Sleep for Longevity Is the #1 Anti-Aging Hack (And Nature Makes It Work Better)

Welcome to The Mindful Trainer. I’m your host, Melanie Webb, and I’m joined today by my long time colleague and friend, Christy Giroux. 

Christy (00:09)

Hi Melanie.

Melanie Webb (00:11)

So let me introduce you all to Christy. She graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in exercise science, and then she went on to spend 20 years in the fitness and health industry, working with some of the major brands there, including the Sports Club LA, which is where we met, and TRX, which I think a lot of us who work out will be familiar with.

Christy, you and your husband owned a fitness studio in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where you’ve built this amazing community of active people.

After the pandemic, you went on to enroll in Maryland University of Integrative Health. And after three years, you earned your Master of Acupuncture and became licensed in the state of Maryland. And you’re currently enrolled in the Doctor of Acupuncture program at Won Institute of Graduate Studies. Amazing trajectory. 

Melanie Webb (01:05)

Christy, one of the things I really love about watching you pursue these advanced degrees is that it’s so evident that health and wellness is not just a job for you, but it really is your lifestyle.

Christy (01:22)

Absolutely, and I think you can relate to that.

Melanie Webb (01:25)

Very much. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast. Again, just to shoot the breeze and talk shop with my colleagues and friends. And I learned so much from all of you.

You handled a group of 30 full-time trainers. And you did it with so much grace and ease.

Christy (01:54)

Aw, thank you. You guys made it easy.

Christy (02:08)

It was, I felt like that time in our life was like really special and I felt like we were all where we were supposed to be and we all really learned a lot from one another and kind of grew up together in a little like in a way. And it felt a lot more like a family to me than it did a job. 

Melanie Webb (02:56)

I think back to those days at the Sports Club LA, and we trainers valued our sleep so much, and we viewed it as kind of an anti-aging hack, that we actually had a sleep room, if you remember, it had bunk beds in it and nice purple lighting and it was a very quiet, safe space for us to go.

Many of us started work really early in the morning and you never knew like how late we would go or back to back clients, six or eight or 10 clients a day. And sometimes you just needed a little quiet space. So that was like our little sanctuary. 

Christy (03:42)

I think we were a little ahead of the curve too back then, right? Because people like now you hear about sleep hygiene all the time and they’re talking about anti-aging and our stress levels and all of that. But back then that was not like headline news by any means. I think it was back then it was almost like a necessity for you guys.

Melanie Webb (03:47)

No, and wellness wasn’t either.

Christy (04:09)

We need a place. We need a place that we can have downtime that’s not the cafe, that’s not the fitness floor, just to not be stimulated, even if it was for 20 minutes. Yeah.

Melanie Webb (04:19)

Yeah, not be stimulated, bump into a client, feel like you have to like be of service to somebody, not be working out yourself. And just to date this, we’ll go back again. We met over 20 years ago. This was like 2004 when I started training there and you were the manager. So that’s how far back we’re going.

Yes. I think you’re right. We were ahead of the curve. No, no wonder we’re all still such amazing thought leaders.

Christy (04:40)

Yes, was a long time ago. My gosh. We were, we were trendsetters.

Melanie Webb (04:50)

You know I hear it all the time people sacrificing sleep for work, family life, vacation, you know.

Christy (04:52)

Yeah, right.

Sleep for Longevity

Melanie Webb (05:12)

The list is endless, the things we’re willing to sacrifice our sleep for. And I wonder what you would say that if we quit viewing sleep as a luxury, what’s something people would stop doing immediately and how might they change their approach to sleep hygiene?

Christy (05:26)

We don’t have parents that are saying like, it’s your bedtime, but like we could take responsibility and actually.

I think that our phones have become a real issue for all of us. And I think that people spend time scrolling at night. It’s also like the first thing people grab in the morning. Whether they’re using their phone as their alarm or whatever it is, it’s like the first thing we grab and then we’re looking at the screen and then we start scrolling and then we’re getting stimulated.

I mean, from the second we wake up, the second our eyes open.

But I think that, I think we’re sacrificing everything right now and not prioritizing sleep. I think it’s one of those things that is the most, like we could have the most control over is our sleep, right?  We are adults and we can put ourselves to bed at 9.30 PM. 

