More Than Anxiety

Ep 97 - Healing Your Body and Mind Through Pilates with Tabitha Green

• Megan Devito • Episode 97

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 In this episode, I'm chatting with Pilates instructor Tabitha Green about how Pilates can help you regulate your nervous system and reduce anxiety. 

Tabitha explains how Joseph Pilates, the founder of Pilates, designed the method to create a more breathable body, and how this can tap into your nervous system and promote relaxation. 

We also discuss how breathwork is an integral part of Pilates and how to use breathing exercises to down-regulate your nervous system.

Key Takeaways:

  • Pilates can help you breathe easier and improve your overall lung capacity.
  • Focusing on your breath during Pilates exercises can help regulate your nervous system and reduce anxiety.
  • There are specific Pilates exercises that can be tailored to address individual needs, such as pelvic floor dysfunction.
  • You don't have to spend a long time doing the same exercise in Pilates - the variety of movements helps keep your nervous system engaged.

You can connect with Tabitha by following her on Instagram, Threads, Pinterest and Facebook @talltreespilates or on her website.

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You know you're overwhelmed, burned out, sick to death of work but also trying to do everyting for everyone at home. TAKE THIS QUIZ to find out why you're so overwhelmed and what to do about it.

Megan Devito:

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety cycle that keeps them frustrated and stuck. Get ready for a lighthearted approach that will change what you think, how you feel and what you believe about yourself. This podcast is full of simple steps, a lot of truth, talk and inspiration to take action so you walk away feeling confident, calm, and ready to live. Let's get to it there. Welcome to the More Than Anxiety podcast.

Megan Devito:

Today I am so excited to share a conversation that I had with Tabitha Green. She's a Pilates instructor and she's talking about how to regulate the nervous system and reduce anxiety through Pilates. So Tabitha is sharing all kinds of insight into anatomy and how naturally asymmetrical our bodies are and how this affects our breathing and our movement patterns. She is discussing Pilates exercises that can help rebalance the body to support easier and deeper breathing, and we'll talk about everything from movement to how you think and how your body feels. And if you've known me or you've been around here for any amount of time, you know that I always go back to how your body feels and what you think about it, so she and I were in sync for this. This episode really provides a deep look into the science behind how Pilates benefits both your physical and your mental health, and I'm excited to be able to share it with you today.

Megan Devito:

Enjoy the episode. anyway. So tell me a little bit. What got you into Pilates? Like, how did you start with Pilates and how did it like, was it a benefit to you? What? What got you there?

Tabitha Green:

Okay, so I actually started Pilates. Have you seen the new Saturday Night Live skit on Pilates?

Megan Devito:

No, I haven't.

Tabitha Green:

So there's this part of the Saturday Night Live skit where the woman's like they're all dancers. And I was a dancer and I got into Pilates because there's very few ways to train that train through like a full range of motion, right. So like if you look at some of more of the traditional fitness models that you would have at a gym with, like strength training, it's like front one day, back the other, lower, push, pull. But with dancing you have to do it all the time, like everything all at once, right. And you also see, I say um a lot. Now that's my thing.

Tabitha Green:

Unfortunately, you also can't build bulk. We can um, like our way through this. We are going to um and like our way through. Exactly, dancers, there's a look, right, it's not a politically correct thing. And you can't build bulk, you have to kind of be thin. So Pilates is really known for building a lot of strength without reducing your range of motion. So how far you can go, so in dance it'd be how high you can kick your leg right, or if you, and then you also have to. You know you have to have the flexibility to kick your leg to your head, but then also the strength. Because of my height. I'm kind of tall for a female dancer. I'm 5'10". I would also often be stuck as the base. I say stuck because you have to lift other people up.

Tabitha Green:

And that's you know. So I had to be flexible and strong and Pilates really

Tabitha Green:

good

Megan Devito:

Okay, so dance brought you to Pilates, that's so fun.

Megan Devito:

This is crazy because I feel like you know things just kind of line up and everything. I just had this conversation with one of my kids about like he's so into yoga and he's I'm telling, he's talking to me about how much it's helped his back and how he's like, no, I'm so strong. And and he was talking about like when he was, when he was in college, he had a bunch of friends at his college who were dance majors and he's like the girls were like crazy, like they were so strong and so flexible and a lot of it. What they were talking about was with Pilates and how much that went. So I guess I didn't realize that Pilates and dance went together so much.

