E69- Evening Rituals to reduce anxiety - Lisa Murphy, healthy aging coach
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Welcome back to another episode of Create Today with Beth Buffington. I am thrilled to welcome Lisa Murphy back for the second of a two series episode. Lisa is a healthy aging coach who is dedicated to helping [00:01:00] all people enhance their wellbeing She helps people find comfort and health in the season of life that they are walking in today.
She came to talk about her pillars of health. She has one pillar for the morning and one pillar in the evening, and the information that she shared with us about these pillars, oh my goodness, coming to us at the perfect time because.
Our world, it's a bit much lately. It's causing stress and anxiety for people around the world and inside our own lives. We not only have the pressure that the news is pressing down upon us, but we also have the stress, the anxiety that we have for our families, for the people that we need to care for, for the decisions we need to make about finances, about jobs, about businesses.
[00:02:00] Life can be a lot. And if we let our worries and anxiety about the things happening in our life take focus away from what is really important in our lives, well, it keeps us from being the people that we need to be, for the people who need us most.
Last week Lisa shared with us her morning pillar of health, and she gave us incredible tips for a balanced and healthy morning routine that will help us escape the downward spiral that we can face. If. We let our phones and email and the breaking news become our first focus of the day.
So this week we explore how establishing and equally important evening ritual will set us up for a better tomorrow. At the end of the last episode, I mentioned that I was gonna add some of Lisa's morning pillar advice to [00:03:00] my life.
So before we start our conversation on evening rituals, let me share a quick minute about how I added some of Lisa's wisdom to my morning.
So it's only been a week, but I followed Lisa's advice and I added a few things to my morning. First, I decided I wanted to change my caffeine first focus.
I went to Trader Joe's and I bought some organic lemons.
So I started making lemon water in the morning. I played around with the strength of the lemon that I was adding and the size of the ginger slice because the first morning I used way too much lemon and my ginger slice was much too big.
I learned. As much as I like ginger, a little bit of ginger goes a long way. I also added a quick dribble of honey. I definitely needed a little something sweet to settle down. The tart of the lemon and the zing of the ginger.
to make the [00:04:00] transition from coffee first to lemon water first.
I made both coffee and lemon water at the beginning of the week and they would sit side by side at the table and I would sip on them both. So here's what I learned about lemon water. It only took me a couple of days to look forward to having this new drink, and then I realized I started drinking more lemon water in the morning than my coffee
And as of this morning, my coffee went cold and was barely touched, and I was really downing that lemon water. So I think I'm about ready to wait to have my coffee after my lemon water is finished. I've also concentrated on not having the news on in the morning.
instead, I am listening to Birdsong, as she suggested, and I've added a couple of new podcasts that are about meditation.
So several times last week, [00:05:00] I enjoyed a guided meditation along with my doodling instead of listening to the gloom that the breaking news was bringing me.
last week we talked about giving ourselves stickers every time we did something that was new instead of something that was old that wasn't bringing us a positive outlook, right? So this week I started keeping track of all these new pieces of goodness in my journal. And instead of a sticker, I did a hand drawn kind of doodle sticker to say, check, you had lemon water check.
You didn't listen to the news check. You enjoyed birdsong, or you listened to a guided meditation. And I'm going to figure out something fun to treat myself with. If I can keep up this new morning ritual, you know, five to six days a week, I think that will be a success.
Now, if you have an idea of something special you might do to celebrate [00:06:00] the goodness you've added to your morning I'd love to hear your idea. Please share with me. So there you go. That's how my morning has changed in this past week.
Go me. These were small additions, but they're feeling good. They're feeling real good. So let's turn our attention now to our evenings, please, my friend. Welcome back. Lisa Murphy and listen in as Lisa and I chat about the importance of having an evening pillar of health.
Lisa: So going onto the evening, yes. Let's
Beth: talk
Lisa: evening. The same thing is true. And maybe even more so, because really our next day starts the night before Uhhuh. So if we think about a typical evening where again, we [00:07:00] turn on the news, we are still checking our emails.
