Your Thoughts Are Making You Tired with Amy Behimer PharmD, NBC-HWC

Your Thoughts Are Making You Tired with Amy Behimer PharmD, NBC-HWC

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Hey everybody, welcome back to the EnergyMD Podcast, where we help you resolve your Long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome naturally so that you can get back to living your best life. So I'm really excited about today's interview because we're going to be talking with an autoimmune expert. If you have Long COVID, chronic fatigue syndrome, or chronic fatigue, you have autoimmunity. The reality is that

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when you have symptoms in your body, they come from inflammation, and inflammation comes from the immune system reacting to something in your body. Autoimmunity comes from that as well. So we're going to be speaking with Dr. Amy Behimer, PharmD, NBC-HWC today. She is a board-certified health and wellness coach and doctor of pharmacy who lives with, and helps people with, autoimmune disease feel better and function better using simple, science-backed habits. Habits is such an important, powerful word that we're going to get into more today.

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Her work focuses on moving people out of doing everything right and into a sustainable approach that actually fits real life. Through coaching and her podcast, Autoimmune Health Secrets, Amy helps people work with their bodies by paying attention to how they think, feel, and act each day. She believes better health isn't built through perfection or willpower, but by learning the skill of habit change with clarity, compassion, and support. Amy, thanks so much for joining me today.

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Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you. So let's get started with your story. How did you end up doing this work? What was your journey with autoimmunity like? The first time I heard the word autoimmunity, I was in my teens and I was diagnosed with vitiligo, which is a skin condition. With autoimmunity, it can present in any system of our body, depending on where

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the immune system is attracted to attack, so to speak. So the first one was my skin. And I was a teenager, so I just kept on living life. I was in pharmacy school, started learning more about autoimmunity and all the things that can go right in the body and all the things that can go wrong. And so I also was learning that they tend to cluster. If you have one, it tends to mean that something is going on and there could be more down the line.

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So my next one came in my mid-20s. It was a thyroid autoimmune disease called Graves'. And a couple of years after that, it was multiple sclerosis. I was 27, and that was the one that truly woke me up in terms of recognizing my body had been whispering and now just decided to scream and it got my attention. And so from there, there really is a before and after, you know, with a diagnosis like that.

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I'm guessing a lot of the listeners can relate to that. And I am a lover of learning, so I decided I had to learn more about this thing. And so I went down the functional medicine path and was looking at becoming a practitioner, and then I realized, oh no, that's not the part I want. I don't want to be the expert telling people what to do or what not to do. I want to

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work with them and understand that they know some things they want to do. Why is it so darn hard to do it? And I went the coaching route instead and really dove into becoming an expert in behavior change, an expert in lifestyle habits, and an expert in, again, just how do we create a really good life no matter what diagnosis may come our way.

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And so for those who aren't familiar, can you tell us a little bit about the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis? Yes, it is an autoimmune disease, no surprise. And what's happening is the immune system mistakes the myelin, which is this beautiful sheath on the outside of our nerves that helps us conduct signals to our muscles so that we can move. And when the immune system thinks that myelin is — what it's called — a foreign invader,

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it will act to protect us, or so it thinks. And so instead, it damages it. And so depending on where these lesions — as they're called — show up, whether in your brain or in your spinal cord, that is what affects the symptoms that you're going to have. So you may meet a hundred different people with MS and they may have a hundred different clinical pictures.

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We also have a lot in common, so it's not completely random. There are issues with eyes consistently. There are issues with sensation. There can be pain. There can be gait disturbances, so difficulty with mobility and drop foot. And so a lot of people, when they hear MS, may have a picture of someone with a cane or with some other walking assistance. And that, again, is just because

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there's a lesion somewhere that is impacting the connection to the parts of our body that are able to help us walk. Thank you. I should add — I'm sorry — I also call fatigue the symptom that binds so many people living with autoimmune disease. So there are two symptoms I think that I

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see with everyone I work with, and that's fatigue and uncertainty, if we want to call uncertainty a symptom. But it's just this overwhelming recognition — again, what I was feeling — of, okay, my body is not liking something, and what is coming in the future? How could this thing progress or get worse? And so that level of uncertainty, which we all have as humans, but sometimes with a diagnosis it makes it feel a little bit more pressing. Those would be the couple of things that we share.

