Calm Anxiety: 15-Minute De-Stress Walk (w/music) | 47

Feeling wired and anxious, with your brain rehearsing every worst-case scenario?

Like you’re carrying a really heavy backpack stuffed with intrusive thoughts?

Take a walk with me and let’s shake some of that off.

This 15-minute indoor or outdoor walking workout is for the days when anxiety feels physical and you still have to function like a human. 

We’ll calm anxiety, reduce stress, and walk off some of that nervous energy.

You’ll also hear a ridiculous backpack story from my travels in Europe, so you can picture anxiety as an overstuffed pack you are allowed to take off now and then. 

Our walk is lighter than a therapy session, but it still helps you feel calmer, steadier, and a little more like yourself. (There's background walking music, too - yay!)

Plus completely pointless mentions of Donna Summer, why I love my thighs, Sarajevo, the Athens metro strike, and being a digital nomad. Somehow, I fit that all in. 

~Helen

P.S. You’ll hear a bell halfway through. If you’re walking outside, that’s your signal to turn around if you want.

Tap Follow/Subscribe so you'll be notified of the next walk. 

Transcript

0:04

Is your anxiety feeling physical today? Let's get physical. Physical. If you're old enough to remember that song, like your chest is feeling a little tight, your shoulders are up under your ears, your jaw's locked. Does it feel like you're wearing a massive overstuffed backpack? I'm going to tell you about my massive and overstuffed backpack in a minute, but the backpack's heavy and it's awkward and you've had it on all day, and that's what anxiety can feel like in your body. So we're not going to fix your whole life in this 15 minute walk because I'm not that magical or special. And if I was, I'd be a billionaire and life would be good. We're just going to take that pack off for a while so your body can breathe and you can relax. You can do this walk indoors on a treadmill, a walking pad, marching in place, or loops around your house or outside. And if you're walking outside, there'll be a bell at the halfway point, if you want to turn around. We're going to start at a really easy warmup pace, getting your groove on. Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale with your mouth. If you haven't walked with me before, I give you some coaching tips as we go along to check your posture, your breathing, to remind you to go faster or slower so we can get a workout in at the same time as we're kind of clearing our mind and improving our lives step by step, little by little. This is a warmup pace. You're going to let your shoulders drop away from your ears, let your hands be soft. So no fist, no death grip on your phone. I don't know about you, but lately, well, let's just say the past year at least, I've just been dropping my phone. My phone just flies right out of my hands. I'm like, oh, you're on the floor. Oh, you're on the cement. I think I need to replace my screen protector because it's pretty crap. Crap? It's pretty cracked. It could be pretty crap too. I don't know. Just relax your body as you walk. It's not hard right now. We're just getting going. And here's a quick story about my massively oversized, ridiculous backpack. My son and I were digital nomads and we were traveling around and we went to Greece. We were in Athens. Some of those places we went to there was cobblestone and it was really hard to drag my suitcase around. I had my backpack, my technology backpack, my work backpack with my laptop, my iPad and everything. And then I had my suitcase. And then I thought, you know what? I'm tired of dragging the suitcase around, so I decided to ditch it. And in a fit of brilliance, I also decided that I should get a nice, big backpack because my son was going to be leaving and heading back to the U.S.. So I looked online and I found a sporting goods store. It could have been a camping store. I don't remember, somewhere in Athens, and I hadn't figured out the transportation system yet. So I walked for an hour through Athens to the store so I could find this extra large backpack. It was a 72 liter Osprey, cost me about 200 euros, but I was feeling like super cool and adventurous. Hold onto your warmup pace. Since overall, my journey was about a year and a half. It was through mostly warmish type climates, but I also went to Norway in the winter and then sometimes like the Balkans in the summer in the evening wasn't that warm, so I really only had the basics, but I had basics for different types of weather, and I had maybe two pairs of shoes and some sandals and of course some workout equipment. And I thought, okay, well this will be easier to carry on my back. Now I'm five feet tall, and if you've never seen a 72 liter backpack, let me tell you, it was about two thirds of my body, so it was over 40 pounds depending on how much I stuffed in it. And I looked like a turtle about to tip over backwards. But I was a cool turtle that was about to tip over backwards. A turtle in my fifties about to tip over backwards. Let's do a quick physical check. We're going to check our jaw, make sure our teeth aren't clenched. Our tongue is relaxed. Shoulders are down away from the ears. Uncurl your fingers a bit. You don't have to relax everything. Just one little spot at a time. Kind of do a quick check-in with your body. Another deep breath into your nose. Really fill up those lungs. And exhale through your mouth. We're going to go a little bit faster, so bring your pace up, one notch. Walk like you're on a mission to find that sporting goods store in Athens. Because you don't know the transportation system. There's also Metro strike and you'd rather walk so you can also sight see. We're not rushing. We're not strolling, just going strong, A steady walk, steady pace. My giant turtle shell backpack did its job. There wasn't really anything that was extra and if I did want to buy myself something, something else had to go, so to throw something else out. So for a year and a half, everything I owned was on my back, which was interesting and weird at the same time. I guess like a turtle, I. The problem was that I was trying to carry my whole life on my back all at once for every situation because I was prepared like a girl scout or a boy scout, and most of what you and I are worried about isn't imaginary. You care about your people, your health, your work, your bank account, and so of course your brain is busy. And then the issue is when your brain tries to carry all of it all the time, even when you're just trying to go for a walk or make dinner, there's so much going on up there and your brain wants to do everything, everywhere, all at once. We're going to gently downgrade this today. Just a few things, right now, on this walk. See what I did there? Trying to be clever. Hold onto your pace, steady and strong. So think of your life as either the big suitcase or the big backpack and that long trip that you're on. But for this