting these methods with less effective practices like screen time and as an alternative to watching movies or shows. 

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

Mike: [00:00:00] So, you know, something that I started to late at night because I'll be working so past midnight sometimes, and I often find that after a long day at work, I have this urge to want to go and do something interesting or do something to kind of clear my mind and, watching movies and stuff like that.

I enjoy it, but it's not the best thing, and I spent some nights doing that, and usually with that, I accompany that with some food, and before I know it, you're eating junk in the middle of the night. So, something that I've done is, I go into my shower, and I create, like this, ghetto sauna.

That's what I call it. So then what we do with this. I've done this a handful of times, a good amount of times. It actually works decently [00:01:00] well, you know, a makeshift sauna. So if you think about a sauna, you're surrounded by heat. It helps you relax. And also when I'm in there, I meditate. I don't go in the sauna and hang out and talk.

I sit there in a sauna and I close my eyes and I just meditate and it's really nice and soothing and it's a perfect activity to do right before bed because the heat helps you relax. I don't have a sauna at home, so what I've done before is you grab three towels, you get under the shower, sit down in the shower, and you have the water hit on your neck or even on the top of your head, and you have three towels, one towel.

You're in a seated position, your legs are crossed, one towel is on your lap, covering your legs. And you want to make this towel wet at first. The reason why is because when the towel is wet and hot, it maintains the [00:02:00] heat. And now you feel nice and warm. Because if you were just to sit under the shower, right, then the areas where the water will hit your body, that will feel soothing and hot, warm.

And then by comparison, the other areas will feel really cold. That's the great thing about a sauna or steam room is, you're in this entire room that is heated, but in a shower, only the areas where the water touches is warm. Everything else is cool. So by putting a towel over your legs and making sure that towel is hot, now your whole leg would stay heated.

And because it serves like a blanket, like a wet, hot blanket. You know, so it's really nice and soothing towel number two, put it over your back, wear it like a cape, and then you have it all the way over having make sure the towel is big enough. It can't be a small towel. I'm talking like a bath [00:03:00] towel or like a, pool towel, a big one.

Okay. Bigger, the better. Lay it over you, right over your back. Have a drape to cover your arms, cover your shoulders, have it to drape to cover part of your chest, your stomach area as much as you can. Your front will still be relatively open. Third towel. This one needs to be like a hand towel, not a face one, but like a hand towel.

Can't be too heavy because you're going to put this one over your head. And now your head, including part of like your ears, neck, part of your face is covered, and also the steam. is maintained a lot more because, of these towels, right? And then now your middle body and your lower is covered. And now you're sitting under this shower.

You want to make the shower hot, hot enough because you can handle more heat because you're wearing these towels over you. So make it hot. And to [00:04:00] prevent your hot water from running out, you can turn the hot water down. So it doesn't spray out like a shower. It's more like a low, low shower, very low pressure shower.

And. Then make it really hot. So now you got these light shower, almost like a fast dribble of hot water coming down. You got the towels to protect you, but it's still hot. Now you're sitting down, your eyes is closed, relax, and then you meditate. And it's really, really soothing. And I found that this way it really feels like you're kind of in like a sauna because a sauna is just being in a hot room and just feeling all this heat over you.

Now you can do this in any shower. All you got to do is be able to sit down because you're able to relax that way. Now, for those that can't sit down comfortably, or maybe you're in like a, you know, a shower with a tub and just not comfortable, the next best thing I would [00:05:00] recommend is having like a stool so you can sit down.

So you're not sitting down on the actual ground. Really really nice. I recommend everybody give this a shot. And it's super fun. Because. You're creating like this little thought from your, from your place. 

Stephen: How do you feel after you do something like this? 

Mike: Relaxing. When it's late at night and we don't want to go to bed, it's like we want to, feel like we're doing something.