We don’t have parents that are saying like, it’s your bedtime, but like we could take responsibility and actually put ourselves on a schedule and a sleep schedule. I do that. My bedtime is between 9.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Lights out by 10 o’clock without question.

I also stop looking at my phone an hour or so before I go to bed. But I think, and I don’t know if this is answering your question, but I think even if we look at cortisol levels with people, always being on and always being on their phone, and the work and the stress and like trying to keep up with the Joneses and all this pressure we put on ourselves.

I think we would see such a change in overall stress levels, cortisol levels, mood. Like I think our moods are really affected and we become really short tempered, all of it. I think that if sleep was the one thing people changed, they would see like just a cascade of different health benefits from it.

Melanie Webb (07:16)

Outstanding. I want to put a pin in that sentence that you just said right there that sleep for longevity is something we do have some control over if we’ll discipline ourselves to do so. And all right, since this is my podcast, I am going to ask you this next question that I never hear discussed or read about when I’m reading about sleep articles.

I think I’ve seen it once in the last five years. Let’s talk about pets in the bed and spouses in the bed and different nervous systems of these animal creatures that we are and that these animals are, right? I never see anyone address that.

But I’ll hear from client after client after client, and I know in my own personal life, like what works for me and what does not work for me. And I don’t think we’re willing to have a public discussion that makes it okay for my biology to be different than your biology, right?

Christy (08:09)

Yes.

Melanie Webb (08:10)

And nobody’s willing to go there. I wonder if you’ve noticed the same thing or if I just am not, if I haven’t stumbled upon the same conversations.

Christy (08:20)

I think there’s a conversation in our society that we’re not willing to have and people aren’t willing to come forward and say, you know what, for me and for my health, I need to sleep alone.

I’ve read different studies where they talk about oftentimes women sleep better with a pet in bed with them than men. And men sleep better with a partner in bed, like versus women having a partner in bed. I think it’s like regulating to a man’s nervous system to have their partner with them where it’s not the same regulation for a woman.

They’re starting to study that and look at it. I think you’re right.

I think there’s a conversation in our society that we’re not willing to have and people aren’t willing to come forward and say, you know what, for me and for my health, I need to sleep alone. Or I need to sleep in a different room or I need like people like way back when when there were like two twin beds in a room, I think they were onto something.

Melanie Webb (09:23)

I did too between you and I and all of my clients who tell me the same thing.

Christy (09:25)

Yeah. And I think, too, for women as we start going through hormonal changes, too, I think our sleep is already being disrupted by different drops in hormones. But then we’re also affecting our partners because we’re tossing and turning or we’re hot or we’re, right? And so we’re hot, they’re cold, it’s like a mess. But I think that…

I don’t know if it’s a society thing where we’re scared like, it’s going to signal that our relationship is in trouble or I’m being selfish because I need to put my sleep ahead of my partner’s or right. So I don’t know. I feel like it’s a really tricky, tricky question.

Melanie Webb (10:07)

It is. And it is, there is so much cultural undertone to it because for me as a, you know, exercise scientist, I’m like, look, sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. You have your nervous system and your biology over there. I’ve got mine. This is a scientific decision; but it doesn’t land that way for everyone. I respect that. 

Melanie Webb (10:34)

What I really interesting, I want to go back to that the studies you found. So just to repeat that women tend to regulate a little better with an animal in the bed or a pet in the bed and men better with a partner in a bed.

Christy (10:47)

Yes. And I’m going to find the study and I’ll send it to you because then maybe you could put it in the comments or something because yeah, it was kind of fascinating. It also like kind of makes sense, like in my brain somehow.

We talk about nervous system regulation and the importance of that. I think a lot of us aren’t regulated and we’re so overstimulated all day long. And then to get in bed and have to manage someone else’s nervous system. It’s like we don’t get that down regulation time, which is so crucial, right?

Melanie Webb (11:18)

Yes, that’s how we enter sleep and all of the cycles and everything else. The nervous system is critical to it. I want to have this conversation about sleep for longevity with you again down the road when we learn more about this topic and maybe when society is more willing to have the real, have the conversation.

Christy (11:26)

I know, and I wonder like if more people are sleeping separate and just not willing to talk about it or if people are just suffering. 

