Here’s 18 active ways to increase ‘self-regulation’ during COVID

As a practising kinesiologist and health coach, I’ve got access to a bunch of resources which support children with learning challenges. My own child is challenged with sequencing. This means her ability to arrange language, thoughts, information and actions in an effective order gets wonky (very technical term). Many kids with learning and thinking differences have trouble with sequencing as it can affect the ability to follow instructions, speak properly and complete multi-step tasks.

Now that we are in lockdown, there are red flags rising with more work to do. These flags are also indicative of why she is so frustrated and emotional at the end of the school day — because she is still missing cues and unable to follow instructions correctly.

It’s time for some proprioceptive input to manually improve my daughter’s sensory processing neural pathways. Oh goody, I get to talk science!

I can already hear you moaning, “what is proprioception”! Proprioception is defined as the body’s ability to perceive its own position in space. Without getting too technical, I’ll try to explain movement in simple terms.

We have a thought which drives a plan of where the body wants to move to. The motor driving component of the brain sends a message to the muscles via the nerves, and badda bing badda boom we have movement (it’s actually way more technical than that but I’d have you asleep in seconds).

There are special neurological receptors in all of our joints, which send information back to the ‘movement’ part of the brain. The brain then processes these ‘feedback’ messages as to whether we are at our intended place, or need to make modification and redirect movement to steer us back on course. Therefore this feedback is constantly being adjusted by the brain talking to the proprioceptors.

In her recent newsletter, Heather Greutman calls exercising these proprioceptors as ‘heavy work’. She discusses “Heavy work input can have a calming and focusing effect on your child, especially if they are craving this type of input.”

I can hear you asking whether your child requires additional proprioceptive feedback? Heather suggested “they may be constantly moving, jumping, climbing, or crashing into things. They may have a hard time staying seated and focusing during homework.” For me as a parent and practitioner, these are very easy cues to be on the lookout for to suggest a flag is being waved.

You can read Heather’s article on sensory avoidance versus sensory seeking behaviours here to gain further understanding regarding the special small people in your world.

Often times children will hold it together for school and then come home and seemingly “fall apart.” My daughter is no exception and is more often than not a hot firey emotional mess when I pick her up from school. It takes me about twenty minutes of grounding exercises and brain snacks to bring her back to the planet before we can debrief. So when clients visit me in my clinic and explain their frustrations I can honestly say “I get it!”.

For some kids, homework is a massive struggle. The reason for this is their brains are receiving messages from their bodies “I NEED TO MOVE!”. I am positive that we can all agree, it’s important to provide appropriate time and space for your child to move and get their energy out, especially after they have sat in class during the day.

Heather Greutman suggests ‘heavy work activities’ are a great way to do that! I would agree, and as someone who had learning challenges and overcame them as an adult, I would agree.

1. Push a Filled Laundry Basket

Be sure the laundry basket is weighted enough that in order to ‘push’ the basket requires some work. The goal isn’t to struggle.

Whilst Heather suggests you can make it into a race or obstacle course, I’ve got friends and clients with boys, who complain that they annually need to repaint walls. So the suggestion of placing stuffed animals on a blanket may result in a more aesthetically appealing outcome (this works great for younger kids), or any other random items from around your house.

3 Jumping

I am a huge fan of the trampoline or jump rope. Due to the unstable or flexible landing space, the body sends a myriad of information to the brain for processing where you are in the world.

I’ve had kids who literally can’t lie on my table for more than ten minutes without fidgeting. Send them outside to jump rope or on the trampoline and bingo, they are compliantly still for an hour.

Jump rope or jumping on a pogo stick are also great options.

5 Clean The House

As you read this I’m hearing an unequivocal “YES!” from parents. Pushing and pulling actions using a vacuum, broom, or mop are all great heavy work activities that require no additional tools or set-up.

The added bonus of this is that if you maintain movement, instead of stop-start, it becomes a cardio workout as well. For those people who struggle with finite movement/direction control, encourage slow movements. At least with vacuuming on carpet and mopping, you can see where you go so encourage straight lines.

7 Carry Groceries

Heather suggests after pushing the grocery cart, come home and have them help you carry groceries inside. Small people often love to be involved and this is a fabulous way to engage all the postural muscles of the body with the movement of the limbs. You can all be practising ergonomic knee bending for big lifts, correct movement of feet to avoid twisting with loads etc.

