Building Healthy Habits for Youth: Tips from Dr. Chinwe Afurebe

Deneen L. Garrett 00:02 00:21 Hello, hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back. Today's conversation is with Dr. Chinwe Aforebe, the founder of Centered Youth Clinic and Counseling Consulting. It's a hybrid direct primary care clinic for youth wellness. Dr. Chinwe, tell us more about you.
Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 00:23 00:56 Well, thank you so much for this opportunity, Tanine. Yes, I am a Nigerian born, raised in Houston, Texas. And when I was younger, I wanted to be an actress, but as a Nigerian, that isn't necessarily one of the options for us to consider. But no, I learned to have a love for the body, the mind. When I was in college, I was a biology major. And that was when I considered being a doctor. And so, yeah, so that's kind of where it all started.

Deneen L. Garrett 00:56 01:20 Okay, well, so what little I know about the Nigerian culture, I know your family is very happy that you did go into the medical profession. Yeah, right. It's like from what I hear, and I'm going to quote Molly about orgy, right? It's like doctors, attorneys, I think that's what a lot of parents prefer.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 01:20 01:31 That is. And luckily, we got all that in my family, my sibling, my brother's a pharmacist, my sister's a lawyer, my youngest sister is a teacher. So yep, we got it all covered now.

Deneen L. Garrett 01:31 01:53 Wonderful. Yay. Okay. So yes, I really want to, you know, jump in and talk about youth and wellness. And so what we're going to call this is like the three habits for youth wellness. And so before we, you know, identify three habits, let's talk about what got you specifically focused on youth and the wellness of youth.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 01:53 05:10 Most definitely. Well, I think I always gravitated to work with younger people. So even when I was in high school, I joined the Peer Pals, Peer Assisted Leadership group, where we helped middle schoolers navigate through, you know, school life and if they had any sort of like behavioral challenges as a high schooler, we were helping them. And so I think that carried on in college. And but when I thought about the field that I was interested in medicine, initially, I wanted to be an OBGYN just with babies. But I in church, I would work with, you know, toddler, toddlers, school age kids, and I was having dialogues with them, you know, debates, even with some of them. And then when I would go into my rotations for medical school, I was doing rotations, and I saw the babies. But during one of my time there, I realized that I really wanted to spend time with the young people that I could have some more engagement with, not only moms. While moms are great, at least who I am, that's who primarily the provider would engage with is the mothers. But in pediatrics, I realized, oh man, I can actually connect with, if it's infants or toddlers, all the way up to college age. And so I had changed my major, so to speak, from OBGYN to pediatrics. But then during my pediatrics residency, which is after med school is four years and then residency is about three years. During my pediatrics residency, I fell in love with adolescent medicine. So just teenagers, WHO classifies adolescent period from ages 10 to age 25. And I ended up doing a fellowship to just specialize to work with teenagers. Now in my current practice I see all ages newborn to 25, but I really really really have a love for for youth and young adults. And so through the fellowship. I was involved in school-based health care. I was involved in college health. I brought some of my clinical skills to my church, and I was a church youth ministries director for about seven years. And so I really saw the importance of combining health promotion in addition to acute care or preventative care. Traditional medical care is good, but it's important to add the health promotion aspect of it, because that's really, really what determines the type of adult they become as they transition. It's how their mind is developing, it's how their behaviors are developing. And now that we're learning more about chronic conditions in adulthood, we're understanding that some of those behaviors are learned during the adolescent period. And so sometimes we think, oh, teenagers, they don't have to go in once a year, but once a year, or they're usually physically healthy. But that's really when some of those lifestyle behaviors are forming. that actually correlate with diabetes in adulthood or heart problems or mental health problems. Some of those behaviors start in teenage years. So I realized that I think this is where I wanted to be is being able to have an impact in lifestyle behaviors.

