October 2, 2025 • 40 mins
Ever feel stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed? Your nervous system may be stuck in overdrive. In this episode, you’ll learn simple, science-backed ways to calm and regulate your nervous system that yoga teachers use to help relax, recharge, and feel more balanced in daily life.
Renee gives you easy non-woo woo practices you can use anywhere — breathwork, grounding techniques, and how to direct your thoughts — to help your body and mind reset.
Perfect for anyone looking for natural ways to reduce stress, calm anxiety, and restore balance in your body and mind.
Using these techniques can help your brain get the rest it needs so you can do your best with ADHD.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with ADHD.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm half awake, still have my groggy voice, but I'm
here. And this is going to be a little
different episode. It's more of a guiding you
into relaxation episodes. So if you're driving, if
(00:52):
you just want to listen for informational purposes but not do
it, that would be good. And then maybe save it to
listen to at home, laying down or something.
But I had. I don't remember which episode.
I'm not as prepared. I didn't exit out of my 20 tabs
here. But a few episodes ago, I talked about.
(01:17):
About relaxing, the importance of relaxing.
And a lot of people have a hard time with that.
Some people have no problem with it.
So I don't know where you fall into that, but it seems
like a lot of times we have to schedule relaxation.
Like I'll go on a trip and go to the beach,
because that's relaxing to go on the trip and be at the
(01:38):
beach. Let me see. Rest. That was just two episodes ago.
How rest improves ADHD brain function.
What science shows. Just had to look that up real quick, see
where I was. The rest, there's going to be no notes.
So because this is stuff I understand and know pretty well
and that's guiding people to relax. And there are different
(02:02):
ways to do it. There are, like I said, going on
vacation. You can also schedule a little vacation into your
day. There was a point in time where I realized
a lot of times you go away to get a break
from all the things that you usually do.
But you could schedule that in at home by pretending that
(02:27):
you can't do anything else and actually telling yourself you
can't do anything else and giving that time to yourself, whether
it's a whole day. Maybe you don't live alone.
That's not possible. But if other people go on a trip
or something that live in your house and you get the
house to yourself, maybe instead of continuing to go and keep
(02:47):
doing the things that you do, you have that be your vacation
bed at home. Or maybe it's just going to a yoga
class or a stretch class or a sound bath.
Have you heard of a sound bath? It's where, I don't know, the
person doing it could have singing bowls or different things.
They have things that resonate quite a bit when
(03:10):
they make sound and you just lay down and just let that go
into your body and don't have to do much else.
The ones that I've been to, they don't really guide you to do
other things. They're not talking when they do it.
I've actually taught sound bath classes, but it's not like
a full hour. It's the end of a yoga class where the last
20 minutes is a sound bath. And it's pretty fun.
(03:33):
And it's pretty amazing, even as the instructor, because all
of those sounds just go into your body.
Your body feels it. It feels that calming power
somehow. It's a calming power.
That's not even what I plan to talk about.
But just to let you know that there are a variety
(03:54):
of ways to relax. And I think that one of
the reasons the beach is so relaxing is the powerful sounds that
you hear while the waves are crashing.
I think that you are bringing that in somehow because
sometimes you go out in public and the sounds are
loud and it's not calming. And I think, why is this calming?
That it is. You know, it's a. It's a white noise
(04:19):
that helps us. It's real life white noise.
But. And even a fountain or something, like if you just
have a little fountain that makes noise, like it's
a creek or something or waterfall, that can be calming.
But whatever it is, I'm going to guide you into ways
that you can relax at home. And right now, if
(04:42):
you can, you can find a place. Even if there are
other people around, it works with other people around if they
give you permission to do this, if they respect that you're going
to do it and they can't interrupt you.
So my favorite way to relax is to lay down
on the floor with my legs up the wall.
(05:03):
My legs are touching the wall. Sometimes for people, it's
just the feet. Your hips are back more.
Some people elevate the low back when with.
While in yoga, we have a bolster, but I used to use couch cushions,
not for legs up the wall, but for other things like that to
put under my back. So you could use a couch cushion, but you
could just have a wall and your body and lay down, or
(05:27):
a door, lock the door and have your legs against the door.
And having the feet up high like that, higher than the
heart, has physical benefits already from draining
the lymph tissues. I don't know exactly what the science is,
but it's really good for your body if you
don't have a head injury or black eye or something like that.
(05:48):
So when your feet are up high, if you start feeling weird in
your head, you've had a head injury.
That's the only thing that I've read or found personally
that this isn't for me right now. I need to.
I need my head to get better first. But you can lay down.
You can just even elevate your feet on a bed or a couch
and have your calf supported or something.
(06:09):
So that's one way you can just sit back in your favorite chair.
You can lay down in bed whatever way you want to do
it. Some people meditate seated sitting upright and just
in the middle of the floor. I was never comfortable that way.
If I had to do it seated in my yoga training, I would sit with
my back against the wall because I could relax, my back could
(06:30):
relax a little bit, and I could have that support.
And you don't want to. At least for me, I don't want to be fighting
the body. I want the body to already be comfortable.
And then we see what we can do with letting the rest
of you relax your mind. So that's the first thing
is finding where you're comfortable.
And you can always add socks, a blanket, anything that makes
(06:53):
you feel cozy. What the body senses when you're
trying to relax is light. If it's really bright, that
might not be easy for you to relax. But for me, like,
if there are lights on in the room and somebody turns off the
lights, it's like my whole nervous system just goes, you know,
(07:13):
I can relax. If I'm trying to relax like that.
If there's sunlight coming in through the window and I
have the sunlight on my face, that's a whole different story.
It feels amazing. I've always liked the feeling of closing my
eyes and having the sun in my face. I know it's not the best
back in the before sunblock and sunscreen days, but
(07:35):
that's what I did. Even without sunglasses.
Now I would have sunglasses. Now I would have sunscreen.
But not if you have a window. You don't have to do
that. You can have the sun come in on your face and not have
to worry about that. So whatever makes you comfortable because
your body senses comfort. Are you in a place
that doesn't feel painful?
(07:56):
Is it really bright? Is there a light that's interfering even
if your eyes are closed? Try it. Have somebody else turn
off the light when you're already laying down to relax and have
them turn off the light and just see what happens to your nervous
system. Or you can put something over your eyes.
Yoga teachers used to say that when I went to yoga class.
I never heard it when I did yoga videos, and I probably did yoga
(08:19):
videos for 10 years.
At least before I ever went to a yoga class.
But when I was in a yoga class, people would say, or if you
want to cover your eyes. So I would take the sleeve of my jacket
or something and put it over my eyes and it would help.
But you feel it. You feel it that way.
It doesn't feel as comfortable as an eye pillow.
And if you've never seen an eye pillow, it's basically shaped
(08:42):
like a big rectangle that can fit over your eyes and
usually has. It could have rice in it, it could have
lavender, and it could have flax seeds in it.
It could have different things. They have them where you could
heat them up. Not exactly like a rice bag, but you can
heat them up or cool em. I just use them room temperature.
I've never really done the other part.
But the lavender would make it smell good and maybe
(09:04):
be calming that way. But it doesn't have to smell like anything.
It could just be an eye pillow. And they sell them anywhere.
Etsy. You can get cuter ones on Etsy or Amazon or
whatever. I've never seen them a store that's not a yoga
yi store. But it can be little, it can be bigger.
But just that weight feels kind of good too.
(09:24):
And it comes and settles in just like.
Like you want it to. Not like a sleeve or something.