We feel like we have a lot of energy, but it doesn't mean that we're not. Needing to go to sleep a lot of times for us that work late, like for me, I I'm in Bali, so I take these calls, , that will go sometimes from nine to midnight or 1 a. m. So then by the time I'm done, it's close to 1 30 and I'm not really tired.

I need to sleep. I'm fatigued, but I'm not tired because your brain is so [00:06:00] stimulated. Yeah. So. What I've done in the past is I'd go and hang out and I'll watch a show or watch a movie, mostly movies. So then there goes two and a half hours and then it's like 4am. So obviously it's not a good habit and there's not really much you can do in there in the middle of the night.

So what I found with something like this is it helps clear the energy and it helps relax and it's kind of fun at the same time. But it really helps the body be able to relax. It's one of the best things that you can do at night, which is get your body to be relaxed.

I already stretch at night. I do this every night. I stretch. Sometimes I do some light breathing. Sometimes I don't get to it, depending on if Raza is sleeping already. But this has really, by having this hot water, this hot shower method, it really helps relax the body. And that [00:07:00] combined with the stretching, Sometimes I'm so relaxed.

I might even skip the stretching and I just lay out and just go right to bed, you know, because no matter what we got to get the body to relax and unplugging through movies and shows or random stuff. Screen time. It's effective. Many people do it, but it doesn't help our nervous system be able to relax.

And sometimes when we need to unplug from work, unplug from our busy mind. At the same time, we need to relax. How do we do it? 'cause most of the unplugging is just a distraction for our mind. Let's do something to distract ourselves from thinking about that thing we've been thinking about all day. Yeah.

So 

Stephen: I mean, it makes a huge difference in the long run as well. Right? Because, uh, you know, we were discussing how sometimes, like you said, you stay up until like 4:00 AM and you needed to unwind. So you would watch a show or, or ,a movie and there goes half the [00:08:00] night where you could have been sleeping and recovering for the following days.

And if you continue doing that, what's going to happen to your body, what's going to happen to your mind and your energy levels to do your work and to be around your family. But because of the type of work that you do, working with time zones, you need to find just alternative. Easier and healthier ways to just wind down, relax, and then get the rest that you need, right?

And so it makes a huge difference. 

Mike: Yeah. And, something else I just thought about with this ghetto sauna, I remember this one time I was doing this and the hot water ran out and I 

Mike (2): didn't 

Mike: want to get up because I felt so comfortable to just sit there and just relax. So then the water started becoming warm instead of hot and eventually it just became room temperature and the towel went from being [00:09:00] really hot to warm to eventually it was just there, it was, it wasn't hot at all, but it's like one of those things you ever, you ever like you're in like a pool or you're in a bathtub, , I think most people probably make it relate to it with a pool, or some body of water and it's cold outside, so you don't want to get out, you rather stay in the water because it feels warmer, but the water is not really warm either, it's just that it's colder when you get out, so you just want to stay in until you finally get to that point to where it's You know, if you don't do it now, you're just in this weird place because it doesn't feel the best inside, but it feels worse coming out.

So, so I just remember that. I just remember that happening. And I remember I was sitting there and just didn't want to get out for a while until finally I was like, okay, I have to get out. By that time, the warmth was gone and, but it was, it still felt nice. 

Mike (2): You know? 

Mike: So the only thing I'll just [00:10:00] say about, about the strategy is just make sure you don't run out of hot water.

So. I was in this house before and. The house is too big, there are too many restrooms for the amount of water heaters, I remember. So, the water would always run out, it's like, you gotta get it done at a certain time, and if you're like the last one, last two people to take a shower, good luck.

You're not gonna get any, get much hot water. So, what I found, what you can do, is you can turn the hot water down to where it's just like a fast dribble. But, the water is not hot enough, it's not enough water to make it to feel really hot. So then you have to turn down the cold water till the water becomes really hot when it dribbles out.

