Latest / The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women / Why Can’t I Relax? It Might Be Something You Do Every Day

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Why Can’t I Relax? It Might Be Something You Do Every Day · The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have work and a family and plans change.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Things are here, there, and everywhere.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: But within that unpredictability, your body stopped being able to predict anything and thus has kept your body in a state of a low-grade stress response, even in the times when you think you aren't stressed at all.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to stop pushing through and start feeling like themselves again.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm CJ, Ayurvedic Wellness Guide, helping women reconnect to the natural rhythm their bodies have been craving.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't that long ago that I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn't fix, bloated no matter what I ate, and lying awake at 3 a.m.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: with my mind already running tomorrow's to-do list.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I just needed to be more consistent, more disciplined.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that my body wasn't feeling me.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was completely overwhelmed because you're not broken.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've just been living outside your natural rhythm for a long time.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Body Rhythm.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am so glad to have you here today.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't already, please like and subscribe.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to have you back.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're talking about why you feel worse when your daily routine is all over the place.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And have you ever noticed on the days when everything is off, when you wake up at a different time, when you eat whenever you have time to eat, when you go to bed way later than you meant to, you just feel worse the next day.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because anything dramatic happened, but your just but your digestion might be off.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your mood might be a little bit, um, you might have a little bit more mood swings, you might be closer to irritability or anger, or maybe just withdrawal.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your energy could be all over the place.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your sleep, when it finally comes, it doesn't really feel like it did the job, like you're feeling well rested.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you might wonder to yourself, why can't you just feel okay?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's not about what you did.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not about eating the perfect keto diet, right?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's about your body didn't know what to expect.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was stuck in this low grade state of stress.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this low grade state of stress was creating the conditions in the body to always be on guard and searching for the threat rather than releasing into softness and rest and digest mode.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you have weeks with no shape.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe on Monday you're up early, and Tuesday you're up late, and lunch happens one day at 11, and then it happens at 2:30 the next day, or it doesn't happen at all.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then dinner happens whenever it's whatever, and then you push bedtime back, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's the only time you feel like it's really yours.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then the weekend looks nothing like the weekdays, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're off to the volleyball game or the soccer game, we got baseball going on, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're just grabbing whatever again, and every day has a different shape and a different rhythm to it, and it's because you're a woman with a full life, you have work and a family, and plans change, things are here, there, and everywhere.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: But within that unpredictability, your body stopped being able to predict anything, and thus has kept your body in a state of a low-grade stress response, even in the times when you think you aren't stressed at all.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So your body has a clock, and it's an internal clock, and it's called circadian rhythm.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a clock that helps the body run and coordinate our sleep time and our awake time and our hormones and our digestion and the body temperature and our energy and your gut and even the microbiome has its own daily rhythm.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The circadium rhythm, our internal clock, works best when every day has a predictable routine.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so when our routines are consistent, when they're the same day to day, when we eat at the same meal times every day, when we go to bed at the same time every day, when we wake up at the same time every day, we're creating an environment where the body can anticipate and prepare what we're doing.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're eating at the same time every day, the body begins to rely on that timing and it can start the digestive process before we even take a bite of the meal.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: If we go to bed at the same time every day, the body can then predict what time we're gonna go to bed and it can begin to prepare our evening window before our head even hits the pillow.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: That eases us into sleep sooner rather than us just lying in bed with the mind and the thoughts racing.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when our timing, when our routine is all over the place, the body is always guessing.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't know when to turn off that flight or flight response and turn on the rest to digest response because it's always just looking for the next threat.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: It hasn't begun to get any cues of predictability.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's research that has come out that irregular sleep and ill irregular meal timing links to worse sleep, to worse mood, and to worse digestive health.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: In Ayurveda, there is a practice called dhinacharya.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to know that word.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: All it means is a daily practice, a daily routine.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the idea that our day moves through cycles, and our body does best when we also move through the cycles.