Ep. 243 How To FINALLY Feel Relaxed Again in Midlife, As Anxiety and Stress Take Over

What if relaxing at night feels hard because your body never had a chance to slow down during the day?
If this sounds familiar, you’re not doing anything wrong — your nervous system just needs a different kind of support.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
1.    Why trying to relax on command often backfires when anxiety and stress have created ongoing urgency
2.    How reducing urgency while you’re still busy helps your nervous system feel safer and less exhausted
3.    Simple, realistic coping skills you can use throughout the day to make rest and relaxation more accessible at night
 Take 9 minutes to learn how easing urgency during the day can help your body relax again — you’re worth it.

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About the Host: 

MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, is a seasoned clinician, educator, and host of the podcast Creating Midlife Calm, recognized by Maria Shriver as a “Listen of the Week.” Over the past 40 years, MJ has led more than 50,000 therapy sessions and developed the Inner Challenge mental wellness program and the Inner Challenge Master Class, practical tools for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience taught for more than 30 years in junior high schools and at the University of Notre Dame for freshman football players. Through her podcast, teaching, and coaching, MJ helps people build calmer lives, stronger relationships, and healthier communities.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support. 

Transcript

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW 0:00

In this episode, you'll discover how to begin relaxing again welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the podcast where you and I tackle stress and anxiety in midlife so you can stop feeling like crap, feel more present at home, and thrive at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 50,000 hours of therapy sessions and 32 years of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness. Welcome to the podcast on Monday, you were invited to notice when movement felt soothing and when slowing down, felt uncomfortable if you noticed restlessness, urgency, or the impulse to stay busy. That isn't a problem. It's information today is about what we're gonna do with that information, not by forcing yourself to relax, can you really force someone to relax or trying to get you to become a calmer or less busy person? The goal isn't to stop being busy. It's to move through your day without your body feeling constantly on high alert. Something I've talked about before on this podcast, I call it forced urgency. This episode is about how you live inside your day, not about what you do after your day is over. In this episode, you'll discover why trying to relax often backfires, how to reduce urgency while staying busy, and how small changes during the day can make rest and relaxing a bit more possible at night, Relaxing at night for most people. Sounds like a pretty ideal and easy thing to do. But many people have told me over the years that when they try to relax at night, they sit down and finally stop instead of feeling calm. They actually feel more restless. Their thoughts go into overdrive. Remembering a bill to pay a text to return a difficult moment at work. How can you relax when so much still feels undone? Over the years, many of my clients have said I try to relax, but it makes me more anxious. This doesn't mean you're bad at relaxing. It means nervous system has been living in urgency all day and doesn't trust sudden stillness. That's why a therapist who says to a client will just relax is probably not gonna have a client that relaxes a nervous system trained for motion needs a transition, not an abrupt stop. Here's a distinction that changes everything. Busyness is what you do. Urgency is what your body feels when you're doing it. Urgency not busyness is what exhausts your nervous system. You can be busy without urgency, and you can feel urgent even when you're not busy. The goal isn't to stop being busy. It's to move through your day without your body feeling constantly on high alert. This isn't about changing your personality. It's about changing the internal pressure you carry with you throughout the day. So how do you reduce urgency while you're still busy and checking things off your to-do list? This is where coping skills actually become very helpful and realistic. Regulation doesn't only happen when you stop. It happens when you check back in with your body while you're moving. Small moments matter at a red light before walking into a meeting, standing at the sink, you notice your breath. You soften your jaw, you drop your shoulders. You bring attention to the present moment. I recently had a final session with a client who shared that my mindfulness exercise notice on the outside was the beginning of her feeling hopeful about her anxiety. She moved from After listening to episode two, she shared with me that she moved from, I shouldn't feel anxious to, I need to reregulate my body as I move through the day. She drove a lot for work and described living with constant forced urgency. It was just a sales call. There was truly no reason to rush, so at every red light, she grounded herself. A few long exhales, shorter inhales, softening her shoulders and jaw. In all it took 30 or 45 seconds. You're not trying to feel calm. You're reminding your body that it doesn't need to stay braced. This is how urgency slowly loses its grip. Just because it's nighttime doesn't mean that your nervous system relaxes and settles in. It actually brings the day with it. When your body stays on high alert all day, it makes sense that rest feels hard at night. But when you've practiced reducing urgency. Even briefly, your system arrives at the evening, less activated. No, this doesn't guarantee sleep. It simply makes rest and relaxing more accessible. In an intake. Last week, a new client shared that her mind never turns off. I asked her what her body was doing. When her mind was so busy, she stared at me and said, my body, I never even think about it. Yep. That's the problem for most of us. When thoughts hog the show, you lose awareness that creating calm actually starts with your body. And that's something you can practice little by little throughout the day, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you begin to see progress. Your nervous system needs some rest each day. Even partial rest counts. As you practice this, you may notice some discomfort at first, restlessness, the urge to grab your phone. Thoughts like this isn't working. I should feel so much more relaxed. We're impatient. People often demanding our bodies give us calm on command, but your body will respond much better when you tend and befriend it. It might sound surprising to admit to yourself, I need to learn how to relax, but for many people. This is the honest truth. You've been enculturated to go, go, go. But your nervous system is like an old dog. It can learn some new tricks. This sounds simple on a podcast, but as you know, with. Every step forward, there can be a little sense of loss for many people I work with. There's a little bit of grief here. Grief for how long rest has been hard. Grief for how much you have carried. If this feels both hopeful and sad. That makes sense. You don't need to push past any of this. You just need to notice it. You can hold two truths at one time, my client, who practiced resting at red lights, came into session one day, angry. She said, my whole life I've been pushing so hard. Why didn't I learn this in middle school? Frankly, I agree. Your body is meant to work hard, and your body is also meant to relax and recover from working hard. What I want for you is this, to work hard during your day so that when night comes. It's easier to relax. If you see yourself in this episode, you may find that nighttime relaxation becomes more possible when you create a gentle transition instead of a forced stop. What's a gentle transition? First, notice all that you've done that day, because most people focus only on what's left undone, and that fuels anxiety. A gentle transition is easing yourself into rest. Using the age old skill of coziness. Put on your favorite pajamas, hold a cup of tea, snuggle with a family member, a pet, or a blanket. Do something that helps you unwind. Watch a favorite show. Do a puzzle or read a book. No scrolling, because in the moment it does feel relaxing, but because it's so hard to keep to five or 10 minutes, after 30 or 40, your whole system is wound up again. In this episode, you discover that relaxation isn't something you force. At the end of the day. It's something you rebuild by reducing urgency as you move through your life. We also discuss the importance of a transition at the end of the day, not a full stop. We are living in really stressful times. It is so easy given all the load that you carry and the anxiety in our culture to feel urgency as you move through your daily tasks. Ground your feet. Take some breaths. And relax. You got this. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Monday with more creating midlife calm.