Melanie Webb (11:51)

I don’t know either. We’ll have to pull our client.

Christy (11:52)

Yeah, it’s curious. I know, right? I feel like do you sleep alone, together with an animal? Yeah.

Melanie Webb (12:00)

Exactly. Well, let’s stay on this theme of the nervous system because I’ve been really wanting to hear your perspective also of how acupuncture is so connected to the harmony of nature.

The Five Elements

Christy (12:56)

So it’s really interesting. There’s so many different schools when it comes to East Asian medicine and there’s different philosophies. There are different techniques, but one school of thought when you look at East Asian medicine is actually called five element acupuncture, which is really tied into the natural world.

And so it looks at five elements, right? So we’ve got fire, earth, metal, water and wood and it kind of makes this beautiful like cycle. And within all of us are all of those elements.

You can have disharmony in a certain element. So you could have disharmony in like the fire element and that would affect the earth. It would also affect the metal. And so it’s like this trickle down effect where if I have a disharmony in a certain element, just like if you look in nature.

If we have a forest fire, like how does that trickle down and affect all the other areas of the natural world? And it affects all of it, right? 

You have a natural disaster, nothing is not gonna be affected, right? So if we look at the natural world, and I like to look at animals because they are as natural as it gets.

If you watch the rhythm of their bodies, that is how we should be living. They live in harmony with nature. We live in disharmony with nature, whether that’s fluorescent lights overhead, cell phones, sitting all day, sitting behind a desk, driving to and from work, eating processed foods. We very much as humans live in disharmony with nature.

So if we want to come to like a state of healthier living, we have to live in harmony with nature. So that’s, know, eating within the season, the fruits and vegetables that are ripe and are like in season.

If we start eating that way, then we’re getting the nutrients that our body needs at the peak time of those foods, right? You can also look at like what plant life is doing, what the trees are doing. 

Follow the life cycle of a tree. In the spring, the buds start to come up. And so that is like yang energy emerging. 

And that’s when we start to like break through the ground, break through the frozen ground. And we’ve got our first little like daffodil coming up and then it hits its peak bloom, which is more like summer.

Summer is like when things are like at its peak. And then we move into the fall and the leaves start to fall. Like they turn beautiful colors. Then they fall off the tree because the tree no longer needs those. It needs to conserve its energy as it moves into the winter, is like the more yin time of year.

Yin is all about like storing and creating our reserves so that we have the energy to bust forth again in the spring. So if we look at that as like humans during the winter, so we actually just came out of winter. So we’ve already started spring according to the lunar calendar. Spring started on February 4th. 

During the winter we should have been resting We should have been eating like really warm food. We should be sleeping longer hours. Like it’s a very yin time. So you create your stores that are going to last you throughout the year.

February 4th, we move into spring and what that is is like the energetic. If you think about what’s starting to happen underground is things are just starting to like agitate.

So there’s no like upward movement, but it’s like that tiny movement. So you can probably feel it in yourself.

Like people will start to get a little more frustrated when they’re driving or you’re like, I don’t know you have like an outburst for no reason. You’ve got this agitation because it’s like you’re not ready to be like fully sprung, but you feel like something happening in you.

Your sleep might be off. You might be waking up at like two in the morning and you’re like, what is going on? So we’re already there. And then when we get to the spring equinox, that’s actually peak of spring in the lunar calendar. 

Melanie Webb (17:09)

Okay, not the beginning. I have always thought of it as the beginning.

Christy (17:13)

It’s just a different way of looking at it. The lunar calendar looks at the energetic of nature and what’s happening in nature. By the time we hit the equinox, have flowers, right? We have plants have started to turn green, our grass is starting to turn a little bit greener.

Things are happening in the natural world. If you kind of watch that and you start to mirror that, what’s happening outside and how could I be taking that inside in my home to match that, we’d be a lot healthier.

Melanie Webb (17:46)

Well that just makes complete sense.

Christy (17:48)

Yeah, it does. And like, it was funny, I had a teacher in school that used to talk about the holidays and how like the holidays are like the worst thing ever because we put all these like artificial lights in our house and we have, you know, we light up a tree and we’ve got candles going, we’ve got light, light, light, light, light.

