Haque's Health Hacks
Haque's Health Hacks with Dr. Anita Haque
Haque's Health Hacks
The Mind-Body Connection: Healing Anxiety and Disordered Eating
This episode introduces practical tools through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which balances acceptance with change. From mindfulness practices that help recognize emotional triggers to the surprisingly effective "cold immersion" technique for panic attacks, these strategies offer immediate help for listeners facing anxiety around food and body image. Dr. Anita Haque's simple pre-meal breathing practice and Therapist Mark Gibson's emphasis on breaking the secrecy around our struggles provide actionable steps toward healing.
Whether you're battling severe eating concerns, struggling with emotional eating, or simply looking to develop a healthier relationship with food, this episode offers both compassionate understanding and practical strategies from experts who've walked the path themselves. Listen, share, and take one small step toward food freedom today.
Welcome to Haque's Health Health Hacks podcast, your trusted source for wellness, fitness and healthy lifestyle insights. We believe in empowering you with knowledge to take control of your health. Join us as we explore the latest in self-care, share expert advice and guide you on your journey to optimal well-being. Let's embark on this path to a healthier you together.
Saima Haque:Hello and welcome to Haque's Health Hacks, the podcast where we dive deep into the mind-body connection to help you live your healthiest, most vibrant life. I'm your host Saima, Haque, and I'm thrilled to bring you today's episode, which is extra special because it features my sister, Dr. Anita Haque, a chiropractor who's not only a wellness expert but someone who's walked the path of overcoming personal struggles with weight and eating challenges. Her journey is one of resilience, self-compassion and holistic healing, and she's here to share it with you. Self-compassion and holistic healing, and she's here to share it with you.
Saima Haque:Joining us is Mark Gibson, a therapist with over 20 years of experience specializing in eating disorders and dialectical behavioral therapy. He's a co-author of it Was Never About the Food, a master at guiding people toward meaningful change through trust and practical strategies. Together, they're tackling anxiety and eating disorders, topics that hit home for so many of us, whether you're an athlete chasing peak performance, someone navigating body image challenges or just looking for ways to manage stress and feel your best. From Anita's chiropractic insights and personal story to Mark's therapeutic expertise, this episode is packed with real talk, actual hacks and a whole lot of hope. So grab a drink, settle in and let's get ready to hack our health Haque's Health Health Hacks. Here we go. So, anita, you've openly shared your lifelong struggles with weight and eating, issues which many listeners can relate to.
Dr. Anita Haque:Can you share a little more about it and also a pivotal moment in your journey that helped you shift towards a healthy relationship with food and your body have to start off by saying that this is probably the most important thing in my life the weight that set me on this course of my healing journey and bringing it to others. So I was seven years old when I remember our mom, syma, sitting me down alone and she, as compassionately at the time I'm sure as she could have said to me, she sat me down and said Okay, you know, I think you're putting on some weight. We need to dial back. You know, she said it a little differently, but basically we need to dial back on your eating so you can't get a second serving. You're going to have to cut back on some of the desserts and the sweet treats that your sisters get to eat. So at first I was a bit shocked. Like she's talking to me, like what Me? I have a weight issue. I don't even know if I was aware and I did a lot of denial. I remember saying repetitively I'm not overweight, I'm just big boned, I'm just maybe chubby. I'm not overweight, I'm just big boned, I'm just maybe chubby. Maybe making it kind of cute at the time for myself to cope and to deal. But at seven years old, how do you really know how it affects you until time moves forward and you get to reflect.
