Tips to calm your nervous system and foster more creativity

If you suffer from chronic stress or are looking to improve your quality of life as a business owner and complete human, you are going to want to tune in to this important and inspiring episode!

I speak with movement facilitator and anatomy educator, Kathy Richardson, about her work and her multifaceted approach to absolute embodiment. She shares how following her curiosity led to a career as an educator and manual therapist in Costa Rica and why arming people with information about their bodies and internal systems is incredibly empowering.

She educates me a little on what the nervous system is, how it affects us, and a few simple activities that help bring us into a more balanced state.

Like me, you are going to be amazed at her insights on “hope molecules”, her advice on movement, and her philosophy on how nourishing the body will result in a better life experience.

Episode Resources

• Learn more about Kathy Richardson at her website and follow her on Instagram
• Surf Bikini Retreat
• Online Private Group: Move Flow and Grow

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

Hey, hey, hey, it’s Rebecca and you’re listening to Resilient by Design.

Today’s episode is a little bit different. It’s unique. I invited a woman that I met when I was in Costa Rica this past January to come and speak on the podcast. Kathy Richardson. First of all, you guys are going to love her accent, but she is a movement facilitator. I attended a few yoga classes that she did for us at the retreat I stayed at, but she is also a manual therapist and an anatomy educator.

She started out as a professional dancer in London, England. Her life and career has led her to dancing with internationally acclaimed companies, teaching yoga in the tropics and treating professional athletes. On the massage table. She now lives in Nostara, Costa Rica, where I met her and she spends her time treating, moving and educating her community.

She incorporates the multifaceted approach to bring to your home. Today, we talk about the nervous system, what it is, and I will be honest with you. I come at this with very little knowledge. And so I asked some really basic questions. So Kathy, thank you for entertaining my basic questions. There are two big takeaways in this episode that I want you guys to listen out for some tips on what we can do in our daily life to calm our nervous system, to get into a state Of calm and reducing the stress.

And it’s actually a really insightful episode. Listen for her nugget at the end and the two big takeaways that I even emphasize in the episode that for me were Really game changing. So guys go and enjoy this episode with Kathy. Welcome podcast, Kathy. I’m really excited to have you here today. The last time I saw you and met you was in Costa Rica.

And here we are on zoom. What’s a very different experience, but I’m so excited to have

you. Thank you. So honored to be here. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

And I love your accent. I remember doing a yoga class with you and thinking, Oh, her voice is so soothing and amazing. Where can you tell everyone sort

of where you’re from?

Okay, well, I’m from England, kind of. We lived in a lot of places when I was growing up, but I moved to England when I was nine. My dad’s British. My mom’s from Trinidad. And I lived there until I was 29. And then I moved to Costa Rica. And I’ve been here now for the last two and a half years and kind of made a new home.

I, I sort of burnt everything down and then began again from the ashes. If we like in that kind of way. So it was, it was a very testing couple of years, but it seems like it’s paying off now. So that’s good.

Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. I mean, I can relate to that in my twenties. I’m slightly older than you.

I I lived in various cities around the world and it is an incredible experience. It’s a lot to put yourself into a completely new environment and start really, like you said, from the ashes, like start from scratch where you don’t necessarily know anyone. And you learn a lot about yourself and it’s, I think it really builds character.

And I mean, I like to think so. I think I have a lot of character. I would agree. I would agree. So we met in January. So maybe tell the audience, before we dive into all the things, I’m really excited to talk to you today. We’re About the nervous system and the role of the body plays in the bigger picture.

But before we kind of get into that, we met in Costa Rica. Can you tell everyone what it is that you do in Costa Rica? You’re in no Sarah, I believe. Still, that’s where I was when I met you. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. So I live in the Sarah. What do I do? I do many things and from, but essentially my life’s work, my life’s mission is, is, is everything that’s body related.

So I come from a professional dance background. That’s what I was doing in London for 12 years. And then I started also teaching yoga, and then I was always just fascinated by anatomy and physiology, so I teach yoga, but then I also started teaching anatomy for people who are in training to become yoga teachers, or also people who are yoga teachers, or just students who are more interested in understanding applied anatomy and physiology of their bodies.

