It's a frequently asked question: 

But aren’t you an herbalist? Or are you a movement teacher?

My philosophy is simple- if it helps you be well, it’s fair game to include in my whole body approach to wellness. Boom.

Lymph is a super simple example (this is all the body fluid that’s not actively in your blood right now. It’s in and in between cells, and in lymph vessels and nodes, washing away waste products like old cells and dead bacteria. But the lymph system doesn’t have a pump like the heart in the circulatory system, it relies on the body moving for it to move.)

Lymph can be supported materially by:

• Drinking enough water
• Herbs that can support or stimulate movement
• Reducing inflammation and stress

It can also be supported manually by:

• Dry brushing
• Hot and cold shower rinsing
• Massage
• Correcting posture to straighten out the channels
• Aerobic, bouncing, or functional exercise to add movement

My practice integrates the manual and the material- I’ll teach you to move, stand, and sit right AND how to support your body from the inside. It’s a whole body approach that’s really, actually holistic- inside and out, physical and herbal, consistent and persistent. 

Check out my services here and get to work with me to feel better yourself

Not only does this allow your digestive organs to practice contracting down to their smallest size, the emptiness allows time for any needed repair and construction work to happen. 

​Give your digestive organs a break, and a chance to change sizes. Give the lymph fluid and connective tissue around your organs some space, and some fresh blood flow. And give all the tissues a chance to heal: the GI tract really has a lot of constant damage to repair, so a pause gives all this a chance to happen.

Herbal remedy? Aperitif? Morning bowel stimulant? Yes! 

The bitter taste is an amazing actor in our bodies- not only do our tongues taste bitter, but we have those same bitter taste receptors in all kinds of other body tissues too (like our lungs and kidneys). When we TASTE bitter, all sorts of things happen all over the body.

Specifically regarding digestion::

• Smooth muscles relaxes, so there's less tension in the gut
• Digestive juices like saliva and bile are stimulated
• Peristalsis (movement of the intestines) is stimulated
• Sweet cravings are often diminished
• Circulation is stimulated, improving digestion, metabolism, and healing of inflammation
• and more!

You can find alcohol-based bitters 3 main ways.

1. In little bottles at the liquor store, like Angostura, Peychaud's, and many small batch brands
2. In big bottles at the liquor store, like Campari, Aperol, Fernet Branca, and again, many artisan brands
3. In little bottles at the health food store, like Swedish Bitters, Urban Moonshine brand, and many small herbal makers brands

The rule of thumb is if it's in a big bottle you can sip it neat, if it's in a little bottle it's for flavoring or small dosages

Food based bitters include liquids like Coffee and greens like Dandelion, Escarole, and Radicchio, as well as Chocolate and Cacao nibs.

Dandelion root, Artichoke leaf, Bitter Orange peel, Gentian, Blue Vervain, Angelica, and Horehound are all bitter herbs you may see on some ingredient lists as well. 

Practice these 4 exercises for your Digestive System, and let me know how you're feeling! And Learn more about exercising your insides and outsides, for structural and systemic health, in my Foot to Forehead Fix program.

Can you lift your big toe- without using your hands? Why should you care?

This is important because tension in your feet is a good indicator of also having tension in your pelvic floor, neither of which is good for us.

In my experience, almost all of the aches and pains we deal with are somehow connected to the hips and pelvis. A healthy pelvic region requires a balance of strength and mobility, and VERY often the clients I see don’t have either of these. 

Simply put, your pelvic floor is the very foundation of how you move- and how you feel when you move. Not having good strength and mobility makes for a messy chain reaction up and down the body, and this is why I’m always working with clients on the feet from day 1, regardless of what else we’re also working on.

Start trying to move that big toe. It needs a combination of muscle strength and nerves to tell it to, and this takes time. I’ve read that nerves can grow about 1 inch per month, so this won’t happen tomorrow. But if you practice (all of life is a practice, isn't it?) you’ll get there.

P.S.- You’ll probably also see some other improvements up and down the chain too. Everything’s connected, after all.