Dr. Anita Haque:So for me, I started an unhealthy relationship with food at that time because I wasn't really aware what she meant and how she meant it, but I knew I got to cut back. So there was a lot of starvation and some of it happened because of the way that my lunches were put. So, for example, my lunch at that time went from like a sandwich and, you know, a juice box and a piece of fruit to just the juice box and the piece of fruit. And so I would, at lunch, be embarrassed because, you know, everybody would pull out their lunch from their brown bag and I only have my juice box and maybe an apple. And a lot of my friends were like where's your lunch, where's your sandwich? And I wasn't forthcoming about. Well, I'm on a diet, I can't eat a sandwich, I'm cutting back. But what I did end up doing was making an excuse that I wasn't hungry, because I didn't want anybody to know about it. And when I came home and my parents our parents, simon were at home because they were at work I ate snacks, unhealthy snacks, all the junk food that was like available because I was starving and so I would eat and eat all these unhealthy things. And then when mom and dad came home for dinner, I would eat dinner as well, even though I wasn't necessarily hungry for it, from all those junk food items that I had consumed.
Dr. Anita Haque:So it was just this perpetual cycle at my youth that I knew I was aware of something that wasn't right. I didn't have the perfection, for my mom's eyes, of where I needed to be, but it made me more aware of food, dieting, my self-esteem, the body awareness, and it definitely led me into this pathway of trying to bring it to other people, because I too am a still a lifelong student. So you asked me another question, which I think is important for our listeners to hear, which is you know what was a pivotal moment that may have shifted my relationship, you know, with food and my body? I don't know if there was actually one specific moment, but it was later on in life, probably in my later 30s, that I realized that all these different diets that I've tried and I've tried every single one that most people have heard of, from the master cleanse you know the starvation from Dr Atkins to you know, cutting out the carbs we're talking paleo. You know, there, starvation from Dr Atkins to, you know, cutting out the carbs. If we're talking paleo, you know there's so many diets that I've absolutely tried.
Dr. Anita Haque:But you know, what was a pivotal thing for me was realizing that I don't need to be get, I don't need to become skinny, I don't need to get skinny, I just need to become healthier.
Dr. Anita Haque:That was one of my pivotal moments, for sure.
Dr. Anita Haque:And understanding that my goal is not about the vanity, it was more about the inside and how, my functioning of my body.
Dr. Anita Haque:So that was one pivotal moment. And the second pivotal moment was I don't need to deprive myself, because the more that I was in some sort of a box of a diet, some sort of like guideline, I ended up doing worse. I ended up maybe sabotaging myself more because I felt restricted and many of you who are listening to this podcast may agree or have had some sense of that restriction that makes you want to rebel, you know, and eat more of the things that you're not supposed to eat. So that was another pivotal moment for me was realizing that I no longer need to practice perfectionism with my diet, because there's no such thing, but I only want to strive for eating nourishing foods, at least 70 to 80% of what I want to eat on a day should be something healthy and nourishing for my body. And then I got a little little and not be in the box and splurge, and maybe have that chocolate or have that ice cream bar or whatever my craving is for that day. So those were kind of my pivotal moments of the shift.
Saima Haque:Well, that's amazing and you look amazing. Poor mom, if she watches this, she's going to now know why her diet never worked for you.
Dr. Anita Haque:And it's not her fault. So I want them to know she did the best she could because she had the best intention. There's no blame or no hang up on that, of course. Definitely.
Saima Haque:Mark your book it Was Never About the Food suggests eating disorders are rooted in deeper emotional or psychological issues. How do you help clients, including those with experiences, like Dr Haque, with people struggling with weight and eating, and how do you uncover and address any of these underlying causes?
Mark Gibson:Well, if we start with the beginning, if I talk about the depth of eating disorders, I specialize. More of my work has been done with anorexia and bulimia, meaning being underweight, or a lot of people with bulimia struggle with what they call compensatory behaviors, which is compensating for calories taken in, like purging, overexercising, diet pills, diet pills. So I've spent a lot of time at higher levels of care inpatient, where people are oftentimes bedridden for a while. So I wanted to just kind of capture that beginning part first, because we have this on the spectrum of where treatment can be and when it's on that end of the spectrum it is a lot of stabilization. At the beginning I have people that oftentimes come in and their heart rates are extremely low or they haven't had a menstrual cycle for a year, and so it requires, I mean, if I I've had some people that come in where I had to send them to Stanford right away, and when you go to Stanford you go to a bed until your vitals are stabilized and you do not move, and so I have that end of the spectrum. And then what a lot of times.
