 1. Understanding the physiology of anxiety to be able to overcome it With anxiety comes the symptoms of the primary "fight-or-flight response: - Our breathing accelerates and becomes fast and shallow. - Our heart rate accelerates - Our blood sugar spikes - Our senses get sharper - Our bloodstream gets flooded with the stress hormones adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine When these hormones and our nervous system put our body on high alert, our musculoskeletal system contracts and springs into action to be ready to face an intense situation. While helpful for the occasional life challenges, such intense contraction in our muscles and joints as well as the long-term exposure to stress hormones are most damaging to our physical and mental health in the long run. The American Medical Association has noted that stress is the basic cause of more than 60 percent of all human illness and disease and it is recognized by many as the No. 1 proxy killer disease today. For example, long-term exposure to cortisol and other stress hormone can contribute to weight gain, heart conditions, digestive issues, insomnia, autoimmune diseases, burnout and can disrupt almost all our body's processes. 2. Why movement is an essential remedy As a result of too many or too intense perceived threats, our body never lets the guard down and high strung tension starts becoming a constant and pervasive reality in our nerves, muscles and joints, with contraction in these typical places: shoulders, neck, lower back, hips, and jaw. This is where movement comes in! Movement, a direct outlet for the physical stress response, prevents, diffuses and relieves the buildup of muscular and nervous tension. Some major benefits of movement: - Freeing the body from tension patterns - Allowing our tissues and joints to relax - Allowing our mind to relax: focusing only on our body's movements frees the mind and is like meditation in motion. - Allowing to burn the energy that has been stored in the muscles, letting them return to their normal resting state after exercise is complete. - Strengthening muscles and bones - Increasing brain's feel-good neurotransmitters:
- Exercising for twenty minutes or more can dramatically enhance our mood by releasing endorphins which relieve pain and increase a sense of well-being and relaxation. - Exercise in short bursts. Even brief bouts of physical activity offer benefits. For instance, if you can't fit in one 30-minute walk, try a few 10-minute walks instead. Taking a break to move and stretch, bike, dance or go for a walk is incredibly rewarding! What movement calls to you? Whatever you choose, what is most important is making regular physical activity part of your lifestyle!  3. Massage as a key therapy to deepen relaxation and joie de vivre!
Massage therapy can have a major impact in relieving anxiety by eliciting a relaxation response in our nervous system. In activating our parasympathetic system (the relaxing branch of our autonomic nervous system) massage plays a key role in rectifying the unbalance that occurs when anxiety strikes. It does this by reeducating our system to find its way back to comfort, ease, relaxation and flow. It is also highly effective at diffusing tension patterns, lowering heart rate and nourishing our tissues with more blood flow and oxygen. The Mayo Clinic reports that after just one session, a 60-minute massage can lower cortisol by up to 30 percent. Massage is also effective because of the release of three major “feel-good” chemicals into the body: endorphins, oxytocin and serotonin. A study published in the journal Depression and Anxiety found participants who received regular massage therapy for 12 weeks had a 50 percent reduction in anxiety symptoms. And the benefits weren’t short-lived either: symptom reduction remained at 50 percent 26 weeks after the therapy had ended. Overall, massage therapy allows us to reconnect with a deeper sense of well-being and enjoyment enabling us to feel good all around! We can anchor this grounded sense of calm, ease and wellness and bring it more readily to our everyday life. We are therefore more likely to feel stronger, resourceful and to bring more radiant and positive energy to our life, even in the face of challenging situations!