P.P.S.- Want some extra help? I can do that! Sign up for a private session with me.

​Oh you rascal, Peppermint. Every time someone say "Peppermint does this!" we have to add, "Yes, but..."!

Peppermint chills, then it warms. It tingles, and also it relaxes. It aids digestion, but can exacerbate reflux. It's a morning tea AND a before-bed tea. What ARE you??

(Like all the plants) Peppermint is a personality. We can't put it in a single box, any more than YOU can be put in a single box. Instead of "what does it do?" ask "how does it work?"

🌼 Menthol cools tissues, which stimulates circulation. Both of these help relieve pain and inflammation

🌼 Herbnerd word: AMPHOTERIC. Peppermint brings down high things, like energy at the end of the day, and jazzes up low things, like energy in the mornings. It normalizes levels, from any direction.

🌼 It relaxes smooth muscle. Good for full or sluggish intestines (as is the cooling/warming pairing) but NOT always so good for a full tummy. The relaxing might go up towards the esophagus instead of downward. I prefer Peppermint with nausea but bitters after a big meal.

Peppermint People run to both extremes, and could use a bit of balance in their lives. Always run to one extreme or another? Balance the Peppermint with another herb- hot Peppermint + Licorice for cold people, cool Peppermint + Green Tea for hot people, maybe.

What does rest and restore mean to you?

Everyone has their own particulars- mine involves a hammock and a pillow and a book and a nap- but at the heart of the R&R idea is one particular body structure- the Vagus Nerve. 

Our fight-or-flight stress response, called the Sympathetic Nervous System, has a clear headquarters- it's called the HPA axis, and it's responsible for creating and regulating all our reactions to stress. (Btw, it's our culture-informed thinking that distinguishes between "good" and "bad" stress. To our HPA axis, it's all the same stress. Survival is an extraordinarily basic need, so a phone beep is the same as a tiger.)

On the flip side our Parasympathetic Nervous System, the one responsible for actually opposing the stress response and allowing us to, you know, live, is spread out all over the body. There's no HQ because we were designed to live in this state most of the time, so it's the default position. 

Take that in for a second. The PNS should be our default.

But which system are your more familiar with? Right. Fight or flight. We live in fight or flight, and it takes practice to get back to the rest and restore state. It's kinda backwards, but this is the world we have created. We have to make do. 

Even though there's no specific HQ for the R&R, the Vagus Nerve comes closest to filling that role. And guess what- you can exercise your Vagus! This means you can strengthen your ability to get back into (and stay in) your R&R state whenever stress bumps you out, because we know it will. 

Obvious, right? Well, no. We do a lot of our daily breathing with our belly or our chest, which causes problems.

(Now, breathing practices are different, and have their own purposes. I'm talking about your daily, not-really-thinking-about-it breathing fright now.)

Since your belly is so crammed with stuff, it's all held in place by an intra-abdominal pressure created by your core muscles. (This is why evisceration is so messy, but maybe just take my word for it.) When you just use your belly to breathe, it messes with this pressure and can lead to problems like pelvic floor issues, hernias, or even reflux.

Breathing with your chest is difficult, since the breastbone doesn't actually expand. This means your breaths will be shallow, making you breathe more often, and can create anxiety responses because of the pressures on your upper back spinal nerves. 

But because most of us walk around thrusting our chests out in fake good posture (fix this with Exercise #1 pleasepleaseplease), we HAVE to belly and chest breathe since the ribs have nowhere to go. ​

Once you've gotten your ribs relaxed down, it's time to reintroduce them to the breathing machine again.

Take a belt, an exercise band, or your hands and wrap them around your rib cage so you feel the front, back, and sides of the bones. Slowly take a breath in, and feel for 360 degrees of rib cage expanding, all the way around. Feel tension increase in what you have wrapped around your torso as you inhale and expand the ribs, and feel that tension decrease as you exhale and close the ribs. Relax your shoulders and your belly, it's all ribs.