And really it should be a time of like darkness and we should be, you know, dimming our, our lights inside our home to match the sun.

But we don’t, we fight it, we turn lights on as it gets dark and we like re-stimulate our nervous system instead of allowing it to come down. I don’t know if that really answered your question, but.

Melanie Webb (18:23)

No, it does.

If we bring in the nervous system, like if we kind of bring back how all that light affects our nervous system and if we’re able to live in sync with our own circadian rhythms, which are heavily influenced by light, the 24-hour cycle and the bigger seasonal cycle is what I’m catching from you.

What do you think it is about modern life that makes us forget that?

Christy (18:50)

The pressure, I mean, we’re under a societal pressure to do, do, do more is better.

I mean, that’s in everything. People think more exercise is better. More weight is better. I’m going to go all in on this diet and I’m only going to eat this way, right? And it’s all this, like, it’s all this yang energy that’s out like all the time.

And if we focused a little bit more on the yin and the rest and the recovery and the things that we do, like meditation, our spiritual practices, we would be, we’d be much better regulated. But we’re just, a young society. It’s like out, out, out, everything’s out.

We’ve got to give every like last bit of our energy until we’re drained or we haven’t done enough. It’s really sad.

Melanie Webb (19:48)

It is really sad and I think I also experience it as an emptiness and a hollowness. Not only do I have to go out, out, out, but I have to grab, grab, grab. I have to fill this up. just looking around, I think some things happening everywhere, right? It’s like there’s some personalities that just cannot be filled. But I wonder, and I notice it in myself if I’m unwilling to sit.

Christy (20:07)

Yes.

Melanie Webb (20:13)

if I’m unwilling to sit in my meditation practice or my, and those can take so many different forms is what I wish more people understood and that there’s a way to experiment in a fun way until you find the one that works for you. And then, and then maybe it won’t always be the one that works for you, but you work at it.

And it’s a discipline. I like to say recovery is as much a discipline as the training practice itself. Like it is part of the pie.

Christy (20:29)

Yeah.

Melanie Webb (20:42)

It’s a piece of this that if you’re not doing it, it’s incomplete.

Christy (20:46)

Yes, and it’s a large piece. It’s a larger piece than people want to admit. And I think you bring up a good point. Like I always thought for meditation, I had to sit like cross legs, you know, in a room, close my eyes and like completely quiet my mind and I could never do that. But for me, meditation is going for a walk in the woods without stimulus.

So not listening to music, not listening to my favorite podcast, Melanie Webb, and not just not having input other than the sounds of nature, the sounds of my breath, my feet crackling, the leaves underneath me. And that has become my most consistent form of meditation.

Melanie Webb (21:12)

That is lovely, a moving meditation and a walking meditation, which I think is the most human thing we can possibly do, is going for a walk outdoors. 

Christy (21:35)

Absolutely. And it checks like so many boxes.

Melanie Webb (21:38)

Yes, there’s actually been so many studies done about that. And I’m sure you’re very well versed in forest bathing where they put Electrodes on people’s brain and measured literally like, the prefrontal cortex of our brain gets a little restful break when we’re taking a walk in nature compared to taking a walk in a noisy urban environment. And then also our systolic blood pressure drops by up to 10 points.

Christy (21:44)

Yes. The electrodes, yeah. Right. I mean, it’s crazy.

Melanie Webb (22:05)

So yeah, we don’t think about all the stimulation.

Christy (22:09)

Right. And that’s something that’s so simple to do. It doesn’t require equipment. It doesn’t, right. It doesn’t require anything other than your time. And even if it’s 20 minutes, like it doesn’t, I think people are like, my gosh, that’s such a process.

I have to go for so long, but you really don’t. Like your nervous system responds pretty quickly if you give it the right environment.

Melanie Webb (22:31)

Yeah, to nurture our nervous system. I love the fact that the nervous system is coming front and center more. And the idea of regulation and being dysregulated. And I think you made such a great point as, you know, as we look at society and community and groups versus just the one that that if society at large is in this constantly agitated state, it’s going to be manifest in the events that we see around us.

Christy (22:38)

Me too.

Melanie Webb (23:00)

So it makes me think about that ripple effect and how the, really am responsible for how I show up in the world.