But jacket sleeves do work. Or blankets over your
head. When I first did yoga at home without any guidance to
cover my eyes, a lot of times I would.
If it was colder and stuff, I would always end.
And they didn't even recommend using a blanket in yoga studios.
(09:46):
They always have blankets at my blankets.
I don't know if you're watching,
but wool blankets, it matches my shirt.
Wool blankets are really great because they have a weight to
them. And I use these for years before it
became popular to have weighted blankets.
And I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, I sound
(10:08):
like I'm 13. I understand how something weighted
on your body helps you feel calm. But in my early days,
I would just take the biggest quilt comforter that we had that
was kind of heavy that we had in where we watch tv and I would
just put it all over me and then sometimes put it over my face
too. But, you know, sometimes you want to be able to breathe
(10:28):
without everything over your face. But finding a way
to have it be a little darker can be helpful.
And being symmetrical. Sometimes people do turn
onto their sides or something to just relax at the end
of a yoga class. But usually symmetry is a good way
(10:48):
to go. Your body senses symmetry and if something's off
center and you're kind of like adjusting, you're probably finding
that for yourself. So your setup, whatever your setup
is, you want to be comfortable, you want your body
to be still. And then the idea is, can I find
some stillness in my mind? Can I find some calmness in
(11:11):
my mind? And that is the aim. But
it's never easy. It's not something that people just find
super easy to do. And a lot of people go to yoga class,
and you don't have to go to yoga class to do this, but they
go to a yoga class and get frustrated because their mind is
just going and going and going. And that's what our mind minds
(11:34):
do. The yogi people call it a monkey mind because I
guess it jumps all over the place. I think of it like popcorn.
When you have adhd, your thoughts are just bouncing all around.
But that happens for a lot of people, even if you don't have
adhd. But I feel like the popcorn idea is more not
just the ideas keep coming up, but they never stop.
(11:55):
They never stop. Like they're new ideas, they're new ideas, they're
new ideas. So
once you're laying down. So this is one of the simplest ways
to just relax, and that is to notice your
breathing. Notice your breathing and whatever breathing is happening.
Notice how your body's moving with your breathing.
(12:16):
Notice different things about it. The pace, the timing,
how your chest expands or your belly expands, or how
kind of rises up and lowers again, rising and falling.
And you could just spend your whole time observing that rise
and that fall, that expansion like a balloon, and that release
(12:40):
and slowing it down as you go, not trying to get it
super slow, not trying to reach a certain number.
But if it helps you to count with your breathing,
a lot of times that really helps me return to noticing
my breathing. Because as my brain starts to go somewhere else,
(13:01):
it might be there for a while. And then when I notice.
So you have your thoughts, and then you have your brain
that notices what your brain's doing.
Different entities somehow. Once you notice that, then you
can do something about it. Or what you're doing is
deciding not to do anything about it.
(13:22):
Maybe I need to think about this right now.
Maybe I need to ponder this right now.
Or maybe I need to let this go. Maybe I need to
send it away. And I think of clouds in the sky.
And when we watch clouds, we're not actually sending that cloud
away, but we watch it slowly float away.
And you might think sometimes the cloud isn't moving.
But when you compare it to a tree, you see it actually is
(13:45):
moving. And you can do that with your thoughts.
You can just kind of watch them move away.
Another method I like to use with my thoughts is
when all of a sudden I realize thoughts are spiraling around.
These are just methods you can use anytime you want to relax.
But your thoughts are spiraling around and you're trying to go
(14:06):
to sleep, you're trying to rest, you're trying to take a little
pause in the middle of your day, and you just observe whatever
conversation's going on in your brain.
Like you're walking by a little group of people and you
start to hear their conversation and you tune into it and you
say, I want to go over and talk to them.
(14:28):
I want to be a bigger part of this conversation.
Or I'm going to keep walking. I'm going to walk away.
I don't. I, you know, not interested, don't need to hear
that, whatever it is. And you can do that with your own thoughts.
You can just distance yourself and walk away.
Another one of my favorite methods to relax is to
(14:53):
close my eyes and pretend like I'm somewhere else.
And I'll just guide you to do that right now, if you
want. Or you can just listen and know how to do
it later. But if you can do it right now, that'd be great.
At least I think it would, because I love it.
But one time I was taking a yoga training in San Francisco.
(15:13):
I lived about an hour from San Francisco, and it was a yoga for
teens training. They had the window open.
I could hear the city
street. It was a big street. It's called Van Ness.
It's one of the main roads to get through San Francisco from
one end to the other. And it was a fun sound.
It was like the ocean. It was noisy, but
(15:38):
something was cool about it. It was different than just being
in a massage place and you're thinking, I wish I didn't hear
all the cars drive by. It was different than that.
But it was distracting me from calming down in
my brain at the end. Because at the end of a yoga class, you
usually do Shavasana. And we would do a yoga class at
the end of each of these training days.
(16:01):
Entering Shavasana, ideally, you're quieting the mind with your
body quiet. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it. And I thought, well, maybe just
pretend like you're somewhere else. Even though I loved being
there in this upper room. I think it was a I
don't know. I think she must have rented space at a chiropractic
office or something. But I enjoyed being there, but it
(16:24):
wasn't helping me relax. So I thought, where is a relaxing place
for me? So I laid there and pictured every detail,
every detail of that place. And over the years, that's changed
that. That's something you could do right now.
You could tune me out as I keep talking and close
(16:45):
your eyes, and maybe it's somewhere that you used
to live and you loved being in that room.
And you start with one wall and you picture every detail
that you remember. You notice the floor.
You notice the ceiling. You notice what's over to the side.
Is there a stairwell? Is there an entry to another
(17:09):
room or an exit to another room? Is there a window?
What does the furniture look like? What does the floor feel
like? And you continue to notice those things, every
little detail, as if you're there and you're just breathing calmly.
And you find that relaxed state as if you were there.
(17:30):
You could also do it for your favorite place in nature.
You're not out in the redwoods, but you can picture the
redwoods. You can picture the sounds, the light coming
in so majestically. I don't live by the redwoods
anymore, but I grew up with them. Most of my years
I lived in three different counties that had redwoods in California.
(17:55):
And I say counties. There were different towns in each place.
But you know, you go everywhere in the county.
So
yeah, pretty amazing. Or the beach. You could picture the
sound of the seagulls, the pelicans, the waves, even
the chattering people. Sometimes people are noisy and distracting,
(18:16):
and sometimes that's calming. I've always loved the sound of
people at the beach. I've loved the sound of people at a
swimming pool. Pool. At a public swimming pool.
Because we used to go to a public swimming pool a lot when I
was growing up in the summertime. And I love closing
my eyes. I love the sound of my face, and I love hearing the
people and the splashing of the water.
So you could imagine all of those things.
(18:39):
Maybe you're not doing any of that. Maybe you're just noticing
your breathing. Maybe you're just counting with each
inhale,
counting as you exhale. And as you inhale, you're widening.
As you exhale, you're letting go. And usually when you're relaxing,
you're not putting as much effort in to that.
(19:03):
You know, that what I call like a ha sound on your
exhale. But maybe at the beginning you could do that just to
relieve a little stress. Another thing is you want your
face to be as relaxed as possible. Anytime you
have tension, shoulders come up, mouth comes in, everything comes
(19:24):
in and up and tightens. And even when you are lying
down, relaxing, some of that's happening.
It's just kind of natural. And so we want to reverse
that. And see at the sides of the eyes, let go.
