Interview with Alexia Harrigan

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Hello, I’m Emma Dhesi and welcome to another episode of turning readers into writers. If you’re brand new here, welcome. And here’s what you need to know. This is a community that believes you are never too old to write your first novel, no matter what you’ve been up to. Until now, if you’re ready to write your book, I’m ready to help you reach the end, I focus on helping you find the time and confidence to begin your writing journey, as well as the craft and skills you need to finish the book.

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Today’s interview is with Dallas Fort Worth based physical therapist and health coach Alexia Harrigan, she believes that health and wellness begin with mindset. Using her 15 years of physical therapy experience in orthopedic and women’s health and pelvic floor therapy. Alexia has set out to coach moms into optimal health and unconditional self love.

Her mission is to help moms be their best for themselves, so that they can be the best for their families. Today, she talks to you about how you can alleviate all those aches and pains that come from the writing life so that you can be the best writer you can be and prolong your career, as well as living a healthier life. Well, hi, Alexia, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m thrilled to have you on the show.

Alexia Harrigan  02:36

Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Emma Dhesi  02:39

I wanted to start perhaps if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself. And because I know you have your own practice now. But how did you go from doing your training to the place you are now? 

Alexia Harrigan  02:51

Yeah, so I’ve been a physical therapist for about 15 years. In a multitude of settings. I’m currently working in outpatient for a corporation, and I focus on pelvic floor therapy and women’s health. And I also do orthopedics. So anything from head to toe is pretty much what I see and treat. I also treat postpartum moms, and all the things that come along with that, because there’s various body changes that happen. So we, we work through a lot of those things.

And through my own journey of postpartum and in motherhood, I’ve had my own kind of personal health issues and things like that. And so I really got into the women’s health and recently kind of dove into doing health coaching for moms, because there’s so many things that so many things that we leave unsaid. There’s so many things that are just like, oh, that’s common, because you’re, you know, you just had a baby, that’s just life, when so many things are treatable, but we just assume that that just has to be our life now. And so being able to, you know, cough, laugh or sneeze without leaking on yourself, it’s kind of important, but nobody really talks about.

Emma Dhesi  04:18

Yeah, that recently that that is a particularly bad one at that example that you gave a lot of women do suffer with that. And as you say, assume that that is part of just life after childbirth, women in their 70’s they’ve had it for you know, 40 – 50 years, but didn’t didn’t reach out for help.

Alexia Harrigan  04:37

Yeah, and and it’s really because we don’t talk about it, you know, and we just go Oh, yeah, that just that’s just what it is, you know, but those things are treatable and can get better with you know, pelvic floor therapy and various things. And so I’m just really wanting to be an advocate for moms and also, you know, we as moms, we lay ourselves down for every single thing, you know, we go to the moon and back for the people that we love, but we don’t take time to take care of ourselves, you know, and sometimes we feel guilty for taking care of ourselves.

And so like in my health coaching role, I definitely am a strong proponent for self care, because you can’t love yourself, you can’t love others optimally, if you don’t love yourself first, you know, and so we really wanted to focus on that, too.

Emma Dhesi  05:30

Yeah, it took me a little while a little longer than it should have done to realize that a happy mom equals a happy child. So mom’s house is so so important. And I think you mentioned guilts, there for having self care. And I think certainly some of the, the writers that I work with, there is an element of that because being a fiction writer, or storyteller, it doesn’t pay the bills, it doesn’t, you know, compare that way, it’s quite solitary thing. And not everybody gets it. So I know a lot of us can feel guilty before we, we finally take those steps towards writing. And so what kind of part from there? They’re leaking? What other common elements? Have you seen that kind of car after childbirth, in case any, but any of our listeners are experiencing something that actually is very treatable? 

Alexia Harrigan  06:22

Yeah, so many moms will have pain with intercourse. Sometimes there is damage to the tissues during childbirth. And that may, may or may not require, you know, sutures or stitches and things like that. There can be a lot of pain associated with that. And, you know, there’s been a lot of bad advice out there is like, Oh, well just have more sex. Like, that’s not the answer. That is treatable, right. It’s not the answer that is treatable.

You know, there, there’s also just like, a lot of different joint pains, pelvis pain, knee pain, foot pain, shoulder pain, back pain, all of those things can happen, because a lot of moms are not sleeping well, because their babies are up, you know, their joints and things are still lacks because of the hormones in their body. So things are trying to come back together. And so if they’re not sitting with good posture, if they’re not breastfeeding in in an optimal way that’s going to support their bodies, if they’re, if their core, their core is obviously weak after having a baby, right.

So all of those things kind of play a part. And those are treatable. Some, some moms have diastasis, where the abdominals separate. And don’t necessarily come back together as optimally. So that that can create a whole host of issues with bloating and back pain and all kinds of things. So and all that stuff is treatable.

Emma Dhesi  07:58

Does anyone listening? And you’re this all sounds familiar, get in touch with your health practitioner? 

Alexia Harrigan  08:03

It’s absolutely, absolutely.

Emma Dhesi  08:05

So how do you help your clients that come to you after childbirth? For example? What are some of the ways in which you kind of help them get back back to optimal health? Because you mentioned that you got recovery with grace. And so how do you incorporate that?

Alexia Harrigan  08:23

So we incorporate not just the physical aspects of you know, exercise and getting back to movement, we focus on posture. We also focus on self care. And because really, when when we look at how our bodies work, and our bodies are so amazing, and everything’s connected. And so, when you’re looking at how your diet is how your movement is, even with how how your emotions are all those things play a part in your overall healing.

So my recovery was grace program, it really encompasses the whole body holistically, mind, body, and spirit. How are you taking care of yourself so that you can better take care of your, your child? How are you? What’s your diet looking like? You know, are you are you eating? You know, some moms just, they’re just not eating enough? Or are you eating too much of the wrong things? You know, our our gut health, you know, how our, our intestines and things like that, that plays a huge part in our immunity, as well as like, you may not know but the gut produces 70 to 90% of the serotonin in our bodies, which is that feel good hormone

Emma Dhesi  09:46

I didn’t know that. 

Alexia Harrigan  09:47

So yeah. So even for your writers, you know, sometimes you get so caught up in writing, that you’re not you’re just kind of eating junk, right? But if you’re not feeding yourself optimally, then you’re Not giving yourself the right elements to produce that feel good hormone that helps your creativity, right? So it’s really important to be to feed yourself good things, so that you can stimulate all those feel good hormones, so you can be more creative so that you can be present. And, and so that you feel better, right?

My husband and I, my husband’s also a life coach. And we always say like, are you depressed? Because your guts messed up? Or is your gut messed up? Because you’re depressed? Right? And the answer is yes, right, because we don’t know what came first the chicken or the egg, but they both feed into each other. Mm hmm. So you know, my recovery grace program really focuses on the eating, the self care, pelvic floor health is super important, all the muscles down in your pelvis that incorporate all your sexual organs, and all of that, all those things are connected neurologically, to your central nervous system to your brain.

So like, for people that have like, pelvic floor pain, or even overactive bladder, where you run to the bathroom every five minutes, when you freak out, that stimulates those areas to activate, and even over activate, which means you can, by managing your stress, you can decrease the amount of times you have to go to the bathroom, you can decrease your pelvic floor pain. There’s like a whole host of things. So we really talk about all of those elements, to have optimal health, you know, not just immediately postpartum, but throughout life, because as we know, you know, stress doesn’t stress it and stop coming.

So we have to figure out how to manage it, right. So there’s all of those things that we we really focus on and work through.

Emma Dhesi  11:46

It’s lovely, we use it, I love that idea of it being holistic, and the fact that it’s a lifelong thing as well. And so I guess that’s a really lovely opportunity for the women you work with to start putting in place some great habits and ways to move. Yes, you’re right, that the stress doesn’t go away. And if anything, then increases the comparison around.

Alexia Harrigan  12:06

Yeah, absolutely.

Emma Dhesi  12:10

Right. So if I can move on to just kind of thinking about writers, and just by the nature of our job most of us have, even if we’re active, perhaps in our paid jobs, we then become very sedentary when we sit down to write and we can be sitting for two or more hours at a time, just in one place. And so for example, myself, I struggle a lot with shoulder and neck pain, and I get so quite severe headaches, two times a month, and it cannot be for six. Can you think of any ways that I can maybe? What do you think are the most common reasons that I might be getting pain? And that area? Is it to do with posture, or maybe the ergonomics of my desk? Perhaps?

Alexia Harrigan  13:03

Yes, that those are definitely two possible factors. posture is very, very important. And I know a lot of times we’ll look, we think about, you know, ergonomics, right. And it’s kind of like one of those really fancy words for like, is it does everything fit right is basically is basically it and you need to make sure that one, you have a good chair that fits you. Some people have long legs and are sitting in a short chair, you know, that’s not as deep. So then, you know, they’re not, their legs are kind of down a little bit, they’re not really supported, or you have a shorter person that’s sitting in a deep chair where their feet are dangling.

So all of those things can put stress on the back. And again, like I said, everything’s connected. So if your feet aren’t planted on the floor, and you’ve got, you know, your feet dangling, that’s going to put an increased arching your back, which is going to make you hunched forward, you know, or backward, and your head is going to come forward, which is going to kind of, you know, it’s almost like a stack of dominoes that just fall and everything’s going to be be a little less optimally performing. And then you’re in that posture for a prolonged time. So now you’re putting strain on those tissues, and they’re trying to hold you up. They’re trying to do the job that you’re asking of them, but they’re not in a position where they can optimally work.

So one of the things especially like with neck pain and shoulder pain, one, you got to take breaks, right? I always like to say no posture, there’s no bad posture, right? Our bodies are made to move and go in and out of postures. We have issues when we stay in these prolong static postures, and we never come out of them right so that those long marathon writing sessions where we’re just kind of hunting Stover we’re typing in her neck is forward, all that’s doing is really over activating the upper trapezius muscles, which is at the top of the shoulders, and your head is forward. So that’s putting a lot of strain. A normal, a normal head weighs anywhere from 10 to 10 to 30 pounds when it’s like over the shoulders and the hips when it’s upright.

But when you have your head forward and your shoulders rounded, just by virtue of physics, you have to multiply that poundage by three to five times. Right, so. So those smaller muscles in your neck that are supposed to hold you up and be stable, that’s a lot more strain on them, so I usually recommend, especially with my patients that have you know, neck pain, upper back pain and shoulder pain is take breaks, it’s okay, if you’re gonna, you know, if you plan on writing all day, that’s fine. Use your phone, set a timer, you know, set a timer for 45 minutes or an hour, and try to at least stand up stretch, and then sit back down and get back to writing.

Even that small little bit of movement will kind of break up the monotony allow those some more circulation to come into those tissues,

Emma Dhesi  16:17

Right 

Alexia Harrigan  16:18

And allow you to move a little bit better. 

Emma Dhesi  16:20

Okay. So brakes are good. And so you would recommend, say every 45 minutes taking a break and having a stretch.

Alexia Harrigan  16:28

Yes, absolutely. As far as like with, with your, like your desk and things like that, what you would like is to have the monitor a little bit higher than your eye levels, so that your gaze can be straight on instead of like down. So being able to elevate your monitor, a lot of us use laptops now. So l put it on a stack of books, or if you have those little, they have little trays now that kind of you can stand them up on but that way your your gaze can be straight on instead of down. So that encourages you to be up upright a little bit more. Okay?

Also, just moving, right, moving your neck around. If you’re if you’re like, Man, I’m in the zone. And I don’t want to stop after 45 minutes, at least sit up straight, turn your head a few times side to side, and just allow those muscles to stretch and move. Like getting out of those positions and then going back into it. It’s not going to break your concentration that much if you take two minutes to care for your body so that you’re not laid out for three or four days with a headache and you know, spasms and things like that.

Emma Dhesi  17:42

Mm hmm. Okay, so I putting a timer, I think is a good idea. Otherwise, it’s so easy to forget and just these trouble.

Alexia Harrigan  17:51

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you get in the zone, get in the zone. It’s just like, I mean, I do the same thing. I I actually just finished my book and send it to publishing. Yeah, and so it’s a, it’s called sunny with a chance of showers. And, and so I totally understand the whole writing process. It’s like when you’re in it, you’re just in it. But you have to have those outside reminders to be like, just take a break. You know, just take a break and be able to just move and that will kind of help stem some of some of that overactivity of those muscles.

Emma Dhesi  18:31

Mm hmm. Okay. Okay, thank you for that. So I put some questions out to some of my audience. And they’ve come back to me with some of the things that they are struggling with, and we’re keen that I am. So one of two people actually mentioned an eye strain and seeing that they get a quite a bit of eye strain. I’m guessing from writing directly onto a computer using the screen in some way. Is there a way of reducing that because I don’t know if they were glasses actually. So I don’t know if there’s already something going on. But is that something that they can manage in a way?

