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The Surprising Truth About Drinking in Moderation with Laura Elorza - E71
62 Plays3 days ago
You want to cut back on drinking, but everywhere you turn - dinners, celebrations, even quiet nights at home - society pushes alcohol as the shortcut to fun and relaxation. Yet, you know those extra glasses leave you foggy, drained, and maybe even stuck in a shame spiral that saps your energy for days.
Breaking this cycle isn’t just about willpower or strict rules. The real challenge is rewiring your habits and making conscious choices that actually fit your goals and lifestyle. That’s tough when social pressure, outdated routines, and internal critics get in the way.
In this episode, we explore how small but powerful shifts in awareness, boundaries, and daily routines can help you regain control - whether your aim is moderation or cutting out alcohol entirely. Instead of vague promises and overnight solutions, we get real strategies from someone who’s helped countless others navigate the same process.
Laura Elorza is a clinical psychologist known for her work in conscious habit formation and moderation, particularly in the realm of alcohol use and wellness. She collaborates with Unconscious Moderation, an app focused on combining hypnotherapy, movement, and journaling to foster sustainable behavioral change. Laura's practice centers on helping individuals navigate social pressures, internal criticism, and mindfulness, offering tools for personal growth rooted in practical self-inquiry and daily routines. Her clients include people seeking healthier relationships with alcohol and those interested in holistic health strategies designed for everyday life.
“I've seen that I've started to drink a little bit more because I associate being more relaxed and more confident with drinking.” - Laura Elorza
In this episode you will learn:
- Why effort is not the same as suffering, and how small steps drive healthy change.
- How social connection and self-reflection play a key role in health and happiness.
- What the “sober curious” movement is, and how thinking about alcohol has evolved.
- Tools and habits for mindful decision-making around drinking and routines.
- How movement, journaling, and guided meditation support better choices and wellbeing.
- Why short-term routine reassessment can keep habits aligned with your goals and values.
Resources:
- Connect with Laura: https://www.instagram.com/um_app
- Find out more about the UM App: https://um.app
- Follow the UM App YouTube channel for more inspiring content: https://www.youtube.com/@UM_App_Official
- Listen to the UM Podcast, ‘Mind Over Glass’: https://um.app/podcast-mind-over-glass/
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
Recommended
Transcript
Misconception of effort and suffering
00:00:00
Speaker
The process of growth and Instagram, you see like self-care Sundays and everything is shiny and beautiful. It takes effort, but effort is not the same as suffering.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I think it's engraved in our heads that effort is suffering. It is not. It's just taking little steps.
Podcast introduction
00:00:24
Speaker
This is the Home of Health Spam podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:38
Speaker
Laura, I am excited for our conversation today, and we'll make sure it's a very conscious and mindful one.
Laura's passion for connection
00:00:45
Speaker
But before we jump into everything that you're doing and your work, how would you describe yourself?
00:00:51
Speaker
So I am a lively clinical psychologist. um I absolutely love my work. It has brought me so much connection and i think that's what I seek the most, connection with people.
00:01:07
Speaker
So I'm really excited to be here talking to you and sharing a little bit about our work and my work personally. So thank you so much for having me. It is certainly my
Cultural shift in alcohol consumption
00:01:18
Speaker
pleasure. and we are incredibly social creatures. As you probably know, one of our five pillars of healthspan is social connection. So love to hear that on the connection side.
00:01:31
Speaker
And let's talk a little bit about the work that you do. and it's really in a spot that's gotten a lot more attention in the past few years. I think I think back to my grandparents' generation and the culture around drinking and the three martini lunch and the martini parties. And i got stories of my father when he was two.
00:02:02
Speaker
walking around a party and everybody thought it was so cute giving him sips of his their martinis and he was just absolutely plastered and had to stay awake because they were worried what would happen to him as a child and now there's this whole sober curious movement and yeah you know i think it was andrew huberman's podcast a couple years ago really turned the tables on alcohol and now Alcohol sales are way down and drinking is way down.
Personal approaches to alcohol
00:02:28
Speaker
So can you talk a little bit about your work in the realm of alcohol and alcohol consumption? course and i agree with you like the um the realm of alcohol has been changing a lot in the past few years now we have all this movement of California sober or sobriety or abstinence and there's no one path not like white or black situation it's more of like Which one aligns better with you, with your psyche, with how you feel and how you set your boundaries?