We might have a late dinner, we get back on the computer, we're still checking our emails. We might even take our computer to bed and say, we're gonna do some work. I've gotta get this done. We might have a TV in our bedroom, and so we're watching TV in bed. And then as we pick up our phone to set the alarm, we take one last look at Instagram.
I mean, it's exactly the same thing. Every single one of those habits is. Adding to our stress. Little hits of cortisol, little hits of adrenaline, because the brain can't tell the difference between that kind of even low grade chronic stress. Just the noise, literally and figuratively, and a beam chase by tiger.
So the brain, yeah. Is like, holy cow, we're in danger again. Stress hormones so that we can fight our fleet when we're trying to go to sleep.
Beth: Yep. Oh my gosh. I used [00:08:00] to work at a company that the owner would send emails
This chime would come in letting you know you had a work email. And there were times where he would send an email at midnight. And I still to this day hear that chime from other people's phones and it just sets me off like, like I have just been bit by Jaguar. Yeah. Woo. So yeah, you do not need that kind of evening unrest.
And I go, we used to go to bed without phones. We used to just have a wind up alarm clock. Right. Do you remember that? You had to wind up your alarm clock?
Lisa: And if we think about, I'm just thinking about some of the the examples that I gave and the similar examples in the morning.
And let's just face it. A lot of it comes down to device use or phone. If your listeners are thinking, I don't have time for my own art, I don't have time to create, how much time are we wasting?
Because we're not being aware or [00:09:00] intentional about. Our days, especially the mornings and the evenings.
So I betcha we could get back 15, 20, 30, 45, 60 minutes a day. By simply implementing your own personal pillars. So
Beth: a good experiment would be tobe mindful about the time you're spending on the phone. How, when you find yourself scrolling on TikTok or Instagram, stop and think, how long have I been doing that?
Lisa: Absolutely. Absolutely. So for evenings I, speaking for myself, most of us could probably eat earlier and that would benefit. Oh my
Beth: gosh, me
Lisa: too.
I everything so hard to eat earlier. I know. It is for me too, but we know that when we eat earlier, our digestion works better. We have more time for that wind down routine because a lot of times eating dinner late and literally just, brushing my teeth and falling into bed, well that, that doesn't allow the nervous system to [00:10:00] settle.
It doesn't allow me time to set myself up for my morning pillar the next day. So, eating a little bit earlier is probably a good idea for almost all of us. After dinner, I like to take a walk. Maybe with the dogs, we'll just walk around the block. Now that the weather's getting nicer, we'll be in the garden.
So getting outside before you go to bed. I too like to relax with a Netflix show, after dinner, I find that relaxing. maybe the most difficult, but the most impactful is to observe a power down hour where we shut off all devices at least one hour before we go to bed.
So you can see why we need to eat dinner earlier if we're gonna start backing things up so that we have no devices an hour before bed. Yeah. And that a TV in your bedroom
Beth: and anything with the screen. So this is where a lot of this evening ritual stuff gets a little dicey, I think. And maybe this is where morning rituals can get dicey as well.
If like, I am [00:11:00] alone in the morning, no one's in the house, just me and a raspberry my pup. So it's really easy for me to be in control in the morning. Now, in the evening, that's when Tom and I are eating dinner together or watching television and just sitting down to him say, oh, hey, instead of having dinner at eight, we're not gonna do it at five 30, and then we're gonna take a walk outside and we're not gonna do any tv.
And then I'm gonna have an hour of nothing. I mean, he is gonna look at me like, what now?
Lisa: Now remember, we're only focusing on the things that we can control.
Lisa (4): Yes.
Lisa: But you bring up a great point. Some of you may live with people who think this is just completely crazy and they can never do that again.
What can you control for yourself? And I'm gonna be really honest. When we make changes like this, it can be difficult for the people around us.
Beth: Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah. And we only can do what we can do, and that means taking care of ourselves first. So I. [00:12:00] Relationship is always a compromise, no matter whom it's with.
But this may require you to compromise a little, it may require a conversation with your partner, whoever you live with. Hey, I'm gonna try this. I'd love it if you wanted to join me, but if not, that's okay. I understand it's a big change, right?
