Haque's Health Hacks
Haque's Health Hacks with Dr. Anita Haque
Haque's Health Hacks
Hydration Secrets Revealed with Guest Michelle Borrero
Ever wondered if you're actually drinking enough water? Despite knowing we should hydrate, many of us struggle with the how, when, and what of proper water consumption. In this episode, Dr. Anita Haque is joined by wellness expert Michelle Borrero. They cut through the confusion to deliver practical wisdom about hydration's profound impact on our health.
Whether you're struggling with digestive issues, joint pain, skin concerns, or simply want to optimize your health, this episode offers simple, actionable strategies to transform your relationship with water. Remember, even small changes – one extra sip, keeping water visible, or adding natural flavors – can yield significant benefits for your overall wellness.
To Learn More visit: haquechiro.com
Welcome to the Haque's 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.
Dr Anita Haque:Hello and welcome to another episode of Haque's Health Facts. And I'm Dr Anita Haque here today with an amazing guest, Michelle Borrero. And today we are actually going to talk a little bit about hydration and digestion the good, the bad, the ugly because there's so much confusion. There's so much discussion that I hear from patients about how much hydration should you measure it, what kind of hydration, what time of the day, what temperature. There's just a lot that goes on with hydration how it affects your digestion and absolutely your overall health.
Dr Anita Haque:As I mentioned, I have Michelle Borrero here with me, who is not only a friend and a patient, but she's actually a wellness expert here in town in Livermore and she basically her business, and I'll let you talk about this a little bit more, michelle. But you focus on physical balance, mental, spiritual balance, with prenatal yoga, prenatal massage. You do women's retreats, self-care workshops for women and for teens through the National Charity League and so much more, and I know that you just encompass this vibe of health and wellness, which I love and why I thought it would be so important to have you on. So if you could share, michelle, with our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Michelle Borrero:Sure, thank you so much for having me on. This is so fun and tapping into all my favorite things. As you can see, I have a pretty extensive list of credentials. I guess you could say I started years ago getting my degree in human development, and that is really what sort of opened up this whole world of wellness to me, and I learned somewhere along the way that there were so many different facets. So from getting the degree, I went on to learn to teach yoga and became a yoga instructor for many years. From there, just the passion grew. I wanted to know more about the body, so I went to massage school.
Michelle Borrero:I'm a very hands-on person and you'll find that as we talk, because most of the experience that I bring to the table is really what I've seen, what I have felt of things, versus sort of the science or the textbook behind it, because so much changes with science.
Michelle Borrero:But what is very truthful is our bodies and what our bodies tell us. And so moving into esthetician school and learning more about the skin, which is the largest organ of the body, and water hydration absolutely impacts our skin as well. And so from there I went on to hypnotherapy. So you touched a little bit on that spiritual part of things. So I'm very much mind, body, spirit and I think that water, as fluid as it is, I don't really think we can look at the whole person without bringing all of these elements into the conversation. So I'm super excited to have the talk today and talk about hydration. I'll tell you some things that I know, some things that I have seen in people's bodies and, yeah, we'll just kind of have some fun with it, because a lot comes up when you start talking about water?
Dr Anita Haque:It sure does, and thank you so much, michelle. You're so right and that's why I thought you were like the perfect guest to have on my podcast today. Discuss this, because I know you know with your health and how amazing you look inside and out, I mean you just exude beauty and health and wellness, and so I didn't know we're a lot on the same page. Just like you, I'm more a, even though you know my credentials are a doctor of chiropractic and I study all these things. Most of the advice that I like to give to our listeners is tried, tested from my own health journey because I'm a lifelong student on getting better every single day through my health and wellness, mind, body and spirit too. So let's dive in.
Dr Anita Haque:Most of us know, like we are 80% made of water, right, which is why it's such a poignant topic to discuss, and even though most of us know we should drink more water, I think that today's podcast, if we can just make some simple ways for our listeners to understand how to do that easier. So, first off, you know I know most of us already may know this let's just tap into like, what are the most important benefits to, like you know, proper hydration, like for your digestion, for your health? Like what do you think you know it takes to really support yourself, you know, for gut health? For hydration, like what are some of your basics, Michelle, that you practice to get more water in?