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I remember I was in a Tony Robbins workshop and he said, "All right, raise your hand if you like surprises." And everybody raised their hand and he said, "Bullshit — you like good surprises." That is so true. That is so true. Yes. Uncertainty is hard. Well, and I love that, because if you ask a question and the answer is "I don't know," that could be one of the most fear- and panic-inducing

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answers. Or, exactly as Tony Robbins was saying, the flip side is also true. What if "I don't know" means it could be a great thing? But our brains, with the negativity bias, don't often go there. And so you're right — we think of uncertainty in terms of the worst-case scenario. But if we're going to give time, attention, and energy to that, then it's only fair to give a little bit of airtime to the best-case scenario as well.

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So is that the remedy for uncertainty, or how do you support people in not getting lost in being uncertain? You know, uncertainty is a feeling. And one of the most useful tools that we have, and that I teach, is recognizing what are thoughts, what are feelings, and what are actions, because our habits live in all three.

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Right? So our brain has habitual thoughts that it grabs over and over and over again. And it does it so automatically that we call it a belief, really. It feels so true because that's where it's comfortable. And then our body is very habitual when it comes to feelings. It'll grab the top three, four, five, or six throughout the day — and those are just numbers; you may be a little bit different — but

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it'll grab these feelings that, even though they don't feel good, they're comfortable. They're habitual. And so it goes there because that's what it knows. And the same thing with our actions — the things we're doing or not doing every day. That's the habit that most people think of when they hear the word habits. And so knowing that there are thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how they interact and influence each other, when you take something like uncertainty — again, which is a feeling — we get really curious and we find out

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what is the thought or belief that is causing so much uncertainty. And my belief about what causes uncertainty — mine was probably most pressing as: "Oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to walk one day." Or, "I don't know if I'm going to be able to walk one day." That made me feel very uncertain. For someone else, it could be a different flavor. It could be, "What if this lupus affects my kidneys and I have to end up being on dialysis?" Or,

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our flavor of uncertainty, like "What if I can't support my family," is different. But once we find the habitual thought or belief that is leading to that uncertainty, that's where we get to apply the work of changing that habit. Right? So again, it's a habitual thought. And so what we would do is ask, what is also true in that? It's possible I may not walk one day. Well, that's true for everybody — we don't know. Yes, I have a diagnosis that

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could increase the likelihood, but it's also possible that I may walk all the way into my grave. And so again, when we notice the one that's causing the uncertainty, we don't try to eradicate it right away because it's hard. It's like saying "calm down" or "stress less." Instead, we invite in alternate thoughts that feel a little less uncertain,

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and we practice those ones. We give those ones attention and we try to make those ones more habitual. And another way to do it is to ask: when's the last time you felt certain? What are you certain about? Are you certain you love your children? Are you certain that you are going to have dinner this evening? Whatever you know you are certain about — maybe you're certain that you have a certain faith — lean into that.

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Practice that. Redirect your brain to the things you are certain about, because the cool thing is your body doesn't know, "Oh my gosh, she's just saying she's certain that she can drink this water." All it knows is, "Oh, she's feeling certain." And that has a chemical fingerprint that feels pretty darn good, and it starts to bathe ourselves in more nourishing biochemicals that are less inflammatory.

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Yeah, in our program as part of the mindset work, we talk about how, for any sort of limiting beliefs that you have, you want to try to think the opposite belief. But like you said, you have to first notice — which I think is probably one of the hardest things. I know it's really hard for me and I'm still working on it — to actually have that awareness in the moment. Like, "Okay, what am I thinking? What am I feeling, right in this moment?" So how do you help people

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get that sort of mindfulness, or that ability to notice? So it's definitely a skill that we can learn to do on our own. But I know for me, and I know for a lot of people that I get to work with, the best place to start is to say, "Let me help you." You can show up and just tell me everything on your mind, and I can see the blind spots. It's so hard to see our own blind spots, like seeing the back of our own head. But

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I can offer, potentially, "This may be the thought that feels painful." And we together find the ones where we check in and say, "Oh, this makes me feel really uncertain," or "This one makes me feel extremely exhausted or fatigued or overwhelmed." And for teaching ourselves to do it on our own, some of us really do need outside help. I really do believe that — neurosurgeons can't operate on their own brains.

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We start to get in the habit of, A, carving out time to look. So journaling is a practice that can help, along with various prompts. Prompts and questions are my best friend — both as a coach and for you, too — because imagine: we have about 60,000 thoughts a day, and that number varies based on the reference, but most of those are completely under our conscious radar.

