Discover how Julian Ribinik turned his life around from burnout and exhaustion to vibrant health—and how wedding pros can apply his journey to overcome stress and feel energized!

In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Julian, a celebrated wedding photographer who turned his personal health challenges into a mission to help wedding professionals thrive. He shares his journey from juggling corporate life and wedding photography to facing a wake-up call about his health—and how he regained control.

Through small but significant lifestyle changes, Julian revitalized his energy and overcame stress. We dive into how embracing strength training, cutting caffeine, and optimizing sleep transformed his life. Along the way, we discuss the specific hurdles wedding pros face, from long hours to unpredictable schedules, and how to tackle them with practical solutions.

This episode is packed with actionable insights on the connection between mental and physical health, tips for better stress management, and the steps you can take to feel more energized. Whether you’re battling exhaustion or just looking to enhance your well-being, Julian’s story offers guidance and inspiration.

As an added bonus, Julian is offering an exclusive free one-on-one consultation for listeners! This is a real opportunity to take the first step toward a healthier, more energized you—don’t miss out.

Highlights

• Julian Ribinik’s journey from corporate life to wedding photography and wellness coaching.
• How Julian overcame chronic fatigue and lost 90 pounds to regain his health.
• The science behind stress and how it impacts wedding professionals.
• Practical tips to boost energy, reduce stress, and improve your sleep quality.
• The benefits of strength training and the role of proper nutrition in reducing fatigue.
• The surprising impact of caffeine on stress and fatigue—and why reducing it can be life-changing. 

Did you find this episode helpful? Let us know! Please leave a review, give us a rating, and share the show with your fellow wedding professionals. Your feedback helps us create more valuable content just for you.

Connect with Julian:

Website 

Instagram

LinkedIn 

Facebook

Exclusive for Mind Your Wedding Business Listeners:

Free Consultation with Julian 

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

Youtube

TikTok

All right, folks. Welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. We have the amazing Julian Riminiq. Did I say it right? Was I close? Okay, I apologize, Julian, but that's okay. I can understand that. I have three first names. the first day of school. Yeah, so Kevin Michael Dennis is my name, but the first day of school I would be called Dennis Michael or it was all kinds of craziness. So I always...

Julian Ribinik (0:8.268)

Now you've butchered it, but it would be rabbinic. Everyone is butchering that.

Julian Ribinik (0:20.610)

Oh my god, that's insane.

Kevin Dennis (0:30.812)

I always dreaded the first day of school. was always my worst part. anyway, so Julian, welcome to the show. Julian's going to be here to be talking about how to stop being tired and become a happy and energized wedding pro, which is, think, a topic that we all need. I am in the middle of my roughest part of my wedding season right now. So it is, I think, a really good topic for me personally as well. But Julian, before we get started, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how did we get here today?

Julian Ribinik (1:0.554)

Of course, so first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. Love your podcast. It's like everyone should listen. How did I get here? So I come from very long kind of travel from Soviet Union to Israel to United States. And my father taught me photography back in the day. So.

Kevin Dennis (1:3.228)

Of course. Oh, thank you.

Julian Ribinik (1:26.026)

Eventually I ended up as being a wedding photographer and we're doing it to close to 20 years. That said, food is always a part of that. I also used to be in corporate in the parallel. So I was doing weddings on the side, even though it paid for everything and all the corporate kind of salary went into savings.

Kevin Dennis (1:31.859)

Oh,

Kevin Dennis (1:52.425)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (1:53.644)

but I did keep it and I used to be, like my last job was VP of customer success for a very large software company. And that came with a lot of kind of, a lot of spread, but also it taught me a lot about how to work with high-end customers because I was in charge of revenues of one million and above. And I, my,

Kevin Dennis (2:0.915)

Oh, wow.

Kevin Dennis (2:5.748)

Stress.

Kevin Dennis (2:13.403)

Oh, okay.

Kevin Dennis (2:18.611)

Oh wow.

Julian Ribinik (2:21.846)

I basically hosted people, took them to restaurants, took them to different places, flying all over the country, making sure that executives are happy with the product and with the company and of course personal relationships are huge part of that. And weddings and that together was very taxing, right? Because there's no sleep, you finish a wedding at 2 a.m., you go home, you get on the flight at 7 a.m., and you fly somewhere else.

Kevin Dennis (2:31.111)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (2:50.456)

to work for meetings. There's always food, there's always drinks, and I ended up being very unhealthy. I ended up being 90 pounds over what I was at the lowest. So I got to about 230 pounds or something like this, yeah, probably that. And my health sucked, but I think most people can relate that

Kevin Dennis (3:5.075)

Mmm.

Kevin Dennis (3:15.165)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (3:19.392)

If you're constantly tired or you're constantly not feeling well, you develop resistance. So like if your back hurts all the time, it becomes a normality. So you don't really even complain about it. You wake up, your back hurts. It is what it is. You wake up tired. If it's first time ever, it's a devastating thing. If you wake up tired all the time, it's normality. So I used to wake up at

Kevin Dennis (3:25.459)

Hmm.

Kevin Dennis (3:36.532)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (3:45.095)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (3:47.448)

8 a.m. and I was always dead. By the end of the day, completely falling asleep at weddings and yeah, and especially on the drive home at night and absolutely. And I think many people can relate because I do talk to many people and I coach many people in the wedding industry and that is something normal. Like everyone, like I'm so tired, I had a wedding yesterday and now another one.

Kevin Dennis (3:50.004)

Hmm.