Michelle Borrero:Sure. So obviously, we've heard all the different things like drink room temperature water, drink it cold. You know, there's lots of different ideas around how we should be taking in our water and what I have found throughout the many years of focusing on my water intake is just drink it Like you need to just drink it. When I talk to clients who, whether's through massage, through yoga, through skin, um, you know, a lot of times people think they're drinking enough and the reality is is we're just not getting enough in because we are also dehydrating ourselves all the time and our climate is getting warmer and there are just lots of shifts happening that I don't think we're necessarily adapting to. So you know, the question is how much? How do you feel?
Michelle Borrero:So for me, let's talk about poop and pee for a minute. I mean, you can't have the conversation without getting into what all of our bodies need to do, and you know, if you're going to the bathroom and it is coming out very yellow or you're not going potty enough, that's a telltale sign that you are not consuming enough water. What about your stool? You know, when you use the restroom, is it easy? Are you in there for a very long time reading magazines, struggling to get anything out. This was what I call. You know the biofeedback, so you're your own doctor, you're your own scientist in these moments, so you have to pay attention. So that's one gauge that I use is what's going on when I go to the bathroom. How often am I using the restroom? You know, all those things make a big difference. And then you know I was going to bring this up later, I was going to do a little toast, but I'm just going to bring it up now.
Michelle Borrero:So I am an aesthetic person. I do like the way things look. I'm being an esthetician, you know checking things out, not judging. I'm just always noticing things. But for me, I love drinking my water out of a wine glass Because I feel it's like a little ritual thing, it's like fancy, it's like, oh, look at me, I'm drinking this water and I find that I drink it so much more and faster than if it's in any other kind of cup. So these are little hacks, and I love that you call this health hacks, because I'm all about the like how can I get the wellness in quickly? And so this is one of my favorite things.
Dr Anita Haque:I love that. What a great idea, Michelle. Thank you for sharing that. I want to tap into some of the things you've said. By the way, I might want to switch my vessel, because the vessel that you consume your foods or drink your liquids and can make a huge difference on your perspective, your attitude, your shifts, your psyche.
Dr Anita Haque:I personally have my water bottle. It's not a beautiful wine glass, but I have a water bottle with me all the time. I take this with me whether I'm moving from my bedroom to my office, to my car, and just knowing that it's right there. So the moment that, like, my body has that little bit of thirst, I can easily get right to it, versus sometimes you know, we're so bombarded by a million different like DMS and messaging that you know you might be thirsty but you forget about it because you start working again and then, before you know it, three hours pass and you're just parched and you just ignored your body signal. So one of my main things as a hack or a tip that I always share with patients and friends and people that I care about, is, first thing in the morning, make sure you have your water right next to you by your bedside If you just start taking a few sips of water, first and foremost it can start to, you know, accelerate your, your body's ability to drink more water, to signal to you to hydrate and also, to, kind of like, start the signals of cleansing your body, because water is a cleanser. It is like our main, like I said, 80% of our body is made up of water, and you also said something about, you know, the peeps and the poops. So so true, I used to have an issue with constipation for years.
Dr Anita Haque:I know TMI, but I also like to discuss these things because I think we need to discuss more of how many bowel movements we're having and how it reflects on our health. So for years I remember it was like maybe three days every four days every three, and that feeling of not being able to release just weighed on me I mean, not just physically but mentally throughout the day. I didn't feel my best. I knew that I was clogged up and even though I was trying you know all the things more fiber, this and that it still didn't really really make that much of a difference until I added a lot of these components, such as drinking more water. That was the first thing, like I mentioned having more hydration, you know, first thing in the morning, and then I realized I started drinking more water throughout the day.
Dr Anita Haque:Two, I started paying more attention to my microbiome. A lot of people don't understand that your gut, that bacteria, rather of your gut is like this second brain. It's like this second immune system functioning to keep you healthy, to digest your food, to promote your wellness throughout your whole entire body. And how your microbiome gets fed is actually through a lot of green, leafy vegetables and water, water-based foods. So what are water-based foods, foods that contain a lot of water, right? Apples, oranges. If we even ate more of like water hydration foods, we have to drink less of it. You know, and you also said another thing, and not to keep going, I want you to chime in here, chime in here here too, michelle. But you also said something about, like you know, when you you don't realize how much we're dehydrating ourselves.
