I hope this blog article finds you well. I am feeling great! I love the change in the seasons, the sun shining lifts my mood, accompanied by the explosion of colour all around us with spring blooms, blossoms and the new leaves on the trees.

Despite the great feelings that spring has brought to me, I have had a really stressful couple of weeks preceding this blog, which have inspired me to write this article. Despite being able to support my clients through times of stress and anxiety, I didn’t take my own advice, cue Alice in Wonderland in my mind singing “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”.

Many of my clients would be able to share with you my simple strategy for managing feelings of stress and anxiety by incorporating three small actions into your daily living:

1. Wee breathing

2. Moments of gratitude

3. Hydration

I often share this strategy with my clients as I believe that the simplicity is what delivers the results they are looking for and encourages the commitment to themselves that they need for success.

Let me explain each of those actions to you now.

When we are feeling stressed or anxious, it is often because we feel that things are out of our control. When we don’t feel in control fear leads our internal narrative as a survival response, our brain tells us to avoid the “danger” and engages the fight / flight response in order that we can stay safe. Our brains really are wonderfully clever and can activate all of the survival tools we need within our body, however, they just never received the software update that knows the difference between modern living as a threat to our nervous system and a grizzly bear stood at the entrance to our cave! Thankfully, we can activate a bypass to that threat response by encouraging our body to feel calm and restful, giving us back a feeling of control and dialling down that fearful narrative, which is where my simple strategy comes in.

1. Wee breathing

This is a strange name, I know, but it works. When you go for your first wee and last wee of the day, give yourself a few moments to breathe deeply. Allow your lungs to fully inflate. Allow your inhalation through your nose to be slow and calm, allow your exhalation to be slightly longer. By allowing yourself the time and space to practice 3 deep breaths in this way you are learning a skill, a tool which you will be able to use at times when you feel stressed or anxious and you are starting and ending your day in a calm way.

1. Moments of gratitude

I think it’s really important to reflect at the end of the day and think about the moments during the day that you feel grateful for. Those moments which help you to find your positive mindset even on the most difficult of days. It could be that you got to drink your coffee when it was still warm, it might be that the postman was friendly when he delivered your parcel and made you smile. It doesn’t have to be the big stuff, just those small moments or glimmers. By recording 3 moments at the end of every day, either in a notebook, or on an app on your phone, you are creating a record of positivity that is personal to you. It will help you to find balance in your day and will give you a library of positivity that you can revisit any time you are feeling low.

1. Hydration

We all know that it is important for our physical health to make sure that we stay hydrated throughout the day, current NHS guidelines recommend that we drink 6-8 cups of fluid per day. But did you know that staying hydrated is equally as important for our emotional and energetic health too? Water is a great conductor of energy, you may remember the water and electricity don’t mix messages from your childhood science lessons, this is because electricity travels very easily through water. Our energy also travels well through water and by staying well hydrated, we are giving our energetic system the best chance to work well, allowing our energy to flow and increasing our ability to manage our emotions.

So, I have decided to take my own advice and I am starting a 28 day challenge. For the next 4 weeks, I will practice what I preach, I will ensure I start and end my day with some mindful breathing, I will find my 3 favourite glimmers of each day and I will drink enough water to feel hydrated. How about you? Will you join me in this challenge?

If you are feeling stressed or anxious, you should find that this 28 day challenge will help to calm your nervous system and start to help you to feel more in control. If you feel that you need more support, maybe someone to talk to, some hypnotherapy to help to rewire your brain to calm the anxious mind or some Reiki to provide a calming sense of balance, then reach out, I’d love to work with you.

With warmth and light

Jodie

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