So it's like, imagine if you have a lot of water, it can be hot warm, and it would feel good. But with a little bit of water, the hot warm feels too cool, because there's not enough water. I think you got to make it hotter. So I remember this one time I'm [00:11:00] sitting there and I have really hot water dribbling. It was almost like I was burning my skin every time.

And it's almost like I have to hide in the towels to prevent from being burned. But it was able to just continuously dribble. And I remember sitting there for about 45 minutes. I mean, it was long, it was long. I lost track of time. The whole restroom would became like a steam room. You know, everything is fogged up and.

There was just water everywhere in the restroom because there was so much, the water was running for so long, but it was cool. It was really cool. I really felt like I turned that restroom into a steam room that day, but I let it dribble just like that. Hot water, just dribbling, covering up my body so it doesn't burn me, and it was just enough to maintain heat in that towel.

Stephen: How long have you been doing this for? 

Mike: I figured this out, I'd say about three years ago. I was taking a shower one day and I decided to sit down and I remember I'm sitting there and I'm [00:12:00] trying to figure out what position can I get into where I would feel the warmness because wherever the water hits, it misses other spots.

Mike (2): And 

Mike: then I realized at the end of trying to move around and shuffle around on this ground that there was no position I can get in. I don't know if anybody ever tried this. , it's like you sit there, it doesn't work. You turn around and face the shower, face the back, , have it come down the side, nothing worked.

And finally, I realized there's no position I can get in unless I have another shower head or, have those really big rain showers. So then that's when I decided, let me just cover up myself up with a towel because it will make me feel warmer because all I want to do is just feel more warm. And then obviously it's going to get wet.

So I said, fine, that's 

Mike (2): okay. 

Mike: And then when it got wet, I realized that the, heat of the water was causing the towel to become more warmer. So then I just deliberately wet the towel with a lot of hot water and then covered it over me. And it felt good. And I was like, Oh, this is [00:13:00] cool. And then from there, I just started playing around.

That was the first time. 

Stephen: Imagining someone do this every day and the amount of laundry that they're going to have to do with all the towels. 

Mike: Well, yeah, yeah. What you want to do on that is. Have your towels that you usually use, leave them in the restroom, but you want to wring them a little bit, right?

Wring them and they'll still be damp, but you wring them and you just put them in there in the restroom. Now you have to, you need to do this like every day to do it this way. Cause if not, you have a wet towel scent in the restroom. Oh man, I think it's going to smell. But if you, do this every day, that would work.

Or you can just hang the towel out to dry, but then the next day, but let's say you do this. And then the next time you do it again, the towel is not dry yet, so it's still pretty damp. Wet the towel first, right? Just straight up hot water. [00:14:00] Just wet the towel until the whole thing is with hot water, and then afterwards Go ahead and wring it and then put it over you and then you're ready to go again.

It's like, you know, the hot towels like you get when you go into a massage or vice versa, the cold towels. I've actually done this with cold towels as well because the, other house, we didn't have any AC in the living room and it was really hot. And I remember I would put towels in the fridge. And it will cool it down.

And then I thought, well, what do I put in the freezer? It could cool down faster. And at first it was a small hand towel. And then it became, it was a small face towel. And then it became a hand towel. And then I decided, well, what would happen if I put a bath towel in there? And the funny thing was, I put a bath towel in there.

I damped it, right? And I put it in there. And the whole thing became like a block. 

Mike (2): Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: So I was like slamming it on the ground, trying to break this, [00:15:00] you know, and then, and then I realized when it wants to start to crack a little, it was still so stiff. I couldn't wrap it because it's a bath towel that was wet and then dropped into freezer.

So 

Stephen: left it in there for too long. 

Mike: Yeah. So these little tricks, you know, use them to. for heat and cold 

Stephen: I think this will actually be a good video to make for one of your Instagrams, because then you can really visually see it, you know, just, just wear some shorts, go to the bathroom, just put on all those towels and that way people can also visually see what you're talking about.