Deneen L. Garrett 05:10 06:17 Yeah. And you know what, and what you're doing is you're catching it early, right? It's like, you know, one of the things that we'll talk about is the power in the pause and that's all around like self-care and and self-love and, you know, and that's really, you know, conversations I'm having with women, grown women, you know, and ground grown women about taking care of themselves. So for you, what you're doing to talk to the young, the youth and young adults now for them to get into those habits early so that when they get older, that they're not now, you know, trying to, you know, okay, now let me do it. You know what I'm saying? It's a habit, it's become a part of their It's their lifestyle, as you mentioned, starting earlier, right? So I love that that's happening. What are like some three habits for you, or you know what, let's, so what is, how would you even define youth wellness? Like you mentioned some things that can occur if they're, if the children, the girls, boys are not taking care of themselves, like diabetes, but what are, what is wellness?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 06:18 07:41 Yeah, so I like the way that you sort of like frame that it's like what is bonus, because there's so many different terminologies, I get sort of you know thrown out there, and I would say just based on my observation for what brings young people into. the clinic for acute care, like being able to need to treat a pathology of some sort, I kind of worked backwards to say, well, what could have lessened their chances of coming to me on the backend, you know? And so we've kind of boiled down in our practice, and I'm sure everyone kind of has their own way of approaching this, but in our practice, we talk about how our patients manage their moves, how they're moving, how they manage their food, like what they're taking in, how they manage their time and their dime. So time management can cause stress. It can cause mental disruption. And then time and dime is money. So money management. So people forget that, like, I have a, I'll tell you a story about later, but time and dime. And then lastly, how our young people manage their minds. So managing their food, their moods, how they move their time and their dime. We believe that those are really important ways for young people to sort of stay grounded and stay centered. And we consider that as part of what wellness means.

Deneen L. Garrett 07:41 08:46 Yeah, and you know what? I think we take for granted this about youth, right? I was watching something on TV and the girl, I don't know, she's somewhere 10 to 13 and she's thin, right? And she didn't like her body. She thought she was fat. And so while you're talking about youth, you're talking about wellness and body, I'm like, oh, you know what? That's what can happen to a lot of young girls and boys. They see themselves differently than how they actually are. And then now they get concerned and they may develop different eating habits, dysfunctional eating habits, abnormal eating habits because they see themselves as different. They see themselves as, oh my God, I'm fat and they're not. And so now they start doing things to lose weight and end up, it creates something differently. So are you seeing that in your practice?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 08:47 10:02 I mean, I'm seeing a lot of different ways that young people are presenting, because of, you know, feeling different than others or feeling that they're not necessarily. I don't know, the expected normal right. And there is a whole campaign about like, you know, being healthy at every size, you know, it's very important to consider that, because I had just last week, I had a young girl who was thin, you know, just from the external appearances, but she was here for a well check. And we usually do cholesterol and diabetes screening. And she had elevated cholesterol levels. Right. And so there are a lot of different ways that people can present an unhealthy sort of like conditions. And so we really tried to steer away from just how someone looks on the outside as a determinant factor for how healthy they are. We really look at, okay, so what are the activities that you are engaging in? Because that's really what's most important and what's modifiable, you know, because when you address the behaviors, then that should sort of like, you know, enter into what is healthy for you. But it's not just what you look on the outside that's important.