00:03:04
Speaker
So it's very interesting to have this conversations because, yeah, it's not one fits all. Sometimes we we would have thought that alcohol, you have to cut it out completely.
00:03:17
Speaker
or some others, it's like, no, I can't cut it out because it's part of
Emotional coping with alcohol
00:03:22
Speaker
me. So when you start talking about alcohol, you see all this cultural references, as as you were mentioning.
00:03:29
Speaker
It's part of the day to day. You're sad? Bring something to relax. or you're happy and you want to celebrate. Have a glass of champagne. So it's really mind blowing to see how alcohol has infited infiltrated our culture. our culture And how nowadays, a lot of people are more conscious about what's happening to your body when you're drinking and what's happening to your mind when you're drinking.
00:04:01
Speaker
And people have started to ask the question, oh, why am I drinking? Like, is it band-aid for a bullet wound. And sometimes the drinking was a solution to a problem, to like social anxiety or stress or, oh I'm
Personal boundaries and enjoyment without alcohol
00:04:19
Speaker
feeling uncomfortable. So I'm just going to take the edge off and I'm going to have a drink.
00:04:23
Speaker
And it became ah coping mechanism. So of course, it's something very important to talk about nowadays. It's interesting. I don't know if I ever... thought of it personally as a social crutch or anything. I mean, it certainly seemed fun when I was drinking when I was younger.
00:04:42
Speaker
And then as I got older, it it just, I felt so bad the next day. And so I just started putting in new rules. So I, we'd we'd go out late and I'd say, Hey, you know what? I'll just stop drinking after midnight.
00:04:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And that was slightly better. It's like, okay, well, what if I just stopped drinking after we leave the house party? So if we go to a bar later, I just don't have any alcohol there. I'll just order water.
00:05:07
Speaker
And then i just kept backing it and backing it until I just wasn't drinking anymore. And I realized have just as much fun. i it i think I associated because it would be in environments with friends that were fun.
00:05:23
Speaker
and it was this association more that I thought, hey, this is what made it fun. But it was just another ingredient, but it didn't seem to add. And it certainly, for me at least, was taking away in the future.
Effects of alcohol on the brain
00:05:36
Speaker
So I don't know Everybody has their own relationships. with alcohol, I'm sure. But I don't know what you've seen with the people you work with. So as you said, like some people see it as, oh, everyone is here. It's fun. It's enjoyable.
00:05:53
Speaker
And of course, if you enjoy it, if you enjoy the taste of a glass of wine, of course, like go ahead. um The thing is that A lot of people do see it as a crutch as, oh, ah it makes me a little bit more fun to be around with. It takes the edge off. and It makes me um have a better and fluid conversation.
00:06:17
Speaker
And those are the people that are coming to my therapy and those are the people that I'm seeing like on a daily basis which is hey like I've seen that I've started to drink a little bit more because I associate being more relaxed and more confident with drinking but the thing is that whenever we drink um the prefrontal cortex creates Alcohol creates like a chemical buffer.
00:06:50
Speaker
So acana it kind of is like your prefrontal cortex just like goes a little bit offline. So that internal critic that you have kind of goes offline as well.
00:07:02
Speaker
So a lot of people do have ah trouble with that internal critic. And it's easier to, oh you know what, I'm going to numb it a little bit, just have fun in this situation.
00:07:14
Speaker
But of course, it creates this mind fog that the next day you feel tired, you feel hangover, you feel, of course, a lot of people say like, even when i go out late at night and I don't drink anything, if I am not sleeping, I feel hangover.
00:07:32
Speaker
And of course, we're more in tune with our bodies now. And Now we're seeing alcohol as maybe it's not that fun, not at the moment, but afterwards.
00:07:45
Speaker
So I kind of put it in into a balance in how would I want to see myself now? And in the future, the future, next day, you know?
00:07:58
Speaker
So i think it's, it's, it really, it's according to each person and what you said, some people see it as fun and can have and set boundaries for themselves.