Kevin Dennis (3:55.601)

Oh geez.

Kevin Dennis (4:1.346)

Well, that's not good to be falling asleep on the drive home.

Julian Ribinik (4:17.698)

do events, some people have day jobs. So eventually, me being overweight and not admitting that to myself and suffering from different mild things that probably everyone does, I ended up moving to New Jersey and going to a new doctor who told me that I will probably die in five years because I am pretty diabetic, I have very, very extremely high cholesterol, my liver is fatty.

Kevin Dennis (4:30.270)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (4:38.108)

Oh geez.

Kevin Dennis (4:44.820)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (4:48.224)

not sleeping well, right, like they send me to sleep studies. All the bucket of metabolic things that can happen to a person, basically, right? I have that. My doctor was overweight, stinking from cigarettes, looking very tired. And he said, I don't know what exactly you need to do, because we're all in the same boat, but you need to stop eating what you're eating, and you need to start exercising.

Kevin Dennis (4:57.736)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (5:2.866)

Oh, jeez.

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (5:17.428)

But don't do what he's doing.

Julian Ribinik (5:19.102)

And yes, and he said, don't be like me, because I don't do any of those and this is the result, but also my numbers are better than yours. And that was kind of, like, ChadGPT likes to say, kicker, because the guy is way older, looks way worse, and his numbers are better than mine. That was very scary. So I essentially, next day,

Kevin Dennis (5:24.392)

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (5:28.091)

Oh wow.

Kevin Dennis (5:32.882)

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Dennis (5:39.124)

Hmm.

Julian Ribinik (5:45.376)

sign up to the gym and decide if my sugar is high, I'll just cut all the sugar out of my life. And this is what happened. And probably because it was scary, I just kept doing that.

Kevin Dennis (5:51.326)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (5:59.252)

Mmm.

Julian Ribinik (6:0.896)

I lost about 90 pounds within a year and a half.

Kevin Dennis (6:3.282)

Oh wow. I was gonna ask how long. Yeah, that's pretty good in a year and a half.

Julian Ribinik (6:7.808)

Yeah, and I went all the way to 140 pounds, which wasn't a good idea, by the way. But I was very determined and it stopped being hard. So on the way I learned how to lose weight very efficiently and that was useful. But bottom line, I fixed all my health issues and two things happened.

Kevin Dennis (6:13.840)

No, yeah.

Yes. Uh-huh.

Julian Ribinik (6:34.786)

Thing number one, I stopped being tired ever unless I maybe don't sleep for two, three nights in a row and that happens, like work and whatever, two, three hours with flights, but otherwise you can wake me up after four hours at 3 a.m. I will be very sharp and I will stay like this till I go to bed. And I stopped falling asleep, I stopped complaining about any tiredness and I got rid of all my

Kevin Dennis (6:41.789)

Yeah.

Julian Ribinik (7:3.052)

bad things with health, so like cholesterol, sugar, you name it, it all went away and no pains in the body whatsoever. So at some point I went back to the doctor and he said, how are you doing this? And you know, I started explaining, digging into the, I track food, you know, watch my blood work and do many things. And he said, like, I have two people who I need, you know, help with.

Kevin Dennis (7:19.188)

Yeah.

Julian Ribinik (7:32.460)

because those ladies come to me for 30 years and complain about weight that they cannot lose. So I helped both of them and they lost weight and the doctor became my first paying client ever. So we got him of cigarettes, he lost weight and things like that, but that prompted me to essentially go and do what I do in addition to weddings because he said like, love it, like your eyes.

Kevin Dennis (7:44.455)

Oh, no way.

Julian Ribinik (8:1.928)

know, light up when you talk about clients and people who you help, and just why don't you quit your corporate job? So I started building my practice, obviously while doing weddings, and then I quit my corporate job of 14 years, it was the last one, and I added this as a day practice.

Kevin Dennis (8:2.418)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (8:13.566)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (8:18.502)

Oh wow.

Julian Ribinik (8:24.970)

and I started helping more of like executives and like lawyers and many, many people from waiting industry because this is where I am. On the weekly basis on the community and people saw what happened to me because you go to same venue every other week and you work with same people more or less because you know how it works and people started asking questions. So eventually I ended up building kind of a lot of

Kevin Dennis (8:33.342)

Yeah. Of course.

Kevin Dennis (8:43.603)

Yeah.

Julian Ribinik (8:54.336)

relationships around this in the community as well. So this is how I ended up here. And yeah, I think it pairs well.

Kevin Dennis (9:4.724)

That's amazing. That's an amazing story how we got to where you are today. Did you have to drastically change your diet when you were going through this? Okay.

Julian Ribinik (9:15.680)

Absolutely. So I went and like I'm probably not a very common case, or maybe I am coming from like, it probably will be like for Russian and Italians. I never ate meat.

And I wasn't into sweets. But I was very heavily into alcohol and into anything that is bread or pasta. So it would go to the point where we need to go out, restaurant, birthday, whatever, and I'm asking, do they have pasta? No pasta, I'm not going. Literally, because, I didn't eat anything else.

Kevin Dennis (9:39.091)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (9:52.201)

Hmm.

Oh, geez. Yeah.

