🌿 Movement and your mental health
This month: Calming movement practices, the best apps for walking, feedback on our next app features and trying bilateral stimulation for anxiety.
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Hello friend!
First of all I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who voted in the poll we shared in last month’s post. It was resoundingly clear that our community are looking to these posts for practical tools and techniques to support managing worry and overthinking, as well as for interactive activities and prompts.
This has given us so much food for thought, and as a result you will see some changes to our approach here over the coming months. I was really encouraged by the response to our last post and am excited to see how things develop!
May is a busy month for us at WorryTree as we focus on Mental Health Awareness Week, especially coming off the back of announcing our exciting new collaboration with Carerhood (not a paid partnership by the way). If you’re a carer, here’s a quick reminder that Carerhood offers tips, community and resources especially for you - go and check them out if that’s something you might find helpful.
This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is all about moving for your mental health and so we’re focusing our efforts this month on helping you to find simple, un-scary ways to build more movement into your mental health self care routines. Rest assured, this doesn’t mean doing a HIT workout or going for a run (unless you want it to). Movement can be small, so long as it’s intentional. Below, you’ll find a few different suggestions for how you can use movement in simple ways to help you improve your mental health, manage anxiety and even stop overthinking.
As humans who often find ourselves caught up in our thinking, focusing more on the rest of our body can be a game-changing practice.
I hope you find the practical tools, suggestions and resources below helpful. Let us know by leaving a comment or even just clicking on the 💚 ‘like’ button at the end of this post.
Next month’s post will be all about how to stop overthinking, so we’ll see you back here in June for more on that. If you have any particular questions or things you think we should cover, then let us know by replying to this email!
Thank you, as always, for being here. See you next month!
- Louise x
PS, if you know someone who would find this kind of email helpful, please share this with them too, I know I'd appreciate the thought from a friend. 🙏
Practical tips and techniques: Moving for your mental health
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🌿 How to find moments to move more every day (2-minute read)
Those of us who worry a lot tend to spend a lot of time in our heads. It can be really easy to forget that we have a body too, but moving our body can be one of the quickest ways to stop us overthinking. And getting moving doesn’t have to mean going for a run or committing to a workout. Instead it can be as simple as a five minute walk, a few stretches or a quick kitchen disco. This Mental Health Awareness Week, the Mental Health Foundation have shared their top tips for getting moving for your mental health.
🌿 Movement as medicine: Try this calming practice (15-minute practice)
If you have a little more time, then try this calming movement practice. I find exercises like this most useful first thing in the morning, but you can also use it to reset your day after an anxious moment or as a bridge between the end of your working day and the beginning of your rest time. People have been using yoga practices like these for thousands of years, and that’s because they really do work. Find some space, take a seat, close your eyes and breathe.
🌿 Step-by-step: Walking for your mental health (Longer-read)
One of the simplest ways to get moving more is to get up more often and walk. We’re all familiar with the benefits of getting out in nature, and evidence shows that even just a twenty-minute walk outside every day can improve our mental health. Walking is simple, powerful and transformative and if you’re still not convinced try this book from Libby DeLana. And here are some of the best walking apps available to support your new walking habit.
🌿 Try this quick movement practice to calm overthinking (2-minute practice)
The wonderful coach, Sally Hardie (of our sensory practices-fame) taught me this technique last year and I use it regularly to calm myself in an anxious moment or distract myself from a negative thought spiral. First you’ll need something to hold that is comfortable in your hands and has a little weight. I usually grab a bottle of hand soap or a can of something. Taking the item in one hand, pass it across to the other hand and then pass it back and forth, making sure your hands cross your middle as you do so. This simple movement technique is known as bilateral stimulation. In doing this you are essentially alternatively stimulating the left and right side of your brain, which has been proven to calm your nervous system and stop overthinking in it’s tracks.
Latest updates from WorryTree
Photo: Image of our WorryTree app, April 2024
You may have noticed that our WorryTree app updated several times in the last month as we shared a new release and then had to clean up a few little bugs in the system.
The most recent version of WorryTree is now 4.0.7 for Apple and 4.0.8 for Android so do make sure you have the latest version downloaded onto your device. This makes sure everything is working properly and securely!
If you haven’t downloaded the new update yet then you can download it here if you have an Android phone or tablet, or here if you have an Apple device.
We don’t sit still here at WorryTree and we’re already working on what’s next and so we’d like to ask you, our community, what new features you’d like to see added to WorryTree? Give us your feedback via the poll below.
We're committed to helping you feel more calm and in control of your overthinking, by using effective tools that you can practice anywhere. We believe that worrying gets in the way of you making the most of this one, precious life.
If you have any questions or ideas, please get in touch below!
🌿 Here’s a few more ways we can help you:
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for short videos about managing anxiety and worry.
Try our Whatsapp and SMS course, 30 Days to Stop Worrying. Learning to worry less is simple, but it isn’t easy. Small, daily consistent steps over time will make all the difference, which is why I created this new 30-day programme bringing you gentle daily prompts to your phone every morning.
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Remember…
If you're struggling at the moment, then know that asking for help is a sign of strength not of weakness. Contact someone you can trust like your Doctor, a friend or a relative, or text SHOUT to 85258 (UK) to start a conversation with a crisis support volunteer.