How to Find Consistency in Your Daily Habits

Consistency, while not glamorous, does help you achieve your goals.

Changes that last come from the slow, consistent things you do. It’s not glamorous and it’s not a quick fix. It’s actually boring sometimes. The same small routines, the same (or similar) movement patterns that, over time, become foundational habits and patterns. These offer your body strength as well as the feeling of being grounded, and they set a foundation for the rest of your life. Once you’ve established your routines, changes to those routines can provide a lot of information about what is working, what feels supportive and what you might want to adjust a bit.

The summer is often full of travel and different schedules and routines. How is this for you? Do you like dropping your regular routine or does your body miss the regularity while you are traveling? Do you incorporate your routines while traveling? When you return home, do you easily integrate back into your habits, or do you find you’ve “fallen off the wagon” and struggle to get back to feeling consistent with exercise, sleep and nutrition? Noticing your patterns is helpful to learn more about you. There isn’t a right or wrong answer!

Recently, when I’ve traveled, I’ve appreciated how travel takes me out of the day-to-day routine. But then, on returning home, I feel so supported by the regular things I do to care for myself. This tells me I have practices in place that really help me feel supported and feel my best. We all have habits that support us. Here are a few of mine which might work for you as well:

• Early to bed, early to rise! I prioritize sleep and it makes my body so happy!

• Start off my day with walking. My dog demands this, but it’s a great way to get the day going.

• Three meals a day focusing on protein, carbohydrates and fat with each meal.

• Connection with friends and loved ones.

• Exercise! I really love all exercise but Pilates is definitely the movement my body enjoys the most.

• Reading.

• Some kind of support for my nervous system and mental health daily. This could be a walk in the woods or a few minutes meditating.

What are the habits you are consistent with? How have they improved your life? Do you miss them if you are traveling?

If you’d like support around changing or creating different habits, please reach out for a coaching session.

Quick Tips to Beat the Heat

Do you love summertime? Or does the heat and humidity wipe you out? It has been especially hot and humid in Virginia this summer, and you might notice lower energy and fatigue from the high heat combined with the high humidity. Here are a few tips to help support your body so you can get the most enjoyment out of summer.

1. Listen to your body! Listening to your body is always the right call, but especially with extreme temperatures, it is important to use your body as a guide. Feeling wiped out after your walk? Want to stay inside and take a nap? What cues is your body giving you and can you listen to them? If you do listen, they can help.

2. Hydrate hydrate hydrate! Guidelines for hydration are ½ of your body weight in ounces of water, but if you are sweating a lot you might need more. Your body will absorb more water if there’s something in your water: a squeeze of lemon or sprig of fresh mint. You might also want to consider adding electrolytes, and I definitely would if you’re sweating a lot. There are lots of good options out there. I like Cure.

3. Exercise outside early in the day. If you’re exercising (or gardening, doing yardwork, etc.), get outside early! You’ll avoid the hottest part of the day and the strongest sun exposure. You might find you have less endurance for exercise. Listen to that. 

4. Nap! If you’re craving that afternoon siesta and you have time, go for it! Use the natural rhythms your body wants as a way to tune into what you need.

5. Find simple and consistent movement practices you can do anywhere—home, vacation, at the pool and in the airport. While you might be less consistent with your regular routine and schedule, if you can find 1-3 exercises to incorporate daily, your body will thank you, especially if you have lots of travel planned. I’m always happy to help you with this, just reach out.

Date, Feta and Red Cabbage Salad

PHOTO FROM SMITTEN KITCHEN

I love Smitten Kitchen’s recipes, this one sounded oddly intriguing and I loved it on the side with protein!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pound red cabbage (1 small head or 1/2 large) cut very thinly

3 TBS olive oil

2 TBS lime juice

Salt and red pepper flakes

1/2 cup pitted dates chopped or sliced

4 ounces feta, crumbled

1 TBS flat-leaf parsley, chopped

2 TSP well-roasted seasame seeds (I substituted walnuts)

Instructions:

Toss cabbage with olive oil, lime juice, salt and red pepper flakes. Taste and add more as needed.