Deneen L. Garrett 10:02 11:21 Absolutely. And I'm glad that you said that, right? Because even, you know, as adults, you know, we may appear a certain way on the outside and we'll just, you know, we may appear thin like, oh, okay, cool. You know, we're not concerned about being overweight or anything like that. But then again, maybe, you know, having some checks, it's also what we're eating, right? And I was just thinking about chips when you were talking about cholesterol, because I'm eating like all kinds of chips. And I'm like, don't bring any more chips in this house. You know, that's part of it as well. It's what we're eating, what we're putting into our bodies. can contribute to different health situations, as far as being healthy and not. And so, yes, I'm so glad that that focus is starting now, as opposed to it turning into something worse, worsening when they get older, and then it's harder to change those habits and change some of the lifestyle when you get older. So I'm glad that it's being addressed now. you know, mentioning habits. So I want to kind of talk about, like, maybe what are three main things that you're seeing? And then what are the three habits to becoming well or staying well in relationship to those three?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 11:21 16:40 And my disclaimer is that I can definitely talk about three, but we all know that there's so many different factors. Yeah. As you know, hopefully, this will be like a build up for it builds within other sort of like conversations that everyone's considering about what will keep young people healthy and well. And so I would like to say the three main things I talk about with every young person, regardless of, you know, where they are on the spectrum of health. The first is self-awareness. The second is seeking help when needed, and then the last is strategizing to have a plan. So I'll talk about being self-aware. A lot of us, you know, are grown up in different social environments, home environments, that we are exposed to certain models. So whether our parents or our caregivers modeled a certain way that was healthy or unhealthy, you know, even if it wasn't intentional, there's some of those things that are in every young person that I see. And so no matter what recommendations we give, they still go home into their own environment. So what I try to encourage young people to do is just to not only be aware of what they're observing around them externally, but they need to start being observant about themselves, like internally, like what triggers them? To either eat or not eat like what motivates them to eat or not your move and not move what triggers their moods to be happy, sad or angry like any of those things. try to start being more cognizant of why you do what you do. Because the more you are aware of how your habits are developing, the more one likely you are going to be an advocate for yourself to be able to stay away from things that you know you're, you know, vulnerable to, or you pick peers or pick friendships that align with the things that you know are what you want to do, right? But if you don't really know yourself and know what your weakness is and your strengths and what you're trying to, what your goals are, it's going to be easy for you to fall sort of like into peer pressure or, oh, my friends are out, they're drinking, we're drinking, I'm going to drink, you know, binge drink, you know, all those things. It's like, what is, who are you and what are you about? So self-awareness is very important. And the second is seeking help. So now that you know yourself, and know what makes you tick or what makes you thrive. How do you know when things aren't right? How do you know who you need to talk to or when you need to talk to someone? Because I mean, I tell you, I had a young man that came for a well check. And I needed to look into his, you know, just examine his private parts to stage for development for puberty. And he asked his mom to step out of the room because, of course, it's a sensitive area. But when we looked there, he had an orange size swelling of his scrotum. And when I asked him, you know, did you notice that this is a little larger than usual? He's like, yeah, but I thought it was going to get better by itself or it didn't hurt. So I didn't think it was a bad thing. And so like explaining to him, you know, I need to disclose this to your mom. And when his mom came and saw, I was like, what? So he had a hydrosil. um is what it was it's just extra fluid that collects into a little parts of um this this rhythm and so in his mind he was 16 years old in his mind he was like it didn't hurt You know, but, but he noticed that it was getting bigger over time, you know? And so what I try to encourage them to say, Hey, if your body is changing, if your mind is changing, or if you're starting to find that you can't control your mood in certain areas, you know, that's an opportunity to say, let me just explore, you know, if this is within normal limits or if it's okay for me to just kind of like, let it ride. Yeah. But it takes you monitoring yourself and being self-aware to be able to get to know when you need to seek help. And then lastly, so now that you're saying, OK, I think something's different. I've reached out to counsel. How do I move towards being more well or being healthier or reversing any bad habits I've developed? That's where strategizing comes into play. It's like, how do you create a strategy now to improve your health? Whatever that goal is. So in our clinic, we have different ways that we do that. We have a wellness wheel that we sort of like have the young people answer certain questions that tie into parts of wellness. And the assessment kind of says, hey, you are healthier. I mean, not healthy, but your score is high on social connections or not as much for sleep or not as much for, you know, whatever else, nutrition, physical activity. And then it's like, okay, but these are the specific tasks that I need to consider that will allow me to move towards a higher level of healthiness. But it does take being able to identify, you know, who you are and what you're sort of like, I don't know, your makeup is. knowing when to seek help, but then also having a strategy for how you're going to move towards that higher level of healthy.