Wow. And I, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Julian Ribinik (10:0.696)

So I had to have pasta and cheese was my dessert, no sweets. And I went from there to eating vegetables, which I never ate. Like I wouldn't eat salads because that's weird to eat greens, right? And removed all bread, all pasta, anything that has carb but vegetables. And I switched to consuming a lot of protein.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

based on what I learned, based on what I experienced and things like that. So it brought me into chicken and a lot of fish. Didn't quite manage to eat meat unless it's some kind of very high end steak house where it just melts in your mouth. But yes, it was a very drastic thing and two years in I quit drinking any alcohol as well. And I'm just trying to start now and it's not going well. I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Oh, jeez.

Julian Ribinik (11:0.790)

You know, there's social situations and you know, sometimes you want to just walk around having a glass of sparkling. But I feel like after a couple, just, something switches in the brain, like I'm not as sharp. And it's not being buzzy, it's like tiredness.

Kevin Dennis (11:3.080)

Yeah.

Why? Yeah, yeah.

Mmm.

Oh, yeah, maybe because you you've kind of detoxed it out of your body maybe and that's why you know, it's it your body's like rejecting it in a way. That's an amazing story. So so and then so how I mean you said you had a lot of clients now just out of curiosity before we jump into all the real questions is like how long I mean a realistic process from someone starting with you till they see results, you know to where they're starting to really see it.

completely.

I think it really depends what the goal is. Because when I started doing this, it was like, oh, I know how to lose weight. I will help people to lose weight. Now, with all the iterations of what I did, a lot of people come to me because they are tired or because they have actual problems with their health, meaning how to lower your cholesterol, how to get rid of sugar, how to lower inflammation. And different things take different amount of time.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (12:4.147)

Hmm.

Kevin Dennis (12:9.553)

Mm-hmm.

So if someone comes for weight loss, it starts within week two, three people see results. With being tired, after a week people, sometimes a couple of days people start feeling difference, and the big difference, depending on where it's coming from, because there are different things that affect your energy levels. If it's blood markers,

Mm-hmm.

Oh wow.

Wow.

Mmm.

You cannot do blood work every month. I mean, you can if you want to. Insurance not to cover that. But that said, there are different blood markers and I don't know how much it's going to be boring to everyone. But for example, if you have a gout, it takes really long time to get rid of it. If you have high sugar, it takes a long time. If you have high triglycerides or cholesterol, we're lowering it very fast.

Yeah. Yeah, but it costs a lot of Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Dennis (13:1.768)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm. On the situation. Wow. And then so like if I'm looking to do weight loss, is it you know, like I'm looking to lose like 30 pounds? Is that like a year, two year, you know, like the journey or.

So it really depends on what we're looking at.

So 30 pounds, I like to be very conservative because I know where speed leads and it's never to a good place. And I would say a pound a week is a very good estimation. And to someone it might be, oh my God, I'm going to spend two years. And to someone it will be, oh, just like a couple of months and I'm where I want to be. But people typically are impatient, like with everything.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Oh wow. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (14:2.212)

including money, business, getting connections, whatever. And they want something immediate. And as with everything, it's like people win lottery and become broke within a year because they just don't know how to deal with money. And the same thing goes here. So fast weight loss is easy, and we can see a lot of people on Uzempic, but it causes a lot of issues.

Kevin Dennis (14:2.290)

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Dennis (14:8.402)

Mm-hmm.

Correct.

Oh.

which really hard to come back from and sometimes impossible to reverse. so I don't want for people to lose weight fast.

Okay. Fair enough.

In the beginning, it is fast because there's a lot of inflammation that just holds water in your body. But then you don't want to under-eat ever because you will ruin your health. So a pound a week is a very good marker for that.

That's interesting. never, I always thought it would be more, but it makes sense. you just got to, you know, it's the journey, not the, you know, not the sprint there. You got to, it's going to take some time. So, and I think too, being in our, in our industry, it's, hard, you know, cause like every weekend we're, you know, like right now, short rib is, is a huge, you know, thing that you're seeing everywhere we go. And that's just a bunch of fatty meat, you know, and it's not very healthy for you. And it's to the point where I, I,

Correct.

You know, I personally can stand it lose some pounds, but I just stopped eating it because I just, it's just, I know it's not good for me. And when I'm seeing it two, three times a weekend, it's like, no, thanks. Or I'll eat all the stuff around it or, know, but then I get caught at hitting, you know, I'm in California, so we have In-N-Out Burger. So I get caught hitting In-N-Out Burger on the way home, which is not good for me either. So I got to get.

Gotta get better at all this eating stuff. think a lot of us in the wedding industry can do that. yeah. All right, so we all know how stressful being in the wedding industry can be. How can we reduce stress and live a little bit of a happier life?

Absolutely.

Julian Ribinik (16:7.288)

So it's interesting and like how would you and I will ask you a question. So how would you define what stress is?

To me, it's when my to-do list is not getting, it's getting longer instead of shorter. My email, my inbox is out of control. I have prep for weddings this weekend that is just, instead of getting it done earlier in the week, it's now later in the week, because things are just, you know what I'm saying? So to me, that's all my, like what I deal with, and just, and then little things get missed.

Absolutely, yeah.

You know, not at wedding wise, but like little things in the office. It's like, oh, oh, yeah, there's that bill that I should have paid, you know, but it's under under a stack of paper and I totally been busy and totally forgot, you know, kind of thing. you know, it's just to me that stress and I just I'm trying to get better about scheduling time with myself and getting things taken care of. So that's something that I am trying. That's my journey right now. You know, like, hey,

I'm gonna instead of I'm gonna go into my calendar and block off two hours and I'm gonna close my door so my staff can't come in and I'm gonna try to get organized and get things done, you know, and I even to the point where I'll go I'll leave the office and go to Starbucks, you know, or go because for me, I love being on an airplane. Because on the airplane, no one can bother me. And I can get so much work done and get you know, and kind of de stress because I don't have people coming at me so

That's how I do everything. Yeah, so that's that's that's the Kevin Dennis struggle right now.