And then I also started working as a manual therapist. So I work with sports, massage and medical acupuncture. So a lot of times I’m working with people who are coming to me with injuries or rehabilitation processes, or they are maintaining certain things that they’re doing. So they might be surfing a lot here or doing a lot of yoga or whatever.

So it’s, it’s kind of like, I look at it as like the multifaceted approach to absolute embodiment. So it’s not just. It’s not just teaching a yoga class. It’s not just giving manual therapy. It’s not just education, but rather it’s the kind of hybrid of all of those. So it’s one thing to go to someone and to just receive a really good treatment from them.

But then being able to understand why, what is going on with your physiology, that educational part for me is really important. So yeah, it’s like I do a lot of things, but it’s all body related. It’s all about how we can thrive in motion. and thrive within these vessels that we’ve been gifted for this lifetime.

Yeah. And I think I remember that’s what stood out to me because when I went to the retreat that I did in Costa Rica, those of you who follow me on Instagram, you probably followed the whole journey and you got to see it was amazing. Surf bikini retreat, give them a little shout out here. She’s amazing.

But we had several teachers come. So we had different days where there were different yoga teachers. And I remember what really stood out to me was it felt like a very holistic approach. Just in the way that you walked us through the poses. And I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, but it did resonate.

Well, that’s why I reached out to you. I’m like, I think you’d be great on the podcast. I just think that’s so interesting. This whole idea of anatomy, but can we talk about anatomy versus nervous system? Like. I, you know, the layman over here, interior designer is thinking like anatomy, that’s like how your body parts and your muscles and like how it all functions, but then the nervous system feels like a totally different thing.

How do you transition into under liking yoga and physicality and then moving into, I don’t know if I’m saying it right. I just think it’s really interesting,

essentially. So in Western medicine, we subdivide anatomy and physiology into these 11 systems and the nervous system is one of those systems, but nothing, none of these systems work in isolation.

None of them heal in isolation. None of them get injured in isolation. Everything affects everything, but it’s just quite a Westernized way of where we look at things where we like to kind of compartmentalize everything. And so the nervous system is one of these systems. It’s a very profound one. It’s a very, very important one because it essentially is what keeps us alive and also dictates our whole experience of life.

It has the capacity to change the way that food tastes. It’s to change the way that our, what mood we’re in, how we relate to other people around us, whether we feel safe or not. So it’s kind of this thing that maybe, I mean, nowadays it’s getting a lot more airtime. It’s getting a lot more popularity and that’s, I think for a really good reason, but it’s extremely important in how we are able to move through life and it is part of our anatomy and it’s part of our physiology.

And I love being able to teach people about it because it’s, it’s incredibly empowering when we understand how it works. And we’re still learning how it works, you know, more and more as the years go on and more research comes out where we’re, we’re realizing that things that we thought we knew actually, it’s not quite like that.

And we’re going to continue to be surprised by the system, but we’re at a pretty good place in this point where we have a lot of information. And when we have more of that information and we can understand how our bodies work, we can utilize it to the best of our abilities, and then we can have a much.

Nicer experience of of being alive, all the way to being more productive, being more creative, relating to people better, you know, all of that.

So what is the nervous system like? Forgive me for the lack of understanding. , I feel like everyone talks about like, oh, the nervous system. Oh yes. It’s gotta take like.

Like, is it a system of nerves in your body, like, I’m taking, I’m like dumbing this down. Is it essentially a system of nerves in your body that is controlling your muscles and your mind, like, in the basic of terms?

All of the above. So, so essentially we can look at the nervous system as it’s your body’s software.

It’s controlling constantly like what’s going on in your body moment to moment millisecond by millisecond. And it’s kind of comprised down in a map of, of what it is. So you have your central nervous system, which is your brain and your spinal cord. And these areas, as we see, they’re contained within very strong structures like your skull and then your, your vertebrae.

Because it’s very, very important. We don’t, we don’t want this part of our nervous system to be damaged because that could have, you know, much more profound effects than if we were to damage a nerve on the end of our fingertip. And then you have your peripheral nervous system, which are the nerves that then come out of the spinal cord and they go in and innovate your muscles and your gut and your diaphragm and everything in your body.

