Diana: 0:06

You're listening to the Declutter and Mom Podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene.

In 2017, I had my second daughter, and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings, and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system, and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Decluttered Mom podcast. Today I am going off script a bit and focusing a little bit more on something that's been very helpful for me lately. When I was first thinking about this topic idea, I was thinking, well, like, I don't know if this kind of fits really under the umbrella of all of the things I talk about on here. But the more I thought about it, I was like, you know what? This is probably something that every single person listening to this episode right now could use at least some of it. And so we're just gonna roll with it.

Okay, so I am without going into too much detail, I am going through a health thing right now. Keeping my heart rate and blood pressure down is important for this. One of the things that I've been really trying to work on is just kind of managing my nervous system, which honestly, you guys, like 2025, I could have used this anyways, even if I didn't have this health thing going on. Because I just feel like my nervous system is frazzled a lot because I take in countless information that's negative and scary and divisive and all of the things every day.

It feels like, you know, honestly, not even every day, it’s like every five seconds. Because if you're on TikTok or Instagram or really any social media and you're scrolling through and we have very short attention spans, we're getting hit with potentially like 60 bad news bits in like a two-minute time period. So it's just a lot. I don't think anyone living in 2025 will say, like, oh no, I'm good. Like, I'm totally zen. Maybe, maybe you're out there. Like, what are you talking about? But I just feel like I needed to find ways to calm down. Like, just calm down.

So there's some things that I've already been doing that I've just kind of been doing a little bit differently. There's some things that I had never tried before and I tried that have been very helpful. And then there's things that in previous years I relied on a lot and kind of forgot about and have come back to them that have been really helpful as well.

So what I'd like to do is go through the top things that have helped me with just nervous system regulation. And trust me, when I say that, I realize that's probably not a scientific term or anything like that. It’s just probably a buzzword that a lot of people use to market their solutions, I guess is the word I'm looking for. But I feel like that's what it's kind of doing. And so that's kind of the word we're going with. But if that's a wrong use of that term, then you don't have to tell me because I already know it's probably wrong.

Anyways, I'm gonna go from like I'm gonna end the show with the most helpful thing, but all of these things made the cut for a reason, and they've all been helpful in some way. And the thing is too, some things that are helpful for me will not be helpful at all for you. Or some things that are helpful for you may not be helpful for me. And so these are not like a list of things that you must do or that are the only things that are helpful, but these are the things that have been helping me and I wanted to share because I did share one of these on my Instagram stories last week, and I got so much feedback from people saying they had never done that before, and it was so helpful. And so I thought this list might be even more.

Okay, so the first one is walking slow outside, but with no podcast, no music, no talking on the phone, just silence. Just me and nature or car sounds or whatever else is going on outside. Because I need to keep my heart rate down, I've been walking very slow. And that's been hard for me because normally when I walk, I'm like, you know, like cardio, let's go, like listening to pump up music. And I'm purposely walking slow for the heart rate. But what I have found is that when I do that, I am able to kind of just take in nature more. I take in, like I can feel my body just kind of calm down a little bit because you hear bird sounds and just crickets and nature, right?

Like I actually heard—and I don't know if this is true, so don't tell me if I'm not right—I heard that listening to bird sounds, even on YouTube or something at home, can decrease anxiety because it's just like a biological nature thing, because if there's birds chirping, then that means there's no threat nearby. So I found that interesting. Who knows again if that's true? But I do find that if I am just not distracted by a podcast or by music or by talking to someone, and I'm able to just take in my surroundings while I'm walking slow and just being outside and breathing in actual fresh air, it's much more calming or more of a reset experience for me than if I'm on a power walk listening to a business podcast or a marketing podcast or an audiobook or anything like that. It's just a different experience.

So that's the first one. The second one is similar, but it's walking slow again, preferably outside, but doesn't have to be, with a walking meditation. So I use the app Insight Timer, and there are so many meditation apps out there, which I'll talk about more in a minute, but that's my favorite one. I used to use Simple Habit—I really liked that one also. There are so many walking meditations, and some of them are like five minutes long, some of them are an hour long, and they're nice because they help guide your brain into noticing and calming down and resetting when you are outside walking.

If the first suggestion I just gave of just walking in silence sounds like torture, then maybe walking with a walking meditation first would be helpful for you. I like doing both depending on how I'm feeling, but that's been really helpful for me.