Dr Anita Haque:Sometimes patients say, oh yeah, I drink a lot of water. And I ask them well, tell me what you're drinking iced tea, I had a soda, I had coffee, wait a minute, wait a minute. All the things that are dehydrating you, which is like caffeine, alcohol, chemicals those are the things that you needrating you, which is like caffeine, alcohol, chemicals. Those are the things that you need to drink extra water in addition to they don't count as water. You take away your water.
Dr Anita Haque:So one of my rules for patients is bowel movements. You want to be aiming for at least one time a day. But the healthiest of individuals, what I found through science and generally you want to aim for every time you eat a meal, your digestive system should be processing and moving things through. So basically, every time you eat, you should kind of want to have a mouth movement. That's the goal. That's not where you end up. That's usually the healthiest of individuals is you're having regular bowel movements at least once a day, sometimes even three, four times a day. Then you know that this like plumbing system is actually working properly.
Michelle Borrero:Absolutely. And as I'm listening to you talk, I'm also thinking and maybe you as a listener is thinking this too I'm, like I go to work or I'm with clients, like how am I going to go to the bathroom right after I eat? And I and this is where I think it's very hard in our society today to do all the things, and so I don't want people to get overwhelmed by any of this, because it does. It feels daunting sometimes, but I feel like, if you're going to do, if you cannot do anything else, the water intake, and this is why I think this conversation is so important. This is the most, the most important thing, because it affects all the systems of our body, right? So we started talking a little bit about the gut and how we take in nutrients also. I mean, we need to have a healthy microbiome in order to take the nutrients of our food in.
Michelle Borrero:Also, with our skin anything we put on our skin, if we're not hydrated, our body is not absorbing it the way that it needs to. And then you know, we have those moments as we're dehydrating. We look in the mirror and all those wrinkles start to surface and all these things start to show up Next thing, you know, you start hydrating and you can almost see some of this stuff like disappearing. It's phenomenal. So, even though I do love the science, I and I read about all of these things, but your body is really going to be what's going to talk to you? It's going to give you that feedback. So I wanted to talk to you about joint health and what happens with your muscles. So you know, we, we know that there's like fluid in between. You know these joints, right, like we were constantly moving our joints and and when you start to get that bone on bone, which you can probably speak to, that that's your area, but that padding is going away and that's, you know, in between each vertebrae, right, it's like we've got this gelatinous padding.
Dr Anita Haque:Yes, the disc is full of water. You're absolutely right.
Michelle Borrero:It's full of water, just like our bodies. So to not talk about water when we talk about health, I feel like I was going to say we're missing the boat. So kind of pun intended. Boats are in water, but we have to talk about that too. And so your muscles contracting. The less water they have, they're pulling for these nutrients, for this water.
Michelle Borrero:So we start finding we have cramps. You know, we've got things going on. I've had just friends of mine where we've been at concerts and they're like oh, my back really hurts I think it's age and I'm like okay, I want you to go home, I want you to drink. I don't want you to guzzle to where you're, you know throwing up water, right Like, but I want you to start hydrating and all of a sudden these aches and pains go away. So and it's so, so important I've talked to several people who have had I don't know. I just learned about this. It's called rhabdomyolysis and it's like pieces of our muscle tissue start to break off and they find this. With a lot of cross trainers and people that are working out really, really hard and part of it, there's a lot of reasons for it. But when you first go into the ER with something like that. They're giving you fluids. Your body needs hydration. So all of these things are pointing to the same place water.
Dr Anita Haque:It totally is, and you're so right. You know, like I say this to patients all the time about you know, when I look at their x-rays and I'm explaining things to them, we see that there's degeneration, meaning like there's arthritic changes and the spaces between the bones are minimized. That's a lack of hydration over years. It's not overnight. It takes years, days, months, years for that to show up on x-ray. But the symptoms can start right away. Just as you mentioned, you're just a little thirsty and you're starting to feel achy or having muscle cramps. Your body's actually consistently signaling to you what it needs but as humans have sometimes a harder time of listening to our body signals because our mind is going a gazillion miles an hour. We're bombarded by so much information consistently, especially through our devices nowadays, to easily ignore ignore our full signals. We ignore our hunger signals. We ignore our thirst signals. We ignore, you know, the signals to sleep or to relax sometimes. You know, those are the things that I think we can all get a little bit more attuned to. But one thing that you know you mentioned was you know the basis of water and how to get more of that, and we started talking a little bit about you know what time of day.