Just let go of weight at the sides of the eyes, the sides
of the cheekbones, and all around the mouth.
(19:47):
And I think of it. These are just things that I make up
to help me find that calmness. When I'm doing yoga,
and I teach a ton of yoga, and usually I practice along
with the class. I know a lot of teachers who don't.
They walk around and they teach, and I do that
1% of the time. I used to do it
(20:10):
a little bit more, but I like doing it too.
So I like. To me, I'm playing, we're playing, we're going to
the playground, we're playing together.
But in Shavasana, sometimes I just sit there and
just kind of make sure nobody comes in the room or just relax
with them that way. But often I lay down in Shavasana
too. And I realized at some point that
(20:32):
when I try to relax around the sides of my eyes, the sides of
my cheeks, the sides of my mouth, one time isn't enough.
I need to do it one time and again and again.
And each time I do that, I think like I'm
on a. On a mountaintop and I'm stepping down and down and
(20:52):
down. If you're doing on the sides of your face, you could be
going down pyramid, both sides at the same time.
But I just let it happen, let it happen, let it happen.
And then feel relaxed there around the eyes.
And then do it with the cheeks, do it with the mouth.
Often in a yoga class. And I know you're not in
(21:13):
a yoga class if you're just doing this at home, but you're essentially
doing yoga, which is linking that mind, body,
relaxation in some way and calming the mind letting go
of whatever's going on. That's more yoga than actually doing
poses. So whatever that is for you
to let go. Sometimes the closed mouth is still
(21:38):
bringing in. For me, when my mouth is closed.
Maybe some people have a relaxed mouth when it's closed.
Mine's not. It's coming and I can feel it.
So I just let my mouth separate a bit.
But I'm still getting that sense of breathing through the nose,
which for me is more calming. It's more relaxing.
But I mean, yeah, I did grow up as a mouth breather.
Maybe there is something to that, you know, I don't know.
(21:59):
But I breathe through the nose when I sleep.
But when I am doing yoga, just in the last year or
so, I just let my mouth not be all the way closed
over my teeth and I can relax more. And then just observing
that rise and fall of the upper body,
(22:21):
that expansion, that release.
If you like to play like a little game in your
mind, instead of the simplicity of observing the rise
and fall, you could do what they call this is something I learned
at my yoga teen. Training actually is seesaw breathing.
(22:46):
And that's where you just see saw your attention.
If you've never been on a seesaw, if you're not as old as I
am, you probably know what it is. But it's a piece of wood.
You each hold on at one end and it goes back and forth,
back and forth. One person goes higher, one person goes down.
It's very fun, it's very calming. And you can
(23:07):
see saw your attention. So when you're breathing slowly lying
on your back, even seated,
your upper body expands and then it releases and you
can see saw noticing one time your chest expanding and
then lowering and then the next time observing your stomach,
(23:29):
your belly expanding and lifting and lowering.
And you're just being as relaxed as you can in the stomach.
Because the diaphragm to breathe is nice and
freely needs to be able to lower, to push down
to make room in your lungs. And if you're holding it in
your stomach, I need to have a tight stomach, not while you're
(23:52):
doing deep breathing. You need to have a relaxed stomach so your
stomach can expand to make room for the lungs to
get in more air. Just observing that, observing anything
you want to observe that is calming for you.
(24:14):
Observing the timing of your breathing.
Four or five counts in, that's usually my timing.
Yours might be faster, slower breathing or counting and then
exhaling the same or longer. I like to have
that freedom to just observe it, create it and observe.
(24:34):
But not be locked into four counts in, four counts out.
Hold it for this long. You can if you want, if
that's what you enjoy, if that's what's calming for you.
But you don't have to. You don't have to.
We're all so different. We're all so different
(24:55):
and just letting go.
Another thing I think of is just getting that sense
of kind of melting, melting into the ground.
Wherever you are,
the butter is going off the Side, it's hot.
(25:18):
When I bake bread, I like to take butter and
just, you know, like you still have part of that wrapper on it,
and just put it all over the top of the bread as it comes out
of the oven, just to give a little flavor, moistens it a little
bit, but it just melts and, you know, just letting things
melt away, dissolving.
(25:41):
I think some yoga teachers or meditation teachers might call
it imagery. You know, when you're imagining something in your
mind. I just. I just do it. I don't really have a
name for it, but another one is to just lie
there. And as you're watching your upper body expand,
all that energy comes in with the breathing, and then you
(26:04):
relax. I think of the ocean waves. I used to
live by the beach for 11 years. Not right by the
beach in the redwoods, 15 minutes from the beach,
but you realize, you notice when you've been
at the beach, if you've been at the ocean, there is a swell.
You could watch it on YouTube, you can watch it on nature
(26:27):
show. But there's a swell of the wave.
All the water comes. And if you're waiting to go surfing
or boogie boarding, you're watching that wave come from far
away. And you see it start to build.
And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, bigger, bigger.
And then it. And it crashes. And so I observe
my breathing like that wave gaining power, gaining energy,
(26:52):
expanding, lifting, becoming more monumental.
And it is. It's really huge, huh? It becomes big
and exciting, and then it
comes toward the shore, dissipates in the sand.
And that can be your exhale, just observing your breathing like
(27:15):
the waves at the beach.
And you may have other ways.
For every person who loves one way of relaxing, another person
says, that didn't work for me.
I love to pretend like I'm floating on water.
(27:35):
I love to float on my back. I love to float on
a air mattress, but I also just love
to float on my back. You can float longer on an air mattress,
but an air mattress on a lake, there's nothing like it.
So I'll imagine that. But one of my friends told me, she's come
to my yoga class, and she said she went to a class once, and
(27:56):
the instructor said, imagine floating on water.
Well, that was not fun for her because she remembered as a
child, you know, learning to be on her back and felt like
she was falling in. And so that wasn't a fun one.
For all those things, I have another yoga pose
that I came up with. I don't know I'm sure if you
(28:16):
follow other yoga teachers at some point you find, oh, they might
do that too. But it was basically airport security on your back.
So you lay down, feet wide apart, hands like this.
It is so relaxing in my body. So I started
teaching it in my classes. And my mom said that stresses
me out. Every time you say that. I thought, oh, my
(28:37):
goodness, that's too bad. It's such an easy way to describe it.
And I usually go to the airport now.
I have TSA pre checks, so I don't have to do that unless I
have somebody traveling with me and I don't want to, you know,
separate from. But when I'm doing that, I'm more like, oh, this
is in my yoga class. But since my mom said that,
I've changed. You know, your feet can be mat width apart,
(29:01):
whatever's comfortable here. Bring your arms over your head.
Diamond shape arms, elbows out, long, farther, hands coming in
toward each other. So that changed that and the floating
on your back. Now I talk more about floating in the air.
Have I ever floated in the air? No, but I can imagine it.
And that's what it feels like when you let go of weight
in your body. That's what it feels like.
(29:23):
Those are just my little tips, my little ways to guide
yourself as you're relaxing. If you actually want to
spend time meditating, just time quiet.
It is not easy before I even. Well, definitely
before I taught yoga, but I think I might have
(29:44):
done yoga, maybe some yoga videos back then.
But I decided I'm going to try to meditate every morning for
10 minutes. I must have read it online or something like, it's
good to meditate for 10 minutes. So I took a kitchen timer.
I must have had a phone that wasn't a smartphone back then.
For sure. I did. And so I brought in the kitchen timer.
(30:05):
You know, that just the white one that goes like that.
So it wasn't a beautiful sound when it ended.