And essentially it’s this two way conversation that’s happening constantly. So your nerves and your nervous system is picking up on information that’s. around you and also within you. So what level of carbon dioxide and oxygen do I have in my blood, but also what am I seeing around me? What is the environment?

And they’re taking all of that information into your central nervous system, your central nervous system, which is again, your brain and your spinal cord is, is processing that information that it’s receiving. And then it’s making it’s sending out actions as a result. So, okay, now I know I need to exhale or now I need to change the chemical balance within my blood by whatever.

Process that’s going to take or maybe something’s coming towards me. I need to move out of the way so I don’t get hit. So it’s this constant conversation of, of what’s going on and how essentially we keep ourselves safe and how we keep ourselves alive. So the number one function of your nervous system is to keep you alive.

Right.

So, and it happens on autopilot or does it? It sounds to me like your nervous system is something that we can’t control. It’s in the background making moves, making everything happen. So why pay attention to it? I guess. Like, why is it important for us to understand the nervous system?

So the map that I was talking about then kind of as is a very complicated system, it then continues to subdivide.

So your peripheral nervous system, everything that branches off of your central nervous system, then also becomes something that’s called your somatic nervous system, which is everything that’s associated with movement. And a lot of our movement is conscious. So we, I can choose to clench my hand like this.

I choose to walk. That’s a voluntary action that I’m taking. And then You’ve also got your autonomic nervous system, so autonomic, automatic, this is mostly, it’s involuntary, so we don’t have conscious control. That’s not completely true, which I will get to in a moment. We do have, there are ways in which we can start to control it, which is a very empowering understanding of our body.

And this autonomic then also subdivides down into sympathetic and parasympathetic. These are very commonly now known as your sympathetic is your fight, flight, freeze. That’s like, okay, there’s a threat. I need to keep myself alive. So I’m either going to fight this threat or I’m going to freeze. fly away from it, or I might even freeze.

And then there’s your parasympathetic, which we refer to as rest and digest and repair. And then that’s when your body’s like, there’s no threat. I’m not in instant danger. I’m chilling. So I’m going to be able to rest. I’m going to repair. I’m going to digest my food or, you know, whatever I’m going to go into that cellular turnover of things, just, just kicking over.

And so whilst the majority of your autonomic nervous system is automatic, we don’t have voluntary control. There are things that we can do to be able to get us more into this parasympathetic state. And why that is important to understand is because when we’re in a parasympathetic state, we’re far better able to, I mean, just, Essentially as an umbrella, your, your experience of life is just so much better because you’re calm, you’re collected, your body’s repairing itself.

But that’s also where we’re able to really access this creative part of our brain, this problem solving part of our brain. We’re able to be a lot more productive. We’re able to be calmer in our relationships. We’re able to, you know, not be frightened or scared of. the future and perhaps what’s coming in our business or, you know, all of these things.

So really the sympathetic nervous system is not wrong. It’s we, we, we want these moments of sympathetic arousal. Stress is not bad for us. Chronic stress is not good for us, but it’s like, where are we spending most of our time? And we used to think that. You’re either in a sympathetic state or in a parasympathetic state.

And now we understand that’s not, that’s not completely true. There’s something called autonomic tone where you’re essentially balancing those two halves. However, you will have a bias towards one. And what we would like to do. If we are thriving business women and we’ve got a long checklist of things to get through and we want to enjoy the process, then we want to also be able to get it done and go out and have a drink with our friends is we want to be more in that parasympathetic state.

Hmm. So what I’m hearing is that the parasympathetic state, that’s like the resting rejuvenating place where we would like to spend more time. is that many of us are spending too much time in the other, in that stressful, sympathetic state, especially those of us, high powered women, career driven moms, right?

Like, doing all the things, living in cities, like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Would you say that, when you’re in that parasympathetic way of being, For lack of, I’m so terrible at talking anything medical. Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You’re doing great. When you’re in that restful state, that’s probably, and you, you’re mentioning creativity.

And as you were saying that I just had this hit where I thought, Oh, is that why when I go for a walk, like a long walk in the neighborhood, all of a sudden I have like five amazing creative ideas.

Absolutely.

Like, I’m not even trying. I’m just trying to enjoy the birds and the bees and all of a sudden I’m like, Oh, I need to stop.

