WHY Holistic Health

One of the biggest misconceptions about emotional regulation is that it’s something children simply learn to do on their own.

In reality, children are not born knowing how to calm themselves, manage big emotions, or recover from stress.

Those skills develop through relationships.

Long before a child can regulate themselves, they rely on the nervous systems of the adults around them.

This process is known as co-regulation.

It’s the experience of borrowing calm, safety, and connection from another person until the child’s own nervous system becomes capable of doing more of that work independently.

This doesn’t mean we need to be calm all the time.
We’re human.
We get stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, and tired too.

But it does mean that understanding our own stress responses can be one of the most powerful ways we support our children.

Because children are constantly learning from what we model.

Not just through our words.

Through our tone of voice.
Our facial expressions.
Our breathing.
Our presence.

The more we understand regulation in ourselves, the better equipped we are to help the children in our lives develop it too.

Sometimes helping a child starts with becoming curious about our own nervous system first.

Gosh, I wish I realised this sooner… but here I am, gracefully and gratefully learning and sharing it now.

I explore this topic in more depth in my next Brainz Magazine article, where I unpack how children develop regulation and why co-regulation is such an important part of that process.





gulation

If your fascia is listening to your life, then it’s worth asking what messages you’re sending it every day.

Alot of us spend hours sitting, rushing, bracing, clenching, and pushing through fatigue.

Over time, those habits can become patterns.

One of the simplest ways to support your fascia is to give your body moments of change throughout the day.

Stand up.
Reach overhead.
Take a walk.
Breathe a little slower.
Notice where you’re holding tension and see if you can let go of just 5%.

Small inputs, repeated often, can have a surprisingly big impact.

Your body is adapting to your daily habits all the time.
The question is: are those habits helping it feel more supported, or more stressed?

We often try to understand stress through behaviour. But this magical body is always part of the story.

Perfectionism, overworking, control, not switching off…
these are not just personality traits — they are also body states.

Tightness.
Bracing.
Vigilance.
A system that can’t fully downshift.

When we start by noticing our behaviour first… (because at first it feels more obvious)
and then learn to feel what’s happening in our body underneath it,
We create the space for the shift.

Awareness changes the relationship you have with stress.
And when that relationship changes, into curiosity, patterns can start to change too.

Not everything needs to be fixed immediately.
Sometimes it needs to be understood differently first.

A few things I see - and have experienced for myself - when the nervous system starts to settle:

Sleeping more at first
→ The body finally stops running on alert and uses sleep to repair, reset, and restore.

Spontaneous deep sighs (literally my new favourite thing to do, and actually encourage my kids to do it 😂-changing the rules after 21 years)
→Sighs are little involuntary resets. Because this is the body completing stress cycles on its own.

Uncontrollable yawning in calm moments - another thing I don't read as rude anymore at all (just do cover your mouth please)
→ It's not boredom — just a shift out of activation into downregulation.

Wanting to lie on the floor. My son LOVES the floor, now I understand why.
→Pressure on the spine is grounding. Containment. The body is looking for safety through contact with support.

Crying for no obvious reason
→ Sometimes no emotional meaning — just discharge -the body releasing what was held. Arguably the best release!!!

Bowel movements are suddenly regulating again - WHOOT WHOOT!!! (You know if you know)
→ digestion switches back online when the system moves into “rest and digest.” (This was my golden gate to this nervous system journey) *pooh pooh pooh....so what!🤪*

Vivid dreams
→ Processing. Reorganising. The mind-body clearing through REM sleep. - Power!! (Side note: journal your dreams)
(Another side note: I don’t think I’m using “side note correctly”)

Going quiet for a day or two (or ALOT 😂)
→ not always shutdown in a negative sense. Sometimes integration after long periods of activation. *insert long sigh here*

A few others people don’t always connect:
Feeling a bit “floaty” or spaced out (naturally)
→ the system recalibrating after being tightly held.

Or suddenly noticing your breath again... TA DA the golden nugget!!
→ awareness returning to something the body had been bracing around.

Not everything that feels “off” is a problem to fix.

Sometimes it’s just the body finding its way back to safety.

Save this for when things feel confusing in your body — and share it with someone who needs a softer way of understanding theirs.

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Have an easy 7-minute read through my latest article in Brainz Magazine.
https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/what-if-your-teenager-s-behaviour-is-nervous-system-communication

And keep an eye out for the next one, where I explore tips and tools to help with regulation and balance.

Bo****ks to that!
Most people come to me believing they need a stricter plan.
More structure.
More rules.
More discipline.

But sorry- I'm no longer that girl that's gonna sell you something I don't believe in. (Food will still land on my table 😉).

We’ve been conditioned to think that more is the answer—
move faster, train harder, eat less…
or risk not being enough. Not being seen.

We have become too busy to slow down…
and too disconnected to really feel what our bodies have been asking for all along.

What we need to be prioritising is:
– a body that feels safe
– space to slow down
– support in understanding what you are feeling in your body. (I know what this sounds like - hippie nonsense 😂?"... But I'll show you how this works)

Because when the body feels safe… it starts to shift. Your outlook on life changes.

Digestion improves.
Tension softens.
Energy returns.

This is the work...POWERful work!

I have come to terms with a lot of things- 1. I will never have a neatly executed Instagram page, because I can’t stick to my design- each frame (and message) insists on landing on its own timeline, with its own design- so… beautiful authentic chaos (also ) instead🤣🤣

2.What I’ve come to understand is that so much of what I thought were personal flaws…
were actually patterns in my nervous system that I didn’t yet have language for.
The way I moved between intensity and exhaustion.
The way I could be deeply focused, then suddenly unable to continue.
The way my body often felt like it was either “on” or completely done.
None of it made sense at the time.
But looking back now, I can see there was a pattern underneath it all.

(So on a few years time when I’m stalking my own page-something I do regularly anyway- I’m looking forward to realising more patterns underneath the above mentioned beautiful chaos)😘

Such is life

I went most of my life without even hearing the word fascia.

Now I can’t unsee it.

It’s changed how I understand tension, movement, and why some bodies feel like they are constantly “working against themselves.”

Fascia isn’t just structure — it’s communication.
And once you start seeing the body this way, you stop trying to force change… and start listening instead.

I wrote more about this in my latest article for Brainz Magazine (link in bio)