Mark Gibson:What we're talking about here has to do with kind of developing a healthy relationship with food overall kind of combating dieting concepts and mentalities and with them.
Mark Gibson:To be honest, in my career I think I've been horrible at that treatment because people don't stick with me long term because my focus is about more intuitive eating, which is kind of what you're you're hinting at Anita is throughout your lifetime having this diet, and then you realize Anita is throughout your lifetime having this diet and then you realize, wow, I'm still hungry. So we still have that primitive part of our brain that's saying I need more food, and so we're battling that with messages of body image judgment that come from society, and so it gets to be extremely confusing. But I'm trying to now teach this intuitive eating process and it's flies in the face, I think, a lot of what is norm in our society, which is fast acting, quick weight loss, and it just doesn't sustain. And so I start talking about intuitive eating, which is connected to mindfulness and honoring hunger and fullness, and most people are looking for a quick change and I end up kind of struggling with them.
Mark Gibson:But, if I talk about the initial phase of stabilization, it's amazing what starts to happen, which is I move to that next phase, which I kind of call figuring it out. And when people get stabilized and they're nourished and they're feeling good and they start to participate in life, is when that underlying aspects of what might be at the core of an eating disorder starts to come to the surface. And that's where the long term work is and that can be. I mean, I've seen people their entire, I mean, since I started in this field. There are some people that I still see on a maintenance kind of basis. So, yeah, on a maintenance kind of basis, so, um, yeah, that's. It's quite a wild ride and into those spectrums that I was talking about.
Saima Haque:I'm sure it's great to have your support. Dr, Ha, yes, definitely. How did your personal experiences with weight influence your approach to helping patients at Haute Chiropractic with nutrition and wellness?
Dr. Anita Haque:I think it's a huge, integral part of the way that I practice, the way I speak to patients, not just because of my own personal experience, but because I also now really understand the value of how food is medicine and or it could be poison. You know, on the other end of the spectrum. But in the sense of even with their treatments and getting repair with their chiropractic care, you know their nutrition and how much inflammatory foods or what they're feeding themselves is going to impact the results that they're also going to receive from not only their adjustments but holding their adjustments, seeing the improvement, having the inflammation come down. There's so much in our diet that impacts that. So that is definitely something that's at the forefront.
Dr. Anita Haque:But beyond that, for me, my personal experience in terms of some even Mark what you were bringing up you know you have you know the anorexia and the bulimia.
Dr. Anita Haque:I think I've had all of those things and so I feel comfortable opening up to patients and sharing that with them, making sure that they know it's a safe place for them to know that.
Dr. Anita Haque:You know there is no perfectionism here, that we're all dealing with our emotions and sometimes the way that we deal with our emotions is feeding our emotions with food or a substance or something like in that realm and I'm, you know, being aware of that allows me to kind of ask, maybe certain questions so that patients can feel more comfortable to share that with me and open up that conversation. So that allows me to maybe give them some more direction, whether they need to speak to somebody, maybe more severely talking to Mark, maybe us just having a conversation about hey, you know, when you're stressed, you went to doing you know this activity which was, you know, eating that junk food. I resonate, I did that same thing. Here's what else you can do instead. So, having that conversation, because I really feel that part of the care that every single patient gets in my office is not just the adjustment but it's the experience of uplifting their health, maybe making that little bit of a pivot, a change besides the adjustment that can maybe set them on a better course for health.
Saima Haque:It totally makes sense, Mark. You've worked with eating disorders across inpatient and outpatient settings for 20 years. What's a common misconception about eating disorders that you'd like to debunk for our listeners? What's?
Mark Gibson:a common misconception about eating disorders that you'd like to debunk for our listeners. I know when I saw that question earlier there's the initial that I I mean if I just speak just on observation, if I tell people what I do, their initial response is I have an eating disorder, do you think you can help me? And they point at their belly. And I say that because I mean just at that point I just kind of will smirk a little bit and say like yeah, I mean I can very much appreciate that side of the struggle that people have, and then I will take that opportunity oftentimes to educate people that the other end of this I mean I think in the long term, in the long run you're talking about obesity is definitely not going to be able to be sustainable for a healthy lifestyle and lifespan.