It didn't click. So that was good. But I tried
setting it for 10 minutes. It didn't work very well.
So I decided to set it for five minutes.
And I went in every morning. This is when I had
probably all or most of my kids at home.
My oldest daughter when we lived in that house.
(30:26):
My oldest daughter went to college the year before we moved.
So it could have been that year, but it might have been the year
before or five years before. I don't know, can't keep track.
But I would go in my living room and that's when
I realized Sitting in the middle floor for a long time, not
the best for me. So I backed up against the couch.
I just sat cross legged. I didn't have any yoga bolsters,
(30:49):
blocks, or anything like that to sit up a little higher, but
you can always sit up a little higher.
I'm actually doing that right now. And if you have yoga blocks,
just sit on them and sit cross legged.
Or even if you like to kneel, you can sit on it.
If you're watching, you know, you can take your block and go
that way or that way, but you can sit up
higher so your hips are higher than your knees and
(31:13):
your feet are lower than your hips and it might be more comfortable
for you. But however I was comfortable, I would sit there
and I would just try to sit for five minutes.
And at first it was hard. I didn't really know much about breathing.
I probably tried to breathe more slowly, but I did it for
five minutes and I was able to work up to 15 minutes and I enjoyed
(31:35):
it. It was just a quiet time for me.
So you can always set a timer and see, you
know, move over toward the wall, get a blanket, put
your legs up the wall. Blanket's a little trickier with legs
up the wall because you either put it over your upper body and
wear socks if you want your feet to be warm, or you have
(31:57):
to put the blanket around your feet, push the blanket up,
and then see if it reaches your shoulders.
But it really is calming to do that.
I've used that technique many times even with other
people around. I mean, not out in public, but, you
know, with family or something and at someone else's house and
(32:19):
just need to rest for a little bit and just go do
that. So
thank you for being here. My throat actually feels a little better
just talking about this. Calming, Calming myself.
I would guide you in breathing, but I mean, I guess I could
do it at the very end, but I tried that when I was recording
upstairs and found that the microphones that you
(32:42):
use for podcasts block out. They try to block out
the airy stuff, even though I don't have a filter on it, but
it just be how it's created. So when I would
try to demonstrate the breathing, it.
You couldn't hear it. It would just stop.
So, but I, for me, the expansive inhale is like
the e H, the eh, eh. If I don't. If I actually
(33:04):
do, it probably won't pick up. And then the ha.
Is that like you're just saying ha and that's your
exhale, but that that is your widening.
That is your pushing the air out. And it doesn't have to
be a hard push if you're trying to relax.
This microphone that I use for the YouTube videos might pick
that up. I don't know. But let's end with just a few
(33:25):
more breaths. So go ahead and slow your breathing a
bit.
Feel that widening as you breathe in.
Exhale thoroughly. Breath as you exhale.
And take five breaths like that.
(34:05):
And then just add a little movement.
Fingers, toes, even. Blink your eyes to add in a
little more energy.
You can even take in a deeper breath.
Notice how you feel. Deeper breaths.
Usually my mouth's open and I found my.
Okay. I keep adding. There's. I'll never run out of favorite
techniques, but something I've just noticed in the last year
(34:27):
is that exhale that happens when you're crying.
It's. You breathe in quickly twice and exhale.
So you. It's a.
If you don't try, you just do it once.
Trying the second time, you probably just do it.
It feels like you've been crying, especially when you're a kid.
It's a. And it's a very soothing way
(34:51):
to breathe. I've never read that anywhere, but my
mom mentioned it to me. She said she saw some video or
something about it, and I thought, that's so interesting.
I've been doing that and I. After doing it manually
a few times, I find now that when I go lay
down and just try to take a nap, even if I don't really take
(35:12):
a nap or if I sleep for 10 minutes at the end, I'll
do that naturally and find my body's really relaxed and I
think I've laid here long enough. Or I'll be teaching my
yoga class and I'll lay there in a restorative pose or something
and I'll do the
kind of cool. I hope you find some benefits from that, too.
(35:35):
I want to close with one thing, and if this makes
it to the podcast, it means I have permission.
I don't have permission yet, so I just kind of paused a little
bit. So I know where to edit it out if
I need to. But Lizzy Lasseter is a yoga instructor.
Her mother is Judith Lasseter. And Judith Lasseter has been
(35:55):
teaching yoga and for, I don't know, 50 years or something.
She's an amazing resource to learn about restorative
yoga, relaxing, any kind of yoga, actually.
And I've taken courses with her and stuff.
Her daughter Lizzie also teaches yoga, and I'm on her
email list. Lizzie's done a lot of the email marketing and stuff
(36:17):
for her mom and they've created courses and things.
But every Sunday I get an email from Lizzie and lately
it's been more about restorative yoga.
And she and her mom are writing a book right now about Shavasana,
which is the final pose in a yoga practice where you really relax.
Judith Lassiter has 20 minute shavasanas in her yoga
(36:37):
classes, but she teaches two hour classes, so she has more
time for that. When I learned that in one of her courses
and she did a lot of live sessions and stuff, I was
really surprised. And I've done 20 minutes of Shavasana with
her, but
I just thought I realized the benefits, but I thought I really
(36:58):
couldn't do that in a class. We don't have enough time unless
it was a restorative class. And I don't teach any restorative
classes. But at that time I changed my shavasana time from
5 minutes, 5, 6 minutes to 10 minutes.
And it really is beneficial and wonderful.
But she's writing her 12th book about Shavasana and Lizzie wrote
(37:19):
something really wonderful in her email today.
So I responded to her and said, can I mention this
in my podcast? I will give you the credit for it, but
can I share it? And if she says no, then this won't make the
podcast, but if she says yes, then thank you, Lizzie.
I had your permission, but Lizzie wrote and said shavasana
(37:40):
is one of the most powerful tools I know for the nervous system,
for nervous system management. I am very bad at reading out
loud. And she wrote this one line at a
time. So I look at it kind of as a poem, but she said,
you lie down, you cover up, you take your physical comfort
seriously. I love that you take your physical
(38:01):
comfort seriously. If we want to be able to relax and get
that calmness, we need to take our physical comfort seriously.
You remember what safety feels like, being able to be
still, have a blanket, be propped up the wall.
It all feels supportive, safe and wonderful.
You notice the urge to fix and plan for sure.
(38:25):
You smile at your spinning mind, mind.
And the last one is you soften. So the
whole plan is just to get things to calm down in your
body. And when you're noticing the eyes, the cheeks, the
mouth, you notice, even right now, notice if there's
(38:47):
room to soften in your mouth. Can you let go a
little more and slow down and get the rest
that you need? Get that relaxation, that calmness in
your body. We have plenty to wind us up during the
day, plenty to come in and alert us, whether
(39:08):
from the rest of the world or just within our own lives.
Lenny comes in, you might even just get an email that says, I
don't want to alert you to anything right now.
But you know, just like billing errors or things like that, and
you're like, oh my goodness, now I have to deal with that.
Now you know all those things. I don't want to take you out of
your relaxation, but that's constantly having.
We need to balance it out with the ability to let
(39:31):
go of that, to let go of the stress in our bodies
and minds. And thank you so much. I actually need
to get ready. I haven't packed for my trip yet and I'm leaving
for Richmond. I'm flying out to Richmond.
I need to leave here in two, two plus hours.
I have a little time, but I had to do this first so that I
could have some podcast episodes for you while I'm gone.
(39:56):
Thank you so much. I appreciate you listening.
