#70 Why You Can’t Slow Down (Even When You Finally Have Time)

0:00Welcome to the Double Dose of Wellness Podcast for Andrew Nikki, Twins, Healthcare Proves, and your guides on this journey to living a balanced, vibrant life. We help high-achieving women reconnect with their bodies, we balance their gut and hormones, and finally feel like themselves again. This is a place for a science-based soul and where the journey back to yourself truly begins. So grab your tea, get comfy, and let's dive in. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Double Dose of Wellness Podcast. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about decision fatigue, and then the mental load that women carry in last week's episode. And something interesting tends to happen with these conversations. Women start realizing just how tired they actually are. But then another struggle shows up, even when there's time to rest, they can't do it, they can't fully relax. So if this is you, we're calling out the Hessel culture today. And this does confuse a lot of people because logically you think, I'm exhausted, rest should feel good. But for many people who are high-achieving,

1:01working on different goals, multiple responsibilities, rest can actually feel uncomfortable. Couple that with some of the things we use these days to distract ourselves. The other thing I want to touch on today is that even though you're constantly busy, you may not be busy with doing things that are actually helping to put you ahead. So that's another distinction we need to make. But sometimes rest actually feels uncomfortable. Hmm, I feel that so much. You finally sit down, the house is quiet, you've closed your laptop for the day, and instead of relaxing, your brain just starts listing off everything that you should be doing. Emails, planning tomorrow, maybe throw a little bit of laundry in there. The thing that you forgot earlier, you know, that rest it just starts to feel unproductive. And almost unsafe, and sometimes being busy, it almost starts to feel like an addiction after a bit, you don't know how not to be busy. Because that productivity, it just feels familiar, and having items completed, it just gives you a sense of control. And sometimes it might even make you feel a little anxious, like you should be up moving,

2:05finishing something. So this is something I do experience a lot in those periods where I am sitting down or reading a book, something fiction made up, that feeling, you feel like you should be up moving and finishing something. And that feeling isn't random. So it's often because your nervous system has adapted to running in productivity mode, that busyness becomes familiar, and the stillness is unfamiliar. So we know that we will gravitate towards anything familiar, no matter how uncomfortable, as opposed to something unfamiliar. So the nervous system tends to prefer what's familiar, even if that's exhausting. When someone operates under prolonged stress, the nervous system becomes conditioned towards that heightened alertness. So when you suddenly slow down, your body doesn't immediately shift into calm. An example of this is we talk about taking vacations away from work. And so depending on your job and what are your other responsibilities

3:09a week off, for example, or a weekend off is not always enough to give you that period to rest. It's with those two weeks vacations, for example, or a week vacation that you finally feel you get to a point where you're shifting into that calm, because it takes a few days for your nervous system to recognize that you're on break. You don't have your regular responsibilities. You might notice your thoughts more. Sometimes awareness increases first. You feel tension more. It can feel like anxiety for a few minutes, and that's not failure. That's just physiology recalibrating. For so many women, productivity, it isn't a habit at this point. It's part of your identity. Becoming dependable, being efficient, being the one that is known to get things done. So slowing down, that can really feel like losing a bit of momentum or even losing some value. If you've always been the reliable one, that can feel like you're not living up to who you are. Or that you're not working towards your goals. That's such a good point. The paradox is the

4:14women who need rest the most often struggle with it the most, because their nervous systems have been running in go mode for so long that powering down feels foreign. Thinking about another example, I was finishing my masters when I was going on mat leave, and I had been working on my masters and working full time for a couple of years until my sole focus was completing my thesis before Sophia. My daughter was born, so that on my mat leave, I could just defend my thesis and then I would be done. There was a period of time, well that's when we ended up taking our certifications for health coaching, and I remember that the thought of school being done and my masters being completed, and that period of time between when I could start my certification as a health coach, that it was making me anxious, because for so long I knew I had work, and in my free time I was working on my masters and nursing, and knowing that I was going to have that downtime

5:19was just something I wasn't used to. So you kind of start mentally preparing a list of things to do, just because that's the pace that I was used to working at. Now there's something else to be said for that, because there was lots of other things happening in my personal life and my relationship. If we get into the psychology of it, I could have just been avoiding some other things that were happening, but at the end of the day, here's what matters physically, is that nervous systems have been running in go mode for so long, powering down feels foreign, healing, especially got repair, balancing hormones, energy recovery. This happens when your body is in a parasympathetic state, and the parasympathetic system, that's your rest and digest side of your nervous system. So in other words, your body literally needs signals of safety and rest to repair. So if rest never feels safe, and the body struggles to fully recover, you can eat well,

