Life Is Inherently Stressful
Here are a few personal stress relief tips to keep you cool as a cucumber, even in the most chaotic of times.
Hello Lymphies,
Are you guys doing okay out there?? I can tell you from a personal standpoint, March has been Up, Down, All around – Good stuff really. Personal growth, physical movement, new opportunities—but if I’m being honest, it’s also stretched me thinner than I like to admit. I’ve caught myself thinking, why do I feel this sense of overwhelm and anxiety when everything in my personal existence is actually… kind of amazing?
We tend to think stress is reserved for hard times. The obvious challenges, the things going wrong. But your body actually doesn’t make that distinction. Your nervous system doesn’t label experiences as “good” or “bad”—it just registers load. And even the most beautiful, expansive, exciting times of life still register as stress.
And then there’s the layer we don’t always talk about.
The collective. The stress we feel and absorb from one another. I don’t claim to be an Empath, but I can certainly feel the tension building amongst humanity and within the planet itself these days. Things feel… a little unpredictable… like pressure is building that desperately needs a release. Whether we realize it or not, we’re constantly taking that in—through conversations, through our phones, traffic patterns, through the background noise of everything happening around us. Even when things in our immediate world are okay—when you’re safe, your family is okay, your work is good—your body can still be carrying that broader sense of tension.
Lately, it’s felt a little harder to fully relax and for some reason, I feel like it’s more important than ever to stay calm, focused, and present. So instead of pushing through the chaos, I’ve been intentionally coming back to a few things that help me regulate and soften that edge. Not complicated routines or big overhauls—just small ways to bring my body back to baseline.
COGNITIVE SHUFFLING
One of my absolute, favorite, life-changing tricks for sleep is called “Cognitive Shuffling”. Google it!! It’s rare for me, but I sometimes fall victim to the dreaded 3:30am cortisol spike where I wake up like clockwork at 3:30 and then falling back to sleep is impossible because your mind just goes to all of the worst things. Historically, in these moments, I would try to practice gratitude, but sometimes your subconscious has other things to talk to you about that can’t seem to wait for some reason.
So instead, I’ve started practicing Cognitive Shuffling to fall back asleep. I’m here to say – this works! I’ll try to describe as best I can but here’s a link if you want to read this more eloquent explanation:
https://www.calm.com/blog/cognitive-shuffling
Start by picking any letter of the alphabet and then visualize an object that begins with that letter. Hold the image in your mind for about 8-15 seconds before moving on to the next object that starts with that letter.
Let’s start with “L” for example: Lion, Lemon, Library, etc. Once you’ve run out of “L-words”, move on to another random letter: “R” : River, Rainbow, Racketball. The whole point is for these things to be random.
I swear this knocks me out in less than 5 min.
What’s happening here is that you’re gently occupying the part of the brain that wants to plan and problem-solve, by giving it something neutral and low-stakes to focus on, it interrupts that mental loop without stimulating your mind further. It’s less about forcing your brain to turn off and more about giving it somewhere softer to land. This is also mimicking how our brains wind down as we fall asleep.. Our thoughts become more scattered and random allowing us to gently drift off. Give this a try instead of reaching for the phone at 4am. You’ll thank me later!
DOLPHIN NEUROSTIM
In the clinic, we can help this shift happen with vagus nerve stimulation using the Dolphin Neurostim. The vagus nerve plays a central role in your parasympathetic nervous system, the part responsible for rest, digestion, and healing, and when it’s gently stimulated, the body responds quickly. Heart rate slows, breathing deepens, and that underlying tension begins to fade. It’s one of the clearest reminders that the body isn’t broken or stuck; it just needs the right signal to shift out of that constant state of alert.
Every chance I get, I use the Vagus Nerve stimulator and I swear I can feel it working in real-time. While I strongly believe most everyone can benefit from this, it’s especially important for those who are healing or experiencing general anxiety.
We will very often start our sessions by hooking our clients up to the Dolphin and then do our Manual Lymphatic Drainage while it’s cooking. MLD and the Vagus Nerve Stimulator is such a beautiful, easy combination. Once the Dolphin has run its course (20 min), we end that treatment by applying OSEA Vagus Nerve oil to the ears and neck. Chefs kiss!
TAKE A HIKE!
Okay, it doesn’t actually have to be a hike :) But even a short walk can have an incredibly powerful and regulatory effect on stress AND lymphatic function. The rhythm and left-to-right “cross crawl” of walking helps regulate the nervous system while also supporting lymphatic flow. The cross crawl (left brain – right brain, back & forth) is not unlike the concept of EMDR and hypnosis. It’s a brain scramble, setting you back to baseline.