Please share my podcast with others, especially if you're in
an ADHD Facebook group or on Reddit or something.
And if you like my podcast, tell other people
about it. Maybe they'll find it too and we can build
a community.
(40:18):
Have a wonderful week. Bye.
Bye. I'm cut short. The silence of
sound has yet been found, but not by me.
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with ADHD.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm half awake, still have my groggy voice, but I'm
here. And this is going to be a little
different episode. It's more of a guiding you
into relaxation episodes. So if you're driving, if
(00:52):
you just want to listen for informational purposes but not do
it, that would be good. And then maybe save it to
listen to at home, laying down or something.
But I had. I don't remember which episode.
I'm not as prepared. I didn't exit out of my 20 tabs
here. But a few episodes ago, I talked about.
(01:17):
About relaxing, the importance of relaxing.
And a lot of people have a hard time with that.
Some people have no problem with it.
So I don't know where you fall into that, but it seems
like a lot of times we have to schedule relaxation.
Like I'll go on a trip and go to the beach,
because that's relaxing to go on the trip and be at the
(01:38):
beach. Let me see. Rest. That was just two episodes ago.
How rest improves ADHD brain function.
What science shows. Just had to look that up real quick, see
where I was. The rest, there's going to be no notes.
So because this is stuff I understand and know pretty well
and that's guiding people to relax. And there are different
(02:02):
ways to do it. There are, like I said, going on
vacation. You can also schedule a little vacation into your
day. There was a point in time where I realized
a lot of times you go away to get a break
from all the things that you usually do.
But you could schedule that in at home by pretending that
(02:27):
you can't do anything else and actually telling yourself you
can't do anything else and giving that time to yourself, whether
it's a whole day. Maybe you don't live alone.
That's not possible. But if other people go on a trip
or something that live in your house and you get the
house to yourself, maybe instead of continuing to go and keep
(02:47):
doing the things that you do, you have that be your vacation
bed at home. Or maybe it's just going to a yoga
class or a stretch class or a sound bath.
Have you heard of a sound bath? It's where, I don't know, the
person doing it could have singing bowls or different things.
They have things that resonate quite a bit when
(03:10):
they make sound and you just lay down and just let that go
into your body and don't have to do much else.
The ones that I've been to, they don't really guide you to do
other things. They're not talking when they do it.
I've actually taught sound bath classes, but it's not like
a full hour. It's the end of a yoga class where the last
20 minutes is a sound bath. And it's pretty fun.
(03:33):
And it's pretty amazing, even as the instructor, because all
of those sounds just go into your body.
Your body feels it. It feels that calming power
somehow. It's a calming power.
That's not even what I plan to talk about.
But just to let you know that there are a variety
(03:54):
of ways to relax. And I think that one of
the reasons the beach is so relaxing is the powerful sounds that
you hear while the waves are crashing.
I think that you are bringing that in somehow because
sometimes you go out in public and the sounds are
loud and it's not calming. And I think, why is this calming?
That it is. You know, it's a. It's a white noise
(04:19):
that helps us. It's real life white noise.
But. And even a fountain or something, like if you just
have a little fountain that makes noise, like it's
a creek or something or waterfall, that can be calming.
But whatever it is, I'm going to guide you into ways
that you can relax at home. And right now, if
(04:42):
you can, you can find a place. Even if there are
other people around, it works with other people around if they
give you permission to do this, if they respect that you're going
to do it and they can't interrupt you.
So my favorite way to relax is to lay down
on the floor with my legs up the wall.
(05:03):
My legs are touching the wall. Sometimes for people, it's
just the feet. Your hips are back more.
Some people elevate the low back when with.
While in yoga, we have a bolster, but I used to use couch cushions,
not for legs up the wall, but for other things like that to
put under my back. So you could use a couch cushion, but you
could just have a wall and your body and lay down, or
(05:27):
a door, lock the door and have your legs against the door.
And having the feet up high like that, higher than the
heart, has physical benefits already from draining
the lymph tissues. I don't know exactly what the science is,
but it's really good for your body if you
don't have a head injury or black eye or something like that.
(05:48):
So when your feet are up high, if you start feeling weird in
your head, you've had a head injury.
That's the only thing that I've read or found personally
that this isn't for me right now. I need to.
I need my head to get better first. But you can lay down.
You can just even elevate your feet on a bed or a couch
and have your calf supported or something.
(06:09):
So that's one way you can just sit back in your favorite chair.
You can lay down in bed whatever way you want to do
it. Some people meditate seated sitting upright and just
in the middle of the floor. I was never comfortable that way.
If I had to do it seated in my yoga training, I would sit with
my back against the wall because I could relax, my back could
(06:30):
relax a little bit, and I could have that support.
And you don't want to. At least for me, I don't want to be fighting
the body. I want the body to already be comfortable.
And then we see what we can do with letting the rest
of you relax your mind. So that's the first thing
is finding where you're comfortable.
And you can always add socks, a blanket, anything that makes
(06:53):
you feel cozy. What the body senses when you're
trying to relax is light. If it's really bright, that
might not be easy for you to relax. But for me, like,
if there are lights on in the room and somebody turns off the
lights, it's like my whole nervous system just goes, you know,
(07:13):
I can relax. If I'm trying to relax like that.
If there's sunlight coming in through the window and I
have the sunlight on my face, that's a whole different story.
It feels amazing. I've always liked the feeling of closing my
eyes and having the sun in my face. I know it's not the best
back in the before sunblock and sunscreen days, but
(07:35):
that's what I did. Even without sunglasses.
Now I would have sunglasses. Now I would have sunscreen.
But not if you have a window. You don't have to do
that. You can have the sun come in on your face and not have
to worry about that. So whatever makes you comfortable because
your body senses comfort. Are you in a place
that doesn't feel painful?
(07:56):
Is it really bright? Is there a light that's interfering even
if your eyes are closed? Try it. Have somebody else turn
off the light when you're already laying down to relax and have
them turn off the light and just see what happens to your nervous
system. Or you can put something over your eyes.
Yoga teachers used to say that when I went to yoga class.
I never heard it when I did yoga videos, and I probably did yoga
(08:19):
videos for 10 years.
At least before I ever went to a yoga class.
But when I was in a yoga class, people would say, or if you
want to cover your eyes. So I would take the sleeve of my jacket
or something and put it over my eyes and it would help.
But you feel it. You feel it that way.
It doesn't feel as comfortable as an eye pillow.
And if you've never seen an eye pillow, it's basically shaped
(08:42):
like a big rectangle that can fit over your eyes and
usually has. It could have rice in it, it could have
lavender, and it could have flax seeds in it.
It could have different things. They have them where you could
heat them up. Not exactly like a rice bag, but you can
heat them up or cool em. I just use them room temperature.
I've never really done the other part.
But the lavender would make it smell good and maybe
(09:04):
be calming that way. But it doesn't have to smell like anything.
It could just be an eye pillow. And they sell them anywhere.
Etsy. You can get cuter ones on Etsy or Amazon or
whatever. I've never seen them a store that's not a yoga
yi store. But it can be little, it can be bigger.
But just that weight feels kind of good too.
(09:24):
And it comes and settles in just like.
Like you want it to. Not like a sleeve or something.
But jacket sleeves do work. Or blankets over your
head. When I first did yoga at home without any guidance to
cover my eyes, a lot of times I would.
If it was colder and stuff, I would always end.
And they didn't even recommend using a blanket in yoga studios.
(09:46):
They always have blankets at my blankets.
