A few weeks after giving birth, I was already thinking about losing weight.
I didn’t say it out loud. But it was there. That quiet circling thought every time I caught myself in the mirror.
I don’t want people to see me like this. Like I’m not taking care of myself. Like becoming a mom meant letting myself go.
So I started thinking about dieting. About getting back to exercise. About getting my body back.
And then breastfeeding stopped me completely.
I couldn’t restrict calories; it would affect my milk supply, my daughter’s nutrition, her health. Everything I wanted to do to shrink myself was in direct conflict with everything my body needed to give her what she needed.
So I surrendered. Not gracefully. Not willingly at first.
But I surrendered.
Imagine…
I had just grown a human being inside my body.
I had carried her for nine months. Labored. Delivered. And then, almost immediately, I started thinking about how to erase what my body had just done.
That thought deserved to be examined.
What my body had done was not damage. It was not neglect.
It was one of the most extraordinary things a human body can do.
And I realized my body didn’t need to be gotten back.
It needs to go forward.
Healed. Honored. Nourished.
That was the moment Alaga stopped being a concept and became a daily choice.
My body didn’t need to be gotten back. It needs to go forward.
But here is what nobody tells you.
The path forward didn’t require a program. It didn’t require a supplement stack, a meal plan, or a fitness app.
You and I need real Doctors.
Doctors who have been practicing medicine since before wellness had a name — since the matatanda prescribed herb baths and bed rest, and mainit na sabaw and insisted on warmth and stillness and being looked after.
They don’t send invoices. They don’t require a referral. They don’t ask you to earn their help first.
They just ask you to show up.
I call them the 8 Natural Doctors. And in my hardest season of matrescence, they were the foundation that held me when everything else felt like the wrong question entirely.
Here is how I practice each one in real mom life.
🌿 1. Dr. Sunshine
The oldest doctor in practice and the most consistently underused.
Ten minutes of morning light does more for your mood, your energy, and your hormonal balance than most things you can buy. Dr. Sunlight regulates your sleep cycle, lifts your cortisol in a healthy way, and signals your nervous system that a new day has begun — that it is safe to wake, to move, to be present.
This became my favourite combination — a 10 to 30 minute walk, fresh air, and sunlight all at once. Three healers that come as one and cost nothing. Some mornings, it was just around the block. Some afternoons, it was slower, with my daughter beside me in her stroller.
But every single time I came home, I felt slightly more like myself than when I left.
Movement, fresh air, sunlight. I stopped thinking of them separately and started treating them as one ritual — my non-negotiable alaga combo.
Dosage: 10 minutes of morning light. Daily. Before your phone.
💧 2. Dr. Water
The most overlooked doctor. The most available. The most ignored.
Before you reach for anything else in the morning, Dr. Water asks for your first two minutes. Drink one full glass of water. Slowly.
Dehydration mimics fatigue. It mimics brain fog. It mimics low mood and the particular heaviness that makes everything feel harder than it is. Many of the things we treat with caffeine or worry are simply thirst.
I stopped relying on memory. I put a water bottle in my room, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. Wherever I was, water was already there. It sounds almost too simple. But when you are breastfeeding and running on fragmented sleep, simple is the only thing that works.
Dosage: One full glass before anything else. More throughout the day than feels necessary.
🌬️ 3. Dr. Fresh Air
Fresh air is free, and we forget it exists.
Early motherhood can make the world feel very small — the same four walls, the same feeding chair, the same recycled air of a house sealed against the outside. Dr. Fresh Air prescribes a different kind of breathing.
Open a window. Step outside. Let your nervous system remember that the world is still out there, vast, unhurried, completely indifferent to your to-do list. That indifference is medicine.
Dosage: Outside air at least once a day. Even briefly. Even just the doorway.
🚶🏻♀️ 4. Dr. Movement
Not Dr. Exercise. Not Dr. Workout. Dr. Movement.
Not Dr. Exercise. Not Dr. Workout. Dr. Movement.