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we are a woman who is doing all the things with no predictable routine from day to day to day, it throws us off even more and it can create more anxiety, it can create more overwhelm, it can create more fear, it can create more skipped meals and shifting bedtimes and constant change, and and it inevitably leads to a sense of depletion and anxiousness and the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Our digestion becomes unpredictable, right?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we eat something one day and it's fine, and we eat the same thing the next day and it's not fine.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so that becomes the pattern.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: The day with no shape feeds the quality within us that's already been disturbed by our busy life.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our routine becomes one of the easiest ways to begin feeling better and to begin alleviating some of these symptoms within.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our routine isn't about being more disciplined or having the perfect morning routine or the perfect evening routine or optimizing our day according to what our aura ring is telling us.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Our routine is based on predictability.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when our daily routine is predictable, our nervous system begins to learn that it's safe, and our nervous system begins to soften and the tension lessens, and we begin to relax a little bit more.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to move from fight or flight mode into rest and digest mode more easily.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And with a predictable routine, as the body knows roughly when food is coming, when sleep is coming, when the day will begin and end, the body begins to organize itself around these times.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Energy begins to smooth out, digestion begins to become a little bit better, sleep begins to come a little bit easier.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when our routine is kind of all over the place, it can feel a bit destabilizing, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because the body then is always asking, what's happening?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's next?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: What can I count on?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing today?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm doing that right now, I automatically get this tightness in the gut, right?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so our daily routine becomes our daily anchor that the rest of the day can revolve around.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are the daily anchors that I recommend that don't require a lot from us.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't require an overhaul of an entire routine.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: A daily anchor for waking.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wake up roughly at the same time every day.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And your body begins to learn when the day starts.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then an anchor for food and meals.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Eat your meals breakfast, lunch, and dinner roughly at the same time every day.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because steady meal times tells your gut to begin to prepare for digestion, which makes digestion a little bit easier and helps ease the bloating and the gas and the heartburn and the constipation.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then a daily anchor for winding down, choosing a rough time of the evening to begin to transition from your go mode early in the day to rest mode.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's dimming the lights, lighting some candles, looking at the sunset, putting the phone away, stop planning for tomorrow.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's journaling or prayer.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you begin to let the end of the day have a transition before your head hits the pillow.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens when you have a day where everything falls apart, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have no choice because everything is happening and you're just kind of responding.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's okay too.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because those days are gonna happen.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we just try to hold the anchors with a loose hand, right?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if our breakfast is chaos, we woke up late, we're just grabbing whatever we we can before we go out the door, and then we didn't really have anything prepared for lunch, so we're grabbing whatever it is, or maybe we have the bar at the desk or at the volleyball game.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe then it's keeping the bedtime, the wine down, exactly the same time, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then that evening anchor is enough to tell the body that hey, we're safe here.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's still a rhythm and a routine to our day, even though the rest of the day got kind of messed up.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: It might throw you off, it probably will, but you're you're beginning to give the body consistent cues of safety and support.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And those consistent cues of safety and support are telling the nervous system that it doesn't have to be in activation mode all the time, but that it can release and soften and transition into rest and relaxation.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we have a daily routine, when we have a daily rhythm that works for our life, we create small openings, small places in the body where your body can count on something.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then it becomes a life that your body begins to trust.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it begins to let go of what you're what you've been holding, whether it's the emotions that you've been pushing down or the extra weight that's been difficult to take off.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I invite you to think about what your routine has been looking like lately.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe start with one thing, a consistent time to wake up every morning, or maybe it's a consistent time to go to bed.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And just begin to create these small daily anchors in your day.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're wondering how stress, how uh unpredictable routine might be showing up in your body, whether it's through tension or unpredictable digestion, I have the hidden signs of burnout uh body checklist linked in the show notes.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Check it out and see if you have any of the top nine symptoms of burnout and stress happening in your body.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me on this episode of the body rhythm.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't already, please like or subscribe.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to see you back.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Be well and nourished.