00:08:11
Speaker
Some other people have a little bit more trouble with it. And those are the ones that i see daily on, on the practice side. On the fun side, I'm curious what you've seen because I've certainly heard from people, oh i do it because I'm more fun. I feel like I can't be fun without this.
00:08:31
Speaker
And perception from other people a lot of times is... no, I don't really like you when you drink. Like I like you much better when you're not drinking, but the story you're telling yourself is I'm more fun. And this isn't a perfect analogy, but I had heard people see a guy driving a really expensive, fancy car.
00:08:51
Speaker
Like, oh, that I want to get that so I can look cool. And then you ask the guy, you're like, oh, do you think that guy is cool because he has a car? Like, oh, no, that guy is kind of pathetic that he has a car. But I think I would be cool if I had that car.
00:09:04
Speaker
And so it's we have this perception of. hey, I'm more fun, but other people see us they're like, no, you're not. You're kind of a jerk or whatever it is. And is it is there this disconnect on who we see ourselves as and who we are in those times?
Guilt vs shame after drinking
00:09:22
Speaker
For sure. I agree. And that's a perfect analogy. what you're saying is, as I was saying, the prefrontal cortex kind of goes offline. And this part of our brains is super important because it gives us like the rationality and kind of like that grounding of where am i where who am I, and um how am I feeling? And it connects a lot with your body and your body sensations.
00:09:50
Speaker
So whenever you're drinking and that part of your brain goes offline, you disconnect for from that internal critic, but also Step away from yourself and your identity and you start saying things without inhibition.
00:10:10
Speaker
And yeah, sometimes it could be funny. Some people are funny, but most of the time it could be like, oh that comment was funny.
00:10:21
Speaker
not needed or yeah, you were acting weird yesterday or you were acting out of your character. So it's of course that disconnect from the rational part of you and that ah fogginess that creates the distance between who you are and the behavior you're having. And it's important to know that You are not defined by your behaviors, of course. And yeah, sometimes people can drink a little bit more and have a behavior that it's the next day. It's like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that. That disaligned with who I am.
00:11:00
Speaker
And that's guilt right there. It's, oh, I feel guilty. i did something. i made a mistake. But there are some other people that assume that whenever those situations happen, they say, oh I am the mistake.
00:11:17
Speaker
Right. And there's a big difference. There's a big difference. So the I am the mistake. It's like, oh, yeah, maybe I drank. I drank more than I should have. And next time I'll create some boundaries. As you were saying, I'll stop drinking I If we leave the house party and we're going to a bar from the bar and forward, I'm going to drink water.
00:11:39
Speaker
And some other times it's like, okay, I'm going to like seek for connection and I'm going tell the person I was talking to like, Hey, I'm sorry. I know I was out of line.
00:11:50
Speaker
And that kind of like creates that making amends or building a bridges back on that you kind of burned or air quotes burned during the, during that conversation.
00:12:04
Speaker
But with shame, it's a totally different thing because we are saying that instead of I made a mistake, I am the mistake. And that's when we really do need to seek for connection with people who we love and people who we share and that vitamin person, um,
00:12:22
Speaker
Because that's the downward spiral that we get into. And that's where our inner critic, the one that we numb through alcohol, comes back online stronger than ever and creates that downward spiral in your head.
00:12:36
Speaker
So it's that moment where and we see connection with that person. with community, with a person or within ourselves with different practices. So we can start practicing gratitude, ah meditation or journaling to connect once again and get out of that shame feeling or emotion.
Conscious decision-making and mindfulness
00:12:58
Speaker
On that, I'm curious because you hear that alcohol lowers your inhibitions, right? So you may have societal layers that you've put on yourself on what's okay or appropriate to say or do in this situation.
00:13:15
Speaker
and in some ways people say, Hey, you're not yourself when you drink, you're, you're this different one, or are you more yourself because you've lowered these inhibitions? You you had these things that were suppressing who you were and it's probably not a clean answer, but are you closer to the real you when you pull those away or are you getting further away from the real you? is there an answer there?
00:13:42
Speaker
So, yeah, that's a that's a tricky question, but I enjoy I enjoy those questions because, yeah, it lowers your inhibitions, of course, but you also are not being on the.
00:13:59
Speaker
Let's say this metaphor, you're not the pilot or you're not driving your car. Something else is driving it, right? So it's not that you're stepping into the, I'm driving my own car and I'm being the pilot.