Mark Gibson:But in terms of the anorexia and bulimia it's in the mental health world is one of the most deadliest mental health diseases that there is, and so I think that's one of the things that sometimes will catch people's attention.
Mark Gibson:The other thing that I highlight that oftentimes surprises people and this is like working with, like family groups over my career is struggling to recognize the function of an eating disorder in people's lives.
Mark Gibson:So the idea that when somebody might purge or restrict or starve themselves to the point that they need to be in a hospital, most people are thinking like at what point is kind of the rational mind going to kick in and you're just going to eat, or how could people enjoy throwing up, and they struggle to recognize that there is a function to that. So the idea with anorexia oftentimes it reduces the ability to recognize things going on in the world around them. So for anxiety, when you are malnourished you don't have the same level of anxiety. It goes down With bulimia. It's in that moment it very much is a numbing agent and if there's intensity going on around, that experience is very soothing in the moment for people. And that's that's been the one art where people just look at me and go like I just can't wrap my head around it, and so that probably to me is one of the biggest misconceptions of it.
Saima Haque:That's great. I never, I never even thought about that. Oh, your malnutrition could impact your, your psyche, like that yeah it makes sense. Yeah, anita, you've described breaking free from negative, negative cycles with the help of your husband, don, and adopting self-love as part of your health equation, and mark you focus on behavioral change through therapy. What are some key steps someone can take to break from these cycles of anxiety or disordered eating, mark? Maybe you could share first.
Mark Gibson:Breaking from the cycles of disordered eating or anxiety. Well, let me start with the idea of the cycles, if we talk about anxiety. I let me start with the idea of the cycles. If we talk about anxiety, I think it's really important. Most of my education starts there, which is understanding the function of emotions, as opposed to breaking free of anxiety. The function of it is it keeps us alive, so we don't want to break free from it. Learning how to regulate it or the other side to it, if we think about the other part of anxiety, is helping us to prepare.
Mark Gibson:So if I am doing this podcast, guess what some of the anxiety leading up to it did for me. I started doing some research, looking through questions. I've done a lot of moving around lately, so I haven't spent a lot of time doing presentations, so I'm going to go in and utilize some of that anxiety to help me get prepared, and so that's one of the things that I that is a big focus of mine is re-educating people to learning to really embrace emotions and utilize them for what they're for. Um, so yeah, that's a that's a big part of this that makes sense.
Saima Haque:And anita and yourself like how did you um break free from your negative cycles to adopt, like self-love, part of your health, so journey?
Dr. Anita Haque:kind of I. I like what you said, mark, there about how it's not necessarily breaking free. You know, kind of lead to my answer here too. So just so the listeners know my equation that I've come up with for health, or more optimal health is falling, so optimal health is falling, so optimal health is equal to love to yourself and others. So that's a big one. Love and being healthy leads to happiness. So that's kind of the equation. Sorry, I'm reversed it, so let me go start off again. So, basically, being loving to yourself, being loving to others and being as healthy as you can be through all the things right your sleep, your eating, your movement, all those things, thinking healthy, that's really what leads to optimal, like joy and happiness in my life. And that's kind of the equation that I put out, you know, through the books I've written and things like that, or even for patients. So you know in terms of you know breaking free, it's in the equation.
Dr. Anita Haque:And what's really in the equation in terms of even though it's not necessarily breaking free, but maybe breaking free from that negative thing you're doing to yourself, comes from that part of the equation of self-love.
Dr. Anita Haque:I often have found that through my own self dialect.