Make sense. Okay. So now everyone knows about your struggles and it does come a lot in different productivity podcasts and things like that. So how to hack this and how to hack that. think you had a couple of those too. So we think, including you, right, which is obvious, that stress is...

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (18:3.144)

Mm-hmm.

It's a thing that causes you stress. So for you, it might be lack of time, too many tasks, task list, but it's not. So there's no things that are stress. And this is probably main thing to understand about stress in order to be able to deal with it. Stress is not what happens to us, but rather how we respond to situations.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Oh.

and then that causes the heart rate to go up and...

And it causes not just heart rate to go up. So if we're looking at this at the chemical level, if you are stressed about something, your cortisol shuts up, which is a hormone of stress. And it shuts up in order to help you to deal with situation. Now in the nature, if we would be living in the tribe outside, there's no Stoichstien as a task list.

Kevin Dennis (19:1.202)

Hmm.

or I don't know, a client who is upsetting you or a wedding planner, I'm doing it on purpose by the way, pun intended, who is on your tail, it's either someone tries to eat you or kill you or you have no food and you need to go and hunt now because there's no food available for the whatever community. So the nature has developed.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

you

Yeah.

Yeah.

preservation and survival mechanism where if I need to do something that is out of usual I'm going to elevate your cortisol in order to give you energy because the cortisol is there to keep you alert and to elevate your sugar and this is the connection between people who are stressed constantly and chronically they can develop diabetes

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Julian Ribinik (20:4.586)

without eating any sugar.

Kevin Dennis (20:6.846)

Oh wow.

Julian Ribinik (20:8.760)

So what happens is your sugar shuts up, you become alert, and you are ready, and if it would be in nature, go hunt, go fight, whatever, even if you're not eating anything. And that's something that is a blessing because that's ability to do something that you're typically unable to do. Now, when that happens is obviously because your sugar is up.

Mm-hmm.

your heart rate will be elevated and if it's happening all the time, then it's chronically elevated cortisol, higher sugar, heart rate, and also extra brain activity, which you wake up at night and you start thinking about the work, the finances, someone who said something, what people will think about me, whatever. And that's horrible, right? But this is stress on a chemical level.

Yeah.

Julian Ribinik (21:3.064)

But that's all how we respond to it. You know how there are people who just don't care about anyone or anything and they cross in the road and someone, car hits someone next and they just will keep on walking because they are sociopaths and they just don't care. But they don't get stressed. And that's the situation that someone else will see and they will not sleep for a week or two or a month.

Kevin Dennis (21:5.492)

Mmm.

You

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Same situation, happening to two different people who respond differently. Someone loses money and they say, screw that, will do whatever, I will downsize, I will try again, I will whatever, and they will keep on sleeping. And someone who has little decrease in their bank account, they will not sleep and see like, what am I doing, how am I surviving? Same situation.

Yep. Gotcha.

Mm-hmm.

Some people will respond to relatives' death in a completely different way. Okay, they were sick, it is what it is, or it came from God, and someone, again, will be very upset and things like that. Same thing goes for any other situation. Your client could have sent an email, and you read it, and you get upset, and you get stressed. And someone reads the same email with the same...

Mm-hmm.

position as you and say like, okay, it just work.

Yeah, and I can relate to that because sometimes that'll happen in our office. It's like, have you seen this? Because we all share an email box for general client information kind of thing. We all have our own, but we have one that we all share. And have you seen this email? And one person's like, it's not bad. Everyone reacts different. So I can understand that analogy.

Exactly. And so the way we react is what defines what happens to us. And I think largest thing in fighting stress is changing the approach. It's the biggest thing. Let's say something happens. I am stressed now. What has actually happened? Does it really affect me in any real way? Or am I just, you know, getting all hyped? What's the worst thing that can happen out of it?

Mm-hmm.

Like did it happen before and I'm totally fine and nothing happened, right? And looking at this from this kind of from a site standpoint and Realizing that maybe things are not that bad and like you've been through this before and or that's life or whatever but changing the approach Right. I can give I don't know an example

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You look at your bank account and you have a lot of payments that coming out and you're like, Oh my God, I have no money in the bank account, but you have huge savings account. So you can technically, instead of stressing about where they take the money, take some out because you have the money. They're just not there. And if I do, you just think about that, like, Oh, I do have the money. Everything's boom. If I'm stressed and I'm kind of digging into that story,

Mm-hmm.

of something is happening to me, I'm not able to focus on other things and help myself. And that's the very basic thing to do. So I do encourage everyone who is in stressful situation to kind of step aside, look what is actually happening to me? Is it really a problem? And then there are different tools that we can use to regulate that.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And there's no particular order, but I would kind of stress that strength training, which most people don't do, is one of the largest distressors that we can have.

Kevin Dennis (25:1.179)

So like working out, mean?

Julian Ribinik (25:3.048)

and especially lifting weights. And that's because the nature has designed us the way that we have to move and carry heavy weights to survive by definition. So anyone who is not walking a lot and doesn't carry heavy weights will levels of cortisol that are elevated above normal by definition.

Kevin Dennis (25:4.871)

Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm.