I got to write that down.

Absolutely. And there’s, there’s that. And then there’s also just the wonders of what movement does for our creative thinking and our cognition and. There’s, I mean, we, we don’t really need nowadays to be convinced as to why movement is good for us. We, we kind of, we all know that it’s good for us, but it’s a mood enhancer releases endorphins.

It releases neurotransmitters. The fact that you’re like going out and walking, meaning you’re present with, like you say, the birds and the bees and the, and the trees is. Presence is what is what allows you to really access as well that parasympathetic state because when we’re in a sympathetic state, we’re going to be worried about maybe something that has happened or maybe something that might happen.

And so you’re in this threat response. And it can be very, very, the thing with stress and the sympathetic state is it can be very insidious. It can just lie underneath. It’s not always this like, I’m being chased by a saber toothed tiger kind of thing. Like it can just be, it can be that little email that you’ve forgotten to reply to that comes to you and then haunts you kind of throughout the day.

Like it’s that it can be that sensitive that it, the nervous system is resilient by design. Your body is resilient by design just to use your own words. Fantastic. Love that. Love that. Yes, but it’s primary thing is to keep you safe and, and. You know, we’re working with a 200, 000 year old brain where the way that it was designed was this sympathetic arousal to keep us alive.

The threats that we were experiencing 200, 000 years ago are very, very different to the threats that we’re experiencing now, but they’re perceived and experienced in the same way because our physiology is the same.

Hmm. So I guess the question would be, I mean, the state of your nervous system. Will affect your life.

It will affect your relationships is going to affect likely your health. I’m assuming is probably going to affect then also your work. How does that state then manifest itself in reality? Like, how is it affecting us positively or negatively?

Yeah, great question, because stress, and when I say stress, I’m talking about chronic stress, so short bouts of stress, not an issue.

We can also have a very quick kind of problem solving mechanism that comes in when we’re in this state of stress, but it’s just, if you’re talking about long term stress, Stress is very, very depleting on our body when we’re in this continued sympathetic state, and that can be as a result of like things, stresses that are happening in our body, if we’re not sleeping well, if we’re not eating well, if we’re not nourishing, if we are maybe around people who we don’t feel safe around, or if we’re in company of people that don’t nourish us in that way.

Because we’re getting a lot more cortisol and things that are essentially churning through your system that are very depleting. They’re very taxing on our system. And then, you know, we try and up our productivity or we try and go out and achieve more and then we’re further stressing our system. And so if we notice that we’re in this place, it’s like, okay, what can we do to get into more of that parasympathetic state?

And if we, we segue more into how we are actually able to do this, because I mentioned at the beginning that the autonomics or the sympathetic parasympathetic is automatic. It’s involuntary, however. Also said that no system in your body works in isolation and so your respiratory system and your nervous system are completely entwined and we know that when we’re breathing, we don’t have to think about breathing and thank God that we don’t, because otherwise that would take up basically all of our day if we had to think every time we were inhaling or exhaling.

It’s just ticking along nicely in the background. Same thing with our heartbeat. However, we can control our breath to a point if you chose in this moment to hold your breath for as long as you can, your nervous system at some point would, would override and it would make you breathe, but we can control our breath to a certain point.

And it’s one of the easiest, quickest, most effective ways to regulate your nervous system and to get into that parasympathetic state. All it requires us to do all it really, I mean, there’s many, many different breathing techniques, but the most simple one that anyone can do is to exhale for slightly longer than you’re inhaling for.

And if you do that for a minimum of, you know, three to five minutes, you’re already going to be taking yourself into that parasympathetic state. You’re going to be reducing the cortisol that’s flooding through your system. And. Able to come into this more kind of rational thinking outside of the box, calmer place where you’re into that rest and rejuvenation.

I love that you just shared that, Kathy. Thank you for simplifying that because there are so many breathing exercises and techniques out there, right? It’s like, there’s that military one where it’s like breathe in for seven, hold it. I don’t know. No. Breathe in for four, seven, eight, whatever. And I’m always like, Oh, what is the combination of the thing and the breathing?