Deneen L. Garrett 16:40 17:35 And so like everything you just said is applicable for adults as well, right? I'm like, honey, I need to, you know, all of these things, right? It is. It is. And again, that's where the power of the pause, me asking about that, because that's part of that being self-aware, right? It's taking that time to pause, to know yourself, Right and to know those triggers and then to be able to seek help do something about it and then coming up with a strategy so that definitely applies with adults as well, I will say that what I love we're talking about youth and I actually have on YouTube I actually have younger demographics that tune in. So this is so appropriate. And again, like I said, it applies to whether you're young, a youth, 10, up, younger, and even older. All of this still applies regardless of the age.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 17:35 17:36 It does.

Deneen L. Garrett 17:36 17:43 Yeah, it definitely does. So I like this wellness wheel. Is that something that we can look up and find on Google it?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 17:45 19:34 Yeah, you can Google wellness wheel or path to wellness. The ones that we use was based on some assessments done at Harvard. And Dr. Beth, I'm forgetting her last name. Sorry, I know this is live. But Dr. Beth is the developer of this. And so we use that wellness wheel in our clinic as a way to sort of like helpful. Because some young people come knowing what their health goal is. Like I have young people saying, you know, I really want to address my social anxiety. And then we, you know, we focus on that, but, but if we're kind of stuck somewhere and we're trying to figure out what are some specific behaviors or tasks that we need to address, then we can pull out the wheel that gives us, okay, have you slept at least six hours? Because sleep also ties into your hunger cues or ties into cancer genes. You know, it turns on and off if you're not sleeping at least six hours, you know, so it's certain things that, um, you know, lifestyle medicine research has seen that there are dosages for what we call healthy behaviors. How you can give 200 milligrams of amoxicillin for whatever dosage you need to do for infections. In lifestyle behaviors, there are dosages. you need to do a certain number of exercises for it to be impactful. So something like, oh, nothing, it didn't work, you know, I just I took a walk for like five minutes or 10, whatever it is there, you need to walk for a certain number of time for a certain amount of time. for it to actually be impactful and consistently for a certain number of days in a week, you know? So, and it depends on your makeup, depends on your body type and weight. So there are certain things that research has shown that you have to have a specific measure that allows you to build on for you to see results.

Deneen L. Garrett 19:34 20:04 Okay, so I definitely want to come back to that. But what I wanted to say is kudos to the young folks that you're seeing that are self-aware To be able to say, hey, here's where I'm at. You know, I want to focus on this, you know, being aware of, of the wellness will, um, and path to wellness and to be able to say, here's what I want to focus on. So to, well, one thing I want to get to before we get to exercises, did you say that sleep kind of has, uh, there's a relationship with, with hunger?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 20:05 22:32 Yes. Yes. So depending on, um, how much sleep you get and they use certain ranges, but I would say that anything less than six hours, your body releases certain inflammatory markers. Um, and these inflammatory markers can disrupt certain metabolic pathways. And so these pathways, there are certain pathways that are related to glucose and sugar in your system. And so there are these receptors. And so depending on how much sleep you get, lactic acid produces, if you're not sleeping very well. And I know for myself, when I know I've been staying up late trying to finish up a deadline, I start to feel like my joints a bit stiff or my neck a bit stiff. That's like lactic acid building up. And so there are a lot of inflammatory markers that build up when you're not sleeping enough. And so when those things are in your system, it can go to different pathways and like disrupt them. And so there's research looking at, um, hunger, hunger cues and your level of sugar and glucose in your system to say, you know, if you don't sleep enough, somehow your glucose levels, um, are low. And so it increases your receptors to, to want to sort of like get more food to replace the sugar that is being So some people might feel more hungry when they're up later. And then other things that, and this is just me, I have to go back to the research and look at the specific genes, but there are certain cancer genes that get turned on and off based on your sleep quantity and sleep quality. And so for sometimes somebody like, well, I don't know where this cancer came from. Like now I'm just being more cognizant, you know, sleep, like we're in a culture of driven, driven, driven productivity. If we're not sleeping well, like our body is, is sort of like responding to the environment and changing despite what our makeup and our DNA makeup is so. So it's very important sleep. I talk about sleep with a lot of my patients. Cause as a teenager, you know, it's like, oh, I can stay up late and I can wake up and finish my exam, you know, or study for my exam. Like, yeah. So it's, it's a cultural thing that I think if enough of them knew the physiologic effects of their behaviors, then I think we might have a different approach in how we counsel folks.