So it's not you need to work out in order to lower stress. You need to work, like if you don't work out, by definition, you will be more stressed because you're not designed to not to lift, not to move weights. And we can see that typically in the communities that people who are like movers or people who work out, right, but people who have professions that require labor, they're usually happier in general.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

unrelated to the income.

because of that chemical difference.

Kevin Dennis (26:7.217)

Wow.

Julian Ribinik (26:7.946)

And you can also see that those people, they pause working, go on vacation, they become kind of down. And that's what happens with someone who takes a break from working out as well. The mood is tanking because your cortisol goes up.

Hmm.

Oh.

So that's the strongest thing. Second, everyone needs to sleep. When you don't sleep, and I'm not talking about sleeping enough, but talking about sleeping in a quality way, meaning you have enough of deep sleep, you have enough of REM sleep, and you're awake at night, but you're sleeping between like 10, 11 a.m. till about four, five a.m., so p.m., sorry, an a.m.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

in that range, you will be way better off. So it's not the length, it's when and how deep, which there's many factors and there was like sleep training protocol that I apply. If you sleep, you clear cortisol from your system and it allows you to wake up more energized and more relevant.

Mmm.

Another thing that is huge is consuming sugar. And we're going back to that cortisol-elevate sugar, and that increases your heart rate and it increases your stress. If you eat an over-sugar, your blood pressure goes up and your activity in the brain goes up, and you become more stressed. So you will see people who are...

Yeah.

more stress because of their heart carb consumption and Those people also start resorting to more carb when they are stressed Because in the moment it feels really good It has a calming effect and they eat more and they become more stressed

Hmm.

Kevin Dennis (28:4.265)

Hmm.

It's a vicious cycle.

Yes, and coffee. It's a huge, huge thing that we all are guilty of, probably, almost everyone, and we use it to not be tired, and by the way, it doesn't prevent anyone from being tired, it just delays it and amplifies being tired after a period of time, but coffee also shuts your cortisol up.

Oh, coffee.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

So people who have a lot of caffeine, they will be way more stressed in general. And they will also sleep less. So all of that compounds. So eating, working out, not drinking coffee. And I just had last month a talk at WIPA in New York, and I spoke about coffee. And now I'm getting emails like,

Mmm.

Kevin Dennis (29:2.132)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (29:8.330)

at least a couple a week from different people who say, oh, like I tried what you said, I cut out the coffee and I can sleep and I am less stressed. So I'm very happy to get those responses. It works very well. And last thing I kind of mentioned in passing, walking is another activity that is essential to us, we're designed to do. So people who don't walk much.

And no, like walking at a wedding around the dance floor is not helping. And you know, I'm getting like, oh, I did 14,000 steps yesterday at the wedding. No, that's not that, although it's good. But we are designed to around sunset and around sunrise, both. And that sets our hormones in line, kicks out our internal clocks telling the body when it's morning, when it's day, when it's night based on the sun spectrum.

Yes.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (30:4.200)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (30:6.548)

and hormones work accordingly. So you're not jet lagged without flying. And if you sit all day at home and looking through the window, you are always jet lagged, by the way, and that's stressful. And another thing, there is kind of therapy for PTSD and stress that's called EMDR, if anyone is familiar. And that is very, very strong therapy that calms people a lot and can cure PTSD.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Oh wow.

and that's based on walking.

when you

Even if you walk 15 minutes in the morning, that is going to change your life completely. If you're stressed, you will feel it. And when you stop walking, you will start becoming stressed. You will come back to your own self. If you do it twice a day, ideally again, sunset and sunrise close to that, so you have morning spectrum and evening spectrum of sun.

Okay.

Okay.

Julian Ribinik (31:9.664)

you will become way, way better there. And you don't need to walk a lot. It's just enough to capture the sun rays not through the window. Plus the EMDR therapy that I mentioned, it's based on your eyes constantly moving from side to side while kind of not being stable and seeing different scenes. like the therapy itself, they're making you.

do this and they show you different things all the time. So the scenery is changing, it's not static, and that causes huge, um, reducible cortisol and upstream of good hormones. So walking in, when looking at the phone, like many people do, doesn't work because you're locked in on the same thing and you're not kind of seeing different things. So.

Kevin Dennis (32:0.026)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (32:5.502)

Gotcha.

Julian Ribinik (32:5.996)

When you start working, do not use the phone. So those three or four things I have mentioned, they will change everything completely stress-wise, and then people can deal with stress better, and it's easier to approach any situation.

Wow. And the caffeine, I'm not a coffee person, but I'm an iced tea person. If anyone knows me, I'll be the first to grab two big old iced teas and I can't get enough of it. you made me think it's probably time to dousing or going down on my iced tea intake and drink a little bit more just water. it'll probably, I always get a headache. So that's what I always, but I'm sure you just got to fight through it. And then eventually you won't get that caffeine headache anymore.

If you reduce coffee, basically is called, the caffeine is vasodilator, it plays with your blood vessels. So when you start drinking coffee, they change their shape. When you stop, they change their shape again, and that's the pain. It goes away within a couple of days if you really don't touch. So it's way easier to cut it completely.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (33:4.062)

Mmm.

Kevin Dennis (33:8.947)

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

like for all go from decaf, like caffeine to decaf, then having, you know, I had five espresso, so then I'm having four espresso, then I'm three. So if you making it a long thing that you're trying to reduce step by step, you will have headache all that way. If you cut it just like from this to this, in two days you will have no headache.

Mm-hmm.

Oh wow.

Wow. All right. So you're giving me a lot of things I need to do here, Julian. So all right. So we're going to dive in because a lot of mental health and physical health are connected. how do you feel our mental and physical health are connected?

Julian Ribinik (34:1.580)

they are absolutely connected the way that there's no such thing as mental health the way we think. We typically say that we have a soul and we have a physical thing and completely unrelated to religion because even totally agnostic people talk about soul. But there's no soul in that sense and hopefully no one tries to send me hate mail or kill me. But everything that we feel like

Kevin Dennis (34:8.425)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

All our thoughts, they are chemicals regulated. So they all translate into reactions that hormones do, or actions and reactions, right? Hormones and messengers and tell the body how to react to certain things. And it's all chemical reactions that are translated to electrical current back to chemical reactions. So essentially, whatever you think and however you respond, it's all.

Mm-hmm.

rooted in those same hormones. And there are more hormones that are involved, obviously. So the way we behave, the way we eat, the way we sleep, affects all of that. It affects mental health. And you'll be surprised how many people in the community have different mental states and have medications. And I work with people who have bipolar disorder or like

schizophrenia or something like this, which is like no negative connotation whatsoever because things happen.

Yeah, correct.

and it can be genetic or because how they ate or how they slept or whatever happened to them in life. And when they change the way they eat and the way they sleep and the way they just think about things, and it's a process, of course, many people get off medications. And as long as they don't come back to, for example, you know, like eating cookies, it doesn't come back. Yes, it's work.

and I can say it's a cure because you can only manage it.

Mm-hmm.

But the way we think and whatever happens to us is highly controlled by the chemicals in our system. So I do not, like I'm not able to separate them at all.

Mm-hmm.

because what you do is what makes you who you are in the end, including training. If you start training, you become a happier person because it changes how your hormones work. So now you are a happier person because you have elevated levels of dopamine and you didn't have before. And your cortisol is down, so again, you will be less worried and happier and more relaxed.

Mm-hmm.

Now, this something like work, you we talked a couple of times about working out. If I have not worked out in a while and I want to start back up, it three times a week or, you know, like, what is a good number to go to get it ramped up?

So stress-wise, stress, and if we're talking stress-wise.

Mm-hmm.

Anything you do will improve your situation. Anything, right? If it's once a week, once a week, you will become happier person. It doesn't last, right? Because you need to do something every day or at least three times a week or four times a week for the effect to last. Just like with any hormone, you have elevation, then you have the downstream.

Mm-hmm.

Gotcha. Oh.

Gotcha.

Mm-hmm.

the faster it rises, the faster it falls. So for example, if God forbid someone injects heroin, the dopamine shots very high and very fast and it crashes immediately and this is why they need to be on it because now they go from pink to black very fast. If you work out, it's not a high dopamine elevation and it's gradual.

Yeah.

Very hard, yeah.

Kevin Dennis (38:3.348)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

So it will take sometimes two days after the workout to go down. But it needs to be hard enough for the dopamine to go somewhere where you actually feel it. And that's what we call, like people who run, they know what runner's high is. I don't know if you ever experienced that.

Mm, okay.

Gotcha.

Mm-hmm. I'm not a runner.

but it has nothing to do with running. It just people who run they run for a time and at some point hormones kick in and you like you start crying you can be like so happy and then you can run and run and run. Same thing happens with any kind of training if you do it hard enough. Same with lifting. It just with lifting you sometimes do two repetitions and you are crying.

Yeah.

Mm.

Oh well.

Julian Ribinik (39:0.074)

and you become so happy and you like life is changing you see pink everywhere. Which is funny so.

Kevin Dennis (39:4.244)

Yeah.

Julian Ribinik (39:9.856)

the more you do the better. It's just like walking once a week better than zero. Lifting once a week is better than zero, but if you are doing it consistently, then you will have no waves where you fall.

Mm-hmm.

Gotcha.

And I think three times would be the minimum to keep you balanced or anyone.

That's amazing.

So three a week is good. It's a good start, but ultimately if you can do something every day, that's where you're going really see the... Okay. All right. So what is something a wedding pro could do now to feel more energized?

Correct, yes.

Okay, so now are you ready for another lecture? So there is three main things that take energy away from us. probably two of them will be, or actually three of them. So it's four things, because I didn't mention one. But three of them taking energy away in a different way. So obviously if you don't sleep enough,

Yes, I'm ready.

Mm-hmm.

Eventually you will not have enough maintenance done on your brain and you will be tired. What happens during the night, there's hormone that is called adenosine, sorry for boring people, that accumulates during the day and makes you tired so you actually can go and fall asleep. If that doesn't happen, you will not be sleeping at night. So we need that hormone.

Mm-hmm.

No.

If our sleep is not effective, we're not cleaning all of it, so we already wake up tired and we start accumulating that throughout the day, so, and we create a cycle. And again, that depends on the quality of the sleep and not the quantity of the sleep.

Julian Ribinik (41:1.868)

very good thing that ties into that is coffee. Because coffee is probably number one thing that makes a person tired in this world, because everyone is drinking it. And coffee does not give you any energy. Coffee makes us energized by two ways. Way number one, as I mentioned, your cortisol shuts up, and this is why most people immediately after having coffee, they're like, oh, I'm good.

Kevin Dennis (41:5.470)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

but that's not the caffeine, it's the stress that they're getting from coffee, the little elevation. What happens after is that caffeine blocks the release of that tiredness hormone into your brain. So now, which usually happens two, three hours after you had coffee, you stop releasing that hormone into your brain, so you will be less tired for a period of time.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (42:0.020)

Hmm.