The effects that walking has on your lymphatic system can not be over stated.
The body is designed so beautifully. Our lymph nodes hide deep in the nooks and crannies of the body. Deep in our abdomen surrounding our precious organs, behind the ankles and knees, at the inguinal crease, all along our spinal column and then of course in our neck and armpits. Basically anywhere a joint flexes (when you walk ;) you have lymph nodes that get massaged and stimulated. We swing our arms and this pumps our axillary nodes. We flex our hips when we walk and that massages the lymph nodes deep in our groin. Furthermore, the muscle contractions that take place during walking pushes fluid from the tissue space into the lymphatic system.
It’s truly one of the easiest, most accessible things you can do to support lymphatic flow. Every step helps move fluid, reduce inflammation, and keep things from stagnating. It’s simple, but it’s doing far more than we tend to give it credit for.
LEGS UP THE WALL:
I’ll take any excuse to lay down during the day, and if I can do it with the added benefit of increased circulation accompanied by deep relaxation – to me it’s a no-brainer. This is truly one of my favorite ways to reset whenever I have 10-30 min.
Getting in this position can be tricky for some. The idea is to lay on the floor and scoot your booty as close to the wall as you can. Then you just lay there with your legs extended up the wall for some gravity-assisted circulation.. I do this either until I have to pee, or until I can really feel it working (usually takes about 15-20 min… it’ll be a noticeable and difficult to explain sensation but you’ll know when it happens).
Elevating the legs supports venous return and lymphatic drainage, especially in the lower body where fluid tends to collect, but what I notice most is how quickly it shifts my nervous system. It creates a moment where the body can downregulate and where everything starts to feel a little less urgent. Sometimes just breaking the cycle of constantly “doing” is enough to make you realize that there are very few things that desperately need attention right now. Take time to stop. Take time to be bored. Take time to have no input and just be.
AND OF COURSE, BREATH WORK
I’ve also been layering in breathwork (specifically box breathing, or 4-7-8 breathing) and this might be one of the most accessible tools we have, especially when the stress you’re feeling isn’t coming from something you can fix or solve. Both patterns slow the breath in a way that directly communicates safety to the nervous system. With box breathing, you inhale for five counts, hold for five, exhale for five, and hold again for five before repeating. This slows your breathing rate down to just 3 breaths a minute which will immediately chill you out.
With 4-7-8 breathing, you inhale for four, hold for seven, and slowly exhale for eight. That extended exhale is key. It, again, stimulates the vagus nerve, shifting the body into a parasympathetic state where heart rate slows, blood pressure lowers, and muscle tension begins to release. At the same time, deep diaphragmatic breathing creates a subtle internal pressure change that supports lymphatic movement, almost like an internal pump assisting fluid flow through the thoracic duct. It’s one of the few tools that simultaneously calms the mind and supports the physical mechanics of the body.
Because the truth is, we can’t always control what’s happening around us. We can’t quiet the world or slow everything down. But we can choose to give our body different signals.
My favorite thing about these tips is that none of this is complicated or requires much effort – and that’s exactly the point. When life gets full, even when it’s full of good things, even when the stress isn’t fully “yours”, it’s not about adding more. It’s about creating small moments where your system can soften, reset, and remember that you are safe.
I’ve been trying to remind myself that I don’t have to wait until I’m overwhelmed to take care of myself. I don’t have to earn rest. And I don’t have to be in crisis for my body to deserve support Sometimes your body just needs a little help finding that reset, and that’s exactly what we’re here for.
ONE FOR THE ROAD
And on a total side note, I want to offer you one last tip that has profoundly changed my life. This is not related to de-stressing. It’s quite the opposite really. This is more about redirecting energy. This second class I ever taught was at the Texas State AMTA Convention. There were almost 60 students in that class and I had never done any form of public speaking or formal training in my life. Someone told me to “Turn your Nerves into Excitement!!” – read that again and try to visualize what that looks like. That was truly some of the coolest advice I’ve ever gotten and I use it ALL the time. It works for everything. Cause there are times where we are righteously anxious. But if you can channel that anxiety and flip-the-script, and turn it towards excitement, or passion, or something similar but positive on the emotional scale, it can redirect that nervous feeling and turn it into your most powerful ally.
I love you all – so much.
Stressy Jessy