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They are just humming along and we are not aware of them until we ask a really good question or fill in a prompt. And then I say questions are like walking down the hallways of our brain and knocking on the doors, like, "What's back there? What's back there?" And so it helps you kind of see potentially what some of those limiting beliefs could be. One that's really neat is filling in the blank of a prompt like

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"I really want blank." Like, what do you really want? Maybe it's more energy. Maybe it's something related to your health. And if you say, "I really want X, but..." — whatever comes after the "but" is likely going to be something that you feel is too big to move. Something that, if we question it and wiggle it loose, we could maybe find a version of that that is more expansive and again leads to more creative

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methods of getting around what seems like it's blocking you. And if you were to say that there is a really common theme among most people you work with, what is coming after that "but"? "But this diagnosis makes that impossible," or "I'm just too tired," or an emotion that a lot of people who finally say, "Enough is enough, I'm going to get some help," is overwhelmed.

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Or, which is often being driven by this thought or this belief that "I need to do it all," or "it all needs to be done now," or "there's just something I'm missing." So they keep looking for more and more information. And that can cause a lot of overwhelm. There's so much information out there. If you're trying to consume from social media, or even from — both of us have podcasts so we are sharing information, but

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hopefully also pairing it with action. Because information without that action, without a lot of times that personalized support, we can get stuck in that loop where we're just learning and learning and learning. So again, making sure that we are doing something with the information, that it's trusted, and that if you're getting information from a source and you realize you feel overwhelmed after it, then that may be a sign that

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you need to try something else. You need to tune some things out. Maybe we need to really focus in and just notice how you're feeling after you consume the information, because we do want to come back to the places where you feel heard, you feel seen, you feel like somebody gets you and is working with you. I mean, it's why one of the most amazing parts about what we do is that personalization.

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You know, to just get one-way information without, again, hearing your story — why is it hard for you? — it can be hard to really get too far if we don't have that personalization. Yeah. So many people that I speak to have spent a lot of time consuming information. They're on podcasts and YouTube and summits and whatever, and

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they're consuming and they're very good at consuming and they're very bright, but they don't take action. They don't take that next step. What do you think that disconnect is? I think it's really comfortable and habitual to keep learning and to keep thinking that if there's something out there that we're missing, when we find it, things will get better. And again, it's just a habit. One of the

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ways that I'm able to take all the amazing research out there — there are people researching habits and habit change who are amazing. I mean, everybody has Atomic Habits on their shelf and Tiny Habits and these great books. They're my best friends even though they don't know it. But all that information stays on the page until we figure out a way to apply it. And so I've spent the last decade-plus pouring through what

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has already been done out there in the research. This stuff works. This is how we change in a way that feels good. And I have created an ABC Habit Playbook. This playbook has 20 plays. They're science-backed strategies that are simple. They take yourself into account, so you personalize them. And one of those plays is the 20-80 rule. And that is exactly what we're talking about, where

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we kind of agree — and of course it doesn't have to be exactly 20/80 — but we need 20% of our time learning and 80% getting out there and putting it into action, because that is where we actually learn the most. When you take a nugget of knowledge in your brain and you use your body to implement it, you're going to learn things about yourself and about what worked and about what didn't that you can never get from a book. And so that is one way to

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really take the knowing from our brain to our bodies and again get more useful information than what worked for one person one time. So is there a mantra that people need to use? I'm just trying to think about how do people make that shift. You've talked a little bit about creating these habits. Let's make sure we go down and talk about how to create a habit for action.

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Yeah, I like that. When you said "is there a mantra," I will say another strategy — or a play from the playbook — that could also be considered a mantra. It's also a rule in my membership, which we call the Club. It's called "Trust in the Tiny," and it's a little bit different than the Tiny Habits you may have heard of or the two-minute rule that a lot of people know for making a habit. It pulls in the mindset piece. It's "Trust in the Tiny" because

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the only reason we wouldn't be doing a very small version of anything we want to do — to have more energy, to feel better, to get healthier — is likely because there's a limiting belief we may not be aware of that's saying, "That tiny bit won't matter. This little bit won't count. Doing 60 seconds of exercise this morning can't really mean that maybe one day, months from now,

