February 26, 2025 • 46 mins
Korean culture is having a major moment—from skincare to K-pop to groundbreaking longevity research. By 2030, Korea is projected to have the highest life expectancy in the world. So what’s their secret? Award-winning eco-entrepreneur and Harvard Business School grad Michelle Jungmin Bang joins me to talk about her book Sun & Ssukgat: The Korean Art of Self-Care, Wellness, and Longevity. We dive into ancient Korean wellness wisdom, the power of food as medicine, the concept of a longevity pantry, and self-care rituals that go far beyond skincare. From zero-waste cooking to forest bathing to the deeply rooted cultural connection known as Jeong, Michelle shares how these practices have transformed her view on aging—and how we can incorporate them into our lives.
Website: michellebang.com
Instagram: @michelle.jungmin.bang
Buy the book: Sun & Ssukgat
HOST: Kelly Henderson // @velvetsedge // velvetsedge.com
Follow Velvet's Edge on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/velvetsedge/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It feels like.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Korean culture in general is very influential and popular right now.
I've personally have been obsessed with Korean skincare, but there's
also kpop and I'm learning more and more about the
longevity rates, which studies are showing that by twenty thirty,
Korean longevity rates will be the highest in the world. So, Michelle, Hello,
I was telling you before the podcast. When your bio
(00:33):
came across my desk, I got immediately excited because I
thought this is something I'm really interested in but obviously
not an expert on. So this is the perfect conversation
because you are an expert and you've just written this book.
It is called Sun and Sue Scott. I'm going to
try to get these pronunciations right, the Korean art of
self care, wellness and longevity. So I want to know,
(00:57):
as a Korean American, what drew you to wanting to learn, practice,
and share all of these things from Korean culture.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
I grew up very much Americanized, you know, Korean American.
I was actually born and raised in Brooklyn, okay, and
you know, later on in life, I happened to live
in Hong Kong. You know, it's been two decades in counting.
Because our family, I've got two kids, we split our
time between Hong Kong and New York City as xpatriots,
(01:27):
So I very much live in both East and West worlds.
And at the same time because of my father and
like I say, my extended family, because he immigrated to
the US and you know, his friends were you know,
all from the same graduate school and they trained at
the top medical school in Korea. So I was very
(01:49):
much exposed too early on to these practical and holistic
applications in medicine, which are very much deeply embedded within
our Korean culture, like for example, using whole foods and
holistic measures to recover from surgery, from pregnancies, even I mean,
it's very normalized to take a month off to you know,
do all these things to recover with your body from colds,
(02:11):
from injuries. And I didn't really kind of connect the
dots until much later. And later I married into a
traditional Chinese family that embodied these nourishing traditions passed down generationally.
So in the beginning, I actually hadn't intended to write
a book. Something had happened to me. I sort of
started embarking on this journey. I was in Hong Kong.
(02:33):
I had launched a dream social impact startup that experienced
a lot of growth. It was this sustainable fashion brand.
The fashion industry is very wasteful, so we took a
lot of these textiles that were just about to go
to landfill and then rescuing them up, cycling them and
you know, and inspiring a younger generation of designers to
(02:55):
kind of reframe their minds around how they could do fashion.
And weened up selling to Barney's diet a Porte, Lane
Lane Crawford's like the equivalent of Barney's. And at the
time that this happened, I was we were experiencing so
much growth and kind of winning awards, and I was
really passionate about what I was doing. And I find
(03:17):
that this is so much the case with a lot
of leaders. You know, no matter what you're doing, whether
it's like taking care of your family or you know,
you're so passionate about the mission or your team. I
literally was working around the clock. I was managing a team,
you know, twenty four to seven kind of around the
world on different time zones, and I just felt like
(03:38):
I was too busy to sleep, too busy to eat,
and kind of in the middle of all that success,
I landed in an emergency room for the first time
in my life. And you know, these things happened to people.
It was an acute episode that you know, luckily I
was able to recover from. But after that hospital visit,
I just became really sick all the time. And I
(04:01):
found out later that the doctors had put a camera
down my throat into my stomach and kind of discovered
that my entire gut lining was you know, completely compromised.
It was very little that remained healthy, and you know,
I just sort of started thinking that this health problem
was brewing for a really long time, and I felt
(04:23):
like I was in a conundrum because you know, before
the hospital visit, I kind of prided myself on being
really strong and never getting ill, and I was in
this sort of, I don't know, this culture of just
working really hard and you know, just pushing through any
aches and pains and you know, powering through it. And
(04:44):
I think it just it got to a point where,
you know, when I landed in the hospital. My body
was sort of screaming that I needed to do something.
It just kind of brought me down this whole rabbit
hole because I realized at the time I live on
a continent that breeds a completely different way of life than,
you know, what I grown up with in the US.
(05:04):
One morning, when I was kind of walking down the
beach in Hong Kong, I started noticing that there was
a group of people early morning. They were, you know,
dipping into the cold ocean and swimming, and you know,
they were stretching on the beach. And then you know,
as I got closer, I realized they were like eighties, nineties,
(05:25):
you know, far older, I mean, but at the same time,
they had so much energy, you know, kind of wrinkle
free skin, and I was just starting to you know,
it was like really piquing my interests, like what are
these people doing to be so vibrant at that age?
They were all they all had silver hair. And then
I started noticing that so many people like them were
like them around me in Asia, and I just started
(05:48):
casually interviewing people around me. So it was just kind
of like trying to grapple with what I had grown
up with sort of the narrative of Okay, I need
to race because you know, internally, I was thinking, okay,
by fifty, things are going to start declining. My mental health,
you know, my my mental abilities, my you know, my
(06:09):
physical abilities. And it was just, you know, I just
needed to race to achieve it all. And here, you know,
there was this cohort of people, like everybody just sort
of casually living in Asia and just doing all of
these things we typically reserve for the young, and so
as I was starting to look at the data, and
you mentioned that Korea is expected to top the longevity
(06:31):
charts in twenty thirty, but actually when you look at
the data, all of the Asian countries kind of jostle
for this top position, and you know they have obesity
rates that are in the single digits. I mean, I
just was I started getting really curious as I was,
you know, going through the data, and then I started
formalizing my training. So I went into two functional food
(06:52):
medicine programs. And you know, this is something that's sort
of an addition to what I typically do. I'm a
Harvard Business School graduate, I'm a social impact entrepreneur. But
I was just really interested to learn and extend more.
And I actually extended that into healthy aging and mother
baby care because you know, the mother of two children,
(07:13):
I wanted to impart that wisdom with my two children.
And then I started to travel, and you know, as
I started learning more and more, I just started really
realizing a lot of things around me, like my colleagues,
my friends, you know, just started getting really ill and
kind of becoming these mirrors to what I was. You know,
(07:33):
it just it first starts as an acute episode. Then
you know, you start ignoring it, and then it becomes
this irreversible state. Sometimes it's incurable. And I was sort
of lucky that I caught it early on enough to
you know, reverse it and to you know, to get better.
And then at the same time, when I came home,
you know, being ill, my husband was sort of cooking
(07:56):
me all of these healing foods, things that his grandparents
and his parents had taught him, and it just can
helped me to connect back to, oh, this is what
my parents used to do for me, and it was
so embedded in our Korean culture. And so I started
traveling and kind of interviewing a lot of people across Asia.
I went through China, Japan, I went through Korea and luckily,
(08:20):
you know, from Hong Kong. It just is so much
easier to kind of go around the longevity hub of Asia.