The next one is just meditating. I first started meditating in 2018, right after I started my business. I found a business coach that I really felt like I liked everything he said. I felt like it made sense and was helpful for my business brain, but at the same time, he talked a lot about your mental approach to life and business also. That's where I first heard about meditation as anything other than picturing someone sitting there with great posture, hands on their knees, humming. That's what I thought meditation was.

I started exploring meditation apps, as I said, and that's been very helpful over the years. Sometimes I'm really good about it and do it multiple times a day, other times I forget and don't do it for two months. This is a season that I'm proactively seeking out times to meditate.

Usually, I do one right when I wake up. I don’t get right out of bed, I should, because I think it makes me more tired. But my alarm goes off, and I immediately put on a morning meditation. It’s super short, like five minutes, but it helps me reframe my mindset going into the day.

I try to do one in the afternoon if I can, like right after lunch. That doesn’t always happen though—it doesn’t happen more days than it does. Then I try to do one right before bed that I have found very helpful. There are many sleep meditations, so sometimes I'll put it on loop so it keeps playing. Having a guided meditation is very helpful for me because with my ADHD brain, it's easy to wander. The guided meditation helps bring my brain back to the moment.

Okay, this next one—I typed it, deleted it, typed it again, deleted it, then put it back in because it feels weird. Anytime I do it, I feel weird and only do it when I'm home alone. But I have found so much relief in my body when I just dance in my kitchen or bathroom anywhere. I put on music that’s not crazy fast, more slow, like Taylor Swift acoustic or some of her slower songs, and I do improv interpretive dance—just moving my body how it feels like it wants to move. It helps me feel good in my body during and after.

I discovered this accidentally during COVID when I was in a high anxiety spiral for months. I have health anxiety, and in a pandemic, it's not fun. One day a flowy song came on my Alexa, and I remember just swaying, and I thought, "Oh, that feels good." I started doing it more, and it did something to my nervous system that I loved. So I do it semi-often, but I will never show a video because it’s embarrassing.

The next one is somatic therapy on YouTube (S-O-M-A-T-I-C). Somatic therapy is all about... honestly, I don’t fully understand it. I just know it makes me feel better. I type "somatic therapy" on YouTube and whatever I’m feeling, and almost always something comes up. I don’t follow a specific YouTuber but have taken multiple classes on YouTube, like one about relaxed vigilance versus hyper-vigilance.

I’m not a somatic therapist, so I don’t really understand how it does what it does, but it’s been very helpful. For any of these, you have to decide if they’re good or safe for you. If you have health issues, talk to a doctor or therapist before trying them. I’m mostly sharing what’s helped me and encourage you to do your due diligence as I did.

Okay, two more. The second to last one is breathwork. I like someone on YouTube named Sandy who does breathwork videos on beaches with calming waves in the background. Breathwork is using your breath in different ways to calm your body.

I’ve had pretty good experiences with his videos. Breathwork can be intense; extended sessions at yoga studios can last hours, but I haven’t done those because they scare me and might be hard on my body. For me, the 5-10 minute videos with Sandy have helped when I’m feeling anxious.

My number one thing that has helped me over the years and I always come back to is called EFT tapping. I follow Brad Yates on YouTube. He’s been doing EFT tapping videos for a very long time and has thousands of videos in various categories, like clearing food FOMO, boosting self-confidence, living with lower expectations, clearing election stress, and daily news detox.

I type in "Brad Yates" plus whatever I’m feeling, like health anxiety or anxiety, and get options to work through. I even have courses from him, all worth it. This is not an ad or affiliate; he has genuinely changed my life in many ways mindset and how I feel about myself and life.

I have gone from near panic attack to totally calm using his anxiety videos. He also advises making sure a doctor approves and taking responsibility for your own wellbeing.

That’s my list. I hope it’s helpful. You might think I’m a wild woo-woo person now, but these things some recent, some long-term, some adjusted for now have all helped me. I hope at least one helps you.

Have a great rest of your week, and hope you’ll come back next week. Thanks for hanging out and listening to the Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share it with a friend or on your Instagram stories.

If you’re on Instagram, follow me at the.decluttered.mom and send me a DM to say hi. I’d love to hear what you thought about today’s episode. Hope to see you next week!