This might seem simple and not worth the effort of trying, but I challenge you here and now. By popping your ribs forward, you've probably lost a lot of the muscles in and around your ribs, and the points where the ribs meet your spine are probably really stiff and inflexible. This is hard. 

It takes practice to get all this moving again, but once you do your ribs can buffer the breathing pressures they were designed for, easing the load on your abdomen and upper back. This lets the pressure on your Vagus nerve normalize as well.
​

Since the Vagus goes through so many head and neck structures, there are a bunch of ways we can directly impact it to help strengthen it. 

Here is a list of small practices you can work into your day:

• Chill your eyes, with cold fingers, cold water, or cold eye packs
• Sing
• Gargle
• Belly laugh
• Do breathing practices
• Do yoga, tai chi, and chi gong
• Get a massage and acupuncture
• Taste bitter flavors
• Get more sunlight
• Have healthy, supportive relationships

These ideas will improve the tone of your Vagus nerve. What does this look like? Well, after you do experience stress, you'll:

• Process information faster
• Concentrate better
• Have more appropriate and effective responses
• Return to resting state faster

And good Vagal tone is associated with:

• good blood sugar regulation
• lower rates of diabetes, stroke, CV disease
• better mood
• less anxiety
• more stress resilience
• greater closeness to others and altruism

It's all good in my book! Want more particulars? Here's how to work with me directly

Are you ready to Walk This Way? 

Oh... what way, you ask?

Well, a better way, in fact!

Why am I doing this? Well, I've been hearing from a lot of people that they've been out walking since their gyms and such shut down, but it's not working out so well all the time.

Basically what we've done is taken to the sidewalks and park trails the same way we would take off for the printer or the doorbell- hunched, tight, asymmetric, and unaware.

Have you also taken to the sidewalks and parks since Coronavirus, using your couch-to-bathroom gait? Are you finding yourself sore, achy, tight, stiff, and uneven? 

Learn to walk better with me!

Walk This Way is a 5 day video challenge, with daily emails to your practices, an online community sharing the #walkthiswaychallenge all over the socials, and the best part: daily worksheets done in my exclusive Graceful Stick Figures style!

Ok, I'm not an artist. But you'll "get the picture". (See what I did there??)

Each day of the challenge will feature a short, 5-8 minute video with yours truly teaching you a small, easily accessible movement or stretch. We'll wake up your hamstrings, mobilize your feet and hips, realign your neck, and more- all with simple lessons + herbal supports (since you might feel tired and sore- the good kind!)

Are you ready to walk like a pro? Click here to sign up:

bit.ly/walkthiswaychallenge

Calling All Walkers!
(Hey that’s funny because my friend’s last name is Walker and that’s not what I meant but Hi!!)

By Walkers, I’m really referring to allllll the people who have discovered or doubled down on walking outside as their movement of choice during our Covid shutdowns. 

Hi everyone! Thanks for inviting me here today. How’s the walking going?

At this stage of the meeting we’d share highlights of our favorite routes- seeing trees flower and leaf out all spring, making friends with squirrels and cardinals and in one case a neighborhood llama, discovering magical hidden forest paths and evil poison ivy. (I know it’s not the poison ivy’s fault, it’s just trying to not get eaten, but it does SUCH a good job…shudder)

And now we get to the heart of this discussion. How’s the actual walking going? How are your feet, your ankles, your shins, your hamstrings, your hips? How about the low back, shoulders, and neck? Any soreness, tension, unevenness, inflammation, or pain?

Mmm, yes, I thought there might be. And yes, I have some ideas for you. But my first one, the baseline suggestion if you will, isn’t going to be as sexy as you might like. Here it is:

Now, I know you already are paying attention. To your podcasts, to your step count, to your mileage tracker, to your max heart rate percentage number thingy.

​​I’m asking you to pay attention to something even more important- you.

