Episode 175: Creating a Healthy, Long-lasting Routine

doTERRA: Having a good routine can help you feel more productive, more focused, and can even lower your stress levels. But sometimes creating a long-lasting routine is easier said than done. But today, we'll talk about what you can do to help your routine stick.

Welcome back to Essential Oil Solutions with doTERRA, the podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful, and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field. If you like what you hear today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. We always appreciate hearing from you.

Today, we're excited to talk to Patricia Doebler about how you can create a long-lasting, healthy routine. Patricia, thank you so much for sitting down with us today.

Patricia Doebler: Hi! Yeah, thank you for having me.

doTERRA: I am really excited to talk about this topic because it's definitely one that I need help with in my life. So my first question for you is why is creating a routine important? Why should I even care?

Patricia: For sure, you know, I think now more than ever, we need to actually be doing things every day to stay well. Nutrition, sleep, movement, they all play a part in especially reducing toxicity in our homes. But if we don't have a routine, it is far too easy to let some of these slide, and then we get into some trouble. So for me, having that routine, simple routines, is really key in just keeping my body well ahead of time.

doTERRA: Absolutely, I love that. Now, I think we've all had those New Year's resolutions that don't really last very long. So what are your tips for creating these healthy routines that actually last?

Patricia: It's funny because my personal oil community, we're just now working on that, creating healthy habits and gearing up for the new year, when you're going to see it plastered on your Facebook feed of all the New Year's resolutions and everything everybody's trying to do, but they do fade fast.

I loved last year when doTERRA put out the healthy habits kind of challenge with the 21 days because it does take 21 days to create a long-lasting habit. And if you can do something for 21 days, I try to tell myself that I can do anything.

Set Attainable Goals

So I like to keep it simple because I'm going to be honest with myself. I'm not the person that's going to get up every day at 5:00 a.m. and get to the gym for that hour long hit workout. That's just not me. But can I commit to movement every day, even if that means a dance party in my kitchen with my kids? Absolutely.

So I like to be real and honest with myself, because then I'm meeting my goals. And hey, if I do get to do that extra workout, that's just a bonus. But if I commit to those simple routines and just everyday things that are going to move me forward and keep me healthy, then I'm winning.

doTERRA: I think you touched on something so important right there, that it's so personal, that we shouldn't be looking to other people to decide what our goal should be or our routine should be. We should make sure and make those with our own lives and our own personalities in mind.

Patricia: Absolutely! We got to put blinders on sometimes to stay in our own lane of what our own goals are and how to meet them and achieve them. Now that's not to say—having a great accountability partner that's on the same page would be super helpful. I think for me, healthy routines are not just eating right sleeping, but it's also what I'm doing to nurture my soul, you know, personal development, getting outside of nature. But having an accountability partner, a good friend, that's going to do those same things with you, I think helps to have that routine last longer.

doTERRA: Absolutely. Now, Patricia, how do you then take, you know, doTERRA essential oils and incorporate them into your routines?

Patricia: So our family's been using doTERRA essential oils, now, we're going on eight years. So for me, our habits and routines are lifelong journeys at this point. But at the beginning, it was harder to see how I was going to create those daily habits and routines.

Use Your Diffusers

But for me, the first thing that sets the whole kind of tone of our day for our family—now we have two children and a dog, so we like to set the mood early—is definitely getting our diffusers going every day. And I make it simple because even that act of going around filling the water in all the diffusers sometimes can be overwhelming for people.

So I go around to all the diffusers with my watering can, my pink watering can. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. And we fill every diffuser with our scent for the day and that just starts us going in the right direction. So getting those diffusers going every day is absolutely key for us.

Put Essential Oil in Your Water

For me, I get sick and tired of drinking water and then I don't meet my goal of drinking enough water throughout the day. So using essential oils in my water is really helpful to keep a little bit of excitement in my day. We're changing up the flavors.

My personal favorite is adding Grapefruit, but I also love the Slim & Sassy® blend to help with my metabolism. But also it just taste fabulous in my water.

Set Up Essential Oil Protocols

And then we also are a big believer in some daily protocols of different oils. We love doing AromaTouch. I'm a certified AromaTouch Technique giver, so I love to give AromaTouch techniques to my family. We do those maybe once a week, every couple of weeks.

And then daily, we also incorporate our symphony of the cells protocols to just again be actively doing something every day to stay healthy and keep well.

doTERRA: I think all of those sounds so incredible and like you said, it's simple. It's not overwhelming. It can be something that you just work into your day, which is great.

Now, what about supplements? I think those are a big thing that sometimes can feel a little overwhelming to people, knowing which ones to take or not to take. How do you make the doTERRA supplements part of your daily routine?