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I am doing 60 minutes, doing things I never thought possible." So trusting in the tiny, finding all the reasons and the evidence in your own life where the tiny things really do add up, is one of the most useful beliefs. I call it a belief seed, because we plant the seeds of belief and then we nurture them,

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water them, fertilize them with our attention, and stick with them until we believe them. So if somebody comes into coaching with me a little skeptical — "Okay, wait, can I really only focus on this one thing? What about the rest? Will changing my thoughts or my feelings really make me feel more energized? Will this one vegetable really mean that later I can eat better?" — they may be skeptical. But

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we take them through the process of, "Let's plant this belief seed. Let's give it so much love and attention until it becomes a beautiful, strong plant." Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks, sometimes a couple of months. But if I tried to tell people — after they've made it their belief and they've really found the evidence — that "that little bit won't work," they will say, "Yes, it will," because they've seen the evidence. That's brilliant.

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Yeah, I definitely agree with that. It's just about — I try to ask people what that small thing is that they need to do today that is going to really make a difference later on. Because you only have to do one small thing at a time. Well, and what a beautiful realization for those listening — and just hearing what you help people with in that empowering question.

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We're talking about so many of the same things because we're using the same science. So one of the plays from the playbook is called "Ask a Better Question." And again, that pulls from the fact that our brain loves to find answers to the questions we give it. And so if we notice we are habitually asking ourselves, "Why am I so tired? Why am I so tired?" our brain is on alert to find all the reasons we could be tired.

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"Well, this didn't work, and I didn't sleep well, and I didn't do this." A better question is, "How could I do something today that I have a pretty good idea is not going to make me so tired?" Then all of a sudden, our brain is looking for those little things. "Okay, I could take a walk at lunch. I could get in bed 15 minutes earlier. I could turn off that screen and I could eat this versus that." So having that question — I like to say a power question that

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you come back to over and over again — is everything. One that I, when I first started learning all about functional medicine and MS specifically, the mitochondria came up — which I know that you have shared about and taught about, and you could teach me a thing or two about mitochondria. But I realized pretty early that I love these things. I'm going to make them my friends, and I'm going to figure out how in the world I can love on them.

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And so that became one of my power questions when I was trying to make decisions. "Gosh, would my mitochondria think this is loving? Would it be something they'd be on board with? Or not?" And so, all these years later, I think that power question has led me down some pretty good roads. I have no doubt. So this sounds like a really powerful playbook. Are there other rules in this playbook that would be of service to people listening?

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How long do you have? We could go through all 20. But so, let's see — we talked about "Trust in the Tiny," we talked about pairing learning with action, we've covered "Ask a Better Question." I would say another one that we use repeatedly, over and over, is called "ABC — Always Be Celebrating." So something we know is that

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we don't celebrate ourselves very often. It's uncomfortable. Nobody wants to hear us brag about the fact that we ate a salad today when we really wanted to order fries and a burger — not saying there's anything wrong with fries and a burger; I am from the Midwest and I love beef. But you know what I'm talking about. When we set a plan — a loving plan on shifts that we want to make — we just are not in the habit of celebrating ourselves. And not only does it feel good once you get through the

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little bit of discomfort, but it is everything when it comes to what we know about habit change, what we know about how dopamine is released when we do something intentionally to celebrate ourselves. And a celebration could be as simple as a tracker that you get to check off. I mean, I have clients who use sticker systems — and it's not just

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fluff. It really isn't. It can be anything that is not just you thinking it, but actually putting it out there. A lot of people are familiar with Mel Robbins and she has an entire book called The High Five Habit, and that's built off the idea and the realization that when you look at yourself and high-five yourself in the mirror, there is a biochemical change that happens that gives us the confidence to keep going. And it really does

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help in so many ways. So that's a more fun one that I want to share and encourage everybody to consider. I had a podcast episode — gosh, it's probably been a year or two ago — but I called it "Brag-A-Bit," making the habit to brag a bit, because bragging gets kind of a negative connotation. But when we are asked, "How are you?" and we celebrate something we did, it can feel good. The coolest part is

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we're normalizing that you can have a goal, be going after it, and get people on board. And people then feel like, "Well, gosh, maybe I could share something going well." And it's just this upward spiral and ripple effect that we can cause when we start to embrace that we are somebody who sets goals and goes after them — really taking control of our health in ways that we can. Because that's just one of the most energizing things that can happen.