Christy (23:06)

Yes, yes, 100%. More than we realize. And I think, I don’t know that people want to take that responsibility because it’s big.

Melanie Webb (23:15)

It is big.

Christy (23:16)

Right? But every interaction you have with somebody, whether you are honking your horn at them or whether you smile at them, then affects their day and how they affect the people around them. But we are  all connected 100 percent. And that’s like to go back to the whole living in nature. Like we are just a small part of this massive world.

And the natural world is what we should be mirroring, not like competing with, you know?

Melanie Webb (23:46)

Repeating is the perfect word for this because I view nature as abundant and ever giving, right? And it has plenty for everyone, but not when we’re being unsatiated.

We have entire economies built on scarcity. It’s so not, it’s so disharmonious. So how do you work with your clients to manage these forces?

Christy (24:17)

What’s been so interesting to me is I feel like somebody will come in and not be manic, but just kind of like all over the place. Like squirrel, squirrel, like I had this and then I was doing this and my kid has this. And as soon as they lay down on a table with, I make them take their watch off. They have to their phone on silent. There can be no outside distraction.

The first thing I notice is a deep breath. And I don’t think how many people realize that they’re not breathing throughout the day right? Or they’re like just breathing right here and they wonder why they’re like here and they’re all tight and everything.

And it’s like, we forgot how to breathe.

And that’s like the first thing we can do to kind of regulate our nervous system and bring it down is just take a deep breath. And so it’s the first thing I have people do when they lay down is you have to take a deep breath. And I remind people because they immediately go back to like up here, up here, up here.

Melanie Webb (24:56)

Yes.

Christy (25:15)

And I like throughout, I’ll put my hand on their back or on their belly and just say, I need you to breathe into my hand, breathe into my hand. And the fact that we have to remind ourselves to breathe shows you where we are.

Melanie Webb (25:29)

We’re in a real holding state. Yeah. Defensive and on guard and if not full on aggressive, you know, it’s it’s aggressor or it’s defender.

Christy (25:31)

Yes, we are.

Yes. And our bodies are feeling it. Like our fascia is tightening because of it. And you look at like all the postural, I mean, I’m sure you see this all the time with your clients. Like posture is just getting so awful. And part of it’s because we’re always here, because we’re always stressed and we’re like, we don’t know what’s going to come next.

Yes. Literally.

Melanie Webb (25:59)

Literally. Yeah, I think everyone knows what we’re talking about here. Yeah, it’s intense.

Christy (26:07)

Yes, it is.

Melanie Webb (26:08)

I make a request of my clients and you know, it’s like, it’s like fighting tooth and nail. Like please find a body worker who you enjoy working with. That is, I need you to be finding a body worker.

I have my people I go to and they are so important in helping me regulate my nervous system, keeping my body in alignment, releasing those holding patterns and twisty old injury patterns in my old body. 

It’s such an important part again of the whole in my life that I want to see others enjoy it. And I feel like as a trainer, as you know, when we’re doing the strength work, I’m tightening, tightening, tightening on top of tight, tight, tight.

I’m starting to spend 10 or 15 minutes at the beginning of every workout, just moving, just like moving the fascia, bringing blood flow to the surface, working on range of motion around the joints. And then will do strength training. I noticed the windows of strength training for a number of the clients I’m working with getting shorter and shorter on both ends, particularly if they’re not doing those other practices.

Who’s On Your Team?

Christy (27:16)

Right. And I’m really, hoping, I love that you’re referring to body workers. Like I’m hoping that we’re starting a trend of wellness and not just like disease. 

 I think people are starting to say like, wait a second, I can go get a massage every month and I can go to acupuncture once a month and I can see my trainer and I can do all of these really positive things for myself to help versus just waiting until something’s broken.

And I’ve been at fault for that myself. Like I’ll call my massage therapist and be like, my gosh, I need to see you tomorrow because I hurt my back. Instead of just being like preventative.

And saying no, I have a standing appointment and this is a non-negotiable for me.

Melanie Webb (27:48)

Yes, amen, sister. have one of those every month. And then I have my guy who’s my emergency go to too, like, Garrett, my back’s out, you know? 

Christy (28:05)

Yes. Yeah, like I tweaked something, I woke up weird. 