I don't know if you're watching,
but wool blankets, it matches my shirt.
Wool blankets are really great because they have a weight to
them. And I use these for years before it
became popular to have weighted blankets.
And I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, I sound
(10:08):
like I'm 13. I understand how something weighted
on your body helps you feel calm. But in my early days,
I would just take the biggest quilt comforter that we had that
was kind of heavy that we had in where we watch tv and I would
just put it all over me and then sometimes put it over my face
too. But, you know, sometimes you want to be able to breathe
(10:28):
without everything over your face. But finding a way
to have it be a little darker can be helpful.
And being symmetrical. Sometimes people do turn
onto their sides or something to just relax at the end
of a yoga class. But usually symmetry is a good way
(10:48):
to go. Your body senses symmetry and if something's off
center and you're kind of like adjusting, you're probably finding
that for yourself. So your setup, whatever your setup
is, you want to be comfortable, you want your body
to be still. And then the idea is, can I find
some stillness in my mind? Can I find some calmness in
(11:11):
my mind? And that is the aim. But
it's never easy. It's not something that people just find
super easy to do. And a lot of people go to yoga class,
and you don't have to go to yoga class to do this, but they
go to a yoga class and get frustrated because their mind is
just going and going and going. And that's what our mind minds
(11:34):
do. The yogi people call it a monkey mind because I
guess it jumps all over the place. I think of it like popcorn.
When you have adhd, your thoughts are just bouncing all around.
But that happens for a lot of people, even if you don't have
adhd. But I feel like the popcorn idea is more not
just the ideas keep coming up, but they never stop.
(11:55):
They never stop. Like they're new ideas, they're new ideas, they're
new ideas. So
once you're laying down. So this is one of the simplest ways
to just relax, and that is to notice your
breathing. Notice your breathing and whatever breathing is happening.
Notice how your body's moving with your breathing.
(12:16):
Notice different things about it. The pace, the timing,
how your chest expands or your belly expands, or how
kind of rises up and lowers again, rising and falling.
And you could just spend your whole time observing that rise
and that fall, that expansion like a balloon, and that release
(12:40):
and slowing it down as you go, not trying to get it
super slow, not trying to reach a certain number.
But if it helps you to count with your breathing,
a lot of times that really helps me return to noticing
my breathing. Because as my brain starts to go somewhere else,
(13:01):
it might be there for a while. And then when I notice.
So you have your thoughts, and then you have your brain
that notices what your brain's doing.
Different entities somehow. Once you notice that, then you
can do something about it. Or what you're doing is
deciding not to do anything about it.
(13:22):
Maybe I need to think about this right now.
Maybe I need to ponder this right now.
Or maybe I need to let this go. Maybe I need to
send it away. And I think of clouds in the sky.
And when we watch clouds, we're not actually sending that cloud
away, but we watch it slowly float away.
And you might think sometimes the cloud isn't moving.
But when you compare it to a tree, you see it actually is
(13:45):
moving. And you can do that with your thoughts.
You can just kind of watch them move away.
Another method I like to use with my thoughts is
when all of a sudden I realize thoughts are spiraling around.
These are just methods you can use anytime you want to relax.
But your thoughts are spiraling around and you're trying to go
(14:06):
to sleep, you're trying to rest, you're trying to take a little
pause in the middle of your day, and you just observe whatever
conversation's going on in your brain.
Like you're walking by a little group of people and you
start to hear their conversation and you tune into it and you
say, I want to go over and talk to them.
(14:28):
I want to be a bigger part of this conversation.
Or I'm going to keep walking. I'm going to walk away.
I don't. I, you know, not interested, don't need to hear
that, whatever it is. And you can do that with your own thoughts.
You can just distance yourself and walk away.
Another one of my favorite methods to relax is to
(14:53):
close my eyes and pretend like I'm somewhere else.
And I'll just guide you to do that right now, if you
want. Or you can just listen and know how to do
it later. But if you can do it right now, that'd be great.
At least I think it would, because I love it.
But one time I was taking a yoga training in San Francisco.
(15:13):
I lived about an hour from San Francisco, and it was a yoga for
teens training. They had the window open.
I could hear the city
street. It was a big street. It's called Van Ness.
It's one of the main roads to get through San Francisco from
one end to the other. And it was a fun sound.
It was like the ocean. It was noisy, but
(15:38):
something was cool about it. It was different than just being
in a massage place and you're thinking, I wish I didn't hear
all the cars drive by. It was different than that.
But it was distracting me from calming down in
my brain at the end. Because at the end of a yoga class, you
usually do Shavasana. And we would do a yoga class at
the end of each of these training days.
(16:01):
Entering Shavasana, ideally, you're quieting the mind with your
body quiet. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it. And I thought, well, maybe just
pretend like you're somewhere else. Even though I loved being
there in this upper room. I think it was a I
don't know. I think she must have rented space at a chiropractic
office or something. But I enjoyed being there, but it
(16:24):
wasn't helping me relax. So I thought, where is a relaxing place
for me? So I laid there and pictured every detail,
every detail of that place. And over the years, that's changed
that. That's something you could do right now.
You could tune me out as I keep talking and close
(16:45):
your eyes, and maybe it's somewhere that you used
to live and you loved being in that room.
And you start with one wall and you picture every detail
that you remember. You notice the floor.
You notice the ceiling. You notice what's over to the side.
Is there a stairwell? Is there an entry to another
(17:09):
room or an exit to another room? Is there a window?
What does the furniture look like? What does the floor feel
like? And you continue to notice those things, every
little detail, as if you're there and you're just breathing calmly.
And you find that relaxed state as if you were there.
(17:30):
You could also do it for your favorite place in nature.
You're not out in the redwoods, but you can picture the
redwoods. You can picture the sounds, the light coming
in so majestically. I don't live by the redwoods
anymore, but I grew up with them. Most of my years
I lived in three different counties that had redwoods in California.
(17:55):
And I say counties. There were different towns in each place.
But you know, you go everywhere in the county.
So
yeah, pretty amazing. Or the beach. You could picture the
sound of the seagulls, the pelicans, the waves, even
the chattering people. Sometimes people are noisy and distracting,
(18:16):
and sometimes that's calming. I've always loved the sound of
people at the beach. I've loved the sound of people at a
swimming pool. Pool. At a public swimming pool.
Because we used to go to a public swimming pool a lot when I
was growing up in the summertime. And I love closing
my eyes. I love the sound of my face, and I love hearing the
people and the splashing of the water.
So you could imagine all of those things.
(18:39):
Maybe you're not doing any of that. Maybe you're just noticing
your breathing. Maybe you're just counting with each
inhale,
counting as you exhale. And as you inhale, you're widening.
As you exhale, you're letting go. And usually when you're relaxing,
you're not putting as much effort in to that.
(19:03):
You know, that what I call like a ha sound on your
exhale. But maybe at the beginning you could do that just to
relieve a little stress. Another thing is you want your
face to be as relaxed as possible. Anytime you
have tension, shoulders come up, mouth comes in, everything comes
(19:24):
in and up and tightens. And even when you are lying
down, relaxing, some of that's happening.
It's just kind of natural. And so we want to reverse
that. And see at the sides of the eyes, let go.
Just let go of weight at the sides of the eyes, the sides
of the cheekbones, and all around the mouth.
(19:47):
And I think of it. These are just things that I make up
to help me find that calmness. When I'm doing yoga,
and I teach a ton of yoga, and usually I practice along
with the class. I know a lot of teachers who don't.
