Landy Peek (00:00)
Welcome to the Landy Peak podcast. I'm your host and friend, Landy Peak, and I am thrilled to have you join me. In each episode, we will explore what makes life truly fulfilling. Happiness, deep connections, and self -discovery. Together we'll uncover that happiness is not a destination, but a way of living. Now, let's dive into today's episode.
Landy Peek (00:31)
Hey there, it's Landy here and I'm so excited to sit down and chat as friends. Welcome to the Landy Peak podcast. Now, if we were in person together, I would dearly hope we wouldn't be sitting in my closet where I'm sitting now, but instead outside or enjoying a coffee or something fun like that. Don't you just love those moments when you get to sit with a friend and really connect? if no one has asked you today, how are you?
How's that stress level? Any overwhelm in that mix?
I see you chugging along, carrying that extra weight of all your worries, wanting different, but not sure what you can do because you sure don't have time for self -care. And when you do fit it in, if you're anything like me, it comes along with a huge helping of guilt. As an entrepreneur and a mom, there's a lot on my plate. And...
As I shared in the last episode, I really revamped my life, bringing in a lot more of those simple joys that fulfill me and allow me that contentment, really rehashing my paper goals, my success goals, so that aligns better with how I want to live my life. But that doesn't mean that I let go of all of the overwhelm or stress, right? That still comes into play in my life because even if I'm not dealing with chronic stress,
There are stressors in our day. And if we have simple tips and tricks to help us regulate with those stressors, so they don't become overwhelming, so that we don't just go from stress to stress, so that we even don't go from happiness hit to happiness hit, but really can feel true contentment, that is key. Stress,
is impacting our lives in a big, big way. I see it in my friends, in my clients, in family, and in myself. And if not properly managed, we all know stress can negatively impact our body systems and contribute to a range of health concerns. mean, stress can give us headaches, muscle tension, upset stomachs, trouble sleeping, changes in how we eat.
even changes in how we breathe. And the long -term effects of stress, we get anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, changes in our weight, changes in the way our body systems work, and heart attack, stroke, right? We can go scary. And it's not just about coping with that chronic stress. It's also important to manage and have strategies when the occasional stressors pop up.
Even the occasional stress can impact your mental health and physical health. That's why today's episode is so important. Today I'm gonna share with you three simple, and I mean simple strategies that can help you lower your stress. So I found in Forbes Health, according to the APA's,
On 2023 Work in America survey, 77 % of workers reported experiencing work -related stress in the past month. That's high. With 57 % of those citing negative impacts as a result, such as emotional exhaustion and lack of motivation. This is not just stress in our heads and our bodies. This is impacting how we function in the world, how we're showing up.
the activities that we do.
The results found that the respondents who lacked meaningful work, 71%, had a higher likelihood of reporting that they were typically stressed or tense throughout the workday. So when I shared around how that contentment, that meaningful connection in my life, the meaningful work, right? If we don't have that, it increases our stress.
And according to a 2021 Gallup survey, there was data from adults in 122 countries. This is not just a US thing. 41 % of adults worldwide report experiencing a lot of stress.
You're not alone if you're feeling the stress. So I want to share three really quick changes you can make in your life that will change how you feel. And they're incredibly powerful and take so little time and effort. You'll be able to use them every day because when you are feeling like you're barely surviving, you don't have energy to make big changes. When you're feeling super stressed out,
It's always chaos. you're just go, go, go, and you never have a chance to breathe. If you're feeling that overwhelm, like you're trudging through the day, like you're moving through molasses, or it's just hard to get up off the couch or make decisions.
even if you're in the space where I was a little bit ago, where you're kind of burned out. And I literally, I just didn't want to do things. It's not that I was depressed. It was just the overwhelm that kind of hits. And my brain's like short circuit, I'm not playing anymore. And so it does get hard sometimes to have that motivation to get up and do something, right? You know going out.
for a walk or exercise is going to change your life and make you feel better, but you don't have the energy to put your shoes on. Like I totally hear that and feel that in a big way. These are three tips that are gonna help you change your life. So tip number one. Now we've all heard the importance of breathing, right? But have you tried humming? Because humming helps calm our nervous system. Let me tell you why.