Alexia Harrigan  19:09

Absolutely. So I typically recommend blue light glasses. Because it the blue light from the computers, they definitely cause a lot of eye strain. Even like with prescription glasses, you can get a coating on your glasses to kind of help with the blue light. I have that on mine as well. Or you can just if you don’t wear glasses, you can buy separate blue light glasses. Yeah, there’s a lot of studies coming out about it. One thing even like with you even with using your phone, there’s a lot that that backlit.

That light actually inhibits melatonin production in your body which Melatonin is that relaxation hormone that’s naturally produced that helps you Sleep. So if you’re on your computer or on your phone late at night, and you find it hard to go to sleep, it’s probably because that blue light is inhibiting those hormones being produced in your body. So if you, you know, if you have your routine with your writing and things like that, try to one, get those blue light glasses so that you can at least block that so that you can sleep better at night.

And then obviously have more energy in the morning when you’re you know, so you can get back into your writing, but it just helps you overall, and it will help decrease the eye strain as well. Also, like, if you have vision issues, I enlarge the font, like zoom, you know, zoom in, don’t feel like you have to keep it in, you know, point 10 font, it’s okay. If you you know, expand the frame. We it’s very simple, but you know, we all do it. It’s like, why am I staring at this computer so closely. And it’s like, I could just, you know, increase the zoom by maybe 25%. And I can just like, relax, it’s okay.

Emma Dhesi  21:09

That’s funny. I did that just last night on my Kindle for the first time. And I confess, there was a little bit of me that was quite sad to do it, because I thought, Oh, this is another another part of aging, because I used to laugh at my aunts and uncles for doing it. And now I’m doing it.

Alexia Harrigan  21:26

But there’s no shame in it. Honestly, it you know, really, it helps decrease the eye strain. You know, as a writer, as you know, now our society is like, almost 100% on computers now because COVID right. So we we spent a lot of time on our devices, make it easier on yourself, you know, make it easier on your eyes. If If you don’t have to strain to see the smaller font don’t. 

Emma Dhesi  21:53

It’s so effective. I like it. Well, that’s great. So two good suggestions. They I’ve never heard of the blue light glasses. So I’m going to be looking at those myself. And then yeah, just enlarge the font. I like that. Yeah, I caught a number of people who said that they struggle with tendinitis. And in their hands is there again, is there anything that they can do to help reduce I think the swelling and the the sort of pain that comes with that?

Alexia Harrigan  22:25

Yeah, so most often tendinitis is because of repetitive things. And oftentimes, it’s, you know, mostly with like, carpal tunnel, and you know, being on the computer. So again, moving stretching, I always kind of do like that prayer stretch with hands kind of together and let let the hidden risk come down. That’s really helpful for stretching the carpal tunnel, but also having some support for your wrists on your computer. You know, sometimes those little, those little cushions that can kind of keep you in kind of that neutral risk position is kind of where you want to be, you don’t want your wrist to be kind of cocked up too high or down, because that’s going to put pressure on those joints and cause some increased issues.

Because really, you know, most of the most of the muscles that control the hand are in the forearm. So there are a lot of tendons that are coming through that wrist area. And so if you’re putting extra tension by kind of having your wrist cocked up because you don’t have your wrist supported on something, then you got to think about like, it’s almost like ropes, kind of, you know, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing. Well eventually they’re gonna get mad and be like we’ve had enough of this we’re gonna swell and be painful.

So, so it’s just about putting them in optimal, you know, that neutral posture, that neutral position where they’re supported, so that you can work and not put extra strain on them. 

Emma Dhesi  24:03

Okay, cool. I’ve seen people with these kind of support gloves, so most and or wrist bandages, or they have it you know, if you’ve already struggling a bit, are they of any use or do you want to let your wrist beam keep moving more? Does that help or hindrance do you think?

Alexia Harrigan  24:23

So, Um, I kind of have a love hate relationship with braces in general, right? So braces or braces are good for acute injuries. You know, to immobilize things so that the tissues can calm down so they can rescue decrease strain. That’s fine. prolonged use of them. I kind of take issue with sometimes because our bodies when it comes to stabilization and movement, our bodies are very efficient. So if you don’t use it, you lose it right? And so the body’s like, Oh, I don’t have to work to stabilize that great. And then you feel like, you know, when you take it off, you feel extra weak because your muscles haven’t been had, you know, to support itself.