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Awesome. Oh, ABC — Always Be Celebrating. It's also Amy Behimer Coaching, and "ABC," I like, because it's also simple. So much of where people get stuck is worrying about the XYZ. People will come in and they're asking about this supplement and that supplement. It may be because they saw an ad for it and they're paying $250 for it. But they haven't quite

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mastered — or I shouldn't say mastered — but they're still eating a lot of ultra-processed foods, and it's like, let's stick with the ABCs. A lot of it is basic. Let's keep coming back to the basics until we nail it, and then we can come to you and to these experts to worry about the ones that are a little further down the line. Yeah, so important. Much like you were talking about before — when you are focused on gratitude, when you're focused on wins, which is celebrating, right? Then the brain is just looking for those things during the day.

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You're so right. One of the things we have on my team, my administrative team, is every single day we put down our goals for the day. And then at the end of the day, we put down our wins, so that we're constantly kind of remembering this. And I'm

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trying to do more of this in my community. I actually just got off a call with somebody today who was like, "I really want to see more wins," because oftentimes you don't feel good, and you've got to see that other people are having wins in order to give yourself hope. That's really important. So I want to say one more thing about a win. The other benefit is our brains are really, really good at helping us forget the wins. If we have a day where we're exhausted, our brains

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really try to sweep under the rug all the good stuff, because they really want you to focus on the negative. So if you are in a community — whether it's mine, whether it's yours — and you get to document those wins, or even in your journal, or even with a loved one, you get to go back and say, "Oh my gosh, that's right, I did feel amazing that day. I did do that thing." So there's such a benefit, again, to getting it out of your brain

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and into the real world. That's another strategy from the playbook called "From Mind to Matter," because when we get it out of our brain and out into the real world — whether we're writing it or sharing it — then it can be that much more powerful, so that our brain doesn't only offer us drama. We can really get some good data. Why do you think our brain does that? Why is it focused on the negatives? The motivational triad is the

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idea that we evolved — we came up through a world that was very different than it is today. We needed to stay alive. We are here because our ancestors had certain genes and a very strong motivational triad at play to keep them alive in a world where staying alive was hard. The motivational triad consists of three things: we seek pleasure, we avoid pain, and we want to exert the least amount of energy possible.

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And so whenever we're feeling frustrated with something, it's likely because, as humans, we're just humaning. We're just being human: "Okay, that feels hard," or "This thing feels really good," and so we go toward those things. And so if we let it go unchecked, it will drive the show. And now in our modern world, it's so easy to find so much concentrated pleasure, and it's so easy to avoid discomfort. And so we

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kind of have to actively go against that and say, "Okay, I see you, brain, telling me the negative. Yes, it kept my ancestors safe. It allowed me to be on alert for danger. But today, that is not a tiger coming at me. That is just a day where I didn't have a lot of energy," or insert any modern thing that we can sometimes hyperfixate on and make

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feel like a bigger deal than it potentially really is in the scheme of our life. Interesting. Yeah, it seems like having discomfort was a lot more common a millennia ago. Yeah. And consequently, we got comfortable with discomfort, and we learned how to move through it and navigate it. And now it's very easy to avoid discomfort. Yeah. And even — you and I both talk about mindset.

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And so some people will come in and they're like, "Well, I don't want to just think positive all the time," and that's not at all what having a helpful, healing, or even positive mindset is. I mean, reframing — even at some point — is a tool we have, like we talked about. We feel uncertain with this thought, so we look for a more certain thought. But there's a place where we may have a loss.

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We may have grief from a diagnosis, or from missing something because we don't have the energy and we are not well, or we may lose a loved one. Those are very real, sad, tough feelings that we may not want to reframe right away. Maybe we can sit in that discomfort, because if we do, our bodies will actually be able to process those feelings and we'll be able to really feel them.

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There's the saying, "You gotta feel it to heal it." In my own personal life, I don't think anything has been more true. Allowing myself to feel losses that I've had, grief that I have from what this diagnosis has changed about my life — that is very real. But not immediately reframing, but instead seeing, "Oh, this is why I feel that way, and that's okay," is actually a huge step that sometimes gets missed in

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all this talk about positive mindset. We can get there. It's a tool. But if we feel like it's tough, it may be because we need to sit in that discomfort a little bit longer. Yeah, it's not pushing those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings out of the way. We have to sit with them. We have to acknowledge them. We have to love them. We have to be with them in order to be able to take the next step in a more positive direction. Is that accurate?