Beth: Yeah. Yeah. And like you've said, you don't need to do all of it at once.
Just like, hey, tonight we are eating at five 30, we're taking a walk, we are having an hour power down and la da. All these things all at once. And yeah, that's gonna cause some unrest in the house. But if you could look at your evening and say, maybe we could eat an hour earlier, or maybe I will just pull myself away from the television an hour earlier and give myself.
Sometime alone in a different room in the house, or maybe, you're upstairs in your bedroom for an hour and [00:13:00] just figure out a way that you can do some things on your own without causing a lot of unrest in the house, because that is not gonna help with your cortisol levels if in trying to calm down, you mess up the routines and the, just the general good humor in a home.
Lisa: a hundred percent you don't wanna change directions in the middle of a stream on people, because that does create more stress.
Lisa (3): But
Lisa: yeah, you gave some great examples. Another thing is like, I'm going to take a walk around the block. Would you like to join me? Yes, exactly. No pressure.
Like, you don't have to, everybody doesn't have to join us on this journey. Yeah. Or I think I'm gonna go finish that painting I've been working on. I'll be in my studio, right. If it's the TV in the bedroom, which I hear a lot, if that's the problem. If you've got a TV in your bedroom, you probably have at least one other tv.
So that might be a conversation with your partner, Hey, you know what? I'm gonna spend this last hour before I go to sleep reading. In quiet. Or maybe you [00:14:00] start with 10 minutes. If you've been watching TV right up till you go to bed. Maybe you start with 10 minutes, maybe you start with 15. Or maybe you ask your partner to watch their last show in the other room, or maybe they'd like to join you in quiet.
So nobody said this is gonna be super easy. Right. We might have to have some difficult conversations with ourselves and with others in our life.
Beth: Yeah. Yes. So take it a step at a time, everyone. And don't be a martyr about it either. Like, I'm trying to be better,
And a lot of times when you are showing the good example, other people are going, Hey, what are you doing? That looks kind of interesting. Maybe I'll do that too.
I will say this last thing about the TV and the better, the noise.
Lisa: Worst case, you can always get a pair of earplugs in an eye mask.
Beth: There you go. Great idea. Great idea.
And so by being very intentional about what you're choosing, and that's what this is all about, let's be intentional.
Lisa: Even if, okay, so let's say we even are gonna watch a show, even if we're gonna watch a show [00:15:00] three hours before bed. What are you watching? We'll start something that's really violent and chaotic and crazy and I'm just like, you know what? I can't do that right now.
And again, what we're trying to do, let's remember what we're trying to do is focus on the things we can control in a crazy, stressful world.
Beth: I think Netflix could make a ton of money. Just having an area where it would be like stuff to watch before you go to bed. Right. Or stuff to watch after you've watched something awful.
I think that's a category that is overlooked in television. I hope there's agree television, people listening and that they'll, Netflix.
Netflix,
Lisa: are you listening? Yeah. Are you listening? Right? So, a warm bath might be a nice piece of an evening pillar for someone. And again, maybe going in your studio and working on your art relaxes you. That's a wonderful thing to build your pillar on. And it's different for everywhere everyone.
And it, again, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that, and if you don't know, try some experiments and see
Lisa (4): Yeah. And,
Lisa: and figure [00:16:00] it out for yourself. And then give yourself loads of grace. If you've been doing things the other way for a really long time, it's gonna take some time. And that is okay.
Beth: Yeah. And I think again, to remember that these are things that you are gifting yourself and that it is okay to receive these gifts. Absolutely. Yeah. That you would give them to others. So you should be able to receive them from yourself. That kindness is important.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. And if you think it's selfish, really think again because how are you gonna be showing up for your family, for your work when you start your day with that adrenaline, cortisol, caffeine, bad news cocktail versus even just taking a very few minutes to yourself before you present yourself to the world.
Beth: Right. 'cause
The reason we're talking about this today, is we're finding ways to settle ourselves, to find a [00:17:00] little calm in our day so that we can be able to control the things we can control Absolutely.