But it was just really fascinating because I was able
to see a lot of things with my own eyes
but also develop patterns, you know, just kind of well,
how can I take this ancient wisdom and translate it
into a modern lifestyle where I'm super busy. I'm a
(08:42):
mother of two kids. I want to do a lot
of different things, and so how can I find ways
that are efficient effective? You know that. You know I'm
very much an environmentally friendly person. You know, how can
I find solutions that are going to align with my
values and the way to move forward? So that's how
I ended up with the book.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Well, you touched on a lot of different topics that
I want to get to. You basically just set up
the whole interview.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
But you mentioned the two things that I think are
really sticking out to me, and I think this is
how kind of the book is structured. But self care
and then food as medicine. And I love that you
started your journey by basically reaching burnout and also your
health really declining, because I think we're starting to see
a lot of that in America, and I know I've
specifically bumped up against some of the same things, like
(09:36):
we have these expectations on ourself to succeed, and we
all want the you know, the American dream of really
like building our own business and having that kind of
praise or whatever it is success, I guess, but we
do it at the sacrifice of our own self and
our own bodies and our mental health and all of
that that stuff. And so it seems like it's starting
(09:57):
to come into the conversation of how do we switch that,
but we don't necessarily know how. So I love that
you went back to ancient cultures that have been doing
this for so long, and you're seeing these women in
the bath or the water, and you're like, wait, how
do I want what they have? You know, like you
were actually witnessing it. So let's start maybe with the
(10:18):
food piece of it, because that is a big thing
that I love to talk about, and my listeners are
very used to me saying I look at food as
medicine and ways to heal our bodies. But I think
in America it's almost the opposite, like it's making us
sicker the way we eat here and the obesity rates
are out of control and all of that. So I
(10:39):
want to know In the book, I know you talk
about the longevity pantry and maybe we can start there,
but can you explain to listeners maybe how the Korean
culture uses food as medicine and then get into what
the longevity pantry is.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
There's a word in the Korean language, it's yakshik don one,
and it's a sort of complicated word, but it means
food is medicine, and it's food is important. It's a
very important driver in our biochemistry. But it's a philosophy
that kind of encapsulates a lot of the natural methods,
and the idea dates back to ancient times. It's this
(11:17):
orientation of trying to prevent be proactive with your health,
and I think it's a wellness philosophy that we often
dismiss or forget as a first step. So the idea
in Korean culture is that healthcare actually first starts with
what you eat, and then you know, you try to
allow your body to naturally heal, and then secondarily, if
(11:41):
you know it doesn't improve, then you go into advanced
medical treatment. I feel like, you know, I kind of
labeled it in my book to schools of medicine, and
I feel like that is actually what is very fundamentally
different between what is happening in US healthcare culture and
in Asia. So sometimes I feel like, you know, there's
(12:01):
two camps in the US. There's you know, those that
are in medicine and they you know, they're sort of
rejecting the holistic measures and then those you know, on
the opposite ends of the spectrum. But what they're doing
here in Asia is that they're embracing both. And there's
so many reasons why I wanted to write the book,
but one of the reasons was that I feel like,
(12:22):
you know, I kind of dream of like a future
in medicine healthcare in the US where you know, food
is part of the spectrum of care. It starts at home,
you know, and even if you're not cooking, you kind
of know the ideas of food preparation, you know what
the ingredients are, you know. I always feel like, if
I'm speaking about the book with my friends who don't
(12:43):
like to cook, try to do it at least once,
because then you know the role of an ingredient, what's
important and what's actually not important in the food that
you're eating, because we're so disconnected from real food in
our modern culture, a lot of things come packaged, you know,
like ketchup is actually tomato, you know, and it's like,
you know, then deconstructed into something else which is maybe
(13:06):
not a tomato. And so we're very far away from
actual food. And so I think when you start with
the simple thing of even thinking about preparing and being
mindful of what you're eating, then that's kind of the
first step. So, you know, it's very embedded in the culture.
Like I mentioned that it's normalized after you give birth
(13:28):
that you have one month where your body's healing from pregnancy,
and it's kind of like a whole community village mentality.
Everybody's coming together to you know, help the mother. They're
bringing food, and there's specific foods that you know, are
given to the mother to help her breastfeed if she
wants to, and to also you know, help with the baby.
(13:48):
I mean, longevity education starts really early in Korea because
babies as old as six months old are starting with
kimchi biotic you know, rich food. Yeah, kimchi is such
an important aspect of their culture. It's like really part
of their cultural identity. There's like two hundred varieties of it.
(14:09):
There's you know, community activities around it. And you know
it dates back to a long time ago when there
was no refrigeration. You know, they just they buried things
and that it fermented and actually came out with this
beautiful flavor. But also this this diversity of you know,
really friendly bacteria which helps with the microbiome, which now
(14:29):
I feel like new science is only just wrapping our
heads around, Like only recently do we uncover that we
have a microbiome in our brain which has implications to Alzheimer's.
So the microbiome is you know this trillions of you
know bacteria that we have, you know, in our systems.
It's on our skin, it's in our mouth, you know,
now we know it's in our brain. But you know,
(14:52):
the food that they're eating, these fermented foods, actually helps
build the balance. So there's the balance of you know,
the ecosis in the microbiome, and so when they eat
the kimchi, it helps bring it back to balance. So
it's as simple as that. Like when you it's very
interesting when you go back to kind of studying the
(15:12):
you know, the dustiers of the you know, the royal kingdoms.
They used to do what were now I feel like
it should be the future of medicine. The royal physicians
worked with the cooks, so you know, if the king
was sick, they would report back to the kitchen, and
then the kitchen would cook something to help the king recover,
and it extends to the whole family. And all these
(15:34):
behaviors in the kingdom just kind of trickled down into
the community. And if their populations are retaining the traditions,
then they're actually living longer, so a lot of the
traditions are being retained. I mean, if you see Korean
cuisine today, like all the little side dishes that as
actually from a long time ago, they're still retaining the traditions.
(15:56):
So it goes back to the food is medicine philosophy,
and I really like this idea. I never used to
think of food as medicine. I mean I was kind
of before I started this journey, I was like working
really hard, working out really hard, and you know, I
feel like when I started looking at Yakshito want it
(16:17):
was really about not following a single prescriptive eating plan
or avoiding certain food groups or you know, it was
just not restrictive, and it was just kind of this
idea of just using the trying as much as possible
to use the body's natural healing systems to you know,
to thrive, so that you know, we we can use
(16:38):
that before we start intervening with pills or surgery. So,
you know, when you look at Eastern medicine kind of
study it, it really is all about clearing your internal pathways,
whether it's your nasal passageways or your you know, your
bowel system. You know, That's why sometimes like as an American,
I would walk down the you know, these Asian streets
their ear cleaning, and you know, it's sort of like
(17:00):
this metaphor, like they're just trying to clear away all
the pathways so that the body can function as it
was meant to.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I do think we discredit how powerful our bodies are are.
They are their own healers, and I think a lot
of times we miss that here and the quick answer
is to throw a pill at something. But what drives
me crazy is that I fully believe in food as medicine,
and so I'm thinking to myself Okay, you get on
(17:28):
this pill, but you don't change the way you eat
at all, right, and so then you're continuing to make
yourself sicker. Like I actually got served an article this
morning and I didn't even read it because it frustrated
me so much, but it said a shockingly high rate
of women under forty have come in this last year
with breast cancer. And in my head, I'm like, the
(17:49):
number one leading cause of cancer to me is are
there's two, I guess, but stress and food, like what
we're putting into our bodies is what will manifest out
of it. And so if we don't start paying attention
to these things, we're going to continue to have this
rise in illness and sickness and short lives, you know,
(18:10):
because we're not taking care of our gut. Like you said,
do you have thoughts on how people could maybe start,
because I think a lot of like the misconception that
I hear is ugh, but then I have to like
(18:32):
eat gross things, and I'm like, no, actually.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Real food is really good.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
We just don't know enough about it sometimes to know
what our options are. So if someone's having that mentality,
do you have something that you could encourage them?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
With or say start, I feel like, you know, you
can go back to the principles of what they used
to do. Like so I talk about the whole plant
philosophy in the book, and it's this idea like a
long time ago, we were grown our food. We're very
much in touch with nature or the environment, and it
took a long time to grow something right and now
(19:06):
it's very conveniently, you know, served to us. But you know,
because it would take such a long time, we would
try to utilize every part of the plant. And you know,
they take this mentality with meats as well, you know,
with animals. You know, it's sort of like this idea
of like respecting the entire thing, not wasting it. So
if you think about like something that grows, you are
(19:28):
using it from flour to root and even the edible peel.
So you know, I think anybody can do this. Like
one of the reasons I felt that the resources that
I used that I found were you know credible, were
you know, going back to PubMed, which was the medical resources,
and you know, trying to see a lot of the
new research I was coming out of medical institutions. But
(19:49):
also like if you look at the data like if
you were to compare an apple with the peel and
without the peel, you start realizing that actually you're throwing
away all of the nutrition by peeling it and not
eating the skin, and it actually contributes to food waste.
So we take the time to grow all these things,
and we're actually wasting thirty percent of what we're producing,
(20:12):
and then fifty percent of that actually is happening in
our homes because of what we're doing. We're just not
eating all of it, and so we're missing out on
a nourishing supply just just by not eating the peel.
And the other thing too, is that there's a lot
of like really staple items that you know, I found
were really key and I call it the longevity pantry.
(20:34):
But you know what I found so encouraging is that
when you start taking a look at these villages and
how these centenarians are eating, you know, it's not like
these beautiful Instagram photos. You know, they're not artisanal. They're
just sort of like you know, very fresh, you know ingredients,
but they're using certain ingredients to heal. So, for example,
(20:56):
vinegar is now part of my longevity pantry. I use
every single kind you know, and one of my favorites
is per Semon vinegar. Per Simon is you know, it's
a milder flavor but also has a higher load of antioxidants.
Koreans will put it in soup. There's a tangy flavor
but also helps with you know, your metabolism, and it
(21:17):
also helps with your sugar control. And so yeah, I
use white vinegar. Black vinegar something that I use as well.
It's they all have their own sort of flavors, and
I feel like what I've done as sort of like
a transformative switch in my diet is I've moved my
palette from sweet to savory, especially in the morning on
(21:38):
an empty stomach. There's a lot of things that the
Koreans are using just through their condiments, like their fermented foods,
Like the kimchi.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Is so good too. If you have a tried kimchi,
I highly recommend. It's one of my favorite snacks now.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Oh really, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah, And you know, if you're if the spice is
too much for you, there's always sour krout and then
you know, before it gets fermented. Cabbage is super important
in you know, Korean culture, and there's so many varieties
of it, So that's definitely a part of my longevity
pantry as well. And the other switch that I really
made was fruits. I feel like I took it all
(22:17):
out before, you know, and I was a wellness enthusiast
because I was worried about the sugar load. And now
fruits are very much a part of my diet. You know,
it's my way of getting all the rainbow colors. But
also you know, the fiber and citrus fruits in particular
is something that I use every day.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I love that you mentioned the thing about the sugar
because I think that's such a misconception too. We hear
these buzzwords like, oh, we don't want any sugar in
our diet, but like that's a healthy sugar and so
and there's also it's loaded with vitamins, and so we're
missing out if we don't allow ourselves these things. But
then we go eat all these things that are full
of chemicals, Like, it just doesn't make sense to me.
