When we think about holiday travel, our minds often jump to the logistics – packing lists, flight schedules, and accommodation details. However, there’s a deeper layer that often goes unaddressed – the profound impact travel has on our nervous system and metabolic health. Understanding this connection can transform your travel experience from potentially depleting to […]
Author: Riley Smith
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The Seasonal Connection: Understanding Your Nervous System’s Natural Rhythms As a functional medicine practitioner specializing in supporting helping professionals, I’ve observed how seasonal changes profoundly impact our nervous system regulation. For therapists, teachers, healthcare workers, and other service providers, understanding this connection is crucial for maintaining wellbeing while serving others. Yet in our modern world, […]
As healthcare providers and therapists, we dedicate our lives to caring for others. Whether we’re walking hospital corridors, conducting therapy sessions, or managing emergency situations, our presence matters. But there’s a critical aspect of our professional effectiveness that often goes overlooked: our own immune system’s resilience. The Frontline Challenge Every day, we face a unique […]
In the demanding world of helping professions, nervous system regulation for helping professionals isn’t just a wellness trend—it’s a fundamental necessity for sustainable practice. As we approach the year’s end, understanding and implementing effective regulation strategies becomes even more crucial for maintaining our capacity to serve others. The Science Behind Regulation Our nervous systems are […]
As helping professionals, we excel at showing compassion to others, but often struggle to extend that same grace to ourselves. These gratitude practices for helping professionals offer a pathway not just to appreciate the world around us, but to acknowledge our own journey and worth. The Power of Daily Gratitude Creating gratitude on a daily […]
The Key to Sustainable Practice Professional connection in helping professions isn’t just a luxury – it’s the cornerstone of sustainable practice. For those working in therapeutic and support roles, understanding how professional relationships sustain our work has become increasingly crucial for long-term success and wellbeing. The Physical Reality of Helping Work Every helper knows the […]
Remember when play wasn’t something you had to schedule? When it wasn’t a “self-care activity” but just… life? Somewhere along the way, most of us learned that becoming an adult meant leaving play behind. We replaced spontaneous joy with productivity, creativity with responsibility, and playfulness with professionalism but adults need play for nervous system health. […]
As helping professionals – whether we’re healthcare providers, educators, or mental health practitioners – we understand how our wellbeing shapes the quality of care we provide. Every day, we show up to support others through their challenges and transformations. Yet too often, we overlook a fundamental truth: our effectiveness as helpers is inextricably linked to […]
As the leaves transform into brilliant displays of red and gold, nature is offering us more than just beautiful scenery. Those vibrant colors actually signal the presence of powerful compounds called phytonutrients – and for those of us in helping professions, these natural substances could be the allies we never knew we needed for maintaining […]
There’s something we don’t talk about enough in the helping professions – the profound way our work lives in our bodies, and how our connections sustain us through it all. Think about your last full day of client work. By the end of it, you probably felt that familiar heaviness – not just mental fatigue, […]