• How do your feet feel on your path? Can they even feel? 
• Are you walking by tipping forward, or by pushing from your back leg? Can you tell?
• Do your hips lift your legs, or swing them around to get them in front?
• How deep do your ankles bend on an incline? 
• Can your feel your spine muscles on the opposite side of a step helping keep you up?
• Do you lead with your chin, your chest, your pelvis, or your foot?

I know- we’re so used to the outside stimulation of our earbuds and our trackers and even our walking partners, and what I’m describing here is essentially a walking meditation.

Getting quiet and paying attention to the internal outputs, instead of the external inputs. This is challenging. But try it. Pick a section of your regular route to pause your phone. Spend a few minutes in quiet between songs or episodes. Investigate one new sensation or observation each time you go out. 

Or. And. Here’s a bigger shift you can try- wear thinner shoes, and see how that feels. Get your individual foot structures moving more. Explore texture, changing surfaces, temperatures, angles and slopes, starting with the pads of your toes. 

​It’s tough to balance how much exercise we’re supposed to be doing to stay healthy, and much we want to or can do. And one of the best ways to make sure we’re on track is with a fitness tracker, right?

So I have a confession to make- I gave up my FitBit. 

I know, it seems counterproductive. Controversy!

But here’s the argument I’d like you to consider: I had gotten so attached to the metrics on my FitBit that I stopped paying attention to my own measures of wellness and comfort, and it was doing me more harm than good.

The big example I have, the one thing that made me realize just how confused my priorities had become, is my home office situation. If you follow me on Instagram you may remember my video from several weeks back that showed my new set-up- I had rearranged my office so that I now had a floor desk. 

Ugh, how inconvenient! Sitting on the floor sounds awful, doesn’t it?

That’s the idea. If I sit on the floor, not only do I have the opportunity to move my lower body in a variety of ways, I also simply can’t stay in them very long. Floor sitting guarantees me more movement in my day as I shift and stretch and get up more often. 

I have a small rug, a heavy cushion, and a pair of yoga blocks to give me some texture and elevation options, but it’s mostly about changing what my hips were doing so they didn’t spend hours and hours at a 90 degree angle in a chair all day anymore. 

Sure enough, my daily mileage went up. I was getting up more, going up and down my stairs more, and generally getting more movement in. I was syncing that little FitBit several times a day, watching with delight as the little circle filled up and feeling virtuous.

Here I’d like to mention that since the beginning of this year I’ve also been taking walks at the local park, with hills and a variety of path surfaces and lots of trees. Vitamin Nature, yum.

So what’s the problem? Well, the problem was that since I achieved my goal of moving more by changing my office around, I never checked in to assess if “more” made things “better”. I was starting to feel irritated by my setup, and not just because I was on the floor. 

Then, my FitBit battery ran low, and I realized I had misplaced the charger. OK, no problem, I’ll be fine. I know how many loops at the park make up my walks, I know what my normal office days are like, just keep it up and… who am I kidding.

I quit my 6 months of several-times-a-day dopamine hit of validation that I was doing good things habit cold turkey, and that was HARD.

But. However. And then. Within just a couple days I had figured it out. Yes I was floor sitting, good girl, but my left side was right up against my old desk and there was nowhere for my legs to stretch out. I had allocated myself this little space and never looked at whether it was a good fit for me. 

I was only concerned with what the FitBit told me, not with what I was telling me. This week I rearranged my floor office space and gave myself much more space to sit in, and now I love it. 

And now I love my walks again, too. Instead of feeling the wristband getting sweaty and wondering if it’s counting this as active exercise or am I going too slow and should I do another lap because I didn’t do all my flows this morning… I’m listening to my earbuds and practicing breathing more deeply through my nose and feeling the mulch and the rocks under my feet and smelling the cedar grove I love to visit and watching the creek fall over the old dam. 

And I feel good. 

So I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t track your metrics. Go ahead, join the 100 miles a month club! But I am sharing my lesson with you that the metrics aren’t all that, if you’re not actually feeling it and you’re shutting those messages down in favor of the external numbers.

