Hi Byte Wellness Fam!

We are always SO grateful for you. The community you’ve built around reclaiming wellness is incredible! We hope you’ll keep supporting yourselves and each other on the internet and IRL (in real life).

This week wraps up our conversation about movement. In Wednesday’s #ByteWellnessWednesday workshop, we broke down the idea of movement as therapy. Make sure you get invites to these monthly workshops (plus recordings) via our Daily Wellness Text Thread by joining here. Or send TEXT to 1(866)717-1919 to join.

Before we get into the science behind Vitamin M (for movement), let’s review our discussion questions for the week.

We’re not into honoring colonial narratives of kindness that paper over systematic marginalization land theft and genocide. That’s not the Thanksgiving WE celebrate at Byte Wellness.

Instead, we welcome the opportunity to find reasons for gratefulness. Let’s be honest…we could all use a little help with being more present and mindful, and recognizing what we’re grateful for is the first step.

So, because we’re so grateful to have YOU in our community, we added a couple extra discussion questions on movement that are designed to re-center our minds on self love. (scroll down)

Just take a minute to marvel at the extreme fortune we’re experiencing (at this very moment) in having bodies that work and morph to protect us…to keep us alive; in having brains that allow us to function as we do in the world and which, again, work in favor of our daily survival.

All of our talk about healthy eating and regular movement is in service of that body and that mind that have dedicated their energy to serving us!

Our Discussion Questions

• How many hours do you sit everyday?

  Give the best estimate you can. A daily average is okay if you sit for different amounts of time every day.

• Where in your day can you interrupt your sitting by standing or moving?

  How you interrupt your sitting might depend on whether you’re sitting at home, in an office or in a moving vehicle.

Extra Discussion Questions (Thanksgiving Edition)

• Think about how you balance movement and rest everyday.

• What does your balance of movement and rest show about how grateful you are for your body, and all that it does for you?

It turns out that physical activity (of all sorts) reduces the risk of disease and death from most of the conditions that are responsible for killing Black women. Relatively new discoveries emerging over the last decade suggest that those benefits may primarily be caused by what we call Vitamin M (myokines). Myokines are anti-inflammatory chemical signals that are released from muscle when its used (https://doi.org/10.1210/endrev/bnaa024).

Check the diagram above, borrowed from a journal article in the Journal of Endocrine Reviews to see how myokines benefit multiple organ systems (from controlling appetite to maintaining normal blood pressure and blood sugar and more).

Next week we’ll talk about navigating the healthcare system as an important part of wellness.

Until then…

Happy Healthy Living,

Dr. Wuse