Christine Dionese
One of the freshest picks of our healthy-minded friend crop is integrative health and food therapy specialist, Christine Dionese. Christine is also a medical and food journalist, who has written some cool things for Poppy + Seed. Christine emphasizes how endocrine and immune wellness are shaped by the ever-changing epigenetic landscape through the use of functional medicine. To balance this more serious side of her work, she loves to concoct, write about and connect people through food and drink. Garden Eats is her site, where she has fun bringing that health-attracting vibe together.Christine blends her background in integrative medicine and food science to help her patients and food therapy clients intuitively connect with modern food culture. Her evidence-based approach to food therapy shapes this process. Christine lives and works bi-coastally between Southern California and Upstate New York.Christine is—in two words—super smart and awesome! (Ok, that was three!)Thank you so much Christine for your contributions to Poppy + Seed and for all that you are doing to make this world a healthier place!xx1 | St. Monci desk art. Allowing my mind to wander through color, layers and texture for a few minutes here and there away from screen time is some of my favorite mental rejuvenation. I have one of my New York-based artist friend St. Monci's pieces on my desk. His mixed media art helps me see more clearly toward that multi-dimensional depth I'm after in work and life.2 | Plant therapy. I spend a lot of time meditating in spaces with plants. They teach me how to adapt. I am always in awe of each plant's unique aesthetic, and I love to admire and study how they grow, sway toward the light and endure.3 | Facial rejuvenation acupuncture. As far as topical products go, my facial skin care routine is very minimal. I largely owe my happy, bright complexion to facial rejuvenation acupuncture. My go-to gal is Los Angeles-based Chinese medicine specialist and friend, Dr. Angela Huber. Her treatments are personalized and tap in on a deep, constitutional level every time.4 | Organic myrtle hydrosol. I have countless hydrosols that I spray over food and drink in the kitchen, but my friend Eco Kat LA's locally grown and made myrtle spray is my favorite daily face and soul freshener. Myrtle is an awesome therapeutic for clarifying and purifying, but I think I gravitate to it because it's an effusive. "Something that helps express feelings of gratitude, pleasure, or approval in an unrestrained or heartfelt manner," according to Kat.5 | My daughter Milan is one of my greatest teachers so far. Her innate wisdom and love coupled with her ability to go with the flow, yet intuitively know when to slow down makes a profound impact on how I attend to all I do. 6 | Integrative medical & wellness research allowed me to confidently become a healer backed by science. My professional field of integrative medicine has always endeavored to help advance wellness on a healing level through well-established science. I am continually thankful for my colleagues in the scientific community who stay unwaveringly dedicated to upholding the profession's core principles as a healing-centered system even in the face of naysayers. 7 | Listening to the Beastie Boy's Check Your Head Album. Rolling Stone called it unconventional, I call it authentic. It's my perfect put-on-the-headphones, get-in-the-flow, it's-always-fresh kind of album, and because they play their instruments and the songs “Lighten Up” and “Namasté” are on there. Have you heard them? Amazing. They sing to you about shining like the sun and how fear is just a shadow ;)