(22:57):
The more I've learned about it, you know, I think
we just have some unlearning to do in this country
about that.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Yeah. So I learned something called temple food from the
Korean Buddhist nuns and there's like a foundational pantry that
they use, so they'll use a sessame will with soy
sauce and red pepper paste. It kind of is derived
from fermented soybeans, which is a rock and paste. What's that?
(23:27):
What you jung? Okay if you've heard of it before,
but you know, it's a taste that you can find
and it just it has this like really amazing umami flavor,
so whatever. Like sometimes I even dip a cucumber into
it and it just makes it taste really good.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
The more I learned, too, it's like they're little switches
you can kind of make. Like I've been using a
lot of tumeric and the things that I cook because
it's really good for inflammation, and it's so wild because
I just it's not that far out of reach. I mean,
once I started thinking about it, I mean, I can
cook with it so often, and it's just like an
additional thing that's so good for your inside. Like inflammation,
(24:09):
if you guys don't know, is like really one of
the causes of all disease, and so if you can
start eliminating that within your body, it's amazing even how
different you feel on a day to day, like your
energy levels and things like that. And that's the other
piece I want to talk about with listeners is just
it's not like a restriction kind of thing. It's actually
(24:30):
it opens up your world to so much more and
then you can do things like, you know, eliminate things
that aren't serving you as much, like energy drinks or
things like that because you don't need it, because your
food is fueling you like food is supposed to be fuel,
not the other way around. Let's move into the self
care aspect, because I know this is another part you
(24:51):
talk a lot about in the Korean culture. First of all,
what would you define self care as.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
I think it's taking more of a preventive approach, you know.
So I mean, if you take my situation as an example,
I waited too long. I waited until the symptoms arrived,
and I ignored all of my you know, the signals
that my body was, you know, was telling me that
it needed help, and you know, I got sent to
(25:16):
the hospital. So self care is taking the steps well
before that. You know. It's it's a practical practice of
actively protecting our well being. So I feel like it's
like the million things that you can do every day
that would you know, nourish your mind, body, and soul.
So it's you know, in the modern day, it's like
picking up the phone and calling your friend I and
(25:39):
a lot of it, I think is stepping out into
the world. We're so much a part of, like this
digital culture, you know, tied to our phones, tied to
our computers, we forget to step outside. And actually that
was one of the biggest steps too, you know, my transformation.
I used to you know, I started walking a lot
because you know, I started realizing, oh, actually, what they're
(26:02):
doing is they're not necessarily going to the gym, and well,
they are going to public parks and they're you know,
they're kind of doing chin ups on the public park equipment.
But what they're really doing is they're stepping outside and
they're walking. So Stanford did a study taking a look
at smartphones and realized that Hong Kong had, you know,
the highest steps in the world, and you know, ever
(26:23):
since then, they've been attributing that to longevity rates. It
was about seven thousand steps. And then I just started
trying it because I was curious. And then you know
the time, I had just started doing these trips and
then COVID hit and I was thinking, Okay, what can
I do to stay healthy. I'm also getting, you know,
sort of really bored at home, and so I started
(26:45):
stepping outside. And when you step outside at night in
Hong Kong, there's all these like really exotic things like
bats flying around, you know, wom bats, you know, possums,
And then I just started realizing, Wow, there's a whole
world out there. It just kind of became this habit
every night, and I started listening to you know, nature
while also taking steps. So I got this like really
(27:08):
cheap pedometer, and I started like noticing how many steps
I was taking every day, and it just the days
that I was taking more steps, I just felt so
much better, especially after meal, because it was helping me
to digest, so it was just helping me to control
my glucospikes. It's been really transformative. And so the steps
you can take inside, I do it, you know, running
(27:30):
errands inside or cleaning the house. But when I do
it outside, it just is, you know, it just makes
my day. So that really I try as much as
possible to make that kind of a daily requirement for myself.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I talk about walking all the time. It's how I
clear my head for one and a lot of times too.
I realize even if I go on a short walk
in my neighborhood, like twenty minutes, I will start to
have all these creative downloads, Like it just opens.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
You up in all of these new ways. Physically, like
you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I like to do it in the day where I'm
getting some vitamin D as well. But yeah, the way
it helps me mentally and emotionally, I mean I could
be inside feeling like the world is caving in, and
I go on a twenty minute walk and I'm like,
oh no, things are good.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, crazy how it helps.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
I think. The other thing too is that you just
need these little breaks. So I used to just kind
of like go, go go, And you know, I still
do a lot of things, like I'm very intellectually curious
about a lot of things. I like to, you know,
dip my hands in a lot of projects. But you know,
I realize that I can last so much longer if
I just take the time, even for the few seconds
(28:37):
to like take a breath, be mindful about my next step.
I mean, it actually does help with what you're saying
with the inflammation, because stress, in it of itself, it
could be good in the moment, you know, it could
push you to a goal. But chronic stress I realized,
you know, in sort of the hard way, is that
it leads to inflammation and disease. So you know, it's
(28:59):
something that you really have to manage. Is something I
pass on to my kids. And going back to your
question about self care, I feel like, you know, in
social media, it's often defined by beauty and you know,
it's all the different things like I said, you know
about taking care of yourself, but it is actually a
medically important term. You know, like top health organizations like
(29:20):
the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, they have a definition
of self care and it you know it. I feel
like it needs to be heard more often. So it
encompasses a lot of different things, like including being body
aware enough to seek medical care when you're needed. So
so you need to listen to your body. You need
to see like if something's happening, and you know, and
(29:43):
kind of like monitor it. And so I talk about
in a book. You know, part of that process is,
you know, something that I do in my bath care
like I will self massage and then like it's an
opportunity for me too to kind of be in tune
with what's happening with my body every day. To well.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I love that you mentioned it's a preventative act because
I think a lot of us do what you did,
which is wait until everything's falling apart, our body is
completely malfunctioning or having issues, and then we're like, oh,
you're right, I need to do some self care. And
that's actually like that the end hower that's beyond the point.
But if you do it in a preventative way, hopefully
(30:23):
you wouldn't be getting into those spaces where things are
falling apart, or your stress levels are too high, your
body is shutting down.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Like, I love that idea.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
That was such a switch for me because I don't
think we often talk about it that way.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, and I feel like you're not talking about it enough.
There's so many you know, professionals that are just you know,
they're in these high achieving cultures and they're just kind
of powering through and they're discounting self care because it
just seems so frivolous. But actually, when you start thinking
about you know what, is happening with modern health, Like
(30:56):
the World Health Organization actually estimates that over seventy percent
son of global deaths are caused by preventable chronic conditions.
We can actually empower ourselves as individuals to self care. Yeah,
that is awesome.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
In your work, I was reading about some of the
practices of self care in the Korean culture, and I
wanted to know if you could tell the listeners. We'll
just kind of go bullet point through these and maybe
you can explain what they are to people. Okay, Korean
hygiene practices, so removing shoes indoors and three three three
brushing method us about that.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Yeah, so you know, they eat a lot of kimchi.
You know, they're just making sure that, you know, they
are mindful of their oral health. So I think there's
a lot of things in Korean culture that are just normalized.
It is not strange for them to take care of themselves.
And so if you use the word self care with them,
(32:05):
they might be puzzled because it's just so normal for them. Okay,
do these things like if you practices right, like if
you and even if I ask my parents, they won't
choose the same words. They just do it. This is
an example. You go on a plane and you're going
to Korea or you're coming back from Korea and it's
(32:26):
a long haul flight, and they will start putting videos
of stretching. They'll give you stretching exercises because they know
that you've been sitting for hours and your body needs
to you know, you need to help encourage the circulatory systems,
and they're showing you how to stretch. I mean even
during COVID they were actually implementing through YouTube these you
(32:48):
know Olympic stretches, you know, down by the Olympic gymnastics team,
and it's so normal. If you go down the streets
in Korea, people will just stop walking and they're just
stretching and it's very normal. So as Americans, it's kind
of like a strange concept, but you know, even just
taking off the shoes, it kind of makes sense. You know,
(33:08):
you're kind of like keeping all of the mud outside.
But it does stay back to long a long time ago,
because there was something called ondols and there's they're heated floors.
So it was just like this very clever system of
using heat from the kitchen and then kind of like
it moved horizontally into the bedroom, and the floors was
(33:29):
where they slept, where they ate, you know, so it
really needed to be clean. But yeah, it's very much
something that I do at home as well, and when
I was working in Korea, that's what they do in
the office as well.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
In the office even. Yeah, oh that's so interesting. Okay,
this one was really interesting to me because I always
think of coffee and tea as dehydrating, and you say
that they in Korean culture they stay hydrated often by
drinking more decaffeinated herbal tea.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So is it the caffeine that dehydrate?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yeah, I think so. I mean they are employing a
lot of different ways of hydrating that also includes food.