In times of COVID-19, this is a fabulous way of learning to pack your own groceries and use the fine motor movement to pick up and expertly pack groceries into bags, rather than shoving everything into the bag.

8 Washing Windows

I’m immediately taken to the Karate Kid movie with this one, but it is smack on. Use a spray bottle to spray down the window (awesome heavy work for the hands!) and then use a washcloth to wipe the window clean.

I’ve used this one myself with my daughter and practised our foreign languages when counting the squirting, or up and down, saying the phrases as we go. When that gets old we dance-wash to our favourite boppy music. The technique is still purposeful with the hands, arms and ergonomic back maintained in a straight position. It also works when you wash the car!

10 Chew Gum Or Crunchy Foods

You can’t begin to imagine the amount of neurological activity which occurs in the mouth, the jaw, the tongue and then in the brain to activate speech. in order to get it all working at the same time and in the appropriate sequence. Chewing gum or crunchy foods is like a mini workout for the mouth! Your mouth is therefore full of proprioceptive receptors.

12 Separate & Take Out The Garbage

I laughed with Heather when she asked: “are you loving all the working around the house options?” Housework and chores can be life lessons for kids to learn how to contribute their small piece to the family dynamic as well as amazing heavy work opportunities.

As an environmental scientist, I always encourage segregation first. For those sensory sensitive souls, feeling the texture of cardboard versus aluminium and glass may just do the trick. For others, seeing all the colours may hit the mark.

Heather recommends never missing “the opportunity for taking out the trash”. Emptying smaller garbage receptacles into large garbage bags, carrying the bags to the wheelie bin or pulling the bins out to the street for pickup are all great options.

14 Help in The Garden

Most kids love getting outside. For our sensory challenged friends moving dirt with a shovel, filling up a wheelbarrow and moving dirt or rocks, or digging in the soil are all great options. There are so many benefits.

Firstly anyone who places their hands in the dirt will instantly ground themselves. Nature has a marvellous way of grounding us. Growing plants from seeds is a lovely daily activity for a child and serves a purpose to get them outside. Watching the evolution of something you grow to eventually pick and eat is both time-consuming and quiet. Know that lifting the watering can is a fantastic proprioception activity.

Secondly, the non-uniform texture of soil provides a myriad of stimulation to the brain between fingers and toes.

Thirdly, coordination of implements engages everything from the extremities to the large muscle groups, with the goal to work in coordinated and productive movement.

16 Beach Fun

If you live near a beach, go dig in the wet sand with a shovel or your hands. Like the dirt, wet sand provides enormous stimulation from fingertips through the hands.

Whilst you’re there, paddle in the water! Walking against an outgoing tide will always test proprioception!

18 Riding A Bike

The simple act of riding a bike is a great heavy work activity. For older children, you can take them to a mountain bike trail or on longer bike rides to provide a little more input.

The involvement of sensory input from what the eyes see, to operating arms and legs simultaneously is a fabulous exercise for the brain.

I would love to give full credit to Heather Greutman (Growing Hands-On Kids) and her fabulous resource newsletter this week. Heather provides a myriad of well researched and easy to implement resources for both practitioners and parents of gorgeous kids who need just a bit more loving attention. Visit her webpage, and note this is not a paid testimonial, just a grateful share from a practice with a beautiful kid.

Resources

Greutman, Heather(February 5, 2019) “Home & Telehealth Activity Ideas”, email newsletter.

Tips to Empower The Broken

My business is experiencing an influx of the male species right now, and it seems the COVID-19 lockdown is to blame. I question whether the actual global pandemic is to blame, or whether our menfolk now have the time to deal with their shit — and they don’t like it. Not one little bit.

And before I get accused of man-bashing, let me assure you there’s plenty of busy ladies also experiencing the same symptoms of crippling worry and fear of the future. But let’s face it, women are more likely to open up and talk about it. The men appear to have retreated into their caves, or as modern times dictate, they have retreated into the theatre rooms.

Symptoms of anxiety can include feelings of worry, fear and impending doom that are so severe they interfere with your ability to work, maintain relationships and get a decent night’s sleep. Beyond Blue defines the physical signs of anxiety may include: pounding or racing heart, excessive sweating and an overwhelmed internal dialogue.

