FULL TRANSCRIPT
What I'm talking about here with the dopamine, they've not been measured in terms of how much they increase dopamine production. It's quite a subjective idea. You're thinking about the things that help you feel better, the things that are going to motivate you, the things that are going to reward you.
And the only thing that I can kind of say is science backed is the yoga nidra which studies have shown boost dopamine by up to 70%, which is amazing. Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham. Welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.
I am so excited to be sharing new trauma informed and ADHD friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self care, which we all know can be so challenging at times. I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting bonus content each week if you sign up to the Soul to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book: 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.
Welcome to Episode 47 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Thank you for joining me. And today, we're still working with the idea of sending as much love to your whole self, especially your body, as possible.
And we're working with a really simple way in which you can do more things that help you feel better. When I wrote 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, it was a way to encourage people to trust in their inner wisdom and have so many ideas in one place. They could ask to be guided and open it at random and choose one of the tools.
And if it appealed, great. And if not, they could open it at random again, as well as going by the days of the year or by the index. It's a thorough index.
And before that, and I still do this with clients, encouraging them to potentially have a jar, maybe using colour coded PostIt notes for the amount of time that different self-care activities are likely to take and different levels of energy involved and other variable resources. So you can, at a whim, just kind of dip your hand in, ask to be guided to something that's going to suit you in that moment. And again, it's your choice.
If you choose something that doesn't appeal, you put it back in. And if it does, then brilliant. It helps take all the decision making out of the process every time when you might have suddenly a spare five minutes or a spare hour or a spare afternoon.
And it helps to get those, ‘Yes, I deserve this time, this space, this treat, something that's going to help me feel better’ easily accessible. So I was delighted to come across Jessica McCabe, author of How to ADHD, her dopamenu. Basically, she's created an entire menu for herself and shows readers and people who follow her channel how to do it.
She worked as a server alongside building up her YouTube channel so it kind of makes sense that she would do it. But I just love the image of a menu.
And she talks about having entrees and starters, side dishes, your main courses, your desserts. And once you've got it, making it as visually appealing as you possibly can, having it somewhere where you're going to see it often. And it's like, yeah, I have half an hour there, or I have an hour, or I'm going to carve out two hours or even five minutes.
You don't have to constantly be deciding and thinking from scratch, because we all forget what helps us. And that's part of the reason why I have it all in one place. And she says that's why she started her YouTube channel, to have all her research about ADHD in one place.
For dopamine, dopamine is very important in terms of ADHD. You can read some about it in the book, but you can also easily research it. What I'm talking about here with the dopamenu, they've not been measured in terms of how much they increase dopamine production, it's quite a subjective idea, you're thinking about the things that help you feel better, the things that are going to motivate you, the things that are going to reward you.
And the only thing that I can kind of say is science backed is the yoga nidra, which studies have shown boost dopamine by up to 70%, which is amazing. So you could have a short one like for a side dish, a 10 minute yoga nidra. And I'm going to be including a short yoga nidra for the Full Moon and Super Moon members.
There are lots of longer ones and shorter ones available through my selfcarecoaching.net site and through my YouTube channel and podcast. And obviously the Sole to Soul Circle membership at evemc.substack.com
So you can check lots out for free. But this idea of just taking 10 minutes and it having an impact for hours or half an hour or 20 minutes, it's the same activity.
And you could do the same with movement, you could have as an entree, you could have taking a stretch, just checking in with your body, asking yourself, how do you want to move in this moment and allowing yourself to do that.
A side dish might be a short yoga practice or a mini dance break. A main course for me would be a proper yoga practice and a longer yoga nidra, a swim. A swim always restores me. After the swim or being in the sea, there’s the dessert of getting into the sauna when that's around sometimes and watching an entire episode of something in one go or curling up with a good book without a time limit on how long I can read it for or going to the cinema, seeing an entire film. Sometimes that can feel quite torturous, but it's also really brilliant. A side dish might be 10 minutes of an episode in between doing something, just thinking, ‘Right, I'm going to finish such and such and then I'll reward myself with just 10 minutes’ and that can be really lovely.
Desserts might be things that you know you don't want to overindulge on, but that give you a real boost and they're going to be different for every person. So as I mentioned, there's going to be the bonus content for the Half Moon subscribers. For free subscribers is a special, unique, short yoga nidra and for the Full Moon and Super Moon subscribers this week, it's an opportunity to share with me, I'm really excited about this, share with me your ideas for YOUR dopamenu and if you want to show me what you're creating or what you've created I'd love to see it.
Do check out Jessica McCabe: She is phenomenal. I'd heard an interview with her ages ago and it's only recently that I've started listening to the book and it's again, as I go down this ADHD rabbit hole, the number of ADHD books I've listened to where I'm almost, well I am crying as well as laughing out loud and almost punching the air as I'm driving along like, ‘Yes! Oh my god, I thought it was just me,’ but her approach is so delightful. I'm sure you will love it and learn something from it.
I hope you've enjoyed this episode and learnt from this. I hope you give yourself permission to connect with what feels good for you and that you create as haphazard or as beautiful and sparkly a dopamenu as works for you at this time. You might do it in stages too. An starter version of your dopamenu might be jot down ‘make dopamenu’ or ‘begin creating dopamenu.’
A side dish might be a very rough draft, a main course might be giving yourself, I don't know, half an hour, an hour to really think about and they're going to be journal prompts for the members, what you want to be including and the dessert might be the decorating it and making it look all pretty and deciding where in your home you're going to put it.
We might have it in a mobile version as well so you can keep it with you when you're out and about and you can always find something that is going to help you feel better and that is going to work with your energy levels, with your mood, with your resources at any given time.
Thank you for listening, thank you for watching and please rate, review, subscribe, follow, share, comment whatever feels good for you and I look forward to sharing more next week. CHANGE: WE’RE TAKING INSPO FROM RESCUE CATS AND WORKING WITH THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
If you subscribe you're less likely to miss it. I will of course be sharing it across my platforms but thanks for listening again and this episode like all of them is produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and I hope you have a delightful week and really notice the things that help you feel good, things that help you feel better, the things where even though you're not literally measuring the dopamine production. You are getting a subjective sense of what really nourishes you, what helps you feel better and you can add that in the appropriate place to your dopamine you. Thanks again.
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