Dr Anita Haque:So sometimes I get asked this a little bit too. You know the type of water meaning. You know I see patients coming in with their bottle waters. They buy these cases of like you know bottles of water you know, or whatnot from. You know Costco wherever it is right, they, they purchase water. We go to the store, we get water. And then I get asked a lot of times from patients and I wanted to ask you as well, you know, you know what's better. Should we do tap water? Should we do bottle water? What is maybe a more superior water? I have my take on it, michelle. I'm sure you do too. So what would you like to share about that? What do you think?
Michelle Borrero:So I think one big thing is people have to understand what the water is like where they live, first and foremost. So where we live there's there are some areas where the water is better but, like where I live, it's really bad, and so I would not drink the tap water. I do have a reverse osmosis system and it's funny that we're talking about this, because anybody who has been to my home thinks I'm crazy, because I try out all the things, especially when it comes to water. So I've had the alkaline water, I've had reverse osmosis, I've had the water that's just filtered in the Brita, I've had the water that's from the fridge. I even had something that when people came to my house they used to call it poop water, because every time they drink it they'd have to have a bowel movement and they're like what is?
Michelle Borrero:this stuff, but it didn't affect. It was so funny, but it didn't affect everyone the same, and I think that is a point I want to make. Um, for some people, if you're grabbing for bottled water, cause that's all you can get your hands on, do it. Don't stop doing it, because it's important to drink the water. Okay, Um, but in our home we find that we don't. We tend to just be a little bit on the drier side in general with our skin and, like for me personally, my mouth gets really dry.
Michelle Borrero:I find that when I add electrolytes to my water or I'm drinking that reverse osmosis water, my body is feeling much more hydrated. So there's a lot of different things out there that you can add to your waters without having to go get um, you know the things that have all the sugar. Right, we and I'm not promoting anyone, I have no link to anyone but um, I like a brand called Santa Cruz and it's an electrolyte that you just scoop out putting your water. It tastes good, it's clean. If you look at the ingredient list, there's just a couple of things and you know what all of them are.
Michelle Borrero:So, again, going back to yourself and how you feel, I have heard from people in the industry, though, that reverse osmosis is actually really good. I've also heard from people in the industry that you know alkaline water is really good. However, when you're buying store-bought water, I think you need to be careful, because these bottles have been sitting in the sun. They're, you know, been sitting for a long time. We don't know how fresh you know the water is, and so those are. These are all factors, but I want to go back to my first point, though. If this is all you're getting your hands on and it's the only way you can drink water, please drink it. Right, but that's my personal thing. I want to hear what you have to say about this, because I know you've got some.
Dr Anita Haque:I do. I'm on the page with you. Like disclaimer, drinking water is better than not drinking water. Okay, whether it's from a water bottle. Like you're at the airport, you need drinks water, that's you know. You got to spend $20 for bottled water. That's better, probably, than drinking maybe alcohol right there if you need hydration. So let's just say that Now, in terms of maybe more quality based water, I completely agree.
Dr Anita Haque:So acidity and alkalinity I do think that there is a important component to your health with this. So you know our bodies are meant to function more optimally when we're a little bit more alkaline. So we have a pH and our pH balance. The mid of the pH is like seven, you know 7.41 basically. So we want to be anything higher than seven pH, to be more alkaline Below seven. You're looking at more acidic.
Dr Anita Haque:When your body is more acidic just for our listeners to understand this you're more likely to have a lower immune system. Your body is going to be functioning less optimally. You're more likely to have cancer cells thrive. You're more likely to have viruses and bacteria thrive, more aches and pains, more issues with your body when you're more acidic Because, like I said, we function more optim body when you're more acidic. Because, like I said, we function more optimally when we're more alkaline. When your body is slightly alkaline, that's when you're going to fight off those viruses, bacterias, a little bit better. That's when you're going to manage stress, you're going to be able to digest your food, that's when you know cancer really can't thrive in your body as much, so you're going to function more optimally. So that's why I opt for water that's a little more alkaline, so it's not only reverse osmosis, we like to do alkaline water. So the pH is about eight or nine. So it helps me to kind of minimize some of the acidity that does come to my body, which is coming into us all the time through stress. The processed foods, the chemicals I mean we just can't seem to get away from that, unfortunately, with our society and the way that our food is made today. Right, it's hard to be perfect. And your skin I mean Things you touch from papers to, you know, plastic stuff, all that stuff is being absorbed. You're absolutely right. So how can you make your water more alkaline, you might ask. Even if you don't have an alkaline, you know filtration system, like I do. Of course there's a, there's many available out there, but you know there's ways to actually make maybe home, make your water more alkaline, right, one of the things you have in your beautiful wine glass there that helps is adding lemon and lime, adding some citrus.
