Four Ways To Relieve STRESS AT BEDTIME

Have you ever noticed that when you comfort eat, you do it really fast?
Maybe you also get stuck on your phone when you should be sleeping?
Here are four more ways to calm your nervous system down, and disrupt cravings. Practising these will develop your ability to change the course of your cravings and compulsions, organically.

In this podcast:

• The power of the pause
• Slowing down your speech
• Yawning
• A soothing bedtime story 'How The Whale Got His Throat' - Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling

Next week, I'll give you more ways to de-stress.

Another podcast you might like: 10 Ways to Overcome Anxiety

Citations
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm going to show you more ways to de stress without food. Hi, I'm Shelly Treacher from Underground Confidence, and I'm here to help you get control back of your eating. Have you ever noticed that when you're binging or when you comfort eat, that you often do it really fast? This is fight or flight. If you don't know what I mean by that, go back to my last two podcasts. When anxiety strikes, or when a difficult feeling happens, and when a binge craving strikes, what you're going to need to be able to do is create a gap. A pause. Do you see what I'm doing here? In between your responses and your reactions. So you need to create a pause between having a craving and responding to that craving. Or create a pause between feeling anxious and staying awake all night scrolling. Next, I'll talk about a couple of other simple ways that you can calm your nervous system or shift your state enough to perhaps decide not to comfort eat. I should caveat this by saying that it probably won't happen straight away that you'll suddenly be able to resist eating. This is something that accumulates. The more you do it, the better you get at it. That's why I keep on telling you lots of different ways that you can calm your nervous system down. Something will sit right with you, something will work better than others. So here are another couple of ways. Something else that you can try is slowing down your speech. I know this might sound dull to somebody listening, but to me it feels so peaceful. Try slowing down your breath, your voice, and your words. This is gonna make you feel different, maybe even blissful. Yawning also resets the nervous system. Apparently yawning is infectious for anyone who has empathy, so if you get a video of somebody yawning or you see somebody yawning, that might even help you. I talked a little bit about sleep and yawning just before Christmas when I was doing bedtime stories at Christmas. Yawning is just really interesting because people in this culture particularly come into my office and when they start yawning, they start apologizing as if as if it means that they I'm gonna think that they think I'm boring. That's so irrelevant to therapy because yawning actually does mean that your nervous system is calming down. So it's a sign that you feel less threatened that you're coming out of threats, so you can start to relax and your body starts to slow down in all kinds of different ways. So it's actually a compliment to me that I'm helping them to change their state. So I want you to know that right now I'm watching a video that says don't yawn on YouTube. I'm not gonna promote who it is, but here we go. Oh yeah, it's working. So I'd recommend that. So today, so far, I've talked about learning to create a pause between your thought or your feeling state and your reaction. Then I encouraged you to slow down your speech as a way to create a chance for that pause and to calm you from a state of stress. Then I talked about how yawning is a sign of your nervous system starting to relax. So now I'm gonna read you a story. This is one of the just so stories by Rogyard Kipling. This is how the whale got his throat. In the sea, once upon a time, oh my best beloved, there was a whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish and the crab and the dab, and the place and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackerel and the pickerel, and the really truly twirly whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth, so till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small stute fish, and he swam a little behind the whale's right ear, so as to be out of harm's way. Then the whale stood up on his tail and said I'm hungry and the small stute fish said in a small stute voice Noble and generous cetacean have you ever tasted man? No, said the whale. What is it like? Nice, said the small stute fish. Nice but nubly. Then fetch me some, said the whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail. One at a time is enough, said the Stute Fish. If you swim to latitude fifty north, longitude forty west that is magic, you will find sitting on a raft in the middle of the sea with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders you must not forget the suspenders, best beloved, and a jack knife, one shipwrecked mariner, who, it is only fair to tell you, is a man of infinite resource and sagacity. So the whale swam and swam to latitude fifty north, longitude forty west, as fast as he could swim, and on a raft in the middle of the sea, with nothing to wear except a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders you must particularly remember the suspenders, best beloved and a jack knife, he found one single solitary, shipwrecked mariner, trailing his toes in the water. He had mummy's leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it, because he was a man of infinite resource and sagacity. Then the whale opened his mouth back and back and back, till it nearly touched his tail, and he swallowed the shipwrecked mariner, and the raft he was sitting on, and his blue canvas breeches, and the suspenders, which you must not forget, and the jack knife. He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark inside cupboards, and then he smacked his lips and turned round three times on his tail. But as soon as the mariner, who was a man of infinite resource and sagacity, found himself truly inside the whale's warm, dark inside cupboards, he stumped and he jumped, and he thumped and he bumped, and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leapt and he crept, and he prowled and he howled, and he hopped and he dropped, and he cried and he sighed, and he crawled and he bawled, and he stepped and he leapt, and he danced hornpipes where he shouldn't. And the whale felt most unhappy indeed. Have you forgotten the suspenders? So he said to the Stootfish, this man is very nubbly, and besides he is making me hiccup. What shall I do? Tell him to come out, said the Stootfish. So the whale called down his own throat to the shipwrecked mariner. Come out and behave yourself. I've got the hiccups. Nay, nay, said the mariner. Not so, but far otherwise. Take me to my natal shore and the white cliffs of Albion, and I'll think about it. And he began to dance more than ever. You had better take me home, said the stoopfish to the whale. I ought to have warned you that he is a man of infinite resource and sagacity. So the whale swam and swam and swam, with both flippers and his tail, as hard as he could for the hiccups, and at last he saw the mariner's natal shore and the white cliffs of Albion, and he rushed halfway up the beach and opened his mouth wide and wide and wide, and said Change here for Winchester, Ashelot, Nashua, Keen, and stations on the Fitchburg Road. And just as he said fitch, the mariner walked out of his mouth. But while the whale had been swimming, the mariner, who was indeed a person of infinite resource and sagacity, had taken his jack knife and cut up the raft into a little square grating, all running crisscross, and he had tied it firm with his suspenders. Now you know why you are not to forget the suspenders. And he dragged that grating good and tight into the whale's throat, and there it stuck. Then he recited the following sloka, which, as you have not heard it, I will now proceed to relate. By means of a grating I have stopped your ateing. For the mariner he was also an Hibernian, and he stepped out on the shingle and went home to his mother, who had given him leave to trail his toes in the water, and he married and lived happily ever afterward. So did the whale, but from that day on the grating in his throat, which he could neither cough up nor swallow down, prevented him eating anything except very, very small fish. And that is the reason why whales nowadays never eat men or boys or little girls. The small stoopfish went and hid himself in the mud under the door sills of the equator. He was afraid that the whale might be angry with him. The sailor took the jack knife home. He was wearing the blue canvas breeches when he walked out on the shingle. The suspenders were left behind, you see, to tie the grating with, and that is the end of that tale. When the cabin portholes are darkened green because of the seas outside, when the ship goes wop with a wiggle between and the steward falls into the soup terrine, and the trunks begin to slide. When Nursi lies on the floor in a heap, a mummy tells you to let her sleep, and you aren't waked or washed or dressed. Why then you will know if you haven't guessed, you're fifty north and forty west. So this week I talked about learning to create a pause between your thought and your feeling state, and your reaction. Then I encouraged you to slow down your speech as a way to create a chance for that pause and to calm you from any stress state. Then I talked about how yawning is a sign of the nervous system starting to relax, and I encouraged you to yawn more. Finally, I read you a just so story, how the whale got his throat. Next week I'll carry on showing you more ways that you can de stress. Thank you so much for listening. My name's Shelley Treacher from Underground Confidence. If you found this podcast useful, please share it. Thank you so much. I'll see you next week.