WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, Sally Riggs here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and you're long COVID Coach. And welcome to another Wellness Wednesday. So I know that last week was the first week of the new year. But I'm back in New York this week and so this definitely feels much more like the first week of the year for me. Even though I was working last week, I'm back on my regular schedule. And my nervous system has been reminding me that I need to pay attention to it. And there's been some discussion on the Facebook group in the last week, a few folks sharing one thing each day that they're planning to do in this new year to support their nervous system. And I really wanted to develop that theme.

This idea that actually, we're supporting our nervous system, constantly, every minute of every day, throughout the day, or we're not supporting our nervous system constantly, every minute of every day. And I know that you've heard me talk a great deal that most of us with Long COVID seem to be very driven, type A, perfectionist type people. And we're very used to not listening to our bodies at all until we feel quite uncomfortable, and then pushing on through anyways. And I've been really working hard in recent months on taking a very different approach. And with my travel and with the holidays, things got a little bit disrupted. And so I'm trying to get back into good practices again and felt like it would be important to share some of those with you.

So thinking about lots of little things that we can do, minute to minute, day to day to put our nervous systems first. And so we're really putting the emphasis on driving everything from a place of supported nervous system and as much as possible Rest and Digest rather than the other way round, where we pretend like our nervous system isn't there. And then once in a while or more than once in a while it catches up to us and shuts everything down. And I know that many of you with Long COVID are living in a state of permanent Shutdown of your nervous system. And so we're really trying to get the emphasis back to being able to take care of ourselves first rather than the other way around.

So some of the things that I do on a daily basis and continuing throughout the day. When I get out of bed in the morning, the first thing that I want to do is really press my feet into the ground, that is going to stimulate as much as possible, Rest and Digest when our feet are like this, that is going to trigger some type of Sympathetic or Fight or Flight response. So as I get out of bed, and it's very normal for many of us to wake up in Sympathetic Activation, I'm just going to ground myself as much as possible, I've got bare feet, I'm going to feel the carpet under my feet or you may have a wood floor or you may have some type of a rug and just pushing your feet out feeling that, bringing your body into Rest and Digest as much as possible.

Then when I'm sitting here at my desk, I have a chair that supports my shoulders and my back, I have something under my feet and I've got one of those little footrest things that's got kind of wobbly bits on it so that I can get some stimulation of the bottom of my feet, which is grounding and again is activating my central nervous system. We're all slightly different. So these are things to play around with and see what works for you. Mine is slightly tilted up and like I said it's got wobbly bits. But you may find that the balls of your feet at the bit that need to be activated, you might find it's the heel, you might find it's the toes. So playing around with a little tennis ball underneath there or all kinds of other things that you might have, one of those acupressure mats or a bolster or anything like that.

Then I've got a rolled-up towel that sits in a little spot behind my back and for me, there's a particular spot that my back needs to be in contact with something a little bit firmer, like an acupressure point that, again, is bringing my body's arousal down. Usually, I have a teeny tiny little weighted blanket on my lap, although I realized that I had dropped that down before I started filming this today. And then there's things that I can do throughout the day, between sessions, between meetings, between phone calls. If I'm noticing that I need to, again, just bring my body back into Rest and Digest and the first one, which you may have heard me talk about before, is orienting. And that just means looking around.

So I'm incredibly fortunate that right behind my desk is a huge window that looks out across New York City. And these are my close-up glasses for computer work. So I have to take them off to focus outside the window. But if I look around, and I can really see quite a long way, just look and notice. And then if I want to come back into the room, maybe that's actually more for the room, even without the glasses, look around, look under the desk, look behind me, so that my nervous system is really getting a sense of all the cues of safety that it needs to keep it in the right spot. And then if I want to look at the computer, then I'm going to go back with these again.

And then all kinds of other things that we can be doing throughout the day to continue to support ourselves, I have another rolled-up towel here that sometimes I stick under my arms because the weight of the world is on your shoulders. And sometimes we need to support our arms and our shoulders. So sometimes when you can just sort of see it on camera there, I sit, and maybe I just the arms of my chair, and I have this under here, or I have it under this side. And I just get a little bit of support that. Sometimes another one that I really like is to take off my glasses altogether. And I like with the palms of my hands. But again, we're all different, hurt them on my eyes and then lean forward on my desk for a little while just giving my eyes some support. You may have seen me on some of the workshops, sometimes we do the cranial massage, where you can just massage a little bit, the back of your neck.

But there are hundreds of these things that we can do throughout the day. And you may have a systematic system where you're thinking about "Okay, my feet are supported. Okay, my hips are supported. Okay, my back is supported. Okay, my shoulders is supported. Okay, my eyes are supported". Or you may just like to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of rocking you may have seen me do and whatever it is that works for your body. So the emphasis is listening to your body, "What does it need?" So for example, with the putting the towel under my arm, how did I come to that? Well, I tried it in a whole bunch of positions. I tried to big rolled-up towel that I could put my arms on here, tried something around my neck or behind my neck. And what I came to was that this little spot here is where my body goes. Exhale, relief, relax, and your body is going to tell you something slightly different because we're all different.

So trying to get into the habit. And I know it's super tough if we are permanently in Fight or Flight or in Shutdown, that the whatever it is that is there. The energy is really hard to circumvent and get back to what is my body need listening to my body that sometimes if we close our eyes and pay attention inwards, all we're getting is the chaos rather than what the body needs and yet it is still possible just by trying something, let me put my feet up on a little acupressure mat. See what I noticed changes in my body. Let me put a rolled up towel behind my back, see what I noticed changes in my body. And you can pick one thing each day to try. But ultimately, what we're trying to put together for each of us is a repertoire of things that we can do to bring our bodies into that safe space, cues of safety as much as we need as frequently as we need throughout the day.

If you notice something that is a sign for you that your body is going into Fight or Flight or into Shutdown, "What do I need? Do I need to sit down into a strategy? Do I just need to put a rope towel under my arm for a few minutes, and sit there?" So all of this stuff takes a little bit of time to figure out. And if you are on medical leave right now, if you are working hard on supporting your nervous system, I would challenge you with that one thing per day, to use it to be something that figures out your own nervous system for you. So that you are building that plan that map that is helping you to get to Rest and Digest as much as possible, as frequently as possible throughout the day, every day.

My apologies, I don't know what's going on with the road noise in the background there. But hopefully you were able to hear me if not, the closed captions should be on there too. We still have time to sign up for this week's workshop which is happening tomorrow, Thursday. And if you're not in our Facebook group, do come and join us where we continue discussions like this around strategies that are working to very positive group that is giving you a lot of support and a lot of community and no venting. I hope you have a terrible week and I look forward to seeing you again on another Wellness Wednesday. Take care.