Exercise asks for performance. Movement asks only for circulation, for the body to do what it was designed to do, which is move through the world rather than sit still in a feeding chair for hours.
A slow walk counts. Stretching while the baby naps counts. Dancing in the kitchen while reheating your rice counts.
Move to feel. Not to burn. Not to earn. Not to get your body back. Your body is already here. It just needs to move.
Dosage: Any movement, any duration. The prescription is presence, not performance.
😴 5. Dr. Rest
The doctor most of us moms dismiss and most desperately need.
I want to be honest here, rest during postpartum is complicated.
I was breastfeeding. My husband was working in Italy. The nights were fragmented and long. Perfect sleep wasn’t available to me.
But I chose the intention of rest. We slept early. I rested whenever I could. I stopped fighting the fragmented nights and started working with them.
Rest wasn’t a result; it was a practice. A resting body repairs itself. A resting mind finds its way back to quiet. Dr. Rest is not a reward you receive after productivity. It is medicine you take before depletion arrives.
Dosage: Sleep when possible. Rest when sleep is not. Both count.
🍚 6. Dr. Nourishment
This doctor does not prescribe perfection. Dr. Nourishment prescribes enough.
This doctor does not prescribe perfection. Dr. Nourishment prescribes enough.
I started preparing my own meals again, not perfectly, not elaborately, but intentionally. Sabaw became a staple. Malunggay in every soup, mostly for milk supply, but also because it made me feel like I was doing something good for my body every single day. Food stopped being something I grabbed between feeding sessions and became the first act of alaga I gave myself.
Warm food. Real ingredients. Meals you actually sit down for, even briefly. Not to shrink your body, to sustain it.
And on my lowest days, when Doctor Nourishment felt too big, Intra was the smallest version of it I could keep. One sip. That was enough to begin.
Dosage: Warm real food. Eaten sitting down. Without guilt and without your phone.
🤍 7. Dr. Temperance
The quietest doctor. The one most wellness cultures forget to prescribe.
Enough, not excess. Not just with food but with information, stimulation, scrolling, striving, comparing. The nervous system of a new mother is already processing more than it was designed to handle. Dr. Temperance prescribes less.
One of the quietest forms of alaga is simply deciding: that is enough for today. Closing the app. Putting the phone down. Choosing stillness over one more scroll.
Your nervous system needs less noise, not more. Dr. Temperance is the only doctor whose prescription is to stop.
Dosage: Enough. Not more. In every area of your life that has quietly become excessive.
🙏🏼 8. Dr. Trust
The most profound doctor on this list. The one no prescription pad can fully capture.
The most profound doctor on this list. The one no prescription pad can fully capture.
At night, after everything was quiet, I journaled and prayed. Not long. Not structured. Just enough to put the day down gently before I slept. And every morning before the day got loud, I noticed one small thing that felt like grace. Not a list. Just one moment. One quiet proof that something good was still present even in the hard season.
It didn’t fix anything. But it shifted something, slowly, gently, the way most real things do.
Our nervous system cannot heal in a state of constant alarm. What calms it is not more information or more control. It is surrender. Connection. The felt sense of being held by something larger than your own effort.
For some of us, that is faith and prayer. For some, it is nature. For some, it is kapwa, the understanding that you are part of something much larger than your hardest day.
Your loob – your inner self – was never meant to carry this alone.
A body that feels safe heals faster than a body that is always on guard.
This is science. This is also grace.
Dosage: Whatever form of surrender brings you back to safety. Daily. Without apology.
You are part of something much larger than your hardest day.
These 8 doctors didn’t transform my postpartum overnight.
But they held me. They gave me something small to return to on my hardest days. And over time — quietly, without drama — they helped me feel like myself again.
Not the self I was before motherhood. Someone new. Someone steadier.
The 8 Natural Doctors do not require a subscription. They have no side effects. They will not ask you to earn their help before they give it.
Their only ask is that you begin.
Not perfectly. Not all at once.
Just consult one today. Let it be your first small act of alaga.
With Love,
Kristen
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