Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host and for nearly two decades now I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show I share evidence based insights from my coaching, leadership and psychological expertise and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here and let’s get on with today’s episode. Welcome back. And if you’re a first time listener, welcome. If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know my own journey with burnout has made me fiercely curious about wellbeing, about how we maintain the energy to fuel our ambitions and still show up in our lives happy and fulfilled.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:06]:
And today’s guest is here to help me. I’m joined by Gemma Jefferson, a chartered physiotherapist and performance consultant who’s worked in elite sports for over a decade, including three summer Paralympic Games, and served as an athlete Health lead with the UK Sports Institute. And I’ve had the pleasure of working with Gemma on some women’s leadership retreats in the Peak District and seeing her work up close and personal. And she’s the real deal. What struck me most was Gemma’s honest sharing about her own journey into motherhood and the health challenges her family navigated. And she’s taken the best of elite performance and sharpened it for real life as a busy working mum. And through her business made for more movement. Gemma blends sports performance expertise with breathwork, yoga and a whole person approach.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:04]:
And she’s given ambitious women like you and me the practical tools that fit our busy schedules. So these tiny habit shifts, these nervous system resets and ways to listen to our body cues so that we can show up at our best consistently. So if your current performance plan is coffee and willpower, this episode is for you. As Gemma was talking to me in this interview, I felt my nervous system just calm. She is the most grounded voice in, I think, a world that can bombard us with all of these things that we should be doing with our bodies. And I really hope you love this conversation as much as I do, so I won’t keep you any longer. Let me welcome Gemma. Welcome Gemma.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:51]:
It is brilliant to have you on the podcast.

Gemma Jefferson [00:02:53]:
Oh, thanks, Nikki. Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:56]:
So As I said to people in the intro, we know each other from working on a female leadership retreat together where you came along, and it was the first time I met you and you did just the most incredible stuff. And I was like, gemma, we need to get you on the podcast not only to show what you do, but also your story. So for those that don’t know you and what you do, can you give us a brief overview of kind of who you are, what you do and how you’ve come to do it as well?

Gemma Jefferson [00:03:26]:
Sure, yeah. So I am a physio by background. I have been a physio working in elite sport for something frightening, like, 14 years now. So it means I’ve been to three Games as well, three Paralympic Games, which has been amazing. And I loved it. I do still love it. I’m very fortunate to have worked with elite athletes during that time. I’ve been on my own personal journeys ever.

Gemma Jefferson [00:03:51]:
So I’ve now a mum to two young boys, so just turned five, just turned three, which has been amazing. But as part of that process, I. Well, I guess it’s worth saying, like, as a physio, I’ve always loved movement, I’ve always trained, I’ve always been quite physical, I’ve always loved to move my body. And there’s something about the journey through pregnancy and postpartum and then trying to fit it all in as a new mum that suddenly I had to completely revisit what movement and feeling good in myself felt like. So it really spun me, like being pregnant, being a new mum, trying to be a working mum. All of the stuff that had worked for me before, like, just didn’t feel like it was really working. So I really had to kind of throw that on the scrap heap, do a whole load of work and research and self discovery. And, yeah, it’s really been fascinating because I feel like I’m now in a place where the work I’m now really passionate about is combining my knowledge as a performance physiotherapist, having worked with elite athletes and understanding how to help people peak and recover at the right times, with this understanding of actually just day to day, what your body needs, and particularly as a woman, what our needs are compared to men and what women’s needs, physically and mentally are as we go through different life stages and all this really important stuff.

Gemma Jefferson [00:05:14]:
So, yeah, that’s a real, I guess, helicopter view of where I’ve landed in this place of actually being really fortunate to work with, specifically with women at this point in time who want to Just get a little bit more out of their everyday and their performance and what that means. So, yeah, really fortunate to be able to combine sort of my love of physiotherapy in the body and, and a whole load of research and years of experience into what I do now.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:40]:
And how lucky are we to have you on the podcast to dive into this? Because as you’re saying this, I’m like, this is so up my street, like, you know, being an ambitious woman that wants to perform in my life, but also just as you say, the practicalities of having a young family and wanting to be there for them. And how do you find yourself in all of that? And I think your unique perspect, effective of having that high performance, but having gone on that journey yourself of going, this is all great, but like, I’ve literally got 15 minutes today.

Gemma Jefferson [00:06:12]:
Yeah, and. And it changes. Like, our needs change. Like the training that worked for me. I used a term training quite loosely, by the way. I was never an elite athlete myself, but like, the stuff physically that worked to me in my 20s, in my early 30s, it just wasn’t working for me. I wasn’t getting toned, I wasn’t feeling strong, I wasn’t feeling the changes. My aerobic fitness wasn’t like improving.

