When I just don’t want to care for my body…I turn to try these 5 self-care practices.
Living with Lymphedema can be challenging and you may find yourself experiencing feelings of overwhelm. Of not wanting to care for your Lymphedema or yourself as a whole person. You may dissociate from your Lymphedema and wish it would go away. It might be in response to something sepcific like wanting to go camping and feeling overwhlemed by what to bring, how to avoid bug bites, and how the heck are you going ot keep your stockings and skin clean without shower access? It can all feel like too much and we might feel like hiding or just saying no I can’t go.
So how do we cope?
When I find myself in this state, I turn to self-care first and here's why.
You can't fill up someone else's cup from an empty one. The same reasoning behind the rule of put on your mask before someone else's mask when on a plane. When you aim to fill from the overflow, and it allows you to give without depleting yourself. Chronic depletion leads to burnout. If you are here, I see you. Every journey begins with the first step. It's never to late to try again and take that first step.
These are some of my favourite self-care practices that I turn to when I'm feeling overwhelmed. They are also practices that are gentle and holistic, making them the perfect medicine for preventing overwhelm from rooting itself into us. I love how self-care can bring us back into our body but also helps us get ready to give to others from a more nourished state.
Self-care is a broad topic involving many many aspects of ourselves and our lives. I wont be going into all these different angles right now, but developing a slef-care routine to address elements specific to you and your goals and challenges is where 1:1 work is really beneficial.
There may be a specific practice that you love that isn't listed below and that's okay! If it makes you feel less overwhelmed and brings you back into your body, congratulations! Keep going!
my Top 5 self-care practices for reducing overwhelm:
1) Oil Hydration with Body Oiling
In Ayurveda, body oiling is called Abhyanga which means love. To oil the body is to love the body. Isn’t that a beautiful thought and reminder? Our touch can bring love to ourselves. It's a very calming self-care practice for the nervous system, nourishing for the skin, and the lymphatics. Oil hydration is just as important to our cells as water hydration. Oils are also essential for nerve cells to effectively fire messages to one another is depend on lipids to allow the firing along our ganglion fibres running all through our body. When our oil hydration is low, it makes it harder for our nervous system to send messages around the body effectively. We can feel off, anxious, out of sorts, low in the self-love category, have trouble making decisions, or feel distracted.
Body oiling helps me calm my nervous system in a practice that encourages me to express my love to myself, feels sooo good! I wish I would have learned this years ago! It's so simple to sit down with yourself and a body of oil and give yourself a massage. No special or expensive equipment required. Just your hands, oil, and time. This practice helps us tap into our bodies and how we are feeling in that moment. Helping us to bring tenderness to our tender areas. Breaking down that feeling of overwhelm or anxious feelings and replacing it with calm, love, and groundedness, can give you a sense of feeling back in your body.
How to oil?
Choose any oil that you are comfortable with. You can create your own body oil with ingredients from your kitchen such as extra-virgin olive oil, almond oil, avocado oil to make a basic but effectively and nourishing body oil. You can purchase herbal body oils. It can be scented or unscented, depending on your preference. I prefer to use herbal oils scented with essential oils for a couple reasons:
The herbal infusion process levels up the oil by providing that oil hydration we talked about above, nourishing the skin with nutrients that encourage cell repair, collagen production, and help decrease inflammation.
the addition of essential oils create a scent experience that allows me to experience a layered on self-care technique combining sense of touch and smell, helping my body remember the experience more which means I’m more likely to return to it in the future.
What do you think you would prefer or like to try? Tell me in the comments below.
Want to have a customized body oil unique to you and your scent preferences? Book a 1:1 wellness consultation package and I can create a custom body oil for you to enjoy!
2) Salt Water Hydration
When you can't be in the ocean, bring the ocean to you and create a nourishing salt bath. Right beneath or skin, is most of our lymphatics, which is a salt rich solution that works to protect the skin. Salt water is naturally softening and rich in minerals. Salt actually helps our body absorb water more effectively hydrating us deeper into our tissues.
You may have spotted the instagram (IG) trend of sprinkling a little Himalayan Pink Salt into a glass of water to improve cellular hydration. It is true, it can help for sure. It's an ancient Ayurvedic practice to sprinkle a small pinch of Himalayan pink salt in water before you drink it. I shared on a past blog post about how to make your own electrolyte drink using pink salt, lemon juice, and honey, that is very refreshing. When we aren't making this, we add nuun tabs to our drinks on hot days or after workouts, or when spending long stretches outside in the sun like when camping. I also find because of my Lymphedema, I am lower in magnesium than average, so this helps me. The nuun tabs replace the electrolytes without added sugar, which can be great for those avoiding sugar or who have diabetes.
Nuun Immunity Hydration Tabs - There are several tab flavours available now. I have found them at health food stores, sports equipment/gear stores like Sport Chek and MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op). (Not sponsored. Just love them).
Other ways to hydrate with salt include having a salt soak in the bath or a foot or hand soak. Salt softens the skin and helps protect it from infections as well.
Add epsom salt, or pink himalayan salt to your bath to soak up the benefits of skin softening, immunity support, and pain relief. 1/2-1 c. c. per bath or 2 tbsp/1-4 for a foot bath.