But ultimately they’re all doing the same thing. You breathe out for longer than you breathe in. Absolutely. If you take nothing else away from this podcast today, I hope you take this away that like, seriously, take a deep breath. Count. And then breathe out for longer than that count.

Exactly. And you can make that work for you because your body doesn’t understand seconds.

Like I understand what these these breath practices are when they’re like, in for four, and then you hold for seven, then you exhale for eight. And it’s there is reason behind that. However, our body doesn’t Our nervous system doesn’t really know, you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t count. We’re the one that’s consciously counting.

So, and different things will work for different people. Maybe you’re inhaling for a count of four and you’re exhaling for a count of eight, or maybe it’s four and six, or maybe it’s four and nine. Like it doesn’t really matter. It’s just that the exhale is longer than the inhale when you’re doing it for an amount of time that it starts to ingrain into your body.

So, you know, anywhere between three to five minutes, if you can do longer, great, do longer, but start with three minutes, start with five minutes and then, and go from there.

Is there a certain time of day that it makes sense to do this type of breath work? Like, is it something that you should just do it before bed to calm you down?

Do you do it in the middle of the day? I’m like sitting here doing podcast recordings all day and I’m thinking, Huh, movement. And we’ll get to the movement part, but I’m like, maybe breathing in between. I don’t know. Cause it’s very stimulating. I’ve got lights on me. You know, we’re, we’re talking, I’m engaging with different guests.

And at the end of the day, I do feel a little bit drained. So I’m wondering, are there things that we can do during the day or are there certain times of day that are more beneficial?

I would say there’s not any time a day where it’s more beneficial. I’d say that would be a case of like person by person checking in and being like, when do I need this most?

If you’re, if you’re in a place and you’re like, I’m starting to feel stressed or I’m not, you know, something, something’s coming up for you or you’re just not, you’re feeling uneasy than in any moment. I, I practice this in the morning when I meditate. So if you’re kind of tired and wired and your brain is going, it can be a really nice thing to do that every evening when I, before I go to bed, I, I hang my legs up on the wall.

I lift my legs up on the wall and I just do a few kind of slow rounds of breathing, exhaling a little bit longer. And it just helps me to go to sleep at night. So. you will find when is the time for you. But that’s the beautiful thing about this is like, you can access your breath in any moment that you choose to.

And you can utilize this and essentially change the experience that you’re having very, very quickly.

I feel like I’m going to now introduce that to a routine that I’m going to create when I sit down to record a podcast. I mean, I’m, I don’t know, do a minute. A minute is a long time. I know you said three or four minutes, like that’s a lot of time focused on your breathing.

And I think when we’re not used to it, if we’re not someone who meditates or does that. Like an entire 60 seconds feels like an eternity. So I’m maybe I’m going to introduce that. I’m curious about the legs on the wall. Can we just have a moment for that? What does that do?

To be honest, it’s got, it’s become such a habit, but for me, it’s, it’s very stress relieving for the body.

It also helps to, your circulatory system, your lymphatic system. So the movement of fluids of blood and lymph around your body, especially here when I, where I live in Costa Rica and it’s very humid and it’s very hot, it just helps to send a bit of that fluid away from my puffy evening feet down towards, down towards the trunk.

It’s a very restorative pose. It’s very calming for the body. So yeah, if you’ve got a couple of minutes before you go to bed at night, just Whack your legs up on the wall and close your eyes for a moment.

Just whack your legs up on the wall. I love it. Okay. While we’re talking about movement, like how does daily movement affect your nervous system?

Can it help you be more productive? Talk to us a bit more about that because obviously you as a practitioner of yoga and you know, that was my experience working with you. And I, I mean, we talk, I know you say everybody knows movement is useful, but just because we know it doesn’t mean that we do it.

Yes.

Speaking for myself. So talk to me a little bit about that.

Okay. We know many things about why movement is good for us. It improves mental clarity and our cognition cognitive function. So you, you’re literally sending more blood. towards your brain when we move. It’s also a mood enhancer. We’ve got a release of endorphins, of neurotransmitters, and these neurotransmitters are going to help to support like a positive and a productive mindset.

Movement actually gives us energy. It boosts energy. It boosts vitality. It can help to regulate our sleep. If we’re doing a certain level of exercise during the day, that’s also going to help when we go to bed that our body’s going to be tired enough to really get into that rejuvenative sleep. And it also exercises, it promotes the release of something called BDNF, which is brain derived neurotrophic factor.