Dr. Anita Haque:I'm kinder to others than I am to myself in the past and I've had to recognize why am I being so mean to myself, like I would never say this to any of you, I would never pick on you on something like that. Why am I doing this to myself? Which was kind of an awareness for me to break some of the cycle of negativity that I was doing to my body or doing with the purging, or doing with the starving, you know, starting becoming kinder to myself, which really is self-love, and that led me into more of okay, my self-love is, you know, being kinder to myself. But also part of self-love is self-discipline and self-respect. So maybe my discipline, my self-discipline, isn't not necessarily not eating, but it's being disciplined to not purge, to not starve to, to not be so harsh on myself. So that's kind of one of the ways that for myself, I feel like it's my behaviors learn to change and shift, so I wasn't going back to those same bad habits that we often tend to do, if that makes sense.
Mark Gibson:Yeah, I was thinking about the second part of it. You mentioned disordered eating aspect of it. I talked about the emotional side but the idea of patterns that people fall into and you were talking about finding that balance with calories into, and you were talking about, you know, finding that balance with calories of how they are viewed. I remember early on in my career I think it very much was, if we're talking about stabilization the belief a lot of times that different treatment centers that I was a part of was a calorie is just a calorie and that was the focus on just re getting refed and we didn't care how it happened and that was oftentimes what people have done about malnourishment, with anorexia, and as I think I grew in my career and started talking to different or maybe it's just a natural part of progression in life, when you learn, learn more and you start working with different professionals is starting to really appreciate the quality of food and how people are gaining weight, because oftentimes you would find that if the focus early on in stabilization was just about getting weight put on, people oftentimes when they would leave, would struggle with overeating, and so we started to find more of that balance where, well, a calorie is just not a calorie.
Mark Gibson:And then, anita, you kind of highlighted where but a calorie can also be celebratory, especially in the short run. So, and oftentimes kind of breaking free from that, I run into people I don't know if you guys have ever heard of orthorexia, but it's really an obsession that people can develop around healthy foods and with them. It's another process of breaking free from the idea of like, hey, it's your child's birthday, this is part of the celebration being present with your child and being able to have cake. Or I run into professionals that can't go out to lunch with other coworkers because they don't know where they're going, they don't know who's preparing their food, and so their world gets very restrictive. And then the idea of breaking free of that cycle is exposure therapy.
Mark Gibson:You got to turn over control to somebody else, trusting that there's going to be something there that's going to fit within a process that's going to serve your body well. And we still might have those times where we have an inkling for some dessert or something. Even that is part of connecting Talk about celebration, but just social connections.
Dr. Anita Haque:You made such a good point. Sorry, I just want to say this part because you know, mark, I had a patient, younger patient, she's 17. And she often asks me about her diet when she comes in for adjustments and she tracks everything. I know that there's a lot of people who use these trackers for everything they eat and they track, you know, all the macronutrients, it's how much protein, how many calories, how many carbs per meal. She brings me her charts, Dr Haque. Look, this is what I put together and I remember saying kind of what you just touched on, mark, is, you know, I'm glad that you're making a food journal, you're being aware.
Dr. Anita Haque:But this can also become unhealthy because you know the calorie count from an apple let's say that's 80 calories for a medium-sized apple is not going to be the same value of 80 calories from, let's say, a candy bar that you might consume. So you don't want to get so obsessed on the numbers. As opposed to the wherewithal, the logic of knowing this is nourishing. For me to eat, this is a treat for me to eat, this is joyful. And then when you eat a treat, the hardest thing I know I've had to overcome to in the past is okay, if I'm going to have a treat let's say I'm going to go out to dinner because you're right, orthorexia could be something that's prominent, maybe even my life, where I am very focused on healthy eating. But if I'm going to eat something bad and then spend the next three hours thinking about, oh my God, I just ate this dessert, oh, shame on me. You're kind of disciplining yourself internally that I shouldn't have eaten that chocolate cake. I ate so well all day and then I had that piece of chocolate cake and I ruined my whole diet.
