Welcome to Healthy Ish. Thanks for tuning in to your daily podcasts. From Body and Soul with Me Felicity Harley. Now, if life the world is weighing you down, then you are listening to the right episode. It will give you a much needed pep up. I am joined by psychologist Anna Nikolau, who shares a few hand coping strategies to help bring more joy to your day. Hey, listening to extra healthy Ish, where Anna talks about well she shares some easy ways to regulate your nervous system. You can
catch that one wherever we get your podcasts. Anna, Welcome to health Ish.
Thank you for having me.
How are you welcome? Welcome to Sydney From.
Robert I'm loving it now.
There's a lot going on. I feel like the world is really heavy personally. I know a lot of people we talk to, well, a lot of people I talk to at the schoolgate, in the in the Bristol line, feel like we're just impacted by everything else that's going on around us. What are you hearing and seeing and feeling.
Then there's definitely a lot going on. We are, you know, overloading our schedule. Everything's at a fast pace and I think we just feel overwhelmed most of the time. You know, how can we fit everything in in such a short amount of time that we have.
It is the other thing that overwhelmed the schedules, everything that's going on, technology, the world, you know, what's going on outside our borders. It all just it's like a big cloud over so many of us. How does our body deal with all of this stress?
Well, I think what happens is because we are in a society now that is fast pace. There's a lot of change. You know, we've got we're advancing and moving quickly at a rate that's the fastest that it ever has been. I think with change. As humans, we don't generally like change. We like things to be predictable. We like to know what's ahead. And I think with this change that we are experiencing at a fast rate, we are feeling quite unsettled because of the unpredictability and the
uncertainty of what's ahead. So with that brings on some anxiety and stress and worries, which we are starting to see more and more often.
Are you seeing that in your practice more cases and more people coming with these anxiety concerns.
Yeah, Look, anxiety and stress is one of our biggest issues that we're dealing with that we're seeing with our clients coming in because it's just a lot to deal with. As you said, if we look at everything that's going on in the world, even just in our day to day, it's a lot to manage, and it is how do we cope whilst this is going on?
What are the health consequences of carrying this this stress?
Well, I guess when we're stressed and anxious, there's different things that can happen. We all experience stress differently to others. What tends to happen when we are anxious and stressed is we start to neglect ourselves. We're too busy, things are too hectic, and we start, you know, neglecting what we eat, our exercise. We just think we don't have
time for self care. So just from that, the consequences to our health start to we start to experience other consequences is in our the way we behave, the way we interact with others. We may start to withdraw because it's just too much. We stop socializing and we become more isolated.
How do we manage how can we let's talk about from like a macro sense, how can we manage the stress of the world, and then micro how can we manage ourselves?
And maybe we need to do it the other way around. Let's first focus on ourselves because I think when we look at the everything that's going on, it seems too big and too much. Let's focus on what we actually can control, because we can't control what's going on around us. And as I said before, you know, if things are unpredictable, we are unsettled. So let's focus on, well, what can I can control in my day to day that's going to make me feel more settled and that's going to
be good for me. So I would be looking at first the self care. You know, that's something we can start thinking about right now. You know, looking at our diet, our sleep, routine, exercise, all those things, we see the benefits to our mental health. When we are looking after ourselves, we are sort of mentally strong and more resilient to then cope with the bigger things.
Yeah, that's a really good point. Actually, my husband joke said, I'm I mean, I'm very milli about my my sleep and my food and my exercise, Like I have to exercise, but he jokes about it. But for me, it's not a joke because it's actually how I cope, like personally, can cope with everything else going on.
You've seen how it does help you then get through the day to day. And we do need to prioritize it because if we're not looking after ourselves and that drops off, we become more vulnerable to anxiety and stress and negative thinking and not coping. So we really do need to prioritize self care.
What about when we get caught up in conversations about what's happening overseas, you know, whether it be the war in Ukraine, what's happening in the US, and you know, often you can get suck into these conversations and you can't help but take on some of the stress and anxiety from those conversations. How can we kind of protect ourselves from that when we're unwittingly well, we look at a headline and then it triggers something or I.
Think it's also important to stop and notice the good things that are going on. It's not all doing my gloom and negative. There are a lot of good things that are going on in the world, but we do tend to sort of gravitate towards the not so good things. And obviously, if we're exposed to social media and you know, things that are coming through our feed, we can get
pulled into that. But I think it is important to be more aware and mindful of looking at the good things that are going on, so it's a more balanced view. The other thing I would suggest is maybe you know, switching off your devices as well at times, or not looking at some things that are more triggering that's going to bring about more anxiety in stress.
How can we tap into that joy, more tap into the feel good emotions. I'm with you, don't think about this, Let's think about this. How do we actually do this?
Yeah, so I think we just we can easily get pulled into, like I said, and be distracted by a lot of noise that's going on, and it really for us to experience joy, we need to just focus being present in the moment. Let's just focus on where we are right now and what's going on in front of us. And I think if we can practice being more present and more engaged, we're naturally going to feel a lot
more connected and that brings about positivity and joy. So I talk about with my clients you know, when you're interacting with someone. Majority of the time, I think we can all relate. When we're talking to someone, we're not fully listening and we're already planning or thinking about what we're going to do next, or what am I cooking for dinner? Or you know, what do I have to get at the shops, and we're not fully present and engaged in that moment. So the best way to be
engaged in present is focus on your senses. What can I see, what can I hear? What can I smell? What can I touch? In some examples, and that brings us really to the present, and then we enjoy that interaction or that experience a lot more full fully, and you will notice it, it's more enjoyable.
It's often hard to kind of catch yourself in the moment, isn't it. It's almost like a muscle that you you have to train to think, okay, like focus, stop thinking about that. Like it's so easy to get caught up in that. It's so easy the thoughts that, you know, the rumination and the cycles of I need to do this, I need especially at this time.
Yeah. Well, research is showing too that we can't hold attention as long as we used to. You know, over time now our attention span is reducing significantly. Everything we want is immediate. I mean when we read an article, we skim through it. We've sort of lost that ability to hold attention. It's something we really need to start practicing more. And it's really being just aware to hold that attention, to be present to you know, not be pulled in or distracted by other things or picking up
our phone at the dinner table. It's something we've really got to practice because we've slipped into some bad habits and it's really something we go to train our brain to hold attention. And I think by focusing on your senses and more aware of that, that's the best way to practice holding attention. And when you do practice that, you notice it actually hurts, like it you feel your brain hurt when you have to hold attention and notice your senses. But that's good. You've got to work that.
There's something that over time you can and.
It does get easier.
It does get easier.
Yeah, And I thank you for coming on Healthish, thank you for having me well. Thanks for tuning in too Anna's wisdom. If you do want more from her, listening to extra Healthyish, where we take a bit of a deep dive into the nervous system. If you want anything else from us, you know where to go bodyansoul dot com that you follow us on socials, Grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper, and until tomorrow, stay healthish.