Gemma Jefferson [00:06:32]:
So even when I had the time, I was doing stuff that had worked for me in the past. And it just wasn’t. It wasn’t helping my mindset, it wasn’t helping my body in the same way. So, yeah, it’s been fascinating. And. And what. What is fantastic about sort of straddling these two worlds is that the work I’m doing in that kind of for myself and for women in this kind of like really diving into nervous system and body and those sorts of bits, the embodiment stuff, I wasn’t expecting this, but it is actually now going back to performance and it’s helping my athletes in a completely different way as well. So I just love how I kind of get to switch between these two worlds because one definitely helps the other and vice versa.

Gemma Jefferson [00:07:09]:
Yeah, it’s fascinating.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:12]:
That just makes my heart kind of sing because I am often banging this drum of motherhood. Makes us better in our work. And that’s a prime example of actually, as you say, your experiences as a mum, you’re taking back into elite performance sport. And like, who would have thought that would have been the case? But I hear that so often. So let’s get down into this then. Tell me me about some of the strategies that you work with women on some of the journey that you’ve gone on and the lessons that you’re taking now applying in your work.

Gemma Jefferson [00:07:46]:
Yeah, I mean, I think the most obvious one is, is. Is moving our bodies. Which, you know, massive term could mean anything to any number of people. I think particularly there’s a group of driven women who were at a certain stage of their life, who were probably at peak of their career, particularly in terms of, like, earning potential. But that comes at the time when you’ve got a young family. It comes at the time where, you know, you’ve got a partner who’s also probably thriving and doing their own things. You might have parents or family who are starting to get older and you’ve got one eye on looking after them. So it.

Gemma Jefferson [00:08:21]:
It comes at a time in our life where, like, suddenly everything feels like it’s just peaked together at the same time. And I think with that, typically what we see, or what I see really, really often with, particularly with women, is this. Just this tightening. Like, we carry this burden, we carry this weight, and we know that what that does to the musculoskeletal and the nervous system is we literally tighten up. Like, we come constricted. You feel it, right? So women start talking about feeling achy or they start feeling stiff or they get, you know, that suddenly this neck pain just won’t go. Stretching is not helping them. In the same way, all these little niggles that we, again, probably have a tendency to ignore because we’re mothers and we don’t have time for it.

Gemma Jefferson [00:09:01]:
So we just, you know, brush it under the carpet. So I think that the. The movement that I think really, really helps women who, if they’re feeling all that stuff is anything that brings softness, soft, gentle movement. And it is so counterintuitive to a lot of women who. The women that I’ve just described tend to be the. I want to be strong. I’ve got 20 minutes. I’m going to go and I’m going to get.

Gemma Jefferson [00:09:27]:
Throw some really heavy weights around. I’m going to go to a HIIT class. I’m going to get it done. I’m going to work hard and. And it’s great, right, because it does help hormones and it does help you feel like you’ve done something good. However, in terms of just what that does to an already overstressed nervous system, it’s just ramping it up and ramping it up and ramping it up. So really, like, the first place I started was really just the softest, most gentle movement I could find. So I Am a yoga instructor as well.

Gemma Jefferson [00:09:57]:
And I’d always done, people might be familiar with like the Ashtangas and the Vinyasas and the quite intense flows and strong poses. No sorts of bits, you know, like where the real kind of sweaty work happens. And suddenly I was like, you know what? My postpartum body, I’m really stressed. I suffered a lot, particularly after my second with postnatal anxiety for the first time. I’d never had anxiety before. So I tried to do my normal yoga, I tried to do my normal practice and it was just, I wasn’t settling and I was scattered and it wasn’t helping me. And I just did a bit of research. I was like, what happens if I do yin yoga for the first time and if people don’t understand what Yin yoga is? You help hold the same pose for minutes.

Gemma Jefferson [00:10:40]:
So it’s normally at least three minutes of the same pose. And it is not easy. But there is no hiding from how your body and your mind is in yin yoga. And it is, it was such a turning point when I found you in yoga because it is just, it’s really hard for all, for all sorts of, you know, the opposite reasons of why moving quickly and moving heavily, you know, is hard. Like it’s just stillness and it’s giving into your body and it’s really trying to lean into relaxation and it’s finding the stillness. So all of this movement that I learned to start doing was like Yin yoga dance flows really like just flowing, beautiful softness. Because we, with our nervous system getting ramped up and getting wired and getting busy, it just creates, you know, the fight or flight in our bodies. Just create.

Gemma Jefferson [00:11:23]:
I’ve got to move, I’ve got to be stressful. I’ve got to be ready. I’ve got to be ready for action. So it’s just tension on tension on tension and nervous system being wired and ramped up all the time. So we just need to give ourselves time to step away from that. And movement is such a lovely way to do that.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:38]:
And I love how you describe it as softness because that is such a beautiful and as you say softness, I kind of breathe and kind of go ah. And, and how difficult that is for us as like high achieving women that actually we’ve had to, if, you know, we’ve probably conditioned the softness out of ourselves. Being environment, being in a commercial environment, being in a fast paced world. And like I had this as you said it, I was like, oh yeah, but oh God, no. Yeah. I imagine you experience that with women as well.

