Hi loves, welcome back to Lavendaire.
Today I thought I'd take you along my evening routine,
showing you how I relax and reset at the end of my days.
I've been getting busier lately, and I find that the busier I get,
the more I have to be intentional about
making time to relax my body and my mind.
I've been more conscious of my energy
and protecting myself from burnout,
so my evenings are my opportunity to destress and decompress.
So my evenings begin when I end my workday.
So today was a day of meetings.
And let me show you a little bit of
what I worked on today
because after my meetings,
I got really excited to plan for our workbook launch.
So I did a lot of Pinteresting
and I drafted up some just notes on the story concept
and kind of beginning our script,
but I'm just so excited for this visual theme guys.
It is so beautiful and different than what we've done before.
So super excited about that.
And I did a little bit of editing.
I do have an editor,
but I was just editing an example of something
I wanted to show him.
But today was a fun day because
I like getting into the creativity of things.
Anyway, it's usually the sun that reminds me
that it's the end of my workday,
because I like to take Togi on a walk 30 minutes before the sun sets.
So it's about that time.
Right now, it's like 6:50 PM.
So I'll be logging off and taking Togi on a walk.
Togi loves to go on his walk walks.
I walk him almost everyday of the week around sunset time.
Most days I actually walk him with my mom, so yes
she is helping me film some of these clips.
It's a great way for all three of us to get some exercise in,
since we're typically sitting at home all day.
Sometimes if my mom doesn't join the walk,
I like to listen to a podcast or audiobook.
Recently, I've been listening to The Life with Marianna podcast
with influencer and entrepreneur Marianna Hewitt.
She's someone I look up to for her work as an influencer
and her company Summer Fridays,
so I love learning from her
and the people she brings on.
They're all powerful females in beauty, business and social media.
Yes, I actually drink from this giant water bottle everyday.
People always comment on it when they see it.
It's a 1 gallon bottle
and I do try to drink about a gallon of water a day.
To be honest though,
this bottle gets really heavy when you fill it up all the way,
so I usually just fill it up half way or three-fourths of the way.
And then, it is dinnertime!
Tonight Wilson and I are just having some leftovers.
This is from one of our favorite Cantonese restaurants that we DoorDash pretty often.
After dinner, I'm back at my desk to wrap up
some loose ends for work,
and plan for the next day.
Tonight I'm working on making a thumbnail for a new video.
I don't know why,
but I always like to make my thumbnails as I wait for the video to upload.
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In order to have a productive day,
I like to plan my day the night before.
If you guys have the Daily Planner from my shop,
you'll notice that this is our Daily Planner layout
in a tear-off notepad form!
This is just one sample of the new products
that are coming soon to The Lavendaire Shop.
And I'm so excited about it!
Actually just took a moment to post on Instagram,
which is not something I usually do in the evening,
but I did a documentary shoot yesterday
and I haven't posted about it.
I'm really bad at posting on Instagram
and keeping updated.
But yeah, I just took some time to do that.
I truly start to unwind when I brush my teeth
and wash my face at the end of the day.
This ritual of cleansing makes me feel like I'm literally washing off the day
and turning off for the night.
11pm is also my phone curfew.
At that time, a reminder pops up to tell me to
get off my phone,
and all of my internet apps are blocked until the morning.
My skincare routine has been pretty simple lately.
I used to do the Korean 10 step skincare routine,
but I'm not sure if it's laziness
or realizing that I can live with less steps in my life,
I now do about 3 to 4 steps.
So after washing my face, I'll put on a serum, then a moisturizer,
and sometimes a layer of oil on top to seal it in.
A couple times a week I'll use an exfoliating toner, but that's about it.
Togi always gets so sweet and cuddly at nighttime.
During the day he can be super energetic and mischievous,
he still has that puppy energy.
But at night, I love how he is when he's sleepy.
Also he just got groomed
and Wilson and I both love his shorter hair.
What do you guys prefer?
Short & clean cut or long & shaggy?
Next, I'm setting up for a relaxing stretching and yoga session.
I like to put on a calming Spotify playlist on my TV
today i'm listening to the playlist called Stress Relief.
I cycle through a few of these relaxing playlists
I honestly think these are my most played songs on Spotify.
I'm starting with child's pose and deep breathing
with an open mouth exhale.
I like to take a deep breath in through my nose,
and exhale through my mouth with an audible sound.
I feel like making a sound helps release more tension from your body.
Sound is energy, and it feels good to release it.
I mean, that's why we naturally want to scream
when we're on a rollercoaster.
Imagine trying to hold in your scream on a rollercoaster
feel like that would make you tense up even more.
When you have tension inside, you gotta let it out.
Don't be embarrassed to make sounds
you can do this at home when no one is listening anyway!
Next, I'm doing some cats and cows.
which is just bending your spine both ways
when you're on tabletop position.
And I'm also making some hip circles to stretch out
the parts of my body that want to be stretched.
Maybe because I'm sitting all day,
it feels really good to stretch my hips and lower back like this.
After that, I'm stretching my neck in all directions,
breathing a couple times into the stretch
to release the tension.
Stretching the back of my neck always feels the best
probably because of my poor posture at the desk.
And also because I hold a lot of tension in my shoulders.
Then I'm doing some neck circles,
going slowly in both directions.
This next exercise, I call "drop the shoulders".
I basically bring my shoulders up,
then drop them,
allowing gravity to bring them down.
This helps me release the tension in my shoulders
from stress or working on the computer.
Next I'm doing a sitting cat and cow.
My Body and Brain teacher taught me this one.
I'm just sitting my ankles with my legs together,
and arching and concaving my back.
The goal is to increase spine flexibility,
so that your back becomes kind of like a rubber band.
Moving on, I'm doing some rolling back exercises.
If you watched my video on How to Heal Your Energy
this is one of the exercises I shared.
It's for stimulating your spine
and increasing flexibility as well.
You end this with the plow pose,
which is great for stretching your upper back.
Here, I'm deep breathing into the stretch,
going deeper with each breath.
Next I'm continuing these Body and Brain exercises,
doing some hip bouncing,
knee bouncing,
and toe tapping.
Then I'm bringing my legs up and holding my feet to stretch the back of my legs.
For each of these exercises,
I'm deep breathing and releasing whatever tension is there,
helping my body become more and more relaxed.
Next, I'm doing some supine spine twists laying down.
These are always super relaxing.
I love getting to this part in yoga,
because this exercise means that
you're nearing the end of your session,
and from here on out, it's all about letting go and relaxing.
I decided I wanted to do my favorite yoga pose: sleeping pigeon.
I love the flow getting into the position,
and I love the stretch that it gives my hips, glutes, quads,
everything in that area that can be so tense.
The reason this is my favorite pose is because
it's both challenging and satisfying at the same time.
The stretch is deep but difficult,
and I love getting deeper with each breath.
I forgot what this pose is called,
but you start with a down dog, bring one leg up,
and then twist it to the other side.
This stretch feels so good on the front of your hips.
And then ending it all with a rag doll pose
another one of my favorites.
I love imagining my spine decompressing
as I'm hanging upside down.
So after that yoga session, my body is feeling loose and relaxed,
and I'm ready to get into bed.
My nightly routine in bed lately has been
reading the book Crazy Rich Asians.
This book is so much fun,
more fun than the movie itself
and I love being thrown into this fabulous, colorful world.
The writer is so funny and I can't seem to put this book down.
I haven't read fiction in forever, so it's a refreshing change for me.
Alright guys.
Hope you enjoyed spending this evening with me.
I'm just going to keep reading this book
because it's really good
and I'm almost done so goodnight
and I will see you in the next one.
Bye.