So if you like, if you go back to the
cucumber example, cucumbers are ninety six percent water, and then
not only that, if you dip it in like a
salt drived condiment, you're actually boosting the hydration and you
(34:22):
know those senior electrolytes. So they're doing a lot of
different things, including the nourishing brods. The tea that you mentioned,
it's a pooty cha and it's a roasted corn tea
and it's kind of like if you think about like
flavored water, if you're kind of they drink it like
water and it's very good for your skin. I drink
it all the time now. So I have these two
(34:44):
carafts at home. One is filled with filtered water and
I put lemon in it. The other one has woody
cha in it.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
And you just drink that.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I drink all day.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Okay, And lemon water is actually really good for digestion, right,
just putting in your water.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
See, these are like, like you said, it's very day
to day things that they're not big adjustments, but it's
just incorporating the small things into our lives as these
preventative basically healthcare methods. So fascinating. Okay, what about forest
bathing and how if we live in a city, how
can we you know, incorporate this into our day to
(35:23):
day life.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I think even walking down a train line street actually
exposes you to you know, fresh air, the bacteria in
the air. We are, especially you know, post code, we're
very anti you know, sort of germs.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Right.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Actually, self care is predicated on this idea of terrain
based living, so it's being at one with the environment,
with nature, you know, forest bathing actually is very healthy
for your gut because you're exposing your body to all
of the things that are happening in the environment so
that they have healthy responses. Is you know, when you
(36:01):
have when you're exposed to them, it's not only really
healthy for your body, but it's also you know, it's
just like a distressing method as well. I think it's
just very nourishing to be out in nature. It is
a really popular activity in Korea, like something that everybody does,
like even teenagers, they'll go out into the mountains and
forest bathe. It's very popular.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Can you explain to listeners what it means to forest babe.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Well, technically, if you were close to a forest, or
if you wanted to use that as a destination, you
go into the forest and you kind of breathe in
the forest air and you walk sort of mindfully, and
you know it could just be for like a momentary walk,
but that's it. That's forest bathing to.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Just being amongst trees. Like you said, if you don't
have access to an actual forest, can kind of incorporate
the same things.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
Okay, I feel like even if you were in a
city and you kind of walk next to open water.
I think anything kind of being close to meure is.
I even try to bring nature home by you know,
bringing lanson. I think we're just so far removed from
nature often.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Let's talk a little bit about Korean baths culture, because
I do think you can find that in the States
somewhat now if you start digging for it. And I
haven't personally tried this, but I have some friends who
have and they love it.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They speak very highly of it.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
So can you talk about the wellness for everyone approach?
You know, even when we're thinking about our youthful skin,
which is a huge I know we all want to
maintain great skin, and as aging can be a tricky process,
so let's talk about it in relation to that.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
So skin health is actually for them, it's very much
like an inside out. So the fermented foods is like
it helps with their radiance. I mean, if you start
taking look at these Buddhist stunts, they are literally luminescent.
It's amazing. These bath houses are called Jim jillbong in Korea.
And so for a few dollars a day, you can
go into, you know, for twenty four hours, actually you
(38:01):
can step into this entire world of like kind of
like a complex maze of you know, hot saanas, cold bats,
all the things that you're starting to hear about. But
it's something that is very normalized, like people will do
it every day if they live near one. But it
incorporates massages. It's a very body positive environment because you know,
(38:21):
you're sort of like stripped from everything, like you're fashion
your clothing, jewelry, you know, your makeup, and it's for
every age. So a lot of chilildren go with their
grandparents and then people will go for a date night.
There are you know sort of you know, a section
for men in a section for women, and then they
come together, you know, clothed. But I feel like it
(38:43):
is such a powerful way to impart knowledge about what
people can do for their self care toolbox. So one
of the sort of very Korean things about it is
this deep exfoliation that happens. You are completely naked and
someone is vigorously exfoliating you. You know, they're taking dead
(39:05):
skin off your skin, and you know you're sort of
like you come out very like baby skin, baby soft skin,
and you know you're sort of glowing. It's not something
that they do all the time. But just to have
that regular, you know, sort of sloughing I think is
really helpful. So you'll see, like if you go into
an h mart or some kind of Korean where you'll
(39:26):
see a lot of these like towels that are a
little bit rough, And that's what it's for. It's for
the exfoliation process in your bath So even if you're
not next to a Jim Joe Bung, you can take
it back home into your bathcare routine and exfoliate your skin.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Well.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
I think this is actually a good transition. So you
mentioned that someone would be doing that to you, but
also like the Korean bathhouse culture in general feels very
community based to me. Then there was a word I
asked you how to pronounce before the podcast, and we'll
see if I can get it right. Jong yong means
the warm and visible connection between loved ones and places, right.
(40:04):
But I love that idea. So is that something that
is actively like what you feel in Korean culture or
maybe in this bath house situation, like everyone's feeling like
connected and maybe there's like a loving connection between people.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Absolutely? So jong is really really important. Again, it's one
of those things. I feel like people just kind of
feel it, and like if you watch key drama, it's
really like a revered quality about people. So there is
actually no English equivalent. It means so many different words
like kindness, social responsibility, you know, sort of like a
(40:43):
generosity towards humankind. But what is so unique about it
is that it extends into the entire of society, into community,
even with strangers. So it's just like this bond that
Koreans feel amongst each other, like they have this collective
call that someone's going to help them. And you know,
(41:04):
you'll start to see it in you know, pockets of
you know, Korean history, like they went into the financial
crisis and they all took personal responsibility to help one another.
They actually went back home, took their personal gold jewelry
and then they all melted it to help save the country.
And you know, COVID was another example where they you know,
(41:24):
really tried to you know, help with one another. The
food waste is another example. They went to zero food
waste in their country, and it is so ever present
in their culture. It's actually spawned an entire vocabulary. And
I didn't actually realize how important it was like until
I started looking into it. Because of my father, I
(41:46):
was able to tap into all of these longevity experts
and it's so interesting, like these all of these lifestyle
changes are important, you know, like focusing on food is medicine,
you know. But after all of his research and you know,
sort of like looking at all of these centenarians and
what was the overwriting factor. It was the relationships. And
it does tie back to a lot of research that
(42:07):
you might find. There's actually a long standing research done
by Harvard and it really is about the quality of
your relationships. And in Korean culture, that is John Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
I mean that is probably the opposite of what I
feel in our culture in America right now. I think
we're very divided. So this idea of coming together as
a community for one purpose, I hope that we get
to that here. I think that is such a beautiful concept.
So the book is called Son and Souscott The Korean
(42:41):
Art of Self Care, Wellness and Longevity. I'm going to
link that for you guys in the description of this podcast.
I do want to ask you one more question, if
you could offer just one piece of advice for someone
looking to start improving their health and longevity tomorrow, what
would it be?
Speaker 4 (42:58):
There is a trio and the Korean pantry. They're anti
inflammatory ingredients, and ginger is one of them, which we
can all find in our supermarkets. But what I found
is that when you focus on the younger roots, it
increases antioptic oxidants significantly. So I find I tend to
(43:19):
find those in the green markets, you know, versus the
dried up versions that you might find, you know, somewhere,
but ginger is one of them. You can also buy
dried versions, which helps immensely in terms of just you know,
you have easy access, it's preserved for a really long time.
Jujubes is another one. It helps with circulatory issues and
(43:40):
those are red dates and I buy those dried and
then ginsing, So Ginsing is another root, but it's a
medicinal root that's very powerful. I use it very kind
of sparingly. But that's something that I can't always find fresh,
but I can find dried.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
How are you using gen sing other than like I've
heard of gens and tea obviously, but what are some
other ways you would use that?
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Well? For me, it's a very bitter route, so I
don't tend to use it in tea, but I tend
to use it in the broths, Like if I were
to make a poached chicken, I'll put it in the
broth of the poach chicken.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
So I went to go study free divers. You know,
they're free diving all the way through their nineties without equipment,
and so they have to be really strong. And they
taught me about breath. And that's one of the you know,
sort of key things that I've changed. You know, instead
of like working, after thirty minutes of working, I'll take
a moment, you know, two seconds breathing in deeply, pause,
(44:40):
and then breathe out, you know, for four seconds out
through my mouth. And it just allows me to have
that momentary break to kind of like stop and bring
my body back to home stasis. It's just something that's
so simple. I can do it online anywhere, like if
I'm waiting online, you know, at the post office or
at a grocery store. I can do it anywhere, and
(45:02):
I do it multiple times a day.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
You mentioned the free diving. Basically, if people don't know
that meat, that's fishermen essentially, right, but they're actually diving
to go get the.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Fish or whatever it is, and they're old women.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Well, as I said, I'm going to put a link
to the book in the description of this podcast. Michelle,
Where else can people find you if they want to
keep up with your work online?