Dr. Anita Haque:People have that hangup. I know I've had that hangup as opposed to knowing, hey, I'm enjoying this treat of a chocolate cake. I eat healthful foods all day and now I'm not thinking about it, I'm just going to enjoy it. And doing that you're not even raising your cortisol necessarily as much on a cellular level, which could hurt you and make you put on more weight from the stuff that you're eating and feeling guilty about. So there's so many complexities to how we eat and how we count foods that sometimes I feel that when I speak to the patient I was mentioning toss it away, stop worrying about all the details. Let's focus on the grander picture here. You know you want to eat really healthy things and kind of move forward yeah.
Mark Gibson:Well, that kind of speaks sometimes to the intuitive. Eating too Is, yeah, I think, when people are learning to eat. Sometimes I've used the number of calories from the standpoint of hey, let's look at the science now behind what you think you're doing, to highlight how the relationship to it is so misinformed that when they actually find out how much they're eating and it's not anywhere near what their body actually needs sometimes I find out they're not even getting what their brain would consume in a normal day, and so it can be utilized to help debunk some, some philosophies they might have. And then, on the other end, I'm like, well, yeah, if you were a olymp like Michael Phelps, it's important to know how many calories are going to your body because you're trying to perform at this elite level.
Mark Gibson:But in general, what you kind of find is most people as I'm back to having that discussion as much as I can when they get stabilized of your body and your mind, if you're connected to it will let you know what it needs. If you get really in tune with it, connected to it will let you know what it needs. If you get really in tune with it, it actually can start to let you know what kinds of food it's asking for. So, like the idea of carbs you're talking about, like the Atkins diet, like well, that cut out really efficient or necessary carbs that give our body energy, that when people do that, they end up then at some point running out of energy and then what do they do?
Saima Haque:it's yeah, everybody's asking for energy.
Mark Gibson:So what? What are you gonna start to crave and so? But I'm just like I'd rather not get to the point where your body's without it before it kicks in, where we start to connect to it on a day-to-day basis that makes sense I just wanted to move over into what mark kind of specializes in which is the dialectical behavioral therapy?
Saima Haque:I want to understand how individuals like, maybe, anxiety and eating disorder symptoms, like an athlete um, how it can help them with managing the pressure of weight struggles or how to manage their eating habits. So what does dialectical behavioral therapy do?
Mark Gibson:Well, if I break it down, a dialect, if I define that for people, first is the idea that as human beings, we have the capacity to experience two opposing thoughts or emotions at the same time. Dialectical behavior therapy stands on the relationship between acceptance and change. At their core, they're very opposite, but there's a paradoxical relationship between the two of them, and that is if you haven't accepted what's happening or where you're at the idea of doing change doesn't happen. So oftentimes people end up fighting against themselves that anxiety has shown up or I have this intensity going on and it prevents them from actually doing something about it. So it's just like DBT is such this bigger picture concept from a behavioral standpoint, but it's broken down into four modules, and there's two acceptance-based modules and two change-based modules, and the acceptance-based is mindfulness and distress tolerance, and so the change ones have to do with emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, and that's where you're working on improving relationships.
Mark Gibson:I've talked about anxiety earlier, the idea of utilizing anxiety. Some people, the anxiety shows up and they're so frustrated with themselves that, you know, somebody told me not to worry anymore. However, here I am worrying. What do I now do? And if I am stuck with the idea that there's something wrong with me that I'm worrying. It's tough to go to the regulatory process, which is I got to do something with this, is it justified or not? And then I can start utilizing it.
Mark Gibson:Now in the sports world, if we're talking about not just sports but performance in general, I find myself utilizing mindfulness as the foundation of people's work, and that is really tuning in to the idea of what is happening to me internally with my thoughts, with my body and I don't know. There there's a. If you look at the, the research and the years in which people spend practicing mindfulness. Um, I've been, I've done.
Mark Gibson:In the stuff that I've read, they talked about the idea of 20 minutes a day of practicing mindfulness, and that is there is like meditation, and then there's mindfulness. We hear about meditation from this idea of this soothing, calming kind of experience, mindfulness at its core. I try and get people. You sit with yourself and your brain, you remove other distractions and you're learning to work and understand what is happening inside of you, and for some people that is very scary and very uncomfortable and hence why I say go, do that work to regulate emotions or perform at a really high level you got to learn to be aware of what's happening in the moment in order to work with it.