Julian Ribinik (42:1.922)

The is that you don't stop making the hormone, the adenosine. It keeps on accumulating in your brain and then when caffeine winds down, you get a burst of that. And this is where you crash.

Kevin Dennis (42:6.388)

Mm-hmm.

And when that happens, what people do, they drink coffee again, right? So they, correct. That's exactly what I say is vicious cycle. So it takes all the adenosine that is swimming in your brain, puts it back. And that keeps accumulating because you keep on making it. So eventually what happens is it's somewhere in the evening and people usually don't drink coffee and you're driving from somewhere.

Yeah, because they need to, it's a vicious cycle.

Hmm.

and all of that shots and you start falling asleep while driving. Or you're coming home, you're going to bed. Now when you're sleeping, you're obviously not drinking caffeine, you're dead tired. But because the amounts of that hormone is way more than you should have accumulate, you cannot clear that. And now all that is spilling into your brain and you wake up dead.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (43:9.235)

Mm-hmm.

And what you do, you wake up first thing, you're running and getting coffee. And then this is why most people will be tired, because they never stop this cycle. And we have it normalized in culture, right? Like we're going to drink coffee, we're going for coffee. We have our networking as let's go and have a coffee.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So that's a big, big thing and I do not suggest anyone drinking caffeine past nine a.m. And there are people who say, yeah, I can drink coffee and I can fall asleep and this is exactly what I'm saying. So it might not elevate your cortisol high, so you'll be sleeping great, but you will wake up tired.

Oh, wow.

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (44:4.236)

And, or worse, will wake up normal because you didn't sleep a lot. And it didn't stop working yet, and then somewhere in the middle of the day, it's getting released. So it depends on how much you are drinking, and caffeine stays in the brain over 12 hours. So that's an interesting thing. Now, the other thing that I didn't mention is electrolytes. And this is something that people usually go like, oh my god, like I...

Kevin Dennis (44:9.074)

Yeah.

I wish I knew it all my life. So have you ever got a hangover?

So you drink, maybe a little, maybe not so much, but then you wake up and you're dead. You might be very tired, drowsy, maybe you have horrible headache, and usually it stays the whole day. Maybe it winds down a little bit. And eating something, drinking water doesn't really help, maybe a little bit. So Russians drink pickle juice.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (45:3.636)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (45:8.616)

Well, I've heard pickle juice helps. Uh huh. Is it the salt in the pickle? like what? Yeah.

And that helps. exactly, so this is exactly where I'm going. So salt is electrolyte that is in charge of our blood flowing. And if we don't have enough sodium in our bloodstream, it slows down the bloodstream. And when all the nutrients and energy that we all have enough of that, right?

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

if I'm 90 pounds overweight have zero reasons to ever be tired because I have so much extra energy and yet I'm tired all the time. Why? One of the reasons is because my sodium levels even with high blood pressure will not be high enough if I'm not consuming enough of that. And when we add electrolytes or just eating salt by the spoon,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (46:8.512)

And whatever we add to food actually is not enough because food becomes unedible. So we need to supplement it separately. You're becoming so energized that you never could imagine to yourself. So any glass of water I drink, including this one, has salt in it. And I buy electrolytes. So it has magnesium, potassium, and things like that.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and it needs to be enough. So it's not like what we think like a little something. It's about a gram of salt in every glass that I have. Of sodium, it's like three grams of actual salt. And it sounds very counter intuitive. And many people will say that's like unhealthy, but if you ever been got for being in a hospital, they put IV.

Oh, wow.

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (47:3.096)

First thing you get there, right? What's in that? It's all salt. Yeah, because they need to keep you alive. And if you don't, if you like sodium levels go beyond certain point, the heart just stops.

Kevin Dennis (47:3.145)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (47:6.740)

That is it also.

Mm-hmm.

So as long as your sodium levels in the bloodstream are great, you will not be tired due to that, which is big thing. So if we have this and we sleep normally, which by the way, depending on this as well, because you will sleep with that. And we don't drink coffee, which by the way depletes sodium and makes you dehydrated. You will have no issue with that. And I'll probably will get to last point.

Mm-hmm.

of the energy is that sugar makes you tired.

Mm-hmm.

It just cortisol up so you become energized like we know kids who have like cookie and they start running like crazy. Sorry. And then they crash. So grownups cannot allow to themselves culturally to start running around. They control themselves. Unconsciously. So they just crash. They elevate the heart rate. They can't fall asleep, whatever. And then they crash and they become very tired.

Kevin Dennis (48:2.290)

Yep, no worries.

Mm-hmm.

So all those things, when you eliminate them or down regulate them, cause you to be more energized.

Mm-hmm.

We specifically in our household, we don't have sugar, we don't drink coffee. Sleep is whatever it is, but we are never tired, including kids, which are heavily on electrolytes and things like that. And every single thing that I have has sold.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Is Gatorade not good because it's sugar water? Because they say that's electric lights.

Julian Ribinik (49:1.250)

correct. So Gatorade, this is very interesting. So first ever Gatorade had a lot of salt and a little bit of sugar.

Kevin Dennis (49:9.075)

Mm-hmm.

retaining water in the body. We all know that if I ate too much carb, I'm going to bloat. Everyone knows that. And that's because sugar retains water in your system. Retaining water in your system retains sodium as well, so it helps to absorb electrolytes better.

