00:00things are changing around here things are changing around here and i want to share with you what those changes are but actually more importantly i want to share with you something that is i feel extremely vulnerable in sharing with you guys and what has been happening over the last two weeks which is that i had gone through a really pretty big deep-seated level of depression and i normally don't just kind of come out here and talk about that on youtube you guys got the facts and that's it but i want to share with you guys uh what has happened over the two weeks that caused me to go into that depression and the beauty of me sharing this story is that i also lean heavily on various tools uh to get me out of that funk one of which is believe it or not getting my sweat on so in this video you're not only going to hear my story find out what the heck is going on
01:00in sexy food therapy what those changes are um the tools that i've used to get me out of that depression but also specifically the sauna why is it so valuable to sweat what's the difference between a dry sauna i like those finished saunas versus an infrared sauna and you're also going to end up hearing from colleagues of mine a couple of colleagues of mine who's going to share with you what they do because i lean heavily on my girlfriends as well so in classic melissa fashion let's do this i'm melissa nutritionist with a background in chinese medicine i'm also known as the hormone and poop whisperer not long ago me and my husband made the decision to leave the city life drive across the country and live in a 25 foot tiny home on wheels with our two dogs bodhi and pickles but this life hasn't been without its challenges i suspect that we have leak here you'll get a raw and unfiltered look of my life along with how i and you can love our hormones throughout life's ups and downs
02:00here on melissa unplugged you know those mornings where you need a filter and it still doesn't do you justice this my friends is one of those mornings i've spent the majority of my morning crying the fact that i'm sitting on this dinette is actually a win [Applause] because i spent the last 15 minutes staring at a wall okay so why was i so depressed at the time i had no idea now i understand that a big part of it had to do with the fact that i just didn't feel aligned anymore and that was something that i didn't even know and i will talk about that in just a second but when we feel really overwhelmed and burnt out for example and we're pushing for the answer sometimes the answers are
03:00not going to be in the doing it's going to be in the being and i know that sounds super woo so stay with me here but it's the absolute truth and so if you are somebody who has an autoimmune condition like i do and i know that on my youtube channel there was like a whopping 70 almost like two-thirds of you guys mentioned that you do or suspect that you have an autoimmune condition what i've done is i've put together an entire autoimmune 4-1-1 guide it's completely free and what it does is it outlines some of the causative factors behind autoimmunity and also several of the tools that i have used that have really helped me specifically if you're somebody who goes into a depressive or even anxious funk and i see this all too often with people with autoimmune conditions and it's something that i want to be able to provide so that you have that resource available at your disposal definitely breath work for sure
04:00because it just hits a reset button i get to a point where i'm not productive anymore if i get into uh you know a state of mind where i'm feeling really negative or depressed or anxious typically anxious so i find if i just kind of step outside and do a little bit of breath work it gets me outside of that bubble and really just like resets everything you know what the easiest thing for me when i'm feeling down or somebody else is feeling down is for me the go-to is always about moving my body always moving my body whether it's walk a workout stretching smooth my body because as soon as you start to move your body it helps the energy move right how about if someone is feeling like really tired if they're exhausted you know it sounds really complicated for people but you know so often and you and i have talked about this rest is always so overlooked as a go-to strategy
05:00and it it's so imperative because when we're not rested we can't even think straight when i would feel exhausted and then i would rest i'd feel guilty previously that doesn't happen to you right used to because i didn't put any value in rest uh rest was for lazy people i wasn't a lazy person i was a go-getter i was an achiever and uh you know i've come to learn that rest really is a success strategy the irony is you know if a small child needs a nap we know they need to nap because then they'll function as better little humans but as we get older we forget that we need rest just as much as little kids do and we stop valuing it so we value it when our kids are young but we don't value it as we get older and the more we can value it you'll be so much more productive i'm able to do so much more when i'm rested but if i'm trying to push through when i'm tired nothing good comes with it the next thing that you might be wondering which
06:00i said at the very top of this video was what the heck is going on with sexy food therapy and this is obviously before i get into the whole beauty and amazing benefits of sauna therapy because they do help but what's going on with sexy food therapy why exactly was i depressed what i realized was after i created that space for myself was that my personal life has changed so freaking much i went from living in a big city and we packed up everything that we had and we moved across the country to live in this tiny home on wheels in a 25-foot camper and it was the best decision i've ever fricking made but with that when you end up having personal changes your business oftentimes is going to reflect that as well and i realized that instead of what i was doing and this is so [ __ ] up that i can't believe i'm saying this on camera but hustling for my worth is no longer a [ __ ] option rather i really want to do things that i am very much aligned with this doesn't mean that i'm not