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Instagram? Michelle dot Gentleman, dot bang. I didn't start using
my middle name until I wrote the book.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I love it well, it works with the culture.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
So I'll actually put that in the description of the
podcast as well for you guys, just so you know
how it's spelled. But thank you so much. I feel
like I could talk to you forever because I love
these topics. But I hope that we really start incorporating
a lot of these practices here, so I think your
book is really really helpful you. Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Thanks for listening to the Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson,
where we believe everyone has a little.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Velvet in a little edge.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Subscribe for more conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships.
Search Velvet's Edge wherever you get your podcasts.
Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It feels like.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Korean culture in general is very influential and popular right now.
I've personally have been obsessed with Korean skincare, but there's
also kpop and I'm learning more and more about the
longevity rates, which studies are showing that by twenty thirty,
Korean longevity rates will be the highest in the world. So, Michelle, Hello,
I was telling you before the podcast. When your bio
(00:33):
came across my desk, I got immediately excited because I
thought this is something I'm really interested in but obviously
not an expert on. So this is the perfect conversation
because you are an expert and you've just written this book.
It is called Sun and Sue Scott. I'm going to
try to get these pronunciations right, the Korean art of
self care, wellness and longevity. So I want to know,
(00:57):
as a Korean American, what drew you to wanting to learn, practice,
and share all of these things from Korean culture.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
I grew up very much Americanized, you know, Korean American.
I was actually born and raised in Brooklyn, okay, and
you know, later on in life, I happened to live
in Hong Kong. You know, it's been two decades in counting.
Because our family, I've got two kids, we split our
time between Hong Kong and New York City as xpatriots,
(01:27):
So I very much live in both East and West worlds.
And at the same time because of my father and
like I say, my extended family, because he immigrated to
the US and you know, his friends were you know,
all from the same graduate school and they trained at
the top medical school in Korea. So I was very
(01:49):
much exposed too early on to these practical and holistic
applications in medicine, which are very much deeply embedded within
our Korean culture, like for example, using whole foods and
holistic measures to recover from surgery, from pregnancies, even I mean,
it's very normalized to take a month off to you know,
do all these things to recover with your body from colds,
(02:11):
from injuries. And I didn't really kind of connect the
dots until much later. And later I married into a
traditional Chinese family that embodied these nourishing traditions passed down generationally.
So in the beginning, I actually hadn't intended to write
a book. Something had happened to me. I sort of
started embarking on this journey. I was in Hong Kong.
(02:33):
I had launched a dream social impact startup that experienced
a lot of growth. It was this sustainable fashion brand.
The fashion industry is very wasteful, so we took a
lot of these textiles that were just about to go
to landfill and then rescuing them up, cycling them and
you know, and inspiring a younger generation of designers to
(02:55):
kind of reframe their minds around how they could do fashion.
And weened up selling to Barney's diet a Porte, Lane
Lane Crawford's like the equivalent of Barney's. And at the
time that this happened, I was we were experiencing so
much growth and kind of winning awards, and I was
really passionate about what I was doing. And I find
(03:17):
that this is so much the case with a lot
of leaders. You know, no matter what you're doing, whether
it's like taking care of your family or you know,
you're so passionate about the mission or your team. I
literally was working around the clock. I was managing a team,
you know, twenty four to seven kind of around the
world on different time zones, and I just felt like
(03:38):
I was too busy to sleep, too busy to eat,
and kind of in the middle of all that success,
I landed in an emergency room for the first time
in my life. And you know, these things happened to people.
It was an acute episode that you know, luckily I
was able to recover from. But after that hospital visit,
I just became really sick all the time. And I
(04:01):
found out later that the doctors had put a camera
down my throat into my stomach and kind of discovered
that my entire gut lining was you know, completely compromised.
It was very little that remained healthy, and you know,
I just sort of started thinking that this health problem
was brewing for a really long time, and I felt
(04:23):
like I was in a conundrum because you know, before
the hospital visit, I kind of prided myself on being
really strong and never getting ill, and I was in
this sort of, I don't know, this culture of just
working really hard and you know, just pushing through any
aches and pains and you know, powering through it. And
(04:44):
I think it just it got to a point where,
you know, when I landed in the hospital. My body
was sort of screaming that I needed to do something.
It just kind of brought me down this whole rabbit
hole because I realized at the time I live on
a continent that breeds a completely different way of life than,
you know, what I grown up with in the US.
(05:04):
One morning, when I was kind of walking down the
beach in Hong Kong, I started noticing that there was
a group of people early morning. They were, you know,
dipping into the cold ocean and swimming, and you know,
they were stretching on the beach. And then you know,
as I got closer, I realized they were like eighties, nineties,
(05:25):
you know, far older, I mean, but at the same time,
they had so much energy, you know, kind of wrinkle
free skin, and I was just starting to you know,
it was like really piquing my interests, like what are
these people doing to be so vibrant at that age?
They were all they all had silver hair. And then
I started noticing that so many people like them were
like them around me in Asia, and I just started
(05:48):
casually interviewing people around me. So it was just kind
of like trying to grapple with what I had grown
up with sort of the narrative of Okay, I need
to race because you know, internally, I was thinking, okay,
by fifty, things are going to start declining. My mental health,
you know, my my mental abilities, my you know, my
(06:09):
physical abilities. And it was just, you know, I just
needed to race to achieve it all. And here, you know,
there was this cohort of people, like everybody just sort
of casually living in Asia and just doing all of
these things we typically reserve for the young, and so
as I was starting to look at the data, and
you mentioned that Korea is expected to top the longevity
(06:31):
charts in twenty thirty, but actually when you look at
the data, all of the Asian countries kind of jostle
for this top position, and you know they have obesity
rates that are in the single digits. I mean, I
just was I started getting really curious as I was,
you know, going through the data, and then I started
formalizing my training. So I went into two functional food
(06:52):
medicine programs. And you know, this is something that's sort
of an addition to what I typically do. I'm a
Harvard Business School graduate, I'm a social impact entrepreneur. But
I was just really interested to learn and extend more.
And I actually extended that into healthy aging and mother
baby care because you know, the mother of two children,
(07:13):
I wanted to impart that wisdom with my two children.
And then I started to travel, and you know, as
I started learning more and more, I just started really
realizing a lot of things around me, like my colleagues,
my friends, you know, just started getting really ill and
kind of becoming these mirrors to what I was. You know,
(07:33):
it just it first starts as an acute episode. Then
you know, you start ignoring it, and then it becomes
this irreversible state. Sometimes it's incurable. And I was sort
of lucky that I caught it early on enough to
you know, reverse it and to you know, to get better.
And then at the same time, when I came home,
you know, being ill, my husband was sort of cooking
(07:56):
me all of these healing foods, things that his grandparents
and his parents had taught him, and it just can
helped me to connect back to, oh, this is what
my parents used to do for me, and it was
so embedded in our Korean culture. And so I started
traveling and kind of interviewing a lot of people across Asia.
I went through China, Japan, I went through Korea and luckily,
(08:20):
you know, from Hong Kong. It just is so much
easier to kind of go around the longevity hub of Asia.
But it was just really fascinating because I was able
to see a lot of things with my own eyes
but also develop patterns, you know, just kind of well,
how can I take this ancient wisdom and translate it
into a modern lifestyle where I'm super busy. I'm a
(08:42):
mother of two kids. I want to do a lot
of different things, and so how can I find ways
that are efficient effective? You know that. You know I'm
very much an environmentally friendly person. You know, how can
I find solutions that are going to align with my
values and the way to move forward? So that's how
I ended up with the book.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Well, you touched on a lot of different topics that
I want to get to. You basically just set up
the whole interview.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
But you mentioned the two things that I think are
really sticking out to me, and I think this is
how kind of the book is structured. But self care
and then food as medicine. And I love that you
started your journey by basically reaching burnout and also your
health really declining, because I think we're starting to see
a lot of that in America, and I know I've
specifically bumped up against some of the same things, like
(09:36):
we have these expectations on ourself to succeed, and we
all want the you know, the American dream of really
like building our own business and having that kind of
praise or whatever it is success, I guess, but we
do it at the sacrifice of our own self and
our own bodies and our mental health and all of
that that stuff. And so it seems like it's starting
(09:57):
to come into the conversation of how do we switch that,
but we don't necessarily know how. So I love that
you went back to ancient cultures that have been doing
this for so long, and you're seeing these women in
the bath or the water, and you're like, wait, how
do I want what they have? You know, like you
were actually witnessing it. So let's start maybe with the
(10:18):
food piece of it, because that is a big thing
that I love to talk about, and my listeners are
very used to me saying I look at food as
medicine and ways to heal our bodies. But I think
in America it's almost the opposite, like it's making us
sicker the way we eat here and the obesity rates
are out of control and all of that. So I
(10:39):
want to know In the book, I know you talk
about the longevity pantry and maybe we can start there,
but can you explain to listeners maybe how the Korean
culture uses food as medicine and then get into what
the longevity pantry is.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
There's a word in the Korean language, it's yakshik don one,
and it's a sort of complicated word, but it means
food is medicine, and it's food is important. It's a
very important driver in our biochemistry. But it's a philosophy
that kind of encapsulates a lot of the natural methods,
and the idea dates back to ancient times. It's this
(11:17):
orientation of trying to prevent be proactive with your health,
and I think it's a wellness philosophy that we often
dismiss or forget as a first step. So the idea
in Korean culture is that healthcare actually first starts with
what you eat, and then you know, you try to
allow your body to naturally heal, and then secondarily, if
(11:41):
you know it doesn't improve, then you go into advanced
medical treatment. I feel like, you know, I kind of
labeled it in my book to schools of medicine, and
I feel like that is actually what is very fundamentally
different between what is happening in US healthcare culture and
in Asia. So sometimes I feel like, you know, there's
(12:01):
two camps in the US. There's you know, those that
are in medicine and they you know, they're sort of
rejecting the holistic measures and then those you know, on
the opposite ends of the spectrum. But what they're doing
here in Asia is that they're embracing both. And there's
so many reasons why I wanted to write the book,
but one of the reasons was that I feel like,
(12:22):
you know, I kind of dream of like a future
in medicine healthcare in the US where you know, food
is part of the spectrum of care. It starts at home,
you know, and even if you're not cooking, you kind
of know the ideas of food preparation, you know what
the ingredients are, you know. I always feel like, if
I'm speaking about the book with my friends who don't
(12:43):
like to cook, try to do it at least once,
because then you know the role of an ingredient, what's
important and what's actually not important in the food that
you're eating, because we're so disconnected from real food in
our modern culture, a lot of things come packaged, you know,
like ketchup is actually tomato, you know, and it's like,
you know, then deconstructed into something else which is maybe
(13:06):
not a tomato. And so we're very far away from
actual food. And so I think when you start with
the simple thing of even thinking about preparing and being
mindful of what you're eating, then that's kind of the
first step. So, you know, it's very embedded in the culture.