Deneen L. Garrett 22:32 22:48 Yeah, absolutely. And so we, you know, those who are watching, listening, um, another reason why sleep is important for us, you know, and like you said, it's, it's not only the length of time that you sleep, but it's also how well you sleep.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 22:48 23:30 That REM man, you got to get into that REM. Studies also look at if you sleep after 9 PM, you don't hit that REM level sleep as much. So the later you go to sleep, the less likely you're gonna hit it enough for it to last long enough. And then you're waking up again. So even if you sleep, you may not sleep in a good quality if you sleep later than my PM, but it's little stuff like that, but this is all lifestyle medicine. I didn't learn necessarily in my allopathic path of training, um, extra training for lifestyle medicine. And it just opened my eyes to a lot of things that, you know, we take for granted or we say it casually, but we don't realize this actual studies behind this actually supported it.

Deneen L. Garrett 23:30 24:24 Yeah. And so what kind of struck me about the exercise. So before you even mentioned exercise, I'm thinking how, you know, like everything is tied to exercise, like, okay, you know, your weight exercise, your, um, you know, you have this particular ailment or whatever exercises, like exercise is like the key to everything, right. That, you know, I'm experiencing and that I'm looking at, but you just said, it's also, the length of exercise or, you know, walking and whatever. So that is not anything that I really ever considered because they say, you wanna, you know, move, exercise at least 30 minutes a week, five times a day. And so now you just brought a different element to it, consideration as far as the length of time for you, your individual self. Let's talk a little bit more about that.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 24:25 24:37 Um, you already said it, though, in terms of at least 30 minutes. Okay. Yeah, that's it. That's okay. Yeah, it's nothing more than that.

Deneen L. Garrett 24:37 24:41 I'm not even getting into 30 minutes, but now here we go.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 24:41 25:03 No, no, no, it is at least 30 minutes of moderate level of exercise. Okay. And five days a week is big, but I think the minimum is at least three days a week. But yeah, five days is ideal. But the teenage population is not as consistently feasible. But that's it. No, there's nothing different than that.

Deneen L. Garrett 25:03 25:29 Okay. All right. Cool. Cool. Cool. All right. So let's kind of jump, let's kind of jump to this. So the podcast is about empowering women of color. And so you're dealing with girls. So let's talk about the ways that you are empowering girls of color. You know, you're doing it through wellness. Um, how else are you doing it, Andrew? what different types of wellness are you using or that you find helpful in empowering girls of color?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 25:29 28:08 Sure. In my practice, I do see boys and girls, but whenever I have young girls, especially young girls of color, I do spend a little bit more time on self-image and self-confidence because there are a lot of external factors that might sort of like challenge, you know, who they see themselves as and how valuable they see themselves as. And so I think we just always sort of like address body image and we always address, hey, you know, how do you see yourself in a year or what are you looking forward to, you know, accomplishing? And then I kind of also ask about like means to those goals, like who are they connecting themselves with? And if because if they don't, like we have a group that we sort of facilitate called centered youth groups, and it's our attempt to try to connect young people to themselves, and also connect them to experts in certain fields, and then also connect them to community service. Because I think sometimes when young or an individual, not just young people, but any individual, when they're acting in ways of service to others, somehow it sort of develops their own sense of purpose in life. And they're less likely to think of themselves as useless or worthless. But it's like, no, you've done something to help somebody else in their journey. And in my clinic, my clinic was only about two and a half years old when I left my other spaces, but we're trying to rebuild what we've done in other spaces and other spaces for about four years or so. I would take a group of patients and we would go to the, you know, animal shelter or the food sustainability areas so they can learn about different ways. And all this helps you help like helping others actually helps you and helps your own individual mind and body. And so, so we would do that. So we're trying to like restart that. It's taken some while because of practice, you know, we just trying to get our footing infrastructure wise, but we're starting to build the centric youth groups so that we can continue the things that we're doing in the youth we found useful. And even the schools are finding important for young people to engage in service. And so some of them need it to graduate a community service point to graduate. So we're just trying to just bring that into the clinic because we see that as part of health as well, too, not just vaccines and medications and things like that. Absolutely.