So they’re fine for short term things. You know, as far as like carpal tunnel braces and things like that, if you know, you’re going to be doing a lot of typing, and you already have some wrist issues, it’s not a bad idea to put it on during that activity. So you provide yourself a little bit of support. And so you don’t further irritate the tissues. But if you don’t currently have that issue, I wouldn’t necessarily say wear a brace, just in case I would say, get some, you know, a cushion to support your wrist so that you’re in better position, so you don’t eventually have it, but I don’t think you should just get a brace just a habit if you don’t have that condition already. 

Emma Dhesi  25:53

Okay. Okay, good advice there. Somebody was also asking about these lumber pillows that you can get that you can put on your chair? Um, and whether or not they are actually useful, or is it more of a marketing kind of gimmick?

Alexia Harrigan  26:10

Yeah, so, um, the answer is, it depends, right. So sometimes lumbar rolls are really nice, a nice little support. If you’re having some back issues they can be, they can be nice to kind of help a little bit. But what I’ve found to be a little bit more supportive is and cheaper is to just take a, take a towel, and fold it a couple of times. So it might be maybe a couple inches thick, and you put it, you sit on it, but you you sit on it towards the back part of your bottom, so you kind of just barely put your hips on it.

Okay, what that does is it actually helps tilt your pelvis forward in what we call, we would call a little bit of lumbar lordosis. So it kind of increases the arching your back, which that lumbar roll kind of helps with, but this does it from your seat aspect. And by rotating your hips forward a little bit, it actually supports you in a way that you can sit up straighter without having to work really hard. And it actually feels pretty good when you if you do it, right. And it’s really it’s not, you probably use maybe maybe half the towel or even a quarter of the towel underneath your bottom. And it really does help a ton without having to get a lumbar roll. Okay, it works.

Even if you’re sitting on the floor, or you’re sitting at a chair that doesn’t have a back where you’re sitting closer to the edge of a chair. It can work in all those areas.

Emma Dhesi  27:54

It sounds like it’s the same position you would use if say you were doing a yoga class. And you’re using like the mat supports for years. Yes. And yoga. Right. Okay. Yeah. Now that sounds like the sort of thing that’s good to do, regardless of whether you have back pain or not just generally good for your, your back’s natural position.

Alexia Harrigan  28:16

Absolutely. Okay, totally. Yeah. I think too, like with posture, it’s helpful. I do it myself, especially sitting on the floor. That helps too. But like, even with posture, I think a lot of times the, the mindset is to like, try to like force your posture up straight and like shoulders back. And, and that’s really, it’s it’s hard to maintain. Because most of us don’t sit that way most of the time, right. But a better way to think about sitting up straight, is elongating.

So think about like, if you had if you were like a marionette doll, and there was a string attached to the top of your head, and someone was pulling you straight up. And so you’re basically elongating your spine, you’re not necessarily forcing your shoulders back, you’re actually straightening up through your spine going straight up toward the sky. And what you’ll find is, you’ll be a lot more upright, your core, your back muscles will engage the way they’re supposed to and the way they’re designed to. And it doesn’t take as much work as trying to force your shoulders back and all that other stuff.

It’s so much easier to just elongate your spine and kind of along kind of raise your head like from your shoulders.

Emma Dhesi  29:40

Mm hmm. I like that. Yeah, I certainly that’s exactly why just what you described, I’m always trying to push my shoulders back trying to ramrod straight my my spine thinking that’s me sitting up straight, but I like the idea of yet just lifting up from the crown of the head that feels Yeah, more gentle way of doing it. Yeah,

Alexia Harrigan  29:58

yes, yes.

Emma Dhesi  30:02

I wanted to ask I was thinking about habits. habits are so so important. And I struggle with many habits, including staying active, not necessarily doing sport, but just kind of staying active. And if there are others like me who don’t get a kick out of movement that some other people do, have you any suggestions about how we can begin to incorporate? incorporate any kind of any of these exercises, or any other exercise actually into our lives? Because one thing I find is when I’ve got the headache, Oh, I’m so on it, I do the stretches. And every time I say to myself, I’ve got to make this part of my weekly routine. And then as soon as the pain goes, I forget all about it. And I really think alone there.