Like I mentioned that it's normalized after you give birth
(13:28):
that you have one month where your body's healing from pregnancy,
and it's kind of like a whole community village mentality.
Everybody's coming together to you know, help the mother. They're
bringing food, and there's specific foods that you know, are
given to the mother to help her breastfeed if she
wants to, and to also you know, help with the baby.
(13:48):
I mean, longevity education starts really early in Korea because
babies as old as six months old are starting with
kimchi biotic you know, rich food. Yeah, kimchi is such
an important aspect of their culture. It's like really part
of their cultural identity. There's like two hundred varieties of it.
(14:09):
There's you know, community activities around it. And you know
it dates back to a long time ago when there
was no refrigeration. You know, they just they buried things
and that it fermented and actually came out with this
beautiful flavor. But also this this diversity of you know,
really friendly bacteria which helps with the microbiome, which now
(14:29):
I feel like new science is only just wrapping our
heads around, Like only recently do we uncover that we
have a microbiome in our brain which has implications to Alzheimer's.
So the microbiome is you know this trillions of you
know bacteria that we have, you know, in our systems.
It's on our skin, it's in our mouth, you know,
now we know it's in our brain. But you know,
(14:52):
the food that they're eating, these fermented foods, actually helps
build the balance. So there's the balance of you know,
the ecosis in the microbiome, and so when they eat
the kimchi, it helps bring it back to balance. So
it's as simple as that. Like when you it's very
interesting when you go back to kind of studying the
(15:12):
you know, the dustiers of the you know, the royal kingdoms.
They used to do what were now I feel like
it should be the future of medicine. The royal physicians
worked with the cooks, so you know, if the king
was sick, they would report back to the kitchen, and
then the kitchen would cook something to help the king recover,
and it extends to the whole family. And all these
(15:34):
behaviors in the kingdom just kind of trickled down into
the community. And if their populations are retaining the traditions,
then they're actually living longer, so a lot of the
traditions are being retained. I mean, if you see Korean
cuisine today, like all the little side dishes that as
actually from a long time ago, they're still retaining the traditions.
(15:56):
So it goes back to the food is medicine philosophy,
and I really like this idea. I never used to
think of food as medicine. I mean I was kind
of before I started this journey, I was like working
really hard, working out really hard, and you know, I
feel like when I started looking at Yakshito want it
(16:17):
was really about not following a single prescriptive eating plan
or avoiding certain food groups or you know, it was
just not restrictive, and it was just kind of this
idea of just using the trying as much as possible
to use the body's natural healing systems to you know,
to thrive, so that you know, we we can use
(16:38):
that before we start intervening with pills or surgery. So,
you know, when you look at Eastern medicine kind of
study it, it really is all about clearing your internal pathways,
whether it's your nasal passageways or your you know, your
bowel system. You know, That's why sometimes like as an American,
I would walk down the you know, these Asian streets
their ear cleaning, and you know, it's sort of like
(17:00):
this metaphor, like they're just trying to clear away all
the pathways so that the body can function as it
was meant to.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I do think we discredit how powerful our bodies are are.
They are their own healers, and I think a lot
of times we miss that here and the quick answer
is to throw a pill at something. But what drives
me crazy is that I fully believe in food as medicine,
and so I'm thinking to myself Okay, you get on
(17:28):
this pill, but you don't change the way you eat
at all, right, and so then you're continuing to make
yourself sicker. Like I actually got served an article this
morning and I didn't even read it because it frustrated
me so much, but it said a shockingly high rate
of women under forty have come in this last year
with breast cancer. And in my head, I'm like, the
(17:49):
number one leading cause of cancer to me is are
there's two, I guess, but stress and food, like what
we're putting into our bodies is what will manifest out
of it. And so if we don't start paying attention
to these things, we're going to continue to have this
rise in illness and sickness and short lives, you know,
(18:10):
because we're not taking care of our gut. Like you said,
do you have thoughts on how people could maybe start,
because I think a lot of like the misconception that
I hear is ugh, but then I have to like
(18:32):
eat gross things, and I'm like, no, actually.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Real food is really good.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
We just don't know enough about it sometimes to know
what our options are. So if someone's having that mentality,
do you have something that you could encourage them?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
With or say start, I feel like, you know, you
can go back to the principles of what they used
to do. Like so I talk about the whole plant
philosophy in the book, and it's this idea like a
long time ago, we were grown our food. We're very
much in touch with nature or the environment, and it
took a long time to grow something right and now
(19:06):
it's very conveniently, you know, served to us. But you know,
because it would take such a long time, we would
try to utilize every part of the plant. And you know,
they take this mentality with meats as well, you know,
with animals. You know, it's sort of like this idea
of like respecting the entire thing, not wasting it. So
if you think about like something that grows, you are
(19:28):
using it from flour to root and even the edible peel.
So you know, I think anybody can do this. Like
one of the reasons I felt that the resources that
I used that I found were you know credible, were
you know, going back to PubMed, which was the medical resources,
and you know, trying to see a lot of the
new research I was coming out of medical institutions. But
(19:49):
also like if you look at the data like if
you were to compare an apple with the peel and
without the peel, you start realizing that actually you're throwing
away all of the nutrition by peeling it and not
eating the skin, and it actually contributes to food waste.
So we take the time to grow all these things,
and we're actually wasting thirty percent of what we're producing,
(20:12):
and then fifty percent of that actually is happening in
our homes because of what we're doing. We're just not
eating all of it, and so we're missing out on
a nourishing supply just just by not eating the peel.
And the other thing too, is that there's a lot
of like really staple items that you know, I found
were really key and I call it the longevity pantry.
(20:34):
But you know what I found so encouraging is that
when you start taking a look at these villages and
how these centenarians are eating, you know, it's not like
these beautiful Instagram photos. You know, they're not artisanal. They're
just sort of like you know, very fresh, you know ingredients,
but they're using certain ingredients to heal. So, for example,
(20:56):
vinegar is now part of my longevity pantry. I use
every single kind you know, and one of my favorites
is per Semon vinegar. Per Simon is you know, it's
a milder flavor but also has a higher load of antioxidants.
Koreans will put it in soup. There's a tangy flavor
but also helps with you know, your metabolism, and it
(21:17):
also helps with your sugar control. And so yeah, I
use white vinegar. Black vinegar something that I use as well.
It's they all have their own sort of flavors, and
I feel like what I've done as sort of like
a transformative switch in my diet is I've moved my
palette from sweet to savory, especially in the morning on
(21:38):
an empty stomach. There's a lot of things that the
Koreans are using just through their condiments, like their fermented foods,
Like the kimchi.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Is so good too. If you have a tried kimchi,
I highly recommend. It's one of my favorite snacks now.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Oh really, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah, And you know, if you're if the spice is
too much for you, there's always sour krout and then
you know, before it gets fermented. Cabbage is super important
in you know, Korean culture, and there's so many varieties
of it, So that's definitely a part of my longevity
pantry as well. And the other switch that I really
made was fruits. I feel like I took it all
(22:17):
out before, you know, and I was a wellness enthusiast
because I was worried about the sugar load. And now
fruits are very much a part of my diet. You know,
it's my way of getting all the rainbow colors. But
also you know, the fiber and citrus fruits in particular
is something that I use every day.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I love that you mentioned the thing about the sugar
because I think that's such a misconception too. We hear
these buzzwords like, oh, we don't want any sugar in
our diet, but like that's a healthy sugar and so
and there's also it's loaded with vitamins, and so we're
missing out if we don't allow ourselves these things. But
then we go eat all these things that are full
of chemicals, Like, it just doesn't make sense to me.