Add the dates and feta and gently combine, then add the parsley and sesame seeds (or walnuts) and enjoy!

Makes 4-6 servings as a side.

This salad also keeps well for a day or two.

Finding Small Pleasures in Simple Moments

I was on my early morning walk along the Rivanna River with Winnie dog recently, and something caught my eye.

It looked like the water was moving in the wrong direction. A closer look showed me that a beaver was swimming upstream. He was swimming with ease, skimming through the water and looked to be enjoying his morning swim. I haven’t noticed a beaver on the river in a while, and it’s always nice to notice animal friends. Away he swam and then dove under to his dam. I noticed how much joy this simple moment brought me.

Tuning into these types of moments is really supportive for the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch of the nervous system that supports rest, digestion and rejuvenation. If you have a history of trauma, it can be especially hard to notice the good as your nervous system is even more primed to be alert for potential dangers and can be quick to activate into fight or flight. Connecting to these small, simple things can support your body in feeling glimmers of good and can be profound in teaching your nervous system how to have more capacity. The more we can stay present, the more we can increase our capacity. Being present with pleasure also helps us hold our pain more easily.

Because of how much I enjoy noticing these small moments, I’m really trying to notice more of them — the bright red cardinal against the gray tree branch, the way the sun shines on the floor of my Pilates studio, the softness of Winnie’s ears and the first sprouts of green of spring flowers.

Will you join me in this practice of noticing small feel-good moments?

I know life is doing its thing, and for many it seems to be particularly hard right now. This practice isn’t to pretend hard things aren’t happening or to try to make them better. This is a practice of tuning into small things that happen every day that bring you a sense of pleasure, support, joy or contentment.

If you try this I’d love to hear how it goes and how it supports you to feel more connected to your body and to your day.

What to Do When 'Feeling Overwhelmed' Takes Over

It is so common to feel overwhelmed. For many, life feels like that a lot of the time, which is hard on our bodies and nervous systems. Feeling overwhelmed often can easily put us in what I call “a state of overwhelm.”

What is the feeling in your body when you feel overwhelmed? Anxiety? Restlessness? Difficulty concentrating? Racing thoughts? Worries about the future? Wanting to act but not being sure how? Feeling frozen and stuck? Overwhelm can show in our bodies in various ways, and we each have our own patterns.

Overwhelm happens when we get stuck in a fight or flight stress response. While our stress response is a good thing (we’re designed to be able to respond appropriately to threats), constant and low level stress pushes our nervous systems beyond the capacity of what we can handle, and in comes the overwhelm.

Our nervous system likes space, slowness and time to integrate changes. So often in our modern world, we are not given that opportunity, which can lead to the opposite experience that our nervous systems ideally want. Before we reach a state of overwhelm, something or many things push us to that point where our nervous system says, “I can’t do this right now.”

When you’re in the midst of this experience, you might not be clear on how to get out of it. How do you get the wired and tired feeling to stop? Why can’t you settle down and rest? Why do you feel stuck on the couch with what feels like no motivation, even though you keep thinking about all the things you want or need to do? If you’ve experienced this, you make sense!

Once you are aware of this happening, can you take small steps toward supporting your nervous system? One way to do this is to notice your state of overwhelm and the accompanying sensation in your body. Then, see if there’s something your body wants to do. Sometimes, it might be movement, sometimes it might be collapsing. See if you can be with that impulse and give your body a little time to be with that feeling, then see what happens next.

When we allow our bodies the time and freedom to explore the sensations in our body, often something will shift. Sometimes a deeper breath, a yawn and a little bit of settling. Then notice what feels different. It might not be a huge change, but noticing the small change is the perfect place to start.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, a Somatic Experiencing session can help you understand more about your personal patterns and how to support what you need. Reach out if you’d like to schedule a session or learn more.