They walk around and they teach, and I do that
1% of the time. I used to do it
(20:10):
a little bit more, but I like doing it too.
So I like. To me, I'm playing, we're playing, we're going to
the playground, we're playing together.
But in Shavasana, sometimes I just sit there and
just kind of make sure nobody comes in the room or just relax
with them that way. But often I lay down in Shavasana
too. And I realized at some point that
(20:32):
when I try to relax around the sides of my eyes, the sides of
my cheeks, the sides of my mouth, one time isn't enough.
I need to do it one time and again and again.
And each time I do that, I think like I'm
on a. On a mountaintop and I'm stepping down and down and
(20:52):
down. If you're doing on the sides of your face, you could be
going down pyramid, both sides at the same time.
But I just let it happen, let it happen, let it happen.
And then feel relaxed there around the eyes.
And then do it with the cheeks, do it with the mouth.
Often in a yoga class. And I know you're not in
(21:13):
a yoga class if you're just doing this at home, but you're essentially
doing yoga, which is linking that mind, body,
relaxation in some way and calming the mind letting go
of whatever's going on. That's more yoga than actually doing
poses. So whatever that is for you
to let go. Sometimes the closed mouth is still
(21:38):
bringing in. For me, when my mouth is closed.
Maybe some people have a relaxed mouth when it's closed.
Mine's not. It's coming and I can feel it.
So I just let my mouth separate a bit.
But I'm still getting that sense of breathing through the nose,
which for me is more calming. It's more relaxing.
But I mean, yeah, I did grow up as a mouth breather.
Maybe there is something to that, you know, I don't know.
(21:59):
But I breathe through the nose when I sleep.
But when I am doing yoga, just in the last year or
so, I just let my mouth not be all the way closed
over my teeth and I can relax more. And then just observing
that rise and fall of the upper body,
(22:21):
that expansion, that release.
If you like to play like a little game in your
mind, instead of the simplicity of observing the rise
and fall, you could do what they call this is something I learned
at my yoga teen. Training actually is seesaw breathing.
(22:46):
And that's where you just see saw your attention.
If you've never been on a seesaw, if you're not as old as I
am, you probably know what it is. But it's a piece of wood.
You each hold on at one end and it goes back and forth,
back and forth. One person goes higher, one person goes down.
It's very fun, it's very calming. And you can
(23:07):
see saw your attention. So when you're breathing slowly lying
on your back, even seated,
your upper body expands and then it releases and you
can see saw noticing one time your chest expanding and
then lowering and then the next time observing your stomach,
(23:29):
your belly expanding and lifting and lowering.
And you're just being as relaxed as you can in the stomach.
Because the diaphragm to breathe is nice and
freely needs to be able to lower, to push down
to make room in your lungs. And if you're holding it in
your stomach, I need to have a tight stomach, not while you're
(23:52):
doing deep breathing. You need to have a relaxed stomach so your
stomach can expand to make room for the lungs to
get in more air. Just observing that, observing anything
you want to observe that is calming for you.
(24:14):
Observing the timing of your breathing.
Four or five counts in, that's usually my timing.
Yours might be faster, slower breathing or counting and then
exhaling the same or longer. I like to have
that freedom to just observe it, create it and observe.
(24:34):
But not be locked into four counts in, four counts out.
Hold it for this long. You can if you want, if
that's what you enjoy, if that's what's calming for you.
But you don't have to. You don't have to.
We're all so different. We're all so different
(24:55):
and just letting go.
Another thing I think of is just getting that sense
of kind of melting, melting into the ground.
Wherever you are,
the butter is going off the Side, it's hot.
(25:18):
When I bake bread, I like to take butter and
just, you know, like you still have part of that wrapper on it,
and just put it all over the top of the bread as it comes out
of the oven, just to give a little flavor, moistens it a little
bit, but it just melts and, you know, just letting things
melt away, dissolving.
(25:41):
I think some yoga teachers or meditation teachers might call
it imagery. You know, when you're imagining something in your
mind. I just. I just do it. I don't really have a
name for it, but another one is to just lie
there. And as you're watching your upper body expand,
all that energy comes in with the breathing, and then you
(26:04):
relax. I think of the ocean waves. I used to
live by the beach for 11 years. Not right by the
beach in the redwoods, 15 minutes from the beach,
but you realize, you notice when you've been
at the beach, if you've been at the ocean, there is a swell.
You could watch it on YouTube, you can watch it on nature
(26:27):
show. But there's a swell of the wave.
All the water comes. And if you're waiting to go surfing
or boogie boarding, you're watching that wave come from far
away. And you see it start to build.
And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, bigger, bigger.
And then it. And it crashes. And so I observe
my breathing like that wave gaining power, gaining energy,
(26:52):
expanding, lifting, becoming more monumental.
And it is. It's really huge, huh? It becomes big
and exciting, and then it
comes toward the shore, dissipates in the sand.
And that can be your exhale, just observing your breathing like
(27:15):
the waves at the beach.
And you may have other ways.
For every person who loves one way of relaxing, another person
says, that didn't work for me.
I love to pretend like I'm floating on water.
(27:35):
I love to float on my back. I love to float on
a air mattress, but I also just love
to float on my back. You can float longer on an air mattress,
but an air mattress on a lake, there's nothing like it.
So I'll imagine that. But one of my friends told me, she's come
to my yoga class, and she said she went to a class once, and
(27:56):
the instructor said, imagine floating on water.
Well, that was not fun for her because she remembered as a
child, you know, learning to be on her back and felt like
she was falling in. And so that wasn't a fun one.
For all those things, I have another yoga pose
that I came up with. I don't know I'm sure if you
(28:16):
follow other yoga teachers at some point you find, oh, they might
do that too. But it was basically airport security on your back.
So you lay down, feet wide apart, hands like this.
It is so relaxing in my body. So I started
teaching it in my classes. And my mom said that stresses
me out. Every time you say that. I thought, oh, my
(28:37):
goodness, that's too bad. It's such an easy way to describe it.
And I usually go to the airport now.
I have TSA pre checks, so I don't have to do that unless I
have somebody traveling with me and I don't want to, you know,
separate from. But when I'm doing that, I'm more like, oh, this
is in my yoga class. But since my mom said that,
I've changed. You know, your feet can be mat width apart,
(29:01):
whatever's comfortable here. Bring your arms over your head.
Diamond shape arms, elbows out, long, farther, hands coming in
toward each other. So that changed that and the floating
on your back. Now I talk more about floating in the air.
Have I ever floated in the air? No, but I can imagine it.
And that's what it feels like when you let go of weight
in your body. That's what it feels like.
(29:23):
Those are just my little tips, my little ways to guide
yourself as you're relaxing. If you actually want to
spend time meditating, just time quiet.
It is not easy before I even. Well, definitely
before I taught yoga, but I think I might have
(29:44):
done yoga, maybe some yoga videos back then.
But I decided I'm going to try to meditate every morning for
10 minutes. I must have read it online or something like, it's
good to meditate for 10 minutes. So I took a kitchen timer.
I must have had a phone that wasn't a smartphone back then.
For sure. I did. And so I brought in the kitchen timer.
(30:05):
You know, that just the white one that goes like that.
So it wasn't a beautiful sound when it ended.
It didn't click. So that was good. But I tried
setting it for 10 minutes. It didn't work very well.
So I decided to set it for five minutes.
And I went in every morning. This is when I had
probably all or most of my kids at home.
My oldest daughter when we lived in that house.
(30:26):
My oldest daughter went to college the year before we moved.