“Anxiety is one of the most common health conditions in Australia. For men, anxiety is even more common than depression — 1 in 5 men will experience anxiety at some point.” — Beyond Blue

There are several medically diagnosable forms of anxiety:

• generalised anxiety disorder
• specific phobias
• social anxiety
• panic disorder
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
• post-traumatic stress

Beyond Blue explains each anxiety condition has its own unique features, with some common symptoms which include:

• “Physical: panic attacks, hot and cold flushes, racing heart, tightening of the chest, quick shallow breathing, restlessness, or feeling tense, wound up and edgy. 
• Psychological: excessive fear, worry, catastrophizing, or obsessive thinking are all things that keep us up at night. 
• Behavioural: avoidance of situations that make you feel anxious which can impact on study, work or social life.”

So why would anxiety affect our big burly manly men? Especially now during a pandemic? Our scientific research and carbon dating infers that our men or rather their caveman counter-parts, would go out and forage for food. They were wired to communicate, they were wired to kill shit, and then drag it back to camp to be cooked and eaten.

In modern times, it seems we have carried this expectation that the man will leave the family home, go out and get a job in order to provide for his family. And yet there’s more. Society now expects the modern man to emote! This is interesting if his neurological wiring has suppressed this ability so we can kill to eat!

Society also infers the modern man should cook, clean and be the equal partner in the family household. This is also based on the supposition that modern man is leaving the household and going out to work (aka the modern-day version of killing the woolly mammoth to feed the family). Same shit, different bucket.

So what happens to the manly man when he has to work from home?

The clearly delineated boundaries which separate work from home begin to blur. Poor modern man must be scratching his head that the wilderness of work is now to be juggled with an apron around his waist!

Confusion about how to segregate the roles of the house-bound man versus provider-man start to build. This confusion, mixed with boredom (remember caveman needs to hunt, to be productive and have outcomes) and listlessness produces the knee-buckling effect of lowering self-confidence and worry about the future, fear of not being good enough and fear of uncertainty.

So what can we do to support the modern man not feeling like a caged tiger?

Here are some proactive strategies to try yourself

1. Purposeful breathing. Pretty sure the modern man will think this is ridiculous — I know. But let me explain!

Generally, if you’re stressed and in that flight or fight phase, you’re shallow breathing in order to prime your muscles to react from a defensive position. In other words, your body is mimicking hunting the woolly mammoth and getting your body ready to attack!

The slow and purposeful breathing enables the body to switch from stress to digestion / relaxation phase. This is likened to your caveman feeling relieved he wasn’t eaten and now scratching his head how he will drag the beast back to camp for his woman to cook!

Try these breathing exercises provided by Beyond Blue. Purposeful breathing can be as simple as counting to four, holding your breath for a count of two then breathe out slowly. Literally, within a couple of breaths, your neurology is switching from a defensive stand to that of a relaxed one.

This is a fabulous tool for anyone really when you find yourself in a sticky or heated situation whereby you feel your emotions escalating.

2. Progressive muscle relaxation. This exercise is best undertaken in a quiet and private space. Try it at night time as part of a new sleep hygiene routine.

Find the right spot and close your eyes. Focus on slowly tensing and then relaxing each of your muscle groups from your toes to your head. Hold the tension for three seconds and then release quickly.

This exercise is great for supporting your ability to focus on just one thing. By honing our focus, you get to eliminate that chatty circus monkey inside your head. There’s the added bonus of potentially reducing the feelings of muscle tension associated with anxiety.

Gone are the days where our caveman only had to worry about killing or running from the sabre tooth tiger. Modern man worries about a myriad of things, so anything to slow down the monkey chatter and lighten the load helps to regain focus and ultimately power on reframing what you are in control of and what you aren’t.

3. Practice remaining in the present moment. Anxiety can make your thoughts create a perception of a terrible future — which hasn’t even happened yet. This type of overthinking is often linked with unresolved stress lodged in your behavioural patterning. You literally switch off the logical brain and wonder what will happen with all this COVID-19 business.

• Will I work again? 
• How do I cope? 
• How am I providing for my family if I’m at home? 
• I’m not good enough anymore now that I’ve lost my job 
• I’m useless, everything is hopeless

The beauty of this tip is to bring yourself back to where you are, right now. You can’t change the past, but you can learn from your experiences. You can’t predict the future, but you can build your resilience for whatever is coming your way. You do that by living for today, and enjoying the moments, making deposits in your happiness account.

Identifying simple tasks you can achieve completion on during this day is vital. It’s a reset if you will. Subliminally you are creating new neural solution-orientated pathways when you identify tasks that you can complete.