So your stress response is part of your automatic nervous system. It's the system in your body that takes care of the automatic functions like breathing, heart rate, digestion, blood pressure. And a healthy nervous system is able to up -regulate and down -regulate. We want our bodies to be able to feel that chill and safe so that we can digest our food and sleep. And then we also want our bodies
to be able to get up and run or fight if there's a threat. Like if you see a kid crossing the road in front of a car, you wanna be able to gear up into high drive and go get it, right? So we want to be able to do both. And so many of us are stuck on that overdrive that we don't downshift. We're just revving that engine. wild animals have this mastered.
if a bunny, for example, I live in Colorado, so there's a lot of bunnies that just kind of roam the neighborhood. If a bunny is chased by a fox, its nervous system goes from that rest and digest, hanging out, finding food,
to run or you're gonna be dinner. And it switches fast.
And maybe this bunny even goes into a freeze response to make the fox think that it's dead and yucky so it won't eat it. say it goes into that freeze response, right? As soon as the fox is gone, the bunny's body goes through this little shape. And you can watch it. There's a polar bear video on YouTube that shows the shape.
And it comes back to life. It looks dead and it comes back to life. And it goes back to its normal existence of finding food and hopping around. Now the bunny doesn't constantly think, where's the fox? Where's the fox? Where's the fox? my gosh, the fox. The fox is going to get me. No, it doesn't even think about the fox until it sees another fox.
That bunny's nervous system up regulates and down regulates with ease. We want ours to do the same. But as humans, we continually think about the threat, even if the threat is completely gone and we are safe. We're still watching over our shoulders, creating more stress in our lives. There's like a glitch in our system. And our vagus nerve is one way, because it's tied into that automatic nervous system, one way that we can
down regulate to that nice rest and digest state.
And this simple technique can help you tap into that. The cool thing is when we hum, we create basically a buzzing sound with our mouth. We force air through our vocal folds or cords, causing them to vibrate and produce sound. And we can control if you've played with humming, like the pitch by adjusting. And inside what's happening is we're adjusting the tension of our vocal folds.
to hum the tune, but you don't even have to hum a tune. This vibration stimulates our vagus nerve. And as part of our parasympathetic nervous system, rest and digest, it's the part of the nervous system that calms and restores the body functions, such as our heart rate, digestion, respiration, our breathing.
Have you ever noticed that you might hum when you're stressed or bored? You're automatically regulating your nervous system and you didn't even know it. So that humming, and Peter Levine teaches this in somatic experiencing. He talks about he uses a voo and you can use a voo or just a hum, right, or a voo.
Holding it out.
And that vibration can help that vagus nerve downshift so that you feel better.
So next time you're feeling stressed out, try humming. Those nice deep low tones are beautiful. I even do this with my kids, especially when they were little and they would be in the tantrum state. I would do a nice.
and you can watch your kids like literally, It's beautiful. It does the same to you. So whether you want to hum a tune or whether you want to just hold that hum one note, try humming next time you're feeling stressed and see what changes happen in your body. Now, the next tip is walking, but hold on. I hear you. I don't have time to walk.
I'm not gonna walk, right? You don't have to walk long. I'm not talking put on your sneakers and head out the door to walk, although that's good for you. You don't have to do that. What I'm gonna invite you to do with whatever footwear you have on, barefoot, socks, doesn't matter, is to take moments in your day, two minutes, set a two minute timer and walk. You can walk up and down the hall through your house, around your house.
around the building, up and down stairs, right? Wherever you want to walk two minutes. Research has proven that two minutes can make a difference in helping you de -stress. Now I'm not talking we're doing this for exercise, although it's going to help.
Those two minutes can change your mood. So it may be that you have 15 minutes until your next appointment or your next call. Walk for two minutes, right? Take five minutes, walk down the block. Walk down the block when you start or finish work. It's not the length of time.
And here's a really cool thing. The benefits of walking are numerous. It improves your sleep, your endurance, your stress, your mood, increased energy and stamina. It reduces your tiredness and increases your mental alertness. How many times have we been like doing something at work and you're like, like cannot think, go for a walk.
I'm going to add a layer on to just go for a walk because I think there's really a big difference between going for a walk with your head looking at your feet and going for a walk looking at the horizon.
so much of our day now is us narrow focused. I'm looking at my computer, I have a narrow focused vision. As I'm looking down at my computer, I'm looking at my phone or I'm reading a book or I'm looking at a client when I used to be in office with pelvic health or even as a pediatric therapist, I'm still looking down at my client on the table or as the kiddo that I'm working with on the floor.
