Do this instead of meditation

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If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, generally not feeling great mentally or emotionally – what do you do, to shift it quickly?

[June 2023]

There’s a lot of advice out there in the world of health and wellness, as preventative strategies.
Things you could choose do to help take a side-step around anxiety, emotional rollercoasters, low moods, irritability.

For example.. eat for blood sugar regulation, do what you can to support sleep, engage in different types of meditation or mind-body activities that feel soothing.

 

HOWEVER…

What about IN THE MOMENT, when it all gets too much?
When you’re irritable and upset, anxious and overwhelmed?

When the freedom of being able to choose is hijacked by the primitive part of your brain, so you might feel really stuck…

What then?

I’m not going to suggest protein and fibre in those moments. Or meditation apps.

Or supplements that we know are supportive of brain health!

‘In the moment’, even if that lasts a few hours or a whole day,
you need a way to move through those low feelings. 
Because I promise you, it will shift again.

How can you make that happen, so how you feel doesn’t derail your day?

When you’re starting to spiral within yourself, when it’s overwhelming and upsetting and you just feel lost in all those feelings that start to resemble despair…

There’s TWO things you need to do,

and it doesn’t matter which order you them but I do want you to do them as soon as you can.

1.) Tell someone how you’re feeling

Tell someone you trust will hear you, even if they don’t exactly relate or know what to do. Being there to listen IS helping.
I encourage my clients to write a post in our community. Or to send me a message.
Say it in three words or three hundred. Whatever you can.

It’s important you break the feeling of isolation.

2.) Move

Move your body, try to avoid staying still.
It could look like… going up and down the stairs a few times.

Or circling your shoulders whilst standing up.

Swaying from side to side, looking around the room as you twist your body.

Or 10 jumping jacks.

Or a walk with the dog, any dog lol, that starts slow and then gets a bit faster.

Or it could be lying on the floor, bringing knees to chest and back down again, stretching your arms overhead.

All the other helpful things, like what you eat, how you exercise, supplements, what you do for sleep etc

they’re all great, are still worth the effort and DO work. 
(you know caffeine and sugar exacerbate stress, low moods and low energy, right?)

The helpful preventative strategies, the benefits of lifestyle choices are running in the background, and sometimes you need something now, in the moment. 

It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you as such, and perhaps how you’re feeling is a reasonable response to other things happening,

but you do need to do something differently to move through it. 

 

There’s no single ‘right answer’ for this, and the two things I’ve shared above have come from years of helping not only myself but hundreds of other women, too.

 

This is a topic we frequently revisit in the Finding Yourself In Menopause, online community.

If you’ve not yet joined my online community – Finding Yourself In Menopause – then check out the link below.

We are available to all women who are seeking support not just information.

Finding Yourself In Menopause