Now with time, Gatorade became more sugar and less electrolytes because of all the paradigm of salt causes high blood pressure, which it by the way doesn't, and high blood pressure happens from sugar. But because of all that paradigm, they had to keep it relevant, so they had to decrease amount of sodium and elevate the amount of sugar.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (50:5.265)

Hmm.

Julian Ribinik (50:5.984)

So now you bloat like crazy, you retain whatever you have with way less effect, with a lot of damage to the body. And by the way, now they do have a Gatorade zero or something like this, which still has like not enough electrolytes to actually keep you energized, but might be good for like half a workout.

Kevin Dennis (50:8.274)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Hmm. Crazy. So much. So I took away so much information here. The biggest thing I think is I'm going to try to cut out iced tea out of my life. So I think you've motivated me to do that because then I think that will help, you know, with the energy and the stress and all that kind of stuff as well. Yeah. Well, yeah, I could. So maybe I'll try that. But

You can make a decaf.

I'm going to try the good old water to start and see how that goes. Yeah, because it's easy to get water. It doesn't cost you five bucks at Starbucks every time you're there. So anyway, thank you for motivating me myself. Hopefully you've motivated everyone else. So is there a tip or two? I take exercise, I take coffee.

Water is amazing.

Julian Ribinik (51:9.048)

100%.

Hope so.

Those are the two things that I, get out walking. Those are kind of the tips that I, the biggest things that I took. Am I missing something, Julian?

No, so I think there was a lot of tips there. One thing that I can add that no one would guess is if we wake up during REM stage of sleep, we always will be tired because we're not supposed to wake up. And it only happens in the morning. So usually when you have your alarm set and it wakes you up, you will wake up tired because you woke up at the wrong time.

Mmm.

Kevin Dennis (52:2.163)

Mm-hmm.

Julian Ribinik (52:2.784)

So I suggest to try not to use alarm at all and tell yourself I need to wake up at 5.45 a.m. several times and you most likely will. Or some watches like Fitbit here has alarm setting that will wake you up based on your sleep stage.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm. Really? Well, that's awesome.

Yes, so it usually will happen like five to 10 minutes before you want to wake up, but you will always wake up when you're supposed to wake up, like in the light sleep. So that thing I think is important. And guys, start working, try to have less coffee, try to have less carb, and not to eat in the evening. Because eating in the evening,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

And most people will eat carb and I'm not going to tell you guys, stop sugar. But your body responds to sugar way worse in the evening than in the morning. And I personally don't have any food unless we go out after four, five p.m. And they changed my life. And we don't eat at weddings for years. And we have been like.

Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Yeah.

venue people changing us like you need to eat, you need to eat. We don't and that helps a lot with energy levels as well and stress too. And those are things that are relatively easy to implement.

Mm-hmm.

It's amazing. Julian, I can't thank you enough and I think everyone's going to get so much out of this episode because I think everything we talked about today is things that we all deal with, know, so thank you so much. One thing I always ask all my guests before we go, since we are a wedding podcast, is what is your favorite part of the wedding? So Julian, what is your favorite part?

Julian Ribinik (54:0.950)

I think for me it's a no brainer as a photographer and we specifically, we don't drive on beauty or set up, we thrive on emotions. We are more on the documentary side and we like when people laugh, when people cry, when things are happening. And one of the big things that drive me when we see a father of the bride or a groom, by the way, seeing them,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

and it's usually kind of the first look or the ceremony and start crying. And we see a lot of that. that's, first of all, it makes me extremely emotional. I always cry in the corner and...

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. No, I yeah It's ever since I got kids I cry now all the time I was never a crier until you know, and I have a 21 year old 12 and a 10 year old but ever since I got kids it's like I I don't I guess I relate to the situation and I'll be over there. Yeah, and I'm uh Yeah, yeah I'm over there ballin ballin right there with everyone and I don't know anyone at the wedding, you know, so it's it's

Um.

Julian Ribinik (55:1.536)

you can't not to unless you you know sociopath

It's always crazy. then it's funny because every once in a while, like the wedding coordinator, I'll look at he or she and we'll look at each other. I'm like, I know. It's like we're both crying. I think that's a great point.

and we just did a same-sex ceremony, two guys, beautiful wedding, and we, like, they both were giving vows and crying like crazy, and their moms on the two different sides of the aisles were, like, crying, like, rivers, and we will have amazing photos from that. But I was crying, too, and my wife standing in the corner, like, ooh, you know, it's...

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's our not to. All right, Julian. How would how would everyone get a hold of you get in touch with you?

All right, so it's very easy. I think the easiest way is to go to Instagram at Julian Rubinik Studios and just message me. And if you are interested in being a part of my health community, wedding professionals, I have something that's called WWP, Wellness for Wedding Pros, and you can just join and be a part of that. No cost involved.

And if you have any questions, I'm always there. And obviously if you want to look at our work, it's Instagram and Julio Rubinic Studios on all the socials and website as well.

Perfect. Julian, I can't thank you enough for being here. It was a pleasure and an honor to have you as a guest because I think this is such a, it's going to be a really good topic for everyone here because I think we all struggle in the wedding industry with our health and I think it's something that we all need to, I think, get better about. So hopefully you've motivated everyone out there to get healthy. So thank you so much, Julian, for being here.

Julian Ribinik (57:3.618)

hope so. Thank you so much, Kevin, for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Kevin Dennis (57:6.462)

Thank you.