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So true, because once you — if you think of it like something that's trying to be heard, and you don't make it wrong for being there, it kind of loses interest in being there, right? So if we're always resisting it and trying to push it away or fighting against it, then it knows it's agitating us and it's going to keep coming. And so sometimes, yeah,

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letting it be there. The science shows that for an emotion to pass through us — whether it's an urge for something or a strong emotion — it's about 90 seconds. But that will get extended if we resist it, try to avoid it, or fight against it, versus just letting it pass. Coming back to what we were talking about — letting discomfort be okay.

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So I'm just going to reemphasize that for people listening. 90 seconds. So that means that whenever you experience an emotion, if you sit with it for 90 seconds and you don't try to push it away, it will evaporate on its own. Is that accurate? You know, that's what the biochemical research shows. Sometimes there may be a few of those coming, and there are big emotions. I recently lost a parent and I could see the thought that

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"Man, I don't want him to be gone" — maybe sad, but I wasn't going to change that thought right away. I wanted to sit with it for a while. And so grief — there are emotions that can feel bigger and take longer. But yes, if let's say you have an urge — something we talk about a lot is the urge to eat something. "Why can I not stop eating this cereal or this ice cream or this sugar?"

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Like an urge to do that — that's 90 seconds. If we let it go through us, and again we don't resist it, avoid it, or fight with it, it should pass. So that's a super skill to learn: that we don't have to react to every urge we have. Nice. And sometimes the discomfort of that — you have to kind of scream into the void for 90 seconds in order to get through it, right? I know there are times in my day where it's like,

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"I really need to eat something," but it's really not time for me to eat yet. And so it's like, "I want to go take a binder instead of going to eat or something like that." And so I have to say, "All right, I'm going to sit with this and it's going to be really uncomfortable. I may feel like screaming, but it's going to be gone pretty soon." Yeah. I like to teach people — they may come in and they're like, "Okay, my goal is to not eat the cupcake," let's say, if they have a sweet tooth.

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And I say, "Well, let's change that up. What about if we made the goal to not want to eat the cupcake?" And they're like, "Oh, that's interesting. That sounds better," because we don't want to go our whole life feeling like we're deprived. That's one of the most surefire ways to not make a habit — to muscle our way through it with willpower and sheer determination because we still really want it but we're just not doing it. And so this

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approach to habits is different because we are working with our brain to, again, dial down the desire for some of these things that we really want that are impacting our energy and impacting our health.

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Wonderful. So we're getting a sense of who you are and how you work with people. Can you tell us a little bit about — if somebody does want to work with you, what is the journey they kind of go through? We've talked about some of the mindset stuff, talked a little bit about habits. How do you incorporate all those things along the way? Yeah. So there is a framework that has become my approach. It is called the Habit Hub and the Habit Hub for Autoimmune Health.

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And it really was born out of necessity. You know, we always go first, right? The six spokes — the six areas of the Habit Hub — are what I call the controllables. There is 10 to 30% of our health and our life that are our genes, and let's go ahead and agree we can't control those. But there's this 70 to 90% that is very much in our control

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and in our influence — it's our habits, it's our environment, it's our lifestyle. And so we focus on those. We say, "These are the areas where, if I could make and break habits that I know are better for us, that experts are telling me are better, that Evan H. Hirsch, MD is saying, 'Oh gosh, this could really help,' then we have a good chance of feeling better." And so those six areas: one is mindset. As I go through these,

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notice that it's nothing new — it's just a way to organize our thoughts around it so that we can calm some of that overwhelm. Mindset is one, food is another, movement is a third, rest and relaxation — which includes sleep and minimizing chronic stress — is the fourth. The fifth is relationships and connection. And the sixth is good stresses. So that could be metabolically, with fasting or hot/cold therapy,

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or it could be emotional good stresses — leaning into discomfort in the name of growth. And so what we do is essentially say, "Where is craving your attention right now? Which area?" And then we decide what's the goal, and how do we learn the skill? I teach you the skill of how to change your habits — how to change how you think, feel, and act in a way that

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you get to use that skill for the rest of your life. So the first habit or two that you work on need to be where you want to start. And you get to, again, practice in real life on the skill, on that habit, so that once you make it, you're like, "Oh my gosh, yes, I don't need to think about this one anymore because this is who I am now. Okay, what's next?" And so little by little, we just fine-tune and tweak and

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think, feel, and do better in ways that help us live a healthier and better life. Wonderful. And so do you have this in a curriculum? Are these one-on-ones? Are these group calls? How do you take people through it? I do. So it's a group membership called Club Habit Hub — I like rhyming and alliteration — so it's "the Club" for short. And I say it's the trifecta of support. So there's coaching with me.