3) Connect to nature
In the city, this can be as simple as appreciating a houseplant, or finding some dandelions pushing through the cracks in the sidewalk. Nature is all around us if we look for it. We can’t always trek off to nature adventures, like camping, and hikes. So, taking a moment to be present with plants wherever we are can bring us back into a whole state and reduce our anxiety. Spending time with nature has been proven to help reducing stress levels, improve calm, focus, and overall well-being. This works because it brings us back into a compassionate and loving state by spending time with plants seeing them, smelling them, walking amongst them. Imagine what this picture would look like without the plants? Would it be as inviting or friendly?
Plants help fill up our cup within as well as mindful movement in nature is essential for lymphatic health. Go with the flow and create flow. When there is no flow, there is no glow. Our light inside us literally dims when we are out of flow, stagnant in body or mind, feel stuck, anxious, or overwhelmed. That glow you get after a good workout? It's your lymph moving and flowing, bringing fresh energy to your cells. Water is life. Water is the medium of how Prana moves around our body. Plants are living water beings much like we are.
Two suggestions on how to connect to nature - wherever you are living
A simple practice is to stop and pick a flower or leaf, notice the petals, colours, texture, how are the veins formed that you can see? Smell it, taste it (if it's edible). Another simple practice is to ground in nature by laying on the earth. The earth is full of vibrations and healing. By laying down for a moment and feeling the ground hold you with the sky above, it can bring you out of a state of overwhelm, activate your parasympathetic nervous system and improve lymphatic flow. Stay here for 5 min. or more practicing deep breathing techniques, smiling up at the sky, putting your hands on your heart. Feel too shy to just drop and lay on the ground in the park? Invite a friend to join you and try the practice together!
4) Yoga and Meditation
Yoga is a mindful way to move your body that connects your body, mind, and spirit. It is something I really enjoy for the physical movement, mindful connection with myself, and I find it improves my Lymphedema too! Yoga is a wonderful way to stretch our muscles, calm our minds, and strengthen and tone our physical bodies. It helps us build resilience to keep coming back to the mat and working on our bodies noticing whats different each time and tuning into what we need in that moment. Join a local yoga class, try out a video from youtube, or grab your mat and do a couple of your favourite poses. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Let your intuition guide you to what you need and what would feel good.
The more time I make for yoga every day whether it be 10 minutes or a full hour practice, it supports me throughout the day when faced with stress, challenges, and helps me keep my heart open to finding solutions and possibilities. It truly has been life-changing for me. I’m looking forward to finishing my YTT training and offering Lymph-loving yoga sessions online this fall! Stay tuned!
5) Herbs
The plant kingdom has many allies that can help calm our body and mind such as oats, passionflower, cornflowers, lemon balm, chamomile, skullcap, rose, lavender, citrus fruits like lime, grapefruit, and orange, resins like: spruce, balsam, myrrh, frankincense.
So many choices, where do you start? On an intuitive level, is there a plant you keep noticing in your neighbourhood, or something you always reach for when stressed like chamomile tea? It’s helpful to craft a herbal routine specific to your body energetics, and your wellness goals by working with a herbalist, like myself.
Not every plant is best for every person and not every plant will give you the same reaction. We are all biodynamically unique beings. An example of this is Chamomile. For most people it can be very calming, reducing anxiety, helping us sleep better, but for some folks, it can be a very awakening herb and if they took it at bedtime, they might have trouble sleeping. If you would like to sign up for a 1-on-1 consultation to find out what herbs might best help you, reach out and book a session through our website. I would be honoured to help guide you to plants that can help you. Herbalists can also consult on diet and lifestyle too and show you how to incorporate plant medicine into your self-care throughout your day.
Just as not every plant is right for every person, not every plant is appropriate all year long. Our bodies are seasonal beings and we cycle between states of moisture-dryness, light-darkness, etc. with the seasons. As an example, Taking dandelion root in the spring helps awaken our liver, boost our lymphatics and encourage our body to detoxify, but taking dandelion root all year round is not necessarily going to help you in the same ways it does in the spring and may not be the best herb to use year round to help you achieve your wellness goals. Herbalists help you get at the root of your problems while also addressing the symptoms present to provide long-term relief and bring the body back into balance.
BONUS!
Journaling
I know this practice helps so much, from all the evidence around it, to trying it personally for myself. I have to admit, I have trouble sticking with it, or remembering, or making time like i'm sure many of you do. Especially when I'm feeling overwhelmed, but it is often the thing that I need most in that moment that I resist. Does that happen to you too? I get on a good streak and fall off again. I used to be so hard on myself when I broke my streak, but I'm working practicing self-compassion and focusing on getting my streaks longer and not beating myself up when I break my streaks. I'm choosing to 'find on the good' as I often tell my kids and I am practicing it here. When we give ourselves grace and space, it allows us the freedom to try again and love ourselves through it all.
Which self-care practice would you try to help get you out of a state of overwhelm? Which practice will you turn to to help reduce the number of times you find yourself in overwhelm?
Life is a practice. You are worthy of taking the time to experiment and see what works for you. Fill up your own cup so you can serve others from the overflow.
Blessings, Amy
xoxo