This is a It’s something that supports the growth of new neurons and brain plasticity. So we used to think that our brains were kind of like once you’re, once you’re neurotransmitters and once your neurons were wired, that was kind of it. Now we understand this, this term neuroplasticity that actually our brains are plastic and we can mold them and we can change them and exercising or moving is one of the ways in which we can help to increase that.

Thanks. One other thing that I love, which I think is one of the most interesting things that’s come out of research, like physiology research in the last sort of decade, or actually can’t remember when it was recently discovered, but it was very recent relatively is the release of myokine. So As a quick anatomy lesson, the endocrine system, which is everything that’s related to hormones, hormone production and, and getting them around the body and what they’re doing.

We didn’t used to know, now we do know that actually your muscles, your, the muscles that are on your, your skeleton actually produce and release hormones and this one hormone in particular called myokines and they were given another name as hope molecules because it was found that once these hormones were entered into the blood system and then they make their way up to your brain and then they pass the blood brain barrier, they actually have the capacity to improve your cognition.

They relieve stress and they act as antidepressants. So they were called hope molecules. So these are all just great reasons to be like, this is why we should be moving more. I know we know and we resist it. And I say we, cause I really include myself in that. I’m like, I know this is going to make me feel better.

I don’t know why I’m resisting going for a 10 minute walk. I know I’m going to feel infinitely better and more productive after this, but sometimes if it’s just like, we just have that one little thing that goes. That’s really interesting. Or like, now I understand why it can just encourage us to go out and do that or to take five minutes to do a couple lunges and a couple star jumps.

Yeah. You know what though? That’s it’s actually helpful to hear a little bit of the science, like a little taste of it because it is a reminder. No, no, no. This is backed by scientific research. There is something it’s not just take my word for it. I feel better after I exercise. I used to always roll my eyes.

I was like, okay, yeah, sure. Great. Good for you.

I’ll be fine. Which is not the, not the answer. And so I think that’s actually really helpful to hear that. And it’s a great reminder. And I think. In my experience, like what I’ve been trying to do is I’m, I’ve not been a very overly active person. I like to be active in the outdoors. I’m not a gym person. I love yoga.

I go to Pilates, but I, I’m not somebody who is like religious about it. And so for me, what I’ve been trying to do, and if anyone listening, if you, if you’re like me, then this might be helpful, but it’s just trying to get any kind of movement in. I loved hearing you say like that 10 minute walk, you know, the other day I wanted to wake up early.

I didn’t, and I still forced myself out of the house. To go for a 15 minute walk and it was kind of like I was dragging my butt but I felt better and I was also just felt mentally a little bit better knowing that I had already done something. Also getting it out of the way. It was helpful. My question to you about the movement and I don’t know, we didn’t, this is not, we didn’t talk about this beforehand, so I don’t know if we have anything to share on this because most of the people listening to this podcast are women.

Would you say, is there a difference, when you said hormones, it made me think about women and how we have so many hormones and we’re so much more complex in so many ways. Is movement more important to one sex versus the other based on your biology or not necessarily?

I think the human body away from our gender and away from our sex is designed to move.

And so I wouldn’t necessarily go down the route of saying men or women need more or less exercise. What I would say is that depending on perhaps the time of the month for people who have a menstrual cycle, there are ways in which you can adapt the movement so that, you know, there’s going to be times where you might feel like you want to go and do a HIIT workout.

That’s never been me in my life, not at any point in my cycle, but you know, there might be a time where you want to do that. And then there might be a time where you don’t. What’s more important is to get yourself to move, is to find something that you actually enjoy doing and not lying to yourself. And for some people that is going to be a HIIT workout because they were built that way.

And for other people that’s going to be walking for 10 minutes or 15 minutes or it’s going to be 5 minutes of stretching or it’s going to be doing a couple star jumps, you know, whatever it is. It’s finding something that you enjoy doing so it doesn’t feel like a punishment and therefore you’re actually going to be Encouraged to do it and movement with, with any of these things.