00:14:12
Speaker
You're letting alcohol being the driver. And in the other situations, you're learning letting the culture drive you. So both of them would be you're stepping away from who you are.
00:14:29
Speaker
different perspectives are driving you and, but not you. So that's, that's my answer to, to the question.
00:14:40
Speaker
Okay. And so this is interesting because this, I think ties a little bit to some of the stuff we were talking about before with mindfulness and consciousness and autopilot versus consciously making these decisions. And so in In both those cases, if you're not mindfully steering yourself, you're, ah guess, mindlessly navigating through the lens of society or through the lens of alcohol.
00:15:11
Speaker
And I guess the the counter way of doing that is to consciously step into how you want to to steer and drive and where you want to go. So can you talk about that, like what that means to you and then how you might help clients make that shift?
00:15:32
Speaker
Of course. So, um, that's a beautiful way to put it and it's, yeah, step into your consciousness. And what that means really is ask yourself the questions of why am I doing this?
00:15:48
Speaker
Why am I deciding to behave like this or say those things or act a certain way? Usually when we don't ask o ourselves the question, we are doing an autopilot.
00:16:02
Speaker
And the question is, do we really believe in autopilot? Do we really, really trust autopilot to make decisions for our life? Usually not right? Sometimes it's, we're we using a third party, let's say, to make decisions for our life.
00:16:18
Speaker
And maybe that's not what really aligns to us. So what, how i approach this with my clients usually is, let's ask and let's talk about your desires, right?
00:16:31
Speaker
Not what's expected from you, what you should be doing, but what you get to do. What do you want to do? When you ask those questions, it rephrases. It can be semantics, really, but it rephrases the lens through what youre how you're seeing your life, really.
00:16:50
Speaker
So it starts with that. Those conscious questions and about yourself, about your behavior, about your thoughts, about And sometimes those questions need to be asked without like those buffers um that can be, for example, alcohol, because you will be seeing it through a different lens.
00:17:14
Speaker
So it starts with that. It starts with the conscious question and being mindful because alcohol, There's a thing that we hear a lot about mindfulness and I think a lot of podcasts talk about it and it's it's beautiful. It's a beautiful practice.
00:17:32
Speaker
And i think that our society has stopped the ability to be bored or to just do one thing at a time because we're always doing multiple things at a time.
00:17:44
Speaker
And um I recently heard this. I just finished my my yoga teacher training and they teach you about meditation and mindfulness and it's beautiful.
00:17:56
Speaker
And someone said, like, how about just washing the dishes? It's just washing the dishes. You don't have to be productive. You don't have to be doing a lot of stuff while you're washing the dishes.
00:18:09
Speaker
Just do it. Right. Or what about peeling an orange? It's just peeling an orange. So I thought it was so beautiful because it's that way of like, oh maybe I just have to recenter, come back to me and ask the mindful questions without my attention being pulled thousand different directions.
00:18:30
Speaker
So i think it really ties with meditation and it's a very powerful tool. And a lot of people think that meditation is something that you have to put your mind completely blank, sit down completely quiet and not let any thought disturb you.
00:18:52
Speaker
And have thing that I say and it's Your heart is meant to be beating. Your lungs are meant to be breathing. Your mind, it's meant to think.
00:19:06
Speaker
It's going to happen. It's not to put your mind in blank, but it's not getting attached to those thoughts. And that's the main thing.
00:19:16
Speaker
Don't get attached to those thoughts. They come and they go. They're not you. I'm curious on this, the the mindfulness, the the presence, right? Being present is is very powerful.
00:19:29
Speaker
ah On the mindfulness, it can be exhausting and to also to consciously have to make every
Balancing autopilot and mindfulness
00:19:39
Speaker
decision. And so is there a time and place for autopilot?
00:19:44
Speaker
So i think maybe with alcohol consumption, or Or food for anything, but let's let's go through the lens of alcohol, where if you, depending on what your relationship is with it, and anytime you go out to dinner, anytime you go out with friends, anytime you go to a party, every single interaction, you're having to consciously decide, okay, do I do this or not? Do I do this or not?