Deneen L. Garrett 28:08 28:19 Yeah. Other people in community and that sense of service and that, hey, you know, you're able to impact another person. Now, you mentioned Texas. Are you still in Texas?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 28:19 28:20 I sure am. OK.

Deneen L. Garrett 28:22 28:32 Now, I've read about and heard about how you've mentioned the animal shelter, but what about, do you do anything like on ranches, like with horses?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 28:32 28:57 Good point. We planned to, but we have not yet done. But yeah, there are a number of farms and ranch areas around there that is on our list. But no, we haven't yet. But if you have any suggestions, let us know. We're always looking for, you know, organizations to partner with, because the young people we have is just trying to get them to spaces that we're always exploring. So yeah, if you have any ideas, we're more likely to incorporate.

Deneen L. Garrett 28:57 29:17 Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure like now we'll start to attract that. But there is a place in I can't think of the name right now. But there is a place in Atlanta in the Atlanta area, that, you know, black owned a ranch. And they do stuff with youth. And so that's what came to mind when you were talking. And so, are you in the Houston area, did you say Houston or?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 29:17 29:21 I grew up in Houston. I was born in Nigeria, grew up in Houston, but now I live in Austin.

Deneen L. Garrett 29:22 31:12 Awesome. Okay. Okay. So yeah, that's so Houston probably plenty of places. I don't really know that much about Austin. But again, I'm sure like we'll probably start hearing. And so those who are watching and listening about some places in Austin where you can go on ranches and You know, and like even like maybe even consider like a weekend like type of retreat thing for the kids and so hopefully so if you all know about that definitely let us know so you'll have access to. Dr 10 ways information and so you'll be able to reach out to her directly but i'm excited about that for that to happen, because I love horses. And so when I was little and even having hay fever, like I would still go and, you know, whenever I would go, then that really would kick off the hay fever season. So I had to be careful with that. But now as an adult, it's been a while and I'm really, you know, wanting to get back into it. So I'm going to have to be intentional about that. So, you know, I have said that we're going to this is about the three habits for youth wellness. And those three habits are being self-aware, seeking help and then strategy to improve whatever it is you're wanting to improve upon. And it's not just for youth, right? We talked about how it would apply to adults as well. And it's also something, you know, that we can get in touch with when we're pausing, you know, the power of the pause, which we talked about that, about self-care and whatnot. We kind of loosely talked about that, but I want to kind of just shift and talk about dream lifestyles, right? How do you define a dream lifestyle and how are you living a dream lifestyle and or how are you talking to the girls and even the boys about living their dream lifestyles?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 31:12 33:51 Yeah, that's a good question. I will say that I have made a lot of effort to be intentional about like my schedule. because, and like fun fact, before I started my clinic, I had a friend of mine who started her coaching business and she's a psychiatrist. And so she said, here, do you mind being a guinea pig or, you know, just test it out. She didn't know that she just, I mean, she changed my life. The six months I spent with her, she really did. Yeah. And so, so I remember her asking me a question when we first started to, she asked me like, How would you envision the best day of your life? What does the best day of your life look like from the time you wake up, from the time you go to bed, and in between? And so I did that exercise, but it was hard. It was really hard for me, I think, because we're so used to doing what is right in front of you. But doing that, I think, has allowed me to start practicing to do that on a regular basis. to say, Oh, my goodness, I'm nervous for tomorrow. But if I had to dream what tomorrow would look like, what would it look like? And I think just even mentally, having some mental imagery of not just what I'm afraid of, or what the challenges may be, but like, how it would look like, in the way that I wouldn't want to manifest it. I found that the more I do that, it actually works in that either I'm showing up in the way that I wanted to show up or I'm handling any unexpected challenges with more grace because I actually already mentally prepared my brain for it. And I tell my young people, most of anxiety is not the actual event, it's the shock of the event or the unexpectedness of the event. And so, but if you're able to sort of like consider multiple outcomes to any situation, you'd be surprised how much you're able to handle your anxiety better, because it's not that, oh my goodness, this happened. It's like, oh, I consider that that may happen, and I already strategize to say, well, if that happened, this is how I'll handle it, or if the other outcome happened, this is how I'll handle it, and then you're able to kind of handle it. Let's say that that thing doesn't happen, but you're able to handle it with a little bit more grace for yourself and others around you, but That's why I do not just make time, either Sundays or Mondays, I'm just thinking through, or if I have something I'm anticipating the next day, I just think, well, how do I want to show up? And then it's been a habit for me now.