07:00going to continually talk about hormones because i am but my focus moving forward absolutely is going to be more deeply rooted in not just hormones but autoimmunity and trauma and i say this because i will actually do a video explaining more about the mind body piece the trauma piece how it actually helped me shrink down thyroid nodules one of which was being going to be biopsied for cancer and that it was one of the few things that i did that actually really helped to shift my health in such a dramatic way and i felt that this is really where i want to be moving forward with in my career and in the business and i'm really hoping you guys are going to continue to support me here on my youtube channel because it would mean the world to me so last but not least i want to talk to you guys about saunas because i am a huge freaking fan of saunas i actually did talk about this on my instagram account and what i did was i showed you guys the
08:00sauna blanket that i use and frankly i wish that we brought it with us it's in storage so i plan to go get it when we cross our storage facility again in our travels but sauna therapy is absolutely a must so if you do end up wanting to get my son a blanket because we're in the middle of the vid and maybe asana isn't available to you i have put that link in the comments of this video in case you want to grab your own but if you do have a sauna that is available to you i want to share with you a little bit about my experience at a sauna um actually a place that i go to here in town in salt spring island where i share with you guys the benefits of sauna therapy and how it is amazing for your mental health and so much more so here we go [Music]
09:00okay so there are three different types of saunas there is the dry sauna which is based off of those finished saunas they tend to have low humidity really high dry heat and they tend to be between 80 and 100 degrees celsius then there's a steam sauna which is high humidity but it doesn't tend to be as hot what i found is that steam saunas tend to be a lot more uncomfortable and therefore a little bit more stressful to the system last but not least there are infrareds now that is exactly what i am in right now and this i find is a lot easier to stay in for a heck of a lot longer and the heat goes really deep into your core but i find these to be a heck of a lot more comfortable to stay in and i don't generally stay in these things for probably about 15 minutes 20 minutes tops okay so with
10:00that said if all you have available to you is a dry sauna then do it up a lot of the studies the original studies were done based on dry saunas so i don't really see an issue i just find them harder to stay in for longer it's getting hot in here so take off all your clothes i can't cause this is on youtube all right guys if you want to find out a little bit more about the benefits of cold showers and cold plunges and why i have such a love-hate relationship with these um i did a video all about this that you can check out here on my youtube channel this never gets easier
11:00this is the best part oh tiggly the reason why that i love to jump into a sauna is because i have an auto-immune condition hashimoto's and saunas are amazing because it helps to fight inflammation um and also it really helps me with my mental health so sometimes if i'm struggling i find that getting a good sweat can be really helpful it's amazing for your skin so if you have breakouts it actually can be super effective now if you're somebody who has a really high toxin load believe it or not our sweat can be more concentrated with toxins more so than
12:00blood and even urine which is nuts it's really important that we sweat because our skin is our largest elimination organ so we need to make sure that we're sweating to be able to help to rid our body of these toxins also if you are detoxing sometimes this can be really beneficial to help you with detox reactions as well if you're somebody who feels worse after you do a sauna then chances are maybe your toxin load is really really high so you have to just take it a little bit slower so don't put it as hot don't stay in it as long maybe don't do it as frequently these are some of the things that you can consider and also make sure that you hydrate so as i mentioned earlier one of the ways that i prepare for a sauna is i drink about a liter of water and i put about a half a teaspoon of sea salt in it alternatively if you really hate that you can also make sure that you are nourishing yourself with maybe some coconut water nettle tea these are all really great ways to be able to nurse your body before having a sauna so i mentioned a little bit about how saunas are really effective if you struggle with mental health issues if you struggle
13:00with inflammation but it also helps to reduce something called reactive oxygenative species i know this is a bit of a mouthful think of ros so what this is it's an unstable molecule that contains oxygen and it can react to other parts of your cell and when there's a buildup of it what it'll do is it'll damage your dna your rna protein and even cause cell death because i have an autoimmune condition one of the symptoms of that is poor post-workout recovery and saunas are amazing for that the other thing that's really cool about saunas is that it can help to improve your insulin sensitivity so if pcos which is in my full belief there's an autoimmune connection with pcos it can really greatly help you to improve your insulin sensitivity so in other words your body isn't screaming store-bought store fats store fat so saunas are an amazing addition to your healing
14:00the therapy other cool things it boosts your immune function which i think we're all thinking about right now and number two it boosts something called brain derived nootropic factor this helps to build healthy brain cells this is really helpful if you struggle with memory and even brain fog holy crap okay so if you're somebody who struggles with pain um saunas i can't even begin to tell you how much they can help to alleviate pain okay you that is it thank you so much for watching and for hearing me out i truly do appreciate it
15:00and do me a favor make sure that if you dug this video give me a thumbs up and tag a friend leave me a comment let me know what you thought about this and some of the changes that are coming up i would love to be able to get your feedback don't forget to download that free guide and last but not least i release videos every single wednesday so if you haven't subscribed yet you're gonna miss out so go hit that subscribe button right now and i'll see you next wednesday bye uh because i need you closer to where your tv is still in my pajamas by the way that's totally fine okay you still need to get out of frame oh [ __ ] sorry i didn't see what we were looking at okay i know right