Tabitha Green:

They went together. So Pilates is the last name of somebody, it's Joseph Pilates. He's a German immigrant. He immigrated to the United States because he did not want to contribute to training the SS army. He was asked to train the SS and so he did not want to do that. So he moved to New York. He happened to open one of his first studios in New York in a building with dancers. So physical therapy didn't exist back then. So dancers started coming around to his studio, even though he was really more of a military boxer training kind of guy, and he would help them, he would rehab them. So you would go see Joe if you were a dancer that got injured. And that's how it kind of got in with the dance world.

Megan Devito:

Wow, okay, that's really cool, so it's so mostly I love. First of all, I don't think I ever told you this. I used to be a history teacher, so as soon as you said he didn't want to train the SS.

Megan Devito:

I'm like oh, tell me more. Like that is my nerd button right there. I'm like you want to talk about history too?

Tabitha Green:

Oh we can totally talk about his history.

Megan Devito:

It's not well known, right it's not I'm like, oh, that was really fun. Okay, so he's got people coming to him for dance. So we know there's benefits for dance, but beyond've done Pilates before and I've done bar before or yoga or those things. But how else does it expand? Yes, dancing, but what else? What else do you like are the benefits of this?

Tabitha Green:

Yeah. So, unlike a lot of fad fitness which is based on somebody's idea great Granted, these are Joseph Pilates ideas. His idea was based on like, creating a method, and it's based I said based like five times, so we're going to add that to our word Like and base. His main idea and he was so ahead of his time speaking of nerding out was that you needed to create a more breathable body, and this is how we'll tie it into anxiety.

Tabitha Green:

So breathing is a part of, it's the only autonomic function. So our nervous system has autonomic, which is automatic, and then functions that you can control, like me talking to you. So the breathing is the only sort of function that we can control, but is also controlled right, Like if I hold my breath, I will eventually start breathing even after if I pass out, right. So that's where he was like well, if you do exercise to create a more breathable body, then you'll tap into this whole nervous system response. And he just didn't have the language of nervous system then, because this whole explosion and buzzword about nervous system really is very recent, with a living scientist named Stephen Fortes. So all of the exercises were to make a more breathable body so you can detox, you can push blood through the system, you can oxygenate it, and it's actually kind of a brilliant method. It's not just, oh, I'm going to work the front of my body today and the back of my body tomorrow. It's like no, every exercise we're going to do is in service of breathing better.

Megan Devito:

The whole breathable body idea is, so just the terminology behind that. I love it, and something that I know that I talk about a lot when I'm helping people like let's just pay attention to how your body feels right now. Does it feel like it's expansive? Does it feel like it's contracting? But the whole idea of breathing is really expand and contract, right. Like what do you notice here? And there's something about that term breathable body that feels so spot on and just even in terms of not breath but energy, and how you are expanding or you're contracting. It's the same with the breathing right, like we're going to inhale and exhale. And I know one of the things that when people are anxious, the thing that everybody says is just breathe. And I always laugh at that. I'm like they are, I'm like no one stopped breathing here, like they may not be breathing efficiently or maybe correctly, but we are breathing, so that is really great.

Tabitha Green:

And then, yeah, I think, just the idea of the breathable body and that your whole entire body can breathe. Yeah, your whole entire body can be in service of breathing better. So when it's funny I laughed at when you said when, when you're anxious and someone's like just breathe right, it's not like you ever stopped. So there are different ways that tap into your nervous system and if you're already anxious, breathing often isn't the way to get into it. But, like you were saying, with sensing you can start sensing what's around you, sensing things, that you're doing which can lead to grounding. You can smell things, you can touch things, you can hear things. So the idea is that you're doing which can lead to grounding. You can smell things, you can touch things, you can hear things. So the idea is that you can access regulating your nervous system If breath isn't working because you're so tripped up and you're so upregulated that maybe one of the other senses could be a doorway in.

Megan Devito:

Yes, definitely. And I think I remember I've told this story lots of times about when I was anxious for a very long time, but at one point my mom's like, Megan, you got to go get help. So I went to therapy and they were like I want you to breathe down into your deeper. So all of my breath was just going like this far and I remember leaving so frustrated and so angry because I'm like no one can do that, no one can breathe that deeply, air doesn't go there. And I was just. I had been so anxious and so basically holding my breath for so long that there was no way I was going down there. So how do you train someone? If there was somebody like me who, yes, I figured it out, but it took me a really long time but using Pilates or using that breath method, how do you explain to people? Because I know how I explain about how do you explain how to breathe?

