Dr. Simone’s Mind Space

Embracing spring: the feminine creativity

Today’s conversation with a special international guest. Jessica Mahler is a holistic health coach passionate about helping people feel fully alive. Through embodiment, creative exploration, deep listening, and playful exploration, she creates spaces for transformation, empowerment, and uninhibited self-expression.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Learn more at www.jessicamahler.org

 

Mothers need to be mothered

Mom guilt often hinders women from taking time for themselves, when needed the most. Your glass is empty, only a couple of drops left, yet you give even these to your surrounding, before drinking yourself.

 

Metaphorically: Dehydrated and exhausted, you don’t get far. Fill up your water bottle with nurturing electrolytes.

 

Metaphorically: Take the oxygen mask first self, before helping others.

 

It takes a supportive partner, family, and a secure relationship with your child, and courage, to overcome mom guilt, questions from outsiders, second guessing yourself, to get to the place of mom-alone-time.

 

Yet, it is sooo essential to be able to give back all you can and be the best possible you, an attentive, sexual, sensual, caring partner for your loved ones, and a present, happy, containing, patient, and nurturing mother to your child/ children.

 

How can we resolve this dilemma:

 

Women support women: encourage and support each other, that we are all worthy of mom-alone-time.

 

Reduce maternal gate keeping: to increase fathers/ partners self-confidence in their parenting role and increase father-child bonding, connection, and relationship.

 

Equality in partner relationship: encourage each other and giving each other space to recharge batteries, to return rejuvenated, balanced, and happy. 

 

Act we role model for our children, showing them that moms can spend time away from kids and kids still be fine.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

A professional & personal reflection on fertility

Today‘s podcast is a reflection over a professional journey with a personal interim touch. Working in the field of women’s reproductive health for most of my academic career, I was always driven to improve the situation of women across the globe, to provide a better start for future generations.

In the midst of my journey to become a professional and academic expert in the field, I was challenged with fertility difficulties myself. Leading to an even greater advocate for women’s reproductive health and freedom.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

In conversation with Regina, live from Hong Kong

Today, after a lovely yoga class, Regina and I sat together and summarized, what we had discussed during our lovely coffee hour. Our passion for women’s health.

Regina is a global woman, who lived more than half of her life in Asia. She’s seen the world and the world changing in the East. She’s a hormone yoga teacher and passionate to share her wisdom to younger generations and women of her age on hormones, nutrition, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

@vonwahlregina

Toxic Stress

Feeling constantly anxious, tense, or overwhelmed, a state that can be more than just a hard time—it could be toxic stress. This type of stress, we experience as all-consuming, making it hard to relax. However, with the right support and practical tools, you can regain balance and shape confidence and resilience that lasts.

What is toxic stress?

Toxic stress is a prolonged state of stress. It’s the result of ongoing overwhelming and unmanageable challenges. It appears arises in situations where people feel stuck in difficult circumstances, like prolonged  adversity, neglect, trauma, or illness, lacking adequate support from family and members of their community.

Toxic stress can be the result of childhood adversity, yet is also can also profoundly affect adults. Many adults may not recognize toxic stress symptoms until they escalate, sometimes leading to conditions like PTSD.

 

How to recover from toxic stress?

 

• Create a support system
• Seek professional support
• Practice relaxation techniques
• Legs up the wall activating the parasympathetic nervous system to relax and calm down
• Focus on what you can control
• Stay active
• Participate in support programs
• Validate your feeling

@drschwank

@unesurcent

How yoga helps hyper anxious high functioning people

Living on a constant high speed train is mentally and physically exhausting, not only for the hyper anxious individual, but the entire surrounding. Most of the time, the anxious person is too preoccupied with the handicapping anxiety, that they’re not seeing and mentally understanding their behaviour’s impact on others. 

This can lead to lots of frustration, misunderstandings, feeling hurt, extra vulnerable, even more anxious by trying to fix the situation, aggressive, as well as negative inwards, namely depressed. 