Saima Haque:Well, that's one of the next questions I was going to ask you actually was did you could share, like a specific you know therapy skill? So, listeners, could you know practice or resonate with overwhelmed by anxiety or food triggers?
Mark Gibson:Yeah, I kind of jumped ahead with it. But yes, mindfulness, for sure is that, but it's one of those things that I wouldn't call it a specific skill as opposed to a practice that helps to improve and shape your brain. That helps to improve and shape your brain so you are ready for things like difficult emotions that come your way, or pressure that comes your way, intense anxiety, or if I'm having, I'm getting dressed in the morning and here I am looking myself in the mirror and I can't see myself leaving the house because I'm so overwhelmed by my body image. Right now, I have found this is just in the years that I've been working in the field and teaching DBT. There's a skill that they call.
Mark Gibson:It's kind of I mean, anita, you would know about this like working with cold therapy, but cold immersion, but just you almost do it with just your head and just holding your breath and putting your face into cold water has an amazing ability of like it drops your heart rate, which shocks your body.
Mark Gibson:Yeah, it's called like a dive reflex and you have so when that happens, oftentimes, if you have this such as contrast of this intensity going on, then all of a sudden your body, heart rate, blood pressure, all that stuff kind of dumps real quick and it provides sometimes that space for people to tune in a little bit more, to more their rational or wise mind, where if I'm having this experience sometimes people are like it's almost like delusional. What they think they're think in the mirror at times and if the intensity is high that can really help bring it down rather quickly. Especially with panic attacks or those kind of things. It's a game changer. Usually people will come back after that and go, wow, that one hits home quick, almost to the point where I tell people that if they actually have lower heart rates already, do it sitting down, because it can have that much of an impact, because it can almost like create where people might pass out.
Saima Haque:Well, that's a quick fix.
Mark Gibson:It is as quick as it gets.
Saima Haque:I just wanted to end the podcast with a health hack from both of you, if possible. I just wanted to find out from Vivianita first that's somebody who's overcome personal challenges with weight and Mark yourself as a therapist, who you support so many people in recovery what's a health hack you can offer to our listeners who feel stuck in their struggles with anxiety, eating a body image, and maybe V could share first?
Dr. Anita Haque:that'd be great, yeah, you know, um, I had to do a few things and this is the hack that I would like to share, that I've lived and I still use at times. One is I like to take a deep breath before I eat. It's just a quick hack, kind of like resetting, sometimes for anxiety purposes. You're not breathing enough. Number one, you're doing a shallow breathing situation, so you're not even as logical because of that. So sometimes you know, just taking a moment, full inhale, full exhale, um, can help me to kind of get more rational, uh, calm down my nerves and, especially before I eat, it starts to focus me a little bit more on let's enjoy this meal, because one of the things I used to do when I was anxious or I was eating not because I was trying to nourish my body, but I was trying to feed an emotion or settle down a negative emotion in my body is I would eat in a numb form, so meaning eating without thinking about it, eating while I'm watching a screen on a phone call, I'm doing something else, so I'm not focused on actually nourishing myself. I'm kind of, you know, doing this in the past. So that was a big thing for me to recognize that pattern and in order for me to recognize that pattern. It helps me now is to take that deep breath before I eat to make sure okay, let me make sure I'm calm here too. What am I feeling right now before I eat, asking myself that question am I really hungry or am I just feeling scared, upset, angry, anxious? All of those feelings Do I need to recognize that first? So sometimes taking that deep breath allows me to ask that question of you know, am I really hungry or am I just feeding something else? So that was another way that I remember having to break myself, maybe out of the pattern.
