What moving around has taught me about regulation

I don’t have one home. In a single year I might work from the UK, Portugal, Germany, Cyprus, Thailand and Bali, plus wherever the events are. It sounds good written down, and a lot of the time it is. It’s also taught me a fair bit about regulation.

The first few nights

A new place does much the same thing to me every time. I sleep badly for the first couple of nights. I wake at 3am with the to-do list running. I eat at odd times, have more caffeine than I mean to, and end up on my phone in a room I don’t know yet. My nervous system hasn’t worked out where it is.

I wrote about the night-time side of this in the 3am to-do list. Moving around a lot means it happens more often, and that made me pay attention to what actually helps.

What travels

For years my routines were tied to places. The gym I went to, the chair I sat in first thing, the walk I did at the weekend. When I moved, they all went at once, and so did whatever steadiness they’d been giving me.

What I do now is keep the anchors that need nothing but me. The same few minutes of slow breathing when I wake up, before I look at a screen. My feet on the floor. A walk outside in daylight on my first morning somewhere new, even if it’s ten minutes round the block. They work the same in a flat in Portugal as in a room in Bali.

You don’t have to live out of a bag for this to apply. A new job, a house move, a new baby, shift work or a stay in hospital can all do something similar. The things that held your day in place go, and you find out what was doing the work.

One anchor that travels

Pick one anchor that only needs you, and do it every morning for a week, wherever you wake up. Here’s the one I use most.

Sit on the edge of the bed. Feet on the floor, ten slow breaths out. That’s about two minutes.

Two minutes won’t undo a bad night, and it isn’t meant to. It gives you one thing that’s the same when everything else isn’t.

Feel light-headed? Stop there and let your breath find its own pace. If you’re pregnant, have a heart condition or epilepsy, or you’re not sure, check with your GP before trying any breathing practice.

My one-to-one breathwork coaching runs online as well as in person, so it doesn’t much matter where either of us is that month.