Tabitha Green:

So first of all I'm going to congratulate you. Your lungs are not in your stomach and everybody's like, oh, belly breathe. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Belly breathing came because people were watching babies like, oh, their bellies move when they breathe, yeah, but babies don't walk. So once you're upright, you actually your belly. Yes, you can't be holding it tight like armor. Right, you need to be more ninja than knight-like, but you have to actually expand in your rib cage. So the science of it this is not Pilates, this is just science.

Tabitha Green:

The science of increasing your capacity to inhale is actually through increasing your exhale. So if you want to down-regulate, all you need to do is exhale for longer than you inhale, but not to the point where you trip anxiety or make it worse. So we often say you know three deep breaths for a neutral experience. But ways to do that would be to grab a kid's toy like a kazoo and blow out through the kazoo. You could also do it through a wide straw, little straw like see, I have a wide straw here, this is pretty wide Little straws like a coffee stir straw will create more anxiety because it restricts the airflow too much, and then to tie into Pilates. Eventually we use balloons, where you breathe in and out of balloons actually breathe out of a balloon more than you breathe into it, and then that gets into pelvic floor function, which is very exciting, and that'll be a full, another podcast.

Megan Devito:

It actually is. Now I'm like oh, now I have questions.

Tabitha Green:

Pelvic floor function and breathing is like its own thing.

Megan Devito:

This could be an entirely separate episode. I'm like talk to all of my perimenopausal friends over here about pelvic floor function, if you would.

Tabitha Green:

Oh yeah, Well, actually it's funny. One of your questions was like what could we do? And I was like, oh well, I could have you have your podcaster bring a towel and a straw and we could actually do it here sometime. Yeah, so breathing the great thing about breathing is you can, and then to tie it into Pilates is you can choose what breath you're going to do, depending on how your pelvic floor functions and what you want out of the exercise. So when you breathe in if this is my top diaphragm, which would be here right when you breathe in, the diaphragm actually goes down and flattens a little, it's like a mushroom, and then the pelvic floor does the same thing. So it actually ends up going like this and then you have a vocal diaphragm that does the same thing, and then, to speak to your clients that are pre and postnatal or postpartum, if this isn't working, then a lot of times your breath pressure will go this way, and then that's what gives you diastasis and hernias. Well, hernias would have to be a lot more work, but that's what leads towards diastasis or not healing of diastasis that's already there Now. Diastasis is normal in the third trimester of pregnancy and for most women it clears up naturally. But if it doesn't, then a lot of times we look at it's called mismanagement of your interabdominal pressure, and then you can also have thoracic pressure, and then you can have sub pressure up here as well.

Megan Devito:

ealing, and for my friends who don't know what diastasis is if you're listening and you do not have children and you don't know what diastasis is, do you want to tell ?

Tabitha Green:

Yeah, so diastasis is you have your abs and it's this part in the middle is not actually muscle, it's fascia and it just splits open. You don't have to have children, it can happen with men as well.

Megan Devito:

I know that with my kids. I did, and it did go back. But I know that for some people they're probably like I don't know what that is, but it sounds terrifying. It's not as bad as it sounds when you're pregnant, I guess, because everything else is messed up. I don't know about for guys, but for me. I remember thinking like, well, that's weird, but I had no idea. I just thought it was because there's a baby, the muscles had to move and then they went back.

Tabitha Green:

So look at that.

Megan Devito:

I have no idea. Okay, yeah, and for most, people, right?

Tabitha Green:

So when we get into pelvic floor function, you have this phrase what's like? Well, it's common, but it's not normal, because doctors will often gaslight you oh, you leak after having a baby. When you cough and sneeze, that's fine, that's normal. No, it's common, but it doesn't make it normal and don't settle for it.

Tabitha Green:

I was leaking when I was pregnant with my second and, because I'm a pre and postnatal Pilates instructor, I knew that was common but not normal. So I went to my doctor and I actually educated my doctor and my pelvic floor PT, but I still needed PT. This was beyond the scope of Pilates. But I did my PT and I got to the point where I was still, yes, leaking, but I had one of those colds where you cough for like six months right, of course you get that when you're pregnant. But I got to the point where I would leak on the first cough and then, after PT, I got to the point where I wouldn't leak to like the sixth cough. So I fixed the pressure problem as best as I could while still being pregnant, but I was able to improve my function. Right, I no longer had to, you know, carry an extra set of clothes with me.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, which, right away, I mean, you're already carrying clothes for a baby. After you have a baby, you don't want to have to carry clothes for yourself as well.

Tabitha Green:

And it's crazy, yeah, and it's embarrassing.

Megan Devito:

You know like so it was great and the clarification between common and normal. I think that needs to be said so much more often. I mean, we do say, oh, that's normal and I'm like, why? Why is that normal?