I wonder if you’ve got any, something I’ve not thought about to help make that more of a habit?

Alexia Harrigan  30:56

Yeah. Oh, man, we’re, we’re all we’re all this way. So don’t feel bad. Everybody’s bipolar, everybody. We don’t, we only take our medicine until we till we feel good. And then we we forget that it’s the medicine that helps us feel good, right? It’s like, we got to do our exercises. That’s, that’s what helps us feel good. We’re all the same. One, one of the things that as far as like movement in general, I always encourage my patients and my clients to do the things you enjoy. Like, what do you enjoy doing? Right?

Some people hate going to the gym, that’s okay. You know, you don’t have it doesn’t have to look like what the media or what other people say it’s supposed to look like movement free for you might be working in your garden, it might be walking your dog, it might be, you know, doing some yoga, it might be you know, there are a ton of things. For me, it’s roller skating, I absolutely love to roller skate. So it’s one of those things where, you know, I’m not a runner, I’ve just, that’s just not the way my body is built. It just hates it. My knees are like, why are we doing this?

You know, but I love roller skating. You know, my husband hates roller skating, but he loves doing you know, riding a bike. So it’s whatever, whatever you enjoy, do it. One of the one of the recommendations for exercise is like to get 150 minutes worth of exercise for a week, right in a week. And that sounds really daunting for most people, because they’re like, Oh my gosh, now I got to go to the gym, or I got to work out for hours or whatever. But what studies have shown is even in braking, you can, they will say, well, 30 minutes a day, right.

But even if you broke that into smaller portions, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, that still adds up, it still counts. So, you know, even for even if your with your exercises that you need to do for your neck and things like that, all that counts. So don’t don’t despise the little things. If it’s like, oh, man, I’m just gonna, like walk back and forth to the mailbox, and then back for like, five minutes. And then in an hour, I’m gonna do it again. Like that all adds up. Okay, as far as like creating habits, it really it can be tough, and it can be like discouraging, because we we fall off, right.

But the thing is, as we’re creating habits, we have to understand how the brain and how the mind works. We’re used to doing a certain way certain thing. And it’s kind of like treading a path in a forest. Right. And so that path is well worn. And it’s, you know, it’s it, you can see it, when you when you walk in the forest, you can see that that well worn path. We when we want to start a new habit, we have to wear in a brand new path in that forest. Which means sometimes if we’re not consistent, or if we, you know, let’s say life happens, and we get back on that regular that old path, we can’t get down on ourselves. It’s not like that, that path is a bad path. It’s just a more worn path than the new path.

So in order to create that new habit, it just has to be more worn than the old path. And so, it’s it’s one of those things where don’t get discouraged if you fall off, okay, I always tell my clients have a plan B, have a plan B. I’m going to I’m going to do my neck exercises every morning when I get up. So for the first week, you’re very consistent. You’re doing it but let’s say life happens. Your get sick stuff happens, blah, blah, blah, okay? What’s my plan B when life gets crazy, okay, I may not be able to have time to go for that 30 minute walk, I may only have time to do my neck exercises or a five minute yoga sequence. But that’s okay. Because that’s my plan B. And when life settles down, I go back to my plan A, which means now, there’s no guilt involved.

Emma Dhesi  35:30

I Like that

Alexia Harrigan  35:30

right? I’m not beating myself up, because we don’t, you know, we give up because we anticipate the punishment that we give ourselves.

Emma Dhesi  35:40

Yes, yes. Yeah.

Alexia Harrigan  35:43

Yeah, there’s a lot of guilt. So we have Plan B, right? So we say, Okay, I know, I need to do these exercises for my neck, so I feel better. So then you brainstorm it. What’s the optimal time? That would work best for you to get them done? Once you figure that out, then you just implement that. If something happens, you say, Okay, well, if if something happens to disrupt that time, when’s the next best time for me to do it? So that’s my plan B. 

Emma Dhesi  36:12

Okay. I like that. Because then there’s no, it’s taking away the idea that you’re falling off the wagon, so to speak. Yes. And yes, your sister, you’re always on it. You’re just changing your seats.