We have a very narrow focus and this narrow focus increases our stress. So if you look at what it does to our body, look down at your phone, you probably have it handy. What happens to your entire body as you look down at your phone? Right, you have in a narrow gaze, you just see your phone, your head tips down, your shoulders hunch over, your backgrounds, right? This is
nervous system -wise telling your body it's stressed and not okay. So now go from looking at your phone to looking up at the horizon. Horizon meaning just up and out.
As you look up and out, what happens to your body? You look up and out and your shoulders go back, your neck straightens. I feel lighter and even happier.
My breathing's easier because I have the expansion in my chest. I feel better. Can you feel that? Like just play with it. Down and up. Down and up. And just notice the difference in your energy and how you feel. So Dr. Andrew Hubberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford, has been studying the impact of our vision and breathing on stress in the body for over 20 years. And
His research revealed that when we look at something stressful or exciting, our field of vision narrows. So we have laser sharp focus. Our eyeballs actually rotate inwards towards our nose.
When we expand our visual field, looking up at the horizon, the body actually switches off the stress response. So to take this a little further, we can reduce our stress by allowing our eyes to relax and take a wider view.
focusing on a broader horizon instead of just one thing. here's a way to really bring in two things at once. That two minute walk, I'm gonna encourage you and invite you to look up at the horizon, not down at your phone or down at your feet. And just notice the difference. Even if you only have the opportunity,
and can't go for your two minute walk. If you're working at a computer or working at where you're hunched over, looking up for just 30 seconds and allowing your eyes to broaden their view and then go back and give yourself those little horizon breaks. It doesn't have to be long, but if you can incorporate it while you are walking,
All the better. So, plug in your favorite podcast, play music, or listen to silence. Silence is an incredible thing. And take that two to five minute walk. Let your imagination go. We've lost that time to let our imaginations go. We feel that. It used to be when we stood in line or had to wait, our imaginations just had to roam because we didn't have a phone.
to give it information. And I am guilty. I have the Kindle app on my phone. I read a ton. I have a minute and I'm reading. I have a minute and I'm listening to a podcast. I had to consciously put silence in and that'll be a whole different conversation. Silence in my life. So allow your imagination to go. It's gonna help you de -stress. It's gonna help you feel better.
incorporate little bursts of walking while you're looking at the horizon.
And I'm guessing you're going to feel a big difference. And it doesn't take much. It can take that transition. My office is in the basement. So it's taking those moments to consciously look up and walk upstairs, to walk to the mailbox, right? Where I'm not overloading myself.
the third simple thing that you can do to change your life. Because we want really, really simple, right? So far, hum, look up, allow your vision to expand, go for a little tiny walk.
is to incorporate music. Now, have you ever noticed that that song comes on and your whole energy changes? And it could be for the good or bad, right? You hear that song that was like your song with your ex back way back when, and you're like, or you hear that song and you're like, this is awesome. I use music all the time to help change my mood and my kids' moods. And it doesn't have
to be a song with words. It doesn't have to be a song that has an emotional connection.
It can be a drum beat. But there's a deeper reason that music works.
there's an underlying beat that some music has, but is a consistent and rhythmic beat. What do our systems love? Consistent, rhythmic. Right? There's a science behind the beat.
So what I'm going to invite you to really do that can help externally regulate your system that's internally dysregulated.
is to find songs that have a consistent beat. So when I was a pediatric OT, I used to have drumming music playing in my classroom. I worked in both a therapy center and in school based and I would have a rhythmic beat. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. That nice, heavy, consistent rhythmic
Predictable, our bodies love predictability, so do our brains. Beat, set the tone for kids so they would have more success. It doesn't have to be loud, but we're looking for that consistent, rhythmic, predictable beat.
And it changes your energy in a fabulous way. So when you're starting to feel that anxiousness, that jittery, that overwhelm, when you're starting to feel that high, I don't know if you're like me, but you know, when I have that like anxiety, like go, go, go, go, go, I start to like feel myself go high. I actually stop feeling my feet on the ground and start to just kind of buzz. And that feeling.
That overwhelm, that anxiety and anxiety can be great, right? Cause it can a motivator. can keep us going. It can get us to do things. It can amp you up for a race, but we don't want to live in that state, right? our ideal nervous system.
goes up and down as needed. We don't live in that upstate.
So giving us that external way to regulate can really make an impact in how you feel.
One of the things that I have found with my own kiddos, and I can see that, if you're a parent, you know when those tantrums are coming, right? You know when the meltdown is going to happen. You can see the signs ahead of time. When I start to see that, I will turn on music for my kids. Yes, make sure that they're not hangry. Give them a snack. But I can turn on that music that gives that beat.