How many times have you said something like:

• I hate running but I know it’s good for me
• I know I’m supposed to do more cardio but my knees just hurt so bad
• My back has been bothering me lately, maybe it’s connected to my new desk chair
• I got new sneakers, why do my feet hurt more?

Maybe the reality is that these things that don’t feel good make them not actually good for you! Maybe you can find other things to do, that help you meet your goal and are also enjoyable and make you feel good, even if they’re not the things you thought you were “supposed to do”. 

I floor sit. I know someone who does geocaching, someone else who dances while she knits (there’s some life goals right there), and many people who play pickleball instead of using a treadmill, a weight rack, or doing a single jumping jack.

The point is, it’s ok to find what works for you, if it’s actually working for you. Just make sure that some of the metrics you’re tracking come from your awareness. 


Want more? Take my 5 day Walk This Way Challenge showcasing small, doable adjustments and additions to maximize your walks, with daily videos explaining each day's practice, and see for yourself.

I’ll be sharing some simple whole-body adjustments and exercises that help strengthen and align everything from your feet to neck, and take pressure off your parts that shouldn’t be working so hard to just take a walk.

Solstice has come and gone. Here in the northeastern US, summer is setting in and it’s traditionally about time for humidity, sandy toes, sunburn, mosquitos, and garden-fresh tomatoes. This year, of course, there’s extra concerns about avoiding people, breathing through a mask, and doing more to stay well on our own. 

Walking has become MANY people's activity of choice since our shutdowns, and now that it's summer here the weather can really get in the way. My coach Racheal Cook described her "Thrive List" this week- it's a list of the the things you need in your life to really thrive, and in looking at mine I realized I really do feel better when I move.

At the same time, though, I wilt like a piece of spring mix in the heat, so I also made a list of workarounds to stop my objections before they start!

These are my goals for daily walking in a Philly summer:

​Obvs, this is a given. I have 2 solutions, one expected and one maybe not. 

First, go really early. Like, dawn. I’ve taken to sleeping with my curtains open so I wake up then anyway, and it really is a magical time. It’s cool and quiet, except for the birds- SO many birds! And then later, after I’ve gotten my day pretty much accomplished, and it’s the hot part of the afternoon and I start wilting (yes I have AC, doesn’t matter!) I can take a lovely nap, maybe even in the hammock. Perfect. .

Second, get off the path. My local park has lovely trails in the woods, and for whatever reason people just don’t use them as much. But there’s shade and it’s cool and I love trees, so the whole thing is a win for me. 

Again, early. Again, wooded paths. But also, cool herbal teas… so good! Lots of herbs are packed with minerals and other nutrients and they act like electrolyte drinks without the weird dyes and overpowering flavors and ridiculous sweetness. I like things like Nettle and Red Raspberry Leaf mixed with Hibiscus and Lemon Balm and Tulsi (aka Holy Basil). It’s like that old “zingy” tea by that big company that everyone’s had, but so much better.

I have a few gallon glass jars (ask at a deli or restaurant if they have an empty glass pickle jar you can rescue) so I drop in 10-12 tea bags total, or 1-2 handfuls of loose herbs each. I fill it with hot water after dinner and put it in my back porch overnight (no sense heating my kitchen more!) Next 2-4 days, depending, I have a fabulous, tart, mineral-rich iced tea ready to sip all day long. 

Now it’s your turn. What are your fair-weather goals? What are your tips to meet them?

Here we have Nettle, flowered and going to seed, and if you look closely👀 you can also see the little spikes that sting you! I might not have gotten the focus quite right, but there's quite a bit going on in this pic.

We talk about exotic superfoods like they must come from far flung regions to be useful, when we ignore, poison, cut down, and don't even recognize the ones that are right under our noses!

As a food medicine, the all-around amazingness of Nettle is hard to match, let alone beat.

Nettle draws out the superhero in all of us too, by nourishing us to our max.

​Who's a Nettle person? We could all be Nettle people. Do you have a Nettle patch?

​Meet all the Herbs I've covered so far in my free Resources Hub