Gemma Jefferson [00:12:12]:
Yeah. And I think particularly, you know, again, if you put yourself in a corporate world, like, say someone who’s presenting, there’s so much like psychology, which is absolutely right and absolutely appropriate about, like, if you want to, you know, if you want to get across a point, like, hold yourself in a certain way. And we’ve, you’ve probably heard the super, you know, superhuman pose to get your confidence up. And these are all great things because we’re trying to tell our nervous system, I am strong. It’s time to perform. I’m ready, I’m wired, I’m switched on. Great. Like, in that moment, that’s what you need.

Gemma Jefferson [00:12:41]:
And yet we’ve got to be able to switch it off. We’ve got to be able to come out of that. Like, that’s not a normal feminine resting state. That’s not how females recover. And it’s not how we, you know, we are hardwired for connection. We’re hardwired for that kind of, that softer kind of, you know, high level connection with people. And I think if we don’t allow ourselves to return to that state, that’s when we just start feeling like, why am I feeling so tense? Why am I feeling uncomfortable? Gosh, my knees sore. Oh, God, now my ankle sore.

Gemma Jefferson [00:13:09]:
Now my back’s uncomfortable. This is a constant kind of fighting fires of aches and pains is what I see repeatedly. So, yeah, I think the first thing definitely that I would find for women is, is a lot of that I do initially is, is stillness and softness. And it sounds so easy, but for a lot of these women, it is the hardest thing I could ask them to do.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:28]:
And I remember after my journey with burnout, the hardest lesson for me was learning to rest. And I read a book called Daring to Rest, and I was like, oh, that’s such a good title because it is, it does feel really like an almost. It’s the most human thing, but it’s become the most unhuman thing in that, oh my God, I’ve got. I’m going against social, expect and all the cultural narrative about go harder, go faster. And I really felt like I was having to lean into that vulnerability. I’ve got a dare to do something different because my body absolutely needs this.

Gemma Jefferson [00:14:02]:
Yeah. And even with the information and things that are out there, you know, take something like, you know, I’m really passionate about breath work and the power of breathwork that you take the information that’s out there now. And there is, is a good way to do breath work. And there is a Bad way to do breath work. And God forbid, if you do, you know, don’t do it correctly and you’ve got to do it textbook and you’ve got to feel physiologically better and you’ve got a stress assistant this way. And like, we’ve taken these things that are literally as nature intended and we’ve made them so complex and we’ve given it a pass or fail. So if you tell a driven woman who’s a high achiever that there’s, you know, the, the perfect way to do something, God, like, she’s gonna stick at it and she’s gonna work hard and she’s gonna force it and she’s gonna keep going until. And as long as she’s passed it, like, everything will fall into place and she’ll feel great.

Gemma Jefferson [00:14:52]:
But that’s also not what happens. You know, like, the body needs consistency and it needs gentleness and it needs this return to a natural state. And that’s what I’m really passionate about, is really, you know, modern life is incredible for so many reasons. And we’re so fortunate to have all of these things around us, aren’t we? Convenience, technology. All these fantastic things that make life what it is today. And yet, I think from a physiological and from a musculoskeletal. So from a muscle, bone, nervous system point of view, I think that, you know, these technology inconveniences, they’ve just come, they’ve moved so fast that we haven’t had time to adapt and we haven’t had time to adjust. So our bodies are still craving what nature intended.

Gemma Jefferson [00:15:35]:
You know, they’re still craving gentle movement, dynamic movement. Not, you know, it doesn’t love repetition. Even if I think to, you know, like the triathletes that I work with and things like, actually the injuries that you see are because they do the same thing, you know, long distance runners, like, just the same thing all the time. And often with those athletes, the recovery comes not in teaching them how to run better or train them stronger. It actually comes in, well, let’s give the body an opportunity to do something that’s anti running. Let’s give it something that’s rotating and twisting and bending and moving. Like, you know, let’s give it some variation and some dynamic opportunity. And the same is true of us.

Gemma Jefferson [00:16:14]:
You know, like, I think the body likes variation. It likes to be challenged. You know, the nervous system wants to be stressed, but then it wants the recovery and it wants this ebb and flow. And I think that’s what we’re really lacking as we kind of, you know, we come to the desk and we have maybe a stressful day of calls and emails and deadlines and then we go to the gym and we’ve got 40 minutes. We do a hiit class and we’ve like under pressure and we’re stressed and then we go home and we’re trying to do dinner and then the kids are staying up and you’ve remembered there’s a Halloween fancy dress that you haven’t thought about for a party at the weekend. So suddenly your evenings become, you know, high stress and high, high worry. So I think we really could do with taking the lessons from nature and taking the lessons of what our bodies really need. And that’s what I really, really love doing is like actually just giving women an opportunity to recenter reground go back to what the body needs.

Gemma Jefferson [00:17:03]:
And it’s, it’s not groundbreaking stuff but, but for a lot of women it’s, it’s hard, but also what they really need. Yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:10]:
And as you were, as you were talking for those that are kind of listening audio only, I’d got this big smile on my face because it was like you were describing me about like there’s a perfect way to breathe. Let give me the checklist. Let me tip off the perfect because then I know I’m good enough. So. And yeah, as you say, and I love this because it’s all about how do we work in as much as work out and, and kind of re. Energize and recover. So if there’s somebody listening. Yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:38]:
Loving what you’re saying.

Gemma Jefferson [00:17:40]:
Yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:41]:
What might be some of the things that they could do perhaps around breath work. Most people have heard that breath works good but it’s that thing of well, I breathe every kind of. What am I meant to be doing differently?

Gemma Jefferson [00:17:53]:
And when we talk about it, like I say I am going to talk about like some real headline stuff because it’s, it’s not perfect. You have to find your own way. There’s no tick box and it’s fixed. But there are definitely two things and people can literally try it while they’re listening. The first one is if you are feeling that you know at any point in the day that things are just starting to get on top of you, whether you’re starting, you know, the kids are screaming mummy for the 370th time of the day, you know, and all this and you just feel yourself starting to get a bit tense and a bit anxious. The simplest breath trick to do is to make sure that you exhale for longer than you inhale and that is it. So all you need to think about.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:34]:
And why is that important? Because I didn’t know this until a couple of years ago when you know the kind of. The science behind it. Oh, okay. Why is that important?

Gemma Jefferson [00:18:44]:
Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of. There’s. I mean, there’s lots of levels of science to it. But the simplest one is that actually, like, what can happen is if you don’t. We tend to inhale to create activity. Like you tend to, you know, you need oxygen to fuel the muscles. So obviously a big inhale is you’re trying to store the muscles. But if you don’t fully exhale, you don’t exhale properly.

Gemma Jefferson [00:19:05]:
What we get is this storage of gas. So there is a. What we call residual volume in your lungs. So that’s just a space that is always taken up with kind of dead air. And that’s important because if there’s no air in your lungs, they collapse in on themselves. So we have to have residual volume. But if we don’t fully exhale, what happens is the residual volume actually just increases and increases and increases and increases. So one of the reasons that you start to feel anxious and to feel this kind of slight panic is because actually you cannot take as big a breath in because you’ve just got this kind of dead air sat in your lungs and you have less space to breathe in.

Gemma Jefferson [00:19:41]:
So anyone who’s felt out of breath, like it’s the same physiological thing that’s happening, so your brain is thinking, gosh, there must be something happening, because I feel out of breath and I can’t take in enough air. So there is a physiological thing that your brain is picking up on and going, well, there’s something to worry about. And then the kids are still screaming your name, and then you’re still worried about X, Y and Z. So you’re trying to get more oxygen, and there’s a battle. So the simplest thing that we’re doing is we’re clearing out that dead air. We’re clearing out that residual. We’re kind of reducing that residual volume to where it should be. So suddenly the next breath in that we take in is actually much more satisfying, and it is fuller and it is deeper.

Gemma Jefferson [00:20:18]:
So actually, you’re fueling your muscles in your brain appropriately. So there’s that layer to it, and the other layer is that actually when you exhale, like it does lots and lots of lovely things. So your diaphragm has to move fully. So quite A number of it. And I’ll come on to diaphragmatic breathing in a second. But a lot of us don’t use our diaphragm fully as we breathe. So what that means is that your diaphragm becomes a bit stuck.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:45]:
Yeah.

Gemma Jefferson [00:20:45]:
And around the diaphragm are lots and lots of very important structures, one of which is the vagus nerve, which runs directly through the diaphragm. So if we are not pumping, if we’re not using the diaphragm properly, the vagus nerve just doesn’t get stimulated and triggered in quite the same way. And what we know is by fully exhaling, we’re kind of maximizing the range of motion of the diaphragm. The vagus nerve gets beautifully kind of stimulated. Suddenly we’re starting to tip into the parasympathetic nervous system. So if you want me to just touch on that, really simply the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, there’s two elements to it really. The sympathetic, which is your wired fight, flight, fright element, which is super important, has absolutely a critical role in every day for most of us. And then there’s your parasympathetic, which is your rest digest state.

Gemma Jefferson [00:21:35]:
And what we really would like to see is that on any given moment, let’s talk about the athletes I work with. We want them to kind of be in a parasympathetic state. It’s not a switch, by the way, it’s like a continuum. But we’ll, we’ll talk about it simply. So we want them to be in a parasympathetic state. And then as they start to warm up for a training session, they’ll start to be switching into sympathetic. It’s one of the reasons a warm up is important. And then as they peak in the training session, they should really be in that sympathetic.

Gemma Jefferson [00:22:00]:
I’m working hard, I need every reserve possible. But then when they finish the training session, we really want them to come back out of that sympathetic. We want them to be in parasympathetic sympathetic, rest, digest. I’m recovering, my body is my cells regenerating. And that’s where all of the training adaptation and the cell regeneration actually happens. So the switch between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic is super important. And what we know is that in the modern world most of us are spending a lot of time in sympathetic state. So a lot of us, for reasons that are not a saber tooth tiger attacking us, for reasons that are.

Gemma Jefferson [00:22:36]:
My emails are coming in thick and fast. My phone’s been blowing up. I’ve forgotten the Halloween fancy dress costume that has happened to me recently. Can you tell? Oh, God. Storage. Still living with me. So, yeah, for all these reasons that the modern world are telling us there’s something to worry about, we’re in the sympathetic state when actually we’re just sat at our desk and we’re sat still. So to bring it back to the exhale.

Gemma Jefferson [00:23:00]:
An exhale is the simplest way of very, very quickly bringing you from a sympathetic into a parasympathetic state. So the simplest thing is count your inhale. So if you. And don’t try and change it. So just count. So if I’m inhaling for like a count of four, just make sure your exhale is five or six. And I’m going to ask you to do that for three or four rounds. And that is it.

Gemma Jefferson [00:23:22]:
That is one of the simplest ways to ground and center yourself in any given moment and switch. And what’s really lovely, Nick, is even if you do it now, like, if you take a breath in for four and exhale for five or six, you should really feel that, literally your shoulders, like, there’s just reduction tension straight away. As soon as you have that longer exhale, should we have a go at.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:43]:
Doing it with people?

Gemma Jefferson [00:23:44]:
So let’s all do it together. So sit up just where you are, nice and comfortably. And then when you’re ready, fully inhale, two, three, four, and then exhale, two, three, four comma five, six, and you’re going to do it again. Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, Four, five, six. Good. And you can do that, you know, two rounds, three rounds, four rounds. But just there’s something about those last couple of seconds on the exhale.

Gemma Jefferson [00:24:19]:
I even saw your shoulders kind of just go. Yeah, it’s just the quickest fix. So that’s a very long explanation of the simplest thing. So just exhale for longer than you inhale. And then the other thing with breathing that can be massively overcomplicated is this idea of diaphragmatic breathing. So again, if we go back to the nervous system, when you are in a sympathetic state, you’re just kind of in this. I need to get oxygen in as soon as I possibly can. So we tend to.

Gemma Jefferson [00:24:48]:
What do you do when you exercise? Well, you pant and it’s very upper chest and you’re just sucking air in and you’re trying to turn over gas as quickly as you can. So it’s very high respiration rate upper part of your chest. And what we really should. We should only need to access that when you are working maximally, when you’re really at the top end of what you can possibly do. What we want to be doing most of the time is diaphragmatic breathing. So very much breathing from the base of your lungs. So the simplest way to get a gauge of that is put one hand on your upper chest and one hand, like on your. Sort of at the base of your sternness, really, the top of your tummy in between your ribcage, really.

Gemma Jefferson [00:25:26]:
So sort of on that soft, fleshy part. And all you’re going to do is sometimes it’s easy to close your eyes and try not to change anything initially, but just get a sense of when you’re inhaling, where is the movement? Where is the breath coming into? And if you are someone that thinks that as you breathe in your upper chest is moving more than your belly, I would encourage you just to see if you can send that breath deeply. So see if you can get that hand on your belly to be the one that’s moving and not let that upper chest hand move.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:56]:
Yeah. All I was going to say is this has been kind of a powerful part of my recovery from having my children, bearing in mind my eldest is 12 and a half, having two C sections and what that has done in terms of my neurological connection. And I discovered, like, thinking, I breathe. Like, we just do it unconsciously, don’t we? It’s like, it’s the most natural thing. But actually I was breathing unnaturally in that. I wasn’t. I was doing. I wasn’t doing it as in into the belly.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:31]:
Yeah. But actually, because I’d had children, and I imagine any woman that’s listening that has been pregnant, I was breathing into the front of my.

Gemma Jefferson [00:26:40]:
Yes.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:41]:
And I wasn’t getting air into my back. So I was told, like, get into your. Kind of the back of your rib cage, get into your. Like near your kidneys. And I’m like, oh, I wasn’t even aware of that and couldn’t get it down into my pelvis because of the scar tissue from the C section and realizing, oh, my God, my whole breath had been compromised. Compromised unknowingly. So I’ve had to teach myself how to do this again and get past that neurological connection.

Gemma Jefferson [00:27:05]:
And it sounds really daunting, doesn’t it? Like, oh, my goodness, I’m not even breathing right. The number of people that say that to me, like, oh, my goodness, like, I can’t even breathe. Yeah, this is. Oh, God, such a failure. But Actually, the thing to remember is this can feel a little bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head when you first get going. It can feel really disjointed and disconnected, like you’re never going to get it. But more than anything, than anything that I’ve done as a physio with diaphragmatic breathing, if you stick at it, there is just a moment in time where it just clicks and suddenly you’re like, oh, oh, is this it? Oh, that’s fine. And then your body, it’s like it just remembers.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:40]:
Yeah.

Gemma Jefferson [00:27:41]:
Because you will have been doing this as a baby and you will have been doing this as a child. There has just become a point where things have, whether it’s stress or physiologically carrying a baby, you cannot diaphragmatically breathe. There is not enough room in there to diaphragmatically breathe. So there will have been some, something, you know, we know trauma will have had an impact for those, you know, for individuals that have suffered. If you are someone who’s had anxiety, we know your breathing is likely to be altered. Asthmatics, we know that if you’ve got a history of asthma, that brings its own anxiety of breathing. So there’s lots of reasons why your breathing can shift and change over time. And yet your body has a memory of what good breathing is and your body wants to go back to what good breathing is.

Gemma Jefferson [00:28:24]:
And it’s just your job to help it. And as soon as it clicks. So now I, I will still go through moments where I kind of think, oh gosh, I’m suddenly like not breathing. I feel a bit out of breath. And why is that? But it’s almost like I think the time I’m in a chest breathing state for no reason is becoming less and less and less. So I think now when I switch to chest breathing, because I may be a bit worried about public speaking event or something, I’ll be chest breathing, but I’ll be suddenly so aware of it quite quickly. So I’ll be able to go, okay, settle down, send it to your belly, use a diaphragm, expand the rib cage. Because now chest breathing feels odd to me again.

Gemma Jefferson [00:29:03]:
But we just have to have that re education. We have to allow ourselves time to, to relearn that process. And I promise it’s easier than it sounds. It’s worth sticking with.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:13]:
Yeah. And just that intentional conscious connection, isn’t it? And as you say, by the sounds of it, you’ve been doing it so consciously that it now is easier for you to like flick the switch of, okay, let’s drop my.

Gemma Jefferson [00:29:26]:
And we, we all have tells, don’t we? We all have things that, like your version of, of how you feel at the end of a stressful day is very unique to you. And it’s really, you know, again, one of the other really simple things that women can do is like, just learn where stress sits in your body. So for me, I am very, very, very much like top of shoulders and neck. So if I’m stressed, I’m overwhelmed, I’ll get to the end of the day or like, I’ll typically feel it when I’m driving in the car and suddenly I’ll be like, oh gosh, I’m so uncomfortable. And then I kind of go, okay, hang on a minute. This is your neck and your shoulders. Check in with your breathing. Okay, that’s gone a bit awry.

Gemma Jefferson [00:30:02]:
Right, let’s try and sort your breathing out while you drive. Okay, that’s a bit better. But maybe I am still feeling a bit tight. Well, okay, well, what now? Okay, well, actually, maybe I am a bit worried about this thing, like this conversation that I’ve got to have. So actually let’s make the phone call now and let’s have that awkward conversation so I’m not carrying it around now and let’s see if I can get rid of this stress so my body has the time to recover. So I think, you know, becoming aware of what, where you carry stress and what different emotions feel like in your body, as strange as that sounds, is really important.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:35]:
It doesn’t sound strange at all. And I think, you know, as we talk about kind of high achieving women, I think we’ve got a really high tolerance for stress. So actually by the time we notice it, it’s probably been sitting there and it’s quite a high level. So yeah, I think this dropping into the awareness earlier on, if we can get that somatic awareness, is so powerful.

Gemma Jefferson [00:30:57]:
Because no one wants to realize they’re stressed by blowing up at their kids, right? Like, no. And look, I do. I did it like two days ago, literally. You know, my 3nger decided that he, he didn’t want his dinner and then it was my fault that the dinner was cold, you know, half an hour later. So he had a massive tantrum. And I really kind of went from being very in control to not being in control of my emotions and letting him know I was not happy. And actually, yes, I wanted to let him know I was unhappy and his decision making was poor. However, the way I went about it, I wasn’t you know, on reflection, I could have.

Gemma Jefferson [00:31:35]:
Would have been very different with him. And actually I was. I did go from 0 to 100. And that wasn’t him, that was me. That was my inability because I’d already carried stress into that interaction. And again, hindsight, constantly learning about myself, even as someone who’s trying to help others, it is that thing of, like, Gemma, you did, you know, you didn’t eat your dinner properly because your appetite was a bit down already, so. But you needed food, so your appetite was down. Well, that was because you were.

Gemma Jefferson [00:32:01]:
You were anxious about what’s coming tomorrow. You know, like, I. The signs were there. If I had have had a bit more time to check in before giving them dinner and go, oh, okay, I don’t. I’ve just made dinner, but I don’t feel hungry myself. What does that tell me about myself? What do I know? Okay, well, I know that I lose my appetite when I get anxious. So what’s going on for me and can I. What can I do to sort it out so I can show up better for the boys? And that’s not always going to be possible.

Gemma Jefferson [00:32:25]:
Right? Let’s be realistic. We’re all humans, but there is a lot to be said for trying to understand what that feels like from a somatic experience rather than realizing you’re anxious or stressed because you’ve burst into tears on your friend for no reason, out of nowhere, or you’ve blown up at your kids. And those sorts of bits, we don’t want that to be the realization of, oh, yeah, I’m feeling pretty unhappy.

Nicky Lowe [00:32:47]:
And for me, I mean, the season of my life where perimenopause, it’s like you can go to that 0 to 100 at any given time, even if it’s not even a particularly stressful day. So. And I think what you are saying so beautifully, Gemma, and so reassuringly is, you know, I’m hearing a lot about, like, if you’re perimenopausal, what you need to do is eat protein and lift heavy. Like that is the answer. And I know they play an important part in it, but I like to get up and do movement of a morning. I’m a morning person. And I love that you talk about movement rather than exercise because movement is so natural. You know, we think about, oh, movement’s got to be going to the gym or doing a class or whatever it might be for somebody like me that might say, have half an hour of the morning.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:34]:
And I’m at this life stage where I know that I’m in a heightened stress state because of the demands that I’ve got or the season of life that I’m in. What would your recommendations be on that kind of. If I’d only got half an hour, and it may be sometimes I’ve got even less than that, but let’s say on average, I’ve got half an hour. We’ve talked about breathing, we’ve talked about the. The softness. What else would you be kind of recommending for a client like me?

Gemma Jefferson [00:34:03]:
Yeah, it’s a really great question. And. And I think what I’ll say at the top of that is that, is that there is a certain degree of. In individual right to answer for any individual person. So what I would be doing with a client is honestly is sitting with them and finding out what works for them. And that really starts with, like, what brings you joy. There was a client that I worked with recently, and she’d had various aches and pains, and she was not in a great place, and she was pretty fed up. And thankfully, in our conversation, she brought up the fact that she used to do martial arts as a kid, like, as a teenager.

Gemma Jefferson [00:34:38]:
And she came to me like, really low confidence, really kind of within herself, really, really unhappy and really not trusting her own body. And it came out that she used to do martial arts as a teenager. And then I said to her, I was like, well, how did you feel when you were doing martial arts? And it was just. Just such lovely words like, you know, strong, powerful, confident. She, you know, she talked about really trusting her own body, and she said that she sailed through injuries, like, she’d pick up injuries all the time, but she knew that her body would recover if she gave it the right conditions and all these sorts of brilliant things. So for her, her mornings now look like she gets up, she checks it, she does some really, really, really gentle movement, which actually we found a way for that quickly to flow into movements that really resemble martial art moves. So for her, they really. And actually, martial arts, amazing when you’re doing, like they call it forms in martial arts.

Gemma Jefferson [00:35:29]:
So you’re doing these, like, beautiful full body, lots of balance, lots of strength, lots of stability. So she kind of can work through her own version of kickboxing martial arts on her own. Slow it down if she wants more stability, speed it up if she wants more cardio. So she’s found a way of incorporating this, like, really lovely, joyful movement. So I think without wanting to completely cop out, I think there’s a version of, like, feel what feels Good, you know, find what feels good for you. But honestly, if you were saying, I don’t know where to start. I think a check in is always good. Like whether that’s with a cup of tea, whether that’s with a hot water, whether that’s whilst petting your dog, I don’t care.

Gemma Jefferson [00:36:09]:
Like, like don’t roll out. I’m not a fan of rolling out of bed and hitting the gym within, you know, three minutes. And this is like a proper bro science thing, right? So the men will be told, 5am Club. Roll out of bed, set the alarm, don’t get a drink, hit the gym, be there for, not for us. Okay, so we’re gonna get up, we’re gonna check in. How’s my brain? Like, how’s my mind? How’s my body? How’s my breath? Three stages. Okay, so just literally five minute. If you want to journal that, that doesn’t matter.

Nicky Lowe [00:36:36]:
And so when you say check in, are you almost going through your body going, what am I feeling? What’s going on here?

Gemma Jefferson [00:36:42]:
Yeah, I really like to do a, a head to toe scan. So I literally just kind of, I’ll sit in stillness and I don’t. Let’s not give it the pressurized term of meditation. Let’s not call it mindfulness. Let’s just do a head to toe check in. Like, am I feeling any tension in my head? How my shoulders feeling? If I got any aches and pains and you’re not changing it, you’re just now noticing it. So what does my body feel like on waking up this morning? You know, is my tummy feeling bloated? Are my hips feeling stiffer? I’m sitting and it, and it, as you get good at it, it literally takes you two or three minutes to just mentally go head to toe. So that little three point check in I think is really nice.

Gemma Jefferson [00:37:18]:
Like mind, body, breath, how am I feeling? And then if you were literally like, I have got no idea what brings me joy and I don’t know what’s going to make me feel good. I can tell you that getting outside for a 15 minute walk in nature is gonna feel good because that’s where we’re meant to be. And we’re meant to have sunlight early and we’re meant to be out in nature early and it’s a little bit harder now. Like, you know, we’re kind of into November and it’s, you know, the mornings are getting darker. I get it. However, you know, there’s something pretty special about being outside as the sun Comes up with a cup of coffee in your hand and just taking a bit of time to move out in nature. And that might look, look like, like walking the dog. But even walking the dog, you know, you can either walk the dog and think, oh my God, I’ve got 20 minutes and I’ve got to get back and has he had a poo and squeeze it in and be rushing around and swearing at the dog because he’s taking too long.

Gemma Jefferson [00:38:10]:
Or you can be kind to yourself, make sure you have a good 20 minutes, pick a route that you want and even move through the world in a really intentional way. So, you know, rather than letting your head while you’re walking. Go to what’s on my to do list. What’s the first phone call? Have I packed the kids school bags? Like give yourself 20 minutes, 20, 15 or 20 minutes to for yourself. So as you’re walking the dog, am I contacting the ground in the same way with my right and my left foot? Do can I feel my hip joint actually truly working? Can I feel my thigh bone swinging underneath me like a pendulum? Am I, can I feel that I’m lightly rotating and swinging my body and actually what happens if I more actively rotate more? Does that feel good? How tall can I make myself as I’m walking? Like, there’s so many ways that you can take that body check in that body scan that you’ve done and if you’re thinking, oh, my hips feel really stiff this morning, I’m not sure why. Great. As you’re walking, can you lengthen out your stride? Can you open up your hip? Can you ask for some length through your hip flexors and the type, the, you know the front of your body, if your shoulders are tight, like, can you relax your shoulders as you’re walking? There’s so many things that you can apply and this intentional movement is what I think is really, really critical and how you get to know yourself. It’s how you get to know what your body needs and it’s how you learn to trust yourself.

Gemma Jefferson [00:39:34]:
You know, if you’ve woken up and you feel tension through your hip and you can do something to just dial in and pay attention and ask for some softness in that area and it changes. Thank goodness. The next time you have an ache in your hip, you’re not going to care. You’re going to know what to do about it. So your trust in yourself, your trust in your body just grows and grows and grows.

Nicky Lowe [00:39:55]:
I love that concept of self trust. I know it’s such an important Part of what you do.

Gemma Jefferson [00:39:59]:
Yeah, it’s huge.

Nicky Lowe [00:40:01]:
So you’ve shared so much with us and I know people are going to kind of go, where can we find out more about Gemma and also the services you offer? Would you mind kind of giving us a sense of that, that.

Gemma Jefferson [00:40:12]:
Yeah, sure. So, yeah. So I am a working physio and I’ve got some stuff on social media. So it’s made for more movement is how I put some stuff out on social media. Just some general advice and some typical physio bits, I suppose. But the thing that I’m really excited that I’m just about to launch is a program just for women, particularly for driven women who are feeling disconnected, powerless, a bit overwhelmed. And it’s a 12 week program where I’m just going to guide people through a process that’s going to mean that they feel like they trust themselves and they’re going to feel stronger in themselves and they’re going to feel more connected to themselves. And I’m really, yeah, I’m really excited because I know it’s going to help a lot of people love that.

Nicky Lowe [00:40:54]:
So when you say 12 week program, is that an online program? How’s that going to work?

Gemma Jefferson [00:40:57]:
Yeah, so my plan at the minute is to do it like a hybrid because I think that, you know, the joy of online is just means that’s really accessible. So what I would love to do is have the opportunity to meet with women physically at the start and at the end of that transformational journey. So have an assessment with them face to face, make sure that we’re leaning into good movement, good quality, get to know one another well as well. And that will involve going out in nature, that will involve a good walk, that will involve connecting with the real world and how you move through it and really kind of getting to know how you interact with your daily life as well. And then there’ll be another touch point at the end where hopefully that will be like with a group of women coming together. So the group of women that have been on the journey will kind of come together and have a bit of a celebration event and we’ll lean into like all the good stuff. So some movement, some breath work, some good food and just get together and celebrate. Hopefully the end of a really, really great time.

Gemma Jefferson [00:41:49]:
And then in between that, the rest of it will be done remotely to just make it as accessible as possible. So yeah, lots of online check ins and lots of resources online and the movement that they’ll be doing will be very bespoke to their own needs. That’ll be whatever’s come out of the assessment will tailor a combination of yoga and movement and possibly some strength work, if that’s appropriate, to tackle various issues that people have. So, yeah, it’ll be very bespoke, very individualized, but hopefully within a kind of community setting as well to give people the support. So, yeah, it’s called In Her Element and it will be launching really soon and I’m very excited.

Nicky Lowe [00:42:24]:
So, yeah, and I’m. I’m really hoping there’s still a place available for me on this because, you know, I want to get on that. So, Gemma, it’s a joy to know you. It’s a joy to have you on the podcast and literally every time I speak to you, my nervous system goes. This is more of what I need, not the social media stuff about, like, you know, 5:00am Club doing whatever. Yeah. So thank you for sharing that and I really hope that everybody listening gets that sense as well.

Gemma Jefferson [00:42:55]:
Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a lot of fun.

Nicky Lowe [00:42:58]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to luminate.co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on itunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening. Until next time. Take care.