The Chinese Wellness Routine That Fixes Cortisol Face

The key to beating facial puffiness or stress hormones is to do with the foundational habits you do and actively avoid every single day. All of those are cost-free, simple and more effective than anything you would do once in a blue moon or what is trending. So let's go through the simple practices that's going to make you feel beautiful and healthy mentally and In the TCM world, there are four different body types that's particularly prone to facial swelling but the one most relevant to us modern humans is the one with heavy internal dampness and poor fluid elimination. What happens is when dampness increases in our body and elimination declines, all of the channels for the fluid drainage becomes blocked. When that is blocked, all the fluid gets stagnant in our surface tissues which includes our face and that is actually what leads to cortisol phase and inflammation. Think about whether or not you have these symptoms. Easy facial and lower body swelling, oily face, lethargy and heaviness throughout the day or bloatedness in your stomach. Throughout all my university years, I actually woke up on most days with a puffy face and bloated stomach and I always just thought that it's probably because I drank too much water or if I gained weight. I never really thought about whether or not it was the diet I was having if even though it was a salad, maybe it was the sauce or the additives. I didn't really think about whether or not my sleep, stress or how much I moved throughout the day was affecting all those symptoms that I was getting. It got to a point where I just felt like that was the status quo for me, like I didn't really have another normal state apart from that. That is actually the dangerous thing because when you're not mindful with how your lifestyle habit is affecting how your body is responding to it, you just start taking everything as normal and you stop auditing all the different aspects of your life that could be causing particular symptoms. Whenever I'm talking to the TCM experts on this topic, they're always telling me that the kind of diet and lifestyle that you subscribe to is the most important thing. So for example, do you have a diet that is high in salt, sugar, oil and fat? Because once you start quitting all of those, you almost feel an immediate difference in how you feel in your body. It's really the little things that we avoid that makes such a big difference because a little salt or sugar here and there doesn't feel like a lot but when you have a little bit every single day, all of that compounds and it starts sneaking up on you. And what I want to add here as well is poor sleep, stress and watching too much overly stimulating content. And actually all of this is interrelated. When you have poor sleep, you usually wake up craving the most fatty foods, high sugar, high caloric or high oily foods. And it makes a lot of sense because evolutionarily, when our body has bad sleep, our body is under the state of threat where we feel like we have to store as much calories as possible in case something bad happens. And if you feel stressed all the time, I don't know about you but I definitely feel like there's so much more water retention and fluid retention in my body. And I always know that when my body is under a constant period of stress, I just feel like my stomach is very bloated. Apart from that, if you're watching overly stimulated content all the time, that is putting yourself in a stressful mode. And if you do that before you sleep, that is making your sleep really bad which then affects your diet choices the next day. And you can see how all of this becomes a vicious cycle. There's a simple daily formula that I follow which is super easy to follow but you just need consistency and it makes such a huge difference to how you feel. Not only do I not wake up with facial puffiness and bloatiness anymore but I also feel like there's so much more clarity in my mind, stability in my mood and peace in my head. So here are my non-negotiables. Meditate for 10 minutes in the morning as soon as you wake up. Don't check your email, whatsapp or social media. Wake up, say out five things that you're grateful for and then meditate for 10 minutes. That puts your mind in a peaceful mode instead of a reactive mode and a fight or flight mode which can affect your diet choices and your lifestyle habits a lot. And it's just 10 minutes. If you don't like meditation, you can also try to just have some simple breathing exercises because that just calms your nervous system and when that is calm, everything else feels so much more manageable. If you want a light body, you need to eat clean. Aim for a whole foods diet of low salt, sugar, oil and gentler cooking methods away from fried or grilled from Mondays to Fridays. That makes maintaining a healthy lifestyle much easier. I love to have fruits on standby to nudge myself towards healthy snacks. Avoid excessive cold or soft drinks and always opt for water as your default. Try to stretch and walk every single day. Get your body moving as much as you can because the more you sit, the less you want to move which creates a vicious cycle. And prolonged sitting also disrupts your lower body circulation which could make you feel more bloated. Actually for a couple weeks last month, I was letting myself go quite a bit. I was having too many burritos here and there, letting myself not exercise from Monday to Friday. So I was probably only doing three days a week and I was also not doing my 10k steps. I'll probably let myself slip and only do 5,000 here, 2,000 there and slowly but surely it creeps up on you and you start to feel the significant difference in your body. As the sun goes down, I love to light up a candle and just play some relaxing music to calm my nervous system. It helps me to relax and ease into the evening. I also love making a calming tea after dinner because it just helps me settle into a sleepy mood. I created a peaceful mode on my phone to filter what I let in from the afternoon so I get to decide what to think about rather than just let the noise of the world get to me. Dim the lights to signal to your brain it's the evening and to wind down. It's also about what you let in. I usually don't allow myself to go on social media before 12 or after 6 and even during the window I try to go on it as little as possible because I know how much it affects me mentally and physically. I feel so much more stress and anxious and I know that can affect my diet choices which can affect my energy for exercises and that could affect my sleep. So that's why we need to be particularly careful what kind of information we expose ourselves to before we go to bed. If you watch my other videos you'll probably be familiar with my love for Classical Chinese medicine has many remedies for dampness such as red bean water or mung bean but we don't always have easy access to those ingredients. Here's one that works on the same principles but you can easily find those ingredients in your kitchen. Green apple lemon water targets digestion, metabolism, fluid retention and bloating. The green apple releases pectin when cooked which is a soluble fiber that helps gut motility and digestion. Cooked apple is also more gentler in the digestive system which the TCM experts would describe as easier on the spleen. Lemon adds a vitamin C and it has a mild diuretic effect and supports liver function which is closely tied to digestion and fluid metabolism in the TCM world and that's why when you pair them together, better digestion, less bloating, much gentler on our bodies than coffee or sugary drinks. Whenever I drink it, it calms my stomach and digestion, makes me feel much less bloated and it also feels very cozy. It's best to drink it during the day around mid-morning or afternoon. I usually just drink the apple water without the fruits but that's completely up to you. Skip the sugar as that will defeat the whole purpose and specifically always use green apples for this tea. If you want to go deeper into the Classical Chinese versions, red bean water is the well-known traditional remedy for this. I might cover that in a future video but for today, this is a simple version we can all start with right now. Did you know that the simple reason for puffy and dull face is poor lymphatic drainage? Our lymph moves stagnant fluid and toxins out of our face but when that is sluggish, from stress, salt, sitting or poor sleep, the fluid accumulates in the tissues and that's the usual heavy wake-up look we get. Our lymph is highly concentrated in five places, front of ears, inner jawline, behind ears, outer neck and collarbone. We're going to work on three zones today, the lower jawline, side of neck and collarbone. Step one, anoint the drainage point. Thumb just under your chin, press gently up and push backwards along the inner jawline towards the earlobe. Then turn your head to the side so the long neck muscle pops out. You can also take a deep breath and that helps to make it visible and then use your thumb to gently push backwards along that muscle. Then just below the collarbone, use your index and middle finger, push it outwards along the bone from centre of chest out towards your shoulders which opens the final drainage point. Now step two, we want to relax the masseter. Most of us don't realize how tight this gets from clenching especially overnight. So use your knuckles, press into where the muscle bulges as if you're causing a vibration. Then switch to your thumb and second finger as a pinch on your neck muscle. Slightly grip and go outwards and backwards. I already feel the release after just doing it for a few times. This literally makes your jawline look sharper immediately. Step three, move the fluid out. Pinch your chin gently and push upwards and outwards along the jawline all the way up to the top of the ear. Switch to your pinky finger and lead to pull it downwards of the neck muscle ending at your collarbone. Here's another great massage for your dark circles too. Find the eye socket with your fingertips, trace the upper edge of the socket outwards to the top of the ear and then use your pinky to sweep down from your ear alongside the side of the neck. This drains your eye area which most of us skip. Not only does my eye look much less puffy but the dark circles also improves over time. All of these practices don't just change your face, they shift your entire energy and change the quality of your life. Let me know how these work out for you and if this resonated, my Sunday refinement letters go deeper. It's a gift from me to you for us to feel more refined together. Thank you so much for being here and I hope to see you in the next video.