Alexia Harrigan  36:24

Exactly. Exactly. Because, as we all know, life can change dramatically in a moment, right? I mean, we’ve experienced 2020 has been crazy. I mean, I don’t even know it’s just been like, it’s crazy. Yeah. So we have to, we have to, again, give ourselves grace. And understand that, yes, life happens. And how are we going to respond to that? So that we’re not totally the real, we don’t have to fall off the wagon. You know, just like with our eating, if you’re on a specific diet plan, and you’re like, Okay, I’m not going to have you know, a whole lot of carbs. I’m just going to do a lot of fruits and vegetables, healthy proteins, healthy fats. Okay, cool.

And then, you know, then you have a really crazy craving for, you know, some chocolate chip cookies, and you have some chocolate chip cookies. Is your diet completely over? No, it’s not, you got chocolate chip cookies, okay? Tomorrow, have more fruits and vegetables, drink more water. It’s not the end of the world, we have to give ourselves grace and understand that, you know, we should strive for progression, not perfection.

Emma Dhesi  37:42

Very true. That’s lovely progression, not perfection. I’m just conscious of time. And but I’ve got a couple more questions, if that’s all right. And I didn’t realize that you were writing your book as well. So I wonder is there anything else any other kind of ailments or, and sore points that maybe you experienced when you were writing, or that other people have come to you with, but I haven’t thought to ask today.

Alexia Harrigan  38:07

Ammm yeah, So I think for me, when I was writing, I think the thing that I ran into the most was just having a great place to write in. We were doing a lot of moving and things like that. So it was like, Okay, well, now I’m writing on the couch. And I’m kind of like, all curled up over here. And then I’m over here, you know, writing at the kitchen table, and then I’m writing in my bed. And so I think just having a consistent writing area. So, so I could make it a lot more comfortable for myself.

Because I I too had, you know, shoulder pain and back pain from you know, hunching over. And I think for me, being able to, I did a lot of yoga really, in between. So I would just do like a few yoga poses to kind of take a break. And then I would go back to my writing, which was, which was great, because the story I share in my book is my my grief journey after losing my son. And so it’s pretty heavy. And so being able to kind of do that restorative yoga, and being able to kind of relax my mind and then go back into it was very helpful for me.

Emma Dhesi  39:30

So did you just do a few, you know, a few select poses, you don’t need to do a full routine, the full flow, you can just choose a few poses, do those? Right. Okay. 

Alexia Harrigan  39:40

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I think that was helpful for me too, because, you know, a lot of times like I was saying earlier, you get in the flow, and you don’t necessarily want to like okay, now I’m going to go do yoga for 30 minutes to an hour. It’s like though I just need I just need to stretch and move a little bit and I need to get some more oxygen in my body. Then I can get back to it.

Emma Dhesi  40:02

Love that I love that. Well Alexia, where can listeners find out more about you and the work that you do?

Alexia Harrigan  40:09

Yes, so they can find me. My website is alexiaharrigan.com and I’m on Instagram at Dr. Alexia Harrigan and I’m on Facebook as well as Alexia Harrigan.

Emma Dhesi  40:22

Cool. Well, I’ll link to all of those in the show notes. And that’s good. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. It was great to speak to you.

Alexia Harrigan  40:30

Thank you so much. I had a great time.

Emma Dhesi  40:33

Okay, how was that for you? I hope you find that as useful as I did. I loved Alexia as practical suggestions on how we can alleviate all those aches and pains in our body. And the way she’s encouraged us just to be gentle with ourselves find a an activity or a way of being active that suits us and our lifestyle. So if you’re like me, and you do not love the gym, then I love the fact you’re saying, okay, don’t do that. Find another way of incorporating activity in your life, whether it be to walk to the, the post box and back, or whether it just be to do a few stretches and a few yoga, yoga poses, if that’s what you’re into.

It’s about fitting activity and movement into your life. No matter what you do in your day to day, so that you stay fit, you stay healthy, that you can continue with your writing career and not be completely disabled by it. You know, I know that I struggle a lot and I’m constantly trying to find ways of keeping myself active. I know of other writers who have even undergone you know, surgical procedures because their pain has got too much. And then they’ve had to find ways of making sure they keep they keep themselves moving and keep keep the benefits of that surgical procedure.

So I hope that’s been useful. Let me know how you get on. Please do. Put in the comments what you do to keep fit and healthy and active and any tips that you’ve got you want to share with other listeners. Right, that’s what I’ve got for you today. I hope it was good. And I’ll see you again next time.

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Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.