Dr. Anita Haque:The other thing that led into you know kind of this hack is I made mistakes all the time. I still do, even with eating. So I have to often remind myself forgive you, forgive me, like forgive myself for maybe not being perfect, forgive myself for maybe doing what I said I wasn't going to do, because I'm human, just like I would forgive someone else, right? You know I mentioned that earlier about you know, treating yourself like you would treat somebody else. So forgiveness is a big part of that hack for me, of knowing that I'm not going to be perfect and I don't need to be perfect, because there's no such thing.
Dr. Anita Haque:But am I progressing? Am I getting just a little bit better than I was? And forgiveness is a part of that, forgiving myself for maybe having something I said I wouldn't eat or, you know, like I said, having the extra treat but enjoying it more. So, with that forgiveness and I already mentioned this to you both, you know, treating yourself like a friend kind of goes into that self-love. So I think that those are my main hacks is taking that deep breath, taking a moment, asking yourself if you're really hungry for this. You know, sometimes you need to just sort of take that numbness out of what we always do as a pattern.
Saima Haque:You know I love that Taking the time to pause.
Mark Gibson:Yeah.
Saima Haque:And know yourself. What about for you, mark? Do you have a? Yeah?
Mark Gibson:another word that when I was reading the question, the thing that jumped out was the word stuck, and I'm going to take a little bit of a different angle. I love what you said, anita, about some of the more in-the-moment work. I thought about it from the attaching it, from the angle of I use the word transparency and in order to get unstuck. I think a lot of times people over time get very stuck in their lives because their secret, their struggles, are more internal and inward and they hide, and oftentimes because they feel ashamed or feel embarrassed or guilty or just anxious and stuck and the idea of and it just those, what we wrote, what we put down with anxiety, eating body image. It thrives in secrecy Because oftentimes we end up feeling like, but understandable though it's understandable how people get there, because it's uncomfortable and I don't you know, you end up you protect it more when nobody else knows about it. And so the idea of getting unstuck, just being transparent, and that can be as simple as opening up to your chiropractor, opening up to your primary doctor, a family member Not oftentimes do I get the initial call from somebody that this is their time to be transparent.
Mark Gibson:It's usually they are. Somebody else has said to them you need more help and we got to get this ball rolling. But usually it will happen, oftentimes with anorexia and bulimia because of health issues, and they can't hide that anymore. So that becomes the obvious thing going on. Can't hide that anymore, so that becomes the obvious thing going on. But in general, if we can learn to be more transparent, we can get proactive in some of these changes that go on. So I kind of think of that seems to be the one that jumped out to me the most is just the idea of being transparent and not hiding.
Saima Haque:Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, just recognition for yourself too. You guys both have shared wonderful hacks with the listeners, and I'm not sure if, anita, you wanted to end off anything. Definitely.
Dr. Anita Haque:I just want to say you know, mark, you're such a great resource. We're so happy to have you on today on this podcast and we'll show your information with listeners if they want to get in touch with you to maybe get some more therapy, some assistance, because I think that, like you mentioned, your hack kind of being more transparent. That's why we're having this discussion. I want all of us to be able to have more of a normalcy around this topic, because it is a lot in secret and it was a lot in secret for me too until you can admit it and know that, hey, I'm not alone. So many of us are dealing with this on different levels, but the more we share, the more we can kind of say, okay, I'm not alone in this, you're like me, I'm feeling the same way. We can kind of be there for each other and hopefully get on a healthier pathway. So thank you both so much for today and for sharing your insights. It means a lot.
Mark Gibson:Well, I appreciate the invite. Like I said, I have been in my recent moves I've been staring at the screen just doing my day-to-day grind of work. So getting to spread out and connect with other professionals in a different way and doing presenting and have that kind of thing has been a nice little change to my getting more settled into this new area.
Dr. Anita Haque:So awesome. Yeah, no, thank you. Well awesome, we're happy to have you yeah no, thank you.
Intro/Close:Thank you for tuning in to Haque's Health Health Hacks podcast. We hope today's discussion has provided valuable insights into achieving and maintaining your health. Remember your well-being is our priority. Visit us at haquechiropractic. com or call 925-960-1960 to learn more or schedule an appointment.