Deneen L. Garrett 33:51 35:29 Yeah, and you know, by that part, it's kind of like starting with the end in mind, the destination in mind. This is where I want to reach. And so how do I get there? And being focused on that, and I think in ways that will get you there. is awesome. And I was talking about that earlier today. A woman was talking about with the pause and she's like, she does daily pauses as well as like monumental pauses. And I like that, that approach, right? So starting your day, you know, maybe taking time instead of just jumping right into that thing, taking time, you know, reading, learning, praying, Before you actually start the business of the day so that's something to consider as far as pausing and then again in a little bit more intentional. Maybe with taking certain breaks like right now i'm on a pause from certain different social media if it's not if I. I've identified that that's not really directly aligned with where I'm at right now. So I'm going to pause that particular thing and really just focus on giving my time and energy to what I feel will help me to advance in that thing, to help me to get to that place that I'm trying to get to and being focused on that. So that's something too, right? Part of being well is being able to identify what is going to help you to get to where you're trying to get to. And in order to know that you have to spend time with yourself, you have to become self aware to be able to identify this is where I want to be. And then here's what's going to get me there. And so those other things, you know, we'll say no to those things.

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 35:29 35:32 Definitely. That's a very, very key strategy.

Deneen L. Garrett 35:32 35:38 I appreciate that. Absolutely. So before we wrap, what would you like to leave the audience with?

Dr. Chinwe Efuribe 35:41 36:45 Well, I would love to leave the audience with a lot of what you shared. Just follow the pause and being able to make time to dream. That's your tips. I think that's very important for young people to consider. I also love to encourage young people to not shy away from the wisdom of those around them. Because I've worked in a lot of settings where I was a mediator between the younger versus the older generation. And, you know, it's it's always fascinating where it when they actually meet. on one accord, this is beautiful. It's just so beautiful. And so for young people, I'll just say, you know, be mindful, some of the young, the seasoned folks, you know, there's a lot of youth in them. But at the same time, there's a lot of wisdom in the experience. And it's just a matter of time, like we're all wise in our own right.

Deneen L. Garrett 36:46 37:45 certain levels allow us to have just a little bit more perspective on situations and so it's good to sort of like be open to different perspectives when you're trying to address something so that's absolutely and you know what uh there will be a time when you will wish you had listened to that you know whatever it is you know even you know a grandparent or whatever dang i wish i would have more conversations and ask them about how they grew up and and different things that they experienced because uh I feel that that will happen. Well, before we wrap, before we say goodbye, I definitely want to shout out who brought us together. So shout out to Bianca B. King, making the connection. And you know what? And when you talked about community, she's definitely a community builder. So yeah. So Dr. Chinwe Afurebe, thank you so much for joining Women of Color in Intimate Conversation. And enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you so much, Janina. It was such a pleasure. Bye. Thank you.