00:20:12
Speaker
Versus you and have one point of conscious awareness and decision-making and say, you know what? I'm going to have one night a week where I allow myself two drinks and the rest of the time it's on autopilot. And so it's always going to be no, no, no, no. So I'm not thinking in on that one night. I'm saying yes, yes. And then the rest, no.
00:20:34
Speaker
Versus every single time where I get this decision fatigue. what do What do you think about that? This situation?
00:20:44
Speaker
I guess, contextual autopilot versus mindful decision making. For sure. And and you bring up a ah great point where it's, yeah, the decision fatigue. If I'm being conscious all of the time, it can be exhausting. it can be just draining and it can easily go into an overthinking.
00:21:05
Speaker
So there are certain moments where that you get to peak during the day, right? Like sitting down and think about that.
00:21:16
Speaker
And maybe you can schedule it in. I think a lot of people, i am those, I'm that type of person that I have everything scheduled in my, like Google calendar, it's there, right? So I have like time set during the day of like, hey, I'm going to do ah mindful 30 minutes where I sit down, I journal, I meditate, or I do like a light stretching.
00:21:46
Speaker
Those moments, if you have those moments spread out throughout the day, Or if you have it as, ah for example, a morning practice every single day, when you are faced in situations where, oh, I'm going out with friends and I know which are my boundaries and how many glasses I can do and I can have.
00:22:06
Speaker
That's awesome because you don't have to be thinking, should I say yes? Should I say no? You have your boundaries set, but you do need to have those moments prior.
00:22:17
Speaker
so There's a thing that it's like before you go out, before you're in this space that can create, can be stressful or can be just, you have that social pressure of like, oh, you're not going to drink. How come? We're celebrating. Like those type of comments.
00:22:35
Speaker
You can, okay, I know my friends. I know the place I'm at. I'm going to be in a safe place, but still I'm going to understand how I'm feeling and what do I need?
00:22:47
Speaker
If I... Feel like drinking one glass? Awesome. And hold myself accountable for that one glass. If not, and if maybe I'm feeling a little bit anxious or a little bit stressed, and I think alcohol will make me feel more anxious or more stressed, maybe that day you say, no, I'm not drinking.
00:23:08
Speaker
And i think it's very important as a society not to pressure those who are not drinking. Like you don't know what's going on in somebody else's head. And I think it became a regular practice. Sometimes it's like, oh we're celebrating. Come on.
00:23:23
Speaker
And it's, yeah, just understand that a no means a no. And It's their in paternal thoughts process. and It's a funny thing that it was ever thought appropriate or acceptable to pressure or something. So like if you're going out to eat and someone orders chicken, another person fish and another person beef, right? Three different, it's like, oh no, no, no. You really need to have beef or you really need to have chicken. Like why would you need to push this person's drinking water versus wine? Like why would you need to push that thing? It's strange that that ever became a thing I am this lens, though it applies to alcohol, it it really is helpful, I think, for any aspect of health on the decision fatigue.
00:24:12
Speaker
Years ago, as someone talked about he makes better decisions earlier in the day. So when he had a work dinner in the morning, he would always look at the menu for the restaurant and decide that point what he was going to order because he would make good, healthy decisions then.
00:24:29
Speaker
And so when he got to the restaurant, he wouldn't look at the menu because he knew late in the day, Thor would make bad decisions. But early in the day, Thor was very thoughtful and would make a really good decisions. And so he could work on nutrition and same on fitness.
00:24:42
Speaker
where say, hey, no, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I get up at this time and I go to the gym. And then to your point, maybe there's times of consciousness of, you know, I have an injury today or there's something going on. Maybe this is an exception, but otherwise I'm running on i autopilot so that I can reserve that cognitive capacity to be mindful, to make the tough decisions on things that really need it versus, yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
For sure. And there's something that you you say there that I think is so important. And i do this like analogy that it's like... Computer programmers, they run the program and they see a bug.
00:25:26
Speaker
So they have to go back, recode, run the program again. And they have to do it a couple of times until that is the coding that stays and they can move on.
00:25:39
Speaker
That is what we're trying to do. When you're doing stuff in autopilot, you got to ask your question yourself the question like, hey,
00:25:50
Speaker
Is this autopilot really serving me? And maybe the question, the answer would be no. Like it's not serving me. I'm not making choices that align with my priorities and my values and however I'm feeling like.
