44. Future-you-self-care

When you think of self care, you might picture a bath, a walk, or a quiet moment with a cup of tea.

And while those things can be helpful, there is another aspect to self care:

Future you self care  - Small, intentional actions that make your life easier tomorrow, next week, and beyond.

In this episode, we look at how stress affects the brain, why traditional self care doesn’t always work when you’re overwhelmed, and how simple, practical steps can help you feel calmer, clearer, and more in control.

🧠 What you’ll learn
• Why stress changes the way your brain works
• The role of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in stress and decision-making
• Why self care isn’t always about relaxation
• How “future you self care” helps reduce overwhelm
• Simple ways to support your nervous system in daily life


🌿 Go deeper - free workshop
🧠 Yoga and the brain - why yoga changes the way you think and feel
This workshop explores the science behind that change in feeling, because when you understand what yoga is doing to your brain, you can start to use, and adapt your yoga practice to change how you feel. 

This is a science-backed, accessible exploration of the impact that yoga has on your brain, your stress response and your emotional wellbeing. 

Save your spot to join us live or get the recording, here 

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Related episodes

• How stressed are you? (and what to do about it), listen here

• Nadi Shodhana: The What, Why and How, listen here

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💤 Yoga for Sleep: A nervous system approach

🗓️ Thursday 21st May

⏰ 12:30

💛 You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of how sleep works, insight into the relationship between stress, the nervous system and rest and practical tools to help your body and mind settle before bed. 

🙏 Free to join - save your seat here to join live, or receive the recording

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👋 work with me

💛 1:1 therapeutic yoga

Personalised support for anxiety, sleep issues, stress or back pain. Take a look here

🌻 therapeutic workshops and retreats

Small, supportive sessions focused on anxiety, deep rest or back health, blending yoga, breathwork and evidence-based education. Come join us here 

🦋 vinyasa flow 200 hour yoga teacher training

A welcoming, practical, neuroscience-informed training for people who want to teach yoga, or just learn more about it. Dive in, here

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to All of Yoga.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

This podcast explores, you guessed it, all of yoga, including the roots and history of yoga, how simple concepts from yoga philosophy can help us live a less stressful life, and how to approach the physical aspect of yoga in a safe and beneficial way. If you're brand new to yoga and wondering what it's all about, or you're an experienced yogi looking to learn more about all of yoga, this podcast is for you. Hi and welcome, or welcome back, to All of Yoga. I'm really excited about this episode because we're going to talk about something that comes up quite a lot in my therapeutic yoga sessions. We're going to talk about self-care, but maybe not in the way that you would expect. So let me ask you a question to start off. When you think of self-care, what comes to mind? Right? Often it's running yourself a bath or going for a walk or lighting a candle, having a cup of tea, taking five minutes for yourself. And listen, these things are so lovely, they really are. I don't have anything against them at all. But there is another aspect to self-care which I think is just as important, if not more important, than these lovely things. And this is the kind of self-care that it, you know, doesn't necessarily feel relaxing in the moment. It's what I like to call future you self-care. So, what do I mean by that? Well, future you self-care is anything that you do now that makes life easier for your future self. So this might be like going through your outgoings with a fine tooth comb so that you feel more in control of your finances. It might be tidying your space so tomorrow starts off a bit calmer. It might be packing your bag tonight to leave within the morning. It could be booking in something or dealing with something that you've been putting off. Of course, it could be a short yoga practice now so that you sleep better tonight, or even simply bookmarking some meditations so that they are ready for when you do have time to use them. These things might not come to mind when you think of self-care, and they might not feel, you know, like super relaxing or indulgent in the moment. But the way I see it, there's no point running a bath if you're gonna lie in that bath just spiraling about everything that you could or should be doing. Have you ever done that? You're trying to relax, but your mind is just absolutely racing you thinking about your to-do lists, your emails, messages you haven't replied to, something you said earlier, and you're just you're not relaxing at all, and sometimes actually it can make things worse. So let's just bring a little bit of neuroscience into this. Because when we're stressed, like about the amount of stuff that we have to do, the amygdala, the threat detection system, becomes more active. And the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for planning, decision making, regulating emotions, somewhat ironically becomes less active. So your brain is essentially saying, react, survive, just do something, do something now. And that's why everything can feel urgent and overwhelming. Here's the really interesting part. When you take small, intentional actions calmly, like planning, organizing, making a decision, you actually help bring the prefrontal cortex back online. So when you do something that supports your future self, you're not just being organized and smug, quite rightly, you are literally helping your brain move out of stress and survival mode. Isn't that amazing? So I want to give you something really simple to take away from this episode. A question that you can ask yourself whenever you need it, which is this what would future me really thank present me for? That's it. And if this is something that's resonating with you, if you're starting to notice how stress is showing up in your life and how it's affecting your life, your sleep, your energy, your reactions, this is the exact kind of insight we'll be going into in my free workshop, Yoga and the Brain. Definitely head to the show notes to save your space at the workshop or to be sent the recording. And don't forget that simple question whenever you need it, what would future me thank present me for? And as always, happy practicing.