Cause we all have it, but I really, I’m hoping, I feel like more and more people are talking about it. And I hope, I really hope that we start getting into more prevention and being less reactive.

That right there will help our nervous system regulation. If we stop just being reactive. Cause that’s what we’re doing all day, right? We’re reacting all day.

Melanie Webb (28:33)

To these outside stimuli that we didn’t see coming or they came out of sideways or yeah, I agree. Can I share one of my other regulars?

One of my regulars, I’m going to shout out Mary, my body worker, a rolfer. And the other thing I’ve done for years now is go to the salt water float sensory deprivation tank. 

Christy (28:44)

I started getting really serious about this when I suffered a couple of concussions six years ago. And luckily I had been before and I knew I enjoyed it. And then I got a little more disciplined about it.

For the last two years, I’ve gone two times a month. So, you know, a week or two ago, I was feeling dysregulated and had a migraine and just didn’t feel great.

I went to the float. The minute I hit the water and laid back, it was gone.

I was like, wait, what just happened? and it’s because my nervous system had been trained to know that this is a, a sensory quiet space for me.

There’s nothing coming at me. There’s nothing I have to do. That’s my safe space.

And I get to just float here for in the dark, in the quiet for one hour and soak up all that magnesium salt into my body. I’ve never experienced it so quickly, was like flipping a switch.

It let go. again, it’s because I have the habit of doing that twice a month. It’s on the calendar. Every month I schedule for the coming up, know, and I try not to have to cancel, but I guess it must be rare anymore that I go and I’m really feeling lousy. 

Christy (29:58)

That’s awesome. Use your body, let go.

 I love when a patient comes in and they’re like, I don’t really have anything that I want to work on today. And I’m like, yay. Okay. Perfect. Right.

Because then I know that we’re working on just keeping their chi moving, keeping their blood moving, relaxing, like stress reduction. And that’s so beautiful when it’s not like, I’m in pain. My knee hurts. I woke up and my foot swollen.

It’s like, you’re still keeping this appointment because you know it’s important and you know you’re gonna leave feeling even better. And that’s great. Yeah.

Melanie Webb (30:54)

It’s so great. 

And you know who I learned this from? I don’t know if you remember her. She passed away a couple of years ago. Barbara. She passed away. I was heartbroken. We remained friends for a long time. This was a client I had when I trained at the Sports Club LA. 

Melanie Webb (31:20)

Because she took such good care of me, but she also, so she was, you know, 30 years older than I was at least, and showed me the way of self care through her own. I guess this is how I want to honor Barbara in my podcast. She was at a stage of her life where she had created these preventative regular things that were so much of a, part of the fabric of her life.

As her strength trainer was, I was one of the cogs in that whole system that kept Barbara healthy and moving forward and having someone like that in my life that gave me permission to explore. Maybe we all just sometimes need to be given permission to do these things that perhaps we’ve been told are self-indulgent or a luxury, but they’re no longer those.

Christy (32:10)

A luxury.

Melanie Webb (32:15)

They’re no longer luxuries or self-indulgence. I think going back to everything we’ve just been discussing, they are critical, they address the different aspects of the human physiology and psyche and yeah.

Christy (32:23)

Yes, they’re necessary, 100%.

Christy (32:32)

Yes. And I love that you talk about like you have a team like working for you. I have a patient who is a chiropractor and she comes to me regularly once a week and we’ve talked about that like and we talked to our patients about it because somebody else say like, Oh, do you get acupuncture? Do you get massage?

And I’m like, yes, yes, I get all of those things. I have a team of people like this is like, this happens because of that, right? Like I’m allowed to be here for you and helping you because of a team. Yeah.

I don’t, I don’t think people realize that it’s, but I mean, you know this. Like, your clients are like, you just, like doing all of this and you’re just healthy and you’re young. And it’s like, no, no, I work at all of these things.

Melanie Webb (33:18)

Like there’s a lot of baggage that’s coming in this body and for me to hold this space for you, there’s, this is a discipline that I take very seriously that preparation to be able to do that work. Absolutely.

I love asking the question who’s on your team. We can’t do it by ourselves. We’re not designed to be that way.

Christy (33:28)

Right. No, we need to be in community. 