Some easy examples include

• daily meditation
• daily walk outside in the sunshine and fresh air
• read because you want to 
• listen to positive podcasts
• play music which makes you get out of your chair and jog around
• play with the kids

4. Healthy lifestyle. Keeping active, eating well, and ensuring you are hydrated are all effective in reducing anxiety and improving your wellbeing during this COVID phase. Additionally, part of a healthy lifestyle when I grew up and I’m seeing during lockdown is families going outside together. Playing and having experiences — together. The modern man has left the cave and joining his tribe for fun and frivolity. It’s about time the man gets to participate too.

Once lockdown is lifted, get out into nature, visit friends and return to your active lifestyle.

5. Acknowledge your self-talk. Beyond Blue provides a lot of detail to address “how you think affects how you feel”. I would go a step further and add your thoughts create your actions.

Anxiety can make you overthink situations and question your ability to manage the stress associated with it. Acknowledging those feelings that make you anxious, rather than jumping to the worst-case scenario often defuses the emotional energy associated with the subliminal fears.

Look at the facts for and against your thought being true. Ask yourself the question “am I in control of this right now?” Alternatively ask “Will it matter in five years, five months, five days?” If you answer yes then do something about it. If no, shelf the problem until you feel you can deal with it.

If all else fails, pick up the phone and have a mate date and talk it out.

6 Be kind to yourself. Beyond Blue literature encourages you to “remember that you are not your anxiety. You are not weak. You are not inferior. You have a mental health condition. It’s called anxiety.”

Cut yourself some slack. These are beyond weird times. You just have to make the best of right now. Sometimes when our thoughts get us stuck in problem-solving, make the problem smaller and more solvable. For example rather than sorting out what will I do today, ask yourself what can I do for the next 30 minutes.

7. Focus on something positive. the minute you’re feeling Negative Nancy thoughts creeping up, it’s time to be proactive and ‘reframe’. This is a choice point that has the opportunity to place you back in your power and control.

Literally ask yourself, “how can I view this current situation / stressful thing as a positive?” You’ll be surprised with how your logic brain kicks into action when you give it permission to work.

In summary, I would add to this that COVID isn’t forever. I’m reminded that my parents lived through a recession in the eighties, whereby crippling mortgage rates smothered the toughest of couples. And yet they survived. If you converse with grandparents they share stories of living in the depression without food and clothing staples for months on end. And yet they survived too, in fact, their view of life remains resilient and positive.

So decide on how you will take advantage of more time with your family and this unique opportunity to do life for a short while.

Resources

Beyond Blue “Types of anxiety”. Source https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/anxiety/types-of-anxiety

Tips to Overcome Guilt of Slowing Down and Reconnecting with Self

There’s a consistent thread of discussion I’m seeing on social media during this global COVID experience. There is a consistent undertowing and inference that we have all this ‘downtime’ to do stuff. We’re in lockdown so we should be ‘working from home’, ‘homeschooling’, and to top it off we’re expected to maintain some format of the usual routine.

Frankly, I call bullshit on the whole thing.

We’re in a whole new world. We’ve all been thrown into the blender and the cocktail still doesn’t have a name. Almost a month in and we’ve barely had time to take a sip and decide whether we like the flavour. We’ve been too busy in survival mode.

And that’s ok. It now feels like we’re coming up for air. And as we take great big gulping breaths to settle ourselves, the grounding presence of our individuality beings to shine.

We’re overcoming the fear, and we’re soldiering on. We’re coming together. And just like the phoenix, we are rising. Each of us has our own pace, but we are evolving into a new life.

I’ve been in self-motivated social isolation for a little longer than most due to my chemotherapy treatment. I’m slowly getting used to losing a bit of independence. And for once I’m almost excited at the thought of returning to the supermarket to go shopping again, for I’m told it’s all changed.

But so has the world. Everything has changed, and it’s not just social distancing. As Stacey Herrerra would say, we’re skin hungry, aching for human touch and getting up close and personal with our affection with those in our close circle.

My skin is starving as is my heart space when the flooded internet bandwidth fails to connect me with my peeps! Call me titchy if you will.
Many that I’m speaking to have guilt associated with enjoying the downtime and not doing all the things they think they should. There appears to be an expectation that you can work or school from home and it will be the same level of proficiency.