39:51

It's personalized coaching, meaning that when you come to a call, we have live calls — and if you're the one getting coached, you're asking a question, it's you and me. I'm hearing from you, we are problem-solving: "Okay, how did it go? What didn't work? What did work? What are we celebrating?" And the beauty of it is the other people who are there get to watch and listen and see. You ask a question they didn't even know they had, or they get to see

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you work through something with me that felt hard, and they have their own aha-moments. So it's the power of learning in a group, which is just magical. Originally, when I started group coaching, I was like, "This is good — it's an alternative to one-on-one." And then I'm like, "Oh gosh, it's so much better in so many ways." So the coaching is one part of the support trifecta. The second one is curriculum.

40:48

So I do have a curriculum that goes through what are these six areas? Of course you're going to determine your own habit goals, but these are some pretty great ideas to start with in these different areas. It goes through various workshops I've taught, and that's the more learning piece. Like, let's say you're like, "What is a framework for managing fatigue?" Okay, you go in and learn it, but then of course pair it with action, and then come to the live calls to work through that. And then the third

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piece of the support trifecta is the community. It is a community that leans into — no surprise — the science behind how we change. And when we do it in rooms with people going through similar things, or who are maybe a little further ahead than us, that is one of the most powerful ways to boost what's called self-efficacy, which is what's proven to help us change. Self-efficacy is like that little voice in your head that's saying, "I can do this. This matters."

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And so I've built the Club to overcome all the reasons goals fail and to help boost self-efficacy, because in all the research, what they show works for lifestyle changes is people with really high self-efficacy. So it's something that we can build, and the community is a great part of that. It sounds like it. It sounds like you've created a really nice community. You know, I come across people who

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don't want to do group calls relatively often. And there's a lot of really great research, as you mentioned, and obviously we've seen in person that people who've been part of groups have that experience where somebody asks a question, they watch that person get an answer, and it changes their life — and they didn't even know they had that question. But what do you say to people who are like, "You know what, I just want one-on-ones. I don't want to be in groups,"

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because they don't want to be vulnerable, they don't want to hear other people talk, or whatever the reason? How do you share with them the magic of being in groups? The first thing I say is that the word "group," I think, sometimes gets a bad rap if they've ever been in a Facebook group or a poorly led support group. This is not that. That's what I say first, is that

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this is not a dumping ground. This is not a free-for-all of unsolicited advice. And so first I try to give a good sense that if you have a preconceived idea of what a group is, I wish I could change the word, but "group" is what it is. This, again, is built around what we know helps. And I try to instill in them — I ask them to trust me that I'm

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creating a space that is different. And so it's being led. It's not a free-for-all where people are talking on top of each other or someone can go on for 35 minutes and everyone else is wanting to get off. It's very intentional. So that's one piece. The other thing is every call is recorded. A lot of people, you know, may just want to watch the replays. I'm somebody who has been in group coaching in the past and

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never raised my hand to get coaching. Like you said, my life changed watching powerful coaching — watching someone else get coached and pretending like it was me getting the recommendation. Because even if somebody else is working on eating this or that, or sticking with this exercise, or doing this, it's totally applicable. The skills that we're talking about — I can teach and pull you in by saying, "If this is what you're working on, this is how you'll think of it." So

44:43

you can watch replays, you can change your name, you can keep your camera off — any of the reasons we might hesitate, I try to help them see that it doesn't need to be a reason. And at the end of the day, I also do keep about a handful of clients who just want one-on-one, and I do love one-on-one as well. So there are some people for whom that is what they prefer, and if I have the availability and they have the availability to do that, then

45:13

I do offer that as well. Yeah, yeah, it's important to meet people where they're at. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, everything that we've spoken about today — what do you think would be the biggest takeaway? What's a practical thing that people could start on today that would help to move them in a positive direction, regardless of what they're working on?

