Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast.

I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and longtime journalist.

This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're

uncovering the health impacts of alcohol, learning how to ease chronic pain, or getting raw,

honest tips for up-leveling our relationships. And yes, those are all real episodes of any of

those topics I'm good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, we are getting into why

everything that we have been taught about self-care is wrong, and exactly what we should be doing

instead. I am so excited to welcome Dr. Pujaluxman to the podcast. Dr. Luxman is a board-certified

psychiatrist, a New York Times contributor, and the founder of Gemma, a physician-led women's

mental health education platform, centering impact and equity. Her new book, Real Self-Care,

a transformative program for redefining wellness, crystals, cleanses, and bubble baths, not included,

was just released this month. This was such an enjoyable conversation. It brought me a ton of

clarity, and maybe question a lot of my previously-held beliefs, which I always love. Dr. Luxman is so,

so smart and cool and just really fun to talk to. We get into the four principles of real self-care

plus why the self-care that you're doing isn't effective, why your burnout fixes aren't working

and what to do instead, how systemic societal issues get in the way of real self-care plus how to

take care of yourself despite the broken systems. Tips to stop focusing on pleasing the people around

you, including family, the one question that will help you figure out what your values are,

how to live more in line with your values, regardless of your life circumstances, concrete tips for

actually asking for help plus how to know exactly when to do so, what martyr mode is, and how to

tell if you're guilty of it, how to stop letting perfectionism get in the way of your best life,

and so much more. I would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening

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