But like Lisa said, this isn't a magic pill.
It isn't meaning if you have lemon tea, you'll be calm all day. It is it is a slowly adding to all these things, doing them day after day. So they become a ritual that helps you find that grounding. And when you're doing this, do you ever find yourself like taking it for granted now that you're just chugging your tea and, whatever.
But do you, you have to be intentional while you're doing that. I think that's the key, right? Like, remember why. Remember why you're doing this. I
Lisa: think yes and no. Yeah. I think that's a great question, and I think a little bit yes and a little bit no, because even if we're kind of, think about things we just do without thinking on autopilot, we're still getting the benefits of it.
Right. So, if I'm still I try to be, I mean, for me that's really what it's all about is being [00:18:00] mindful. And I'm a big meditator. I love that aspect of it. But for someone else, it, it may not be, but, so I do like to stand there and really tune into my senses. But even if. That isn't meaningful to you, the very acts of these things.
It is like a way of tricking your nervous system, right? So even if you're not finding great meaning in it to begin with, you are having a physiological effect on your system. And that's what we're after here. We're looking to balance things out.
Beth: So I think that's the key right there, is that phones literally trigger some bad stuff in your body.
Yes. Right? And no matter what
Lisa: your intention is, no matter what your intention is, I don't care if you're like puppies.
Beth: Right? Yep. Phones, tablets, computers, televisions, all the same.
So I, I am someone definitely that needs to be mindful of this. But if we can take a look at that and [00:19:00] realize that you need to balance that with things that are natural,
So even if you're not intentionally going, let me remind myself the goodness of this drink and why I am drinking it, your body is going, thanks I know how to use this right.
Lisa: Rituals are comforting. Just period, end of story.
Beth: Yeah.
Lisa: If we're doing something repeatedly, that's not bad for us.
It's comforting and we will come to associate it with that.
Beth: what's our best takeaway for the things that we've talked about here?
Lisa: I would say if you're already doing most of these things, good for you. And there's always room for refinement or for revisiting just because it, for 10 years. Doesn't mean it's still serving you. So kind of reevaluating, oh, would this fit better?
Or maybe you wanna change it up seasonally. So my pillars are definitely different when the weather's, yeah, spring, summer, and fall than they are in the winter. So I would say if you're old hat at this, revisit it and just kind of ask yourself, is this still working for [00:20:00] me and or are there seasonal tweaks I could make?
Absolutely. If you're like, oh my gosh, you two ladies are crazy. I would say start by making a list. Yeah. Two lists. One list of things that might be grounding to you for the morning, and a list of things that might be grounding and balancing for you in the evening. Just start by making a list and you can make an art project out of it.
You could stick it on a sticky note on your computer or on your desk and just kind of sit with it for a few days.
Beth: I love that idea. I also think that write down the elephants in the room. What are the things that you're doing right now that are probably not for you? Write those things down and then write down the things you think would be great to add to your morning.
And then how can you start maybe switching some of those off and on and love it, and then you can kind of make [00:21:00] a long-term plan to make that work better?
Lisa: I love that. What's causing me the most pain right now?
Beth: Yeah.
Lisa: What's cost me the most? What's causing me the most pain? What's keeping me from creating?
What are those things? Yeah,
Yeah. Call out the elephant in the room. That's great, Beth. I love that.
Beth: Lisa and I are planning, probably a year from now, we're gonna be doing some retreats that are going to combine.
The health and wellness that Lisa knows so well with the daily creative passions that I know bring you into a happier mindset in heart, mind, body and soul. So we are going to be putting together some retreats where you can come and meet us and really do a deep dive into how to take a look at where you are in your life right now and how you can be more intentional with how you're taking care of yourself.
Lisa: Beth, I'm so glad you [00:22:00] brought it up because when you come to our retreat, you will get a chance to practice and experience these rituals, these morning pillars, and these evening pillars because they will undoubtedly be built in, you'll be able to practice them in a really low risk environment. 'cause your family, your kids, your husbands, your partners won't be with you.