So it could have been that year, but it might have been the year
before or five years before. I don't know, can't keep track.
But I would go in my living room and that's when
I realized Sitting in the middle floor for a long time, not
the best for me. So I backed up against the couch.
I just sat cross legged. I didn't have any yoga bolsters,
(30:49):
blocks, or anything like that to sit up a little higher, but
you can always sit up a little higher.
I'm actually doing that right now. And if you have yoga blocks,
just sit on them and sit cross legged.
Or even if you like to kneel, you can sit on it.
If you're watching, you know, you can take your block and go
that way or that way, but you can sit up
higher so your hips are higher than your knees and
(31:13):
your feet are lower than your hips and it might be more comfortable
for you. But however I was comfortable, I would sit there
and I would just try to sit for five minutes.
And at first it was hard. I didn't really know much about breathing.
I probably tried to breathe more slowly, but I did it for
five minutes and I was able to work up to 15 minutes and I enjoyed
(31:35):
it. It was just a quiet time for me.
So you can always set a timer and see, you
know, move over toward the wall, get a blanket, put
your legs up the wall. Blanket's a little trickier with legs
up the wall because you either put it over your upper body and
wear socks if you want your feet to be warm, or you have
(31:57):
to put the blanket around your feet, push the blanket up,
and then see if it reaches your shoulders.
But it really is calming to do that.
I've used that technique many times even with other
people around. I mean, not out in public, but, you
know, with family or something and at someone else's house and
(32:19):
just need to rest for a little bit and just go do
that. So
thank you for being here. My throat actually feels a little better
just talking about this. Calming, Calming myself.
I would guide you in breathing, but I mean, I guess I could
do it at the very end, but I tried that when I was recording
upstairs and found that the microphones that you
(32:42):
use for podcasts block out. They try to block out
the airy stuff, even though I don't have a filter on it, but
it just be how it's created. So when I would
try to demonstrate the breathing, it.
You couldn't hear it. It would just stop.
So, but I, for me, the expansive inhale is like
the e H, the eh, eh. If I don't. If I actually
(33:04):
do, it probably won't pick up. And then the ha.
Is that like you're just saying ha and that's your
exhale, but that that is your widening.
That is your pushing the air out. And it doesn't have to
be a hard push if you're trying to relax.
This microphone that I use for the YouTube videos might pick
that up. I don't know. But let's end with just a few
(33:25):
more breaths. So go ahead and slow your breathing a
bit.
Feel that widening as you breathe in.
Exhale thoroughly. Breath as you exhale.
And take five breaths like that.
(34:05):
And then just add a little movement.
Fingers, toes, even. Blink your eyes to add in a
little more energy.
You can even take in a deeper breath.
Notice how you feel. Deeper breaths.
Usually my mouth's open and I found my.
Okay. I keep adding. There's. I'll never run out of favorite
techniques, but something I've just noticed in the last year
(34:27):
is that exhale that happens when you're crying.
It's. You breathe in quickly twice and exhale.
So you. It's a.
If you don't try, you just do it once.
Trying the second time, you probably just do it.
It feels like you've been crying, especially when you're a kid.
It's a. And it's a very soothing way
(34:51):
to breathe. I've never read that anywhere, but my
mom mentioned it to me. She said she saw some video or
something about it, and I thought, that's so interesting.
I've been doing that and I. After doing it manually
a few times, I find now that when I go lay
down and just try to take a nap, even if I don't really take
(35:12):
a nap or if I sleep for 10 minutes at the end, I'll
do that naturally and find my body's really relaxed and I
think I've laid here long enough. Or I'll be teaching my
yoga class and I'll lay there in a restorative pose or something
and I'll do the
kind of cool. I hope you find some benefits from that, too.
(35:35):
I want to close with one thing, and if this makes
it to the podcast, it means I have permission.
I don't have permission yet, so I just kind of paused a little
bit. So I know where to edit it out if
I need to. But Lizzy Lasseter is a yoga instructor.
Her mother is Judith Lasseter. And Judith Lasseter has been
(35:55):
teaching yoga and for, I don't know, 50 years or something.
She's an amazing resource to learn about restorative
yoga, relaxing, any kind of yoga, actually.
And I've taken courses with her and stuff.
Her daughter Lizzie also teaches yoga, and I'm on her
email list. Lizzie's done a lot of the email marketing and stuff
(36:17):
for her mom and they've created courses and things.
But every Sunday I get an email from Lizzie and lately
it's been more about restorative yoga.
And she and her mom are writing a book right now about Shavasana,
which is the final pose in a yoga practice where you really relax.
Judith Lassiter has 20 minute shavasanas in her yoga
(36:37):
classes, but she teaches two hour classes, so she has more
time for that. When I learned that in one of her courses
and she did a lot of live sessions and stuff, I was
really surprised. And I've done 20 minutes of Shavasana with
her, but
I just thought I realized the benefits, but I thought I really
(36:58):
couldn't do that in a class. We don't have enough time unless
it was a restorative class. And I don't teach any restorative
classes. But at that time I changed my shavasana time from
5 minutes, 5, 6 minutes to 10 minutes.
And it really is beneficial and wonderful.
But she's writing her 12th book about Shavasana and Lizzie wrote
(37:19):
something really wonderful in her email today.
So I responded to her and said, can I mention this
in my podcast? I will give you the credit for it, but
can I share it? And if she says no, then this won't make the
podcast, but if she says yes, then thank you, Lizzie.
I had your permission, but Lizzie wrote and said shavasana
(37:40):
is one of the most powerful tools I know for the nervous system,
for nervous system management. I am very bad at reading out
loud. And she wrote this one line at a
time. So I look at it kind of as a poem, but she said,
you lie down, you cover up, you take your physical comfort
seriously. I love that you take your physical
(38:01):
comfort seriously. If we want to be able to relax and get
that calmness, we need to take our physical comfort seriously.
You remember what safety feels like, being able to be
still, have a blanket, be propped up the wall.
It all feels supportive, safe and wonderful.
You notice the urge to fix and plan for sure.
(38:25):
You smile at your spinning mind, mind.
And the last one is you soften. So the
whole plan is just to get things to calm down in your
body. And when you're noticing the eyes, the cheeks, the
mouth, you notice, even right now, notice if there's
(38:47):
room to soften in your mouth. Can you let go a
little more and slow down and get the rest
that you need? Get that relaxation, that calmness in
your body. We have plenty to wind us up during the
day, plenty to come in and alert us, whether
(39:08):
from the rest of the world or just within our own lives.
Lenny comes in, you might even just get an email that says, I
don't want to alert you to anything right now.
But you know, just like billing errors or things like that, and
you're like, oh my goodness, now I have to deal with that.
Now you know all those things. I don't want to take you out of
your relaxation, but that's constantly having.
We need to balance it out with the ability to let
(39:31):
go of that, to let go of the stress in our bodies
and minds. And thank you so much. I actually need
to get ready. I haven't packed for my trip yet and I'm leaving
for Richmond. I'm flying out to Richmond.
I need to leave here in two, two plus hours.
I have a little time, but I had to do this first so that I
could have some podcast episodes for you while I'm gone.
(39:56):
Thank you so much. I appreciate you listening.
Please share my podcast with others, especially if you're in
an ADHD Facebook group or on Reddit or something.
And if you like my podcast, tell other people
about it. Maybe they'll find it too and we can build
a community.
(40:18):
Have a wonderful week. Bye.
Bye. I'm cut short. The silence of
sound has yet been found, but not by me.
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