Tabitha Green:

Yeah exactly 100%. It's common but not normal. I say that phrase all day long.

Megan Devito:

I'm borrowing a few phrases from you today because that, really, that is something that we do hear, and we do hear so much about doctors saying, yes, this is normal. Well, you're right, common and normal don't have to be the same thing. I don't think I've ever actually thought about it that way. I'm like, okay, well, if it's not going to kill me, then I guess that it's fine. And what do I do about it? And you know, I did. I did. I talked with someone last week and it's always. The answer is always well, here's a pill, you know you can take this and this'll help you. But breathing, so when you change that? So is that like when you talk about breathing, to like the diaphragmatic breathing, do you? Is it always focusing more on the exhale and balancing your exit, inhale so that you're balancing that nervous system, or is there more to it?

Tabitha Green:

There's a lot more to it. So when you start to look at the nervous system as a whole, I think a lot of people are a really common phrase that people use is to when you're up regulated, you're in fight or flight, and when you're down regulated, you're in rest and digest. There's also more nuances to it, but let's just stick with that for today. What you ultimately want is that you want your nervous system to be a dimmer switch, so it's not just up on or down off, but you want to be able to go up as you choose and down as you choose, and then the state that you practice and live in the most your body, as you were talking about earlier, will get to it right. You had said like oh, at four o'clock I'm anxious on the dot. Right, because your body lives in four o'clock, so it's ready and primed and ready to go. So a lot of things is, it's not what you do, but how you do it. So you can do Pilates for nervous system regulation just as well as you could do yoga or walking or doing the dishes, but how you do it. If I'm doing it angry and frustrated and I'm doing it because I'm beating myself up like a lot of motivation for people to exercise is I'm fat, or my clothes are tight, or, you know, fluffy I think I used the word fluffy instead of fat right, but squishy, squishy, yeah, yeah, kids, right, squishy. And menopause, right. Or you hit menopause and all of a sudden you gain 10 pounds, but you didn't change anything. Yeah, right, like perimenopause. All of a sudden you're like wait, I hit 45. Why do I have an extra 10 pounds? I've done nothing different, you know.

Tabitha Green:

So, um, it's this idea of choosing how you do things so you can upregulate and downregulate instead of just being on and off. So you're really looking for a dimmer switch. So to circle that back to breath when you exhale longer, you will automatically down regulate because you're getting more air out. But you may not want to down regulate because, let's say, you're a performer and you're about to go on stage. Well, you don't want to down regulate yourself into taking a nap. You need to up regulate yourself into taking a nap. You need to up-regulate yourself into an excited state. So excitement doesn't have to be anxiety. I actually feel like anxiety and excitement are often the same thing. The only switch is your mental spin on it and in your nervous system. It has to do with the word play. So if you're working on your nervous system, it's excitement with play or it's anxiety with fear. They're the same energy state. It's just the spin on it which you don't.

Tabitha Green:

And here's the here's the caveat. You don't always get to choose the spin, because we don't get to choose what we register as safety or danger, and that's going to choose the difference between anxiety or excitement. So if I like, like our culture is eye contact, smiling, like automatically we're, we're, we're now co-regulating with each other. If we hang out a little bit more, we'll probably get into something called positive reciprocity, where, where we go beyond co-regulation to like actually elevating each other up, but we don't get to choose how we feel about that Like. So our body decides whether or not it's danger for us. And if you practice nervous system regulation through Pilates or something else or a breathing technique, you will skew your body more to read more safety cues than danger cues, so that you'll actually start to see the world through a lens of safety instead of seeing the world looking for the bottom to drop out or that next best, worst thing to happen.

Megan Devito:

This is so important because this is something that sometimes I feel like I'm yelling into the abyss, but I want everybody to hear this again, because I know that I've talked about this before that when we tell you that there really are ways, though, that you do not have to feel this way all the time, or certainly forever, it's not just coming from me, like, week after week, I'm having people that are in the same place, where you don't have to feel this way forever. And, yes, remember that these. You know that feeling of anxiety is stored in your body, whether it's a memory, or it's a time of day, or it's a habit, or it's just a place that you've been for so long that it's just lodged in there. But we always keep coming back to the thoughts about what, either what was it when we say trigger? What was it that I thought about when that trigger happened? And if you don't know what triggered you, it could have been anything from the way the light looked outside your window, something that just clicked, a little teeny memory that you don't even remember, but it's what you think about, how you feel.

