#51: Cristine Brache
"I am very tired of how packaged every aspect of our identity has become. Isn’t it very boring?"
Cristine Brache (@cristinebrache_) is an artist, writer, and Sagittarius/Libra/Leo. Read her latest collection of poetry, Goodnight Sweet Thing (2024), here.
Health Gossip with Cristine Brache
Responses logged February 18, 2025
HG: What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
CB: There are many different kinds of health, so I find it quite the task to choose what to focus on for the purposes of this interview. Generally, I measure my own health by the level of presence, clarity, energy, and joy I feel (mentally, physically, and spiritually). If I feel foggy or chaotic inside, or have physical tightness and pain flare up, it is usually because I’ve stretched past my limits which trigger unhealthy coping mechanisms that start me on a bad cycle of living. I max out, get overstimulated, and have not observed my known limits because I have very little choice in the matter.
To me, being healthy means there is harmony between my mind, body, spirit, and community. My muscles feel good. I feel no pain. I feel powerful and energetic from strength training and eating well. The energy I generate isn’t getting stuck in any of my muscles that chronically hold trauma. It also means I can communicate effectively and manage my emotions. I am not clenching my teeth as much. My skin is glowing. I am happy and present, mindful and in observation of my limits. I am living in accordance with my constitution.
HG: How would you describe your current lifestyle?
CB: I consider myself to be the healthiest I’ve ever been. I have a very balanced life. I feel peace, presence, and joy very often. I feel love and am loved. My body looks great. I have a balanced diet. I do what I love for a living. I have an authentic marriage and many authentic friendships. I enjoy socializing. I rarely drink. I don’t do drugs. I feel immense gratitude to be alive.
It takes a great deal of effort to manage, and I’ve learned the hard way what I can and cannot handle. There are things that wind up costing me my balance and sense of peace. I think in the past, I was self-destructive, unaware, and so cycles of pain and poor decision-making felt defiable. I felt I knew better and it took repetitive failures and consequences to really just respect my body’s limitations and meet my mind where it’s at.
HG: How do you start and end your days?
CB: I wake up one of two ways: energetic and happy or cloudy and burnt out. If I wake up energetic and happy I am very productive. I do my chores. I play with my cat. I listen to music and sing. I get to the gym early then head to the studio. I finish between 6PM and 8PM. I eat dinner, relax with my husband and cat or meet friends. I go to sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time.
Should I wake up fogged out — I lay in bed for a while and cuddle with my cat, dreading the day. I stare at my phone. I may not make it to the gym. If I do, that usually clears my head and I completely forget how awful I felt when I woke up. I eventually do everything I listed above. If I don’t go to the gym I stay sad and could spiral so it’s important to always push myself out the door. The hardest thing for me is leaving home. It’s really paralyzing sometimes.
I fall apart very easily so my routine is very important to me to maintain my productivity levels and to not fall too deep into my shadow. I seem to have a good system in place to keep me together. I know this is all rooted in spirals of shame caused by developmental trauma and societal invalidation, and so therapy has really helped. I specifically like ACT Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I don’t really like talk therapy unless it incorporates the aforementioned modalities.
HG: Was there a moment when your relationship to health changed?
CB: In my late twenties, I injured my lower back, and like most people, the first experience with a back issue felt much more severe than it turned out to be. The medical industry tends to downplay the healing power of simple things like stretching and exercise, even though many chronic physical ailments are caused by psychological or physical stress, muscle atrophy, or a sedentary lifestyle. I think, because these ailments can feel so painful and because everything is so medicalized, it’s hard to believe a simple stretch or workout could cure it. Anyway, after getting an X-ray, the doctor diagnosed me with a herniated disc but reassured me it wasn’t a big concern. I was living in China at the time, and I was recommended acupuncture.
Growing up, I was never encouraged to engage in physical activity. I wasn’t in sports, was always picked last for teams, and struggled with things like running the mile in school. My body felt foreign to me. But in China, I tried yoga, and it completely changed my life. I practiced five times a week for years, and through yoga, I learned to listen to my body. I believe it helped me release a lot of psychological trauma. When you carry too much trauma, you can reach places through movement and stretching that are difficult to reach with the mind. Body and mind are one, and shouldn’t be separated. If you can’t think your way through trauma, I firmly believe you can move your way through it. Though it’s painful and uncomfortable at times, it’s the only way to make progress. The muscle work and breathwork in yoga directly impact the nervous system, which interprets stimuli based on past experiences. For those who’ve experienced trauma, especially in childhood, the nervous system can misperceive safety, often leading to chronic anxiety and shallow breathing. Yoga helps re-educate the nervous system and breath, which is vital for healing.
I’ve become disillusioned with the Western medical system after experiencing many misdiagnoses and ineffective treatments. While medicine certainly has its merits I feel there’s a significant gap when it comes to the mind-body connection, trauma, and stress. Many diagnoses made through a process of elimination often stem from stress and psychological issues or trauma.