Beth (2): Yes.
Lisa: Yeah. You're gonna get to see how amazing they feel and how creative you are when you observe them. Yes. So, yeah, I think it's just a perfect chance to practice your pillars.
Beth: So if you're listening out there right now and you're thinking, Ooh, yes, please, we do wanna hear from you.
And feel free to reach out to us and ask us some questions, some things you might like to see in the retreat. Maybe a place where you'd love to go. We're kind of collecting ideas right now, so nothing's off the table. We're really interested in just absorbing a lot of goodness so that when we decide when and where to have the retreat, that we are providing the best goodness that we [00:23:00] can.
So let us know your thoughts. We'd love to hear from you.
Lisa: That'd be fun. Yeah, absolutely.
Beth: So I know I have some things I'm gonna tweak in my life right now. Tell
Lisa (2): that, tell us whatcha gonna tweak in your life.
Beth: So, I am someone who does listen to the news a little bit in the morning, I've actually paired it down.
I don't listen as much as I used to, but I'm gonna pare that down even more. And I am gonna start making myself some lemon water.
I love the idea about the thermos at night. I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna come downstairs and then I'm going to, since the weather's starting to get nicer, I'm going to just go outside with raspberry.
And stand on the patio for a little while and just kind of get my morning started that way, and then start doing the things I normally do, which is doodle meditation and doing my to-do list and all the things that I know are good for me.
Lisa: Right. So do those things first and then turn the news on.
That's [00:24:00] your reward. Yes. Yes. That's your reward for getting outta bed, doing all these wonderful things. And then remember, I'm not saying we don't get to do those things, but we're just inserting some other things first.
Beth: So Lisa, thank you so much for coming and chitchatting today about. Morning and evening rituals and the pillars that we can set up, pillars of strength that will just help fortify us as we travel from morning pillar to evening pillar and how we prepare for that next day. What a gift. What a gift that you've given us that now we can turn around and give back to ourselves.
So everyone find time to be kind to yourself today. Think about what you're going to do this evening to set up yourself for a good day in the morning. What does that look like? Set up that list of pros and cons on what your morning and evening rituals look like right now, and how could you make a little change in what you're [00:25:00] doing?
And whatever you do, my friends, I know. That you will stay creative. Thanks a lot for coming, Lisa. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye. Thanks.
This Evening Ritual will Reduce Anxiety & Unlock Creativity
End your day with peace, not pressure. In this second episode of a two part series we explore the power of evening rituals to help you unwind, reduce anxiety, and reset your creative mind.
Your nighttime routine doesn’t just affect your sleep—it sets the tone for tomorrow’s creativity, clarity, and emotional well-being.
Instead of ending your day with doom scrolling, work emails, or Netflix binges, learn how to create intentional, calming evening habits that lower cortisol, invite relaxation, and naturally boost melatonin, dopamine, and serotonin. These rituals are the key to deep rest, a clear mind, and a heart ready to create.
🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn: ✔️ Why your brain craves routine at night—and how to use it to your advantage
✔️ The impact of screen time and overstimulation on sleep and stress
✔️ How evening rituals support mental clarity, emotional balance, and creative flow
✔️ Simple nighttime habits that lead to better mornings
✔️ Tools to help you calm your mind, reflect, and end the day with gratitude and intention
✨ Whether you’re a creative entrepreneur, a busy parent, or someone seeking more joy and less stress, building an evening ritual could be your secret superpower.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
02:22 Recap of Morning Pillar
03:00 Beth's Morning Routine Changes
06:21 Introducing the Evening Pillar
06:56 Evening Rituals and Device Use
09:32 Balancing Evening Activities
11:31 Implementing Changes with Family
13:24 Practical Tips for Evening Rituals
21:17 Planning for Future Retreats
23:07 Final Thoughts and Takeaways
🔔 Subscribe for weekly insights on creativity, focus, and living with creative intention. 
https://www.bdi-create.today/

💬 Tell us in the comments: What’s one thing you plan to change in your evening to create a more successful tomorrow?
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