(22:57):
The more I've learned about it, you know, I think
we just have some unlearning to do in this country
about that.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Yeah. So I learned something called temple food from the
Korean Buddhist nuns and there's like a foundational pantry that
they use, so they'll use a sessame will with soy
sauce and red pepper paste. It kind of is derived
from fermented soybeans, which is a rock and paste. What's that?
(23:27):
What you jung? Okay if you've heard of it before,
but you know, it's a taste that you can find
and it just it has this like really amazing umami flavor,
so whatever. Like sometimes I even dip a cucumber into
it and it just makes it taste really good.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
The more I learned, too, it's like they're little switches
you can kind of make. Like I've been using a
lot of tumeric and the things that I cook because
it's really good for inflammation, and it's so wild because
I just it's not that far out of reach. I mean,
once I started thinking about it, I mean, I can
cook with it so often, and it's just like an
additional thing that's so good for your inside. Like inflammation,
(24:09):
if you guys don't know, is like really one of
the causes of all disease, and so if you can
start eliminating that within your body, it's amazing even how
different you feel on a day to day, like your
energy levels and things like that. And that's the other
piece I want to talk about with listeners is just
it's not like a restriction kind of thing. It's actually
(24:30):
it opens up your world to so much more and
then you can do things like, you know, eliminate things
that aren't serving you as much, like energy drinks or
things like that because you don't need it, because your
food is fueling you like food is supposed to be fuel,
not the other way around. Let's move into the self
care aspect, because I know this is another part you
(24:51):
talk a lot about in the Korean culture. First of all,
what would you define self care as.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
I think it's taking more of a preventive approach, you know.
So I mean, if you take my situation as an example,
I waited too long. I waited until the symptoms arrived,
and I ignored all of my you know, the signals
that my body was, you know, was telling me that
it needed help, and you know, I got sent to
(25:16):
the hospital. So self care is taking the steps well
before that. You know. It's it's a practical practice of
actively protecting our well being. So I feel like it's
like the million things that you can do every day
that would you know, nourish your mind, body, and soul.
So it's you know, in the modern day, it's like
picking up the phone and calling your friend I and
(25:39):
a lot of it, I think is stepping out into
the world. We're so much a part of, like this
digital culture, you know, tied to our phones, tied to
our computers, we forget to step outside. And actually that
was one of the biggest steps too, you know, my transformation.
I used to you know, I started walking a lot
because you know, I started realizing, oh, actually, what they're
(26:02):
doing is they're not necessarily going to the gym, and well,
they are going to public parks and they're you know,
they're kind of doing chin ups on the public park equipment.
But what they're really doing is they're stepping outside and
they're walking. So Stanford did a study taking a look
at smartphones and realized that Hong Kong had, you know,
the highest steps in the world, and you know, ever
(26:23):
since then, they've been attributing that to longevity rates. It
was about seven thousand steps. And then I just started
trying it because I was curious. And then you know
the time, I had just started doing these trips and
then COVID hit and I was thinking, Okay, what can
I do to stay healthy. I'm also getting, you know,
sort of really bored at home, and so I started
(26:45):
stepping outside. And when you step outside at night in
Hong Kong, there's all these like really exotic things like
bats flying around, you know, wom bats, you know, possums,
And then I just started realizing, Wow, there's a whole
world out there. It just kind of became this habit
every night, and I started listening to you know, nature
while also taking steps. So I got this like really
(27:08):
cheap pedometer, and I started like noticing how many steps
I was taking every day, and it just the days
that I was taking more steps, I just felt so
much better, especially after meal, because it was helping me
to digest, so it was just helping me to control
my glucospikes. It's been really transformative. And so the steps
you can take inside, I do it, you know, running
(27:30):
errands inside or cleaning the house. But when I do
it outside, it just is, you know, it just makes
my day. So that really I try as much as
possible to make that kind of a daily requirement for myself.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I talk about walking all the time. It's how I
clear my head for one and a lot of times too.
I realize even if I go on a short walk
in my neighborhood, like twenty minutes, I will start to
have all these creative downloads, Like it just opens.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
You up in all of these new ways. Physically, like
you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I like to do it in the day where I'm
getting some vitamin D as well. But yeah, the way
it helps me mentally and emotionally, I mean I could
be inside feeling like the world is caving in, and
I go on a twenty minute walk and I'm like,
oh no, things are good.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, crazy how it helps.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
I think. The other thing too is that you just
need these little breaks. So I used to just kind
of like go, go go, And you know, I still
do a lot of things, like I'm very intellectually curious
about a lot of things. I like to, you know,
dip my hands in a lot of projects. But you know,
I realize that I can last so much longer if
I just take the time, even for the few seconds
(28:37):
to like take a breath, be mindful about my next step.
I mean, it actually does help with what you're saying
with the inflammation, because stress, in it of itself, it
could be good in the moment, you know, it could
push you to a goal. But chronic stress I realized,
you know, in sort of the hard way, is that
it leads to inflammation and disease. So you know, it's
(28:59):
something that you really have to manage. Is something I
pass on to my kids. And going back to your
question about self care, I feel like, you know, in
social media, it's often defined by beauty and you know,
it's all the different things like I said, you know
about taking care of yourself, but it is actually a
medically important term. You know, like top health organizations like
(29:20):
the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, they have a definition
of self care and it you know it. I feel
like it needs to be heard more often. So it
encompasses a lot of different things, like including being body
aware enough to seek medical care when you're needed. So
so you need to listen to your body. You need
to see like if something's happening, and you know, and
(29:43):
kind of like monitor it. And so I talk about
in a book. You know, part of that process is,
you know, something that I do in my bath care
like I will self massage and then like it's an
opportunity for me too to kind of be in tune
with what's happening with my body every day. To well.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I love that you mentioned it's a preventative act because
I think a lot of us do what you did,
which is wait until everything's falling apart, our body is
completely malfunctioning or having issues, and then we're like, oh,
you're right, I need to do some self care. And
that's actually like that the end hower that's beyond the point.
But if you do it in a preventative way, hopefully
(30:23):
you wouldn't be getting into those spaces where things are
falling apart, or your stress levels are too high, your
body is shutting down.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Like, I love that idea.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
That was such a switch for me because I don't
think we often talk about it that way.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, and I feel like you're not talking about it enough.
There's so many you know, professionals that are just you know,
they're in these high achieving cultures and they're just kind
of powering through and they're discounting self care because it
just seems so frivolous. But actually, when you start thinking
about you know what, is happening with modern health, Like
(30:56):
the World Health Organization actually estimates that over seventy percent
son of global deaths are caused by preventable chronic conditions.
We can actually empower ourselves as individuals to self care. Yeah,
that is awesome.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
In your work, I was reading about some of the
practices of self care in the Korean culture, and I
wanted to know if you could tell the listeners. We'll
just kind of go bullet point through these and maybe
you can explain what they are to people. Okay, Korean
hygiene practices, so removing shoes indoors and three three three
brushing method us about that.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Yeah, so you know, they eat a lot of kimchi.
You know, they're just making sure that, you know, they
are mindful of their oral health. So I think there's
a lot of things in Korean culture that are just normalized.
It is not strange for them to take care of themselves.
And so if you use the word self care with them,
(32:05):
they might be puzzled because it's just so normal for them. Okay,
do these things like if you practices right, like if
you and even if I ask my parents, they won't
choose the same words. They just do it. This is
an example. You go on a plane and you're going
to Korea or you're coming back from Korea and it's
(32:26):
a long haul flight, and they will start putting videos
of stretching. They'll give you stretching exercises because they know
that you've been sitting for hours and your body needs
to you know, you need to help encourage the circulatory systems,
and they're showing you how to stretch. I mean even
during COVID they were actually implementing through YouTube these you
(32:48):
know Olympic stretches, you know, down by the Olympic gymnastics team,
and it's so normal. If you go down the streets
in Korea, people will just stop walking and they're just
stretching and it's very normal. So as Americans, it's kind
of like a strange concept, but you know, even just
taking off the shoes, it kind of makes sense. You know,
(33:08):
you're kind of like keeping all of the mud outside.
But it does stay back to long a long time ago,
because there was something called ondols and there's they're heated floors.
So it was just like this very clever system of
using heat from the kitchen and then kind of like
it moved horizontally into the bedroom, and the floors was
(33:29):
where they slept, where they ate, you know, so it
really needed to be clean. But yeah, it's very much
something that I do at home as well, and when
I was working in Korea, that's what they do in
the office as well.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
In the office even. Yeah, oh that's so interesting. Okay,
this one was really interesting to me because I always
think of coffee and tea as dehydrating, and you say
that they in Korean culture they stay hydrated often by
drinking more decaffeinated herbal tea.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So is it the caffeine that dehydrate?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yeah, I think so. I mean they are employing a
lot of different ways of hydrating that also includes food.