Dr Anita Haque:So, over the years, one of the things that Don and I have done to help us, you know, increase our hydration and enjoy hydration, cause, let's face it, drinking plain old water is kind of boring. Your palate doesn't always crave it. Yes, we get thirsty, but like it's not, like oh, wow, I just had the best water of my life, right, like most of us. Yes, you could say you had the best, something else like milkshake that tastes great, but water is just kind of plain and boring. So that's why, you know, don and I had, over the years, started to add things to our water to make it more healthful, more alkaline and help us to drink more of it. So the first thing we started adding to alkalinize it was lemon and lime, because it does help bring the alcohol you would think. You know something like like lemon and lime makes it more acidic, but actually the effects on your body is more alkaline, okay, so we added lemon, lime. Plus it has vitamin C. It has like boosting properties for your skin. A vitamin C also helps with like antioxidant properties. So that was already a benefit to.
Dr Anita Haque:The second thing we started adding to our water was apple cider vinegar, because apple cider vinegar has a huge amount of health benefits. So just like a little bit of apple cider vinegar, you know, with the other acidity didn't make that much of a difference, but then it was starting to get kind of sour, right. So we started adding. Another ingredient over time was ginger. So I started adding fresh ginger juice. Ginger is anti-inflammatory. It's great for your gut. Inflammation is constantly something that we're trying to minimize for our workouts, like you mentioned, like some of the proteins or muscle you know being in your mass if you're working out so hard. So we wanted to minimize some of that. So we did the apple cider vinegar, the lemon, lime, ginger and then, because it was tasting kind of oh, we added a little bit of sweetness to some stevia. Sometimes we did a little maple syrup, not much, just enough to give us a little bit of like edge of the sour tartness and then to help with the electrolytes naturally, we started adding a little bit of Himalayan sea salt, like just a little bit of salt, to get that mixed it all up and this became our concoction.
Dr Anita Haque:Okay, so simple ingredients. And that's actually how, years ago, don and I came out with our buzz balance beverage and hangover hug. You might remember that, michelle no-transcript. So it just sort of became this theme. It takes a little more effort, obviously, to promote hydration. It wasn't overnight, but even if you as a listener can just start with hey, add a slice of lemon in your water, add a cucumber, add maybe a slice of strawberry, make it more palatable, you actually might drink more water, which will absolutely gain so many health benefits, no matter what You're going to say something.
Dr Anita Haque:I agree.
Michelle Borrero:No, I just I want to validate everything that you said, and I think it goes back to what I was talking about with you know you've got to do everything that you said, and I think it goes back to what I was talking about with with. You know you've got to do things that are doable, right? Because if we're constantly making things really complicated, so even if you start with just one thing out of that ingredient list, all of a sudden it becomes habit and the next thing, you know, you're like well, I do have some himalayan salt at home, I'm just going to drop that in real quick. And now you've, you know, elevated your water experience to the next level.
Michelle Borrero:And I think a lot of times we forget that in our kitchens we have so many I'll call them medicines, you know, I mean these natural medicines that our body also knows what to do with. And that's the other piece of this is, sometimes we're reaching for all of these things that have been advertised and they know what they're doing. I mean, I, I, I also in human development. I took a lot of sociology and psychology classes and I'm actually in the midst of getting my master's right now. Um, and there's so much that goes into advertising and how we, the people, receive that. So we think, unless I have all these things, I can't do this, and so I love that you broke it down, and everything you mentioned is something you can get when you go to the grocery store Super simple.