Megan Devito:

That is really, really important, and just to know that this is really possible and that it's so, so simple when we can say, okay, you get to choose, when you regulate your nervous system and you can choose. And again we're going back to the idea that excited and anxious feel the exact same way inside your body. You just have to decide what you want to think about it. So, when you're doing Pilates and you are choosing what you're thinking about, you're choosing your breath and, like, I'm going to do the like I'm going to focus on what I'm excited about versus what I'm scared of. Tell me, like are there different moves for that? Is it a different way of breathing or is it always just like what I'm thinking about when I'm doing the movements?

Tabitha Green:

Well, it is so often in a Pilates session, you know, there's so much to think about, especially if you're in a studio, setting on equipment, whether it's one-on-one or in a class, that you kind of don't have the time to think about anything else.

Tabitha Green:

Okay, cause it's like, oh, I'm breathing here, I'm doing this with my body, and then Pilates is in, it's like more original form. It's it's about eight, six to eight, maybe 10 reps total, and then you move on to another exercise, so you're not in the same exercise for very long. So a lot of it is that there isn't time to do that, and then you're actually giving your nervous system a new experience, so that there's not time for you to think about the laundry, the this, the that. Right, you just have to. You have to really focus because you're on a moving piece of equipment. You don't want to like plummet to your death. Just kidding, right, but right. So, and then the actually doing the movements and the breathing with the movements automatically together will give you a new experience where you're sensing, you're grounding, you're feeling, and that will just kind of do it for you.

Megan Devito:

Okay, so then it's not the movements in particular, it's really just the whole experience all wrapped up into one.

Tabitha Green:

Yeah, and then you can choose specific movements for what you're working with right, like there's specific movements I can pick for somebody who comes to me with pelvic floor dysfunction. Those movements will probably be very specific. And then there'll be movements if I, you know, if a basketball player comes to me, those will be very different movements that we'll be doing because their needs are different. So when I first started teaching Pilates, I was teaching a lot of young women who were very athletic and gymnastics and we could do things that looked like, you know, cirque du Soleil training, you know. And now I'm really working more with people with chronic illness and that version of Pilates looks very different because Pilates is a method. So you use the exercises to get something. You're not just doing the exercises, so you're. The exercises are there for to create a more breathable body, to create more push and pull to ground to, you know, relax the nervous system. It's, it's, it's this whole body approach. You know. That, I think, becomes a buzzword.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, but I do think that I like that it is specific to certain needs, because you're right, I mean, if you get a gymnast or you get a dancer in there, they're going to be more flexible, they're going to be stronger, they're younger generally. And if you get someone older in there, they're going to be more flexible, they're going to be stronger, they're younger generally. And if you get someone older in there because I do know that there's people older than me that are out there that are just starting Pilates and they're doing amazing things. Maybe it was a Mel Robbins video. I just saw where she went with her 83-year-old mother-in-law and I think they went to a Pilates class and she's like she kicked my ass, like she's much stronger than me.

Megan Devito:

Yeah I like like it. And that's how I would feel going to Pilates. I would be like I don't know. I mean I can lift weights, but it is like there's it's different muscles, it's different movements, it's things that you can lift weights and be super strong, but you may really like not know where to start with Pilates. So if somebody has never done this before, where would you like? What would you start them? Like? Baseline, this is where we want to go, like Pilates 101.

Tabitha Green:

depends on who's coming to the table.

Megan Devito:

Okay, so it's always going to depend on that it's not like, let's just start you with this thing.

Tabitha Green:

So I do. I do start everybody with this idea of rebalance than retrain, because there are certain movements that you can do that. So we talked about the diaphragm earlier, that rebalance how your diaphragm is in your body, which makes it easier for you to breathe, because you do not want to train your abdominal muscles on top of an unbalanced diaphragm, because your diaphragm is actually your deepest core, it is not your abs and your back.

Megan Devito:

Okay, so, yeah, so when I was trying to breathe and only able to get air down this far, yeah, it's going to limit.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, that was not so. I remember they were like one hand on your chest, one hand on your stomach. When you breathe, you need to breathe down so that it pushes your hand on your stomach up. So then, of course, me, I did the whole like I'll just move my abs and that was it, obviously, because I'm like I had no, I don't know. It was like a whole experience for me. So when that's happening, just balancing, that is really. That goes back to the exhale bun. Yeah, it goes back to the exhale, always back to the exhale, which we know.

Tabitha Green:

And there's a few exercises that also then encourage that rebalance, you know. So then you're getting out of a compensatory movement pattern and usually compensation movement patterns turn into dysfunction over time. So the way that I teach Pilates is that we rebalance the breath and then we retrain. So, which is really cool, because if you rebalance your breath, you're then working your abdominal muscles with every breath you take and you can do a lot less core work because you're doing core work all day, every day long, even when you breathe at night. And I'm all about maximum efficiency, like we are all so too busy.