So if you like, if you go back to the
cucumber example, cucumbers are ninety six percent water, and then
not only that, if you dip it in like a
salt drived condiment, you're actually boosting the hydration and you
(34:22):
know those senior electrolytes. So they're doing a lot of
different things, including the nourishing brods. The tea that you mentioned,
it's a pooty cha and it's a roasted corn tea
and it's kind of like if you think about like
flavored water, if you're kind of they drink it like
water and it's very good for your skin. I drink
it all the time now. So I have these two
(34:44):
carafts at home. One is filled with filtered water and
I put lemon in it. The other one has woody
cha in it.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
And you just drink that.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I drink all day.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Okay, And lemon water is actually really good for digestion, right,
just putting in your water.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
See, these are like, like you said, it's very day
to day things that they're not big adjustments, but it's
just incorporating the small things into our lives as these
preventative basically healthcare methods. So fascinating. Okay, what about forest
bathing and how if we live in a city, how
can we you know, incorporate this into our day to
(35:23):
day life.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I think even walking down a train line street actually
exposes you to you know, fresh air, the bacteria in
the air. We are, especially you know, post code, we're
very anti you know, sort of germs.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Right.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Actually, self care is predicated on this idea of terrain
based living, so it's being at one with the environment,
with nature, you know, forest bathing actually is very healthy
for your gut because you're exposing your body to all
of the things that are happening in the environment so
that they have healthy responses. Is you know, when you
(36:01):
have when you're exposed to them, it's not only really
healthy for your body, but it's also you know, it's
just like a distressing method as well. I think it's
just very nourishing to be out in nature. It is
a really popular activity in Korea, like something that everybody does,
like even teenagers, they'll go out into the mountains and
forest bathe. It's very popular.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Can you explain to listeners what it means to forest babe.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Well, technically, if you were close to a forest, or
if you wanted to use that as a destination, you
go into the forest and you kind of breathe in
the forest air and you walk sort of mindfully, and
you know it could just be for like a momentary walk,
but that's it. That's forest bathing to.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Just being amongst trees. Like you said, if you don't
have access to an actual forest, can kind of incorporate
the same things.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
Okay, I feel like even if you were in a
city and you kind of walk next to open water.
I think anything kind of being close to meure is.
I even try to bring nature home by you know,
bringing lanson. I think we're just so far removed from
nature often.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Let's talk a little bit about Korean baths culture, because
I do think you can find that in the States
somewhat now if you start digging for it. And I
haven't personally tried this, but I have some friends who
have and they love it.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They speak very highly of it.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
So can you talk about the wellness for everyone approach?
You know, even when we're thinking about our youthful skin,
which is a huge I know we all want to
maintain great skin, and as aging can be a tricky process,
so let's talk about it in relation to that.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
So skin health is actually for them, it's very much
like an inside out. So the fermented foods is like
it helps with their radiance. I mean, if you start
taking look at these Buddhist stunts, they are literally luminescent.
It's amazing. These bath houses are called Jim jillbong in Korea.
And so for a few dollars a day, you can
go into, you know, for twenty four hours, actually you
(38:01):
can step into this entire world of like kind of
like a complex maze of you know, hot saanas, cold bats,
all the things that you're starting to hear about. But
it's something that is very normalized, like people will do
it every day if they live near one. But it
incorporates massages. It's a very body positive environment because you know,
(38:21):
you're sort of like stripped from everything, like you're fashion
your clothing, jewelry, you know, your makeup, and it's for
every age. So a lot of chilildren go with their
grandparents and then people will go for a date night.
There are you know sort of you know, a section
for men in a section for women, and then they
come together, you know, clothed. But I feel like it
(38:43):
is such a powerful way to impart knowledge about what
people can do for their self care toolbox. So one
of the sort of very Korean things about it is
this deep exfoliation that happens. You are completely naked and
someone is vigorously exfoliating you. You know, they're taking dead
(39:05):
skin off your skin, and you know you're sort of
like you come out very like baby skin, baby soft skin,
and you know you're sort of glowing. It's not something
that they do all the time. But just to have
that regular, you know, sort of sloughing I think is
really helpful. So you'll see, like if you go into
an h mart or some kind of Korean where you'll
(39:26):
see a lot of these like towels that are a
little bit rough, And that's what it's for. It's for
the exfoliation process in your bath So even if you're
not next to a Jim Joe Bung, you can take
it back home into your bathcare routine and exfoliate your skin.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Well.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
I think this is actually a good transition. So you
mentioned that someone would be doing that to you, but
also like the Korean bathhouse culture in general feels very
community based to me. Then there was a word I
asked you how to pronounce before the podcast, and we'll
see if I can get it right. Jong yong means
the warm and visible connection between loved ones and places, right.
(40:04):
But I love that idea. So is that something that
is actively like what you feel in Korean culture or
maybe in this bath house situation, like everyone's feeling like
connected and maybe there's like a loving connection between people.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Absolutely? So jong is really really important. Again, it's one
of those things. I feel like people just kind of
feel it, and like if you watch key drama, it's
really like a revered quality about people. So there is
actually no English equivalent. It means so many different words
like kindness, social responsibility, you know, sort of like a
(40:43):
generosity towards humankind. But what is so unique about it
is that it extends into the entire of society, into community,
even with strangers. So it's just like this bond that
Koreans feel amongst each other, like they have this collective
call that someone's going to help them. And you know,
(41:04):
you'll start to see it in you know, pockets of
you know, Korean history, like they went into the financial
crisis and they all took personal responsibility to help one another.
They actually went back home, took their personal gold jewelry
and then they all melted it to help save the country.
And you know, COVID was another example where they you know,
(41:24):
really tried to you know, help with one another. The
food waste is another example. They went to zero food
waste in their country, and it is so ever present
in their culture. It's actually spawned an entire vocabulary. And
I didn't actually realize how important it was like until
I started looking into it. Because of my father, I
(41:46):
was able to tap into all of these longevity experts
and it's so interesting, like these all of these lifestyle
changes are important, you know, like focusing on food is medicine,
you know. But after all of his research and you know,
sort of like looking at all of these centenarians and
what was the overwriting factor. It was the relationships. And
it does tie back to a lot of research that
(42:07):
you might find. There's actually a long standing research done
by Harvard and it really is about the quality of
your relationships. And in Korean culture, that is John Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
I mean that is probably the opposite of what I
feel in our culture in America right now. I think
we're very divided. So this idea of coming together as
a community for one purpose, I hope that we get
to that here. I think that is such a beautiful concept.
So the book is called Son and Souscott The Korean
(42:41):
Art of Self Care, Wellness and Longevity. I'm going to
link that for you guys in the description of this podcast.
I do want to ask you one more question, if
you could offer just one piece of advice for someone
looking to start improving their health and longevity tomorrow, what
would it be?
Speaker 4 (42:58):
There is a trio and the Korean pantry. They're anti
inflammatory ingredients, and ginger is one of them, which we
can all find in our supermarkets. But what I found
is that when you focus on the younger roots, it
increases antioptic oxidants significantly. So I find I tend to
(43:19):
find those in the green markets, you know, versus the
dried up versions that you might find, you know, somewhere,
but ginger is one of them. You can also buy
dried versions, which helps immensely in terms of just you know,
you have easy access, it's preserved for a really long time.
Jujubes is another one. It helps with circulatory issues and
(43:40):
those are red dates and I buy those dried and
then ginsing, So Ginsing is another root, but it's a
medicinal root that's very powerful. I use it very kind
of sparingly. But that's something that I can't always find fresh,
but I can find dried.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
How are you using gen sing other than like I've
heard of gens and tea obviously, but what are some
other ways you would use that?
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Well? For me, it's a very bitter route, so I
don't tend to use it in tea, but I tend
to use it in the broths, Like if I were
to make a poached chicken, I'll put it in the
broth of the poach chicken.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
So I went to go study free divers. You know,
they're free diving all the way through their nineties without equipment,
and so they have to be really strong. And they
taught me about breath. And that's one of the you know,
sort of key things that I've changed. You know, instead
of like working, after thirty minutes of working, I'll take
a moment, you know, two seconds breathing in deeply, pause,
(44:40):
and then breathe out, you know, for four seconds out
through my mouth. And it just allows me to have
that momentary break to kind of like stop and bring
my body back to home stasis. It's just something that's
so simple. I can do it online anywhere, like if
I'm waiting online, you know, at the post office or
at a grocery store. I can do it anywhere, and
(45:02):
I do it multiple times a day.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
You mentioned the free diving. Basically, if people don't know
that meat, that's fishermen essentially, right, but they're actually diving
to go get the.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Fish or whatever it is, and they're old women.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Well, as I said, I'm going to put a link
to the book in the description of this podcast. Michelle,
Where else can people find you if they want to
keep up with your work online?
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Instagram? Michelle dot Gentleman, dot bang. I didn't start using
my middle name until I wrote the book.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I love it well, it works with the culture.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
So I'll actually put that in the description of the
podcast as well for you guys, just so you know
how it's spelled. But thank you so much. I feel
like I could talk to you forever because I love
these topics. But I hope that we really start incorporating
a lot of these practices here, so I think your
book is really really helpful you. Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Thanks for listening to the Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson,
where we believe everyone has a little.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Velvet in a little edge.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Subscribe for more conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships.
Search Velvet's Edge wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Kelly Henderson
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