And that’s a lie if we are to be truthful. There is no way that we can work or study in the same way when the environment we normally do that has changed. The people we normally have around us has changed.

We are being expected to do work in the place where we relax, our homes.

So it’s time to cut yourselves some slack. It’s important to take it easy with the kids too. All you can do is be kind to yourselves and do the best you can.

Sure, attempt to stick to the normal schedule of study or work, but there’s going to have to be a whole new level of adaptation before productivity becomes super-efficient again.

This is a time for individuals to detach from what is happening externally from their home. It’s a time to connect internally to self, and the household members you reside with.

Negotiations and compromises have to be made. All that communication commences with those you love or share space with. Then you have to liaise with what can already presume are strained employers who are probably still trying to figure out how to keep you employed.
You can’t take any of that external stuff on. You have to be able to let go of the drama associated with COVID-19. You know why? Because science demonstrates if you stay at home, you stay safe from exposure.

But here is the other truth. Home is where your heart is. It’s where you relax. It’s where you are accepted for who you are. Home is where you simply do your best to get stuff done. So if you’re not working to your normal standards, please remind yourself of this — you’re not procrastinating, you are simply doing the best you can.

It makes sense if you feel like you’re avoiding all of the normal tasks and juggling everything. There’s a reason for this perceived procrastination. You’re probably feeling a somewhat overwhelmed because you are at both work and home at the same time. The normal routine is you leave one place and those tasks to go to another place and do different tasks.

Unless you live and work from home normally, a month into lockdown, you are only probably just realising that you have to create a new normal. It’s like asking a funeral director to coordinate a wedding for 350 guests — and yeah the wedding is in two days! Not gonna happen without some stress.

Well, guess what? It’s time to relax, let go of the guilt of being expected to everything, and start being nice to yourself. Besides you’re more proficient when you’re relaxed.

So my tips for reframing the procrastination into restoration are outlined below.

Strategically Place Your Focus

Focus on doing simply one thing at a time. There are certain household things that have to be done. Whilst pants are optional when working from home, underwear shouldn’t be. Neither should showering, cleaning bathrooms and floors, doing dishes etc.
Additionally, there will be certain work tasks that just have to be done each day. The trick is mish mashing the two lists and staggering the delivery performance over the week so it all gets done. At the end of the day, if there is a day critical task, then that goes to the top of the list.

Define Your Schedule

This is a fabulous time to lead by example with your kids. Knowing that generally most school lessons are based on 45-minute intervals, align your work sessions to what the kids are doing. This way when you come up for air, to grab a glass of water or snack and check the email you can be touching base with the kids and making sure their online learning mechanisms are working.

Delegate the Tasks Amongst the Housemates

Create a master task list of the things that do need to be done each day. Delegate out at least one task for each person, regardless of age. A five year is capable of setting the table or being supported to stack a dishwasher. A teenager is capable of hanging wet washing or folding the dry.

If your kids see how you juggle both work and home commitments, suddenly (one can hope) they have a new appreciation of all you do for them whilst mastering the adult juggle. When it comes time to return to the world, perhaps this new routine will stick and you can continue to share the load.

I’ve never once heard of anyone complain about a consider young adult housemate. I do frequently hear about selfish bastards though! Delegating tasks now sets your kids up with skills for life.

Appreciate the Extra Time

During ‘normal life’, my family are out after school four nights a week. That equates to an additional eight to ten extra hours I now have gifted to do other things. I appreciate this and use these extra windows of time do things as a family, like walking out puppies as a family.
My family travels with friends and when we come together we bond as a unit. We have an activity bag that keeps us entertained for hours. When was the last time your family ditched the technology and played a board game after dinner?

Do what really matters. Connect with people around you by

• playing cards or board games
• colouring and chatting
• figuring out jigsaws
• build leggo
• watch family movies
• play twister
• make blanket cubby houses
• bake biscuits

You’re only limited by your imagination by how you can creatively utilise COVID ‘me time’ to reinvent how you utilise your day. It’s time to reframe away from the perception that you ‘have to’ and migrate to a mindset of ‘I choose how to invest me and my time.’

Remember, when we are relaxed, we are productive. When we aren’t stressed, we have clarity in our thinking and outputs. We are focussed and capable of smashing out a multitude of tasks, one at a time.

When we are relaxed into our new routine we feel safe and comfortable with change. When we feel safe, we aren’t stressed and our immune systems function optimally. When we feel safe, so do our children.