45:40

I always say it's not one-size-fits-all, of course, but I do have an answer for this. I think that the first habit that a lot of us could benefit from is making a date with ourselves. So we can start practicing how to show up for ourselves at a certain time during the day, and fiercely protect it — say, "This is my time." And again, we can trust in the tiny; it could be five minutes to start.

46:08

But the reason that habit is so powerful is that it builds trust with ourselves. It builds the confidence that when we say we're going to do something, we show up and we do it. And so we keep showing up for ourselves. And the cool thing about that is that once you have that time protected on your calendar — "This is the me time. This is when I am putting my health first, or I'm putting how I feel first" — you can take any habit you want to make or break

46:37

and use that time for it. So let's say food is where you're looking — use it for meal prep, use it to grocery shop on Instacart or go to the grocery store. Or potentially use it for movement if you're looking at your exercise routine. Use it for meditation or journaling if you are working on your mindset. Use it for a coaching call, or use it for something — maybe doing nothing and resting.

47:06

I mean, how many of us with autoimmune disease neglect rest and relaxation? That's one of those spokes. Again, the hub is a hub because I neglected rest and relaxation myself. I did all the right movement, all the right food, but you cannot out-nourish a crappy mindset. And I had to create the hub because something was missing. And it was the mindset and it was the rest. So your time and your date with yourself could just be doing nothing and resting, and saying, "That's okay." A lot of us have a belief that

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we need to earn rest. So planting a seed that, "Gosh, I don't have to do anything to earn this," is powerful. I went a little all over the place with that. But yeah, maybe putting it on your calendar — a date with yourself — to say, "This is the time that I take some of these actions based on these things that I've learned," coming full circle. That's awesome. I haven't heard that one before, making a date with ourselves. So I really like it. And for those of you listening — that's very practical.

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Go implement that. If you have challenges implementing that, then it means that you need an accountability partner. Reach out to Amy and see if you two are a good fit to work together. So for people who are interested in working with you, we've got a couple of links here that we're going to share. There's the website: www.amybehimercoaching.com.

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But probably the coolest place would be the quiz. It's www.amybehimercoaching.com/quiz. And what that does is it asks you seven questions. It's fun to take because you learn about yourself — it should take only a few minutes. But it gives you, using science-backed approaches, the area of your lifestyle to start with. We talked about these main areas; it gives you the one that your body may be craving right now. I say it's the one to start with to give you your biggest energy bang for your buck. And trust that, "You know what, I'll get to the other ones." But if you take that quiz, then you will get that one habit, and

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you'll also hear from me afterward with a few of these strategies — these plays from the playbook — packaged up, because you know I'm not going to leave you hanging.

49:29

I care a lot about the how of the habits. I know that what they are matters, but at the end of the day, I just care that you're doing the ones that you want to be doing. And so the quiz is a great way to get in touch. If you hit reply, I will be on the other end of those emails and we could talk you through it. You can tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, where you're questioning it, and we can talk through it. I also have a podcast, which is Autoimmune Health Secrets,

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and we hang out there. And the Club is also open, and you can schedule a call at any point to talk to me about that. Awesome. Yeah, it sounds like you're doing some really great work. We're going to drop the links below. I encourage people to take that quiz and reach out to Amy if you really want that accountability partner in going through this work — and optimizing your relationship to yourself, really, it sounds like.

50:28

Yeah, and energy — these are some of the most energizing habits we can make. We often think about our outer habits — what we're eating, how we're moving — but there are a lot of energy drains happening on the inside, in our thoughts and our feelings. And we're here for energy and what energy gets us, so there's nothing more energizing than that. Amen.

50:55

Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining me today. It was really wonderful learning from you. Thank you so much. And for those of you listening and watching, if this was helpful for you, if you learned something new, please give it a thumbs up. Hit that subscribe button so that you will get all the episodes after this. And if you know somebody who's struggling with autoimmune conditions, Long COVID, or chronic fatigue syndrome, please share this with them. It's a great way to show that you love somebody. So thanks so much and we'll see you in the next episode.

51:25

So if you have chronic fatigue — whether it's from Long COVID or chronic fatigue syndrome — go ahead and click the link below to watch my latest masterclass, where I go deep into our four-step process that has helped thousands of others resolve their symptoms naturally. After you watch that video, if you're interested in seeing if we're a good fit to work together, you can get on a free call with me. All right. Thanks so much. I'll see you over there.