And that can make a huge difference.
I also use music when I'm frustrated. So getting ready for school, my daughter can turn into total sloth mode. And the more you push, the more she digs in and the slower she goes. Now that's my perception. my brother -in -law once said that we have a different sense of urgency. And I love this. This is made so much sense.
And so she does not have the same sense of internal urgency that I do. I'm like, come on, we gotta go school starting, right? And her urgency is just not the same. My husband also does not have the same sense of urgency than I do. And it creates a real stress inside me.
what I have really found is that when I start to feel that stress, I can sing and I can maintain a better regulation inside myself, which will then help me because kids need us to co -regulate, will then help me co -regulate with my daughter.
so that we're both not flying off the handle starting the school day with us yelling at each other.
And I have used those heavy beat songs. Right? Those things that you can clap to or toe tap. And there can be other music on top of it, right? But it has the underlying beat. I will sing songs to those underlying beats. And I don't have to be anything that's, you know, a real song.
I literally will sing things like, you know, what do you want for breakfast? And I find that my kids respond better when I'm singing it and being a little silly because it helps them. But it also helps me really keep in that space. And so I'm able to keep in a more regulated way. I remember one time I picked my son up from school and you know,
just on the edge of...
meltdown. Like there was a hangry going on, but it would have been a really tough day and I could see it coming. And so I turned on that Whaler song.
So we got in the car, made sure we had a snack. We don't want the hangers, but I could literally see it was a rough day and you're on the edge of meltdown.
so I put on that Wellerman song. There once was a ship that put to sea. You can hear the beat. Bum, bum, bum, bum. And literally by the end of the song, he was a completely different cat.
And so it's sometimes using that music that has that external hard beat can really make a difference in how our body feels. And it doesn't have to be that heavy, heavy Wellerman beat.
You can use higher like energy songs. Like, I don't know if you've heard the Princess Who Saved Herself, but like the music's like bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,
of me and my kids. So it's really incredible when you can bring in music and how that simple little thing can really change. So I started carrying my headphones in my purse. So when I was waiting in line or if I'm in traffic, I can turn on
that music or my favorite podcast, because I also love finding those positive podcasts and turn on that music and make a difference in how I feel.
In the first episode I talked about, played the game. Does it feel good or bad? Right. And that's kind of how I was guiding if this feels good. So we want to do more of what feels good and less of what doesn't. So if sitting in line or in traffic is frustrating, add something that feels good. So you change how you're feeling and music is the simplest way to do that. And it's.
Really, really, really cool. So as you go through these three simple things, bring in humming. So that's gonna tap into your vagus nerve, rest and digest. Look up and give a little walk. So you're changing your environment just by walking and changing the horizon. You're de -stressing just in those two little movements put together. And then adding in music.
especially with a rhythmic predictable beat, it's gonna change how you feel. And there things you can do easily throughout your day. So you change how you feel moment to moment, which is gonna change your entire day. And it's fabulous when you could just bring in those little things that make such a big difference.
And when we're looking at those little things that make such a big difference, they are things that you can use because that's what I want to give you. Are there things that you can easily use so that you can actually change your life? Because remember, this is in your hands. You have that power. You're the one.
that gets to tune in say, feels good or it doesn't. I can't tell you what feels good in your body and I can't tell you what doesn't. I can tell you what feels good in mine. So it really is playing the game, what feels good, what doesn't, and bringing in these really simple tricks so that you can start feeling better and less stressful, less overwhelmed, be able to focus on the things that you really want to focus on.
I want to tell you what I tell my kids every day on the way to school. You are smart. You are creative. You are talented. You are worthy and deserving, and you are an amazing human being, and you're doing great. And I am so lucky to have you in my life. I love you and I like you, and I think it's so important to hear both. Enjoy your day. We'll see you on the next podcast.
Landy Peek (30:02)
Hey, before you go, just a little bit of legal. This podcast is designed for educational purposes only. It is not to replace any expert advice from your doctors, therapists, coaches, or any other professional that you would work with. It's just a chat with a friend, me, where we get curious about ideas, thoughts, and things that are going on in our lives. And as we're talking about friends, if you know someone who would benefit from the conversation today, please share.
Because I think the more that we open up these conversations, the more benefit we all get. So until next time, give yourself a big hug from me and stay curious because that's the fun in this world.