Patricia: Yeah, absolutely. I help people all the time start this doTERRA journey, and one of the things I tell them, though, straight up, is there is no magic oil in a bottle. If we don't have that base, that strong foundation of healthy nutrition and supplementation, it's really just not going to work as well as we think it will.

And sadly, our food today is not the food of 30–40 years ago. The nutritional content just isn't there. We need healthy supplementation. And honestly, before doTERRA, I thought I was doing great with my just drug store or, you know, grocery store supplements or vitamins that I would take.

dōTERRA Lifelong Vitality Pack® and doTERRA a2z Chewables

When I started taking the Lifelong Vitality supplements seven years ago, my mind was blown. I did not think a vitamin could do all the magic that it does. I started seeing my energy levels increase. I started seeing my brain fog—I thought it was just mom, brain or pregnancy brain. It wasn't. It was just—it was my energy levels, and the supplements that I was taking were not doing what my body needed. And Lifelong Vitality for me helped with that.

And also, my husband is now retired, but he was a police officer. And for his circadian rhythm and sleep and energy, Lifelong Vitality were key for him in regulating all of that. So for our family, it's kind of non-negotiable. Our children also take—my son, he takes Lifelong Vitality. And my daughter takes the a2z Chewables.

Mito2Max®

So we take the entire line of supplements from doTERRA. Our Mito2Max, I call that my mommy blend. If I don't take my Mito2Max, just don't talk to me. I'm not a coffee drinker, so Mito2Max is a go-to for me.

But right now, we are not slipping a day because we realize how our body feels. If we do miss a day or two of our doTERRA supplements, we start to feel it.

So it's non-negotiable for our family. We line up every day. My husband—we all have a little bit of a different routine. I take mine at night. My husband takes him twice a day. He kind of does the Dr. Hill recommendations taken throughout the day. But for me, I take them all at night, and we can't live without them at this point.

doTERRA: I think that is incredible that you've made it such a part of your family. Like you said, your children are taking what they need, you're taking what you need, and you're making sure that whatever level you're at, you're getting the nutrients that your body needs, which is great

Patricia: For sure.

doTERRA: Now before we end, Patricia, I want to ask you a very important question. What are the three habits or routines that you have created that have impacted your life the most?

Patricia: So this is a new habit that started last year when the doTERRA came out with their amazing nutritional line with their protein and the greens and fiber because honestly, I was not taking a fiber supplement. And I thought that my salad or greens that I was taking throughout the day were enough.

doTERRA Fiber and doTERRA Greens

When I started really taking, and my kids too, taking the greens and fiber every day and incorporating a smoothie into all of our routines, all four of us now take a smoothie every day. We saw such great change in, especially for me, being a woman. A lot of women have digestive concerns, and when I started taking the greens and fiber every day, I really saw a positive change in my body.

So that was a habit that started last year in January when we had that challenge with doTERRA, and it has lasted for me way past the 21 days. Greens and fiber are now on my monthly order to get them every month because our whole family takes them, and we love them.

We love the taste of them too. So it's not even a chore to take them. It's actually enjoyable.

Essential Oils in Drinking Water

Oils in my water also have been, I think, a great routine for me. I love Lemon. I love having the effects of having the oils in my water. For me, that's really become a routine that has stuck and is just easy to do. It's an easy thing to do that's good for my body, and that's why I love it.

Sleep Routine

And the third habit routine that is now become the holy grail for me is my sleep routine because I'm a person that's definitely struggled with sleep.

I don't know about anyone else, but at nighttime, my mind starts racing. Of all the lists of everything I have to do the next day. And for me, creating a good sleep routine before bed was key. And my sleep routine consists of doing some reading. I’m really committing to doing a little bit of personal development, but also because I have young children who are now starting to read. So if I'm telling them to read, mommy has to do it too.

And also taking two doTERRA Serenity® Restful Complex Softgels every night and one Adaptiv™ Capsule.

I also love my Vetiver oil at night. That is part of my sleep routine. I put a couple of drops in my hand and just kind of massage my shoulders. And that signals my body, “OK, Patricia, it's time for sleep.” And gets my body really ready to turn that brain off of thinking of all the things I have to do and relaxing my body into that restful sleep.

And of course, putting my diffuser on. And for us, our nighttime diffuser is the Dawn™ humidifier diffuser, and we love doTERRA Breathe® and Lavender in it, so it helps to support our airways, opening them up and also with the Lavender.

doTERRA: Well, that definitely sounds relaxing to me. I'm going to have to start trying incorporating some of that nighttime routine. Patricia, it has been amazing to talk to you today to learn a little bit more about how we can create these, not only healthy, but these long-lasting routines in our life to make sure that we're getting the most benefit we can.

Patricia: Thank you so much! It was awesome to share.

doTERRA: Thanks for joining us and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you liked what you heard today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Also, if you want to try any of the products you learned about, go to doterra.com or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today.