Chinese New Year, Year of the Fire Horse

Melanie Webb (33:39)

Yes. So lovely. Like all of my conversations, I could go on for hours learning from you. It’s really important to me that I learn from you about the Chinese New Year before we end this conversation because it’s happening. It’s this week. And then the big transition.

Christy (33:44)

Yes. Cool. It is, it’s happening.

So we’re celebrating on February 17th. And I’m sure you have seen on social media that we’re moving from the year of the snake into the year of the horse. And it’s a very exciting time.

So this past year, 2025, was the year of the Yin Wood snake. I mean, we’re talking like low energy, right?

Think about a snake. It’s not very flexible. These last few days a lot of people are starting to feel really unsettled, agitated or frustrated. They could feel burdened or heavy and it’s because the snake’s sole job is to shed. Over the next few days It’s all about shedding and letting go of the things that we don’t need that aren’t serving us body mind or spirit.

Letting go of those, so organizing your home, clean your doorways, clean your windows, get everything set for  the new. So you’re shedding everything.

It’s a good time to purge.

Go in your closet, give away things you aren’t wearing anymore. Go through your pantry, get rid of any foods you don’t want. Purge, shed.

As we move into next week, it’s going to be a young fire horse, which is going to be energetic and it’s young and it’s joyful. It’s also grounded.

Think about a horse. Even though a horse is like strong and it’s moving forward it’s also very grounded and stable. It’s gonna be really important this year because we can get all caught up in the energy and the excitement of everything.

To make sure we’re incorporating those practices that you talked about–the meditation, walking in the woods, float tanks, all those things that bring our yang back down to center so that we don’t get like manic and burnout because fire can be like a candle or fire can be like a bonfire, right?

We want to control, we want to control that fire, stay grounded, stay stable, but it’s really, it’s exciting. There’s like a lot of energy and a lot of like forward movement that we’re going into.

People are really excited and it’s, we haven’t had a year like this since 1966. So it’s, it’s exciting. It’s a 60 year cycle. It is. So you’ve got like, there’s different, like there’s numerology within Chinese medicine too. We’re completing a nine as the snake is a nine year, so it’s a completion.

That’s the other reason like it’s really important to like shed so that we go into a new year like fresh and new and like youthful. Yeah, it’s exciting. It’s exciting like in this in this community that I’m now a part of. It’s very, it’s very exciting and it’s definitely a celebration this year.

Melanie Webb (37:03)

That’s fantastic.

So how will you be celebrating?

Christy (37:06)

So I have already cleaned my windows and I’ve cleaned my doorways. So I’ve done that. I’m going to be treating patients that day. So I’m hoping that I can bring a lot of like good, like solid grounding energy. And we’ll probably do dumplings for dinner that night too. It’s important to wear like color that day. eah, you can wear red. 

Melanie Webb (37:26)

It red? Chinese New Year is red typically? 

Christy (37:30)

But yeah, try to avoid like wearing black and white that day. It’s more about like color. It’s a celebration. And so that way you bring joy and color into your life. Yeah.

Melanie Webb (37:33)

Beautiful description. Thank you for all of that. I’m going to look forward to that.

Christy (37:44)

I think this East Asian medicine is the most beautiful, I mean, it’s been around for thousands of years and it has opened my eyes in studying it to just a totally different way of thinking, but in a way of thinking that feels really grounded and very natural. And I love talking about it. Like I’m always talking to my patients about something with it. So that’s great.

Melanie Webb (38:10)

really neat the way you’ve been able to bring in the Eastern to complement your Western education and experience in the body.

Christy (38:17)

I love it. I love it. I’d have it no other way. Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Webb (38:19)

I love it too. Well, I want everyone to be following you next week and catch this new shiny Chinese New Year energy. So tell us where they can connect with you and watch your work.

Christy (38:30)

So I’m on Instagram at balance acupuncture MD. I’m also I have a Facebook page and I try to do a lot of posting. I’ll do like I’ll post meditations and I’ll post recipes to that are nourishing for like the certain time of like based on the element that we’re in within the year and the season. Yeah, so I think you would really enjoy that.

Melanie Webb (38:59)

Christy, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for making the time today.

Christy (39:05)

Thank you for having me. I really am honored to be here.