It’s simple to talk about it from the outside, how to adjust and transition out of a hyper anxious state of mind, but super difficult to change behaviours, especially when chronically being on heightened anxiety. 

 

How can yoga can help hyper anxious people? 

 

It is its powerful connection between body and mind. Yoga can calm the hyper anxious mind by moving meditation. It is accessible for people of all ages, different physical fitness, and is possible to be practiced in any place, without the need of equipment. Yoga can be retrieved in situations of acute stress. Its bridging of body and mind is an extremely effective intervention, in such circumstances of acute stress.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

The daily life of a hyper anxious high functioning person

Many of us have experienced a situation of anxiety, may it be public speaking or your driver’s license ride. When there is lots on stake and personal, family, and societal expectations tied to it, we tend to over estimate the amount of time people spend being present and having an opinion about it.

High achievers, with high intrinsic motivation, tend to overthink, overanalyse, and catastrophize events and their outcomes.

 

In order to reduce the symptoms of worrying; what often happens is that people run away from their fear even more. Aimless, like chased by a perpetrator, a wild animal.

In such situations of hyper vigilance, we need to send the body and mind a signal of calm. This is however immensely difficult to remember, in a state of such acute (chronic) stress.

 

What helps fast?

-Breathing deeply

-High intensity exercise

-Legs up the wall, other inversion position

-Grounding exercises, shavasana

-Meditation: body scan

-Grounding foods: root vegetables, warm soups, date milk with cardamom & cinnamon

 

Listen to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/dr-simones-mind-space/id1532493956

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Back to school: organization skills

Many children and their parents discuss and struggle with the same topic over and over: keeping school and generally for adults, their “stuff” organized. In order to be successful in school and generally in life, we very clear need how to organize individual people, small and big groups. The better we keep track of things, the less time we’d actually need and the less physical and mental effort would be required.

We’d be able to allocate our resources to other things, which are most likely more stimulating and intellectually more demanding and interesting. It saves us a lot of mental space, that’s then free to be used  in more creative ways. This is also one of the explanations, why we often miss out on qualitative time, not “contaminated” with re- or post-organizing.

 

Write a to-do list

-Plan your outfits and outfits of your child

-Always return things to the place they belong

-Routines rock as always

-Have a routine in getting ready in the morning and evening unpack your belongings for yourself and your child

-Engage all family members in keeping their belongings organized

-An organized room, apartment keeps you accountable and sets a scene to be all planned out

-Use a decluttering and gifting to charity approach for the entire family to avoid piling up too much stuff

-Go with the flow, if organization doesn’t work out one day

-Let children play and have them after playing and pulling out everything return the toys

 

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Back to school: New year, new academic milestones

A time of excitement, anxiety, and increased stress for all family members. Expectations, visions, milestones, and goals. As a family, each member contributes to supporting each other. Every member has a responsibility to make the common goal successful. This approach gives each member autonomy to achieve the envisioned milestones.

Discuss with everyone how you’d like to achieve the goal. Who’s going to do what. By setting tangible goals, each one can feel

engaged, motivated, and can be held accountable.

And in all of this, never feel to be an add on, but a honest member.

 

 

References

https://raisingchildren.net.au/toddlers/behaviour/understanding-behaviour/about-self-esteem

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

🎄Holiday season 6: travelling solo with kids

It’s holiday season and for many parents around the world, this implies travelling with kids. Maybe you visit a family member alone with your child. How to cope with solo travelling?

 

Some recommendations: AA as

-Travel Compact

-Don’t bring too many toys. New places are like lot we s of new toys

-Pack using lists to organise and minimise unnecessary multiples

-Comfort before price: take that taxi instead of bus etc

-Ask for help, don’t be shy

-Bring enough funny snacks for the train, flight, car ride

-Hydrate yourself and your child well

-Stay relaxed, your child will be too

-Go with the flow

-Humour always helps

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent