E004 Self-Care: Beyond Bubble Baths – Nurturing Your Nervous System

Self-Care: Beyond Bubble Baths - Nurturing Your Nervous System

If you have ever felt wired but tired, short on patience or like you are moving through the day on fumes, this episode will feel like a slower breath. In our next step through the HNSF Method, we explore self-care in its real, grounded form. Not spa days or perfect routines. This is the nervous-system kind. The care that helps you shift from high alert into a place that feels calmer, steadier and more connected to yourself.

I share why this pillar has been the most challenging one for me, even after years of teaching movement and guiding others through it. You will hear what self-care looks like inside my full, imperfect life as a solo mum and why small rituals like kitchen dance parties, breathwork, journaling and gratitude can make more difference than we often realise.

We also explore how your gut and nervous system are in constant conversation, why rest is not a reward and how to bring more yin energy into a life that often pulls us into yang. This episode is a soft landing place for anyone craving steadiness, calm and a deeper sense of connection within themselves.

📋 What we covered:

• Why self-care is about survival and why it is often the hardest habit to keep.
• My own messy, imperfect rituals that anchor me in full seasons of life.
• The solo moments that help me reconnect: journaling, tea, cacao, walking and movement.
• How meditation supports my nervous system and a look at the bonus guided meditation created for this episode.
• The science of the nervous system and how to shift from fight-or-flight into rest and digest.
• Understanding yin and yang and tuning in to what your body needs more of.
• How your gut and nervous system communicate and why caring for one supports the other.
• What is coming next in Episode 005 about fitness and movement that feels good in your body. 

 🧰 Ten Minutes of Calm
Your journal prompts for Episode 004.
👉  https://gawellness.myflodesk.com/self-care 

🌟 Key takeaways:

• You are not bad at self-care. You are likely navigating life with a nervous system on high alert.
• Real self-care is not hours of quiet. Ten intentional minutes can change your entire day.
• Your nervous system thrives on safety, consistency and small repeated rituals.
• Your gut health and emotional wellbeing are deeply linked. Nourish one and you support the other.
• Rest is something that allows you to keep going. 

 🎧 Episodes referenced in this episode:

• Episode 001 Welcome to GA Wellness:  My 4 Pillar Method to Sustainable Wellness
• Episode 002 Hydration: The #1 Wellness Habit You’re Probably Ignoring
• Episode 003 Nutrition: Nurturing Your Microbiome for Lasting Energy
• E004B Bonus: Guided Meditation for Nervous System Reset
• Episode 005 Fitness: Moving in a Way That Feels Good

🧾 Product referenced in this episode
Juice Plus+ Cacao Blend
https://au.juiceplus.com/collections/cacao?partner=10514438

📱 Let’s Connect

• All links, resources and ways to connect are here https://linktr.ee/GAWellness

🔔 If this episode spoke to you, lovely, please:

• Follow the podcast.
• Leave a quick review (it truly helps!)
• Share with a bestie who’s ready to reclaim wellness on her own terms.

© 2026 GA Wellness with Georgia Ann™. All content is for educational purposes only and is not medical or psychological advice.

Transcript

E004 Self-Care: Beyond Bubble Baths – Nurturing Your Nervous System
The GA Wellness Podcast – Small Steps, Lasting Change

Georgia Ann:

Opening

Self-care is less about spa days and more about survival. It's how we regulate, recharge and reconnect. Today we're going to dive into this a bit deeper.

Podcast Intro

Welcome to the GA Wellness podcast, Small Steps, Lasting Change. I'm your host, Georgia Ann, health coach, solo mum and a woman who's lived through the chaos, the curveballs and  the craving for something steadier. After 20 years in the fitness industry and my own journey through grief, motherhood and starting over, I've learned that real wellness isn't about doing more. It's about doing what matters. Each week, we cut through the noise and get real with simple, doable tools to help you feel stronger, calmer and more like you. This isn't about perfection. It's about steady soul led progress. Because you deserve wellness that fits into your full life, not just one version of it. Let's dive in.

Welcome Back and a Moment to Land 

Hello beautiful busy Bella and welcome back to the GA Wellness Podcast. I'm honestly so happy that you're here.

So however you're listening, folding laundry, on a school run, or even sneaking a quiet moment with a cup of coffee, or just trying to catch your breath in a full day, I see you and I'm so glad you carved out this little window of time for you. You deserve it, truly.

Before we dive in, let's just take a moment to land. Take a slow, gentle breath in and exhale, soft and easy. Let it all drop for a second, you're here now and we're here together.

A Quick Recap on the Journey So Far 

We're going to do a bit of a recap, so far on this journey, we're building something quite powerful, not just ticking boxes, but we're creating a foundation that's steady, intentional and designed to hold you, especially when life feels anything but steady.

Each step we've taken is a part of a framework that gently moulds around real life, the calm and the chaos. to help you come back to centre again and again.

In episode three, we talked about nourishment, not just in the rigid diet rules kind of way, but in a way that feels doable and kind. The sort of food choices that give you energy and help you focus, lift your mood and support your nervous system.

So maybe this past week you found yourself checking a food label out of curiosity, maybe you've added some extra seeds to your brekkie or swapped a sugary snack for something that gave you steadier energy. Or maybe you simply paused to notice how your body felt after eating and that's amazing work. that right there, it's magic. This journey is never about doing it perfectly. It's about showing up, learning, taking those tiny loving steps towards how you want to feel. Those small steps and shifts that you're taking, they matter so much more than what you think.

Moving up the Pyramid into Self-Care 

Okay, we've been tending to our base needs which is hydration and nutrition in the form of nourishment, which is the real foundational stuff. This is the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. Think of it like watering the roots before flowers can blossom. That's what you're doing, you've been grounding yourself, making space for stability and strength in the middle of everyday chaos. Now we're ready to move up that pyramid to the next layer.

We're stepping now into emotional wellness, into self-care. I want to reiterate, we're not looking at the fluffy surface level kind, we’re actually going to go quite deep.

We're going to go into what it really looks like to care for yourself and your nervous system, to create moments of calm in the middle of the storm and actually feel more anchored.

Why this Pillar is Hard for Me Too 

I'm going to get really real with you for a moment, out of all the pillars in the HNSF method, this one right here, self-care, is the one I've actually wrestled with the most and it's the one that I struggle with.

Maybe that's a little unexpected. I mean, I talk about it all the time. I taught BodyBalance for so many years and I support other women through it, but between us, I'm still learning about it as well.

Self-care, it sounds lovely, doesn't it? Kind of floaty, soft, maybe a little indulgent if you say it out loud but when you're in the thick of life, kids, work, ageing parents, everyone else's needs, it doesn't feel soft, it feels damn hard.

Self-care asks us to do something that doesn't come to us naturally, to pause, to tune in and to choose you and as a mum too, I mean, that's a big one.

The Oxygen Mask Truth 

So much of my bandwidth goes into making sure my daughter is okay. Her meals, her moods, her moments, let's face it, if you're raising a daughter, you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong, I mean, I love that, she's literally my heart in a little human body.

This is what I've come to realise and I'm still kind of wrapping my head around it. When I'm running on empty, tired, disconnected, running on fumes, I can't show up for her in the way that I actually really want to.

More importantly, I can't show up for her and show her what it looks like to respect and care for yourself.

Okay. I mean, we've all heard this before, the oxygen mask theory that they say when you go onto an aeroplane, that you must put yours on first before helping others. I know we all know it, but are we actually living it? That's actually where the real work is, so I'm practising gently in a messy way, but with intention every day to do this.

What Self-Care Looks Like in Real Life 

Let's talk about self-care and what this looks like in everyday life, it's not spa days and silent retreats, I mean, if anyone's offering I’m totally available!

For me, it's all those little rituals, the tiny moments that stitch calm and connection into that chaos.

Every night my daughter and I do a little gratitude check ins. I ask her, what are you grateful for today and what are three good things that have happened. you know what? It's such a simple thing, but it gently trains our minds to look for the light, even in our messy days. It's something that comes naturally to us now.

We also dance, like full on silly dance parties in the kitchen. Can't Stop The Feeling is still going strong in our house, but quite recently we've both become obsessed with anything by Dua Lipa. yes, we go hard and we have them on repeats. Jst a few moments of laughter as movement and you know what? Suddenly everything feels a little lighter.

We talk about emotions, we breathe together. in these moments, those small, intentional, truly imperfect moments, reminding her and myself our feelings matter. Rest is productive. taking care of yourself, it's not selfish, it's smart.

The Solo Care 

Then there's the solo care, the kind that I do just for me. Quiet beach walk, journaling with a hot cup of tea. yes, I've got my chamomile tea sitting in front of me, listening to a beautiful podcast while I potter around the house.

My morning cacao is always a big one. It's actually a Juice Plus+ blend I'm obsessed with right now. It helps me feel a little nourished, a little more anchored and it helps me through the rest of my day. I'll pop the link in the description if you're curious and if you want to know a little bit more.

When the week starts to feel wobbly, because I mean, life is like that, I lean into meditation, even if it's just a few minutes. It brings me back to breath, back to my body and back to myself and because meditation has been such a powerful part of my own journey, especially when it comes to calming my nervous system, I've got a little gift for you.

Bonus Episode: A Guided Meditation 

This Wednesday, I'll be dropping a bonus episode, which is a short, grounded, guided meditation. It's gentle, it's soothing and it's something you can return to whether you need to soften, breathe and just land back into your body.

It's inspired by those final sequences I used to teach in Les Mills, BodyBalance.

Do you remember those classes when the music would slow, the lights would dim and the whole room would just exhale? I was absolutely obsessed with creating that space. 

if you used to come to my classes, you would know that I loved candles and I'd always light them before we began. It's just something that created that soft glow, which helped melt the stress away and invite a little stillness in. It was like signalling to your body and your nervous system, it's safe to relax now. The feedback I'd get from members afterwards, how calm they felt, it always stayed with me.

So maybe that's something you might like to try too. So when you press play on the meditation, light a candle, curl up, somewhere cosy and let those few minutes be just for you, a small ritual, a soft space to come home to yourself. That's dropping this Wednesday.

The Science: Your Nervous System 

So when you do take those moments, giving yourself a breath of stillness, you're not just creating a nice vibe, though. Yes, we do love a good vibe. You're actually doing something quite meaningful for your body.

Let's gently walk into that for a second, your nervous system, it's basically your body's communication HQ. It's running the show behind the scenes, regulating your sleep, digestion, immune system, focus and even your emotional response.

Here's where it gets tricky. When life is go, go, go, school lunches, work deadlines, appointments, dishes, always dishes, the laundry that just never seems to end, our body often gets stuck in what's called the sympathetic nervous system. That's our fight or flight mode. Super helpful if you're, say, running from a bear. Not so helpful when you're just trying to get through your day.

When we stay in that space too long, it's like our system's on high alert all the time. We end up frazzled, anxious, wide, but tired. you know the feeling, don't you? I do too.

The beautiful thing is self-care, the real kind that we're talking about today, it invites your body back into its parasympathetic nervous system. That's your rest and digest space. It's calm, it's connected, it's where healing happens. It's where your body can exhale and say, ‘I'm safe’.

When your body feels safe, you feel safe, you think clearer, breathe deeper, sleep better and respond to life with more stillness. So really, those tiny acts of care aren't just nice to have their nervous system nourishment, that's how we move from surviving to actually living.

Yin and Yang: The Dance of Balance

Now that we've talked about how self-care soothes the nervous system, I want to share something that's always helped me make sense of this whole balance thing,

It's this beautiful idea from ancient philosophy the Yin and Yang. You've probably heard of it before, so stay with me because when I first really felt the truth of it was like a light bulb moment.

Yin is that soft inward nurturing energy. It's the quiet moments, the slow mornings, the deep breaths. It's rest, reflection, restoration.

The Yang, that's your outward energy. It's the doing, the action, the getting stuff done mode that we all know so well.

Essentially, it's when life gets full and busy and the magic is actually the dance between the two because too much yang, too much hustle, pushing, driving and we end up depleted, fried, snapping at people we love and wondering why we feel so off.

If we get too yin, we completely pull back, stop moving, lose momentum. We start to feel stuck or disconnected.

So, it's not about picking a side, it's about tuning in, asking, what do I need more of right now?

That's where self-care comes in. This is your yin practise, your gentle way of swinging the pendulum back into centre, of finding steadiness again.

When life feels tilted to one side, it's often how we start to bring ourselves back and start to feel a little bit more in that soft space.

Your Gut and Your Nervous System 

How we slow down so we can keep going is where the importance is and how we reconnect to ourselves so we can show up for everyone else. It's a beautiful thing when we can do this.

When we talk about swinging back into balance with self-care, we're not just talking about slowing down for the sake of it, we're actually supporting our entire self in our ecosystem. Which brings us right into something I'm still in awe of because it's that powerful.

Let's circle back to something we touched on last week's episode, your gut. Yep, your gut, that beautiful, complex little world living inside of you, doing so much more than just digesting lunch.

Inside your gut lives your microbiome, this community of trillions of tiny organisms that actually talk to your brain through what's called the gut brain axis.

It's like they're doing their own little private WhatsApp chat going on with your nervous system, sending messages about how you feel, how you sleep and how you cope with stress.

These microbes help produce things like serotonin, which is your good feeling hormone and your GABBA, which is your calming chemical.

When you're looking after your gut, you're not just helping digestion, you're helping regulate your mood. You're building emotional resilience and you're creating calm from the inside out.

It's honestly incredible how interconnected it is. Your food, your breath, your rest, they all feed into this gentle, ongoing conversation between your body and your mind and self-care? That's the language they speak fluently.

So, when you take five minutes to breathe or to choose a meal that makes you feel nourished or drink a glass of water, you're not being indulgent, you're actually being wise and you're tending to the whole you, that, my beautiful, busy Bella, is powerful.

Your Reflection for the Week 

Isn't it cool how something so simple as caring for your gut can actually ripple into your mood, your energy and your calm? It really shows us that looking after ourselves truly isn't just about bubble baths or face masks, it's about building tiny nourishing rituals that speak to the deep layers of who we are.

With that in mind, here's your gentle invitation for the week ahead. Let's keep it simple and let's keep it doable, just 10 minutes of each day of intentional self-calm. That's it. 10 minutes that belong to you.

So maybe it's stepping outside barefoot and feeling the ground beneath your feet. Maybe it's writing one page in your journal and just no pressure to make it perfect, just how you feel. Maybe it's sitting quietly with your hand on your heart, taking five deep breaths and just being or putting on that song, the one that you love, the one that means so much to you. dancing around in your living room like nobody's watching because truly, no one is. even if they were, they probably would want to join you.

Whatever your nervous system is asking for, give it that care and if you need a little help doing this, my guided meditation will be there for you on Wednesday. It's soft, it's grounding, it's there for whatever you need, a reset or just to help you feel a little bit more held, you've got this and I'm right here beside you.

Share Your Self-Care Practice 

Lovely, if you do try this little self-care practise that week, I'd love to hear how it lands for you.

Tag me over on Instagram @gawellness and use the hashtag #HNSFmethod.

Whether it's photos, journal entry, a little win, or even a quiet ‘I did it moment’, I'm here for it. I love seeing your reflections, I love cheering you on. I promise you're never walking this alone. We're doing this together.

Community and The Ripple Effect 

If you've been part of the Group Wellness Coaching space, you already know just how beautiful we support each other in this. We hold space, we hold each other gently and keep each other accountable. We celebrate the smaller shifts because they're never actually small and the impact they have is beautiful because when one woman regulates her nervous system honestly, it changes everything. Her parenting, her presence, her boundaries, her health, her joy, her ripple and that's the power of this work and the heart of this community.

Recap and What’s Next 

All right, my lovely, busy Bella, before we head off, let's take a deep breath and catch up on what we explored today because, wow, we covered a lot of ground and I loved every moment of going through this.

We talked about how self-care isn't just a buzzword or a luxury, it's the solid ground we stand on. We've reminded ourselves our nervous system, it doesn't just need us to go, go. It craves stillness as well. We connected the dots between our gut, health, our mood and our mindset, because it's all linked in a beautiful way and simple rituals like nourishment, breath, movement, the 10 quiet minutes can shift everything.

It doesn't have to be complicated, just consistent, just kindness towards yourself. You're doing beautifully and keep going.

Next week. Oh, I'm really excited about this one. We're stepping to the world of movement and fitness. not just the smash yourself at the gym kind of way.

No, we're talking about fitness and movement as medicine, as energy and flow, the kind that feels good in your body, not punishing. I know you're going to love it.

So until then, take care of you. Lovely. Keep listening in, keep showing up for yourself one gentle step at a time. You're doing so beautifully and I'm so glad you're here.

Outro

Thanks for being here. Lovely. If today's episode gave you a light bulb moment, helped you feel seen or sparked a small step, I'd love to hear about it.

Tag me over on Instagram @gawellness and share you in so I can cheer you on.

And if there's a woman in your world that needs this kind of support, send this to her because wellness feels better when we do it together.

Make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode and check the description for all the resources mentioned today plus the link to join my email list, which is where I share exclusive content, early access to offer some freebies and little love notes that I only sent to my community.

If you loved this episode, it would mean the world to me if you left a review.

Until next time, take a deep breath and take care of you.

With love,
Georgia Ann

© 2025 GA Wellness with Georgia Ann™.

All content is for educational purposes only and is not medical or psychological advice.