Tabitha Green:

So you do a few like essential exercises, you have the diaphragm rebalanced, you can take a deeper, bigger breath easier, without strain or stress. That requires less energy. So then, even from an energy perspective, you have more energy to do what you want. And the other thing is breathing will always win. I worked with somebody who their patient, had neck pain. She got Botox for the neck pain but didn't work on her breath. The neck pain came back. So breathing will beat Botox because it's a life function, right that I am getting schooled so much here.

Megan Devito:

I didn't know any of this. I mean, I knew the breathing part about your nervous system, but I had no idea about so much of this, Like I just thought like you know, you get a Pilates video and like I've done Pilates, but I've never done Pilates, apparently. Well, I mean, you've done Pilates, yeah Well it's just a.

Tabitha Green:

It's a deeper look, a more look under a microscope of what's like the nerdy part of what is Pilates doing for you. So, really quickly. So inside of our bodies we're actually asymmetrical and that's what causes, like most people's movement, compensation patterns. So I have three lobes of lung on one side, with a heart. I have two on the other. My stomach empties and fills my liver weighs more than that. Two on the other my stomach empties and fills my liver weighs more than that, so that weight automatically shifts you over to, basically to your right side, and then you have the diaphragm, which is the muscle that. So the diaphragm is here and then it attaches to the front of your spine through a piece called the crua, which looks like the stem of a mushroom that's actually stronger on one side than the other. So we're naturally biased to one side. So these exercises rebalance that bias, so you're not in a one-sided compensation pattern, and then you can do whatever exercise you want, freely, and it'll actually work for you the way you want it to.

Megan Devito:

I feel like my mouth is just like laying on my desk right now. It's funny, like the things that I do remember, like I can remember which side of my stomach's on or which side of my liver, you know, I can remember those things, but I did not know. I don't think I did know that there was a certain more like more lobes on one side that wasn't balancing on the other side. I don't think I ever knew that. I mean, I can tell you, like anatomically, where things are, but I did not know that this is new, hot, fresh off the press.

Tabitha Green:

Science that's not mainstream yet, but it will be. So, yeah, it'll get there. It'll get there. That our organ anatomy affects everything. And in this idea it's like you're like people, like, oh, I'm going to fix my posture. Well, I actually think your posture holds you. You don't hold your posture right. And then working on this breath in the nervous system not only will help anxiety, but also help you improve your posture from the deepest core, what our life force is, literally breathing.

Megan Devito:

Not to be cheesy, no, yes, I don't even know what to say. I don't even have any words because I'm just sitting here thinking about all of the things that I have so many questions in my head. This is amazing to me. I could talk about like how off center we are now forever. I'm like does it make this happen? Does it make this happen? It makes everything happen.

Tabitha Green:

So yeah, it also increases anxiety being being balanced Right, because you literally have to work harder to get a deep breath yeah, and really it goes again back to that sensitivity to how you feel.

Megan Devito:

And for the people who feel like I never feel like I can get a deep breath, I'm just, I can tell when I'm anxious because I feel like I can't breathe and and then you know, somebody tells them to breathe and we go. Well, you really are breathing, but it's just that feeling of the pressure is off. The pressure inside your body or in your diaphragm is off and it's just not moving correctly, which is, I think, just knowing. For people who are anxious, knowing what's actually going on, that's such a powerful insight.

Megan Devito:

I know that back when I, before I, had gone through any sort of recovery with anxiety, I had no clue what was happening inside my body. I just knew that I felt terrible and I was terrified of everything. That I thought all the time and there was really just this moment where I'm like, wait a minute, that's why I feel this way. And to know that it really was. It's this hormone, this is what happens when this hormone, when your body gets filled with this hormone, this happens, which makes you feel this way and I was like, are you kidding me? It was that easy. But it really.

Megan Devito:

Sometimes those insights like I love that you shared just the really like the scientific basis of it, because it can feel so outside of anything rational and I think that when we can pull back into things that we really could potentially look at or see or touch and to be able to bring it back into like, look, there's factual basis in here. Your thoughts might be big and scary and not true and being generated out of fear, but when push comes to shove, here's what's actually going on and just to know that you know it's, it's because your body, this is what's happening. You can't help it that you have this many lobes and this is on the other side and that things are off balance. But you can work on it and you can correct it.