So our bodies are constantly adapting to what we’re continuously doing with them. And I have this saying short and frequently rather than long and infrequently. So it’s better to meditate for one minute a day than one hour a month. It’s better to move for 15 minutes. three times a day than do a two hour run once a week.

So it’s like, what is it that you’re going to consistently do that you’re going to be able to stick to that doesn’t feel like a punishment and that you can get to and for, for women or for people who are, who have a cycle, just monitoring that because it will change throughout the month. It will change throughout the times of your cycle of like what you feel willing to do.

And it’s also really important to honor those times where you’re like, I really need to just rest and let my body move through something. You know, I always say to. When I used to have students that would come and say, I’m so sorry. I’ve not been to your class in X amount of weeks. I’d say, don’t feel sorry.

Like the guilt of not coming is worse for you than the act of not coming.

Right.

Get the guilt. Like we’re so riddled with guilt in this society of all the things that we think that we should be doing. And we’re not doing enough, you know, in someone’s eyes, we’re never going to be doing enough.

That’s such a good reminder.

Yeah.

I was recently on a family vacation. We were in Poland and I got my period, lucky me, I was just very drained that first day, first two days, and it was one of the first times where I was like, Rebecca? You are not pushing yourself to go and do the thing, the tour or whatever. And it is okay to just stay here at the condo and like rest because my body was feeling it and it was like liberating in a way to say it’s okay to rest.

I mean, that’s a whole other conversation, obviously, but it is, I think, important to listen to your body. And I love that. I love your response. It’s true. Cause you know, if you have a menstrual cycle, you have different levels of energy at different times of the month. It is not like someone who’s not experiencing a menstrual cycle.

Like a man will just. They have the same hormones like every single day of their life. And so it’s a very different. And so I think it’s a good reminder for us not to compare ourselves to other people too. Cause you don’t know where they’re at in their cycle. If they have a cycle, there’s so much. Yeah. So that’s a really great reminder.

Okay. Before we end off and before you share your nugget. My question is for those of us who are stuck at a desk like me today, and we’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the idea of movement because like some people, I mean, on a podcasting day, I’m at my desk for, I don’t know, eight hours. That’s a long freaking time.

And as somebody who used to just be running around in my car, like most designers listening are probably in their car right now driving, and then they’re getting out and they’re walking to a job site, or they’re going to pick up a tile sample. But as your business grows and you start to have other people doing a lot of those.

Tasks for you. I have noticed for me, I’m more and more in front of a desk and I really now need to be intentional to, to get up and get those breaks. Like, what do you recommend for our body? If we are like what some people might refer to as a desk warrior. Yes,

keyboard warriors. Just there. It’s a great question because it is something that refers to so many people in so many lines of work. And even as even myself as someone who my life is really about movement and treating people. And I am. And I’ve been producing some online stuff and I’m sat at my desk for eight hours a day and I really start to feel it.

And I think again, just to underline something I’d said before is that little and often is better than long and infrequently. So if you are at your, you know, it’s, you can’t, you can’t help that your job is your job and the demands of the demands. There are things that you could do in terms of, you could look at getting a standing desk, yada, yada, yada.

You could take some of your meetings walking instead of at the desk if that’s possible. But maybe it’s just a case of. Five minutes is a, you set an alarm every hour for five minutes or every 90 minutes for five minutes and just for those five minutes you’re going to honor that and you’re going to get up and you’re going to walk around your desk, you’re maybe going to do some stretches, it doesn’t have to be anything in particular.

I would, I would say if you look at There’s this principle specific adaptations to impose demands says said, which is the acronym. And what it tells us is that your body is continuously adapting to what you do or don’t do. So if you sit for eight hours a day, your body’s basically going to make you really good at sitting then that’s fine.

But then if you want to go and run a half marathon, or if you want to go and go to yoga class, it’s not going to feel so comfortable because it’s like, Hey, we, we were doing really good at sitting. And now, and now you want me to do this. It’s not going to fall.

So I’m really good at sitting guys. I might even get an award.

So getting yourself up and just, I would look at the architecture of your body. So what kind of bits are, we know that we’re folding at the hips. We know that we’re maybe a little bit rounded in the shoulders. Okay. What’s the opposite. What can I do to rectify that? So I want to open my chest and maybe I’m going to take my arms behind me.