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When we touch on a key desire, we might feel a spark, a feeling of resonance in our chest, or even a jolt..and it might be scary too! After all, if this is a long time buried desire, we have reasons why we haven’t taken it on just yet. Sometimes, the feeling that comes right after we touch on a key aspiration is anxiety - And as surprising as it may seem, it’s the sign that we’re on to something good! The gift on the other side of anxiety If you ever feel anxious or blocked, it’s definitely not a pleasant state to be in… It’s like wanting to dive in a swimming pool and even though we might know it’s safe, somehow we freeze. So to get out of feeling in this negative state, I want to share 2 steps that have been the most useful to my patients and myself. These offer a reframing of anxiety, and this might just be a reminder for you, but hopefully a good one! 1. Realizing that all our emotions have a positive function. Even the worst emotions like fear have a key role. If we are going to cross a busy road, then fear is here to protect us so we don’t get hurt. So what is anxiety here for? What does it want us to pay attention to? Clearly it's a big charge of energy when we feel anxious. Why is that? Check in for a moment and see if there is something you are anxious about at this time. If so, and whatever it is: something you want to accomplish, a creative project to take on, a new career to explore, a special person to go on a date with or a conversation you know you need to have, if it didn’t matter then you wouldn’t be anxious! This is the first key and why we need to pay attention. The first message of anxiety is : It matters!!! And so no amount of general relaxation, yoga or breathing alone is going to solve it until we address the gift inside. It would be like sweeping a treasure under the carpet.There is a gift ready to be found within the feeling of Anxiety, there's a calling: There's a very good reason why this matters to YOU in particular. It points to the core of your most important desires. So my first piece of feedback here is: Do not ignore it. - If we sweep it under the rug, then we can get to a state of pervasive anxiety when we don’t even know why we feel this way any longer, it’s just the state we're in..and we can get physically sick if we continue to ignore and repress it. - On the other hand, we can listen to the messenger and hear it as good news: There is something important to us, something to be really excited about on the other side of it: meeting love, creating new art, starting a new career we’re passionate about, resolving a communication with someone we care about. It’s not about getting rid of the messenger, it’s about pulling the thread until we get to the gift that is truly exciting to us! 2.Recognizing that anxiety is a kind of negative visualization When something feels too big for us, or we don’t know how to go about it, or it triggers fears because it’s similar to situations that haven’t worked in the past, then we start fearing it and our mind anticipate something negative. Simply put, we visualize negatively. Now the good news is: if we can visualize negatively, so can we positively! If this is important, AND we start believing that we can achieve it, then the same big emotional charge turns positive and we can start to get excited! So I hope these steps help to give a context where anxiety isn’t just negative but simply the portal to excitement and enthusiasm. Now how do we go from Anxiety to Excitement in the easiest way, with the least amount of pain and in the most effective way possible? This is what I will be sharing about next, with practical steps you can follow, that I found most helpful in my practice.  If you would rather listen to this newsletter please click here
More often than not, some of our most important desires get buried in the busyness of everyday life and the pressure of immediate productivity. With more time to reflect around the holidays and with the New Year, our true longings often resurface and come out. We may be, however, at a different stage on the spectrum of being clear on what they are at this time. If, for example, we are not feeling a strong calling then we are probably not in touch with our true priorities. If so, this is a great time to engage in a process to put our key desires in the driver's seat of our life. Here are a few steps I found especially helpful for my patients and myself, that I hope will be beneficial to you: A. Clarifying process While New Year’s resolutions are well-known, if we want them to stick, we first need to clear the way to give them a strong foundation! For tips about clearing your physical space see my previous article: Being home Let’s take advantage of the quieter time of winter to reflect and assess on what has or hasn’t been working in our lives, especially in terms of habits and relationships. This clarification gives us the chance to take back our power in making better choices forward. Of course, these can be complex situations. And so here are some questions to start with: Have we given it our best, genuine effort? If not, what is in the way of us giving it our best effort? Can we commit for a given time to give it our best effort? If we have: what can we see is in the way in the given situation? Is there anything more we can do? If we assess that there is absolutely nothing more we can do, then it is time to release it. Either way, this clarification process is highly empowering for us and everyone involved when it is done with compassion and genuine intention. B. Attending to our True Desires Once we have gained clarity on what we do want to keep, to try or to release, we can focus on our desires with all the care and patience new seeds require:
“What blooms from beautiful seeds of thought becomes a symphony of colorful abundance.” - Jazz Feylynn  If you would rather listen to this newsletter please click here
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Practical Steps Part 2 In order to make our home a supportive environment, we saw that the first principle is to keep only what gives us energy: once we have accomplished this with a good spring cleaning and keeping only what inspires us at this time, we can apply the second principle: Create space by ..creating structure!This is a simple yet powerful principle. Even if we have a small space, creating boundaries within one space to have particular areas dedicated to special activities, actually has the impact of multiplying our space! it literally feels bigger because it offers a multiplicity of experiences.
 If you would rather hear this article please click here. How has it been for you to be home? Probably more than ever before, like most of us. For the people I know and myself, it’s been both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it’s been liberating: “Yay!” say some, “I don’t have to be anywhere!” On the other hand: well we might feel like “I’m in the same place I was yesterday and the day before!” So when we feel trapped, how do we get out of the box and like the cartoon SpongeBob use some good Imagination? Let’s look at both sides of the box so to speak: On the positive
Whatever the situation we are in, whether we are financially or health challenged or we are lucky to be safe and healthy in these times, we can make our home a supportive environment. We can take it as a good challenge that can benefit us now and in the long run. Practical Steps Part 1So today I want to offer practical steps with two main principles for making your home a supportive environment: nurturing, inspiring, relaxing, just however you like it! The first principle is overall to keep ONLY what brings you energy. What is needed to accomplish this is: A: Create Space In order to create space, we first need to discard what is not needed. a: Sorting out and discarding is a process all in itself that can be a tough one at first but soon enough, it can be liberating like “getting rid of dead weights.” I find that it really helps to break it down in separate tasks:
b: Complete with your past with peace and gratitude You may want to take a few special times to sort out belongings with sentimental value to decide on their new place in your life. Unexpected positive benefits from clearing out can come as:
B: Bring in Energy and Joy
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