Dr Anita Haque:Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like easy, easy things that we sometimes just don't think about. Now I do get asked this too, and I wanted to get your opinion on this because I'm sure you have some thoughts about this. Okay, temperature, right, Like cold water, ice water, warm water, hot water. Where are you at with that? What are your thoughts? And I know, just drinking water is obviously the best. It doesn't matter what temperature. But if you were to hone in on what might be better, what do you prefer, michelle?
Michelle Borrero:So I can speak to preference because honestly, again, I feel like this is some information that changes constantly. In the past I used to hear you need it cold because it's going to help your metabolism amp up, and then I heard, no, you need it room temperature because of this. So for me personally, my preference is room temperature, and part of that is because when something is too cold, I instantly have a response in my body. And this is also where I go back to you have to listen to your body with all of these things, because immediately it's like I go into almost like a rejection mode. And so when I just so, I every night and this is a little hack, right, and you kind of touched on this I every night fill my lovely wine glass here with water and I keep it on the nightstand, so it is room temperature.
Michelle Borrero:And so when I wake up in the morning, as my body is regulating and I'm going to speak to the menopausal women out there who are listening to this, because, as a lot of you know, we experience some night sweats we have a lot of temperature regulation things that are going on, and so when I wake up in the morning, it's it's what my body wants is just something that's neutral, to slowly get me into this mode of okay, I'm up, my mouth is wet, okay, it's time to like move forward with whatever I got to do. But if I kind of shock my body into something, me personally, I'm going into that resistance mode and now everything just is different for me. So I'm a again. Whatever's going to make you drink it. Do that, because there's people in my house who need to have ice water and that is what gets them to drink it, and that's fine.
Michelle Borrero:But you know again the science behind it and what doctors are telling people right now. I don't know like things change so much. Um, but I really believe that when we're looking at our natural body temperature, if I'm just breaking it down like that, we are in within a certain range, right, and so I want to, I want to bring something into my body that's not going to put it into shock. Now, if I'm trying to do, you know, like a cold bath and I'm shocking my body intentionally in a different way because it's my, my goal is something specific, but if it's to truly get water into my body so I can start hydrating, then I really think that room temperature is best.
Dr Anita Haque:No, and I think you're so right. Thank you for giving us that answer, because I completely agree with you, michelle. The science is always changing. I do agree that there is scientifically rather from my, from my experience and expertise with you know, chiropractic and the body. If you drink something that shocks your, your internal temperature, yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna affect your internal temperature and it will take maybe a few more minutes for your body to regulate. So sometimes, you know, like you mentioned, first thing in the morning, I know there are a lot of my patients and friends who say, oh, I go down, I boil some water and I put a lemon in it. I have like warm water with lemon first thing in the morning to like soothe me versus the warm cup of coffee. I say, great, that's a beautiful thing If that's where you feel your best.
Dr Anita Haque:I think room temperature is kind of a great way to go. I often, when I go out to restaurants and they say, oh, can I bring you water, I usually ask for it to be no ice room temperature, just so that it's easy for my body to drink that water down without it maybe being shocked. You mentioned that word and you're kind of the word that I would use too, but it doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to drink. You know, cold water, ice water, especially if you're like overheated, you're outside, you're playing golf and then you need some cold water to really bring the temperature down. So there is a time and a place where cold water really helps you better than, maybe, warm water. So I completely agree that listening to your body is important and if there was a piece of advice and someone's confused as a listener, like where do I start? Start with room temperature, see how you feel If it doesn't feel good to drink that water at an ice cube or warm it up, I mean, see what makes you feel your best, because it really does matter. You just drinking that water overall.
Dr Anita Haque:And I also would like to say I completely agree that I don't think that you need to have weighed number of ounces and you know the formulas that people sometimes make more complicated. Okay, my body weight is this, this number of ounces or this number of liters? Because of this, it you know what. There's too many variables how much you're sweating out If you're exercising or if you're getting in a sauna, like I am, how much you know stress you're, you're, you're having in a day that may require more water. How? Coffee, wine, right, consuming the Adrian, where your hormones are? You know all those things.
Dr Anita Haque:So just starting to listen to your signals of thirst is the first step is just get more familiar with your body by listening to it. You know, start adding more things without making it so complicated. Just bring more water with you, have it next to you, just seeing it. These are little tips or hacks that I offer. Just seeing it next to you makes me want to drink it more, for sure. And also, you know, if you're working at your computer, which most of us are, you just have more water while you're drinking. It's going to make you step away from your computer because, guess what, you're gonna have to use the bathroom more, and that's also going to help your posture and getting things to flow through with your digestion.