6:19take supplements, exercise, but if the nervous system never shifts, then healing is slower, and we focus a lot on this in our program, the anti-inflammatory method, which is our signature 12-week coaching program that addresses inflammation and multiple factors and multiple contributors of inflammation, but addressing your nervous system and your thoughts that we address throughout all the 12 weeks, because it is such a huge factor in healing and inflammation and nervous system regulation. One of the things we also practice a lot on the show as well in our coaching methods is reframing. So reframing rest, it's not laziness, it's required, it's a biological requirement, and learning to rest is sometimes a skill or something we need to practice. No different than any other muscle, something that you're not used to doing does require practice. Not something that automatically happens just because you're tired, especially if you've trained yourself to override

7:22fatigue or you've been in seasons of your life where you do have multiple responsibilities and conflicting priorities, it's something you need to spend a little bit of time doing, spend a little time with self-awareness and recognizing that rest and recovery is as as important as checking things off your to-do list or completing tasks, accomplishing goals, so instead of forcing long-perfect rest periods to start smaller than you think you need. So not an hour, not a full self-care routine, but start with five intentional minutes, a moment of pause, walking without multitasking. One of the things I do is I aim to get out for a walk on my lunch break, sometimes at five minutes, sometimes it's 20, but it really does. It resets me. It helps me set the tone for the rest of the afternoon, eating one meal without being on your phone or five minutes of stillness before bed. This is something else I find makes a considerable difference, and you're not trying to shut your

8:26brain off. What you're doing is you're teaching it that slowing down is allowed and you're making that familiar. There's something else that's important to realize is that if rest feels uncomfortable at first, that doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong. It does mean that your system, it isn't used to it yet. It might even mean you haven't been practicing it enough. Think of it like stretching a tight muscle. There can be a little bit of resistance before that relief. So here's something simple for you to try this week. Just pick one predictable moment in your day. Maybe that's after lunch, after work, just before bed, then just attach, just put a three to five minute pause to it. So this is not optional. This is not earned. It is built in. That consistency is going to retrain the nervous system faster than intensity. We talked about this a couple episodes ago. You can even narrate it to yourself. Say, I'm allowed to stop. I'm allowed to pause. This can wait

9:26that language. It matters because your nervous system responds to those cues of safety. And when you start to pair this rest with gentle regulation, nervous system regulation, thinking about some of the techniques, slow breathing, longer exhales than inhales, soft lighting in the evening, a short guided meditation. These are things I started listening to. I drive a lot for work. So even listening to a guided meditation when I'm driving, that's just helping me disconnect. It's a couple of moments. Yes, I'm still doing something. I'm still driving. But it's certainly less stimulating than, for example, some of the music we listen to or at least being able to take a break from your thoughts, lower stimulation gradually instead of going from 100 to zero. You're easing your body into the downshift. You're not forcing it. And the last thing, protecting a small boundary around rest. So what does that mean? It's going to look very individual for each person. No emails

10:27after a certain hour, no multitasking during meals. So one of the things my daughter and I do, dinners are very intentional. There's no phones, no distractions. We're sitting at the table asking each other about our days. No problem solving in bed unless you're Nikki at 4 a.m. updated her to do list. I think that was something we discussed on last week of episode. But if you don't protect your rest even slightly, your nervous system is never going to fully trust it. But your patterns and behaviors, you're also constantly going to fill up that empty space as well. All right, over these last three episodes, we talked about why our evenings feel hard, why that mental load is heavy, and now why rest can feel uncomfortable for us. They're all connected. And when your brain has been carrying that responsibility for months, years, really, slowing down, that can feel really unfamiliar. But unfamiliar, it doesn't mean unsafe. It just means

11:29that it's new. That's not relaxing, taking some time to pause for yourself. And you don't have to earn rest by finishing everything. You don't need to prove your value through being exhausted. And you don't have to keep living in a body that never gets to just exhale. So healing doesn't only come from doing more for your health. Sometimes it comes from allowing your body to just power down and to take more periods of rest. Maybe rest isn't something you earn after everything is finished. But it is something that your nervous system does need. And with making any changes to improve energy, vitality, this is something you'll also have to make space for. So if you didn't catch our series over the last few weeks, we encourage you to go back a couple episodes and listen. All of these things, all of these tools are really important things to implement. Not just with any health changes you're making, but if you're looking to make changes or accomplish goals in any area of your life, whether it's relationships, career, finances,

12:34all of these things with regulating your nervous system and self-awareness, these are all skills that you can use anywhere. That's a wrap on today's episode. If you loved it, laughter felt seen at any point, send it to a girlfriend who gets it and don't forget to leave us a review. It helps more women find the space and get in on the conversation. For more tips and tricks, you can follow us on Instagram. I double those of wellness or on Facebook at A&N holistic and just a little reminder, before you go, you don't have to do it all to be doing enough. Take what you need from this, let the rest go and we'll see you next week.