walk today, we're just going to carry our little day pack, just whatever we need today. Yes. And that's been in my wishlist too. A backpack with a snap off day pack. But I don't need any more backpacks. I have enough backpacks. The suitcase or backpack is still yours. You're just not dragging it up every stair with you right now. And I've been up a lot of stairs. You can tell yourself, I don't have to carry all this right now. Because I'm a wanderer. Ooh, I'm a wanderer. That was... Was it Donna Summer? Yes, Donna Summer. Deep breath into your nose now and exhale through your mouth. We're going to go a little bit faster. Like you felt the first drop of rain and you're five minutes from home. Going to give it a little push. It's our main push. If it feels okay for your body, bring your pace up one more notch, like your stairs pace, like you're climbing the stairs. With a ginormous backpack, a 40 to 50 pound backpack on your back and another 10 to 15 pounds on the front. Shorten your stride a little. Let your feet turn over faster. You're working but you could get a sentence out or two or five. To continue on my backpack story, after about 14 hours of travel, one time I arrived in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and I was exhausted. And I got to my Airbnb it was on the fifth floor. No elevator. Huge backpack. Because in Europe they're not super fond of elevators apparently. So that was fun. I looked at the stairs. I looked at the backpack and I honestly thought, I cannot do this. I cannot. I'm going to die. I'm going to pass out. Because I was being a little dramatic, but being that I'm super stubborn, I started up anyway, one step, two steps, and by the third floor I was crashing against the wall. Staggering. My legs were just shaking. Because again, a lot of weight to carry up the stairs. I was 120 pounds. I was carrying half my body weight up the stairs with me. Yes, I know. Because sometimes I'm a blonde. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep your breathing going now. Steady and strong. Gotta get up the stairs, you gotta breathe. Holding onto that pace. And as I was climbing those stairs and slamming into the wall, I kind of looked down at my legs and I thought, wow, you know what? Look at these legs. Look how strong they are, and look at this cardio. I mean, that's why I could eat whatever I wanted because I was climbing, climbing everything with 60 pounds strapped to my back. By the fourth floor. I was making so much noise that the host finally heard me and he came down and he grabbed my pack and he carried it the last flight, and it felt like I'd lost a zillion pounds. I was so relieved and I was so happy. And that's kind of what anxiety does too. It tells you, you can't handle it, it's too much. But if you're like me, I'm going to try anyway. You showed up for this episode. We're going to relieve some of that anxiety and take that backpack off for a minute. Clear your mind. You don't have to love those damn stairs. You just have to keep taking the next one and the next one. And it's okay to ask for help carrying that bag sometimes because it gets really heavy. And I'm really bad at asking for help, as I'm sure you are too. Take another deep breath in through your nose. And this time we're going to exhale a little bit longer than our inhale. It is nothing fancy, just a little bit more air going out. Breathing is amazing. You can really bring your blood pressure down and your stress levels down just by controlling your breathing. Still holding onto that pace. It's strong, it's determined, you've found a groove. We're going to stay with it. Hold onto it. Look at your legs, just like I did and say, Hey, these legs are pretty cool. Years ago I wrote an essay called I Love My Thighs. And it's still to this day my favorite essay, and it's not because I love the way my thighs look, but I love what my thighs can do and where my thighs have taken me. You are going to breathe off any anxiety. Shake it off. I won't sing for you. I was going to sing. Shake it off again. We're just staying steady, strong. Feel that body move. Your glutes are strong. Your feet are relaxed too. You're not squeezing or gripping the bottom of your shoes. Pay attention to your shoulders. And now we're going to slow it down just a little bit to more of an easy stroll pace. Like you made it to the top floor, you're about to cry because your backpack is now off your back and you climbed those five flights of stairs. This Airbnb was on the fourth floor technically, but they don't count the bottom floor. So it was five floors. I'm glad I didn't know until I got there, because maybe I just wouldn't have gone. Let your arms swing, soften your hands, and as you're breathing when you exhale, make it a little bit louder. Like, or you could shush somebody. You made it up those stairs, and for these last few minutes, imagine taking that backpack off and setting it down next to you. Everything that you need to do is not going to be on your back right now. You're not going to carry it in your mind for the rest of the day. You're only going to think about one thing, not 10 things. Maybe it's replaying a conversation. Maybe it's worrying about what someone thinks. You can pick that up later if you really want to, but for now, just going to leave it right there on the floor next to you. Your anxiety may still be humming in the background because it does, and that's okay. You gave your body a break. Reminded yourself that you don't have to carry everything everywhere, all at once, all the time. You are going to do a quick check through your body. Make sure nothing's tight, nothing's tense, going to relieve that pressure, relieve that tension, and the backpack's right next to you. It's still there if you need it, but you don't need it today because you just got that little day pack. And if this walk took even a little bit of weight off your shoulders, tap, follow or subscribe. That way the next walk is waiting for you. And also because it helps with that darn algorithm. So if you interact with a podcast in any way, whether you leave me a review or you like it, you subscribe, or on Spotify, you can actually leave a comment, then that helps other people see my podcast too, because life has become one big algorithm. I don't know if you remember what life was like before social media. Slow it down a little more. Take that edge off your pace, backing it down. Keep your breathing flowing. Shake out those hands. Roll those shoulders backwards. Big, big, big rolls. Roll those shoulders forwards. Crack a doodle doo. There's always a crack or a thump in one of the shoulders. And slow it down even more. Just keep that oxygen flowing, which seems to be my favorite phrase other than a bit. And when you're done with this walk, if you can stretch a little bit, especially your calves get tight, the front of your thighs can sometimes get tight, your glutes. And thank you for walking with me today. I'll see you next time.