Tabitha Green:

Yeah, yeah, and it's. I think knowing is it's not always going to help, like in the moment, right, but it may help just notch it down a little bit, right, or that idea of fear or play, but right, like, oh, I can't catch my breath. If I can do these few exercises and it's easier to breathe, I know it will kick down my anxiety. It's empowering to have a plan.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and when you're not feeling it, your brain's not going to start trying to figure out what's wrong because it's not there Right, which is sometimes earth shattering thoughts too, for people who feel like it never goes away. So that's such, that's such good stuff.

Tabitha Green:

I also feel like, especially within like the chronic illness community, that a lot of times um panic and anxiety are actually symptoms of something else.

Tabitha Green:

You know, like um, I had a spinal cord injury and I went to the doctor with just horrific panic and, lo and behold, panic is a symptom of a spinal cord injury, which I had no idea at the time, you know. And then I deal with some other health issues and panic is like it's a symptom. It's like, oh okay, I have these symptoms and I know if these symptoms kick in, it will trigger panic. Yes, and what's so helpful is if you start to know that. Then, when you go back to your medical professional and they're like, oh, oh honey, it's just anxiety, yeah, everybody's favorite.

Megan Devito:

Just anxiety.

Tabitha Green:

Just anxiety and you'll be like, yeah, I know, but I don't want you to read my anxiety, because it's just a symptom, it's not a cause of something else that's going on. Yeah, and I do think, like when you're in that moment, though it's. If you can think or practice, when you're not in that moment, this idea of notice and wonder, right, then you can kind of start to talk your way out of it, especially if breathing doesn't work for you, because breathing is quick, it's easy, it's something on top of a mind. It's really popular in the culture right now. But if you can notice and wonder and just be like, hmm, I wonder why I'm feeling so anxious right now, it's like, oh, oh, it's four o'clock, I wonder if it's just four o'clock, right, or oh, I saw this. Okay, then you can start to like have this like idea of what your triggers are and then you can start to then address those triggers. So I feel like notice and wonder is a good like thinking tool if you can't sense or breathe, to help you ground.

Megan Devito:

And it's such a powerful place to be in.

Megan Devito:

When you come from a point of I get locked up in this, I fall into this trap of I feel anxious, and then it just builds and builds to recognizing that, oh, I feel anxious, I wonder what it was.

Megan Devito:

But it does Like I've had that too. Where it it's like I'll notice that I feel anxious, I'll be like, huh, nothing happened. And as soon as that, and as soon as you can get to that point where I always want to give the, I guess, the disclaimer to people that I will never, ever tell anyone that you won't feel anxious ever again, because you're a human being and you're supposed to, it's a very natural response. But when you're to a being and you're supposed to, it's a very natural response. But when you're to a place where you can feel it and just think, oh well, that feels terrible and I've no idea what just happened, and kind of go and shrug it off and move on, that's when it really loses its power and the faster we can learn to regulate, whether it's through breath or anything else. It's so important to know that you don't have to play into that feeling. You could just recognize it as oh yeah, there it is, and then that's also such a good deal.

Tabitha Green:

It's so important and I love how that's like using anxiety as like a clue. You know, because sometimes if anxiety is a symptom like, it's like oh, because it could actually be a good thing Right, Because it can be alerting you of danger Right, it has a function. It has a function to alert you of danger. It doesn't have a function of getting you to get your work project done.

Megan Devito:

Yes.

Tabitha Green:

So it's not that anxiety is bad. I think it's just how we are not taught how to utilize it or use it in the way that's functional for our lives.

Megan Devito:

It is, and just because I know so many of my listeners are women, we know how this works. We think sometimes that we don't know what happened. But I'm willing to bet that if you look back over your life from the time you were 10, 12 years old, every time your hormones went into some sort of cycle and you noticed that all of a sudden you were grouchier or you were crying more or you were suddenly irrational or anxious I mean, just put the anxiety staple on it. It was just an alert, right, whether you want to call it an alarm or you want to call it anything else, it was just notifying you that, like, hey, guess what's about to happen.

Megan Devito:

And if the same thing happens like when you know that's a great way. I mean. Some women will say my mood totally changed. It's how I knew I was pregnant. And when you get to be my age you're going to say I don't know what's wrong, but I feel anxious out of the blue. I'll tell you what's wrong. Your hormones are just telling you that something is wonkadoo inside your body and it's okay, but it is telling you something's off and as women we just get to practice it every month for our whole lives.

Tabitha Green:

So we should be experts by now.

Megan Devito:

We should be experts but we do, but it is such an overwhelming feeling that it really is a predictable alarm for us. And if we could just if we were taught, I think, if we were taught it from a different perspective of anxiety, oh, we got to do everything we can to make it stop. We have to do, you know, this is so Granted. There are times, yes, when it is bad and it can escalate and it can turn into something much, much more. But if we could start at the beginning as recognizing it for what it is, which is really just an alarm and a feeling, we could really address a lot of that progression.

Tabitha Green:

Right. Well, and that is so important too, to learn how to address that progression, especially if you need to go speak with a doctor, because the doctor will pick up on how you've progressed it, not the original clue that it was giving you, which is, I mean, very frustrating for a lot of people.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and again just saying it's just anxiety. Lot of people, yeah. And again just saying it's just anxiety, which it's just really overwhelming, isn't it? Otherwise none of us would be talking about it, we would all be fine, it's a big deal.

Tabitha Green:

It's a really big deal. Yeah, yeah, you know when you start calling us butterflies in our stomach.

Megan Devito:

Turkey vultures in your stomach.

Tabitha Green:

Really, that's what it feels like, yeah.

Megan Devito:

It's large like eagles and things like that in your stomach.

Tabitha Green:

Not cute little butterflies? They're not cute.

Megan Devito:

So you said that you were creating a course or that you like. You said you took some time off from social media and that you were creating something that you're going to bring into the world. Tell me about what you're creating.

Tabitha Green:

Yeah. So I just launched my very first 21-day Gentle Start Movement Challenge and it, yeah, and it's how to get moving when you struggle with everyday activities. So it's really for people that haven't moved in a long time, movement is really hard. They don't feel like they can get to a class or there's there's a lot of you know. It's for people that have a lot of barriers or obstacles to overcome just to get moving again.

Tabitha Green:

Um, and our very first it's our very first workout is literally just in bed, just doing some gentle movements, just to get your body used to moving again. Cause, just like the nervous system, you need to get it into a habit and whatever habit you're in you will then inhabit more often. And then this summer I'll be relaunching my Gentle Movement program, which takes you from reclaiming comfort in your body from the challenge to then starting to reclaim daily activities and hopefully getting back to the activities you really want to be doing, like that love that you love that like sparkle up your life, that you know, if you increase your blisters, you'll end up with less stressors and you'll balance that sort of like you know scale of, you know anxiety versus excitement. So that's what I'm doing.

Megan Devito:

That's awesome. Okay, when can people find you to check out this course? Where do they look for you on? You're back on social media, right.

Tabitha Green:

Yep, I'm back on social media. It was always up, I just wasn't on there.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, you were just gone for a little bit Okay.

Tabitha Green:

So you're still on social media. Where do they reach out?

Megan Devito:

Where do they find you?

Tabitha Green:

So my website is talltreepilates. com and then I'm talltreepilates on all socials. I have some really great videos up on YouTube. Again, the videos that I have right now up on YouTube are not for like athletes. Athletes can totally do them, but it may not like get that like type A, like energy burn out. This would be more like for a rest day if you're an athlete, but if you haven't moved for a long time, it's just a really wonderful way to start where you don't overstart and then end up in a push-crash cycle, right. So it's really important when you start something new, that you start at a level where it's not like I'm going to do everything, I'm going to go full on and boom and then you bust. It's like akin to being like a weekend warrior, right, yeah. So it's really to get you in the habit of moving without starting that cycle.

Tabitha Green:

So it's tall tree Pilates on Instagram and Facebook, linkedin and even Pinterest. I'm kind of trying it all. Yeah, yeah, that's great, I love that. So we'll see. You know, social media is like I didn't grow up with it. It's like so it's kind of foreign to me, but it's funny. My kids actually help me with social media because they get it. Yeah, and they're not even on. I won't even let them on, but they still somehow get it.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, I have one teen I have. It's funny. I have a bunch of my teenagers friends that are like I watch all your videos. I'm like, oh, that's so nice of you, yeah, but no. But my own teenagers are like, don't put me in your video. Mom no do not, oh gosh. Thank you so so much for being here with me and for sharing all of this. I learned so much.

Megan Devito:

Oh my God, that's, amazing Go get on and look at videos or pictures of. I want to see how many lobes I have and where all of my imbalances are, and just so I'm like awareness. I think awareness is so good and this was just fantastic, thank you.

Tabitha Green:

You're welcome. Awareness is so important because then, right, you can turn. You know, like data just becomes stuff and it eventually becomes knowledge, but then it can become wisdom, right, something you can like, live by, like you know, like the idea that's common but not normal. Yeah, great, thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Megan Devito:

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel calm, to stop overthinking and have a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. I'll talk to you soon.