One of my biggest mistakes was taking benzodiazepines (Klonopin, Xanax, Valium, etc.) regularly for four years. The long-term effects are devastating and doctors don’t warn you of the extent of it. These medications worsen anxiety by disrupting the balance of the nervous system and overstimulating anxiety receptors in the brain. Over time, this can lead to dependence and make it harder for the body to manage anxiety naturally. The myriad effects on the nervous system can be debilitating for long term users.
Medications like topical steroids, often used to treat eczema, can have similar consequences. They suppress the body’s inflammatory response temporarily, but when stopped, they often trigger Topical Steroid Withdrawal Syndrome (I’ve had this), leading to severe flare-ups and worsening of the condition. The body overcompensates once the suppression is removed, flooding the system with inflammation. This is similar to the effect of heartburn medications (I also have chronic heartburn), which suppress stomach acid. When you stop taking them, your body overproduces acid, leading to worse heartburn, making it seem like the original issue is still present, when in fact, the body is simply compensating for the disruption caused by the medication. To get your body back to baseline requires a long, slow passage through hell.
I find that an anti-inflammatory diet, stress management, and regular exercise are major when it comes to health. I think there is this idea that when we get older we are more fragile and should be more wary of exercise but the truth is that fragility results from muscle atrophy and you can strength train and exercise until you die.
HG: Do you have any guiding principles?
CB: Overall, I believe that maintaining a positive mental attitude greatly benefits one’s health. We are in communion with the universe. We are fragments of oneness, a oneness that temporarily experiences itself through our bodies. In this separation and slowing of light, we glimpse the divine. We are pieces of god and light.
I believe in both good and evil, in beauty and love. Living with integrity and kindness cleanses the spirit, freeing it from toxic energies and bringing peace. Negative thinking and resentments, like any poison, distort our perception and harm the spirit.
HG: What’s your relationship to self-healing?
CB: While most inflammatory conditions are somatic, they are still real and it doesn’t negate the experience or validity of the symptoms or diagnosis. But I believe their treatment isn’t medical. I believe you can heal the body by processing trauma, communicating and identifying your needs, having boundaries (meaning knowing what constitutes your identity and upholding those traits and characteristics to be true in all circumstances), yoga, exercise, and diet. I do believe what you feed yourself affects your state of mind. For example, in my experience, I’ve observed that refined sugars and junk food create little parasitic thoughts that create a horrible environment for perception.
So when I have a symptom, there is a process. I think to myself, is this my body telling me I am stressed or have unexpressed feelings? Have I been sedentary or eating poorly for too long? Or is this a legitimate medical concern (i.e. appendicitis, stroke, a broken limb)? Usually the answer is that it is somatoform (that I’ve been ignoring my needs). I do respect Western medicine and believe there are many wonders in it. I get annual exams and blood work and all that. It’s a fine line but I guess at this point I am aware of what sensations come from stress and what are anomalies that need medical attention. If it does involve the medical industry I definitely do my due diligence and research a lot and always ask a lot of questions.
HG: Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?
CB: At this point, I don’t really because I feel I have figured myself out for the most part. Learning about things through the internet, friends, and my husband has helped. My therapist, of course. But honestly, I am so tired of overthinking health that I really try to keep things simple. I find that the less neurotic I am and the more comfortable I am with uncertainty, the less issues arise.
HG: What types of foods are you typically drawn towards?
CB: Meals are very simple at home and generally organic. I am the type of person who can eat the same exact thing every day ad infinitum and never tire of it. I don’t drink anything other than spring water, herbal tea, matcha or green tea, unsweetened soy (9g of protein per cup and only 80 calories) and coconut milk. I find other beverages to be very overwhelming and overstimulating. I really enjoy subtle flavors in sweets. I love vanilla. Chocolate is usually way too rich for me. I rarely drink alcohol or consume refined sugars. I hate mayonnaise and most creamy food. I avoid processed foods. Foods high in unhealthy fats make my guts feel really hot when I sleep and give me hellish dreams.
I don’t really like to eat animals too often and am more naturally drawn to a vegetarian diet. I do love meat, fish, and seafood at a restaurant but find it is too much of a hassle to make at home. I rely on lentils, soy milk, bone broth, and vegan protein powder for protein. I love certain animal fats and dairy but I can’t really eat either regularly because of my chronic heartburn. I can’t really eat foods that cause it too often but have them in moderation.
Foods I hardly eat because they will eventually cause me heartburn:
fried foods
rich animal fats (butter, bacon, steak, etc.)
most dairy
alcohol
any oil other than coconut or olive
any vinegar other than apple cider vinegar
matcha/green tea
bakery
Things I can never eat because they always give me heartburn:
raw onion
tomato sauce (unless it’s fresh made)
coffee
Other food items in my grocery haul: buckwheat noodles, oats, nut butters, apples, bananas, inulin powder (fiber and prebiotic supplement), Athletic Greens, eggs, sweet potatoes, grapes, rice, etc.
HG: What advice would you give to your younger self?
CB: I have way too much to say to my past self.
HG: To the person reading this?
CB: Learn how to invest your money and actually do it.
HG: What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
CB: I am very tired of how politicized and packaged, how commodified every aspect of our identity has become. Isn’t it very boring?