I’m going to interlace my hands. I’m going to open my chest, or maybe I’m going to stretch the front of my hips because I know that that bit’s been contracted or been in a shortened position for a while. It doesn’t have to be something that has a name. It doesn’t have to be something in particular. It doesn’t have to be a certain pound of something.

I would say whatever it is, Get up for five minutes and just move a little bit and roll your neck and roll your shoulders and just anything that feels good and then sit back down. But little and often is always going to be better than, than long and infrequently.

I love that. I take back what I said earlier about the breathing.

If you only take one thing away from this podcast, it’s this. I love that. Like short and frequent versus long. I wrote this down on my note pads that I’m reading versus long and infrequent. Great wisdom. I am like itching to finish this podcast so I could go out there and stretch now. Good. Good. Amazing.

Okay. What’s your one last nugget of wisdom for our listeners today, Kathy? I think that would be that

the human body in which is the vessel in which we’ve been, we’ve been gifted to experience life through, to experience consciousness moving through us is really a gift. It’s, it’s also the most intelligent.

thing that exists that we’ve, that is known to man. And we’re still learning about it more and more and more. And I suppose my, not necessarily nugget of wisdom, but my desire, my wish is for more people to understand the power of the mind. Power and the just sheer amazingness, if that’s even a word, of these vessels in which we get to experience life through and how it dictates our whole experience of having either a really, really, really great time.

Or maybe not so much of a great time and the more that we can learn about our bodies and the more that we can understand how to nourish them in so many different ways, the better our experience of life is, if we can get to the end of our lives and say, I had a really good time. Is there anything more important than that?

I love that. Beautiful words. Where can everyone find and follow you, Cathy? I am on Instagram as Cathy underscore Richardson. It’s Cathy with a K. And I also have an online group, which is a private group. It’s called Move, Flow Grow. This is where I offer Free short yoga practices and also free little short anatomy trainings called bite-sized brain food.

So they are like 20-30-minute short, easily digestible anatomy training for people who are either teachers or who are just interested in learning more about anatomy. And it’s very, it’s very functional. It’s very applied. So it’s very relative to things that we actually need to do. I’m not just teaching you the names of bones and muscles cause that’s useless for the vast majority of people.

I also have a website which is kathyrichardson.co.uk Or in Nosara, if you want to come over.

Yes. And I will be back to Nosara. I’ve told my husband, I’m like, you have to come with me. We have to bring the kids. Yes. It’s such a magical place. Yes. Yes. Come back. We love it when visitors return. Thank you for sharing the private group.

I had forgotten that you have that, and I think I’m going to go check it out. It’s amazing. Like guys, free. Education and yoga. Hello. That sounds amazing with your beautiful soothing voice. It’s amazing. Thank you so much for being my guest today, Kathy. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

It’s been a real joy. I loved it. Well, I hope you guys enjoy that episode with Kathy. Absolutely loved those two big takeaways for me the breathing, just simplifying all those breathing techniques, the exhaling longer than you inhale. I

think we should all do it right now. Or at least as soon as you stop listening to this episode. And then the second takeaway for me is just, it’s so simple and it’s so good, short and frequent versus long and less frequent. I love this idea of like, just move. Regularly for a short period of time or breathing or meditation or whatever it is, because I think sometimes I know I get paralyzed with well, I wanted to do an hour-long walk.

Well, now is there even any point or I didn’t make it to Pilates today or well, if I can’t run a marathon, what’s the point of running? Like, I think a lot of us sometimes get caught up in this idea and also just listen to our body, right? And listening to your body and giving yourself a little bit of grace when you aren’t at the energy level to do that super crazy workout or go to the gym.

And that’s okay. It’s about a little bit of grace. A lot of the time, Kathy, thank you for joining me for the podcast, guys, please go and follow Kathy on Instagram, @Kathy_Richardson, and definitely check out her private Facebook group where you can get free yoga classes. Hello. What a great way to start getting into that practice and to learn a little bit more about your body and the anatomy and your nervous system.

So thanks again, Kathy, guys. If you enjoyed this episode, send me a DM Give us a review on iTunes and say hi to Kathy over on Instagram. We will see you soon.