00:26:04
Speaker
So maybe I do have to ask myself the conscious question of how do I align with this? And at first, it has to be a conscious thing of, oh, yeah, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, i am going to the gym and do weightlifting.
00:26:20
Speaker
That's part of my new routine. After a while, that becomes the autopilot. And that's what we're trying to make, right? That this conscious choice now becomes something so engraved and wired within us that it It's not heavy anymore.
00:26:40
Speaker
And that's the first answer when you are asked the question or are facing a situation like this. Yeah. and I mean, it could be baked for a period of time.
00:26:52
Speaker
And then maybe it's not serving you anymore. Maybe after a year, maybe after ah month or three months, like like me, it hey, it's after midnight. Oh, let me reassess. Maybe it's after I leave the house.
00:27:04
Speaker
And so that's a thing. At least I do on my own calendar is reassessing every three months on everything.
Embracing change for personal growth
00:27:14
Speaker
What because I do you talked about how you book everything in your calendar. And so I do this zero based calendaring where I think about how much time do I want to allocate to work versus sleep to family versus friends to exercise and design out the calendar.
00:27:30
Speaker
But just because that was right in 2023 doesn't mean it's right in 2025. And so yeah it needs some periodic mindfulness to say, okay, what do I want to make autopilot now based on what my priorities are?
00:27:44
Speaker
For sure. And we are, there's something that it's so important to know is that we are dynamic creatures as well as we're social creatures. We're dynamic creatures and we change our minds and we see new things and maybe that changed our perspective. And that's awesome that we get to change our perspective. It's so beautiful that we get to face our days curiously and see what what brings the day. And at the end, it's like, okay, maybe I can add this to my routine and maybe this is not serving me anymore. And that's great too, because that is the process of growing. That's the process of
00:28:24
Speaker
being a dynamic creature as well. So sometimes we are very strict and to we have to be coherent and we have to like have everything set up for our lives until we're a hundred years old. That's impossible. We don't know that.
00:28:41
Speaker
We don't know that we have the day to day and that's what we have. And maybe what you said, you have calendar blocks every three months to reassess. And it's like, okay, this three months I focused on this.
00:28:54
Speaker
How do I want it to be the next three months? And I think it's really cool that it's, if you think about it, three months, it's really a short period of time.
00:29:06
Speaker
And it's wonderful because you get to, okay, I get to try out a new thing and let's see what sticks. And speaking of trying new things and tools, can you talk a little bit about unconscious moderation? So we talked about some of the things you can put in your life. What are the tools that you can and do use in your practice to kind of help people with this?
App introduction for moderation
00:29:26
Speaker
Unconscious moderation is this app. It was created, of course, to help people to moderate as the title of the app is. and what we understand by moderation that Be conscious about your day-to-day and your decision-making.
00:29:47
Speaker
So it's to moderate alcohol intake, but we've seen that this app really helps with moderation and a lot of aspects in your life.
00:29:59
Speaker
So it has ah three main pillars. So the first one would be hypnotherapy. And it's not the magic tricks that you see in Vegas where people are doing like some crazy things.
00:30:13
Speaker
um It's actually ah very like guided deep meditation. So it's A 20 minute meditation where um you are guided to through different aspects of your life.
00:30:28
Speaker
It could be childhood. it could be decision making. It it could be happiness. It could be um ah shame and guilt. A lot of things that as humans we experience.
00:30:40
Speaker
So it gets gets you into this deep meditation practice. It's guidance. So you don't have to like, oh, I have to ask myself this questions and I don't know what question should I ask next.
00:30:52
Speaker
completely you put on the the headphones and you kind of surrender to the practice and and the relaxation. Then you have also the movement part. We really do believe that the the phrase move a muscle, change of thought, it's very important too.
00:31:12
Speaker
So when you are actively moving, you also are actively connecting to your body. So When you're actively in tune with your body, whenever you're drinking, you feel like, okay, I'm getting to the point of I'm starting to feel a little bit dizzy or, oh, maybe this is my last glass because my body, I'm feeling a little bit out of my body body and I don't like that sensation. So this is my last glass.
00:31:42
Speaker
So that's why we you incorporate the movement as our second pillar. And then our third pillar journaling. so A lot of the times our thoughts go way too fast.
00:31:57
Speaker
yeah Have you experienced like you have one thought and it just continues and like snowball effect into an avalanche. And what we think about journaling is that your hand can't go as fast.
00:32:11
Speaker
So what you need to do is just like sit down and write. And we give you prompts for you two of course, think about those aspects of your life. And it's a 90 day program, which helps you like day by day guide you into this deep conscious questions.
00:32:31
Speaker
And that's what I was saying, like, hey, set up 30 minutes of your day, do a light stretch, journal a little bit, do a guided meditation, you're on your way, you had your 30 minutes to align with yourself.
00:32:46
Speaker
So the next couple of hours that you're working or you're spending with friends or with family, something that you can do easily because you know what what's the goal for today.
00:32:58
Speaker
And um this app really brings all of this together, sends you reminders, it gives you a like a full path 90 days.
00:33:10
Speaker
And it's really about building habits. So you can change one habit for another one. So one habit that brings you a little bit of like uncertainty or like makes you feel a little bit of comfortable after after you made the decision to drink to a habit of like, hey, I'm feeling comfortable. I'm feeling calm. I feel that I know the next step in my day.
00:33:39
Speaker
So it's habit changing. Yeah. And that's mean, we talk about all the time that transformation doesn't happen from these big heroic acts.
Sustained effort for transformation
00:33:53
Speaker
It's from these tiny incremental steps.
00:33:58
Speaker
consistently pursued and followed through on that leads to that transformation because it it happens over time. You you see someone, and this is this is a tough thing with social media, with the internet, where you're promised, oh, in two weeks, you get the six pack or two weeks, you lose 30 pounds from this magic program. And that's not realistically how it happens. It's sustained effort, but it has to be the only way it's sustainable for you is at the right level.
00:34:27
Speaker
pace in the right step. So if if it's huge steps and after three days, you're going to fall off, that's not going to get you anywhere. Back off and do these little steps and build it over time. So ah really I really, really appreciate and like what you're doing there.
Further resources and app information
00:34:42
Speaker
um and If people want to learn more about it and in you, where can they find more information? So we have um the YouTube channel where we talk about topics that we've mentioned here, like ah how to build build habits or why are my habits not sticking? And after three days, I'm back into my old ways.
00:35:04
Speaker
ah We've talked about happiness versus pleasure. And about, um we also mentioned like cold plunges and how it can help you rewire your your stress response.
00:35:17
Speaker
um So that's one of us, our of our channels, the YouTube channel. We have Instagram and TikTok. It's UMUP. And of course, you can download the app as well, ah where you'll find more in-depth information about everything that we've talked so far.
00:35:37
Speaker
And i think for our side, it's very important to just try and as you say, get those micro winds throughout the day and set yourself for success.
00:35:51
Speaker
So for example, there's a ah big thing that we try to encourage is drink more water during the day, stay hydrated. And yeah and it's, it's so beautiful because it's like, Hey, before you go to bed,
00:36:07
Speaker
Fill up a glass of water, put it in your nightstand. when Once you wake up, you'll see it, you'll drink it. Easy as that. So little movements that you can start making.
00:36:19
Speaker
A lot of people think that the process of growth is like, as you said, and Instagram, you see like self-care Sundays and everything is shiny and beautiful.
00:36:31
Speaker
And it takes work. It takes effort. But Effort is not the same as suffering. So, and I think it's engraved in our heads that effort is suffering.
00:36:43
Speaker
It is not. It's just taking little steps during the day. Yeah. I mean, in many ways it can be rewarding, right? We we are purpose driven creatures. And so having that purpose and that pursuit of a purpose gives meaning to the day, meaning.
00:37:03
Speaker
ah yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, Laura, thank you so much for your work and the time today. I'm sure many people will have a lot of takeaways and can follow you and unconscious moderation on the app and the the YouTube channel and everything else.
00:37:21
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for having me. I had ah wonderful time with you and yeah, hopefully we get to talk again. I would love that. And to all our listeners, enjoy a lively day.
00:37:33
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on alively.com.
00:37:46
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.