Dr Anita Haque:You know, and I've noticed this too, michelle, like you know, people are finding that they're not having healthy you know digestion and they're constipated. Yoga movement of your core, of your digestive system, like twisting things around, can start to kind of help move things through, sometimes as well. I'm sure you found that too, or you would maybe advise that with your clients.
Michelle Borrero:Absolutely. I mean, I've had clients tell me that if they aren't hydrated, they feel, they feel in their own body that it doesn't move as flowy. Once again, here we go with a little pun, but I mean, that is the truth of our body is mostly water and this is what it wants, it's craving it and it comes out in all the different ways. So, yes, I can see people. I mean, sometimes I can just look at their skin, I can look at the way their body moves and already start to assess, you know, if they may need a little, a little more, a little something added, a little extra hydration. But I love seeing the fancy water bottles and people carrying them around. Now they've got so many cute little things. You can even wear, have your water bottle right on your hip. You can just go on Amazon and find all kinds of things so we can have it with us all the time.
Michelle Borrero:We don't need those like big backpacks with you know the little straws for hikers. I mean there's so many fun and cute things we can carry with us. But absolutely we, we know that our muscles want it. We know when you were talking about the lemon in the water as well, it was reminding me of our lymphatic system and how that is responsible for moving the toxins out of our body, and so water flushing that out, especially starting with that in the morning. So maybe before the cup of coffee, let's just get that small glass of water in, and again we don't need to worry about the numbers. Our minds are spinning so much we're overloaded, it doesn't matter. Take three sips of water and then go get your coffee. But just that alone has so many health benefits and we don't want to miss out on that.
Dr Anita Haque:Definitely. I thank you for sharing that, because I feel the exact same way and I think that you know issues, even, like you know, bloating, acid reflux. So many of those things can actually be reduced just with some more adequate hydration. You know, and sometimes you know, I also help a lot with weight loss with a lot of patients. You know clients and patients. Sometimes the simplest tip is don't worry about the food, don't worry about limiting this. Just have more hydration and you'll notice that your body will start to do better with all the efforts that you've already been making towards, you know, losing that weight. So, you know, what would you kind of give our listeners if there was one hack? You know, since this is our, you know giving our hacks here. I have one as well, but I wanted to maybe offer yours, michelle, a health hack to better hydration for our listeners.
Michelle Borrero:Sure, I do have something, but before we, before we even jump into that, I just wanted to say one little thing, because this is this is me bringing in kind of the other, you know, spiritual element to things, if you will, kind of. But if anyone's ever heard of Dr Emoto, he has this book that's called the Hidden Messages in Water, and this is a fun experiment to do on your own, but the idea is that water is vibration, everything is vibration, right. And so they found that they had water in containers and they would speak really nicely, let's say, to one of the containers of water and then really negatively, to the other container of water. And when they froze it they found that there were really beautiful holistic crystals in the container that had all the positive words, and then all of these like broken, distorted crystals in the other one. And so I did something like this with my kids when they were really little, where we made a pot of rice and rice is cooked in water, right. And so we put rice in a container same pot of rice, but split it up two containers. We labeled them, one positive, one negative spoke to it, and the rice that had all the negative, negativity towards it molded way before the other rice.
Michelle Borrero:So even on this other level of why it's important to stay hydrated and what water holds, I mean, there's so much more than just some of the things that we're talking about, and this could be a whole conversation on its own, but I wanted to give people that because I really want them to understand that there's so much more to water than just this clear fluid in a cup. It's doing so much for us in our lives and so I guess if I was to give one hack somebody mentioned this to me a long time ago and they said you know, fill a cup with water and leave it by a sink, and so where you know, so something that you pass by and I work from home most of the time if I'm not in a treatment room with my hands on clients, but just whenever you pass that sink, just take a sip of water and even if you're not drinking the whole thing, but like it's a reminder, it you know it's a sink, so it's already giving you that idea, but like leave a cup somewhere filled that when you pass by it, so for somebody else it might be your desk, it could be wherever, and I know we kind of talked about that a little bit. But you have to have water readily available, because I feel like those moments where we, okay, I need to do this, I need to. You know, I don't have anything here, just have it in places that you pass by, and even if it's like every time I pass by this and notice it, I'm just taking a sip.