So thank you. It'd be quite interesting. You're going to create an army of people sitting in their bathtubs with a bunch of towels around them. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. , I think somebody will ask, well. Why don't we just, uh, do a hot bath? That's true. I 

Stephen: had that thought earlier. Yeah, like, like, why not just hop in the, [00:16:00] I mean, here there's a, there's a bathtub.

I mean, not a bathtub. There's a hot tub. Why not just go in the hot tub? 

Mike: Well, you know, for, for this place, yeah, I could just do a hot tub. But let's say it does feel different between a hot tub and here, because the thing about this is it covers your whole body from your head all the way down.

In a bathtub, a lot of times the bathtubs, it's going to fill up to stomach. You can't really sit up. So then you got to go and lay down. You got to, get into the water and then kind of get in this lay down position. Your neck is a little bent. That position just doesn't really feel that good.

Now, if you have like a jacuzzi tub, uh, it's deeper and it's bigger and you can get into a more comfortable position, well, then the next thing is filling that thing up. It takes like 15 minutes or [00:17:00] so sometimes to fill up a tub and it's late at night and I'm going in there just to relax.

So I feel like if I go with the towel, it works. Really, really quickly, as fast as it takes to get the water hot. And also sometimes people don't have tubs. Sometimes you're in a shower to where all you have is like the shower that you don't have a tub in there. What do you do? You know? So even if you're in a tub, the water's not high enough.

So you still want to, put something over, over your head. So you can kind of feel like you're in this. You create this enclosed space and closed steam. So, yeah. And another thing. Okay. A bathtub, the water starts to cool down, so then you'll need to continuously run the water to make it hot.

Mike (2): Hmm. 

Mike: But the thing about this is you are constantly running the hot water. 

Mike (2): Yeah. So [00:18:00] imagine you . 

Mike: If you filled up a bathtub with hot water, you might run outta hot water if you kind of, if you wanna keep running it, I dunno if you've ever done that before, but I would run the hot water to fill it up, and then it starts to get cool. So then I try to run the hot water and then the hot water starts to run out.

So then eventually I turned the cold water all the way down to nothing and I run just a hot and that still isn't hot enough and then I turn that off and then I just have to be okay with the temperature of the water. It won't go any hotter because I'm out with this method of laying there with the towels.

You cover up your entire body. You can actually sit there for a while, 

Mike (2): you know, 

Mike: because you won't run out of water unless yeah, Well, if you're going to run out of water doing this, you probably won't even be able to last at building, uh, filling up a bathtub.

Stephen: Well, I mean, regardless of the method, I think any of those in general is going to be much better than hopping on your phone, looking at your screen, scrolling, [00:19:00] doom scrolling, or watching a movie late at night. And then essentially just to let the nervous system recover, recover. Yeah. And so. 

Mike: There's different ways.

I think I was sitting there and trying to figure out what's something else that would work for me. I don't know if it worked for somebody else. But the goal is to find a way to unplug and this is, and whether it doesn't matter what time you get off of work, when you're off, you need to find a way to unplug.

Now, some people would work out, some people will go and, do something or some people go to happy hour or some people, people find different ways to unplug. Find the most healthiest, productive way. I unplug. before, , with the, with watching, watching shows and movies. And honestly, it's not a good productive way.

Spends a lot of time because I often, if I watch something, I end up finishing it. So I wouldn't [00:20:00] stop at like 45 minutes in, it would be two hours, two and a half hours in. So I just found this has worked for me much more productive and it helps me sleep. If I go and watch something, I won't even fall asleep afterwards.

I'm just feeling like I'm unplugged from work. But now, I still need to relax to fall asleep, so then my sleep gets, ruined for that night. So whatever method works out for somebody, just as long as just make it as productive as possible. 

Stephen: Find healthy ways to unplug guys. All right.

So thanks once again to listen to another episode of Body Over Mind. If you want to learn more about Mike's teachings, go to flow60. com and we will see you on the next [00:21:00] episode.