Michelle Borrero:So it's it's not asking you to do all this measurement work. It doesn't matter how much you drink, but it's about creating habits, and I am a hypnotherapist, so a lot of what I'm doing is undoing people's old habits that the subconscious mind has somehow, you know, created, and so we want to just be able to create this healthy habit and really get it into the subconscious mind that we don't have to think about it. We just this is what we're doing now.
Dr Anita Haque:So, find.
Michelle Borrero:Yeah. So find a pretty glass, you know, maybe put something flavorful in there that you love. We kind of gave some tips around that and then, tying it all in, leave it somewhere where you're going to pass by and just sip.
Dr Anita Haque:That's a great tip. Thank you for sharing that. I love that. And I love that you shared that like difference of, like the negative and the positive of water and how important that is. Like I think that goes to because we're made of water. Saying negative things or positive things, even to ourselves, is going to affect our biomechanical cellular distribution, even the resonance within ourselves. So what a amazing shift or perspective to have. So, wow, I love that. Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle Borrero:I was just real quick. You can even infuse it into your water. You know, you can say as soon as you're taking a sip, like I'm grateful for this water that's nourishing my body. You know this beautiful water, this, what you know, this beautiful water, this. You know pure water, like whatever you want to say. But all those things, when we're talking about health, it's not just the physical body. There's so many components and this is just a very simple way to tap into all those things.
Dr Anita Haque:Yeah, so beautiful, so true. I mean just kind of, you know what you're saying and emphasizing impacts so much, or your mental really affects the physical anyways. Right, your brain controls your body. I mean, that's just. It makes perfect sense to do that, and you know if I was going to leave our listeners with one of my health hacks on getting more water and you've said so much, I know we've shared so much, but one thing that I think would be also helpful is to eat more water.
Dr Anita Haque:Sometimes we think about drinking water, and a simple thing to do is just making sure you're eating enough water. What do I mean by eating enough water? Well, we know that a watermelon, for example, is pretty much water. An apple is going to be full of water. Having salad as part of your meal is going to be majority water. If you're having a liquid soup that's more broth-based, that's going to be pretty much water. Your cucumbers that you're going to eat is going to be pretty much water. So with that water in these foods, though, also comes a variety of nutritional electrolytes and nutrients and benefits that your body needs.
Dr Anita Haque:So, even if you can't focus on how much water you're drinking, if you also just thought about, in your meals, consuming more of your water first. So, for example, if you have a steak, you've got your salad, your steak, your potatoes, maybe you've got some broccoli, you've got some cucumbers, maybe you're consuming a lot of those water based foods first, before you're eating some of the you know, the heavier parts of your meal, just make sure that you filled up the volume of your stomach with more water based foods, which is also going to really gain benefits for you. Just, you know, trifold, I think. So sometimes it's not just about drinking it, I think you should also think about eating it. And if you get full on water basedbased foods and you're trying to, you know, get more healthy and maybe slim down, that can also kind of be a win-win situation. So that would kind of be my health hack. You had an incredible health hack. Is there anything else that we want to leave with our listeners today, michelle, before we end our podcast today?
Michelle Borrero:I feel like we gave them so much. And so, you know, I think, at the end of the day, whatever you got from this, take one thing and just try to implement that one thing into your life. You know, it doesn't have to be everything, it's not an all or nothing game, it's just how can we? How can we just slowly increase the flow?
Intro/Close:So I'm going to leave you with that.
Michelle Borrero:Thank you so much for having me on.
Intro/Close:I love the conversation and.
Michelle Borrero:I love helping people on their health journeys as well. It's one of my passions, obviously, so I wish everybody well.
Dr Anita Haque:Thank you so much, Michelle, and that's why I knew you were the right person to bring on this podcast, and you also have an amazing podcast called that's my Girl, where I know you talk about great topics health topics, topics that you know impact us women at many stages of our life. So I hope our listeners will also, you know, tune in on that. So thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, listeners. I hope you will impart with one thing even if you're just taking one more sip of water, an extra sip every day, having that cup next to you, eating more water, we hope this helped you and we'll see you again soon.
Michelle Borrero:Thank you.
Intro/Close:Thank you for tuning in to the Haque's 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.